Hi,

I got back from down south yesterday morning. It was an awsome trip. Only three days but it felt like weeks. I did so many unrelated things in three days that made me feel like a travel show host on NGC.

We had hired a . There were just seven of us and we had a lot of space to stretch our legs. When we started we had absolutely no plan. I think that is the key to successful holidays. We started on 25th night at around 9:30 pm and reached Madurai at 6:30 in the morning. We had a halt for dinner at night. We took National Highway 7 (NH7). The roads are very good. Someone made a comment that only thing separated from these roads and US freeways is an IHOP sign every 10 miles.

Madurai is a temple town situated at the banks of Vaigai river. You have to see once you are in Madurai. You dont have a choice there :) We also saw there. Visit to Gandhi Museum was memorable because of the day we were there. It was 26th January, Indian republic day.

Next morning we left for . It took us 3 hours to reach. This, again, is a temple town. After the visit to the temple, a local fisherman approached up. He said there are coral reefs in the sea where you can do snorkelling. This was a never heard thing for us. But we decided to give it a shot. It was my first time. And it was just amazing. You have to see it to believe it. I am going to add "" into my list of favourite things to do. We also went to Dhanushkodi, the south-eastmost tip of India. We returned to Madurai after that.

Next morning we had planned to go to Kodaikanal, but as we were checking out, someone told us that we should go to a place called . And we decided to do just that. We were there in another three hours. It is a nice place. We took the boat ride . It turned out to be boring in the end. We could see some elephants and deers. From there we went to . We reached there at night when the whole place was in think myst. We checked in in a hotel called "Hotel Sivapriya". Next morning we went for sight seeing. Kodaikanal beats all the hill stations I have been to hands down. Clearly the best place to be if you are looking for a quiet stay at a hill station. We visited Coaker's walk, Pillar rock, Pine forest and some other spots. The lake was covered with myst. We rented cycles and took a ride along the lake shore. It was just beautiful. It is highly recommended.

In the evening we left for Bangalore. It was an 11 hour jeourney and we reached Bangalore yesterday morning.

Just for the completeness, this is the route we took.



Yours Sinerely,
Hi,

I still have some minutes (and miles) to go before I leave. I was just thinking about this blog and its (un)importance. But It is kinda cool to write about the movies and the books I read.

So heres the list of movies that I have seen in last 2 months but have not written about them:

1) Swades
2) Raincoat
3) Ab tumhare hawale watan sathiyo
4) Khamosh paani
5) Incredibles
6) Kisna

And books:

1) One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

I have a lot to write about all these movies and the book. I will do that!

Yours Sinerely,
Hi,

I am going to spend my hard-earned compensatory offs travelling the southern regions of India. I will be gone for next four days (starting from.. er.. right NOW!). Not that I post regularly these days but just in case. I am ready with my camera fully charged and 256 MB MMC. I will shoot anyone, anything and anywhere at sight. Beware.

Yours Sinerely,
Hi,

I came across this 'simple' puzzle :

Write a function which converts a number into an Excel spreadsheet column name.


0 = A
...
25 = Z
26 = AA
...
701 = ZZ
702 = AAA

I tried it and took SOME time to get it right. Interestingly tricky. You give it a try. I will post my solution later sometime.


Yours Sinerely,
Hi,















There are many many more (this blog has more than 1500 visitors by now) and if you analyze the pattern, they seem totally random. The blog lives upto its name. Some Random Thoughts.

Yours Sinerely,
Hi,

If you are planning to go somewhere and you dont know the directions then just use your sense of direction, look at the position of the sun for hints (use North star at night) or ask some drunkard in the gutter for directions. Whatever you do, please do not use .

I found this on some blog. I usually dont link to the things I find on other blogs but this is too good to miss.

Looks like some poor fellow in Norway wanted to go to office. As he was suffering from short-term amnesia, he couldnt remember the directions. He fired the query in "MSN maps and dirctions" and asked for the quickest route.

Someone at MSN was snooping on all this (because he was paid to do that). It was saturday evening and he was pissed. He wanted to make someone's life as miserable as his (maybe he was paid to do that also). He decided to have some fun with the Norwegian stranger. He told him that, to reach his office, he should go to . The todal distance was 1685.9 Miles and Estimated time to reach office was 47 hours, 31 minutes.

Nowegian man had a seizure when he believed what he read. He had a deadline for the evening. Reports from unreliable sources said that MS employee got a promotion.

Yours Sinerely,
Hi,


Just came to know about it. Amrish Puri died at the age of 72. It was a shock to me. I am not very good at writing tributes or something like that but so many of his roles just flashed before my eyes when I read the news that I had to write about it.

First thing that came to my mind was "Mogambo khush hua". He did so many roles but he will always be remembered as super-villian Mogambo. Just like Amjad Khan. I have not seen his arty movies (manthan, nishant etc) but some of his performances that I have seen are simply brilliant. He could handle funny roles with ease. Remember "Muskurahat"? or latest "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi"? On the other hand he was equally good at character roles. Director Priyadarshan really brought out the best in him when he played a police constable in "Gardish" and "Virasat". I am not a film critic (well. not a professional one anyway) but accroding to me he was one of the best actors ever. Harrison Ford once told him "Tum shiva ke vishwasghati ho". Sunny Deol said "Aisa jhatka lagega ke tu jhatakna bhool jayega". Anil Kapoor called him "Thagraaaal". Movies are forgotten but his roles are not.

May his soul rest in peace.

Yours Sinerely,
Hi,

Consider this:

You are this close to give up on blogging. Not because your life is boring and you dont have anything to say but because you realize that you live life to enjoy it and not to write about it. Blogging was one way to amuse you but it doenst do that anymore. You somehow come to hate everything about technology that is not of any use when the nature strikes. But still you remember the times when you start blogging and couldnt stop. You remember the way time flew and how you enjoyed it. You want to re-live that excitement and you come to blogger.com.. once again. And the damn thing is so slow that watching it load is not as exciting as watching a snail climb up on a glass pole. You curse and curse. You keep reloading the page every 5 nanoseconds. Your ego doesnt let you accept defeat to a stupid unimportant good-for-nothing page. And in the end you feel victorious when the page loads. Alexander won the world but defeating the stupid unintelligent man-created technology is much more satisfying. The page loads but you dont have anything to write about. But you want to write something and you start writing. Blog controls you. Blog owns you. You keep mumbling and typing. You KNOW that in the end something good is going to come out of it all. You open up and want to say all those things you thought about when you were away from the blog and wanted to tell someone. All these thoughts are lurking in the slimy gray part at the back of your brain called mind. Now is the time for them. They all try to jump out and be free at once. Thoughts about the recent tsunami are too weak to come out because they have been specially active with all the media constantly hammering them with pictures, videos, news, interviews. Somehow you dont want to write about it. And that makes you feel little guilty for some reason. You console yourself by reminding about the day's salary you donated for the unfortunate one's. Then the thoughts about the recent LONG vacation start to come out. All the things you did with your friends and family and that sort of stuff. But it is too boring to write about. Then you think about the things you did just to keep yourself busy which you think are interesting and you know that some of those who read the blog might find interesting too. You want to write about it. But by that time you are hungry and it is time to go home. You feel good.. now that you have promised yourself to write about those interesting things when you come back tomorrow.

And the blogging goes on!

Yours Sinerely,