Dare to Dream

There was a small cub who used to play in his own small world which revolved around his mother, the small bushes around him and his den. One day, the cub decided " I need to venture out and see the world around me".So, the little cub ventured out to check out the BIG JUNGLE. " This flower is so beautiful" exclaimed the little cub, as it jumped with joy & ecstasy. But as it walked on oblivious of its surrounding, Mr. Crow pulled his tail, the Monkey slapped it, the Cat bit it, the Parrot pulled its ear. The Little cub cried in pain.It ran back home smitten, torn, agonized and embarrassed. The little cub told its mother the whole story. Its mother consoled him " Don't worry, everything will be all right".
After a few years, the little cub once again decided to venture out in the jungle. This time, the little cub had grown and matured into a BIG LION!. The crow, the cat the monkey and the parrot decided to make fun of the "grown up cub" once again. But this time the tables were reversed.
The LION marched into the jungle and roared. The whole jungle shivered !!!. No one even dared to speak a word. That is how the "little cub" - the LION became the KING OF THE JUNGLE.

Often , in our lives too, we think that "why this is happening" or "i don't know what to do". Be patient and wait. Time has lot to teach you, to humble you, to give you the experience that otherwise would not be available in any books or it cannot be taught by any teachers !!!

Thus says the Bible " Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of GOD, that HE may exalt you in due time"

Note: The content of this post is borrowed from a friend @ https://leenasherry.blogspot.com/

The rise of the Dollar

Courtesy: www.xe.com

Once upon a time, In the air

These majestic birds once flew across the oceans and the seas. The tired and exhausted ones come here to take rest for ever.

Air India

Indian Airlines

                                                                          Air India

Its sad to see that our national carrier has many of them that cannot be flown anymore and ended up in Tarbes, France

Satirical Shopping in the USA

A guy walks into a store with $0, with a motive of buying stuff. He walks to the customer service desk and applies for a credit card. After a brief credit check, the credit card is instantaneously approved. To his surprise he was approved for a credit of $1500. He walks around the store and buys things worth $700 which he promises to repay in the next 6 to 12 months. The person who had nothing when he walked into the store now has $700 worth of items in his bag and still had $800 to spend in the same store or elsewhere. This is a classic example where the stores want to sell their products to people who don’t have money to buy them or have the slightest intention of buying the item that they just brought. 

When its hard to kill time

There are a few days when time chases you to kill, but there as some days when ypu chase time to kill it. Today was one of such days. Lack of interesting work and other important stuff to do, makes one bored of life. The usual pasttime before the computer is to browse the internet and travel to the ends of the world at the click of a mouse and enjoy the leisure of a world trip. But there are times when travelling in the virtual space

New England

The memories of England were revived when I visited the Portland Lighthouse in New England. The reason for this place being called New England was strikingly evident from the architecture in the place.

The Portland lighthouse is located in Portland, Maine. This place seems to be discovered by the Irish settlers. The waters connected the land to the Atlantic Ocean. Boats and yachts’ touring the waters was a wonderful sight. The location also had a battery where 12" cannons protected the land against attacks from the sea.

when my Facebook account was hacked..

My facebook account was hacked on a weekend. It sent crazy messages to all my friends in the list. Then I changed my password to **** and then everything worked fine ...lolz.

Nike Shoe

My design of a shoe. Design your own at Nike.com

Being a Bachelor

I was a bachelor again for a few weeks when my wife was away. Hitting the gym was an important item on the list for the days. I had to ease the signs of being a married man. For the first few days, I lived on the reserve food stocks that was prepared for me. Very soon I was able to empathise with the ones who sleep on a hungry stomach. The taste of the foods increased as the availability of choicest foods went down. Every meal was consumed whole heartedly just because I couldn't imagine when my next meal would come to me. Hunger slowly moved a lazy person like and I had to start cooking. In a few days, i lost a few pounds even without tiring out myself at the gym.
Those were the days when I turned my kitchen into a research laboratory. All kinds of food combination was tried and even the weirdest ones seemed to be better than the previous ones. One has to labour hard in the kitchen to enjoy the real taste of the meal.

A new phone arrives

I was allocated a new desk at Bangalore; in fact I never had one at Bangalore. The most important item was missing at the desk, a phone. Immediately a request was raised for a phone and it arrived in two days. A service person was at my desk with the phone and he connected the equipment and told that it will take some time for the phone to register itself. I was eagerly waiting for the registration to complete and was irritated to see the message 'registration failed due to security issue'. I took the handle of the phone to check if there was any tone in it but to my surprise the handle was not connected to the base, the wire was missing. I could control the giggles and anger. So I will have to wait for some more time to get the phone working.

Mickey mouse

Once I found a small mouse running inside our house. It was a very tiny mouse with a long tail. This Jerry was very quick even for a ‘Tom’ like me. I hated the idea of that silly mouse enjoying a free accommodation in my house and I vowed to catch him one day.

I opened the door on a Saturday early morning and I found the same mouse sleeping in a corner outside. Taking slow steps towards him without waking his sleep, I made sure that he was having a good sleep. A mop was the only thing I could grab in my hand. Courage to smash the little Mickey was missing, so I poked him with the tip of the mop. He then suddenly woke up wide awake from his dreams and started to make some mad turns in the corner and then watched him slip into the nearest door and I am still waiting to meet him face to face.

90 Mile beach

The next trip has been planned again. This was planned just the week after the visit to the Grampians.

This time it was a drive to the Land of thousand lakes, the Gippsland. We rented a white Toyota Corolla after saying a no to the Holden cruze. Ramesh, Sathish, Anil, Jay and I were the five inside the white vehicle. We had to stop at Sale and it cost one hour of our trip and we reached the first of our many destinations, Lake Guthridge. Then after having a light meal at the subway, we moved to the Golden beach. The route to the beach was empty with only a few vehicles in sight at some long irregular intervals.

 Ramesh, the experienced and the skillful driver clocked some high speeds and enjoyed his drive along the freeways. 

The sands at the beach looked like sands of gold and we also tried a hand in fishing before we sped off to the sea spray beach. After a brief halt at the sea spray we decided to return to Melbourne as no one seemed anymore interested in seeing beaches and all of them looked alike but with different names.
The hurried driving by Ramesh helped us to reach Melbourne in just half the time we took to reach the place in the morning.

Sambhar and rice was on the dinner menu at home as usual. Sathish, the great cook takes his time to put some extra chili and salt to all the dishes he makes. I had a stomach full of rice with sambhar and hit the bed.

The next morning we all woke up late and Rahul in a hurry to return the car in time to avoid the extra penalty, scraped the rear of another car parked in the door way and ended up blowing a hole in all the six pockets.

This was one of the rememberable trips and the incident which took place after this will remain in the minds for some time to come.

Grampians: The trek to the pinnacle

trip by: Ramesh, Sathish, Jay, Rahul and Sunil

N'Sync

left to right: Lijo, Sunil, Sathish, Rahul
photo by: onlooker

A short visit to India

I went on this trip to India only because I promised Nancy that I will accompany her back to India. But I was really contemplating how to make it possible and keep my word. Hectic work and crazy people around made things difficult for me. But still I booked the tickets and informed them that I will have to leave at any cost. I never cared about the consequences. We reached Bangalore on a Friday night and stayed there for four days and again on the fourth day we travelled to Kerala. It was a rememberable journey which included eating from different stations on the way and standing at the door of a running train. Papa and Biju were waiting at the station to receive us and we drove home on the Versa. A memorable week was spent in Kerala which included drives to adoor and attending the engagement of kochumol. The 27th of Jan came in no time and it was the time to separate and embark on journeys to two entirely different directions. Nancy was the one who was crying all the time and I never felt the prick those times. We reached Bangalore and Nancy reached America. Back home, it was an air of sadness and absence. I had to travel back to Melbourne on 29th. I reached Bangkok and when I reached the place in the airport that we sat waiting for the flight, I felt something missing. In fact it was someone who was missing. The times that Nancy and I spent strolling through the airport and shopping around raced through my mind. I couldn’t control the emotions and couldn’t resist the tears in my eyes. An air of desperateness surrounded me and sadness crawled over my body as a creeper crawls up on a tree. I walked towards the nearest phone and called Nancy and dint have the words or courage to talk as I was weak and about to burst out in tears. I survived the next 8 hours of flight to Melbourne and somehow managed to reach home with a heavy heart. The next few days went by terribly. That was the first time ever in my life that I missed someone and felt homesick.

Arriving at Bangkok

Fifteen hours of transit for a four hour flight is sarcastic and ridiculous enough to make a person wonder how to spend that time in an unknown place. Nancy being an equally sportive and an adventurous kind of person like me, we decided to go around Bangkok on our own as the day tours available at the airport were showing the places that dint interest either of us. So we took a map of the Bangkok city and ventured out into that unexplored city where English is an alien language and not even a single Indian was visible. It was surprising not to find much Indians around. We decided to go to some places that were worth visiting and tried various means of transport around the city. I decided to listen to Nancy as she was more courageous and bolder among both of us. Eating at the local restaurants was exciting and the variety of food served was astonishing. Nancy is a few steps ahead of me even in eating and trying out new food. We stood in the long queue and brought two expensive tickets to the grand palace only to escape from the place in a very shorter time than the time we spent in the queue to buy tickets to get in. We both managed to talk to the local auto (tuk tuk) drivers to take us to the palace where we can get a bus back to the airport. We checked in again and in a few hours we landed in Bangalore. That was the journey from Bangkok to Bangalore.

Nanz in Melbourne

It was 8:30 Pm and I arrived a bit late to the Tullamarine airport to find that the flight number in which Nancy was supposed to arrive is missing on the screen. All the other flights that landed and the ones scheduled to arrive were are displayed on the big screen at the arrival area. She arrived in a month’s time from the day I landed in Melbourne. Separation for a month was one of the difficult times that I experienced. The absence of the flight number made me worried and tensed. I was wandering through the lounge and as I was staring at the people who were coming out of the door, I felt a tap from behind on my shoulder. I turned back to see a cross faced Nancy questioning me ‘whom are you looking for?’ I was relieved after seeing her. We were soon on the way to the house and on the way we shopped for essential food stuff at Coles and that was it for the Thursday night. We had a place at Arun’s apartment. The transformation that took place in the house was unbelievable. I still wonder how Nancy managed to do that all alone. I arrived back from office the next day to find a big change within. I still appreciate her for that. The cleaning tool that she used to clean the house still remains a secret.A month and five days passed like a breeze. Daily walks in the evenings were usual and ended with a visit to the Coles. I had good tasty food all these days. We visited a few places in Melbourne. The plan to visit Sydney was sabotaged due to a hectic weekend work. We booked tickets to India together and on Jan 15 we set out to India after saying a Good bye to Melbourne.

In real life....

Nancy leaves her family

from left to right:

Finny, Blessy, Nancy, Papa and Denny

My Wedding

Getting married to a girl and staying with her for the rest of my life was one thing that I imagined that would never happen to me. Two days before this day, we travelled to Gods own country and never throughout the journey I felt any difference from the rest of the journey that I made to this same land. The only difference that I knew was my mobile had many incoming calls from this girl Nancy who later transformed into my life partner. On the day, we all got ready and jumped into the white car which had ‘Sunil weds Binsi’ written behind it. Binsi is not any other girl, rather the same girl with the pet name Nancy. We arrived to the auditorium followed by a few cars behind. We were second to reach the place, as Nancy already reached the place and I could see her sitting in the back seat of her car in a white flowing sari. She looked more beautiful and graceful than I expected her to be. We met only twice before our marriage and talked freely only on one occasion. I could see from the corner of my eye that she was holding a bunch of flowers. I wanted to jump into her car and wish her, but resisted myself from doing so. As I stepped out of my car, a few cameramen surrounded me and I felt like a celebrity and also could feel the strong pressure to avoid any silly mistakes that I could commit.
I was escorted to the front with my dad, mom and sister and was followed by Nancy. It was the first time in the day I could see her smiling. The ceremony was long and tiring and included an hour’s speech by the pastors. Soon after the wedding, I got down from the dais and found that Nancy was missing. People around stated questioning me ‘where is your wife’. Soon she reappeared in a different sari and a different hair style. I still wonder how she managed to do it all in the few minutes of time that she had. The reception was grand with wonderful food spread on the tables and I could see people relishing. I was the only one who couldn’t eat any. Even Nancy was gulping down all the food that she could from the plates in front of her and this kind of eating still continues to this day.
The latter part was the most embarrassing one for me. It was the time to introduce all my relatives to her and Nancy would introduce hers to me. I knew a very few of my relatives by name and I had to smile and answer yes when they would come to me and ask ‘son, do you remember us’. But Nancy knew all her relatives by name and she was at ease in this regard. We were drive home in a different car and my parents came in the same one that we drove in the morning. There was a welcoming ceremony at her house and my first fight with Nancy started as we were offered a cup of coffee by Blessy chichi. I used my left hand to hold the cup and I could hear murmuring to me to use my right hand. I gladly shifted the cup to my right hand without answering back. The reason I used my left hand was because Nancy was sitting close to me on my right side and any jerk and jolt by her would spill the coffee on her and me.
My parents left after a few minutes and still I never had the feeling that I am leaving my parents and about to live with my wife. Even Nancy and me never had the feeling that we were a wedded couple, but just like a girl and boy going out together. It was a tiring and a long day and I fell asleep in the bed only to wake up and find that there are still long and sleepless nights waiting for me.

Goodbye

A time to eat and a time to fast, a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to go on trips and a time to have fun, there is a time for everything. The ever moving clock has a time for each and every moment of life. This was the time when we had to say a good bye. The joyful moments that we had together, the long weary and aimless drives that we went to, the gluttonous lunches and dinners, the sleepless nights on a game of cards and the stomach rolling times that we together had over a period of 6 months had come to an end on a Saturday evening when Babitha, Ezhil and Gracian flew away from Melbourne. Saravanan was the first to leave the pack on a Monday morning and the others followed him on the same weekend. Shopping spree continued till the very end and at a certain moment I felt that they would certainly miss their flights if they wouldn’t stop this kind shopping. Gracian was the first one to be picked up. He was accompanied by RK3 and Babu. Then we stopped to pick Babitha and Aliza on the way to Ezhil’s place at docklands. The wonderful and exhilarating feeling of travelling with this group is unusual. Probably this was our last drive together and not a single moment lacked the fun and laughter. The luggage was checked in and disappointment was avoided as everything which weighed over 100 kilos was taken in by the staff. The only upset person was Babu who anticipated that all the chocolates could be eaten alone by him if the weight crossed the luggage allowance.The Singapore airlines took off at 1205 and we returned home in a taxi as a much quieter group and had a distressing silence around.

http://www.myspace.com/sunilkabin

It was a tuesday afternoon after a heavy lunch. I could see and hear people around me yawning. The infectious yawn spread and in a few moments even i felt like going home and hit the bed. Then a creative idea crept into my sleepy brain. I joined the MySpace. Now i dont feel like sleeping anymore, but check out the world at MySpace.

When the weekend turns tiring

I have heard people say that they either had a good or a relaxing weekend, some say that they had a rocking weekend, but the last weekend I had was tiring.
The jovial atmosphere of the weekend starts by Thursday evening and lasts till Sunday evening. Mine started on a Friday evening when my set plans for the evening were hijacked by friends who pulled me to a 3D movie. I wouldn’t regret this change of plan as the movie was good and had some wonderful time with my friends which lasted till late night.
The silence of the sound sleep was broken by the ring in the mobile phone which I tried to snooze and thereby unknowingly rejecting an incoming call from Ezhil. The next time I attended the call and things were sent into a panic state when he told me that Sriram and him were already on the way to take the car at the Franklin street.
Saravanan and me got ready in a jiffy and waited impatiently for Gracian at the flinders tram stop. We jumped off the tram just to see Babitha and Eliza crossing the zebra line as if they were walking on a ramp for a fashion show. We took the car and gave Ezhil and Sriram a call to enquire about their whereabouts and got a surprised answer saying that they still are on the way. I was wondering about the journey that they took from their house one and half hours ago and still dint make it to the car rental shop.
We drove down to the Wilsons Promontory and stopped at the Norman beach. After doing the normal stuff that beach goers do at the beaches, we were back on the highway driving home.
Pizza was on the menu for dinner at Babitha’s house and we dispersed for the night. The day was filled with fun and laughter which included a ‘take down’ in the NFS style by Saravanan and a chase by the police at night.
By the next dawn, people were getting ready for the days trip to the Chadstone shopping centre. The oniomaniacs (crazy shoppers) were back on the shopping binge. A thousand dollars was spent just on perfumes by Sriram and Babitha gathered the attention of the girls working at the counter. We reached home tired and weary and I jumped into my bed after a tiring weekend.

Gippsland again: At Wilsons Promontory

On the top of Melbourne

Eureka tower is the tallest building in Australia and the southern hemisphere. Standing tall beside the Yarra river and crown casino, this majestic building is 984 ft above the ground. Sriram paid for the entry tickets and the lifts sky rocketed us to the 88th floor in just 36 seconds. The cranky lift in my apartments takes 40 seconds to reach the second floor. We had some coffee on the 88th floor and touched the ground after an hour which would have taken just 8 seconds if we jumped off the roof.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Gippsland - where land meets the waters

Everyone sat in position with their seatbelts on, the engines roared and the van taxied trough the city roads and took off on the freeway. Hunger simulated the urge to stop for food and spicy Indian food at the Tandoori cottage was a welcome break. Everyone seemed to be in a laid back mood with droopy eyes. We reached the Kick back cottages at around 3.00 AM in the morning t0 find the keys of the cottage left at the door steps. We occupied the cottages 6 and 8. Gracian, Saravanan and I occupied the smaller of the two cottages and the others occupied the larger one. A wonderful night’s silent sleep was broken by a phone call from Prashanth and we were glad to hear such remarkable words in the morning. Fearing more such threats from Prashanth, we were all ready in a jiffy and went to the cottage 8 only to see Prashanth still sleeping under a heavy blanket. Sriram and I set to wander out in the morning and as we stepped out of the house, we could hear the numerous orders for coffee, tea and milk shakes. We went to the nearest bakery to buy some bread and brought some milk and other ingredients to make some coffee. Prashanth was unimpressed with this splendid idea of ours. The 90 mile beach was the nearest place where we all decided to go in the morning.

The sight of the waves hitting the sands was a welcome break and no one could resist running on the wet sands of the beach. Weird feats were tried on the shores and the one which Saravanan tried wouldn’t be forgotten for a long time. He came charging like a bull and came to a sudden halt by burrowing his head into the sands. The usual nagging by Babitha for some solo pictures of her continued through out the day and Prashanth had to work hard with his camera to create solo pictures. The loss of a mobile phone din't bother Prashanth very much and it was not long before he was contemplating on the newer choices of mobile phones that he had. We also had a chance to drive into one of the wineries and taste the exotic red wines. Sriram bought a bottle of wine which was as sweet as sugar syrup and this took him to great heights as it flowed down his throat into his belly.
Long drives and playing cards apart from eating were the only others things that we could do that day. The night was filled with fun and laughter and Saravanan was the epicenter of all this. Gracian who was always at the receiving end never lacked a laugh. This was the time when Aliza decided never to join us again for a trip.
We checked out of the cottages at 10.30 AM and headed straight to the subway and the KFC. The next destination was Buchan caves. The formation inside the caves was wonderful and worth taking some pictures. We had to crawl through the narrow passages through the rocks and reach the huge cleared area inside the rocks. We could see clear water and other structures that took millions of years to form. There was no other place to go and so we entrusted this job to the GPS who guided us to Mt. Nowa Nowa and after a bumpy and exciting drive we reached the place on the top of the mount. The whole land below was looking green covered by the tree canopies and the camera lenses were focussed and shutters just clicked away. We drove back to Melbourne and Madras Banyan tree was the place we had our dinner. Sumptuous amounts of food was ordered and wasted too. We all reached home tired and weary and just had the energy to crawl into the beds and sleep.
The 8 trip goers who adjusted themselves in the white small van along with the taking GPS are:
Aliza, Babitha, Ezhil, Gracian, Prashanth, Sriram, Saravanan and Sunil

Reflections

Behold! The snow beckons.

By the rivers of Echuca

This was not the first time we planned a trip to the south and ended up in the north. Planning for the long weekend started a month before. Cruising to the Tasmanian Islands and spending the whole of three days were in the initial plans. Scepticism overtook the frail minds of humans of getting a full three day weekend and backup plans for a two day trip were planned. Even a trip for a single day seemed inevitable owing to the work conditions. My joy knew no bounds when my manager declared that I could have the weekend off. This resulted in the last minute purchasing and planning. Earlier in the same week, we hardly had more than eight people to join us for the trip. Just before stepping on the gas, Prashanth jumped in to the band wagon along with his professional Nikon camera which weighed more than him and there was a great excitement among the crowd. He had a reputation of turning the dull and lifeless parties into exciting and electrifying ones which are hard to forget. Seven thirty in the morning was the planned time of departure from Melbourne, and as usual we ran late by four hours. Soma, who lived far from the city was tiered of waiting and almost went into deep sleep by the time we reached her place. While others were waiting for her to arrive, Sriram and Ezhil utilized this time to stock up beer and liquor into the car boot. Soon we set the GPS to Echuca and cruised along the freeway. The first break was at Wallan. The group divided into two and half of them entered the KFC the other green leafy vegetable eaters into the Subway. The sign ‘Welcome to New South Wales’ was visible after three and half hours of drive and the watches displayed the time as four thirty in the evening. So we had to bring in the luggage into the boat and were stuck to the mooring as driving the boat after five in the evening attracts a heavy penalty of five thousand dollars and we were even made to sign a form stating this. Dinner was prepared and we all had a wonderful meal and I just couldn’t resist sleeping on the comfortable bed floating on the waters. After a sound sleep, I had all the energy to wake up early in the morning only to hear the noises and see many of them still playing cards. They had been playing all the night long. Gracian was the only guy who was sleeping on the same bed as the others who were playing cards. I also heard the most surprising news that Prashanth had lost all his money to Soma in the game of monopoly. The deceit and fixing by Ezhil and Sriram led to the fall of the great Monopoly baron who has to see defeat for the first time in his life.The engines of the boat roared to life at around eight in the morning and we were left alone in the waters of Murray. The curiosity and inexperience of the amateur captain led to the boat getting wedged on the bank of the river and the captain was fast asleep to see the boat being towed out into the waters. The snake like curves made it even more difficult to steer the boat. It was not just a boat; it was a house floating on the water. We approached a mooring spot with the same enthusiasm which Christopher Columbus might have experienced while landing on the shores of America. Everyone was running on the land after staying on the water for more than ten hours. Time was killed by watching movies, the Russel Peters show and playing cards and monopoly. Food was being consumed with out any delay and beer cans were being gulped down at a regular pace. ‘Russel Peters’ show brought out a belly full of laughs and kicked the weekend ahead. The next day, the boat was steered up the river currents and finally reached the same spot where we set sail a few days ago. We all reached home safe by night and dozed off after some ass kicking of Babu who celebrated his birthday the previous day.Trip was made exciting by ten astonishing partygoers. They are Babita, Ezhil, Gracian, Prashanth, Sashi, Soma, Sriram, Sukanya, Sunil and Vipran.
Babitha: She is more of a tomboy than a girl who considers her family sport to be a game of cards.
Ezhil: Latest fashions which seem un comprehendible are worn every day.
Gracian: Nicknamed candy man.
Prashanth: eat, make telephone calls, and watch a movie while sleeping
Sashi: enthusiastic all through the day
Soma: seldom talked on the first few hours and never stopped talking after that.
Sriram: Beer talks more than words.
Sukanya: he he.. Giggles all the way
Vipran: Let play cards again
Waiting for more such times ahead.