Yaaawn.

Ever since my last outrageous dream-slash-nightmare only to not remember that in full after I woke up, I told myself that as soon as I wake up from a similar experience, I would note it down and may be start a chronicle of sorts. Today was one of those days, and I thought I'd give you a glimpse as to what is happening inside my head, even when I am not aware of it.

Ok...so I have to skip the first episode, as it is, well, between someone and me, so I'll jump to the  next one.

This one, is straight out of a Spielberg Movie. So I was in this airport with my friends in Chennai. But this ain't the Chennai airport. In fact, even the best of the international airports I have seen don't come close to whats about to happen inside this airport. First of all, like all dreams we have no idea where were we before the airport episode. Second, I have no idea why are we there; we sure didn't receive anyone at the airport. On a passing note, two guys I knew loooooong time back were just coming back to Chennai from abroad. Weird thing is neither of them were in US and neither of them stay at Chennai. But it is a dream, so anyway. And then, the most outrageous thing happens. From the top, something like small satellites drop down, dozens of them. They don't fall on the floor at once, but hold themselves in suspension until the people underneath them clear, and then gently fall on the floor. Now my friends immediately look to hold on to something, and so does everyone else. Before I ask them why they do that, the entire airport stretch elevates, something akin to an open bridge when a ship goes underneath. This makes the satellite-like things to go to the corner, or almost, until the floor is held inclined. And when everything is settled, people just went to one of those satellite thing, opened it and took something. My friends and I went to the one near us, and we opened it. Guess what was in it? Apparently, it contained the food that we ordered (in the distant past of the dream that is now very vague). I was like.."whoa..cool." And of course, I went on to gorge on brownies (no guess needed to know who ordered that one!)

Now back to reality, I woke up to my alarm at 6:00 AM. Feeling just so lazy after a long day yesterday and decided to go back to sleep...just for a little while. And now the part 2 starts..almost immediately I went back to sleep.

So I am back at the airport, but somewhere at basement here you have this hugeee shopping complex (Chennai airport would be so cool if it were this) and I seem to have lost my friends. As I am going through the shops, there this flagrant transvestite, who starts to hit on me. I was like running away from him/her, and before even I realize I am being stalked and chased. I start running away like crazy, I get out of the airport apartment and then fly out to the streets. It is about 8 PM in the night I guess, judging by the thickness of city traffic. As I am in the process of searching my friends, I see them at the end of the street where. Before I call out to them, one of my friend (Ram) calls out for me "Riaz Gaffooooor." Weird, why would any of my friends call me using that name...but again it is a dream. And then suddenly, one guy who was in the vicinity, catches the shirt of my friend and asked, "did you mean RIAZ GAFFOOR? I am searching for him, where is he?" And at that moment I come to the scene, and this guy takes a piece of log that lay nearby and says, "I have been searching you for so long." Before I even comprehend what the hell is happening, we are surrounded by couple of dozen people armed with all sorts of non-ammo tools (Chennai style). I was like, dude why?, and then he says, "remember sometime back you threw a ball back in this street to a group of people who were playing. The ball you threw hit one of our friend's arm and that lead to a blood clot which lead to a complicated heart condition with which he now has to live for ever." I was like, dude. Now I get a flashback within my dream (oh yeah!), and I now remember what I did. Coming back to my senses --in the dream that is-- I asked to talk to the person whom I apparently inflicted the injury upon. That person came -- I swear I had seen him before -- and said to him, "Man, I didn't mean it." He was like, "yeah it is alright, these guys are just making a big thing out of it." He then talked to the crowd and all was well.

Not sure how much had elapsed after that, now I was somewhere, I think it was in one of my friend's place. We are planning a birthday party, and we are in the process of inviting the rest of the gang. And then flash forward, I am reading Business Process Management, which incidentally happened to be the last one I read before going to sleep.

And then I wake up from the slumber, it is now 7:00 AM and I hurry to get ready for a long Monday.

It's definitely a different feeling to jot down what I had dreamed about. I feel that there are so many of my characteristics are evident from most of these episodes, like how much I miss my friends and hanging out with them. Rest, I have no explanation!! 1 to 10 on outrageous scale, this one is probably at 3-4 ish level. I have had 9s and 10s in the past, and I wish I had remember more of them for they would have made some of the best stories.

My Kerala trip

So we 11 booked tickets for Kerala on March 3rd for April 1st- April 4th, or we thought we did, without knowing where we need to be. The waiting list; 221-231 on one of the busiest weekends of the year, Easter. With the day nearing, many of us weren't sure if we would be able to make the trips with projects and personal life trying to act as the spoil sport. With Arul Raj and Krishna bailing out at the last moment, 9 of us (Ram,Zaheer,CT,Me,Madhavan,Balaji,Nanda,Balaji and Prabhakar) finally managed to catch the Trivandrum express on April 1st at Chennai railway station. Or we thought we did. Ram, Balaji and CT decided to start the trip on high "spirits", and hence in order to buy them, they sacrificed their RAC seats in the train to come in unreserved in the next train. You guys!!! Not that rest of us complained anyway, the TTE was kind enough to give those seats to us. Btw, I believe that the train carried some of the most beautiful Indian women. My dear desi girls! You are soooo darn beautiful. muuuuuuuaaaahhhh.
Next day, we got down at a place called Changanaseri, some 25 km from Allepy. Deciding to be frugal, we took a government bus to Allepy or Allapuzha. After having an excellent breakfast, we waited for the Les Miss-erables. They came, and we were about to scold, and then they opened the bag to show the "bounty" and we went, "awww you guys!" From there, we had only one place to go. The one place where we always wanted to go after seeing Vinnai thaandi Varuvaya. The boat house.

Thanks to contacts of Krishna, we had a good deal on the house boat. To say the house boat was awesome is an understatement. It had a steering deck, 3 air-conditioned double bedrooms with attached bathrooms, a kitchen, and wait for it, a closed roof terrace with LCD tv, dvd player and a DTH connection. Then the other two heroes joined us from Bangalore. Harish and Krishnan. The party is complete...but our party has just started. Allapuzha is awesome guys. There is something about the sight with water all round and us in the middle. The afternoons and evenings were awesome, and we all were sharing good banter. Cooking was excellent; oh btw, we had in house cooks too. The evening was really awesome, and the sight of sun setting in the far west, was breathtaking. We decided to anchor around 6 PM. Some of the guys decided to jump into water (with life jackets ofcoz) for some swim. 8 P.M. and it we decided to watch...well wat else...IPL.

April 3rd. Day 2. 06:00 hrs. We came back to the place where we started, the aptly named "finishing point." Of coz, after coming there we all were scratching our heads wondering where to go from there, and Krishnan made the sweetest offer, "come to my home guys." Only that it was in Trivandrum. Did that deter us, hell no! We caught a 07:15 train leaving for Trivandrum, and reached there around 10:00 AM. There is just something about a home that is soooooo soothing. I mean, you can be in the greatest of hotels, but you can never experience the warmth and comfort of a home. Home food, clean water=> heaven. After a small nap, we decided to go to the famous Kollam beach, some 18 km away. The beach was awesome!!! It was picture perfect, with a lighthouse built atop of rocks, and ofcoz bikini clad foreigners. Zaheer, Prabhakar and I decided to get into the water, with Balaji staying away coz he had an headache, and the rest decided to get themselves comfortable, very comfortable. Time just passes when you are in water. The beach was shallow for first 5-6 meters, and I must confess I had the best time ever in there. After 6 we caught multitude of transport to come back to Krishnan's home. We all were starving, and er...thirsty, so we all decided to hit a restaurant. With Harish zeroing on me (as usual), I decided to keep silent :D At 00:00 April 3rd, we were all walking back to home, again without knowing where to go after this. Some of us opined to start to Kochi, which is at a 6 hr drive, immediately, and enjoy at veega land on Sunday. Obviously Harish was pissed at our decision, as he couldn't join us as he had to catch an afternoon bus to head back to bangalore. Pissed at us, he cursed , but we started to bus station anyway.

After a 7 hour drive, we came to Kochi.Man...was it hot. It was man-it's-so-hot-i-need-to-get-into-a-freezer hot. We booked 3 small rooms to keep our belongings, and then after a small breakfast we went to veega land, on two share autos. Veega land is definitely not the largest theme park, as it is advertised, when you consider the total area under use. But you can't beat the scenery. Situated on top of a hill, it gives an awesome 360 degree view the lush green nature. So after general merriment, we start back to rooms so that we can pack our bags and catch a 00:50 train at Ernakulam leaving to Chennai. Or we thought we could. Couple of guys, in between their banter, asked, "dude..if it is 00:50, shouldn't the date be April 5th instead of April 4th as printed on the ticket." To which the reply was "the train is starting at Trivandrum at 20:30 hrs on Apil 4th." But still with lingering doubt, we decided to confirm. Zaheer, Ram and I went to railway station to enquire, and the railway chick was like, "dude, you are late by 24 hours." A wise man once said, never underestimate a fat guy's curse. Damn you Harish!! We are like, laughing at ourselves on this situation, and then decided to have tea. Anywhere, anytime, any situation is fun when your friends are around. There is this scene in Jab we met where Kareena situation, after escaping from goondas in train station, will pray to God, "Hey bhagwan, ...ab yeh din bore kardo." We all were praying for the same. After that with no where to go, we went back to our rooms and decided to sleep. We woke at 5:00 am, went to train station, got 9 tickets to Chennai on Allepy-Dhanbad express, and then came back to Chennai central at 10:00 PM. Phew, wat a journey, what a trip!!!

Munnar!!!

Not wanting to have another month without a blog, I have decided to write about the long pending subject of my trip to Munnar. It was one of THE most memorable trips I have been to so far. Awesome place, awesome friends. We started on April 30th from Chennai to Madurai (you may ask why we went there to go to Munnar, the truth is I have no idea). Everything was on adventure. Ours was waiting list in 60s when we booked and at the time of journey (Thursday 2 PM), it came to waiting list 10s. No grace marks here, so we had to get into unreserved. After two stops, we moved to ES, and slowly found ourselves with seats to spare. It was a long arduous journey, especially when there are no chicks around. We reached Madurai, settled ourselves in a nice hotel (by nice I mean it had TV) for the night. Oh I totally forgot, the dinner was exquisite! Nothing can beat Madurai food.
After a short (crappy) photo session in the morning and a great breakfast we started off to Munnar by bus. The bus journey was great, really fantastic UNTIL it reached Tamilnadu-Kerala border. After that the hair pin bends just came like T-Pain’s singles, and by the time we reached Munnar, we weren’t sure if our brain was still working.
We spent the whole of the Friday night trying to find a room in Munnar, which we did finally. After our dinner, we went on a short but wonderful trek to a nearby hill. I have never seen so many fireflies together so far!

Saturday was the day of the trip. We started off in the morning in a share auto, yes SHARE AUTO towards Lockehart gap. On the way, there was a very very beautiful tea estate. Just check out the pics! The trek to the top of the Lockehart gap was one of the most beautiful thing I have done so far. After reaching the peak and to look down, wow!...just WOW!
We came down, went back in share auto, went to a hotel, fought with the hoteliers, went to another hotel and had dinner, as usual.
The whole of Sunday was taken by the trip from Munnar to Theni, and then in waiting for the 7 P.M government bus to Chennai. Oh by the way, if you drop at Theni sometime, do EAT! The food is amazing there!
If I could phrase the entire bus journey from Theni to Dindugal, the next morning I wasn’t sure if my organs were in the right place. If you think that was bad, Harish had to change 6 bus to reach B’lore from Theni.
Enjoy the pics. Till the next blog, Adios.

Saarang 2009!!! Where were you?

 
Were you at IIT M for this saarang? Dun tell me you weren't there, because you missed a great time of fun and frolick (or frocks!?? I am not sure :D)
I had absolutely no idea to be at saarang because of my extra-tight schedule at office (Deadlines deadlines!!). But no, my fairy godmother had different ideas altogether. I made Zaheer (the one at the right extreme) to go to IIT to atleast even try to get one ticket for the Sonu Niigaam (yeah, numerology!! et tu sonu?!) and Benny Dayal show on 23rd Jan. He wasn't able to get one, so he told me he decided to come to home! wtf!! I can't give up just like that! We have been visiting saarag for the past 4 years, and I am definitely not gonna miss Sonu's show! Anyway, I told him that I am almost there, and we could go back once I come to IIT.
Meanwhile, Ramkumar (2nd from left) along with his friend Madahavan(next to him) also came to IIT on Zaheer's request. So there were we, four guys longing to get into the OAT to catch a glipse of the rocking atmosphere. As luck would have it, there were few guys who decided to sell their tickets as they were already an hour late. But they were selling 300rs ticket at 400! After some hard-ball bargaining from Zaheer and Ram, we found ourselves with four tickets for just 200rs a piece! Do I even have to tell what happened after that! Btw, we look really subdued in the picture, that was AFTER all the rocks and rolls!!!
Btw, can you guess who I am???