Wayanad....God's own country !!!!!!

"Wayanad Trip" - a dream come true for me. This was one the places I had wished to be in. The spark came in when one of my peer asked me "Why don't we plan a trip ?". The same day we blocked the date Aug 1st and 2nd. Gathering crowd for a trip is a real challenge. With the available members in team, I booked the train tickets immediately as the availability of tickets were around twenty to twenty-five. The next challenge was to arrange stay at Wayanad and I wished I could arrange a tree-top house. The height of craziness started when folks started buying new shoes for trekking in Wayanad. I started browsing various sites and in a day I managed to do a virtual travel to Wayanad through Google Maps.(Thanks to technology!!!). I had sent about fifty mails to various resorts and home stays. The tree-top house was very  expensive and the cheaper one had bad reviews. I was quite upset on it and made my mind to focus on home stay and I got "'thesummervilla" homestay and it had very good reviews. This made me drop a mail to Mr.Pramod, thesummervilla homestay. With multiple mail chains and negotiations, he gave me the best package and I confirmed the stay. He also shared the recent pictures of the rooms and it was good.

 Alas, after succeeding the crowd gathering for the trip, I was happy to bid bye to July and eager to welcome the Awesome August. The train jerk started at 20:15 and I had a quick prayer to have things to go good. Sequence, a game of cards, yes we started playing in train and it went on till midnight. I had a good sleep and when I woke up my mobile battery drained. I was angry on my phone but later I regretted for it. Train stopped at Palghat and I knew all water bottles were empty. So, I bought ten water bottles and pushed it beneath the lower berth. I was lucky to get a mobile charge point near the exit and the train started slowly. The chill breeze of Kerala kissed me and it was greenish all over the way with chirping sounds of birds. The ponds and lakes were clean and tidy, the temples with lamp were glorious with a Midas touch. The one hour journey was a perfect dawn to the trip and the train took an half an hour halt at Shoranur. We reached Kozhikode(formerly know as Calicut) and the traveler was waiting to pick us. The driver Mr.Benny gave a warm welcome and the road trip started with the search of puttu and kadala curry. We had a simple breakfast and we managed to get only Nool Puttu(Idiyappam). With some calories of energy the hips and legs started shaking in the traveler. This is the first time I am with a mixed crowd of Tamil, Telugu and Hindi and was equally divided. The momentum started when we entered the Wayanad district and we had to climb nine hairpin bends. As we climbed the bends, the view was getting better when we reached the Lakkidi view point. The view was great and the place was clean. The selfie disease started at this point and the debut group picture was on cards. Moving on, we reached Pakkot lake and we were behind the schedule. The fluorescent mycorizha on green walls were awesome and could not skip a snap of it.

The Pakkot lake had boating and my best click of the trip was during the boating. The lake was filled with pink flowers and the greenish environment added beauty to the glittering water in the sunshine. We had icecreams with multiple flavours and I decided to go with my favourite Pista. In about 20 mins of travel we reached the summervilla. The rooms were huge in size and guys took the 3BHK home. Opening the screen of the bedroom, the view was cool. Refreshing ourselves, came the delicious lunch. The quantity was more and we decided to eat the rest for dinner with additional chapathis. I was the first to jump in to eat, as I was excited to start to the Kanthapara waterfalls. Reaching the falls, I was disappointed seeing the fence at the bottom and due to heavy flow of water, it was restricted to bath. We had some space on top of the falls and it was allowed to take bath over there. We had a two hours bath and the freshness of the stream as breezy. After a chill bath,we had a sip of tea followed by shopping snacks. It was then followed by campfire, music, dance, cake and finally dinner with cardamom tea. The game of sequence started again and with four rounds of game, the day came to an end.

Grrrrrhhhh..rang the alarm. Without snoozing, I woke up and got ready. The pleasant morning was good and I was busy with taking solo pictures and it went on till everyone was ready. We were provided with Puttu and kadala curry for breakfast. We then checked out from the homestay and our journey started to Edakkal Caves. It was an historic places in Wayanad and we had to climb the rocks to reach the caves at the top. It was a small trek to the top and there were many shops on the way. The caves had engraving of men, women and elephant etc. On getting down from caves, we broke for lunch near Banasura dam. The food there was totally a crap and it killed couple of hours in our trip. It was already four in the evening and we had two options, either Banasura dam or Memutty falls. We choose the later and we were in falls in another fifteen minutes. Benny asked us to come back from falls by sharp five as it would take a two and half hour journey back to Kozhikode. Excited on seeing the falls, we jumped into water. The water in this falls was much colder than Kanthapara falls. Lying on the stream of water from top was like heaven. Everyone felt we could have skipped the lunch and could have been here by afternoon. I was forced to get out of the falls as it was already five past five. Rushing back to traveler, we started by thirty past five and the driver was worried on catching the train at 8:15. He accelerated his level best and he did not use his breaks even in hairpin bends. Finally he managed to climb down the hill by 6:30. With not much traffic, we reached the station by 8:00. Bidding bye to him and with memories of the trip, we entered the station, the train was entering the station. The twelve hour journey back to Chennai started and we wished we could have extended a day in Wayanad....

Flower Show at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore

The flower show at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University had imported flowers all over the country and it was a visual treat for photography aficionado. It is an entertainment to relieve stress as well. Hope you will enjoy the snaps. Post your comments about my collections. . .



















The upcoming snaps are of type Bonzai. . .

Alas, I am into Corporate. . .

I could feel the same pressure how a batsman would feel when he needs to put the ball outside the stands during the last ball of an innings to win a match. Yes, it’s the season of placements in our college. Cognizant was the buzz word round the campus from the mid week of November and the process was scheduled on 17th and 18th of December. The expectations from my relatives and friends were high on me. Instant thoughts about our cool captain Dhoni kept me cool at times. I geared up with my certificate files and laptop on the eve of the placement day. I got a clear idea about the pattern of aptitude questions from my friends and I did not do any specific preparations for Cognizant. One of my friends said that everyone in our college were preparing like mental. This alarmed me but I knew it’s weird to get alarmed at the last minute. I got into a route bus to Gandhipuram bus stand where I boarded a bus to Sathyamangalam and took a seat in the last row of the bus. The climate was pleasing and the cold breeze made me fall asleep for some time. Around five in the evening, I got into the town bus at Sathy where my classmates Rengarajan(Ambi) and Gowrishankar joined me. After our dinner, we had plans to solve some aptitude questions on syllogisms. As we planned, we solved it for an hour and started to gossip till 1am. It was time to bed and I need to get up early in the morning as the registration was at 8:00am at Vedanayagam Auditorium.

On hearing the tune of Airtel music from my mobile, I woke up and disabled the alarm which I had set for 6:15am. I had a small nap for next five minutes. I knew it was getting later, but still it was a pleasure feeling to sleep under blankets in a cold morning. After my bath, I had confusion in selecting the pair of dress to wear on the first day. After a long time I finally decided to wear the lucky blue shirt for the first day. I wore it and my mobile screamed the airtel music again and this time it was a call from Ambi. He asked me to get down the stairs for our breakfast at the hostel mess. I took my certificate files, locked my room and joined Ambi and Gowri. After our breakfast, we moved towards the auditorium. At the registration desk, I signed the attendance list and found my name to be in the thirteenth place in my class based on percentage of marks. On seeing the number thirteen, my thoughts switched towards analysing the unlucky number for a while. When we entered the auditorium, we saw that there was no isolation based on gender in the arrangement of seats. We decided to go to front row and we occupied the fourth row. Some instrumental music was being played. In a short span of time, the dignitaries from Cognizant arrived and the presentation started. There was a break soon after the presentation. Along with my friends TamilArasu and Sundaram, I had a walk near the library. We had a cup of coffee and I was in need of that to keep my brain active. I knew that the next couple of hours will decide my fate. So, some plans started passing like clouds in my mind to crack the test. The strategies of Vishnu from IMS, a guy who trained us on aptitude question for a month last year, strike my mind when I was crossing the Department of ECE. The strategy was about to pick the easy questions at first and finding the answer from the choices given. Since I had written my MAT exams in the month of September, I was a bit confident regarding the management of time. I got back to the auditorium and they distributed an answer sheet in which we were asked to fill up our personal details, marks and skill sets etc. I was aware of the content to be filled in it and felt easy to fill it. First, they gave a question paper containing 25 aptitude questions and the time allocated was 30 minutes. I started picking easier questions and started working out and to my surprise I solved it in about 25 minutes. The great thing which I did was I didn’t hang up in a particular question when I was not able to solve it. When 30 minutes passed, they got back the question paper and I received another question paper on verbal. There were 25 questions to be answered in duration of 20 minutes. I had tough time with it. The moment I answered 10 questions I was in search of time. I shaded the rest of the unanswered questions with alternate options randomly. The final set of question paper contained questions related to attention to details. It was quite easy to solve these kinds of problems. We had our lunch and relaxed for some time and got back to the auditorium. The results were announced around 4pm and my name fell into 5th panel and it was announced that the next round will be a technical and HR round. I was happy that I crossed half of the stream. Ambi, Gowri and I went to cafeteria and refreshed ourselves with some snacks and got back to hostel. Gowri and I touched upon the basics of C and C++ as it is impossible to look up the entire language over a night. We touched upon some fundamentals of database and OOPs concepts. I moved to bed around 1 am. The night was too cold as it was winter and I managed to cover myself under the blanket and kept myself warm.

Once again, I started the day with the tune of Aitrel music and I got ready in a leisure manner as we need to be present in the auditorium by 8:30 am. With my certificate files ready, I wore the light brown striped shirts and dark brown trousers. I had a dilemma of wearing a tie and had it in mind for quite some time. I came to the auditorium and my friends wished me best of luck for the process and I was the last person in my panel. I was sure that I would be interviewed only in the noon. Some were busy wearing the tie and again the dilemma of wearing a tie was creeping in my mind. Alas, I decided not to go for a tie. I was in fifth panel and our panel moved like a tortoise. I had a glimpse on my mark sheet and I was not interested in it. As time passed, we were asked to move to the ECE seminar hall and the student friends who completed the process got back to the seminar hall and they were narrating the questions they faced and Deepak of my class was at his best in clearing doubts in database. The time was around 1pm and I started feeling hungry and still I was not called upon. Around 1:15pm we were asked to move to placement cell and I waited around ten minutes. Four students including me were yet to be interviewed. The entire process of waiting was similar to a scenario at Tirupathi temple where people used to wait in cabin for the worship of deity. I had a sip of water and my watch displayed 1:38pm. I had an eye on my watch every minute and alas I was called at 1:58pm. I wished my interviewer a good noon and after his response he signalled me to take my seat. He got my certificate files and started off with the fundamental question “Tell me about yourself?” When I was describing about me, he had a glance at the various certificates and I was happy that my efforts are being noticed. He started off with fundamental questions in Java and C++. It was quite easy and he asked me to proceed with my project. I started explaining it in detail and he got impressed on my explanation. He staring enquiring about my knowledge in database and I frankly said that I have a basic knowledge of database and nothing more than that. At the end he asked me whether I have any question for him. I asked his experience with Cognizant and how he got into it. He narrated his experiences and finally asked whether I have any choice of preference in work location. I replied him that I would prefer Coimbatore followed by Bengaluru and Chennai. He bid me thank u and so I. I was confident that I would certainly be selected as I knew that I performed well. I had my lunch with my juniors and I got back to my room and started hearing songs from the tamil movie “Paiya”. Around 4pm I entered into the auditorium and when I entered my favourite song from movie Paiya was playing. Then came the awaiting results and M.Sc(Software Engineering) was the last branch to be announced. Many names started flowing and I was delighted on hearing my name. Alas, I felt that we had a full stop for the nonstop lament we had for the past three years about our future.

An Outlook on Sathyamangalam

Being ingress to Mysore, Sathyamangalam is about sixty kilometres from Coimbatore. People pride their place as sandalwood city as it was renowned for late Veerapan and his sandalwood smuggling. To quote on the climate, it is unpleasant round the year. Located on the beds of Kodiveri and Bhavani River, it’s a hot place to live on. Agriculture is the main occupation here and Bannari Amman temple located about fifteen kilometres from Sathy is the main deity preached here. Bhavaneswarar temple is situated near the bridge. Since Sathy is not densely populated, you need not hang around for the vehicles to pass by to go across the roads. Few weeks ago, when I was travelling with my friend on the streets, I found some zebra crossings on the roads and grinned myself imagining the purpose of it. People freak out to the four cinema halls for entertainment. Bannari Amman Institute of technology is a boon to this place and its existence in a rural area crafts awareness of education in this surroundings. Long ago, when I was travelling in a town bus, an uneducated poor man enquired me about various courses available in my college. This gave me confidence that awareness in education has flourished. When you travel in the Athani road you could see two roads diverging. If you pick either of the roads you will reach Bannari Amman Institute of Technology. If you pick the road on your right you will reach Bannari Amman sugar factory followed by Kodiveri dam. The infrastructure can upgrade if rail route is constructed between Coimbatore to Erode via Sathyamangalam. Moreover this rail route can be used as an alternate at times if some problem creeps into existing rail route between Coimbatore and Erode. I wish Sathy to progress as a full-fledged city satisfying the needs of the people as earth revolves round the sun.

Seeing Blue in Greens. . .

It was around ten in the night when we reached Kumily, a small town located at Tamil Nadu – Kerala border. We were five in number and we lodged at Kumily. The next day turned out as a pleasant daybreak and we went to Thekkady which is about four kilometres from Kumily and started with boating at Periyar Lake.

We booked the upper deck tickets and I was ready for the visual treat in the lake. The boat started its travel around seven in the morning. The cold breeze blowing towards me kissed my face and I felt the freshness of it on my face. We had hired a binocular which helped us to have a clear view of the distant mountains. I had imagined a climate in the past and to my surprise, I felt the same over there. My brother also enjoyed the climate and he was busy with his camera shots. At a certain place, I witnessed the shadow of the mountains in the water and the crystal clear image remained for a certain period until a snake bird passed by. Meanwhile, we had a discussion about the conflict that exists between TamilNadu and Kerala regarding Mullai Periyar Dam. We spotted some animals namely bison, monkey, snake bird, tortoise etc. There were some trees in the lake where some birds have made their nest on it. The boat returned back and we got back to our hotel to check out. On having our breakfast in a hotel, we started a 100km journey to Munnar.

The hill road was not so steep and it was covered with lust green on both sides with cardamom plantations. On the way, we had a break off at spice garden. I was not interested in it at first but later I was happy that I did not miss it. A guide accompanied us into the garden and he started explaining us the various plantations they had. He started with cardamom. It was green in color and when I squeezed it I could see the seeds in a greyish black color. He then plucked a grass and rubbed the grass and named it as lemon grass. I got the aroma of amurtanchan balm. He showed various plantations like vanilla tree, sambrani tree, coffee tree, pepper plantations, ginger tree and kurinji flower. I have read in news that kurinji flower blossoms once in twelve years. But I did not ever dream of seeing it. History declares that there are seven mountains over there and in each mountain the flower blossoms at different period of time and we were in the mountain where it has blossomed. Then he guided us towards the banyan tree which seemed to touch the sky. We spotted a small lake where elephants come to satisfy their thirst. Near the lake, a tree house was constructed where the security guards make their stay at nights. They stay over there and if the elephants try destroying the plantations, they use crackers to avert them. We climbed the tree top and had a nice view from it. He showed us the sandalwood tree and it was three years old. He added that it would get the fragrance of sandalwood after seventeen more years. We moved towards the rosewood tree and had a glimpse of it. Alas we made some shopping and started towards Munnar.

On the way to Munnar we visited Periyacanal waterfalls where a song was shoot from a tamil movie named “Kovil”. The water was flowing at high speed and was very chill that froze my legs. On moving to other part of the road, the falls were running beneath the road and it was a spectacular view from that point of the road. As we started from there, the roads were covered with mist. Nothing was visible in the roads, and our driver found it difficult to drive, penetrating the mist. We had an adventurous trip for about four kilometers. We reached Munnar around two in the noon. After booking a cottage at Munnar we spot Hotel Saravana Bhavan for our lunch near Munnar bus stand. Though Munnar is located in Kerala, I could not find any traces of Malayalam there and I did not feel that I am in Kerala. The bazaar street was filled with tea and spices shop. As Munnar is a tourist spot you could find many cottages there. Comparing Munnar with Ooty, I felt Munnar to be more beautiful and clean. The population is sparsely populated here and this could be the reason behind the cleanliness. Our visit to Blossom International Park was in the evening and it was drizzling as we were nearer to the park. Our bad luck, rain ruined our happy moments. It started raining heavily and we were under umbrella. Finally we found it difficult to get back to the entrance. We returned back to the cottage and the day came to an end.

During the crack of dawn, we were ready for the next round of sightseeing. We had Kerala special breakfast namely “aapam” and “kola puttu” as we dint find Idly, vadai, and sambar anywhere. Our travel started towards Mattupatty dam which is around thirteen kilometers from Munnar. On the roads, I saw the sun rays penetrating between the trees and the rays where looking like a beam of light from a torch. I have seen such stuffs in photos but I was overwhelmed on a live watch. Wherever you look upon you will end up in a tea plantation. Tata has taken 99 years of contract for tea plantations and they own a school, where the children of employees working in the estate are educated here. We spent some time in the Mattupatty dam and we moved towards a location called echo point. This spot has some water on the base of a mountain which reflects the sound which is heard as echo. After a travel of fourteen kilometers, we reached top station. It is a point which is above 8500 meters from sea level. Vehicles can’t go there after a certain limit. My brother, driver and myself started walking towards the point leaving my mom, periamma and periappa as they feared of climbing the steep area. We three got down to the point. A guide accompanied us to explain the spots over there. We had a clear glimpse of Kodaikanal mountain from that spot. He spotted a tribal village and showed us a path to Bodinayakanur and to our surprise we received Tamilnadu network in our mobiles at that point. He spotted the area where some scenes of the tamil movie “Pithamagan” was shoot. We climbed back a mountain and reached the place where we parked our vehicle. On returning we went to another dam namely Kundalay dam. My mom and periamma were very busy with their shopping activities. I ordered bread and omelet in a shop and the preparation was very delicious. We entered into a tea estate on the roadside and spent some time with local boys who were playing there. A boy named Santhosh said that he was feeling bored to be in Munnar and said that he liked Coimbatore very much though he visited only once. In return I said him that I liked Munnar and this is my first visit. We asked them about their education and we bid bye to them and went to a flower garden where I got good treat for my camera.

It was time for lunch and we need to check out the cottage before 1pm. So, we got back to cottage and vacated from there. We had our lunch and started back our journey towards Udumalpet. On the way to Udumalpet we saw more than twenty falls and finally we reached Coimbatore.The masterpiece among them was the Lakkam waterfalls. To brief the entire trip, we enjoyed the blue (mountains) and white (waterfalls) in the greens. Alas! It was an awesome trip.

Hurray! I am a Sun Certified Java Programmer

Alas! My dream came true on Valentine Month. Yes, Believe it or not. I am a Sun Certified Programmer now. The story is about how I ruptured the hurdles I faced in this long journey. It all started on the month of June after my birthday celebrations. I did some ground work for about three months on the basics of java till June. While sticking to the basics I felt, “Why the hell are you studying this?” My brother Pradheep kept on asking me whether I started studying. Though I am poor in executing plans, I am a very good planner. But I made up my mind that I should prove that I am a good executor too. As per my plans, I started concentrating on it. I felt the best quality what I possessed was planning. Whenever I come across comments I took it as a challenge to crack it. It all happens when you are unique. As days started running, my grandfather was not feeling well and I took responsibility of taking him to hospital and he underwent an operation. Then I resumed my preparations after some days. My brothe­r encourages me all the time from my childhood. Few of my friends started encouraging me. My roommate Gowrishankar said that he is also preparing for the same exam by his brother’s advice. On hearing this I felt that all brothers in this world would do the same. I was happy that I had a company to study. Moreover whenever I see him with the book, my consciousness alarms me, “Look, he is preparing. What about you?” I accelerated my preparations. I decided to take my exam on 10^th of October. It was an online exam and one of the questions in the exam collapsed me entirely. Most of the questions were hard to answer and I finished the exam hoping that I will clear it. But unfortunately, I scored 48% and I fall short of success. I was totally upset. I don’t know what went wrong in the exam. I made a call to my brother and said the message. He consoled me and asked me to start to my home. When I came out of the test center, I felt lonely and started walking without any strength. I was not sure that whether I crossed the roads with consciousness. The moment I saw my laptop in my home, tears started flowing in my eyes. My mom tried her level best to console me over the phone. But I was not able to digest this breakdown. I got back to college the next morning and I felt guilty to face everyone in my class. Negative thoughts started flowing in my minds. I felt that this October was a black month in my life. After some days, fortunately, I started thinking of proverbs like “Failure is the stepping stone to success”. I gave a break to myself and with full of confidence I started again from the scratch in the month of January. I analyzed myself where I went wrong. I rectified those faults and finally I planned to take the exam on 6^th February. Hoping that this would be my day, I was very confident in answering the questions this time. I completed my exam quickly. The moment I saw my score as 94% my heart was filled with joy uttering these words,

“A person can feel the core of joy and happiness only when he achieves his success after overcoming his hurdles”.

On coming out of the test center I was filled with happiness and this time the roads were looking brighter and I felt like shouting in roads. But behaving like that would be crazy. I shared my victory by making calls to my relatives, friends etc. I can narrate how excited I was through an incident. I typed a message and after pressing send button, I kept the phone on my ears for a dial tone. I started giggling to myself about my excited state. My brother informed me about Sun Tech Days’09, a national wide conference at Hyderabad. I made my mind that I should use this great opportunity by attending it. I felt that this day would be my turning point in my career. Also I did not fail to remember 10^th October because if I had not faced that day I would have not got a better start now.

Alas! I felt the proverb, “Hard work never fails”.

Trip to Hyd - 21st Feb

We got up around 8pm and got ready for an entertaining day. We had our breakfast at a local shop and it was cheap over there. We then got a bus and it was the first time i got into bus at hyd. The bus was to go to Koti. On the way i saw various places like telephone exchange, cricket stadium etc. Once we reached Koti we took an auto to Charminar. The place looked like an Arab country. Most of the people over there were muslims and i found no shops open over there. This area is called as old hyd. Generally shops in and around hyd gets opened around 11am and functions till late nights. This is the trend of people over here. We reached charminar and took some snaps and had a view of mecca masjid from charminar. Then we moved on to mecca masjid. We saw many dove in front of mecca masjid. After exploring these place we changed our platform to other side of hyd. We went to birla mandir and prayed in the temple over there. We had a view of husain sagar lake from birla mandhir. Then we went to a shop and i managed to speak in hindi to the shopkeeper and had some cool drinks. Then we marched towards an another interesting part of the day. It was none other than imax. We booked our tickets for noon show. we had about 2 hours for the movie to start on. Inspite of our busy schedule we spend our time in sight seeing. Then we enjoyed the movie over there. Since it was a weekend imax was filled with youngsters and it was amazing to see such crowd in same place. We had many snacks over there. Also we went to various shops in imax and took snaps over there. We started from there and went to lumbini park and husain sagar lake where the buddha statue was located. We took a ship to reach buddha statue. Then we started for a walk on the streets around the lake. i saw Secretariat, NTR gardens etc and finally we reached EAT Street. We finished our dinner there and got back to our home after an entertaining day.