Remember those times?

Life cannot be any better for me. Now, at this particular minute I am writing this, I am happy. I am a very happy person now. Finally, life at Bangalore and this office are becoming something to look forward to every morning. Until last week, Bangalore could not give me the kind of happiness that Chennai gave; my present office and my office-mates can never compare to the awesome friends I made at Wipro, Chennai; I couldn’t go to meet Baba here. And all that has changed now. I have made very good friends here at Philips Innovation Campus. Now, I can say I have a gang – as in a bunch of really cool people with a great sense of humour – that I can hang out with. A big welcome to my new friends to this blog and to my life! And now I am back to my normal self. I plan my weekends during my weekdays and write about my weekends on this space. I have got a bunch of friends to go around with now.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks now at work with trainings and meetings all day long. But otherwise it is so much fun here. Last weekend, I and my friends from work - Rama, Barath and Sreekanth - had been to Nandi Hills – a tourist destination about 45km from Bangalore and enjoyed Saturday afternoon there. We went there to see the sunset from atop the hill, but forgot about it as we sat there chatting and looking at the mommy monkeys carry their lil’ ones.

On Sunday, Sabal and I went to Forum and met up with Dhinu, who I was seeing after almost 3 months. He had been to Norway on an official trip. Then we went to Dhinu’s place and just as we were about to leave his house, we saw the most amazing black clouds ever. And it started pouring. It was one of the best rains I have ever witnessed and needless to say most of the roads on our way back home were clogged. Our cities NEED to be planned better! The auto in which we came had a radio and we listened so many of our favourite songs, singing along loudly and time just flew by and we reached our home back.

The day wasn’t over yet. It was Sunday and I HAD to meet Baba. Barath had come by and he took me to the temple although it was raining. There was not much crowd in the temple and I met Baba, spoke to Him for a few minutes and came back home. The weekend, unlike the umpteen boring weekends I have been having ever since I came to Bangalore, went off in a flash. For some time, I felt like I was in Chennai with my gang, hanging out and laughing and playing and simply jumping up and down with as much joy as the time when India won the World Cup (remember 3 years back, when Sreesanth actually used to bowl well and caught Misbah ul Haq in the T20 World Cup Finals against Pakistan? That’s what I am talking about). Sigh… That was a long time back, indeed!

Mokkai...

It was one of those rare days when I had nobody to be with. I am the kind of person that cannot live without being surrounded by friends constantly. Loneliness kills me. I mean, I am a normal girl. I don’t like to be left alone and I love talking and that’s why I need company all the time. Last weekend, Sabal wasn’t here in Bangalore. He had gone to Ernakulam choosing a get-together (read: free beer) with college friends who were going off to Dubai (that is where most Mallus go, right?). It was supposed to be a farewell party kind of thing and off he went without any reserved tickets. How am I supposed to fight with “free beer”? I, in fact, told him I would buy him unlimited free beer in a bid to make him stay back. But he earnestly said, “You know I won’t drink much.” (Oh really?) “I am going because I promised the fellows that I would be there.” (Poda poda, rascala)… At that time I didn’t realize how lonely that would leave me for the whole weekend. It was probably the first time ever that I felt bad that I didn’t have to go to office on a weekend.

I made it a point to catch up with friends. I watched Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya with Vinod. Thank you, Vinod for a pleasant evening. I really enjoyed it a lot. About the movie, what can I say? I felt that Gautam Menon hadn’t clearly made up his mind as to whether the boy and girl live happily ever after or not. Very confused and even more confusing. I really loved the Cinematography and of course Rahman’s music. Oh, and also Trisha’s saris (I am a girl, after all). It has been a long time since I saw a movie without any bloodshed and violence and villains. However, VTV was too mushy and romantic for my taste.

On Sunday, I slept like Kumbhakarna. Semma thookam! By the time I woke up, it was evening and I remembered I had promised Yals I would visit her place. We met up and walked up and down Brigade Road (buying nothing much except two plates of Paani puri and some coffee) and it was like old times again. Talking about mutual friends, careers, relationships… what you would call typical girl-talk – it was about everything and nothing. For a couple of hours, I forgot I didn’t have anyone to go back to. That is why they say, girls should always stay in touch with their girlfriends… Thank you, Yals for being there for me.

Somehow the weekend passed and Sabal is back from his trip and here I am back at office wishing it was weekend again. Namma dhaan thirundha maatome!