The best time to be in Kerala.

While you can visit Kerala at any time of the year, in my opinion, the best time to be here
is May-June, which is summer here. And ofcourse, the monsoon usually starts every year
without fail by 1st week of June. Which means you can sit inside and have cups of hot tea
or coffee and watch the rains. Or just snuggle in bed with a book.

Apart from rains, the main attraction of this time of the year is the wide variety of fruits
that are available. Mango trees are in full bloom, so are jackfruit trees. Check out this tree
on the road-side - the land belongs to my friend & neighbour Suresh's family. The posters
from the recently concluded elections can be seen on the wall.


And in those days we had some 3 cashew-nut trees in the backyard. Since these trees are
easy to climb, we would climb and pick the fruits which would be eaten and we would make
small fires over which we would roast the nuts. I still remember the taste & smell of the
roasted nuts.

I had my first smoke on that cashewnut tree. Me and my cousin Saji sneaked a couple of
beedies from my Grandpa's stock and climbed the tree to try what smoking was all about.
It's a different matter that not only did we end up coughing our lungs out, we also were
caught in the act by my sister whose attention was attracted by smoke coming from the
top of the tree. We begged her to not tell our parents about it, to which she agreed on one
condition - she should be allowed to take a puff. :-) Needless to say that she hated it.

Last week, me and my son set out on a walk in the neighborhood, checking out the mango
trees and jackfruit trees. Actually he reclined royally in his pram, which I pushed along.


We came across this jackfruit tree that had atleast 15 jackfruits on it and all so close to the
ground.


A close-up of the jack-fruits on that tree.


And then there is another variant of jackfruit which I have not seen outside Kerala. It is
called Aanjili-chakka in Malayalam, with 'chakka' meaning jackfruit. These trees grow really
tall and the fruit when ripe is too delicate, so that if they fall to the ground, they just splatter, rendering them useless. It is mostly the birds that get to eat it.

It is a jackfruit in miniature , in the size and shape of a cricket ball. It also has thorns on the
outside like a jackfruit, just that the thorns are smaller in size. Inside also the fruit is similar,
but smaller, with lesser flesh and smaller seeds. Last weekend, me & my Dad tried to pluck
some fruits without them hitting the ground, but were not so successful. Plan to try with a
net this weekend, as a wise friend suggested. Hopefully we will get some this time around.

I am surprised I don't have even a single snap of this fruit on my PC. This inspite of the
fact that these trees are all over the place. Finally had to google for it and got this crappy
pic. Will replace this later with a better quality snap.


The road where I photographed my son in the 2nd picture above, ends at the river. There
are a few steps built on the bank of the river and we both go and sit there, spending some
time staring at the flowing water and some kids who are swimming and thrashing around.
We sit there for sometime and then walk back home.

A reminder of our mortality and our powerlessness.

It is 9AM last Saturday and I am just a few stations & around 30 mins away from reaching
the railway station where I have to disembark. Since my wife had to catch a train to work
today, she has left her bike behind at the station. I have a key to the bike and will ride it
home, thereby saving my Dad a trip to the station to pick me up.

The guy sitting opposite me got off at Tiruvalla station and left behind the newspaper he
was reading. I pick it up & glance at the headlines of the day. There are quite some people
in the compartment. Diagonally opposite me is a lady with a small baby girl in her arms.
Sitting beside her is an elderly man, who I guess must be in his late seventies. He looks
very lean, with sunken cheeks (due to smoking?).

I ignore the surroundings and go back to the newspaper and in a few seconds am immersed
in news about the new Cabinet formation and also about the death of V.Prabhakaran, leader
of the L.T.T.E. Out of the corner of my left eye, I can see the elderly man get up from his
seat and stand in the walkway near my seat.

With one hand, he is holding on to the steel framework provided for people to climb to the
upper berths. He stands there for a moment and even while holding on to the frame, he
lowers his body slowly. I assume that he is either stretching his back or doing an exercise
to relieve a stiff back. After a couple of seconds, he lowers himself a wee bit more and then
again a bit more. Now, he is just a feet or so from the floor of the compartment.

If it was a young man, I would have not even bothered to look, believing it to be eccentric behaviour. But since the person in question is old, I am now a bit concerned. I look at the
other passengers and they also seem concerned. It hits me that the man is not doing any stretching exercises, but is just losing control over himself and if I don't step in atleast now,
he will hit the floor.

I get up and hold him, while another passenger also helps me. We ask him if he is OK. He
is kind of breathless and what he says is incoherent. I notice that his body has gone cold
and he is sweating profusely. Which is odd, given that it is raining outside and is kinda cold.
We seat him on my seat and ask him if there is anyone accompanying him, to which he
mentions that his son Sherry is in the next coupe.

A passenger calls out the name and Sherry comes over - a guy in his late twenties. We tell
him what happened & fold down both the side berths so that the man can lie down. He is
still sweating.

We understand that father and son are going to Kollam which is another hour away. I am
no expert with things medical, but it looks like a stroke to me and to others. So we advice
them to detrain at the next station and get medical help. At Chengannur station,we help
the man detrain and as the train leaves, we see them walking out of the station.

For all our bravado, it takes just a slight malfunction in our body to render us powerless
and to remind us that we are mortal.

Ever heard of 90% tax on any product ?

A few friends whom I had not seen in years had come down on vacation to Kerala last week
from the Middle East (Gelf in Mallu parlance) where they work and we decide to catch up
on each other's lives over a few pegs. So in the evening, we go to the liquor store, run by the Kerala Government owned Beverages Corporation of Kerala (locally known as BEVCO), something similar to the TASMAC in Tamilnadu. However, unlike Tamilnadu where you
have liquor stores all over the place, in Kerala they have only one per town.

We buy a full bottle of Mansion House brandy, which the sales guy helpfully covers with a
sheet of old newspaper. We also get some fried chicken, a few packs of potato chips and a
couple of 2-litre bottles of soda and go to the home of one of the guys. His folk have gone
out of town, so we have the place all to ourselves.

I unwrap the liquor to find a piece of paper fall to the ground. Pick it up and see that it is
actually a bill for our purchase. This is surprising for me because in Tamilnadu they dont
give you a bill for the liquor you buy. Heck, at most shops, they wouldn't even return small change if you don't ask for it.

Anyway, I have reproduced below verbatim, the pertinent contents of the sales receipt.
Mansion House Brandy (750ml) : 225.25 Rs
Tax (at 90%) -------------------: 202.72 Rs
Cess (1% of tax) ------------------ : 2.02 Rs
________________________________
Total ---------------------------: 430.00 Rs

I knew that tax on liquor (and cigarettes) is pretty high, but still did not think that it would
be as high as 90% of the value of the product. This was an eye-opener for sure. No wonder
that inspite of paying lip-service to prohibition, no government actually takes any step to
stop sales of liquor.

If it was some other product, would we buy it paying such heavy taxes ? Most probably not.
And the government knows this, which is why they tax liquor and cigarettes so heavily.

Did the SriLankan Army actually get the big Tiger ?

For the past few days, TV channels and newspapers have been relaying the news of the death
of LTTE leader Prabhakaran and there are even photos being shown as evidence. And then
we have the other side (LTTE supporters) who say that the Tiger is still alive and well and
that the pictures are maybe that of a body double (he was supposed to have atleast 2 body doubles) or even modified pictures.

I have no idea what the truth is, since like anyone else all I can do is just guess based on the
news that comes in to us via the media. But one thing I found odd in the photos was that they showed the Tiger sporting a moustache. But if I recollect correctly, I think he gave up sporting
a moustache many years ago and in later years, he has always been seen without a moustache.

Time will tell the truth.

EDIT :
This snap (most probably doctored) came into my email Inbox just now. Truly hilarious is all
I can say. :-)

A pat on the back.

I was flipping through the pages of the "India Today" weekly news magazine at our office reception yesterday. There was a time a year or so ago when I used to buy all the 3 main
English news magazines (The Week and Outlook being the other two) on a weekly basis.

But over the years, not only did they hike the cover price, but also increased the number of advertisements in them, which meant I was paying to read advertisements for which these
guys already had taken handsome money from the advertiser. So quit buying the rags.

I don't usually read the editorial on the first page, but yesterday due to some strange reason,
I happened to go through the whole editorial by the Editor-in-chief, Mr.Aroon Purie and it
was a feeling of deja-vu. I felt like I was reading my last blogpost titled
"A big Hurray for India. Especially the Indian voter."

The editorial outlined the same stuff that I mentioned in my post - the Indian voter being intelligent, being happy about it not being a hung parliament, the Left being routed, the local satraps being shown their place, and last but not the least the PM-wannabes being shown
their rightful place.

It felt good to know that my views were on the same lines as that of the editor of a premier
news magazine. While I do keep abreast of all relevant current events, I still cannot hold a
candle to the knowledge and astuteness of someone who helms a reputed news magazine.
Feels good to know that my views are in sync with that of the big boys of media.

P.S. : I wanted to post the editorial here, but it is not yet available on their website.
Will post it as soon as it is uploaded there.

A big Hurray for India. Especially the Indian voter.

The mammoth process called the Indian Parliamentary elections, spread over a month, is
finally over. While everyone was predicting a hung parliament, I am glad that it is not the
case, mainly because of the period of instability, horse-trading & the huge expense involved
in conducting a re-election.

The results endorse a lot of things, but what is key is that the voter is not as gullible/stupid
as the politicians thought him/her to be. While we still don't have a party that has an absolute majority in Parliament (for which they would need 272 seats out of a total of 543), it still is heartening to know that the voters have made their choice amply clear by giving the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) a decisive majority over the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

I am glad about a lot of things after seeing the final result tally.

I am glad that the voters have approved of the policies of Dr.Manmohan Singh, arguably one
of the best, efficient and non-corrupt Prime Ministers we ever had. Please note that I did not
say "non-corrupt politician" because that would be an oxymoron, if you exclude the few non-corrupt politicians like A.K.Antony. OK, I take back the word 'few' in my previous sentence because I can't think up any other politician who is clean.

I am glad that the extremely right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not been given
a mandate to rule the country like they expected. While our constitution defines India as a secular country, these guys wanted to make it a place for people following only one religion.
And inline with that plan, they went about terrorising the religious minorities, destroying
their places of worship and butchering thousands of them (children and pregnant woman included) in a planned pogrom called the "Gujarat riots".

Note : Keeping these scoundrels out of power would not have been possible if the voters of
the religious majority were not able to separate politics from religion. Thanks guys/gals.

I am glad that the PMK has been completely routed. As if having political parties based on religion was not bad enough, these guys created one for a particular caste. God, what will
India be if each and every one of the thousands of castes we have in the country, start their
own political outfit ?

I am glad the LJP is fully routed. Mr.Paswan had fun being a cabinet minister for the last 5
years and then decided it would be even more fun to back-stab the coalition he was part of.
A clear case of getting too big for his own boots. Nice riddance from the new cabinet.

I am so glad that the rustic farmer from Bihar, Laloo Yadav has been almost decimated.
We have had enough of his short-changing tactics with respect to Railway rules/fares as
he lorded over the Railway ministry for the past 5 years. Every time I think of the torture chamber called the 3-berth side-seat configuration he introduced in the Sleeper and 3AC
train compartments, I wished/cursed that he should lose the elections and never return as
the railway minister. Actually, I am really happy about this one.

I am glad that the communists have been decimated in West Bengal. While I am not against development, I am surely against fertile agricultural land being given to industries. While
taking pride in having the cheapest car in the world (Nano) is all good, we need to remember that we can't eat a Nano when we get hungry. For that we need wheat/rice and there comes
the need to take care of the farm sector.

I am glad the communists were routed in Kerala. For the last 2 - 3 years that these guys
have been in power in Kerala, the only thing on the front page of newspapers was the rivalry between the 2 main communist leaders of Kerala - V.S. Achutanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan. Instead of concentrating on governance, these guys were more bothered about belittling each other in their petty fight. I hope they meet a similar fate in the Assembly elections also which
are just a couple of years away.

And since it is only in Kerala and West-Bengal that the communists have any presence, this means that they have no role to play at the Centre like last time. I am glad they will not be
able to do a repeat of their act last time where they were supposedly supporting the Govt.
from outside, but at the same time putting in riders for every decision the government
wanted to take, using the threat of pulling support for the government. Good riddance.

I am glad the pseudo-politicians like Amar Singh of the SP have no role to play in the new government. Let us learn to separate businessmen from politics and let the former do their wheeling-dealing in the realm of business, instead of playing their dirty tricks in governance.

I am also glad all those small-time leaders who neither have the numbers or the skills or
the ability to hold the office of the Prime-Minister of India have been shown their place. Ms.Mayawati, Ms.Jayalalitha, Mr.Gowda, etc etc, I am glad you all have been shown your
rightful place and I pray and hope that I don't have to see the day when India has the
misfortune of having any of you as the Prime Minister.

Wow, I am glad I voted in this election and I am so proud of the choice made by the voters
from all over India. Looks like we still have hope for India.

P.S. : I am not a member of any political party in India. As I was growing up in Kerala, I did
have a slight leaning for the communist/socialist line of thinking, which is pretty normal since Kerala was the hotbed of communism in India and it would be tough to see a Malayali who
does not have a little bit of affinity to that theory.

But after seeing the vast divide between what communism means in theory and what was
being practiced by the communists in Kerala/West-Bengal, I let go of that affinity and am
happy being just a non-aligned voter who thinks of his country more than any party and
would cast his vote to the candidate who thinks on similar lines.

The difference that youth makes.

It's incredible how we get conditioned to associate people with a certain look, which is based
on how we have known them via the media, books etc. So much that when we come across another drastically different look, we are just dumb-founded and unable to believe that this
is the same person. Happened to me recently, when my wife gifted me 3 Malayalam novels
as a birthday present. One of the books had this picture on the cover. Please excuse the bad picture quality - taken with my phone.


The book is by the famous Malayalam author Kamala Das who writes under the pen-name
of Madhavikutty. Born a Hindu, she converted to Islam many years ago and is now known
as Kamala Suraiyya. This book is actually her autobiography and titled "Ende Katha", which
in English would be "My Story". She wrote this in 1976 at age 42. The book's contents are
such (too radical for that time and age) that they deserve a post of their own. Hence we won't
get into that - will cover it in another post.

As I held the book in my hands and looked at the cover, my thoughts were, "Wow, what a beautiful woman. So Malayalee in looks too. Not that bad a figure too - atleast with the Indian benchmark for what good figure is."

But, it never struck me, even for a moment that this is the author herself. Ofcourse the snap
was taken when she was young. Not that I could be blamed for it because when I was born,
she was already in her late thirties. And by the time I grew old enough to know her as an
author and a public figure, she must have been in her fifties. And at that time, her photos
that came in newspapers were all resembling this one below.


So conditioned was I to this image of her when she was older, that I couldn't associate a young and pretty face to her. BTW, in the book she talks a lot about how she hated her looks when
she was a kid. After seeing this snap, I guess that is just normal human-female behaviour that always plays up their minor blemishes and keep worrying about them, than taking pride in
the other strong points (look-wise) that they have been blessed with.

Our kid-tracker GPS device.

Ever since our son started walking, which was when he was 1 year old, one of our worries was about tracking his whereabouts at home. This is more of a concern in our small town in Kerala where people live in independent homes with big yards, unlike the apartment-culture that is prevalent in the cities.

Our apartment in Chennai is just 800 sq.ft. and consists of 2 bedrooms, a drawing room, a kitchen & 2 washrooms. Tracking a kid in this small space is no issue at all. But back home
in Kerala, our home stands on half-an-acre of land and our home itself is sprawled over a
few thousand sq.ft. with 4 bedrooms, a drawing room, a dining room, a kitchen, a TV-room,
a store-room, 2 bathrooms, 2 toilets etc. Tracking a kid in here would be like looking for a
needle in a haystack.

Adding to the problem is the fact that we have a busy road bang in front of the home, plus
a deep well in the backyard (after our son's birth, we had a cover made for the well). And bordering our land are acres of fields that are low-lying and which get filled with water
either during heavy rains or when the river is in spate. All these are potential hazards
when you have a kid at home. And when you know of people in the neighborhood who
have had bad experiences, it makes you all the more worried.

Bang opposite our house, a new home has come up, in which stay a couple and their 'only' daughter who would be in her early twenties. The couple actually had another daughter
named Chitra who was younger to this girl. The father was working in Delhi and during
vacations they would come down to Kerala. On one such vacation many years ago, during
a brief moment of being left unattended, Chitra wandered off into the backyard & started walking on the water canal (which I have mentioned in a previous photo-blog).

Along the way, she saw a 'puddle' of water that had plants bearing beautiful flowers in it.
She decided to reach for the flowers, but fell into the puddle which was actually quite deep
and drowned. Friends, family and neighbours who started searching for the kid, found her
little body floating in the water. My sister drove the panicky parents & Chitra to the nearest hospital in our car, but it was too late for the doctors to do anything. I can't imagine how
much those parents would have pained on losing their little kid.

They own 4 buses that ply to nearby towns and at night are parked in the yard in front of
their home. All the 4 buses are named Chitra, in memory of the kid they lost. My son believes that those buses belong to him - he says "Aman-de Chithira bus", which translates to "Aman's Chitra bus". And at nights, when he is irritable and refuses to sleep, one of the things that my wife knows will calm him, is to bring him to the gate of our house, from where he can see the
4 buses parked there.

Since this incident involving Chitra remains fresh in our mind, inspite of the fact that this happened years ago, we have always been worried as to how to track our son as he starts walking. From the time my first niece Divya was born in 1999, we had made it a practice
to keep the gate latched, so as to avoid her from getting onto the busy road. This practice continued when Ann was born and is now again followed after Aman was born.

Still there remained the danger of his walking out into the backyard or to the water-logged
fields & we racked our brains to come up with a solution for this problem. Finally we decided
that the best solution would be to use a tracker-device - our own GPS, but which does not
rely on any satellites. Heck, it does not even need any batteries. In the pic below, Aman is
seen wearing his own custom-tracker on his ankles.


This ornament is called a 'Kolusu' in Kerala ('Golusu' in Tamilnadu & anklet in English) and is usually made of silver, though in Kerala girls prefer gold. In Tamilnadu they don't use gold for Golusu because gold is respected and it is seen as a bad thing to have it at your feet. Kolusu is usualy worn only by girls / women and so Aman attracts a lot of attention when we go out because people find it amusing that a boy is wearing it. Ofcourse they don't know why we have him wear it.

I bought this Kolusu at Chennai with a friend helping out a lot with the selection (Thanks a lot Maa'm) because as a rule I don't buy jewellery and thus would be lost in a jewellery shop. My only criteria was that it should have lots of bells on it, more the merrier, so that every step he takes will be audible loud and clear. Finally we zeroed in on this particular model & guess what, it really solved the problem. And at 1100 bucks, I could not have asked for more.

There are times when Aman is playing somewhere in the vicinity of our home and I have managed to track him only using the noise of the bells. And, when he is sleeping, we can be in another part of the house getting some work done, but clearly make out if he is restless or awake, by the ringing of the bells. Initially when we tried to put the anklets on, he resisted the attempt, but now he is so used to it that it has become like a part of him. Guess we will keep the anklets on his feet for a few more years.

Woman, advice & evening wear. Didn't know there was a connection.

Came across this quote in yesterday's edition of the Deccan Chronicle (DC).
“Don't give a woman advice. One should never give a woman anything she can't wear in the evening”. - Oscar Wilde.

The moment I read this quote, I was reminded of a friend (a woman, ofcourse) who would always respond with, "Did I ask you for free advice?" whenever I happened to give her any advice / suggestion about an issue or problem she was facing.

Initially I would find it odd that on one hand she is telling me about an issue that she is facing, but when I am trying to help her by suggesting a solution, she responds that she doesn't need advice. If someone asks me about anything I have adequate information or experience about,
I am only glad to offer them the best advice on it. And similarly, if I have no knowledge about something, I have no qualms asking people experienced in it for their expert opinion.

Ofcourse, like most men, it took me also some time to understand that when women tell you about an issue or problem they are having, they are not necessarily doing that because they want you to offer them a solution for the problem. Just that they want someone to listen to
their troubles & offer them some sympathy. Basically they are looking for a shoulder to lean
on and cry their heart out.

While knowing the above facet of female personality cleared most of my confusion as to why
my female friend was talking the way she did, there still remained a small part of this 'woman' behaviour which was beyond my understanding. Oscar Wilde seems to have clarified it for me through the pages of the DC. Thanks, Sir.

So the next time a woman tells me about her problem(s), I now know better than to offer her any silly advice about how to overcome the problem. Instead, I should listen sympathetically,
with the appropriate number of "Oh, you poor thing" or "I can feel your pain, girl" etc. etc. thrown into the conversation every now and then and maybe finally have a nice ending to the conversation by saying :

"Hey, OK, why don't we forget for some time this problem that you are facing and instead
let me take you shopping and get you a nice designer saree that you have been eyeing for sometime now ? And you know what, we could follow it up with a quiet candle-lit dinner
at a fancy restaurant so that you get to wear it this very evening itself. Does this make
you feel atleast a wee bit better ?"

While it sounds nice to me, the only flaw I see here and which Mr.Wilde didn't maybe have to
worry about is that my wife would not be very happy seeing me follow his advice literally. :-)

A temple dedicated to serpents and much more - a photo blog.

This was one of those photoblogs that was supposed to have been on this site atleast a year
ago, but laziness and procrastination ensured its appearance here only today. Due to tickets
not being available on the train that I take normally to Kerala, I had to go by the other train
that reaches my station at 5AM.

Since I was home too early in the morning for my son to be awake, I decided to combine my
morning walk with a photo session of the neighborhood. So, after a cup of refreshing tea at
home, I set off. I decided to go off the beaten path and explore a place that was off the main
road. First stop was what is called a Sarpa Kaavu (literal translation being Serpent Woods),
with a temple dedicated to serpents in its precints. There is a story behind how this temple
was built, the main entrance of which you see below.


The land and the temple on it belongs to my friend's family. Before the temple was built, it
used to be just trees and dense shrub growth, with maybe a tree or idol which was revered
by the family. Somewhere down the line, it seems someone from the family did something to anger the Gods and this was linked to the series of misfortunes the family faced.

It was decided that to appease the Gods, a temple dedicated to serpents should be built there, which would stem the problems faced by the family & this was how the temple came up here.
I know this would sound like gibberish to most people (especially westerners), but that is how local lore (or superstition goes). Anyway, another better view of the temple.



All this while, there was this curious squirrel that was following my actions. These creatures
can move amazingly fast & can just scamper up a tall coconut tree in seconds.



Done with the temple, I moved on to the water-canal that runs for a couple of kilometres through the fields. Though built for channeling water to the fields alongside it, I do not ever remember seeing water running in it. It is mostly used as a walkway by people living in the neighborhood. Anyway, when it rains almost round the year here, why would there be water scarcity ?



All around me are acres of fertile land that unfortunately are not cultivated because farming
isn't lucrative anymore due to rising labour & other input costs. This land comes real cheap.
I met a guy who owns land there and he was ready to sell of his 50 cents (half-acre) of land
for just Rs.50000 (1000 $) !!!



I walk on the canal and come across a small pond with many ducks enjoying the cool water.



Alongside the canal are coconut trees & areca-nut trees. When I was young, there use to be
quite some demand for areca-nuts (also called betel nut & used by those who chew tobacco). There used to be people who came to buy the nuts. But nowadays, no one seems to want it anymore. You can see a row of areca-nut trees in the pic below - the trees on the right.



BTW, climbing an areca nut tree is trickier than climbing a coconut tree because they are so slender and with a man's weight, the tree could sway dangerously. Also, coconut trees have cuts/grooves made into them every 2 feet or so for the climber to put his feet into, making climbing easier. A close-up snap of the areca-nut tree flowering .



This is how the ripe nuts look like.



And this is the tapioca plant, which was once the poor man's rice-substitute (like potato in Europe), but today it is expensive enough to be out of the reach of the poor man. It's a tuber, with the root is the edible part. Boil them and have them with either fish curry or any
meat dish (chicken/mutton/beef/pork) or just plain spicy chutney (if you are a vegetarian)
and you are in for a gastronomic delight.



Done with my morning walk, I retrace my steps home via a different route & chance upon a
guy running his small soda making industry at home. Talk to him for a few minutes during
which he casually mentions a risk that I was not aware existed in his business - the bottle bursting. Enough to make me say a quick goodbye and move on - I don't want shreds of
glass shrapnel hitting my face.


An hour spent well, I would think.

A Scooty travelogue - caught in a traffic jam of the feathery kind.

22/Mar/09 Sunday 05:00PM :
Me, my wife & our son are out exploring the neighborhood on my wife's TVS-Scooty. This is a weekly 'ritual' that we indulge in and something the 3 of us love doing. We spend an hour or so visiting some new place in the neighborhood that we have never been to before. Once there,
we walk around taking in the sights or just sit on the banks of the river watching it flow by. Sometimes, we drop in at a tea-shop in the neighborhood to have a cup of hot tea.

Today, we decided to try out a different road than the one we've been exploring for the past months. The road in front of my home forks into two near the church. One leads to the bridge across the river and is the road that we have been taking for the past months now. The other road runs along the side of the church & after meandering through a populated neighborhood, comes to a place where all around you have only acres of green fields. And ofcourse the river flows by with the road running along it.

When I was young & studying in Kerala, I used to come to this place very often with a friend. There was a small tea-shop near the river, run by a couple whose home was also in the same plot. I just loved the hot 'n soft Bonda (a sweet delicacy in the shape and size of a cricket ball - different from what is known as a Bonda in Tamilnadu) that they made & sold in the evenings. And to top it, the Bonda went really well with tea.

While this was my motivation for visiting the place, my friend was only too eager to join me because he was then seeing the elder daughter of the couple that ran the shop. So we would
cycle down there, and while I would have my fill of Bonda & tea, he would try to snatch some conversation with the girl when her parents were not around.

Anyway, I was now retracing the steps of my childhood. I could see that the shop no longer exists, though the couple still stay there. I remember my friend telling me that the house &
land is up for sale and asked whether I am interested. For all the charm of having a house by
the river, I would still think it better to build a house of my liking on the river-side land we already own, instead of buying a readymade home.

Anyway, we cross the house and reach the place where the road now runs along the river.
All of a sudden we see rush-hour traffic coming our way & blocking the small road. We park
the Scooty and watch this spectacle open-eyed. Especially my son for whom this is like the
8th wonder of the world.


Its a huge crowd of ducklings that are being led to the river for some fun in the river. I guess
this must be a once-daily kind of occurence. There are so many of them that we fail at even
guessing an approximate number. So we ask the guy who is leading them to the river and he
says they number around 4000 !!!


They cross the road and slowly enter the river, slowly wading out into the river. It is such an
unbelievable spectacle to see them all in the river. Meantime another couple on their bike
have also parked their bike and joined us in watching this awesome scene. While I click away
on my Sony cam, the guy takes pictures with his phone-cam.


They spread out into the wide river, having fun swimming around.


Suddenly we see a group of the ducklings moving away from the crowd and going with the
flow of the river. When the ducklings were taken to the river, I had wondered how the guy
would be able to keep his flock from straying and now I was about to see how he would bring
these strayers back to the flock.


He just jumps into a small 1-man canoe (called 'Kodhumbu vallam' in local parlance) & rows
over to the straying group, circles around them and coaxes them to join the group. He uses verbal cues - some sounds he makes that the ducklings seem to understand and slowly he
has them rejoin the group.


While some are swimming in the river, most of the ducklings are using this opportunity to
groom themselves while staying near the shore - kind of similar to us taking a shower.


This one does not take too kindly to our presence. She seems to be implying, "Can't a lady
even groom herself in peace without prying eyes watching ?"


In a matter of few minutes, the guy has rounded the strayers back to the group.


Look cute, don't they ?


We wait and watch to see the guy use verbal cues to make them leave the river and walk back
to their enclosure which is some 50 metres from the river. Like obedient school-children, they
trudge back home.

Everyday is a new experience here. All that is needed to chance upon them is to have the will
to go out into the midst of nature. It is at these times that I regret staying in a city and start
thinking of options that would allow me to move to my hometown. One day, for sure ...

Two is company, three is a crowd. And four is surely trouble. Or fun, if you are the consumer.

For years (actually decades), there were only two English newspapers in Chennai/Tamilnadu
- The Indian Express and The Hindu. While both were a study in contrast, they were pretty much settled in the scheme of things, which divided the market between them. I do not have access to their market shares then, but it would be safe to assume that The Hindu would have
been leading by a really big margin. The Hindu was miles ahead of The Express in almost all attributes that define a newspaper, starting from newsprint quality, printing quality, news content, the various daily supplements (Property Plus on Saturdays, Opportunities on Wednesdays, Metro Plus on other days etc) that it gave out etc.

In my opinion, the only attribute where The Indian Express scored over The Hindu was with
its Sunday supplement with a varied content of cartoons, movie gossip, some nice articles on Travel, Living, Sport etc. Oh yeah, before I forget, the mandatory pictures of some beautiful women from the movie/modelling industry. So much that I always made it a point to buy only the Express on Sundays, while I would stick to The Hindu on all other days. The Hindu on the
other hand had one of the most boring Sunday supplement editions - informative, but not
something you would want to read on a lazy Sunday. But this attraction of the Indian Express
was also gone after the paper went through a huge overhaul and the Sunday supplement as it
is today became a watered-down version of its erstwhile self.

And then, the status quo gets disturbed by a new entrant to the scene. The Deccan Chronicle (DC) stepped in into the Chennai market, where it saw space for another player. The existing players just dismissed the new entrant scornfully. And rightly so, given that the content and quality of the DC could not be compared to theirs by any stretch of imagination. But then, to their surprise, it did not take long to realise that quality is not everything, atleast as far as newspapers are concerned. The glossy pages of the tabloid-esque DC with its movie/party
gossip, Page 3 Personality news and most of all the attraction of all this at 1/3rd the price of
the competition was enough to help it dig its claws into the market.

The guys at DC were intelligent enough to know that they wont be able to sell their new rag
by pricing it anywhere close to the existing players. While the Hindu and Express were priced
at Rs.3 plus change daily, (except for Sundays when it cost around 5 bucks) the DC was yours
for a mere Rupee 1. To get an idea of a Rupee's buying power, let me see what I can get for a rupee. I can get 1 matchbox or 2 mints or maybe make a panhandler happy by giving him a
rupee. The cheapest railway ticket is Rs.3, even the platform ticket that just gets you access
to the railway platform.

Basically there ain't much that you can do with Re.1. So, when someone offers you a news
daily for Re.1, quite some people are sure to go for it. Which is what happened in Chennai also. Slowly readership caught on. I am not a regular subscriber to newspapers, but over time I also changed to the DC, even as I admit that the quality is shoddy. And to compare it with that of
The Hindu would be sacrilege.

However, once they gained a foot-hold here, the DC started increasing prices. Initially they informed the readers about raising prices from Re1 to Rs1.50. While it looks like only a hike
of 50 paise, it actually is a 50% increase. Still it was cheaper than The Hindu or The Express. Then they made the Saturday and Sunday paper to cost Rs.2, while retaining other days at Rs1.50. Not sure if this was brought to the reader's notice or done covertly. And finally they increased the cost for all days to Rs2, while keeping Sunday paper price at Rs2.50.

As if three newspapers was not crowd enough, a 4th entrant jumps into the fray. The North-Indian newspaper "The Times of India" (ToI) sees an opportunity in Chennai. Maybe their marketing guys thought, "If DC can make it, surely we also should be able to do it". And so Chennai-ites get another newspaper choice - content and presentation almost on the lines
of the DC, but quality a tad better. I grew up reading the ToI in North India at a time when
I had not even heard of The Hindu and I was of the opinion that the ToI was the best English daily in the country. Sadly, my opinion just crumbled after reading the pages of The Hindu. There simply was no competition here.

ToI also knew that they would have to play the pricing game if they had to sell here initially.
But instead of pricing copies low, they adopted a different route. They gave out annual subscriptions for an absurdly low price - Rs99 for a year or something like that, which when translated to daily price, becomes as low as less than 1/3rd of a rupee. Plus this also results in them getting a captive subscriber base for a year. If you instead opted to buy the paper on a daily basis, it would be Rs.2, which is pretty competitive too, since DC had upped their rates
by then to around the same price.

Ofcourse like any market leader, The Hindu initially would not admit to any change in status-quo as far as readership figures are concerned. They even disputed readership figures for Chennai put up by DC. But ignoring a problem does not make it go away. And so even when
they did not acknowledge the DC as competition, indirect acknowledgement came from their reducing their price (something not done by them for as long as I can remember) and also by ramping up the advertisement for their newspaper. Today, you can see advertisements for
The Hindu on the sides of the city buses, at bus stops, MRTS stations, billboards etc. And the price currently is Rs.2.50 for all days except Sundays when it costs Rs3.50. Same goes for
The Indian Express who also were forced to cut prices.

So, while the guys at The Hindu & Indian Express must be worried about the competition
snipping at their heels, I think the gainers are the consumers who now have a wide range of newspapers to choose from. Our office subscribes to The Hindu and ToI, so I get to glance through them during lunch break. But when it comes to buying, I usually stick to DC or when
it is not available, the ToI. For a mere Rs2/- I get my dose of daily news, given the fact that
my TV is used only for viewing DVDs (satellite dish conked out). Ofcourse the bonus being
the tabloid-esque supplements that feature the happening events in town - parties, product launches, fashion shows etc.

To sum up, I am glad that the 2 new entrants came in to jolt the existing duopoly out of their
complacent slumber and to pull their act together, resulting in a better deal for newspaper
lovers like me. Who ever said 4 is a crowd ? It actually means more options for the consumer and that too at lower prices.

When idols fall off the high perch, revealing feet of clay.

I guess most of us idolize someone or the other. Men / women who have done something great
in their field to deserve our respect. We attribute values to them & think of them as infallible, unlike normal humans. Till one day, to your surprise and astonishment, they come crashing down. Usually for something that you never thought they would succumb to. And that is what happened to me a few weeks ago.

I knew her through the pages of newspapers & magazines when I was growing up. Then, she didn't have much to her credit other than being cute & being wedded into a famous family in
India. Actually, make that a real famous family. But did I mention she was cute ? To a kid in
his teens, that is more important an attribute in someone than even grabbing a Nobel prize.

She was cute. Actually, I still find her cute, even though she is today a lady in her late forties
or even early fifties. But then is there a rule that says cuteness has to vanish with age ? Over time, she also gained my sympathy because she was unfortunately widowed at a very young
age. And if that wasn't enough to garner sympathy, she was thrown out of the family by her mom-in-law. Pretty surprising because the mom-in-law doted on that particular son.

A couple of years later tragedy strikes the family again - the mom-in-law is assasinated by
her bodyguards. If by now, you did not guess who I am talking about, then you are either
one of my non-Indian friends/readers or you seriously need to update yourself. The lady in question is Maneka Gandhi, wife of Late Sanjay Gandhi and mother of VarunGandhi who is
in the news currently for quite the wrong reasons.

Anyway, coming back to our lady, she raises her only son by herself and makes a mark as
a vocal animal rights activist. While not really an animal lover (am a non-vegetarian), I did
admire the effort she took for the sake of animals. And I would be wrong if I said that I did
not get swayed at least a wee bit by her exhortations. It helped that I found her cute. :-)

And then she came crashing down. Down the high perch where I had kept her. Beneath all
that talk and advice (and ofcourse cuteness), I realised lay a heart that was as human as the next-door Indian politician. Her fall was not caused by greed for money or sleaze, but for something that is the bane of many a politician in India. She fell in my eyes because of her
blind love for her son.

Love so blind that it threw rational thinking to the wind and made her ignore the damage
her son was causing with his words. Her son Varun started off as a poet and recently has
been active in politics for a few years now. He opted for the extremely right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), which is in total contrast to the political leaning of his Dad's family, who
have always been associated with the Congress party.

The BJP put him up as the candidate for the Philibit constituency in the state of UttarPradesh and during an election rally there, he made a speech in which he used threats against Muslims and Sikhs. Given the BJP's mostly anti-Muslim leanings, I can understand his verbal assault
on them, but I could not understand why he targetted Sikhs in his speech. For one, his Mom
is a Sikh herself and secondly the BJP has an alliance with a Sikh party (Akali Dal) in Punjab.

I am glad that the Election Commision intervened along with the legal machinery and put him behind bars. Guys like him who don't hesitate to break the social fabric of the country just to
get some votes need to be put away. And when finally granting him bail, the courts made it
clear that he is not supposed to say anything that could incite communal tension. And now
that he found that life in prison is not entirely fun, he has no idea of going back there again
and thus is keeping his big mouth shut.

Meanwhile Momma dearest was all over the news crying about the 'injustice' meted out to
her son by having him thrown in prison. It did not matter to her that there are so many
wastrels roaming our country who would literally take her son's words for a call-to-action
and go about snuffing out innocent lives just because they pray to a different God.

Not cute at all, madam. The next time you are going to sermonise us on how stray dogs
should not be eliminated or how cruel the procedures in our slaughter-houses are, I would suggest you rather keep an eye on what your son is upto or else we might end up loosing something more valuable - human lives.