Travel Diaries ....Trip to Indonesia

I read some where that " life is what happens when u are busy making plans". Not that I am complaining but that's what exactly happened in my case. I am all set to take delivery of my cycle on 14th Aug and I got a call asking me to pack my bags and leave for Jakarta by 19th Aug for 3 months duration. So the same day I need to take delivery, I had to cancel my order :(   ( the cycle showroom guy is too good that he returned my advance with out complaining and with out me asking about it)

Now for some one who is wondering that his passport do not have a single stamp even after 7 years of issue, going abroad is a big issue ( doesn't matter whether it is USA or Indonesia). It also came as quite a relief for my parents who never understood why I declined going to US after giving GRE and instead chose to join Infy. Even after doing my MBA from TISS, this fact still haunts them when ever they go for some marriage in the family . ok, enough of digress

For some one who take years to finalize a purchase let it be a cycle or a simple t-shirt, getting every thing in place in 4 days is a mammoth task. I was on a shopping spree for full 3 days and even amused me by the quickness in purchases I made

Did go through a couple of websites to know more about the place and things necessary there. There is a wealth of info ( but some can be misleading like the info on rains, who ever said its rains torrentially during months of Aug-Nov, its hot as hell )

Any how , would write a post on things which are of use here and those that don't in another post

Finally I have boarded a Malaysian Airlines flight to Jakarta with a 2 hour stop at Kaula lampur. Its all together a different story that I had spent the best part of those 2 hours searching for the gate, as I had interpreted display signs wrongly :( ( Lesson: An arrow indicating up means straight ahead and not meant to go to first floor)

Its another story that I spent another 30 mins dragging my luggage from one end of airport to other end at Jakarta, as I couldn't find the driver who is supposed to pick me up and I couldn't call from my mobile ....there are no. of international departure gates at Jakarta

To have a happy ending, I am given accommodation at Hotel Manhattan which is owned by an Indian, and for what ever reason, u find familiar faces and conversations ...

For now enjoying the beautiful view from my 27th Floor hotel room
 

Cycling it is part 1

Well...its been quite some time i am out of college and honestly i am feeling the void the moment i come home from office. While i was at Infy, MBA prep had kept me occupied quite a good deal and now i miss it ...Living in a new city with not many friends didn't help either ...
so that's when i seriously started looking for activities to do ....My first stop is the Yoga classes ( not that i am interested , but too much of parental pressure ..can't help whether u are 2 or 26 :P )....but my office timings doesn't suit them....I very much know jogging is not sustainable ...planned to join french classes , but didnt feel good spending a good 12K on learning some foreign language when i have many to learn here ....thats when i came across "Baroda Cyclist Club"- An active cycling club in Baroda ...and all the old time cycling memories were back . 
Unlike most other kids, i got my first cycle when i was no longer a kid (16 it is) . Its a second hand Hercules bought for Rs 700 ....I rode it till my second year Engineering and in a way i should vow my selection at Infy to cycling as i so passionately explained how i would go for rides in my infosys campus interview ......

coming to the present day , once i decided to buy a cycle , i decided to have a modest budget of 5K to buy a gearless bike which serves my purpose  ( not yet heard the term "cadence" :p ). But the more i read about cycling ( read religiously about cycle components , models for 20 odd days ..and brands like Btwin, Fuji, Trek had become quite familiar)
But the models out there are so many and it damn confusing to pick one

Ok..i know this entry is now becoming too long , but if some one is seriously looking at buying a cycle  ( its a good thought ...even though how much fun ur friends make ) ..here is a list of suggestions which seems to be universally true  ( most experienced cyclists agree on)

• Dont go for Front or rear suspensions ...They are not at all required even on our potholed Indian roads ..They just make cycle heavier and u need to exert more effort to maintain the speed
• Hard sadle ( the seat) is good. You would get used to it in some time and good for your tail bone :) 
• Gears or no gears is a personal choice. But the advantage of having gears is that u can maintain a high cadence ( its no of rotations of pedal in a minute and u should aim for 80-90 for a good work out) . Gears help in maintaining cadence with out straining your knees ( again its a matter of choice, we all rode gearless bikes quite well years back)
• Any good brand cycles have gears by Shimano or SRAM . I dont know much about SRAM, but regarding shimano - they have a progressively sophisticated gears which makes shifting gears quite comfortable ( Tourney< Altus<Alivo ..read more ) .
• I Paid a good 3.5K more just to have a higher end gear 
• Rear gears are more imp than front gears ( so u might compromise on gears at front but not for the rear ones ...ya ya nowa days there are 24,27 gear bikes unlike 5-6 gear bikes we are used to )
• some good sites with wealth of info
• http://www.bikeszone.com/
• http://www.choosemybicycle.com/
• http://www.fitjog.com/

Its damn difficult to finalise a bike as many options are available. The best thing to do is to visit a couple of cycle showrooms and take a test ride ( yes , they do provide test ride for cycles ) 

Hmmm...this is what i had done in choosing my cycle ...by the way , i had increased my budget to 20K + by this time :) :)... I rode a couple of cycles ( Trek 3500, Fuji Traverse, Schwinn sporterra ) and fell in love with schwinn for its gear shifting. So here is the cycle i ordered. It costed me 26K ( MRP 29650) . Though it sounds crazy to spend such kind of money on cycle ( which doesnt even looks quite flashy) , i believe its worth to spend on . The rides which i plan should justify the cost. Its more than a week that i ordered my cycle and in a day or 2  would be getting it ....Eagerly waiting for it now :) :)...After all we all loved cycling as kids :D :D

Update: I had to put a brake on my cycling plans and cancel my purchase as I was asked to relocate to Indonesia for 3 months....more on that in the next post

Random ramblings

Its been quite some time that i wrote any thing. Not that i am busy with work ( would come to it later) but some how not motivated to sit and write  ( writer's block ;) ). But now and then one of my friends who happen to stumble upon my posts have a word or 2 good things to say about my writing ( they almost made me believe that i write interesting stuff :P ) ......but now i am actually a bit short of topics to write

Before joining TISS, i am quite excited to know about life @TISS and life after TISS but hardly found any blogs ( Babu Bhaskaran sir ,by any chance if u are reading this, i did read all ur blog entries :) )... and hence used to write about Life @ TISS and most of readers of the blog are TISS aspirants . Now being ceremoniusly kicked out of TISS with a degree in hand , i am fast becoming an obsolete student 

Unlike some of my gifted friends i am not even gifted with good english grammer , so won't attempt any thing closely related to poetry, story telling ( i can see the sense of relief on my friends faces who were lucky enough to listen me sing :P ). 

so here is what i am gonna write

(1) I recently decided that i would plunge full time into cycling . Did an intensive 20 days research on every thing related to cycle ( details would be part of my first post regarding cycling)

(2) here comes the interesting part .....In college there are consistently a small set of people ( quite small literally) who romance IR profile to the core ...who can be found flaunting PK PADHI ( well..for mortals, its a book on labour laws) and throwing widgets of labour laws to unsuspecting classmates ....so i would be writing of my experiences of actually working in a factory :) 

so lets see how it goes ......

Life in Gujju Land......Life at Baroda Part 1

Lot has happened over the last 2 months. I had officially became an Alumnus of TISS. In fact its exactly 1 month i joined in my job and 15 days in Baroda ( i know its called Vadodara, but there is still a charm in saying it Baroda)

As a day job  i manufacture quality bulbs and tube lights at affordable prices ( Actually i don't , but did shahjahan ever built taj mahal on his own?? :P)

I remember watching a telugu movie some time back, where the hero after a lot of drama announces the dawn of a new don by letting out a huge shout " Ab gangu ban gaya gangu bhai " ( to be echoed atleast 2-3 times). Thankfully i dont have to strain my vocal cords . One naturally becomes a Bhai as and when they enter gujarat. so now i am officially called Anvesh Bhai . In fact for most people here Bhai is incorporated as part of their name

Going a few days back to my induction days in CG, we (2 of the 3 who joined in HR function) were seriously hoping to get our posting in Goa but then its announced that i would be working with "Baroda Lighting Works" which is located some 40 Kms outside the city of Baroda. Info on Wiki says that it is one of the safest city in India and people are quite friendly and 15 days here i can corroborate for both the facts except for the discrimination shown towards non vegetarians .

The first condition you find in house hunting is that u can neither cook nor bring non veg home . ( yes, there is KFC in Baroda and by looks it seems to be the most profitable in India :P ). Ofcourse there are good no. of restaurents all over baroda .People here are quite outgoing and one can see all restaurents and shopping malls occpied all the time with families . There is one night market with eataries from which i came back a few minutes back and there are families with kids who are still coming there at 1 AM

Girls are damn good lucking in baroda ( Dare to call Gujarat  a dry state ;) and almost every one here understands Hindi which makes life quite easy to live by ( not for those who had to bear with my kichdi of Hindi and English 

will write more about the city and work as days pass by .........:)

Life in the last 2 years

Lot has happened in the last 2 years ..whether in terms of aspirations , priorities in life ..


When i started my preparation for MBA entrance exams , my objective is pretty clear. I want to land up in a job which pays me a Lakh per month and do some thing which is not technical ( some thing not related to programming, which i never got the hang of) and also for once study in a college of repute that i no longer need to explain the exact location of college for people to identify (@Vignan: i still love to say i studied in Vignan engineering college located near Duvvada railway station :P )

Now when i stand at this juncture almost at the end of my 2 years at TISS , where i achieved every thing i set out to do ,I am blank and clueless to say the least. Most probably this is my last formal education culminating when i am fast crossing 26 years . Ofcourse still there are plans of doing one more masters either in psychology/law/labour studies ...but nothing in immediate future

Placed with "Crompton Greaves" in final placements and hopefully and most probably will get a factory role ( which i had been romanticizing for quite some time) and so soon will come to know how much fun it is ...

One remarkable change i can observe over the last 2 years is the changing priorities with respect to life style and what kind of work i do ...Money has taken a backseat ( ofcourse still there are expectations but it is no longer a decision maker). I am sure of what kind of organizations i enjoy working with ( thanks to all the Fieldworks at TISS) and especially those i never want to work irrespective of what they pay 

Succesfully organized and concluded "Manthan" , been part of traditional senior-junior trek, danced for the first time in "Meghamudra", lived the dream of staying in a hostel ( Room no 17, Hostel 3 , Old campus..u will sure be missed ..), Made some really good friends, found true nature of some ..at the end i had grown ..hopefully more mature and confident than i started with 

Though this look like a farewell speech , there is still a long way to go : One NGO stint to complete, Research Thesis to be submitted and four exams to be cleared before i can proudly call myself an Alumnus of this great institute "TISS" which provided me more than what i achieved in 24 years of my life time

Chronicles of Life at TISS - 8

Some how today i feel like writing some thing in the blog  again and what better topic than happenings at TISS 

Last few days were few of the quite hectic days , we organised the first rounds for various events of Manthan(www.manthan2013.org) which is scheduled to happen from 25th to 27th Jan . Beyond that the heat of placements can be very much felt . 
Dinner conversations shifted quite comfortably to discussions on law and whereever 2-3 students meet , the discussion always surrounds around who has a chance of going to which company and dream companies :)

Tommorow marks an important day for the batch of 2011-13 as the next batch (2013-15) who are eager to oust us from the comfort of TISS campus and take our place :) are writing their written exam . best wishes for them 

Never realised how 2 years just went by .......hardly few days left for us in the campus but deadlines of research and the course on "Leadership" ( Mulla sir already shared a 800 page compendium beating his own record of ACB ;) ) sure gonna leave little time to feel nostalgic 

Now its all about placements for the next few days ...Situation looks quite optmistic and wish best things happen for the batch of 2011-13 :D 

Chronicles of Life At TISS - 7

I am back in Mumbai yesterday once again to complete the last part of the Journey called "fourth sem in TISS". Its kind of sad and exciting feeling for that i would no longer be in the campus after these 6 months but at the same time excited that in another 6 months i would be starting my career on how i wished it to be years back when i started my MBA prep .

 I traveled  to LTT terminus like the way me and Hemanth( My team mate at Infy , classmate at TISS and an eternal enemy :P ) traveled when we came to Mumbai for the first time to face the TISS interview . We knew nothing about the city then except the fact its not much far from LTT to TISS campus in Deonar and we need to ask the cop there on what is the best way to reach campus and the way to sub urban train station ( the famed mumbai locals from that day onwards became part of the Journey in TISS) . Yesterday when i got down things were different . Now i have a fair understanding of the city ,language but one thing remained the same , i still need to ask for directions to  Tilaknagar station :P .

Coming to the campus is a warm feeling , its a feeling of being at home .From the past one and half year TISS had become second home for me . The campus bore a deserted look for hardly there are any one in the campus except for those from outside college who are undergoing some training sessions in TISS. I miss familiar faces but thanks to few of my idiotic classmates (just like me) who were back few days ahead of campus reopening , i had some company
In few days we would be facing our laterals , go for the last fieldwork ( by the way i am equally excited about which sector i would be sent this time and which company , My guess it would be FMCG  , will know in a week) . There are only 4 subjects to be done this time ( would have been only 2 had i credited the optionals i had audited) and completion of research work .
Come May , and like many batches who had done before us and many more going to do later , we become Alumni of the institute which gave us everything and we remain as Batch of 2013 ....Wish the time freezes in the last semester ( though the juniors would curse , as second semester is the HELL semester in TISS :P )