Five things before turning thirty

1) Make a documentary on any one really ancient temple in Tamil Nadu- a saivite temple
2) Go to a yanni concert
3) Go to brazil
4) Stop using all kinds of slangs
5) Feel like I was just born yesterday.

Mads and aku please take this forward :)

Over drinks

Mom, Dad and I went out somewhere and this is what I found...

Amma took exactly one minute to notice the reason for my sniggering. Appa still hasn't understood- he does not know hindi.

How many of you are like my appa?

Keep smiling :)

In conversation with god

I : Perumaley! (blinking hard)

God: What’s up? All good? How you doing?

I: I am ok. Not a very nice last three months. Like you don’t know!

God: I know, I know. Just wanted to know what you felt about it.

I: Ah! Nothing. Just a passing cloud type feeling. I am good. Almost.

G: It’s known as taking everything in the right spirit, you know. All part of the cycle of life, karma and all. Have you realized, all these so-called suffering has made you patient?

I: Ya. Ya. Easy for you to say. Bah! Forget it. I have stopped analyzing these things. You know, I have started seeing different aspects of life as a parallel path in the circuit of life. Even if one is not working the other paths are active.

G: Good girl. Whatever works for you.

I: So which one of the ten vishnus are you? I generally called out “permulaey”.

G: Funny, you must ask me this question. I heard you telling that friend of yours that the Vishnu avatarams were a manifestation of the impersonal to the personal. So that common folks could connect to a human form instead of an infinite supreme force.

I: Oh God! So, You do listen to everything I say or do? You saw me butting into the line the other day in the railway station, too?

G: Yeah. And also you swearing on your lab mate, the other day. What exactly was that?

I: Damn! I felt a little bad about it later, but he so totally deserved it. I would have apologized later but I don’t feel like looking at his face only.

G: Don’t worry. It’s not worth wasting your time over such faulty pieces . People make mistakes. They learn and improve or that’s how I meant the world to be. I’ve given you your own brain and a heart. It is up to you people to judge , analyze and do what you feel is right. You don’t have to be a Gandhi to be kind . You can be a normal human and be an idealist. Remember never to repeat a mistake, though.

I: hmm…. You are just like in the Geeta. Ossum wonly this is.

G: Whatever works for you.

I: I have a doubt.

G: Shoot!

I: Sometimes, when I am thinking about you in English and sometimes praying, do you like listen to me? Or If I speak in English, it’s Jesus who is listening to me.

G: Whoever gave you such an idea! Language is essentially a human parameter. Such mundane things do not affect me. You think a person who can’t talk, does not see me or talk to me. The vibes of your heart and thought convert to a message to me. It’s something like an infinite bit decoder.

I: Woah! Ok. That puts things into perspective.

G: And also, we are all the same. Your Ram, Rahim and Essu. We at different times have come and gone but have lived. I agree, we have been mis-interpreted. But, that again is your human perception of us.

I: That day during janmashtami, did you mind that I wore pyjamas and made the urundais for cheedai and pisinjified maavu?

G: Haa…

I: But, I took bath before doing all those things. You know madi and all that. I don’t see the point in pati’s take on madi but I thought taking bath before doing pooja is extremely essential. In college , junta don’t take bath for days, wear the same clothes for days together, so all the jingling mingling with them grossed me out. That’s why I took a bath after I came back home.

G: As long as you did your “pisinjification” and “uritification” happily and with a heart-felt desire, I really don’t mind you being in a pyjama. But, pati’s madi and aacharam has a scientific point to it. Instead of questioning everything blatantly, why don’t you use that brain a little more?

I: Okay.But amma is pretty cool with these things. So, it’s not much of a worry with me. She only expects us to be hygienic. Such pati ma formulae finds no place in her dictionary. And I am in peace with her take on madi-ness. It’s ok right?

G: If it works with you. Oh and nice kolam that day, by the way.

I: Really? You liked it? I made it with real rice maavu. My way of co-existing with the smaller creatures. That is the whole purpose of the kolam , isn’t it? It’s become a form of decorative piece in front of the house these days. My mami, uses that chalk powder type thing and pati gets so pissed….He he. I agree with her on this, though.What do you think?

G: Like I said, there is a reason to every custom. Good for people who realize it and for people who don’t, they will slowly at some point in time.

I: And, I also ate a little bit of bakshanam as soon as it was made. Even before, it was given to you. I told amma , I had some kind of pact with you in advance. I lied. But she totally bought it. Will you pierce my eyes? Kannu kutthuvela?

G: Ha-ha. I am you and you are me.

I: What? I don’t get you.

G: You Will. Give it time. Anything else?

I: I have this habit of drawing graphs to signify small, kutty and bigger things. Yesterday, an agnostic friend asked me to signify you using a graph. You know, I was so stupid as to actually give it a thought.

G: I am aware. So, have you come up with anything?

I: I drew something to the effect of a vertical asymptote and said that was you. It was like trivializing you. But that was to shut her up. I just told her that if she did math all her life assuming there was an infinity nobody had ever seen. But why couldn’t this infinity be God? Have I really trivialized you by breaking you into math?

G: Humans tend to do that. Don’t worry. Science can teach you how things happen but not why? Religion can teach you why some things have to be done but not how?

Isn’t it already late? Don’t you have to sleep?

I: Working on paper presentation. Talking about which, I am a little scared to present it and all. Will you come?

G: Of course I will. If you want me to come, you will see me at all times.

I: Where exactly will you be? Just so that I can look at you, if I am scared.

“You will find me there”, He said , pointing towards me and disappeared.

Dedicated to : Rav, who is always confused. Rango-nama, who refuses to understand " Hari yum sivanum onu, ariyathavar vaiyel manu" and does not visit shaivite temples in the pretext of being a veera vaishnavan when he very plainly is a jack.

We are all flu-ed!!

It was five in the morning as I woke up to start my day. After a little bit of breathing exercise, I made my way to the house to have my daily morning bottle of water. Something was wrong with it. Something terribly wrong. It was green! Green water. I waited for amma to finish her nature chores and come to the kitchen. As soon as she did , I burst open.

" Amma! Water is green ma. "

" Theriyum. I know."

" Naa kaarthalendhu paccha (quite literally) thanni kuda kudikala. Enna ma. What is happening? You know last sem, somebody found a roach in the hostel water cooler! Bwaagg. I don't even go near it now."

" hm.... Ok. So?"

" I want water. And not some green, algayish water"

" Hmm... You know all this swine flue chakkar everywhere."

" Ya, that is in Poona. We are in Nagpur! But, why is the water green?"

" You know vilva maram ?"

" The one at the back of our house, no? Enna ma, pudhir podara?"

" Your college has people from everywhere. Its scary whom all you share the air with!!"

" Huh?"

"Besides, In ayurveda such flue viruses can be fought with vilvam leaves. I have boiled the water with vilvam leaves in it. Its good for you only. By the time it is time for appa and me to return back , you will have a strong anti-flu bubble around you."

"It tastes like omam thanni" as I gulped a glassful of the slightly greenish water.

The mother, whom we shall henceforth call Superwoman without a cape (SWAC), is a non-practicing Ayurvedic doctor and extremely wordly wise. Later in the day, I read up about it and our monk who sold his ferrari says the same. I have always been fond of natural sciences, ways and means. Nature, I think, has most answers. To the ones nature asks us and for questions that come up anthropogenically.

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.
-William Wordsworth

With pleasure

A new Vandi - 40,000/-

A new helmet to go with the color of the new vandi - 500/-

A thenga (coconut) for the vandi - god / god's so that he/ she saves me from prying eyes and wicked drivers around town - 10/-

A box of Haldiram Orange burfee for the extended family - 250/-

Amma riding the vandi and I sitting at the back facing the road with pearls of rain brushing past my face - Priceless!

There are certain things money can't buy. For everything else, nah, too cliched!

"Are you ladies wanting to have all the fun in the world?", they asked.
" With Pleasure" , we said.

:)

HDD

There is absolutely no space in my laptop, whom we shall call Betty's hard disk. One day when i was talking about my grave concern on Betty being fully occupied, a friend suggested that i ask appa for an external hard disk. Uhm, so that is exactly what i did. Went something like this.

Me : Appa

Appa: sollu.

M: You know, i have no memory left.

A: Snigger. Snigger. (looking at amma) See, didn't i tell you, she's been acting weird since she did that bungee jumping.

M: (haha!!) Arey appa, my Betty does not have memory.

A: (Putting his coffee cup down) Who? Who is betty? Isn't that a girl's name?

M: Nothing to do with section 377 , pa.

A: (regaining his calm) So, who is betty?

M: My laptop's name.

A: Laptop's have name and all? I thought you only named that teddy bear in your room. What did you call it? Some poo... poochi...

M: (cutting him short) Pooh ji maharaj ji.

A: Your friend tells me you sometimes forget their names. Infinite quota for such useless information, i wonder how you even have space for what actually matters.

M: Ayyo, appa. There is no memory left in my laptop anymore. I don't know what to do?

A: Delete few things :)

M: But, i don't want to.

A: What do you have in your laptop?

M: Why do you need all that info? Anyway, I have lot of this and that.

A: This and that, na?

M: This and that na purinjukoyen?

A: Your essays, photos, videos and project and all? (not with a straight face)

M: Yes, yes

A: Ok , let me see it.

M: You don't trust me, na?

A: I do, but i still want to see it. Maybe i could do something about it.

M: No, you can't .

After a lot of probing , the father realises that I have more movies , songs and the likes than any really "important" stuff.

A: I think, yes I need to get a new external Hard disk.

M: ( joyous smile on the face)

After I entered my room, i did the victory jiggle.

The day after this day. The father comes back home with a red HDD. My joy knew no bounds. I quitely waited for him to do the honors of handing the shiny gadget to me. He did hand it, later in the day to me and coolly said, " Yes, i did take your advice and have got an HDD for my use!! and yes, could you teach me how to use it?"

Something broke somewhere. Into a million pieces.

The father, I tell you!

Tex Mex :)

Vegetable and bean-zucchini quesadilla, mash potato , butter sweet corn and guacamole.
Chocolate cake with cherries , cream and chocolate :) :)

RIP jackson!

I woke up at four today. I don't know why I did but, I did. Jackson succumbs to a cardiac arrest, they said. Five minutes and ten sites later, I gave in to the truth. I haven't listened to MJ in the last decade but I have patronized BSB, Abba, Elvis which were much before I even came to this world , but I had forgotten MJ whose music I grew up to and with.
I put on my never used playlist of MJ songs, song after song bits and pieces of the past flashed through my eyes. Most family get-togethers would have one common factor those days and that was the music. We were careful enough to divide time between our two favourites those days-Baba sehgal (oh yes!!) and the aforementioned King of Pop. I liked Pop and particularly Jackson because my brother liked him. One of the best things about growing up with an elder brother is you know what you must like, what the brother follows you follow, what he likes you like! Things are very different now, of course.
The family would sit in a circle, as the brother and I would take the black tiled centre stage. We went in ellipses albeit in our own orbits. Jumped up and down, moved our hands, stretched our feet, collided, fell down, got up back again and also did imaginary hooplas. When, I watched one such video a few days back, I bashfully put my head down at my own stupidity. The mother called it "rendu perukum saami vandha madhiri iruku" as the video watching crowd burst into peals of laughter that are still echoing. Our theatrics were a theatrical disaster. After we would dance for 20 minutes or so, I would be taken aside and the centre stage would be the exclusive property of my brother. People would cheer and jeer as though it was Mr.MJ himself! This performance, my dear readers, was the favourite of many to date. Anna would do the moon walk like only MJ could. I tried very hard, I secretly try it when I am alone even today but No, this particular thing escapes my physical faculty. I hated him for it. The way he sashayed across the floor like an eel. The semi-spoilt kid that I was I would sit on my Mom's lap and wouldnt look at him. Jealousy!
An hour would go by and I would forget everything else and would come up with my own walk known as the "mars" walk. It basically was pretty simple and do-able. You walk normally backwards but put your hands forward and move it like the leg-motion in the moon-walk. My brother would then cheer me and I would sleep a happy kid.
I would do anything to get those days back again. I would.
Some such best memories of my life that i take everywhere with me in my mind's eye has been created amidst MJ's songs. Every good, bad and ugly happenings of mine have always been associated with music.
So here's to the King of Good Times, The King of Pop and To the eternalised King of Moon walk, We bow....

Update: An old classmate reminds me of my school performance on MJ's Heal the world.One of the best I have ever felt on stage was for it. :)

Heart Calls

His hand turned the golden of the door knob; a shiver ran through his veins on touching the cold metal. He entered the door to his empty home, no not a home, he thought to himself. This was just a house. The home is where the heart is and for him, it was amongst the Lodhi garden where he had let his sister score a ten thousand runs, the mama road staircase where she had written K anna with the mother’s red lipstick, on the study table in front of the window near the guava tree where me mugged for his board exams and the most in the kitchen that was once small but had been turned into what his grandmother pointed out was unnecessary extension by the new lady who had taken over the reigns. He remembered a particular day when he had tugged the sarree of his sleeping chitti at one in the night asking for roti and beetroot subji.
“Also a glass of bormee, chitti” he quipped, as she made her way into the kitchen from the bathroom.
He entered the coldness of the room and habitually switched on his laptop. The Microsoft opening credit gave a little tune to the otherwise serene surrounding. His stomach grumbled and mumbled as his laptop, Archie revealed the picture of his family. He would do anything for a plate of sambar sadam topped with the home-made nei. He waited for the wi-fi to connect him to the world he wanted to connect physically to but couldn’t. He carefully arranged his socks and shoes in the stand. Everything had to go to its rightful place after it was done, he always said.
“What about you? Don’t you have to go back to where you came from? Isn’t your work done in this place?” He closed his heart from taking over his head any further and made his way to the bathroom and took a quick bath while chanting the hanuman chalisa. He made his way to the semi-pseudo-ish God’s zone which he had tried to recreate like his pati’s, bare-chested but for a thread did the sandhyavandanam.He skipped to the kitchen to grab a bite. His mind half wandered through the pages of naukri.com and his institute job site and absent-mindedly re-heated the day before yesterday’s daal and the yesterday’s rice. The monster hunt for a job was taking a toll on him. The recession was sucking from within and without.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a wife who would make hot meals for you when you returned home? Why don’t you get married da?” the sister had casually pointed out yesterday during their usual morning conversations. She was half hoping he would reply that wives weren’t robots who only cooked and cleaned but equal partners whom you loved and cared for and vice-versa. When he hadn’t, she just rolled her eyes. Men!

(to be contd, when feel like)

Make Peace with nature

The men of steel in an attempt to know the mystery of the world began a journey - their reward was the knowledge they discovered and invented.
But these champions sighed in pain because what they had discovered might have been a personal achievement but for the world, no, it wasn’t. They were laughed and mocked at and often chided. But, too soon it was getting too late to realize what we must have accepted and rectified a long back.
We wanted to ride an engine instead of horses, we wanted to fly high, and we wanted to get our jobs done faster. In the name of industrialization we plundered and looted the Mother Nature. Alas, she retaliated, unleashed her wrath. We sadly had to accept the truth. We had played with her for too long. We used more machines, we got more heat. The temperature rose and the snows melted, the ozone got a hole.
When she oohed and aahed we did not listen but she is too kind-she has given us a chance to make this world a better place for us and our generations to come. This is an attempt to bring to your attention the causes, effects and the mitigation possibilities of the climate change that the earth is so rapidly undergoing.
I, as a responsible citizen of the world, wish to put forth my view points about how we can and we will stop our home-the earth from becoming what we have seen in the movies. So, now is the time for all of us -youth and not-so-youth from across the borders, oceans and seas to become one and make our nature and us co-exist. Let us look for the sustainable path towards greener tomorrow. Let bygones be bygone and let us make a change.
"Be the change you wish to see in this world."
Go Green. Stay Green :) :)

Read This on : http://youthconnect.climateofconcern.org/cc_blog/article.php?a=53&section=youthvoice
Picture courtesy : http://www.dfg.ca.gov/climatechange/images/ClimateChange.jpg

Dark Love

The night is dark, as dark as the girl watching it grow darker. She gives a customary parting glance to the God’s acre replete with poppies of every color-red, green, yellow, black and white as she walks back to the church. She had traced and retraced these paths one Sunday after another. She morosely walks towards the cross to confess a sin she hasn’t committed but which no degree of absolution can take away. it is a sin the humankind has committed against her. The choices that the peccancy had culminated in had been against her will but so was the way she was made by the almighty God. The ecclesiastical architecture gave her a sense of reassurance about herself and of the choices she has made in her life. Closing her eyes, she elegantly knelt beside the pew in tacit contemplation.

Katherine mariammal Athyal was born in the small town of Kattathurai in Tamil Nadu as the only daughter of a couple that had not borne an offspring for 5 years of their matrimony. The Athyal household had rejoiced on the fateful day with balloons, crackers, cakes and had given out huge sums of money on charity. The mother had had a hard time in labor as the doctors confirmed the relative’s agony.” The mother and the daughter both are in danger, I am afraid” the doctor mechanically said. But the child agreed to disagree and made its way out.
“You look exactly like your grandfather”, said the grandmother, lovingly reminiscent, as she oiled Kathy’s hair. “The way you read with a clicking of the tongue, the way you smile with a lip slightly stretched on one end, just like your apupan. Even, your math skills, you know your apupan had been the most famous kanakupillai. If only the man was alive to see my little princess. Also, dark just like him.But he was a man;didn't matter.Lucky your father is rich otherwise these days even ugly fellows want fair kuttys for themselves. njaan parenyjanthu cheriyille?”
After the hair was oiled and braided she ran into her room to observe herself in front of the mirror. She opened the intricate powder holder with a handle having a figurine of a fairy, and gently picked the puff and smothered her face with the Yardley powder her uncle Jacob had got from the gulf. He had promised it would make her look as pretty as the moon on a full moon night. After the little exercise, she did look like the moon, she thought. But without the powdered talc she looked like those dark clouds through which the moon played peek-a-boo sometimes. Her moist eyes pierced through the glasses at the dark girl that was looking back at her.
She wanted to hate herself for being this color. She hadn’t been picked up in her school plays for which she had rehearsed the lines a million times over for her favorite part of the red riding hood. Instead, she had been under the hood for the part of the fox. Why does beauty have to be associated with white? Hadn't the fair-skinned medusa become the monster of lore because of her vanity? What use was such external appearance? In such times her only solace had been her God

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. John 13:34

Who were we to differentiate one from another?

Having so many questions but answers to none she put all her efforts on being fair at what she could. She was a fair human being-loving, caring and gentle and studied as hard as she could to forget it.Soon,it was time for her to move her base to madras. Her small town had been happy to send a daughter of the land to a pattinum for higher studies. The importance of external beauty for the city-folks had made her appearance more obvious than they ever were. She eventually made friends of all kinds-ones who accepted her for what she was and others who didn’t. One such relationship that had creeped in as an acquaintance was a man named Roshan.On their first meet , he eyed her enquiringly as though wanting to know more of her while she coyly hid behind her friend. The acquaintance gradually turned to a dream as she held hands with him in the beach and they kissed passionately under the moonlit night. She asked him innocently "You don't have a problem with me being dark, do you? Why do you still love.....", as he kept his finger on her lips motioning her to stop and kissed her again.” Look at the sky, my love. Don’t we see the beautiful stars only when it grows dark? Beauty is found in places you least expect it”. As these days turned to years, they promised to be there for each other through thick and thin. He promised "We will get married in a month as soon as I attend my sister's marriage"
She remembered the day, it happened. She had been missing her periods for a week now and when she opened her message inbox

Parents have found me a bride. Engagement’s done. Our picture is attached. Please forget me.

Her world came crashing down on her.

The picture attached showed a beautiful young "fair" lady hugging the man who had been the cause of her state now. Her suspicions were later in the day confirmed. She was going to be a mother. A million thoughts rushed through her head. Should she cross the proverbial Rubicon and be an unwed single mother to the kid that was hers? What would the world make of her and treat "them”? Her household would treat her as an outcast.” If only i had been fair, perhaps the world would have been fair to me” she cried.
A hand touched her head which nudged her out of meditation. She opened her tear-filled eyes only to realize it was nobody she could see. She walked across the Holy Cross and lachrymosely uttered

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I killed my child......"

Personality Type

Recently in a certain contact program ,We were asked to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test.I will get to the result a little later but what struck me beyond anything else about this test was ,it was formulated by a mother-daughter duo.It puzzles me how they got any work done.Anyhow,the test was extremely boring with repetitive questions.I must confess ,if it wasn't for the company i had while doing the test, i would have dozed off.Believe me,i am capable of sleeping in any kind of atmosphere, which reminds me of a certain happening in school.

It was a Thursday afternoon just after break.I used to squeeze in badminton practice session in the lunch hour those days hence was always sleepy after that.Today,i wouldn't dream of doing it.How priority changes at different phases in life?Isn't it amazing?Yes,it is.
It was the chemistry class.I hated the subject like i hated nothing else,the teacher like i can hate no one ever and the cloud looming above me during the class was that of hatred,basically.I had absolutely no interest in what she had to say only because she knew nothing.To make a silent statement,unconsciously my eye lids would droop.To my utter amazement i later found out that she was okay with it and only because i did not irritate her by asking questions like i used to, in the beginning classes.Ah!How i miss those lovely sun-filled days in skirts sleeping on the first bench. :) Bliss....

The results of the test came out and i was shocked by the revelations.I had expected to be a ENFP type.
i was surprised when they said i am an INTJ.

On careful analysis of my own self ,i realized the test wasn't an exaggeration.Many of my characteristics are similar to the ones expected of a classic INTJ.Although,in the leaflet which i got, apart from the rest of the blurb the one that stands out to me is INTJ's are skeptical.I don't know how much of the others are true but this one's definitely right.I hate this particular aspect of my personality.I am extremely critical most times to most of my decisions.
I wasn't sure about the test when i took it but once i got my results it somehow made me look at it differently.Nut just the test but also at myself.I personally believe everybody must be put through the rigor ,if not for anything else but to make you a little more patient.

Here's to the mother-daughter duo and to the profs who helped me analyze the results.
cheers :)

And dinner again today :)

I am extremely jobless and satisfied with life per se.Three months of holidays.The results came as soon as we wrote the examination and The GPA was decent.I read at least one book a day.I have done a lot of things i have not in my last few years which makes me very happy.The 10 days (10-19 may) were one of the most beautiful and memorable in my life.Something I am going to cherish for as long as life is going to take me.So much of nothing to do makes me contemplate and retrospect over certain decisions in my life.It's unhealthy at times but it's good to know I still have a little motivation for few things in life.

I would have done hotel management if it wasn't for my extremely tam-brahmic sensibility of not touching anything that walks and then is killed to get into your stomach.Every time I cook i am reminded of this by friends and family.Someday this passion of mine will be a huge determining force in my life.I know.I promise this to myself :) How and when? We shall see.

We had people today for dinner.Close friends.So,i made some (white sauce) cheese pasta and Tiramisu.The mother and the other lady do not consume egg,coffee and kahlua (liquor based).So,i had to make two separate batches.But,it was all worth it.

Here is a look :)











And now for the dessert....




P.S: Somebody asked me if my last pasta was mix and cook type thing.No,it wasn't.I make my pasta sauces both red and white from scratch.Incidentally,the tiramisu here was also made from scratch.The base was baked,the whipped cream was made and the mascarpone filling was whipped by me :)

For supper today :)

We were supposed to Eat Out today.I had had three cups of "grande" coffee (one with an extra shot) in the morning today and could not take anymore of anything outside and moreover i was lazy to get dressy to go out.So, I decided to fix a quick supper.I went into the kitchen and here is what I came up with.I had made paysam/kheer in the morning but, I remade more of it again on popular demand by the brother.

Here's a look :)













They said , it was yum :)I believe them.

The Birthday that was

00:00 A chocolate cake that I will always cherish

00:01
to Innumerable hugs, kisses, calls and songs
4:00

5:00 The younger roomie wakes me up

5:30 Other hugs that mattered

6:00 Yoga

6:45 The birthday song and wishes

Lunch:The big chocolate chippy cake with some on my face,the boats and the photo clicks :)

Sometime in the afternoon: The gift that mattered the most.I can't tell you how touched I was.As much as I am ever capable of being.

Late-afternoon ,most of evenings and the nights even: Good-bye hugs,hugs of promise and of hope and of the love that unknowingly bonded each of us together as a single family.


Suddenly,Ahmedabad felt like a city I belonged to,a city full of people I knew who cared and a city I would come again to.Someday,yes,I will :)

To every soul who made it happen.I love you :)

Signing off with Infinite hugs,
Illa pilla :)