You and I.... In this beautiful world.....

Can't tell an exact reason as to why i keep reminded of this old Hutch advt. song. Sure to say, it is quite catchy, quite beautifully pictured advertisement.

A long weekend & a totally unexpected Adventure

It has more or less become a tradition to get out of Singapore during the National Day weekend. Last year it was to KL & Malakka, so this year we decided to go to Tioman Islands. This place is legendary for its beautiful beaches and breathtaking dive sites.

As always though we did decide to go ahead with the trip, until the day before we didn't pay much attention to the accommodation part. It was only on the previous day afternoon of our trip that one of our friend got wise and started calling up various places in the island in a vain attempt to book ourself a place to stay. Of course, we didn't get a thing.

So next morning all 6 of us started off to JB from Singapore, with a buoyant heart and blank minds as to where to go ahead from there. Yes the exit from Singapore and immigration into Malaysia was extremely crowded and it was then that i realized that, it was not just us, the expatriates who were moving out of the city state, but a lot of the locals too didn't feel so 'National' on the National Day.

Finally around 11.30 we made our way to Kota Raya bus terminus, after searching through virtually all the car rental places around there we finally got hold of a Toyota 8 seater. After having an extremely filling lunch at Banana Leaf we finally pushed off from JB at around 2.00 pm on 7th of August 2010. We were yet to decide the place we were to go to, there was suggestions to travel all the way up north along the east coast or also to travel all the way upto KL and then move on to Cameron Highlands. We decided to head on to the expressway from where we would make further decision and it was there we saw the sign board to Kota Tinggi and Priyan volunteered with the information that this place had a nice waterfall. Without any further hesitation Hari swung the vehicle into the side road and started off towards Kota Tinggi.

After travelling for some time it was suggested that we could continue on the same road and head up to Endau Rompin National Park in the north of Johor state. Priyan also cautioned us that the drive could be pretty bumpy as there was no proper road along the way.

Being a carefree bunch of fellas we were, decided to take a chance and head upto ERNP. The road from JB to Kota Tinggi to Kahang was pretty decent as the traffic was light and the roads were well maintained. Along the road we did find a lot of fresh fruit vendors and bought loads of Rombutan, lychee and some other fruits which i don't remember what the name was. From the state highway towards Mersing, we took the left towards Kahang, which according to Priyan, was the last town where we need to stock up our provisions (as Priyan said that there wasn't any food stalls available) and top up the fuel in the car.

If you should die before me, ask if you could bring a friend

Friendship with Abaasanmar had come a long way since its accidental inception in 2002 by Arun & Me. Many came, many left and i am glad that they did. I am happy about those who are left, cos you guys are the best.
It had been a wonderful time all these years... Just went through some of the old pictures, all those fun moments we had, all those dumb things we did... The nights we roamed around, the Kaakka Biriyanis and Samu's idlies we've had . Silly fights over half boils and omlettes, gosh how i wish i could go back in time back there again.
Well we dint have much, but then again we had each other and that, i guess was the best thing. Maybe we didn't realize its full extend back then but it gives so much happiness to just close the eyes, sit back and rewind the tape back to that time when time was not a luxury but a commodity in abundance with us.
I am happy that we still get time or rather we make time to meet up every time we get back home and infact i am surprised how all of our families had come to accept it as a part of the regular life. Maybe it was this time i realized how much strong we had become as friends. Out of 4 days i had been in India 2 and half days had been with u guys and my parents who usually cribs about me not being at home was fine with it. They didn't even notice it i guess. I bet it is the same at Saji's place too.
Infact i have noticed how much i lean on to our relationship off late, when i feel alone, lonely and depressed in a far of land where it's hard to find even a person whom u can talk to on the same wavelength. Though it is not often possible for us to be in touch with each other its funny how the knowledge of "they being there for me" helps in getting by those tough times when you wish that you were together to make life simpler and easier.
Funny that a non-sentimentalist guy like me thinking up all these things. Maybe age is catching up, who knows...

All i wish to say is to Thank God once again for giving me you guys as Friends.


"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is before you can meet again. And meeting again after a moment or a lifetime is certain for those who are friends."
- Richard Bach

Days of my Life...

Guess this is gonna be a continuing series of events, updates or what ever the heck i am thinking it to be that will document the small headways that i make in my research as a Geo-acoustic Research Engineer. Sounds kinda funky, but trust me it is more or less like any other research work, back breaking literature reviews and a whole lot of figuring out of what on earth is 'that' supposed to mean. Yes, with my back ground in applied geology and marine geology-geophysics it is quite a lot of work in order to get into the flow of things, but i guess that finally after a few months of flowing with the tide, i've at learned to hold against the flow. Now starts the slow and tedious job of slowly making headway against the flow. But i guess that's gonna take some time getting enough grip in order to fight against the flow, so it would be better i work up enough friction beneath my feet before i attempt that.
So from today onwards i believe i will be documenting all the small things that i read, understand, try working out and most of all the stupid/funny things that might be happening in the course of my day.

So much for the intro.... now me back to work...

Thank you for the Cross, my friend... (will be filled in as time goes)

Ha once again... guess it seems i just can't help it when it comes to this. Had been thinking about writing this for quite some time now, but didn't actually know what exactly to pen down. It had been for quite a few months that I had been feeling quite a bit dis-oriented, well not sure if that word would spell out the whole range of emotions and disturbed state i had been through. Well will keep you updated in case i come up with a better word or phrase :).
So yeah, maybe i think it's after coming to this island city that some sort of a realization hit me that, well you are all alone in this world some sort of an associated feeling akin to that. Thought it to be a by product of being plucked out of the hearth and home atmosphere, cultural shock (though i am not sure if it was that i was shocked by the culture or if the culture was shocked by me).
Probably its this cultural and social settings that made me realize the inevitable, at least out here you are out by yourself. It feels quite strange when you suddenly finds in a new skewed kind of cultural aspect where you find out that your relationships are based on your availability and not the other way around. Maybe it was high time for me to pull up my socks and rethink about my priorities in life. It could be quite true also the way i finally had to see things, well not to the whole extend but then again your 'self' is what it matters most. But seriously is that how it is, is that what life is all about? I have had people tell me so all through my life and then again when did i seriously follow what someone else said. Confused might not explain the full range of turmoil that i am going through now. Hope to sort through this inexplicable tangle quite soon.
Either way it's quite nice to come to junctions like this in life where you get to reevaluate those values and belief systems that you had followed so far. Or even better maybe i should say - Thank you for the Cross, My friend.

It's Never tooo LatE....

It took me 5 years to realize it. Finally once again a blind plunge, into the unknown, uncertain tomorrow, letting go of every thing that was thought to be the so called securities of life. Feels kinda funny, after all in a foreign land, with no immediate family or friends to turn to... maybe that's why i am me... the mad hatter in Alice's wonderland. Leaving a good job in the middle of economic recession, of course its not what sane people do or for that, even the marginally insane also wont do something like that.
Actually the prompt for writing this was a comment by one of my known guys in facebook. "We work very hard to earn a living...... but are we really living? or merely existing? what do u think?". And i got the answer to the question that was gnawing my heart, did i really want to live and was that the reason for my drastic step?
Well i did it, after being married to some bad and not so happy jobs... i am finally free to pursue what my mind wants to follow... and just now i realised, its never tooo late...

Adieu to Mumbai... Everything that has a Beginning has an EnD.

So that is where it all ends up at. The lost feeling and the feeling of being somewhere else and wishing that none of this ever happened and that all this was, but a dream. But then again these things are bound to happen in ones life. U need to move out of the enclosure that u have erected around you, the sense of well being, the safety perimeter around you, let life take you along with it, getting bumped around in that rough ride, loosing your sharp edges, getting a smooth surface and of course a shiny one, which is what life is all about.

This had been a kind of intense internal conflict going on inside my head during the last week I was in Mumbai. People, who know me well, know for a fact that I hate Mumbai with some kind of diligent intensity. I’ve often wondered if this was some kind of a Déjà vu kind of feeling from Chennai (for I have hated Chennai during my masters with a chronic intensity). This turned out to be something else entirely different as Chennai after the initial bitter and boring stages gave me a looottaa sweet memories. Well, this sort of thing just happens in life, when somebody just walks into your life one fine day and Pooofff…!! Nothings the same ever again, it happens, I believe just once in your life and it happened to me in Chennai. So I believe it’s not quite fair in my life to compare Mumbai with Chennai.
Maybe that’s it (places doesn’t have anything with what u feel about them-places, but it’s the people u end up meeting there that make it a lot precious and endearing), but I am not sure I can agree with that. I have had some unexplainable relationships in Mumbai, got to meet with some of the extreme cases in my life and some unforgettable people here. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have any memorable relationships (though I have a hell lot of memorable incidents, events, accidents, activities etc etc) in Mumbai, that we never got along.

Okay let’s get back to the beginning. During the first week of April, it was suddenly decided that I have to get back to kerala for an unspecific amount of time. U might be wondering what is wrong with that, dude aren’t u going back home and doesn’t that make you happy? Actually it does to a lot of people, but then they are not me. I do not want to get into details of why I don’t want to spend an unspecified time in Kerala as it is a complex feeling, rather I wish to restrict myself to only my feelings about Mumbai. Alright let’s go, one of the best things that had happened in Mumbai (the last few months, in fact) was that I was living alone, totally alone (well, friends visit often), but then again at the end of the day, I get to decide at what time I should eat, sleep, cook, chat, clean up my house (a shitty job) or any of the hundreds of other decision making topics that pops on to our faces every day in our life.
It was some kind of a ecstatic stage that I was going through, though it was at times hard to escape the loneliness after a few of my friends moved out of Mumbai, but then again it was not as bad as I expected (cos I have gone through worst when I had to move outta Chennai). I got to meet a whole lot of variety people this year and it often made me wonder, “how in the wild world did I get along with them?” but trust me it was all fun, I got to experiment a loootta things. Maybe it is like what is said in Malayalam, the fire which is about to die, burns brighter. That is exactly what happened in my life. I know for sure that one part of my life, the carefree, wild, reckless part of my life with no responsibilities or tie downs are all over. It is going to be brand new start, wiping the slate clean and starting over. In the new life or rather the Part II of it will be a more sober and down to earth, predictable, no nonsense self. Do I really want to be like that, I know not. Again who are we to complain to The One about what is being presented to us?
The dilemma I am in right now is that I wish there was some kind of Selective Memory Loss (SML) where in, I can choose all those memories that I don’t want, when I wipe the slate of my brain clean or rather my mind. In other way it’s like I get to selectively choose all those sweet and dear and bitter memories which I want to carry forward and delete the rest. It is not easy to live with the ghosts of the past, but then again, all of us have to. It is not like the dead bodies in the closet kind of ghosts. This is more like the ghosts of our actions, our words, our deeds, the choices we made, the occasions we turned our backs to the opportunities etc. Among these there are certain ghosts who are dear to you, no matter how much it still hurts, years later but still those are a part of your life or we can say that they are what made you YOU. U end up wishing that had there been one chance to change something, you would be bringing back that very moment when u had to take that stupid but practical decision and turn your back, but now take that what my heart wants and tell the whole world that they can *^%# off.
But alas it never happens and that’s why the life is called A Bittersweet SymphonY.

I am here not because of the path in front of me, I am here because of the path behind me. No matter what the future holds for me, I am here only because of a sum of so many others behind me. Maybe its this uncertainty about life that makes it so endearing or maybe that is what makes us human and this was exactly the damn realisation that happened to me in Mumbai.

For sure, certain things never change, but then certain others do, LuckilY.