If I look back all that happened was all because of bad time, because all that happened that day look like it was supposed to happen that day. I was working from home and felt a little bored , since it was the Christmas weekend and I felt I was missing the fun happening in the world outside my house. So was planning to go out after some days. Then got a real need for help situation when my friends where planning to go to Las Vegas and they had their flight that night. Since I had my another friend’s ( Shyam) car with me those days as he was in India for his wedding, I thought I’ll take a ride in that for that one day and drop my friends at airport. My friends requested me to drop them at the nearby railway station which will take them to Airport, but I offered that I’ll drop them at the airport. Just was thinking in mind that I’ll take a ride in car and feel the Christmas holiday.

Picked them from their house @ around 7PM and was riding through the Interstate highway 285 towards Airport, though that’s not the shortest route, we prefer that normally when we expect the shortest route to have more traffic and specially during the Christmas Holiday time. But still 285 interstate was also crowded, but the traffic was smooth. Had a nice chat with them all the way to Airport. Now the clock is ticking, since i remember all that what happened from this point till the time when the accident occurred, because this was unusual from whenever I go to Airport. In the road to check in area, inside the Airport compound there was a long queue of vehicles…Which I never experienced whenever i went to airport. this led to a waiting time of more than 15 mins until i dropped them and off loaded their luggage from the car. nice drive , nice time talking to them after a long time.

I remember starting back from airport around 8:10 PM- 8:15PM. was following the GPS and it showed me the road to I85/I75, which is the shortest route. I thought of following that as I thought traffic back from Airport would be less and I had enough time to reach back home. Had carried my Ipod with me, but forgot to take it out from the glove box before i started from the Airport. So I didn’t try to take it out and play it while driving , since its not a good option to do all those settings while driving alone and that too at night in a highway. Was following the GPS and was really enjoying the Christmas holiday mood and the night when i could see a unusually big Moon. I diverted from I85/I75 N to I75N and my next exit was around 5 miles more ..i was literally enjoying the night drive..calm , quiet, and the flashy lights around.

Creeeechhhhh..There goes my car forward more than the speed I was driving and then it started turning around..I had my hands on the wheels and for a moment I was not able to understand what just happened. Did i do something wrong, did the car got some problem, what is happening? Now my body is turning towards the right and the entire car is turning in anticlockwise direction…I could now see the pattern of headlights that I saw till now in my rear view mirror, through my front wind screen…I realised now, my car is in a wrong direction in the lane, just like a position in racing video games, where they show “Wrong direction”….Ok now its turning more and but this time I’m not able to see things properly…everything is going very much like a flash and between i could see a white car passing by. some more jerk ,could identify where from it came , but then the car stopped rotating..it came to a stand still.. I had my hands still on the steering and my seat belt was intact. But this time my body is on the left side and in fact my face has gone towards the left back more towards the side of the seat belt side wall hinge..My face was sticking on to that hinge..it took me couple of seconds for me to realise that its sticking on some area near to my eye…Fear started building up..Is it sticking on to my eyeball…Oh no!!!

With a half mind of escaping from the car and the half mind of taking the sticking part , I decided upon taking the sticking part of my face from the hinge. The scary part. I used my left hand to push my face out of the hinge and the blood started coming out. My spectacles where complete broken….This happened really..”I switched on the emergency lights”..I don’t know what made me think about that at that point of time…but I did that…and I could see a old lady knocking on my window and asking whether I’m fine..Another couple of seconds, before I could answer to her and i opened the door..I’m still not sure whether my eyeballs where sticking on to the seatbelt wall hinge or not.

The blood is dripping, since my spectacles were broken , my vision was little blurred…but not able to analyse whether i got more vision problem on my left eye than on the right eye or not..All vehicles halted behind the accident scene and there were these two couple who helped me..At first I was not in a condition to check what happened to the car..i called up my roommate who was actually organising his office project party and told him the bad news….No one expected and between us , we realised the more complexity that is awaiting us. I was worried about my eye still and i asked those people who was helping me to control the blood flow, whether i got injury on my eye or not..They were not giving me proper response, which made me think more in a negative way that, its really on my eye, thats y they don’t want to scare me…I was asking them again and again and they told it seems to them that its not on eye, but above the eye.. Still not convinced I started asking them to touch the portion on my right hand eye side to identify the corresponding area where it caused in left eye. They told its some where near to the eye lid and they don’t see any issue inside the eye. People got down from their car and started picking the things that went out of the car..oh ya the car…what happened to that…..Crap…the trunk portion has gone half way inside …ok so all these caused because some jerk hit me from behind…the back lights are gone in fact the trunk door is almost in the same shape but the actual trunk volume got reduced by 50%. there was this basket ball of my friend, his chair, his skating shoes and what not..everything fell out of the trunk due to the impact and the rotation.

Those two families where giving me paper napkins to hold it on the injured area and was continuously talking to me to make sure that I’m not falling unconscious, because they feared it might happen as there is this impact on head..As i was speaking to them where I went and all I was asking them what happened to me..It turns out that this jerk was driving recklessly and he/she made them also go off the road because of his rude driving and ultimately he/she hit my car from behind…According to their narration, I wouldn’t have got a chance to see him in the rear view as he was that fast. So the delay in the airport was for me to become the victim of that jerk. They called the 911 and eventually the paramedics . the police officer came and those families where explaining them what happened. They asked my license and insurance..I had my license with me and the insurance but there was a little complexity with the insurance..that still need to sort out…So in between i analysed the damage to the car..there was nothing visible inside the car other than things messed up around…like Gps went to rear seat and all..

Where is my Ipod?

Haha!!! this was the funniest part..in that condition i was searching for my Ipod, obviously not to hear music, but that’s something valuable. i had my contacts and details in it.It was no where visible and I asked the families who helped me to search for it…they were asking me to sit calm and they started searching, but in vain. When the police office came to take the insurance detail from glove box, I asked him to give my Ipod if he see it somewhere . In fact he got it and gave it to me when i was waiting for the ambulance to come and iwas lying on the paramedic board on the road.

Ya, the paramedics came and they applied bandage around the wound and my head..my head started paining by the time they came …realised in hospital that there was a small cut on my left side of head..very minor..their bandage caused most of the pain I guess . Waited for the ambulance to come for another 20 mins in the cold weather on road…After it came a series of moving from one stretcher to another and all the pain..They took me to the hospital and realised another pain of a patient in emergency condition when they ask you “which hospital you want to go?”. how come i know that..I’m not a hospital researcher .. I told that guy take me wherever u can make things straight..i was feeling better by that time…taken away from accident sport and to make sure that i don’t go unconscious at any time i was speaking to that guy till i reached hospital..All about BP, pulse monitor …blah blah…he was pretty impressed to se my medical knowledge…thanks to the medical engineering subject.

Emergency Care …zzzzzzz

That was another surprise for me to see a emergency care in a big hospital to work like …hmm ya…like a restaurant where I just gave an order for original mango milk shake on a winter season…An experience where in which the waiter comes to you every hour and tell that we have found a tree where we can get Mango during this season..would have appreciated at least if they nurse/doctor visited me at least in one hour…once i got in ,they literally parked me in that bed and then got my details and then put a tag around my wrist..That’s the first step…Ok..that’s pretty fast..but everything happened after that went like a art film . Felt like dressing my wound myself..they identified that i got wounded on my left eyelid , eyebrow and a small cut on the side of head..ok.After this they parked me along with the other patients in emergency care on the aisle…Thank god..They parked me on a bed.

10 mins…20 mins…ok there come a nurse, who is asking me what happened…Ok i told her…the blood is still flowing very slowly thru my face. I thought she will try to wipe it of..Nope that didn’t happen until the doctor came 2 1/2 hours after i was admitted to the hospital. i was feeling thirsty…i thought they would ask me for water…but that didn’t happen until I asked the nurse…i told her that my pain is increasing around my head…she gave me two pills of pain killer and water..her job is over…My roommates came there in the hospital and he came to my bed side..I told him what had happened and what the hospital employees are doing…meanwhile called my cousin and told her the situation..as she is a doctor , she told me not to get surprised by how Emergency care works in US. i was feeling hungry and asked my roommate to get something for me..When he got something for me…the nurse had doubts whether I Should have it before the doctor checks me..OK…no dinner then… Doctor came and examined me after around 2 1/2 hours and then cleaned the dry blood stains..there after every one hour they will visit me and put the adhesive on the wound, check my eyes and then tetanus.. .blah blah..between all these free time , i managed to type what happened to me on that day in the Ipod notepad..funny.By the time they finished all there night lazy drama with me..it was around 2:30AM and we started back to Home..reached home @ 3AM

Funniest moment of the day

Back at home, i just checked my iPod for any emails while i was in bed, before I slept..there is my friends email , who had that day night flight to Las Vegas, whom I went to drop at airport. Email goes like this “

Hi KC, Did you reach safely and on time? we boarded on time and in flight now. Thank you very much for dropping us

ROFL ..

Update: I’m feeling fine now..not much bruises , Thanks to God and people who helped me..especially my roommates and my friend, who went to India for his wedding , who responded in a very calm way when he heard this news, by the way his wedding was on 25th December , 2 days after the accident and subsequent car crash

Read this article in CNN about Emergency care experience in US hospitals:

CNN – ER Experience

Last time when I visited NewYork , I blamed them for not taking me to places which are famous tourist spots in NewYork. Especially  the Statue of Liberty. I saw that from  the battery park where from the ferry starts to island of Statue of Liberty. Also i saw 3-4 statue of liberty , all people dressed up like statue of liberty…. My cousins where making fun of me telling that you saw 3-4 Statue of Liberties.

This time they didn’t disappoint me…My brother in law came up with a great idea of watching US open in the stadium..everyone was excited , since it was the first experience for all of them…Only concern everyone had was whether my nephew will sit in the stadium , since he is a kid. But to our surprise he was very interested to be there and he enjoyed being with the crowd.

We got the tickets for Labor day (15th session  06-September) . The tickets were little expensive , but worth.  When the tickets were booked we were unsure of the matches, but at midnight we came to know about the schedule and the highlight was Maria Sharapova- Wozniacki and Djokovic -Mardy Fish match..   If we got the next session, we could have watched a Federer match….But it would have been a very late night match.

The sesssion 15 matches started at 11Am and ended around 5PM. We watched 3 matches ,

1. Svetlana Kuznetsova vs Dominika Cibulkova
2. Novak Djokovic vs Mardy Fish
3. Maria Sharapova vs Caroline Wozniacki

It was very nice watching a match from the stadium , under the Sun,with lots of people around and pin drop silence when the game starts. The crowd will cheer only between serves. Other wise every one was disciplined, that was the beauty of the game. Its totally different the crowd responds here when compared to cricket and football. Whenever i used to watch the match on TV, i used to wonder, why the crowd is too silent and i concluded that probably the broadcasters is filtering the noise. When the match of maria sharapova started, people from the gallery started shouting “Maria” in different tones.. It was nice to hear..reminded of Steffi graf marriage proposal incident.

The stadium was huge , and i later came to know that Arthur Ashe Stadium is the largest tennis stadium in the world, with more than 23200 seating capacity. The view from the top of the stadium was amazing. The crowd was pouring in and it was nice to see a huge crowd like that in US…a very rare scene for me. All the matches where equally good and we enjoyed a lot…Click to view slideshow.

This year unfortunately i’m miles away from them, but still didn’t as most of the time i was Video chatting with all of them. Saturday evening (21st August), I went for shopping with my friend to 3 different grocery shops to get all vegetables for  the Sadya (feast)…A big shopping, still i didn’t get Drumstick..I got banana leaves..that was surprising. came back late night after a long shopping and was all set to sleep to wake up early next day..but unfortunately how come a weekend night u could sleep early…Slept around 1 at night i think, after keeping alarm for 7AM.

Alarm rang and i dismissed ( these days i don’t snooze, I hate cheating myself) it. Woke up after 1 hr….oh crap..I’m not gonna make it for lunch….Got up , had a cup of tea and straight  to kitchen…

Thought of starting with Avial, my Mom makes it minimum once /week. i used to hate eating that always…but that day i felt to start preparing that..it took around 30-40mins for me to cut all the vegetables..i had borrowed 1 vessel from my friend last night. So i had 3 vessels in total. Kept Avial for preparing and started with Cabbage thoran.  Meanwhile i started video chatting with my relatives ..Every one was there at my ancestral house after attending my brother’s engagement..ya, including that news also here..It was my brother’s engagement that day.. i missed it, but thats ok..I’m waiting for my trip back to India for attending my brother’s wedding… Every one was pretty amazed to see me cooking very seriously..i showed them the Avial that cooked by that time.. Should have taken the photos of their pics , i could read their mind “Krishnan preparing Avial!!!!” .Started preparing Pineapple Pullisery then. While talking with them i put more turmeric to Pullisery…but later adjusted( wont tell the secret). My mom started directing me from there…I told her then , please don’t remote instruct me..I’ll screw up more..:-)

I think all the first 3 dishes came well..then started the issue of not having more vessels…..by then my roommate woke up and i asked him to get more vessels from our other friends( whom i was planning to call for the Sadya). He got a rice cooker and called up another friend to get Aluminium foil containers…After doing the inital adjusting of transferring the prepared food to pressure cooker and all, I asked my friend in helping me in cutting vegetables for Sambhar and Kootucurry. Meanwhile started preparing for Parripu curry. But Parripu curry didn’t came well.It was not bad, but didn’t come anywhere near to what my Mom prepares. My roomie kept rice for cooking and i started Kootu curry. I asked him to call our friends who frequently visits our house.. by that time it was already 12:30PM. I had to prepare Sambhar, Paalada payasam, Papadam (Papad) and Olan.

Then i tried to increase the pace and forgot to put the Small onions into the Sambhar( its secret how we managed later ). Started Palada payasam also and it was already 2:30PM…Everyone has assembled and was very hungry…

I realised  then guys are always guys….they started drinking beer…I was totally against the idea of mixing sadya with beer…but left that…Friends arranged for sitting in the floor, since thats a kind of style we do in Kerala, were everyone sits on the floor with plantain leaf in front of them where in which the food is served. one of my friend started preparing Papad and it was all set, while the payasam was still in the cooking stage…

Served the food in the traditional style in the plantain leaf where the pickles are served on left top and Avial is placed on right top. It was good to see everyone having the food and complimenting..I know Parippu curry was not gr8, but everything else came fine…we had in two rounds, by the first round got over, the plantain leaves were over and we started eating in paper leaves (its US ). By that time we served Paalada Payasam also.

The Sadya(feast) for 11 included all these

1. Avial
2. Cabbage Thoran
3. Pineapple Pullisery
4. Kootu curry
5. Sambhar
6. Parripu curry
7. Paalada payasam
8. Pappadam (papad) and obviously
9. Rice and ready made pickle

The funny part was after the sadya….every one started feeling sleepy after having the feast they were wandering inside the house for a space to lie down…some ppl managed to get space in our beds, some managed to lean against, some rested in chair. It was fun to see one of my friend trying to get space in the cushion set.

We were talking for some one hour after that, gossiping, trying to find out different Indian road names ..it was fun and after having tea we went to Stone mountain park….Sat there for one+ hour and came back home….

My cousin’s in Newyork was not believing the fact that I prepared Sadya , until they saw the pics..

Oh ya adding pics here Over all it was a nice Ona Sadya and i enjoyed it having here at Atlanta. having it at Trivandrum would have been better, when you have to bother to eat only, no need to worry about  cooking

The id looks little pinkish, rather girlish, but who cares..

Plans ?? Rent a car for weekend –> is it affordable

Even If get one, where to go …Oh man thats the most confusing part in my life. taking decisions on what to do for such silly things. Problem is I cannot think about wasting something or feeling guilty for that. Thats y for simple things also where heart need to be applied  I use my brain….

Any way let me see whether  I can venture out for a quicktrip

              Right now I’m in a different place from my home town, Trivandrum and from my office base location, Mysore..I’m right now in Atlanta, my Onshore office.After one year, holding a document which was no use for me. It worked after one year, when I really didn’t want it to, when I started giving more preferences to the other things in  my life. That’s why people tell both business and personal can’t go hand in hand. Anyway I’m here in a different location, kilometres away from my home country, with a bunch of people who are friendly and seems to be friendly. Its all behind the foggy environment, where you see smiles and fake smiles..     

              Don’t know what held me in writing my about my new location, my new experience here, when everyone would have updated there social profile city and location. My friend gave me a funny advice before i left India, that i should not update my Orkut or Facebook profile with a new photo were I’m wearing a blazer and wearing a tie, and change my city,country and state location. Don’t know whether it was his advice which was holding me, I didn’t found those as major thing, though I updated those very recently. Keeping a very low profile sometimes gives you peace and more freedom to enjoy whatever you want to.       

           Talking about advices, you get lots of advices when you go to US,from your parents, relatives and recently one from my friend’s sister. It was very nice of her giving me an advice. I liked it though I don’t like much advices. This was very genuine and I was very happy to hear that from a younger sister. There are very weird situations and weird advices that you will get from your parents, though my dad was silent, probably because he didn’t get a chance to talk to me before i came here. It happened all of a sudden. Time line provided below.

26th January : lost my Second mobile, that too Nokia 1200 bought for 1250Rs. No numbers in memory(my brain) except my home,relatives and 100(police),101(fire)

27th January : My cousin’s wedding @ Trivandrum. That was a good function and in fact the most strange thing happened was that my brother, me, my uncle,cousin’s brother, cousin’s friend and Uncle’s friend all went to beach after the wedding, directly from the marriage hall. We played some funny games in the beach, went to restaurant @ evening and came back to my home. I had a flight next day morning to Bangalore. I got down @ my home and all went back to Grandma’s house where every other relatives where there.

28th January : Had flight at morning 8:30 to Bangalore. Morning 7:30 Mom was preparing Dosa for me. Mom, I’m not making fun of you, probably I’ll also use the same dialogues when my kids are planning to come to US, who knows, but the way you gave me the advices was too good. I can’t forget that in my life. I had told my Mom and relatives that i may have to fly that weekend, but not sure 100% sure. For each dosa she keeps on my plate, she gave me one advice. I remember this one very clearly.

I have only one advice for you, which Gandhi’s mom gave to Gandhiji, when he was going to South Africa for Law studies. that “Never ever touch Drinks and Gals”

Wow, you didn’t tell that, but Gandhi’s mom told that…Good tactics…

Second one that I remember was “Your name is Krishna, That itself is scary for me”..Mom, I didn’t give my self my name Krishna, It was you and Dad who gave me that name, now you are suspicious about my behaviour because of my name. Unbelievable…can’t blame, probably all parents might go through that stage when their Kids are going away from them.

Flight to Bangalore, Bangalore to Mysore by bus..No phone, Only laptop and Usb internet..Technology helped me….Connected to internet and Gmail, told my sis who was online that i reached Bangalore and is on my way to Mysore. Connected to my Office mail and checked the mails and came to know that it’s confirmed that i need to travel to Us on 30,that’s Saturday. Informed team that I’m on my way, reached Mysore and reached office.. Started doing things for booking ticket, preparing lists of things to take, blah blah..

29th January : Pretty much the same, collecting all documents needed, advice from colleague, seniors, arranging stay in Atlanta, Printouts, preparing lists, blah blah…. In between a farewell meeting also happened, I got a Jacket from my colleagues,my first branded jacket from Woodland’s

       Night shopping, suitcase, a red shorts , hanky, things that can’t be mentioned here and all. Asked my friend to call a group of friends for a night dinner. They arranged it very quickly and after my shopping I reached there. Had a good dinner and get together with everyone. got a couple of good advices, feedbacks, provided some and enjoyed it very well. Went back to home late night, started packing and felt very tired so left some packing for next day.

30th January : Packed almost everything by morning and left to bank to collect the currency. came back with my friend and then started from Mysore to Bangalore in cab with my friend Sathya. Sridhar, Sanal and Dilip was also there @ house when i left there…On the way to Airport called a couple of friends from Sathya’s phone, from Airport called all relatives and at last boarded the flight…

It was good flight from Bangalore to Mumbai and then from Mumbai to London. Not a good flight from London to Atlanta and the wait for next flight to Atlanta in Heathrow Airport..7hrs..But airport was good so some how managed to waste 7 hrs.

31st January : Reached Atlanta, where my colleagues came to pick me up. Thus started my “A New Place ..A New Life …the same” …to be continued..

Last night watched this Malayalam movie  in TV. Rithu (Malayalam word for Seasons). After a long time I’m watching a new Malayalam movie which was normal in all aspects. No action scenes, unnecessary songs or specifically items songs or crap things like tat. The theme is about friendship, which is not new , but the story line is little different in the way the message is conveyed. Good songs created a nostalgic effect.

Attaching one of my favourite posters of the movie

Heartfelt as that is what I miss now.I missed my friend circle due to the pre-conception that its going to fade when we are out of college. It was something which drove me till now, but feels bad now that even i catalysed for that could have been prevented situation.

Don’t know whether a refresh will happen or not. Hope i can freely enter into the circle now and recall everyone who are out of the circle. My current location may be against my new idea, but will try my best.

My New Year Resolution : Refresh my old and new friendship circles. Hope other will co-operate

“Attention Please…I’m here”

Consider a weak person, who hasn’t made any impact on his society or to his fellow colleagues, want to make his point or wanna grab the attention of others around him and pathetically for getting a chance. The worst and the short  cut way for him to serve his purpose is just shout or crib others or boot lick others.

My point here is , I’m not the person whom i have described above and  I would like to convey to my friends, near and dear, that please don’t persuade me to become like that for getting any mean opportunity.

If you consider or have the concern that I’m losing something just because of the fact that I’m not raising my voice for getting my opportunity, especially to those who don’t have the consideration for what I’m is, just have this reply to you that “I’m not a loser and this is not the end of life”. If I’m not recognized or given opportunity, I just have the same feeling for them, that they are not the one who is going to change my life.

Don’t want to mention the names, but it would be appropriate if I could just mention them here, those who are living for achieving their for their own benefits by keeping a Artificial smile and same all good words of fake appreciations thrown at their subordinates when they think that it’s time to feed the birds. I realized this very late and I don’t have the regrets that I also fell on their clutches at least for once.

But I have made up my mind that I’m not going to anyone and beg on anything, giving due respect to those words passed on to me by fellow well wishers. At last it’s not the end of your life or beginning of anything. It’s just an opportunity that I am eligible for. If everyone would have waited for an opportunity in his life, there wouldn’t be any great persons who touches common man’s life.

“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.” – Joseph Campbell. I’m in search of this…