Volvo Escapades

I have been travelling to and from my workplace in the Volvo buses for some time now and have started to enjoy all idiosyncracies such a travel brings about. Some incidents were noteworthy for the sheer cheek involved while others will be remembered for the dosage of humour.

Escapade 1 - Working in the service industry means attending calls at what are termed "not normal" hours. I am not in favour of taking calls while travelling in public transport considering you are with a set of unknown people and I tend to talk too loud ( I have never been able to moderate my tone!). However, after joining a function that is termed sensitive, I am forced to take calls while on my journey back home. I usually keep my inputs to a minimum so that people across how many ever seas do not hear the lovely background noise. During one such instance, I was standing next to the driver and realized that he loved honking and I had to talk during the call! So, what does this woman do? I turned around and begged the driver not to honk for a minute until I finished speaking! If only the driver and I had a camera! As stunned as the driver was with my request, there was the saner me thinking that the woman who spoke to the driver was most definitely an alien. I would have framed the resultant pictures! The driver, however, did accede to my request. He keenly listened to me talk and did not honk until after I completed the call. The very good me smiled and said "Thank You"! The driver said "Welcome Madam" and honked!

Escapade 2 - Reel life meets real life. On what was just another day in my life, the bus I was travelling in was at the Jayadeva Hospital traffic signal waiting for the light to go green. I was on another one of those calls albeit a mute participant this time around. The scene that kept me in splits for the rest of the night - I glance out of the window, guy is walking on the road instead of the footpath, he misses colliding with an auto, makes a goofy face at the auto driver and turns to see if someone was looking. When he realized that he had an audience in me, he smiled and I burst out laughing. A moment later I realized that I was in a bus, a cellphone held against my ear for 15 minutes, not talking at all, laughing out loud at an unknown person on the street and that unknown person kept looking back to check whether I was still laughing. What a scene it must have been to an onlooker!

Aadhavan - A Review

I am probably the pall-bearer for what are called "masala" movies. These are movies that contain the word superlative in each frame. Every scene is dramatic and as far as possible from reality. I like a return on my investments, especially from the movies I watch. ROI here means a hero who can defy death, a heroine who is a synonym for a damsel in distress, 5 songs ( I do not mind Himesh Reshammiya at all), an over the top comedian, a nasty looking villain and a happy ending. I do not like movies that are supposed to make you think (no offence to those who make them and those who vouch by them). They are just not me. If I wanted to think, I would never go to a movie theatre. If you see movie reviews on this blog, they are always going to be of those films that get half a star out of five in the papers and of the sort defined in this paragraph.

Aadhavan is most definitely a pot boiler with all necessary ingredients along with Vadivelu. I mention Vadivelu here because, with this movie, I actually started liking the guy. He is probably the saving grace in an otherwise boring film. Aadhavan (Suriya) is a man who kills for money. He works for his father (Sayaji Shinde) whose sole ambition in life is to settle overseas. Aadhavan is known to be a killer who never misses his target. But miss he does. Stunned by his first failure, he takes it upon himself to complete the task of killing a magistrate (Murali). The magistrate has a truckload of family members who travel with him wherever he is posted. Aadhavan enters the family as Vadivelu's to be brother-in-law and thus starts the whole game of will he or will he not kill the magistrate. Does he succeed? If he does not, why? See the film to find out.

Highs - Vadivelu and only Vadivelu

Lows - Superimposing Suriya's face on a kid, the songs, the climax and the villain

Should you watch it? See it for Vadivelu if not anything else. He is wonderful to watch before the interval. You would have atleast laughed your eyes out!

Go-karting at Patel's Inn

So, this was going on since months - the planning to have a team outing. The problem was that there were too many constraints - only half-a-day allowed, only Rs.350 per head (yeah yeah, you read it right), twenty-three people's conflicting meetings and releases, twenty-three different opinions and a totally frustrated organising group (which includes me!).

A friend had suggested this place, for the food and the go-karting. And after immense planning and postponing, we finally went there this afternoon. We opted for the lunch + go-karting package - Rs.350 + tax per head, 6 laps each. One look at the go-karting area, which is smaller than the playground at my school and has rows of tyres arranged to mark the 'tracks', and I thought that this would be the most embarrassing event in my life! I had suggested that we visit this place! And I was already getting sarcastic comments and questions!

We right away proceeded to have lunch and that depressed me more. A below average seating and serving arrangement awaited us. The menu of dishes that we were promised (while reserving) were all present, and luckily the food turned out to be decent.

During lunch itself we girls were eyeing the 'park' near the lunch area, and as soon as we were done, we were all over the swings and see-saw and slide and the other 'things' that one usually finds in a children's park. I guess nothing, not even an ordinary looking park, can deter a bunch of crazy girls from having fun! :) The guys just preferred to watch us and wonder what happened to their otherwise passable-as-sane colleagues!

By now we were all enthused like little kids and off we went to the go-karting area. I inaugurated :) by starting first along with another guy. My!! Was I mistaken! It was real fun! Getting to control the little kart - the accelerator, brake and steering - was tough at first. The engine got switched off thrice because I wasn't accelerating properly. And as the others joined in, around four at a time, there was enough cheering, booing, hitting into the trees or tyres, zooming like Schumi, crawling like turtles.....

A few of us thirsted for more and paid extra (Rs.120) and drove another 6 laps! You don't find a person like ME do that often, but yeah, today I was all out in the open!

Apart from go-karting, there was a swimming pool and supposedly some other games, which we couldn't use because it wasn't included in our package. Patel's Inn is in R.T. Nagar, next to White House flats. I was told that there are other better go-karting places. But as a first-timer, I enjoyed myself very well!

Just returned a few minutes back. And wanted to post this experience, before my procrastination gets the better of me! Snaps will follow soon.

Lepakshi - The Saturday that finally happened!

Rehashing a one day weekend trip to Lepakshi was meant to be our first post. So, here goes...

What
A quaint little village, Lepakshi is important historically and archaeologically for shrines dedicated to Vishnu, Veerabhadra and Shiva in the same sanctuary. The temple boasts of architecture unique to the artisans of Vijayanagara.

Where
120kms from Bengaluru and 15kms from Hindupur, one can get to Lepakshi using the Hyderabad highway NH7.

How
Buses ply frequently between Bengaluru and Hindupur. Reaching your destination from there is not arduous as the locations are well connected by local buses. This is the most economic mode of travel for those who do not own a four wheeler or have the tenacity to ride a two wheeler. Renting a cab (without splitting costs) is for those who do not know what to do with their money.

Why
To exalt in architectural brilliance, to see a wide repository of sublime mural paintings, to wonder at the biggest monolithic Nandi and, mainly because, you can!

One can also cover Vidhurashwatha, while travelling back home. The below picture talks about what you can expect to see.