strangers we met, friends we became!

" There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met"

                                                                                                                  - William Butler Yeats



Strangers we met, friends we became, this was a statement, I first heard from my father, a long time ago, when he was describing his farewell day in college. I was always in awe of this statement, it speaks volumes about how we become friends, it just describes our lives so immaculately with great brevity and precision. These are the relationships we build with our effort, we invest our time, our love and carve out strong bonds that sometimes last a lifetime. One unique thing about friendship is that most of the times, we all start as total strangers.

I just finished engineering and lot of my very dear friends have all gone places, I badly miss them and try very hard to keep in touch with them through calls and emails etc.

But the wonderful thing about friendship is that there are always new friends to come and more bonds to forge. Life is never short of people to become friends with.

Just a couple of days ago, I was lucky to become friends with a charming and interesting person.

About three days ago, I was coming home in my office bus, and the window beside me was wide open, making me a little uncomfortable and I wanted to close it, fortunately or unfortunately I had to ask the person sitting infront of me to do that for me, since I couldn't do it myself. When I asked, she immediately did so with a sweet smile, I thanked her and there began our casual conversation, after formal introductions, we realised that we both were new to our organisation and I came to know that even she was in her training period.

The next day we met again briefly in the office and quickly made up a plan to go a place called " Hari Sandwich", which she badly wanted to go as she had heard from her friends that this was the place that served the most yummiest sandwiches in town. I was a frequent visitor to the place during college days and I just loved the sandwiches they served there.

After getting down the bus, we decided to take a walk, the sandwich place being a flat twenty minute walk from the point we got down the bus. During our to and fro walk, we had a very thought provoking conversation on a lot of topics. We shared our personal lives, our story so far, from total strangers a day ago, we were talking to each other as if we knew each other for ages. Finally, after loading ourselves with sandwiches, chat and juice, we headed to the place where she was put up and then bid goodbye. 


We'd both forged a new bond of friendship, I'd a great evening and I think she did too, what truly happened was,  " Strangers we met and friends we became ".

If I hadn't started that conversation, I probably would have missed out on this new friend, so whenever you get an opportunity, talk to people and make new friends.

Cheers my new found friend.  Hope our friendships burgeons.

This is Vattam signing off!

Mangalore, you're awesome!!

Mangalore is well known for it's scenic beaches, the exquisite cuisine and of-course for it's humid weather. I've always enjoyed all the three, but apart from this, Mangalore has one amazing asset, the people. The people here are very warm, helpful and sweet.

I am not a Mangalorean, but I am blessed to be the son of a Mangalorean (my mother is a mangalorean). Thanks to her I've had the privilege to visit the city numerous times.

As a kid, I always wanted to drive to Mangalore. Driving through the scenic route with mighty Sahyadri surrounding you along with the ravening sharavthi showing a flew glimspes of itself along the way. I was always in awe of this scenic highway and I would always be glued to the window seat in the bus, gazing at the outside world all along the way, whenever we took the day bus.

After I'd reach Mangalore, I would trouble my uncles so much to take me to the beach and finally when they did take me to the beach, I just couldn't come back, a whole day  was not enough for me.

Now, none of my relatives live there and hence I don't get many opportunities to visit the place and needles to say, I miss that place.

Recently, for deepavali, I'd a lucky break from work, a string of four back to back holidays and without a second's hesitation I headed to Mangalore with my parents.

This time around, there was a surprise, my long standing dream was fulfilled, with my parents and me driving to Mangalore along the serene western ghats. Dad let me on the wheel and I didn't let go of it for the rest of the journey.

Life is full of all kinds of surprises, luckily the journey wasn't on, everything was smooth and easy.

We reached mangalore in about six hours.

We'd to go to a particular place to reach our place of stay, but since we were not that acquainted with Mangalore, we had to do some interrogation.

To our luck we found a gem, an auto driver, who came about a hundred pace towards me, just to guide me to my destination. He explained the route to me with utmost patience and enthusiasm, realising we were guests to his wonderful city, he left no stone unturned to ease our quest of reaching the destination. To our luck, he found a customer who wanted to go to the same place we'd to go and so, he directed us to follow him. Throughout the way, he was always watching closely if were were following him or not, his eyes constanly monitoring our movement.

After a brief drive, we arrived at our destination, the autodriver signalled to us, that we'd arrived at our destination. He did this with a wide smile on his face. I stared at him for a couple of seconds with a same wide smile, I shouted 'thank you' and then reached the place where we'd to stay. 

After settling down, I just laid back and rewinded the whole incident in my mind and I felt so happy at the gesture of this autodriver, for a while I was lost in thoughts and felt so glad about the kind of welcome that the mangalore city gave to us in the form of this person. Going to Mangalore was, is and will always be a special thing.

For those of you haven't visited Mangalore, my only piece of advice, pack your bags and head straight to Mangalore, it's going to give you loads of scenic beaches to visit and some mouthwatering cuisine, serene countryside and finally the warm people who are going to make your visit an experience like never before and make you want to visit Mangalore again and again.

Traveller's advice, the road in the ghat section is horrible, you'll have to go at snail's pace to make sure you and your car doesn't suffer unless you're in a humve.

This is Vattam signing off!