Expressing Chennai

To the growing malls of Chennai, Express Avenue is the latest addition. Newly opened, weekdays,  not fully functional and late hours aren't good reasons to stop the mall from getting crowed.

It was 25 th August, Wednesday when I had taken off from my work. My privilege leaves have got accumulated and was reaching 48, the maximum permitted in my company. After which, the count does not increase. I have to utilize it by taking few leaves. It was the start.

I decided to keep myself busy with my personal stuffs that day. I realized I had stayed away from TV for a long time now. Around 11 am in the morning, I walked to a shop nearly by and placed an order for Sun Direct. To my surprise, everything including the installation and activation was completed around 1 pm the same day. I earlier had Tata Sky in the house I used to stay. I preferred Sun Direct this time since few regional channels which my mother watches is relayed only in Sun Direct. I must admit now that Tata Sky is of better clarity and enjoyable than Sun at a little extra cost.

I took my Mom to Marina beach behind light house to buy fish that evening. Fish is my favorite Non Veg item since it has just protein and no fat :) We prefer buying in Marina since they are very fresh from net.
I totally forgot that I had booked for a show the same evening for the movie 'Naan Mahan Alla' in the new Satyam Escape in the Express Avenue along with my colleagues.

I got a call around 6:30 pm from my colleagues to come to the theater. Even they had forgotten that I was on leave that day. I was told that the show starts at 6:45 and I just had around 15 mins. I have to drive from Nungambakkam to Royapettah. I knew I could manage that but the only big hurdle on my way was the Chennai's evening traffic. People would be returning home from their day's work and the roads would be flooded.

I did some rash driving after a long time and managed to be in the mall on time. I could use the oxymoron carefully rash. I was exactly on time for the movie as well.

The movie was a perfect fit in the genre of entertainer running little more than 2 hours without any boredom. The movie is all fun in the first half and all action in the second half with its interval creating a gulf between them.

Karthi, who is just 4 movies old has already got huge fans following him. Never before the industry was dominated by two brothers to this extent. Last week, leading distributors and theater owners came up with the box office value ranking of the Tamil stars in which both Suriya and Karthi are present in the top 5.

Last time I had a thought that PVR Cinemas was the best in Chennai. But the thought has changed now. Satyam Escape is a better theatre with best sound system than PVR. Even the trailers shown in the popcorn counter are great attractions.

I am not a frequent visitor to box offices. I had accepted my colleagues to join them for this movie, since I had not been to the mall before. The movie was followed by a treat shared by Suresh and Partha. Suresh for clinching the 'Best of Bally' award and Partha for his new born baby.

Thankfully I didn't miss the fun.

Went Up By Two Floors

On 6th March 2006, I received a mail from my cousin 'Prem' titled 'All this... in Chennai ;-)' highlighting the modern buildings and upcoming building in Chennai. I had saved the mail since it was fascinating.

Today on 9th April 2010, I reopened the same mail. The first building in the mail is 'ascendas' where I am working for the past ~2.5 years without even knowing that I admired this building 4 years ago.

Many times what we want most is very close to us without our knowledge. I had realized it now!

My life in ascendas started with Merrill Lynch. 2 years ago, I moved to Bally in the building. People move cities and places when they shift companies. In my case, I need to travel 2 floors higher.

My career started with Caritor, a IT service company which later acquired Keane, a fortune 500 company when I almost completed 2 years there. I moved to Merrill Lynch from there with great expectations dropping my US trip. Unfortunately, my stint with Merrill lasted just 6 months. I moved away from Merrill when the great recession of 2008 started. Merrill, being a investment bank felt the recession little earlier to the rest of the world. This recession is mainly attributed to Mortgage section of US banks. Sadly, I was in the same department of ML. Merrill was trying to push people from Mortgage division to other departments then. But I had different plans. I moved to Bally Tech, a gaming company.

In my 4.5 years career, I am proud to be a part of a IT service company, a Investment bank and a leading casino gaming company. But my average years in a company was less than a year 2 years ago which was a bit of worry. But now it is 1.5 years. I would like to make the average at least 2 years.

Here is a couple of panoramic shots taken by me lately from the 11th floor in ascendas!