What sucks big time about these days is the lack of a sport I can follow with passion and emotional attachment. There used to be cricket once but it no longer gets the adrenalin going as it did once. Before that there used to be basketball and man..wuz i witness to some of the most spirited battles on a basketball court...in sleepy, little trivandrum! Like Rugby, the famous English public school which was the setting for Thomas Hughes classic novel, Tom Brown's Schooldays in which he memorialized several rugby and cricket matches, Loyola has had a basketball tradition dating back to the 60's when the school started and the men who proudly wore the school jersey were immortalized as heroes in the countless tales juniors of all batches would live to tell, of their exploits on the court. I used to be an average player myself but realizing that my slim physique and unwillingness to exert myself phsically wud stand in the way my dreams of becoming a school team member ended prematurely. The first school match I recollect seeing was in 1987 as a 3rd grader and even today I remember the electrifying atmosphere that pervaded our quadrangle as the whole school looked on in amazement as a tall, lanky player named unnikrishnan single-handedly led an amost impossible fightback against sarvodaya. The next few years were equally thrilling with loyola, st.thomas, st.joseph's and sarvodaya producing teams that kept our hearts beating hard till the last whistle.
And then in 1991 loyola produced the dream-team...one year before the americans decided to make theirs for the olympics. The team of Randeep Hari, Eapen T. Joseph, Jayant Shankar, Bimal John and Tojo Eapen wove magic on the court. Eapen played like the ball was glued to his hands...he was unstoppable, randeep was fast and dangerous, bimal must have shot more 3-pointers than any loyolite...he seldom missed, tall tojo was the center...inside the circle a tojo in possesion of the ball was a sure basket while jayant was an all-rounder and then there was our cheering...opposing teams wud always complain that our lung-power scared their players and upset their rhythm.With slogans like "Whisky Brandy Soda Pop we want loyola on the top" and "V-I-C-T-O-R-Y...that is Loyola's Battle Cry" and many more which i forget now and some borrowed ones like "veer bahadur ladke kaun...loyola loyola" and a 500 young spirits with their achillean lungs, baying for blood with dustbins stolen from the classrooms to be used as drums...we were one fierce band of brothers! I still remember how 50 of us shouted down the whole of St.Thomas at the finals of the St.Thomas Trophy and though we lost that year we still proudly sang our School Anthem and walked away with our sworn enemy giving us a grudging ovation! After Eapen, '93 produced Vipin K. Varkey who though never succeeded in winning the Loyola Cup during his time and even breaking down in tears for not having lived up to his illustrious predecessors, but had the last laugh...he heroically scored a last-second 3 pointer to win the first St.Thomas Cup. Vipin's bad luck continued the next year with another of my school heroes...the late Vivek Rajendran, an all-rounder in everything he did as he failed in winning back the Loyola Cup but beat the same men to the 1st Arya Cup. In '94 we had a team that symbolised what makes basketball such an effective team sport...Akhilesh, Anil, Arun, Bejoy, Vivek and Karthik were a coach's dream with their selfless game and team spirit. They didnt have even a single player who cud turn the tide of the match but as a team of 5 their strength was their coordination...they had a tight defence and superb passing skills and with such strong basics they brought the Cup back to Loyola.
And then came our time...1995-97. We had a great team in Shenoi, Aravind, Mahesh, Mathew and Agil. Sheni was a superb dribbler, KP(mahesh) was a fighter and though short at 5'6" cud leap into the air and stay there for ages, ara was a good shooter and quick on his feet while ichayan(mathew) had the best defense loyola ever saw and ammavan(agil) was a very graceful player. Man to man we cud be termed as next only to the legendary team of 91-92 but we were up against a school whose basketballing prowess was at its peak...St.Josephs with several state players and hours and hours of practise to boast. Despite a spirited effort from our boys and frenzied, desperate cheering from our quadrangle steps we were bested. i still remember the score...57-52. Can never forget the teary-eyed faces as we headed for our excursion where we ironically had hoped to celebrate this victory!We won the St. Thomas trophy that year and the next but were trounced for the loyola cup in 96..the only one that mattered for our boys. and finally we were in the 12th...aravind and agil were no longer in the team, faheem, the 6'2" junior from 10th, came in as the center, harish was the new feeder...we were the seniors...and we still had the loyola cup to bag to be counted among the hallowed batches our great school had produced.
Even 30 years hence I will never forget that day...when we squared off against our same old enemy, St.Joseph's and boy what a match it was. As the seniors we led the cheering... at half-time we were trailing and if i remember rite two of our key players sheni and kp had developed cramps..yet bravely overcome the pain barrier and continued. Then ichayan too fell to cramps and he too shrugged away the agony and fought...we egged on our team lustily with noble leading the wolf-pack(he aptly picked up the nickname powerhouse for his enormous chestpower), prayed from the bottom of our hearts for a miracle and our boys rose up to the challenge. They took the fight right to the enemy,shook of their fatigue and fortune finally favored our braves...and a kid we always disparaged became the unlikely hero...harish haridas, two years our junior cooly dribbled the ball upto the opposition court took aim and realeased the ball to score a 3-pointer. That must have been the longest few seconds in all our short lives...and when the ball sailed smoothly into the basket our boys erupted in joy and happiness. For the first time in the match we had taken a lead and with only less than a minute left then for the whistle, the St.Josephian fightback got nipped in the bud as we scored another basket.If i remember rite the final scorecard read 52-49 but wht i can never forget is our invasion into the court to lift up our players and everyone falling to the floor in the melee and i remember gasping frantically for breath b4 somebody yanked me out of the mess. We all cried that day...it was one of the most memorable victories ever...there remained little else we needed to do to be a much talked about set of guys by future batches of loyolites...when sheni lifted the trophy we thought we had kept alive one of loyola's long-standing sporting traditions...but sadly the school never won the loyola cup since 1997...cricket did its share of damage to our school too as the stamina and skill needed for basketball ensured it found few takers henceforth...hope a day comes when loyolites can cheer for their baskeball team with the same fury and spirt that remains among some of the best memories that school life produced.
Today the guys who played the game in front of us with such splendor must be looking back at their deeds with pride and satisfaction...as for me I have always wondered why my voice goes hoarse if I give one loud shout but why that never happened while being in the midst of a match amongst my schoolmates...it must have something to do with the passion and spirit of the young days. Its been a tough two weeks at work...and it looked as though I wouldnt blog anytime soon as I virtually crashed into bed as soon as i got home. Until I feel fresh enough to write about things that require thought and insight, writing about the best years of our life...the school and college days looks like an attractive proposition. Whatever happens, i know for sure blogging is irrevocably a part of me now.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Sunday, May 08, 2005
My Mallu Heroes...
Well dont blame me if you thought this wuz goin to be abt the famed movie actors of our land. On the contrary I have been wondering how many of us even know about the great men who towered over one of the most picturesque landscapes on Mother Earth. Its not our fault though...the icse cbse syllabuses have conveniently ignored kerala in our history textbooks. I suspect the sslc syllabus wont pass muster either. I wont claim that all the men I list below to be good or great but their personalities, exploits and contributions to Kerala have made me feel we have a history inferior to none else. Factually I may be wrong at many places here, maybe I have gotten a little carried over, but this is how i wud like to view these great men...and no big historian can change that. I read that because our local historians cannot agree on the actual facts behind incidents in our history(they are even aligned as leftists and liberals!!) a comprehensive and thorough book on the history of kerala has never been able to come out without getting discredited!!!
Marthanda Varma - The greatest of all the Travancore kings. His desperate struggle to save his life - even hiding in the hollow of the ammachi plaavu which stands even today at neyyattinkara in tvm district, raising an army to fight the travancore nobles, defeating and killing them one by one before claiming the throne, his crushing defeat of the Dutch East India Company in 1741 effectively ending their influence in Kerala and further conquest to the North firmly entreched his lengend in the annals of Kerala History. Never defeated in battle this king ruled with an iron fist but was just and said to be a humble man.
Pazhassi Raja - Another brave king who resisted the British suzerainity of North Kerala. Refusing to pay the high taxes demanded he was isolated by the other princely states who feared the british, lost his kingdom in battle, retreated to the forests of wayanad from where he waged a fierce guerilla-style war against the British defeating them several times until he and his band of warriors mainly adivasis were cornered and he was gunned down in battle. With him ended the story of the resistance in Malabar.
Kunhali Marakkar - This legendary admiral of the Zamorin fought the Portugese in several pitched battles on sea and land. He succeeded in weakening their hold over the seas from where they could interrupt our flourishing trade of spices after winning several battles but the cunning parangis succeded in splitting his alliance with the Zamorin following which he is supposed to have been captured, taken to Goa, tortured, cut in sevral pieces and his head brought for display at Kannur.
Velu Thambi Dalawa - This prime minister of Travancore got fed up by the constant interferences of the East Endia Company into his kingdom's internal affairs and in 1807 he issued the famous Kundara Declaration which called the ppl to rise in revolt against the British. The people whole-heartedly joined him but the sheer size and numbers of the British Army made it a less than fair fight. The king eager to safeguard his throne declared Velu Thambi a traitor and the proud and loyal Dalawa committed suicide and his family members exiled to Maldives. For an interesting read on one of Velu Thambi's generals visit
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2003/01/06/stories/2003010600940200.htm
Sree Narayana Guru - Without doubt was among the most saintly, influential and revered religious leaders in India. After Shankaracharya, centuries of a decadent and casteist hinduism found renewed vigor and renaissance with his arrival. His teachings led to opening up of temple doors for all hindus. I strongly believe that if not for the reforms, the guru's teachings triggered kerala would have been like the other parts of India like Bihar and UP! Definitely read this article on rediff and see wht Tagore and Gandhi thought abt him.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/30rajeev.htm
Varghese - Well I am sure this one is a shocker. My admiration for him is beyond reason, i know. He wuz a communist who became demoralised with their pseudo-concern for the poor and so affected was he by the exploitation and abuse of the adivasis and poor of Wayanad that he came to believe only a violent mass uprising would bring in a better society. He collected together a band of idealistic men and women like him and attacked police stations and cruel landlords. Their intentions may have been right but the methods they used alienated them from the public. But for the adivasis and the poor of wayanad he led...he was a saviour, reminding them of Pazhassi Raja who fought with them 2 centuries back and today he is acknowledged as the Che Guevera of Kerala. He wuz young, so committed to his beliefs and ultimately became a martyr for a cause (he knew wuz doomed from the outset...yet he tried). For the story of his death go to http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/nov/13keral1.htm
P.S -The drought there is making wayanad a hotbed of PWG activities...these terrorists will exploit sentiments to chart out their anti-india naxal corridor stretching from nepal, bihar, jharkand, orissa, AP and now even karnataka...its a pity if the paradise that wayanad is will have to burn again.
Marthanda Varma - The greatest of all the Travancore kings. His desperate struggle to save his life - even hiding in the hollow of the ammachi plaavu which stands even today at neyyattinkara in tvm district, raising an army to fight the travancore nobles, defeating and killing them one by one before claiming the throne, his crushing defeat of the Dutch East India Company in 1741 effectively ending their influence in Kerala and further conquest to the North firmly entreched his lengend in the annals of Kerala History. Never defeated in battle this king ruled with an iron fist but was just and said to be a humble man.
Pazhassi Raja - Another brave king who resisted the British suzerainity of North Kerala. Refusing to pay the high taxes demanded he was isolated by the other princely states who feared the british, lost his kingdom in battle, retreated to the forests of wayanad from where he waged a fierce guerilla-style war against the British defeating them several times until he and his band of warriors mainly adivasis were cornered and he was gunned down in battle. With him ended the story of the resistance in Malabar.
Kunhali Marakkar - This legendary admiral of the Zamorin fought the Portugese in several pitched battles on sea and land. He succeeded in weakening their hold over the seas from where they could interrupt our flourishing trade of spices after winning several battles but the cunning parangis succeded in splitting his alliance with the Zamorin following which he is supposed to have been captured, taken to Goa, tortured, cut in sevral pieces and his head brought for display at Kannur.
Velu Thambi Dalawa - This prime minister of Travancore got fed up by the constant interferences of the East Endia Company into his kingdom's internal affairs and in 1807 he issued the famous Kundara Declaration which called the ppl to rise in revolt against the British. The people whole-heartedly joined him but the sheer size and numbers of the British Army made it a less than fair fight. The king eager to safeguard his throne declared Velu Thambi a traitor and the proud and loyal Dalawa committed suicide and his family members exiled to Maldives. For an interesting read on one of Velu Thambi's generals visit
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2003/01/06/stories/2003010600940200.htm
Sree Narayana Guru - Without doubt was among the most saintly, influential and revered religious leaders in India. After Shankaracharya, centuries of a decadent and casteist hinduism found renewed vigor and renaissance with his arrival. His teachings led to opening up of temple doors for all hindus. I strongly believe that if not for the reforms, the guru's teachings triggered kerala would have been like the other parts of India like Bihar and UP! Definitely read this article on rediff and see wht Tagore and Gandhi thought abt him.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/30rajeev.htm
Varghese - Well I am sure this one is a shocker. My admiration for him is beyond reason, i know. He wuz a communist who became demoralised with their pseudo-concern for the poor and so affected was he by the exploitation and abuse of the adivasis and poor of Wayanad that he came to believe only a violent mass uprising would bring in a better society. He collected together a band of idealistic men and women like him and attacked police stations and cruel landlords. Their intentions may have been right but the methods they used alienated them from the public. But for the adivasis and the poor of wayanad he led...he was a saviour, reminding them of Pazhassi Raja who fought with them 2 centuries back and today he is acknowledged as the Che Guevera of Kerala. He wuz young, so committed to his beliefs and ultimately became a martyr for a cause (he knew wuz doomed from the outset...yet he tried). For the story of his death go to http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/nov/13keral1.htm
P.S -The drought there is making wayanad a hotbed of PWG activities...these terrorists will exploit sentiments to chart out their anti-india naxal corridor stretching from nepal, bihar, jharkand, orissa, AP and now even karnataka...its a pity if the paradise that wayanad is will have to burn again.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Shock...and Awe
May 6th - 2:30pm Well I keyed this post in a few days back....wuz abt to post it then but backed out as my dad or friends or family werent revealed the contents of this post.So didnt change wht i wrote but just added to it.
May 2nd - 11:00 pm Let me start by saying this isnt gonna be happy. When you hear the words...."We are sorry to let you know that your job offer has been terminated"....it feels like the defeat of the man in u. a few hours earlier i had been given my paycheque for last weeks work and the design for my project had been approved. The punchline left me groggy...i stumbled to my feet, cleared my desk out, collected another check for my day's work from the seemingly distressed CEO and walked out. After a few mins I realized I had forgotten to ask the all important question my friends who I later confided in made...the REASON. Realizing it served no purpose I hesitantly drove back home. The co-workers were unfriendly and I didnt like the job...but all my friends had made me promise to stick on there thru thick and thin....and that had come unstuck My mom and sis triumphantly announced they had ordered a couple of beds to put to end our tharayil kedappu... which I had begun to get used to and even enjoy when I meekly broke the news out...What followed was a staring contest between three ghastly pale faces refusing to back down.
Thankfully little wuz spoken that day and my two partners-in-tragedy, mithun and viswan succeeded in injecting a fresh dose of optimism. viswan even took the pains to relate a story of how big kites take time to find their bearings while small kites take-off fast but can never fly as high. I was actually laughing away hearing that. And at pappanabhan's house, along with his 5 mallu roomies we were coming up non-stop with all the funny moments malayalam cinema has thrown up in tragic scenes. At my first company, SMS.ac they wud always say..."a setback is an opportunity that hides behind a veneer of challenges". i havent had setbacks ever in life...so i had laughed that away then. Three jobs that took me nowhere and utterly homesick the magic of god's grace shone the very next day on. i got interviews for two wonderful opportunities and maybe there cud be more coming up...not even by my applying...but by ppl seeing my resume posted on monster. I dont know whats in store but its still not time to give up...think i can stomach a few more ambushes. Interestingly I am abt to apply for a teaching job at the Los Angeles Unified School District and my pals are betting my anthyam at the hands of some deranged kid. Anyways wht made me happy thru this incident is that i understood one thing i have always heard and read and seen ppl coming out of tragedies say....that their faith in God will see them through...although this cant be termed a tragedy but giving consideration to my happy-go-lucky life so far... i sort of sense HIS presence in the wry smile i am still being able to force out and the strength that emanates from the moral support and cheer mummy(as i rite this i see her absorbed in making gulab jamuns for me...well i am an object of deep envy among my us-based friends) , jisha and my friends infect me with.
May 6th - 2:30pm ....A few minutes back I got a job offer from Universal Music Group, a 6 month contract-to-hire job...finally a fading dream of working in a big company materialised. The office is in the heart of Hollwyood at Universal Studios and they share headquarters with NBC and Universal Pictures. My interview got over only a couple of hours back. It wuz pretty intense and lasted a couple of hours. I was subjected to programming, database and psychometric questions. It wuz a touch-and-go affair. Anyways I am not getting heady...i am going to work hard...i learnt some bitter-sweet lessons, albeit the hard way. This is definitely god's handiwork...they were trying to fill the position for months...if i had got fired even a day later things wud have been different...i wudnt even have picked up the call from the recruiter which came on tuesday thinking why do i need to go thru hassles of interviewing again. Today is a big day in my family. My sister's birthday and my parents wedding anniversary falls on May 6th. Well hope this day becomes a turning point in my sloppy american life. Trust me, my friends.... the promise of a better day makes the hard times worth living for.
May 2nd - 11:00 pm Let me start by saying this isnt gonna be happy. When you hear the words...."We are sorry to let you know that your job offer has been terminated"....it feels like the defeat of the man in u. a few hours earlier i had been given my paycheque for last weeks work and the design for my project had been approved. The punchline left me groggy...i stumbled to my feet, cleared my desk out, collected another check for my day's work from the seemingly distressed CEO and walked out. After a few mins I realized I had forgotten to ask the all important question my friends who I later confided in made...the REASON. Realizing it served no purpose I hesitantly drove back home. The co-workers were unfriendly and I didnt like the job...but all my friends had made me promise to stick on there thru thick and thin....and that had come unstuck My mom and sis triumphantly announced they had ordered a couple of beds to put to end our tharayil kedappu... which I had begun to get used to and even enjoy when I meekly broke the news out...What followed was a staring contest between three ghastly pale faces refusing to back down.
Thankfully little wuz spoken that day and my two partners-in-tragedy, mithun and viswan succeeded in injecting a fresh dose of optimism. viswan even took the pains to relate a story of how big kites take time to find their bearings while small kites take-off fast but can never fly as high. I was actually laughing away hearing that. And at pappanabhan's house, along with his 5 mallu roomies we were coming up non-stop with all the funny moments malayalam cinema has thrown up in tragic scenes. At my first company, SMS.ac they wud always say..."a setback is an opportunity that hides behind a veneer of challenges". i havent had setbacks ever in life...so i had laughed that away then. Three jobs that took me nowhere and utterly homesick the magic of god's grace shone the very next day on. i got interviews for two wonderful opportunities and maybe there cud be more coming up...not even by my applying...but by ppl seeing my resume posted on monster. I dont know whats in store but its still not time to give up...think i can stomach a few more ambushes. Interestingly I am abt to apply for a teaching job at the Los Angeles Unified School District and my pals are betting my anthyam at the hands of some deranged kid. Anyways wht made me happy thru this incident is that i understood one thing i have always heard and read and seen ppl coming out of tragedies say....that their faith in God will see them through...although this cant be termed a tragedy but giving consideration to my happy-go-lucky life so far... i sort of sense HIS presence in the wry smile i am still being able to force out and the strength that emanates from the moral support and cheer mummy(as i rite this i see her absorbed in making gulab jamuns for me...well i am an object of deep envy among my us-based friends) , jisha and my friends infect me with.
May 6th - 2:30pm ....A few minutes back I got a job offer from Universal Music Group, a 6 month contract-to-hire job...finally a fading dream of working in a big company materialised. The office is in the heart of Hollwyood at Universal Studios and they share headquarters with NBC and Universal Pictures. My interview got over only a couple of hours back. It wuz pretty intense and lasted a couple of hours. I was subjected to programming, database and psychometric questions. It wuz a touch-and-go affair. Anyways I am not getting heady...i am going to work hard...i learnt some bitter-sweet lessons, albeit the hard way. This is definitely god's handiwork...they were trying to fill the position for months...if i had got fired even a day later things wud have been different...i wudnt even have picked up the call from the recruiter which came on tuesday thinking why do i need to go thru hassles of interviewing again. Today is a big day in my family. My sister's birthday and my parents wedding anniversary falls on May 6th. Well hope this day becomes a turning point in my sloppy american life. Trust me, my friends.... the promise of a better day makes the hard times worth living for.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Oridathoridathe oru samara nayakan...
Wuz reading abt the flash strike by Air India employees when I got the inspiration for this post. There were days when I was a kid and greeted strikes, bandhs & hartals with happiness and pleaded for more. Then there were the days in college I was a mute spectator and active participant in many mindless strikes that our campus politics have thrown up as a demonstration of party power inside campuses. And now these are the days when I see from the eyes of a "responsible" adult the damages they cause to our economy and educational system and the number of young people who waste their lives fighting for ideologies that serve to divide. And to think of this the first man who employed these measures was the Father of our Nation! I wonder if he ever thought Netaji's militiary approach to independence was better. Well strikes have taken up reams of newspaper space...so no more discourse...but being part of one...things can feel different...read on!
I would have been inescapably sucked into being one of these sinners if not for the violent nature campus politics took in my college. I forget their slogans but i remember feeling ashamed to heve been shouting that and asking my classmates to cooperate....once i even got into a verbal argument with some of the gals in my class who wouldnt leave the class. A menacing threat from an ABVP senior in college wuz enuf to drain the development of the pseudo-radical in me(i shrunk away from the SFI movement and restricted myself to giving them vocal support and moral courage in their fight to bring in a" socialist and secular" country). Well there were a lot of comic incidents these strikes produced. Once an SFI leader asked my chum Viswan, to come for a strike but the way Viswan excused himself wuz unforgettable..."eda njan innale dumbell pokkiyappam ente triceps onne ulukki, enikke athu kaaranam oru adi ondaayaal onnum cheyyan pattilla"...leaving the chota neta flummoxed! And very serious, almost tragic incidents too...
We had organized Dishaa'02, an inter collegiate technical fest and despite the presence of a minister on the stage our principal didnt come bcoz we had violated protocol in not carrying the thappana along when we went to invite him! The savages(our gang) and the rest of our class and the entire CS dept was enraged and we decided to gherao the princi. Being seniors our guys took the lead...we stormed into his office...and the next one hour is a maze...for the first time in life me and friends was affected by mob psychology. viswan at pointe blanke range tells him "iyaale aaruva...thanikke onnu avidam vare vannaal entha"...and to rub it in i said "thaan ivide koode okke nadakkunnathe naatukaare kandallo". we proceeded to disrupt classes and i even gave a couple of fiery speeches...the first and last in my college life just weeks before college was ending. But then disaster struck. We evicted a class where the teacher had gone out and seeing his class empty approached us in a fit of rage and started bad-mouthing us. Suddenly from nowhere some guys came in and unthum thallum aayi. Things had gotten out of hand. The sir was very popular amongst the automobile-branch and the abvp guys finally got their chance to hit back. Viswan, Shinoj and I were suspended after they put pressure. We had to offer a public apology or face dismissal. That day we didnt apologize. On reaching home and waiting there for me was the result of almost 6-7 months of a very focussed, methodical and dedicated phase in my undergraduate academic life... my acceptance letter from USC for my MS and an hour of indiscretion threatened everything. I told pappa but he wuz surprisingly cool abt it maybe coz he had been thru these things in college. We finally mumbled out the apology surrounded by our enemies. A year later Viswan and I visited college during our summer break from the US and the princi ushered us into his office...the same old place where we sparred...talked to us very courteously...requested us to join the alumni association and wished us luck. Time heals....
The humiliation I felt then turned to aversion for myself and then to contemplation...I have since thought wht a strike can achieve...a day of college wasted...a day spent away from what young boys normally do and into spending that with fanatics, idealogues & drifters of these parties. When I read news abt young boys getting caught copying, stealing question papers, indulging in violence, driving accidents, etc I think I could very well have been one of them. Recently Jisha told me how she saw a young boy in tvm driving a car overtaking a bus rather closely and when the driver honked, the boy flipped the birdie and then pumped his fist into the air celebrating his act of chivalry! I was "too" quick to remark...dang! these kids of today show too much attitude when jisha reminded me an incident 4-5 yrs back...i was driving and a woman ran across the road in front of me...it was close but i only neeed to slow down but i shouted out to her...thalle ningalke nere chovve onnum veetil ponde". My dad was ashamed at my behavior and he made sure with his rebuke that i felt shamed too. A little inconvenience had caused me to heap abuse on a poor woman. There are so many people we hurt when we are young...and I still shake to think abt those moments of chora-thilappu which cud have scarred me but only scraped me instead!
I would have been inescapably sucked into being one of these sinners if not for the violent nature campus politics took in my college. I forget their slogans but i remember feeling ashamed to heve been shouting that and asking my classmates to cooperate....once i even got into a verbal argument with some of the gals in my class who wouldnt leave the class. A menacing threat from an ABVP senior in college wuz enuf to drain the development of the pseudo-radical in me(i shrunk away from the SFI movement and restricted myself to giving them vocal support and moral courage in their fight to bring in a" socialist and secular" country). Well there were a lot of comic incidents these strikes produced. Once an SFI leader asked my chum Viswan, to come for a strike but the way Viswan excused himself wuz unforgettable..."eda njan innale dumbell pokkiyappam ente triceps onne ulukki, enikke athu kaaranam oru adi ondaayaal onnum cheyyan pattilla"...leaving the chota neta flummoxed! And very serious, almost tragic incidents too...
We had organized Dishaa'02, an inter collegiate technical fest and despite the presence of a minister on the stage our principal didnt come bcoz we had violated protocol in not carrying the thappana along when we went to invite him! The savages(our gang) and the rest of our class and the entire CS dept was enraged and we decided to gherao the princi. Being seniors our guys took the lead...we stormed into his office...and the next one hour is a maze...for the first time in life me and friends was affected by mob psychology. viswan at pointe blanke range tells him "iyaale aaruva...thanikke onnu avidam vare vannaal entha"...and to rub it in i said "thaan ivide koode okke nadakkunnathe naatukaare kandallo". we proceeded to disrupt classes and i even gave a couple of fiery speeches...the first and last in my college life just weeks before college was ending. But then disaster struck. We evicted a class where the teacher had gone out and seeing his class empty approached us in a fit of rage and started bad-mouthing us. Suddenly from nowhere some guys came in and unthum thallum aayi. Things had gotten out of hand. The sir was very popular amongst the automobile-branch and the abvp guys finally got their chance to hit back. Viswan, Shinoj and I were suspended after they put pressure. We had to offer a public apology or face dismissal. That day we didnt apologize. On reaching home and waiting there for me was the result of almost 6-7 months of a very focussed, methodical and dedicated phase in my undergraduate academic life... my acceptance letter from USC for my MS and an hour of indiscretion threatened everything. I told pappa but he wuz surprisingly cool abt it maybe coz he had been thru these things in college. We finally mumbled out the apology surrounded by our enemies. A year later Viswan and I visited college during our summer break from the US and the princi ushered us into his office...the same old place where we sparred...talked to us very courteously...requested us to join the alumni association and wished us luck. Time heals....
The humiliation I felt then turned to aversion for myself and then to contemplation...I have since thought wht a strike can achieve...a day of college wasted...a day spent away from what young boys normally do and into spending that with fanatics, idealogues & drifters of these parties. When I read news abt young boys getting caught copying, stealing question papers, indulging in violence, driving accidents, etc I think I could very well have been one of them. Recently Jisha told me how she saw a young boy in tvm driving a car overtaking a bus rather closely and when the driver honked, the boy flipped the birdie and then pumped his fist into the air celebrating his act of chivalry! I was "too" quick to remark...dang! these kids of today show too much attitude when jisha reminded me an incident 4-5 yrs back...i was driving and a woman ran across the road in front of me...it was close but i only neeed to slow down but i shouted out to her...thalle ningalke nere chovve onnum veetil ponde". My dad was ashamed at my behavior and he made sure with his rebuke that i felt shamed too. A little inconvenience had caused me to heap abuse on a poor woman. There are so many people we hurt when we are young...and I still shake to think abt those moments of chora-thilappu which cud have scarred me but only scraped me instead!
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
We, The Diaspora
For decades America has weaned hundreds of thousands of young Indians away from the homeland. Dreams of big bucks, cosmopolitan lifestyles and pure and unadulterated need for survival has seen our people arrive here in swarms and slog their way to being called the single most affluent immigrant community in the US. To define the american desi mindset in a single sentence or a paragraph is impossible today. Social scientists all over the US are viewing the growth of our community within our cultural framework and into the American society with great interest. Without doing much harm to their research I thought it apt to pen down some of my observations on Indian-American life, behaviors, attitudes and generational change.
The typical post 90's desi in America, I fathom is very much like me. Still hums the songs that became chartbusters on tv when they were in India, watches helplessly as their interest in cricket wanes and wanes, doesnt miss a single chance to watch a new movie at the theatre with friends, visits ever indian news site as a daily ritual and every conversation with old pals has a trace of nostalgia for all things seen, done and said back home. The untypical ones..which we rarely see are the ones who take to the US-lifestyle with a vengeance...pick up the accent, love the night-life and find it fun to have american friends. What unites us all is that we are unbending sticklers to the law of the land, work in earnest from 9-6, pay our taxes, donot litter on the streets unlike our days back home when we bend every law and nicety till it cracked. Like the mexicans who work at American homes, roads and factories we have become the force behind the internet and computers that powers the USA of today while Americans have remained content doing what they know to do best....manage, talk and lead.
In contrast to my ilk, the first-generation folks who immigrated here in the 60's to the mid 80's really fascinate me. Theirs was a tale of struggle to establish a foothold but were rewarded with success and fortune in a nascent country witnessing immense economic growth and scarcity of labor. The India they came from, unlike us had no telephones, jobs, TV's, cars or the basic amenities we the Gen X (or is it Y now??) had taken for granted back home. Their kids grew up hearing abt a poor, over-crowded, under-developed India and whom we fashionably call ABCD's are pucca American in outlook and lifestyle but I believe hampered by their parents insistence on giving them an upbringing rooted in Indian culture...as they grow up they are constantly at loggerheads with their parents abt their attitudes, the clothes they wear, choosing life-partners and wht not. I wonder what good Indian culture can do if the kids visit India once in a blue moon or cannot manage to speak the native language properly. Like the saying ..."If you are in Rome, be like the Romans" wouldnt it have been better these kids were just left to grow into normal Americans. Of course there are many honorable exceptions to all I said above. But the young desi parents of today unlike their predecessors of the previous generation are confident of their origins, proud of their Indian-ness and make concerted efforts to teach their kids our language and make it a point to visit India often and some kids are even sent to do schooling for a year or two. It remains to be probed where this generation will go...but we'll have the answers in another 5-10 years!
45 years of the Indian exodus has left a lasting impact on American soil. More americans are learning to do programming as a a way of life. Outsourcing has caused significant job losses with a result Indians working in affected companies are viewed with distaste. With India growing in leaps and bounds in every sector of the economy another wave of Indian influx to the US looks improbable. Like the premise of the recent movie, Swades I sense an eastward outflux back to their roots by many desis here. This was just abt the American diaspora, we have oil & construction workers in the Gulf, the progeny of 19th century bonded laborers in the carribean, mauritius, fiji and africa, the jobseekers of the 30' s to 50's in south-east asia, and what feels like the most sweetest revenge of Mother India is the Indian dominance in every sector of the economy and every aspect of life in Britain, our looter and tormentor for centuries. The diaspora is truely India's greatest contribution to modern civilization and for We...The Diaspora, India and being Indian is incorrigibly in our blood.
The typical post 90's desi in America, I fathom is very much like me. Still hums the songs that became chartbusters on tv when they were in India, watches helplessly as their interest in cricket wanes and wanes, doesnt miss a single chance to watch a new movie at the theatre with friends, visits ever indian news site as a daily ritual and every conversation with old pals has a trace of nostalgia for all things seen, done and said back home. The untypical ones..which we rarely see are the ones who take to the US-lifestyle with a vengeance...pick up the accent, love the night-life and find it fun to have american friends. What unites us all is that we are unbending sticklers to the law of the land, work in earnest from 9-6, pay our taxes, donot litter on the streets unlike our days back home when we bend every law and nicety till it cracked. Like the mexicans who work at American homes, roads and factories we have become the force behind the internet and computers that powers the USA of today while Americans have remained content doing what they know to do best....manage, talk and lead.
In contrast to my ilk, the first-generation folks who immigrated here in the 60's to the mid 80's really fascinate me. Theirs was a tale of struggle to establish a foothold but were rewarded with success and fortune in a nascent country witnessing immense economic growth and scarcity of labor. The India they came from, unlike us had no telephones, jobs, TV's, cars or the basic amenities we the Gen X (or is it Y now??) had taken for granted back home. Their kids grew up hearing abt a poor, over-crowded, under-developed India and whom we fashionably call ABCD's are pucca American in outlook and lifestyle but I believe hampered by their parents insistence on giving them an upbringing rooted in Indian culture...as they grow up they are constantly at loggerheads with their parents abt their attitudes, the clothes they wear, choosing life-partners and wht not. I wonder what good Indian culture can do if the kids visit India once in a blue moon or cannot manage to speak the native language properly. Like the saying ..."If you are in Rome, be like the Romans" wouldnt it have been better these kids were just left to grow into normal Americans. Of course there are many honorable exceptions to all I said above. But the young desi parents of today unlike their predecessors of the previous generation are confident of their origins, proud of their Indian-ness and make concerted efforts to teach their kids our language and make it a point to visit India often and some kids are even sent to do schooling for a year or two. It remains to be probed where this generation will go...but we'll have the answers in another 5-10 years!
45 years of the Indian exodus has left a lasting impact on American soil. More americans are learning to do programming as a a way of life. Outsourcing has caused significant job losses with a result Indians working in affected companies are viewed with distaste. With India growing in leaps and bounds in every sector of the economy another wave of Indian influx to the US looks improbable. Like the premise of the recent movie, Swades I sense an eastward outflux back to their roots by many desis here. This was just abt the American diaspora, we have oil & construction workers in the Gulf, the progeny of 19th century bonded laborers in the carribean, mauritius, fiji and africa, the jobseekers of the 30' s to 50's in south-east asia, and what feels like the most sweetest revenge of Mother India is the Indian dominance in every sector of the economy and every aspect of life in Britain, our looter and tormentor for centuries. The diaspora is truely India's greatest contribution to modern civilization and for We...The Diaspora, India and being Indian is incorrigibly in our blood.
Monday, April 25, 2005
The Misfit
Week 1 : Laziness
And so my 2nd spell of unemployment began with a car stuffed with all my wordly belongings and a mind swirling in a whirlpool of self-doubt and defeat(?) in a slow drive away from san diego to LA, the city that destiny made my second home...I didnt have a place to stay but Babuettan and Binduchechi, the first good samaritans I knew as man gave me abode once more and with their three kiddos sachin, sidhu and sethu for company I laughed all my worries away. As usual I struggled to start off the blocks early and decided to laze around a few days under the sun.
Week 2: Down and Out
The deadly american flu that I kept giving the slip for more than a year finally caught up with me and what a pasting I took. My symptoms alternated between high fever, cold, chill and finally a deep, persistent cough that made my stomach muscles cry for rest. To add to my worries I got sidhu also sick and with mine showing no signs of subsiding and without any medical insurance no store wud give me antibiotics.
Week 3: Convalescense & More Trials...
My fever eased out but the cough kept getting worse. Jisha had enuf by then of staying as a paying guest at her kelavi thalla's house and had walked out after another tiff with the crone. Mummy was coming in 2 weeks and we still had no apartment. All the leads we had fizzled out. More than the job search this had become important as we had to find a place close to ucla from where jisha cud get buses to school. Despite her untiring efforts, Jisha was demoralized by the poor grades she had got. For an assole like me who studied only on exam eves and got away with it, all I knew to do was encourage. Truely the nadir of my existence. From this point there could only be resurgence...or there better be bcoz I wuz at the verge of snapping.
Week 4: Turn-Around
The parable of the Good Samaritan repeats. In the form of an American lawyer who Jisha met at church and who fortunately had taken an instant liking for her. She pulled strings and got us a beatiful apartment between Beverly Hills and Culver City on a monthly lease and a much reduced rent.Apart from our clothes and a few utensils we had nothing needed for a house. The next few days were spent intensively shopping and we managed sleeping bags, toiletries and other kitchen stuff. The first day we had no gas and electricity. We ate under candle light. Despite being so closely knit siblings the 3 years of moving away from home had left a gap btw us both...even after jisha had come to the US I felt the distance. That night I knew things would be the way they were of old. And with mummy coming in a few days we couldnt hide our jubilation.
Week 5: Interviews, Interviews and Interviews....
Mummy arrived and with her came cajoling, yelling, spoonfeeding, scolding, relentless cooking, goodies from India anda whole baggage of happiness and bliss....I could feel my kismet turning for the better...just the act of us praying together at night gave me strength(another matter that I fumbled with my prayers for the first coupla days after the last few years of disuse). I applied with renewed vigor and as a result I was scrambling from one end of town to the other barely making it in time for interviews. By the weekend I was exhausted but hopeful. We bought badly needed chairs and other stuff meanwhile. Still a lot more needed but we are getting there.
Week 6: D-Week??
The monday began badly with news of 2 rejections but the 3 ones I wuz positive about hadnt called. One of the companies called me for another interview while the other 2 had to make a final decision. As each day went by I was at my wits end. A strange sense of dejection was creeping in. I hadnt applied afresh for more than a week. And after exactly 6 weeks...jisha remarked that wuz the same time period of my previous spell ...I got my job on friday. A legal services firm in Encino, 10 miles from LA.
Friday was really special. I pooled up most of my mallu friends here(9 of us) and we went for Udayananu Thaaram and were treated to a sincere and controlled performance from Mohanlal after a long, long time. Before the movie, pappanabhan my Loyola classmate had given us a royal farewell treat on his leaving the US for India for his IAS exams at Tankra Bistro which in my opinion serves the best indo-chinese food in the world or atleast this part of the world.Today was my first day at work. I dont keep high hopes anymore but there's a lot my family looks to me to do...so I will try and chuck my reckless attitude out and be serious in life for a change. This was pretty long...but next time thorns get flung in my path...i'd like to come back here and say...they keep hurting me lesser each time!
And so my 2nd spell of unemployment began with a car stuffed with all my wordly belongings and a mind swirling in a whirlpool of self-doubt and defeat(?) in a slow drive away from san diego to LA, the city that destiny made my second home...I didnt have a place to stay but Babuettan and Binduchechi, the first good samaritans I knew as man gave me abode once more and with their three kiddos sachin, sidhu and sethu for company I laughed all my worries away. As usual I struggled to start off the blocks early and decided to laze around a few days under the sun.
Week 2: Down and Out
The deadly american flu that I kept giving the slip for more than a year finally caught up with me and what a pasting I took. My symptoms alternated between high fever, cold, chill and finally a deep, persistent cough that made my stomach muscles cry for rest. To add to my worries I got sidhu also sick and with mine showing no signs of subsiding and without any medical insurance no store wud give me antibiotics.
Week 3: Convalescense & More Trials...
My fever eased out but the cough kept getting worse. Jisha had enuf by then of staying as a paying guest at her kelavi thalla's house and had walked out after another tiff with the crone. Mummy was coming in 2 weeks and we still had no apartment. All the leads we had fizzled out. More than the job search this had become important as we had to find a place close to ucla from where jisha cud get buses to school. Despite her untiring efforts, Jisha was demoralized by the poor grades she had got. For an assole like me who studied only on exam eves and got away with it, all I knew to do was encourage. Truely the nadir of my existence. From this point there could only be resurgence...or there better be bcoz I wuz at the verge of snapping.
Week 4: Turn-Around
The parable of the Good Samaritan repeats. In the form of an American lawyer who Jisha met at church and who fortunately had taken an instant liking for her. She pulled strings and got us a beatiful apartment between Beverly Hills and Culver City on a monthly lease and a much reduced rent.Apart from our clothes and a few utensils we had nothing needed for a house. The next few days were spent intensively shopping and we managed sleeping bags, toiletries and other kitchen stuff. The first day we had no gas and electricity. We ate under candle light. Despite being so closely knit siblings the 3 years of moving away from home had left a gap btw us both...even after jisha had come to the US I felt the distance. That night I knew things would be the way they were of old. And with mummy coming in a few days we couldnt hide our jubilation.
Week 5: Interviews, Interviews and Interviews....
Mummy arrived and with her came cajoling, yelling, spoonfeeding, scolding, relentless cooking, goodies from India anda whole baggage of happiness and bliss....I could feel my kismet turning for the better...just the act of us praying together at night gave me strength(another matter that I fumbled with my prayers for the first coupla days after the last few years of disuse). I applied with renewed vigor and as a result I was scrambling from one end of town to the other barely making it in time for interviews. By the weekend I was exhausted but hopeful. We bought badly needed chairs and other stuff meanwhile. Still a lot more needed but we are getting there.
Week 6: D-Week??
The monday began badly with news of 2 rejections but the 3 ones I wuz positive about hadnt called. One of the companies called me for another interview while the other 2 had to make a final decision. As each day went by I was at my wits end. A strange sense of dejection was creeping in. I hadnt applied afresh for more than a week. And after exactly 6 weeks...jisha remarked that wuz the same time period of my previous spell ...I got my job on friday. A legal services firm in Encino, 10 miles from LA.
Friday was really special. I pooled up most of my mallu friends here(9 of us) and we went for Udayananu Thaaram and were treated to a sincere and controlled performance from Mohanlal after a long, long time. Before the movie, pappanabhan my Loyola classmate had given us a royal farewell treat on his leaving the US for India for his IAS exams at Tankra Bistro which in my opinion serves the best indo-chinese food in the world or atleast this part of the world.Today was my first day at work. I dont keep high hopes anymore but there's a lot my family looks to me to do...so I will try and chuck my reckless attitude out and be serious in life for a change. This was pretty long...but next time thorns get flung in my path...i'd like to come back here and say...they keep hurting me lesser each time!
Friday, March 11, 2005
Karunakarji...show us some mercy!
It seems Yamadevan is facing the same problem Sonia Gandhi is having with K.Karunakaran. I along with many other keralites have unapologetically waited years for this kizhavan to die but it looks like both heaven and hell are scared of the ruccus he'd create there.... he just seems to get more chirpier with age. I hope Oommen Chandy's tough stance works....the useless and puritanical A.K.Antony is more smarter than I thought...he is pleading with the high command for the very people who made his life hell...with Murali and Karunakaran out of the way Chandy is goin to be the numero uno in Kerala and that will plunge him into oblivion(the way i see it these days is antony and karunakaran were playing ball all these years and the two I and A groups they created were just a means to ensure their hegemony in kerala. Antony's able and immensely popular lieutanants-the trio of Chandy, Aryadan and Thiruvanchoor who were the main troubleshooters of the A group seem to have realised the pawns they have been made all these years by him and are keeping their distance these days.
All through the last 4 years the K-Family's brinkmanship has caused the ruling UDF to divert valuable time from development work to solving the never dissidency. I just wish the holy trinity (father, son and daughter) are dumped by the Congress in the same way people trashed them in the last elections. For the last 12 years that I have been closely following Kerala politics I have always hoped of a day when the Congress wins an election with enuf seats to rule by themselves without such corrupt and self-serving allies like the Muslim League and Kerala Congress. In Chandy I saw the man ready to accomplish the task but increasingly I am seeing a man weary of the frequent troubles he has unwittingly fallen into. From being the media's darling he has to skirt the press and is seeing his enimies use them as great weapons in hurting him. I must confess I am a great fan of his despite his alleged shady dealings bcoz we have had enuf of two previous CM's...one who talked and talked and the other who baulked and baulked. Pinarayi Vijayan's ascendancy in the CPM is a positive change bcoz I hope they will dump their archaic communist philosophy's and adapt progressive measures like the 4th world concept. ...he is by the way another slick-n-shady customer but like Chandy reputed for being an able administrator. I somehow have this feeling that Kerala is going to get into rapid development mode despite the mindless political games our netas play....the rapid growth the Cochin area is witnessing these days gives us all cause to dream. Any takers(all u other states) for an 87 year old octagenarian who is sending the age-old indian tradition of respecting our elders for a toss!
All through the last 4 years the K-Family's brinkmanship has caused the ruling UDF to divert valuable time from development work to solving the never dissidency. I just wish the holy trinity (father, son and daughter) are dumped by the Congress in the same way people trashed them in the last elections. For the last 12 years that I have been closely following Kerala politics I have always hoped of a day when the Congress wins an election with enuf seats to rule by themselves without such corrupt and self-serving allies like the Muslim League and Kerala Congress. In Chandy I saw the man ready to accomplish the task but increasingly I am seeing a man weary of the frequent troubles he has unwittingly fallen into. From being the media's darling he has to skirt the press and is seeing his enimies use them as great weapons in hurting him. I must confess I am a great fan of his despite his alleged shady dealings bcoz we have had enuf of two previous CM's...one who talked and talked and the other who baulked and baulked. Pinarayi Vijayan's ascendancy in the CPM is a positive change bcoz I hope they will dump their archaic communist philosophy's and adapt progressive measures like the 4th world concept. ...he is by the way another slick-n-shady customer but like Chandy reputed for being an able administrator. I somehow have this feeling that Kerala is going to get into rapid development mode despite the mindless political games our netas play....the rapid growth the Cochin area is witnessing these days gives us all cause to dream. Any takers(all u other states) for an 87 year old octagenarian who is sending the age-old indian tradition of respecting our elders for a toss!
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Of Jobs, Blogs and being fantastical...
Am glad to be back. Got a temporary reprieve I should say. Had been working without pay for last two months and again short of cash but finally the salary came in. Thought I'd celebrate that with a posting here. Am still in the trenches but atleast I can financially survive the battle that needs to be fought now. Well thats the easiest part. Dealing with the whimsical nature of my mind will be the tough part...this time hopefully prior experience will soften the blows idleness and my ego will keep landing on me while the battle lasts. The funny thing abt blogging is that its like a personal diary thats out there for the world to read...I sort of like that...having faced the ordeal of my sister sneaking on my diary and relishing the deeply private incidents I penned down from the bottom of the heart. With time the heart recedes allowing the mind to rule...thats wht u call growing older! Well my diary writing got nipped in the bud thanks to ms.poke-ur-nose's blackmailing besides the embarassing effects diary writing had on a certain viswanatha prasad who had to bear the mortification of seeing his deeply personal agenda's, poems, thoughts and fancies becoming the object of corporate broadcasting that wud have made bbc proud by us prying savages. Anyways it feels good to be blogging as it has sort of started substituting the long emails I used to torture my poor classmates in college and school with thru the yahoogroups.Guess I have been talking in riddles up till now!
Anyways getting back to context I am gonna be jobless and out in the ruthless market in two days. I was offered the option of working remotely(tele-commuting) but I said Thanks,but no thanks....the confidence seemed justified as it looked as though I had all but sewed up an interview for an IT consulting job...and well I hired the guy who is gonna replace me too and is training him now while I face the ignominy of another spell of unemployment. Lady Luck's blue-eyed-boy that I always fancied myself to be has been getting black-eyed from the countless mishaps in the job-hunt. From the high-and-mighty IBM to the low-and-measly SMS.ac I have'nt yet figured out why I cant make the best of my interviews and jobs. My dad says I am going thru a sheni dasha until this september. Viswan noted the irony when he said I bought the Saturn around the same time. Anyways dunno whts the big change thats gonna happen afterwards. Well there are always silver linings and the move to LA, getting back with friends, being able to got to the kerala store and watching malayalam movies at the theatre gives me a sort of thrill(must admit am nowadays so used to looking at the brighter side of things sometimes beyond reason too). The catch is having to leave beatiful, clean and safe San Diego for the polluted, crowded and dangerous Los Angeles. Anyways lots of work to get done besides the job search....finding temporary accomodation until All-fools day, a new apartment, moving stuff...routine life affords me with nothing to rite on, when i get back hopefully there will be a lot to write about. ....dunno when i'll blog again...am looking for the rite job, this time, so that I dont think of another hop from Day1...
Anyways getting back to context I am gonna be jobless and out in the ruthless market in two days. I was offered the option of working remotely(tele-commuting) but I said Thanks,but no thanks....the confidence seemed justified as it looked as though I had all but sewed up an interview for an IT consulting job...and well I hired the guy who is gonna replace me too and is training him now while I face the ignominy of another spell of unemployment. Lady Luck's blue-eyed-boy that I always fancied myself to be has been getting black-eyed from the countless mishaps in the job-hunt. From the high-and-mighty IBM to the low-and-measly SMS.ac I have'nt yet figured out why I cant make the best of my interviews and jobs. My dad says I am going thru a sheni dasha until this september. Viswan noted the irony when he said I bought the Saturn around the same time. Anyways dunno whts the big change thats gonna happen afterwards. Well there are always silver linings and the move to LA, getting back with friends, being able to got to the kerala store and watching malayalam movies at the theatre gives me a sort of thrill(must admit am nowadays so used to looking at the brighter side of things sometimes beyond reason too). The catch is having to leave beatiful, clean and safe San Diego for the polluted, crowded and dangerous Los Angeles. Anyways lots of work to get done besides the job search....finding temporary accomodation until All-fools day, a new apartment, moving stuff...routine life affords me with nothing to rite on, when i get back hopefully there will be a lot to write about. ....dunno when i'll blog again...am looking for the rite job, this time, so that I dont think of another hop from Day1...
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
An Adventure to Remember...
From experience I have come to believe that life is all about taking chances....doing something out of the ordinary. I have long been yearning for a vacation...almost 15 months now and the opportunity sprung up on me out of nowhere...Bipin Sadhwani my pal at USC got a job at Boeing in Philadelphia and needed help moving his car to Columbus, Ohio where his parents live. It was a moment of reckoning really...I always dreamed of a road-trip coast to coast across America but I was loosing two days of pay and consideration of the risks involved. Anways I am back in one peice and glad I followed my heart.Well here is a day-by-day account of the trip.
Day 0 - I pack my stuff hurriedly and leave for work. Conduct an interview with a telugu gal for my own position....am struggling hard to not show off my own inexperience. The interview is going fine until my co-worker Khanh, who is all into fashion and latest dresses, asks this gal what is that on ur forehead...referring to the potte...I loose my control and burst out laughing...so much for professionalism. I escape from work at 1:30 drop one of Jisha' s friends for an interview at Irvine and head to my own interview with a recruiter at Santa Monica. Hopefully something good will work out in the next few weeks. After that visits Jisha to say bye to her and get to eat some sumptuous food she has cooked. From there I head to USC and grabbed Chackochan's digital camera and road atlas(in hindsight my best decision...otherwise we wud have been driving around all lost in the American Mid-West). Then to my loyola classmate pappanabhans house to get a jacket for the snow. By around 10 I reach Bipin's place and our plans to have dinner at the gurudwara are foiled as its too late and we head for In-n-Out which is giving a hot challenge to McDonanalds and BurgerKing in the burger industry. By around 12 I hit the sack but one of Bipin's friends Deepak comes to bade farewell and their talking interrupted my sleep but I cud understand.
Day1, Thursday, Feb 17-We had planned to start at 6 in the morning but loading Bipin's stuff into the car takes longer than expected and finally when we hit the road at 8am we were up against the unrelenting LA office-hours traffic. We crawl out of LA and by then we have lost precious time and we stop at 100 mile intervals to take turns driving. At Barstow, we have lunch at a Subway and see the gujju owner giving an earful to his white employees...we saw more of their dominance on the way at motels and 7-11's. The rive through the Mojave Desert was boring and finally we crossed California and entered Arizona where the desert took an interesting turn with landforms of all sizes and shapes and some breathtaking views. The heart-breaking part was that we were within sniffing distance of The Grand Canyon National Park and had to give it the go-by bcoz of our unbelievable determination to hit our goals for the day (Bipin remarked if we had tried this hard we wud have been working at Microsoft now!!) Finally Arizona gave way to New Mexico and all we had for company on the road were giant trucks and trailers who went at 75-80 mph(never knew trucks cud go that fast) and by then we had mustered the courage to set the cruise control to 80 and just eased our foot away and let the fingers do all the driving. The roads were straight for miles on end and we had taken that so much for granted that curves were becoming an unneccessary nuisance. Mathew called me up in the afternoon to give some depressing news - a USC senior and a half-mallu had died in a car accident....we decided to be extra careful while driving. The sun was beating down on us harshly and the desert heat was forcing us to take breaks every 100 miles to cool the engine. The car was a 2004 honda civic and gave us no trouble all the way. By nightfall around 9:30pm after 12 hours of driving we reached our destination - Albuquerque, New Mexico. We checked into a motel and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant but the food was yuck.
Day2, Friday, Feb 19 - We woke up at 6 in the morning after a 5 hour sleep and had a free continental breakfast at the motel b4 we pushed off. We decided not to stay hungry as both our stomachs had developed cramps presumably from a combination of the long innings "in the driver's seat" and hunger. By friday the storm which had struck the california coast on thursday had caught up with us. We were in for a really wet drive and again our decision to drive at 65 was reversed by the other cars and trucks which kept going at 75-80. On wet road, cars and trucks splash such a high spray of water its hard to see the road ahead...i wonder why none of the cars here have mudguardson their tires like in India? The roads here are amazing...the water doesnt stay on the road for long, very few potholes, roadsigns to warn us of curves, construction, deer crossings, what not! But we deeply missed some of the pleasures of driving thru an Indian highway. No people on the road, none of the uncertainities of driving in India like wondering whether there is oncoming traffic beyond a curve, overtaking, etc. I had developed a bad cold which gave me a miserable time all thru the day. From New Mexico we entered Texas and here we passed thru a small town called Amarillo. Here i lost a bet to Bipin and had to take him to Starbucks and sponsor his cofee....otherwise for the whole trip the entire expense was taken care of by him. From Texas we entered Oklahoma and were beginning to see villages..I have never seen a village in America and I was certain the way ppl looked at us they hadnt seen many Indians b4. Our progress had been slow till then bcoz of the rain and we had to reach St. Louis which was on the Missouri-Illinois border for the night. But around 100 miles short of St.Louis after crossing Oklahoma and 3/4th of Missouri and close to 15 hours of driving and 950 miles covered for the day Bipin was beginning to doze away in the naviagtor's seat and I was fading too we decided to call it a day(or say night) we took an exit....after focussing on the road 50 meters away it suddenly became difficult to see the close road and signs....my eyes were crying for sleep and bipin wasnt any better...i missed a motel and we both started yelling at each other....finally after 5 minutes of a little erratic driving and quarrelling we reached the red roof inn. By then the heated words were forgotten and we were laughing abt it. We checked in and just crashed to an unconscious sleep by around 1am.
Day3, February 20, Saturday - We woke up late at 8 and after another free breakfast we were off only by 9 with Bipin behind the wheels. I had done most of the driving yesterday and was still reeling from the strain but thankfully the cold I had yesterday mysteriously vanished and with another 600 miles to go we still had a lot of driving to do. Bipin took up the challenge and soon we passed St.Louis at 11 and entered Illinois....I drove only 200 miles and bipin took care of the rest. We had seen isolated snow yesterday and were beginnning to reconcile to driving on snow for today and the rigours accompanying it like skidding and low speed now that we were out of desert country and were soon entering the heart of the mid-west. But every time I have been on the east coast the weather has been thankfully great. Slowly but steadily we passed Illinous, slogged our way thru Indiana and entered Ohio. By 6:30 pm after what seemed like an eternity we reached Columbus. We had not picked up a single speeding ticket and had not had a single close shave too...god was with us rite thru.I had a quick dinner with Bipin's family and soon Viswan, my sct-pal and Mithun, my Loyola bud, my right and left arms in the US were at their doorsteps waiting to pick me up. It was the icing on the cake...being with these two good friends after a great journey. I was reinvigorated and soon we were joking away and I havent laughed like this in a long long time. Viswan and I were seeing each other after 15 months and he had to endure a speeding ticket to get here while Muthu came with good news of finally getting a job after a 2 month search. We hunted unsuccesfully for motels in Columbus and not finding any started driving towards Indianapolis where we were supposed to have lunch with our sct friend Merine. On the way we stopped at a small town called Springfield where we decided to spend the night at a Super8 motel. We had a bottle of Chivas Regal to celebrate the occasion but everyone was so tired we just had a little b4 we started watching the movie, Chakram but we slept off midway.
Day4, February 21, Sunday - We woke up only at 10 am and by the time we got ready and started out for Merine's house it was 1:30pm. Shan, one of our fellow Savages, had come online and we chatted with him for an hour b4 deciding this wuz not enuf and also rang him up. On the way we did a real crazy thing. We watched the rest of the movie, Chakram on Viswan's laptop inside the car with Muthu driving and amidst pouring rain. I remarked I had the balcony seat bcoz I was in the back while they had the thara tickets. Speaking of the movie we three were convinced Prithviraj given time is goin to hit it big in Malayalam. Merine meanwhile was livid with anger as we had been hours late and finally when we got there I got the biggest surprise of the trip.It was a pleasant one though - the dear gal had cooked up a real feast for us - there was aviyal, pulissery, theeyal, vendakka thorran, cabbage torran, pachadi, chicken curry, carrot thorran...dunno what all i missed...viswan had given her a list of things to make but none of us expected her to take all this effort. We three ate like dogs and after sitting and talking and joking and pulling each others legs merine showed us some of the sights of Indianapolis. We bade goodbye to her and reached the hotel at 10 pm and again went to sleep. We three had just more than a day together but it was filled with so much bonhomie and laughter and fun...muthu's wildly exaggerated tales and viswan's inimitable ability to take pokes and my slippery ability to comment adikkufy without getting any flak back and the way we use famous mallu movie dialogues to intersperse our conversations it was one hell of a time together.
Day 5, Monday, Feb 21 - We wake up at 5 am, have breakfast, checked out, said a hurried goodbye to bips and his parents(wish i had more time to spend with them...they surprised me with gifts for accompanying their son...one friend lesser in LA now) and then viswan left for New York...he left me with a bearhug and kisses(!!) too(sadly he got a ticket on the way back too...now 7 alogether in US, Canada and India...i think he will soon give hollywood stars a complex) and Muthu drove me to the airport with just an hour left for the flight. His driving is just amazing...even under pressure he doesnt go beyond 70. I reached Santa Ana en-rote Mineapolis but Bipin's roomie whom he had delegated to pick me up went to LAX bcoz he mistook the name. Anyways got back thru an airport shuttle, met Jisha and drove back at night towards San Diego. And today here I am in the office...jotting down this long long blog dreaming of my next vacation...hopefully if we three save enuf money a trip to Bahamas in July.
Day 0 - I pack my stuff hurriedly and leave for work. Conduct an interview with a telugu gal for my own position....am struggling hard to not show off my own inexperience. The interview is going fine until my co-worker Khanh, who is all into fashion and latest dresses, asks this gal what is that on ur forehead...referring to the potte...I loose my control and burst out laughing...so much for professionalism. I escape from work at 1:30 drop one of Jisha' s friends for an interview at Irvine and head to my own interview with a recruiter at Santa Monica. Hopefully something good will work out in the next few weeks. After that visits Jisha to say bye to her and get to eat some sumptuous food she has cooked. From there I head to USC and grabbed Chackochan's digital camera and road atlas(in hindsight my best decision...otherwise we wud have been driving around all lost in the American Mid-West). Then to my loyola classmate pappanabhans house to get a jacket for the snow. By around 10 I reach Bipin's place and our plans to have dinner at the gurudwara are foiled as its too late and we head for In-n-Out which is giving a hot challenge to McDonanalds and BurgerKing in the burger industry. By around 12 I hit the sack but one of Bipin's friends Deepak comes to bade farewell and their talking interrupted my sleep but I cud understand.
Day1, Thursday, Feb 17-We had planned to start at 6 in the morning but loading Bipin's stuff into the car takes longer than expected and finally when we hit the road at 8am we were up against the unrelenting LA office-hours traffic. We crawl out of LA and by then we have lost precious time and we stop at 100 mile intervals to take turns driving. At Barstow, we have lunch at a Subway and see the gujju owner giving an earful to his white employees...we saw more of their dominance on the way at motels and 7-11's. The rive through the Mojave Desert was boring and finally we crossed California and entered Arizona where the desert took an interesting turn with landforms of all sizes and shapes and some breathtaking views. The heart-breaking part was that we were within sniffing distance of The Grand Canyon National Park and had to give it the go-by bcoz of our unbelievable determination to hit our goals for the day (Bipin remarked if we had tried this hard we wud have been working at Microsoft now!!) Finally Arizona gave way to New Mexico and all we had for company on the road were giant trucks and trailers who went at 75-80 mph(never knew trucks cud go that fast) and by then we had mustered the courage to set the cruise control to 80 and just eased our foot away and let the fingers do all the driving. The roads were straight for miles on end and we had taken that so much for granted that curves were becoming an unneccessary nuisance. Mathew called me up in the afternoon to give some depressing news - a USC senior and a half-mallu had died in a car accident....we decided to be extra careful while driving. The sun was beating down on us harshly and the desert heat was forcing us to take breaks every 100 miles to cool the engine. The car was a 2004 honda civic and gave us no trouble all the way. By nightfall around 9:30pm after 12 hours of driving we reached our destination - Albuquerque, New Mexico. We checked into a motel and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant but the food was yuck.
Day2, Friday, Feb 19 - We woke up at 6 in the morning after a 5 hour sleep and had a free continental breakfast at the motel b4 we pushed off. We decided not to stay hungry as both our stomachs had developed cramps presumably from a combination of the long innings "in the driver's seat" and hunger. By friday the storm which had struck the california coast on thursday had caught up with us. We were in for a really wet drive and again our decision to drive at 65 was reversed by the other cars and trucks which kept going at 75-80. On wet road, cars and trucks splash such a high spray of water its hard to see the road ahead...i wonder why none of the cars here have mudguardson their tires like in India? The roads here are amazing...the water doesnt stay on the road for long, very few potholes, roadsigns to warn us of curves, construction, deer crossings, what not! But we deeply missed some of the pleasures of driving thru an Indian highway. No people on the road, none of the uncertainities of driving in India like wondering whether there is oncoming traffic beyond a curve, overtaking, etc. I had developed a bad cold which gave me a miserable time all thru the day. From New Mexico we entered Texas and here we passed thru a small town called Amarillo. Here i lost a bet to Bipin and had to take him to Starbucks and sponsor his cofee....otherwise for the whole trip the entire expense was taken care of by him. From Texas we entered Oklahoma and were beginning to see villages..I have never seen a village in America and I was certain the way ppl looked at us they hadnt seen many Indians b4. Our progress had been slow till then bcoz of the rain and we had to reach St. Louis which was on the Missouri-Illinois border for the night. But around 100 miles short of St.Louis after crossing Oklahoma and 3/4th of Missouri and close to 15 hours of driving and 950 miles covered for the day Bipin was beginning to doze away in the naviagtor's seat and I was fading too we decided to call it a day(or say night) we took an exit....after focussing on the road 50 meters away it suddenly became difficult to see the close road and signs....my eyes were crying for sleep and bipin wasnt any better...i missed a motel and we both started yelling at each other....finally after 5 minutes of a little erratic driving and quarrelling we reached the red roof inn. By then the heated words were forgotten and we were laughing abt it. We checked in and just crashed to an unconscious sleep by around 1am.
Day3, February 20, Saturday - We woke up late at 8 and after another free breakfast we were off only by 9 with Bipin behind the wheels. I had done most of the driving yesterday and was still reeling from the strain but thankfully the cold I had yesterday mysteriously vanished and with another 600 miles to go we still had a lot of driving to do. Bipin took up the challenge and soon we passed St.Louis at 11 and entered Illinois....I drove only 200 miles and bipin took care of the rest. We had seen isolated snow yesterday and were beginnning to reconcile to driving on snow for today and the rigours accompanying it like skidding and low speed now that we were out of desert country and were soon entering the heart of the mid-west. But every time I have been on the east coast the weather has been thankfully great. Slowly but steadily we passed Illinous, slogged our way thru Indiana and entered Ohio. By 6:30 pm after what seemed like an eternity we reached Columbus. We had not picked up a single speeding ticket and had not had a single close shave too...god was with us rite thru.I had a quick dinner with Bipin's family and soon Viswan, my sct-pal and Mithun, my Loyola bud, my right and left arms in the US were at their doorsteps waiting to pick me up. It was the icing on the cake...being with these two good friends after a great journey. I was reinvigorated and soon we were joking away and I havent laughed like this in a long long time. Viswan and I were seeing each other after 15 months and he had to endure a speeding ticket to get here while Muthu came with good news of finally getting a job after a 2 month search. We hunted unsuccesfully for motels in Columbus and not finding any started driving towards Indianapolis where we were supposed to have lunch with our sct friend Merine. On the way we stopped at a small town called Springfield where we decided to spend the night at a Super8 motel. We had a bottle of Chivas Regal to celebrate the occasion but everyone was so tired we just had a little b4 we started watching the movie, Chakram but we slept off midway.
Day4, February 21, Sunday - We woke up only at 10 am and by the time we got ready and started out for Merine's house it was 1:30pm. Shan, one of our fellow Savages, had come online and we chatted with him for an hour b4 deciding this wuz not enuf and also rang him up. On the way we did a real crazy thing. We watched the rest of the movie, Chakram on Viswan's laptop inside the car with Muthu driving and amidst pouring rain. I remarked I had the balcony seat bcoz I was in the back while they had the thara tickets. Speaking of the movie we three were convinced Prithviraj given time is goin to hit it big in Malayalam. Merine meanwhile was livid with anger as we had been hours late and finally when we got there I got the biggest surprise of the trip.It was a pleasant one though - the dear gal had cooked up a real feast for us - there was aviyal, pulissery, theeyal, vendakka thorran, cabbage torran, pachadi, chicken curry, carrot thorran...dunno what all i missed...viswan had given her a list of things to make but none of us expected her to take all this effort. We three ate like dogs and after sitting and talking and joking and pulling each others legs merine showed us some of the sights of Indianapolis. We bade goodbye to her and reached the hotel at 10 pm and again went to sleep. We three had just more than a day together but it was filled with so much bonhomie and laughter and fun...muthu's wildly exaggerated tales and viswan's inimitable ability to take pokes and my slippery ability to comment adikkufy without getting any flak back and the way we use famous mallu movie dialogues to intersperse our conversations it was one hell of a time together.
Day 5, Monday, Feb 21 - We wake up at 5 am, have breakfast, checked out, said a hurried goodbye to bips and his parents(wish i had more time to spend with them...they surprised me with gifts for accompanying their son...one friend lesser in LA now) and then viswan left for New York...he left me with a bearhug and kisses(!!) too(sadly he got a ticket on the way back too...now 7 alogether in US, Canada and India...i think he will soon give hollywood stars a complex) and Muthu drove me to the airport with just an hour left for the flight. His driving is just amazing...even under pressure he doesnt go beyond 70. I reached Santa Ana en-rote Mineapolis but Bipin's roomie whom he had delegated to pick me up went to LAX bcoz he mistook the name. Anyways got back thru an airport shuttle, met Jisha and drove back at night towards San Diego. And today here I am in the office...jotting down this long long blog dreaming of my next vacation...hopefully if we three save enuf money a trip to Bahamas in July.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Living on Movies!!!
The best investments I make is in selecting friends...I picked up a bad habit from Loyola of only picking friends who will stick with me through thick and thin. As a result I have slim pickings in the friendship game but a large number of acquantances who I loose touch with over time. Well to return to the topic of investments I made a rare good investment. The last 31 days saw me watching almost 50 movies courtesy Blockbuster's one-month $15 unlimited dvd rental movie pass. I made a 400% profit out of the whole deal but more than the money it was one month I spent without cribbing about having nothing to do!
Well here's a list of the movies I watched. Earlier I used to get disappointed by most of the movies I saw. I decided I was beginning to tire of my most favorite pastime and decided to consider films as timepass and try to enjoy the movie while it ran and do a critique of it later. Nowadays I like 95% of all movies I watch unless the movie is impossibly horrible. I decided to give an ABC grading for the movies and also have doned the role of a one line critic.
Primal Fear - A. Ed Norton & Richard Gere are superb, the faked schizo and the twists!
Life of David Gale - A. Kevin Spacey, amazing twists, story has so much conviction
Two Weeks Notice - A. Incredible chemistry between Hugh Grant & Sandra Bullock
Laws of Attraction - B. Oft-told story. Brosnan & Julianne Moore complement each other well.
Runaway Bride - A. Julia Roberts & Richard Gere repeats the Pretty Woman magic.
King Arthur - A. Clive Owen in a realistic portrayal of King Arthur. The legend is humanised. Beatiful Keira Knightley is Guinevere.
Ashoka - C. Good story but too many songs but picturised well.Shahrukh's acting is inconsistent.
Cleopatra - B. Timothy Dalton as Julius Ceasar is at his best. Billy Zane as Mark Antony sucks.
From Hell - A. Another terryfing Jack the Ripper story. Another Johnny Depp masterpeice.
JFK - A. Kevin Costner's out-of-the-world acting..equal credit to Oliver Stone for the script and dialogues.
Body Double - C. Just okay.
Body Heat - A. Original of Jism. Bipasha isnt even a patch on Kathleen Turner.
Knight's Tale - B. A sincere performance from Heath Ledger. Weak script.
Lolita - B. Jeremy Irons and a good story line.
Disclosure - A. Michael Douglas and Demi Moore does justice to this Michael Crichton novel.
Traffic - A. Too many sub-plots and characters. Benicio del Toro stands out.Relishingly different.
Omen2 - B. Omen1 is better but still spine-chilling. Grab screenplay of Omen1 written as novel!
Stigmata - B. gabriel byrne is magnetic. movie cud've been different but ended up like exorcist.
Mask of Zorro - B. A success of perfect casting....Zeta-Jones, Hopkins and Banderas rock.
Entrapment - B. Unusual pairing of Connery and Zeta-Jones leaves us hooked to end.
Cold Mountain - A. Epic par-excellence. Jude Law, Nicole and Renne in career-best roles.
The Firm - A. Tom Cruise revels as John Grisham's most "hero"ic character.
Jerry Maguire - A. Cruise in yet another charismatic role with shades of harmless grey(his best??)
Me, Myself & Irene - B. Jim Carrey's comic take as schizophreniac and a pretty Renee!
The Last Samurai - A. Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe & cross-cultural respect touch our hearts.
Intolerable Cruelty - B. Romantic comdy. Clooney and Zeta-Jones making a ravising pair.
Clear and Present Danger - B. Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan tried hard to live up to Tom Clancy.
In the Line of Fire - B. Breaks ur heart having to see old Clint romancing Rene Russo and saving the President.
First Knight - A. An iconoclastic movie. Connery is chivalrous but old Arthur, Gere swashbuckling Lancelot & Julia Ormond sweet and noble Guinevere.
The Bone Collector - A. Good crime-thriller.An unsexy Jolie combines well with bed-ridden Denzel.
Malice - B. Nicole plays bad-gal to unsuspecting hus, Bill Pullman with Alec Baldwin as conspirator.
Far and Away - B Tom and Nicole in an epic rags-to-riches journey from Ireland to US.
Fargo - B. Crime story on futility of riches and violence. Kudos to the helmsmen, Coen Brothers.
Tailor of Panama - C. An unusual and tame spy thriller. Geoffrey Rush is saving grace.
Cold Creek Manor - A. Terrific suspense with Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone struggling to save their marriage and lives.
Proof of Life - B. Different kind of kidnapping drama. Russel Crowe & Meg Ryan display unusual chemistry.
Le Divorce - B. an interesting and comic contrast of American and French cultures through the lives of sisters, Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson
Broken Arrow - C. Travolta and Christian Slater square off. Films begins with promise but the script leaves these two talented actors with little to do other than fight.
Wicker Park - A. Surprise movie of the pack. Unassuming actors, a script which gives nothing away till the end...was in rapt attention all the while.
Spiderman2 - B. Peter Parker's moral dilemma crowns this sequel. Tardy graphics.
King HenryV - B. A rare movie truthful to the orginal Shakesperean dialogues.
Lord of Rings2 - B. Not as good as LOTR1 and 3.
Die Another Day - C. Pierce Brosnan is good. The rest ...the story, effects, all suck.
Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind - B. Spirit overcomes science in this well-edited romance. Carrey and Winslett makes for an unusual casting coup.
Signs - A. Shyamalan make us reaffirms our faith in god thru his protagonist, Mel Gibson.
The Village - A.Shyamalan's thought provoking story of the innocence, fear and courage in a village fighting mysterious creatures and urbanization.
Well here's a list of the movies I watched. Earlier I used to get disappointed by most of the movies I saw. I decided I was beginning to tire of my most favorite pastime and decided to consider films as timepass and try to enjoy the movie while it ran and do a critique of it later. Nowadays I like 95% of all movies I watch unless the movie is impossibly horrible. I decided to give an ABC grading for the movies and also have doned the role of a one line critic.
Primal Fear - A. Ed Norton & Richard Gere are superb, the faked schizo and the twists!
Life of David Gale - A. Kevin Spacey, amazing twists, story has so much conviction
Two Weeks Notice - A. Incredible chemistry between Hugh Grant & Sandra Bullock
Laws of Attraction - B. Oft-told story. Brosnan & Julianne Moore complement each other well.
Runaway Bride - A. Julia Roberts & Richard Gere repeats the Pretty Woman magic.
King Arthur - A. Clive Owen in a realistic portrayal of King Arthur. The legend is humanised. Beatiful Keira Knightley is Guinevere.
Ashoka - C. Good story but too many songs but picturised well.Shahrukh's acting is inconsistent.
Cleopatra - B. Timothy Dalton as Julius Ceasar is at his best. Billy Zane as Mark Antony sucks.
From Hell - A. Another terryfing Jack the Ripper story. Another Johnny Depp masterpeice.
JFK - A. Kevin Costner's out-of-the-world acting..equal credit to Oliver Stone for the script and dialogues.
Body Double - C. Just okay.
Body Heat - A. Original of Jism. Bipasha isnt even a patch on Kathleen Turner.
Knight's Tale - B. A sincere performance from Heath Ledger. Weak script.
Lolita - B. Jeremy Irons and a good story line.
Disclosure - A. Michael Douglas and Demi Moore does justice to this Michael Crichton novel.
Traffic - A. Too many sub-plots and characters. Benicio del Toro stands out.Relishingly different.
Omen2 - B. Omen1 is better but still spine-chilling. Grab screenplay of Omen1 written as novel!
Stigmata - B. gabriel byrne is magnetic. movie cud've been different but ended up like exorcist.
Mask of Zorro - B. A success of perfect casting....Zeta-Jones, Hopkins and Banderas rock.
Entrapment - B. Unusual pairing of Connery and Zeta-Jones leaves us hooked to end.
Cold Mountain - A. Epic par-excellence. Jude Law, Nicole and Renne in career-best roles.
The Firm - A. Tom Cruise revels as John Grisham's most "hero"ic character.
Jerry Maguire - A. Cruise in yet another charismatic role with shades of harmless grey(his best??)
Me, Myself & Irene - B. Jim Carrey's comic take as schizophreniac and a pretty Renee!
The Last Samurai - A. Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe & cross-cultural respect touch our hearts.
Intolerable Cruelty - B. Romantic comdy. Clooney and Zeta-Jones making a ravising pair.
Clear and Present Danger - B. Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan tried hard to live up to Tom Clancy.
In the Line of Fire - B. Breaks ur heart having to see old Clint romancing Rene Russo and saving the President.
First Knight - A. An iconoclastic movie. Connery is chivalrous but old Arthur, Gere swashbuckling Lancelot & Julia Ormond sweet and noble Guinevere.
The Bone Collector - A. Good crime-thriller.An unsexy Jolie combines well with bed-ridden Denzel.
Malice - B. Nicole plays bad-gal to unsuspecting hus, Bill Pullman with Alec Baldwin as conspirator.
Far and Away - B Tom and Nicole in an epic rags-to-riches journey from Ireland to US.
Fargo - B. Crime story on futility of riches and violence. Kudos to the helmsmen, Coen Brothers.
Tailor of Panama - C. An unusual and tame spy thriller. Geoffrey Rush is saving grace.
Cold Creek Manor - A. Terrific suspense with Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone struggling to save their marriage and lives.
Proof of Life - B. Different kind of kidnapping drama. Russel Crowe & Meg Ryan display unusual chemistry.
Le Divorce - B. an interesting and comic contrast of American and French cultures through the lives of sisters, Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson
Broken Arrow - C. Travolta and Christian Slater square off. Films begins with promise but the script leaves these two talented actors with little to do other than fight.
Wicker Park - A. Surprise movie of the pack. Unassuming actors, a script which gives nothing away till the end...was in rapt attention all the while.
Spiderman2 - B. Peter Parker's moral dilemma crowns this sequel. Tardy graphics.
King HenryV - B. A rare movie truthful to the orginal Shakesperean dialogues.
Lord of Rings2 - B. Not as good as LOTR1 and 3.
Die Another Day - C. Pierce Brosnan is good. The rest ...the story, effects, all suck.
Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind - B. Spirit overcomes science in this well-edited romance. Carrey and Winslett makes for an unusual casting coup.
Signs - A. Shyamalan make us reaffirms our faith in god thru his protagonist, Mel Gibson.
The Village - A.Shyamalan's thought provoking story of the innocence, fear and courage in a village fighting mysterious creatures and urbanization.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Christ, The Church and Me...
Well this is one topic I have been wanting to write about for some time. The good thing about blogs is that we can write our opinions freely. I am a proud catholic (is it because I am a member of the Roman Catholic Church or does the word Catholic have more meaningful connotations...I think I once knew it but have forgotten in the daily grind...how much more pathetic cud i get...in learning and comprehending more i have forgoten very foundation of my professed faith) but am I a good Christian...am I a true follower of Christ?? I dont have answers. Lemme go back to my childhood. I read most of the Bible and a lot of the Hindu scriptures while I was in the 4th and 5th grade. My faith has gone thru its share of upheavals...for starters my parents didnt impose their belief's on me. My grandmother used to say my dad was very religious as a kid, even becoming the altar-boy, then seeing so many books of Marx and Lenin in our mini-library at home I know he took to communism but later he recovered his faith but he wasnt regular in going to church. My mom on the other hand always read the bible at night and prayed before sleeping.Her mother, our ammachi prayed every time she had a moment to spare and in her prayers my family has been blessed with happiness, prosperity and goodwill. More than being a good christian I think my dad believed in feeding his spirt by helping others and my mom conducted her life on rational thought and doing the right thing. I was so hooked on to ramayana and mahabharatha as a child I wud prefer watching them than going to sunday school. After initial reluctance my mom gave in and my father would ask a once in a year question...ninakke sunday schooline onnum ponde??
Those were the days of innocence, bad at studies, getting sick, regular cryings I complained to god about my miserable life. We started the evening prayer at home and that was such a fresh change...the saying "A family that prays together stays together" is so true. When I enterd the 11th I was soon becoming more and more independent and confident in life and as a result my regular telepathic exchanges with the Creator decreased in frequency. Soon my faith went through cycles of devotion and disbelief...visiting church was more of a pretense to keep mom happy and to see chicks rather than devote myself to an hour of prayer and meditation. I was sucked into an orbit of materialism and suddenly more than books( my best friends till then) things like clothes, money, looks became important. This denialist phase also coincided with a very happy, blissful careful period in my life. But all through I was aware of the good fortune I kept falling into and I knew God must be responsible for this. All the happiness, all the fun, all the confidence, all the independence, all the recognition I craved for, cried for and prayed for in life to Jesus was coming in then but sadly I cudnt find the time to thank him enuf or pray to him for a better tomorrow.
Well sunny days gotta end...i knew gloom wud set in and it did but I wasnt ready for it...I was far away in the US battling adulthood, a tough academic curriculum and loss of the financial shelter my parents provided. Here an unlikely influence in the form of Fr.Bill Messenger of the USC Catholic Church took shape. Here was a radical and a fierce democrat(untiringly critical of Bush's war in Iraq week after week in church), unabashed enjoyer of life, whiskey and wine but with a knack of taking his sermons right to the edge of blasphemy allowed for a roman catholic preist which would have made our presists squirm with displeasure. Here was a man openly questioning some of the laws of the Church, past actions of Rome, teachings ingrained in us about the idea of hell, salvation, intolerance to other religions, etc...man he taught me once again to think for myself about my faith while keeping myself within the framework of Catholicism. In America, for the first time I was seeing preists like Bill and my uncle, who were so scholarly, would read works of several theologists and present such a stately sermon unlike most of our priests back home who deliver lengthy, wordy discourses which we hear out but wouldnt give a second thought to...I really feel cheated about how much better I could have evolved my beliefs if I had got to hear these people at an earlier age. I used to be so scared of reading books like The Last Temptation of Christ and Da Vinci Code thinking they would seriously erode my faith. But now I think...what the hell...so what if Jesus wasnt born of an immaculate conception...does it change the fact that he has produced miracles in my life....what if he married mary magdalene...for me jesus is most of the time a friend...a human being somebody who will identify with me...and what if he didnt resurrect...does that change anything with regards to his teachings...these things just divert us from our failings as human beings...and wht I increasingly see as a way to subvert the morale of the Catholic Church lacking strong leadership with an ailing pope(in his prime wuz one of the best ever) in the grip of a strong coterie of cardinals and clergy with no grassroot appeal.
One thing that rankles me though is my inability to be more actively associated with church activities bcoz of a fear of being embarassed at my ignorance of common church rituals and customs. I cannot understand people like Pentecostals and Evangelists who pray so loud and wild and tell people to convert or face damnation nor can I hide my irritation at our bishops who openly indulge in votebank politics...they would do well to remember how corrupted the Vatican became because of the Christian empires Popes dreamed of building and our intolerance which caused so many righteous xians to be martyered and so many others to become lutherans, episcopals and the like...hinduism (discounting casteism..idol worship - i wonder whether most of us indian xians practise this...the crucifix, statues of jesus, mary and saints were meant to be symbols but I am confused by our kissing, putting flowers, garlands on them at church and home) on the other hand is such a rich, tolerant and ancient religion and syrian christianity survived because it adapted so well to indian culture by assimilating so many hindu customs but these new-age proselytizers alienating our hindu brothers sickens me giving so many of our jesuits and missionaries such a bad name.
I think jesus, gandhi, budha, sree krishnan, mohammed were all sent by god at various times in the world's history to show people an ideal person to be imitated and followed. I could learn love from jesus, service from gandhiji, humbleness from budha and the relevant teachings of the gita from sri krishnan. But like mortals before me I run the risk of talking, writing and maybe giving occasional thought to these things and pass to dust before I realize its too late!!! Except for the sunday mass where I am able to cuss my mind to mediatate and worship, daily prayer for me is now a ten second activity of drawing the cross and muttering a silent one when I enter my car and see the rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror and a replica of velankanni mata with unni-easow smiling to me. But definitely I have changed...I have lost a lot of my selfishness, I understand I need to be of service to other people, not being judgemental and I sometimes surprise myself by wondering how Jesus or a Gandhiji would have done for situations I find myself in(the comic realization that results from these deliberations is "kaakha kulichalum kokkakathilla"!! ) . I think its nice to put ones faith into writing once in a while...I am sure in a years time I would have evolved further on. Well this was typical of me...verbose, at places self-contradictory, but hopefully worth a cursory read!
Those were the days of innocence, bad at studies, getting sick, regular cryings I complained to god about my miserable life. We started the evening prayer at home and that was such a fresh change...the saying "A family that prays together stays together" is so true. When I enterd the 11th I was soon becoming more and more independent and confident in life and as a result my regular telepathic exchanges with the Creator decreased in frequency. Soon my faith went through cycles of devotion and disbelief...visiting church was more of a pretense to keep mom happy and to see chicks rather than devote myself to an hour of prayer and meditation. I was sucked into an orbit of materialism and suddenly more than books( my best friends till then) things like clothes, money, looks became important. This denialist phase also coincided with a very happy, blissful careful period in my life. But all through I was aware of the good fortune I kept falling into and I knew God must be responsible for this. All the happiness, all the fun, all the confidence, all the independence, all the recognition I craved for, cried for and prayed for in life to Jesus was coming in then but sadly I cudnt find the time to thank him enuf or pray to him for a better tomorrow.
Well sunny days gotta end...i knew gloom wud set in and it did but I wasnt ready for it...I was far away in the US battling adulthood, a tough academic curriculum and loss of the financial shelter my parents provided. Here an unlikely influence in the form of Fr.Bill Messenger of the USC Catholic Church took shape. Here was a radical and a fierce democrat(untiringly critical of Bush's war in Iraq week after week in church), unabashed enjoyer of life, whiskey and wine but with a knack of taking his sermons right to the edge of blasphemy allowed for a roman catholic preist which would have made our presists squirm with displeasure. Here was a man openly questioning some of the laws of the Church, past actions of Rome, teachings ingrained in us about the idea of hell, salvation, intolerance to other religions, etc...man he taught me once again to think for myself about my faith while keeping myself within the framework of Catholicism. In America, for the first time I was seeing preists like Bill and my uncle, who were so scholarly, would read works of several theologists and present such a stately sermon unlike most of our priests back home who deliver lengthy, wordy discourses which we hear out but wouldnt give a second thought to...I really feel cheated about how much better I could have evolved my beliefs if I had got to hear these people at an earlier age. I used to be so scared of reading books like The Last Temptation of Christ and Da Vinci Code thinking they would seriously erode my faith. But now I think...what the hell...so what if Jesus wasnt born of an immaculate conception...does it change the fact that he has produced miracles in my life....what if he married mary magdalene...for me jesus is most of the time a friend...a human being somebody who will identify with me...and what if he didnt resurrect...does that change anything with regards to his teachings...these things just divert us from our failings as human beings...and wht I increasingly see as a way to subvert the morale of the Catholic Church lacking strong leadership with an ailing pope(in his prime wuz one of the best ever) in the grip of a strong coterie of cardinals and clergy with no grassroot appeal.
One thing that rankles me though is my inability to be more actively associated with church activities bcoz of a fear of being embarassed at my ignorance of common church rituals and customs. I cannot understand people like Pentecostals and Evangelists who pray so loud and wild and tell people to convert or face damnation nor can I hide my irritation at our bishops who openly indulge in votebank politics...they would do well to remember how corrupted the Vatican became because of the Christian empires Popes dreamed of building and our intolerance which caused so many righteous xians to be martyered and so many others to become lutherans, episcopals and the like...hinduism (discounting casteism..idol worship - i wonder whether most of us indian xians practise this...the crucifix, statues of jesus, mary and saints were meant to be symbols but I am confused by our kissing, putting flowers, garlands on them at church and home) on the other hand is such a rich, tolerant and ancient religion and syrian christianity survived because it adapted so well to indian culture by assimilating so many hindu customs but these new-age proselytizers alienating our hindu brothers sickens me giving so many of our jesuits and missionaries such a bad name.
I think jesus, gandhi, budha, sree krishnan, mohammed were all sent by god at various times in the world's history to show people an ideal person to be imitated and followed. I could learn love from jesus, service from gandhiji, humbleness from budha and the relevant teachings of the gita from sri krishnan. But like mortals before me I run the risk of talking, writing and maybe giving occasional thought to these things and pass to dust before I realize its too late!!! Except for the sunday mass where I am able to cuss my mind to mediatate and worship, daily prayer for me is now a ten second activity of drawing the cross and muttering a silent one when I enter my car and see the rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror and a replica of velankanni mata with unni-easow smiling to me. But definitely I have changed...I have lost a lot of my selfishness, I understand I need to be of service to other people, not being judgemental and I sometimes surprise myself by wondering how Jesus or a Gandhiji would have done for situations I find myself in(the comic realization that results from these deliberations is "kaakha kulichalum kokkakathilla"!! ) . I think its nice to put ones faith into writing once in a while...I am sure in a years time I would have evolved further on. Well this was typical of me...verbose, at places self-contradictory, but hopefully worth a cursory read!
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Confuzzed!!!!!
Now I am confused in all respects. About my future plans, visit to India, relocating to LA and even writing this blog!!! Why did life have to become so complicated!!?? I am thinking of changing jobs again but am met with a surprisingly common question by my recruiters...why this job hopping...aint u not stable??? fact is the two jobs although they taught me a lot...were just meant to be ill-fated...the first one i was under-paid and fatigued, and in the current one a mammoth application written in VB(my pet-hate in the world now) has become my waterloo. But the silver lining and infact the bottom line now thru these misadventures was that I finally have found direction, confidence and purpose in the IT field after 6 years of barely staying afloat and letting the tide take me along. I am getting more and more confident in .Net. But what of the future...wht about 3 years from now...will I still remain a programmer...or phrased better...do I still want to be coding away 3 years from now!!! What about the grand illusions of business accumen or writing skills lying potent and waiting to be harnessed away. Guess there will come a time of reckoning... god has given me all I wanted but made me wait for it...maybe he was attending to ppl with greater needs than me then but ironically by the time fruition is reached I have gravitated away to other fancies and he is panting hard and fast to catch up with my next desire. Its been two damned tough years since I've been back home. Every day is spent dreaming abt the sweet homecoming. Life is such a bitch now....I hate becoming older. I wonder if there are ppl in the world who dont have anything to worry abt. Well this is the worst of my blogs...I dont know why I wrote this one...am just plain bored stiff here at work.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Weekend Blues...
All I remember now of weekends in Trivandrum were waking up late...breakfast having to be forced down my throat, sumpuous lunches and dinners at home, friends inviting me to films or trips to the beach or play cricket or the other activity and me plotting the best way to make my escape, evenings glued to the tv, sunday mornings in church...wow now I feel I lived a life of idyllic bliss those days . The weekend was typically laidback...watched dvd's on Friday, woke up in the morning to a stomach craving for malayali food and headed in the direction of Coconut Grove, the only Kerala restaurant in Southern California where I treated myself to a Lunch Buffet. There was rice, chicken biriyani, 2-3 chicken items, aviyal(which tasted more like potato stew), pappadam and potato fry. i was so hungry i attacked the food first before I realized I hadnt fulfilled another major requirement...indian beer.My usual Haywards 5000 was soldout and I had to be satiated with Golden Eagle which wasnt all that good in taste but made up for that in the kick. Anyways the beer filled up my stomach and messed up my appetite. I just wanted to go back home and have a good sleep now but the owner, a young guy kathivekkufied me for a whole hour.
After putting it off for quite a long time I decided to splurge some money in shopping for clothes. Unfortunately the days of outlet shopping are still not over for me...the Nortdstroms' and Macys' are still a class above my finances.So finally on Sunday my roomie, Sunil and I went to the outlet mall on the US-Mexico border at San Ysidro. But before that he wanted to go to the temple were I was surprised to get some really good free desi food. I hate shopping for clothes bcoz of havin to try on every piece that catches my fancy...my lean frame ensures that I dont fit into most clothes...t-shirts are a total no-no for me and so are shorts and bermudas...I guess until I put on some weight, the image of the ice-cool, casual American and me will never go hand in hand!!! I hate myself for my shirt tucked into jeans or pants dressing with sandals(which I call Kerala casuals) but who the heck bothers abt other ppl here!!! Nevertheless I comfort myself about the amount of money I have saved in the process. Anyways hunted at the usual stores...Gap, Old Navy and Haggar b4 stepping out with 3 shirts and a khaki and corduroy. After getting back it was Pizza for dinner and we watched the critical hit, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Besides the casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett and the editing (Memento will always remain the hallmark), I found little in the film to do justice to a good storyline. Well I kissed goodnight to a another uneventful weekend and as always overslept and reached late for work on monday.
After putting it off for quite a long time I decided to splurge some money in shopping for clothes. Unfortunately the days of outlet shopping are still not over for me...the Nortdstroms' and Macys' are still a class above my finances.So finally on Sunday my roomie, Sunil and I went to the outlet mall on the US-Mexico border at San Ysidro. But before that he wanted to go to the temple were I was surprised to get some really good free desi food. I hate shopping for clothes bcoz of havin to try on every piece that catches my fancy...my lean frame ensures that I dont fit into most clothes...t-shirts are a total no-no for me and so are shorts and bermudas...I guess until I put on some weight, the image of the ice-cool, casual American and me will never go hand in hand!!! I hate myself for my shirt tucked into jeans or pants dressing with sandals(which I call Kerala casuals) but who the heck bothers abt other ppl here!!! Nevertheless I comfort myself about the amount of money I have saved in the process. Anyways hunted at the usual stores...Gap, Old Navy and Haggar b4 stepping out with 3 shirts and a khaki and corduroy. After getting back it was Pizza for dinner and we watched the critical hit, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Besides the casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett and the editing (Memento will always remain the hallmark), I found little in the film to do justice to a good storyline. Well I kissed goodnight to a another uneventful weekend and as always overslept and reached late for work on monday.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
A poem...
Well I wrote a poem after a long long time...almost four years now! I tried to post it on poetry.com but the fools have a 20 line limit now.Well I dont want to butcher my poem...will leave it here for the time-being!
D-Day!!!
When the winding maze gets hazy
And I feel I will go crazy
A light always shines, leading me on
Even in the most blinding Darkness,
Giving me direction and reason,
To fight one more day without giving up.
That Light which shines on is my parents love,
The score and five years of my existence,
I have given them cause for shame and pride,
Happiness and sorrow, frustration and Hope.
Through it all they persisted, I am but the mould
They crafted. In their shade I grew into Man.
Thousands of miles, land and sea
Forest and desert, lies between them and me
But our minds unfailingly meet, parents of today
Lucky are those near your kids. As for mine
I see they are oddly smiling or in silent sobs, living
With the memories distance couldnt take away.
Will all the heartaches I caused,
Will all the bonds that bind us, Be strong
Give me the strength, that I break
All that fetters me to this foreign shore.
On that day, Oh peace of mind, you will forever be mine.
Copyright 2005 - Jiby Kattakayam
D-Day!!!
When the winding maze gets hazy
And I feel I will go crazy
A light always shines, leading me on
Even in the most blinding Darkness,
Giving me direction and reason,
To fight one more day without giving up.
That Light which shines on is my parents love,
The score and five years of my existence,
I have given them cause for shame and pride,
Happiness and sorrow, frustration and Hope.
Through it all they persisted, I am but the mould
They crafted. In their shade I grew into Man.
Thousands of miles, land and sea
Forest and desert, lies between them and me
But our minds unfailingly meet, parents of today
Lucky are those near your kids. As for mine
I see they are oddly smiling or in silent sobs, living
With the memories distance couldnt take away.
Will all the heartaches I caused,
Will all the bonds that bind us, Be strong
Give me the strength, that I break
All that fetters me to this foreign shore.
On that day, Oh peace of mind, you will forever be mine.
Copyright 2005 - Jiby Kattakayam
Friday, January 07, 2005
The Simple Joys of Programming...
I have just finished a small project but in terms of its relevance I believe I crossed another huge mental roadblock. This was my first web application I built in ASP.Net and it will be a major addition to my resume. There was a time I was unsure of my abilities as a programmer and cried about six years of my life all going down the drain. Those days are well past me but I still have miles to go before I work the dream job. Like the Chinese proverb which says a journey of a thousand miles begins in a single step I got to this point because I dared to venture out of my comfort zone. Every new project I get into I have treaded with trepidation initially but what I have learnt over the last one year is that God always rewards me if I work hard. Drawing a pale comparison to Edison who said he succesfully discovered six thousand ways not to light a bulb through each project I have coded away in the wrong directions, retraced my path, begun afresh and achieved results. That then is the essence of this blog...not the praise of some project manager but the jubiliation from your inner self you feel when all your hard work has materialised and the pride you feel in having accomplished the task. In these days programming has become an easy but still arduous task ...easy because of the volume of information you have at your fingertips from just a simple search on google and arduous because of the huge variety and diversity in selecting a particular language for coding and the jungle of literature available on each each aspect of programming. In the last 6 months stuff I have built has been used by ppl to chat, play quiz, automate some of the daily tasks they did and view and build reports for their work. I am still nowhere near feeling accomplished...I still fail in wht a programmer has to be good at... voluntarily learning new technologies, a solid technical mind and vision of the system to built and many more shortcomings. We are termed nerds by our peers for spending hours staring at a computer screen, we give yogis and new-age guru's a complex by how much of our mind we can train into focussing on the problem at hand...the world is today at our fingertip...Programmers of the World....Rise and Ye be Proud...What we do echoes in other people's lives and in eternity (a lift from gladiator).
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