A heart touching incident

I recollect this incident which happened in July 2011. We normally do shopping on Sunday's for the upcoming week and we go to 'Spencers daily' in thiruvanmiyur for that. It was a Sunday. We completed our shopping and got out of the store. I collected my bike from the parking lot and started it.

Suddenly, a poor kid appeared from nowhere and stood near us; crying out 'anna anna' and 'akka akka ' with extended arms. I had change with me and took out 10 rupees for her. She didn't take it to our surprise... Instead, she said 'paise venda anna... antha bun vaangi thanna pothum...' (I don't want money brother, please buy that bun alone for me'). She was pointing to the 'Burger Man' outlet in front of Spencers daily. Those words touched my heart and I took out 50 rupees from my wallet and asked Radhika to buy the kid a burger. She was all smiles and ever happy than me to do it. We waited for the store person at outlet to prepare the burger to ensure that kid gets it. When kid got the burger, we could see the happiness on her face. She told us. 'Rumba thanks akka.. rumba thanks anna' (Thanks very much brother... thanks very much sister) and started eating it wholeheartedly.

That moment, I felt this. How many could have ignored her pleadings? How much she would have wanted for the 'bun' when she had seen parents buying it for their kids? How much her parents or 'her master' would have scolded or beaten her for asking the 'bun'? We could see the answers for all these questions in her eyes.

We silently drove back to our home. 

A Burglar's attempt on our car

This incident happened in May 2011. It was a weekend and Radhika's mother was with us on a visit. We decided to spend that Sunday evening in Thiruvanmiyur beach, People who know this beach would also know, the point where the beach road starts after the turn from Thiruvanmiyur RTO. We parked the car in the pocket road which leads to the starting point of beach road. This road is badly lit and we never knew that, this was a place where anti-social elements lurked in danger during night.

I noted this person who was sitting on a bike nearby, smoking a cigarette. Somewhere in my thoughts, I had the cold feeling that this guy was staring and when I noticed, he was turning back. We normally wont give much heed to onlookers when we come with family and so, we walked our way towards the beach. We might have spent 45 minutes there and started moving to the car. The time was past 8.45 pm. I walked towards the car, unlocked and opened the door. My wife started opening the front passenger seat door when she called out my name aloud. It was then, that I noticed something sparkling besides the seat in low lit street light. I was shocked to see that left door glass was broken and entire piece has caved into the seat. Her money purse was missing from the compartment beneath the hand brake. The nasty miscreant has broken the glass to steal the purse.
He might not have had enough time to search rest of the car. What he has gained out of that action was 700 odd rupees. We were lucky that he didn't search the back seat since there was another bag with some considerable amount in it.

Set aside what he has 'earned'; he was unaware of damage he has inflicted upon the car. Change of glass cost me 1600 rupees. I didn't get the proper shade of garware classic sun film for 4 months, which matched the shade in rest of windows; because, greedy shop keepers wanted 2000 rupees, even to fill out that single glass. I finally found a lesser greedy one who finally ended up putting a junk film which had scratches (which I noticed after he fixed it since they weren't visible with the adhesive piece on) and matched 70% to original shade for 800 Rs. The loss due to thief to the car was 3000 rupees in total.

I thank god that he didn't think of looking into back seat. Something or someone might have stopped him; of which we are not aware of; till now.

Prologue: We never parked in pocket roads after this incident. We took the car to beach road and kept it in reach of our eyesight. Always.

A sanctuary for reptiles

Crocodile park (Officially Madras Crocodile Bank Trust) in chennai is famous for the wide variety of reptile species it houses. Conceived as a 'Bank' which is a home for endangered species, it holds more than 10 species of crocodiles and turtles amounting to  over 2000 animals. The park is located in Vadanemmeli, around 40 km from Chennai. 

I have been there for four to five times. The last visit which I did was the best one. It was in June 2011. It rained the previous day. Normally, it is hard to see them out of their comfort zone 'home'. Often I could see disheartened visitors with sad faces going out of the sanctuary, since they couldn't get even get a peek of the animals for which they came for. To my surprise, I saw that all the reptiles were basking on the land in broad day light; away from the water. I didn't understand the reason for this behavior. Well, leaving that to the speculation of the reader, I will take you through few photos which I took during my visit...

A trip to Mahabalipuram

I am not going to go to the history of Mahabalipuram aka Mamallapuram... Google or Wikipedia can share the same with you. So, what am I doing here instructing you? Ah, cut the crap. This trip dates back to May 2011...

I had thought about taking my wife to Mahabalipuram. I shared the same thought with Savin; who seemed to be interested in joining us with his partner. So, that was a 'family' trip. My wife volunteered to cook Idly and chutney for the breakfast. We set off at morning 5.30 in Savin's car and reached Mahabalipuram after a 50km drive. 

First place of visit was the Shore temple. Shore temple is a real sight to see. Built in granite, the temple stays alongside Bay of Bengal and enchants the visitors with its history dated back to 8th century AD. 

From there, we moved on to the site of Pancha Rathas, named after the pandavas and draupadi. 
The interesting fact is that, each of the temple dedicated to the icons is a monolith built out of granite.

On the way back we stepped out to see the 'Arjuna's Penance'. Associated with the site is the Krishna Mandapam monument. The giant rock which defies gravity; called Krishna's butter ball is also visible from there.

We started our way back from Mahabalipuram. Next destination was the Crocodile park, officially called Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology, located in Vadanemmeli near to the Muthukad lake. The CrocBank serves as home for numerous endangered species of crocodiles, snakes and turtles. It is a must visit place indeed; Of-course, for those who doesn't fear reptiles.

Very much pre-occupied to give me a shot...

Three Musketeers :)

We started our way back from the park at around 1pm. Signing off, the trip was a successful one except for the hard sun Chennai always sprays on its visitors. 

One tip I could offer for Mahabalipuram visitors is to plan Shore Temple visit after evening 5.30 PM. The monuments there will offer perfect visual treat in association with sunset, for you.

Summer in Chennai

Summer is back. Everytime it comes back, it's intensity is getting unbearable. Is this signifying the global climate change? Well, i am not a meteorologist to make deductions out of some mere facts. But, we know that things around us are changing year by year.

That remained me of the Earth Hour movement. WWF has planned to observe this year. It is supposed to be on March 27th. Seven days from today, being a Saturday, I believe, i will be supporting the movement in full strength. The reason? I will be outside my flat that time. Atleast, few people like me will promote the movement with their big heart in such a way. ;)

We are planning to buy Air Conditioner for our flat. So, forget what i said about Earth Hour a while back. God knows how much we are going to pay for the electricity consumption towards the month end. What can we do, :p Material comforts seems to be given priority everywhere nowadays; even in our workplace. And so, the decision to beat the scorching summer has to be taken in this way.

I read that, it hit 36 Degree Celsius on March 16th here in Chennai. They say, it's just a beginning. Let us wait and see, what is in store for this year; waiting to be unleashed.

Another year ends...

It's december. December of 2009. Every time a december comes through, I feel like the year is getting over faster; faster than the last one. Lol, I am getting off the topic. So, what have i got for december... Well, its just how we plan the 31st of Decmeber 2009.

December 2008 was celebrated in Pondy, as i have already mentioned in one of my previous post. This time, the vigour wasn't there with the boys out with me for a drive. I'd say, they were tired of seeing Pondy. Some felt like, it was tiresome to ride bikes till Pondy. I never felt so. Maybe that, I loved that road so much :).

We have decided finally to do the bash here in Chennai itself. The venue will be VGP Universal Kingdom. The tickets are booked. Entry fee for a person is 1000Rs. I am just thinking about the ways in which you can make easy money. Well, the 'outlook' has changed. People have money. :P. Pity it. I can tell what VGP offers for 1000Rs. A beach clearance fenced with some bamboo poles. A sub-standard(my version) music 'extravaganza' to chill up(that's what they say) your spine. Burgers or Hot dogs worth 150Rs a piece and so on. Money flows in for people now. What other ways other than these are there for the same to move out? And so, it goes.

So, You would be wondering why the heck i would care and write all these here. Generation. The change is all around you. You got to move with it. Ain't we? Else, you will be left behind. So, here I go.

Jai P(ho)ndy...

It was when Sandeep showed us the Ad about Rahman's concertin Chennai, we decided to buckle up for a bike trip.

The concert was a part of inaugration of Marg's upcoming township MARG Swarnabhoomi. The place was located around 75 kms from Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai. Well, the program was on a Sunday; October 11th, 2009.

The blood in us said, go go.. go for road trip. As always, Puducherry has left us more than a reason to go towards her in a bike; always. Scenic ECR adds a thousand reasons to it.

We set off to Pondy on Oct 10th, 2009. The trip was a good one. The climate was good and three bikes didn't hiccup anytime during the trip. We had some pit stops to try Sandeep's EOS 400D Rebel XTi . Previous pondy trips have taught us enough lessons. We have pre-booked rooms in a hotel there. On Sunday, we had some sight seeing in Pondy. Some more testing with the Camera. We had to start closely after noon to catch up some seat for the mega show in Swarnabhoomi. So, we started.

Spread of 600+ acres, the swarnabhoomi indeed was ready to seat hell of a crowd. The crowd, as we expected was already pouring in when we hit the place at around 5pm. The program was sheduled at 7.30pm!. The concert started at around 8.15pm. Concert was blessed with singers like Rahman, Chitra, Sadhna, Sonu, Hariharan, Blaaze, Tanvi, Benny, Neeti and lots. Performances from Rashid Ali and Sivamani were welcomed by the crowd wih cheers. Overall, the stuff was there. It was good. We enjoyed.

The only thing that was bad about it was this. The arragement was poor. We paid 500 Rs and we set around 500m away from the stage. We could see ticketless stupidos cracking the chairs off their way to move towards the stage. Ah. pity them; we thought. How far can they get to.. Well, that is a different story. All i wanted to stress was this.. For such a mega show, they should have put some money alteast to value the money people have spent to 'see' ARR/ 'enjoy' the concert. Afterall, when i thought over it, it seemed difficult to control such large a crowd in that big an area. Lets say, we got away with that. I think we left after 12.30am.. I don't remember the time exactly. But, i know, we all enjoyed.

For me, I saw a live concert. First one in my life. So, that trip was Jai P(ho)ndy! ;)