Of Idly-ing away my days...

And just like it always happens to those who wait for days on end for the wait to end, my wait here at Nanjangud is now over. The last day here and post a presentation where I will talk intelligently about big savings, I can't help but think how much time I could've saved had I been doing something.. anything, much before the 7 days when I actually had some work. To think of it, as much as I cribbed about it, I did in some way do different things while here.. and very little of it has to do with work.

If I think about it, the things i'll remember most about Mysore would be:

• Hotel Nalpak and my usual breakfast of a single idly and 'mini' coffee (the best filter coffee I've had, apart from maybe the one at Murugan Idly in Chennai) and the evening dinner of a dosa or mini-coffee. The thing I'll remember is, that except for the first two times I never had to repeat my order to the waiters, they always knew exactly what I wanted.
• The Kannada jingle for Big FM in Mysore, "Keli Kelsi Life Nimmadaagasi" (I apologize for the spelling error) sung by Sunidhi Chauhan with a generous sprinkling of "Hoye! Hoye!" in between.
• My neighbour taking his son to school in the morning on a TVS XL. Despite the already crunched space, the friendly street dog staring at them longingly, is whistled at and asked to jump in between the driver and the handle, for a quick ride.
• "Don't waste water, Please close the taps" written in bold over the hand-washing area in the canteen at the factory. The taps there were equipped with automatic sensors.
• Planet X! The amazing go-karting track there, and two certificates that I won there, citing me as the "Fastest Woman of the Week"! :D
• My first 21 kms Marathon that I ran/walked/crawled at Srirangapatna
• The dog in our building called "Shiva" and it's owner who could be heard shouting two floors away "Shiva!! You Rascal!! Come here!!" (RSS members reading this are requested not to kill me)
• The one weekend when I decided to stay back alone in Mysore and watching 7 movies at a stretch, and not being able to see anything clearly for the next one hour
• That one visit to Chamundi Hills during Dussehra with friends and despite all the fog.. managing to see the spectacular sight of a blindingly lit Mysore Palace
• Seeing the Dussehra Procession sitting just a few meters away from the King himself at the Mysore Palace
• Telling the shopkeeper "Kannada Gotilla" as he begins to talk and he looks at me in genuine surprise and say " Tchhhaaaah!"
• Answering on a regular basis, questions like "what's your native?" and "You can eat rice?!" Houdu, I can :)
• Almost eating a 'boiled banana' on my way back from Kerela to Mysore
• Plucking fresh black pepper from a field near our factory in Choladi and buying tea right from someone's tea garden
• Going home and watching spiders mating on the sealing. Turning away to give them some privacy.
• Travelling in a bus from Bangalore and watching a Kannada movie where the 'evil son' puts a noose around his mom's neck, makes her stand on a drum and places the drum on an incline, threatening to kill her every now and then by gently kicking the drum which would make the poor lady do an involuntary salsa.
• ... And last but not the least, the fact that I got spurred into blogging again :)

Cyber Grime

The other day I go to the cyber cafe closest to my flat.
It's on the first floor of a fairly dilapitated building and you can reach it via a dark, curving staircase, when you reach the top the words 'INTERNET in bright red point towards the left and you walk on to a small room with 5 terminals and many stories that began and terminated on each one ;)
I sit on a system sandwiched between a kid who's playing NFS and one who's looking around to see if anyone's looking at him, looking at things he's not supposed to be looking at in the first place :)
I open Google. I'm searching for a bus that'll connect me from Mysore to Bangalore at a specific time so that I don't miss the flight I plan to take from there onwards. So I type Mysore Bus Services, KSRTC etc. Interestingly, the auto-remember feature is on, on this machine, and as soon as I type 'Mysore Bus'.. all you need to add is a 't' to that last word to know of the other more 'interesting' options that came up.
I got curious, it's interesting to know what all people wouldve searched for on this system in this quaint, palace city of Mysore.
I type Mysore and scroll down.. 'Mysore jobs, Mysore artworks, Clinical Psychology Books in Mysore, Paintings in Mysore, Mysore Gay, Mysore Dance Classes. Hold on..!!!! Mysore Gay?! ok.. Fascinating. I think about the person who made that search. Even more fascinating :)
Then we have 'Baoobs', followed by 'Boobs'. I'm guessing the searcher didn't find the former search keyword of any use.
There were a whole lot of other inappropriate searches made there, and mentioning them will not be appropriate either.
But my personal favorite, the simplest, the shortest and possibly the most desperate was a word that summed up all the desires of that person who was making the search: "Female" :))