Sand Soo Engagement

In the morning, Sho, KK and me went to NSS college, to meet Sho's cousin sister.. In Sho's own words, "Oru kochu kutti" - studying for Btech :-S
Thatz Kiron Syndrome, which has affected his brain, I guess.

Back into hotel in time. Gasper woke up with fever. High temperature, and dizzy.. But he managed to pack himself fit by 11AM. And the smartly dressed up 6-some reached the venue walking.. 5 minutes late. We always make it a point to reach any important function, at a min positive chronologic shift of 300s. (Wonder how big an impact, its going to make, on our own weddings :-S )

What was going smooth and silent an engagement function turned into shouts and laughters upon our entry. Ellaarum onnuranna pole.. At least the duo on stage seemed a bit relieved to see us (chumaaatheyaa.. push ;-) )

After the initial round of on-stage formalities, like ring exchange, sweets exchange, etc etc, started the photo session. We managed to form a group and stormed the stage. All of a sudden, the stage seemed to small.. The gift* was handed over..

Soon after, Sand's dad asked with a cunning smile "Athil onnum illallo, alle"
Crystal clear, that Sand has done his homework, and has given some insight to his dad, on our past 'kaarnaamey' :-D

Food time.
Guyz sat, as I left for one last round of photography, with my canon in stand by - expecting the guyz to hold one seat for me.. Expectations expectations ! :(
Came back just to find "there is always the next round" :((
But that went good.. Urvashi shaapam upakaaram.
I could get some outdoor snaps of the couple.
The "professional" photographers were making them pose in all funny manners.. With Sand sitting on top of a painted yellow coconut tree, Soo standing with neck bent west-bound at 27 degrees, eyes facing each other.. and what all poses !

Packed up the session soon, thanks to the dis-interest of the couple in such funny acts. Back to the hall, and it was time for the next round of foodings. I sat with the couple. While we were into eating, Sowji called from US and wished Sand. He was awake all this time, and had called up multiple times already, but could not get Sand over the phone..

Soon after lunch, we left for the hotel, bidding adieu to everyone. We need to reach Bangalore before it midnight! We started back from our hotel at around 2PM and after an eventful rainy drive, reached ground zero by 11PM.

Tail:
1. Sho, seeing all the man-deep potholes on the highway "Aaraa ividokke kizhal kunar kuzhichu vechey?" - He meant kizhal kunar kuzhal kinar (borewell), but Ms Vikata Saraswathi had other plans :-D
2. Long drive exhausted KK. He announced "chaaya kudikkaan ethelum sthalam kaanuvaanenkil parayane.."
Sho "athaa oru police station.. keriyaalo?" :-S
3. 2 accidents delayed our onward and return journeys. Pictures are hearbreaking...
4. The scenic nature of NSS college brought in thoughts into KK "I wanna do a BTech yet again!"
5. The gift* : It was a huge box (a diwali sweets box), wrapped with gift wrapper (not bought specifically for this occasion) and given a topping cover with a pink net cloth (came with the diwali sweet box) - None of these cost us a penny. If you open the box, you wont find anything inside. But some research, and you find hidden inside, a CD (CD is not bought.. its free as well :D ) The CD is a Video CD - athil oru kathaaprasangam.. Title "Bem Bem Boom Boom Kee Kee"
More details on it cant be revealed at this point, since the crew has plan to release a movie on the same theme.. A location study was done at Lakshadweep
(Verum thallaanu kettaaa...)
6. The D-day (not the film release) - The wedding - in the third week of Jan 2k7 !

Our First Wedding !

A very fancy title !
But its not my wedding with some eena meena deeka
BTW, its not even a wedding, for that matter..
Its "Sand's Engagement with Soo" !
The first signs of a wedding bell, in our group of jolly good friends.

All of you know Sand and Soo from this space. But not many of you would have expected this :)
Well, it was on Oct29, 2006. The two love birds finally getting officially tied up. Wedding is planned for Jan21, 2k7. Cant wait for blasting on that day.
For now, lets see how we rocked the day, the event, the gathering, the duo with our tremendous presence at the venue :-D

Saturday, October 28, 2006
2.10AM
Thats when Gasper and I finished the engagement gift. It required a lot of artistic and technical excellence. And ample support from Bin. Its all packed, wrapped, and kept in good shape.
Well, what is the gift ?? -> That will be told at the end of the story :-)

5.30AM
We got up and packed ourselves for KK's house.
That is the starting point for the trip. Sho reached the place the previous night and spent the night there. At 5.50AM, we expected a pair of dressed up gentlemen at the door, but we were greeted by a topless KK and a sleepy Sho in shorts :-S
On top of this, lecture by KK "You said you would come y'day night and blah blah blah.."
Knowing his nature, we preferred to keep mum. Yes, its our fault :-S

Finally at 7.15AM we start. Mridul also reached by that time.
KK in the driving seat. Mridul in front. Rest of the 3 packed behind.
An eventful drive to Palakkad thru EC-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharamapuri-Salem-Coimbatore-Valayar.

On the way, when we were about half way thru, we stopped for a cup of tea. And due to popular demand I called up Soo's house. The mission - to find the route to Nelliyaampathy. Its a hill station some 1hr drive from Palakkad.
Rat : Hello, Soorya's house ?
J : Yes.
Rat : PJ aano ?
J : One sec, i'll hand over..
Rat : :-S

PJ : Hello
Rat : Hello ! Ithu njaanaa Ratheesh
PJ : :-S
Rat : Manasilaayille ? Soorya's friend.. With me are KK, Gasper, Shobin and Mridul..
PJ : (almost asked) Who are all these ppl ? And who are you ?!
Rat : we are coming from bangalore for the function.
At this point, PJ got some idea - at least these are some friends of Soorya, coming from Blore.
And the stupid me thot I was a famous personality at the Soo-house. Stupid idiot dumbo me :-s

Got the detailed roadmap.. Then I asked
"Where is Soo?"
PJ : She has gone for wedding
:-S And we thought it was tomoro ! BTW, tomoro is engagement.. Oh.. so its someone elses wedding
Finally, hung up, saying "See you there". PJ was still in total confusion.

The guyz killed me for the next half an hour in the car, for this stupidity.

Later Soo called up and said 'Aaraa ee Ratheesh ? Valla kaaryavumundaayirunno ? Rat ennu paranjaal poraayirunno ? Ivide ellaarum molilottu nokki iruppaayirunnu.. Ratheesh-o aaraa ithu?'
:-SS

After marathon drives, reached Palakkad by 6PM. And since it's already late, dropped the nelliyaampathy trip. Went straight to Hotel Soorya City. Thats the engmnt venue for tomoro. The receptionist gave a broad 70mm smile and said "No rooms"

We checked a couple more of hotels, and finally zeroed in, to Kairali Hotel.
2 AC rooms. With TV, fridge, bathtub, hot water facility... After all, Sand is paying ;-D

Bath, a walk, dinner, sleep...

Baaki ke stories later...

More Lakshadweep Pics !

With the Title/caption given below each pic...


Jai Bolo Raman Naik kiii !!
(who is this Raman Naik?!)
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Boyz are ready to dive into the sea!
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The Captain of the "ship" - checking the coarse
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Ohm... (no, i dint mean the unit of resistance!)
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Fisherman in Reebok Bermuda
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Scuba Diving Gear.
Err.. Well, its snorkeling gear.. right Sand?
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Ravana*0.3 ?!
:-S
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Hey, Is that Salman Khan?!
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Folk Dance Time !
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One pond per house!
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Fulla colours!
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A shy inmate of the island
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A Melancholic Mood...
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Don(keys?) - The Chase Begins !
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Catch of the Day!
The crew had fishing hooks hanging out of the ship.
And they have handsful - i mean, bucketful!
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Back in Kochi
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Childrens Day Special !

Got inspired , when I saw some childhood thoughts. We are running a competition over here in the office - an article/poem contest. I'm the organiser. I cant participate :(
So, took the pen (er.. keyboard) and paper (bole to.. start->run->notepad) and started tapping the keys...

Any such writing would start with "gone are the days..", "those were the golden days", "how i miss those playful time with friends" , blah blah blah..

Its human to think of the past, as the golden years. Well, either I'm not human, or i'm above it! I cherish the present as good as the past, if not a lil more! No Hi-punch dicoles of the kind "I live in the present", but I know, it is the truth :-) Yes, I'm living life "King Size". My family is doing good, my friends are doing good, and my bike is also doing good. What more do I need :-D

(A rather short one, considering my reputation!)

MUA : Lakshadweep - Part III

Where are we ? I lost track (thanks to two total twist-movies : Departed and Don)
Let me check........ :-S
Okay, so we have already finished L'deep description. Probably, I can add some other info as tail. What follows now, is the return trip - L'deep to Kochi, and Kochi to Blr. Enjoy reading... The last part of MUA: Lakshadweep

The day went very quick. It felt like we landed just a few mins back, had a round of scuba diving, drove around, and its sunset and time to leave! By this time, all the tourists had mingled up very well. Joshua was all the time with us. It was with Sho that he got friendly with, first. Slowly he left his gang of 3 (dad,mom,cousin sis) and joined, what he calls, "boys" :-D

With all the items packed up and kept ready, the 'boys' walked towards the sea, for one last round of photoshoot.. Low-light photography is an art in itself. Adjust the shutter speed properly, and the night will look awesome. But too much of 'adjustment', and the night will look like day!
This one it toooo much of night content in it :-S


Its already 7PM and we are off-schedule already by 2 hours, thanks to an engine problem and slightly dis-obedient weather. At the jetty, we were informed, that the ship is running on just one engine - and that would mean, a slower return-back to Kochi! No issues, as long as we dont miss the next-day (Monday) 6PM bus to Blr.

20mins of wait at the jetty, and the ship came. We got loaded into a boat, to board the ship. Since the sea was a bit rough, the boat ride was interesting.. Lotsa ups and downs :-)
Bin and I were on our foot, holding the mast of the boat - braving the waves.
(Screaming with each wave :D )

At the ship, we bid adieu to the L'deep tour organisers "See you next time".
We were welcomed by the crew in the ship. The same crew, but different passengers, of course.
The crew informed us that the ship is near empty, and you can go and sit wherever you want to, do whatever you want to :)
Well, we got in, safely tucked the bags beneath the seats and left for the deck. Since we had already taken dinner from the shore, we limited to the on-board dinner to just some fruits, which were given to us. Veer-Zara was playing inside! I hadn't seen this movie. So we got in and enjoyed the movie. Was surprised to see Hema malini in the movie! I knew there was AB in it, but not HM! Post movie, Sho slept on 2 seats, in a lie-down posture. So did Bin and Sand. I tried the same for some time, but came back to sit back and sleep posture.. ZZzzz.... End of Sunday.

Monday Morning.
Renjith woke us up - Renjith is our fellow-tourist - "Come letz capture the sunrise".
"Okay, chalo"
At the deck was Sand, all set with his cam. Joined him, and got some peeping-sun pics.


Post breakfast, we got into the engine room, and the control room. Met Capt Raphael and got a first hand info on what all those gadgets were, in the control room. In the engine room, we had a visual inspection of the malfunctioning engine. The engine will be serviced, once we reach Kochi.
Again, got on to the deck, for some stupid Titanic pose, and some ladder-sit-down poses. Also tried out some dance steps over there :-s
Meanwhile, the movie playing in the ship was Krrish. Since we had all seen it, dint care it too much..

Since we were running on one engine, the ETA at Kochi was 2PM. And we reached somewhere around 1.45PM.

Bus to Sand's house.
Reached by 4.30PM. Sand's dad, mom still in office.
We freshed up, copied the pics. Burnt cd's full of pics..
The hang-over of the ship journey was still on top of our head. At least in mine! I was not able to stand still. Felt like going outta balance !
Sand's parents came by 5.30PM. Got tea to energize ourselves.
Chatted over tea, about the fun things that happened in L'deep..

6.15PM.
Time to leave.
Bus at 7PM from Angamali.
Reached Angamali by 6.30PM.
Sand's dad dropped us and went back home..

A funny incident there.
Not seeing the bus, we called up KPN travels and got the bus number.
Some KA-xx 9199.
A KPN bus with number ending 9199 went by, and dint stop there!
:-S
We called up the travels again and complained.. They said, they will contact the bus and get back. Soon another KPN bus came - number ending 9199. But some other 'xx'. That one was ours :-SS

Landed in Blr by 6.30PM, Tuesday.
Some rest, relax, framed a nice excuse to tell in office, for absence on Monday, and off I went...

Tail:
1. one pond per house - thats one speciality in L'deep. This pond is for bathing purpose. Probably, also for small scale irrigation.
2. shy kids - The kids, the galz in particular, are very shy. On one instance, when we spotted 3 galz sitting on a swing, I tried capturing them. By the time I switched on the cam and looked thru the viewfinder, the kids were gone :D
3. 90% muslims - Yeah. The population is dominated by muslims. Putting it in trademark Sand-words "90% of L'deep population is muslims. The rest are also muslims" :-))
4. hospitality - Awesome! From the moment we landed on to the island , we were impressed by the hospitality of the ppl in general, and the tourism crew in particular. One point wort mentioning is that it was Ramzan fasting time. They were fasting , yet serving !
5. language spoken - It is Malayalam. Not pure Malayalam. They speak with themselves in a no-script Malayalam. But they'll communicate to you in the Malayalam you know. (Well, if you dont know malayalam, then of course the tourism crew can converse in English)
6. cell phone coverage - Apna BSNL :-) Full coverage ! No private players here. And dont think, they have any plans to set up a n/w here
7. how to reach Lakshadweep - From Kochi, a 13 hour ship journey will take you to the island of Kalpeni. Thats where we went. Since the islands are all close by, it might at max take 1 hour to commute between islands. But of course, you dont have regular ships for commuting ! The ship which we boarded was "Amindivi" - a twin-engine new ship. In fact, the newest ship commuting to L'deep. 2 new such machines are in the process of being put in the same route. Well, for more info on how to reach L'deep, check this link : www.lakshadweeptourism.com
There is flight to L'deep. But I recommend a ship journey (i.e. if you are first timer)
8. ship cautionary measures - Bin's bro is a homeo doc. He suggested that we take 'tabacum-200' 1 hour b4 getting into the ship. This is to get rid of the vomitish feeling, which you may get while on-board. May be, due to this, all of us had safe journey :)
9. Need to know swimming? - No! For the water sports, scuba diving, kayacking, you will be given life jacket.
10. statistics of kalpeni - a small peaceful island. Why peaceful? We asked the locals. They said, "Everyone here knows every other person. suppose i kick this guy, or say get into a house and steel something. There is no place for me to hide. Its a "small world", you see!"
Yeah, really small.
Kalpeni is just one of the 10 inhabited islands of the L'deep clustre. Geography says, there are 27 islands in total.
11. Tuesday midinght - bin got up and sat on bed, sleepless for a few mins. He complained of side-ways swaying, while sleeping ! After-effect of the ship journey ? Or a weird dream ?!

Some cool pics b4 i sign off..

MUA : Lakshadweep - Part II

I started off writing this series, thinking I would finish it off in one episode.. But..
:-P

Morning. 6AM. Sunday. Still in ship..

Getting up early has never been our cuppa coffee.. But then, when you know coffee may go out of stock, you have no other way out :-)
We wanted to go up to the deck to check out the island approach. But then the security of our baggage kept us glued to the seat.. Well, it was not required in fact.. The ppl are very friendly, and the baggage is safe under your seat..
The ship wont go all the way to the island ! That doesnt mean, we have to jump out and swim the last mile :-D The ship remains anchored a few 100 metres from the shore. That distance is covered on boat. And there are plenty of such motor propelled shuttle boats. We got into one of those. All 11 of us - there were 7 other tourists, you see.. And we 4. The rest are all regular passengers. At exactly 7.25 we land in Lakshadweep!


A van drive of 5 mins took us to the resort.

Resort -> Stop stop... Stop thinking of that cozy reception, and the blue sky colored swimming pool and other things. This one is just an open air (has a roof) hall for dining, and some concrete rooms for changing, some bathrooms etc.. But thats the right measure of facilities.. You need that islandish feel , you see ;-)

We were welcomed by the crew at the resort with tender coconut. The resort overlooks the sea, and we finished off the tender coconut seated on one of those sea-stopper blocks.. You see, the kinda structures, used to block sea from coming over..

In an hour's time, we had a quick freshening up and got into our swim gear :-)
(read, bermuda's and white uniform t-shirts)
Had a round of bread-butter-jam with a choice of tea-coffee to keep our tummy engaged in grinding activities.
By 9 o'clock, we were seen kayacking around, on a 2-seater.. taking turns..


The rest of the tourists were busy with some chore of their own..
By the time, they came a boat was ready to take us to the scuba diving point. For that we need to go to the nearby coral island.. Funny thing was, halfway thru, the boat stopped! And the motor refused to start! But no worries, we managed to propelled the boat, the traditional way - Got down and pushed it forward :-S
The sea was tooo shallow in those regions, and you could even walk the distance to the next island. Only that it gets deep at odd points. And in those points, you can even drown yourself.
Next 2 hours of scuba diving, and other masti..
The gadget they give for scuba diving consists of a goggle to keep your eyes covered, and a small pipe kinda thing, which you fix to your mouth. This will protrude out of the water, allowing us to breathe thru it, while we are in water. If not maneuvered properly, you will end up saying what Shobin said "Ithu uppu vellam valichu kudikkaanulla straw aano?" :-D

Not many water-pics were taken, coz all of us were in water..
To compensate for that, here is a Mallika Sherawat kinda photo below :D


By 11.30 we got back. On the way back, got a good decent rain too.. We hid ourselves under the life jacket. Well, now i know 2 uses of a life jacket :-))
In the mean time, we made good company with Joshua, the kid among the tourists.. This champ was taught all our names, but for some reason recollects only one name - Rat. Keeps coming over and will ask 'Whachoo doin?'

1.20PM. Bath done. Lunch Ready.
1.45PM. Time for some folk dance. A team of 10 came over in uniform dress and presented a dance with typical folk style.. folk song.. a dummy sword in hand.. A good performance.

Later, its time to explore the land. With a guide, we set off in the van to a banyan factory. Not much of variety there, but the max price of a banyan is 75 bucks! Good cotton outfit, I should say. Bought a couple. On the way, we could find kids displaying their catch of pearls and shells over the past few days, laid artistically on make shift table-tops..

Also went to a khadi bhavan. This did not keep us engaged too much. Just got in and got out. And went on with some photo sessions. The last destination was a beach. A magical place.. Vast shore.. White sand.. We shot a song here :-) The video is not yet released ;-)
But photos are indeed released, and given below is one of 'em..


Finally a trip to the sunset side of the island, Saw the sun setting as we walked..
Sho posed as Namrata Shirodkar (the pukar-fame : Sunta hai mera khuda..) :D


And some nice sunset pics too.. Given below:




Back to resort. Packed up. Had dinner, and packed to leave..

Sleepy again ZZzz
11.12 PM on a Thursday. Rest later :-)