Category: featured

Review of the Astoria Business Hotel Stay, Madurai

This was a long pending post from my side and I finally found some time to write on this topic. I had a chance to plan a trip to Dhanushkodi and got the opportunity to stay at Astoria Hotel in Madurai for a day. This is a business hotel and I needed a stay only for a day so I chose the hotel.

A few notable things about this hotel are the following

  • Its walkable from the railway station as long as you don’t have too much luggage
  • Its preferred to take an auto from the station if you have kids
  • It is situated somewhat nearby to the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai which is easily reachable by auto within 10 minutes

The front facade of the hotel is one vertical block which mostly present the corridor end windows and the conference room windows on the top floor. There is no access to the terrace as such for visitors.

The entry lounge is good with ample light and seating. This hotel offers 24 hours checkin and checkout with prebooking via multiple travel portals or directly via calling the hotel. I paid nearly about Rs.5000/- per day which is on the steeper side and includes breakfast along with the room. The rooms themselves were well appointed, but were kind of small. Since its a business hotel, the type of travellers mostly expected are the ones who stay in the hotel for about a day and move on to other places near madurai for their business needs.

To this extent the rooms offer the comfort necessary from the relentless heat of Madurai. Thankfully I landed there at a time when Madurai received some rainfall the previous day so the city had cooled down a bit from temperatures of over 38 deg C.

The rooms have thick and large curtains shielding all the harsh light coming in, have a study table with a suitable chair, and a small coffee table with a lounge chair. The beds themselves are a bit soft and springy, the types which you can sink into, though my personal preferences would tend towards slightly harder beds which are not known to aggevate back problems.

The television set is mounted on the wall and the wall also has shelves that hold the glasses and coffee maker. The bathroom is well appointed though the shower is not movable enough making it spray all the water all over the room. It could have been designed better though it does the job for a business traveller. The bath has dispensable soap machines which is the trend nowadays and in my opinion, I prefer this over hundreds of small soap cakes being produced that go a waste on daily basis.

These days hotels have reached a situation wherein you can also say whether or not you want the towels washed or not in order to save water and effort and I highly value this mode of working as it conserves resources.

The cafeteria was good and well appointed in terms of furniture. The breakfast was expensive on the second day, but on the first day it was complementary. I did use the room service once or twice and found it to be good. The people attending to you at the hotel are quick and respond pretty soon to your requests which is what a traveller looks for.

The food itself was good with lots of variety ranging from indian, western, veg and non veg options and was tasty too.

The Astoria Hotel has a view to die for and you can see the Madurai Meenakshi temple very well during the clear nights in the city. The central location, accessibility to Railway station and reasonably close from the airport (~ 10-12km) and a decent variety of rooms, food make this place a business friendly hotel.

If I go again to Madurai, I will stay in Astoria and would recommend this hotel to others too.

My mobile ownership journey

On a holiday me and my wife started discussing about whether I need to dump my iPhone 6+ and go for that new shiny Samsung Note 5 which was just launched, or perhaps the 6s, or the upcoming nexus phones. This is when my wife asked me whether I have kept a tab on how many phones I had purchased all my life. Well, I remembered and here is the list 🙂

Early 2000 : Motorola CD928

This Motorola was an awesome beauty way back in year 2000. It was a fashion to flip out the keypad, the large LCD text screen and the gorgeous antenna. Costing almost Rs.10000/- way back this was a status symbol to possess. Added to that the only mobile network at that time was JT Mobiles (which is now our famour Airtel) Not to mention outgoing calls were Rs.7 a minute and incoming was Rs.3 a minute. People still wondered whether as a college passout into industry I was mad to buy this expensive a phone, but the stares it got satisfied the ownership.
2002 : Nokia 3300

Nokia’s evolution from 3100 turned out to be the flashy 3300 and the gimmicky ringtones kept everyone tapping their feet. Solid battery life, some great call clarity, this was the phone doing the rounds in Malaysia when I used to stay there at that time
2003 : Samsung V200

Samsung’s V200 was their early foray into the camera flip phone segment and after much of analysis this phone was mine for a while until I returned to India.
2003: HP iPAQ

The HP iPAQ was already doing good with PDA’s and with GSM they took it a step further to have a portable computer running windows CE in your pocket. A phone, a PDA, life was great!
For the decade ending 2010, and beyond until now
Motorola A1200

With a stylus and a brilliant resistive touchscreen, even though the options of font were too small, this phone was capable of being a PDA and a phone at the same time. Very pocketable, loud speaker, and amazing call clarity were hallmarks of a motorola A1200. What followed was the razor which went on to create history, but somehow I did not own that!
Nokia 6600

It was Symbian’s best phone at the time of its rule, with users swearing by its quality. Such was the power of Nokia 6600 that merely owning it was a status symbol. The joystick, its easy to use options, buttons, and some great battery life with needless to mention great call quality, this was the phone to have.
Panasonic A100

I was always a huge fan of little phones, and the A100 from panasonic proved itself to be the mighty Jerry of the Tom and Jerry league. Its cool blue lighting, and its somewhat difficult to use buttons, its miniaturization – it was a product unique to its category and surprisingly good quality of calls.
Olive Compacta

The olive Compact from olive telecom is not a mere play toy though it looks so. Started off at Rs.999 and now at Rs.575 or so, this phone is a testimony that the category it belongs to still has takers even now. I still have the phone, and it works even now. No nonsense phone, nothing smart, just the calls. Absolutely unique and cool
The Nokia Asha Saga – The 3 series asha

Nokia was struggling to infuse fresh life into its Series 40 based phones with the Asha series. They suffered from lags, useless apps, though had a good call quality. However the hardware was still cool to hold and use. Since there was a need for a dual sim phone, with the advent of dual sim needs, this one went out of my house
The Nokia asha 5 series

For me I felt the 501 was an evolution of phones like the panasonic, olive, and moto a1200. Nokia had their brilliant design language stand out, though the software was extremely slow and did not match upto what the industry expected. I still have this phone, though do not use it anymore. Some things are there to be seen and to make you happy everytime you see them.
The Windows Saga
Lumia 710

Nokia’s effort at moving to Windows was some sort of disaster with the 710 and earlier models with the operating system itself being no more than a dud. Frequent hangs, crashes, and glitches was MS’ way of introducing their new mobile OS
Lumia 1520

After a span of 2-3 years I decided to give Nokia another chance and purchased their outrageously priced 1520 flagship. This was the best Nokia ever produced, barring another model which had the 41mp camera. In every way the screen was the best, the phone was a beauty to use. However the lack of apps even after so many years, put me down and in order to salvage some cost out of the loss, I had to sell it out, thereby also signifying my exit with Windows once and forever.
The Alcatel Ice Cube 803

Alcatel does not call it the ice cube for no reason. The 803 series is a brilliant resistive screen phone (even in 2015) as its sold for a purpose. The SAR rating for this phone is one of the best in the market which means your brains wont fry even if you talk on this phone for hours together. I still have this, and use it sometimes for overseas calls that last more than couple of hours. Absolutely cool on the ear, and does not provide anything else fantastic
The Android Saga
Dell XCD35

About sometime after Apple starting rolling out their smartphones, Android which started off somewhat in a lacklustre way started catching up. The Dell XCD 35 was a brilliantly designed product off the shelf and it was running Android 2.0+ After some while of using it, I had to give it to my wife who used it to the hilt before dumping it to a mobile shop guy who wanted it for the spare parts to repair a customer’s similar phone. Till today, there are two brands that impress me – dell and Blackberry – they have always had some solid designs on their mobiles and this has led to some good models in the past including the dell Venue and venue pro.
Lenovo K900

Lenovo was a master of industrial design and this clearly showed in their K900 which had Android married to Intel processors. The phone itself was just super awesome, but gaming made it hot (not warm) and their speaker and mic quality let them down on this model. I had to return it to flipkart for a refund simply becuase the most important functionality of the mic and speaker were horrible. They learnt their problem and had since launched K910 and more lately their k3 series lower than Rs.15000 where they are playing in their field well. More on that later
Hello Moto G

After Motorola’s sad butchering in the late 2000s, they came back with Android and the new Moto G. This phone with stock android still remains popular in many avatars even today. It had the most oustanding vibrate mode, some exceptional call quality which was typical of moto phones since a decade, but with less RAM though not necessarily slow. The battery tended to go weak after a year or so, but my wife still uses this, and she can swear by the quality even today. No wonder then that Motorola is again on the upswing launching the play and style editions of Moto X shortly expected.
Hello Moto E

If you like something, and your people at home also like something, then you need to buy two of the same immediately. In order to make my father in law happy, I purchased the Moto E which was a lesser child of the moto family with reduced hardware but somewhat still usable
LG G2

The LG G2 was by far one of the best android phones I used in my entire life. The user interface was silly in my opinion, but very usable, it had IR, it had wireless flash access, and everything else one could imagine. They pioneered the backside buttons concept which quickly caught on among other manufacturers. It was great to hold, with a premium feel and had a brilliant screen. However, the user interface grew on me so much that I felt that I really needed a change beyond a year. No amount of rooting, or otherwise could refresh this on the LG so I had to let it go. One of the good things about LG is the amount of software support they provide where you can brick your phone entirely and bring it back to showroom condition all by yourself. However the android updates were a pain to get as well.
Nexus 4

The Nexus 4 was an example of how NOT to design a phone experiment that LG undertook. Glass on both sides, phone getting extremely hot which was identified as a design flaw all over the world with no solution in sight, my phone just cracked on the rear glass on its own. Just was kept on the table and boooom. It was getting so hot to even keep on the ear and make a call that the only thing I wanted to do with it was to dump it in the recycle bin. No wonder then that the Nexus 5 was rolled out and this one went into oblivion. LG’s two different faces between the Nexus 4 and the G2.
The HTC 1

After LG, right there was the HTC 1 which was yet another phone which made some waves in the android world. They had one of the best speakers almost rivaling apple itself, and the premium feel was one of the best in the market. Somehow HTC UI never really improved and evolved over time and their keyboard though one of the best started feeling boring after a while. With a difficult decision to make I had to let it go for good.
HTC 616

After sometime I was using HTC 616 as my secondary phone, but with its internal 4GB memory, and an absolutely laggy OS, it was not a difficult decision for me to get rid of it. Sometimes I dont understand why a company like HTC goes into this low end business and gets screwed without knowing how to produce what can sell in large numbers. Anyway, now that I have seen two HTC phones, I am done with HTC for good.
Xiaomi Redmi Note

This one single company from China has caused so much ripples in the indian mobile industry that perhaps even Micromax did not cause. Their product the Redmi Note is one of the best in the price range, and my dad still uses the phone even though it may have a cracked screen. A bit laggy with 2GB ram, still Xiaomi has one of the best user interfaces and the hardware itself is solid bang for the buck. At less than Rs.10000 there is still no phone to beat this hands down. This company beat the Oppos, Gionees and many others so badly that even Lenovo had to bow down to the pricing versus quality pressure with their A and k3 series.
The Lenovo A6000+

More recently I purchased my Lenovo A6000+ for Rs.6000. An android phone this cheap and of reasonable quality was all was needed to set this market on fire for low end phones. The K3 note followed through as well pretty soon. The ViBe UI from lenovo, is slick, fast and cuts the crap out of user interface design. With two 4G sim slots, memory card slot and a brilliant screen for the price who the hell cared for anything else? This now replaced my Alcatel and HTC as my secondary phone and is doing the duty for me at the moment at home.
The Blackberry Saga
You know there is this company which was one of the best in the market and from Canada, that the entire world once stood up for them with respect. They had the best quality hardware, an advanced and straightforward user interface and some really great handsets. Blackberry was the businessman’s best friend forever.
Blackberry Curve 8520

The blackberry had many models including the flip, pearl, etc which were hits in their own right, and there was a time in India where they were heavily marketing the Curve series. For some god damned reason, they always bundled their own Blackberry talk plans with the operators, which they did away with after sometime. They had and still have a huge fan following in Indonesia primarily now and some people in India. The Curve series had a navigation trackpad, physical keyboards and some exceptional call qualities and it was an absolute joy to use. However my patience with it ran out after sometime having seen other better models with Apple and Android in the market.
Blackberry Storm touch

True to their tradition BB brought about the storm touch with the clickable glass panel which was funky, unique and silly at the same time. I loved clicking the screen wherever I wanted and it grabbed eyeballs all around my office at the time of using it. However pretty soon, I felt it was bulky and not so intuitive and started bringing me into boredom state once more. So it had to go for good. The thing with Blackberry is there are buyers who are fans of BB and only true fans will understand the brand and the phones. others will not.
Blackberry Z3

After many failures trying to compete with Apple and Android, BB still did not give up, they brought in their z3 with android sideloading and other such features to still remain relevant in the app store market. I decided to give them another chance after seeing the way they goofed up on earlier chances. Their CEO was replaced, and now a chinese CEO took over and I hoped that after so much of layoffs and cost cutting they would have learnt the lesson. But it was not to be. It does not mean I was against their hardware. I loved it. Really. Honestly. From the bottom of my heart, i loved blackberry. I will always love them. For what they were, not what they are or what they become. But that is one thing as opposed to living with their products day in and out.
The z3 is a brilliant piece of hardware. Truly well made. But the software sucks. big time. Its nice to use. Start thinking apps and you are done. I mean really finished. I had to sell the instrument within one week of buying it. I have never decided against blackberry this soon in my life ever. News has it that BB is busy working on their next pure android device the “VENICE” and its expected to some out sometime soon. Real soon. But for now I will remain far away from them. Once bitten Thrice shy.
The Apple journey
iPhone 3GS

Colourful icons, milky white body, lots of apps – who did not like Steve Jobs and his product the iPhone. This was truly a game changer of sorts. The iPhone, 2G, 3G later, it was time for the 3GS – which was faster and thinner than the 3rd generation iPhone. When I first held the iPhone in my hand, I truly felt the influence a smartphone can have in one’s life. I mean really it was not hard to appreciate the quality, the build the software everything put together so nicely. Steve had changed the world one product at a time and this was the beginning of domination.
iPhone 4S

It became a policy for me to skip one version and go for the improved versions. After two years of using iPhone 3GS which by the way was the longest ever product usage time for me, I decided to switch to the 4S. Similar screen size, less curves, more squarish, and thinner by a margin. Nothing changed except having more and more apps and a better camera.
iPhone 6plus

The one thing I was fed up of with Apple was the screen size. With their mentally retarted thinking they thought they could continue changing the world with just a 4 inch screen. While all others were moving steadily towards larger screens. It took them two years or more to move out of the 5 and 5S to bring in the 6 and 6plus and now the 6s all sporting bigger displays. This was precisely the reason I was on android with bigger screens getting pampered. I was lying in wait for the big screen Apple and here it was. Beginning of this year 2015, I upgraded to the 6 plus. And I have only one word for it. Gorgeous. I mean it. The screen, the battery everything is great. And when you buy and apple year after year, you know what to expect. Or what not to expect. And it makes me at home with that understanding. I am appreciating a lot of things with apple. Its stability, usability the components used etc. But even the flatter look is wearing thin. The bezels around the phone are irritating. Not being able to transfer something using bluetooth is irritating. And every other such thing is irritating. So it will be only time before I give away this one also. For good. And the iphone 6S is no good either with just force touch, better camera, and 4k recording – something all other brands already have for a long time. I will definitely always sell an apple with a heavy heart no doubt mostly due to the feeling that Apple is not giving what the market is expecting. The claps are getting fewer and fewer during the keynotes and one day deathly silence shall fill the room. I really hope Apple turns around much faster than disaster strikes. And there is no history of any one company enjoying number 1 status for a long time. Headweight must not get in the way of understanding market sentiment. And I wish Apple hears.
This then my friends is the entire Saga of owning phones in my life. Clearly every product has excited me for some reason or the other and they have also left me for some really good reason or the other. The phones shall keep coming thick and fast and they shall also be owned thick and fast. But in these times of choices in plenty if any phone can be with me for a minimum of 2 years as my iphone 3gs did then, you will understand that history has again be created with a product worthy of ownership for so long. Till then, I hope you enjoyed this read.

The degree kaapi life

(image credit : www.indiarailinfo.com)

The man inside the house is dressed only in a dhoti and is sitting facing his bare back to the busy main road either oblivious to the surroundings or perhaps ingrained in the fact that life has to continue despite the contraints that the world outside has to offer. He is either watching TV or just medidating in the midst of all the hustle and bustle barely a few feet away from the floor where he sits on. His palatial house of yesteryears perhaps offers the solace to him that the outer world can’t.

The pavements are decorated with navaratri dolls and vegetable and fruit vendors lined up for many a kilometer that the eye can see. With not even an inch left on the road, the traffic is everywhere. A loud sustained honk generated when you press the squeezy green ball shaped invention is umistakable as it announces that a vehicle perhaps 100,000 times larger than the horn is arriving at breakneck speed at rubbing distance from you. The driver seems least bothered whether there are humans walking on the road, or other vehicles either merging from the alleyways or from the opposite side. Frankly its upto one’s destiny to heed that honk and move away. Else the bark of pure unadulterated tamil is worse than its bite in Chennai.

There are both fast and slow paced worlds coexisting here. The traffic is maddeningly fast. Someone exits the main road to join a by lane, while someone appears suddenly and merges into the main road. Another guy does the unpredictable act of darting from the opposite lane aiming his squeaky two wheeler straight into one empty parking slot on your side. Driving straight on your face that is without any feeling of an error. He got that most coveted parking for the next half an hour that no one managed to notice.

As I approach an intersection there is a large corner plot which has been demolished. The compound wall now has large structures standing tall made of thatched coconut leaves. Every now and then I can notice the moon playing hide and seek as I walk by this large empty land. Its only a matter of time before a swanky new commercial complex or some apartment comes up here. As I near the corner, I am only able to notice very bright rays of a couple of sharp yellow bulbs and can smell something large which will unmistakably squash me if I dont pause.

A large vehicle followed by a few pesky two wheelers dart from one by lane to another putting to a complete halt every vehicle on the main road (the bus included). This precision system works without a signal or a cop and its merely based on an understanding of the teams working at right angles to each other. The traffic is self managed. Almost twenty five years ago, when I came shopping here, a series of petromax lights on vegetable stall quadricycles welcomed be in the cacophony shouting at top pitch – thakkali, urulaikazhungu, keerai, vengaayam.

There was no way you could get along without buying any one of that after a heightened marketing pitch. The very same fruit and vegetable stalls still dot the busy main road even today – petromaxes replaced with swanky chinese CFL lamps running on solar charge – minus the marketing. The old charm still remains but no one calls you to buy unless you stop by anymore.

Along the corner is a temple with people stopping by paying a visit to the diety, wishing that their lives become better than what it is while vendors are busy selling puja items to help the cause. Somewhere along two guys dressed in lungies are sitting besides lots of unsold navaratri dolls lamenting on low sales this year and how people are losing the traditional touch. Opposite the temple is a small but clear board in tamil that reads white font on blue background – “Saloon” – hair in chennai will quadruple the amount of sweat your body can generate, so you do need someone who can “take care” of that for good.

As I walk along, I notice a rather burly man, about three times my size (just to let you know my wife feels I am a pot bellied ‘fother’ to my kids already). He wears a neat full sleeved shirt rolled to 3/4th of the arms. His veshti can give an inferiority complex to Mamooty in the “salute Ramrajkku salute” ad. The folds of his veshti expose his rather large thighs, knees and strong hairy legs ending in a sandal. His gaze is fixed on me, and his large eyeballs look threatening and menacing. As I walk forward, I realize he is looking at something behind me. Some distance further the street gets dark due to lack of shops for a brief period.

This is place where dimly lit locked up houses are present, and I notice two friends are chatting up sitting on the pavement. One of them explains his injured fingers to another while showing the bandage. They share a laugh or two as I walk past. As I go further, a share auto screeches to a halt in front of me blocking my path and a man in a hurry jumps right onto my face from the auto. The share auto revolution has now managed to make the normal auto drivers by storm and they think again and they now “put meter” which is equivalent to the 8th wonder of the world.

Strong smells of agarbathi, degree kaapi fill the air as I walk further past. At a corner of Brindavan street, a huge shop screams of Krishna Sweets with the traditional mysorepa kept all over the place. I continue walking past in search of a certain Jockey showroom when I notice how dark the street has gotten suddenly. There are vehicles constantly whizzing past you reminding you to take care of your mortal remains assuming they have scared the rest of the shit within you while brushing past. “Anney, Seenu anney” screams a guy across the street from his garage. I continue to be amazed how some people live their daily life in a garage in an atmosphere dominated by sweat. Seenu anney does not respond and I walk on.

A bunch of auto drivers are loudly discussing something and it seems like anytime they would break into a fight. Whether they would hurt someone is anyone’s guess but most probably not. A woman screams something from an apartment on top to someone on the road at a time when mobile phones are the thing of the day even to talk from one room to another within the same house.

A bit further I notice a rather neat and well built small apartment on my left with huge entry gates and some builders name glorified on it. I fail to notice on my right something dark, black and almost non existent to the naked eye unless noticed carefully. Its nothing short of about fifty years old and the moss and algae all over without any light around makes it an apartment in complete contrast to the one I just otherwise noticed. Not to forget to mention two big multi utility vehicles squeezed into an already small lane.

Finally I reach a junction from where one cannot miss noticing the all encompassing Pothi’s store glittering away in lights that could perhaps light up a locality of frustrated voters in some other village outside the city. I find the Jockey store finally and quickly get into the comfort of the airconditioned lifestyle inside the shop. As my sweat from walking during the evening dries up almost instantaneously a rather confused store attender wonders which undergarment to show me.

He looks at me like I have come from Mars. He gives me a stare like I am not going to make a successful purchase and the whole atmosphere is now beginning to turn a futile shopping experience. When I ask for something that he does not have he says – “two shops later there is Fashionberg, you must check there you will surely get it”. I sign out of the store and stand in disbelief two shops later. “Fashionberg” is a 10×10 store with 100 customers already standing inside and I am sure the Germans would be feeling the heat seeing someone use their naming style for a shop this small.

I decide to walk away almost instantaneously and walk past the Venkateshwara Boli stall. I must say that all Boli stalls have something to do with the name Venkat (venkateshwara, venkataramana) to be successful. A father asks his young daughter – “Bonda saapadrayaa?” as he points to the shelf full of Bondas lined up. As I ask the store owner whether he accepts card and get a negative reply some others are jostling behind me uncontrollably with their urge to eat that “soodanna bajji rendu” just ordered before me. As I walk further past back to my home I notice a few more stalls ahead after a dark patch. A whizzing two wheeler driven by a lady and her young daughter on pillion abruptly stop at the dark side of the street.

After witnessing what seemed as a never ending chaos of overflowing traffic I assumed that there is a traffic jam ahead only to understand later that the woman stopped just behind a huge DUSTBIN which has been intentionally left at the middle of the busy street. When I was just feeling good for the woman who stopped on time avoiding crashing into the dustbin I was dumbfounded when she picked up a cover full of garbage, threw it into the dustbin in “rajini style” and vanished from the place all in one go. I was left imagining what kind of person would come all the way with her daughter in tow on a two wheeler to a designated dustbin to just throw some trash?

Finally as I walk past the last stretch towards my home I notice a clothes showroom which is brightly lit with a board saying – ‘all credit and debit cards accepted with no service charge’ prominently displayed in front of the shop. In today’s world its a matter of being customer oriented and service oriented. In a world where shark eats shark, you need to woo people to stay in business. And its so much more the case in an area like west mambalam where the crowd is humongous, the hunger has to be fed at the earliest and a missed opportunity means that you would be out of business on a sustained failure.

I cannot help noticing the temporary shed blocking 50% of a street as I reach my home. It seems the lady who owns this shed has single handedly fought with everyone in the locality who tried evicting her saying the government alloted her the land years ago and she will see how anyone will try getting her to vacate her hut. She speaks of political contact at government circles who she will go to if people disturb her existence.

Welcome to west mambalam, Chennai.

The destiny farmstay, Ooty

In my last post , I wrote about my journey to Ooty, spiced up with certain constraints and situations. In this post, I will let you know my review of the Destiny Farmstay at Ooty. Read on ….

The Destiny Farmstay is about 25-30 kms away from Ooty main bus stand. The car parking in Destiny is about 2km away from the actual farmstay, and the road beyond that does not permit normal sedans or hatchbacks to get to the actual farmstay as its very slushy, extremely bumpy and risky in terms of damage to the vehicles. The directions provided by the resort is fairly accurate, but towards the end you may have to keep your ears and eyes open for signboards, turns, identification points and the likes.

An army truck belonging to the Little Earth group who run destiny farmstay, took us from the car parking into the resort. The ride can be very bumpy and little kids can feel rattled and extremely afraid as did my little one. So take care of this part. The reception at the resort was neat and kept well attended and the staff there were very courteous in welcoming the people to the stay. A welcome drink was also made available on arrival since it would mostly be beyond noon when people reach there. As other formalities were being completed, the lunch menu was also being taken for order from different guests so that lunch could be made available on time.

A point to note here about the lunch or dinner is that they are limited in timings and one has to be within the time frame of cafeteria being open to source the required dishes. Room service is available at a cost but not always. So its best you return to the cafeteria at specified times in order to avoid missing out on the food. And you guessed it right that there is nothing near the resort where you can otherwise go for food and so you are by yourself. Another thing I felt about the food was that it was quite expensive (even beyond bangalore standards) which is not a good thing. This is always a demand supply factor resorts capitilize on and I am okay with that if the resort were to be otherwise highly rated. Though TripAdvisor rates this resort high, one must understand the fact that there are actually very few new, other resorts, around this place. So naturally everyone who goes here would tend to recommend only this one. Additionally they do not add too much spice into the food, so its kind of kid friendly too which is a plus.

The rooms themselves are nestled neatly along a row overlooking a valley created by more than few mountain slopes. This is the valley where sloped farming is done. When we went to the resort rains were lashing ooty, and towards the evening the atmosphere was damp and the skies opened up a bit. The sunset was a surreal experience. The rooms were large with two single beds put back to back. So that meant some ample room for four of us (two kids). The toilets were large and neat, however not always did we get hot water. You can compare that to my review of the eagle eye holidays in chikmagalur where I did have hot water 24 hours of the day. So if they can do it, why not Destiny?

The room was supposedly a deluxe room, but the only deluxe part about it was the front verandah area overlooking the valley. Other than that the sofa inside the room was not well maintained and the springs had worn out. It was more uncomfortable to sit on it than anything the other way round. The rooms also had no tube lights or no fans and had a coffee maker in case you needed a quick one.

The farming itself consisted of many different type of flowers, cabbages, carrots and the likes being cultivated there. In addition to this they had a horse stable with atleast 3-4 horses who would take you for a ride at a specified time in the mornings with supervision on a high ground area. In addition to this were a large amount of cows, and some sheep. There were also rabbits and ducks which were near the pond down the valley. There were hundred odd steps that led to the valley below which is a good exercise if you take your kids down and back, assuming you are carrying them.

In addition to this, there is a disco room that’s operational at night, and there is a bonfire every night which in my opinion is absolutely necessary. Its advisable to carry a set of diapers, all essentials for kids, and atleast three pairs of footwear for kids. Some woolens and raincoats and atleast one or two umbrellas are a must.

Please be advised that there are NO medical facilities anywhere nearby atleast for a good 20+ kilometers, so you have to take all medical supplies that you might need. Remember that your car is parked a good 2-3 km away from the resort from where the nearest hospital is another 20km away, so this could be risky if you need urgent medical attention. From what I spoke with hotel staff, I am not sure that they are addressing this need.

Its also mostly likely that the cafeteria or reception would remain out of reach beyond some earthly hours. There is also a well stocked library to spend some time in. One of the major reasons I went to this place was that they had advertised some activities for the kids such as nature painting and so on, but the person conducting these was away on holiday himself, so one promise never met. Luckily since I carried a whole lot of sketch pens myself, I was able to get some paper and let my son try his artwork there.

I stayed at Destiny Farmstay for only one night, but I feel its an experience where kids learn about farming, and look and feel domestic animals once in a way. To summarize Destiny is aiming to be unique in what it offers, but the expensive food and no medical help nearby might make it go out of your list for a holiday. If you still want to give it a try, the location is beautiful and would relax a tired soul.

The cost for a deluxe room towards end of March was 5,500 + and the three time meal cost came to almost 1,700 +, add a fuel of almost 3,000 + from bangalore upto the resort and we are looking at around 10,000 for a day’s worth of holiday.

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On Indian Railways, Thoothukudi express, Waiting list booking,TatkalThrills, Pulling the chain and a train journey that has no logic whatsover!

I recently made a trip to Kanyakumari. I had an initial set of tickets which had everyone on a waiting list. I was hoping that would clear when I realized that it wouldn’t. I had booked from Bangalore city to Vaanchi Maniyachi junction. According to wikipedia, Vaanchinathan Iyer shot dead the collector of Tirunelveli, a britisher named Ashe on a train that came into this station exactly at 10:38am.

According to wikipedia, Vaanchi shot himself in the toilet after killing Ashe with a letter on him that read as below:

The mlechas of England having captured our country, tread over the sanathana dharma of the Hindus and destroy them. Every Indian is trying to drive out the English and get swarajyam and restore sanathana dharma. Our Raman, Sivaji, Krishnan, Guru Govindan, Arjuna ruled our land protecting all dharmas and in this land they are making arrangements to crown George V, a mlecha, and one who eats the flesh of cows. Three thousand Madrasees have taken a vow to kill George V as soon as he lands in our country. In order to make others know our intention, I who am the least in the company, have done this deed this day. This is what everyone in Hindustan should consider it as his duty.
sd/- R. Vanchi Aiyar, Shencottah.

While my whole Iyer fraternity back home was advising me against getting down at Vanchi Maniyacchi due to lack of connecting trains/buses to Kanyakumari and that they put a scare into my brain that its a non descript village, I was rather euphoric that Iyers too had contributed ousting the British and really wanted to see this place atleast for this historic reason 🙂 However after speaking with some real close friends from the region, I was strictly advised to get down at Satur, or Kovilpatti and take a connecting bus to Kanyakumari unless I wanted to re-enact the pre-1947 long walks to nowhere in search of freedom (read: to catch a bus from Maniyachi to Kanyakumari).

So practicality prevailed and we decided to get down at Kovilpatti. There still seemed to be one hitch left to solve – that of the waiting list ticket status. So knowing that the Tatkal procedures had been eased out lately, me and KK naturally sat down to work to get ourselves tatkal tickes to ensure that the journey part would be done in peace. Indians are always a bit disorganized when it comes to last minute activities and the Tatkal was no different. Of the six tickets we booked four with valid document numbers but one of them with dummy document numbers since the said persons were traveling with us. Having confirmed tickets now I still did not cancel the waiting list ones for those two people who I had entered dummy document numbers for. After that started a bit of mental hell as to whether they would be allowed by the TTE or asked to get down from the train and this uncertainity lasted a long time until the last minute.

I being a very organized guy, did all that was possible to try to resolve this document number error, and was promptly told by customer service that I would have to forfeit my ticket if the TTE would not agree to the error. I even tried to get in touch with people in railways who could reach the TTE but to no avail. Finally as the night of the journey approached, I learnt that the waiting list ticket that I had also was now RAC. So I now had atleast one legit ticket and decided to take the chance to travel. We arrived early at Bangalore city station to rectify this error but learnt that the TTE would also board only at 9:20 when the train departs from here to tuticorin. When the TTE finally came to our seats, we showed the tickets and six our ID cards in all possible jumbled ways. We also told him two of us did not have our ID cards, but he was okay with that and let us travel in peace.

Act-1, Scene-2: Kovilpatti to Bengaluru, Sunday evening: All our tickets were confirmed onto the S-11 coach and the same train was supposed to halt at Kovilpatti for a minute and nothing more. Heeding the practical advises from the fellow beings of the society, we decided to give Vaanchi a miss even for history’s sake and returned to Kovilpatti to board for return. After a lot of photography in and around the platform with a cool evening sunset, the train finally arrived onto the Kovilpatti platform a full 20 minutes late. By now the mind was calm and wanted to just board the train, find our confirmed seats and sleep in peace upto Namma Bengaluru. Here is where hell decided to unleash its own fury as a last minute surprise for us. As the train stopped, all the people at Kovilpatti rushed toward the entrances of the compartments. As we tried to get in quickly I realized that I was not making much headway through the door even after half a minute.

This is when a bit more of depth of the situation dawned on me. At the door were atleast 25-30 people organized into stacks of lines fitting into a tight package much as you would know about the Krack jack biscuits inside their packaging. I had a very heavy luggage which I pushed and tugged in every manner I could. Just as I was about to get into the walkway of the comparment, an old grandma lashed out at me and others boarding, screaming hoarse that her daughter following her was pregnant and it would be a crime for us not to respect pregnant ladies getting down by giving way. And there was only ONE freaking way. The way out! Who can argue against Vibhuti weilding furious grandmom’s having pregnant daughters? I had already had enough arguing against my own grandmom all my life. So even for a moment, this was needless. I promptly walked and pushed everyone out of the compartment and got down myself only to be blessed by the granny that if I was lucky enough again, I can successfully board the same freaking compartment.

Exercise repeated, I was in the walkway again. Only to find 200 more people dotted all along the walkway. Everyone of us believed – yes – BELIEVED – we boarded the wrong train by mistake. Yet we jostled our way in to reach our famed confirmed seats only to find the last six challengers of the trophy, the unreserved class sitting on our prized possession – confirmed seats. Asking them to get up and out only meant they went lower by status. From the lower birth to the floor. Same place. Nothing else changed. Having been scared out of our wits, we threw our luggages on the top berths and sat down sweating with a feeling of achievement, the same what you get when you pass complicated exams within predefined time frames. After having a tough time being concerned about the TTE with our tatkal tickets, we were sure of one thing – IF EVER A TTE managed to get into S11 coach this day – he would have his name engraved on the nearest station for being skinned alive. Not quite the Vaanchinathan types you see.

There was one issue with so many unreserved guys sitting all along reserved compartments. All of us. After having sat for 3-5 hours on that train, everyone wanted to take a leak. At the nearest toilet. Whichever direction – IF THEY COULD REACH IT ! The challenges dont seem to stop do they? Given that no one could board the train or no one could get down from the train, it was then a challenge even to get ourselves some water to drink and food to eat. At Viruthunagar, we managed to buy so many things including cakes, water, chocolates and whatever else was left off the cart that was going about on the platform. Drinking and eating all of that meant only one thing – we were also in the queue of people wanting to take a leak. Only question was how? And then the train suddenly stopped. Screeching of the brakes, and halting few metres away. Someone in our compartment were pissed off (literally) and had pulled the chain. The officials came to inspect what had happened and they could not even get in, leave alone listen to what we were saying. And then a few of us managed to go upto the toilets without causing a stampede of sorts of the people lying beneath us. Meanwhile an RPF guard in an unreserved compartment next to ours literally kicked a guy who flew and fell to the next track as the train started moving slowly. Dazed he asked his family to get down as well and a set of people and the guy on the track quietly slid away into the darkness knowing pretty well that they could not board an overflowing compartment.

Reaching the toilet was only one part of the adventure. The toilets were locked. We waited patiently with our bladders full for few mintues yet no sign of anyone opening up. Its only after sometime we figured out that some smart asses had locked themselves inside the toilets permanently upto Bangalore. There went our hopes of answering nature’s call as well. This is seriously when I lost my cool and the train again stopped suddenly 😉

Routine check, routine assurance, routine resets and train started moving. The only time the TTE came to the coach, he was hassled so much that he begged our pardon and said – “I’m the TTE only for coaches S6,7,8,9 and not s11 and that he came only due to respect he had on us” – He says even the poor unreserved people deserve some respect. Sure why not? Of course in India we have to be tolerant. Even to the extent we let people sit below our feet in whatever space we can afford to give them. Actually what the TTE really meant is that (and he actually said it to me) – if I forcibly pull a female’s hand and ask her to get down from the train, then it will become a communal riot! But seriously Indian Railways, for the face of modernization you have put up in a short span of time, how about adding more coaches to an already lengthy train, or how about introducing more trains along the route? Won’t you people think of such things?

There was no better thing than the feeling of euphoria of having pulled the chain, a long time childhood fetish come true. You know you get to understand the physics involved in getting the train to stop. After rebuking the authorities multiple times, the crowd was slowly flushed out between Virtuthunagar, Madurai, and Dindigul. As we neared Dindigul station we could see a group of 20 people clinging onto another ten people who were inturn clinging onto the door of the unreserved compartment. I mean if this isn’t craziness then what the heck is? Even after that when we got down at Carmeleram in Bengaluru, few people stepped on the people sleeping near the door and the babies started crying at daybreak. A man becomes wise only with experience and this was no exception.

The wise need to note down these points stemming out of experience:

  • Firstly, if the waiting list is a 100 3 days before the journey, it will never clear to RAC.
  • Secondly if you are in RAC it will always most often clear to confirmed as they add a coach and clear up parliamentary quota in each train.
  • Third, hours before the journey there is no point trying to negotiate with the TTE
  • Once the chart has been prepared and it shows RAC you are guaranteed sitting at least and that status isnt going to change anytime in near future
  • Do not go to stations where the train halts only for a minute or so
  • If your confirmed ticket is in a coach right next to the unreserved coaches, expect loads and loads of turbulence including grandmas screaming at you
  • If you are still confirmed in such coaches and you have heavy luggage, then god save you
  • Last but not least, never try to board a running train as its very dangerous and that could be the last journey you undertake for the rest of your life

On the part of Indian Railways, just after a recent purported sabotage indicent happened in which a bogie was completely charred with the passengers before they could wake and up and react in the middle of night, my experience just goes to show how these types of incidents are repeatedly going to happen time and again and how in the midst of 500 passengers within a compartment there could be one terrorist who could spell disaster within a short time. Unless this country and its government learn to value human life they will not be serious about any such possible damages. Neither would they provide more trains or alternate arrangements to make life better. However when it comes to claims, they would make many which are focussed towards customer friendliness. For now my open challenge to them is to try taking a leak in S11 coach at Kovilpatti on a Sunday on the Tuticorin express !!

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