Long Overdue - Part 2

I'm sorry to keep you waiting, oh stranger who takes keen interest in my updates. Got stuck up with the happenings of life but I promise you that this post is going to be quite interesting as I did things that I've never done before in my life. Had a quite an exciting month - November.

I'll start from where I left off. My sis finished her holidays and went back to college. Kept bugging her about the results. Finally got it in the first week of December. Not bad. Considering that she stands fourth in the class despite her marks :P

And about the web hosting. Still not enough money :P I'm still saving up but it I already see another expenditure coming up in the horizon. As for work, I've been assigned (and I've taken it quite interestedly) a pet project to build a private social networking site. It going quite well. Amazing how you can set up such powerful sites with so much ease these days with the help of ready-made software with just a few tweaks for customisation.

Enough of Tech talk, you say, and I agree. A lot more happened on the cultural side. Had a lot of "firsts" and a few more in the coming week.

Finally got out of my shell and attended the Live concert of Mandolin Padmashree U. Srinivas at the Ambedkar bhavan conducted by the Times of India as part of the Times Bangalore Festival. If you know me, I'm usually the lazy and the stingy kind so you may wonder how I decided to attend this concert. Well, in the past month, something has bitten me and I've become quite inclined to attending public functions and besides, got a free pass to this concert so thought "Why not?". Yes, you caught me there.

After that had a pretty hectic couple of weeks and then just rested for the last couple of weeks. Had a good rest. If you've read my earlier blog then you'd know how much I love my sleep and did quite exactly that - sleep! Got a good night's sleep every single night for the past week.

Last Thursday, my friend Vinny dropped  in at my house and during the conversation suggested that we visit Fantasy Lagoon at KR Puram the next morning to shoot some birds (I mean the actual birds of the Avian kind, not the other kind). I agreed. Decided to leave home by 6 but finally left by 6:45AM, reached his uncle's place at 7:15 to borrow his tripod and then went to Fantasy Lagoon. This is a lake, a little after crossing the hanging bridge at KR Puram. They have boating and some other activities that I didn't know of because I had never been there before and the place was closed at the time we had reached. They open at 11AM and are open till 7PM. Anyways, we hadn't gone there to boat so, we went around the place and found a hind-side entrance. Entered the banks of the lake, with the pleasing morning breeze, the chilling cold of winter and the beautiful scenery, we were mesmerised. Started shooting, spotted a few birds and a lot of fish in the lake. Learnt that Videography is quite an art. We had to meddle so much and had to respond so quickly with the zooming and focusing to catch the bird on the recording. Finally, after having spent a good half an hour, we were very refreshed and satisfied and were getting late to office. Hit the road, returned the tripod, went back home, got ready and left for office and you know - the usual stuff happened after that.

Next day, read about a play by Evam at the Alliance Fracaise de Bangalore in the Saturday's newspaper. It was Rs.200 per ticket. Yes, I immediately denounced it from my mind and carried on reading the rest of the paper but throughout the day, something in me said I got to attend this. One of the reasons for this was the cast of Karthik Kumar (a familiar face from his tamil movie roles and sis is a big fan of his. Read that the tickets are available at some book stores near MG Road but the venue is quite close to my place. Again, me being me - LAZY, didn't want to go so far. Found a phone number mentioned there, so called. A girl named Dhanya answered and found out from her that tickets are available at the venue. This was another BIG reason that made me go.

Wanted to go for the 5:30PM show but was late because of my mechanic who had delayed my scooter service. After paying Rs. 200 I didn't want to miss even a single minute of the show. So, brought my scooter back home and asked if my sister wanted to come. She jumped in joy hearing that Karthik's going to be there. Told my mom not to cook dinner as I'll be late and that I'd eat outside.

Took my sis, entered Alliance Francaise, the parking said full but apparently it was only Car parking that was full. Bangalore is becoming choked with cars. RTO needs to stop issuing new registrations or at least limit it. Anyways, that topic is for another time. The watchman there was my ex-neighbour (he moved some years ago), so with his directions, parked my scooter inside the venue.

Remember, that I had many firsts. Entering Alliance Francaise was a first. I'm pretty embarrassed  to say this but I've never been inside it though it was so close to my home. Anyways, having done that now, I feel a little less guilty. The premises is quite large. It doesn't look that way from the outside. We were just 5 minutes earlier to the event so the my ex-neighbour watchman uncle asked us to rush in. We did and bought the tickets and immediately there was a queue entering the auditorium. Expected it to be big but wasn't quite what i expected. The crowd was overwhelming. Hadn't expected that. There must've been about 200 people at the least.

The show did not start for a while and there was a power-point presentation being played explaining what Evam does and how we can help them and some western music playing in the background.  This was all quite nice fo the first few minutes but then got a bit irritated with the delay. Anyways, waited patiently and the show began.

First act was of Karthik Kumar. What a guy! Followed by Shanon, Rabhinder and TKM. The show was named "Urban Turban - Tall tales from the top of our heads" and quite aptly the utterances of all the four artists were spontaneous (at least looked that way without a hint of it being rehearsed) which made it intriguing. Both the Karthiks - Karthik Kumar and TKM were absolutely phenomenally funny. Laughed my stomach out. Shanon was intelligently funny and Rabhinder told us a story that touched our hearts. Before we know it, we had spent more than an hour and the show had come to an end. "What a show?" both of us exclaimed. Then thought to ourselves that all good things come top an end, a big sigh and we left the auditorium to reach back home. My sis wanted a pic taken with the artists but they had disappeared behind the stage and there were no signs of them coming out. So, I told her "Next time". We collected all the literature about the Alliance that were kept outside for public consumption (I being a hoarder of such literature) and then went back home feeling very satisfied. Mom had cooked despite me asking her not to, but good that she had(How do Mom's have such instincts?). I was very hungry and had forgotten to eat outside :P. Had a satisfying dinner and went to bed.

Then came the Sunday Reunion that I had planned with my old school friends. One my friends - Gautam is leaving to Canada in January and he's going there with no plans. So, we don't know if we'll ever be able to see him again (in case he decides to settle there) so we wanted to have a get together. So, 4 of our closest friends from school - Madana, Gautam, suhas and Avinash got together at Star City, bowled a match, played a match of Air hockey and then Suhas very kiddishly, played a few arcade games which was then hogged by the other kids around. Sad that we wouldn't get another chance for a while and we being in a hurry, the day coming to an end, almost, had a few pictures taken on Madana's insistence. Then, we argued about entering Fun world but then majority decided against it as we were not too keen on paying Rs. 200 (unlimited no. of rides which won't be possible) for just 2 hours. Thought of going to Urvashi Cinema to watch Final Destination in 3D but the called them to find out that they've changed the movie to "Rocket Singh" and besides, it was around 3 and the next show wasn't until much later in the evening. Then, Avinash, very thoughtfully brought along a greeting card for Gautam (with him leaving and all, got very senti), all of us signed it and presented it to Gautam. Then Avinash went his way after his Good Byes and we hit the road to Madana's home for a (very) late Lunch. On the way, being what he is, Madana lost his way and we had to make a stop until he could find us. When he did, co-incidentally we had stopped near our School. He suggested that we go inside. After some initial hesitation considering thatwe might not be allowed inside on a Sunday, we gave it a shot anyways. Luckily we found the watchmen "Rana" who was familiar to Madana during our school days. He happily allowed us in. We did some crazy stuff inside like playing "Pen Fight", remembering our old jokes and laughing our a**s off. Felt really nostalgic. Took a lot of pics with the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music's camera. I know, we need to get a digicam but haven't yet, so made use of what we had. (By the way, I'm not getting anything less than a digital SLR.) Watch this space for pics and a video.

After our wandering the school, went to Madana's house where his mom had prepared some lip smacking B3 (Bisi Bele Bath), Rasam and Thayir Saadham, a salad and Raita. Filled our stomach to our heart's content (this was around 5PM) and after a round of Singing by Gautam and Madana, said our Good-Byes and went back home.

Reached home by 6, skipped  dinner, hit the bed straight.

Returned back to the usual routine of Work and home from Monday onwards with the exception that I get up early these days and get ready quite in leisure.

Another interesting development is that I might be out of town and am going to experience a  few "firsts" in my life this coming week. First time to visit the Bangalore International Airport, first time to travel by a plane (yeah, I know, how lame is that), first time, I'd be going north of Tirupati.

Have gotten a long leave approved from the 24th to the 3rd for the New years. Will be visiting Trichy and Madurai. Again, a pilgrimage. Seems like I'm becoming very spiritual with all these pilgrimage trips that I'm going on these days. Well, call it what you want but I want to visit these places to know their history and admire their marvelous architecture and planning and to celebrate our culture.

So, until next time...