When I almost got stuck in Chennai Floods.....

Chennai nai nai nai nai…..

During the first week of December 2015, I had been to Chennai for an official assignment. As most of you know, during this time, the city was completely flooded with rain water, with continuous rainfall over the entire week. Here’s a blog having my experience on how I and my colleagues were stuck up there and how we managed to come out of the flooded Chennai.

I, along with my colleague and my manager, went to Chennai on Monday, the 30^th of November by flight. Coincidently, this was my first travel by flight and was a bit excited too. We reached the Bengaluru International Airport and our flight took off. We reached Chennai Airport by 8:30PM and it had already started raining at that time. Before we left from namma Bengaluru, the HRs from our company were doubtful for sending us to this place, due to the unforeseen weather forecasts and cyclones that was affecting the city of Chennai from quite some time, but still managed to book tickets and make us travel there.

On reaching the Chennai airport, another HR from Hyderabad was supposed to join us. She had reached much before us and was waiting for us at the Baggage belt of the Airport. All 4 of us got into a cab, which we managed to find with great difficulty even though there were prepaid taxi counters at the Airport. After waiting for more than 40 minutes, our cab arrived and we reached our hotel by 10:40PM. There was huge traffic piled up on the way to hotel, which took so long to check-in to our hotel. We had dinner at the same hotel – a somewhat good-to-hear food called “Midnight Biriyani”. It was quite good and we headed back to our rooms. The rooms were neat and clean and looked exactly like my hostel rooms of Infosys Mysuru, my first company where I had done my training.

Tuesday morning, the 1^st of December, we had our breakfast and left for our official work. It was a recruitment drive and we started to the University. All along the road, we could see only rainfall and traffic jams. There was water everywhere and the area near the college was getting filled with water. We wondered how the students will arrive in such a bad weather condition. However, we were quite glad that few students had taken pain and reached the campus on time. The cab charged us a whopping 1000 rupees which was a huge amount for just 10kms !!

We completed our work and were about to leave the university. Two students there helped us to get two auto-rickshaws, since there were no cabs available due to the heavy rainfall which had already pouring since morning. It was continuously raining non-stop since morning and was only getting heavier. None of the mobile apps like Ola/Meru had cabs available and hence, we had to take autos to reach back our hotel. The auto guys rode very carefully since there was water all over the roads – atleast more than 1.5 feet.

We got freshened up at the hotel and were praying that there shouldn’t be any flight delays – we didn’t want to get stuck up there in that weather condition. We also got confirmation from the flight customer service that our flights are scheduled on time. Problems started from the moment we checked-out from the hotel. Our flight was scheduled at 9:30PM and we started from the hotel by 6PM. Unfortunately, there were no cabs available again and the hotel guys also failed to get a cab for us to the Airport. As per their suggestion, we decided to take the metro train and proceeded to take the nearest metro station. None of us had umbrellas or jackets to cover ourselves. We went to the metro station getting drenched all over. The roads were already flooded with 2-feet water and our shoes got wet. After a 10-minute walk, we purchased umbrellas from the nearby shop and headed to the metro station to avoid further getting wet. My manager and I were “enjoying” a different experience altogether. Somehow we all reached the Metro station and reached the Alandur station. From there, there was no train and we had to take a cab to the Airport. After struggling for almost half an hour, we got a cab that again charged 1000 rupees for just 4 kms !!

On the way to the Airport, we realized why the cabs were charging such a huge amount. There was around 4-feet water all over the road. Many vehicles were struggling to go on the roads and we could see many 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers that had broken down in the middle of the roads. There were policemen standing all along the roads in the middle, where huge potholes had got created. They were really helping hard for vehicles and people to cross the roads safely. Almost 4-5 policemen were present in every stretch of 100 meters. I really felt bad for them seeing them in such a condition, that too when it was heavily raining and muddy water was flowing around them in full flow. At last, we reached the Chennai Airport and checked-in.

Fortunately or unfortunately, our flight got delayed by an hour. We felt good that we could have our dinner, since we were really hungry that time. By the time we finished our dinner, we got a message that our flights had been delayed by another hour. The flight that was scheduled for departure at 9:30PM was now to depart at 11:45PM. After waiting for almost 2 hours, we got an announcement from the Airport authorities that all flights for that day had got cancelled and we had to reschedule our flight for the next day.

To be continued....

Infosys maatra sErbEDi….!!!

Infosys maatra sErbEDi….!!!

(huh ?!!??!)

Recently, I was travelling in a bus with one of my friend. We were going to Majestic Bus Stand for some work. We were seated in the last seat of the bus and were chit-chatting about all of the topics we found to speak.  An elderly man in his 40’s was seated in the window seat next to us. This person happened to hear what we were speaking and started conversation with us.

I found something interesting in this conversation and thought of sharing it here. Our conversation went as below :

Man : en maaDkonDideera neevu? odtaa ideera?

We : odid ella aytu. eega kelsak hOgta idivi.

Even though we have 4+ yrs of experience in the IT industry, we didn’t want to reveal all of those details to him. We just behaved like as if we had just come out from college and just joined some job. (We look like that too ;) still young you know :P)

Man : oh en odideera? elli kelsa maaDtirOdu?

We : engineering maaDidivi. ille ello ond chikka company nalli kelsa maaDtivi.

Man : oh IT nalli ideera anni. hEgide IT?

We : hoon houdu IT nalli idivi. Parvagilla naDita ide.

Man : naavella aa kaaldalli odlilla. eegella odidre ne.

We : hmmmm (adikke?? naav en maaDbEku??!!?)

Man : eshT baratte nimge sambaLa?

(Why the hell he’s asking that? Why people start asking salaries? That too strangers !@??!@ Anyways just starting bluffing to him.)

We : eno baratte ondashTu. ond hanneraD-hadinaidu saavira baratte.

Man : eshT varshdinda hOgtirOdu kelsakke?

We : eegashTe college mugitu. ond naalak tingLinda hOgtidivi. 

(We didn’t want to reveal any ‘real’ thing to that person you know. Why should we tell all details to a stranger ?! Better be safe.)

Man : Oooh… bari naalak tingLu aagide sEri, hadinaidu saavira koDtaara sambaLa nimge???  :-O

(Should have seen his expression, as if something big had happened. He continued.)

Man : hadinaidu saavira tumba jasti aaytu alwa? eno ondu enTo-hatto saavira koTre saaku nimgella.

(Who the hell is he??)

We : hmmm… eno koDta idaare. kelsa nu haage maaDskotaare.

Man : aduu sari anni. houdu, yaav yaav company ge sErkobahudu? nam kaDE obru BCA maaDtidaare.

(yaav yaav company ge nu? ondu salakke ondE company sErOk aagodu !!?!!)

We : yaavdadru sErkobahudu. freshers ge ella onde. particular aagi bEku andre Infosysu, TCSu, Wipro antaha kaDe sErkobahudu.

(Now starts the real interesting discussion !!)

Man : enuuu?? Infosys aah?? ayyo saar, alli hOglebardu. neevu ashTe, alli sErokke maatra hOgbEDi. ellig sEridru, Infosys maatra sErbEDi….!!!

I was stunned when he told like this about Infosys. I was an Infoscion for 3.5 years and it is really a great place to work with (though for few of the minus points which every company has.) Though I didn’t want to have conversation with strangers, I just wanted to know the reason behind him telling this statement. So, continued the conversation with him.

Me : yaake saar haag hELteera? eshTu doDDa company adu.

Man : ayyo chennagilla saar aa company. tumba mOsa maaDtaare. yavag bEko avaaga kelasa dinda tegedbiDtaare !!

(What the hell ?! I have never seen Infosys firing its employees without having a very strong reason. Even during recession, they don’t fire unlike other companies do.)

Me : yavaag bEko aaga tegedbiDtaara? :-o

Man : Hoon saar. kayyige ond aivattu saavirano, aravattu saavirano koTTu, hOgi manege anta kaLsbiDtaare.

Me : yaar saar heLid nimge? avru haagella maaDalvalla. (still continuing the conversation)

Man : yaar en hELodu saar. namge gottu ella. nam kaDe obLu huDgige haage maaDid avru. sErkonDu ond aaru tingLu kooDa aagirlilla. paapa maneg kaLsbiTru. yaak sErskobEkittu haag maaDodaadre?

(Now I came to know the real reason behind him telling like that.)

Me : oh haagaa vishaya? aaru tingLalle kaLsirtaare andre adu avru koDo training nalli aa huDugi sariyaagi marks tegdiralla. sumsumne haagella tagiyalla aa company navru. nam friendsella idaaralla alli, gottu namge.

(I still didn’t reveal to him that I am an ex-Infoscion :D )

Man : oh howda saar… namgen gottu saar haagella ide anta. avru hange hELidru namge. naavu ade nija andkonDvi. So, haagadre sumsumne kelsdinda tegiyalla Infosys navru?

Me : hoon tegiyalla.

Man : neev heLidde correctu saar .

(so soon these people believe everything the other people say, whoever they are !)

Man : aa huDugi obba poojaari magaLu. avLappa dEvasthaanadinda dinaa prasaada taroru. adna tindu tindu chennag dappa aagidLu avLu. sakkattagi nidde bEre maaDtidLu. bahushaha, neev heLdange training nalli kooDa nidde maaDtidLu ansatte. adke chennag odilla. adke maneg hogamma anta kaLsbiTTavre.

(Wow !! What a logic this person is telling ??!!!@@? Should bang our head @@!!?><><)

We : hehehehe irabahudu saar.

By now, we were laughing among ourselves and thinking how funny this person’s thinking is. Anyways, by then we had reached our stop. Without speaking another word, we just went away from his sight.

Generally speaking, people have lot of misconceptions about every matter which they do not know about entirely. In this case, this person was a layman about the IT industry and just believed what other persons said to him. Another misconception that he had was about the girl whom he was speaking about.

The confidence level he showed in him, when he told me not to join Infosys, was what made me to think this is something interesting and should write in my blog. You can share your thoughts on this :-)

Infosys BLRDC

Different Situations in Life ?? !!

Different Situations in Life ?? !!

Scene-1

It is 12 past midnight and you wake up by hearing the sound of water flow. You realize that the water sound is coming from the overhead tank on your terrace. You wake up and rush to your terrace to check if you can quickly fix and close the water overflow as you are very keen and concerned on saving water. Saving water, that too fresh drinking water is a major concern for you. You can see that the tank is overflowing due to a faulty water pipe. By now, you are already aware as to how much water will get wasted if you hadn't observed this and left unattended till morning. As you are examining your tank at 12.30AM, you see that the overflow is due to a broken water pipe, which was left unobserved. You aren't an expert or a plumber to replace the pipe, that too during this time at midnight. You check for the wall tap but don't find any. You are not able to control the overflow of water. Suddenly you realize that there is a main water tap at the ground floor through which you can stop the flow. You rush to ground floor, only to realize that someone had broken the handle and the screws of the tap had worn out. The option of closing the tap from there was also ruled out. You try to figure out if there is any other option left, but don't find any. You go back to your bed and sleep, with still hearing the noise of water overflow. The thoughts of fresh drinking water going waste till morning for almost 8-10 hours are only there in your mind. You are now like a silent spectator who cannot do anything even if you want to!!

Scene-2

When you are in college, you start loving someone so much that no other girl looks beautiful to you other than her. You start speaking to her thus beginning your friendship. You wait for the perfect time to express your love towards her. You wait patiently for such a long time to express your love and finally tell your feelings, only to know that she is already engaged to someone else. It is only then that she gets to know how much you have loved her all these years. You express to her that you need her as your life partner, but unable to change her mind, even though she also felt the same. You become so much attached to her that you cannot imagine a life without her. Its’ almost a decade since you are in love with her. You are not able to stop her from getting married to someone else, even on attempting to change her mind and dedicating all your time waiting for her. You just remember her and cry silently whenever you see a couple around you, or whenever you watch a duet song on the TV, or when you see a guy-girl pair around you. You become a silent spectator who cannot do anything to make her as your life partner, even though you needed her and loved her the most than anybody else.

Scene-3

You are on your way home from office in the late evening. You are walking through a lonely place and hear a crying sound. You get curious and go to see the person who seems to be crying for help. At once, you become dumbstruck by seeing him. He is one of your old friends who had lost contact with you several years back. You had tried to search for his contact but in vain. Now you got to see him, but in such a painful situation. Somebody had hit his bike and his arm broken. You see lot of blood rushing out of his body and immediately take him to nearby hospital. Fortunately, the doctors quickly examine him and give him first aid. Since lot of blood had oozed out from his body, they suggest he needs at-least 2 bottles of blood. Unfortunately, the blood which matched his blood group was in acute shortage and very difficult to get. The doctors tell that they needed the blood within an hour to save his life. Your friend is lying unconscious on the hospital bed. You don't know about his family whereabouts and also their contact numbers.  You contact your other friends and relatives to find out if any of their blood matches with his, but in vain. Doctors there suggest that they might get that blood in a blood bank which is almost 20km from that place, but it would be too late by then. You lose all hope of saving your friend. You stand helpless thinking what you can do to save that friend whom you were searching for all these years. You become a silent spectator to see your friend losing his life right in front of you.

Lot of such incidents would have been happening in your life. You must have faced such painful incidents or may have to face similar incidents in your life. Most of the times, you just become a silent spectator, unable to do anything, being helpless like in the case of closing the leakage in the water tank, or stopping you love getting married to some other person, or saving your best friend from the death bed. Each such situation is a pain to undergo. Some of them may relate to the environment around you, some may relate to your close ones or may relate directly to your life. What do you do in such cases other than being a silent spectator?? Nothing !!

You are such an environment conscious person who cannot tolerate even a single water drop getting wasted. But you had to simply watch litres together of water going waste. Maybe you should have learnt the skill of fixing a water tap...

You loved that girl so much that you considered her as your top priority in life. But you had to simply watch her going away from you marrying some unknown person. Maybe you missed to tell that important something about you, by knowing which she would have definitely stayed back in your life...

Your best friend whom you didn't want to lose was on death bed and you couldn't save him. Maybe you should've atleast gone and checked that blood bank which was 20km away which might have saved his life.

Well… These might be some of the worst things in your life, which neither allow you to live peacefully nor do you die completely. These are all the sad things of every life.

However, there might also be some happy moments or miracles happening around you, even though you stayed like a silent spectator. The tap whose screws had worn out had only had to be tightened, which you did and closed the main tap, thus stopping leakage and saving large amounts of water. The girl whom you loved so much, unable to bear her lonely life and your pain, came back to your life as your life partner within just a year or two after you lost her. The duty doctor who had just entered the hospital, fortunately had the same blood group of your friend, donated blood to him which saved his life and you got him back. Few instances like these show miracles happen, but don’t mean that every person is so lucky to make them happen. Some things aren't in your hands even if you dedicate yourselves for making it happen. If nature wants something to happen, it gives full support from all sides to make things happen. Some things happen early and some late. As there is a saying - "Better Late than Never", if things are destined to happen, it will definitely happen. Indeed, life is a very confusing journey with all good and bad things happening together.

~ namma Sandalwood Queen ge ondu kavithe ~ A Poem to the Gorgeous Sandalwood Queen ~ Actress Ramya ~

Long Long time ago... When we were kids !!

When we were kids !!

It was a lazy Saturday morning and as usual I got up late, after lots of shouting I got from my mom. By the time I had my breakfast it was already 12 in the noon. As I was about to leave for bath, my mom gave me 2 chapatis to put it on the terrace, for the crows to eat. As I went upstairs to the terrace, I remembered that I hadn’t washed my sports shoes from a long time. So, I decided to finish this pending task as well before taking bath. As I was filling water in the bucket (saving water you know :-) ) to wash my shoes, I just leaned over the compound wall behind my terrace and saw some kids playing there. It was burning hot there on the terrace, as the sun was directly above my head. But those kids didn’t seem to notice this, or, they were busy playing with lot of concentration. I got curious and just kept watching them, as the water got filled into the bucket. They were playing the “Teacher Game”.

I’m sure that most of you must have been a part of this game during your childhood days, including me :-). There were 3-4 kids playing the Teacher game. One of them who looked like the eldest among them was the “Teacher”. He was standing with a cane stick in one hand and a chalk piece in the other. Two other kids were seated on the floor with a note book in their hands. The “Teacher” was shouting at them by making some actions with the stick and writing something on the “board”. Oh, I forgot to mention about the “board” here. There was a huge iron box kept on the terrace of their home. It seemed like an old cupboard. The children had made one of the cupboard sides as their “board” of their class. Yes, that was a mini classroom I can say :-). The “Teacher” was writing and shouting and the other 2 children were busy writing down whatever he said.

During one of the 'Teacher Game'

I started washing my shoes now, in the burning sun, remembering those days when I used to play such games with my cousins, who are my childhood friends as well :-). We were about 8 cousins, among whom I was the eldest. Two of them, eldest among the remaining group, along with me were the 3 teachers of our “Class” in the “Teacher Game” that we played. Two of them didn’t play any games and were only crying for some or the other reasons. So they didn’t participate in our game most of the times. The only remaining were our 3 “Students”, who promptly sat and wrote down whatever “lessons” we thought them in the “Class”. I loved Mathematics and so I was the Maths “Teacher”. Among the remaining “Teachers”, one of them was a General Science “Teacher” and other was the Social Science “Teacher”. We had only 3 subjects in our “school”. This game we usually played in my grandmother’s house, where all of us used to gather during any holidays. My mom and my aunt, along with my grandparents and other people were busy chit-chatting about various stuffs of life (as we do now :-\) in the ground floor of their house. Our groups of kids went to the 1^st floor and usually played there. We had bought a mini black board, just for this game itself and hanged it to the wall (by removing one of the God’s photo frame hehe :D). Each of our class was for 10 minutes, after which the “bell” rang. The “bell” for our “school” was a trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr sound made by the “Teacher” taking the next period. All 3 “Teachers” used to take one class each and we used to go to our “home”. Yeah, the “Teachers” had a separate “home” and the “students” had a separate “home”. Poor “students”, they used to write down whatever stuff we “taught” in the “class”. During these “classes”, I still remember one instance where I was “fed up” of one of my “student” as he hadn’t done his “homework” and beat him with the stick on his hand. I don’t know if I hit him so hard, but he started crying and left the game. My brother who is like a chaddi-dost to him, also went away leaving the game. Now only one who was left was one student, who also seemed least interested to sit in the “class” alone. So we had to cancel the game :-(

Fun during the good old days

I finished washing my shoes and placed them in one corner for them to dry and came back to see how the “class” was going on behind my house. They were still playing in the scorching sun. Unable to bear the burning sun anymore, I went downstairs to have bath, with all the childhood memories in my mind. It feels so nice to remember those lovely days of childhood. One of the “Teacher” of our game has already a year old kid now, but I still see a “teacher” in her. I wish we were still kids even now to enjoy, without any tensions of life :-).

How many of you have played such games which are still memorable to you even now ? :-)

Women !!

          My friend and I were walking towards a busy main road junction. At the corner of that junction, there is a bus stop. One bus had stopped there. We were on the other side of the road and the door of the bus not viewable to us. I guess the bus had stopped for quite a few minutes, cos there were more than a few vehicles honking behind the bus with traffic being piled up slowly. On seeing through the window of the bus, it didn’t seem like anyone getting into the bus, but still it had stopped there with the driver constantly raising the accelerator of the bus. We crossed the road and walked towards the bus stop, passing through the standing bus. I walked a few steps towards the stop but my friend had stopped behind, near the front door of the bus. I turned behind to see why she stopped and saw that an old man – in his 70’s, was getting down from the bus. He seemed to be so weak that he had a stick in his hand and was struggling near the footboard to get down from the bus. Now I came to know why my friend had stopped there :-)

She held the hand of that old person and helped him to get down from the bus, made him to reach the footpath safely and came to me. It was so kind of her to help that old person.

Now, you may be wondering whats so special in this incident. :-)

There were a few men near the door of the bus from where the old person was getting down. Though they had seen the traffic piling behind the bus, with honking sounds being heard, none were bothered to help the old person to get out of the bus. They were just watching there, doing nothing. But my friend helped that person to get out of the bus by holding her hands with his. She was more caring than the men standing there simply watching.

I don’t say all men are like that. Even some men are more caring than a woman. At the same time, not all women are caring. There are a few who never care about others and are always selfish. But nevertheless, more women are caring compared to men. This incident gave me a nice feeling :-)

This is for a woman – who is a mother, sister, relative or a friend :

Kind is her Nature,

Soft is her Heart . . .

Loving is her Culture,

SHE cares for us a Lot . . .

Pleasant are her memories,

Deep are her thoughts . . .

Compromising is her Habit,

Making others happy is her Life . . .

To have such women with Me,

I am Lucky in my Life . . .