Just back from another typical adventure...typical coz of all the bottlenecks along the way. The opportunity to break free arrived sooner than expected...no classes...i announced my decision to travel...3 pals joined in...the places shortlisted were Nainital, Badarinath and Yamunotri...we decided on Nainital and Mukteshwar. Huffed and puffed our way to catch the last bus leaving for Nainital that night on crammed backseats that screwed our plans to get a decent nap.
Saturday: The morning brought us 4 tired folks to the main junction by the lakeside in Nainital and welcoming us was a steady shower and over-priced hotel rooms. Despondently we looked at our options aka wallets and left for Bhawali, a village-town 12kms away in the hope of finding accomodation. We wandered abt till lady-luck took us to an Uttaranchal Govt Tourist resthouse where they had a dormitory available. This was the beginning of an odd experience as we found ourselves in a room with no matresses on the bed, a hotel without enuf buckets for their bathrooms, hopelessy incapable staff and to make it worse taps that wud spit out only air and my thoughts went to the cash-laden KTDC. My pals were getting angry by the second and my efforts at cooling them down succeeded but not before they had given an earful to the hapless manager. We decided to give the lake, the waterfall, zoo, suicide point, etc which were tame affairs meant for family folks and had become cliched sights at hill-stations, as we knew the only outing that could satiisfy us was a grinding trek and so we headed to China Peak, 10kms away from Nainital on a taxi followed by a 4km trek up a jungle trail.
100 mts up the hill, the 4 of us, threw ourselves at the forest floor, breathing heavily, listening to our pounding heartbeats, staring at each other as we wondered who would be the first to get a cardiac arrest. We decided to carry on, and fortunately for us, were soon distracted from from the physical exhaustion by amazing views of the Nainital Valley, steep gorges on both our sides and the flush forest cover. At the end of it all China Peak lay conqured, it was a supremely solitary spot, far away from the madding crowd, very few of them would be able to make it up here thankfully, and we sat there like in a trance for almost 2 hours and to finally top it all a canteen at the peak, provided us with a much-needed refreshing tea and cream-biscuits. The 4 km trek up had taken us almost 1.5-2 hours but with dusk approaching we virtually jogged our way down unmindful of the slippery rocks or the steep fall on either side. At base-camp, we found to our disgust the last taxi had left and we began a tired walk to the nearest point in civilization...5kms away, the High Court where to our disappintment we learnt that the Mall Road was closed for pedestrian traffic and after another 2kms and our whole body crying out for a much-deserved repreive after a 15km exercise i slept like i had been knockedout!!!
Sunday: The next morning brought abt a dilemma of another kind. One of us wanted to head back to Delhi while I was intent on staying another day. The 2 fence-sitters decided to stay on and coz of our bone-crunching adenture yesterday we rented a cab and visited the same "tame" places we had derided yesterday like the waterfall, suicide point, etc and what a sham all these places turned out to be and what a miss for the 98% tourist crowd here who would never be able to trek their way up China Peak
Monday: By afternoon we left for Mukteshwar which we found to our surprise to be just a sleepy village with a few expensive resorts and a Shiva Temple with an enchanting suicide point with rocks jutting out into mid-air being the only sights here much to our disappointment. By 3 we came down, waited for a jeep until we finally got one at 4:30 to anther junction Bhattalia, 7 kms away where we were alarmed to find no jeep/bus going to Bhawali until next morning and we had a bus to catch at 7:00pm. We decided to bail out of this gudham and took a jeep to Dhanachuly, an even more remote village tucked away in the hills. The people here were real poor and just when we figured our luck had runout and were gettiung desperate a taxi came by at 6pm willing to take us to Nainital. He raced thru the hills like a madman almost going over a few gorges until a road-tarring derailed the cliffhanger ride and our effort to catch the bus.
At Nainital we heard of a bus leaving for Delhi from Ramwani, a town 35kms downhill at 10:30pm and a Tata Sumo was willing to take us and 3 other families there and so we all crowded inside and I found a little girl too on my lap. I was cold to her and treated her like a nuisance and she responded by a vomiting spree when the hairpins started but luckily she was a smart cookie and thrust her head outside and saved me a lot of trouble!!! Soon she fell asleep on my lap with her head resting on my arm and it felt real beautiful. The silly anger I felt earlier had dissolved...until then we were cracking wry jokes abt our misfortunes, money wasted in unneccessary taxi rides, our ill-planning, the difference between optimism and our idiotic optimism and that even if "aakasham idinje thalayil veenaalum we wud find a way to shake it off and keep living", etc, etc but this child bought such a peaceful change to my heart and spirits, i felt a magic i had never experienced earlier, in this stranger feeling so secure and cosy next to me. At Ramwani we parted from the child and her jovial family, and raced to the bus-stand were the bus was revving to leave.
Tuesday: Another difficult trip was over, many factors were beyond our control, it was impossible to plan considering our ignorance abt the scarcity of transport and like, but in the end we made a good trip out of it, by our cool and steady heads, good-natured acceptance of every adverse situation, the trademark indefatigable mallu sense of humour and an unanimous agreement that we had learnt more about our country, our people and their struggles to survive even at the expense of others and how to deal with that. It was saddening to see how places like Nainital were the last-surviving relics of natural beauty in an earth we ravish incessantly. The souring moment of the trip was at Delhi near Kashmiri Gate ...3 ragpicker girls running away without paying money for tea to a helplessly cursing poor tea-stall owner. There is no escaping the realities of India - whether at a hill-station or a metro-station!
**fotos on the way**
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
A Defeat, And Its Aftermath...
Tears welled up, threatening to roll down, as I tallied my right answers in the History paper with the sinking feeling building up every second from somewhere deep inside. I couldnt even count on my fingers the last time I cried over a poor exam. My above-par performance in the GS paper had come to zilch. I furtively looked up at my sir, expectantly looking on to see which of his students would raise their hands in success, while I buried mine in my face to choke the liquefied remnants of the 7-month long hardest-fought battle of my life. The moment passed, the tears receded somewhere back into my eyes...the disappointment lingered for a few more days...all that is left now is to log it down in this blog of mine...and get it out of my system totally...hopefully. Exactly two years since I walked out of university, brimming with optimism, 4 jobs that didnt work out, a migration, a gut-wrenching life-sapping effort for a job with a three-letter tag attached to your name...all to be rewound and begun again...its been a string of galling failures to make my education, jobs, inheritances, experiences and hard work all count.
I looked at the man seated opposite me, who I had hoped to avoid for a few months. The plush suite I found myself in, was in "stark" contrast to my Rs.1300 room in a rundown colony in North Delhi populated by a few struggling CS aspirants like me, hundreds of unskilled workers from kerala amidst decadent partition-era refugee Punjabi families still mourning their fall from riches. For a second I dreaded the thought of him suggesting a visit to my new place and searched for a suitable excuse. Like always he made suggestions for my future. Unlike always, this time I had no answer, no comment, to pass back. I could sense the disappointment my dad tried to hide despite his unconditional support for all my efforts. And the excuses he must be offering others, for my failure. Oh God, was I becoming an embarassment? The impasse that kept developing in my life in America and which I hoped to skirt through coming back to India had somehow inevitably arrived. Maybe it was inherent in my restless nature or overt idealism...maybe there will be a turnaround in my fortunes, or maybe not. I have chronicled the heroics of friends who utilized failures to achieve greater things in life, somehow I wonder if I am capable of replicating their efforts.
My blog took birth almost 2 years ago in my frustration but somehow every word that came out here looked to the sunny side of life. In every defeat, I saw positives and so spun them around here to boost myself and keep me going. This perhaps is the first time ever, a post appeared here tinged in negativity. What more can I write when the year holds nothing for me except studying more of the same thing...my sir says I am a sureshot for next year's attempt...but I am not so sure. I am tired...maybe when classes get over next month, I'll travel from Kashmir to Comorin, maybe like other plans even this wont materialise. This is me at this point in life...the journey continues...maybe I will come back some day and laugh at myself for writing this post...or I'll laugh at the astrologer who predicted in my jathakam that I would "prabhuthulyanaayi vaazhum".
I looked at the man seated opposite me, who I had hoped to avoid for a few months. The plush suite I found myself in, was in "stark" contrast to my Rs.1300 room in a rundown colony in North Delhi populated by a few struggling CS aspirants like me, hundreds of unskilled workers from kerala amidst decadent partition-era refugee Punjabi families still mourning their fall from riches. For a second I dreaded the thought of him suggesting a visit to my new place and searched for a suitable excuse. Like always he made suggestions for my future. Unlike always, this time I had no answer, no comment, to pass back. I could sense the disappointment my dad tried to hide despite his unconditional support for all my efforts. And the excuses he must be offering others, for my failure. Oh God, was I becoming an embarassment? The impasse that kept developing in my life in America and which I hoped to skirt through coming back to India had somehow inevitably arrived. Maybe it was inherent in my restless nature or overt idealism...maybe there will be a turnaround in my fortunes, or maybe not. I have chronicled the heroics of friends who utilized failures to achieve greater things in life, somehow I wonder if I am capable of replicating their efforts.
My blog took birth almost 2 years ago in my frustration but somehow every word that came out here looked to the sunny side of life. In every defeat, I saw positives and so spun them around here to boost myself and keep me going. This perhaps is the first time ever, a post appeared here tinged in negativity. What more can I write when the year holds nothing for me except studying more of the same thing...my sir says I am a sureshot for next year's attempt...but I am not so sure. I am tired...maybe when classes get over next month, I'll travel from Kashmir to Comorin, maybe like other plans even this wont materialise. This is me at this point in life...the journey continues...maybe I will come back some day and laugh at myself for writing this post...or I'll laugh at the astrologer who predicted in my jathakam that I would "prabhuthulyanaayi vaazhum".
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Herbert and Pip...
This is a story of two friends, Herbert and Pip. Ofcourse most of you have heard those names come alive in Dickens great novel, Great Expectations. I looked at the shiny smiling faces seated opposite me. To compensate for missing his wedding, I was taking my longtime chum, Motta and his fiance out for lunch. Motta with his goodnaturedness and unpretentious simplicity, the girl...sweet and pretty with a shy smile, the both making a very winsome couple, and myself carrying a burden of wondering what future lay ahead for me but overjoyed for my friend...all brought alive the characters of Herbert, Clara and Pip in my thoughts. It reminded me of a memorable line from the book about what Pip says about Herbert..."We owed so much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often wondered how I had conceived the old idea of his ineptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the ineptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me."
Right from school, I would wonder how motta would survive in the hard, tough world out there. He was forever falling in and out of love, never interested in his studies(well, for some reason i considered myself superior to him in this dept!) and never serious about life. While a huge horde of us took up all the elite engineering branches, he took the only seat available to him in kerala...for architecture, but there again he ran into serious problems of back papers and impossible odds of clearing his arrears. I would advise him, but as usual it all hung lightly on his shoulders...in terms of unflinching optimism I never ever met a more equal match to him. Life has its ways of bringing out the best in a person...personal tragedies which we feared would drown him, instead propelled him to emerge stronger...breaking university records he passed his exams, intime he had begun to love his field of work and his peers began to admire his drawings. He had taken on life with a smile, when friends needed a kind word, when old classmates returned to the nest called trivandrum, he was there organizing weekly gettogethers to keep the loyola spirit alive, after many girlfriends my "Herbert" atlast found his "Clara" and finally he had learnt the trick that lay behind the success-act in life...hard work!!!
One of the most memorable moments for me this time in tvm was visiting motta's office, as last time was all abt seeing my collegepals Shan's and Anoop's new chic office building at Vazhuthacaud. It was around 10 pm at night...motta was holding deliberations with a client who had come all the way from malappuram...letting them go on I wandered around the unruly office...there were papers lying strewn all over the place with rough drawings, calculations and unintelligible scribbles on them, his portfolio lay on his drawing table, he motioned me to the computer where I browsed thru a ppt file of his drawings...my admiration for him growing with every next button clicked. Among his works there were a few houses outside tvm, a small shopping complex at medical college, and a superb mini-mall coming up at Vazhuthacadu which I am sure will soon become a building-of-note in tvm. All this he had achieved after labouring from morning to evening at a senior architect's office for a pitiable salary, and then from evening to midnight at this office of his which he shares with a few guys also running a web-designing firm there...so that he could afford the rent. His way up the ladder that lay ahead was obvious to me...soon he would need to hire more staff, kick the guys who shared his office out and finally earn the fame and respect which only the best get. I was really overwhelmed...the friend who I always despaired would never make it to the league of the rest of us go-getters, had raced past all of us. The moment the client left and he turned around to face me I enveloped him in a bear-hug and said..."Motte today you have made me so proud"...what I didnt tell him was..."I always thought of you as inept"!
Ofcourse like Pip the ineptitude always had been in me...Unlike motta never in life I could take firm decisions what best to do with my life and kept deluding myself that i had taken the easiest possible path to wealth, independence and contentment. I looked at his fiance...she was timidly stealing glances at me all the while instead of looking me straight in the face(this was the first time I met her!)...unlike many of my friends or myself, I knew by now with an absoulte surety that Motta coz of his rough ride to maturity, would make a great husband and she was a very lucky woman. As were leaving, like old times he joked to me..."nee ente pazhaya kaaryangal okke erakki kalyaanathine mumbe divorce aaki tharaathathine valare thanks"...we broke out into a smile and parted with a customary warm hug. As I walked away from them, I thought about myself...life's journey leading me back to delhi, an exam where my chances stood at a razor's edge, and beyond there was hardly any light to show me a way, almost 26 and still unsure what career-path lay ahead...I thought of my dear Herbert and prayed that his success find echoes in my life too.
Right from school, I would wonder how motta would survive in the hard, tough world out there. He was forever falling in and out of love, never interested in his studies(well, for some reason i considered myself superior to him in this dept!) and never serious about life. While a huge horde of us took up all the elite engineering branches, he took the only seat available to him in kerala...for architecture, but there again he ran into serious problems of back papers and impossible odds of clearing his arrears. I would advise him, but as usual it all hung lightly on his shoulders...in terms of unflinching optimism I never ever met a more equal match to him. Life has its ways of bringing out the best in a person...personal tragedies which we feared would drown him, instead propelled him to emerge stronger...breaking university records he passed his exams, intime he had begun to love his field of work and his peers began to admire his drawings. He had taken on life with a smile, when friends needed a kind word, when old classmates returned to the nest called trivandrum, he was there organizing weekly gettogethers to keep the loyola spirit alive, after many girlfriends my "Herbert" atlast found his "Clara" and finally he had learnt the trick that lay behind the success-act in life...hard work!!!
One of the most memorable moments for me this time in tvm was visiting motta's office, as last time was all abt seeing my collegepals Shan's and Anoop's new chic office building at Vazhuthacaud. It was around 10 pm at night...motta was holding deliberations with a client who had come all the way from malappuram...letting them go on I wandered around the unruly office...there were papers lying strewn all over the place with rough drawings, calculations and unintelligible scribbles on them, his portfolio lay on his drawing table, he motioned me to the computer where I browsed thru a ppt file of his drawings...my admiration for him growing with every next button clicked. Among his works there were a few houses outside tvm, a small shopping complex at medical college, and a superb mini-mall coming up at Vazhuthacadu which I am sure will soon become a building-of-note in tvm. All this he had achieved after labouring from morning to evening at a senior architect's office for a pitiable salary, and then from evening to midnight at this office of his which he shares with a few guys also running a web-designing firm there...so that he could afford the rent. His way up the ladder that lay ahead was obvious to me...soon he would need to hire more staff, kick the guys who shared his office out and finally earn the fame and respect which only the best get. I was really overwhelmed...the friend who I always despaired would never make it to the league of the rest of us go-getters, had raced past all of us. The moment the client left and he turned around to face me I enveloped him in a bear-hug and said..."Motte today you have made me so proud"...what I didnt tell him was..."I always thought of you as inept"!
Ofcourse like Pip the ineptitude always had been in me...Unlike motta never in life I could take firm decisions what best to do with my life and kept deluding myself that i had taken the easiest possible path to wealth, independence and contentment. I looked at his fiance...she was timidly stealing glances at me all the while instead of looking me straight in the face(this was the first time I met her!)...unlike many of my friends or myself, I knew by now with an absoulte surety that Motta coz of his rough ride to maturity, would make a great husband and she was a very lucky woman. As were leaving, like old times he joked to me..."nee ente pazhaya kaaryangal okke erakki kalyaanathine mumbe divorce aaki tharaathathine valare thanks"...we broke out into a smile and parted with a customary warm hug. As I walked away from them, I thought about myself...life's journey leading me back to delhi, an exam where my chances stood at a razor's edge, and beyond there was hardly any light to show me a way, almost 26 and still unsure what career-path lay ahead...I thought of my dear Herbert and prayed that his success find echoes in my life too.
Vadakkumnathan Rocks, Mohanlal's Back!!!
The second-last day in tvm turned out to be a really memorable one finally. For lunch went out for something which simultaneous to this one is taking shape as a parallel post. In the afternoon I finally kept an old promise to my dear friends from college Shan, Anoop and their partner Jenu to take a class on DotNet programming for their employees to get them started on a new technology. After almost 4 1/2 years after my seminar in the final semester of college I took a sort of lecture and it was an immensely enjoyable exercise, though the only jarring problem was my memories of the language have turned rusty and have begun to fade. I sincerely hope I dont have to program another line of code in life again. It was funny...Shan, peaking into the conference room every half an hour with a muffled grin on his face and Anoop sitting thru the lecture asking questions like an obedient student which he never was in college and me, one of the Savages who made life hell for many a teacher at college, breathing a sigh of relief that the guys and gals seated in front of me were attentive and very disciplined kids unlike me and my friends in college.
I had resolved to see the movie, Vadakkumnathan for the last few days since it released but everyone discouraged me saying it was impossible to get a ticket for a mohanlal movie so early unless i heckled in the crowd. Tonight I decided to take my chance, and just as I was about to leave, the heaviest downpour since I landed, began. Already a bit despondent that I failed to gather any of my friends for company, I decided not to let it dampen my spirits and decided to take off. It was a big risk...watching a malayalam movie these days is a big gamble, i can name just 4-5 movies in as many years that I have loved but today I got the chance to add another one to the list. I came out gushing that the 80's style of filmmaking is not dead and people still appreciate it...a simple yet impressive story and script from first-timer Girish Puthencherry and wonderful direction from the until now considered "unlucky" Shajoon Karyal and brilliant camerawork by veteran S.Kumar and to cap it all, the most profound music recently coming out from our films by the late Ravindran Master with a Mohanlal who looked younger, fresh and with the kind of acting that made him our hearthrob coming in as a triple topping on a pizza/icing on a cake...whatever you wanna call it...I just loved every minute of this movie.
"Pandathe Kaamukanaayi Lalettan Veendum"...was a comment I heard from somebody coming out of the theater and it brought a smile to my face. I just cant believe Mohanlal didnt have faith in this movie and delayed its release by more than a year...but give him a strong script and a difficult character...the acting skills which we think have deserted him just flow back and keep us spellbound on the screen. Apart from all the people I mentioned above who made this film so special, Jesudas and his "Gange" song echoes your mind long after you come out of the movie...its so sad that people have to get old, its such a pity that suddenly you are seen as having a voice that isnt divine anymore and then out of the blue he has shamed all those people who predicted his end. I wonder if I've gone overboard in praising this film...but I really loved it and I believe so will you all...keep your expectations low, expect a movie which has malayalitham written all over it, a very subdued and life-like performance from lalettan where you get to see that same vulnerability in his expressions we missed lately in all his super-human performances and just go to the cinema hall and sit back and let it grip you.
I had resolved to see the movie, Vadakkumnathan for the last few days since it released but everyone discouraged me saying it was impossible to get a ticket for a mohanlal movie so early unless i heckled in the crowd. Tonight I decided to take my chance, and just as I was about to leave, the heaviest downpour since I landed, began. Already a bit despondent that I failed to gather any of my friends for company, I decided not to let it dampen my spirits and decided to take off. It was a big risk...watching a malayalam movie these days is a big gamble, i can name just 4-5 movies in as many years that I have loved but today I got the chance to add another one to the list. I came out gushing that the 80's style of filmmaking is not dead and people still appreciate it...a simple yet impressive story and script from first-timer Girish Puthencherry and wonderful direction from the until now considered "unlucky" Shajoon Karyal and brilliant camerawork by veteran S.Kumar and to cap it all, the most profound music recently coming out from our films by the late Ravindran Master with a Mohanlal who looked younger, fresh and with the kind of acting that made him our hearthrob coming in as a triple topping on a pizza/icing on a cake...whatever you wanna call it...I just loved every minute of this movie.
"Pandathe Kaamukanaayi Lalettan Veendum"...was a comment I heard from somebody coming out of the theater and it brought a smile to my face. I just cant believe Mohanlal didnt have faith in this movie and delayed its release by more than a year...but give him a strong script and a difficult character...the acting skills which we think have deserted him just flow back and keep us spellbound on the screen. Apart from all the people I mentioned above who made this film so special, Jesudas and his "Gange" song echoes your mind long after you come out of the movie...its so sad that people have to get old, its such a pity that suddenly you are seen as having a voice that isnt divine anymore and then out of the blue he has shamed all those people who predicted his end. I wonder if I've gone overboard in praising this film...but I really loved it and I believe so will you all...keep your expectations low, expect a movie which has malayalitham written all over it, a very subdued and life-like performance from lalettan where you get to see that same vulnerability in his expressions we missed lately in all his super-human performances and just go to the cinema hall and sit back and let it grip you.
Monday, May 22, 2006
The Waaanderer's Tag!!!
This is a long overdue tag...better late than never...i leave in 2 days...dont think i will be venturing outside often in Delhi to blog in this heat...it'll be almost 2 months b4 i lay my hands on my laptop.
5 people who top your sh1t list..... and why:
- Arjun Singh, for taking reservations to the realm of a new social injustice
- Arjun Singh...anyone wants a reason???
- Arjun Singh...my blood boils when i see his slippery face on TV!!!
- Arjun Singh...I am not against any of the reservations till date and pray that reservations be only for the poor in our society but he forgot he crossed a line...for the first time since independence, ordinary indians have raised their voices against our bastard politicians.
- A.K.Antony for wasting a gift-wrapped super mandate from the people of Kerala for developing the state
Close brushes with death/danger:
I never had a close shave with death yet...i guess God doesnt want me spoiling his party at heaven any time soon!!!
- A bike accident on Christmas Eve outside the Jimmy George Stadium...didnt even know what hit me...lost consciousness for a few hours and spent a precious night in a moota-infested medical college general ward observation room.
- Getting lost in the Agasthyakoodam
forest...we were scared shitless then, but now we laugh abt it like veterans who were out then for a casual stroll.
5 Modes of Suicide
What an irony that the guy I have found most easiest to unnerve, initiated the craziest of questions for a tag. well its not my idea of fun...so i move on!!!
5 Guilty pleasures:
- Chilled beer, a friend for company and a little sun and heat to go with the ambience
- At my native place, drinking kallu right off the palm trees.
- Chivas Regal, with 4 icecubes(my friends joke that ever since i took a liking to it, they never thought highly of it again!)...
- Amul Chocolate...you wont believe the reaction on my face, when I set eyes on it in a Delhi Bakery. Eating it after 16 years brought back so many sweet childhood memories...oh shit! i forgot to mention it in my Remembering the 80's post. I actualy bullied and tempted Pappanabhan, a frantic chocolate eater for a few days until i felt sorry and told him where to get it.
- well I criticize the Church a lot, and even feel at most times, that Christianity and religion arent important to me anymore(though God is), but yet on early sunday mornings being at a church and spending some quiet time there and attending mass makes me feel just great!
5 things you never want to forget:
- My grandma fainting the night i was leaving for the States
- The pride on my parents face when they saw me recieving the Master's diploma
- The first time my sister thrashed me...i was shellshocked...the thrash on my baCK erupted like a Deepavali cracker...since then she lost the surprise factor...but having got to taste blood whenever we quarrelled she would begin to cry unless I let her beat me atleast once.
- The only accident in my driving career - i had just finished learning to drive and my dad handed over his new Zen to me...trying to get on to the main road at a curve banged a boundary wall...the left rear door was a sight to behold...still can hear my dad's wild shriek ringing in my ears...the bill came to around 10000 bucks...but it was a lesson well learnt!
- Having beer with my dad for 1st time. When I'd finished 3 he was struggling with his first...his question, "nee hot adikkumo"...my response, "illa hot enikkishtamilla, pinne friends nirbandhichaal oralpam...."...cant forget his sarcastic quip..."ho, ashvaasamaayi"
5 things you wish to forget:
- The first time i wore a mundu with my mom's help...in the 8th. Wore a bermuda under and a belt over the mundu as protection and i was sure i looked like a dork taking feeble steps...the comic relief was coming to class and guys who didnt dare to wear it from home coz of the crowded schoolbus begging me to help them tie theirs thinking i had wrapped mine single-handedly...i remember that whole day we were skipping from tree to tree, hiding & tightening the mundu when it loosened. We realized we couldnt get better at it unless we started wearing lungis at home.
- Last Labor Day weekend in Baltimore...my uncle had arranged a karioke party with all his mallu friends...we kids were by now given the license to drink...the uncles and aunties made me sing "Onnam Ragam Padi" in front of them...afterwards everybody had a huge grin on their faces.
- The onset of adoloscensce...wasted an entire pilgrimage trip to vellankanni meant for my 9th standard final exams on praying to god to find me a remedy to this illness!!! If I was an anonymous blogger I would have had so many anecdotes to share with the world on how a band of brothers bumbled their way to enlightenment!!! Much later in college, thanks to Arun Hari's loud tongue I realized to my dismay that the story had even travelled to the gals in the class.
- The first VAAL...had too much to drink on an excursion to Kodai...passed out, began a vomitspree, got dehydrated, hospitalised and much worse...became the laughing stock of the guys and had to suffer great indignities...anyways it saved me from becoming an alcoholic...i have mostly stuck to beer and scotch ever since!!
- Having the indistinction of being hit for last-ball sixes twice in schoollife...lost both the matches on account of my complacence...and that too to two tailenders who barely knew how to hold a bat...and at every reunion somebody brings it up to put me to shame....again and again!!!
5 really exotic dishes you have tried:
Have eaten a lot of cuisines of the world while in LA and San Diego...cuban, ethiopian, korean, lebanese, mexican, thai, etc, etc, etc...embarassingly enuf i still found some of our traditional mallu dishes more exotic as they were more rarer...but then i've always been like that!!
But dishes i really like and savour.
- The Kappa, Karimeen Pollichathu, thavala and Anthikallu at the Karimpankala Shappu near Chenganasseery
- Puttu, Payaru and Pappadam for Breakfast
- Any nonvegetarian dish my mom cooks...an amazingly capable woman the speed with which she cooks is a sight to behold...chicken curries, cutlets, karimeen varathathu, fish moily, prawn, crab, fish curry, parinjeel...its all part of her amazing oeuvre...i can never eat non-veg food at a hotel to my satisfaction coz of her...but i always tell her that like most xian women she sucks at vegetarian dishes.
- A dream meal for me wud be...rice, pulisseri, payar thorran, aviyal, pappadam and a fish fry
- The Dosa and Chicken combination we once tried at a small village kallu shappu near the Neyyar Dam while in college...its taste still lingers!!!
5 crushes/loves in your life... in chronological order
- if i was an anonymous blogger...first names would have sure made its way here...neways most of those gals are wives and even mothers now!!!
But lately - Ash Rai in the new Lux Ad just knocks me out of my senses every time i see that...the only words that escapes me for a few mins is..."Abhishek Bachchante times"!!!
Strangest dream you ever had:
- its a childhood nightmare. A snake chasing my sister and me thru the paddy fields in our native place and how i escape....BLACKOUT!!!
i cant recollect dreams/nightmares anymore.
5 most valued personal possessions:
- Except for my clothes all the other material possessions I acquired I have lost/given away...but then 4 other possessions wud be
- my family, they have been so understanding, so encouraging...yet i have never done justice to their love/affection...only time i wish i was a different person is when i think about them.
- strong friendships nurtured day by day, over the years...it is in moments of loneliness that you thank God for these people who by chance becomes part of your life.
- a wealth of experience/mistakes...wonder where i get to mortgage all that!!!
- my smile, its a personal ahangaaram...i have seen a smile melt hard-nosed interviewers, soften unrelenting cops, cool down agitated teachers about to take me to task and win friends by the dozen...its a genetic/acquired/studied trait from my dad who i have seen use it as an effective weapon with foes, strangers and friends alike.
...today all of my possessions are abstract at one level but more concrete/lasting than anything material at a higher plane.
5 favorite superheroes..... and why:
- I'd say I loved Giant Robot and Johnny Saco so much...I was heartbroken when GiantRobot got killed and the series ended...like Mohanlal in the the film Adhipan I wanted to dial Doordarshan Kendra and call the man-in-charge the only theri i knew...PODA PATTI!!!
- Inspector Garud of Balarama(heard Dileep is planning a movie on him...am sure it'll be a bigger hit than CID Moosa!)
- Mayavi and Luttappi(yeah!...luttapis face makes me laugh!) of Balarama
- He-Man...he certainly was a phenomenon in those days
- James Bond...for all the babes he beds...when i wuz younger he misled me to thinking women were easy prey!!!
To pass it on...I think everyone else except Arun Hari and Neil have done it...upto u guys then!!!
5 people who top your sh1t list..... and why:
- Arjun Singh, for taking reservations to the realm of a new social injustice
- Arjun Singh...anyone wants a reason???
- Arjun Singh...my blood boils when i see his slippery face on TV!!!
- Arjun Singh...I am not against any of the reservations till date and pray that reservations be only for the poor in our society but he forgot he crossed a line...for the first time since independence, ordinary indians have raised their voices against our bastard politicians.
- A.K.Antony for wasting a gift-wrapped super mandate from the people of Kerala for developing the state
Close brushes with death/danger:
I never had a close shave with death yet...i guess God doesnt want me spoiling his party at heaven any time soon!!!
- A bike accident on Christmas Eve outside the Jimmy George Stadium...didnt even know what hit me...lost consciousness for a few hours and spent a precious night in a moota-infested medical college general ward observation room.
- Getting lost in the Agasthyakoodam
forest...we were scared shitless then, but now we laugh abt it like veterans who were out then for a casual stroll.
5 Modes of Suicide
What an irony that the guy I have found most easiest to unnerve, initiated the craziest of questions for a tag. well its not my idea of fun...so i move on!!!
5 Guilty pleasures:
- Chilled beer, a friend for company and a little sun and heat to go with the ambience
- At my native place, drinking kallu right off the palm trees.
- Chivas Regal, with 4 icecubes(my friends joke that ever since i took a liking to it, they never thought highly of it again!)...
- Amul Chocolate...you wont believe the reaction on my face, when I set eyes on it in a Delhi Bakery. Eating it after 16 years brought back so many sweet childhood memories...oh shit! i forgot to mention it in my Remembering the 80's post. I actualy bullied and tempted Pappanabhan, a frantic chocolate eater for a few days until i felt sorry and told him where to get it.
- well I criticize the Church a lot, and even feel at most times, that Christianity and religion arent important to me anymore(though God is), but yet on early sunday mornings being at a church and spending some quiet time there and attending mass makes me feel just great!
5 things you never want to forget:
- My grandma fainting the night i was leaving for the States
- The pride on my parents face when they saw me recieving the Master's diploma
- The first time my sister thrashed me...i was shellshocked...the thrash on my baCK erupted like a Deepavali cracker...since then she lost the surprise factor...but having got to taste blood whenever we quarrelled she would begin to cry unless I let her beat me atleast once.
- The only accident in my driving career - i had just finished learning to drive and my dad handed over his new Zen to me...trying to get on to the main road at a curve banged a boundary wall...the left rear door was a sight to behold...still can hear my dad's wild shriek ringing in my ears...the bill came to around 10000 bucks...but it was a lesson well learnt!
- Having beer with my dad for 1st time. When I'd finished 3 he was struggling with his first...his question, "nee hot adikkumo"...my response, "illa hot enikkishtamilla, pinne friends nirbandhichaal oralpam...."...cant forget his sarcastic quip..."ho, ashvaasamaayi"
5 things you wish to forget:
- The first time i wore a mundu with my mom's help...in the 8th. Wore a bermuda under and a belt over the mundu as protection and i was sure i looked like a dork taking feeble steps...the comic relief was coming to class and guys who didnt dare to wear it from home coz of the crowded schoolbus begging me to help them tie theirs thinking i had wrapped mine single-handedly...i remember that whole day we were skipping from tree to tree, hiding & tightening the mundu when it loosened. We realized we couldnt get better at it unless we started wearing lungis at home.
- Last Labor Day weekend in Baltimore...my uncle had arranged a karioke party with all his mallu friends...we kids were by now given the license to drink...the uncles and aunties made me sing "Onnam Ragam Padi" in front of them...afterwards everybody had a huge grin on their faces.
- The onset of adoloscensce...wasted an entire pilgrimage trip to vellankanni meant for my 9th standard final exams on praying to god to find me a remedy to this illness!!! If I was an anonymous blogger I would have had so many anecdotes to share with the world on how a band of brothers bumbled their way to enlightenment!!! Much later in college, thanks to Arun Hari's loud tongue I realized to my dismay that the story had even travelled to the gals in the class.
- The first VAAL...had too much to drink on an excursion to Kodai...passed out, began a vomitspree, got dehydrated, hospitalised and much worse...became the laughing stock of the guys and had to suffer great indignities...anyways it saved me from becoming an alcoholic...i have mostly stuck to beer and scotch ever since!!
- Having the indistinction of being hit for last-ball sixes twice in schoollife...lost both the matches on account of my complacence...and that too to two tailenders who barely knew how to hold a bat...and at every reunion somebody brings it up to put me to shame....again and again!!!
5 really exotic dishes you have tried:
Have eaten a lot of cuisines of the world while in LA and San Diego...cuban, ethiopian, korean, lebanese, mexican, thai, etc, etc, etc...embarassingly enuf i still found some of our traditional mallu dishes more exotic as they were more rarer...but then i've always been like that!!
But dishes i really like and savour.
- The Kappa, Karimeen Pollichathu, thavala and Anthikallu at the Karimpankala Shappu near Chenganasseery
- Puttu, Payaru and Pappadam for Breakfast
- Any nonvegetarian dish my mom cooks...an amazingly capable woman the speed with which she cooks is a sight to behold...chicken curries, cutlets, karimeen varathathu, fish moily, prawn, crab, fish curry, parinjeel...its all part of her amazing oeuvre...i can never eat non-veg food at a hotel to my satisfaction coz of her...but i always tell her that like most xian women she sucks at vegetarian dishes.
- A dream meal for me wud be...rice, pulisseri, payar thorran, aviyal, pappadam and a fish fry
- The Dosa and Chicken combination we once tried at a small village kallu shappu near the Neyyar Dam while in college...its taste still lingers!!!
5 crushes/loves in your life... in chronological order
- if i was an anonymous blogger...first names would have sure made its way here...neways most of those gals are wives and even mothers now!!!
But lately - Ash Rai in the new Lux Ad just knocks me out of my senses every time i see that...the only words that escapes me for a few mins is..."Abhishek Bachchante times"!!!
Strangest dream you ever had:
- its a childhood nightmare. A snake chasing my sister and me thru the paddy fields in our native place and how i escape....BLACKOUT!!!
i cant recollect dreams/nightmares anymore.
5 most valued personal possessions:
- Except for my clothes all the other material possessions I acquired I have lost/given away...but then 4 other possessions wud be
- my family, they have been so understanding, so encouraging...yet i have never done justice to their love/affection...only time i wish i was a different person is when i think about them.
- strong friendships nurtured day by day, over the years...it is in moments of loneliness that you thank God for these people who by chance becomes part of your life.
- a wealth of experience/mistakes...wonder where i get to mortgage all that!!!
- my smile, its a personal ahangaaram...i have seen a smile melt hard-nosed interviewers, soften unrelenting cops, cool down agitated teachers about to take me to task and win friends by the dozen...its a genetic/acquired/studied trait from my dad who i have seen use it as an effective weapon with foes, strangers and friends alike.
...today all of my possessions are abstract at one level but more concrete/lasting than anything material at a higher plane.
5 favorite superheroes..... and why:
- I'd say I loved Giant Robot and Johnny Saco so much...I was heartbroken when GiantRobot got killed and the series ended...like Mohanlal in the the film Adhipan I wanted to dial Doordarshan Kendra and call the man-in-charge the only theri i knew...PODA PATTI!!!
- Inspector Garud of Balarama(heard Dileep is planning a movie on him...am sure it'll be a bigger hit than CID Moosa!)
- Mayavi and Luttappi(yeah!...luttapis face makes me laugh!) of Balarama
- He-Man...he certainly was a phenomenon in those days
- James Bond...for all the babes he beds...when i wuz younger he misled me to thinking women were easy prey!!!
To pass it on...I think everyone else except Arun Hari and Neil have done it...upto u guys then!!!
Friday, May 19, 2006
Musings from Trivandrum...
42 days spent struggling on a quest whose summit is still miles away. 6 days of vacation and bliss as a sweet reward for 6 months of a harsh, back-breaking effort...it feels like heaven...of course in a few days I leave for the roasting of my life...all the news of record highs and power shortages in Delhi is draining my courage as I head back for more classes.
The Exam...
Among the casualties in tvm's vial flu epidemic, I was one of the unfortunate victims, down for almost 20 days...thankfully i had enuf reserves of perseverance to sweat thru it with my books for company. The day of the exam was brutal...4 hours, 2 exams and 270 questions to answer...i think i may come out with my reputation intact...but it will be 2 months more b4 the results come out!!! Will give you all a more concrete update on where I stand in a week's time when the solutions/key come out!!!
A Dying Lake...
Pappanabhan and I decided to laze away the next day at one of my fave haunts in Tvm...Akulam Lake. But the site of what was once a lone paradise in a concrete jungle saddened me. In a year or two the Akulam we once knew may not be there...its water polluted and the stench reminding me of Delhi's canals, the lake filling up with silt and plants taking root in the silt...i uttered a fervent prayer for its survival.
Its Getting Hot In Here...
Atleast 3 showers a day has become a norm for me! From the skies no place in the world is greener than kerala. There are trees everywhere, but the max temperatures in kerala have reached 35degs and worse still the humidity has reached records highs. Still remember how until 3-4 years back it was surprising to even see the mercury hit 32degs.
Widened Roads...
The corollary to Tvm becoming an old-age city, i discovered to my joy was that the newly widened roads didnt have enuf occupants to clog it up...for the first time in my 8 year career as a driver i have been able to zip all thru the city in 5th gear!!! Though the city roads are a source of pride the NH47 continues to be a sure-shot way to get into a coffin quickly...my dad and i together clocked almost 15 close shaves driving to our native place. I have decided only to take the train henceforth...unless they make the NH47 4-lane and split up the oncoming lanes!!!
Sharja Shakes...
Little did we realize that the favorite drink of our schooldays would become a rallying point for our reunions in later days. The Sharja continues to find acceptability among both drunkards and teetoallers of our batch of Loyolites as a drink to unwind, nostalgize and catch up. The terrace of the shop up the road from Bakery Junction to Vazhuthacaud has become our haunt every Sunday evening...the roar that rises there has been an integral part of my life for so long...i hope it never subsides in the pressures of adulthood.
An Industry Fades Away...
Not a single critically appreciated, aesthetically appealing or sensible malayalam film released this summer. I got the first jolt in tvm when the Pattom Kalpana theatre which served as a lighthouse to my home disappeared, making way for a shopping complex. I enquired abt the other theatre screening first change films, Petta Sreekarthika and it had shut down too! I landed in tvm hoping to watch Prithviraj's classy film Vargam but instead was greeted with theatres here screening tamil films like pattiyal, mercury pookal, brahma and a horde of other tam movies!!! Balram Vs Tharadas was a big letdown and so was Rasathanthram, Dileep's nasty remake of Rain-Man was deservedly rejected by the audience while Suresh Gopi salvaged some pride thru a good performance in an otherwise pitiable Chinthamani Kola Case.
The Ghosts of Dot Net...
This trip to Trivandrum...I was met with an old request again...Shan and Anoop wanted me to take a class on Dot Net technology for their employees...its been 7 months since i have even seen a line of code...but i just need to shake my idleness off and contribute in some way to their growing company.
Policy of Ringed Fence...
The way Pinarayi has encircled VS with all his close accolytes reminds me of the old trick the British played on our native rulers of the same name above. Will the old revolutionary break the shackles which his younger opponents within his party has thrown and keep the promises he made to the underpriviledged of kerala who voted him in??? I stood witness to the huge red flag gathering on the Secretariat lawns on the night of the swearing-in and wondered how soon the euphoria surrounding the mandate had disappeared and how easily the people's will dissolved amidst political bickering.
Who's Scared of The Code???
The book has come and gone...Dan Brown may have resurrected Mary Magdalene succesfully in Christianity in one of the highest selling works of fiction...everyone expected it to shake the foundations of Christianity...but everyone underestimated the power of Faith...why does the Catholic Church fear the movie version now...and what is this so-called Catholic Secular Forum's right to represent the whole of Xianity in demanding a ban...Xianity today is beyond all the symbolism that Da Vinci Code strives to decipher, today the church is a mix of harcore believers in all the church espouses and a growing populace of "upstarts" who likes to set their own parameters and boundaries to Xianity and find God through their own ways/means/ends.
Last Pal Met...
I have finally met all of my closest friends from school and college...kevin the last one standing reached tvm with a bottle of tequila and our depleted gang of Savages from college got together, finding ourselves still on our feet after 8 shots of tequila the scotch meant for kevin's other set of friends in quilon was also drowned in our hunt for the kick!!! Tomorrow we head to kollam to visit anoops new house, where i guess a sumptuous lunch will be waiting for us and on the way we pick up Kevin from his home at Tangasseri Beach where the fish tastes the best in the world!!!
To Orkut or not...
I am one of the few pessimists who think Orkut has a short shelf-life. But everyone else seems to disagree. Since Orkut has caught the public fancy, the mails in our egroups have noticeably subsided. Most of the people who scrap me are close friends who i have stayed in touch thru irregular emails or who read my blog or who i email thru school, college and univ yahoogroups but suddenly orkut seems convenient to say a hi and bye...a few people whom I had almost given up to oblivion have suddenly come back but i wonder if i'll ever see them again...I scrap back and the interaction just doesnt flag from there on...i guess it works!!! I grew a beard in between and uploaded a pic...and suddenly there were doszens of queries of depression, new look, exam tension and even failed love coming from everyone...though not physically the world just keeps coming closer!!!
Aideu to Tvm...
There is no place like home and no city like your hometown. The last 50 days here were memorable...dunno when I can return. Dunno in what condition i will return...will it be a victorious one to write the main examination or will i come back cloaked in failure, shrink away from my friends and pack my bags to again hesitantly head away to some distant land...i guess time will tell.
The Exam...
Among the casualties in tvm's vial flu epidemic, I was one of the unfortunate victims, down for almost 20 days...thankfully i had enuf reserves of perseverance to sweat thru it with my books for company. The day of the exam was brutal...4 hours, 2 exams and 270 questions to answer...i think i may come out with my reputation intact...but it will be 2 months more b4 the results come out!!! Will give you all a more concrete update on where I stand in a week's time when the solutions/key come out!!!
A Dying Lake...
Pappanabhan and I decided to laze away the next day at one of my fave haunts in Tvm...Akulam Lake. But the site of what was once a lone paradise in a concrete jungle saddened me. In a year or two the Akulam we once knew may not be there...its water polluted and the stench reminding me of Delhi's canals, the lake filling up with silt and plants taking root in the silt...i uttered a fervent prayer for its survival.
Its Getting Hot In Here...
Atleast 3 showers a day has become a norm for me! From the skies no place in the world is greener than kerala. There are trees everywhere, but the max temperatures in kerala have reached 35degs and worse still the humidity has reached records highs. Still remember how until 3-4 years back it was surprising to even see the mercury hit 32degs.
Widened Roads...
The corollary to Tvm becoming an old-age city, i discovered to my joy was that the newly widened roads didnt have enuf occupants to clog it up...for the first time in my 8 year career as a driver i have been able to zip all thru the city in 5th gear!!! Though the city roads are a source of pride the NH47 continues to be a sure-shot way to get into a coffin quickly...my dad and i together clocked almost 15 close shaves driving to our native place. I have decided only to take the train henceforth...unless they make the NH47 4-lane and split up the oncoming lanes!!!
Sharja Shakes...
Little did we realize that the favorite drink of our schooldays would become a rallying point for our reunions in later days. The Sharja continues to find acceptability among both drunkards and teetoallers of our batch of Loyolites as a drink to unwind, nostalgize and catch up. The terrace of the shop up the road from Bakery Junction to Vazhuthacaud has become our haunt every Sunday evening...the roar that rises there has been an integral part of my life for so long...i hope it never subsides in the pressures of adulthood.
An Industry Fades Away...
Not a single critically appreciated, aesthetically appealing or sensible malayalam film released this summer. I got the first jolt in tvm when the Pattom Kalpana theatre which served as a lighthouse to my home disappeared, making way for a shopping complex. I enquired abt the other theatre screening first change films, Petta Sreekarthika and it had shut down too! I landed in tvm hoping to watch Prithviraj's classy film Vargam but instead was greeted with theatres here screening tamil films like pattiyal, mercury pookal, brahma and a horde of other tam movies!!! Balram Vs Tharadas was a big letdown and so was Rasathanthram, Dileep's nasty remake of Rain-Man was deservedly rejected by the audience while Suresh Gopi salvaged some pride thru a good performance in an otherwise pitiable Chinthamani Kola Case.
The Ghosts of Dot Net...
This trip to Trivandrum...I was met with an old request again...Shan and Anoop wanted me to take a class on Dot Net technology for their employees...its been 7 months since i have even seen a line of code...but i just need to shake my idleness off and contribute in some way to their growing company.
Policy of Ringed Fence...
The way Pinarayi has encircled VS with all his close accolytes reminds me of the old trick the British played on our native rulers of the same name above. Will the old revolutionary break the shackles which his younger opponents within his party has thrown and keep the promises he made to the underpriviledged of kerala who voted him in??? I stood witness to the huge red flag gathering on the Secretariat lawns on the night of the swearing-in and wondered how soon the euphoria surrounding the mandate had disappeared and how easily the people's will dissolved amidst political bickering.
Who's Scared of The Code???
The book has come and gone...Dan Brown may have resurrected Mary Magdalene succesfully in Christianity in one of the highest selling works of fiction...everyone expected it to shake the foundations of Christianity...but everyone underestimated the power of Faith...why does the Catholic Church fear the movie version now...and what is this so-called Catholic Secular Forum's right to represent the whole of Xianity in demanding a ban...Xianity today is beyond all the symbolism that Da Vinci Code strives to decipher, today the church is a mix of harcore believers in all the church espouses and a growing populace of "upstarts" who likes to set their own parameters and boundaries to Xianity and find God through their own ways/means/ends.
Last Pal Met...
I have finally met all of my closest friends from school and college...kevin the last one standing reached tvm with a bottle of tequila and our depleted gang of Savages from college got together, finding ourselves still on our feet after 8 shots of tequila the scotch meant for kevin's other set of friends in quilon was also drowned in our hunt for the kick!!! Tomorrow we head to kollam to visit anoops new house, where i guess a sumptuous lunch will be waiting for us and on the way we pick up Kevin from his home at Tangasseri Beach where the fish tastes the best in the world!!!
To Orkut or not...
I am one of the few pessimists who think Orkut has a short shelf-life. But everyone else seems to disagree. Since Orkut has caught the public fancy, the mails in our egroups have noticeably subsided. Most of the people who scrap me are close friends who i have stayed in touch thru irregular emails or who read my blog or who i email thru school, college and univ yahoogroups but suddenly orkut seems convenient to say a hi and bye...a few people whom I had almost given up to oblivion have suddenly come back but i wonder if i'll ever see them again...I scrap back and the interaction just doesnt flag from there on...i guess it works!!! I grew a beard in between and uploaded a pic...and suddenly there were doszens of queries of depression, new look, exam tension and even failed love coming from everyone...though not physically the world just keeps coming closer!!!
Aideu to Tvm...
There is no place like home and no city like your hometown. The last 50 days here were memorable...dunno when I can return. Dunno in what condition i will return...will it be a victorious one to write the main examination or will i come back cloaked in failure, shrink away from my friends and pack my bags to again hesitantly head away to some distant land...i guess time will tell.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Mandate for a Time-Freeze???
The elections are over...I felt depressed seeing the difference in calibre of the two left leaders who won...buddadheb in bengal, looking at the way ahead for his state and asking young men who left its soil to return, talking astutely on a wide range of opportunities for bengal and vs achuthanandan in kerala on the other hand looking back into the past and raising his bogeys of forest mafias and sex scandals and of the great foreign investment conspiracy!
The Congress didnt do badly...all over the state from trivandrum to kasargod all the congress leaders with a mass-base and who consider themselves answerabile to the people...have won belying all predictions!! Oommen Chandy's victory in Puthupally, G.Karthikeyan in Aryanad, Aryadan Mohammed in Nilambur, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan in Adoor, K.C.Venugopal in Alappuzha, C.P.Mohammed in Pattambi, etc, etc are just some of the names i need to mention. Even when everyone predicted the UDF would go down I always had this feeling that several Congressmen who had worked hard in their constituencies would still romp home comfortably.
The DICK as predicted by all is over as a party...it was tragi-comic to see Mr.K in tears...the kingman of kerala politics looks set to waste away in oblivion(ouch...i feel the cruelty of my own words!). I have a suggestion for K.Muraleedharan...with all the allegedly immense wealth he has inherited, should get into film production and save our poor cinema industry. The Muslim League is finally paying for ignoring the poor people who have been their votebank for ages...I really dont think fundamental groups like PDP and Jamaat mattered too much...their leaders had lost their abiding link with the masses. Anways, sad to see Dr.M.K.Muneer who was an intelligent leader too getting felled. And to make it super-sweet all those good-for-nothing allies of the udf jss of gowriamma, mv raghavan of cmp, the rsp's, the kerala congresses of balakrishan pillai and tm jacob(now erstwhile!) have bitten the dust...next elections i'd like to see young congressmen get to become ministers instead of these big guns who've been ministers for too long and had just as much vision as their failing eyes afforded them!!!
Coming back to the cpm...there's a lot of things to cheer about too...there are some capable and reform-minded men among their midst too...Thomas Isaac, M.A.Baby, P.J.Joseph and some really decent men like Paloli Mohammed Kutty, N.K.Premachandran, Ramachandran Kadannapally, etc who will be becoming ministers. Lets hope for the very best from them. And another interesting thing to note is that more than 130 of our mla's are atleast graduates which is great but when we juxtapose them with national level leaders of cpm, inc, bjp we find they pale out in terms of their fluency in english, and media charm...no wonder most of the mp's we vote from kerala are derided as backseaters in parliament...someday hope even that changes!!!
Well, i just wanted to key in a quick post, as a quick aside i'd like to report that the monsoon seems to have set in a few days earlier than the weathermen predicted as its been raining non-stop for the last 5-6 hours and getting back...everyone's crossing their fingers on the fate of kerala, but then lets face it, there's a huge class-divide here. the peasant and labour class root for everything v.s.achuthanandan stands for while we the middle classes cant bear his sight for a second. Kerala has kept its date with its past and voted out an incumbent, sadly this was a well-performing one. It wont be long before the new govt gets into its act, spells out its policies and shows where its political and economical leanings lie...until then i'll wait in silence and not rant and rave anymore about a missed opportunity!!!!
The Congress didnt do badly...all over the state from trivandrum to kasargod all the congress leaders with a mass-base and who consider themselves answerabile to the people...have won belying all predictions!! Oommen Chandy's victory in Puthupally, G.Karthikeyan in Aryanad, Aryadan Mohammed in Nilambur, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan in Adoor, K.C.Venugopal in Alappuzha, C.P.Mohammed in Pattambi, etc, etc are just some of the names i need to mention. Even when everyone predicted the UDF would go down I always had this feeling that several Congressmen who had worked hard in their constituencies would still romp home comfortably.
The DICK as predicted by all is over as a party...it was tragi-comic to see Mr.K in tears...the kingman of kerala politics looks set to waste away in oblivion(ouch...i feel the cruelty of my own words!). I have a suggestion for K.Muraleedharan...with all the allegedly immense wealth he has inherited, should get into film production and save our poor cinema industry. The Muslim League is finally paying for ignoring the poor people who have been their votebank for ages...I really dont think fundamental groups like PDP and Jamaat mattered too much...their leaders had lost their abiding link with the masses. Anways, sad to see Dr.M.K.Muneer who was an intelligent leader too getting felled. And to make it super-sweet all those good-for-nothing allies of the udf jss of gowriamma, mv raghavan of cmp, the rsp's, the kerala congresses of balakrishan pillai and tm jacob(now erstwhile!) have bitten the dust...next elections i'd like to see young congressmen get to become ministers instead of these big guns who've been ministers for too long and had just as much vision as their failing eyes afforded them!!!
Coming back to the cpm...there's a lot of things to cheer about too...there are some capable and reform-minded men among their midst too...Thomas Isaac, M.A.Baby, P.J.Joseph and some really decent men like Paloli Mohammed Kutty, N.K.Premachandran, Ramachandran Kadannapally, etc who will be becoming ministers. Lets hope for the very best from them. And another interesting thing to note is that more than 130 of our mla's are atleast graduates which is great but when we juxtapose them with national level leaders of cpm, inc, bjp we find they pale out in terms of their fluency in english, and media charm...no wonder most of the mp's we vote from kerala are derided as backseaters in parliament...someday hope even that changes!!!
Well, i just wanted to key in a quick post, as a quick aside i'd like to report that the monsoon seems to have set in a few days earlier than the weathermen predicted as its been raining non-stop for the last 5-6 hours and getting back...everyone's crossing their fingers on the fate of kerala, but then lets face it, there's a huge class-divide here. the peasant and labour class root for everything v.s.achuthanandan stands for while we the middle classes cant bear his sight for a second. Kerala has kept its date with its past and voted out an incumbent, sadly this was a well-performing one. It wont be long before the new govt gets into its act, spells out its policies and shows where its political and economical leanings lie...until then i'll wait in silence and not rant and rave anymore about a missed opportunity!!!!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Taking a Tag Break...
Well the tension is hitting home with less than 3 weeks now for the exams...neways took a welcome break with this crazy tag thanks to Mind Curry. Still got to crack Pappanabhan which I'll leave for the next time, I need to chillout!!!
1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
Well line 4 here is pretty boring...but Line 1 of this page is funny...infact very relevant for todays times..."The Ass Who Lost Three Kingdoms for a Mass", a comment on King JamesII and Aurangzeb in one of my history books.
2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
Aaha...nalla viyarppu vaada!!! Time for the next shower!!!
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Just flicked thru the channels...my interesting hobby these days more than watching anything is finding out whether IBN or NDTV, or the news-programs on Asianet or Kairali or Indiavision...which channels actually hold my interest for more than a minute.
4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
6:55pm
5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
7:00pm
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Oddly nothing significant...tvm is a real quiet city!
7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
My terrace...stargazing, citygazing, while deep in thought. i have a beautiful view of the pattom st.mary's cathedral on one side, and miles and miles of coconut trees which stretches all the way to akulam lake(which cant be seen unforunately!) on the other side.
8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Some of my blogpals who had already taken this tag
9. What are you wearing?
Canyon River Blues shirt and a green lungi with white spots!!!
10. Did you dream last night?
I am a big waste of time...sadly can never remember any of my nighttime dreams and so indulge in day-dreaming.
11. When did you last laugh?
Cant remember...havent met any of my friends for more than a week now!!!
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
On one side, there's a library of my dads sociology books and a diminishing set of my books which he's dumped elsewhere in my absence, then there's a clock on copper-plate shaped like the african continent pops procured during one of his travels, an image of mary, and some other stuff...which i dont know what to call.
13. Seen anything weird lately?
A beggar stuffed with money in both his fists...and outstretching those same hands for more...new logic, fit for Kerala, i guess!!!
14. What do you think of this quiz?
Its ok...i havent dug into myself too deep lately, as is my wont!
15. What is the last film you saw?
Chinthamani Kola Case...(no comments!)
16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
The Kerala Government...if they'd sell...I'd appoint 20 idealistic people like MindCurry, Puthiya Viplavam and a dozen other bloggers coz its their kind of thought that is absent in Kerala today!!!
17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.
I cant ride a bike...embarassing, but then i am scared of bikes...so never considered it a big loss.
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Religion...for children it may still be a must...but why are 21st century adults still wasting theirs and others time, energy, life and humanity in this madness!
19. Do you like to dance?
Yes...have a few beers, close friends, some adipoli 80's-early 90's malayalam songs to go with it...otherwise i'd be as stiff as a scarecrow, i always wonder how just a can of beer can have that loosening effect!!
20. George Bush.
From Above..."The Ass Who Lost Three Kingdoms for a Mass"
21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Oru daughterrr poyittu oru kalyanam polum kazhikkaan enikke ee janmathil yogam kaanunnilla...hehe!!!
22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Dhaande enne veendum vadiyaakaan oru chodyam!
23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Haha...well this question, has come a bit too late...ideally i want to live in india and kerala and trivandrum from now on...its a question of the work i have to do to feed my stomach, that determines where i go from here!
24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
At the pearly gates, HE'd tell me..."You can wait there, apologize to all the people you wronged, as they come in and then i may consider letting you in"
25. 5 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
The funny thing abt tags is you feel reluctant while you are tagged, but the moment you take it up, nothing could be more fun. Anyways what was the purpose of this tag in the first place??? Guess its passed around just coz of the amazing solidarity of all our mallu bloggers. Anways most of the blogpals I know have been tagged, but anyone of you who hasnt been, please take it up and we'll all enjoy reading it.
1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
Well line 4 here is pretty boring...but Line 1 of this page is funny...infact very relevant for todays times..."The Ass Who Lost Three Kingdoms for a Mass", a comment on King JamesII and Aurangzeb in one of my history books.
2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
Aaha...nalla viyarppu vaada!!! Time for the next shower!!!
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Just flicked thru the channels...my interesting hobby these days more than watching anything is finding out whether IBN or NDTV, or the news-programs on Asianet or Kairali or Indiavision...which channels actually hold my interest for more than a minute.
4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
6:55pm
5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
7:00pm
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Oddly nothing significant...tvm is a real quiet city!
7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
My terrace...stargazing, citygazing, while deep in thought. i have a beautiful view of the pattom st.mary's cathedral on one side, and miles and miles of coconut trees which stretches all the way to akulam lake(which cant be seen unforunately!) on the other side.
8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Some of my blogpals who had already taken this tag
9. What are you wearing?
Canyon River Blues shirt and a green lungi with white spots!!!
10. Did you dream last night?
I am a big waste of time...sadly can never remember any of my nighttime dreams and so indulge in day-dreaming.
11. When did you last laugh?
Cant remember...havent met any of my friends for more than a week now!!!
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
On one side, there's a library of my dads sociology books and a diminishing set of my books which he's dumped elsewhere in my absence, then there's a clock on copper-plate shaped like the african continent pops procured during one of his travels, an image of mary, and some other stuff...which i dont know what to call.
13. Seen anything weird lately?
A beggar stuffed with money in both his fists...and outstretching those same hands for more...new logic, fit for Kerala, i guess!!!
14. What do you think of this quiz?
Its ok...i havent dug into myself too deep lately, as is my wont!
15. What is the last film you saw?
Chinthamani Kola Case...(no comments!)
16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
The Kerala Government...if they'd sell...I'd appoint 20 idealistic people like MindCurry, Puthiya Viplavam and a dozen other bloggers coz its their kind of thought that is absent in Kerala today!!!
17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.
I cant ride a bike...embarassing, but then i am scared of bikes...so never considered it a big loss.
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Religion...for children it may still be a must...but why are 21st century adults still wasting theirs and others time, energy, life and humanity in this madness!
19. Do you like to dance?
Yes...have a few beers, close friends, some adipoli 80's-early 90's malayalam songs to go with it...otherwise i'd be as stiff as a scarecrow, i always wonder how just a can of beer can have that loosening effect!!
20. George Bush.
From Above..."The Ass Who Lost Three Kingdoms for a Mass"
21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Oru daughterrr poyittu oru kalyanam polum kazhikkaan enikke ee janmathil yogam kaanunnilla...hehe!!!
22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Dhaande enne veendum vadiyaakaan oru chodyam!
23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Haha...well this question, has come a bit too late...ideally i want to live in india and kerala and trivandrum from now on...its a question of the work i have to do to feed my stomach, that determines where i go from here!
24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
At the pearly gates, HE'd tell me..."You can wait there, apologize to all the people you wronged, as they come in and then i may consider letting you in"
25. 5 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
The funny thing abt tags is you feel reluctant while you are tagged, but the moment you take it up, nothing could be more fun. Anyways what was the purpose of this tag in the first place??? Guess its passed around just coz of the amazing solidarity of all our mallu bloggers. Anways most of the blogpals I know have been tagged, but anyone of you who hasnt been, please take it up and we'll all enjoy reading it.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
View from a Hospital Bedside...
When Rajkumar died and Bangalore's anti-socials ran riot i never thought the madness would hit so close to home. My dad got stuck in a Bangalore University guesthouse without food, water and electricity and coz he is diabetic had to eat and was forced into having some real crap food procured from god knows where. Anways he landed home with stomach ache, which "upgraded" to pneumonia! I first took him to the medical college coz he knew the gastro professors there and the great work done by the doctors and the nurses at medical college despite the huge crowds of ppl, the absence of infrastructure and overall shabbiness around them really touched me...the medical college is one place where I regret I was never gifted with enough perseverance to become a doctor!!! But then, when I see young doctors, I somehow manage to get depressed...these young people had to slog their way to get thru the kerala entrance while we engineers breezed in...and finally of the 600 odd MBBS grads(nowadays i think its 1000) coming out of Kerala just 10-20 make it to the PG's every year...such a waste of brilliance which anywhere else in the world would have been encouraged to pursue their studies to their hearts content but then these are some of the contradictions we sort of reconcile with in India.
Anyways like most people nowadays who just dont feel safe at a govt hospital, he asked to be moved to a private super-speciality(i wonder what that means...does super-speciality stand for the huge bills) and there despite the great infrastructure and lesser number of patients, the lack of efficiency and a galling lack of urgency really pissed me off. I can cite so many examples...my dad is pretty touchy on food and within a day he got fed up of kanji and kept demanding and getting spicy, oily food from the hospital itself until the doc-in-charge found out...i wonder where the dietician was!!! The professor at medical college was telling me how by just charging Rs.250 for an ultrasound the gastro=department was abe to finance its operations completely without depending on govt aid besides giving free medical care to deserving 20% of patients while private hospitals charge anywhere between 1000-1500 for the ultrasound. But then I guess people who can afford to pay the money shouldnt complain, i guess...but it strengthens the role and importance of goverment hospitals in health-care more than ever. The prof at medical college on coming to know I was a US-returnee and preparing for the civil services talked to me for over an hour opening my eyes to several changes he was crusading for within the govt and how he had been able to lay down the beginnings of computerization, his experiences at the Global Investor Meet and more...I think I'll leave all that for another post.
Even in the US, private medicare and health insurance is a big scam, so there's no point grumbling about it. There was this tragi-comic incident of my usc mallu-junior who fainted when he had fever and his roomies getting scared rushing him to hospital and after 3 days there, which among other tests included almost a 10 inch long injection for testing for meningitis(in his words..."aliya, aa sooji kandappazhe pedichu njan...kuniche nirthi ente spinal fluid ootti eduthade...i cried for help....i shouted out to the nurse that i was admitted with just a fever and she mas making a mistake...i went dizzy after that for 5-6 hours"...on getting back home he was thrusted with a bill for $26000 of which 90% was covered by insurance and he had to put in $2600...angry at his roomies who took him to hospital he said..."dey, ineem njan chaakaan kedannalum $1000 koduthe enikke indiayilekke oru two-way flight ticket eduthe thannaal mathi"!!!! We used to laugh so much about that but secretly dreaded paying a visit to a hospital ever since. Anways, the incidents of the last week forced me to leave the comforts of the home and into the heat and humidity, with my mom away I had to take things into my hands and I was doing a good job balacing my study and the hospital until the viral flu mowed me down a few days back. I have said earlier how much my friends keep motivating me...anways all this reminded me of an email one of my friends, motta sent in, some time back to pep 5-6 of our schoolmates who were almost done with their house surgency at tvm medical college and were beginning to prepare for the PG Medical Entrance and were unsure if the effort was going to be worth it. Moving over to the email which I have just copied and pasted...didnt feel like taking even a word out...
"hi guys,
its been a real long time since i have sent in a mail to the group and this time i am doing it to thank a few guys of our batch whom i now consider the most important to all of us...THE DOCTORS IN OUR FAMILY!! A few months back one of my friends met with an accident.this is one among my other set of friends in town.we took him to medical college casualty.you know how crowded the place is,we knew no one there.then i thought about chucks,i gave him a ring,he was on his way back home after 20 or 30 hours of work,a very tired guy.but....he came back,helped us,took care of a lot of things that would not have been possible had he not come,all these for a guy whom he not knew not till then,but just because he was my friend.
then on the 13th of this month,all of us class mates had met,including chakks, raman, paili, chairman and the others.i had to go home early so i bid goodnight and was on my way back home when another of my friends called me up and told me his father was being taken to medical college,he was crying over the phone,there was no one with him,i rushed to the hospital,his father was in a very weak condition,his eye sight had reduced ,he couldnt stand up nor speak,his mother was also ther,i was wondering what i could do.then i thought of the doctors in our family .i rang up chucks and spoke to pili.he told me he knew one of the guys sitting in the casualty,he told me he will ring him up and let me know .5 mins later he rang me up and asked to meet a guy called sunish,paili had already spoken to him.i went met sunish,a gem of a guy,he helped us out(he had been in hospital for almost 24 hrs continuously working,u can imagine what sort ofg a position he was in then)thnax to his efforts we were able to shift his father to a ward that night itself.i know you guys know how hard it is to get it done so soon. i left hospital by 11.30 that night.i knew paili had night duty on that day.at about 12 i got a call from paili,he told me he had met my friend's father and gave me a small briefing on what must be the reason for his disease.i was so stunned. eda paili had gone and seen him just because i had told him he was my friends father,i was so happy,i conveyed the message to my friend who was so releived. two days later paili called me up and gave me another feedback on his fathers situation.today i had gone to see uncle and i came across sunish(the doctot i mentioned earlier)he came with me,went through uncles scan reports and all and told us not to worry and that everything was fine.he also promised to come and monitor uncle's progress whenever he had time.
GUYS,i just realised how important these doctors were to all of us.just because i told them these guys or people were someone i knew they put in all their effort to do what was best.i know they are doing the same to all the people coming there and that too in circumstances most unfavourable.i conside their conditions unfavourable cos no ac rooms,no rest,no holidays, hours and hours of work, their working conditions, all unfavourable compared to our working enviorns...i just dont know how to thank you guys,CHAKKA, PAILI, RAMAN, PASHU, ASHISH, wherever you guys are i know you guys are doing the best job among the whole lot of us and your work is the most admired not just by our batch but the whole lot of people around you. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST AND REST OF US ARE REAL PROUD TO HAVE U GUYS AS DOCTORS IN OUR FAMILY.THANX GUYS...THANX A LOT"
Anyways like most people nowadays who just dont feel safe at a govt hospital, he asked to be moved to a private super-speciality(i wonder what that means...does super-speciality stand for the huge bills) and there despite the great infrastructure and lesser number of patients, the lack of efficiency and a galling lack of urgency really pissed me off. I can cite so many examples...my dad is pretty touchy on food and within a day he got fed up of kanji and kept demanding and getting spicy, oily food from the hospital itself until the doc-in-charge found out...i wonder where the dietician was!!! The professor at medical college was telling me how by just charging Rs.250 for an ultrasound the gastro=department was abe to finance its operations completely without depending on govt aid besides giving free medical care to deserving 20% of patients while private hospitals charge anywhere between 1000-1500 for the ultrasound. But then I guess people who can afford to pay the money shouldnt complain, i guess...but it strengthens the role and importance of goverment hospitals in health-care more than ever. The prof at medical college on coming to know I was a US-returnee and preparing for the civil services talked to me for over an hour opening my eyes to several changes he was crusading for within the govt and how he had been able to lay down the beginnings of computerization, his experiences at the Global Investor Meet and more...I think I'll leave all that for another post.
Even in the US, private medicare and health insurance is a big scam, so there's no point grumbling about it. There was this tragi-comic incident of my usc mallu-junior who fainted when he had fever and his roomies getting scared rushing him to hospital and after 3 days there, which among other tests included almost a 10 inch long injection for testing for meningitis(in his words..."aliya, aa sooji kandappazhe pedichu njan...kuniche nirthi ente spinal fluid ootti eduthade...i cried for help....i shouted out to the nurse that i was admitted with just a fever and she mas making a mistake...i went dizzy after that for 5-6 hours"...on getting back home he was thrusted with a bill for $26000 of which 90% was covered by insurance and he had to put in $2600...angry at his roomies who took him to hospital he said..."dey, ineem njan chaakaan kedannalum $1000 koduthe enikke indiayilekke oru two-way flight ticket eduthe thannaal mathi"!!!! We used to laugh so much about that but secretly dreaded paying a visit to a hospital ever since. Anways, the incidents of the last week forced me to leave the comforts of the home and into the heat and humidity, with my mom away I had to take things into my hands and I was doing a good job balacing my study and the hospital until the viral flu mowed me down a few days back. I have said earlier how much my friends keep motivating me...anways all this reminded me of an email one of my friends, motta sent in, some time back to pep 5-6 of our schoolmates who were almost done with their house surgency at tvm medical college and were beginning to prepare for the PG Medical Entrance and were unsure if the effort was going to be worth it. Moving over to the email which I have just copied and pasted...didnt feel like taking even a word out...
"hi guys,
its been a real long time since i have sent in a mail to the group and this time i am doing it to thank a few guys of our batch whom i now consider the most important to all of us...THE DOCTORS IN OUR FAMILY!! A few months back one of my friends met with an accident.this is one among my other set of friends in town.we took him to medical college casualty.you know how crowded the place is,we knew no one there.then i thought about chucks,i gave him a ring,he was on his way back home after 20 or 30 hours of work,a very tired guy.but....he came back,helped us,took care of a lot of things that would not have been possible had he not come,all these for a guy whom he not knew not till then,but just because he was my friend.
then on the 13th of this month,all of us class mates had met,including chakks, raman, paili, chairman and the others.i had to go home early so i bid goodnight and was on my way back home when another of my friends called me up and told me his father was being taken to medical college,he was crying over the phone,there was no one with him,i rushed to the hospital,his father was in a very weak condition,his eye sight had reduced ,he couldnt stand up nor speak,his mother was also ther,i was wondering what i could do.then i thought of the doctors in our family .i rang up chucks and spoke to pili.he told me he knew one of the guys sitting in the casualty,he told me he will ring him up and let me know .5 mins later he rang me up and asked to meet a guy called sunish,paili had already spoken to him.i went met sunish,a gem of a guy,he helped us out(he had been in hospital for almost 24 hrs continuously working,u can imagine what sort ofg a position he was in then)thnax to his efforts we were able to shift his father to a ward that night itself.i know you guys know how hard it is to get it done so soon. i left hospital by 11.30 that night.i knew paili had night duty on that day.at about 12 i got a call from paili,he told me he had met my friend's father and gave me a small briefing on what must be the reason for his disease.i was so stunned. eda paili had gone and seen him just because i had told him he was my friends father,i was so happy,i conveyed the message to my friend who was so releived. two days later paili called me up and gave me another feedback on his fathers situation.today i had gone to see uncle and i came across sunish(the doctot i mentioned earlier)he came with me,went through uncles scan reports and all and told us not to worry and that everything was fine.he also promised to come and monitor uncle's progress whenever he had time.
GUYS,i just realised how important these doctors were to all of us.just because i told them these guys or people were someone i knew they put in all their effort to do what was best.i know they are doing the same to all the people coming there and that too in circumstances most unfavourable.i conside their conditions unfavourable cos no ac rooms,no rest,no holidays, hours and hours of work, their working conditions, all unfavourable compared to our working enviorns...i just dont know how to thank you guys,CHAKKA, PAILI, RAMAN, PASHU, ASHISH, wherever you guys are i know you guys are doing the best job among the whole lot of us and your work is the most admired not just by our batch but the whole lot of people around you. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST AND REST OF US ARE REAL PROUD TO HAVE U GUYS AS DOCTORS IN OUR FAMILY.THANX GUYS...THANX A LOT"
Friday, April 14, 2006
Dividing, Young India...
Woe Befall Thee, Arjun Singh!!
He is proof that senile men should be forcefully retired from politics. With Manmohan Singh's break with the Left getting pronounced day by day, is this his latest gimmick to position himself as the next in line for PMship??? The added reservation foisted on Central Universities for OBC's, will ring the deathbells for many a promising youngster, whose only fault has been to be born in the General Category segment. The people of this country have gracefully accepted every reservation up till now including the Mandal Commission but how will they tolerate such injustice perpetrated on their children's education. At a time when Indian talent is taking the world by storm, it seems our government is bent on reining them in. If casteism still stays strong then look no further...the inconsiderate application of reservations still keeps this decadent concept fresh in our young people's mind in an age when rational thought and modern education could easily have swept these anachronisms away.
I have had a private education all my life and it never mattered to me who was nair, ezhava, muslim or christian but what about others who depend on the Government to educate their children? In Delhi, I saw a student community indescribably saddened, frustrated and helpless at how the best education still lay beyond their reach and kept getting tougher...all for votebank politics. Their angst has begun to almost border on hatred and I hope more cultured voices in the Government can talk sense into Arjun. The communal, linguistic and regional divide could not fracture India, but this one I feel threatens the very idea of being an Indian for many youngsters. It takes a Rang De Basanti to remind young students of their duty to the nation, but then it just takes an Arjun Singh to remind them of the grimmer details of Indian life...that the Indian standing next to him/her may have a different caste, religion and better opportunities for material advancement.
Where's The Creamy Layer??? The benefits of reservation, I beleive in a majority still go to the creamy layer of India's reserved segment...the most deserving continue to be oppressed by everyone for their selfish needs. Even in a state like Kerala where unemployment is the bane of every section of the population the govt implemented the Narendran Commission report for certain communities instead of on the basis of the economic status of all deserving applicants(which would have been such a progressive step for a state that prides its social development indices).
So where does this leave us Indians. Its easy to by cynical, indifferent and pathetic. For all the good the UPA did, everything stands reversed with a dying politician's last attempt at recapturing centrestage...what can we do??? Do we go ahead with a belief that private universities will come up that lessens our dependence on the government, do we go ahead beleiving banks will offer us student loans for financing our education in these private univs which will invariably be more expensive, or do we tolerate and accept gracefully this new social welfare measure. A set of pathbreaking economic reforms bailed our country out of a looming social crisis of urban unemployment...I foresee the regressive paths we take today will lead soon to an educational crisis and then a revolution too...in the ultra-competitive country we are becoming now its becoming impossible to keep our youth in chains any longer...I dont think the buoyancy in our economy is just a mirage and fuelled solely by outsourcing...it has been fuelled by vast availability of an educated workforce allowed to unleash their potential.
In the not-too distant future I foresee the setting up of private universities of the calibre of Stanford and Harvard in our country ..the demurring voices of Ratan Tata and Narayana Murthy to the new set of reservations could be indications of how usefully these decent men intend to spent their soon-to-be-retired lives to be remembered for eternity (how abt a Tata University?!). Well what I said above is the rosy future...but today, reservations have gone far beyond all sane limits and is serving gross inequalities to huge numbers of young Indians without offering equal alternatives in place. Ultimately, and in the meantime I feel sorry for one huge section, the poor, general category student...where will he find his place...in reserved government education or expensive private institutions...who will fight for his lost cause???
He is proof that senile men should be forcefully retired from politics. With Manmohan Singh's break with the Left getting pronounced day by day, is this his latest gimmick to position himself as the next in line for PMship??? The added reservation foisted on Central Universities for OBC's, will ring the deathbells for many a promising youngster, whose only fault has been to be born in the General Category segment. The people of this country have gracefully accepted every reservation up till now including the Mandal Commission but how will they tolerate such injustice perpetrated on their children's education. At a time when Indian talent is taking the world by storm, it seems our government is bent on reining them in. If casteism still stays strong then look no further...the inconsiderate application of reservations still keeps this decadent concept fresh in our young people's mind in an age when rational thought and modern education could easily have swept these anachronisms away.
I have had a private education all my life and it never mattered to me who was nair, ezhava, muslim or christian but what about others who depend on the Government to educate their children? In Delhi, I saw a student community indescribably saddened, frustrated and helpless at how the best education still lay beyond their reach and kept getting tougher...all for votebank politics. Their angst has begun to almost border on hatred and I hope more cultured voices in the Government can talk sense into Arjun. The communal, linguistic and regional divide could not fracture India, but this one I feel threatens the very idea of being an Indian for many youngsters. It takes a Rang De Basanti to remind young students of their duty to the nation, but then it just takes an Arjun Singh to remind them of the grimmer details of Indian life...that the Indian standing next to him/her may have a different caste, religion and better opportunities for material advancement.
Where's The Creamy Layer??? The benefits of reservation, I beleive in a majority still go to the creamy layer of India's reserved segment...the most deserving continue to be oppressed by everyone for their selfish needs. Even in a state like Kerala where unemployment is the bane of every section of the population the govt implemented the Narendran Commission report for certain communities instead of on the basis of the economic status of all deserving applicants(which would have been such a progressive step for a state that prides its social development indices).
So where does this leave us Indians. Its easy to by cynical, indifferent and pathetic. For all the good the UPA did, everything stands reversed with a dying politician's last attempt at recapturing centrestage...what can we do??? Do we go ahead with a belief that private universities will come up that lessens our dependence on the government, do we go ahead beleiving banks will offer us student loans for financing our education in these private univs which will invariably be more expensive, or do we tolerate and accept gracefully this new social welfare measure. A set of pathbreaking economic reforms bailed our country out of a looming social crisis of urban unemployment...I foresee the regressive paths we take today will lead soon to an educational crisis and then a revolution too...in the ultra-competitive country we are becoming now its becoming impossible to keep our youth in chains any longer...I dont think the buoyancy in our economy is just a mirage and fuelled solely by outsourcing...it has been fuelled by vast availability of an educated workforce allowed to unleash their potential.
In the not-too distant future I foresee the setting up of private universities of the calibre of Stanford and Harvard in our country ..the demurring voices of Ratan Tata and Narayana Murthy to the new set of reservations could be indications of how usefully these decent men intend to spent their soon-to-be-retired lives to be remembered for eternity (how abt a Tata University?!). Well what I said above is the rosy future...but today, reservations have gone far beyond all sane limits and is serving gross inequalities to huge numbers of young Indians without offering equal alternatives in place. Ultimately, and in the meantime I feel sorry for one huge section, the poor, general category student...where will he find his place...in reserved government education or expensive private institutions...who will fight for his lost cause???
Monday, April 10, 2006
Of Bungling Lovers, And Their Tales...
Whats funny these days is the amazing candour with which we discuss a subject that was among the most taboo and worst kept secrets in school and college life...love! Back then, it was an affair of private despair clumsily stashed away very from public glare in the deepest recesses of the mind, only to be reopened, mulled at, strategised, procrastinated and once in a while mustering the guts to make a public airing of feelings. Today with the girls who then captivated our hearts married and gone, we look back and laugh at all the embarassingly funny situations that infatuation, love and trying hard to keep the affairs of the heart secret produced. I had the good fortune to study with a huge set of dimwits from school through college who conceived ideas of megalomanical proportions to win over the ladies, and though we knew how bound for failure they were, yet we would prod them on in their heroics for a good laugh later on at the unfortunate victims expense. Today those duffers regret their heroics as even years later because of unforgiving, unforgetting friends using those mistakes to have a jolly, good laugh at reunions and idiots like me blogging those down for eternity.
School was the heyday of infatuations. What made our situation more precarious was that we kept Vishwamitranian ideals and a belief that girls entering the fold would damage our batch's unity. But boys will be boys, and from motta who could find his way to a gals heart so easily that we would stand respectfully at his side trying to get the "mullapoonkodiyettu kedakkum" effect to the forever love-lorn chunni to the tough and hardy hooper, everyday in schoollife had a most hilarious outpouring of somebody's woes, another's gaffes and someone's successes to narrate. As for me, I remember waiting for my crush, all over the place from Nanthencode Junction to Pattom
LIC wondering what mode of transport she used and finally giving up that tactic when she arrived with a policeman for escort...her dad wuz an IPS officer!!! But what took the cake was a love rectangle shaping up in class and Hooper forming a planning board with a few guys to deduce who the gal was interested in, and finally for all his efforts landing up with a nickname chairman which still stands! Well that was not the end of chairman's travails as he used sentiments to appeal to an HAC gal and she broke into tears in the middle of Statue Junction with hundreds of people watching and abba and gundu who accompanied chairman, running away with chair trying his best to console her... that was the last i ever heard of chairmans tryst with the fairer sex. Infact something happened so reminescent of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar that we would tell muthu, "ninakkum oru waste penninum vendi loyolites peruvazhiyil chenne adiyondaakenda gathikedayi"!!! There are so many more tales that merited mention here but due to lack of space you readers could look up this link
College brought on dilemmas of the same nature as school. I again fell into the hands of a dedicated gang of rogues whose first priorities were mischief and adventure and who considered love and gals as waste of time and money. But then human nature has a way of asserting itself...viswan soon began writing love poems, shan began to study hard to catch up, kiran went from gyms to diets to naturopathy to loose weight, anoop trying to be quiet and obedient in class, i would try my hand at sitting studiously in the frontbenches...oh, unforgettable all our experiements at taming our wild ways and finding a path to reform! None of it really worked...we would think to ourselves, "ithinokke oru knack venam enne thonnunnu" and return to what we were best at...movies, cricket, booze and alambufying in class. Still remember the day Kevin hit on a novel way to propose to his lady love...got a t-shirt specially painted with a "Right Here Waiting for You" caption and borrowed a bike and a sunglass, waited for her at the college entrance and the gal walked right by giving just a smile and not making much of the hardly crafted tshirt. We then decided a more direct, "I love you" painted tshirt could do the trick but by then poor kevin had enough!!! Or the day Viswan got his first love letter, thanks to Yours Truely's nascent writing ability, arriving late in class that day with a most bewildered look on him...taking a seat somewhere in the front, and every few mins looking back sharply at us as we struggled to maintain a straight face and then at the unsuspecting girl, trying to glean where
exactly the change in his life's fortunes emanated from! The mutual distrust among our guys was so great...there were surprise visits to each others house, complete ransacking of computers, bnedrooms, almirahs for personal diary's and other incriminating evidences there were times the savages actually dreaded each other...actually we couldnt blame each other...shan's fone bill, viswan going to ponmudi or kovalam without us, i once went to a coffee shop and the next day as I gingerly stepped into class a shout from viswan, "Eda Kalla Kattankappi, nee aalu kollamallo" and the sinking feeling of embarassment with me wondering despite all precautions how they found out, chakkas secret visits to the gyms and so many more incidents always raised our suspicions...and at the other end of the spectrum there was arun hari who in between playing super spy and enfant terrible to us would "silently" scream at us with a "look at me, learn from me" attitude on how to lead life.
Its time to wind up this post...but i need to mention this incident from cet of a guy who was hellbent on eloping with his girlfriend, despite both sets of parents agreeing to a marriage that he took along with him goondas to whom he lied that the gal was in house arrest, tied up the gals parents, and strutted out with the gal and when the gals father told the truth of the story to the goondas, it wass the guy's turn to get thrashed by the goondas and spent a few days in hospital. Unbelievable...none of us ever understood his logic...whoever said love is blind could never have forseen such a situation...beats even the most twisted bollywood romance!! And to call it quits this last anecdote, may be the best of our schoolife...the gal who cried above drove into her akarshana valayam another of our classmates who started to excuse himself everytime with a strange excuse..."ente oru thengum purayadathil, thenga pothikkan pokanam" and once after tuition he used this excuse and left while chairman and the other guys proceeded to the above said gal's house and surprised on seeing our new romeo at his flame's place, chairman in anger
and jest tells the gal, "Ivide thenga kedappondo...ivan nannayi pothiche tharum"!!!...Oh My God, incidents like this as i have never been tired of saying made our school one of the most extraordinary experiences of our lifteime. Like its funny side, many of us experienced its sadder side too but with time, the scars heel and what remains is a wealth of humor that love and infatuations contributed. Well, unfortunately there's no way to rewind time, but there's always going to be days when I can unwind and laugh and wonder what an amazing maze of feelings, experiences and embarassments litters a man's path to maturity and adulthood. Back to my books now...hope I dont get lynched for this post!!!
School was the heyday of infatuations. What made our situation more precarious was that we kept Vishwamitranian ideals and a belief that girls entering the fold would damage our batch's unity. But boys will be boys, and from motta who could find his way to a gals heart so easily that we would stand respectfully at his side trying to get the "mullapoonkodiyettu kedakkum" effect to the forever love-lorn chunni to the tough and hardy hooper, everyday in schoollife had a most hilarious outpouring of somebody's woes, another's gaffes and someone's successes to narrate. As for me, I remember waiting for my crush, all over the place from Nanthencode Junction to Pattom
LIC wondering what mode of transport she used and finally giving up that tactic when she arrived with a policeman for escort...her dad wuz an IPS officer!!! But what took the cake was a love rectangle shaping up in class and Hooper forming a planning board with a few guys to deduce who the gal was interested in, and finally for all his efforts landing up with a nickname chairman which still stands! Well that was not the end of chairman's travails as he used sentiments to appeal to an HAC gal and she broke into tears in the middle of Statue Junction with hundreds of people watching and abba and gundu who accompanied chairman, running away with chair trying his best to console her... that was the last i ever heard of chairmans tryst with the fairer sex. Infact something happened so reminescent of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar that we would tell muthu, "ninakkum oru waste penninum vendi loyolites peruvazhiyil chenne adiyondaakenda gathikedayi"!!! There are so many more tales that merited mention here but due to lack of space you readers could look up this link
College brought on dilemmas of the same nature as school. I again fell into the hands of a dedicated gang of rogues whose first priorities were mischief and adventure and who considered love and gals as waste of time and money. But then human nature has a way of asserting itself...viswan soon began writing love poems, shan began to study hard to catch up, kiran went from gyms to diets to naturopathy to loose weight, anoop trying to be quiet and obedient in class, i would try my hand at sitting studiously in the frontbenches...oh, unforgettable all our experiements at taming our wild ways and finding a path to reform! None of it really worked...we would think to ourselves, "ithinokke oru knack venam enne thonnunnu" and return to what we were best at...movies, cricket, booze and alambufying in class. Still remember the day Kevin hit on a novel way to propose to his lady love...got a t-shirt specially painted with a "Right Here Waiting for You" caption and borrowed a bike and a sunglass, waited for her at the college entrance and the gal walked right by giving just a smile and not making much of the hardly crafted tshirt. We then decided a more direct, "I love you" painted tshirt could do the trick but by then poor kevin had enough!!! Or the day Viswan got his first love letter, thanks to Yours Truely's nascent writing ability, arriving late in class that day with a most bewildered look on him...taking a seat somewhere in the front, and every few mins looking back sharply at us as we struggled to maintain a straight face and then at the unsuspecting girl, trying to glean where
exactly the change in his life's fortunes emanated from! The mutual distrust among our guys was so great...there were surprise visits to each others house, complete ransacking of computers, bnedrooms, almirahs for personal diary's and other incriminating evidences there were times the savages actually dreaded each other...actually we couldnt blame each other...shan's fone bill, viswan going to ponmudi or kovalam without us, i once went to a coffee shop and the next day as I gingerly stepped into class a shout from viswan, "Eda Kalla Kattankappi, nee aalu kollamallo" and the sinking feeling of embarassment with me wondering despite all precautions how they found out, chakkas secret visits to the gyms and so many more incidents always raised our suspicions...and at the other end of the spectrum there was arun hari who in between playing super spy and enfant terrible to us would "silently" scream at us with a "look at me, learn from me" attitude on how to lead life.
Its time to wind up this post...but i need to mention this incident from cet of a guy who was hellbent on eloping with his girlfriend, despite both sets of parents agreeing to a marriage that he took along with him goondas to whom he lied that the gal was in house arrest, tied up the gals parents, and strutted out with the gal and when the gals father told the truth of the story to the goondas, it wass the guy's turn to get thrashed by the goondas and spent a few days in hospital. Unbelievable...none of us ever understood his logic...whoever said love is blind could never have forseen such a situation...beats even the most twisted bollywood romance!! And to call it quits this last anecdote, may be the best of our schoolife...the gal who cried above drove into her akarshana valayam another of our classmates who started to excuse himself everytime with a strange excuse..."ente oru thengum purayadathil, thenga pothikkan pokanam" and once after tuition he used this excuse and left while chairman and the other guys proceeded to the above said gal's house and surprised on seeing our new romeo at his flame's place, chairman in anger
and jest tells the gal, "Ivide thenga kedappondo...ivan nannayi pothiche tharum"!!!...Oh My God, incidents like this as i have never been tired of saying made our school one of the most extraordinary experiences of our lifteime. Like its funny side, many of us experienced its sadder side too but with time, the scars heel and what remains is a wealth of humor that love and infatuations contributed. Well, unfortunately there's no way to rewind time, but there's always going to be days when I can unwind and laugh and wonder what an amazing maze of feelings, experiences and embarassments litters a man's path to maturity and adulthood. Back to my books now...hope I dont get lynched for this post!!!
Friday, April 07, 2006
Listen To Me, Kerala???
Landed in Tvm in the midst of the Mahabharata War...or it seems like that atleast...heated discussions everywhere...in homes, streetsides and family functions!!! In the most literate, politically aware state of India after weeks of precarious religion, caste, sex and regional balancing amidst an already tenuous tightrope of coalition politics to walk on, the allknowing Keralite looks all set to throw the Congress out of power for the next 5 years. Though I licked my lips in anticipation of being present in kerala at this time of the year something happened that made me swore not to even bother with politics anymore. It takes years to mould a man into a leader but it just takes a few mins of irresponsible politics and a false case to finish off his career. I am not giving names but when the person in question even sold his flat to raise money to be a representative of the people and then to see the trauma he and his family went through, I am convinced Hell, though debunked by theologians, cant yet close shop...there are politicians waiting outside with deep pockets and darker sins! So where do I start...should it be from Pinarayi blundering by not contesting so that he could keep "THE PARTY" under his amrpits, or from Oommen Chandy's superb strategy to keep the DICK out of the udf only to see it torpedoed by Antony aka The Saint, Veerappa Moily, Chennithala and Kunhalikutty, or Achuthanandan's rantings and ravings from Parassala to Kasargod of saving Kerala from a "development coterie". We'll leave politics at that. Lets see the pressing needs of Kerala over the next 5 years and what I think will be the fate of kerala whoever the next chief minister of kerala is.
What V.S can do...
1. Agricultural Revolution...Despite hundreds of tons of excess rice already being purchased by the govt to save the rice farmers(yeah we still grow rice...our high wages have made farmers take to rubber and other cash crops in large numbers only for achu to arrive on the scene and vettinerathufy) he will force more land to be brought under rice cultivation, that is if any is available.
2. No Foreign Capital - Kerala will have at the most a hundred millionaries(in dollars) and I doubt if even 10 of them will have the acumen for investing in an IT business. With Infy, Wipro, Satyam and TCS heavily committed to other states so where do we look to for trigerring off an already belated IT revolution in our state...like godsend the Dubai Internet City lands here in our lap and almost 2 years of talks, moratoriums and agreements everythings still on paper!!!
3. Leader of the Masses - VS is undoubtedly the leader of Kerala's unskilled labor class. As was evident from a small chayakada owner and acquaintance from my college days praising VS on his statements of ending corruption, blocking Smart City and bringing the rich and powerful of Kerala to book...what the poor guy doesnt realize is that the VS brand of socialism will do more harm to him than good...ppl like me fleeing kerala after college eludes him of business for a lifetime!!!
4. Old Age City - I can safely assume my colony to be a microcosm for Trivandrum at large. Everyone is either abroad, or in bangalore and everyone cribs of being given a fair chance to come back home. Impossible...everyone better save up their money and invest in apts or houses in whatever city you are based... 5 years of VS rule will kill any chances of an IT boom.
What Chandy can do...(Or a Pinarayi Too)
1.The most dynamic chief minister the state has ever had will stop at nothing to etch his name firmly in golden letters as modern kerala's architect . I firmly believe his promise of the IT Corridor in Tvm and the Smart City in Cochin will take shape. Infact if he comes to power I will certainly stay back in kerala and take part in its development either as a capitalist or an employee.
2.I believe if given another term he will lean towards ending the udf coalition and re-establishing single party rule in kerala. With the CPM already moving towards ending the hegemony of the eerkili parties in its fold I doubt whether the Congress can keep bending over its back any longer for groups like Muslim League, Kerala Congress and Dick.
What Kerala Really Needs...
1. Jobs, Jobs and Jobs...Having the highest unemployment rate in India is one distinction kerala can certainly do without.
2. College Education - An entire generation of youngsters like me has been ruined by the mediocre education dished out in our colleges to go with the archaic syllabi and "brainy" question papers set by our universities. My advice to kerala youngsters is...dont wait for graduation to flee kerala...Go Fly at 17!!!
3. More focussed governance - Kerala is just perfect for becoming a developed state in India. If only the govt could focus less of its energies on politics and more on its health, education and public works sector we could redeem our state from the intense stagnation that's setting in here with the onset of competitive private schools and hospitals which though they charge astronomic rates offer better salaries and services.
4. Prices - Despite increased privatisation, Kerala has been saved from inflation in essential services because of a combination of socialist parties, an activist media and people's attitudes. Today the consultation of even the best doctor in tvm is available to people, rich or poor...Lets all fight to keep our innate consumerist tendency at bay and indulge less or else it will be the poor of Kerala who suffer.
5. The People - If only Malayalis lived better in their home state! This is the most cliched yet most truest grouse of every nrk.
I dont know what this post intended to do. The few readers here will not vote...the masses of kerala out there who will sweat in the may sun to have ink smudged on their fingers have a mind of their own...they consider themselves, as knowledgeable as the newspapers they read. For many it doesnt matter who gets elected as long as the candidate will have a religion, caste or some identity similar to his or else he is a party worker waiting to reap the benefits of his hard campaigning by milking his local MLA. Well, if 125 odd years back, if papers like The Hindu, Amrit Bazaar Patrika and Kesari could rise amidst humble beginnings to awaken the nationalist spirit in Indians to challenge the might of the British Empire we bloggers could very well be forerunners of some future technological change that allows us freebooters to reach as many people as our newspapers which have succumbed to compulsions of ideology, populism or compromises. And heck yeah, who wants to be a journalist, when you can write all you wanted, without an editor waiting to cut you out!!!! This article concludes a series of posts I have written over the last one and a half years on why the Congress needs to be given another last chance to rule us and this should probably be the last post I'll ever write on our electoral politics. I am not a Congressman nor a Commie-hater, but even if one leading CPM leader came out with a development agenda, I too would have gone with the incumbency wave and supported them wholeheartedly. Lets wait and watch whats in store for the State...miracles could happen...maybe VS will go the Buddhadeb way...after all, there's nothing impossible in politics!
What V.S can do...
1. Agricultural Revolution...Despite hundreds of tons of excess rice already being purchased by the govt to save the rice farmers(yeah we still grow rice...our high wages have made farmers take to rubber and other cash crops in large numbers only for achu to arrive on the scene and vettinerathufy) he will force more land to be brought under rice cultivation, that is if any is available.
2. No Foreign Capital - Kerala will have at the most a hundred millionaries(in dollars) and I doubt if even 10 of them will have the acumen for investing in an IT business. With Infy, Wipro, Satyam and TCS heavily committed to other states so where do we look to for trigerring off an already belated IT revolution in our state...like godsend the Dubai Internet City lands here in our lap and almost 2 years of talks, moratoriums and agreements everythings still on paper!!!
3. Leader of the Masses - VS is undoubtedly the leader of Kerala's unskilled labor class. As was evident from a small chayakada owner and acquaintance from my college days praising VS on his statements of ending corruption, blocking Smart City and bringing the rich and powerful of Kerala to book...what the poor guy doesnt realize is that the VS brand of socialism will do more harm to him than good...ppl like me fleeing kerala after college eludes him of business for a lifetime!!!
4. Old Age City - I can safely assume my colony to be a microcosm for Trivandrum at large. Everyone is either abroad, or in bangalore and everyone cribs of being given a fair chance to come back home. Impossible...everyone better save up their money and invest in apts or houses in whatever city you are based... 5 years of VS rule will kill any chances of an IT boom.
What Chandy can do...(Or a Pinarayi Too)
1.The most dynamic chief minister the state has ever had will stop at nothing to etch his name firmly in golden letters as modern kerala's architect . I firmly believe his promise of the IT Corridor in Tvm and the Smart City in Cochin will take shape. Infact if he comes to power I will certainly stay back in kerala and take part in its development either as a capitalist or an employee.
2.I believe if given another term he will lean towards ending the udf coalition and re-establishing single party rule in kerala. With the CPM already moving towards ending the hegemony of the eerkili parties in its fold I doubt whether the Congress can keep bending over its back any longer for groups like Muslim League, Kerala Congress and Dick.
What Kerala Really Needs...
1. Jobs, Jobs and Jobs...Having the highest unemployment rate in India is one distinction kerala can certainly do without.
2. College Education - An entire generation of youngsters like me has been ruined by the mediocre education dished out in our colleges to go with the archaic syllabi and "brainy" question papers set by our universities. My advice to kerala youngsters is...dont wait for graduation to flee kerala...Go Fly at 17!!!
3. More focussed governance - Kerala is just perfect for becoming a developed state in India. If only the govt could focus less of its energies on politics and more on its health, education and public works sector we could redeem our state from the intense stagnation that's setting in here with the onset of competitive private schools and hospitals which though they charge astronomic rates offer better salaries and services.
4. Prices - Despite increased privatisation, Kerala has been saved from inflation in essential services because of a combination of socialist parties, an activist media and people's attitudes. Today the consultation of even the best doctor in tvm is available to people, rich or poor...Lets all fight to keep our innate consumerist tendency at bay and indulge less or else it will be the poor of Kerala who suffer.
5. The People - If only Malayalis lived better in their home state! This is the most cliched yet most truest grouse of every nrk.
I dont know what this post intended to do. The few readers here will not vote...the masses of kerala out there who will sweat in the may sun to have ink smudged on their fingers have a mind of their own...they consider themselves, as knowledgeable as the newspapers they read. For many it doesnt matter who gets elected as long as the candidate will have a religion, caste or some identity similar to his or else he is a party worker waiting to reap the benefits of his hard campaigning by milking his local MLA. Well, if 125 odd years back, if papers like The Hindu, Amrit Bazaar Patrika and Kesari could rise amidst humble beginnings to awaken the nationalist spirit in Indians to challenge the might of the British Empire we bloggers could very well be forerunners of some future technological change that allows us freebooters to reach as many people as our newspapers which have succumbed to compulsions of ideology, populism or compromises. And heck yeah, who wants to be a journalist, when you can write all you wanted, without an editor waiting to cut you out!!!! This article concludes a series of posts I have written over the last one and a half years on why the Congress needs to be given another last chance to rule us and this should probably be the last post I'll ever write on our electoral politics. I am not a Congressman nor a Commie-hater, but even if one leading CPM leader came out with a development agenda, I too would have gone with the incumbency wave and supported them wholeheartedly. Lets wait and watch whats in store for the State...miracles could happen...maybe VS will go the Buddhadeb way...after all, there's nothing impossible in politics!
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Remembering the 80's...
It wasnt a decade of magic. And it certainly wasnt a period when people could forsee the huge technological revolution or the economic liberalisation that would forever change the face of thhe globe and more than any place else, of India. India was the sleeping giant, its population fast approaching a billion, its largest employer, the government scratched its head, alarmed over finding jobs for millions of young people coming out of its colleges. Let me leave the country at large, what was the eighties to me as a kid? I was just opening my eyes, the world around presented me with more questions than answers...and in writing this post I decided to rewind back in time and bring back memories and perspectives of my nascent years...and most of all try to write this post as me as an 8 or 10-year old would. Of course, I am today armed with the benefit of hindsight which undeniably would forever corrupt my post's content and quality.
The Early Years
The bus was the official vehicle of our family unit. Our Amby doubled as a tourist taxi and I forever remember it to be running from one problem to another, one workshop to another...and I really hated the beast. Pops took the university bus to Karyavattom, mom the KSRTC bus to Ayurveda College and then a long walk to Vanchiyoor(poor thing...after all that, she had to contend with two devils in the evening...but how where we to know!) and we kids took the school bus. We lived at Vrindavan Gardens, at Pattom, a huge housing colong of almost 1000 apartments, lots of space to play and a huge jungle for a backyard(it was our fave haunt!) and many many bubbly kids, our own age. These days when I pass by there, the place looks almost dead, devoid of the kids who made that place a wonderland, I guess they are all watching the telly or sticking to their books. For me Vrindavan was paradise, I yearned for the time("or whatever it was, I would wonder, that made school get over") to fly and get home to an evening of soccer, cricket, eripanthu, hide & seek, police and robber, seven-tiles and after Fauji, we were javans and guerillas mowing each other down with guns, catapults, ruubber bands & paper-bullets inside our jungle.
Prime-Time!!!
If I wrote abt telly 10 years back, I would have called Doordarshan, the biggest practical joke, the govt played on us people. But then those were the days of evolution...that is, I wonder if Cable TV hadnt come, the process of evolution has remained stagnant even in 2005 with only marginal improvement in the programmes they telecast. Unlike these days, we never were left satisfied with the measly programmes telecast and to add to our misery, the death of some lame politician would be celebraed with days of mourning and mournful ragas tested our paience no end!! But then who could forget, The World This Week which earned for Prannoy Roy the position he holds today or Siddhartha Basu's quiz, or the classic malayalam comedy serial, Panchapaandavar or Ramayana, Mahanbharata, Fauji, Circus and Mungerilal which stands fresh in national memory even today.
Where Was The Money, Yaar!!!
Today the ATM machines spit at me wads of 500's and 1000 rupee notes which are over sooner than I can make the next trek to the counter. Back then, for Rs.10...given after a few weeks of begging ...I would eat a plate of barrota and beef-curry for 7.5, an incecream soda for Rs.2 and a sipup for 50ps. And well, what was money worth, a few beating, I suppose...sent out to do some shopping with my sis for company I lost a Rs.5 note on the way back and after the thrashings was told to come back only with the money...and as we tearily combed the road a good uncle who chanced on it some way ahead handed it over to us! I realized things hadnt changed much in the 80's from the 50's when my grandmom recounted a similar story of how she caned my dad along the road for loosing Re.1 she had given him to buy a hero pen, only for him to be saved by a man walking by who had found it on the way. And the 80's were the heydays of the Gulf Mallu. These men and women, strutting abt in goldwatches, sunglasses and cars laden with electronic goods earned the envy and admiration of all...scarcely a family then, and even today to some extent, didnt have somebody in the Gulf.
School...
I hated junior school. I had few friends, hated my lessons, I had no head for Maths, and I cried for days on end about it. Whatever I studied seemed not to go to my head, as the exams proved, but later life disproved, and the progress card, I discovered, was the worst peice of torture modern civilization has inflicted on many a carefree child. Of school, I remember this act of charity on my part...a senior who helped me cross the road and was from the same bus-stop would talk about Michaeal Jackson all the time, and discovering a huge, black leather belt wih silver studs and a pic of MJ embossed on metal, which someone had carelessly gifted had lain disused for a lot of years and with my moms permission gifted it to him(those were the days seniors were like gods and we proud to be of any service to them!). I still remember the next day he came strutting towards me, his hair all wet, a few strands pulled forward like MJ, his shirt tucked in flouting school rules, and the belt and MJ gleaming in the sun...Oh! What a fall,MJ!!!
Clothes...
I hated the tailor-stiched clothes of the 80's, but then I was to blame for all lack of finesse...the first jeans, I got was discarded, coz I wondered how people could wear something so stiff and heavy and my mom telling me, "Eda, ithe jeans aada"! and me replying..."Enthonne Jeans"! Sometime last year, my sis remarked how she felt, after looking at college fotos of the chechis at the flats, that the mallu college gals of the 80's were more trendy, style-conscious and wore jeans, skirts and sylish salwars unlike the ones of the '90s and all I could think was...Ayyo! What a big loss!!!
Attitudes...
The first time I took up a newspaper was at the height of the Bofors scandal and I also remember a pic of computers destroyed in tvm...years later I conneced the fotos with the agitation launced by SFI to protest loss of jobs due to computerization. How stupid those guys must be feeling today. The computer remained an object of puzzlement thru the 80's to the mid 90's and sometime when I was in the 4th I remember an elder pal, Rahul inviting me to go learn BASIC with him for fun...6 years later I learnt it out of compulsion only to find the world had moved way past BASIC and was at the verge of the IT revolution.
Sports Afficianados...
Trivandrum was a hotbed of sporting activities thru the 80's and early 90's The televised-cricket fever hadnt struck and thanks to my cousin, Ajichetan I got to see some great basketball and football matches where it seemed the entire college crowd of TVM had descended...and of them(mostly SFI guys!) howling and shouting down Mr.K who did prize distribuion with a "kallan karunakara" yelp and me too joining in it with delight only to be dismayed at the cool dude turning to our section, folding his hands and giving that trademark valicha chiri only to make us shout louder. Of cricket, my first memories are of dilip vengsarkar taking on the fearsome west indies quartet only to see his hand broken by marshall after scoring a century, but I wondered why these men didnt score more often like us kids who flashed at every ball...yeah, I still didnt understand Test Cricket!!! But a moment in late 1989, swayed my attention to cricket for almost 10 years later, when a 16-year old rookie swamped veteran Abdul Qadir, playing in his last match, for 27 runs in an over...
The Big Gap...
Those days, my native places, Kattanam and Arakulam, seemed to me like places on the verge of civilization. The gap between cities like tvm,cochin and villages were huge. Everytime we visited the nadu, we got lost, or the car got stuck in the mud or wouldnt climb up a steep slope bcoz it lost momentum and the roads were untarred and at many places rocks protruded from the road. If lost, my sis and I would shrink in our backseats, scared of the darkness around us, frustrated at the absence of streetlights, irritating crickets, howling dogs and not a person in sight to ask for directions and I'd think of my parents, "Gosh these people cant even take me to their homes of so many years without geting us lost"...I missed the whole point...of the romaniticism of these places and how it moulded my parents...for me it was a conspiracy to distance me from friends at the flats. Today when I think abt the lost native places...it is and isnt a big loss...the natural ambience persists but today the gap between cities and villages in kerala have narrowed...everywhere you see mobile towers, cable TV and internet.
And Then...
The 90's arrived. The Maruti came into our home for the first of many later ones. It signalled the upwardly mobile aspirations of my parents. And they never looked back. The frugality of the 80's was over. A decade of saving, career-building and investment paid fruit. We moved out of the flats, my dad started lecturing internationally, my mom became a busy lawyer, I was out of junior school, the Rao-Manmohan Reforms came and from feathery strides, India started to gallop to catch up with the developed world. Well what was the '80's to you and me...trace your way back to your parents booking trunk calls and waiting anywhere from 30 mins to 24 hrs for the call to go through...and memories will come flooding back!!!!
The Early Years
The bus was the official vehicle of our family unit. Our Amby doubled as a tourist taxi and I forever remember it to be running from one problem to another, one workshop to another...and I really hated the beast. Pops took the university bus to Karyavattom, mom the KSRTC bus to Ayurveda College and then a long walk to Vanchiyoor(poor thing...after all that, she had to contend with two devils in the evening...but how where we to know!) and we kids took the school bus. We lived at Vrindavan Gardens, at Pattom, a huge housing colong of almost 1000 apartments, lots of space to play and a huge jungle for a backyard(it was our fave haunt!) and many many bubbly kids, our own age. These days when I pass by there, the place looks almost dead, devoid of the kids who made that place a wonderland, I guess they are all watching the telly or sticking to their books. For me Vrindavan was paradise, I yearned for the time("or whatever it was, I would wonder, that made school get over") to fly and get home to an evening of soccer, cricket, eripanthu, hide & seek, police and robber, seven-tiles and after Fauji, we were javans and guerillas mowing each other down with guns, catapults, ruubber bands & paper-bullets inside our jungle.
Prime-Time!!!
If I wrote abt telly 10 years back, I would have called Doordarshan, the biggest practical joke, the govt played on us people. But then those were the days of evolution...that is, I wonder if Cable TV hadnt come, the process of evolution has remained stagnant even in 2005 with only marginal improvement in the programmes they telecast. Unlike these days, we never were left satisfied with the measly programmes telecast and to add to our misery, the death of some lame politician would be celebraed with days of mourning and mournful ragas tested our paience no end!! But then who could forget, The World This Week which earned for Prannoy Roy the position he holds today or Siddhartha Basu's quiz, or the classic malayalam comedy serial, Panchapaandavar or Ramayana, Mahanbharata, Fauji, Circus and Mungerilal which stands fresh in national memory even today.
Where Was The Money, Yaar!!!
Today the ATM machines spit at me wads of 500's and 1000 rupee notes which are over sooner than I can make the next trek to the counter. Back then, for Rs.10...given after a few weeks of begging ...I would eat a plate of barrota and beef-curry for 7.5, an incecream soda for Rs.2 and a sipup for 50ps. And well, what was money worth, a few beating, I suppose...sent out to do some shopping with my sis for company I lost a Rs.5 note on the way back and after the thrashings was told to come back only with the money...and as we tearily combed the road a good uncle who chanced on it some way ahead handed it over to us! I realized things hadnt changed much in the 80's from the 50's when my grandmom recounted a similar story of how she caned my dad along the road for loosing Re.1 she had given him to buy a hero pen, only for him to be saved by a man walking by who had found it on the way. And the 80's were the heydays of the Gulf Mallu. These men and women, strutting abt in goldwatches, sunglasses and cars laden with electronic goods earned the envy and admiration of all...scarcely a family then, and even today to some extent, didnt have somebody in the Gulf.
School...
I hated junior school. I had few friends, hated my lessons, I had no head for Maths, and I cried for days on end about it. Whatever I studied seemed not to go to my head, as the exams proved, but later life disproved, and the progress card, I discovered, was the worst peice of torture modern civilization has inflicted on many a carefree child. Of school, I remember this act of charity on my part...a senior who helped me cross the road and was from the same bus-stop would talk about Michaeal Jackson all the time, and discovering a huge, black leather belt wih silver studs and a pic of MJ embossed on metal, which someone had carelessly gifted had lain disused for a lot of years and with my moms permission gifted it to him(those were the days seniors were like gods and we proud to be of any service to them!). I still remember the next day he came strutting towards me, his hair all wet, a few strands pulled forward like MJ, his shirt tucked in flouting school rules, and the belt and MJ gleaming in the sun...Oh! What a fall,MJ!!!
Clothes...
I hated the tailor-stiched clothes of the 80's, but then I was to blame for all lack of finesse...the first jeans, I got was discarded, coz I wondered how people could wear something so stiff and heavy and my mom telling me, "Eda, ithe jeans aada"! and me replying..."Enthonne Jeans"! Sometime last year, my sis remarked how she felt, after looking at college fotos of the chechis at the flats, that the mallu college gals of the 80's were more trendy, style-conscious and wore jeans, skirts and sylish salwars unlike the ones of the '90s and all I could think was...Ayyo! What a big loss!!!
Attitudes...
The first time I took up a newspaper was at the height of the Bofors scandal and I also remember a pic of computers destroyed in tvm...years later I conneced the fotos with the agitation launced by SFI to protest loss of jobs due to computerization. How stupid those guys must be feeling today. The computer remained an object of puzzlement thru the 80's to the mid 90's and sometime when I was in the 4th I remember an elder pal, Rahul inviting me to go learn BASIC with him for fun...6 years later I learnt it out of compulsion only to find the world had moved way past BASIC and was at the verge of the IT revolution.
Sports Afficianados...
Trivandrum was a hotbed of sporting activities thru the 80's and early 90's The televised-cricket fever hadnt struck and thanks to my cousin, Ajichetan I got to see some great basketball and football matches where it seemed the entire college crowd of TVM had descended...and of them(mostly SFI guys!) howling and shouting down Mr.K who did prize distribuion with a "kallan karunakara" yelp and me too joining in it with delight only to be dismayed at the cool dude turning to our section, folding his hands and giving that trademark valicha chiri only to make us shout louder. Of cricket, my first memories are of dilip vengsarkar taking on the fearsome west indies quartet only to see his hand broken by marshall after scoring a century, but I wondered why these men didnt score more often like us kids who flashed at every ball...yeah, I still didnt understand Test Cricket!!! But a moment in late 1989, swayed my attention to cricket for almost 10 years later, when a 16-year old rookie swamped veteran Abdul Qadir, playing in his last match, for 27 runs in an over...
The Big Gap...
Those days, my native places, Kattanam and Arakulam, seemed to me like places on the verge of civilization. The gap between cities like tvm,cochin and villages were huge. Everytime we visited the nadu, we got lost, or the car got stuck in the mud or wouldnt climb up a steep slope bcoz it lost momentum and the roads were untarred and at many places rocks protruded from the road. If lost, my sis and I would shrink in our backseats, scared of the darkness around us, frustrated at the absence of streetlights, irritating crickets, howling dogs and not a person in sight to ask for directions and I'd think of my parents, "Gosh these people cant even take me to their homes of so many years without geting us lost"...I missed the whole point...of the romaniticism of these places and how it moulded my parents...for me it was a conspiracy to distance me from friends at the flats. Today when I think abt the lost native places...it is and isnt a big loss...the natural ambience persists but today the gap between cities and villages in kerala have narrowed...everywhere you see mobile towers, cable TV and internet.
And Then...
The 90's arrived. The Maruti came into our home for the first of many later ones. It signalled the upwardly mobile aspirations of my parents. And they never looked back. The frugality of the 80's was over. A decade of saving, career-building and investment paid fruit. We moved out of the flats, my dad started lecturing internationally, my mom became a busy lawyer, I was out of junior school, the Rao-Manmohan Reforms came and from feathery strides, India started to gallop to catch up with the developed world. Well what was the '80's to you and me...trace your way back to your parents booking trunk calls and waiting anywhere from 30 mins to 24 hrs for the call to go through...and memories will come flooding back!!!!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Enter The Last Lap...
The last two hours were amazing...i recharged my fone after 2 weeks and the calls started coming in and going out...talked to my parents, grandmothers, sis and a host of friends all over the place...from India to the US...and they've done the trick again...got me into a state of mind where I felt like blogging. Its the first time in life that I've no friends at arms length to confide in, joke with and fool around... but the moment these people call, I am so cheered up as though they just left my side. My sis had spent the day with my usc pals, sujith and his wife simi and they bullied me to jealousy with how as of old they had downloaded and watched 3 malayalam movies at a stretch and of how i was missing out on all the new malayalam and english movie releases which never ever happened in 4 years in LA, thomman called from some jungle in kashmir and without net connection i had to convey to the poor fellow all the happenings in our batch in exchange for a round of "josh", shan's voice seemed all animated with the record cricket match at Wanderers and good old motta excitedly recounted the preparations going on for his wedding which i'm fated to miss and finally i teased my two lovely grandmas, one of whoim celeberated her 83rd birthday today, to blushes and infectious laughter which travelled with their sweet voices all the way to delhi.
Month of Disquiet...
I'd like to banish memories of february to the dustbin. I soon found out that a lot of study that i had seemingly done was washed away. I was appalled at my retention ability which was something i've always been proud of from the schooldays. I guess it must have had to do with the huge reading list day in and day out, that something new studied, cleaves away the old. I realized I had to start cramming - "to by-heart" was a phrase I hated with a fervor i reserved for pavakka thorran...and in this autumn of my academic life I had to learn to do some things anew. My motivation tapered off somewhere down the line, I began to watch movies and the india-pak matches too. A few hours into my books and without even knowing what hit me...I would be fast asleep. The model tests started and seeing my miserable scores and many ppl i had disdainfully rejected as non-starters in this effort scoring high, i was piqued, even humbled and i realised i had to do whatever it takes. Anyways March has begun well, I shifted my apartment to a ramshackle almost mohalla-like area witha perennial water problem, far away from the madding crowd and miraculously the ennui that seemed to completely envelope me has lifted, and I am back to "merrily" cramming away.
The Company of Good Men...
A good dose of peer "pressure" or to state it better peer achievements has injected a fresh dose of ambition in me. A classmate from Loyola, Arun cracked the MD exam at St.John's Blore in his 3rd attempt, kicha has been invited to join some of the most prestigious post-grad architecture courses in the US and Europe, a close bud motta is hiring an employee at his architecture firm to take the extra workload of his back(he works in the morning at the office of a senior architect and in the evening at his place!), two other schoolpals, jinu and ichayan began their Ph.D programs in the US, three other loyolites feel settled enough to begin married life soon and two of my fellow-savages from college saw their firm Neologix on a hiring spree reaching double digits and hungry for further expansion. Brick-by-brick everyone is laying strong foundations for succesful careers and I have realized I cant afford to blink now.
The Lost Moonflower...
My uncle's novel finally comes out this year and that is the title. It is based on Christian mythology...those of you who are expecting somthing akin to Da Vinci Code, feel ready to be disappointed...he's a preist...hehe! My sis and cousins helped in the proof-reading and cover selection and though he sent me the manuscript I've still not found the time to read it, forget even critiqueing it or give him any feedback. I guess I'll finally wait for an autographed copy to start reading! The malayalam translation I believe is being done by D.C.Books. One of my greatest regrets and source of envy is that my cousins got to be moulded, taught and guided by this great man while I've never been satisfied with the measly amount of time I've got to spent with him the last 25 years. An abiding memory will be how he introduced my grandmother to his churchmembers during sunday service when we visited his church during our US trip in '98. He said, "this 5th form educated woman taught me the ABC's of the English language and my first nursery rhymes"...and I remember everyone in the church including my mom, her other brother and all of us kids with tears in our eyes and she getting a standing ovation from the laiety. Finally, coming to think of it, from a malayalam-medium primary education in a tiny hamlet in Kerala to an English novel...wow, what can certainly beat that!
The Months Ahead...
D-Day is looming 60 odd days away on May14. The exam-fever has begun to strike home and I am beginning to feel the twitch in my tummy. A lot of work remains to be done. Its a battle where I was always strained for time, further compounded by my mental wrangles...but I still think I'm in with a really good chance. I came to write about something else, but have ended up not sticking to the plot. To blog or study well, you need a clear head and crisp thinking...but with so much history, economy and civics playing truant with me...I guess I'm still doing a good job and will overcome more rounds of inevitable disillusionment just waiting around the corner. To round off, an object of infinite wonder and a comrade in this effort continues to perplex me...Pappanabhan, this master of gaffes, continues to impress me...i doubt there would be another serious upsc aspirant who has a laptop and broadband connection for perennial company and he's even begun blogging too, at this late juncture while i've fearfully abjured the laptop and the internet for its forbidden pleasures which would certainly have lead me astray but is his way of maintaining sanity and a cool head.
Month of Disquiet...
I'd like to banish memories of february to the dustbin. I soon found out that a lot of study that i had seemingly done was washed away. I was appalled at my retention ability which was something i've always been proud of from the schooldays. I guess it must have had to do with the huge reading list day in and day out, that something new studied, cleaves away the old. I realized I had to start cramming - "to by-heart" was a phrase I hated with a fervor i reserved for pavakka thorran...and in this autumn of my academic life I had to learn to do some things anew. My motivation tapered off somewhere down the line, I began to watch movies and the india-pak matches too. A few hours into my books and without even knowing what hit me...I would be fast asleep. The model tests started and seeing my miserable scores and many ppl i had disdainfully rejected as non-starters in this effort scoring high, i was piqued, even humbled and i realised i had to do whatever it takes. Anyways March has begun well, I shifted my apartment to a ramshackle almost mohalla-like area witha perennial water problem, far away from the madding crowd and miraculously the ennui that seemed to completely envelope me has lifted, and I am back to "merrily" cramming away.
The Company of Good Men...
A good dose of peer "pressure" or to state it better peer achievements has injected a fresh dose of ambition in me. A classmate from Loyola, Arun cracked the MD exam at St.John's Blore in his 3rd attempt, kicha has been invited to join some of the most prestigious post-grad architecture courses in the US and Europe, a close bud motta is hiring an employee at his architecture firm to take the extra workload of his back(he works in the morning at the office of a senior architect and in the evening at his place!), two other schoolpals, jinu and ichayan began their Ph.D programs in the US, three other loyolites feel settled enough to begin married life soon and two of my fellow-savages from college saw their firm Neologix on a hiring spree reaching double digits and hungry for further expansion. Brick-by-brick everyone is laying strong foundations for succesful careers and I have realized I cant afford to blink now.
The Lost Moonflower...
My uncle's novel finally comes out this year and that is the title. It is based on Christian mythology...those of you who are expecting somthing akin to Da Vinci Code, feel ready to be disappointed...he's a preist...hehe! My sis and cousins helped in the proof-reading and cover selection and though he sent me the manuscript I've still not found the time to read it, forget even critiqueing it or give him any feedback. I guess I'll finally wait for an autographed copy to start reading! The malayalam translation I believe is being done by D.C.Books. One of my greatest regrets and source of envy is that my cousins got to be moulded, taught and guided by this great man while I've never been satisfied with the measly amount of time I've got to spent with him the last 25 years. An abiding memory will be how he introduced my grandmother to his churchmembers during sunday service when we visited his church during our US trip in '98. He said, "this 5th form educated woman taught me the ABC's of the English language and my first nursery rhymes"...and I remember everyone in the church including my mom, her other brother and all of us kids with tears in our eyes and she getting a standing ovation from the laiety. Finally, coming to think of it, from a malayalam-medium primary education in a tiny hamlet in Kerala to an English novel...wow, what can certainly beat that!
The Months Ahead...
D-Day is looming 60 odd days away on May14. The exam-fever has begun to strike home and I am beginning to feel the twitch in my tummy. A lot of work remains to be done. Its a battle where I was always strained for time, further compounded by my mental wrangles...but I still think I'm in with a really good chance. I came to write about something else, but have ended up not sticking to the plot. To blog or study well, you need a clear head and crisp thinking...but with so much history, economy and civics playing truant with me...I guess I'm still doing a good job and will overcome more rounds of inevitable disillusionment just waiting around the corner. To round off, an object of infinite wonder and a comrade in this effort continues to perplex me...Pappanabhan, this master of gaffes, continues to impress me...i doubt there would be another serious upsc aspirant who has a laptop and broadband connection for perennial company and he's even begun blogging too, at this late juncture while i've fearfully abjured the laptop and the internet for its forbidden pleasures which would certainly have lead me astray but is his way of maintaining sanity and a cool head.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Why Dont You Let Me Go, Dear Blog???
My blogging's become like the biblical seed sprewn amongst the thorn bushes. The blogger in me gets aroused in the early mornings after a long night but i fret and fume at my inability to lay my hands on a computer during those precious moments ...after sleep, classes and crappy food i am too crushed to write anything beyond a few lines...but then this has become one habit I hate to give up.
Paradise Regained...
Some days you see the clouds and the gloom it spreads. On other days you see the silver lining and am thankful for being so blessed. Thats a cycle of mood swings most upsc veterans warned me about but I dont know...I feel so happy and cheerful...being able to come back, being able to make this himalayan effort, competing with such an enormously talented horde of Indians...whatever be the end result I am just basking in every moment of this existence which I have been able to raise above the mundane. I now realize all the benefits of the education at Loyola stand squared...they maynot be able to match my general knowledge or english speaking skills but the sheer-single minded determination of these boys and gals from the remotest parts of India...some even from villages...humbles me, frustrates me and goads me on.
The Boys and I...
Finally I caught up with them...and what a day it was. Five of my buddies from Loyola in and around Delhi came calling and we caught up with each others lives for the past 4 years. Chairman, took the train down from Hissar and I was seeing him after 7 years, Tharian and I was seeing after 4 years and he looked so stressed out from YumBeeYe horrors that he fell asleep a few times, Puppy had to be cajoled out of his temporary abode at Kerala House and make it here. Thomman flew via Delhi to Srinagar and its been a long 4 years since I've met him. He grabbed me in a huge bear hug, lifted me off the ground and we stood there out on the road in a warm embrace for quite some time until the guys had to break us up. And finally Kicha arrived and for a change he arrived on time! Seeing him after 7 years, our affable, pleasant faced school leader gave me the biggest surprise. Long wavy hair and a french beard to go with it...i couldnt help remarking he looked so much like jesus christ in the picures.
I still cant understand how all these guys manage to stay so simple and cheerful. We automatically transform into the high-spirited teenagers we were 8 years back... Anyways we headed out for a teastall...sipped around 15 chais and samosas to go with it and chattering in animated voices that all the DU students hanging out there mus have wondered what freakin language we guys were talking in!!! The lone moment of sobriety arrived when we mourned the inevitable deluge of marriages about to set in from june and of thomman recounting the horrors of the earthquake and how they armymen gave up their tents and shivered thru the nite, though he was pissed that the people werent even grateful for the gesture. Finally the owner kicked us out, we took the metro(absoltutely f$%#ing marvellous...a sayyip would stare disbelieving....the taj mahal can take a bow...welcome to india's new wonder structures...kudos to sreedharan...i need to write a seperate post on this...shame on our tardy looking airports...the delhi metro is the face of new india...ok ok lemme stop!!!)It was an out of the world experience, more than the booze it was the reaffirmation that we were all an integral part of each others lives that struck me. Its a night that had a soothing effect on me...I havent laughed so much in ages...i had forgotten to borrow a mattress and four of us were left sleeping on my bed and a single blanket to cover each other. Like small kids we nudged, pushed and shoved for an extra inch of the bed and blanket and shouted and cursed at each other but i am sure we all finally went to sleep with a contented smile on our faces...
Untainted Idealism...
"Havent you read Freedom at Midnight and My Experiments with Truth???", thundered Chairman. I embarassingly replied in the negative. He gave me the old condescending look of yore of how I would ever become a good bureaucrat. Every batch of Loyola has produced its share of firebrands and here I was faced with an old friend who had worked at the grassroot level, travelled all over India and with a wealth of experience behind him, he had begun to prepare for the civil services. The harmless question chairman posed has brought me back to the world of books after a long long time. Besides grabbing the above two gems I stumbled on Pablo Neruda and my god, how I wish I could write atleast one poem like him. In October, when I leave Delhi for home one thing that sure will accompany me back home is atleast a suitcase full of novels that I plan to feast on, once this endeavour is over and before I embark on a new one. And to do me a world of good, I watched Rang de Basanti and I just sat amazed at the rapid strides Bollywood has made over the last few years. The way things are going, I am sure Indian cinema will soon take the world by storm like never before.
An old post comes calling...
The best post, I ever wrote, the basketball one found its way to some of the senior basketballers I wrote about and I am sure that must have been a proud moment for them and for me it was a revelation that a moment's inspiration is all I need to write a good post, though I often veer around to thinking that my best blogging days are over for good.
And finally though I am a day late lets all hope our country will again be blessed with men so unselfish and dedicated to the nation like Gandhiji and Bhagat Singh.
Paradise Regained...
Some days you see the clouds and the gloom it spreads. On other days you see the silver lining and am thankful for being so blessed. Thats a cycle of mood swings most upsc veterans warned me about but I dont know...I feel so happy and cheerful...being able to come back, being able to make this himalayan effort, competing with such an enormously talented horde of Indians...whatever be the end result I am just basking in every moment of this existence which I have been able to raise above the mundane. I now realize all the benefits of the education at Loyola stand squared...they maynot be able to match my general knowledge or english speaking skills but the sheer-single minded determination of these boys and gals from the remotest parts of India...some even from villages...humbles me, frustrates me and goads me on.
The Boys and I...
Finally I caught up with them...and what a day it was. Five of my buddies from Loyola in and around Delhi came calling and we caught up with each others lives for the past 4 years. Chairman, took the train down from Hissar and I was seeing him after 7 years, Tharian and I was seeing after 4 years and he looked so stressed out from YumBeeYe horrors that he fell asleep a few times, Puppy had to be cajoled out of his temporary abode at Kerala House and make it here. Thomman flew via Delhi to Srinagar and its been a long 4 years since I've met him. He grabbed me in a huge bear hug, lifted me off the ground and we stood there out on the road in a warm embrace for quite some time until the guys had to break us up. And finally Kicha arrived and for a change he arrived on time! Seeing him after 7 years, our affable, pleasant faced school leader gave me the biggest surprise. Long wavy hair and a french beard to go with it...i couldnt help remarking he looked so much like jesus christ in the picures.
I still cant understand how all these guys manage to stay so simple and cheerful. We automatically transform into the high-spirited teenagers we were 8 years back... Anyways we headed out for a teastall...sipped around 15 chais and samosas to go with it and chattering in animated voices that all the DU students hanging out there mus have wondered what freakin language we guys were talking in!!! The lone moment of sobriety arrived when we mourned the inevitable deluge of marriages about to set in from june and of thomman recounting the horrors of the earthquake and how they armymen gave up their tents and shivered thru the nite, though he was pissed that the people werent even grateful for the gesture. Finally the owner kicked us out, we took the metro(absoltutely f$%#ing marvellous...a sayyip would stare disbelieving....the taj mahal can take a bow...welcome to india's new wonder structures...kudos to sreedharan...i need to write a seperate post on this...shame on our tardy looking airports...the delhi metro is the face of new india...ok ok lemme stop!!!)It was an out of the world experience, more than the booze it was the reaffirmation that we were all an integral part of each others lives that struck me. Its a night that had a soothing effect on me...I havent laughed so much in ages...i had forgotten to borrow a mattress and four of us were left sleeping on my bed and a single blanket to cover each other. Like small kids we nudged, pushed and shoved for an extra inch of the bed and blanket and shouted and cursed at each other but i am sure we all finally went to sleep with a contented smile on our faces...
Untainted Idealism...
"Havent you read Freedom at Midnight and My Experiments with Truth???", thundered Chairman. I embarassingly replied in the negative. He gave me the old condescending look of yore of how I would ever become a good bureaucrat. Every batch of Loyola has produced its share of firebrands and here I was faced with an old friend who had worked at the grassroot level, travelled all over India and with a wealth of experience behind him, he had begun to prepare for the civil services. The harmless question chairman posed has brought me back to the world of books after a long long time. Besides grabbing the above two gems I stumbled on Pablo Neruda and my god, how I wish I could write atleast one poem like him. In October, when I leave Delhi for home one thing that sure will accompany me back home is atleast a suitcase full of novels that I plan to feast on, once this endeavour is over and before I embark on a new one. And to do me a world of good, I watched Rang de Basanti and I just sat amazed at the rapid strides Bollywood has made over the last few years. The way things are going, I am sure Indian cinema will soon take the world by storm like never before.
An old post comes calling...
The best post, I ever wrote, the basketball one found its way to some of the senior basketballers I wrote about and I am sure that must have been a proud moment for them and for me it was a revelation that a moment's inspiration is all I need to write a good post, though I often veer around to thinking that my best blogging days are over for good.
And finally though I am a day late lets all hope our country will again be blessed with men so unselfish and dedicated to the nation like Gandhiji and Bhagat Singh.
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