Shedding a gloomy face

I was the kind of a child who was the teachers' pet at school, but was reserved to the core, especially when it came to matters of mingling with people. I was so very less outgoing. Even now I am not much better.

I used to put up a gloomy face whenever my mood was slightly or entirely off its best. Too much of time I spent on thoughts, and thus I used to be led to skirmishes of capricious threads, one leading to another and ultimately all these would squeal and scratch my skull from inside. Occupy all the pleasant space inside my mind. Over the time as my Innocence Quotient dropped, at the time of an increased reserve, my grey cells turned into a cornucopia of thought. This I welcomed with great relief. I was a refugee who sought something more than existence.

The coarse terrain of life weathered my reserved nature somewhat as I treaded along it, but my fervor for thoughts never died, it overflowed and some of it, words like these, left imprints on paper as well. The gloomy face was as effective as a Guy Fawkes mask in displaying a fabricated intent. It helped at times – at those when I did not want people to know what ran in my mind. But the same became a problem. 

It struck me a big blow when a well-wisher observed and pointed this out recently. I realized how much true his observation was, and how large an impact this had in my life. The gloom was read as an unwelcoming attitude, and thus many knocks passed by without falling on this naïve door.Opportunities are mostly biased to optimists. And I don’t want to lose any more chances in this rat race of a life.

Now I am shedding the gloomy face. I adopted a bright and happy face from then on - as a facade to positive thoughts that lay beneath. I try to think less, never let thoughts go astray, keep unnecessary anxiety at bay. Even without growing tumours of thoughts, it should be possible to spur my way through. I don't give a damn if the universe conspires or not.

The Chetan Bhagat Revolution

Gone are the days when companies used to come to campuses to do a very meticulous and selective recruitment of capable students. Now companies from the IT-services sector swarm into campuses and rope in hundreds at a time. Chetan Bhagat sweeps majority of the Indian audience in this fashion. The books sell at every nook and corner of India in incomparable numbers. Now the fifth of his books, Revolution 2020 are out, and I found it the best among the five.

This, I call, cotemporary writing. Even though the inevitable scenes of affairs and sex are included as in his previous novels, undoubtedly to sell more copies, Chetan has hit the right chords with the evergreen topics of love and greed that run throughout the story like stave in an orchestra composition. When writers spend months to coin phrases that might hold the verbose-liking readers to ponder over non-existent meanings, this IIM-A graduate has tabled his cards in a plain and simple fashion. Now here I might have hurt a few of you, but I don’t care - because bestsellers are not always meant to adorn the shelves of ardent literati fans and amateur wannabe pedants.

From a masala-point-something of a story to millions of books sold, Chetan has so far got the right going in everything. He was in the TIME’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and he is the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history. Hope he uses this influence as a jig to instill in youth the realization of the need behind the youth to come forward for every common cause, rather than sulking away to comforts. He quit his career as an international banker, to dedicate his full time to writing. The Indian youth needs icons desperately, and this guy might have already proved his candidacy through his influence.

At a time when sins are redefined and erstwhile taboos have come out of sediments to the periphery, that the people (especially youth) have started to view corruption from a third person point of view gives hope. The book spits overt blame on the Indian educational system, but finally gives the reader a chance to choose which was right and which was wrong

Awesome reading, guaranteed.

How to Satisfy Our Daily Appetite

Slurrrrrrp!!!

I just wiped clean with my tongue the last drop of curd that tickled down the side of my right hand's little finger. Waaah! That was a lunch and a half I had just now. The menu was amaaazing! Rice, curd, pickle, 'dosa podi' and salt. I felt each grain of rice, the unique tomato garlic pickle, and amma-made-dosapodi filling my stomach - it was that relishing. Catch up to this line if you are held up in between the previous two lines, trying to read something there. No, there's nothing. That was it, the menu was short and simple but awesome. The best-to-have food, I found, is self-cooked. This would be the case with everybody, we get the most satisfaction out of having some food we have cooked, even if it's a delicacy or not. Objection, anybody?

It has been (just) two years since I started living neither at home nor in a hostel, and from then it has been a search for the best place to eat, to live. Of course, almost the complete later half of this period I stayed at my uncle's place in KK Nagar, Chennai, so during that time I had the best food I could get it Chennai. After that the hunt for the place which gave the next best food started again. I have been to many restaurants, 'messes', caterers and food stalls. The ones among these that managed to hold me as their regular visitor were 'Sridevi's Dosa Corner'* at Camp Road and Arvind Caterers in Muthamizh Nagar. I am not a great connoisseur of tastes, but I got bored everywhere because I found something lacking, in all these places. And each time I did, I would resort to something tedious and time-wasting at my first notion, but worth the toil and time spent in the end - and that act is nothing but cooking! If the end product of what I cook is harmless and eatable, then I find the element which was missing when I ate from outside - satisfaction. 

Eat-outs indeed give us tasty food we cannot prepare at home daily, but fail to lure us to come and eat everyday. The secret ingredient that gives our curd rice a 'five-star rating' is right there with us - our own culinary touch. But did I miss the most important clause - 'cooking works out only if we have time!'?

Now I am signing off for a nap, let me see if I will wake up in time to make an evening tea. 

*There was this 'normal dosa corner' at Camp Road, East Tambaram. GT and I used to frequent this place. Around the corner of the same road there was this restaurant, the name of which was so long and hard to remember, and my friend Sridevi used to eat from this restaurant. Later on, all three of us made this restaurant our official dinner place, and named this as 'Sridevi's Dosa Corner'. Thus the name.

I hate to blame the system to use the failure of the system as a curtain to conceal our unpreparedness. But sometimes the systems in place are so bad and inefficient that they just don't allow me to remain silent. 

Today something of this kind happened. I want to take my bike from my home in Malappuram, Kerala to Pallavaram, Chennai, the place where I live and work.  It's a 15-20 minutes walk from my Chennai home to office, and of late I have been thinking on this idea of getting a bike so that commuting to office and other travel in the city will be easy. The bike, a 100cc TVS make, is in average condition now and is used now only when my brother (he lives in Cochin, doing his B. Tech Mech Engg) or I am home.I don't want to spend too much to buy a new bike either, and this mostly rarely used bike at home is the best option I have. The bike will get a lifeline, its condition will better once I start using it regularly.

Now I need to get an NOC (No Objection Certificate) issued from the RTO (Road Transport Office) or Joint RTO under the sphere of which my locality falls. [As per rules this is not required - NOC is to be produced only if the registration number of the vehicle needs to be changed to another area, especially another state. I have a temporary plan only - I will use the bike in Chennai for another 7-8 months, after which I will send it back to Kerala, as my whereabouts after that time is uncertain!]. But to make myself equipped with all documents in case any traffic police wished to stop me, ask me to pull over to the side and expected cash to cover up any missing document, I thought I will obtain this NOC as well. 

I went to JRTO Perinthalmanna, as my residence is in Perinthalmanna Taluk. Now at the outside the JRTO, which is on the second floor of a yet-to-be-furnished building, there was a man behind a desk that had a small board on it which read 'Help Desk'. I was surprised and happy about this people-friendly arrangement. There was a very small queue in front of the desk - around four people. This was a proof for the efficiency of the man behind the desk, I thought. 

But it was not to be..

When I reached the head of the queue, a person came from behind - he was panting probably after a long walk in the sun. He too had come to get an NOC to use his vehicle in Kannur, and from his conversation with the 'helper' man I found that NOC form was not available in any nearby shops, forget at the JRTO. The 'helper', after learning from me that I wanted an NOC too to use my bike in Chennai, he asked me if I could get a form from a printing press a bit far away. I walked all the way just to find out that the press did not have any NOC forms. So I returned back to the 'helper' and described to him the situation. He then took out from an old file a filled copy of the form, and asked me to get a photocopy of that after hiding all written stuff using white paper. I went downstairs, went to a photocopy shop and got a couple of copies. An important thing was that the cash collection counter inside the JRTO would close at 1 o'clock and if I did not go in time, I would not be able to get the NOC before I start for Chennai tomorrow evening. And tomorrow and the day after are off-days for the JRTO. Finally, at about 12:45, with a lot of confusion the 'helper' finally helped me fill up the form, pasted a Rs. 5 stamp on it, attached the originals of my RC book, Insurance Certificate, Smoke Test Certificate, and asked me to submit it together at a counter inside. And from that counter I understood that the form I used was a wrong one, and that there was a separate form for NOCs outside Kerala. That was called Form 28. Furious, I wet out and asked the help-desk person about this confusion. He acted as if he did not know anything, and as if I was the one who got things wrong by hurrying things up, blah blah blah. And then he said that he had copies of Form 28!!! I shouted at him for not giving the correct information earlier, and then I saw that my watch, which runs 5 minutes fast, showed 1:10 PM. I walked away from the help-desk, showering my anger on the 'helper'. 

Now I cannot take my bike to Chennai tomorrow, for doing so would end me up emptying my purses to the Chennai traffic police. No wonder people make fun of people at government offices working in a sluggish manner.

Rains in Chennai

To an NRK (Non Resident Keralite), the monsoons in Kerala are a blithe longed for. The greenery plus the chill and wet climate give a coziness like nowhere else. Gallons of water flowing by you in the canals and sometimes even on the roads and footpaths is big time exciting even though some people might turn cynical about this. Of course it hinders travel and outing, and that rainy season brings with it a handful of communicable diseases is a scientifically proven fact. But rains are the lifeline as well, as the whole goodness and greenery that makes the God's own country a better place to live in owe a lot to the monsoons. Now we have every chance of experiencing higher torrents of rain, but fortunately or unfortunately we are not in the North East. It's a bit extreme over there because rather than enjoying the rain, people would prefer escaping the floods and havoc.    

And what happens in the other not-so-rainy parts of the country? Here in Chennai where I live now, rains come as an effect of the North-East monsoons mostly in September, October and November. It does not rain everday, thank god! The enjoyable climate that the rains bring is spoilt very soon by the waterlogs that accompanies every formidable rain. And Chennai does not get help from geographical contours either, the whole town is so perfectly flat that there is no place water can run off even though the sea is a couple of blocks away! Whereas in my hometown, Malappuram, which like what its meaning in malayalam suggests, is made of small hillocks - ups and downs everywhere that you cannot see a road that runs flat for more than a hundred ir two metres. Drainage, however bad it is designed, runs out of eyesight and out of town! Civil engineers, you are welcome to Chennai, and I dont know what drainage planning happens here. Every small street gets flooded, and the drains overflow, bringing out every rubbish in them. 

Rains have started a couple of weeks back, and my house in Chennai is so strategically located that every road to every eat-out nearby gets blocked due to waterlogs! Either I buy a boat or I start cooking. The former is too whimsical and the latter is impossible! Hard times ahead I guess.

What to do at the IITs.... and Confessions of a Rustic True Blue

Part Two: Confessions of a Rustic True Blue

Some things never change. (If you wonder ‘things like what’, read along…)

18^th Sept 2011. The get together with friends at IIT Madras had just got over when Pala asked me what next. It was Super Sunday that day. Manchester United was to meet Chelsea at Old Trafford, and a Champions League Victory against Benefica was a good sign to the Cobham blues. It was an year since I watched a Premier League match, and I decided I will stay back for the night at IIT, watch the match and return the next day morning. The TV at my home was busted in a power fluctuation months ago, so there was no way of watching the match at home either.

A couple of years ago on any weekend evening, the most probable place to find me was the hostel common room where the most ardent football fans flocked together. We showed no mercy – we used to kick all the cricket fans out! Apart from the Premier League, there were less frequent Champions League and World Cup matches to keep us busy round the calendar. The packed common rooms provided a feeling equivalent to that of a gallery. People in your side, opposite side and some indifferent fans of some other team whose boos and roars and sighs of despair and taunts that followed livened up the air.

Of all the football clubs across the world, I found Chelsea FC the most liking, due to their unique style, glamour and relentless spirit. For a decade I have been their fan. Saw the flourish, fame and the recent fall, and the unbelievable losses in the previous season which hammered blows over my hopes on Chelsea. It was rather a gradual decline, as after Roman Abramovic sacked Jose Mourinho, no manager was able to pull off stints of success that lasted for more than half a season. Avaram Grant was the luckiest of the lot yet the most defamed.

At the same time to the fall of Chelsea, the Catalans achieved uncomparable class and brilliance, and the Manchester United, now the richest club in the world, rose to unquestionably the next best football club in the world. In this backdrop my emotions for Chelsea started eroding, and of late, a ‘transfer’ to Barca was imminent. The doubt whether I have become a turn-coat was the only worry that kept me from switching my ‘home-ground’.

But……

CHE vs MANU.. or rather MANU vs CHE, to term it in the right sequence – is an event which revs me up to otherwise impossible adrenaline highs. By the time Pala and I reached Krishna hostel common room, match had started, Chelsea was a goal down, 18 minutes into the first half.

In a second, all my hard-feelings for Chelsea melted away, and I was back to the game again! 90 minutes were up in the flicker of an eye. Man Utd defeated Chelsea by a deceiving margin of 3-1. A true football fan never believes the stories that the scores belie. The main highlights of the match was the amazing passing and intercepts by Man Utd lads (the average age of their first eleven was 23 !!!) and the relentless spirit displayed by Chelsea, spearheaded by Torres. He impressed, though he made an early bid to the miss of the season when he fired a ball out of an open post after deceiving De Gea with a precise dribble.

Albeit the loss, there was a lot of promising moments for Chelsea. I returned to Pala's room as much a die-hard fan of Chelsea as I have ever been. Some things like this, never change. Blue blood, I will claim I have!

What to do at the IITs… and Confessions of a Rustic True Blue

Part One: What to do at the IITs.....

The tech-niches of India, and the source of a good percent of the most wanted brains all over the world, the IITs have always been my fascination. I haven't got into one as its student, but I have a bunch of good friends in IIT Madras, and they have made possible many jovial hang-outs at their campus. IIT Madras, a green campus blessed with affluent natural beauty and beautiful meandering boulevards through the forests linked with the Guindy National Park, is a place that showers bliss. It was a similar experience yesterday when I had a get together with friends from college at IITM.

Faeez Basheer was the reason behind this get-together. From the oil rigs of Saudi, he turned up now two years after we passed out of NITC. By the time GT (short form for Asish George Thomas) and I reached the Café Coffee Day at IITM, Faeez had collected a handful of people there – Anoop aka Palakkad, Chitra, Padmanisha and Aruna. It was a happy unison at the happening CCD where we were the only outlandish lot among the unusually crowded pack of students. Our talks and laughter echoed over evey other clatter, and Pala (short for Palakkad) was the centre-point of all, as everyone wanted to know the secret behind his long, curly and kempt hair. To everyone's disappointment, Palakkad somehow managed to parry away the jeers on him and escaped with a silly reason - he was growing his hair to perform a "head-bang" at Saarang 2012, the cultural frenzy hosted by IITM.

The walk through the woods was much more relished, and Aruna's Canon D1000 would have come of better use if the sun had not been so low. At Gurunath stores, the next best hangout place there, Fayaz Habeeb, Murshid, Arun S and Jayajith (all are juniors from NITC, currently doing MTech at IITM) joined. Everyone agreed to meet at the RECCAA (CREC/ NITC Alumni Association) Onam get-together to be held on 25th Sep'11. A short while later we parted ways, as it was already dark and the girls wanted to reach home early.

Dinner was at the ‘Himalaya’, a hi-tec canteen/mess with swipe-cards for all students, and a token-system-based-serving-counter with digital display of the token numbers. Wow! Walked back to Pala’s room after dinner, and GT jumped on to the guitar in the room. We left him there and went to the common room to watch Chelsea- Man Utd match. A tense match left Chelsea at the losing end. But it reinstated many of my notions, which I have written here. Pala and I returned to his room, and there GT was in front of the PC, immersed in the Guitar tuitorials he was watching. GT had almost finished tuning the guitar, and then we helped Pala with his project work. It was like we were back in college again, and a black tea at midnight beckoned. We walked in the drizzle to Tiffany’s. It remains open till 1 AM. We had black tea, reached back in the room, and then learned from Pala that internet connection to hostels was cut off from 12 midnight to 5 AM. What was that?The most elite of institutions in India not providing internet at night? Unbelievable. I slid on to the floor, Pala on to the cot and GT on to the chair. Some chords escaped into the air and a couple of seconds later we were all singing old songs together. Pala, a good rapper, sparred with his ‘Smack that..’ as well. Not much later I was in deep sleep, and woke up the next day early in the morning. I had to reach office by 8 AM and GT had a training to attend at 9. Setting on a reminder to come back soon, we left for the main gate in the institute’s internal bus service.