"The Month that was..."

So much stuff has happened in my life after the last blog entry that I really don't know from where to start. For starters let me update you with my current geographical position. I am posted in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum for the uninitiated), the capital of God's own country - Kerala. Now most of my friends might be thinking "How the hell can he be so happy about it?" But I've accepted it as my destiny and now I am trying to get the best out of the current situation.

I completed my fast track training at Mysore and managed to get a CGPA of 4.66 (yeah I know its not much but enough to get me a TPI of 12.5%). Lets not delve too much in the details but what it means is that this will provide me with my petrol money. After the comprehensive examinations we were left with so much free time that we didn't know what to do. I utilised this time to roam explore the campus in detail and have as much fun as possible.

Casino Royale was screened one more time and I went for it again (this makes the total count 3). Kabul express was another movie that we saw. Had a few extended lunches at the floating restaurant (it was a parting gesture) with my friends. Quality time was spent with the new friends we had made over the course of the training.

Here comes the best part. We went for a trip to Kodaikanal. It was totally a spur of the moment kind of decision. I was sound asleep after having a sumptuous lunch on Saturday afternoon when one of my friend calls up and asks me to be ready to go on a trip to Coorg. On the way the Mysore bus stand the destination changes to Ooty. One of my friend informs us that it takes 3 hrs to reach Ooty and 3.5 hrs for Kodaikanal. People in our group are adamant that Kodaikanal is a better place and since the time difference ain't much (which we realised to be so not true to our dismay) we should opt for Kodaikanal.

So after much debate we decide to hire a Sumo (did I mention we were 10 of us not including the driver) for Kodaikanal. As luck would have it the driver was a new chap and it was his first trip to Kodaikanal as well. We left at 8pm and after a few wrong turns here and there and stops for short naps by the driver, we finally reached our destination at 7:30 am on Sunday. After freshening up we went sight seeing. We decided to leave by 2pm so as to reach Mysore by atleast 11 pm (yes it takes 9 hrs as opposed to the 3.5 hrs as we thought). This meant that we had a total of 4 hrs to take in the sights and beauty of Kodaikanal.

This radical decision was taken as we were scheduled to travel to our respective posting locations by Monday noon. We skipped a lot of places and the entire sight seeing process was similar to the Mumbai Darshan tours (the only consalation I could offer the girls was that they would be back here for their honeymoon trips with their hubby... hehehe). We finally left Kodaikanal at 3pm. The ghats took a toll on some and they became the victims of motion sickness.

The return trip was longer than expected. The distance seemed to keep on increasing as we moved forward. Finally we reached our Campus on Moday morning at 6:30 am (obviously we stopped for some time to let our driver take a short nap since we had to reach the campus only by morning as we had missed the night deadline of 12 pm). The total stats show that we spent almost 27 hrs to travel as opposed to the 4 hrs that we actually spent sight seeing. All in all it was a trip memorable for reasons more than one.

I packed my stuff within half an hour with some help by Bosco and Roshan and dashed towards the Reception block where our transport to Mysore station was waiting. A few tearful goodbyes later we were on our way to our respective destinations. The train journey from Mysore to Bangalore and then to Trivandrum was great. We spent most of the time laughing and having a good time (and that too with people with whom I had never even spoken before even though they were in my same class). The initial one week's stay was at the Infosys guesthouse after which we moved into our rented house.

Yesterday my friend and roomie, Irshad took delivery of his new Alto. Over the weekend he has gone to this home and left his bike (Yamaha Enticer) for my use (cool na). Next weekend I'm flying home to get my Mahek (my bike) to Trivandrum.

I failed to mention the most important thing. After one week on the bench, I'm assigned to a project. We'll be working with Websphere Commerce Server. This requires 2 GB of Ram and as a perk we've be given 24 Hrs net access (thats why I am able to post this entry now).