Of Skodas and church feasts.

Annual feasts are a big thing in Kerala churches and are marked by 3 - 5 days of jam-packed activity, including not just prayers, but also entertainment for the parishioners like plays
staged by renowned theatre groups, light music orchestra, fireworks etc.

A church feast involves lots of expenditure because the whole church is painted, illuminated
with serial lights (for the duration of the feast), the whole complex gets a sprucing up etc.
And add to this the expenditure on the entertainment options mentioned earlier.

Depending on the number of parishioners, their cash-worthiness & ability/interest to spend,
the budgets vary from church to church. In my parish, the expenditure is divided equally
among a group of people (usually 50-60 people) who express interest in conducting the feast. And it comes to like Rs.2000 (50$) per person.

People offer to conduct the feast as a sort of thanksgiving for favours received. And it isn't
really necessary to be a Christian to be part of the group conducting the feast. We have had instances where people from the neighborhood (but not X'ian) being part of the group.

There has also been cases where some people who are not even from the town, offering to
do this as thanksgiving, because they had serious road accidents in front of the church (its a
bad curvy road) and still escaped unhurt.

And there are parishes where only 1 person conducts the full feast, with expenses running
from 0.5 to 1 million Rs (25000$). This is the case in the richer parishes and since there
would be more than one moneybag in town, how do you decide who gets the chance ?

Well, you bid for the right to conduct the feast and winning bids can get as high as a few
hundred thousand rupees. So, you first pay an obscene amount of money just to get the
right to conduct the feast and then shell out money to actually conduct the feast, making the total outgo anything from half a million to one million bucks.

A parish in Kerala was planning for their annual feast which was coming up in a month or so. Discussions were centred around what all expenditures are foreseen and approximately how much money would need to be collected from each person who put up his name as part of the conducting group. The group were clear in doing it in the best possible way, money being no issue.

So, they come up with the list of items planned, expenditure for each item etc, with the final
tally coming to a very considerable sum of money. While they are working out the details, the bishop of the diocese happens to drop in at the parish and joins the discussion.

Bishop : So, how is the planning for the feast going ?
Parishioner : Quite well, Your Excellency. We have listed out all the expenditure heads.

B : And what does the total expenditure estimate look like ?
P : We estimate the whole feast to cost around 0.8 million Rupees.

B : What ? You would be spending such a lot of money on a feast? Would it not be better if
you reduced the expenditure by cutting out the frills and instead spent the money saved
on the poor and the needy ?
P : ....Silence....

B : Continues his sermon about how this was not a done thing and so on and so forth.
The parishioners respond with silence, till one of them cannot control it any more.

P : If that be the case and this is a wasteful expenditure, could you please explain why you splurged Rs.1 million for your Skoda Octavia car ? Would the job of transporting you not
have been done equally well with a car costing half that amount or lesser ?

Everyone, including the bishop is shocked. The meeting ends there with the Bishop leaving
in a huff.

In my opinion, both sides had a valid point. Religious leaders should be leading by example, instead of by sermons. I know that Priests and Bishops do have quite some travelling to do
in discharging their duties and I for one, am not advocating that they use public transport.
But at the same time, they can set an example by buying a car that fits their needs, instead
of opting for a car that is seen as a symbol of luxury. After all they are supposed to be leading
a spiritual life, away from the pulls of material pleasures.

And as the Bishop rightly said, blowing up such a lot of money for a feast is something not
done. More so, when we have people around that find it tought to even get 3 square meals
a day or do not have a proper roof over their heads or find it difficult to afford their kid's education. For instance, part of or even the full amount allocated for firecrackers could
instead be spent on helping such people. Would also reduce noise/air pollution.

But then, from a recent real-life experience (of the late Mr.Peter of our parish, which I will
hopefully post in the coming days), I know that while we are ready to loosen our wallets in
the name of God, religion etc, we would not part with even a few rupees to help alleviate a
fellow human being's suffering.

And for the Bishop, I hope his next car is a more economical one - a Suzuki should do fine. Though I would not be really surprised if he upgraded to the Skoda Laura or God forbid,
a Mercedes-Benz, the ultimate in snob value.

Make the Three R's a way of life.

Last week, we received an email about our organisation's "Going Green" initiative and what
each one of us could do to prevent Global Warming. This resulted in a flurry of emails flying across the Chennai mailing list with people coming up with all sorts of 'ideas', which they
claimed would be their contribution to this end :

- Some said they would avoid personal transport (bike/car) and use public transport.
- Another guy said he won't use paper cups anymore and instead use a water bottle.
- Many offered to setup or join car pools.
- Some would switch off monitors, conference room lights etc, when not in use.

And so on and so forth...

I am not doubting the sincerity behind these ideas. But, only wondering why it needs us to
be prompted by either our organisation or Al Gore (via his documentary - An Inconvenient truth) to do something which should come naturally to us.

The way I do it (and have been doing for years) is to look at everything as a resource which
is valuable and in many cases non-replenishable. So, to start with, I should take only that
much of a resource which I need for my use, then ensure that I consume it without wasting
and if it is something that can be re-used or recycled, go for it. So, for me, water, food, fuel, electricity, paper, etc are all resources that need to be used judiciously.

Also I make no distinction between resources that I pay for or which are being paid for by
others - a resource is a resource, as simple as that. So, if I see a tap / faucet at the office restroom not closed properly, I just go ahead and close it, even though I am not technically paying for the wasted water. Same goes for any lights in the conference rooms that are
burning with no one in the room. It goes without saying that I do the same at home too,
with the bonus being that I save on my water/electricity bills.

This approach is known as the Three R's philosophy, with each R standing for Reduce,
Reuse and Recycle. Instead of just thinking of individual ways to make a difference to the environment, if we embrace the 3 R's, this becomes a way of life, resulting not only in the
world becoming a better place, but also leading to enormous amounts of savings for us.

As someone wise said so very rightly, "We did not inherit the earth from our
ancestors; we've only borrowed it from our children".

Let us atleast leave it as we found it.

Wow !!! Already 4 years of blogging.

Four years ago, this same day, I had taken the first step to blogging. Time sure flies past us quickly.

Ofcourse, even though I started the blog in May 2004, it was not until a year later (Apr 2005)
that I actually started blogging seriously and regularly. So, while technically this is the 4th anniversary, logically it is more like the 3rd anniversary of my blogging experience.

All I can say is that it sure has been worth the time and effort spent.

And then you have the gall to say that English is a funny language.

Got this photograph as an email forward. I am sure most Indians would be able to make out what the sign was supposed to convey, inspite of the error(s) in English usage.



For non-Indians, this sign is from some place of tourist attraction - most probably a place with
a water-fall. And given that they have the instructions in Malayalam andTamil, this place is either in Kerala or Tamilnadu, and most probably near the border between the 2 states.

'Jetty' is local lingo for brief/panties. And while the sign might sound like an instruction to jump in nude, that was not the intention. The sign implies that you need to have on some kind of shorts/pants over your underwear if you are jumping into the water.

The second instruction is about not getting into the water in an inebriated state. Though it sounds like they are against you bathing in the whiskey of your choice. :-)

India becoming pedestrian-unfriendly by the day.

Unlike developed countries, most of our cities do not have pavements / footpaths for safe commuting of pedestrians. And in places where the roads do have them, they are usually
taken over by illegal hawkers.

And now this menace is spreading to smaller towns as well. The road you see in the picture below is the one in front of my home (not seen in pic) in Kerala. Till a few days ago, it was
just some 4-5 metres wide - you can make out the extra metre or so of road that's been
newly added.



They plan to add a similar strip of road on the left side also, with the idea to widen the road
to be able to take the increasing traffic on the road. A few years ago, this used to be a sleepy road, mainly because after some 800 metres or so, the road would just end at the river and there was no bridge on the river. So, only people who lived in the neighborhood would mainly
use this road.

But after the bridge was constructed across the river, the traffic has increased like mad.
Mainly because this road-bridge combo cuts commute distance by around 4-5 kilometres, resulting in quite some time savings. And the speed at which cars/bikes fly on this road is
just frightening.

Till they added the extra strips on both sides of this road, pedestrians could walk on those
strips of dirt road, without worrying about speeding vehicles. But now that the road has
been widened, automobiles will claim that much more of the road, without worrying about pedestrians.

This leaves pedestrians without much options because, the area after the extended road is
not really walkable - either it has electricity/street light poles every 100 metres or the wild growth of shrubs does not make it feasible to walk there, due to the danger of reptiles like
snakes which could be present there.

The only solution is to clear that area and make a raised pavement for pedestrians, but when
our cities don't have pavements, wishing for them in a small town like ours, will just remain
that - a wish. The previous councillor of our municipal ward was my senior in college and a neighbour and a person who took keen interest in the problems faced by the constituents of
his ward. If he was still in office, there would have been a teeny bit of hope.

But a couple years ago, our ward was notified as reserved (for Women) and so he had to give
up this ward. The lady who is the current councillor is not really someone with any background in politics - there weren't enough women wanting to jump into the electoral fray and so all the political parties had a tough time getting women candidates.

Plus I don't even know her or where she lives, though finding that would not be really tough because it is a small town and everyone knows everyone else. I don't think much will come
out of meeting her to request a pavement for the benefit and safety of pedestrians, but I do
plan to give it a try.

What if she understands the situation and does her bit to have a pavement built ? Worth a try.

Will do anything for that cute smile.

Bringing up a kid is no mean task, especially the first few years, when it is fully dependent on others - for food, company, cleaning up etc etc. Anyone who has gone through this experience would vouch for it.

The constant nappy changes, waking up at odd hours at night to feed him or the mind-boggling task of determining why the little one is howling - is he wet or is he hungry or is he sleepy or is he ill or is he just in the mood to bawl ?

As one of my software engineer friends (and a recent Dad) tells me, the problem is that there is only one error code (crying) with which you have to debug the problem, which is what makes it so tough. :-)

But when I wake up in the morning, and the first thing my eyes get to see is the little one lying alongside me on the bed and looking at me with a big, wide grin pasted on his face, I know why
a kid is worth every bit of the effort and parenthood one of the best pleasures of life.

Forget horsepower, this is of much higher magnitude

We were going to a cousin's home to see her new-born baby, when we came across this quite
interesting sight on the road. And it is tough for me not to stop and watch elephants and also
take some snaps if I have a camera handy. My wife was like, "You already have such a lot of snaps of elephants. Why do you need more ?"

But, it is something I find difficult to explain - I simply find the sight of these big animals so gracious - especially their slow movements. Ofcourse, when they go on a rampage (which is
quite common in Kerala), they can be real speedy in their destruction of man and property.

Elephants are a common sight on the roads of Kerala (we sighted 3 of them on that drive) - usually temple elephants that are either being taken to the river for a bath or just taken
around the town. They are used extensively by the timber-logging industry, but it is
quite rare to see them used for work around town.

1) Preparing to lift the log


2) This is so easy. Why can't you morons pick it up yourself, instead of troubling me for such simple stuff ? :-)


3) Dump it into the mini-truck.


4) A final quality-control check to see if all's OK.


And that's just another day at work for the Elephas maximus (the zoological name of the Indian Elephant). :-)

Goofed up while trying to be tourist-friendly

It was one of those instances when all you wanted to do was be helpful and then by some quirk, you end up doing just the opposite. Even though unintentional, this makes you feel so lousy about yourself.

I had boarded the Trivandrum Mail from Chennai last Friday and on Saturday at around 8:30 AM, the train halted at Kottayam station. There are 4 more stations and 45 minutes to my destination. I had already freshened up and was looking forward to Kottayam station because the train halts there for 5 mins, which is enough for me to pick up a cup of steaming hot tea &
a plate of plantain-fries, which make my breakfast. And yes, the mandatory newspaper.

This is how a plate of plantain/banana fry would look like.


Snap courtesy : http://dailygirlblog.blogspot.com/

Real yummy. I have had both North Indian and European friends coming over to Kerala and introduced them to this typical Mallu delicacy and they have loved it. Something akin to the banana fritters in the States. The recipe is also available at http://dailygirlblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/pazham-pori-plantain-fritters.html

Anyway, coming back to the topic, I get my breakfast and newspaper and as I am boarding the train, two women walk up to me. They are most probably European, because their English was only so-so. They were wearing the dress most favoured by Indian women (no, not the sari, but the salwar-kameez).They just thrust a ticket in front of me, which I see is for Trivandrum and
so they should be taking the train in which I am travelling, which I tell them.

Since I see that it is a normal ticket, they cannot board the reserved compartment and I tell them so. They reply that they know it is a general ticket and want to know where the ladies coach is, which is an unreserved coach. I tell them it is the last-but-one-coach and direct them
to what I think is the rear of the train, but which is actually the front of the train.

I guess I got a bit disoriented, early morning, two beautiful ladies and all. :-) After they are

gone, I sit back to enjoy my breakfast and the train starts moving, which is when I realise that
I misinformed them. I wonder what they would have done after reaching the front and not seeing the ladies coach as expected, because there would not be time to walk back to the rear.

I just hope they jumped into any of the reserved coaches, walked through the vestibule-linked coaches and reached the rear where the ladies coach is. And I really hope they understand
that it was a genuine mistake and not a prank played on them. Would not be good for India's image as a tourist-friendly destination, if it seemed to them that this was an intentional prank.

How can people bring themselves to do this to a fellow human ?

As it is, it is so stressful to read the daily newspaper, given the abnormal rise in road accidents
all over India. And then, when you read something like what happened to this lady, you are like, "What the hell is happening to people ?"

This lady boards a train with her two kids. She has only a normal second class ticket, which makes her eligible only to travel in the unreserved compartment. If she wants to travel in the reserved compartment, she can pay the fare difference in the train itself to the Train Ticket Examiner (TTE).

Due to reasons known only to her (maybe heavy summer vacation rush in the train), she
boards a reserved compartment with her kids. The TTE comes to check tickets and seeing that her ticket does not entitle her to be in the reserved coach, asks her to go to the unreserved coach.

She tells him that she is ready to pay the fare difference for travelling in reserved coach. But he is in no mood to listen and insists that she move to the unreserved coach. The problem with his directive is that the train is in motion and since the unreserved coaches are not vestibule-linked, she can do that only when the train stops next.

Actually she need not follow his directive, because she is ready to pay the fare difference, which is well within the Railway rules. But he wants her to move out of the reserved coach then itself, moving train be damned. And then he pushes her out of the speeding train. Can you imagine someone doing that ?

She falls and sustains serious injuries to her head. She is infact lucky to be alive. Think of the poor lady thrown out of a running train for no valid reason. What would her small kids have
gone through seeing their Mom pushed out of a train ? It is so sad that people stoop to such levels, in their interaction with a fellow human.

Many decades ago an Indian was thrown out of a train, with his bag & baggage. He had not done any crime and had a valid First Class ticket for the train he was travelling in. The problem then was that the TTE (a white South African) did not find it palatable that a brown man was travelling in First Class comfort. It did not matter that the brown guy had paid for his ticket.

Even though the action was racist, we should atleast credit the South African TTE for making him detrain at a station when the train stopped and not throwing him off a running train. Because, if he had indeed thrown him out of a running train, the world would not have got the personality called Mahatma Gandhi and in all probability, India would still have been under British rule.

I just hope the lady recovers soon, her kids get over the trauma that they had to go through
and the TTE is punished for his action.

Japanese - a good alternative to the crappy FM music

Inspite of the many FM radio stations in Chennai and the new ones that keep coming up every other month, the quality of content leaves a lot to be desired. By law, they are not supposed to be broadcasting news, so that leaves them with playing songs and having other programs like talk-shows, discussions with celebrities etc. And ofcourse the unavoidable commercials every now and then.

Tamil (the local language) is one of the best suited for any kind of audio composition, be it classical or melody or any of the other genres, apart from lending itself beautifully to any kind of lyrics - pure Tamil, Tanglish (Tamil+English), Tamil+Hindi etc. And to top that, the Tamil movie industry boasts of the best music directors, choreographers and lyricists in India.

And there are thousands of great songs already available, with newer ones coming in daily. Heck, I have on my PC atleast 4GB of Tamil MP3 songs of which I have been able to sort and burn into a CD only some 150 odd songs. But still at any given point of time, most of these FM stations would be playing some crappy songs.

So, my solution to this was to keep surfing the stations to get to some good songs. But given the fact that my car does not have steering-mounted audio controls and with the remote also konking off, doing this manually every few minutes is not fun.

And that is when I struck upon the idea of using the 1.5 hours of my commute time in a better and productive way. My friend Tracy had been kind enough to share his Pimsleur's Japanese learning course audio material with me. I had gone through one of the 10 units while I was in Japan and that was it.

Yesterday, I burned the 10 units onto a CD and decided to go through the 10 units and reach a stage where I can manage atleast basic Japanese. Like any other language, Japanese is not easy to learn. But then, it does not seem impossible also. For continuity sake, I went through Unit-1 once again and today finished Unit-2 on my way to work.

It sure is a good way to learn a foreign language - they make you repeat the words so many times and in different contexts that it really gets burned in your mind. Pretty good work by Pimsleur - I would surely recommend their language learning system.

Thanks Tracy, for sharing the learning material with me.

I can't wait to start Unit-3. Hopefully, in a week or 10 days, I should be able to complete the whole set. Ofcourse, since the learning methodology requires you to say aloud the words being taught, I seem to be inviting quite some funny stares from other road-users, who must be thinking I am some nut-case, since I am talking to myself. More so, because I don't have any wireless or wirefree cellphone answering apparatus hooked up.

Anyway, as long as I can master the language, I am least bothered about what others think. So, goodbye to crappy songs for atleast a week or so.

P.S. : To be correct, it is not 'Tamil', but 'Thamizh'. But then, how many Tamilians can pronounce the 'zh' sound, the way it should be ?

A promise is a promise

The words in the title were said by Mr.Ratan Tata, head of the Tata group of companies, while launching the cheapest car in the world a few months ago. Christened the Nano and costing Rs.100,000 (2500$) car, there was so much hype about this car for years. And when finally
they came up with a prototype, the input costs had increased and people were sceptical whether he would be able to sell it at the promised price.

That is when he said that even though the input costs have risen, they decided to price it at that level itself, because 'a promise is a promise'. Recently the Tata group was in the news for buying the Jaguar and Land Rover marquees from Ford Motors.

Anyway, even to us lesser mortals, a promise is a promise as I get to learn every now and
then from my nieces. They stay some 50kms away from my parent's place and when I visit Kerala, I love to have them around our home. And for this, I usually promise them treats like swimming sessions in the nearby river, a drive to the beach or a few hours at the nearby park
or some chocolates / icecreams etc.

Usually these are enough to have them come over. Last week, I was feeling like going fishing
and thought it would be a good idea for the girls to see what this is all about. So, I promise that
I would take them fishing and they are all excited and come over to my parent's place.

What I had not reckoned with, was the impatience and energy levels of the kids of today. My plan was to go to the river around 5PM or so when the sun would be setting and it won't be hot. Also, I planned to take a short refreshing nap post-lunch.

Anyway, I had just managed to catch a few winks when I hear them run into my room and
shout out loudly for me to take them swimming. I look at the time and it is only 3PM. So I
tell them that it is hot outside and we can go at 5PM. But No, they want to go now.

Hmm. No trick I can think of works to dissuade them and finally I tell them that we need to
dig up some earthworms to use as bait. They find this interesting and ask me how to dig them up. I tell them to take a mug of water, pour it under a banana tree to make the earth soft and then use a small shovel to dig up the worms.

This activity interests them and they run off to get the worms, leaving me to my sleep.
Finally I wake up at 4PM, have tea and then I put together a fishing rod for a few rupees.
The rod itself is a branch of the bamboo tree in our yard. I buy a few hooks for some 10Rs
and some plastic wire for another few rupees and I am done. Also need a float (to indicate
when the fish is biting), which I make out of a bamboo twig.

Then we all go to the river for fishing. They have with them a can with the worms that they
dug up. But when I told them that they will have to put the worms on the fishing hook, they would not have anything to do with it - they are not touching the slimy creatures.
But they want to fish. So, I hook up the worms and they have their first go at fishing.

Initially they would just lift up the hook as soon as the fishes start biting. But then, they get the hang of it and between them they catch a few small fishes. As with playing in the river, they do not want the fun to end and get back home. So, have to drag them home with a promise that we will do it again.

I would like to think that I am doing this so that my nieces can have some fun. But I guess I
am actually enjoying it much more than them. These are life's little pleasures that I had when
I grew up and revisiting them is so nostalgic and pleasurable. A swim in the river, a couple of hours spent fishing etc is so much fun and the best part is that these do not require you to have money to enjoy them.

Next in line is some serious canoe-ing. A sport I love and which I was pretty good at many
years ago. And all it needs for this to happen, is a promise to my nieces that I would take
them canoe-ing.