At the start of the day, Morning – 03.00 AM, Battery – 100%

I woke up very early and removed the charger from my Xype. I got ready to move out by 4.15 AM and my mom already hired a cab to pick me up to Gandhipuram but unfortunately the cab company failed to inform the driver. Because of which, there was a half an hour delay in getting the cab reach my home after a long quarrel by my mom with them. At around 5.05 AM, the cab came to our home and the driver raced off to Gandhipuram as he drove lightning fast in the empty bumpy streets and driving in the wrong directions of a one way lane. Within 8 minutes he managed to reach my destination and I joined in with my classmates. Me, Panneer, Mani Vasagam (Panneer’s Brother), Kasi, Shahul, Muthu Sankar, Nantha Kumar were waiting in the Gandhipuram bus stand for the Tour bus to arrive.  All of us had the challenge with the dying battery on our Android phones to make it last till the end of the day. Normally, my phone wont last even for half a day but I had to do something to make the best out of it today as I had to take a lot of pictures.  I completely ignored all the text messages and notifications by removing the vibration from my phone and disabled every radio service such as WiFi, 3G and GPS to increase the battery a little longer.

The Bus Arrives, Morning – Nearly 5.45 AM, Battery – 86%

The bus arrived at our stop, pre-occupied with Arumugam, Bagavath, Arun Malar, Faizel, Aravind, Leela Shankar, Saba etc.   Without further delay, we started off from Coimbatore with no breakfast as the gleaming sun started rising over the calm early morning sky. Maybe because of sleepless night, the boys weren’t looking much excited as they spent their time sitting calm in the seats inspite of Arumugam‘s continuous effort to make them rise up and make the journey more enjoyable.  On the way we stopped by in some bakery for having some tea and coffee.

The Real Journey Begins, Morning – Around 8.00 AM, Battery – ~65%

After having some refreshments, we started off once again towards Yercaud and on the way we picked up Natraj.  We stopped at Salem for having breakfast at one of the hotels named Saravana Bhavan.  I wasn’t feeling hungry and so I skipped breakfast.  We had fun with a very strange guy/beggar/sage who kept on irritating us to spare some change for him.  Especially, Sadam was very annoyed by him as he grabbed his shirt and chased him as I took video of him.  We also had fun crossing the streets by jumping the concrete walls which separated the two lanes of the highway. Soon, Akash also joined us and we finally set off to Yercaud.

Despite several irritating songs playing the background stereo system of the bus, we had lots of fun on the way, played several games most of which were started by Arumugam.

Entering Yercaud, Morning – 11.04 AM Battery – 57%

We entered the foothills of Yercaud and slowly drove up the hill crossing exactly 20 hairpin bends and reached the top by 11.30 AM.  We came out of the bus and visited one of the most beautiful schools in Tamilnadu, The Montfort.  We were very late, the watchman told us to visit and comeback within 10 minutes since they had to close the doors by 12PM. We had fun taking a lot of photos with friends, and I was putting my Xype to the ultimate test by taking some spectacular shots of some beautiful flowers I spotted with the help of Sadam.

One of My Favorite Xype Shots

Then we moved to the top of the Yercaud hills, I believe its name is Shevroy’s Temple. It was a wonderful place with a beautiful scenery where our boys had fun shooting balloons with a gun and having more snacks at the tea bars.  There was a temple with a very strange legend, where it was told there is a Shiva Lingam idol hidden deep inside the water (water from the Cauvery river stream) which is not allowed to be seen since 2 years back.  Anyways, we saw another small cave temple which was prohibited from photography.  The cave was superbly cool, the stones around the cave felt ice-cold which was amazing! We wandered off to the areas nearby and saw some giant tanks with some water having some small fishes.

Next we moved out to Lady’s Seat, where we enjoyed seeing the beautiful panorama of the Yercaud hills, had fun with monkeys, taking snaps and seen a guy who sketches wonderful portraits using a pencil.

The Search for Lunch, Noon – 2.36 PM Battery – 47%

We divided into two groups and had our lunches separately. Our group consisted of Kasi, Panneer, Mani Vasagam, Shahul, Sadam, Arumugam and myself. We had a hard time spotting the perfect restaurant for Lunch. We wandered the areas for a good one, and firstly we tried the restaurant run by the Tamilnadu Tourism Board, The Hotel Tamilnadu. They had a good looking hotel, but they had nothing but rice meals for lunch which didn’t look good.  We headed out and started finding another one.  After 10 minutes or so, we found Hotel Selvam. We dragged our tables and we asked what was on the menu.  That wasn’t satisfactory too and so we moved out and found the most classiest restaurant in Yercaud, Hotel Shevroys. The restaurant was beautifully designed, had some wonderful artifacts, some turkeys and few birds running in cages and a very tall Oak tree.  There were two restaurants inside and we decided to go with the Silver Oak Restaurant.

After a wonderful lunch, we headed out and joined with the other boys and headed towards the Boat House.  On the way, we met with our classmate, Roopa who is a native yercaudian. Just when we got the entrance tickets to the boat house and entered in, the rain starting pouring very fast, making boating impossible for us.  We spent around one and a half hours waiting for the rain to stop but the situation got worse and worse.  We spent our time standing near the fence watching the Deer Park, talking some scientific stuff. I found Panneer‘s brother to be very geeky with Android and along with Kasi, they taught me that I could zoom on the camera using the volume keys which I didn’t know before even though it was very simple.

Leaving Yercaud, Evening – 5.05 PM Battery – 43%

 After some difficult times, we started to head back to our homes.  We stopped by another bakery at the foothills of Yercaud where we had some tea at 6PM.  Later, we headed back to the bus and had some of the most intimate moments we can have together as NIETns.  We discussed about our positives and negatives individually and got a chance to know about ourselves how we were in the views of others for the past 4 years.  Although some opinions started some debates, we tried to solve it and stick to the aim of just knowing what others had to say about us from their minds.  On my part, I was very eager know about my negatives, didn’t ask much about my positives and we were discussing about it around 15 minutes or so. Every opinion that others shared with me were completely true, but all of them were startling to me and made me wonder about it.  We took an oath to ourselves to stay in contact with everyone and also planned to look forward for another get together in the upcoming months soon.

My battery was almost over, struggling with around 25% of juice and I had to drop my best buddy Prince‘s call from Netherlands  My mom had booked a cab to pick me up at Ukkadam at 11.30PM. Our bus had reached Coimbatore at around 11PM and after bidding goodbyes to everyone, myself, Shahul and Kasi started off from BK Pudhur to Ukkadam.  We waited for around 10 minutes, I got my cab and came home. My Xype still managed to pack in a juice of about 15% and the funny thing is, the Nokia 5610 which had for backup died fully out of battery, and I didn’t even use it for more than 5 minutes throughout the day  . As I was very tired, I skipped dinner and slept as soon as I reached home.

You can check out the full Yercaud Gallery at Picasa Web Albums here :

Anyways, moving on…We reached the college on time as usual, but none of the boys who come with us in the bus didn’t show up today.  After a small talk with the staff who catched Arumugam since he forgot to bring the ID card, we entered the college and headed towards the staff room to pay fees and run off.  Unfortunately,  the staff gave us a lot of work and we were forced to be there at college till the afternoon. A few girls showed up in the class along with Natraj and Nantha Kumar who came on behalf of other students to pay the fees for them.

Surprisingly, Kirthika gave a slam book and told me to fill it out.  It was the much awaited slam book of one of my three most special friends in NIET, named Kanchana. Actually, I wanted to buy a glitter pen and a few colors to add a personal touch to it  and also thought of thinking a lot of stuff before I write but I wasn’t able to do it.  After receiving the slam book, I was in the essence of jumping here and there with joy. But with no further due, I borrowed a pen and started writing with almost everything I know about her.  I wanted to fill all the pages in that but at the same time, I didn’t know what to write and so if you take a look at that slam book, all the empty pages are already virtually written by me, you just can’t see it. Of all the slam books I’ve written till now, I feel this was the one which I wrote with the maximum level of happiness.  I also drew a kinda-childish drawing on it.   Since she is also an invisible friend, I wanted to give my best to express everything as much as possible in those 4 pages.

After paying the fees and finishing the works given by our staff, we headed back to the class and had fun scribbling on the blackboard on the class with Nantha and Natraj and then we left the college in the afternoon.  On the way back, I met with my old friend Jai Ganesh on the bus.

Me and Arumugam then went to the usual Central theatre, where we spent around 3 hours watching the movie ‘Wrath of the Titans 3D’.  And then we headed back home and carried on with the usual sleeping and eating.

When the bus arrived, I had no other choice than to run after the bus in order to get a seat for myself and Kasi.  Fortunately, I did manage to get a seat for both of us but when I took out my Ike, I had a text message from Kasi that he will be coming late today and told me not to reserve a seat for him.  So I moved aside to his place near the window and allowed a junior boy to sit.  The bus started as soon as it came to the bus stop since it was late.  The following events happened to my friends which made the day look really strange :

Just when the bus was about to start, Kasi showed up but he had no seat since he told me not to reserve a seat for him. Luckily, one of the persons in the bus got down and he finally got a seat to sit.The bus was crawling so slow with its humungous crowd filled in, but Lilly was unable to catch it in time :( Shahul had been sick and therefore he did not come to college.Sadam had taken leave today. Jaleel came in his brother’s bike since he had to bring his VAIO laptop safe. Arumugam didn’t get into the bus since it was over crowded and so he decided to hitch a ride with Jaleel.

A bus which was always filed with laughter and fun with my friends around looked so dead and empty with no one around me.  To make things worse, I had almost 8-9 heavy bags, several notebooks and books over my laptop and I was worried sick.  The leg started to pain with all this heavy weight, I was not even able to take out my smartphone to text or listen to music.

The horrible bus ride finally ended as we reached the college and as I had expected, the day was empty.  The staff didn’t ask us anything and informed to submit the documentation within next monday.  We had fun playing with the water dispenser, playing NFS : The Run on my laptop, writing on slam books for Bagavath Singh and Baskar. That stupid Faizel broke my 4-year long treasured ID card into two halves ;( . And that’s about it.  We left the college at about 4.30PM.

As usual, we walked our way to T.M.Palayam bus stop to catch the bus.  Even though everyone were looking at us, I had took out my pencil and tallied for the 7th time on a street wall which was for counting the number of times we came to that bus stop before leaving college.  I’ll try to take a picture and post it in the upcoming posts.  My mom suddenly called me and told me to come to Big Bazaar for purchasing dresses for the upcoming cultural fest in our college. I had taken several dresses already but I didn’t like any of them after coming home and so, I had to take again. Yep! I know that it sounds real stupid.

After sometime, Jaleel had returned from college in his bike and wanted me to hop on. I said okay after a few uh-uhs and we finally zoomed off from that place.  On the way, we had to goto Panneer‘s room where we had to give back the helmet Jaleel borrowed in the morning.  This was the first time I’m heading to their place and I was pretty excited. I was welcomed by Natraj and Nantha Kumar  who were surprised with my arrival.  And to celebrate it, they decided to climb a coconut tree in their backyard while I was taking snaps of their room.  Nantha hoped on to the tree and climbed up and up to reach the tender coconuts.  After few minutes, he dropped some 7-10 coconuts onto the floor while Natraj tried to catch it.  Then they took our the ‘Aruval‘ (Sickle) and sliced off the coconut and gave it to us.  We had a delicious thirst quenching drink.

After about 25 minutes, we bid farewell to them and started to head out. While leaving, I snatched the bike keys from Jaleel and started off the engine. And for the first time, I had shown to my classmates that I can ride a bike as I drew off several yards and came back.  Then we headed off to Big Bazaar with raging speeds (Just kidding , its just 45 km/h) on the highway.

After getting down, I bid bye to Jaleel and entered in and met my mom.  I had a hard time fitting in the mall since almost everyone thought I’m one of the staff belonging to Big Bazaar because of the stupid uniform of our college.  We finished our purchasing and finally headed back home at about 8.30PM.

And I came to know about this Korean Drama named ‘You’re Beautiful ( 미남이시네요 )’ and I’ve watched 4 episodes as of now. I’ve seen a lot of dramas and tv shows but this could be one of the best. It has a very beautiful, unique story and an awesome plot filled with romance and comedy.  The story is very addicting that I wish to see the remaining episodes by today (March 13). It’s worth spending 17 hours of  your lifetime on this lovely story.  Thanks to Nalini for recommending it!

After reaching the bus stop, I boarded the bus no.76 which used to be my usual bus to Gandhipuram four years back when we had no college bus facilities in my area.  I started to think all the old times when I had to board the bus with my mom whom used to get very scared since it was when I had to board buses by myself. I used to reach Gandhipuram at around 7.30 AM everyday and wait with my friends notably Lilly, Debby, Prabhu, Bijin, Yukesh, etc to get my bus to college.  As years passed, we got our own college buses for our localities and we were forced to be separated since we belong to different areas.  Since I was a frequent passenger of the Bus no.76, I guess the conductor must have known me well but we never talked to each other besides exchanging currency for tickets.  To my shock today, he still remembers even after four years and asked how am I when I was about to buy tickets.  He inquired how my studies was going on and I said its fine with a big smile.  Because of the sleepless night I encountered the day before, I was dozing off every 5 minutes and finally slept without knowing by the time I reached my destination.  Fortunately, the kind conductor was near me and he woke me up enthusiastically and told me to go and sleep in college with a funny accent. Feeling slightly embarrassed, I got down from the bus and started to wait for the next bus to college.

After getting down, I started a quick search for Shahul but he was nowhere to be seen.  Luckily, today there was the bus stand wasn’t as crowded as it used to be and so I got a seat to wait while the bus arrives. A mysterious old man was standing in front of me with suspicious sacks, waiting for some bus.  He came near and asked whether the bus for Karunya has gone.  I told him that I was not aware of it and told him to wait for the bus. But he took hold of my hand and asked me to come with him to Karunya, thinking that I am also waiting to go there. Terrified by him, I said I’m not going to Karunya and said I have to goto my college.  Then the strange old guy took his rugged sacks and moved to another spot.

As the clocked ticked 8AM, our bus to college ’101′ sliding its way into the bus stop. I finally met up with Shahul who got inside the bus and reserved seats for me and Kasi.  Soon my old friends Bijin and Prabhu entered the bus but Prabhu was not having any seats to seat and so, he took up the place of Kasi since he was late to get the bus in time.  I always wanted to be a news reporter from childhood and a CNN iReporter. Although I did not get any perfect chances for it,  I took the opportunity to report Lilly where the bus is currently located in the name of iReports. I don’t know whether these informations are useful to her but it is fun to send them. On the way, we had hell loads of fun joining with Jaleel, Arumugam, Sadam, who teased Yukesh to the extremes.

After we reached our college, we had a little fun but most of the time I was asleep on the desk or the table since I was feeling very sleep all day long.  There were no classes going on and we were left to sit idle in the lab where we had no other works to do other than playing games in Fedora and having chit-chat with neighbors. I was also asked to design the invitation for the upcoming NSS event which I’m going to deny doing it sooner or later.

The long boring day was finally over and we started heading back to the bus stop again. As we were walking, I took a snapshot where I fell down from the bus last monday.

[The picture will be posted here later]

After reaching home, I was called by many of my friends in class who needed my help for their projects and so I was a bit busy that night too.  I was able to goto sleep only by 1AM and that clearly showed how my next day is going to be.

Day 2:

Once again waking up at 4.30AM, I got ready for college and headed to college once again with face looking sleepier than the previous day.  But once we got inside the college campus, we were informed by Suganya that today was a holiday with regards to our projects. The sole reason for me to goto college was to install certain software for Lilly for her project but unfortunately the mission had failed . We all got the same bus in which we came to college and returned to our homes.

I wanted to look strange today,

My college days were almost over and so I wanted to try out some stupid techniques to make myself noticed. For a change, I really wanted to get some scoldings from some staff today, and so I had been wearing a blue cap over my head for the whole day and also wrapped my wrists using a blue handkerchief.  I was feeling very uncomfortable with the kerchief and so I had removed it soon but I strongly had the motive not to take off my cap even when the class is going on.  Well, my plan worked. Almost everyone started to wonder why I was wearing a cap so oddly, some boys made fun of it that I look like a pre-school kid but the thing which really blew me off is that one of the staff had thought something is wrong with my head and I was forced to wear a cap for curing purposes. She even examined my head for about a second and didn’t believe that I was wearing it just for fun. The attempt was very successful as it made everyone think odd of me today, but my aim for being scolded failed.

Then I had a chance to fix Nalini‘s laptop by afternoon. I had tried my general troubleshooting techniques but nothing gave a proper response. I even tried to fix with my troubleshooting DVD but all attempts failed.  I really feel very bad for it since this is the first time where I was not able to fix a computer.  By disabling Windows 7′s automatic failure restart feature, I got the response as ‘Failed to Mount Bootable Volume’ which certainly proved that something is wrong with the hard disk.  Then I fired up the Primary Hard Disk Self Test in the BIOS and confirmed that the hard disk is not functioning properly.  But still I don’t understand how the windows was able to boot in the beginning and not after loading the files required to bring the desktop.  With no hope of fixing it, I gave her laptop to her back with dismay.  I also gave the birthday present to her and started off to have lunch. I was not hungry at the moment and so, I just a drink of apple juice as always.

Update : I was wrong about the error occurred in the laptop. It was not a hard disk issue.

The day passed, we all had to goto the CAD/CAM Lab for the rest of the day.  We had fun talking with our Lab attender but we soon got tired and started to sleep over the table.  Just so you know, I still had my cap on.

At about 4.30PM, we started moving out of the college as usual while Dinakaran wanted to goto the Library to take some books.

Action Time!

As we started walking towards the bus stop, the bus number 101 came crawling through the road which gave confidence to some of my friends to catch it. One by one, Arumugam, Kasi managed to get into the bus, followed by Manikandan who started to run to catch it.  Thinking that I’ll be only one left out to catch the bus, I started to take off with great agility, passing by Mani and grabbed onto one of the handles of the bus gateways.  I was pretty confident of getting in, but suddenly **!!!BAM!!!**, as I had a head-on collision with one of the walkers on the side of the road with a great blow on my face. The sudden jerk stunned my eyes out for a second as I left the handle powerlessly and fell on the floor with many scratches and screeches. I rolled about 2 rotations on the road with great speed and got scratches on my left palm, my left shoulder got a big wound by tearing off my shirt, another big bloody injury on my left knee by tearing off my pant and several injuries on my right elbow and right knee.  When I got back into consciousness, I was able to see my blue cap lying in front of me, Arumugam and Kasi running out of the bus which had luckily stopped because of me, Nalini and her friend getting inside the halted bus. Immediately, I took my cap and wore it before I started to realize about the severe pain which I was about to experience later on.

With no time to waste, I got inside the bus and luckily, the bus conductor didn’t scold me too much and I was also offered to have to sit on.  In spite of the increasing pain, I really loved the action I had experienced (Yeah, I know I’m stupid) and asked Mani to give a small flashback what had happened.  I was praying that no one from my class should have seen fall down and that definitely paid off.  I got down at Marapalam with Kasi and Mani, and had coffee in the nearby coffee shop and started to discover where my bruises are. Soon Shahul and Dinakaran joined the party as we shared the action story with them which gave them a quick jolt.

My action didn’t end there, as I still started running in the middle of the busy highway to catch the next bus to Gandhipuram.  But the boys didn’t want me to get into trouble again and so Mani took hold of my arms till I had to get inside the other bus.  Later on, the news spread to few of my friends somehow. As I said already, I was very glad that no one saw me during the incident. However, I was very happy that my friends are really concerned about my safety and I did assure them that this would not happen again.

After I got back home, with hell lot of pain, my dad wrapped my wounds up with several bandages and I felt better already. My mom shouted a lot to the level that my ear drums could break-off but I certainly needed it.  Thankfully, Flipkart had sent me a lovely new pair of Philips Headphones for free of cost for the damaged one I got with my tablet. I guess all ended well.

Having texted ‘all the best’ to GATE aspirants like me, Lilly and Nalini, I left my home at about 6AM after having breakfast and got a wrong bus thinking that till will goto Town Hall but unfortunately the conductor said that the bus will not goto Town Hall.  He was kind enough to sit by me in the empty bus and started to talk jovially and told me to get down at one of the stops where I could hitch a ride to my destined place.  He also told one of the passengers to help me to catch the correct bus. The person whom he said helped me all the way from crossing the road, walked with me to the next bus stop, and got me into one of the buses which goes to Town Hall. Well, that was a really strange morning.

At about 7.15AM, I reached Town Hall and met up with Deenuji and Akash, who were writing GATE along with me in the same centre.  We reached the centre at about 8.05AM, I was mystified by the beauty of the city with its clean asphalt road with cars and locos moving with blazing speeds with a pleasant climate in a greeny environment. The road was so beautiful that I wished to drive an McLaren F1, right in the middle of it with a few drag racers.

After getting into the campus, we checked our exam halls and decided to take rest from the long ride for a few minutes in the benches available there. To my surprise, my very old NIIT-mate, Balaji anna was already there thinking about the exam. I haven’t seen him for about 2 years and we are very surprised to see ourselves in that bench. We talked for about half an hour and started heading out to the exam halls where we had to take up our exam.

The exam was unexpectedly very easy than I had thought it would be but I had not written it properly . Anyways, it was a very good experience.  Then me and Deenuji headed by Town hall to have our lunch and we spent some quality time discussing about the future for about 2 hours as we walked through the streets. At about 2.45PM, I got by bus to my home and that was all about it….

That’s enough yada yada, its February 3rd 2012, the first post of this year. We had just finished our first review and I’m very much satisfied with what I had to present about my project. Although I feel a lot guilty for not able to contribute much to my project because of the lack of an Android device which plays a key role in our project, I have a strong hope that I can lead/follow my team to one of the best in the class.

Today was really an odd day. I woke up very early at about 4AM and started getting ready for moving to the college. Having sent my early morning tweet (SMS) to some of my friends, I finished my breakfast and moved to catch the transit bus. It was very strange that I had not received any text messages from anyone on my phone but it was functioning properly so I did not pay much attention to it. I boarded the usual transit bus number ’101′ and I was half way towards the college. But unfortunately, our bus got punctured on its rear tyres and had to be halted in the middle of the highway. Auspiciously, we got a ride from our own college bus for free and reached our campus.

Today, one of the leading IT companies in India ‘Ramco Systems’ had visited our campus to engage us in several projects.  After a brief lecture  in the field of Cloud Computing by one of the dignitaries of the company, I am now much more confident to create apps based on the cloud. Although many of my classmates hated the lecture, I really loved it and I’m glad I could be a part of it. After the conference ended, we dispersed and started to leave the college. Me and Arumugam started walking on the street towards the highway but luckily, we had obtained a lift just after 5 mins of leaving our campus.  It was a very highly classed Toyota Innova with sophisticated technology hidden inside almost everywhere in the car. The car had a fairly large SRS Airbags, Premium wood on the stereo systems and on the door handles, BOSE speakers and a very pleasant air conditioning system.  The person driving the car inquired about us a lot on the way and we both were surprised at each other since he happened to be a graduate from TNAU where my dad is working.  Maybe that created a good relationship between us and he gave us a very long ride.  After getting down at Kovai Pudhur, I took a snap shot of his car which you can see below :

Then I had to get another bus to reach Gandhipuram, when suddenly a hell lot of messages suddenly started rushing to my phone. Well, that explained why I was not receiving any messages from morning.  Due to some kind of network problem, I received all the messages sent by everyone in the morning at once and I had to apologize to all of them as I was unable to reply earlier.  Few minutes later, I took out my headphones from my backpack and realized that it was broken into half  .  I fixed it temporarily using my fingers and managed to listen to music till I reached home.  And that was it.  The day was over.  Wooooffff….

Next thing, you might ask me is : Where’s your New Year Resolutions?

Well, let us first check whether I’ve accomplished this year’s resolutions :

10. Hello Twitter! I’m Back! -> Well, it was ok. I did use twitter 10-15 times. Duh!
9. Eat Well. Spend Less.  -> That didn’t go so well.
8. Accept Everything that comes on the way -> Well, I had no other choice.
7. Get the Best from what I have -> Total Failure.
6. More Videos from Parithi Studio. -> Not even worthy to talk about it.
5. Service to the Poor. -> I hardly remember it.
4. My Blog, More Personal and Techier -> Personal, Ok. Techier?
3. Get a Driving License -> I’ve got a Learner’s License
2. Better Attitude and Better Fun -> Parithi X was a total failure, that answers it.
1. Treat People Special, Who Really Treat Me Special!! -> Sort of.

Although most of the above are really worth doing, I wasted it all up.  I didn’t accomplish a single task properly.  Having said that, I’m not going to have a lot of resolutions for the upcoming year.

3. Discover Inner Peace :

I know I sound like a Buddhist again.  I’ve completely lost interest in something I’ve always admired from birth – That’s Technology.  Tech doesn’t interest me anymore for some reason. Maybe it because I’m not satisfied with it or maybe its just that I have better things to worry about.  I wish to discover inner peace which actually means find something that makes me feel satisfied and makes me feel happy consistently. There is a lot more on this planet besides technology and I feel I have to try to gain happiness in even the smallest things I do everything.

2. Become a Vegetarian, Wait. . . .What?

Yes, I’m serious. I really can’t take the sight of non-vegetarian food anymore.  I feel like its more inhuman. I seriously wish to become a vegetarian and 2012 is going to open its doors for me officially.  I did manage to stop eating non-veg throughout this december and I’m sure that I can do it forever.

1. It’s something I’ll reveal in the next year.

This post does seem a little sad with nothing interesting. Well, 2011 started with Joy and Happiness but ended in bitter sadness.  Maybe, 2012 will start with this sadness and end with Happiness.  Well, I sure do hope so. Anyways, Thanks for everything guys and gals.  You’ve been with me all year-long and I hope we’ll have a splendid year during 2012.

Special Christmas Wishes to Prince, Freddy and Debby along with their families and I wish you all a very happy, joyful, fabulous, New Year 2012! See you next year, Everybody!

So, Why Special Thanks To Lilly & Nalini?

[This post is written with the assumption that 'You' are not Lilly or Nalini]

Well, as every one of you know, they’re my Special Friends, that’s why.Don’t worry, I’ll keep this post short because I know most of you are already in rage of jealousy. I’ll be really surprised if you came this far to read it. Anyways, I have been thinking a lot why they both are my Special Friends for which I didn’t know the answer for a long time.  Most of you guys have openly told me that you are very jealous of Lilly & Nalini because I used to tell them as my special friends, sensitive towards them, and try to help them a lot and you’ve asked the reason too. You’ve also wanted me to treat you the same way how I treat them. ‘You’ refers to mostly everyone in my class because almost all of you have told the same to me. A few of you have also beat me up and threatened to kill me if I say that they’re my special friends. A few of you would complain this and that about them to make me hate them, but I guess it just didn’t work. Finally I’ve found the answer for all of your questions which I’ve been waiting to know it myself.

So, I’ve analyzed what’s so special about them starting from Day 1 till today, as I have a complete record of all my conversations with them.  The only conclusion I obtained is that they both are different from all of you.  Ok, don’t punch your monitor, stay calm till you finish reading this post.  Hoping you will, let me continue. The main thing I like them a lot is because they’re really fun to talk to talk or chat with. Of course, not all the time but most of the time it’s a very true fact according to me.  Secondly, they think and act mostly the same way that I would which might be the reason why I started to like them. Third, they are modern just like my fellow SBOAns and behave just like my schoolmates Prince and Freddy. Besides, all these primary reasons, they’ve still got that one special thing that couldn’t be compared with anyone.  Whether purposely do or just its their nature, they have the power to make me smile even in my sad moments, make me failure moments funnier, and make the happy moments even more happier.  I solely believe that they do not intend to do this, its their nature and that’s why I like them a lot. They make me happy as I make you guys happy. It’s something that I wish you guys should learn from them.  I definitely don’t want anyone to encourage me with advice when I fail, I don’t want anyone to console me when I’m sad. All I want is that you guys should be happy always just like them and make me happy too. Furthermore, another interesting fact as far as I know is that they both do not even wish to know why they are my special friends and they would not boast themselves that ‘Yay! I’m a Special Friend of the Great Genius Parithi’.  And Uh, I don’t even know whether they intend to be my special friends, as far as I’ve seen they’ve considered me as just a friend in their long list of friends which is so cooool for me, who always hears that I’m a special friend to many of you guys. Of course, I love the way many of you guys treat me special because you think I’m a good guy, silent boy, bla bla but it does feel unique and different when someone treats you ordinarily with someone like me.  Note : I’m do not wish to exult myself, I’m just telling a fact you always made me feel like. Sorry, If I’m wrong.

If after the reading above makes you feel convinced why I state them as my special friends, I hope you will join me in thanking them both specially this year. And if you are still not convinced, you might ask this question :

If you wish thank them specially, why don’t you just tell them directly? Why make a post for this?

As I said already, I probably think that they don’t know that I consider them as my special friends seriously. So I don’t know how to wish them directly which implies a well known fact that I don’t understand them properly yet. And, I also wish to thank them for my own satisfaction which I can do it only in my personal diary. In my case, my blog is my only diary. It’s just something I wanted to do, and I did it. You might also ask why thanks between friends? Answer is : I wish to! They’re not ordinary friends for me, and they are special! But I hope Lilly & Nalini doesn’t read this. Anyways, moving to the point :

Thanks a Lot Lilly & Nalini. Thanks for making my 2011 funnier and happier.

1. I got to know a lot about Ayappan :

At one point, during the start of November, I heard a word about Ayappan through my friend Nalini but I didn’t pay much attention to it.  By that time, I didn’t know much about Ayappan but what I did know is that he is a god and people used to travel long distances to pray at the Sabarimala pilgrimage at Kerala. And that was everything I know about him but suddenly something started to dawn out of nowhere. When my exams started, I had to travel in the town buses to reach the college to reach it soon in the early morning to avoid tension. So I used to wake up early and get the bus. It was a private bus which has its own stereo system all around and there were songs playing on it everyday.  I found that the songs were Ayappan songs by the third exam day and soon forgot it.  And then, a new trauma started.  I had been receiving a lot of text messages from my mobile network, AirTel telling me to download Ayappan songs. Then, in the evenings when I’m at home, my mom started to put TV shows about Ayappan. That really made start to wonder ‘Oh My God! What’s going on?’, so I started to ask my mom about Ayappan and why everyone is talking about him suddenly. Only then I realized that mom knows a lot about Ayappan then confirmed my suspicion when my mom used to watch Ayappan serials so vividly a few months back.  So I finally decided to know about Ayappan and started searching on Wikipedia.  I found out that he is the son of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu which is a fact which amazed me very quickly. Furthermore, Ayappan has several different names for him and to my surprise half of my friends’ names are based upon him.  But wait, there’s more.  After a short gap of holidays, our placement training had started and I had to go in the college bus again. And for the first time, I could see that my driver was one of the followers for Ayappan and he had playing Ayappan songs in the bus all the time! Both in the mornings and evenings! I know a lot of guys in the mechanical class of our batch and one of them was Yukesh. He used to beat me up, tease me, and scold me unnecessarily for fun. But he too was on his way to the Ayappan pilgrimage as he wore the black shawl around his neck and he was forced to behave nicely to me. Well, that’s good news for me.  Anyways, its Ayappan in and around everywhere and I’m glad I’ve learnt a lot about him at least after all these years.

2. I got to know about You :

By you, I mean everyone who read my blog.  Contrary to your thoughts, I never write my blog with you in mind.  It is and it’s always been my words directly from my heart as I would write my own personal diary.  But I realized that it could be a wrong practice because my mind tends to change even with hours or minutes, so I started to think over every one of my posts for at least two days prior to posting. I never check the statistics for my blog but I know a lot of you are reading it because almost everyone I meet, used to ask me, ‘Parithi, why you posted like this and that on your blog?’. And this is what I’ve learnt from you ‘visitors’, a few of you visit my blog just to show that you are my friend, a few visit to know about me, a few read it when they get bored, a few read it to stalk me, a few read for inspiration for blogging, a few just come and have a look just because its on my social links everyone on the internet, a few read it to know what I’ve written about you, a few don’t bother about it even if I write wrong about them, a few take a look just because of my friends told you to see it.  I don’t mind to which category you belong to, but you are always welcome to check out my blog because it is ‘you’ who keeps this up and running.  But I’ll be glad if you comment just a word or drop a smiley for the pain I take to write them. Anyways, that’s optional and it depends on you.

3. I got to know about the Government :

I used to think that the Government is for the people and by the people, until I’ve got my own hands on it and saw how dirty it is when I got my Learner’s License for Driving.  Government doesn’t care for the people at all, all they care is just the money that gets distributed to every one in the politics world.  To make this worse, Internet Censorship is on its way to bring down the freedom of students and patriots all over India.  They can’t monitor 50 Lakh Group C Employees for corruption under Lokpal but they believe they can monitor 2.5 crore Facebook accounts 10 Crore Google Users from India.

4. I got to know about Girls :

2011 has been an year in which I had more social contact with girls than boys, so I did learn a lot about them. Some can be fun, some can be caring, some can be annoying, some can be dangerous, some can exploit us, some can be selfish or a mix of any of this. Well, I like only the first one, that is, the girls who are fun to talk with, which is why I like Lilly & Nalini very much but none of the boys realize this. I was surprised to see few girls exploiting their own best friends (who are girls), cheating them, behave in a horrific way that even boys wouldn’t behave to their enemies. While few girls are like ‘snakes’ as my friend Vishnu describes about girls, some can be a slow poison, they might be killing you slowly but you might not even know it.  Some can be purposely exploiting, by having contact with us only to get things down for their use.  Whatever it is, as long as they are my friends, I still like them.  But in general, I still hate girls and 2011 made me hate them still more..

5. I got to know about Buddhism :

Although I belong to the Sambarian Religion (a religion created by myself, my bro and few of my friends when we were kids), I’m still publicly a Hindu and I worship Hindu gods as every Hindu would.  The Sambarian Religion has its own story and certain principles that should be followed by every Sambarian. My dad used to raise us, by saying a lot of Buddhist principles to stop us from asking things when we were kids, most notably ‘Wishing is the cause of all suffering’.  I had no interest in that in those times, but now when I feel like I’ve lost my inner peace and feel very disturbed, only that principle gave the perfect answer for that.  I am not a person who expects a lot of things to happen, but I am a person who expects a very very few things and get highly depressed if those things don’t happen.  So, I started in search of blissfulness and soon realized that Buddhism had answers for it.  To my surprise, Buddhism’s principles are mostly common to those we synthesized by ourselves for the Sambarian Religion.  And furthermore, my mentor Steve was a buddhist too.  I learnt that Buddhism is not religion where we pray for something to happen as we would in other religions, it was religion where we could find happiness even if we don’t get the things we wish.  Although I’m still a Hindu, mentally I wish to be a Buddhist from now on (maybe from 2012) and I’m sure it’ll be worth a try..

Well, I guess these are top 5 things I’ve learnt.  If there are things that 2011 has taught you, share them below in the comments and maybe I’ll learn something from you too…