indianDream

New addition to the family

2011-08-22T22:43:00.002+05:30

On 22-Aug-2011, we welcomed another member to our family. While we were hoping for a girl, God decided we would be better off with another boy. Aman is thrilled though - he said, he now has someone to play cricket with. Though he got sad when we told him that it would be some time before the baby started even walking, let alone play cricket.

Sleeping blissfully on the hospital bed, after keeping us all awake for 3 nights in a row.

All swathed in soft blue.

Aman watching the baby. Since it was him that wished for a baby brother/sister, we hopefully would not have to deal with any sibling rivalry here.

The 1st snap of the baby, as soon as it was born. Looks so much like Aman looked at birth.

We had girl names ready, since we were almost sure it would be a girl. Now, we need to start looking for boy names. For now, the kid would be called "Appu", as Aman used to address the baby even before it was born.

Thanmathra (Molecule) anyone ???

2011-08-17T19:53:00.001+05:30

Last Sunday I am at home, helping my maternal aunt with her packing as she prepares to return back to Bhopal (where she is normally resident) after spending more than a month at Kerala with us. Among her luggage are two baby tortoises caught from the flooded fields behind our home. Her young grandson is an animal lover and wants to have these as pets at Bhopal. Apparently it would cost you 750 bucks to buy one at Bhopal.

I am packing a carton with all kinds of eatables when my niece Divya comes to me and asks, "Biju-uncle, what is the spelling of Giraffe?". I am amused at the question which I find to be trivial, given that it is an easy to spell the word, but I still answer, "G-I-R-A-F-F-E".

"Then why did you write it as G-I-R-A-F" on the puzzle pieces ?", she asks, while laughing.

I am quickly jolted to the context she is referring to. Some months ago I had bought Aman a set of 4 animal-based jigsaw puzzles, consisting of a camel, tiger, giraffe & hippopotamus. Aman is only learning to solve the easier puzzle and since the tougher ones (having more pieces) are a strain even for adults, I decided to mark the correct order of all 4 puzzles on the reverse of each piece as "TIGER 1 of 8"..... to "TIGER 8 of 8".

It seems Divya noticed this marking on the reverse and that is when she saw that I had spelt it as GIRAF. Now that she mentioned this, I tried to think back as to why I wrote the spelling wrong. But could not see any reason behind the spelling mistake. Being a person who is bothered about spelling/grammar even when sending an SMS, this seemed too silly a mistake to make.

Or, can it be written off as a mistake / oversight ? I hope this is not any indication of memory loss or even worse Alzheimers, like depicted in the 2005 Malayalam movie Thanmathra (meaning Molecule). This is a movie to be watched, given the awesome direction and superb acting by all involved, including Mohanlal who plays the pateint so convincingly. Get a DVD when you have couple of hours to spare. Subtitles would help those that dont know Malayalam.

Rains @ Kerala - and stills that convey falling rain

2011-08-03T19:49:00.004+05:30

I was at Kerala some weeks ago, combining the weekend with 2 days of work from home, when it was raining like crazy. While I do like the rains, it can become bothersome if you are working(power goes off, can't hear people over the phone due to the roar of the rains etc) and after a few hours of it, I could swear I was done with rains.

A Mallu colleague @ our Chennai office comes on the instant messenger and asks if it is raining. I tell him that nothing seems to be happening other than rain and I am sorta fed up. Ofcourse he being at hot Chennai, the idea of pouring rains makes him home-sick and the least he could do to satisfy his desire is to atleast see it pouring in a snap. He requests me to take a few snaps of the rain, which I am OK with, though I wonder how we can capture rains in a still photo.

Anyway, I step out onto the porch and take these 3 snaps, which I send to all the mallu-crowd at work. One of them replies, "Nice snaps. I could actually see the rains in your snaps and feel it sitting here". Posting below the snaps I took.

When it is raining, it is bliss to sit/lie on the swing, reading a book or drink a cup of tea/coffee.

This was taken around noon, but look how dark it has become.

Wish a still-photo could capture the swaying trees too. :-)

Freak accidents that leave lifelong scars, which might never heal

2011-06-22T15:32:00.003+05:30

Last Saturday I was at home at Kerala, when I hear the shrill-scream of a siren approaching. I assume it's an ambulance rushing someone to hospital, but when it rushes past our home, I see that it is a fire-truck, followed by a Police jeep at high speed with its alarm also blaring. While there is a fire-station in our town, fire-trucks on our roads are as rare a sight as an airplane in the sky above. I don't even remember any instance where there has been a fire that required a fire-truck to douse it. I forget about the fire-truck.

Later in the night, I am with some other friends celebrating the return of a friend from the Gulf, for good. I had played a major role in convincing this guy to quit his job there and start a garage of his own in our town - he would be earning less than what he is paid in the Gulf, but he would be happy being with his wife and kids, instead of only seeing them for a month every year on vacation. And life isn't all about money.

The talk veers to the fire-truck and it turns out that it was not about a fire at all. In a freak accident a 2-year old boy had fallen into the Achenkovil river that runs near my place and was missing. The sad thing was that the kid fell into the water, when his mother, cousin and uncle were near him.

The kid's uncle was dropping the group at the river bank at a place called Keecheril Kadavu (kadavu means the place where boats berth to pick up passengers) from where the Mom and kid were to board a boat across the river to her husband's home. While alighting from the bike, the mother hands over the kid to his 15-year old cousin. In a freak turn of events, the kid wriggled out of his cousin's hands and falls into the water. The cousin and mom jump in, though neither of them can swim. The uncle then rushes in and pulls out his sister and the young guy. Meanwhile, the kid has been carried away by the water (the river is in spate due to monsoons at Kerala). If the duo had not jumped in, maybe the uncle would not have had to waste time retrieving them from the water and could have concentrated on saving the kid.

Anyway, the kid is not traceable and hence the call to the fire-station. Meanwhile, the news has spread all over the place & there is a huge crowd where the incident happened. Search continues late into the night, but the kid is still not traceable, inspite of the efforts of the fire-station folks & local divers.

The next day (Sunday) , I have to catch the evening train to Chennai and like we usually do, me / Sheena / Aman ride around the neighborhood and reach the place where the incident happened. There still is some crowd there and couple of police jeeps. The crowd's attention is focussed on a group of young men in an inflatable raft. The men are from the Indian navy and called in from the Naval base at Cochin, some 100kms away. They have diving gear & are taking turns to search for the kid.

Back at Madras, I kept checking with folks at home about the kid and it seems the navy divers were also not able to trace the kid. The kid remained untraced on Monday too. Yesterday, a passer-by saw the body of the kid floating in the river, just 50ms from where he fell in. Looks like he got stuck in the thick grass/shrubs that grew in the river. In the snap below, you can see the shrubs at bottom-left.

It really pains to even think of what the kid would have suffered and more about the parents mourning their loss. Can't imagine how they can cope with this loss and bear this scar all life long. The Mom's a nurse at the local hospital, while the Dad was working in South Africa. They say time is the best healer, but I doubt if the parents would be able to forget this loss all their life.

In hindsight, we could say that a little care would have avoided the tragedy. But they had been doing this journey for years, since the lady works at a hospital across the river. So every day morning she would leave for work from her husband's home, cross the river, leave the kid at her parent's place which is near the hospital and go to work. After work, she would pick up her kid and her brother would drop her at the river bank and she would cross the river.

P.S. : I have been coming to Keecheril Kadavu from the time I was in college, mainly to dig into the hot tea and delicious bonda (a sweet snack) sold by a small shop there - tasted heavenly in the rainy evenings. Later I would come here with Sheena and Aman to watch the river flow by and spend some time with nature.

It's easy to be composed when things are good. What you do in tough times is what matters

2011-05-25T12:32:00.000+05:30

A couple of posts ago, I had mentioned about a friend who had called me up from Japan on my birthday. We had a long phone chat about the tough situation in Japan due to the quake/tsunami and how the people are coping. He was all praise for the Japanese who handled the situation calmly and in control. Which would be very unlike how we would have handled it. Infact even the US mishandled the Katrina debacle, inspite of being a so-called developed country etc.

A few days later, he sent out an email to friends/relatives which detailed all that he (and others in Japan) went through during the quake and tsunami. It is a long read, but makes for interesting reading and shows what separates the Japanese from the rest of us. Have quoted his email verbatim below.
You can also read it on his blog at http://muralimanikandan.blogspot.com/

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
From: Murali M
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 9:01 AM
Sub : Ordinary people's Extra-ordinary resolve

Dear All,

I tried to pen down the weekend after the devastating earth quake on march 11th 2011. As I was trying to write after a long long time, I found it difficult to articulate many things. Sorry if its too long.
--------------------------------------------------------------

I grew up hearing a lot of Japanese quality and religiously practiced punctuality. When I landed in Japan exactly 10 years back, I was surprised, the stories I heard when I was young, were true in every word and spirit. Its not just the people, but nature as well. The four seasons will take turns with such an accurate timing. March is usually the fag end of the winter, but in recent years, thanks to all of us all over the world, the climatic changes are too visible in Japan. Last year after 40 years, it snowed heavily in Tokyo during April. This year, there were snow falls in the beginning of march.

On March 11th, It was another routine bright Friday morning. I as usual was rushing to the meetings. After an unusually long break, I had a meeting in Ibaraki around 1 pm. I finished the morning meeting and rushed to Ueno station at around 10:40 am to take the 11 'o clock train. At the stroke of 11, Hitachi Super express heading towards Iwate in North eastern Japan started off with its first stop in Mito, followed by Katsuta some 150 KMs from Tokyo. I got off at Sawa and heading towards Sawa factory. Had the routine chat with my engineers and after the usual pleasantries with the purchase dept, the meeting started exactly at 1:00 pm. It went on for about 2 hours and at around 2:46 pm, there was a massive earth quake.

Earth quake is no stranger to Japan. We live with it, day in day out. Usually, it will be the ceiling and the hanging lamps that will show signs of quake. But, this one was different. The first signs were on the floor. And with every passing micro second, it multiplied manifold and the customer started panicking. I told him, that, isn't it usual and it will reside in seconds, isn't it? But, the customer shouted, NO... Its different. RUN... By Telling this, he just rushed outside pulling me along with him. We came out and were shocked to see the cars and the massive truck full of load staggering from side to side. That was when, I realized the gravity of the situation. Immediately, I turned to the building and was shocked to see that, the building started developing cracks and the walls started pulling apart. In the last 10 years, I have never seen such a massive earth quake. Usually, a quake will last for a few seconds, and the tremor lasting for a max of 10 or 12 secs. But, this one seemed to be never ending lasting for over 2 minutes. "Porumaikku udaranam, Boomi thaai. Adukku thann, en ponnukku Janani-nnu per vechen" aana, ava kovappatta, thaangadunnu annikku thaan unarden.

The employees of the company were visible shattered and were dumb stuck. One by one, they came rushing outside. Within seconds, they started asking every team and modules to assemble in their locations outside the office in the evacuation area. They asked everyone to check if the immediate member sitting next to him is there. Next, they asked them to check for the members in their row. They then asked them to stand in the same order that they sit in the office. And finally, they took a head count. This happened in seconds and they confirmed that every single member in the whole company which houses more than thousand employees were evacuated with no injuries to anyone.

While they were counting and were checking each other, a massive second quake hit and the building partially collasped. Computers and printers from the 4th floor were falling down. People started calling their families, obviously concerned about their family's well being. But the telephone network was completely jammed and blocked.

My family was in Tokyo, wife and kids were supposed to be back home from school by that time. But, I couldn't check. For over an hour, I was continuously trying. But, couldn't connect. Tried sending SMS, but in vain. And finally realized that the mail in my phone was working. No idea why the GSM was not working, but GPRS was. But, who cares, I sent a mail and she replied immediately. All three of us were safe. I realized the power of technology and the value of investing in an iPhone. I shared the GPS Location, shared pictures, videos etc in seconds. And above all, I could use VOIP application and call India. I called my parents, in laws and my brother about our safety as they will get to know within secs, thanks to the 24X7 TV channels. For the first time, I couldn't call my wife in Tokyo, but was able to talk to my family in India.

The radio in the cellphone was informing us about the earth quake and the areas that were affected. The earthquake occurred at 14:46 local time in the western Pacific Ocean, 130 km east of Sendai, Honshu, Japan. Its epicenter was 373 km from Tokyo. Multiple aftershocks were reported after the initial magnitude 9.0 quake. A magnitude 7.0 aftershock was reported at 15:06 local time, 7.4 at 15:15 local time and 7.2 at 15:26 local time. Over a thousand aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or greater have occurred since the initial quake.
[Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunami] More than the total number of shocks that will happen in a decade.

So, I was there wondering what to do next? I had no idea of the scale of damage it had caused. Immediately, there were warnings of Tsunami and everyone was telling not to venture near sea shore or even upstream rivers, as this location was 8 kms from the sea.

I had 5 engineers working in Ibaraki. 2 had fortunately left a week back and there were 3 left. I thought, I should check their homes before I head back to Tokyo. I asked for permission from all the customer heads and took them to their houses. Their houses were ok in the exterior but were totally messed up in the interior. Everything was affected. The shower, mirror, kitchen, bedroom and even the door fell down. Thank god it was not at night and no one was sleeping there, or else, it would have fallen right on their forehead. There was no water, gas electricity. Everything was automatically triggered and was blocked to prevent any further damage due to fire. We thought, it is temperory and everything will resume in a few minutes.

And I told them that, If it is ok, lets go near station, look for a good restaurant, have good food and then, I will leave. It was a long walk for about an hour before we reached Katsuda station, which was a good 7 kms from there. And then only we realized that the trains are not working because they need to check the tracks completely before they resume operations. We tried for any bus or taxi, but none of them were ready, as none of them were sure about the status of roads and the bridges.

On the way to the station we realized that there may not be any restaurants and we tried to get something to eat for dinner in the convenience store. But, they were not working as they need power to use their register. We were desperately searching for one and finally found a small convenience store, they were working. B'cos they were using the age old technology... hand counting and no computers.

That night we spent around 9 to 10 hours on the streets. It was biting cold and the toes and fingers started paining from freezing. I usually like winter a lot for the cool breeze and the serenity it brings. But, that night changed my perception of winter. I understood the kind of winter life a homeless in Japan has. We found a hotel nearby and thought of checking in for the night. But, they were closed as there was no power. But they allowed us to sit in the lobby for the night. They even provided us with a blanket.

It reminded us of the nammalwar, Peyalwar and Boothathaalvar story. The blanket was enough to support one person with full comfort and luzury. With two, they can cover themselves from neck to toe. With three, they can barely manage to it and cover themselves from their hand to knee. We three were sitting and covering ourselves. In a few minutes, "Anda perumale vanda madiri, naalavada oruthan ulla nerukkaraan..." Ippadiyaga, anda irava kazhichom.

The receptionist in the hotel told that usually, there is a bus from Katsuda to Tokyo and the first bus leaves at 5:40 am. So, I didn't want to miss it as I had a class from 8 am in Tokyo on all weekends. I didn't sleep at all and at the stroke of 5:00, I took leave from the 3 guys and left to the bus stop. I waited there for over 2 hours. There was no sign of any bus. I inquired the police station near by and they told me that, the roads were broken, bridges crashed and the broken train tracks and above all the roof of the station itself crashed down last evening. And there is no way, I can leave now. That was when it really dawned on me and I started planning long term. I enquired if there is any evacuation area or any support available. The police man gave me directions for a near by elementary school. I went there.

It was like an oasis in the middle of the desert. There were a lot of people, food was available, water was in plenty and above all, we could use the blanket. I called the 3 guys and was glad that they were still there in the hotel lobby. I asked them to come there immediately. They came there in no time.

There were over more than 300 Japanese in the evacuation area. But, there was pin drop silence. People of all age group. kids, youngsters, elders ... But, none of them cried, no traces of pain or fear on their face. Immediately after the quake, the roads were flooded with people and cars. But, you can see the classic Japanese order and compassion there. The signals were not working due to power cut, but none of the automobiles moved. They restrained themselves from taking the "Me first attitude". It was an amazing view. At the junction, all the four sides were flooded with cars, but none of them moved. They requested the other side to take the first turn. This is the kind of next generation, I would love to build. Even if it takes decades together or even a rebirth, I would like to work towards this kind of a society in India.

Similarly at the evacuation center, the new born babies and the young mothers were put to utmost test. With the biting cold in the winter and a few fires to keep yourselves warm, there was nowhere for the young mothers to go secluded to feed their babies. In front of their fellow citizens, they were feeding and what can I say about this society? Words fail and heart takes over. I have never cried in my life, even when my beloved grandparents died. But, this scene pushed me to the brim of my inner strength. It was paining and was crying deep inside me. The country and the people who gave me everything were torn apart and were struggling for their basic needs... Forget about food and water, there was not even a safe warm place to cover themselves and feed their kids.

It was more than 20 hours I had my last meal and was feeling very tired, hungry and thirsty. And the sight of the food distribution at the evacuation center was like dream come true. We stood in line and when my turn came, they asked me, which one do you want? They were distributing plain rice and a mixed rice. As I was a vegetarian, I preferred the plain rice, even if there is nothing to mix. But, I was for a surprise, when the rice was ready made dry rice and if we put hot water, it will turn into hot fresh good smelling rice in minutes. But, due to lack of fuel, they had only this rice and cold water. They asked me to open the packet, remove the preservative and put a cup of cold water. Asked me to wait for 2 hours before it turns out to be rice. That was the longest wait for me in front of food. It was mouth watering and was left with no other choice but to wait. And after 2 hours, when I finally ate it, it was the most delicious food I ever tasted in my life. Amritham-na epdi irukkumnu annikku thaan therinjuthu...

Konjam kooda moonjiya sulikkaama, the ward office officials were distributing everything. I requested them for the price to pay. They said, that it is free and were very sorry that, they could only give this at this moment. They were preparing the toilet in the middle of the wonderful clean school ground. Dig a long wide hole and placed a couple of metal sheet to prepare a toilet. Split it into two with a flimsy white sheet and switched on a motor operated lamp. I offered to help them in digging. But they kindly refused and told me, that, we are very sorry for the inconvenience and at this moment, this is the toilet that they could provide.

All these were provided by the city ward office officials. A Panchayat equivalent of India. They knew how to handle such calamities and they were prepared for such a massive evacuation and support. There was total order and no one claimed any credit for doing it. Karnan-na pathi namma padikkarom, aana evvlo per kadaipidikkaromnu ketta theriyaadu. Aana, inga, idathu kai kodukkarathu valathu kaikku nejamaave theriyaadu. Anda madiri, every one did their part.

For example, the workers and owners from the super market brought their foods immediately and gave it to the officials. The officials just distributed it to everyone, with no favor or fear. No influence or bias towards any local or foreigner. The telephone companies especially the NTT, made the public telephone free. Again, you see an order in front of the public booth. Its free and you can use as much as you can. There is a huge line in front of it and people use it only to say hi and their where abouts to their family. No one took anything more than a minute. What a display of compassion towards other souls.

I have been to this place for over 5 years and have seen a particular old shop closed. But, suddenly, that day, it was open and an elderly lady was distributing some bread to the passers by. The convenience stores were giving their left over food for free. They could have charged a heavy price, but they didn't. There was a huge line for over a km in front of the petrol bunks. They could have charged a heavy price, but they didn't.

The third day after the quake, the city officials in the evacuation center were running out of supplies and were kind of looking out for more thro' each and every source. I realized that, its time we left and allowed the local people to get better care. But, the trains were still not yet ready, bus was not operating. The city official told that, it is going to be atleast a month's time before the trains start operating. So, we had to make our next move.

Also, the nuclear power plant just another 80 kms north of this evacuation center was fuming and this place started getting scary with the kind of information that was coming in. The bridges were damaged and the tracks were broken. So, the options left were to find a taxi that can take us to the location from where trains operate towards Tokyo. But, to get the taxi, we were told to walk to the next station that was some 10 kms away. So, I requested the 3 guys to get their passport and pack few of their dress and get ready to travel. I was planning to take them to my home in Tokyo.

They went ahead to their house to pack. I went in search of a taxi. After a while or walking and losing a few of them, I finally negotiated and got hold of a taxi. He was willing only to take us to a station called tsuchiura. If he travels too far, the risk of he not getting petrol to return back was high. So, He promised us only yo take till tsuchiura. Got on the taxi, went to their house. Picked them up and headed towards Tokyo.

This way, we changed taxi in the same way a couple of times and after 7 hours of travel, we reached a station called Toride, closer to Tokyo. Trains were operating from here. From here, we had another couple of transfers and reached my station Nishi-Kasai. From here, it was another 20 mintes walk and reached home - Sweet home after 10 hours of travel, the longest ever from Ibaraki to tokyo. We reached my home on Sunday night.

By the time I reached tokyo, I was in for a surprise. The roads and pipes in Tokyo were uprooted from the ground and it was the first time I could ever see my place in such a mess. But, on top of this, the nuclear scare had taken a different turn. All my fellow foreigners were planning to mass evacuate and go back to India. In the middle of all, the next morning was bright and sunny. I woke up to the sound of the kids in the near by kinder garnen, next to my home.

In the middle of chaos and foreigners fleeing, the kids displayed hope and the dawn of the next generation Japanese. I was reminded, Hope is the pillar that holds the world. How true, these kids had realized it, when are we going to?

In the whole, exercise, the display of order, process, patience, perseverance, tenacity and compassion was mind blowing. I have lived in this counrty for over a decade and I was all along thinking that, the salient feature of this country was analysis. They go to the root of every problem and always come out with a sustainable solution and was under the impression, that their strength was root cause analysis. But, I was proved wrong. The strength of this country is the patience. Patience at the face of adversity, the patience to undergo pain with a smiling face. If only, we can inculcate this to our next generation, we can be sure of having a sustainable future. Nothing can shatter us as a society / culture.

Best regards,
Murali M
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Reading too much into a name

2011-05-17T20:16:00.002+05:30

I am riding the lift to the Pantry on the 8th Floor to have lunch when a young girl and 2 guys hop in at the 4th floor. From their looks & their behaviour, it is clear that they are fresh out of college and have been recruited from campus, their employer being one among the big three of Indian IT.

They are jabbering on in Hindi, most of which I ignore, till I hear them mention the name of my organisation. I am all attention now. The girl is animatedly telling about someone working in my organisation whom she came across earlier in the day and who had a last name of Khanna, which according to her falls in the same group/caste as Khatri to which she belongs. She also mentions about Khurana being another member of the group. The guys rib her about how she now has options available, for marriage.

I am not aware of anyone with a last name of Khanna in our organisation at Chennai. But then, with the headcount hitting 300 recently and me not being the type who is outgoing enough to go meet new joinees, it is possible that there is someone fitting that description. Anyway, I forget about it.

After lunch, we have a 4-hour workshop on MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), involving a good deal of group-activity, and I come across the afore-mentioned Mr.Khanna (as indicated on his badge) in the group. But hey, he does not at all look like a North Indian, inspite of meeting the critical condition of being fair-complexioned. And to top it all, he speaks ultra-fluent Tamil.

I get a better look at his tag & see the last name of Sekar below his given name of Rajesh Khanna - on our tags, the surname is written below the given name. So, he is "Rajesh Khanna Sekar" and if my guess is correct, his Dad must be a big fan of the yesteryear Hindi-movie actor 'Rajesh Khanna' and would have named his son after the actor. Not very surprising in Tamilnadu, but obviously not something the Punjabi lass from up north could be aware of.

The nut and fruit of cashewnut - for the city slickers

2011-05-11T12:48:00.003+05:30

Last Friday, me and Aman were returning from the railway station after dropping Sheena, who had to catch a train to Cochin on work. I am in the midst of answering one of his many queries (he is in a want-to-know-it-all age, with loads of queries), when I notice something fallen on the roadside. After a quick check in the rear-view mirror to confirm that there are no vehicles behind me, I park by the side of the road, ask Aman to stay put and go pick this up.

For those of you whom cashewnut is something that you pick up in a tin from the supermarket, this is the raw nut attached to the fruit. The fruit is edible, but kinda sour in taste - I believe its main use is in making Feni - the Goan brew. This fruit-nut combo used to be a common sight in our yard at Kerala some 15 years ago when we had a few cashewnut trees. Strangely I somehow don't seem to remember when these trees were felled, as today there is not even a single tree standing.

The cashew tree (or is it plant) is not very tall and has sturdy branches which make it easy to climb and as kids I remember climbing the tree with my siblings and cousins. The trees used to bear quite some fruit and we used to pluck the nuts and roast it over a fire in the yard, till they turned black. Then the nuts were removed from the fire and broken open to access the sweet tasting kernel inside.

At one of these nut-roasting sessions during the annual school vacations (May-June) that we spent in Kerala every year, I came close to losing eyesight in one eye. When put in the fire, these nuts spray out a kind of secretion. It seems I was not careful enough and leaned too close to the fire, thereby taking a hit in the eye - bang in the pupil itself. If it were not for my Dad who in the evening noticed me continously blinking one eye, I would most probably have ended blind in one eye.

He rushed me immediately to the doctor who did some minor surgery (to basically scrape off the offending secretion from the eye). Post the surgery, we had to go every morning for a month or so to the hospital to have the wound cleaned and medicine applied. This medicine would end up leaving a bad taste in my mouth for which Dad would get me a tall glass of lemonade, which was a big treat in those days. :-)

Anyway, the main purpose of picking up the fruit/nut was to show/educate Aman, but for some strange reason, he was not in the least interested. Infact, he found it strange that I should pick up this from the road and kept insisting that I throw it out.

Cashew Trivia :
Am not sure how much truth is in this rural legend, but it surely is interesting to hear. There is this story about how the nut came to be called cashewnut. It seems, centuries ago, when the British (or was it Portuguese) came to the Kerala coast, they saw these nuts being sold in the marketplace and out of curiousity, ask the seller what these are called. Since the native does not understand English, he assumes that the white man is asking the price of the nuts and replies "Kaashinu ettu", which is Malluspeak for "Eight nuts for a Kaashu". A 'Kaashu' being a small denomination of money in use then. White man assumes that the name is "Kaashinettu", which gets anglicised as Cashewnut.

Traffic-jam in God's own Country - and its not even rush-hour

2011-05-10T20:27:00.005+05:30

Last Saturday, as I set out on my morning walk at Kerala, Aman wants to join me. With him along, I would not be able to walk fast as he can't obviously keep pace with me. Also, being a kid, he would tire quickly, while I would need atleast 3kms to work up a sweat. But I do want him with me because it would be a nice opportunity to spend time with him.

As I am thinking of how to handle this, I remember that the day before he had loved being taken around in his pram, which I had cleaned up. I decide that I can walk, while he can sit in the pram and enjoy the cool morning. It would surely look odd for a 3-year old kid to be taken around in a pram, but who cares. Infact in the small sleepy town that I call home in Kerala, the pram would still turn heads even if it were a baby inside - because it is not a common sight.

Anyway, we set out on our walk, taking the road that lies in front of our home, heading towards the bridge on the river which is like 1km away. I ignore the curious stares from passersby, instead focussing on small-talk with Aman. As we reach the bridge, I see a flurry of activity in the river, which I instantly make out as a huge group of ducks being taken out on their morning swim-cum-feeding session. I believe I have earlier made a post on this before, but it always is an interesting sight to see. And since Aman is also interested, we stop to have a look.

You can see the 2 keepers in their canoes guiding the birds under the bridge.

The tail-end of the procession finally making it under the bridge.

We continue our walk for another half-km or so and then retrace our steps back, only to see that the keepers have led the flock of ducks from the river to land and are now having them cross the road we took, to get into the wet-fields where the ducks would have their feeding session.

Hundreds of ducks crossing the road, leading to a short traffic-jam on an otherwise empty road, early in the morning. Men and vehicles stop to give way to the flock.

We wait and watch the sight till the rest of the flock also makes its way safely across the road into the fields.

I believe, the keepers and their flock would retrace the same path later in the day, to get back to the farm from where they started off in the morning. Must take immense effort & co-ordination on the part of the keepers to accomplish this task.

Anyday a better sight for the eyes than the automobile-jam on the streets of Chennai.

A noble gesture - wish many more of us could emulate this

2011-04-18T12:25:00.004+05:30

A couple of days ago, I received this email from a colleague at work ;

Sub : Sweets @ my desk
Happy to share the arrival of a new member in my family. He is 4 months old Vijay,
who has joined our family to cherish our parenthood.

The "4 months" part had me confused. If not for that, I would have easily understood this as a new parent sharing the happiness of a birth in the family. For a moment I am thinking whether they have got themselves a pet. But I dismiss the idea since a pet has no connection with parenthood, though I have read of people thinking of their pet dogs and cats on the same lines (or even more) as their kids.

So, while it sounded too good to be true, it logically had to be an adoption. I say logical because I know the colleague (and his wife) for a long time and this young couple have been trying to expand their family for some years now. And it is too good to be true because we in India haven't yet opened up to adoption. I know a couple who love kids but even after knowing for sure that they can never have a kid of their own due to a medical condition, adoption is not an option they are considering. Even when couples finally make the decision, society in general and close relatives in particular do all they can to dissuade adoption.

While majority of couples face issue at the starting stage (conception), this couple had no issues with conception. Instead their problem was in successfully completing the full term. After many pregnancies getting terminated at various stages, leading to both physical and emotional stress for the lady, the doctors had suggested in 2009 that they put on hold plans for a child for atleast 2 more years.

I walk over to my colleague's desk and a quick chat reveals that while heeding the doctor's advice, they had also decided to adopt a kid and put in a request at the adoption agency. While most people prefer to adopt girls, they decided to go in for a boy and were overjoyed when they could bring a baby boy home in less than 2 years. I believe this is pretty quick - my understanding was that it takes years of battling lethargy and paperwork at the adoption agency before you got a kid.

I am curious about how his parents felt about the adoption and he agreed that it was indeed tough to convince them. Hmm, exactly as I thought. Anyway it is laudable that my friend and his wife persisted and managed to convince them to go along with their decision to adopt a kid.

In my opinion, adopting a kid would be one of the most noble things a person could do. One of the reasons why the Tamil movie "Kannathil muthamittal" by director Mani Ratnam is an alltime favourite. Me & Sheena came pretty close to going the adoption route when after her first miscarriage in 2002, things were not looking good on the kids front for years. Anyway, then Aman happened & adoption was forgotten.

I thought we could adopt a baby girl as our 2nd kid, but Sheena wasn't sure about convincing my/her parents. I think she felt motivated by this adoption done by my colleague & his wife because the other day she mentioned that if our 2nd kid also happens to be a boy, we would register for adopting a baby girl. Ofcourse it remains to be seen if we actually walk the talk.

Another year, another birthday. Not exactly.

2011-03-31T22:11:00.013+05:30

Another year, another 1st April, another Birthday. Well, not exactly, due to how it turned out this year. For starters, an old friend/ex-colleague calls up from Japan to wish me. Given that he was affected by the tsunami/quake as he was just 60kms or so from the place where the maximum devastation was seen and the fact that things are not yet back to normal in Tokyo (radioactivity in food/water etc) where he is with family, wishing me should have been the last thing on his mind. Anyway, we had a long chat about various things & caught up with each other after a long gap.

And then in the early hours of 1st April, another friend/college-mate calls up to wish. I was fast asleep on the train to Kerala and took the call thinking it is already early morning, but it seems he waited for midnight just so that he can wish me the moment the calendar moved to 1st April. This guy is not really into email/Facebook etc, but has almost never forgets any birthdays - can't say this about myself instead of having reminders set on my laptop, phone etc etc.

I am received at the station by Sheena & Aman. Since my Dad had gone to Cochin to check on his cousin who had just had a bypass surgery, Sheena had taken on the task of picking me up. Aman shyly hands me the Birthday Card that he had made himself (with quite some guidance from Sheena), including the cover which was not only made from an A4 sheet but was also painted by him. Was overwhelmed seeing the effort he had taken.

The painted cover on the left and the front of the card :

The inside of the card - which Dad would not like to be called the best ?

As has been the norm for the last couple of years, I was expecting a book as gift from Sheena, usually a novel by one of the famous Malayalam authors. But this time around, she surprised me by gifting me a Louis Philippe 'Gods & Kings' formal white shirt. These are obscenely priced (by my standards atleast) and I would not buy one for myself.

But in her case, it seems there was another reason to go for this shirt, which goes to show how women might forgive but never forget. :-) Just after our marriage and on her maiden visit to Chennai, she had by mistake stuffed a wet towel into my bag, which resulted in a favourite white Park Avenue shirt of mine getting those dark damp spots, which never went off. I believe I gave her a mouthful then and looks like she was on the lookout for a similar shirt to replace my favourite. And when she saw this shirt with the same looks/texture, she had to get it, money be damned.

All in all, All Fools day turned out to be more interesting than I could imagine.

'Early to rise' is indeed awesome. Now if I could also get early to bed...

2011-03-28T17:29:00.014+05:30

Last Saturday morning at 5AM, I am woken up from deep sleep by the irritating sound of the cellphone alarm. Since I had gone to bed only around midnight, my mind is still groggy taking time to focus my brain & as soon as I realise that it is a weekend, I wonder why the hell would I want to wake up at 5 on a weekend. My still-drowsy mind assumes that it must be a mistake & I hit snooze to get back to slumber-land.

Before I drift away to sleep, I remember (thankfully) that I had signed up with
some of my colleagues for beach-volleyball sessions on weekends at 6AM, which explains the alarm set at 5AM, since I need time to get ready & haul myself
to Thiruvanmiyur beach, which is 15-kms from my home. Since it won't be good to
opt out, I pull myself out of bed. Takes me some 20-mins to get ready & I am
on my way to the beach, with a 1/2 litre bottle of water - to quench my thirst
after the game.

All along the 15km drive, I can see people walking/jogging and the beach has quite some early-risers active. A couple of my colleagues are already there and we tie
the net and play some practice shots. Another group of guys (whom we don't know) have come over (they have the ball, but no net) and join us & we now have the required 6 players on each side. The game is fun and gets us some much-needed exercise.

A snap taken of my colleagues after the game. You can see fishermen pulling in the net from the sea, in the background.

Around 8AM, I wind up & drive back home. Near my home, I stop to buy a newspaper and also pick up 500ml of milk in the now-empty water-bottle (I avoid buying satchet milk to cut down on plastic). As I sit down at home with a steaming-hot cup of tea, I realise that it is not even 9AM and I have the whole day in front of me, which is very unlike my usual weekends when I would wake up only around 10AM or so.

I have a list of tasks cut out for the weekend and I know that if I wake up at 5AM the next day too for Sunday's volleyball session, it should be a breeze to get all of it done. Incidentally, I did make it to the beach on Sunday.

Sunday evening as I sit back and go over what I did during the weekend, the sense
of accomplishment was huge :

- Most of the laundry done (point to note is I don't use a washing machine).

- Cooked all 3 meals at home both days of the weekend + the morning/evening tea.

- All dishes done - which given my cooking on both days was quite some...

- Swept & mopped the whole home - 2 rooms + hall + kitchen + balcony.

- Walked 3-kms (30 mins) in the evenings. //To ensure I don't outgrow size 32-waist.

- Finished the bank work + shopping for Aman + picking up groceries for the week.

- Gave my friend's bike a quick checkup - oil, filter, battery, idling etc

- Plus some time for reading, watching TV etc.

Since I am currently alternating my weekends between Chennai and Kerala, I would
be missing beach-volleyball the coming weekend. To make up for that, I have bought
a shuttle-badminton net - plan to play with my friends in our yard at Kerala during the weekends I am there.

I was able to continue the waking-up-early practise yesterday and today morning
also and since we don't play on weekdays, I instead went for a walk in the morning, after having a glass of freshly made sweet-lime juice. After the walk, had some egg & toast, washed down with a cup of tea and was out of home by 8AM to work.

While it does feel good till around 3PM or so, after that I kinda feel tired/sleepy, which I guess is because I am not getting to bed early. Sleeping at midnight or later and then waking up early in the morning does not seem like a good practice,
as it deprives me of the basic quota of sleep required by the body. Need to try to hit the bed latest by 11PM.

Aman's graduation day snaps

2011-03-26T17:03:00.005+05:30

My last visit to Kerala happened to co-incide with the year-end photo session at his school. While the school had arranged a professional camera-man to cover the event, I dropped in with my camera to have a personal copy of this major event in Aman's life, about which he was excited days before it was to happen. In hindsight, this turned out to be a good decision, because looks like Sheena did not like the print from the photographer. Anyway here goes.

All the kids of Kids Garden school with their 3 teachers, 2 of whom are related to me on my Dad's side. Aman is seated in the front-row at extreme right. Should have used the flash (though it was bright day-light) because it is kinda dark at where Aman is sitting.

A close-up of the area near where Aman is seated. We asked him why he is keeping such a grim face and his response was interesting, "We were told by the teachers to smile without opening our mouths and that is what I was doing". :-)

The kids in uniform are those that are studying L.K.G and U.K.G., while Aman and the other kids sans uniform are those in play-school. Some of the uniformed kids were having their individual snaps taken and I thought Aman would be interested in having one taken himself. But the way he has his face in this snap, looks like he did not really relish Daddy coming in & singling him out, causing 'embarassment' within his group of friends.

BTW, credit for attire goes to Sheena - who bought this dress specifically for Aman's school photo-session.

The first of many exams to come in life - cleared with flying colors

2011-03-25T21:04:00.006+05:30

I was in the midst of a meeting yesterday when I get a call from home. Since it's always me who calls home (daily) and my parents call only when it is really urgent, I decide to take the call after excusing myself from the meeting.

Its my Mom and she says that Aman wants to talk to me, which comes as a great surprise to me given that after the initial craze for the telephone, he is now bored and it is really tough to get him to speak. When I feel like hearing his voice, I have to cook up a fib about how I am at the toy-shop & would like to know what he wants. This would bring him to the phone instantly.

I have noticed this with my niece Divya too - as a kid she would like to chat endlessly on the phone (many of my initial blog-posts here were tele-conversations that I had with her. Then she became bored. Now her brother Dany is in the I-love-telephone stage and irrespective of who calls, he wants to speak to them.

Anyway, Mom hands over the phone to Aman & this was our conversation - he was all excited while talking :

"Biju!" // He calls me by name mostly and very rarely as Biju-papa.
"Yes, Aman. What is it that you want to tell me ?"

"Biju, I got 50 out of 50 in my exams." // To me it sounded like 60 of 60.
"Really? Did you answer all the questions ?"

"Yes. I wrote from a to i as was asked to. And also correctly answered the orals".
"Wow!!! That is indeed great. What do you want me to get for you from Madras for your awesome performance ?"

"I want.. hmm. I want.." //He is not sure what he should ask for.
I ask him if a Thomas train with its own station and controls should be fine, since I remembered him asking for this since the time he saw an advt. for this on Pogo.

"Yes. Yes. Get me a Thomas train."

He has completed 1-year at play-school and will join a proper school from June-2011. Our intention in having him spend a few hours daily at play-school was for him to be able to spend time with other kids and enjoy himself. Inspite of our clearly telling the teachers that we don't want him to be actually 'taught', they taught him the alphabet, make him do homework and finally an annual exam too. Ofcourse, while I am not too worried about his exams, Sheena had been spending time with him over the last week, which shows in his acing the test.

While he is all excited about exams and scoring, as he grows up, he will find that this is going to be a way of life for another 16-18 years or so and thus not really fun. We should have a law which mandates that schooling for kids should start only after attaining atleast 5 years of age. In Kerala it is currently 3.5 years - too early in my opinion. Kids should be able to atleast enjoy the 1st 5 years of their life without worrying about lessons, exams etc.

Change brings joy to many and sorrow to some...

2011-03-21T18:30:00.015+05:30

It is around 9AM last Thursday morning & the train from Chennai is approaching my station (Mavelikara). As is the usual practise, I had called home while at the previous station so that in the 20-mins or so that it takes for the train to reach my stop, my Dad and son could drive down to Mavelikara station to pick me up.

As the train nears my station, I look out of the right-side door to see if I can spot our car parked on the road parallel to the railway tracks. Our station Mavelikkara is as sleepy a station as you could imagine and from my childhood, it has looked the same - 2 tracks, 2 platforms, big FCI godowns on one side, couple of small buildings on the other side that house the ticketing / reservation office & waiting area. On the platform you have a small book-shop, the usual hpmc juice kiosk etc. The only thing that has changed is that some 20 years ago you had taxis parked outside, which have been replaced by auto-rickshaws today.

But today something seems different - different enough for me to think that it's some other station. For starters, the train is neither going to Platform 1 or 2 as is usually the case. Instead it is coming to a stop on Platform-3. Ha, that is new. Plus as seen from the approaching train, I feel like there are a multitude of tracks - to someone used to seeing 2 tracks, even 4 or 5 is a multitude. :-) And this change has happened over the 2 weeks that I had been here last.

Not just that, the approach road to the station, which has been in shambles for years is now properly laid with tar. The parking area for cars and scooters that used to be uneven ground, is also levelled & tarred. Wow !!! I almost felt like I am approaching some other station. I had heard something about Mavelikara station being developed as a "Model station" and this change must be related to that. I don't care whether it is a model station or not, but it does feels good when basic infrastructure is in place.

Another change happening on this stretch between Kayankulam and Ernakulam is dual tracks being laid. I know it sounds primitive to have just 1 track for a 100km stretch, but that has been the case till now. This means that if a train leaves from Kayankulam to Mavelikara, another train going in the opposite direction has to stay put at Mavelikara till the former arrives. This has to be done for all the 8-odd stations between Kayankulam and Ernakulam - you can imagine the time lost in this process and how it makes almost all trains run late. Currently most trains take close to 3 hours for a Mavelikara-Ernakulam run . Once dual tracks are laid it should be easily done in less than 2 hours.

Unlike other states where land is available in plenty, Kerala is very densely populated and thus acquiring land to lay another track takes a long time - due to litigation. Also, Kerala has many rivers and thus dual tracks mean building another bridge - another time-intensive effort. Anyway, work is progressing on the dual track effort and some sections are already dual track. The Kayankulam-Mavelikara section is the most recent one to be completed, which would gladden the hearts of regular travellers.

However, this recent change brought grief to a few families in just 2 days after the new track was thrown open. On the first day (or night actually), three young men were killed when they were hit by a train when they were crossing the tracks. Looks like they were not aware of the fact that the new track was now in use. As if this was not enough the next day 2 more deaths were reported on the same section - again hit by trains. It was painful to read in the newspaper about the grieving families - especially the wives and kids who lost their husbands/fathers.

Finally a low-cost automatic hatch that is fuel efficient too.

2011-02-21T14:53:00.004+05:30

The Indian car market has traditionally been averse to Automatic (AT) cars due to the higher initial cost and the fact that an AT car is usually less fuel efficient than its Manual Transmission (MT) version. And due to lack of customer interest, manufacturers also have typically avoided providing AT options. Sort of like a chicken-egg syndrome.

If you wanted a small hatchback with AT some years ago, your only option was the Santro-AT and the WagonR-AT. If you go back in time, the Zen used to come in AT and even the humble M800 had an AT version, but this was only for people who are physically challenged.

Apart from the driver & the engine's efficiency, one major reason that determines fuel-efficiency of an AT car is the number of gears that the AT has internally - the more gears you have, the more efficient the car since the engine can move to the optimal gear for the speed/rpm at which the car is operating in. Small cars usually have a 3 or 4 gear setup, while higher segment cars go upto 7 or maybe even more.

Most Marutis till date had a 3-gear setup which found few takers. And since people were anyway buying Marutis in the MT version and being the market leader with 50% market-share, Maruti did not find much of a need to change things. Hyundai however was more pro-active and had a 4-speed AT in the Santro which found quite some takers. Especially women, elders & those returning after a long stay in the US where they are used to AT cars and find it tough to use stick-shift (as they call it in the US). When i10, the successor to the Santro was launched, Hyundai provided an AT version in that car too and currently this is the market favourite.

It was only last August (Aug-15 to be precise) that Maruti woke up from their slumber and launched their A-Star hatchback in AT version. By launching on the Indian independence day, I guess they wanted to suggest a freedom from gears/clutch for Indians. Unlike the M800 / WagonR, this was a proper 4-speed AT - the same car that is exported to Europe, where it is a favourite small car. For those that don't know, A-Star is the latest Alto in Europe. The M800, Zen, Alto, A-Star are all successive versions of the Alto, as it is called in Europe. BTW the Santro is called Atos in Europe.

Around the same time that Maruti launched the A-Star-AT, we had booked an Estilo-MT for my in-laws. However, since we found that my FIL was having trouble using a geared car, we decided to change the booking to the A-Star AT. It did mean increasing the budget, but we reckoned that if it makes life easier, the extra money would be well worth it.

The car had just been launched and there was no TestDrive car available in Kerala. However, Maruti had offered a car for an official drive and review to my car forum www.team-bhp.com and I went ahead with the feedback from the review by ajmat (team-bhpian and forum-moderator) which mentioned that it was a peppy city car. They did not do much detailed Fuel Efficiency (FE) checks, but since the AStar-MT is a very FE car due to its K-series engine, I reckoned that FE of the AT version should be maybe just 1-2 kmpl less. The detailed review can be seen here.

The only other option available in the upto-7 lakhs range was the i10-AT, but this was around Rs.75000 costlier than the A-Star AT. Also, FE is not known to be the strong point of the i10 even in the MT version & I count FE as a major factor while buying cars/bikes. A colleague who moved to Blore had reported getting 8-9kmpl on his i10-AT and I would be damned if I bought a car (a hatchback at that) that had single-digit FE. Moreover, wherever there is an option available, I would prefer a Japanese car. Korean cars are not my favourites.

We got the car on 8-Dec-2010 (the final price after all discounts was Rs4.65 lakhs) & in the 2 months the car has done 1200kms, with most of the driving by my wife. Since both FIL and wife are now good enough to take the car out on their own and are happy that it is AT with no worries about clutch/gears, I think it was money well spent. Sheena now confidently takes the car to work and recently did a 40km round trip on her own.

My FE calculations show that we are getting 14 kmpl in Kerala town driving which is not bad for a new car - it takes a few thousand kms for the engine to settle down and for the FE to stabilise. I am yet to do an FE-check by the full-tank-to-full-tank method - a more reliable way of measuring FE. Need to do this soon. You can see my review of our A-Star AT here.

A month or so after we got our car, another team-bhpian at Bangalore bought the A-Star AT and he did a series of FE checks via the tankful-to-tankful method. The latest update shows 14kmpl in Blore traffic with 25% A/C, which given the traffic in Blore, is a phenomenal FE for an AT car. More so, when compared to the i10-AT. His review can be found here.

However, there are areas where the i10 scores over the A-Star and if those factors matter to you, the i10 would be a better choice. The interiors of the i10 are better than the A-Star. Plus it is more roomier with more space inside - the rear of the A-Star can get a bit claustrophobic. Also while the A-Star is better in city driving, the i10 is a better option for highway driving due to its bigger 1.2 litre engine and higher power. While the A-Star can do 3-digit speeds comfortably on the highway, overtaking would be easier with the i10.

I am not going into looks because it differs from person to person and anyway both cars are not really lookers. For those that rate a car's handling high, the A-Star is the better handler of the two - its squat looks help.

There is a small fly in the ointment though when it comes to the A-Star - availability of the car. When a manufacturer launches a new model, I would expect them to have enough cars to meet demand. But when it comes to the A-Star AT, Maruti seems to be concentrating only on exports, . The MT version is available off the shelf, but the AT version would take anything from 1-3 months, depending on how persistent you are in nudging the dealer and Maruti folks once in a while.

Prem, if you are reading this, I know that you have been looking at buying a small car. Not sure if you already finalised the car, but if not, do give the A-Star-AT a try. I am told the car is available for TD at Popular Velachery, which is close to your place. For your requirements, it would be perfect. And since it is an AT, when you move to a bigger car later, this can be used by your wife as a 2nd car for running errands, dropping the kids at school etc.

When ignorance is not bliss.

2011-02-01T20:50:00.005+05:30

I am at the office pantry with a couple of colleagues for the usual 4PM coffee break, when I notice that one of them is kinda glum. A slight prodding reveals the reason. The previous night he had dropped in at a gas station to fuel up his car and as is his usual practise, he asked the attendant to fill up the tank, which in his case takes up around Rs.1700 worth of petrol.

As the car is being fuelled up and while the meter is at Rs1400, another attendant comes over & tells him that the front tyre of his car has a flat. He moves to check out the tyre, which looks OK. Meanwhile the attendant mumbles some garbage about how using nitrogen to fill the tyres is a better option etc.

When my friend's gaze returns back to the fuel-meter, he sees to his shock that it has been reset to zero by the attendant who was filling fuel. On questioning why he reset the meter, the attendant says that the car had taken in a full tank of fuel coming to Rs.1700 and so he had reset the meter. Though not convinced, my friend pays up and leaves.

For anyone who is familiar with the cheating done at Chennai petrol-pumps, this is a clear case of diverting the customer's attention to cheat. The part about tyre being flat, when it is not the case, is a clear indication of fraud.

Anyway, after some 150kms of driving around, the fuel-gauge in his car is at 1/2 tank position, while it usually reaches half-tank only after running 200-odd kms. This is a clear indication to my friend that he has been cheated and like any normal person, it is not a good feeling.

I tell him that he has been cheated, but there is an option to get back. All he needs to do is go back to the pump, ask to meet the manager & request for the complaint-book which each gas-station has to maintain. I tell him that in all probability, the manager will dissuade him from entering his complaint and instead will make up for the loss.

Around 10PM I get a call from my friend. He thought he had nothing to lose out in trying out my suggestion and had gone to the pump. He told the manager what had happened the previous day and that he had been cheated. The manager predictably told him that they don't indulge in such practices. My friend calmly tells him to give the complaint book so that he can atleast make a complaint.

As I had told him, the manager tries his best to dissuade him from making his complaint and instead says that he will not only take action against the errant employee, but also make up for the loss by giving petrol for Rs500, which is more than what he had been cheated off. Friend accepts the deal and tells me that he is feeling good now. In most cases, we are not aware of what to do, when faced with a similar situation. And knowing the next course of action makes all the difference, as it did for my friend.

Having been dealing with the city gas-stations for many years now, I am aware of the dirty tricks they do and my modus operandi is simple. On reaching the pump, I get off the car, ensure the meter is reset to zero before fuelling & ask him to key in the amount (usually Rs2000) on the pump-keypad. Then I tell the attendant to enable auto-shutoff on the nozzle & after starting pumping fuel to take his hands off the nozzle. And ofcourse I ignore any other attendant who tries to indulge me in some discussion.

BTW, just so you guys are aware, this is the BPCL pump at Guindy - at the corner where the Velachery road meets Sardar Patel Road (opp old Concorde Motors).

1 is lonely. So would 2 be company or a crowd ? We will know in 8 months.

2011-01-23T01:13:00.012+05:30

Happy New Year, folks.

The last time I was here was just before the annual 10-day X'mas holidays kicked in. And for the last few years that we have been having this year-end shutdown in place, it has been pure bliss. No worry about emails, no tasks on to-do list, no nothing. Just fun and enjoyment with family. Infact after shutting down my laptop on the evening of 23rd December, I did not touch it for the next 1 week.

Year 2010 was as always a mixed bag, with its share of losses and some gains. Losses were mainly about people - 2 of my cousins lost their husbands, both young guys in their 30s. One of them died in a freak accident at the oil-well where he was working in the Middle-East. The other cousin was indisposed for some years now with a mysterious illness that rendered him dependent on others to do even basic tasks. And to think that this was a guy who was working, an adoring husband and a devoted father. Both are losses that cannot be made up.

As far as gain goes, it was in the fag-end of 2010 that we knew that if all goes well, we would be welcoming a new member to the family in end-Aug or early-September.

Knowing only too well that most of the problems in our country can be traced to the exploding population, I never wanted more than 1 kid. Sheena on the contrary, wanted atleast 2, if not 3 kids. We debated over this, with each of us putting forth arguments supporting our respecive choice. While she did agree with my reasoning, her wish of having atleast 1 more kid stayed. And that was when she happened to put forward an argument for which I did not have a counter-argument.

Her point was that after parents, the next closest bond was between siblings. Yeah, Aman has 3 cousins now whom he is fond of and they too like him. But then how often does he meet them ? Once a month is more like it. As we get more entangled in the business of life, the meetings would become rarer. And when he grows up, he might feel the absence of a brother / sister even more. Sheena infact was thinking much further into the future, when she said, "Aman's kids would not have an uncle or aunt, if he is the only kid". You have to give it to women for their reasoning.

Anyway, this one point had me cornered. It was something I could relate to because I have 8 first-cousins on my Mom's side and we do meet once in a while and all that, but they are not as close as I am with my sisters. Again, while I have no first-cousins on my Dad's side (he was the only son), there are numerous second-cousins on Dad's side with whom I am chummy, but again it is not like real brothers/sisters. I had no option but to accept defeat.

Another major reason was Aman himself. He was always complaining that he had no one to play with, which was true given that there are no kids in our neighborhood. We told him that he has us to play with, but his reply was "I don't want big people, I want small people (kids) to play with".

And so we decided to go forward with having another baby. I had always wanted a baby-girl and was kinda disappointed when Aman was born. But over the last 3 years with Aman, found out that boys are fun too. I just hope it is a girl this time - that would complete the family. Also, given the immense energy that boys come with, it would be tough to handle two boys - especially if the second one happens to be like Aman.

Aman wants only a boy though. At his age, boys don't like girls. That will change as he grows up, I know. :-) Anyway, to avoid disappointments, we have told him that we have no idea whether it will be a boy or a girl and that he should accept whichever God decides to gift us. This has not changed his choice, but he has come around to the possibility of it being a girl too.

He is all ready to take full care of the baby - I will feed him, play with him, take him to school etc. And the funniest thing is he has already named the kid. The name he chose was Ragol. We have no idea where he got this wierd name from. We tried telling him that maybe he is confusing Rahul as Ragol, but he insists that it is Ragol only.

The only thing that he finds unacceptable is the long wait. To be frank, the 8 months to D-day seem like a long time to me too. But then waiting is part of the package. Aman would be 4 years old when the kid comes and old enough to be a responsible elder brother. I just hope all goes well.

EDIT on 25-May-2011 : It is just 3 months to D-day, with the due-date being around 23-24 August. Aman has now moved on to newer names for the baby - Appu being his current favourite. He has also come around to the fact that it could be a girl and the other day he was telling cousin Divya that it is upto God to decide whether the baby would be a boy or girl and that he is OK with either - a big sigh of relief from me and Sheena.

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

2010-12-21T19:36:00.003+05:30

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.

2010-12-19T15:50:00.004+05:30

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

2010-12-13T15:45:00.001+05:30

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.

2010-12-09T19:09:00.004+05:30

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

2010-11-12T09:41:00.006+05:30

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.

2010-11-08T16:16:00.003+05:30

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. :-)

2010-10-19T14:30:00.005+05:30

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.

2010-10-11T10:21:00.005+05:30

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.

2010-10-10T15:36:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-10-03T09:00:00.004+05:30

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

2010-09-24T17:21:00.003+05:30

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.

2010-09-05T19:50:00.004+05:30

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

2010-08-23T17:41:00.008+05:30

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.

2010-08-02T16:14:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-07-05T19:46:00.009+05:30

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.

2010-06-28T17:08:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-06-28T17:01:00.003+05:30

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.

2010-06-18T19:12:00.003+05:30

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.

2010-06-18T18:14:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-06-15T12:15:00.004+05:30

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 ?

2010-06-14T17:28:00.004+05:30

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...

2010-06-14T17:23:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-06-06T22:14:00.004+05:30

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

2010-06-05T01:58:00.005+05:30

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.

2010-05-25T15:27:00.005+05:30

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.

2010-05-23T22:31:00.004+05:30

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...

2010-05-07T18:57:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-04-26T10:11:00.004+05:30

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

2010-04-24T14:16:00.005+05:30

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.

2010-04-23T15:33:00.004+05:30

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...

2010-04-07T19:33:00.006+05:30

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 ?

2010-04-02T16:54:00.004+05:30

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....

2010-03-14T23:39:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-02-28T14:32:00.005+05:30

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 ?

2010-02-17T18:52:00.004+05:30

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.

2010-02-04T15:49:00.003+05:30

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 ?

2010-02-01T18:13:00.004+05:30

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

2010-01-07T12:00:00.000+05:30

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. :-)

What can be worse than your baggage not reaching with you ?

2010-01-07T11:48:00.003+05:30

Many air-travellers would have gone through the ordeal of reaching their destination,
only to learn that their checked-in baggage has either not reached or worse, gone to
some other destination. I always worry about this when I travel, but luckily I never
had this happen to me.

But as my colleague learnt a few days ago, things could be much worse. He had returned
to Chennai after a 1-month stint in the U.S., only to be told that his baggage hasn't turned
up in the same flight. They told him that he would be intimated as soon as it arrives.

A week later, he is asked to collect the baggage from the airport. Relieved that the ordeal
is finally over, he goes to collect the luggage. He notices that the locks are broken & a new
laptop that was in it is missing. He had bought the laptop for a friend & made the mistake
of packing it in the check-in baggage.

Since he is a seasoned traveller, I was surprised that he chose to put expensive stuff in
check-in baggage. I always pack fragile and expensive stuff in my hand-baggage, since
check-in baggage not only goes through rough handling, but there always is the risk of
pilferage. Hope this helps anyone reading this avoid such (costly) mistakes.

It's a little bit the violin, but lots more who plays it.

2009-12-31T16:59:00.006+05:30

I have no idea which clever soul coined the saying that is the title of this post, but it has
been a favourite of mine for many years. Every time I went fishing with my Shimano
fishing-gear and returned without catching even a single fish, I would be reminded of
this saying because I would see other fishers reeling in catch by the minute with just a
home-made fishing rod.

And day-before-yesterday's incident sort of proved the whole theory right. Being X'mas vacation, my sisters had come down with their family and my niece Divya had been after
me to take her fishing. The Shimano was not an option, since the rod had broken some
months ago and I did not get a replacement.

So, I fashioned out a fishing rod/reel using a bamboo rod, a piece of straw (for the float).
I ofcourse have the hook and string stocked at home. And off we go fishing. My plan was
to go to our plot of land near the river, where we had just recently reclaimed some of the
land that we had lost to the river over the years. This strip of reclaimed land was a good
option to fish from. But to our disappointment, the water is covered with hyacinth and
thus not a good place to fish because the hook would get entangled.

We move to the neighbouring plot which belongs to my Mom's cousin. He has built a series
of concrete steps leading down to the water & cleared a small patch of land where one could
sit and fish or read a book, watching the river flow by silently with the occasional fishing
canoe pass by.

We start fishing and Divya is all excited, but while the fishes cleverly eat the bait without
getting caught, she learns an important lesson in fishing - patience. And then I reel in our
first fish - nothing very big, but not that small either.

Divya fishing on the banks of the Achankoil river :

Now she is excited and wants to try her hand at it. I hand over the fishing rod to her and
take over the job of putting bait on the hook and throwing the line for her. In 15 minutes,
she reels in 3 fishes. Her joy knows no bounds - it is her first attempt at fishing & she has
already caught 3 fishes.

We would have loved to spend more time fishing, but it was getting late and we needed
to get back home. Since I have never returned from fishing with any fish, people at home
are not expecting this time to be any different. So they are surprised to see us return
with 4 fishes. The four fishes we caught - all of the same kind, known locally as "Paral".

The bigger of the 4 fishes.

As usual, my wife has the last word as she says tongue-in-cheek, "Given that Divya was

able to catch fishes so easily with a home-made fishing-rod, should you not have jumped

into the river out of shame?" Referring to the fact that I could not manage even a single

fish with the fancy Shimano.

Well, it sure is a little bit the fishing gear, but lots more who wields it. And ofcourse throw

in lots of luck.

What better gift than a nice read ? Especially one that you can't put down.

2009-12-03T02:35:00.004+05:30

It was our wedding anniversary last week & my wife had a gift for me -a copy of Chetan
Bhagat's latest novel "2 States". It was a surprise. Not the gift, but the fact that not only
did she tolerate me (and my occasional eccentricities) all these years, but also felt like
getting a gift for me. :-)

This is Chetan's 4th book and the other 3 books are already part of my collection. Apart
from liking the way he writes, I like the way he prices his books. All his books are priced
at Rs.95 (2$) which is not only affordable to most people who form his readership, but by keeping the figure just below 3-digits, it kind of makes you think that it is not too much
money, as opposed to if the price was say Rs.100. You know, like how Bata prices their
footwear - Rs.199 instead of Rs200.

My wife tells me that she read somewhere that the pricing is his wife's idea - as if to rub
in the "behind every successful man, there is a woman" theory. :-) I don't really doubt
that because Chetan's wife is also an IIM product (IIM-A at that) and you don't just get
into an IIM without more-than-average grey matter.

I absolutely loved his first book "5 point someone" which is about his IIT experiences &
which is being made into a Hindi movie "3 Idiots". His second one, "1 night @ the call
centre" was good, but not as much as the first one. The 3rd book was "The 3 mistakes of
my life", which was about the Gujarat riots and in my opinion ranking last in his books.

The latest one "2 States" is actually a piece of fiction which is based on his life. Actually
based on his marriage - a Punjabi guy marrying a Tamil Iyengar girl. Can you imagine a
more explosive combination ? While we can talk all day about unity in diversity and all
that, in reality we are all different people and think of the other one as aliens.

Northies have their own beliefs about Southies, and vice versa. Even among Southies,
people belonging to each of the 4 Southern states have their own 'opinion' about those
from other states. Heck even in a state, people from various regions have their own
prejudices about those from other regions.

An apt example is the South/North divide in Kerala. The Northies (those from Kannur, Kozhikode, etc) have a saying "Thekkane-yum Moorkkane-yum kandaal, thekkane
aadyam kollanam", which translates into "If you come across a South-Keralite and a
Cobra, kill the Southie first". Meaning that a Southie is more harmful than a poisonous
Cobra. Hey, I am from South Kerala, though not sure if I am dangerous than a Cobra.

There is nothing really fancy about how Chetan writes. Actually the writing is simple &
that I guess is what endears him to readers. You feel he is telling a story and you are
listening. And in this book, he has effortlessly covered the general Delhi-Punjabi psyche,
their interests (eating, showing off & splurging) and has also adeptly captured the typical TamBram way of life (valuing education above everything else, equally at home with
technology & horoscopes, the coy-girl-at-home-but-wild-outside syndrome etc).

And if you leave apart his IIT and IIM exposure, most guys would be able to identify with
him on many counts. I for one could relate to so many incidents in just the first half of the
book (I could not finish it) that it felt like he has written my story.

There is the part about how he tries to win over the conservative TamBram parents of
his girlfriend, but does not seem to be succeeding. And finally he gets a chance to bond
with his future FIL, when the latter has to make a very important presentation at office
and seeks his help with PowerPoint. Over a period of few days, they get close enough
for FIL to offer him a drink from the Chivas Regal that a potential suitor (US educated TamBram guy working for Cisco - LOL) for his daughter had presented him.

And FIL proceeds to pour 4 tablespoons of whisky into a glass for himself & asks Chetan
how many spoons he needs. Ofcourse, the Punjabi he is, Chetan pours his drink from the
bottle sans spoon, which amazes FIL who says, "My wife does not let me drink more than
4 spoons a day". And as they work overnight on the presentation, they end up finishing
3/4th of the bottle.

My normal style of reading books is at-one-go - I don't need food or sleep or anything if
I have a good book in hand. But with work, time for my son/wife and other chores, this
style does not work anymore. So, I tried to read this book in bits - while having a smoke
in the yard, in the loo etc. But I still could manage to complete only 1/2 the book over the
last weekend.

I had to return to Chennai & could have used the time on the train to finish it. But I saw
that my wife was also following the book when she got some spare time & thinking that
she would want it, I left it at Kerala. I can't wait to get back home this Saturday to read
the rest of this absolutely un-putdownable book.

If you like books (light fiction) and have not read Chetan Bhagat yet, I would highly
recommend "2 States"and after that I am sure you will find yourself buying his other
books.

P.S. : Inspite of being a fan of Chetan's writing and reading his books, I did not know (till
I read about it on a website yesterday) that there was a common thing about the titles
of all his books - they all have a number in them - 5, 1, 3 & 2.

When was your city last razed to the ground ?

2009-11-30T20:44:00.003+05:30

While at Serbia, we one day invited Mirko (an engineer with our client) for lunch at an
Indian restaurant. After placing the order and while waiting for the food to be served,
we were making small talk, discussing about each other's countries.

At school, History was one of my favourite subjects. Mainly because I like to read and
history is all about interesting stories, and also because I like to write and what better
platform for waxing eloquent than a history examination ? :-)

There was no Serbia then (it was Yugoslavia) and President Tito was well known in India because of his being one of the founders of NAM (Non Aligned Movement) along with the
then Indian Prime Minister Nehru. Even today, most people to whom I mentioned that I
had been to Serbia, confuse it with Siberia (Russia). But the moment you say Yugoslavia,
they know.

We had a barrage of questions for Mirko, who cheerfully helped clear our doubts. He had
just one question for us though : "When was your city last razed to the ground ?"

We were like, Huh ?

I really don't know when Chennai was last razed to the ground. Infact I don't think it was
razed in recent times - atleast in the last 60 years or more. When we told him that such
a thing has not happened (fortunately) to our city in a long time, he was kind of surprised.

And as usual Google helped me clarify why Mirko had that doubt. As per Wikipedia, "the
city of Belgrade was battled over in 115 wars & razed to the ground 44 times since the
ancient period by countless armies of the East and West." No wonder Mirko felt it odd
and maybe even boring that no one razed Chennai to the ground.

Most days after work, the 3 of us would get together in my room and talk shop and to
enjoy some nice Serbian wine/brandy. That day, the topic was Mirko's 'strange' query
& I told my colleagues about how Belgrade has been razed to the ground some 44 times.

One of my colleagues promptly said that he knows the reason why all these armies
over-ran Belgrade so many times. Since the said colleague was not known to really
be a history-buff, I was curious how he knew why this city was the target of so many
armies and ask him the reason.

As per him it was pretty elementary and he was surprised that we did not know the
reason. On prompting, he says, "You guys are dumb. Given the beautiful women
here, is it surprising that this country was fought over in 115 wars or was razed to
the ground 44 times? All those armies came for the women, dude."

Can't argue with that logic, can ya ?

A year on - the victims cry, while the perpetrator has fun.

2009-11-25T23:42:00.002+05:30

When something earth-shattering happens, we remember where we were and what we
were doing that day. When Rajiv Gandhi was assasinated in 1991, I was at Ranipet doing
in-plant training at the facility of BHEL. When his Mom, Indira Gandhi was assasinated
by her own body-guards, I was at Kerala and the moment the car announcing the news
passed by, my Mom's favourite doll fell from the showcase and shattered into pieces.

When 9/11 happened, I was driving from work to the gym, listening to the car-radio and
when they mentioned about planes hitting the WTC, I was like "this is some spoof" and I
ignored the news only to get home and have my wife tell me that it was indeed real.

When 26/11 happened, I was again at Kerala & it was on prime-time television, like some
soap. Just that it was real and real people were losing their lives. For 2-3 days, those few
***holes held my country at ransom as we all were left to watch T.V., while they shed the
blood of innocent people.

After the whole drama ended, what remained was a series of images - of dead people/cops,
of injured people, a traumatised nation that could not believe that a few guys could come
over via the sea and wreak havoc in our country. But to me, what endured was the image
of Moshe, the Israeli kid who lost his parents in that bloodshed in Bombay (I hate the new
name of Mumbai, just like I hate the new name of Chennai).

Moshe was bawling, like any kid in his situation. He had lost his parents, though at his very
tender age, he would not know what life and death meant. I did a blog post on him then and
was reminded of him a few days ago when the newspapers started profiling the first Anniv.
of the carnage. He reminded me of my own son - not that they are facially similar, just that
I worried how my son would cope without me. In the crying Moshe, I saw my son.

Last Sunday, the New Indian Express had their supplement devoted to 26/11 and one of
the articles was about Moshe. He used to cry out in his sleep for his parents. Today he still
kisses the photos of his parents and asks his grandparents where they are. A kid of just two
years, he remembers. And cries...

On the other hand, we have the perpetrator - Kasab. A kid, if you go by his age, but someone
who killed many. He is the lone survivor of the gang that hit Bombay. We all saw him on TV,
spraying bullets all around. Is there any more evidence needed ? But no, we can't be seen as
a country that does not give a fair trial. So, for the past 1 year, we have had him making the
rounds of the court, grinning at times, asking for Biriyani etc.

Can you imagine what his situation would have been if he had been in Pakistan ? Gallows.
And if he had done this crime in the US ? He would be in Guantanomo Bay, subject to the
torture exercise called water-boarding. But in India, he is having fun. Asking for biriyani,
making faces at the media etc.

The kin of his victims want him dead. No trial, no nothing - just the gallows. But would that
be enough punishment for someone who left a kid an orphan or snatched the parents of
many families ? No, that would be an easy death - not enough punishment for the havoc
he created.

What would be the best punishment for him that would make him regret what he did ?
Imprisonment at Tihar jail in the company of dreaded criminals who would make day &
(more importantly night) difficult for him. That would be fair. Hope someone up there in
the soft state called India understands this and takes appropriate action.

It was already a small world. The internet shrunk it even more.

2009-11-25T00:02:00.004+05:30

Every now and then I check out the sitemeter statistics of my blog, just to know who is
visiting my blog, from which country and how do they land up here. Is it while searching
for something else or direct to read my posts ?

Today the total visitor count showed 4500, a nice round figure and I went through the
stats. My normal daily hit-rate is like 7-8 visitors, which I know is miniscule compared
to the hits many blogs get. But when I saw that in just the early hours of today, there
were like 10 visitors, I became curious. There had to be some reason for this activity.

I checked details of some of the visits & found that one of the visitors had been referred
by http://www.ambassador-serbia.com/2009/11/24/the-beauty-of-serbian-women/ Wondering why this site would refer my blog, I go there and see that they have featured
my email about "more beauty per square metre".

This is the first time I have come across a website featuring my post and have to admit
that it felt good. To quote from the feature, "Last month, we wrote about an Indian
guy who spent a week working in Serbia saying that Serbian women are the most
beautiful on earth. Back in India, he’s still amazed with the beauty of Serbian women
& goes on to write another blog post about Serbian women. In fact, it’s an email that
he has sent to his colleagues a few days after landing at Belgrade. The email is so good
that I ended up including the whole thing, because it’s too good not to read — but check
out Indiandream’s site directly"

Since they would be moving to another feature (about Serbia) soon, I thought it would be
nice to have a snapshot of the blog as it looks now - below.

Apparently, this blog is about anything Serbian & the idea of this blog is to promote Serbia

and dispel any negative myths about the country. Nice effort and a well-designed site too.

And guess what, these guys do a good research on their posts too. They dug up the "I am"
poem from my archives which is like 4 years old and where I had mentioned that Keralite women are the most beautiful on earth. In the context of my "Serbian women post", it
would look like after visiting Serbia, my impression about Keralite women has changed. :-)

So, to clarify :
It is not like I changed my mind after seeing Serbian women. The crux of my post on Serbian women was about abundance of beauty ie. the ratio of beautiful women to
total women in Serbia was high. This is what puzzled me enough to write that post.

In India (all the states) and other countries also, there are amazingly beautiful women.
But what IMHO differentiated Serbia from these countries is that the %age of beautiful
women in the population is more in Serbia.

So, yeah, there are beautiful women in India, Japan, US, Belgium etc, but the ratio of
beautiful women to total female population is more in Serbia. Hope this clears things.

It sure is a small world. I post something - google spreads the word - someone from
faraway Serbia picks it up - I find out that they have picked it up - and post about it
here. Amazing, to say the least.

Something you did not know about Belgrade - more beauty per square metre.

2009-11-21T11:49:00.009+05:30

This was the email I referred in the preceding post and which was posted on tbhp,
only to be snipped and consigned to the dustbin in etherspace. :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub : Something you did not know about Belgrade - more beauty per square metre.
Sent : 12 October 2009 17:16PM
To : The_Office_Gang

It is not even a week since I landed at Belgrade, but it did not take me more than an hour
on the streets of Belgrade to realise that there is something very special about this place.
On the first day, I am walking to work & 99.9% women seen on the street are hot facially,
have great eyes, nice complexion & a figure that would give any movie actress (Bollywood, Hollywood whatever) a complex.

Even middle-aged women have an hour-glass figure. By looking at a woman from behind,
you would not be able to tell if she is 20 years old or 50. Initially I thought it must be just
a coincidence. But when each and every woman/girl on the street looks like a model and
the paved streets resemble a catwalk, the coincidence-theory flies out of the window.

When you add to this the fact that the "national dress" of Serbian-women is sleeve-less,
low-neck T-shirt and jean/mini-skirt, it becomes tough to negotiate your way on the
streets without banging into some pillar or the other. Actually T-shirt is a misnomer. It is
more like a man's vest (banian), just that it is colorful and is loooooow neck. After a week
here, cleavage has lost any charm that it had.

One of the first things (actually the 1st thing) my colleague who reached here a week
ahead of me, told me when I reached Belgrade was "Man, the girls here are hot".
Having seen some hot women in Belgium/Holland/France, I dismissed it off as being
because it is his first visit to Europe. Only to realise that I was so wrong.

The second thing he said (with quite a tinge of sadness) was "They do not even give
you a look." That was also so true. You pass by all these attractive women and not
even one even acknowledges your existence. Being the curious type, I decided to get
to the root of this. After all, how is it possible that all the women of a country can be
so attractive ?

A google search for "Serbian girls" led me to a few blogs, which confirmed that indeed
this was something any visitor to Serbia has experienced. Some attribute it to genetics,
some to the women taking great care in maintaining themselves etc. But what everyone
finally agrees on is that Serbia is one place on earth where you find more beauty per
square metre. I think Serbia should trademark this tagline.

And, it is not just men who have experienced this, there are blogs writtten by women
who felt severe inferiority complex on seeing the female beauty in Serbia. The blogs
also confirmed that the women here are aware that they are awesome and which is
the reason why they do not acknowledge stares from the drooling men. If at all you
think you would like to have a chance with these ladies, be prepared to have deep
pockets and a high-end car (a Merc S-class or a M-class should do).

Bottomline : If you are able to get to Serbia on work (like me), well and good. If not, beg/borrow/steal to have a vacation here. Only thing to remember is that you should
not bring your wife/gf - not a good idea.

P.S. : Another great thing about this place is the awesome range of cars on the streets.
I am yet to come across a country that has battered Yugos/Ladas to S-classes. Even
our Maruti-800 is here, so is the Santro, Getz, Optra etc etc. But then I am sure none
of you would be coming over here to checkout cars. :-)

BTW, a dollar gets you 62 Dinars, which makes it I guess a great destination for those
from the US. Another reason for you to come down. :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And these were some of the snaps I posted on the forum. I am aware that these snaps
might not be that great to back up my claim of Serbian women being the most pretty
on earth. But then, clicking humans is not as easy as clicking cars - the cars don't mind
their pictures being taken. So, these are just random shots that we could take.

1) A mother of two kids - yet so svelte.

2. Exudes attitude with an 'A'. I am not hazarding a guess as to her age.

3. Two kids - late teens maybe.

4. This lady would be in her late thirties or early forties, but she had an amazing poise.
Pity the snap does not do justice to her looks.

5. Two girls at the campus of Belgrade University.

6. This is a professional model. But unlike other places where models stand apart from

normal women in looks/figure, in Serbia she is just one of the many women like her.

7. A very pretty girl at a coffee-shop.

8. Catwalk on the streets.

9. See the long black tresses on this girl.

And that's all the snaps I had.

Where I am both the contributor and the moderator

2009-11-21T11:08:00.002+05:30

I was talking to a colleague who bought a Chevy Spark recently. He was telling me how he
stumbled across team-bhp during his car search and that the forum is a mine of information
on anything about cars and that he is addicted to the forum.

I could easily relate to it because that was exactly how I stumbled upon team-bhp in 2005
when I was searching for information on the Baleno. Me & wifey had finalised the WagonR
and that was then I did (just like that) a test-drive of the Baleno. After a 4km drive on the
TIDEL road, I was floored by the amazing pickup and driveability of the car.

And as if to prove a point, the sales-guy had me drive the car with the driver-side window
fully open and inspite of the typical noon-time Chennai summer heat, the a/c kept us all
cool. But then from 4lakhs, I was now increasing my budget to 6lakhs and I wanted to be
sure that I was not buying a car that would kill me in maintenance or fuel. So, started to
get info on the car - from owners and online.

This led me to team-bhp and it did not take me long to understand that this was a real
under-rated car, which not only was a deal at 6L, but also beat many costlier cars in
torque, quickness, 0-100 timings, fuel-efficiency etc. And guess what, the sales-guy had
a point - in a test conducted by a car-magazine to check the a/c effectiveness of cars in
India, the Baleno was the first. Beating even the Merc S-class, a car costing 75 lakhs or so.

Anyway, I told my colleague that I understand his addiction and that he will learn a lot
from the site and that the main reason for the site's quality is the effective moderation
done by the 10-12 moderators. They ensure that people stick to the topic of the thread,
do not indulge in personal attacks, spam, trolling etc and are the reason why this site is
one of the best in India.

But little did I realise that in just a few days of saying this, I would be at the receiving
end of the moderator's scissors. :-) As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am doing a
thread on the cars in Serbia and in passing I mentioned there about how the Serbian
women seemed to be the most beautiful in the world. Some guys wanted more info
on that and ofcourse photos to back my claim.

So 2 days ago, I posted there an email that I had sent to my colleagues a few days after
landing at Belgrade. Also posted some snaps that me & my colleagues had taken of the
women there. Knowing the rules of the forum, I was sure that there was nothing lewd
or objectionable in the email and the photos were also not smutty. But ofcourse one of
the moderators in his wisdom, felt that the post did not belong there and deleted the
post.

While I did think that there was nothing in the post to require deletion, I left it at that.
But, I felt that the post did not deserve to be in my email SentItems and needed a larger
audience. I wrote that email on 12th October and many-a-time I thought I should post
it here, but somehow did not. After the post got deleted, I decided that I need to put it
up here, where the only censoring that applies is self-censoring - my own.

Which I guess, is what makes blogs such a great medium. I am the contributor and I also
am the moderator. Just because the blog is mine, I can't print trash or defame someone.
But in my wisdom, if I think that a post is good to be in the public domain, it will figure
here. The next post will be about this facet of Serbia - it's women. Stay tuned.

When a lie-detector would have come in handy.

2009-11-19T03:36:00.002+05:30

Have you ever found yourself mediating a dispute between two individuals ?

If both are honest, the mediating part is easy because you can easily make out who is
wrong and then it is just about making the wrong-doer understand his fault. But what
if both are lying about their role in the dispute ? It is plain tough as I learnt yesterday.

I first had the guy tell me how it was just not his fault that the whole fight happened
& that he was avoiding a fight until it was thrust in his face and he had to get physical.
Talking to him, I felt he had a point - sometimes women can be crappy.

Only till I talked to the girl. She was all tears and I could barely make out what she was
saying. Even in normal times, a girl's tears can make me (and most men) melt. So for a
few seconds, I was left speechless. She went on to say how she was avoiding a fight and
it was thrust in her face, till she could no longer avoid. And when she talked back, she
got hit by the guy.

Hey, wait. Wasn't that what the guy also said ? I was now seriously confused. More so
because I was talking to them over the phone & when you are not talking face-to-face,
it is all the more difficult to know if a person is lying or not. Not that it would have helped
if they were in front of me, because I am not really that good at catching liars by facial expressions, as I know from experience.

Anyway, as the girl was telling me her story, it was just 3 minutes to 7 PM (yesterday)
and time for my daily telecon. Ofcourse, I could not tell a weeping girl that I had to hang
up on her for some lousy call at work. So, I told her that a better judge would be my wife
and asked them both to call her - she knows them as well as I do.

As I return to work, I wonder how great it would have been to have a lie-detector, which
would have helped me solve this puzzle, where both seemed to be genuine. Though I am
sure that one of them has to be lying, because if both were so good as they claimed, the
fight would not have happened in the first place.

And yeah, the lie-detector would have come in handy for some other stuff too.

Mixing devotion and technology. How about a remix instead ?

2009-11-18T20:31:00.003+05:30

In the beginning, man created the plain old landline with its usual tring-tring noise
& people were happy that they could communicate long distance without travelling.
No one cared about missed calls or tried to take a 2nd call when already on the line
with someone, like some people I know do.

Then cellphones came into the world with customisable music-only ring-tones. After
that mobile manufacturers let you actually set songs of your choice (music + lyrics)
as ring-tones, which mainly served the purpose of irritating everyone around you,
more than letting you know of an incoming call.

But man (or woman) is never satisfied and thus arose the need for ring-back tunes or
hello-tunes, which is what someone who calls your phone gets to hear. And hey, if it is
a song I like, I don't have any issues with the same. For eg. a friend, who occasionally
drops in at this blog has the lovely single "Every breath you take and every move you
make" from "Police" as his ring-back tune. So on the rare occassions that I call him, it
is a pleasure to listen to that lovely song.

But some hello-tunes can be plain irritating, especially if you have to go through it many
times a day. At work, there are 2 people whom I have to call atleast 4-5 times a day. One
of them is our lab engineer and he comes across as a very devotional guy - ash/vibhuti on
the forehead etc - and it is no surprise that his ring-back tone is a Hindu devotional hymn
which starts off as "Om namo...". But then it is his phone &his choice and anyway, I need
to call him only if there is something screwed up in the lab.

The other colleague is someone I have to call up more regularly because she is part of 2
projects I lead. Since the thin line between workdays and weekends has merged, I have
to endure her ring tone on weekends also. She also has set a devotional hymn (Sashti-e
nokka Saravana ...) as her ring-back tone.

Initially, it felt good to listen to it, but then over time it gets to you when you hear the
whole song 4-5 times a day. More so because sometimes she takes a long time to answer
calls and you have to go through the whole song.

Again its her phone and her choice of ring-back tune. But that song always reminds me
of a beautiful song (Padhinettu vayadhu, ila vatta manadhu, yengudhu pai poda) from
the Tamil movie Suriyan, which is set to the music of her hello-tune. Not only are the
lyrics / music awesome, but actress Roja enacted the dance sequence so senuously that
it remains a favourite of mine, even though that movie came out a decade or more ago.

I so wish my colleague would set this movie-song as her hello-tone and then I would
maybe even dial her phone just like that only to listen to that awesome song. Since that
is not going to happen, maybe I should set it as my ring-tone so that I get to hear it,
everytime someone calls me.

P.S. : I just viewed the Suriyan song on YouTube here. And man, Roja is just amazing.
The last 15 seconds of the video go to prove that size-zero is trash, when it comes to
feminine beauty.

Planetary beliefs in the info age.

2009-11-17T15:09:00.002+05:30

After hitting the snooze button many times, I finally tear myself away from the comfort
of my bed at 7:30 AM today. I am ready by 8AM and as I drive out of the apartment
complex, my gaze falls on a svelte sari-clad figure walking on the left side of the road.

From the walk/gait/figure, I know that it is Sandy (not her real name), a resident
of our apartment complex. I know her from the time she was in the 11th Standard
- I had just completed my Engineering studies and we had moved recently into our
apartment after letting it out on rent for 4 years.

One of the two daughters of a Malayalee couple settled in Chennai, she was the exact
opposite of her younger sister. While both sisters were pretty, the younger one (let's
call her Shalu) was generally considered by guys in the neighborhood to be a shade
more appealing.

It helped that the younger sibling had dimpled cheeks and always had a flirty/naughty
smile playing on her lips, while elder sis Sandy was more the serious type. My opinion
was different though - I thought the serious maturity of Sandy was more beautiful than
the playfulness seen in Shalu.

Anyway, as time went by, I became busy with work and travel, while they joined college,
then took up jobs and Sandy even did a stint on TV - she hosted a show on a Malayalam
TV channel. On the rare occasions when I came across her show, I felt that while some
mediocre-looking people look great on photo/video, it is the opposite for some like Sandy,
who look great in person.

Anyway, I am not sure if she still does any TV work - I don't watch much TV anyway.
But I understand she works as a teacher and on all days when I have left home at 8AM,
I have seen her walking the 1km or so to the main road. In all these years, there never
arose a need/occasion for me to talk to either of the sisters, though as the Secretary of
the Flat Association, I did drop in at their home a few times to talk to their Dad - who
was the President.

And then a few years ago, I heard that her sister was getting married. In India, it is
unusual for the younger sister to get married before the elder and the talk was that
Sandy had 'Chowa Dosham' - a planetary fault - due to which marriage alliances did
not work out. I don't believe in horoscopes (we don't have one made anyway) and
so 'Chowa dosham' or any other dosham for that matter, is just a load of bull, to me.

Anyway, while her sister got married, became a parent and moved on only to visit
on vacation, Sandy continues to stay with her parents. On the rare occasions that I
come across her, I think how unfortunate it is that such a fine girl/woman, who is
good-looking, well-behaved, educated, and employed should remain a spinster just
because some star/planet is in some phase.

Already we see people giving horoscopes the pass and in many cases caste/religion
is no longer an issue too, when it comes to marriage. Hopefully the next generation
would really leave all these trivia behind and choose partners based on compatibility.

From the mouth of babes

2009-11-08T18:17:00.002+05:30

After a nice lunch, my wife and son are in the mood for an afternoon siesta. A common
practice here, which my parents also follow. Though I don't have this habit, the incessant
rains make it feel like it would be good to curl up in bed. So, the three of us hit the bed
for a short nap.

But like always, it is a tough thing to get my son to take a nap. He sits up on the bed and
starts playing with his 'laptop'. It is actually a plastic cuboidal bag in which came his plastic
alphabet/number blocks. It has a string handle which he slings around his neck and acts
as if he is typing on the laptop. And the following conversation ensues between Mom & son.

Aman : Why does Dad have to go to Madras ?
Mom : Because he needs to work.

Aman : Why does Dad need to work ?
Mom : So that he can earn money.

Aman : Why does Dad need to earn money ?
Mom : So that he can buy you all sorts of toys. You want toys, don't you ?

Aman : No, I don't want any toys.
Mom : You don't ? Why ? I thought you liked toys.

Aman : No, I don't like any toys.

Silence ensues for a few minutes, while Aman gets back to his laptop and we try to sleep.

Aman : Mom, I want a new car. A blue one.
Mom : Ask your Dad. See, this is why he needs to work. So that he can buy cars for you.

Aman : But he can just buy it from Madras.
Mom : Yeah, but don't we need money to buy cars ?

Aman : Yes, I will make money.
Mom : (Wide-eyed now) How will you make money ?

Aman : I will do work.
Mom : What work will you do ?

Aman : I will do the same work that Dad does and make money.
Mom : You will work on the laptop like him and make money ?

Aman : Yes.

I am listening to the whole thing and wonder if kids of my generation were also like this.
The stuff that kids of today talk seem to be so much beyond their age. Maybe it is the
kind of exposure they have from birth. They grow up with mobile phones, internet, DVD
players, cars, air-travel etc etc, most of which in my childhood were just ideas in the minds
of their inventors. Well, we learn new things every day.

When you run fearing an army and run into...

2009-11-08T17:06:00.002+05:30

Looks like the monsoons has set in over Tamilnadu. It had been raining on and off for the
past 2 weeks and then strengthened over the last week and by last Friday, the rain-gods
were in full form.

When it comes to rains, Chennai is kind of in a fix. We cannot do without the meagre quota
of annual rains, because the reservoirs feeding the city's water-lines would dry up, leading
to water scarcity. And we cannot also handle too much rains due to the way the soil here is
leading to water-stagnation, flooding etc. And ofcourse traffic becomes a nightmare.

Commuting to work & back becomes a pain due to the flooded roads and because those
that usually commute by bikes would bring out their cars during rains, leading to traffic
becoming even more dense. So, when my manager was OK with me working from home
this week, I was happy. But what awaited me at Kerala was even more rains. And this
is the typical Kerala rain, which pours by the bucketful. Only consolation is that I don't
need to drive to work.

Reminded me of a Malayalam saying "Pada pedichu pandala-thu poyaal, pandam-koluthi
pada". Translated to English, this would mean "I ran away to Pandalam fearing the army,
only to run into an army carrying burning-torches". Pandalam is a town in Kerala, some
20 kms from my place.

I hear from my friend in Chennai that all through the weekend it has been raining cats &
dogs there and the newspapers predict more rains. Just hope the city is able to handle it.

Sorry for helping myself to your net connection, Senthil. Thanks though.

2009-11-04T19:30:00.002+05:30

Many years ago, dial-up internet was a cool thing. You dialed-in via the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) twisted-pair line that terminated at your home and were greeted
with the modem static noise & then you got connected to the Web at a measly bitrate
of say max. 56kbps. And you were happy, because there was nothing else available.

Ofcourse, even in India where simple things take years to happen, broadband came in,
offered by the Govt. behemoth BSNL and other private operators and quickly the whole
world had jumped in to enjoy hi-speed internet.

Except ofcourse yours truly, who had various reasons to not go the broadband way :
i) I am anyway spending my non-sleeping hours at office where we have a leased line
with much better speed.
ii) I am anyway going to move to Kerala (yeah, long time dream) - so why bother ?
iii) etc etc

So, on the very rare occasions that I needed to check something on the net, I would
still go dial-up. Ofcourse after clicking on a link, I had enough time to put a pot of tea
on the cooking range and by the time I was back, the page would be just loading.

And then last month I decided enough was enough & summoned the courage to land up
at a BSNL customer service centre for a broadband connection. After about a week of
applying, some souls from BSNL landed up at my place & put a broadband connection
in place.

I assumed that all my worries of net connectivity were over. Ofcourse, that was not the
case. Over the last month, I saw that the modem takes its own sweet time to come up
and get connected. And as soon as I heave a sigh of relief and get online, the connection
is disrupted.

This becomes doubly irritating because of the additional effort and time involved in
connecting to my office network via VPN using a SoftToken key, which is a process in
itself. So everytime net connectivity is lost, the VPN connection also breaks and I need
to start all over again.

Yesterday, after reaching home around 10:30 PM, I realised that I forgot to send out
some details that my manager had asked for. So, I decide to get online and send off the
email. I switch on the modem and after a few minutes, all the relevant lights on the
front-panel are on, indicating that everything is fine.

Wireless connectivity indicates strength to be 80% and shows 'connected', which means
I am ready to surf. But No, I can't get on the internet. I try a few things - check settings,
try wired-connectivity, reset modem etc, but still no connectivity.

As I curse BSNL and am about to give up, I see another available wireless connection in
the list. It just says "Senthil", which I assume must be the name of one of my neighbours
in the adjoining flats and whose net connection has been configured with his name.

The signal strength is only 20%, but what surprises me is that my laptop has locked-on
to and connected to that connection. And guess what I am online. I VPN into my office
network, send out the email, check my mails, reply to some urgent ones and inspite of
the 20% strength, it was not slow by any means. Work done, I log off the connection.

If I knew that inspite of having my own broadband connection, I would need to rely
on someone else's net account, I would not have opted for a connection of my own.
So, Senthil, thanks for helping me out, albeit unknowingly. And sorry for adding a few
hundred KB to your data usage.

Roti, kapda aur makaan. Aur TV bhi. What next ? A laptop ?

2009-11-02T18:48:00.003+05:30

I overslept and am late for work. Since I have to stop at the telephones office and my
bank on the way, I am rushing to work. Enroute, there is a small traffic jam in one of
the streets at Trust Puram - a traffic jam due to lots of people on the streets.

Not many vehicles though, just a few autos. Most of the people seem to be carrying big
cartons & are all smiles. Some are loading these cartons into auto-rickshaws, while the
rest are carrying it on their shoulders.

Does not take much time for me to figure out what the cartons are. They are the free
TVs doled out by the Tamilnadu government - an election promise of the ruling combine
being fulfilled. As I cross the traffic jam, there is some sort of a government office where
the TVs are being handed over and there are some 500 or more people standing in 5-6
queues. Waiting for their turn to get the free TV.

I am sure this must be a first in the world. A government doling out TVs to the electorate.
And that too in a state, which already has a high TV penetration, thanks to the influence
movies have had here for decades. Which means most of these people now have a TV for
the bedroom too.

I even know some pretty well-off people who stood in line to get this TV, just because
it is free. And in India, if it is free, we find it tough to resist, even if it is a product that
is low-quality or something we don't need.

But hey, how is this TV free ? Is the politician paying for this from his pocket ? No.
It is the state that bears this burden and where does the state get money from ?
From the taxes that you and me pay. Taxes which should ideally be used to
enforce law & order, to maintain roads, storm-water drains, to provide better
administration etc etc.

As always, the politicians know that we are suckers for freebies and use this to push
valid issues of public concern under the carpet, while we stand in line for free TVs.
Come next elections, the promise will be free laptops for everyone. Doesn't matter
that most people dont have any use for it. As long as there are suckers like me/you
to foot the bill, and other suckers to stand in line, why would the politician care ?

Hey, the Serbs are a lot like us Indians.

2009-10-31T21:52:00.004+05:30

As I mentioned in a previous post, Belgrade (written as 'Beograd' and pronounced here
as Beyograad') has quite some resemblance to any Indian metro -basically in terms of
the infrastructure. The roads are like we have in Chennai - mostly good, but occasionally
bumpy. Like the old housing board apartments you see in Chennai, there are similar old buildings in Belgrade too. The cars scene is also like in India - small hatches are favourites
here too.

But what really interested me was the similarity between the people. Ofcourse being
Caucasians, the skin tone is different from Indians, but there are quite some similarities
in the way they think and do things.

Maybe this could be because it is also a developing country like ours. Like us, they try
to reuse / recycle everything. For eg. I do not buy special "garbage-bags". Instead, I
use the thin polythene covers in which my groceries come in. In our client's office, I saw
the maid do the same thing - for the dustbins, they use the polythene covers in which
the staff buy & bring-in bakery products.

Also, like us (and unlike Americans), they do not believe in if-it-is-broken-throw-it
and buy-a-new-one. Like I would try to repair and use a product till there is no more
life in it, I see people here also do the same.

And just because some product is old / out-of-fashion, they don't just go ahead and
replace it. Everything is used till it is no more usable. So common a practice in India.
Check-out the hanging flush-lever in this Water Closet. The last time I saw such a
flushing system was in Assam in the early-eighties. But it works, so they use it.

And ofcourse the famous 'jugaad' (make-shift) quality of Indians is very much seen
in Serbia also. If a device doesn't work, we would do some make-shift to get it usable.
These guys are good at that too. Check out the lock on the restroom door at our client's
place.

It was nice to come across countries in Europe that believe in the 3 Rs (Reduce, Reuse & Recycle), which goes a long way in saving the environment.

The 2nd hair-cut.

2009-10-30T14:15:00.003+05:30

Till some 2 months ago, my wife used to trim Aman's hair, which was possible only when
he is sleeping because otherwise he won't sit still while she was at it. Ofcourse, this was'nt resulting in a proper haircut & we decided that it was time for him to get a proper haircut
at the neighborhood barber-shop.

I have no idea whether he would sit still and allow the barber to trim his hair, but I decide
to give it a try. As he sits in a nearby chair, I get myself a haircut first. The idea is that he
sees me getting a haircut and understands that this is a normal thing and nothing to be
afraid of. As expected, he curiously watches as I get my hair cut.

Then when it is his turn, I decide to take it easy the first time. Instead of him sitting alone
in the chair, I seat him on my lap and the barber trims his hair. Overall, he was pretty still during the process.

Last week it was time for the 2nd haircut. Again, I had my hair cut first with him watching.
This time around, I felt he could sit on the chair on his own and have the hair-cut done. A
thick cushion is put on the chair and Aman is seated on it.

Last time there was no cloth around the neck, so I wonder if he will allow it or not.
But even though he finds it odd, he allows the cloth to be around him. And for most
of the time, he was still except when trimmed hair fell on his cheeks, which triggers
an itch. Ofcourse I was nearby to brush off the hair from his face and at the end of
the haircut, the barber was appreciative of the fact that he sat still and did not make
a fuss, like some other kids do.

Some snaps I took of Aman at his 2nd hair-cut.

It is kind of funny to see him all wrapped up in the pink cloth. At the same time from the
way he is sitting so still and calm, there is no indication of the naughty kid he usually is. :-)

A white crow ? No way can you fool me again.

2009-10-30T13:14:00.002+05:30

A month or so ago, my niece Divya called me up all excited about a place in Cochin where
one could pay & take short horse-riding sessions. When I asked where it was in Cochin,
she said that she will not disclose the location, but if we were to come to Cochin, she will
take us there.

I told her that we need not drive 100 kms to Cochin to do horse-riding and that I was
planning to buy a pony for Aman. She believed my story & sounded very excited about
the prospect of having our own pony. I left it at that as I was just kidding.

Ofcourse, Divya believed what I said and this became a big topic of discussion for her at
home. Even though my sister tried to convince her that I was joking about buying the
pony, she would not believe it. Her logic being, "Mom, Biju-uncle will get anything for
Aman. So I am sure he would have bought a pony".

As I am driving home from work one evening a month ago, my sister calls me :

Sis: Hey, Divya actually believed your pony-buying story and is driving us crazy here.
Me : Well, that is not a story. We did buy a pony last week.

Sis: Hey don't bluff. Dont think you can fool me like you fooled Divya.
Me : What is there in this to fool you ? I had been thinking of a pet for Aman for a long
time and I thought a pony would be a good choice.

Sis: Come on. A horse costs a lot of money.
Me : Yes, race horses and top breeds do. But this is just a pony and no special breed.

Sis: Where did you buy it from ? I don't know of anyplace nearby that sells horses.
Me : From a stud farm at Kodukulanji, 15kms from our home. Cost 40K, but worth it.

Sis: Hey Biju, don't bluff ok. I don't believe this.
Me : If you cant believe, come over and check it out for yourself.

Sis: It won't be a horse. It must be a Kovar-Kazhuda (Mallu-speak for donkey).
Me : Donkeys are even cheaper. This is a horse.

Sis: Anyway, let me call up home and confirm for myself.

As she cuts the phone, I call up home. Mom takes the call. I tell her the whole story and
ask her to play along when my sis calls. As expected, my sis calls home immediately and
my Mom plays along to the pony story.

What I did not expect my sis to do was to call my wife to reconfirm, who being unaware
that I was playing a joke on my sister, promptly says that there is no pony or donkey here.

Anyway, after this incident, my sis is a little careful about believing what I say. So when
I called her from Serbia and told her that we saw a white crow here, it was natural for her
to think that I am again playing a prank on her.

But, I did see a white crow (atleast partially white) at Serbia and here are the snaps I took.

P.S. : A post after a long time - apart from lack of time, did not just get the mood to post.

Serbian Chronicles to continue...

2009-10-21T10:34:00.002+05:30

Though I always make small reminder notes of the interesting stuff I come across in
places I visit eg. Serbia, I never came close to expanding them all to full-fledged posts.
Not because I did not want to, but because the last 3 weeks have been really hectic due
to work, travel etc.

Infact I drafted this post yesterday on the train to Kerala. And that was after putting
in 3-hours of work on the train - listing out tasks for the next 3 days that I'd be working
from home, going through & cleaning up pending emails, etc. After replacing the battery,
my laptop now lasts close to 4 hours and looks like I can use some of the time I spend on
the train weekly, in a productive manner.

While blogs are partly meant to cater to an audience, which is true of my blog too, most
of the impetus for my posting here comes from other reasons. Ofcourse I am honoured
that some of my friends and other random people consider it worthwhile to spend a few
minutes of their precious time checking out what I post.

But actually I write for myself. The blog exists for the same reason that I used to write
diaries in my childhood. To help take me years later to the life I was part of years ago.
Once in a while, I take out one of the diaries from the time I was in school or college &
reading the entries there brings back vivid memories of that time years ago. The only
difference is that while my blog is public, my diaries are not.

I came across a lot of interesting people in Serbia, different food and customs, cars,
buildings, hotels, awesome parks etc. If I don't jot them down somewhere, I am sure
to forget some of it atleast. So, a blog post on these would help save these thoughts for
years to come and in the lonely days of old age, maybe I can go check out all the old
posts and relive the experience.

Another reason to write this blog is for my family. Even though I talk to them daily,
I don't obviously have the time to tell them everything I want to about the places I
visit. A blog makes it easy for them to come read up and get updated. My sisters and
wife make it a point to check my blog atleast once a week (they dont have the time to
get on the net daily, like many of us here).

And ofcourse, I hope this blog will help my son know what life was like in his father's
time.

So, the Serbian chronicles will continue, though posts might be delayed due to work
taking up most of my time.

It's good to be back home.

2009-10-19T14:06:00.002+05:30

Reached home around 1AM today. Managed to grab a few hours of sleep before getting
to work. Still feel kinda sleepy / groggy - nothing a few hours of sleep can't fix.
Chennai was mostly asleep as the taxi drove me home. Was nice to see empty streets,
instead of the usual maddening traffic. Feels good to be back home.

If you thought the Swift was ugly...

2009-10-18T06:12:00.002+05:30

While the Swift is a very popular car in India and a hot seller for Maruti-Suzuki, there
is no doubt about the fact that it is overall an ugly car. My Dad has a Swift and when at
Kerala, I drive it and mostly like the car - though it is not a patch on my Baleno. But
that does not take its ulginess away.

But, if you thought a car could not get any uglier, you should have a look at the Renault
Megane. Looks like the car designers at Renault were given a very simple brief - take
the Swift as inspiration and come up with something even more uglier.

And that was how the Megane was born, oops, manufactured. Have a look at the snap
below - does it not look like a Swift that was hit on the roof with a battering ram, thereby
flattening it a bit and extending the rear, making it arguably the most butt-ugly car in the
world.

Ofcourse, the Serbs don't seem to be too bothered, given the number of Meganes you
can see on the roads. To each his/her own.

The car that put India on wheels is very much in Belgrade too.

2009-10-17T14:52:00.005+05:30

Serbia is a dream come true for any car lover. Reason being that the variety of cars
seen here is unimaginable. You see a spanking new Merc S-class parked alongside a
decade-old Yugo or Lada. You have Japanese / European / American / Indian cars
and any other that you can imagine. And almost all the cars you have back home in
India, are available here -Spark, Optra, Accent, i10, Santro, Aveo, U-VA etc.

But nothing made me feel as glad as the sight of our very own M-800 on the streets of
Belgrade, complete with the "Maruti Suzuki" tag, which means that these are "Made in
India". Remember the Alisha Chinai video featuring Milind Soman that came a decade
or more ago, titled "Made in India" ?

Some M800s I spotted at Belgrade. The look like the M800 we have in India, but have
some must-have-here features like rear-demister, rear-wiper etc. I wonder if they come
with powersteering too here.

The M-800 has always been special for me. It not only put India on wheels, but that was
our first car, the first car I drove and the car with which there was such a special bond.
It was with us for 19 years without ever breaking down even once. And that car is why I
respect Japanese quality so much and why I would always buy only Japanese cars.

Cheers to the "Made in India" tag going places.

P.S. : I am doing a full-length thread on the Serbian car-scene on my car-forum and thus
won't really be repeating the stuff here, due to lack of time. If any of you want to know
more about what the car-scene in Belgrade and view snaps of cars available here, please checkout this linky.

PDA of a different kind.

2009-10-16T19:29:00.002+05:30

While you will come across instances of PDA (Public Display of Affection) in most European
cities, Paris takes the cake and it is pretty normal to come across couples sharing loooong
hugs or kisses. Maybe it's something to do with the city itself - there is something romantic about Paris. We even came across a couple lost in their own world in a hug, under one of
the many bridges over the Siene river, while we were taking a boat tour of the river.

While Serbia is not out there, this city is not intolerant of PDA either. The University of
Belgrade is on the way we take to work and since the crowd is young, you come across
many instances of PDA.

While no one raises an eyebrow here about a couple sharing a passionate kiss in a place
as public as a road, what we saw one day did raise quite some eyebrows. No, there was
nothing lewd about it. Just that it was unusual - not something you would normally come
across. Have a look at the pic below.

We saw this couple at a pedestrian crossing. He was carrying her on his shoulders, like I
many-a-time carry my son. When the signal turned green for pedestrians, he crossed the
road and walked some 150 metres to his car. All the while, she was enjoying the ride and
the attention from everyone around.

We were taking in the spectacle wide-eyed & it took me time to regain my composure and
reach for my camera to snap this rare moment. By that time, he had walked away & thus
I ended up with this not-so-clear picture.

I sure was impressed by the guy's action. I mean, he surely is physically strong to carry
his girlfriend around on his shoulders. But it takes more than physical strength to do this
in a public place. His girlfriend must have been mighty impressed.

Getting colder by the day. And start missing home...

2009-10-15T03:23:00.003+05:30

It was 6 deg C yesterday evening when we left for the hotel. As always, I had come
prepared for the winter - had a leather jacket and a sweater. But since one of my
colleagues had forgotten to pack any warm clothing, I gave him my jacket, while I
decided to manage with the sweater.

It was not a big gesture or anything. Just returning a favour that I have received
from others many times over. I have landed in Atlanta without a jacket or even a
sweater assuming that I would be returning home before winter starts. But as luck
would have it, I had to postpone my return and it was only helpful friends who came
to my help then. This was just a small payback from my side.

Anyway, winter seems to be setting in slowly, but steadily. Today it was 4 deg C, which
is quite cold. As we walked to the hotel in the evening, I could feel my hands go numb.
You see the locals walk around bundled in jackets and feel grateful that you don't have
to endure this on a yearly basis.

It's a week now that I have been here. Some places are now quite familiar. There are
people at work, at the hotel, at the restaurants we frequent, who are familiar. But still
you miss people back home. For close to 2 years, I have been seeing my son almost
every weekend and this is one weekend when I could not see him. I talk to my wife
over the phone daily, but still I miss the closeness of sitting across her & talking to her.

And last but not the least, I miss my car. By the time I return to Chennai, it would be
close to a month since I parked her securely at my friend's office. She is all covered up
from the Chennai dust & occasional rains, but then a car is not meant to be covered up.
As I watch the Audis and Skodas race by, the only thought that comes to mind is to
get back home next week and take her out for a drive. A long drive.

Serbia is great, the people are good, food is not bad, night life is excellent, the women
are the most beautiful on earth. But still there is no place like home.

It's a small world. No doubt about that.

2009-10-13T15:51:00.002+05:30

Even before I came to Belgrade, I have been communicating over phone and email with a
few engineers working for our client here. Milan was one of them, a helpful guy who would respond promptly to any queries I had about their system.

His name intrigued me because not only is Milan a common name/word back home (one of
my nephews is named Milan and in Hindi, this word would mean "merger" or "union"), but
his last name Shreshta was also Indian-ish. I assumed this to be pure coincidence and did
not give it another thought.

After we landed here, we would come across Milan almost everyday since he also worked
at the same office. Yesterday evening, we were chatting after work when I told him that
both his first & last name sound very Indian. Imagine my surprise when he says that this
is because his father is from Nepal, and Mom is Serbian. He looks like any Serbian guy and
it would be tough to detect his Asian connection from his looks.

It surely is a small world. We have travelled many thousand miles from home only to run
into someone whose roots (atleast partially) lie just across the border of our country.

It's raining in Belgrade.

2009-10-13T03:45:00.004+05:30

We left work late (around 8PM) and I had my sweater slung around my neck. The security
guard was aghast and went, "It is freezing outside. You need to wear the sweater, not sling
it around your neck."

While I would have liked to ignore the advice and move on, I decided to heed his words and
wore the sweater, which was good because by the time we walked the 2 kms to the hotel, it
was getting cold.

We picked up some food on the way - shawarma, pizza slices and broccoli-bajji and settled
down in front of the TV. A colleague had come down from Chennai today and while he was
sharing his travel experience, I decided to walk down to the reception.

It was raining outside and coupled with the cold wind, this meant that no one was on the
streets. There still were trams and buses plying and ofcourse people zipping around in
their cars, but there was no one on the streets.

It felt nice to watch the rain. Very different from the heavy rains in Kerala, but still it
always feels nice to watch the rains. All I missed was a hot cup of tea and a nice book
to read.

Where did these cuties vanish to ?

2009-10-12T02:41:00.003+05:30

When was the last time you saw a sparrow at Chennai ? I really don't remember seeing
one for a long time. The only memory I have about sparrows is from my childhood, when
we were staying at Ahmedabad (GJ) and there used to be sparrows that built nests in the parapet, laid eggs and raised their young.

I am not sure why these birds vanished from our cities - maybe the pollution or rampant
use of pesticides. There is a theory that says cellphone towers drive away these birds. But
my colleague says that in HongKong, they use cellphones a lot, yet there still are sparrows
there. So that might not be a reason.

I clicked these sparrows at a park in Belgrade.

They have many parks here and it adds character to the city. Cellphone use is rampant

here too, but if the sparrows still are here, then that doesn't look like a reason for their

vanishing from Indian cities.

Also spotted was this pigeon, strutting around. One of the most favourite birds of my son.

With Chennai sprucing up all the parks in the city and cleaning up the Cooum, I won't be surprised if we see a return of these avian residents.

Slowly winter sets in. We could do without the rains though.

2009-10-12T01:43:00.002+05:30

11-Oct-2009, Sunday :
It has been warm here from the time I landed at Belgrade. Which was, to be frank, quite
a disappointment, because I was hoping for a break from the warm weather back home.
To add to our woes, our customer's office being spacious enough just for their employees,
we were given a work-area which was a little low on ventilation and air-conditioning.

We had been cribbing all of last week about the weather and I guess as an answer to our
prayers, it started getting a bit cold yesterday evening. We left from work for the hotel
at around 7PM and we could feel the chill air. Today (Sunday) morning when we went
down for coffee at 8AM, it was quite cold, which was accentuated by the wind.

We had planned to take a conducted city tour, but the pretty girls at the hotel reception
told us that the travel agency did not have tours on Sundays. Anyway, we being not easily
deterred, we decide to explore the city on our own. One of us had a map and we took off
on foot. The destination was supposed to be the banks of the river Danube. Yeah, I am
sure most of you remember it from your Geography lessons in school - I do.

We walk some 3 kms and reach a touristy kind of place. Sort of like those big squares in
Belgium. There are open-air restaurants all around, big buildings, statues etc - basically
stuff that tourists love to photograph. After 4 days at Belgrade, this was the first time I
saw women who were flabby / out-of-shape, and I was seriously worried that this was
going to prove my theory of all Serbian women being flawless wrong. But not to worry,
these women were foreigners - mostly American tourists.

We decide to rest our tired legs and grab something to eat. By the time we had some
food, it started drizzling and down the drain went our plan to hit the river. What fun
would it be to get to the river all soaking wet ? And anyway who would be at the river
in such weather. Being tired, we hail a taxi and get back to the heated environs of our
hotel.

Size zero ? What's the big deal about that ?

2009-10-09T13:58:00.001+05:30

Kareena Kapoor helped add a new term to the Indian vocabulary - size zero. Apart from
her effort, her dietician and trainer contributed immensely to help her attain "size zero",
which effectively means that she was stick-thin. Infact her boyfriend Saif said he felt he
was dating a coat-hanger, when she was in the size-zero phase.

While it did seem like a big deal to me till a few days ago, once here in Belgrade, it became
clear that unlike in India, size zero is more of a norm here. Women here are not only very
pretty (much prettier than the women in Belgium/France), but almost 99% of them have
a figure that is hour-glass like. I have no idea whether it is genetic or because they take
care of their diet and workout a lot.

And it is not just the young girls who have an awesome figure. Even middle-aged women
and elderly women are in great shape. Infact I have seen women who must be easily in
their early sixties, who still retain the figure of a young girl.

So much for all the hype about size-zero in India.

Nikola Tesla airport and a city almost like Chennai.

2009-10-07T04:53:00.002+05:30

7-Oct-2009, 1:30AM Serbian time :

Reached the hotel an hour ago. Ours was probably the last flight into the Nikola Tesla
airport, which I presume is the major (and only) airport of Serbia. The airport was
practically empty when we walked out after collecting our baggage. A quick google
search revealed to me that Nikola Tesla was one of the big scientists of Serbia.

The first thing we did was to change some USD into the local currency, which is the
Royal Serbian Dinar. At an exchange rate of 1$ = 62.5 RSD, it is a pretty weak
currency, weaker than the Indian Rupee, but not as much as the Japanese Yen.

Anyway, a helpful lady at the Alpha Bank helps us convert some of our dollars into
RSD and we go find ourselves a taxi to take us to the hotel. Like auto-rickshaw guys
in Chennai solicit customers at airports / railway stations, a taxi driver approaches
us. I am wary, but there are no other taxis around and we ask him to drop us.

I see that it is a pretty new Mercedes Benz C-class station wagon. Its been a long
time since I was in a Merc-taxi and it feels good. The guy zooms out of the airport
and the car rapidly picks up speed. The road is kinda like at Chennai, a little bumpy
at times, but more or less motorable. I have a feeling that the guy is doing some
serious speeds, but when I lean over and look at the speedo, I am shocked to see
that he is doing a cool 165kmph.

Only once in my life, I have done that speed - on the awesome Coimbatore byepass
built by L&T and it did not just feel safe in my Baleno. But in the Benz, I hardly felt
the speed. As he drives along, he points out important places to us - the bridge over
the river Sava, an Arena (stadium), the main street of Belgrade, a famous beer-bar
near our hotel etc. Along the way, I can see apartments like back home.

This city does not seem to have fully recovered from the ravages of war and there
is lots to be done before it can be like any other European city. But I am sure the
government must be doing what is needed and it is just a matter of time before
the face of this city also changes.

He drops us at the hotel, wishes us a pleasant stay in his country & tells us that "we are
his guests first and only then his customers". I am damn impressed. The first impression
of this city is definitely good.

There are definitely quite some cons to my job (like with any other job), but I gotta give
it credit for one thing - helping me see the world, without spending a dime of my own. To
be frank, when I was young, I never imagined that one day, I would be getting to visit the
USA or Japan or Serbia or Belgium. I sure am glad I opted for a job in the s/w industry.

Aman is 2 years old. Time flies.

2009-10-03T22:00:00.003+05:30

It seems as if it was just yesterday that Aman was born, and he is already 2 years old.
We started off the day by going to church and attending the morning mass at 7:30AM
& after mass was over, we distributed candies to those that were at church.

Aman posing in front of the church in the birthday dress - a gift from his maternal
grandma.

Then we dropped in at the homes of Aman's buddies - Christo and Johaan. We then went
out for breakfast and on the way back dropped in at the homes of some close relatives.

The birthday cake was only due at noon and so we had the cake-cutting in the evening,
which was a family affair - just the 3 of us and my parents. Both my sisters could not
make it due to other commitments.

Aman at the cake-shop waiting to collect his cake.

The cake and musical-candle.

Aman riding his new bicycle - a gift from his maternal grandpa.

Happy Birthday, Aman.

The big dilemna - to shave or pluck or let be.

2009-09-16T00:29:00.009+05:30

In today's TOI (actually yesterday's, since it is 12:30AM as I blog this), I came across
this interesting article titled "Fashion's victims", which is about women's eyebrows.
The article starts off like this :

The West's great fashion dilemna at the moment can be summed up thus : to shave
or not to shave. But this is not about male stubble or hairy female legs. It is about
women's eyebrows, and the question is, should they ever be completely removed?

OK, the article goes on to talk about famous women of ages ago who shaved off their
eyebrows because it was fashionable then & because men of that age liked it that way.
I am too lazy to type it all here - go check out the paper if you want to really read it -
it is on the bottom-left side of Page-12, just below the editorial columns.

I found the article interesting because I have known women who thought that having
well-kept eyebrows either makes them look more beautiful or it looks good or that it
makes them noticeable to men.

My first tryst with a woman's eyebrow-fixation was in 1995. I was working then in
a small organisation which was lucky to have a decent %age of good looking women.
Anita was one of them and while she fared average on facial looks/features, she had
a figure that women would kill for. And she knew that the guys in the office noticed it.

It started of as any other day, with me being at work around 9AM. I was the first to
reach work that day & since I had a key on me, I did not have to wait for anyone to
open the office for me.

I am going through the work for the day when the door opens and in saunters Anita.
Did I already mention that she had a killer figure and that she knew about it ? Well,
she did and she also knows that no other dress accentuates a woman's figure like a
saree. And guess what, she was wearing a saree that day also.

After wishing me a smiley Good Morning, she does the normal women routine of a
quick restroom visit (a quick make-up check?), she comes over and sits bang opposite
me. As I go over the day's mail, she feels kinda ignored and clears her throat.

Hey B, look over here.
Yes.

Look at me. // I am now looking at her face, feeling uncomfortable.
Yes.

What is different about me today ?
Huh ?

Tell me what is different about me ?
Hmm. Hmmm...

Can't you see anything different about me ?

I have no idea what is different about her face. Looks the same like yesterday. But I
suddenly remember the poster we had stuck on our hostel wall in college, "Hell hath
no fury like a woman scorned" and I know that time is limited and I need to answer
her before she goes ballistic.

I think hard and the only thing I can think of is that her bindi is different.

No. This is the bindi I always wear. Can't you be a little more creative ?

I am cornered and like a gnu in the African savannah staring into a lion's face, I am
considering my options. Not that I have many options.

Her face is polished clean, like always and I don't see anything there that wasn't there
the day before. I admit defeat.

She is both elated and depressed by my admitting defeat. And then goes on to break
the suspense.

I had my eyebrows trimmed. What a dumbo ? You could not even notice this ?

Ha! That was the first time I knew that women trimmed eyebrows. Which is not really
surprising given that my girlfriends never indulged in this fashion exercise. Thank God.

Anyway that was my first brow encounter.

Later on in life, many years later, I came across another friend who regularly spent a
fortune trimming or shaving eyebrows. I still did not notice the difference until I was
told about it. And even when told, I thought to myself, "What a waste of good money ?
The eyebrows looked good as-is, instead of being shaven to look so artificial".

But then, women think differently. They think having a shaven eyebrow makes them
prettier. I did not have the heart to tell her that she looked better as she was normally.
Infact a shaved eyebrow reminds me of the funny thin-pencilled moustaches sported
by some men in their 60s - I guess in their time, this was considered fashion & movie
stars also sported this.

I can't speak for all men, but given a choice, I would anyday opt for some genuinity &
character in a women rather than a shaven eyebrow.

The most dangerous driving hazard on Chennai roads.

2009-09-12T10:00:00.002+05:30

I was talking with a friend the other day over crappy machine-coffee, and the topic veers
to the rapidly deteriorating roads in Chennai, the dare-devil bikers who seem to be riding
with only one aim - to come under the wheels of cars, poor lighting on roads etc.

While he agreed that these were indeed a pain in the rear, according to him none of these
were serious hazards and asks me if I know what is the biggest driving hazard on Chennai roads ?

I make a few guesses - the cows & buffaloes that roam/snooze on the roads, jay-walkers
who jump in front of speeding cars when you least expect them to, the speed-humps that
pop up overnight catching you by surprise, etc - but according to him, none of these qualify
as the biggest hazard.

I give up and ask him to enlighten me. Imagine my surprise when he says that the most dangerous hazard on Chennai roads is "low-cut jeans". Seeing my blank look, he clarifies,
"Have you ever driven behind a bike that has a PYT on the pillion wearing a dangerously
low-cut jeans coupled with a short top and tried concentrating on the road ?"

Well, once I did come across this, but that was when my car was stationary at a traffic
light and so I did not really need to concentrate on the road. He signs off by saying,
"Well let me know how you fare when you are driving. I don't know about you, but I
almost crashed into the median the other day."

Well, you learn something new everyday. :-)

The times, they are a changing. I am not complaining though.

2009-09-11T07:00:00.002+05:30

Two related incidents that happened in the space of a week convinced me that I really
need to blog this. This is going to be a long one.

The first incident happened last Sunday around 1PM. I was at my friend's shop (which is
just opposite my apartment) to fetch some ice-cream for my son. I pay for the ice-cream
and am talking with my friend, when 2 girls in their late-teens walk in to get a pre-paid
mobile connection. While my friend's Dad started the shop as an STD/ISD/PCO booth
some 20 years ago, he diversified into ice-creams, mobile connections etc.

Out of normal curiousity, I look at the girls, but they are not familiar - maybe new to
the neighbourhood. While one of them is dressed in a salwar-kameez, the other one
is in a pair of tight jeans and an equally tight-fitting tops. As I start to look away, the
jean-clad girl looks at me. I meet her stare briefly and look away.

While my friend attends to them, I wait for them to leave so that we can continue the conversation from where we left it. Getting a prepaid connection now requires proper documentation including a filled-in form, photograph of the user, ID/address proof etc.
The jean 'n top girl has all of this ready and she hands it over. As my friend goes over
the documentation, she turns sideways and looks at me again.

I start wondering whether it is just a casual look or whether she knows me. I rack my
brains, but cannot place her face and so dismiss it as a casual stare. Satisfied with the documentation, my friend hands her a SIM card. She takes out cash from her handbag
and hands it over to him. As she waits for the change, she again turns to me sideways
and this time her stare lingers on me for more than a few seconds.

I am not sure what to make out of it. I mean, she must be just about half my age, though
she can't be blamed because I don't really look my age. But no credit to me for that - it is
mostly genetics & good luck. I am not sure if I should feel flattered that a girl in her teens
checks me out or feel bad that I also returned the stare of a kid. Anyway, the ice-creams
are melting in the hot Chennai weather & so I tell my friend that I will catch up with him
later and walk out of his shop.

As I exit the shop, I turn back only to find myself staring into her face - she had turned
around at the same time. I walk home thinking about the strange similarity this incident
had to another one that happened a week ago around 9:30PM when I was signing-off
from work.

Since it is just 3 floors to the basement car park, I usually avoid the elevator and hit the
stairs. Walking down the stairs in front of me are 3 girls, employees of the call-centre
located on the floor above my office. Like most call-centres, this one also works 24/7 in
shifts & they are walking down to the basement cafetaria. Like a typical girl-group, they
are chatting loudly, with the occasional we-have-no-idea-why-we-are-giggling girlie
giggle thrown in.

I would like to walk past them because I know that it is going to take them an eternity
to reach the basement. The staircase is wide enough, but since they are walking abreast,
I don't have space to squeeze through. I decide to take it slow & follow them down.

As they cross the first landing & step onto the next set of stairs, I am still on the previous
set of stairs & just approaching the landing. At this point, we can see each other if we look
to our side. They are still talking among themselves & giggling, but in between that, I see
the 3 of them turn sideways and look up at me. I dismiss this as just a normal behaviour -
a curiousity to know who is nearby.

But just few seconds after they had looked at me & turned away, one of the girls looks back
again at me. This isn't normal, unless we know each other, which we don't. I still don't think
of this as a big deal and continue walking. She turns away on seeing me return the gaze.

As they traverse the next landing & we come again in a similar position, I see her looking
up again at me. I have never been shy of looking at women & so meet her stare. She looks
away, but in a few seconds, she looks back again, only to look away again on my returning
her stare.

It seems to me sort of like how guys size-up girls, if you know what I mean. If a girl walks
past a group of guys, you can see most of the guys look at her and size her up - mentally
doing a "How does she rate on a scale of 1 to 10" ? In India, most girls in such situations,
would walk past demurely without returning the stare. But if a girl did return the stare,
most of the guys would hurriedly look away.

It is sort of a reverse scenario here, with me being sized up by the girl. Ofcourse I don't
have a problem at all if a girl ogles me. Though it would really worry me if a guy ogles me.
We reach the basement and they turn into the cafe, while I get my car and drive off.

As I drive home, I think about how things have changed over the years. When younger,
I remember ogling girls & almost 99% of them (except maybe some tom-boyish creature)
would make sure not to make eye-contact. I also remember ogling girls many years ago
while riding my bike, with the helmet ensuring that while I can see others, they cannot
make out whom I am looking at. You could ride by looking at any girl passing by & the
girls would just walk with either their head bowed or looking straight ahead to avoid
eye-contact.

Or you could be driving a car and ogling a Pretty Young Thing on the road, but as far as
they were concerned, you might have as well not existed, with their gaze straight ahead
or down.

But off late, I remember so many instances where I am riding my bike and I see girls
coming in the opposite direction (walking/biking/driving) strain to look through the
helmet. And when you are in the car, they just stare/ogle you as you pass by.

As these 2 incidents show, the Indian girl/woman of today not only has no qualms about
returning a male stare, but she is actually initiating the checking-out process. I have no complaints though about this metamorphosis because in these stressed times, it surely
feels good to know that you are still checkout-worthy even in your late-thirties. :-)

If God were a car-afficiando, would he ...

2009-09-10T11:51:00.002+05:30

I am driving to work and as is my norm, I am checking out other cars on the road. I do
not miss reading the stickering on the rear wind-screen, which is a common practice in Tamilnadu. Normally this would mean having the names of all the kids in the family on
the windscreen. And in rare cases, the list extends to cousins, neighbour's kids etc.

Anyway, as I am nearing my office, I have a pink Estilo in front of me. A pink car is in
itself something most of us can't imagine. But think of the double whammy when the
car is the, ummm not-so-good-looking Estilo. I try to visualise how the whole purchase
process would have happened for this car.

So, this guy goes to a Suzuki showroom and says, "Hey, I want to buy an Estilo". I am
sure the sales guy would have been both surprised and overjoyed. Surprised because
he can't imagine someone wanting to buy a car that looks like a baby-Innova (and that
is not a compliment, given how the Innova's frontal view looks). Overjoyed because
finally he can get rid of the Estilo that has been taking upspace in the yard for years.

Imagine how he would have felt when the next statement from the customer is "And
can I have it in pink, please ?". But then, I am sure he would have been told during
sales-training that the customer is king and to give the customer what he wants. So,
he would order a Pink Estilo, which I am sure would have all the guys in the ordering
chain upto the company's factory in Gurgaon smirking and going, "Hey look at this guy.
He has ordered an Estilo and guess what, he wants it in pink".

Anyway, why should I bother ? It is his money and he can buy any car in any color.
I am more interested in the stickering on the rear windscreen, which says "Everly
Precia" on the top and "God's Precious Gift" at the bottom. I know of no words in the
English language called "Everly" or "Precia" - so make a mental note to google it up
as soon as I reach work.

Coming to "God's Precious Gift", I wonder what God would do if he/she were an auto
enthusiast ? Would he/she really roll-out a pink Estilo from his assembly-line to gift
his/her devotee ?

Being a mere mortal, I have no idea about the thought process of the Almighty (be it
Jesus or Allah or Mangadu Amman), but if he/she had even a bit of auto-enthusiasm
in them, I am sure they would not let a pink Estilo roll out of their heavenly-factory.

P.S. : I googled "Everly Precia", but without much success I should say.

Off the beaten path.

2009-09-09T16:14:00.002+05:30

While nothing is confirmed yet, travel clouds can be seen forming in the horizon.
Only the other day, I was rueing the fact that due to recessionary pressures,
business travel has become virtually non-existent. And today there is discussion
at work, on upcoming travel.

And the best thing is that this time it is travel to places that are offbeat. Eastern Europe
has always looked mysterious due to the combination of wars, communism, antiquity, architecture, mystique etc etc.

Doesn't names like Serbia & Slovenia sound exotic as compared to say, the USA or UK ?
The names itself are so funky, and ofcourse what adds to the magic is that most of us are
not even aware of these small countries. Ofcourse finding them on the map is not an easy
task. Need to google a bit more for information on these countries.

To say that I am excited would be a gross understatement.

A date with Ambalapuzha Unni-kannan. Well, almost.

2009-09-04T13:30:00.005+05:30

Sunday, 30-Aug-2009:
The 10-days preceding Onam are usually the most hectic in the year for my wife and
her colleagues, since Supplyco conducts Onam-bazaars at each town where veggies &
groceries are sold at less-than-market rates and usually people throng these bazaars.

Since all through the week, she has to travel in buses/trains, which can be pretty tiring
& time-consuming, I take it upon myself to chauffeur her during the weekends that I
am at Kerala. It helps thatI love to drive. Our son also joins us most of the times and
after dropping her at her place of work, we roam around looking for interesting places
in the neighbourhood. When she is done, she gives me a call and we go pick her up.

So, last Sunday (working day for them due to Onam), she had to go to a place called Ambalapuzha, which ison the way to Alappuzha - some 30kms from our home. Since
Divya was at home then, she also joined us. We drop my wife at her workplace and
decide to check-out the Ambalapuzha Krishna temple. The pal-paayasam (does that
translate to milk porridge?) at this temple is renowned for its taste and we hope we
get lucky enough to get some.

This temple is quite famous and also special for Hindus. It also figures in songs like
one that I like a lot "Ambalapuzhe unni-kannanodu endhu paribhavam melle odhi
vannuvo ?".

What follows is a photo-blog - I am feeling lazy to type. :-)
1) The main arch through which you enter the temple precincts.

2) Another arch.

3) The main hallway-like entrance with shops on both sides, selling trinkets

4) Stuff on sale.

5) We walk around to the rear of the temple, where the ambala-kulam (temple-pond) is.

6) A banyan tree - a common fixture in temples here.

7) When it is Krishnan, can the cattle be far away. A calf grazing inside the temple.

8) A view of the sanctum-sanctorum.

9) The traditional Mallu saree could be seen worn by many women during Onam time.

But it was nice to see a western woman wear it.

10) A view from the rear of the temple, with the pond and all.

11) The rear entrance - looks like not in use and in need for maintenance.

12) Divya shielding herself from the sun.

13) And finally we come to the temple-elephant. Aman did not want to leave from here.

The elephant was an adult & quite big compared to the one at the temple near my home.

14) This elephant was lucky to have a solid structure as home for itself. Most temple

elephants are tethered in the open.

15) Finally we reach the pal-paayasam counter. But we learn that you can't just walk-in

and hope to have the paayasam. You have to book a day in advance and collect it the

next day.

All the people standing there have paid previous day itself and are waiting for payasam

to be disbursed. We were told that if there was payasam left after all these people got

what they had paid for, then we could get some. But no one knew how long we would

have to wait and thus we left for home. Some other day, we will book a day in advance

and come collect it.

No more visits to the toy shop for you.

2009-09-04T11:04:00.002+05:30

"I will think twice before bringing you to the toy shop again", went my wife after our
visit yesterday evening to the toy shop at Gemini & which left my wallet lighter by 4K.

Ofcourse most of the stuff we picked up was for the party we are planning for Aman's
2nd birthday on 3rd October. But those were individually small & pretty inexpensive
stuff like candles, baloons, whistles, masks etc.

The major part of the 4K went for a remote control car (Rs.1750) and an assemblable
play-house with plastic sheet exteriors supported on an aluminium structure (Rs.700).
Both these purchases were impulsive, which was the reason behind my wife's statement.

Kids love toy shops and when they see the racks and racks of cool stuff on display, it is
only natural for them to want them all. It's like how we adults long for super-bikes or
cars or homes or gadgets. So, if you are taking your kid to the toy-shop, you better be
planned to handle his demands.

But guess what, Aman behaved really well. He was sure excited when we entered the
shop and let out a loud "Aaaaaye". He did pick up and try all the cars on display, but
when I asked him if he wanted it, he would say No and put them back. Only to pick up
another car and repeat the process.

But as my wife learnt, in a toy shop even some adults can turn into kids. Yes, her retort
was directed at me. I was (as always) looking at the R/C cars when I saw this guy trying
out an over-sized Swift look-alike car and I wanted it then. But the problem was that it
was the only piece available. Luckily for me, the guy did not buy it and I swooped up the
car, before he could have second thoughts.

And as if that was not enough, I chanced upon the assemble-able play-house and I just
had to buy it. Main motivation for buying it was being reminded of the small houses me
and my sisters would build in our backyard in Kerala when we were there for vacations.
We would use thin bamboo reeds for pillars & the roof skeleton and for the roof, it would
be woven coconut-tree leaves. Not very strong, but good enough to keep the rains away.

But today's kids are used to everything ready-made and straight from the shop. And I
thought it would be useful for Aman & his friends/cousins when they play in the yard.
So, I somehow convinced my wife about its usefulness and picked it up.

But she drew a line when I again started lingering near the r/c car section which had
re-boxed cars selling at discounted rates. She sent my son to drag me away from the
toys and Aman was literally pulling me to the billing counter, with the sales-staff
looking on amusedly. :-)

If she could drive the car, I am sure she would just take Aman with her to the toyshop
on her future visits, leaving me at home. Too much trouble handling a toy-crazy adult.

Happy Onam / Onam Aashamsagal

2009-09-02T12:07:00.004+05:30

A very Happy Onam to all Malayalees out there. In an hour or so, most of you would
be burping after a nice heavy Onam sadya (meal) which is entirely vegetarian and
which would be topped off with a proper Mallu dessert like ada-prathaman or
something like that.

Having spent most of my life outside Kerala, I do not have many memories of Onam.
The only Onam sadya that I really remember is what my friend's Mom used to so
lovingly serve during the 4 years of my college life at Chennai.

In Kerala, the biggest event/festival celebrated is Onam and I guess Christmas would
follow a close second. No Holi or Diwali or Vinayaga Chaturthi etc for us Mallus. The
Onam fever catches up pretty early in Kerala and was quite visible during the last
weekend I was there. Some snaps I took last week.

1) Some kids out playing puli-kali / kaduva-kali (tiger-play). Basically people dress
up as tigers using either masks or body-paint and go around the neighborhood playing
tiger and hunter.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puli_Kali for more details.

2) A person dressed as King Mahabali goes around the neighborhood.

The story behind Onam is about the good king Mahabali who ruled Kerala long, long

ago. He was a just & good ruler, though he was an Asura (ie Demon - opposite of Deva

/ God) and people lived peacefully in his regime.

As in most Hindu mythological stories, the Gods become jealous of him because of the

love and adoration that his people had for him. So they send Vishnu as a dwarf (the

Vamana avatar of Vishnu) to the king and the Vamanan asks for a boon.

Being the benevolent king that he is, Mahabali asks him what he wishes to have. The

Vamanan replies that he needs land that can be covered in 3 steps that he takes.

Mahabali, like any normal person, not knowing that it is actually God Vishnu, grants

the wish, thinking that after all how much land can a dwarf cover in 3 steps.

But the moment the wish is granted, Vishnu attains his Godly self and with his first

step, he covers all of land and covers the heavens with his second step. Since there

is no other place to take the final step, Mahabali asks him to step on his head.

Vishnu steps on him and pushes him down to patala. But before he is gone, Mahabali

asks for a final wish - to be able to visit his people once a year. And it is believed that

it is on Onam that the king comes and visits his people.

Though I am sure he would be saddened to see the current state of the land he once

ruled. Corrupt and self-serving politicians, bad infrastructure, power-cuts in the land

of so many rivers, goondaism, etc etc. Anyway, a Happy Onam again.

A snake-boat sighting. By chance.

2009-08-31T20:32:00.004+05:30

Divya was at my parent's home last weekend and we had a whale of a time going
swimming, visiting the Ambalapuzha Unnikrishnan temple (a post on that is to
follow soon) etc. When we went swimming on Sunday, we were pleasantly surprised
to see a snake-boat berthed across the river. I was sure it was not there the previous
day when we had come to the river.

I try to zoom-in with my phone-cam and this is the result.

After our swim, I decide to take Divya close to the boat for what I think must be her
first close-up view of a snake-boat. I move back as much as possible without falling
into the river, but still can't get the whole boat in the frame. So had to take a diagonal
snap. Divya trying to dry her hair nearby.

This is the "Chennithala chundan" belonging to our area and as much as I hate to
admit it, it is more show than go. In the sense that this one does not win any races,
but is just decorated and taken to the Aranmula temple every year for Onam.

Anyway, I am still proud of it. After all how many people have a snake-boat in their
backyard. And anyway not many people outside Alappuzha would know that this one
comes last in races. :-)

Divya sitting at the elevated end of the boat, which sort of looks like a cobra's hood
and thus giving the boat its name of 'snake-boat'.

The other lowered front-end of the boat, which slices through the water, powered not by
horse-power, but human-power (some 90-100 people row a typical boat).

Since I would not be going home for Onam, I am glad we came across the snake-boat

last weekend. Else, the next sighting would have to wait a year.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

2009-08-28T05:00:00.001+05:30

When I started work in my current organisation, we used to have a 'Nescafe' tea/coffee
vending machine in the pantry. Neither tea nor coffee tasted like it should, but since
there was no other option, we had to make do with it.

This system prevailed till a few years ago when this machine was thrown out & instead
the organisation out-sourced the job of supplying tea/coffee to a contractor. And so we
would have a guy come in and brew a pot each of tea and coffee decotion. He would also
have boiled milk ready in another flask. A tin of sugar completed the picture.

You had the choice of how you want your tea/coffee in terms of strength, flavour and
sweetness, by adding decotion/milk/sugar to your liking. While there still were some
people who had complaints about the quality of tea/coffee, the majority were happy
with the new system. However, all good things have to come to an end and this system
ended on 31st July.

To be replaced again by a tea/coffee machine that was installed on 1st August in our
office pantry. This time it is a "Cafe Coffee Day" machine, with lots of bells and whistles
and different beverage options like Cappucino, Espresso, Milk, Tea, etc.

But guess what, the tea / coffee still taste like crap. Now whoever it was that said that
'the more things change, the more they stay the same' sure had some grey-matter.

P.S. : The best workplace beverage dispenser that I ever came across was at our Belgium
office. Guess what it dispensed ? Beer. Yes, light beer during workday lunch. :-)

The extent to which people would go to make money quickly.

2009-08-27T18:36:00.002+05:30

One of the main job functions of my wife as a Q.A. Manager with Supplyco is to inspect foodgrains procured by her organisation, which is then distributed to the public via a
plethora of channels like the PDS (ration shops), Maveli stores, Laabham stores, special
Onam bazaars, the school mid-day-meal schemes etc.

There are set specifications to which each item must adhere to so as to pass inspection
and to be accepted by her organisation. Apart from rice, wheat, chilli, pulses etc, which
are inspected by the Q.A.s on delivery, her organisation also sources packed items like
cooking oil, spices in powdered form, etc. from various vendors.

These are not inspected on delivery because physical inspection is not good enough to
determine their quality. Instead samples are taken randomly from various stores and
sent to food-testing labs which check for any kind of adulteration. Recently a sample of
cooking-oil was sent to the lab and the results indicated adulteration.

I am aware that many suppliers compromise on quantity or quality or both so as to
make extra profits. But what shocked me was what they used for adulteration. They
had mixed waste petroleum oil (known in local lingo as kari-oil) to oil that is used for
cooking !!!

Can you imagine the audacity of adulterating edible-oil used for human consumption
with something as far removed from it as petroleum oil ? Imagine what people are
actually consuming when they prepare food in this oil.

Predictably, the supplier has been banned from supplying anymore to Supplyco, but
the adulterated products would still continue to find place in stores that are not part
of the Supplyco chain & uninformed buyers would be harming themselves by cooking
with this oil.

Wonder what all harmful substances we are ingesting unknowingly with other such
adulterated products in the market.

Spare the rod and keep the elephant in line.

2009-08-26T13:38:00.005+05:30

A recent visit to the neighbourhood temple revealed an interesting facet of elephant
discipline. As usual I was there with Aman as he wanted to see the elephant when we
saw that the animal was being decorated for some temple function.

There was this elaborate headgear which was being placed on the animal by the two
mahouts. Every elephant has 2 mahouts - First Mahout & the Second Mahout, known
in Malayalam as "Onnaam Paappan" and "Rendaam Paappaan" respectively.

Due to some reason, the elephant was not keeping still and was moving its legs. Since
this was making the job of the mahouts difficult, one of them takes a steel rod that the
mahouts always have with them and leans it against the leg of the elephant, as seen
in the snap below.

In elephant-school, what this means is that the rod should stay that way till the mahout
takes it away and under no circumstances should it fall down, which can happen only if
the elephant moves its leg. A trained elephant will stay without moving its legs for hours
to ensure that the rod does not fall down.

So, once this rod was placed, the elephant stayed still without moving and the mahouts
were able to put the headgear properly. Ofcourse in between, it did reach out with its
trunk to grab the balls of jaggery that some people were offering to it.

However, the poor thing gets confused when the other mahout who was on top of the
elephant signalled to it that he wanted to get down. For him to get down, the procedure
is for the elephant to raise its right front leg on which he climbs down. But since the rod
is placed against that leg, the animal is not sure what to do - if he raises the leg, the rod
would fall down, which is a violation of the other mahout's command.

But the mahout on top does not know about the rod placed against the animal's leg and
so repeats his command. Finally the animal decides that it is better to obey the most
recent command and raises its leg enabling the mahout to climb down. The rod falls to
the ground, but this is excused since it happened while following another command.

It is surprising how a dimunitive man is able to so easily control such a big animal, which
by nature roams free in the wild. Ofcourse, all this discipline is thrown to the wind when
elephants go amok. And usually the first casualty is the poor mahout.

A little manual labour never killed anyone. Even software engineers.

2009-08-25T03:00:00.006+05:30

It was around 9:30AM on one of the days of my 6-day vacation last week & I have been
at my laptop for the last 2 hours getting some work done. I am shutting down the laptop
when my Mom tells me that the 'thandaan' (Mallu term for coconut-picker) has come to
pick coconuts from the coco-palms on our 3 properties and that I need to go and help my
Dad gather the coconuts.

I have done this chore every 3 months or so during the 2 years I spent studying in Kerala
in the '80s. But it has been a long time. Anyway, I ask my wife if she would be interested
to join and she decides to bring along Aman too. We walk to our river-side land where the thandaan would be picking coconuts first. By the time we reach there, he is done plucking coconuts from half the palms there and is doing the remaining palms.

Coconuts are lying all around & my Dad is trying to get them all at one place. We join in
while Aman looks around. We have gathered all the coconuts that fell on land in one big
heap, but there are some lying in the water. These are from the few palms that stand
on the river's edge, like the one in the pic below which is bent over the river.

I used a bamboo pole to pull the coconuts that are floating in the river close to the bank.
Since the edge is slippery-clay, I balance precariously on the edge & pull in the coconuts
one-by-one using a sharp sickle to dig into the husk of the coconut. By the time I get all
the coconuts out, my shorts are stained with clay - when I almost fell into the water due
to my feet slipping on clay.

Next the coconuts are counted and need to be carted home. There is usually a guy who
helps my Dad with odd jobs around the home & whose job it is to get the coconuts home.
But he has gone for some wedding and will not be available today. Since we can't leave
the coconuts there till next day, I think of other options.

We have some 10 jute bags into which I ask my Dad & wife to put 10-12 coconuts each,
which I guess is what I can carry without too much exertion. My Dad's bike is parked
some 50 metres away and if we bring the bags till the bike, I can get them home 3 bags
per trip. I can do all the bags in one go if I get our car, but the road is too narrow and
there isn't enough space to reverse the car.

As they pack and tie the bags, I carry the bags till the bike and then it takes me 4 trips
to get all the bags home. By this time the thandaan has moved to our other property,
which adjoins acres of fields (not tilled for a long time though) and has already started
picking coconuts there.

Since Aman is kinda bored of all this activity, we drop him home and me and my wife
go to collect and bring home the coconuts. Not only is the number of coconuts less on
this property, since the trees yield much less than the river-side land, but a neighbour
wants to buy some coconuts for her cooking. So, it takes me only 2 bike-rides to get
all the coconuts home.

She picks 15 coconuts @ Rs6 a piece, and hands me a hundred-rupee note. Since I don't
have my wallet with me to return her the balance of Rs.10, I ask her to take another 2
coconuts. Coconut-flesh is an integral part of almost all Keralite dishes & a typical home
would easily use-up atleast 1 coconut a day for cooking. This is apart from the coconut
oil in which most cooking is done.

By the time we reach home with the coconuts, the thandaan has already started picking
coconuts from the palms on the land where our house stands. The total yield from the 3
plots was around 300 coconuts, which would be Rs.1800 in money value, when sold to
someone who buys them to extract oil from them.

After some 2 hours of hard work, I am tired and what better way to rejuvenate than to
drink some tender coconut water. As I go to freshen up with a cold-water bath, I ask my
wife jokingly if she thinks it is fair to make a keyboard/mouse using software-engineer
do such manual labour.

As usual she has the last word when she says, "Wasn't it your mother who asked you to
do this chore ? So why ask me ?". :-)

Touch me not. Else I droop.

2009-08-24T14:13:00.002+05:30

15-Aug-09 :
Another Independence day. Aman was feeling bored & cranky and to get him out of my
wife's way, we decide to walk to the nearest hardware shop to get some coir rope. I had
fixed a long GI pipe to two trees for my wife to grow her Orchids on & I needed the rope
to coil around the pipe so that the Orchids can let out their roots on the rope.

As we walk to the nearby shop, I see something that I felt would be interesting for Aman -
a bunch of touch-me-not plants. I remember how excited I was when I first came across
the touch-me-not plant at Kerala and I was sure Aman would also be interested.

These plants are found all over the place, especially on the road-side and so we stop to
inspect them. I show him how the leaves are normally and how they collapse at a touch.
Aman had great fun touching the leaves and seeing them contract.

The leaves of the touch-me-not all wide-spread before we touch them :

The leaves after they contracted on our touch :

Passers-by must have been wondering what was so interesting for a father-son duo to
so intently observe on the side of the road. :-)