The uncle story ....

Situation : one of our clients status call which falls over various locations including Europe, US and India. I am running the 1 hour call were I need to take inputs from each team lead, ask update on open items from last day call, look for escalation points and follow up on un finished acts. The team has folks with experience ranging from 2 to 15 years!






I took inputs from our own team at my locations, rounded up Bangalore folks and then about to move on to onshore folks :


Me : As we have covered everyone in offshore, lets move to ppl in UK


High tone lady voice : Oyy uncleee, mera update bhi lenaaa


Me : Err what ?


Male Voice 1 : Abhe mute pe nahi hey


Me : Ohh, I think I missed Hyderabad, can you please share your updates


High tone lady : We have completed X packages and rest being worked at, will be completing them by tomorrow.


[ I could hear a lot of back ground noise where people struggling to control their laughter ]


Me : Thanks Mrs S


I took updates around the globe and summarized the call. The moment I hung up, I could see every one in my conference room on splits .... I realized that I have grown to a place were I could see my self older than most of the team members and hence the name UNCLE. hard realizations, but time is not far before my son would spot a gray hair on my head :)

Lazy afternoon @ office

It has been a lazy month since starting of this Feb as i am into a project awaiting customer clearance. I had set up multiple follow up discussion and to my dismay nothing turned fruitful. So most of my afternoon hours are spend over online news websites and interesting reads in wikipedia. The kind of life i had almost 4 to 6 years ago. As Attukal ponghala - god song started this week, its festival time at home. Yesterday, my niece has her performance in stage 1 and we returned home almost at 11 after a late night juice shop visit. The extended stay reflected bad on my sleep and my eyes today. My mid day sleep at my cubicle was disturbed by none other than my delivery manager !!!

Man i hate the moment you struggle to open eyes from sleep and we see the most dreaded face i could see on floor staring at me. I was speechless for a moment as i am caught red handed / red eyed sleeping in office cubicle. I hope he understands the festival season and the intricacy of local festivals and sleep. Anyways, one leads to another and i am here in my blog world to keep me awake. I am planning to be more active on the blog world going forward. I am not sure how many times i have tried this but you know, nothing comes easy and it will work out only if one keep trying !!!

wish me luck - if anyone still ventures around here :)

cheers
Shanks 

Blog entry after a year !

It has been a while since I sat on my office cubicle like this. Yes there are still ‘to do’ items in my list but not that many which are burning :). I would say the list is of good to have things. How time and situation decides these items are amazing. 3 to 5 years back, many items which were must to have here now cease to exist. From the daily hi-hello call to a must-talk friend to the weekly pub party which is a never-miss thing. Now looking at my schedules, parties are long gone items as the infant with me makes me decide, which dish I get as quick as possible so that we can leave the restaurant / hotel without my kid screaming. Now mile stone updates, my kid has turned one last month, he is growing and he shows similar trends of what I did – less talk and more actions ;)- I started talking properly only as late as after completing my 4rth birthday. I had my first “ everything went bad” trip with my family ( kid and wife) stranded on sides of a national highway at around 11:45 in the night with vicinity of light and heavy rain. Best part was I could not figure out how to take my stepeny tyre due to – no light / heavy rain. Learned to avoid night time rides with some hard learned lesson. Also completed three years of companionship with my beloved wife. Hours and days of learning people on their love – depth and limits of saneness. Work life has eased a bit in last two weeks and I could see day light more than twice this week. Also having time to clean up my messy cubicle / PMO and my mail box / laptop. I hope to get this on the blog if my boss at home ( my kid) allows me to open my leisure laptop!

Wine @ home - Baby steps :)

After my brief stints of work in US and Swizz, i had become a hard fan of wine. Be it red or white, I just love Wine + Pasta or Wine + anything that goes well with it. I am not an expert to identify any wine - food combination but many Italian and french restaurant served some amazing combination.  Once back in India, I tried buying wine from our bellowed KB outpost of brands like Sula and all but all of them disappointed me. So i searched on how i can make my own and stumbled on the following link - which was amazing. I tried my bit and following pictures says the rest of the story !

1.5 KG Grapes

50 GM washed and dried wheat

5 ML Yeast

Mashed Grapes in Pot

Filtering part at end of 21st day

Over bit of Sunlight

Got hold of only a Black label bottle :)

Wine - Red Wine !

Content at end of 42 day

Back to the Future :)

This is another impromptu write up from nowhere  I have some news to share and i thought the best way is to break it here and then take a stride. Finally after a wait of 1.5 years after my celebrated wed-lock, my better half got a transfer to my native place, which means, no more shuttle between two ends of two states,  the never ending phone conversation where someone tries to convince the other side that how the call went unnoticed or how long this call has been going on or the least, how long i wanted to call you!

Every month was a schedule with bus tickets, long struggle using IRCTC options, missed out tickets, forgotten non-cancelled tickets and also missed weekend trips to  the other family get together as I was travelling ! Belive me - its not fun being married and asked to stay at two different locations which is more than 10 hours apart. Two in one discussion with any of my friends or managers ends up with the question- are you travelling this weekend ?

so friends, its good bye to trips and travels, its family time :)

I am errr ...hmmm kind of Busy !!!

 

 

I had kept myself engaged on so called ‘ getting a life’ activities

and gave a rest to the creative side on penning words from what I live
through. Believe me – married life is something which makes you wonder
what surprise it hold until you get hitched and it does throw some
surprises at you as you take it along. For folks who were never
contacted / tried to be invited to my marriage, I am really sorry.
After 30 years of wait, I had to do things in hurry and if I missed
you, I am sorry. I know there are not many readers / followers to this
irregular blog but still I am sorry if I missed inviting you to my
marriage with Ms S and now Mrs Shanks ;) on this July 15th . The
engagement followed by the customary steps at both bride’s and groom’s
place, together with lot of shopping and invitation, the last two to
three months was so much engaging. I am slowly getting into pace with
the life ( now It has added mind power associated with it). But to
keep it short, it was fun and I loved all the center stage attraction
and comments ;)



Now back to where I started, things kept crashing down on me on
each day from different direction, if for a given say its relatives
asking me to visit there place with my family, someday its work that
calls me out of bed at umpteen times. Now I realize the word of
balanced life and I feel it’s an oxymoron. You can never predict or
balance life, all you can achieve is best of day option to drill
through the current day. Most of the time, you get things fall in
place at time, the request, the presence, the presents , the
pleasantry etc. But there would be days when nothing gets going but
still every problem stays until you get back in place and they still
stare at you ! that’s life. One thing I can’t understand is the urge
to pen this down came to me on the most un fortunate time – where I
have an exam to clear in next 1 hour where I have hardly read the
contents of the exam, I have a report delivery supposed to go three
hours ago and I am still typing this out as if, this is the best thing
to do. I am not sure on why I take this exam as its crystal clear that
I would fail but still ruining one attempt of available 2 attempts. So
let me take a conscious step here to stop writing and go through the
content at least once before I take the test .



After note:

Yes I flunked the exam royally, where three separate sections required
60% score to score and maximum over all I could get was a mere 29%.
Thanks to the systems which allowed me change the subject and still I
have two more attempts to clear the new exam . Most of the day time
is gone answering phone on giving updates on what is going and what is
not going good. Rest of the time, it’s on doing what I am supposed to do.
Theoretically I can agree that I have grew old to the 30+ category who
always looks busy with two hand held device to check and respond but
believe me it’s fun at times. The toughest part is there is always one
side of the circle around you which is frowning on a given day due to
your negligence in attending them in the way they expected you to
attend. It can be my better half, my mom / dad, sister / cousin,
friend / friends or my team ..or even a remote ping over my messenger
/ FB which I failed to answer and last but not the least – my blog or
by dusted guitar. The only answer to all this is - live along and things will fall in place at the right time .....

RMS on Wheels -1 : Done deal

After riding different four wheelers for about three months and an extended wait of 6 months ( Thanks to Toyota Nippon dealer - kerala : for extended wait time), i got my hands on my first vehicle in India - Toyota Innove. As usual its just another car, but a comfort ride. Still i have that owners pride smile all over my face and not looking at the monthly fuel bills ;)

So if anyone crash lands in tvm and looking for a ride, gimme a call. If i am around, will give a quick tour of tvm on my new car ..... i mean station wagon - to be precise :D

I wonder why ??????????????????

It is a little disheartening to wakeup everyday morning into such level of negatives. I am hearing negativity / judgments / sadness / War everywhere. This is not the first time I am talking about the negatives we are having around us. Each day morning the daily news paper opens with another round of sex scandals involving minors or another set of ministers doing a multi billion scandal. This is not just in India but worldwide. Then again several stories, one furnished with details on how a friend was beheaded and packed into plastic bags and buried, or how much more black money in banks or how corrupt is our current judiciary. Yes, its human nature to get attracted to such sticky news but I hardly find a news / a story or a discussion which leaves a smile of satisfaction to anyone’s face. Only question I have is if such real positive incidents and stories doesn’t happen at our times or the media is not interested in broadcasting / publishing any of those because they are only worried about their TRP and number of readers ???

Salt N Pepper - Movie review - My tag - Don't miss it!!!

The write up ahead is total spoiler if you haven’t watched the movie. Please come back here after you gave it a try ( if you have even remote plans to watch the malayalam movie – Salt nd Pepper.

When exactly we cherish our moments on anything ? its when one can connect it to one or the other part of you. Many folks who love fantasy movies are people who have a fantastic imagination. A written red romantic movie is loved by anyone who has love in their life or romance even in their heart. A cook loves to watch and tries out cookery and cookery shows. A guy who has / who wants some awesome friends will cherish the movie DCH because the primary reason is that you just relive your dreams by putting different faces to different stories you hear. I had that feeling on many occasion and those remains my favorites. The things here I am talking about is timeless classics because you are able to connect to them at any point in your life. The same goes in live with why an individual in puberty loves romantic flicks and a person on mid 55 enjoys a after retirement documentary or a fresh pair of parents loves a family movie involving kids and babies. It is just the ability of the creator of art to make that connection with you. If one is really talented, the circle of people he touches increases and one with very few connectors would just pass on as a average attempt.

I started to write this to tell about the movie Salt n pepper. I love to cook and I’m mostly a loner. I was able to connect to this movie really well – minus the romance. It never happened!The movie trailers itself made me feel that this is something I should not miss this one.I went for the movie on second day show and the long queue proved me rite – this is going to be a good one.

One mistake – I went there with a half filled stomach – the title song and visuals left me really hungry·
The radio – from the old car was a charming scene – a feel shifter every time it kicks in.·
The whole movie is out of Trivandrum – any one from ‘ Thirondoram would agree with me’ – but no slangs used! [Thirondoram -Trivandrum in proper Trivandrum Malayalam slang]·

Baburaj’s introduction sets his character – ‘Randu Radhas’ [ Two Radhas – a beauty soap usually used by girls]·

Asif ali proved to be a very good actor – as a proper ’vayi nokki’ – a cute one for girls – I guess [ Mouth looker – a flirt]·

The girl proved to be an eye candy - nice song visuals with a smooch sprinkled in!·

The song and drunken dance @ shanghumugham beach is as close to as you can have from reality and the write up in next scene also fits in·

The opening scene after that – a proper hang over morning·

The title song – it’s the best as it sounds from an old movie and the lyrics and the music is catchy.·

The dialogue – ‘ koothara rum alle , ennighenhum venda – is a typical 20 -25ish answer – courtesy – my drunkard friends [ that’s cheap rum, I don’t need it]·

The ‘Kutti’ dosa left me with memories of Kutti dosa made my mom and Grandmma long time back·

The scene where the cook ( Baburaj) elopes with the hero – Lal – nicely done·

The romance is happening through conversation and not with a lavish song in Switzerland – as it would happen ( I hope, no experience yet : ) )·

The climax is done with a wonderful comedy and a new way to unravel the story·

The scene where Lal asks – if salt was added after boiling the curry or not – Some conversation I had with my fellow roomies in US, any one who loves cooking know what I meant!·

The single fight sequence – Lal delivers that kick on the guys chest – awesome and icing from Babu raj – Enthada panni [ Whats up PIG] I left the cinema hall with a broad smile all over my face – the movie is all about cooking, food, romance, loneliness, inferiority complex and a lot of incidents that every one runs into in everyday life – with a tint of humor. This is the second movie after Pranjiyettan which left me feeling, I should be watching this movie again !

- Pic courtesy -kerals.com

Process initiated - RMS on Wheels -1

Ok Folks, I am looking for wheels in Trivandrum and my journey began with SX4. I was quiet impressed with the commercials which says folks will keep everything waiting if you are driving an SX4. I was looking for a diesel on the high end. For the test drive, I managed to get 5 folks inside the car just to get the worst case scenario for my drive in city. The car has got awesome ground clearance and great leg space both to front and rear passengers. The person sitting on rear seat on the middle will not enjoy the ride if it’s a long ride as the removable hand rest is a pain on your back. Second thing I noticed was that the car does not have many features that cars of the same segment will provide like a cup holder( I don’t think I will drink while I drive in India, but still!), sun glass holder, tinted rear view mirrors and electronic adjustable seats . The dash finish also did not impress me as the plastic finish / wood like finish looked cheap. One would definitely require an assisted camera to have an idea of what’s in the rear, forget about looking back and parking in a new place. Only the rear view mirror inside the car is tinted and the side mirrors are just normal glass. Also there is no auto close feature available on two out side rear view mirrors. The car has only one trip meter. The most disappointing fact was that with 5 folks in the car on 3rd gear, the car did not perform as I would like it to have. It might be because I had been using an old diesel Xeana for a while and the engine varies from 1.6 to 1.2 in case of two cars. But still a 10 year old engine giving a better response was something I didn’t expect. Also the car has engine noise on slow speeds from 30 to 50 KMPH but didn’t go beyond 80 or so to see how it sounds. But on slow speeds, even a month old car has noise. All in all, after looking at the limited feature list and a normal performance and looking at the price tag, I would rate it a 6.5 out of 10.

I am yet to drive any other car, I have Toyota Altiz and Verna Fluidic in my list for this Saturday. Hope one of it to do better to be continued

Trip de Switzerland !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am on marathon call for next 5 days and I think this would a good time to do some updates to my out dated blog :)
Mind you, I am updating this when the call get stalled due to ‘Technical issue’ :)

Now, one lady is looking for the latest version of docs she has to walk through in the meeting – I think folks are well prepared for this discussion – ok no something I will be interested to update in my blog.
So were was I ? I was here last time when I set my foot back to my home land and I was saying I like – Life @ TVM.

I had been busy with so many thing happening around me – work wise and personal wise. Three of my good friends got hitched in one or other way in last three months – one still left for the hunt for the better half just like me. Got into a umpteen project which had been written un doable and I took it up as it had the silver line of working from my home town written all over it. I took up the challenge and had been in office 9 to 9 every day including Saturdays …all I got was kind of 12 Sundays in 3 months but I think it was worth the effort. Finally signed off the stuff and got a – more than average sign off for the assignment. Enjoyed a lot with a very fresh and committed team. One thing I learned here was the folks in my team – most of them in the age group 23 to 25 was much more matured than what I was doing at the same age. I think the generation gap is now shrinking to a gap of 4 years. These folks are already having plans of when to quit, when to get hitched and what they want to go after – after being in hardly one or two years in the industry these folks are pretty good at what they are doing and what they want to do! I hardly knew where I was headed when I had two years of experience under my belt. Leaving the work part, I was lucky enough to travel to one of the most expensive and most beautiful places on the world – Switzerland!!! More of a business trip but had fun @ Switzerland

Travel de Switzerland :

Stayed for 14 days, had only three days to spare as the business meeting were tightly scheduled. I had my flight Via Dubai to Switzerland. I had a three hour stop over in Dubai which I happily slept , the flight was good other than the vegetarian meals I got. I never ordered this and later I got to know that the meals was misplaced for me and the one who ordered was my friend who was two rows ahead of me, and this left him to be happy with some fruits for an 8 hour flight. The Zurich airport was smaller than I had in my mind for being such a tourist location and same with the Zurich city. We had been put up in a business suite in a hotel in Zurich city.

About the city Zurich: it is not as neat as I expected, there was lot of construction going on which might be one reason for the dust. The streets were mostly empty on week days by 7 or 8 pm and night life also was dull. One more thing I learned was Swedish German is a different language from German and some one who speaks German cannot talk Swedish German. Also every one doesn’t understand English :) . So if you are headed to Switzerland, get used with words like ‘ Danke’, Mercy and Good Morningk – with the German accent. The total population of the country is well under the total population of my state ‘ Kerala’. People are good but not ‘ smiley’ people like folks from US. They are more of folks from France / UK where they don’t smile until there is a reason. Public smoking is not an issue here and every other guy / women smoke here- may be the climate is the excuse these smokers cling on to! Cycle is one of the most common transportation used here and we have folks cycling to our customer location on suits. The trams here are too good and it looks to be the affordable transportation to everywhere. We had our chuck cut out for cabs but even with a fat allowance, money was not enough to pay cab charges . For any one who is still tied to Indian food, there are lot of Indian and Srilankan restaurants in Zurich. I was amazed to find out that there was a restaurant named – Kerala restaurant and one conversation when we were about to leave convinced me that it’s a restaurant owned by a malayale

Owner : (phone) : Hello
From the other : ….
Owner : Elaam kazhinju, njan iceum vellavum ready aaki vachelkam, inghu ethiyal mathi ( everything is over, I will be ready with Ice and water)
From the other end : ….
Owner : urappalle

I guess this was conversation regarding a drinking get together the same evening. Malayale never changes – even in Switzerland and falls back to the tag line ‘ inetha parypady’ ( Whats today program?)

I heard that when a new building has to be build, there has to be a approval plan from the locals on the building appearance which will fall in place to the neighboring buildings and that’s why the streets look so much similar. Also they have some amazing building all over. The spider sculpture is really big when you go near to it. The climate ( it was summer) was around 25 to 30 degree Celsius. It was raining almost once in three days but it was never so cold not much hot. I think it justifies why we didn’t find a bigger went in our room for our air conditioner. Out of 26 channels we had in our hotel only one was English and rest was German / Swedish. Also it was a little surprise to find out that our hotel and another one near by doesn’t have a complimentary breakfast even after charging quiet expensively for a two bed suite. This was more of a normal thing in any inns in US! We were lucky to find that lady Gaga performed on the ground right in front of our hotel. We were roaming around and the song sounded familiar. A peak over the fence, we were surprised to see lady Gaga right across the fence performing for a group of half drunk crowd! As I didn’t had any pop song fans with me, we didn’t bother to venture in!- Lady gag looked very small when compared to the pictures I saw from her albums. We experimented with our dinner and played safe with our lunch as there was a online order delivery available with Best curry – 10 franks lunch – Indian vegetarian lunch :)

We had couple of Mexican diner, one Italian, three Sri Lankan and rest was either Pizzas at hotel or Indian restaurants around. I gained almost 4 KGs in two weeks – blame it on eating out completely for two weeks.

Ok, Left it about our weekend on my last update
The weekend, we had it planned quiet good and thankfully it was a long weekend. For Saturday we roamed around Zurich city, Zurich lake and some local mall. One thing I found every where was Swiss army knife and lots of cheap – really good wine. We took a local Zurich lake – boat trip for around one hour and had a good site of many buildings. It was curios that the boat restricts, food, smoke and ice cream. I didn’t understand the difference between food and ice cream :)
On second day we headed to the Alps – Junfrau ‘Top of Europe’. It was more of a 6 hour journey one way and spend almost 2 and half hour on the top. The journey had two hour of bus ride, a on hour stop over at Interlaken and another 3 hours on a Cog wheel train to the top of Europe. More updates and pics on next update :)................

Finally landed.....

The status screen say 90% and 10% more to go. It is almost 9:50 pm and I am still in office making sure that today’s update reach my client in time. First things first! It had been a while before I had updated this blog and I have the usual excuse of ‘I was too busy with my life’ to pen down a few words. The thing is I had so much to write every time that random thought goes through my mind or when I see some thing which sparks of a series of thought but never got a breather to sit down and jaunt down some. Now I have a 10% upload window of a huge application which leaves me with out much option to use internet ( as it slows down my upload, a disconnected mobile phone connection which makes sure that I don’t call up a random friend and say some thing stupid …. )
A few updates, after a stint of around 40 months in US, I’m back in my motherland. It feels good to be here. Last time I was here for a vacation, the humidity and the dust killed me (the usual NRI dialogues) but it was rather because of the cold weather of East coast which I got so much used to in say last 3 years!
So this time I made sure that I take step by step crash down to my home place so that I have interim places to shed off the cold weather or say snow. I had been in Hyderabad for around two months before I finally got to my hometown. This time I am here to stay for a while and not for a brisk vacation which usually leaves an impression to my friends that ‘did he come’ or we just felt ‘he came’!
Staying at home and working like a day scholar is something I always wanted to do but my profession never allowed me to do so. Now I got a golden chance and I seriously enjoying the same. My friends back in US had warned me of the stringent time lines now my company has stipulated at my offshore locations and the kind of work we get to change my mind set to stay longer in US. It has been close to two months and I am glad that I stuck on to my decision to travel back. Yes it means to come back from a lot of comfort to a lot of discomfort but this discomfort does come with a sweet thing called ‘family’ around me! I am enjoying every bit of food I get at home as well as at my desi canteen!
A few things that really irked me for a while and now getting back to the desi skin which makes the saga ‘Everything works’
Every one I met in this last two months were in a hurry
No one cares for anyone else until and unless the ‘other one’ is a friend / relative / any of group-one belong to – either be cast / religion / language or even age! My understanding of culture is basically ‘concern for others’ and I haven’t seen much anywhere!
The long queue in front of a Mc’dee in a mall at Hyderabad left me in splits and my friend who was with me didn’t believe that Mc’dee is kind of a fast food eatery and not considered as a restaurant of any class!
No one cares for rules and everything works no matter how bad it is

Sorry to stop it abruptly but the upload is compete and I have to get home atleast by 10:30 and heard that the by-pass road is too dangerous to drive after 10:00pm …god save me :!

Random thoughts

Eyes are really burning and still don't feel like sleeping. My dear friend Susu is sitting next to me with a half finished wine thinking about which movie to play now... So closing my eyes, it black - Pitch black. Nope looking a little close now. Its not pitch black but a collection of dots. So its not black, its more of a collection which looks like black. Yes it has got black, a little gray dots! So if you analyse black very closely you will realise black is not completely black. If you take anything and analyse closely, its not complete. Take anything, love, hatred, air, water, nothing is complete when you look at the smallest unit of it symbolises an incompleteness. So the next question arises , why to analyse anything this close? Not actual a good thing to analyse but best thing is to embrace it. The random stream of thoughts never stop but it just flows in.

Chicken Drum sticks ...easy way ;)

I call it Chicken Drum sticks but not exactly drum sticks ;)

Ingredients:

Chicken leg piece : (Skinless– 8 Nos)
Ginger garlic paste : 1 tsp
Red chilly powder : 1 1/2tsp
Chicken masala : 1 tbsp
Coriander powder : 1 tsp
Salt : as required
Pepper powder : 1 tsp
Vegetable oil : 3 tbsp
Curry leaves : 5 to 6


For garnishing
Onion (sliced) : 1 (big)
Tomato (Sliced : 1
Lemon : one half

Recipe:
Gently spread the 1 tsp ginger garlic paste evenly to chicken pieces and keep aside. Heat a copper bottom frying pan and sauté red chilly powder, chicken masala, coriander powder, pepper powder and salt. Heat it only up to maximum 2 minutes on medium flames and mix well. Keep the fried masala mix to a flat ceramic plate and gently spread over the chicken pieces. Keep aside the left over masala mix. One slight cover up should do it. Once all the pieces are covered with one thin layer of masala, leave the chicken pieces for 45 to 50 minutes. After 50 minutes, microwave for 3 minutes each (4 pieces at a time). [ this is to make sure that the chicken piece gets cooked)
Heat a flat frying pan with 3 tbs of oil (Medium hot). Add curry leaves to the hot oil. Keep chicken pieces on the hot oil and roll them up with skewers every three to four minutes. Each time, sprinkle a little masala over the freshly fried chicken part so that the mix glues to the meat. 9 to 14 minutes frying should be enough. Move the fried chicken to a ceramic plate with tissue paper to remove the extra oil over chicken

Sprinkle lemon juice over arranged chicken pieces over sliced onions and tomato. Serve hot for best taste.

Life's Colors, It is gray!

It is easy to live in a black & white world where you can live with straight lines and defined shapes. As in the moral stories we heard in our childhood where the villain is full of evil and the hero is the living idol of good! Now when we see the world with a thin load of 20 to 30 years behind us, the picture we could draw about the world is never black or white. It is somewhere in the middle. Even when judgmental is the one thing we try to remove from our mind every moment of our life, we circle back to the same level next moment judging each of things or humans around us. The final outcome is never a black or white result; it just draws another undefined shape with the color ‘Gray’. Be it a relative, a friend a stranger, no one is of one color, they change color with time and circumstances and they fill a little of black and white each time they change sides! Some are of a lighter shade with less guilt and more are of a darker shade with a symbol of pride over their achievement. At the end of the journey, does it even matter if what our color is while we exit the world or does it change the true course of cycles of life as in re incarnation?

Camping - Vermont - Emerald lake

Ater a long wait, planning, re planning, scheduling and re scheduling finally we went for our first camping trip to Vermont – Emerald lake. Sunil took care of the reservations and checklist for shopping and we were on the way to Emerald by 12:00 pm from Abhishek’s house. (Plan was to leave there by 10 …just fell over by 2 hours). 5 guys on a small compatible car with truck load of stuff. A tent for 8 ppl, 4 pounds of chicken and pack fo 24 chicken sausage in an ice box, case of beer, vegetables and paneer for grill and couple of cameras. It was 3 hour drive from our place, reached the camp site by 4:00 – just in time so that the park office was open.

Took an hour to set up the tent and set the basic things. We head for the walk trail which looked so small in the map but a long trail with two (foot ball injured guys) in the group. The terrains where not so challenging but injuries take tolls :), have to appreciate my brave friends to go walking on such terrains with nurtured ligament tare and twisted ankles… Folks once on track are all in one aim to finish the trail.


We found one amazing lake bank idle for swimming but we missed our bath towels. After spending a while we realized we are falling short on time to get back to our tent and do the grilling part.
On the way around, we found a nice playing area where the foot ball players showed of their skills, a little time running behind the Frisbee and a lot of walking.



When we came back and started to sort out things in the tent, we realized we are short of drinks, missed chilly power, the grill needs a bad wash and we didn’t had the rite tools. So we head out again in search of a general store in a remote place relying on GPS and iphone searches. Meanwhile Deepak, Bobby and Abhi set the grill to fire. After tenuous effort for about 45 minutes, they got a clean grill with steady flames – hats off to you guys.



After a 30 mile drive and couple of bad search results, we found a super market and got everything we required and started driving back. One the way back the weather took a wild turn. The 30 % rain chance showed up that the 70% fell on the day time and rain gods blessed us with heavy down pour. By the time we reached back, the chicken was marinated, Paneer already grilled and tent was filled with two petromax and rest searching for battery for our big lamp.



The chicken sausages where already grilled and it tasted so good (we had a long day on trail, games and shopping and all we ate was that sausage which tasted the best sausage I ever ate(hunger and taste are definitely inversely proportional to glorify the taste) After a tough search for about one hour, we confirmed that the battery pack is missing and we need to spend our night with two LED lamps and moon light under on a heavy rainy day. But our spirits where high, drinks where on and so do the grill! Grilling and card game went on late until 1:00 PM! We had to keep strict silence as the camp had rules that after 10 it is strict silence …. Also our camping neighbors looked like its mid night for them at 10:00! So we relied on sign symbols and LED lights ….and here is a glimpse of what we ate for night :)



It was an experience on what all we can do in limited lights which included fire display, guess whose drink is where and keeping track of who left what and where.



By 1:00 we had three heavy down pour of rain and it looked like rain is going to stay. It was dream come true for me to sleep under tent with rain sound just over our head, a little warmth of tent inside woods … felt a serene feeling once you close your eyes and listen to the rhythm of rain over your tent.

We woke up next morning around 8:00. We had to cook our breakfast, clean the camp site and leave by 11:00. Bobby again showed his master skills by putting back the grill on in 45 minutes which took a heavy toll from rain last night and some close to wet firewood. The rest of food was finished in no time! We noticed a young boy going to each neighboring camp site picking up the left over firewood (an arm load cost you 4 $s and felt even Americans do this ;)) A fellow camper came around and asked if they can take the rest of our firewood and we felt that these folks take this very seriously – to pay and get firewood. We left the site by 11:30 and were back in home on my bed by 4:00…

It is so refreshing to be close to nature, listening rain, eating from a grill with a shade of charcoal flavor in your food. Learned that getting the tent back to the packing back is a tedious task and all you need is one night to get attached to a place. Until the next camp, I am signing off …..

Shanks

World cup 2010 .......