Kids first day out.

We had my kid's baptism last Sunday and like the many baptisms that I have attended till
date, I expected it to be a function devoted to just one kid. Imagine my surprise when I see
three more cute kids (and their parents, godparents, relatives etc) at the Church.

It seems a Sunday evening every month is specifically kept aside for baptisms at this church
and the priest would baptise all the kids that turn up for baptism on that day. Proceedings
were kind of long-drawn because the priest would have to repeat the same verses for each
kid and go from one kid to the other while making the sign of the cross on the their foreheads
or while sprinkling holy water on them etc.

One thing I noticed was that all the kids were silent, which is very unlike what I have seen during other baptisms. Usually the kid would cry atleast when sprinkled with holy water,
but in this case none of the kids even seemed to notice it. Old-timers would say that the kid
cries because Satan is expelled due to the sprinkling of holy water. Hmmm. Does this mean
that Satan managed to stay back in the kids inspite of the holy water ? I hope not.

Since the baptism was in the afternoon and it being generally hot and humid, the kids were drowsy / asleep and that could explain how they went through the whole exercise without
even a whimper.

It is usually a normal practice to have the kid lie in front of the altar, after the function is
over. In this case, it was actually a pleasant sight seeing 4 cute babies lying side-by-side.
They looked so cute & lovely in their white dresses. Though my son did not take kindly to
leaving the warmth of his mother's arms and started bawling as soon as he was laid down. :-)





At our place, the baptism would usually be the first outing for kids, since the time they came home after delivery. Elders do not allow the kid to be taken out anywhere till the Baptism is
done. Except maybe a visit to the hospital if the kid is not well or for vaccinations.

I think this has also to do with Mr.Satan - the fear of Satan becoming an uninvited guest in
a kid that has not been in a church yet and been baptised, sprinkled with holy water etc.

Give us this day our daily bread.

The title of this post, is from the prayer which I think is one of the few things that the
hundreds of Christian denominations in the world happen to share among themselves.
And it is so apt a request because while man toils to be able to acquire a lot of things,
but the one thing that he cannot do without is food.

Ofcourse there is water and air also, that he cannot do without. But then air, however
polluted it might be getting daily, is freely available to all. And water is also sort of like
a given, though getting scarcer by the day.

The full prayer, in my humble opinion, covers almost all that a rational human being
should pray for, to whichever God he believes in. It reinforces belief in God, asks for
God to take care of our needs, requests God to forgive our sins and asks his help in
enabling us to lead a virtuous life. Anyway, this post is not about spreading the Good
Lord's words and anyway I am in no way competent to do that, given my numerous
failings.

Coming back to the topic at hand, I have always had a love-hate relationship with food.
I can't do without it for sure. Yet, I don't like to be fussy about it either. I eat just about
enough to get through. And not for any dietary reasons. Call it luck or whatever, I have
been maintaining a constant weight (which is correct as per my BMI) for years now,
without any real effort on my part.

Our office pantry is no 5-star hotel restaurant. But it is not bad either. An average
employee spends around 20mins there for lunch. I am in-and-out in 5 minutes.
Not that I disrespect food. Given that I am from a country where atleast 10% of the
population are having a tough time managing one decent meal a day, I accord food
the respect it deserves.

I am OK with whatever food the circumstances have in store for me. In my 30-odd
years on earth, I don't think I have criticized anyone's culinary skills. As long as it is
edible, I eat it. Edible being a very loose term, that covers any food that I can eat
without throwing up.

If the cook, by mistake, put 5 spoons of salt instead of the required 1 spoon, I would
just say, "A little salty, ain't it ?" and continue eating. No wonder the womenfolk at
home love me. Whatever they dish out, I eat, relish, thank them and move on.

For I know that millions in my country and around the world, would give a limb for
that food. If only the good Lord granted each living being its daily bread, instead of
having to pray/struggle for it ? Now that would be utopia, ain't it ?

Maybe He has a reason behind making us work for it. If it were available without us
having to put in any effort, we would surely divert the energy that we would have put
into doing work, into something destructive.

There's many a slip twixt mind and limb.

It is said that ideas have a strange way of striking at very odd times and it is always
a good idea to have pen and paper handy to note them down, lest you forget it later.
And miss a gem of an idea that could have made you a millionaire, enabling you to
retire to some fancy beach. :-)

But what happens when you are ready with pen and paper (or a laptop, as in current
times), but the mind races so fast that the hand holding the pen is unable to keep pace.

Noting down the title or even the gist of a blog post is easy. But putting down on paper,
the full post, as the mind blabbers away, is tough. There are numerous times when I have
experienced this. It sounds so easy when your mind gushes away. But try putting it down
in a way that conveys the full meaning, without being boring, and you will know what I am
talking about.

I thought about getting a small voice recorder for such situations, so that I can spew my
thoughts into it and later play it back so that I can capture all the details that I would have
otherwise lost by the time I set down to putting it down on paper.

Ofcourse, it would surely look odd if you are in a public place and are seen mouthing stuff
into a small device. Anyway, except for people thinking of you as a lunatic (which is not a
big deal anyway today, if you look at all the people walking around like zombies glued to
their mobile phones), I do not see any other cons in this idea.

Another reason for you to strap on that helmet.

If you thought the helmet would be helpful only when you have an accident while
riding your bike in India, well you are mistaken.

There was a news item couple of days ago, about a biker who was riding down a
subway when a 40kg block of railway sleeper fell on him from the railway track
above. With the railways shifting to concrete sleepers from the older wooden ones,
I am assuming that this was also a concrete block. It did look small in the newspaper
photo, but if you think its trivial, imagine a 40kg block of concrete falling straight on
your head from a height of something like 15 feet or so. Ouch !!!

Anyway, as per the report, the guy lived to tell the tale only because he had his
helmet on. And even with the helmet taking the direct impact, he is in a serious
condition. So, imagine the case if he did not have the helmet on.

So, for all those that avoid strapping on helmets, hope this incident helps in changing
your attitude to this safety-aid.

Giving back to society.

The year : 1962
The time : Around 7-ish in the morning.
The place : Mavelikara, a small town in Alappuzha district of Kerala state in India.

A young man is at the river bank to have his morning bath. His family is not well-off
to have their own bathroom, with running water and the works. Infact, things are not
exactly hunky-dory at home. His father works at a school and while he draws a regular
monthly salary, the money is only just about enough to make ends meet.

Unlike most families in the neighbourhood, this family has to worry about one additional
expense - college expenses for the son. While children in most families here do go to school,
most of them drop out sooner or later. And for those that stick on (due to providence or
their own interest), reaching Standard X (S.S.L.C.) itself is a big deal, let alone passing it.

So the number of kids here that complete Std. X and then the 1-year Intermediate (today
it is a 2-year period called 10 +1 and +2) and make it to college can be counted on one's
fingers. While it was a matter of pride for the parents that their son was doing well
academically, college also brought with it expenses.

The college was at Pandalam, a town some 20-odd kms away, requiring money daily for
bus fare. His Mom used to raise hens and the money got from selling the eggs used to
support bus fare to college and back. But ofcourse, the hens simply had no idea about the
important role they played in the young man's academic life. So, on days that they didn't
lay eggs, Mom had to find other alternatives to enable her son to get to college.

Anyway, the parents were determined that nothing should come in the way of their son's
higher education and worked to overcome all odds to ensure that he is able to pursue his
studies without having to bother about where the money for supporting it came from.

Coming back to the river bank, while the young man is having his bath, there are other
guys from the neighbourhood, junior to him and in school, who also share his passion for
studies. These guys cannot afford any private tuitions to supplement the little that they
are taught at school and thus look forward to the young man's daily visit to the river in
the morning, so that they can clear their doubts with him in the short time that he spends
there. And the young man, is only eager to help anyone who has any queries or needs any
clarification.

His good grades in Intermediate could have easily got him admission to an Engineering
college. But he had no one to guide him about career choices, and in all probability, he
was not even aware about the options available to him. He takes up Bachelor of Science
(B.Sc.) degree in Chemistry. Not taking up Engineering would be a decision he would rue
later on in life, due to not being able to advance in his career as much as he could have
done had he had an Engineering degree.

He finishes his B.Sc. degree with a First Class and works for a short duration as a teacher
at a school. While there, he gets called by the Employment Exchange for a position in a
premier oil exploration company. He has to go to Gujarat for the interview, which for all
he knows could be in the West Indies, given that the furthest he has gone from home is
like 50-odd kms.

He gets in touch with someone in the neighborhood who happens to be working at Gujarat
and gets his help to get around when he reaches Gujarat. Due to the financial conditions at
home and also because trousers were not so common then, he did not have a trouser to
wear to the interview. And ofcourse you can't go in a mundu (a South Indian attire loosely
translatable as sarong) to an interview.

Again friends help with their trousers, which he gets altered by the tailor to suit his girth
and height and boards the train to Gujarat. He lands the job, and soon is an expert in his
department (Production) of oil exploration. He stays with the organisation till he retires
40 years later at the age of 60 as a manager at a very senior level. His only regret was
that if only he had taken an Engineering degree instead of the B.Sc., he could have moved
much more further in his career.

After having been working and keeping busy for 40 years of his life, he is sort of worried
as to how he will keep himself busy during retirement. But, he is soon to find out that he
will be left with much lesser time than he had when he was working.

He decides to take up farming first, given that he has always been blessed with a green
thumb. Quite some time is spent pottering around the yard growing tapioca and plantains.
Still there is quite some time available. So he decides to be part of an NGO to do his bit for
society. His friends influence him to join the Lions Club, which he believes is doing quite a
bit for society. But the Lions Club meet only so many times a month, which still leaves him
with a lot of time.

And that is when he comes across a kid in the neighborhood, who has a passion for learning,
but cannot afford the tuition centres. He decides to spend some time coaching the kid. From
an average student, the kid soon moves into the top scorers in school. Word spreads about
the person who can coach kids from average performers to top scorers and soon there are
three more kids that come to him for coaching. Now, he has his hands full and time is now at
a premium.

Without knowing it himself, he has come full circle. From coaching his juniors on the river
bank, he is now coaching a new generation. A generation of kids that have the urge to learn,
but do not have the means to pursue the same. Apart from coaching them, he takes care of
the school fees, books, uniforms for the kids that cannot afford them, with the intention that
a kid in the neighborhood should not drop out of school just because of the lack of money.

This person is my Dad. Whatever I am today, is because of him. He never had the luxury of
learning English grammar in school, but he did not hesitate to buy a copy of 'Wren & Martin'
so that he could teach us the nuances of the English language. While growing up, he had never
heard of Cursive writing, but ensured that me and my sisters spent time writing English, the
way it should be written.

He would take the effort and time to read up our textbooks so that he could teach us. Be it
Science or Mathematics or languages, he was there to guide us, if we had a doubt. And all
this, after a hard day's work at the oil-field.

Today, when I see the effort he takes to teach the kids that are not priveleged enough to
afford the kind of education that most kids take for granted today, I feel proud of him.
When I see the interest the kids display in making the most out of the time he can spend
teaching them, I am sure that these kids will go on to do big in life. And knowing that my
Dad would have played a big role in that, makes me feel proud that he is my Dad.

Happy Birthday Kerala

Today, the 1st of November 2007, marks 51 years of the creation of Kerala, my home state.

Kerala came into being on this day in 1956, since when, this day has been celebrated as Kerala Piravi, which is Malayalam for "Birth of Kerala".

Many happy returns of the day to the paradise on Earth.