Vacation and Back

It's been quite sometime and bang... am back after a blissful week. The much needed vacation came my way and i literally had a chance to forget the stinking codomania for sometime. And it turned out to be an 'unforgettable 9 days' back home. The annual family tour was the highlight of the agenda. A four day trip to yercaud really helped me re-experience some fun and frolic. A reunion with cousins after a disastrously long time..not to say the least.

Friday, 29th May
12:15 PM - A high priority issue on my name is unsolved and needless to say, they expect me to fix it before i leave in exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes.

12:45 PM - Lunch time and still no development. Fretting around not knowing what to do. Boss comes down to say i would not be required to fix it, instead finish the pre vacation duties like time sheets and keep the task list neat and clean. What a respite!!!!!

1:15 PM - Last minute mails and other formalities underway, hunger strikes!!!!

1:30 PM - An express lunch- a frankie and a fruit bowl, for i have to catch the aero express to the areodrome at 2:30 (Hyderabad airport is close to an hour's drive from any part of the city)

2:30 PM - Just in time for the shuttle to the airport. Tensions levels coming down. Mind starts drifting to chennai and the trip to yercaud

6:00 PM - After a 2 hour long text-mania, the ceasefire on a personal war which lasted for more than a week comes to an end. Respite again.

7:00 PM - Home Sweet Home...Paruppu satham, Vatha kozhambu, Urla kazhangu roast, melagu rasam, appalam, thair sadham, oorga!!!! Mom at her best

10:00 PM - Mind is totally out of office and out of Hyderabad.

After a tense countdown, i finally got to board the train for an eventful summer vacation with the usual gang of 25. Cousins, Uncle, Aunty, Grand Parents to catch up with.... All wishes and congratualtions for having got an offer letter last week amidst the recession rods.

Mountain Top, Fresh Air, Ilayaraja music on the mall roads, Bajji kadai, Evening walk, Late night phone calls, Chat(Oor Vambu) sessions, Dumb charades, Tandoori dinner, 5 Star Lunch....The trip was great but for the sporadic incursions from a thousand miles away (U know what i mean, corporate world!!!!)

Back to chennai for a couple of more days to catch up with friends, Tea shop excursions, road side pani poori, Radio one with Suchi, Delicious food, Saturday evening Sun TV Movie, Relatives home, Weekend shopping, T20 World Cup cricket,Afternoon naps, 4 PM Novel with chai...it was all great till sunday night.

Monday morning Flight to hyderabad was a new experience, for i saw ( and travelled in) the smallest aircraft that i ve seen till date. A 30 odd seater with no head space, leg space et al.. Kingfisher Logo on the boarding pass and an Air Deccan Logo on the flight. A sad one and half hour journey..complicated by the discussions with one of the dumbest co passengers encountered ever. Reached home at 10 am and had to rush for a seminar at 10:30 am.
Work was waiting, Inbox was overflowing and boss was ready with the next iteration of codomania assignments.

I am back to WORK...Tougher assignments, no national holidays till august, Deadlines tighetened, Saturday workdays for the next few weeks,The Software Engineer is back with a bang......Sigh!!!!!!!

P.S. : Vacation pics coming up on the next post.

P.P.S : I Apologize for the use of a bunch of vernacular phrases and words here and there in the post. Unavoidable.

Season Two- Unveiled

There has been a lot of talking about IPL Season II moving to South Africa making way for a safe and secure Election process. The debate and discussion about the shift in venue is well over now. Questions about the eccentricity and the enthusiasm for this second edition of the tournament have been coming through. Now that the season 2 has got off to a start, it is time to find out what has changed and what has not from the inaugural edition of the tournament. The start did make a success story. The newspaper headlines had the catchy slogans. But is the cricket fan satisfied? What does he feel about watching all this from a distance?

For a start, i would like to analyze how big a fan i am of this highly spoken about version of the game. This shorter version has always been interesting. The fervour and passion was sure to come right from the inception of this form of the game. Season 1 was really interesting. The teams did not manage to accrue passionate fanatics supporting them die hard. The cricket lovers were more enthused by the very nature of this form of the game and did not resort to wildfire regional supporting tendencies. I was one of the kind too. I did manage to cross my fingers for Chennai Super Kings sporadically during the first edition and i would owe that gesture to the feeling of local support being a long time dweller of the city. But as the build up for season 2 started, the passion increased. I wanted to own a yellow jersey to support the team through season II. I decided that i would watch a few games at the stadium too. Those hopes were dented by the decision to move the tournament overseas. With so much homework from my side done, i geared up for the inaugural match. But at last i ironically managed to miss the match in view of my last minute plans to go to Bangalore. I learned about the results late in the night though.

Fellow supporters told about the loss to Mumbai Indians on the opening day. Surprisingly it did not create any hard feelings for me. May be it was too late in the night for me to fret and discuss the sad story after all for co-supporters would've done the post match analysis which i missed citing personal reasons. I thought i would catch up with the tournament in full swing and with complete ecstasy from the next match day. But the interests were not sustained. As i returned to work on Monday, i could just not think about it with the backlog items at the workplace daunting me after a tired weekend. I watched a couple of slog overs in the CSK-RCB match late night after i got back home.

I noticed the same dip in the passion levels with my fellow fans not knowing the reason though. But whats quite clear is that the move overseas has brought down levels of interest as one cannot enjoy the ecstatic atmosphere in the stadium if the tournament had stayed in India. The idea of screening the matches at multiplexes was welcome during the build up to the season. But nothing materialized at the end, lowering the hopes for a sizzling month of IPL fever. Watching the matches this season i reckon would just be more of a time pass activity rather than being a fervour. I do support the decision to move the tournament away from the country for security reasons, but i somehow feel the passion and enthusiasm which showed positive signs during preseason have died down nevertheless.