Hair colour

This happened about a year ago..Ashu had learnt about hair colours..I dont know from where. Probably, it would be from one of my younger brothers, karthik, who had been trying out colours in his hair..

On that particular day, she came and asked her paati, “Paati, why have you coloured your hair with black and white??”. It took some time for gran-ma to explain her about grey hair that comes on ageing.

A sleepless night…

A couple of days back, ashu got up in the morning and complained to her grand mother that she dint have a good sleep. She said, “Paati, I did not have a good sleep”. Her granny asked her back, “Why da chellam, what happened?”

She replied, “I did not get a dream at all”. Paati asked, “Is it a good sleep only when a dream comes?”. She said, “Yes, if you sleep well you will get a dream.”

Grand ma wondered, “Why did you not get a dream?”

Ashu said, “I did not get a dream because I forgot to put the (dream) cd here, paati…”, pointing at her head..!

whoa..! I never thought of that..

Ashu – the atom bomb!

The Atom Bomb

Ashu aka Aishani aka Sakshi, as she is officially known, is the elder kid of my sis Sharda. She was born in the year 2002. Pretty, determined, confident, fun-loving, cute, … words dont end if I start describing her. When she was about 3 years old, looking at her charisma, my brother arun called her, the atom bomb.

Before she went to kinder garten, she was able to build her vocabulary to the extent, which I had not had until my college. And more to it, she started speaking fluently in 3 languages (tamil, hindi and english) when she was 5. Her english was more perfect while the other 2 are cuter. Once, looking at her mom-dad’s marriage album, she had asked them where was she at the time of their marrige and why did they leave her and took photograph on that day.

I will be updating interesting conversations of her with people around her, in this section. Everytime I look at her, I wonder how kids in the present generation are so fabulous, so many steps ahead of us.

I am proud to say that I know Ashu and she knows me too..!

3 days and 2 nights at bangalore..

The stay in Bangalore has had a mixed reaction on me. I have gone there for a 3-day national level conference at PESIT, at Banashankari III stage. It was fortunate as well as unfortunate in its own ways that we dint book for accommodation thru’ PESIT.

The whole things went on like this. We (me and my friend Chenthil) started from chennai on 10th december night by Mysore express. The train was at 930pm and we reached the station safely at 9pm. The train had reached Bangalore at 430am the next morning. “Whoa..! How chilling is the place!” was my first reaction. (In the meantime I had to tell that, I was wearing a night suit in the train and I was allocated upper berth for the travel. Switching on the fan, I felt, the climate can do nothing to me. But then later in the middle of the night, sometime between 2-3, even after covering myself with a borrowed blanket, I was shivering to the extent, that I had to get down and switch off the fan. )

We had made arrangements for a stay in Chenthil’s friend Mr.JayaVeeraPandian’s room. He stays in Kodighehalli. We had to take a bus to there from platform 23, as told by him. I think we got in the first bus to kodighehalli gate, which is abt 2km from his home and on the main road. When we landed at the gate, it was 515am and we both were shivering. I have never “seen” the breathe coming out of us in tamil nadu, (exception being ooty and kodaikanal). I SAW it at Bangalore. What a place man..! Jvp came to the gate and took us to his room.

After the morning breakfast in a hotel at majestic (bus terminus), we werent sure which bus will take us to PESIT. We contacted the customer care center and the lady seated there told us to go to the platform no.8 for BSK-III stage. We had asked virtually every bus that came at that platform, but in vain. The conductor of one of the buses asked us to go to platform 12, and from there another conductor directed us to platform 13 and from there to platform 9 and then back to 8. Fed up with this, we tried for an auto. We had already known 2 facts.

1. Autorickshaw safari is cheaper in bangalore than in chennai.

2. Thanks to yahoo maps, for that distance from majestic to BSK-III stage, we have known that the approximate auto fare was 52 rupees. we expected it to cost some 10-20 max.

But the autowala first asked us to give the meter rate. We were happy. Then he said he will charge 150 rupees if he takes the short-cut. (I think we go to auto expecting that he will take us thru short-cuts, rite..?? if it has to be the normal bus-route, then why would I prefer an auto to a bus..???) We were damn sure that he is trying to cheat us (he said the normal route meter rate will still be 130 rupees), and came back to bus. Thank God, there was a road map put up near that customer care center and we saw the bus numbers that will pass near PESIT. We were on time to the conference. The bus we took had a lady conductor. (There were many buses that employ lady conductors in bangalore.). In the night we took the same route back to home.

The second day’s travel was little less frustuating as we have started getting familiar with the systems there.

The third day (saturday), me ,chenthil and jvp had gone to roam around. Not so different from the unwritten rule of thump, we went to MG road, Brigade road and Cuppon park. As we dint have much time (because of the fact that we were walking all along the way from shivaji nagar bus terminus to all these places) we were not able to go to other places. Still, the day went on good. Even when the sun was shining over head, the climate (air) was cool. A nice place to live in. Given the fact, that I am already having an offer from a MNC located at whitefield, I am looking forward to shift to this city soon..!

They say, the traffic in bangalore is hectic. Even when I had travelled across the city in buses, both on and off peak-hours, I dint feel a big difference between chennai’s traffic and bangalore’s. May be if I ride a bike there I feel it, or I havent felt it cos I havent been caught inside a traffic jam. Lets see what happens after I go there.

The only major trouble to us was that, unlike chennai, in all the buses, the only thing we could understand was the bus number. the rest were written in local language which we dint know. And not to forget, I was missing the electric train travel. (Metro train line is being built now and will take 2-3 years time to complete)

And haan, there was one thing which I definitely hated about bangalore. More proportion of the people spit where ever they feel like spitting. The educated people of bangalore are highly westernised and the uneducated/moderately educated people are highly uncivilised.

We took the Chennai mail on saturday night and came back to chennai on sunday morning. All in all, it was a mixed type experience for me (more a wonderful trip and less a frustruating one, to be precise).