Hey buddies,
Q2 of 2024 was full of activities and personal milestones. From a calm night cycle ride to Mahabalipuram and an unplanned hike at Kona Falls to becoming a mentor at Think Digital and attending my first tech meetup, April was eventful. May and June brought new experiences, including a spiritual trip with my mom, learning to drive, and purchasing my first vehicle. This period was all about exploration, growth, and embracing challenges!
April
April was a packed month. A lot of activities happened in a single month.
Night cycle ride to Mahabs
Went on a awesome night cycle ride to Mahabalipuram with Sai, Ragav and Soori. Talked about a lot of stuff in different topics along the ride.
Trip to Kona falls
I went to my Grandma’s home near Tirutani for a weekend. And we friends together made a sudden plan and decided to go Kona falls to cool off the hot sunny day. And oh-boy it became an awesome hiking experience.
Initially we just wanted to enjoy in the falls. But it’s summer and water flow is not that good. So we settled in a little pool nearby the falls and enjoyed. It’s a hill forest. And what I do in a Hill Forest? Fucking hike it!
I convinced every one of them to come with me in the hike. There wasn’t a well defined path anywhere. We just hiked to random places. We found a small cave. Went inside and took pictures. There was a little opening on top of the cave, we climbed top of it and found a drained river path. We followed it until a complete block path. There was a huge rock which is not possible to climb without any ropes and equipments. So we called it as end, spend some time there and got back to falls. It was completely unplanned and a great experience. And with my friends, this is so natural to have this kind of unplanned stuff always!
Karthi, Surya and Aakash are missing in the pictures :(
Ghilli movie re-release
I was a very big fan the movie Ghilli. In fact, it was my first ever movie that I watched in the theatre in my childhood. A lot of my friends love this movie too.
I was re-released in theatres in April. Oh boy, how would I miss that? I asked my mom and friends. Nobody was ready to come with me on that day. It was Monday, so nobody wants to watch a movie on Monday morning. But I wanted to experience that.
And also this was my first ever solo watch. I was fully onboard and it was a great experience. That Arjunar Villu song is the trigger!
Short clips of Ghilli movie that I took
First ever tech meetup
It was that time I was little bit frustrated with my career. It started feeling bore and my interest was lowering day by day. That’s when I suddenly saw a post in Linkedin about a tech meetup happening nearby. It was organized “Chennai React” community. It was their 2nd meetup and I signed up for it. It was an unique experience. Me and Ragav went for it. I won a prize in the quiz session!
No agenda coffee
At the same time, I was feeling low with my people skills. I became more and more introvert during WFH period. So I called a very good friend Thina and told him about the situation. He is mentor and founder of a community solely focused on College students called “Think Digital”. I just asked him if I could join and help out students with their technological improvements. I was initially thinking of teaching tech concepts, but even ready to mentor students with the general life.
And Thina agreed! Without any hesitation. He invited me to a unusual meetup he was doing called “No agenda coffee”. It was just having a coffee without any agenda as the name implies. Got to meet some students, exchanged information and even answered some of their burning questions. At the end, a book for each of us was distributed. I got “Think like a Monk” and read most of it.
Became a mentor at Think Digital
With that No Agenda Coffee, I officially became a mentor at Think Digital, open to help anyone on anything I could. It always feels nice to give back something to the community. It brings some sort of peace. I don’t know it could be a placebo. But for me, it brings a sense of peace and happiness.
Became a mentor at Think Digital
May
May month started with a set of new things like April.
Car ride with friends
Me and Pavan planned to rent a car to drive full day to practice driving. I just got my LLR, so I wanted to utilize the time to drive. So we rented a car in Zoom car app. Brought Karthi, Arvind and Rohinth along with us.
The initial plan is to go as long as possible in the ECR and come back to home safely. The car was parked in a mall named “Aerohub” in Chennai airport. Me, Pavan and Rohinth woke up early and travelled to Aiport via public transport.
Pavan was a little bit hesitant to drive the car after a very long time. But I was very motivated and too amazed to drive the car. So I got in the driver seat, turned on the car, put the reverse gear and pressed the accelerator while leaving the clutch slowly. The car turned off!
Tried it like 3 times and only after realized that handbrake wasn’t released. Released the handbrake and the car started obeying my orders xD. Reversed the car, drove the car down to the ground floor. Yes, it was that fancy spiral parking lot. Went to the road and started driving it casually. I did some mistakes like not checking the mirrors and getting nervous when operating the car at first gear.
After sometime, it became very normal to me. And I drove the car from Chennai Airport to Karapakkam OMR via Medavakkam. It is one of the congested path to drive. Especially from Medavakkam to Sholinganallur was very congested because of metro construction. I somehow managed all these, especially I re-fueled the car in Medavakkam to Sholinganallur road, and re-joined the traffic without any issues.
And Pavan asked to drive, so that he can learn the navigate in the cities. The initial plan is that I’ll get the car to ECR while picking up everyone along the way. But Pavan started driving from Karapakkam and he did a great job TBH. And we picked up Karthi and Arvind along the way and went to ECR.
We drove very happily, constantly chit-chatting and it was fun. Until, near Mahabalipuram, I saw a place that looked like a little forest which goes to beach. I thought that’ll be a great experience to walk inside the forest upto beach. It’s basically 500 meters to the beach from there. So, we parked the car, in the highway (which you shouldn’t do ever) and went inside.
The place was beautiful. We took some photos and started getting back to the car and that’s when a couple of police officers came to us. Asked about the car and why we got into the forest. They started assuming that we are doing some illegal shit. In reality, we just went there to take pictures. They threatened to get the car back to check post and call the car owner to get the car from them.
At this point, we already paid for the car rent. We didn’t want to stop the fun and go home. We just talked with them for a while, but they are not ready for the compromise. Because, they are corrupt. They either want some money from us or they will seize the car. They openly asked for 1000 rupees. I didn’t want to pay, but Arvind stepped-in and handed 1000 rupees. I was furious, but I couldn’t do anything. Just kept my cool to get out of the problem.
And then we continued the ride. Arvind drove for while. We went to Mahabalipuram, toured the place, took some photos, had lunch. And then I decided to drive the car, started driving along Kalpakkam. We went to place, also a beach, but there was a patch of concrete which was lead by a concrete road. It was nice place to train Karthi and Rohinth. They both drove a little bit, not much. And headed back to home.
Overall, it was a nice experience and thought me a very important lesson that we shouldn’t park car in the highway without valid reasons. Otherwise, corrupt cops will come at you for your money.
Sharing some of the pictures along the ride,
Started learning mathematics for data science
At the start of 2024, I planned to study data science to eventually become a machine learning engineer. Finally got the interest to learn basic mathematics concepts.
Started learning linear algebra. I watched John Krohn’s Linar Algebra for Machine learning and 3Blue1Brown’s Essence of linear algebra
Both were powerful playlists with ton of information in them. Had to watch 2 times each to understand those concepts. After that, I planned paused mathematics for bit before touching Calculus. But ended up pausing for months and didn’t picked it again, classic Hemath!!
Started playing badminton
Friends from office invited me for a badminton game. I played badminton before, but in streets. I won’t even return the serve. But this time, they booked a court, we went in and tried. Boy-oh-boy, it was amazing and fun to play. And soon after that, we thought to buy our own rackets, so we did.
And started playing once a week adhoc sessions. But soon, we paid for a court subscription and played daily in the mornings. After a month, no one wanted to continue except me and Arvind.
From there, we still occasionally play.
Jun
Trip with mom to Rameshwaram, Ramnad, Devi pattinam
Me and my mom went for a spritual trip to Rameshwaram and nearby places. The main agenda is to do a religious stuff for my late father called “Thithi” in tamil. After that we went touring the nearby places like Dhanushkodi, Ramanathapuram and Devi pattinam.
Devi pattinam, especially was one of my favourite experience. It is just a sea-side village. There is a very little temple, nothing else. But it’s very silent, no noises, completely different than cities. I know, most of the villages are like that. But in the whole trip, I saw nothing but lots of people, vehicles, and noises. But this one, was silent, beautiful and calm!
Bough my first vehicle
Yes, finally, after a lot of back and forth discussions, I settled with a Dio 125 CC scooty. Ragav was already using it, and it was nice. So I thought, I’d just buy the same. And I did.
I didn’t have and weird feelings or proud. I don’t know why, but most people do get those feel, I just didn’t get that.
Here is a picture of my mom with the scooty,
Got my driving license
And, after everything, I finally got my driving license for both Car and Bike. It was awesome feeling. Felt like I achieved something that I thought I couldn’t. Because I’m not that type of guy who rides bikes or drives car. I was always the one who sits in the back sit. I didn’t even wanted to drive a vehicle, that’s why I got my driving license in my 24.