Feels Good To Be Back

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Phew!!! I’m finally done with my exams!! Both internals (read ass-kissing skills) and externals (read story writing skills).

Now that I’m back after the hiatus, I’d like to clear a few things first.

1. I was not offline for a month by choice. I had no internet connectivity and the very few time that I did spend on my friends’ Wi-Fi was wasted on other petty things (I mean projects and stuff… GROW UP!!).
2. To all my ardent followers and readers, who kept on coming to my blog just to check for new posts and had to go back dejected, I’m sorry for leaving without so much as a note, but now I’m back, for good, I hope. (Just Kidding and hoping that someone did ACTUALLY miss me.)

This past month was exciting, informative, exhilarating, enjoyable and put in all the wonderful adjectives that could describe a two person bike ride trip to Bengaluru from Coimbatore (Around 800 kms up and down), an accident which nearly fractured my right hand, a four person trip by car to Kodaikanal, countless numbers of pizzas, a couple of farewell parties, a heart-breaking almost filmy farewell to a special friend (what with the train station good-bye and all) and a hell lot of retrospection and reminiscing over a bottle of chilled *ahem* beverage *ahem ahem*.

Then the CCD read-a-thon, the Bowling extravaganza, the practically useless trip to the airport just to have some coffee, oh dear Lord, I could go on and on and on… I guess I already did, didn’t I?

Well, all in all, it was a great month, and it felt great to be physically doing stuff rather than chat online or do stuff in the virtual world.

Had a good nice trip, both from Delhi to Coimbatore and back. I flew down there by a Sunday flight and hence got a Saturday all by myself to roam, in and around the magnificent city of Delhi. This is what came off of my excursion:

Khan Chacha's Restaurant, Khan Market, Delhi. The ceiling is covered with inverted kebab holders.

 

The ever so crowded Nehru Place, the IT hub of Delhi, on a hot and sultry afternoon.

Remember the post about sipping coffee... (if not click on this picture). I did it, FINALLY!!

A mouth watering delicious chocolate brownie again from Costa Coffee, Nehru Place.

The magnificent entrance to the IHC (Indian Habitat Center). The only thing missing was the ominous soft Indian background music.

The first sculpture that you see as you enter the IHC. Its called the "Chandela Rider"

Even though this place is famous for its practicality and usage, I took this snap for its aesthetics only.

A play/dramatized reading of Tabish Khair's work - The one percent Agency. It was comical and thought provoking, based on the small part of rehearsal that I saw. The whole thing must have been mind blowing considering the writer's achievements.

The day after all this I was in Coimbatore at my old room, comfy and warm and fast asleep. The good times rolled and bad times endured. A whole month went by without, as much as, me realizing it.

And on my way back to Delhi, which was by train (2 days, almost), I had the best conversation with a co-passenger, whose name I don’t know, to this day. She had got married 3 years ago and was visiting her parents. She didn’t know much of Tamil or Malayalam, so we started conversing in English with a tinge of Hindi here and there, much to the dismay of other passengers.

We started with train journeys, touched cities and places, cruised through rules and regulations (traffic and railway), endured through politics and finally rested on religion. It was around this time that I found myself talking to… well nobody but myself… because she dozed off in the middle of our conversation!! I was thanking my stars that no one else heard me rant on about how I like certain parts of Christianity more than I like Hinduism.

For the record, I’m agnostic, on the verge of being a full atheist. No amount of persuasion or cajoling is going to change that, because I’m always ready to argue and counter any point you have.

Any-hoo, what my point is, is that I’m back after taking my much needed hiatus from ‘the machines’ and I hope to be here for the foreseeable future. Thanks a lot for being patient with me.