The World According to ME

S#*! happens

2011-12-09T10:03:00.005+05:30

It can be good,bad or ugly. Big, small or stupid. Jack, dip or dingo. Bull, horse or chicken.You can sling it, catch it, throw it, talk it, take it, handle it, eat it and have it kicked out of you .It can be your luck, your brains and sometimes your face. It gets bad, it falls apart, it hits the roof, the fan, the ceiling and often it makes the world go round. You can have too much of it or too little of it or simply not need it but the truth is- the S#*! is here to stay.

Feces has gone through several phases, keeping stride with human evolution itself. Early man woke up in the morning took a good one and then had the s#*! scared out of him when the local cave lion decided to pay him a visit. Having managed to save himself from being main course, he got his s#*! together, tracked the big cat's spoor and thus gave rise to the first fur carpet. (Sorry Simba. S#*! happens.) With fire came the next stage. Culinary development was very straightforward: if it smells like sh*!, don't eat it. If it tastes like s#*!, spit it out. Unless Cave Mama is in a bad mood- she can and will beat the s#*! out of you.

Civilisation did not do much to distract us from our fecal fascination. The prime example would be the 18th Century french court where the morning movements of the monarch were carried out with the entire court in attendance. Which does make some sense... after all a King ought to know how to handle his s#*! and get his S#*! together. As you can see, human exertions have been greatly influenced by excretions. I suppose that's why we continue to take s#*! from different quarters.

The scatalogical obsession of the human race has been a rather embarrassing but apparently unavoidable trait that runs down our genes. (...). But none, I believe, have imbibed it as much as we Indians. Any Indian writing in English will have its fair share of allusions to offal, what with Anita Desai's blase references to nose-digging or Mulk Raj Anands rather disturbing relish for feces. But the true proof of it's indelible stain on our psyche is excretion's presence in casual conversation and familial bonding. For example my father, brother and uncle would go out of their way to crack shitty jokes in the middle of meals. And if my aunt ever offers you 'green-s#*!', do not be alarmed. She is merely giving you a helping of harmless green gram. In fact, as the wise MaterialMom once put it, s#*! has replaced God- there was one a time we said "Oh God!", now it is "Oh S#*! ! ". The 'Holy Ghost' is now 'Holy S#*!"

No matter how much we may feign fastidious disgust, we undeniably dig s#*!. Which will also explain why I have spent so much time on it. And I'm not just talking about my academic life. When shit happens it happens. We can either carry an umbrella and watch where we put our foot, or we can simply dance through it and come out smelling like a flower. In either case, as my supervisor once told me in a fit of eloquence, "How you handle it makes all the difference."Since we can't escape we might as well kick the s#*! out of any c%@P life may throw at us, eh?

Write of Passage(s)

2011-11-22T06:51:00.006+05:30

While writing a long drawn out angst filled apology for my prolonged absence is very tempting, I believe and actual post will make my sincere regret clearer.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Author has not fallen off the face of the earth. Rather she has been perching on a particularly unproductive pimple on its wide lovable cheek.There is a general belief within the layman masses (look at me- so elitist!) that being in academics involves the amassing of knowledge. And they are not wrong: I've been doing just that! Over the past twelve months I have gained considerable knowledge in the areas of a) Cooler maintenance (wiring, tubing,plumbing and fibre-reattachment) b) window re-modelling (detaching, reattaching, grill-removal) c) Survival cooking (how to cook pasta when you only have maida, salt and half a thimble of milk powder to help/toasting bread on a candle) d) Multi-tasked make up (how to use a chapstick as lipstick, rouge, eyeshadow and burn treatment) e) Animal Husbandry ( getting rid of 'husbanding' animals from your hostel corridor) f)basic plumbing. While these skills are nuggets that you pick up by chance on the way to academic Valhalla, there is one that will find you and bury itself into your psyche whether you want it or not.

Observe, if you will:

"A singular specific Felis Catus observed a non-kinetic stance upon a horizontally positioned fabric production created by the interlacing of two distinct fibres."

Translation: The cat sat on a mat.

While most traditional occupations requires one to put in a requisite number of hours, an average academic is required to meet a word count. In the ideal circumstance one would know enough about the subject to be hard-pressed to stay within the word count. However since research requires prolonged work, and work is anathema to most of us (ok fine! me), one would usually be struggling to write enough about the subject to not disgrace oneself before peers and professors alike. As a result, every year,those trees that were lucky enough to have escaped the felling glance of the NET/Board exam paper-makers, meet their demise fulfilling their wasted existence as a medium for our outrageous faff. And having spent the large part of my blog-absence fighting the colossal abomination created through the evil copulation of course-work and cumulative procrastination, I am placed in the prime position to enlighten the impressionable reader on the right way of creating high-flying hogwash.

1.Always maintain the Grass-Gas Balance. It is humanly impossible to churn out a thousand words with nothing more than your advanced thesaurus. There must always be some grass to create some bullshit:The trick is to hit the right proportion between the grass and the gas. The student must maintain a minimum 40-60 ratio if she is to escape egoscopy, for the professor is a canny breed. The skilled student must outwit the natural cunning of these superiors, distracting them with the right kind of shiny bait. To this end I recommend the Sabari Express Pazhampori technique.

The pazhampori served in the Sabari Express is large, golden, succulent-looking and characterised by a distinct lack of banana.The crisp burnished skin tempts the hungry traveler to flout experience and buy the snack, only to sink teeth through the interminable layer of fried batter before getting at the golden fruit within. And yet, the simple fact that we spent money on it and that it is pazhampori keep us munching on the disappointing, oily, unhealthy item. The assignment must beguile the poor prof into ignoring their better judgement, egging her/him into reading through all the tasteless faff to get at the nugget of thought within. A way with language and the occasional showy folder and/or nice stationary, will always help this cause.

2.Two words are always better than one. The Oxford English Dictionary lists up to 228132 words. Any academic must always try to include as many of these as possible. In fact, coin a few of your own while you are at it. The example sentence is proof of the expansive properties of this method. True, precision and efficiency are irredeemably obscured. However, word count is prodigiously boosted. Judicious use of this method may not make you an intellectual but may help you sound like one. Remember, adjectives are an academics best friends.A descriptive prose often proves to be the best recourse for the intellectually dehydrated. It also helps to provide homeric epithets to names/ ideas that will inevitably be repeated in your ill-researched paper. This is apparently called 'flabby' writing but given that our substance is paper-thin we don't really have much room for weight-watching.

3. What's in name? Lots. Name dropping not only helps lubricate government channels but also makes your feather light paper seem more substantial. This is a more effective method of paper-weighting than the much touted Jargonaut, where the writer overloads the paper with bombastic jargon. The Jargonaut runs the risk of seeming as insincere as it actually is whereas name-dropping carries an aura of brown-nosing humility. And the bigger the names the better- literally. Longer names increase word count! But on a less bimbettic level, names-big,small or medium sized- give an impression of secondary reading and may often represent the sole grass for the rest of the gas (refer to point 1). For the same reason, it is imperative that one disguise ones disgracefully rudimentary knowledge with timely reiteration of the Names. But the diligent slacker must know that the name alone cannot wield much power. For optimum results, one must endeavor to substantiate this name-dropping through the universally beneficial medium of the Quote. A well placed quote can not only conceal your gaping ignorance but also legitimately increase word count and page length.

However the student must beware the perils of hollow quotation.

Familiarity breeds content. Feigned familiarity breeds discontent. And a bad grade.

4. And of course there is the the Cow-Coconut Tree Connection. Remember the story of the exam candidate who had practiced an essay on a cow? Unfortunately the paper asked him to write about a coconut tree. But our hero (who was definitely an academic in the making) was not one to be daunted. He simply stated that a cow was tied to the coconut tree and then proceeded to talk about the animal. We academics already carry the stereotype of vagueness hence the resourceful student can make use of this to put in some paper-wasting digression. To the canny academic everything is related (even if one is not mallu). A little deft manipulation and one may be able to tie together two completely disparate ideas to create a legitimate sounding paper.

These four pointers will help the fledgling academic piece together a paper that is like a 'made in china' product- it looks good but wont last in the long run. However, as most Eleventh-hourists will agree, quality is usually the least of our worries when faced with a long dead deadline and a prof who has become so disillusioned that he would be painfully grateful to receive any paper from his charges.

The future of academic thought slouches unaware of the cancer growing in its breast as the multiplicity of mediocrity chokes away what little idealism that survives its great institutional Machine. Thought is churned, recycled and recast in the molds of wrenched language twisted out of shape within the jaws of the academe.Language has been chained and bowed by the heavy weight of pointless papers which will never inspire, never stimulate. And the thinker falls asleep and cricks his neck.

But we shall not be daunted. As Anupam Kher so neatly phrased it, "language was created to satisfy man's deep urge to complain." I shall use this maligned language to malign those who force me to malign it.

Which is why I shall now return to my neglected course work and struggle to churn out 2000 words on a subject I am unfamiliar with.

PS: Readers who want to read what this post ought to have been should check out George Orwell's delightful essay on the subject.

You know you are older when...

2011-08-03T16:13:00.003+05:30

1. The Home Centre becomes exciting.
2. Train journeys in sleeper coaches become less exciting.
3. There is more hair in your hair-brush than on your head.
4. You swap cooking stories with your buddies.
5. You swap joint pain-remedies with your parents.
6. You start drinking green tea- and liking it.
7. There are very few things that surprise you and surprises never seize.

The Unrequited

2011-08-03T13:59:00.000+05:30

Republished for apt-ness.

It is the eternal fate of the hostelite to always miss something/ someone. You spend one half of the year dreaming of and sighing for home. And when you get there, you sigh and dream of all those hostel moments which home just cannot provide. At hostel you yearn for your family, at home you yearn for your friends. At home you wish you didn't have to ask permission or let someone know where you're going. At hostel, you get depressed that there's no one who really cares where you go or what you do. At hostel you regale your friends with nostalgic stories of home.At home you tell nostalgic stories of hostel. We oscillate between the two ends, and gather particles of memories and feelings from each. Thus rendering us without resolution. The sharp, sweet respite obtained when we hit one end fades and forms another want until we
hit the other. There's no home for the wanderer. Just a constant movement from missing a little to missing a lot. A sense of incompleteness pervades every stop-over,urging us to move again. To try in vain to catch that missing something.
It is our fate to always miss something.

But perhaps because of this we value our short stays even more. We know we wont be here long, so we make the most of the time we have.We glean more from less, so to speak. Life is all the richer because we live the moment to the fullest...

I believe that everything has a reason. So does this...

Chip off the old Banana. Extended version.

2011-06-26T00:00:00.002+05:30

Republished after additions. Hope this is an improvement.

We mallus are inherently fruity. Hence, the incredible loneliness of the soul faced by a fruitless Mallu is self-evident. This deep angst surfaces in the deprived mallu's desperate delight in the face of such seemingly unimportant items such as coconut chutney and banana-chips. And this is all the more intense when the mallu is transplanted into a dry arid desert lands of that other Mallu-land lovingly referred to as 'the Gelf'.

Every year, the Keralite home-base faces a sharp shortage of the non-perishable and snack-like as non-resident mallus flock back to their homeland. Stores are ransacked of their savories and looted of their lip-smackers; the state suffers from an acute drought of tea-snacks for months to come.But though the mixtures may go missing and the diamond-cuts kidnapped no other snack variety suffers as greatly as the banana-chip. The fruits quiver in fear as the shadow of the Gelf-returned fall upon their pliant green stalks. Bunch upon bunch of barely ripe bananas are deep-fried in coconut oil with salt to create a taste of Kerala in your desert living room. The bright gold of these gilded treats drew the marauding migrators like the doubloons that incited the plundering conquistadors.

But there are looters and bounty-hunters. The first indiscriminately haul every available flake of every available banana. The latter however are the connoisseurs who quest for that perfect, crisp, delicious chip and savor it as it aught to be. My family falls in the second category. And so our clan are receptacles of that deep race memory that flows through every mallu- the Chip hierarchy. For example, anybody knows that big bakeries never sell you the best chips. The true finds are always in the back alley shanties or in the seedy tin shops near railway/bus stations. And besides,no discerning mallu with their inherent anti-capitalist stance will ever trust a big brand. The last time I was in Mallu-land I heard a Hot Chips franchise was starting out there. I pity them. Another instance of Mallu general knowledge is that every fastidious mallu knows that Calicut is the Mecca of the Banana Chip. The crispiest, tastiest and most scrumptilicious chips are from beloved Calicut. Even my father- who hails from Trichur, and believes everything Trichurian is automatically exemplary- agrees to this. But my father was never one to bend his knees before the insolent tasty-ness of a non-Trichur chip. Besides, he had a special supplier.

The return trip from our frenetic vacations was usually a weighty affair. More than anything because of the constant worry of weight issues. The airlines being a rather fussy institution demanded that all the travelers carried only a limited amount of weight. This of course resulted in a series of weighing, tearful half-hearted unpacking, offloading of much loved items and reweighing. In our household it is imperative that every member be present at the packing arena: mostly so that my father will have enough people to order around. But in all honesty he did a great job (both at ordering and packing)- there wasn't an inch of space in those two boxes that wasn't utilised. Be that as it may, neither the airlines nor my father's edicts could deter our beloved aunt from buying half a bakery store for her darling brother to munch on far far away.
While my father- who is a big softy under all the bluster- may manage to leave behind some of these tokens, he could never say no to his mother. His mother who always had chronic knee pains.His mother who despite said knee pains would stand for hours at the old fashioned stove and fry handful after handful of raw bananas in searing hot coconut oil,bananas which she'd painstakingly sliced for the entire morning so that her youngest son can have the freshest batch.It was almost a tradition- My father would have just finished stuffing in the last maligned item and squashed the box shut when my grandmother would send up the tins of banana chips. My father would get the haunted look of a man who really really wants to say no, and then he would proceed to unzip the stuffed box and take out some of the previously unavoidable items and loving wrap up the new bulky presents.

Oh he would grumble of course. He would scowl and bluster. But funnily enough he would never tie up the box until the tins came through. And when we'd get back the first phone call would be greatly comprised of praising the chips. And the truth is, no one could make banana chips like her. Even the blessed Calicut varieties had salt issues. My grandmother's chips were perfect.

It's been more than five years since we've tasted her chips. The stroke paralysed her right-hand-side and she hasn't walked by herself since, let alone stepped into the kitchen. I remember the day my father and my uncle, his older brother, got the phone call. It is a strange moment when you realise that the adults had always been children. Their mother's stroke, coming so close on the heels of their father's demise, was the turning point where childhood living finally ended. The brothers left immediately and we followed soon after. The shock of seeing my ever active grandmother prone was quickly repressed partly so that we could look after her well and partly because we didn't want her to think about it and mostly because we didn't want to think about it. The irony was that life,in the strangest and simplest of ways, went on.The leave ran out and the exiled had to return to their work place. And the charade of normalcy carried forward into the packing ritual. As always the boxes were packed, only this time there was little fear that they would be heavy. After all, we had other things on our mind. The last of the clothes were put in, the mandatory space check done and all was ready for the final tying up, when my aunt walked up the stairs weighed down by parcel after parcel of chips. "Amma didn't want you to go without the chips.", she said.

We Mallus are made like our favorite food items. We are either soft and sentimental and sometimes diabetes inducing or crisp and salty going off with a loud crucnh. But every part of us- from husk to flesh is stubbornly resilient. We take all the jokes thrown at us and make up several of them too. And regardless of what life throws at us, we believe that everything can be fixed or at the very least reconciled with. All we need is a cup of tea and banana chips.

One Flu Over the Cuckoos Nest

2011-06-23T23:06:00.003+05:30

The one thing that the Creator (the actual one, not the Author) didn't scrimp on while creating yours truly was the health package. However being human does involve the inevitable tussle with some kind of malignant microbe. Contrary to what the mater keeps saying, what doesn't kill you, does not make you tougher. It makes you whinier and universally annoying.

It is a proven fact that most people crumble into incompetent nincompoops or belligerent boors the minute a germ decides to visit their system. My father, otherwise an exasperatingly 'in-charge' person disintegrates into a bewildered babe on the commencement of a microbial infection. Firestone, an otherwise angelic, perfectly amiable person turns into a brat as soon as a germ makes its way through her epidermis. And then there is the third most manageable but most heartbreaking variety: the Silent Decliner who sinks into pale weakness unable to put up a fight. My brother, otherwise the life any party, becomes quiet and pitifully docile- a sight which has enough tear-jerking properties to be declared a prime-time soap. Each type comes with it's own unique aggravation. Being a dedicated observer of the world, it is my bounden duty to describe the forms that these microbe-induced madnesses might take.

The most common mental-morphosis is the 'Difficult Patient'. This very broad category may be sub-divided into 'the Boorish' and 'the delusional'. The former, as the discerning reader may have surmised, is the permanently grouchy, eternally unsatisfied bed-pan-throwing variety. We may consider ourselves lucky if the subject in question is suffering from laryngitis or some other throat ailment since that will reduce the yelling plus give us a valid enough excuse for dishing out double doses of cough syrup or similar sleep-inducing elixirs. The Delusional category consists of individuals who are convinced that they are not sick and go about making everybody's life difficult by insisting on doing myriad tasks while their body screams a plaintive negative. While the overly kind-hearted may be able to sustain a certain level of sympathy, the more or less normal would soon be reaching for a handy tool to put the unfortunate to sleep. Between these two broad categories is the deceptively docile but deadly Polite-Requester also known as the Nagging Pain. The individuals in this category employ a passive aggressive cumulative technique that is guarantee to wear your patience to threads. General scenarios usually involve a 'request' which is repeated endlessly in various avatars until granted. Be warned that these requests usually require time and/or effort and so within the gap that it takes to to get them done your brain would have been chewed out. And any attempt on your part to be firm and reasonable is met with deep sighs and/or looks of pained forbearance which drives you crazy and possibly to violence. This variety is supremely aggravating because it parades as the epitome of reasonableness while being the brand-ambassador for bratty. Very similar to this variety is the Whine-and-dyin'. Patients of this class try your patience by constantly whining about how they are dying when in reality they are barely afflicted, leeching out the sympathy from soft hearts drying them to a husk.

True, this is an unsympathetic and harsh summation, but the author is not a heartless soul neither is she unreasonable. All of us go a little cuckoo when a microbe enters the system. I wouldn't be surprised if someone accused of violence was acquitted on grounds of a flu.The whole world becomes dark, desolate and depressing and we unconsciously try to vent all our unhappiness onto this oppressive world and everything in it. But, the beauty is that every time you emerge out of a sickness you realise the world IS a wonderful place full of opportunities. Every sickness in some way is a brush with death, and so to return to health is a miracle of human sturdiness. And as a previously groaning patient blooms into health again, the one nursing also feels a parallel happiness at seeing a dear one return to their beloved self. Before they killed them. As the patient hops and skips their way into full health our hearts lighten and all is right and bright in the world- they are back and that's what matters.

PS: The Author's brand of patient-hood is the least troublesome of types. She sleeps from dawn to dusk and pretty soon the germs are bored to death. As you can see, whether in sickness or in health the Authors habits remain unchanging :D

Training Day

2011-06-03T01:36:00.007+05:30

Warning: LOOOOOOOOOONG post. But then rants usually tend to be that way.

The one good thing that the British rule left behind (besides the lovely language that you are reading) would be the Railways. Train journeys are the humanest means of transport- they are colourful, exuberant, fragrant with the scent of life(and other not so fragrant things)and full of character. While my more fastidious and finicky friends may prefer the avian mode, I firmly believe that flight is to train as an Ingmar Bergman movie is to a Rajni flick. And no train experience is complete unless it is carried out in the sleeper class where one can experience the teeming sea of humanity at it's garrulous best.Of course this is the pink-tinted version of the smoky locomotive story. Even the author, an enthusiastic endorser of the Indian Railways, must admit to having faced several moments of doubt. But no journey has managed to shake this constant admirer's faith in the railways!

...Wait...

There was that One Train Journey...

If the diligent reader would recall the mention of a third wedding in mallu-land, we may establish the setting of this tragic tale. We had whined, dined,given our newly espoused friend blood-pressure problems due to constant blushing and generally had an awesome time. Now it was time for farewell. The author, her comrade Apple and their comic relief side-kick Para (pseudonymed so for several reasons- none of them complimentary) were to leave immediately after the wedding. Kerala being such a hot-spot and Sabari being perpetually over-booked, we had taken the precaution of booking our tickets earlier than early. Though our tickets- in true Sabari fashion- were in the RAC category,constant internetting showed evidence of our upward movement and consequent seatedness. Poor Para, on the other hand, was in the railway limbo called the Waiting list. But we generous seniors assured her that we would share our confirmed seats with her.

The trouble started with the time. Anyone acquainted with the RAC process will know that it is the early bird that catches the berth. Hence we set out from the wedding venue well in advance of our train's arrival. If my loyal readers would recall a certain previous post, they would recall that a Mallu wedding usually entails being awake when normally you would be in La-la Land. As a result the wait at the station was a battle against vertical snooze. Furthermore there were complications regarding our assured seat bliss: For some reason the seat numbers were not showing up on the chart. Tamping down on our rising trepidation we decided to wait it out and keep our chins up.

But as anyone who has had to do their fair share of it would agree- waiting is the most painful of experiences. Furthermore, keeping your chin up is very difficult when it constantly slips downwards in inadvertent sleep. To add to this already excruciating situation (especially for the back of your neck) any train announcement -consistently of some other train- was preceded by the aggravatingly up-beat MCR mundu ad which would jerk us out of half-snooze into the arid plains of vain hope. To add salt to our wounds, any blessed interval between these spells was demolished by our darling Para who had taken to humming the entire ad right down to the tag-line. It is a wonder how she survived the journey without being thrown onto the train tracks. An hour and a half later the wretched announcement finally mentioned Sabari Express- only to tell us that it is delayed by an hour. This was repeated thrice, by which time we our sanity - already threatened by lack of sleep, leering station loungers, demanding beggars, the damned MCR Mundu ad and our junior's unhelpful repeat-telecast of the same - was on its last leg.

Four hours later Sabari finally trundled into the station- and conveniently stopped several bogeys ahead making us run after it like the proverbial Lola. Matters were not helped by the fact that Sabari was uncharacteristically crowded and resembled a Calcutta Local train rather than an interstate sleeper. Added to this was the fact that the train stops for exactly three minutes at the station. There followed a dramatic enactment of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Several mangled body-parts later we managed to squeeze our way into our compartment and to our prescribed seat... only to find a family happily settled there. Confusion ensued as both parties had confirmed tickets. Meanwhile the tide of would be passengers surged around us hurling impatient abuses at our inconvenient position right in the middle of the alley-way. Thankfully this annoyed our comfortably ensconced co-passengers enough to make them create previously non-existent place for us to rest our behinds. And so the commencement of our highly eventful much delayed and interminable journey saw Apple, Para and I perched at the edge of our seats.

EX-Seats, as it were. The much awaited TTR made his harried appearance and brutally squashed our hopes of occupancy. Apparently our confirmed seats had to be sat in a junction back. Since our behinds did not make their presence felt at that point our seats were reneged and so here we were seatless and suffering. As we sat(?) slack-jawed at this declaration, one of our helpful comfortably lounging co-passengers took it upon himself to give us a long list of rules justifying the lack of seating and our general stupidity. Needless to say we were not too grateful for his input. Ignoring the annoying human rule-book and our aching feet we bolstered our flagging spirits. The TTR, in his hurried rush had let slip a golden droplet of hope into our parched minds: "...cross the state border and seats may empty..." With these words in mind we perched on whatever horizontal unoccupied surface we could find and hung on for dear life. The Author, being rather small and monkey-like, managed to climb her way into somebody's luggage-occupied upper berth. At some point of time she keeled over and Apple and Para sincerely feared for her life since she refused to regain consciousness regardless of rigorous head-shaking and shoulder shoving. They were saved from the task of calling for a stretcher when a couple of hours later the Author finally opened her eyes with an eloquent "Huh? Wha-?"

By this time the border had been long crossed, the dinners had been served and people were demanding the use of their berths. We were still stuck in seat-limbo. Enough was enough- It was time for action! Leaving Para to keep an eye on our scattered luggage, Apple and the Author set of to search for the TTR. (A search not unlike the Matrix trio's search for the Key-maker. There were an equal number of tight situations -Literally) After having finally located the elusive official we were told that Salem was our Jerusalem: "Wait for Salem, seats will empty". Having extracted a promise of seat update from the TTR we trudged back a little uplifted to our compartment. Meanwhile the happy family who had gotten our seats decided to take pity on us and gave us the side lower berth. So there we were three females cramped into a single berth. It was like a human picasso painting- all angles, no comfort. By the time the Sabari edged into Salem several body parts had lost sensation- small mercy.
At long last the TTR made his blessed appearance. We woke from our half slumber our bleary eyes lit with undead hope. He flipped his sacred seat list and said "No seat."

Our undead hope was staked in the chest.

Para, being a resourceful soul, located a couple who had vacated one of their berths in favour of companionship and made herself at home there. Apple and the Author were left to negotiate minimal space with optimum accommodation.How we managed to avoid spinal injury in the next few hours is beyond the imagination of this writer. Day break saw Para the hapless Waiting-Listee sleeping like a baby and the two 'confirmed' passengers turned into human scalene triangles. The half-asleep but ever-alert Apple noticed that other more fortunate souls were waking up and vacating berths. Throwing caution and pride to the winds we quickly scrambled onto these havens and slipped into blessed oblivion. At least that's what I did. Unfortunately, Apple was not fated for dormien bliss. Her berth was sadly located in the lair of two terrible toddlers who took to playing tag between berths and were not averse to jumping on her feet or screaming in her ears. Their continued existence on this hallowed earth is testament to Apple's sainthood. Around afternoon the heat (in mine and Para's case) and the noise (in Apple's case) put an end to any attempt at sleep and we were brought back to unhappy reality. The co-passengers, well-rested and happily settled, tried hard to make conversation only to receive monosyllabic responses. Except of course for Para who gave spirited, renditions of the godforsaken MCR Mundu ad to the admiring public. Wretched brat.

When at last we were finally just a station away from our destination, Sabari decided to delay itself yet again. Ah the humanity!!! I believe the torture of the journey can be best expressed by the fact that it felt a lot longer than this post. Needless to say we avoided long distance travel for a while. But all said and done, when push comes to shove I would still prefer a train journey. They may be messy, smelly and utterly dehumanising: but they definitely make for a good story.

Blue Blues

2011-04-02T14:07:00.004+05:30

2 April 2011.
Whether this date will be remembered with joy or sorrow is yet to be determined, however it's iconic significance is more or less confirmed.
'Lanka Dahan'
Sounds good doesn't it? It's a good thing RaOne isn't being released right now.
Being a malayalee and therefore genetically programmed to favour football over the sophisticated gilli-danda game called cricket, there is always a certain amount of 'urk' invoked when I realise that I am just as crazy about it as the rest of the baying lot. It is a personal theory of mine that every Indian is injected with a cricket virus when they go in for their vaccinations. Those polio drops: they aren't just polio drops. Personal theories aside the match of the century promises to make and break faiths. India, being such a reliable team, guarantees that nothing is guaranteed. Prayers waft heavenwards and everyone indulges in unabashed jingoism.

And what am I doing?

Research.

GAAAAAAAH!

Ah well, I have my trusted friends who have promised a blow-blow recounting of the match and besides it's just cricket. and my eyes blur with frustrated tears. Sanity returns a breath later and I resume my equable pose. After all when I become a great writer ( the scornful snorts are not appreciated) this terrible pain may fuel one of my deeply complex, angsty novels. Plus, now my humble blog becomes an archive: it is marking a momentous episode in history- with some luck and a lot of great plays it may be the day we bring the World Cup back where it belongs.

And now back to Research Methodology.

Food of love

2011-03-27T15:34:00.001+05:30

To have survived a world that is fast becoming quite terrifying is a miraculous feat. To have survived it without emerging a psycho a la Norman Bates or complete idiots like Harry and Lloyd is even more so. But the greatest surprise is that we have not only survived but also emerged determinedly rotund from a century obsessed with lines and angles- a tribute to the tenacity of human will and adipose.Our parents-bless them-may or may not have had a hand in this; but it goes without saying that they had a lot of help in this endeavor. It is my personal theory that zealous aunties and uncles are responsible for ninety percent of all failed diets or weight-loss programs. While aunties and uncles may be gently dissuaded from expressing their love food-wise, parents are a whole other story.Our alarming horizontal growth should have restrained our progenitors from expressing their love through culinary means, however they most often continue to pile our plates high with fragrant, delicious, ultimately fattening, love.

Apparently I was born skinny, but a couple of weeks later my mother was reeling under the weight of giant baby. While this aught to have warned my poor parents of large issues in the future, their love continued to make it's way down my gullet and I never complained. The pattern continues in my twenty-third year where a two week stint in home-ground leaves me trundling around with a couple of extra tyres. The airways would have charged me for excess baggage if it weren't for the fact that it was a personal attachment. If it isn't my mother who is an officially recognised gastronomical goddess, it is my fabulous father who is convinced I am starving myself in the food-heaven of Hyderabad. Day one saw biriyani, brownies, cookies, lace-like dosas, pure coconut chutney (untainted by disgusting gram-flour augmentations) and strawberries as a vain bid at healthiness. Day two went on the lines of cloud-like idlis with fiery onion chammandi, shawarma, kerala fish curry and rice and a nameless pudding that soared past yummy into the higher realms of palato-nirvana, . The next sixteen days that followed continued to test of the tensile strength of the human stomach(pasta, appams, turkey, cookies, chicken-tikka and cheesecake being the tip of the giant iceberg). Needless to say given a high enough incline I could have rolled all the way back.

As I huff my way up the stairs to my humble hostel room, I wonder what it is that brings out the culinary excess in our loved ones. The pain of leaving behind your family is reinforced with the knowledge that you leave behind all those delicious leftovers only to return to the"dreary desert sands of dread habit" and mess mush. Ah parting is such sweet sorrow: literally- given that I was treated to chocolate donuts the evening I left. As I munch on my mothers lovingly parceled brownies, I realise that it is in these bitter-chocolate moments that we return to our childhood. We are once again that five-year old who demanded dosas and chutney or drooled over cake that turned into cookies enroute or went gaga over pasta smothered with mozarella. And I suppose that's why they feed us silly:
In the face of our alien adult-hood, food becomes the only medium by which our parents can bring their child back as a child. And as you indulge in gluttony, heedless to the streak of tomato sauce smeared across your cheek, you experience time-travel in the simplest way: You are as you were once upon a time; fresh pristine and happily content in the firm belief that you are loved. And the reconfirmations of this belief makes its way all through your being with every home-made morsel that you intake giving you the courage to drink life to the lees- calories be damned.

To misquote the evergreen Forrest Gump - Life is like a box of chocolates: it'll make you horrifically fat and probably terribly unattractive but you'll be happy at the end. :)

Ps: And of course this was all just an elaborate ruse to justify my gluttony :P

Wake up Call

2011-01-29T04:22:00.004+05:30

For the other side of this story read this post

The Suprabhaatam plays as I beat time on the keyboard. Mornings have always eluded me. Quite literally. Whenever I wake up it's already gone away. Being of a decidedly nocturnal bent, the morning hour boded no Skylark-like happiness in my groggy eyes. The mater, on the other hand was of the annoying ilk of 'morning people'. Of course in her case 'morning' began sometime before the sun had even begun to contemplate scratching his shiny ass and shuffling across the sky, relieving the moon of his shift. Noises at 3 in the morning fail to alarm since the psyche has been inured to maternal shuffles in the said hour. Perhaps it is a lonesome time, or a time of great mental activity because we morning dozers were always assaulted by different kinds of wake-up artillery besides the usual "WAKE UP!". My mother is, was and always will be a highly resourceful, very creative individual. As a result we could never know what ploy she would use to get us out of bed.

One of her favorites- especially when we were little- was the 'April Mayile' approach. Following the inaugural 'wake up' (which by the way would definitely retrieve you from la-la land in the first decibel) she would then proceed to sing the jaunty song while accompanying it with appropriate prods in highly ticklish terrains. Pretty soon we'd be convulsed in giggles and awake. Of course this method began to yield less success as flesh became less sensitive and mentalities more stubborn. From that crisis was born the Mumble Mode. She would snuggle in with us and then begin mumbling wake up words in a continuous monotone that penetrated our sleep-hardened skulls like water cracking limestone. A tad time-consuming but definitely effective. Of course it did backfire once in a while when the calibration of the monotone slips from alarm-clock to lullaby. In which case a few minutes later our half-conscious psyches will register the waker's slipping hold on wakefulness and snuggle back into the blankets assured of a few extra winks.Unfortunately, this could not save us for long. The new and improved version of the Mumble Mode morphed into a singularly successful step: The Cold Toes Syndrome. No comfortably warm human body can fail to jerk awake at the introduction of icy cold toes anywhere near it's epidermis. One foot in the blanket and we were wide and unhappily awake.

Of course all these approaches are reserved for situations where time and interest allow for such indulgences. The most commonly used technique was the 'Yell and Tell'. The name says it all. However my mother, being of an exceptionally creative bent added her own twist to this simple method. Rather than wasting her time coming all the way to the bedroom or thereabouts, she chooses to be comfortable wherever she is and yell her summons. True there is nothing remotely fresh about this, but wait- observe the master. Much like the brain-fever bird, the maters cry is characterised by a continuous ascending note. But this note is tinged with menace and a pleading tone not unlike a cry for help. The urgency of the call grows with each passing repetition and regardless of the fact that logic knows better, your innate need to protect your mother comes to the forefront. Not for nothing is this personalised approach called the "Cry Wolf Version". Sure she's pulled this on you so many shameful times that it's a disgrace that you keep taking the bait, but you are driven by the possibility that she actually is in trouble. Suppose she were in danger and desperately needed you- and you were sleeping like dead dog while your mother was being harmed. How could you live with yourself! Oh the horror! As the notes get higher and higher and increasingly desperate your imagination begins to replay every terrible scenario that it can churn out and before you know it your feet hit the ground in a dead run. You follow the keening cries with speed that would put P.T.Usha to shame only to skid to a breathless, heaving halt in front of a unrepentantly grinning mother who nonchalantly offers you coffee while you stand there like a fool. @#$*!

But then again I shouldn't really be complaining. After all even the Gods have it bad. The Angelus is rung at the wee hours of the day, when I'm sure God would have just decided to take a break. And the Suprabhaatam hums its way across the horizon beating into poor Venkatesa's ear with it's repetitive nag. True both of these are beautiful to listen to and they are full of love. And they are sung with so much fondness that there is no way that the wakee can hold a grudge against the waker. And moreover these are markers of faith that remind the Gods that they are actually wanted in this world and...

Wait a minute...

I guess that's why I'm writing about alarming wake up calls and annoying "morning-sickness". The truth is we all want someone to be there to wake us up, to welcome us into a brand new day and to remind us we aren't alone. And now that we are all grown up there is no one to treat us like little gods. The Suprabhaatam plays in the background as I type this and I remember again the unrepentant grin on my mother's face. I guess you don't have to be a morning person to think fondly of them: both mornings and persons . :)

2010 in a playlist

2010-12-31T09:08:00.024+05:30

Happy New Year! Admittedly the delay was mostly because The Creator kept changing her mind about the songs.

It's that time of the year where people begin to make lists of what they did, didn't, did but can't tell anyone, didn't do and don't want to be nagged about and all that jazz. To sing the dirge of a dying year year is quite a depressing task. But everything is better with some music. So here is my year 2010 in a playlist.

January: Tubthumping- Chumbawumba
...I get knocked down but I get up again! You're never gonna keep me down!...

Full of optimistic bravado we started out the year convinced that we are prepared for pretty much everything that 2010 could throw at us. After all we were now veterans of the higher studies rookeries. We had had our trial runs with scary large scale exams, we had successfully juggled multiple papers and survived well enough albeit with the sacrifice of a great deal of our sanity, we had located and cultivated various food sources where earlier there was nothing but a leaking asbestos lean-to or mating frogs. And, most importantly, we had finally gotten the hang of the darned 'Cafeteria system' (nothing to do with food) which the University employed to confuse and subjugate the unsuspecting student masses. In the final semester of our MA.dness we had decided to sucker-punch the system and utilise our erstwhile hibernating potential to it's admittedly not too impressive limits. Armed with this cynical superiority we marched into the New Year. But the University was prepared for us. It was not just courses, but our very degrees that they dangled above the academic shredder. Dire circumstances pushed students to sacrifice their principles and bite the bull-shit bullet. The University may have cornered our comrades into taking up soul-killing courses for the sake of a credit tally but it could in no way make ensure the respect of these excuses for education or even attendance for that matter. Hahah hahahah!!!

February: Avanavan kurukkunna OST Ramji Rao Speaking
...avanavan kurukkunna kurukazhichidukumbam gulumaal...

Stuck in the courses we made the mistake of taking or not taking we were literally wallowing in the ditches that we dug up for ourselves. Plus the rebels who had previously flouted the attendance rules and lounged around the tea-stall were suddenly dragged down to dirty reality when profs threatened eviction. Of course the fact that we had lots of company made things better. And it was not just in the academic front but also other areas where we had to carry out trench warfare. This was especially true in the case of the female section of the population for whom the fast approaching end of the M.A also signaled the commencement of the Marriage Wars. On top of all this there is the mounting pressure of academics and futures. So, basically avanavan kurukkunna kurukazhichidukubam gulumaaal, gulumaaaaaaal (translation: the ones who fall into their own unraveling plots get golmaaled) .

March: Feeling hot hot Hot- Buster Poindexter
...feeling hot hot hot...

The heat is rising- not just because summer had begun but also because of the mounting academic and social demands. Being in your final semester places the trust of a lot of juniors who don't know any better on your ill equipped shoulders. There is a lot advice asked and a lot notes shared and the only way to tackle this intrusion of maturity into your bum existence is to determinedly bum around sipping stomach-lining searing sodas and living it up for as long as you can manage to pull it off without being written off as a waste of space ( the fact that you most definitely are one, being shelved for the time being.) And then of course the courses light a fire under our posteriors making us yell 'hot hot HOT' in less happy tones. The papers are turned out piping hot and we left with paper-burns and hot-foreheads. Besides this we are harried by the various applications and interviews that we are expected to tackle. Suffices to say, we are definitely "feeling HOT HOT HOT"

April: Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd
...There is no pain we are receding...

The heat waves of the Academic machine flashed into the mugginess of April driving us further and further into madness. The last semester zipped by in a landslide of papers and applications at a frenetic pace that can only find similarity in psychedelic hallucinogenic experiences (also an explanation why several of our acquaintances were permanently stoned towards the end of the sem) The situation reached such obscene levels of insane that at some point we reached plane of sublime indifference. It was strangely fitting that the final song of our Farewell Party (an event of much fun and frolic- thank you juniors) was Comfortably Numb. Added to the vaguely spaced out nature of these last days was the stoic resignation to the fact of our inevitable parting. Applications to faraway colleges were dispatched, while others finalised their work contracts, still others hunted for apartments here and elsewhere and the air was heavy with the exhalations of so many good byes. A zen-like equanimity descended upon our heated heads and we began living the lines, numbing ourselves. Perhaps this is what they call growing up?

May: Zephyr Song- Red Hot Chili Peppers
...and in this perfect weather, we'll find a place together...

Human resilience kicks into hyper-drive and we decide that Zen is best as the name of a car. May fills us with a sense of chilled out purpose, more accurately with the optimistic belief that a lack of purpose is a good thing. After all that way all our options remain open and we would maintain an optimum level of flexibility. Remember what John Lennon said- "Life's what happens when you are busy making other plans." Besides, we had sent the applications,we had written most of the tests, and what tests remained we would surely breeze through. We were young, brilliant minds that any institution would be dim, dumb and missing half a brain to reject. We would make it, it's only natural.

June: What's Up- Four Non-Blondes
...What's going on?!...

Apparently it wasn't so natural. Stepping into June our youthful optimism waned in the face of the daunting task of writing frighteningly broad-based (syllabus-wise) large scale national and/or entrance exams while simultaneously placing our eggs in every basket in sight. The noose around our necks seemed to get tighter and tighter as interview after after interview produce only lukewarm results or none at all. Hope grows fainter and our faith in an inevitable destination grows weaker. We are left feeling betrayed by a world which should by all means help us out and instead treats us with indifference.

July: Perfect Symmetry- Keane
...Who are you? What are you living for?...

Disillusionment lead to desperation. Waiting. The interview. Waiting. Still waiting. Waiting again, only now on a list. Waiting for some one else to take the fall so you can step in. Waiting for something to turn up for some space to be made. Waiting. waiting, waiting at every door. And every door leaves us waiting. Until finally at long long last, you find a place. And then you wonder why exactly you wanted to get there in the first place. What are you doing?

August: Mehendi Laga ke Rakhna OST DDLJ
...lene tujhe o gori, aayenge teri sajna...

All the existential angst is shelved to make way for the the great wedding/ run up to another great wedding. Life is all about living: the whys and wherefores make themselves known only after it's all done. And things like marriage, and avoiding the same remind you of the importance of your life. True, it may be just another speck in a large kaleidoscope of specks but it all the same, it is a speck that adds colour. And so we swish our silks and coordinate our jewelery and have a blast. After all, things always work out. Just keep moving on, dance to the music and stampede the questions into the dirt.

September:Hide and Seek- Imogen Heap
...where are we? What the hell, is going on?...

The return to university grounds is also accompanied by a return to unwanted reality. While the reality aspect was unavoidable, the sense of sinking in a malignant sea of routine while everyone else seems to be drifting at the very least is disquieting and leaves one feeling stranded in a sealed off bubble. Of course you always knew that ultimately you are on your own, but against all good sense you expect constancy in those that pledge it. Of course you knew that it is only foolish to expect in the first place. Sometimes it really hurts to be right. And so for what seems like the longest time you crunch yourself into a tight wad of cold and wait for the thaw to break, all the while reminding yourself that even this will pass.

October: I'm Yours- Jason Mraz
... Open up your mind and see like me, open up your plans and damn you're free...

And it did pass. The oncoming winter monsoons brought not only rain-clouds but also beloved parted friends. October was the month of plans and visitors. It was also the month of revelations. As the monsoons broke above our heads so did the diffidence between those left behind. And once you find out you are not alone in this madness, suddenly everything becomes sane again. Or rather it remains insane but you don't mind anyway. Friends: they either throw you into the abyss or save you from it.You discover that there were a lot of others who were feeling just as lost and that there are still more who remain true even when others do not: their constancy underscored by the fact that age did not wither nor distance mar the infinite variety of the friendship shared. And most fortifying of all, you realise that all that's stopping you from being happy is yourself and so you go ahead and be as happy as can be.

November: The Call- Regina Spektor
... I'll come back when you call me, no need to say good bye...

November was the month of goodbyes. Some were more permanent than others. It is hard to lose a family member. Worse when he was in the prime of his life. What do you say to the parents who, in the winter of their lives, must lay their child to rest? What comfort can you offer the young mother and son who have been left behind? Loss is a lonely feeling.
But is it truly loss in this case?
After all, all the memories that you carry, all the signs of his life, aren't they proof of his continued existence? In every absence he will be present. The pain remains, but in a strange way doesn't he as well?

December: Time of Our Lives- Greenday
...it's something unpredictable but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life...

As 2010 wrapped it's arthritic joints in the memories of it's youthful jaunts we half-hearetedly embraced our academic life and prepared to write large-scale exams yet again only with less enthusiasm. The infinitely forgettable end of that pointless exercise also signaled the entry of new visitors. As if to make up for a less than dramatic genesis, the final tottering steps of the year featured role-reversals, revelations and retributions that aught to find place on the silver screen. While these surprises were unplanned there were other more organised ones that were pulled off with much elan and resulted in a quiet New Years eve punctuated with much conversation and camaraderie and long long walks down winding memory lanes.

To it's dying breath 2010 remained an exceptionally unpredictable year. At moments appearing slower than a glacier's descent and others faster than Santana's guitar-playing. And having zipped through it's ups and downs we emerge winded and disoriented but hopefully just a little wiser as well.

Happy New Year, readers of The World According to Me. It is as much an honor to write for you as it is honoring that you read what I create. The Creator hopes that the New Year brings with it goodness, wit and wisdom not only in The World According to Me but also in all your lives.

The Purs(e)uit of Happyness

2010-12-01T23:16:00.009+05:30

The sight of my wallet fills me with envy- why can't my stomach be as flat! An academic existence of the padawan stage is never conducive to financial comfort. More times than most one would find oneself trying to make the twain meet in the monetary sense without having to sell any pertinent (or impertinent) body parts. The stipend which is supposed to do the Vishnu act and incarnate in our times of need usually behaves like Godot and leaves us waiting. Whenever I meet my comrades who have ventured into occupation land and the corporate jungles I am besieged by a sense of doubt. What the hell am I doing here living the life of an academic lounge lizard when I should be out there making money and picking up health destroying habits. After all I have the work-load, the deadlines, the sign-in register. All that is missing the inflow of Gandhis.

But then again the impoverished student life has all its cheapskate perks. Your student nature entitles you to be unashamedly cheap. And the cheapness maketh the experience all the better. Living on the fringes of bankruptcy, thwarting the harsh fates of destitution, we become one with nature and lose our earthly inhibitions. Which is why we can walk away leaving negligible tips, fight with auto-drivers for the last extra rupee. I can even composed a ditty to celebrate our poverty stricken contentment! Or may be not- considering I'm a little short on words and most of my vocabulary needs to be trained into my assignment. But either way, The point is that nobody can pull off pilfering sugar sachets at coffee stations or stealing all the somf at the restaurant or causing a food deficit at a buffet like an impoverished student. And we wear our badge of kanjoosi with pride: we got it free! :D
And so here's my ditty anyway-

The lily needs no gilding
The sunset needs no paint.
All the bills are building
But our hearts will not grow faint.
Our pockets may be empty
But they will not be joyless
As long as there are freebies
We can still survive coinless :D

Terrible I agree, but like I said, we are economising. Until later, Cheers!

Tale as old as Tam (Brahm)

2010-10-01T17:07:00.015+05:30

And finally- the much awaited Tam-Brahm Wedding report!
Disclaimer: The longest post of them all.

Forget Endhiran, the Great Wedding was the most happening event of the year. After all, even Rajinikant with his multiple superhuman talents, cannot compete with the spectacle of the Tam-Brahm wedding. And the wedding that this avid anthropologist had the good fortune of observing was a confluence of both the Iyengar and Iyer sects of the Brahm Fold. This fact holds enormous significance given that the popular Iyengar proverb decrees that "to Iyer is barely human; to Iyengar is divine" and that all Iyers believe the Iyengars descended from a particularly dim breed of primates that forgot to evolve half-way through the process. But these prejudices were completely absent from the wedding in question. The only tension that may have prevailed would be surface-tension of incredibly distended tummies following meal after gigantic meal of rich mouth watering food.

The TB wedding I attended was a small affair spanning only three days, including the mehendi, in a hall huge enough to house a medium sized district. Being a member of any marriage party involves intense well-dressedness. This is especially so if you are (a)Female (b)Representing the bride's side (c) have friends like Nose-ring Girl who'd probably skin you alive and send your hide to Prada for a customised creation if you were anything short of haute couture. Besides this, when one is invited by ones friend to a wedding, one is honor bound to uphold her comrades reputation. Especially when the friend in question is Gunther and furthermore is the sister of the bride. Consequently, the author was uncharacteristically well turned out for three whole days (of course she recuperated by being a complete slob for the next week and a half.)Well-dressed in Tam-Brahm parlance usually involves several yards of silk. Kancheepuram, Mysore, China and every other Silk-country finds a foothold in the Tam-Bramh wedding hall. A truly blinding spectacle given that the shimmering silks are often complemented by glittering bling. But unlike their mallu neighbours, the TBs are more into textiles than the metal-works. This sari-fetish is satisfied by the various rituals which ensures that one would have to change saris at least twice a day.

Wearing ones own sari is a feat in itself. And in a wedding situation of the TB kind, sari drapers are in the greatest demand. The really good ones help the bride and the small fries help everybody else. Both Nrg and moi were employed in this knotty task. This of course meant that we were the last ones to exit the dressing room, leading to misguided assumptions of an exacting sense of fashion. While this a is mildly plausible characteristic in the ever-in-vogue NRG,it is truly ridiculous in the case of the author. Be that as it may, our sari tying stint was a chance to see several aspects of human nature. For example, the amount of sleep the tie-er had is inversely proportional to the number of times the pleats fall off the tie-ee. And it only takes one cranky baby tugging at your sleeve to realise how precious a single undone pleat is. And of course one cannot forget the Murphy's Law of Sari draping which was mentioned earlier- Regardless of how many you saved and how many you pilfered, the pins will always be missing. Another version of this law manifests in the issue of flowers. No South Indian Wedding is complete without it's garden-share of flower garlands- and these are not including the ones draped around the bride and the grooms necks. The jasmine strings are crucial to the TB look.It does not help that the Murphy's Law of jasmine-pinning is that, regardless of how many hairpins you use the flowers will fall off. This is of course assuming that you actually managed to locate the hairpins. Much like safety pins, hairpins too have an amazing propensity for disappearance.

But moving on from these hairy issues, we go to the next item of the dressing process. The bride, in all her brideness, must constantly be accessorised to complementary perfection. Which means that everyone in the dressing room must have some rudimentary knowledge of where exactly her belongings are. The subtleties of bridal accessories are mind-boggling. The dark brown bangles are different from the deep maroon bangles and the blue bangles must be replaced with the aqua bangles so that they go with the nth sari she will wear for the n-nth ceremony. In the background the minor characters barter jewelery between each other and help insert thick stemmed ear-rings into narrow ear-holes. Inadvertent swearing by either party is inevitable and highly embarrassing given that almost half of the population consists of the older generation or the younger generation. The last thing you need is the precocious, previously undetected six year old to walk up to the very prominent sixty year old loudly asking "Paati what is "!@#$" ? Akka just said that *angelic smile* ". There goes all your good-will and your friend stares daggers at you. Oops.

So now that the ladies and gents are decked out in their silks and clinking jewelery they proceed to the mandappam in the wake of the bride. The first day is more or less uneventful. Meaning there is only the nishcayathaarthum or engagement and a homam or pooja and another set of rituals and the interminable volley of photographs. The couple's starry-eyed look can be attributed to not just love but also continuous camera-flashes. While the bride and groom smile maniacally at the ever-ready cameras the others saunter over to the dining hall and proceed to gorge. The TB wedding feast is a tribute to the versatility of vegetarianism. Course after course of delicacies pile up on your palate until your digestive system cries out for mercy. Three days of this and you start developing a serious food aversion (thankfully and obviously short-lived of course). Breakfast consists of pongal, upma, idli,dosa,masala-dosa and just to make your stomach burst vadas and several un-named delicious savories and sweets and lots of ghee. Lunch is enriched with a variety of saadams,plain rice, poriyals, rasams, vadaams, diabetes/cholesterol inducing sweets and of course more ghee. Let's not forget tiffin which offers more vadas, dosas, idlis, complementary chutneys, savories and ghee. Dinner involves still more saadams, rice, curries and inevitably more GHEE. Squeeze us out and you could start an Amul Butter Co.

Meanwhile the couple continue to be fried under the glaring rays of effulgent photo-lights, their faces baked to form a unflinching 1000 watt smile. We the spectators mill around the dais sending them sympathetic glances while blessing our stars we aren't in the same position. While they are not being showered with blessings and beacons of dehydrating light the couple also have to be subjected to the garlanding. This is a phenomenon unique to the TB wedding as far as the author can say. Both families bring out a continuous stream of garlands blessed by different temples. The bride and the groom are draped with these offerings and then of course are obliged to pose for a photo with the same. It is all well and good when the garlands are of a normal or at least a manageable size. It is a whole new story when the happy couple are faced with a particularly large flowery confection. The poor bride and groom had just ridden themselves of a larger than common appendage and were nursing the kinks in their vertebrae, when a new procession of priests entered the mandapam and commenced yelling several unintelligible sanksrit shlokas which presumably blessed the couple with long life and happiness. All of this the bride and groom accepted with smiling equanimity, but then say saw what came after-wards. Borne by three people on either side were two gargantuan garlands that probably weighed a ton each. The Groom's eyes bulged, the bride mouthed an involuntary 'Oh my God!'. Both buckled visibly as the garlands were hoisted onto their necks. The bride and groom were then forced to stand Atlas-like while the photographers clicked away lazily. Marriage is a weighty affair.

Day two was the more 'happening' day, To begin with, the day began when the night was still in its toddler state. Two 'o' clock saw the hall buzzing with activity and the bride already shackled under heavy headgear and multiple make-up artists. M.S' Suprabhatam dallied with the annoyed cries of unwillingly awakened babies and almost babies. The general chaos was furthered by the fact that there was only one bathroom for more than twenty people. The Sari drapers ran helter-skelter searching for pins and grabbing pleats while the dressing room congregation collectively cursed the grooms-representative who hurried and harried us through out. Finally the bride,physical exertion and minimal sleep notwithstanding, emerged glowing like the sun in the east and proceeded to the mandappan to take part in the delightful Kasi Yatra. The Kasi Yatra is a ritual derived from the shaivite myth revolving around Shiva and Parvati's marriage. Apparently the missus kept the groom waiting and a rudimentary knowledge of hindu mythology will remind you that patience was not Shiva's strong point. Thankfully he was not inclined to burn everything to cinders and simply decided to huff away to Kasi. The bride's father noticed the absent groom, hurried after the stomping deity, mollified his ruffled sensibilities, got the groom back to the venue and all's well that ends well. The modern re-enactment involves the veshti-clad groom striding a few steps towards the direction of Kasi, a large umbrella/ walking-stick and fan in hand as props, and the bride's father or oldest uncle brings him back to the mandapam. There have been cases where the brides father actually fails to notice the groom walking away and the hapless groom is left wondering whether his in-laws were trying to get rid of him. In this case the situation was humorous simply because of the uncanny resemblance to the myth. The Bride was late to the mandapam and kept her ready-to-depart groom waiting impatiently, umberella-a-tapping. Several jokes and comments later the bride and groom are taken to the longish swing which is the venue for the quaint Oonjal ceremony which basically involved them swinging while being fed milk (why this lactose obsession???!!!) and family members sing for them. The author personally feels this harks back to the days of child-marriage where by this time both kids would be cranky, hungry and sleepy so a little milk and some humming would go a long way in assuring that the next item of the program runs hassle free. And this would be the madisar initiation.The future mother-in-law drapes the bride in 9 yards of torture whose method is shrouded in madness and mystique and which is guaranteed to be unflattering even if you have the figure of a model. It is a tribute to this particular bride's beauty that she could make even this monster sari look good.

In the time that it takes to roll the bride into the madisar, everybody else goes to have breakfast.Food is of course the venue for gossip and fashion tips. It was especially refreshing to be a part of this wedding because the author was not family, not brahmin and therefore NOT MATCH-MADE! Ah the happiness of it all. Besides this the author are also saved from being accosted by unknown uncles, aunts,uncles of aunts etc. demanding that she recognise them on the basis of a shortlived acquaintance during her gaga-googoo years.Meanwhile the Bride is saried and lead to the mandapam for the pinnacle of all the activities- the muhurtam. The author being short and the crowd being large could not record everything that happened. It suffices to say that the knot was finally tied and everyone shed a tear or a dozen for the overwhelming sentiness of it all. Ah love... sigh. Of course time had passed in the process and everyone goes for lunch and somebody remembers to offer the couple some water before they faint from exhaustion. Another homam and several photos and handshakes later, the bride changes her sari yet again, has lunch and goes for the funnest part of the wedding program-the Nalanggu.

The Nalanggu (another throw back to the days of child marriage) is a collection of games that guarantee loud comments lots of laughter and general bonhomie. The bride and groom are pitted against each other in mini-competitions of coconut rolling, pappadum smashing, garlanding (while being carried by the brothers of the respective parties) and more. And of course whoever wins apparently gets the upper hand in the marriage as well. The Nalanggu is also the perfect time for out-of-station friends to go and buy the wedding gift. Which is what the author was doing and hence ended up missing all the fun. Ah well... something's got to give. But on the flip side this also allowed for a rendezvous with the inimitable and evercharming Posh-Git The silver lining,ladies and gentlemen!

Post Nalanggu everybody gets to rest a little. Which really means there is time for the bride to dress and change into yet another sari for the evening function-but this time she is unhurried. The wedding reception is dedicated to photos.The bride and groom probably suffered from sunspots in their eyes for at least two weeks following this event. It is during this function that the author had the good fortune of meeting the surprisingly sane Crazybugga as well as enjoying the musical talents of Nithyshree who was sadly greatly ignored by the thronging crowd more interested in gossiping, getting photographed and heading for the dining hall. I guess some things are common regardless of what kind of wedding you are attending. At long last the wedding comes to a close and the bride- who changes into yet another, less grand(?) sari- heads off to the new home. And the friends, sister and mother gather together hit by the sudden realisation that she has actually gone. That she is now a wife and that things are suddenly so different.

But such is life, change comes on swift,harried chaotic wings.And it's beauty lies in its uncontrolled flurries that sweep us away in its bewildering turns. After all what is life without drama and excitement to colour it. And all's well that ends well.

Free-dumb

2010-09-10T02:52:00.008+05:30

The Tam-Brahm wedding will have to wait- partly because it's a formidable package to fit into a single blog post. And partly because I have just attended another wedding this weekend. And too many weddings are a fast-track for your funeral. So as a short breather let us look into another frame.

The 'Offer' phenomenon is a product of of modern retail which has successfully harnessed the inherent human something-for-nothing instinct, better known as 'greed'. The words 'Sale', 'Discount' and most importantly 'Free' are sparkling lures to bait willing wallets.We would probably even accept steaming barrels of toxic waste if it came free. "It might come in handy at some point of time..." we reason, as reason flies out the window.

The Freebie Fetish was drilled into me during a shopping expedition into the savage territories of Big Bazaar. One of the hazards of getting a single room is that there is a lot of expenditure on infrastructure and no one to delegate work to. And thus I found myself marooned in a vast retail jungle hunting for curtains, dustbins, wash-cloths, bottles, cups and the like. And needless to say I amassed a bill that could support the primary education of three children in the LFC convent. While I struggled under the weight of the receipt, valiantly holding back my tears at the looming financial crisis, the billing attendant magnanimously declared "You get 1kg sugar free!" Please consider that at that point of time I had had enough of Big Bazaar and all it entailed. All I wanted was to nurse my sorrows in a comfortable horizontal position. Mumbling an incoherent mutter I headed towards the exit. "Madam! 1kg sugar, Madam!FREE!" he yelled, seeing that I wasn't heading towards the freebie center. "FREE!" he repeated rolling his eyes in consternation that I was actually saying no to a free item.

Let me make my case. What was I going to do with 1kg sugar, free or otherwise. I didn't have any cooking facilities and lived in a hostel. What was I supposed to do with 1kg sugar?? But in the face of the billing-guy's desperate exhortations I wavered. "Hmm.. it's free.. and I just might need it.. and it's FREE... it's FREE...FREE" Logic blurred. I heard myself say, "Where can I pick it up." The guy gave a relieved smile, the world was right again. "The Customer Service Centre."

Finding the Customer Service is a task in itself. And it becomes herculean when you are lugging three shopping bags at least 2kgs each. I went all the way to the third floor only to be told it's in the first floor. And since the escalators were too full, the ramps were the only way down. A trundling descent later the customer service center was located- at the end of a queue as long as the Nile. Reason reasserted itself.'Go back home you twat! It's not as if you have nothing better to do! You don't even need the sugar!'The mental-slap revived my flagging intellect and turned my feet purposefully toward the nearest exit. Self-flagellating under my breath I handed the billet to the security and prepared to stomp my way back to hostel when a voice stopped me. " Amma, 1kg free sugar." The guard had taken it upon himself to actually do his job and check my bill and could not believe that I would let a free deal pass by un-reaped. Once again I tried to explain that I really didn't want the sugar. And yet again my protestations fell on deaf ears. In fact the guard was so astonished at my disinterest that he called another of his bretheren to augment his case. "It's free Amma. It's Free. Free...free...FREE... FREE..."

I believe I suffered a black out because the next minute I found myself at the end of the never-ending line of freebie-grabbers. An hour later with aching feet and screaming shoulders I shuffled up to the front of the counter to get the godforsaken sugar. But the universe conspired to make me pay for my greed. The only packet they had at the counter had a hole in it. Another half an hour wait ensued in which I endured the glowers and glares of other customers and learnt several varieties of swear words. Finally sugar-laden I escaped to freedom only to realise that the sun had set and consequently the autos were refusing to stop. The end of the day saw me paying double to get back and encumbered by an extra packet of sugar with no place to keep it. Ah the humanity! But such is life- even the free must be earned. Even if it leaves you feeling dumb. And in all fairness the sugar isn't a waste! I bought coffee and milk to go with it and a nice dabba to keep it in and...
I bow my head in utmost defeat.

Wedding Chronicles 2: Pre-Wedding and Post-Wedding Stress

2010-09-02T10:47:00.013+05:30

Disclaimer: Long Post dead ahead

The Wedding is supposed to be one of the most important days of your life. Probably because it takes off several years out of your life in the process. The Wedding Day is the culmination of several mini-madnesses. While the locus of all the Wedding madness is the bride and groom, they are greatly exempted from the background drama. The minor characters have the responsibility of bringing together the various aspects of the giant chaos called The Wedding.

It begins with the Inviter-Invitee tussle, kicked off by the Invites. The design of the invite takes on as much importance as the blueprints for the newest space-shuttle. Prototypes are selected and rejected. Blood pressures ping pong off the walls and stress levels hit the roof. The family is driven to the brink of insanity, haunted by the memory of the nasty comments they had hurled at other invites and are spurred on to avoid a similar fate. Just when the design gets finalised, the extended family decides to give their 'constructive criticism', successfully destroying any previously established consensus. And when the invites are finally decided there comes the task of actual invitation. Armed with packets of murkus and laddoos (chips and jalebi is another favorite combination) the inviters trudge along to do their dreary duty. The Murphy's Law of Wedding invitations states that regardless of how hard you try to remember everyone, you will always end up forgetting someone. And that someone is most often the most cantankerous kin in the fold. The appeasement process is penance for all the sins you might have committed in your past life.(Come to think of it, the Wedding as a whole is like that.) Finally, when everyone has been more or less mollified, the process of clothes shopping is initiated.

The Shopping Saga is an epic tale in itself. And it is a painstaking process not just for the females. In fact it easier for us women because we have the advantage of choice. Men have it harder because there simply isn't enough variety. There are only so many decent borders for mundus or colours for kurtas. And one must remember that in the drama that is the Wedding, everything is a topic of gossip. Insignificant details like where the bride/groom's clothes were bought, how the sari bought for aunty A is the same colour as aunty B's, how cousin X's dress was not of the same quality as cousin Y's, uncle P's mundu has more kasavu that uncle Q's- become hot news and are discussed at length. In the course of the Wedding there is always going to be at least one member of the family bursting into tears for reasons that barely brush against reason. As you can see, drama is an integral part of The Great Indian Wedding. Another caucus race is the process of housing all the migrating family members. Unknown aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins of cousins, the friends of said cousins etc. congregate for the wedding relying on the family for domicile. And Dubai uncle and family cannot sleep without an AC, Madras Aunty must have dinner at 6:30 because she is diabetic, crusty Calicut uncle wants his dinner piping hot even if he comes late, Bangalore cousin has an army of brats that need to be baby-sat and Delhi grand-uncle wants fresh milk in the middle of the night. Suddenly the unpredictable bouts of crying make a lot of sense. But all this is worth it- After all, they are all here to celebrate the joining of two individuals in a hopefully life-long relationship.

Speaking of the two individuals, the wedding preps guarantee that the couple do not get an undisturbed moment together. If it's not aunts barging in to feed them sweets then it's uncles cracking dirty jokes with complementary whacks on the back or other parts of the anatomy. And then of course there are the annoying cousins who have a habit of walking in at exactly the wrong time with an unrepentant 'oops' and to drag either one of the parties in question for some interminable errand. It's enough to make the lucky couple want to elope to the nearest register office and get it over with. But then again I guess abstinence is good for the soul. Or perhaps they their eagle-eyed guardians detain them from making an escape. Either way, by the time the preparations end the couple are pretty much worn out and decide there is no point in resistance.

The wedding itself is, as previously discussed, madness. The lunacy of this program is underscored by the fact that the female members are necessarily dressed in saris/dressy salwar kameezes or churidars and most often are shod in high-heels. Between all the thalam carrying, the errand-running and engaging in the general obstacle race that is a wedding, your lower limbs begin to hate you, your feet decide that you are the devil and your toes will never be the same again. Besides this physical pain there is also mental trauma. One is constantly waylaid by unknown kin who demand that you recognise them. It does not matter that you only saw thrice when you were still in your diapers. It is a curious trait that the regular attendees of the weddings circuit always remember each other. This feat of memory is accomplished by keeping track of wardrobes. Observe the logic:"Oh yes she is XYZ, PQR's sister's husband's cousin's grand-aunt's neighbour. Remember? she was wearing the same red sari for LMN's wedding as well..."
The wedding arena is also the scene for the planning of prospective weddings as well.Single individuals within the age range of 19 to 30yrs are subjected to painful matchmaking. The popular "you're next" makes its rounds. The 'you're next'-at-funerals routine fails miserably because most of these spiritually inclined matrimony.moms (and dads too, mind you) will only smilingly reply, "And then we shall bless you from above" It is enough to drive one to distraction. Thankfully they are easily distracted by the story of a distant cousin who got divorced or another one who refuses to marry.

And of course, the great Sadhya discussions. Every minute detail ranging from the degree of green-ness of the banana leaf on which the food is served to the over sweetness of the perfect payasam comes under the microscope and God help you if there is a shortage. A Mallu wedding, as discussed earlier, revolves around the food. Considering this, one would think that eating wouldn't be too difficult a task to manage. But for the close members of the Family getting a taste of the Sadhya is a formidable goal. For one thing, there is the general edict that you get to eat only after the guests. But then again the human body is programmed to handle only so much hunger. The Murphy's Law of lunch eaters states that even if you spent the entire afternoon waiting around, it is only when you put the first morsel of food in your mouth that they call you for the family photo. The photo session itself is fraught with pitfalls. Someone is always left out, or someone else is convinced that the photographer deliberately clicked when they were in their least flattering avatars. And once the album comes out, an unending stream of shrieks and humphs follow in the wake of every leaf turned. The photos are always an entire skeleton of contention.Be that as it may, the one thing one must always remember about Indian weddings- and the South Indian Wedding in particular- is that everyone is too full to hold a grudge. "So what if I look like a zombie in that pic," muses aunty M "at least I look better than Aunty N! Orange?? What was she thinking?!" And aunty N thinks " Ah Orange was always my colour. But what is wrong with M? I think she forgot her medication..." And then their thoughts blend as they sigh in unison ".. let's get some betel leaf and head home." And this is where everyone heaves out a sigh of relief.This does not apply to immediate family of course. They are most likely scrambling to get the harassed bride into her nth sari and matching accessories while simultaneously organising the welcome ceremony back home. The mobile phone is a wonderful thing.

The sun finally sets on the Wedding day and the bride and groom are ushered into their private scented chamber- where they probably sleep like the dead considering how exhausted the wedding left them. And the other players in the drama exit stage wherever to get some of their own much needed rest. The rest, as they say, is history.

Next up- the Tam-Brahm wedding.

Wedding Chronicles1: The Mallu Marriage

2010-08-31T11:34:00.012+05:30

Disclaimer: Much like it's subject, this post is going to be very long.

The inimitable and ever-aged Clint Eastwood once commented that "Marriages are made in heaven. But so are thunder and lightning." I myself completely affirm this view. However I am but a minuscule minority. This fact is confirmed by the fact that I had the opportunity to witness two weddings in the short span of the last two weeks and will be at another one in September. The Indian Wedding is a dazzling experience. Not just because of the blinding amounts of bling and flash photography, but also for the sheer spectacle of the whole program. Unlike the sedate and neatly packaged concept of popular weddings, the Indian Wedding-and more specifically the South Indian Wedding- is a riot of happy chaos which relies on anarchy for successful execution. Furthermore there is a marked sadistic trait within these functions that will prove curious to the budding anthropologist. The following accounts will substantiate the previous generalisation.

To follow chronology, we will start with the Malayalee Wedding. As a disclaimer I state that my presence at this spectacle was entirely my mothers fault. The Mallu wedding is perhaps the shortest variety, lasting all of ten minutes with the main attraction being the sadhya that follows. But one must keep in mind the Mallu propensity for extension (a passing glance at any Mallu serial will affirm this). After all,where's the drama in a quickie ceremony? And we Mallus love Drama. Our politics is proof enough. And so in a hasty bid to add some masala to the bland molakushyam we split this simple ceremony into three parts- the Thalikettu, the Kalyanam and the Sadhya+photo-session.The first part more or less adheres to the original scheme and consists mostly of praying in the temple of choice and tying the thali. But the fact that it is conducted in an ungodly hour on the lines of 4:30 am makes it the most painful part of the entire program. Just this small detail ensures anarchy. Imagine, if you will, the bawling of irritated woken up babies, the gurgle of reluctant taps followed by the badaboom of banged doors as time flies and delayed bathers become desperate. Added to this is the fact that females in attendance must necessarily be decked out in Saris or at the very least an incredibly itchy salwar-kameez/churidar. The donning of these are by themselves chaotic to say the least. Any sari draper will be acquainted with the Murphy's Law of Sari wearing. No matter how many there are and how many you saved, the pins are always missing. Furthermore, negotiating sari pleats when you'd much rather be dallying in dreamland only adds to the pain. And when one is as determinedly nocturnal as the author, the morning Muhurtham is nothing short of excruciating.The knowledge that all this pain is merely to catch a barely noted tying of a thali, which even an untimely sneeze would render unnoticed only makes it more frustrating. Thankfully, this time I merely had to attend the second half- the more showy Kalynanam.

This consists of four parts: 1.Escorting the Groom, 2.Escorting the Bride 3.Exchanging garlands 4.Lots of blinding photographs. All this escorting means a lot of escorters. Again it is the womenfolk who have to do all the work. Females within the age group 8-30yrs are rounded up and armed with thalams- plates carrying flowers, rice, a small lamp and other such items. The lasses are lassoed into two parallel queues flanking the escorted- probably to stop them from making a last minute bolt for freedom. All this seems very neat and orderly. Ah if only... These processions are notorious not just for the fact that it kills your feet, but also because your hair is constantly in danger of catching fire what with a plate with a lamp right behind you. It's true. It happened to me. And at the wedding that I went to it happened to my cousin. I prudently showed up only afterwards. The thalam girls carefully accompany the groom and later the bride to the dais where there is always a traffic jam. Inevitably something is knocked down and everyone is praying that it wont be a lamp.

The wedding that I attended featured a silk clad groom who looked cheerful and happy- probably because he was reminded of his reassuring comfort whenever he chanced to glance at his mate whose face one could barely make out from within the crown of jasmine and the shield of jewelery. It is my firm belief that if one were to shoot a Mallu bride in the chest her multitudinous gold chains would save her with nary a smudgy bruise to show for it. This particular bride was encased in a sheath of gold which swayed with her uncomfortable movements to reveal even more gold in the form of the zari on her Kancheepuram Sari. The poor lady literally creaked as she walked(a feat of great strength and endurance), what with all the metal she had on. But it truly is a tribute to the marriage impulse that despite such obvious difficulties she still looked very happy. Somewhere in the time that it takes the bride to lumber up the stage and lumber down to sitting position, most of the audience rush to the dining hall.

This is the scene for several almost-riots. Mallus love their Sadhya. And anyone who comes in the way is at risk of being trampled. Several jaws and joints have borne the brunt of particularly zealous eaters kept away from their mouth-watering goal. And once there, they make it a point to vocalise their demands as well loudly declaim/proclaim the quality of the food/servers/the serving/anything remotely food related. So while the crowd mills around the dining hall the bride and groom are abandoned to exchanging their garlands in the face of an indifferent trickle of individuals who decided to wait for lunch or carry on conversations. Following the exchange of garlands the couple are subjected to a stream of relatives who feed them milk.It is a custom guaranteed to render anyone lactose intolerant. Several gulps of milk interspersed with banana morsels (... is there a metaphor here?...) the bride and groom raise themselves to stand in the glare of several camera flashes as the guests, burping and satisfied after their hard-fought lunches,make their way towards the duo to give them gifts and grin for the cameras.The groom has it better- at least he is not weighed down by his apparel. But the bride gives meaning to the phrase 'grin and bear it'. Several hours of photography later the bride and groom finally get a bite to eat. This too is monitored by the cameramen who vie with the paparazzis on the intrusion scale. So instead of eating ravenously, as they most likely would be by then, the bride and groom are forced to take delicate, pretty bites. Ah poor souls.

At long last they are released from their wedding. Breathing a sigh of relief they make a break for freedom only to be waylaid by relatives who say a million good byes over and over again without actually leaving. The last I saw as I left the venue was the tableau of the groom and bride with frozen smiles bidding the fiftieth farewell to the same aunty who had circled them two minutes ago. Ah marriage is a difficult prospect- but the wedding is the actual killer.

More on weddings at a later date.

2010-08-05T19:53:00.006+05:30

It has been a while, hasn't it?
My supervisor- understanding as he is- will probably go into an apoplectic fit at this blatant stalling in writing. And by now he'd have written me off as a lost cause to good writing. But I shall smile in the happy knowledge that he doesn't read my blog :D

It has been while. The hurdles of final submissions, entrance exams, doubtful admissions, interminable tension-filled waiting followed by interminable procedure are all valid justification for the inexcusable hibernation. But more than all this, the evaporation of any creative impulse is the true culprit.
In every writers career there comes a period of intense emptiness. One might find subjects to write about but never the inclination or the excitement to actually write. Everything feels fake and hollow. You peel the skin off your writing you find only a puff of fetid empty air. There have been days when I spent hours staring at an unrelenting page only to slink back defeated. So much so that I considered ending it all. After all, it is an insult to The World According to Me if I am unable to contribute anything of worth to it.

It was somewhere around this period that Friendship Day came and went. The next day was punctuated by phone calls and wishes from friends laden with remorse for having forgotten the event. This guilt was completely unnecessary considering these were comrades who have stuck by my side through thick and thin. So why does it all supposedly boil down to a single day? After all the years and the experiences that we shared, how can a tiny thimble of twenty-four hours be capable of containing all the copious times we have shared. In that cusp of pragmatism I had an epiphany. The World According to Me is not the story of a day. It has been my friend, my confidant. It has suffered through my bad phases, laughed and smiled with my good ones and always been there. The World According to Me is my friend. And I cannot give up on my friends.

Here's hoping that I can be a better friend and that this dry phase too shall pass. And while the going might get tough, I will keep trying to add more and more to The World According to Me. Because that's what friends do. :)

2010-07-04T23:31:00.003+05:30

Time stumbles over the crack in the watch face

...

Inside the chasm we float in timeless limbo-
Like leaves caught in cobweb strings,
spinning in slow-motion
While minutes melt above our heads.
We brush each other
in our graceful pirouettes-
Cherishing that glancing graze
in the veins of our Beings-
Letting the corpuscles make electrified love
Charged with the current of the ephemeral circuit.

You and I, we hide
In this secret cusp of temporal amnesia
Holding each other in brushes and strokes
Knowing that time will not be fooled long
By our absent presence.
We touch with careless care
Knowing that, should Time stumble over us
We will be pulled out squalling
Into an alien world
To be herded by managing minute hands
Into lines of days and years
Never to touch or be touched ever again.

...

We heard Time stumble.
The leaves twirl again in pointless grace,
The protean dimensions more precious
With every numbered minute.
Veins are traced and colors memorised
To comfort in cold remembrance.
A final timeless touch and
The leaves pause in an amber moment...

Stumbling Time picks up its feet,dusts its robes
And marches on again.
The leaves swirl towards each other.
We are safe.
For now.

Fringe Benefits

2010-06-20T12:18:00.004+05:30

Of all my many physical excesses (and there are many excesses in the physique, I assure you) it is the cranial furr that has caused most familial strife. Coming from a stock of Class A (or should I say Class ‘Yay’) Mallus, as the female offspring, it is imperative that I follow the edict of hair-iditary long-locks. Rapunzel was the ideal to strive for. The fact that I am more on the lines of Rumplestiltskin did nothing to sway the family's convictions. Any petition for a haircut was faced with fierce opposition on the likes of an Indian parliament session, and just about as many stipulations as a government form. And, hot-blooded Mallu that I am, I endeavoured to make sure that these stipulations were almost always broken (yes, yes-Don’t ask me, I don’t understand why they haven’t disowned me either)Living in Chennai, and later in Hyderabad has convinced me that the less hair you have the less hair you’ll lose. And while long and floating is all well and good, long and bushy is definitely not. I have it from reliable sources that looking like a walking hedgerow is entirely unbecoming. And besides, where’s the fun in long hair. There isn’t really much you can do with it except may be tie it up. And since my hair takes after me, it’ll probably escape its bonds and become a nuisance anyway. It’s not like my family has anything against barbers. The concept of a ‘haircut’ itself was a family mandate. It was the amount of hair cut that raised questions and voices. But truly, I ask you gentle reader, what’s the use of getting a haircut if there is nothing to show for it? And I am not planning to pay good money for a wimpy snipper-snapper here and there. But all these perfectly sane arguments went unheard. And every homecoming was unfailingly inaugurated with a hair-raising ‘YOU CUT YOUR HAIR AGAIN?!”It was time for compromise. I needed hair-citement and they needed length. And that is when I came upon a brilliant plan.

The apple fell while I was trapped at the hairstylists’ getting a trim. There I was, draped in the dreadfully shapeless cape thingamajig (I think all barbers are supplied enmasse with Jayalalita’s cast-offs) lulled to half-sleep by the snipetty-snap of the flying scissors, when I noticed my forehead emerge like a humpback whale out of the waves of my hair. ‘Was it always so prominent?’ I wondered. A need to mask the size of the gargantuan appendage gripped my meagre but fastidious vanity. Meanwhile the hair lady had finished the miniscule trim job and was proceeding with the brush-and-fluff routine, signalling the impending end of the session. Must do something, must do something, must do something, must do- Aha! A few minutes later I sashayed out of the salon sporting a swath of hair veiling my forehead. The fringe was an instant hit with the peers and a dramatic change from my usual sedentary hair-style. Plus, the length had been retained so the Family couldn’t fault it. Brimming with fashionable confidence I alighted from the aircraft and marched smartly to my waiting parents and brother who were, I realised with assurance overflowing, staring in wonder. Filled with a sense of job-well-done-ness, I waited smugly for them to take back the usual greeting. And the first thing they said was “PLEASE GET A HAIRCUT!”

The fringe did not go down well with them. And the fact that it refused to stay down due to the burgeoning humidity and consequent frizz further aggravated their hurt aesthetic sensibilities. I realised they truly detested it when my brother, the greatest champion for hair-growth, as we have discussed earlier, offered to personally escort me to the nearest haircutting salon and see to it that the thing got shorn off. And that’s when it hit me- the best way to get haircut sanctions was to figure which style will annoy them most! And now I wait for my hair to grow out so I can try out irregular swaths or may be streak it blue or some similar hairscapade. The fringe became a learning experience in negotiation: The best way to compromise is to present a worse scenario. If you think about it, that’s how unfinished work gets completed; whenever we are faced with something we don’t want to do, we automatically find other things that must be done or should have been done earlier. The logic is slightly hairbrained, but so are humans, eh? So let’s not split-hairs and focus on the fringe benefits of dysfunctionality. Or so I tell my maligned Family who regularly tear their hair in frustration at my insanities. All I can say to them is, I might give you gray hairs but I do love you. 

I'm a good sport-II

2010-05-24T01:18:00.003+05:30

Yours truly has never been the sporty type. But I do come with particularly thick skin of titanium-like tenderness. So when the University Football Association's girl's team lacked female players my recruitment was based solely on my utter lack of shame. But even the shameless cannot be utterly clueless on the field. And hence, in an uncharacteristic fit of initiative, the fledgling footballer in me shuffled into dubious life.

The day of my initiation into the field was an eventful one. Under the able guidance of the football-obssessed Miester and the ever affable Floppy-hair we women tried to learn the ropes of the game.During the course of our exploits, we had gathered other spectators and players in the form of the children of the staff who lived on campus. In the spirit of generosity, they were augmenting our numbers and helping us out with our technique (hah hah hah).It suffices to say that any one of these kids (age range 3yrs-8yrs)could play better than all of us football-illiterate women put together.Even the two-year old who kept wandering near the goal-post knew more than us.(show offs!)While it was a comfort to know that I was not the only novice on the field, a few brief minutes was all it took to confirm that I was the most sports-challenged of the lot. Though aim was alien, speed was MIA and stamina was a distant dream, I did have more than my fair share of thick skin and I have been told that I can be terribly stubborn (not true, by the way). Therefore with the tenacity of Sisyphus I proceeded to continue playing.

Two hours of frustration later, I finally began to get the hang of the game. I was not confusing football with handball, I was making contact with the ball rather than just dirt and the ball was actually going where I wanted it to!At this juncture we decided to play an actual game. And- yes! I was playing! In the rising tide of euphoria I joyously made contact (with my foot this time!) with the ball, sending it flying in a splendid speeding shot straight into the goal post and- SMACK!!!- right into the face of the sportive two year old.

The field froze in a tableau of shock- partly because the kid was hit, partly because the ball actually went into the post and partly because it was me who managed to kick it.While we can call the child cranially challenged for carelessly ambling into a goal-post,we must also take into consideration that there was no precedent of the ball coming anywhere near said goalpost in the two hours that we played. And if it ever did end up there by mistake, it was usually with barely enough velocity to burst a bubble. Either way, we were awakened from our shocked coma by the glass-shattering 'waaaaaaaaah' issued by the injured party.

The kid was soon mollified and probably wont go anywhere near a goalpost for a while, if ever.And I now carry the scarlet-letter of child-abuser. As both Miester and Floppy-hair constantly remind me, I have gained a reputation as having a wonderful talent for kicking minors. They'll probably hire me in juvie-discipline boards soon. Ah well, it's not like I ever had much of a reputation anyway.And besides, I did kick the ball. Into the goal too! Sure there was a kid in between but you can't have everything now, can you.
The irony is that after all the work and rigorous practice everyday, I never got to play. Ah well... doesn't stop me from being a good sport eh? :D

Apologies and Excuses

2010-05-15T20:58:00.006+05:30

I believe the title says it all.
I have been suffering from an acute case of AIDS (Assignment Induced Deep Stress- term courtesy Dr.Thyme; the 'Stress' may be replaced by 'S**t' whenever/wherever applicable)which successfully dammed any creative impulse which survived the onslaught of two years of intense academics. To cut a long and infinitely uninteresting story short: 'writers block' was merely one of the bricks in the colossal pyramid entombing my creative powers.

If this were a marginally fairer world, this post would signal a golden era of increased creativity. Sadly we live in our world. The AIDS (now definitely 'S**t'), has developed complications in the form of rashes of exams and scabs of paperwork which does nothing to dissolve the block in the creative-vascular tissues.

Ah but why do I do this? Why mar your pristine face with the pimples of my failings. I try yet again to fashion a form from the flaky earth of my fancy and all that rises is a the slow static dust of intention that weighs down in your lungs, making you cough up intermittent puffs of that forgotten thing called Soul. I raise my hands, poise my fingers over the board, but gravity and grace fail me. That swell which once rose into your bosom, carrying you upwards until you are balanced joyously on the crest of the wave from which you are not afraid to fall: That glorious swell is now merely a confused trickle too lost to actually make its way out. It is not a void. Rather it is full to bursting: I can hear the voices, sense their scent, feel the hum and the sizzle of the radioactive presence. But, like figures behind a veil, these formless somethings refuse to materialise.I seem to have forgotten the way to that 'Away' that we all draw from.

It was Coleridge who perhaps best expressed this incredible loneliness. Bereft of the words that have always been your friends, what are you left with? What can you believe in? Where do you search to find a vanished door? Faith spins lugubriously, suspended on the gossamer thread of hope and I remember why I began writing this post. They say everything returns if you call it enough. I keep calling with the desperate hope that what is hiding will reveal itself soon. After all, '...if winter comes, can Spring be far behind.'

Sublimation

2010-05-03T23:07:00.004+05:30

Something fished out of the archives.

It was all so clear in her head.

She would slip her arm into his, look straight into his eyes so he would know she wasn’t joking and say the lines with the blasé seriousness of someone making a general suggestion on the lines of adding more blue in the wardrobe, a better haircut, the effectiveness of odomos over mortein, a walk around the perimeters. The harmlessness of the tone would befuddle him into indecision, beguile him into consideration, and then bewitch him into acquiescence. A possibility, that’s all. But a possibility, all the same.

And she was confident in her ability to weave an eloquent spell. He would perhaps consent to the careless cadence of her voice or to the simplicity of her logic or the silky smoothness of the summer night. It was all so perfect in the infinite canvas of her flamboyant fancy: A beautiful dance of truthful artifice, performed in perfect grace like an ancient bolero on a spicy Spanish evening. There was no way he could elude the spell. He wouldn’t want to.

Confidence overflowing, she placed a hand on his shoulder and got ready with the practiced opening line.But as she looked into his lambent eyes her tongue cemented itself to the roof of her mouth and the words beat a pulsing brand against her closed lips. It wasn’t dissemblance; she believed every single one of those unsaid words. But the cost of it stared out from his trusting eyes. The steady guileless vulnerability that made him seek her out glinted like the edge of a knife as she tried ineffectually to put her plan into action. People told her he was ripe for the plucking. He would comply simply because he was so alone. Besides, he trusted her...

And the unsaid confessions crackling noisily in her mouth were swallowed in a dry, husky trail of vain hopes withered yet again.

He was waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t free her otherwise glib tongue. “Why so serious?” he joked and she choked out a convincing chuckle. The conversations flying around the sputtering bonfire permeated the air with a banked buzz, filling the blank spaces left behind by the words she didn’t say. Someone laughed, someone else cried, someone debated, someone else berated. His quiet sadness lay wide open in the noise, crowding her expanding heart into a tight little corner, where it crumbled like dry earth, emptying its overcrowded insides into her more crowded soul. His head hung low, and the words hummed sadly in the baritone thrumming of the blood in her veins. She laid her hand on his and he smiled that familiar sad smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” he says. She smiled eloquently, her lips replete with meanings he could never guess at or wouldn’t see. They hugged each other close with the sincere, comfortable camaraderie of true friends that filled empty spaces regardless of unsaid words. He sighed a quiet sigh. And unseen she sighed silent words, letting them diffuse into the dark night to find their home with the other voiceless words, floating away into the starry expanse of open sky while she remained earthbound in incomplete embrace.

Observation 2

2010-04-07T23:58:00.003+05:30

The way to a man's heart may be through his stomach; but keep following that axiom and you will need a highway to traverse all that stomach.

Heat Stroke.

2010-03-09T12:04:00.011+05:30

Summer is the time for
Burnt offerings made to a Sun
That cannot look at you
Without sucking you dry.

That smile, that burns
In its scorching benevolence:
Truly derisive
In it's universal bonhomie-
Its complete impartial indifference.

You are merely another.
And he likes you, well and good.
It is only your folly
If you dry yourself up in vain
Every Summer.

Comedy of Terrors

2010-02-28T04:07:00.009+05:30

Meatstick was at it again, and Firestone was reaching the end of her tether. She was of a sensitive disposition and as a rule avoided unsavory, threatening scenarios as much as she could.She was merely... skittish. Nothing else.
But that did not mean she would put herself through the test.

"But I don't want to!" she said for the nth time.
"C'mon Stoney, go for it!" said Chew through a mouthful of bread-omelette.
"It's no big deal. Just go ahead and do it." agreed Meatstick warming up to the challenge.
"But I don't want to go ahead and do it!"
"Oh leave her alone Meat," piped up Ant. " If she doesn't want to, she doesn't. Let her be."
Steadily ignoring Ant's feeble attempt at defense, Meatstick went on. "Slick's got it all fixed up, Stoney. Face your fear! Confront it and make fun of it! Freud pointed out that-"
"Please Meat, not Freud! It's 2 in the morning!"
" Ok, ok no Freud. But seriously, try it man- what harm can it do."
"Yeah Stoney," chimed Fashunista, "be strong!"
"Then why don't you do it!"
"Wha-? Ok, pedal back a bit."
Meatstick's face took on a determined cast as he turned to Fashunista and Firestone " Ok, both of you do it!"
"No way, nada,nahi!" interjected Fashunista while Firestone desperately shook her head.
Ignoring these mild intrusions in his declaration Meatstick continued with a flourish,"And Ant will give you company." Promptly sending Ant, who was comfortably nursing a steaming cup of chai, hurtling back into sputtering reality " How did I come into the picture?"
Firestone meanwhile was being persuaded that company may ease the pain.
"C'mon Stoney, Ant and Nista will get your back." assured Chew
"And who'll get ours?" exclaimed Fashunista.
" Well, I'll get yours Nista." He countered, waggling his eyebrows.
While Fashunista mock huffed, Firestone bit her lip in confusion. Next to her, Meatstick leaned in again " Think of it as homeopathy- like cures like. Fear cures fear."
A few tension filled seconds passed. To do or not to do...
Firestone raised her head and squared her shoulders "Ah chuck it! It's only a movie."

And that is how she came to watch Paranormal Activity.
But this is not the story that you have been waiting for. What we are going to see are the repercussions of this phenomenally bad idea.

It was the night after Scare-much, when all through the hostels,
Not a creature was stirring , not even the Construction Workers.
The curtains were flung and the windows were bare
In the vain hope of letting in air.

Firestone couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she was afraid to open them. In a rather contradictory bid to save her sanity, she was now determined to not sleep at all. As the reassuringly human face of Tom Welling fighting aliens lent her fortitude, Firestone made the mistake of checking the time. 3:oo am. A shudder went down her spine as she remembered that, 3:00 was the time the demon struck in the movie. And it didn't help that Boro and Slick had recently told her that 3:00 am was the time the Spirits walked the earth. Her panic escalated when she turned and saw the blankets on her bed move of their own volition- just like in the movie! Firestone jumped off her chair making a wild scramble for the door when an ominous 'brrrrr' filled the air: again, just like in the movie! Fear paralysed Firestone as the brrring continued in sharp staccato spikes. Trapped in the liminal space between dead and scared-s***less, she closed her eyes tight against whatever was coming for her, while feeling an incredible annoyance that she was the wimpy first victim in the real life horror movie. And then,just as suddenly as it began, the brrr-ing stopped. Firestone cracked open an eyelid- the room was still, Tom Welling was yelling at the bad guy... and next to her computer her cellphone blinked sleepily. And as she watched, it jumped into life and brrrr-ed.

Feeling like ten different kinds of idiot, she picked up the call.
"Hey Stoney..." quavered Fashunista's uncharacteristically shaky voice.
As it turns out, Firestone had company on Fear Street. Fashunista's spiking adrenalin and racing heartbeats failed to be calmed by switched on lights and loud music. And it did not help that Ant was infuriatingly unspooked. Finding comfort in company, Firestone joined her compatriots in their room (Ant escorted her through the dark corridor) and they proceeded to collectively curse Meatstick and Chew, and Slick as well for giving them the movie in the first place. And as the night passed on, Ant too got a fair share of the hiding since she seemed so unbothered by the previous night's fear fest.

The morning dawned with the women ready to commit murder. But they had to hold out when they took a look at their comrades. Meatstick and Chew had obviously not slept the night as well. A little interrogation brought out the story. Meatstick had been disappointed by the fear fix and wanted his adrenalin spike. He spent the rest of the evening watching Ju'on and Grudge trailers and fell asleep content in the belief that he was neither shaken nor stirred, just mildly entertained. Somewhere in the middle of the night he awoke to the sight of long locks of hair hanging above his face. He jumped up in fright seeing all 23yrs of his life flash before his terrified eyes and then realised that the 'hanging hair' was actually the straps of his shoulder bag hanging off the side of the of his cupboard. Sheepishness did not negate the fact that he was now undeniable spooked and could no longer go back to sleep. Chew's story was similar: only in his case he thought the pile of clothes on his chair was a monster.

"I don't know why you guys are getting so spooked." Shrugged Ant, oblivious to the dirty looks thrown her way. "I mean it's just a mov-gaaak!"
"What happened Ant? You look like you saw a ghost!" exclaimed the concerned Firestone.
"Yeah. You ok?" added Meatstick.
Fashunista quickly fished out a bottle of water as Chew looked on worriedly.

Meanwhile Ant had recovered and was now letting out sheepish giggles.

"Heh heh heh, I thought that heh heh lady in the Burkha was a heh heh heh... you know..."

While the others did a quarter-hearted job of not looking smug, a motion was passed to avoid horror movies for a while: after all they had enough abnormal activity to contend with, minus the paranormal activity. The lights remained switched on all night for a while longer, though.

Dr.Ames' Inventory of New Age Diseases-4

2010-02-26T02:11:00.004+05:30

Welcome to the latest edition of Dr.Ames's inventory. Our research team has compiled four of the most rampant and often incurable diseases plaguing the New Age. The good doctor urges the avid readers to formulate possible cures for the the latter category.

1)Whine-flu: A chronic illness that is known to be more devastating to the bystanders than the patients, whine-flu is a terribly debilitating disease which once acquired is almost impossible to be rid off. It generally manifests as an infection in the ENT circuit, resulting in the generation of high-frequency nasal sound-emissions. These emissions, much like second-hand smoke, are more detrimental to those around the patient.Excessive exposure to Whine-flu patients have often known to result in extreme aggression and use of force on the patient.The patients themselves are usually oblivious to the effect of their emissions and their condition is uncommonly contagious. The Doctor advices immediate quarantining of the affected individuals, coupled with the judicious use of duct tape and/or straitjacket. As for treatment of the patients, the Doctor advices steady doses of Ignoredol by inoculated/inured practitioners.

2)Sighnessitis: A strange cardiac malady that culminates into a respiratory disorder, Sighnessistis is a universal ill. The disease manifests in the form of extended exhales which may go on for anywhere ranging from a minute to an hour depending upon the stimuli. Much like an allergy, the virulence of the disease is greatly dependent upon the strength of the allergen. Allergens may include malfunctioning technology, sentimental scenes, poetry,certain types of music, particularly beautiful and equally unattainable face(s), enlarging waistline,photographs etc. The Cure is largely subjective, but a double dose of the miracle drug Snapoutofit is known to be effective.

3)Brawn-chitis: Generally considered to be a male malediction, this is a psychological disorder triggered by physical causes. The malediction is usually characterized by excessive growth of musculature that consequently cuts of the air and blood supply to the cranial area rendering the patient with more brawn than brain and a growing obsession with biceps, triceps, abs and the like to the point of complete neglect of general life. A growing menace of the modern age, scientists and researchers are frantically searching for a cure to this debilitating disease.

4)Snoriasis:It is often confused with the Sleeping Sickness spread by the intrepid tse-tse fly in the jungle reaches of the Congo. Snoriasis is a much more widespread, broad-based disease. It is generally characterized by recurrent rashes of death-like sleep often accompanied by earth/eardrum shattering snores. Trying to rouse the patient in the midst of these spells is often fruitless. However, the doctor advices the use of cold water or sharp movement as possible modes of awakening. This is a disease where prevention is infinitely more possible than cure. Intake of coffee, pepsi and other glucose enriched, highly caffeinated substances are known to be effective methods of preventions, as is exercise and light entertainment. A good horror movie usually does the trick.

That's all for this edition, new additions will be added- as always- when the good doctor feels like it. Until then, stay healthy.

Minutes of A Class

2010-02-13T02:22:00.003+05:30

The minute hand climbed lugubriously up the melting face of the clock in a cruel parody of the sweat crawling down her back. Afternoon classes were probably created by the remarkably inventive Chinese as a follow up to their delightful, world-famous, torture techniques.

Around her,fellow students stewed in their own personal nadirs of despair.Some stared blankly at the paragraph they had been asked to edit, and some stared fascinated by the hypnotizing rotations of the ceiling fan. And still others, like her, wondered what misplaced dream had made them opt to sit in class when their very essences called out for release.

'Release'

As the word took form in her congealed mind, a partially awake compatriot decided to participate in class, bringing a few of the others into guilty life. But neither guilt nor duty, nor sheer desperation could resurrect her from her ennui. The words 'paragraph rules' filter through her cobwebbed temporal lobe. Memories of a forgettable neurolinguistics class, embroidered by the reminiscences of the smiling faces of linguistically inclined friends throw a shaft of dusty sunlight into her Broca's Area. Or was it Wernicke's Area? No, it wasn't either of them... Ah whichever. As far as she was concerned, her brain was dying an ignominious death minus even the dubious honour of Yeats' Irish airman. The educational embalming of the lazy Friday afternoon guaranteed that. If Ginsberg wrote today, he'd have found the best minds of the generation rotting away in a classroom.Not that she had any delusions of grandeur, but she knew that around her sat some of the greatest minds of her age.

"Test."

the word brings her back to the static classroom. Release came in the form of a future trial. Ah but that comes as no surprise. After all, freedom is never free now, is it? Grab it while you can and face the consequences when you have to. A test is nothing.

She grabs her satchel and makes a break for the open door, the strings of the ended class trailing behind her flying feet until they catch on to the hinges of the next door closing behind her.

Writers Block

2010-02-07T00:10:00.001+05:30

The page is my enemy. It stares at me in blank indifference, scoffing at my desperate need for recognition. It tells me nothing to soothe my questions, merely taking everything I throw at it with impartial disinterest. I rail at it wildly, filling it with words that refuse to stick to it. And when they do, the page seems to look askance at them, as if their presence was mere sufferance. The futility of this exercise frustrates me with its one-sidedness. Why are you being like this? Can’t you feel like me and open up your arms to my weary pen for once. Why must we always engage in this strange dance of domination? Why must it always be a tussle between the two of us? Tempestuous relationships are all well and good in the sharp-edged turns of plot. But between the two of us it is merely a cruel game.

Why don’t you relent, why can’t we play nice: just for once? I’m too weary of witty repartee and I am not equipped with the charm to artfully win you over. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you let these words bloom magically on your pristine body rather than cling precariously, desperate for absolution. As I try in vain to reach you, you throw spider webs in my path so I am caught up trying to extricate myself from their invisible strands. And as I twist and contort in vain, you stare at me with complete indifference: not even amusement at the sorry state of this writer.

Ah cruel, cruel page. It is not fair, this utter lack of feeling. Doesn’t it make a difference to you, that I burn with the dream of setting you afire with my inspiration? Obviously not. Why would it, anyway? I know you don’t care. There are so many greater minds paying greater homage to your exalted self. Yet, I try once again to bedeck you in my fancy: fool that I am. And again I look at you with hopeless hope that you will accept the meagre gift of my thoughts. You shrug and gather up the words, putting them up on the dusty showcase full of other tribute. And again I am driven by the insane urge to be the one to create that perfect tribute that will finally light up your dull, pale visage with glowing beauty. Determination rings like a hammer on the anvil of my soul and you stare back stonily at the fires of inspiration in my eyes burning the last failure to prepare space for another attempt... I will conquer you cold page. And you will carry my love with love.

"The triumph of hope over experience."

Affirmation

2010-01-14T12:12:00.013+05:30

Greetings! Due to unforeseen circumstances I was unable to publish my New Years post on time. But then again, as the University administration keeps reminding us, better late than indefinitely postponed.

There is very little faith in the world: not today, not for a while. However, the beauty of this world, of humanity, is that it can always find a way to pick itself up from the shambles it has reduced itself to and create something beautiful from the very wreckage in which it stands. Or so we can hope. Life thrives on its ability to continue, to survive, outsmarting all those chaotic gulags that threaten the very essence of it s being. For to live is to survive pain with grace and dignity.

A wise man once said that literature is that which can transform suffering into beauty. Boris Pasternak talks about this in his path breaking novel Dr. Zhivago. He writes, “... art has two constants, two unending concerns: it always meditates on death and thus always creates life.” The World According to Me is admittedly barely a speck on the infinite canvas of literature but it too hopes to fulfill this tenet of art. The world is so full of sadness, but it is also so very full of goodness. It is a positive place that is waiting to be rediscovered by the jaded eyes of the young human race. Though cynicism is the mantra of the Modern, the truth is that Faith springs within us through the strangest mediums. We find it in that song that always raises your spirits, or that book that unfailingly reaffirms our tumbling beliefs, or that logic defying blanket that infuses you with a sense of protection, or the flooding relief you feel whenever you here that voice even through the squeaky conduit of a telephone connection. It's there, regardless of how much you'd rather let it all go and be an all out jaded being. And that's what it means to be alive: to know that there is dark, but it's only so that the bright shines brighter .

The World According to Me welcomes the World into it's cyber portals, taking the good with the bad. We are all blessed with the light of cognizance that fills the world with meaning and worth. And since it is our cognizance that gave birth to the world as we know it, we also realise that we can make the world what we want it to be; we can transform. It is our world to do as we wish with it. So endow it with light and open your arms to the world just waiting to be discovered in its multicolored vibrance. There is so much goodness to be savoured, so much music to be enjoyed, so much life to be lived and so many existences to be rejuvenated. And The World, According to Me can't wait to start.

Happy New Year!

The Creator

Evermore

2009-12-20T04:06:00.000+05:30

Something else I unearthed from my notes.

Long after we have gone,
When dust has sublimated
Into something finer still;
When memory has become
A mere memory of memory
You and I will continue to live.

For the same emotion
That quickens my breath
Will pant on the lips of
That unknown new.

And in that shared emotion.
We will live again.

Of Studies

2009-12-18T00:22:00.008+05:30

I'm a very serious student ( ok ok Stop! Shut up! Enough with the guffaws!). I take my studies very seriously. (ORDER IN THE BLOG PAGE!) But for all my diligence, my work never moves more than an inch per day! It is a temporal anomaly I say! How else can I end up sitting in front of the same page from 8 am to 5 am? Examine my tight schedule.

The first thing I do post-reveiller and morning ablutions is make a list of things that need to be done. But of course things need to be prioritised, and prioritising takes thought. And of course there are all those things you keep missing out. So constant drafting and redrafting is necessary to make the perfect plan. But then you realise the time-scheme that you had laid for the original plan is no longer applicable because the time has lapsed. So now you, being a smart person and all, draft a new plan which does not specify any time(fickle, slippery thing!) and finally finalise a plan of action. By this time, it is time for lunch and we all know that the brain needs food for thought. So we head off to lunch. In the return trip it is imperative that you drop by at the rooms of other students to brainstorm and also to partake of refreshing ideas. All this exchange of ideas is exhausting, so it is only right that we invite these great minds-the budding philosophers of tomorrow- for rejuvenating coffee.

The brewing of coffee is an exacting art. All the more demanding because we are sharply deficient of utensils such as spoons and the only one there is pressed into the service of stirring. Since we are tenuously trying to pour out the right amounts of coffee, some spillage is bound to happen. And cleaning this up is obviously going to take time. By this time, the lazy sun has dipped off and treacherous evening has crept in! Of course you return to your books recharged with the wisdom imparted by the coffee drinkers and pore over the miniscule print. But the light is bad so you go to switch on the tube, which is when the dog slips in undetected. Half an hour of tussle later the dog is out but you are covered with dog hair. A bath is imperative. And considering what you were handling, it better be on the longer side just to guarantee dog-freeness.

Post bath I realise that time has sped by on winged feet, and it is time for dinner. But, the diligent student that I am, I skip this for the sake of academics (that, and the fact that the tummy is still full of coffee :P). So the serious student studies seriously with nary a distracted blink for several hours. But then you suddenly recall your friend mentioned that she might send a mail. And, being such a responsible person, you realise that the easiest way to not forget a task is to do it as soon as you remember it. And since I am online I might as well check on the blog and then of course there are the comments to be answered and the non-existent comments to rail against. Multi-tasking is the sign of a true student. My duty as a blogger and netizen fulfilled, I return to my books full-throttle. A while later, the missed dinner makes its absence felt and your stomach compels you to fix a sandwich. And sandwiches are so crumby and messy, so there is dusting and washing to clear up. Making a quick job of that, you reprise your perusal of the blessed texts, post-haste with the concentration of a balancing act. Some time later you stretch your cramped back and happen to look out the window and realise that the light is not merely from the tubelight and that the sun has risen. When did that happen???? And the work has not diminished at all!

I tell you it is a conspiracy! All universities and academic institutions have placed their students in a weird time warp that refuses to let them finish their work. How else can a day, that supposedly has 24hrs, disappear in 20 minutes? I type this out in the frustration of the truly stumped, and will take the opportunity of this respite to return to studying. You see what a serious student I am?

Dogged Doggies-II

2009-12-10T02:08:00.010+05:30

Chaka

It's a dog's life indeed.
Is it not enough that we miserable inmates of the hostel residences spent the first year of our M.Adness dodging the puddles and myriad other foibles of you furry fiends? Is it not enough that we are routinely assaulted by your panting presence cemented to our shins and, in some truly disturbing cases, to parts of the anatomy that should never have to come anywhere near canines of any sort? Is it not enough that you dog our footsteps like the dogged doggies that you are, renderings us unable to take a step without encountering your pungent presence?

Apparently not.

It was a fine day-One of the last days of our bondage within the academic shackles of the third semester. Exhausted by several nights and days of too little sleep and too much assignmenting, the author sunk into an exhausted stupor in the cool sanctuary of her room, savoring that "...still,unravished bride of quiteness..." (forgive me, Keats), sweet sleep. The room-mate, good soul that she is, recognized snoriasis when she saw it and left the slumbering mortal alone,thoughtfully leaving the door open in the unlikely event that the aforementioned slumbering mortal would wake up in the next 12hrs.

Had this is been a marginally fair world, this rosy picture would have played out to its logical conclusion. However, as we are regularly reminded,life rejoices in being perfectly Machiavellian.

A few inadequate hours later, the author was resummoned into the land of the living by something unpleasantly wet being applied to her flung forearm. Amazed at her room-mate's desperation that she should be moved to using water to rouse the sleeper, the author reluctantly cracked open one of her bleary eyes. And flew out of bed in a leap that put mankind to shame! For you see, the sight that greeted the author's poor shocked eyes was not the benign countenance of her very comely room-mate, but the grinning, drool-dripping face of Chaka the doggy demon!The creature had crept into the room when no one was looking and clambered over the bed to loom over the author's sleeping head, deciding that the prone form was an apt petredish for drool samples.

While the author's ravings brought people from other rooms running to her doorstep, it had no effect whatsoever on the lolloping limpet-like mutt squatting on her bed grinning unrepentantly, tongue lolling. Apparently in Chaka-tongue yelling and screaming is a sign of bonhomie and love. Why else would she take the writer's raging roars to be a signal to lie down on the evacuated bed and furthermore proceed to rub herself all over the author's poor precious bedsheet? And the fact that the dog smelt like an open drain and had obviously been frolicking one too, did not do much to reduce the disgust her actions inspired. It was bad enough that Chaka had parked herself on my pillow and then went on to mambo on my mattress, but the red began to seep into the vision when she started for the blessed blanket. Something about the raised arm must have raised an alarm in her dim doggy brain, for she scooted off the bed before the blow could fall. While the author fought against her restraining compatriots, heaving angry lungfuls of air now permeated with Eu de Chaka, the dratted dog gave a queenly shrug as if to say "wha'ever" in Barbie-esque nonchalance and proceeded to disembowel a few unsuspecting dustbins in the lower floors.

As the discerning reader might have surmised, clean up was a b***h. The sheets and pillowcase were washed with both detol and savlon, and then left to air for 5 days just to be on the safe side. The author spent many a happy hour dreaming of transporting Chaka off to Nagaland, where the people have a penchant for toothsome canines. The Nagas are a smart race! University has leeched me of any dog loving tendencies that I might have harbored. Never again will I coochie-coo over a conniving canine. Forever traumatised by the trauma of living with these colonising curs, I can no longer look at an adorable puppy without recalling the menace it will become.

But then again, truth be told,we are the trespassers not the dogs. After all they stay on at the University, while we are merely passing through in the long line of passages in this transit flight called life. Students may come and students may go, but the dogs go on for ever. The full-throated howls ringing through the campus at 3 am in the morning are testament to the fact that they go on and on incessantly. The author realises that in this dog eat dog world one will come across strange bedfellows: there is nothing to be done but to wait for the offending mutt to boot out and then clean the sheets. And so she will go nurse the headache that all the live howling has brought about with nary a slight against the wretched animals.

It's a dog's life, indeed.

2009-12-09T21:17:00.004+05:30

Something I found while rummaging through my Russian Literature class-notes while we were discussing Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Something so "never again",

That it was bound to happen again,
Happened when we were not looking;
So we didn't know it was happening
Until it did.

Perhaps then, it makes sense
That each time it happens
It feels like Genesis and Resurrection
Together:
The coldness of the newness
Crashing against the warm moisture
Of congenial birth fluids of emotion,
so sharply,
That we cry out in painful ecstasy
That steals our breath.
Or rather,
Chokes our wind pipes.

"Never again," we say breathlessly
Panting in the aftermath of it all;
And fall headlong
Into the spiralling kaliedoscope
of again.
And again.
And again...

Observation

2009-11-22T19:08:00.004+05:30

A work of fiction: The NUTRITIONAL facts on the side of a chips packet.

Loo-baroo....

2009-11-05T13:21:00.006+05:30

Bathrooms are generally considered areas of cleansing. Sadly, in a hostel, entering a bathroom entails a simultaneous feeling of increased dirtiness. Call it physical, psychological, philosophical or plain comical but the moment you set foot into a hostel sanitation area, you feel like all the plagues of Egypt descended upon you at the same time.

Consider my first hostel bathroom. It was truly posh, really. For one thing it was an actual room! (As in we had to take at least two steps to touch the opposite wall). Secondly it did not supply 'mineral' water that literally turned us into stalagmites if we stood under the flow of water for too long. (please note the use of "flow of water" as opposed to shower). But these virtues were overshadowed by the fatal hamartia of the Hanging Gardens of Underwear. Take this scenario: After a sweltering night, first thing you see when you enter the bathroom are rows of drying lingerie, this followed by the swarm of mosquitoes that the opened door stirred awake, while M.S' suprabhatam mocks you in musical amusement. I assure you such a welcome blinds one to the magic of space and decalicifying possibilities. Furthermore, the bathroom was attached- A cloaked killer that. Because you see, this meant that the person in the bed closest to the bathroom (me) bore the full brunt of the mosquitoes that were spawned in the damp reaches of the damned room. And my first hostel's bathroom was apparently the Big Apple of mosquito-dom. I am surprised I survived with any blood at all!

Times changed as did hostels, but bathrooms go on forever. Or not, considering that my in second hostel there was always a shortage or available cubicles in the morning when you desperately crave ablutions before battling the day. I made my inaugural bathroom entry with a bang: I dropped a detol bottle right in the middle of the place and it obligingly smashed into smithereens with an accompanying twash! This gained me the everlasting displeasure of most of the inmates thereafter. Well,the anus sanctum (that was the motto of the hostel, not a pun) came with luxurious effects of 4-5 bathing cubicles, even smaller toilets, 'mineral water' baths, live music (neighbouring bathroomers) and the eternal "excitement" regarding the fickleness of water supply. This last quality, by the way, is a constant in every hostel.

Some of the most awkward and hilarious (on hindsight) situations arise when the water stops halfway through whatever sanitary activity you are indulging in. Following such a misfortune the hapless individual will embark upon a series of hollers and yowls imploring the staff to PLEASE TURN THE MOTOR ON! which may or may not be heard (ignored) by the implorees. Tis a terrible fate indeed to be stuck in a waterless bathroom. Worse still if the bathroom in question already induces nausea and is rather claustrophobic to add to it. Funny in the future perhaps, but when you're you are marooned in a bathroom caked with soap and with merely a millimeter of water left in your bucket, nothing can be farther from humor. Another hostel bathroom constant is darkness. All the hostel bathrooms I have been exposed to have suffered from light shortage at some period or the other. And in the case of the Old Women's Hostel, we were perennially in the dark regarding whether there will ever be light. In many ways it is a blessing - at least you don't have to see what you might see. But it is rather funny considering it gives a whole new twist to the phrase "dark doings". Couple that with groping in the dark for the tap and you have a comic scene worthy of Laurel and Hardy.

There's nothing new about the New Women's Hostel's bathrooms. Same old water problems, same old faulty locks, same old dysfunctional light bulbs. But what is different is that the users love to leave behind memories of their presence in the form of shampoo sachets, plastic covers, newspapers and often rather vile things I'd rather not defile the blog by naming. As the law abiding pacifist proletariat we went to the authorities and got zilch. Which is when, in true University spirit,the the posters went up. The revolutionary literature was posted on bathroom doors in eloquent terms running along the lines of " Pull the flush!" and "Get toilet trained!" Surprisingly enough the posters did have an effect. For a while. Sigh.

I remember telling my mother that I wanted to take pictures of the bathrooms at home, just so I can remember that clean, pretty bathrooms do exist and the parryware ads aren't full of s***t. This declaration was greeted with incredulous laughter, of course. Either way, I am sure that this is a memorable experience. And I'm pretty sure it has inured me to a great deal of trauma. At some point of time when I am stranded in the slums of Sumatra, I wont be challenged by the terrifying toilets. So I guess there's no harm done. If nothing else the bad bathrooms have become an investment in mirth: so it's all worth it. :D

The Rite

2009-11-04T09:26:00.013+05:30

Kalyani's heart cringed at the thought of what awaited her smiling daughter. The unfairness of it all galled her fine sensibilities. Her daughter was much too young, much too happy for this!. It isn't right! she thought vehemently, as she glanced at the group of adults cosseting her little girl. She is just a child, a baby! The centre of attention laughed unaware that this attention was only because they too knew what was going to happen,and knew that she needed to be lulled into safety before the inevitable needle prick that awaited her. The injustice of it all left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Saro placed a hand on Kalyani's shoulder, "It is time, mole." Kalyani shot a pained glance at her mother and stiffened her spine. She had to do this, it was tradition. Her daughter would thank her later. The cooing group parted like the Red Sea at her approach. She shared a speaking glance with Shantam who calmly held out the tiny earings as Kalyani lifted her startled daughter in her arms. The child looked up at her questioningly for a moment, but the rising question was submerged in the deluge of trust that gurgled forth from her lips, spreading into a smile of unblemished faith. And Kalyani's heart broke into a thousand pieces: She was going to shatter that unquestioning trust today. Dredging up a smile for her daughter's benefit Kalyani walked through the darkened portals.

The Nurse looked up from her tray and smiled reassuringly. "Have you marked her?" she asked.
Kalyani managed a nod. Her daughter chose that moment to release a happy giggle, making Kalyani's knotted insides shrivel. The Nurse took one look at her tortured visage and quickly held out her arms. "Come, let me take her through this , you wait outside." Kalyani looked down at her laughing daughter and knew she couldn't see what was going to happen to her. In that moment of weakness she gave up her child, her baby into alien arms. The child laughed happily at the mild change in height, her sparkling exuberance spreading itself even into the business-like nurse who unbent enough to coo soft words to her and bounce her about. Kalyani turned away unable to face the waiting pain. As the nurse walked away, she listened against her will to the fading laughter of her little girl. She heard a door close but she could still hear the laughter, light and naive. Her daughter would be in the room now-There was another burst of laughter-they would hold her firmly so she wouldn't flinch and dislodge the equipment- a little giggle and some chatter-They would lower the needle onto her tender skin and--

SCRREEEEEEEEECCCCHHHHH!!!!!

The scream rent the air like tearing silk, all the more gruesome because of the mirth that preceded it. Kalyani's fingernails dug crescents into her palms as she willed herself not to run to her daughters rescue. The screams went on an on, first plaintive, then angry, never stopping. At long painful last the nurse returned with her crying daughter who looked up at her with her large wet eyes full of reproach. Kalyani swallowed and gathered her up in her arms trying to soothe her. I'm so very sorry kanna. So so sorry.
She cleared her throat and faced the nurse, "Did she give you too much trouble?"
The nurse, who had lost a great amount of her cool matter-of-fact calm, was trying ineffectually to recapture several escaped strands of hair. She shot a mildly desperate and partly amused glance at the crying child and shook her head in disbelief.

"Trouble? Oh madam, it is only because she didn't know what we were doing that we managed to pierce the first ear properly. The second one is definitely off! She wouldn't let the needle anywhere near her! She's going to be a difficult one! So angry, my God!"

Sure enough, one ear lobe sported a piercing much lower than the marked spot. Kalyani smiled indulgently. If at 28 days her daughter was fighter, perhaps at 28 she will be even better. If she can fight this little pain with such vehemence, may be the greater pains will be kept at bay too. Kalyani looked down at her baby daughter who had cried herself to angry sleep, the tiny golden earings glowing in the dim light of the hospital corridor and prayed for happy times.

2009-10-25T03:41:00.003+05:30

It isn't fair.
Really.
Everytime I look at you I am reminded of what I'm supposed to do. The World According to me must constantly be replenished. But what do I do when the world , according to me, is refusing to let me replenish it. For one thing there is work. For another, there is angst. When, beloved blog, did you transcend from distraction to duty? I do not know whether this transcendence is benevolent; for love is demanding. By it s very nature it cannot but peirce you to do right by it.

And so, I pen this seemingly pointless missive, delivered on the binary coded wings of cyberspace pigeons and sincerely apologise. Every day I look at you and wish I could. But I ask you, with humble hope of acceptance, to wait awhile.

I will return.

Hostel Humbug-II: Return of the Plaintive

2009-10-05T13:58:00.003+05:30

In my long career as a hostelite, I have learned that every hopeful rookie must expect to have to go through “tests” and interviews prior to admission. Most of these tests usually involved the wardens of these esteemed sanctuaries interrogating me on the values of values, the inflexible nature of the rules of the institution (which often seemed to resemble particularly limber gymnasts) and stern threats of eviction and other dire consequences if one so much as put a sliver of the toe-nail of your littlest toe out of line (which meant displease Her Majesty, the Warden.) The rookie’s job is to look like a complying doormat – contrite and vaguely guilty for being dirty.

With experiences like these to contend with, it was not surprising that I found the University Hostels’ lack of such procedure dubious, to say the least. Un peu disconcerting. All that built up adrenalin for nothing. Or so I thought. Within a fleeting minute of stepping through the peeling portals of The Old Women’s Hostel, the deceptively docile reception morphed into monstrous hydra. Ok may be not so much. It suffices to say that our experiences in the Old Women’s Hostel aged us considerably. Four months of freedom later we, “the stragglers in the desert”, to borrow a phrase from the great Ezra Pound who consumed the greater part of our minds and our collective sanity during the past semester, straggled back to the University and its questionable charms.

The glaring construction pits and sand scabs that scarred the face of the campus faded in the glow of the million megawatt smiles adorning reunited comrades and collective happiness. Of course the lights dimmed drastically when we faced our prospective quarters. The New Women’s Hostel, magnificent in its towering facade should by all rights have been a step up from our Old days. However the step up was several storeys up in this case. Pair this with gargantuan luggage that needed to be transported up three flights, minus the benevolent charity of an elevator, and we have a winner for spontaneous hyper-tension. While all this was manageable - given the efficient training dealt out by the Old Women's Hostel - trudging three flights on a sweltering monsoon day, tugging about 5kgs worth of luggage; only to find a locked room because the squatter who was assigned to your room happily scooted off with the only key, pushed the author clean off the edge of sanity. Several minutes of screaming later the rest of the luggage was herded, by which time the author was too exhausted to commit murder (which explains the presence of aforementioned squatter in good health).

Given such an...interesting entry, it is only natural that the future would bear similar fruit. The New Women’s Hostel comes with its own background music- drills and construction work noises, accentuated by the screams of hapless inmates skidding down the permanently wet bathroom floors followed by the inevitable crash. You see, ever since the University began employing the supremely intelligent scheme of filling every square inch of destroyable land with building, sunlight and ventilation have become scarce entities. And for the same reason, any drenched surface has all possibility of remaining that way for a very, very long time. But the New L.H is technologically empowered! It has three non-functioning fridges and one sort of working washing machine! Plus, because any movement to the Outside will require a battle with the killer stairs, students naturally gravitate towards rest and never leave the room at all for fear of converting all that potential energy into something else. The New L.H is also the preferred abode of the Doggy Matriarch in training, Chaka; who is all set to take over the mantle from Sundari. We have yet again taken to locking our rooms at all times so as to avoid canine visitors.

Be that as it may, the New L.H is not a hell-hole. For one thing it offers us the unimaginable luxury of only two to a room. Similarly, it is also equipped with Godrej Cupboards, as opposed to pokey little fake-wood whatnot that used to adorn our Older abode. And all said and done it is truly palatial in comparison to the ghettos in which our male brethren reside. After all, how can one find fault with our lovely living quarters when our comrades live four to a two-seater and have liquids of dubious nature dripping into their domestic area. The University takes trouble to teach its students the value of perspective. And they are not averse to making their students susceptible to diseases with and without names in the pursuit of this greater goal. Ah what an enlightened batch we are, that we have the good fortune of living through such times where the contractor can ‘forget’ to build bathrooms in the Boy’s Hostel and the management brings out the innovative suggestion of ‘mobile toilets’ – a scenario that most sentient beings would shy away from in horror. With such training, we will forever appreciate the little things in life. Like sanitation. Or silence, for that matter. After all we are alive.

For how long and how sane, is the question.

Cynic Romantic

2009-10-04T10:41:00.003+05:30

There is a fine line between love and hate
For love is not what they say it is.
It is a cancer in the soul of the soul
That consumes itself while multiplying

Love is no joyful glory
That beams out in happy streams
It bleeds in unloving loving
Red and gray and black and green

There is a fine line between love and hate
For what is love but the happy hate?
The same as hate but only lighter-
For it hopes to survive in goodness
While the other glories in truth.

On His Baldness. Extended Version.

2009-07-26T22:19:00.001+05:30

This post is a reply to several queries defending my brothers hairscapades. Perhaps this will suitably illustrate the point I tried to make previously.

My brother has reached that stage in life where he is interested in his reflection. It is a highly disconcerting feeling for the rest of the family to notice the “baby” suddenly lifting weights, obsessing about oily food and haircuts, and generally being “the dude”. Most of it was alright, often good too. But it was the hair factor that killed us.
At first it was hilarious, then slightly amusing, and then completely exasperating. You see, my brother couldn’t be like other brothers and simply walk around looking like a partly denuded porcupine. Nooooo. His speciality was an obsession with his hairline. One fine afternoon, lightly dozing after lunch, the family was caught unawares when my brother announced, a la tragic hero declaring impending doom, “I’m going bald.”
We laughed and laughed. And he was very offended.
Hey, you can’t blame us! Blessed with a veritable jungle on his head, it took more than your average stretch of the imagination to notice any baldness. Everyday he’d he would point out a small indentation in his hairline and insist that recession happened (forgive the pun it was much too delicious an opportunity). It was when he began to tally hairs lost, that things began to get truly irritating. And admittedly entertaining as well. Family jokes on how he should get “Gulfgate” done, ran rampant. What was truly disturbing was that he actually took us seriously when we said this.
Several hair-brained ideas on hair loss later, we had the good fortune of going to Tirupathi. It is a known fact that one of the major prayer offerings there is one’s own hair. At the sight of all those bald heads my father had the brilliant idea of getting his son to go through with it as well (I offered, but we already know the family’s take on my hair length reduction schemes. [Humph!]). My brother had his misgivings but they were all demolished with a single sentence from the wily barber who was plying the razor. “Your hair will grow doubly thick.” He declared, pointing to his own shock of pitch black hair. Given such virulent proof, my brother bowed his head to the razor, doubts assuaged. True, the reflection in the mirror took some getting used to; but the pros outran the cons by miles. For one thing, the concept of combing was conveniently canned, as was the irritation of what another friend baldly described as “three pounds of mess” on one’s cranium. And with all due credit to the razor-man, the new hair growth did resemble a jungle (of course it always did, but in my brothers eyes there was ‘improvement’).
The gentle, logical reader may decide that this would spell a happy end to our hair-shirt days. But, as mentioned once upon a time in an earlier entry, my family –much like myself– defies all logic. My brother now spends half the year railing against his baldness and the other half requesting to go bald. And the sound you hear in the background is the hapless sister banging her head against the nearest hard surface.
You try figuring him out!

Ice-quake

2009-07-23T12:16:00.002+05:30

Sue looked up from her scrabble board.
"A new one?"
“Yup. a magnificent giant! I finished one all by myself” said Raju
“Hmm... then it shouldn’t be too large.” Mused Sue, ignoring dismissing her nephew's achievement. The spirit of the veteran hunter rose its head (albeit now snowy white rather than pitch black)to the challenge.

It was called Earthquake.

The siege was planned. And the Earthquake shivered silently within the frozen reaches of Dasa’s Ice cream Parlour– A site of several previous battles. One fateful afternoon, bringing along her vaguely disinclined comrade in arms Kochu and their ever willing ice cream hunting squire the young Kalyani, Sue set off to vanquish the Earthquake. Unfortunately, the price list dealt a huge blow to their morale. The Earthquake was an expensive affair and the funds were stretched. But Kalyani, ever smiling, martyred her taste bud nirvana in favour of a commonplace sundae. That matter settled, they turned to the expressionless waiter at their side.

“Two Earthquakes.” Sue declared.
A frisson of incredulousness passed over the waiter’s face.
“Two, ma’am?”
‘Yes, two.”
The waiter seemed inclined to clean his ears vigorously “Two ma’am? Are you sure? Two?”
The show of disbelief shook the steady confidence of the duo. May be this wasn’t such a good idea...
But Sue scoffed at those fears. No ice cream was beyond them. “Two it is!” she said decisively.
“Two it is.” The waiter agreed shaking his head in disbelief.

“Er.. Sue, I’m having a few doubts here...”faltered Kochu looking at the departing waiter
“Oh come Kochu, where is your spirit! How can you say no to ice cream?!”
Which is when their order arrived, and promptly gave Kochu a few more gray hairs.

The Earthquake should have been called the Avalanche. One Earthquake consisted of twelve scoops of ice cream in various flavours, topped with barrels of nuts, buried under oodles of caramel, augmented by a blanket of tutti-frooti and surrounded by a moat of chocolate sauce.

And they had ordered two.

As the waiter tottered under the weight of the two mountains he carried and attempted to heft them on to the poor table, Kochu shot accusing glances at Sue who tried to look like she was totally in control of the situation. The waiter, task accomplished, mopped his brow and smiled. “The shop is open all night. Take your time.”
The minute the waiter retreated to nurse his aching biceps the duo put their heads together.

“Sue I told you this wasn’t a good idea!”
“Hey I didn’t know that this was going to be such a giant!”
“Didn’t the name give you a hint?”
“What’s wrong?” interrupted Kalyani, innocently nyumming her sundae. “I’m sure you can finish it.”

Such faith revived their flagging spirits. They had to live up to their squire’s expectations. And thus the battle began. All the waiters had gathered to witness the great battle. While Sue systematically demolished scoop after scoop, Kochu decided to massacre the lot in one go. However, neither method nor madness spelt victory. The end of half an hour saw Sue with a frozen tongue and Kochu with a plate which looked like she had butchered a madly struggling ice cream cow on it. But Kalyani continued to watch, smiling encouragingly. When Sue’s tongue refused to feel a fork being thrust into its frosted skin, they had to admit defeat.

“Thalyani I’m tho thorry ...” Sue lisped listlessly, her voice whispering from in between the icicles that hung from her teeth.
“We can’t do this!” groaned Kochu throwing down her spoon with a splatter.

Gasp! The waiters put their hands to the mouths, shook their heads in mute sorrow and disbanded. While Kalyani tried to swallow this impossible piece of information, Sue tried valiantly to swallow one more mouthful of ice cream before her mouth froze shut and Kochu made more of a mess on her plate.

“Tho thad... all thith ithe cream ith wathted...” thighed..er.. sighed Sue.

Which is when their squire’s brilliance illuminated the hall. “I’ll run across to the store and get some lunch boxes!”

Sue and Kochu’s clammy visages thawed at this ray of hope. Kalyani was quickly dispatched to the nearest plastic dabba shop. While the duo waited with desperate hope, a waiting waiter spoke up. “Your valour is great and your daring greater still. But how could you presume to defeat two Earthquakes! A single earthquake itself is meant for twelve people!”

Sue and Kochu exchanged embarrassed glances. They could not admit that their recon work had been so faulty. Then Sue’s brilliant creativity kicked in. “It wath a bet!” she declared, nudging Kochu vigorously to jog her cranium.
“Wha – er... ah... yes. A bet. Our nephew...er... niece... um...uncle...I mean...”

Meanwhile Kalyani had returned to save the day. The remaining mountain of ice cream was shovelled into the boxes and the trio beat a hasty retreat to defrost their faces and assuage their bruised egos from the onslaught of the Earthquakes. To this day Sue and Kochu shiver at the memory of the ice cream King.

Mr. Boo(m)b-astic.

2009-07-22T17:46:00.005+05:30

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any man in possession of testosterone, must be fascinated by boobs.
This statement is induced neither by Pride nor Prejudice, but plain observation. All resemblance to anything else is purely incidental.

Though several people may take offense at this generalisation of the masculine, a moments pause will prove the accuracy of the opening statement. The mysterious allure of mammary glands has remained mysterious for ages. Numerous theorists have tried in vain to explain this enigma. Some enterprising souls have tried to write this off as a primal impulse which finds its roots in evolutionary race memories. The Early Man, they say, chose the perfect mate by the size of her appendages- the bigger the baggage, the better the feeding capacity. However this theory cannot hold water since most of the time the starers have no intention of siring off spring off the starees, regardless of how much they might enjoy the procedure. Still others claim that it is a mode of proving masculinity. It is not-'If you are male, you stare at female boobs'. Rather, it is a case of 'Because you are male you stare at female boobs'. (Please note the emphasis on 'female'. It is the greatest sin to be male and have boobs. In fact, it can be safely surmised that according to the male psyche, boobs are directly proportionate to 'females') . Supporters of this theory state the example of hip-hop videos. The singers obviously want to prove their masculinity by having as many boobs as possible crowding around them throughout their screen time. This gives out the message that they are well and truly male because they get to stare at all of them at the same time. Though this theory does seem plausible, it falls flat since the singers cannot stare at the appendages that surround them(this would, of course, be unacceptable anti-social behavior!) The hip-hop singers, being thus boobie trapped into behaving, fail to follow the most crucial aspect of the aforementioned theory and thus render it in tatters. Another theory that has been floated is that this phenomenon is caused by residual need for breast feeding. It is the memory of older mammaries that fuel the fascination. To put the theory in a nutshell, as they stare hungrily, they are thinking of their mother.This just seems terribly wrong and shouldn't even be considered, however since all options need to be covered, we shall dive headlong into this one as well. Though reeking of the Oedipus Complex, this theory does have its strong points. For one thing it is based on the fairly universally accepted fact that 'boys will be boys' (a nice way of saying they never grow up). Furthermore it actually sounds like a theory- what with the Complex attached to it. But it fails to recognise the fact that boys don't stare. They are too busy having a life. It is always the man, or at the very least the almost-man adolescent that stares and hence the theory is rendered null and void. Resulting in a glaring lack of any logical rationale behind the staring scenario.

Perhaps all male homo sapiens are bound by an unshakeable Omerta against repeating the Reason for this all male trait. Or perhaps they are just too busy drooling at the said objects of interest that reason doesn't even enter the picture. Most of the individuals interviewed by the author were either nonplussed and/or intrigued by the actual possibility of a reason for this. Either that, or they were greatly offended by the nerve of the author to ask such an unladylike question. This was of course before they had to admit that they hadn't really thought of a reason for staring at the 'globular glories'. "We just do!" exclaimed a particularly hounded person, throwing his hands up in despair (he would later be hauled up for sedition). It is actually rather unfair to expect them to know. After all they have never been asked before. How can you expect them to be capable of explaining their actions unless they are pointedly asked to. And women don't go around asking why men find their bosoms so rivetting- so it's her fault that they don't know. After all, men are chivalrous, not lecherous boors. If they insist on talking to your chest when you have a perfectly acceptable face, it is only because they are full of deference and respect and they dare not raise their eyes higher. And besides women cannot fathom the power of their mesmerising mammaries. The men are merely looking out for them by keeping a constant watch on their assets.

And so we finally come to a conclusion. Men stare at female chests for 'their' own good. And all is right in the world.

Chinese Frames

2009-05-25T18:56:00.002+05:30

The Great Wall through a window.

Tienanmen Square

The not so Forbidden City.

Huang Shan, The Yellow Mountain.

Lumiere in the Flesh :P

NOTICE

2009-05-09T07:44:00.003+05:30

DUE TO UNEXPECTED AND UNPRECEDENTED TRAVEL PLANS, THIS BLOG WILL BE INACTIVE FOR THE NEXT 20 DAYS
(Hey! No snide remarks about the present state!)

FRESH POSTS WILL REAPPEAR POST CHINESE SOJOURN.

THE CREATOR

Untitled

2009-04-12T13:03:00.009+05:30

Many thanks to Little Bro, Firestone and an evening on the terrace.

Brother God was in an artistic mood. So he took out his special blue chart paper and spread it out on his work-table. But inclination is not enough, inspiration is necessary too. Brother God put the end of his paint brush to his lips and paced up and down his room. "Green!" he thought," green went well blue!" But what to do with the green? Brother God ran his green smothered paint brush randomly up, down and around the paper, hoping to create something interesting.
A few minutes of this showed him that the effort was futile.

Inclination got consumed in impatience. Brother God crumpled the now blue-green paper into a tight ball and chucked it to the side.

But he didn't aim properly. When he glanced in the direction of his throw he realised he had flung it on his prized black and diamond curtain.While he was fuming over this mishap Sister God walked in. She was in a happy mood and was hoping that Brother God could be enticed into playing House. She tugged ineffectually at his shirt-tail only to be waved away impatiently. Tears threatened and Brother God recognised danger. Ah well, the curtain was a lost cause anyway, and we can always get another one. Might as well entertain Sister.

Quickly pinning an ingratiating smile on his face,he tugged gently on Sister God's pigtails. "I'm sorry sweeting, come lets do some art." Sister God cheered up quickly."What do we draw?" she asked.
"Oh we are doing craft-work today." and so saying he drew her attention to the blue-green ball on the black and diamond shawl." What can we add to the blue-green ball, love?"
"Emeralds!" chimed Sister God "And platinum on the top and bottom!"
Brother God followed her suggestions,sprinkling and pasting the gems and foil from his art box. A few minutes later the Blue Green Ball was bedecked with rubies, emeralds, platinum, sapphires... it glowed from within the dark diamond studded curtain.
"But it looks empty somehow..." mused Sister God, pouting in concentration. 'Oh I know!" she quickly pulled out a pilfered, grimy toothpick from her pocket and broke it in two and stuck a ruby on top of each one. " Look! Now there are gods there!" she laughed happily, sticking the broken toothpicks on the Blue Green Ball.
Brother God personally thought the Blue-Green Ball looked a lot better without the stick figures. But Sister God was ecstatic. She chattered gleefully about what the stick-gods would do on the Blue-Green Ball until she began to feel sleepy. It was time for her afternoon nap after all. Mid-sentence, she let out a huge yawn that stirred the stick figures to life.
"Oh look they're moving!" she mumbled, snuggling into Brother God's chest.
"Yes,yes they're moving... now let's get you to sleep." He said carrying her to her crib.

Later that day Mother God was cleaning up the messy playroom and came across the Blue-Green Ball on the Black curtain.
"Oh those children! They can never keep their stuff clean!" she huffed, pulling down the curtain. "Ah well... may be Brother was having one of his 'arty' moments again. Better ask him first before throwing it away."
So she took the curtain and spread it behind the light-board to keep it out of the way. There was so much to do! Father God wanted to call a meeting of the Gods, so everything had to be neat. And Brother and Sister had to be made clean- which was a task all by itself. Mother God bustled off meaning to ask about the curtain, and completely forgot about it in the rush. Brother God had gotten some new idea for a sculpture and the curtain with the Blue-Green Ball was lost in the mists of his memory. Sister God got a new doll. Father God didn't even know about the Blue-Green Ball with its moving stick figures.

And so the beautiful Blue-Green Ball lay on it's black,diamond studded curtain behind the light; the yawn-animated stick figures going about their stick-figure business. It lay there waiting to be rediscovered by the Gods that created it. Perhaps it's lying there still.

Ambassador of Car-tastrophe

2009-04-04T12:53:00.016+05:30

Our vacations were characterised not by rest and relaxation but by visits. There were aunts, uncles, aunts of uncles, relations whose relations were lost in the tangled branches of the family tree... And all of them needed to be visited and plied with the customary laddoo and jalebi package ( pakodas and murukkus for the diabetic). Naturally these travels had to be done in the trusted chariot of all mallus- the Ambassador, the car for all occasions,the one non-four wheel drive that can house eight adults and several tiers of young ones and still move at comfortable 80 plus. Besides being most accommodating, it is also built like a truck ( I suppose that explains the load-pulling capacity). Come rain, storm, terrible roads or mindless traffic- the Ambassador will prevail.
Of course we are talking about the general Ambassador. Our favored vehicle was a little... different.
My father doesn't like to drive on congested roads. Generally given to road-rage even in sane traffic circumstances, my father would be courting hypertension if he spent three months driving in India. Hence, most of our motoring was conducted through the smiling, furry-faced, bespectacled services of Unni uncle. Unni uncle himself was rather normal, unremarkable even. It is his car that gives him the questionable honor of appearing here. An ancient Ambassador that seemed to hold itself together through sheer will, it was a traveler's nightmare. Incapable of going beyond the snail-pace of perhaps 50-60 km/hr, the car was always in constant danger of having its parts blown away. And travel in the Parakkum Thaliga{translation: 'flying saucer' (Any mallu worth her/his pop-culture salt will know the reference[ and if you're not mallu, there'll probably be one about three paces away more than willing to explain])} was far from comfortable. Let's just say that a 4hr airplane travel still leaves you with some energy, but one hour in the P.T and you are half dead and limp as a boned fish. The logical of course would just not hire the services of Unni uncle and his trusted ( to fall apart) car. But the loyal stick it out. Unni uncle had been a family associate since my father's younger days. And thus every vacation we trundled on in the rickety car, which- though it gave us a really bad backache, among others- also gave us several anecdotes.

The best one perhaps, is the one on the rainy night.

It had been a long day, sullen and gray and threatening rain at any moment. Which is to be expected at the peak of the monsoons. It was humid and muggy and it did not help that the
family had spent most of the day in the P.T . Of course Unni uncle was cheerful as a daisy and cracking jokes that none of us could find the energy to laugh at. Somewhere towards late evening we stopped by at our cousins' place where lengthy chai based discussions later it was decided they would come along with us to the ancestral home.
This meant nine people - excluding the one at the steering wheel- squeezed into the back, front and middle of the car (The boot was already occupied by the luggage.). The prospective travelers shot wary glances and murmured something on the lines of "...may be we should take an auto..." But Unni uncle bluffly waved away all the doubts and ushered...er.... pushed and maneuvered the people into ( or at least, more or less into) the car. Several squashed minutes later Unni uncle crunched himself in and started the car. The car let out a tortured groan and stayed put refusing to be put through more agony.
"No problem!" yelled Unni uncle over the groans of both car and customers. "It'll start up just now!" He accompanied this patently over optimistic statement with a grin that was eaten up by his facial hair.
The car did eventually start. But not before an entire antakshari session, a minor squabble between two of the cousins, the passing of a mangled packet of banana chips some one managed to extract from between the levels of people, the finishing of said packet and not of course before the rain decided to make its presence felt. Very very strongly. Which is when we found out the windows could not be rolled up completely.
" No problem!" Unni uncle yelled again." just take the plastic covers from the back and put it in the side!"He grinned again and this time the tempestuous wind blew the hair back so we could glimpse a bit of teeth. Teeth alternately gritted and clattering the passengers grimly held on to flapping plastic covers and proceeded to ignore the rain splattering on either side. En route we decided to stop at cousin number two's abode where we were promised vehicular back up. Surprisingly enough we got there in one piece. We waited desperately for the car to putter into the garage before spilling out in an uncoordinated tangle of limbs. In the midst of stretching our cramped joints we noticed Unni uncle hovering around holding the car door open.
" No need to keep the door open, Unni," said my father with no little relief." We'll be a while."
While we chatted and played tag with the batch number two cousins, the rain decided that it'll take a break. Seeing this as a sign the batch number two decided to come along as well.

We'll never learn.

Batch number one and two were redivided. The weaker, frailer ones piled into the shiny,top condition, sturdy ambassador and we were left to P.T ( reminds one of the allocation of life-boats on a sinking ship). No sooner had batch one left in a cloud of exhaust, than the rain decided we must have missed it a lot. We the stragglers scrambled up to the unpromising hunk-of-junk unsuccessfully dodging droplets the size of golf balls. Unni uncle, ever chivalrous, was holding the door open for us. We quickly piled in (literally) and got ready to get on the road again... and realised that Unni uncle was still holding the door open.
"Unni, we've all gotten in. Now let's go!" my father yelled over the racket of the rain. Unni uncle nodded back in acknowledgment. The grin was missing... a bad sign that...

Unni uncle swung the door shut...
WHAP!
SHWAAANGGG! it swung right back at him.

There was a moment of flabbergasted silence...
"The door isn't shutting." chimed little brother unhelpfully.
While we were unproductively gritting our teeth in frustration Unni uncle had been thinking.
"No problem! Just a minute I'l be back."he hollered as he shkwapped through the rain towards the boot. The grin was back... a very bad sign that...

Unni uncle shlopped back bearing two rags that you wouldn't touch with a barge-pole.
"No problem!" he said,"We'll just tie the door to the frame with these and you can hold on to the doors as well" he grinned happily at our frustrated faces and proceeded to shoo us out for better tying access and then hurry us in, strategically placing able-bodied individuals on the door side(all the better to hold it closed.)

So there we were- about six of us in a rickety ambassador with all its four wheels in the scrap-shop, hanging on to the back-doors for dear life and simultaneously getting drenched by the gleeful rain flying in through the stuck windows. And of course the car was being driven extra slow now so that the doors don't get blown away. It suffices to say that a general urge to bury Unni uncle under the cantankerous vehicle warmed the soggy ambiance of the party.

An interminable age and several "re-tying" stops later, the car and its captives trundled into the hallowed courtyard of our destination. The passengers all but passed out from relief. While we stumbled out ignoring the pouring rain (we were wet anyway) from the purgatory of the P.T, Unni uncle cheerfully asked my father-
" So... We'll go out again tomorrow morning?"

For a moment, just a fleeting moment, we could see denial, desperation and the urge to murder war with each other in my father's tortured glance. Then he inhaled deeply and said:
"We'll give you a call."
Unni uncle grinned, his face turning into a mass of fur and broad forehead. "No problem."

Incidentally, the car is, was and always will be problem. And yes, it's still going not so strong or steady, but it's definitely going.

Book Bouquet

2009-03-01T13:41:00.006+05:30

Rustle, flip-
release.
The mellow parchment smell
wafting up
chocolate...
coffee mists
rising
from thought's sandal spine.
Delicious!

Present!

2009-03-01T13:26:00.005+05:30

The irony of the M.A course is that it hopes to improve your writing skills and usher in fresh, creative thoughts- and leaves you with no time to actually put these ideals into action.
It has been a month since I last updated. And this by one who treats her blog with the enthusiasm of an obsessed amour. One is tempted to compare oneself and ones blog to star-crossed lovers separated by the evil forces of education.

So... is it really worth it?

Spending hours referencing Ezra Pound, ages bent over Marx, eternity researching Ninaz Khodaiji...
Wouldn't updating my blog be so much more satisfying...?

And so here I am rambling away when there are three papers and 2 presentations looming over my doomed skull. Already my Super Ego pulls out her whip and brings out the shackles. It will only be a matter of time before the flagellation begins. But before the sting sets in, I, the Creator, declare that this blog is not dead !

This is The World According to Me . And the world, according to me, is and never will be dead: no matter how much it tries to kill you.

Undefined

2009-01-14T23:27:00.004+05:30

Poem : I'm not a poem.

"Of course it is one!" says the Reader.
But why is she one?
Why does he have to be one?
Especially when it doesn't want to be one?

'Appearance' you say?
But are you what you seem?
'Purpose' then?
Are you what you do?
'Meaning?'
Do you know your meaning?
"For what it says and how it says it?"
Why do you say the things you say?
And do you always think of the hows?

For that matter,

Why do you do what you do?
Why do you go where you go?
And is the 'where' where you want to be?

Are you what you are?
Or are you yet to be?

Poem says "I'm not a poem."

So what is this, then?
Something new?
Or something forgotten.

And we are born again

2008-12-31T21:41:00.004+05:30

Dear The World According to Me,

Another year dies. And a new one emerges from the womb of time. The world has been reborn with the hereditary traits of a million centuries- and not all of them good. Yet, it squalls unbeaten, determined to survive.

You too,dear blog, have survived. Despite the erratic and eccentric nature of the Creator, you have managed to go on. Not only have you survived,you have also grown. You have seen old faces move on and new faces enter, new branches grace your family tree. You enter the new year with the strength of a hundred posts behind you- a true achievement indeed given the decidedly Ent-like nature of the Creator. Regardless of droughts and depressions you still continue. And for this the Creator Herself bows to you (no meager compliment,this).

The World According to me is like the world. It moves into the new year carrying the scars and achievements of the ages. But yet, it remains optimistic, because not all that passed in the past was utterly irredeemably bad. The World According to Me is a world of it's own. And the Creator promises Happy things for you.

The Creator,

AtomicGitten

Happy New Year to all. :D

Dr. Ames' Inventory of New Age Diseases-3

2008-12-25T23:38:00.008+05:30

Welcome to the newest edition of Dr.Ames' Directory for New Age Diseases. This edition will focus on two of the most rampant ailments plaguing the student community. The avid readers will perhaps be disappointed at the brevity of this edition. However, the good doctor assures them that these two ailments are equivalent to four more than than their number. Knowledge awaits:

1) Brain ham-or-rage:

This dreaded condition strikes the student at her/his most delicate times. That of assignment writing. As most individuals who have gone through the motion of higher education would know, these tasks are usually commenced on the previous day; more often a couple of hours before dead-line(emphasis on dead).And given that an hour can only accommodate 60 minutes, the ideal strategy of research is generally abandoned.This rather tight situation results in a surge of enzymes and fluids into the cranial area. The body adapts to the need for material and a enters a phase known as SFEE (Spontaneous Fecal-Equivalent Emission), more commonly known as "crapping" or "hamming". This phase is characterized by the cerebrum morphing into it's sister form- cerebum. "All the better for writing out of one's a**.", to quote a leading medical practitioner. This transformation ensures the student an entry into the word-limit safe zone.
However,the morph often goes awry due to a diffusion of the said fluids,and results not only in aforementioned change,but also in that of the medula oblongata into muddle-a oblongated. This causes a constipation in the cerebum and a general lack of flow in FE (Fecal-Equivalent). Thus, leaving the student unable to fill the necessary pages and the emergence of general frustration and rage.This condition is known as Ham-or-rage. High frequency screaming, groaning at computer screens, and zombie-like stricken staring are all symptoms of this.

Cures are broadly subjective. However, short walks, emergency light reading and beverages have proven to be useful in the past. Extreme measures include sharp flicking movements of the wrist towards the visage of the patient.

2)Arth-write-is:

This ailment is characterised by the stiffening of the joints through intensive writing/typing. Most people mistake this condition to be limited merely to the fingers. This is not true. The neck, the lower back etc. are also targets. Sometimes patients have even complained about "sprained brains". As painful as the condition is, it is not necessarily crippling. The student usually plows along even with the said ailment, often inflaming the condition to the level of a C-section. A C-section can be defined as the movement of two extreme ends of one structure towards each other under the influence of gravity,concentration and extensive pressure. This usually results in the arth-write-is struck bone structure taking the form of a "C". Another complication that might arise is that of Type-phoid. In this case the fingers of the ailing person seize up and/or obtain a psyche of their own. Both the scenarios result in considerable discomfort and disastrous typos.
Flexing, massaging and stretching are effective methods to ease out of this ailment.

Further developments in the New Age medical field will be updated as and when the venerable doctor feels like it. Until then, good health and happiness to all! And happy healthy Christmas!

Grand Exit

2008-12-13T23:38:00.012+05:30

Here is another story from the heart of malluland. I extend my humble thanks to my father for supplying me with this one.

The Keralite family,with its ridiculously hypocritical system of matriarchy(a bigger hoax there never was), granted all the power to the maternal uncle or the Ammaaman of the family. Thiruvazhuthaan was one such ammaaman. And in the after life he would give serious competition to the Devil. Besides being a natural despotic tyrant and a bigotted sadist, Thiruvazhuthaan also took pleasure in driving away all his family members and anyone who dared to be at harassing distance. And even after they left, he rejoiced in thinking up and executing elaborate plans which managed to trouble and hassle them regardless of distance. Yes: you could run, you could hide, but you can't escape his abuse.

Several interminable years of torture later, to the joy and relief of his family, Thiruvazhuthaan finally ended up on his death bed. Him being the head of the family, the entire family was obligated to turn up. Mumbling, grumbling, cursing and scowling at the inconvenience, they came to offer their last respects(hah!) to the dying man. Bent and crooked, a mere waif of his evil self, Thiruvazhuthaan summoned the eldest brother of the second generation to his side. The brother grudgingly agreed and shuffled off to the beside, manfully disguising his elation at his uncle's dying state.

Thiruvazhuthaan raised his shrivelled, puckered lips in a semblance of a smile and coughed a frail cough. Anyone with a heart would have felt a faint tremor of sympathy for him. The nephew unbent enough to smile back and hold his uncle's hand.
"I have been very cruel to you,nephew; to all of you...." he rasped.
The nephew demurred completely, but respectfully kept quiet.
"... And I deserved to punished ten fold for it..."
The nephew was tempted to agree vigorously, but held his tongue again.
" And so I have thought of something good to give all of you satisfaction."
Here is where the nephew sat bolt upright and became wary. The nephew had good reason to be cautious- His uncle had never thought anything remotely good or helpful in his entire life.
A short fit of dry coughing later, Thiruvazhuthaan outlined his plan. He instructed the nephew to find a fine bamboo growing in the backyard, cut down a sizable portion, and, following his uncle's death, to sharpen one end of the pole and(here's the climax) shove it up his dead a**.
Ignoring the flabbergastred stare his nephew was levelling at him, Thiruvazhuthaan continued, "Only the family must do it. And it must be done. It is the only way my soul will find solace..."
"But I ca-"
"Say the truth! You have to admit that I deserve to be impaled."
"Well...that's tr-"
"You have to do this for me! It's my dying wish!
" But Ammaava how can-"
"You must! My soul will never find peace if you don't! You must make sure I'm impaled! Otherwise, my spirit will haunt this realm and never go away."

It was probably the thought of the prolonged existence of his Uncle in any form,anywhere near him that made the decision for the nephew. He agreed to carry out the request and communicated the developments to the rest of the family. For some reason,they were very enthusiastic about carrying it out...

At long last the old gargoyle breathed his last and the family breathed a sigh of relief (they were probably worried that he'd stay alive just to spite them). His final request was carried out with unwonted happiness and his spitted body was laid out for people to pay their respects. The mangled state of the corpse raised scandal and suspicion amongst the guests at the funeral. 'The family did him in!' they exclaimed. 'What brutal beasts! They actually impaled the poor old man!', decried the good folk.

To cut to the chase, the action oriented townsfolk called in the police and the smilingly impaled corpse earned the family an arrest and murder charges. You see, there was no document certifying that the uncle actually requested the procedure. There was only the nephew's word for it. And the entire place knew about the bad blood between the uncle and the rest of the family. The poor family was embroiled in scandal, entrenched in a convoluted legal case, black marked, and had to go into hiding. That poor nephew is probably slapping himself over and over again for believing his scheming uncle.

Well, in Thiruvazhuthaan's defence, he had spoken the truth. I'm sure his soul wouldn't have found solace if he hadn't made sure his family would be mired in trouble even after his death. And he never once said he was sorry. In his mind, I'm sure, he'd died the perfect death- One stick in the right place ended up ensuring more strife than anyone could have imagined. His life was fulfilled. For him a stick up his a** in no way detracted from the dignity of his death; in fact it made it a grand exit!

Make-down

2008-12-09T01:22:00.004+05:30

Apparently senility is making its presence felt within my geriatric being .
Hitting 21 has set off weird experimental tendencies in my erstwhile marginally sane mind. But the hold must be slipping from my gnarled hands. Why else would I actually
dabble in that quagmire, make-up?
How low the mighty have fallen!...

...It was a nice, cool evening, the wind blowing in fresh soft gusts from the balcony. My newly cleaned out room smiled a satisfied smile and all was in peace. Not for long... At some misguided moment, like Dr.Frankenstien, I decided to tread on unchartered territories. Chancing upon a lonely pot of kajal, some wicked spirit whispered in my ear to try out "smoky eyes". Dunno what that is? Neither did I, until a few months back. I blame it all on my fashion savy room-mate whose every second word is a fashion statement ;p . "Smoky eyes", as popularised by the likes of Angelina Jolie, Rani Mukherjee etc., essentially involves drawing kohl on your eyes and then smudging the whole thing.Yeah yeah it's supposed to have a lot more to it, but this is the bare essential method. Ridiculous, isn't it? And it sounds ridiculously easy too.

Apparently not.

Eye #1 was not such a hassle, the kajal behaved itself and went only where the ear-bud coaxed (yes, I'm an innovative soul). Eye#2 however was where both kajal and ear-bud decided to make like the Bounty crewmen and mutiny. I dabbed left, the kajal went right. Truly a scietific miracle- I don't know how it managed it! Pretty soon I figured out I wasn't a dab hand at dabbing. 'This eye is lighter than the other. No problem. Just a little more to that side. And some more to this side.A little here and- Oh hell now this eye is darker than the other.' A few short minutes later,I looked like a sleep deprived druggie with a blackened eye. Shooting a black glance at the kohl encrusted earbud, I tried my luck again.Dab, dab, rub, rub. Oh lovely-a look in the glass confirmed my suspicions- Now I looked like a panda.

In the face of such stubborn non-cooperation from the earbuds, I decided to go for a new game plan. Yes, I know what you're thinking. I should have just given it up then. But like any tragic heroine, I simply tumbled headlong and headstrong into my black doom. Chucking the offending earbud into the nearest dustbin, I put my ingenious plan into action. I ground two of my fingers into the kajal and swept them across my eye- Woohoo! it's going where it's supposed to go! A little here and little there, wait let me just scratch my upper li- AAAAG!

Great! Now I looked like a panda with half a black moustache.

And no- not just your average Charlie Chaplin moosh. This one would probably put Tipu Sultan to shame. I raised my hands in despair -and thankfully stopped before any more damage could be done.I yield ye black monsters of beauty! I swallowed the dark draught of defeat and slinked off to wash away the stains of battle.

Slipping into stealth mode I shimmied out of my room and shadowed towards the nearest sink and soap. Admittedly, being the one person in the entire family with nothing to do, gives one a lot of solitude. However, there's always a chance of brother dearest sneaking up on me when I least expected it or wanted it. Like right then, for example. Thankfully he and nobody else did. Tip toeing my way to the bathroom, I vigorously scrubbed my face- only to realise that the kajal I had used was of a particularly stubborn varitety. About half an hour later I emerged out of the bathroom looking like Gollum's grandaunt who was majorly into cocaine.

I wholeheartedly admit that my attempt at smoky-eyes was too much smoke for my eyes. On the otherhand, I believe I created a new fashion phenomenon myself. I mean, if there can be "smoky eyes", there can also be "burnt-charcoal-eyes", right? Be that as it may, I think I'll limit my make-up escapades to plain chapstick. If not for the sake of my questionable sanity, at least for that of others who may unwittingly stumble upon the Beast trying to get to Beauty level :P.

Now I'm off to bed to catch up on my beauty sleep. Goodnight :D

Plane Miserable

2008-11-22T02:04:00.008+05:30

Travel gives us knowledge, experience, a deeper insight to life. Following the recent travels of the author (no, no, not just from the laptop and back), she is able to vouch for this.

Air travel is not pleasant. Majestic view notwithstanding, the entire process is truly not the most enjoyable. One is closed off within the claustraphobic confines of the aircraft, served smelly food, and that myth about goodlooking staff?: it is a myth. All in all, it is an experience which the author would prefer to get over with in a hurry. But fate conspires to make us dance to it's decidedly wayward tunes (rather like those old westerns where the villain keeps shooting at the good guy's feet making her/him jump around.)

The author learned first hand the unpleasant nature of that double edged sword called Papers. For the uninitiated, the Visa/ Residence/ any other heavy wieght paper, is not merely a guarantee of welcome and a ward against instant deportation on stepping on foreign land. No ladies and gentlemen, you malign and underestimate them if you think so.These papers are also potential instruments of torture. If the officials at the check in/ immigration counters have had their meals on time, not fought with their spouses or not engaging in their customary(pun intended)sadism- then one is
safe. But if you happen to be like the author during her recent flighty experience... she extends her deepest condolences.

After joyously relieving the author of a thousand rupees in the name of the mythical User Development Fund (yeah right), the officials were pleased to inform her that her residence wasn't valid since she hadn't entered the foreign land in six months.( Weird Kuwaiti rule). The author's uncannily clairvoyant father had prophesied such an event and she was duly armed with a charmed official document.Which was sadly written in arabic. To cut a long story short, she ended up waiting for approximately a quarter of an hour while the airporters slowmotioned their way to their inner sanctum then slow motioned back, got the paper transalated, photocopied, laminated, photographed, finger printed, faxed...

May be Hiro Nakamura had made an appearance when she wasn't looking, but somehow the author actually got to get to the baggage check-in counter before the flight left; where the only question was (bless their mercifully mercenary hearts) whether the UDF was paid. Triumphantly armed with boarding pass and immigration form, the author marched up to the immigration counter. Which is when things began to really go downhill.

To begin with, the officer who decided that this was his day to bother, spoke only in telugu. While the author struggled unsuccessfuly to comprehend, the officer slapped her passport and papers back on the counter and said three succint words "Visa not there". No, she didn't scream. Reasoning didn't work, but the man finally understood that "yes she has boarding pass so she can be allowed through." His face fell momentariy at the deprival of a treat, but brightened again ominously. "Go get airline person. NEXT!"
And that was that.
Trudging back to the check-in counter, the author was forced to wait for an hour for the appearance of one Rahim, who apparently had the answer to all her problems. He never turned up. While waiting interminably, the author had the good fortune of coming across the Charmer. This individual was carrying 10kgs worth of extra baggage. Appearing to be a classic Excess Baggager(refer to previous posts) at first sight, the Charmer turned out to a completely different species. Apologetically, almost Frisky-like, he began to remove stuff from his decidedly huge box when he "accidentally" chanced upon a box of biscuits among his items. Which he "casually" offered to the officials at the counter all the while enquiring about their work, their family, how he is so successful etc. It was a pro at work. The officials didn't stand a chance. The baggage was checked in, excess weight and all, without the slightest problem. Amazing!

While this interlude provided brief entertainment, it also drove home the fact that the author had been much longer than she needed to. And apparently the barely controlled rage made some impression because they not only looked vaguely intimidated but also immediately got someone. The irony of the entire episode is that they happily let the author through without a mention of Visa problems this time even though the person who came along was not the big boss or whoever it is they wanted the author to bring along. And after traversing all this, what must await her but the beaming neon face of a sign that shouted FLIGHT DELAYED.(the vague sound you hear in the background is the gut wrenching scream of the author, and the other sound is that of her hair being torn.)

Ah well, the flight did take off and the author did reach her destination without further mishaps. Since that is the case, she should have nothing to complain about. Milton had it right when he said "...They are also served who stand and wait.". What he forgot to mention was the pure agony of the standing and waiting part. Especially to ones heels. Well, atleast she has both feet firmly on the ground now.The rest can rest. C'est la vie.

Payasam Penchant

2008-11-17T11:28:00.004+05:30

My grandfather was the consummate storyteller. You could have heard the same story a million times from a million other people. But no rendition could hold a candle to my grandfather's. In fact most of these renditions did happen by candle-light. The load-shedding hours were Prime time at Vellat House. But then, being the fount of all knowledge that he was, my grandfather was never deterred by something as silly as time when it came to telling a story. Besides, no story is as good as a spur-of-the-moment one. It was through such a moment that my brother and I got to hear this one.

Somewhere in the misty reaches of time,it had been lunch-time. Which meant my poor mother was busy trying to herd my brother and me to the dining table. Well you couldn't really blame us.We were young. We were on vacation.There was so much field and fallow to explore. And great food is a lovely thing, but in those pre-hostel days it wasn't that much of a bait. With some quick maneuvering and deft use of the one-eye-brow-up routine (she made us shiver with that one), she actually got us to sit still and placed a plate in front of us before we escaped. And since my grandmother was the greatest cook since since cooking was discovered, we weren't complaining much. We enthusiastically piled our plates and had made some headway into our attack,when my brother whiffed a whiff of something delectable.

"Mmmmmmmmm... what's that smell..." He slurped.
My grandmother swelled imperceptibly with pride.
"Chakka payasam." she smiled. The smile died a quick death and was resurrected as a frown when it was greeted with a loud chorus of "EEEEEEWWW!"

Chakka- jackfruit- is one of the superstars of mallu cooking. It can be eaten as fruit, morph into curry, transmogrify itself into sabzi, and even reappear as dessert in the form of payasam or chakkavaratti. And later in the evening, it will return as chips, or back as fruit again. You can't escape the chakka. My brother and I were not really averse to it in most forms. But we were a wee bit dubious to the payasam. And hence the "EEEEEEW!"

Wincing at the double glares we were getting, my brother and I were preparing to face the wrath of the furies, when my grandfather saved us.
"Ah you shouldn't say that," He said between a bite of succulent ladiesfinger,"Chakka payasam is the king of payasams."

Apparently our disbelieving expressions were expressive.

"Really!" he insisted, eyes twinkling behind his thick rimmed glasses as he swallowed another morsel of food, "It's true. It was my father's favorite. But he didn't like it in the beginning either."

Our ears pricked up, and my mother let out a silent groan. The prospects of our finishing our meal anytime soon diminished considerably under the ensnaring influence of my grandfather's story telling.

"Yes..." he said, pouring more sambar onto his rice, settling into his story. "When my father was very young, he had to go for a wedding. At sadhya that followed he was a little distressed to find that one of the payasams was chakka payasam. But it wasn't such a great problem. After all, all he had to do was to tell the server to not pour it.

"It was a great sadhya. Everything was perfect. He was enjoying himself thoroughly. He had just finished cleaning off his third helping when, before he could say a word, the passing server dolloped a slop of chakka payasam right in the middle of his leaf!"

Here he paused dramatically and slurped on some drumstick while my brother and I let out enraged gasps. Yes, he knew how to work up the drama factor really well. He let us go on in the indignant vein for while and then got back to the story.

" Yes, he was furious!And he showed it!
'What have you done!'He shouted.
Apparently the server was a rather slow person.
'What sir?' he smiled benignly and dumped another ladle-full onto his leaf. The fact that the person on the other side of the leaf was squeaking indignant squawks seemed to have lit a candle wick somewhere in the server's cobweb ridden mind.'You don't like it?'
'No I don't like it!And now you've gone and put such a lot on my leaf!You mggfyffiuggg...' And the rest were sputters of rage.
The server scratched his head apologetically and said 'Oops.'
Which naturally sent the already irate guest into a whole new planet of rage.
'Well... don't worry' he continued, looking vaguely troubled at the rather scarily angry person in front of him. 'Just move it off to one side of the leaf and take whatever else you want.'
This rather simple solution,which had skipped my father's mind, took most of the wind out of his angry sails. He scowled and did as suggested and found the idea quite plausible. Except-
'Now it's on my hand!' he huffed at the server who was still standing by to see the effect of his advice.
'Well...' the server drawled, scratching his head again. 'Just lick it off.' At that moment he was called off to another side of the hall, leaving my father grimacing at his payasam coated palm.
Since it was already on his hand, and since he was planning on eating some more food, my father decided he might as well lick it off and get on with his gastronomical exploits. Taking a deep breath and steeling his tastebuds,my father licked off the payasam."

At this point my grandfather decided to prolong our suspense by leaning over his plate and cleaning off the last pools of sambar from his plate. We of course, obligingly chorused demands for him to continue. Satisfied that his plate was curry free, he leaned back and picked up where he stopped.

"He licked off the payasam, and realised it didn't really taste all that bad. But he wasn't in the mood to to follow up on that. Now that his sullied hand was taken care of, he looked down at his leaf- and was not happy. The pool of payasam was too close to the aviyal. He moved it off to another corner, and licked off the offending payasam. But now it was too close to the pappadam and pickles. So he moved it off to the other side and licked off his palm. Ah that's better. But look the inji thair is flowing into it! Oops! And he quickly moved it off to a safer location.

As it turned out, by the time he was done manouevering the payasam around his leaf- there was no payasam left. And, he had to admit it to himself, he was rather sad that it had gotten over. As if on cue, he espied the erring server passing by under a cloud of sweet aroma. He gestured madly at the man. The server caught sight of him and quickly came to his leaf. My father squirmed uncomfortably in his seat and cleared his throat a lot and finally mumbled at the server 'Couldeyehevsumore?'

The server blinked slowly and smiled a smile that he quickly hid. 'Here you go sir' He said, as he poured a ladle full of payasam and then darted off to another end of the hall.
And that is how my father first fell in love with chakka payasam."

Just then Karthyayani our grandmother's woman Friday walked in with a vessel wafting the distinct perfume of payasam. After a story like that it was difficult for us curious children to keep away from the stuff! My grandfather smiled indulgently at us as we slurped off several ladles of payasam. Our grandmother beamed with pride and my mother let out a sigh of relief.

Chakka payasam has remained one of our favorites ever since. Even now when we go back to Kerala for vacations Karthyayani makes it a point to make it for us if there is jackfruit around. May be she thinks that would make us miss our grand parents less. It doesn't, but it helps soothe the hurt to remember good times like those. And I'm sure they serve chakka payasam in heaven.

The Party

2008-11-14T00:48:00.005+05:30

Smaller and smaller the world gets
As we shrink into our selfs
-if they exist.
I take my pick, make my choices.
The night's darkness has nothing
On the what I see
In your eyes
Staring at my painted face
From within the framed prison
Of the glass.

We spin in tune to the rush
of our blood, and our jewels
jingling and tinkling-
chink chink...
The chink in our armours
Meld into the skin on our backs,
Making stabbing easier.
And may be less painful.
Maybe?

The lights blink- black and white
Blotting the grey world out.
And the roar of the music
Tunes out reason (that pain in the head).
Festooning our faces with grinning fangs,
We soak in the madness of the static night.
Growing steadily drunk on amnesial vodka,
We drown the shadows within us.

We rise and fall to the beat,
Keeping time with the beads of sweat
Racing each other down,down
drip, drip,dripping.
You kiss the closest person
And call it love.
Declare it so loudly,
That you can't hear yourself
Tell you otherwise.

Outside
The night turns to day.
Muscles finally buckle.
Swaying and stumbling,we sashay back.
Laugh light laughs,
Unfurling like cigarette smoke,
That make you cough and choke.

Back in front of the framed
Glass prison,
I look and see a new face.
The paint is chipped and the varnish peeling,
But you-
Your eyes-
Still unyielding, accusing.

Right up till then I'd forgotten,
I'd lived something else,
Someone else.
But one look into your eyes,
And the haze lifted.

The party truly ended.

While the world sleeps

2008-10-30T02:41:00.005+05:30

The thing about being nocturnal is that you have so many experiences which most people who know only the sun don't. They don't get it. They never will either. They think you're crazy if you try to explain it. But I've been called crazy before; and if I am crazy ,it hasn't hurt me yet. So I try to put into words the cool shivers than chase up and down my spine when I walk into the night.

Insomnia is a sweet sweet drug- getting you high on the light silver mist that coats the darkness, seeping into your bones until you tingle with it. The stars smile into your eyes as you walk into the deep music of a hundred crickets harmonizing with the tenors and sopranos of the night birds and creatures.And in that pearl-like moment,cushioned in the soft flesh of time, you are awed by the singular beauty of what only you have. The night, the mist the breeze. They are yours. The multitude sleep unwary as you come alive in the depths of the dark. As new knowledge blooms in your breast,as the world and its sleepless life wraps itself around your soul,you become one with everything. You are the grass which bears you weight like a lover, you are the cool air that rushes into you like a possessing spirit. You are the little mouse scurrying in the dark to live, and the bird of prey that swoops on that mouse to live. You are the moonlight spilling like milk on the the world, you are the shadows that dance around the light.You are the center and the periphery. You are.

I take a deep breath and raise my hands to to the sky- letting myself diffuse like gas molecules into the night. Letting it carry me away in it's light breezy arms into a world away from the world. I walk and walk- and never feel the ground beneath my rubber-soled feet. The breeze picks up and my ears tingle with it's added whistle. The smell of dewy grass and moist earth fill my head until the words stop and the world stops...

The dawn breaks like a glass bangle on the black marble of the sky. The crickets have sung their requiem and the birds pick up the symphony. The flowers rub their sleepy eyes and raise their faces for the sun to kiss. The sleeping world opens it's eyes. But it can never open them like you have. You smile indulgently and breathe deeply. And wait for the night.

The Terminal

2008-10-17T16:22:00.010+05:30

Statutory Warning: The following post has nothing to do with Tom Hanks.

In my long and shockingly unvaried career as an air-traveler,I have learned that there is never a dearth of entertainment in the sterile confines of an airport. It is a widely believed myth that being stranded at the airport lounge with no reading material or music is slow death. On the contrary, one often finds oneself in the most interesting and memorable situations.The prospect of future air travel inspires the following insights into the airy life.

An airport is far from boring. In fact it can be quite hilarious-though you might not get the humour immediately. For example, the Kuwait International Airport delights in giving the travelers pre-flight exercise. The authorities would keep changing the gates- and somehow managed to make sure that no two selected gates are ever close together.This usually resulted in people running up and down the lounge lugging family and hand luggage. It's fun to watch, but not so much to participate. On one such run I ended up standing just behind a nice old man in the queue. He was very solicitous, and kept turning back to talk to me. During one of these short exchanges, I realised there was an awful stench coming from somewhere. As I gave distracted answers to the poor man's queries, one part of my mind trying to identify the source. The smell kept coming and going- making it very difficult for me to identify it or to concentrate on what the old man was saying. Which is when it hit me! (No, not just the smell) The stink rose whenever he opened his mouth!
Sigh.. it was a bad half an hour. Thankfully the authorities decided to change the gate again.

It's not just the activities of the airport that are engaging. The people populating it provide enough entertainment to form the cast for a mini sitcom. In any airport, on any flight, you are guaranteed to come across the following characters.

1)The Overdressed: There are some characters who feel the few claustrophobic hours spent in the lounge and in closed confines of a stinky airplane, should be made all the more painful by imprisoning themselves in excruciating finery. Tiny kids in a full wool suit in the peak of summer in fly-infested Karippur Airport, women weighed down with their weight's worth of jewelery at Kuwait International Airport, men sporting brocaded sherwanis at Chennai Airport,grandmothers sporting a ten inch thick layer of make up to go with their designer silk suits in Rajiv Gandhi Airport, Hyderabad... these are merely the tip of the extremely stuffy iceberg. One surmmises that the logic behind these illogical fashion statements is some misguided sense of penance. Or may be masochism..?

2) The Excess baggaged: There is always some poor family/person who's baggage turns into their cross. They enter the airport carefree, a smile(only slightly strained from lugging the luggage)wreathing their faces. Guilelessly they hoist their boxes onto the security check, and even get it bound in cellophane wrap to protect it from damage. And then they go in for check-in...
One is torn between pity, exasperation and irritation(the last especially when you are the person just behind the hapless over-weighter). The poor souls then end up pulling out half their stuff out and carrying it in innumerable plastic covers, or (worse)start asking fellow travelers with less baggage to check in the extra baggage for them. The irritation is there... but it's mostly pity... There are some enterprising souls who bring on the drama and begin to cry- which occasionally tug at some non-existent heart-strings and let them escape. Occasionally being the key phrase.
A similar species is that of the Security-victim. Take the aforementioned scenario and cut at security check post cellophane wrap. This is when the pot-bellied officer (surprisingly they are always pot-bellied- may be it's one of the job-requirements.)decides s/he saw something suspicious in the box. And then there follows the ripping of the cellophane, a stream of neatly packed items falling all around and a poor would-be passenger close to tears. Most often these baggage-rapes only yield something as dangerous as your general pappada-kol or a tiffin box. The hapless traveler picks up the scraps of his/her lovingly packed luggage and trudge away to try and put together the ravaged luggage.Ah the meaninglessness of it all...

3) The Brat(s): You can never escape them. Every airport has them. One is lucky if it's just one in a group. Often the entire family can be classified as brat. Those that haven't hit adolescence, usually communicate via something handy thrown in the direction of your cranium. And these are the well behaved ones. [For truly gruesome examples please refer to one of the previous posts entitled Parental Harassment.] The kid brats aren't as bad as the grown up ones. At least the former can be excused on account of age. And all they do is scream their head off and generally give you a migraine. The grown up ones do this and further court homicide by being complete asses and behaving like they are entitled to it when other human beings try to protest. Truly the bane of the airport experience. But a lot of fun to watch at couple of aisles distance.

4) The Babe/Hunk: At the outset, be warned that these species need be neither babes nor hunks. In fact most often they are the binary opposite. They derive their name from their steady belief that they are babes or hunks. They are focussed creatures who concentrate on their top priority- themselves. They usually station themselves near the nearest reflecting surface and engross themselves in themselves. Lots of hair primping, re-application of lipstick(in the case of the babe), studied messaging (all the better to survey the manicure with and to show off the phone)etc. form favored activities. Some even engage in long, exceptionally loud conversations on their phones. It can be safely surmised that this is mostly to show evidence of some unknown accent, given that most such conversations don't really go anywhere.

These are but a few of the creatures that inhabit the chrome jungle of the airport. The next time you sit in the airport lounge and your mp3 konks off- you know all you need to do is look around for entertainment. It's live!

Achande mol

2008-10-13T06:17:00.003+05:30

At some misty time in the forgotten days of my youth, I'd been asked to guess the age of my father. 'Sixty five!" I'd crowed, liking the sound of the words. Needless to say everyone else crowed with laughter. Today I was asked the same question and in all truth I didn't know! The thing about him is that he doesn't seem to have changed at all from that fateful day, yet he seems to have changed so much. He's one of the few constants that ever-changing life gifted me.

I remember those afternoons when my brother and I would race to the door to be the first to welcome my father home from work. The innumerable times we'd pummeled into him must have left his ribs permanently damaged. And then of course- despite the gargantuan lunch we'd consumed- we'd vie for the special morsel he'd feed us from his plate. And in all truth, he even made mulagooshyam taste nice! There were the myriad programs he would organise, the skits and the kadhaprasangams he scripted. I still remember the lines which he spent days relentlessly drilling into my rather unwilling head. My mother still maintains that had he had a hand in our studies- we'd have been topping all our classes. Thankfully he never did :P. He is an exacting person and one whose approval is a thing of great value simply because he bestows it sparingly. Which,while it commanded a healthy amount of respect from all and sundry,at the same time made him slightly intimidating. We'd think twice thrice and several more times before we risk testing his patience. In fact the only person who'd actually attempt this and escape more or less unscathed was my brother- who can charm the fangs off a serpent, so he's definitely a special case.

And now we are all different yet the same. I am an ocean away. My brother is usually studying or away when my father gets back from work. The entire pattern of our lives is different. Often we come in friction with our father and there are uncomfortable tensions. His patience is tested more times than a rich invalid. Things are so much more complicated. There are fewer shared activities, fewer common interests. Maybe it's generation gap ... At some level I suppose with self reliance there also came some distancing. And yet for all that, our father never changed. He still makes sure everything is all right- like he used to when there was no one else to do the drawing assignment. Or like he did while helping me fill out my M.A applications.

I may no longer be that tiny baby who used to sleep on your stomach. I may not fit on the sofa along with you anymore.I may seem distant and un-understandable(not just when I talk too fast). I may sound like I don't value you. I may seem irreverant and disobedient. I may never become as great as you think me to be. But the fact that you think I'm great makes me glad all the same- because you don't bestow your approval lightly. And the fact that you given me someone like you to look up to makes me a much better person. May be I should blame you for having such high standards in the people category :D.

Thank you Acha, for being you.

Happy birthday :)

I aam a Malayalee...

2008-10-09T18:40:00.005+05:30

You can take the mallu out of Kerala, but you can't take the Kerala out of the mallu.

I'm what is generally known as a 'fraud mallu'. True, I'm not lost in the abyss of non-mallu-mallu-ness. But I'm close. I've only stayed a couple of months in good old Gods own country. I speak passably good Mallu. But I read and write it at the pace that makes a snail look like a speeding ferrari. I don't like coconut water and prefer tapioca chips to banana chips (which is the complete antithesis of standard mallu behaviour). I have no natural obsession with gold. Neither with coconut oil. The only mallu cliche I actually adhere to is that I do have the 'gelf connection'. Obviously I am truly not the example of a dedicated, mundu-swishing mallu.

Or so I thought.

One evening two fellow mallu hostellites and I began to reminisce. The topic veered towards movies and consequently to music. And then, naturally to all out singing. The kinship and the happiness experienced was immense! It was like being back home! And that's when it hit me. Despite the beauty of all those lovely evenings jamming with Gunther(in beautiful Chennai days) or with Firestone at the stone bench,the satisfaction I obtained from singing plain malayalam songs- regardless of how banal- was several times more. Simply because the songs were malayalam! It brought to mind those lovely lines by the poet Vallathol, roughly transalated as,

"All other languages are merely secondary,it is my language that stands as king."

That shared musical evening was enough to leave me nostalgic and sighing for several days to come. I recall those early days in Chennai when I'd yearn to hear malayalam being spoken. Of course now it's both Tamil as well as Malayalam (oh joy..)

Thetruth is that we humans all of us are intrinsically clannish. Regardless of how many times we try to declare ourselves nomadic or perhaps universal, at the end of the day we still have a hearth that our heart yearns for. And for the average Mallu (even the fraud one, apparently), this is more so since we tend to do things in extremes. No matter how fraud a mallu might be,s/he will always be a true blue mallu at heart. You never know when this trait will manifest itself, but be warned it does when you least expect it. Which brings to mind another verse from one of Vallathol's poems,(which I'm loathe to translate since I'll only make a mash of it)

"Ethu videshathu ponnu vasichaalum, ekaamba putrar naam- Keraliar."

Wherever we go we Mallus will always be Mallus.
On that note I'll get hold of my "ping lungi" and break into "I am a Malayalee". :D

M.Adness

2008-09-24T11:42:00.004+05:30

Yes, it's been a long long time. Sadly,the University has no interest in the creative lives of it's students. It's more busy testing our survival instincts. But no more explanations.

So we joined M.A. Cool. What we didn't know was that M.A, in the University's definition meant Mental Asylum (as B-30, with an admirable show of astute thought,inscribed on their door). When it's not dogs taking up residence in your bathrooms or -worse still- in your rooms, then it's Bais who mop the entire corridor with the same unwashed mop with which they mopped up the doggie pee (eeeewwww!!). I shall restrain myself to the point format to curtail ranting. So here goes:

You know you're firmly entrenched in M.A at the University when:

1)You start assaulting your poor defenseless floor-mate while she sleeps, just for the heck of it.In fact,you measure the days worth by the number of times you make her scream.

2)People stop jumping and running to the aid of the aforementioned floor-mate,when the former point is played out since, "it's so common now"

3)One actually practices the axiom 'early to bed and early to rise': only in our case it's early in the morning and early in the afternoon respectively.

4)Ones metabolism resembles an alien life form's: resulting in loud singing (at the least)in early hours, when normal people indulge in lala-land fantasies.

5)Your search for healthy food leads you to the nearest Subway, almost everyday.

6)You become adept at pushing 200 words to 500 words just by force of will.

7) You check for doggie pee before you put your foot down on the corridor floor.

8)Pepsi is your life-line.

9)You haven't read fiction in...hell you can't remember since when!

10)Second Hand smoke is the air you breathe.

11)We wash clothes at 2 am.

12)Songs are written in praise of the praise-worthy campus shop and it's owner.

13) You spend hours plotting the demise of the internet guy: who's services are @#%&*

14) You can't even plan your escape 'cause you don't know when the holidays are.

This perhaps throws some light on the life and times of the hostelite/student at the University. We welcome new comers with open arms: especially if they bear food, which will be handy when the hunger pangs hit. Sometime before sunrise :D

In a Pickle

2008-09-01T01:06:00.009+05:30

On the basis of the vigorous endorsement of the place by fellow hostelite MonaLisa, Pickles was chosen as the victim of our gastronomic attack.Mona was ecstacic in her praise of the place.Just listening to her would have a foodie running to the place on barefeet. A sumptuous buffet for a mere 250 bucks and a variety of dessert was ample bait to lure us. You may be wondering what the motive behind this eating expedition was.Well,it was the first 1st since the commencement of our sojourn at the University. It was in celebration of our survival that we were venturing forth. At least that was our excuse.

We wished to make the most of the buffet(meaning leave nothing for the losers who happened to come after us)and on Mona's advice, decided to set out early.In a weak moment, Firestone and I succumbed to Fashunista's (room-mate)urging and actually conceded to move away from Slobville and appear in what is referred to as haute-couture. These miraculous events themselves should have warned us of the eventful evening to follow.

Following a small skirmish with an over charging auto-driver, and some confusion regarding the route, the three of us- finery unruffled- arrived at our destination at around 7.15. Tacky name notwithstanding, Pickles turned out to be a posh little outfit. The kind of place you take your hapless buddy when she says she'll treat.Confident in the knowledge that we were safe from over expenditure, we sashayed into the place. There was no sign of a buffet. This did cause a twinge of anxiety,but we ignored the little niggle and asked the receptionist when the siege officially began. "9:30" , she said with a smile. All three of us looked at our watches simultaneously- it was 7.30. Hanging on to the hope that the receptionist was dazzled by our awe inspiring beauty and the sudden blast of our benevolence, we asked again. Only to receive the same answer.

While Firestone and I stood with jaws hanging, Fashunista quickly got us seated before we blew up.Which, in hindsight, wasn't the best idea. Now that we were sitting, how the hell do we get out without seeming like the complete cheapskates we were. It wouldn't have been a problem in namma Chennai- but the place being new and all, our skins were still rather tender. I believe I speak for all of us when I say that at that moment we wanted to kill Monalisa- very slowly.

Trying to play the casual card we coolly accepted the menu and looked at it, admirably hiding our winces at the price range (200 bucks for a burger!!! 90 bucks for a stupid soup!)It didn't help that the waiter was hovering around like a hopeful fly- which compelled us into ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. While we waited for our soups feeling like bugs caught in a Venus-flytrap and contemplated on different ways to torture Mona, the flint in Firestone's head sparked off and she came up with a brilliant plan.

Following her instructions I missed-called her and she began a fake conversation regarding a hysterical friend stranded near some bridge (which became a flyover after a while since we didn't know of any bridges nearby). While Fashunista and Firestone kept up the conversation I frantically motioned the waiter and canceled our orders in the name of an emergency. Of course Firestone very obligingly supported the scenario by continually saying "calm down.." and "don't cry.." into the phone. She kept up the phone call until she realised her phone wasn't in silent mode.Thankfully by this time we'd managed to get out and even jumped into an auto. Which is when we finally burst out laughing.

We did have dinner. The watchman at the biriyani place did a double take when we entered.And a sweeping glance told us we were at SlobCentral. Ignoring the curious stares and mumbling curses at Fashunista for getting Firestone and me dolled(?)up, we got ourselves biriyani which tasted like ambrosia to our starving palates. The sight of the comparatively small bill,which would have been double the amount if we hadn't escaped from the Pickles pickle, added to the sweetness of the moment.We returned to the warm- er... sweltering- arms of the hostel. And who should be waiting for us but Monalisa!

We didn't kill her. But we made sure she wished we had.

All in all- it was a memorable first, full of firsts. May it be the first of many such firsts.

Dogged doggies

2008-08-22T12:39:00.014+05:30

This post was inspired by the inimitable Gunther, who jump started my blogger-blocked mind and diverted it to frolicking Fluffies. Many thanks comrade.

If you would recall, gentle reader, my hostel-besides providing a venue for impromptu thepla parties, chocolate cake and guitar evenings- is also a congregation ground for a variety of canines.The dogs(the four legged varieties) of the University vie with the students for top demographic position. And,it seems, for amenities as well. If it's not Frisky the too frisky frisking into your room,or Tyson(who ought to be renamed 'Hyperion'- or better still, 'High'perion.)chasing after your harmlessly hanging hand,then it's Sundari the doggy matriarch lounging in bathing areas.

But I over reach myself.

Welcome dear readers into the doggy world of the University hostels.Yours truly, ensconced in the Old Women's Hostel, ( well... they took one look at me and knew where I belonged ;P)found this out the hard way. The sun rose on the cluttered face of the hostel and the sweet melody of morning groans spilled into the moist morning air.The author rises from her cramped bed and moves towards the bathing cubicles with the happy hope of starting the day clean. With sweet thoughts of soap running through my mind I opened the cubicle door- and almost stepped on the gargantuan backside of Sundari the dog. Now Sundari, dear readers, is not your average dog. In fact, she is about the size of three average dogs put together. And perhaps for the same reason- immovable. What began with coaxing pleas to the dozing dog escalated to reverberating "Sundari OUT!"s and "SHOO DOG!"s : all of which proved completely useless- she continued to sleep undeterred. Soon these measures disintegrated into all out abuses.A particularly loud bout of swearing finally had the sleeping Sundari open one single bleary eye. Apparently what she saw didn't impress her at all because she merely shifted a bit and went back to sleep. Rage has a way of making the world get a wee reddish around the edges. Thankfully- the venue being the bathroom and all- there were no sharp objects at hand to apply on that thick furry hide. More fortunately the lady in the adjacent cubicle finally got out. It's probably because of that I didn't get hauled up by PETA. Now several weeks veteran to the ways of the Old Women's hostel, I have learnt that Sundari's apathy and dismissive attitude wasn't a unique case. Indeed, it is conjectured that even an earthquake wouldn't cause her to move her fat arse. In fact the only thing that gets a rise out of her is the sight of Frisky who she obviously can't stand. Which brings us to Frisky.

Frisky, unlike Sundari, is emaciated to the point of scary. But he makes up for that scariness with the studied application of Puppy-eyes whenever he wants to get his way. Frisky gets his name from his thorough frisking of the dustbins in the evening. (Sundari probably got her name through some weird joke- there is nothing beautiful about her)This must,of course, follow hierarchy- Frisky can frisk for dinner only after Sundari does- other wise Sundari would have him for dinner. Frisky wouldn't have been such a pain if it weren't for his terrible habit of barging into your rooms and refusing to leave. Just when you raise your slipper armed arm to render a stinging blow, Frisky looks up at you with those sad you-will-hurt-me?- you're-so-mean eyes and the earth shaking blow you were planning to render turns into a wimpy half-pat. And then we have to resort to literally shoving him out- and avoid eye contact. Frisky is the scapegoat in the campus- every dog has taken it upon themselves to make his life hell. The makes you feel even more like Cruella De Vil each time you attempt to whack him or kick him out. Especially since he just stands there and seems to invite hurt. He seriously ought to take lessons from his campus partner Tyson who never stands still.

For the record, Tyson does not have an ear fetish.(His palate turns towards other body parts, to which we will come to shortly)Why he is named this is beyond me. Maybe it's the whole 'crazy feet' thing, because Tyson can't stand still. Not to mention, he is absolutely bonkers!I cannot stress the point enough- he is completely,irrevocably nuts! I thought the whole theory of dogs chasing after nothing was mere fiction until I came across this particular specimen. Most people tend to swing their arms while walking. But we learned soon enough to keep our hands out of sight when Tyson is around. For some weird reason, Tyson seems to believe all free-hanging hands contain goodies. He refuses to eat biscuits unless they are dangling from your fingers. This trait has lead to the stupid dog happily snapping on somebody's lit cigarette. That must have been a hot snack.Another favorite trick of his is to run break neck at you and apply the brakes a couple of millimeters away from your toes. Not the best way to enjoy your evening stroll.

These are the key players in our little menagerie. They aren't that bad, really. They're amazing entertainment in all truth- though it takes you a while to see the humor in the situation.Especially when you are dying for a bath and have to concede to a fat dog, or would kill for sleep and end up spending several precious minute trying to get the dratted mutt out of the room and then be forced to keep the door closed all the time... But life in the Old Women's Hostel wouldn't be the same without them. We love the doggies :)

Chennai meri Jaan

2008-08-08T12:17:00.002+05:30

You know you're suffering from intense Chennai-itis when:

(a) you start talking really bad tamil just to hear some tamil.
(b) You crave filter coffee. Even more than you used to.
(c) T.Nagar starts sounding like a beautiful haven in your head.
(d) You get sentimental over M.T.C stories (!!!)
(e) When you whine "I wish I were home." you're thinking Chennai.
(f) You'd do anything for a landmark.
(g)You have an undying urge for Manga a la Marina/ Besant Nagar.

Damned Chennai- can't live with it, can't live without it.

Hostel Humbug I: Bootcamp

2008-08-07T10:30:00.003+05:30

Class didn't happen. Couldn't find it. Hence I am now basking in the benevolent light of internet availabitlity. And that results in another post. Read on soldier-

Hostel is a significant part of student existence. They teach the untried to survive-provide us with the necessary arsenal to face the harsh world ahead. The author has had the questionable good fortune of having spent her Under Graduate life in two exemplary examples of the educational hostels and now spends her P.G life in an equally interesting abode.

The first one was a study in community closeness. We hostel dwellers were very close-literally. We were all crammed together in a manner that made canned sardines seem comfortably housed. The hostel was actually a medium size house converted into a hostel. And the conversion was a bad idea. Approximately forty women were clogged together in a four bedroom house.The "dorm" was located in the corridor and housed some 20 girls. Each room (which, by the way, hadn’t much room to go by) was packed with six girls. This was achieved through judicious use of bunk beds. Which were another bane. Being an unsuspecting rookie, the author was thrilled with the prospect of getting the upper bunk. Only after the first night there did she realise what she had got herself into. The bed was situated in such a way that the hapless sleeper in the upper bunk got niether the air from the pedestal fan nor the cieling fan. And this was during a Chennai July. Explaination is unecessary. Several months of waitng and drenching before sleeping later- the author finally got the bed below the "hotseat". This one turned out to be a hotbed for mosquitoes. Several mosquito families owed their upkeep to the author. This great establishment not only taught us the value of space but also how to tackle encroachment, eviction and other such evils. We’d make admirable quotation gundas after the training we got here. Besides this, we also learnt the fungal nature of squalor. A perfectly neat corner will be filled with rubbish from nothing more than the mere proximity of a group of people.

Following first year, the author escaped from this institution- which probably accounts for what little sanity she had left. The next establishment was much better-for one thing it was clean and didn't house more than two people in a room. Of course the rooms were tiny, had no plug points and may seem, as Ms.Shinyhair loves to put it,"like a concentration camp cell". But they came with a great location and good ventilation (the fans worked!). Of course electricity was switched off from 10 am to 1 pm. and the lights were switched off at the main at 10 pm... But those were all minor in comparison to the water problem. We hostelites would scrounge up every bottle in sight to store water. For you see,most mornings saw the hostel bathrooms waterless. Forget bathing, brushing your teeth was a shifty possibility if you haven't stocked your bottles. Hair washing,especially,was a very dicey business. God help you if,at a weak moment,you decided to oil your hair overnight. But then again,considering the amount of salt in the water it would be advisable to leave the mane untouched. Truth be told- a cannibal would not have to add extra seasoning to you if s/he chances upon you after your bath.

U.G days have passed by. and now the author finds herself in the world of the University. And residenceless. Several weeks of nail-biting suspense later, she finally managed to infiltrate the hostel. And there raged a war for possesion(s) as never seen before.Furniture needed protection from marauding bedless/cupboardless/shelfless bandits. Meanwhile beds needed to be strategically acquired before other conquering souls swooped upon them and marked them with baggage.Constant information must travel between you and your allies to see that you are sufficiently guarded and your supplies untouched. Much like the ancient battles for supremacy, space and territory were coveted with a vengeance. It is at these trying moments that one's territorial nature is awakened. May be it is some kind of weird allegory that the hostel premices are populated with a variety of dogs- them being fiercely territorial and all.

A new hostel saga has begun. Heroes will be born. Legends will told. But all that will have to wait. I need to get to class. Forward march!

AND I'm BACK!

2008-08-07T10:22:00.006+05:30

I believe the title says it all but still-

Wake up oh blog of mine! Your sleepy days are over!
Chennaisickness, doubtful net connection and 9-6 classes notwithstanding, the Creator shall not let you go to seed. Perhaps you might even get extra exercise- what with all the interesting characters that populate the grounds of the University. The possibilities are endless!

With that warning I shall move on to pastures anew. Which reminds me, Yipes! I need to run for Milton!

The Creator,
AtomicGitten

On his baldness

2008-07-02T11:03:00.004+05:30

Little brothers, regardless how much taller they are, are still little in the eyes of everyone. Ok fine- me. Which was why it was rather disconcerting to find that one fine morning he's interested in the mug that he sees in the mirror and has a fetish for hair care. It is, was and always will be the hair care part of it that leaves the hapless bystanders tearing their hair in exasperation.

You see, unlike most guys who love to splock on whatever goop they can get onto their hair in the name of "styling" my brother went the other way. Exhibiting his undoubtably hirsute scalp which looked like a black rainforest, he said-
"Chechi, I'm going bald."

It was with this small statement began a saga of mythical proportions- and an endless stream of potions and elixirs that supposedly increase hair growth. It wouldn't have beeen so bad if he had kept his paranoia to himself. But noooo. We family members had to listen to all the myriad proof of his baldness- which, if it were true, was as easy to notice as a microbe. He'd point out his side parting as the beginnings of a baldspot. If the Chinese had had the oppurtunity to confer with my sibling, chinese torture would have been more effective.

And the anticlimax of the whole business is that last week he went and shaved his head- Clean, shining, BALD.
????
Boys,Guys, Men- the mind bogles at their convoluted logic. And they call women the eternal enigma. I say - "HAH!".

Dr. Pepper

2008-06-28T12:27:00.003+05:30

This is another story from the heartland of family lore.
My mother’s paternal grandfather, Manaveda Raja, was royalty. This of course meant he had to survey and maintain acres and acres of property as well as commandeer a formidable regiment of stewards, caretakers etc. This story is about one of those myriad figures that formed the cogs in his system. Once again the name eludes me in misty mazes of memory; however we shall not leave this figure nameless. Let’s call him Appu Nair (for the uninitiated, some of the commonest names in the uncommonly varied terrain of Keralite nomenclature are either ‘Unni’ or ‘Appu’). Appu Nair was a dedicated servant. His employer’s word was law. He followed instructions to the last syllable. Sadly, he was a little literal minded. As we will see in the following incident.

Kerala in the monsoon season is wetter than a fish. And so it wasn’t unusual to see people nursing snuffling nose, cattarhing coughs and throbbing heads. Appu Nair had got it bad. He let out regular bouts of sneezing and coughing and sniffing while shuffling miserably behind my great grandfather. The latter took pity on him and made the terrible mistake of suggesting a remedy.
“Appu Nair, why don’t you take some pepper? It brings the cold down very fast. “
A light shone in the bleary eyes.
“Really sir?”
“Absolutely! It’s worked for me several times.”
“How much should I take?”
“A pinch per meal should cure you in two days.”

When the master himself had such confidence in the cure how could the servant think twice? During his midday break Appu Nair sought out his store of pepper. Rejoicing at the thought of a mucus free nose and clear head he proceeded to take his dose. Sadly, in his eagerness to be rid of the ailment, Appu Nair over reached himself. Squeezing his ham sized hand into the tin he pulled out a dizzying amount pepper and shoved the whole lot into his mouth. The shock of the impact lead to the swallowing of all that potent powder. Please remember this is pure pepper- none of your adulterated, processed namby- pamby stuff. When the master said a pinch- he was actually recommending a double dose.

His head on fire, Appu Nair ran out of his house screaming in agony. Grazing cows stopped their chomping to watch the burly figure running down the slope like a mad man. Roosting pheasants took off in indignant flutters at the bellowing disturbance. At least four people were unceremoniously pushed out of the way, and often into the slush, when they made the mistake of being in his path. Appu Nair’s maddened run culminated into him jumping into the stream. Which would have been alright.
Had he known how to swim.
Glugging and glogging, he was swept away by the strong current.

Meanwhile, my great grandfather was taking a routine stroll around the irrigation bunds along with a couple of his other stewards. He was placidly walking along thinking how nice a neat set of paddy fields looked with a strong unpolluted stream running through them…hey wait a minute, there’s someone in the stream. He must be a very god swimmer. Oh look he’s waving. Hello to you too. He looks remarkably like Appu Nair. Oh my god it is Appu Nair!

Being an unhesitating person, he quickly had a few strong laborers to jump in and pull out the poor man. Following the plying of the safe solid comforts of a towel, blanket and a hot cup of tea, the entire story tumbled out of the now cooled mouth of the unfortunate. Perhaps it was astonishment that kept my great grandfather from laughing or from throwing the stupid man into the stream again.

But in all truth, you couldn’t fault his logic- if a pinch would cure him in two days; a handful should have cured him in a couple of hours. And the funniest part is- at the end of his pepper escapade he didn’t have a cold anymore. So maybe he wasn’t such a Suppandi after all.

Karuppan's Father

2008-06-05T02:35:00.009+05:30

Karuppan, like most people, had a father. This was long back in the past of course, which is why I cannot recall his name at all. But the tales of his enterprises are perhaps more entertaining than his offspring's. But the most memorable among his considerable repertoire was the episode with the dog.

Karuppan's father loved a challenge and was always stretching his limits. At least that is the only thing that can explain why a person with a capacity for liquor that surpassed even Karuppan's was mostly tottering about stoned like a quarry. It was during such a drunken spell,late one night,weaving doggedly down the dancing tarmac road bordered by a hazy blur of verdant bamboo, coconut and jack fruit, that this story unfolds.

Karuppan's father rounded the corner, reeled around from the inertia and came face to face with the Dog. The healthy flow of energizing spirits in his system had put him into a benevolent frame of mind regarding the whole world - even if it was twirling like a ballerina. He extended his swaying arm towards the dog in the middle (since that one was the only one with a single head[and so seemed the real thing]), with an encouraging,endearing grin, perfect for winning the heart of any average dog. But this was no average dog. This was a canine which used to be dedicated to the alcoholics anonymous cause in it's past life. Or may be it just got a brush off from the local hot pattikutty. Anyway,one look at the inebriated figure in it's wake and Dog decided it was time to live up to the name "canine" by applying its canines. On the leg of the figure in front of it.

"YEOOWWWCH!"

Karuppan's father then went on to perform the ancient Indian rain dance. Of course he wasn't aware of the heritage of his paroxysms. All the while the Dog, mission accomplished, sat on it's haunches and watched with the avid attention of a dance connoisseur. Fifteen minutes of intense hopping and language that cannot be recreated or repeated later,the pater finally noticed the enragingly calm canine gazing at him with Dalai Lama-like equanimity. This naturally set his blood boiling. Letting go of the maligned leg, he stalked..er...limped up to the insufferable dog. Breathing harshly, his bloodshot eyes rolling with menace, he placed his hands on his hips and thundered-

"You Godforsaken lowlife chokli(mongrel),mutt!"
The Dog stared.
"I'll beat you up and feed you to the dogs,you dog!"
The dog scratched an itch behind it's ear.
"Who do you think you are! You think you're so great or what!"
The dog yawned.
This show of nonchalance by the dratted dog drew the enraged man into a fever pitch of fury.
"You sit there like you've swallowed a spear you stupid thing! If you have no fear then I dare you to bite my other leg you son of a bitch!"
The dog cocked it's head.
"Hah hah! Don't seem so smug now do you, you disgrace to dogdom! Hah hah hah spineless, sore ridden do- YEOOOOOOWWWWWWCH!!!!!!

There followed a reenactment of the rain dance only more violent and colourful- and that's not just the language. It didn't help that sometime during the hopping the poor man fell into a road side ditch. The dog meanwhile finally decided that discretion is the better part of valor, or may be the local hot pattikutty came along again. Whatever be the case, by the time Karuppan's dad pulled himself out, along with a variety of flora, fauna, thorns in uncomfortable places and other materials that one would not like to mull over, there wasn't a trace of the dog on the road. Life can be a bitch sometimes. The poor man had to satisfy himself with flinging a few stones into the dark, shouting obscenities to the heavens. He tottered back to his shack with a few extra holes and the firm resolution to never tempt fate. Especially when it comes to dogs.

The Theory of Theories

2008-05-27T22:43:00.002+05:30

Over the years of going through the futile exercise of education one is forced to "learn" theories and axioms propagated by venerated and cursed individuals. The author too admits having gone through this sad routine. However, unlike less the productive, the author spent more time contemplating the philosophy of theories than actually mugging them up. Why, wondered I while perusing through Newton and his laws, did the no good, jobless, individual just not eat the bloody apple and be done with it. He was probably suffering from a stomach upset or something. Which brought on further ruminations on the lines of the popular joke regarding Newton's excretory thoughts (his thoughtlessness to be more precise), followed by further reflections on the other popular joke concerning his marital status which spawned the law of equal and opposite reactions... And it is at this juncture the ferocious physics teacher swooped down upon me like a Fury and... I'd rather not go into that.

But to get back to the lost point, why do common ideas and things that stare you in the face like gravity and the whole food availability theory that Amartya Sen got the whole Nobel Prize for, become the bane of student existence? The fact is, until these dastardly devils give these simple truths unpronounceable names, these truths and theories were enjoyable thoughts. And e then-when they do name them, they become the dreaded THEORY. And now finally the point. The Theory behind Theories.

This theory states that any homily suitably endowed with difficult language and a name that spans time and space with more syllables than one can keep track of, automatically becomes what is generally referred to as the theory. This rule is applicable to any axiom- ranging from how to reverse a bike to best way to write graffiti. And of course once this is accomplished the poor piece of common sense becomes much cursed and generally bemoaned. And it is only when this stage is reached that we can know for sure that the theory has become a theory. Once they start appearing in text books and getting mugged up for board exams you know you've clinched the theory spot.

And this be-eth my Theory on theories. I'm thinking of the perfect name, but my latin is not up to scratch.

Name Shame, follow up.

2008-05-23T15:01:00.004+05:30

I rarely if ever post any forwards, but this one seemed permissable. I am a red blooded Mallu myself. But I cannot deny the truth of the following email. I extend my thanks to the venerable Pyne for this valuable insight into the shrouded realms of impossibly impossible names.

The Science Behind Christening Mallu Christians

It has been a well kept secret for eons, shrouded in mystery and mazes of deceit, but finally Itty Boben Jacob Elias Kuruvilla from Pazhookaville, near Thelmasherry, Kerala has consented to let us publish this classified mallu formula, on the naming of mallu christian kids.

1. Select a combination of both the mother and fathers names. Eg: Suresh and Sharon = Susha or Joseph and Beena = Jobi.
2. The addition of a 'mon' (meaning son) or 'mol' (meaning daughter) is optional. eg: Sushamol, Jobimon
3. To attach a modern anglicised feel to the names, the mol or mon can be replaced with boy or girl. eg: Jobiboy, Sushagirl.
4. For the politically correct keralite family, mol and mon can be replaced by the universal 'kutty'(child), which can be used for both boys and girls! Eg: Jokutty, Susikutty

Even parents having combination names can still give their children suitable names eg: Libi and Jobi = Lijo

However, in the scenario where the parents already have combination names that cannot form more comprehensible child names. Eg: Itty and Amukutty, would produce only Itam (which doesn't even sound like a name) or Amit (which is like Northie and stuff!!!!), then

a. use an English word like Baby, Merry, Titty, Pearly, Smiley, Anarchy, Innocent, Infant etc.
b. use a combination of two English names that you think sound cool (but never cool enough) like Meredith + Gina = Megi, or Sharon + Darlene = Sharlene
c. Use a name from the Bible (and not Nebuchadnezzar! Use one that even velliammachi can pronounce!) like Jacob, Sam, John, Joseph, Mathew, or Jijo!
d. Use a name that sounds like a cuss word but isn't. Eg: Boben, Prussy, Shagi, JustinTimberlake etc.

Note: The use of the letter 'j' is useful in the naming of sibling where names that sound alike are a novelty. Eg: Ajji, Sajji, Majji, Bhajji and Nimajji, or Sijo, Lijo, Jijo, Anjo, Panjo, Banjo.

Karuppan the gardener.

2008-05-20T12:08:00.004+05:30

My parents' hometowns are home to several interesting characters. Their quirks and mannerisms can rival any Wodehousian peer. One such one is Karuppan.

Karuppan is an honorable man. He works as handyman and general Man-Friday at my father's sprawling home. He lives a simple life. Work in the fields in the morning, get his wages in the evening, proceed to go get sloshed, go back home and beat up his two wives and enjoy a peaceful slumber. Yes, Karuppan is a good, ordinary man.
But Karuppan is unique- he possesses the complete binary opposite of a green thumb. If you don't want something to grow- call Karuppan. All he has to do is trim a tiny leaf from the farthest branch of the unfortunate plant, and it's growth would be blighted for life.

My father,sadly, discovered this fact through first hand experience. Being a man of a pioneering aspect, my father was determined to bring order to the "pretty
wilderness" that adorned the premises.
"The yard is a terrible mess,we've got to do something about it. All the trees need a little pruning and the bushes need to be replanted."
"But you can't do all that alone." We reasoned.
"Of course not." scoffed my father, "I've asked Karuppan to come."
"Do you really want to do that...?"
"Yes,I do. He's handy. And what they say about him and his jinx is all nonsense."
He didn't notice the rest of the family shooting each other dubious glances.

My father-the master of delegation- quickly had the entire household scurrying to do his bidding. At the appointed hour Karuppan turned up and the work commenced.Discarding his shirt of an indiscriminate dirt shade, Karuppan began to unceremoniously lob off random branches of the big mango tree that stood in the yard.To the uninitiated, the mango tree is a very special part of any Mallu family lore. It gets the full brunt of sentiment. And Karuppan besides having the blackest thumb in this part of the world (both literally and figuratively) was of a rather chop-happy nature.

Suppressing a moan of horrified despair, my pioneering father rushed to curb the carnage.

"What are you doing?!" shouted my father at the figure swinging on a branch like some kind of monkey."Get down."
Karuppan obligingly descended and stood respectfully scratching his armpit.
"What?"
"What were you doing!"my father bellowed.
"Cutting branches."
"All of them????"
"Oh no,no,no- I was going to leave a few."
For a moment my father actually seemed to contemplate shaking the man but restrained himself admirably. "The trunk doesn't really count as a branch." he said.
"Hahaha! Very funny sir!" Karuppan grinned, displaying rows of betel stained teeth."Don't worry,I've been doing this for ages. They'll grow back." with that, he took up his tools, scurried up the tree and continued to chop.

My father, though always confident and and rarely cowed, couldn't help feeling a little bit of doubt at this declaration. May be they would grow back. But some deeper instinct warned him otherwise.Following this altercation my father concentrated his efforts on restraining Karuppan. With each branch lobbed off Karuppan seemed to grow more zealous. In fact, it can be safely surmised that he resented my father's insistence on leaving some more branches on the tree than he felt necessary.

By evening our yard was filled with denuded trees and their branches. Karuppan still in attendance cheerfully helped move the latter while splattering the ground with betel juice at steady intervals. My father, poor unsuspecting man, rested in the assurance that he had done a good job. However, before Karupan left for his evening entertainment, my father asked him with ill concealed anxiety, "The branches... they will..?"
" Definitely!" Assured the able gardener, busy counting his wages," They'll be full of mangoes when you come next vacation."

Next vacation came- but there were no new branches. The next vacation came, and there were branches but no fruits.Several vacations passed with no fruition. It was only last year that we finally got a few mangoes from the tree Karuppan attacked that morning.

A few years back we'd made our house. My father, having still retained his pioneering nature, decided there must be a garden. The pots and seedlings were duly bought. And once again Karuppan was pressed into service- to dig and nothing else. He kept shooting wistful glances at the saplings and finally my father relented and let him plant a few.

Unsurprisingly- every other plant except his took root.

Recently,he'd come to our place to help with something- nothing to do with plants. During his break, armed with tea and biscuits he lounged near the garden. Mid-sip he turned to my father and said "See all my plants have grown so well!" pointing to a couple of weeds in the side "I've got magic fingers" he grinned proudly.

I don't think my father had the heart to correct him.

Singing in Landmark

2008-05-20T01:48:00.000+05:30

One of the landmark discoveries of my college days is Landmark.

The Apex Landmark was my earliest haunt. I'd go there everyday.So much so that the security people would recognize me by sight,actually enquire if I missed a day in between and smile indulgently as they heard me sing along with whatever music was playing. That is my earliest memory in Chennai- singing in Landmark.

Coming from the book starved world of the middle east, and a school whose library was as big as the general ATM booth,Landmark was a Brave New World. Add music to this potent drug and I was enslaved.Dust stained and dismal after a day at College followed by work at the NSS centre, the tired first year student trudged through the A.C cooled portals of the beloved establishment- and fell in love. I found solace in endless shelves of worlds.Volumes bound in seductive leather,perfumed paperbacks which make your mouth water at their scent... was it any wonder that I was entrapped. I used to spend entire days there, reading until my arms chilled and I could no longer feel my fingers and toes.Landmark turned into the worst place to ask me to wait- I'd generally remain caught up in whatever book I'd be reading and completely forget any appointment. In fact I'd miss my curfew simply because I was reading. In my stuffy hostel bed I "recollected in tranquility.."of stories and music. I'd close my eyes and once again I'd be singing in Landmark.

First year rolled into second. I changed hostels but I still held on to my haunt. Most evenings would find me balancing precariously on the side of a shelf or sitting on a rickety stool bent over a book and humming along with the music. I remember an instance when they were playing Coldplay's The Scientist. As usual I began singing along and realised there was another voice singing as well. The guy on the other side of the shelf had the same revelation simultaneously. We gave each other sheepish grins and continued while I tallied another Lover to Landmark's list.

Second year crooned into third and third year into graduation. Following a short stay with the family (I'm still trying to figure out which creates the more painful parting, a long stay or a short stay),I returned into the warm- perhaps over warm- arms of Chennai. Post unpacking and such obligatory processes, I proceeded to reactivate my dormant contacts. The classmates came first. Most of our conversation revolved around up-coming entrance exams, future prospects and all that depressing stuff. The juniors, perhaps under some misconception of overnight maturity or trying to appear interested, endeavored to follow the same track. I was hit by a sense of over-powering change. Like when one stands on the beach and the water washes away the sand from beneath ones feet,and one has unknowingly moved. Dispirited and unhappy I sat slumped on my bed and decided that stasis would only lead to greater depression. Picking up my wallet and phone, I went to the first place my feet lead me- Landmark.

Standing in the Indian Writing section, I pick up a misplaced Gerald Durrell and transport myself to the sun-kissed island of Corfu. The Beatles' Yellow submarine plays in the background. I smile, not only at the antics of the Durrell family and their menagerie, but also at myself. What is there to worry when I have this? Things change, as they ought to. But there are the anchors that keep you steady even in the course of the flood. And for that you have books,music and moments like this- singing in Landmark.

Hairy Tale

2008-05-19T13:03:00.001+05:30

I think it started with Rapunzel and Sohrab&Rustam.

This fascination with a feminine head of flowing,glossy locks has endured and even grown through the ages. And now it's transferred to the masculine head as well- pioneered by Mahendra Singh Dhoni,Vikram and for a while Amir Khan to name a few. My family has always had issues with my hair. Especially my father and brother. Coming from a stock of Class A Mallus, they maintain that long flowing tresses are an essential for the enhancement of female beauty. And no argument- reasonable or otherwise- can ever convince them otherwise. It's all my mother's fault of course! She's the one who set the precedent. Whenever I passionately champion the wonders of un-long hair, they merely turn and point to her.But surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly,she had always been my staunchest supporter in the cause of manageable short hair. But that reprieve didn't last long.The number of things done to my poor tresses outnumber the number of things done to my face(refer to previous posts).But like my face it has remained firmly untamed. In fact, my mother actually had plans of taking me along while she tought Shelley's Ode to The West Wind. She wanted to give them a clear picture of "maenad's hair" (for the ignorant- go read the poem).

It's not that I don't like my hair- I love my hair ,I really do. It's distinctive and very like me: messy, notorious and a not a little scary. Since it's so much like me, isn't it the natural course of things that I carry forward the similarity and keep it short? I remember that glorious time when the hair-lady had made a mistake and bobbed off my mid-back trail.I didn't have to really comb it for ages! A lazy girl's dream. But then it grew...sigh. But all said and done, my hair does look nicer long. When it's short I look more like a hobbit than ever. But then it's such a bother... It seems my hairytale has no happy ends-they are all split.

And why am I writing about this? I've been charged with getting a haircut. Why am I not rejoicing, you ask? Simple- there are instructions. Left to my own devices I'd just take a pair of scissors and snip away. But noooooo. It has to be done in a system. I should go to a stylist and get a trim as opposed to a chop. And I have to make sure that it swings just so and that the "volume" (isn't that something in stereos?) is maintained and GAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!The physics, and lately the chemistry, of hairstyling-especially female hairstyling- is hair raising. The names itself require a hundred page glossary. The prospect of journeying into the tangled lands of beautiful hair makes my hair stand on end. Ah why oh why are we put to such tests!? Is it not bad enough that we have a facial hair ripped off to appease beauty. Must we bow our heads to these edicts as well?

May be I'll just make a trip to Tirupathi, what say?

Talking in tongues.

2008-05-06T19:17:00.002+05:30

My mother tongue is malayalam.
Therefore,logically, that would be the language spoken at home.However- showing evidence of strong familial similarity to the author- logic is thrown out the window. The common linguistic scene that greets the eye-the ear, perhaps would be more appropriate- is a a sea of languages sloshing together like spirits in a cocktail.Something on the lines of "Athu ko vaha leavekar vekum kalambaffy karo."(simple transalation: 'Leave that and get going', number of languages used 4)is as common as day in our residential premises. And this is a simple example.
Trissur Malayalam flows into cheri Tamil and that mixture is splashed with a dash of some tapori Hindi and then heated with some rapper lingo and shudh, school-tought-Hindi. To this is added a smattering of French a breath of Arabic along with a brand of English that is unique to this family , and Voila! That's our language. It is surprising that any of us understand each other. Even my father,being the only comparatively sane person among a horde of confirmed lunatics (sorry,ma),does. Yet people who come home and chance upon one of our informal conversations will most definitely be at sea.

Forget the languages themselves, the various allusions-intertextual and otherwise-the quotes (from books,movies, relatives etc.), the mannerisms to go with each of these and of course the accents... Hmm.. maybe we should declare what we speak a different language as a whole.

The point being that there are more things than the tenets of the Mendelian Theory that bind family members together. And no,not all that sentimental stuff either- though that's definitely an aspect. Families connected,and each member made uniquely a part of that family through the bonds of language. No one family- no matter how alike- can speak like any other. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is another reason why language must always be respected.
Go Linguists!

Dr.Ames' Inventory of New Age Diseases- 2

2008-05-06T19:17:00.001+05:30

Welcome to the newest edition of Dr.Ames' Directory for New Age Diseases.This edition's prime diseases are:

Fartigo: This is an airborne menace. Like the foot-in-mouth disease (refer to Edition1)this diabolical disease works pulse like- rippling outward. It may be compared to an atomic explosion. It hardly ever effects the source, except in very rare cases when the source is struck by chagrined embarassment. But this is , as mentioned earlier, very rare. Most sources feign ignorance and several go unknown-thus creating an aura of mystery. The general symptoms are immediate nausea and necessity to cover the nasal passage following the inhalation of noxious fumes. General moaning and occasional cases of loss of consciousness have also been recorded. The disease can be almost fatal in small enclosed spaces. The best remedy is to catch hold of the source and dispose of it in the nastiest way possible.

Like-aemia: This is a speech defect. It is characterised by excessive use of the word "like". Generally deemed a disease of the young, this illness has spread its tentacles into not so young speech as well. In it's most virulent form,cancerous like-aemia cells can overide all the cells in a sentence thereby creating a tumor in the sense lodes of speech and consequent breakdown of communication and leaving listeners cell-shocked.The origins of this disease may seem harmless- a "like" here, a "like" there. But soon this becomes a "like" everywhere. The disease must be nipped in the bud and this can be achieved by constant teasing and in the case of little children or easily dominated individuals- a sharp, forceful down/side ways movement on any fleshy part of the patient's anatomy should suffice to discourage.

Sore-i-ass-is: This ailment is very broad-based(no pun intended). It usually manifests itself on individuals who spend a lot of time on their behinds. It is characterised by numbness and alternating soreness experienced in the posterior. This disease is an occupational hazard for drivers,especially bikers,in a traffic jam, 10 ruppee ticket movie watchers,students in an exam hall and government officials. Another variation of this is seen in students whose ends have made an acquaintance with the rougher end of a ruler/cane/paddle/any hard and effectively pain inducing surface. A brisk massage or a special exercise called the Guntherian-bum-dance is very effective in tackling Sore-i-ass-is.
No-money-a: This too is a highly wide spread disease. It is characterised by a lack of GFCs (refer to Edition1). Almost everyone who has made an acquaintance with GFCs believes that they have suffered from this disease or are suffering from this disease. But the perenial patients are always- students. Students, especially the college variety,constantly succumb to this illness and have to undergo an intensely painful drought period. They sometimes try to combat this through the Borrowing Maneuver, but this generally increases the risk of relapse.The best method to tackle this menace is by cultivating several GFC banks and by appealing to the Green Cross run by Parental Associates for GFC transfusions in dire scenarios.

The Common-Scold: This is a common ailment stereotypically manifested in the female. However the doctor holds that this is equally or more applicable to the male. It is usually seen in parents. The symptoms of this disease is a characteristic repetetion of dialogues or threats, better knowns as scolds, issuing from the male/female in question. Continuous exposure to the Common-Scold can result in sore-throats (for the patient), headaches (for the receiver) and general discomfort. The only way to tackle this is to grin and bear it. Cotton helps though.

Further developments in the New Age Medical scene will be updated as and when the venerable doctor feels like it. The good doctor expresses gratitude to fellow physicians for their valuable inputs. Until the next time,good health and happiness to all.

Name Shame

2008-04-30T12:55:00.001+05:30

To start on an oft quoted quote- "What's in a name?"

I'm sure Sycho Baby would have a lot to rant about on that flippant statement. As would Shitty. And Mincy. And Diarrhea.

And these examples are all real people.

It is fascinating to wonder what exactly deranged parents were thinking while condemning their offspring to such labels. These name-traumas permanently scar the poor person.Put yourself in the shoes of young "Queen Elizabeth" - yes, she really was named that- and you'll see what I mean.Imagine the plight of the poor 80 year old, forever doomed to a name like "Baby". Isn't that taking "eternal youth" a step too far? A similar anomaly is the case of absolutely grotesquely ugly individuals named "Sundaran"/"Sundari". I suppose their parents were trying very hard to fool themselves. Poor Lajjith probably dies of shame everytime he has to introduce himself.

Mallus are atrocious namers.There are a huge number of kids condemned to being called Saddam Hussein,Lenin, Stalin etc. everyday.Mallu Christians are another category by themselves. A mad fettish for rhyme, leaves hapless siblings with names on the lines of Jincy,Dincy,Vincy,Lincy,Tincy(!),Mincy,Rincy... [let us pause for a moment and pray for these blighted children.]

To move on. Names can be damaging in their extreme imagination or complete lack of it. My grandfather used to tell us the story of his distant cousin's name. Born after a delay of several years, the young son bore the full brunt of his erudite, sanskrit-scholar father's eruditon. He was named-

"Eeshadvikasithakundasamaananasmitaruchiraananajithaparva
nahimakiranan."

The semiotics of this name are irreproachable. It's almost poetic. Sadly it is the similarity to an epic poem that is seen in the length. And the anticlimax of the whole name,was that the cousin was finally and universally called Eeshad. And Eeshad,you see, means "incomplete" or "half". For a hulking six footer who'd put Bheema to shame to be called "half", not to mention other conotations of this title... I rest my case. The other extreme is equally sad. The handyman at my father's place, besides being wiry, betel chewing and sloshed every evening, is as dark as a politician's doings. And he is named Karuppan which- wouldn't you guess- means "dark". Couldn't his parents have thought of something a little innovative? What could be a better- or should I say worse- example of this disturbing lack of creativity in parents,than all those boring begetters who name their children after states!These individulas can be excused as being patriotic, but what about those parents who name their offspring after months and days? And who can forget Douglas Adams' creation,"Fenchurch" who was named after a railway station. I suppose they ran out of creativity post creation of the child in question.

And then there are the incomplete names. The kinds where a person introduces herself/himself and you're wondering "And..?". One such name I've come across is "Chinma". I mean, it sounds like her parent was cut off in the middle of saying the whole name and whatever was said got stuck. "Abish" is another such name. Names can also be a curse just by sounding the way they do. Let me remind of Yann Martel's creation, "Piscine"- forever doomed to jokes about "Pissin'". But a fictional case will not prove this contention. Imagine the plight of poor "Abish", his name booming like the soundtrack for a fight scene in some sad production. Or Uppili,who ought to become a clown or a stand-up comedian, because the moment he says his name people start laughing.Another similar situation is the case of double meaning. Remember "Gaylord Focker", of "Meet The Parents" fame? And my personal favorite-"Mahaboob".

My question is,what exactly are parents thinking while bestowing a terrible name on their child? Is it some kind of revenge for inflicting labour pains? Or is a crime of passion- they were carried away by an artistic,patriotic or ideological madness? Or is it some wayward misconception of teaching them humility through shame? Perhaps... After all, the parents' minds work in mysterious ways. To quote the Bard yet again- "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosohy."
I would go on but time and laziness decree otherwise.

P.S: As for my name, my parents were over-reachers and hoped for great things from me. Hence I'm left to create my own names.

Yours,
AtomicGitten/Ames