A different birthday

I share my birthday with two well known personalities and one very special person. The well known personalities are Dilip Vengsarkar and Charles Sobhraj and the one very special person is Anu. Anu and I are born on the same day same year and have Vidya as our link, Vidya knew both of our birthdays and finally got us to meet in 2011. For this birthday we decided to go over to Coorg and the Club Mahindra resort there as the points were elapsing on that account. Luckily my birthday fell on a Saturday so we didn’t have to take any day off …

After the Masinagudi experience, Krishnan and I decided we were going to take it easy, drive at a comfortable speed on the Mysore highway and take the NICE road rather than the Gopalan Mall route. The change in perspective made all the difference – we still managed to reach the resort in about 5.5 hours and had zero stress. Stopped at Kamat Lokaruchi and ate the awesome Sheera baath, yummmm 🙂

Club Mahindra Kodagu is arguably one of their finest properties – just gorgeous, helped along by the natural beauty of Coorg, but the resort has also been built very tastefully. The view outside the cottage was worth the long drive.

This was a different birthday as my team in Bangalore and my ex-team ganged up to surprise me on the 5th. Krishnan helped along by ensuring I went to office and didn’t work from home. I felt very special … Especially the poster.

This was also a different birthday since some people who never remembered birthdays were amongst the first to wish me 🙂 felt very special. And some who never forget my birthday and have wished me in person for the past three years haven’t met me in a month – the Bangalore effect, where distances vary basis the time of the day 🙁

This was also a very different birthday because I had an assignment to complete and the rest of the day went off in completing the report and sending it to the Prof. I certainly do not want to spend another birthday ever doing something like that… I don’t like the big celebration but I certainly like to spend my time with my love and my friends or out in a beautiful place.

Club Mahindra definitely needs a lesson in service – they didn’t even send a single flower to the room inspite of being told its my birthday by Krishnan, no cake, not even a candle !! I was reminded of what Taj Fisherman’s cove at Chennai had added to my plans for Krishnan’s fiftieth without my asking for it – Club Mahindra hasn’t got the basics right. Two days, the coffee at the breakfast buffet was either lukewarm or just empty, no offer of getting us a hot cup of coffee.. The worst was to ask mom and I after we had started to eat to move to another table because they had not laid the cutlery on this one. I am finicky about customer service even more so in the hospitality business… If the person doesn’t enjoy serving, don’t have him/her in the server role.

We just enjoyed the drive and the resort but could not travel anywhere or see anything else. Just went to our place, met Raja, Rathi was at Virajpet and then went over to meet Raghu and his mother.

Coorg has a charm that is alluring and difficult to shake off … Need to explore it more and spend more time.

So a different birthday this year …. Some parts to be repeated, some clearly not. Ok Rajesh Tiwari – I know you were looking through the post to see what date my birthday was on, it’s on the 6th of April. :):):)