Yesterday I went for shopping in Walmart with my Manager and we were browsing through the vacuum cleaner racks, obviously for the cheapest one. Both of us had a cart of our own. While we were busy with vacuum cleaner lookup, he forgot to park his cart adequately enough to give room for anyone to pass by without hitting it.

Then a woman came that way and she was about to pass us when her cart hit my Manager's cart with a loud noise. No one would mind hitting his cart with another and we would just say a Sorry and continue, but this woman gave something to think and laugh with her response.

She said "Oh! Sorry, Women Driver".

I couldn't stop laughing for a while; that was an incredible comment with great presence of mind. More than that, the way she commented about herself and womanhood is worth admiring. It needs quite a lot of guts to laugh at oneself. I'm deeply impressed.

I was on my way from Mumbai to Bangalore on 2nd of June after an official training there. My ticket was booked in Kingfisher Airlines for this.

Generally people get excited when they hear about Kingfisher Airlines, the reason being you see a lot of beautiful young women dressed in short red dresses who of course are the flight attendants with that particular airlines. The hype about this was so much that I too was personally very much interested in boarding the flight.

I was right in time in reaching the airport and so was in a little hurry. I wanted to take the boarding pass quickly and proceed for check-in and so was hurrying though the process of baggage scanning. Then one employee of the airlines came near me and proceeded giving me the boarding pass. (The carry around boarding pass vending machines have made the queues shorter and the process faster, now a days).

I wasn't expecting any surprises with him as they can only ask queries about your first or last names and may be about the baggage which we are carrying. But this guy's question to me was "Sir, do you really think India is actually incredible?"

I was shocked, literally. It took a moment for me to understand why he posed that question. Well, it’s all because of my T-shirt; it had the wordings "Incredible India" written in big bold letters in that.

So it was a comment on my T-shirt. Ok, I take that. I smiled him back. That was a good remark and a nice exclamation. I liked the way he made his statement that he is actually taking good care of me noticing everything about be. But hey wait, he is not done yet. He asked me the same thing again.

Ok, so it was not a remark, it was a question itself. Now, I need to give an answer. What should I say? A Yes or a No? Either way, he would surely ask my justification for my answer since he will definitely want to prolong the conversation. And that’s exactly what I want to avoid at that eleventh hour.

I replied, "In a few ways, yes". He seemed to be a little surprised at my answer. His face clearly conveyed his disappointment for not being able to pose the readymade question which he already had for me. And in that quick few seconds when he was thinking about his possible next question, I asked him to excuse me and escaped an unneeded conversation.

I would not blame him; it was part of his job to do that talking. He must have been having specific instructions from the airline's authorities for interacting with the customers closely. And that’s what this particular Airline is famous for as well. But this guy just went short of questions at that time and to add to his trouble, caught a guy who is not interested to talk too. Poor him. But a good try from him to impress the customer. Good luck next time, buddy. Cheers!

I got a beautiful gift from a friend of mine today. For a while she has been talking about giving me a gift and even asked me my house address. I was expecting something via courier but she really surprised me with this one.

She has been long known to me being my highschool batch mate. But then we lost touch. Cought her up recently in Orkut and then we started talking and chatting. It didn't take long before we could get in real close. And within a month of acquaintance, she said I'll miss you when she heard I'm leaving for US. That was indeed a compliment and yes, I'll miss her too.

This is one of the best gifts I ever got. Not because the poem is good or because it is written on me; but because the words came from the heart. Obviously I'm flattered. Sometimes it feels too good to be me.

---

Time caught on the ancient wheel of change
Spins round and round nothing is strange
Sun that set may rise again,
Clouds cluttered above may wither away and rain.
Treasured memmories always a gain ;
To every mind engulfed in pain
Time will not be ours for ever
Come dear,be friends for ever
Destiny may take thy part
Bonds once made never break apart

Orkutting my time in the net
To meet friends who were once very best
My eyes caught a man in beard
Who looked different from the herd.
I geared up my search engines
To identify the man in jeans;
Calm and cool by all means.
Put my grey cells on test
To know the man very best
Who looked cool from the rest
A classy guy with real zest
Now the moment came
I jogeed down the momory lane
But my attempt in vain.
Failing myself in this venture
Found alas ! he works in Acccenture.

Bingo!here i go.....

Knew a guy in Accenture ,
Who had a spirit of adventure
Is he...Is he...
Gee....Now i know this figure
Who was clever for sure
A computer geek!
Who grew slim by week.
Gilmpses of him blinked in memory,
That was sinking in a hurry
But I was in Joyful merry
Because i identified this jerry.
He was no longer a myth
He is "Sree (The Great )jith"
He was one of those few
For whom everything went effortlesly right.
Quick juggler with numbers
Often made his friends dumber.
Genius Einstenian in everyway,
Whose talents won him higher pay.
Nothing more to write my friend
Here is wishing you success till end.
May god bless you in excess
Rewards,fame and success.

Last week, my colleague Vinod was talking about an accident he had. He was comfortably cruising at a speed of about 40 kmph on a one way road near race course in Bangalore. He was passing through a bridge when he decided to overtake the bus in front. Little had he anticipated that any vehicle could come in the opposite direction. Pathetically yes, a government vehicle, more to be precise, the law keepers’ vehicle - a police van was coming in the wrong direction.

 

He moved to the right to overtake the bus and then saw with at most shock that a vehicle is coming in his way. There was nothing he could do at that late hour; he had a head-on collision with that vehicle. He fell flat on the ground, with his head narrowly missing the tire of the bus he was overtaking. The driver of the police cab came and apologized saying that there was traffic congestion below the bridge and that forced him to break the law.

 

He was absolutely shocked, obviously, and was extremely lucky to escape without any major injury. His bike was adversely affected with him needing to spend a couple of thousand rupees to get it back to shape.

 

***

This incident brought the memories of my first accident to life.

 

It was in 2004, the night before Onam (Kerala’s main festival). I had the monthly party from my project then. We were having the party at my then project manager Bala’s house. It was around 20 kilometers from my home.

 

The party went late into the night. By the time we parted, it was around 2 AM.

 

I was feeling sleepy the night was cold. So when saw that my colleagues are not really speeding their vehicles, I said a bye and rushed home.

 

In an exact sequence of events as explained earlier, I was just about to overtake a car and then was hit head on with a lorry coming in the opposite direction. I was half asleep then and in the cold night, I was sitting tight to get a little heat. It was a four lane road and had a separator in the middle of the road as well. But since the road on the other side was having a repair work, a lorry came in the other lane and I had no clue this could happen.

 

The car which was going in front of me suddenly moved to my left when it saw the lorry, and I was trapped right in front (Did I say I was overtaking the car? The story could have been in that way as well, I’m failing to recollect the exact sequence of events).

 

I desperately tried to avoid the hit; I moved to the left the best I could. That helped me to avoid a head on collision, but the last piece of protruding end of my bike, the rear-view mirror scratched the lorry in its bumper itself. And I lost balance. The bike began to waggle. I could manage to be on the vehicle for a little more time, had me falling at the moment of hit, either me or my bike would have landed straight under the tires of the lorry.

 

And then I fell. I hit the road head first with my back of the head hitting hard on the road. Luckily the bike didn’t fall over me. At that time of the night and when you are in shock with your head hitting tough on the road that too when you are half asleep, the absurdist of things happened. I thought it was a dream. Yes, and then I lay there for a little more time there hoping it be a dream. It was quite paining in the back of the head. After some time, I decided to pinch my own arms to see whether it’s paining. It was, and then there were no other options other than to believe that I had an accident and I’m lying in the middle of the road.

 

I recollect someone walking near me to see whether I’m ok. Normally if there is an accident, no body will come to help for the fear of getting trapped in a police case. And at that time of the day, the chances of the victim being drunk is at the maximum. (I stopped boozing exactly a year before from that day.)

 

I slowly got up, touched the back of my head. There was swelling and a bump as big as my palm had appeared there. So the chance of internal bleeding was high. I need to act fast. My house was around 10 kms from there and they had no bike with them. So I can’t ask them to come to me. Neither could I think of anything else to rush to a hospital fast. So I decided to ride back home.

 

It took me around half an hour to reach home. And on the way I called my room mate Hafeez and told him that in not in a good shape. That was probably the first and last time I talked over the phone while driving.

 

He was waiting on the way. When I saw him there was only one thing I said. “I’m hurt. Get me to a hospital fast”. I gave him my driving seat and then he took me to Manipal hospital.

 

There they did a series of tests including scanning and taking x-ray photographs. They asked me to stay for 24 hours in the hospital for observation. Luckily there wasn’t anything bad that turned up. So I was discharged by around evening the next day. The spent that Onam at Manipal hospital and had to take food from their canteen instead of Onam feast. That was quite disturbing.

 

Amazingly I recovered fast and the same day evening, I went for the party organized by my company. It was more like an annual day, but sadly that was the only time they organized it. Good that I didn’t plan to take rest, but to view the show.

 

The hospital bill came more than 5000. The amount is negligible compared to the amount I would have had to spend if the injuries were bad. Luckily this was the only accident I had driving my bike till date. No scars or physical marks of the accident remain but the memories still haunt. That indeed was a dreaded night which I don’t wish to remember for ever.