Bye 2011

I have been lazy in the blogging zone but atleast wanted to keep this post updated every year as a journal of how each year passed by.

Let me take a quick recap of how 2011 was for me.... hmmmm this year seem to be too long... cause when I visualise certain things at the begining of this year.... it looks like it happened so long ago

January

Sat was still pregnant.... and waiting for the last trimester to complete and counting days for the delivery... mean while she was also hearing news from all her preggy buddies about thier deliveries... I just got relocated to Trivandrum, found out a house near by office and settled down. Every week I was travelling back and forth to Coimbatore and Trivandrum

February

The first half of entire month passed away in the anticipation of the baby arrival... the second half of the entire month passed with the joy of having our newest member in our family and getting used to her routines.... I experienced one of the most important time of my life; when I holded my baby in my hands immediately after delivery. I still remember that second when I was holding her and she responded to me as well. Arundhati has come into this world.

March

March marched away so quickly with naming ceremony, punyadhanam, doctor visit, vaccination schedule etc... Baby was so delicate then, I was still learning to hold her in my hands and try to make her sleep when she cries.

I also travelled to Bangalore to attend my brother's new house warming ceremony. Gifted them a beautiful ganesha idol. They were so happy about the gift choice.

April

We took Arundhati to Chennai. My babies first travel in flight. We completed Sat reliveing formalities from BOFA. It was sentimental for her to let go of the day job but she made this decision long time back for the baby. We also thanked our Dr Uma in Chennai and showed her the baby. She was equally happy for us.

May -
Sat used to send some pics of the baby every now and then when I missed her. Continued my neo-bachelor life for 5 days in kazhukuttom and became a new dad on weekends seeing my little one growing, sleeping, yawning and responding to light and sound....

June - July

June and July were busy with Psychology exams for first year. I had to travel to Chennai almost all weekends and was busy in preparing for exams and travelling.

Finalised on the rented house in Trivandrum. Met most of the requirements that I had in mind. A beautiful house, little expensive on the rent but still affordable. These two months were more on settling down with moving things from Chennai to Trivandrum, Getting gas connection, cleaning the house, making the electrical and plumbing changes etc... etc... but all set and done for baby and sat to arrive home. And finally all 3 of us started to live in the new house by Mid of July.

August

I was down with back pain mostly in August. Spent a lot of time and money in getting opinions from ortho, neuro specialists... visited different doctors in trivandrum, coimbatore and chennai as I was shuffling between these places... the pain was scary at times and makes me realize that I need to take good care of my health. The entire back ache aggrevated and I was advised on strict 3 weeks bed rest. Never been on sick leave for so long but with baby around the house... it went just like that...

September

Back to Trivandrum, still managing with back pain. Ayurveda helped a bit. What really worked out was the personal commitment and regular exercises... after some point of time, I was able to manage the pain very well. Had a short visit to Chennai during september and hosted a friends get together. Celebrated Onam in Trivandrum and bought a Samsung LED TV for home. We now have a solid 1 TB harddisk which can be connected to this 40" TV so watching movies has been made really easy. All I had to do is download the movie, copy to hard disk and watch it in the big screen... Felt good after watching Fight club again and again :)

October

Managing with back pain and had to consult with some more doctors and physio. Had to travel back to Chennai for some time, other than that nothing major in October. baby had some severe infection and got admitted in hospital for 2 days. It was tough for both Sat and myself to see her in pain. We have become very cautious in her diet after seeing her lose weight just like that in one week. She has not gained weight after that like she used to after birth.

Got my first year psychology results - Thank god passed on all papers but not very good marks

November -

This month was real settling time for family, we decided not to travel anywhere as this whole year, we have been travelling almost all the time in this year. Celebrated Sat's b'day in Turtle on the beach hotel. Took family to Udayasamudra resort for office get together. Gifted Sat a small idol from One and Only shop in trivandrum. Work wise had too many issues and problems at office. Hopefully things will turn out to be better soon.

December

A whirlwind of the entire year. Started with a small one day outing to Varkala... beautiful beach and calming place. After that planned on small vacation to Madurai and then to relatives place in pudukkotai, trichy and coimbatore. Our stay at Heritage madurai was memorable. Food at Amma mess was excellent. One of the best resorts we ever stayed and worth the money. Got to work from Chennai office in the last 2 weeks of December so was able to catch on things in Chennai as well. My swift touched 50K mark this month. December also had a fair share of visit to temple

Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple on our 4th Wedding Anniversary,

Ulloor Murugan Temple on Karthigai Deepam

Kuladeivam Temple with Baby for first time.

Chakkulathukaavu Bagavathy temple with Baby

Financially - Mananged all the expenses with one salary. To meet the ends was little tight but got cautious on spending, Lost some money in share market but learnt how to do trading. Still learning on the nuances and watching hte market carefully for ups and spikes. Diversified some investemets into FD and working had to maintain the emergency reserve fund. Splurged a little bit during december for vacation and time out with family but thats okay.

Movie of the year:

#1 Aaduklam - Tops the list from the begining... nothing else even comes close. Deiva Thirumagan was good but after seeing the english version, Aadukalam still topped the list. Veppam was a good plot but because of poor casting Veppam didnt even touch the top 3

#2 Mankatta - Kick ass movie and Ajith did a good anti hero role. Liked the nuances in the movie and would watch it once again for them.

#3 Vaagai Soodava - Liked this movie for the setting and originality and presentation.

Song of the year:

Kaatril eeram athai yaar thanthatho... from Veppam

Photo of the year:

After a long time

Its been quite sometime since I blogged here ....lot of things are happening... and i do wish to make a periodic note of them here.... but I guess I am just lazy to sit and spend some time to note down them here....
Probably I will start with the most happening thing in my life

Junior Nandoo (or) Sat - Yes we are expecting our first one early next year... and nandoo is busy getting prepared for the new arraival in our family. Doctor visits, scan appointments, Dietary advices, Pregnancy Gyaan... Sat & I are going through all the part and parcel of this exciting nine months journey...Its quite interesting... may be I will write a seperate post about Expecting Daddy's part.... I dont find much on the internet for the Daddy

A sweet something - I met my niece on a weekend after a long time.... It was quite a surprise when I heard from my niece that she has got 5/5 in a essay writing.. the topic was "The person I admire" ... Guess what that little kid has written about me in her essay :-) I still wonder what made her to write about me..... But that was very sweet of her to let me know .....

Talk at IIT Madras - This time for a change, I was invited by the management department students at IIT Madras to share my experiences with SMILE. It was a again a surprise...who wouldnt want to go to that campus.... I did talk there for almost 75 minutes and I hope the students realised what I was saying and probably few may get in touch with SMILE for thier winter intership.
25 Lakhs Scholarship - This is another quite an achievement when I got a mail from SMILE communication team that so far, we have spent 25 Lakhs for sadhana scholarship. When we started smile we never imagined that we could make such great strides.... but as the saying goes "Small drops make an ocean" this has become true for us. we were able to support 161 students so far mainly because people had thier faith in what SMILE was doing and they were committed to bring that positive change.... it has taken 6 years...some may argue its too late to reach this figure..but I see this as a sustained committed effort....
Adaptive Simulation - This may sound greek and latin to you...but this something that has been running on my head since July and finally last week, my team was able to run the code and come up with a desired output... this is one great step towards what I wanted to achieve and my team was able to meet the milestone... I was so happy to see the results on the screen. I am proud of my team members. There is still a long way to go but the proof of concept is achieved and validated.

Enthiran - Thala as usual kalakittar.... I saw this movie in coimbatore Central.... padam sooper...naduvula konjam ilutha mathiri irunthuchu... but overall it was very good attempt... the most interesting thing was having Nishu (Sat's niece) 4 year old with us. She was screaming and making sound and the whole theatre was watching her... I dont know what Rajini has got but he is the only person who will have fans in all age groups, all economic classess and all over the world... I liked the Kilimanjaro song.... That's my favourite...

Dedicated to Pillayar

One of the things that I have seen every year twice is that our nagar pillayar visiting all of our streets.... I wanted to record this moment on my blog.... Sometimes we often pray for all those famous deities around the country but ignore the one that exists in our neighbourhood. The local nagar temple is where you usually go for all the auspicious day and that god holds greater importance than the famous deities all over the world.

As a kid I have walked all over my nagar along with the ratham, first time I was holding the theevati "apo naan theevati pidika thaan layaaku" :-) , i think the very next year I was bursting crackers on the road before the ther enters the street kind of an announcement to the members in that area that the ther is going to enter your street and a year after I have been holding mic for the uncle who makes announcement " Sri Gnana Sithi vinayar thiruvarutsangathin oru mukkiya arivuppu, innum sattru nearthil minvillakukalaal alangarika patta theril sri gnana sithi vinayagar ungal veedhiyil ula vara irukirraar... baktha kodigal thayaraaka irukkumaaru kettu kolaa padukiraargal" .. i think after that i have not participated in the occassion... may be i should start doing it from next time...

Musings

Kicking the stone while walking and trying to keep pushing the stone as you walk along with you... How many of you have done this in your childhood days.... I hope almost everyone who had the oppurtunity to walk to the school nearby.

I was doing this today morning while returning from a shop walking on a lonely road.... It makes me think nowadays there is a school bus that picksup children right in front of the house/ apartment or they have a car/bike with driver/parent dropping them right in front of school so kids never get a chance to walk the way alone in a silent lane.... I am not sure if it is considered safe these days...

Things have changed... there are still few places that I would like to take a picture in my neighbourhood..before they change... some interesting memories that directly link to my childhood.... paati kadai, cycle shop, my old primary school, tuition centre... come to think of it... so many places have been demolished and built as apartments... the 100ft road that was once a lonely road has now become a busy traffic packed and under construction four way lane...

Future generation may not even realize how many trees were there on that road few decades back... 5G was the only bus route that used to pass that road... and those days if you happen to get into that bus then you are considered to be lucky for not walking till the bus stand...now i can see atleast 2 to 3 bus for every 5 minutes on that road. Things have changed... so have I....

I was a school kid back then... I didnt needed a blackberry or a laptop to work... a unruled notebook and ball point pen was sufficient... But its always human tendency to go back to those old days and cherish those memories... and Ian blogging it down here instead of writing it in a diary :-)