Bangalore and Life on a Roll….
This is the first quarter of 2009 and in an attempt to capture the different activites in life, I am making this attempt of recording the same.
Yeh , you guessed it right.. I am not in the habbit of maintaining a diary and hope to use this tool (i.e blog) to record the key events / travels / experiences for posterity.
January
1. Vienna (Till 10th Jan 09). – Post the New year celebrations in Austria (Vienna) I quickly completed the project for the client and got myself back to India before I froze. But before coming back I did get enough time to roam around the city of Vienna and explore the various sections of the town. Touristy and otherwise. The nights went to temperature below -10C, at this time most of the exploration was at the kitchen and on the internet.
2. Pongal ( 15 Jan 2009) – Amma & Appa were at Bangalore starting work on their JP Nagar Home. We celebrated Pongal at home by doing a small Pooja.
3. Prerna to Delhi (26 jan , weekend)– Prerna was off to Delhi for a weekend. Her first trip home after the wedding. Some shopping and time well spent with dadaji , pearl , dude etc..
4. Doddamakali (30th jan 09 , weekend) – A long weekend with colleagues from office. It was an offsite of sorts with 50% being sponsored by office. But it came as a pleasant surprise with a 100% sponsorship of the trip, announced later. I was one of the Marketers of the Trip and made a presentation in the office and circulated it to the greater team. This was a great team building / bonding experience in KPMG as all the spouses were also invited.
There was a 13 member gang against a planned 19. The people who came were:
· Me (Ram ) + Prerna
· Shalini
· Anand
· Anshuman + wife
· Rajaji + Archana + daughter
· Lokesh + Jaya
· Sishir
· Sanjeev
· Saurav (now transferred to Kolkata office)
FEBRUARY '09
5. Auroville Marathon & Valentines day @ Pondicherry (14th Feb Weekend) – This was big events of sorts. Both me and prerna like to be a part of nature and this was an opportunity to participate in a longish run. I took part in the 21 Km Half Marathon and she in the 10.5Km Quarter Marathon. Both personal landmarks for us.
This was a nice trip with some old friends. Sankar was the chief architect of the occasion convincing all the novices to join in. Murali, Syed, Mohan and Shahabid (syeds bro) dove down from Chennai.
On 14th we got some time to spend in Pondy, we saw the mothers ashram and took a walk through the sea side bylanes.
This description will be incomplete without a description of Auroville and its philosophy. They are a community created at around the time the French left Pondicherry. The community primarily consists of Europeans settled down along with decent Indian working class representation. Here all people work on equal wages. i.e Rs 5000. Out of this Rs 2500/- as cash and the rest as Credit which they can spend within their territory. And additional revenue had to be generated from Entrepreneurship. We met a Spanish lady who was settled here and has lived here for the past 14 years. She was selling bread and peanut butter at the finish line.
The night @ Auroville was spent in a large private room. J A computer room in the local school. We were given the entire room to ourselves
6. Shashtiabdapoorthi i.e 60th Birthday of Appa @ Rajamundary (28 Feb to 3 Mar) – This is probably the biggest and most planned event this quarter. It was my appa’s 60th birthday, during this both appa & amma have a kind of 2nd marriage. Which is kinda big, really big. Both me and Ravi also brought out a note on their lives.
The whole event spread across 2 days , where all the relatives attend, involved considerable planning and resources. The Vadiyar coudnt make it from Chennai. The Bhadrachalam trip on a boat that followed. Seeing Vageesh in a much bigger state were all the highlights of this event. Also involved the loss of the prised D-SLR.
(One family pic - From Poo's CD)
7. Appa’s trip to Bangaore and House Building (Mid March) – Appa was here for a short 10 days but had a packed schedule in front of him. Haggling with Sanath, deciding the designs for the house are some memories. We had dinner at Samarkhand to celebrate the completion of the major chunk of the home and to ceebrate Manni’s coming first in her college and 2nd in Punjab University.
8. Birthday (21st March 2009) – Well I turned 27th , having just completed one of the more event full years. Actually in the last 13 months, everyone in the family has got married, starting from Ravi + Manni to Me+Prerna then Amma & Appa. Prerna and the gang from Bangalore (GD, Karan, Ankit, Punitha, Gautam, Natasha, Sid), cut the cake at Mid night. Felt nice to have a group of friends around me. Many calls including a call from Preethi , which stretched late into the night.
10. Mysore & Waynad with Prerna’s Parents – This was the first experience of them coming to our home after the wedding. This along with the fact that Pearl had completed her board exams made it an important occasion for all. It was a fabulous trip. Where the whole family was together continuously for the 2 days. I guess you don’t get that type of interaction and face time event if you are under one roof. Both the Mysore Palace & the watery Wayanad was well worth the effort.
