In the land of thousand lakes!!

Today is my 5th day in Finland and I think its time to share my experiences here..
It all started with a hectic 14 hr Journey from Bangalore to Helsinki,the capital of Finland..
I was travelling with Anil, one of my colleagues..
The flight was uneventful and soon the captain announced that we were ready for landing..
The sight outside was breathtaking..true to its geographical surname, Finland is full of small and big lakes..Lot of fotos to come..
We landed not so smoothly, thanks to very cloudy skies..
After the customary immigration check, we collected our baggage and came out, to meet a Huge looking Finn waiting to pick us up..
The black Audi took us on seemingly endless journey to a town called Nokia,which hosts the roots to the much known mobile fone giants..
We were sitting back and relaxing in the car, thinking of having a nice hot bath and catching up some sleep, when our hopes were dashed..The chauffeur drove us straight to the client's office, where the project manager welcomed us at the gate..We were speecheless..
Imagine being well instructed to be dressed in full suit to meet the client, but finding urself shaking hands with him with ur half sleepy face and faded jean and Tee..
To our relief..we found that everyone was dressed casual, the day being a friday..which saved us from much embarassment..
We went in to see our colleagues who had reached already busy with loads of work to do...we were shown around the place and introduced to ppl we would be working with in the coming week..and then to our relief .. we were let free to go to our hotel..
Signing off now..more to come about the Finns and Nokia..and Finland as i see it...

Citius..Altius..Fortius..

Faster..Higher..Stronger..
That would aptly sum up the qualities of these qwhiz-kids who feature on the ESPN school quiz..
Man, they know their sport, be it NBA, EPL, Cricket and what not..
This Saturday, ESPN aired a re-telecast of the quarters from the four zones..
The show is well anchored by the ever-lively Harsha Bhogle..
Almost all the 4 games were not decided until the last question which says the game is real fun..
I was particularly impressed by these 12-odd year old kids from PSBB Chennai who were so poised on stage and went about it as though they were having a cakewalk..

Nice one to watch out for sports quiz enthusiasts!

Advantage Renault

Its advantage Renault at the end of the European grand prix at Nurburgring.
Fernando Alonso extended his lead over others with a Last lap win here on Sunday as Kimi Raikkonen blew his right front tyre and crashed with just 5 kms remaining..
Heartbreak for Kimi and fans..

Fate is inevitable

For those who have not read this, this is a short short-story from Jeffrey Archer's "To cut a long story short".
As it says, An appointment awaits us!!!

"There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Death says: Gotcha!!

A Tryst with History

It's become a trend with me to make short getaways to destinations around Bangalore with my friends. This has started to happen in regular intervals and as McDonald's would sport it, "I'm lovin' it!!".
So it happened that yesterday we set out on a journey that took us to History dating back to a thousand years. I was in company of my college buddies.We were also fortunate enough to have with us one of my friend's mom(We had delicious home made food after quite a long time,thanks to her). Starting at 6 in the morning on a Sunday with an Indo-Pak finale on the cards was a tough job, but we made it and were out on the road on schedule.
Quickly then, we were out of the clamourous city-life into the serene countryside of Hassan district which was complimented by fantastic roads and fast-paced music,which made the travel a real pleasure.
Our first place of visit was Shravanabelagola, which houses the famed Gomateeswara temple. It is one of the most important Jain centers in the world and has a gigantic monolith of Lord Mahaveera. The temple is stationed on a hill with excellent panoramic views from atop.
Next in line was a two-hour drive to Belur.This phase of the travel had a lot of chattering and bantering amongst us which reminded us of our good-old college days.We reached the temple at a time when the sun was beating down mercilessly on the earthlings.To make things worse, the stone floors and pathways in the temple redirected their wrath onto our bare feet inside the temple.
But there we were, fighting these odds to view some of the best pieces of craftmanship of the Hoysala architecture. History books say that the temple was built almost a thousand years ago. The speciality of the temple lies in the intricate carvings all around and inside the temple which depicted the various mythological characters and stories.
We went on to see a similar yet distinct temple at Halibeedu, around 20 kms from Belur.Tourist guides were "making hay while the sun shines!!",explaining the legends behind the mysterious carvings..About the war betweens the Gods and Demons, about the churning of the Milky ocean and stuff..(Reminded me of my mythology books).
When we left the place early in the evening, we could see the gatekeeper at the temple grumbling about yet another Indian batting collapse! Cricket is indeed the religion in India..

I jus wanna start

Ever wondered how people manage to write wonderful things?? I always do.. Be it a small article about Schumacher not upto the mark this season or a masterpiece on Greek mythology, its about giving life to words.
I've known so many words all my life without ever knowing the polymorphisms it can take in the contextual world of writing.
Writers have this knack of converting their trains of thoughts in to flowing rivers of words that make real sense.
And bloggers are no less.
I went through many blogs here and feel that blogging is a positive step towards improved writing coherence.
I always believed that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with but one step"
and i have already taken that step. Hope you do too!!