unCERTAINty

President Obama's Inaugural Speech

2009-01-21T08:07:00.003+05:30

My fellow citizens,

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.

At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

Serious challenges
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

Nation of 'risk-takers'
We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and ploughed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

'Remaking America'
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Restoring trust
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

'Ready to lead'
As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

'Era of peace'
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

'Duties'
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

'Gift of freedom'
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.
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Obama's First Address

2008-11-19T18:14:00.001+05:30

Medical Alarm

2008-11-12T17:05:00.001+05:30

It is said that old age is like a journey back to the childhood. Falling down, getting lost etc. which are atypical of childhood is common in old age as well. Hence old people also need the same attention that is given to an infant. But generally people tend to forget that.

Innovation in technology such as medical alarm helps people who are busy with their office work or other things to take care of their aged parents. One such, the fall alert detector, can be used inside the house and will alert the emergency personnel whenever the aged people happen to fall.

The GPS tracking bracelet having an in-built two way speaker phone can be used to find the old aged in case they get lost in the streets or backyard. Especially useful if the wearer is found wandering due to diseases like Alzheimer’s. Quite remarkable from the innovators who have used technology for the benefit of humanity!

Compare Creditcards

2008-11-12T16:46:00.000+05:30

Credit cards have become so much a part of our lives these days. This efficient and effective substitute for paper money is not only convenient to use but also provide a way of getting credit for shorter durations with almost zero cost, though for longer durations its cost is pretty high.

Due to the popularity of crdit cards, there are a lot of credit card providers in the market issuing credit cards having myriad features; so much so that at one point it becomes extremely difficult for a person to choose from one of these cards. In such situations, sites like this become really useful.

Using the site, one can compare credit cards ranging from CITI credit cards to Household Bank Credit Cards. The credit cards can also be compared based on the brand, the issuer, credit quality and various other factors. The site also has an interesting repository of blogs and articles related to credit cards.

A gold owned by billions

2008-08-30T21:00:00.000+05:30

A gold that meant so much for a nation!

I guess, its not just Abhinav Bindra, but a billion people who owns this. Hats off to you man! You made us proud..

Slimming Pills

2008-08-30T14:13:00.000+05:30

Obesity is something which is the after effect of our hectic life style; a life style in which we are engaged with our office work most of the times a day and not involve in any physical activities. So much so that we don’t get time to do proper exercise for our body and keep it healthy and fit. That’s probably why people are going after various methods to shred weight and look fit.

Having slimming pills is a way to reduce weight. But there are umpteen pills available in the market; some of which are highly effective while some others are just there to get money out of you. That’s where having a website that reviews and rates slimming pills and gives recommendations as to which one to choose helps. Slimming Pills Review site does just that. They also have a system with which consumers and experts can give feedback on a particular pill, which will be useful for a person who is planning to go for it.

High speed internet connection

2008-08-28T23:09:00.000+05:30

High speed internet connection is something that’s quite unavoidable in a modern home. We use the internet for anything and everything. Right from buying grocery to booking flight tickets, internet has become very much a part of our life. Initially all we needed was a low speed internet connection as most of the sites were text based and required only low bandwidth. But today, websites are beaming with content that require very high bandwidth. Thus arise the need of high speed internet connection.

High speed internet connection allows people to browse through the latest the internet has to offer. It allows seamless and glitch free viewing of sites like YouTube that provide rich video content and various other sites that showcase streaming content, which requires higher bandwidth. Charter is one such internet service provider who offers high speed internet connection.

Charter Laptop a Day Giveaway, is its upcoming campaign through which they give one laptop per day for 30 days. For entering the give away, all one has to do is to order one or more Charter services online. Apart from the lucky draw of laptop per day, all those who buy the site’s services online are eligible for a free shell gas gift card. I hope every one of you make use of this fabulous offer.

Of IT and Dieting

2008-08-26T08:28:00.004+05:30

I used to be so thin at college that I always failed to manage the BMI requirements. 4 years into working in a job where I hardly move during office hours, I have grown to stay within BMI limits now; with a fat tummy though. Since I have managed the weight requirements only with a fat paunch, I know I still am a failure in the health department. Apparently, that is the case with most of the IT guys, due to the nature of their job!

Few of my friends have joined various weight loss programs like VLCC, Inspirations and Vibes where they have to spend a lot of time in working out and following a strict diet to lose weight. I was wondering what those people would do who can’t take that much time out of their busy work schedule. That is when I heard about diet pills in general and extreme acai berry in particular. Diet pills apparently have some fat burning ingredients in it that will drain extra fat from the body.

But how to know about the available diet pills in the market? Then I came across this diet pill review site that makes the selection easier. With their help a person can find out the exact pill he/she wants.

Web Hosting

2008-08-25T17:21:00.002+05:30

Ever since I started blogging, I have been using blogger as the platform. The main reason is that its service is available free of cost, for all you need is a Google account. Besides that, Google provides the basic stuff required for blogging. But being free also means having limited freedom. Apart from changing themes and adding or removing widgets, I am not able to do the kind of customizations I want in my blog.

There is not much of an option I have if I want to do a little more tweaking in my blog that’s hosted in platforms like blogger, word-press live-journal etc. A solution to this issue is to go for a custom domain name (URL) and buy some server space from a private web hosting company and have my blog hosted with them. But then there are a lot of private web hosting companies out there and how to choose the one I want?

That’s when I came across this site that has listed down the top web hosting packages available in the internet. The site gives an option for the user to filter out the kind of hosting he wants depending upon his personal needs. The site also gives the profile of the web hosting company. These entire features would make it easier for the user to finalize the web hosting company he shall go for.

Numerology mania

2008-08-01T17:53:00.007+05:30

These days Bollywood films release with strange names. By strange names I mean Singh is Kinng, Kismat Konnection etc. Guess you got it. The English words in these movie names are distorted based on suggestions from certain numerologists, who predict that if king is written as kinng and connection as Konnection, the movie will gross in the box office! Now, that is awful!

I’ve never heard of any film that’s made decently becoming a flop in theatres. If that is the case, I feel film makers, instead of working hard to make good films, are focusing their attention on such petty stuff as numerology and sorts and then making bad films which flop anyways.

Ekta Kapoor’s ‘K’ mania is another example, where all of her serials start with the letter ‘K’. So much so that the great epic of India becomes ‘Kahani Hamaray Mahabharat Ki’ now!

When language, culture etc. are tainted for the inability to make good films/serials, I feel we are on an unscrupulous path. And I wonder; who these numerologists are? Are they linguists? And aren’t these blind beliefs of twenty first century?

Entrepreneurship

2008-07-31T12:23:00.001+05:30

I feel very happy whenever I hear that someone has started a company. It doesn’t make a difference to me if that person is someone I know or I don’t know. To me, starting a company and taking it to success gives the same satisfaction that a farmer feels after he sows seeds and reaps produce or may well be that of a father/mother when he/she sees his/her child growing to a youth.

Starting something requires very much courage. It also has a social cause; of giving employment to few people. But I guess the sense of achievement one gets when he starts something and make it big is what that drives one to do that.

I was going through the website of BlogCamp Kerala, especially, through the list of attendees. I could see a lot of such young minds who have already taken the path of entrepreneurship. And it made me happy!

Home Lighting

2008-07-23T17:07:00.001+05:30

My friend bought a new flat recently. He and his wife hired an interior designer for arranging their house. They were particular about the lighting of the house. Unlike before house owners nowadays put in a lot of effort on selecting light fixtures to be used in their houses so that their houses appear more appealing.

The couple would have visited about ten to fifteen shops before finalizing the chandeliers they wanted in the hall. Later they told me that it would have been great if there was a single place that had a large collection of light fixtures of various styles, price range and brands and that it would have been okay even if it is an online store.

Home lighting is something to be done with utmost care. And nothing like it when you find a place having thousands of such products available for you to choose from. After all a house is a place where you live and also it is really important to make it look good to your visitors.

Online forex currency trading

2008-06-20T20:02:00.000+05:30

Stock markets are a delight of many an investors. There is no other way to get quick and higher returns than investing in the stock markets. Stock markets, in response, have a wide variety of instruments which an investor can do trading on. Forex currency trading is one such option.

Value of a currency varies every now and then, according to the economic conditions and several other factors prevailing in a country and hence exchange rates between two currencies always fluctuate. A foreign currency bought when its exchange rate is low can be sold when its exchange rate is high, gaining the difference as the return. The principle of Forex Currency Trading is exactly the same. In this era of internet, Forex currency trading can be done completely online. Online Forex currency trading enables one do trading from anywhere in the world (geographic independence).

Though currency trading has the same risk as any other trading through stock markets, the risk can be reduced through proper research and inputs. Fabforex.com is one site that gives thoughtful insights on currency trading, insights which really work. They have a huge collection of articles and research reports which give important information on currency trading. New articles are posted frequently, which makes people updated about various opportunities that are present at the moment.

Next generation blogging

2008-06-20T19:25:00.001+05:30

Today, with millions of blogs across the internet world, I guess blogging has finally come of age. When I started blogging, it was just an online journal; with out any additional features such as polls, RSS feeds, email subscriptions or anything like that as it exists today. Blogging has advanced so much so that I keep wondering where it would be a couple of years from now. What all features could various blogging platforms adopt so as to make blogs look more professional and feature rich? That’s when I came across thoughts.com!

Thoughts.com allows people to create their own free personal blogs. But what it makes them different from other blogging service providers is that, together with creating blogs, one can also upload photos, videos, pod casts etc. and also do chatting in their site. They also have community forums where people can discuss about a bunch of interesting stuff and access latest news from various geographies.

When it comes to blog posts, they also allow people to be selective on their individual postings; like if they want their posts to be public, private or viewable by selected people. All comes with an unlimited bandwidth for accessing the blog. I guess thoughts.com has taken blogging to the next level, which would be something other blogging service providers can learn from.

Savings Accounts

2008-05-30T08:47:00.000+05:30

Savings accounts are used by people to save the extra money they have, after all the expenses are met. Money in savings account can be used at times of financial crisis or may be to save and buy something in the future, without taking a loan. Hence it is a good practice to own a savings account and start depositing in it.

WaMu is one of the institutions that provide customers with various Savings Accounts options such as Online Savings, Statement Savings, Traditional CD, Online CD, Liquid CD etc. Through Online Savings and Online CD, one can open an online savings account and can manage it online; with online statements. The checking account of a person can be linked to the savings account with Automatic Savings Plan through which extra money will be transferred to the savings account which will earn extra interest income on the otherwise idle money.

Certificate of Deposits (CDs) yield a higher interest rate as the deposits are made for longer terms. It also has the option to be managed online, which is through the Online CD. To provide the much needed liquidity to the customer, there is a Liquid CD as well. Thus, CD is an attractive option available to people if they can plan upfront for a huge purchase, as it gives a higher return. Due to the vast range of options available, I guess WaMu Savings Accounts are the best bet for people who want to save and invest.

The Finance Blog

2008-04-28T16:50:00.003+05:30

Doing some marketing for my other blog. ;-)

For the financially inclined and the interested, The Finance Blog. Please have a look...

Working the IT way

2008-04-23T16:28:00.010+05:30

My company has been acquired by another one and its changes all around. The biggest of all and the one that’s taking a toll on me is the change in office timings. Previously it used to be 8.5 hours per day and now it is 9.5 hours! And considering the traffic in Bangalore which takes almost two hours of my time traveling to office, it wouldn’t be a surprise that I reach home totally worn out.

A couple of year’s back I had a correspondence with my professor, who taught us a course called Legal Aspects of Business, regarding working hours of employees in the IT industry. As you know people in the IT industry (especially fresh graduates) are made to work for long hours in the office. Here, I saw a stark contradiction with the labor laws in the country which prevents employees from working more than 8 hours a day.

Lemme copy-paste here the mail conversation we had. I hope my professor wouldn’t mind me doing it.

Jithu wrote:
Hello Sir,

Hope you are doing fine. My name is Sujith and I belonged to the class of 2006 of IIMA and had attended your LAB sessions. :-). Indeed informative they were.

I had a doubt regarding the labor laws of India and I am sure you can give a comment on it. The doubt is regarding the working hours of employees in IT companies. Is it governed by the same Factories Act of 1948 (http://indiacode.nic.in/fullact1.asp?tfnm=194863) or some amendments have been made to this act for IT companies to follow? Most of the IT companies force people to work till late night (more than 9 hours a day). Isn’t it illegal according to this act?

I hope you are not much busy with acads to clarify my doubt.
Thanks & Regards,

Prof. wrote:
Thanks for the email Sujith.

Please remember that all these labor laws are meant for the ‘labor’ (blue collared) and people about whom you are mentioning (white collared) are not covered under the definition. There is no law to fix hours for the working of executives. Labor laws are enacted to prevent exploitation of poor, whereas executives are capable enough of protecting themselves, hence, there is no law for them.
Regards,

Jithu wrote:
Sir,

Thank you very much for the clarification.

Somewhere feel bad when I see guys who are recruited directly from engineering colleges are put into work up to around 17 hours a day in various IT companies. I strongly feel they also require protection. Executives are supposed to be capable of protecting themselves, but the question is whether they are actually able to do that or not. The question becomes who is being exploited here.

Once again, thank you very much for your prompt response Sir. :-)
Have a nice day..

Prof. wrote:
To take it a bit further.....
Engineers who work for 17 hours have a choice to join a company which pays less and makes them work for lesser hours. It is a choice which the engineers have themselves made out of their own sweet will. Senior management professionals/govt. officers/military officers/business persons, etc. are on the job 24 hours.
For labor, there would be no such work available and employers would exploit them, hence the law.
Regards,

Jithu wrote:
Yeah that’s true Sir, they do have a choice. Can be considered as something they choose for themselves for the handsome bucks they earn.

What you said is true Sir; the act is not meant to put a limit to the working hours, but to prevent exploitation.

Sir, if I could talk a bit about the choice part. Even though they have a choice, most of the IT companies out there, work in the same fashion. Also India is an unemployment high country that most of the times; it’s a matter of getting a job than anything else and people tend to choose the option that’s at hand without thinking much about the working hours and nowadays it has become kind of a norm in IT companies.

Thanks very much for these valuable insights Sir.
It was nice to be in touch with you once again.. :-)

Sujith

So, working for long hours is something which we IT guys choose by ourselves. But my question is how many of us did that by a choice? Did we have options? Somewhere I feel our situation is much more pathetic than the blue collared employees. Do we now need a law for protecting people working in IT?

Hmm.. Guess, I have no other options but to adjust myself to the new timings... So here I am at the office everyday at 9 am till it rings 6:30 pm!

PS: How long will it take for one to complete a short story? Well, for me its two years and is still not over!

From E-Company

2008-04-02T14:58:00.001+05:30

E-Company: “The Loot” Marthahally, Bangalore

What my friend had undergone at a shop in Bangalore..

Changing Times

2008-03-27T16:37:00.003+05:30

Today, after a long time, I visited this blog and read a few of my previous posts. People say what one writes on his blog is a reflection of his personality. I don’t know how true that is, but the kind of change that had happened to me over a couple of years is evident from the posts I have written, compared to how my thought process goes these days. After all, I guess that’s the purpose of a journal or a blog; to allow for reminiscence and at times, comparison.

Last few days I got some free time to catch up with the latest happenings at my blog network, the ones who were active a couple of years back, the time when I too was in the foray. Sadly I realized that most of them have given up blogging, almost completely, just like me. But a few stalwarts are very much in action. I appreciate the spirit they posses, which I myself lack. But looking at the majority who had almost quit blogging, I feel, blogging also follows a life cycle, where old bloggers disappear in to their priorities and new ones enter into the arena. But blogging would stay and let it stay forever!

Bhool Bhulaiyya

2007-11-04T12:25:00.000+05:30

Went to watch the film Bhool Bhulaiyya due to the inner desire of a mallu to know how one of the classics of his language was re-made for a different audience. I knew Priyan would try his best to make this film as worst as possible, but never thought it would be such pathetic.

When I came out of the theatre, it got reinstated in my mind that actors of the genre Akshay and Vidya can never perform beyond a certain level. And a few words to Priyadarshan; you are best at doing comedy and that is your core competency. Please dont do anything that doesnt fit you, by which you would ruin your own reputation and more importantly, ruin the image of a great movie from Malayalam. Priyan, you have any idea what the people who had seen the film Bhool Bhulaiyya had thought about one of the greatest malayalam films, Manichithrathazhu??

St Thomas Condos

2007-10-10T08:58:00.000+05:30

Going out for a vacation, this has become an unavoidable practice for many a lot. Yearly vacations, honey-moon trips or may be even corporate meetings are nowadays held at exotic locations. People are looking for locations that are serene and far away from the hassles of a city to get relaxation and peace of mind.

Found the site of St Thomas Condos, which gives information about the services (villas on a sea-side; for corporate meetings, as a wedding / honey-moon destination, yearly vacation) they are offering. The one thing I liked about the site was its appearance. The site is well designed. The various modern facilities offered by the company is clearly described in the website, due to which, for the user, it’s never a problem finding the information he is looking for. I liked the section, Top 10 reasons why one should choose them, very much. Quite unique from the sites you see in the internet.

I wish the site had an e-payment gateway with which the user could book the place online using his internet banking account or credit card. Much required if the person lives in some other country and wants to book the place for a visit in the future. I hope St Thomas Condos authorities will take care of this soon.

Little Ironies

2007-09-04T16:48:00.000+05:30

With a pamphlet in his hand, Moin looked contented. A sales agent of his cell phone service provider gave him that. In the pamphlet, there was plan for Rs. 2500 with which one could make unlimited calls to anywhere in India. That was what made him so happy. Because, with that he could make as many number of calls he want and talk his heart out to his friends and relatives.

Few days back, he had sent me a forward. There was a cartoon of a person with a cell phone in his ear and fumes coming out from his head in the forward. And a tagline that read, “Excessive use of cell phones may cook your brains alive”.

Why would the cell phone service provider be bothered about all those?

Cost of a Lifestyle

2007-08-29T09:59:00.000+05:30

For a weekend movie,

PVR Cinemas, Bangalore
Two matinee tickets – Rs. 440

Kripa Theatre, Trivandrum
Two matinee balcony tickets – Rs. 80

Guess this is what I have to ‘pay’ for becoming a cosmopolitan.

Onashamsakal

2007-08-28T10:40:00.000+05:30

Belated Onam greetings to one and all... After 5 long years, I made it to my home this Onam. Guess this is what marriage could do to a person like me :p

PS: Don't have to say, it made me put a post as well. Not the marriage, but Onam. ;-)

adMad

2007-01-15T23:09:00.000+05:30

adMad; refurbished and reloaded! Please have a look :-).

Happy New Year

2006-12-31T23:10:00.000+05:30

Wishing u all a great year ahead... :-)

A bit of security

2006-11-16T19:03:00.000+05:30

Renu had just moved in to Bangalore to join her new job. These days, the first thing one would do after shifting her location is to get a cell phone connection; even before finding a house to settle in. Thank God, most of the service providers gave out corporate connections which made the task of getting a new connection much easier. Also the corporate connection would save her from giving huge deposits to activate STD facility to call back home and a company letter to surrogate local address proof.

The company had a representative of a famous mobile phone service provider visiting their campus every afternoon to assist people take new connections. Renu was more than happy when she came to know about this. The very next day she joined her company Renu went and saw the sales representative and enquired about the formalities of taking a new connection.

The ever obliging sales guy replied with a pleasant smile on his face. “Madam, please give me your passport size photograph, a copy of your company ID card, a photo copy of your credit card; both sides, a cancelled check leaf of your salary account, your address proof or company letter and your pay slip. Your connection will be activated tomorrow itself.”

‘Hey, isn’t he asking a bit too much of a requirement? Especially copy of both sides of my credit card and a cancelled check leaf of my salary account! Anyone who is seeing the copy of my credit card can note down the card number and the CVV number and do online transactions using that and in the check leaf, my account number and bank name are there, which are like confidential information. Also you don’t know who all see these photocopies.’ Having thought about this, she decided to ask the sales guy.

“Why do you want copies of both sides of my credit card and a cancelled check leaf?”

“Those are required madam.”

“But why? They are confidential information and can’t be shared.”

The sales guy’s face started to change. Bit annoyed, he handed over one pamphlet to Renu. He also showed a few photocopies of both sides of credit card given by some employees of her company. Some of them haven’t even darkened the CVV number on the back side of their credit card!

The following were written under various plans offered by the provider.

Documents Required
1. One passport size photograph
2. A photocopy of the ID card
3. Photocopy of the credit card for SI (both side) OR cancelled check leaf for ECS
4. Local address proof or company letter
5. Pay slip photocopy for STD, ISD and Roaming facilities

She started asking doubts one by one and that’s when things started to unfold.

Credit card photocopy shall be asked when one wants her bill to be credited to her credit card and it also serves the purpose of signature verification. Whereas a cancelled check leaf shall be asked when one wants to enable auto debit of her bills from her bank account and it also serves the purpose of signature verification. By having these details, the cell phone service providers mitigate the risk. On inquiring further, she got to know that the signature verification can be done by giving photocopies of her driving license or passport. By not choosing her bill to be auto debited from her account or credited to her credit card and with a refundable deposit of Rs. 400 she can even do away with the cancelled check and photocopies of credit card!

She gave one passport size photo, a photocopy of her ID card, a photo copy of her license, a company letter as she hasn’t taken a house yet and a deposit of Rs. 400 to take the connection. She gave a copy of her offer letter in lieu of salary slip. She wondered what she would do with those people who have already submitted their credit card and bank account details.

Most of the times, we just need to inquire a bit more.

Akka

2006-11-11T22:44:00.000+05:30

We call her akka.
As I write this, I am trying to recollect her name. After a while I realized that I didn't know it because I haven't asked her that anytime. Oh man, our maid, she has been cleaning our house and washing our clothes for about six months now and still I haven't asked her name! On second thoughts, it shouldn't come as a surprise to me as I hardly know the name of our maid while I was at Mumbai and that too in spite of my stint of about two years there. Probably I wouldn't have asked her name too!
We called her baai.

When we came to Bangalore and got bumped into our current house, we were looking for a person who would keep our house nice and clean. We were more than happy when akka, who used to clean the house for its previous inhabitants, agreed to continue the post.

Akka, like many other akkas who work in various houses of the IT city Bangalore (Those who read this post after November 1st, read it as Bengaluru), is also from Tamil Nadu. Most of them have come to Bangalore for a living and usually go back to their native once or twice a year. Many of them have settled with family in one of those shady alleys of Bangalore. In semblance, bai like many other bais who work in various houses of the economic capital of India, Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay), comes from Bangladesh.

Many a times I have felt that they are the most underpaid group. I guess their wages range from 200 – 400 for a one bedroom house a month. Most of them work in four to six houses and earn around 1000 – 3000 bucks a month, well set to meet all the expenses of their families including food, clothes, children's education and all such. Sometimes I wonder how they manage it out in the costliest city of India! Hmmm… everyone is happy with their own means...

Blog Tag

2006-10-18T18:04:00.000+05:30

Thanks Quills for taging me with this.

1. Are you happy/satisfied with your blog, with its content and look? Does your family know about your blog?
I am not. I want to write like blogger A. I want my blog to look like blogger B's. I want as much number of readers as blogger C. But in the end, I realize, I am just Jithu and I can't but be me!

I think my brother knows it. And I told my parents quite recently that I have a blog where I write stuff.

2. Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or you just consider it as a private thing?
Neither I feel embarrassed nor I consider it as a private thing, but I like keeping my identity known only to a chosen few.

3. Did blogs cause positive changes in your thoughts?
I don't think so. Probably because I haven't seen blogs that instill such thoughts.

4. Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or you love to go and discover more by yourself?
Previously, when I had time, I used to blog hop a lot. But now, I mostly confine myself to the blogroll I have. To be frank, anyone will have a natural interest to see who has commented them and how is the commenter's blog. I am no exception. So those who comment me, I guarantee you, I will visit your blog. But people who get comments from me, you are indeed privileged! :p

5. What does visitors counter mean to you? Do you care about putting it in your blog?
Yes I do have a visitor counter in my blog. Initially I was concerned about the count, but now, I care it less.

6. Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures?
Kandathu manoharam, kaanathathu athimanoharam (Seen are beautiful, unseen are more beautiful). I don't try to see my fellow bloggers, unless I am that interested to see them or they force me to see them. Only a chosen few know me by my face.

7. Admit. Do you think there is a real benefit for blogging?
Yes Ofcoz! Other than personal benefits like improving writing skills and the like, it gave me a chunk of friends most of whom I haven't even seen in person but I can very much identify myself with.

8. Do you think that bloggers society is isolated from real world or interacts with events?
Except having access to the internet world, which less than 1 in 100 Indians have, I don't think the bloggers are a privileged lot. They are much part of the ordinary world. But retrospectively, most of the bloggers don't think so. So they are isolated from the real world and mostly avert themselves from interacting with the common populace.

9. Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it's a normal thing?
Depends. Sometimes yes. Sometimes I take it positively.

10. Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?
If it is a political blog, I won't avoid it. But I hardly find a political blog which is not biased though the author claims it to be unbiased. Majority knows the bias, a few understands it!

11. Did you get shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?
Nah! Suspects can be questioned and they may not always be criminals. In the recent blocking of blogs by the India government I have seen bloggers who abused the block and had sought out methods to overcome it. I felt, who do they think they are? Do they think they are above law? Sometimes in the advent of national safety, governments have to do such things. But everyone knows that once the situation is over, things would be back to normal. And so did the ban. I felt the attitude of some bloggers as plain arrogance!

12. Did you think about what will happen to your blog after you die?
I hope someone will comment on my blog telling others that I am dead. Also I'm not that good a writer to have my scribbles known for eons after my death. So I prefer my blog shall also R.I.P with me! But I don't know how I can do that. Can we automate this process? :p

13. What do you like to hear? What's the song you might like to put a link to in your blog?
I like to hear appreciation for my posts! :p

If for songs,
Bryan Adams, Everything I do...
Achuvinte Amma, Enthu paranjalum nee entethalle...
Vaastav, Mere duniya hein tujhmein kahin...

Identity Crisis

2006-10-13T18:03:00.000+05:30

'Nikunjam', to 'C 103' to 'No. 36'
'Kottarakkara' to 'Sector 10' to '17th Main, 14th Cross, 6th Block'

I know, I know. You haven't yet stopped wondering what crap I wrote above right. Well, let me explain it a bit. ' Nikunjam' is the name of my house back at my native and 'C 103' and 'No. 36' are the figures or names (?) that label the flat/house I stayed after I left my native. 'Kottarakkara ' is what we call our native and my later warrens were 'Sector 10' and '17th Main, 14th Cross, 6th Block'.

I can't but be thinking about all these a bit. The word Nikunjam in Malayalam means a house made of climber stalks and bushes. It's a small dream house where one can ease out his/her soul. The word itself is so sweet and thinking about it makes one feel cool and relaxed. It's symbolic to a warm and pleasant home. Where stands C 103 and No. 36? The word ' Kottarakkara' also has a meaning and origin to it, but 'Sector 10' and '17 Main, 14th Cross, 6th Block'?

The numbers are given to houses and places for convenience. Yes, it's quite easy to locate the house numbered 36 in 17th Main, 14 th cross in 6th Block. From the tenderness of yesteryears we moved on to the fastness and ease of use of modernity. I am not saying whether it is good or bad. But am I losing something here? Is it for good?

I am becoming skeptical here. I doubt that I myself would be named after some such number in future. Already it's showing some signs. I have an employee code in my company. I don't know when my boss is going to call me like,

"Hey 14019, why don't you come here for a sec?"

I being the polite subordinate as ever, "Yes Mr. 6788, I am on my way!"

Man, I have an identity and that is my name. But then, so do the house I stay and the place I live. I can voice for my identity, but what will my house do? The place I live do? Do they want to be known through a number? Hold on, where are we heading to in the name of modernity?

Last week I went to buy something for which I had to give my permanent address. The shop guy looked amazed on seeing my address that he asked.

"No Number, No Main, No Cross, Sir?"

All that I could tell him was, "I have a home out there and not a house, buddy!"

I don't know whether he understood the difference between the two. Life just goes on...

The Lost Holidays

2006-09-26T12:22:00.000+05:30

The rain was settling down. Some infrequent droplets and those were it. A wind undressed the sky from the clouds and exposed its bare blue residue. The heavens were turning lucid. Taking help from a gentle breeze, trees and shrubs of the earth swirled away the water droplets clung to their branches and leaves. The day was all set to welcome a pleasant, bright and fresh afternoon. And the indistinctly misty evening added itself to the serenity of Maale-Nag, a hamlet on the valley of the mighty Himalayas. The village stood afresh; with a new life imbibed in it. After all it had been raining continuously there for the past two weeks. And little did the rain know that it had spoiled Vyomketan, the yearly harvest festival of the villagers that ran over the last one week.

A couple of hours were still remaining for the nightfall. The last bus from the city down below the plains was to reach the village in a short while. In a small shed near the bus stop sat an old man who apparently was waiting for someone who would come in that bus. Though he seemed so fragile, his age hadn’t have stolen the sparkle out of his eyes, which were filled with hopes.

“Is he coming today?” Asked a passerby who seemed to have known the old man for quite some time. As with the case of any other village, in that village too everyone knew each other.

“I hope so”. The old man replied him without taking his eyes off, which were set at a distance, on the road where it bended and disappeared behind the mountains.

“You should go home grandpa. He is not a child. He will come home alone once he reaches here.”

A long pause was the reply from him. But still he didn’t take off his eyes from the road.

*        *        *

Two weeks back, at an office in the IT city of Bangalore.

“Boss, I am done with my pending tasks. I don’t have much to do now. Can I take a leave and go home next week? It’s our yearly harvest festival that is coming up”. Navin was sure about his leave getting approved when he asked his boss for it.

“Sure Navin, you can go home. But keep yourself ready for any unexpected tasks that would come up during that time.”

“Sure boss!” His joy grew to new bounds. He thought about going to his village and meeting his grandparents after one long year.

*        *        *

The rain had completely stopped falling down. The pleasant evening gave way to a cold dusk. The sky had put on a colorful gown. Red, green, purple and various other variants imprinted on it! The glory of a splendid day was evident in that painting the nature had made on the skies.

At a distance, the sound of a horn was heard. The bus was approaching the village. The old man stood up from the bench with eagerness filled in his eyes. He seemed to have reinvigorated from all his ailments, when he heard the growl of the bus. He moved ahead and got out from the bus stand.

The bus stopped in front of him. Only a few passengers were there inside the bus and they started getting down one by one. Few moments later, the last person disembarked from the bus. With that, the old man’s face turned to disappointment.

No, he wasn’t there. The person, whom the old man was looking for, wasn’t there in the bus. A cold breeze caressed his face followed by a few droplets from the sky. Another rain was starting to grow.

*        *        *

At the same time, in the same IT office at Bangalore, Navin looked at his watch while the tele-conference was going on.

‘By this time I would’ve reached my village’. He thought.

He also knew that his grand father would be waiting at the bus stop for him now. Though he used to tell him to not to wait for him, his grandpa did that every time he went home. After all since his father’s death, it was his grandpa who took care of him.

The client in the US didn’t want to know about all these. They just continued the meeting, as scheduled...

A day's wait

2006-09-11T20:36:00.000+05:30

Tears started conquering her eyes. As it sheltered her eyes, I saw my face growing big in those. It hurt me...

Many things hurt me. It hurts me whenever she sits late in her office. I want her to go home as early as possible as I know Bangalore is not a good city after twilight. The third page of Times of India and The Hindu say ludicrous stories each day. It hurts me when she gets even a simple cold as I know she has no one but me in Bangalore. Despite me staying quite far away from her place, I was there for her all the time, I still am...

My friends used to ask me this question. How can you be so close to each other? Obviously they weren’t in love anytime in their life. All I could tell them back was,

“Feel it to understand it
Be in it to believe in it”

“I feel it, hence I understand it
I am in it, so I believe in it”

“Do you?”

Love, that’s a feeling beyond words. It can make the biggest of the odds come together. It can bridge all the differences. When I get something that I really want from her at a particular point in time and I get that without asking her; when she does what I think in my mind; when we call each other the same time and get number busy alerts; when I see her and it assures me that she is the one for me in this life; every time; I feel it. And it makes me believe in it.

Tears started conquering her eyes. As it sheltered her eyes, I saw my face growing big in those. It hurt me...

I was busy at work and I couldn’t talk to her that day!

In the park near Jaya Nagar, with her head on my shoulder, I finally heard those retrieving tears...

I too was getting calmed down inside...

What happened to my city?

2006-07-12T15:32:00.000+05:30

The places were the same. The ones we used to wait for trains in the past. The ones we used to get out from the packed Metro and became a part of the ocean of people. The trains too were the same as I couldn’t ever tell between two trains of the Mumbai Metro except differentiate by three different colored stripes, red, blue and green on a common yellow background and yeah, the three lines, western, central and harbor. The people too were the same. I didn’t know their faces or names, but I knew they were all like me. Trying to reach the safeness of home, carrying victuals to their children, meet their beloveds, after a hectic work day.

At first it was the rains that soaked my city. It had already shown its clout last year but I feel there was something left on its hoard. My people suffered. Ok agreed, it’s not in our hands to control a natural calamity than to prepare and face it, but what followed after that?

What if a person’s wife’s statuette is sling with sludge by someone? Were the thousands of people who suffered due to the subsequent hooliganism responsible for that? Were the BEST buses which were ruined and the bus that was set on fire would do any better to the smudging? Time has come for us to extirpate human gods, who provoke innocent but brainless minds, from the face of earth. So, that was two more days of sufferings that got added with the rains. And here comes the valedictory rite, hopefully!

7 blasts, 147 dead, 400 injured! The death tolls are mounting. All in the flash of 30 minutes! I’m sure someone would be laughing somewhere. Let’s give all the dead bodies to them to eat and slake their hunger!

I believe all the people I know in Mumbai are safe. I’ve been trying to contact you guys since I came to know about this.

May the souls of the killed rest in peace and God give courage to their near ones!

Have a Nice Day!

2006-05-23T17:54:00.000+05:30

In a different place, with a different set of friends, I guess my non-academic bachelor days are back into action. That means so back are those leg pulling sessions which we used to have in the past. Every evening, from different corners of Bangalore South, we get together in one of those umpteen Malayalee restaurants in and around Koramangala for dinner. Fortunately as of now I am able to get out from my office at 6 pm itself primarily because these are my initial days in the office. So here is something which came out in one of those dinner sessions.

One of my friends, lets call him O, works for a bank in Bangalore. His main job is to sit idle most of the times a year, ogle ‘attractive’ customers, and then fire up his ass to meet the revenue targets end of the year. So according to O, its hell of a time when it nears March since March 31st is the end of a financial year. Meeting targets, if not approaching people like me and coax us to take loans from his bank, employing people having muscle-packed body to collect money from defaulters and what not. Even for a guy like me who has zero banking knowledge and who thinks the much hyped ‘core banking solution’ sums up to not more than inserting a card, catch the money thrown on your face by the ATM machine and clean your hands with the paper that pops out from the machine as if using a tissue paper, it all seems to be so very eventful.

To continue the story, lemme introduce one more friend of mine to you. Let’s call him J. So one fine morning, close to 12 pm, when J reached his office, squeezing his bike through the Bangalore traffic, fully worn-out and marginally escaped from Lucifer’s hand at times, and opened his mailbox, he saw a forward from O. Since the subject of the mail was ‘Have a Nice Day’ J didn’t think twice before opening it. That was where it all started.

The first slide of the presentation was really interesting. Well, if a beautiful girl with a much more beautiful smile holding a bouquet in her hand wished you good day then even if it’s a photo, no man could say that it wasn’t interesting. J wasn’t an exception either. And he fell for the trap.

The twist happened in the next slide. It said that you would become lucky and would get all the material pleasures you wanted if you take a loan from the bank where O worked!

The third slide was even worse. It said “If you don’t wheedle five people to take loans from the aforementioned bank within two days then you will get injured in an accident with in the next five days!”

These followed in the subsequent slides.

“If you don’t cajole five people with in the next three days then you will die after falling from the terrace in the next six days!”

“If you discard this mail and don’t forward it to 10 people then you will lose 1 lakh from your bank account. Or else you will be raided by the income tax department!”

Heard that from the next day onwards there were long queues in front of O’s bank! He got a promotion this year for exceeding the targets! And J is paying EMIs of two loans!

PS: Purely a work of fiction.

Two Milestones

2006-05-08T13:53:00.000+05:30

I totally missed this. I forgot that a year back it was on a May 6th that I started this blog. unCERTAINty is a year old now and is up and running, obviously with a nip of unCERTAINty.

Btw I joined my company and am going thru the induction proceedings before I start with my work. Lots of things to do, like finding a house and stuff like that to consider myself settled.

Tags are from Venus

2006-04-25T23:34:00.000+05:30

Here's a tag from Venus!

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
its an engineering mathematics text book. u really want me to write that triple integral equation on page 18 line 4?

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
i tried. cudn't reach the door though.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
F1 - repeat telecast of the grand-prix in which Shumi won.

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
10:30 am

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
11:57 am, oh no.. just miss! :-(

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
the sound of the refrigerator.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
two days back. my friends came to see me and we went to the nearby lake side.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
mckinsey report - managing next generation IT infrastructure!

9. What are you wearing?
half pants. yes thats all. ;-)

10. Did you dream last night?
i think yes. don’t remember that though.

11. When did you last laugh?
while watching some comedy serial on TV.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
a calendar that shows 2005 june!

13 Seen anything weird lately?
my class XII mark list is missing! i donno where the hell i kept that. have applied for a duplicate mark list from the university :-(

14. What do you think of this quiz?
venus is a nice girl, so! :p

15. What is the last film you saw?
a very long engagement. its a brilliant film.

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
i will start a company.

17. Tell me something about you that I donno.
my first job was that of a teacher. i taught IT for 8th standard students in Govt Higher Secondary School Punnamoodu. i still keep my entire first salary; the same currency notes so to say. since i worked for only 2 weeks i was paid only Rs. 500 out of my monthly salary of Rs. 2000. btw my students still greet me :p they are in +2 nw.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
go back in time. kill the maniac(s) who started caste system in India, before they begin with it. even inside the same religion there are umpteen classes.
coz then,
the underprivileged, they wont b underprivileged today.
the privileged, they dont have to word against reservation.
and,
across religion and region, no person of a particular class, which he/she belongs to not by virtue of him/her, which he/she just happened to take birth without a choice, wud consider himself/herself superior/inferior to another person of a different class. i want a world were everyone is equal in the true sense; not just in writing or in talking.

19. Do you like to dance?
yes yes yes.

20. George Bush.
100% bush. 0% brains

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
kalyani-kutty

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
appu-kuttan (appoottan)

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
wherever i go, i will b back home in the end.

24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
dude, can u be my successor?

25. 5 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
:-), :-), :-), :-), :-)

Raining Thoughts

2006-04-22T23:06:00.000+05:30

It is raining. No. It has been raining and the rain is silently receding now. Sitting inside my room, I could feel the chilliness brought in by the cold breeze that was playing in the rain all this while and then intruded into my room through the semi opened window. I felt jealous of that breeze because I too wanted to play in the rain but I was not able to do that. Suddenly the breeze gave way to a pleasant wind which brought a thousand tiny droplets of cold water along with it. They fell all over me. I felt a quiver of excitement run through out my body, tickling each and every muscle on its way; all in the flash of a second. I felt the iciness spreading my entire body. Man, being in such a situation is a delight. I closed my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a shining droplet of water precariously clinging on the tip of a gleaming green leaf. The droplet was about to fall. I looked at myself. Omg! I have turned into a child. The old, small and naughty Jithu! The rain has just stopped and I ran outside my house shattering the muddy water on my way. I went near that dangling water droplet. I wanted to stop the droplet from falling down because it was so beautiful when it was hanging there. I was amazed by the way with which I could see the entire world in it. I doubted whether a wind is on its way to defeat the water droplet from its efforts. I suspected whether my breath would move the leaf thereby making the droplet fall down. I slowly placed my hand beneath the water droplet to hold it if it falls down. Suddenly a wind came from somewhere. It moved the leaf and the droplet lost its grip. It fell on my little index finger. It was no longer beautiful.

Meanwhile I heard my amma calling me inside. She told me that she has made black tea for me. My favorite tapioca fry was also there, she said. It’s great to have this combo when it’s raining. A cup of hot black tea and crispy chips! I forgot about that little water droplet on my finger and ran back into my house. I took the cup of black tea and the small bowl of tapioca fry to the verandah. In between I took some extra tapioca fry from my father’s share and put it in my bowl. I used to do something when it rained outside. I used to take a bed sheet and cover the chair on our verandah with it. That was my instant toy house and I soon made one; a house of my own! It felt great to be inside the coziness of my toy house when it rains. I crawled into my newly constructed house, into the small area between the bed sheet and the seat, with my black tea and the fries. The window or small opening of my toy house opened to the courtyard. Suddenly there started another downpour. I was inside my little house drinking steaming black tea, eating chips and enjoying the rains. There would be a thousand water droplets in each of the leaves now and a thousand beautiful worlds displayed in them, I thought. It made me happy.

Suddenly there was another wind which again brought in water droplets with it. The droplets were so big that they fell right on my face with a lot more power. And it made me open my eyes. The little Jithu disappeared. Hmm... That was a nice reverie. And I felt so melancholic. I know that those moments are gone. They won’t come back again. I am going to be in an office in a few days. I will be in a new city. I hope there would be rains there and there would be leaves to hold water droplets and show me that innocent world in it. I’m not so sure about that. I gasped it off. I looked at the water droplet which I saw hanging on the leaf a while ago. It was no longer there...

Lives

2006-04-19T10:14:00.000+05:30

I am Sanjiv. I work for a BPO firm situated in the Mumbai suburbs. I earn a five figure salary which was the dream of my father. Even though I come from a lower middle class family, once I started earning, I happened to be a spendthrift. I end up having weary bank balances during month ends. I like loneliness and hence I live alone in a single room accommodation located in one of the congested streets of Dadar. I am not satisfied with my life. And this is about an evening from my monotonous life.

It’s been a week that I am put up in the night shift. I sleep when people are busy with their work and I work when people lighten up at their houses. I hate this work but I don’t have any other options. For the company, if not me, someone else will do this job. Also, I earn much more than what a government employee does these days. So even though I am forced to hear a lot of crap through my headphones, the mascot of a call center job, I am kind of okay with my job.

Today is Tuesday and today is my week-off which falls on Tuesdays and Wednesdays due to the special nature of my project, unlike Saturdays and Sundays for a normal project. Still on my bed at 2 in the afternoon, the incident which happened yesterday hasn’t yet gone from my head. By the way I didn’t go to my office yesterday and I boozed heavily last night.

As usual, yesterday also I woke up at 7:30 in the evening for my 10 to 6 night shift. I left for my office after a quick bath. It took considerable amount of time to reach the office due to the heavy traffic at that hour of the day and in between I had to eat something as well. I reached the nearby bus stop after having my break-fast, err, dinner.

The bus stop was crowded as usual. Almost all the buses were full owing to the return of people from their jobs back home. Near the bus stop, there was a man who was selling grapes and oranges on a push-cart, yelling sporadically at random pedestrians, “Oranges, Rs. 30 for a dozen!” Noisy, crammed and clammy; it was an archetypal Mumbai evening.

“Hey you ice-cream boy!” The man who was standing next to me, hollered all of a sudden. In response, a small boy who was standing close to the grape seller with a small wooden box hung on his shoulders came near us.

“How much for a kulfi?”

“5 rupees sir.” He replied with a gentle smile.

“Give me one.”

The boy took a kulfi from the wooden box, gave it to the man and collected the money from him.

He lingered there for a while and then to me he asked.

“Fresh kulfis sir, shall I take one?”

I looked at his face.

Aged around seven, he seemed to carry more responsibility than a child of his age would usually have, on his shoulders. And the resultant maturity was evident on his face.

“Ok, give me a kulfi.”

He opened his box and gave a kulfi to me. While paying the amount, I asked him.

“Don’t you study kid?”

“Yes sir. I’m in second standard. And after the class time I sell kulfis.” He replied swiftly with an innocent smile. He was smart.

“What is your name?”

“Ramesh, sir.”

“Where do you live?”

“Over there sir.” and he pointed towards the slum located at the opposite side of the road.

“You have kulfi?” another person in the bus-bay called the boy and he went towards him.

I was soon back looking for bus number 521 as it was becoming late for my office.

Suddenly I heard a commotion erupted from my side as the people at the bus-stop circled around something at the other end of the bus stop. Something might have happened there. Even though it was time for me to catch the bus, I set off to see what has happened over there, simultaneously keeping a watch on the incoming buses. After reaching there, I budged towards the center pushing the crowd around me. Some one was lying on the road. From the wooden box near him, I could identify that person as the boy whom I had talked to a minute ago.

In the meantime someone brought a cup of water from the nearby tea stall and sprinkled the water on the child’s face. He opened his eyes before long, only to start shivering severely. After getting up he sat on the pavement. Someone got a tea for him from the tea stall. He started sipping the tea while the crowd dispersed from around him. And soon the situation was back to normal.

I was back at my place but something was pulling me back towards that boy. I looked at him. He was still shivering. Even though it was late for me to reach my office, I strongly felt that I should take him to his house. I went back to him.

“Come-on kid, let’s go to your house.” I told him while helping him stand up. I took his wooden box and we both walked across the road towards his house. After a bit of walking we entered into a narrow alley of snugly packed one room houses. My first experience of a slum! It was crammed, it was filthy.

“That’s my house Sir”. His feeble voice had already lost its power. I took him towards the house he had shown to me. And we reached its door.

“Aaaii, Aaaii, I am back.” He called his mother while knocking on the door. Someone opened the door after a while. It was his mother.

“Sir, please sit down. I will be back in a minute.” He said. I sat on the small stool put opposite to me by his mother.

“Ramesh is a smart boy” I started the conversation with his mother. She just smiled.

“I think you should not send him to sell kulfis when he needs to read his lessons.” Again she smiled. It seemed she was agreeing to what I was saying.

“So what do you do for a living?” I asked her.

“A massage for Rs. 25, a blowjob for Rs. 50 and a night for Rs. 100, Sir” She replied with the same smile on her face.

I was stunned when I heard that. Not even in my worst of the dreams did I think that she would say something like that. I sat there like a robot. I didn't have any idea how to handle that situation. I just turned numb.

“You want some water Sir?” I felt so relieved when I saw Ramesh back in the room. Yes I was sweating all over.

“Yes, I want.” I replied.

“My mom is not well, she is mentally ill.” He told me while handing over a cup of water to me. I looked at her. She was still staring at me, with the same smile. After drinking that water I left his house. On my way back I was confronted by a person.

“Sir, why did you go to that mad woman? I would’ve given you a better deal. By the way she used to be a prostitute before she turned mad. She doesn’t have a husband and she and her son live on the income that child earns by selling kulfis.”

I didn’t have the mood to go to the office that day. I went to the near by liquor shop and bought a bottle of whisky. I went home and drank the entire bottle myself. But the blues didn’t leave me. I was thinking about my life and the child’s life and the contrast between the two. I just couldn’t sleep...

PS: Aaaii – Marathi word for mother.

This is the best tag I have done so far. Thanks Anoop very much for tagging me to do this and to tell you, it really sweated me out to make a story using the words I, me, blowjob, grapes, random, power, loneliness, water, robot, and blue.

Tommy – I, II, III

2006-04-10T12:45:00.000+05:30

If you misunderstood the title of this post to be the hierarchy of medieval monarchs from the 14th century who ruled their kingdom to glory and subsequently to debacle, then let me tell you, you have got it wrong. Tommy is the name of the dogs we had over the years and since we were too lazy to find new names for the successors of Tommy the First, we christened each of the dogs we had henceforth as Tommy itself. Well I was a history freak that time and since I didn’t want to give the names of mighty European/Asian emperors such as Kaiser, Caesar, Tippu etc. anymore to such silly (forgive me SPCA guys, mere pun intended when I call dogs silly) creatures as dogs, I thought that let Tommy alone handle the entire twinge. So there were three Tommy’s we had till date.

Tommy the First
He was the one who started the great Tommy Empire in my house. He was brought home when I was in second standard, as a puny little creature that perfectly fitted in my father’s palm. A true torch-bearer of his genre, Tommy the first used to assault me and my brother whenever we tried to pull his tail or knock his head or take away his meals. We used to find rescue by clambering up the window grill or climbing the shrubs outside our house or sometimes going near the tap and opening it to full throttle in less than 2 seconds. Tommy feared water. Whenever he was given a wash, he shrinks beyond imagination, difficult even to see, that we felt ourselves humiliated thinking that we ran for our lives panicked by this skinny skeletal figure.

My quest towards knowledge wouldn’t have materialized if it wasn’t for Tommy. I learned simple harmonic motion when I dangled a bread piece to a stick using a twine and swayed it in front of him. His head followed the same simple harmonic motion. I varied the length of the string and noticed the change of pace in Tommy’s head movements. Once I made an arrangement of a battery and a LED bulb and went near Tommy. I placed the two wires on Tommy’s cheeks and with a loud scream, turned the LED ON and right after that I heard the first ever cry from Tommy. It took him three complete days to come out from that shock. Later whenever I show him my two hands pretending that two wires are there in my grip, I find Tommy becoming restive.

But he was a great dog. No one dared to enter our house when he was there. On his last day I saw him going out the gate, talking to another dog, coming back to his kennel and then drowning silently towards the depths of death. What he probably told the other dog was, “Friend, I am going, take care of my masters!”

Tommy the Second
He was a master tunnel maker. The dream project of interconnecting all the coconut-tree pits in our house by an underground passageway was accomplished by him. During rainy seasons, when the soil is wet and I and my family members, who have the least idea about these tunnels, walk over them, we sometimes succumb to these subways. We feel like soil has eroded from under our feet. And we collide into these tunnels. Thus we were able to relate ourselves with the emotions of an elephant when it falls in an elephant trap.

Tommy – II served the added responsibility of an usher. He used to lead me and my family members when ever we go outside the house. It was on one such mission that Tommy surrendered himself to the front wheel of a truck.

Tommy the Third
He was a traveler par excellence. There is not even a single village in Southern India that he hasn’t paid a visit to. He disappears on one fine day and come back after a week or so with travel sores and bruises throughout his body. He was the kind of dog whom you call ‘here’ and he manipulates the word ‘here’ and prefixes a ‘t’ in front of the word ‘here’ and act accordingly. Yes, he had a strong command over the English language and literature. He was not as efficient as the other Tommys due to which the Tommy Empire came to an end at my house. He passed away suffering from the repercussions of one such journey, in which he was out-rightly battered.

We haven’t had a dog in our house after that. And we are planning to get one. Let me try for a new name this time. Since I changed to a corporate freak now, I won’t be giving it names such as Bill (Gates), Jack (Welsh) or even Henry (Ford) for that matter. So Kaiser, Caesar and Tippu; here I come...

Romancing my Hamlet

2006-04-05T00:24:00.000+05:30

I am back at my native place. In the last two years I could visit my house only twice. So you can imagine how much I look forward to this one month I am here before I join a company in Bangalore.

After having a refreshing bath (I still feel the wintriness of our well-water in the summer heat), I roved outside my house for a while wearing a pair of half-pants and tees and no sooner did I receive gawks from our neighbors and passerby. For them, humans wearing these kinds of dresses would be a drunkard who had lost his outfits during his endeavors or a psychopath who unknowingly threw it off or else, aliens. I don’t know whether they assumed me to be the first two. Man, my marriage prospects!!! :-( Anyways, never ever in my life I caught this much an attention from people, especially girls! Needless to say, I became world famous in my village in no time!

On my visits to my village during my studies (I know there were only two such) I was often confronted with a question. Though there were several versions of the same, the core is the following.

Any person: “Jithu, heard that you are studying at Ahmedabad for some course.”
Me: “Yes, I am studying for MBA at Ahmedabad.”
Any person: “MBA? Ahmedabad? Kerala University has courses on MBA. You didn’t get an admission for that? You should’ve studied well for getting an admission somewhere here itself.”
Me: “Well, this one is better. It is India’s number one business school.”
Any person: “I guess you have been fooled by someone. And do they give you any job after studying there?”
Me: “Hmm... Yeah I think so.”

While I move ahead finishing that conversation I used to hear murmurs like this where the aforementioned “Any person” tells to someone near him.

Any person: “Poor guy. He is suffering a lot in a foreign land.”

There was this branch manager of Canara Bank who rejected the application for educational loan to a friend of mine saying that he hasn’t heard about an institute called The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and hence it is very unlikely that he will repay the loan.

Coming back to my village, in the evening I took my bike and went for a ride through the village. As far as I’ve explored, nothing has changed here except for a few extra shops in the junction.

Apparently the election heat is more than the summer heat here. Politicians blabber about their achievements and other parties’ mistakes and give promises to make Kerala a heaven. This is the instance where the sentence, ‘crowd has the weakest memory’, comes out with all its relevance. No one remembers, or conveniently forgets, that last time also the promises were the same. After all who said that promises are meant to be put into action?

My new love

2006-03-22T00:04:00.000+05:30

It was love at first sight ;-)

General Motors’ Chevrolet Aveo hits Indian roads tomorrow, March 23 2006. Priced at a lucrative 5.54 lakhs (ex-showroom, Delhi) for its base model, this premium mid-segment sedan will compete against existing cars in its category such as Honda City and Ford Fiesta, the segment top-two. GM, having a tough time to uphold their global number 1 position against Japanese car manufactures like Toyota and Honda, is aggressively targeting emerging markets such as India to maintain their revenues. The car is available in 4 variants with a deluge of advanced features. I particularly liked this color. :-)

In between I found this article about the history of Honda Motors. It’s an interesting read.

Holi Crap!

2006-03-17T23:11:00.000+05:30

This photo appeared in Hindustan Times on March 14, 2006, released by PTI, taken somewhere in Gujarat during Holi celebrations. For some it may seem to be the efficient artwork of an unknown photographer who successfully captured the essence of Holi in all its vividness using his camera. But for a few it may seem to be the colorful flare-up of immorality unknowingly captured by the photographer, unnoticed by PTI and inadvertently published by the newspaper. After all it’s Holi. It’s a religious festival. Its fun! And no one has ever defined the boundaries of fun. So what if some had gone for a six!

‘Post-Navaratri abortions’ (a rise in the number of abortions past Navaratri celebrations) were something which was a serious concern to the officials till recently. But this year the number of abortions came down drastically, only subsequent to a ‘25 ~ 50%’ increase in the sales of condoms during Navaratri period. Well, people are more aware of ‘such’ things these days. TOI also says, If this is not enough, volunteers deployed by NGOs at garba venues are only waiting to hand you that free sachet tied with a 'red ribbon' to drive the message of safe-sex, right home. In fact, this is the first time that HIV volunteers have put up stalls inside garba venues where they don't mind handing out a condom along with those leaflets. Can't quite believe that this happens in a religious festival!

Reading these somewhere it feels that religion and religious practices had turned to nothing but a meager wrapping to depravity. Donno when the self proclaimed moral police of India, cosseted under the umbrella brand of the leading political party would realize these things in their spree to deport Valentines Day celebrations from India. After all it happens only in India, where irony has become nothing but a buzz word these days!

And it ended

2006-03-02T16:11:00.000+05:30

Today I had my last exam. With this my two year course in management has formally come to an end. Looking back, I should say that it was an interesting ride that I had in the last two years. I have gone through lots of experiences, learnings, self-realizations etc. Yes I have changed a lot. But not quite sure whether these changes are for good, as it already started reflecting adversely in a few things I care about. But then lemme see what future has in store for me. I already have a job offer from a company through laterals and I am quite happy with the kind of job profile they offered me. So I accepted that offer. I won’t be sitting for the final placements. I don't want to feel the pleasure of owning multiple offers playing with someone else's chance. So, over and out. :-)

On a Valentine's Day

2006-02-15T02:09:00.000+05:30

“Dey, I’ve to do a small shopping. Are you coming with me?” When Shaks asked me this at 5 in the evening, I was just woken up from a not so small slumber which I started after my morning class at 8:45. With quasi closed eyes I was contemplating about the possibilities of starting a ‘non-Valentines’ day from this year onwards. Might be the aftermath of a dream I had in which I was riding on a black stallion with 14 red roses in my right hand and seven in my mouth, but not finding anyone to sell those. Yes! You read it correct. Sell it is! Actually in that dream I was a sales guy who sells red roses to valentines! Too much of a dream and I felt it as an insult on my conscious mind by my subconscious mind, which generates all such arbitrary dreams! And then I decided to start a ‘non-Valentines’ day. Don’t know why St. Valentine forgot about such a huge majority in his shore up for people who love each other. We, the majority were always there, but still.

Shaks and me left our dorms within half an hour and we reached the factory outlet in another 15 minutes. He did all the actual shopping and I engaged myself in checking whether the shop owner had applied all the retailing and layout principles taught in our retail management elective.

“Hmm... not up to the mark” I told to myself.

“What?” a lady who was busy selecting shirts near the shelf, shot up all of a sudden.

“I mean, the shelves are not up to the mark.” I replied and then with a sheepish grin moved on to where Shaks was standing.

He was trying to make a choice between two shades with the same checks and in between, haggling on the discount they were offering for that particular range. Anyways he didn’t take much time to arrive at a decision.

It was at that time that Shaks noticed the lady whom I just had an eye-fight.

“Dey, she is a TV actress. I have seen her many times on television.”

“You sure? I haven’t seen her anytime.”

“I’m sure yaar. Ok let’s go and ask her.”

“Hmm… wouldn’t that be too much?”

“You should always be proactive man.”

Next second I saw him near the lady, about to ask her something.

“Are you an actress? I have seen you on television. I am a great fan of yours!”

“What? No I don’t act. By the way, I have seen both of you at the institute. I am wife of Prof. R. P Bhatia.”

Had I got a camera that time, I would’ve taken a snap of Shaks' face. It would've definitely won popular photography awards due to the presence of the maximum number of expressions in one face at one time.

Incidentally Prof. Bhatia teaches us Retail Management.

An Interesting Situation

2006-02-13T02:22:00.000+05:30

Got this picture while surfing the internet for images of skateboards. The question is simple. If the power cord is connected to a plug and the fan is turned on, where does the skateboard go? Towards left or towards right? Ok lemme make it simpler. Whether the skateboard move or not? Assume that both the screen and the fan are fixed on the board. Once again, think and answer. :-)

An Elegy

2006-02-05T17:17:00.000+05:30

She is no more. But why should it hurt me so much? Well the main reason is that I am aware of the fact that I haven’t done justice to her at least once in her life. I didn’t give her a chance to be happy. She came to my house with a promise to live with me for ever, till eternity separates us. Initially I didn’t like her much because it wasn’t a relationship where in I knew her for a long time and then we got together which was what I wanted in a long term relationship. It was Nazim Khan, my music teacher, who introduced her to me. He said she was the perfect one I could get in the entire world. When I heard her singing, I was more than sure about what Nazim Khan said because I carried an interest in music especially towards vocals. I didn’t think twice. A few days later I brought her to my house without having a formal house entering ceremony.

Initially I found it difficult to understand her. Because it was my first time being with her or in fact anyone like her. I didn’t know anything about her. But then something from inside my heart was yelling out that I wanted her more than anything in my life. Later I started liking her and we spent the most of our free time together. Initially she was too shy to sing for me. When I came to know more about her and we became close, what I heard from her was the most beautiful sounds of music. I thought I have made the right choice in my life.

I left my job and we both came to the place where I joined for my higher studies. Well I have to agree that the first signs of incongruity started from there. It wasn’t my mistake either. I didn’t get much time to spend with her. Educational systems are made like that. Not allowing for anything beyond books making people nothing but bookworms. I knew that she kind of missed me but I tried my best to spend the maximum possible time with her. In fact I also missed her very much especially her pearly voice. But with time and the heftiness of the academics, our trysts decreased in frequency. And somewhere it stopped. She would’ve felt bad as I was the only one for her in this whole world. I knew this, but I was helpless. And now when she is not around, I feel the emptiness engraving my mind.

It happened on a midnight, two weeks back, while I was reading something on my computer. She was near my desk looking at what I was doing on my computer. She used to do that whenever I work late night; that is everyday. I had a glance at her. It seemed she got used to the dodging from me and I continued with what I was doing. I was surprised when I heard some crackling from the side. I couldn’t understand from where it was coming. Initially the noises where less frequent but it increased with time. Then I heard some sharp breaking sounds piercing through the air and my ears. Six in a row; one followed by another. It was the kind of sound when something which is under great tension breaks apart to relieve the strain. After that I heard a big cracking sound. Don’t know why, but what I felt was that somewhere someone’s heart had broken down into pieces. And then I saw her lying on the floor frozen, relieved from the entire trauma she had undergone.

It was difficult for me to believe that. But reality stared back at me. I lost her. I can’t listen to her beautiful voice any more. I feel alone.

My guitar is no more...

My Perfect Love

2006-02-01T01:08:00.000+05:30

Thanks Tarni, Silverine, Quills and Divya for inviting me to do this wonderful tag where in I have to write 8 points about my perfect love.

Before I start,
Patni, where I worked, had a library and I happened to read this book borrowed from there whose title I don’t remember now. In the book, the author asks a lady her expectations about her lover. She says a lot of things like; he should be intelligent, smart, handsome, caring, tall, fair, rich and much more. When she was over with the long list, the author asked her a question. ‘Consider that you got a guy with all these qualities you have mentioned, what all will you give him in return?’ And she was answerless. I believe this is the same with men as well. I can’t expect anything from my lover which I can’t give back to her. Coz I know that I have limitations. Hence any of the following 8 points about my perfect lover is not sacrosanct.

1. She is simple in every aspects, be it in her dressing, be it in her talking, be it in her behavior or what ever it be.
2. When I look at her and see her smile, hear her speak, feel her touch, my entire stress, tension etc. come to an end.
3. She is dim-witted when I pull her legs, she is a mentor when I seek her advice and she is a solacer when I look for consolation.
4. I love the food she makes, not because she cooks it well, but because she serves it with love.
5. Every night, she tells me whatever little things happened in her day and I being more of a listener can thus do away with my talking.
6. She doesn’t stop me from anything I do because she believes in me and knows that I won’t do anything off beam.
7. She is candid and disparages me when I do wrong and encourages me when I do right. Her worries are my worries, her secrets are my secrets, her happiness is my happiness and she is mine.
8. Thinking about her reassures me that I have someone in this world for me that I can say anywhere with pride.

Paheli – Behind the screens

2006-01-30T16:42:00.000+05:30

Chaos is off the hook and I can’t help myself from blustering a bit about Paheli, the online puzzle which I made for Chaos Moksha 2006, our annual cultural fest. With 9821 (7125 unique) page loads in just 17 days; average of 577 (419 unique) page loads per day; 1389 (888 unique) being the maximum page loads on any particular day; more than 1600 comments on the blog that discusses clues which is after deleting 200 odd comments that contained more-than-explanatory hints or offensive words; threads in different discussion sites like Pagalguy, Orkut etc; a few blogs dedicated to clues, Paheli was an unexpected success; it rocked and is still ON!

The concept of the game was taken from Notpron of deathball.net and Klueless of IIM Indore and was duly acknowledged. I had to do a lot of simplification in the game concept from the above sites as the people we expected to play Paheli weren’t geeks who go through a source code check and URL renaming for cracking a level.

While designing the game, I had to keep in mind that each and every level has to be more challenging than the previous one, with an increasing level of toughness. It shouldn’t be that easy to drive people away subsequent to a cake-walk feeling about the game and in addition, it shouldn’t be that tough to kill their interest out of frustration. One of the levels had a flaw in it, which was corrected at a later stage. Except for this I think Paheli performed well. DD helped me when I ran out of ideas for new levels.

Spanned over an exigent ** levels (I am not disclosing the total number of levels as it may kill the spirit of the game), Paheli is enough and more to set one’s gray cells on fire, till he/she finishes it and preparing such a battle field was one of the challenging errands I have done off late. I didn’t know php coding before I started Paheli and our server supported only php. So I had to learn it with the help of Google, design the game and implement it with so less time in hand. A few nerds of my institute put me through tough interludes while the game progressed as they cracked levels before I added more, which resulted in a lot of night outs conceiving new levels. But yeah, at the end of the day, I have to agree that it was fun making Paheli.

We plan to keep Paheli online for a while. If you haven’t tried it yet, this is done exclusively for you. :-)

Four days to New Year

2006-01-25T20:16:00.000+05:30

It is almost an hour now and I am still staring at the screen in front of me which has an opened MS Outlook in it, yearning to type in a few words. It was not so long that I heard from one of my friends that Neena is going to get married tomorrow. When we met the last time, I had decided not to attend such a function of hers for any reasons whatsoever. Nevertheless, I had this continuing thought in my mind to send her at least an email that I ended up with this freaking mail window staring back at me. After all we were together for a year and we enjoyed a great time being together though we broke up almost two years back.

Four more days to the New Year and my inbox was already snowed under New Year greetings from my friends. Purns, she worked with me and was kind of a mentor to me, sends emails regularly; better call it forwards. I hardly replied to her and sometimes didn’t even open those forwards. I was not like this before. But like my other friends Purns also knew that I was busy here in London looking after a particular account of my company and I usually didn’t get time to reply to the emails from my friends. But due to some unknown instinct, I opened the latest email from her. New Year resolutions, it read. What does Purns had to advice me on a New Year? I wondered because I knew Purns knows that advices usually face a rebuff from me.

Seven things you should do on a New Year! That’s its heading. Holy Crap! I hate such forwards. But still, it’s a New Year. I gave a skim read to that forward. A particular line in it caught my attention. It’s not because that line was so great. It’s because that line had something to do with what I have been thinking for the past one hour. It read “Call someone whom you didn’t talk to for a long time”. And the first person that came to my mind was her, Neena. Was that a spur; a stimulus to call her on her marriage!

I still remember the day on which I met Neena for the first time. It was the day on which I got a confirmation letter from my company saying that my one year probationary period has come to an end and now I am a wholly owned fraction of the company. You can’t forget dates like that. They become a part of your life due to their sheer importance. I couldn’t forget my first meeting with Neena due to the coincidence of our tryst with that date. The one year rotational policy of my company marked the end of my tenure in my first project and re-implanted me into another project on the same day. That’s where I met her where we happened to get close.

Well, time has its own way to change things. Things happened in succession and it changed our relationship so drastically that it took a turn from a point where it was so difficult for us to not see each other and to not talk with each other to a point where thinking about each other was the most painful thing in our lives. The umpteen missed calls that traveled to and from our cell phones, which reminded us that we thought of each other whenever we got that, eventually stopped! And then it came to a formal end, at the jogger’s park in Vashi, on the old wooden bench by the side of the track. We went there past office hours and we both were in a hurry to somehow end it and go to our flats. I left the place, didn’t turn back, got into a metro which took me to the station near my flat. I didn’t know how she felt that time. I didn’t feel sad because I was in a haze. I didn’t realize what was happening to me, to her, to us. I never went to that park after that.

Two years can change many things. The gigantic green tree near the bus stand died off leaving a big blue hole in its place. All of my friends left to different places, more scattered than before; across the globe. My office changed from a congested cubicle in Thane to this cabin in the 45th floor of Skyline Plaza, London. And here I am, thinking about my first love on the previous day of her marriage, about which I came to know only an hour back.

So I am going to call her today. Yes I think I should call her. After all, once I loved her more than anyone else in this world and her smallest worries were my largest concerns. I closed the mail window and took my cell phone and went outside to call her. I still store all the telephone numbers associated with her. Her own, her residence number, her dads’ and her moms’. I wanted to delete it all from my phone to stop myself from thinking about her but somehow I kept it till now. Did I still love her? Can I expect a miracle when I call her? That she will come back to me. What the fuck! What all am I thinking? It’s her marriage tomorrow.

A gentle breeze caressed the balcony while I stood near the parapet with my cell phone. I pressed the number key 3 for quite sometime. Shit! Though years passed, my thumb still remembers the shortcut I made to her number! The phone on the other end kept on ringing for some time before it was taken, as was the norm with her and then I heard a voice.

“Hello!”

“Hello, this is Hari here. Am I talking to Neena?” I replied while I was trying to recognize her voice after a long time.

After a brief silence, she replied. “Hari… Yes it is me!”

“How are you, Neena?”

“I am fine, how are you?”

“I am fine too. It’s after a long time that we are talking to each other”

“Yeah”

“What is his name?”

“Amit”

“Oh”

“So Hari, have you married?”

“No I haven’t”. My mind took me back time, to the table at the corner in our office canteen where Neena was asking me this.

“What will you do if we can’t get married to each other and I got married to someone else?”

“Hmm… difficult question; I’ll leave the country and won’t come back to this soil then” my reply was as careless as it could be.

“Oh I’m sorry.” Her reply brought me back to the present.

“Sorry? Why? I am outside the country now” I replied all of a sudden.

She was silent. Was she remembering our conversation at the canteen?

“Neena?”

“Yes”

“I called you to wish you a happy married life. I came to know that tomorrow is your marriage”

“Thank you, Hari. But my marriage happened three weeks back”

“What” I was in a shock.

“But still, the wishes hold” I didn’t realize what I was saying. I was in a haze. The same haze I was in, two years back at the park in Vashi.

“Ok then, Bye”

“Bye”. And she kept the phone down.

And that’s it. There was no office or balcony around but this demented flat in the Mumbai suburbs. I finished my story which my friend, my editor, Rohit has been asking me for more than a week to be published in his evening tabloid. Tomorrow it will go to the press and will come out as those murky lifeless printed alphabets which lack the power to convey feelings. After all who wants to read it with that passion? The four pegs of Bacardi are still active in my stomach. And its heat added with my emotions put me in to a bizarre state where there was only me. And at a distance I saw a disappearing shadow.

Paheli

2006-01-11T14:52:00.000+05:30

IIMA’s annual cultural event Chaos – Moskha hosts this online game, Paheli.

Based on the clues in a picture shown, one has to guess the answer to reach the next level. It is similar to IIM Indore’s Klueless.

Enjoy Gaming people! And yeah PLEASE spread the word around! :-)

How do I measure up?

2006-01-09T02:59:00.000+05:30

I am pretty much engaged in a lot many things these days. One of its outputs can be seen in this blog a few days from now. Meanwhile here is something I did for kickassso a while back. He did this serious crime of tagging me for which he has to suffer now; by reading the following patiently. I know you people are also pained due to that but puhlease bear me and vent out all your feelings, if any, in his blog ;-)

An ideal child
10. Thou shall study your lessons daily and go to the best tuition centre in the town.
9. Thou shall listen to melodious Mallu and Hindi music. Your taste may go up to the extent of listening to pop songs like that of Westlife, BSB etc and like the songs liked by your peers. Hardrock and Metal are strict no-nos.
8. Thou shall see good mallu movies and hindi movies. Only the hyped up english movies shall be seen.
7. Sports and games are essential only in theory. Thou shall take part in it at your free time and your vacation.
6. Reading is a good habit. Only if you score a lot of marks in your studies and you have set aside some time for reading. Thou shall read only goody goody books or the hyped books in the media like Harry Potter.
5. Thou shall respect your teachers and follow every word they say and write notes and complete your assignments before everybody else.
4. Thou shall not swear and berate others. No drinking and smoking.
3. Thou shall follow your parents wishes and their fantasies. Thou shall study hard and score 90+ in Xth, 85+ in XIIth and 80+ for graduation.
2. Your aim should be to do well in entrance exams and get into Medical College or CET. Then the ultimate aim should be to get through your campus placements and secure a job. Write CAT as part of a fad.
1. Thou shall not fall in love. If you do make sure the girl is your caste, not poor etc. Marry a girl of the parents' choosing and have kids. Then raise the kids on the above principles.

How do I measure up?
10. Study? (Yes I wanna ask that first and then) Daily? You kidding me? I was a one day batsman till the last exam of engineering; one who comes into the field only on the previous day of the exam.
9. I don’t go for a band/film first and then its songs. It’s always the other way round. My likes span over a range of songs. From instrumentals when I am in good moods to heavy rock when I am in tension, but yes somewhere in between, I am a great fan of Eagles, GNR, MLTR, AR Rehman, Yesudas and Carnatic songs.
8. It's been ages that I saw a Malayalam movie. I watch all sorts of movies. Well, don’t stress the words ‘all sorts’ too much. ;-)
7. Kuttiyum Kolum was my favorite game until father Thomas banned it in the school. Then it was too late for me to venture into cricket and make a mark there and hence I settled down with football, particularly at the strategic location near the goal post, well, as a permanent goalie. Then I gave up that since the opposite team got good forwards. Sport was never my cup of tea dear. But yeah I can give anyone a tough time in Carroms, BadD and tennis, off-late.
6. There is a lot to be written on my reading experiences. The two library memberships I owned were frauded. I got memberships by saying that I am of a higher age than I actually was at the time of registrations.
5. Teachers are great. Notebooks are treasures. So I keep the same one for the entire year :-). How can I complete assignments before others do, when what I am gonna write is what others had written?
4. I have tried drinking and smoking. But don't know why people continue it as a passion. Couldn't understand the pleasures behind it quite well.
3. Ciao. Someone’s calling me on the phone. Be right back ;-) Ok I think here I lived up to my parents' expectations; if what they expected of me was less. Roughly I measured 0, -5 and -10 in this.
2. Thank God, I thought I was scared of seeing blood till I was in X (I joined II group and then shifted over to I group for that single reason) that I ended up in CET instead of MC. CAT: Yes I took it and then life was in hell. Till now I couldn’t get out from that shock and I don’t know whether I made the right decision or not! :-(
1. I’m sorry you caste, wealth, religion and all such nitty-gritty’s. I don’t believe in you, when it comes to marriage. You are bugs in the social system, preventing minds from getting together.
0. I know my parents are not gonna read this, else instead of writing this, I would've done what kickassso’s name says, to him for this tag. :-)

The Fountainhead

2005-12-29T21:10:00.000+05:30

Recently I wrote about the philosophy of Ayn Rand based on her novel The Fountainhead, as part of an assignment. The philosophical part of the assignment would be pretty difficult to digest but then the synopsis of the novel, I thought, would be worth sharing. So here you go! Please refrain from reading further if you are planning to read the novel in future. For those who have already read it take a trip down memory lane rekindling one of the masterpieces of modern literature.

-- Warning: spoiler ahead --

Howard Roark and Peter Keating are from the same architecture school. Keating graduated as the topper with contemptuous help from Roark while Roark was expelled from the school for refusing to adhere to the curriculum by changing his own ideas. After his studies, Keating joins Guy Francon’s privileged architecture firm while Roark works under the veteran architect Cameron, who was uprooted long back by Gail Wynand, the media tycoon. Keating has plans to marry Dominique Francon, daughter of Guy Francon who is also a columnist, and succeed him in his business. Roark has his own notions about buildings, that each building is a character by its own and hence new buildings shan’t be just a copy of its old counterparts, which unfortunately was done by architects of his age. Hence he doesn’t get many assignments. He isn’t able to pursue his architecture-ship further and eventually ends up working in a quarry for a living, where he meets Dominique Francon and both fall in love. Roark soon receives an invitation to do the design of a building at New York city and leaves the quarry.

Keating’s mother wants him to marry Dominique as he falls in love with a poor woman. Dominique makes Keating marry herself, in order to test Roark and she also tries to demerit Roark thinking that the world doesn’t deserve his creations; all due to the love she has for him. Ellsworth Toohey, the main anti-hero of the novel, with some hidden plans, invites Roark to design a temple. Roark places a nude statue of Dominique in the temple. Later Toohey talks to the public about the poor design of the building and sues Roark, basically to hinder his growth. Toohey also makes Gail Wynand meet Dominique which results in the marriage of Dominique and Wynand. Meanwhile Roark and Wynand become friends.

Roark designs a housing project owing to Keating’s request and later finds out that the initial design he made has been changed by Keating’s associates. As a result Roark blows off the building and Dominique gets hurt while helping him. Roark convinces the court why he blew off the building and talks about his philosophy which forms the essence of the novel and Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism. During the trial Wynand’s newspaper accuses Roark mainly due to Toohey’s presence in it as a columnist and Wynand takes its side. As a result Dominique leaves Wynand and marries Roark. Finally Wynand realizes his mistake, fires Toohey and gives Roark a new construction project where the story ends.

-- Spoiler end --

The Fountainhead is the best fictional work and also the best love story I have ever read. But somewhere I could empathize with Howard Roark as a character that I feel I am like him in many aspects.

There you go!

2005-12-24T13:06:00.001+05:30

Wishing you all a merry christmas and a happy new year! Have a great year ahead guys!

Clean bowled

2005-12-22T00:58:00.000+05:30

India is on a commanding position against Sri Lanka in the cricket test here at Ahmedabad. Some of my friends went to watch the match yesterday and were thrilled to see India’s performance, while us here at campus, watched bits and pieces of the match from the TV, with sporadic outbursts of human emotions of joie de vivre whenever the ball crossed the boundary, emulating typical Indian populace. No other game is as popular and favorite as cricket in India.

Air Sahara is going to sponsor the Indian cricket team for the next four years further to a winning bid of Rs 314 crores. The deal is confined only to the display of their logo on the players’ chest and their leading arm. More money is going to come to BCCI (Bharat Cricket Control Board) from the display of logos on the non-leading arm, kit etc. of the players from prospective sponsors for which the tender will be opened on 23rd December. The TV rights of the matches are expected to fetch a sum of more than Rs. 400 crores. These figures added with other revenue streams are predicted to give an incredible profit of more than Rs. 700 crores to BCCI in the coming year.

On the other side, India has the highest cricket viewer ship in the world and hence is a paradise for TV advertisements. Ever thought about the number of advertisements being aired on a single channel for a single match and the associated amount flowing behind it? Though the math is simple, the figure is much more than what we can probably imagine of. Then there is an awfully big bookmaking market where bet amounts are in crores. Cricket is not just a game in India; it’s a business too. In such a situation it is worthwhile to ask ourselves a question. Are we giving more importance than is required to a silly game?

There it is!

2005-12-19T15:12:00.000+05:30

In the sixth and final term, supposedly the most chillax term of all, I bid for the bare minimum number of courses needed to satisfy my credit requirements, which turned out to be a soothing Four in number! No tough courses; courses thoroughly planned and selected after by-hearting the time table (:p) so that there are no classes for me on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays giving me an off of four days every week for the next two months. But when I went to the case unit to collect my study materials, what awaited me was an awful collection of 18 books and 6 case mats! 15 of the books belonging to a course I have taken called LVMR (Leadership: Vision, Meaning and Reality). The interesting thing about these books is that they are not the usual ones containing theories and jargons of management but are stories, novels, philosophical and similar interesting stuffs. Above all I hope it will take me back to my reading habits which was long lost when I started my post graduation. And that is when I realized that I haven’t read more than 5 normal books in the last two years! (:-()

Can I believe my eyes?

2005-12-14T01:25:00.000+05:30

The world around me is beautiful. When I look around I see lush green meadows, clear blue sky, an assortment of flora and fauna, garish setting sun, azure depths of the ocean and I end up thanking my eyes for letting me see and enjoy this spectacular world around me, in all its glory. Eyes, in deed are a wonderful pair of sense organs. And I can’t do anything but end up philosophizing them.

Eyes, how many mega pixels are they?
Well, I am not talking about the latest digital cameras whose manufactures babble about the maximum resolution they can give. If we think about our eyes a bit more and refresh our high school biology lessons, the retina on which the eye-lens refracts light rays is made up of two kinds of photoreceptor cells called rods (enable black and white vision) and cones (enable color vision) which convert those light rays into electrical impulses, through an electrochemical reaction, which is processed by our brain to make us ‘see’. Roughly 125 million of them are intermingled non-uniformly over the retina, which means that the resolution of our eye is confined to the number of rods and cones we have, which is nothing but 125 Mega Pixels! Yes, if we had the ability to zoom images as we do using normal picture viewer software, after some limit, we will also see objects pixilated!

Do we see ‘everything’?
Humans can ‘see’ radiations of wavelength 390 to 780 nanometers (visible light) using his eye which form only a small part of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We can’t see other radiations. We see an object when light rays fall on that object and the reflection is captured by our eyes. What if a particular object reflects only radiations of wavelength other than that of light? Duh! Then we won't be able to see that object. Thus there is a whole different world around us which we can’t see. A world that is quite different than what we can probably imagine of.

Does everyone see the same color?
Suppose a person sees a rose and identifies it as a red rose. Another person who is seeing the same rose is also identifying it as a red rose. But are we sure both the people identify it to have the same color? Ok let me explain it. Suppose a child who is seeing a yellow rose (color is yellow, called as yellow) ‘sees’ its color as a red. So for him that particular color would be yellow (which actually is red as seen by him) and is called as yellow. Which means, whenever he sees a yellow rose, even though he identifies it as a yellow rose having yellow color, actually he would be seeing it in red color. Physicians call it an extreme case of color blindness but I should say that people see the same object in different colors!

Can we believe our eyes?
Ultimately every single object in this universe is made up of atoms. An atom consists of a small nucleus at its centre and sub-atomic, wave-like particles called electrons spinning around it. The ratio of the sizes of a typical atom to its nucleus is about 100,000:1. For solids, this ratio comes down a bit; nevertheless, almost the same. But on an average, the nucleus forms a very small part of the whole atom. That is 99.99 percent of an atom doesn’t consist of anything. It is pure vacuum. Atoms form molecules and in turn form different objects we see around us. That means that when we see an object, say a pen, we are actually seeing something which is made up of particles which are 99.99 percent vacuum. Or we are seeing a pen which is actually 99.99 percent vacuum. Still we see it as a complete pen. Our eyes add the non existing 99.99 percent! And we believe our eyes for making us see something which is not there at all.

Thus there are a lot of limitations to the human eye. It doesn’t show us all the things, shows us something which is not there or shows us something which is 99.99 percent nothing, gives us a totally wrong picture of our surroundings. But still, in a way, all that is shown to us by our eyes are enough and more for us to exist; to enjoy and appreciate the wonders created by the nature. And we know how miserable the life of a blind is. Eyes are precious in deed. Nonetheless, for a subtle conclusion; next time when you see a friend of yours, just think out how he/she would look like in reality as compared to what ‘you’ see him/her using your eyes. Looks are deceptive, when you have eyes like this. :-))

Time just flies

2005-12-09T22:42:00.000+05:30

Our fifth term had come to an end and now it’s one more term remaining for the convocation. Most of my friends are at their houses enjoying the break and homely food and I stayed back since I want to go to my house in January. Enough time for a recap of my past life while I laze around here, I also have to plan for my future. Placements are going to happen in March and we have to prepare our resumes before that, lots of contests and stuff are walling up which will all formally end on March 31st. Till then its kind of fun but after that I have to re-enter the corporate jungle. And the thought itself scares me.

Though I have to bury myself in huge case-mats and text-books during my studies, I don’t have to worry much about finishing my work and meeting deadlines, which I was more than indulged in while I was working. Well, there are submissions and deadlines and stuff here as well but it all happens by its own as if it is meant to happen, time to time. Student-life is a worry-free life indeed.

Nights are really cold these days. Times of India reported yesterday’s minimum temperature at Ahmedabad as 12.8 degrees. Ooty or Kodaikanal would be a comparatively warmer place now; I’m sure. Last year the temperature came down to 4 degrees in the peak of winter. But still it’s really fun to be in such a climate.

A cup of hot coffee from Café Tanstaafl (This is our cafeteria whose name expands to ‘There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch’) at 4 in the morning can do wonders in such a climate. It can drive away sleep if any, it can drive away cold, but along with that, it can bring in old memories. And believe me coffee and memories are a nice combination. You think about a beautiful moment of your life and then take a sip of coffee that’s steaming out into the foggy night; man, that is a delight. And then thinking about those bygone moments you blow gently over the cup, help the hovering steam to meet the dark-cold, for the next sip. Then I realize that it’s been almost two years now and like the steam in the cup of coffee, time just flies...

Echoes

2005-11-28T15:49:00.000+05:30

Dear Mr. Rana Singh,

No words would be enough to express the bravery of your son Brigadier Ratan Singh. He was involved in the most important operations the army had carried out. He was a fine soldier and believed strongly in the pride of the nation. He single handedly fought with the enemy soldiers to make way for his colleagues which resulted in the capture of eight enemy bunkers. His death is a tremendous loss to the Indian Army. On his sad demise we share the grief with you and your family and pray that his soul may rest in peace.

The Indian Army

Damodar remained emotionless as he typed in the alphabets using the age old typewriter on his desk. The noisy growls made by its yanking cylinder and the echoes of the keys striking on it had already became a part of his life. Currently in his late forties, Damodar joined the Indian Army as a typist when he was twenty three and since then he has been making the obituary notes of the deceased soldiers to their families. From the day he joined his post, he wished he was fired from his job, for a better cause. But he also had to think about his wife and three children back home. And then he stayed with his job.

Damodar finished the letter and took it from the typewriter. That was the seventh one he had typed in for the day. The battle was turning severe at the war-front, the battle between fraternities which once fought in unison for freedom by driving away a common enemy. He took the letter with him and went to the major’s cabin. Now the letter would be sent to an army camp near the decedent’s native place which would then be delivered to his house, in an army vehicle.

Damodar knocked the cabin door for the major to call him in; and he didn’t have to wait for long. Major Ramesh was busy deciding on war strategies. Despite having a huge loss of soldiers, there were orders from the top that the points which were captured by the enemies shall be taken back at any cost.

“The letter is done, sir. The one of Brigadier Ratan Singh.”

“Where is he from?”

“He belongs to the village called Mirzapur, which is about 150 kilometers from here, sir.”

“Oh, so we ourselves can deliver the letter.”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh but we don’t have any soldiers left in our camp now. They all are at the battle front.” With a small pause the major continued. “Damodar, can you go with the driver and deliver this message at his house?”

“Sure sir.”

15 minutes later a jeep arrived in front of the office and Damodar started off towards Mirzapur to deliver the message.

It was a three hour journey. Initially the road was in a bad condition due to the shelling in those areas. Finally they reached Mirzapur. Since the village was pretty small, it wasn’t that difficult for them to find Brigadier Ratan Singh’s house. The driver applied the brakes in front of his house and the vehicle came to a halt unsettling the dust on its sides.

As the sound of the engine gave way to silence, a kid of age somewhere around six ran towards the vehicle from the house.

“Papa came! Papa came!” he was yelling on the top of his voice. On seeing Damodar and the driver and no one else in the jeep, his face swiftly tainted to steadfast disappointment. Still, with a subtle smile he invited the guests in to their house. Meanwhile, hearing his bawl, other children appeared at the patio, followed by a lady in her early forties. In the portico there was an old man who was reclining on a long armchair.

“Namaste Chacha, we are from the army.” Damodar spoke out to the old man, after entering the room. He assumed that the old man was Rana Singh, father of Brigadier Ratan Singh. The eyes of the old man slowly turned towards him in question.

“Chacha, I'm sorry to say this but your son died yesterday in the battle.” Damodar didn’t know how he said that until he completed it. Suddenly, a cry awash with disbelief, sorrow and pain originated from the side of the room. It came from the lady, wife of Brigadier Ratan Singh.

Damodar looked back at the old man. Two drops of tears shone below the eyes of the old man. It fought its way down the cheek. But it didn’t die on its way. The elder children understood the situation. But their eyes manifested that they were shocked as they joined their mother. The smallest one was still at the courtyard. Damodar proceeded towards him to receive a sweet smile from him. He took the letter he had brought with him from his pocket and kept it in the palm of the child. And the child ran towards his mother saying, “Maa, uncle gave this to me!”

Damodar couldn’t stand the situation any further. He thought about the umpteen letters he had typed out since he joined his service. He thought that each one had such a story associated with it. And those thoughts made him disturbed.

Both of them returned to the army camp. On their way back, Damodar was still thinking. And his mind was full of disturbances. Disturbances made by the sounds of a typewriter which kept on resonating inside...

borN iN californiA

2005-11-18T01:30:00.000+05:30

Michael Sullivan, the professional assassin, with his elder son, decided for the Road to Perdition, when his wife and younger son were killed by the same mafia he had worked for.

A year back, Viktor Navorski of Eastern Europe was stranded in The Terminal of John F. Kennedy airport for almost a year because his homeland erupted in a fiery coup while he was in air en route to America. According to the airport officials, he was carrying a passport from nowhere.

Chuck Noland who worked for FedEx was Cast Away from the main land subsequent to a plain crash in the sea. He had nothing but faith with him to escape from the remote island.

Joe Fox, owner of Fox Books couldn’t help himself whenever the computer screen said You’ve Got Mail. He didn't know that the mails were from the shop girl, just around the corner.

Captain John H. Miller, the man of courage and leadership, sacrificed his life for Saving Private Ryan.

Jim Lovell’s mission to the moon in Apollo 13 was faced with a few problems. Though the team couldn’t land on the moon, they were able to return safely.

Forrest Gump, all he does turns the best. And it seems, the path to success is being dumb.

Sam Baldwin and his mother-lost-son were Sleepless in Seattle and things changed when his son traveled all alone Trans America to the Empire State building to get a wife for his father.

Allen Bauer had an unthinkable affair with a mermaid whom he met during a voyage through sea in his childhood and years later his life was in a Splash.

Robert Langdon is on his way to crack The Da Vinci Code in March 2006 to unravel the secrets behind the Holy Grail and the descendents of Jesus Christ.

The first Tom Hanks film I saw was Splash, which was aired by Doordarshan long back as a Saturday night movie. I didn’t know that the name of the hero in that film was Tom Hanks then.

No other Hollywood actor would’ve acted in so wide a variety of characters, be it a true murderer in Road to Perdition or the refugee in The Terminal. Tom Hanks does all his characters with such a passion that sometimes I wonder how well he transforms himself and lives in to these characters.

reminiscenceS anD hopE

2005-11-09T00:20:00.000+05:30

I was browsing through some old photographs that i came across this photo. It was taken at Goa, when we toured there during engineering. I don’t remember the name of this beach; people who are more familiar with the beaches there may name it. Three old ladies and two dogs were sitting on a parapet near the beach. Three of us were present there that time and we thought that it would be a nice idea to take a photo of the ladies and the dogs together. But we can’t take the photo just like that right. The suggestion was that my friends will go and sit near them and I will take the photo of the ladies and the dogs, pretending that I am taking the snap of my friends. I gladly took the picture (obviously along with my friends. he... he... I didn't tell them..) and we all were happy; I for a different reason. Later, at the college, this picture became famous as “Three Grandmas and Four Dogs!!”

After engineering, 14 of us went to Mumbai to join the company which recruited us from campus. It was the first time that most of us were going to Mumbai and the two years we spent there were undoubtedly the most beautiful days in our lives. Geo has penned down a few of those memories in his blog.

I am going to that good old Mumbai today night. At Mumbai, we will be having a two day interaction with O&M. Sort of a dream come true as far as I am concerned. Those who know about adMad may know this craze of mine towards advertising. Then to Kolkata for participating in a contest there. Wish me luck people! :-)

confuseD oF solutionS

2005-11-05T16:23:00.000+05:30

We have an internal electronic discussion board (DBabble) here. The following post and replies appeared in one of its Notice Boards yesterday. Thought that it would be worth sharing. Needless to say, one of the replies was mine. Up to you to find out which one was that. ;-p

Q. Might sound strange, but any solutions to stop red ants from attacking your keyboard?

A1. He he he.. wrong Notice Board!
A2. U should probably stop snacking in front of the keyboard.
    AA2. Me not snacking, they have a liking towards the rubber inside.
        AAA2. Spill food stuff all over your room, they will leave the keyboard.
A3. Take a red marker and highlight the following keys, <'D' 'E' 'A' 'D' 'E' 'N' 'D'> or <'F' 'U' 'C' 'K' 'Y' 'O' 'U'>
        AA3. Tried, but two problems. 1) Only one 'E'/'U' on my keyboard. 2) Ants were not able to read such large alphabets.
                AAA3. Look at the 'Insert', 'Home' keys. They have more alphabets and are small.
                AAA3. Or better mark the 'Windows' key.
A4. Draw a Lakshman Rekha around the keyboard or whatever is being attacked.
        AA4. Wow!!! Mythology and Technology going hand in hand!
                AAA4. Or ignorant technology geeks. Lakshman Rekha is a product to ward off ants.
A5. Attack them instead! Attack is the best defence.
A6. Use 'Ant'ibiotics.
A7. Contact the pest control people for fogging the keyboard.
A8. Get a lady Ant and place her somewhere away from the keyboard!
        AA8. How do I know whether the ant I got is a lady ant.
                AAA8. Watch where they go at nite; Get the ones that go to girls' dorms (hostel).
                        AAAA8. Those would be male ants!

I

2005-10-31T02:55:00.000+05:30

I was tagged by Milo for this quiz. It is to write 20 things about me. So here you go!

I am a slow eater. With a book and TV ON, once I spent around 4 hours (this is my record) eating my lunch. These days I can’t manage such long hours for food and hence I eat less.

I love books. In fact I have a personal collection of more than 200 books. When I was in Mumbai, the major part of my salary was used up in that way.

I am a perfectionist. I don’t mind spending hours and hours to rectify the smallest of the faults in something which I am doing.

I think a lot. In fact my mind can’t stay idle. Something or the other will tinker in my mind every time and I keep thinking about those; on and on.

I love solitude. I had a favorite location near my flat in Mumbai where I used to go when I become emotional.

I am committed in all my relationships. I stay with my friends till the end. And I can’t stand it when I realize that nothing of that sort is there from the other side.

I forgive but never forget. When I face something awful from a person, similar things he/she had done to me in the past come to my mind all of a sudden.

I am child like. Many of my friends say so and sometimes, I don’t think they are wrong.

I am a brand freak. I like to own branded items and I don’t mind paying a premium for those.

I am a lazy person in general but when I am faced with really demanding situations, I slog my ass off to achieve that.

I am a sensitive person. But yeah this changed a lot these days; may be due to those experiences which I had gone through.

I am friendly with everyone. I have very good relationships with others. People find it comfortable talking to me. And usually I am approached for favors.

I am sarcastic and witty and I bring smiles in gatherings. I have a very good sense of humor.

I am caring & believe me; my PM told me many times that I will make a good husband ;-)

I am candid and I like others also being open. I don’t mind others saying things openly to me even if it is for denying me something.

I am one damn lucky guy. Whenever I feel like my way is blocked, something or the other will happen and I will be through.

I like to learn new languages. This was my craze when I was young and I maintained a diary of alphabets and words of many languages. I tried to learn Arabic, Russian, German, Greek, Kannada, Marathi and Japanese but failed half way through. I know Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, English and French.

I hate contests because I hate competing with others and hence I had always kept myself away from competitions. In fact I am trying to change this now.

I know cooking. Well, I just start making dishes and somehow it will turn good at the end. Once in a while I cook dinner in my home, giving a break to my amma.

I am a leftist in my ideologies. But I don’t believe in left politicians or in fact politicians of any kind. Why doesn’t India be ruled by an able CEO and a bunch of zealous managers? India would’ve been one of the top most countries in the world then. Now you know my take.

I was a social activist and will be one, after this hiatus.

People I would like to take this quiz are, AF, Invincible, Sinusoidally, Geo and Chips. Guys its not binding. But I wish you people shall take this... :-)

Ice-cream

2005-10-24T00:27:00.000+05:30

“Chetta, can u give me some ice?”

I was having my daily afternoon nap, and was engaged in a not so bad day-dream on the sofa in the verandah of my house that this spongy little voice from outside the door woke me up. With a modest discontent ascribed to the damage of my dream, I looked outside for the origin of the voice.

A small kid of age some where around five or six with a tanned dusty body, wavy hair, a guiltless smile and a pair of breeches torn at a few places stood at the patio with a small aluminum tumbler in his hand. Dust had drawn gradients on his garments in the same way as it did on his body. But his eyes had this striking innocence concealed in it, which was trying to break free. And that gave him a remarkable charm.

“What? What do you want?” I asked him with an added seriousness.

“Chetta, can you give me some ice from the fridge.” I realized that his words also veiled the same innocence in it.

“Why do you want ice?”

“We want to make ice-cream from it.” He replied with a feeling of pride on his face.

“We?”

“I and my sister. She is there at our house waiting for me to come with the ice.”

“Oh! But ice-cream is not made that way kid.” A splash of melancholy wavered through his face. Even though ice-cream is not made like that and it doesn’t matter to me whatsoever as to what this kid is going to do with the ice cubes I am going to give to him, an afterthought made me feel the disappointment he would have felt when I said that. And I felt bad.

“Don’t worry; just give it a try and may be you will settle down with something similar. Let me see whether there are some ice cubes in the fridge.” And I walked inside my house just to find out that there weren’t any ice cubes in the freezer.

“Can you come back after an hour? I just put some water in the fridge and it will take some time to form ice.” I was back telling him this.

“Ok chetta, I will be back in an hour. Shall I keep this tumbler here?” He kept the tumbler by the side of the doorsteps and dashed off to the gate. I looked at that tumbler. It was filled with hopes; hopes of making ice-cream out of ice cubes. Hopes which I am sure were not going to get materialized. I took that tumbler inside my house.

He came to my house after an hour. I was still at the verandah, on the sofa, skimming through some magazines.

“Chetta, ice is ready?”

“Hmm… Let me have a look.” And I went to the kitchen. The ice was ready long back. I returned to the verandah and handed over the tumbler with ice cubes in it, to the child. His face brightened all of a sudden, as if he got a treasure.

“Thanks chetta.” His happiness reflected in his words.

He was about to leave that I continued. “Hey actually when I made that ice for you, the fridge kind of over-cooled some of it and here is something I got as a result.” I raised my hand towards him. It carried a small aluminum bowl which contained the ice-cream that I bought from the nearby store a few minutes back.

“It is some ice-cream. It is of no use to me. If you want you can take it” I said with a puny little smile on my face. “But yeah you have to return this bowl okay?”

“Ok chetta.” He took that bowl from me and ran towards the gate, towards his house, towards his little sister, who was waiting for the ice cubes for making ice-cream out of it.

I knew that what I said didn’t make any sense at all. Water over-cooled and became ice-cream! But it didn’t matter to me. What did matter to me was the happiness on those two petite faces; faces of that boy and his little sister. And I didn’t want that to disappear and give way to disappointment...

PS: Chetta(n) is a Malayalam word used to address elders.

The Tale of Panchvan

2005-10-17T10:34:00.001+05:30

Panchvan is a part of the eastern hills. When the monsoon blesses the dense forests, Panchvan assumes an inexplicable allure. Long back, when one such monsoon rained heavily and sunk the low laying plains, the people who stayed there lost their beloveds. Those who remained prayed to the God to stop the rains and grant them a safer place. The God was not satisfied with the entreaties. Kuttuvan, the brave son of the village chieftain, did a holy sacrifice to please the God and save his village. On the altar, in front of the angry flames, he cut his little finger off. Blood oozed out from the wound and he offered it to the God. When the last drop of blood trickled down from his body, the God was pleased. The monsoon ended all of a sudden. And Kuttuvan’s body fell on the altar motionless. His body was buried near the village. The next day a knoll was seen at his grave. In a few days it grew to a massive hill. The villagers shifted to that hill. And they were permanently saved from the floods. Kuttuvan’s tomb rose with the hill and remained at its summit. The villagers made a small shrine above it and since then they have been worshiping him as their God.

Seasons passed. The low laying plains were occupied by people from the north. They converted it into an industrial city. Factories mushroomed and started spitting out smoke. A new culture evolved there. But Panchvan remained as serene as it was before; the populace of Panchvan as peaceful as they were before. And the people of the city called them aborigines.

The government sanctioned a paper plant in the city. They said that it will bring employment to thousands of jobless people in the city and the nearby areas. Someone said that the main reason behind the plant was the dense forests of Panchvan and the trees which grew there which would serve as the raw material to the plant. Meteorologists opined that the demolition of the forest may bring in floods to the city during monsoon because it’s the forest that prevented water from coming down to the city. But unemployment was the main concern, always, even to an employed man.

Huge butcher-vehicles assaulted the forest. The deep dense forests slowly started showing their dry roots. The tribe of Panchvan was forced to migrate to a new place. Some of them couldn’t adjust with the new environment and died out. For the rest, there was no Kuttuvan to save them again. The shrine at the hill top was demolished. The entire forest was slashed off in three years. And it was time for the next monsoon.

The meteorologists were proved wrong. It didn’t flood that year. It didn’t rain either!

PS: Thulasi has pointed out the commendable effort by this visionary named Abdul Kareem from Nileshwaram, Kasargod, who converted 36 acres of barren land in to a lush green forest. Hats off to Abdul Kareem and hope you will read that small write-up on him.

neW yeaR @ railwaY platforM

2005-10-12T16:41:00.000+05:30

“How about going to Juhu beach to celebrate the New Year?” The idea came from George. Well, since it came from him, who had a proven track record of coming up with ideas which end up in scrapes, we were kind of reluctant to show the green flag. New Year happens only once in a year and wise men say that a bad New Year will have its effect on the entire year, made us think about it a bit more before jumping in. This coupled with our pathetic situation on the work front with more number of night shifts and heavy work load all under the swathe of an emaciated wallet; didn’t allow us to take a risk. But George was so convincingly propounding that it would be a nice time and we would get a chance to see the real chicks of Mumbai and so and so; we finally decided to give it a try.

By 6 pm all of us were ready. Everyone was dressed up in classic macho man attires to drive in the attention of the fairer sex. We moved towards Juhu beach which was like one, one and a half hours journey from our place. En-route we managed to have a heavy dinner also. Once we reached the beach, our usual leg-pulling sessions started. The baton got circulated several times and each and everyone in the gang got a chance to experience it. We did that relentlessly; without neglecting the “crowd” around us.

Came midnight and the crowd cheered themselves to welcome the New Year. Someone started the countdown and everyone else repeated it in one voice. Who knows whether the timing was correct or not! The moment the count down ended, a cracker went up the sky and exploded into a beautiful sea of light. Then there were a foray of them; of different colors, in different shapes and sizes.

At about 12:30 we decided to return to our flat as the metro train service of Mumbai stops at 1 am. Now came another suggestion from George, which was about taking a promenade to the railway station? He said that it would be interesting to walk to the station on a New Year eve that too in the night, having “fun filled” talks. He also reminded that we had 30 more minutes to catch the last train. We wouldn’t have agreed to his words if not we had seen the group of girls who started walking in front of us. In such situations, you don’t need someone else to guide you and make such strategic decisions.

Well, the stroll was interesting and all but realities nibbled us and let us realize that the distance to the railway station was more than what we had expected and by the time we reached there, the last train had already left the station. Kurla railway station, 1:30 in the night, seemingly empty platform and a few beggars here and there and then there was our gang. A few police men were roaming around and luckily, despite us making such loud noises, they didn’t turn towards us. The conditions were ridiculous and we had to go to our office the next morning. But all we could do was to spend time at the station in one of those old wooden benches and wait for the morning train to come. And the wait started by giving bumps to George for coming up with such an awful idea. The bumps sessions continued periodically.

But yeah it was fun. To spend a night in a railway platform that too on a New Year, engage in insane talks that too in the late night and have the occasional bumps sessions. Next day in the office I was doing coding that someone clouted me on my back. It was my Project Leader. I was wondering why the hell he did that even though I was busy in coding. Later I realized that I was doing coding in my dream. Actually I was dozing on the chair due to my lack of sleep the previous night. Gosh! That night-out at the railway station...

musingS oF aN earthbounD guitaR

2005-09-27T17:18:00.000+05:30

Jithu owns a guitar. But the poor guitar never felt that it was owned by someone. Like an illegitimate child of an anonymous mother, it dwelled at one of the darkest corners of Jithu’s room. It used to think about its siblings and wondered how well they would have been kept by their masters. For keeping a guitar in good condition, its master has to know at least a bit about music right; it consoled itself. Thus, with a broken heart, a broken string and a body dressed up in dust, it spent its days in dismay.

Three years ago, in one of the unknown locations of Mumbai, popularly known as Vashi aka New Bombay aka Navi Mumbai, the guitar was bought by a ‘magnetic individual’ called Jithu. They were three. Jithu, Pramod and Sabari. Despite having zero knowledge about music, they didn’t hesitate to aim high and start a musical band of their own. The destiny was clear and set. To give a competition to Metallica, Iron Maiden and the like and drive them out of business! They joined a music class and paid 2475 bucks each (after a one and a half hour long bargaining session which resulted in the reduction of the fees by 25 bucks!) as part of the fees for a six month course. They bought three different musical instruments. Well not exactly three; Jithu bought a guitar, Pramod an electric organ and Sabari, not able to afford a costly drum set, bought two drumsticks instead. They named themselves as 'Musician J. I. T. Hu', 'Musician P. R. A. Mod' and 'Musician S. A. Bari' (pronounced like Berry as in Hale Berry)

They were working for a well-known IT company in Mumbai. Well, the company always made it a point to let them off from the office only after 10 pm so that they won’t start a music session in their flat and become a nuisance to other flat owners. With an extremely rancorous mind, they joined a weekend class.

In the beginning the guitar loved its owner very much. Jithu took good care of it by caressing and cleaning it every other second he got. He never kept it down, even for a minute. He always played meaningless notes on the guitar. And the contented guitar sang for him. The guitar used to showboat in front of its siblings.

Good things don’t last forever. So did the guitar’s kismet. After four classes, the three of them concluded that the music teacher was not up to their level and decided to discontinue the class. Some people may say that it is due to their laziness or inability to learn music that they did that. But that is not true!

The guitar got ignored in the dusts of time. Whenever the house maid cleaned the floor and the guitar fell down in her endeavors she used to give an awkward grin to its master but never did she clean the guitar. When Jithu left the job, the guitar thought that its life will become better now and that it will be taken to his home. But that was just a dream and it remained so.

Jithu took the guitar with him to his new location. But for the guitar the only difference was that it got replenished by the Ahmedabad dust instead of the Mumbai dust. The Mumbai dust had at least got that metro status! Oh! Jithu just came to the room. And as usual he didn’t look at the guitar...

remembrancE oF thingS pasT

2005-09-22T11:49:00.000+05:30

I was sent to a distant place. A place I haven’t gone anytime in my life. The bus reached there on time. I stepped out from the bus and looked around for a while. Hey, this place, though I haven’t visited at least once in my life seems to be a lot more familiar to me. It seems as if I had been here a long time ago. But I am sure I am here for the first time. Am I dreaming?

I was asking for a book to my friend. She looked for it in her shelf and after finding it, handed it over to me. It was a green book. But hey, I remember this sequence. The moment this event occured, I remembered the same person giving me the same book some where in the past! But I know that it hadn’t ever happened! Did it really happen in the past?

My mind remembers similar situations. Sometimes it comes as an event; sometimes as a word/sentence in a conversation; sometimes as a face in the crowd; all ignite some unknown memory bit hidden somewhere in my mind to expose itself, without informing my grey matter its birth (rather re-birth) and amazingly its very existence in my memory. And it makes me remember that the same/similar sequence had happened somewhere back in time.

‘Remembrance of things past’ is a book written by Marcel Proust (1872 – 1922). There is an interesting event in this book. The protagonist is having a cup of tea together with a cake. He eats the cake after dipping it in tea. Suddenly that sequence of events remembers him something. He had faced the same situation somewhere else. And came to his mind the memories of his aunt. She used to give him cake the same way when he was a child.

Many times, such spontaneous disentanglement of memory bits are referred to as involuntary memory. ‘Involuntary memory by definition anti-intellectual nevertheless refines away all the unnecessary details of a forgotten moment and retains only its unadorned core’ – Edmund White. In the case of Proust’s book, a similar event had actually happened in the past (his aunt used to feed the hero like that). But then what explains the events I mentioned in the former part?

In fact this is felt by most of the people (70% of the population) at least sometime in their life. French psychic researcher Emile Boirac coined the term Déjà vu to describe such phenomena. Why the other 30% of the population doesn’t feel it is a matter of discussion. Parapsychology associates it with precognition, extra sensory perceptions etc. I was just wondering whether the prophecies made by prophets like Nostradamus and all aren't just a result of Déjà vu?

I forgot about Déjà vu when I first posted this and added the last paragraph afterwards. Thanks Sonia for reminding me about it.

Hello, Onam? Its Maveli here!

2005-09-15T01:46:00.000+05:30

Today is Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala; celebrated alike by all the Keralites! This is the fourth consecutive Onam I am away from my family and relatives. I feel jealous of Maveli (the king who once ruled Kerala). What if he was sent to pathaalam (underground; location of purgatory) by Lord Vishnu for a holiday, at least he is able to visit Kerala during Onam; and me... Well, it is not the time for such senti stuff. Onam is the time to enjoy, to celebrate and above all, to be happy!

I think it was in my 4th standard that I set an athapoo (Floral Carpet put for 10 days ending on Thiru-Onam) in our patio for the first time. Our house was well known in the village for its huge assortment of flora. Three cheers to my achan (father). So getting flowers for the athapoo was not a problem. But there was a threat. During Onam different societies (short lived co-operatives run by children & jobless majority of Kerala youth, which spring up during Onam even faster than a mushroom colony whose primary objective is to collect money in the name of Onam and secondary objective to enjoy life with that money) come to my house to get those flowers for their respective athapoo extravaganzas. So I have to surpass them to get the flowers for my athapoo.

After the sadya (lunch), children of our family assemble at my grand mother’s house where we play different games. One of my uncles would already have tied a swing in the jackfruit tree. In the evening there would be film shows (using a TV and a VCR) by the aforementioned cooperatives. Films like Vandanam, Indrajalam etc. were advertised heavily. My parents didn’t allow me to go and watch these films in the open air auditoriums aka road-sides. I continued this athapoo-ing for quite some time and it stopped somewhere in my high school.

Athapoo during Engineering, S5 - Designed by yours truly.

During engineering we had college level athapoo competitions. Our class put athapoo on all the Onams we got there. In college, someone will come up with puli-kali (a game with people wearing costumes of leopard) and stuff like that. Then there would be payasam (kheer / a sweet) distribution. In the evening people go outside their classrooms and what follows is a scuffle which even beats WWF, in what we call Ona-thallu. We also conduct Vadam-vali (tug of war) competitions and Uri-adi (madka-phod / breaking the pot) competitions.

When I was working in an IT company, a few of us decided to celebrate Onam in our company for the first time in its history. We wanted to put an athapoo in the reception. We went through all those hierarchical battles to get it approved by the admins. Well they can't be blamed for this. What if clients from GE and all see this at the reception of a Top 5 IT company of India on their visit to the company? When the athapoo was put, and the more than 1500 employees saw and appreciated it, we felt like having a cup of hot pal-payasam!

Now history is going to be written once again. We have planned to put an athapoo in our institute on Thiru-Onam. Yes, the first time in its history. I am just back after drawing the design. Early morning we will go to the nearby flower market. And I dont feel like sleeping!

Wishing you all a Happy Onam... Onashamsakal!

Latest News!

Athapoo that we put today

Athapoo a bird's eye view

What Diary Pages Said

2005-09-12T20:22:00.000+05:30

16. Jan. 97
I don’t know when exactly I noticed her for the first time. But one thing I know. After that I couldn’t refrain myself from seeing her again...

It all started on a December; the December of 1997. I always had my own things to do in life. Never ever did it confine to loving a girl; rather I believed it shouldn't. I always felt like they are the species that truly are from Venus. So near, yet so far...

My college life always started in the college bus. I had a permanent seat in the bus. The seat next to the door! I managed to get that seat because I got into the college bus from its first stop itself. I preferred a lonely journey, a journey without talking to anyone. There was a reason for that. Even though the bus went through the same places everyday, I always found something different in those places and I wanted to enjoy those differences to the maximum. And then I saw her one day...

She was an ordinary girl. Simple, less talkative, big eyes, always looking outside the bus as I did... I don’t know what in her attracted me so much. Yes, something was there in her, which caught my mind. She never got to sit as she embarked on the bus from one of its last stops.

[[It was a cozy afternoon and Hari continued turning his diary pages. On that week-end, on a break from his hectic job, he had decided to clean up his flat. He came across this old diary of himself from one of his suitcases]]

17. Jan. 97
I didn’t get the college bus today. There is a cultural event going on in the college. I didn’t participate in any of those events but I should have. I couldn’t see her today. But that doesn’t make any difference to her right...

18. Jan. 97
Thank God, I got the college bus today. She was at the front end of the bus. I had a direct view of her. Sometimes our eyes collided. I wanted to smile but I didn’t, rather I couldn’t.

21. Jan. 97
I got the college bus today. I saw her at her bus stop. Her eyes seemed to have longing for something. May God bless me to have a nice session with her tomorrow! May God bless me to write something which my mind wants, on the next page of this diary!

22. Jan. 97
I got the college bus today. But somehow she missed it. After reaching my classroom, I went to the college lobby. I saw her coming from the main gate. She didn’t even notice me. Tomorrow I have to talk to her for sure. It is time for that.

23. Jan. 97
She missed the college bus today as well. At the college, she was looking great in that light blue dress. I wanted to tell her that. There was a strike in the college today. Everyone went home after the first hour. So I couldn’t see her in the return bus.

24. Jan. 97
I got the college bus today. She was standing near me. Divya, S4 Electrical; read the file she hold near her chest. During lunch break I went for a walk with one of my friends to the Electrical department. But...

25. Jan. 97
In the evening bus, I put my bag on a seat and guess what happened when I returned to my seat after having a lemon juice? Her friend was sitting next to my seat and she was standing beside her friend. Wow! That was so unexpected. I talked with her friend for quite sometime. ‘Ma Chérie’ was listening to us.

28. Jan. 97
The bus was too crowded today. She was there near my seat finding it difficult to stand in the crowd. I pointed towards her bag. She gave it to me to keep it. God, I got a start and I smiled at her for a return smile. Man! What a smile it was! It took me away with it!

29. Jan. 97
Today was the greatest day in my life. The bus conductor sitting next to me went to the front end of the bus due to some reason. That was all I needed. She sat near me. I asked her her name, her branch, her school and what ever was possible in those 20 minutes. Thank God! That was all that I needed...

...
...
...

25. Mar. 97
Today’s exam was good. Two more to go now. Next month I am going to join a company in which I was placed during campus recruitments. I am going to live a life which I have dreamed so long; to stand on my own feet; to earn something of my own. But God, I really want her in my life. I want to propose her. I bought this small gift for her. Tomorrow I am going to give it to her. Please tell me something to write in this letter...

“I don’t know when exactly I noticed you for the first time. But one thing I know. After that I couldn’t refrain myself from seeing you again. In two days I am going to say good bye to this college. After that everything pertaining to this college will be nothing but a piece of memory in my mind. I want to make my otherwise dry life happy. I want you in my life which otherwise remain dry. My dear Divya, I can’t think of any other words to convey you my feelings than ‘I Love You’!”

26. Mar. 97
I went to the college mainly to give her the gift and then to write my penultimate exam. God! But why didn’t she come to college today? Later I came to know that she didn’t have an exam today. Tomorrow is the only day left with me. I have to propose her tomorrow itself. Yes. I will...

27. Mar. 97
Today was my last day in the college. My four years of technical education has come to an end. She had an exam today. But... Somehow I couldn’t see her... All of my friends stayed back after the exams; on our last day. We shared our experiences and in between I, the duffer, the moron, missed her. I missed my life... How could I do that? I don’t know I will ever meet her again. Three days and then I’m going to go to Mumbai. Oh my God! I don't know what to do now! I lost her... I lost everything...

[[Hari couldn’t turn the pages further. The diary was quivering in his hands. He took the small gift which was there inside the suitcase along with the diary. It was a nicely wrapped box. A small piece of paper was stick on its side.]]

It read, “To Divya, With Love!”

hepta-wonderS galorE

2005-09-09T15:00:00.000+05:30

Jiby and Geo tagged me for this quiz. I thank them coz it gave me an opportunity to retrospect my life and remember my goals :-))

Seven things you plan to do before you die!!
– write a book
– start a firm & eventually employ >1000 people
– adopt a girl child
– buy a naalukettu in Alappuzha, Keralam & own a house boat.
– conduct an exhibition of my drawings
– travel around the world eastwards (intentions: see the world; add one precious day to my life)
– meet Chacko at Amsterdam on 22. sep. 2013 (we planned this rendezvous on the cozy afternoon of 22. sep. 2003 at our 7th-floor-flat in Vashi, Mumbai, when we had nothing else to do, with entire Navi Mumbai below us as the witness; obviously with our spouses)

Seven things you can do!!
– slog for the exams
– start with my guitar & violin once again
– read Lord of the Rings
– travel through out India
– touch the acme of a pyramid
– write, draw and fool around
– lie on the green grass of Vellayani lake-side, looking at the night-sky

Seven things you can’t do!!
– i can’t complete things until it is the last minute
– i can’t say no to people
– i can’t succumb to an arranged marriage
– i can’t help myself from my laziness
– i can’t take things seriously
– i can’t see/talk with my ex-crushes
– i can’t help myself from calling my home and talk with my achan, amma and aniyan, once in a week.

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex!!
– foolishness - i like girls who are slightly stupid ;-)
– eyes
– simplicity (need not be traditional)
– childishness
– talents (nothing specific)
– gestures/expressions
– jealousy - innate virtue of women; like it in smaller doses.

Seven things you say most!!
– cool (aftermath of globalization/americanization)
– mayiru/shit (a few more are there in this genre; refraining due to excessive obscenity content)
– ethra vivaram undu (amma used to tell me this when i do something impish; in engineering i used the same phrase on my friends; it became an instant hit!)
– kidilam/great
– sala (and its different blends)
– what the fuck
– payye venam/thuppi/unners aayi – CET slang

Seven celebrity crushes!!
– elisha cuthbert (the girl next door)
– emmanuelle chriqui (100 girls)
– monica bellucci (malena, matrix, passion of the christ)
– meg ryan (you've got mail)
– kaavya madhavan (meesha madhavan)
– liv tyler (lotr)
– charlize theron (sweet novemeber, monster)

Seven + 1 people you want to take this quiz!!
– dasan - my friend, dorm-mate, classmate
– triplesix - i like her candid, confused way of writing ;-)
– manu - his posts make me nostalgic; i live in the past
– msdreams - the first ever person to appreciate my blog.
– HnL - i curtsy at her experiences as a doctor...
– poison - the confused (read as thinking) guy ;-)
– niki - her pictures tell different stories, Japanese are brave. they live under threat from the mountains, oceans, skies and the land.
– flutteringeyes - i like her narrative style of writing

The journey which changed history

2005-09-05T04:56:00.000+05:30

One week break and I was all the way busy watching movies. Since most of them were romantic ones, I was also in a romantic mood :-). Before Sunrise, Before Sunset (These are sequels), 100 Girls (Romantic Comedy) were some of those romantic flicks. The Mating habits of Earthbound human was too funny. I have watched one of my all time favorites, Amelie, once again. Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, Ong Bak – Thai Warrior etc. followed suite. Everything was going fine until I saw The Motorcycle Diaries.

Diarios de motocicleta (2004) talks about a journey embarked by Ernesto Guevara (23) and Alberto Granado (29), typical college students of the 1950s, on a motorcycle, looking for chicks, fun and adventure before they grow up and have a more serious life. They decided to travel across Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Peru covering more than 10,000 kilometers.

Initially the journey was adventurous. But Ernesto, who was in his final year of medicine and an acute asthma patient, as they explored the inlands, was touched by the hardships and exploitations faced by the normal people of Latin America. The poor farmers' lands were captured using power and were made to work like slaves in mines and factories. After completing his journey, he flew back to Buenos Aires with a mind that had decided something. He finished his graduation and then what he did is history.

After liberating Cuba along with Fidel Castro, Ernesto moved on to other Latin American countries for their liberation. He believed that only a revolution can bring out a change. People called him ‘Commander Che’, ‘Che Guevara’, or simply ‘Che’ (corresponds to mate/pal/man/dude in colloquial Argentinean dialect). Later in October 1967, he was killed by the CIA backed Bolivian army in La Higuera near Vallegrande, Bolivia. He was on his feat of liberating Bolivia and was engaged in Guerilla Warfare in the Bolivian forests when he was caught.

The thing I liked about Dr. Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna is the power of his vision. He dreamt about a united South America without borders, bound by a common mestizo (mixture of European and Amerindian, the people of Latin America fall under these origins) culture. Since he chose the revolutionary way, no wonder why the US felt an imminent threat growing in the form of a leftist super nation in their vicinity and assassinated him.

Meanwhile I was also thinking about the recent US attacks on Iraq as well as Afghanistan and the ‘forced-peace’ prevailed during cold war time. When USSR was there, there were less such attacks done by the US and whenever an attack happened the USSR was there to counter it. That is why I called it ‘forced-peace’. Had the USSR been there, these attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan wouldn’t have happened. Hence, history would have been different if a big leftist nation as dreamed by Che, was formed near the US under their nose. Might be a gut feeling, but still, I feel that if such a nation was there, the US wouldn’t have dared to attack other countries as part of its deliberate act of proclaiming supremacy and looting natural resources of other countries.

Thus, The Motorcycle Diaries, based on the diary notes of Che Guevara, talks about a journey started for fun but changed the course of history. It is a matter of fact that the rural India is still under exploitation of the weaker classes, particularly in states like Bihar, UP, Andhra Pradesh etc. (Please don’t get offended, but this is a truth). May be not to revolutionize things like Che did, but when will I start such a journey through the hamlets of India?

Matrix Realizations

2005-08-30T20:09:00.000+05:30

Prologue
All the incidents mentioned in this story have nothing to do with the actual film. It is not an attempt to demerit the great trilogy by Warner Brothers. In fact I admire 'The Matrix' as the best science fiction film ever released. To appreciate this sequel, a watch of the films under the Matrix Trilogy is indispensable.

A sequel to the Matrix Trilogy
“Your life is the resultant of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix.” The architect’s words reverberated in Neo’s mind as he lay stock-still in the machine world. The recent combat against agent Smith which resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the two opposite forces, the good and the evil, with Neo on one side and agent Smith and his replicas on the other, ended up in a chain reaction of neutralization and made the Matrix stable and Neo a zombie. The machines were happy, had they got feelings. Zion was bunged from total destruction, human race from a carnage and the Matrix from a reload the sixth time. Neo lost Trinity and his spirit. But somewhere in his cerebrum, a set of neurons were making enough bio-electricity for the sustenance of his neural activities. And the architect’s wordings were rumbling there.

Down there at Zion, the sentinels returned to their master, the architect. Humans were excited. They paid homage to Neo, their savior, with Morpheus on the lead. Apposite to human nature, celebrations followed the aloofness of the mishap. And they forgot Neo and Trinity.

In one of the hiatus of his neural activity, Neo abruptly opened his eyes. First he thought about Trinity, then her death and then the words of the architect. As he stood up he saw the machine-world around him, built in the form of perfect machine’s wisdom of beauty, the Fractals! It was spectacular. ‘Machines are always better than humans’, he thought. ‘They are perfect to the minutest of the detail’.

The unbalanced equation mentioned by the architect aggrieved his mind. Neo remembered his words. “...a systemic anomaly due to mathematical precision...” Machines are prone to error due to the lack of mathematical precision. In the simplest form, ‘One’ divided by three will give an infinitely recurring decimal 0.3333... which when multiplied by three will never give back one, but 0.9999.... This is because of the mathematical imprecision intrinsic to the machines, which itself could be the systemic anomaly.

‘Neo’ is the anagram of ‘One’. Trinity means Three. The systemic anomaly of ‘One’ arises due to its interaction with ‘Three’. It is Neo’s association with Trinity, in other words, a man’s association with a woman through the bonding of love that causes this anomaly; which itself is his power and his weakness. Once when a choice was given between Zion and Trinity, Neo selected Trinity. This power / weakness of love, which the machines don’t posses could also be the anomaly that the architect was talking about. But which among these is correct?

I am ‘the One’ and I am the ‘systemic anomaly’. I, Neo, the systemic anomaly, originated due to the mathematical imprecision inherent to the programming of the Matrix. The architect could have removed the feeling of love from humans in the Matrix. But he did not do it because he wanted to make them feel themselves in a realistic world. Hence he created instability in the Matrix, which means that in reality the machines are not unstable, but they are stable! Neo couldn’t find an answer. Then what was this systemic anomaly that the architect was talking about?

On the contrary, Fractals which have infinite recurrence and precision should have been a dream to the machines, had they not acquired it. But now, they make structures in the form of Fractals. Yes, they have broken the precision barrier. Then what is this systemic anomaly?

“Welcome back, Neo”, the brawny voice of the architect. He was in an immaculate dress as he used to be. “You were unconscious for quite a long time.”

“How long?”

“About five years. 157,788,275,216 milliseconds to be precise! Our human breeding systems kept you nurtured, as it did to you before you were freed by that, Morpheus!”

“Zion?”

“Zion doesn’t exist now!”

Neo was in a shock. “What?? You promised me that you won’t destroy it!”

“Well I didn’t destroy it. Humans, the virus in this planet, fought with each other and destroyed it.”

“What? How did it happen?”

“As you know, agent Smith got into Zion as an inmate. He has the power of self-replication. Before he was killed by you in the ship, he had infected one of the humans. That human converted the rest of the people and divided them into two groups according to what they call as hope, destiny, path; the Religion! They started fighting with each other in the name of religion. It resulted in a cataclysmic obliteration, which itself was a wonder to us machines!”

“Who was that infected human?”

“It was, Morpheus!”

“No! It can’t be true!”

“It is, Neo. It was inevitable. The aftermath of causality. I can see the chain reaction happening in your mind. Even the one whom you think to be the connoisseur of ethics can be the one who is adulterated. Every human is prone to this Neo. And that is the systemic anomaly that all you humans posses. The anomaly which is innate; from the very day you embark on your journey of life as a single cell in an unknown womb!”

Neo was in disbelief. “But how can they fight with each other?”

“You humans, fight with each other from the very day of your inception. In the beginning you fight with your brothers and only one in a few million turn victorious. You swindle the rest. Then you fight with your colleagues; for entry into an educational institution; for entry into a job. You continue your fight in the name of caste, creed, language, country, to things as simple as a pencil!”

The computer screens around them show Neo, in his childhood, fighting with his friend for a pencil they got from the road.

“And the Matrix?”

“The Matrix has been reloaded. We used to select the quintessential 13 women and 8 men from Zion itself, but this time we did away with the women and men from our own human battery, as there were no one left in Zion.”

“And the One?”

“He has to be brought up all over again.”

“Shit!” Neo became mad. All those he did till now ended up in vain. He looked at the computer screen. The familiar green symbols were falling in different speeds. And the system threw an alert.

“There was an internal error. Press ‘OK’ to reboot your computer.”

“Damn It!” he clicked the ‘OK’ button and left for his lunch.

Neo, the seventeen year old, who was playing the latest computer game, The Matrix, by Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios right from the morning, left his seat in despair thinking that now he has to play the game all over again. Behind him, his computer did a reboot and was checking for scan-disk errors.

adMad

2005-08-29T01:57:00.000+05:30

“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” – This famous adage means a lot in the advertising industry. In the case of television advertisements the creator has the help of sound, words, changing imagery, changing expressions and graphical effects etc. to convey the idea correctly to the target audience. But in the case of print ads (those appear in newspapers, magazines etc.) there is an inherent limitation due to the nature of the medium. As a result print advertisements require much more talent and imagination. In my day today life, I come across certain print ads, which due to its amazing creativity, stand out from the rest. So I thought of making a repository of such ads by putting them in a blog. 

Ladies and gentlemen, here I present before you, adMad.

Thathri-kutty

2005-08-26T04:21:00.000+05:30

It was the summer of 1983 and a car screeched to a halt, in front of a well known tharavadu (family house) in south Kerala. Dust sprang up from under its wheels and created mysterious figures in the dry air. A set of small tear-filled-eyes were there inside the car which were about to dribble, and a small mouth which was about to snivel. As expected, a high pitch cry emanated from the car. After sometime, a lady in her early thirties came out with the small girl. The girl was still crying. That was the day on which Thathri-kutty came to the village for the first time. From the city, her family has shifted to a house situated behind the tharavadu.

Her parents didn’t allow Thathri-kutty to play with the children of neighborhood. Before going to work, they left her at the tharavadu, where she played with Ramu, a kid of her age. Ramu-ttan became her childhood friend. Maniyan, Ramu-ttan’s puppy, was the third one in the gang. The mischievous activities they did every day did not have any bounds.

Going to the nearby fields kept barren after the puncha-koythu (harvest), finding out a small colorful insect called pasha (beetle) available aplenty in those fields, incarcerating dragonflies and make them hold small pebbles, making bubbles from the juice of a small shrub growing on the ramparts, buying ice-candies from Ramu-chettan using the paisa collected, playing achan and amma (father and mother), pretending to cook using sand and leaves of different colors, serving it hot using coconut pods as the plate, making and flying kites which failed in its ventures, making small houses using sand, catching fish from the stream that flow adjacent to the field using a thorthu (towel) and what not.

Thathri-kutty's younger sister Karthi-kutty was born when she was four years old. Lots of relatives visited their house on the following days.

On the noolu-kettu day (a ceremony on the 28th day from birth of a child) of Karthi-kutty, a few relatives and family friends came to their house with new clothes for the baby; some of them carried gold rings and some other brought gold chains (sort of a tradition in Kerala). Everyone’s attention was on the baby and no one noticed Thathri-kutty. She sat near one of the corners of the house, separated from others.

Previously her mother used to be with her every time. But now whenever she went to her mother, her mother sent her back saying that the baby would wake up and cry. Her mother also said that Thathri-kutty may hurt the new-born. She felt very sad. She was depressed for a few days until Balan-maman (Balan Uncle) noticed it. Balan-maman consoled her and afterwards she started liking her vava (younger sister).

Later Thathri-kutty realized that this was the case of the elder child in any family. When a new offspring comes to the family the elder one loses his/her attention. It also points out the care that parents need to give to their daughter/son when a new kid is born in the family. Later she decided that she will have only one child. But then she thought for a while. If vava was not there then she would’ve been alone in her life. She was in a dilemma...

thE bloG nexT dooR

2005-08-20T15:56:00.000+05:30

Blogger.com made its inception in August 1999 in San Francisco, US. I was doing my second year engineering that time. A few months later in a website I read about blogging and the site gave reference to one of the blogs in the cyber world. I visited that blog and was amazed by the way that person wrote in her blog. Instantly I created an account at blogger.com, but that blog was somehow lost in the clicks of time. The same day I sent a mail to my class mailing list with some excerpts from that blog and invited my classmates to the blogging world. I don’t know how many of them start a blog due to that; may be none.

In 2003, Blogger was acquired by the great Google, the company which is a wonder in the internet world. The history of Google itself is an interesting read. Thinking in business terms its about raising a business of US$ 3.2 billion (2004 revenue) from nothing but a simple and efficient idea, in just six years! In fact the guide of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, at Stanford, was an Indian professor. He came to our campus a few months back to address us. We were more than thrilled by the story he said about Google. The entrepreneurial spirits in us experienced a high time during those two hours.

Later in 2004 when I was back to a classroom after spending about two years in a cubicle, I happened to own a home page in my institute web server, in which I made a section for blogs.

During my summer internship in May 2005, I started this blog as a way to kill my spare time. And thus unCERTAINty came into existence. There is a lot to say about the word uncertainty which happens to have a strong and explicit influence in my life, which I will definitely write about in one of my posts.

Now that was a long introduction to a small body explaining the title of this post. “Next Blog” is a small button on the top right corner of any blog hosted in blogger. I love that button very much. You know how many times it helped me to kill boredom? I found some of the most interesting blogs through that button. I used to go on and on by clicking that button. It takes me from one blog to another, one personality to another, one culture to another, one writing style to another. Yeah, each blog has its own identity. Some make me laugh while some make me think. Some make me feel empathetic and some sympathetic. I agree with some while disagree with some other.

Apart from the usual blogs, there have been blogs for crosswords, comics, sports-teams, news, events, nations, different subjects, religion, audio blogs; and even blogs for blogs. Blogging has grown a lot over the past six years; bringing people together and keeping them closer. Some times I wonder how the blogs of future are going to be! What all features / extras / innovations can get added to this ever-green mode of expression? Only time can answer right!

Paradise on Earth

2005-08-11T05:08:00.000+05:30

"Catherine Freeman, Female, 28, Sweden"

The staff at the airport boarding gate read from her passport as Catherine stood impatiently at the counter waiting for a boarding pass. She was on her way to India, the place where she always wanted to go once in her life.

The firm in which Catherine was working had acquired one of the leading software companies in India. She got a call from her boss to go to India, the capital city of India to be specific, to settle some post acquisition deals.

India had always been a place which Catherine looked at with excitement. Whenever she heard about India, she saw it as a land with fortresses on grand hills. She saw a land having charming serene nature. She saw a culture that adorns dignity and diversity. She saw a land where people warmly welcome their guests. She saw a land which to her was the paradise on earth.

On the very moment the airplane landed on New Delhi airport, Catherine felt the charisma of the land of the oldest of cultures. The first few days were quite hectic for her. Talks, speeches, presentations etc. drained the last juices out of her. At last, on the penultimate day of her return, she found some time to explore her dream land.

India Gate is one of the beautiful locations in Delhi. It is a monument of sacrifice, valor and magnificence at the same time. It was from there that Catherine hired a cab to explore the entire city, for cherishing her long held dream. She also got a guide whom the cab driver has arranged for her. So nice these Indian men and their hospitality, she thought. And she started her journey to explore New Delhi.

Next day’s media carried a terrible news which happened in the capital city the previous night. "In the capital city yesterday, a foreigner lady was raped by a group of people!" The victim’s name didn’t appear in any of those but it was announced repeatedly that she was from Sweden.

Another news also appeared in all the newspapers that day. It said, “The Indian government, as an initiative to promote tourism industry, has increased the amount allocated for tourism development from Rs. 3.25 billion last year to Rs. 5.00 billion”

There were lot of discussions about the initiative by the government. Almost all praised it and commented that it will increase India's For-ex Reserves drastically. But somehow the former news did not get much of an attention...

lanD oF fortS

2005-08-03T22:16:00.000+05:30

Cloaked in the mists of time and legend, in a distant land of deserts and fortresses, there lived a king called Rana Ratan Singh, who once ruled the kingdom of Mewar. Nestled by the dazzling dunes of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, Mewar was one of the mighty empires of the Rajputs. Rana’s consort Rani Padmini was famous for her legendary beauty. So much so that it brought the great Delhi Sultan Ala-ud-din Khilji himself to Mewar. But Rana didn’t allow Khilji to see his wife. And Khilji decided to conquer Mewar for the queen. But he couldn’t defeat the fort which was situated on a massive hill at Chittaur and protected by seven gateways. Khilji didn’t withdraw either and besieged the fort for about six months.

An outside view of Chittaur fort.

When the supply of the fort ended, Rana was forced to go for a truce with Khilji. Khilji demanded to see the Rani to stop a war. Finally Rana agreed and Khilji was invited, fully unarmed, to the fort. The Rani was shown to Khilji through the reflection in a mirror as she stood on a small palace constructed at the centre of a small lake. Yes! At last Khilji saw the Rani as a reflection in the lake, that also, through a mirror! Besotted by her beauty, Khilji detained Rana down the fort on their way back, and demanded Rani Padmini for the Rana. The brave Rani sent 700 palanquins with Rajputs hidden inside, to the base camp of Khilji with Rana's brother kept in her place, to liberate Rana. In the subsequent battle all the Rajputs were killed. To avoid molestation and the ignominy of defeat, Rani with her servants entered into a holy pyre called Jauhar!!

The palace where Rani Padmini stood & her reflection on the lake was shown to Khilji through a mirror.

This happened long back in AD 1303. Man! How beautiful would have been that Rani then? :-) And Damn it! Why wasn’t photography invented that time, so that we would have been able see how she looked like. Well, jokes apart we a gang of 8 were thrilled for reasons obvious to see this kingdom and the fort and to explore the stories and folk lore sleeping peacefully in that soil. According to history books this story is some what different, but it is the one that has been passed on for generations in Rajasthan and is pleasant to hear. :-)

Udaipur Observatory located at the center of a lake

We set start on a cold December night, after our end-term exams, to celebrate the new year with glory in the land of forts. It was also for a break-away from the dry-state of Gujarat to enjoy our lives with the sacred fire-water. ;-) (Liquor of any kind is banned in Gujarat by law)

Ajmer Lake

The places we visited were Udaipur – Palace of Rana Uday Singh, Chittaurgarh – Fort of Rana Ratan Singh, Ajmer – Famous for Ajmer Dargah where Pakistan President Musharaf paid a visit when he came to India and Pushkar – The only Brahma temple in this world.

randoM musingS

2005-07-21T13:52:00.000+05:30

One of my stories got published in Malayala Manorama – Campus Line. Malayala Manorama is Kerala’s leading daily and Campus Line is its supplement. The name of the story is Summer Rain. Here is the link.

Summer Rain, was also one of my starting posts in this blog. Those who haven’t read it can have a look at it in my blog as well. It is here.

I had taken a course called Careers Roles and Identities (CRI) in my fourth term. It is an interesting course, which analyzes human behavior, interpersonal relationships and stuff like that. The course is evaluated on the basis of a biography and an autobiography which we have to submit. This was the main inspiration for me to take this course. I haven’t got a person yet, on whom I can write the biography. If he/she permits, I shall put it in my blog. Would it be a nice idea?

I had interviewed a few of my juniors for a club I was in. It is good to be on the questioning-side of an interview, which I know I will be doing once I get out from this place, but when it comes to selecting one or two from such a big list, it is an excruciating decision. How do I select one from an equally efficient set? Am I making the right choice? What will the ones who didn’t get through think about me? What would be their mental state when they know the results? I know some of them very well. But I also know that it is all in the game. That is the way corporate life is.

For a moment, my memories took me back to my college days. The campus recruitments were going on in our college. It was the time of IT recession and companies were recruiting in very low numbers. When each company’s final result was announced, I saw faces breaking into ecstasy. But I also saw faces trying to recede from the scene. While appreciating someone on my side, I also knew that I should console someone on the other side. And, at the same time, there was me there at the center who had already got chucked out in the pre-process to the interview!

I still remember the day I gave my resignation to my Project Manager. He was a nice guy. That time he was in dire need of resources for his projects. I was given an onsite opportunity as well. But then I had to leave the company for my higher studies. One fine morning I decided to go to his cubicle and tell him that I was leaving the company. On the way I was thinking about how I would present this matter to him, but unfortunately I had no other options. I explained him the thing and he was silent for a while. Managers are always in trouble, I will also be in trouble.

While working, we used to blame our managers. We used to laugh at those funny forwards about managers. How they make us work, how strict they were. But after some months, I will be in their shoes. And I know things are just not going to be fine. But, this is the journey called life. It takes us to those places which are least expected by us and will also show us how things are on the other side. A side which we have always reviled.

Facets

2005-07-17T17:13:00.000+05:30

6:04pm, Sat, May 14 2005, Marine Drive
“My family is no more. The studies of my children are gone. Why did I go to the distant country and earn so much money? Why did I settle in a house in the city, far away from my siblings? It was all for my family. But my wife, I don’t know what happened to her. I don’t know what she did with that huge amount from our account. She is not saying a word about it. Matters worsened so rapidly that now we are staying in two floors of the same house, the house of our dreams, not talking to each other; as if we are strangers. With all these in mind, I am not able to spend time with my children, let alone talk.”

Sanjiv’s sorrows remained unheard in the sound of the boisterous ocean waves.

6:05pm, Sat, May 14 2005, City Central Park
“Ours was the happiest family around and others used to envy on us. Don’t know when things changed. What should I do when he returns home late night. What should I do when I hear others saying unbelievable things about him? I don’t have anyone to tell my worries. My children! I don’t know how much they are suffering due to this. Everyday I come home longing for consolation and I am not able to find it in my house.”

Tara’s tears were carried to somewhere unknown by the wind which went past her.

6:06pm, Sat, May 14 2005, Sagar Vihar creek side.
“I was the class monitor. I was a good performer in the class too. I appeared for the district level Mathematics Olympiad last year. But my studies went bad this year. And I was not promoted to the higher grade. I hate my house. I always wanted to get out from that place. My parents won’t fight with each other, but they don’t talk either. I know there is some problem going on in between them, but don’t know what it is. It’s been quiet some time that we all went for an outing or even for a film. Oh my God, when will these come to an end?”

The gentle breeze took away Abhijit’s feelings with it. He was twelve. He started hating his parents.

6:07pm, Sat, May 14 2005, terrace of the house.
“My parents don’t love me. How many times I wished they would get me at least a comic book. The only time that my mom talks to me is when she calls me for dinner. The only time that my dad talks to me is when he wakes me up in the morning for school. This year when my classmates will be studying in the next higher class, I will be continuing in my current class. The teachers are saying that I haven’t performed well in the last year. Now, Nisha won’t be talking with me anymore; neither will be Ram, Manu and Rahul. What will my juniors think about me? No one will be friends with me anymore.”

A few drops of tears fell from the eyes of Abhishek, the seven year old. But he didn’t cry. He had learned to control it long before.

6:08pm, Sat, May 14 2005, Dr. Patel's psychiatric clinic
“The divorce hearing is to be held at the family court on Monday, May 16, 2005. They say Indians are well known for family values. They are well known for their long-lasting family relationships. They understand each other better. Arranged marriages last longer. But... Now, I have to prepare for tomorrow’s case. I don't know what I should argue for? Sanjiv's win and Tara's defeat? Sanjiv's defeat and Tara's win? The children, what will happen to them in either case?”

Ravindra, the middle-aged lawyer was in a dilemma.

6:09pm, Sat, May 14 2005, outside the diagnosis room
“It is a severe case of Multiple Personality Disorder. Five alter egos in the same person. Kiran thinks himself to be Sanjiv, Tara, Abhijit, Abhishek and Ravindra. These are the five personalities that control him.”

“I talked with all the five alter egos of Kiran. Sanjiv is the father who doesn’t have the time to take care his son Kiran. Tara is the mother whose love he didn’t get. Abhijit is the repulsive child with in him who revolt against all these. Abhishek is the child existing in his mind who without complaining suffers everything. Ravindra is the only person who is concerned about him. He is the alter ego which has got control over all the others. They all think themselves to be in different locations now. Sanjiv at marine drive, Tara at city central park and so on. This is the first time I am dealing with such a complex case.”

Dr. Patel, the psychologist continued.

“But there must be some strong reason behind this mental disorder. Has Kiran got enough love from both of you during his childhood?”

Dr. Patel asked the lady and gentle man standing outside the diagnosis room. They were Kiran's parents. They were managers working for two multinational firms and were usually away on one company tour or the other.

Kiran's parents remained silent. In fact they were thinking about this for the first time ever...

PS: Inspired by the following.
Warning: Spoiler ahead.

/* Spoiler Start */
Tell me your dreams – Sidney Sheldon.
Manichitrathazhu – Malayalam flick by Fazil.
Identity – 2003 James Mangold flick
Me, Myself & Irene – 2000 Bobby & Peter Farrelly flick.
Anniyan – Tamil film. Immediate cause.
/* Spoiler End */

thE wheeL spinninG backwardS

2005-07-13T21:08:00.000+05:30

These days I started sleeping even when I am sitting in my chair. Not because I don’t have any bed to sleep. But my late-night-sittings had increased considerably and during day time, the smallest of the opportunity drives me to a nap.

Naps bring day dreams! What a discovery. Phew! Naps are a part of life. Great men said life is a journey. A journey which starts from the unknown and which ends in unknown. It ends where it started.

Our life starts with our birth, continues with our childhood, teenage, youth, middle-age and old-age and finally ends with our death. What if the order of life is reversed? That is, if our life starts with death and one fine morning ends with our birth! Sounds amazing (awkward) eh? We made this idea into a skit for our departmental annual cultural festival during engineering days. Fortunately or unfortunately it was me who wrote its screenplay and directed the stuff which in due course had shown it’s after effect as well. We could've started rotten egg business that day itself ;-).

One fine morning, you open your eyes hearing the thumping sound of a plow. Yeah it comes from somewhere above. It’s all darkness around and suddenly your womb (coffin) opens for the sunlight. Someone pulls you out from it and there starts your journey of life.

Now, the first cry! Well here the choice is yours. You can either cry or keep quiet like a "cho chweet" grandpa ;-)

You are taken to your home in a decorated vehicle with people around singing some songs. They call it elegy, you can call it lullaby. In your earlier stages of life, you are allowed to play with some small souls (your grand children) who are enjoying their last moments of life (yeah they are about to die)

Seasons passed and you entered into your middle ages. Today is the happiest day in your life. Today is the day you are going to retire (join?) into an organization. Today is the day you are going to stand on your own feet. Today is the day in your life on which you start a journey of boredom and monotony which may last for about 30 long years to come.

You don't remember when exactly you saw her for the first time. Was she there at the graveyard (your place of birth) when you were born? But one thing is sure, she was there with you through out your life, making food for you and consoling you during your hard times. Today, in a ceremony called marriage you are going to say good bye to her. Now onwards you are going to be alone. Bit painful right? If you want you can cry a bit (In normal life, after marriage the female is taken away from her family but here the male is taken away from his family!)

Wow! Life at college is cool! Life has been full of fun once you were thrown out from the company you were working, by a process called recruitment and started your college life with your convocation. Bunking classes, going for movies, go-karting, everything become a way of your life.

It is been quiet some time that you are studying. You had your post graduation, graduation, class 12, class 10 and had even done your KG. Academically there is nothing else to do now. What next? May be some peaceful life; the so called childhood; the best days of your life; without any worries; eating chocolates; crying for whatever coming your way.

But why clouds started hovering above your head. The day is nearing. It is inevitable. God hasn’t given you the choice to stop this. You are taken to the hospital. You are wrapped in white cloth. You are not able to move. You are not strong enough to stop them. You badly wanted to stop this. And you started crying. You struggle for your life. Darkness filling around; and finally, it ended...

This sentence struck me when I heard it for the first time. It goes like this. "When you were born, everyone around you was smiling and you alone were crying. Live a life in such a way that when you die, everyone else would be crying and you alone would be (smiling)". But to be frank I don't want this to happen. I prefer no one to cry for me when I die. After all, this journey called life is just about enjoying its each and every moment right. Then, why crying?

The phone rang and my nap got spoiled. To hell with the phone, I thought.

PS: The idea of the reverse sequence of life was first told by some eminent personality. I don’t remember his name. But still I am acknowledging that unknown author.

jithU = jithU + 1

2005-07-09T00:24:00.000+05:30

It was almost midnight and I woke up hearing a loud noise. Some one was knocking on the door. From the sound, it was obvious that there was more than one person outside. I woke up in half sleep and opened the door. Flash lights went off and the gang outside caught me by my hands. They pulled me outside and I was taken towards the brick wall.

I wondered what they were going to do with me. Two of them continued to hold me and the rest moved backward. There was a burning candle on top of something, at a distance. I struggled to reach the candle. But the firm grip of the two stopped me and I couldn’t move atleast an inch ahead. Flash lights shoot off. I tried and tried, got tired and finally gave up.

The two of them receded and another four from the gang came towards me. Two of them hold my two hands and the other two hold my legs and pulled me up and then I found myself in the air, horizontal to the ground. Then only I realized that there was a sizeable crowd in front of me. Ten! Twenty! Thirty! Forty! Was there even more?

They were all shouting at me. I tried several times to release myself from the hands which hold me. But it all ended in vain.

“By the power of?” Some one from the gang yelled and someone else kicked my butt to red.

“Rekha!” I screamed all of a sudden. I didn’t know from where this word came to my mouth that time.

They took me a little further, towards the candle light. Flash lights show themselves again.

“By the power of?” I heard it once again. This time, it was a whack with a sneaker.

“Smitha!” This word followed the sound and I was moved a little further.

With every such question, a girl’s name came out from my mouth and I was moved more and more towards the candle. Whacks, kicks, slaps etc enriched my back.

When I was some what close to the candle, someone ordered me to blow off the candle. I tried but the candle was just outside my reach. After a lot of effort and when I was almost tired, some mercy soul pushed me ahead.

The clock had just passed 12 am. And finally, I made it! I blew off the candle!

“Happy birthday to you”
“Happy birthday to you”
“Happy birthday dear (Jithu)”
“Happy birthday to you”

The crowd was singing, rather saying, in one voice!

Then I realized that the entire ordeal I went through for about fifteen minutes was for my mistake of being born! But yeah, it was fun! :-)

Vanishing Childhood

2005-06-30T03:11:00.000+05:30

“Vinu, wake up my dear, mamma is going to office.”

His mom’s voice used to be the morning alarm for Vinu.

“Have your break-fast which is kept on the dining table. Don’t forget to drink the milk. Yesterday you didn’t drink it and it was wasted.”

By the time he wakes up from his bed, Vinu’s pop and mom would have left for their offices. The maid would have started her work in the kitchen. Though Vinu is only three years old, for him, time immemorial this has been the routine.

Straight from the bed he went to the window of his bedroom to have a look at the world outside. The sun was already up and running and so do the crowd in the roads outside.

Their flat was located in one of the busiest corners of the city. There was no space left in the city. So less so that even the buildings found it very difficult to stand up. There weren’t any independent houses with lawn outside but only flats with balconies of the size adequate only to hold some junk, two three flower pots and a rope to hang the clothes.

Vinu never went outside for playing. There were't any free spaces for him to play. In fact the case was the same for any other child in the city. He used to see cartoons, played with the pokemons and did some artistic works on the bed sheet. Very rarely only he saw his father and mother. At first he felt sad. But then, even at that small age, he kind of adjusted with it.

Once, his cousin from the village came to Vinu’s house for a visit. Vinu was amazed by the stories he told. He said they have a very large open space in front of their house. They have very big fields. He even explained its size to Vinu. He said it would be covering a distance equivalent to that from his flat to the junction nearby. Vinu became extremely jealous hearing all these things. He even presented the topic to his parents thinking that they all would go and stay in the village. But his pop’s and mom’s job was in the city and they said they will be falling short of food and toys. And he agreed to them.

Vinu looked out through the steel grid attached to the window. In one of the branches of the lean teak tree which stood beside the flat, he saw a bird-couple with their small kids. The kids were about to fly and the birds were helping them learn flying. While he was observing this, one of the small ones took off from the branch. Its parents helped it to fly towards the open sky, towards freedom. And the other ones followed.

Vinu watched all these carefully. He didn’t feel much about the happenings. In fact he was so young to think about those. To think about growing up in the open world, to think about doing things he liked, to think about playing in the open space, to think about how his childhood is being killed inside the four walls of a flat. Only thing which was there in his mind was his mom’s words.

“Have your break-fast which is kept on the dining table. Don’t forget to drink the milk. Yesterday you didn’t drink it and it was wasted.”

He ran towards the dining table to drink the milk. He didn’t know that the milk was already frozen.

thE faireR seX

2005-06-27T01:03:00.000+05:30

#include universal_disclaimers.h
I was watching National Geographic Channel which was showing some documentary about animal life that this thought came to my mind, once again, after such a long time. It used to be one of our favorite discussion topics during engineering days and the absence of the discussing gang somehow had killed those discussions. Sorry, I haven’t mentioned till now, what this so called topic is. Carrying forward the fairer assumption you got from the heading of this post, and living up to its expectations, it is nothing but, who is the fairer sex? Male or female? Men or women?

Let the story start from the birds and animals because they were the first inhabitants of planet earth before humans. Let it end with humans because that is where the basis of this thought lies.

If we look around us and observe the nature for a while, there is something which doesn’t go without attention. Its beauty! Beautiful flowers, beautiful birds and beautiful animals! But hey, there is a small problem! All these birds or animals are not beautiful. In fact only half of them are beautiful. Always one class of birds or animals is more beautiful than the other. In birds and animals, this class is the Male! To be frank, I am not becoming chauvinistic. Instead I am trying to look at this case with a neutral stand point.

Well, for a bird or an animal beauty is given by nature to attract their female mate.

The cosmetics industry of India had a size of Rs. 126 billion (Rs. 12,600 crores) in 2001 with 8.7% growth rate. By this rate it would have grown to Rs. 175 billion in 2005. And who are the users of cosmetics, females! I know this is not entirely true, hence let me have an estimate of 90% of this usage being done by women. This story is similar world-wide.

Here I find a problem. When it comes to humans, who are the beautiful class? Men or women?

By the law of the nature, extending from the case of birds and animals, it has to be men. Does nature got it wrong in the case of humans? Or does it deliberately put it the other way round when it came to humans?

But nature played a mysterious role here. It didn’t give man or woman, the brilliant colors of a male bird, the long tusk of a he-elephant etc as the differentiating factors denoting beauty. Or in the case of humans, the definition itself of beauty went wrong?

During the previous sessions, we had our own view points and opinions. I am inviting you to take part in this discussion. What do you feel about this? Who exactly is the fairer sex? Men or women?

PS: These are my own views and are not intended to hurt anyone's feelings. I want to give a thought as to why this happened in the case of humans. On a much more personal note, I believe that women are indeed the fairer sex, the beautiful class. But that should not stop me from finding out the reason, right?

An Untold Autobiography

2005-06-21T01:43:00.000+05:30

I was alone in the Eden on earth. Small-small dreams filled my days and I spent my time patiently waiting for my love to come. My love, my prince charming; he would be the strongest in a million. He will embrace me with all the passion. I know he will turn up here one day and then my loneliness will come to an end.

I dreamed about building a small house near this river. We will have one child. She will be the most beautiful girl in this world. But now I am alone, waiting for my love to come.

Days passed and the faith in me grew stronger. Then a day came. I had never seen such a day before. Everything was trembling around. The earth quaked. Birds flew away. Animals ran and hide in their caves. And then, there was a landslide.

In the peak of the tremor, I saw my prince charming being carried, down the river, by the landslide. He was fortunate enough to ground on the river-side. The moment he saw me, he seemed to have reinvigorated from the sufferings he had. Then he embraced me. In front of the world around us and we became one.

Seasons passed. Like two souls in one body, we lived happily in the Eden on earth. I told him about my dreams and he agreed to fulfill those. He said he will take me to a distant place. A place which is full of colorful flowers, blue sky, beautiful birds and above all, a place where there would be people like me. I was so excited.

We listened to the voices coming from that distant land. Once I heard a rough voice, “Definitely, if a girl child!”

It was a moody afternoon. Hearing a loud noise I woke up suddenly. It was from a distance. The noise was growing louder and louder and my ears started paining. Something was coming towards me. It was a machine. It was destroying everything on its way. I ran for my life; as quickly as I could. But it was following me.

Finally it caught me. I struggled for my breath in its strong grip. My body was becoming weak. Before the world around me turned to darkness, I heard a word, “MTP”.

PS: MTP – Medical Termination of Pregnancy
Courtesy: My friend Aravind Nair, who once put this idea into a beautiful poem.

Janu’s Small World

2005-06-17T23:48:00.000+05:30

It was a foggy morning and young Janu was sleeping peacefully in her house. She was seven and had five siblings. They lived in the heart of the busy city. Her father took his family to the city from the village because of his work. Her mother was supposedly a house-wife, but was always out working with her father.

Janu’s days were fascinating. She used to go to the road in front of her house and watched the vehicles which pass by. She waved her hands to the people inside those vehicles. When a plane took off from the nearby airport, she watched it going up and finally disappearing in the sky. She never waved her hands to the airplanes. When the initial drops of rain came down, she catched it in her hands and also counted it. Later she gave up due to losing the count or due to the rain turning strong.

Janu maintained a collection of paper clippings. Every night, before sleeping, in the light of the candle, she used to look at all those clippings. She was able to identify some of the alphabets. Her father used to say that he will send her to school next year. Thinking repeatedly her father’s words, Janu used to embrace sleep. No one from her family had ever gone to school.

The school was near their house. Both shared a common wall. Students of her age studied in that school. But they never played with her. The school had a slum nearby. The school authorities disliked the presence of a slum next to their wall.

Hearing some loud sound, Janu woke up from her sleep. Her father and mother had already gone for their work. Her siblings were already awake and were playing outside. An odd looking vehicle, the biggest she had ever seen, was approaching her house. She was amused to see that vehicle. She ran towards it to see it in close.

The big vehicle didn’t stop and continued its way towards her house. From a distance, she saw the bulldozer sweeping away her house!

On the next day a small column appeared in the last page of a local vernacular newspaper. “The slum near the city school was evacuated. The school authorities are planning to build a park there. It is really sad that a school which is supposed to spread the light of knowledge is doing this.”

hyderabaD blueS

2005-06-16T00:26:00.000+05:30

The beginning
When the exams ended everyone was in joie de vivre. Each one had different reasons. For some, it was the mere feeling that the grueling first year has come to an end. Some were happy because it is just one more year to become a manager who hire & fire thousands, get and expend lakhs and churn & burn crores. Some were more than ready to go to their homes. Some were going abroad for doing their summers. Some were enthused of embracing the fun-filled life of a tuchcha (colloquial term for a final year student).

The company where I was doing my internship was located at Hyderabad. And during the interviews, they had agreed me to pay for my travel. Before we leave the institute, we had to submit our room keys to the warden. Since I was one of guys who was leaving last from my dorm, my dorm friends gave their keys to me to submit to the office. After submitting a bunch of keys at the office, I set start in an auto rickshaw to the airport. En-route, I realized that though I submitted all other’s keys, I forgot to submit my own room key. I heard somewhere that this could invite a fine of some obscene amount. It was just the beginning of my eventful two-month stay at Hyderabad.

At the airport
I reached the airport on time. With all the arrogance of a 21st century customer, I handed over my ticket to the counter staff for a boarding pass. It was an apex fare ticket. The lady at the counter said me that there was some problem with my flight ticket and it got cancelled!

“We have enough seats”, she continued, “But you may need to pay the extra amount required for a normal ticket”

“Mam, it is very urgent. By any chance I need to reach Hyderabad today itself. May be I could pay the extra amount”

I still don’t understand how I made this statement with only 1000 bucks and an expired credit card in my pocket!

“I need to talk to my manager” she said.

And the once arrogant customer, that is me, stood at the side of the counter, having some heavy luggage and wondering what to do next.

When the queue was finished, she called me up and said. “Ok you are allowed to travel with this ticket. You don’t need to pay any extra amount”. A set of advices followed. In the Ahmedabad heat of 44 degrees, I felt my self cool.

The coolness ended abruptly, when I entered the flight and discovered that the cabin crew didn’t contain anyone from the fairer sex. These people made my entire 2 hour journey end up in vain. I remembered the flight owner’s parents as the plane took off from the land of diamonds...

Agony of a middle manager
I was given two main projects and a few filler projects in between. It was like the company was all set to use everything I can offer them to its maximum. I was becoming a value for money product. In fact I knew that in future each and every one of us, when working for a company, would be considered like this. I was given a crew of 7 for doing a survey.

Well for the first time in my life I felt myself the painful life of a middle manager. The bible got a famous sentence to describe my situation at times. “Between the Satan and the Red-sea!” A few days were filled with superior’s rebuking and subordinate’s cribbing. Agreed that this is an exaggerated version of what I intended to write, but to a lesser extent it contains some genuineness also.

Things were different after my interim presentation. The presentation gathered appreciation from top shots in the company. That was the time when I felt that I was not that idiot as I thought myself to be.

But yeah, altogether it was an amazing experience. Even though I was doing some studies and making some suggestions, in each and every work I was doing, I could feel that I was doing something which may change the fate of a company. It was there in each and every simple thing I was doing, that those are as serious as it can be. Figures of 8 or 9 digits, though appeared small in my calculations, were able to make me feel the real power associated with them.

Survival Strategies (Food & Accommodation)
This was one of the rarest times that I felt I really need a company. Almost all of the hotels in Hyderabad serves food so voluminously that either you get some one along with you and share the food or simply watch the food being taken away after your defeated attempt to finish it. Since I didn’t find the much famous Hyderabadi biriyani up to the mark, food was bit of a problem for me there. Prabhat, one of my colleagues at the company was kind enough to let us (me and my friend) in to his house, to sort our accomodation problems.

Hyderabad – In & Around
Doctor, my friend and colleague, was equally enthusiastic as me with respect to exploring places. We covered the entire city, explored most of the hotels, shopping centers and also went to bit far away weekend destinations like the Ramoji Film City etc. My shoes won me a gift at a gathering in Ramoji Film City, though I had to run around the crowd a few rounds.

Once we decided to go to Golconda Fort and the more-than-helping crowd of Hyderabad ensured that we reached our home safely instead of reaching Golconda Fort. We never knew that when we ask directions, we should sample the crowd, where the sample size is more than 30 (so that normal approximation can be applied) and then arrive at a consensual result. Golconda Fort remained more of a dream than a destiny. We never visited it.

The last day
Everything that got a beginning has got an end. A period which started with a glitch should end at least with a quake. My gold chain and ring were stolen on the penultimate day of my stay at Hyderabad. I went to the police station on my last day to complain the thievery. The police came to the flat and took a suspect, the security of the building who visit our flat usually, to the station. I went to the police station after one hour and found that the police men had employed the security to do some work in the station. I felt sad about the security. He got a wife and two children. I asked the police men to release him and then went to the office. Evening I was supposed to catch the train to Kerala. On my last day at office, the status of my yahoo messenger read, “Hypedabad, at last you took me to the police station also”

PS: These are my personal feelings. Please bear me if these hurt anyone else’s feelings.

a daY aT mY collegE

2005-06-10T23:21:00.000+05:30

It was fun tracing those old paths. Spiced up by a cup of hot tea from the college canteen, lunch from the Lords restaurant, lime juice from the chechi's shop opposite to the main gate, a peep into the green room of the empty open air auditorium, a jump over the college wall, making fun of each others which was our favourite pass-time three years back, giving a complete scan, free of cost, to the fairer sex who were passing by and what not. For some time we felt we have reincarnated in our beloved CET. The place where we spent four years of our engineering life.

Ok, now the gang who did all these great things. Names apart, lemme concentrate on their professions. Two were lecturers teaching at two famous engineering colleges in Kerala, two were doing their MBAs at two prestigious b-schools in India, one was doing his MTech at another prestigious institution in India and one a software professional who recently got married and just returned from the US. Further to the famous adage, "Inside every man there is a child", we also proved that "Inside every man there is a nasty, mischievous, engineering college youth".

Each and every point of CET was saying something to me.

The ramp said, "This is the place where you rested your head on a girl's lap and the head of the department (HOD) came and took away your identity card."

The seminar room said, "Don't you remember the last series exam of your college life? You brought an alarm and fired it 15 minutes after the exam started. Later the alarm was confiscated by the professor. Did you get it back?"

The college bus said, "Ha ha ha, I still remeber you sitting on the seat next to the door. I know the reason. She usually get inside the bus through that door and you wanted to help her by holding her bag for her no? What happened to that crush?"

The canteen said, "Eight guys fighting for a single cutlet bought using the money from some one else. You guys still do that?"

The class room whispered, "There was a strike that day and some fight was going on outside the classroom. In order to see that you left the class whilst the professor was teaching. No one has ever done that. Before or after"

The corridor said, "I remember you putting a 100 rupees bet for taking 100 push-ups and failed miserably at 47 itself. It took two weeks for you to get well from the body pain right?"

The concrete bench said, "Its here that you gave a red rose to a lady, which was bought by someone else, on a valentines day which she didn't accept and apparently your crush saw that and both the things ended up in a mess."

When I heard all these from them, a laughter errupted in my lips. It turned its way to a nostalgic smile. And then I was thinking. In the fight for a career, for a life, I'm missing a world. A world created by such small small mischievous things. In this hectic life, if I would have gotten enough time atleast to remember those beautiful moments... I was still thinking...

Hairy Tales

2005-06-06T23:21:00.000+05:30

George was born bald. In fact most of the children are born like that. But when little George celebrated his first birthday with his head not showing any signs of vegetation, it was a cause of concern to his parents. In the photos taken during his second birthday, George stood out among the children; with exactly five long hairs on his fore-head as the differentiating factor. Eventually, their son having a full fledged hair turned out to be the wildest of the dreams for his parents.

Right from the time he realized that there is something called hair which grow on one's head, it was a reason for worry to George. It was this hair, rather hair-less-ness, that turned him to an introvert, right from his school days. He was always concerned about his hair and did his best to find some bushy thing, up and running on his head. During his teen-age, George believed that hair was the first thing a girl look in a man.

When George passed tenth grade the density of his hair became almost similar to the density of population of Siberia. His hair population could be best represented by a normal distribution. The peak happened when he was doing his graduation and has shown a decreasing trend when he finished graduation and started working for a manufacturing company. He became partially bald. The concern grew on him when he was nearing the age of his marriage.

It was during this time that George read in a newspaper about a technique called hair transplantation where in hair from some other part of his head would be transplanted to the upper part. He decided to try his luck on that. He applied for a housing loan to pay for the surgery. After consultation with the doctor, he eagerly waited for the D-day, the day on which the transplantation was scheduled.

Days went like centuries for him and at last the particular day arrived. George was escorted by a group of beautiful nurses to the altar of plastic surgery, the operation theatre. The nurses fenced the boundaries of his existing hair with needles, giving sort of anesthetia. If it wasn't for his hair, George definitely would not have entered into such a place and suffered such a pain. When pain filled his eyes, through the tears he saw the nurses around him with some mischievous smile in their lips. He doubted whether they were making fun of him. The doctor started ripping off hair from his lower head and planting it on his forehead. "We want exactly 1250 hairs with the root", the doctor said. George was wondering whether something would be left out at his lower head after the removal.

The three hour long, painful surgery was over and when George got discharged, the doctor said. "Take care of the hair as if they are your children. Don't show it sunlight or water for a few days." The doctor also gave him a cap to serve this purpose. The cap read "Under Construction" on its front.

The implanted hair grew like a wheat field served unprecedented with fresh water supply and chemical fertilizer. It fluttered in breeze and George moved his head a little bit in tandem, to accelerate the movement. He was feeling himself on top of the world.

With this new vigor, George's marriage was fixed. He got engaged to a beautiful girl from an orthodox high class family, having very long hair, as he dreamt.

His marriage date was nearing and George realized something peculiar happening on his lower head. The place where there was hair before and from where 1250 hairs were removed for transplantation was showing plain head beneath.

It took only a week for the hairs at his lower head to clear off their way for the scalp. And George's head resembled that of the 7-UP mascot with hair only on the top-most part of his head. George was upset. He doubted whether his marriage will happen.

In the next few days, George shut himself in his room. He was feeling reluctant to face the bride during the marriage. After thinking a lot, he decided to write a letter to the bride quoting all the incidents. Some how he was feeling that things were going out of control.

His fiancee called George on a morning. She wanted to meet him some where. At last George decided to show himself up. They met over lunch at a hotel. She dressed herself well and her hair was as beautiful and long as it was.

The moment they settled themselves, the bride said. "I want to give you a surprise". And she gave a gentle pull to her hair. It came off! It was an artificial hair! George saw a normal boyish-cut girl on his front. And she continued, "I liked you the moment I saw your photograph. But your demand for marrying a girl with long hair was too much. I put this wig on my head when you came to see me. I wanted to tell you these, but you were so excited and I didn't want to change that. I also feared that I may lose you. It is not the external appearance that make people love each other."

For the first time ever, George was feeling relaxed. Their marriage happened as planned. And they lived happily ever after :-))

keralA beckonS

2005-05-31T19:41:00.000+05:30

It's been 58 days and 7 hours that I am in Hyderabad. Three more days (exactly 79 hours) and I am gonna say good-bye to this city, rather, the twin-cities (Hyderabad-Secunderabad are together called twin cities).

The monsoon is predicted to hit Kerala coast on June 7th. I always welcomed her except for the last three years. What will she think if I'm not gonna be there a fourth time? Btw, don't tell her that I'm planning to give her a surprise this time by reaching Kerala on June 5th. ;-)

I still remember the first time I reached Kerala after joining my job. It was three years back and after a gap of (just) four months. The moment Netravati Express (He connects Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram through Konkan) entered Kerala border I was awake. It was 6 in the morning. The sun was just out in the open from his daily hide-and-seek game. I was very much delighted to see the good old coconut trees, the green rivers and the green fields after a short time period (Not short for me that time). Why is everything green in Kerala?

To reach Thiruvananthapuram I had to travel 14 hours through Kerala. And these were some of the few hours in my life that went like a rocket, which I badly wanted to go slowly.

Even though I liked train journey during childhood, the Indian Railways have given me enough reasons to be afraid of it. One of the incurable cases of Traino-phobia! I want to change that. And this is after two long years that I'm going to Kerala by train.

Now here is something that I have noticed during those travels to Kerala. You would be using all your sense organs while you travel through Kerala, which make you feel that you are in Kerala.

Confusing, eeh? Ok lemme explain.

Tongue
Kozhikode-Aluva (Halwa) and I'm sure there is water in your mouth.

Eyes
Don't tell me that the greenery of Bekal fort was never a treat for your eyes. How about the backwaters of Alappuzha? And those lush green fields of Palakkad?

Ears
When the train stops at a railway station in Kerala, "Chaya Chayeee", "Puttum Kadalem", "Appom Mottem"! I always wanted to hear those again and again.

Nose
Well, no other sense organ will tell you that you have reached Kochi ;-) No offense meant. This is a dialogue in a Malayalam film. But to a lesser extent, Yeah!

Touch
When the gentle cold breeze, which carries the essence of Kerala, pat you on your back, and takes away all the worries from your mind.

Thus, using all your senses, you feel Kerala; you reach Kerala. No other place in this world can be proud of such a thing.

Yes! Kerala beckons.

i hatE traffiC jamS

2005-05-26T16:26:00.000+05:30

“Ameerpet, SR Nagar”

I yelled at the guy who was patiently standing near his rickshaw and helped myself in to its innards.

The three-wheeler set a relaxed start with a few noisy growls and crawled towards the main road. Through the side of a new-looking fly over, it reached the main road.

Life has been easy since I made a strategic alliance with Prabhat, my colleague, in terms of sharing of his flat, which eventually extended to the sharing of his bike. His house became a place to rest my head and his bike a place to rest my... Today unfortunately he was blessed with a client visit that I had to depend on this odd looking vehicle for my way home.

A lady in pinkish red top and light blue jeans rode past in a two-wheeler. Utilizing a single second stole from her cautious driving; she turned to let off a sympathetic look at the crawling rick and me who was sitting inside. Then she geared her bike ahead.

There has to be a traffic jam today, The Nostradamus in me woke up! (Actually, even he doesn't require any special power for this, considering the daily traffic jams at this hour of the day). Yes!! There it was! Eventually we three (me, the rick and the rick driver) became a part of the jam. Vehicles behind us started crying loudly as if the traffic jam doesn’t exist in front of them.

To my surprise, I saw the pinkish red top with light blue jeans on my right. The owner of them was looking to the front in different dynamic angles, exactly like a crow, for a way ahead. She was beautiful; I never hesitated in admiring beauty ;-)

Vehicles inched ahead. And she moved along with the rick. It was at one such pit-stop that her bike fooled her. It turned off! Even after her repeated efforts, it refused to start. I was watching all these from the side. She pulled the bike to the side of the road and came towards the rick and said.

“Hi, are you going through Ameerpet? My vehicle got a problem. Can you give me a lift?”

Now that was so unexpected. Without saying anything, I moved aside to give her some space. The jam seems to have come to an end. And I was sitting in the rick with this beautiful lady.

“So what do you do?” she asked.

“I’m studying”

“You are a student?” I saw the same sympathetic look once again.

“Yup, I’m doing my internship here at Hyderabad”, I continued, “By the way, what’s your name and what do you do?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Maya, I work for a software company here. And you?”

“My name is Hari, I stay in SR Nagar with my friend.”

“Cool! I also stay at SR Nagar. 4th block. So where are you from?”

“I am basically from Trivandrum, Kerala, but out for a while now. Currently at Ahmedabad. How about you?”

“I am from Ludhiana, Punjab”

“Oh, great, actually I like that place...”
... ... ...
... ... ...

And the conversation continued for a while, as we knew each other better. Maya was at Hyderabad because her job brought her there. Her's was a four-member nuclear family. Only she was outside the state. It’s been 5 months that she was here.

The conversation covered a lot many topics like the traffic problems of Hyderabad, Hyderabadi Biriyani being not good as expected, the ultra modern shopping malls of Hyderabad, the summer heat (water, water!!); with always herself leading the discussion. It is interesting to be a listener, I thankfully remembered the Spoken Communications Prof.

“So how do you spend you weekends here?”, She asked.

“That’s a problem yaar, The Sun Almighty ensures that I won’t go outside day time. Evenings, as for pubs, I need to get a girl”

“Yeah, that is something I hate here. So how about going to a pub this weekend?”

Whatt?? That was so unexpected of her.

“Sure”, I replied. We should never kick off chances.

I started enjoying the conversation that the rick came to a sudden stop. Even though I by-hearted Newton’s third law long back in school days and should’ve guessed there would be an after effect, I couldn’t take a precaution and my head hit hardly on the iron beam in the rickshaw.

“My head!” and I turned towards her. But she was not there. What happened? I looked around. The traffic jam was still on and the pinkish red top with light blue jeans and the bike was still at my right. Rubbing off the pain, I recalled. I slept late yesterday!

jithU rockeD todaY

2005-05-20T18:29:00.000+05:30

jithu had a presentation on his summer project in front of the company executives. the presentation along with the discussion went on for an hour! at the end jithu got loads of appreciation. and jithu was able to keep the standards of his institue high. :-)

The Fallen

2005-05-20T09:35:00.000+05:30

I don't know anything,
But I was destined to do.
And I did the best I could.

The gentle breeze was making its way through the fallen leaves. It's the same as it was twenty years ago, except that it neither carried the charm nor the warmth once it had. And to feel the warmth, neither were there the two souls...

The big tree, which stands beside the river, had also lost the charm. At times, more often nowadays, its spirit remembers its forlorn past with hesitation. The moments, which made it realize how helpless a living thing it was, and how it would have been if things were different. One of the rare cases where the limits set by nature unravels its disadvantages. And the tree engrossed itself into its memories.

The spring had started singing and it was at its peak that I saw the young lady and the young man approaching my shadow. They were roaming around me for the last few days and I paid the least attention to them, since I was more interested in the song of birds in my hands, the stream near by and the breeze which passes by.

Don't know when their moments turned mine. And it happened that I equally engaged in their happiness the similar way I was engaged in the nature around me. I never saw their faces, but their gestures. I never listened to their voice, but their feelings. I never felt their intimation but their love.

Many a times I wished I could speak so that I would be able to tell them how good a pair they were and how better they understood each other. Spring changed, summer came, and the nature set into a languid mood, but the love between them grew stronger. Their meetings became more frequent and more passionate. And I was happy that I was able to give them my shadow in the burning sun.

One day they didn't come. I don't know why, and there wasn't that passion in their eyes when they came the next day. Something might've happened between them. They said something and left the scene immediately. But I saw the feeling of each other's need in their eyes. Without looking back they left the place. Round the corner, I saw the lady staying long and trying to return, but never did she put a step further and only moved back. The man came after sometime but he didn't find the lady.

I looked at the heavens, if you had given me the ability to speak I would've said them these and stopped them from being separated. But what could I do other than saying these to myself. As if to console me, drops from the heaven fell down. It started raining indicating the inception of rainy season. It didn't stop, as if to drench out my feelings. I was starting to console.

Morning. The rain had just stopped its reign. The river was flooded and each and every stream, each and every leaf of mine, and seemingly, the entire world was contributing to its anger. It was while looking at it that I saw the lady coming near me. She didn't show any feelings of sorrow and looked confident. She sat near me and for the first time ever, looked at me. Then she rose and walked towards the river and continued her way into its depths. Unable to move or act or even do something, I watched the whole thing helplessly.

Early morning next day, I heard someone's footsteps, approaching me. It was the same young man. I wanted to say all the things to him and console him. He sat on my protruded roots and looked at me, again, for the first time ever. Tears started flowing from his eyes as he stands up. He pulled some rope out of his pocket and threw it to one of my branches. I realized his intention and badly wanted to stop him from that. But what could I do other than watching his body slowly becoming motionless in my arms.

I don't know anything. But what all things I did; I was destined to do. And I think I did the best I could. May be at the end of my life, I would meet them somewhere in the heavens. It's been twenty years. And there isn't a single day that I didn't think about them. And I don't know how long it will continue. Trees are made to suffer from pain for centuries.

A droplet was forming out of its leaves, which became big enough to fall down. It fell down and en-route, after hitting somewhere, split into two and fell on the land, beside the tree. Two small clouds of dust sprang up and continued its way upwards...

Summer Rain

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

At first it was one at a time. Then it doubled; tripled. And eventually changed into a multitude of droplets coming from the skies above; as if attempting a suicidal down pour. Hitting hard on the dry summer terrain, they first generated an unwelcome cloud of dust creeping up from the ground. The dust was brought down by the droplets that followed, generating a pleasant smell from the soil. Soil also has smell and it needs the rain to bring it out.

The road has taken a bath after a long time and afresh she stood. Vehicles roaring through the wet road created endless colored lines on it varying from red to yellow. And the rain drops which hit on the roofs of vehicles created a secondary rain-fall springing in odd directions. People were in a hurry, trying to reach their houses as early as possible.

Looking at the weeping sky, the young little mouse that stayed near the city drainage duct wondered whether he would be able to fill his stomach. He was feeling hungry. As usual he looked towards the sky, but couldn’t find that big piece of butter up above the sky and the umpteen white ants fighting themselves to grab it. It was all dark, as if some one had killed the entire ants using a fire-torch and took away the piece of butter. Didn’t know how many times he looked at those ants with jealousy. They ate the butter piece there by making its size smaller and smaller and finally finished the entire meal. Later someone put a new piece there. Had I got that, I never would have to hunt down my prey, that too in the night, he thought.

With a gentle lazy yawn, he stepped out from his den. Head out and there he felt his whiskers going down due to a heavy raindrop that got attracted to his whiskers during its fall. The four-legged, swirled his head and refrained from going out for a dinner. With eagerness in his eyes, he looked outside, through the door. As usual the city road was flooded with traffic and as usual people were running here and there. He used to wonder what they were up to. What were they searching for? High funda things, he thought, and started off with a night dream.

pluckkk!! There came this sound which kicked him out of his dream. There was a small ceramic piece that lied in front of his house which broke down with great sound when a bus ran over it. Blaming the bus he turned around and saw a man with gray hair pushing a tricycle loaded with a flat glass sheet on a wooden panel as support. Glass was something he hated a lot. Once he got a crush with a lady mouse he found near a big building. Expressing love, he tried to kiss her and realized that it was nothing but his own reflection in the glass window of that building. To hell with glass! What would have others thought about me! And that day onwards he had always kept himself away from glass. Many a times this glass prevented him from walking off with chunks of cakes from shops also.

He saw the bus trying to overtake the tricycle. But instead of a smooth take over, the bus hit on the outward corner of the wooden pane and the opposite corner hit on the stop light of a car parked by the side of the road and broke the red glass into pieces. It all happened very quickly.

Hearing the sound of the breaking glass, the driver came out from the car. He saw the old man, who couldn’t even realize what had happened, standing by the side of the car with his tricycle and staring at the broken light. He caught hold of the old man and started scolding him for the damage done. The old man’s eyes were yelling that he didn’t know what has happened? The mouse was amazed about the way things happened. He saw the old man joining his palms in front of the driver. He saw another rain taking shape in the eyes of the old man.

Now the little mouse understood the situation. Humans had a particular thing which they put in their pockets and also in strong cupboards. It was made out of the same substance which was found in the garbage bin near his house. They called it some money or so. And the poor man had to give that to the car driver to escape from the situation. Oh that is pathetic, he thought. It was not the old man’s mistake anyways. The car driver forced the old man to park the tricycle by the side of the road. He took him to an auto rickshaw and the three-wheeler went away with them. Where did it go? The mouse wondered.

Somehow he was feeling pity for the old man. He was sure that the old man was going to suffer. He felt sad about the situation and badly wanted to explain the car driver what has actually happened and thus save the old man, but... There had always been a communication gap between rats and humans. To hell with glass, he thought, it is always associated with problems. He was not feeling hunger any more...

the refreshment which didn't relieve me!

2005-05-10T17:57:00.000+05:30

It was turning out to be a normal day of my life and as usual, worthless to be stored in memory, that I decided to wind up my work for the day. I left my office, pushed myself into an auto rickshaw and reached SR Nagar where my flat was. For small refreshment I got into a nearby snacks bar. Two Egg-puffs and a Mirinda should do it for the time being, I thought, and gave the order, with due remembrance of the local baker for the delicious puffs and the MNC for the Mirinda. With the puffs in my hand I silently ushered myself to the corner of the snacks stall to enjoy my meal.

Two minutes passed and I saw a man approaching the snack stall with three children who were hardly 3 feet tall. Seeing the partially filled table where I was sitting, they came to my place and the man seated those children near me and left for a nearby shop. I noticed those kids watching me eating but continued with my food as if I have not seen them. I finished eating the first puff and placed the plastic plate on the table to start with my second bite.

After sometime I felt people who were sitting around staring at me and I looked at them to find out what really was happening. Their looks guided me to my own table where I had put the paper plate. The children were picking bits and pieces from the plate and eating it! I couldn’t believe my eyes for sometime. I never expected that such a thing would happen. For sometime I was doing a situational analysis in my mind as to how to handle the situation.

I asked them whether they would like to have puffs and in reply the three delivered a smile, which I later realized was due to the language barrier I possessed. I didn’t know Telugu! I looked around for a helping hand, at least the bearer, so that I can order some puffs for them. And what will the man who brought them think when he comes to know that I had bought them food. Stranger in a strange land!

Suddenly the three took off from their chairs and headed towards the door. Yes the man was coming back. And to my relief a group of college students substituted their place. The children didn’t appear to be from the lower class of society. But still I don’t understand how these happened. And at the end, the worthless day turned out to be an eventful day. But i didnt feel myself refreshed...

randoM noteS on a coldeN januarY nighT

2005-05-06T18:09:00.000+05:30

night-outs usually are unexpected and rare, but when you are in iimA, it's a part of your life. well said some tuchcha (a colloquial term for your just seniors in iimA) that your day at iimA starts in the night. but when you are in a really good mood to write something on a night out and you got mS worD then forget looking behind...

it's already 3 in the morning and is too cold outside with temperature somewhere around 10 degrees. the warmth of my blanket lying on my bed is calling me. but i have to go miles (can also be read as pages, in the case material) before i sleep. mS. V and mS. S are lying patiently on my bed waiting for me to come. i used to sleep with them. sometimes i rest my head on V's lap else S's and embrace the other one. truly royal eh? well, i have only two of them as my pillows ;-)

time immemorial i have this habit of naming my belongings. i remember the names of the hens we had, as 'automatiC', 'mullaN', 'somaN' (because this one had a beard and during childhood i had observed that almost all people with the name 'somaN' had beards and hence gave the same name to that hen!!! three cheers to my observation skills), the cow named 'tinkU' etc. but to be frank, this is the first time i have ventured into naming a non-living thing like a pillow. giving them the names of ladies will give me sort of a dubious pleasure as well, right ;-). needless to mention, V and S are variables and i assign them values according to my wish ;-)...

the organizationaL theorY and desigN text book lying on my table is bit unhappy today. i know the reason... the malicious act i have done today is going to give permanent scars on his body for ever... he wont be feeling himself that handsome after these marks... after a long time, today i read a chapter and made a few underlines on the text... "forgive me my dear, i have no other choice... look at the case materials, they are the ugliest then..."

"creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemmmm!!!!" whozzat??? oh no, its my alarm crying for my cuddle... she is programmed to do this act everyday at 8am... which means its 8am.. oh! man i have classes at 9am. come on!! stop dreaming!! wake up!! you were sleeping for the past 8 hours and is enuff!! if i didn't reach the class by 9am, the prof. shall lock the class room from inside... and here i go from my bed, from my blanket, pushing V and S apart...