Aathaa Naan Pass Aayitten-1

It took 43800 hours to complete, 1825 days that is. Its graduate school for you, no.. no.. me no PhD material, I knew that while I was at undergraduate studies itself.

Yup, after taking my first graduate level class on August 23rd 2001, it was coincidence that I completed my defense for my MS degree last Friday - August 25th.
(Well if you still dont see the coincidence part, aug 23rd and aug 25th - almost similar datesl??). I felt so happy after my defense that I was smiling for no reason, times when I should have felt sympathetic, apologetic (when a friend of mine talked about how difficult getting married is), my natural reaction should have been "aiyo paavam", but nope not right after my defense, me still smiling, my ex-roomie detailing his second consecutive parking ticket, nope no sympathies, only smiles..Infact this should be the second most happiest moment in my life (Disclaimer: acads-wise), I think this would rate right after the days of smiles when I got into Infy just before I finished B.E.
Anywaysss, I know this calls for a toast, but the least I could do is write a blog series on this....
(read: lack of ideas for the blog :P)

And there goes the reason for "Aaathaaa... naaaan pass aayitteeenn**" series...
(Hindi padam maadhiri padathoda title a appo appo nyapaga paduthuven...)

Day 4: The travel back...

So this was the 4th day of my stay at Lexington, KY. This is where most of my friends in the US are. One thing about being in a city for quite some long time is you will know almost everyone in the city, namma senior, senior-oda senior, namma batch, namma junior, junior-oda junior, indian store aunty, uncle nnu poinde irukkum. More friends imply more places to eat at when you visit them :D, ofcourse means more fun as well, but then lets concentrate on the food part for now :)

So here I awake knowing I need to leave by noon to take the 8 hour boring lonely drive, winding through the mountains of Virginias, so I have ample time to sleep for the next day at work. oooopsss!!! leave at noon? and it is already 930am? And we have a starbucks coffee morning, lunch invite at our family friend's place (really, a friend who has a family), and then some shopping to do for a girl and hoooo, that is a tough one to buy something that a girl likes. Okay, all these done by noon, noo wayy....

So I wake up thinking its okay if I leave by 2pm, I can still get home by 10pm. Okay, plan confirmed, wakeup and brushup... and I wake up to a very bad news on TV. A passenger plane from Lexington crashed killing close to 50 people 1 minute after it took off from the airport. Man! I feel only when things like these happen close to where you live, you realise the magnitude of the incident. By realise, I mean, you will ponder a bit longer, feel sorry a little more than when it happens somewhere in England, and ofcourse get on with life. And the reason behind the crash - pilot took the smaller defunct runway, and the plane crashed into the ground exactly 1 minute after it took off, just 1/4 mile away from the runway. So after a sympathetic minute or two, there I was at Starbucks exactly 30 minutes after I woke up.
Same time, last year a Sunday morning at Starbucks would have a junta of 15 people. Our usual tendency is to comment like "ooohh, cant believe its been one year since blah..blah..". But come to think of it, one year is a pretty long time for drastic changes to our established relationships, work-related relocation and family committments. So, there we were, 15 turned to 4 at the starbucks - P,V,V and yours truly. And what will 4 guys talk about? Work/studies/family are never talked about and there is no rhyme or reason to talk about it as well :). After some wholesome gossipping, me and V left to the mall to get something for the girl S who had her housewarming the previous day.


We entered Garden Ridge, a home decor store and my head spinned. I am so vacillating when it comes to shopping for others, because I dont want to get them which they dont like or better still, I dont want people to keep it just because it was gifted. (Remember, Rachel in Friends!!??). So there I entered the humungous home decor store not knowing what to buy. First thumb rule while shopping for a gift - I should like it first of all, and then visualize the "Wow" in her face when getting something as a gift. So the biggest visualized "Wow" will finally be chosen :) That is why it makes it all the more harder to shop for a gift.
Walking a few aisles, I suddenly saw something on the left that "Wow"ed me....

To be continued...

**Maathaaji, mein pass ho gayaa.....