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....

My dream trip to United states

Just by the time I am celebrating the new house warming cereony at Kakinada in first week of October, I got the opportunity to represent the India's most reputed company Infosys at JPMC, Delaware.

It has been wish to travel to US before my marriage and I settle down in life. Many times I wondered if this will happen as I dreamt or not; but then I confirmed after hearing to the client invitation on my travel that "Dare to dream and Make to the dream come true"...

Here goes my first tale on my travel to US...

I got the itinerary confirmed from my travel agent that I am travelling through Frankfurt on Lufthansa flight. I managed to pack the baggage in short time with all possible things I remember. Reached Bengalooru International Airport in a very tense and emotional mood, after all me being one such typical guy who is travelling for the first time away from mother land...

I checked in to the airport with warm welcome messages from cute air staff of Lufthansa and managed to grab a seat near the exit gate 22. I have asked some curious questions to the attending officers like if the baggage got placed corretly, if I need to unlock them etc... Anyway they answered patiently and made me comfortable. I waited there for around 3.5 hours before the start of flight.

I could have taken some food items like apples, chips, cool drink... but able to manage my hunger as I knew that I will be served good enough in the flight.

My flight started on time 3:25am IST Wednesday.

Significant moment before boarding: Free boarding allowing the old and familes to comfortably board the flight made me feel great about the Lufthansa. This whole scene made me remember the days when I was going to college on ferry crossing the river Godavari, the driver used to invite any lady, children to step in and later the rest used to follow.
Surprisingly the flight started perfectly on time with out any delay...As usual I opted the Window seat to have a clear view from top of the sky...
Food - Asian Veg has been served with hot Black coffee; fruit juice of Orage has been offered...Then I had my head phones on and tuned the India Rythm channel. Listeningto to the hitzz of bollywood, I slept... With the alarm already ON in my mobile, I woke up at 7:00 am india time. Looked around from the window is the beautifyigl sun shining in India... I think flight has just then passingKarachi as I could make out make out some hilly terrains.... Picture resembled the golden ring during eclipse...Continued my sleep...Meanwhile I got served with hot coffee (black with out sugar)...With such relaxing taste, i took a nap again... During this time, I missed my woollen cap... Anyway it just drpped off my head... later collected in Frankfurt airport...Later to, search for it I woke up again and observed that am flying on top of a sea,.. Nice view once again....Then the time is almost 10:00 am IST... Inquiring with air hostess, I got to know that another 2 hours is needed for reaching Frankfurt..Later I have been served with breakfast of India style = Idli and Uthappam (small size)... Had the loaf of bread and hot coffee, and had a sip of black coffee again... Then the time is almost 11:30 am IST and pilot announced that we will be landing in next half an hour....Fligt is 40 minutes ahead of time and Franfurt skyline view is awesome and luckily I got to see the highway and railway line as well.. Nice to see that...After landing it took 20minutes to reach the Terminal... at B 32...
From there on walking for 20 minutes thru the corridor, boarded a train to reach Terminal 1 for A60 gate..Security check is done where I was asked to scan the siva lingam... For the sake of a valid reason, i dont have option to put it under scanner.. Some other Indian old man is asked to pull out his Yagnopaveetham as well.. :) :) :)
Now the time is 2:10pm IST Wednesday... Flight is expected at 4:30 pm IST now and am ending this tale for now...

Episode @ Franfurt....

I always have a very special feeling and respect on Germany. Reason being the discipline and values what they have been maintaining from ages. Their researches on Sanskrit and their respect for our culture always makes me feel proud of being Indian. I tried to raom around the airport but ended up in tiredness as I was sleepless all the night. Anyway, I looked around all the flights landing and taking off in various directions. I can say this airport is a good junction like our Vijayawada Railway station. You can see many people fro different countries trying to take the transit flights.. There was some detruction work going near to the airpot and the cranes and bull dozer machines are busy in their work. Spent almost an hour at this sight. Not just me there is ample crowd at this view point.

Some how time ticked and it is 1:00 pm German local time and passengers are called for boarding. Again the same scene as happened at BIAL, the air staff lady has searched for a small cute girl among the crowd and welcomed her to FREE board the flight. Proud papa almost 7ft in height kissed the girl and boarded the flight and we followed.

Transit flight to Philadelphia from exit gate 60

The flight to Philly is almost 350 seater with individaul Television sets for every one from the frong seat rear. This time I could get my choice of watching the TV and browsed the channels.. Tamil is the only regional language in the options and watched Kannu Kannum movie. Food is good and German host looked handsome like those who come in AXE advt. He respected me lot and taken care by serving the vegetarian food me being the only person in the flight to opt it.

After I completed my lunch flying in that hot sun, (extremely bright and hot sun all the.way) I slept for a while during which rest of the people had pork and hot drinks...

The flight is onto Atlantic in one and half hours of time. Rest all nothing to see, only water every where... or some other flight on other side crossing from other side.... I was able to understand what air traffic means...

By the time it is 4:00 pm US local time, we are just 300 miles away to Philly airport, but due to bad weather .. flight almost took a circle in lower layer... you can imagine howit would be in such situation!! That too 2 to 3 other flights taking off from / landing to the airport... It was like movie for me... As Philly is next to sea, till the moment I landed, I was feeling like falling into the water... Last but not least after all the sea is crossed, it is a big lake next to the airport over which it almost touched the water...

Comfrtably landed in the airport and then walked into the immigration counter. Immigration formality is simple and the officer has given the I94 till 15th Dec, 45 days as expected... Collected my luggage from a circularly moving chain identifying mine.

It is to my pleasant surprise that I have seen shopkeeper in the airport speaking in Hindi and felt good and safe. Reached him and spoke to him in Hindi. But very surprisingly he did not let me speak in Hindi and answered for everything in English that too in proper accent. Anyway, he understood that I am from India and helped me out in gettting the Calling card for 10$. Then I called my friend Ramesh who is staying in NJ and updated hi where I am. He took around 4 0minutes to reach airport during which I made myself comfortable longing there in a sofa set. The captions, signatures around the place were a little time pass for me. Finally I called up my fellow Infoscion Prabhat with whom am going to stay and got the directions to reach Newark, DE.

If my friend would not have come, I might have felt a bit lonely and very different and may have ended up in confusion, but it was quite a good experience that I felt homely being with him. Reached Newark, DE in about half an hour time and met Prabhat and his room mates - Shashi, Uppili Vijay. It was a nice team to share the space in that apartment. I will talk about them in next blog....

This brings me to end this narration of my travel to United States and looking forward to key in my further experiences which were more and more interesting...

Thanks for the time in reading this blog... :) Have fun... See you soooooooooooooooooooooon :)

Pinak

Ravi's B'Day Bash on July 27 2008

It was not a normal weekend for anyone in Bangalore. Of course for me too.. After the terror attack on Friday, 25 July 2008, returned from office early in a tense mood. Luckily there was no power cut in the city as a result of the disturbance in normal life. So, I cooked some food and me and my room mates had dinner and watced one of the classics of 70's "Aaradhana" of Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore. I was so happy at the moment watching the introduction song and set my hello tune "Mere Sapnon Ki Rain hai to kab aayegi thu..." (CT 10222) on my Vodafone. Had good feel and slept happily.

Saturday morning seemed to be quite cool and even I made it much pleasant by watching the classic songs of RajKapoor. Me and my room mates Hari & Venkat too enjoyed the time. Later we had some quick breakfast and me gave my Black Beauty for getting serviced. My room mates treated me with good lunch and I could not stop taking a long nap. Anyways it was very much needed. After that started the much planned Saturday evening to bang with the friends on the eve of Ravi's B'day.

I took the BMTC bus to reach MarathHalli and met Dinakar, Ravi & Babu. As there was a sudden change in the location to party out that evening, we asked Dinakar to proceed with Babu to his place.

Later me and Ravi gave the order for Food at Friends' Hyd Dhaaba and headed to HSR layout.

At HSR BDA we thought of taking a break and have something to eat. There we surprisingly met Anil and Satish (Duo) and altogether had some chat items. Later reached Babu's House.

Babu's new Lovey home:
Really it is not easy for everyone to get their dreams fulfilled at an early stage. Not saying it is "Impossible" but it is not feasible at times to get things done as most of us think twice and later postpone the things. Now coming to Babu/s accomplishment, it is the beautiful home he hired for rent. Everyone had the best feel moving in his house. Nicely furnished and a plesant duplex flat it is... After reaching his place, all of us felt like being at the right place for partying that night...

B'day Bash:
With almost all the gang of boyz being present there, the place had the festive look. All of us started the moment with the drink of thier own choice and cheered well wishing Ravi a happy Birthday. Somehow or other then started the topic to share their views on Ravi suggesting him some thing they find as need for improvement for Ravi. By the time it was half way in th round clock ticked 11:57 pm. So all of us arranged the cake cutting.
By the time it was sharp 12:00 midnight, Ravi cut the cake and Dinakar shared the first peice with him and ofcourse Dinakar continued for next 5 ~6 pieces as the cake was too mouthwatering and best of its kind. (Thanks for the delivery boys who delivered the cake at such an odd time in that area.) Later we continued the birthday bash with hitting Ravi and Prithvi seemed to be the highest hitter in the group.

Exciting Dance Performances by Prithvi and Ravi:
Prithvi's dance step for the hot song from Mantra movie turned to be the best attaction and stealed the show. Ravi too tried to share the dance sequence but ofcourse being born just then could not cope up with Prithvi. Anyways that was a good fun for all of us.
Special presence:
It is Sriram and Surya Kiran along with Satish and Anil(from Hyd) joining the party that night which made look more grand as count of the guys being present from our class being 7 (one third of the boys in our class).
Lastly we concluded the party by 1:00 am and returned to Ravi's home at around 1:30 am.
I wish Ravi once again on his B'day on behalf of everyone from our friends' group.

Smiles.... will come up with one more happy moments to share with you soon...

Pinak