My Time Machine

View Larger Map

After buying my 100cc motor bike, this is the longest drive so far covering approximately 300kms, in a single day.

There was no plan to go on a trip to Kanchipuram until the day before the trip. My friend had come from Bangalore to attend his classmate’s marriage. The marriage was on Friday. So he had Saturday and Sunday to spend in Chennai. On Friday night we planned to go to Kanchipuram to see some ancient buildings.

So on Saturday morning we started from my house. I’d fueled my bike on Friday itself and the tank was 3/4 full. On Friday morning I’d seen the Google map for directions also. Our first target was to catch the GST road in Vandaloor. Before that in Kelambakkam high way, we had our breakfast. I always have the effect of appreciating most of the food, my friends find bad. I don’t pretend. But most of the time I feel this way. There is a wide band of food varieties I like. So I’m hardly disappointed by any recipe. The same thing happened during breakfast. My friend shared that he felt the food was bad. But even though I didn’t like it very much, I hadn’t disliked it.

Before this breakfast some funny thing happened. We caught the Kelambakkam highway from Mambakkam highway. But when we approached the kelambakkam highway from Mambakkam highway, we had a confussion on should we turn left or right. I regretted not printing out the map with me. Anyway we asked a man in a shop in the corner for directions. He directed us to go left. We turned left but after going some distance, my friend noticed some signs saying that Kelambakkam is few kilometers away.

He was shocked. Because we suppose to join the GST road in Vandaloor. The Kelambakkam highway connects Vandaloor and Kelambakkam. So we were going in the opposite direction. Then we stopped by a bus stop and asked another person. He confirmed that our suspecion is correct and asked us to take a ‘U’ turn. After taking the ‘U’ turn we reached back the spot where we wrongly turned in Kelambakkam highway. That spot is Mambakkam. There only we found the restaurant to have breakfast.

So after this breakfast we started again and reached GST road. I realised when I asked for directions for the first time I asked the person how I could reach GST road. He must have misunderstood GST for OMR. OMR is another highway where Kelambakkam highway joins. Eventhogh GST and OMR doesn’t sound similar, for a person who is doesn’t know english and not familiar with GST and OMR, both should be confussing. Anyway I should have asked him directions more specifically to go to Vandaloor.

After catching the GST road, its a long stretch until we reached Singaperumalkoil. Here we took a right turn (As I’ve seen in google map). Eventhough its a short cut, the road condition was very poor. My average speed was just 25kmph. After a long and tiresome ride like this we reached SH58 (State Highway). It felt like heaven to ride in that road.

Just before reaching Walajabad, in a road side shop (its a temporary shop with just a table, and the shop keeper always stands) we had “Kepai kool”. “Kepai” is a kind of cereal. I dont know the exact english name. Its very cheap, as it can grow in very little water. To prepare this “Kool”, they mix the flour of this cereal with water and boil it to cook. Then salt is added. That’s all. While serving the shop keeper mixed curd and some raw onions with this. And to spice it up, you can take chillies fried with salt. It was an energy boost for us.

After that we didn’t stop anywhere. We went straight to Kancheepuram. First we visited god Visnu’s temple. The architecture was awesome. Unfortunately when my friend tried to take some photos, his camera battery was dead. That’s it, we couldn’t record anything to share with our friends. After this we visited god Siva’s temple. Visnu and Siva are the two major gods worshiped by Hindu’s. Well everybody won’t worship both of them. There are two divisions in Bhramins (These people devote their service to spirituallity and decipline), those who worship only Visnu and those who worship only Sivan. In ancient times these two people fought on the superiority of their gods.

When compared to Visnu’s temple, Sivan’s temple was very old. And there has been a significant amount of differences in the way these two have been built. Eventhough Visnu’s temple and Sivan’t temple are basically constructed with different pattern’s, the methods used to build would be the same. But in this case these two temples were entirely different. We haven’t checked the time when these two had been built. But the monuments themselves were markers in the timeline.

At this point that was around 1p.m. Because of the “Keeppai Kool” we didn’t feel hungry. Eventhough we planned to visit the museum in that city, we couldn’t find one. We shouldn’t have collected more information before starting that trip. That left us only one choice, return back home or visit some place nearby. My friend told me that the Gingee fort would be near by. So we decided to go to Gingee fort. Little that we knew about the surprises we’re about to face.

We asked few people inside Kancheepuram city for directions to Gingee (in Tamil its pronouced as “Senji”. The information we collected was that it was a 3 to 4 hour journey to Gingee from Kancheepuram, and for directions we needed to reach Vandavasi and then ask someone there for directions. Point should be noted that upto Kancheepuram was the plan we had the day before. Whatever happening hence forth was a completely unplanned travel.

As suggested by the people we started off to Vandavasi. Just after crossing 1 or 2 kms we felt so much thirsty. The water bottle we brought from home was empty. So we thought of stopping by a “Karumbu saru kadai” (Sugar cane juice shop). On the way we found one and had sugarcane juice. We were recharged again and started the journey.

Just before reaching Vandavasi we felt thirsty again. So we stopped by a “Illaneer Kadai” (Tender coconut water shop) and recharged ourselves again. Then we reached Vandavasi. There we asked some people for directions to Gingee. They offered two routes. One was to reach Tindivanam and then head for Gingee. Other was to reach Chetpet (this is different from the place Chetpet inside Chennai city) and then head for Gingee. We choose to go to Chetpet and then head for Gingee. As per the suggestions, both the routes are more or less same distance.

Then we headed for Chetpet and reached it in a single stretch. From there we headed for Gingee. On the way we stopped by a shop and ate water melon. The price was very cheap when compared to Chennai. One piece of water melon was just Rs. 1. And you could make 8 pecies from a melon with an approximate diameter of 20cm.

Sunset from home

We reached Gingee fort at last. It had too much to explain in this article itself. It deserves a seperate article. Eventhough we were not allowed to go inside the fort, as the time has crossed 4.30p.m., after seeing the fort from outside itself we felt that the trip was worth coming. It was one in a lifetime experience (just to see the work of history sculpturing that grand fort in time).

Then we had the fear of reaching the city before midnight. I called one of my other friends in Chennai and he told me that the trafic inside the city, as Prime minister Manmohan Singh and Cheif Minister Karunanidhi were opening the new parliment building in Chennai. But we thought by the time we reach Chennai, the traffic would have improved. And we reached Chennai faster than we thought. And the traffic was not so bad. We had our dinner near Vandaloor itself.

The thing I regreted most was that we couldn’t take any pictures. Apart from that that was a wonderful journey. My bike did great here. I didn’t feel any pain due to long trip. I will visit these places again with more planning and post more details of the places we’d seen in this trip.

Few months back my work location was changed to office inside MEPZ (Madras Export Processing Zone). This is one of the Special Economic Zones in Tamilnadu. It houses big exporting companies. My company exports software. So we are also inside this. This post is about the things I thought while riding my bike while coming back from office today.

I was turning that right turn immediately next to my company as usual, after leaving the office. It’s a 4 road junction. So while turning I used to focus more on the right side of the turn. After completing almost 80% of the turn I saw a glimpse of a person requesting for a ride. At the time I saw him, I’d gone about 5 feet away from him. I didn’t stop for him for no reason. Usually I will stop for people asking for a ride. Actually this MEPZ area has only one gate, only through which we can enter this area. I must travel about 1.5 Km to my company from this gate. There are many companies in this area and people have variety of transport options to reach their respective companies from the MEPZ gate. Some use their own transport and some use the shuttles arranged by their respective companies. People who don’t have the above 2 options must walk the distance. Even though this walk can turn out to be a pleasant one, due to the tight schedules people mostly can’t enjoy the walk. Walking would seem like a highly time consuming process (10 to 20 minutes), during peak office hours. In order to reduce this time (and effort), instead of walking, people used to ask for a ride to many of the vehicles crossing this area. The poor fellow who didn’t get a ride from me also, must be one them.

When I first moved to MEPZ office, I never gave a single ride to any person. I usually like to walk a lot. So I never saw a reason why people avoid walking and ask for a ride. But after some time I started thinking about how it would feel to walk every time coming to office. Though it would be a very healthy activity, when I’m rushing to office this activity would turn out to be very straining and frustrating. So I started helping the people who ask for a ride. So today’s event was very strange. After crossing the guy and reaching 40 Kmph, I tried to realize why I left him. I thought that he should have come little bit more into the road to grab my attention quickly. But this is highly risky for the safety of that person. And then I thought that his gesture was not bold enough to convince me to hit the brakes. I realized that this could be a valuable reason. Because after crossing that person, to give a ride, my subconscious mind expected that person to run to the bike and mount. But that person was very tired. His gesture to ask for a ride was so weak that my subconscious mind thought that he wouldn’t be able to run to the bike and mount. My subconscious mind expected an active person and encountered a weak person. But the controversy here is that a person who is too weak to mount a bike definitely won’t be able to walk that distance.

The thing I learned from this event is that I needed to train my subconscious mind to give priority to people who were weak when offering some help. I remembered the words of Jesus. A doctor is needed for a sick person not a healthy one. That poor fellow I ignored might have waited another 5 or 15 minutes to get a ride. But only if I had waited few seconds for him to walk to my bike and mount slowly, I would have helped a weak and tired man.

You may think that I’m putting the blame to my subconscious mind like it was completely a different person. This could turn out to be a completely different article. Subconscious mind is something which is not in our control. It’s like reflexes. We realize what we have done during reflex action after a long time only. It’s like 2 people inside one person. It’s not physical, its psychological (may be spiritual for some). Even though we can not control the reflex action taken by the subconscious mind at that very moment, we are responsible for it. Because we only train the subconscious mind. Things we feed the conscious mind trains the subconscious mind. Is it anyway possible? I’ll explain in my next post.

What a wonderful day it has been; I have drawn a demand draft from the bank; I got attestation for my passport size photograph; I took photocopies of the application; And finally applied for my examinations commencing for my 2nd year MBA course. Every thing happened in such an amazing efficiency that I feel so much impressed of myself.

I woke up very late on today, the first day of my weekend. Oh!… well!… not exactly. It is earlier than most of the weekends. I woke up at 11.30 A.M. Almost one and a half hours earlier than other weekends. I remembered instantly after waking up that I am already 10 days after due date to submit the application for my examinations. I haven’t even filled in the application form that I took print out my office.

Brushed my teeth; Went to bathroom; That’s it!… I am sitting in front of my computer with the application form and all the necessary documents. Not all the documents; I am sitting in front of my computer because I need some more information to fill in the application. Ya I don’t know the subject codes and the examination center codes.

[Excuse me for instantly switching from past tense narration to present tense narration. It happened some where in the above paragraph]

The application is now ready with all the necessary information filled in. Now I am searching inside my big pile of something that could be called “important papers”, for my passport size photograph. I got it instantly, … must have gone through this junk of documents so many times.

I think my friend and my room mate Selvin is back from the bank. He woke earlier than me today and went to SBI bank to open an account. Well he is also very much earlier today. He used to woke up after 1.00pm in the weekends.

My god this article is pretty boring for myself. Don’t worry I will speed it up a little bit. Well after that me and Selvin went to lunch; went to bank to draw the demand draft for my application; Went to Government Hospital to get my photo attested by an gazetted doctor; Found a shop to take photocopies of the application form for my reference; Went to the post office; Sent the mail by registered post;

ppfuh… What a relief! It was 2.55pm and it was such a relief that my job is well done for the day. I started enjoying the weekend from then. Well guess what I did then. …. …. …. Wonderful! you are right. I was back to home and fell asleep.

Roughly in 3 hours I have finished something which I thought of “Why don’t we do it on day after tomorrow?”. It is always very hard to overcome laziness, fear and hesitation. But when you overcome it and accomplish something, nothing in the world can compensate for the happiness, the pride and the self respect you get from it except next time you do like that.

[I think I have again switched the narration style. Oops!... sorry]

It is a normal Saturday for me. But it is very exciting one for my friend. Because he is going to buy a new computer. It is not for him though. It is for his sister. What a wonderful day it is! We are completely unaware that in an hour we are going to be in a big shock that we lost money drawn from the atm for the purchase.

Now you know that I lost some money. Oops! Did I say ‘I lost some money’? Well it is true. I lost the money. Because we split the money and carried it in halves with us. And unfortunately the money that I was carrying was lost. Not all of them exactly. But it was a big mistake. Am I using so many ‘I’s in this paragraph? Well it was my fault. I admit that and take all the responsibility. It is not just words, but I paid for the lost money.

I believe that the core mistake is drawing the money to purchase. It is not like we should use the debit cards to pay all the bills. But the point is we should use it wherever we could. The reason would be very simple.

Money evolved from the simplest way of trade “Exchange”. We exchanged pearls for spices, grain for gold and so on. Am I sound like a historian? Ok then leave all these history about the evolution of money. The deep moral I learned from this mistake is that we should keep the representation of money as simple as possible to give it more security.

Well let’s see if it could be true. I will analyze one or two scenarios where this may stand true. Will you take Rs. 10000 in the denomination of 1 rupee coins? How about a crore? I thought about giving a scenario involving land to represent money. Of course no one could pick pocket it from us. But we are speaking about representations which are readily available for spending. Liquidity of assets like land are very low.

Wait a minute! I lost money because of carelessness. Now the chance of loosing something increases when the size decreases. I think it is not the way we keep the money matters. It is the amount of alertness employed for each type of money. Stealing a table from my house take more time than taking a 100Rs. note from my packet. So the rate at which I recheck if my possession if it is still with me should be higher than the probable time it may take some one (an expert in this field) to steal it.

Finally if we have a small object it will take little time to steal it and if we have a bigger object it will take much more time to steal it. If we keep money in smaller representation, we must check it very frequently.

I always carry my debit card. So I will have pretty much alert on it when taking it outside. But the money drawn from atm is a new thing, to which I didn’t give much care than my card. Even I didn’t put the money in my vault in which I keep my card. May be it would be much reasonable to say that keeping money in a form which we use often would attract more attention to it so that we won’t loose it because of carelessness.

Anyway how to keep money safe is an never ending topic. One thing is very clear about this topic. There is no compromise for the alertness we must have to keep money safe.

wow, It almost took 1 hour and 30 minutes to write this. I think the time stamp in this site is not correct. Now the time is 3:30AM