On the Move - Part I ( Nostalgia )

It has been more than 3 weeks since I quit Delphi (My 1st employer).  I remember how I was eagerly waiting for so called "The Last Day". This change being my first ever "jump", I was kind of preparing for the move.  I used to dream as to how things would be in new company, how I could cope up with new environment, what, where, etc.  

On the other hand, my heart was trying to hide something, it was the sadness from parting with all my friends. I had come across so many ppl, from acquaintances to bestest friends, just like stars in the sky. :)  Below are the clusters I was very much attached to:

       Cool & Talented V_Rock (2005 batch Freshers :)),

       Time-Pass MS batch mates,

       Techie MTS, Audi & ICR Team mates, 

       Breakfast Gossip Guru's,

       Fun@work Fundoos,

       PJ Cubicle Mates,

       Tea Break AUDI-Philes,

       Sweet R-12 Bus Troop,

       My Favourite Lunch Gang!!

The loads of unforgettable memories, that I had piled up started weighing too much as the last day approached.!  Finally when the day came, How I had wished it never came!!  It went so fast that, I did nothing but send one last-working-day email with the below quote.  Though the quote was copied from Internet, I meant each and every word of it..!!

      " Goodbyes are not forever.

        Goodbyes are not the end.

        They simply mean I'll miss you

        Until we meet again!

        How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard!! "

What a memorable time I had in these 5 years!!  I miss you all....!!  :-)

Route-12 Day Out

Yeah.. We had been to 1-day Bus Outing!!  When I told my friends about it, they were surprised rather jealous that we were going for bus outing, where as in some buses people hardly talk to each other. :-) Well I am lucky to be part of R-12.  Everyday I would be looking forward to go by this bus.  The boring transit time of nearly 1.5 hrs is spent by playing games, DC, antakshari, etc.. One never knows how the time flies off.

R-12 troop has exactly 12 members as of now..!!  However 10 of us made for the trip.. Plan was to trek Ramadevara Betta at Ramanagara and then spend rest of the day @ Wonder-La.. We had to take leave since trip was planned on a Friday..  Everyone was in full josh and dint have much concerns for take a day off.. Our trip Captan Ravindra made all arrangements very well and everything went on as planned.

First pick up was at 6.30.. Most of us were on time and we reached Ramadevara betta around 9.  We had 'Tatte Idli's' on the hill.. Having breakfast in the midst of greenery and  hills.. It was a different experience.. After the trek we reached wonder-la at 12.  1hr behind the schedule, nevertheless didn't want to miss any ride.

This was my first visit to wonder-la and I was all excited..  First ride and first place to get wet was at the "Water Splash", almost everyone who visits wonderla will have a photo taken at this point..   First we tried to cover all dry rounds..  They are the scariest of all.. I wonder how the robotic arms are designed to rotate the people seated 0 - 360deg in all directions and yet safe..  Amazing as to how they are designed!!  I felt it was more fun watching others shouting than experience on my own.  I ended up shouting my lungs out.  It was breath taking.. However once done with the ride, one would definitely feel proud with "Oh Man! I am still alive!" kind-of expression left on the face.. :-)

Following the dry rides, were the wet-rides.. Everyone loved it.. Colour full snake-like tubes at different altitude were landing in various pools.. We were running around like kids to stand in the queue for the rides. Shouting anyway is part of the game.  One was shouting better than the other.. The closed tubes won more voice,  it looked as though we were dropped into a black hole.

Altogether it was a memorable outing..!! Hope R-12 troop gets to go on many such trips.. Cheers!!

Home Made Golgappa

I am sure most of us like the famous street snack Golgappa also known as Panipuri..  It is sibling of Churmuri.. ;) Whenever we(me & my-sis) spot a panipuri stall on roadside, we would definitely grab a bite..  Earlier we used to get 10 puri's for 10bucks now its reduced to 6..

Though I am not so inclined towards cooking, I find it interesting to trying unusual dishes.. ;)

It stuck to my mind that, if I was successful in preparing pani-puri's at home, I can probably eat upto 60 puri's than just 6! :P  Keeping 60 puri's in mind, I browsed for the recipe and gave a try.

Trial 1:

Pani - Though all the ingredients to make pani were not at home, I thot not adding a pinch of some spices wouldn't make much difference.  Its very quick to make pani, just gotto mix all spices in water.. Pani tasted just like tamarind water nowhere closer to the pani which we get outside. :(

Puri - Next coming to puri.. My first mistake, I thot puri can be made out of chapati's floor.  The puri instead of becoming balloon shaped turned into small soft disks (Diskgappas instead of Golgappa's?!).  Next day mom made big puri's out of the remaining atta and packed them for breakfast..

Trail 2:

Pani - Get pani puri mix from shop and prepare pani.. It was great! ;)

Puri - Got the proper recipe from internet.  Atta is made out of Sooji and not wheat floor.  Ya I was successful in getting some balloon shaped puri's.. Hurray!!  However 40% of them turned into discs but they tasted good compared to Trial1.  Lots of small puri's could be made out of little atta.

Trail 2 was considered successfull.. You can assess based on the below picture.. Everyone liked at home, some were parcelled to my aunts place as well.. ;)  I think I had atleast (60/2) puri's.. :P  Enough of the trials, next time I am gonna buy readymade puri's too..

I felt its worth to give 10bucks for 6 puri's !!

Wedding Season

Its been long since I opened my blog.. Guess what? I was busy attending weddings!!  June-July being wedding season, I attended 6 weddings in June alone and also missed couple of them. My batch mates are getting into wed-locks one by one.. I wonder what they mean by wed-LOCK!! ;) No doubt I have put on some 2-3kgs in these 2 months.. All credit to the sumptuous and tasty food.. :P My tongue was rejoicing :)) & tummy was crying to digest variety of stuff.. ;)

This month's wedding count already started. July 4th was my lunch mates wedding.. Happy to see decorated smiling couples.. God bless them all.. :-)

Another thing which is good about weddings is that you get to meet a lot of friends.  Happened to meet 15yr old friend at my school friends wedding recently. The Delphi v_rock gang is part of almost every wedding. Nowadays, by seeing the frequency of weddings, we sign-off saying  "Catch you at the next wedding!!"  ;)

Procrastination

"Procrastination is the thief of time."   Edward Young 

“Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.”

True.. Many of us have the problem of procrastinating.. I too have faced lot of its repercussions..

On a lighter side, when looked at it in a positive way.  I could think of few examples (silly though).

1) Mom:  Drink the milk before u leave!

    Me:  I am busy now, wait for sometime..   

    Me:  Yes mom, I remember will drink it in a while..

    Me:  Sorry, I am getting late for bus.. Gotto run.. Bye!

    --> It does help me to skip drinking milk. :-P

2) Sometimes we get nagging calls to take a credit card/insurance.  Some ppl do convince that its worth 

to go for it.  Confused, I would ask him to call after few days.  By then I realise I wouldnt need it.  N

ext time he calls, I would say I don't need it, but when he still persits, I would ask him to call later.  

After few tries, he gets the messages that I am not gonna take it and stops!

3) I work more efficiently under pressure.  Be it internals or exam, I have cleared all my exams based on n'th minute preparations ;)  The more I procrastinate, the more energy/seriousness I get when the deadline approaches!   

Although this principle doesn't go well with work, I could think of an example.  

>> We generally put aside few tasks that might not be so important time being.  When those unimportant tasks priority increases, we are under a fix!  We end up staying late and sometimes work on weekends. Managers/Leads might think that this guy/gal is working too hard. As a result of procrastinating and finishing the tasks on time, we would be happy for completing the work n might get a bonus of appreciation for the hardwork from our bosses!!  ;) 

(PS:  This was just an example, I never had such a work experience :-))

Money-Money-Money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UkhxexiBbA&feature=player_embedded

Interesting link...  Hundred Rupee might not be a big thing for an IT guy where as it makes a living for a poor man.. A person who has grown from a lower class know its true value compared to a rich man's lad. Recession, Layoff's did make the people aware of money's value to some extent. Well I believe in "Think before you spend" funda and I don't mind if people call me a Miser! ;)

Spicy Mango Pickle

I am back with a success story.. ;)  This time attacked a Mango and it dint go waste..
Mango pickle turned out to be very good.. Believe me its so easy to prepare.
Mix few powders & oil in proper quantity and its done! Credit to vah-reh-vah chef and his recipe.

Everyone liked it including my lunch gang.. Doesn't it look yummy? :-P

Wah Wah Rajma!

My friends tease me for not knowing to cook.. A girl must be a good cook that's what everyone says!! These days any engineer(girl/guy) who goes onsite ends up learning cooking isn't it!?! ;)

Well.. I am not at a good cook. I manage to do with small things. I feel sambhar/curry is the toughest of all dishes. You're right I have never tried it! I thought of giving it a try.

On a weekend, I decided to prepare Rajma Curry!! There were 2 reasons to choose this dish: Firstly my mom had never prepared Rajma. Secondly thought of getting some extra compliments for preparing without any ones help. :p

After browsing for a while, found few cooking videos in YouTube. ;) Ref: www.vahrehvah.com, http://showmethecurry.com. These websites had cooking video's for almost all Indian dishes. Wow!! I was getting more interested to prepare the dish.

Started with my preparations for the dish. Seeing me struggle, my mom chipped in to help me. I was like a head chef, instructing mom to get initial things ready.:D Now it was my turn to prepare the curry. Following the instructions as in the video, I was done with the dish. Finally its done. Mmmmmh.. It smelt good!

The taste was ok ok and was wondering what my family would say. They tasted and never took second serving. I agree I did mess up with few steps here and there. :(( I told them that Punjabi dishes tastes much differently than south Indian dishes. Since I prepared I had to like it and said to myself - Wah Wah Rajma!!

Churumuri

Came across a famous blog by name churumuri.. :)
http://churumuri.wordpress.com/

Bisle Ghat

On 20-Feb-2010, we started for a 2-day trip to visit madikeri, hassan and near by places.

Day1 - Bylakuppe in Khushalnagar, Nisargadhama, Dubare Elephant Camp, Abbey falls.

Day2 - Bisle Ghat, Manjarabad Fort, Gorur Island.

I had visited few of the places earlier, nevertheless it was fun to go with my team mates. As we had planned to visit lot of places in 2 days, most of the time was spent travelling in bus. I felt trekking was one thing that was lacking in the trip. One of the places which i visited for first time was Bisle Ghat. It is about 65km from sakleshpur. The view amidst the mountain peak was awesome!! One could see highest mountain peaks in the surroundings such as Dodda betta, Himagiri, Kumara Parvata covered with clouds. These mountain peaks, brought back the memories of the my kumara parvata trek 3 years back. :) The river that flows in the valley had dried out. They say best time to visit Bisle is "September to March". I wished we had been there a month earlier or so. We spent nearly 2 hours enjoying nature's beauty and then headed back to Bangalore.