Back In India

Yeah, I’m back in India. Well, actually landed in Chennai long time [ damn it’s been more than a month o_0 ]. So let me recap what’s been happening and what I’ve bene upto.

First thing: the return trip. The return flight was rather uneventful, nowhere near how my flight from Mumbai to Austin was ( well, that’s a good thing).

My flight itself was rather long ( heck what do ya expect from a transcontinental flight anyway), covering 4 different flights – American Airlines from Austin to Chicago, and from Chicago to New York  and Jet Airways from New York to Brussels (stop over) and from Brussels to Chennai.

I was rather surprised at the airport, for one the security check was nowhere near as extensive when I entered US, or for that matter when I left India. My baggage was checked in all the way to Chennai so baggage wasn’t a problem either.

My Jet Airways flight didn’t exactly start off with the right foot, with my in-flight entertainment system not switching on(kept throwing an “ERR” on the remote control) and the Cabin Crew couldn’t do much (they said they “reset” it, but meh it was the same thing). The Cabin Crew, however, did manage to get me another seat and the inflight console was functioning. Initially I thought I was the only person who was having problems with the console but turned out *a lot* more folks were having the same problem. Infact the guy sitting next to me(ie, after I changed my seat) was rather pissed and asked for a complaint form and filled it up. Besides that it was alright. Watched Rock On, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, CSI, Friends & 2 and a Half Men, besides listening to lot of songs on my iPhone ( yea,  I got an iPhone 3G 16GB ). Left for Austin at Saturday morning 08:00 Austin time, and finally landed in Chennai on Sunday night 23:30 IST.

Ankit was kind enough to come to the airport to pick me up 🙂 and had some accomodation ready for me ( it was a Mansion at Triplicane, though not my previous mansion). I was in Chennai for a whole week ( amidst colleagues asking about how my US stay was, when I’m leaving home etc) . Just before I left Chennai for Mangalore I made a decision to move over from Triplicane to Perungudy, mainly because well, I’d be working half Indian, half US shift since I’d have to support my colleague in US and the distance from my office to Triplicane is rather far away and it’d be difficult to goto my room. Perungudy’s lot closer to my office ( about 2 Kms) so travel isn’t much of a hassle now. Unfortunately that means that I won’t be Ankit’s roommate anymore, I asked Ankit if he wanted to come but he declined.

Following week I left for Mangalore for a much deserved 2-week break – I hadn’t had seen my family for over a year and gotta say – the feeling when Shriya came running yelling “Sathyu Maamu, Sathyu Maamu” was uber fantastic :D. In Mangalore, didn’t do much, met with Rakesh, Sid Prasad, & Seema. Went to few places like Sultan Battery, the beach, my ancestral  place in Uppinangady, it was great stuff 🙂

As mentioned, I’ve shifted to a new PG in Perungudy, it’s a nice place, got food, Internet, AC so all good 🙂

Also, last week we had our first ever Chip forum member meetup, and we had a forum member AshwinSid who came all from Bangalore for the meet! We met at Blur, had a nice time chatting, and some gaming time. You can catch the details, photos all over here

We’ll be having our second meet this weekend, will write more on that soon.

Cheers till then!