Beautiful White All around!!

On the way to work all the tree and plants were covered with snow.. it was as if somebody threw some white powder everywhere...it was so beautiful.

Crispy cold fresh air with this beautiful scenary - life is sometime worth it !!

Place : Chippenham, UK

Change

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The SPEAKERS

Watched this program on BBC iPlayer last night and was quite impressed with it. Hoping to watch the next episode tonight. I am not sure how long the video will be hosted in BBC iPlayer (about a month or so..) but it is worth watching it. The kids are just amazing and with the level of exposure they have these days they would soon outperform us in all fields.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00k1ww3/The_Speaker_Episode_5/

Happy Tamil New Year - 2008

First of all, may this new year bring happiness,porsperity and peace all lives in this universe.

Waking up to soemthing new is always interesting. Running mundane tasks, living a mechanical life is really boring and uninteresting for anyone, though some less expect changes but definitely welcome changes on a postive side. A thought all of a sudden popped up in my mind to invite Maha,Vidhya and Rahul for dinner tonight. Though it was a bit surprise for them Maha and Vidhya accepted the offer immediately. But Rahul had a bit tough situation and so he was unable to make it. I was all in good mood and tried to plan an interesting menu so that it would make the home food deprived people a good chance to taste my menu. Infact I had already started to prepare sambar by the time I called them. I know Potato curry is a favouite dish for anyone in India. So I decided to make a pulao (using green peas and coconut milk), potato curry and as Maha demanded I soad urad dal to make vada rathaer I should say bonda just because it could be of any shape.

I had just made my grocery shopping from ASDA and hence had most of teh stuff at home. But there were a couple of items that I had to buy. So I rushed to the tesco express at chesterton road to grab some crisps, yogurt, peppers and oil. They were supposed to start at around 4 PM from Reading so that they would reach cambridge at around 6.30 - 7.00. I thought we could have a good chat before dinenr and enjoy the dinner and may be catch up with a movie. So I headed to prepare the Pulao, boiled the potatoes. But when I received a call from Vidhya it was around 6.50 PM and they were at Kings Cross and the train had just started for Cambridge. It would take about an hour to reach cambridge and 10 mins from the station to my home. So I expected them around 8.15 PM.

I prepared teh potato curry, raita and started the bondas when they arrived. They were damn hungry that they reached the dining table and we started our dinner. They were very happy atleast that's the expression that I saw in their faces. After dinner we watched some videos in you tube and had a chat before we hit the bed at around 1 AM.

I am planinng to get the metal dice from India this time so that we could play dayakaatai when we all meet. It would be a great time pass.

And today, is an ususal monday morning but teh difference was that Maha and Vidhya were here. Maha made scrambled eggs and vidhya used teh left over dough to make some more vadas for teh morining so tahtw e could have that woith the sambar.
I booked teh taxi for them back to train station.

I should have called them on friday or saturday...but the happiness and sharung is more when we meet for a short time rather than for 2 long days. May be I should organise a 2 day trip to some interesting place in UK during teh long weekend in May.

Mastana 2008

Last weekend I had been to Corn Exchange to see Mastana 2008. The show was by Britain Born teenagers from Indian origin. It was quite a mix of Bollywood,Kollywod mostly and with a Trukish troop performing belly dance. It was quite entertaining and I got reminded of my school Annual days which used to start at 8 PM with dance,dramas in languages like english,tamil and hindi and would go on till midnight. Infact Mastana was like a school annual day. The uni student here performed the shows. Though some programmes was not really good - may be due to insufficient practice. One such program was the Rahman's songs. There were a couple of obvious mistakes they made and I think they would definitely improvise on these areas.
The guy who danced for Prabhu Deva's songs was really amazing. Wonderful dance dude!
With a majority of North Indian population here in cambridge and surrounding areas it was a pleasant surprise for me to see a Bharathanatyam performance and 'Thunbam Nergayil' song sung by a girl. Good job guys and gals. You have really got a very good potential and good that you guys are trying to learn something. Kudos the the kids' parents !
There was snacks served during teh interval. A box with dhokla,samosa,bonda,potato chips and a sweet. Good one! I am infact looking forward to more Indian based programmes in Corn exchange and would love to attend them!

Again with a Bang!

Not blogged for a long time now. So many confusions and I wont say I was a bit occupied but I was definitely lazy. So many thing running onmy mind right now.
I was also preparing my application for another business school and was regualrly chatting with my friend for reviewing my essays. At work, I am moving to a new division (infact most of us from the current division are moving to another divison) - organisation wide restructuring. This has borught in deadlines sooner and have to complete the tasks assigned by the ned of this month.

I think I have a lot of free time but I feel I am highly unorganised and as a result I am not utuilising my free time effectively. What results if you are free - An idle mind is a devil's workshop - rightly said. Thinking of something that is unnecessary started bothering me. Now I have started to work out for a longer time so that I keep myself occupied.

I am thinking of ways in which I could effectively use my spare time.

Reading is one best thing - but unfortunately if I take up a novel - it doesnt matter how interestign it is I would fall asleep after flipping through a couple of pages. So here are the other alternatives that I am trying to propose.

1. Gym - work out
Benfits : Physical fitness and alleviate stress - overall mental health.

2. Visiting places/window shopping - Just time pass
Benefits - go around and have a change in environment
Cons : Just waste of time soemtimes.

3. Music - Cant keep hearing fr a long time.

4. Cooking - Relaxing and brings up new thoughts - Refreshing

5. Swimming - same as working out.

6. Movies - ateast 3-4 new movies in a month

7. Travelling - Cant do every weekend - once in a quarter is feasible.

8. Meeting friends.

9. Learn something - but what ?????? may be tamil poems/painting

10. Blog about somehing/somebody/events/incidents/analysis everyday - sounds good !!!

Maitreem Bhajata: A Benediction
This benediction was composed by His Holiness Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamy, the Sage of Kanchi, Known to all Indians as the "Paramacharya". It was rendered at the United Nations on Oct. 23, 1966 on the occasion of the UN day, by Bharat Ratna Smt. M.S.Subbulakshmi.
The concert was recorded and made available for the public through 33rpm disks. Considering the significance of its message and the superb manner in which it was rendered, the Acharya site has decided to provide audio clips of the benediction (from the original recording) for the benefit of the viewers.

Good News!

My long time dream is one step closer for realisation. Yes, I got admit letter from a top Business School. But , not being complacent I am deferring it to the September intake to try out if I get in ouf teh best schools in teh world. I am trying my luck please wish me the best. I have started teh online application for that school and I am hoping to complete that by end of March - seems like a lot of time but not really as I have to prepare 5 essays. Also I am not trying to clearly set my vision and career path. Let me see what God wishes.
Miles to go before I sleep....

Man is never happy - set a goal and try to achieve and once he achieves this goal sets a higher goal and tries to achieve .. that is life - trying to achieve somethhing or there and then raising the barrier when you acieve the earlier one... this is true but on the path of achieving it I definitely believe in being happy for small pleasures and spending time with family and friends is nothing but a special gift.

Goals 2008

I wanted to do this for a long time now but atlast I have got mood and time to do this.

1. Join MBA in a good school.
2. Visit some new place/country.
3. Make new friends ;),clubbing/partying.
4. Improve my communication - new books/movies.
5. Visit orphanage and help the needy.
6. Work out regularly for fitness and a good physique.
7. be good to ppl. as far as I can.
8. Get married ( again not in my hands).
9. Take parents and family on a holiday.
10. Books again - atleast this year.

Goals Recap 2007

Done :

Got British DL
Mom and Dad were here for 3 months.
Took my GMAT but didnt score great.
Went to California,US,Rome,Florence,Kerala.
New close friends - Balaji and Prem
Bought a house in India.
Contributed for an orphan kid. (didnt see her)

Not Done :
Didnt score that great in GMAT
Read more books - not at all

Half Done :

Kept working out..but didnt build a good physique.
Learn something new and exciting - nothing that could be mentioned here

London,Reading and Food

The weekedn was great. I was off London to meet my sis and give her the stuff that I got for her from India. We planned to meet up in London and I asked her friend to join her so that we could have fun. But when I reached London Paddington there were 6 of them waiting for me. Amazing.. I got introduced to couple of guys who I didnt know before. We headed to London eye, had a burger in Mc D's , spent some time in Tower Bridge and took a tube to Wembley. London was full of people and full of energy and there is something special about London and everytime when you step in the Lon Kings Cross station or rather any place in London you feel not only happy but also some kind of energy or enthusiasm pouring in to your head and soul.
We went to Chennai dosa in wembley and had a 6' dosa..amazing.
Though I got a return ticket to cambridge that day I didnt refuse the invitation to reading. We took a train to Reading and had loads of laugh and fun throughout the 30 minutes journey. Reached the hostel at around midnight and hit the bed after few minutes of chat.
Waking up at around 9.30 on a sunday morning, my hunger was well taken care with soft rava Ilis..a big thanks to Vidhya. Was off to upermarket and ther was a group cooking for lunch. With awesome delicious and spicy food I headed with a heavy heart to Cambridge.

Lesson Learnt

I had book my tickets for my trip to India such that I reach UK back on a tuesday and I planned to go to work. Knowing that the flight reaches UK at 9.40 AM local time and the 30mins - 2 hrs depenign on teh immigration and teh a 3hr bus to cambridge. I was a bit reluctant to take off on Tuesday but I managed to reach work only at 14.15. This is not advisable and my conscience is pricking me for doing this. From next time on I'll have to plan well and make necessary arrangements instead of goofing up like this. I should never be in a hurry and assume that I can do it which I cant.

Last 6 months' blog statistics

Starting from August I have steadily increased by one blog per month
August - 2
September - 3
oct - 4
nov- 5 and
Dec -6

I hope from this year I should be osting atleast 12-15 blogs per month.

The temples I visited during my short trip to India (30th Dec - 15th Jan)

1. Ammankudi
2. Pratiyankara devi
3. Patteeswaram
4. Sarabeswarar kovil
5. Alangudi - Guru Sthalam
6. Tirupathi.

All these are aprart from our local haygreevar, anjaneyar ,gurvayoorappan and Anantha padmanabha swamy temple.

Will try to find out more information on each of these temple.

Food, Shopping and Rest

Last couple days I have been blessed with amazing home food - thanks to my sister who is here in my place for vacation. Being alone. most of the time I would feel bored to cook and now having a companion makes it interesting for her and me as well. We plan our food menu and prepare it with full interest. Sounds good doesnt it ? Yesterday we had vegetable gravy, rice and dal palak for lunch and dosa for dinner. I should work out regularly to avoid putting on weight.

Shopping - I am not buying anything but she is in a shooping spree and buys all girls stuff..I am feeling good as she is feeling better coming out of a trauma in her life and is now mentally and physically feeling much better.

The week starting today I am working from home for a couple of days doing some documentation work before going on vacation to India this weekend.

All Alone

After moving in to this new place which is very comfortable with all facilities, I find myself all alone with my laptop and TV to entertain or keep me busy. This feelign is kind of good and I have the house all for myself and I can do whatever I want. I feel like I have enough time to do something, be in my own world of thought and watch any TV programme that I like or jus sleep even in the living room :) My sister would be coming here tomorrow and I hope to have a great time with her :).

My Dinner over the weekend

Moving in Progress!

It is hard a couple of months and now I was forced to shift agaian. My current owner wants to sell his house so I found another house just closeby to when I am currently satying. Infact I am 90% moved to the new place except for the kitchen stuff. I still of 2 more days to complete it. Shifting is really a pain and even being a bachelor [:(] I am finding it difficult. Now I understand why maaried people ( with kids) dont like to shift jobs/places quite often.

I have a big story about the house owner (not the new one) . Though I spent just few weeks I had a very bad experience.

Busy Days!

After my trip to Rome couple of weeks back I was busy at work and also personally. I wasnt able to , rather didnt find time to blog. But today I found aciidentally the British Foreign Secrrtary Rt Hon David Miliband, MP for South Shields & Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairst. He is good orator and would like to follow his blogs and speech. I have book marked his blog :).

http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/blogs/david_miliband/

Cambridge Fireworks!

After the haloween it is now time for teh spectacular fireworks. The council of cambridge with some sponsors orgainses the spectacular firework after teh haloween day and most of the times it just coincides with Diwali - the festival of lights. May be because of strings historical reasons the fireworks show might have started here in the UK almost during the same time as diwali.

Last year I was there in the grouds quite early with couple of friends and witnessed the fireworks show from the right position. But I didnt have my camera at that time. This time with a SONY camera and a SONY Camcorder ( I didnt take my camcorder) I didnt get the correct position. My friend and I were late and before we reached the fireworks had started and so we jus stopped by in a bridge to see the show.

Though my SONY camera didnt cpature the amazing display, my eye captured it and it is in my heart :-)

Going Green!

It has been almost 15 days now, I am cycling to work everyday. Bought a new shockwave XT 675 7-geared mountain bike:-) to be honest I switched gears only for a couple of days and afte rthat I am drving in the same gear. The bike has a hi-tensile steel frame,front suspension and disc brakes.

I am enjoying riding a bike after a long time and as my home is just 1.4 miles away from work, it is not very tiring. As the roads here are good and most of the roads have a dedicated cycle lane, it is not that difficullt.

So.... I am contributing to preserve our environment by not emitting co2. Are you ?????