I am back in Manipal after an eventful, but not remarkable Term Break. I felt the Term Break would be the most refreshing thing to happen in about an year, coz I havent been to home for around 8-9 months now and I was in every aspect looking forward to it. Also, I had the Alumni meet at my Engineering College, with majority of my group guys confirming they would come..atleast after some time, we can have a get-together. The Alumni meet itself was spectacular(personally for me, for I got to meet some of my closest friends after a gap of around 2.5 years)...Good' ol memeories....
The college itself has changed beyond recognition. The trees had all grown and they gave a great aura to the entrance...the feel of majesty and a royal touch.Of all the places in the college, the one place I like, apart from Library is the road between the Canteen and the Academic building. I would have sat there for long times daily after food and just gazed at passers-by. It is a nice pass time till u get nudged to the class by other friends and we can share a long chat on everything of every one who crosses us...Girls, Professors, Guys..etc.(Remember the Guy in the Film Valli( Rajni's Film))..jus idle away time mocking at others(often Sarcastic and many times adoring....
Those trees have grown large and the college had got a great Auditorium...it has been a pretty satisfying trip to the college after a long time...
When long last friends meet, there can be only one conversation....and that is about others....any one we can lay our thoughts on were ragged, paraded and teased to no limits...
It was well past 2 when we had our Lunch...the canteen hadnt changed a bit. It still smells of Kuska and stiff chappathis. The one note worthy difference was this time around, we dont want to eat it daily...
It was during Lunch, that I first came to know that some thing aweful had happened across Tamilnadu. But then I didnt know the magnitude of it..people were telling that Cuddalore district had suffered a bit and Chennai too had not been spared..I immediately rang up my father ans he had been trying to reach me from the morning...though I had told him that I would be going to the Institute, I havent told him when and with whom. As I dont have a cell phone and all my friend's cell would not work in Hosur(He had a bangalore connection with no roaming) and then too my father didnt had the number of Venkat...
Only when I spoke to my father, did I get to know of the extent of the damage and it was shocking to know that the damage had been severe and water had already entered many parts of coastal tamilnadu, with Nagapattinum and Cuddalore ditricts the worst affected...Appa also told that our ancestoral house in the Poompbughar(if you are tad familiar with Tamil Literature or History, you can identify the town with Sillapathikaaram as the home town of both Kovalan and Kannaghi)...Our house is a good 4.5 kilometers from the coast, but still water hasnt entered that far....he was apprehensive the house might have been damaged and wanted me to go there and see what had happened....
I went to see it for myself and moreover, so that I would meet the Family of my recently deceased Uncle(he died of Luaekemia on Nov.21 jus when BrandScan was getting over...about him later).
The scenes I saw there and my thoughts on some of the practices by the media during the entire episode would follow in the subsequent posts.
The house did had quite a bit of damage, with cracks every where and giving a feeling it would jus give away any time..had to take care of that...but then there were none to repair...so shifted my aunty who lives in that house to another aunty's house in nearby village and I came back to Thirukkadaiyur(where the family of the one deceased of lueakemia lives)..got to spend a day with them...amidst sorrow and tears...he has got two children...the elder one is a guy and he is doing his Secong year B.Sc and the younger one - the Gal's in 10th Standard...all I was able to say them was to read well and work hard and everything else would be taken care by us...its really getting late..I will continue with this tomorrow