old farts and young minds

man! meeting old friends is great, always.
we had the 25 years 'whatever'jubilee alumni meet of our college guys..
oh! man!! all old farts now.. its 25 years since we all stepped in to the college first! (mind u not finished, many were wondering why it was 25 so soon)
In a matter of few minutes all these old farts scaled down 2 decades so easily and all were back to same old form..pulling each other's leg at the slightest chance and recalling (conveniently) others' goofs in our hey days and feigning memory loss when ever pointed their own goof ups:-)

the funny part was, all but 3 profs/lecturers there is none left from old days..another proof of days gone past..hmm..but we all proved we are young u know- by dancing, talking thru the night and laughing all the way/day..

Cycle

Those were days when cycles were a pride possession. Kids like us longed for one..aped at some well made-up and stylish ones..many times as we grew up, we all rode Kilometers in it- be it to play a cricket match in the next village or to go to a cinema in a far away town or just-for-fun trip to some friend’s house in next village..In our town, Neyveli, every house had 3 cycles atleast..That was the most popular vehicle..I still remember when my classmate viki’s parents bought him a cycle, he couldn't take it and flaunt at will.It was new and so had to be sparingly used and 'well maintained', u know. So he would ask me to come to his house and call him for a long drive (or to visit some teacher for some ‘doubt’ ‘clarification’) so that his parents wud allow him to take his new prized possession:-)
Hmm..those were days of nice simple but satisfying living..no excesses..Clinging to these small pleasures and making the best out of them was the key.
The cycles were one such gem. Slowly it was pushed to oblivion. Even as we all moved to colleges, slowly chetaks, M80s and TVSes started to surface in our small town and in to our own lives too..
Tough I did come a full circle in this ‘development’ cycle- graduating from cycle to a TVS50, then to a TVS Suzuki 100CC bike then a 4 wheeler..I was back to bicycles at CH but it was used only for the short rides & to catch up time in reaching station or gym. Back there at Swiss, rarely we used to go on long rides to next villages or riversides as a group. These trips also were far less than what we intended or planned.
All this build up is bcos, I was suddenly craving to ride a cycle in a city and am thrilled I did it! In this recent visit to Bangalore, I took my BIL’s cycle (a stylish looking geared one!) and decided to accomplish my one day’s meets/visits in that.
And I did that with élan er ease I shud say. That shud be a solid 20+kms..in blore terrain that’s an additional challenge. For the records, I went from taverekere to Koramangala from there to lalbagh main gate (to that organic mela!), then from there all the way to south end, then sangam circle in jayanagar, from there to JP nagar and finally back to Taverekere via BTM. 20+ in one afternoon gave me some ‘accomplished’ feeling and also the thrill that I didn’t spew any CO2. I rode it like a king with such a great relief and thought that my whole noon was so ecofriendly, travel wise!
So now that the night after passed off without any pains or discomforts, am wanting to do more of this cycling..not only for the nostalgic thrills but also for the carbon credits I can have..Now don’t mumble ‘to offset else where..’ like W. just cheer me;-)
Note: In the process I went to 2 apartments to visit my cousins and both the places the kids playing gaped at my cycle (so kids still gape at cycles, I realized) and shouted ‘hey, that’s a firefox’..poor me, I didn't know what that was, until my nephew updated me.

Top 3 Thamizh words

1/ Dedicate (often pronounced as Teticate)
2/ missed call
3/ water packet
what say u? is yours any different from this?

its all happening..

a talk at Rotary silver beach at Madras on "why organic" and a film screening at Madras Terrace house (see here for their eco-month program) by restore followed by an interactive session.
The madras Terrace house was very eventful : a nice film - Poison on the platter by Mahesh Bhat, followed by an interactive session with the IT-turned-organic farmer jaishankar. That was a very nice and informative session.
The ofcourse all our restore regular activities taking so much time, I hardly had time for other things..
so I really sincerely thank Dhoni for this goof up..for he singlehandedly saved me quite some hours! thanks buddy! BTW, Iam sure that only with his faulty captaincy and scratchy batting he screwed it up for chennai kings in IPL and India @ T20 WC. He shud learn to receive these flaks with some grace for he was enjoying lotsa of adulation in good days. I really cant get how one could bat like how he is doing these days esp for a flamboyant batsman like him!

BTW am off to wayanad, Kerala for 4 days- an outing with some friends and wud also visit a great guy/farmer/farm there. wait for a nice piece on him on my return.
till then be friendly- eco friendly. Those of you in Madras see if u can visit Madras Terrace house

here it is..

the promised picture!

old friends can relate to this esp the blue colour!
so I said 'she's back in my life' but now as a scorpio! (recent gen of my old armada)

got back with an old girl friend

Oh yeah! forgot to tell you, among many other things that last week was a very eventful one. I met many interesting folks(next post) and also had this 'getting back an old girl friend of mine'.
I shall have her foto here 2moro..
for now, lots to catch up..

Dosa camp @ Vishranti

A bunch of us volunteers from restore went to Vishranti old age home in the outskirts of Madras and had a great time.
Regulars here would have seen mention of Vishranti- an old age home with more than 150 destitute old women. This is run by the ever enterprising and the old service hand- Mrs. Savitri vaithyVishranti is one of the oldest NGOs of Madras. The old paatis of Vishranti help restore in sorting, winnowing, cleaning and packing of grains for our restore markets.
We at restore thought we should do something different, funfilled activity and so went with all organic ingredients for dosas, masala and chutney and took turns in making 600 dosas approx this sunday. It was fun all the way and a great change for all those women there. What with making fun of each other's dosa shape, time taken, imbibed tricks, failures in copying their chef and what not..
It was so heartening that none of us felt anything close to tiredness at the end of this 4 hour exercise.