Two days in Cochin!

I spent the last two days in a city that can arguably be called the second best thing that has happened to Kerala, first being Lord Parashuram’s axe.

I was left with no doubts as to which city in Kerala is booming.

Yesterday was spent between Madakappillil, Cocoa Tree, the book and some profound (somewhat enlightening as well) talk on cerebral palsy and autism. The first in the list being my aunt’s ancestral house, the second a popular hangout in this place (call it Cecil’s treat), the third being the Hitchhiker’s guide and the fourth the perils of a few people’s lives, one of them a close relative of mine.

Since I started blogging I have noticed that I have a penchant for calling days eventful. I am slowly beginning to realize that such are how days are meant to be, in life. Cocoa tree was a real experience. I have mentioned before about being at ease with man’s leaps. Cocoa tree, Ambrosia et al are part of it and gustatory pinnacles at it as well.

Even today I felt the need to blend into the busy streets, I felt the drive to be part of a whole busy set of people, unknown to each other. I wanted to blend into the shadows as well as bask under the streetlights. I was all alone today because contrary to his suggestion day before Reuben wasn’t free today. He had a God to please with some Christmas carol practice. He chose God to his friend. I wasn’t discouraged and whiled away my time at Bay Pride Mall and the marine drive. Bay Pride was a fascinating place to be in. Had I had my ‘team’ here in Cochin we would have knocked the air out of Bay Pride. Nah??
http://www.baypridemall.com

Had food at a China Town(at the Mall). Fresh, Spicy and rocking tasty!

At the drive I met with one Mr. Mahesh who claimed to be in the cine field. It is not the first time this is happening. A few months ago in a train journey I had met up with a guy of my age who was working in some camera crew. I guess that on both occasions the claims were true, because details in their speech were consistent. Today I happened to share the same bench with Mahesh and hence the association. Dude, different people have different takes on life!

After a long gap I rode my Pegasus (my Kinetic Honda, for the uninitiated). The first time it is that I was driving a two-wheeler in Kochi. The Aluva – Ernakualam route, for covering chechi’s ATM! Then again I felt - the chime of the city’s call; man’s collective urge to burn liquid gold; and my zeal for an unbiased contribution! Simply put, I felt happy being part of man’s squalid togetherness. How reeking was the unclean backwater at the drive and how disorganized the lane traffic on the route??

Between all this I found time to see how work is going at ‘Kalyan’- our house!!
Watched part of ‘Bruce Almighty’ as well.

The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy

“He had found a Nutri-matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”

“ ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’

‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead give-away, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist and so therefore, by your own argument, you don’t.’

‘Oh! Dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.”

“The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’, but in fact the message was: - So long and thanks for all the fish.”

Venice and then the Queen

If I wrote yesterday that I was busy and the day was eventful it was because I had no clue about today.

I had no choice but to wake up quite early in the morning, though after yesterday’s party I was kind of tired and lousy. Today was a big day for me and Reuben – the Kerala University Youth festival. But I guessed later in the day that my day was not so much big as for the guy who was selling one too many fresh white fishes at Allapuzha today. We were from disparate circumstances and that made the calculations a bit too complicated. I left it midway through ‘coz I soon learned it would be without point.

It might have been a coincidence that I started the journey with a hike as well as started on this journey a book about a hitchhiker. But the whole point needn’t be lost in between that I reached station on time to catch the Jan shatabdi as well as developed an exceedingly keen interest in the storybook. In travel you would relish good company and I did have the pleasure to share the allepy trip with a Sikh couple.

Allapuzha was once a bustling business place and still bears a rustic charm of its colonialist period. But goods that found business there today were lottery tickets, fresh white fishes and a few fibre and foam products. Thus in essence I had traveled from a town bustling enough for my take (Trivandrum) to a place one-fourth so. So much for the Venice of the East!

As I traversed the length of the district to Mararikulam near Cherthala, I saw, as I had seen six months back in Cannanore, a red flag too many dotting the green landscape of rural Kerala. The land was at places parched and at others vibrant. Just like how the blazing red is at times the clout and at other times the whimsical opposition. I have my doubts about the red, the saffron and the green but mostly I keep them to myself.
In the midst of my travel, Dad, I didn’t forget to notice the Prince Hotel (for a change it’s a really short story but left best when unrecorded).

I met Reuben at S.N College, our venue. It’s a place I have seen umpteen times as I travel along the highway. But it’s for the first time I have had the fortune to step in. I met there, people like Febna, Sherin and Lishoy – the kind of people you bump into at competitions. I was surviving on tea until the college canteen happened!
After the really difficult registration process and the long wait I did my elocution well, but Reuben did not seem satisfied. But then again with fifty-one participants and most of them truculent you do not expect much, do you? Debate was cool more so because I had bartered a bit of my stage dominance for the sake of stuffing my speech with points. At the end of the day, what matters is what you feel! I felt elated. (Did I fail to mention there were around twenty-four teams for this event and one of them is a renowned South India champion(s)).

I say again, I felt elated.

Our journey to Ernakulam was split into two. First we took a bus to Cherthala and then one to Cochin. Cochin, the queen of the Arabian Sea was naked with splendour and I felt an easy calm.

I had moved to a place that would easily pass for a metropolis. I found myself amidst the re-assuring cluttered-ness of a city and I lost count of the number of billboards and flux boards that adorned the cityscape. I lost count of the beautiful flats and expensive coffee day kind of hangouts I had started counting. And then there were way too many hotels (the Taj kind) than to be counted with flexed fingers. I saw a couple of benz s every minute. The Bay Pride mall kind of made me feel I am in a place like Chennai (the metro I have been to). Now I know that I will be drawn to far greater cesspools of human congregation (Doyle’s phrase on London) – cesspools reeking with squalid human togetherness shoddily made up by fresh paint and white night lights. Did I forget attractive marquee boards!

My father was a man of the village. He yearned for it. I am a man of the city (people I call Trivandrum one!). Little would Reuben have known that as we walked through the pedestrian drive at marine drive I was retracing a few steps that my dad had taught me to walk a few long long years back.

Reuben parted saying, “Thanks for the Pepsi”. I owed him one. It should have lost on him that he had treated me to a shake some time back, maybe in S3. So much for an ex-IITians son! Dude.

I reached the comfortable environs of my uncle’s house and I am bracing myself for deep sleep. But in between I have to tell this that nowhere in my journey did I feel left out or alone or nostalgic. There is a friend of mine, who ‘lost a wondrous lady to cancer’ (a lady who has taught me in substitution classes) –, who likes gypsies. Me too. Count me in, friend! I too like gypsies, but I have heard bad stories about their fraternizing.

Was Busy whole day!

I have had busy days in life; many of them. Today was an exceptionally busy one. Not that I had to compromise a war or anything.

“The Zen master is not against war. He just understands what war is and why it happens. He is not against war because being against anything is being at war with it.” – Osho.

I have taken busy days one at a time; one errand at a time while not forgetting the whole picture all the same. I have taken them alone or together according to what the calls were, what the stakes were, what the needs were; et al. And the bottom-line is I have reached this far. What is the purpose of it all, people have asked and I have grown dauntless per question.

But then now I begin to think, “What is in it all?”

“He mentally shrugged. No point at all actually. And perhaps that was the reason. There was nowhere he had to be. One place was as good as another. Did it matter where the sands of one’s hourglass ran out? In the end, did anything matter at all?” – Ruzhyó; ex-Spetnaz NetForce NightMoves. Tom Clancy.

I am no longer dauntless. I fear.

But the fear wont keep me down as long as I have- loved ones to ask me to (easy re-)charge a phone; people whom I care for to pick from the railway station; a Saturday supplement to work for; a friend of my sister whose marriage I am invited to; a friend to attend for at hospital; a juice shop to hang out at; a friend’s niece who is celebrating her first birthday; a decent bike to aimlessly amble about with, etc etc. Things like these keep me moving. As long as I have them I can live, I can trundle along.

Shradha had her first birthday today. It was fun, a celebration with old friends. A nice buffet feast it was.

And as always gluttony is a sin. But a pleasurable one, friend!

There are two regrets with which I would be leaving for Allapuzha tomorrow (yeah, coming to that). I had heard Santha chechi is ill, but I couldn’t visit her today. I cannot measure her love for me, and I did not fit her into my schedule today! I owe my life to people like her, do I not? Secondly I would be missing the cake exhibit I was due to ‘cover’ today. I had gone up to a place called ‘Team bakery’ in Pattom to do a story on a 100 kg cake shaped in the form of a house. But Alas! The cake wouldn’t be ready until Sunday. My efforts were in vain.

I am teaming up with ‘Reuben’ for the University Youth festival wherein we would be trying our luck at English debate. Let us see what can be made to happen. From Allapuzha I would be packing off to Ernakulam. I plan to return only on Tuesday.

Today I returned ‘NetForce’ to Eloor library and I have taken ‘HitchHiker’s guide to the gallaxy’ by Douglas Adams. I have heard lots about it. Let me try it, and be rest assured I will blog about it.

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Today I rode 72 kms on my black pearl and here is how I made it happen.

home-vellayambalam pump-home-railway station-home-kirans place-pattom lic-kirans place-vaikundam kalyana mandapam-home-sk hospital- kowdair -rohits place-rakeshs place-vazhuthacaud-rakeshs place- smc – rohits place –gym-rohits place-home-library-home-rohits place-smc- kowdiar-mystique road-kowdiar-home. I hope i did not miss anything!

Thanks. for all the flights.

Now I know why the war is being raged. It is for oil!!

Today was a strike, and the ruling government sponsored it. Can society be more logic-less? Like I had studied somewhere in my civics that Governments are supposed to run the land and when it fails what ensues is anarchy: - a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government). The left wanted to oppose globalization. What is wrong with globalization? Frankly I don’t know.

“Globalization, or globalisation is the increasing interdependence, integration and interaction among people and corporations in disparate locations around the world”- wikipedia. It seems kind of fine for me. No problems.

But what I know of anti-globalisation is this! The strike today made Rohit and me to walk around ‘petrol’ shopping. And there was no street light in Sasthamangalam tonight. You know what; to make the 24 hr strike successful they had conveniently forgotten to switch on the street lights. I find myself in the times of brainless politics (Read that again CETians).

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The day began with hopes of settling for a game of cards at Aswin’s. But he had packed to the house of some new found friend. We ended up watching Scary Movie 4 and parts of Vettiyadu Vilayadu. Between I had taken my mother to her office on bike. KK had called up asking whether I could take his dad to office ‘coz no transport was available. I obliged him as well. In the meantime I had given a couple of other ‘lifts’ as well; given the kind of day today was, it would all go down as ‘understood’. Come on appreciate my magnanimity. (magnus = great, animus = mind). Yeah and my grasp of etymology as well! [God, I promise you I shun narcism] (wink)

Whatever! Thanks Black Pearl for all the ‘flights’.

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After all the ‘flights’ today I was left without petrol, but the urge to chill out on the bike at night sent us oil hunting (walking, we were). And viola all the pumps were closed.

I wonder how well ‘oil’ has ‘enslaved’ me. It has ‘enslaved’ humanity, as well. Mans whims are all about oil, so are his wars. Peace!

PS:- I heard news just now that my friend Arjun was admitted in hospital today. He is down with fever. Looking forward to meeting him up tomorrow.

The sea and beyond.

And then suddenly there were just the men, the sea, the warm-beach sand and the shadows. I was lost staring at the vast expanse that lay in front of me. Water! The element; It made three-fourths of the earth. The waves lashed relentlessly and the noise around faded. The sea had called me to her feet again. She does it again and again. And I relent.

Was it not last week that I found myself with KK at good old Shangumugham? Tell me who else has the temerity to accompany me on an exam week to the beach. Was it not a few long years back that I wet my feet at KanyaKumari? We had stayed at the Kerala House. Ajayan had accompanied us. The cheerful guy who did a bit of shopping there! (And yet last week I saw the same guy with wet eyes, as he said goodbye to a house named ‘Thankom’ in a quite sub-urb of Trivandrum. Long story that.)

And yes, Goa was fun! Literally drenched myself in the salt water! The white beach sand et al. And Kovalam yesterday boasted the same white sand. In places we had black sand as well. Much like the sand at Papanasam! And was it not a small detour that had taken us to Papanasam, not so long back. Somatheeram in 7^th standard, Allapuzha beach as kid… Yes, I have repeatedly subscribed to the sea breeze. I have been the mystique sea-lover all my life.

I have always loved ‘the sea’ taking me over. Lashing me and surrounding me. Only to go back unobtrusively! Yeah. In his last months I had accompanied my old man to the sea front many a time. At some point I had lost count. The sea goddess at Shangumugham and the quite sea breeze upfront were all twice a week experiences.

The beach always had a mystery. The mandapam and the Indian Coffee House! In my ninth, for Christmas we had gone there and I met Kiran and Arun Gopal there. Later in life I have been to the self same beach with Kiran et al innumerable times. I can’t forget the sands of Allapuzha. Those were the days when my father was part of the board at Foam Matting India. The rest house was very close to the beach and the lighthouse was then as is now an intriguing column of concrete silhouetting the horizon. I have since not been to that place I lovingly treasure. And when I joke to Aswany about the sands of her beach (she hails from the land of narrow roads and backwaters) little would she know that I am in fact relishing my days with my father in the green of health. That was long ago and life has taken me to a place remote and strange.

After all the chilling at the beach(Veli, and Shangumugham), we left to Pippinmoodu and our good old ‘Viswanth’. Gluttony is a sin, nevertheless a pleasurable one. (wink). The gym followed and then we watched ‘Pattiyal’, the film that Vignesh was telling me about just the other day. Pattiyal is ‘A’ rated for its violence and objectionability.

And thus ended the better part of another day in my life!

I still crave for the sea.

I still hear the bell at the Inchcape rock (ICSE days, dude, long story that!)

And I still search for the sea-temple, the one with a thousand bells (from ‘The Song of the bird’ Anthony Mello S.J).

Unanswered Questions!

For me the night has arguably just begun. It is tender and fresh and offers promise.

It has been an extremely tiring day. Yes, to be frank an eventful one as well. I am here to ask a few questions. I wont get any answers; maybe. But I cannot move on without asking them. I have touched the rock bottom of my mental fortitude. Don’t be mistaken; it’s not all about today. It’s just that today I will have to ask. Today; yes, of all these days.

What was wrong with today? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!

It was day I of freedom. My exams were postponed and today opened the stage for a 20 something day long vacation. I am an over sleeper. That has never worried me, and as usual the sun was up and ready to welcome me out of my deep sleep. These days I do not forget to chant a short morning prayer before quitting bed. I managed the same, half dazed and semi-automatically. I practice a form of meditation, its part of my marga. But suddenly I ask myself, when was it last that I meditated. Meditation is peace. I am pissed off. I am. Of all days, today I find myself deep in the bottomless precipice of unanswered questions. Did I do my first two exams (incidentally they weren’t shifted to next year) well? Yes, I would say they went quite par. KK would know. So that is answered. I was talking about unanswered questions wasn’t I?

I sold off a few old newspapers that were cluttering my house. Yeah, I still remember Lawley Road (12^th ISC syllabus, dude) and the house being cluttered with correspondence. I wouldn’t take this to that level. But old newspapers are frankly quite a nuisance.

I went to Kochanman (my mother’s youngest uncle) and heard out a long story that Kochammai had to narrate. I was listening to a lady in her old age, a virtuous lady who led a teaching career for about four decades. She had lost her son (only son) to some heart problem in 1993. Around the time I learned a then new word ‘relative’ – a long story, that! She never asked me anything, but I could feel her question surround me. The question suffocated me and rendered me a listening machine. I heard her, I had no choice. Ramachandran had a keen interest in fiction, in agents and intelligence maneuvers, like me! He would have been 43 now. I didn’t have an answer. I won’t have one. I don’t want to find one. And she was speaking about Osho aka Bhagvan Rajneesh, and his broad-mindedness. He was poisoned by Americans! As if I cared.

Kovalam was fine. We had a blast today. The white sand at the beach, the towering red lighthouse, the Australian madames, the parking fee; I walked and enjoyed the tanning sun. I wet my feet and so did my friends. The whole of CET and SCT was there rejoicing their Christmas dreams. And yet the same question came back to me. ‘I lost a wondrous lady to cancer’, my friend had said somewhere in the most profound IMs I have had in Yahoo, (around this time yesterday). The statement doesn’t qualify as a question; ‘coz it read ‘I lost a wondrous lady to cancer’, I don’t have an answer! I won’t find you one, my friend.

On our way back we had food from ‘Viswanth’, in Pippinmoodu. That’s near where my uncle had lived for more than a decade. It was not long back that I had to sign in a white paper as a receipt of his body at MCH, mortuary. That was a day of signatures and a day of death as well. I didn’t have to refresh my memory for it has not really gone from the level one cache. I carried the body (partly; like we do it together) on the way to the crematorium. It was my duty. A sign of last respect! The last rite! In between I found enough time to tell a small ‘Thank you’. Thank you for having spent a few many nights with my father in Cosmo, MCH et al. I lost my old man to disease. I lost my uncle to disease. Nobody asked me anything. But I still kind of thought that somewhere amidst it all I would find an answer. I did not.

We went to the gym today; after all the chilling-out and after the 10 day gap, gym was fun. And then again I remembered a similar gym session a few months back, around the time a member of the place who had gone to China to answer his call in life came back in a coffin. I had gone there with another friend on that day. I didn’t know the guy who died but this friend knew him really well. That day I had used a coin phone. Yes, the coin phone! I didn’t have an answer to support my friend with. I still don’t. I am in no mood to find out one.

Today night we saw the movie ‘Saw’. Some people, it said, are really ungrateful to live. None of the people above fit in.

I started out in the mind to ask a few questions and ended without asking nor answering.

Book Review : - LETHAL SECRETS

“Head shots are personal”. They are about revenge and leveling scores. And then “the shooter returned along the cow path, moving casually, without the slightest hurry”.

Pete Earley has given his best shot at immortalizing Vladimir Mikhailovich Khrenkov; in literary parlance; and has arguably succeeded. The likes of Connor Fitzgerald have been matched by the unflinching sharpshooter. I really love snipers in stories and Khrenkov is no exception.

Secret Service agencies have for long been interesting writing. But Pete goes one step further by portraying the intel quagmire of America’s cluttered anti-terrorism mechanism.

The starkness of contrasting America and Russia as free world vis-à-vis reeking Communist is passé but has been employed with clarity by this former Washington post reporter. America’s cold war precautions are oft publicized and in America it was a way of spreading word that the nation was one up in providing its rulers safety and immunity from the tirade of nuclear war. But I am pretty sure that Russians too had in place mechanisms worth comparison or even more. But the secrets are still in safe hands. There have been no media leaks or unwitting publicity stunts. Guess who is victor!

Back to ‘lethal secrets’ a mish-mash of American, Russian and Chechen realities and biases! Moe the viper is an analogy of the existing warlords in Chechnya, sure. His transformation from being a bright philosophical student to the cold-blooded fighter was accentuated by Russian atrocities. When have occupying forces been benefactors?

The book is not mute when it points out that the quest for oil has made villains out of Russia as well as America. I found undercurrent thoughts suggesting that America is not the sole super-power since Russia still clings on though with a disheveled mechanism. Russia still holds sway in American policy decisions towards the former Soviet bloc nations partly because of America’s unwanted adventurisms elsewhere.

Holding America hostage to nuclear havoc and the way the bomb is disposed all count for mere sensationalism. They are not the vital issues for me. But the plight of nations at constant war, big bossedness of militarily powerful nations, gross human rights violations etc are.

In the book individual rivalries and disagreements within the forces and the goodwill between people are at times the issues. Even a bit of sex and harassment finds space in the pages. But I still feel a dearth of research when compared to my favourite, that being Crichton. I would disagree with ‘Pete Earley’s eye for detail’ as suggested by Mike Segar.

Wyatt Conway shall soon be forgotten, so shall be Kimberly Lodge. It is only Khrenkov and Moe who will call the shots in the end. Both are real survivors and I found in them certain integrity of character. I give the book a 3 on 5. That would translate into ‘readable’.

Book Review:- One night at the call center

Screw it ! God never makes phone-calls nor is military uncle a wisecrack, he is jus pure dipshit!

People fool others writing no-good books and givin it awful lotta a publicity vis-à-vis a few enigmantic characters, phonecalls, sex, sleaze, technocrap, holy new cars and American helholish iq.

Like what are the issues addressed in one night @ the call center.

1) repugnant managerial lingo

2) avg Americans’ below avg iq and India’s pre-disposition 2 intelligence, der 35=10 rul et al

3) cash starved Indians r puppets in de hands of rich Americans , only dis time de puppets r intelligent.What use!

4) Modeling – de false dream

5) NRI groom. Mr achiever in America wooing all de pretty girls bak home

6) Gen gap dipshit

7) Et shunning ur old parents theory

8) The inner call brouhaha

9) God being wid u…

10) youth f**in wastin their potential

So whatz this guy chetan been doin with his new book.

Ya sure I really like his 5. that topped der charts.

Being a college student ya I cud empathize atleast. And the book wuz cool time pass

And there was all the banging given to the poor head’s gorgeous daughter by a fat low-grader. And again ppl read it coz they cud empathize and vicariously enjoy der cool life therein.

But one night is a real no-good. Ya all those issues are being dealt with. But I never gained anything from the book. I never came out enlightened. Therz nothing to fuel you mann. Ya BPOs may well empathize with the guys in de book, s/w guys wud sympathize, Europeans wud apathize- and care no f**g hoots. Even students wud b curious 2 knw abt BPOs and American dreams. But wher is the research behind the book.

Take rising sun by chricton for a sample comparison. Therez real concept and real research therein. Like real and in-depth analysis on the particular peril expressed therein. Solid connections with the real world!! Wisdom and recognition of what is as is.

Economic behaviour of nations, language classes, murder, investigation, danger, on the edginess, how experience counts, golf, dope, politics, tech and not technocrap. Name it and Crichton has weaved it in.

But here chetan has atmost made a mishmash out of a few otherwise thought-provoking bottom-lines (of which he never reached to the bottom of it!). So friends don’t evr buy this book. Atmost borrow it and read it fu**g once. Not more. And then forget the time it killed

.

I will giv it one star outta five because it has atleast handled the youth’s sensibilities and biases with sensitivity and/or truth. Like that’s not hard for a 30yr old writer. Ya the girls talking amongst themselves in bio sessions! Vroom eavesdroppin! Cutting down the cigarettes! The bed lounge and bar! That’s all good handling and that’s about it.

Conformist - no less

I am ready to accept people as they are, no matter where they hail from; no matter where I meet with them. I believe in exclusivity of relationships. I believe in other people’s abilities and I am not iconoclastic enough to call myself a non-conformist even though specific instances in my life have given people reason enough to call me a maverick.

So since non-conformism is an oft projected quality, let me indulge on it for now. The label, people feel gives an edge. But sorry guys 99% of people who label themselves so have no idea that they are the most conforming of people.

Yes you were not there when traditions of marriage, family, brotherhood and organization were devised. And unthinking people, you say, carry on unmindful of better alternatives. The fool that you are you forget the very role ‘marriage’ and ‘family’ (as institutions) played in your being. You forget the organizational prowess and the alumni- reach the school that taught you has earned over the years. You miss and egregiously so the fraternal bonhomie of the newspaper-boys who take turns to deliver your paper on six o clocks.

Samuel A Maverick, the 19^th century cattle-rancher who refused to brand his calves, was a maverick. Yes he was. In 1880s his deeds were as unorthodox as deeds can be!

But no matter whatever you do, no yardstick would treat your actions as non-complaint.

Yes the Buddha was a maverick. Would you forgo a palace and a beautiful wife! Despite the sexism of my remark! Think! The answer is no. A big NO.

Wake up and stop using Non-Conformal, Unorthodox, Contumacious, and Recalcitrant in your about mes.

I for one am a conformist, a man of the society, responsible partly for what you and I see around. And yes I am available on orkut, blogger , yahoo et al.

VISHNU MENON M