Zimbly Boring

Guaranteed

2010-03-14T02:22:00.000+05:30

One bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
All my destinations will accept the one that's me
So I can breathe...

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know
A mind full of questions, and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes...

Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you...

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I'm never what they thought
I've got my indignation, but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead
Overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed

-- Eddie Vedder

Greetings from Ithaca

2009-12-27T09:01:00.003+05:30

It has been six months or more I think, let us just say things have happened and move on. As for these said things they have been breakneck, too many to even recall in entirety, but I will try as I am sitting here enjoying my first vacation. Ithaca is officially known as 10 sq miles of paradise surrounded by reality. Could not be more true. I get to wake up to the chirping of birds and a wonderful open vista ...something that i always wanted, but then there is always a catch; academics this time around.
The first six months has been hectic as hell, but people who have been through this assure me that the worst is now behind me. So there is still hope, I guess. I digress. My purpose of getting back on the blog is to wish anyone who still strays onto this corner of the web
A very special new year ahead!!
Hopefully I will not be brain dead and will see you around in the new year with something interesting. CHEERS!

The Sheer Randomness of it all

2009-04-19T10:14:00.012+05:30

Just another saturday night; yet another movie. Three more hours killed; still no sleep though. Ive been sitting on my chair pretending to read, all the while staring out of the window...the miserable New England drizzle, the noisy drunken louts walking back home with the occasional drunken lass. Maybe that is what I need, some alcohol to numb my brain and put me to sleep. And I surprise myself with that thought.

It is well past midnight and the entire Sigur Ros playlist has run its course. The revolting movie house coffee seems to be kicking in, a good few hours later. There is an eerie silence in the house that strangely makes me too aware of how clearly I am thinking; random thoughts that seem to be the handiwork of a brain trying to sort through too much...what is the word I am looking for here...hmm..."stuff"???

There has been death....sadly not a tear in my eyes, then or now. And I therefore still can't let go....closure is what I am looking for....

There is hope....people are moving on, putting aside differences and striving to be close again.

There has been euphoria...I am moving on in life. For better or for worse I don't know. For better I hope. Never been this excited in a long long time. A little scared too. I could take down a whole lot of people with me. I could have done without the pressure, but I couldn't have done without the support.

Catch -22!

Above all is the humbling realization that success in life is all a result of a random sequence of events...monkeys on a keyboard .... any one of which if the outcome was different could end up taking you in a totally different direction. You need just enough talent to make the best of the opportunities. The rest is all baloney.

And I wait for that one event in about a month's time. Life could be decided by a person across a window over a 5 minute period....Not feeling scared as much as I am feeling Powerless!!

An my train of thought has run its course, sadly no sleep yet.

Time for some Johnny cash......

The pleasures of an arbitary conversation

2008-11-16T03:56:00.003+05:30

Have you ever had this feeling that you have been talking to a lot of people but never really connecting or making any sense? I realised a couple of days back that that is what I have been doing and I have been at it for so long that I have forgotten what a natural conversation feels like.

So when out of the blue on a normal work day, you find a friend online and talk about everything from Barack obama to the fjords to the contributions of Nehru, the effortlessness of it all ends up surprising you. And you realize, it is not the quantity of friends that matter, it is just the quality.

Thanks my friend. I owe you one!

The summer that was ...was not?

2008-09-13T08:04:00.003+05:30

I haven't logged in to blogger for a while, for one American summer to be precise. So I have the perfect excuse for being erratic this time around - SUMMER VACATION !!

At the first hint of green around me, I had made plans to hit the road again - Partly to make up for the time that I lost all winter and partly to lose the sense of suffocation that I was feeling from being within four walls; and hit the road - I did, with a mad dash across florida logging almost 2k miles on the road in 4 days, and getting totally sunburnt (imagine skin peeling off).

June came and with it rain too - supposedly, typical "New England weather". For a change, I managed to do something about my interests, rather than just bragging/blogging. Me and the Pentax enrolled ourselves in an amateur photography course - a course that I religiously completed, every single assignment included. For someone who is prone to chronic disillusionment, this achievement is something that I am really proud about. Though I have been photographing for a long while now, it feels nice to have a good grasp of the subject ...rather than spraying and praying that the image comes out as I want it to.

July again was pretty rainy, but then didn't stay home even for a single weekend. White water rafting - will do it tonnes of times again, what a rush!!!
-Watched all the super hero flicks that came out - In the theatre, Batman in Imax :-)
-Hiked a few local trails and swam in freezing water at 6 in the morning , in a reservoir, that was not exactly meant for swimming - but then we are Indian, so sab chalta hai..hai na??
-A scavenger hunt through Boston - a group of 10 people, almost totally random, walking all day, up and down the town . Worth every ounce of fat burned (for people who do not know me, I value fat very much)
-All you can eat icecream for 5 dollars.

Rain brought with it August as well. And as they say the good times definitely do end. Beginning with my Photography class. As my instructor wound up the class with a preview of what was to come in the fall for another $250, a course on documentary journalism really caught my eye. But caught between that and the "bigger picture", I made my choice and moved on. Friends who have been my travel companions in the US decided to move on - back to India. I have chosen to stay on for a while - the "bigger picture" again. Homesickness, nostalgia all come swirling at me as I say my farewells. And as the reality sunk in that another summer has passed, which makes me 25 by the way, I settled down to a routine that I hope will get me through the next few months - crucial, nailbiting and hectic months.

It has been a hectic summer alrite. All said and done, I still managed to complete one year in the US with not much damage except for a few thousand dollars burned in "Pursuit of Happiness". I have also learnt a few things about myself ( will try and avoid making this sound like a cliche, so keep reading). From grinning like a little boy, when shamu the whale splashed water on me , to relishing the spirit of adventure as I barrelled down rapids in a tub to feeling a fleeting moment of total freedom as I swam in a pristine lake all by myself, I have realised that despite being numbingly routine in my everyday life, my passion for the things that I love has not diminished one bit. As my Chinese friend with his piece of Zen wisdom says - "Yo!! Just roll with the flow...Duude!!". And that realisation is really heartening to carry into the winter.

A few more totally tangent thoughts that I can't squeeze into another post

-Offlate I have been getting comments from a lot of people who really care about me - that I am indifferent, aloof, cynical et all. All I thought I was capable of doing was lame self deprecating humour. So people thanks for the complements :-). I will try and not disappoint you.

-I got nominated as a "junkie" at my work place. Totally damaaged by an idiot who left out a critical piece of info from my "award". That actually can make another post. So expect one soon

-Today is onam and I had sandwich and fries for my onasadhya. Not good, especially when the last thing you need is another wave of nostalgia. The thing is I do remember onam as a wonderful time of the year, but for some reason this year, onam seems a lot more special. I guess it is just the Nostalgia acting up again. So I better hit the bed then..

A cursed breed

2008-06-05T08:28:00.003+05:30

This blog has thus far mostly been a mouth piece for my take on my life, I have a feeling that it is going to diverge significantly. When you have a routine grind that feels like you are walking on a treadmill, you are sweating, but yet you are going nowhere; there is usually not much to write home about. And as the whole kalachakram repeats itself over and over and over, you tend to notice things that were once overlooked in the mad rush. And these are exactly what i want to be writing about.

This is not from one of those wild mood swings that I usually have, this is something that has been bubbling up for a long time. And something just pushed the trigger. It was the sight of some misinformed idiot on Indian national TV who was cursing the hapless IT breed for everything that was wrong with the nation, the latest being inflation.

From what I gather taking potshots at the yuppie generation has become the national pastime. India has always been about the mad rush; trying to make a living and a life and "settle-down". So is it wrong that youngsters opt for "engineering" so that they can make use of the really few oppurtunities that are in fact available. Parents are often as much a part of this decision. And now that, those decisions are finally making life a lot more bearable for a broader swath of the population, why in the Freaking world, do people want to go cribbing? Sour grapes? Beats me.

For every layman who wants a ring side view of how things go on inside the Indian IT machine, read on. The bright young minds come straight out of college, raring to work on cutting edge technologies and prove themselves to the world. But when they do land up some place, realisation dawns - sometimes real fast, that this is not what they want to be doing in life. It doesn't help that people call you a software coolie to your face. But coolies do make a lot of money these days and money definitely talks - to the maid in your house, to the land lord who charges throough the roof for a couple of rooms and a kitchen, and all the way to the cop who pulls you over because you have a tag around your neck - you are a cash cow.

The IT creature has to take free advice on everything from money management to career to even getting married. Career advice is sometimes the most insulting - you know IT being a dead end job that even a school kid can do, you should look for something better. Like what? Go back to the employment exchange? When you hear someone say that to you in your face, the motivation just drains away from you. And the funny thing is, these same people come to you for advice, when they want to get their kids into the engineering colleges with the best placement records, or the best IT company to join when you have a brilliant kid with multiple offers. And I was under the impression that cognitive dissonance affects everyone uniformly. My A##!!

And if someone is really fortunate, even one on traditional Indian values that need to be followed. For the uninitiated, the core values of the Indian system, is followed to the T here. You have the BPOs which are the bottom most caste and considered untouchable sometimes, then you have the low level service companies- which are basically between here and there, then you have the MNC service companies and then the hi-tech research firms and their lot. Unlike the caste that you are born to, perseverance can ensure that you do move up the food chain. And within each tier - we are neatly split along languages, educational degrees and the designation. The engineer developer hates the B.Sc tester. They both hate the project managers and everybody in turn hates the MBAs. Isn't this what Indian society and culture is all about? How can someone in their right minds accuse us for the lack of moral values in the industry? Fools. All of them!

So here they are, doing a thankless job, burning up the best years of their lives in pursuit of happiness and security for a whole lot of people around them. In doing so, slowly pumping blood into the veins of a still born nation. Money that has rippled down and ensured that everyone gets a share of the pie. Do they get thanked - No!. Do they want your sympathy - absolutely not. All they request for is to be let alone. They are young and ambitious and know what they want in life. They might be having a good time - the fast life and the works; but please realise that deep inside are anxious beings that are always on the look out for a better future. So the next time you see a bunch of youngsters hanging out in a fmaily restaurant , YES! Girls and Boys togethor!, dont give them the scowl, they are just having some fun. They are sons and daughters too and a little smile will do you no harm.

SuRReaL - 1

2008-04-26T09:15:00.004+05:30

An ordinary saturday morning
-------------------------------
I wake up, do the chores. Fix myself a steaming hot tea. Roomie screaming at the top of his voice at friend with the choicest expletives in Tamil. L.Shivaramakrishnan, Tony Greg and the crew hyperventilating in another room. A.R.R going "You are listening to Aaha fm, the climax of entertainment". I am still sipping on the ginger tea, and sweating in the morning heat. It is Chennai after all.

A screaming wail of a police siren and it is not Chennai after all. I get up turn off the heater in the room. Close the lid of the laptop playing Aaha and join my friend watching the IPL streaming online.

- Waltham, MA.
______________________________________________________________________

Greed
-------

Casino. The temple for sin. A saturday night. I start on the slot machines at 9.00 PM, I play with 10 dollars, it lasts me half an hour. I put in 5 more to win back all that I lost and I win 15. I cash out and hop to the next casino. I sense a momentum that I have. I put in 50$ and loose it all in 10 minutes. I am left licking my wounds. A few more casinos and I loose 20 more dollars.

It is past midnight already and I need a coffee badly to stay awake. I grab my coffee and give my feet some much needed rest. And Eddie Vedder opens up on the instore music system -

Oh it's a mystery to me.

We have a greed, with which we have agreed...

and you think you have to want more than you need...

until you have it all, you won't be free.

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

When you want more than you have, you think you need...

and when you think more then you want,

your thoughts begin to bleed.

I think I need to find a bigger place...

cause when you have more than you think,

you need more space.

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

Society, crazy indeed...

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

There's those thinkin' more or less, less is more,

but if less is more, how you keepin' score?

It means for every point you make, your level drops.

Kinda like you're startin' from the top...

and you can't do that.

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

Society, crazy indeed...

I hope you're not lonely, without me

Society, have mercy on me.

I hope you're not angry, if I disagree.

Society, crazy indeed.

I hope you're not lonely...without me.

- Atlantic City, NJ
____________________________________________________________________

My first tagged post

2008-04-17T08:56:00.005+05:30

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER
The Bank job - After a six month gap last year, I am on a movie spree, spending nicely in the cinema next door - a small independent theater that shows some nice movies and a few offbeat ones as well

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING
Right now many - Mark Twain by Ron Powers, and Walden by H.D. Thoreau - the second one inspired from "Into the Wild"

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME
hmm...Trade is all time favourite, Scotland yard too.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE
Outlook Traveller - Combines two things that I love - Travel and Photography. And nothing captures India better.

5. FAVORITE SMELLS
U mean other than Pouring rain on red earth? That will have to be the smell of Dosa being roasted in Ghee

6. FAVORITE SOUND
For some strange reason, though I dont like to wake up - Suprabatham by M.S and no one else.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD
Splitting Migraines - That is me sounding like a manic depressive person. Thankfully, I havent had to bear anything worse.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE?
For the past 6 months or so, unless I am travelling, it has been "hopefully today will be better."

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE
Murugan's Idli shop on BB in chennai, Swagat in Indira nagar (dont go looking it is a hole in the wall that you will not find easily)

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME
hmm...tough one. Will think of crossing the Bridge when I come close to it.

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D...
Quit my job.
Go to Stanford (buy my seat I hope).
Buy a Leica RangeFinder, A 1969 Mustang.
Buy a lot of land in Palakkad and do organic farming.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST
Yes, 99.9 % of the time. The rest of the time I am plain Rash, especially when I have those migraines.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL
What is this ...a trick question??? I wish - Stuffed animal. I still dont get it.

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY
Incredibly cool. Especially in Kerala.

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR
After driving for almost 6 years, bought a car a month ago - A 98 toyota camry. My Mule.

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD
Travel around the world, without any plan - follow the wind.
Chase the monsoon around the country with my camera.

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
Brocolli should be disqualified from the vegetable list.

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
It would be a fine streak of brown. I love my hair the way it is

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.
Palakkad - Chennai - Kochi - Palakkad - Chennai - Mt. Pocono - Waltham.
There is only one home town though- Palakkad.

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH
Cricket - Football (american and otherwise) - F1 - And developing a liking for poker.

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.
Trusted friend and confidante. Cool as a cucumber and solid as a Rock.

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED
I am a nomad. I sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor even inside the house. So there is just the carpet underneath.

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?
Yes. With the memory of my present life intact.

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?
Night owl.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Sunny side up

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?
In chennai it was Beasant nagar Beach. Now my sleeping bag

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Butter scotch, with caramel - all time fav
caramel and chocolate from cornerhouse while i am bangalore.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
Well dont have many to tag, the one who tagged is one of my most dogged reader. The only regular blogger that I know of who can respond to this is -
Piyush Khan

Racism

2008-04-11T07:58:00.001+05:30

Being in a different country, an entirely different kind of people, can sometimes be a real test of your values and beliefs. Growing up in a small town can mean that sometimes you grow up with a sense of a rigid order in society that has been followed since the time of the fire. That is how god intended it you are told. You grow up knowing people as Nairs, Menons, Pattars, Chettiars, Iyengars, achayans, mapplas and what not. And once you come into the big city, you also learn to put in another level -northies, southies, gujjus, marwadis, of course - bongs, mallus, tamilians, kannadigas and again what not. This is all fine, because whenever you talk about the "others", it is always to people within your own "herd". In essence, closetting anything that is offensive and presenting a front that is perfectly agreeable. Also, there is no way of identifying who belongs where just by looking at them (we are not even talking finance here) - except for the Chinkis and the Sardarjis maybe. So as long as you are in a society where everyone accepts that no one is equal, you are safe in a bubble of beliefs - about your political correctness and moral highroad; giving you all the credibility you need to criticise the zionists and racists in far away White man's land.

But when you actually get down to the middle of the action, realisation can sometimes come with a thud. You land up in a hodge-podge of races and you do not have a significant herd to bounce your thoughts off and constantly reassure oneself. By default, the moment you set foot on the jersey shores, you become a desi. Your fellow desis tell you, that you need to be wary of the goras, scared of the kallus, indifferent to the mexicans as they are all illegal, obviously. And this is the classic "to be or not to be" as far as I am concerned. I could become a part of the herd and find my own little group somewhere in there or else I could choose to walk the talk.

Things become even more complicated when you see the stereotypes being turned on their heads - Desis can sometimes stab you in the back as well, Goras are not racist bigots - most of them are genuinely nice people, Kallus are not necessarily only - murderers, gangsters and thieves, they are a people with a zest for life that is quite unmatched. And mexicans, for all I can gather, are indistinguishable from Indians in their beliefs and family values.

Walking the talk, is not easy my friend. Not easy at all.......

A swift kick in the B@!!$

2008-04-02T10:07:00.003+05:30

You know things are ominous in your life when a piece of code can split your life into the banal details that make it mundane. And in a mouseclick can send your suave, smoothtalking and cool ego into the bin.

Check out - http://www.google.com/virgle/application.html. I logged in and filled out the survey and there could not have been a better indictment. Given below is what the program told me.

"Well, you're distressingly normal and could conceivably adjust to life as a deep space pioneer, though we recommend instead that you leave the Mars missions to the serious whack jobs who scored over 130 and instead finish year 3 of law school, tuck your toddler into bed, design Web 2.0 applications, run for Congress or do whatever other normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road thing you're currently doing with your normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road life. If you're determined to give Virgle a try, though, you can submit your video here. "

My result speaks for itself. There could not have been a worser blow below the belt, when you are least expecting it. Am taking a sojourn to assuage my tattered self esteem so might not be back in a while :-(

RIP Sir Clarke

2008-03-20T08:53:00.001+05:30

Random musings past midnight!!

2008-02-29T06:40:00.004+05:30

Whew!!! that was one breezy week. Seetling down - at work, in the new apartment. Not much time to laze around. I am surprised that I am beginning to like the state of affairs for a change. And to signal the end of the first week, decided to celebrate it with a movie - at a cozy theatre that shows offbeat movies - JUNO!!

It has kind of become a pattern - a normal, down to earth story that inevitably is picked and everyone decides to run with for the oscars - Sideways, Little miss sunshine and now Juno. I was hooked onto the movie long before it was a hit - an article about a copywriter-turned stripper-blogger-turned author-and script writer and her movie about a 15 year old preggo girl. Not something that hollywood manages to come up with regularly. But I never stood a chance of catching it in my earlier neck of the woods. And now that I finally got around to watching it, I can see why everyone seems to be so gaga over it.

Ellen Page - all I can say is wow!!. This is one lady that is going to set the screen on fire with her sheer understated casualness. Something that I last saw in Julia Roberts in pretty woman. Sad that these manifestations seem to be purely onscreen phenoms and I can't seem to bump into one who can hold a conversation beyond a cup of coffee. But something tells me that there is a strange underground movement happening here.

Looking at the way things are going, I have this creeping sense of this planet being slowly taken over by intelligent creatures of the fairer sex - while the weaker sex is distracted by the sisterhood - Britney, Paris and the lot. Path breaking blogs, unbelievably original music, fashion and for the sheer in your faceness - chicks are beating men at their own game. Refer here

So dudes wake up!!!I will be glad to organise a male chauvinistic movement from my blog - Volunteers welcome :-)

The end of Part 1

2008-02-28T10:56:00.002+05:30

Last weekend marked the end of a challenging yet interesting 6 months in the US. My first 6 months. Part nomadic. Part bundling against the cold. A lot on the road. A bit spent reading NYtimes at work. Forming friendships across races, colors and tounges. Shovelling snow. Cooking and eating lots of potatoes and getting a little career planning out of the way. All togethor a good six months.

Moved to my new hometown - Waltham/Boston. A nice apartment with a gud internet conn. a river by the side, and indy movie theatre right opposite to it. Something tells me I will like this place a lot more than PA. Touching wood!!

FILTH!!

2008-02-11T08:17:00.000+05:30

It was during one of my brain-trawling sessions that something strange struck me, make that two. I am suffering from, for lack of a better phrase,information overload. And two, I am married to my laptop. After 4 years of "working" and not really much reading, I tried getting back on the habit. I did get myself a few books in all earnesty, among them "The argumentative Indian". An unbiased, lucidly written , highly thought-provoking collection of essays. I read them with rapt concentration, only to wake up the next morning to realise that I couldn't recall much of what I read. Instead, what came to my mind was Britney being rushed to the hospital and Saif and Kareena's "Nikkah"...I know...WTF??

I begin my morning routine and settle down at work with the US, UK and Indian editions of google news. And every edition screams at me with news designed to capture eyeballs, literally. I was happy with the sports and the front page in "The Hindu" and the occasional filmfare featuring Vidya Balan and off late Ms. Padukone and now I can't seem to find what I want anywhere. It is as though every snippet has tentacles, that go deep into your eyes. And the fittest survive. I can only scream in helplesness - FILTH!!!!

There is so much filth around these days. Now, don't jump the gun yet. I am not a member of the moral brigade and I do enjoy titillation when done correctly. But that is besides the point. Filth is all the information out there that I do not need and yet information that is being shoved down my throat. Surely, the human brain obeys the laws of physics and to top that,it doesnt have Moore's law in its favour. Result - rejection. It plainly quits and I am thinking that is what is happening to me.

I forced myself offline for extended periods of the day, reading up on things that really matter. Tried starting off with a fresh clean slate and Mark Twain. The ever reliable Calvin and Hobbes. All to no avail. And then I stumbled upon Einstein and his thoughts on creative expression. Creative expression that has the power to cleanse one's soul and free the mind.

And here on, I am laying bare all the filth in my mind, on this blog for the few of you to see. In the fervent hope, that I cleanse my mind and free up some RAM inside my head - Space that is reserved for my imagination.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge... knowledge is limited, but imagination encircles the world. To see with one's own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a trim sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word... is that not glorious? When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing absolute knowledge.” --Albert Einstein

P.S - I am no Einstein and I harbor no ideas of becoming one. I am too busy right now and will not be able to handle the extra attention. But anyways thanks for the suggestion.

Soul Music - Part 2

2008-01-30T01:26:00.000+05:30

Post-Lunch sessions are generally reserved for Kishore/Mukesh or sometimes Rafi. But that day felt lazier than usual, so I just put shuffle on and let it roll. A few unremarkable tracks later, it was still neither here nor there. Work was not getting done. Not surprisingly aye?. More importantly, I was nowhere near drooling. And then providence struck - "Paattu paadi urakkam njan, thamara poo paithale" - I am sure every mallu worth his salt has this song ingrained in his/her psyche somewhere. This is one song that holds a special place on my playlists. A Tharattu (lullaby) that my mom used to telling effect. A gem of a song that has been passed on down the family tree. Needless to say, it still retains its potency.
"Happy-place " here I come.

It was almost 3.30 and I was almost napping, just like the good old days...I felt like a little kid again. Rushing back from school to watch Malgudi days on DD - going "Taannanna thanna nna nna hoy" and then taking a short nap before going off to play again. And memories of DD brought back memories of "Mile sure mera thumhara", the unofficial anthem of India for over a decade before Rahman's Vande mataram replaced it.

Set to the tune of Chinna Chinna asai, the huge red sun slowly rising on the screen over a wet beautiful country, is the imagery that has always defined rehman for me. He went electronic when everyone was into harmoniums and huge orchestras. And when imitators followed, he embraced world music, reinvented himself again with hindustani and carnatic strains and did it many times over this past decade. Isn't he a genius, this little guy? Copying tunes? I frankly don't care.

Refreshed by that dash down memory lane, I went about creating a quick list of 5 or 6 of my favourite rehman hits on the ipod. Boy Was that tough - ennavale??? - nah...Vellai pookal - definitely...narumugaiye - maybe...Petta rap - WTF??...Malarodu - hmmm yeah I guess...Dil se - 50:50....Yeh jo des hai - Bingo!....des mere des mere - too much patriotism..O paalan haare - hmmm....Look in Tamil songs you fool...Mettupodu?? - yup, bring it on...dhim thannana - WOW!
pachchai nirame -yeah....new york nagaram??? - I give up...I am better off with shuffle....Especially after the pod has started growing a brain.

My Ipod has sort of become my soulmate (pitiful. I know it is) these days. When it is on shuffle, it kind of senses my mood and selects the song. I am sure Apple has gotten an advanced AI engine in there that can uncannily sense human emotions, I am not scared of that. But I am scared of that day in office when it is gonna play - Roobaroo when I am asleep and I am gonna loose my sense of time and place and start crying out loud - "AYE SALA"..:-)

And an internal timer jolts me, as it was well past my tea-time. I make a mental note - Be more disciplined and stick to your daily routine better. As I waited while the wending machine brewed me some "Tea", I was thinking about my non-existent plans for the night. Forced offline due to a non-existent net connection, my pathetic evening routine of ORKUT - Facebook - Rediff- google news - Gtalk has been eliminated. I make yet another note - fiddle with your Ipod, it might help you sleep better...And hope for another dreamy day tomorrow..

P.S - The concept of a playlist based on your mood is already doing the rounds people. check out http:\\www.musicovery.com. You can thank "Kit" for this piece of info. Keep dreaming.

Soul Music - Part 1

2008-01-24T08:28:00.000+05:30

This post is an offshoot of an earlier one about meditation , but don't you worry. This one will not ramble on and on about nothing and finally lose the plot. Hopefully.

It all started one morning, when I woke up to a humming prelude on my roomie's laptop and I immediately burst out in full throated vigor, even as I lay in bed - "Usilampatti penkuttyyyyyyy muththupechchu"...All i had heard was an initial couple of seconds of the instrumental to a song that i had loved, then hated and forgotten and not heard in a long time. I was wondering where that sudden recognition had come from and thus began an interesting quest and a few hours of thought.

I thought, on the bus to work, about the songs that I liked, about the ones that I loved....It was all one big clutter. "Kaatrin Mozhi" from the morning playlist was still running in my head. The soothing voice, coupled with the cool morning breeze wriggling in through the window, can be an unbelievably lulling way to start the day. I sat back and let the song take over.

The wooded pennsylvanian landscape and the moist greenery all around, felt like the lush green slopes of wayanad or Munnar back home, in all their rain drenched glory and me smack in the middle of it, taking it all in with arms wide open. And thinking about Kerala, brought back a song that asianet plays every now and then - "shyama sundara kera kedhara bhoomi".Along with it visions of dancing paddy fields, rolling clouds and coconuts. And as always managed to bring on a few nostalgic goosebumps. Strangely uplifting on an indifferent morning, I felt ready to take on the world. Felt like setting off on a long journey into the wilderness...."Jane kya doondtha hai yeh mera dil, Tujhko kya chahiye zindagi".

I must have been in a semi-dreamy state by then 'cause I felt my self spinning around on my feet, arms wide open, the sky spinning around me. I could feel the rain drops on my face, like the first refreshing drops of the monsoon unlocking the scents of the earth after a parching summer. Summer that reminded me of younger days of abandon. Cricket, tender coconuts and "Nongu" and "Veyil odu vilayadi" which again brings on nostalgia by the loads - .....A raptorous song that races through a few cherished memories, and brings to life the dust bowl that Palakkad is in summer.

A few quick shakes to my shoulder and reality hit me again. My roommate again staring at me - "Enna da, cycle gaple oru mayakkama, vazhiyuthu - thodachchukko, Stop vandhidichchu". Quickly gathering my bearing, I wipe the drool off and get back into my "professional" alter-ego. But there was this spring in my step that I felt really nice about. Sadly as the saying goes, good things don't last for ever. But I promised myself then, that I will dedicate some more time to dreaming. I mean in addition to the 8 to 10 hours that I already do.

I did not have to wait too long to fulfill my new resolution. A big can of strawberries and raisins dipped in creamy yogurt for lunch, can be one potent dream-inducer. Combined with an Ipod with a wicked brain of its own, "Happy-place" is just an earphone away....[To be continued]

P.S - Start dreaming. It does wonders.

Marginalised

2007-11-29T22:48:00.000+05:30

This is one post that has been languishing in the drafts for a looong time. Something that hit me in the face back home, Something that left a feeling of utter helplessness..Feelings that had, in hindsight, touched a raw nerve. A sore that I mistakenly felt had healed in the rush to make a life.

Ever since the travel bug hit me, the day I first grabbed that pricely copy of outlook traveller at the Aluva railway station, "travel" has been the operative word in my life. Travels that have created some wonderful memories, Nature in all its splendour, People vibrant. Faces that made sparkling conversation. Faces that had wizened from years of toil, toil that was possibly the only story of their lives.

It was the sight of one such old lady, on a desolate railway platform, that caused my thinking to go haywire. A hunched, greyed bag of bones who wouldn't have merited a second glance on a quicker day. Not a beggar, yet. With nothing much else to do, out of equal measures of curiosity, revulsion and sympathy, I stared at her a few times. And sensing a chink in my armour, she approached me - arms stretched. I tossed a coin reluctantly. She did not go away. Arms still stretched, emotionless, blank face.I tossed in a currency note and she quickly left. I felt as though I had been taken for a ride. Why in the world would anyone in their right mind, give alms to anyone? Let alone to a lady who was borderline between a beggar and a cheat. I felt bad.

I boarded the train later and after sometime was ruminating on this again. But from an entirely different perspective. Something that came on after observing an apparently happy elderly family in the same coach.

I began wondering. Did she have a family? Of course yes. Where were they then? How must her life with the family have been? What would have prompted her children to abandon her? Was it that her family was so poor, that one less mouth to feed, made a whole lot of difference to them? These were questions that began to pop up regularly every time I saw someone who looked destitute.

What I saw shook me up. India, where we pride ourselves on our family values, seems to be filled with people like her. And I am not even considering the people who were born poor, or as the government likes to call "under the poverty line". The old waiter at the Sangeetha in Adyar, who has to bear the blunt of high-flying IT "professionals" and still manage to smile. No tip anyways. The security guard at many of the apartments, making do with a single pair of uniforms. Spending sleepless nights guarding the Indian upper middle class, which cares only about development and India shining.

Soon it became apparent that it was not just the poor elderly who suffered. As India moves from its villages to towns and cities, it leaves behind an India that has been sucked dry by the current generation. Working mostly as clerks for the whole of their lives, people who squirreled away whatever savings they had to the family. Now well off, with money sent in regularly, long distance telephone calls and for the lucky few, a video conference on yahoo. But yet I am sure most of them have quite a few regrets. Maybe that movie they missed. A festival that came and went without the least bit of self-indulgence. That pair of glasses which needed to be changed. The wrist watch that needed to be changed, not repaired.

I do agree everyone needs to venture out to seek their lives. But then are we so busy making a living that we can't manage to find that odd day or two for the elderly in our lives? Better still make a life that involves them more than the annual visits? Not even stopping to wait for the old lady to cross the road? I really don't know. It really feels as though an old unwritten cycle of life is being broken today. Take a visit to an old age home to realise what I am talking about. For people in Chennai, Vishranthi on the ECR is an old age home that is doing a decent job. Look it up sometime. There are a lot more who can use all the help they can get.

And why this post, a whole 3 months after I left India? Well, what I see here looks like a natural extension for India in the next 50 years. Elderly, who are fierecely independent. Going about their routine. But still look as though they are on a long wait. A wait for someone ...... something rather?

Mango mood again

2007-11-14T10:12:00.000+05:30

Somethings jump up from the store shelves and bring some great memories...On one such routine visit to the Desi grocery store, hidden away was this packet of 50 pieces of absolute bliss - MangoBite..mmmmmm

Go See it...

2007-10-31T06:40:00.000+05:30

This is one for everyone - the cynic, the eternal believer, the sceptic, the wagabond, the achiever, the slacker..GO SEE IT ..in theatres preferably

Fantasia

2007-09-29T09:04:00.000+05:30

I have been fantasizing a lot lately (not that kind you dirty mind). These are fantasies that too much of TV(think JD think scrubs) , movies (think matrix , think vadivelu) and Calvin and hobbes (the only ones)... can do to a mind that has too much time on its hands..

Work has been lean, I am not complaining, not yet...was pretty much the same in India. It is just that, here, people work and thats pretty much it....Imagine this for fun at work...a huge hall with cubicles spread out as far as the eye can see, people trotting in at 9.00 and leaving at 4.00, dead silence broken by the occasional phone ring...Yeah people , think matrix.And the fact that Keanu Reaves is as good looking as me, helps me ease into his shoes a lot more easily. Only difference was that Neo tries to hide/crouch and evade Mr.Anderson....to talk on the phone..

In my case i crouch/cover over my laptop, always adjusting the screen to achieve that perfect angle that makes it black for everyone else but then doesnt glare my eyes.....all for those elusive few minutes on Gtalk...ears straining for footsteps on my end of the carpeted floor, looking for a reflection on the glass partition..they are out to get me I tell you.

On those rare days when I have to work all morning, I end up doing pranayama to balance my senses - sit absolutely still and slowly relax my breathing, with my eyes closed of course. These are days when i can hear the air rushing in through my nose, bristling my nostrils, through the nasal passage, the esophagus , the alveoli and beyond....This intense level of concentration sometimes cause the mind to drift, the pupils to dilate - a state sanyasis call -paramanandham. Lesser mortals sometimes belittle it by calling it sleep.

Hectic work days like these, coupled with the gastronomic delights that set in an hour after large portions of fries go in for lunch.... mean that I am forced to do some serious introspection in the afternoons...It was during one of those sessions when i sat staring at the mirror at the other end of the longish room,breaking the silence with a distinctly undistinguishable whistle that realisation dawned .... Split personalities...think spaceman spiff, think JD....

As I sat about dissectin the different layers of my personalities, I found out how much TV had influenced an innocent mind like mine....a bit of Ed from stuckey ville, JD from scrubs, of course clint eastwood and vadivelu....part calvin.. futher brain racking and i realised this is something that everyone must be having..That is perhaps the most feasible theory that can explain anyone's random actions, words and thoughts. As for me, all that i have to do is find a name that fits my alter ego..for now the supreme being....But rest assured, you will definitely find him making more frequent appearances here..

For those disbelievers and sceptics, who would rebuff my story above by pointing out the fact that I am not yet fired, my final retort is this. When you become one with the supreme being, coding gets done automatically. The rest will be taken care of by QA.

Writer's block

2007-09-13T07:38:00.000+05:30

Of late, life has been very restless. I have been testing my limits for non-stop travelling. Hate to admit it, but however much i would like to consider myself an itinerant traveller, always ready for the rough and the tumble of the road, the truth couldnt be far from it. True that I have been covering distances here, distances that back in India would qualify me to be right there among the top 1% of the "Thendis". But the truth is I couldnt have been farther away from the "Rough and tumble" of the road.

I have been keeping count, 6 weekends since I landed here, and the last 5 of those were on the road, with plans for the foreseaable future as well . But all the 5, were boring journeys, Boring being the understatement. It is not that the destinations were boring, I had a gala time, with friends and family alike. But this throws the proven slogan that people like me hold so dear "It is the journey that matters, not the destination". It was like somebody took a piece of paper, wrote the slogan down and ran it right through the shredder. SIGH.

Compared to the rickety KSRTC buses, toyota corollas, Indicabs, and the ever lovable but tiring indian railways, the rides have been luxurious. Wonderfully plush buses, quick hopper flights, chrysler 300 a hyundai tiburon and of course the corolla as well. These coupled with the boringly smooth roads and interstates should have ensured a journey in absolute comfort. Sadly, though that was the case my already softening "software" demeanour found the going a little tough. At the end of each trip, the lethargy that sets in is incredible. And now I am stuck.

This has been the case with me for the past few days. I have been observing all the goings on in the world in the US - with my ever "Sharp" and "observant" eyes. Thinking up lines that will make the post readable. I come home, the hotel rather and then quickly key down a few lines and the inevitable happens - Writer's block.

I always thought that writer's block, was a state of mind that was widely publicised to display the true intellectual or the pseudo that you are. So in a way that makes me proud. I am in hallowed company - Hemingway, Shakespeare and others. The prospective articles have been languishing in my drafts folder for long - an insightful article on the american dream, an unbiased critique of the new york times, Inside the cubicle - claustrophobic , A tale of 3 cities and many many more. Articles that in due course will get the 2 comments (excluding mine) that they deserve. But right now are crippled by lack of creative inputs.

Well, I quit, I can't go on any longer... This post was a desperate attempt to get myself going again..a swift kick in the balls sort of..A compilation of the best hyperbole, euphemisms and shameless self promotion. Inspired by none other than Sachin, Ganguly and the gang. People who never say die. Despite their poor form never giving up their spots. Coming out all guns blazing and scorng 30 runs from 50 balls. And finally striking it big against bangladesh. Persistence pays people - look at sachin. It is only a matter of time before Dada and then yours truly make it big. Thanks for your support

P.S - If you have managed to labour on till this point, Please be sure to leave a comment that will win you a free autographed copy of my book( that I am going to write soon)..

My First impression

2007-08-16T05:13:00.000+05:30

I have been in the US only 2 weeks now but my first words to myself are still echoing in my head. Words that get reinforced, every passing day. "Boy!! everything is so big around here." Right from the moment, I stepped into the cab at the airport, there has been that feeling of "Shock and awe". There I was - a slender 5' 11, lean and mean, being smothered by the cushion around, with barely my neck sticking out of the seat straining to catch the scenery.

The hotel rooms were thankfully small (normal size by indian standards), but there ends the exceptions. The size was what caught my eyes everywhere, and in some cases caused overloads at the business end of my digestive system as well.

Jumping from "3 Idlis-one limited meals with curd - samosaa/cutlet - and a relaxing dinner of rasam/thayir saatham" to "3 eggs,potatoes and pancakes - 2 eggs,toast and fries - cappucino - and a relaxing dinner of belgian waffles/foot long subs"........I guess this was what people were refering to as "Jet-Lag"(It is not that i had choice when it came to choosing the meals, these were the ideal choices considering the "Investment vs Return" tradeoff). It took me over a week to "settle" things down...whew!!

Not ones to take things lying down, we decided to get things moving along by cooking our own food - Target Walmart. Result Disorientation. An hour and a half later all we could select was one packet of bread. And as we stood before the unending rack of vegetables, me and my roomie, exclaimed almost at the same time - "Even the peas are so big....SIGH!!".

Considering the amount of food that goes into an average american, generations over generations, the girth is only natural. And on a boring day waiting for a bus, as one LARGE human being walked past , I was tempted to go "entha kadayile nee pizza vaangare"...

Well you can call that desperation at the effortlessness with which all the fat tends to get concentrated around a few waists, while the rest move along at a Hindu rate of growth. A classic case of the fat getting fatter and the poor getting poorer. hmmmmm...

As the days went past, the shrinking feeling inside me kept growing. But it was Liberty mami who came to my rescue. A sign board quoting the designer and architect who staked his claim to the liberty - "Everything is so big in America - even the peas". hmm, Wise people do think alike. What say people?

Amerikyan Visheshams

2007-08-13T08:41:00.000+05:30

The last post below reads May 30, 2007 and the silence out here has been deafening thereafter..atleast that is what people tell me. It was not that there was nothing worthwhile to pen down..in fact there were tomes to write home about. The past couple of months have been a period in which my life turned upside down and then turned back up again - all in a month or so.Made a wonderful journey to wayanad.And to shake me out of the stupor, a torrid week personally almost immediately. And from the nadir it turned quickly with the end result being - me washing ashore(forgive the hyperbole as "landing ashore" doesnt gel with an epic event) the US of A.

It has been 2 weeks to date now, since D-Day. A day when I checked-in at the quality(questionable???)-Inn at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. A quaint little town that is just like any other dotting the american interstates. Prominent landmarks being a gas station, a high school and a main street (every town seems to have one, just like the M.G.Roads back home).This being the case, it became pretty evident early on that the standard indian manual for settling down in the US will have to be thrown right out of the window. And thus the odyssey began.

With my scheming brain and my friend and roomie Rajavel's caution and lack of tendency to screw-up, I was expecting it to be smooth sailing. But contrary to expectations, our common tendencies to run to the Indian Stretchable Time zone meant the we were pulled up by the account manager(manager Ka manager ka manager). We had signalled our arrival in style. A week went by and we were rapidly settling down to the rhythm of beer guzzling, truck and Harley driving, easy going, friendly and sadly punctual Amerikya - rural amerikya. A barely perceptible public transport system, nothing remotely close to anything Indian, people who are courteous to the point of causing pain, and no drinking water. To those of you who are reading this and are intending to move to the US, (I know of atleast one) don't worry, this is just the cynic in me getting the better of the travel junkie.

To be fair to stroudsburg, it also has a walmart and other such small shops that stock everything except human beings. An idyllic tourist town smack in the middle of a forest on a mountain, rolling meadows, sudden refreshing down pours, picture perfect cottages, architecture that hanks back to the 50s (or was it the 20s..I cant exactly compare), streams running through the town (under the roads unlike chennai). To cut a long story short - the whole shebang that reminds me of a rain drenched team outing to Coorg. The only spoiler in the works being - WORK. An unavoidable irritant that pops up every now and then.

Considering all the hype given back home about the "promised" land, I was expecting to hurt my jaw as it fell to the floor in open-mouthed whatever. The early signs were promising as the BA flight circled around Newark on a clear evening - Liberty mami ot the left, the famed skyline on the horizon and a huge sheet of metal that was gleaming in the evening sun. A sheet of metal hat turned out to be rows and rows and rows of cars arranged neatly. But that was pretty much the anti-climax as we took a taxi through scenery that was beautiful but repetitive and became mundane soon enough.

And this being the case, a weekend tends to become a dreaded part of the week.And it was an unanimous conclusion that one weekend was all that we could stand. Friday and we were off. Hopping on to a bus that headed to NYC. A comfortable ride and 2 hours later, I hurt my jaw. I generally hate touristy people, the kind who strain their necks to the windows and marvel at the lights and sounds around. NYC made me one. And I needed to brag about it.

The road till Newark was slightly more interesting this time around, but the stretch past Newark and into the sight of the manhattan skyline opening up is a once in a lifetime experience. Familiar from ever so many pictures, nothing prepares you for the actual view the first time around. The 2 days from then on has been something straight out of my college days. Friday night at times square, liberty, the empire state - and a whole new bunch of wonderful friends whom i never ever met before.And of course about 300 images on my camera. Life was good.

The experiences have been thick and fast..and my head is write now a melting pot of all these thoughts. And i am going to sleep over it. Running my thoughts over the promises that i made to visit this place over and over again. The sights and the sounds of NYC. At the risk of sounding like a cliche' - I love NYC.

P.S- I am pretty sure that the cynic in me will rise again and I will start sounding normal again. But, If over the following blogs you sense a change and I start sounding like an American Desi, please gimme a swift kick in the balls and that I hope will set things write.So, as I wont around here - "Have a good one" :)

Movies...

2007-05-30T15:50:00.000+05:30

Life has been good to me these past few days. No work still. Chennai cooling down. Tonnes of movies to watch. A few that surprised me..I mean you dont expect kollywood to surprise you. Mozhi being the first one. A very sensitive movie, a sensible movie and a wonderful background score.
And then there is paruththiveeran. Well at the outset it may seem to like one of those crass B grade movies that kodambakkam churns out, but once the initial 10 minutes pass, the movie grips you in a vicious kind of way. Have to warn you, the language is very difficult to latch on to, atleast initially- a very heavily loaded madhurai accent. The landscape and the colour tones are rugged and stunning. The music from yuvan, as fas as i am concerned, his best work ever. The "Ayyayyo" song rocketing to one of my all time favourites. Heard people comment that the dialogues are way too in your face, obscene or to put it in tamil "Pachcha pachhaya irukku". Well, for the uninformed, the people who are being characterised on screen, tend to speak that way in real life. And the ending seems to have put of a lot as well. Well, not going to spoil it for you, just in case, u have not heard of it and are planning to go watch it. The ending was the highlight for me. There was no more convincing way it could have ended. Any other way and it would have been just another movie. On the whole an in your face roller coaster, tinged with some original native humour. Not to be missed.

And now to the other wood that is famous - Bollywood. two movies which were made outside the standard circuit. Kabul express and Black friday. Well , yes i am still playing catch up as far as the releases go. Kabul express is a commendable effort. atleast for the way the team has tried to approach the subject. Black Friday -mmm, almost silent background for the entire movie. A chapter wise narrative and KK Menon repeating a "Hazaaron kwahishen aisi". Planned to watch it in two sittings as we started off around 1 in the night. Couldnt bring myself to touch the remote for the next 2 hours. Riveting. Period.

And of course have been gorging on hollywood fare. And the one that caught my eye was Little miss sunshine. Tired of watching movies that picture families as ideal islands of joy, here was a dysfunctional family that was trying desperately to make it onto the band wagon. The highlight being a beauty contest for 10 year olds. A road trip across the US of A and the pretences begin to fall apart. And how it all comes togethor in the end. Lampooning a lot of the things that is not correct in the US way of life. A few that i fear are making their way to the indian society as well. Full of poignant moments and humor that is different from the staple hollywood fare. Again, should have won an oscar instead of departed. But, best screenplay, well ok can make do.

Well, have to catch up on a lot more and as the prospects of me getting work anytime soon are lesser, you can expect a lot more reviews. Right now, leaving for the day. Whew! it has been a long hard day at work i should say.

I had a chance and I blew it

2007-05-25T00:59:00.000+05:30

Life doesnt give second chances. And the lone chance that it does give, are ones that disappear before you can even spot them. And thus the day began...I got up early at 8.30 and to my surprise it was pleasant outside. The morning routine and then get to work by 10.30. Not having much of work these days and so was lazing around office. Only to see a friend pop up on GTalk. Well, just what the doctor ordered. A good friend for as long as i can remember. You know - the kind you know are good, though you dont talk much and even when you talk it is just the occasional chit chat. We got chatting and then chatting and it was soon 4.00 PM. Tea break for Yours truly. And in the past couple of weeks one of those rare days when i didnt doze off in my chair.Back from break and the session resumes in a tone and tenor markedly different from the normal. About friends relationships and the occasional gossip. And then the inevitable, you single question. I jump in and answer that, prompt to flaunt my single status. And she says ..."mmmmmm". "What mmm?" I ask.."Well am taken now?""Whoa!!!".. though i saw that coming it was a whammy when it did come. A sensible and gud looking gal, One of the very few that i know. And then the diggin for details begins.. I have all the time in the world and she is the master craftswoman when it comes to guys. I dig and i dig, only to come up empty handed .And out of the blue I say "You know I had a thing for you, back then". And now the "whoa" came from the other side. "When", "What", "Where" "why didn't you tell me" and out come the details. And the astonishment continues. I get a tonne of advice - " you know you are such an idiot , u call urself my friend and dont tell me this. Y da. " And all i could come up with was, well i thought u were taken.And that brought the next round on " did i tell u that and so on and on?"... A stunned silence for a while. Now the doubt deepens in me. By some freaking miracle of nature, was she giving me hints?I continued the guessing game. And the pointer narrowed down to Chennai. I freak out and sign off. It was 07.30 in the evening. Time flies to 10.30 and i was sure i couldn't sleep in that frame of mind. Should I call her? And finally I do. And we talk, all the while she just laughs, all the while deepening my mysery. And finally she has pity on me and out come the details. Let us leave the details aside cause they are not the focus anymore (Confidentiality sake, and the risk of getting murdered). Suffice to say, It was like that "ONE TIGHT SLAP" thing on MTV. A hit on the cheek that sends all the clutter from your head flying out the other ear.And then it strikes me, how all these years have been about me only that I did not notice the people around me, close to me. And she makes a few more stunning observations and I just crack. And the final nail was to be a passing shot, something which conveyed a very poignant statement "for years i haev given u hints and u never saw any, and now...and now....". Well I had a chance that lasted half a life time and I blew it. Well, to put it in mallu speak"Sankaran is again on the cocunut tree".And thus the day ended.....

Bret "The Hitman" Hart

2007-05-15T22:10:00.000+05:30

An ad caught my eye while riding yesterday. Something, that made memories rush from the past and instantly brought a smile to my face and sent the adrenalin rushing up my brains. They are gonna be telecasting WWF (World wrestling federation) fights on Jetix. May praise be on the lord. A generation will be grateful to you. For people who are wondering, yes i am 24 and I do like wrestling. For people who missed the boat, this is something that you will never appreciate. An entire generation of boys, who grew up with a heightened sense of machoism and aggression and are better off due to that.
The Ad naturally came up for discussion during the elaborate lunch at work and people were immediately transported to their happy places. Names came tumbling down - the undertaker, hulk hogan, yokozuna and of course my all time favourite - The hitman. Someone suggested that wrestling was not for him and was quickly silenced with furtive glances and the discussion went on.
And as the discussion raged on, I was winding back to my school days. When RAW used to air at 4.00 PM on thursday Evenings and gully cricket stopped for that one hour. All kids in the neighbourhood indoors, much to my mom's irritation. Result, cable TV was cut in a month. Not giving up, we were soon meeting at an Old lady's house in the neighbourhood. Too much noise and complaints. Cable TV reconnected.
Gully cricket tends to be hard on the pocket. Especially when played with cheap rubber balls which tend to pop easily. And being the captian the onus of the sponsorship fell on me, which in turn fell on my mom. This also happened to be a period where the balls were breaking with alarming regularity and my mom refused to pay up.
It was "King of the Ring/ Royal rumble / Summer slam" I guess. A gud 3 hours at the end of which we saw "SABLE" make and appearance and take her clothes off...Almost. Mom saw that and we never had any trouble funding our cricket team after that. A special hitman glass, again from the latest duty paid shop was thrown in for gud measure :-) I still wonder y this sudden change came about in her.
The statutory warnings were always for small boys and we knew what we were doing and so had tournaments. On mats made of palm and coconut leaves, in the backyard, of our house. A broken nose put an end to all that. Or was it a broken head?? beats me.
Of course, we never gave up on wrestling. For the rainy day, we had stashed away a nice pair of triumph cards, imported all the way from bombay. Yours truly courtesy of being owner, being allowed an upper hand most of the time. Well those were the days, sigh!
And as I rejoined the conversation, it was thankfully still on wrestling and how my friend Aravind and his Bros had a photo taken with King Mable and Steve "The Rattlesnake" Austin when they came down to India. AND FYI the pic finds the pride of place in his room - STILL. I am proud of u my friend.

P.S - Readers will well be advised to catch up on jetix. Last heard, Undertaker is into his 8th life and hulk hogan had turned 67. And they are all set to clash for the title in a casket match. WOW

P.S.S - "The hitman" rules and will return.

Updates

2007-05-14T20:20:00.000+05:30

I am penning this post at the risk of readers tracing a pattern to these updates. (Please detect the hidden message in the previous line intending to convey the increasing readership for the special crap that I dish out)

- It is official now. I am a bench warmer. For people who thought bench warmers were only associated to sports, take a break. This is a relatively new phenomenon that has been developed in software services firms, which have the propensity to recruit in terms of colleges (not heads) and then try and locate work for this very enthu crowd. Always for projects in the "PIPELINE".
Speaking of which, IT seems to be full of jargon like this. On second thoughts, let me not get into the jargon part of it.
The bench has been this "utopia" for me ever since i joined this company. This mysteriously wonderful thing that people talk about. No work, Late to office, leavy early to compensate for that. Ill-fated that i have been, in a company with very few long term projects, I got stuck into one that has been going on for the past 6 years...SIX years and from day 1 it was one word "SLOG". Have seen people around me enjoy this period. Heck, my roomie was on the bench for one whole year and then he moved onto IIM. Speak of luck.
And now that i am here at this wonderful place, in a gap between 2 projects, i don't want to leave. But I wil have to leave and the thought of working again makes my head spin. I will think of crossing the bridge when i come to it. SIGH!

- Chennai finally got to me. This summer has been horrible. Chennai temperature usually hovers around 38 and peaks at 41. this year it has been hovering around 42 and yesterday peaked at 43. And my luck, I was riding around in bike all day. 8 to 10 in the morning, 2 to 4 in the noon and 6 to 8 in the night. Sweating like a sponge when squeezed, I was dehydrated beyond description. surviving on tender cocunuts and water. and sleeping all the while in between. I would have set a record of sorts by sleeping 8 hrs during the day time. The end result being i was unable to digest any solid food in the evening. And my sister, like an angel boils me some rice. Add water, Add salt, My grandma's pickle and that was the best damn food that i had tasted in a Looooong time. My sister is definitely a good cook...PERIOD.

And i guess that is enough ramblings for a night. So adios. As i go hit the bed.. Lot of sleep to catch up on.

The end of the road

2007-05-11T23:58:00.000+05:30

It was just one of those days. Not much work. Warming my seat. attending the odd meetings and then head back home at the stroke of 6. Chennai was scorching at 43 and so stayed around in the a/c till 7. Said bye to all the friends at work. Even a junior in the project who had joined a couple of months back.
A comfortable ride in a little bit of rain and a refreshing bath later; i looked at my mobile to see tonnes of missed calls. Called back one of them, my partner in crime at work and he broke it to me. The Junior that i had bid goodbye had died in a road accident 15 minutes back. The suddenness of it was too hard to fathom. I was listening to music on my comp and it continued playing. The fact that he was no more was incomprehensible to me. By God's grace, I have not had to face the fact of people close to me dying and so never had to think about it. But there it was. His smile was still flashing across my eyes every once in a while.
I just sat there, for i dont know how long and then somehow collected myself. Made a few calls and others who were closer had reached the hospital and saw him lying there.. people there told me.."It is sad how people in the medical field treat the mortal remains. He was an accident victim. No visible injury except to the head. and he lay there on a stretcher next to the reception."
Surrounded by friends and strangers. Friends, all in their 20s, all trying hard to come to grips. Someone asked me to come there and i made excuses. I knew that i didnt have it in me to see him like that and then drive back home.
Sleep was hard to come by. Dawn and the daze had still not left me. Rode to the GH were the post mortem was happening. And saw what i feared the most. He lay there on the stretcher as though in sleep. And the sight was even more difficult to fathom. My stomach was churning - the heat the stench and above all the tears of all those around. In a few hours time all that would remain will be ashes. But imagining his seat in office as empty - there an hour ago, but now no more, still beats me.
Last May saw another accident that was cruel in every way. And this one so close to me, shook me beyond belief. Exposing a fragile side of my mind, that i am very uncomfortable with. And for all my bravado, something rung home "Death" scares me.

A small tribute to an unbeatable legend

2007-05-05T18:51:00.000+05:30

Brian Charles Lara - A Legend signs off

A lot of people say a lot of things about Lara...but for me he is what cricket is all about..passion..come what may..and there are comparisons with lesser people back home but the statistics (by Wisden Almanac) below say it all...

Top 10 test innings
---------------------

1 DG Bradman 270 Australia England Melbourne 1936-37 262.4
2 BC Lara 153* West Indies Australia Bridgetown 1998-99 255.2
3 GA Gooch 154* England West Indies Headingley 1991 252.0
4 IT Botham 149* England Australia Headingley 1981 240.8
5 DG Bradman 299* Australia South Africa Adelaide 1931-32 236.8
6 VVS Laxman 281 India Australia Calcutta 2000-01 234.8
7 C Hill 188 Australia England Melbourne 1897-98 234.2
8 Azhar Mahmood 132 Pakistan South Africa Durban 1997-98 232.6
9 KJ Hughes 100* Australia West Indies Melbourne 1981-82 229.7
10 BC Lara 375 West Indies England St John's 1993-94 228.1

Top 10 One day innings
--------------------------

1 Richards I.V.A 189* (170) 1984 WI won by 104 runs Old Trafford
2 Richards I.V.A 138* (157) 1979 WI won by 92 runs Lord's
3 Jayasuriya S.T 189 (161) 2000 Sri Lanka won by 245 runs Sharjah
4 Kapil Dev N 175 (150) 1983 India won by 31 runs Nevill Ground,Turnbridge Wells
5 Saeed Anwar 194 (146) 1997 Pakistan won by 35 runs M.A Chidambaram
6 Gower D I 158 (118) 1983 England won by 54 runs Woolloongabba
7 Lara B.C 169 (129) 1995 WI won by 4 runs 120*
8 De Silva P.A 107* (124) 1996 Lanka won by 17 runs Gaddafi Stadium
9 Lloyd C.H 102 (85) 1975 WI won by 17 runs Lord's
10 Lara B.C 153 (143) 1993 WI won by 6 wickets Sharjah

P.S - I know this is a bit too late...but was offline for a while...so pleej adjust

mmmmmmmm!!!!

2007-04-20T22:58:00.000+05:30

It was well into the night and my dinner was done. The window was open and a nice cool breeze was bristling through my hair. The lights were dim and I could only see the silhouette about an arm's length from where i lay. The occassional flicker of the tubelight near by revealed that magical golden skin tone, in a teasing-tantalising kind of way. Exactly as described in the tales of yore. In fact even better. The look on my face would have given me away, but the shadyness of the setting saved the day, rather the night. The pod was playing

"Chandan sa badhan"

Chanchal chithu van

dheere se thera ye muskaana...

and I could hold it no more.

I slowly moved my arms and for the first time felt how perfection felt. Full and plump, and a tad juicy, I couldn't but thank god for his creation. And more importantly, for putting me in the right place at the right time. With all the time in the world on my side, I began ruminating on the happenings of that eventful night leading up to that perfect moment.

I was travelling from Chennai to Kerala on a day train. A tiring journey in the hot indian summer, inside a tin can, that doesn't allow the liberty of sleep. The monotonity of it all got to me an hour or so into the journey and I am sure a little delirium set in too. It was Katpadi I guess, where I got down to stretch my legs and grab a cuppa, only to lay eyes on that beautiful little thing. The delirium was gone, giving way to a yearning hugely unbearable. The hours passed and the yearning only grew. My dinner was done but i was staring out of the window, waiting for people nearby to fall asleep and dim the lights. The occasional lone light streaking across the window as the train sped through the dry landscape, only adding to my agony. But the fear of people catching me in the act restrained me, though the proximity was all the more tempting.

Time flew by and pretty much the whole compartment was asleep. But now the freedom to let myself go brought with it the ultimate conundrum. I could do this only once and once I was through nothing would be left of it. So how do I do justice to the beauty. Do I wait for the journey to complete, all the while admiring the interplay with the lights? Or do I dive right in and give my senses the treat of a lifetime?

As I lay contemplating, the soft texture of the skin against my fingers made me take it in my palms...and I slowly sat up. leaning my back against the sil and watching the glow. How do I do justice to thi wonderful creation. And i smelt that sweet scent one last time, as I bit in to the seasons first - Alphonso. And the next 5 minutes was bliss. And all that was left were the fibres struck between my teeth and a licked clean seed which soon found its way out of the window.

Being from a "corporate environment" and a well disciplined family, I have often been instructed that fruits are to be eaten with forks after they are cut. But I chose to ignore all that. Today there was nothing between us - No knife, no peeling, no slicing. My teeth doing the work as tastebuds that were long comatose, sprang forth with life.

I owed that much to god didn't I?

Vishu aashamsakal

2007-04-14T11:42:00.000+05:30

Samridhdhiyum, Santhoshavum niranja

oru nava varsham nerunnu.
Happy Vishu

P.S - The iceman and the ferrari are on their way to Pondy for this Vishu. Updates next week. Adios

Rants and Raves..and a few musings too

2007-04-12T21:46:00.000+05:30

Over the past couple of months, I have had this tendency to consider myself as perpetually "Busy", thereby convincing myself that i don't have time for the less important things in life ...one of them being this blog. I have also been noting that most of the times more than many tomes of advice, often, it is an innocous off the cuff remark that sets things in perspective. Sometimes painfully so.
And thus, as the truth rung home and broke my little bubble, it dawned on me that my being "Busy" was a big haze that hid my growing tendency to procrastinate and my inability to "manage" work and life. And to restore that balance, I have finally stopped contemplating and started acting. No more work for me. A lot of loose ends to tie up in Singara Chennai before I set out on that great Indian dream..across the seas, to the land of oppurtunities..the U.S of A. My Visa is all but done and the possibility that i might soon find myself on that 00.30 AM Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt and then onward is very real and here. And as I drew up my to do list (for the unitiated, planning by writing on paper is a good way to beat procrastination), a growing sense of panic set in as the list just went on and on and on.....
Started off by dusting my camera and setting off on a whim to my grandparents' place, a quaint little malabari village in kerala. Of course with a few basic amneties - a couple of multispeciality hospitals, a few imported corollas, an odd landcruiser, gold souks and the neighbourhood vegetable shop run by "Idrose"...things that a little money from the gulf brings in.
The pooram was on at the temple, nothing that I hadnt seen in these 23 years, but this time i wanted to see how it looked from behind the viewfinder. And boy, was it good. In a period when the peaceful temples in kerala are being taken over by the "Boards", the "members" and their security shenanigans, it was good to see that people still gave respect where it belonged....Me..
(u didnt see that coming did you;-) ??? ). Jokes apart, the humongous dSLR hanging around my neck meant that i was given a free hand to run amok. And to the, odd enquirer who wanted to know in which edition of Manorama his picture was going to come, I would casually reply "freelancer"..with an air that conveyed a little irritation at being disturbed. End result..over 300 pics with the best of them to be put up at Flickr...(i will do it soon and share the path here..I will). And if you are into photography, You will be blown away, by the sheer richness of colours in Indian festivals and the way they lend themsleves to photography.

A visit to kerala a couple of weeks later and the sense of almost everything being right in this world was quickly wiped off... with one that was sinister and reeked of human excesses..more on that later...Going now, as early to bed and early to rise makes Kiran healthy welathy and Wise..adios

Saraswathi shabatham - Eastman colour

2007-02-18T23:24:00.000+05:30

Long journeys by bus is something that i really love, but a few experiences of late have made me rethink. The first was a long trip to chennai from kerala in a not so comfy bus.And a movie Devathaiye kandein starring dhanush plying on the telly. For the uninitiated, Dhanush happens to be Rajinikanth's S-I-L and that is pretty much all that is about him. On a given day, out in the streets of chennai, u wouldnt be wrong, if u mistook him for an autodriver. And a heroine, with negative emoting skills, and cornier dialogues and crassier comedians, it was one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life. My Ipod was on full blast but it couldnt drain out the "Din-chak, Dak-chak, dan-da-naka, da-daka-daka", that so characterises tamil music these days. Add to that the sight of a scrawny hero, thrusting his pelvis and gyrating in the name of the dance, the expreience rather the torture was complete. So it was with a little trepidation when during my trip to the sabarimala, the TV screen flickered to life. It read "Saraswathi Shapatham", Eastman colour..

The movie startedoff with a long monologue by the producers, who it seems had made the movie to arrest the crass materialism in society and to lay to rest the debate on wealth Vs knowledge Vs Authority/power..Well atleast they said so themselves in a lengthy monologue at the beginning and with the gods in technicolour filling the screen, the atmosphere was set for the story to unfold. Shivaji as Narada...and a whole whos who of the 60s tamil filmdom was on show...fully decked up...The next 3 hrs were sort of an eye opener for me.....a glimpse into what Edison had in mind when he invented cinema in the first place....religious propaganda.....maybe

The next 3 hrs was one long riot of colours, the whole pantheon of hindu gods, song and dance and over-the-top emoting ending in a technicolor SHUBHAM. But the piece de resistance was CHEVALIER SHIVAJI GANESAN

He owned the screen from the moment he entered as narada. His slender gait, gait that would put a beauty queen to shame...the hips shaking as though doing a catwalk. And emoting that would give a complex to a kathakali artiste...millions of facial muscles twitching, twirling to bring togethor that perfect expression taht would last only a fleeting moment to be replaced by the next perfect one. and when coupled with the dancing eyebrows, it shows what acting is all about...or is it what it is not about...never mind....but that sure did cure me of my phobia for long bus journeys

Religion and a pilgrimage - Part 2

2007-02-11T23:26:00.000+05:30

Sabarimala, the shrine surrounded by verdant green all around. A dip in the crystal waters of the river Pampa, a mere jungle stream at Pampa. and a refreshing trek through lush evergreen shola. If this is the image that u had of the temple shrine, I pity you my friend. If you are looking for an example for how man cannot make a habit of coexisting with nature, look no further..
With the uncontrolled influx of devotees from the southern states except kerala, the ham handed development activities at Pampa, the tonnes of garbage, filth, and byproducts human and otherwise, flooding the stream making it a big pile of slush. The travancore Devasvom board makes it a point to bring in water tankers to pump water into the river to dilute it. Filth everywhere and devotees camping on top of it. We were among the lucky lot as we managed to get a roof over our head, a room barely the size of a classroom, with a makeshift kitchen at one end. The heat was initially a comfort but the smoke soon took over. But with me having had an inkling of things earlier, i was not going to complain about mere smoke singing my eyes. And the icing on the cake was the location of the room - right behind the pampa govt hospital letting its innards out in full glory, first thing in the morning. The bath in the Pampa is a part of the ritual and is meant to cleanse away all the sins. With daylight hardly and hour away, I decided to take a dip in the darkness, as waiting for day light would have meant that i might have given the dip in the river a miss. Freezing cold and icier water, meant a dip was a big ask. In and out in a flash, I made a beeline for the start of the trek, the Pampa Ganapathy.
Stepping the few steps upto the temple, brought forth a sight that i could never have imagined, a sea of humanity sleeping on the ground, and a small line snaking its way through to the trekking path. A few sleepy policemen guiding us through. The first couplf kilometers was a very steep climb, over sharp paved concrete and railings for support. My Softened software-feet were screaming full throat, but the fear of getting caught in the crowd coming behind meant that we, (oh yeah i got a fellow devotee for company), pushed ahead without a stop. The climb done, i was looking forward to the rest of the walk. only to see a huge queue on the mountain side all the way the eye could see. A good 8 hours later we made it to the sannidhanam, an ever bigger pile of filth, spoiling the experience. With the lower half of my body, numb by then, i had stop bothering. time was 3. With the Rava uppuma that i had for breakfast long digested, the grumbling was only acute as we waited for the jyothy which was still a good 3 hrs later. Managing to get a vantage point courtesy of my new friend, I stood there and dozed off. Though with nothing to hold on for support, I did not have to worry as it was too jam packed for me to fall. I still wonder whether it was sleep or a momentary lapse in conciousness...whatever it was i got up only at 5... slightly refreshed, but stinking all over, with sweat, mine as well as the bare chested kannadiga's, who i think supported me. with me standing at an elevated point, the sight was one to behold, a hill top with every possible inch crawling with people. The tension was palpable as people began to get excited and stir about in the maddening crowd. Well past 6.30 and no jyothy yet, the cries of the throng had gotten to a dearening roar. And when the jyoty appeared as 3 brief flashes, it was an experience that will last my life time. Electrifying yet hysterical. It was a culmination of all that suffering in something good. Hope that kept the drive to walk alive. And with a deep throated "swamiye" that reverberated around the hills, a call to the heavens, the collective throes of a mankind for release from the mudane rigours of life. It opened my eyes to what religion is all about- HOPE. Hope that reflected in the tears streaming down the now smliing bare chested Kannadiga.
And as the adage goes "Zindagi mein ek baar sadari yaathra chalo chalo"

Religion and a pilgrimage

2007-02-04T23:55:00.000+05:30

For a guy born and brought up in a typical agraharam, being religious is supposed to be a default setting. And the default setting remained that way for 17 golden years and then college happened and a period of self discovery :- 4 years of freedom. And with freedom came the natural side effects - indiscipline and irreverence. Not that i hated it, but still..
Out of college and 2 years into the job, things hadn't changed much. I was hating the job and was at a crossroads with the prepping for the CAT. It was the auspicious Mandalam and as the D-Day got nearer, my belief in myself was begining to wax and wane. And a day before the exam, got out of home looking to lay the waxing and waning to rest and ended up, maybe inevitably, at a temple. It was the proverbial lightning striking twice that day. In the half an hour that i sat in the Ayyappa temple, my thoughts were going haywire. Only to be reigned in by the thoughts of my first visit to sabarimala. All of 12, my grandparents taking me in tow. All that i remember being the sight of the golden deity electrifying my half asleep brain and body. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since that day. But the experience has remained. There had been 3 later visits, all in a lot more comfort, but none matched the intensity of the first. And so, at that very moment decided to make one more trip to see the lord, on the day of the Makaravilakku. 41 days of clean living and austerities.
It was a challenge for me and a chance too, to piece myself togethor again and feel what discipline feels like. And it did feel nice, the first few days i mean and then the craving kicked in. A lil more while in the bed, a coffee before the bath, a bed rather than a mat on the floor....But i outdid myself and found myself at the end of the 40th day on a bus, part of a conducted trip to the mala. Attired in black, the mala around my neck and the transformation i felt was evident. A sense of standing on the verge of something big. And we were off..
Six hours in the bus went of quickly. But a loose window ensured that i remained sleepless in the chill. And to keep me company, all that i had was "Saraswathi Shabatham" running on the telly. (That is an entirely new story which can form a later blog maybe.). Enroute, we passed the Thiruvabharanam being carried on foot and that signalled that we were nearing Pampa, in pretty good time. Only for all such hopes to be dashed by the Kerala police. We were asked to alight a good 35 kilometres from Pampa (Base camp for the uninitiated) and then start walking.
There we were, a bunch of over 50 people, in pitch black, shivering in the winter, smack in the middle of a reserve forest, and only the full moon to guide us. Someone in the group had the foresight to pack a torch and he led the way. With the group being made of a lot of age groups, we soon scattered. Me somewhere in the middle, with no light immediately, not even knowing the person walking next to me, retorting with the odd "Ayyappa" to the "swamiye" from somewhere up front.
A good hour would have passed, maybe more and the sound of a bus behind us cheered the group that had by now fallen silent. That was a scene that i welcomed with a special enthusiasm, as the jagged tar road had by then begun taking its toll on my foot. It was a bus alright, and in its headlight I saw a sight that sent a slight lump down my throat. The entire road was full of devotees on foot, the numbers belied by the silence of it all. and the Bus went on its way, without as much as slowing down even. And the walk continued. and from the milestones and the occasional police outposts, the distance that i had covered surprised even me. A good 12 kilometres. But then the lord didnt want anything more from me. Atleast not at that moment i thought, as i managed to get onto a bus that strangely was not crowded and stopped right before our motley group of around 10. And sitting on the steps, I managed to catch a few good winks before we reached Pampa. It was hardly 5 and the cold was biting down to the bone. And that was a moment when i had a moment of introspection, rather cursing myself for having decided to do the pilgrimage on that particular day. Moments that were littered thru the course of the 3 days....

Babel VS Crash

2007-01-26T23:32:00.000+05:30

Just saw BABEL today...first impression is a gud movie...second thoughts...yes....definitely not worth a rewatch..Hollywood has this tendency, if a movie makes it big at the oscars, they will shamelessly "be inspired" from the movie and make thousands in the genre. Not unlike the numerous "woods" that we have in India. The inevitable comparisons with Crash kept popping up through out the length of the movie.
Both movies deal with the concept of intertwined lives in a global village. What Crash tries to depict within LA, Babel tries and takes it global. Set in a dry and harsh yet beautiful Morroco for the most part, the landscape sets the tone for the movie...sombre unlike crash which is a pot pourri of emotions.
True, there are scenes of excellence, scenes that will move you. The actors fit their roles to a T. especially one Mr.Brad Pitt. Ladies who go to his movies to ogle might well be advised to stay away. As a forlorn, middle aged American tourist, Brad lends dignity to the role. The unknown morrocan lady, who dopes his wife to relieve her of her pain... the 2 arab boys standing atop a mountain trying to take off against the wind...piece de excellence
But then as there are scenes like those above, so are there ones that will create a sense of deja vu with crash. As it is a movie worth a watch, i am not revealing the story line here as has been done in previous reviews.
To sum it up, you can definitely go and give it a shot, a lot of good things going for the movie, technically. Also an American movie that does not show Muslims in bad light again a first.
As for me i made the mistake of reading a review that set the expectations way tooo high. I went there looking for a movie "that in its profoundess communicates the innate randomness of life and so on and so forth ad nauseum". If you are gonna watch it after reading this review, something tells me u will like it

Tom yum goong!!!

2007-01-24T22:38:00.000+05:30

Was down and out one of these days....no particular reason...one of those days when u feel totally depressed ..ust like that...and my DVD collection came to the rescue...a 3 cd collection -
"Aung bak"...."Tom yum Goong" and one more thai movie...but that is not the point...
"Tom yum Goong"...wow was totally blown away..now that is what u call a movie....It starts of with a lovely intro about a man and his elephant...his kid and another baby elephant...The baddies kidnap the elephants...look at the originality in the script and all this is over in 15 mins...
from then on for the next 1 hr and 30 mins...the guy sets out to rescue the elephants...spell binding martial arts...thai style...called "Muai Thai"...and the beauty of it is you dont realise that the movie does not have a story until 3 days after the adrenaline rush drains away
and this movie kindo puts in perspective y tarantino went ahead and made "Kill Bill"...
but at the end of the 2 hrs i was fresh ...with adrenaline pumping in my head .....was ready to go out and pick a fight with the first person that i met...was such a nice feeling...
I am thinking of patenting this therapy ...looking for a name and other supporting facts :-)
do lemme know if any of u had similar experiences

YEEE!!! it new years eve and i am gonna sleep right through

2006-12-31T12:54:00.000+05:30

hello all

As i am tired answering queries on phone/orkut about my new year plans, I am writing this piece to shout it out....Had a very exciting 250 km bike ride and a 4 km trek yesterday...lots and lotso pics on my new camera...a very refreshing bath under a waterfall in the middle of a reserve forest...so to sum it up 2006 is a year that started with a whimper and as far as i am concerned has almost ended in a bang...
Will start a photo blog soon.... any cute ladies who want to get shot by a future cartier- bresson just get in touch with me ;-)...and considering my frequent travels, thinking of a travel blog too...trying to keep the essence of this blog as such...Zimble and boring...:-)
I better get going now...got to call up a whole lot of friends before the telephone networks get clogged..and FYI i am going to sleep through the new years eve...so please dont call me up at midnight...and if u r having a party in chennai and want a photogrpaher.....u know were to find one who will work for free

Wishin you all a new beginning with the new year...

lotso luv, camaraderie, not many fights, tons of gud laughs..at urs' and others' expense...

Goodspeed and God bless...

Adios 2006

Cheers

Kiran

I SPLURGED...

2006-12-29T23:49:00.000+05:30

PeNtAx K100D
I splurged on myself...and went out and got the thing in the pic ...a long dream come true... feeling a lot richer inside...poorer in my pocket..a lil guilty sometimes...Had to show it off...
Male ego.. please adjust

The Mallu and the Oil bath

2006-12-25T22:49:00.000+05:30

This is a very personal experience that every marunaadan mallu will identify with i guess...and even others who have mallus as friends will identify
It was another one of those sick sundays when you were supposed to work as the client had dozed off the whole week and was reminded of deadlines on friday...After my usual sunday routine of the elaborate 45 minute bath, i manage to get to office only to be stared upon, scorned upon and a lot of hushed opinions flying behind my back...And thankfully a "friend" broke the suspense to me...how the hell do u walk around with oil on u..Yuck
Mallus everywhere are stereotyped with lotso oil , not that i am complaining...but then we take pride in our oil baths, an amost well laid out ritual...something that i had neglected during my hectic college years:-)... If you are reading this and are surprised that me of all people is writing this, then u definitely must be one of my unfortunate classmates, aware of my tendency to abhor contact with water during the 4 years in college..FYI... I have changed, as i have realised the magic that is the oil bath...The next paragraph is my tribute to this..
A normal sunday...sleep late...coffee and the hindu magazine...breakfast...and then trimming of the stubble and the nails and then..nice kaachciya velichenna ( heated cocunut oil for the uninitiated)....apply until it starts dripping on to ur forhead...a very liberal amount on the face..and then imagining a nice thai massage with some cute ladies applying oil on ur back...as u struggle to reach all the unreachable places, especially on the back...arms and then legs...walk around with arms spread (more like a weight lifter with a very prominent wing) as oiled skin on oiled skin is too "squishy"...hang around TV until someone shouts at u to stop making the floor slippery... Water ..lots of it...preferably a bit warm... then go into a long and laborious, process to remove all the oil that was painstakingly applied in the first place...an almost equally long period to dry up and the LUNCH....properly cooked in cocunut oil and then....hit the bed watching a sunday rerun and doze off...BLISS i tell u....
Any converts people???? :-)

Cut throat marketing !!!

2006-12-15T21:55:00.000+05:30

- Had been to Palakkad a week ago where still life seems to be chuggin along at a slightly faster pace than when i last left the place..This was one incident that made me realise that...A day at the Barber Shop (still not a saloon or a gent's beauty parlour)..Balan Brothers' Barber shop...Has been the same hole in the wall for as long as i can remember...and my memory of the place...a quick ushering in...radio/squeaky tape blaring...no questions asked...one size fits all cut that looks like a pot...5 rs...Done

I enter the shop all shabby and dishevelled..making eye contact with the barber and then taking my seat.."welcome sir"..i turn and look back at him....in a state of suspended disbelief...ok sir...so enthu venam??..i reply with "short, slightly mushroomish, no step"...he looks at me, my head from different angles and then feels the hair ....and an "mmmm" that sounded more like contemplation..."You have very nice thick hair"....on the mirror in front i can see a grin breaking out on my face...

the man gets on with the job....with the usual deft use of the scissors, precious bits of my mane tumbling down the "clean" cloth around my neck..." nannayittu nokkunnindu alle mudiye?"...again a small grin of acceptance on my face...He was now waxing eloquent on how thick it is...it can grow long without breakage and stuff...oil will help it grow....i am slightly on cloud nine and i am begining to lower my defences....and then ....he did it...."You will not become bald at all sar...."..working hard to suppress my smile...with a small blade on my hair, he starts "but u could actually use a good head massage"...got me thinking...an oil massage...it is only 250 rs...actually it is 300...but for you it is 250....and suddenly am brought back to earth with a crash....there isn't a hint of emotion in his eyes as he goes about his job...
all i can manage is a "anhaaaan"....quickly collecting my wits i evade that with a sneeze and a sniffle..."I had cold u know"...

A defeated look on his eyes....and that of a victor in my eye..he suddenly starts scratching my head....what is this...OMG u have dandrufff.....i am bewildered...u have lots of it...we will cure it once and for all..witha treatment...cold is not a problem....i am at wits end now...and suddenly start smiling....no money anna ....and that look on his face said it alll..

It kindo wanted to say "ethu alavalathikkum Flying machine jean idam...kali kaalam"...and in a jiffy after that i was done....only to realise that my head was looking like what else...a POT...
and did he push me out of the chair...??? it is a blur now....25 rs and Done...

i guess this is what they call cut throat marketing...

Another Chapter in the Life of a Software engineer

2006-12-05T22:48:00.001+05:30

UAT, deadlines, release, Timelines are all the stuff of nightmares for us unfortunate people..It was yet another of those damn nights...when nothing seemed to go right and the whole floor in the office was empty...the lone tubelight shining on me and my hapless neighbour as we slogged away to deliver...fixing... testing...fixing..Delivery done...QA testing begins....Time 11.00 in the night...Already 12.30 in the US....Onsite screaming...QA testing...nothing much else to do...ORKUT ............
Preparing for the Long haul and the night ahead...GO buy an instant cup noodle and a bottle of cold "Vennilla" flavoured milk from the canteen...Settle down into my chair..I log into the communities and start looking....in plain mallu speak...Vaay nottam....some interesting things people have got going in orkut...I am not speaking normal stuff....a "Jayalalitha profile"...a Karuananidhi profile...Karunanidhi asking for amma's friendship...but strangely both seem to have queer preferences..check out for urself..cant say more...without putting u off this blog for ever....
Religious communities..a lot of really flirtatious ladies....some too much for my liking...and slowly started looking up friends...friends of friendds...and so on and so forth and started leaving scraps....clearing the night was getting to me...left a lot of scraps in a short while and started getting responses ranging from "Hey sexy", "get lost" to "get a life"..and the response kept coming thru the next day...so had to be online all day....and a normal response from one of the addressees, had me pleasantly surprised....only short lived as after a couple of scraps the next day...she stopped altogethor...Zilch...no more...maybe i am not as suave and sophisticated as i try to be sometimes ...Sigh
The clock flies to 2.15 AM and QA has all but wound up and we decide to call it a day....A slight problem... my feet suddenly seem to be wavy....and the floor seems to be uneven...i steady myself with a cold splash to my face...and get on the bike....the cold breeze from the sea refreshes and i am cruising on the road...1 km from my house..and the desolate mile... I continue down the road and pass a couple of stray dogs who start chasing....A smile appears on my face as i imagine lissome babes not dogs chasing me...only for the slightest trace of the smile to be wiped off in a flash...
A good 100 metres ahead all i could see were lotso gleaming eyes glistening in my headlight beam....and i slow down and the mass orgy of Dogs on the road reveals itself.....i guess it is that time of the year that a dog doesnt need a calendar to tell (a mallu proverb).....The orgy is interupted and the canines r not clearly amused....i stop and survey...a mexican stand off if u can say so...I turn around only to have the chasers staring from afar.......The lesser of the evils....My brain cells firing left right and center....
Will I be able to turn the bike before the dogs get to me...will i be able to accelerate faster than the dogs.....where do i keep my legs...Dogs like to eat bones...i am bony...no I am slightly fat now...ok.....Who gets my personal fortune in case I dont survive.....Who will respond to my emails...What do i tell all my disappointed blog readers...and what is thaaat smellll.....What is that sound..........IT is suddenly so much more brighter......and what is that sound...I see the morbid fear that has over come the menace in the canine eyes...Maybe it is god coming to get me...Give me a painlesss death....but god's vehicle doesnt sound like a corporation garbage truck ....
I turn back and there i see, barely 100 meters behind me a beautiful garbage truck...fully loaded and stinking...in all its rusted glory...with the driver gesticulating at me....i move aside and let the chariot pass......The enemy rank is in disarray and using my slightly superior brain I mange to ride away to glory alongside the garbage truck...Not complaining about the stink one bit...
But those few minutes had given me one hell of an adrenaline rush, one that ensured that i was fresh as a daisy...not a hint of sleep...and thinking clearly ...clearer than in along time...A small incident that put things in perspective....

"Cleanliness is sometimes next only to godliness"

JARGON!!!

2006-11-30T23:37:00.001+05:30

A chapter in a software engineers life

A two month sabbatical was to have cured me from a lot of ailments, and i guess it did too....I am not hating my work.....Maybe i was not doing any.....My depression is more or less gone...In fact, I am on a high most of the time...No, I do not use pot...But there is one thing that seems to have gotten worse and that is my abhorrence of Management speak...JARGON!!!!

It is a phenomenon that you get to see more in the software industry...People trying to reinvent the wheel...Why use catchy phrases, when a simple word can do the same in a much more understated way..
In my managers words "It is all about perception matching".
"You mean satisfying...rite?"
"No....Perception matching..."
"oh ok!!" and a vigorous nod of the head.

The higher you go up the corporate ladder the amount of well dressed crap that goes around is humongous...sample this...
The best practices awards are coming up, why dont we pitch process evolution as a paradigm that has helped redefine the way offshoring has helped the client get more baing fozh the buck...open quotes in the air " Pezzh se" close quotes in air..vis-ahhh-veeee the competition.....and so on and so forth...Bewilderment...Brain cranking to decode....a smirk as the realisation dawns..."Bang for the buck","Per se", "Vis- a-vis"...all in a texan twang...and the speaker (originally from Madras) lost me...

This was one of the first things I heard as i was settling in to my seat on the first day after my vacation. And all I could manage to mutter was..
"mmm..can be done"....

Though felt like standing up and apploading the seamless way in which seemingly disconnected words formed apparently meaningful sentences...More of the same for a couple of more days and I decide to rate my tormentors on a scale of 1 to 5. This but then had to be based on a few normalized parameters that also took into consideration the innovation and the Out-of-box thinking that they brought to the job.

I set about formulating a methodology and the standardised unit that I arrived at was "Jar-in-Hundreds"...(subtle Pun intended)... Jarring Hundreds ...Get it?...No???...better stay away from the IT industry then..It measures the number of Jargons in every hundred words..(will patent this soon...so forget it)...
And i think i hear my manager calling me for a Re-org meeting to discuss specific niche' sets....so as i try and figure out what it all means and perfect my scoring system, let me leave you pondering on your career paths....

Ode to Madraaas....

2006-11-29T00:13:00.000+05:30

As I stood there in the dimly lit platform at K.R.Puram, at the fag end of a ligthning quick visit to Bangalore, I was left ruminating on something that came up once too often during my casual banter with friends - Chennai. It inevitably started with a comparison between the traffic in Chennai and Bangalore.....and quickly veered to the topic of weather, which everyone seems to hold against Chennai. Standing there, on that windy cold night, wearing a wind cheater and still shivering as the cold bit into my bones, through the non existent layers of fat, I couldnt help dreaming of sweating away to glory in Chennai.

And as the announcer blared that the special to Chennai was going to be further delayed, and with nothing much else to gawk at, I decide to look for some fodder for thought. I realised that every time Chennai came up for chat, I was prompt in its defence. This, despite me complaining all the while I was in Chennai. What was it that made Chennai. Especially for a person from outside like me, who had spent just 4 years of his life there...

My initial thoughts suggested that it had a lot to do with my small town upbringing in Palakkad. A place which hardly qualifies as a town. A meltpot of communities - Nairs, Menons, Christians and muslims, Chettiars and Nadars and of course the Pattars(the tam bram community), from which I hail. Contrary to expectation, the place is a picture of harmony and every stroll out of your house will be met with a gentle tilt of the head and sometimes the half uttered "Oo". A greeting, which when coupled with a few winks of the eye and the appropriate facial expression can convey a thousand thoughts. The whole place generally feels like your home.

This being the case, me accepting Bangalore in the remotest ways was out of the question. People often question my "stupidity" sometimes..Bangalore is "Hot" and "Happening" you know...My career could really take off too...but then it misses that one ingredient that i would luv to have in a place (irrespective of whether it is a city or a town)...an underlying rhythm. All I hear is the daily grind of a human mass racing against itself....

The rude fact that the train was slowly chugging in to the Majestic Chennai central, struck home fast....first through my nostrils, and then the excruciating pain as i tried to extricate my face from the rexin and sweat on my berth even at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning. Chennai is a lot more in your face i tell u..an experience for all the senses. The smell/stench of the cooum, the brash auto drivers, the majestic buildings from an era bygone,the extra large cut outs, the strong scent of Filter coffee in the morning, the very feeble sound of a carnatic compostion that u seem to hear no matter where you are. Have had people telling me that it is because i am comfortable with tamil...but then I am more comfy with malayalam but never did like Kochi much. Even had a sense of vulnerability while I was there..so language never was the problem I guess.

Despite being one of the biggest cities in India, there is something here that appeals to me ...the rhythm of this city...This is something that is very dicey to put in words. There are days when I get out of home while on my way to work, and there are times when i instinctively tilt my head to the right to the guy supplying drinking water to our house. To the retd. Collector of 80+ years who doesnt even know my name, despite staying above his house for more than a year, a gr8 man who unfailingly returns the complement with a generous "Good morning, young man". The kolams in front of houses, though sometimes right next to a big pile of garbage. An underlying serenity that is very unlike a big city...

The people here seem to have a sense of belonging which is largely amiss in Bangalore. Does it belong to the North indian, the kannadiga, the madrasi or the mallu...The city seems to be perpetually struggling to sort this out....Chennai unquestionably belongs to the Tamilian, but then it has been magnanimous enough to accomodate people from all walks in its fold. This has meant that every race has left its mark on the face of the city and continues to do so..

So what exactly is the rhythm of Chennai or is it madraass...for me It is characterised by a lot of vibrant notes, but set to the tune of people who at the end of day are happy going back home to catch the serial on SunTV, the Thayir saatham, looking forward to the next day - filter coffee, The hindu.. a partying scene that is conspicous by its absence, the vibrant cultural scene that sets many a wintery night alive, and a society that places the intellect above all..

Now, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else would I?

updates on updates!!!!

2006-11-27T05:32:00.000+05:30

- CAT is Done...now the long wait for the results...no more nails to bite..so moved on to better things

- Reported back for duty at work...but this being the festive season in the US of A ..not much work either...so relaxed...BTW blogs are enabled in office...so hoping to keep the creative juices flowing

- Enjoying my new found freedom by planning trips out of chennai every weekend...mmmm...

- Just back from a ligthning visit to blore..called up all my friends there...forgot to wish a friend at blore on her birthday....I AM THE SORRRRRRRRY........but still managed to get 4 scoops of icecream out of her..something inside seems to be stinging me now...i think it is indigestion :-)

- Have extracted promises from friends to keep reading my blog and LEAVE COMMENTS..
However boring and trivial the post might be...someone suggested that i write a program to automatically pile on the hits...which will save me from checking out the site every few minutes

- GYAN FYI - Only one hit from an IP is recorded every fifteen minutes, how many ever times u may login....trying to prove it wrong now

- Working overtime to revive my comatose creative cells and come up with fodder for thought...
suggestions are welcome...the trickier the better...subjects of social relevance and national importance will be given a miss......

- And the small matter of the missing Computer is still not recolved...looks like i might have to go to court after all...thinking of being my own lawyer.....(smirk on my face)

- Your truly also contibutes to a new and more slanderous blog called PAASHAANAM. Check it out at
http://paashaanam.blogspot.com

P.S:- Over the past two days something did strike me as blog worthy..so will put my thoughts online soon...Bloreans relax...no gossip will find its way here...."Hitler" are u happy now????

P.S. S :- For people tracking this blog for over a year, the roads in K.R.Puram have been improved and now look a bit like the Autobahn. Slush is nowhere to be seen, though the stink remains. Claims of speeds upto 60 KMPH were heard from residents around the area..

September october

2006-10-22T21:28:00.000+05:30

A general update on life.....

- A break from work and chennai since sept 22.

- Sept 16 - send my computer by courier to Kerala

- Landed in kerala on sept 23..Rains...mmm..so refreshing...2 days goofed away to glory..doing nothing..realisation dawns that i have to set out to tame the CAT..so pack my bags and push off to my grandparents' place..Comp not yet arrived

- 2 Hour bus journey-over potholes seperated by islands of TAR...leaky government bus...not so comfy seats..2 fat asses to my right on a seat for 3...sit on half an ass for half of the journey....Rains....and drinking a bottle of water before the journey was not such a good idea after all....Rains ...ouch....not comfortable at all.....end result...shoulder and neck pain..Courier guy causing a big pain in the ass...Comp not yet here

-prep starts off in earnest..no comp..no TV (my grandma chases me off from the TV room)..and my young cousin for some company...Rains...so good...go all the way to the GM of the courier company...verdict..Comp has been stolen....F#$K

- journey another 2 hours over smaller pieces of TAR ....a full blown sprained neck..doctor.. medications...allergic reactions...mouth ulcers...cant speak.... cant eat..only kanji vellam :-(

- 3 more days to go ...run out of dry clothes...Rains suck big time...Still cant eat..no power..so no studies :-)....MGR singing on my dad's transistor
"Nanmai undu nermai undu poru raja.."
"Neram varum kaalam varum poru raja.."
so uplifting.......

- Back in chennai....no rains all sticky...if only it rained in chennai...

P.S:- joined work...so nothing much else happening these days

What the organisation did to me..mmm..scary

2006-09-17T15:59:00.000+05:30

It was just another normal sunday...until now that is...a meeting over coffee with a friend from college, Divya, after 2 years can be such a refreshing thing..yes..but it can also leave u reflecting on what u were and what u have become ..can be scary too, as you are slowly realise that you are becoming something that u never thought u will and yet not even aware of these changes creeping in.
We were meeting after a good 2 years after college, and as conversations with friends go, this one too got off without any intros. Being one between me and a girl, it was sans the obscenities that are a given in guy talk... How i had become chubbier (finally :-)) ..what others were upto..and when it is clubbed with the cup of filter coffee, it does manage to create that illusion of a carefree world..only just so..
We talked about how we missed college, how we never seemed to hate mondays as much then. How the only couple we had in class were faring, who were getting married...and the little bloopers that happened with her/ with me..
The conversation freewheeled..After college she had managed to stick on to academics for 2 more years , but as fate would have it, she was destined to join the same software company(no names here people) that i was working for..and now that she has joined, it was my turn to ingrain the corporate culture into her. ..and i launched my by now well-rehearsed, monotone on work, pressure, boss, politics, promotion, CAT etc..
Having spent a year in Bangalore (P.S:- engineers from kerala went to chennai or bangalore) with other friends, she was echoing similar feelings that they had too..and a simple incident about one of our friends, rung home the simple truth..people have changed and i have too..This friend has always had to suffer people wishing her Bday on fools day though she was born the day before..In keeping with tradition, divya and others did the same, only to be taken aback by a really angry and upset voice at the other end of the phone, who abruptly cut the call...and come to think of it, the voice at the other end was one of the most carelessly carefree souls while in college..Things returned to normalcy as they always do, but then ...as divya sighed at the end of that story....How people change..sigh
True..very true....i reflected as i looked into my coffee cup. Everyone now had their own pressures, priorities...and now that i think of it, i had begun to sense this change in others last december during our annual getto at blore...only that i had failed to realise that i had changed too..and how??
well..my irreverence to life in general has all but gone..i am worried about where i will be ten years from now...how i have begun to analyse everyone around me, even my friends...how i have lost contact with all but a few of my friends..citing work as the excuse :-((..How i have not completed a single game on my comp after leaving college..this from a person who can drive a 911 in reverse all the way around monte carlo in NFS...Heck, i cant even remember where i put the AoE 3 DVD that i bought..and as i write this blog, how seriously i have begun to take myself..shit that is bad!!!
Whoa!!..and the organisation managed to do this to me in a mere 2 years..I already feel like the french fries that u get at pizza hut...exactly similar to one another, undistinguishable :-(
and as i sit contemplating my rapidly deteriorating sunday afternoon, the "Gods must be crazy" DVD gleams from my DVD collection..maybe it is divine intervention telling me that i rather try and rescue my Sunday while i wait for Arsenal to kick some Man U ass...
People enjoy ur sunday, movie and football..lemme go check out how crazy the gods can get after all..or may be the gods are not crazy after all...what say people??

Super Super Sunday - Mighty gunners will prevail

2006-09-16T09:07:00.000+05:30

Start spreading the news, we're playing today
We'll always be a part of it - Arsenal, Arsenal
These red and white shoes, are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it - through Arsenal
We always wake up in an Arsenal wonderland
And find we're king of the hill, top of the heap, A number one!

These second-rate teams, are melting away
They just ain't got the heart for it, at Arsenal
If we can win it there, we'll win it anywhere

Chickflicks have cometh to Kollywood..SIGH

2006-09-10T19:58:00.000+05:30

A perfectly good start to a weekend..lazing around in the bed till 9 and then getting up to a steaming cuppa...lounging around till noon and then head off to catch the matinee at sathyam...ahh the good life..
The movie as with all movies these days was HYPED up a good 2 months before its release and with ARR lending credentials, things did look promising.If you are one of the few poor souls reading my blog, then you will do well to read through this one...This is my firt attempt at a Movie review and it is sad that i have to RIP it apart. ..Jillunu oru kaadhal (or is it Sillunu oru....nah!!! who cares)
The movie starts with ample promise with the beauty of amba samudram captured with almost as much finesse as in Roja and sadly , that was the last we saw of the promise..a point to be noted was that you liking/disliking, rather loving/hating this movie is largely based on your gender. A song and dance routine, a wedding and the story(LMAO) fasttracks to mumbai 6 years hence..a happy family Surya, Jyothika and the lil girl you see in all those ads...i remember her from that asian paints ..cutting, shutting ad with 2 kids. Life in the movie goes on amid all the oohs and aahs from the females sitting in front...with the typical "oh, Surya looks so cute noo?"...ada ththu..and our hero gets a chance to fly to newyork..the camera in the meanwhile seems to be afflicted with a mix of parkison's and dyslexia..totally inappropriate wide angle shots and shaky, blurred images of Surya more reminiscent of him in Gajini.
Jyothika peeps into his old diary and finds out that there is a dark secret behind him...INTERVAL..and thank god for that...and that will be the last you see of a hoarse and loud vadivelu in the movie...thank god for that too
Flashbaaaak....and now the movie gets into Chick flick mode big time....hero is a big shot in college...bashes up bhoomika "simply so cute" :-) chawla's boy friend .she enters the scene and keeps looking longigly at surya as she drags the good for nothing BF away.
Surya looks at her..she looks at him...sigh...the girls next to me were at the edge of their seats..wow soo romantic (LMAO..).the looking phase goes on for a while as they manage to advertise TVS star City, TVS apache and a green coloured beer ..
the guy rips the girls clothes as he tries to save her from a speeding truck and she runs away crying...more ads for the beer and star city...and finally the hero manages to confront her..and yes it is raining in the background.amid shivering and some superb dialogue delivery hero manages to explain and finally ask her if she is angry...and hang on ..if ever there was an award for the corniest dialogue this had to be it.."Yes, i am angry at you 'cause the body that only u were supposed to see, you showed to the world.."..WHOA...that was a whack right between the legs..the guys behind me took this as sign of things to come and started off on their wisecracks...absolutely hilarious..couldnt thank them as they left before the movie finished...your work is appreciated guys.
Hero romances girl, more ads, a song and they decided to get married...the heroine's father, the MP (he had to be a big shot guys)...is not able to stop the marriage but separates them and packs off the heroine to god knows where and hero to the hospital....Hero recovers..hero's uncle becomes crippled and on his deathbed asks him to marry jyothika..What ye story ma....cut to present day
hero comes back..hero puzzled?? jyothika totally avoids him...and after some more ads for maruthi swift..the little girl asks daddy..for effect read as a 5 year old would "Daddy, daddy..do u luv us...mummy wants to know.."..puzzled look on heros face.."mummykku neenga luv pannarengala nu doubt ..yenakku neenga yevalo luv panareenga nu doubt" and i felt like hero was going to whip out a packet of horlicks..and say.."naan ongale romba luv pannaren ..athunaaala than naan horlicks vaangi tharen.."..thank fully he doesnt. he whips out his diary, one he has started writing again in new york after 6 years...penned a poem .."newyork nagaram..."..lovely song...beautiful europe (i thoought it was supposed to be in new york..oh shoot)..and more of parkinsons on screen.
jo goes in search of ishu (yes i just remembered that name) and jo is kundavi folks..what a timing ishu is coming back from australia to see her almost dead mom the next day...WHOA..ishu is now not meek and demure...she is hot and aggressive...kundavi meets ishu and introduces as gautham's wife...and ishu retorts back with then who am I..aboslutely nail biting stuff...SIC
jo arranges for ishu to spend one day with gautham (oh yeah i forgot to tell u y...it was 'cause hero had written in his diary that one day with ishu would be like one yugam for him...WTF)..ishu in mumbai...hero's apartment...hero stunned ...i think at the sexy chick standing outside his door and then blabbers for a few minutes and has an intense emotional dialogue with jill(ah yes that was how the hero calls kundhavi)..and jill says..i didnt marry you..i married u, ur hopes, ur desires...again WTF...a collective groan in the theatre..and jill leaves the place ..leaving it all open for the ex-lovers...twinkling in my eye now as i expect some action...and sadly nothing...jill dreams about the possibilities , but before they get interesting...she rushes back home..only to see hubby staring out of the balcony...jill reads letter from ishu...saying how much gautham spoke of kundavi..etc etc...and finally signs off with she wanting to be kundavi in next genmam...yes end of story.. what no???...jill wants to meet ishu...asks hero for the same..and hero points at the flight taking off in the night sky...what ye timing ma..now it is end of story..yes..thank u very much..
and the girl next to me is crying...lady please move your ass...i am crying tooo and i want to get away from here...go home and have a bath....i managed to crack one secret though..girls and guys, who had come with their GFs seemed to luv the movie...i am sure these guys are acting up to appease their GFs..people lemme tell u..i am not an MCP..atleast i do not consider myself as one..and i do like the occasional ones...like notting hill..all said and done, the chick flick effect that these graduate directors are bringing in to kolly wood is definitely not my cup of tea.....i am writing this a good one day later and hence the toned down language..and if you are still reading this...i consider this my responsibility as an indian citizen to strongly advice u to approach at your own risk...thank u..jai hind..vande maataram...

SPEED!!!

2006-09-08T21:02:00.000+05:30

What is it with man and his need to go fast? the fastest mile, the fastest car, the fastest whatever..I've been trying to figure this out for a long time. What possibly could speed offer that man is willing to pay the ultimate prize for it. As for me, it has been a fascinating journey thus far. Well, Don't u take me for a hardcore racer. This piece of writing, to put it in a Gandhian way, is the beginning of "My Experiments with speed".
It all started with my first bicycle. A BSA champ, blue in frame, with ample chrome glinting, it could set any child's heart on fire. A lot of stunts, a broken toe-nail, a stitch in the head, a broken frame and a near-death experience later, it was time to move onto better things. My BSA-SLR ;-)
A really sad state of affairs for the next few years until i moved to chennai and then the top gear. I rediscovered speed so to speak.A desolate 1 kilometer stretch of open tarmac meant i touched max speeds that my legs could support. The highlight
undoubtedly was me learning to drift a cycle sideways. Making it a point to always screetch to a halt. A really burnt rear tyre was my proud trophy at the end of two years. Oh, i almost forgot to mention, i managed to bang into an auto on my sister's TVS champ.Yes, back then the moped was the fastest thing on two wheels that i could lay my hands on. Guess, the seeds were sown way back then
A long 4 years in college without my own set of wheels meant, i was cooling my heels. But then it was a good time to get my basics right and fall in love with the Yam and that technological wonder called the two stroke engine. Four strokes can get u from A to B, But 2 strokes, now that is what u call a real piece of work. They could sieze up if the oil was not right. U had to choke it, kick it till
ur legs hurt - to start it up. and they drank petrol by the gallons. It was like the machine had a personality of its own. Mind u no two machines were similar, each had its quirks and the acquaintance was a gradual process. But when a 2S gets going, boy does it get going.That wonderful rush from ur feet up as u rapidly shift gears, leaving a huge pail of smoke on all the 4 strokes trailing behind.
Back to chennai and i still did not have my own set of wheels. But the fact that my friend bought a Yam albeit a 4S, was consolation enough.A refreshing trip to Pondy on the bike had really rekindled that spirit in me.
I had made a promise to myself, that my first bike would be an RX preferably a 5 speed. A painfully long 1 and a half year long wait, and i found my prefect machine a black RX135. After the initial touch up and the getting-to-know-each other phase, it was time to let myself go. It was back to the proving grounds for me...the same desolate mile..
That 1 minute run on a cold night on the yam will forever be etched in me. Just to get my blood running i started off raising the throttle till the whining engine became a pain on the ear. Pulled back on the clutch and into first gear and i let go...Exhileration....back off to avoid a wheelie and then into second...and my heart was pumping blood into my brain like there was no tomorrow..and onto third...and i was already doing 50. my hands began gripping the handles tighter for dear life. the whiplash was tremendous and i was already pushed a few good inches behind in my seat 70..75....the noise was ear splitting. People were pointing and shouting at me i think, but it was all a mere blur for me..and into 4th...the engine now calming down to a steadier drone which was slowly being smothered by the gushing wind in my ears. 80..85..90..92..95...98....i could feel the machine itching to go faster,but the distant streetlight on the corner rushing up on me faster than ever, and, with the exhileration being taken over by a morbid fear, my actions
ceased to be wholly mine. I began noticing strange things around me now. It was like the bike was on cruise control and i had all the time in the world to enjoy
the world around. Strangely though, at these speeds, with your eyes watering, there seems to be no motion happening around. people standing still while in motion.
My heart was pulling hard on the throttle, while my brain was taking my hands off it...a flash in the corner of my eye, a headlight or a flickering street lamp, maybe and i was out of the trance. Hard on the brakes, wheels locking up, Brakes let go...hard on the brakes again..burning rubber and the vehicle is now sideways. Hard on the front brakes let go of the back and the vehicle corrects itself.down shift to 3rd and a semblance of control. Both the brakes again and i go sideways into the corner. Throttle and the vehicle straightens up. ...PHEW..Sweating on a cold night in chennai.
i still wonder why i did that on that day..Maybe i will never do it again..Maybe..but then one thing is for sure..I have begun to understand the machinations of SPEED.....

Falling in love all over again

2006-09-03T20:52:00.000+05:30

With all the forwards wishing me onam and the photos of celebrations in infy, celebrations at TVM etc etc..it was time to take a walk down nostalgia road.
Sitting here in hot and sweltering Chennai, it is easy to figure out the things that ive been missing...Things that were taken for granted while i was back home in God's own country

You had something to look forward to everyday as u woke up...The possibilty that the newspapers could be screaming with news of a flash bandh/Strike/Hartal was high. A strike which transalated into another day of gaming/loitering/just aout anything. It was followed with the usual comments of this being Dog's own country rather. Chennai sucks i tell you when it comes to striking...Even Barath Bandh's don't seem to have an effect :-(
Every event being celebrated around you with a copious amount of booze...people by copious i mean realllllly copious..It was fun to see friends, people familiar and not so familiar, getting philosophical or making complete fools of themselves, while u stood by as a good friend/ innocent bystander :-)
The women all dressed up in "set-um Mundum"...mulla poo in their oiled hairs..dressing up the nadumuttam with huge pookalams...mmmm
The comfort of a double mundu...worn fully as a sign of respect...folded at the knees (this is the best i could conjure up for madakki kettal) for that added comfort/ thara effect ;-)
The land covered in one large swathe of green...a sign of the hidden fertility brought forth by the all cleansing monsoon...
The pot holed roads and the leaking government buses literally flying over them...
The manorama..the yellowest of all papers..and the mathrubhumi...competing for that spot time and again
The red that punctuates all that greenery...
Life which seems to be going nowhere in a hurry...mmmmm...Kerala you are missed...
Happy Onam people...let the festive spirit flow (Pun intended) ;-)

The lady at the beach

2006-08-27T21:30:00.000+05:30

I have made this more of a habit lately....play (cricket) my heart out over saturday...catcha movie or something...crash at home late in the night and carry the mood over onto sunday...and then get panicky by the time it is 3...so get on my bike go over to a friend's place pull him out of bed and drag him for a cuppa at murugan's idli kadai..and then go gawking at beasant nagar beach nearby..the satisfaction of wasting a good one hour and then onto another friends' place...one who is on the same path to glory as me....and then onto thiruvanmiyur beach :-)..for some more gawking...and generally cursing some people in our lives....and then push off home for some good home made rasam chaadam and vazhakka mazhukkupuratti...CRASH!!
This week was no different..for the fourth consecutive week...but then some thing interesting happened on the beach..not beasant nagar, there was the usual hip hop crowd at barista's the families on the beach, lotso cops, and of course couples cosying around without a care in the world. It was Thiruvanmiyur were the action was.
The movie Garden state was on star in the afternoon...a movie that glorifies slacking off..one that questions the basic purpose of achievement....the central theme being "lemme be...what is the rush people"...it was like manna from heaven ...but only as long as the movie lasted..
The titles were hardly on ...and my mind already started playing the usual tricks...tricks which have become agonisingly more frequent...I have managed to find solace in the beach..when alone even with company around...It is mostly yakking that goes on between the 3 of us..nobody even remembers what anyone says...everyone talking as though on some sort of auto cruise mode..all the while lost in their own worlds...i was deeply into one...as the movie went ...exploring the infinite abyss..with the hauting sounds from Simon and Garfunkel chiming away in the background..
Dusk had given way to the night, but the beach was well lit by the tall neon lamps..the waterfront was dark though..only the reflection from the lights from afar...i was sitting with my legs folded..knees upward..and my hands holding them tight...my whole body in some sort of a shell...like u subconciously do when u feel sad/ when u r in deep thought/ or just for the heck of it...
i was scanning the waves to my left for some time and then slowly turned to look straight ahead...the waves were lapping rhythmically to the sounds of laughter from a happy family ...the scent of camphor burning near a clay ganesha...and to gently shake me out of my stupor a silhouette appeared...i couldnt see her face...only a slim pavadai and dhaavani... flutterng in the breeze...of all the open spaces in the beach, i will never know why she chose to stay right in front of me...gently letting the water catch up to her toes....the crimson pavadai getting wet all the time ...a lil shift to the right and the added light shows the golden mango coloured blouse and the matching paavadai neatly tucked up in the tummy.
As she ran back to wherever she came from...i feel a strange surrealism around me...a smile on my face even.. i don't know if my friends even noticed it..
she comes right back in front of my as i am back to staring at the water...her back turned to me still...here torso a mere silhouette but the paavadai lifted up gently till the knees..the reflections from the water revealing the most beautiful pair of legs that i have laid eyes upon...outside of monica bellucci that is..
a lil more into the water this time and the added mystery of the water covering her legs fully and then revealing those baby soft calves as it went back..i don't really know for how long i was staring....or was it just staring???
she just stood there for what was an eternity and i could feel the sand being pulled away from under her feet..sand slowly covering here toes as she sunk in one little step at a time....the time and the light adding up to create the perfect moment...a fleeting moment that ended with my friend running up closer to the water front to catch better look..
I do not know how long the moment was..a minute...fifteen maybe....but that was arguably one of the most profound moments that i can remember in a long time...compares closely with the funeral in american beauty...
i never managed to see her face...only those perfect legs...i do not regret it though...probably she never realised what she had just been part of...was it surrealism or a plane sensual moment..i do not know...maybe it is just my horny mallu mindset that has been seasoned by the craft of a few great artistic filmmakers..i do not care...my only regret though..if only i had my digital SLR that i had planned to buy long ago

Me, Myself and the dumbbell -Part 1

2006-08-02T22:16:00.000+05:30

Well, i know this is gonna be a big surprise to the few people who still do not know this...in one cold wintery morning in chennai, i along with Anil and vimal, decided to enroll into a gym....(continue once u have stopped laughing)
It has been a roller coaster ride so far..and for people who want to know whether it did me any good, u will have to read thru this blog :-)
The heady feeling from a couple of months salary in the bank meant that the neighbourhood gym was just not good enough for us. It had to be mmm..i might be sued for this...on second thoughts let it stay as a gym that gets promoted by the software company where i work....It is a swanky place..with sauna, steam, massage, a gym floor ,mean machines, sculpted instructors(yes there were lady instructors too)..
I was on a more rigourous weight gain program (more pricey) and day one meant with my instructor measuring and then setting targets for me..giving me a motivational speech..and then taking the wind out of me with two huge pats on my back...cough..cough..."we start tomorrow ..buddy"..GULP..
i sneak into the gym the next day..getting up early(it was wierd)..and into thru the doors to heaven i walked...I sense a sudden calm over the gym floor...the music is still blaring but when you are standing in the middle of a hall and you have atleast 20 people stare at you ...u do feel a strange silence..ur brain is frozen..u do not hear anything...a fleeting moment during which the gym stops..
and then ..."Kiran, Kiran...whack...cough sputter!!!" that was my gym instructor giving his intro...with what else a pat in the back.
Now a brief intro with the machines...and it went like "half seated bench press..full seated thigh curl (sounded painful)...full chested shoulder stretch.."...these were duly written into my regimen card (cool,,i have a gym card now)..
I was already sweating now..a few intros more and my tounge would have popped out...and i jokingly mention the same to the instructor...And am frowned upon with a real cold nosed stare .."ok!!! wont joke in the gym sir!!!"
It drags on for i dont know how much more time. But i manage to sleep walk thru it all, just the same...
and the end of the beginning is signalled with a whack on my back (hence forth referred to as (W.O.M.B) )...
the instructor growls "Kiran!!!U r now a body builder"...W.T.F..i bet the bugger would have had the best laugh in years on me...dont worry people he who laughs last has the best laugh...
let us c what the morrow holds..GULP

Eureka!!!!

2006-07-26T16:53:00.000+05:30

Having taken a day off work for reasons unknown to me even, i sit and struggle to kill time. opening every folder in my comp i come across a whole lot of photos all taking me down wonderful times...but then one picture, a series rather caught my attention among the rest..
It had been there all long, but seeing it now, gave it a whole new meaning..
It was taken during Vishu...
We were enjoying it with crackers - me, my family, my cousins includin my lil cousin sister - all of five years old..The initial snaps had her clapping in glee to all the sparklers, the flower pots et all...and then i offered her a lit sparkler..
and the transformation was instant. The next snap showed her covering behind her mom, screaming away at the nearest sight of me
This lasted for a couple of snaps...a few more later and seeing her brother do the crackers with ease, she now wanted to try some, albeit from a small corner of her mind . Jealousy a.k.a sibling rivalry can sometimes be such a motivating thing :-)
The next few shots had her still covering behind her mom, but looking at me thru the corner of her eye, with longing, with anticipation...expecting maybe that i will offer it to her again...but then, i was too immersed in the sound and light around me, to notice all this. Unbeknown to me, unbeknown to her ...every lil iota of emotion floating around was getting stored in a bit somewhere in the depths of the digital camera.
the show was almost nearing its end. I was lighting the final set of cracklers and then she did it, she came rushing at me and took hold my hand, the hand that was hodling the sparkler. Surprised by the suddenness of the move i drop the unlit crackler on the floor.
And now it all comes flooding back to me. I still remember turning swiftly with the sole purpose of admonishing her..and there she stood, head bowed, hand stretched out and uttered 2 words "anna, enakku"..having seen her for 5 years, i do know fully well, how much of a drama queen she can be, but then i am too surprised by the sudden turn of events that i barely squeal.
Picking up the sparkler i proceed to light it, all the while making sure that my pose was just right for the camera. In all the earlier snaps, the subject of this blog was never in the frame. It was always someone else lighting a flower pot, or setting of a cracker. But this time around, i made sure that was not the case, and the difference was there to see. Me lighting a candle. me turning sround in style. Me handing it over to my cousin. All the while grinning like a page 3 glitterati high on something.
But there she was, totally cut off from it all. Concentrating only on the sparkler in my hand. Slowly stretching her right hand out, with the left hand on her ear and head tilted to the left. i let go of the sprakler and the next few seconds/snaps made me realise why pictures do speak a thousand words.
The sparkler was long and was chattering away gloriously and her face showed fear. Fear of the unknown. Trepidation even.
And as the sparks inched closer it grew more visible with the deepening furrows on her face. Halfway through, she realised that she might win the battle after all, and relaxed her face a bit. We are providing running commentary in the background, but are pretty much sure that she heard none of it.
The sparklers are into the home stretch now and the hints of a killer smile appear. The smile grows wilder and wider every nano second. The final embers in the sparkler see her looking around at all of us with that triumphant look in her face and as the sparkler dies she throws it in one casual fling, right back over her shoulder. Signalling victory in battle. She turns around and then rushes back into the house feet thumping on the ground, imitating a horse all the way. Running to tell her mom.
I wondered why this was such a big thing to the kid. Why the entire gamut of emotions had rushed through her in that brief period. She was doing something for the first time in her life. She was conquering her fear of long..fear that she has carried for the brief period she has been on this earth. And then proving to herself and all others that she was no less than her brother.....

P.S:- Stopping here as i dont want this to be a lesson with a moral at the end of the story, another to be added to that irritating chicken book series

The experience!!

2006-07-16T22:51:00.000+05:30

The morning dawned and in true Indian spirit the people assembled by the poolside for the trek at 8.00. a good hour and a half late...the next 2 hours was to some the best experiences in their life (atleast that is what they told me). For me it was a rekindling of the spirit that my forester grandpa had instilled in me.
The forest and the orange county estate were not that different in the morning dew, only the fencing demarcating the boundary of the dubare forest. We made our way to the forest and was the estate slowly stirring into life, with ladies under plastic sheets picking their way thru the coffee plants.
The trek threw up something new at every turn, a gnarled tree that resembled a python wapped around a man, a spooky bamboo grove, a steep ravine thru which we were to climb down and then climb up on the other side, leeches that sucked the blood of a few lucky people. and then the most majestic of all..the kaveri
This is what surrealism is all about, u walk down a jungle not knowing what lay ahead, and then out of nowhere u see the mighty kaveri in spate, roaring thru the jungle, the morning sun shining on it. It does make one philosophical. and u realise the insignificance of human existence, your troubles, egos, ur desires..how they all pale when compared with the underlying rhythm that nature seems to have, u r but a mere spec on this earth, millions of which have come and gone before..
Everybody was silent on the walk back, maybe too overawed by nature or then by the hunger pangs in their stomachs. The rain was giving us company all along, as was our guide ganesan's singing. Rajkumar numbers and kodagan tribal songs...never made head or tail of it, but nonetheless they fitted the mood to a T.
The sigh of breakfast laid out by the poolside, all 8 different varities of it meant that people set aside their civility, and attacked the food with the dirt from the jungle all over them. As for me, the thayir saatham guy that i was, it was idli and sambhar for me.. Soft idlies, vada and hot onion sambhar...never realised that these could ever be so tasty..
A little rest and then it was lunch, Leeches still popping up from people after they had had their fill.
The journey back began and with the rain splashin on the windows, everyone gently drifted into sleep, the rocking bus more like a cradle this time around. The return journey was more sedate, people receding into the comfort of their friends circles. But then chatting away still like there was no tomorrow. made me realise how u could be sitting next to someone for a whole year and still manage to share in a day what you couldnt in a year. and as the chatter in the train continues, i managed to hit the bed to get some shut eye. Too tired to think of the drudgery ahead
Awawken next day, groggy headed and my face sticking to the rexin of the railway birth, hitting home the fact that chennai was here.. "Chennai central...parrrr...aaapka swagat hain :-(( "

The journey!!

2006-07-16T22:17:00.000+05:30

The train left Chennai and everyone seemed to be a different person on it...sans their emotional baggages, gleeful and without a care in the world. and for a change i myself felt a lot lighter in a long time (not physically i mean).
There seemed to be unbounded energy and no one was in any hurry to hit the bed, though authorities wanted them to.. Railway police can be bought off with a bribe, but then what do u do with..mm well let me stop at that..people slept for hardly a couple of hours, and yet were fresh as daisies in the morning, the morning chill doing a refreshing job. a quick breakfast and a brief interlude in mysore as we switched modes of transport..we were off again. ...Not a sign of the rain that was promised.
The vehicles tottered over the roads and were making slow progress when the rain suddenly came down in a delightful roar setting the mood for the day ahead. Winding through a big carpet of greenery we managed to reach the resort a good hour late. The journey had not taken its toll on anyone. The sight of a small cottage which was the reception was definitely not what we expected for a resort that had 5 stars going for it. all we could see from there being a small forest that was oozing the scent of the monsoon all over.
The small buggies which were there to cart the guests to their lodgings, gave a small hint of the vastness of the place. stepping out of the reception we walked down to the "cottage". And the only thought that was going thru me was "if this is the cottage then what would the presidential villa be like..."open mouthed anticipation".."
a quick, hot spicy lunch and we were off on a tour of the resorts coffee plantations...basically just a walk everybody huddling under umbrellas or their windcheaters and chatting away to glory with their friends and then somebody said it.."already i think this is worth the 2000 rs that i gave, and gave me a pat on the back"... too much on a high to think straight, the weight of the expectation when u do something to please 60 people was now gone.
the rain was now pouring in the forest and yet no one was complaining and something told me no one will. eveyone was drenched from head to toe, but were eagerly looking for more, as we had a hot cuppa of coorgi coffee by the pool side restaurant.
The beauty of the trip lay in the lack of itinerary, which actually was a gaffe on my part. People were free to do what they wanted for the evening.. cycling, games, or just plain old loitering. a cricket bat and ball materialised out of nowhere and we were off to the banks of the kaveri as the guide led us to a meadow where we could play.
I was a bit behind and was forutnate enough to see that sight. as we turned a corner there it lay, spread out in all its lushness and greenery the meadow that i am sure everyone dreams of just lying on with their loved ones by their side, gazing at the stars with a gentle gurgling of water by the side. As i stood there dazed, the guys in front of me broke ranks and just ran....like children rush out of their classed to the play ground during recess , some just running with no real purpose, someone thjrowing the ball high in the air and running behind another waving the bat around his headand prancing like a horse..that image for me was the defining moment of the trip by far..a thrilling cricket match in the meadow till it grew real dark, a few of the ladies strolling by with the odd comments and the day was done. Darkness and the stage was set for a different kind of fun..Everyone strolled in to the poolside for the 7.30 bonfire by 8.30, the usual intros and the light hearted ragging later, people tucked in to their dinners and were off, into their rooms for the long night ahead. Though everybody was tired, from what i gathered, nobody really slept that night too. Every room had its share of stories to tell. Sadly not mine cause all i remember was dozing within seconds of switching on the TV to watch formula 1. and then shouting at someone in my sleep over the phone, this particular person wanting me to arrange shoes at 12.00 in the night for the trekking that was scheduled the next day...DUH!!!

Orange county!!!

2006-07-16T21:53:00.000+05:30

P.S:- This is intended as an update on the past few months in life...with too much of the focus being on work (cause that is all that has been happening)...also for the benefit of the wonderful friends that i have made in the small period that i have been here.. Names have been dropped to prevent future blood-letting..
This was a trip that was to have happened a good month ago, when the summer was at its peak in chennai....all the browsing and the online reviews had created visions in my mind of that perfect happy place of my dreams....I was to have organised it too, as it was my suggestion in the first place, but then my disappointments at work meant that i was to spend a good amount of time sulking and eventually backing out..so May came and went and then june seemed set to do the same.
Chennai was reeling under the sun and "PF-ians" under work. The signs of a burnout where everywhere..people who took some responsibility to their work were all stressed out and no respite was in sight...and the people who were supposed to take note were tucked away in their cabins and their dawn to dusk routine.."SULK"...
And then it happened ..the rain in chennai which rekindled that spirit in me..the travel junkie that i was..initially thinking of making a private trip with a few friends, only to be stopped by the prohibitive cost of the resort..for the uninitiated a cottage costs RS.9000 for a day and night...this was were the economies of scale reared its head...I had promised myself that i will never organise a massive trip again, least of it for this project...but then again, Orange county was too good a place to let my cut-out sized ego come in the way...and so here i was trying to get the thing started again...After some heavy selling of the idea, a decent number managed to turn up a good 57 out of 120. Very poor compared to the previous trip to Munnar....the team wanted to send a message and in the few conversations that i had can assure that it did find the person and touch a real raw nerve (a sadistic grin on the face)...the days moved quickly and there we were a motley bunch at Chennai central on the night of the 1st of July

Red earth and pouring rain!!!

2006-07-04T21:48:00.000+05:30

Life has been meandering along for the past month and a half.desperately trying to bring a semblance of routine into my life, circumstances not letting me succeed (a.k.a worldcup football) ...June thus aptly summed up as one long sleepless month.
Nothing much happening at work either...moved to a god forsaken location within chennai,with a totally indifferent "You know who" to report to, it was beginning to look like i was staring at a deep dark bottomless pit.
My body and soul were crying out for a break..and as i sat in the balcony of my house counting recent dissapointments and hammering away for a way out....it happened....a cold little drop on my brow..do i dare hope ...Rain???...Nah!!!!
In chennai ..Nahh!!! a cool breeze then brought with it first the scent of the cooum and then that magical scent of pouring rain on red hot earth....reigniting a passion that i thought was long gone...buried deep under the baggage from the past two years..a job, responsibilities..living disciplined
It has never ceased to amaze me ..how despite being from kerala i manage to get so worked up about the rains. I don't remember being like this when i was in school..rather i was more like johny in that stupid old rhyme..hating every bit of it..
Peer pressure, the expectations that i had created for myself and my pursuit of what i thought would be best for me took me out of palakkad and onto one of the blue blooded schools in chennai. Dust, grime and the heat had become second nature. The only good that ever came out of it being my partially neutralised mallu accent and outlook..
Luckily for me i never did make it in the big city, dejected and sitting at home..my only company being the monsoon raging away in all its glory...that was to be the defining period in my life..if there ever has been one.
There is the kiran before and after...a snobby,serious, back stabbing go-getter to a self deprecating, friendly, slacker...family thinks otherwise though. and still has very high plans for me...if only they realise what i planned to do with my life (smirk on the face)
These and a flood of other thoughts came and then blurred away as i drifted into sleep...beautiful images of coorg that was going to clear the clutter in my brain

Arsenal !!!! - Read if u wanna go ahead and ruin ur day

2006-05-22T23:21:00.000+05:30

This is for the die hard football fanatic..an arsenal fan..and definitely not recommended for people who even remotely like barca. This piece is a pure let out for my frustration and agony..agony that began with that stinking victory for barca, a personal tragedy and a system for rewarding merit at work, that resembles a govt job more and more.
The setting was just perfect. Middle of the Week, middle of the month. and going by past record should have been able to get out of office by midnight. Hoping against hope i had gotten a brand new set-top box(which by the way managed to make me a cool 4000 bucks lighter) at home. and I did manage to surprise my mom by coming home at 10.00. all ready set and go..
There can only be one clear favourite..Arsenal. But i had nothing against barcelona..not until that fateful 18th minute. The game had begun in right earnest and things were looking good with a few thumping srikes on the barca post. The catalans were looking shabby and with the gunners blazing, my 4000 rupees seemed to be well spent. Eto'o was no where to be seen and neither was ronaldinho. little did i know what the wily eto'o was scheming for..a pass that bounced off as in a pin ball machine, etoo racing forward ...lehmann... and etoo dives, the ball slotted in by Guily.
A goal..quickly regaining composure what is a goal for arsenal a ball at the feet of henry???..but it was not meant to be ..an imbecile for a referee and the goal is disallowed i rejoice a bit more..but what the ref does next, stunned the daylight out of the contest...as the commentator in his lovable Irish twang spat out "It is ruuubbish..this guuy doesnt know what e is doing".
The spectacle, that a hundred thousand fans at the stadium and millions worlwide had come to expect, was dead. Destiny didn't have even a decent fare well for Pires. and that set the tone for things to come. Barca, u expected us to turn over and play dead, aye???
The contest dragged on and never did arsenal show the lack of a man..after all Henry is like two. A few volleys later, a set piece and the gentlest of a goal from Sol campbell. the stadium was going bonkers, the "under dogs",the "david"..u can call them whatever were winning after all. again the commentator "they are voolnurable". yeah my friend u r right barca is vulnerable.
The first half seemed to be just another day in the park for the gunners, even a man down. The second half and status quid pro quo. The spaniards were looking edgy and the substitutions began. and somewhere down the line they managed to get it right with larssen who managed to induce A semblance of order into the catalan gameplay.
Minute 70. The fatigue began to show on the heroes of the day, but were not going down yet. The gut wrencing feel of the inevitable however was omnipotent though. the gunners fabled defence was now withering ever so slightly. Reminding me of the Old man and the sea. The catalan sharks were attacking in waves and it was not football anymore. But it all broke down one wretched moment, when etoo was on the right side of the ball and the linesman was sleeping. An offside goal which the "champions" celebrated. In the words of the commentator " there is a sense of injustice in the air". Arsenal had hope till then. But that pin prick through the heart brought it all down and the inevitable happened.
But in a way it all was for a little good. Henry stays back at arsenal, I no longer like barca or ronaldinho. and we won more fans than them. Hope!!!!

The last day!!!!

2006-05-12T23:26:00.000+05:30

A hectic month in the office. Chennai scorching more than ever. Sleep deprivation. Nothing much to write home about. Amidst all this , somewhere down the line, i hit "Z" on my keyboard and it appeared in the browser adress box. Purely unintentional. And then something happened, a really trivial thing on a normal day,. but not today. the toolbar prompts http;\\Zimblyboring.blogspot.com...
with work taking up my mind space and orkut taking up my freetime, my lil blog had slowly started gathering moss in some god forsaken place in some google server somewhere. I look back on the posts that i had written so sincerely and it all came flooding back. The Pondy trip and the way i had left it hanging in the balance. come to think of it, i really had a lot to write home about, but then anything new would require closure to the past and so here goes the final chapter in the Pondy saga.
I still remember clearly the glaring light that shone through the window, but me blinking in the bed wondering why i was still feeling cold. I gather myself and the chores pass of in a haze. the climb down to the reception quickly brings me back to my senses. We check out of the hotel and on our way ask for the restaurant, only to be shown to a hole in the wall behind the reception. Nevertheless, we settle down and ask for the menu. Everyone really hungry now. Time 10.00 - and i was thinking "so much for sunrises". We open the menu only to be greeted by illustrious names like "Black label", "Johny Walker" etc etc..NAh!!not the time ..not the place.
Out on the road, under the glaring sun, on empty stomach. we ride around for a while before stumbling upon a eatery. As the ad goes "Thodi si pet pooja..kahin bhi kabhi bhi". Breakfast done. i chart the route for the day. Nothing too demanding, a trip to the Chunnambar river on the cuddalore road. With me playing navigator, it is not long before we find out that we have overshot the resort by a good kilometer. Beating a quick retreat, we locate the resort.
And to say the truth, the first impression was not good. A shack made from concrete, a ticket counter for a boat ride and a boat that could seat 10 maybe?? now that we had come this far, we only had one option - take the boat ride. the "leisure" boat was packed with ppl like a PTC bus in chennai, the water too close to the edge of the boat for comfort. But the sight of a man standing in water that was neck deep right in the middle of the river was comforting. A silent sweaty ride later we arrive at an island. Cut of on the sides by branches of the river and the sea forming the beach. Something out of a picture postcard. We wanted to dive in, but then logistics and the thought of the ride back to chennai held us back. A gentle stroll through the beach, and a few refreshing sights and some blind point-and-shoot snaps later we slowly made our way back to the boat. only to see that there was none. It sank in slowly that a boat doesnt wait for ever we had to wait for the next "trip". Too dazed to keep track of time, the only thing that was crystal clear was the growing rumbling from within. A sleepy boat ride back and a quick ride to pondy we were just in time to get in to "Rendezvous" before they downed shutters for the noon. A not so relaxed lunch later. We began the agonising journey back home. Time 4.00
Next stop alambra fort. A breezy 40 kms from pondy. this was for me one of the highlights of the drive. The fort as such is non existent. All that remains are whatever that nature and man have deemed fit for nothing. The fort was one of Tipu's strongholds..or so said the rusted plaque near the fort. The britishers had part destroyed it and whatever was left was taken by time. and the killer blow came from the tsunami. A few enterprising villagers swarmed with some fresh toddy and a boat ride on the sea. The fading light forcing us to decline. It was already 6.00 and we were not even half way thru.
I switch places and get my shot at the road. Immediately flooring it, i start riding like there is no morrow. i realised that i was going berserk and i did not care. the dusk brought with it, an irritating amount of flies, which seemd to have this knack of getting into my eyes thru the helmet. And the glaring headlights did not help either. I watch painfully as the traffic increases as we reach mahabalipuram and the the kms go down. The final halt at the road side inn. A quick bite later, we join the long caravan of vehicles making a beeline to the city. I sink into my own thoughts. and anil into his. This time at the thought of the city. And as the city lights grow bigger and brighter all i can do is take a deep breath and sigh!!!!

auroville...and the night ahead

2006-04-24T21:52:00.000+05:30

La terasse beckoned us through the slighlty hidden archway..a cool place built aesthetically using sutmps of cocunut trees for pillars and a tatched roof...cool and windy..we were expecting a menu where prices started in 3 digits, but to our surprise the prices were nominal compared to what even a sangeetha in chennai charges. and we dug in for the long haul.
but the start was not good..."soups and frite"..i ordered..the waiter blinked "sprite????".."no no frite" i said pointing to the menu.."oh!!!u mean freets"
yeah!! yeah!! i replied; in a tone which was meant to convey that in my part of the country that thing was pronounced the way i just did it..
the waiter just smiled..i smiled back in the realisation that ordering veg dishes from a menu written in french/english was going to be fun(for all practical purposes the menu could have even been in greek or latin)
The fried potatos, with the hot soup set the taste buds yearning for more. We were out for a ball and we were going to have it. But then rarely did it strike us that these would later form an explosive combination once inside the body. But then again, first things first. starters done with, it was maincourse time..Italian wood fire pizzza for me ...and steaks for the others..The jouney began in all earnesty and providing respite to the mouth from all the chewing and swallowing was the harmless gossip and banter. oops i almost forgot. we also had mashed potato to go with this round.
Main course done..icecreams and frites for desserts:-))
stepping out into the early evening sun, we were brought back from the hallowed confines of a meditteranean setting to the hot early summer climes of Pondy..more specifically to the loud world of dravidian politics..Amma was going to have a rally in Pondy...yes, we were blessed to the see her in person and experience first hand the best in the world of sycophancy.
Managing to get out of pondy a good hour before the rally the drive to auroville was largely uneventful..except for the final 2 Kms. Bad roads, lush trees mango guava and jack fruit, lots and lotso white skin and life just ambling along ..no one in any particular hurry. Welcome to Auroville..The reception center was like an arts gallery and to shed the fatigue from the ride we loitered around in the A/C rooms for a while. Refreshed, we were all set to go to the maitri mandir only to be told that it was a good 15 minute walk. And the thought brought the fatigue right back. No walking business for us today. A lime soda from the canteen and we were off on our main pursuit..the Auroville beach ;-)
A lot of stories about the beach do the rounds in Chennai and we were going to get a few of our own to tell. Parking our bikes at the gates, we try and pass for regulars only to be shooed away by the security guards. Standing there perplexed, i had this feeling that we were going to be fodder for laughter for the few auto drivers there..only to have the thought cut short by sreejith leading the way..through a clearing beside the gate..smelly and shady we were wondering were we were headed.Only to be assured a few steps later by the lashing waves of the Bay of bengal. We felt like explorers and with the anticipation mounting by the minute, what resulted was one of the biggest anti climaxes of recent times. the clearing led us to the beach, only to be greeted by hundreds of "Onlookers" if u know what i mean, separated from the main beach by a fence and a few security guards..and a board that requested us to respect others' privacy ..Phuuu
Not to be undone and making the best use of the situation we quickly changed and dove right into the sea...real shallow and real gentle. we walk almost a 100 meters in. enjoi the waves, the occasional swimmer who has moved on to the wrong side inadvertently and then startled by some prick, moves back again. it went on for a while. Sunset and we were out of the water. All sandy we slowly ride back to Pondy only to be greeted by huge crowds waiting for amma. The rally was late.
a quick wash later we were back on the road, this time no bikes, we were going to explore the night life on foot. First pitstop - Hot and cold for Dinner. Take a turn on the road and there it was..The tempo carrying Amma a spot light on her face and the loud speaker blaring ..and I think i heard free rice????
The rooftop restaurant at H&C was quite a setting, and under the influence of a little bit of inhibition reducing substances the conversation grew more interesting as the night grew older.. A good 3 hrs and we were out on the empty roads...11.PM we decide to walk to the marina only to be surprised to see a good family crowd at that time of the night. i once again wonder when Kerala is going to be like this..
A few party animals coming out of the pub were to be our eye candy. And once we were sure that there were no more left where they came from we pushed on ..Only to have the night spiced up by a PYT totally lost in her world,drunk??? drugged??? riding a scooter all over the lonely road and us three standing right in the middle. She halts..We halt ..??????again anti climax..she comes close and then takes the turn on the road just ahead of us ..we walk on, only to have her zip past on the parallel roads a few times. Enough to have a few of us imagining a few things...the cool sea breeze, tired legs an A/C room ..we doze of with promises of catching the sunrise...Promises????

la pondy

2006-04-18T02:00:00.000+05:30

time 7.30 distance covered 40kms. Not a great way to go if we wanted to beat the early summer sun to Pondicherry. And with every passing kilometer the road began twisting and turning more. And with every passing kilometer i was getting more and more comfy with the bike. Fear melting away and the deeply held craze for racing -NFS style took over. 10 mins into the drive and anil bellowed 10 mins-8 kms...and that did it..

I bent my head and crouched on the fuel tank, putting on the profile of a race biker, and exposing anil's huge frame to the wind. the tacho was steadily climbing.. 6000rpm...7k.....7.5k...8k... and i could now feel the engine straining. But i was not one to let go now. The spirit had taken over. tilting gently thru the banked curves. devouring the kilometers. And anil behind me was getting slightly uncomfortable and with a gentle tap on the shoulder pointed to the tacho..and i gently let go..a few kms on and the game was back on..immediate target - catch up with the guys in the front. and we did that soon after anil cried out 12 mins 15 kms..and we passed them...Riding was now a breeze with the vegetation providing
cover against the wind. With trees on both sides and lush green paddy fields the scene could been straight out of kerala. the road now punctuated with the odd signpost declaring dangerous curves. We were pushing ahead in the hope that the series of dangerous curves would continue even in Pondy.
After what felt like 5 minutes, we stopped. Time 8.30 distancve covered 55 kms.. And the guys couldnt have stopped at a better place. A road side flatform built long ago, under a huge banyan tree, for the travellers of yore. A small navagraha temple nearby and a couple of locals peering at us curiously. Kind of felt like a step back in time, as though, in the next second a huge caravan of bullock carts could come right out of the end of the road. Or a battalion of soldiers gallop by to the alambra fort that we just passed.
A few memorable snaps later we were off again, me and anil switching roles. We passed the memorial marking pondicherry soon and were slowed down to a crawl by the narrow roads and the traffic.
Upto me to play the role of the navigator. The countless traveller magazines that i had read came in handy. Pondy is reputed to have a very efficient tourism department and what better place to look for help than on the fabled marina. And there it was tucked away, in one of the buildings in the french quarter.
The sun was bearing down heavily on us and the reflection from the clear sea was blinding to say the least. The air conditioned confines of the tourism office was a welcome reprieve. We were asked to make ourselves comfortable, handed out a couple of brouchres and a map of pondy that was to become our guiding beacon from then on. Asking around for a couple of decent stay options we move out. A little bit of desperation creeping in with the rumblings from within growing bigger. And with nature calling a couple of us really badly, we needed to act fast. The sun was
sapping us pretty fast and a couple of hotels later (all of which were costly) we were dehydrated to the core. Finally finding a baragain at Hotel Aruna. Draggin up our tired asses upto 4th floor, and the A/C room felt like heaven. All of us dozed off almost instantaneously, waking up a good 2 hrs later at 12.30. A refreshing shower and all of us were raring to go. Lunch time!!!

Daybreak

2006-04-07T13:22:00.000+05:30

The watch read 06.30 as we breezed past the toll way and the ECR stretched out ahead. But we were not confident about pushing the fazer to its limit. The past year had shown that the fazer leaves a lot to be desired on the buid quality. As a precaution the bike was just out of a full paid serive a week back and as of a couple of days back was singing like a nightingale. But then just before we were leaving for pondy we noticed that the speedo and the odo were broken - yet again.

A sign of things to come, maybe??? fingers crossed

Anil was cruising at around 60 kmph (had to count the miles and the time and then calculate the speed the good old fashioned way) on the ECR and by now the traffic had really thinned out to the odd moped or bike and the qualises that seemed to appear out of nowhere and then zoom past. We had also left behind the clutter of buildings on ECR which were obstructing the beach. The monstrosities that have been buuilt in the name of farmhouses were truly an eye sore. The rising sun was now peeking through the vegetation on our left more frequently. But then nothing
prepared us for the splendour of a sunrise over the wast bay of bengal as we approached the lake at Muthukad. The ECR bridges over the lake and provides a unhindered view of the sea to the left.That period of the dawn, was ideal too, with the haze and the smog gently lifting away and a cool wind blowing into the sea. Only thing i could mutter to myself was

"so, this is what sunrises look like!!".

I had by now, with my 2 years in the city, begun to associate day break with the changing hue at the horizon as seen from my 3rd floor bedroom window.
Bike rides with Anil regardless of who is riding is generally not a silent affair, what with everything ranging from movies, society , religion and ladies being discussed. But this was different. I was too engrossed in the life erupting around me at day break, trying to capture whatever i could with a digital camera, the size of a match box. Anil meanwhile, was fulfilling his hearts desire for a cruise at dawn. We hardly spoke and whatever little i said was answered with a nod of the helmet.
We were now truely out on the open road and to our left were the wind breakers - a series of trees that buffeted the space between the road and the sea. These were planted to protect the coast from the murderous winds that lash this coast, year after year, with unflinching resolve. If there ever was anything surreal then this was it. And we didnt notice the bike slowing down as we took in the magic of the moment.
After a few snaps, I had begun to lose faith in the camera and had begun hating the Japs for their obsession with size (small is beautiful seems to be their motto) and not functionality. The LCD monitor was getting blurred as the ambient light brightened and i had a hard time trying to figure out whether i was even pointing
in the right direction, let alone focus.
The semi trance that we were in broke suddenly, with what else, my mobile phone ringing. The guys ahead had already reached Mamallapuram (mahabalipuram of yore) and had been waiting for us for some time now. And this brought our attention back to more pressing things at hand. Revving up we raced ahead and met up with the guys in a few minutes.

Getting down from the bike i could sense the excitement that everyone shared. My whole body a sense of vibrations going up and down, as i stood on the ground. And was glad to note that this was not happening with me alone. A few interesting tit bits on the ride thus far and we were off again. Only to stop 500 meters later for breakfast. A quick bite and a sip of coffee later we were off again with me riding the fazer. Everyone a little apprehensive about the state of our bowels though.
I generally dont use helmets, as i am more of an instinctive driver. I sense vehicles coming up from behind with the corner of my eye rather than the rear view. But that short ride upto mamalla inn and the sight of an aveo, camry and an esteem slipstreaming one behind the other at what was deifnitely way over the speed limit, convinced me to put one on today....and i was not going to regret that today.

The pondy saga!!! - a prelude

2006-04-05T00:26:00.000+05:30

The scene had not changed much from the time i hit the bed..all the lights in all the rooms were on..the comp was on...so i guessed i had not slept much and try and fall asleep again..
Vimal had other plans though. Already up and having finished his bath he was looking for a person to wake up. and with my timing sense being immaculate as ever, my gentle stirrings manage to catch his eye...quick to oblige, he does manage to get me out of bed..Groggy-eyed, slurred speech and a head that was weighin a million tonnes..
Everything begins to come back to me slowly....why i woke up, pondy, the bike, the ride and ECR!!! With an ego that is larger than me, backing out of the trip is not an option. I am already cursing myself for sort of having let the cat out of the bag..My fear of ECR..
I hurriedly rush through the chores (brushing my teeth) more as a ritual and with a deep breath decide not to have a bath..Logically speaking i would be accumulating dirt all along the way and so makes sense to wash at the end.. and another not so logical reason being.....like my mentor calvin i hate to take bath..(not apologetic)
And after a lot of pushing, cajoling and name calling, the door to our flat is finally shut at 5.45. Rushing down from the 3rd flr making quite a racket, the old mami staying in the ground floor would surely have been wondering at that sight...And the machines come to life.. Pulsar and a Fazer
First stop the petrol pump..and the realisation dawns that we dont have a helmet..That would mean us going back while vimal and sreejith Waited..Not a good sign...As grandma says " once u start a journey u r not supposed to turn back until u reach ur destination" , turning back is meant to bring MISFORTUNE..
Grandmas and their superstitions, "huh!! really silly!!!"...and brush aside my suspiscions...a nagging doubt though "r they really silly"...eeey!!!!!
And as we turn back from the house...we see a horde of buffalos......buffalos..Yaman's vehicle..at 6.00 in the morning..and every bloody superstition that has somehow been fed into my subconscious through a tradtional upbringing explode into the open...Never would have realised that i even knew these things..
Spooked i was..Spooked as in hell...but then when u have an overpowering ego coupled with a insatiable desire for travel, ur decisions and actions are not really yours and Fear invariably takes the back seat..we turn from Thiruvanmiyur and the ECR beckons...Vimal and sreejith Race ahead in the pulsar, through the sparse morning traffic while we strain to keep pace in the fazer...a good 5 kms out and my cap flies off...and now i am thinking of that stupid e-mail forward that i recd...about how god talks to u through his agents - helmet, Buffalo and now wind??? Weird when I begin to realise the amount of crap that is residing in my brain...

We give up on the Pulsar and steady the pace.
And as we approached the Toll, the sign post read.....

ECR Scenic roadway begins

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This was a trip that has been one of the most memorable ive ever made..and i have made quite a few..as i look at the photos and the events now...feel as though i have just experienced what can maybe run as a mega serial blog..giving me enough substance to write about for a couple of weeks and keep me engaged for the period.
All i can say is, however hard i try and blog, the trip will come alive in the images only...so keep the comments coming as u enjoy this attempt at a travelogue ( I hope)

Pondicherry!!!!

2006-04-01T00:53:00.000+05:30

April begins tomorrow - The last month for the 4 of us at 3/10, Mayur apts, Indiranagar. We have given our landlord the notice and the four of us - Vimal - the investment banker, Sreejith - management guru, Anil - "_____" guru (really dont know what to put there) and me the travel journalist, all wannabes though...are set to part ways after 6 long years..and what better way to mark it than with a trip to pondy ...
This was a trip that was planned in December 04.. when we stepped into this house for the first time..but then due to the inborn tendency for procrastination that all of us seemed to have, the trip never ever happened and the farthest that we got towards pondicherry was T.C.O..
But now the issue picked up some real urgency, and April 1st was decided...easier part done with..but with our motto being "never do today, what u can do tomorrow"..the plan has not moved an inch off the ground...that is go to pondy..stay the night there and come back on sunday evening
planning to do this trip by car, my uncle's maruti 800, I make a couple of sorties to his house to try and lend me the car...but then...he has this nose to pick up shit coming from me how ever sugar coated it might be..so i get the car but only if i take the driver along...definitely not an interesting proposition..so plan ditched
After a lot of deliberation we decide to bike to Pondy..120 kms on ECR...and my meek mutterings against it are voted out 3 to 1...ECR is probably one of the most scenic of coastal highways in India..but one of the most dangerous too...and for me taming the ECR has been the stuff of nightmares...
I ride fast but carefully and rarely use the brake until i really need to. But that can often mean that the person sitting behind me often has his heart in his mouth, which i recognise by their thighs tightening against me....and to put it in the words of my bro/sis i ride like a madman...i simply luv riding for the fun of it..but then ECR it is a different ball game..
The guys are all excited...me too but to a lesser extent...excitement tinged with a little trepidation
I hear voices in the other room....and out comes an audacious plan..."the time is now 1.30am so let us get ready and leave now...we will reach pondy at 6.00 in the morning"...my heart just skipped a beat..quickly go on the offensive and manage to shoot down the plan....the guys pull back and settle down for a departure at 5.30 am...
My mind a little at ease..but not yet fully settled...planning to hit the bed now...dont know whether ill be able to sleep...looking ahead for what a brand new day beholds..cause all said and done...i will never want to back out of this trip cause the travel bug that has bitten me..sure did one hell of a job..fingers crossed

Yo!! - ism

2006-03-30T01:27:00.000+05:30

It all started with an inoccous question while i was being ragged during my first year at college.
"Ninakku odukkaththe JADA- anallo ...pakshe nee onnnum oru Ma....-um ondakilla JADA
kanichchal...JADA de spelling ariyavo??..." it went on for some time then...and the only ex-pression that i could manage on my face was one of total blankness and bewilderment...my mind was meanwhile racing away to figure out what or who exactly this JADA thing was...and my friends who were more educated in worldly matters opened my eyes that night...and in i stepped into the wonderful world of JADA..
I picked up the tricks of the trade fast, identifying JADA in its different forms..The info that i gained then was to prove valuable..i would soon be using it on my Juniors ....The HUNTED had just become the HUNTER..
And from then on it was a saga of tolerating JADA for 2 years...JADA that ppl put on in front of chicks...The "Echchuse me" kindo JADA...JADA that has been programmed into the brains from child hood..and then the most irritating kind of JADA...DEMO..JADA just for the sake of JADA....
Shifting the scene of action back to Chennai, I was mentally prepared for JADA now..after all how much could a place have changed in 4 years...As it turned out..a lot indeed..
Beasant Nagar beach, saturday evening..a few of us were staring at the Elliots memorial and cracking a few onliners...For ppl who are not familiar with chennai...Remember the small memorial on the beach in Naadodikkaatu...(saadhanam Kayyil indo..:-) )
A couple of bikes screetchingly pull up near the beach...the "dudes" and their "Chicks" get off the bike...and then out of nowhere comes a baritone "YO!!!"..and i was like YO???
For all i know these ppl could have popped straight off a 50 cents video...but then YO is not what u associate with these types..
"YO" is how an Auto driver begins to address u when u piss him off..usually followed by carefully handpicked expletives in chaste tamil...enough to ruin a week for u..
But this YO was different..The dudes remove their helmets and with a deep baritone the first YO was followed by a "YO!!!! maynnnnnn"...i guess that was man in a Texan accent...
"People ..Welcome to the world of Yo!!ism"
For people who have not been introduced to this phenom...u might tend to mistake this as JADA..this is not JADA...JADA is more like show off...
"Yo!ism" is more about being "YO"..sorry people cant find a better definition..with experience u will learn to differentiate..
YO!ism has now permeated into every level of society ...

traditional Mamis wearing Nike sneakers and going jogging...
dudes wearing pants thrice their size and tying it up with a long "Naada" at the waist
Dudettes wearing pants half their size ...T shirts 1 quarter their size ...BTW..i am not complaining bout that though..and then pulling the pants up and the Ts down...this i do dissapprove of
Guys wearing socks and sandals...yes have seen this a few times around
asking for coke for lunch at Andhra mess
Kids, barely heads popping out of the windows of the Scorpios and safaris..rolling down the windows at signals...just so that we can hear EMINEM foul mouth in the car...make eye contact..convey that u r useless and then roll up the shutters...this is one thing that really pisses me off
the list goes on....

The peer pressure too can be amazing...friends u knew in college are no longer recognizable.."Aliya" replaced by "Hey dude"...
a cotton shirt now replaced by Leather jackets....
may be this is what they teach u at those cross-cultural adaptability classes which i have been lucky enough not to attend..

But Yo!!ism does have its advantages..ppl who have already gone yo in a secretive way want borderline cases like me to join their ranks..and they sometimes do end up doing the most wild of things ..like getting me my new mobile..yes i got an L7...
and to top it my company inches me even closer with a video ipod....

But then even as i fight a losing war, It is comforting to see that there r ppl who even in times of extreme pressure, despite earning the right to go YO!!...have managed to hold their dignity...even when lesser mortals, some of whom r called sanoop have gone berserk...a simple unwashed pant, a reusable shirt and a RS.160 saandak...
I would like to call them the Anti-YO club..
PPl who r balancing out all the YO in the world so that the Entropy in the world remains constant!!!

I dont think people realise that we are at a turning point in the history of this country...
A war is being waged out in the open as well as in your brains..the battle between YO and Anti YO...
Let us wait and see how the story unfolds...

and another not so normal day

2006-03-28T23:02:00.000+05:30

We live in an age where media has the power to make or break a man. And the humble blog has come to stay as a means to the way, especially for people like me whose lives have been tragically intertwined with the computer...

But as for me, my blogging experience has been kind of like flirting, ON and OFF. The relation surviving because of the Constant egging-on by a "friend"...
a friend who seems to be taking pleasure in bringing down people, planting gossips and then rubbing his hands in glee...
who desperately wants ME to write about his roommate..a gentle person this roommate of his..who seems desperate to hide something...giving "Quotations" to ppl..I wonder what really is cooking in bangalore...but then keeping with true jounalistic traditions i am not going to write about hearsay in my blog...so anoop a.k.a Kaanthan u can rest in peace....but be aware that "oru kachchi thurumbu mathi enikku"..hoping that my next blore trip gives me some info
for ppl who still havent figured it out it is Paul and Elias that this blog revolves around..Arun , Who seems to have forgotten that he himself has a blog, is hell bent on getting me to write anoop's obituary..I wonder why...definitely not as an appreciation for my superlative writing skills...maybe it is a continuation of what he did a couple of months back....
For ppl who have forgotten....Flaaaaash baaaaaaack...
he took the last shred of respect that PPL had for me,
spread it nicely on the ground,
stomped all over it,
then fold it nicely and set it on fire......
But i have forgiven him ..for he had the foresight to invite me into ORKUT

But then Paul and Elias if u r planning to use innocent me as a pawn in ur turf war..u r mistaken..cause i have had the painful realisation (thanks to Paul) that

the pen is mightier than the sword...rather the key is mightier than the sword

going for a break in my training session

I'm Back

Now coming to ORKUT... ahh ORKUT....

It is estimated that the time between 2 to 4 is when the maximum number of people enjoy their beauty sleep..people in that half of the world where the sun has not risen and people in the other half where its time for the noon siesta...It gives me great pride to mention that, on a given normal day, as a matter of principle i always do my bit to ensure that this is one estimation that is not violated...But then, today is not a normal day..
To address my manager's concern that other than my routine work, I am not "creating any value-adds at the vertical level" by constantly "training and retraining myself" ( whatever that is supposed to mean), i decided to enroll for the first course that did not require any prerequisites- DATAWAREHOUSING. Come to think of it, yesterday too was not a normal day as the week long session (after-noons only) started yesterday.
As is my habit i arrive late at class, and am forced to sit in the first seat right below the trainer..and any thoughts of sleep is thrown right out of the window..but then old habits do die hard and to keep myself awake I log onto the invention of the decade - ORKUT.
And what do i see...a new scrap from my friend..just what the doctor ordered
And if u had told me a week ago, that google has come up with something more path
breaking than a blog, i would have rubbished it...but then Orkut is one hell of a
thing.....Orkuttin right below the trainers nose reminds me of "Paashanam" and...and.....i just heard the trainer say see u tomorrow..so let us leave it at that..
so catch u all tomorrow

Electricians!!!!!

2006-01-27T00:54:00.000+05:30

The Calendar read 23-Jan-06. The electricty bill was supposed to be paid a week ago......or was it supposed to be paid this month..will they disconnect it immediately...aye...they will atleast intimate us before doing that...after all Electricity Board people are caring souls ....these were the thoughts running through my mind in the morning....and I shared these aloud with anil as we left for work that day.
The day passed uneventful...but the nastiest of surprises....in a sea of light in our building...a lone spec of darkness...way up in the third floor......and the fact sunk home slowly...the electrician had pulled the plug..After cursing the EB, the electrician and the others responsible for this.....went out, had dinner and slept in someone else's place. As events set to unfold the next day would prove, this was just the beginning...
It was a pleasant morning the next day...and after running thru the morning's chores set out for the EB Office...rather i should say...EB tin shed...hidden away in a maze of wires, transformers and broken equipment. It was actually a miracle that the filing system and the people working there actually got some work done.
The tougher part..paying the bill and the fine..actually went of smoothly. A simpe query at the counter after that.."sir!!current disconnect pani irukkanga...Reconnect Panni kudunga"..
"OK Sir..aala anupparen..."...Panneer!!! dai Panneer..Panneer in Tamil stands for scented water...but names seldom bear resemblance to the person they represent. But for a change this guy was actually smelling of water...i mean "Thanni" in tamil. It was 10.00 in the morning and here was a man who was walking all over the place. Have to give it to him..if he had attempted a moon walk there, he would have done better than M.Jackson himself. The man was a total mess. He tells his supervisor that he was the one who pulled the plug the day before and comes and tells us that he doesnt remember the house...aiye?????...are we missing a point here...???
Anyways, we agreed to show him the way, asking him to follow us in his cycle...a beautifully rusted Raleigh cycle. he hauls his bag with a graceful swing of his whole body and places it in the carrier, holds a roll of wire in his left hand and after a lot of deliberation and shaking of hips puts his right hand through..all the way to the shoulder. The combat gear is on and we are all set to go.
The man kicks thrice on the stand..I guess he was aiming for the region where he thought the stand was.. the third kick hits home and the cycle lunges forward, taking the man with it..Hero holds on to it though...well things are not that bad after all..or is it a case of beginners luck????
He starts running with his cycle, hops on and after successfully avoiding a fall, manages to start pedalling....he still hasnt got the cycle going in a staight line though...he was all over the road..maybe was under the impression that he was aamir khan in Ghulam...But there was hope amidst all this despair...he had managed to get his direction right..and he was following the bike...
I was driving the bike with one eye on the road and another on the rear view mirror. It was a tough ask...one second he is on the right mirror the next he is on the left. Things had reached such a point that it was not annoying anymore...infact it was amusing to the core..we were laughin our assses out..2 minutes would have passed and we would have covered 100 meters ...and our hero starts waving from behind???
What is he trying to do....he cant balance the cycle with 2 hands..what is he upto...?? we decide to stop and investigate. and the cycle gently rolls in ...Technical problem the chain had snapped. and our hero was going to Fix it.....again LMAO....and to our surprise he does manage to fix it..seems like he is used to these sort of conditions. The journey resumes..
On a more sombre note, Anil reflects from Behind..." He has made drinking into an Art Form. The bugger would have been drinking all night and to avoid the hangover in the morning would have gone to the Bar and knocked himself out again...one long chain of postponing the hangover....." Could never have come up with a better explanation for a drunkard at 10.00 in the morning.
The road we are on is a major thoroughfare and he is holding up traffic. Our attitude was "As long as he doesnt die and reaches the place well and good". On second thoughts how was he going to set the fuse back if he is like this...again..let him reach the place first and then we will see..
The road splits into 2 and we turn to the right. Our guy misses it and turns left. The left is a nice little curve and he takes it in style, Banking all the way to the left like race bike drivers....but from the rear view mirror i kind of felt that he was taking banking to the extreme and i was right...He crashes to the ground with the cycle on top of him. Surprise. The bugger was actually trying to stop and get down as the chain had snapped again...Unbelievable
we turn around to help him on his feet..suddenly realise, we are right in front of a Cafe Coffee day, a Hero Honda Show room and a posh gym. PPl had stopped doing their work and were staring at us.. Sure would have been a sight, A drunkard who fell off his cycle and 2 wannabe executives(if we can call ourselves that) talking to him..we slowly and tactfully distance ourselves. The guy collects his wits and cycle togethor and once again sets off...Still AAmir Khan...."Bugger stop doing that u r gonna kill urself..there are Govt buses behind u and they r worse off than your cycle"..Guess that piece of advice was never taken ...
We were nearing our house and this guy was still floating around. Luckily a few of his colleagues who seem to have decided to face the hangover earlier were nearby. They guide the bugger to the flat and show him the meter.
The meters were in a wooden covering. Our guy takes out his tools and begins looking for the meters, nothing found..no meters...????.....of course not...the meter box is still locked. We open it for him and tell him..."Annay!!Meter 36 and 40"..and he says "Righto.." , takes out ihs tester and starts scratching the wall...the other elctrician was watching the fun and decided to take things into his hands, lest hte drunken bugger put his hand into some open fuse socket.
He reads the numbers and moves the switch in the meter from off to ON....What....????
i thought the fuse...removed..where how..u didnt remove it...??
nope i just switched the power off..i told ur neighbours too...u could have switched it back on and paid the bill in the morning.
F#$%..a night wasted...anyways thanks.... and we leave... me, Anil and the stable elec...
Our hero was totally forgotten..but he still wanted to be in the action..
"approm....!!!!"
"What Approm...?"
"SEriaachule...?"
"AAmam"
"appo 200 rupa kudu"
"What the !@#*$%^#$%$#%^#$&#$&#$&#%^&#%32#@@#%$%&^%$*^&)"

maa malakalkappuraththu ......marthaka...

2006-01-13T00:42:00.000+05:30

The walk further up the hill was going to be a real tough ask. By the time the tail of the group clambered up to the mid way point the lead guys had had a good rest and before the rest could take a deep breath, the guys were off again...and giving them competition were a set of Kannadigas singing some song, i think from an upendra movie...
The dense growth had given way to more sparse but larger tress, basically huge eucalyptus and fir trees. The mist had thickened and the climb now brought back memories of that great walk up dodabetta..3rd Sem tour to ooty..when the class really came alive...
The indian idea of a great tourist spot is one that has a children's park..really wonder what use children were going to have for a park...Swings, Slides and for god's sake....SEE-SAWs....but the locals who had raced ahead were putting them to good use and their shrieks were kind of invigorating in the cold..Really wanted to have a go....but fear of the collective chori of 23 ppl, made me decide against

Everyone had almost given up hope of reaching the top, when out of the blue, a stretch of road in front of us and powerful headlamps from a scorpio peering thru,
Turn right ...viola...a tea shop, masala Kappalandis and then hold ur breath an icecream shop/...yes an icecream shop and we knew we had arrived. But strangely now that the climb was over no one seemed that tired after all.
It really was a sight to behold...a vast expanse of barren rock..a beautiful temple made of granite and the sky as though kneeling down and trying to kiss the earth.

A small path led along the temple wall was promising even more spectacular sights. A few steps later nothin but us and the open sky. and in steps Paul...
that picture of him is still frozen in my memory..standing in front of a few of us..pointing into the mist and the rocks and going "ithanu Nandi hilla...ividinnu nokkiyal thazhe vann kokkayanu..nalla kaattannu"
and we were like ...."mmmmm....seri"..but it was not that bad after all..in fact it was way beyond my expectations, going by Paul's initial description..later he did say though.." the mist saved the day..allengil ithu thani oooooooojvalamaayene".
a little grass totally open to the sky and i saw what i believe is the definition of ethereal, here was another chance for my camera to redeem itself..so canon big finder..here u go again.. and thankfully the elements combined perfectly if i can say so and the best picture of the lot happened

This picture summed up what this trip kind of meant for me. Leave all ur troubles behind and enjoy the moment-get togethor, friends, chori.

Hoyya - Hoy!!!!!

2006-01-11T00:17:00.000+05:30

The climb up Nandi Hills began in right earnest. The steps to the top were in a state of disintegration. It was kind of like stepping in to the unknown as the view of the top was smudged by the mist. I am sure ppl new to Nandi hills thought that the steps led straight to the top..atleast i did...But ...and that is a but with a capital B.
The steps led to the bottom of the actual hills and the reserve forest..a road that led up to the archway - a relic from the Britishers, preserved as such ..

The mist had a magical effect on the day and the place....visibility was not more than 100 meters and so u never knew what lay straight ahead..and the archway had this ethereal feel to it...a doorway into another world maybe??????
The guys led by Radi were pushing ahead and the first stop was "Muthalakulam"...a huge pond, totally walled, a rusted warning telling people not to go in ...the mist totally covering it and the greenish water peering through occassionally....Everyone looking hard for the sliding brown of a crocodile...and i believe somebody did too...
Hats off to the guy who started this thing about the "Mothala"...Paul was it or Selvin???
The rain had drenched the walkway to the top. The walkway that led along the side of the muthalakulam and right below an old banyan tree..roots all gnarled and partially blocking the path...Obviously a photo-op, and the digital cameras clicked away..and the first real test for my canon Big-Finder camera (with auto focus, auto flash and auto light detection) appeared. A chance for a beautiful photo and all that i get a green background with a lot of smoke in the foreground..F#$%...so no photo for this part of the story...
the path had become a stairway now and the tree cover overhead was getting denser. what a day this is turning out to be...a tropical forest 60 kms from the city ..i never would have believed this if i hadnt seen it for myself...we would have climbed for say 10 mins..and already ppl were going...
"Eda, Vazhi thettiyo ennoru samshyam..."
"Vere Aarem Kaannanillalo...mmmmmmm????"
"Radi, Engotekkanada odunnathu....mazha vannal ellarum nanayum, vaa thirichu pokam".
"enikku mathiyaaye.......evideyenkilum onnu irikkanam...hooo"
angine paranju paranju we reached base station....and some body cried out "appo ithanno Nandi hills.....Phaaaaaa"...

"alla mone dinesha iniyum pokanam....."

dhaaaaande nere poyaal nandi hills

2006-01-09T23:04:00.000+05:30

Nandi hills was never on the radar initially...we looked around a few blogs and saw nandi hills but then Paul's experience vetoed it down..all it had was a few hills, mist and a lot of wind... and finally masinagudi it was..
23 ppl at masinagudi...mmm sounded to good to be true..anyways went ahead with it..the first ominous signs came with the rain...but then positive thinking a.k.a shubapti vishwasam won the day...
after numerous calls and a long period of a tense silence, everyone started preparing for the get togethor....as the deadline neared, things started happening all of a sudden...a few mails exchanged, and a day later masinagudi was thrown to the bin..
popular opinion was for B'lore and that meant we were exactly where we started a month ago..
Nandi Hills suddenly didnt seem such a bad option after...it had beautiful hills...lotso mist...a superb breeze all day long..and was so close to the city...How come we missed it in the first place?????
Enough of flashbacks.... The trip was hotting up, ppl catchin up on the latest gossips, and so was everyone's hunger..everyone wanted to reach the hills fast...the bread,butter and jam was tempting ...and the calls from within were getting stronger... but nature has these strange ways of making u forget u r self

The climb up the hills began just like that...and in a few minutes the views began to emerge..the grey skies over distant bangalore...the mist covered top of the hills and the trees lining the winding roads....the windows were drawn as the breeze picked up....
The mist thickened as the mazda wound its way..some beautiful views and some beautiful couples later we wound up at the end of the road on the top..
the mist was smothering and after a bone chattering walk outside, everyone's hunger came roaring back...a cozy lunch within the van...bread, butter and Jam ..felt a lot like college..make do with whatever is available, if not try and grab from someone else..
Lunch done , everyone was raring to go..after all there were going to be just a few steps to climb anyway........

Picking up the pieces

2005-12-16T00:47:00.000+05:30

who wants masinagudi when u can offroad right in the heart of blore. The mazda swayed and rocked as it tried to make its way to the main road. It felt like an eternity..even more so because of ppl trying to brush up on their chalus. and finally we managed to reach one of the (what i believe to be part of a rare set) roads which was tarred the way roads were meant to be tarred.
Distance travelled :- 3kms time :- 15 mins
It can be real surprising what new facts 15 minutes like these can bring forth, even in friends u have known for 4 years. Take Selvin, a shining case in point. He runs around all morning to try and get a digital camera..finally manages one (one which has batteries almost dead). But instead of capturing the momentous beginning of the trip for posterity, he dedicates the first half an hour to the wildlife around Indiranagar and Domlur. I mean birdlife, the kind that blore seems to have lots of...but have to give it to you man...you do know how to spot those rare beauties.
Location :- Domlur Time 11.30
A huge cry goes out as Sanoj,Joju and jose join us...everyone is sporting a grin as big as their faces..especially sanoj who seems to be in particularly high spirits...the reason dawned on the non enlightened souls soon though..Jose seemed to have grown a particularly remorseful beard...viraham???? mmmmm......and Joju as cool as ever...
Things settled down soon ..but before the Kaththi could begin again....Koramanagala.....and then ...FORUM!!!!

The transport committee was again fighting with the driver while the rest of the van was telling Thejus their Forum story...
Time for Aswath, Hari and Bimil...Aswath the family man that he is..straight out of Main hoon na..Sweater and all...Hari and Bimil , well trim as professionals should be...
Well now only the Ladies remained...after another round of dug up roads and traffic and a few juicy bits of gossips later..the ladies made their grand entry...Obviously mad at being made to wait for so long..but no one particular person to shout at..Archana,Divya and Sreedevi made their way to the back...but archana...nope not the back seat...a seat right behind Anil was ur first choice...habits do die hard don't they???
after a long ride around the ring roads anupa joined and so to say..the pieces all fell into place.....

Bangalored....

2005-12-10T19:39:00.000+05:30

A normal friday in chennai...the usual FWDs with "Enjoy the Weekend" messages...Work not getting done as well as the TL would have it...(Like it ever does???)..
Save for the fact that Cyclone baaz was fast on our tails. The 3 of us Anil, Thejus and Me had scooted from work by 7 in the evening. It was raining already and Anil as usual had found the perfect excuse to escape from a gathering...One technical problem though. The tickets were with me and i was not going to cancel them. Facing the prospect of losing his 400 bucks and the fear of getting stuck at home - without power and without any way to go out...he hauled his baggage and we were finally off.
The rain was now coming sideways. And by the time we reached Central, we were 3 wet souls, chattering in the howling wind. And then began the never ending wait for the train - 6021, Chennai - Bangalore Express.Departure - 10.50 PM. In keeping with tradition, the train Chugged in at 11.50- a sight to behold. 1400 passengers peering at the driver, who has his head out the window, chewing paan, the look on his face signalling his truimph over this sea of humanity. As it turned out, the driver was just getting started..and he was in no hurry to reach there. K.R.Puram at 9.00 am on saturday - a good 3 hours late.
K.R.P is a very down to earth place to be. The roads are non existent. If it rains slush appears everywhere. Garbage is dumped about.Its only claim to fame being the wonderfully monsterous flyover that Zips tagged people to ITPL. Enthoru elima..absolutely no airs though it is in the Silicon Valley of India. As it turns out, it is not just K.R.P; almost the whole of B'lore is this way. Simple and Humble.
As it turns out, Bangalore had more to offer thrills to offer us...To be particular the B'lore Electricity board and the Mahangara Palike. There was no electricity in that entire area. Our hosts Arun and Elias ( the first of the organising committee to be seen) had gracefully learned to live with this fact. But coming from a boiling chennai, the prospect of a bath in that biting cold in an even colder water was not exactly interesting. Especially for a person like me.
That was the absolute low point of the trip for me. From then on things obviously had to get better, as they couldnt get any worse. and the first signs of improvement came with the breakfast...steaming puttu, spicy kadala curry and an omlette with a lot of chilli and coriander....and with Radi,Selvin,Sanjith, Shabeer,M.P. and T, for company the mood just got a lot merrier.
The time was 10.30 already and we were still at K.R.Puram. But as far as everyone else was concerned we were either in Jeevan Bhima nagar or in Domlur. The attitude being aptly summed up as "ara manikkuru mumbe purapattu, venemengil oru manikkuru mumbe purapedam...."
And at 11.00 that super luxury swaraj mazda finally made its way out of K.R.Puram