Bloggers Meet @ St. Thomas Mount

Date : April 9
Time : 5:00 p.m.

Attended By . . .

• Ravages : The bike starting macho man.
• Ravi : Tourism Thillalangadi.
• Curses : Dog, lover. Don't mind the comma ;-)
  
• Sudhir : Meet update man.
  
• Nirenjan : He there, his velai there man.
  
• Sophia : Teacher amma
  
• Sandhya : Aakasha vani, Chennai vaanoli nilayam.
• Aravind : Mr. Peter
• Shekar : Father Teresa.
• Shiva : Multi 'stock' analyst.
  
• Praveen : Me, the oattai bike owner!
  

Absentee : Hyperactive Visithra

Minutes and Pics Here!

A great confusion prevailed before I left for the meet. A confusion which was confined to Curses and myself. We were unsure whether to reach the place by bus or by my bike. I was terribly unsure of what to choose. As unsure as Ganguly is whether to duck for a short ball or to nick it to the slips. There were calls from Ravi and Shekar asking me the exact route. I routed the call to Sophia as I was similarly unsure of yet another thing - the route. Curses reached the place along with his friends, Sandhya and Arvind, by bus. I came on my bike.

To my relief, the meeting point was on the main road itself and it became all the more easy after I spotted a group of people. After we were done with the intro stuff, we were waiting for Ravages to arrive. The first thing which I spotted and pointed out to Curses was "Rahmaniya Fast Foods" on the opposite side. Being Rahman fans, we considered it a great insult! :-( We learnt from Sudhir that Visthra had been held up in Coimbatore. It seems her tour agent her messed up the dates and she would arrive in Chennai only later in the night. That was bad news.

As we drove to the church on St. Thomas Mount, Curses clicked a few photographs, which he described as P.C.Sriram photography. Check out the picture caption for more details :-)

Sudhir took Nirenjan, Aravind and Sandhya in his car. Ravages, Ravi and Shekar came by bikes. I said I'll take Curses along coz he's the only one whom I alk to freely. He was pleased too :-) The short ride uphill was super cool. We were talking all along.

Me : Dei, kallu, mannu, maedu, pallam ellam photo eduthu vei da, site-la poatta wah!-nu appreciate pannuvaanga artistic people.
Curses : Ya ya, PC Sriram range-ku photos eduthirukkaen paar (referring to the pics on the rear view mirror!)
*kallu, mannu-nu sonnaen..enga rendu paeru thalai-um eduthu great damage pannitaan!*

Me : See! Jesus standing in Titanic pose! I'll slow down, click that
Curses : Okie, done!

We parked our bikes and started walking uphill to the church. Ravages was already busy with his archeology works. Not that he dug up places, but you know..! Anyways, on our way up started a storm called Sandhya. I have never seen somebody so enthusiastic and bubbly. Thamizh-la solla pona aarva kolaaru-nu sollalaam :-) Ok Sandhya, if you take offence, relax, I was just kidding! If not...I am obviously serious! She talked about literally everything that you would probably not find even if you google. This was highlighted more coz she had a really silently companion - Aravind.

Exchanges in * were between Curses and me alone!!

Sandhya : We should all thank Sophia for this lovely meet.
Sophia : I would say I din do anything. These two people (pointing to Curses and myself) did the work.
Me : *Psst...dei, namma enna da panninom?*
Curses : *Yaarukkum theriyum?!*
Me : *Appo seri, edho sollaraanga, perumaiya accept pannikalaam, we organised THE meet!*
Shiva : Ok Sophia, shouldn't the organiser provide us with refreshments??
Me : *Oh!...then we did NOT organise the meet!*
Curses : *hehe...did he overhear us?!*

We reached the church after a few minutes. Ravages was busy watching everything around as though he had a short sight clicking a few snaps here and there. I never knew people with a T-Shirt, jean and a CBZ would be so interested in history. I always thought of them with a half-Einstein hair. This guy seemed to be redifining it.

The watchman aapesar spotted us taking pics and took us to the higher aapeesar. We had to donate something to the church if we were to take pics. Okie machi, its hot-nu sollitu we were roaming about taking pics.

The place was beautiful. So was the climate. We were enjoying a pleasant view of Chennai. Just then, my mobile vibrated. A message from Airtel??? What the heck, I use Hutch! The message read : Dear Customer, Airtel wishes you a pleasant stay in Chennai. What the?? Naan enna ippo Dhindivanam-laendha varaen?? Paavingala, naan enna Kodaikanal-laya irukkaen?? Oru 10 ft malai yaerinathukku roaming-a?? Bloody dogs!

Speaking of dogs, there was a cute little pup up there. Poi nillu da, photo eduthu, "Magix on the right"-nu caption podaraen-nu sonnaen. Koocha padaama poi ninnan! Seriyaana naai paithiyam!

And if you are wondering why he is wearing his cap all the time... One, istyle!! Two, hair cut was pretty close! ;-) I wanted to call him Mottai Magix :-)

Aravind and Sandhya were without doubt students of B.Arch for the way they admired at things. If they were not from B.Arch I would have said pattikaattan and mittai kadai. So I give them the benifit of the doubt and put it in a polished manner :-) Sophia was talking about her school days, how they used to come up to the Church during free hours.

Magix was as usual spotting unsual stuff. He spotted funny boards which were not meant to be funny!

Curses : Look at that board! It says "Banian Tree"!!
Me : Sudermani-a Tantex-a nu podaliye??

Curses : And that one says "Jesus is burried"!
Me : Idhu engalukku theriyaatha, idhukku edthukku board-u?!
Curses : Dei adhu illa, it says burried, not buried!

Anbu called up and helped my balance get to 75 bucks from 89, thanks to roaming!! I let Shiva and Sophia do the talking coz all I knew was we were at a slightly elevate place! No idea how to get there.

We made our way into the church. There was a pretty gal in there who everybody stared at but pretended not to! Ravages was, as expected, interested in the year in which they painted the building! Kidding! But this one is for true...he wanted to know what some Senora Expecta Blah Blah, written on the arch, meant. I don't even recollect it. Its like one of those phrases in Harry Potter. But I couldn believe he chose me of all the people to ask this question! Enna pathi avarukku innum seriya therila! :-)

There was this picture of St. Peters in there. Curses was curious to know if he was the one who brought the English language to India!

Sandhya and Aravind were ready to obey anything that was said. They were asked to pray and they did so immediately. Tappunu sonna edathulaye mandi poattutaanga! Yesu pithaave ivargalai ratchipparaaga!! :-)

Taking advantage of their obedience, Shiva, Magix and myself played a small trick on them. There was this box called "The Dumb Box" in one corner. None of us knew what it was. So I asked Magix to call out for Sandhya to make her put money in it and snub her!

Curses : Hey Sandhya, look at that box there?
Sandhya : Yeah?
Curses : You are supposed to put money in it.
Sandhya : (taking her purse out) How much?
Curses : Anything. It is meant for people like you!
Sandhya : What??
Curses : Read what it says!
Sandhya : Dumb Box!! You idiot!!
Shiva : Adhu eppadi ma edhu sonnalum udaney seyyara nee??! :-)

Ravi was all the while taking pics of everything other than people! If you want to get an inside out view of the church you can possibly check out his blog :-)

We were out at a nice place to sit and chat. I found it pretty comfortable we kept splitting up into randomly reshuffling groups. I get along pretty well with Curses always (I've known him for 3 yrs afterall!) and got along pretty well with Shiva too. Sandhya is ofcourse not being considered here coz her group is always the most talkative! Any idea why? I dunno :-)

Sudhir and Nirenjan got messages in their mobile which said they had roaming too!! Relief!! It was a silent hurray!! Magix was the only guy to still have the normal thingy!

Sophia's profession was earlier disclosed as rag-picking! Now we got to know the real her...the kutti gal on her blog is now a teacher amma. She like Anna Univ canteen but hates the system there. The prof student distance is something which she doesn't like. Magix and myself were trying to get our question papers through her :-D She is a really really nice person. An angel in disguise. Very helpful to people. Sophia, are u reading this??

Sandhya now had Mom-trouble! She had to leave at 6:30, her mom kept messaging her. Probably the silence was killing her mom. With Sandhya out here it would have been really dull there, I understand...do you?! :-)

Now, we were witnessing what we were there for. The sunset. It really was a treat for the eyes. But it disappeared pretty soon.

We kept getting updates from Anbu, but nothing was all that clear. Uma messaged asking us to enjoy our bajji! Sadly we din have any :-( Next was Ferrari's call. He called me up. But enakku YEZHAVU roaming! So he called up Magix. The spoke a couple of words to Ravages and Ravi before the signal played spoilsport!!

Beep. Message for Magix. Hurray!! Roaming!! :-)

Just then he got a call from Sandhya's mom. What timing?! Hats off to you lady!! :-) Paanch rupaiya outtu!!

Sandhya : Hey should I pay you those 5 bucks?
Curses, Shiva and Me : Aaha!!
Curses : Yes, 10 bucks with interest!
Me : And 10 for me, am standing near him!

Ravages wanted to stay a bit longer to capture the lights on the runway. I wasn't pretty sure it would come out well on cam. So there we were taking pics of trees!! :-)

There was this tiny nail which tore Magix's shirt. He caught it on cam, just for the memories! :-)

Ravages caught a couple of pics of the aircraft. Really blurred ones.

Ravages : This is it!
Sandhya : Oh wow, how did u take it?
Me : Aaha, photo suthama purila-na wow-nu sollidaraanga pa!
Ravages : Dei yaenda ippadi irukeenga neenga?!
Curses : Enna move-ey aagala? Oh idhu pics-a? Naan video-nu nenachaen!
*Ravages bangs his head on a nearby tree* :-)

It was getting pretty late and we had to leave, Sandhya especially. She made a not of all our blog ids and mail ids, but has not yet mailed them!! *Fuming*

So we had to leave the place. Bajjis were due magix and myself reminded. Ravi and Ravages unanimously decided that people must go to Saravana Bhavan and have a cup of Coffee. Since it was getting pretty late for Sudhir, Nirenjan, Sandhya and Aravind, they left home. Sudhir dropped them on the way.

At the right time, my super duper Honda Activa refused to start. Ravages, Ravi and Shekar were already downhill. Thank god Shiva and Sophia were still there. I tried my best, but it just wouldn't budge. Shiva and Magix tried their best too.

Shiva : Vandi-a munna pinna service vidarthu unda nee?!
Me : Vitta appuram dhaan indha prechanai-ey!
Shiva : Authorised service centre-ta vidanum, cycle kadai kaaran kitta vitta ippadi dhaan!

We decided to get it down to a mechanic downhill! I enjoyed the ride downhill though. Absolutely no power and the vehicle smoothed its way. It really was a super ride!! I din wanna risk slowing at the speed breakers though, so it was a bit bumpy! :-D

The people were waiting for us downhill. Ravi tried his part. No use. Then came the macho man! Ravages!! Kovil kattanum avarukku, kal vettum sethukkanum, appo dhaan avar sandhosha paduvaar! One kick and vroom!! Wow, what a man!! :-)

Then, our next stop was Saravana Bhavan. Bloody Bhavan! No bajji, no vadai nothing!! Sophia had tea and I had pineapple juice. All others had coffee.

Magix was targeted yet again. His blogs, his popularity, ellam eduthu sonnaru Ravi. He also became the official SMS boy after he sent a few Non Veg jokes which impressed Shiva and Ravi! Ravages talked about his communications class in which his sir used to read out notes!! Update from Anbu that he would join us sometime later...ippadi meet came to an end.

Sophia : The first time I called up Harish, he was shocked. I din reveal who I was. Just mention all ur girl friend names I said and there was no response!
Magix : Anyayam panniteenga neenga! Suthi ellam orey gals-a irundhaanga, appo neenga phone panni ippadi kaeteenga!
Me : Yaarum illatha samayama paarthu kaetta sollirupaan paavam! :-)

And that was it. Pleasantaries. Tata Bye Bye stuff :-)

But wait...I've got a surprise in store now!! Luckily, my mom made bajji today... So here is a dedication to all u bajji lovers......... :-)

Cheers :-)