What a DaY!!!

I was super excited bout the weekend. But, it is so true when people say 'it truly wasn't your day!' Today was one such day. I know the probable reason too, I got up by seeing Saru's face first thing in the morning (Sorry Saru but this seems to be the only reason ;-) I had promised to drive her to Citibank before 12 as it was a half day today. So she woke me up, make breakfast and we left by 10.30. Halfway through, my bike's fuel got exhausted when we were on top of the flyover ( I know if my dad ever reads this blog, he will confiscate my bike, he always gets mad at me for not fueling my bike well in advance. He says that you must fuel your bike as soon as the fuel indicator is in the red zone, but I always ride my bike only in the red zone) ok so getting back to the main topic, with great difficulty, I pulled the choke and reached the fuel station. Then came the series of traffic jams. It was so crazy! at 11 on a Saturday morning we encountered so many traffic jams. Then we reach the bank and then Saru madam tells me I wanted the address proof from the bank for my passport application. Madam didn' t even remember that she had not given her residential address for the Citibank account application coz we did not have a home at that time. She never bothered to tell me why she needed to go to the bank and I over estimated her sensibility and did not bother to ask her. Please remember to whack me whenever I over estimate Saru's sensibility ever again! So that trip was just a waste. Then came our discussion about our lunch eat out. In between all this, we bought tickets for the evening show of the movie Flashback of a Fool. Finally, exhausted, we lunch, reached home and crashed. We got up and left to watch the movie. The movie was the highlight of the day! As both of us like Daniel Craig we decided to watch this movie also there was no other movie to watch other than Hello and Karzz. Saru being more English than the Queen herself banked on this movie and I complied.Our first trigger that some thing was wrong should have been when we got top row tickets for a Saturday evening show at PVR. The movie started with an opening gross sex scene. I asked Saru if by any chance it was a porn movie!! but then we assured ourselves it was not. God! the movie just went from bad to worse. It was so super slow and boring. Even the flash back was shoddy! I could not take the torture after half an hour and started cracking my own jokes, Saru being Saru, laughed at my PJs too. BTW, she is the only person who honors my PJs and laughs dutifully towards them. I wonder if she actually understands them ;-P. Ok coming back, I even took a nap for half an hour, then came the best part of the movie, the interval! Me and Saru ran out of the movie for our lives, never to return again. I cannot imagine how that movie ever got suitable viewership rating of 15 yrs and above. Moral of the story, never venture to watch a movie without checking out the reviews and that too from a trusted/unadulterated reviewer.
We had throbbing headache and decided to treat ourselves to Pizza. When we reach Pizza Hut we aw a huge waiting line for tables. We got a table after a while and then our mood improved. We went to the ice cream shop which we used to frequent while we were at the guest house for nostalgia sake! We are back home and Saru has gone to wash 2 buckets of her clothes at 12.30 in the night! Before you wonder why we do not have a maid, that is another tragic story, we have had 6 maids in the past one year. Our maid attrition rate is greater than Infosys too. No maid sticks for more than a month. We have tried pampering them by giving them Elizabeth Arden perfumes and Real Fruit juices, to win their loyalty. But these people run away. Poor Saru will wash her clothes now and as always, it will mandatorily rain and her washed clothes will get drenched for another 2 days. So this was the end of a sad Saturday. In the hope of a better tomorrow, I am signing off :-)

PS: After reading this post Saru is so mad at me that she has put up her status message as 'I hate you idiot.. Tomorrow no french toast for breakfast.' when she is sitting 2 feet away from me. Poor me!! I don' t think my optimism for a better tomorrow is going to come true anytime in the near future :-(

Our Shenanigans @ Pondy

With reorg kicking in at my work place we needed to recharge our batteries. We decided to travel to Pondy on a low cost 'budget trip.' Our so called ‘budget trip’ went way over our planned budget, thanks to our impulsive shopoholic nature. I made the trip with my roommate and an office colleague-cum-friend. There were others who joined in and separated in the due course of the trip. As it goes without saying there were a number of adventures, beautiful locates and screw ups. Some of the highlights that I would remember for a long time would be-

Renting bikes is the most convenient mode of transport. We got the Activa for 150 bucks a day and a Kinetic for 100 bucks. I loved the bike rides at 10.30 or 11 in the night in the narrow lanes of the city.

The Le Café along the rocky beach beside the Gandhi statue, this sea facing restaurant is the most relaxing and peaceful to spend an evening. We used to crash to this place for Coffee and cheese cake. This place offers the bestest Coffee and Cheese cake. This place has a hammock and we all tested its strength one by oneand guess what?? it didn't break ;-)

The Satsangi restaurant on the Promenade road, this restaurant offers awesome continental food. This place is so crowded that me and Kavi actually thew the 'reserved' board under one of the tables and occupied it. I loved the pasta made there.

@ Satsangi Reataurant

The ambiance at Le Duplex on Promenade is out of the world. This place is really cool when you are on a luxury trip (remember to come here with your new hubby when too much loove is flowing and u have moolah.) The rooms cost around 5 k per day but are duplex accommodation. We breakfasted here.

The Le duplex

One word of caution, never sample the Rendezvous restaurant that wacky Saranya recommended to us. It Sucks and is freaking expensive too. We hated every thing there. Only thing was that, it was a dry day (October 2) and the waiter sneaked in breezers for us.

I loved the Hidesign factory outlet on Jawaharlal Nehru street, this place is super cheap and you will get genuine Hidesign bags and vallets if u search hard enough. I bought a 4k handbag for 1700!!and loads of vallets...

On the trip to Auroville, we used to stop every 5 mins at some random shop out of the blue caught our attention. One of them was a small bakery called Bakery Bolangerie. This place offers really good varieties of cakes and oven fresh cakes. We bought 3 cake pieces and a whole loaf of bread for 70 bucks. Can you beat that. However, when we visited the place the next day evening there was nothing left in the bakery. The owner said every thing gets sold by 12 in the morning itself.

Auroville itself was a different experience all together. I got a custom made chappal from the cobbler at Auroville. We loved the shopping center there and then walked to Matri Madir.

Me and Kavi @ Matri Mandir

The one place I loved lots was our visit to the Chunnambar back water and Beach resort where we went boating on the backwaters to reach the Paradise beach. This beach is true to its name. I have never seen a cleaner beach. The water was crystal clear and the beach is covered with palms and other tropical trees. There were huts all along the beach.

On the Paradise beach

After a nice time at the paradise beach we decided to pick up my chappals that I had ordered . After collecting them we decided to hit the Auro beach to view the sunset. After a nice walk along the beach, when it grew dark, we decided to get back, when we find that our friend Satish has misplaced his rented Kinetic’s keys. The entire place was pitch dark. We searched and searched, Satish even went walking on the beach to search for his keys with his cell phone light (how witty.) We tried all the keys possible to see if we could start the bike. Then Satish took our bike and went in search of a mechanic, while me and Kavi walked till the main road which was the Chennai-Pondy highway, and we were stranded 20 km from the city at 8 in the night. We sat on sacks of gravel for nearly 45 mins. Kavi who generally is the bold and brave one, got all freaked and almost hyperventilated. Then came a group of 10 guys, sloshed to the boot, wet from the beach. They started redressing in to their dry clothes right in front of us. All this while I was totally relaxed and was asking Kavi to take light and stay cool, but seeing this I got freaked too. We called Satish immediately, he was back in 5 mins. As Kavi rightly put it, we were ‘highway hoes’ (did I pronounce it correctly Kavi and Saru??) for almost 20 mins that night. As soon as Satish arrived, Kavi jumped on the bike and asked me to sit behind. Then she drove on the mud for almost half a kilometre before getting on the main road. It took almost 20 mins for her nerves to relax. Btw, Satish has still not returned the bike to the owner yet and has happily gone back to Chennai. The owner has his PAN card with him.

The next day we returned to Chennai by 12.30, well on time to board the train back to Hyderabad. We had our lunch by 2.30, when on the way we saw a huge Fab India, and me and Kavi HAD to visit it, (despite being on the brink of brokehood,) against Satish’s advice to head directly to the station. After visiting Fab India, we had the nerves to go to a famous Idli shop to pick up packed dinner. By the time we got our parcels, we were running damn late for the train, Kavi was freaked yet again, I had the nerve to ask her crazy questions in the auto, like Kavi why is the station we are going to, called ‘Eggmore’?? I was about to question our auto driver about it. Kavi was stumped and ready to push me out of the auto. I love that reaction of Kavi, when I rile her up the wall.

We had an RAC on our return journey, 3 of us were sharing a single side berth. Then slowly, we convinced the TT (graced him with our magical charm) to give us berths. By 11.30 in the night we all got berths.

All in all, I had an awesome time, shopped lots, took lots of super cool pics (we took close to 300 pics during the trip. ) Eat a lot of varieties of damn cheap food, had loads of experiences that I will remember for long time to come. Was rejuvenated and Back!!