Deadly Week

September 1, 2022. Can never ever forget this date. Had a narrow escape is what my doc said. Got into the ICU because of hypertension, my reading at that time was 260/140. I don't know how many could relate to this as an alarming number. 

My wife is always a solid pillar of strength and keeps proving that repeatedly. She has always stood by me for the craziness I have done in the past. She was like one person running around the entire hospital from the pharmacy to the registration desk with her back pain and fatigue. Imagine the mental trauma she would have been through, in spite of that she was rock solid. Every 1 hour she would peek into the ICU to check on me. The whole night and followed through she didn't sleep or eat. As I said she's a solid Rock. After all, this craziness finally got discharged (the hospital management planned to extend it by another 3-4 days, the monetary game) and back home.  

Thanks to my friends and family for being with me during this tough time. I am back home. #peace #home #happiness 

R O C K I S M

6 golden years with ROCK. What a journey it's been so far with my ROCK. We have munched close to 37k kms to date and we have more and more to go. I would like to thank my technician Mr. Shiva who takes ultimate care of my ROCK. Thanks, Shiva.......

Happy happy birthday ROCK - 12.12.20

Education – What????

I am not starting a debate here….no way. But I have thought several times, what's the best medium of education? Schools – No, Colleges/Universities – No, certainly NOT.

I would always say TRAVEL (henceforth expressed as T) is the best medium of education. As I said earlier, am not here to debate, this is my perception. The minute one hears the word TRAVEL, it kind of sends in a positive vibration, sets a mood, and calms the mind (well trust me – it does). Having said that T has its style and forms. Irrespective of your mode of T, or destination, or duration, there is always something to learn from every travel, mostly defined as experiences, I call it education.

New people we meet, new cultures we encounter, and different types of food we taste, and when I say food, there is always a custom and style related to food.  Talking and staying with strangers, enjoying a drink and meal with them, living like them for a day, exploring their place as they do………the list goes on, all of them are different experiences we enrich (oops sorry – education)

Personally, every time I am done with a trip – I always feel a change, there is a kind of change in the way I approach scenarios, the way I communicate and perceive things, a kind of self-realization?? I don’t know if “matured” is a heavy word, but the change is good, most welcomed, and positive.

One gets a sense of independence and responsibility during the T. The traveler takes bold decisions, calculated risks, and achieves benchmarks during the course. So can I mention here that TRAVEL is directly connected to MANAGEMENT (top or bottom of the pyramid, well don’t ask me). Guess this is why our predecessors have mentioned that practical knowledge is always a step ahead of theoretical know-how. But the saddest part is – it's short-lived. Which means there is always a trigger to plan the next T.

I suddenly feel low at the level of my education…….. it's time, maybe 

H I G H T I M E ………….. I have planned my next TRAVEL ………….see you all!!

Keep riding  |  Keep traveling  |  Ride hard  |  Ride Safe

V I R U S - 2020

Until March 2020, the word "CORONA" always gave a smile to a lot of people, thinking of the beer with a dash of lemon. But....things changed post the news from Wuhan about this deadly virus, it became pandemic and the scariest one till date. (to the best of my knowledge) 

Millions of people affected, lots of lives lost in spite of medical advancements and research. Lots and lots homeless. This scenario just left everyone blank and there was absolutely no reaction time. At this toughest phase, great efforts have been taken by the countries across the globe to stop this spread and cure the affected ones. I thank the DOCTORS, NURSES, PARAMEDICAL for their impeccable service and gesture, these people haven't visited their homes for days together, they stick to their job to save and protect us. A big SALUTE fellow citizens. OUR biggest return gift to them is by staying at our respective homes and not stepping out. Lets together fight this corona out of this world.

Prayers for a speedy recovery for the infected people. RIP for the departed souls. . . .  

28.12.2019

Miss you Mommy - 69 years young you are. As always

Elections

Guess even comets would not be that regular in hitting us, but once in 5 years (or even lesser) we have a bunch of men with different colours, symbols and women with party coloured sarees, pleading to us with raised (but folded) hands, literally begging for our valuable VOTES. . .  and of course we do not remember their respective faces..... 

well how can we? it is practically inhuman for anyone to remember a face which we see once in 5 or more years, but if you have missed the posters, fancy hoardings, flex boards, then am sorry you have a terrible vision problem and please consult an ophthalmologist immediately. . . 

On what grounds these politicos hit on us? on what belief? what confidence they have that they can fool us easily! a very powerful collateral is their "MANIFESTO", I sincerely doubt if the respective politicos go through their own manifestos??? Issuing freebies, wherever and whatever possible? right from phones to grinders? free food & drink? everything and everything is free. . . making us a bunch of lazy goons, no care about productivity ratio, individual contribution to the development, growth of the State, a direct impact on nation's growth as well. All they need is their respective chairs, their discretionary powers, authority and first citizen status. 5 years is the deadline to swindle as much as possible, topping the corrupted people chart, and parking their funds at Panama or Switzerland (the list would never be exposed by any government). 

Assuming a state has 8 crores of population deciding their leaders, say for example 230 leaders. Now, who is powerful? 

......out of these 8 crores we have the best of people put together, we have scientists, farmers, engineers, pilots, government staffs, spiritual people, atheists, artists, sports people and the list goes on. . . every individual from these verticals have their best capability of independent thinking, analysing and decision making. So if the 230 leaders turn out to be a bad choice, who is to be blamed? obvious, it is the 8 crores

We may have a lot of priorities and choices in life, but please my fellow statesmen, let's go and VOTE, and let's not get swayed away by inappropriate promises. . . 

Let's choose WELL and let's VOTE

#PALANI April 30 - May 2, 2016

Awesome drive for 3 days, was a #blissful weekend. All started  on April 30, 2016 @ 15:30hrs, started from #chennai to #palani. Chennai - Trichy - Dindigul - Manaparai - Palani. A beautiful place, pretty quiet and pious atmosphere. The most beautiful hill temple in South India (my choice). 

Myself, Mr. Bala Sir and Mr. Anand, 3 on a beautiful swift dezire, this car is a pleasure to drive. roads were lonely and tempting to press the accelerator, though we were slowed down at regular intervals by 2 parallel lorries or buses or tempos, and of course our toll plazas, not forgetting them :)  

Thanks to one Mr. Arumugam, who made our trip memorable right from the starting point at the #Winch (only 3 options to reach the hill top, by walk / winch or rope car), till the process for the darshan. . . Lord Muruga was at his best, tamizh kaduval, pious, a stage of nirvana, soulful and satisfied after the darshan. 

This weekend was a spiritual one with loads of fun, discussions, food and drive and drive. clocked 1000kms on the meter, as I always say my life is measured with the odometer. . . would certainly love to visit #Palani again and again. 

Muruganuku Arohara!!!    

R.I.P

heart goes to the lives lost in the attack. God knows when this terrorism would be stopped. Innocent lives lost. Prayers to the families for their impeccable losses. RIP to the souls #belgiumattack #terrorism 

TN09 BY 6093 ROCK

1st birthday to my dearest ROCK..... happy happy birthday baby..... what a ride we have had for the past one year.

We have conquered the best and the worst roads, riden almost all the terrains possible. Not even once you had let me down. Always been with me. Shared all my moods with you. High and low, good and bad.

Had blood in my eyes seeing you drowned in the recent floods, was heart broken to see slush around you. But was determined to make you roar again. Especially today on your birthday.

And here we are together to ROAR again.

Our ride to LEH is pending..... will make it happen asap!!!!

Many more rides to come......👍👍👍👍

December 1st to 6th, 2015 @ West Mambalam, Chennai

December 1 - 6, 2015

Can any one of us from Chennai forget these dates....December 1 - 6, 2015. what a dreadful week it was, I would say its like a second life to most of us, the rains lashing the capital black and blue, had no mercy on the rich or poor, black or white, big or small, power or powerless, none were spared, everybody were bought down to one flat surface.

What all had this floods taught us, plenty of lessons to be learned, I see this as a learning curve, an eye opener, its high time we wake up and work towards the betterment of our city and state and country. 

the fact is that our city has received only 35cm of rain, the issue actually was not the rains, did we have the storage setup, we had news circulating everywhere that Chennai had 300+ lakes but today its come down to a meager 30+, what went wrong? who's to be blamed? is it the govt officials, ministers or the whole government? or we the people who chose them to power? 

when people got stranded, where were these call taxi operators who said that we would get vehicles in 2 mins? none turned up. . . mobile service providers offered free calls, but where was the signal for doing so? that's a whipping, we have a picture of their capabilities. . to what extent they can be trusted. . . 

plenty of vehicles with the govt departments. All SUVs or on par which could wade through high levels of water, where were these vehicles? MISSING. . . 

Partiality between north India and south India is always evident, wherein the former always takes the entire stage, especially in sports to a large extent, does that even take natural calamity into consideration? not even a single north Indian channel (not national channel anymore) covered what was happening in Chennai, they were more bothered about FRANCE and UK, what sin did we from TAMILNADU do? 

aren't we eligible at least for a news coverage. this is an another whipping. 

Where were the so called top journos? one always does the shouting, other doesn't allow anyone to speak, one more is busy tearing politicos into pieces........end of the day they didn't turn towards TAMILNADU, clearly shows their interests towards their ratings.....well done!!!

By surprise I had my MLA coming to my area on Sunday (when all were over), asked him about the water stagnation, he says he did not come and pee here, its because of the rain, this was the language used by him, a member of the legislative assembly.....and he had thugs staring at me when I raised my questions to their dear annan (MLA), none of the thugs were aware that I was representing their problems too. . . this is the case of a ruling MLA. . . 

Personally this calamity has put me on shame, my dependence on electrical and electronic gadgets, first 2 days without them were like hell, I could imagine to what extent these techno crazy things have spoiled me, there were no candles at my house, no transistors or torches that were battery operated, I felt like a stupid for being dependent on electricity to this extent and not stocked my house with these utilities, finally what helped was the diyas, old traditional way that came to my rescue (thanks to my mother in law who saved them post karthigai),this was a direct whipping for me. . yes!! now I have woken up and learnt my lessons, I would ensure I preach this to strangers, friends and my kith and kin. . . lastly, we survived, thankfully we are alive today wherein hundreds of my dear state people have lost their lives, may their soul rest in peace. . . 

JAI HIND 

October 3, 2015. . . . . enjoying smoke-free life

May 14 - 16, 2015

Our very first step into the Kerala market, Participated in one of the premium HotelTech Expo held at Cochin, CIAL. Had a great time through out the 3 days, met a lot of prospective distributors and samples were given to one and all. I am sure 100plus would have a great market in Kerala. . . 

money P.O.W.E.R

for the past few weeks, the sensational news (or made by the media) of a famous celebrity facing trial for a hit and run case is topping the viewers list I guess. . . the entire family and friends worried about the verdict, prayers and lots of well wishing messages reaching the celeb. . . his mother was immediately hospitalized and father was very much down. . . he had this sorrowful face. . . his fans eager to have a glimpse and waiting under the scorching sun for long hours. . . and the celeb waving to them. . . all these events were unfolding. 

finally as expected (guessed by everyone) the judgement was on the celeb's favor and he was granted bail, his fans enjoying the moment, his mother suddenly became fit and fine and his dad and friends were relieved and were giving darshan to their fans/loyalists . . . 

does anyone remember about the incident? ? ? A life was lost and several got hurt very badly, they are yet to recover from this trauma. . . no one is interested with them, no prayers to them, no consoling, feeling, positive notes to them???

End of the day, I remember this statement "rich get richer, poor get poorer". . . money power is more powerful than the supreme power I guess. 

JAI HIND

PENGUIN

I always wonder and get the shiver when I hear the terminology called "formal dress code". Staying in one of the most hottest city in the world - Chennai, I fail to understand why keep sticking to this crazy formal wear, meetings/business lunch/dinner official parties, everything relates to formal wear. . . 

This is one of the clear mark to prove that Brits were ruling us for a long time. They have left this crazy formal code with us and we have stuck to this like anything.  As it is it gives the most uncomfortable feel, topping it we have the coat and the tie....

oh my title was "PENGUIN" right.....why??

one looks like a penguin with the suit on. . . don't we??

NEPAL

5000+ people have lost their lives, more and more are missing. . . . tragic to the core. . . RIP to the souls and prayers to the kith and kin for this impeccable loss 

R.I.P

RIP to all the passengers who lost their life in their tragic journey boarding AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore. Tragic end, wished and hoped 2014 could have had a pleasant ending and curtains down. 

Whatever technical advancements we have achieved over the centuries, nature always plays a dreadful role to its will. . . . heartfelt condolences to the respective families. 

28.12.2014

Happy birthday mom.