This Saturday was the best day after I came to US.
Wondering, why?
It's a silly reason, but still a good one for me.
I had a full meal after 2 months in Saravana Bhavan in New York..
The menu included Rice, Sweet Pongal, Cabbaga poriyal, Pachadi, Sambar, Kaara Kozhambu,Rasam, Appalam, Pickle, Curd and Butter Milk. Expensive lunch, but still a heart filling one. I met Seetha lakshmi in NewYork. She worked in HCL with me and she is now put up in Ann Arbor, MI along with her husband after marriage.(Most of the people reading this blog knows her). A nice weekend though. Thanks Seetha, for the mouth watering puli kaichal and Rava Laddu.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
In to Books
Its 23 years since God presented me to this lovely world. All these years my favorite pass time had been music and sports. I spend lot of time listening to music. At some point I even wanted to learn classical vocal and its still in abeyance.
But after coming to the country of Liberty I somehow have not had much opportunities to listen to new music or see TV or other pass time.
So the one thing that I had to take up was read books. All these 23 years the books (novels and fictions) that I have read include "Harry Potter 1 & 2" and "Five Point Some One" though I have read most of the Dale Carnegie series. I again plunged into reading books here in USA. I started with Prey. I had heard a lot about this book. As a matter of fact, Swami wanted every one of us to read it. Now I have completed this book. I really feel bad that I haven't read this book all these time. It was really a wonderful book. It was indeed a good sketch with a nice composition of emotion and science. Having seen the authors other book "Jurassic Park" as a movie, I could see some common things in his narration. But still I would say hats off to Michael Crichton for a wonderful fiction.
Hope I will continue this good habit of reading. The books in queue are "Deception Point", "Digital Fortress" and "Da Vinci Code"....Hoping to have more fun reading...
But after coming to the country of Liberty I somehow have not had much opportunities to listen to new music or see TV or other pass time.
So the one thing that I had to take up was read books. All these 23 years the books (novels and fictions) that I have read include "Harry Potter 1 & 2" and "Five Point Some One" though I have read most of the Dale Carnegie series. I again plunged into reading books here in USA. I started with Prey. I had heard a lot about this book. As a matter of fact, Swami wanted every one of us to read it. Now I have completed this book. I really feel bad that I haven't read this book all these time. It was really a wonderful book. It was indeed a good sketch with a nice composition of emotion and science. Having seen the authors other book "Jurassic Park" as a movie, I could see some common things in his narration. But still I would say hats off to Michael Crichton for a wonderful fiction.
Hope I will continue this good habit of reading. The books in queue are "Deception Point", "Digital Fortress" and "Da Vinci Code"....Hoping to have more fun reading...
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Niagara...A dream come true!!!
I wanted to post about the Niagara trip right after the day i returned...but i couldn't...
The reason is that I was heavily held up with the work here...hmmm...
But the fact put above is not true...naama thaan vadigatina somberi aache..athaan so long to post about the trip...(I’m a good lazy guy that’s the reason why it took so long)
Myself, Karthik (Thennal), Prabhu and Prashant planned to make a 3 day tour to Niagara & Boston on Sept 3, 4 & 5.
Unfortunately Swami could not join us because of his Visa Problems...
Myself, Karthik and Prabhu assembled at My Manager's house on 2nd sep night.we din have proper transportation from our places to new York city early in the morning so manager asked us to stay in her house. We are really thankful to her...it really made thins easy...
Karthik didn't turn up till 10.45 pm. He started from his place at 0330 and it takes at the most 5 hours to reach my Managers place....this guy didn’t even carry the route map from Railway Station to My Manager's house...enadaa nu ketaa... ketutu vanthudalaam nu nenachenu solraan..fortunately myself and prabhu went to the railway station and waited for him till from 10.00 PM to 10.45 PM...
Once we reached my manager's home we had dinner and we went to bed...offcourse after some chit chats on the bed...
3-Sep -05
I woke up at 0530 and thennal was the guy who was late...my manager said that we will have to leave home by 0645..but thennal made it late up 0700..when we came out and when have alreayd moved few meters in the car..thennal screamed.."Shit I left my Gold chain in the bathroom..."..Thennal is on track on globalizing the nadhus community...his untiring works to make the community's presence felt in the international arena has to be really appreciated...(probably some one else can come up with a special featured nadhus activities from thennal in US)....
The bus was supposed to start from the boarding point by 0800hrs...we reached the boarding point by 08010hrs..prashant was already there waiting for us and fortunately the bus hadn't still turned up...A Chinese lady who was our guide allotted us seat numbers...we named her "Ammini..." (Lady) and she was our villain number 2 in the trip....the bus came in at almost 0830..and as we moved a few miles the driver who was our first villain said that the bus has to undergo some service...they dropped us in a place in a small town...many questions rose in our mind...
"What if the driver f goes away..?"
"Is the travel agency like gaja thoni..?"
We had to wait for almost 2 hours...during which we kept talking about the all evergreen college stories...
Praise the lord..the bus has come...we again boarded the bus...as I said already there were many Indians in the bus...karthik eyed on one desi girl..whose name we found as Archana...he said he wanted to speak to her...oops sekar here is another competitor for you....lets see if he is a real competitor to sekar at the end of the third day...we named that girl "Puraa koodu " as her hair style was like a nest...we were so tired that most of us went to sleep in the bus...
There comes the good news from our ammini..as part of the compensation for the 2 hrs delay..the tour company has agreed to pay us the entry fee for "Conning Glass museum" (its 11$ per person).
At almost 1700 hrs we dropped into conning glass museum. The museum was good...lots of old glass products...we were really amazed by some of the glass exhibits. They were real old ones.
After that we had a show on how they produce glass products...we couldn’t see the end product ius bcos thennal started following the pura koodu once she started walking away from the show. We had no other option other than to follow him so that we don miss him...
Oops saapatuku on the way they were stopping at burger kings...and we knew that this was gng to be the food for three days...
Our ammini used to set a time for us to return back...in one of the stops for lunch the other set of guys from chennai TCS reported little late..the driver was compainign on them being late..then we learn that he only complains on the guys and not girls...thts how he became our villain no 1....he was so good at kadalai...he almost was putting kadalai continuously with ammini a he was driving...swami and PP your records ar eno way in front of him..every time he stops the bus he fries some kadalai with the girls getting down...
oops enuf of grudges over the driver..lemme come back to the tour....
We landed up at Niagra and we were set free to have a look at the night view of the Niagara with the lights on...it was really wonderful...I couldn’t really believe that im in Niagara as I never imagined..that too with my fellow class mates...the nite view was wonderful and beautiful. Unfortunately none of our camera could get a clear view of Niagara in the nite...we need to be richer to do that....
we as usual were little late to the bus and ammini and driver kept saying "Be on time..." ..our ears were configured to filter these ppls frequencies...
prashant went on to stay with his friend...myself prabhu and thennal stayed in the same hotel room..(There are reasons why prashant preferred not to stay with us esp. thennal...contact me for more details)
4- Sep -05
we had to wake up early by 0630..and get ready to go to bus by 0745..oops we were late by 5 mins...and we were the last to get into the bus this time...i guess others din have bath thts the reason they were all on time...we were taken to niagar falls again...we got a good view of Horshe shoe falls and US falls...ppl planning for Niagara better get a Canadian visa bcos you get the best view of teh falls from the Canadian side...we had couple of photos...there was so much of fight btw prashant and thennal for the fotos that they took for each other...thennal infact never got satisfied with any foto that prashant took for him...
Then we headed towards the "Maid of the Mist" ..this infact was the best part of the trip...i really have no words to express it...it was awesome...
Late in the afternoon we started towards Boston....after stops for lunch in the highways we reached boston at aroound 0900 pm....and here is the villathanam from our amini ...she stopped near "China Town" to have dinner; majority in the bus being Indians....
We along with other TCS group and an Indian family started hunting for some vegeterian restaurant...we atlast got one..we wen n and found that already some of the Indians who came in the bus were there taking their dinner... the menu had lots of item which read 'chicken','pork'..but the hotel board read "Hotel Buddha Vegetarian"...the waiter there in the hotel said that though they read as chicken ,etc none of them have meat in them...we still chose items which din have any traces of NV in their ingredients...while everyone opted for something in fried rice family..myself and prabhu opted for Noodles...yuck!!! we couldn't eat it..thats all I can say... it tasted horrible...we couldn’t finish it. we asked the waiter to parcel it for us...after coming out of the hotel myself n prabhu had no option other than putting it in garbage...
oops we are already late by 15 minutes..but we knew the other Indian grp which had girls had jus left so no probs...we 4 and other 3 Chennai TCS guys were walking together..wen we came close to the bus..one of the TCS guy and Thennal started running towards the bus..prashant said to other 2 tcs guys...neenga venaa paarunga karthik odi poi bus kita ninuduvaan....as prashant said ...karthik who was speeding with other guy made a sudden stop jus near the door of the bus..and we had no other option than to pity the other guy who ran along with him...
we were again dropped off at a hotel for the nite stay...they said we will start for local boston tour by 0815 AM..and if we are late the bus will leave us and we can take a bus back to new York by paying jus 15$....
As usual nice chit chatting at nite...
5-Sep-05
We all were ready and came out of the hotel..hahaha..our ammini could not find the driver....the driver was late by almost 15 mins..there were sarcastic remarks being passed if the driver was gng to take the 15$ bus back to NYC...
in Boston we wen arounf Harvard univ, MIT, a cruise....
After all these we had a good Indian lunch after three days...
we headed our journey back to NYC...by almost 0630 pm we reached NYC...
we had no other option other than to say bye to each other and head towards our home...
A Wonderful and evergreen three day trip indeed.....
And sekar here is the info for you..Karthik is indeed a great competitor to you..he din even speak a work with the puraakoodu until the end of the trip...
The reason is that I was heavily held up with the work here...hmmm...
But the fact put above is not true...naama thaan vadigatina somberi aache..athaan so long to post about the trip...(I’m a good lazy guy that’s the reason why it took so long)
Myself, Karthik (Thennal), Prabhu and Prashant planned to make a 3 day tour to Niagara & Boston on Sept 3, 4 & 5.
Unfortunately Swami could not join us because of his Visa Problems...
Myself, Karthik and Prabhu assembled at My Manager's house on 2nd sep night.we din have proper transportation from our places to new York city early in the morning so manager asked us to stay in her house. We are really thankful to her...it really made thins easy...
Karthik didn't turn up till 10.45 pm. He started from his place at 0330 and it takes at the most 5 hours to reach my Managers place....this guy didn’t even carry the route map from Railway Station to My Manager's house...enadaa nu ketaa... ketutu vanthudalaam nu nenachenu solraan..fortunately myself and prabhu went to the railway station and waited for him till from 10.00 PM to 10.45 PM...
Once we reached my manager's home we had dinner and we went to bed...offcourse after some chit chats on the bed...
3-Sep -05
I woke up at 0530 and thennal was the guy who was late...my manager said that we will have to leave home by 0645..but thennal made it late up 0700..when we came out and when have alreayd moved few meters in the car..thennal screamed.."Shit I left my Gold chain in the bathroom..."..Thennal is on track on globalizing the nadhus community...his untiring works to make the community's presence felt in the international arena has to be really appreciated...(probably some one else can come up with a special featured nadhus activities from thennal in US)....
The bus was supposed to start from the boarding point by 0800hrs...we reached the boarding point by 08010hrs..prashant was already there waiting for us and fortunately the bus hadn't still turned up...A Chinese lady who was our guide allotted us seat numbers...we named her "Ammini..." (Lady) and she was our villain number 2 in the trip....the bus came in at almost 0830..and as we moved a few miles the driver who was our first villain said that the bus has to undergo some service...they dropped us in a place in a small town...many questions rose in our mind...
"What if the driver f goes away..?"
"Is the travel agency like gaja thoni..?"
We had to wait for almost 2 hours...during which we kept talking about the all evergreen college stories...
Praise the lord..the bus has come...we again boarded the bus...as I said already there were many Indians in the bus...karthik eyed on one desi girl..whose name we found as Archana...he said he wanted to speak to her...oops sekar here is another competitor for you....lets see if he is a real competitor to sekar at the end of the third day...we named that girl "Puraa koodu " as her hair style was like a nest...we were so tired that most of us went to sleep in the bus...
There comes the good news from our ammini..as part of the compensation for the 2 hrs delay..the tour company has agreed to pay us the entry fee for "Conning Glass museum" (its 11$ per person).
At almost 1700 hrs we dropped into conning glass museum. The museum was good...lots of old glass products...we were really amazed by some of the glass exhibits. They were real old ones.
After that we had a show on how they produce glass products...we couldn’t see the end product ius bcos thennal started following the pura koodu once she started walking away from the show. We had no other option other than to follow him so that we don miss him...
Oops saapatuku on the way they were stopping at burger kings...and we knew that this was gng to be the food for three days...
Our ammini used to set a time for us to return back...in one of the stops for lunch the other set of guys from chennai TCS reported little late..the driver was compainign on them being late..then we learn that he only complains on the guys and not girls...thts how he became our villain no 1....he was so good at kadalai...he almost was putting kadalai continuously with ammini a he was driving...swami and PP your records ar eno way in front of him..every time he stops the bus he fries some kadalai with the girls getting down...
oops enuf of grudges over the driver..lemme come back to the tour....
We landed up at Niagra and we were set free to have a look at the night view of the Niagara with the lights on...it was really wonderful...I couldn’t really believe that im in Niagara as I never imagined..that too with my fellow class mates...the nite view was wonderful and beautiful. Unfortunately none of our camera could get a clear view of Niagara in the nite...we need to be richer to do that....
we as usual were little late to the bus and ammini and driver kept saying "Be on time..." ..our ears were configured to filter these ppls frequencies...
prashant went on to stay with his friend...myself prabhu and thennal stayed in the same hotel room..(There are reasons why prashant preferred not to stay with us esp. thennal...contact me for more details)
4- Sep -05
we had to wake up early by 0630..and get ready to go to bus by 0745..oops we were late by 5 mins...and we were the last to get into the bus this time...i guess others din have bath thts the reason they were all on time...we were taken to niagar falls again...we got a good view of Horshe shoe falls and US falls...ppl planning for Niagara better get a Canadian visa bcos you get the best view of teh falls from the Canadian side...we had couple of photos...there was so much of fight btw prashant and thennal for the fotos that they took for each other...thennal infact never got satisfied with any foto that prashant took for him...
Then we headed towards the "Maid of the Mist" ..this infact was the best part of the trip...i really have no words to express it...it was awesome...
Late in the afternoon we started towards Boston....after stops for lunch in the highways we reached boston at aroound 0900 pm....and here is the villathanam from our amini ...she stopped near "China Town" to have dinner; majority in the bus being Indians....
We along with other TCS group and an Indian family started hunting for some vegeterian restaurant...we atlast got one..we wen n and found that already some of the Indians who came in the bus were there taking their dinner... the menu had lots of item which read 'chicken','pork'..but the hotel board read "Hotel Buddha Vegetarian"...the waiter there in the hotel said that though they read as chicken ,etc none of them have meat in them...we still chose items which din have any traces of NV in their ingredients...while everyone opted for something in fried rice family..myself and prabhu opted for Noodles...yuck!!! we couldn't eat it..thats all I can say... it tasted horrible...we couldn’t finish it. we asked the waiter to parcel it for us...after coming out of the hotel myself n prabhu had no option other than putting it in garbage...
oops we are already late by 15 minutes..but we knew the other Indian grp which had girls had jus left so no probs...we 4 and other 3 Chennai TCS guys were walking together..wen we came close to the bus..one of the TCS guy and Thennal started running towards the bus..prashant said to other 2 tcs guys...neenga venaa paarunga karthik odi poi bus kita ninuduvaan....as prashant said ...karthik who was speeding with other guy made a sudden stop jus near the door of the bus..and we had no other option than to pity the other guy who ran along with him...
we were again dropped off at a hotel for the nite stay...they said we will start for local boston tour by 0815 AM..and if we are late the bus will leave us and we can take a bus back to new York by paying jus 15$....
As usual nice chit chatting at nite...
5-Sep-05
We all were ready and came out of the hotel..hahaha..our ammini could not find the driver....the driver was late by almost 15 mins..there were sarcastic remarks being passed if the driver was gng to take the 15$ bus back to NYC...
in Boston we wen arounf Harvard univ, MIT, a cruise....
After all these we had a good Indian lunch after three days...
we headed our journey back to NYC...by almost 0630 pm we reached NYC...
we had no other option other than to say bye to each other and head towards our home...
A Wonderful and evergreen three day trip indeed.....
And sekar here is the info for you..Karthik is indeed a great competitor to you..he din even speak a work with the puraakoodu until the end of the trip...
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