A fun family get together at The Farm

I have heard from my parents that vacation to them meant getting together with cousins in our hometown and catching up with them from where they left during the previous vacation ..

Their favorite hang outs where the back yard, the never ending gard
ens, bullock cart rides and movies ..

It was one of those unusual fun filled days, when three generations got together at a farm and enjoying a day out with lots of chatting, food, fun and a bullock cart ride.

We don't usually get to have this kind of fun, with everyone busy with their own lives and when most of us are at different parts of the world. But, this kind of a get together only showed that it was all possible with everyone enthusiastically planning to meet up and people suggesting interesting places to have fun in a different way.

It was about noon when around 20 of us met up at The farm, a restaurant (hang out) along the OMR .. after a bit of walking around the place and catching up with each other we settled down for lunch. The seating they had for lunch was quite different, it is not in many places we see cots around the place we dine, but what better way to ease after a good meal on a weekend :) :)


The food was good, I specially loved the Gulab jamun they served .. It was totally yumm !! After lunch, we went on a bullock cart ride around the place. It was my first ride on a bullock cart, like it was for most of my cousins and the whole bunch of us had a lovely time :) :)

Two of my uncles also tried their hand at riding the bullock cart and with the others making the ride a lot more livelier with their comments and actions.
It was a totally fun filled experience :)




And I believe it is only a start for much more fun filled get together s to follow :D

The weekend I would remember forever - Celebrating the festival of hearts

The theme for the weekend was Celebrating the festival of hearts - Two beautiful days, two wonderful occasions !

The first one on July 9 was my parents 25th wedding anniversary, after a quick visit to the temple in the morning, it was lunch with family and friends which was supposed to be a surprise planned for them which never happened to be one at the end .. My dad saw me entering the hotel in which the plan was made, couple of days before their anniversary and sensed some planning happening .. ! Spl. thanks to my wonderful friends who showered me with ideas ..




On Sunday (July 10th) was my best friend Nishi's wedding, for almost a year now I have been talking to every other person about her upcoming wedding .. I am so glad she is married to the love of her life and such beautiful couple they make *touch wood*

I still remember the first time I met her in school when she came to India, she eventually happened to be my neighbour as well .. that was the start to all the beautiful memories to follow in school and beyond. We were class mates for just a year in school but that didn't stop us from catching up with each other ..




We ve been friends from secondary school to high school to college to adulthood and continue to be so as well ..
Ten years had gone by so fast making me feel completely nostalgic in her wedding. Getting up early in the morning is a task by itself and getting ready to attend a wedding is yet another, but I was jus so eager to not miss going for her wedding especially to especially see her getting married and it so happened that the minute I entered the marriage hall I saw in the big screen Vetri tying the thali to Nishi, this couldn't have got any better :) :)

Congrats and many anniversary wishes to the two couples who gave me a super eventful weekend :) :)

Weddings .. Eating out and more ..

The last couple of weeks had been busy attending weddings .. Eating out ( with family, colleagues, friends) during different occasions, visiting relatives .. A short trip to my native .. Meeting up with cousins, whom I haven't met in more than two decades ..

Lots to share with very little energy .. Will take time to kick back to regular blogging .. Also catch up on my food tales at Shalini's Food tales.

Mango Mania

Come summer and its time for mangoes to adorn the shelves at home and market. My favourite of the lot has always been "pathuri" , a variety that is specially available only at my native place Mayiladuthurai which has invariably made us trip to my native every summer for the last few years.


I love dining at home during mango season, for the variety of dishes my grand mom makes from mangoes .. mangai pachadi, manga thokku, Mango sambar, Raw Mango, Mango pickle , Manga sadham(mango rice) .. my favourite of them is mango pachadi and mango thokku .. sweet sour and tangy !

Whats your favourite dish made of Mango ??

Weekend fun with family

Pictures speak more than words .. :)

Fun with Family :)

My home which seems so very quite now (considering the fact everyone is sleeping) is soon gonna be filled with talking, playing and all other stuff that happens when relatives get to gether and more so when you have a six year old at home. This makes me think how mischievously cute my cousin was when she was here couple of years ago .. Welcome back Nithila, chitappa and chithi :) :)

A day off during the middle of the week makes the entire week a lot more enjoyable, so was it this week with the republic day being celebrated on Jan 26 (Wednesday). Thou' it was a holiday usually it is my weekends and holidays that are packed with more activities than the working days in a week.

Like every other republic day, I accompanied my mom to her office for the flag hoisting ceremony. I wonder for how many years I have been doing this, but I have still not grown out of celebrating the day this way. More so, because I usually look forward to the cultural performances by school kids and end up getting nostalgic thinking about my performances as a part of my school dance group in the very place almost a decade ago.

I spent the later part of my day with family .. Made a short visit to Express Avenue mall and eventually every time I enter this space I end up bumping into some one whom I know, looks like the entire city is here .. but only until we visited the trade fair in Chennai .. the entire parking space in Island ground was full and so was the complete road stretch on either side of the venue.

Finally, decided to go to Bessi beach - bumped into a junior from college - after a bit of walking around the beach and doing a bit of people watching we finally settled to munch on some sundal, the beach delicacy and later some bajji, adai and kuzhi paniyaram from a newly opened chetinnad restaurant along the shore.

At the end of the day, all that I wanted say was Chennai is growing !!!! Phew ! to a level that every place in the city is crowded ..

As the count down began to 2011

Welcoming a new year has always been an extravagant celebration throughout the world and plans are made well in advance to ring in the new year in style ... I for one did not have much plans for the new year's eve and finally my friend D and me decided to attend the new year bash at friend M's place ..

By then there were plans made at home .. We decided to go to the beach to ring in the new year with fellows Chennaiets. After getting back from friend M's place which is just opposite my home, by around 11pm mom, dad, grandma and I headed towards Marina beach ..

As we drove half the distance we were pretty happy about the smooth flowing traffic, when we were about a few meters away from the beach, the traffic was diverted and from then on it was bumper to bumper traffic for the next half hour, however the new year spirit was seen in every person waiting in the traffic jam and the mood was jus' so contagious .. driving across a couple of more streets that would lead to the beach only to find them all blocked, we eventually landed in front of the Santhome Cathedral when the clock struck 00:00 - 1/1/11. What a holy start to the year :) ..



How did you ring in your new year ??

My Graduation

It was a very important day for me in my life - 21 November 2010. My Graduation day in college. I woke up unusually early by around 5:30 am and got ready to start from home by 6:45 am to head to college with my parents.

I would have traveled in that road nearly hundreds of times or may be even thousands in the last five years, but this time it all seemed so new. There are numerous memories of having traveled in the GST road in the last few years .. sometimes with the excitement of having a good time in college, tensed moments during the placement season .. journeys when I have just slept in the college bus .. great times with friends in bus chatting , playing a game or two, teasing .. eating ...

There have been times during exams when I have not taken even a moment to look out of the bus window while I was studying on my way to college (It was studying the few hours before exams that has helped me largely), I have traveled this road early in the morning once for the house warming ceremony of our home and it was in this road I had my first long drive when I learnt to drive a car 2 years ago.

However, this time it was so different, I had a sense of contentment and a feeling of having accomplished something that I wanted to quit mid way, a course of study I thought I just did not belong to during my initial years in college. But, I am jus so glad now that it all turned out to happen in a good way with the guidance and support of my parents, friends and God - that I have finally graduated an engineer with first class :) :)

On a more simple note - After hours of traveling(which includes in train, bus, auto, share auto et all) , hundreds of movies later, with a good amount of money spent on the course and an almost equal amount spent on the food courts in our college, learning 70 academic subjects and hundreds of other non - academic subjects , 100s of tests/ exams and a lot many re-tests later, meeting hundreds of people, being in a numerous situation and experiencing a plethora of emotions later ------ I am proudly a graduate of life .

This place - SRM University gave me friends who would be around for years to come, it made me realize what I am, it thought me lessons that no courses would have, it gave me experience and memories that I would cherish a life time through ...







I love my alma matter and all the people who have enriched my last five years by just being a part of this wonderful journey :)

Sweets, crackers fun and more ...

Diwali mood set in almost a week before the actual Deepavali day, when we had a pre diwali celebration in my flats with all of them getting together with lots of food, music, dance, fireworks and more ... This was the time I actually got to see many of my neighbours whom I haven't seen for months together ..

The Diwali celebration was later followed by distributions of sweets to family and friends - meaning we had to go sweet shopping a day or two and this had to happen a few days well before Diwali else you don't get anything except may be some mysore pak and laddu such was the demand for it in Chennai..

I along with mom and dad went sweet shopping at 11 pm around three to four days before Diwali to find sweet shops buzzling with activity and thankfully we also purchased crackers a few days in advance to avoid disappointment. The last year we went cracker shopping the day before Diwali to sadly find anything at all in racks.

The day before Diwali also happened to be my mom's bday and I gifted her a watch of her choice.. and my parents gave me a new Nokia E5 and I am in total love with it(review about it on a later post).

My Diwali day started on a slow pace.. After getting ready for the day had some delicious breakfast of melusu Dosai with onion and ginger chutney along with coconut chutney . This happens to be a Diwlai special item and I love it :) followed by lighting of some crackers and then off to distribute sweets to my friends and also had friends and relatives visiting home..

Evening couple of my friends came home and we bursted crackers for a while, just when we finished bursting our load of crackers I felt slight drizzles, which within few minutes turned to be a heavy down pour..

My weekend turned out to be fun as well..On Saturday evening, I had a lovely long walk around Anna nagar with friends and discovered a new place called The Soup and Salad Cafe which I am toally in love with. Great place and good food :). During this lovely long walk I actually came across a whole lot of new places in Anna nagar that I've never come across in my so many years of stay in the very place.

Sunday was lazy and the very thought of the long weekend coming to an end, made me do some useful work to avoid such thoughts hitting my head and evening had a fun time shopping in Express Avenue with parents ..

This long weekend also saw a couple of interesting activities happening in Chennai, one was the Beatles show and the other was the Extra Terrestrial show which more looked to be like a gymnastics/circus type of show I believe which I wanted to go to, but my weekend was already over packed.

Talking about the Beatles show, I remember my colleague at work Shyam who happens to be a die hard fan of the Beatlemania who was in total awe of the show. So, Shyam Adithya you've been mentioned in my blog :)

Two days into the week I am already looking forward to my weekend or rather Friday evening .. Have a happy week and a merrier weekend :)

Frozen Memories ...

I love pictures :) .. I love being in them as much as I love taking them, as for years to come they stand still and let you re live the moments. I loved posing for pics right from the time I was a kid but pics started becoming a part of my everyday life in the last few years from the time I got a camera phone. Digital photography is truly changed one's perception to photography and even more when it came in handy within a mobile phone - phono graphy !!

Pictures speak a million words - With the GBs of pics that I have, I can write a series of story books for years to come, such is the amount of memories each pic brings to me and I am so glad I was able to capture all the moments - happy, sad, funny serious .. all with the super cool cam in my phone :)

Re - living the times..


My first outing with my college friends to Queens land

At the engagement function of my child hood friend ...


View from my hostel window - Sunset above the SRM lake

Festival time with family ...

Heights of joblessness in class .. this is what we did most of the times .. posing for pics



That is the mat they specially made for my parent's wedding with their names in it.. found it when I went to my home in my native place ..

Cheering for Chennai Super Kings during the IPL 2010 at Chepauk stadium...

The day we all got placed - taken in front fo our college auditorium ..

Fun time in GOA ..

And my love for food photography goes with saying .. that now my family and friends know it so well that they cannot lay their hands on any dish without me clicking a pic of it ...

Thanks to the camera in my phone, had it not been for it I wonder if would be able to relive as many moments again :) :)


I made this post to go with the theme Phonography - one of the topics in the
Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone's Share life blogger contest at Indiblogger.

Do please vote for me, if you've enjoyed this post :) Thank you !!

My other posts for this contest are:

My Friends. My Life. My Phone

The features I wish my smart phone had :)

My TEDxChennai weekend ..

My weekend that went by was so different from my usual ones. My friday started with the excitement of me happening to be one of the official bloggers for TEDxChennai. After getting up earlier than usual on a Saturday, made a visit to the new Lakme salon has been started a couple of blocks away from my home.

And at around 11am it was time for me to start to IIT Madras. Once I reached the place, I got so reminded of the beautiful memories I hold of that place.. Shaastra, Saarang,the CCD at IIT - got me reminded of the fun filled times I spent with my friends and family at this place and this time again it turned out to be yet another memory that I would always cherish ..

On reaching the IC&SR auditorium, I went ahead to meet Sandeep who was heading the social media team and in the process got to meet Vignesh, Aarthi, Vivek, Amar, Aska, Vasanth, Sylvian, Grace, Karthik kannan, Varun and so many many more people.. It was close to a three hour workshop starting from 2pm. So, until then it was time for me to get to know the people and it was after a very long time that I was coming across such a diverse group of people, be it the speakers, attendees or the organisers.

I also got to interact with a couple of speakers(more on the speakers front in my later posts), Sunday was at the TEDxChennai event at 8 in the morning and it was right to business from the time I reached there until the event drew to a close.. Was so much fun, loved every bit of what I was doing.. met some amazing people and I am gladly connected to most of them through Facebook as well :)

To add to it was a fun filled dinner with my friend on Saturday. Loved it on the whole :)

My friends. My life. My phone

Ten years ago I would have never in my wildest dream thought that I would own a mobile phone and think about getting another one which meant two mobile phones just for me. Phones have eventually turned out to be a person's best friend. So, who wouldn't like letting the world know about their best friend and they way the friendship bloomed. So, here I am writing about my best friend and our friendship tales as a part of the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone's Share life blogger contest.

The title of my blog post is one of the topics about which I could blog and get nominated to be the winner at the Share life blogger contest being held at Indiblogger. The minute I came across this topic , there was an instant rephrasing of words that happened in my mind which eventually turned to be "My Phone - friend for life", such has been the impact of mobile phones.

The first time I handled a mobile phone was during my 8th grade, when my parents got their mobile phone, three years from then when I entered my higher secondary schooling my parents gifted me one and I was so excited at just the thought of handling it everyday. But sadly I happened to be using a post paid connection back then (8 years ago) and messages were chargeable in post paid those days and the thought of the mobile bill having arrived used to send out a chill in my spine as my mobile bill was always a four digit number.

To save my self from all these I switched to a prepaid number when I entered college and text messages (SMS) turned out to be free which meant more forwards being sent across the network. Eight years have passed from the time I got my first phone and I happened to use 7 different phones until now, but I still have that special feeling for my first mobile phone which I have still safely have it with me.

With mobile phone came a lot of fun factor and factors which meant more than just fun

• With text messaging came a whole new way in which the world communicated. There used to be days when I got hundreds of forwards and in the initial days I was so thrilled I made a note of them all - jokes, friendship quotes, inspirational messages...

• games in mobile phones grew to be more than snake and bounce.

• It turned out to be an easier way to connect with family and friends. Hadn't it been for mobile phones and social networking I doubt if I would friends with half the number of people I connect with today.

• Some of the best pictures of fun times were captured with my phone camera, making me wonder if I at all I would have ever took so many pics in my life hadn't it been for the cam in my phone.
  

• The music from my phone along with the FM in it gave me company during my long journey to college and my evening walks.
  

• Now things have only gotten better with gprs that I stay connected online via phone all the time that I am awake .. which means more blog posts.. more tweets and feel so handicapped without internet and my phone.
  

• It also contributed to the eco friendliness of the society - no more phone books, no more buying of planners or calenders, no more of bits in exam.. I've seen people taking a pic of a diagram in the phone and using it for exams...
  

• There have been numerous times when my mobile phone has been my torch through darkness. To know the date and time I reach out to my phone .. my phone sends me reminders for all the birthdays and anniversaries .. it just know all that i want and gives it to me at the right time when i need them. Truly a friend indeed.
  

That is the way I got to know and have been living with my phone. I eat, sleep, work, play, dance, blog all with my mobile phone. The first thing my hand reaches out to when I get up in the morning is my phone and the last thing I do in the night before hitting the bed is to set the alarm in my phone. I am so glad to being part of the generation in which mobile phone was introduced and is being extensively used at this rate and more..

My friend has really changed the way things work in my life all for my good, it was slow and gradual but has had a lasting impact. I am sure there would be a lot more positive impacts with mobile phones getting smarter and that I am yet to own one of smarter versions.


If you like my post, please vote for me at Indiblogger. You can click on the promote this post button to vote for me. Thank you :)

Some people Some moments # 5

My whole of last week went on pretty well .. Apart from work, I along with my friend 'D' got to meet my childhood friend 'N' and her fiance (she recently got engaged and I am super happy for her) . Though it was a short meet, it turned out to be a very memorable one(is just an understatement) for all of us and we decided on doing it more often.

Couple of days ago we also had a family friend home, he was my grand dad's friend from college and has ever since been closely associated with everyone at home as well. We dined out one evening at Eden post which continued a long chat at home touching various topics ranging from the Common wealth games that is few days away from its start, to the bad traffic rules, to wondering if the older generation was happy then or are the youngsters at present more happy to movies and family and everything inbetween ..

For sometime know I have been comfortably numb in my own confines and I know its time I start getting in touch with people. As a first step I have started going online on FB chat which I usually don't .. and to my surprise I would have chatted with some 10 odd friends in the last two days and getting to know what they are upto these days is yet another interesting part .. one of my friend from school - Hemanth is acting in movies .. Now I am really looking forward to its release :)

I have already scheduled a huge list of people to get in touch with in the coming days and gladly looking forward to it, thou' I know in most cases would first be a series of scoldings for vanishing away all these days ..

Have a great week ahead !!

IPL fever

With the semi finals on and jus' an hour to go with for the match between Chennai super kings and Deccan chargers .. this evening is gonna be one helluva time especially with a bunch of DC supporters and a huge group of CSKians , I'm truly gonna enjoy the evening.

This is one combination of teams that is so look forwarded to by my group of friends and we die hard Chennai supporters have already been wearing our CSK t- shirts almost 2 times already ..
This is how we viewed last CSK vs DC match.





IPL season 3 has totally redefined the way I see cricket.. this time over we also planned to watch the CSK vs KKR match at the M.S. Chidambaram stadium at Chepauk.. Wohoo! what an electrifying atmosphere .. it was total fun as the next day happened to be friend D's bday as well.


For a change this time over I'm planning to watch the match at home :p , with loads of pending project work and coz its starting late evening .. jus hoping CSK meets Mumbai Indians in finals and goes to win the trophy for IPL season 3.

Chennai Chennai Super kings !!!

Holidays - Part 2

Well, I jus' remember writing about my holidy eve before I could full fledgedly get into the holidaying mood. Vacation and weekends are keeping me more occupied than the usual times.

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for the votes, support and encouragement that all you guys showered me with when my travelogue was nominated among the top 12 in the country by Indibloggies. I'm so glad to say its been ranked second :) Thank you all :)

This time over it wasn't a complete vacation either since I had an exam coming up once in every 10 days or so, so couldn' plan on a trip too but I jus' wish we get to go on one soon, else I will run out of topic to write in my travelogue.But, it was fun in its own ways.

This time over it was truly a vacation in one aspect. I don' remember getting up before 11 am in the morning except may be for a couple of days when I had to travel to far off distances to my exam centre and my folks were cooperative as well by not trying to wake me up early :)

I'm already in the near end of my holidays. Though my college officially re opens on the 4th of Jan , our classes for placement training have already started and has been going on from the beginning of this week. Apart from that 3 birthday parties + 7 movies + innumerable eating out times + a couple of family get togethers + 2 wedding + some preperation of my test = MY HOLIDAYS.

In the eve of my holidays we celebrated Richa's bday , a couple of hours before she could board into the train. It was a fun evening with all the friends out for dinner at Kabul.

The next morning or rather afternoon when I woke up I jus' realised I was late and had to rush and get ready for a bday lunch treat at Mainland China.

The highlights of my vacation were the family get together we had with my uncle, aunt and cousins , a day along the ECR , the Fun times with friends and the silver jubilee reunion for my mum's batch (CEG) which I attended as well.

P.S. Will come up with a detail post on all these :)

The holiday mood is setting in ..

With jus one more exam to go and that too a not so tough one I'm already into the holiday mood. Last evening was out with my parents for dinner. After hunting all over Khader Nawaz Khan road for the newly opened Chinese restaurant "White Pepper" which we eventually couldn' find , we settled in for New Yorkers (this is one of my favourite place in the city for its sizzlers). But their Pizzas are a huge let down.

This morning I was in a conversation with my friend D talking about the Oh! so many new eat outs I came across in Khader Nawaz Khan road and there we go again making plans on where to go and what to eat.. This vacation will also see a lot of my relatives flying down to Chennai and this is gonna increase the fun quotient for my vacation :)

The week that went by

Looks like it was jus' Sunday yesterday and a week has already gone by. I havent been having a proper internet connection in my hostel, but still im not all that bored.

Apart from college work I have recently joined an institute for CAT(Admission test to get into one of those elite B-schools in India) training, so that takes up few hours of my weekend. There is also the placement preperations thats happening in a separate track. To spice it all up I have been given the job of taking interviews to be put up in my Department's website in college. For once life is on a serious track and I'm loving it all. I'm sure I would not be able to enjoy this process so much f it wasn't for my parents and friends. I feel really blessed to have all nice people around me :)

The first day of my weekend has already gone by, had my first CAT preperation class. It was indeed very interesting. Waiting for tomorrow , to catch up with my uncle, aunt and two cute cousins whom I haven't seen in the last 5 or 6 years.

And how can I forget friendship day.. So, yea lots of things up my sleeve. I jus' hope I ll be able to pull them up well. Catch you all up in my friendship day post.Have a great weekend! :)