I finally got down to watching The Rising and I loved every bit of it...what struck me most about the movie was how it rightly pictured an India at its lowest ebb, at the very nadir of its 5000 years of history, of a people who had degraded into a spineless, fractitious, humiliated race to turnaround the history of the world by declaring the arrival of modern-day civilization with a 90 year awe-inspiring, non-violent freedom struggle. August 15 heralded the birth of the world's largest democracy and the proud Englishman, Churchill's prophetic words of the sun finally setting on the English Empire became true.
Mangal Pandey, may have been an accidental hero as historians claim but when he lit the spark of rebellion he had also unknowingly checked the centuries-old decay of India's civilizational ethos. The very instruments of modernization the East India Company created to expand their trade and wealth helped catapult their fall. They united the entire Indian subcontinent from Afghanistan in the west to Burma in the East, Kashmir in the north to Kanyakumari in the south under their sphere of influence, networked the whole country with roads and railways bringing into contact people of different lands, started schools and colleges to educate men and women to work as their babus, and as greats like the Mahatma, Swami Vivekanada, Ramunjan, C.V.Raman, Tagore and Netaji kept springing up they realized it was only a matter of time before the Indian Nation would rise.
The India of today...where else in the world would you see such diametric opposites...people who speak more than 1/2 of the world's known languages, people who look and dress differently, people who believe in different faiths, people who differentiate between each other on the basis of castes, a people ideologically divided from the day of the country's birth...yet we dont see civil wars based on these contradictions i mentioned above which have torn apart nations like Ireland, Sudan, Pakistan, Yugoslavia or bloody dictatorships like in Nigeria, China or Afghanistan...even a supreme power like the Soviet Union fell apart not being able to manage their internal contradictions. I belive the way we won our freedom has the answer to this paradox....if we had taken to the gun instead of satyagraha, the Indian psyche would have altered to an aggressive, hotblooded race which would have turned violent for every issue caused by the co-existence of such diversity and though many within and without, ridicule us for being a "soft" state, the Indian people havent suffered at-all for belatedly exploding the atom bomb or the countless withdrawals from Pakistani territory after each Indo-Pak war(America sweating it out to ward off Iraqis on their own soil wud give us enuf ideas...wht it wud have cost us to hold on to those Paki lands we gave up!)...many violent movements have cropped up in our country but none have succeeded or will succeed...from the early Tamil nation movement, to Punjab, Assam, North-East to the himalayan fortress god gave us...Kashmir! Many of these movements began in non-violence but without the support of the people they claim to represent, they failed and the extremist elements within them took to the gun...and u know where that story ends or will end!
Kerala may accuse Tamil Nadu of stealing water, TN charges Karnataka with blocking the Cauvery, Punjab and Haryana hotly claims Chandigarh to be their own(the Govt wisely named it a Union Territory!), the demand for Khalistan has reared its head again, Gujarat remains divided on communal lines and Bihar on caste, the naxals fight for their version of utopia as they strive for the naxal corridor...superficially it all looks a bloody mess! But watching The Rising...i felt there was this chord lying deep within each of us that makes us an Indian which ties us up so inextricably into a nation which will rise up again...and again when affairs go out of hand...too many lives have been taken and too much blood has been spilled on our soil to build this country...the memory of those martyrs and good movies like these that keep coming out(if not for our history textbooks...anytime i'd choose one like that over a movie) should serve to remind us of a nation built of sweat, blood, toil and satyagraha and how each and every one of us is a vital cog in taking our proud nation to greater heights.
Jai Hind!
Monday, August 29, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
പുതിയൊരു മാനം തേഡി...
അമേരിക്ക കണ്ടാല് പിന്നെ അമ്മയെ വേണ്ഡ...ഈ നാട്ടിലേക്കു ഞാന് ഇറങ്ങി തിരിഛപ്പം എന്റെ അമ്മഛി ഒറ്റ വാക്യത്തില് അതെ പറഞ്ഞു...പക്ഷെ എത്ര അകന്നാലും എത്ര അകലാന് ശ്രമിഛാലും ഇന്നും എന്നും കേരളവും മലയാളവും നമ്മട സംസ്കാരവും എന്നെ വിട്ടു പോകുന്നില്ല...ഇന്നിതാ ഈ ബ്ലൊഗില് പര്യവസാനിചിരിക്കുന്നു എനിക്കു പൊട്ടിക്കാന് കഴിയാത്ത ഈ ചങ്ങല.
മങ്ഗ്ലിഷില് എഴുതാന് ഞാന് എന്നും മിടുക്കനായിരുന്നു...പത്താം ക്ലാസ്സ് പരീക്ഷയില് മലയാളതിനു എറ്റവും കുറവു മാര്ക്ക് നെദിയ വിദ്യര്ത്തി ഇന്നിത നമ്മുടെ മലയാള പദന സംബ്രദായതിനെ ചൊദ്യം ചെയ്യുന്നു...മലയാളതെ സ്നെഹിപ്പിക്കാന് എന്തെ നമ്മുടെ ഗുരുനാതന്മാര്ക്കൊ പാഡപുസ്തകങ്ങൾക്കൊ കഴിയാതെ പൊയതെ.ഞാന് മലയാളത്തില് എഴുതി തുഡങ്ങാന് ഒരു കാരണം ഇങ്ങ്ലിഷില് ഞാന് വിരുധനാണെങ്ങിലും നറ്മം കലറ്താന്, അറിയാവുന്ന പണി പതിനെട്ടും നോക്കിയിട്ടും പറ്റുന്നില്ല. സ്കുളിലും കോളെജിലും പറഞ്ഞ തമാശകള് എല്ലാം നമ്മുടെ മാത്രുഭാശയില് ആയതിന്റെ കുഴപ്പം ആയിരിക്കണം അതു.
മനസ്സില് തൊന്നുന്ന പലതും ഇനീം മലയാളത്തില് പ്രകഡിപ്പിക്കാന് ഞാന് ഒരുങ്ങുന്നു...ഈ യജ്നം വിജയിഛാല് ഈ ദിവസം എന്റെ ചുരുങ്ങിയ ജീവിതത്തിലെ എറ്റവും ധന്യമായി ഞാന് കാതു സൂക്ഷിക്കും. ഓണം കൊണ്ടുവരുന്ന സമൃധിയും സമാധാനവും സന്തോഷവും ത്രുപ്തിയും ഞാന് എല്ലാ ബ്ലൊഗ് ചെയ്യുന്ന എല്ല മലയാളി സുഹൃതുകല്ക്കും ഞാന് ആഷംസിക്കുന്നു. നീന്ദ നാലുകല്ക്കെ ഷെഷമുല്ല മലയാളം എഴുതാന് ഷ്രമിച ഈ സംരംഭതില് ഭാഷയില് പറ്റിയ പിഴവുകള്കെ ഞാന് മാപ്പ് ചൊദിക്കുന്നു.
P.S - ഈ പോസ്റ്റ് തയ്യാര് ആക്കാന് സഹായിച്ച കലേഷിന് വലരെ നന്ദി. ദൈവതിന്റെ സ്വന്തം നാട് നീണാല് വാഴട്ടെ! Best read with IE6!
മങ്ഗ്ലിഷില് എഴുതാന് ഞാന് എന്നും മിടുക്കനായിരുന്നു...പത്താം ക്ലാസ്സ് പരീക്ഷയില് മലയാളതിനു എറ്റവും കുറവു മാര്ക്ക് നെദിയ വിദ്യര്ത്തി ഇന്നിത നമ്മുടെ മലയാള പദന സംബ്രദായതിനെ ചൊദ്യം ചെയ്യുന്നു...മലയാളതെ സ്നെഹിപ്പിക്കാന് എന്തെ നമ്മുടെ ഗുരുനാതന്മാര്ക്കൊ പാഡപുസ്തകങ്ങൾക്കൊ കഴിയാതെ പൊയതെ.ഞാന് മലയാളത്തില് എഴുതി തുഡങ്ങാന് ഒരു കാരണം ഇങ്ങ്ലിഷില് ഞാന് വിരുധനാണെങ്ങിലും നറ്മം കലറ്താന്, അറിയാവുന്ന പണി പതിനെട്ടും നോക്കിയിട്ടും പറ്റുന്നില്ല. സ്കുളിലും കോളെജിലും പറഞ്ഞ തമാശകള് എല്ലാം നമ്മുടെ മാത്രുഭാശയില് ആയതിന്റെ കുഴപ്പം ആയിരിക്കണം അതു.
മനസ്സില് തൊന്നുന്ന പലതും ഇനീം മലയാളത്തില് പ്രകഡിപ്പിക്കാന് ഞാന് ഒരുങ്ങുന്നു...ഈ യജ്നം വിജയിഛാല് ഈ ദിവസം എന്റെ ചുരുങ്ങിയ ജീവിതത്തിലെ എറ്റവും ധന്യമായി ഞാന് കാതു സൂക്ഷിക്കും. ഓണം കൊണ്ടുവരുന്ന സമൃധിയും സമാധാനവും സന്തോഷവും ത്രുപ്തിയും ഞാന് എല്ലാ ബ്ലൊഗ് ചെയ്യുന്ന എല്ല മലയാളി സുഹൃതുകല്ക്കും ഞാന് ആഷംസിക്കുന്നു. നീന്ദ നാലുകല്ക്കെ ഷെഷമുല്ല മലയാളം എഴുതാന് ഷ്രമിച ഈ സംരംഭതില് ഭാഷയില് പറ്റിയ പിഴവുകള്കെ ഞാന് മാപ്പ് ചൊദിക്കുന്നു.
P.S - ഈ പോസ്റ്റ് തയ്യാര് ആക്കാന് സഹായിച്ച കലേഷിന് വലരെ നന്ദി. ദൈവതിന്റെ സ്വന്തം നാട് നീണാല് വാഴട്ടെ! Best read with IE6!
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Poulose Poulose!!!
As usual I listened to my fave songs, lost in some other world and negotiated the Hollywood bound LA traffic with the experience and complacency of three months on the same road. Suddenly the blare of sirens and lights flashing from behind woke me up from the reverie...and I saw the cop gesturing at me to pull over to the side. I was in deep shit...the only thing on the road i kept tabs on for quite sometime have been police cars and their bikes...and how the hell did I miss this one...I had a missing front license plate, a dysfunctional rear brake light and an expired auto insurance to boot!!Today wuz just my day...I thought. As she headed towards me I could see in the rear-view that she was a black female cop and looked very pleasant. This was my chance...I thanked my stars for having prompted me to shave off my french beard and without that, the innocent smile I reserve for the choicest occasions of trouble came out with all guns blazing...she fell for it...as expected gave me a citation and told me to report to the LA station with the fixes done by September 30 but amazingly no fine...i was expecting anywhere between 100 and 200 bucks but the escape notwithstanding, i wuz really shaken up!!
Summer of 2003, four of my friends from USC...Mathew, Bipin, Vikas and Rohit decided to go on a road trip and we took off to Mexico, returned via San Diego, spent a night at Las Vegas and though totally road-weary decided to push ahead to Grand Canyon...halfway through, our camera melted in the torrid desert-sun and tempers flared as we seemed to be getting nowhere...finally at breaking point we decided to head back towards Los Angeles and I was so pissed at the turnaround and folishly decided the only way to escape the arizona desert and heat was to drive as fast as possible...but a state trooper had other ideas! He flagged us down and Mathew tells me,"veshamikkathe...ipppppam njan ellaam solve aaki tharaam" and proceeds to open his door...the cops hands go to his gun and he shouts "Stay Put!"...for a second we thought mathew would get a trophy to show off for life...he forgot he wuz not supposed to leave the car!
Kerala Police...every youngster must have had a run-in with them many a time. In the seventh, my classmate ganesh and i were going doubles on his cycle when we passed a flying squad...a passing comment from a khaki stopped us dead on our tracks..."mone, inne bournvita kudikkaatheyaano veetil ninne erangiyathe"...the other cops started laughing and totally chammufied i got off. In the 11th, for an IIT contact class in Cochin, we were squatting on the middle of the Marine Drive road at midnight when a flying squad started watching us from a distance...we continued with our chatter and star-gazing but Abba who picked up the unpleasant name abbithoori after this incident chickened out and moved away from us...the cops were by now suspicious and we watched the distant jeep move closer to us as we debated whether to give it a run! A foreigner came out of the jeep examined each of our faces closely...then looking at Jofu says..."He is the man...he is the thief...those same big white teeth!"...and turns to the cops! Jofu shivering with fright forgets his english and blabbers to the man...."I...I, no thief...I...I, student of Loyola"!!! We couldnt help laughing out in front of the grim-faced cops who ordered us to go back to our hotel! Then in the 12th 25-30 of our guys ganged up to "take care" of a guy from KV Pattom in front of his school to settle a score but a shout of "Poluose, Poulose"...was enuf for our ruffians to leave our bruised prey behind and jump into every passing KSRTC and private buses and any two-wheelers willing to give us a lift!
College guys and cops never get along...there is this story of an sfi senior who lead the cops, who came into campus to break up a fight, on a wild-goose chase promising to take them to the spot where the fight was going on and leading them elsewhere while the abvp guys in between getting bashed wondered why the cops hadnt arrived! And at theaters the many friends who took blows from lathis at first-day first shows never again showing the fervor to watch a movie until a few weeks went by! Then there was this bud who sheepishly got pounced on by cops waiting right outside a bar as he just took off on his bike! The mahan spent a night in lockup and his comic struggle to othukkufy the case gave me goosebumps, thinking wht wud happen if my mom stumbled on him at the Vanchiyoor court! My last bump-in with KP happened on the last visit to India and rejoicing at being able to wear a lungi without feeling embarassed, i took it too far by wearing it to the second show at Kaplana theatre, a few hundred meters away from home...after the show as i crossed the street was intercepted by a flying squad who gave me the dressing down of my life...expletives, harsh words, probing questions all answered with the chammufied smile mentioned above...finally they let me off! When I recounted this at home, my mom wuz telling how A.K.Antony's free hand had transformed the police and the royal treatment awaiting brats like me in police stations and how contacts wont work anymore...which sent a chill down my spine but i managed to awkwardly joke, "mummy, ille enne erakki tharaan"!
Seeing a cop evokes so many emotions in me...when i know i am on the law-abiding side a smug look escapes my face daring them to try their luck, when i am bad..i avoid eye-contact unless absolutely necessary, somebody else caught gets sympathy, a cop dressed smartly evokes admiration and your heart goes out to them watching rioters damage public property and pelt them with stones as they ponder the consequences of giving these anti-socials a deserved pasting! Today, that lady cop graciously let me off lightly...i wonder how lawless, people like me would have turned out, if these men and women in uniform werent around to keep an eye on us...in december when i am in india and in the company of old pals and am stoned, wonder whether occasions will arise to make us shout out again...Poulose Poulose!!!
Summer of 2003, four of my friends from USC...Mathew, Bipin, Vikas and Rohit decided to go on a road trip and we took off to Mexico, returned via San Diego, spent a night at Las Vegas and though totally road-weary decided to push ahead to Grand Canyon...halfway through, our camera melted in the torrid desert-sun and tempers flared as we seemed to be getting nowhere...finally at breaking point we decided to head back towards Los Angeles and I was so pissed at the turnaround and folishly decided the only way to escape the arizona desert and heat was to drive as fast as possible...but a state trooper had other ideas! He flagged us down and Mathew tells me,"veshamikkathe...ipppppam njan ellaam solve aaki tharaam" and proceeds to open his door...the cops hands go to his gun and he shouts "Stay Put!"...for a second we thought mathew would get a trophy to show off for life...he forgot he wuz not supposed to leave the car!
Kerala Police...every youngster must have had a run-in with them many a time. In the seventh, my classmate ganesh and i were going doubles on his cycle when we passed a flying squad...a passing comment from a khaki stopped us dead on our tracks..."mone, inne bournvita kudikkaatheyaano veetil ninne erangiyathe"...the other cops started laughing and totally chammufied i got off. In the 11th, for an IIT contact class in Cochin, we were squatting on the middle of the Marine Drive road at midnight when a flying squad started watching us from a distance...we continued with our chatter and star-gazing but Abba who picked up the unpleasant name abbithoori after this incident chickened out and moved away from us...the cops were by now suspicious and we watched the distant jeep move closer to us as we debated whether to give it a run! A foreigner came out of the jeep examined each of our faces closely...then looking at Jofu says..."He is the man...he is the thief...those same big white teeth!"...and turns to the cops! Jofu shivering with fright forgets his english and blabbers to the man...."I...I, no thief...I...I, student of Loyola"!!! We couldnt help laughing out in front of the grim-faced cops who ordered us to go back to our hotel! Then in the 12th 25-30 of our guys ganged up to "take care" of a guy from KV Pattom in front of his school to settle a score but a shout of "Poluose, Poulose"...was enuf for our ruffians to leave our bruised prey behind and jump into every passing KSRTC and private buses and any two-wheelers willing to give us a lift!
College guys and cops never get along...there is this story of an sfi senior who lead the cops, who came into campus to break up a fight, on a wild-goose chase promising to take them to the spot where the fight was going on and leading them elsewhere while the abvp guys in between getting bashed wondered why the cops hadnt arrived! And at theaters the many friends who took blows from lathis at first-day first shows never again showing the fervor to watch a movie until a few weeks went by! Then there was this bud who sheepishly got pounced on by cops waiting right outside a bar as he just took off on his bike! The mahan spent a night in lockup and his comic struggle to othukkufy the case gave me goosebumps, thinking wht wud happen if my mom stumbled on him at the Vanchiyoor court! My last bump-in with KP happened on the last visit to India and rejoicing at being able to wear a lungi without feeling embarassed, i took it too far by wearing it to the second show at Kaplana theatre, a few hundred meters away from home...after the show as i crossed the street was intercepted by a flying squad who gave me the dressing down of my life...expletives, harsh words, probing questions all answered with the chammufied smile mentioned above...finally they let me off! When I recounted this at home, my mom wuz telling how A.K.Antony's free hand had transformed the police and the royal treatment awaiting brats like me in police stations and how contacts wont work anymore...which sent a chill down my spine but i managed to awkwardly joke, "mummy, ille enne erakki tharaan"!
Seeing a cop evokes so many emotions in me...when i know i am on the law-abiding side a smug look escapes my face daring them to try their luck, when i am bad..i avoid eye-contact unless absolutely necessary, somebody else caught gets sympathy, a cop dressed smartly evokes admiration and your heart goes out to them watching rioters damage public property and pelt them with stones as they ponder the consequences of giving these anti-socials a deserved pasting! Today, that lady cop graciously let me off lightly...i wonder how lawless, people like me would have turned out, if these men and women in uniform werent around to keep an eye on us...in december when i am in india and in the company of old pals and am stoned, wonder whether occasions will arise to make us shout out again...Poulose Poulose!!!
Saturday, August 20, 2005
For men who missed the elevators...
The American Dream! What an anachronism this phrase is in danger of becoming for today's indians moving to the US as we find the dream merchants outsourcing their wares to our own country of birth...sadly we who landed on this soil lost our footing at home...for the last two years I have seen the angst of friends who saw the H1B quota filling up in no time...thankfully, I never had to go through that, coz of my GC...moreover my fights were entirely against myself. Its been a long struggle for us who landed here...all the advantages we once took for granted were undone the moment we landed here...an English education which lost its bite when faced with the american accent and deteriorated with every "Say, that again" encountered, the money we once took for granted and now had to be earned, the friends that once abounded, food that once could have been wasted without a second thought...it was a learning experience that came with a lot of heartburn, "akkarapacha" and "paapi chellunnidam paathalam" were always the thoughts of the hour as the moment we got here, India moved into BPO mode and the economy grew by leaps and bounds.
Some months ago, I used to think my sheni dasha had rubbed off on my close friends too as noone got to the heights they aspired to reach(after 3 long years it ends next month!) and were left trapped in tiny companies with challenges and opportunities that ceased to inspire after a while. Today, I laugh at that because my closest buggers have all turned the corner. Bipin kicked the jinx out with a job at Boeing, following which Vikas was snapped up by Cisco, I was hired by Universal, Mathew landed a job at Disney last week and just yesterday Muthu by Argo Consulting. We were the wrong kind of desis to land up here, bcoz other than the thought of making it big in America we didnt know the effort needed to even make a start for our dream. After 30000 dollars spent on becoming a Master of Science...I questioned the Almighty's sense of justice as Bipin went to work at a small earth-sciences tech firm in Long Beach which didnt do justice to his abilities, Vikas at a document-search company in the Bay Area where despite his dedication...his project managers kept hounding him, Mathew languished at a small Telecom company in Los Angeles for two years, I went skipping from one disastrous job to another and Mithun first bade goodbye to MS and US with a promised job in Dubai which ended up as a dead-end, returned with his tail-between-the-legs and a girlfriend who shut the door on him(wuz so reminescent of Lakshya)...studied his ass out and pulled his grades out of a big hole, went to work in Business Warehousing...only to get fed up and drop out, landed a job at a Patel's liquor store and at the very end of the rope he had clung to for two long years found this job as a strategy consultant.
Looking back, I still remember a Vikas asking the dumbest possible questions in the Introduction to Computer Networks course in our first semester at USC totally embarassing us...but his dogged research and passion for the field rewarding him with a coveted job in the largest networking corp, Bipin even dropping a course in computer communications which he thought he wud fail but fought back to graduate as summa cum laude with a 3.8 gpa, Mathew working many odd jobs to earn money for leading a stylish lifestyle which made me really proud of him while carrying his MS along, Muthu who cud chatter hours and hours about any topic on earth other than studies taking such overwhelming command in his field of Operations Management that I had to bear hours and hours of lectures on Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and Strategic Consulting and me(lemme not say anything more abt myself....coz compared to these guys mine wuz a much more charmed existence in university!).
I feel so proud of these guys today...long back to motivate me and themselves these pals wud tell me of university mates getting jobs at Microsoft, Qualcomm, Paypal, hefty paypackets, etc, etc and I would offer back comfort in my carefree way by telling them we were meant to take the stairs up and not the elevator, despite wondering whether we would ever get there and yet we all did it. Last week, when Mathew talked to me about getting into some sort of entrepreneurship and to stop thinking in the mallu way of a salaried job for a lifetime I finally gave the self-employed idea serious thought...well I am still thinking about it! Making the quick buck is easier said than done... like the past three years I see another struggle for this new thought thats crept up on me...hopefully the idea of moving back to India in a few years with capital to fall back on will give me some motivation! This post is dedicated to all my friends who are still looking for their way to a little sun and succor that a job offers in the mentally tiring journey which is the reality of America life...if these dimwits I wrote about above could do it...I am sure you guys could outdo us by miles. The inspiration for this post came as Rajay, a junior at USC and SCT I befriended and became very close to in just the last few months was left devastated by the H1B quota getting exhausted...aliya, the Master's quota still stands...this may very well be the last struggle you gonna face in life...all the best to you and the thousand more brethren faced with this situation here.
Some months ago, I used to think my sheni dasha had rubbed off on my close friends too as noone got to the heights they aspired to reach(after 3 long years it ends next month!) and were left trapped in tiny companies with challenges and opportunities that ceased to inspire after a while. Today, I laugh at that because my closest buggers have all turned the corner. Bipin kicked the jinx out with a job at Boeing, following which Vikas was snapped up by Cisco, I was hired by Universal, Mathew landed a job at Disney last week and just yesterday Muthu by Argo Consulting. We were the wrong kind of desis to land up here, bcoz other than the thought of making it big in America we didnt know the effort needed to even make a start for our dream. After 30000 dollars spent on becoming a Master of Science...I questioned the Almighty's sense of justice as Bipin went to work at a small earth-sciences tech firm in Long Beach which didnt do justice to his abilities, Vikas at a document-search company in the Bay Area where despite his dedication...his project managers kept hounding him, Mathew languished at a small Telecom company in Los Angeles for two years, I went skipping from one disastrous job to another and Mithun first bade goodbye to MS and US with a promised job in Dubai which ended up as a dead-end, returned with his tail-between-the-legs and a girlfriend who shut the door on him(wuz so reminescent of Lakshya)...studied his ass out and pulled his grades out of a big hole, went to work in Business Warehousing...only to get fed up and drop out, landed a job at a Patel's liquor store and at the very end of the rope he had clung to for two long years found this job as a strategy consultant.
Looking back, I still remember a Vikas asking the dumbest possible questions in the Introduction to Computer Networks course in our first semester at USC totally embarassing us...but his dogged research and passion for the field rewarding him with a coveted job in the largest networking corp, Bipin even dropping a course in computer communications which he thought he wud fail but fought back to graduate as summa cum laude with a 3.8 gpa, Mathew working many odd jobs to earn money for leading a stylish lifestyle which made me really proud of him while carrying his MS along, Muthu who cud chatter hours and hours about any topic on earth other than studies taking such overwhelming command in his field of Operations Management that I had to bear hours and hours of lectures on Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and Strategic Consulting and me(lemme not say anything more abt myself....coz compared to these guys mine wuz a much more charmed existence in university!).
I feel so proud of these guys today...long back to motivate me and themselves these pals wud tell me of university mates getting jobs at Microsoft, Qualcomm, Paypal, hefty paypackets, etc, etc and I would offer back comfort in my carefree way by telling them we were meant to take the stairs up and not the elevator, despite wondering whether we would ever get there and yet we all did it. Last week, when Mathew talked to me about getting into some sort of entrepreneurship and to stop thinking in the mallu way of a salaried job for a lifetime I finally gave the self-employed idea serious thought...well I am still thinking about it! Making the quick buck is easier said than done... like the past three years I see another struggle for this new thought thats crept up on me...hopefully the idea of moving back to India in a few years with capital to fall back on will give me some motivation! This post is dedicated to all my friends who are still looking for their way to a little sun and succor that a job offers in the mentally tiring journey which is the reality of America life...if these dimwits I wrote about above could do it...I am sure you guys could outdo us by miles. The inspiration for this post came as Rajay, a junior at USC and SCT I befriended and became very close to in just the last few months was left devastated by the H1B quota getting exhausted...aliya, the Master's quota still stands...this may very well be the last struggle you gonna face in life...all the best to you and the thousand more brethren faced with this situation here.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Wonder Years...
More often than not I have stayed away from dissecting the four years of college as I have found it difficult to bite into (which wuz odd considering, Arun Hari, a pal I closely relate with has stubbornly blogged with this same title to keep our flock together when it seemed we drifted away by reminding us of all we did)...For one, those days were far too romantic beyond the harsh realities of today's working life...two, I still couldnt figure out whether that era made me or dismantled me in the long run. Nothing better than putting thoughts into words to gain a better perspective. College...where every schoolboy raring to grow up dreams of finding himself...watching chetanmaar streak thru in front of their eyes on shiny bikes, pretty girls in salwars and jeans, freedom from a never ending phase of uniforms, discipline, parental excertions, heavy textbooks, progress cards to be signed by guardians, etc, etc and etc. College was all this to me then and more...I had an added incentive to ensure that all the confidence picked up towards the later years of school life which lay dormant there would find meaning, purpose and achievement here.
Well, things turned out much differently to my surprise. A few months on in the first semester...after I organized our first excursion and new year party a big vacuum settled in and in a college standing on a few acres with space only for ugly buildings and a forever choked and dusty pappanamcode junction just off the campus and with an atmosphere of perpetual tension lingering arising from pitched strikes and fights between sfi-abvp-teachers-departments I yearned for a change. The trajectory, my life took from then on has constantly played out in the back of my mind...with all the good that came with the choice I made there was a lot I lost(or did I???). I became one of the savages...at first a loose confederation of like-minded, like-spirited boys looking for all the color, all the adventure and all the frills and risks that neither the college, or the textbooks or the strikes or gals cud give us. I was so happy then...though all along I knew I was changing in ways I found too helpless to deal with...I quit reading, money, money and money...nothing wuz more important, though I wuz studying to engineer computers the only way i cud relate with my field wuz thru email and mp3, materialism corrupted forever whatever inherent idealism had struck root in me...even god became a casualty.This lifestyle set me back by a few years in the US, there wuz a constant struggle to learn to walk without a cruch in every aspect of my days...when my grades slipped to the edge of a very dangerous precipe, when my credit history took a beating b4 i realized the vagaries of student loans, credit cards and paying untility bills in time,when i stayed hungry or lived off junk food b4 i forced myself to start cooking...everything wrong with me then...i simply laid the blame squarely at the roller-coaster of a college life I led.
Time has a way of turning around our perception of history. For some, it is through experience, for others it is through knowledge acquired...whatever be my case, today I am able to put some of the peices back into the jigsaw puzzle that life is. I have seen the 'highs' of being an unabashed extrovert and connoiseur of the good life, the 'lows' of being an introvert steeped in a world of the characters in the books i read and a fascination that I was one of them and the 'medians' of having to straddle these two extremes of human behavior. College gave me many things I never realized, though I lost out on a lot of valuable reading in those years, my classmates there encouraged me to start writing...the savages gave me experiences I will value to the very end...from taking risks, building relationships, being able to laugh at myself, to be street smart and most importantly to be a responsible person. We all fell in and out of love, failed and excelled in exams, won and lost more cricket matches than we can remember, opened our hearts to each other whether we boozed or not...sometimes they were humorous, sometimes tinged with sadness and though many a teachers curse might have fallen on us...we never became the run-off-the-mill set of vaalis...whenever there wuz a dumb charades, quiz, song, dance, cricket, programming contest or semester exams in the offing one or most or all the savages were there to give our best.
Life is short...who knows if there is heaven or hell or rebirth...to say you have done it all and given your best in everything you did is a hard task for any man. Every person, every incident that happens brings me closer to finding out what I want to do next. Though college set me off on the bewildering path of thinking in code and bits and bytes, huffing and puffing to catch up with every programming problem i have to encounter day-in and day-out it may have just set the tone for what the future holds for me...I know not if it will be the 300+(maybe 400+ too) movies we saw at the tvm theatres in the 4 years(shinoj arrived at this approx figure considering a "low' avg of 2 per week which we most likely surpassed) or the economics we debated hotly then or the countless long emails in the same nature of this blog i wud shoot to our class egroups or the data structures, algorithms and the C++ code we scratched our heads abt once in a while that will give me my livelihood. Even if none of these things work out...the friends from whom I benefitted, learned from, bonded with and most importantly still keep in touch despite distance and the passage of time ensures that those 4 years were after all not spent in vain. Today, i am passing through a phase where i feel my friendships drifting away...as the struggle for survival gets more pronounced, my need for them is lesser...its a lonely path in life henceforth...i took a long time to make peace with this existential fact...i am happy for one thing though...ever since this blog started I have been able to pay tribute to a lot of people who moulded me into what I am...if this post didnt come out now i knew i was in danger of committing a grave injustice of overlooking a group of people who sold me a dream once...a dream which I could have lived in only once in life...It would be amusing to see how our kids live out their college life...many years on I will look forward to the amusement and consternation of seeing a Junior Viswan, Chota Shan , Kiran Jr. and the progenies of the other Savages live out their Wonder Years...
Cheers!
Well, things turned out much differently to my surprise. A few months on in the first semester...after I organized our first excursion and new year party a big vacuum settled in and in a college standing on a few acres with space only for ugly buildings and a forever choked and dusty pappanamcode junction just off the campus and with an atmosphere of perpetual tension lingering arising from pitched strikes and fights between sfi-abvp-teachers-departments I yearned for a change. The trajectory, my life took from then on has constantly played out in the back of my mind...with all the good that came with the choice I made there was a lot I lost(or did I???). I became one of the savages...at first a loose confederation of like-minded, like-spirited boys looking for all the color, all the adventure and all the frills and risks that neither the college, or the textbooks or the strikes or gals cud give us. I was so happy then...though all along I knew I was changing in ways I found too helpless to deal with...I quit reading, money, money and money...nothing wuz more important, though I wuz studying to engineer computers the only way i cud relate with my field wuz thru email and mp3, materialism corrupted forever whatever inherent idealism had struck root in me...even god became a casualty.This lifestyle set me back by a few years in the US, there wuz a constant struggle to learn to walk without a cruch in every aspect of my days...when my grades slipped to the edge of a very dangerous precipe, when my credit history took a beating b4 i realized the vagaries of student loans, credit cards and paying untility bills in time,when i stayed hungry or lived off junk food b4 i forced myself to start cooking...everything wrong with me then...i simply laid the blame squarely at the roller-coaster of a college life I led.
Time has a way of turning around our perception of history. For some, it is through experience, for others it is through knowledge acquired...whatever be my case, today I am able to put some of the peices back into the jigsaw puzzle that life is. I have seen the 'highs' of being an unabashed extrovert and connoiseur of the good life, the 'lows' of being an introvert steeped in a world of the characters in the books i read and a fascination that I was one of them and the 'medians' of having to straddle these two extremes of human behavior. College gave me many things I never realized, though I lost out on a lot of valuable reading in those years, my classmates there encouraged me to start writing...the savages gave me experiences I will value to the very end...from taking risks, building relationships, being able to laugh at myself, to be street smart and most importantly to be a responsible person. We all fell in and out of love, failed and excelled in exams, won and lost more cricket matches than we can remember, opened our hearts to each other whether we boozed or not...sometimes they were humorous, sometimes tinged with sadness and though many a teachers curse might have fallen on us...we never became the run-off-the-mill set of vaalis...whenever there wuz a dumb charades, quiz, song, dance, cricket, programming contest or semester exams in the offing one or most or all the savages were there to give our best.
Life is short...who knows if there is heaven or hell or rebirth...to say you have done it all and given your best in everything you did is a hard task for any man. Every person, every incident that happens brings me closer to finding out what I want to do next. Though college set me off on the bewildering path of thinking in code and bits and bytes, huffing and puffing to catch up with every programming problem i have to encounter day-in and day-out it may have just set the tone for what the future holds for me...I know not if it will be the 300+(maybe 400+ too) movies we saw at the tvm theatres in the 4 years(shinoj arrived at this approx figure considering a "low' avg of 2 per week which we most likely surpassed) or the economics we debated hotly then or the countless long emails in the same nature of this blog i wud shoot to our class egroups or the data structures, algorithms and the C++ code we scratched our heads abt once in a while that will give me my livelihood. Even if none of these things work out...the friends from whom I benefitted, learned from, bonded with and most importantly still keep in touch despite distance and the passage of time ensures that those 4 years were after all not spent in vain. Today, i am passing through a phase where i feel my friendships drifting away...as the struggle for survival gets more pronounced, my need for them is lesser...its a lonely path in life henceforth...i took a long time to make peace with this existential fact...i am happy for one thing though...ever since this blog started I have been able to pay tribute to a lot of people who moulded me into what I am...if this post didnt come out now i knew i was in danger of committing a grave injustice of overlooking a group of people who sold me a dream once...a dream which I could have lived in only once in life...It would be amusing to see how our kids live out their college life...many years on I will look forward to the amusement and consternation of seeing a Junior Viswan, Chota Shan , Kiran Jr. and the progenies of the other Savages live out their Wonder Years...
Cheers!
Thursday, August 11, 2005
To some old companions...
I am sorry my friends...you who contributed so much to my growth as a human being...you who opened vistas to a thousand dreams and words like the ones in this blog...you who gave beautiful expression to my feelings...like Pip in Great Expectations I have turned you all, my best friends, away...yet when these posts keep adding up I never found it worth to dedicate one to y'all until this blessed night... a friend recently complained that my blogs were one-dimensional and that I can never write without getting emotional about my subject. Blame it all on Boz! I have read his David Copperfield and Great Expectations too many times over and over again to know of any other way to write. Every word he has written in the two great novels lies imprinted somewhere in my soul.
One of my favorite memories of reading was my mom frisking my textbook whenever she saw me studying without even exams around the corner. Many a time she had caught me with a novel hidden inside my textbook and the lurking suspicion that I was again upto my old tricks always entered her. 95% of the time the sound of her steps up the stairs would be enough for me to toss the novel far away and in all innocence i would say, "ho, padichaalum kuttam, padichillengilum kuttam"!!! I really dont blame her...though she never ever discouraged my reading i was such a weak student upto the ninth that they had no way other than to forcefully suppress my addiction...even without anyone around I ended up reading that way all through school life and in classrooms it wasnt really an odd sight seeing almost 75% of loyolites having a novel resting on their lap while presenting an occasional straight face to the unsuspecting teachers. Again another abiding memory of how desperate we were to get our drugs was of our librarian, the dear Susheela madam sighing at the young souls searching under book shelves, standing on our toes reaching out for the the top of the shelf, the space behind the shelf, and the wall to which it leans, for long lost books or those hidden by other possessive patrons...as i write this cant help smiling at one discovery i made from beneath a shelf...it had lain there for almost four years...Irving Wallace's Celestial Bed...and the steamy scenes in the book, made our lives...for a few days(remember those were the times b4 mms, pc's, cd's etc - and the vcr and video cassette library were our only recourses and even there i remember many of my friends getting shooed off by owners with the "meesha polum kilichillalloda" dialogue!
Well my reading took the same paths as everyone. From Enid Blyron's Noddy I moved to a period of early enlightenment...where I read a lot of indian and western folk tales, stories from the Puranas, the Mahabaharatha, Ramayana, Bible and a condensed version of the Quran. I dont think I comprehended the spiritual side of the holy books much but that wuz a period I wanted to become a priest after getting inspired seeing my uncle, Fr.Isaac Karoor. Well boys will be boys and no boy who stumbles on a Hardy Boy can get away from it without reading atleast a hundred of them. When an HB became hard to get, the Nancy Drew's, Three Investigators and Famous Five's abounded in our out-of-the-world school library. Sometime in the 7th a friend introduced me to Frederick Forsythe and I graduated to the world of thrillers. Then followed a line of similar writers like Archer, McLean, Higgins, Hailey, Wallace, Grisham, Ludlum and Clancy. Sometime in the 11th I got initiated to the Victorian classics and the plus-two years were well-spent building a collection of the best novels of that age. In between, Shakespeare and Poetry which we had to study, analyze and dissect for the ICSE, ISC exams grew within me and like history I let my mind loose and never once thought of it as something to be studied. Sadly that was the phase parental restrictions relaxed, friendships spilled over beyond classroom hours, the onset of cable television and a film craze that grew manically and has ever since refused to yield ground to anything else in me. The reading since my college days reduced to a trickle in comparison...haha lemme not get into it...i ofcourse read, but at the rate of maybe 10 books a year with that number coming down with each year... not to be left unsaid, the usual exception was Great Expectations and David Copperfield which i read and keep reading countless times just like I have watched Manichithrathazhu.
Moving over to Neil's Book Tag
1. Total number of books owned: I took great pride in how our library at home looked and nobody needed to tell me a second time to keep it clean, i really feel proud of the three sets of encyclopaedias we own(one in malayalam) and once in a while my dad, sis and I would get together to stack the great heaps of sociology books he acquires neatly...at one time I had like more than a 100 novels but carelessly lend many to friends expecting them to return it but I have found much to my despair that Loyolites are never gentlemen when it comes to one thing...books. After coming to the US, I have found thrift stores here which sells books at a nominal 50 cents for charity and aarthi pidiche I have snapped them...but many of them I have been forced to leave behind when the time to relocate came which was like once every six months or so.
2. Last book bought: Da Vinci Code - I am willing to give this away for free...its nothing more than a novel to be read and forgotten...except for a few truths which every objective xian like me must have thought abt(jesus wuz human...i wudnt blame him if he felt attracted to mary magdalene) i have found some of brown's claims in the guise of fiction totally revolting...like jesus having a child whose descendants became the merovingian dynasty...he hasnt substantiated many of the theories he puts forward.Spent freakin 30 bucks for this...that too at a time when i wuz strapped... i am mightily and rightfully pissed!
3. Last book read: Well thats an embarassing one to answer - Check out Anish's Blog. He has a link there to a book written by Rajan's father, Prof.Eachara Warrier if you havent already. It is definitely recommended reading for every Indian and Malayali. If you say thats not a book I really cant remember what I read last...but does it matter??? What with so many fantastic bloggers in our midst!!!
4. Books that mean a lot to me:
Great Expectations - The Pip who conveniently forgets his childhood friends and grows to manhood amidst riches, carefree pals and false pride in his social standing before he sees everything he once lived with crashing to the ground is such a splitting image of myself.
David Copperfield - David's journey through life was Boz's way of writing his autobiography...Mr.Dickens, as long as the world turns and men live in it and know to read you will remain unarguably the greatest writer in the English language.I always wonder how much I am like the David, who fell impractically in love for the immature Dora amidst working odd jobs to survive before his true calling came visiting.
The Covenant - This epic story by James Michener which begins in the middle ages right to the modern-day world of the 60's telling the saga of three families in England, South Africa and Netherlands and how their destinies inter-twine held me engrossed to the very end of its 1100 pages.
Khasakkinte Ithihaasangal - After reading this, I wondered why O.V.Vijayan was never considered good enough for the Nobel or the Jnanapith Awards. His breath-taking style of narration and description of the political, social and geographical landscape of Kerala as it transformed...was so spell-binding. Made me so aware of my ignorance of my own people...wished why i wasted so much of my precious youth in awe of kerala's cities when i could have experienced far more beautiful things in her villages. For those who cant read malayalam his own english translation of the novel is equally brilliant.
Mindapennu - Fascinating novel that we had to study. It depicted the winds of social change blowing across the kerala of the 50's as women ventured outside their homes to work in offices and of men still caught in the time-warp.
Godfather - Do I really need to write anything about this one!!!
My Father, My Son - I wept like a baby reading this one. Apart from a numbingly beautiful storyline it has some great subtly written humor too...somebody in college took it and never returned it.
Little Pricks - This book was an all-time bestseller written in 1916 by a Ralph Moore...another book I retrieved from under a loyola shelf...its a great book about a young boy in the american midwest of the 19th century who grows up to adulthood surpassing great difficulties.
Tom Brown's Schooldays and P.G.Wodehouse - These books virtually mirrored our schooldays though they were written so many years before...so many colorful characters in these books were similar to many of the guys who studied with me not to mention all the hotly contested cricket, basketball and football games we indulged in akin to these novels...i wonder when a book on our loyola days will get written by anyone of my multi-faceted classmates there.
Neil, thanks a lot for this book tag. I thoroughly enjoyed keying in this post. And to you, my dear old friends, whatever I read in you is all that this blog contains...i am certain you guys live...bcoz u breathe so much passion, so much sensitivity, so much life, so many dreams into us who befriend you...maybe you live in another plane of existence...I hope to soon come visiting you guys as of yore...
One of my favorite memories of reading was my mom frisking my textbook whenever she saw me studying without even exams around the corner. Many a time she had caught me with a novel hidden inside my textbook and the lurking suspicion that I was again upto my old tricks always entered her. 95% of the time the sound of her steps up the stairs would be enough for me to toss the novel far away and in all innocence i would say, "ho, padichaalum kuttam, padichillengilum kuttam"!!! I really dont blame her...though she never ever discouraged my reading i was such a weak student upto the ninth that they had no way other than to forcefully suppress my addiction...even without anyone around I ended up reading that way all through school life and in classrooms it wasnt really an odd sight seeing almost 75% of loyolites having a novel resting on their lap while presenting an occasional straight face to the unsuspecting teachers. Again another abiding memory of how desperate we were to get our drugs was of our librarian, the dear Susheela madam sighing at the young souls searching under book shelves, standing on our toes reaching out for the the top of the shelf, the space behind the shelf, and the wall to which it leans, for long lost books or those hidden by other possessive patrons...as i write this cant help smiling at one discovery i made from beneath a shelf...it had lain there for almost four years...Irving Wallace's Celestial Bed...and the steamy scenes in the book, made our lives...for a few days(remember those were the times b4 mms, pc's, cd's etc - and the vcr and video cassette library were our only recourses and even there i remember many of my friends getting shooed off by owners with the "meesha polum kilichillalloda" dialogue!
Well my reading took the same paths as everyone. From Enid Blyron's Noddy I moved to a period of early enlightenment...where I read a lot of indian and western folk tales, stories from the Puranas, the Mahabaharatha, Ramayana, Bible and a condensed version of the Quran. I dont think I comprehended the spiritual side of the holy books much but that wuz a period I wanted to become a priest after getting inspired seeing my uncle, Fr.Isaac Karoor. Well boys will be boys and no boy who stumbles on a Hardy Boy can get away from it without reading atleast a hundred of them. When an HB became hard to get, the Nancy Drew's, Three Investigators and Famous Five's abounded in our out-of-the-world school library. Sometime in the 7th a friend introduced me to Frederick Forsythe and I graduated to the world of thrillers. Then followed a line of similar writers like Archer, McLean, Higgins, Hailey, Wallace, Grisham, Ludlum and Clancy. Sometime in the 11th I got initiated to the Victorian classics and the plus-two years were well-spent building a collection of the best novels of that age. In between, Shakespeare and Poetry which we had to study, analyze and dissect for the ICSE, ISC exams grew within me and like history I let my mind loose and never once thought of it as something to be studied. Sadly that was the phase parental restrictions relaxed, friendships spilled over beyond classroom hours, the onset of cable television and a film craze that grew manically and has ever since refused to yield ground to anything else in me. The reading since my college days reduced to a trickle in comparison...haha lemme not get into it...i ofcourse read, but at the rate of maybe 10 books a year with that number coming down with each year... not to be left unsaid, the usual exception was Great Expectations and David Copperfield which i read and keep reading countless times just like I have watched Manichithrathazhu.
Moving over to Neil's Book Tag
1. Total number of books owned: I took great pride in how our library at home looked and nobody needed to tell me a second time to keep it clean, i really feel proud of the three sets of encyclopaedias we own(one in malayalam) and once in a while my dad, sis and I would get together to stack the great heaps of sociology books he acquires neatly...at one time I had like more than a 100 novels but carelessly lend many to friends expecting them to return it but I have found much to my despair that Loyolites are never gentlemen when it comes to one thing...books. After coming to the US, I have found thrift stores here which sells books at a nominal 50 cents for charity and aarthi pidiche I have snapped them...but many of them I have been forced to leave behind when the time to relocate came which was like once every six months or so.
2. Last book bought: Da Vinci Code - I am willing to give this away for free...its nothing more than a novel to be read and forgotten...except for a few truths which every objective xian like me must have thought abt(jesus wuz human...i wudnt blame him if he felt attracted to mary magdalene) i have found some of brown's claims in the guise of fiction totally revolting...like jesus having a child whose descendants became the merovingian dynasty...he hasnt substantiated many of the theories he puts forward.Spent freakin 30 bucks for this...that too at a time when i wuz strapped... i am mightily and rightfully pissed!
3. Last book read: Well thats an embarassing one to answer - Check out Anish's Blog. He has a link there to a book written by Rajan's father, Prof.Eachara Warrier if you havent already. It is definitely recommended reading for every Indian and Malayali. If you say thats not a book I really cant remember what I read last...but does it matter??? What with so many fantastic bloggers in our midst!!!
4. Books that mean a lot to me:
Great Expectations - The Pip who conveniently forgets his childhood friends and grows to manhood amidst riches, carefree pals and false pride in his social standing before he sees everything he once lived with crashing to the ground is such a splitting image of myself.
David Copperfield - David's journey through life was Boz's way of writing his autobiography...Mr.Dickens, as long as the world turns and men live in it and know to read you will remain unarguably the greatest writer in the English language.I always wonder how much I am like the David, who fell impractically in love for the immature Dora amidst working odd jobs to survive before his true calling came visiting.
The Covenant - This epic story by James Michener which begins in the middle ages right to the modern-day world of the 60's telling the saga of three families in England, South Africa and Netherlands and how their destinies inter-twine held me engrossed to the very end of its 1100 pages.
Khasakkinte Ithihaasangal - After reading this, I wondered why O.V.Vijayan was never considered good enough for the Nobel or the Jnanapith Awards. His breath-taking style of narration and description of the political, social and geographical landscape of Kerala as it transformed...was so spell-binding. Made me so aware of my ignorance of my own people...wished why i wasted so much of my precious youth in awe of kerala's cities when i could have experienced far more beautiful things in her villages. For those who cant read malayalam his own english translation of the novel is equally brilliant.
Mindapennu - Fascinating novel that we had to study. It depicted the winds of social change blowing across the kerala of the 50's as women ventured outside their homes to work in offices and of men still caught in the time-warp.
Godfather - Do I really need to write anything about this one!!!
My Father, My Son - I wept like a baby reading this one. Apart from a numbingly beautiful storyline it has some great subtly written humor too...somebody in college took it and never returned it.
Little Pricks - This book was an all-time bestseller written in 1916 by a Ralph Moore...another book I retrieved from under a loyola shelf...its a great book about a young boy in the american midwest of the 19th century who grows up to adulthood surpassing great difficulties.
Tom Brown's Schooldays and P.G.Wodehouse - These books virtually mirrored our schooldays though they were written so many years before...so many colorful characters in these books were similar to many of the guys who studied with me not to mention all the hotly contested cricket, basketball and football games we indulged in akin to these novels...i wonder when a book on our loyola days will get written by anyone of my multi-faceted classmates there.
Neil, thanks a lot for this book tag. I thoroughly enjoyed keying in this post. And to you, my dear old friends, whatever I read in you is all that this blog contains...i am certain you guys live...bcoz u breathe so much passion, so much sensitivity, so much life, so many dreams into us who befriend you...maybe you live in another plane of existence...I hope to soon come visiting you guys as of yore...
Sunday, August 07, 2005
For a few cents less...
I just couldnt help laughing at myself. Had just come off a heated argument with my sis who wanted to get a tissue roll for $1.97 when i saw another brand for $1.57. Thought about my parents who squirmed in displeasure when I squandered imprudently and of moms regular taunts at me saying "ninakku kaashu ondaakumbam athe veruthe ozhukki kalayunnathinte buddhimutte manassilaakum" and my own inner voices which wanted to shout to them saying "enikke kaashu kittumbam njan kaanichu tharaam life engane jeevikkanam enne". Moving to the present like most of their words of wisdom this one rings true too. As every paycheck comes in I brace for doing a hundred meaningful things I wanna do and the rest to be saved and lo! it has disappeared even before I take stock of the situation. The feel-good part of it is that most of it went into repaying long-standing personal debt...a remnant of the struggling days, meeting far-away relatives, fixing my increasingly rickety car, helping pals out, tickets to India or running the house in style. Occasionally i sit staring at my right palm which has gaping holes between the fingers(my pops is well-versed with astrology and says it signifies all i make will leak through...what comforts me is that he has them too and yet manages his affairs well!).
Once I had this run-in at home when my dad gave me a fair scolding for pulling out crumpled rupee notes from my pocket and leaving it at his desk...it certainly must have hurt to see his hard-earned money treated in some dememaning fashion by me...my response was "spectacular" to say the least...i walked out of home...when i returned without even being apologetic all he did was leave a new wallet in my room. When my sis accidentally dropped my laptop on the floor, my mom and sis smiled as i ranted and raved at her for being so indifferent...the revenge of time! But fact is, she is a smart gal...though she earns much lesser than me, is a compulsive shopper and shares in our expenses when it comes to things i need like replacing a worn-out wallet of many years and a watch that hadnt run for a month...she went out and got stylish ones while I procrastinated and she beams at her bank balances while I look at mine's mournfully when we get down to our once-in-a-while who-beats-who sibling rivalry.
I have learnt valuable lessons in money management from my parents...their entire adult life they have lived on credit...improving their standard of life by taking out loans and investing instead of saving up their salaries and though I wondered when i was small why my sis and I had to wear tailored, old and ill-fitting clothes compared to my cousins who were always well-dressed but today i realize that their journey from a studio apt in kunnukuzhi to a small two bedroom flat at pattom to our present house and then to our both immigration to the US were all vectors that represented the upwardly mobile middle-class ambitions of the india of the eighties and the little things we all sacrificed then certainly played its part to get us here. Its just awesome...I talk to all my friends and they all have such tales of their parents to say...when we were kids they were in their struggling phases, yet put us through the best schools, got us most things we asked for while we never ever had to worry about all the financial worries they hid under a veneer of smiles reserved for us. My dad got his first job at the age of 29 and his current job at the age of 35...like most people then, while most of us yuppies are already at work and settled by our early 20's.
I look at most of my friends here and see a confused lot...some go out and get bmw's and benz's to signify their increasing social life, some absolutely crazed about the accessories the internet tempts them with acquiring, others worrying where to invest their money and squeeze out of the IT field and others abt sending money home for parents to take care of it...but we are all alike in one way, scratching our heads in bewilderment wondering how our parents made sense of needs and dreams and made intelligent spending decisions. Maybe its something we will all figure out as we go along...while we learn, earn, loose and live with these decisons, make mistakes, rectify them, then make other mistakes and finally get it right some day! ...and so we both continued our shopping...i passed the cereals section where I saw the brand i once ate 4 times a day for a few days to save money for a trip to vegas ending up with dysentry and a green-colored poop, then the one dollar rice grain which if boiled even a minute longer makes for excellent fevicol and on which i lived on once three days in a row eating as kanji coz of a paycheck that didnt arrive leaving my bank balance at nil(i bought that again a few months back only to see my mom trash it while giving me an atleast-now-go-get-a-life look) and while going home the one-dollar burgers at macdonalds, which wuz my life giving bread during the university days. We all do crazy things to save money at every point in our life and we all will have evenings like this when we think of those days fondly(and secretly in terror of their ever returing) and how much ever I deny the importance of the rectangular strips of paper my admiration just grows for people who know to spend their money wisely and unselfishly for their dear ones to be happy as i try to figure my way through this maddening maze that adulthood which I once foolishly craved for as a kid landed me in!
Once I had this run-in at home when my dad gave me a fair scolding for pulling out crumpled rupee notes from my pocket and leaving it at his desk...it certainly must have hurt to see his hard-earned money treated in some dememaning fashion by me...my response was "spectacular" to say the least...i walked out of home...when i returned without even being apologetic all he did was leave a new wallet in my room. When my sis accidentally dropped my laptop on the floor, my mom and sis smiled as i ranted and raved at her for being so indifferent...the revenge of time! But fact is, she is a smart gal...though she earns much lesser than me, is a compulsive shopper and shares in our expenses when it comes to things i need like replacing a worn-out wallet of many years and a watch that hadnt run for a month...she went out and got stylish ones while I procrastinated and she beams at her bank balances while I look at mine's mournfully when we get down to our once-in-a-while who-beats-who sibling rivalry.
I have learnt valuable lessons in money management from my parents...their entire adult life they have lived on credit...improving their standard of life by taking out loans and investing instead of saving up their salaries and though I wondered when i was small why my sis and I had to wear tailored, old and ill-fitting clothes compared to my cousins who were always well-dressed but today i realize that their journey from a studio apt in kunnukuzhi to a small two bedroom flat at pattom to our present house and then to our both immigration to the US were all vectors that represented the upwardly mobile middle-class ambitions of the india of the eighties and the little things we all sacrificed then certainly played its part to get us here. Its just awesome...I talk to all my friends and they all have such tales of their parents to say...when we were kids they were in their struggling phases, yet put us through the best schools, got us most things we asked for while we never ever had to worry about all the financial worries they hid under a veneer of smiles reserved for us. My dad got his first job at the age of 29 and his current job at the age of 35...like most people then, while most of us yuppies are already at work and settled by our early 20's.
I look at most of my friends here and see a confused lot...some go out and get bmw's and benz's to signify their increasing social life, some absolutely crazed about the accessories the internet tempts them with acquiring, others worrying where to invest their money and squeeze out of the IT field and others abt sending money home for parents to take care of it...but we are all alike in one way, scratching our heads in bewilderment wondering how our parents made sense of needs and dreams and made intelligent spending decisions. Maybe its something we will all figure out as we go along...while we learn, earn, loose and live with these decisons, make mistakes, rectify them, then make other mistakes and finally get it right some day! ...and so we both continued our shopping...i passed the cereals section where I saw the brand i once ate 4 times a day for a few days to save money for a trip to vegas ending up with dysentry and a green-colored poop, then the one dollar rice grain which if boiled even a minute longer makes for excellent fevicol and on which i lived on once three days in a row eating as kanji coz of a paycheck that didnt arrive leaving my bank balance at nil(i bought that again a few months back only to see my mom trash it while giving me an atleast-now-go-get-a-life look) and while going home the one-dollar burgers at macdonalds, which wuz my life giving bread during the university days. We all do crazy things to save money at every point in our life and we all will have evenings like this when we think of those days fondly(and secretly in terror of their ever returing) and how much ever I deny the importance of the rectangular strips of paper my admiration just grows for people who know to spend their money wisely and unselfishly for their dear ones to be happy as i try to figure my way through this maddening maze that adulthood which I once foolishly craved for as a kid landed me in!
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Chiriyo Chiri....
CAUTION...this is painfully long. My bud Arun, has paid a glowing tribute to our college life through his blog. He has written so well I have wondered what way I could contribute...so here it comes. A compilation of all the anecdotes I remember that happened in those four funny years on a semester-by-semester break-up. Like old wine, many of these jokes get better and better and so worth remembering for a lifetime! I wish I could do justice to each of these incidents...each of our savages had their own style of talking, their own way of exclaiming and emoting and the comic timing that resulted from our amazing cameraderie which grew with each semester wuz just a treat and a pain in the ass for the classmates and teachers who spent 4 years of their life with us.Thank You guys for all the times you made me laugh day-in and day-out from Nov'98 to May'02 and for every moment I think abt you all that never fails to bring a wry smile to my face and evokes such sweet remembrances of life in Trivandrum that I will forever miss.
S1-S2:
Sabu Sir is teaching abt cell phones during his Basic Electronics class. Shan takes out his fathers old first generation gamandan cellphone flashes it at Sabu Sir and said to the poor, dumbstruck man, "Sir, saarinte notes vechundaakkiya cell phone aanu….pakshe work cheyyunnilla".
Viswan at the first day, first show screening of Usthad says ‘Enthaade aarkum ore ulsaham illaaathe, lalettante padam alle”…and shouts “Bolo, Bhaaaratha Mohanlal Ki Jai”….the locals and fans association members who made the bulk of the crowd started laughing at us!!!
Sheenu on loosing her black hero pen writes on the blackboard:
"LOST: Sheenu's Black Hero" to which an overjoyed Sooraj Thankappan who calls himself “Born in Africa…Lost in India” shouts out : "Yehhhhhhh"!!!Can never forget Sheenu scrambling desperately for the blackboard to rub off all she wrote.
We planned to spend the day at Neyyar Dam and everyone except for me wuz able to bunk class saying some reason or the other…fretting at my misfortune I jump out of the class throught the back windows onto the sunshade while the sir had turned towards the blackboard…finally find an empty classroom…to get off the sunshade and search all over campus for my mates…somebody tells me that having not seen me the trip wuz cancelled and the guys had headed back to the class…having nothing to do I walk into class and at the door the sir stares at me as though he wuz seeing a ghost…only a few minutes back he had looked at me…thankfully he didn’t check the attendance register!
During workshop class, Jessen asked by Foundry instructor to hand him a cleaner very intelligently gives him a rag of cotton wool. The cleaner actually happened to be a steel rod much unlike its name to jessen’s dismay, the sir's disgust and our unbridled laughter.
S-3:
During S-3 excursion we were passing through a junction just outside Ooty. Shinoj put his head outside the bus and was greeted by faces of some thamizhan locals.As it comes naturally to him, he wagged his middle finger at the unsuspecting guys. Just 10 metres on, the bus screeched to a halt due to traffic. We all waited breathlessly for the locals to come at us. Luckily the bus took off and we all put our heads out again. Guess what the name of the place was: Moonchikkal Junction!!!
During Logic Systems Design class Manoj Sir hauls up a noisy Shan and asks him: If you want a GATE(IC chip) at a shop how should u ask for it: Shan without any qualms answers: "I want a GATE".
Our last DMS class with Sreenivasan Sir,we all shouted,"Sir,Wish you a Happy Onam and a Happy Married Life" to which he replied ”Same to you all also" only to walk out of the class chammufied by our laughter at his gaffe.
There was a convent adjacent to Viswan’s house and Arun Hari wuz waiting for him to come and leaning against the wall having nothing better to do starts enticing a cat on the convent property with meows and other sounds. Suddenly a nun who wuz taking a shower in an outside bathroom on the property comes out and stares at Arun…fearing she had misunderstood him….he runs for his life leaving his bike behind!
S-4:
We planned a trip to Veli beach and as we went to buy the booze viswan obstinately declares there is a bar at Veli and we neednt take the trouble of buying in advance. Believing his words we reach Veli….guess wht the bar he referred to said…COOL BAR…selling soft drinks!!! Eduthitte thalli avane…
That same trip while walking on the beach Shan has a sudden desire to ride one of the horses there. He pays the guy, gets on the horse and tugs at the reins…the horse ambles ahead at a slow pace…shan turns to the guy and asks….”enthe anna, oru speed illaathe ee kuthirakke”….and the owner cracks his whip sending the horse racing ahead….shan is taken aback and is fearful….struggling to keep his balance grabs the kuthira’s mane which made it even more mad and it starts galloping faster…we fell over each other laughing with shan shouting out….”anna enne rekshikke”!!!
The savages were hanging outside one of our earliest joints, the LMS hostel compund wall by the junction. Suddenly anoop alerts the group that the warden is around and lower our voices….kiran as always busy on two things at the same time remarks…”aaraada ee warden”. He intended to ask it in the proper way but in the bonhomie that our group imparts it took a menacing “aaraada ee warden” tone. The warden overheard that, walked upto kiran and said in an equally menacing tone, “njaanaada ee warden”. Kiran wuz almost on his knees trying to apologize to the unheeding man while we didn’t know whether to laugh or to help Anoop and Kevin carry out their stuff if they got thrown out.
S-5:
Chakka walks into Café Magnet and tells the waiter…”10 barotta, 2 chilli gobis”…immediately the waiter asks “parcel aano sir” to which an embarrassed kiran replies in the negative.
This is my favorite Kevin goal. We took a hotel room at Kovalam once, and viswan while signing the register pens his name in there as Shaju Cherian. Kevin watching him intently immediately asks aloud ‘eda nee Viswanath Prasad alle?”. The receptionist having seen bigger thappaana’s than us thankfully ignored it…. Its strange really how a brilliant guy like him can be absolutely absent-minded at times.
Viswan is caught by his dad for drinking and he gets into trouble big time! Next day we spent an anxious time at college waiting for our heads to burst as his parents decide to conduct a Shatrusamhara Pooja to destroy all the evils afflicting their aruma santhanam!
S-6:
The guys are cutting class and playing cards at kevins lodge room. Kevin goes out, reappers and folding his fingers into a concave shape indicating a snake says “porathe oru aana”…and then makes a noise “meow”. the guys run out to see wht it is and all they see is the elephant and no sign of any cat or snake!
This is an unbelievable Kevin goal. We have to submit lab records at the end of the semester and all the guys are busy copying from the gals. After all the donkey’s work is done we start working on the Index page with the date and the name of the experiment done. Kevin writes all the names first and in one stretch starts filling in the dates.He goes 3/16/2001, 3/23/2001,3/30/2001,3/37/2001, 3/44/2001 and 3/51/2001!!! One of the gals helping us out peeks over his shoulder and catches the blunder! Kevin’s response...an unforgettably typical squeak…"Oh Njyo"!!!!!!
One day in class we get an emergency request for blood donation. Only Viswan’s and Anoop’s blood type matched and they headed out. On returning they said it was for a close relative of Seeja Teacher, enfant terrible to us. Sometime soon after, all the savages got hauled up in class by her for alambs…Immediately Anoop and Viswan start rubbing their hands in agony where the blood wuz taken….an embarrassed Seeja Teacher tells the two of them to sit while the rest of us remained standing for the rest of the class fuming at the two of them and baying for their blood.
Viswan and Arun decide to start working out at Power Gym at Palayam. Chakka frantically tells them Power is not good, and it’s a fucked up place and Viswan and Arun decide not to go. Next morning however they change their mind and the first sight they see at the gym…Kiran struggling with dumbbells!!!...and on seeing them gives the most chammufied look ever. We later found out he had been at it for more than a month while all the time claiming he wuz headed for some naturopathy treatment for weight loss.
Jayasudha Teacher realized one day that guys were bunking class while she wuz teaching. She says, "Aarokkeya chaadi poyothe enne njan kandupidikkum"...and she looks to the nice, studious folks in the class for assistance. Krishnakumar, our rank-holder's response leaves her stunned..."teacher, namukke dummy itte nokaam"!!!
S-7:
Viswan asked by Rajeev,SFI leader to join in a fight against some
ABVP guys tells him,Eda njan innale gym il randu dumbbell
pokkiyappazhathekku biceps sprain cheythu.che,sorry
eda, allengil.........
The convent adjacent to Viswan’s house had begun to double up as a Ladies Hostel too and suddenly every evening all the guys wud arrive after class to play cricket with a punctuality that seemed odd. Everybody was playing their best shots, bowling bouncers, taking sharp catches amidst taking a peak back at the gals spying on us from their rooms which seemed all too suspicious to Viswan’s watchman who ensured another interesting pastime got nipped in the bud.
In S-4 Viswan(Viswanath Prasad) had bought a thin, frail dog and called him Dexter. It wuz fun watching him trying to train the dog who all he did was bark and eat. In two years time Dexter had become a fat, huge dog while Viswan had lost a lot of weight. We started joking all the food cooked in his home wuz meant for Dexter and that he wuz almost like a brother to Viswan now and we started calling Dexter, Dexter Prasad.
(Courtesy:Arun Hari) Place: sandy/kevins house in pappanamcode. lunch time.and the servant there prepares some real good food...and there are 4-5 ppl apart from sandy/kevin who stay there...so the food is meant for all...so its lunch time and our dear chakka decides to dig in on a light snack...apparently he likes the food so much that he takes helping after helping....all the while, sandy is looking with horror at the carnage...and cant say anything as chakka is understandably enjoying himself without realising other hungry ppl will come in a short whileand beat up poor sandy n kevin for missing food....here goes the killer punch...chakka goes upto sandy (very seriously) and says...."ninte ee jolikkari kollamallodey....adipoli food...njanoru karyam cheyyam...i will give a fixed amount of money additional and she can cook for me also"...that was the last straw on poor sandy's back...he shoots back with desperation and suppressed anger...."EE veettil oru kalame ollu"!!!!.....and we all burst at our seams laughing.
S-8:
Exam time. I walk past kevin shoving away a branch of a small tree under which we were all huddled. The branch recoils and hits Kevin who is deep in last-minute study and thinking somebody hits him turns around and shouts “eda patti” and grabs hold of the person who hit him…and is shocked to see the branch in his hands wondering how it cud ever do that to him!!!
We were out all night plastering the walls of trivandrum with our dishaa’ 02 posters. By 4 am we were famished and drove all around the city trying to find a thattukada. We rejoiced upon stumbling upon one at pattom and what followed was a plunder. Dosa upon dosa, countless omlettes and beef were dispatched away in minutes. The owner told us ningal ellaam theerthu but kiran so engrossed in eating never heard that and asks..”ineem enthe onde anna”…and the guy shot back “ineem ee kadayum koode olle”! Man I never laughed that loud at 4:30 in the morning.
Kevin was told to book tickets for our train journey to Bangalore to appear for an MBA entrance exam. On the appointed day our guys board the train at thampanoor…everyone is as usual in high spirits…on boarding the train chakka is more gregarious than normal and says…”ningal enne thettidharikkalle…apparthe compartmentil neena cherian(ex-vj-suryatv) onde…we are acquaintances…ningalude koode ethra neram irikkaan pattum enne ariyilla”…and on making the way to their seats finds a man perched there…chakka immediately…”plaze daant misunderstand…this is our seat” and the man a bit shaken at this 100+ kg guy talking like this to him says meekly…”ithente seat aanu…enikke ticket onde”. Chakka not in a mood to let it go throws his ticket towards the man who carefully looks at it and then fighting hard to suppress a smile of victory tells chakka to look at the date more carefully. Instead of jan 14 kevin had taken the tickets for feb 14 and there wuz an exam to be written!!! Somehow the guys frantically manage to find space on a bus headed to blore and the guys were angrily waiting to give an earful to Kevin who wuz to board at the kollam railway station and calls him up…explaining to him his abadham amidst therivilis and their plan to travel by bus…they totally loose their composure when an unrepentant Kevin says…”enikke businte middle seat thanne venam”!!!
P.S - Long back when we were bidding farewell to college I wrote an autograph for every person who studied with me during those four glorious years. A character sketch of the many protagonists who lighted up this post can be found here in alphabetic order.
S1-S2:
Sabu Sir is teaching abt cell phones during his Basic Electronics class. Shan takes out his fathers old first generation gamandan cellphone flashes it at Sabu Sir and said to the poor, dumbstruck man, "Sir, saarinte notes vechundaakkiya cell phone aanu….pakshe work cheyyunnilla".
Viswan at the first day, first show screening of Usthad says ‘Enthaade aarkum ore ulsaham illaaathe, lalettante padam alle”…and shouts “Bolo, Bhaaaratha Mohanlal Ki Jai”….the locals and fans association members who made the bulk of the crowd started laughing at us!!!
Sheenu on loosing her black hero pen writes on the blackboard:
"LOST: Sheenu's Black Hero" to which an overjoyed Sooraj Thankappan who calls himself “Born in Africa…Lost in India” shouts out : "Yehhhhhhh"!!!Can never forget Sheenu scrambling desperately for the blackboard to rub off all she wrote.
We planned to spend the day at Neyyar Dam and everyone except for me wuz able to bunk class saying some reason or the other…fretting at my misfortune I jump out of the class throught the back windows onto the sunshade while the sir had turned towards the blackboard…finally find an empty classroom…to get off the sunshade and search all over campus for my mates…somebody tells me that having not seen me the trip wuz cancelled and the guys had headed back to the class…having nothing to do I walk into class and at the door the sir stares at me as though he wuz seeing a ghost…only a few minutes back he had looked at me…thankfully he didn’t check the attendance register!
During workshop class, Jessen asked by Foundry instructor to hand him a cleaner very intelligently gives him a rag of cotton wool. The cleaner actually happened to be a steel rod much unlike its name to jessen’s dismay, the sir's disgust and our unbridled laughter.
S-3:
During S-3 excursion we were passing through a junction just outside Ooty. Shinoj put his head outside the bus and was greeted by faces of some thamizhan locals.As it comes naturally to him, he wagged his middle finger at the unsuspecting guys. Just 10 metres on, the bus screeched to a halt due to traffic. We all waited breathlessly for the locals to come at us. Luckily the bus took off and we all put our heads out again. Guess what the name of the place was: Moonchikkal Junction!!!
During Logic Systems Design class Manoj Sir hauls up a noisy Shan and asks him: If you want a GATE(IC chip) at a shop how should u ask for it: Shan without any qualms answers: "I want a GATE".
Our last DMS class with Sreenivasan Sir,we all shouted,"Sir,Wish you a Happy Onam and a Happy Married Life" to which he replied ”Same to you all also" only to walk out of the class chammufied by our laughter at his gaffe.
There was a convent adjacent to Viswan’s house and Arun Hari wuz waiting for him to come and leaning against the wall having nothing better to do starts enticing a cat on the convent property with meows and other sounds. Suddenly a nun who wuz taking a shower in an outside bathroom on the property comes out and stares at Arun…fearing she had misunderstood him….he runs for his life leaving his bike behind!
S-4:
We planned a trip to Veli beach and as we went to buy the booze viswan obstinately declares there is a bar at Veli and we neednt take the trouble of buying in advance. Believing his words we reach Veli….guess wht the bar he referred to said…COOL BAR…selling soft drinks!!! Eduthitte thalli avane…
That same trip while walking on the beach Shan has a sudden desire to ride one of the horses there. He pays the guy, gets on the horse and tugs at the reins…the horse ambles ahead at a slow pace…shan turns to the guy and asks….”enthe anna, oru speed illaathe ee kuthirakke”….and the owner cracks his whip sending the horse racing ahead….shan is taken aback and is fearful….struggling to keep his balance grabs the kuthira’s mane which made it even more mad and it starts galloping faster…we fell over each other laughing with shan shouting out….”anna enne rekshikke”!!!
The savages were hanging outside one of our earliest joints, the LMS hostel compund wall by the junction. Suddenly anoop alerts the group that the warden is around and lower our voices….kiran as always busy on two things at the same time remarks…”aaraada ee warden”. He intended to ask it in the proper way but in the bonhomie that our group imparts it took a menacing “aaraada ee warden” tone. The warden overheard that, walked upto kiran and said in an equally menacing tone, “njaanaada ee warden”. Kiran wuz almost on his knees trying to apologize to the unheeding man while we didn’t know whether to laugh or to help Anoop and Kevin carry out their stuff if they got thrown out.
S-5:
Chakka walks into Café Magnet and tells the waiter…”10 barotta, 2 chilli gobis”…immediately the waiter asks “parcel aano sir” to which an embarrassed kiran replies in the negative.
This is my favorite Kevin goal. We took a hotel room at Kovalam once, and viswan while signing the register pens his name in there as Shaju Cherian. Kevin watching him intently immediately asks aloud ‘eda nee Viswanath Prasad alle?”. The receptionist having seen bigger thappaana’s than us thankfully ignored it…. Its strange really how a brilliant guy like him can be absolutely absent-minded at times.
Viswan is caught by his dad for drinking and he gets into trouble big time! Next day we spent an anxious time at college waiting for our heads to burst as his parents decide to conduct a Shatrusamhara Pooja to destroy all the evils afflicting their aruma santhanam!
S-6:
The guys are cutting class and playing cards at kevins lodge room. Kevin goes out, reappers and folding his fingers into a concave shape indicating a snake says “porathe oru aana”…and then makes a noise “meow”. the guys run out to see wht it is and all they see is the elephant and no sign of any cat or snake!
This is an unbelievable Kevin goal. We have to submit lab records at the end of the semester and all the guys are busy copying from the gals. After all the donkey’s work is done we start working on the Index page with the date and the name of the experiment done. Kevin writes all the names first and in one stretch starts filling in the dates.He goes 3/16/2001, 3/23/2001,3/30/2001,3/37/2001, 3/44/2001 and 3/51/2001!!! One of the gals helping us out peeks over his shoulder and catches the blunder! Kevin’s response...an unforgettably typical squeak…"Oh Njyo"!!!!!!
One day in class we get an emergency request for blood donation. Only Viswan’s and Anoop’s blood type matched and they headed out. On returning they said it was for a close relative of Seeja Teacher, enfant terrible to us. Sometime soon after, all the savages got hauled up in class by her for alambs…Immediately Anoop and Viswan start rubbing their hands in agony where the blood wuz taken….an embarrassed Seeja Teacher tells the two of them to sit while the rest of us remained standing for the rest of the class fuming at the two of them and baying for their blood.
Viswan and Arun decide to start working out at Power Gym at Palayam. Chakka frantically tells them Power is not good, and it’s a fucked up place and Viswan and Arun decide not to go. Next morning however they change their mind and the first sight they see at the gym…Kiran struggling with dumbbells!!!...and on seeing them gives the most chammufied look ever. We later found out he had been at it for more than a month while all the time claiming he wuz headed for some naturopathy treatment for weight loss.
Jayasudha Teacher realized one day that guys were bunking class while she wuz teaching. She says, "Aarokkeya chaadi poyothe enne njan kandupidikkum"...and she looks to the nice, studious folks in the class for assistance. Krishnakumar, our rank-holder's response leaves her stunned..."teacher, namukke dummy itte nokaam"!!!
S-7:
Viswan asked by Rajeev,SFI leader to join in a fight against some
ABVP guys tells him,Eda njan innale gym il randu dumbbell
pokkiyappazhathekku biceps sprain cheythu.che,sorry
eda, allengil.........
The convent adjacent to Viswan’s house had begun to double up as a Ladies Hostel too and suddenly every evening all the guys wud arrive after class to play cricket with a punctuality that seemed odd. Everybody was playing their best shots, bowling bouncers, taking sharp catches amidst taking a peak back at the gals spying on us from their rooms which seemed all too suspicious to Viswan’s watchman who ensured another interesting pastime got nipped in the bud.
In S-4 Viswan(Viswanath Prasad) had bought a thin, frail dog and called him Dexter. It wuz fun watching him trying to train the dog who all he did was bark and eat. In two years time Dexter had become a fat, huge dog while Viswan had lost a lot of weight. We started joking all the food cooked in his home wuz meant for Dexter and that he wuz almost like a brother to Viswan now and we started calling Dexter, Dexter Prasad.
(Courtesy:Arun Hari) Place: sandy/kevins house in pappanamcode. lunch time.and the servant there prepares some real good food...and there are 4-5 ppl apart from sandy/kevin who stay there...so the food is meant for all...so its lunch time and our dear chakka decides to dig in on a light snack...apparently he likes the food so much that he takes helping after helping....all the while, sandy is looking with horror at the carnage...and cant say anything as chakka is understandably enjoying himself without realising other hungry ppl will come in a short whileand beat up poor sandy n kevin for missing food....here goes the killer punch...chakka goes upto sandy (very seriously) and says...."ninte ee jolikkari kollamallodey....adipoli food...njanoru karyam cheyyam...i will give a fixed amount of money additional and she can cook for me also"...that was the last straw on poor sandy's back...he shoots back with desperation and suppressed anger...."EE veettil oru kalame ollu"!!!!.....and we all burst at our seams laughing.
S-8:
Exam time. I walk past kevin shoving away a branch of a small tree under which we were all huddled. The branch recoils and hits Kevin who is deep in last-minute study and thinking somebody hits him turns around and shouts “eda patti” and grabs hold of the person who hit him…and is shocked to see the branch in his hands wondering how it cud ever do that to him!!!
We were out all night plastering the walls of trivandrum with our dishaa’ 02 posters. By 4 am we were famished and drove all around the city trying to find a thattukada. We rejoiced upon stumbling upon one at pattom and what followed was a plunder. Dosa upon dosa, countless omlettes and beef were dispatched away in minutes. The owner told us ningal ellaam theerthu but kiran so engrossed in eating never heard that and asks..”ineem enthe onde anna”…and the guy shot back “ineem ee kadayum koode olle”! Man I never laughed that loud at 4:30 in the morning.
Kevin was told to book tickets for our train journey to Bangalore to appear for an MBA entrance exam. On the appointed day our guys board the train at thampanoor…everyone is as usual in high spirits…on boarding the train chakka is more gregarious than normal and says…”ningal enne thettidharikkalle…apparthe compartmentil neena cherian(ex-vj-suryatv) onde…we are acquaintances…ningalude koode ethra neram irikkaan pattum enne ariyilla”…and on making the way to their seats finds a man perched there…chakka immediately…”plaze daant misunderstand…this is our seat” and the man a bit shaken at this 100+ kg guy talking like this to him says meekly…”ithente seat aanu…enikke ticket onde”. Chakka not in a mood to let it go throws his ticket towards the man who carefully looks at it and then fighting hard to suppress a smile of victory tells chakka to look at the date more carefully. Instead of jan 14 kevin had taken the tickets for feb 14 and there wuz an exam to be written!!! Somehow the guys frantically manage to find space on a bus headed to blore and the guys were angrily waiting to give an earful to Kevin who wuz to board at the kollam railway station and calls him up…explaining to him his abadham amidst therivilis and their plan to travel by bus…they totally loose their composure when an unrepentant Kevin says…”enikke businte middle seat thanne venam”!!!
P.S - Long back when we were bidding farewell to college I wrote an autograph for every person who studied with me during those four glorious years. A character sketch of the many protagonists who lighted up this post can be found here in alphabetic order.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
The Prithviraj Phenomenon...
When Prithviraj burst upon the malayalam film scene I was finally ready to make the transition away from being a hard-core though disillusioned mohanlal fan and embrace an actor who I thought would signal the arrival of a new generation into our filmdom. Unfortunately very few fellow malayalis thought like me i think...seeing average movies of the superstars like Thaskaraveeran, Mambazhakalam,Sethuramayyar and Balettan run to packed houses and huge initials makes me think when the malayali resistance to change set in. The sad part is a promising actor is losing his way and a burnt-out, jaded generation of directors and scriptwriters with nothing new to offer in terms of content and story refuse to bow out and make way for the younger lot to force their way in...even more symbolic of the rot that has set in is the dirty politics our esteemed filmakers, actors and producers played to ease prithvi out of the industry when he took a courageous yet lonely principled stance against the AMMA...politics has seeped so deep into our psyche and retarded our government, society, culture and now even our movies.
I wonder if another period like the 80's when a new breed of directors and scriptwriters like fazil, priyadarshan, sibi malayil, venu nagavally, lohithadas and sreenivasan along with actors like lal and mammooty emerged taking malayalam cinema to a totally new high - a phase where the offbeat merged with the commercial leading to a stage where many good movies wud release on the same friday and some failed to make a mark at the box office but got noticed later on when their cassettes came out. The irony of the situation is my friends here have watched almost 15 of Prithvi's 20 old movie career while my pals back home wudnt even bother visiting a theater to watch his films and with every movie of his we see here, our appreciation for the 23 year old lad just increases...after mammooty, lal and suresh gopi we finally have an actor who has the intelligence, sophistication and looks to become a star.I havent seen his best two films to date, Akale and Deyvanamathil but his performances in kana kandein, sathyam, swapnakoode, nandanam and chakram were miles ahead of whatever repetitive acting our ageing superstars seem to keep dishing out and fooling audiences with.
His story has parallels with that of another star-son, Abhishek Bachchan who finally delivered after 14 flops in a row...the difference being bollywood today has a wealth of enormously talented young technicians while our industry is faced with a shrinking audience, intellectually bankrupt filmakers, producers who suicidally patronize the star-system and the onslaught of well-packaged movies from hollywood, bollywood and tollywood. Tamil movies which we once mocked at is having an unchallenged run at the kerala box office - with such well-crafted movies like autograph, kadal, saamy, anniyan, kadal kondein and so many more they are definitely worth a watch rather than the run-of-the-mill fare dished out to us. Its just not in heroes...where will the next actors to replace thilakan, nedumudi, sreenivasan and oduvil come from... i guess so long as challenging roles dont arise actors of their greatness wont be needed...cinema's overwhelming popularity and the onslaught of prime-time television has killed a once prospering arena which fed malayalam cinema with countless geniuses...theatre. Movies like nandanam, kazcha and udayananu thaaram have become a once in a year affair for a people who grew up watching padmarajan, bharathan, fazil, hariharan, sathyan anthikad, priyadarshan, joshi and i.v.sasi films battle it out in the marquees at the same time. Are these the sparks flying off the dying embers of a once globally acclaimed industry or the nadir before the next renaissance? I guess time will tell...
P.S - Yesterday night we went for Kochirajavu(if u can imagine dileep as rajnikant in baasha...that sums up most of the movie!!!)...surrounded the achayan who brings mal movies to the theater here(u cud say almost gheraoed) and pleaded with him to get the new Prithvi movie, The Police(we saw the trailers and technically the film looked as breath-taking as Company and Anniyan!) to show...his major worry wuz that most of the ppl here moved to the us from kerala when the two M's were in their prime and as such bringing a jayaram, dileep or prithvi movie burns his fingers...but he's agreed to take one more chance provided we can show him where the sympathies of LA's young mallu crowd lies!
I wonder if another period like the 80's when a new breed of directors and scriptwriters like fazil, priyadarshan, sibi malayil, venu nagavally, lohithadas and sreenivasan along with actors like lal and mammooty emerged taking malayalam cinema to a totally new high - a phase where the offbeat merged with the commercial leading to a stage where many good movies wud release on the same friday and some failed to make a mark at the box office but got noticed later on when their cassettes came out. The irony of the situation is my friends here have watched almost 15 of Prithvi's 20 old movie career while my pals back home wudnt even bother visiting a theater to watch his films and with every movie of his we see here, our appreciation for the 23 year old lad just increases...after mammooty, lal and suresh gopi we finally have an actor who has the intelligence, sophistication and looks to become a star.I havent seen his best two films to date, Akale and Deyvanamathil but his performances in kana kandein, sathyam, swapnakoode, nandanam and chakram were miles ahead of whatever repetitive acting our ageing superstars seem to keep dishing out and fooling audiences with.
His story has parallels with that of another star-son, Abhishek Bachchan who finally delivered after 14 flops in a row...the difference being bollywood today has a wealth of enormously talented young technicians while our industry is faced with a shrinking audience, intellectually bankrupt filmakers, producers who suicidally patronize the star-system and the onslaught of well-packaged movies from hollywood, bollywood and tollywood. Tamil movies which we once mocked at is having an unchallenged run at the kerala box office - with such well-crafted movies like autograph, kadal, saamy, anniyan, kadal kondein and so many more they are definitely worth a watch rather than the run-of-the-mill fare dished out to us. Its just not in heroes...where will the next actors to replace thilakan, nedumudi, sreenivasan and oduvil come from... i guess so long as challenging roles dont arise actors of their greatness wont be needed...cinema's overwhelming popularity and the onslaught of prime-time television has killed a once prospering arena which fed malayalam cinema with countless geniuses...theatre. Movies like nandanam, kazcha and udayananu thaaram have become a once in a year affair for a people who grew up watching padmarajan, bharathan, fazil, hariharan, sathyan anthikad, priyadarshan, joshi and i.v.sasi films battle it out in the marquees at the same time. Are these the sparks flying off the dying embers of a once globally acclaimed industry or the nadir before the next renaissance? I guess time will tell...
P.S - Yesterday night we went for Kochirajavu(if u can imagine dileep as rajnikant in baasha...that sums up most of the movie!!!)...surrounded the achayan who brings mal movies to the theater here(u cud say almost gheraoed) and pleaded with him to get the new Prithvi movie, The Police(we saw the trailers and technically the film looked as breath-taking as Company and Anniyan!) to show...his major worry wuz that most of the ppl here moved to the us from kerala when the two M's were in their prime and as such bringing a jayaram, dileep or prithvi movie burns his fingers...but he's agreed to take one more chance provided we can show him where the sympathies of LA's young mallu crowd lies!
Monday, July 18, 2005
Go India, Go...
Manmohan Singh landed in Washington today, receiving a royal welcome the US today reserves for only a handful of world leaders. In the course of just 15 years India has graduated from being labelled pretenders,pharisees and inconsequential as a result of our dalliance with non-alignment to occupying a place of prestige and respect from world leaders all over despite no significant change in our opinions. The only difference is today we are an economic power. Just think abt it...the scientist who pioneered India's defense and nuclear research and the economist who architected India's face changing reforms is our president and premier.
Today its just not economics that draws the US closer to India. The US is slipping as a super-power...the first battle it lost was failing to rein in its multi-national conglomerates which moved to china to further their profits though the selling market was still the US....today what China did to US in the manufacturing sector India has become the hot destination for all these same MNC's, albeit in the IT and services sector. Soon more Indians rather than Americans will work in IBM and GE, for long symbols of overwhelming american economic supremacy. America's trade deficit with China has ballooned to the extent they have postponed repayment by dangling securities at the chinks who slowly but steadily have started acquiring companies in the us heartland...recently they topped the bids for a california based oil company and brazenly declared their intention of exporting the american gas to China while gas prices shoot over the roof in petrol-hungry Cal.
Bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, stumbling with the domestic economy, allies from the cold-war NATO era who have lost their bite and influence in global forums, an increasingly powerful China which went to the extent of ordering the US to cut down its fiscal deficit America's vision of a long-term unipolar world doesnt look feasible anymore. I expect any day now to see China and the US clashing headlong on some economic, political, military or diplomatic issue to signal the start of the next cold war. Then it will be neither the NATO, nor the EU...that will play centerstage....but a strong, economically and democratically vibrant neighbor to China called India will be the swing state...whoever we take sides with will win...for sure. Of course the danger to us is within...one such called CPM which even collected money for their chinese brethren during the 1962 Sino-Indian War...and who brazenly accuses Manmohan of selling Indian interests...and its a pity God's Own Country send 19 MP's to parliament to work against Mother India!!!
Indian diplomacy turned the tide in 1998 following Vajpayee's bold conduction of the Pokharan blasts and came of age by the outright rejection of foriegn aid in last years Tsunami. No more a developing country, no more a Third World Country...I find the phrase, "the other Asian Power" being used continually to refer to us here in newspapers and television...I think its just a matter of time before we get addressed as a world power...the permanent Security Council seat we now ask for will soon come seeking us...if it doesnt let us dismiss the United Nations as a forum of imperialists who lost their teeth a long time back. As for our friendly neigbour, Pakistan - they seem to have lost their zest to keep pace with us...having failed on the battlegrounds they lost another fight in the warzone of the future when their bpo firms mainly call centers suffered indescribably from a two-day telecommunications failure...they will become a power too...as the epicenter of world terrorism...a failed state ruled by a federation of militant organizations and self-styled mullahs...who will export labor(read terrorists) to other countries...blast a few bombs here and there...and maybe scare a few innocent people for a few days! Let us travel more on our buses and trains and bikes rather than our cars...importing oil is killing all the benefits we reap elsewhere...let us educate all our kids and in a better way...let us forget our fascination with our religions and castes...let us preserve our trees, water and our air for future generations...for India, greatness is ours for the taking...we are right there people...we are almost there...may god and good reason go with us...so that we get brilliant and upright men for our leaders, for an economy that will only keep growing and growing and most importantly for a people who will ask what they can do for the country and not what the country can do for them!
Today its just not economics that draws the US closer to India. The US is slipping as a super-power...the first battle it lost was failing to rein in its multi-national conglomerates which moved to china to further their profits though the selling market was still the US....today what China did to US in the manufacturing sector India has become the hot destination for all these same MNC's, albeit in the IT and services sector. Soon more Indians rather than Americans will work in IBM and GE, for long symbols of overwhelming american economic supremacy. America's trade deficit with China has ballooned to the extent they have postponed repayment by dangling securities at the chinks who slowly but steadily have started acquiring companies in the us heartland...recently they topped the bids for a california based oil company and brazenly declared their intention of exporting the american gas to China while gas prices shoot over the roof in petrol-hungry Cal.
Bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, stumbling with the domestic economy, allies from the cold-war NATO era who have lost their bite and influence in global forums, an increasingly powerful China which went to the extent of ordering the US to cut down its fiscal deficit America's vision of a long-term unipolar world doesnt look feasible anymore. I expect any day now to see China and the US clashing headlong on some economic, political, military or diplomatic issue to signal the start of the next cold war. Then it will be neither the NATO, nor the EU...that will play centerstage....but a strong, economically and democratically vibrant neighbor to China called India will be the swing state...whoever we take sides with will win...for sure. Of course the danger to us is within...one such called CPM which even collected money for their chinese brethren during the 1962 Sino-Indian War...and who brazenly accuses Manmohan of selling Indian interests...and its a pity God's Own Country send 19 MP's to parliament to work against Mother India!!!
Indian diplomacy turned the tide in 1998 following Vajpayee's bold conduction of the Pokharan blasts and came of age by the outright rejection of foriegn aid in last years Tsunami. No more a developing country, no more a Third World Country...I find the phrase, "the other Asian Power" being used continually to refer to us here in newspapers and television...I think its just a matter of time before we get addressed as a world power...the permanent Security Council seat we now ask for will soon come seeking us...if it doesnt let us dismiss the United Nations as a forum of imperialists who lost their teeth a long time back. As for our friendly neigbour, Pakistan - they seem to have lost their zest to keep pace with us...having failed on the battlegrounds they lost another fight in the warzone of the future when their bpo firms mainly call centers suffered indescribably from a two-day telecommunications failure...they will become a power too...as the epicenter of world terrorism...a failed state ruled by a federation of militant organizations and self-styled mullahs...who will export labor(read terrorists) to other countries...blast a few bombs here and there...and maybe scare a few innocent people for a few days! Let us travel more on our buses and trains and bikes rather than our cars...importing oil is killing all the benefits we reap elsewhere...let us educate all our kids and in a better way...let us forget our fascination with our religions and castes...let us preserve our trees, water and our air for future generations...for India, greatness is ours for the taking...we are right there people...we are almost there...may god and good reason go with us...so that we get brilliant and upright men for our leaders, for an economy that will only keep growing and growing and most importantly for a people who will ask what they can do for the country and not what the country can do for them!
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
A Rock that crumbles...
In the history of Kerala an entity that has survived the ravages of time and remained afloat despite the changing political winds has been the Church. From the time of the travancore-cochin kings to the british through to our UDF-LDF netas they have time and again asked for and recieved largesse beyond their rights and needs. The success of the church spurred on the birth and growth of other socio-religious organizations like the Muslim League, NSS and SNDP but money, power, lack of cohesion and alienation from the people they claim to represent have left them discredited. Today the Church is in danger of falling into the same trap their peers struggle to come out of.
What made the Church and its institutions grow phenomally was their passionate commitment to providing education at all levels, medical care without overkill and men and women who dedicated their life to the service of humanity. With liberalization the Church lost a level of protection that it took for granted earlier...private schools began cropping up causing a loss of students, private hospitals that grew at a meteoric pace despite naked hankering for profits and with that the church realized they had to be competitive now. That was fine but they forgot the basic tenets of their ministry. A case in point, they rushed into starting self-financing medical and engineering colleges but on finding the cash-flow needed to sustain them not enough(maybe make a profit too!!) led them to pressuring the govt to root out merit seats which i believe gave the sfi a cause to agitate last week. I wudnt praise the sfi bcoz their leaders were the ones who started all this mess in the first place!
When I see some archibishops sitting on gold plated chairs that look like thrones at public functions and their palatial residences and swanky cars it amuses me how these men could call themselves modern-day representatives of the man who made a humble yet triumphant entry into jerusalem on a donkey. I dont know...maybe it makes them stand apart...maybe it gives them an aura...maybe they think all these trappings makes people respect them...for me the very thought of their inability to relate with us jars. Anways all i know is every man who can justify his actions doesnt see himself as doing any wrong for all wht other people may think. Maybe the church is going through a period of transition...maybe it is going thru the same phase of decadence that the vatican once went thru...for me now some of the church leaders in kerala looks like more like executives of a multi-national corporation with all their lobbying and business acumen than men of god. I know this post is an insult to many bishops and priests...some very close to my family and I know them to be good men...hope that when they become the "arch"s they pursue a path more concordant with wht jesus and the many saints that followed him took.
What made the Church and its institutions grow phenomally was their passionate commitment to providing education at all levels, medical care without overkill and men and women who dedicated their life to the service of humanity. With liberalization the Church lost a level of protection that it took for granted earlier...private schools began cropping up causing a loss of students, private hospitals that grew at a meteoric pace despite naked hankering for profits and with that the church realized they had to be competitive now. That was fine but they forgot the basic tenets of their ministry. A case in point, they rushed into starting self-financing medical and engineering colleges but on finding the cash-flow needed to sustain them not enough(maybe make a profit too!!) led them to pressuring the govt to root out merit seats which i believe gave the sfi a cause to agitate last week. I wudnt praise the sfi bcoz their leaders were the ones who started all this mess in the first place!
When I see some archibishops sitting on gold plated chairs that look like thrones at public functions and their palatial residences and swanky cars it amuses me how these men could call themselves modern-day representatives of the man who made a humble yet triumphant entry into jerusalem on a donkey. I dont know...maybe it makes them stand apart...maybe it gives them an aura...maybe they think all these trappings makes people respect them...for me the very thought of their inability to relate with us jars. Anways all i know is every man who can justify his actions doesnt see himself as doing any wrong for all wht other people may think. Maybe the church is going through a period of transition...maybe it is going thru the same phase of decadence that the vatican once went thru...for me now some of the church leaders in kerala looks like more like executives of a multi-national corporation with all their lobbying and business acumen than men of god. I know this post is an insult to many bishops and priests...some very close to my family and I know them to be good men...hope that when they become the "arch"s they pursue a path more concordant with wht jesus and the many saints that followed him took.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
To Pappa, With Love...
At 15, he had a police case filed against him by illegal tenants when he tried to evict them from his dad's property.
At 22, he was a College Union Chairman and inspirational leader to an entire generation of college and school going students in idukki district.
At 27, he was a first rank holder in MA sociology.
At 32, he had a Ph.D and a degree in law.
At 45, he had travelled to 30 countries and even met Pope John Paul in private.
At 50, he became a Professor of Sociology.
At 55, his peers count him among the foremost social scientists in the country and had travelled close to 50 countries.
He is my dad.
I have long thought I have written so much about me in my blogs yet so little about the man whom my subconscious mind keeps prodding to emulate whenever I am ready to pack my bags off to certain self-destruction. Ironically things could have been different...in my boyhood all I could sense was relatives making silent comparisons between us both and the unworthy, under-achieving son I was set to end up as. The inferiority complex that threatened to submerge my life in mediocrity, later relaxed its hold on me...i made peace with what my dad is and who i am. We may be as different as chalk and cheese...he is a go-getter while I am a get-n-then-goer, he is pushy where i am laidback, he is reasonable where i am steely and stubborn...but today our respect for each other is mutual...i admire all he achieved despite innumerable odds...while he is proud that the kid who nobody every gave a chance got this far.
Pops, today is your birthday and I thought i owe this one to u. You may not have been daddy-cool, you may not have ever kept your promise to play badminton with me when i wuz small, you may not play 28 with us like mom does, you may have beat the shit out of me at times(of course deservedly) but thank you so much for thrusting a newspaper into the hands of a six year old that kick-started his intellectual growth, for all the pushing and shoving that got me a seat in loyola which made all the difference in my life, it may have been hard to pin you down to trivandrum for more than a few weeks and to india for more than a few months but thanks for all the early morning rides to tuition centers and the evening ones to the public library, for the christmas eve you spent without sleep at my medical college general ward bedside(a bike hit!) as we dodged moota bites in tandem and for all the nudging, pushing, threatening, encouraging and scolding you indulged in to get me to break out of the shell of introvertion i forced myself into(hope the devil that broke out of the coccon didnt disappoint you!). Pops, sorry for all the times I rebelled, all the times I walked out on you, all the times I made you cry...I know I have been a most difficult child to raise...but you did it! What I have become is yours and mummy's victory over all the demons in me...what i may become will entirely be my ascendency or defeat over them.
And here's wht I love you most for...from the man I looked up in awe to you became the dad who wud good-naturedly shrug away our jokes abt u, from the dad to whom I cud bring myself to talk to only when mom was present...you broke the ice between us with all the man-to-man, father-to-son conversations we had, that made me realize that beyond the dream castle i had built in my mind for a good life, a life of fun, frolic, happiness and great friends, there was work to be done to sustain all that you had struggled to give us in life. Pops, I have rarely seen you turn away a person seeking help, despite the needs of our family you have always been there for your parents and siblings...as a dad, husband, son, brother, teacher and leader of men you make me proud, but with a grudge...the weight of your legacy rests heavily on my shoulders, it doesnt choke me anymore but scares me to return back to India and I decide to keep slogging away one more day on an alien soil which is slowly but steadily chipping away at my roots. Even if I have never or ever will get around to telling you this in your face... you are the best and I am the luckiest to have been born your son.
P.S: It must have been heavy-duty stuff for all the people visiting my blog......this one was just for you...I have never given you a birthday gift...so I thought I'd write you one this year! Happy Birthday, Pappa.
At 22, he was a College Union Chairman and inspirational leader to an entire generation of college and school going students in idukki district.
At 27, he was a first rank holder in MA sociology.
At 32, he had a Ph.D and a degree in law.
At 45, he had travelled to 30 countries and even met Pope John Paul in private.
At 50, he became a Professor of Sociology.
At 55, his peers count him among the foremost social scientists in the country and had travelled close to 50 countries.
He is my dad.
I have long thought I have written so much about me in my blogs yet so little about the man whom my subconscious mind keeps prodding to emulate whenever I am ready to pack my bags off to certain self-destruction. Ironically things could have been different...in my boyhood all I could sense was relatives making silent comparisons between us both and the unworthy, under-achieving son I was set to end up as. The inferiority complex that threatened to submerge my life in mediocrity, later relaxed its hold on me...i made peace with what my dad is and who i am. We may be as different as chalk and cheese...he is a go-getter while I am a get-n-then-goer, he is pushy where i am laidback, he is reasonable where i am steely and stubborn...but today our respect for each other is mutual...i admire all he achieved despite innumerable odds...while he is proud that the kid who nobody every gave a chance got this far.
Pops, today is your birthday and I thought i owe this one to u. You may not have been daddy-cool, you may not have ever kept your promise to play badminton with me when i wuz small, you may not play 28 with us like mom does, you may have beat the shit out of me at times(of course deservedly) but thank you so much for thrusting a newspaper into the hands of a six year old that kick-started his intellectual growth, for all the pushing and shoving that got me a seat in loyola which made all the difference in my life, it may have been hard to pin you down to trivandrum for more than a few weeks and to india for more than a few months but thanks for all the early morning rides to tuition centers and the evening ones to the public library, for the christmas eve you spent without sleep at my medical college general ward bedside(a bike hit!) as we dodged moota bites in tandem and for all the nudging, pushing, threatening, encouraging and scolding you indulged in to get me to break out of the shell of introvertion i forced myself into(hope the devil that broke out of the coccon didnt disappoint you!). Pops, sorry for all the times I rebelled, all the times I walked out on you, all the times I made you cry...I know I have been a most difficult child to raise...but you did it! What I have become is yours and mummy's victory over all the demons in me...what i may become will entirely be my ascendency or defeat over them.
And here's wht I love you most for...from the man I looked up in awe to you became the dad who wud good-naturedly shrug away our jokes abt u, from the dad to whom I cud bring myself to talk to only when mom was present...you broke the ice between us with all the man-to-man, father-to-son conversations we had, that made me realize that beyond the dream castle i had built in my mind for a good life, a life of fun, frolic, happiness and great friends, there was work to be done to sustain all that you had struggled to give us in life. Pops, I have rarely seen you turn away a person seeking help, despite the needs of our family you have always been there for your parents and siblings...as a dad, husband, son, brother, teacher and leader of men you make me proud, but with a grudge...the weight of your legacy rests heavily on my shoulders, it doesnt choke me anymore but scares me to return back to India and I decide to keep slogging away one more day on an alien soil which is slowly but steadily chipping away at my roots. Even if I have never or ever will get around to telling you this in your face... you are the best and I am the luckiest to have been born your son.
P.S: It must have been heavy-duty stuff for all the people visiting my blog......this one was just for you...I have never given you a birthday gift...so I thought I'd write you one this year! Happy Birthday, Pappa.
Friday, July 08, 2005
The Lighter Side of American Life...
Its not often we get to laugh a lot in America but when things happens it becomes the stuff of folklore for us. Dunno how funny these will turn out in writing but when these incidents came to light we laughed days on end abt them.
Mithun calls up Jacob, our Loyola classmate who is an executive at Asian Paints one day and says, "Is this Jacob? I want to place a large order". Jaru licks his lips in anticipation and tells him to go on. "Well, I want some kummayam to whitewash the White House"...leaving the first of our IIMians flummoxed!
Muthu is an expert at telling tall tales...he punctuates it with wild gesticulaions, eyes that light up like a thousand suns, a flair for talking that wud make a sreekantan nair of asianet's nammal thammil fame proud...for years he has given our batch wholesome entertainment of the highest order...and once he visted viswan at new york and there he held his audience of other mallus speechless in rapt attention with his stories. That was when he told them of his friend who had come onsite and was arrested by the FBI for taking fotos of the american embassy in Washington D.C. Unfortunately for him one of the guys was sharp enuf and asked,"americayil evidayaada american embassy"! and they were all like "eeshwara ivan ithreyum neram nammalode paranjathellaam odukkathe vedikalaayirunnallo"!
Muthu did an internship last summer for a chain of Burger King stores in Chicago to suggest cost-cutting measures and on the first day his manager suggested he sit in the store to observe their operations. Having nothing better to do he starts munching on french fries cooked for the customers...after watching this for an hour a malayali working there comes to him and says..."ithaanalle cost cutting"!
One day in between my job search I tell muthu I am goin to apply for a teaching job at the LA County School. "Dey, nee veruthe nadakkunna paavam karamban payyanmaarude thokkine paniyondaakale"...i had turned to him in search of support but his cruel reply made sure a glorious career in teaching got cut short even b4 it started.
Viswan was visiting california for our xmas vacations in 2002. it wuz nitetime and we were walking like in india...our bodies grazing, an occasional arm thrown over the shoulder and like. A homeless kallu passes by us...then turns around and remarks.....'hey u guys gay???"....we were embarassed and moved apart....we thought that wuz the end of it but his next line totally floored us... "brothers u dont know what ur missing"!
Viswan is on a flight and an airhostess accidentally trips and falls on him. She apologizes profusely to which the demo mannan's reply was..."No worries...It was my pleasure".
Back home for our summer vacation in 2003...first thing viswan who reached a few days earlier did when i arrived was give a call to my home. As soon as he hears the hello on the other end he lets out a blood-curling "Aliyaaaaa".My dad had answered the fone...all he said was "hold cheyye, aliyane njan ippam fone kodukkkaam" leaving viswan chammufied.
Abhijith did his schooling in england before moving to kerala. His malayalam is weaker than the rest and one day one of our guys at usc kept making fun of him continuously. Not being able to take it any further Abhi says, "Dude,either on the ashaan's chest, or outside the kalari"!
We always take the liberty of talking malayalam in public since noone around understands.But once at the indian theater we were at the restroom during the interval of a malayalam film. My leak done and abt to leave mathew asks me "theateril keruvano" to which i inopportunely said "illa illa cinema thodangeete kerunnolle...chicks okke veleela" only to see almost a dozen heads pop up to take a look at the culprits. everyone around were mallus! i ran out leaving mathew still peeing away, helplessly and embarassed, amidst uncles who chuckled at his discomfiture.
A usc senior got caught for jaywalking at midnight...and rather than keeping quiet tells the LAPD officer..."Is this the only crime happening here"...and the officer promptly pulls out his ledger and writes him a ticket for $100 and tells him..."I wuz just abt to let u off when u opened ur mouth!"
Abhi also racked up a ticket for jaywalking and he calls his mom and mournfully tells her,"amma, enikke jaywalkingine ticket kitti". Immediately she asks..."athenthada, avide aanungalude koode nadakkunnathu illegal aano?".Either the poor aunty had heard it as gaywalking or as we frequently tell him even she has her doubts abt Abhi!
Once I called my mom, and excitedly tells her I got an interview coming up with Boeing. She immediately asks, "Etha mone, Boeing Boeing aano?"
Mathew and I were doing an assignment at the library. I get a drawing wrong and turns to the gori next to me, "Excuse me, do you have a rubber"...She shouts out "WHAT??!!" leaving me frozen for a few seconds and mathew jumps right in and says, "he meant do you have an eraser" and apologizes.Dang...I wish I had watched American Desi earlier.
Pappanabhan's full name is ananthapadmanabhan karthikeyan sulekha. All the situations a name like that cud do in a country like this is just outright hilarious.
-Once he applied for a credit card and it had only enuf space for his middle and last name and coz of that the credit card got rejected.
-On doing an immigration verification the INS had no record of his entry into the US bcoz the computer wouldnt allow more than 30 characters.
-Making calls to call-centers is the worst part.Pronouncing his name doesnt work and so he has to spell each letter out. Once I went to take a shower and he took my cellfone promising to make a quick support call. Half an hour later I got out, and there he was still spelling out his name and all parties concerned in the call are at their wits end as they got alphabets wrong somewhere in the middle and were still trying to sort out the mess that I didnt know whether to be angry at his wasting my daytime minutes or to laugh out at the comic interaction btw the hapless puppy and the frustrated gal on the other end. Every customer support call he makes is preceded by a short prayer to have it routed to india!
Finally he arrived at a solution for his name bug...started calling himself Andy Padman!
Mathew and me took a break from studies and headed out for our first baseball match. usc wuz playing stanford. we didnt know much abt the game and were totally lost. suddenly a usc batter struck a powerful shot and started running. mathew wuz up in a second and lustily cheering. i decided to do my bit and whistled. Suddenly we realized the crowd had turned towards us and wuz giving hostile glares....we hadnt noticed that a catch was taken...filled with shame and fear of an adi, we ran for our life.
A professor is holding forte in class.Suddenly we hear one of our classmates,a desi call him sir. The professors response wuz unforgettable..."I have not yet been knighted by the English Queen, so until that day comes you can address me as Professor or by my first name"!
Coming to the US...at the Tokyo International Airport I realized I had a Japanese version of my name....everywhere kept being called Mr.Kattakama.
Once, mathew was working early mornings at his campus job office when he heard a gal scream. he ran to her side and starts comforting the hot babe but she shakes him off and points in the direction of the corridor and tells him to catch the thief who took her money.Our chivalrous hero confidently moved to the corridor and he sees the assailant,a 6'5" hefty kallu walking away coolly.The guy turns back and stares menacingly at mathaichan.The gal yells at mathew "catch him, catch him"...mathew takes a few hesitant steps towards the man...and slowly tells him without the gori hearing..."run away, please run away".Luckily for him the guy starts running and the gal thanks him for being a "big help"!
vikas my usc roomie had this habit of talking on the fone to his bhayya at nite on the road in front of our apt. our area wuz notorious for crimes as we were close to the LA ghettos. one day a kallu crept up beside him on a cycle tapped him on his shoulder and rasped..."gimme all ur money or i will shoot u"...having only his dear fone and nothing else...all he cud plead wuz...'u want my money...u want my money??" and gave the kallu the last thing he wud ever expect from a desi....a resounding kick on his balls! the kallu left his cycle behind and ran for his life. that day on vikas became a symbol of pride and courage among our desi community while vikas shivers to think wht wud have happened if the guy really had a gun on him as he had boasted!!!
Anyways most of us are past the fresh of the boat stage and there are fewer anecdotes to recite each time we all meet up...all our guys are slowly getting smug and comfortable with life in america...its true whether in movies or in life...the best comedy happens when we are in the struggling phase. Tomorrow viswan is coming to LA for the weekend, we meet after 6 months...deyvame enthokke prashnangalilaanontho chenne chadaan pokunna ineem!
Mithun calls up Jacob, our Loyola classmate who is an executive at Asian Paints one day and says, "Is this Jacob? I want to place a large order". Jaru licks his lips in anticipation and tells him to go on. "Well, I want some kummayam to whitewash the White House"...leaving the first of our IIMians flummoxed!
Muthu is an expert at telling tall tales...he punctuates it with wild gesticulaions, eyes that light up like a thousand suns, a flair for talking that wud make a sreekantan nair of asianet's nammal thammil fame proud...for years he has given our batch wholesome entertainment of the highest order...and once he visted viswan at new york and there he held his audience of other mallus speechless in rapt attention with his stories. That was when he told them of his friend who had come onsite and was arrested by the FBI for taking fotos of the american embassy in Washington D.C. Unfortunately for him one of the guys was sharp enuf and asked,"americayil evidayaada american embassy"! and they were all like "eeshwara ivan ithreyum neram nammalode paranjathellaam odukkathe vedikalaayirunnallo"!
Muthu did an internship last summer for a chain of Burger King stores in Chicago to suggest cost-cutting measures and on the first day his manager suggested he sit in the store to observe their operations. Having nothing better to do he starts munching on french fries cooked for the customers...after watching this for an hour a malayali working there comes to him and says..."ithaanalle cost cutting"!
One day in between my job search I tell muthu I am goin to apply for a teaching job at the LA County School. "Dey, nee veruthe nadakkunna paavam karamban payyanmaarude thokkine paniyondaakale"...i had turned to him in search of support but his cruel reply made sure a glorious career in teaching got cut short even b4 it started.
Viswan was visiting california for our xmas vacations in 2002. it wuz nitetime and we were walking like in india...our bodies grazing, an occasional arm thrown over the shoulder and like. A homeless kallu passes by us...then turns around and remarks.....'hey u guys gay???"....we were embarassed and moved apart....we thought that wuz the end of it but his next line totally floored us... "brothers u dont know what ur missing"!
Viswan is on a flight and an airhostess accidentally trips and falls on him. She apologizes profusely to which the demo mannan's reply was..."No worries...It was my pleasure".
Back home for our summer vacation in 2003...first thing viswan who reached a few days earlier did when i arrived was give a call to my home. As soon as he hears the hello on the other end he lets out a blood-curling "Aliyaaaaa".My dad had answered the fone...all he said was "hold cheyye, aliyane njan ippam fone kodukkkaam" leaving viswan chammufied.
Abhijith did his schooling in england before moving to kerala. His malayalam is weaker than the rest and one day one of our guys at usc kept making fun of him continuously. Not being able to take it any further Abhi says, "Dude,either on the ashaan's chest, or outside the kalari"!
We always take the liberty of talking malayalam in public since noone around understands.But once at the indian theater we were at the restroom during the interval of a malayalam film. My leak done and abt to leave mathew asks me "theateril keruvano" to which i inopportunely said "illa illa cinema thodangeete kerunnolle...chicks okke veleela" only to see almost a dozen heads pop up to take a look at the culprits. everyone around were mallus! i ran out leaving mathew still peeing away, helplessly and embarassed, amidst uncles who chuckled at his discomfiture.
A usc senior got caught for jaywalking at midnight...and rather than keeping quiet tells the LAPD officer..."Is this the only crime happening here"...and the officer promptly pulls out his ledger and writes him a ticket for $100 and tells him..."I wuz just abt to let u off when u opened ur mouth!"
Abhi also racked up a ticket for jaywalking and he calls his mom and mournfully tells her,"amma, enikke jaywalkingine ticket kitti". Immediately she asks..."athenthada, avide aanungalude koode nadakkunnathu illegal aano?".Either the poor aunty had heard it as gaywalking or as we frequently tell him even she has her doubts abt Abhi!
Once I called my mom, and excitedly tells her I got an interview coming up with Boeing. She immediately asks, "Etha mone, Boeing Boeing aano?"
Mathew and I were doing an assignment at the library. I get a drawing wrong and turns to the gori next to me, "Excuse me, do you have a rubber"...She shouts out "WHAT??!!" leaving me frozen for a few seconds and mathew jumps right in and says, "he meant do you have an eraser" and apologizes.Dang...I wish I had watched American Desi earlier.
Pappanabhan's full name is ananthapadmanabhan karthikeyan sulekha. All the situations a name like that cud do in a country like this is just outright hilarious.
-Once he applied for a credit card and it had only enuf space for his middle and last name and coz of that the credit card got rejected.
-On doing an immigration verification the INS had no record of his entry into the US bcoz the computer wouldnt allow more than 30 characters.
-Making calls to call-centers is the worst part.Pronouncing his name doesnt work and so he has to spell each letter out. Once I went to take a shower and he took my cellfone promising to make a quick support call. Half an hour later I got out, and there he was still spelling out his name and all parties concerned in the call are at their wits end as they got alphabets wrong somewhere in the middle and were still trying to sort out the mess that I didnt know whether to be angry at his wasting my daytime minutes or to laugh out at the comic interaction btw the hapless puppy and the frustrated gal on the other end. Every customer support call he makes is preceded by a short prayer to have it routed to india!
Finally he arrived at a solution for his name bug...started calling himself Andy Padman!
Mathew and me took a break from studies and headed out for our first baseball match. usc wuz playing stanford. we didnt know much abt the game and were totally lost. suddenly a usc batter struck a powerful shot and started running. mathew wuz up in a second and lustily cheering. i decided to do my bit and whistled. Suddenly we realized the crowd had turned towards us and wuz giving hostile glares....we hadnt noticed that a catch was taken...filled with shame and fear of an adi, we ran for our life.
A professor is holding forte in class.Suddenly we hear one of our classmates,a desi call him sir. The professors response wuz unforgettable..."I have not yet been knighted by the English Queen, so until that day comes you can address me as Professor or by my first name"!
Coming to the US...at the Tokyo International Airport I realized I had a Japanese version of my name....everywhere kept being called Mr.Kattakama.
Once, mathew was working early mornings at his campus job office when he heard a gal scream. he ran to her side and starts comforting the hot babe but she shakes him off and points in the direction of the corridor and tells him to catch the thief who took her money.Our chivalrous hero confidently moved to the corridor and he sees the assailant,a 6'5" hefty kallu walking away coolly.The guy turns back and stares menacingly at mathaichan.The gal yells at mathew "catch him, catch him"...mathew takes a few hesitant steps towards the man...and slowly tells him without the gori hearing..."run away, please run away".Luckily for him the guy starts running and the gal thanks him for being a "big help"!
vikas my usc roomie had this habit of talking on the fone to his bhayya at nite on the road in front of our apt. our area wuz notorious for crimes as we were close to the LA ghettos. one day a kallu crept up beside him on a cycle tapped him on his shoulder and rasped..."gimme all ur money or i will shoot u"...having only his dear fone and nothing else...all he cud plead wuz...'u want my money...u want my money??" and gave the kallu the last thing he wud ever expect from a desi....a resounding kick on his balls! the kallu left his cycle behind and ran for his life. that day on vikas became a symbol of pride and courage among our desi community while vikas shivers to think wht wud have happened if the guy really had a gun on him as he had boasted!!!
Anyways most of us are past the fresh of the boat stage and there are fewer anecdotes to recite each time we all meet up...all our guys are slowly getting smug and comfortable with life in america...its true whether in movies or in life...the best comedy happens when we are in the struggling phase. Tomorrow viswan is coming to LA for the weekend, we meet after 6 months...deyvame enthokke prashnangalilaanontho chenne chadaan pokunna ineem!
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
The USC Mallu Saga Rolls On...
I was a confused freshman in search of my identity in the Fall of 2002 when it struck me...that i was too hard-boiled a mallu to find the same passion and bonding in anything non-keralite. Soon some paradoxes started happening...though i used to listen to all kinds of songs earlier i started finding my space in malayalam songs, i started watching malayalam films with a fervor i found hard to understand, and i haunted every nook and corner of the world wide web in search of malayalam and kerala sites to reconnect with my roots.The only thing missing wuz the mallu himself...i searched as best as i cud within the 1000-strong usc desi community for HIM but came a cropper... until a miracle happened. A guy named Ben George, came to know of someone frantically searching for his nest and rang me up...we talked on and on...traced our ways back...towards trivandrum, things like mallu movies, booze, then he to medical college and me to engineering and then...and then...and then...he to Loyola...I dont exactly remember if my heart let out a cry of joy or a cry of relief... If I keep finding the word Loyola in these blogs often its bcoz of these kinds of effects the school keeps having on me even years since my passing out....he wuz of the '89 batch and the school leader too then which sort of stifled my enthusiasm...i wondered how i cud relate with a man almost 7 years older to me but when we met it wuz like we had known each other for so long...there were jokes, tales of loyola...past and present...he wuz all i had fantasized in my mind wud be the aura of a loyola senior...the beginnings of a brotherhood for me at usc were made that day by him...many other mallus who wud make my life here in LA so enjoyable walked in to to his apt then...there was Philip who graduated the year before and wuz working, Arun who graduated that year and wuz from TKM, Doney ,a 1987 batch loyolite who wuz a film major and Sanju whose wife and child were back in india but found succor from the seperation with his family in our company!!
That night was so spirited we ended up playing football at a nearby park. Ben and all the mallu men I met and wud keep meeting at USC had ensured that LA wud be my home away from home for the next many years...as they cooked for me, took me to the kerala theater, indian stores, ganamelas and LA's "glitzy" places. For them I wuz like the fresh blood who had to keep the ball they had set in motion...rolling and when I look back I think I succeeded in that. Soon Mathew from Kochi...my best bud at usc and a pal i am eternally grateful to for all his influences in my life...from his fruitless attempts to introduce me to the clubbing scene and the crucial ones like forcing me to keep focussing on my MS and the job at the USC Film School, Pappanabhan my Loyola classmate and Sujith from Kanjirapally were part of our circle and then the inevitable happened...the seniors Ben, Philip, Doney and Sujith got married...Philip's and Sujith's bachelors parties were so outrageous...we still talk abt it with bated breath...(I force upon myself much to everyones chagrin the DJ duty at all events...coz i believe i am the sole purveyor of all adipoli malayalam songs!!), Arun left for Dubai, Mathew moved away from USC, I left for San Diego...it seemed we were done. But our progeny were evolving slowly all this while. Rajay and Reji...my juniors at SCT, Puppy and Abru...both Loyolites from CET, Rohit,Abhijith and Adel from TKM, Sujith and Sunil from REC all came along and they led the second mallu wave at usc. This was a big surprise for me in the relocation back to LA...as I was looking forward all the while to re-establish ties with my old gang but ended up bonding with these juniors.
Soon I found myself slipping away to their apt after my sis went to sleep, unmindful of having to go work next morning, racked up the late hours chattering away or watching movies which they download by the dozens daily. There is erosion in our ranks again...Puppy left, Rajay and Abru leave in a week and last friday, they gave us their grand farewell treat, lots of goodies to eat and drink and another night of fun and frolic...It was an amazing time...the whole apartment complex came out to see us have fun...mallu ishtyle. But from past history I am now sure there will always be another Mallu coming in for everyone that leaves...whose jokes wud leave us peeing in our pants and will drink to the last drop and yet be game for another song-and-dance. It all makes me wonder... wht I am doing here so far away from home...wht I realize is it doesnt take much to become an american but it takes a lot to preserve the mallu and the desi in you...so long as I am single all I pray is good friends like them keep falling across all over me.
Thought I'd take this opportunity to push in my top 20 mallu party songs in no particular order...mind you I am the DJ and get bashed regularly if the songs dont make the grade...so these songs are farely competent!!!
1) Anthikadapurathu - Chamayam
2) Kuttanadan - Kazcha
3) Varuthantoppam - Akashathile Paravakal
4) Chingamasam - Meesa Madhavan
5) Sundari - Aye Auto
6) Kashturi - Vishnu Lokam
7) Nee Arinjo MeleMaanathe - Kandu Kandarinju
8) Raavin Poonthen - Naaduvazhikal
9) Shaanthamee Raatriyil - Johnny Walker
10) Vaaleduthal - Meesa Madhavan
11) Rakshasi - Nammal
12) Kabaddi Kabaddi - Nammal Thammil
13) Kadalinakkare - Chemmeen
14) Thakilu Pukilu - Ravanaprabhu
15) Pazhani Mala - Narasimham
16) Orayiram Kinaakalal - Ramji Rao Speaking
17) Onnam Ragam Padi - Thoovanathumbikal
18) Manthrikochamma Varunnunde - Godfather
19) Parumala Cheruvile - Sphadikam
20) Ambalakkara Thechikaavile - Black
That night was so spirited we ended up playing football at a nearby park. Ben and all the mallu men I met and wud keep meeting at USC had ensured that LA wud be my home away from home for the next many years...as they cooked for me, took me to the kerala theater, indian stores, ganamelas and LA's "glitzy" places. For them I wuz like the fresh blood who had to keep the ball they had set in motion...rolling and when I look back I think I succeeded in that. Soon Mathew from Kochi...my best bud at usc and a pal i am eternally grateful to for all his influences in my life...from his fruitless attempts to introduce me to the clubbing scene and the crucial ones like forcing me to keep focussing on my MS and the job at the USC Film School, Pappanabhan my Loyola classmate and Sujith from Kanjirapally were part of our circle and then the inevitable happened...the seniors Ben, Philip, Doney and Sujith got married...Philip's and Sujith's bachelors parties were so outrageous...we still talk abt it with bated breath...(I force upon myself much to everyones chagrin the DJ duty at all events...coz i believe i am the sole purveyor of all adipoli malayalam songs!!), Arun left for Dubai, Mathew moved away from USC, I left for San Diego...it seemed we were done. But our progeny were evolving slowly all this while. Rajay and Reji...my juniors at SCT, Puppy and Abru...both Loyolites from CET, Rohit,Abhijith and Adel from TKM, Sujith and Sunil from REC all came along and they led the second mallu wave at usc. This was a big surprise for me in the relocation back to LA...as I was looking forward all the while to re-establish ties with my old gang but ended up bonding with these juniors.
Soon I found myself slipping away to their apt after my sis went to sleep, unmindful of having to go work next morning, racked up the late hours chattering away or watching movies which they download by the dozens daily. There is erosion in our ranks again...Puppy left, Rajay and Abru leave in a week and last friday, they gave us their grand farewell treat, lots of goodies to eat and drink and another night of fun and frolic...It was an amazing time...the whole apartment complex came out to see us have fun...mallu ishtyle. But from past history I am now sure there will always be another Mallu coming in for everyone that leaves...whose jokes wud leave us peeing in our pants and will drink to the last drop and yet be game for another song-and-dance. It all makes me wonder... wht I am doing here so far away from home...wht I realize is it doesnt take much to become an american but it takes a lot to preserve the mallu and the desi in you...so long as I am single all I pray is good friends like them keep falling across all over me.
Thought I'd take this opportunity to push in my top 20 mallu party songs in no particular order...mind you I am the DJ and get bashed regularly if the songs dont make the grade...so these songs are farely competent!!!
1) Anthikadapurathu - Chamayam
2) Kuttanadan - Kazcha
3) Varuthantoppam - Akashathile Paravakal
4) Chingamasam - Meesa Madhavan
5) Sundari - Aye Auto
6) Kashturi - Vishnu Lokam
7) Nee Arinjo MeleMaanathe - Kandu Kandarinju
8) Raavin Poonthen - Naaduvazhikal
9) Shaanthamee Raatriyil - Johnny Walker
10) Vaaleduthal - Meesa Madhavan
11) Rakshasi - Nammal
12) Kabaddi Kabaddi - Nammal Thammil
13) Kadalinakkare - Chemmeen
14) Thakilu Pukilu - Ravanaprabhu
15) Pazhani Mala - Narasimham
16) Orayiram Kinaakalal - Ramji Rao Speaking
17) Onnam Ragam Padi - Thoovanathumbikal
18) Manthrikochamma Varunnunde - Godfather
19) Parumala Cheruvile - Sphadikam
20) Ambalakkara Thechikaavile - Black
Thursday, June 30, 2005
A Last Supper...
It must have been 12 year back. We had all assembled at my dad's tharavadu in our native place, Arakulam in Idukki district. My grandparents, my dad's two brothers and their families were all there.Everyone assembled at the dining room, with appachan at the head of the table and ammachi at the other end, their three sons and the bahus at the other chairs and we six grandchildren on our feet. The electricity was out and there were candles lit.I didnt understand what it wuz all about until my mom said we were goin to celebrate the last supper...a long-standing syrian christian tradition that was getting lost with the arrival of nuclear families. My aunt brought in some appam with a cross made of dry kuruthola on it...if i remember right its called inriappam...i guess the cross placed on it gave it the inri name(my other grandma used to jokingly tell me "ninakku inri appam puzhungi tharaam" when i demanded something different be cooked and placed in front of me and i wud wonder what the hell that was!). Ammachi lead the short prayer followed by which appachan cut the appam in many peices and dipped it in a green syrup(tasted like thengapal with a touch of cardamom and sugar) and handed it to everyone in the order of seniority. The bread was bland but with the syrup it tasted so sweet. It was a magical moment of family bonding and love. I knew I would look forward to this occasion every year henceforth but sadly it never happened...and soon it didnt even matter to me. Our families moved apart irrevocably despite the best efforts of my dad...pretty much like the irritatingly unreasonable sob-story family sagas we see on tv serials. I always wonder if we'll ever be able to sit around a table on a maundy thursday evening with pappa at the head of the table(ouch...our dining table is round) and mummy, jisha, me, our spouses and our kids hovering around...ooh sounds too good to ever become true...the irony is I who write all this has been accused of running shy of family, and of words which speak a thousand noble thoughts and never reflecting in my actions! I plead guilty to the charges.
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