Camping!

My last post was a clear indication that I was falling in to a depression. I knew it was high time to do something out of work to escape the consequences. So we decided to camp in the forests. My roomies and two of my college friends were game for the idea. The place was decided to be Devil's lake forest. Does the name sound creepy? Atleast the girls thought so! But it sure sounded exciting to the boys.

We started off at noon on Saturday with full zeal and vigor. I was a bit apprehensive about the weather because the forecast predicted scattered thunderstorms in the region where we were planning to camp. But we decided to brave the storm come what may. The forest was close to 250 Miles from our place. Rain was pouring down heavily enroute. But we were optimistic that the clouds would scatter away as we approached the destination. It took us more than 3 hours to reach the place. As we had hoped, the rain stopped and the sun came out smiling from inside the clouds.

We immediately dived in to work - erect the tent before the rain started again. Everything went cool and the tent was erected in less than 10 minutes. Then it struck to our minds that we had forgotten to fill our drinking water cans. So L and yours truly took the car and went to the nearby town searching for a drinking water fountain. It took us nearly 45 mins to find one. We filled our cans and headed back to our tent. In the meantime darkness had fallen and the rest of our gang had done a great work of lighting the camp fire.

We had fun dancing around the fire till mid night. We kept the car engine idling and the stereo was turned out loud. Tamil kuthu songs echoed through out the forest. We had taken maize corns which we roasted in the fire and had a nice time eating them. Then we unpacked the dinner packs and had a sumptuous dinner. After that we realized that everyone was tired to death. We decided to call it a day. There was space exactly for six people to sleep inside the tent. We tried to sleep but the temperature went below 0 and everybody started shivering. We managed to pass the night and were relieved when the first rays of sun shone through the roof of the tent.

B wanted to have some coffee and everybody felt the same. So we drove back in to the town and found only one mexican restaurant open. We decided to have a good breakfast and went in. We had pancakes, french roasts and potato fries. We went back to our camp site, brought down the tent and packed our things. We decided to explore the forest. We hiked around the lake and were tired around noon. We had a light lunch and decided to head back home.
Nobody had slept the previous night, so everyone fell asleep in the car except me since I had to drive back :(

We reached home around 7 in the evening, went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and decided to part ways. I dropped the girls in their apartment and came back home at around 11. Dint really know when I fall asleep and suddenly I heard a faint voice chanting my name. I realized monday had dawn and I had to get back to work :(

Not a good sign!

I feel withdrawn from all the things that I used to enjoy. Things that were amusing and exciting no longer seem to be the same. An abysmal emptiness seems to invade my heart. I no longer feel like the happy-go-lucky guy that I used to be once. People have started complaining that I seem to be preoccupied with something most of the times. I could feel this myself. My thinking and my deeds are not synchronous. My thoughts are wandering in an unknown territory and a pang of shock hits me when they bounce back in to reality. I guess there is a conflict of interests between my ego and my super-ego. I want to be something and I’m being something. Whenever this reality hits me, my mind goes berserk. I have always got what I wanted. I have exactly known what was required and have always worked towards that but now I know what I want and I still don’t do anything about it. My super-ego tries to insinuate this to my ego, which apparently is not interested in this. The result – I suffer.

Ironically, this happens to be my 100^th post !

Bewildered!

I saw you on Orkut. Should I PM you or not? I'm going bonkers!

~ Naveen

Dell on Call!

My laptop crashed and that’s the reason why I could not post anything for a brief period of time. Gone are those days when I used to pay Rs. 20 /-, browse an hour and be contended for the rest of the week. But today, I feel amputated if I don’t have my laptop or Internet even for a day. Huh! I guess I have become addict or too much dependant on these stuffs. Well, that’s not the main crux of this post.

I had to call up Dell to find a solution to bring my laptop back to life. As usual I got the machine and it drove me crazy. It was a voice-activated system. I had to shout “Yes”, “No”, “Correct”, “Help” etc at the top of my voice to get connected to where I wanted to. The system had an accent issue! It accepts only if you say, “Yeas” and not if you say “S” on the fly. I was shouting “Yesss”, “Yeasss” and even “Ass” sometimes due to desperation. Well, why wouldn’t people think of developing such systems that recognize neutral accent?

After all these English pronunciation training, I got through to a REAL PERSON. Gosh! It felt real good to hear from a fellow human being after being harassed by a machine. But the person gave me problems as well; I couldn’t effortlessly make out what he was speaking many a times. He was too fast and his accent was certainly not American. I haven’t had problems with the American accent before, but this time, it was really testing. I some how managed to guess what the guy was trying to convey. I was getting accustomed to his accent and suddenly he asked me, “Which part of India do you hail from Naveen?” I was surprised. I wasn’t anticipating such a question. How would this guy know where on earth was this place, if I say I was from Chennai? But just not to offend him, I told him the answer. He was happy and told me about the Marina beach and the Golden beach. I was like, “Wow, how did you know about them?” He said, “I work out of Kolkata”.

For the first time, I got a chance to speak with an Indian call center guy. I must admit I didn’t even get a clue from his accent that he was an Indian, though I could make out that he was certainly not American. But anyways, is this not a compliment to that guy? A job well done! Probably, he should speak a little slower with more pauses and stresses!