Take 1 - Since schooldays we used to go to kerala by ‘Kanyakumari express’. The place ‘Kanyakumari since then had been in my imagination as one place that I should visit. The idea of it being at the southernmost tip of India and the place where sea is the confluence of Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean have always been a very romantic concept for me.
Take 2 - Last year while planning for December vacations at the last minute I thought why not go to kanyakumari itself. Finally a dream was going to come true. I explored on options to visit while being there, read various travelogues, and caught hold of all the beautiful pictures of the water expanse and was all ready to go for the trip. I had even booked our room at the Kerala State Tourism Board Hotel through a relative.
Take 3 - We landed at the Trivandrum by plane and then after a day’s stay at a relative’s place moved on by bus to Kanyakumari. The first thing that I experienced when I landed there was someone screaming through the loudspeaker. After searching for the source for a long time found that it was a lady traffic policewoman controlling traffic in this very innovative (irritating) way. The best part of it is people are on their heels rather wheels as soon as they hear her calling out the specific reg number of each of these vehicles.
Anyways proceeded to the hotel room which I must say was definitely a good one. It had a view of the river from the balcony so with my spirits restored with the view I was ready to start the sightseeing. So we got to know from the reception that we can go to see the Vivekananda Rock as it closes in the evening. On the way to the place where we can get boats noticed that Kanyakumari was flooded with people primarily because of school holidays and sabarimala season. Anyways after reaching as luck would go that day all boats were banned from getting into the sea due to bad weather. Great!! So started with the only other thing which was easily available - shopping for souveneirs. Luckily for us while we were shopping the dock suddenly opened and as we were close to the ticket counter ran in and got the boat tickets. It was a 10 min ride to Vivekananda Rock and this place I must say is one of the well maintained places in Kanyakumari. This place is said to be the place where Vivekananda sat in Deep meditation. After this back to shore and then hotel. Evening was the time we went to Kanyakumari temple. I have visited temples that are crowded but this was quite a sight especially with the kind of money that they were trying to make at each nook and corner, screaming to buy prasadam and other stuff. The only solace was the goddess herself who with her peaceful looks were enough to bring back peace upon you. By evening I was already bored of Kanyakumari as the only thing I could see everywhere were only people , locals selling their wares and filth next to every place mentioned on travelogues and sites as ‘must see’ . I could feel all the romance of the place from my imagination drying out. After this went to the sunset point and realized in the morning at sunrise that I could get a clearer view from the hotel balcony itself.
The next day was no different. Visited Gandhi Mandapam which has got photographs of his life. The next place was truly amazing(its not) the little bit of clean area that was called beach. There was only place to take one photograph that’s it. And that was the icing on the cake. I had enough of the place. My dream destination of years had become my worst travel experience.
Please Note: This blog is not to hurt sentiments of people who have liked the place.
My experience could also have been because I went there with too much of expectation.
Take 4 - Next in the list of my dream destination is Jaipur and I’am trying to keep my expectations under control.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Baap re baap kamaal hai aap....
In Mythology there is a story based during the time of creation. Brahma the creator was once approached by the king turned Sage Vishwamitra expressing his desire to be given the power to create. Brahma handed over the duty of creation to him. The sage’s first creation was a green/red fleshy fruit which had a very smooth skin and very beautiful to look at. He was very happy with the output and called Brahma to see the new creation; Brahma exclaimed the lack of seed in the fruit which would not allow the fruit to propagate. Sage admitted to his error and fixed the seed outside the fruit. This was the birth of Cashew nut. The second of sage’s creation was an attempt at making a bird. He made one with wings and all and forgot to add legs thinking that the bird would only be airborne. Again after Brahma’s inception he had to add Talons on the bird as the last addition. This was how the Bat was created. After one more attempt he returned the powers back to Brahma.
This I think would have been the first of Office Bloopers that was ever there.
Coming to the office bloopers of today. There is one phenomenon which we use in the professional world extensively which could lead to so many bloopers – Email. There are so many trainings which are customized to teach email etiquette, business communication, client communication etc. However there is no training for being stupid and that’s where my blooper comes to play
Once I was sending a mail out to a friend telling something about a colleague on how irritating she is etc etc and by mistake instead of putting the friend’s name put the colleague’s name in the ‘To’ Field(Duh). Yes I have the patent for doing this. The panic after doing this is unimaginable. I ran to that person’s desk and told her that I wrote a personal note to a friend but accidentally sent to her and thankfully as she was away from her desk and not read it yet allowed me to delete it. Whew!
Lesson learnt from this : Now each time I’am typing a mail I take 5mins on the mail and half an hour ensuring that I have typed the correct email id.
All said it’s really strange how Kalmadi singlehandedly with his string of bloopers was successful in bringing together the entire nation to shame in the eyes of international fraternity. That by far would be the strangest and ardous attempt at doing something wrong in office
This I think would have been the first of Office Bloopers that was ever there.
Coming to the office bloopers of today. There is one phenomenon which we use in the professional world extensively which could lead to so many bloopers – Email. There are so many trainings which are customized to teach email etiquette, business communication, client communication etc. However there is no training for being stupid and that’s where my blooper comes to play
Once I was sending a mail out to a friend telling something about a colleague on how irritating she is etc etc and by mistake instead of putting the friend’s name put the colleague’s name in the ‘To’ Field(Duh). Yes I have the patent for doing this. The panic after doing this is unimaginable. I ran to that person’s desk and told her that I wrote a personal note to a friend but accidentally sent to her and thankfully as she was away from her desk and not read it yet allowed me to delete it. Whew!
Lesson learnt from this : Now each time I’am typing a mail I take 5mins on the mail and half an hour ensuring that I have typed the correct email id.
All said it’s really strange how Kalmadi singlehandedly with his string of bloopers was successful in bringing together the entire nation to shame in the eyes of international fraternity. That by far would be the strangest and ardous attempt at doing something wrong in office
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Road Less Travelled
I sat down with my school going cousin yesterday helping her with one of her vacation assignments which happened to be critical review of ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost. The 2 common reviews for this poem have been one that it represents individualism and the other that it’s ironic. However for me this poem though written in 1916 sounded so relevant in today’s world too.
When I read this the first thing I remembered was the folk tales that I have read when I was young. One common story used to be where 2 brothers are sent out by their father to make their own future and they inevitably reach a cross road and stand there wondering which one to take. One brother usually takes the road which looks lush and green and the other one a road which is full of stones and weeds etc. The end of the story is normally of how the brother who chooses the tougher road though initially goes through a lot of hardship finally emerges the hero and married to a princess.
In the same way, life normally gives us these kinds of choices throughout our life and forces us to make choices and it is the people who chose ‘The road not taken’ who emerge maybe as the proponents of a new stream and maybe emerge as the hero of the times. The common juncture that we associate is the time when we are joining Graduation or professional course where choosing the ones that people have found success in are the ones that we normally end up choosing.
However make your opinion by reading this poem from one of the famous poets of the 16th century.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
When I read this the first thing I remembered was the folk tales that I have read when I was young. One common story used to be where 2 brothers are sent out by their father to make their own future and they inevitably reach a cross road and stand there wondering which one to take. One brother usually takes the road which looks lush and green and the other one a road which is full of stones and weeds etc. The end of the story is normally of how the brother who chooses the tougher road though initially goes through a lot of hardship finally emerges the hero and married to a princess.
In the same way, life normally gives us these kinds of choices throughout our life and forces us to make choices and it is the people who chose ‘The road not taken’ who emerge maybe as the proponents of a new stream and maybe emerge as the hero of the times. The common juncture that we associate is the time when we are joining Graduation or professional course where choosing the ones that people have found success in are the ones that we normally end up choosing.
However make your opinion by reading this poem from one of the famous poets of the 16th century.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Like to Dislike
“Wow. The rain is such a welcome relief but am sure it’s going to be very hot tomorrow”
“My bike gives me 70/ltr mileage; god knows for how long though”
“We are a team that is co operative and highly motivated but I’am sure this is not going to stay for a long time”
“I got an award this month at work maybe they are planning to give me more work”
These are some of the thoughts that run across most of our minds.
So when exactly did we become this pessimistic? Its like we are always waiting for things to go wrong and think its inevitable for things to go right for a long time. To take a recent example is of the Sunday elections where it was proclaimed that there was just 44% turnout. This definitely churned out angry responses from media, blaiming politicians and also facebook updates reprimanding people for not voting. All this I think comes from the basic thought that everyone in the beginning itself had decided that this will not be a success. That’s when I read an interesting article where it clearly points out that this 44% is out of a total which includes people whose names appear multiple times as they were not removed from the list or changed to different location etc(http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1893-bbmp-election-2010-turnout-checked). The interesting part is that here is one person or organization who took the turnout positively and tried drive opinion towards it positively.
Pessimism I think is just becoming the most popular thing to do. It primarily looks like the negativity is the one which makes for interesting conversation. Why else would you see most of the articles or blogs ranting on things which are going wrong. Inspite of my attempt here of bringing out the positivity this blog itself definitely has a pessimist tinge to it.
I can think of the umpteen conversation with my better half where for any decision that we have to take like going on a holiday, buying a gadget or even a simple thing of lazing on a weekend I think how it could be a wrong decision if we think next month, next year or after next 10 years and he being the optimist gets flabbergasted as to why do I think so far for it to go wrong and not enjoy the moment.
Anyways being the pessimist that I’am most of the time am not sure if it is too much to ask that I want to be at peace of mind in all decisions, live each moment as it comes and enjoy each moment to the fullest but I would love to do that and definitely going to make an effort in that direction.
Also being the filmy that I’am this song is ringing in my ears now - Aanewala Pal Jaanewala Hai Ho Sake To Iss Mein Zindagi Bitaado Pal Jo Yeh Jaanewala Hai……..
“My bike gives me 70/ltr mileage; god knows for how long though”
“We are a team that is co operative and highly motivated but I’am sure this is not going to stay for a long time”
“I got an award this month at work maybe they are planning to give me more work”
These are some of the thoughts that run across most of our minds.
So when exactly did we become this pessimistic? Its like we are always waiting for things to go wrong and think its inevitable for things to go right for a long time. To take a recent example is of the Sunday elections where it was proclaimed that there was just 44% turnout. This definitely churned out angry responses from media, blaiming politicians and also facebook updates reprimanding people for not voting. All this I think comes from the basic thought that everyone in the beginning itself had decided that this will not be a success. That’s when I read an interesting article where it clearly points out that this 44% is out of a total which includes people whose names appear multiple times as they were not removed from the list or changed to different location etc(http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1893-bbmp-election-2010-turnout-checked). The interesting part is that here is one person or organization who took the turnout positively and tried drive opinion towards it positively.
Pessimism I think is just becoming the most popular thing to do. It primarily looks like the negativity is the one which makes for interesting conversation. Why else would you see most of the articles or blogs ranting on things which are going wrong. Inspite of my attempt here of bringing out the positivity this blog itself definitely has a pessimist tinge to it.
I can think of the umpteen conversation with my better half where for any decision that we have to take like going on a holiday, buying a gadget or even a simple thing of lazing on a weekend I think how it could be a wrong decision if we think next month, next year or after next 10 years and he being the optimist gets flabbergasted as to why do I think so far for it to go wrong and not enjoy the moment.
Anyways being the pessimist that I’am most of the time am not sure if it is too much to ask that I want to be at peace of mind in all decisions, live each moment as it comes and enjoy each moment to the fullest but I would love to do that and definitely going to make an effort in that direction.
Also being the filmy that I’am this song is ringing in my ears now - Aanewala Pal Jaanewala Hai Ho Sake To Iss Mein Zindagi Bitaado Pal Jo Yeh Jaanewala Hai……..
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