A JOURNEY TO THE MANCHESTER OF SOUTH INDIA!!!!!

Hi all......
joined bosch on august 18th. i was given Coimbatore as my joining location from 29th sept.I wanted the time to run as slowly as possible. But realised it's all in vain.
i slowly started preparing myself physically and mentally for coimbatore(COB-that's how it is called in bosch)
But my mind always hated to go to tamil nadu. can't speak tamil, can't vango-pongo-ukarongo with these fanatics. That's impossible for me.
Wherever i have been till now i was able to manage. i mean language was not a problem for me.
But trust me tamilians do not know a shit in english and hindi is not for them.
Me and Vrashabh were mentally preparing ourselves for the lungi-clad dark,moustached men and saree (or chudi) clad,dark,long-curly-oily haired ,typical tamilian bindi-ed gals.
We started looking and staring at every 'lil bit of beauty found in every gal in bangalore, coz we knew our fate in coming months!!!

and finally that day came, The 28th of september 2008, and it was time for me to bade good bye to namma bengaluru and come to tamil-nadu. And was a bit tensed and scared coz i dint know where to go in coimbatore and i dint know the language and i dint know anything about the new place i'm going.
I had wxpected all-tamil-people in karnataka itself but a bit closer to tamil border. But i got the first tamil-thunderbolt when i saw the bus board reading -COIMBATORE and i asked the driver to confirm "Saar!!! Coimbatore hogatta??"
The driver answered "aama saar...Vaango"!!!!!!! i was like...this bus is a tamil nadu in bangalore!!
and it was true.
everybody in the bus started speaking in tamil when they saw the only alien wearing a jeans...(or should i say not wearing a lungi!!)
after final messaging and talking with my friends a short-dark tamil conductor met me and asked me something in tamil (i seriously dont know wat that was)
and i said "COIMBATORE...eshtu saar" (the kannadiga in me was in ful form!!!lol)..he said two-thirty-five and the triumphant harsha started rejoicing!!!

i called my friend who had been to cob before. and asked her how was the road trip?? can i find some good things??
She replied "AWESOME!!!! the hills,mountains,greenery will catch ur eyes" and i was ready with my cam and all my concentration on the roads and outside the bus.
But minutes passed, hours passed nothing came. all that i saw was dry barren lands, dusty fields, wide express highway, pebbles,stones,boulders,rocks and stony mountains. I was half exhausted coz i wasnt mentally prepared for that.
and then some friend of mine had told me coimbatore is a good city. not as big as bangalore but is big enough to fill ur fun-appetite...and as i entered the city of coimbatore all that i saw was dusty roads, stinky slums,
smwlly drainage, and people everywhere :-(
i stood there in the gandhipuram bus-stand waiting for my friend and it took ten minutes for him to come.
Those tem mins were like ten yrs for me..auto ppl somin to me and speaking something, bus ppl comin too!!!
then lookin at my luggage my friend asked an auto-rickshaw fellow...lakshmipuram (with his hands acting fully) how much???
autowala: vango saar....aravandh rupa..(meanin 60 bucks)
raghu(my friend): too much...jaasti...
autowala: blah blah blah
raghu:50...50.....50 correct
autowala: 60 saar....correct
i said: ok...let's go...
and then i reached my home..an exhaustive journey to coimbatore came to an end. and my new life begins from tomorrow!!!!
but met few friends who were all kannadigas..about ten of them...so i can c a ray of hope...
The office of cob in the next post...
cya soon...hopefully :-(

-Harsha Bhat