The unUsual Yada Yada!

Farook and Shah Rukh!

2012-01-27T09:21:00.001+05:30

I had to blog this :)

Today is my nephew's birthday, and so in the morning, we made the customary call to wish him. During the conversation, i asked him " so are you all ready to wear your new dress and go to school?" ( Some traditions, some memories dont change over time :) ) Unfortunately for him, last night, Kerala Governor M O H Farook passed away, and the schools in the state have apparently declared it a holiday, on this account.

So, when i asked him, i got this sad reply "No, there is no school today-someone passed away last night, and therefore its a holiday"
"Someone passed away? Who?"
"I don't know.. someone did!" came the sad reply from the 10 year old, "i think its there on all the papers also"

"Ok.." I went to google and checked it up - just to see that Farook had passed away. So in all earnestness of letting this young guy know who this "someone" was, i told him "Oh, it is Farook, the Kerala governor"

2 seconds silence.
And then with a lot of trepidation, lot of anxiety and and a lot of fear in his voice came a question "WHO? SHAH RUKH? "

We had to spend half a minute to pacify his anxiety and to get him to know that all the words that end with "Kh" is not Shah rukh! Once he knew it, it was back to "oh, someone passed away!" his life crisis averted ! :)

May "Farook"s soul Rest in Peace!

Post Script: I didn't know this, Farook was the youngest chief minister in India ( URL: malayala manorama, TOI )- He was CM of Pondicherry when he was 29! For all of us who yearn for young blood in politics, he should be a mascot!
( the malayala manorama URL is in malayalam font )

To tell or not to tell? or, the curious case of "I know Jay, and I'm pregnant"

2012-01-26T10:58:00.001+05:30

Since the time that we knew that we had to go through the IVF procedure, one question that always kept us thinking was " should we tell others about this?"

Somehow, it seems a little sensitive. And opinions are widely distributed in this regard. But with the wisdom of someone who's been there, done that - here's my recommendation - please do! And here's why....

It manages anxiety among close family and friends. Peer pressure is no pleasure...
It helps you to be honest about why you cannot take time for social events - you are going to spend a lot of time at the doctor's anyways
It can surprise you with the support you get. Once you open up, you will realize how many people around you has gone through similar situations.

Once we started opening up, almost every other person knew someone who had gone through this, knows how difficult the time is, and is willing to help; or even more surprisingly for us, how many people around us had actually gone through this. ( thanks to all those friends for their support.... You have no idea how much it matters to us ). You will get doctor reviews, procedural comparisons, medicine notes and so much moral support. That itself is enough to go ahead and open up.
Given the software dev mentality that i have, i like to analyse this to death and categorize this to 4 phases :

The Deep Sigh phase - This is phase 1. You are having a conv and you hit upon this difficult question of " so what are your family plans?". You stop for two seconds, take a deep sigh, and start " you know what, we are going though an IVF....."
The Tilted Head Phase - This is phase 2. You have used up your quota of sighs ( and it doesn't work when you try to :) ), you continue your conversation without stopping, but by tilting your head to one side and having a "this is a difficult topic" face expression.
The "Oh That!" Phase - No conversation stoppers, just an "oh that! that is because we are going through an IVF..."
The "You mean you still don't know this? phase - well, you get the idea. by now, probably the radios are announcing your progress in their daily news :)

This opening up business has also given us phenomenally funny moments in our journey. I had a lady friend who was also going through some difficulty in getting pregnant and was taking medical advice. ( She is blessed with an adorable baby now :) ) Anyways, we used to discuss this quite often. One day, when I was at the airport, she called me up excitedly, and said that she is pregnant. I requested her to call my wife and tell her this, as i would be getting on a plane and i would have to switch off my cell phone. I kind of missed the fact that this friend and my wife has not talked earlier at all :):):)

So here is how the conversation apparently went :

Triiiiinng triiiiiing ....
My wife picks up the phone.

"Hi this is ...., is this Aparna?" a voice from the other side ( Aparna is my wife)
"Yes"

"Oh hi!" 2 seconds silence
(awkward silence, my friend suddenly realized this is the first time she is speaking to Aparna )

"Hi Aparna, I Know Jay, and I am Pregnant"

2 seconds silence this side of the line. and then, a fitting reply
"I also know Jay, but i am not pregnant......."

What happened when i came back from my trip is still classified information.

The Days of Exploration- and some research on the US healthcare regarding IVF

2011-09-09T17:54:00.000+05:30

As I sit today for another one of my business trips to US,my mind wanders back to the days when we made the first trip.. We were quiteconfused, after the discussion with Dr. GHP, onwhat we should do. Should we cancel the trip and continue with the treatment,or should we go ahead and come back for the treatment?

Our decision was helped by Dr. GHP herself, when shementioned that we could go and come back whenever we are ready for theprocedure. And given that we had already committed for the trip, we decided totake the same. The next day, we were on a flight to US. But our minds, theynever rest, do they?

Knowing the health care policies in US, we ended up doingsome amount of research in doing this in US. As usual, our research starts witha search in Google. JThe first thing to remember and know in US is that, if the Health Insurance firms do not cover the treatment, you probably would have to take multipleloans to cover the cost. ( I have heard stories of how some people had to selloff their properties in India to cover their IVF costs ). Anyways, in thisline, there are 14 states who mandate that IVF procedures be covered in theirHealth Insurance Policy. Here is the page from National Conference of State Legislatures which list these 14 states.

Here is also another page from fertility life lines.com – which lists 15 states. Louisiana is the state that is missing in the prev URL.

So, if your company is registered in the above 14 or 15states then, your insurance policy will cover infertility treatments. But holdon before you get the smile on your face.. J- there is some small print: ( which is also listed in the fertility life lienspage, but I thought I would add my own stuff )

1. Check if your employer’s plan is “fully insured” or “self funded” . If they are fully insured, the company has to follow state laws, and if theyare self funded, they are exempt from the state laws and only need to followfederal regulations.

The impact? Even if your companyis registered in any of the 14 states, but is self funded, then they do nothave to cover the IVF costs. So please check this with your company.

2. On a related note, I also heard from people thatthe employer’s policy should be written in one of the 14 / 15 states for it tocover the IVF costs.. But I couldn’t understand it too well.

3. AS the next step, even if your company coversAssisted Reproduction, please check on what all procedures do they cover. Thereare multiple ways of getting this done, and IVF is just one way of it. In addition to this, IVF is done in multiplecycles. You should also check on how many cycles are covered in the insurance.

btw, INCIID provides a list of employers who are infertility andadoption friendly: http://www.inciid.org/article.php?cat=statemandates&id=243

Though our company is registered in New Jersey ( one of the14/15 states mentioned above ), we realized ours is a self funded policy andhence does not cover IVF costs. Anyways,since we were residing near Boston, MA, we were consulting with the Boston IVF – Dr. Alison Zimon, who not only confirmed the diagnosis, but also put us through the insuranceperson to get us properly counseled. Since our residency was in MA, ( onceagain, one of the 14 / 15 states above ), we could apply for a personalinsurance from any providers – Blue Cross Blue Shield, MA, Harvard Pilgrim, MA and one more provider (I forget name)

The counselor urged us to speak to each of the co. and get the policythat we felt was applicable to us. She mentionedthat my spouse could decline my employer’s insurance and get a personalinsurance.

We first called the Blue Cross Blue Shield Office, and hereis where we had a surprise waiting for us. The representative told us that asper the latest health care reforms law passed, if I do have an employer’sinsurance, I cannot decline it and take a personal insurance! I couldn’t then (and still not able to ) get any corroboration from any data sources in the netfor this.. If any of you have any data supporting this, please feel free tocomment…

Also, about the cost of IVF, we were told that each cycle ofIVF would cost around $12,000 - $8,000 for the procedure and $4,000 for the medicinesand pharmacy charges. (I am basing this on memory alone, I could be wrong.Request you to please check this up with verified sources). The cost for thistreatment in Prashant Clinic was about 1.5 lac for each cycle with about Rs30,000 for contingency ( that would be approx $ 4,000 per cycle – with the conv rate of about 45 Rs to 1 $ )

This made our choicequite simple. We decided to do the procedure back in India with Dr. GHP. Westarted to plan for this – logistically and financially. J

The Days of Anxiety

2011-09-06T22:54:00.000+05:30

Every time somebody asks me the question "Do you have any siblings?" - I have always replied back with a smile "Well, my parents saw how i am turning out, and they realized that having one is enough for them!! :)"

I am sure that it is true, but 4 years back, this didn't stop my wife and i from attempting to have our own kid. The kid turning out to be like me is not enough incentive for us not to add on to an already hopping, jumping population. But then, there seemed to be a problem. This kid was just refusing to be.

Having had got tonnes of forwarded emails about how stress affected everything from the growth of finger nails to the color of the hair, we decided not to wait until the stars align and seek professional help. Today, when we look back at what we did, it seems glaringly clear to us that this is where we made our first mistake. Anyways, in all our naivete, we chose to consult a gynecologist.

"There is no significant problem, ma. Nothing to worry about. It's just two years of your marriage - go ahead and keep trying" was her advice. Probably lulled by the sound of what exactly we wanted to hear, we did that. Months went past, nothing else happened. At one point, we crossed paths with someone who put her hand onto her chin and said "hmmmm.. shouldn't you try another doctor?" And we met a famous new dr - Dr. Kurien. This turned out to be even more interesting :)

It was extremely difficult to get an appointment with Dr. Kurien. You had to book about a month or so ahead if you wanted an appointment. With him, the advice remained the same - what did change was the time frame between two visits to the Dr. We moved on from being "recently married" to "oh yes, we are married" time-lines.

Meanwhile, life at home was becoming more strained and funny at the same time. There were moments of sudden remembrance of the days of the month causing hurried unexplained departures from friends' parties. There were days of "relaxation" and deliberate staying away from fights - marking this fight to be picked up on another day! Now when we look back at that, it's always with a smile.

My work decided to relocate me to the United States, meanwhile. Since "there was nothing significantly wrong with us and we should continue to try", we also thought a change of scene would do us good. I flew in to US a month ahead of when i would take my wife also there. During this one month, my dear wife resigned from her employment and decided to spend one month of vacation at her native place. During this stay, her parents wanted her to meet their family Doctor - a certain Dr. Vasanthi. That's when the news broke!

My wife was diagnosed with a situation called Endometriosis. Dr. Vasanthi adviced Laparoscopic surgery which would remove about 70% of the condition and then advised us to go ahead and try. So we went ahead with the laparoscopic surgery.

Few days after this, my friend called me to tell me a good news - his wife was to deliver their kid that night. Completely thrilled, my wife and I went to the hospital to keep him company and welcome the new born to this world. That's when we first saw this hospital called Prashant Clinic - Prashant Fertility Research Center, to be precise. We decided to consult the resident dr Dr. Geetha Hari Priya at the PRashant Clinic just for a second opinion.

If you have never been to Prashant Hospital, what i mention would seem scary, or probably funny. This doctor had about 100 people waiting to see her, at about 10:00 PM. As our visits became more frequent, we realized that was not a one night issue - the crowd exists every day, but Dr GHP, as she is referred to, will consult everyone waiting in the hall, irrespective of the time. Our patience was rewarded after a two hour wait - around midnight.

One look at our file and Dr. GHP simple mentioned "Oh this is stage 4 Endometriosis - the only way you can conceive is through an IVF procedure. "

We looked at each other. We had tickets to travel to US in about 28 hours from them. What should we do? Should we travel or no?
......

Those days Gone and these days going...

2011-09-06T20:55:00.000+05:30

Few months back, my wife and I made through a trip through the Western Coast of USA. A trip that opened our eyes to a lot of the wonder that is nature - there is no other way to describe standing spell bound on the edges of the Grand Canyon, gasping at the world's best preserved meteor crater and lot more adventures.

It also expanded our views on some of the man's advances. From seeing the tribal laws co-exist with federal laws peacefully to the most unbelievable realization of a dream - Viva Las Vegas!
( i hold no copyright to the image, i just used one that came up in Google search :) )

The trip took us through some of the most scenic drives and some very beautiful cities and places...

And i thought, i would go ahead and revitalize my blogs with detailed travelogues. Procrastination, unfortunately took over. And now, there is something that we are going through, which brings in anxiety and information is not that easy to locate. Hence i thought i would start writing again, trying to consolidate the information that i am gathering, so that it might help others in their quest for knowledge in the related field.

Blogging, here i come back again! :)

Fasten your seatbelts... and get started on your presentation :)

2011-01-13T11:26:00.004+05:30

Earlier in my life ( when there were more black hair on my head… ah, well, when there were more hair on my head, period :) ), i used to think that the best time to let your creative juices flow into a ppt is during your flight - no one to disturb, no int

ernet to deviate you…
Well, you know what, since those days, many travel hours later, i have a very good learning. And here is a graphical representation of why…

If you were to show the time you spend on a flight as a rectangle - here is how i think the time gets sliced to multiple activities

2 People and the Joy of Christmas!

2010-12-26T19:50:00.005+05:30

Whenever we give gifts, my wife and I try our level best to give something that would make sense and meaning to our friends. For a couple celebrating their anniversary, we decided we would try and make a caricature and gift to them. In a mall nearby, my wife and i always see the cartoonist, drawing caricatures of people. ( Oh btw, have you ever tried standing behind the artist and enjoying the caricature? It is so much fun to make faces looking at the work in progress, as the "models" go from smiles, to frown to worry; as they try to judge how good the cartoon is based on your reaction :):) )

Anyways, we always get these brainwaves quite late in the day. Their anniversary had already come and gone and we thought we would give it to them when we meet them for the Christmas party. And of course, today was Christmas eve - the day all shops close sooner than often and people rush to their homes to celebrate Christmas eve with their loved ones. :) So, we rushed to the mall. We find the cartoonist having lunch and we mentioned we would be back in like 20 min or so giving him time to finish up lunch.

When we came back, we saw him just getting started on creating a cartoon of someone. In true spirit, thinking we would be next in line, we saw down next to him, watching humanity running around doing their last minute gift shopping. After few minutes, he turns and looks at us and says " Oh, you are back with the photo to be cartooned. But i am sorry, i am doing my last one for the day - i am sorry i wont be able to draw yours today."

We were a little taken aback... being such well planned people, we had of course not planned for any back up :)

"Huh? But you asked us to .... and we need it .. you were having lunch..." our pleads and protests fell on a totally flat face. He stopped drawing for a moment, with a lot of deliberation, turned towards us, shrugged and said "sorry, I can't do your job now!" . And then calmly went back to his work. That's it - it was like an instant dismissal.

As we walked away from him trying to figure out what should we make of our gift idea, when my wife told me - "why don't you at least try to convince him?"

"OK" i said, and i went back to standing right next to the artist. Didn't want to disturb him - you don't want him to pour his frustration with us on the cartoon that he was drawing for some one else :). After some time, he turns to be with a lot of frustration on his face and picks up his eye brows. It's a silent, but about to explode with frustration "yes?"

I put on my what i think is my best smile, "you know, this was meant as a gift to our friends, and we haven't planned for anything else.. Is there some way you can help us out?"

I have tried this question at various places, and have had various answers ranging from a sweet smile and "Oh, okay, let me just do that. its after all just ten minutes' to the same sweet smile and "I am really sorry - i wish i could help you, but i really can't..." etc - but truly, i haven't had the reaction that i got from him, from many others.

he just dropped his hands in frustration, rolled up his eyes, got a frown on his face "you know, its Christmas eve, and i just can't keep working like..."

I didn't event let him finish "you know what, it's okay, i am sorry. Merry Christmas!" We simply walked away. It was Christmas and he was probably expected to be in a party. But then, isn't it the season of cheer? If Santa could hop on and off these many homes with his big tummy and still laugh all the way with his loud Ho! Ho! Ho!, would a smile from the artist have hurt? And to top it all, it was his benefit all the way - I was going to pay him - It was not free service! Why was he being grumpy at me for that?

Anyways, this small twist had given us couple of hours of our time that we hadn't planned for. The malls were closed, and on an outside hope, we called our Fitness Studio to see if they were open ( Probably Santa needed a workout ? :) )

Surprising they were. The person who took the phone was Sam, who had registered us and so we knew by name. So, when we were signing in, we asked Sam out of curiosity - how come you are working now?

She smiles sweet and bright and said "Well, the company's policy said that we had to be open today till 10 PM. And it had to be either me or my manager. My manager has two small kids and i was definitely not going to keep him at work on Christmas eve - the kids will be heart broken!".

Both my wife and I stopped in our tracks - we were pleasantly surprised. We know how important Christmas is for people here and to see someone working late into Christmas eve, and that with such happiness and cheer was very surprising to us.

"You know, i don't have kids", she continued with the same smile and cheer. " so i decided to stay back. And anyways, i can always get home before midnight and be with my family including my nieces on Christmas"

We were simply bowled over. You know how some people in such situation has that tone of "I sacrificed my joy. Sympathize with me". That was not how Sam spoke. She was just happy that she was able to get her manager's kids happy. It wasn't a tone looking for sympathy or any response. She just said ti so full of smile, cheer and warmth!

Just two random people from across different walks of life - both faced with same situation, work a little extra when everyone else is going home. And look at what a difference a simple change in attitude brings. I wonder how i react in such situation! Wish we all had that ability, the attitude to be like Sam, seeing the positive side of things always and having the happiness of making others happy.

My wish to Santa this year was to make more them like Sam :)

Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho!

"Take me to your leader!..."

2010-12-10T22:26:00.003+05:30

That seems to be the standard dialogue Aliens say every time they land on Earth.. In one of the quirky moods, i was watching the movie "The Day the Earth stood still" ( not the 1951 original, which i have watched quite many years earlier :) - but the 2008 Keanu Reeves Version. The Aliens come out and tell the awestruck humans - "Take me to your leader".. the story goes that we are first taken to the political leaders, who speak of protection, of defending earth and killing the aliens which does nothing to the alien intent of eliminating Earth ( as a punishment for all the bad things we are doing ). Later, the aliens are made in touch with a brilliant scientist who shares all the good things we are doing with the aliens and tell him, that we humans have a history of uniting and doing good things when we are at the tipping point. This alien visit is a tipping point and hence we will pull up our socks. Fortunately for us humans, Reeves as the messenger is convinced and saves the world.

I switched off the flickering tube and i wondered to myself, who truly are our leaders? Is it the politicians who govern, who administer rules and regulations and direct the country, and thus the world; or is it the brilliant, eminent minds - the scientists, the thinkers who lead the world through brilliance, inventions and discoveries?

I, for one, tend to choose the scientists. It is these minds, that convey the growth that we have collectively had. It is truly these minds that have shown us the way to move forward. These eminent brilliant minds are our true leaders. The rest of us, politicians, economists, common public have only either supported the growth or stayed out of their way.

Don't misunderstand me- the rulers, the governors are necessary, to ensure that the scientific thoughts are directed well, are regulated well, and change is managed well among the larger world.

Who would you take the aliens too, if you were stopped one day and told, in a metallic voice "Take me to your leaders" ???

( The movie posters are courtesy, wikipedia. I just loved the 1951 poster and could not but put it there for all of us to enjoy. :) )

Of Innovation and Daily life!

2010-12-07T23:53:00.004+05:30

Have you ever moved your house? If you haven't, you should definitely ! :) -That is the day when a lot of worldly realizations hit you. Things such as: There are still a lot of people whose bills cannot be settled by credit card; and, remember that plastic card called the ATM card - well the daily limit for withdrawal of money from an ATM is not so big!! :) ( especially when point no.1 has come true for you :) )

Normally, needing cash would mean getting hold of your account number - which beyond being printed in that obscure place in the cheque, we never bother imprinting in our mind. Then going to the bank, getting hold of the withdrawal slip and filling up all the numbers; withdrawing money. ( and if the cheque books and stuff are well packed by your better half, that simple task of getting the account number can be a very formidable task :) )

So here i was, in the exact situation that i mentioned above. All my documents were well packed and there was no way that i could convince my wife to open the package. It was easier to face the sarcastic look of the cashier while i ask her for the number of my account. As i walked into the bank, i was in for a very interesting and innovative surprise. ( btw, Can a surprise be innovative? :) )

There were no withdrawal slips or deposit slips!!!

Every counter had a card swipe machine in front of them. The same machine which you find in countless merchants - which is so familiar at the billing counter of any shop. Well, each counter had this machine. So, when you want to withdraw money, you simply swipe your card, key in your pin number and tell the amount that you need to the teller. She authenticates your id, enters the amount and you are rich!!!

That's it! Don't you think it is an excellent innovation? Of course, it does make it extremely painless, less time consuming and easy for the user, also imagine what it does to the bank... It doesn't have to maintain another set of database about the withdrawal slip numbers. they don't have to build logistics around printing and delivering those slips .. I think its simply great.

I have always been a sucker for using technology for simple day to day life activities. And i couldn't stop but keep marveling at this simple innovation that has made the process so simple. Another similar innovation that i have seen is in the Universal studio, where they have used fingerprint based biometrics for lockers.

They don't allow you into some of the rides in the Universal studio if you have a bag or a purse etc. And there are lockers available where you can store your belongings if you want to go to these rides. But lockers have locks; and together with it are those small things that have a tendency to get lost so easily- called keys. And i am sure the park management did not want to worry about lost keys, forgotten keys etc - So they had a very simple plan. They connected all the lockers to a central computer. You go to the screen, scan your fingerprint, and pick a free locker. the computer open the locker for you. Put your stuff in, and close the door - it locks. To open the locker, scan your fingerprint, computer identifies your locker number and opens it for you. After two hours, the lockers are auto opened ( if i remember right ) so nobody can take a locker for more than 2 hours!

I thought these instances of leveraging technology to help day to day activities are absolutely brilliant examples of out of the box thinking and innovation. No wonder more and more companies are asking the users to submit the ideas that they can convert to functionalities in their product.

Way to go, technology! :)

Of Growing Wisdom and Going Hair!

2010-10-06T07:39:00.002+05:30

They say as age comes, so does wisdom. They also say, that as youth goes, so does the hair on your head.

I definitely don't know about wisdom, but my hairlines are receding fast enough to prove my age!

I cross one more year off my list this month!! :)

Psst - Who are these "they"? I would certainly like to meet them! :)

B a a a a b u u u u j i i i i i !!!!!!

2010-10-05T22:19:00.002+05:30

New York city is a wonderland. The lights, the hustle, the people - it just grows on you! Our first visit to this wonderful city was in the biting cold winter. And so, it was but natural to try and visit there when the days are long, and the dun god stays with us a little longer!

And this time, we wanted to be tourist-y. And we saw this open-top buses going around and decided that it would be the best way to see all of New York. ( And it would also be the safest way to keep our spouses at a good distance from all those shops! :) ). So, in the mass of people swirling all around us, we found the uniformed sales guy of one of the open top bus tour company. and then we patiently stood around him as he opened the brochure, showed us all the routes, and all the additional things of the plan. My eyes, were going all around the brochure, looking for the one most important thing, the cost of this! ( I am pretty sure that all the other's eyes were also going round and round searching for the same! :) ). Finally found it - there it was, hidden among the colorful "!" and the "!!" - the number written after a $sign. It was 53$. A quick mental calculation ( backed by one of us who stepped back and did on his iphone :) ) arrived at $318 for 6 of us.

The rep was quite happy, and like an experienced rep, gave us our 6 seconds of private thoughts discussing the total cost. When he came back, we had decided - we were going to go ahead with it.

Credit cards were handed over, and the rep was sliding them through the machine. And one of us couldn't resist ask this ( for the rest of us, it was running in our minds :) - we just couldn't bring this out! ) " So, we are 6 of us, what discount do you give us? do we get a consolidated 6 tickets at $300?"

We were ready for a frowned "No", a rough shake of head, even feigning ignorance of our question. But nothing could have prepared us for the response. It was a classic Russell Peters moment. :)

The sales rep looked up with a beaming smile, and said "Baaaboooojiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!" It was an instant recognition of where we came from!. I couldn't but help bursting out with laugh! "No baaabujiiiii.. we cant do it!!! :) Babuuuuuuuuuuuuujiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!" :):):)

The humor in the situation hit me instantly. Imagine New York City visited by 1000's, nay, 10s of 1000's of people everyday, and one question can spark recognition of an entire set of people! Brilliant. The most intriguing part was, as much as were we embarrassed at being called Babuji, i don't think the sales rep meant it in a derogatory way. It was just a friendly conversation. There was no sarcasm, there was no derogation, no humiliation - just a good sense of humor and a conversation between friends.

We did get the tickets - without any discount, and we did make the city tour. And i think this incident made it as much enjoyable as any other!

Recently, i had another chance to enjoy this moment. One of our friends had moved back to India form US and had given us the responsibility of selling off their car child seats. We had an enquiry about this from an India couple. We had our own travel plans that day and hence decided to meet them on our way, near their place of stay.

The meeting was in downtown Boston, quite near the waters. And my BlackBerry app told me that the only ends that residents of that area would try to meet might be of their clothes :) - It was quite a well off area. Few minutes later a Mercedes Benz pulls up behind us. One of those new swanky version, with in built GPS and all the bells an whistles. The potential buyers get out of their car, smiles and pleasant hellos are exchanged. They examine the car seat, the retail price of which are in multiple 100 $$. We had them listed for a throwaway price of 20$. We were more interested in getting that to people who could use them than having them stocked at our house.

Back to this couple, who live in a posh area, travel in luxury cars and hopefully will find good use of the car seat they decided to take from us. The seat is moved to their car. The lady takes her bag, opens the purse, and then looks up to us and asks

"Is it negotiable?"

"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuujjjjjjjjjjjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!" :):):)

Happy Onam!

2010-08-31T09:37:00.003+05:30

Come August / September, there is a smile in every Malayali's face and heart. It is the official excuse for us to eat, sing and be merry. Why, you ask us? Its because it is Onam - Kerala's own festival of Harvest!

There are things that we want very well defined - like the color and the feel of our clothes, like the dimensions of our house; and there are some things which are never defined - like our festivals. It simply means has its own unique meanings to everyone. And conveniently, we all take it to mean what we want it to mean!

For foodies (like me :) ), it is an excuse - and an official one at that - to eat more ( lovingly refered to as Ona Sadya ), for kids - it is an excuse not to study and to expect new clothes, for the new city bred middle class - it is a formal excuse to splurge at an exquisite restaurant ( and not the same one that they went all week, anyways :) ), and for those menfolk, nay, married menfolk, whose better halves control their reach to their favorite bitter liquids, it is an official excuse to bring out those bottles and enjoy them with their friends!

I have lots of fond memories (and quite so many almost withered photographs) of my own Onam celebrations. The first thing to think of during Onam are the pookkalams - the design made by colorful flowers. In those times, entrepreneurs hadn't commercialized our lives as much, so, for us short kids in shorts, it was nothing short of an expedition in the early morning to get ( pick, jump and pick, jump and steal :) ) as many flowers as we could get ( and get them before other kids get them or the neighbor wakes up to safeguard his little garden :) ). Once the collection is over, you hand it over to the experts - the parents, the uncles and aunts who would then use all their imagination to make pretty designs on the floor with them. Some geometrical, some color patterned - but there was one thing that was always there - they were always pretty and beautiful!

Almost in all the Onams that i can remember, i got the Onakkodi - the new clothes! My face would lighten up at the sight of those new clothes and i would try to be in them in no time flat. There were no brands, no fancy labels, but the just the fact that you are wearing something new was more than any other joy! There was only one more joy, that could overpower this one - the one that is caused by the lifting smell of the OnaSadya!

More than the varieties of food ( and the pappadoms - oh the pappadoms! - the crispy crispy fried wafers! ) it was the variety of people around that used to make me happy - All the uncles, the aunts, the parents, the grand parents - it was an occasion when the whole big house would turn into a big home by the loud conversations, the laughter and the happiness. Those few days, everyone would forget all the trouble of the day to day life - the togetherness would cover all that.

After the Sadya, after everyone has cleaned up, slowly one by one everyone would try to catch up few winks of sleep. The entire family would be in the same room, lying on the cold red oxide floors or on bamboo mats, chitchatting with each others, the voices slowly, lazily transitioning into silence or light snores.

You know how these politicians spoil everything for you? :) They had my parents convinced (like pretty much all the other parents, i guess ) that good education is a must have for all growing kids. It was already bad enough with the milk and vegetables, now education too ? :( Anyways, my parents were convinced and they took me off to Ranchi, where my father was employed, to make me join a bigger school and continue my studies. But then, to their credit, they did keep the tradition of Onam live, in our hearts and in our home!

Onam was still the day to expect good food and new clothes. It was just that the North Indian School mgmt found no reasons to give a week of holidays to the kids for some king visiting the Southern State of Kerala. ( Don't know legend? Look here! ) We might have moved physically away, miles up north, from the family in Kerala - from all those uncles, aunts, grand parents, but we had found our family here too. The colony where we lived had a very healthy group of malayalees an Onam was a reason for the dearest friends to come together, cook and eat the Sadya together. I still remember all the fun, laughter and cheer that the crowd would have at our house, people crowding to cut vegetables, to cook - the only difference, for me , was to convince my father that Onam was reason enough not to study ( I think the above said politicians had influenced by father much more than my grandparents - so it was as much more difficult to convince )

Those were the days the telephone numbers still 3 digits or at best 4, the TVs had antennas and the only network signal strength that we were all worried about were the Doordarshan TV strength! So the Onam was also the time write many letters - to all the family and near and dear friends, not a real substitute for the chitchatter while sliding to sleep in the cold red oxide floor, but it would convey all the happiness, all the cheer and the closeness that we felt with the same strength!

"Onam weekend" also made its official entry - the weekend when the Malayalee Association would hold the Onam festivities in the community center - cultural activities that included a Pookkalam competition, a very elaborate OnaSadya and a screening of a Malayalam film ( which almost always turned into a fashion show to showcase who had the best looking clothes :) )

Education or no education, it was not stopping me from growing up. towards my college time, the Indian govt, gracefully accepted my father's request for a transfer and relocated us to Chennai - In south India, neighboring our home state, Kerala. Time might have changed a lot of things, our address, our outlook, our clothes and shoes - but Onam still held a very special place in my hart. Along with the faded jeans, the graphic t shirts and Michael Jackson the city life had brought along its own influences - and so did it bring compromises on the Onam celebrations. The Pookkalams were restricted to the "live telecast of the Pookkalam competition from our studios". It was no more "cool" to wear shiny new clothes.. :). But one thing remained - The OnaSadya ( with the pappadums, oh those crispy fried pappadums ). Since it would have been such a drag to prepare the elaborate Sadya for just the three of us in the family, my friends were usually invited for the lunch. Some of them, throughly enjoyed it, but for some others, it used to be a refresher course in "100 different ways to use coconut in food items!" :) With my father being the eager host that he is, he would always ensure that the "guests" always eat to his, which usually was much more than their, fill :) After the fulfilling food, all of us would just crash out on the couch, and my mother would walk in with the small bowls of Payasam!! How much ever full we were, we would all invite this with smiles!

After the heavy Sadya and the payasam, my friends and I would chitchat about girls, about classes and making plans of catching up in the evening. The evening was to be my "treat" in any of the local chaat shops. The official Onam weekend still remained, but transitioned to a eve of Onam festivals at our college hostel. More of cooking, more of fun, more of festivities. I still remember one Tug of War competition which was between the lecturers and the admin staff of the college - and in the middle, the rope just gave way. As the lecturers piled on one another, there was a rush from the "organizing committee" to the kitchen!!! :)

As much as i was growing, so was technology and so were the digits in the phone numbers - they had increased to 7 digits from those 3 and 4 digits. One of those 7 digits also adorned our wooden cabinet. The long letters were now replaced by the long set of digits that we had to dial to speak to each of our friends and family. As much as the Inland Letter would limit the words in the letter, the fear of a huge telephone bill would ensure short wishes and small conversations! The only letter that still remained was the long distance aerogramme which would carry our wishes through the letter to our relatives living across the seas. making an overseas call would have tremendous impact on the telephone bills and were as yet forbidden acts at home! Along with these 7 digit wonders, some more things had changed, Doordarshan had given way to the Stars and the MTVs of the world. So as my parents and i cleaned up after the lunch, and lied down in the cold concrete floor of our flat, we would turn to the TV to watch the "Onam Special Malayalam Movie" !! Slowly, the conversations in the movie would transition to our light snores! :)

the nuclear family slowly gave way to the family of friends - and that was really a big group once i completed my education and moved on employment. Onam pookkalams moved back into my real life from those telecasted in the TV's - but there were slight differences though. Those homely events were now called "Corporate Motivational Events" and moved to the tiled and marbled floors of our offices. The search for the bright colorful flowers in the misty chilly mornings with friends were replaced by vroom filled motorcycle trips in the previous night to the crowded hot dusty flower bazaars. The fear of getting caught while nipping flowers from our neighbors Garden were replaced by the fear of not getting enough budget from our bosses to buy them! The simple eloquent color patterns were replaced by complex designs, downloaded from the Internet. The child's simple and wide-eyed "oooh - look at our neighbors designs, that is so pretty" were replaced the youth's competitive ' Look at them, their design has more colors, lets also get some more colors! - Lets google for more designs!!!!"

The thrill of wearing new dresses had transitioned to a fancy dress show aptly titled, Traditional dress days by our employers! This bought the comical melange of traditional "Mundu" being worn by very un-traditional youngsters so used to the jeans and baggies! So mundu's usually would be accompanied by a tightly worn leather belt around the waist to ensure no mishaps! :) And there would definitely be one of those jokers, who would conveniently forget that bright colored underpants would show up through the simple attire :). Colorful Saris and Salwars fought for attention among shiny silk Kurtas in the office space that would usually witness a flurry of light blue and white shirts! Even the OnaSadya had its own transition. The lovely aromas of home cooked food were replaced by wide eyes of those beautiful Sadya photos in the restaurant websites. The happy crowding around the dining table by the family was replaced by the still happy crowding at the local restaurant among thousand other folks!

Along with the wallets ( that would pay for the elaborate OnaSadya ) that would be artfully placed at some place in the mundu, shirt pocket or the belt,every person was also adorned with one more weapon - that of the mobile phones!. The short conversations after the long list of digits got changed to cryptic text messages sent as bulk to 523 names in the address book. The joy of hearing the family's voice in the phone was replaced by the joy of hearing the continuous "beep-beeps" as more and more friends and family sent the same messages to your phone!

Times changed, practices changed - and yet the festival keep coming back to us year after year.

Here i am now, sitting in a foreign country, looking at a blinking monitor as mails keep dropping in. It's just another work day here. Cars ply carrying their coffee drinking drivers to offices, people walk past each other engrossed in their BlackBerrys. A bowl of steamy Oats cereal sits on my table as i rewind my fond memories in my head. Feels very funny to look out and not see even a small sign of a festival. In India, irrespective of where you are, you could always look out nd see some sign of a regional festival - a corner temple having too many sandals outside, a sweet shop having a crowded stall, a child walking gleefully in new shiny dress holding her father's hands, loud conversation snips carried by the wind talking with laughter and carrying the wishes - there would be something that infect you with the pleasantness and cheer of the festival.

As i turn my gaze from the window, i can hear my wife in the other room, using the latest technology of internet based calling to wish all our family and friends a Happy Onam. No worry of a huge bills, no cryptic messages - the same long winded talks that you would have had if the family was sitting next to each other.I Can hear small snips of her conversations - wishing families happy Onam - inquiring about the Sadya - and i am suddenly drawn into a feeling of goodwill and cheer. Drawn to the togetherness that has somehow traveled across the globe from our family to wrap its warm hands around us.

It lasts a fleeting instant to be destroyed by the continuous "beeps" of new emails buzzing in. But it is enough - it makes my day and fills my face with a smile, as i alt-tab to my email window and start my day.. "Thanks for the mail - but i am not sure....."

Happy Onam Folks!!!!

Happiness - found at a subway station.

2010-07-19T00:11:00.008+05:30

At the Harvard square t station in Boston, there is this street performer playing guitar and singing. We've seen them in so many places, in so many costumes.

But there's something different about her - beyond the fact that she is singing in Chinese. She seems incredibly happy just to be there and to be singing. No, I mean not just a smile, but from the heart. How does she do it?

Around her I find the contrast- people upset that it's hot outside, people upset that their mobiles don't have network signal, people who are upset, I don't know why! And me too, I am upset, for a silly fight at home.

Am almost embarrassed to look at her - how can i be upset when my life is so good? upset enough to spoil my day at something so silly? Am sure she has her won issues and problems - no man ever was and is without problems - but she simply choses to be happy. And here i was, choosing to feel miserable on a very very silly spat! As i kept looking at her smile, at some point, i realized that i was smiling too - my frown had disappeared!

With a loud racket, my train had arrived and while walking towards the train, dropped some money onto her box. With the same smile, she said - thank you!

No, thank YOU lady, thank YOU!!

Super Panda to the rescue !!! :) :) - A Very different Experience on internet purchase

2010-06-11T08:10:00.004+05:30

I had a very pleasing experience on one of my internet purchases. I had ordered ink for my printer from an online store www.yoyoink.com.

I had no previous experience from the store - had zero-ed in on them based on the lowest price for the cartridges based on google results. So, apart from a decent, hassle-free shopping and shipping experience - i did not have any further expectations.

The user experience was good, and the shopping transaction completed easily. Shipping was also good - the cartridges arrived today by 6 days. But the best was yet to come.

Imagine my pleasant surprise, when i opened the package, and found a lovely handwritten post-it note from Lance - thanking me for the order and wishing me good times with the ink!! That was such a unexpected human touch - that i loved it!

It was such a nice change from the typical CRM mails that i get from many other big shops on the net - Keep up the great work Team yoyo!! - Next time my ink dries out - i know which URL i will click on!! :) It feels good to know that somebody actually looked through the order and packed them for you - and took pains to drop you a personal note - Especially during these times, where even the person at the fast food counter where you go every day, doesn't bother looking at your eyes - Something at the billing counter always is more attractive :)

And if you haven't tried Yoyo - i would recommend you give them a try - They not only deliver well - they might even bring a smile to your face on a gloomy rainy day! :)

An Ode to an Unknown Mentor

2010-05-25T09:10:00.003+05:30

I read through a newsletter today that Rita Mulcahy, PMP has passed away. For anyone who has written the PMP exam knows that Rita Mulcahy's books were almost the bible for us - and a benchmark of how well we might fare in the exam.

I didnt know Rita. I have no clue of how she looked, how she thought and how she worked. But at the same time, her works has brought about another achievement for me, another ceritification for me. It must be amazing to know that what you produce is affecting 100's of; nay; 10,000s of people who wrote this exam.

I wonder if all those of us who have used her knowledge and the result of her hard work - would know, or even care enough to say - oops! Here was a person who had directed me, who had taught me quite a few valuable lessons - and that person, is no more!!

May her soul Rest in Peace.

Announcement about her death from the RMC site:

"Rita Mulcahy, Founder of RMC Project Management and the best-selling project management author of all-time, passed away on Saturday, May 15th 2010, from complications related to a five-year battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)"

What motivates People?

2010-05-21T03:56:00.003+05:30

Through the tweet of someone whom i follow - i read ( actually heard ) a very interesting piece about "what motivates people to work better". ( You can hear it too at http://blogs.psychcentral.com/channeln/2010/05/what-motivates-people-to-work-better.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChannelN-PodcastsPoweredByOdiogo+%28Channel+N+%2B%29 ) Even if you didnt like the actual message - you would love the way it is rendered through animation. Awesome!

Anyways - one of the key points mentioned was that in cognitive task ( for those of us lay men - it means that includes thinking, creativity and not mechanical repeatable tasks ) money is not a motivator. But to me, the most important point in the whole story was - "Pay People Enough to take the issue of money off the table" _Once you do that, then money is no more a motivator.

That to me is a brilliant thought. And a very subtle fact. And i guess it applies to all levels, all areas. If there aer things weighing down in you mind - your aim isonly to somehow make it happen. Once that is achieved, then you can chase your mind and your will.

I am sure a lot of my friends would say - waht's so big about this thought and tease me that i make a big point of it. But to me, i think this is a very important point that we can all use in our day to day work life as an important way to motivate our team.

Know what material desire is weighing down each of your team member. Use a solution to those problems as a incentive. Once that is achieved, do another search to identify what can really satisfy the sould of the team member. change your incentive plan to the new carrot.

Motivating your team is never a point of time exercise - It is an evolving activity and needs you to be always connected to your team!!

"I did something wierd today!"

2010-05-19T18:33:00.002+05:30

And that would be wierder than taking up the mobile phone and sending a tweet mentioning this to half the world? :)

I was reading Dracula ( again! :) ). The whole book is written as a collection of diary notes - some by Jonathan Harker, some by Mina HArker and some by other characters. Stoker is able to simply pull the whole narrative together through these posts!

I was wondering how the book would have been written had it been Dracula 2.0...

As the train goes chug chugging to the carpathian mountains, Jonatahn would open up his laptop and start typing his blog - The Journey to the Carpathian, part 1. His fears, the wierd happening would all be noted in the blog. HIs lover, wife to be Mina would get a minute to minute update on his travel ( She would probably even comment - JOnathan, pull down the window of the train, you would catch cold! )

And then Jonathan would open up google maps and drop a pin on the current location where he is- Just so, that he can tell others that "oh, well, you know, i have been to all corners of the world, blimey!"

As he gets down and the localites give him the cross, the garlic and the other things to ward off evil spirits, he would take a video of the same using flip and directly upload that to youtube ( Fetching a comment from musiclova2145: "awesome video , dude!! Can i add some background songs to this?" )

And as they mention their wishes in the native tongue, Jonathan would open the translator app in iPhone or Droid and convert what they say to English. Now he is definitely a more informed man!!!

And i am sure he woul have been more informed about Castle Dracula, as he would have read about it in Wikipedia ( where else :) )

The Dracula Bite Video has a million hits in the last one month and has gone viral!
eBay suddenly has a lot more Garlic sellers..
Craigslist has seen a spurt in a lot of classified ads for night life lovers...

Would have beena pretty some novel - Dracula 2.0 :)

The Chronicles of Jay-nia… Akkare Akkare Akkare

2009-01-31T10:22:00.002+05:30

"Akkare Akkare Akkare" is the name of a very entertaining Malayalam movie from the 80's – telling us the story of two bungling detectives and their escapades to find a thief in the US of A. I thought this would be the apt title for this serried relasting to my travel and the bungling adventures that I would ( I wrote might and then replaced by would, am sure I would have some comical adventures J ) have during my maiden trip to the US of A.

29^th Jan was the day – And what a long day it was.. I started my flight from namma Singara Chennai on the early morning of 29^th – AS early as 1:50 AM. Someone told me that I would love the flight as the Airways has personal in flight entertainment. But after trying to watch couple of Malayalam movies, which I did not cross half an hour, and one Hindi movie, which I braved for half an hour, I gave up inflight entertainment and and gave in to my personal in flight entertainment – that of dreaming though my sleep. J After flying ten hours I landed at a very pretty Brussels, the transit port, at 7:50 AM 29^th January. People had warned me that to keep my warm clothes at hand, but the big me had a lot of belief in my own warmer – the layers of fat all around my waist – when would they come handy to me, if not now ? J - So I had my overcoat, safely packed inside my cabin baggage. Even when the captain announced an outside temperature of – 2 degrees C, I smiled at him, looked around majestically – I will show you all – what it is to be fat, and happy J

Ladies and gentleman, -2 deg C is extremely cold. Brrrr….extrrrremely. It was nice to breathe out chilled air at first, but thwn the chill grips your legs, you know what it is. I almost ran inside the airport. I knew a long walk loomed in front of me, but the funniest part of this part of my travel was about to start. The cops directed me to a security check. They had these convoys next to which these shallow wide rectangular plastic baskets were stacked. My Indian Sense of look and learn were at my highest. The look and learn was aided by this security lady who instructed me to put my bags, shoes, wallet, watch, belt in the bins and pass though the metal detector. And I did that. I kept my laptop bag in the carousel, took a plastic bin, kept my wallet, keys, phone in it. Then I took off my shoes, kept in the basket, and then took off my belt ( I could almost feel the music and perform a full monty :P ), dumped them in the bin and I was just about to walk through the metal detector, that couple of questions took me by surprise. The conversation went as follows:

" Is that your laptop?"

Nod. In Indian language, it means yes. I am hoping that these men in blue would also understand. They did.

"Get it off, you know, Naked"

I was like WOW! It took me couple of nano seconds to realize that if they are gonna get me naked, they would also get the lovely looking girls naked. Wow, what a job! Dirty mind !! J Then the next thought struck – what the hell, Naked ? Out here, in public in this airport. Well, Security is security – couldn't question them, could I, so I got my reluctant fingers around my jeans button, and the guard looked at me strangely and shouted "Grab your laptop bag before it gets inside the scanner" – I did – and then he said – "now get the laptop out of the bag, and keep it separate "… Then It dawned on me. It was not me that he wanted naked, it was my laptop J

Anyways, there were no further issues, and I passed successfully to the gate of the connecting flight. And then I remembered, I had to call Shashank, my friend when I landed in Newark Airport. And my phone had been warning me of "Low Battery" every time I switch it on, so I had to depend on public pay phone when I landed there. I did have some dollars with me, which I had converted when starting from Chennai, but had no Quarters of Coins. And my Indian ingenuity started to work again.

Looking very innocent, I meandered inside a airport shop. Picked up a pack of Mint drops priced at Euro 1.5 – so that should approx be about USD 3 and I gave it to the counter. And with the item, asked her, so- can I pay you in dollars. She was like, sure, you can! I was immensely happy with this ingenious plot that i had hatched. I gave her a ten $ note. She converted the currency on her machine, and … retuned me change in Euros! I was taken aback and told her, madam – I gave you dollars, so you give me dollars back. ( And I was thinking, Ha! She thought she could cheat me ? J ) She looked me and said, sir, we only accept dollars to help our customers, we are nto allowed to transact in dollars. So I can only give you Euro's back.

So there I was, sitting in Brussels Airport, looking around a snow covered landscape, and a brilliant orange sun rising slowly in front me. I am sure most of the people around me thought, I was looking a little dull because of the cold, how could they have realized that I was not 10 $ short, and about 4 euro and some change heavier ? And of course, add to that a pack of Mint drops for which I ahd paid INR 150 !!!!! For 150 rupees, I can walk into a restaurant back home, have a sumptuous lunch, and they might have given me mint mouth freshers free after it !!!! Sigh !

Another eight hours in the flight to Newark Airport. The flight took me across the United Kingdom, and the ocean.. From snow covered lands to a large water mass. More attempts to watch Hindi movies and Malayalam movies. No success there. Couldn't take it more than one hour. Welcomed my own personal dream station for quite some time. Landed in Newark Airport at 12:40 PM Jan 29^th.

There is one thing that I realized immediately. It is impossible to feel lost in the airport. All you have to do, is to just follow the signs. I walked to the immigration department, got my entry stamped and entered the land. And of course, there was the shoes, jacket, ( I had my jacket on me, by then J ) wallet, purse show again – but no mention of the nakedness J. I was at the carousel, waiting my my bog box, and I heard a dog yelp at my feet. A little used to weird happenings by then, I looked around to see a policewoman pointing at my cabin luggage and making a dog scent it. Aha – you can't beat me – I have read enough about getting food and stuff to America, so I have nothing there. I had the satisfied look on my face after the quick inspection and the dog, slightly unsatisfied. J

It was good to see Shashank at the airport. Real nice of him to have come to pick me up. He took me to the guest house, made me feel comfortable and then we went out for lunch. I liked what I was seeing. The entire streets, lined with snow, chilly weather – it was definitely different from the hot and sweaty Chennai. Most of the people living there would have hated it, but as a visitor, I loved it. Shashank drove me around to Newark and we located a Thai restaurant, which he said was really nice. It really was. After a good lunch, we walked out to the street.

We had just started walking, and we heard a "phuutt" behind my head. I turned back immediately and realized that someone had thrown a block of ice at me. We saw couple of African American teenagers on the other side of the street, running down laughing among themselves. Hooliganism, it seems, does not spare the best of countries! I guess I was jus plain lucky not to have got hit. Anyways, life continues – I had to reach Minneapolis that night getting ready for a presentation and Shashank dropped me at the airport. He had made all arrangements – had booked my tickets, had got me an accommodation at the Hilton – It was really nice of him to have done all that. If he is going to pamper me like that, I am definitely going to Enjoy my life in here J

Achchaa-een, I Love You!

2009-01-11T22:45:00.002+05:30

NOvember is a month of "looking forward to" for a lot of people. The Entire city of Chennai looks forward to it's "Marghazhi" festival -a whole month of music, kutcheri's and festivities in the next month. And very similarly, my family looks forward to the coming together of the different members. My mother's side, all five siblings make their attempts to get together at our village house during this month. And all of us, the nephews and nieces make our own attempt to join the festivities. The more the merrier.

This time, one such nephew was the highlight. Our man - named "Hari", who currently pursues his PhD in the US of A was staying in his "tharavad" after a very long period and we were all looking forward to meeting him. In these times of togetherness, every night becomes a night of our partying, in our own specific ways... Probably not partying in it's own sense, but these aer nights that grow old with merry chitchatter, merry singing and a lot of open hearted discussions, debates and fights. This time, there was some tequila to go around, and after shooting down some of those Tequila, Hari was in a state of Euphoria. And in this state, a lot of confessions came up - Oen of such ones being "Achch-aaeen, i love you!!" Achch-aaeen being the sluurred accented pronounciation for "Achchan" the malayalam word for "Father"

Though i spent quite some amount of time and energy getting to that title, this blog is not about that trip - It is about something that happened today, but something that rides along with Hari's sentiment..

During one of her housekeeping duties today, my wife discovered an item of undisclosed source in one of our almirahs. A very pretty, flower printed "Bombay Dyeing" bedsheet. For those of us who are a part of the lastcentury in India, would know that Bombay Dyeing bedsheets are a statement of refinement. They are prtty, and they are well woven. Though i was happy seeing that, i was not happy at my lie of questions regardign this specific sheet - Who bought this? How did this come here?

Sunday afternoons are definitely not a time of activity for my poor grey cells ( Am not saying that it is, on the other days, but atleast they try! :) ) And i said, we would have bought it in one of our shopping trips. She was not to be bought into that argument. It was bombay dyeing, man - and by the feel of it, must surely be costly - How could we have spend on such an extravaganze? With raised eyebrows, she then asked a million dollar question - Would my father have bought this for us ?

We called my father in the evening, and our man staunchly refused to accept that he had kept the same here. Finally, my mother agreed that yes, it was my father!

That's my father for you. Apparently, i had mentioned some day that i was a big fan of all those terrific Bombay Dyeing bedsheets that he used to get home, and i was not having any success in getting such wonderful sheets now a days. He had just nodded that day. During his next trip, he made sure that he bought one of such sheets and without telling us, hid that in our almirah.

Today, while just browsing through the shelves of the local bookstore in Chennai, The Landmark, i saw a photoframe that said " To my Father" written in typical Archies Greetings patterns. If i ever bought this for my father, he would probably laugh and shout at me for wasting my money. And, i guess, as usual, he would be right.

For it does not need any special artifacts, any special greetings to let your feelings show. The warm lights, the fuzzy hugs that we see in the ads do not make up the fantastic chord of caring that really, truly make the relation that is a father.

I hope some day, i learn to be as good as father.

How soon Vs How Deep ?

2008-12-23T11:05:00.002+05:30

I read somewhere that a blogger should write often, and write small - so that people would visit and would read the posts. I've been thinking about it.

I tried to do this - from articulating about things or people that i felt strongly about, which makes my blog slightly longish, and not so frequent - i forced myself to write in pretty much frequently and with brevity.

Now, I definitely do have more posts in my blog, but i have less depth. How do we analyze things without writing long posts? Am not sure if i want to follow this new paradigm. I think i would revert to my olders self. :)

(Btw, has this post become long ? :) )

Christmas - Down Memory Lane!

2008-12-22T13:52:00.003+05:30

**All Characters mentioned in this post is real and living. All relation to living claracters and examples are definitely intentional!! :)

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Last night, I was walking through T Nagar ( Ensuring that my dear wife does not pick up too many things when she shops ) and I saw this street vendor selling the red color X mas caps. It immediately brought some fantastic memories and got me smiling.

I remember the Chris-ma, Chris-pa game ( and all the other games) that we played in our Office at Elnet. Dinesh being made to go from person to person with instructions ( all for just one chocolate!! :) ), Sharon stealing the banana from Divya’s Pongal bay decorations, Prabhu hiding under the table trying to escape from Deepa’s bashing and I having to distribute Christmas chocolates wearing a santa claus cap – come to think of it, I think we were total nuts!

It always leaves me with immense wonder as to how indelible some of the memories remain. I can still remember, the recipe instruction that Anusha had got from her friend to make bisi bele bath for one of our pot luck celebrations… I think it went something like:

1. Take cooker, add rice, and togaribele ( I still have no clue what this is :) ) and cook in cooker till three whistles… ( Ppl in anusha’s flat was telling later that they could hear Anusha trying to whistle. )
2. Take tamarind equal to one big lemon ( Imagine telling Anusha about “big” lemon – I heard she took and orange ) and …..
3. ( This is the best part ) For vaggaaarani ( this sounds like a queen’s name :) ) – little oil + Sasive ( sounds like some calling our SAsi.. :) ) + Karabevu
4. Add 4 and 3 and mix….

And to imagine – we had to eat whatever came out!!! :)

Ayon’s excuses for becoming fat was also amazing! – He blames it on him not having the refrigerator – reason? whenever he buys chicken, he has to eat the whole chicken prepared in the same night- and if he has to eat so much chicken, he must have enough rice also… :):):) So, you see, he is not to be blamed for getting larger :)

And of course, how can we forget apna Sharon – who even distributed sweets when Pallikarani was included in master_location table :)

I guess, Laks’s promise of getting a “vaira odyaanam” to Anusha is still not done!!!

I could go on and on….but the best thing to say about those times are best said by Bryan Adams in his ever living song – Summer of ’69:

……. Oh when I look back now, That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice, Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life………

…………….Man we were killin' time, We were young and restless
We needed to unwind, I guess nothin' can last forever - forever, no………..

My Car!

2008-12-13T20:07:00.004+05:30

My friend gave his five year old Honda City for sale to a dealer. It's wonderful how we suddenly realize the attachment that we have to someone or something just when we are about to part from it.

Suddenly, we remember all the good things we have done together. Even those bad happenings suddenly get remembered with humor and an attachment we never felt before. Even the fact that we cursed when we had a puncture is recounted with a smile on the face.

We shifted our houses some months back, and we took a conscious call that we will give away all those knick nacks ( is that how it is spelt ? ) that we seem to have accumulated through the days. It actually came up to about 11 backpacks or so ( including the backpacks themselves :) ) I had given the job of checking to my wife to see if there was anything of value ( economic, not sentimental - i was clear ) in those bags. After she delcared it okay, we went and donated the whole lot to an orphanage.

I know that my old camcorder, our old dvd player and a lot of my old gadgets was sincerely given away, but somehow, the first silly heart shape that she bought for me, the photoframe which was never used ( but was intended for a specific photo), some nice handiworked gift sent to us from China and the only wall hanging that i had when i got married seem to have been left behind...

I know how they got unpacked. But everytime i pick one of these up and raise my eyebrows, her sheepish smile makes me give up.

But then, aren't these a verys mall price to pay for that smile, that small bit of happiness ? :)

The PGSEM Gang Dinner

2008-12-13T00:20:00.005+05:30

One of the biggest worries of any college kid is that once you are out of college, you dont get back to your old friends. But for us, the gang of us who did our PGSEM in IIMB, this was last of our worries. We are all working professionals and fortunately, in the same company too!

So it was not too difficult to just get together for a dinner. Teacher was as usual, the decider. And no one dared say no to her mail :) Dishes were decided, time was decided and menu was decided. She came with her lovely daughter. And as usual, she came first!! :)

Mani - was apna PGSEM brand ambassador, wearing the new t shirt. But the center point of attraction was Mani with the latest addition to his family - Mani Jr. :) He looked so lovely.

Ashish babu came in a paukka gentleman with his sweet wife Sejal. They made such a lovely couple. They even had matching dresses. Ashish wore a yellow shirt and we all think it was because he wanted to match Sejal's dress color.. Sigh, what marriage can do to strong bachelors :)

Anand Babu - nothing has changed for him. He as usual started late, reached ur place the last. His dinner was punctuated by his status updates to his mother and his yet to be elected home ministry ( and to add to that - to update Teacher anout what he spoke on the phone :) ). And to prove nothing had changed, after dinner, now he is back to office!!

Anyways, the PGSEM gang remains THE Gang - absolutely nuts, absolutely cranky and "jolly good fellas" :):)

We, The People, Part 2

2008-12-09T07:39:00.004+05:30

Someone forwarded me this pic of the Mumbai rally participation. And if this is the face of India, I am scared. Forget the himsa-ahimsa debate, here's a picture of what we, at large end up doing. Trying to hold up for a common cause, a national cause, but still immersed enough in our personal world so much that it takes precedence. (If you dont understand waht i mean, try seeing an enlarged view of the pic - the guy in the pic is busy with his cellphone!!! :) ) This pic is a fantastic image of our larger image. It shows clearly, where our preference lies.

Prbably i am being too harsh. Probably the lensman clicked when someone was genuinely trying to reach this guy.. and i happen to pick on just this one photo in the middle of so many. Who knows?

Btw, i have no right to the pic. This was forwarded to me as a forwarded mail. If there is any copyright on this pic, please let me know, and i shall remove this from here.

We, The People

2008-12-07T14:55:00.002+05:30

I was reading the report on Rediff, "After the terror, now it is the rage". There is ( or should i say, was - the report is on 4th Dec ) action all around. People saying that it is time we took some action, it is time we did something. And now everyone is thinking of doing his or her own bit. On Dec 2, Rediff seems to have run a feature, "How do YOU plan to make a difference?" Over the last six days, we have 327 posts there.

Interesting. Even heartening. But in the heart of hearts, i still have pessimism. Forgive me to be a dampener. Is a change really possible as soon as this ? Can we, like the movies, diffuse into a mellow yellow sunshine scene and print "End everything went well from then ?". I doubt. It takes a long time for change to happen and to make an impact. Will we be able to sustain our anger, our energy and our josh till then? Or will our day to day lives pull us back ?

I dont know where, but couple of days back, i read ( in one of the internet articles ) that the ppl in the citizen's rally were considering ( or contemplating ) non payment of taxes if they were not being used for our security!!! Would that help ? Is that the solution, or isn't that just a knee jerk reaction?

What we should be doing is to actively participate in the govt. When we make ourselves a participant of the govt, we will automatically be responsible for the functioning. Take one section of our sity, where we live, look at our own roads, and actively involve and follow the proceedings in the govt related to your area. Is the road condition being discussed ? Who are the contractors, what are the tendors? How much is it being quoted for ? Can we go and ask specific contractors whom we know as truthful to quote? Can we be involved in following up for the payment?

Can we participate in the recruitment of teachers in our schools ? Can we make recommendations to set the slaries of the teachers to make it more meaningful ? Can we audit the financials of the govt.?

One individual or a small group of individuals might find these tasks extremely difficult and painful. But if the combined energy of the citizens rally could be channeled into such activities - sustained, persistive activities, then, slowly, the wheels of change would start setting in.

The point is not to set up a parallel govt. It is to participate in the current govt. When there is participation, there would be more accountability and when there is more accountability, slowly, there would be straightening. And there would evolve leaders, who have the right education and the right attitude. And then, they would drive this country.

If not I, if not my children, utleast my grandchildren, could then hope to live in a much better India.

Gandhiji once said, Be the change that you want to see. I hope i will persuade myself to go beyond my selfish life to act on these activities. And i hope i will sustain.

I cannot pledge. I am not that strong yet. But i am on the path. I hope.

I Pledge

2008-11-28T16:12:00.002+05:30

Everyone's talking about terror.

SMS, tickers, blogs, twitter - everything talks about how we can take it. Aren't we supposed to have reached our limits of accepting terror ? We should give it back? How can we be not prepared?...

Emails are flying. Lets spread the message. Lets get all Indians together. terror is at our doorstep and we have to stand united.

We forward this to hundred people and then, log out our systems, and walk out into our world. Then we spit on the roadsides, we jump signals, we bribe the policemen to escape a heavy fine for traffic rule violation.

In Chennai, OMR has probably the largest traffic by educated drivers. All the software companies attract all the big colleges and talented people. So are the roads the safest? Are the roadsides the cleanest? Nope!!!!!

I decided, i would simply delete those forward mails, and would silently make one resolution. To pledge. to be responsive and good to the country.

I Pledge.
Not to litter or to make my country dirty.
Not to jump signals and violate traffic rules.
Not to bribe policemen toescape from hefty fines.
To vote.

I Pledge.
To respect India.

For that is the first step in respecting the sacrifice that the brave policemen are making in Mumbai. and all over the country.

What are People?

2008-01-22T00:19:00.000+05:30

Some of them are just names. Ramanujappa, Ravi, Paul....

Some of them are faces, they twist into a smile when they meet you. But when we don't see them, we don't miss them.

Some of them are words, they make you see and hear them.You know them, you interact with them. There is this space that they occupy near you.

But few of them, are identities. People who make you feel them. They talk to you. They are with you. You change with them. Sometimes, for them. You smile with them. You smile for them. They make you smile. They point this way and you see a part of life. They point that way and you see a differnt life

And then one day, they die.

And then you ask yourself. Why did this happen to me? It was so comfortable having them around. Couldn't they stay with us for some more time ?

There is a story of a Yaksha who asks Yudhishtira this:
Qn: What is the most wonderful thing in the world?

And Yudhishtira replies:

Each day there are many that die and yet the rest of us watching believe ourselves to be permanent. That is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Poignant, and yet painfully true.

The Void

2007-09-07T23:40:00.000+05:30

Krishnamurthy says "The moment one's by oneself, it begins. Any desire for its continuaunce, any disappointment if it does not continue does not exist. IT is simply there whether one wants it or not. It's beyond all reason and thought"

I miss my parents. and slowly all those days all those times of togetherness are fleeting in front of my eyes. I wish i had some spectacular memories to come flashing by. All that comes are simple straight memories - of anger, of fighting, of laughter, of being caught, of daily life. Those Sunday evenings, when my mother used to spend time pressing my clothed - she wanted to save that money. Not knowing the financial distress that we were going through, i used to refuse any help to my mother as i find the press-wallah right in front of my house.

My father - the idealistic man with his set of principles. Lot of poeple ridiculed him, some liked him. But he never let that bother him. The only thing that used to bother him was that we used to get bothered about such comments.

.... I wish to write more, but am flowing though too many too fast thoughts....

Krishnamurthy mentions his comment ( at the start of the blog) about conssciousness, for me its more of a depression. That's somewhere close to where i am now. - A void. It is that small place between here and there. And i am there.

To rely back on Krishnamurthy again "The pressure continues and the strain is at the base of the head and it's painful"

Ref: Krishnamurthy's notebook

Silent Revolution

2007-08-17T22:59:00.000+05:30

I'd like to believe that a Revolution is on. A silent one at that. And i would like to dream that the wave is slowly gaining momentum till such time that it becomes a huge rollicking wave - changing the face of the sea.

For me, it started with a pleasant surprise of a print ad today morning in the Economic times.

The gist is this - Here's a chance to lead India. And no kidding.

And here's the deal. The Times of India gives you 50 lacs for a social welfare project (This and all that follows are only if you are selected, i guess). And then yo get a chance to do a masters in political sceience from Harvard. TOI gives you all the media publicity that you require. And finally, they support you to contest elections. Give you a fair and square chance to live that one life where we can do something for India.

Learn more at this URL: http://www.lead.timesofindia.com/default.asp

The concept is novel, the idea, noble. Now it is time for us to stop lip service and act on our talk. Now it is time, for us to be the change that we wish to see.

Jaago, India, Jaago.

I think the person or people selected through this are the real Indian Idols. People can Sing, can Act. They come and Go. But to lead a country - something that we keep cribbning bout and want to change - So here's the chance.

DO WE DARE?

National Anthem - Commercially packaged!

2007-08-15T20:17:00.000+05:30

That's the mantra in everyone's lips today. India turns 60 . And am sure throusands of words have been written, thousands of keys clicked today in praise and in planning for a better land, country, India. Am sure criticisms, suggestions, disappointments, optimism, everything would be spread way across the country's cyberspace today. I, am not going to add to that.

But i really did want to do mouthspeak about one thing that i noticed today across so many TV channels ( After all, isnt it our national pastime to watch reruns of movies in TV on any national holiday ? :) ) Anyways, where was I.. ahh yes i was watching TV and almost every punctuating commercial break had ran ad of a Indian cellular giant. And the ad had various eminent vocalists rendering a very famous composition melodied by a famous composer. The composition - Our Own National Anthem !

I was taught to give respect to my National Anthem. And the first time, it rang through the tv speakers, i was proud that the channels remembered our nation on this day and i stood, in respect, of my country. Fifteen minues later - the same ad again. fifteen min later - again - and again and again and again.

Has our National Anthem become nothing more than a commercial jingle ? Are we respecting it or demeaning it ? Why would i want to listen to my National Anthem as a forerunner to watching a acompany name ? How could the company do it ? How could so many Indian National stand in mute silence when this was approved. It hurts me, and it frustrates me that i cant do anything about it.

Think about it, what further disrespect could you show to your National Anthem - Has it been leased to a company ? Isnt it above all things commercial? HOW COULD YOU???? THis is what kept on rining in my ears. A billion people - eating, sleeping, half sleeping, feet over each other, pointing at the TV, half reading magazines - in all tasks possible, in all positions imaginable would have heard the national anthem promoting a company. Hwo could a national anthem be commericalized?

I dont demand apologies. I do not want uprising of people against this. I only want all of us to understand that is more than just a fad to be patriotic, to have respect and to love your country. It is more than pinning little paper flags on our shirts. After all, there are amongst us, some who would want to get the paper flag without the bill, to save tax.

I stand here, in staunch unacceptance of the advertisement and the company that it promoted. I stand here, head held high, eyes down in respect, on the side of my country.

My Country. I Care.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

2007-03-18T15:53:00.000+05:30

Sun beating down mercilessly outside, making even the interiors of our room glowing with bright yellow light...

The fan going around itself, in its humming fight to keep the send heated air all around the room....

Kishore kumar smiling at me from the speakers - "mere dil mein aaj kya hein - too kahen to mein bata doon....

I can't but smile at myself as my eyes close me into a lazy nap...

Mere dil mein aaj kya hein....

Just another day at work!

2006-08-19T07:17:00.000+05:30

Four years back, i decided to make a small deviation in my career. I moved my brown bag full of things from a desk in a 100 member company to a then 6000 ( and now around 4-5 times that no. ) member organization.

While those exit discussions were on, my then-director told me that i was making a wrong move. That it was better to be a big fish in a small pond, rather than a big fish in a small pond.

I responded that the best of all these would be to be a big fish in a big pond. He laughed at that. Four years later i have a chance to retrospect.

Star Performer in my department.
Amongst the "Associate of the year" across the organization.
Nominated Trainer par excellence
2 rungs of corporate growth in designation.
Much more than that in role.

And more than anything else, i value the recognition that i have earned. When people call asking for advice, and when you know you can provide it - there is no bigger satisfaction.

I keep praying that i never lose my humility.

Grateful. And still working at IT.

Just Another Day, not Judgement Day!

2006-08-10T22:34:00.000+05:30

I prayed today that my faith would be justified.
I wanted today that my belief would continue to exist.

I wanted our judicial to reach some verdict today. ( On the 93 Mumbai blasts)

I came back today evening only to realize that as usual, another date was given. Millions of us watched couple of suited high profile defence lawyers smilingly tell us that it is impossible to give verdict even on the new date.

What is left of our system ? What is left of me ? TOmorrow morning, i would pack my bags and leave to my office as usual. Why tomorrow, today, here, now - i am sitting in front of my system and blogging, as usual. I see what is happening around me. To my lay eyes, i think i can understand what is happeneing around me. I know it is wrong. And yet, i chose to stay silent and away.

I kept hearing on the channel that justice has been delayed. I think, within this 13 years, justice was denied long time ago. It is only the verdict that is getting delayed now. Could we at least get that?

And a prominent news channel keep saying mumbaikars are affected; are frustrated; are angry. I have one humble request to the eminent new anchor whose "hair has gone gray over the 13 years" - that the rest of us outside Mumbai are as affected, as involved as the mumbaikars. Could we all, for fleeting fraction of second, be called Indians, please?

Poetry

2006-07-10T15:34:00.000+05:30

Was listening to the soulful rendering of this by JAgjit Singh today morning and could not stop myself from blogging this..

Ths is sheer poetry - With due apologies to those who read without knowledge of Hindi - This is a song from Arth.

Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho
Kya Gham Hai Jisko Chhupa Rahe Ho

Aankhon Mein Nami, Hansi Labon Par
Kya Haal Hai Kya Dikha Rahe Ho

Ban Jayenge Zehar Peete Peete
Yeh Ashq Jo Piye Ja Rahe Ho

Jin Zakhmon Ko Waqt Bhar Chala Hai
Tum Kyon Unhe Chhedhe Ja Rahe Ho

Rekhaon Ka Khel Hai Muqaddar
Rekhaon Se Maat Kha Rahe Ho

You could listen to the songs here

Hurt

2006-07-04T02:22:00.000+05:30

There is something i keep realizing over and over again.

When u hurt some one you love, you hurt yourself.

And forgiveness is just not from them, but from your own self.

Then why do i keep doing it again and again?

Listen!

2006-07-03T09:14:00.000+05:30

"No, you're not listening!"

These words are the most repeated words by a very respcted professor in his classes. With a flowing set of credentials and a with a sense of humor to match his wits, his classes are the most crowded amongst all. His methodology of taking classes inlcudes using the case model - implying we discuss a case study inthe class and through the discussion, learn a lot more than what we would have, had it been lectured upon.

And among the chatoic "participation" from the class, he would continuously embarrass you. With a very verbose and a jargon filled answer, you would think you have scored a brownie point. This would be responded by a sharp look from the prof and a resounding "So?"

So? yeah right, So what? Everyone would look at you smiling telling you in unsaid words that you have were better off closing your mouth and let others suspect you were a fool, than open it and confirm it! Another smartie would then start off who would be waived to silence by the prof still looking at you..

"So?" "What are you trying to tell me?"

You realize that he is actually wanting to listen to you. Understand you. And that adds suddenly adds so much to the whole perspective You would then be forced to describe waht you wanted to say. After that, with a dawn of realization the prof would conclude "Oh, so u r saying that....." and you nod in amazement in the clarity he brought into your argument ( you nod nevertheless, coz u dont wanna be in the hot seat any more :) ). Then he counters you by quoting form the case with a question. When you answer it, he says " No, you are not listening"

There were times when i wanted to stand and tell him, "listen dude, i am listening".. Fear of grades ( or potential lack of it ) kept me quiet! :) But after so many hours with him, i understand what he means.. I was hearing him, but not listening!

When we listen, we need to :
1. Hear what the other person says,
2. think about the same in our mind
3. Identify and dig out the relevant message from the words
4. Confirm with the user if that is the right message.

I wonder how many of life's lessions, i have only heard and not listened to!

Cause and Effect

2006-06-28T09:48:00.000+05:30

Cause - Late night study
Effect - Wake up late

Cause - Wonderfully drizzling weather
Effect - Wake up really late

Cause - Wake up really late
Effect - Deviate from routine and get late to office.

It is ironical that right after the day i wrote about routinely meeting people, i should be late to office and miss all the "milestones" previously mentioned :)

Yeah - today, i missed the lady, the blind man and the software geeks. And My life has not changed a bit. No upsetting, no odd feeling. No change in life.

As unmovable as a rock!

Close encounters of the third kind

2006-06-27T09:03:00.001+05:30

I have read in various espionage novels that a man with predictable routines are the ones that are the easiest marks. Considering the fact that my impact on the political, economical or the zoological scene is as minimal as anyways possible, i find no hardship in coming to a simple routine of my long trip to office.

When you live about 15 km from where you work-live, and you have been living there for couple of semi-decades, then you get so used to driving that your automatic sub-conscience takes over driving. You just observe life around you as it controls your legs at the pedals, your hands at the steering and generally steer clear of pits, speed bumpers, cows, goats, humans, spits and traffic lights.

The long winding road is full of human milestones, which i have come to notice while my alter-ego drives ( oh i do wear the seat belts :) ) the car. As days go by, we get used to seeing people in certain places, in certain ways that you start expecting them every day. They become part of the journey for you. When any of them are not there, suddenly there is a pang of emotion.

I meet a lady at about 15 minutes distance from home, on the pathway of a crowded junction. I have never even so much as paused my car when i see her, but both of us acknowledge the visibility of each other. Also, over the tidings of time, i think i know pretty much about her. She's married ( happily or otherwise is not knows ) as her sindur proclaims. Apparently she does not work for an IT company, or else there would be the "rope" that hangs from her neck to proclaim that she is a money earner from software.. We pass each other almost every day of the five days that i drive to work and we still don't even as much as acknowledge. But an absence is upsetting. It kinds of makes u a little uneasy... Are you late for work ? Or is she not well ? Or has she shifted her residence ? And so on until i jam my brakes at the signal that has turned red in front of your eyes.

Turn the curve of the road and there is an interesting spectacle. The next stretch of the road is lined by the imposing wall of a very prestigious college. And it is pretty much straight. Right in the middle of the stretch, on the siode of the road, a hero honda bike remains parked with the hero standing next to it. The heroine is various poses, some days standing next to the bike, some days sitting on the seat. They talk. shot by Cupid, every morning, i dont know how much time they spend talking about... about what, i wonder? Wi the the smile on my lips of been there, done that - i can think of thousnds of things - about future ( i mean the evening, and how soon can we reach there ) about very critical things in life ( the new hair style does not suit you ) or psychological advice session with the confident of a person who own the other.. Sigh - somethings, can never change

Farther down the road, couple of turns later, on a further turning, an old man exists. I see him sitting on the pavement, clad only in a dirty dhoti, reading the day's newspaper, not skimming it, not looking at the pictures, serious reading- and not just the movies or the sports section - the hardcore news section. As the car turns, it brings into my view, his truly humble adobe, a section of the pavement, covered by a tarpaulin, to possible ward sun and rain away, very neatly folded bedding and few personal belongings. I wonder who is , who he was. With his confident expression, he is definitely not a beggar or a mad-man. What in essence could have brought such a man to living in the pavments ? Or is it that he has found his nirvana with his simple life? With an air conditioned car and a concrete home to back me up, i still spend so much of time carefully building creases of worries on my forehead. He also reads about the same hike in fuel prices, he also finds out in as much surprise as me about the reservation bill - and yet, he has the ability to take it in as much easier gulps than me.

The non-stop rotating air inside the rubber tyres of my vehicle take me away from this visual question mark quite easily as the car lurches forward through well known avenues and side-lanes. The all familiar rush of school children to a near by school, the honks of incoming cars in a small a road, all that rush past me with a whiff of wind ( i wonder if this is the same whiff that i get when deadlines whizz past me in office :) )

Couple of minutes down the lane, a traffic signals endear life to me. That junction is also signified by an existance of a ladies college, but my eyes always move away from the beautiful samples of female existance. It zooms into one man, walking slowly. Dressed in common attire, most often a striped shirt, and a dark trouser, he walks slowly, a stick prodding the way in front of him. Smiling, mostly. Blind, completely. While my tyres squeel in protest of rushing traffic as the signal opens up, i always wonder where his destination would be. Stuck in a jam one day, i found out that he runs a small PCO booth in the corner. He probably has the "i" taken out of his life, but he braves it with a smile. I wonder if i would be even half as brave as him. Most of us would get into the rut of self sympathy - "Why me ?" I hope i am at least half as brave as him when life faces me with diabolical questions.

As the office draws nearer, there is one more set of people i meet on the road. Dressed fashinably, tupperware carrying, neckbands in place and id cards proudly proclaiming the software company, hands in pockets of trousers ( or in the sides of salwars ) that try to contain a bulging part of anatomy called a tummy, these are the sample of the majority of this city population. Sleepy eyes looking hopefully at the road for the company buses, they stand with dreams of a bigger houses, bigger cars, longer and farther vacations and with nightmares of deadlines, creaky architectures, flowing code and scarier appraisals.

I identify, i smile and i move on.

I wonder, one day, the continuity would break - my routes might change, or their routines might.

The old man might turn to ashes, the blind man taken into another location, the software-s move to another company, would my life still continue un-hitched?

Probably it would.

Untie one knot to tie another

2006-04-07T21:38:00.000+05:30

I leave to Kerala on Sunday to get married. For Me to become Us. I would out of office for the next three weeks. And i have to get my Mail clients switched off, my computer logged off and get the desk clean.

And as a part of these activities, i had to remove my name from a particular Distribution List in Office. Just so that my mailbox does not get clogged with Mails.

I had to remove myself from the DL named "Prolite Team". This is my team. For the first time in almost 4 years, i remove myself from all communications that span my team. And surprisingly for a very professional part of me, i felt a little wierd. I wouldnt want to over dramatize by talking about a pang of grief that stabs through my heart and all that jack, but it does really feel wierd.

I pride myself in the way i can keep my professional part of me safe and separated from the intensely personal part, but somewhere there is definitely a convergence. I guess thats what makes me - I, Me and not I, Robot!

And today i turned into a monster

2005-11-18T20:37:00.000+05:30

It's been the same road always to office.

The same turns, the same bends, and with the predictable Chennai corporation, it's even been the same pot holes always! The morning cruise has me losing over those melodious songs that play in my car always. That day as usual, mostly unconsciously, i knew where my speedo needle stood, where my fuel gauge stood and even the measure of traffic outside.

And then those tiny limbs shook me out of my reverie.

In the middle of Venkatnarayana road lied a small kitten. Hit by speeding vehicle, blood around it's head, legs shaking desperately, the plea written all over it's face. I felt the pain and i wanted to stop immedietely. I didn't. Not immedietely, at least - not until few throughts rolled around in my head.

Shameless, shocking, Inhuman it may seem, but i force myself to write what feelings went through my mind then which made me waste those precious seconds. I want to face my fear, my shame, my guilt.

"Oh my god - is that kitten dead? Thank god - It's not! - Can i stop here? Here let me get to the side."

"The meeting with Ruth is at 8:30 AM. Would i be late? Should i really stop? Would it be okay if i am slightly late? Oh my god, it's already 8:00 AM - the traffic signals would start getting clogged now. It'll be so difficult to drive. Why can't anyone else take care of the kitten? How can everyone be so heartless?"

.. and then i realized, i was being as heartless and as cold as anyone else. My decision was made.

Just before i stoppped, very shockingly, there was one more thing that i thought of

"What would the people think of me? Would they think i am trying to show off with this act?" Though dismissed as fast as it had occured, on hindsight, how could i even get such a thought?

With hazardlights on, i managed to stop on the side of the busy road, and ran in between those swishing cars and zooming bikes to reach that poor creature. The legs were still desperately moving. I was happy, it was at least alive. Some vehicle had hit it's head before it could move away. I saw the fear, the pain in those eyes for a moment and those cries that it was silently making. If you ever had to put your hands under a bleeding head to support it, you would know what i felt then.

Surrealistically, i was sincerely wanting to hear a movie director call "Cut!!" and to have some people rush into me, get the kitten washed, let the red paint go and then let it jump in joy again. Crossed the road to the hospital. Humans, they said. They treat only humans. And did you hit it? How did it happen?

Save a life - damn them! - that was not in their priority. Got the nearest Vet hospital address from them and i ran to my car. Only to realize that the legs had stopped their movement. The eyes had lost it's life. The small kitten was dead.

I hated myself. Those few seconds could have saved a life. I don't know if it would have, and now i don't have a chance to find out. And i want to believe that it could have. Next time, i do not want to find myself putting anything above saving a life. Any life.

Those lifeless eyes still pleaded at me. At the monster who didn't think it's life was worth saving.

Life

2005-10-29T03:56:00.000+05:30

You ever been to Ranganathan street, T.nagar? ( or for that matter, any crowded shopping street, anywhere in the world)

That's how life is. While u stand there, life moves about you, swirling everywhere around you.

Fast, unstoppable, always on the move.

And it brings various people into your contact. Some of them, smiling at you as u look at them, some of them - angry at you for being there. Some of them, would hold you as the rush catches you unbalanced, and yet, some of them would try to pick pocket you. And the funny part is that life does not wait for your reaction. You can decide to be frustrated, angry, decide to just let it go and enjoy yourself - who cares? - apart from you? and the bigger question - whom does it affect - apart form ONLY YOU ? :)

Enjoy yourself while the rush lasts.. For one moment, suddenly, you will notice that the shops are shutting down, the swirling people getting thinner and you know you have to get out of the street, and it will shock you that you have not done anything at all, but tried to react to something which did not matter at all. And what mattered - you never came to doing anything that mattered, because u were very busy reacting at life. :)

So go ahead, live life king-size. Let life do it's salsa all around you. Take it into your hands and jive with it. Dance with it. Make it dance with you, synchronized with the beautiful steps. DO not laugh at it, laugh with it. And make the best of it. And i know you would come out as chirpy as always.

------------ Wrote this in reponse to a birthday announcement mail ( from some one who knew i wud forget her b'day :) ) The content of that mail is also worth blogging.. but wud not do it for "privileged communication" excuse :)-------------------

Elephant Jokes!

2005-08-12T11:39:00.000+05:30

Really couldn’t control posting these too !! :)
……………………………………………………………………...

Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant?
A: With a blue elephant gun, of course.

Q: How do you shoot a red elephant?
A: No, not with a red elephant gun, stupid. You strangle him until he turns blue, then shoot him with a blue elephant gun.

Q: How do you shoot a green elephant?
A: Tell him a dirty joke so he turns red, strangle him until he turns blue,then shoot him with a blue elephant gun. C'mon, this isn't rocket science.

Q: How do you shoot a pink elephant?
A: Ok, this one's a little tricky. First you bake a cake, and put 3 raisins on top, then you take it out in the jungle where the pink elephant will find it, and you wait. Eventually the elephant comes along, finds the cake, eats the raisins and throws the cake away. Then you go home and bake another cake and put 2 raisins on top, take it out in the jungle where the elephant will find it. The elephant comes along, finds the cake, eats the 2 raisins and throws the cake away. You go home and bake another cake and put only one raisin on it. Then you trek back into the jungle and put the cake where the pink elephant will find it. The elephant comes along eats the raisin, and throws that cake away. Still with me? Now you go home and bake another cake, but (here's the sneaky part) you DON'T PUT ANY RAISINS ON IT. You take it out into the jungle where the elephant will find it and lie in wait. The pink elephant comes along and finds the cake, he gets SO mad that there aren't any raisins on it, he turns red. If you've been paying attention then you know the drill now. You jump on him, strangle him until he turns blue, and - that's right - you shoot him with a BLUE ELEPHANT GUN.

Q: How do you shoot a yellow elephant?
A: Oh, come on, have you ever seen a yellow elephant. Really!

……………………………………………………………………...

Q: Why do elephants have red eyes?
A So they can hide themselves better in cherry tees.

Q: Ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?
A: No? See how well that whole red eyes thing works?

……………………………………………………………………...

Laws that we live with!

2005-08-12T11:36:00.000+05:30

One of the forwards I got… Couldn't help but blog it!
…………………………………………………………………………………...

Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair:
After your hands get coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
Any tool,when dropped,rolls to the least accessible corner.

Kovac's Conundrum:
When you dial a wrong number,you never get an engaged tone.

Cannon's Karmic Law:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire,the next morning you will have a flat tire.

O'brien's Variation Law:
If you change queue,the one you have left will start to move faster than the one you are in now.

Bell's Theorem:
When the body is immersed in water,the telephone rings.

Ruby's Principle of Close Encounters:
The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you dont want to be seen with.

Willoughby's Law:
When you try to prove to someone that a machine wont work,it will.

Zadra's Law of Biomechanics:
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Breda's Rule:
At any event,the poeple whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

Owen's Law:
As soon as you sit down to a hot cup of coffee, your boss will ask you to do something ,which will last until the coffee is cold.

Smiles, Always !!! :)

Blogthings...

2005-08-10T09:57:00.000+05:30

Hey before u guys start snapping on me for the blogging personality stuff - i didn't say that - i picked this as a result of a small test that i took up at www.blogthings.com - Looks like they have quite alot of other fun stuff too..

oh btw, i changed the image from what came default - the default was a lady typing - why should only girls be thoughtful and not men ? :)

huh? huh ?? huh ???

What's my blogging personality?

2005-08-10T09:50:00.000+05:30

Your Blogging Type Is Thoughtful and Considerate

You're a well liked, though underrated, blogger.You have a heart of gold, and are likely to blog for a cause.You're a peaceful blogger - no drama for you!A good listener and friend, you tend to leave thoughtful comments for others.

What's" Your Blogging Personality?

Gespräch. Charla. Entretien. Colloquio. Talk.

2005-07-26T23:27:00.000+05:30

I've got an IP phone!!!!!! :):):) So all you guys out there - start calling - +91-44-981230385 - Be fast guys.. i am waiting !! :)

Okay, so for those lay men, What is an IP phone ?IP Phone i connected to the internet via the broadband RJ 45 cable and i can make ISD calls at a very very minimal rate. Incoming calls from outside the country are also possible.

They have give me this phone for ten days for me try this out and hold your breath - has a pre paid pack of INR 1000 which i can use to call people!!! :)

The catch is this - if i like this, i have to pay a deposit of 3000 INR to keep this instrument :(

Earthfolk, start calling !! :)

All we have to decide...

2005-07-26T07:39:00.000+05:30

Frodo: I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

--
The Fellowship of the Ring,
The Lord of the Rings.

The Great Proposition.

2005-07-24T21:52:00.000+05:30

There they were, a group of 6 sitting in a table near the wall, each one of them holding their own flavors of ice cream.

3 guys and 3 girls. ( I smile this as i write this :) ) I dunno what made me look at them, but there was something pretty odd about the group. One by one, small things started to piece itself together. The conversational pieces that i overheard was too formal for this to be a bunch of friends :) ( "So where do you live?" "And you?" "Oh okay! and you also work with her?" "Ohh ok - same shift?" "Cool!" etc etc ) But there they were, sitting and having ice creams at about nine in the night together.

I got the drift. It was a "fixing meet". :) This is a kind of first "date" of a guy with a girl to whom he would have had proposed recently. The girl apparently doesn't know what to say and want to get her friends opinions. So then comes the common date, a movie, dinner or an evening out with couple of his friends and couple of her friends and everyone trying to be their most jovial.

Let's try and meet the actors in today's play being staged there.

Male 1
Lean, bespectacled. Garbed in Jeans and White Shirt. Standing at the ice cream counter getting ice creams for every one in the table as we enter.

Male 2
Medium frame. Kolhapuri Chappals, Pleated trousers and a yellow tantra t shirt. Doesn't speak much. Makes sure that the girls get the first cups of ice cream before the men. Sitting in between the other two men. Makes sure he smiles for everything said!

Male 3
Medium frame. In Jeans and a striped shirt, not tucked in, full hands, folded at the cuff. The director of the conversations from the male side.

Female 1
Yellow Chudidar. Heavyset. The talkative of the womenfolk. It is her job to make the guys feel that they are not tongue tied shy female species, but rather the fun loving forward going and yet traditional females that every man sees in the movies and salivates for. Loud, open and brash.

Female 2
Sequeined ( is that the right spelling? :) ) red chudidar. Bespectacled and politely smiling for every coment said between the men folks and women folks. Most of the time looking down on her lap or trying to pck the imaginary dust from her bracelets. Long jasmine flower thread on her hair and topped with a white rose.

Female 3
The observer. Short, multi colored chudidar. Keeps observing the men folk in between their talks. Let the conversationalist handle the conversation, at least the lighter part of it, and jabs in only when she wants to clarify anything. The judge of the menfolk, she weighs every one of the statements to form opinions ( surely very highly valued by the other two ) about the menfolk.

Us.
The amused spectators of the whole show, with our ice creams on our hands. :)

The first question was who were the prospective couple for whom this drama was being staged. The strong observers of human psyche that we are, we guessed so much.. "Look for the man who speaks the latest and smiles for evry small remark that might be even remotely humorous and you have your man". Scan scan scan ... alright - that had to be the pleasted trousered fellow with yellow t shirt. Alright okay, so who's the female part of the couple... "okay that should be the one with the gaudiest dress and some one who is demure enough to smile for remarks every now and then." Scan again.. and - well - it has to be the girl with the red dress with the sequeins.

Only time could tell how right or wrong we were. After the ice creams, the girls walked a few steps to congregate near the water cooler "Hey he looks sweet and he also behaves very sweet. I think you can go ahead - That was the yellow salwar clad girl to the red sequiened clad lady :) So our guess was right as the female fraternity is concerned.

Ah well, it was easier getting our male side deduction justified. The man in yellow tantra t shirt and kolhapuri chappals was at the counter, paying for the whole ice cream outing. Our deductions were bingo! on the dot!

Sigh! Something's never change :)

The Conspiracy against Modern Earth...

2005-07-21T09:28:00.000+05:30

The Gods fear as the power of Big One returns. The immortal fear of the Mortal One taking over the reign of the immortals above is so clear.

My Internet Connection was repaired yesterday. And when I started to once again let my creativity stream though the key boards into the wanting minds of you, my ardent followers, there was rain. Lashed with loud thunder and streaks of fearsome lightning, the Gods leashed their fear on me through the heavy downpour. And then humanity gave in. Electricity went kaput due to this rain!

But don’t you worry - the Big One shall not give in that easily. We will overcome these small hurdles and the Big One shall shine as the morning sun. And there would be light in your lives.

Oh, I'm definitely full of it!!!!
(Still holding my little tummy to laugh!)

PS Agnostia - And no, my I don’t have a tummy. I use it as a figure of speech :P
(Ah but then, sometimes, I do have to breathe out, and during those times, well, it’s a different story :) )

Me.

The King Shall return...

2005-07-20T10:41:00.000+05:30

Unstoppable downpour of mails at office and a broken internet connection at home for the last days has caused my small stint of absence without official leave from the domain of blogging.

I know the people want more and I wouldn’t let you drown in despair, the ardent followers of the Big One. Before the cacophony drowns the world in it's asynchronous humdrum, the King would return.

And bring with him, the harmony, the charisma and everything else that you've been wanting. Keep calling!! :)

Oh, I am so full of it, amn't I ? :)
(Holding my little tummy to laugh)

The weekend that was!

2005-07-18T10:13:00.000+05:30

It's a bright and shiny Monday morning! And here I am in the same office, in the same seat, with a bright yellow shirt and a khaki trousers. The weekend was good -

- and I want to write a lot more - but Monday morning mails have started to pour. Will take this up later during the day.

The highlight of the weekend was that I had no internet connection for the whole weekend. Something about the hub being replaced and some one not giving permissions to do the same.. Or something of that sorts.

Catcha guys later!

If God would grant me one wish...

2005-07-13T19:59:00.000+05:30

How do you sketch a man who is larger than life? One, who makes so much impression on you that your heart and soul goes to him totally?

For me, he was everything. That smile on his face, framed with very few snow white hair on his head. Tall, trim body, always dressed in Khadi, White shirt and white mundu. A Pocket watch in the shirt pocket with a chain tied to the shirt button hole. (Memory was not his strong points. :). ) Strong hands holding you with all the safety and security in the world.

I was all around him right from my childhood. Whatever else he could remember or not, he could recite every story of Mahabharata, every shloka of Narayaneeyam at any time. There could not be anything more than I could wish for during my nights, to lie next to him, hugging him, my tender arms trying to reach across his wide white haired chest. And then, he would start with the stories. The stories of Gods, of demons, of good deeds, war and everything else possible. It would only end, if I sleep off or if he sleeps off. Now when I look back, my face breaks into a smile knowing the number of times, I have shaken him awake from sleep asking " And then what happened?"

My cousins would come in for their summer vacation and they would intrude into my lifestyle. I could never understand how can they just come in one day and take my place lying next to him with their arms around him. And they were two of them so both sides would be occupied. But little nasty me, wouldn't be beaten. I would jump on him and lie on top of him, having conquered the world :). Well, they could have only their hands around him, I was on him! :)

The only thing that he could not take was the movies. The only movies, I remember him taking me voluntarily was the movies about Lord Narayana, Lord Vishnu and Dasavataaram. For the other movies, he would give his endearing laugh and ask us "What are they doing?". For us, the ardent followers of Jayan, Mohanlal and Mammootty ( especially when they are bashing up the baddies on the screen; or running around trees in mist clad mountains with the heroines), this simple comment would cause us to glare at him :) And his animated responses would be at the highest, when he would sit down to watch serials based on the great epics and they show wrong stories or misdirected scenes. It was what could irritate him the most.

Ever ready to travel and ever ready to visit new places, the distance between Parli, Kerala and Ranchi, Bihar (where my parents and I were located then) did not deter him from making that trip. And that too somewhere near the famous Winters of North. Clad in sweaters and shawls, his spirit would make such a huge impression on me. Looking back, I would love to relive that life again, just to hold his hands and feel his warmth as he walks next to me. But then, time was playing it's usual tricks. I was growing up and it was that time of the life, when you would want to go out with school friends and walking with family start becoming 'un-cool' :). But I am sure, that did not deter him from enjoying his stay with us, as for him, being with his children was joy enough.

His life was totally interlinked with the realization of God. You could never see him without a Narayaneeyam or, if sitting idle, chanting the verses of the same which were inscribed in his heart thousand times over. He would never see the world as we could. There would be the ultimate belief in god and the insurmountable faith in Him to ensure that things will definitely work out for the better. From the smallest factor to the highest one, this feature was so clearly visible. When we asked him to rush one day as we saw a bus leaving the bus stop, we requested him to hurry up to catch the bus and with his characteristic smile he said" That is not possible for me at this stage. If the bus has to go, let it go - we will take the next one". On another instance, he was being wheel chaired into the operation theatre for a critical operation at that age. With his children around him holding his hands and smiling around him, some one asked him - " Aren’t you afraid?" It was with the same nonchalance and the unbeatable smile that he replied - " Why should i? My Lord Krishna is here with me near my bed.". Call it delusions, faith, stupidity, whatever. But the strength in him that flowed to us through his smile, still lingers.

His wife would have a lot to say about his nonchalance, which was more of a challenge to this lady who handles life in this world that rotates not on God's vision but on the axis of day to day life. But all the scorning and complaints would be diluted and adorned with the sincere regards and love the little lady had for him all through her life, even now! He had never any doubts on prioritizing goodness and all the good qualities over anything else. Selfishness was not a part of him at all. I remember so many times, while traveling on a crowded bus, he has woken me up to gently ask me " Why don't you get up to give place to the old man standing there?" And I could never say no to that question. It was not a question, but a request which I would always consider honoring. It was that impact that person had on you.

The house became home with his laughter, his presence, his voice and his mannerism. When you walk into the home, the typical way of his hugging you and holding you would strain all the fatigue out of you. He had the trademark way of grasping your hands hard and semi hugging you. It was enough to welcome me beyond anything else! When the lights go off in clockwork routine ( Kerala has the wonderful routine of load shedding ! :) ) He would sit down and tap his fingers on the bed making rhythmic tappings on the same. While watching news on TV ( which was one of his routine activities ) he would slowly doze off to sleep. If woken up by any one of us ( which was a routine activity for all of us :) ), he would smile with embarrassment, say " I am too tired", start shaking his legs perched straight on a leg rest to ward off sleep, try to concentrate on the TV again and let his eyes doze off again.

'Achaachan' - that's what I call him. Or rather, painfully to realize, used to. I am extremely lucky to have had him as my grandfather. He was so nice, we wanted him to be with us, always. On the other side, God also wanted him to be with Him.

God won the tug of war.

Rendezvous

2005-07-11T19:37:00.000+05:30

"a girl with glasses, she would have a denim handbag, kind of ok to look at. Nothing grand."

"a gold-plated watch on her left hand"

"one gold ring on her left hand. two on her right. "

"unpainted nails - toe and hands both. nails on both hands."

"Hair - black, chest-length. Half-pony."

"Would wear a gold-chain, and a bead-strapped slippers."

"dress - grey salwar kameez with plain band gold border."

Landmark Literature section. Saturday 4:00 PM

This was all I had to locate this mysterious person who has been a regular visitor to my blogs and made me addictive to her comments (rather than she getting addicted to my blogs)

I could see myself walking through Landmark looking closely at women's hands for gold plated watch and golden rings. And not so far ahead in the future, I could also visualize a case of eve teasing and a good bashing up by the burly landmark security guys. And the clues! Ah the clues! - could anything be more distinctive than "Nails on both hands" - Now, that, is a rarity! :)

Have you seen the movie 'Sliding Doors' ? The director tries to tell story lines in parallel. I am going to try and do the same here. The two tracks being mine and the Agnostiac's before the story collides with our meeting.

I was in double minds to go to Landmark that day, as I was not sure of what was waiting for me. Was it any of my friends who was playing a prank on me? Least likely, for the simple reason that they could not make a blog name called agnostiacal hedo… etc etc even if they had wanted to. Okay, so then possibility two becomes slightly more probable. A bunch of college or just out of college girls playing a prank. Have a "stooge" ( for want of another better word :) ) meet up with me and then have a prank-y fistful of fun at my embarrassed expense when the truth can be revealed by them.

"DO you really think he would come?" Agnostiac's friends were constantly asking her. Annie ( as I got to know her name later ) was the down to earth thinker who thought it pretty much improbable that a person could walk up to this rendezvous. Vinaya ( as I got to know…. ) wasn't really sure of the kind of guy who would turn out. Would this guy be a weirdo ? A guy with weird hair do , flashy accent and a lot of piercing including of the ear on him ? With all these doubts playing in the background, Agnostia dragged her friends to the Rendezvous point.

The sleuth in me had not died. Among all those distinctive identification tags given to me so generously ( "Nails on both hands" I ask you!!! ) I had given them only two identification marks "That I had fingers on both hands; and; my mobile number." My mobile, the Mobile - ah what a perfect ruse. The plan that was forming in my mind could compete with the master plans of Sherlock Holmes the sleuth! :) I would walk in to the point apparently immersed in a phone conversation and not evidently looking for some one. And with my keen eagle eyes, take the scenario in and behave the right way :)

I called JC. Told him about my ESOP. How long can you hold a call with your boss?

I called Prats. She was sleeping.

I called Shaju. He was in the Radio station. ("Anything important? If else, can I call you later?")

Satyajit. Driving, phone with wife.

Mayur. Not reachable.

Dustin. Sleeping

Home. Sleeping.

Karthik - He picked up my call, God bless him. I am sure, he is still wondering, how and why did I call him on a Sunday for chit chatting. Sometimes, my height is quite an advantage - especially, when you want to "overlook" through the racks. First glance to the café - nope - No one sitting alone in any table. Lots of people around the racks though! - Which one of them would be she ?

The gray chudi clad Agnostiac was meandering through the Literature racks not knowing what to do. The mind, sometimes has this ability to go blank, right? And Annie asking if she should just call "Me" up. Can you just be patient, Annie? And Agnostia returns to the book shelf slightly far from Annie and Vinaya. Agnostiac turns back to look a Annie and Annie mouth " Can you see him?" Agnostiac mouths "No", turns around and picks up the Scarlett, the sequel to Gone with the winds.

"Me" is a silent spectator to the scene. With a phone to the ear and apparently deeply engrossed in the call, he watches Agnostia, as she takes the book and walks to the steps leading to the café and sits down there, trying to read the book. Time sets the motion in action. I say bye bye to Karthik and take a book from the shelf My phone receives an SMS. I walk to the café, with the book and sit down next to Agnostia, and told her": Hi Agnostia, I guess your friends can’t see you when you are sitting and you should stand up"

A surprised, scared face turns from the book and looks at you. Bespectacled, the face doesn’t know whether to be comfortable that the wait is over ( That the issue of " I told you he won't turn up" needn't be addressed :) ) or to be shocked ( surprised, perhaps ) at the sudden realization of what was till then, only a possibility. :) . Astonishment, was the primary emotion though. She did say something at that time. I still can’t remember. :) Then she said - yeah right, let me get them; the wiry frame rushed to her friends. I walked up to the Café and realized that there were no seats.

I vaguely remember a SMS tone just befor this small tsunami ( :) ) of activities began. I looked through to see a new unidentified number. Annie had come to the end of her patience and decided to get in touch with my phone :). I looked up to see two more polite smiling faces along with Agnostia's. Annie and Vinaya along with Preeja came to be known to Jay.

It wasn't really difficult being a sleuth! ( But still, "Nails on both hands", i say!!!! :) )

Conflict un-managed!

2005-07-09T13:48:00.000+05:30

I assumed the conflict was over with the apparent show of strength of the interesting people that night.

I was mistaken.

Yesterday, there was a visit from their PL / PM to my floor - wanting to see Apoorva or Jay. Apoorva was in station and Jay was in a training. Hence this man got re-directed to Pradeep, the manager. What followed after that apparently was a movie style conversation about how things would have been different had he been on the scene. It was apparently a mingle of subdued personal threats about being a hero himself and also threats about how he can spoil people's career inside the organization.

Pradeep, being a guy with the same wavelength as me, stopped him in the middle and gave it to him with no vague terms that he has had his share of rough life also, and let's not have any qualms of that too.

I had a call today. The log of short of the same is in the lines below:

Me: "So what is the purpose of this call? What is it that you want? The whole issue is not worth so much of fuss. Assuming that he had used such a word in the conversation, it is a very easily forgivable 'offense' considering the stress and him being a fresh resource of college. And beyond all this, considering that I had made profuse apologies on professional standpoint, what is it that you want now?"

Caller: "No, it’s not that we want anything, but what he did was not right"

Me: "So why are we having this conversation?"

I was clueless. Why, at all, were we having that conversation? Was he trying to prove some point that he was Don Corleone? Or perhaps Luca Brasi? Why would I care? And are we on the streets of new York ages ago? I work here. He works here. Stress is not an uncommon fare. Work comes on top. But for them, no. Apparently some one had spoken to one another of my team member that he can screw up Apoorva's career or appraisal or whatever.

Shows the quality of the recruitment policies of this great organization. Like one of my friends say, "Well, yes, if u start to top every way farer and ask him whether he has a BE under his belt and if yes, pull him into this company with fat pay checks, this would bound to happen". He is right. And this attitude is not among the new programmers or lower grades, here we are talking about assistant managers and mangers!

I refused to prolong a conversation with him. On insight, if he had any sense, he should have sensed what was going on. Have you ever had a fight when you were a child when u knew that you wanted to fight, but didn't want to be blamed for starting one? I had a simple technique. I used to slap or hit the opponent lightly. The opponent would retaliate. If he does not retaliate, then you do the slap thing again. And then he retaliates with higher strength and a more fatal blow. Its fight club then. And of course, he started it, you didn't , you were just playing with him! You provoke him. You never, ever hit your opponent first so hard that he buckles down. You let him hit you.

Provocation. That is what it is all about.

And now professionally, I am clean where as the team and it's lead on the other side are darkly in shadows! I would love to provoke them and let them give me a chance to escalate this. Anyways, this is the kind of people who work with me. Now, I have lost all respect for this organization as the whole.

I was the Associate of the year for 2004. I got the certificate last week. I have been wanting to laminate and frame the same. Now, I do not want to. I have dumped the certificate inside the deepest nuances of my almirah. Just another document along with the others as I go ahead on my career.

Black and White Memories

2005-07-07T03:10:00.000+05:30

It is about 3:00 AM.

Sleep eludes me. I had bought a photo frame from Odyssey yesterday. An interesting frame that can hold 9 small photos within itself as a collage. And i have filled the same with couple of my old photos.

Now, as i write this, 6 of them are filled. Faded black and white pictures smile at me from them. Frozen moments from the life of those who are so close to me. My grandfather holding a very very young me in his arms. Small Me and my brothers posing with huge flying glasses. My grandmother caught unaware during one of her busy day routine. My uncle trying to make the baby me look at the camera. My mother in her early teens with her friend. ( I have to struggle to make this out from the faded photo). My grandmother and her sister, much younger than the current energetic lady that she is :), and much much more beautiful than many girls of this age.

These form the majority of the people who give me colour to my life. Who paints my life with the colours of nava-rasa. Who taught me to smile, to hug, to love, to learn, to fall and to get up and start walking again.

A very young and a very curious me (i think i was in my 4th of 5th std) had a doubt to be clarified from my grandmother one evening.

"Ammamme, how do people get AIDS?"
(Ammamma is the malayalam word for grandmother on mother's side - Amma's Amma :) )

After moments of thought marked with a smile, that beautiful lady replied
"Thonniya pola nadannaal AIDS varum"
(Literary Translation: If you walk without following any rules, the way you want to, you would get AIDS" What the reply means "If you live your life without any rules, you would get AIDS"

I bent myself at my waist sideways and took couple of steps, walking 'the way i want to'
"Ingane nadannalo?" :) ( Would i get it if i walk like this? :) )

She had a hearty laugh. The laugh of a person whose life is full of sunshine, cheer and happiness. Years later, that source of happiness is still as full as it ever was. I draw from it everytime i want inspiration.

And i live.

:)

Conflict Management

2005-07-07T02:09:00.000+05:30

It's been a long day at office.

I'd been away on the wonderful training for the whole day. And the organization had had some defaulter's list circulated. Of course, once the list was out, none of the projects wanted to be among the list. So majority of the seven hundred odd projects hit on the application developed and maintained by my team to upload their data.

Beyond straining the existing infrastructure, thus spurious activity spiked the helpdesk enquiry. Calls list grew longer and so did the tempers start to run wild. On hindsight, it looks interesting to note how people behave to service desks, when you are in the middle of it all it ain't that funny.

Especially when you realize how education has no relation with cultural, moral and ethical values of a person.

Late in the evening, Apoorva came to me "There's been a problem"

Me: "What?"

"Someone called up on the phone. He spoke to me as though the helpdesk was his servant. His PM/PL is not there and they say their data is missing. And not only that they have a very arrogant tone and they started advising me on how a helpdesk should be." The complaints were endless.

Two minutes later, the project team was in our location. I was surprised. It was like a local tamil movie. A bunch of dark heavyset guys walk into my wing looking around like goons. All they were missing were some hockey sticks. They look for Apoorva. And i stand next to Apoorva. They want to speak to him in the meeting room in private. I am in too. Then they tell half of their team "Thanks machi... naange paathukkurom (Thanks dude - we will manage it ourselves ) and the rest leave.

We get in the room. It took me by surprise that the entire team had come up not to get any isue resolved, but because , apparently , my guy had used the word 'Hell' while speaking to them and they wanted to settle scores. Now these are software engineers and leaders earning handsomely and who are expected to educated highly. And they are here, 8 guys to settle scored with one guy because this guy had used one word while speaking to them and they wanted him to apologize.

I had and will never have any doubt that Apoorva did not use that word. He is not capable of that. But he might have cut the conversation abruptly by keeping the phone down. He would do that, if you cross the limit. Anyways..

Apologize my foot - was the first thing that came into my mind. Rationale took over immedietely. What would have been the purpose? That i could come out as a hero? that i would prove a point? To whom? To four guys who think that it is more important for them to get an apology for using a word than anything else in the world?

What was really surprising was their attitude. Assuming that such a conversation including the word had taken place also, such a reaction as what they had had would have been expected only from uneducated people who had no values in life. It is only them who could have misplaced morals and ethic system as these guys.

I forced myself to smile and had nothing to say, when i realized that the whole conversation was going nowhere. Profusely apologizing, if their egos had been hurt, showed them the door. indicating that we all had better use of our time. After few hmms and hos, raised voices and faked accentual english statements, couple of them got my hints.

They say, you should never wrestle with pigs. You get dirty. The pigs also get dirty, but then, they love it.

For Agnostia :)

2005-07-03T23:59:00.000+05:30

Hey, i've been having visitors and poor me, did not notice this at all!! :) Welcome Agnostia! - Instead of replies to those wonderful comments - thought i would dedicate some lines in this space of mine in due thanks to our time spent on my editions :)

Am a big fan of monsoons, agnostia. I can love the light drizzle to the lovely wonderful downpour.. And that night, the drive to mayajaal was lovely, as it was raining out there and the rain only got heavier as the drive went on. Have you been to the ECR road in the night? Save the oncoming headlights, that road has a wonderful soothing effect on me. Especially that night. A smoothly driving car, wipers swishing past your line of vision and Kishore -da with Boss's ( Boss kaun hein, maloom hein kya ? :) ) music playing at a soft volume inside the car. The tarmac rolling under my wheels, crushing the water droplets and squeezing them out of the way with the lovely sound.

Trees and landscape rush past me in wet blur and in silent darkness. Once you cross the civilzation belt nearer to the city, you hardly would see residential lights on your side, save those glittering blinking lights of the restaurants on the way. And if you go during late hours ( which is what we wre doing that day) even most of those are switched off.

Smoothly purring machine, your senses humbled by the lovely consistent downpour - the strangely endearing sound of the wipers on the glass as the proof of that , and your heart leaping to joy with every modulation of kishore-da. Life cannot be better. It was a lovely drive all the way to mayajaal.

But the movie was a let down. I am not a big fan of SRK. Neither am a i a complete commercial movie nor an art movie critique. I take in movies for the sake of movies and enjoy every kind of movie. But this was a little too much for me. The story is simple - a very uncomplicated love story from the folk tale collection of rural rajasthan. A ghost in love with a lovely just-wed-wife. A husband who prioritizes money in front of marital companionship. Husband leaves town in business for 5 years. And the ghost lives as the husband in the household. The husband comes back, who's the real man fight arises and the Ghost finds a way to stay back with his lover by getting into the husband's body.

Mmmm.. A very colorful movie, a sensational Rani moukherji, double SRK and the magical charismatic screen presence of the Big B himself does not make a wholesome movie entertainer. Almost a continuous track of songs and story thinner than Lays wafer, made me start fidgeting on my seat quite soon! Even the songs that keep coming your way at the drop of every pallu or every sneeze are nto remarkable, so to say, i don;t remember the tune of even one song now :( My bottomline is , it is not worth spending your time on the same. For me though, the whole trip was worth that one drive to Mayajaal though - through the rain!

Have you ever chased the monsoons, Agostia? During those younger days, me and couple of my friends dared to do that adventure. We were leading the monsoon. We we re on the bike and we we driving on the same path that the clouds were traveling. We would go to a village, and within max 24 hours of us being there, it would start raining and then we would move on again. It was an amazing experience. Sometimes, i wish we could be more footloose.

I was in Kumarakom, last year, i think, in the middle of a hot summer season. The planned ferry ride to the sea was a welcome relief. We were in the middle of the sea, when, it rained. It was a complete reversal of natural systems. Within seconds, the skies darkened and the clouds poured. Most of us, except for a team member and me, ran to the shelter of the covered place inside the boat. The whole expanse of the rocking boat's terrace and it was just two of us facing the raindops.

On the whole, that was one rain i would not forget for a long time. Water was all around us. The expanse of the wonderful sea horizontally all around us, the sea under us hungrily devouring every single drop of rain amongst its small waves and the small crests and the clouds above us showering us with chill streams of pure aqua. I looked up and instantly my face was under a barrage of tinklinf incessent drop of water. I could have stayed there for ever like that. The rocking boat was almost adding to the trance. But what made it magical was the fog. Among this rain, the mist had swirled in to cover the shore all around us. All around us, all we could see was the expansive water land and nothing else. Water is almost all ifts forms - the sea, the clouds, the mist, the rain. It was as though were encompassed in serenity and simplicity. 10 minutes of sheer absolute bliss. I wish time had stood still there ( Ironically, for me, it had - my watch had stopped working about 10 minutes back due to the rain :) )

In the middle of a rollicking sea while rain lashes the water around you.
On the sands near the beach while rain spaks the timelsss sand grains around you.
On a terrace looking at the wind blows sea waves.
On the bike, wiping the rain drops that snake you face as you ride on
On the car, wipers swishing the water off your windscreen, never really succeeding in completely doing it.
Inside the house, holding the cuppa cappuchino watching the rain swash buckle outside the window.
Walking on the road, getting drenched right down to your bones and loving every minute of the same, fighting for a cup of yoghurt with your friends
Standing, shivering, under the Nair's tea shop sipping the best cup of tea from the shop with hot "parippu vada" or samosa

Monsoons come in varied flavours! :)

It's monday morning and i hope you have an fantastic week ahead of you!

Me.

PS: I've replied to your comments too. :):)

Sunday Evening!

2005-07-03T23:18:00.000+05:30

Alrite!!! So it's been two days since i wrote the previous blog about being the nice fresh and sunny Saturday morning.

Almost 36 hours, 8 hours of shuttle, 300+ rs. on saravana bhavan breakfast, and 3 washing machine full of clothes later, here i am - on a Sunday evening. Don't know where time has gone.

Mmmm.. Let me see - Saturday morning was good - After the lovely breakfast with the friends of mine, i went around doing the usual chores - tel bills and usual bank visits. But this time, the bank visit was slightly longer than usual - am gonna open an account for my dear amma to get her some cash - wud mean more independance ( and more shopping ) for her :) and then it was hitting the shuttle court for some time. It has been quite some weeks since we played shuttle and it showed in the rustic movements that we had. I guess, i am growing old :):)...

Lunch was indulgence. Me and the other bachelor have discovered this dish called Special Andhra Chicken in a restaurant and we ravaged with phulkas and thoda sa rice. Since we did not have anything to do at home, Reddy Sr. suggested we go to Anniyan. Mayajaal was the only place where tickets were available and that too there was this major fuss they made about coming there early to pick up their tickets and stuff. I fell back to Anusha - the PR expert in my team. She seemes to have a great network already up and running and the guys in mayajal easily agreed to hold the tickets for us.

Spent some money picking up some new clothes and after thatthe evening was inside the illusions of mayajaal. I had seen the movie already and i guess i was lucky that way. Some wierd instincts of the theatre owners made them play the audio at an extremely high level. So much so that for every sond, i walked out searhching for excuses - pop corn, egg puffs, coke, mens room - all of them were viable excuses for me :)

Monday morning were almost a repetition of the prev day. SAravana Bhavan - and a lovely session of Shuttle. There was no one else in the cluba nd it was us 4 who had the court for ourselves and it was fun playing the competitive doubles. Need to get the habit of hitting it straight to the other man's racket out of my system though ( But me and Dustin won the higher no. of games though :) )

Lunch, a lovely nap, the wonderful Wimbledon finals and a nice dinner at Amaravathi past, here i am! - tapping away streaming bits of characters in this keyboard. This week is going to be crazy - am in a training session for the whole of this week - about OOAD - can u beat that????? :(

Hope all you guys have a great week ahead of u too - Hey all those on the other side of the globe ( i do have an ego, don't i ? assuming that ppl on the other side of the globe also read my posts :) ) how was the 4th of July fireworks?

Saturday Morning!

2005-07-02T09:04:00.000+05:30

It's a nice sunny wonderful Saturday morning... GEtting ready to get to my shuttle game now. I feel the day is going to be the same as every weekend.

The ritual breakfast at Saravana Bhavan - its been going on for almost 4-5 years now. And then playing shuttle for about 4-5 hours. Lunch between the two bachelors ( Reddy;s wife and parents being in Hyderabad ) makes him a bachelor now.. A Worse one than me right now, he is not even accustomed to bachelor hood ha ha

Oh yeah - i've got to go pay my tel bills.. that;s gonna take some time though. :) and might decide to meet Kripa in the evening... She is prob bored out of her skin.. but dont know if i wud be able to entertain her and wondering if i wud be a big let down to her :)

Alriteee.. gotta go.. catch u guys later!

Look ma, it's a new dress!!

2005-07-01T16:52:00.001+05:30

I've changed the look and feel of the blog.. Hope it's for the better !

:)

For the lesser mortals who do not understand Webdings - the language of the heavens, well the above the scripture means

"I've changed the look and feel of the blog.. Hope it's for the better ! "

Writing in Webdings makes me go ding-a-ling with smiles :)

Calls from Yonder

2005-07-01T09:59:00.000+05:30

Last evening, the insistent ringing of my mobile phone made me look away from the screen that I had been gazing for almost ages now. It was a number that was not stored in my device. Usually, such numbers are either credit cards sellers or wrong calls and I tend to ignore the rings. But this was a mobile number and an outstation number at that. I was almost sure this was a wrong call and as I pressed the green button to answer it, I was almost feeling sorry for the person calling, as he would lose money just to realize he had dialed a wrong number. But the voice that answered by 'Hello' brought a huge smile to my face.

It was Atticus Finch.

Well, not really the character from the timeless book, but the man who is so inspired with the book that he dons that identity in the cyber world of blogging ( and who knows where else ! :) ). The most remarkable attitude about this Atticus is his humility. He has scaled a lot of peaks and yet remains bow headed. From a self proclaimed basketball playing small town boy from down south in TN to an IIM graduate associated with the Tata Administrative Services, his journey has been one of achievements and no mean feat this! But on all this, he remains, to this day, the most humble soul that I ever knew.

I have seen him, pained by the hypocrisy that we call acceptance of Life. I have seen him miserable seeing the pain of others and the desperate want and need in him to somehow contribute. And contribute he does, with his time and most of the resources that he has. And to top all this, he has this unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He can debate about anything under the sun from occults to atheism, from mythology to nuclear physics ( well, prob not nuclear physics, but pretty near! :) ), from ethics to management! But among all this, what I will and can always remember is the humility.

I was not able to meet him yesterday. His time was completely booked by the professional responsibilities that he had. And all I got was a message late in the night that he had pack up for his travel early in the morning so, probably next time. I am not a childhood pal of his. I don’t even know, what I would have talked to him had I met him last night. But I did want to meet him. To see and feel unabashed admiration in the peaks that my friend has scaled and continues to.

This small bit of time and space is dedicated to the wonderful human I know.

Perennial Question

2005-06-28T12:53:00.000+05:30

What do u do when some one asks you to do what is against your beliefs and ethics?

Lets call the "Action to be done" as X

Objectively analyzing:
1. X does not cause harm to anyone
2. X is encapsulation. So to say, is to delay disclosure of something
3. X gives hope to some one and those hopes and expectations can - MIGHT - come crashing down when the encapsulation ends.

4. There is a way of justification that can make X perfectly over-the-board-action.

But you believe that X is not fair. You believe that doing X is selfish and does not take into consideration the feeling of the other person.

At the same time, the person who requests X of you is a very close person to you. It hurts when that person hear your NO and breaks down.

If only the world rotated with the power of brain and not by heart….

P.S. : I chose not to do X. The person so close to me, after the immediate emotional upheaval, saw my point and agreed to re consider. I was lucky.

It's Raining!

2005-06-24T17:15:00.000+05:30

5:15 on the clock and it's raining in Chennai!!!!!

Feels awesome ! :)

w-w-weekend

2005-06-24T16:35:00.000+05:30

4:35 on the clock on a Friday afternoon.

Desperately waiting for the week to end. In my mind though, it already had ended. Am just waiting for the time to push itself through. :)

The team here has booked tickets for a Hindi movie titled Paheli. Believe it or not, it's all about romance between a woman of the rural Rajasthan and a Ghost of the same village.

Amol Palekar, on a review, has been appreciated as a guy who has bought an Amar Chitra Katha to life. Dunno whats in store for the night!

It's 4:39 now :):)

Anniyan - The Men Within

2005-06-23T09:33:00.000+05:30

Director Sankar seem to have this crush on duality. The characters in his movies always have two ( and now more than two :) ) characters intertwined within themselves. The depiction of this duality, although, has been varied, without repetition, and there, i believe, hangs the success of this director.

In Gentleman, it was this brahmin "appalam" seller who converted into the scheming, brave and strong 'Robin hood'. In Muthalvan, it was the govt service loving laid back cameraman with a strong politician alter ego ( remember the " Kadasile enneyum arasiyal vaadi aakkiteengale!!" ). In Indian, it was this frail old retired man who inverted into a brave soldier of truth. In jeans it was the two look alikes, dress alikes, talk alikes who took the focus and in Anniyan, it is the 'Rules Ramaswamy', a staunch brahmin lawyer with a penchance for "rules" who heralds fearsome and suave impersonations within himself.

It is very difficult to try and review the movie that takes you by your throat, pulls you into the matrix, drenches you with fantastic panorama, without really being a spoiler to the plot. "Rules Ramasamy" is the stenciled Triplicane Iyengar with the trademark Kudumi, and a i-stay-out-of-trouble attitude to life. So much so, that when he is getting thoroughly beaten up by the baddies he mumbles "naan thayir saadham saapidaravan, ennale thiruppi adikka mudiyaathu"! And, he has a obsession with rules. He wants everyone to do thier duty, to do the best they can and not to be corrupted. And because he has studies law, he takes it upon himself to take cases where the common man is fleeced by corrupt non-rule-following baddies. Needless to say, he loses all his cases under the clout of influence and money that his opponents have.

"Rules" discovers a web site http://www.anniyan.com/ where the site urges common man to log in information about any wrong doer. To give vent to the frustration, "rules" continuously logs in information about the wrong doers.

Enter "Anniyan". With a lock of hair hiding his face and a voice that beats Intergalactic transmission easily, the fearsome avatar of "the punisher" appears myseteriously and kills the wrong doers. Every wrong doer is punished as he should be in Hell - Gruesome, scary and more than a murder, a statement to the world.

To top all this, "Rules" has this un-proclaimed love to Nandini, the pretty doe-eyed Aiyengar Damsel next door. But Nandini is the girl of the world and has almost zero tolerance for the Ramasami who barks rules into everything. Well, it is difficult to love a person who calls the TT and returns the dinner that is given in Indian railways because, the curd is watery; or who calls the TT because the Railways washroom is dirty; or who calls the TT because the railways fan does not work!

Enter "Remo". The smashing dashing catwalk burning male sensation of the fashion world. and one who's dearly in love with "Naandi" - the dude way of calling 'Nandini'. In between sizzling yana Gupta laden ramp walks, or rides in flashy bikes, Remo steals the heart of Nandi. And Nandi reciprocates, desperately in love with Remo, the flashy avatar with the flashy accent but "with a true heart"

Nandini decides to buy a plot. (No, not the plot of the movie, but a plot of land! :) ) Going along with usual practice, she undervalues it so that she can "cheat the govt. of paying extra tax". "Rules Ramasami" refuses to help her do this deal as cheating is against his rule. And Anniyan has to come in as the sole purpose of his avatar is to remove the world of cheating souls.

Ramasami loves Nandini. Nandini loves Remo. And Anniyan wants to Kill Nandini. The World come crashing in. And so do the walls around the three characters. What follows has Prakash Raj as the inspector who wants to resolve the case, Nasser as the doctor who helps identify the case, Vivek as the CBI inspector and also the hero's friend and a whole lot of special effects to handle the movie!

Packed with thrills and kills, the movie rocks you. But, on another line, "Hangover" is the top most thing about this movie.

Director Sankar seems to have a hangover from Boys, and that is so clear in the language that Anniyan and Prakash Raj uses. Usage of local conversational words, stopping right at the moment beyond which the censor boards would censor is spread throughout the movie.

Actor Vikram still has his hangover from "Pithamahan". The pout that he uses as the evidence of being innocent is so clearely a carry over from his previous hit.

The fight scenes and couple of "jump and chase" scenes are hangovers of the Matrix Neo and the 10,000 Smith's fight; and the Agents jump on running cars during Trinity's Chase scenes.

The be good and be patriotic lecture scene in the stadium gives you a hangover the TV broadcast in Indian.

One of the climax scenes (where the alter ego of Anniyan comes and goes ) give you a hangover of the brilliant performance of Edward Norton in the movie Adaptation of William Diehl's Primal Fear.

But then, putting all this together, creating as gripping and taut a storyline as has been created, is another task all together. And Sankar together with OSCAR Ravichandran;s almost unlimited money flow has done an exemplary job of the same. You are riveted to the chair, looking at the screen wanting such a messiah to exist in real life and living anniyan's life. He could have gone low on couple of things though - Specifically, the be-good-for-your-country lecture by Anniyan. We have had so much of talks in so many movies, that this time, it almost rings artificial and false. And on all this, the gargantuan effort could have fallen flat on the director's face had it not been for the brilliant acting performance of Vikram.

Vikram, although hints at the Pithamagan performance with his pout, holds up his performance with brilliance. His alteration between multiple egos are convincingly scary. In one of the climax scenes where he alterates between his egos is simply superb ( for lack of other words ). He swings through the "Kadavul paathi, mirugam paathi, kalanthu seitha kalavai naan!" so believably easy. As easy and as effortless as possible. As much s he is able to induce fear through Anniyan, the next minute he is able to convert himself into the suave Remo and the next into the Kudumi tied Rules Ramasami. Effortlessly, he induces comedy into scenes like where he writes an apparent love letter to Nandini as through it is a letter to a govt. dept. Although the accent seems slightly artifical and put up, his characterization of Remo also holds him as a very attractive guy ( as he says at one point to Naandi - 'Don't come to see me if your heart is weak!" ) Physically, he has grown, seems to have put on weight expecially a flabby paunch. 6 pacs of (fl)Abs? :) But the thing worth mentioning is the "generality" of Vikram's face. He looks smashing in any kind of hair do and any kind of moustache- beard set up! Almost makes me wish for a face like that :)

The supporting cast is as good as the main. Prakash raj shines - brightly as the vengeful inspector. His acting has almost become trademark and iconic and he easily portrays the specific role with flamboyance. Vikram, manages to be the funny bone especuially the scenes where he inserts his characteristic punch lines while trying to fix up Ramasami and nandini ( " looking for a Kalai-'mama'-mani award" as he says at one point ) Nedumudi Venu is a he always is. EAsily slips into the character so easily that you forget that there is an actor there - You almost belive in the character. Sada exists in the sidelines - a pretty face an a doll like appearence. Not much of a scope there for that role :)

The Choreography is indulgent. From the Tulip Gardens to km's of pinted roads and rocks, everything exists. Colorful, Bouyant and Vibrantly loud, the music has it's own pace and charm. But then, on a storylinme like this, it does hamper the narration. It could not have done any harm to have cut down on couple of songs here and there.

On the whole, the movie is definitely more than paisa-vasool. Slick direction, indulgent choreography, wonderful casting and performances up to the expectation from each of them - Go watch it! :)

Hyderabad ! - Where Cinema meets Chaos: Part 1 - The Journey

2005-06-21T21:30:00.000+05:30

It was a long awaited trip to Hyderabad. The common excuse was to see Junior Reddy, but on hindsight, i guess that was just one of the excuses. We have been wanting this break for quite some time and i guess Reddy Junior was just the excuse to convince us that this trip was necessary!

Friday evening saw us arrive at the bus stand on time to get the volvo bus to hyderabad. As usual, planning was last minute and train tickets in India, where population grows faster than the train speed, are scarce and rare. Expecially when u plan as late as what we did! :) We were lucky to get the bus tickets actually. There we were - Me in a well worn Jeans and a t shirt with my usual backpack, the slim Reddy - the proud dad, Mrs and Mr. Iyer, the family - also known as Ganesh and Latha. Mrs. Iyer had wanted the volvo trip - she had apparently heard a lot about the same and had wanted to try one of the same.

Our last bus trip to Andhra land was quite some time back on a time line, but down memory lane, it was still quite vivid. We were on a crowded bus, stifling around with a tv screen showing a wild telugu movie and the speakers blaring the sound track, even when it was quite late at night. The matter of fact was, none of them except for us seemed to mind that, rather, most of them, i still think, enjoyed it.

Waking up from the flash back with a snap, i turned to Reddy and asked him if this being a volvo bus would make any difference and would they restrain from playing a movie or playing songs on the speaker. Reddy, who was busy trying to settle down in the seats, looked at me with a smile on his lips and said that he couldn't be sure. The smile turned to laughter, when two seconds later, the speakers started giving out wonderful telugu music! But even his smile curved into an agry frown when he realized that the driver or the cleaner liked one set of songs and two hours later, were still playing repeats of the same set !!! It was my turn to laugh, then! The Andhra buses do have some pretty wierd customs though. First, they distributed woolen rugs for all of us. They gave us one each, but to the Iyer family they gave only one and unapologetically mumbled that they were short of one and they have to adjust. ( When we saw them sleeping later that night, we realized wehre that one short had gone! :) ) And then they walked past the aisle handing us one bottle of 'Rama' packaged water. We were kind of apprehensive about ho much we would have to pay, when his voice rubbed it on us that it was on the house ( rather on the bus! :) ). So then, when that guy came again with trays of chips, we were more than happy to pick one packet for each of us, when with a smile, he anounced that it was fifteen bucks a packet. Promptly, we kept it back on the tray. I even arranged them the same way as it were before they were picked up!

The night wore on with a pleasent bus drive with only the repeated telugu songs to trance us. My friends say that i am extremely gifted guy for i can sleep, whenever and wherever i want. ( There are so many instances where i have displayed that talent - in sanskrit classes, in maths classes and in so many other classes :) ) ... Anyways, it wasn't long before i left the Reddy and Iyer to fend for conversation within themselves and dozed off to a nice and smooth sleep, the air conditioned sway of the volvo suspensions cradling me with a wonderful lullaby!

Was it the Rip Van Winkle who had slept for twenty years? When i was woken up later that night, i did really feel like that, but i guess it wasn't more than a couple of hours. It was a dark bus stand and those unrecognizable characters on the wall could have only meant one of the two things - that i was still sleepy or that we had already crossed into telugu desam! Although i was almost sure, it is the former than the latter, my friends convinced me that it is also the latter. And, they warned me, if i wanted any food, i had better go down, wash myself and help them open out those packets of grub! :)

Half an hour later, with sleep washed out of my eyes with splashes of Kinley water and lovely Tamarind rice filling my stomach warmly, i was ready to enter dream land again. The bus had started its journey from the bus stand, and i could see Reddy and Mr. Iyer looking at me with jealousy while i comfortably slid down, made myself comfortable and was about to snooze off. You know about the time just when u r about to sleep where any disturbances can really wake u the wild animal in you? It was when i was getting on to that, when Reddy or Mr. Iyer would poke me in my stomach to make me get up ! Sleep has it's ways, it seems! Couple of pokings later, i could not care less about those worrisome fingers and i started to daze back again. Am sure those guys also got bored of poking me and left me alone.

I apparently do a little bit of talking in between my sleep. Not the kind of rumbling mumbling, but apparently, i wake up, speak coherently to the guy next to me, but i wudn't remember anything of that the next day! Well, it seems that night i told Reddy that one of my slippers was missing and Reddy had pacified me saying we would look for it the next day morning (as, he told me, the law of inertia or whatever would make everything inside the bus move along with the bus - so we could still find the slipper in the morning in the bus itself! :) ) I had no clue of this conversation in the morning anyways and of course, i did have both my slippers right in place.

Morning saw me wake up to see two characters just short of white faces and hairs almost standing. I was sure that my snorings or my mid night conversations could not have caused such an extreme reaction, but as they, an elephant does not know his own strength, so i couldn't be sure !! :) Anyways, i delicately asked them which ghost made that effect on them. They looked at me and asked me to watch the driving for some time. Nothing could have prepared me for the next ten minutes. The driver, was either short sighted to see the vehicle in front of them only when they were close enough to be kissed or thought that the right side of the road is for overtaking and not for letting the on coming traffic to go! By the time the clock ticked ten minutes, he would have easily crashed on to couple of cars, couple of "Qualis"-es, and couple of people too. Ten minutes later, i was pale, white rather, had my hairs standing on edge and my knuckles white from holding on to the seat handle in front of me :) It was then that i realized that seeing my friends smiling face is actually blissful - especially when the other option is to look at head on collisions options every two minutes.

Somehow, i still belive, due to the simple fact that God could not have wanted my presence up there so soon ( he is a peace- loving soul!! :) ), we did stop at a road side Dhaba without any mishaps. The only thing that we dared to buy from there was a strip of paste and we did the rudimentary clean up and the rudimentary "downloads", before boarding the bus for the final lap of the road rash to Hyderabad. With taste of colgate shakthi in my mouth and with fear of the driver's shakthi in my eyes, i felt the the best thing to do was to close my eyes and doze to dreamland. And with the god given natural ability - provoking instant jealousy in my friends, i dozed into a nice sleep only to be woken up almost immedietely ( or so i thought ) by Reddy asking us to step out as we were nearing our destination.

Once down on terra firma, the tormenter who tortured us with telugu rap , hip hop and blues half of the ngiht and from early morning, helped us to take our bags out and demanded the money for his chai pani. Glad to have been out of the telugu song ridden atmosphere, we gladly parted with couple of tens and took our luggage and followed the leader of the pack.

Stretching a little, with my backpack securely on my back, i looked around to see a sunny street with traffic starting to ply the roads and... Rocks. I could see rocks everywhere. Roads that go up and down over and above the sinusoidal curvature of the rock laden topography. And of course, as our luck would have it, we had to walk uphill to reach the apartment. A fifty meters up the hill road and two floors up in stairs, we finally opened the door to see smiling faces of my bhabhi and her household. With the custodial namaste and the custodial answers about the journey and weather, we couldn't stop ourselves from asking her to get the Junior out. After all, he was the reason we were there. After washing our hands and faces, we finally saw our first nephew. Covered with the baby clothes, with shrivelled skin, long arms and limbs and a slightly haired head, there lay the miracle of our lives. With eyes that were opening and closing, he took in the new faces all around him before he started his only means of communication. To cry! Oh the joy of seeing our first nephew. Everything the junior did was news to us. Hey there, he moved his head sideways, and there, he looked at me, there there there, see the way he has his arms at the side of his face ? everything - Anything !!! :)

There was only smell strong enough to take us away from the baby - the smell of freshly cooked puries.. And ont he table our accommodation arrangements were discussed. We were to be there for three days... But then, that's another story altogether!! :)

The days would continue, so will the narrative !! :)

Adventure to Wayanad

2005-06-21T21:23:00.000+05:30

We had Googled, we had read articles and we had seen pictures. But nothing could have prepared the 13 of us from the tools team for the magical world that was waiting for us in Wayanad.

It all started during one of the late night stays in office, when we all realized it was time to take a break. Google was unceremoniously attacked by multiple browser windows and plausible destinations were looked at. Couple of pictures of Wayanad and we were all ready to go to Wayanad. Couple of days and lots of phone calls later, we had made our arrangements. 13 of us would leave Chennai to Calicut on evening train on 1April and would transport ourselves using a pre booked cab from Calicut to the ghats of Wayanad.

It was like crossing a line. The winding roads up the ghats took us far away from the roaring sounds of civilization, from the grindings of machinery to couple of decades back in time. There were greenery all around us. The height at which we were commanded a view where even the shadows made by the clouds could be seen. The world, was under our feet!

The first step

The mystical world had a fitting entry. The fabled "Chain tree"!

A huge banyan tree has a chain running through it. Along with the physical chain, the tree also had a lot of stories chained with it. Popular legend goes that during the time of the reign of the white skinned, a white engineer was helped by a local tribesman to make a pliable road to the Ghats. Once the road was done, the White Engineer killed the tribesman and took the entire credit to himself. The Tribesman, not to take things lying, became a Ghost and killed all travelers through that road, until a magician chained this waylaid spirit to the tree. Ra, ra, Chandramukhi ra ra!!!

We turned off the NH when we saw a board that proclaimed the name of our resort. Expecting people and the usual hustle bustle of a resort anytime, we were caught by surprise, when we saw the fine print under the name board "9 km ahead!". We were put up in a resort which was 9 km into thick jungle. And no pseudo foliage here, we speak about unkempt, thick jungle. Traveling 9 km through pathways, mud ways, kuchcha bridges brought us to a huge compound dotted with small buildings around. There was something weird about the set up but we could not put our fingers into it.. until, well, until we spoke to the resort management.

We were escorted to our villas, about half a km from the main building and was given the option of taking two villas. The two villas were around 50 meters apart. We took our rooms and it was then the thing that was bothering us were revealed to us. We were in the middle of the jungle. And we were. We were so much into the jungle that we did not have electricity supply tot he resort. The power needs to the resort was managed by generator sets and in the nights, inverters with very, VERY, limited powers. Of course we were brave guys, and couldn't we stay in separate rooms and villas??Of course we could. Scared? Who, us ???? OH come on, we are the type that Ghosts get scared of! But then, won’t we be speaking and playing till late night? So shouldn’t we all stay in the same villa?? :):)... You know, its not about fear, just about being together so that we can play and talk together. :) It was easy to get the concurrence, especially with the fact that once inside the villa we aer compeltely cut off from everything else - even going to the other villa through the forest! :) So stay, was together, in one villa, the first people to take the best beds available and the rest camping out in the hall! :)

Encounter with Nature

After the settling down, showers and a sumptuous lunch, it was trekking time. And we went to the deep jungles with wide eyes and whispering mouths. Even whispers strained to inaudible levels when the guide pointed the location where elephants come to quench their thirst. The last thing we all wanted was to be running for our lives with elephants on our trail! We wouldn't have worried so much about the big mammals had we known how exposed we were to the small little blood sucking leeches all around us. It was not until we were deep inside the jungle that we realized that there were few of them feasting comfortably on us. Their modus operandi is very simple. They crawl to you, clamp their claws in and start sucking blood. Once their potbelly is full they just fall out. Well, within couple of hours, we were as used to them as they were getting to our warm fresh city blood!

We walked through what could easily have been the sets of the movie "The Blair witch Project". Surrounded by mist, silence and dense jungle, we prodded on to reach a small hillock that greeted us once again, with flowing mist which attempted to envelop us from all us side. Panting, we were humbled so simply by the astounding beauty of nature around us. But then, the trek was just a preview of things to come.

The next day saw us going to Edakkal caves. A cave that boasts of drawings by Neanderthal men. Human endurance, evident from the Neanderthal age, took us even further than just those caves. We had the quest to climb the mountain, which, they said, was possible. As we moved higher and higher, slowly the crowd thinned. From 13 of us to the cave, it was 7 of us to the next level, and then 5 of us to the final climb. There we were, standing and looking up at the perilous climb, when a family with a lady garbed in a saree, coolly climbed up. Ego, the y say, is the strongest motivator of all!!! Once we saw that, there was no stopping us 5 to climb to the top. Enthusiasm took us almost to the top, Well, Almost. At one point, we looked down and realized that what goes up has to come down too!! The slope down looked more scary than anything in life. Crawling back most of the time, we inched our way down to safety. The high point of the climb was when one of us looked down at the slope that we have to climb down and decided he would make a call to his mother and speak to her :). He did speak, by the way! (Technology bears its re silient step there too. There was full signal up at the mountain pe ak too!!!!) Well, i am here to write this now, so we did make it down, but come to think of it, how, i am not sure if we would remember now !

And our descent was not a minute too soon. For as soon as we re ached the comfort of our van, that it rained - not rained, poured incessantly. And with the rain, life poured into the already lush foliage. We made our way back after a wonderful drive through the wild life sanctuary of Muthanga. It was pretty late and still raining when we reached the side road ( with 9 km still to go ! ) to our resort. our driver calmly proclaimed that the van cannot go up to the resort and we will have to call for the local jeeps that can take us up to the resort. The danger was not driving, but if the tyre slips - well, he left the rest unsaid and i think we too preferred it that way! Anyway, the jeeps were there with our resort manager, who was probably used to such trips. They took us to the resorts, fed us good food and we dropped off to dream land.

Humbled by Heritage

The next day was to be spent playing hide and seek with the symbols of heritage spotted across the wide district. We were forced to pick and select few of them for want of time. Diversity makes you want to visit all of them without missing any one of them. Where else would you find a mossalman mosque that was built by Hindu community, a Hindu temple where everyone is allowed to come inside without no religion / caste creed barrier. Where else would you find the papanasini with the Thirunelli temple, arguably one of the best architectured temples of olden kerala - situated on top of a mountain and surrounded by three more. The whole atmosphere was enough to build reverence in anyone. We were lucky that we could visit few of the rare temples - a temple for the matsya avatara of lord Vishnu and a temple where there are three pratishtha' s of Durga. The same temple also hosted a pratishtha of Sita Devi with LAva and Kusha under the 'Ashoka tree'. But, the reverence reached the highest point at the Thrissillery temple.

Reputed to older than 4000 years, the temple at the foot hills of the mountain that holds the sacred Thirunelly temple, holds some very rare pratishthas. It boasts of one of the only eight pratishthas of jala durga, placed by the warrior sage Parashuraman himself. This deity has a body of water around it, which has been reputed ne ver to dry up all these years. The same temple holds a deity of Goshalakrishnan and also of a Lord Ayyappa in a penance post in the jungle ( which forces the temple authorities not to have a roof for this deity ! ). The main deity if a swayambhu ( self evident ) Siva linga which is inexplicably tied to the lord Vishnu deity up in the mountain of thirunelly.

And back to reality

It was with a filled mind and a very very satisfied heart that we started our journey back to civilization. It was a memorable trip where the wheels of time turned back all the way. Un-spoilt virgin Wayanad, where we could still drink sweet cold water from any tap at the road side and not be worried about the he alth hazards, the Wayand where bottled drinks like coca cola and Pepsi were unheard of, was bidding us farewell. It took about 4 hours for the Van to travel through decades and take us to the hustle and bustle of Calicut.

The train greeted us with the same cheer that it greets every one of her traveler and soon the never tiring chuk chuk of the train drowned all our senses. Lots of memories, lots of conversations and a wink of sleep later, we were back in Chennai. A new day, 3 days away from the last w orking day, and it was as through we had made a trip to an alien land far away in time and space. Amongst us was the feeling of satisfaction of having gone through a wonderful trip and the longing for a longer more relaxed trip to the same magical land of Wayanad. To get drenched in its magical serenity again, to dip in its agonizing simplicity again.

We were all in Chennai, and yet we all carried a part of the magic with us, in our heart!

Vishu trip!

2005-06-21T21:21:00.000+05:30

This is one of my older write ups... posting this just so i can have a centralized place for these small write ups that i have:
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As usual, the chill wind woke me up. I almost always select bus travel as my mode of travel from my professional home of Chennai to the home of my heart – Kerala. And almost always, it is the chill wind of Kerala, just after the entry at check post that wakes me up. I wake up to the lush green trees around me, to the sight of the bus waiting at the check post for clearance. I wake up to my home. But this time it was different. I was coming home for Vishu. It was after 9 long years that I was going to be a party of Vishu celebrations with three generations of my family. I could not wait to get back home.

As usual, the clearance got late; as usual, I could not control my excitement and I jumped into a local bus to get me to the town faster; and as usual, after ten minutes through my journey, I saw my bus from Chennai overtaking the bus I was in, hoping to reach the town faster. Sigh! Certain things never change!

After two bus journeys, one from the check post to the town and the other from the town to my village, I realize how an actor feels. In a drama, the stage always remains there. The Actors go on and off stage. And every time the actor comes on stage, he is back home! It is exactly how I felt then. The trees had gone a wee bit older, the unpaved roads had gone a little dustier and the old gates and fences had become slightly more rustic, but it was there – the stage was there.

The gates to my grandmothers opened wide, but not wider than the smile that lit up her face at seeing that sight. It never ceases to amaze me as to how this wonderful lady could always bring in so much of love and so much of peace to me. Both of us cannot resist hugging each other before she throws me off and says “Uggghhh .. u have collected the entire dirt of everyone and everything in the bus.. Take a bath and go get yourself clean.” With a wink and a small kiss on the little lady’s forehead, I would smile and make my ways inside the house. I am back! And how much ever I try, I cannot resist sipping the nice (and delightfully huge) glass of tea, standing in the backyard before my bath. With nice scented oil in my hair and a towel on my shoulder, I would stand there relishing the clean air and the wonderful smell of my own house. The chitter-chatter of the vessels in the kitchen (Hey, there had better be some nice cooking, the young one is home!) the calls of the neighbors seeing me, everything repeats as clockwork. My grandmother would sit in the dining table right behind me and would read the paper aloud. The servants, who are as much a part of our household as I am, would lovingly scorn at my grandmother for having done something she should not have. And with all the youth and vigor that only a young women of 70 can posses, she would bite back.

There is only one thing that can break my reverie and hurry me to take my bath. The spittle of water and hiss of oil in the dosa tawa before the ‘maavu’ is spread on the tawa! The oil on my hair would have been replaced with water (not completely toweled ) and my dirty clothes would have given way to a nice white mundu- shirt as i sit on the dining table joining my grandmother in front of the hot and yummy dosas. In between eager mouthfuls of dosas dipped in spicy chutney, I would update my servants on the latest happenings on my life and also update myself on the happenings by trying to read the paper. I am sure the ladies of the kitchen must be equipped with some kind of telepathy, for just as I tend to stop with the seemingly unstoppable hand-to-mouth actions, the steaming glass of tea reaches the table.

With a satisfied belly and very satisfied heart, I would lean back, enjoying myself the uncivilized pleasures of licking my fingers and sipping on the ever-silver glass of tea.

My grand mother would sit next to me, massaging her legs with oil – as a part of the preparations for her bath. She would hum some nice song or talk to me about the plans of what we have to do in the coming days together. Usually, I exist in that world for a weekend, so it would be either plans to go and watch a new movie or some movie that she had missed. But this time it was slightly different. The entire family is to gather for this Vishu. And the conversation revolved around who were there previously and who had done what and how and when everyone is coming to the celebration; what crackers have we gathered, who likes what crackers… and the tea!! Life could not get better. And this already sweet tea was interspersed with more sweetening of the instructions to the servants to ensure that they have procured all the vegetables and ingredients required for the big ‘sadya’ on the eve of Vishu!

With a wonderful smile, my grandmother would then finally say “So, let me take a bath!” The entire procedure including the mise-en-place and the actual event of a bath would take more than an hour. I walk to the kitchen to request for another glass of tea and retire to the living room, sitting comfortably in the easy-chair, which was a fixture of the house from the days I could remember, with my legs over the arm rest, the glass of tea delivered to the window still, and a paper on my hands. Everyone knows the outcome.. the glass of tea half consumed, the news on the paper not even half consumed, I would land in the world of dreams.

We can jump onto internet, do commerce at the speed of light, make friends with any person across the globe in seamless realization, but nothing can ever take away the peace and pleasure of being where you belong. It makes me wonder, where does civilization take me, or is it that I belong to the side-lane where I prefer to stand back and look and amaze at the technology movement? I am reminded of ‘Agent smith’ in the cult movie Matrix, who while searching for Neo, stands in a railway station and puts his head in a moving train to look through the entire train as the trains race ahead. I guess that is how I also feel. Deep roots strongly within this realm, I feel i dip my head in the racing technology train to get a glimpse! There is only one problem. Almost the entire world is in the train and that makes it imperative for anyone to make a trip in the train, so do I, so do I! Also, even in this serene tranquil world, where time is told not by digital beeps but by the patter of the multitude of school children’ feet running after the school hours (which signifies four o’ clock and time for another glass of tea and evening snacks), technology has started to creep in.

The day goes on with the love and care of my grandmother. The next day, one of my uncle and his family arrives. The huge house which anyways never looks empty was becoming even more alive – with sounds of little feet running around, with sounds of little bodies tripping and falling, with warning cries of parents… the home was building itself up. My uncle has two kids – I should not say kids anymore, they have grown to the age where you feel you are an adult and you should be treated that way! It was after a long time that I was seeing them and it was nice being jumped on (albeit from heavier feet and bodies!) and being hugged! The pleasures of technology have enabled me to bring in the power of visual memories capture through my handy-cam. The memories and the sound became even heavier and louder when my second uncle arrived with his son. His arrival was announced, as he blew the small bugle that he keeps in his car!

On check with the stock of crackers, the expert opinion was given. They are not enough! There was no second opinion. “Let’s Go! Let’s Go!” But before this aim was to be achieved, there was another small unfinished business to be attended to. The all-so–awaited bath in the river! The whole battalion of my cousins, led courageously by me, started to the river. Nothing comes free of cost, does it? As much as the creep of technology had brought TVs, radio and a plethora of convenience equipments, it had also caused erosion of sand from the river-beds for construction use. So we had to walk a couple of kilometers to reach the place where we could conveniently take bath. There were no complaints, all of us would love the walk though the unpaved roads, teasing and victimizing each other. There was nothing that could stop those young naughty guys to jump into the river directly, once we reached the banks.

Some memories are frozen in time as photo prints of the time when I was small enough to be led by my uncles to the river. One of them, shows me and my two elder cousin brothers in the river, frozen in the moment of jumping over each other! It is one of the most loved photos in the album.. and today, I felt a sense of deja-vu. I was sitting on the bank of the river with my handycam on my hand watching the memories etch itself on the cobalt tape as my cousins splashed water around everywhere and jump all over each other! Time had come one full round and I was still here. Civilization had not drugged me, technology had not corrupted me. The only thing that was corrupting me that moment was the temptation to jump into the water. And I indulged. After few minutes of memory generation, I put everything aside and I jumped in to meet my cousins in the water.

It was only when we were trying to walk back to our house, late in the evening when we realized, how far our enthusiasm had carried us! We had to actually mark a pit stop in the middle of our trek back to stop in a shop and force the shopkeeper – cum – juice maker to make ‘nannari-serbath’ ( a concoction of lime, soda and a flavored syrup) for us. It was not a surprise to us that we kept on drinking for a long time, until he ran out of lemon, but it was definitely a surprise to the man on the other side of the counter that his serbeth had suddenly become so popular. Had he belonged to the ‘techno-civilized’ era, he just might have measured the amount of ingredients he mixed that day, maintained the recipe as one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world and started bottling his product! The second pit stop came when we came across a shop selling crackers. We stopped there to balance our load; My load was lightened with a largely light wallet and my little cousins shared a lot of my weight by way of the new cracker packets got in exchange of my wallet contents!

The night before was alive with my grandmother making preparations for the Vishu morning. The traditional vessels came out, were filled with the fruits and vegetables in front of the picture of Lord Krishna and a mirror. This was the arrangement for ‘Kani-kaanal’, the event that marks seeing the Almighty as the first sight in the morning. In the morning, the children were bought in by their parents, eyes covered, in front of this arrangement, now complete with ‘Konna’ flowers and the yellow glow of the lamps glowing in front of the arrangement. All of us would sit in front of this arrangement and would open our eyes to be greeted by this wonderful sight of the Almighty himself covered in the yellow glory of the lighted lamps. It is a sight unparalleled by anything at all in the whole world. It is not just the sight of the Almighty, but also the realization of the anticipation of seeing the result of preparation on the previous night. And suddenly, everything gets back to normalcy and eh, a little urgency! The crackers, are waiting!

When you look at it for the first time, there is a huge load of crackers, but three generations of hands trying to reach into the packets deplore them in a speed that challenges the speed at which the Chennai Auto-rickshaw meters move! The whole front yard, well swept by the ladies of the household the night before, echoes with booms, cracks and fizzes. And in between this run down and flying booms, the elders of the house would search for you to give the ‘Kaineettam’, the first earning for the year. We would all accept it with blessings from our elders. Without age bar, all of us across the generations would seek blessings by touching the feet of our elder. I missed my grandfather then. Of the vivid memories etched in my heart, I would accept the token money from him which would come to my hand with so much of love, affection and a big smile which even now I cannot forget. He is one man whom I have found very difficult to imitate and very easy to admire. I am taken out of this reverie, as soon as I get into it, by my cousin who was ardently waiting for me to light a cracker that was too dangerous for him to do himself!

The dawn would wake up to he rough sound of sweeping broomsticks across the loose gravel of the front yard. These thin sticks sweep the cracker remains off the yard, but nothing could take away the lingering smell of crackers, the sense of enthusiasm and the sense of peace and happiness that enveloped all of us that morning. There is a dome in Pondicherry, I have heard, that houses a crystal in the center and allows a ray of sunlight to be hit on this. This crystal disperses the sun ray and provides light for the dome. People say that as u walk towards the crystal there is a moment, when your eyes fall on the strong rays and you are blinded for an instant. That instant, you feel absolute perfect peace. But, they warn you, it is for an instant as the next moment, you are back in this world.

I experience the same peace, the same sanity, the same absolute serenity when I revel in this atmosphere. My people. My home. This is where I belong and irrespective of what I do where I go, I would always belong. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this world, can take this away from me. Until, death do us part, that is. But even after, I know, that ‘The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.’ How much ever I discover new technology, how much ever technology eases our life, whatever distance the rockets can take you, I wonder if they would ever be able to take this out of me. I do not search for a realization here, nor do I make a derivation from the facts. I know this and I always knew this. If not for this, I would not be what I am now. My body might be constituent of blood, flesh and bones, but this is what makes ME. ‘This’ is a constituent of the sunlight, of the green leaves, of the dust that sifts in the sunlight, of water that flows in the river, of the happiness that surrounds us all and of the energy that moves through this all. ‘This’ is my root, my identity, me.

The wonderful smell of brewing tea wakes me up and I happily consent to being a part of the noise, to the songs, to the cries (“look amma, he has taken my glass of tea!”), to the clear voice that reads aloud the news, to everything. Normal life takes it toll again, the rush for taking bath (and the long walk that comes before getting to the river! – bathrooms, did you say a bathroom, the enclosed room?). the day passes in its own hum, after a wonderful lunch which is a subjective realization of all the vegetables and ingredients that piled up right in front of my eyes in the previous days! As we all crowd together in the same room, trying to watch TV and sleep off as soon as we convince that others that the movie that you want to watch is the best, the house becomes slightly less noisy. Only till the evening arrives with more energy and more talks!

As days pass, some uncles have to leave and some stay back for some more days. One of the days we decide we must make a small trip to a temple nearby. With no schedules or no bosses to stop you from, there was no delay in the trip. This temple is to be accessed on foot, crossing fields and railway tracks. The temple is a single sanctum sanctorum covered by a wall. It stands on the bank of a river, by the side of a huge banyan tree. With no cellular phone beeps, no ‘sundall’ sellers and no plastic waste dropped around, it is a sight to behold. The huge banyan tree flaps its leaves with a murmur sound, set on a base made for people to rest and a temple silhouetted against the horizon next to it. The setting sun adds to the beauty of the temple. You walk down the irregular stone steps to the river and dip in it before entering the temple. It is not the sounds that fill your senses, nor splendid sights that fills your eyes, not phenomenal smell that fills your nose, but the entire feeling that fill your senses. The climb back up the stones lead you to the temple, where the Almighty gives his darshan to you as a ‘Swayambhu’ ( a deity formed out of natural causes). The walk back to the car on the road is a dream one, with my grandmother’s hand in my hand, and filled with talks of the era not yet totally bygone, but still on the rolls of ‘past tense’. Once we reached the car, my grandmother had a small request “The ‘mannaathi’ (the lady who washes, starches and irons clothes) have not come for a week. I heard she is sick, can we go visit her?” It is one big family in the village. And we go.

The house was well known to the people sitting under the darkening sky in the road side tea shop. Directed by them, we went up an alley. A small girl was sent to direct us to the right house by the inhabitants of the first wrong house we visited in the alley. A simple village girl, she marched and jumped while leading us to the point where she pointed the right house to us. Civilization made me utter the words in reflex ‘Thank you’. It was not the reply that surprised us, it was the speed and reflex with which the reply came ‘You are Welcome’!

As Gandhi once said “Western Civilization. A Good idea”!!!!!!!!!!

Pick Me Up

2005-06-15T14:44:00.000+05:30

Hours melt to nothingness in this cubicle of Luminescence. Am back after a mid day jog and i still feel empty down in my guts.

I need a pick-me-up. Any volunteers?

Rain

2005-06-14T09:27:00.000+05:30

Slowly, moving clouds darken the sky. The scroching sun rays slowly disappear from the horizon and cool wind announces the arrival of monsoon. The heart leaps in joy even though the hands try to shield the eyes from the wind. As you look up to see the clouds smiling on you, suddenly, unexpectedly, un announced, the first drops of the cool fresh water fall on your face. The smell of fresh earth pierce your nostrils and fills your heart with joy unabound! Unbelievably, you stretch out your palms and look at it searchingly for more drops that splatter your body and suddenly, the realization dawns! With one last fleeting look of thanks skywards, you run to the nearest shelter.

It pours.

The Rain remains, till day the most impressive tranquilizer for me.Even the lightest pitter patter is enough to spread a thin film of fantasy over my eyes. Whatever i see then is an absolute mirage of idyllic beauty. The noise is gone, so are the visually blaring sights of the city around me. What remains is peace, is the feeling of being washed over.

Rain also gives me duality. Being in a close room while it's pouring outside gives me a feeling of security. It makes me want to hold on to some one near and makes me want to live life. The laziness, the longing, the bliss of doing nothing, of saying nothing settles in. The flowers of fantasy bloom and if you are with some one you love, well, chemistry would definitely happen. It is the feeling of a littel cove of security within the lashing rain. Just out of the cocoon, it is chilly, it is cold, but inside your cocoon, it is warm, cosy and you know it is much more than just the closed room. The warmth is more from you and the steaming cup of coffee you lovingly hold wrapped in your palms.

At the same time, out in the open in the rain gives me a feeling of being one to nature. It makes me feel that nature has decided that i've had enough of the civilized world's dirt, talk and life. And thankfully decides to give me a heart warming but bone chilling sensation with her smoothest gestures - a nice big hug with her watery arms. It makes me feel one with whatever is out there - life, creativity, God, Nature.

Which one of these feelings is dearer to me, is not known - here -another mystery for you to solve!! :)

Isn't rain always romantic ? The light chitter chatter the early rains make as u run towards the nearest bus shelter; the heavy downpour that suddenly catches u unaware that makes u look skywards and give a half thankful half giving-up smile to the One above; the continuous torrential downpour having masked the sky in dark black clouds - doesn't all these spell Romance ?

Those small legs that jump on the poodles of water braving the rain, the droplet of water that traces the arch of your lover's eye brows in its lingering defeat to gravity; those streams of water that try to so sensuously escape your palm as you wipe your face - is it not romance ?
Those swish swash of the wipers as they incessently clear the water from your windshield while Kishore Kumar breathes melody into your ears, those green leaves that bend down bearing the weight of the falling drops, that swirling smoke that creates a misty curtain on the window glass as you gaze out, those splatters of rain drops they fall on the wondow sills, don't they make up the word romance?

Those unsuccessful shoutings that every mother gives seeing her child run in gay abandon to the muddy street on a rainy day; that given up pose, still with a smile, as she sees her child's hair, shirt and body drench; those tightening grips as you pull their lover to a shelter in the sudden downpour; those lovingly harsh words whispered to your lover under the crowded bus stand for not having run faster and for having got wet, that defying smile on your lover's face blatantly disclosing that getting wetter is not really out of consideration; isn't this that makes up romance ?

Rain, for me is all things combined. It is a bit of sadness, a bit of rejuvenation, and a bit of wonderful amaze!

As they say
small boy at glass door,
befuddled by pounding rain,
claps to rain's tattoo.

:)

The lazy week

2005-06-13T09:12:00.000+05:30

If you've read the Linda Good man's books, you would know that the Librans are apt to have these mood swings - where he decides that - enough ! enough of the positive side and with a smooth trasition, navigates to use the darker side of the Force. Sometimes, during such times, life leaves you with a high and dry feeling.

It was such a week for me last week. Nothing much happened, no energy to take anything forward, just wanted to let everything flow. Remind me of the haiku that conveys this - I loved the stream and i returned back. The stream is there, but the water has flown. Sublime, yet so powerful. I always wonder what would the man would have felt, had he really come up with that feeling.

Absolute Madness ! :) But Order among madness- The total ordered Chaos Theory. We can give it so many names and as more and more names play on my keyboard tapping fingers, my mind sees a glimmer of humor and my lips slowly arch into a sweet small smile. So many things to define the feeling of nothingness. If so much can be said about nothingness, then nothingness is actually much more than nothing. :)

Am at office right now and i think this is going to be a dull borign days with me having to get some cheer myself... One of the times, when i want to be wrong.

Now - that was better.. After having bored you with my nothingness, i feel lighter already. Its' gloing to be a wonderful day - yaaawn !! Am slightly sleepy though! :)

Catch u, the unknown unlimited quantity of net population, a little later!

I'm an Uncle!!!!! :)

2005-05-29T07:39:00.000+05:30

Ten months back, one evening, my best friend, the dr. called me and gave me a surprise message - said that his wife was carrying. ( Whether it was an accident or a purposeful incident, is yet to be known though !! :) )

Ten months later, millions of pick-up-bhabhi-in-the-car-errands later, he called last night around 2:37 AM to tell me the wonderful news. I am an uncle of a sweet nice young boy!!!! The boy was born on 1:03 AM at Hyderabad.

I looked at the phone today morning after i woke up just to ensure that it was not a dream. God knows we've been waiting for this news for so long and i wanted to ensure that this was not a illusory culmination of hope and optimism! But there the call listing was and i called the happy dad, hungry for more details... The boy does not have so much of hair, has long fingers, and with a nose like his dad's ( Needless to say, thats the most noticeable characteristic in the dad too ha ha )

I wish i could have been in Hyderabad to be with him this wonderful moments as much as i am sure i would want all of us to be with me when this moment comes for me. Anyways, am happy to know that god has blessed them with a boy without any ceasarian operations. The initial date mentioned by dr.s were the 22nd of May. and for a week, every day passing by without labour pains, we were moving one inch closer to ceasarian. But there is, apparently, one middle step before th ceasarian. The medical inducing of the labor pains and the lady succumbed after 3 rounds of inducing, i understand. In the dr's view point, the lady is definitely not as frail as she looks :):):):)

Anyways, am an uncle now. Guess it is time for me to settle down too :) ( hope my mother does not read this !! :) )

The Great Wall of Chennai! :)

2005-05-28T19:13:00.000+05:30

Centuries ago, the Chinese built the Great Wall of China. Centuries later, "Great Wall of Chennai" was built. Pretty similar to the original wall, this new wall runs thorugh the length and breadth of the city. The Chinese built the wall around their world, and we built our wall all through the city. Although not visible from the moon, the wall is quite visible from any road in Chennai. Snaking right through the centre of the roads of Chennai is a about 3 feet tall "wall" that divides the traffic into "going there" and "coming here" streams.

I miss those ledo styled concrete stones that were kept in long lines right in the middle of the roads. They were so much more active and so much more nearer to our life! Over any given length of the Chennai roads, they would appear out of nowhere and then disappear as abruptly as they had appeared. I think, the traffic wardens use complex algorithms based on solar and lunar positions to identify the exact location where they should start the concrete block based medians, where they should end it and also the the line that they should be laid on. That the line has no apparent relation with the roads width makes my beliefs more confident! And didnt we love its flexibility? If the stones were placed in the location where we wanted to tak a right turn, we could just stop our vehicle , move the stones out of the way and create an intersection right there! Whic other place in the whole world provides such easily customisable, such end user friendsly and such flexible traffic management system? And instead of appreciating the same, we destroyed the system!

I also miss those rollable steel structures that were used as slightly higher movable traffic medians. Apart from providing the same advantages as the ledo concrete blocks based traffic divurgance, they also provided amazing advantages in creating the speed blocks with maximum ease. They are like the shirts which can be worn both ways.. Come the hustle bustle of the day, and you could place this huge structures in the middle of the road parallel to the road and they would be your friendly traffic divulger. Come the peace of night, and you could rotate these structures at right angels to form the wide, speed barriers that cover almost the whle breadth of the road and make u mandatorily reduce speed.

I have heard that the London museum has an Autorickshaw in display. I think that we should have these flexible modular traffic management systems also displayed there. After all this invasion by this 3 feet wall has made these systems extinct from our lives! And i wonder what we have accomplished with this non movable system. But the great mind behind this construction had not stopped working. It hadnow found a way to use the wall top! There were water lines places all through out this median, soil was placed on them and attempts were done to grow shrubs and flowers on these walls. The first time i drove to office seeing this, there was a small smile on my lips, no not of satire, but of a small dream that i thought was finally coming through. Imagine being able to drive through chennai with a green shrub right next to you all through the roads! incredible, doesn't it sound? The sight of couple of guys actually fixing the hoses on the water taps and actually spending time irrigating these vegetation sprouts showered my dreams with more hope and more optimism. Another thing that dawned on me was that we wouldn't have to worry about people running helter skelter across roads now and we could drive in much more ease!

Time and the endless spirit of the Chennai people was soon to prove me wrong. The will power of Indians are not something that could be curbed by this small wall. Soon people resumed their normal life. They still cross the roads where they want to, just that instead of stepping over the concrete stones or slipping through the steel beams, they started to climb over the great wall of Chennai. And, so life is back to normal in hennai. Driving was as difficult as ever, the vegetatation on the great wall, an excuse for greenery and people still cross the roads where they want to!

Today morning, when i was coming out of the stainz away laundry, i saw two kids standing at this side of the road, with a confused look on their face, looking atraight across the roads. When i followed their gaze, i was slightly taken aback. There was this guy on a motor bike who was standing on the other side of the road, close and aligned to the great wall, ( parked int he middle of a busy road) gesturing these kids to run across the road, scramble on the great wall and then curt across the road to meet him. Lets look at the audacity of this guy - He himself was stationarily parked on his bike in the middle of the road, and was teaching the young minds to cross the roads where they want, instead of asking them to come round.

I think we should grow cactus on these embankments all around the city. It would serve two purposes, one- would save the water that is being sprinkled on the excuse of shrubs every day and two, it would atleast visually discourage the indians who look at the wall not as a hurdle but as a challenge!

One thing is for sure. We find newer ways to encourage our creativity. I am sure there are a lot of us who have creatively found out new ways of crossing over the great wall and i guess, at the botto of it all, it is this undying spirit that makes India what it is. The most potential and yet undisciplined country that the world has :(

The rule of four !!!

2005-05-21T21:12:00.000+05:30

Am trying to download the Windows XP SP2 - With nothing much to do while the bits stream through to my computer, thought i could tap some energy onto my keyboards!

Been reading the apparent international best seller 'The Rule of Four'. And what an endurance test this has been! The rule, apparently streaks the story of a set of four guys who are, voluntarily or involuntarily, caught in the middle of unravelling of a mystery shrouded in a secret old book. Sounds familiar ? yes sah - we are in another mystery which is hidden in our plain views in a book.

The book name - an unpronouncable name a la a biological specimen name - something to do with hysteria or Hypnotism - i still cant get the name here! The book has a myraid set of codes that need to be broken for you to be led to a secret treasure. sounds interesting ??? Dont even think about it! The novel somehow is able to mingle the veryyyyyyyyyyyyy (yawn) dull story of four college students and their life in a college ( yawn ) with one of them miraculously ( the word that much befits the situation than the word that the author has used - intelligently ) arriving at those multiple codes that can break the cryptic message in the book.

I have never forgotten the first rule of consulting and contact mgmt - "identify a personal link with the person whom u want to make contacts with" It is always good to have a anchor point. I guess the same relates to a book too. That is what i am able to attribute to the Da vinci code too. The success of the book not only lies in those wonderful cryptic brain teasers, but also in the fact that they existed in commonplace artifacts - something that we are all aware of. Now try moving the same set of clues to a book that u have never even heard of - does the charm remain ? at least for me, nope, it does not. For we am not able to identify ourselves with the book. Hence th book moves from "how-come-i-never-noticed-it" wonder to "oh-okay" acceptance.

This is what happens to the Rule of four too. So what if a book called hypnter..... ( i still cant remember the name) which talks about the love of poliphilio and polia has some cryptics in it? Oh-okay so it does exist. Even with this lac of identification, the book stil could have got into a tight thriller, had the authors kindly let us out of the humdrum existence of the four college students. Can u imagine writing whole chapters about how a characters parents lived and dies when that has not much to do with the main story line.

I have not yet compelted the book. And since i have started it, i do have to finish it too and i will grovel thorugh the whole endurance, definitely! For me, reading the book is like watching a mega serial - you can skip entire chapters an still not lose anything from the story !! :):):)

Been to Bangalore

2005-05-19T00:53:00.000+05:30

Been to Bangalore, these three days. Was a part of a training programme for PM. The training methodology used was pretty interesting. A book was given to us, with a lot of blanks and a lot of portions where we had to fill in with our writngs.

Of course, we being what we are, we had our own reservations in being forced to write to fill in the blanks. The fill ins were not a test, but were actual test material which we had to pfill in as the trainer lectured. Pretty interesting it turned out, as finally, i realized that the retenstion factor was extremely high in that mode of teaching. Was able to answer the questions of the quiz without refering the book at all. Pretty amazing!

Lots more to write.. guess i wud leave that for tomorrow.

PS: Btw, am reading The rule of four. More of an endurance test for me !! :(

The first one!

2005-05-16T00:04:00.001+05:30

Okay - After seeing countless heads getting drowned in the tap tap of the keyboard for penning in the blogs - am here too - to the hyper virtual space, where anything can come in - but nothing can go out.. Black hole, move over, you are about to be burst!!

"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'intrate"

For all of us lesser mortals, that was Dante, and what he wanted to say was :)

"Abandon all hope, ye that enter here!"