Chennai revisitied

I am back to my old bastion albeit a little misplaced, its a little more crowded, noisier and costlier than Tambaram but thats the premium you pay for staying in T Nagar. Chennai is as hot as before but this time I got A/C power and I actually look forward to coming back to my pad unlike last time when we preferred to eat FC food n come back by the latest cab. My room is nice, its got net, an A/c, fridge, attached bath, TV, what else cud i want? I've attached a pic.

Lets see how the work turns out to be, today was the first day, still 2 months to go, our mentor is a bright guy. We're all pretty geared up and determined to meet up to the expectations, lets see how long this enthu lasts.... hopefully long enuff for the project to get over.

I've forgotten watever little Tamil I had learnt then, have to regain that rustic flair to impress random ppl with my broken Tamil especially autowallahs who then decide not to fleece u.

Yesterday saw RDB for the umpteenth time, quite a coincidence that the movie that I associate Chennai with and which I saw at least 5 times in movie halls in Chennai (specifically in Mayajaal n Melody), I get to see again on the fist day of my visit.

There is lots that I wanna see and do now that I am here first on the list is visit Learner's Court, our melting pot - 13 wandering souls that made Tambaram their home after the luxuries of Mysore, who colored T'ram on holi to the horror of the awestruck locals, stormed the local populace with our glam gals, those sure were fun days. Now the last court inhabitant has also abandoned it, but we left behind a legacy of Infoscions that'll continue for a long time to come.

Had it not been so hot a trip to Pondy was definitely called for, the project timelines will also make us rethink that plan but its definitely on the cards.

I gotta get my hands onto some tasty sea food soon plus i havn't had chicken in since yesterday, gotta do something about it, tomorrow i shall put an end to this travesty.

Lot of the T nagar area has changed, I did a ful survey of Pondy Bazaar, Usman Street, Mambalam, V N Road, some parts are the same, some have seen a make over e.g the flyover at Pothys is a breather but the crowds remain. My roomies thought this place is crowded coz their's some festival is coming up, it took some time convinicing them its like this on all weekends.

Ah! good ol' Chennai... what do u have in store for me next?

Helping the economy

When i had visited the pyramid mall in Pune I was surprised to see all empty stalls, it was either a case of bad inventory planning or they were winding up business. I enquired around and found out they were closing for refurbishing, on further prodding it came out that they were into huge losses and it was just a pretext to wait for better times to re-open.

I wondered if the techies of b'lore too wud stop visiting the ever mushrooming malls and kill 'em. I had to wait for sometime coz i wasn't gonna get an opportunity to visit b'lore till after my exams what with the admissions process and all council crap interfering with pre-exam activities.

But once i did visit B'lore i was pleasantly surprised, neither was there any effect on the malls nor was their any shortage of shoppers. Malls were still brimming, multiplexes were still running to capacity at least on weekends, restaurants had ppl queueing outside waiting their turns, b'lore as usual. Generally u wud see stores running discounts, that i had seen when i had last come here in Jan but now there was none, probably i missed the ugadi discounts. Well, we did our bit of helping the economy by contributing to the national income, my friend bought her new shades, she had lost the older ones that i had gifted her, so for this one I ain't contributing, I am berozgaar now woman!!

I went to catch up on a new movie with a friend, Fast n Furious 4. All the talk about sequels being crap were punched in the face by the Director Justin Lin. Its the best of all the 4 that have come out yet. There's not much hoopla about cars n babes its just hard core car action, surprisingly the movie doesn't glorify NOS much, its just skills and raw car muscle. Vin Diesel in his usual no nonsense, no bullshit avataar, crunching bad guys with glee-- total paisa vasool.

My friend, who had pestered me for going to the Akshay Kumar starrer 'tasveer' or sth but even she was blown away by this one.

Enjoying the vacation ain.. wat about summers?? I'm reading hard n reading fast man!! lets see if i can meet the target... Here i come Damu..

Half an MBA - 10 months effort

Aii Karamba!! Already one year since i left my job casting aside all apprehensions, the economic downturn, following the hunch that 2 in 3 young fellas between the age of 23-25 follow, better life awaits post-MBA. Frankly there couldn't have been a worse time to take the plunge and looking at the job market just reaffirms all my doubts. Just the day before I was checking out the day zero video of our super seniors, the offers, the jubilation and best of all the sense of satisfaction and achievement and yesterday I bid adieu to our senior batch, their frustrations, the disappointments but their was still optimism in the air and thats what gladened me. They were all confident that the brand SIBM will fetch them plum offers even outside campus and they were still more hopeful for us signaling that much better things await us. Starting in bad times with a lower than avg package will have its implications way into the future. The quantum jumps won't be so easy to come by and people starting later will take the leap faster and zoom ahead. I met an old school buddy in Apache after 7 long years, he was in SCMHRD and though we had been talking on phone we hadn't got the chance to meet even after staying one yr in Pune, finally just before me leaving for home and he leaving Pune for good, it was a must meet situation and what better setting than our good ol' Apache. I was very proud of him for securing a PPO in Heinz and that too at a very lucrative package, we sat together for some time reminisced about old times n old friends, it was every bit as exciting as it could be. I wish him all the luck in the world ahead.

In the pic are two of my seniors who i was the closest to, our Admissions Team S-team, Pranav n Joey.

Pranav I wud see in a few year coming to meet us in an Audi Q7, probably running his own startup successfully while Joey a.k.a Joyita wud be the VP-HR in a big firm, with the kinda skills n capabilities these guys had there would be no stopping them once they're out of here. All the best folks, do us proud!!!

Well half an MBA done and I feel a bit wiser, a little foolish too, things seem different now, more reality is acceptable and God willing our batch will pass out with flyign colors and outrageous salaries, me included insha-allah!!!

My pic in the inset shows my 'Farooq Abdullah' topi, quite a rage in J&K and good stuff to battle Delhi's cold, I last used in my final days of Engg as the bugger Satish had lost my other cap, Found it recently when packing my stuff, my bengali roomie hadn't seen anything like it and i offered him my cam to snap it up with a weirdo expression, I was wondering how n where i shud put it up and then eureka!!!

I have to join for summers on 12th in Chennai, its gonna be a different Chennai than when i was there last, its gonna be work and only work. Have to finish the li'l red book in 9 days starting today, let get going then...