Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Chronicles of Scorpio

After a short hiatus of 10 months, the bugger is back on the blogger!

As a writer(??) I ran out of literary forms before I stopped to explore the CHRONICLE and here is the devastating result.



Friday, the 14th of March,2007


3:30 PM - Starated at Office on a Scorpio with approximately 10 KGs of solid stuff and 10 litres of liquids (strictly veg liquids) from the aptly renamed MORE store.


5:00 PM - Reached the outskirts - Sonia Gandhi coming to inaugarate the Shamsabad Rajiv Gandhi/Indira Gandhi/Sanjay Gandhi International Airport did not exactly hurried up our proceedings.
Office Gossip.


7:30 PM - Reached Suryapet.Chai.
Antyaakshari interpersed every now with the question - "By the time we reach there meals will be there or not?"


10:30 PM - Reached Kankipadu ( A SMALL VILLAGE as Kota refers to in that legendary episode in MONEY - precursor to the BHADRAM BE CAREFUL BROTHERU song).


Hunt for Kaluvapamula ( venue of the marriage) starts. Its on the way to Gudiwada. First we overshot the target and about to land in another village called Vanapamula. Incidentally there is another village nearby called Kaaturu.No, though the names of the places suggest that might be NagaLokam, we assure you we were stil in Bhoolokam. Back we come and with some guidance enter the original place of interest.



As the bride was busy getting married and not even lifting her head, we head for the all important MEALS.Think you can expect what followed.I only hope the people out there dont know anything about Somalia. Met the bride and groom.Start off for a quick detour of the village. More than anything else, the grandeur of the buildings stuck. Nice cosy independent houses.Not any rat-holes of appartments.As we move towards one end of the village, we find a huge Banyan tree which reminded us of OODALA MARRI a horror progam on TV9.Jump to the other end (the one through which we entered the village). we sat down at the KANA. I dont know what they call it in English, CULVERT probably. You may say it is a sin for a son of a civil engineer to not know about this; but as far as my dad does not know anything about configuring a connection manager in a SQL Server Integration Services package, I am above blame.


More discussion on some office characters. I have given my all time hate-most list of people I worked with. I am sure I would be on most of my colleagues' similar compilations. But that is beyond the scope of the current chronicle. So you better dont think about it.


Back to Marriage Hall. Acco provided in a nearby village MUDUNURU.Slept.Woke up to the arresting aroma of Idlies and coffee.


[ A dialog which would make sense to only those SCORPIOns - ' Inkenti BOBBY viseshaalu?' ]

Saturday, the 15th of March,2007

6:30 AM : Start off to Vizag via Gudiwada


9:30 AM : Dropped off a colleague at TUNI


10:30 AM: Reached MURARI. Chai.


1:00 PM: Hit Vizag roads.


2:00 PM: Check in a hotel.Fresh up. Watch a bit of SD MBBS.


2:30 PM: Deccan Inn. white rice with VANJIRAM PULUSU and Prawns fry.


3:30 PM: Change to shorter costumes aka shorts and hit the Rama Krishna Beach. More sand, less water.The Mughal Army fought with its enemy waves hard and tough till 7:00 PM and then went on to bring light into the life of a BAJJI vendor with bulk buyouts.


8:00 PM: Kailasagiri.Nice panoramic view of the city of destiny.Some snaps with Mr.Lord Shiva and his family.


10:00 PM: Daspalla. Crabs.


11:00 PM: Hit the sack.


Sunday, the 16th of March,2007

9:00 AM : Wake up. Fresh up. Pack up.


10:30 AM : Kambalkonda Environment Park. Boat ride.


12:00 PM : Zoo.


We saw Monkeys,Babboons,Puma,Tigers,White tiger,Lions,Bears.All of them ignored or rather chose not to acknowledge our arrival and subsequent presence. How mean and inhuman of the animals.


Then we had an encounter of third kind. We saw an alien. Atleast we thought so when we saw. Some non geometrical organic object pecking at a trunk of a tree. Hold your odourous breath; what we saw are the jaws of a jumbo hippo. For the next 15 minutes it kept on pecking/hitting/slamming/... at that trunk and then the inevitable happened in the 16th minute. we lost our patience and moved away.


We went on to see Starred Turtles,Python,Rattle Snake,Deers,Beers,Bisons,Foxes and Vixens.you dead-head, Just checking out your concentration. And you failed miserably.FYI,Beer is a beverage not an animal.


Then to Emu, which is famous, as for as I am considered, for its meat. After that we enter a cave of nacromantic and not-so-romantic creatures like owls, jungle cats, porcupines etc. We had a guide accompanying us for this leg.


Onto some Alligators,Crocodiles.we caught them having lunch. As we are busy counting their number, the croc-man ( caretaker) jumped into the arena with a bucket and a long stick. With his staff he prodded open the mouth of the creature. With pin-ball precision he threw a chunk of meat into the aperture. The poor animal wanted more and kept its mouth wide-open; but the old man moved on to the next reptile.


All through this, we saw some animals out in the open;People hurling stones and sticks at the animals irrevarant of the innumerable warnings pasted all around the park.


How about that for a sentimental touch to the post!


4:30 PM : Pickup the driver from the hotel. Off to Rishikonda Beach. Less sand more water. Patrolling guys come up saying the beach is closed (?) at 5:30. Hide and seek with them.More play. An excursion into the sea on a row-boat with life jackets.


8:00 PM : Time for friends. Time for dinner. Daspalla again. Crabs again.


9:30 PM : Return kick-off


11:00 PM : In the midst of a violent outburst of vocal local music, we made a disturbing Observation ; our driver is sleeping with our Scorpio on NH5, his hands on the steering and eye lids firmly stamped on his eyeballs. A horrific sight. Followed by a long discussion. KCR, YSR, CBN,Jana Reddy, Kishan Reddy and last but nowhere the least Megastar entered and left our arguments with the driver.


Monday, the 17th of March,2007


10:30 AM : Rinzim Rinzim HYDERABAD


Note: Almost all the TIMINGS mentioned are wrong.