The Kolkata Collage

Naveen and Me outside the Birla Planetarium




Wake me up when september Ends :)

Rajathesh, Naveen and me (R2L) at the
gates of the Victoria Memorial Hall

The Streets of Kolkata

Victoria Memorial Hall

Two roads Diverged in a wood and Shriram
took the one less trodden (hehe)

Cool aint it!!

The bridge that connects the hostel to the college!!!

St Paul's Cathedral
(Naveen, me and Manoj L2R)

And Were Back... A Tete-a-Tete with yours truly

After one of the longest hiatus in blogging history(almost a year now) I've finally decided to write in my blog again. All Hail the return of the King(Arasu) :P . I make no excuses for not posting, i was just going through a lazy spell the whole of last year! And hence couldn't get my but of the couch long enough to write anything.

Where am I now?

Right now I'm in IISCR, Kolkata doing an intern and eating Bengali rasagolaas (umm yummy). The journey that brought me here though truly deserves a separate post. It was seriously one of those once in a life time journeys, more on that later...

Why didn't I post anything in the past one year?

Now i am making this very clear so that certain people with vested interests can't go around spreading misinformation. As i mentioned before, after the last post which i wrote i went into a lazy slump and didn't post anything despite my friends Manoj and SG compelling me to write something from time to time. One more thing which sort of made me apprehensive about writing is the fact that my mom discovered my blog. Now this is not exactly a bad thing but the fact is that you can't write as freely as you want, when you know your mom will read it. Hey mom if your reading this 'sorry but certain truths have to be spoken'.

Why the sudden decision to start writing again?

A lot of my friends did tell me to get of my ass and start writing so this was on the cards for a long time now, and i also spoke to my mom and she didn't really have a problem with what i wrote (or so she says :) ) . But all of this still didn't give me the spark to start writing, i thought that when the spark came it would be like one of those moments of revelation, like when newton discovered gravity when the apple fell on him, or, like when the policeman in Ghajini suddenly realizes that the 10 digit number tattooed on Sanjay's body is a cell phone number!!! Unfortunately it was not to be and the circumstances were vastly different. I was chatting with one of my friends on GTalk and i had my blogs address as my status message. Then someone who i hadn't talked too much before suddenly sends this one line 'hey its been a year since you've posted anything in your blog'. I was quite embarrassed and didn't really know what to say, even though it was just an obvious statement which many people before had already made the suddenness of it all just made me feel ashamed of not writing anything. Now I know most people will call this one of my goof ups ( Aras Comedies ) and i really don't care about that, but the problem lies in the fact that there are some people out there who know about this and will add extra tails, heads and what nots to this story just so that they get their share of sadistic pleasure. So i wrote this post so as to clear the air on what really happened.

Where do we go from here now?

As promised before the next article is definitely about my unforgettable trip to kolkata. So see you soon (and this time i don't mean another 1 year) .

Au revoir.

The Year End Review

Well due to 'circumstances and situations'( a carefully thought lazy excuse ;-))  i have not been able to update my blog for the past several weeks , but I'm just in time for the year end review.

Now strangely enough, whenever main stream media does this they always seem to highlight the negative events more than the good one's and often conclude by saying it was a 'bad' year or if i remember correctly, when i read the year end review of India Today for the year 2001,  It carried a picture of the twin towers burning and the headline read 'lets hope we never see a year like this again'.  Now i understand that the 9/11 attacks were really disastrous but to label an entire year 'bad', irrespective of how many negative things happened  i think is totally WRONG. For every such event there are a hundred stories of hope, courage and chivalry that exist. It is like saying the glass is half empty.

I cant understand why the press look only at this side of the coin, I'm not blaming any particular magazine or TV Channel as such, i just took the above as an example,  rather i think that a year ,being a pretty long period of time, cannot be analysed in the one line question was it good or bad?

Now on a more personal front this was the first year which i fully spent being a college goer and  in which i went from junior to senior. The transition journey in the first half of the year was a real roller coaster ride with so many ups and downs i can't even begin to recollect, being on both sides of the ragging fiasco, an unforgettable fresher's night, the passing away of my dog Chintu, the spectacular 360 thereafter and bidding farewell to our senior batch. It was a humdinger of a ride.

More surprises en sewed in the second half with new found liberty and the the acquisition of a second hand Honda Activa. I finally purchased the scooter after long drawn and laborious process of finding, rejecting, searching negotiating and finally clinching the deal!! The biggest surprise though was the arrival of the juniors. With the new AIEEE admission rules we were expecting around 1 junior from TN but were surprised to see around 7 of them. To say that these were the quirkiest batch of guys and gals i had ever seen would be an understatement. Then came the ever postponed exams and frequent trips back and forth, from and two Bhopal. Finally the sem ended and i was able to spend Christmas with my mom and bro.

Oh my Gosh!! How could i forget this , In September this year i started my blog www.soulfulscribe.blogspot.com . I thank all my readers because of whom my blog has recorded 128 unique hits so far( Yippee!! ). Looking forward to writing more and once again thanking all you guys and gals for your support.

Last but definitely not the least I made a lot of new friends this year and had a lot of good times with all the guys both in the Bhopal and Chennai chapters looking forward to more such crazy times in the upcoming year.

It all sems that there's been 1 second injury time this year. For more details see>.  :-) 

Well here's wishing one and all a 

HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!!!!

 

 

Chinpawaaa

Our Chintu

                                   Born in Bangalore on around May 6th 2002, We( ie my bro, my mom and i)  first saw Chintu as a cute little pup struggling in the mud in a place called Cuppon park in Bangalore. It was due to my brother's persistence that we managed to bring Chintu home despite all odds. I still remember the train journey from Bangalore , we had stuffed the her(Chintu) into a carrier bag and carried her on the train as a part of our luggage so as to avoid suspicion. We fed it milk through a small hole in the bag. Astonishingly she didn't make a single sound through out the entire journey... When we finally reached chennai and let it out inside the house , my grandpa was pleasantly surprised. I was not exactly a dog lover at the time but what followed between me and Chintu in the following years can best be described as a "beautiful friendship".

                                     I can still fondly recall the first time i saw it bark. It was near the back entrance to my house where i saw it barking when a sudden sound originated from near the gate.Chintu grew up fast and she grew u to be a strong dog at that, she was well built and could run like a fox. Her coat was a dusky brown with shades of white (see photos). she had a unique proud, majestic look to her. Chintu was also quite intelligent and ever alert. She never let anyone from the streets come even near the gates, but apart from all this the one thing which i felt set Chintu apart, was her loyalty and sense of devotion to all of us, she could always sense when one of us was ill and would come sleep beside the sick one during the time of need so as to provide comfort, they say in Tamil 'naai oru vaai illa jeevan' that a dog is a living being without a mouth, but i feel that Chintu spoke more through her actions than any human could ever speak using words. Chintu was always there in our times of joy and sadness. I still fondly remember the games me and my bro used to play with Chintu and i also recollect the time where she bit me and i had to get shots. Chintu was always effervescent and full of energy. No one could catch  her once she started running, through out the past 6 years we developed a bond with Chintu. A bond of affection, compassion of love. When I went off to bhopal, Chintu stopped eatin for a few days and only resumed eating after she heard my voice over the cell phone. Every time i returned from bhopal, Chintu was always there to give me a grand welcome and i enjoyed every minute of my stay in chennai with her. On April 8th,2008 at about early morning, Chintu passed away after living a life that touched many hearts... Chintu u will always be remembered as a dog that truly cared.

 

my mom with chintu