My visit to Bangalore.

Hello everyone. I had visited B'lore on the 24th~27th of Feb, 2006 in relation to the Code4Bill interview for the internship @ M$. This post is with regard to that. You must be wondering why the post comes so later.... well, at best, it's a culmination of reasons including me being busy with college and project work.... So, here it goes:

I left from Mumbai on the 24th morning by Udyan Express from Mumbai CST. It's a 25hr journey to B'lore by train. It would generally suit me well, except I got bored during the day and slept for half the day. So much for catching up on my sleep. However, I did meet a few interesting people. 2 of them happened to be 2 girls from Germany who had come to B'lore for a year for Social Service to help out the street children better their lives. A truly noble cause.

I reached B'lore stn.[Cantonment] at 9:00am on the 25th, and was told to come at CMH Hospital from where I would be picked up by one of my hosts at B'lore, Chirag Patni. I was going to stay at Saurabh Ji's place & Chirag had arranged the stay. A heart thanks to both of them!!!! They made my trip really worth it. The first day, I was taken by Saurabh Ji to the Jain Mandir. It was a very quiet and peaceful place. Somewhere people would generally come to find solace. The next came Kamp Fort, and behind that was a HUGE, no MASSIVE Shiv ki murti. It was really great, and made me feel quite small actually!!!! And there was also this 12 shivling ka emulation(replicas) which were made to explain the significance of each one of them. It was really gr8, and the effects were quite life-like. After that we headed home, and Chirag was already there watching Tv. We all decided it was time to bujhao the aag in out pets(stomach), so we headed to this place (????) where we got really nice parathas and (????) I had onion & methi parathas, and they were quite filling. After that, back home, and off to bed. Dinner was on Chirag and that evening he took me out to show me the signts & sounds of B'lore. Areas of interest were Chinnaswami Cricket Stadium, VIdhan sabha(which looked quite majestic from far down the road), and Briget road. A lot of malls have cropped up at B'lore off late, and we visited a few of them. Then, it was dinner time and we had a light meal since neither of us were too hungry, and then headed off to Leelas, where we sat by the poolside and had a long chat. It was really peaceful place. We spoke a lot and really got to know each other. After that, it was time to have some coffee.... Coffee was great as usual, and then we headed back home. Saurabh Ji was watching the FilmFare awards, and we joined in. After some time, Saurabh Ji and myself felt quite sleepy but Chirag was still at it, so we left him to flip some channels, and retired for the day.

The next day I woke up at 6:00am(quite early by my standards) since I had to reach the M$ office at 8:00am. Chirag was woken up(in a very hasty manner) and he was sweet enough to have dropped me off on time, and he also told me how to get back. After the interview, I again found my way to CMH Hospital where I was picked up by Saurabh Ji this time.

Come evening, and Saurabh Ji dropped me off at the B'lore Cantonment Stn. were I caught Udayan Express back to Mumbai CST. I reached home at 9:30pm.... A very nice trip all in all. I would like to thank Saurabh Ji & Chirag once again for taking such good care of me.

And as is said: All's well that ends well ;-)