Sprites of Sydney 

It was mid of May'13, one of the managers am working with, called me to discuss on a short term PT assignment at Sydney. While I was not so keen to see myself at Sydney, as I had the memories of Melbourne still alive, hesitantly inquired the details; and most of the responsibilities and expectations were heard. The client name is IAG...;  me happened to work with many banks across the experience, felt like some unusual name, asked my manager - are they big name in Australia; of course he politely replied saying "Yes, they are Insurance Australia Group". Me doubtful on various aspects and unsure about planning the family life and various other factors, accepted the assignment and started planning the trip. 

As usual the uncertainty (as always) existed with the onsite assignments till the time I boarded the flight. Initially planned to arrive on May 18, and with little hitch around few approvals, etc.. had my journey on 21 May. 

Life at Hillsdale

Me always blessed to have friends around the world, this time it was my college mate O Kiran (nicked as OK), to host me. Forced to be bachelor like me for reasons that his wife was in India on a holiday, I decided to share the place with him for first few weeks. By Lord Shiva's blessings, I had a great time at every new location I landed and the time I spent with him during that period was a memorable. I have to take this moment to appreciate his hospitality and the way he embraced me ..... this is the best thing to happen for me. Kiran is a very organized, disciplined person now, leading a wonderful life here at Sydney. The Eastern suburbs of Sydney are their best with the sea breeze and Green parks all around. I could very well continue my daily rituals of Sandhyavandan and Abhishekam as I do back home; that is the extent he has organized his small sweet home. He used to be early to office & home  and cooked food,,, me enjoyed hot served food by the time I come home. With all this support, I could very easily settle at work place and made things happen.

A good start on First gear of drive always lead to smooth ride. 

Trip to Canberra

I will take this episode of Canberra in separate post as it is significant and to be more detailed. Me, Amith and OK wanted to spend the long weekend of Queens Birthday and made it a memorable one for all 3 of us. One line to tease is "3 Forced Bachelors in an i20 @ 90 Kmph Speed" to Australian Capital Territory. 

Wok Life

While work life to be always a confidential thing not to be discussed on  a personal blog like this, I would like to take the moment to share the best things that happened to me in this trip.

I am clear on my way right from day one, without any confusions on my role / responsibility. I started my day one on May 22. Took a bus (392) from Hillsdale to City. Got off at one George Street, and searched for IAG office. Byt the time I reached 388 George Street, to my surprise it was a huge tall building standing in the center of city, having NRMA, CGU, SGIC, etc.. logos. I am speechless to know that I am coming to work for such a big client of Infosys, who is undoubtedly the market leader of Insurance in Australia / NZ. The day when I joined Symphony Services Bangalore - next to Food ball stadium and near to MG road is back in my memories. 

With such a positive feel, entered and there on .....!@# %^& ** 

My colleagues, Amith, Rishabh, were very nice and pleasing on their introduction..Of course the same emotions and bonding continued between our three folks. I am always lucky to have such folks to work with and the sweetness to express the relation will be sweeter than Sugar. Never conflicted and we 3 walked the same path, so together that the 3 months passed just like that. Rubbishing the issues over a Friday night dinner at 1000 spices - Homebush,  has become a routine ... Event  cinemas on Tuesday night & Hyots on weekends, helped us to forget the nonsense and move forward. Raanjhana was most enjoyed while Bhaag Milka Bhaag made me and Bharath run for the movie. Chennai Express journey was enjoyable and Singham roared in Tamil. 

Asymptomatic Ashfield !

By the time I had to move from OK's place, looked for a shared accommodation and left to destiny. One way am confident of making things easy, whom ever I live with, pushed off to Western suburbs, joining Amith. Same day saw the advertisement posted by Bharath (fellow Infoscion) and decided to join him, with out a second thought as he preferred Veggie partner. What else makes me think again?? Nothing.... !!!  No details inquired and banged him late night, to see that it is unprepared call by me and surely I bullet-ed inside his place; as his partner is yet to vacate:) ....  I had to leave my luggage at the place and moved back to Amith for couple of days (during that weekend). 

The days I spent here at Ashfield, are again a blessing in disguise as Bharath being from same culture as I am, helped me settle quickly. Continued my daily rituals as usual and enjoyed every moment. 

Me and Bharath exchanged many views / discussed all Politics , Economics, and Philosophy (with neighbor Alexie).. in the kitchen, after a stressed day at work.

Adding to these, the Ashfield Aquatic Center happened to be a nice place to relax, refresh on weekends..... 

I am gonna miss them for sure. 

Always, Boys have all the fun, never worried of each other , just happily discuss anything anytime.. 

With this, I pause this post and sure to come up again very soon. 

Celebration of Life with
 "Vijaya Wangmayee"....

It is not with exaggeration that I say this...

It took more than 48 hours for me to share the key strokes from my heart, and share the most memorable day of my life, of course, for my family. No sooner the celebrations ended on 14 June 2012, my heart started beating fast.., asking me to hit the keys on my Laptop, and record each and every moment happened on that day... 

All the last one year, while me and my wife were busy watching the little one doing something new every day, feeling happy - whenever she smile..., worried - when ever she cry..., surprised- to see her develop emotions  like anger, disgust, fear, happiness, trying to make her feel happy with warm hug,....

  14 June 2012 happened to be day with the lunar calendar (Panchangam) showing "Bahula Dasami - Jyestham" ...

Like every other parent, we too waited for the special day to come, and planned it as much as we can. 

Being lucky to have many good friends around (special thanks to Uday, without whom it would not have been possible)..  and taking all the suggestions from them, we planned the party at Indian Mirchi @ Docklands. Also having a long weekend before week in the name of Queen's Birthday, we had ample time for shopping. Visited the Party shop at QV market, and ordered Helium balloons and bought other decoration items. While all the way, it looked simple, the day turned out to be the most busiest one. 

Here is how it started:

Planning, re-planning, and expecting to be at the venue early, we ended up reaching at 4:30 pm in the evening. 

In no time all friends residing at nearby homes joined us to help decorating the venue.  

Thanks to families of Maddy, Ravi Kiran and Sudheer Vamsi to be with us at the crunch time and making it very grand. 

With kids worried at balloon blasts every now and then, with discussions on placing the posters, balloons, the whole 1.5 hours of the day brought the rythm that is needed for the party to start. The venue would have been a bizarre if they would not have come. Thanks to each of them. 

Kiran, Lavanya and Vasantha - Busy hands

Maddy - Positioning the Helium balloons 

Sudheer busy setting "1" ballon over the Wall

With such beautiful decoration in place, without the guests and their wishes in place, it would not have been grand or at least to call it so. 

Having all the friends around and as they showered the wishes for the little one, we have cut the cake and let her taste the sweetest moment of her life. 

Thanks to all my near and dear who made it and been with us all the way. 

To make this blog readable and short enough, I would prefer to hold my breath typing all the names and my association with them. Here is the the glimpse of it which makes me very proud... 

All credit to my wife, Sunitha, who took lots and lots of care in getting the e-invitation prepared and sending it to all invitees, and double checking with me if I have rang them personally... 

As our little one turned"1" and made us feel "1", would try our best to carry all your wishes for making her "1" in every moment of her life  !!!

With lots and lots of love,,,, signing off for now...

Canonic 2011

As the year 2011 rings out, I thought, it’s time to log the significant moments that I have passed through....

This year for me started almost one month early…during first week of Dec 2010, when I started to Melbourne, Australia. The excitement in taking up the task on hand, prioritizing the trip above various things just happened personally & professionally... Before I go further, I would like to confidently say that till date whatever I desired to have in life happened.. It is just with the blessing of my parents and more importantly the bunch of friends around me... Can’t leave any single name behind, but I credit all successful strides in life to my friends...

Adjusting to the time zone was the only thing that I struggled and still struggling little…, the life style of the people here and the dynamic climate always surprised and let me enjoy,,, The laid back life style and doing things at ease made me comfortable in moving ahead.., There is absolutely no rush for doing things here…

Other than few initial hick ups at work, because of little uncertainty in roles and assignment, the entire year have been smooth and straight…

After finding a good accommodation at my friends place, with excellent Gym, Pool, Spa, facilities, I have decided to put in all efforts to learn swimming. This experience in learning how to swim boosted my confidence and made me think different… The initial days have been very struggling where I ended up swallowing the pool water, or go very deep on to the pool floor… But once I started to manage balancing myself on water, I could witness some change in the thought process while doing day to day activities… The confidence that I have got is immense… In fact one should learn swimming for sure and at a very early stage unlike me J

By mid of this year, it was an important moment of life when I became Dad… Of course, as predicted, it happened that I had to wait for some time to see my daughter… I could enjoy those exciting moments as well and felt happy to see her when she grew up little (turning 3^rd Month) recognizing people around… could spend some quality time for almost 3 weeks during Sep, in the context of her Naming ceremony at Hyderabad. With the blessings of my Dad, could name her “Vijaya Wangmayee” meaning who speaks, experiences Success in every deed she does…

With these two important achievements for this year, I look forward for another successful year to come in which I could do something much better for me and my family…

Signing off for now and will share the details of my experiences during Boxing Day Test match, Drive towards Great Ocean and few people whom I met this year and turned out special in my list of friends J J J

Majestic Melbourne

As my stay in Melbourne is almost coming close to 6 months, I wanted to share the experiences with you all...
Post closure of my assignments with the US based projects, got an opportunity to look for projects across Rest of World. In the first look out on these lines, I have been offered a position in Melbourne to work for one among BIG4 banks in Australia. Having my desire to live a life in Australia (with DilChahtaHai inspiration) was really excited about it and given my willingness to be here.
It was a matter of 4 weeks that I could close out on the Visa process and all set for the travel.
December 2010 has been a mixture of emotions for me taking hard decisions on personal and perofessional front. With the support of my family, I could proceed taking up the opportunity on hand and geared up myself for the travel.
Thai Airways has been the option given for me which allowed maximum baggage. On 11th Dec 2010, flew to Melbourne with a break at Bangkok. Journey to Bangkok was around 4 hours and it was quite a short trip in sleep where I dont remember much significant. In Bangkok, there was a wait time of around 3 hours. Not so excited to shop anything or roam around much, went ahead upto the Gate to catch the Melbourne flight and layed on the chair. Tired of many things in that week, had a deep sleep out of control. The flight was about announce the last calls and just then one of the co passenger (Abhishek Tiwary, will talk abt him later) could make out that I am deep in sleep, woke me up to get on to the flight. Not sure what should have happened if I missee that flight.
Then onto the flight to Melbourne, again been lucky not to have anyone next to me and stretched myself and slept well almost for 5 to 6 hours. Not even cared to eat much and was deep sleep. Then at around evening (not sure of time zone in air :) made myself comfortable to sit and had some snacks served. Dont think too much, snacks are nothing than pumpkin seeds (if counted they may be some 15 in the pack)...
Had dinner which was served and was all set for landing at around 8:30 pm local time. There were not many questions at the immigration and had to lose some pickles as a part of the process. Not really sure how to reach the hotel, I approached the near by travel desk at airport and have been directed with a AUS $ 20 ticket in a group taxi.
The driver was too good and explained almost all about Melbourne and showed the landmarks while reaching the hotel Travelodge.
Travelodge is nice place and being the Christmas time, there were lots and lots of crazy tourists to the hotel and had to wait for sometime for my turn. Post formalities, i was given the room key which is big big surprise for me as # reads 1211 (room number 11 on 12th floor). of course my B.Tech friends can have a smile reading this as they only knew that my roll number was 1211 during college. Me always sentimental about 11, as there were so many dates, room numbers specially associated for me, I had my first step into the room so positively.
Then realised that I am so hungry and felt bad for not planning anything to carry with me. Here comes my friend Abhishek who also happened to stay in same hotel, and offered me some biscuits that he carried. The hotel was fantastic and here is the link to view some snaps in hotel:https://picasaweb.google.com/107051423475076950830/Melbourne?locked=true#
The toughest of the moments I faced and have been facing is about the sleeping habit. I really wonder at times if I am suffering from insomnia,... Being ahead in timezone, I have suffered and been suffering on the sleep since that day. What so ever I managed to be there at office and met my manager. With the help of my friend who has been staying here for long time, managed to buy a mobile at the near by Dry Cleaners shop where we get cheap phone. I got "Whiteberry" that I nicked it as..(in fact a Sony Erricson phone with all features of Blackberry). Second day I got challenged with the sleep and snoozed alarm and woke up almost late and rushed myself to office.
As days passed, I started to understand the discipline of typical Australians and their way of life. It has been a Live "f" TV as I roam in the city and people make ultimate fashion definitions here.
Men are always in suits and I started absorbing the culture here. Got to buy a suite month on month... and started dressing as needed. The body language got changed because of the dress I wear and really felt good about the same.
People in Australia are most friendly in contrast to the stupid media reports that float around in India. The city is so welcoming and the facts support the same; almost people from 140 countries reside here and imagine the extent of mixed cultures and celebration of life here. Restaurants in Melbourne are very famous as none of the people come here miss anything of their interest. If you are a non vegetarian, no need to explain the varieties that you can try. Me being a veggie have fun eating out at SubWay, Hungry Jacks, Lord of the Fries, and many other Thai restaurants.
Cooking being my famous stress buster, I could excel well and never missed an opportunity to eat what I wanted at home.
Weather in Melbourne is the most crazy and dynamic which cannot be predicted. One of my friends quoted saying "If you dont like weather here, just wait for 5 minutes"; it can be rainy, sunny, cold, warm ,, am not sure what all varieties one can experience with weather.
As I explain few of the important things about the city I will continue in future posts why life in Melbourne is really MAJESTIC... Untill then bye byeeeeeeeeee

8 Years after College

Just imagine how fast the time has gone. It is already 8 years that we are all out of college by this May 2011. Thanks for Ravi who solely owns the credit in letting all of us stay in touch every now and then. Kudos to his website and the active posts in the recent times,.
Special regard to all of us who were in Bangalore and had fun, may it be joining for dining, or riding all the way to KalavaariHalli Betta in the midnight on our Black Horses, or to help each other educate and grab the postions we are in.... Special memory for all of us would be surely that reunion during 2008 at Hyderabad and we need to have one more time again anytime in next 1~2 years. May be on compeltion of Xth year mark, 2013 sound good, but too much planning will lead to failure ( out of experiences...)...
What so ever, it is always fun to look back and recollect the past and especially those "Happy Days"... ha ha haa,., sure some one, may be everyone will raise their nose / ears quoting them as Happy days,..... as we being 40 different stellars in the available 9 planetory motions,, we never accepted that we were happy during the college...
I still remember the way we started the initial catchup with Ramesh leading us to have a group discussion on topics, the way we had the CR elections...
Most of all the my Birthday celebration during first sem (July 2000),,, and the bang we made on that day leading me to give explanations to our belowed Chairman and Secretary.... ha haaa... Thanks to all my dear friends and special regards to those who arranged for it...
The hostel episodes can be recollected and I still have the moment when O Kiran danced with his head phones leaving us mute audiences... So crazy is it not... But had fun...
Instance by instance, time wont be sufficient for any of us to narrate the most significant days of our lives...
Will continue sharing those moments which ever comes to my mind and wish some one join me in writing their moments of Memoir...
See you soon.... Miss you all for sure....
Regards ...
Pinak
31 May 2011

tITans UnPlugged

It is at the sight of Rahul 1220, all were stunned after returning from the boat ride. I was almost under immense shock to see him and his avatar. Everyone was so surprised to see him losing half of his weight compared to college days. Anyway after a while we were able to digest the scene and had tight hug with him out of emotions… Hmm,,, exiting the Lumbini park we planned to take a rick to reach Gachibowli. In an hour we reaached Anil’s flat and later Rajesh, Madan joined. Me and Pravin decided arrange things for the party that night and took the menu and went out. In a while Ravi and others too have brought some roti and dal, etc.. veg food. At around we all gathered on top terrace of the apartment. It was almost a gathering of 15 people that night and we all had fun. Apart from the way I behaved with Lakshman everything went really well and I have to censor the topic at the cost of everyone’s future. J Hope you all understand and somehow we recollected the memories and had a nice time. This brings the end of such lengthy day.
Next day morning, Rahul had to leave on some urgent work at office and left from flat at around 7:30 am. Then comes the entry of Mega Star of our class – none other than Sai who really took time in travelling all the night just for spending at least a day with us. We waited for him to arrive and as soon as he came, we all started off to Ocean park near Gandipet. Meanwhile me and Naidu planned to visit Infosys campus and so we went there and spent some half an hour. It was a nice feel being there in the campus looking at the greenery and maintenance.. hats off to the maintenance teams who spend day and night for making us feel happy to be there all the day.
At around 11:30 we all reached the ocean park and had nice time in the park. We played most of the water games and spent almost all the day till 4:00pm. Anil suggested to book a cab from there to Kacehguda so that we can be ontime reaching the station.
Altogether it has been of great fun being there after a long gap of 6 years. Going forward I wish we have this to be taken on serious note and ensure to have this unity in diversifed mentalities which will be of great memories for lifetime…
With this I sign off the episode “tITans @ Hyderabad”

Titans @ Hyderabad

After I returned from Delaware, on a fine day while chatting with Rajesh we decided to plan a get together with all our classmates by end of 2008. He opted Goa as his choice. When I tried to find out what the rest of the group feel about this, we observed that Goa being on high alert always and that too end of year, we had no other choice to drop the idea. Later I thought of going for voting from everyone and decide on the place for meeting, and dropped a mail keeping everyone in the loop. Then started the celebrations of 2009 in the form of ovr whelming responses with anxious messages to see each other after almost 6 years. Of course the messages are available on IT forum@ http://www.sravisankar.com/. Warm message from Ramesh and Lakshman's message on his dedicated feelings for us, were the highlights. Also the confused single liners from Dinakar are still not clear. Hope Srikanth and Dinakar try to clarify themselves by end of 2009.

Episode on the train

Travel from Bangalore had some early drop outs of Suki and Sriram due to some critical assignments at work place. We missed them all the way.. but they had their vitual presence all the way, with statements like '' అసలు శ్రీరామ్ గాడు ఉంటెయ్ రా... జనాల చెవులు తుప్పు వదలు కొట్టే వాడు రా.. పచ్చి బూతులు తిట్టి దొబ్బే వాడు...'' '' సుకి గాడి గురించి చెప్పనక్కర్లేదు అనుకో;; నాయుడు గాడు సేఫ్ అయ్యాడు అనుకున్నారు అంతే" ... Anyway me, Ravi and Dinakar ended up travelling all the way from Bangalore. We had good entertainment as well. The train is full of college girls and entertaining from one side but at the same time I had my own personal issues in the morning... As expected the train reached on time by 8:20 am to Kacheguda station.

On MMTS

We decided to board the MMTS to reach Gachibowli and observed that there is a gap of 1 hour to board. So we went out and had nice brakfast and returned. As usual trains are always late and the local MMTS is late by 15 mins to arrive. We boarded the packed train and happened to stay almost one each other's foot. But the exploration on the names given to each place by Dinakar, say why is Bora Banda named so?, is it Pathan Cheru? or Pathaan Cheruvu? etc.. entertained a lot and we reached the destination in an hours time.

On reaching Gachibowli X croads, we rang Anil and he came with in 5 minutes to receive us. We finally reached the flat.

Athidhi Inn

It was almost 1:30 pm that we reached Athidhi Inn. I have opted Athidhi Inn as the better place for all the tITans to meet. Later we informed Rajesh and Madan to reach the place. Also tried Vicky and Rahul to check if they can join us for lunch. Rahul was busy all the day and did not even picked up the call. Vicky had some commitments at home and did not get chance to meet us. So, it is me, Ravi, Dinakar, Rajesh, Madan, Praveen, Satish, Anil, Naidu and Lakshman were there for lunch. Waiters took time to arrange the place for a round table lunch for us. Weather being hot outside, we all relaxed there having grand lunch, sharing a glass of their choice. It was 4:30 pm that we exited from the place.

Jala Vihar

After having such a heavy lunch we decided to visit Jala Vihar on Necklace Raod. By the time me and Praveen reached the Necklace Road, we observed some movie shooting with Varun Sandesh as hero and some glamorous actress a bus stop scene. We watched it for some 5 minutes and proceeded towards the destination. All of us walked into the place and roamed around for half an hour and played cricket in nets. We had fun playing the game and later found car game. Car game had 4 battery cars that run for 4 minutes. We all enjoyed it well. It was so exciting that everyone wanted to play it again and again. Highlight of this episode is when Paveen, Anil and Naidu went for try, a girl standing out stepped in and joined them in the game. She seemed to be very sportive in the game and entertained all of us watching her and of course dashed Naidu , Anil as many times as she can. :) :) :)

Lumbini Park

After such an excited game, everyone were at high voltage and decided to visit Lumbini Park on the other side of the necklace road. We had fresh lime soda there and entered the park. We took tickets for visiting Budha statue by riding on the boat. It was nice ride on the boat other than the disgusting smell all the way. We wondered at the beauty of the place and the craze with which people are coming to middle of the Hussain Sagar. The place will be much better if the water can be purified. I wish in next 5 years some solution will be found to purify the lake.

By the time we were about to return from Budha statue, Rahul has arrived at Lumbini and was waiting for us.

With this I will pause this blog as more exiciting episode is ahead of us....