Of old age, loneliness and depression.

An old friend had come to India on a 3-week vacation from the US,where he has been working for the past 9 years now. He usually makes it to India every alternate year for 2 - 3 weeks.
He flew direct from US to Kerala where his parents are based, but dropped in at Chennai for
2 days to visit old friends and relatives. Caught up with him yesterday evening for an hour at
his maternal aunt's home where he was put up for the 2 days he spent in Chennai.

A nice independent home away from the madding crowd in a peaceful locality, and with a
really good garden, some coconut trees and even a mango tree. His aunt and uncle being
the only occupants of the house. I am not good at determining people's age by just looking
at them, but I guess they would be in their mid-seventies.

A very nice couple, educated and very soft-spoken, they have only one daughter, who lives
with her family in Australia and comes down to Chennai only once in 2 years or more. Since
they had only one kid, they were determined to have her close to them and thus when time came to get her married off, they looked for grooms who were working in Chennai.

This worked fine for a few years, but then the guy got a good job in Australia and moved
there with his wife and kids. So much for the plans we mortals make and which we think
are foolproof. They did travel down to Australia some 5 times in the last 10 years to spend
some time with their daughter and grandkids. But advancing age & ailments prevented
them from making trips since 2005 which was when they did their last trip to Australia.

You can see the pain and loneliness in their eyes without them saying even a word about it.
In their old age when they would like to be with their kid and grandkids, they are having to spend days all alone, with only nostalgic memories for company. And this is actually not an isolated case, but a reality that many parents have come to face in India today.

In Kerala, you can see palatial homes with multiple bedrooms, but the only occupants would
be an old couple who spend years waiting for the few weeks when their children & grandkids would make that short trip home every few years from the US, Germany, Persian Gulf, UK
or wherever it is that they are based.

Infact, I don't need to look far for a real-life example, but can draw from personal experience.
Even though my Dad spent his full working life in India, it was always far away from Kerala
where my grandparents stayed. But he made it a point to be at Kerala every year for some
6 weeks during our school vacations and my grandparents would wait eagerly for our annual
visits to Kerala.

Even though it is 20 years since my grandpa passed away, I can still vividly remember how
he would break into tears and cry like a kid, first when we reach Kerala for our vacation &
then when it was time to say goodbye after our vacation.

Coming back to my friend, when he used to work at Chennai, he used to stay with this couple, and the main agenda on his 2-day Chennai visit was to spend some time with them as he understands their pain and loneliness. I did not want to take up the few hours that they would get with him and so excused myself after less than an hour there. And anyway, I would be
seeing him the next day when I would be dropping him off at the airport.

I dropped him at the airport today morning on my way to work and thus we got some 40
minutes in the car to catch up with each other's lives. He has another couple waiting at
Kerala for his time and attention - his parents - who are also living alone. They are atleast
a little better off, in the sense that they have 2 daughters who live in India.

As my friend said today, "It is depressing to come to India. Especially when it is time to
return back, leaving behind your old parents all alone. It takes atleast a couple of months
after returning to the US to get over this depression".

I am sure he is not alone in this, what with a sizeable percentage of Indians working abroad,
leaving behind a greying population that waits years for a few weeks with their kids and
grandkids.

A second opinion on the backwaters.

The Sunday supplement of the New Indian Express newspaper last weekend had an article
about the Alappuzha backwaters. The journalist did the going around not by houseboat, but
a normal boat. A nicely worded article, which catches your instant attention with the catchy
title and the following picture.




Catch the full article at the following location :
http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SET20080726053316&eTitle=Travel&rLink=0


Notes :
1. Toddy is a drink local to South India, which is extracted from the stem of the coconut or
palm tree. White in color, it is sweet when extracted, but gets fermented after few hours
giving it not only a sour taste, but also intoxication.
2. Tapioca is a tuber which is a favourite food item in Kerala. Goes well with hot 'n spicy fish
curry.
3. CPI(M) is the acronym for the Communist Part of India (Marxist), the biggest communist
party in India.

Finally some professional fishing equipment.

Though I have been fishing for fun since childhood (it sure helps to be a native of Kerala, where one is never far from a waterbody), it was always with DIY equipment. Go to the
yard, cut a suitable bamboo for the fishing pole, go to the nearest corner shop and buy a
few metres of nylon reel and a few fishing hooks of different sizes. Use a small bamboo
piece for the float, rig them all up together and I have my fishing equipment ready in an
hour or so.

Look around for the wettest patch in the backyard, dig a bit, collect the fattest earthworms
and bait is ready. Ofcourse, putting the sleazy buggers onto the fishing hook can make most people queasy. No fancy fishing rods or spinners or lures/baits etc for me. Ofcourse during
my visits abroad, I would go to sports stores like Basspro and gawk at the amazing range of equipment available. But never felt the need for them as I didn't think of myself as a serious angler.

The DIY stuff worked fine for me as recent as last week, when I went fishing in the river
near my home in Kerala. But yesterday I got an awards catalog (courtesy the organisation
I work for) from which I could choose any one product. Absolutely free, with no shipping
charges also.

The last time we got this, I had chosen a Campbell Hausfeld portable inflator that comes in handy for any car - works off the cigarette lighter socket. As I browsed through the catalog,
the following caught my eye.

SHIMANO Reel 6'0" FX Rod with Fishing Kit

Rod features : Durable Aeroglass, 2 piece, Reinforced Aluminum Oxide Guides, Solid Locking Graphite Reel Seat, Comfortable EVA Handles

Power : medium

Action : fast

Line rating : 6-14 lb

Lure rating : 1/8-1/2oz

Guides=tip+4

Reel Features : graphite spool (line included), Graphite Sideplate, graphite frame (lightweight), Graphite Rotor, rear drag

Quick Fire II is a one-stop ratchet system that automatically centers the trigger for easy,

one-handed casting

Gear ratio - 4.1:1

Line capacity : 6/170;8/120;10/100

Weight : 8.6oz

And, that very moment I knew what I wanted to order. Immediately placed the order online

and am expecting delivery around 2nd of August. After a real long time, I am feeling like a kid

waiting for its toy. Just can't wait to go fishing with this fancy gear.

Harnessing the breeze - a free, eco-friendly and renewable source of energy.

While cruising around in the backwaters, we noticed that there was this strong breeze
round-the-clock. While wind energy is being seriously harvested in Tamilnadu, I do not
think Kerala has ever taken any serious steps in this direction. While Kerala faces a power
deficit, inspite of having hydel power projects, this would seem like a nice idea to pursue.

Anyway, while the policy makers ignore this idea, we came across some ingenious chaps in
the backwaters who put wind energy to use. No oil to burn in powering their canoes using onboard motors, no worries about polluting the environment and best of all, no payments
to be made for energy. Just sit back in your canoe and take care of only the steering part
with your paddle, while the wind takes you to your destination.

And with the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) setup that these guys have on their canoes, there is
almost nil initial investment also. Just a couple of bamboo poles used to make the frame
for the sail and empty cement bags made of plastic stitched together to make the actual
sail and they are ready to conquer the waters.

Check out for yourselves in the following pictures.




Ingenious indeed. And environment-friendly too.

A sneak preview of the 'mother of all boats'.

While Alappuzha is the venue and its backwaters the battleground for the awesome annual
event of snake-boat racing, held on the 2nd saturday of August every year, I was surprised
to not see even one snake-boat during our cruise around the backwaters.

Ofcourse the snake-boats participating in the event come from various corners of Alappuzha
and each belongs to a local community that shares the costs involved in maintaining the boat.
But, still some of them would be from the neighborhood and so I was surprised to not see
even one of them. The captain of our house-boat happened to be a regular rower for the local snake-boat team and he showed us the place where the races would be held next month.

But we were finally rewarded with the spectacular sight of a snake-boat the next day when
we were winding up our 24-hour houseboat stay. There she lay majestically, stretched along
the shore, with a special canopy erected to give her some respite from the elements.

I tried to take a single snap covering her full length, but it somehow did not look good.
So took these 2 snaps to capture her beauty in 2 parts.

The rear of the snake-boat. See the raised hood, resembling a snake, which led to the name.


The front of the snake-boat, aerodynamically designed for speed.


And then I attempted a hotch-potch amateur stitch job, which looks like this.

Even the stiched snap fails to bring out even a fraction of the mind-boggling phenomena
that a snake-boat is. Measuring anything between 100-140 feet, with close to 100 people
on board of whom some 70 row the boat, sitting two in a row along the length of the boat,
a snake-boat never fails to wow you.

Given below is a better picture of the snake-boats in action during the Aranmula boat race,
in the Pampa river.

Courtesy wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chundan_Vallam).

While it is airports / railway stations / bus stops for most of us, it is boat-stops for them.

Till the Public Works Department completed the long pending bridge across the river near
our home in Kerala, the road in front of our house used to be a sleepy one, which dead-ended
at the river. Only vehicles of the residents living in the neighborhood used to ply on the road
and for most of the day, the road would be empty.

Not anymore. After the bridge was finally completed some years ago, traffic has increased many-fold and now there are many buses (both private and government owned) plying on
the road. So, instead of depending on our car/bike, we now can just stand outside our home
and wave down a bus to take us to a variety of places.

Ofcourse the Limited Stop and Fast Passenger buses will stop only at the official bus stop,
which is again only like 100 metres from my home. Given the rising gasoline prices, it helps
to be connected by public transportation apart from being environment-friendly. And anyway
why would you want to fill the coffers of the Arabs ? :-)

I have mainly used airports, railway stations and bus-stops / bus-stands all my life. Am yet
to do a sea journey, though I don't really look forward to it - kinda afraid of the sea and also
do not look forward to sea-sickness. But it was while cruising through the backwaters of Alappuzha on the houseboat, that we were exposed to another form of transportation - ferry boats - which are the lifeline for people residing in and around the waterways of Alappuzha.

And like I would wait at a bus stop for the next bus, here people wait for the next boat at the
nearest boat-stop (I am not sure what the exact technical name for this is - a boat-jetty would
be more like the boat-station I guess). Some pics of the boat-stops.

1) A lone passenger waiting for the next boat to arrive.


2. A boat-stop near a church - catering exclusively to the religious ?


3) Another boat-stop. Ha, this seems to be a communist stronghold - can you see the red flag
of the communist party in the pic ? Can faintly make out the hammer and sickle on the flag.


4) A boat-stop with a billboard for a jewellery store.


5) A boat-stand in one of the small waterways, off the main road oops main waterbody.


6) People waiting impatiently for the next ferry. See another political flag here, but
can't really place it as to which party it belongs to.


And finally some pics of the ferry-boats themselves, that are public transportation for the
people of the neighborhood.


A boat docked at the stand for passengers to embark/disembark.


Another of the ferries in action in the backwaters.


BTW, if you did not already know, one of these boats plying in the Aleppey backwaters
has an ATM on board - the only one of its kind of floating ATM in the world. This initiative
by a Public Sector bank, keeps the people connected financially. So instead of them going
to the bank, the bank comes to them. Nice initiative there.

Thinking out of the box - the Australian way.

----------- Taking a short break from the house-boat posts ----------

Have any of you seen the awesome print advertisements put out by the Australian Tourism department ? If not, you can check them out at http://www.wherethebloodyhellareyou.com/

The name of the website would itself have given you an idea of what the ads would be like.
Most tourism ads are about showing off the places of interest in that country/state, with
taglines that invite you to come over, in an oh-so polite way.

But, not Australia. They rouse your interest by asking where the bloody hell are you ?
Which not only grabs your immediate attention when you are thumbing through the pages
of the magazine, but also makes you go through the full copy and finally end up getting you thinking of vacationing in Australia. A good eyeball grabber, so to say. And done in a real unconventional way. I likeee.

Have a look at this one.

Courtesy : Australian Tourism and the http://www.wherethebloodyhellareyou.com/website.

The copy reads,
"We've switched on the lights. Turned up the verdi. And the champagne's on board."
SO WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU ?

Awesome right ? Check out more such ads on their website.

I hear these advertisements have been banned in the U.K., due to being offensive or something. Though I for one, can't figure out what is so offensive about these advertisments.

So what is the whole houseboat experience like ? Schedule, cost, food etc...

What exactly forms this houseboat package ? What all comes as part of it and what is not?
What do you do for the close to 24 hours that you spend on the boat. This post attempts to
put down all the little details of the houseboat trip.

We (a group of 9 adults, 2 kids and 2 infants) boarded the boat at 11:30AM and were immediately welcomed with a welcome drink of tender coconut water. The coconuts being
the special and rare red/orange variety like below. A nice way to start off, for sure.


They just slice off the top, put a straw in and hand it over to you. Believe me, there is no
man made drink in this world that can beat tender coconut water in taste, nourishment or healthiness. Instant rejuvenation.

We went around the boat to see 2 bath-attached bedrooms, a well-equipped kitchen (usually
at the tail of all boats) + another small room for the crew. The boat had a crew of 3 men, of
whom 2 would take turns at captaining the boat, while the remaining 2 would handle the
cooking and housekeeping. See this view from the window of the bedroom. A good view to
wake up to in the morning.


Once we were done checking out the boat. we all settled down in the living room area, which
has soft cushioned sofas lined along the boats sides, apart from a dining table with 4 chairs & some 3-4 cane chairs. They also have a few foam sheets that you could put on the floor and
lie down on if you so wish.

The captain (Sraanku) seated in his chair before the wheel & getting ready to reverse the boat
to start off the journey. Not a mean task reversing this giant, especially because of all the boats parked so close to each other.


The boat chugs along the waterways, offering insights into the life of the locals, with the only constants being water (all around) and greenery (everywhere). Some pics of what all you can expect to see.

You can see a houseboat being built, while on the left a guy tries his hand at fishing using a net.
I hear they cost around 5 million Rupees for getting a 2-bedroom boat ready.


A group of western women enjoy the view and the ride.


See the waterway crowded with houseboats, while a small boat ferries people to the other side.


All along the water route, you see innumerable house boats. We would have easily spotted
more than 200 houseboats there.


A guy rowing his boat/canoe in the placid waters.


A house with a small banana plantation.


A houseboat anchored along the shore for lunch.


A random nature shot.


Locals on their sleek canoes.


A couple of women rowing their small boat deftly.

A favourite snap of mine, with rows of houseboats moored for lunch. See the breeze swaying
the coconut palms. Reminds me - there is always this cool breeze blowing which keeps you cool.


A kid helping his granddad in rowing the boat.


A couple having their lunch on their boat itself, after a half day of hard work.


The kids settle down on the foam sheets on the floor. My son in the middle with his cousins
on either side. The kids really enjoyed the trip.


A banana plant ready for harvesting, along the shore.


I have many more pictures - took some 200-odd snaps. Will post them later.

While we take in the sights, the crew is busy making lunch and by around 2 PM we drop anchor along the shore to have lunch. Lunch is rice, sambar, curd, some veggies and karimeen fry. Karimeen is mallu speak for the famed Pearlspot fish which is very tasty.

Lunch done, everyone settles on the sofas. Some take a small nap. I am taking in the sights and clicking snaps. The boat moves on taking us through the various small villages - Kainakari, Nedumudi etc. Around 4:30PM or so tea/coffee is served with snacks [what else but banana fry :-)] and thenthey again drop anchor at the shore around 6PM.

Some of us get out to stretch our legs and to take a walk, exploring the neighborhood, which consists of some 10 homes. By the time we return to the boat, it is getting dark. There is now another boat alongside ours which will be the residence for 2 of the familes in the group for the night, while the other 2 families stay on in this boat.

While some of us watch a DVD, others take a bath. The crew is getting dinner ready. Around 8:30 PM a dinner of rice + roti (bread) + chicken fry etc is served. While a few of us resume watching the movie after dinner, the rest retire to their rooms.

Since there is water everywhere, there are mosquitos also which can be a pain. The crew lights
and places mosquito repellants at a few corners of the living area. We sit around and talk for an hour or so and by 10PM everyone is ready to hit the bed.

Due to the mosquitos, we had to keep the windows closed which is sad because it stops the wonderful breeze from entering the room. It also makes it warm inside and with the humidity,
it is kind of uncomfortable, even with the ceiling fans spinning at high speed. After an hour or
so, we decide it is better to open the windows (the mosquitos be damned) and thereafter it is a lot better to sleep. Due to some wierd reason the mosquitos did not really trouble us inspite of keeping the windows open.

Around 7AM everyone wakes up and are ready after a refreshing bath by 8AM. The crew has prepared a nice breakfast of idli (rice cakes) and sambar and after the table is cleared, the boat takes off again, tracing the journey back, but via a different route. Again lots more to see on the way. But somehow everyone is kind of silent due to the trip coming to an end. But then all good things have to come to an end. Around 9:30AM we berth at the same place from where we took off ending a spectacular 22 hours on water.

And all this cost me just Rs.8000 (200 USD) for the whole group. Plus a few hundreds as tips
for the crew. For a group comprising of one or 2 families, one boat would be enough and would cost only half the amount. Ofcourse, this is off-season tariffs and during season, the prices can even double.

An awesome deal any which way you look at it.

You wanna sit and watch TV while on vacation ? So be it.

While on vacation, the last thing I would like to do is sit and watch TV in the hotel room.
I would rather explore the place, walk around and see things. And if I am on a houseboat
in the magnificent & seemingly never-ending Vembanad backwaters of Kerala, TV would
be the last thing on my mind.

As I saw it during my houseboat experience last week, the best place to be on the boat is
to pull a chair near the boat captain (called Sranku in Malayalam) and take in the sights
as the boat chugs along the water, revealing nature's beauty in all its splendour.

But then, every individual is different and if someone wants to ignore all this natural beauty
and catch up on the latest soap on TV, or see a favourite movie on DVD, so be it. And being savvy businessmen, these boat owners have a finger on the pulse of their clientele, and are
always ready to add the latest gadget on board, if that will make customers happy and keep
the cash register jingling.

Almost all these boats come with a 21 inch TV and a DVD player as standard. Our boat also
had them. But unfortunately they do not carry a selection of DVDs with them, which makes these equipment quite redundant. See pic below of the drawing room with the TV set and
the satellite dish (Tata Sky) in the foreground.


In our case, they just had one DVD of a recent Malayalam movie, which they played on
request from a few of our group. But watching TV channels was not possible on our boat
because it did not have a satellite dish. However, I did see quite some boats with satellite
dishes on them. In the pic below, you can see the dish fixed in front of the steering wheel.


Though I am not sure how it would be possible to see TV when the boat is moving, because
the dish is fixed (not movable) and due to the boat being in motion, it would not be easy to
pick up satellite signals on the go. However, when the boat drops anchor for lunch break or
for the night, I guess it would be possible to align the dish with the satellite and get signals.

It sure can leave you overwhelmed the first time around.

The place where all the houseboats are berthed and where you start & end your houseboat
ride is about 2 kms from the city centre. The moment you reach this place, where the office
of the tourism department is also located, you are greeted by the sight of innumerable houseboats berthed side by side. From end-to-end, all you see are only houseboats.


Infact there are so many of them that there is not space for all of them to be berthed along
the shore and thus some are berthed in a second row, like in the pic below.


So, if it happens that your boat is in the second row, you would have to walk through the
boat in front to reach yours. And yes, you might be asked to remove your footwear and
hold it while walking through the first boat, so as to avoid dirtying a meticulously clean
boat awaiting its customers.

The sight of so many houseboats can just be amazing and overwhelming. We were there
during the supposedly off-season period (monsoons), but still there were quite a lot of
tourists, mostly from North India and Tamilnadu. And ofcourse the foreign tourists.
I was taking some snaps of the berthed houseboats, when I overheard the following
conversation between 2 young men, in Hindi :

X : Hey, why are you so excited about these houseboats ? Have you not seen one before?
Y : I sure have seen houseboats before.

X : Then why so much excitement as if you were seeing one for the first time ?
Y : Man, I have seen houseboats in the Dal Lake in Kashmir. But these... These are just out
of the world, man. They are just amazing.

That is the kind of feeling that anyone seeing the Kerala houseboats for the first time,
would have. I saw that with my elder sister too. She was just floored seeing a proper
home reproduced on a boat - drawing room, bath-attached bedrooms , kitchen, etc.
You even have the option of choosing airconditioned rooms, at an extra cost though.

While we chose boats with 2 bedrooms each, they come in all sorts of configurations
like single bedroom, 3 bedrooms, double deckers, and even mammoths like the one
below. I can count atleast 6 bedrooms on the lower level. Phew!


Some even have conference rooms in them, which I guess are used by corporations for
employee outings/retreats. So, whatever be your need, you can be sure that there is a
houseboat fitting it to a T. All it needs is for you to be there, and to sit back, relax and
enjoy the ride.

An unforgettably awesome 24 hours on water.

Well, to be exact, it was 22 hours on water. But there is a certain magic about the number 24, especially in the context of time, which 22 seems to lack. While 24 hours convey the fullness
of a day, 22 seems somewhat incomplete.

Anyway, it is immaterial whether it was 22 or 24 hours. What matters though was it being
about an out-of-the-world-experience of being away from land, home etc and instead being
on a boat in the beautiful backwaters of Kerala.

Spending a day on an houseboat in the Kerala backwaters has been a very long time dream
of mine, which finally came true last Saturday-Sunday. In 1999, I had gone to the Aleppey backwaters with some friends that included a Belgian colleague and his girlfriend. They
wanted to try out the houseboat experience and opted for a 12-hour stay on one of them, spending the night in the backwaters.

Since then, I had been having this in the back of my mind. However, I wanted this to be a
kind of a full family outing, involving my sisters and their families too. And after planning
for a month, it finally happened. Being a group of 4 families, we opted for two 2-bedroom houseboats for the night stay. But during the day, we spent time in one of them so that
the whole family was together and could spend time together.

It helped that my brother-in-law's maternal uncle owns and rents out houseboats and so
we did not need to bother about anything. All we needed to do was land at the Aleppey
tourist office (where all the houseboats are berthed) by 11:30AM, which we did manage,
even though the group was to reach Aleppey from different places.

I was coming from Madras, while my parents, elder sister and her family were coming from Cochin which is some 65 kms away. And my wife, kid and younger sister & her family were coming from Kollam, some 80 kms away. And we all managed to make it on time.

Everyone had a whale of a time, including the sceptics like my elder sister and her husband,
who took a lot of my effort/time in being convinced that this indeed would be an experience
to cherish. The mental picture she had about a houseboat was exactly the opposite of what
it actually was and the moment she entered the boat, she was like, "I am glad you convinced
us to come for this. It would have been so stupid, if we had missed this".

Well, I am glad everyone loved it. Especially the woman folk got a good break from the usual kitchen activities and got to sit back and relax. And that too in the lap of nature.

Since there are lots of interesting stuff to post concerning not just our houseboat stay, but
about the place in general, it would be boring to make it one single long post. So, for the next
few days, all posts will be centering on this topic and hopefully sticking to a single topic each.

I leave you with a snap of what this whole thing is all about - a house boat in the Aleppey backwaters.



Stay tuned for more.

A post courtesy "The Week" newsmagazine - worth the time

I am too tired to post today and thought it would be a good idea to instead present the
thoughts of someone else, who seems to think the same way as me.

My Dad subscribes to the English newsmagazine "The Week" and it happens to be one
of the few magazines that I used to read from my school days, when it used to be priced
at a very lowly Rs.3 (today it is priced at Rs.15).

Last week's issue had this article by Mahesh Dattani, which I felt was very relevant for
the times we live in today. You might not agree with him fully, but gotta give him credit
for atleast some of the points he makes.

So here goes the article.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
All copyrights reserved with Malayala Manorama Group

Best things are for free

By Mahesh Dattani
At the ticket counter I discovered that the movie I was keen on seeing as a special treat to

my friend, was showing only in Gold Class. The weekend price being Rs 500 for a ticket.
We didn't succumb to the temptation. Instead we went over to my place, made some
popcorn at home, listened to some classical music and talked about life in general.

What did we miss out on by not paying that fortune for a multiplex movie watching
experience? We missed out on the stale air in the theatre, the air conditioning that is
probably bad for your health, the heavily fattening, overpriced milk shakes, and the
annoying titters and comments of people in the row behind who find the movie boring
but have nothing better to do with their time, money or their lives.

The rising cost of leisure activities will affect the upper middle class soon as the
consequences of global recession hit them in the next fifteen minutes. The party
is over and the fake champagne is drying up. Weekend air travel to the favourite
getaway is now a wee bit more expensive. The price of olive oil has gone up by a
couple of hundred rupees and the health spa, sorry, wellness centre can knock you
down by a dozen of those 1K notes. What now?

The upwardly mobile have always eyed the super rich as their role models. Like getting
from point A to B, the objective is not so much to enjoy what your money can buy but to
buy whatever it needs to get you into that charmed circle of 'successful' people who seem
to have all the time in the world to attend parties, get into scandals and mow down a dozen people on the streets. Now why would any sane person want to aspire to belong to this set
is anybody's guess. Or maybe I am missing out on something.

Inflation is no laughing matter, I know, and the survival of many depends on affordable essentials. But seriously, the positive side of it is that it prevents us from carrying on with
a self-destructive lifestyle. Maybe it is a good time for some stock taking. A reality check
on what we really want from life and why we spend inordinate amounts of time in acquiring
a lifestyle that is questionable in terms of true happiness. I think the upwardly mobile need
to do an about turn and look at the middle class for inspiration instead of the super rich.

The middle class has always known how to budget their income & prioritise their expenses.
To the middle class, debt is a shameful word. Whereas, to the aspiring class, debt is a direct correlation to one's repayment capacity and hence one's social standing. Today's bank interest rates wouldn't be so scary if the upwardly mobile knew the simple axiom of living within one's means. It may sound downright old-fashioned because it actually is. Tomorrow's survivors
are the ones who know that one has to spread their feet according to the space they have.
In fact, the reason why we are faced with inflation is because there is so much money and
very little value for it. You don't need to be an economist to realise that if the money floating around is on credit, the squeeze is not too far behind.

What if we all spend less, even if we do have spare money? I think that would be doing oneself and your society, and probably the world a huge favour. If you stop spending on Washington apples and California grapes, you lessen your carbon footprint (those fruits have to be flown in, you know) and also encourage the growers in Simla and Kinnaur. Travel by train and watch
the airlines all turning 'budget'.

The multinational brands will soon disappear and we will be back to swadeshi. Spend less
on eating out and see how healthy you feel with home cooked meals. Try gardening as a
leisure activity instead of water parks or bowling alleys. If you really want to hang out in
a mall, do so but don't buy anything. Check out the local park for a jogging track and let
go of the gym membership.

Think of all the no-expense leisure activities and you will be amazed at how creative you
can get. Fly a kite with your kids or play a board game at home. You can make the kite
and the board game yourself or with the whole family. Spend less, borrow less, and pay
off your debts but binge on love and fresh air. The best is still for free.

- mahesh.dattani@gmail.com

All copyrights reserved with Malayala Manorama Group
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Monsoon magic - an attempt to capture nature's sensuous form

A picture might be worth a thousand words and a video might be worth a voluminous
novel. But somehow, it is tough to fully capture the magic and essence of nature's various
forms in the form of a still photo or even tougher with a video clip.

But then, what is the harm in giving it a try ? So, last week, I tried to capture the magic
of Kerala Monsoon on my camera, though I found that I still need words to complete the
picture, so to say.

The thing about the monsoon is that you can sense it much before it hits the earth. All
of a sudden, the sunny day changes to dark mode and all you see in the sky is dark clouds
bursting to the seams with rains. A wind can accompany the spectacle making the trees
sway to its tunes or it could just pour down cats and dogs silently.

And as soon as the first drops hit the earth, you get this "earth-scent", as I call it, which
is just out of this world. I am not sure what the correct term for it is though. It is a scent
produced by the coming together of water & dust. Something that needs to be actually experienced rather than felt from a string of words that can't do justice to it.

All you need now is a cup of hot tea/coffee or whatever is your favourite poison, grab a
comfy chair and get to a vantage position and just let nature play out its script, which is
what I did too. We have a swing in the portico and there is nothing to beat the
experience of stacking a couple of pillows on it, lying back and just enjoying the rains.

And if you are the kind that likes a good audio effect, it helps to have a roof of
tin / aluminium / steel sheets, the kind we have over the portico. The racket the raindrops create on such surfaces is just amazing.

So, here goes the video, a feeble attempt by me to capture one of nature's best forms.



PS : The coconut tree in the video is kinda special because it is 2-in-1 ie. the
tree splits into 2, which is pretty rare. And what you see hanging alongside the
swing are orchids in their coconut-husk vases.

The world is getting smaller by the day.

I was reading the Deccan Chronicle yesterday when I came across the following picture
and the accompanying news.

Picture and news item courtesy : The Deccan Chronicle

OK, news about a couple of Royal Bengal tiger cubs in a zoo is no big deal usually.
But what caught my eye was the place where the zoo is located, namely Saskatoon,
which is the hometown of my friend and colleague Will of "Wandering Will" blog fame.

It had been a long time since I heard from him and it was such a coincidence that he
came on chat exactly today, just when I was planning to post about these cubs in his
hometown. So, I tell him about this news and our conversation goes like this :

Will : hey Biju. How is going?
Me : Good. There was a news in the paper here about a tigress (Indian breed) giving birth
to 2 cubs at the zoo in your town (Saskatoon). The world is becoming smaller by the day.
Will : Very small. That zoo is about 500 meters from my house.
Me : Really ? I guess on a good day, you can hear the roar of the lion and stuff.
Will : And the smell. :-)

I was just thinking about the whole thing in this news item. A tigress originally a resident
of the state of West Bengal in India, gives birth to cubs in Canada, which is halfway around
the world and the news comes back to India, in a South Indian daily.

Hmm. The world sure is shrinking.

Taking the road less travelled can lead to pleasant surprises.

It's a Saturday (some 2 weeks ago) and as part of her job, my wife needs to visit 3 stores belonging to her organisation for routine inspection. Problem is that even though they are supposedly in the same area, they are quite some distance apart from each other and bus connectivity is not very good. Add really bad roads to the equation and her going by her
moto-scooter is ruled out.

I am home and don't really have much to do other than spend time with my son. And being
the kind that is always looking for an excuse to drive, especially to a place close to the sea
and backwaters, I suggest I drive her there. In a car, the whole exercise should not take
more than a few hours.

Wanting to give my parents some time off from babysitting, we take the kid also along.
I can take care of him during the 30-45 mins that she would need to spend at each store.
That is, if he is not happily taking a nap on the backseat of the car.

The drive turns out to be really worth it, with greenery all around and the occasional rain.
We stop at the first store and while she goes about her work, me and my son explore the
area. We see a small stream running alongside the road with a cool wooden bridge over it.



And a nice new home with their cars (oops, boats) parked in the driveway (waterway?).
This is a long time dream of mine - to build a small home on the land we have adjoining
the river, with a small boat (much smaller than these - a 1 or 2 seater kayak kind of thing).


We do some more exploring of the area and by the time we return to the car, wifey is done
with her job. We drive to the next store, which happens to be near the sea. This actually was
one of the coastal areas in Kerala which had to bear the havoc of the Tsunami. By this time, kiddo has fallen asleep and so I stay with him in the car.

We finish off the 3rd store and drive back via a different route. On the way, we can see
these big boats from a bridge - not sure what they are used for - fishing or tourism.


We cross the bridge and drive back home when a small signboard catches our eye. It says
"Coir village lake resport - 1km". Ha, a tourist resort within a 10-km radius of my home
and I did not even know. We decide to check it out and hit the dirt road in the direction
indicated by the sign board. The road is really in bad shape and we wonder why the resort
guys don't take it up with the authorities to get it laid properly. Actually it wont be a bad
idea for them to do it themselves, given that it would be their customers who would use it
mostly and a bad road leading to the resort leaves a bad impression.

Anyway, we slowly negotiate the road, which not only seems more than the mentioned
one km, but at places seems more like a crater than a road. The good side to it is that it
runs along the canal, offering an amazing view. Also, we drive past the boats which we
saw earlier from the bridge. We get a feeling that the boats might be owned/rented by
the resort to give boat rides to their customers.

We reach the resort, but see that we cannot just drive into the resort. A small stream
separates the road from the resort which means that tourists have to park their vehicles
there and take this small boat to the resort. Quaint, eh ? Giving the impression of being
on an island. Nice idea there.


The resort guys ask if we want to come over in which case they would send the boat across.
We really dont have time to explore the whole place. So we decline and instead check out the resort from across the stream itself. Nice place with cabins standing on water.


Nicely landscaped with picket fences, swaying coconut palms, childrens play area etc.




Sure looks like a nice decent resort and a good business idea. Only problem seems to
be that they need to market the whole thing more. I mean, this is like 3-4 kms from
the national highway (NH-47), so visibility is low. Plus I do not remember seeing any
signboards on the highway indicating the presence of this resort in the vicinity.

They did go the internet way and are available at http://www.coirvillage.com/, which
I guess should be the best option for them, given that most foreign tourists select resorts
via the net. Smart move there.

All in all, a good 3-odd hours spent well, with the bonus being the discovery of a resort in
my backyard.