Curtains down on Chanakya :(

Chanakya cinema... a hotspot for many cine goers in South Delhi.. in the heart of Chanakyapuri, has recently been shut down following court orders to convert this location into a multiplex-cum-mall by the NDMC...

Many memories for me are attached to this hall... everything seems to come back in pictures about this hall, the ticket counter, the small momo(Its an awesome tibetan dish.. it quite looks like the very southie Kozhakattai )shop, the countless movies we watched there, the hooting, the whistles we blew, those college days..Nirula's and its world famous HCF( Hot chocolate fudge!!) the worlds yummiest dessert, the numerous birthday treats we had there, never once getting tired of that spot.

College to me one could say translated to Chanakya Theater. :))

I still remember the times when we would rush to the theater by 10ish just to get tickets.
Front stall tickets was what we could afford then because of the number of movies we saw in the month.:)(Our monthly budgets for the pocket money we got ,always had an item for cinema tickets ;)

Maximum number of tickets sold to each person was only two, so we had to make sure if we had a group of 10 ,5 were at the ticket counter and 5 at the entrance line. We always made sure we were the first to buy tickets and the first to enter the hall... and would rush for the best seats... :)
(The thrill of sitting one row in front of the Rs 75 ticket people by just paying 11 bucks.. was beyond words )

Priya cinema..etc came into the picture when we wouldn't get tickets in Chanakya..

Pictures of the bus stop outside chanakya.. planning further for the day after the movie on which dhabha to hit for lunch...aaaww... miss those days :(

Good times i'd call them.... no brilliant times..Haven't been to the theater in nearly 4 years now...
but soon there wont be any theater to go back to. :(

As I listen to Ali Haider's "Purani Jeans" now....am filled with nostalgia ....

Adieus Chanakya hall ..

The Final Countdown

Lot of things I can associate with the final countdown... This post is only for the last leg of my vacation :) its a different altogether that i chose to post this near the end of 2007 and can link countdowns to many other things in life ;)

Coming back to the vacation..my last lap was in St Louis.. was in time to even catch the July 4(US independence day) fireworks.
Now the fireworks is the most beautiful thing to see on July 4th,apart from the throwaway prices on practically anything at the malls ;)
I could have shopped for life in the US.. just that u ought to know when the best sales are on and where ;)

Well the fireworks, beautifully choreographed(who thought u could choreograph only dances!!!!) happen on the river front..
The entire city..gathers around the river front to witness this spectacular event.
We went about an hour and a half before the event and trust me it took us an hour and a half just to find parking and walk upto the place from where we can see the fireworks.
Wish i could put the video of the fireworks and music here.. the pictures are not that spectacular.
Till that show.. i had seen such fireworks only on the new year programmes on TV.. every year..I see Sydney fireworks, London fireworks on TV... but a live fireworks show was OMG!!

Incidentally there was a baseball match on the same day and the entire city was pitching for the Cardinals..so it was double reason for everyone to be out of their homes..:)

The next evening i went to a Casino [Vegas is the place for casinos..on another vacation perhaps (wink)].. the first time i'd ever stepped into a casino.. After a lot of verification for age proof (Legally one has to be 24 to enter a Casino there) , I got a membership card.. Every time i bet i must swipe the card, purpose it theres a limit on each card.. no one can lose more than "n" dollars in a day.SO each time i win or lose, its logged in the card.
I played blackjack and the coin machine game.. Won some lost some... I decided to stop where i lost anything more than $50 :)

The next evening was a round of Mini golf (also called Put-Put golf).. again first time i even held golf clubs...but Mini golf is very interesting..one needn't be a pro or anything.. just time and swing the club with a little practice.

Obviously ur wondering what happens during the day.. Aah, now thats a check i have to see if u've been following all the vacation blogs properly :) kidding...:) remember i have a sweet lil niece to play with all day... so daytime were earmarked for "playtime" :)

A little more shopping.. on the last day (Loved the footwear there and bought..uuuuhhh several pairs of them back home ;)) and ot was time to go back to India...

Finito to the great time I had there..

Sometime s i wish i could rollback into time.. or hope that sometimes last forever...

But then reality stares hard at my face and says... dodo.. vacations are meant to end ;)

Hope to have many more vacations full of exploring new cultures, new terrains, new lands...

Badhen Boston ki taraf????

Hmmm.. so New York and then what... well missed couple of things in NY..one was the Broadway show..(Supposed to be the best) and Ellis island...(think the movie hitch ;))...
anyways it was time to head to Boston now....

aaah.. here comes the most interesting part...i traveled from NY to Boston on something called a LimoLiner.. a bus with comforts of a Limousine .. Check the site http://www.limoliner.com/
A tad bit expensive... but luxury comes at a price don't you agree..??

So I happily traveled the 3 and a half hours to Boston.. with my laptop connected online and chatting and browsing to glory.
We alighted at Framingham...where my cousin came to pick me n mom up...He and his wife live in Boston.. so no hotels for us.. we were headed to home sweet home ;)

And boy oh boy.. was happy even when i stepped into the car.. a "manual gear " car after weeks...Psst most people in the US are used to automatics...but me thinks the joy of driving is in the manual cars ;)

There were three days to spend in Boston.. Lot of relaxation was on the cards cos after the hectic jiffy travel through NY and other places me n mum were a little sapped of energy.

We reached Boston early evening.. so after a little bit of freshening up we decided to meet another relative who is a student at Harvard.. so that we get a personalized tour of the worlds bestest uni...

Tour started with John Harvard' statue.. the statue of three lies ( a separate post on the three lies ;)..More of Harvard was around the square.. a church there.. a performance hall.. and the Law school Library.. one of the biggest libraries i have ever seen ;)

After the tour it was lovely home cooked food for dinner that was like the icing on the trip .

We started day two with what is called the Boston Duck Tours(comes from DUKW the name of the vehicles)...this tour popularly called an Amphibian tour is done in a vehicle from World war two era.. which can go on road as well as water..Touche'

This tour is like a snapshot of Boston... Remember history..Boston tea party.. Boston massacre.. u relive all that over here..

Architecturally I found Boston quite similar to London.. One place where perhaps the English traces are evident..

After the delightful duck tour..being the fan i am of museums.. the next stop was the Art Museum...Spectacular pieces.. not that i understand Picasso..or Michelangelo.. but art is something that one 's mind perceive.. and rightly said.. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder..

Day two was for A walking tour of Boston called the Freedom trail..Now thats the spirit i liked there.. a volunteer took us around some important historic sights of Boston on a walking tour.
India has much more history i wonder why then walking tours are not made popular here too..

Thoroughly enjoyed the walkatour..after which we went to a relatives house(A typical American house with a Yard et all) in the suburbs of Boston.. aaah..what fun.. they had a trampoline in their yard..and I just found a fun way to just well JUMP!!!!

Day three afternoon we had to catch our flight back to St Louis..and kept it rather relaxed.. we only did a round of MIT...(Bro's a student of management there ;)
Yeah am lucky.. i get personal tours of the best schools of the world.. Harvard and MIT..
A round of Boston riverside..some pictures and off to the airport.. so go back to missouri state... eventful week.. fun week.... :)

Taare Zameen Par

Very few movies have brought tears to my eyes..

This movie..was touching..emotions beautifully portrayed on screen..All the characters..roles big or small..showed emotions..in actions , in the eyes.. no dialogues were needed...the movie reached the soul....I couldnt but cry...

Yes ,dyslexia was the subject...and the little boy the hero.. (no glimpses of the movie .. its to be watched , felt, not heard or read abt )but some characters I liked were of the older brother..whose love for the younger brother..inspite of the former being better off in studies and extracurriculars was exemplary..No superiority complex.. just a lot of love..and someone who gave the little boy a lot of joy by appreciating what he did..

The handicapped friend... so simple and sweet and helpful..he handled situations so well..and the joy in his face when he sees his friend victorious.. the tears of joy.. can bring tears in anyones eyes...

The mother..so much emotion locked in her ,yet somewhere she has to concur with the views of the slightly chauvinistic dad..

Beautifully etched characters.. well portrayed..a master piece.

I'd recommend this movie to ever parent and every teacher.. to every individual trying to understand children..

Main chali main chali.... dekho NY aur DC ;)

So here I am after covering Chicago, St Louis and San Diego.... my next stop is a round trip...New York-Washington- Philadelphia-Baltimore- New York..

My sister had done all the ground work and had booked tickets for me and my mom for a trip with a Chinese tour agency.

So we were on a two day trip to cover DC, philly and Baltimore...We went 2 days before our trip date to New Jersey and stayed with a relative.. I had done a bit of homework on the New York city map.., fixed up sightseeing spots, booked tickets for the museum, statue of liberty and the empire state building.
New York maps are simple to understand... city is well planned. streets and avenues are perpendicular to each other and increase in number when u travel to the north... (I love maps.. and New York was very interesting )

And travelling from New Jersey to New york is also very easy..one just has to connect to the net and look at the bus timings between New york and NJ and stand at the bus stop.. sharp at the time mentioned a bus will arrive.. wonder when pallavan transport will become so techie ;)

And so everything moved as per plans.... first stop was statue of Liberty.. its a beautiful statue.. made of copper..and the oxidation gives it the green colour.. read a bit about the place.. enjoyed clicked manny photos and came back to New york... to walk by wall street and visit the site where the famed WTC buildings once stood....

Wall street means a lot to me.. i dint want much.. just to see the Meryll lynch bull by the end of the street and click a pic or two in front of NY stock exchange ;)

And after that.. walked a looong way around NY..Went to the United nations building.. theres a guided tour in that place, where one is taken through how the United nations works.. a must visit..

Evening was for the Empire state building.. since we had booked tickets online our wait was reduced a lil. we waited only for about 1.5 hrs to get to the elevator..(and yes the wait is clearly mentioned on the website)
Wanted to really see Empire state by the night..but couldn't cos we had an early morning bus from new Jersey to start our tour to Washington...the rest of New York we covered after our DC tour.. where we went to the natural history museum... its huge..and i loved it.. New york was fun in a different way.. the rail system in NY is awesome.. u can get something called a fun day pass for 7 $ and go in any train for the whole day.

The DC tour now...like i said we were on a Chinese tour bus.. so maximum people in the bus were chinese.. The tour guide was chinese but he'd tell about the place in English and then Chinese so we were fine ;)
Our first stop was philly.. just about half an hour for the place where we saw the Liberty bell and the capitol building..since its a timed two day tour one has to adhere to the timings the tour guide fixes..
The next stop was Washington where we started with Smithsonian Museums... this was a space museum.. now in general i find museums very intriguing...i could have spent hours there... but we were alloted very lil time :-( so did a quick tour of the air and space museum.
The other places were ofcourse the White house(from outside :)) the natural history museum,Jefferson memorial, the korean war memorial, Abraham Lincoln memorial ..

the night stay was also arranged by the tour company and we stayed in a very comfy hotel..
Day two of the tour was Baltimore.. Baltimore is a sea port.. so we had a boat tour of the place.. saw naval submarines, ships and some lovely buildings by the port side...

After a quick and tiring two day tour we were back to NJ.. we had one more day to cover the remaining portions of NY and then we were headed towards Boston.. my last and final stop.. before I go back to Louis to the fag end of my trip :(

And the Vacation continues....

After 5 fabulous days in San Diego.. i went back a bit sad to St Louis... never expecting St louis to be as much fun too...
My 6 month old niece was a bundle of joy.. i spent most of my time with her..and went shutter crazy trying to capture every move she makes in my camera ;) The weekend I went with my sis and her family to Chicago..Truly the city of Sky scrapers... and to suit the place we did what is called an "architectural" boat trip of Chicago.. where a guide will explain the history and the story behind.. yes your right the buildings around in Chicago downtown..

Its a difficult to get around in the US from the suburban areas to downtown unless one has a vehicle...Of course places like NY thrive on the public transportation system.

visited the Navy pier in Chicago and saw a stained glass exhibition.. Two nice relaxed days and we were off back on the drive to St Louis.

St Louis was a shopping place for me.. i shopped like crazy in the malls there.. there was a shoe factory close by and me being a footwear freak.. bought several pairs of footwear ;)

Theres a stalactite cavern called Meramec a little off st Louis.. Next day went visiting this lovely stalactite structure...Was awestruck with what I had seen... such beauty... and nothing man made about it..

St Louis is famous for an Arch... 630 above ground from where the most enthralling view of the river front can be experienced..
A little motor capsule takes u up the arch.. to an observatory area.. from where one can get a view of the river front.. The arch premises also have an I max theater..where i saw the first ever Imax movie of my life:)

What i missed in st Louis cos i dint have time was the Budweiser beer tour and the vineyard tour..

will cover Washington and the Philly tour in the next post ;)

Adeuis

U. S of A!!

Before the idea of covering my US experience becomes just a thought on the blog... I better get down to putting a post about it ;)

So here I go...

Well the journey started in my mind the minute I got the Visa stamped on my passport... After months of speculation of will I get the visa or not...I moved to how many places can I cover..how long etc...

Since my sister was staying in St Louis, it had to most obviously be my base point..

I sorted my plans into “must visits” and could visit ;)

Must visits were frozen.. did some research and fixed on some tours for the rest of the places

Week one was meant to be at San Diego.... trouble was I was to reach St Louis after a loooooooong journey and leave immediately the evening I reach on another 5 hr flight to San Diego... Now my worry was not the travel.. It was the jet lag... if I was to be jet lagged in San Diego. I can’t enjoy one bit...thankfully I slept through my flights to St Louis and I was not one bit jet lagged... phew... I wanted so to maximize on the San Diego trip ;)

So yippee... San Diego it was.. Rutu had the plan for the 5 days there all figured out.. Such a sweetheart... so except for enjoying moi self, I had nothing more to do ;)

Day 1 was Sea World..., sea world is a huge aquatic park... and the best out here.. is "Shamu" the whale ... Shamu reminded me of the song "Will you be there" by Michael Jackson in Free Willy..

apart from Shamu of course there were many seals, otters, polar bears, dolphins , starfish ...name it and it was there..

After hazaar coaxing from rutu... I touched.. yes.. I did J.. a sting ray (felt yuck!) and a dolphin...(which was ohhhhhh so beautiful:) and ooops I forgot a starfish....(it felt lifeless like a stone..)

And trust me you would never know how a day goes by when ur in Sea world..I could have spent the day just feeding the dolphins... :)

So after a rather tiring and fun day 1.. day two was general relaxing and catching up on the years of gupshup between me n Rutu...(words cant explain how long we can talk to each other ;)

Well we did a little veggie barbecue in the afternoon and then drove to a place called Glider port (its a point from where people do some gliding) . No gliding for me..only glider watching ;)

And then drove to La Jolla Cove (pronounced. .La-Ho-ya) ..rutu if ur reading this I need a pat on my back for pronouncing it correctly :)

San Diego being reeeeealy close to Mexico has that whiff of Mexico in the names :)

Well Day 3 was......Universal studios Los Angeles...
We took a train ride to LA. This was my first public transportation experience in the US..
About half an hour of the 2 hour ride was along the fine beaches and coastline... the place was simply breathtaking... I wish the Konkan coast was made as beautiful in India.

Universal studios, the place which gives us some of the biggest blockbusters.. where the lights camera and action happened...I had never seen a studio before and I had in mind a small set up where I thought I'd see some sets being made and pulled apart...but I was in for a surprise...

Universal studios was more like a city.. with escalators and buses and trams to reach places..They had also taken great effort in seeing that it is a tourist attraction and many things are made for the tours of the studio..the first was of course to do there was to go through the studio experience tour.. (pssst. Sit on the left side of the bus to get the best of the tour)
Well the tour is like a snapshot tour of various key thrills and works of the great studio..One has to experience it to know what it is...

After that tour..using the map and the timings of the various shows...we tried to maximize and do as much.. Trust me.. we did a pretty good job.. I think I almost covered every show in the studio..
A roller coaster ride through the sets of Mummy returns....whoa..was the most scariest for me in the studios.. was shaking for a while even after I was out of the ride ;)

A day well spent..and a wonderful ride back through the evening view of the ocean side ..

Woke up late the next day and went close by to a place called Point Loma. On a clear day one can actually see Mexico from Point Loma. This place has a lighthouse and is famous for a national monument called Cabrillo national monument commemorating Cabrillo’s arrival to San Diego.

Spent some time there and went out for dessert after a nice dinner.. the most amazing ice cream ;) yum… J

Day 5 was fully devoted to the San Diego zoo.. One of my close friends back in India had lent me his book on the San Diego Zoo… The book and the pictures in it brought in this desire to go to the Zoo.. am glad I made it.. the place was amazing.. and the cutest animal there was the orangutan and of course the Giant Panda.. I could have stayed in that enclosure all day seeing the Panda’s.. They look so cute like little(ummm huge actually J )cuddly toys ;)

And thanks to Rutu.. I discovered the best souvenirs to collect in the US… engraved penny’s from the penny machine… J

So that was pretty much week 1 of my 4 week vacation; )

Visit to the Orphanage

Before I write about my Trip to the US, this visit requires special mention here. As a part of my curriculum of CA , I attended a 15 day General management class(its popularly called GMCS). The strength of my class was 52. Most of us had met for the first time. So set of 52 new people came together for this class. Usually every batch of GMCS plans and outing during one of the 15 days to bond better with each other so that at the end of the course we not only pick up some communication skills we also make 50 odd good friends. We decided on one such outing too.

Thought of many places, from the beach to a group dinner until someone suggested that we visit an orphanage, donate a little bit and spend some time with the children there. I think the seed for the idea was planted by one of the participants herself.. when on the second day of our course she mentioned how she celebrated her birthday year after year with lesser privileged children. Her talk touched one and all, and hence the idea sprung in the mind of one amongst us. Almost everybody agreed to the idea and we started the hunt for an orphanage to visit.

We finally zeroed in on one in Anna Nagar, called the Guild of Service, A home for Handicapped Children.

We had bought a lot of goodies for the kids and had collected money and bought other things the home required.

When we reached the place at about 4 pm we were welcomed by little kids at the portico.

The asked our name. asked us whether we were working or studying , same office or not etc…

They were overjoyed and one could see it on their faces.

I was touched. It was my first visit to a handicapped home. The kids there were more loving than anyone. Such innocent kids.. with welcoming smiles. All of us just wanted to play with them and talk to them. Some of the kids were deaf and dumb, some had problems in their limbs. All said and done they made our day.

I sat there trying to mingle with as many as possible, trying to remember as many names as possible. Some kids was brilliant at recitation., some brilliant at dance, some could read Tamil flawlessly. We played , sang and shouted in joy with them.

Each kid was unique and I’d say “gifted” in a different way.

I felt completely at ease, I could forget all my problems, and de-stress by just playing with those kids.

As we were all bidding them farewell, the kids were just asking us one question..”Akka/ Anna thiripi varuvela..’

And that’s where I realized that one visit is not the end.. there must be many more visits like this to keep the flame of togetherness alight.

Thanks to my friend who mentioned a visit to an orphanage in her talk, not only did all of us feel what she wanted to communicate ,we also made a difference to some children and to our lives.