Thursday, November 11, 2010

New turns in my Blogging life :)

I just registered my blog with BlogAdda, the largest community of bloggers in India .. :)

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

The diary of life- page 1

Now that I've better trust in my photographic skills, i dare to upload some pictures i had taken when i went home one weekend to my place, Perinkulam. Perinkulam is my mother's birthplace. It is a village in the district of Palakkad.
It is a group of 3 Agraharams .
(more on Perinkulam and Agraharams in the next post)

I was inspired to write this post after reading my friend Smithin's blog post. He'd written a short story which took me back to my childhood. It is not like that my childhood was like what depicted there..but the places described there had an appeal, like the smell of earth after rain..the smell I cherish and which always makes me nostalgic. So i thought of writing this one.

My grandfather's house is some 100 years old and was passed form generation to generation. I spent most of my childhood there, running between my house and my grandfather's. We call it 'thatha aam'. (Aam in Iyer Tamil means house).

The house as I said earlier is very old. The doors are very strong. The front door has a tricky latch, unique to the architecture followed at the time when it was built, which makes it impossible for thieves to break in. There are elaborate carvings on the lintel and jambs.The doors are not much high. Because of this they are a constant threat to tall people, which includes me. (I had the pleasure of banging my head on the beams a pretty good number of times). There is courtyard in the middle of the house. It used be an open one, but later it was closed from the above, and glass panes were fitted in between the roof tiles for letting in sunlight.

The main room of the house , has wooden roof, which also bears the attic. The wooden roof is called 'Thattu'. This roofing acts as a thermostat, keeping the room warm during heavy rains and cool during summer. The kitchen is bigggg!!! I used to run and play around inside the kitchen when I was a kid. Then comes the 'kollathavaaram' , i.e. the back end of the house beyond the back doors. That is where the servant of the house sits and does the dishes and laundry. Then we have a well at the 'thodi' or 'kollai', meaning the backyard. The backyard also has the 'Thulsi plant', vital for a complete home. Then there is a well, wide and deep. Many a buckets and mugs were lost into the depths of the well over years. Then comes a 'padippura' i.e a small gateway to the vast backyard which lies behind.

I'm adding some pictures of my maternal grandfather's house here.

A view of the opposite house's veranda from the upstairs window.
(you can see the traditional style stairs and pillars of the house)

The old uppu manga bharani

Old fashioned windows. Each grid is made of single piece of wood and is elaborately carved.
Very strong wooden doors.

The attic


This house is so dear to me, that it holds the vibes of my past, present and hopefully my future too... :)


Monday, October 11, 2010

A letter to my friend

hi all,
To start off the posts about my change in life-style over the last one year, i think it will be dil-logical to start with the mail i sent to my friend, the very first week i started here at Cochin...
(Its an edited version):)

_________________________________________________________
hi ,

as always hope ur great....
well to start off, the first day in the hostel was uneventful except that i got to meet some girls from various parts, in and outside Kerala, beautiful, smart and friendly (or as it appears) ones.kindly read 'beautiful with an increased stress.. i was kinda staring at some of them when i met them first.;):D

The first day t the school went good. since i had already made some acquaintances when i went for the GD-PI i didn't find it much difficult to carry around myself around the campus. then there was the inaugural address by the commodore of the Cochin shipyard. to be honest i dozed off. i was trying not to close my eyes as the various guests spoke. we had an introductory class in the AN by our director. then we spend time at the canteen, eating and cracking jokes and laughing. that was the best part.The canteen is superb. Since the campus hosts MBA MCA and PGDM sub-campuses we have a somewhat wide and long canteen. And we get loads of tastes.
(This opinion changed in just a week!!! i hate the canteen food)

our class is cool owing to the air conditioning, but i hate the chairs we have, not at all comfortable.:(
the faculty we have are really well versed and they know what to give the students.
the class has a higher number of girls than boys. Yo girl power .
the guys look damn good in the western formals, blazer excluded which is common to boys and girls. i have got a feeling that we girls look ridiculous beside them in Indian formals,(we have only 2 options, either wrap urself in a saree or satisfy urself with a salwar kameez duppatta) we usually choose the latter . we have 2 classes for MBA, batch A and B, i belong to the later one which includes people who has a non-commerce background, and for us they start from the beginning. Most of us are BTechs. some of them have work-experience too. the sessions last for 1.15 hours each and are highly interactive, which means one must be alert always.we're having foundation classes now for two weeks.

i was homesick two days into the classes and i cried twice. once a little and the next time a bit lot. when i went home for the weekend i was missing the hostel!!!! now im OK. i have settled myself here, upon the understanding that no matter how much i try i dont have a choice.. yesterday i thought about Amma when someone mentioned mother in one of the classes. i wanted to go home again!!.

There are loads of interesting persons in the class. the truth is that i did not notice the 2 weeks passing.the sessions are really demanding and i'm sure the work load is going to increase in the days to come.

ok then. this is the report of my first 2 weeks at SCMS School of Technology and Management.
____________________________________________________________

This was my first impression about the place... :) Now my perception has undergone great changes as i got to meet more people and know them better.. i'm a much mature person now :) Oh ,, I'm soo happy to say that!!! :D

More on the coming posts..
see ya.

Monday, October 04, 2010

I'm Back


hello everyone,
After an year of self imposed exile, i'm planning a come back..
keep visiting for my latest scribblings on true life experiences ;)
Love
Divya :)