Building walls around you

visu: do you know anything about housing loans?
raja: yeah, they restrict you from spending on anything else for the next 20 years.

Job aspirations

The profiles in many of my friends' and their friends' blogs state this.

kindergarten, city >> school, city >> high school, city >> higher secondary, city >> college, city/village/out of civilization >> company I worked for, city >> CAT >> CAT >> new company I work for, city >> CAT >> CAT...

CAT is what is common in all these profiles. There is also another set of friends and classmates I know - people who prepare for IAS. I am not sure if they maintain blogs like many of the MBA aspirants. But I am sure that they also prepare for higher education. I also know that they are all awfully short of preparation time. Managing work, play, tv, dinners (the ones with girlfriends), drinking parties (those without girlfriends) along with preparing for tests is a very very difficult thing to do. My sympathies and good luck wishes to all of us.

It was on one such difficult to manage Monday mornings that I noticed the security guard at our office solving problems at his desk. He continued to work out as I left for home that day. On close observation for some more days I noticed that the security guard had nothing more to do during work than enter names, in and out timings of visitors. And visitors were few.

It was only then I realised that a security guard job could be the job to be to many of the MBA and IAS aspirants who are desperate for time. More so for the IAS aspirants who quit their jobs for a year or two to devote all their time to prepare for the entrance examinations. The money is less, but is better than not earning anything at all.

So the next time you are in serious thought of quitting your job to prepare for higher education, think about this. Instead of quitting, you might as well ask for a inter-department transfer...

Someday...

Chennai - Rameshwaram - Kanyakumari - Cochin - Goa - Pune - Mumbai - Udaipur - Wagah - Srinagar - Chandigarh - New Delhi - Agra - Kolkata - Puri - Vishakapatnam - Hyderabad - Chennai
~ 7,700 kms

The story of a box full of chocolates

raja: kiran, how did a box full of chocolates end up in our fridge? I am sure you did not buy them.
kiran: humg humg (kiran's usual sheepish muffled grin) (meaning: I did not buy them)
raja: did someone give them to you?
kiran: humg humg (yes)
raja: was it a girl?
kiran: humg humg (yes)
raja: was it a mallu girl?
kiran: humg humg (yes)

Yet another girl. Yet another month of midnight questions.

Hampi

The Tungabadhra dam near Hospet was our next stop. Colli wanted me to make a special mention of the dam in the blog.

The dam is breathtaking. It must be close to 2 kms wide and is the biggest dam in Karnataka. It is one of those places that people don't take notice of until someone like us makes it popular. The campus is very clean and well maintained unlike some of the other dams I have been to. It also houses an amazing park, where light shows are held once in the morning and once in the night everyday. Artificial water bodies, mini bridges across them, flower beds, green lawns, exotic trees, deers in enclosures and a few other animals whose names I can not remember; these ancillary attractions were in themselves good enough for a picnic spot.

Note: You can buy gooseberries at the dam

I have always said that anyone who can survive driving around the Meenakshi Amman Temple at Madurai must be considered to forgo driving license tests. The ride itself is good enough to qualify him/her for an expert driver. The same goes with Hospet. Or, I must say that this is one level higher than that. Cars, bikes, bicycles, men, women, children - they come in all directions at you. There is nothing like driving on the left. You drive where there is space. To reach Hampi, one has to drive through Hospet. And so we had no choice but to drive through it.

One of the perils of meandering where the car takes you is that you are not fully aware of the places you are going to visit. Though you are exuberant at seeing things you have not imagined to see, you are grossly under prepared for the place. At Hampi we were totally lost for time. We had an evening and another morning for Hampi but the place deserved atleast 3 days.

Miles and miles of ruins - that is Hampi. Temples, towers, pathways, ponds, public baths, private baths; its stones everywhere. The entire range of adjoining mountains must have been dug out to build the city and it is a pity to see it all knocked off because of the savage will of a conqueror. Jealousy could be one reason for the rampage - who would imagine such intricacy in artwork and complexity of structural design at such a time. The city is vast and you would only be doing yourself a disservice to try wrap your trip in a day. We did that, but we will definitely look to revisit it again.

Do's

Stay in Hospet and travel to Hampi everyday
Try not to eat at Hampi. If you want to know why, try a meal there
Have loads of space in your memory card
There is a hillock quite close to the ruins. Do an early morning trek. One can have a bird's eye view of the entire city from there.