Roundup!

Filter coffee. Period. Maybe a dog at your feet too! Home cooked food to that. Well I managed to reach home in a AC car paying 350Rs for 10kms, did some shopping to find out Onions have touched 100Rs per kg(!!!) and to my horror wrote in Tamil after years! Anyways, this blog is not about any of those.

Old Shoes served well!

This blog is my yearly roundup – a decade’s actually! ( has come after I ditched 2 blogs on Airports and Capitalism!) Now, let’s see. There have been just so many highs and lows that you tend to agree with the zero sum game. But if you take memories, highs win hands down! I guess it’s got to do with the people in your life. Chennai, Vellore, Bangalore, Shillong, Trichy, Mumbai – I’ve been lucky (touchwood). As I enter the new decade I will have my hopes high for the rest of my life.

New Shoes for the journey ahead

Cricketing glory is not as memorable when it is listed from a historian’s perspective. The Eden test during my 10^th board exam, the India-Pak WC encounter a day before my physics class XII board, SA’s chase of 400+ that we caught panting after running all the way from Dhaba, India’s T20 glory from my small apartment in Bangalore with friends, CSK win over RCB I saw in Bangalore stadium in IPL 1, Sachin’s 200 in Shillong common room, CSK’s IPL 3 victory in Mumbai while I was a minority supporter in my own group - you see, that makes more sense to me J India is now the number 1 test team and number 2 ODI team! Awesome decade of Indian Cricket.

Of the cities – Bangalore is a close 2nd. I guess it had to do with independence, my own bike and awesome company (pun intended). But nothing beats Chennai. Just to prove a point this is the first time in Chennai I attended Kutchery and all that too proactively J Somehow am at the juncture where I’m trying to connect back to the Chennai in its essence though all these years I’ve taken it for granted.  As a traveller though I loved Chikmagalore, Gokharna, Mangalore, Bikel, Cherapunji, , Mawlyngon, Shillong and Mumbai – all made special by the people I had by my side. As Calvin says nature seems so stupid and boring without a furry friend by your side.

From a class X serious guy from a place that google earth did not show to an IIM guy from a place whose roads still don’t show on google earth the road travelled is pretty much like a road laid by the municipal department – supposedly smooth but full of holes and speed breakers. As I sit across tables with people from different periods of my life (not by any means out), I mirror the changes in/of/with time.

Paddu still speaks with sound effects, Ninja still goes all Gary, Mani still sounds all philosophical and Joe still calls me a posterior cavity. Life is good with the cards I’ve been dealt with. As I said, I’ve been lucky. Never mind the few hic-cups, wrong turns and falls that caught me unaware. Everything has played a part in making me what I am (As my friend once said “Stop blaming them”)

From a glorious time: Life is like a game of cards. You don’t always start with a royal flush. Hence it is natural that you might drop some formative sets or pass on some possible winners. But at the end if you continue on, you are definitely going to end up a winner as you are the only one playing your life.

Happy New Year to All! Entering 2011 with hopes and dreams.