Treasure Trove of Life

Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi have been there on my list of places to travel for a long time. The trip didn't materialize as I didn't have a direct train connection except once midweek. Fortunately before the Dussehra leave, I had a weekend to spare. And hence, I decided to take the bus and check these places off my list.  I started on a Friday night from Coimbatore. My initial plan was to witness dawn from  Arichal Munai   which is at the tip of Indian mainland. That unfortunately didn't materialize. I vacillated about getting down at Pamban Bridge but gave that up. I reached Rameswaram at 6 am. The twilight before sunrise during different phases of dawn, the fishing boats sailing at the horizon, devotees taking a holy dip and the town commencing its activity were a feast to the eyes. I clicked a few pictures and proceeded immediately to Arichal Munai.                                ...

Every week, I spend a good amount of time browsing stuff at office. Be it Quora, Amazon (to check if there are any good deals), and travel blogs/information about places. Quite often, my havildar joins me for evening coffee and stares at my screen. I remember having told him more than thrice that I was planning to visit Kochi. And recently when I told him the same, he replied saying “Sir, you’ve been planning since you joined, but when are you going to visit?”.  I took that with a pinch of salt and decided to walk the talk that weekend. Fortunately, I could get a return ticket and a bed at a hostel in advance.  The journey began on a Saturday morning. The KSRTC bus had a unique reservation system. The ticket seller gives you a coupon with the seat number written on it for 10 bucks. The journey ticket is given by the conductor in the bus. I realised it when someone asked me to get up saying it’s their seat. I had to run to the counter at the eleventh hour and luckily ...

I’ve always had a yearning to record my experiences and go through them at a later point of time. Analyzing how a few things changed over the course of time and on the contrary, how time hasn’t taken a toll on the other few, leaves me dumbfounded. Having procrastinated for long, I decided to maintain a journal and write something frequently. Having done that over the last few weeks, I plan to pen down a few things as blog posts. Well, what to start with is always a bone of contention. After wrecking my head for some time, dilly-dallying about a couple of options and looking at my journal, I zeroed on the thought of summarizing my life since I had moved to Coimbatore. Infact the last 14 months where the word Year meant Financial Year rather than the default meaning of Calendar year. All thanks to the Indirect Taxation which is now my bread and butter. This period was a complete respite after years of failure, turmoil, struggle, criticism, endless moral policing, and unsolicited...