My favorite songs list changes with time, The following is the present list of favorite songs:

• Mozhi – Katrin Mozhiye
• Kannthil Muthamittal – Sattena nanjadhu nenjam **
• Ilamai kaalangal – Paadavantho gaanam
• Ilamai kaalangal – Raghavane ramana ragunatha **
• Geethanjali _ Oh Priya Priya
• Raasaiya – Kathal Vaanile
• Pelli Pusthakam – Srirasthu Subhamasthu
• Annai Oru Aalayam – Nadhiyoram **
• Mayabazar – Choopulu Kalasina Subhavela
• Kizhakke Pogum Rayil-Maanjolai
• Mudhal Mariyaadai – Poongaatruthirumbuma
• Sivapu rojakal -Ninaivo oru paravai
• Netrikan – Ramanin Mohanam
• Mann Vasanai – Pothi Vacha

Most of them are Tamil and there are few Telugu songs too.
**Most favorite.

It is an All time favorite comestible for me. I don’t miss puliyodharai when ever I goto temple. “The Gods are on our side, all our sins have been forgiven” is the feeling you would get after taking puliyodharai prasadam at temple. It is well known fact that it is god’s favorite dish that is why we mostly offer TR to god!!!

I love Saturdays and Wednesdays , you know why?,. These are the weekdays we get Tamarind rice or lemon rice in our Hostel mess. I pine for those two days. I do appear buoyant on those days. No worries, and I devour an extra large plate of TR.

I have two business plans in my mind to be implemented may be after 5 to 10 years from now, one is being agricultural project, which is not the topic of this post. And the other is Restaurant. I’m the lover of south Indian food and hence I wanted it to have South Indian cuisine, yet to decide the inclusion of North Indian and Continental cuisines. however It is strictly Vegetarian.
Yesterday evening, after giving send off to my friend Raama in CMBT, Chennai, we thought of going to a restaurant in Vadapalani which is on the way to our hostel from CMBT. Though we had taken stomach full of supper in the hostel, we had no qualms in filling it again so soon. The eat-out specialist in our group Sheetal decided it to be Hyderabadi Food Court ( He is biryani freak).

A cute north-east Indian girl welcomed us inside the restaurant, we were surprised to have this kind of welcome, we ever had. We felt pleasant ambiance in side with four to five north-east Indian girls serving us . They did not allow us to serve ourselves. and obviously it was mind blowing for our guys. Bhanu being luckiest for getting served by a cute girl all the time.

Immediately we thought of facilities to be provided in our future restaurant and the motto of our restaurant. Mani suggested we must service customers in the same way what Hyderabadi food court is presently following, but the serving women must be donning traditional attire. And our Motto should be “Dine here and forget your worries and tensions, get relief from your work pressure and your wife’s unpalatable kitchen”. Hence I thought of naming it Manassanthi (peace). Does it sound good?, energetic?? some feel its drab. There are few more names under consideration Pournami, Vennela ( thanks to AP tourism dept).

Readers please post your comments and suggestions on the name and Menu after all you are going to dine there!!!

P.S: I will update this post with more information about our future restaurant soon.

I thought of writing a travelogue but it turned out to be our horrible experiences in munnar trip and there is not much to describe about the place than our struggles because, the time we spent for sight seeing is quite less compared to our journey time which makes the whole trip an unhappy event for many.

When i started describing about the trip my tone was set to a discontented person, and intended to blame the organizing committee and the situations we fell in on those three fateful days. Later I convinced myself as it was no one’s fault, but we ought to enjoy the trip rather than crying over discomfort we faced.

We started in chennai at 7:30 pm on 13th and we reached Munnar by 3:30 pm on 14th. The route we followed was Chennai – Villupuram – Trichy – Dindigal – Theni – Bodinaickanur – Munnar. By the time we reached Theni it was morning 10am. I enjoyed looking outside through window while traveling and it was very pleasant to see the nature’s beauty along roadside from Theni to Munnar. It was greenish on road side with lots of trees that include tall palm trees , coconut trees (like in kerala), paddy fields, sugarcane and banana fields. A strange thing i have witnessed in Theni to Bodinaickanur route is, there are plenty of white silk-cotton trees found every where on roads and households.

West ghat hills starts at Bodinaickanur and will not end through out our journey to Munnar. These hills are densely forested places replete with natural flora and fauna and the green hilltop was our bulls eye to reach, but it was not that soon, it took long time to reach the top (not exactly but near to the peak). There on it was ups and downs in hills. There were few cascades in between and many trees were hanging with loads of fruits. It was very tempted to have some fruits but the bus was not stopped any where in the middle. I thought of coming there alone then I can have stomach full of fruits. When we reached the top(almost) of the hill there were few houses, forming a hamlet, and there are two check posts of Tamilnadu and Kerala. It is interesting that the border between the two states is on Hills. We bought some orange fruits there from the roadside vendor, they were really tasty and cold. And there on it took some more time to reach our resort which comes 20km before Munnar town.

From the check posts till our resort it was full of tea plantations you will wonder how much effort would have gone behind this much vast tea plantations. Cardamom plantations were also there in between. Till i come back to chennai i did not know that they were cardamom plants and we wondered what are these trees and why they planted largely here, I have come to know about it when i was browsing through internet in our lab about Munnar. I read about cardamom trees and saw their pictures. Then I figured out what I have seen there.

We were very tired by the time we reached resort, suits were booked already and the suit we got is pretty good. It doesn’t have fan or AC, you will no longer need it in Munnar. Every one took bath and were ready for sight seeing. We went outside our resort it was rocky hills all around. We posed for photos and we roamed there precariously on those steep rocky hills for more than an hour. There was a small brook born amidst rocks, flowing downwards. I love to see such small streams. I drank some water and posed near that for photos. We returned back to our rooms as it was becoming dark. We ordered buffet dinner at resort. They charged hundred rupees for veg and one twenty rupees for non veg. The food was not so good and they served very few items, and not worthy of money we gave. I got angry and ate so much almost worthy of two tickets on one ticket it self!!!. After dinner our organizing committee has arranged a campfire, we had interesting gossip session there. while we are interestingly participating in that, it started raining after an hour. We ran to our suits leaving the camp fire session abrupt. Though i like to get wet in rain , the case is different in Munnar, it was chilling night and rain will make you shiver terribly. I slept after coming to room, I had a nice sleep as i was tired in bus journey. Early morning we got call from our organizer to get ready for sight seeing, we were ready by 6.30 am and bus started at seven.

Our plan was to visit Mattupetty dam and Kundala dam and boating at Kundala dam. The scenic nature around the Mattupetty dam was very good. We spent half an hour there and had a light break fast with red carrets and biscuts. Then we started to Kundala dam, it is needless to say the scenic nature on the way to Kundala dam was magnificent with Tea plantations at one side of the road and tall trees on the other side. I was witnessing the tallest trees and green dense forest for first time in my life. It was heaven for me.

We reached Kundala dam by 10 am. The view all around is charmingly scenic. The most memorable moments of my trip (probably in my life too) are the moments at boating in the lake. The lake is surrounded by green hills and the water in lake is fresh and greenish, cool breeze was touching my face. The climate is most comfortable and salubrious. on the whole it was a breathtaking scenery. I’m sure you would think of a boat ride with your girlfriend. Unfortunately i had no girlfriend, so i had to adjust boating with my friends. We took a peddle boat (They charged 60 bucks and three persons can go for ride), two guys can peddle it simultaneously and the guy sitting in middle can change the direction of moving boat with a steering. i wanted to spend at least two to three hours (preferably all my life time) in boating it self. But there were many of our friends waiting for their turn to go for boating (there are very few boats) and we got only half an hour time for boating on our tickets. It was disappointing but no other go. I sat at one end and was ready to take our boat to end of the placid lake with peddling, one friend sat in the middle for changing directions, and one more macho friend sat at the other end to peddle along with me. This macho friend was peddling so fast that i could not make it, and i left the whole peddling to him, and i was just enjoying the every moment of the boating seeing around. Wading my fingers through the cool green water on the side of the boat. I took many snapshots on our boat ride. But unfortunately nothing looks good in photos you have to watch it directly with your naked eye. Though we wanted take our boat till the end of the lake, it was almost 20min over by the time we reached middle of the lake, and we had to return to the starting point in ten mins. Our macho man made it possible with his fast peddling. One of our friends said he saw anakonda in the lake water probably he would have seen his own image in greenish water when he looked into it!!. Reluctantly we passed over the boat to our friends.
Later we started to visit Tea Museum. We were aghast to learn that the entry fee is fifty rupees. “I will not come in, I don’t want to learn the process of making of tea, I don’t have the habit of drinking tea either ” my friend shrugged. “Hey give me 5 rupees each, i will go inside and see the whole process, and will explain you later clearly” another friend tried to make a deal. Mean while our active organizers had talks with Tea museum manager and successfully brought down the fee to twenty five rupees. Every one accepted with out a word and we entered into the museum. Just for the sake of naming it a “museum” they showcased few antique things. There is a pot that belonged to second century BC preserved in the museum, which was found in archaeological excavations in Munnar. An interesting news, that we read there was about the railway line to Munnar. There was railway track to Munnar during British rule, but it was destroyed in floods later, and the plans of reconstructing tracks were kept in abeyance since then. A pair of train wheels were also kept for display that witnessed the disaster. Later curator/guide of the museum taken us to a tea manufacturing plant. He explained every step involved in making tea leaves into dry tea powder and making of various flavors/concentrations of tea powder. Many of our enthusiastic guys bought tea powder of variety of flavors there.

Then we started our return journey to Chennai, on the same route, needless to say again about the scenic beauty of lush tea plantations and dense forest around the road. I don’t have words to describe the scenes seen through the bus window. Our bus driver was very cautious in driving through out the ghat road. The road is very narrow and it was very difficult task crossing the vehicles coming opposite, and taking U turns in that ghat roads. A large stone was fell on the middle of road due to the rain last night, and the gap to cross the road was very narrow just as much as the width of bus and there was no protecting wall/rods along the edge of the road, It was breath taking experience for me looking out through window and the wheels of the bus are at the edge of the road, at height of about one kilometer. Thanks to our cautious bus driver, we crossed ghat section safely. Once we were out of the ghat roads, our guys started dancing and singing, every one enjoyed to the extent possible. By the time we reached Trichy it was 3.30 am and our bus driver was sleepy, he wanted to sleep for an hour, he stopped bus at a petrol bunk. We came out of the bus, and just lied down on the floor outside the bunk. We enjoyed the rare experience of watching stars ( and moon ? i doubt moon was there or not) for an hour. After the respite driver back in action. we headed to Chennai.
We reached the outskirts of Chennai at 9:00 am, we thought we could reach hostel, in half an hour but it took almost two hours due to the heavy (usual) traffic. We have become like grilled chicken (Yummy yummy for cannibals) under the hot SUN of Chennai. Thank god finally we reached our hostel around 11:30 am. Thanks to CS club for the great trip.

Somehow I managed to get the consent from most of my friends except three guys in our batch here, one guy among them agreed to come at eleventh hour, now he went for shopping to buy dress, that he wanted wear in trip . We call our group “xtreems”. xtreems is a clique of guys (some one argued it as herd of pigs!!!) doing ms in cse dept. They all selected me rather I announced my self as coordinator or manager of the trip, so everyone must follow my commands, or else you will get kicks on your back. It is quite difficult to manage and bringing them on one line. But I can manage, I have the confidence. please believe me!!!

The first incident happened when i attended interview to do MS at IIT Madras, A committee of eight professors were interviewing me. After some pleasantries they asked me where did i complete my under graduation, i said oxford engineering college, Trichy. every prof burst into laugh, i was confused and i felt like whole earth revolving around me(who said earth rotates??, he is right man!!!).

second incident: i joined in MS program at IIT Madras, computer science dept. and i got accommodation in krishna hostel. first day afternoon in hostel some of the guys who joined along with me were having lunch at Mess, i joined them for lunch. One guy asked me where i did my under graduation, Hey this time i’m smart, i said “Trichy”, hoping that he will not ask anymore.

“oh you are from NIT trichy, nice to meet u dude” he decided where i studied too,
“No da i’m not from NIT, but some private college in Trichy” i was loosing my patience but still i managed secrecy.
“which college da” this idiot wanted to know everything on earth it seems.
“bharathidasan university”i was trying my level best
“but which college under that university?”. don’t you leave me in peace idiot.
“oxford engg college” finally i gave in. how much time i could resist man??
“oxford engg college???” he exclaimed as if he was eating chapathi but not bullshit.
“YES”, i shouted almost, i lost my patience.
I could not see laughing faces around the table. “f** off idiots” i murmured.

Third incident:
when i was in 3rd sem, there was a workshop at IIT Madras conducted IEEE for lecturers in engineering colleges in tamilnadu to improve their skills in “computer architecture”(CA) course. professors from our dept were giving presentations there, I’m an ardent fan of one of the those professors , i developed enthusiasm for CA because i failed CA in B.E and studied diligently to get pass marks in supplementary. So i attended the workshop. around 70 lecturers from various engineering colleges appeared for that. during the break in a chitchat with my prof he asked me the same nightmarish question, i replied “Trichy engineering collge, trichy”, this time lied as i did not want embarrassing moments anymore. I had no scruples in deluding in this regard, enough is enough.
At the end of the 2 days workshop, one of those lecturers had approached my prof for some doubts, prof cleared his doubts and asked him which college he was representing he said “Trichy engg college”, immediately my prof responded “one of your students is doing MS here and he came to this workshop also, let me locate him here” he searched around and unfortunately i caught in his eyes , “hey sreeni come her eand meet your teacher” i was shocked. all my energy gone into ground as though electrical wire were grounded , i stumbled and reached there.
“Hello sir” i stammered with shivering voice and i offered my hand.
“hi I’m XXXX, nice to meet you, i joined trichy engineering college in 2004 when did you get out of college” he said pleasingly. “2003 pass out Sir” i said boldly, my god gave all my strength back.
oh my god you saved my life i love you.

“my dear god I’m from oxford and not anything else and i will not lie hereafter” i promised my god after leaving them.

[I censored many things in this blog and represented a modified version of what had happened actually, after all it's not my dairy]