Luck, by chance. Unplanned dinner date with a celebrity.

I left work at 9PM yesterday feeling very hungry. In my mind, I started going through all the restaurants on the 20km route to my home. And for one reason or the other, I ticked them off the list one-by-one. Reasons being, not enough parking, not in the mood for Pizza, sick of eating chicken etc.

And before I knew it I was just 1-km from home and near the last restaurant on the way. Since no other choices existed, I drive into the parking of the Nelson Sangeetha restaurant on Nelson Manickam road. Walk in and find an empty table. Since this restaurant is one I visit regularly, I am aware of what is available and place my order.

As I wait for the food to come, I look around. At the table next to me, facing me is seated a lady in a nice (actually exquisite) blue silk saree. I can see only her side profile, but I still feel like I have seen this face before. Rack my brains and the only connection that comes to mind is singer Anuradha Sriram.

For those who don't know who she is, here's a snap I googled out.


But why would someone like her come to a normal restaurant, when she can have her pick from any of the 5-star hotels in town ? I assume it is someone who resembles her. But everytime my glance falls on her, it seems more like her. Seated opposite her is a gentleman and they are having an animated discussion about her concert, dates etc.

By the time I am halfway into the masala-dosa, she is done with her coffee and they are moving off. A quick look around confirms my suspicion that it is indeed Anuradha, because everyone from the waiters, to the manager to the customers have their gaze on her as she moves out.

She looks shorter than I thought she looked on TV - maybe because she seems to have put on weight - looked chubbier than on TV. But she does have an exquisite face - gotta give that to her.

BTW, noticed her getting into a Hyundai Elantra. If it is indeed her car, I guess it is high time she changed to a more upmarket car.

When ABS and Airbags lose out to Hanuman.

13-Dec-2010:
Me, Sheena and Aman are driving back to my home from my in-laws place after spending 2 days there. My in-laws had last week taken delivery of their spanking new car - a Suzuki A-Star Automatic and we had gone there to help get my FIL get comfy with the car, since he is not familiar with automatic transmission cars.

En-route, I drop Sheena at the Kayankulam bus-stand from where she would catch a bus to Alappuzha to get to work. After dropping her, I have Aman belted in safely in the front-seat. Given that our Swift has airbags, he should be seated in the rear-seat, since air-bags if deployed can cause harm rather than good to small kids in the front seat. However, it has been tough to persuade him to sit anywhere other than the front passenger seat. Ideally he should be sitting in the rear in a child-seat.

Infact I would prefer both Sheena & Aman sit in the rear passenger seat. I can convince Sheena, but my efforts with Aman have been in vain. Anyway, as me and Aman drive home, I decide to make another effort to convince him. It's a 10-km stretch to our home which is relatively free of traffic and I try to avoid the tone of advice, instead opting for a story-telling format, which I know usually works with Aman.

I tell him how a friend of mine had called me recently and told me the dangers of having small kids sit in the front-seat. Since airbags and the way they work would be tough to explain to a kid, I decide to use an analogy that he would understand. I tell him that in the event of an accident, the front wind-screen would shatter leading to glass-pieces hitting & injuring him (and Momma) if they sit in the front seat. So, this fictional friend of mine had clearly told me to have Aman seated only in the rear-passenger seat to avoid injuries.

There is silence from Aman as he digests this information. As we drive along, I have a faint hope that maybe he now understands the implications and would henceforth agree to sit in the rear. If only things were that simple.

Suddenly he pipes up, "But won't the glass pieces hit you, Daddy, since you are also seated in the front ?"

Logical, right ? I am asking him to be seated in the rear, while I sit in the front exposed to dangerous shrapnel. Unsure how to counter this logic, I tell him that I have no option but to sit in front since I have to drive the car. He is silent again taking in this information.

And then he says, "But we can always call Hanuman and before we have an accident, he will lift our car to a safe place".

To kids growing up with TV serials like "Chotta Bheem" and "Hanuman", there is nothing these mythological heroes cannot do. Why bother about seat-belts, airbags and stuff when you can call out to Hanuman in times of trouble, who will swoop you to safety, as depicted on TV ? :-)

P.S.: During the 10-day long year-end holidays, we plan to do quite some driving around, especially a possible 800km drive to north Kerala and back. Inspite of Hanuman, I hope Aman and Sheena agree to sit in the rear of the car henceforth.

A broken tap and adding up on my Green-Karma

I was giving our Suzuki-Swift a long-deserved wash at my home in Kerala when I hear animated conversation from the neighbouring house. All I can make out is that it is related to water. As I continue washing the car, the voices come closer and stop near the gate of our home. By this time, my Mom has also come out to check what the commotion is all about. It seems someone broke the public tap adjacent to our home, leading to leakage of water.

And the lady who stays diagonally opposite to our house is the one complaining about all the water going waste. She along with our next-door neighbour are the ones who use the tap for their potable water needs - rest of us in the neighborhood have piped water. Ofcourse, passersby also stop occasionally to quench their thirst. And sometimes the temple elephant too, as I mentioned in a previous post.

The next-door neighbour has also joined the conversation and complains about how he reported this to the municipality, but no action has been taken. Nothing new in this anyway. They then decide to fix it themselves. While one of them goes to buy a new plastic tap, the other one goes for a plumber.

I have now washed the car and am drying it with a dry cloth when Neighbour-1 returns with a new tap that he bought from the nearby hardware store. The other neighbour could not get the plumber - he is busy and said he will drop in around evening and that it will cost Rs.100 to fix the tap.

I tell them that I can fix it for free. I get the required tools, some cotton-waste and a bottle of shellac from our tool-shed and get to work. The tough part is removing the broken end of the old tap. Unscrewing it does not work, so I prise it out with a screw-driver and hammer. I then line the threaded end of the tap with strands of cotton-waste, apply shellac over it for a tight seal and screw in the tap. Presto, the leak is gone and we have a working tap. My 15-minutes (and 100 bucks) worth of effort seen below.



The neighbours have saved 50 bucks each in labour, while I got the pleasure of fixing a broken thing, plus the satisfaction of saving scarce water. Now, if only I knew how to lay roads, I would be glad to relay the pothole-filled road in front of our home that got damaged in the recent rains.

T-20 is now T-30. But still worth the money.

I had posted here about the T-20 breakfast offer at Sangeetha restaurant, Velachery. After having achieved what they wanted with this plan (getting customer attention), they have hiked prices. T-20 is now T-30 - the menu remains the same.

I find it worth inspite of the price hike and was there again recently for breakfast. I like the concept of a decent, fairly filling breakfast (including tea/coffee) for 30 bucks. Try it out when you are around Velachery.

P.S.: Sangeetha should be paying me for this free publicity I am getting them.

And you thought public taps were only for humans

A couple of weeks ago, I was working from home at Kerala. I had logged in around 10AM & was going through my email when I hear the familiar sound of chain-links clanging. In most places of Kerala, this could mean only one thing - an elephant is coming along, with the sound being that of the heavy chains around its body & legs.

In Tamil, they have an apt saying "Yaanai varum pinne, mani-osai varum munnai", which translates to "while the elephant comes behind, the sound of its bell precedes it". Just that I don't remember seeing/hearing bells around the elephants in Kerala - it is the sound of the chain-links that herald the arrival of an elephant in these parts.

As is the norm, me & Aman rush to the main road to catch a glimpse of the majestic animal. It surprises us that instead of passing by our home, it has stopped a little away from our main gate. We walk to the gate & see that it is thirst that has made the animal make an unscheduled stop.

There is a public water-tap adjacent to our gate, which is meant for those in the neighbourhood who don't have their own water connection. Or for any wayfarer to quench his/her thirst. The mahout had turned on this tap, enabling the elephant to quench its thirst.

Scooping enough water in its trunk :



As the elephant drinks the water, its mahout turns on the tap even more :



The animal goes for another round of drink.



We standby & watch till the elephant has quenched its thirst and moves on. There is now a mini traffic-jam as most people on the road stop to have a look at the animal. This tap came to be due the initiative of the last municipal councillor of our ward. It's a pity the elephant doesn't have voting rights - else the councillor could have surely counted on it's vote.

Celebrating Kerala-Piravi (state formation day of God's Own Country) in spirit, if not letter.

This western tourist landed in Kerala on Kerala Piravi (1-Nov) and found almost all men wearing new mundu/veshtis to mark the occasion. He goes and promptly gets one for himself. Given the way it is securely tied around his waist, he seems to have done a good job. Impressive, given that many Indians have trouble keeping it in place.


BTW, by tying it over the shirt, he not only ensures some traction for the garb to stay in place, but seems to have put in place a new trend/fashion. Am impressed.

When Ms.Sherawat came hissing. Oops, visiting. :-)

Was pleasantly surprised when I picked up today's newspaper at my home in Kerala. The front page has a snap of Hindi actress Ms.Mallika Sherawat clad in Mallu attire. It seems she was at the Mannaarasala temple yesterday, which is just about 10kms from my home in Kerala.

The last celebrity to visit this temple was erstwhile cricketer Ravi Shastri and his family, to thank the deity for their kid who was born after many years due to the blessings of the goddess here. As per local lore, couples not having kids would be blessed with kids, if they pray to the deity at this temple.

But Ms.Sherawat obviously does not need kids. Atleast not now. So reason for the visit ? Her 'Hollywood' movie “Hiss” is releasing shortly in which she plays the role of a serpent-woman. And guess what, this temple is devoted to snakes.

Check out her snaps in local attire at the temple. Looks cute, na. Especially with the flowers in her hair. There is something about traditional attire, which makes women look homely and demure.

I can bet that this is one look of hers that you won't get to see in the movies.


I turn to the 3rd page & there is another snap of hers, now posing by the temple tank. Plus an interview, where she says the usual things - I love Kerala, blah blah blah.


For those who can’t read Malayalam, the gist of the above article is as below.

She says she feels like a Mallu girl at heart. Oh yeah.

And she loves Kerala so much that she has a home in Kerala, where she stays occasionally. Given that her home is at Trivandrum, it would be just a couple of hours by flight from Bombay, where she normally stays. Good option for a quick getaway. Hmm, nice. I know many who would like to own a vacation home in Kerala. Or for that matter, in Goa.

But the best part is, her home is a single-room dwelling, facing the Arabian sea, and on top of a cliff. Now that surely is something. It would be so much fun to sit on the balcony, taking in the Arabian sea and sip on a cup of hot tea/coffee. Or if you are one who likes his occasional swig, a pint of beer/rum/whiskey (select your poison).

There is only thing that could better this already surreal experience. And that would be to have it raining cats & dogs, which it anyway does for most part of the year in Kerala. And ofcourse to have friends/family with you.

Thanks for dropping by, Ms.Sherawat. It sure was good to have you in God's Own Country !!!

A traffic-jam I sorely miss, a superb neighborhood and some TamBram speak.

It's again resolution time for me. This time it's about 2 things - getting up early every day and putting in atleast 30 mins of exercise each day. So, yesterday night I walked for 3-kms which had me all sweaty and pumped up. Had a cool shower and hit the bed, with the alarm set to 6AM.

Ofcourse, after hitting snooze umpteen times, I finally drag myself out of bed today at 7AM. I fix myself a cup of steaming hot tea, before proceeding to do some mild exercise aimed at the abs - while I would love to have a 6-pack, I would be more than happy with a no-paunch look itself. A quick shower and I am ready for work.

As I ride the bike to work, I can feel the pleasant day. The sun is missing and a cool breeze is blowing - there could be no better day to bike to work. Am reminded of the days I spent in Belgium during November when the days there would be like this and it felt the same as I felt walking to the bus-stop near my hotel in Ghent to catch the bus to work.

Enroute, while crossing the Kotturpuram bridge, I can see rowers practicing in the yucky waters of the Cooum below. I have been taking this route to work for almost all my working life and whenever I see rowers there, I can't help pitying them for having to bear with the unbearable stench of the muck-filled waters, all for the sake of a sport which they love.

Rowing happens to be one of my favourite hobbies & I remember the fun rowing sessions I had on my friend's 1-man fishing canoe (called kodhumbu-vallam in local parlance) in the Achenkoil river near my home. One of my dreams (mine are all small dreams) is to buy a small wooden canoe in Kerala and have a dock made (like the ones you see abroad) at the river-side land we have in Kerala. Hopefully one day soon.

Since I left early, traffic is sparse & in around 30mins I am at Madhya-Kailas signal. My usual route to work involves taking a right-turn onto the IT corridor. But today I have some stuff to be done at one of my favourite banks (SBT) located in one of the best localities of Chennai (Adyar).

I know there is no chance of my settling down in Chennai, but if due to some twist of fate it ever happens, I would stay at Adyar. Even if it means paying through my nose for a residence there. Apart from being a nice, green residential locality with good schools, bus/train connectivity etc, there are lots of memories and quite a few firsts associated with Adyar for me. My first job was at Adyar, my first salary account, my first savings, my first bike and some more firsts that I dare not mention here. :-)

As I wait for the signal at Ambica-Appalam junction to turn green, I look around at the neighborhood where I spent 3 years and more. The first thing to hit me is that the oddly named Mallu restaurant "Traffic Jam", where I used to have lunch for years, is no longer there. It has been demolished & some other structure is coming up there. Also missing is 'Tawau" another oddly named tea-shop, where I have spent many evenings with friends over hot tea and cigarettes.

I take the right-turn into Kasturba Nagar & reach the SBT branch. It has been at the same building for as long as I can remember, just that it would keep shifting between the ground and first floors of the building. SBT is a Kerala-based bank and most of the staff are either Malayalees or Palakkad brahmins. But what endears me to the bank is the service that comes with a smile and is also quick & efficient. And this time too it is no different.

It is just about 9AM when I reached the bank and since they start at 9AM, the staff is just coming in. The manager is there and another lady manning the teller. I need to make a cash deposit and approach the teller. She is courteous (as expected) and talks to me in the TamBrahm accent, which is not really odd, given that the staff composition is as I mentioned earlier.

"Kaasu kudungo ."
// Please give the cash to be deposited.

I handover the cash.

"Account number correct thaane ? Passbook kudungo"
// Is the a/c number correct ? Let me confirm with the passbook.

I tell her that the a/c number is correct and handover the passbook. Also tell her that there is a possibility that my account has been marked dormant, as I have not operated it for a long time.

"Appa-po oru nooru roopa ATM-le edutha, account active-a irukkum"
// Once-in-a-while withdraw 100 bucks from the ATM to keep account active.

I tell her that since my office is far from the bank, I find it tough to operate it and also I don't have an ATM card for this account (never needed one for this account).

"Office-kku late aacho ungalukku?"
// Is it getting late for you to get to work ?

I tell her that it is OK.

"Passbook naalaikku vangikkrela ? Yenna software change pannittu irukka".
//Mind collecting the passbook tomorrow as the banking s/w is being updated ?

I tell her that it is OK and handover the passbook. She returns me the counterfoil for the cash I deposited. I thank her and move on to the manager.

While I can live without an ATM card, I find it tough to operate without netbanking. I collect a netbanking application from the manager, fill it and hand it over. I am expecting to be told that the username/password would be mailed to my home in a week or so. But, am surprised when the manager tells me that if I can wait a few minutes, I can collect it. Just that it will take 24 hours for the account to be activated - I can live with that.

In less than 5 minutes, I am given the netbanking credentials. Now that I have access to my account over the internet, it does not really matter whether the passbook is updated or not, because I can see the account info anytime from anywhere. So no point getting the passbook updated and coming over another day just to collect it.

I walk back to the teller. There are 2 guys in front of me and the same lady who handled my cash-deposit is getting their transactions done. One of them wants to get a cheque encashed & the other guy has cash to deposit. As I await my turn, I notice her talking to the guy with the cheque - she asks him to sign on the reverse of the cheque and also to write his phone number there. What surprises me is that she is talking in normal Tamil - not the TamBrahm tamil she talked with me.

After encashing the cheque, she takes up the next transaction and asks the guy to give the cash and passbook. Also tells him that he will get the passbook only the next day, as the s/w is being updated. Again all this is in normal Chennai Tamil.

And then she sees me standing behind this guy and asks,
"Enna wait pannindu irukkel?" // What are you waiting for ?

I am surprised that she has immediately switched back to TamBrahm tamil with me. I tell her that I have just applied & got netbanking access and so will get the passbook updated some time later.

She says, "OK. Irungo, tharen. Paeru Biju thaane ?" //OK, the name is Biju, right?
I nod my head in assent and she hands over my passbook.

I thank her and move out, surprised that she chose to talk to me in TamBrahm tamil. If she thought I am TamBrahm, this would be the first time this has happened. I have been mistaken for a SriLankan (by some SriLankan co-passengers at Frankfurt) and as a Muslim (by a hotel employee in Serbia) and ofcourse as a Tamilian by most of my colleagues who assume so from my flawless (or so I would love to believe) Tamil. But this has to be the first time and I am not complaining. :-)

Another thing that struck me was the ease with which she was shifting between normal Tamil and TamBrahm tamil. I can juggle at least 4 languages with ease and understand a couple more, but I don't think I would be able to switch so effortlessly between two variants of the same language. Awesome indeed.

I exit the bank satisfied that my work was done quickly and the pleasant weather makes it a hoot to ride to work. Hope it stays this way all day.

Now this is one T20 I love.

While the T20 (Twenty-Twenty) format of cricket has been a big hit in India, with the IPL
raking in the moolah, I never felt the need to watch the game. Actually, I never felt the need to watch the other 2 formats (Test cricket or 50-over matches) of the game either.

Infact, the last match I really watched on TV was the Indian team bringing home in 1983 the Prudential Cup. We were in Assam then and TVs were a big deal. Not many homes had TVs and we watched the grainy relay of the match in the Officers Club of the organisation in which my Dad worked.

So, last week I was surprised to find a T20 format quite appealing. I was at Velachery on my way to work to pick up some colleagues who live there and they suggested we have breakfast at the newly opened Sangeetha restaurant on 100-feet road. Usually I have breakfast at the office pantry and the food is to put it midly, just tasteless.

So, we hit Sangeethas and my friends order the T20 package for Rs.20 each. It seems the restaurant being new, wanted to attract clientele and thus hit upon this novel idea of serving a decent breakfast at Rs20, comprising of an idli, a vada, a choice of Poori or dosai, pongal and a mini coffee. All this for Rs20 is unimaginable in Chennai, where it would cost you Rs.20 for a decent coffee itself. Check out the advt. in the hotel.



The food was good and a steal at Rs.20. I am sure this won't last long. So, if you are at Velachery, you know where to go for good affordable breakfast, in these times of inflation.

Aman's new toy - his birthday present.

Aman turned 3-years old today. How time flies. It seems like it was only yesterday that the nurse brought him out to me, minutes after being born. And to think that from next academic year onwards, he would be going to school. Ofcourse he has been going to school since end-January this year, but that is just a playschool for him to spend 4 hours a day with other kids.

As always, buying presents for someone is a tough job. More so, when the recipient is a kid who is not sure what he really wants. Aman said he wanted a push-around bike, like the one they have in the kid's play-area at ChicKing. But we could not find a similar one at the toy-shop.

It was when I was loitering around at Landmark last weekend, that I came across the demo for a remote-controlled helicopter. Looked fragile, but was pretty durable, given the umpteen falls it was taking with ease, during the demo session. Felt that this would be something Aman would love and picked it up for Rs.1575 after a 10% discount.


Not only did Aman love it, it was a hit with my nieces and sisters. They all want one now. Me and Aman had fun flying it around. And ofcourse crashing it many times during the initial sorties when he had not yet perfected the art of properly landing it.

But since this is not something that Aman can use without adult supervision, I had to pack it up and keep it out of reach along with his other such toys, only to be taken out when I am at Kerala. So, finally what Aman would actually end up using daily is this Clipo toy from Funskool - another gift he received on his birthday.



He is good with building-blocks and loves playing with blocks, but took some time to warm up to the idea of Clipos, which is more or less the same concept.

We had a small birthday-party at home for his birthday, with my sisters and their families plus a couple of close relatives. A 3-kg chocolate cake, shaped like a Teddy bear - so high on calories, it would be sinful. Lunch was Chinese cuisine, catered in. The kids had fun and the ladies did not have to slog in the kitchen, while I got to foot the bill. :-)

Snaking it's way through

Was standing near the door of the "2623 Tvm Mail" couple of weeks ago, when the train was taking a curve and felt that the visual resembled a snake making its way through greenery. The only camera handy was the crappy SonyEricsson phone-cam and this was the result. This was somewhere near Kottayam, if I remember correctly.


Won't be on the mail today as I have some long-pending tasks to be done at Chennai. Am already dreading a boring weekend here.

Aman embarks on a journey - to discover the world of letters.

Am not sure how it is in other states of India, but in Kerala there exists a specific ritual called Vidyarambham (beginning of knowledge) which marks a kid's foray into the world of letters. Till this initiation is done, kids are usually not made to write alphabets - ofcourse they are free to scribble whatever they want, on their own.

This initiation ceremony is observed every year on Vijayadasami day, when kids all over Kerala (irrespective of religion, though Vijayadasami is a Hindu festival) embark on their journey to learn the alphabets.

This year Vidyarambham is on 17th October. This annual ritual is a big occasion in Kerala and on that day, almost all newspapers would feature this on the front page, with pictures of kids scribbling their first letters - on a plate full of rice-grains.

Me and my wife would have loved Aman also to start on this day. However, it seems that this ritual needs to be done before the kid attains 3 years of age. Since Aman would already be 3-years old on 3rd October, we could not wait till 17th-Oct.

My friend Sajan, whose kid Christo is the same age as Aman, had got Christo's vidyarambham done at the local church, with the parish priest initiating Christo into the world of letters by having him write "Jesus Mary Joseph" in Malayalam, on a bed of rice-grains. Note that this is a variation on the original practice of writing "Hari Shree Ganapathaye Namaha", which is a Hindu invocation to the Gods.

One major factor of the whole Vidyarambham ceremony is the person initiating the kid to the world of letters. It cannot be just anyone you fancy. It has to be a learned person, someone well-educated and respected in society, the belief being that this will rub on the kid being initiated, leading him/her to be good at letters (education).

I felt no one would be more apt for leading Aman on the path of knowledge than my father, who is not only learned, but who also taught me and my sisters much more than what our schools could ever possibly do. And ofcourse so many other kids have benefitted from being taught by him after he retired.

My in-laws (both of them) could also do the honours since they both retired as teachers, but since they stay an hour or more away, we ruled that option out. My wife said in jest that if I at all I wanted to do it, I would need to re-learn Malayalam as I would have long forgotten how to write the language.

Anyway, we chose today as the day for Aman's Vidhyarambham and Aman was excited about the whole thing. He sat in his Grandpa's lap and my Dad held his fingers tracing "Hari Shree..." over the bed of rice-grains. After the ceremony was done, Aman gave his teacher (Grandpa) Rs.1000 as guru-dakshina. Here is Aman writing his first letters - pardon the poor cellphone snap.


The other day, when Sajan came home, he was telling us in jest that "Christo has started writing with a vengeance after his vidyarambham, and looks like he will become a doctor one day". I guess Aman was around when this was mentioned, because after his initiation was done, Aman proclaimed to all of us, "Christo has started writing and will become a doctor. Now I have also started writing and I will become a train-driver". All of us could not help laughing.

For a kid, being a train-driver or pilot must figure really high as a career option. I don't really care what career path he opts for - doctor, engineer, teacher or even loco-pilot as long as he grows up to be an educated and responsible member of society.

Aman, here's wishing you a fun journey into the world of knowledge.

A grand Onam to you all Mallus out there

It is Onam today - the Malayali's harvest festival.

Like with other parts of Kerala, our town was also in a festive mood for days leading up to Onam, with apparel/jewellery stores doing brisk business & people out on the streets making purchases to celebrate the grand day.

I was able to show Aman the traditional puli-kali (tiger dance) and we also spotted a Mahabali on the road, dressed in the traditional attire going around visiting his people, as the legend of Mahabali goes.

Yesterday night was spent with a group of friends, most of them working outside Kerala and now in town for Onam. We had a fun time singing the traditional Onam songs, with one friend working in Oman singing the song via cellphone straight from Oman, which we enjoyed via speaker-phone.

Today morning started with atha-poo kalam (flower decoration) - Aman helped his Mom do the decoration at home. Here's Aman posing before his creation, wearing his new Onam dress.


Me and Aman then went out to visit friends, wishing them Onam and taking in the grand poo-kalams made at various homes. Here's Aman posing as Mahabali and blessing his subjects at a friend's home.


Wish you all a great Onam with allround happiness and prosperity.

Packaging news according to the target segment.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a news article in the Times of India (ToI) about a suitcase found abandoned at the Nagapattinam bus-stand. In this day & age of terrorist attacks, this naturally evoked fear / suspicion & the cops were called, who upon opening the suitcase found the body of a 5-year old boy.

A day later, ToI reported that the kid was identified to be a boy missing from Chennai, whose parents were one Jayakumar & Ananthalakshmi, who from the names sounded to me like a Tamilian couple. There was also a snap of the kid - so cute. Found it really tough to believe how someone can have the heart to kill kids.

Cops unravel the mystery and find that the boy was killed by his father's paramour, who was miffed that he was not marrying her as promised and had also asked her to undergo two abortions resulting from their affair. It was her way of taking revenge on him. Hmm.

The Deccan Chronicle (DC) also had similar content as the ToI that I read at office. Both being more of tabloids than newspapers, all the necessary ingredients were present to add spice to the whole story. The woman was known to the father before marriage, they had an affair, he got married to someone else, had 2 kids, then meets her after a long time, gets her a job in his company, she gains the confidence of the whole family, they continue their clandestine affair etc etc.

Yesterday while doing some weekend cleaning, I chance upon a copy of the Malayalam daily "Malayala Manorama" (MM) lying at home, bought my by in-laws who were in town the week this incident happened. The front-page screams the following headline,
"Malayali balan-e konnu pettiyil-aakki, sthree arrest-il"
which translates to "Malayali kid murdered and stuffed in a suitcase; woman arrested".

Huh! Inspite of following the news fin 2 different English newspapers, I never saw DC/ToI mention any Malayali connection. It seems the kid's parents are from Kerala. Anyway, for DC & ToI, both English newspapers, the readership is pretty diverse and it does not really matter to them as to which state the boy/parents belong to. But MM caters specifically to the Malayali readership and guess this extra info matters to their readership, which shows in the way they packaged the same news so differently from their English counterparts.

P.S. : A couple of days after this incident happened, on my way home, I was listening to this radio-show by Bosskey, which is about playing a line-up of movie songs with some comic one-liners interspersed. Normally I like his comedy, but that day he chose to make humour out of this murder, which was not in good taste IMO.

Pray and let pray ... For a better world.

Another boring weekend at Chennai. Saturday went by without much ado. Since it was a long time since I expended any effort on this activity, I went through the whole sweeping /mopping routine. As always, it felt good to walk around the apartment after the effort.
A little more sweating ensured that the laundry basket was back to empty.

Getting through Sunday was tougher though. No football games on TV - just boring movies and programmes. Decided to do some cooking as I was getting bored of hotel food. Turned out to be a nice decision, given that lunch was mouthwatering chicken curry and rice, with just 30 minutes of effort.

And then it struck me that I could go to church. What ? It was a long time since I went to church. Infact the last time I saw the insides of a church was the Syrian-Christian church in Alappuzha a few months ago - and that was on celluloid, in the Gauthan Menon movie "Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya".

Anyway, since Sunday is the best day of the week to enjoy a drive in Chennai, I get the covers off the car and drive out to St. Theresa's church, Gemini, Nungambakkam, which happens to be my (and my wife's) favourite place of worship at Chennai. Their 6:30PM English mass is for lazy-heads like me who sleep late on Sunday mornings and thus miss the morning mass.

I am there by 6:15PM, find a good parking slot and stroll around the campus, taking in the changes since last I was here some years ago. And that's when I see a new shrine for the Virgin Mary, to the left of the church. It has a rock-theme with quite some greenery in the background.


The moment I saw it, what came to my mind was the similar shrines seen in most Kerala temples. Apart from the main temple, you would have smaller shrines for various gods / godesses and this shrine looked like a straight lift from any temple. Check out this similar shrine I photographed at the Kandiyur temple near my home - same rock-based theme, with greenery behind it.


Not sure if the creators of the Virgin Mary shrine took inspiration from any temple, but there sure was quite some similarity. So, we have two religions, as similar as chalk and cheese, yet having something in common.

If only people looked at religion/prayers as a way to communicate with the power above and not something to fight over, quite some serious problems facing the world today would immediately vanish.

P.S.: As I wrote this post, I was reminded of the lovely & thought-provoking single 'Krishna nee begane' from the hit album 'Colonial Cousins', sung jointly by Hariharan & Lewis :

So come back as Jesus, Come back and save the world.
Bless all the future of every boy and girl.
Come back as Rama, Forgive us for what we've done.
Come back as Allah, Come back as anyone.
Krishna nee begane baro. Krishna nee begane baro.

Surely a Mars and Venus difference in perception.

We were at the PVR-multiplex on a Sunday night a week ago, to watch the Tamil movie 'Singam', which happens to be Surya uncle's (as Aman calls him) latest movie. While it is good to have such a swanky multiplex in walking distance from home, a visit sets you back by close to 500 bucks. So, unless it is a really good movie, I ain't wasting money watching movies there.

We managed to get tickets only for the 9:45PM show and are in our seats by 9:40PM. After some advertisements (mostly for gold jewellery), they play the promo-video of the Semmozhi Thamizh Manadu (Classical Tamil conference). A nicely done video, it features many big names in the music, letters and movie industry. But since everyone has to be accomodated & keep the video short and interesting, most personalities get only a few seconds on screen.

We are watching the video and the stars (A.R.Rehman, Hariharan, Susheela, Yuvan Shanker Raja etc etc) and I can't help admiring the awesome blend of lyrics & music, which gel perfectly with the way the personalities play their part.

And then a female appears on screen singing. Actually, we hear her singing even before we see her. The voice is more shreak-ish (in a nice way), with the facial expressions matching the voice.
In less than a second, my mind has looked up the stored sound-tracks in my brain and identified the voice to be similar to the magical one in the "Adiye kolludhe" song from the movie "Vaaranam Aayiram", sung by Shruthi Haasan, and emoted oh-so-magically by the cute-yet-sensuous Sameera Reddy.

I had just about identified Shruthi Haasan as the singer before the promo moves on to some other personality, when my wife goes, "She has got herself a nose job and now looks gorgeous".

What ???

That girl was there on the screen for just a few seconds, during which time one had to listen to the audio, look at the moving images on the screen, recogize the personality and still there was time enough for my wife to notice the nose-job. Such a sea of difference in perception between the male and female of the species. No wonder the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" is such a big hit.

P.S.: Movie was typical Tamil-masala, but fast-paced. Surya gave his best as usual & Anushka was cute.

The twins are out of the game. But in come new twins to cheer about.

While showing promise initially, both Serbia and Slovenia got knocked out of the FIFA cup. Did leave me a bit disappointed that neither could make it even to the next round.

But news of another set of new twins was more than enough to erase this disappointment. A close friend and his wife were blessed with twins - a baby boy and a baby girl. What a way to have a complete family in one go. Congrats, new parents.

And being a die-hard optimist, I am now rooting for Slovakia - another underdog. They play Holland today and it is going to be tough. But then who said the once-in-4-years soccer world-cup was easy ?

Wow !!! What an upset. Serbia did it.

This World Cup is surely full of surprises. First Spain lose to the Swiss. And guess what, Serbia beat the mighty Germans just now. Yippeee !!!

Slovenia is to play the US today. Best of Luck, guys. Go for it.

Best of Luck, Serbia.

As I type this, Serbia is playing Germany. Formidable foes to play against, indeed. But hey, if Switzerland can defeat Spain, anything can happen.

I am at work and hence can't watch the match, but would be tuning in to the FIFA website periodically to catch the action.

Go for it, Serbia. If you think you can, you just might.

Every kid is an Einstein, if you ask its Mom.

There is a saying in Malayalam - Kakka-kku than kunju pon-kunju, which translates to "To a crow, it's little one is the golden one". Applies to humans too, because we almost always see parents talking in glowing terms about how much of a genius their kids are.

Especially the current generation of parents who believe that this is very important for the kid's development. The previous generation were kinda stingy when it came to giving their kids credit where due. Atleast my parents were. Maybe the thought process was that too much of praise can make the kid believe that he is very good and inhibit further achievement. I would like to take the middle line - give appreciation / encouragement where due, but not go overboard and thereby stifle further growth.

My wife is no exception when it comes to Aman and to a certain extent I can see why. Aman started talking early at just about a little more than 1 year, talks legibly for his age, picks up words/rhymes/meanings/situations pretty fast, etc. Maybe there are many kids out there that do all this & more, but since her comparo is limited to the other kids in the family / school / neighborhood, she feels he is up there.

As far as I am concerned, I was more impressed by the fact that he could correctly identify various cars on the street even when he was just 1.5 years old. :-) He could correctly identify an M800, Alto, Ambassador, Santro, Swift, Jeep etc. Ofcourse, the moment it came to sedans, all cars were the "Baleno" according to him.

But last weekend, he truly impressed me with a couple of creations he made on his own using building-blocks. On Saturday morning, I was going through the newspaper, with Aman playing nearby, when he nudges me to have a look at his "home" as he called it. What impressed me was
the amazing symmetry in the creation.


And then again on Sunday night we are about to hit the bed, when he shows another of his creations - a little more complicated than the previous one, but again perfectly symmetrical in design.


Called out to my wife (who was in the kitchen) and both of us were truly impressed. Maybe it's possible that many kids his age will do this without much ado, but to us it looked marvellous - proving the crow-adage so true. :-)

FIFA mania - whom to root for ?

The Football World Cup is on and the madness will continue for the next month and more. Since football is one of my favourite sports along with Badminton and Hockey, I thought it would be a good idea to get a Satellite TV connection after many years of not having any cable/satellite connection. Also would help my wife & son while away time during the day.

So, last Saturday, get myself a SunDirect satellite connection. Among the many available options, I preferred this because they cover most of the Tamil & Malayalam channels which we normally watch. And it has DD-Sports which beams FIFA matches.

But then, another dilemna arose ? Which team to root for ? Usually people root for their home teams, but since India is not among the 32 nations that qualified for the World Cup, whom to root for ?

I look up the list and see Serbia and Slovenia among the 32. Wow !!! Two really small countries and yet good enough to qualify. And to top it both countries are customers for one of the projects that I am currently working on. So, I decide that I will root for the football teams of Serbia and Slovenia.

The Serbian Football Association logo :



The Slovenian Football Association logo :


Yeah, I know they are underdogs, compared to the big cats in the fray, but hey, what is the whole fun if everyone is rooting for the sure-fire winners, ? And as luck would have it, both of them played their first match yesterday evening, India time.

The results were a mixed bag since Slovenia won against Algeria, while Serbia lost to Ghana. Actually Slovenia is doing pretty good in their group rankings. In Group-C to which they belong, they are leading with 3 points, while USA and UK have 1 points each (they drew against each other) and Algeria is with 0 points (having lost to Slovenia).

Serbia / Slovenia, go for the cup. Best of Luck.

A train-engine to add spice to a kid's B'day. No big deal - it's a cake walk for them...

Every time my wife & kid come down to Chennai, we go on an eating-out spree. There's a list of places we don't miss visiting atleast once (if not more) - Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner, ChicKing, Kumarakom, McDonalds & last but not the least "Cake Walk". Yeah, I know that the list reads like a junk-food directory and an easy way to cholestrol hell. :-)

Anyway, last Saturday we dropped in at CakeWalk (Egmore) to stock up on their yummy range of pastries. They have a huge range available & as we are making our pick, this locomotive cake is put on display straight from the oven. It attracts the attention of everyone in the bakery. Anish (whoever it is) must be really happy cutting this unique B'day cake.


By the time, we had coffee and chicken rolls, the cake was gone.

Of stale meat and no complaints.

Yesterday's newspaper had an article about the carnivores in Vandalur zoo rejecting the meat served to them because it was stale. I don't blame them - who wants to eat stale food anyway ?

For those that don't know, Vandalur zoo in Chennai is one of the best zoos in India. Unlike other zoos where you have the animals in cages, here they are housed in open areas. Ofcourse they have moats and high fences to keep them restricted to their area.

If you are in Chennai and want to have a day's worth of quality time, don't look further than the Vandalur zoo. It is an amazing experience as I have experienced a few times. Ofcourse, make sure you have a full day at your disposal, because this place is spread over many acres and to have a dekko at all the animals/birds/reptiles, it takes you close to a day.

Coming back to the stale food problem, it seems the zoo authorities have contracted out the supply of meat to some contractor who occasionally tries to pass on stale meat to be given to the animals in the zoo. As per norms, there should be someone in the zoo, who should monitor the quality of the food procured. But, looks like this simple technicality gets overlooked every now and then. Actually, always gets overlooked.

So, the poor animals (lions, tigers, Siberian white tigers etc) are thrown stale meat, which they understandably reject. The newspaper goes to the top honcho at the zoo who is supposed to manage the zoo overall and bring this to his notice.

His response is "I have not heard of such a problem in the zoo. And have not got any complaints in this regard."

What does he expect to happen ? Ofcourse no human involved in the procurement process would complain. The only parties to complain would be the tigers and the lions. Does he expect the lions and tigers to write out their grievance on A4 sheet paper, sign it and present it to him ?

A trip to Scotland in lieu of the cancelled Serbian trip

Had to cancel my Serbian trip - business justification, or actually the lack of it, to use a jargon.

Anyway, we did do the vacation at Scotland. Actually "Scotland of the East" ie. "Vagamon hills", which is in Idukki district of Kerala. Since I don't have the patience to do dual travelogues, why don't you guys (ie. any of you that are really interested) click on the following link and check out the travelogue on team-bhp ?

Happy reading.

It's not enough to have a visa and tickets to travel. Pass the eyeball test first or get back home.

Like most people, I was under the assumption that if you had a valid visa and flight tickets, you could fly to any country. Unless, you happened to be on the Interpol red-corner list or related to Al-Qaeda or some such terrorist outfit.

Infact, there are lucky souls, who just due to their nationality (EU, US etc) need not even have a visa to fly to many countries. Ofcourse this logic does not work with all countries, as a manager in an organisation I used to work in some 10 years ago learnt to his discomfort.

The said manager had to come to our Chennai office for a short business trip from his home base of Belgium. He books a ticket to Chennai and lands at Brussels airport on the day of travel, only to be told that he needs a visa to be able to travel to India. The guy is shocked, but left with no other option than to get back home. If my memory serves me right, I think he just abandoned travel plans and got the work done via email/video-conferencing.

But even if you have a valid visa & tickets, there is no guarantee that you can fly out, as I learnt late-evening yesterday. It is 9PM and I am still at work. A close friend from my college days is flying in from the US on a business-cum-personal trip and I have to pick him up from the airport and drop him at Park Sheraton where he would be staying.

The scheduled arrival time of the Lufthansa flight is 23:45 and adding atleast 30mins for him to finish immigration, customs etc and get his bags, it would be past midnight. So, if I leave from my office to the airport around 11PM, it should be OK. I send him an email telling that I would be at the airport, which I expect him to read when he switches on his phone after landing at Chennai.

I am in the midst of some work, when I see a popup indicating an email from him, which is surprising because he is supposed to be flying at this time and you are not supposed to use phones on the flight. I read the email, which simply says, "I am going to travel only today at 3.30PM so please pick me up tomorrow." I think I made a mistake reading his itinerary, but no - it clearly states an arrival time of 11:45PM on 24-May-2010. So what happened ?

It seems he went to the airport and through security check etc and is at the gate waiting for the plane. And that is when he fails a new test by the US Aviation authority as per which the captain / pilot does an eyeball-check of all the passengers and if he points out someone (in this case my friend, due to the brown skin?) with whom he is not comfortable travelling, that person cannot travel. As simple as that.

Can you believe this ? You are there waiting to fly out on business/pleasure, when the captain comes over, looks at you, does not like the color of your skin or your goatee or your outfit and guess what, you are driving back home to travel another day. And the funny thing is, my friend is an American citizen (of Indian origin), a Business Class traveller & works for a premier bank.
Understandably he was pissed off and his comment was, "My American passport does not get me the respect that I used to get with my Indian passport."

Anyway, I tell him to email me from Frankfurt so that I can be sure that he actually did fly out of the States. :-) Else, I would be waiting like a fool outside the Chennai airport, paying exhorbitant parking fees & drinking more exhorbitantly priced coffee from Coffee Day, while he is back home after failing another eyeball test.

This incident sort of proves my pet theory right. That the US/UK/AU citizenship that you worked hard to get, does not mean a thing, until you can somehow change your skin color too. India does have its flaws, but no one is going to offload me of a plane for which I have paid the fare, just because the pilot does not like the color of my skin.

Giving does feel better. As long as the missus does not know about it.

Last Friday, I had stopped at a tea-shop on Cathedral Road, just opposite Stella Maris women's college for a cup of tea. Its one of the many tea-shops in Chennai, run by Mallus and apart from tea/milk/coffee, there is the standard range of eats - samosa, vadai, etc. As I wait for the tea, I pick up a vadai - yeah, I know that the taste is nothing much to write home about.

The guy brings my cup of tea & as I sip on it, I see an emaciated elderly woman (65 yrs or so) walk to the tea-shop with a kid in her arms. The kid also looks under-nourished. Its a boy who would be around 2 years old and I am instantly reminded of my son. Sort of like whenever I see old people on the streets, my mind instantly brings forward memories of my grandparents.

She fumbles around in the folds of her saree and brings out a couple of coins. She asks for a cup of milk and hands over a 5-rupee coin, which the tea-shop owner puts into his cash-box. She was expecting some change back, but the guy tells her that it costs 5 bucks.

She gets the milk and brings it to the lips of the kid, making me want to tell her that it might be too hot for the kid. But the kid just turns his face away. She tries a few more times to feed him, but he does not seem to want it and turns his face away everytime. She looks around and notices that I am watching - I move my gaze away. She moves a little away and somehow makes the kid drink half of it. She drinks the remaining milk and after returning the glass, she moves to the adjoining shop which stocks bakery products and junk food like chips.

She buys a packet of chips and hands it to the kid who takes it eagerly. She pays for it (Rs.6) & walks back in the direction from where she had come. I have this feeling that both of them are hungry & the milk or chips is not really going to help - they need solid food. I think of offering some money, but worried about her reaction because though it looks like she is short of money, I have no way of knowing for sure and could end up hurting her.

At the tea-shop itself, I had taken Rs.50 from my wallet & have it in my hand. But even as she is nearing where I am standing, I am unable to decide. Anyway I decide to take the risk and just as she passes by me, I handover the money to her and tell her to buy some food for her and the kid. She is surprised since this was unexpected, but takes the money and moves on.

I am also surprised, because till that precise moment, I was not sure of what I would do. Many a time I have thought on similar lines, but backed off at the last time (due to being unsure whether I would be hurting their sentiments) and was expecting this time also to be no different. I know that 50 bucks is no big deal & would maybe get her just a decent meal. But yeah...

Anyway, I am there feeling good that I finally managed to do what I could not over many previous instances. And giving is anyway much better than getting. Something I saw from
what William Gates and W. Buffet are doing. Both of them figure at the top of the richest men in the universe list, but are currently out to give out a significant portion of their earnings to those that need it. A good gesture, which makes me admire Bill, someone I always thought of as a capitalist American. But...

But what ? Though my wife is not the daily facebook-hotmail-gmail type, she does catch up with her email once in a few days and ofcourse she checks my blog too, since she knows that this is the only way to keep track of a loud-mouth like me. :-) And so she is bound to read this too. So what, you would think ?

Well, lots. Unlike men, women have elphantine memories. You slight them (knowingly or unknowingly) once and it just gets written into their Non Volatile Memory (NVM) - to be recalled at the slightest requirement and to come back to bite you. And so it is in my case. Well, it's a long story.

Some 10 years ago, when my wife was not employed, she used to be at Chennai, manning home as a homemaker. Which meant that not only did my flat look like a proper home, I also got a hearty breakfast and lunch to go everyday. She was just getting used to the Chennai way of life and was slowly picking up Tamil - she speaks pretty decent Tamil today.

Anyway, one day I return from work and she tells me about her day. Some woman had come with a sob story and she being the girl she is, melted immediately and gave the lady 20 bucks. I am mortified because I feel she was cheated for being the gullible girl she is and 20 bucks back then was a big deal. I immediately start a big lecture about how she does not know to differentiate fact from fiction and how she does not know the value of money. I could have stopped there and things would have been great.

But no, the loud mouth that I am, I went on about how she does not know the value of money, because she does not know how hard it is to earn money. That really hurt her. But since she is not the typical bite-back kind of wife, she just swallowed it, though she wrote it into her NVM. And since then, after she started earning, whenever a situation arose, she would take this weapon out at me.

So, I am sure that when she reads this post, she is surely going to remind me of how wrong I was to have reprimanded her about giving 20 bucks to a poor soul, when I have done precisely the same thing. Hmm.

Travel clouds are forming again...

Another trip to Belgrade (Serbia) is in the offing, tentatively starting 2nd week of June and for a little over 2 weeks. One side of me is overjoyed at the chance to travel after a long time and to a city I like. Plus ofcourse, who would not want to get away from the insanely hot Chennai summer for a few weeks ?

But another side feels down about being away from my son for 3-odd weeks. When I went to Serbia last October, he was only about 2 years old and had just started learning to articulate himself. But in the 6-odd months that have passed since, not only has his vocabulary increased a lot, but he now knows a lot more about things around him. He even has a list of things ready for me to get for him from Serbia and topping the list is a "BIG gun" - not sure what this is with boys and guns. Must be like girls and Barbies. And ofcourse the customary chocolates, toy-cars etc.

I hope the tough-to-pronounce volcano in Iceland subsides completely in the coming weeks and does not cause any flight cancellations / delays etc. And I hope I get to make maximum use of the 2 weekends I have in Belgrade to get to know the place much better than I could do last time.

"The Mumbai Indians ? That should be easy." The kid was so bang on target.

Though I dont watch cricket (inspite of having played lots of it during my school-days), today morning I really wanted to know who aced the finals of the IPL 20/20 finals. As I pick up a copy of the DeccanChronicle at the corner shop, the first think I look for is the IPL results. And Chennai Super Kings trounced Mumbai Indians to bring home the cup.

My curiosity was not due to it being the home-team. The main reason was the conversation I had one morning a few days ago. It was around 8AM when I am getting ready to leave for work and the door-bell rings. I hate being interrupted in the mornings and think to myself that it must be the apartment watchman, dropping in as usual for some trivial reason or the other.

Open the door to see the guy from the nearby shop with the refill can of drinking water. I am glad he came before I left for work, because I have run out of water. After he collects the empty can and cash from me, just before leaving, he turns around and says, "It was a superb match yesterday, wasn't it sir ?"

Given that the only game about which Indians are crazy, is cricket, I know that he must be referring to some IPL match. But, what do I reply ? I dont even know who played whom or who won. Not wanting to sound knowing and end up making a gaffe, I admit defeat, "Who played whom and who won?"

"Sir, you did not watch yesterday's semi-final ? Chennai trounced the DeccanChargers to make it to the final."

"Oh, OK. Well, I don't follow cricket much". // He looks at me as if I were an alien. :-)

Just to break the awkward silence, I ask him, "So who do we play in the IPL finals ?"

"The Mumbai Indians".

"And how do you think we would do against them, given that they are in great form ? I was glad I remembered atleast this bit from a conversation my colleagues were having on IPL matches.

"Ha, that should be a walk in the park. We will win the finals".

As he walks away, I am wondering how confident he is about his home-team winning. More importantly, how much pride he takes about the team and how he identifies with the team. And given that Chennai did trounce Mumbai, he was bang on target too.

Multiplying and then vanishing - hope the predators did not make it

Yesterday night, before hitting the bed, I have a look at the pigeon maternity ward outside my bedroom-window on the aircon top. I am surprised to see 2 eggs now. Ha, where did this other one come from suddenly ?


But no sign at all of the parents, which is surprising given that it is close to midnight.

Anyway, more surprises await me in the morning when I check out the nest. There are no eggs there !!! Dont know what transpired during the night. Did the birds move to another place with their eggs, if it is possible for them to do it ? Or did the predators finally make it, seeing no parents around ?

I was looking forward to seeing the tiny ones hatch, grow up and then fly away. But looks like I am not lucky enough.

No aircon even in peak summer. Not for the Earth, but for a Mom-to-be.

After being surprisingly pleasant in Jan & Feb (for normal Chennai weather ie.), March saw Chennai getting back to how it is for most of the year - like the inside of an oven. Anyway, having spent more than 20 summers here, I should be now used to it. But each time, it feels like the first time - the searing heat beating down on you, eyes unable to be kept open while outside, the fatigue etc. The only saving grace being the round-the-clock Chennai sea breeze - what would we do without it ?

Sometime in April, I switched from ceiling fan to the air-conditioner and this will continue atleast till end-May. However, for the last few days, I had to switch back to the ceiling fan. Reason being a Mother-to-be who thought that my aircon-top is the best maternity ward in the whole of Chennai.

Couple of days ago, when I peeped out of my bedroom window, I see a couple of pigeons (Dad & Mom ?) and along with them a shiny white egg. Since my switching on the aircon might scare
them away & thus not let the hatching process to happen, I decided to sacrifice my comfort.

Pic : Mom looking warily at me, while Daddy flew off. Had to take the snap from behind the window netting to avoid scaring her away.


Pic : No proper nest. Just some twigs and hay scattered around.


Also, apart from hatching not happening, switching the aircon on would also mean the parent birds flying off & predators moving in for the kill. After all, one bird's egg could be another bird's breakfast. Check out the predators (circled in the snap below) waiting for a chance to have a go at the egg.


With my wife and kid coming down to Madras this Sunday for a week, I am not sure how long I will be able to do without the aircon. My wife does not really mind, but Aman likes the aircon comfort. Anyway, let me cross that bridge when I come to it.

It's always greener on the other side...

I am on the train to Chennai last Monday after spending 4-days at home for Good Friday and Easter. Actually it was supposed to be working from home on Monday, but nature decided otherwise and I had to apply for leave, since there was no power in the area due to many trees falling over power lines due to surprise heavy winds + rains. More on that in another blog-post.

After travelling weekly on trains for 2 years or more, I am sick of the commotion & crowd that is typical of the Sleeper class (cattle-class as Shashi Tharoor would put it), with just about anyone boarding these reserved coaches even though their ticket does not entitle them to. So, in the interest of some peace of mind, I have moved to the 3rd AC coaches - costs 2.5 times more, but worth it.

When I board the train, of the 8 berths in my coupe, only 4 are occupied, of which one is a girl travelling alone and the other 3 are a group travelling together, comprising a Mom & son + a female acquaintance of theirs. It's a TamBram group and I reckon they are either returning after a vacation in Kerala or after attending a wedding or some such function. Even without them speaking, it is easy to place them as TamBrahms. Especially the kid, who must be in his early teens and would fit the description that Chetan Bhagat gives of his BIL in the novel "2 States - the story of my marriage".

They are loaded with food (Tamarind rice, pickle, papad etc and ofcourse the inevitable curd-rice) and soon settle down to finish dinner. Like any normal Mom, this one too is making sure her son eats enough and more and the kid is actually pretty obliging. While the food is not really interesting to me (I have dinner packed by my wife - rice, coconut chutney, beef-fry and fish-fry), I cannot help overhearing their conversation.

In between mouthfuls of tamarind-rice, the Mom goes, "I really liked this place. Such a lot of rains. And coconuts are in abundance too."

"And lots of mangoes too", chimes the kid in between.

"Here, have some more puliyodharai (tamarind-rice)", says Mom as she places another helping on his plate.

"And almost nil pollution too, did you notice ?", says the other lady in the group.

"Oh yes, how could I forget that. You know, I said no to moving to Bangalore inspite of the climate there being great. But am having 2nd thoughts about moving to Kerala", says the Mom.

"You sure about that ? You mean you would like to settle in Kerala ?", asks the lady.

"Oh yes, without a doubt. If I had a house here, I would definitely move here".

Ofcourse, I can see that during their short-stay in Kerala, they just about had time to see the good part. Being summer, mangoes & jack-fruits are in abundance. And yes, we get lots of rains and pollution is also much lesser than Chennai and other metros. But there is yet another side to the place, which would be seen only if you are staying here for long and it might make the lady rethink her plans of settling down here.

Let's start with something that any Chennai-ite would take for granted - electricity. We are used to having power 24/365, with maybe a brief outage once in a blue-moon, which is also attended to immediately. Contrast this with the daily scheduled and unscheduled outages in Kerala lasting an hour or more daily. Not fun, eh ? Especially in summer when you have to battle both the heat and mosquitoes.

Coming to the other cool factor for the lady - rains - I too am a big fan of the rains, but as a visitor to Kerala, it is fun to enjoy the rains. But for a normal resident, this can be a real pain as they scramble about their daily routine - getting to work / school etc. The rains in Chennai will be light and maybe last a few minutes usually. But in Kerala, if it rains, it is a real downpour and can last for a long time. Getting to office/school drenched to the skin is not really a good start to the day.

And finally coming to her "If I had a home here..." part, that is a pretty big "if" as far as Kerala is concerned. It's a small state and land is limited, while population density is high and purchasing power is huge with Gulf money coming in like there is no end. Property price keeps increasing by the day and there is only so much of land on sale.

As usual, this is a case of the grass being greener on the other side. Am sure that the lady would rethink her plans of settling down in Kerala, if she knew these facts about how life is in Kerala. I am not even getting into the sudden strikes / hartals called by even fringe unknown political parties, which affect normal life.

Lady, I guess you are way better off in Chennai. If at all when the urge hits you, just catch the train to Kerala and spend a few days here and you should be OK.

Ain't it time we pegged some basic qualifications to being a people's rep ?

There is an email forward that keeps doing the rounds every now and then. It starts off with listing the qualifications of 542 people - of which many are accused for various offences ranging from corruption, rape, murder and other such activities. And finally the punch line - these are our representatives in Parliament.

There is yet another version of this is in circulation about the educational qualifications of the representatives elected by the electorate of the most literate state in India aka Kerala. Many have just primary education to their credit, some have gone till secondary school and a few have been to college.

If this were in some cow-belt state like UttarPradesh or Bihar, it won't be a big deal given the sorry state of education there. But here we are talking Kerala - a state where you can easily chance upon auto-rickshaw drivers having a college degree or two in their kitty. And where you have post-graduates applying in hordes for vacancies in Govt. sector that require the candidate to be only a Class Xth pass.

But then, for things to change, law has to be enacted. And who has to enact such an act ? The same representatives. And while you can accuse them of rape/murder/corruption, you can't accuse them of being idiots enough to enact a law that puts their job in jeopardy.

Leaving apart educational qualifications, is it too much for the electorate ie. you and me, to expect that the person we elect to a state or national body be atleast able to speak ? Especially when the main thing they are going to do in Assembly / Parliament is to speak and put across their opinion for the welfare of the people. What if your representative is toungue-tied due to not knowing the main languages spoken in the country ?

We are discussing Mr.M.K. Azhagiri, who was elected M.P. from Madurai parliamentary constituency and currently a Cabinet minister (Fertilizers). He can speak neither English nor Hindi and these are the only 2 languages spoken in the Indian Parliament. Ofcourse he would like to speak in Tamil, which is the only language he knows - his mother-tongue. But given that Parliament has members from various states, most of which have their own language, this practice would lead to Parliament going the Babel tower way, with no one being able to make sense of the other.

OK, he did not study English, so can't speak that. And since his father's party (DMK) was busy opposing Hindi, he did not learn that either. What are the options now ? He is too old to pick up either language unless he really tries hard. This leaves us in a situation where we have a high-ranking minister in Parliament who does not utter anything, whereas he is expected to hold forth on policies pertaining to his ministry and to reply to questions raised by fellow Parliamentarians during Question Hour.

To be fair to him, I am sure the guy did not really want to go to Delhi. But this was his old man's idea of giving him a Cabinet post and keeping him away from home turf so that he does not lock horns with younger brother M.K.Stalin who is all set to take over from Daddy dear as the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu.

Since there is no way his ego would let him work as a minister under his younger brother, not much chance of bringing Azhagiri back to Chennai. I am sure Daddy Karunanidhi is in a tight spot currently. But hey, where there is a will, there is a way. Since, Azhagiri is the strongman in the southern parts of Tamilnadu (TN) & Stalin reigns supreme in the North TN, why not bifurcate TN into 2 states ? After all, with Telengana & other such demands, state-bifurcation is in fashion currently.

This would result in two states (how do Stalinadu & Azhagunadu sound as possible names?) and both brothers can be Chief Ministers. This would help Daddy solve another problem - getting the Cabinet post vacated by Azhagiri for his daughter dearest Kanimozhi, who is currently sans any portfolio. So, sort of like killing many birds with one stone, ain't it ?

Till then we can continue to watch an embarassed minister in Parliament, unable to answer questions posed by his peers. I think we should borrow the US anthem of "God Bless America" and modify it slightly for our use as "God save India". Sigh !

Writer's block ? How I wish it were the reason....

It is mid-March ie. 2.5 months since 2010 opened up for us & all I have done is like 6 blog-posts, which averages to about a post every fortnight. Not at all good. I think of writing every day and really want to, but somehow it does not happen.

If I were a writer of repute, I could blame it on writer's block, but I don't have that alibi. Like always, I make notes of what to post and even take snaps wherever necessary, but somehow they do not seem to be getting translated into posts.

I tried to blame it on work, but hey since I seem to have all the time in the world to Facebook friends, I should be able to make time for my blog too. I tried blaming it on family taking up most of my time - my wife and kid are at Chennai for 2 weeks - but to be fair to them, they do give me hours of free time.

So, what is it that prevents me from blogging ? How I wish it were writer's block. :-)

So you have a Merc parked in the driveway. Big deal.

I had gone into town to finish off some work that was pending at the bank for a long time. After finishing my stuff, I remember that my Dad had wanted to buy a couple of cane-baskets (for working in the yard) and decided to drive down a few kms to the place where they weave these baskets.

The road meanders in curves with rubber-trees on the sides and the terrain switches from the plains to mildly hilly. I am driving enjoying the scenic beauty, when I come across this strange sight. In the driveway of a nice new house, towers the boom of a crane (called JCB in local lingo - the name coming from the manufacturer).


Ha, that was too good a sight to just drive by. So, I stop and take snaps. Instead of having cars parked in the driveway, this guy had a huuuuge crane parked.




Nice ride, but wonder how much trouble it would be to park the thing inside, ensuring that the boom of the crane does not damage any part of the home.

The recession is behind us ?

Just like an impending recession is signalled by salary-freezes (or worse pay-cuts),
pink-slips and ofcourse hiring-stops, there are also certain signals that indicate that
the recession is receding.

The first of these is what I call the "Dear All" signal. In its very common form, this is a
company-wide (or BusinessUnit-wide) email sent out by an employee who is quitting
the company. Usual format is "Dear All, it has been fun working here with y'all, but for the sake
of career advancement, bla bla..., I am heading out. You can contact me at iAmOutOfHere@yahoo.com".

When you see a quick succession of such emails, it is an indication that companies have
started hiring again, which points to the recession slowly fading away.

But the best signal of a fading recession is when the salary-hikes get really generous.
This is partly done so as to counter the trend of people leaving for better pastures.
Last week (Tuesday) was when the hikes were announced in our organisation. I was
working from home when my manager called up to inform about the hike and boy, it
was a pleasant surprise.

The salary hikes were in the 20% - 40% range across the organisation, atleast to my
knowledge. Possible that it even went upto 50%. I can't mention here by what %age
my salary increased, since some of my colleagues visit this blog and it ain't considered
a nice practice to compare salaries or the hike %age. Let's just say, I was reaaaalllllly
happy. :-)

I called my wife to tell her about the hikes and she had just 2 things to say :

1) I fail to understand why you guys are rewarded so handsomely, especially guys like
you who are not even at work (refering to my recent workFromHome stints).

2) How about getting that Rosewood dining-table + chair set home ?

So, looks like the recession is behind us. Not bad. Not bad at all.

P.S. : We got the dining table & chairs home last Saturday. A damage of 45K, but that
is OK because we finally managed to find the exact one we wanted, after a long search
of more than 6 months.

When the tuk-tuk went hitech.

I am driving to work and surfing the many FM radio-channels skipping the ones that are
playing advertisements or have bland-idiotic talk-shows on them. Infact most of the talk
shows on FM are dumb - God, how I miss Suchi & the "Hello Chennai" morning program
which she used to host on Radio Mirchi long time ago.

I stop at a channel where an auto-driver is being interviewed by the Radio Jockey (RJ).
Now, for anyone who has spent only a few days in Chennai, one of the most hated facets
of this city are the auto-drivers. I am here for 2 decades and still can't stand them & avoid contact with them to the maximum extent possible by using personal transportation or by taking the bus or even a taxi.

They are hated mainly because they charge atrocious rates which usually would be 2-3
times what is mandated by law. Also hated for unruly driving, loud illegal exhaust notes,
for being rude/uncouth etc etc. - the list is long. Given all this, I wonder what is the point
of having an auto-driver on a talk-show ?

Anyway, looks like this is no ordinary auto-driver and neither is his tuk-tuk (term used
for auto-rickshaws in other countries) just another auto ? In the brick 'n mortar world,
he can be usually seen in front of the Taj Coromandel Hotel in Chennai, waiting for patrons.

But what separates him from other auto-drivers is that he is available online too. Yep, he
has a website of his own (http://www.tuktastic.com/), which is kinda interesting, with tidbits about Chennai, its touristy spots, watering holes, shopping centres, customer-testimonials etc.

And it also gives you the option to email him or call him on his mobile phone to reserve the service of his tuk-tuk when you are next coming to Chennai. He says he checks email once
a week, which is good because if he were to follow our example of checking emails every
other minute, he would not be able to get any work done. No wonder the only thing that
gets done at most offices is checking emails.

Anyway, here is a snapshot of his home-page.


Nice effort, Samson dude. Now how about using that ornamental-appliance (fare-meter)
fitted on your auto, which I am yet to see any auto-driver in Chennai use ? I guess your
customers would appreciate that much more than you putting up a website.

P.S. : In the Customer testimonials section, a customer "Sarah' says that this guy is great
and is "worth his weight in rupees". Which though is not saying much because what would
Rs.80 get you today ? "Worth in dollars/pounds" would have been something though.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or does it actually ?

I landed at the Chennai Central station today morning after 9 long days at Kerala, which included 2 weekends, a holiday (Jan-26) and 4 days of working from home. I am glad I
work for a company that is flexible in its approach to how employees put in work. This
helped me be with my son when he joined play-school and drop him & pick up from school
all of last week.

Anyway, 9 days is a long duration - close to 1/3rd of a month. Long enough to notice even
subtle changes in the immediate environment. The moment I got off the train, the first thing that hit me was the noise - of a thousand people talking, the P.A. system blaring etc.

Come out of the station and get into an auto-rickshaw only to be subjected to more noise - illegally tuned exhausts of auto-rickshaws, bikers revving their engines for no valid reason, almost everyone riding/driving with their finger on the horn, etc etc.

I know that by evening or latest by tomorrow, I would be immune to this racket. But since
I am returning after spending 9 days in a small town in Kerala, where the all-pervasive
silence is only occasionally broken by a bus zipping through, the city's noise levels seem unbearable.

My thoughts immediately go to what my friend from the U.S. mentioned 3 weeks ago
when he was in Chennai for a 15-day visit to meet his friends/family. His comment
was, "Hey, Chennai has become so noisy compared to how it was last time. And almost
everyone seems to own a small car, but they drive it like they ride bikes, squeezing into
spaces that don't even seem to exist".

Ofcourse, he was returning after 4 long years during which time, the city's automobile
population would have increased significantly.

I might be getting old or maybe my noise-tolerance is lessening, but somehow I am not
liking what I am hearing. I have been to and spent enough time at all the major Indian
cities, and the only city I would stay in would be Chennai. But over the years, the pollution,
the noise, the traffic, the unruly driving on roads etc is getting to me. I guess I should talk
to my manager about working permanently from home, dropping in only occasionally at
Chennai for any meeting that requires my physical presence.

P.S. : Been a long time since my last post. After a few hectic months at work, it was
relatively lean in January, but somehow I could not put out a post. Laziness....

Finding wit even among spam

Any cellphone user (atleast in India) would know how it feels to get tonnes of junk SMSes
in your Inbox. Even if you don't spend time reading them, time is required to clear them
from your phone.

But then, there are those rare moments when some of these contain humour (ofcourse unintentional) which makes you smile. Like this SMS I received from JoyAlukkas (the
jewellery store chain) just before 2009 ended, which I have quoted verbatim below :

"joy of new tear. Buy jewellery from joyalukkas & get free 22ct gold coin, pendant,
earrings & chain."

Ofcourse, they meant 'year', but just that it went out as 'tear' to thousands of cellphones.
To give credit to them, they did send out another SMS a day or two later with the typo
corrected.

And as if to prove that gaffes like this are not the sole preserve of cellphones, today I got
an email from Outlook magazine, reminding me that "only 10 days left to renew my
subscription". Ofcourse, their previous deadline of "only 10 days left ..." got over only
yesterday.

The email lists out the offer details, free gifts that come with the 1/3/5 year subscriptions
etc and is signed "Himanshu Pandey, Head: Business Development". The only problem is
that instead of addressing the email to me, it is addressed to "Dear Himanshu Pandey".

Looks like the Outlook Business Dev. Head forgot to renew his own subscription. :-)