Three Months Chennai

"Life is a book, one who doesn't travel has read only one page of it."

I enjoy travelling . It all started from my 11th grade when I was put up in a residential school in Coimbatore, I started traveling. June 2006, I came to Chennai for a corporate training after completing my college. The training was for 3 months and I had to stay in my Aunt's house down in south Chennai near St. Thomas Mount.

This is the third time I had been to Chennai; first was on 1993, second trip on 2004 and the now in 2006. The moment I stepped in the soil of Chennai, I smelt the flavor (should I say so?) of electric trains. My Dad had already given me enough instructions as how to reach my aunt's house, "You'll reach Chennai Central, get out of the station and don't heed the voice of auto drivers. Keep walking straight until you find a subway, get in there and you will know how to get out. Once you're out you'll be heading directly into the entrance of "Park Station". Get yourself a ticket and climb over to the next platform, never try to step into the tracks to cross. (Shhh.. did I mention that I didn't use the over bridge to cross the platform?) Now, wait for the next train that goes to Tambaram .When in train watch out for station names where ever the train stops, also try to remember them. Don't forget to jump out of the train when you see the station named as St. Thomas Mount." This was more than enough for me and it took me to my aunt's house. Thanks Dad!

I took an auto from there to reach home. I knew that I am going to have a good stay there. God provided me with everything that I needed. (More than what I needed). Good church, a dynamic youth fellowship, happy family environment and many more. My training sessions were for about 4 hours 6 days a week and had to cover huge syllabus. In spite of all the studying part, it was the children who always kept me entertained all the time and refreshed my brain. This blog is dedicated to all the children who kept me going all my days in Chennai. Cheers!

Let me start from the eldest.

Keren, my niece. She is pretty and I love her so much. She has a good talent on crafting and keeps nibbling with things. She is also a pianist and has recently completed her 6th grade. She plays in the church too. The little one is Felicia.



Matthew, Keren's brother. He is an amazing guy who keeps track of all sports channels. Either be it cricket or football, he will have the latest scores and updates in his finger tips. Do I call him a "Cricket freak"?


Silas, my nephew. He is just another computer freak. He spends hours on computer games and is capable enough to find cheat codes from the internet. He is interested in trying out every possible thing in computers. "Did he crash it anytime?" No idea.



Sunil, Silas' brother. Scientist, philosopher a genius... what would I say about him? He is always silent and is immersed in deep thinking about how to solve problems in nuclear reactions and rocket science. He would become one, I'll bet.


Felicia, my little niece. All the days I were in chennai, she used to sit on my lap and play. An active pretty girl. The last time I saw her, she was speaking. She is obedient and is very good in taking care of her belongings.

Thank You Kiddos!

MyGirlFriend

Now a days I seem to spend most of my time with her. Yeah, she has become a part of my life in less than a year and always steals most of my time. She is not that pretty as other girls out there, but, she still suits the best for me. She is lovely, intelligent, she understands me and always try to coupe up with my speed. Her face is always bright, she has this habit of winking at me every time when I look directly into her beautiful eyes. Her lips, the rosy cheeks, sorry I cannot explain everything; she is mine! I am in love with her.

She always hangs around with me where ever I go, neither be it for the church nor for shopping, friends house, neighbors place, she is always there to accompany me. She has her own standards, style of making things happen and she helps me a lot in my work too. When I am in trouble, I always have her for my rescue. I can rely on her when I need things to be done as fast as possible. One special thing is, unlike other girls she doesn't take a long time to get ready. Give a word, 2 minutes - boom; she is ready.

She is always encouraging, a never give up heart. At times she feels to be on a hot stove when ever I start eating her brain for a long time, but she would never give up.

Wondering what her name is? I call her "Debbie" though her parents have named her as "IBM Think Pad". Yes, she is my laptop that I daily use and I am crazy about her.

Looking out for me? I'd rather say go and search a good "Debbie" for yourself.......unlike me!

Lift and Shift!

"Lift and Shift", this term is actually derived from the IT corporate world. It explains the process involved when US based projects are outsourced to various other cost-saving(cutting) countries like Brazil, China and yes, big time INDIA. India is considered to be the fast developing or outraging IT market for these kind of business. There are lot more involved before and after "lifting and shifting" the project, but I don't wanna screw up everybody by writing them down here.

"Lift and shift" does have a real hard impact in my life. It really meant what it should when I had to pass through such situation and experiences.

It was on a Saturday the 31st May 2008, long awaited weekend has finally come. I had several plans for the evening. We were three friends staying together in a rented a house at Hyderabad. The place where we stayed is called as Moti Nagar - a very bad place nearly 6 KM away from Hi-tech city. After completing our half night shift we were still in bed sleeping, knowing that we had nothing to do this day as it was weekend. We all had different plans for the evening, we decided upon the place where we could take dinner after going for a fabulous shopping spree. Yeah, our salaries were already credited and as usual, it doesn't stays there keeping quiet. Unexpectedly I heard a knock at the door. Now that I've been disturbed in sleep, felt very lazy to get up from the bed and open the door, so was waiting for some one else to open it. As usual none of my other two friends refused to move a single muscle. The lot fell in my name again.

I woke up, went to the main hall and opened the door only to find it was one of the broker assigned by our land lord waiting for something. He had come here early that morning (it was 11:30 AM in fact) to inquire when we were vacating the house? I was completely flummoxed. I woke my other friend Robin and here started our traumatic experience. Early in the month , we had told our land lord that we will not be paying the rent as we will be vacating the house by month end. He too agreed. We, being lazy guys, didn't put efforts to search for a new house in the place where we liked. The month is already over, we thought one of us will ring the land lord and get permission to stay in the house for one more month. We being too lazy didn't even bother to do even that. I knew the high risky step that we were going to take.

By this time our other room mate Abhilash woke up too. The broker was demanding us to vacate the house as soon as possible. Robin rang the land lord *now* and told him the situation of we not having found a house yet. He was least bothered to listen to us. The next thing he said really blew us. "New tenants are waiting in the downstairs, so please vacate". By this time we knew that there were no second chances except to vacate the house. Still, sheer try again, we called up and asked for one more day extension and promised him that we'll vacate the next day, Sunday. There was a green light.

This broker guy offered to help giving some contact nos from whom we could find a house easily in the place of our preference. After he left, we sat down and were looking each others face for quiet sometime without uttering even a single word. We all knew deep in our hearts that we will be without a roof this evening. All our plans for the evening were shattered too. How sad!
We were ready within no time to start our house hunt. I really didn't know where in the heavens we will get a house in one single day.

Abhilash had his bike, Robin joined him and I was left alone. We agreed to go in real opposite directions for the house hunt. I came down to Secunderabad by bus and that almost took 2 hours. The broker whom I already knew has shut his shop and had left for the day. All my hopes were gone, I still roamed for about 3-4 hours and didn't find a single house. By this time, Robin had found one but was not satisfied. He called me up to say that we can have this for emergency. Having found any, I returned back home and reached by 11:45PM. Robin and Abhilash were busy packing their things. There was supposed to be our last day under a roof.

We packed all our things by 3:30 Am Sunday and were ready to vacate but, didn't have a place to go. I was not much worried but still had some hopes down in my heart. We again planed to search until afternoon then get back home on either successful or unsuccessful status. We took the same directions as yesterday, the only difference is we were out for the hunt by 7:30 AM. Which also means, we haven't had enough sleep.

I prayed that we might get a good house and I strongly believed in it. I reached Secunderabad even before the broker opened his shop. The moment I said that we need a house right now, he started looking at me up and down. But I explained the problem clearly, now he was willing to help me. He showed me couple of houses but they were worth less. He then took me to a different broker. This new-broker was polite, he also spoke good english. Now I knew and hoped that we already got a house. He said it is little expensive but he would negotiate with the land lady on behalf of us. I said OK.

I was riding behind him on his bike and he was taking us exactly to the place where we were desperately looking for. It was 1:20 PM. The moment he showed the house, I jumped in joy! My heart was overfilled with happiness on having found a good independent house. The land lady was sweet too. I couldn't wait to callup Robin and tell him that we found a house in the place where we liked. He had to travel another 45 minutes to reach this place, until then I was jumping and dancing on the road out of immence JOY.

I had one more work pending. I was supposed to take the Bible study on James the same evening and I haven't prepared much. Robin and Abhilash reached by 2:45PM , we payed the advance, had our lunch and left for the old house by 3:30PM to bring back our things. We finally hired a mini-auto by 4:45 PM, loaded our things and waved bye bye to Motinagar by 5:20 PM.
On the way back, sitting besides the driver in the auto, I opened my Bible and prepared for the Bible Study.

We reached our new home by 6:10 PM and I rushed for the study which was scheduled at 6:30 PM. The Bible Study went well, later as I kept meditating on James, as it dealt directly on how to live our day-to-day life, I was able to relate many things from my life and it helped me to a greater extent.

I was back at home by 9:00PM and we all went for dinner. We were happy about the new house, it was nearer to my Church too. I thanked the Lord with a grateful heart. He proved himself faithful again.