Observing the observed from a bus-stop

Well, as a part of the data collection process, in which the demand during peakhours at bus-stops are to be noted in a form(for the proposed IT corridor along the old Mahabs road from Madhya-kailash to Kelambakkam), it was my turn to go to a bus-stop at Sathyabama 'deemed' university.
We were a group of 5 guys(4 guys actually) and we were each assigned one bus-stop to collect data from. As the peak hour starts around 7 am and the bus-stops were quite far away, we had to start early from the tharamani gate. The auto guy outside asked a ridiculous 150 rupees, his logic being that share auto from tiruvanmiyur charged 20 Rs/guy and since it was early morning time, he had factored in the additional Rs 50. As this was a bigger auto(it had the normal seat pushed a little up and back and an additional wooden seat added just behind the driver's seat), we conceeded.
The form which we were provided with had columns for arrival time, departure time, no. of passengers getting in and out. The only two buses which served my bus-stop were 21H and 19B. 21H was more frequent of the two and had an average frequency of 1 every 10 minutes.
As the auto approached my bus-stop, my friend who was to take care of navallur bus-stop commented that IIT-roorke had come. I didn't understand so I looked out and saw that the building in the distance resembled the main building of iit roorke..Well so much for that.

I was happy that the bus-stop was sheltered and I could have a seat and do my work(which wasn't much anyway). Soon, I got to see the first of the Joseph engg. college buses stream into the road that connected the main road to the university. The univ. buses kept coming..I counted around 10 in 5 minutes. As if that weren't enough, another set of 10 buses arrived barely 5 mins later. This process happened for another 15 minutes...I had lost track of the number of buses that went into that university. My friend mentioned later on that the combined fleet of sathyabama, joseph engg. college and Jeppiar college was around ...hold your breath..70.
Speaking of Jeppiar college buses, these buses slowed down as they approached the bus-stop and enabled me to have a decent view as they passed by.The other private buses I observed were, hindustan engg. college,vmrf college,lots of polaris buses. I also got to see some exotic things like horses being carried around in lorries, a drunk guy asking the guys sitting on a minivan to get down and stopping guys walking around. There were also a group of 4 students who had to go to Kelambakkam(the last bus-stop on 21H and 19B route). They were looking for an auto but couldn't get it..so they approachd the bus-stop. Then suddenly one of the two girls, started waving the finger(both hands!) towards Sathyabama university...quite funny to watch.
I don't understand why this college has to impose restrictions on many things....like - You have to come to the college only by the college bus, even if your house is just a furlong away.
Interaction between boys and girls is strictly prohibited and could lead to expulsion!...I'd say, a healthy interaction is necessary between the oppsite sexes, else we would have a lot of perverts(which is the case mostly). This isn't any school where you would have to worry about students falling for infatuation. The very fact that you have put in the efforts to get into a so called 'deemed' university, show that you are sufficiently motivated to study. What about all-round development of personality..I don't see it happening in such freedom-curtailing , closed environment that they have managed to enforce. On the other hand students would be frustrated and would have given up in life. These things could only happen in chennai..No wonder Chennai is given the tag of a conservative city.

Scaling the Mount

My cousin, who works at b'lore had come to my uncle's place. He runs often, getting in 3 runs/week including a longrun during the weekend. When I met him yesterday night, he was pretty excited about running to the St. Thomas mount and back, stating that it would be a great "hill" workout. The distance as measured by him, from Adayar to Mount and back was around 17kms. I wasn't as much worried about the distance as those 'killer' hills at the mount. My left knee was not in a good condition and I didn't want to risk a long-term injury by doing that workout. So I suggested that we do a flat course..We finally decided that depending on how I felt in the morning we would decide the route.

I had put a night-out the previous night and had trouble falling asleep yesterday night...I kept looking at the clock and the last time I saw it, it was around 1:30 am. I fell asleep but had nightmares about the run....I got up at 4:15 am, we did some warmup and we decided to go ahead with the original plan.

We walked around half kilometre, till we hit the main road. I set my stopwatch and off we went.
I had two small 200 ml bottles, one in each pocket, while my cousin had gotten a fuel belt which had 5 small bottles placed evenly around the belt so that when you wear the belt, it fit you snuggly and you wouldn't even notice it being there. I kept sipping water every 10 minutes.We were going at a moderately slow pace of 9 min/mile...My knees didn't give me much trouble at this pace.We were really surprised at the amount of traffic on the roads at this hour... We hit Kathipara Junction in 30 minutes..We had little trouble crossing over to the other side as the vehicles were moving at a pretty good pace.
We had to run single file from here on as there was no foot-path or side-walk to run on!!..Some corners were really dangerous and we had to be really cautious watching out for vehicles...
We soon reached the turning that lead to the Mount. Man, what a change in ambience...lots of greenery and birds chirping around and what a pleasant time of a day it was to be running in the military quarters.
My cousin warned me as we approached the start of the steep climb to the top. We just slowed down to a 12 min/mile pace and just slugged it out. The last 50 - 100 metres is pretty hard. I walked this stretch...We were finally at the summit. The view from here was simply fantastic. Only the Pallavaram hills stood taller than we were. We decided to do that hill when he returned to Madras again.
After a brief stop, we headed down the hill and believe me downhill is a lot tougher on the knees and I thought I would have to stop after a few minutes...But luckily I felt better once we got down the hill...It was 1 hr since we had started and I felt like I had just warmed up, but I am not sure my cousin felt the same.. The return was more or less eventful, I picked up speed as I approached the Anna University but my friend was wobbling a bit. He asked me to go ahead, so I kept increasing the pace till I reached my uncle's place..It had taken me a total of 1hr 45mins...
We had a post run discussion and reached a consensus that the run was simply great and out of the world and that we shall try out some of those hills in Pallavaram next time or run a flat stretch of 20 kms....

Beasant Nagar beach

One of the coolest places in Chennai to hangout and also to run!

I went with my uncle to the beach at 4:30 am, 'cause that's his time for walking, which he does for 2 hrs!. So, I had to plan my run for the 2 hrs. I decided that I would be needing atleast 15 mins to warmup and warmdown..That still left me with 1.5 hrs to run.
I started out slowly, finding my rythm and completing each 1.6 km lap as I ran. The pavement on which the walkers did their walk was too hard on my knees, hence I had to partially run on the sandy track beside it. I noticed that when you proceed towards the church end of the beach, you have a cool breeze hitting your face but the route back from the church end makes you stuffy.

Anyway, I was having a sip from a 200 ml bottle (which I was carrying in my pocket) every 10 minutes and that helped in the last 40 minutes of my run. A few goodthings about the run:

> I got to see some good looking girls along the run.
> I was running after a 2 week break and still was feeling not so bad.
> I ran 15 kms in 1:18:18 - A good time.
> The sprint in the last lap along the beach road was awesome.

> I would be ready to hit the beach two days later, that is tomorrow morning...