Paparaazi

Seriously, how crazy and absurd can the paparaazi get? Why should I watch the video and photographs of MS Dhoni and his wife having a good time in Goa? I can ignore if this news is about showbiz icons or if it appears in Page3, but WHY in the sports column of a national newspaper ! A south Indian male actor recently tweeted - " It is easy to become journalist today, just follow somebody's tweets and yo! you have a 100 words writeup."

Thiray Beta Launched

An year after venturing on my own with V and V Media Technologies, our first product Thiray (www.thiray.com) is officially beta launched on 10/10/10 at 10:10. Public registrations are open and free ! Thiray is an exclusive networking platform for media professionals where talent meets business. Do visit, and also recommend Thiray to your friends.

Thank you for all your support and wishes !!

Puducherry Kacheri

On Saturday evening it just occurred to me that I have been in Chennai for the past few months and never tried out the ECR. So we just decided to drive down to Puducherry the next morning. It might sound as an ad-hoc decision I did do my bit of homework on Sat night to explore Pondi online first.

So we hit the road in my car on sunday morning 6:30 am. We stopped at Thiruvadanthai to visit Nithyakalyana Perumal, but the Darshan was only from 8 am (so much for my homework!). Our net stop was at Mahabalipuram outskirts for breakfast. I wouldn't recommend the noisy A2B, but as a vegetarian you don't have much choice. I had always wondered why they collect a 48 Rs toll for the ECR which does not even have a median or what you call a divider. But the ride was smooth and easy, but be very careful about incoming traffic from the side roads from villages and the speeding vehicles in the opposite direction. You do see the wonderful seashore to your left here and there, but the road does not actually run near or along the coastline.

We took a detour at about 7 km before Puducherry town to check out Auroville, the city for universal human being. You gotto take the muddy, bumpy road for about 8kms to reach the Visitor Information center. This is not a tourist attraction as they declare in their website, you need to understand and appreciate the purpose of universal harmony and peace and the divine humanity. You have to call up and book ahead if you would like to visit the Matrimandir, otherwise you just get a glimpse of it from a distance as we did.

Once we reached Pondy, we checked in at Executive Inn - a pretty decent hotel I must add, and had lunch. We started out on foot to visit Aravindhar ashram. We had to wait in the long queue till 2:15 pm when the gates were opened. I had no idea what to expect. But was not happy by the way one of the volunteers was yelling "switch off the mobile, don't speak, follow the line". You are allowed to pay respects to the Aravindhar and Annai Samaadhi. We did some shopping at Pondi bazaar (the real one), bought some stuff at FabIndia in sufferon street and picked some souvenirs.

Then we walked along the beach. For the first time in India I found concrete blocked streets here and enjoyed the mix of French, Indian and contemporary styles of architecture. But contrary to whatever I had read online, the beach is no different from the Chennai's Marina. It was crowded and dirty. At 8pm we visited the famous Manakkula Vinayagar temple. It was nice to see the Vinayakar carvings from various places around the world including Java, Indonesia !!

I always explore different cuisines when I visit places, I mean whats the point of traveling if you still want to have Idlies and Dosas? If you are not familiar with the cuisine, ask the Chef for recommendations based on your appetite. You can always give pointers like you don't want too spicy too oily stuff etc. We dined at this wonderful place called Hotel Du Parc.We had Pastas, Connelini, Lasanga and French cakes. It was awesome. They had a friendly staff and great ambiance. Great way to end our one-day tour ! 

We woke up early the next day drove back in 2 hours.

Its time...