Home ! Sweet home..

Hi all,

All we people are working now, and its always great to work, as we get paid for it, and we boast we deserve that. Due to advent of IT we all are in high tech cities now, some in Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon , and  of course abroad.. But still home is always home.

Home is where our heart is, though we are far away from home. I am happy for those people who are working in the same place as they grew. But most of the cases like mine are cases where people work in some other place, not in the place where they grew up.

Home is always home, we don’t mind whether there is a high speed broadband service, we don’t mind whether there is malls nearby to pass time, we don’t mind whether we have multiplexes to watch movies, we don’t care whether there are huge residential apartments, we don’t care for anything. My place doesn’t have any of the above, and most you people too will agree to it as ur place too doesn’t have those, but still home is always home.

Neyveli, the place where I grew up is the one I am going to speak about. For all you people unaware of this heaven on earth, it’s in Tamilnadu, near to Pondicherry. I grew up in the township in Neyveli, it’s a nice calm serene life style there, and I love it, and people who grew up there will always agree it. Neyveli doesn’t have multiplexes, township has total 2 theatres, and outside township which is also known as Neyveli has some theaters too, but no multiplexes, no Big Cinemas, no Adlabs, no PVR, no INOX, just a single theater Nidhiratna, which we all love. It’s a well planned township with lots of greenery, free space, inspired from Chandigarh actually.

Neyveli township was constructed by the Government of India for the employees of NLC , Neyveli Lignite Corporation to reside. NLC is one of the biggest power plant in India and it supplies to most of the parts in South India, not just TamilNadu. The main roads of Neyveli dividing each of the blocks are double-laned modern roads, constructed with rubberized top layer. The housing quarters are around 21,000 in number and vary between hostel-type buildings with 6 apartments to individual two-floor single cottage type quarters. Aye, speaking of roads, all my frens who have come to Neyveli , say roads are empty, there is no life, but I always ask them the same thing, if traffic is there we complain of traffic, ( Heck! Am in blore that says it all!! ) if there is no traffic, we say there is no life in it, this is ridiculous, we all live in digital era, and there is always a binary solution , either presence of traffic or no traffic, whichever you want you take it, as simple as that!!!

No other place can guarantee you to make your school friends to be in contact even after years, no other place can give you the feel that you will surely know one out of ten persons you go out of your home.

Neyveli has its own telecommunication wing, which provides intercom facilities to all houses inside township, and its free !! Neyveli can give you uninterrupted power supply, water supply too.

Of all things in earth , you may wonder why I am posting this, the reason is that my dad, got transferred to Tuticorin, which is in TamilNadu. Shifting from Neyveli to tuticorin is a mammoth task, Neyveli is near to Chennai and Pondicherry, while Tuticorin is near to Kanyakumari.

Though I was born in Tirunelveli, I will always tell my home as Neyveli, that’s how it was, and I guess its time to change that, hopefully only for a couple of years , hope my dad gets transferred back soon to Neyveli.

I never realized there are so many wonderful things in Neyveli, as people tell we usually wont realize the importance of something till we have it, I realize them all now. Anytime friends to drop you home from any corner in Neyveli, semester holiday cricket matches, day time carom, first day first show movies(any movie infact!! Not just big hero’s movies ) in Nidhirathna, late night bike rides in the deserted roads, cricket in our streets, breaking the glass windows of the houses, late night chats in Anjaneyar temple ground, and Archana hotel dinner, late night tea shop near central bus stand. There are some really funny things, we will walk 2 kms in night to go to a tea shop in bus stand, as it will be open in night time also, and return again, of all things just a 5rs tea( it was 3rs though when we started this ), was the one which we cherished for.  And the most important thing of all Pondicherry trips in bike and car. These all moments I will cherish forever, thanks to my friends who made those wonderful moments. I will never forget our first car trip to Pondicherry, while coming back l would have brutally killed all my friends by my driving, as I was driving for the first time in night, with specs, we managed to escape, and the walk in the bridge in Pondicherry, that’s not a easy cake walk, we had no support to walk, as we walked below the bridge and not over it, and that too for a guy  like me who don’t know swimming is like battle between life and death, when water below you is more than 20 feet deep.

The golden jubilee park, which is very near to my house, will always be remembered for our meetings, we all meet there to plan something important as we call it, and we will always be remembered as the persons who made the admin people to do a lot of changes, first week it was opened, I went with my neighbors, who are 3 to 4 yrs senior to me, and they played football and broke the light bulbs there, so in order to stop us from playin ther, they kept chairs inbetween and thereby reducing the free space, so that it will not give a big space to play..

The yearly book fair, the pani puri stall, the soup shop in main bazaar, pondicherry beach were our hang out places, which continued from our school time, and will continue to do so in future too. Though am moving out of Neyveli, I promise you my friends, whenever all you people assemble in Neyveli, I will surely come, cos there is always Abi, Gautham , Arun to pick me up :D

Bye til nex,

Looking back...Part 3..hostel unfolds..

Hi all ,
It was a happy 1 month for us,as we had got a seat in courses we wanted,and we continued to celebrate it wit regular movies ,we had seen all movies released till date,and whatever movie released it,we all will go together telling probably the last in Neyveli as a whole..So finally the day had come to pack off to college,and it was in July 17,2006 I think , it was the original announced date for induction,but they later postponed it to 19th  July.So we started per original plan, we went to college on 17th , and we signed all the declarations and stuffs, and opened a bank account in a bank called 'Dhanalakshmi bank' which even my parents had never heard of before. The scenic beauty of the place will convince anyone to like the college,full of green lawns,nice tree shade everywhere we walk around,and of course the Western Ghat , which looks so good in early morning, with nice cloud patterns near it,and the campus was very big and neat.

So we proceeded to our hostel, new hostel opened for our batch , and it was very neat,and I was happy with that ,as everyone in my place told me hostel will be very bad,especially gents hostel will be the worst of the whole lot.

Me and my parents, met our hostel warden, which I will never forget, for giving a single key and a small coffee cup,he had spoken with us for 45 mins,by the end of which I thought I should never see him again for anything serious , as he has spoken for 45 mins with no issue in hand,nor any particular topic..
I went to my alloted room B-13, and my frnd Giri got alloted as B-14. Since I had went 2 days early to college, hostel was almost deserted,except for other state students,who had no other go than to report,as they cant change plans all of a sudden like the people nearby. So there was B-14 nex to mine,where there was a hindi guy, who was reading some technical book when we met him, it was the first shock of my life. My first lesson learnt for the day , never imagine college to the college portrayed in movies. Nex to my room,B-12, two andhra guys were there,they had kept the room hyper-clean , and had all the idols of God in a table,dedicated to the idols alone. Me and my parents spoke with them, and it was a nice conversation, I stammered a lot to speak in English, as I hardly spoke English in my school. For the first time in my life, I felt I should hav followed what our principal had said,he had adviced everyone to speak in English in school,and even fined students speaking in regional language,but we never minded that. Then I saw the people in my room,in the name list stuck in hostel, First name was Krishna Kumar, i thought okay fine,atleast someone from the same state, then Surendar, i thought probably from south,but may be from North also, then it was Ranjith Thilakan, I thought he would definitely be a Tamilian. Then the day passed by, all my room-mates had turned up,and my next lesson was ready, Ranjith Thilakan was from Bombay,and I had learnt never assume anything.. My frnd Giri in B-14,Porupu Anand in B-15, and Aswin and Pampu Anand in B-16, Sandeep in the opposite corridor to ours, YK in B-19.

Krishna alias Kitty and Suru was school mates so they knew each other well before. I remember the first question which Kitty asked me after introducing ourselves, " Whats your total, whats ur cutoff ..Are u hard working..Why  u lost marks in board exam..."blah blah..I was happy to meet Netta, as I remembered him very well, wherever he moves,he ll alwas be a marked man, due to his height, he was room-mate of my frnd YK. Morning bathroom queue took me by surprise, it was 6 am in the morning, some prayer song was chanting in the speakers in my next room,as well as the corridor, and all the bathrooms had 2 buckets outside waiting in queue, while some guys got dressed up by 6 am itself.. I thought hostel is going to make me like a military man , with strict timings in everything..We all were searching bathrooms in all wings of the hostel,and was happy to see all my frens waiting,thats how our social networking began to increase,speaking wit others durin the waiting time.. If bathroom queue looked like queue for a new hero movie queue, mess queue looked like a Rajinikant movie First Day First show queue,all dressed up in neat formals(as the collg rules meant strict NO to jean ,and we wer freshers,had a lot of fear to break it the first day itself..), a queue which was like connecting 2 ends of the hostel..after waiting for a lot of time, the mess guy dropped in my plate 2 idli's which looked like it will make the eversilver plate bend..huh ! After all those, we had a session explaining Amrita's prayer song's meaning, which was the first session which all of us had after a long 3 month holiday,so everybody had a nice little nap,then a guy I don know whom introduced us to credits , which we didn understand anything at that point of time, I felt like I was in the wrong place,after hearing all those..Then they read the names and their corresponding batches, I heard my name being called in Cse-A batch, and once again after sometime I heard my name told in Cse-B batch also, so again confusion for me..I went to Cse-A and sat with my roommates Kitty and Suru, and as usual, we were introducing among ourselves, while I was in deep confusion about my class, finally I clarified it, they read the name Sivaraj wrongly as Sivaram, and Sivaraj was in Cse-A and Sivaram in Cse-B,so I bid farewell to cse-a and joined Cse-b and sat with Sandeep, he was busy chatting with all Keralites ( u can assume the gender, to whom he was chatting ),and I was stammering in my butler English to speak with them, so I decided to shift my location the next day, and sat in the end column of the class,far from girls,and in the extreme corner of the class,looked like the best place,as all fellow tamilians were sitting, and soon tamil seemed to be the best language in the world, as I could speak freely..
The whole day , we had just discussed the session on prayer, and the credit system, both of which nobody understood,everybody narrating their own versions of the stories.Then in the evening all parents left, and then began our hostel life, first time staying away from home, in a hostel,with a lot of guys around, is a nice feel , somefeel homesick and cry,some enjoy the feel from the moment one, some fear it,but I since , I had a lot of school friends with me, was just the normal, and all my school mates will come to CSE floor in hostel, as most of my school mates were in CSE,that too in adjacent rooms,so B-13 soon became the common room..So gradually our circle of friends grew up, Porupu Anand and myself will share desk , and next to us will be Deepak Narayan and Arun , and Harikrishna alias Hari who was sitting in first desk for the first week full,came and joined the club back benchers,the extreme end of the class. Arun and Hari will chat about all the cartoons in the world, from DragonballZ to Powerpuff girls,they liked all the dry cartoon shows,and soon started exchanging DVDs of cartoon network's episode,as Arun was a day scholar,and he would download them all in his PC in home,and circulate to hostel.
If Arun was a cartoon network maniac, deepak Narayan was a movie maniac, again a dayscholar,so will go to all language movies, though he knows only tamil and english.. Bhuvanesh , a EIE student , is my saviour in Engineering Drawing Lab,where leave drawing with Drafter, I don know even to attach it to the drawing board,and use it properly,used to complete his drawings quickly,and then exchange places and he will draw it for me too.
Rahul, Bala are 2 more people with whom I chat about tamil movies,as they too like me watch a lot of tamil movies, so thats how our friendship developed..
Days progressed, 6 am prayer songs was never heard by anybody, 8 am was the usual time for getting up,and  so we all will skip breakfast,and run to classroom as we have to be there by 830,and Abinash from A-33 shifted his room to B-13,with his bed even,only his empty dress rack was there, as his dresses notes everything was there in B-13 our new common room, and Gautham from A-31 has shifted too B-15 with Porupu and Pravin mapi.. It was first year,so regular checking in room was there,as according to the warden after 9pm , everybody should remain in their own rooms, and there will be an attender with a torch roaming around the hostel corridors to check for any noise inside rooms.. It will be a tough time to escape from his torch's gaze to sneak into other rooms, and just for the fun of risking it , people started to move around the rooms, and soon he had to face a tough time..And since B-13 was common room ,it was more like a dungeon,we hardly swept the floors,but never minded the dirty floors,will just put our beds down in the mat,and sleep,everyday Abi will sleep in our room, and he and Aplus were never considered to be from EEE,but alwas as CSE ..

                                         A typical use of id card by Amrita Engineer.

Most surprising character was Mr.DeenaDayalan, who was in B-12 with the Andhra guys, a sincere guy,who had a option of getting into PSG Tech , one of the top rated college in TamilNadu , had to join Amrita,as his father said , Amrita will make him a disciplined man than what PSG does. The decission whom everybody will laugh at, as comparing Amrita and PSG is like comparing Sachin and Piyush Chawla. Deena was immediately famous in CSE cos, he already had a girl friend , and used to chat wit her all night, and still had enough time to chat with all other people in class , as well as in hostel, and the most important, put scene as if he is the sincere'st person in the whole department , and it will look like he has a split personality disorder, having one personality inside class, and the other normal Deena outside class.

Our celebrations,exams,funny fights,chats,gossip awaits...

Related posts : Part 1 , School Part 2 , The beginning

Looking back ...How I landed up in Amrita..

Hi all,
Continuing from  my final days in school  , it was a great experience during our entrance exam preparation, we were in Chennai , till date , I don know why and how I made such a decision , as in to go to Chennai to prepare for entrance exam , as if there is no coaching center for entrance in my place, the sad part is only after I went there I realized no-way you can crack an entrance exam with 1 month of coaching in fast-track as they say it, the funny part is our full gang was there ..Myself , Gautham , Karthi , Arun , Abi , and some more too !! Woah ! Those terrific days, each day will move, with our resolution to study seriously from the next day , as our maths tuition sir , Senthilnathan's , words of terror will always threaten us , about the entrance exam..
 I had my entrance exam in Training Complex, my frnd Gautham had it out of township , Karthik Abi Arun had it in Jawahar Science college, though our center were far, we used to go together in bikes and cycles, hoping atleas we should get a college in same place,chatting about colleges,and not about the exams which will decide where we will land in..So the results came up, I had scored 1098 2 less than my dream score, 1100 out of 1200 would have been a great achievement for me,but the biggest twist came in my Math paper,where I had scored 190, while I was expecting 200,and sad part is I applied for photocopy of d paper..Tragedy struck me there, I had answered 11 out of 10 questions required , and I had realized I had answered one extra,so I had striked off one , which was not a prove that kinda question,assuming that I would have done all the proofs correctly,but I had made a mistake in a prove that question in first step itself , and it had cost me the 10marks,which played a very big role in my life,and entrance I had managed a pretty decent 81.04 out of 100 ,for which I was very much satisfied with myself.
My frens too were like me , lost in board,but managed well in entrance, and we were applying for all possible colleges in TN wherever we had a better chance , the funniest thing which happened during that time was,we all friend will fill forms together in my house , and our Giri too was there,and he wil ring up to his mom , to ask the spelling of her name !! :D
So we had no other go ,had to go for Amrita ,which took students based on entrance marks alone,as our board marks would have never fetched us a decent one..So Amrita University , had called us for counselling, in batches with the marks in priority, I had it in the morning session of the first day, Gautham,Giri all the same day in subsequent batches..
We took the bus from Neyveli , a govt bus,which looked like it will never reach Coimbatore,and sad part was our college was not in Coimbatore literally,21kms away from the city,and Palakad,a famous place in Kerala,was nearer to our college,than the city..My first journey to Coimbatore,was full of funny incidents.The bus was full with students like me, and parents . My dad alone was coming with me,while almost all had both dad and mom,and their siblings even.First funny incident happened when,conductor was confused as there were more than 2 people for same seats,both the persons having reserved the same seat,and the reason for the confusion,my school mate Mithun,had reserved the ticket for the next day ,and not for that date. So after that issue was settled,we started,the moment we crossed township,it started raining ,and we had to shift seats to find a seat not leaking,and me and my pal gautham were sitting together now,discussing about the rain,we felt that,it was more situational than natural,as we see in movies,when hero moves out of his home or enters a new place where fate awaits him,it would start raining...
So it was 7am in the morning ,we reached Gandhipuram busterminal , I got down from the bus,and first time I had kept my foot in Coimbatore,expecting some kinda feeling as they show in movies,but I was welcomed by a hell lot of dogs barking at all of us (Thankfully not me alone ).. I had to go to a place called Ettimadai,so we enquired and me and my dad,and one more gal and her parents,had boarded bus to Ettimadai,while others had time to refresh,as their session was next to mine,and ours was scheduled 8 am. By the time I reached college it was 815,and I went to the auditorium,tensed a bit,as I was late,and finally I found the name in the sheet which the admin had,and he said the session is about to begin and hence I had a very little time to refresh up,i had just brushed,and we sat in order of the marks,and I could feel my dress giving a stinking smell,due to the rain n my sweat..I was ninth,my one more frnd,Anand,my classmate in 11th and 12th was 8th,and there was one guy who sat next to me with his dad,and was 10th in the ranking.So we were speaking with each other,while me and Anand were determined to take CSE,the other guy was totally out of mind,his dad called up and discussed with a faculty there,so finally he settled for ECE and wrote that and gave in the piece of paper,which they asked us to write and give our preference.Everythng went smooth,while the guy next to me was confused totally,he said ECE,his dad said CSE,when he agreed for CS,his dad said ECE..Anand,was the first one to take CSE ,and he opened the account as all others before took ECE,i being second in CSE,and twist was the guy nex to me settled for CSE !!! To all yo people,who don kno who tat guy is , he is none other than our Netta Gautham,the antenna of our dept ,called so ,for his height,from Trichy !!
My friend Giri too had got CSE,and 2 more people from my own place,whom I had met for d first time,Ajay and Madhu ,they had taken CS like me,and Aswin Raj,my classmate from 7th std again in CS.Mithun had taken IT,and biggest part was Gautham (my classmate ,not the guy from Trichy) again lost his veto power to vote for himself,decided to go with his parents choice,took EEE inspite of having a seat in IT,and his interest lightly being in it,as EEE is known as a terror dept alwas..His previous voting time was in time of group selection in eleventh,where he had managed to shift between comp and bio group a record 4 times,which I think nobody can ever meet,sitting in four different classes in first four weeks of our school
Ashok,my schoolmate again ,took EEE,Abinash too in EEE.Aswin, not-so-close friend that time,was my classmate too,now again in college in CSE..So there we were, in different groups,pondering about our departments and we never knew that time that,we all will form a gang ,which will become famous thru out d collg..
So there we were, my gang of frens in Ney,remained quite unscathed to get admission in Amrita,and my frnd Karthik had taken medicine in Pondicherry,while Arun had opted for a MSc prog in Anna University...

My first day in college awaits...

Bye till nex,

Looking back..Flashback...

Hi all,
  Its been a nice week so far for me, here I am in my nice house,with my friends,happily enjoying the weekend..Nothing we did to enjoy the weekend, just the same.. One of my roomies has went to Chennai, so we three are here,with nothing to do..We got up late in the morning,by the time we got up, it was eleven , then we pressed all the buttons in the remote, if TV had its sixth sense,it would have definitely  had its hard time,figuring out what pattern we see channels,or we change it..
 So I was bored again , and again I felt its time to kill the boredom,so back to blogging,my recent favorite activity to keep myself engaged..I have been reading blogs regularly,of my friends, which most of them are about the college life,and some i am proud to say that I have inspired them to write blogs,while I myself,is not a expert blogger. So after reading all of them, I asked myself why I never wrote anything about my college life,which is responsible for what I am now,after all that it has done to me,I have not even posted one about it,while I have almost posted 15 odd posts now..
 Please do keep in mind that,my memory is a volatile one,and only I have stored somethings in non-volatile memory, and for sure,there will be no continuity in my writings,its not a diary to denote day by day activities,which I wish I had when I was in college. So here my journey begins to my college life..
  It was sometime in 2006 early January, where I was having my school full portions revision exams,and practicals. I had taken Computer Science stream in Eleventh and Twelfth , and tamil as language,while everyone else who was known to my parents told me to take Biology and Sanskrit. It was my parents who gave me the option to choose my own interest,I had taken CS instead of Bio,and tamil instead of Sanskrit,which everybody tells the later is the easiest to score . I had a very basic knowledge of Hindi,(till date too its the same), due to which I thought taking Sanskrit would be a addition burden to me.
 So it was 2006 January,my public exams were near, and I was trying to keep me calm, thank god,my relatives and parents knew that I am no way compared to my sister ,and one of my best friends Nithin,in academics.Nithin and my sis belonged to the same batch(2004),both were considered to be the toppers of the batch,my sis had scored 1163 and that guy Nithin had scored 1169 with 2 centums. And so,everybody knew that I will never get those ,and nobody asked me even to get those. I still remember,the nice small room,in my house,where me and my friend Gautham,used to study,chat,sleep..It's been a long time,since I have known him, it was in 5th standard,when I joined Jawahar school , and from that time,he has always been my close friend, and it was a nice little game,which went dangerous made us best pals. It was lunch break,and we the students of fifth standard,alwas had a nice time playin in the ground as ,that branch of our school had only till fifth standard,and we were the seniors in the school,so the ground was alwas ther for us to play,the other grade students will move out when fifth grade students come to play. And so we were playing,and my friend was shouting at me for some reason,probably for something which I did stupid while playing,and I was running away from him,lookin back repeatedly just to check whether he is chasing me. He hit me with a stone,in my forehead, and there I was bleeding ,as it had opened my forehead a bit, and he realized what had happened,and was afraid that it would be a very serious injury,and so it was, I had a couple of stitches in my forehead that afternoon, and I told my parents ,and teachers that, I fell down,and stone pierced my head,to save him from all unnecessary commotion.  Till date , my parents don know what had happened really ,and it will continue to be so !! ( My parents,will never read my blog he he :) )

 It was Chemistry full portions,and I being weak in it, was having a really tough time reading those naming reactions in organic chemistry,cursing all those names of the people on behalf of whom those reactions where named.. And my friend Gautham too,was having a tough time teaching me those stuffs,and my other friend Nithin, who had come to my home for some vacation from his collg 'College of Engineering',Guindy,the numero one collg in TN, also was teaching me the same like,he had learnt those stuffs jus the day before,while he had learnt it 2 years before..And thats wen I realized ,why he was in CEG.
 And my other school friend,Giridhar Kannan,who took CS and Sanskrit,was in my next class in school,and jus a few mins walk from my house. We used to study together in his house too,while me and Gautham will be having a tough job to memorize stuffs,(as we had hardly memorized stuffs,before that,as we all were students in CBSE board,till tenth,and now in stateboard,which requires a lot of memorizing talents),our Giri,would have a tough job in remembering the spellings !! He used to make a hell lot of spelling mistakes, and he would practice writing just the words which he finds difficult in the book.
 And so it went ,it went on till March,where we wrote our board exams. The funny part in board exams,is all parents will make students more nervous by coming to the school,and make students feel like they gonna face a brutal war,where there will be no mercy shown to all the 16 year lads. My dad, will never mind those,will just carry on his usual work,and he will leave to office,jus wishing me ,and make me feel like its just another exam.And me and my friend Gautham,will go to exams together,while almost all other students will be with their parents till the moment they enter in the exam hall.Somehow we felt ,that we being together is better than,seeing those nervous faces of parents.
And ,after our exams were over both the board and entrance was over,our full gang of frens were back in full action..Abinash, my best pal from 6th grade,was back in Neyveli,from Aathur,where he went to study 11th and 12th in a residential school,and Karthik,Arun too the same case,back to our town,after 2 years of residential schooling.So it was the best time,for we frens to enjoy, our regular movies,cricket in the evening, panipuri chat in the night, chats about the school life,and dreams of college, continued till our results came out...
Those details has to wait for now, will be in my next post...
(PS: Dedicated to my parents,my friends mentioned in the most,Jawahar School ,and some more friends who will come in the future posts too :) )

Bye til nex,