My life is my lesson!!!

Turning 23 and in sometime 24..

2011-12-17T23:45:00.002+05:30

I have been writing this post about me turning 21. And then I turned 22, sadly 23 and now in sometime I will be 24. Looking back at my life, it has actually been great. The number of people I have met, the miseries and happiness and loads of other things have taught me great lessons. I am always thankful to my parents for being friendly and never conservative.

I wrote enough about my life at Trivandrum. I kinda found that place nice, and it has been a long 9 years since I have been there and I badly miss Trivandrum. I have reasons to go back there soon, hopefully I will. Need to walk along the streets I walked before. Those Hindi tuitions(for those of my friends in Mumbai, I was really bad in Hindi back then. Now I can clear your Hindi doubts :P ) and those really fast cycling I would do on my way to the tuition. And Sagara and City Chef, our favorite spots for Fish Curry meals and Porota and Chicken Fry. Trivandrum was a foodies haven back then, I believe it is even now.

And finally had to say a bid good-bye to that wonderful place, was I really happy to leave Trivandrum? I don't really know. But by the end of our times there we faced real serious issues with our house getting robbed and those incidents were never pleasant. And yeah that was the first place from where I tasted Beer and rakesh too tasted it.lol. We had been on this family trip to Kutraalam(water falls) and on our way back we went to a KTDC hotel and tried it. It tasted yuck for me and Rakesh since then found drinking beer awesome :P. Then one really nice thing that happened was joining the nature club there and we went on this trip to hmmm I forgot, but we went on a Butterfly observation trip along the forest. It was fun.

And Pappa got his transfer to Vadakkancherry branch I guess. It was not really great coming back, I didn't have any CBSE schools back then closeby other than Chinmaya and getting an admission was not so easy there. So I ended up getting into Gurukulam, another place which influenced me very much. A not-so-great school back then, with good enough infrastructure. Coming back from a great school in Kendriya Vidhyalaya,Pallipuram my expectations were high. But here I found this modest school nothing significant to boast about. But yeah, there was good enough education there. I went with mummy to finalize the admission and stuffs. The classes had begun there and so I was asked to study well and take down the previous classes notes and stuffs.

Everything was kinda fine but then here we had this sets and functions in Math, which I didn't know before and the classes on that topic was among the ones I missed, thanks to my late coming back and late admission. So I was quite weak in it. And yeah the class, I didn't see any known faces the first time I went inside. Then I met Govindan, he studied with me at Gangothri 3 years back before I left for Trivandrum. A thin fellow, not-so-tall and he was just the same. He had this unique way of running. And talking about Gangothri, I missed mentioning in detail about my life there. I need more time to recollect, so let me keep it in buffer for later. And yeah Govindan helped me make more friends I guess, I don't remember how I made friends there initially but I did make many friends.

Yeah yeah, got it. I made friends with students who came from Nemmara, there was quite a few of them in the class and so I started going back with them. We would at times walk till Trippalur, it was like 10-15 mins walk from school after crossing the High way. And we would even have some snacks there. It was fun studying in a school, not much problems and tension. Only thing you need to do is enjoy and study. How easy a life that was way back. And yeah the first unit test happened. I guess I failed in Math and biology. Maths exam was like full of questions from sets and functions which I was not good at. And this invigilator, she would keep looking at my answer sheet to see if I wrote anything. And I remember not writing anything good enough. And while the paper was being distributed, I had to go through a caning from Binil Sir. He kinda liked me and expected me to score well, I very much disappointed him.

Then it was not too long by the time I made good friends in the school. There was Manoj,Sandeep,Sooraj,Sarath,Jecin,Jayesh and a few others who became very good friends with me back then. Manoj was also a new joinee like me and I guess we sat together. State syllabus was easy and fun. But then you had to be good at mugging up and if possible some understanding. If you could do both then its like the easiest. And forgot to say, since I was no mug with Malayalam, not that I couldn't read or write but I didn't really want to learn Malayalam since I knew enough for my calling myself a Malayali, I took special and additional English. We had a teacher from near by college to take that subject. So everytime this class came, we would go out to attend it at one of the last class rooms by the right end of the school, it was a make shift class separated from the Malayalam medium class for 9th standard.

And yeah the first infactuation at Gurukulam, seriously not my mistake. Everytime I would go for this Special english class, there was this girl in the Malayalam medium class who would look at me at every opportunity. Am seriously not boasting, but back then I looked better :P. And we played this eye-to-eye game just looking at eachother and no talking. Lol it was one way to get over with the class without boring myself much. And it became a habit, she was kinda okay I guess I cant really recollect how she looked now. And that particular year the State Sports meet was scheduled at Palakkad, so being a known school there our school was to participate in a small parade kinda thing and so all of us were taken to the college where the meet was held. And there this girl was very close to me and still we would only look.lol. It was fun, thinking about it now. And my friends would make fun of me saying this and that.

And then I guess she changed the school and shifted to somewhere else. Later I heard from friends that her name was Athira, and she was kinda poor at studies, that could also be the reason for her parents deciding to change her school. And yeah the school cultural festival, I participated in Tamil poem recitation,english essay and I guess English poem recitation as well. I didn't do one of them well and that was when Haseena came over and was trying to console me, yeah yet another great friend I made over the years. She has always been a great friend, got married last year. I went for her wedding too:). Thanks to the recitation or me not doing it well I made a good friend. And I won th English essay, I don't know about the other things I won but I did win another event as well. Not sure which one. And we had this interesting activity at Gurukulam called Srishti(means creation). There was this board right at the entrance of the building and every class was assigned the task of decorating it and posting interesting articles or drawings on it. It was a fun activity.

By this time I made friends with everyone in the class, the list is big. It was a nice class to be in and my place was always at the back. A back-bencher who would keep murmuring all through every class. There is lot more to write about this school, will be continued.

A post after sooo long!!

2011-12-12T00:23:00.005+05:30

Am employed now. Boring life. But yeah Mumbai is a great city to be in, no doubts. It has been like a smooth job, nothing really interesting though. 4 hours of travel everyday makes me regret a lot thinking about the amount of time I waste travelling everyday. Enough of my current life, nothing great. I would rather write from where I stopped last year. I cross my fingers, hoping it wont be too big a post.

Life is always like a roller-coaster they say. And it truly is. It was fun studying, or the fun was that there was not much studying in college. My part time event management jobs were good enough. I worked with the IPL at Chennai, it was fun but it really showed me the other side of a this big event. Which I dare not speak about. I learnt a lot of things there, and the funniest things that happened there was that cause of my sincerity to what I did there, I ended up in real deep shit trying to stop the then city asst. police commissioner and he wanted me to be put in jail right away. I somehow escaped, I can never forget those 10 mins in my life. You shouldn't be the bad man doing the good job with the big guy!!

After ILP I did few other small stuffs, and then bid a big bye to events. I don't think I did the wrong thing. It was good to move on. And now Rakesh does events, he is happy with it and wants to keep doing it. And by the end of my 4 years of college, I found the love of my life. More about her later lol :)

And then life went pretty fast, it still is going fast. My results came and I cleared and became an engineer. I was never proud, I was just another of the lakhs of engineers this country produces, not good in what I learnt. No regrets though. That was when Pappa got transferred, he got Delhi first, with some force we changed it to Mumbai. The big Indian city, it was like a dream to be here. I followed Pappa to Mumbai, I was slow to follow him here, and he would pester me with messages saying time once lost doesn't come back..do something and don't waster your time doing nothing there..learn some Java or some programming, it will help..You haven't decided what you want to do next..and finally I booked my ticket to Mumbai. I had registered in TCS website a day before I booked the ticket and on the day I went to take printout of my ticket I got this hall ticket for a campus program scheduled at Mumbai right on the day I would reach Mumbai. Coincidence, is the term they coined for such an occurrence. And yeah while I was at Chennai, I used to majestically waste time doing nothing. Everyone kinda joined somewhere either an IT company or some BPO for the time being. I was almost a loner then, atleast for the better part where I wasted time.

Then I came to Mumbai one fine morning, got ready and went for the placement drive. I didn't want to inform Pappa, mummy or any of my friends about this but had to tell Pappa since I didn't know about Mumbai. I was of the impression that, if at all I get in then they would want me to work in an IT company, I was not very keen about it. I didn't come to Mumbai to work in an IT firm. But life goes the way it wants to, not listening to us. I got selected, thanks to that cool guy who interviewed me. Pappa called up mummy, she also came to know. lol. She wasn't surprised. Getting a job made me lazier, I became more lazy thinking I have a job and I don't need to find a new one anymore. That I believe is one of the biggest mistake I did my whole life. No regrets now, that stage again passed the test of time.

And I did attend 3 interviews after that, one was for a sales company. I kinda felt bad, cause that job would have taught me few things I am not so great at now. I should have taken it up atleast for a few months. Then the next one was another IT company, if I were in the interviewers shoes I wouldn't have picked myself then. I was bad at answering their questions, but they said they got what they looked for in me since I asked them why. I feel they had to meet target.. :P Another interview was the one I wanted to be through, but I couldn't, not having been rejected before it was not a good feeling. But again time makes you forget atleast a few things in life. And coming to Mumbai meant, I could meet many of my relatives I only heard about. And having met them made me feel I have company here. Thanks to my cousins here, last Diwali I had Pani puri for dinner :D. Thanks to Prashanth etta and Shefali Chechi. It is always good to have someone we can gel with easily at a new place, and here it turned out to be my cousins since I didn't have any friend in Mumbai initially.

Then my passion for finance and enough research made sure I would write CFA exam. I started studying and after a long wait TCS call came. I was just about to register for the exams then, but decided against it till my training got over. I went for the training and I can say it was once of the best times. I was like a single mallu in a group of nearly 190 students, there were no Tamilians and there were a few Telugu people who were born and bought up in Mumbai. So I was the only certified South Indian there in my batch. I made friends there, they had a difficult time coping up with my broken Hindi. It was really fun time at the training. One thing I really thank TCS for. It is not always easy to gel with different people, but it was great there. I could learn about the different states in India and know about its people.

We went on a lot of tours and stuffs during training, the Northest I have been in India. And I learnt there are a lot of places to be seen. I wanna visit the whole of this country, with such rich diversity. I am happy to have met some really great people during my training time in TCS. And thanks to all of them, I have a better Hindi now, though Java still remains bad. :) I would like to mention a few names here, but the list can actually go on. And yeah my birthday, not always anyone would have such a birthday like the one I had. Thanks to the guys for all the fun we had there. I can't say more about my b'day in here :P

Then I was deployed at Mumbai, an office 2 hours from where I live. I had no other options. But its good, I kinda work with a good team. I have learnt a lot of things. And yeah I had enrolled for my CFA Level I exam, it got over and am waiting for the result. I have done pretty well, the most effort I have ever put whole my life for any exam. Lets see what the result would be. I want to continue blogging, this is just an effort to kick start my writing habit again. A deliberate effort. But yes, I would be updating my blog regularly from now on, I at least want to do so. And its already too big.

Rahul

The unexpected workshop.. :)

2010-02-17T10:00:00.003+05:30

Off late life has been kinda good. Not many things to do, I quit the BD team as well :(. I miss it, seriously. It was so much different from my usual life but I couldn't continue the work. I stopped working on events as well. I just wanted to enjoy the life of a student thinking of studies and future all the time. It's fun, believe me. Don't really know how I manage to spend all these lonely hours at home doing nothing still its like a different life. Things have been good. The last major event i did was for NIIT and God it was an experience for me personally. And why I resigned my job? Well I felt that I wasn't spending much time with the family especially couldn't make it for the dinner with Pappa,Mummy and Rakesh and so Pappa wasn't that happy. I would most probably be with them for another couple of months(after that I will have to search for my next destination) and the best thing I could do is to keep them happy. Now back to the NIIT activity.

I had to do the NIIT Edgineers activity in some 10 colleges but I managed to do it only in 3 colleges, not really my mistake certain colleges were not ready to let us disturb their already kinda tight schedule. And this happened couple of weeks back, my friend Naren and Rakesh coordinated the activity in 2 colleges since I had college that day. Then on a Saturday we had to do the same activity in another college, pretty good one. And all engineering colleges. So since I was free that day I went for the coordination stuffs that day. The flow of the activity was like there would be an emcee playing some interactive games with the students and then there would be this NIIT guy who conducts an hour long workshop on Open source technology.

On that particular day the activity was suppose to happen at about 11 in the morning and get over by 2. So we reached there and got all the set up ready. It all went fine and then the emcee started her work. I really thought that she was a good emcee before the event started but as it got progressed I blamed myself for having brought such a useless emcee for it. She had absolutely no energy in whatever she did though the students were kinda enjoying the rare freedom they got in colleges like these. And we were waiting for the NIIT guy to come and do his part once the games were over. But the NIIT guy never turned up(God knows why), and being the coordinator I had to do something about the workshop cause the HOD of CSE in that college kept asking us about the seminar.

Helwin and Naren were also there along with the that day for the activity and they asked me to take the seminar. I was having no other better option than do it myself. I gave it a shot, infront of 150 odd students and staff members in a reputed engineering college I was suppose to take a seminar on Open source technologies and also Cloud Computing. I started and believe me it went good. I used all the knowledge I had on open source technology and got some inputs from the students out there who were familiar with the technology and just kept talking about it. I was surprised I could do it, I didn't stammer much either and it all went smooth. After explaining I just interacted with the students to clarify their doubts on the technology. And few of them did come up with doubts and even the staff members had doubts, I could manage to clear them as well and no I wasn't blabbering some shit, it made sense. Thanks to my project on cloud computing without which I would have found it difficult.

And the students really did enjoy the session. They were patient and ready to listen. At the end of the session the HOD wanted to ask a doubt and all of us were worried as to how I would manage that, but thankfully his doubt was again on the lines of cloud computing and I could give him a perfect answer. At the end of the day it all went good. Thank God. :)

First post from Office!!

2010-01-28T22:26:00.002+05:30

Hey fellas, this is like my first post sitting at my new office. I am in the business development team working to get Business for the company and keep it going. It feels great to know that your business can let the company move on, though I haven't started my work yet and all that am doing as of now is going through our products and also chumma whiling away time with those regular coffee and chit chatting(am the only guy doing nothing out here as of now). We are a team of 6 as of now, I joined on 26th January(if you are wondering why on Republic day, my shift is from 6 to 3am and I follow American holidays now:D). And if you ask me what difference is there between a BPO and my BD team, we are a b2b team who try to bring direct business unlike the BPO.

Its super boring for me to just sit idle and do nothing in particular. My team leader Kk told me that I can start my work by next week and that I will get trained before that. And my colleague Pavan said he will help me on how to do some online research on the colleges and stuffs like that which is part of my job. So in a way am happy working here. The only disadvantage that we guys out here have is that we need to come by ourselves and there is not cab, but thanks for my Pappa and my bike I got no problems in coming in bike and Pavan stays close to my house so we planned to use one of our bikes a day to save some fuel as well. Then comes the dinner, we need to have the dinner from the food world out here and its kinda nice.

Kk is in a team building process and hence I feel I can grow with this company atleast till I take up my MBA and this can become an added advantage for my MBA. This can definitely be a good platform to learn a lot of things in sales and it would help me when I start my own venture. Let me see how things work out over here. Wish me all the very best. :)

And you should be at the entrance of the Tidel park main building to enjoy the windy nights. Seriously, its super windy as good as the beach wala. And super refreshing, however sleepy you are it can just boost you up so easily. I have decided that I don't try smoking in the night to keep myself nocturnal cause I feel that habit can get on top of me and I end up being a chain smoker atleast in the night. And believe me its good to not smoke and work(not that I have tried smoking when working chumma :P). Presently I need to work on a software called proretension and it is used to decrease the number student drop-outs happening in universities in US. This software is used to bridge the gap that exists between Universities and students and bring the Universities closer to the students mentally. I appreciate the concept and the way they have brought out this business. As of now my company is mostly dealing with educational products but out technical team is working on few other domains as well and products are in the pipeline.

Turning 21.. post 4!! :)

2010-01-24T11:23:00.002+05:30

Chinmaya life was a memorable life. Good enough with loads of happenings and stuffs lol. And when I was in Chinmaya was that my Grandfather died, he was someone who loved me more than anyone else in the whole world and he died. It came as a shock for many cause he was just 56 when he died and he was a heart patient. He was the pillar of my moms family. No one could really take it when he died. But i guess I was too young to feel his loss. I was in 5th Std and though I did love him I could never cry when he died. I never knew what death was like but for the loss of the one whom we loved. I called him Mani Muttacha(grandpa), he was a hardworking person, God fearing and demanded respect. Everyone in the small town of Gudalur knew him. I have seen him get up early by 4.30 in that super cold weather and go for work to Conoor which was 3 hours of travel from Gudalur, you wont believe not everyone can do that. I dedicate this post for my Muttacha, and I did love you Muttacha but I later realized that I can never cry and we do miss you.

I spent my 5th Std vacation at Gudalur with Grandma and uncles. Ravi mama and Manikanda mama were not settled when Muttacha left them. I went back in the taxi that had come to drop Mummy back to Nemmara. I did wonder why Mummy kept crying all the time those days, later I realized that it was her love for her dad. I don't remember too many things about that vacation, obviously I was missing Muttacha and his love and pampering. I was missing those days in which he would comb my hair in the least modern way and I would tell him that I don't like that hair style. I missed his tea(vettiyal muriyatha chaya means tea that doesn't get cut). If at all anyone shouted at me he would warn them and ask them not to shout at me. He was a great man. And this was a funny incident. One day when Muttacha and Muthi(grandma) was sleeping, Muthi got hold of Muttachas neck and started shouting Kallan Kallan(thief thief) it seems. And Muttacha had a hard time waking her up and made her realize that she was actually dreaming at his cost.

I went back to Nemmara after the vacations and that was when Pappa got the well deserved promotion and also the transfer. We had to leave for Trivandrum, mummy wanted a change and the change had come. So we all left for Trivandrum. It was one of the most excited journey for me and Rakesh. Pappa and Mummy had been there last vacations leaving me and Rakesh at Gudalur hehe. :). I have written about my journey to Trivandrum, check it out :).

2 Days at the pub and I know what Western is all about!!

2010-01-14T11:04:00.002+05:30

Finally am back to the blog world.
The past 2 weeks were the super busy kind. And this time mummy got it right, just perfect. I think time is slowly becoming good for me(horoscopes do work lol :)).
I have been into a variety of stuffs off late. I have been working for an Emcee called emMaA(name changed) and also attended a call center interview. I mean call center jobs to while away time and meet new people :). And believe me things have been going good. I am done with some 4 rounds of interviews. I got the call center job :). I was happy, but that day evening the HR calls me up and says Rahul we don't want you to work in the Call Center. I was like shit, and then she says we want you to join our business development team at Tidel Park(whoa.. Its the place man lol). And she was explaining the nature of my job out there, and I was delighted that I am not into the call center anymore. I would join their sales team and bring them business, in a way I gotta make sure that they never run out of business but all this after the final round of interview with the CEO of that company. Its a big enough concern with more than 500 employees and an interview with the CEO took me by surprise. :)

The next thing has been the job with the emcee, I am helping her out with her events and having fun doing that. I also do the man power stuffs for her and that helps me improve my database for girls and guys who seek part time jobs. In a way am able to link stuffs. Last week I worked with her for 3 events and am earning enough money to keep me happy and also the buffet lunch and dinner at the events keeps me going and thinking where the hell do these people get so much of money from(fcuk). The money and effort being put into certain events keeps me guessing, either they are bad managers or they are idiots but at the end of the day its just another day of fun and drinks for them.

Now the final event that I worked on, a cigarette promotion for the ITC brand. People spend so much money for promoting smoking, in a way they are passively killing people and making money and spending money for killing people lol, amazing isn't it?? I did the ciggi promotion at 4 pubs in Chennai and things that I saw out there were all new for me, for I have never been to any pubs all my life. I thought Chennai is a city wherein people had that tradition still going on and the culture preserved, and I just saw the other end of it and understood that I had made a mistake and I got it all wrong. I have seen guys smoking but this is the first time I was seeing females smoking and drinking so much. Oh my my, the entire atmosphere was like that girls and guys freaking out smoking and drinking and kissing and what not!!!

The best part is every girl is seen with different guys every 10 minutes and the guy happily ding dong ding lol. Every person out there was drunk and many of them were sloshed. I think we gave more sample ciggis to the girls than the guys and I was feeling bad, really bad. Not because I was letting them smoke more but the way the culture has turned out. Half the females were finding it very difficult to cover themselves and their cleavage, though I had fun looking at them it was never meant to be, I couldn't accept this culture but I guess I would get used to it. Then I understood that being Western is all about this, you should first of all forget yourself and have no self esteem.Fcuk!! If this is the way our next generation acts and behaves then we would never have relationships and love anymore, the world would be filled with jealousy, pleasure, hatred and exploitation.

May God bless us all!

Two-0-Nine!! buhbyee!! :)

2009-12-28T09:45:00.003+05:30

This year is coming to an end, I got no answer if someone aks me how it went for me, no clue I would say. But thinking again I feel its been good. And the best thing is we don't talk about recession anymore, I mean atleast Indians and as an engineering graduate I am happy seeing the placemnet spree certain top IT companies are on. But let me get back to my life and limit myself to a narrow view-point.

There are few thing I can't forget about 2009, its been quite an amazing year to a certain extend. I was into a serious relationship..finally, but then it was not destined for me. :(. I really miss her but then I don't want to go back to it, it kinda freaks me out at times but loving someone truly is an experience, I mean it. :). Thanks emM. :). I miss you!!

I earned my first pay this year, never knew working would be fun. These odd part-time jobs gave me enough moments to cherish and they would always be remembered. My first job was 2 days before Valentines day and that was where I met her. My first pay was 200 Rs., not a big amount but believe me it was fun. Working at Taj Coromandel for Dr. Reddy's Lab was nice. I still feel good that I went for it. :). That job brought me into this field of event management, thanks to WizCraft and brothers out there, its been a stage of learning and meeting new people. Believe me if ever you get to go for some part-time job don't miss the opportunity, it teaches you a lot of things as long as you are eager to learn. :).

My brother finally into college, something I always wanted to see. I felt he was immature to face life's hardships but he is doing well. He is definitely flirting better than I ever did, lol. What can I expect when he is in a class where the ratio of girls to boys is 1:4?. I miss his college.:P.Wonder what effect his result would have cause of this drastic difference in the ratio,lol. :).

The college tour, it was fun. It was right after the Swamiji event that me and anash worked on. I was the main organizer but I could never make it to the college since I was working those days and thanks to Rafi, he put a lot of effort trying to manage all the burden himself. But the effort didn't go wasted, we had a blast. Right from the train journey where I had a peg lol, everything was just fine except for the tedious bus journey which was made easier by the dancing group. :). We started having a better chemistry between the boys and girls and it was all for the good. :).

The Manglore trip for Adi's sisters wedding. I was suppose to leave the day my exams got over, I thought I amlost missed the train. emM had come to the station that day to meet me, not the main station but the local train station and she cried. She cried cause she didn't want me to leave, and she held my hand so tight that meant that she never wanted me to leave her, but now its all gone. Life is like this, I would say. And Manglore was great, beautiful chicks and girls out there got the best of dressing sense I should say. :). Then the Manipal sight-seeing trip and the Udupi temple visit were also good. :).

This is funny lol, this happened early this month. Rakesh had kept our bike outside the house and when pappa went to take it after some 2 hours it was found missing. We tried searching everywhere we could kinda reach but confident that we would never get it in a city like Chennai. Pappa went and gave a complaint but the police said it wouldn't have gone out of this area and asked us to search properly. We knew they were joking,lol. And we forgot all about the bike, I started discussing about buying a second hand bullet for myself which pappa never accepted though. And one fine day when my parents were coming back home, my dad accidently lost his way back and came the wrong way. And to their sheer surprise my dad found the bike in one street in the wrong-way!! What a luck!! The guy who had taken it had kept it there and left it seems, so we could never get him caught! Moron never had to take the bike if he was to leave it there and flee.. :).

And the last and most memorable of all the incidents in 2-0-0-9. My secular trip. What is a secular trip? Is that what you are thinking, well then here is my answer. We went on a family trip the other day, actually planned to go to a temple and then to Kodaikanal. But we didn't make it till Kodaikanal, just because of my dad's shoulder ache. We went till Karaikkal though some 350 kms from Chennai. A nice long enough drive. We went on 26th December, the day which no one would forget cause of the tsunami effect. We went to Tirunallar temple first, a majestic temple wherein they follow the Tirupati system which meant the rich got the less crowded way. Though not rich, we had to take that cause of our time constraints, but its definitely not acceptable. Then we went to Nagore Dargah, a very famous one. It is an old mosque and a peaceful one. Quite good. There again there was some kinda money-snatching technique employed like in the temple, except for that everything was fine in Nagore. And finally Velankanni Church, a beautiful one. I should appreciate the fact that there was no money based system there and it was a clean place unlike any of the temples. Velankanni church is a place where you can get real peace of mind. I took the road less travelled on my way to Velankanni, that was the road which was hit by Tsunami, the effects still evident. Altogether a memorable trip. :)

Finally Investing!!

2009-12-17T10:42:00.002+05:30

I have been a strong believer of the fact that for our country to develop and be a part of the real main stage( we are still not in there) we gotta be independent of the rest of the world on things concerning our economy. Yeah, I agree that we can never be 100% independent but we can be a lot more than where we stand today. These days we read so much of stuff about India and its influence on other nations. But that is not enough for us to keep going in this world. What we really need is a lot more, a lot more from its people i.e we Indians. Let me start off with my concept and perception about this entire event happening.

For any nation in the present world the most important thing that it requires is a sound and safe economy. A not so volatile, regularly expanding economy. And when we talk about economy a lot of other statistics comes into our mind, doesn't it? It is such a basic term with loads of stuffs involved making it a lot more complex in real-time. A country's economy is such a dynamic thing, all that we need to do to understand the complexity is think of the money we spend in a month. Right from day one of the month, analyze every penny that we spend. This is a matter of thousands or may be lakhs in certain exceptional cases but this small calculation can make us go mad, isn't it? That is cause we end up spending on a heap of stuffs ourselves. Now think of this nation which has a population of more than 1.2 billion and still growing. Complexity at its worst, added to that is all the taxes that the government collects. Great. Am not blaming the government a bit in this, just that the tax factor came into my mind.

So every one will have his/her own perception on how we can individually contribute to our economy and save it from the clutches of many foreigners who are earning more than an average Indian and taking advantage of our growing economy than any of us do. It really sounds so unfortunate, your country is developing and your people are still below the poverty line while some billionaire from some foreign country makes all the money and you have nothing. The worst thing here is to see the governments inability to reach those people, the ones who work in those humongous infrastructure projects, the ones who are squeezed for every penny they get and squeezed even more for the ones that they are never paid, the ones who have no other options but to live on the pavements and who are regularly run over by some millionaire in his expensive four-wheeler(usually a merc), the ones who die of poverty, the ones who can never even dream of going to school and studying. I am not blaming those foreign nationals, they are always in the lok out for opportunities and very true that India gives them a whole lot of opportunities and they are here. But I blame the government, there inability, the corruption, the lack of commitment to anything.

I actually thought of writing about something else and all these stuffs came in so thought will pen them down as well, if you are wondering the relevance of the above fact. But let it be, its the truth and something that we should work on. For our nation to develop it has to bring that down-trodden group from down there to a better stage or India will never reach where it wants to be. As i said in one of my earlier posts India is not really the urban life and its people, but majority of India is still in the back stage in its very rural form and remaining just the same for over decades now. But how do we change all these, its like all the governments are used to isolating them, the deprived and that is when all these organizations like the ULFA and the Maoists originated. Now its again becoming more deviated. lol

How can this end? The government must fund the development of the villages and remore interiors of the country, make stricter norms on the education of young children and its should have a free education scheme for all these deprived irrespective of their age. Mr. Kapil Sibal did bring in this issue in parliment but i wonder how far they are committed to it. For a country which at an average spends more than 1 trillion(1,00,000 crores) on its military(its way too less when compared to many other nations especially China and US), it must be able to spend the same or a little more on the even more important issues like these. And I believe every Indian has the right to ask this question to them, for we have one of the highest taxing system and we have been living over it without questioning it a bit. For if all these taxed money is used properly we would have been at a lot better stage than where we are now. Believe me though China is developing it lacks that unity which is required for growth, India has that edge over China but it never puts anything to the best of use.

Whats the result? The shiv sena, the Telungana, the ULFA etc etc.. The list goes like this. Why is it that these people want a separate state, set aside the shiv sena they need a separate nation i guess(****ers). According to them they are isolated, in the Telungana except for Hyderbad and Secondarabad most of the other parts of Telungana have been under isolation for over 4 decades now. Same is the case with ULFA. If the goverment could do some justice to them then these organizations wouldn't be there and life would have been lot more peaceful, a lot of money saved. And now, its just the opposite. How is all this related to being independent? Well let me put it this way, every human being uses less than 3% of his brain and the rest 97% is unused. The same is the case here, we are using less than 10% of our potential, the rest 90% is dormant and that is why this drift and over dependency.

A recent study has showed that India has one of the richest oil reserves in the world and this was found recently because till now the government never permitted the private companies to explore for oil and now when they explored they understood that India have been spending billions for something they never had to. Same is the case with then Indian stock market(actually this had to be the actual topic of this post but it just expanded lol). Indians contribute less than 10% when it comes to the investment in the stock markets(mainly BSE and NSE) and the rest 90% is the foreign investors who in a way are driving our markets, if they buy we have a bull run and when they sell the bear comes in. I hate this entire idea, someone else coming to our house and guiding us and this is where i feel we need to work a lot harder. I never meant to say that we should kick them off but just that work on increasing our influence rather than count on their moves. Better right, if not completely drive your vehicle you can atleast switch the gears.

This thought made me understand then importance of investing, though whatever I invest is absolutely nothing compared to theirs but it makes a difference atleast in my view point. I believe its the same with everyone, we end up spending lot of money unnecessarily why don't we contribute a little of that to the growth of our nation is what we should think. That can make a lot of difference in our lives, in the present world investment is the need of the hour. My dad taught me the initial lessons of investment, he started investing when he was some 21 just when he got a job. He never made anything out of investment cause his investments were on probability and it never worked. Most of the companies he invested in back then shut down and so its been a major loss but he never regretted :). But I want to be a cautious investor cause that works better and both ways.

I would probably stop with this. This post has been quite confusing but let it be this way now. Better. India is confused now and so am I. :D. And if you believe what I believe then do start investing a little of whatever you get. If you don't know how it works then google it and see. Its not complicated, very easy. Get yourself a pancard first, this again can be googled and found. Investments could start from 500Rs also, its al upto you. I started with 5000, you can get an online account and trade yourself. Initially start with a low sum learn about the markets then invest more. A good investment can give you good returns and helps you do your bit for India.

I hope this post makes atleast 1 person to think about it. :)

Jai Hind! :)

Back to my being myself.. 21 post number 3!!

2009-11-22T10:50:00.004+05:30

Gangothri was a fun place, a small school where in you easily get a lot of attention whether you demand it or not. Everyone knew everyone else kinda place. Few things that i still remember about Gangothri include my first picnic, I went on my first picnic when i was in 2nd or 3rd i guess. We were taken to Malampuzha dam and Fantasy park. Malampuzha dam is a beautiful place, and the dam is humongous. I have been there quite many times but offlate I never had the opportunity to go there and see what it is like now. Probably next time i go to Palakkad I should make a list for myself on the things I have been missing out there and work on narrowing down the list. Fantasy park was one among the better parks then, it had some very good rides, I really dunno about how it is now cause the last time we tried visiting Fantasy park some 8 years ago or so it was shutdown due to some union problem, sigh this union concept sucks at times.

The next and one of the most memorable thing was the celebreation of our 50th year of Independence it was back in 1997. There was a small feast and some programs organized by the school then and I went for it. I wished that I could live long enough to see the 100th year of Indian Independence, not knowing how unstable the world is and how unassured our lifes are. I would never forget that day in my life, I guess we had some small debates on the people who suffered for us, the peopke who were harassed by the British, the JalianWala Bagh Massacre, and our Bhagath Singh and Subash Chendra Bose. Yeah I adored them, the extremists and I still believe it was not just Ghandiji's efforts that freed us from the clutches of the British. I even hoped Subash Chandra Bose never died in the Plane crash and that he lived somewhere and I could meet him one day. I was not a great fan of Ghandiji till last year or so when my dad really made me understand what a good person he really was.

Mummy used to teach me back then, she would sit with me and make me learn everything, do the homework and she learnt bits and pieces of Hindi to teach me Hindi. She would pinch me, beat me up and I would cry clamorously in an attemp to get someone by my side and escape the studies part. Like most of the kids then even I hated to study, I would look at the people who would be playing in the ground and wished that I could be there with them enjoying, but she never let me, if not for that care and effort she out then I wouldn't be half as good as my present self, I would have never been able to be what I am now, not that am good but I know am capable, and all credits to her.

I studied at Gangothri from my 2nd to 4th standard and 1 week of my 5th standrad. It so happened to be a cliche that Nimmy was missing in the 5th standrad class, I was definitely disappointed. I just told my friends that even I would be changing the school and it so coincidentially happened that way, my dad wanted me to study in a better school infact the best school in that part of the world then, so thanks to Pappa, what I said actually happened, he has always been like that. And so my world at Gangothri came to a halt and the rest of that phase of my life had to be at Chinmaya Vidhyalaya Pallavur, a school with a really long history and a really good one. Chinmaya was a big world for me, lot bigger than Gangothri. I started getting used to the 7km journey in bus everyday, made loads of new friends in the bus, had a greater exposure to what it is like outside Nemmara. It was fun, and for me everything in my life has been fun lol :).

I am not really sure how much of my life at Chinmaya do I remember. I was among the younger ones in the bus then and hence my seniors would give that extra care for you. We used to sit together in the last seat of the bus, its usually a long one capable of seating atleast 6 of us. We would keep talking about stuffs and go. One advantage was that we had to pay only 1/4th of the usual ticket rate in private buses. But there used to be certain conductors who never let us get in the bus early and would want us to wait till they were about to start the bus from the stand and wouldn't let us sit even if we found vacant seats. They used to treat students in the most pathetic manner possible. But yeah it was their job and we had to suffer.

We had a good cricket ground in the school. I used to play decent cricket then, it was always fun cause every game we played end with controversies :). Chinmaya school had a lot of beautiful girls, most of them were pretty. hehe.

And I remember this incident. Once few of us, I mean guys were called by our Class teacher to the staff room and she was like "who among you wrote that paper and kept it under Lakshmi's(named changed cause I don't remember :P) table". We were like, "What is that paper all about?" and she showed us one, It said "I loved you". We were shocked, and then she said thet she knew one of us did it cause she checked our handwriting with the one in the paper and it matched to some extend. I don't remember how good that girl looked but I never did that and it was the same all of us cause we never did something like that. She kept nagging us saying if we don't say who did it she would call our parents and suspend us and all that. We pleaded innocent and no action was taken for sometime cause she found that the incident didn't happen again. But few days later it again happened and this time the culprit was caught, I really don't how they caught her. But it was found that one of that perticular girls friend, I guess her neighbour named "Neethu"(I have a faint clue that her name was neethu) only did this. Girls can be a pain in the ass right.. :P

This is another incident that happened in Chinmaya, we found that many of the students lost their money that they had kept in their bags for quite sometime. This time again the teacher was suspicious about a few people but thankfully i wasn't there in the list. It was found that the stealer was not just fond of money but also chocolates. She gave a warning for the whole class saying its better if the one who did the crime goes to her and accepts his indulgence cause she had found out that who did it. The next day one of our friends, stood in front of the class and said that it was he who stole everything, she asked him to handover all the money that he stole from us and he did just that. But no one really isolated him despite that incident, everytime i go to Nemmara i end up meeting him somewhere, he is a pretty nice guy.

We had a computer sir who used to be very harsh with students. I later came to know that this guy went to a computer center and learnt stuffs and taught the same thing to us in the classes and that he was one of my very distant relatives.. :P.. What a pity..

What do i do next??

2009-11-02T14:00:00.000+05:30

Hey guys am back after a great break. Hope all of you are doing really great. :)

What do i blog about today? Well, not the continuation of my earlier post anyway its just a sort of confusion on what i should do next.

I am into my final year of engineering(Yipeeee!!!), 3 years went so fast and now just another year to go. I wonder what i should do next, i got this inclination towards finance and the working of money which urges me to to my MBA in finance from one of the top colleges(if at all i get into :)) and yeah i am working on CAT(Common Admission Test) to get into the premier B-schools in our country, but these days i have developed an affinity towards the latest technologies that have been developed in computer science and related fields. This is what confuses me the most, right from the day when my staff members started warning us about the final year projects we are suppose to submit next semester i have been thinking and thinking about what i should go for next?

The problem is in here, if i were to do a good project all by myself and not going to any of these so called project-centers i will have to start working on my computational skills, all those programming concepts in Java and php and python and perl and what not!!! No am not proud to say that am bad when it comes to programming really bad!! :(. Its not only me actually, if i were to go statistically then only 8% (approx.) of the engineering graduates are eligible to be (quality)engineers with the skills they possess. I am among the rest 92% of them who are not suppose to complain of not getting a job just because i haven't put to use these 3 years of my life, so its high time i start and try getting into that elite crew of nearly 2% who understand that they are no where and so in a hurry to put to use these final 6-8 months of our so called college life to best effect and learn some computational skills and get some value for our money.

And what project do i do is the next question..

I got the answer, i searched here and there and found out that cloud computing is the next generation computing environment and so i should probably work on that. I know the word sounds so familiar for most of us , its a cloud and computing but not all of us know the meaning lol. Even i didn't know about it the first time i heard the term, i had to google it. Thanks to Sergy Brin and Larry Page, if not for google i wouldn't be doing any of these.

But now i find that the topic that i want to work on in cloud computing is way beyond an engineering project and is something like a doctorate topic, and i am not ready to spent 4-5 years of my life getting a doctorate and working on all that. So for now i have decided that i would go to some bloody project centers and do some useless work and all that the project can do is to get me a decent percentage and add to my already not-that-decent-aggregate. I am so damn confused and confused to the core. I have decided to stick to my ambitions of doing my MBA and then being an entrepreneur, now here again i got problems lol.

I am writing my CAT and XAT this year, my preparations were going good till i guess September and it took a U-turn then. Since then i have not been preparing that good nor have been attending the classes properly. So i had to keep my Plan B that was to give my best shot at these exams this year and if i don't get into the premier institutes i will work on it again for another year and give a better shot in fact my final try at it.

What would i do after my final year till the next MBA admission was the next question in front of me, for this i have a good solution thanks to all the parttime jobs and man power that i have been doing i am confident that i can earn some good money and also get some contacts during that phase and also sharpen my English skills by joining the British Council English Classes and also explore North India and also meet all my friends :). But here the problem is that Pappa and Mummy wants me to go abroad and study and also work somewhere there which am least interested in doing. Mummy still says that my astrologer predicted that i would go abroad and study duh, i clearly say a NO for this.

On top of all this my 7th semester exams are starting this Friday i.e Nov 6th and am zero in all the subjects. This time around i have got lesser marks in all my internals and also in one of the practicals as well and so to maintain that not-so-decent-percentage i think i need to strive a little harder and am not up for this. I am so damn lethargic that i wasted more that 3 weeks of my study holidays doing things that never helped me. :(. Am such a dumb ass.. :(

On a whole the most confusing post in my 2 long years of blogging i guess. I think this phase is something that most people go through these days but i am just not able to digest the fact that things are not just happening at this point of time. Lets see. Pray for all of us who are confused and in their final years. :)

21.. post number 2!!!!

2009-07-11T11:12:00.002+05:30

I was just going through my blog, my earlier posts. I haven't been blogging much since this year. :(

I started blogging last year and till my 25th or so post no one even visited my blog, i never had much motivation. The first person to appreciate my blogging was Sajeesh Etta i guess, cause at that point of time only we were into the groove of blogging. Then came Divya, Soumya Chechi, Indu Chechi etc etc. And i learnt that business idea of blogging, you get readers only when you read and respond to others. That was how i got people to read my blog. Sandy was the first person to join my followers list. Today i feel like thanking all of them for helping me into this world which has no limits. Thanks All.. :)

Now back to the post.

So how is my life ka story?? :).I hope i just didn't bug you'll.

The most beautiful thing about Kalpetta(Wayanad) is always its natural beauty and the serene atmosphere. It had an identity of its own. Kalpetta(Wayanad) is the place where most number of tribals lived, since there were loads of coffee estates these land lords got the tribals to work for them in the estates and hence it was a place where the rich always got richer but the poor never really had any identity. Living in those places always teaches us a lot in life.

During my holidays Pappa used to take me to one of his Colleagues house and i used to stay there with her daughters. They took care of me and Rakesh then. We always had fun there, their compound used to be rich with a lot of trees and fruits and all. There were cocoa trees, orange etc. People had time for one another, that was when you get real care and love. I learnt all that then, only when we don't expect anything we get to give that unconditional love and care. People out there were this kind. :)

This was a beautiful moment in our life, this again happened at Kalpetta. I guess it was summer then and mummy was like its too hot in the house and wish i could get a table fan in the kitchen. Pappa somehow heard it, he silently went out and bought one and came back,gave it to mummy. This happened some 15 years ago and then buying a table fan itself might have been a big deal. I remember how surprised mummy was, not juts mummy even myself and Rakesh were surprised as well. I learnt what giving a surprise is like then and since then i have tried giving those odd surprises to my close buddies and parents. That was when i learnt that even those little things in life make a lot of difference, at the end of the day they make our day.

Pappa used to be very good at buying toys for us. Every time he saw something different he would buy it. Myself and Rakesh got our first battery train, that jeep which could perform stunts and the 2nd battery train when we were at Kalpetta. I was never much keen on toys but Rakesh loved them. He even got that bike which when dragged back for sometime and left would travel forward. Everything was amusing and funny. At that age the best things these toys could do would be to make us think. Rakesh used to think over their mechanisms a little too much that he ended up trying to open them and then examine their internal mechanisms so closely, they would stop working soon cause of excessive examination.

This incident at Kalpetta was the funniest of all i guess. Again the fun is when Rakesh is involved in it. We had an uncle who was a chain smoker and lived in the same lane as ours. One day Rakesh was at his house and uncle got a call or something. So he kept his lighted cigarette in the hall and went to attend the call. Rakesh took the cigarette and started smoking. It took sometime for uncle to come back and by then the cigarette, Rakesh and another pack of Beedi(another tobacco product) were missing. Rakesh came home and he was smoking, even mummy was not home. Uncle came home and caught him hehe. Since then all of us were very careful when he was around. Myself and Rakesh also tried smoking when we were at Kalpetta i guess. Just to know the feel of it. :)

We used to travel regularly from Kalpetta to Gudalur. We would go in our scooter. 4 of us in the scooter. It was just some 60 km journey. Rakesh would sit in front, followed by Pappa the rider myself and mummy would be the pillion riders. Pappa rides pretty fast every time, but he is careful. Mummy used to be afraid of speed but now she is used to it as well. Every time we reached the road leading to Gudalur we would make fun of mummy singing a song which i can't remember now. The content of the song said that the roads are really bad, i mean really really bad. We made fun of her since she hailed from the place with bad roads. Little did i know that not just Gudalur roads but 90% of Indian roads are like that. Now they have improved the roads though.

It was time for yet another transfer for Pappa and we had to leave the beautiful place. I have never been to Kalpetta since then. I really miss that beautiful place. Every time i go to Gudalur(mummy's hometown) i wish i could go to Kalpetta but never could i make it. Now am old enough to go there alone. probably next time around when i go there i could visit Kalpetta. The main reason for my not visiting Kalpetta is that these days i visit Gudalur for only 2 to 3 days and my grandma wants me to spend time with her these days. We kept a get together for all our closed ones in Kalpetta before we bid bye to Kalpetta.

Our next destination was Palakkad, Nemmara. My Pappa's place. He hailed from Nemmara. He wanted to get a transfer to Nemmara since his parents were getting older and he wanted to take care of them.Mummy always said, its difficult to get a son like Pappa, he sets an example for me and Rakesh on how to take care of our parents. He has sacrificed so much to be with his parents and look after them. Pappa got a transfer to Kollengode, known for its old palaces. It was some 10 km from Nemmara. Myself and Rakesh joined in a school called Gangothri. It was walkable then. We had to walk some 20 mins everyday but if someone asks me to walk till there now i wont do it. Over the years that lazy goose in me has been growing as much as i did. We stayed at Nemmara itself and Pappa would go to bank everyday in his scooter.

Nemmara was a completely different place compared to Kalpetta. More happening surroundings, more close allies, more temples, less scenic beauty except for the green paddy fields which could be found everywhere. The buses which go at lightning speed in the main road, the christmas carol and most importantly the Nemmara Vela(an amazing festival). I believe everyone must see Nemmara Vela before they die, it is something no one can really miss. We did like Nemmara but there were reasons why we even disliked Nemmara. It had 2 theaters as well. School was nice, lot smaller than the one i studied at Kalpetta but except for that i never really tried comparing both schools since i knew it would only make me disappointed.

My friends at Gangothri were Sarath, Deepak(i met him 4 days back as well), Justin, Govind, Nimmy, i cant get too many names. :(. Justin and Govind joined one year later my arrival. Deepak, me and Sarath had been there since the beginning. Nimmy used to be my class mate as well as auto mate. We went together in the same auto. And she was even my first crush in 2nd standard. Didn't i tell you?? I am among the genetically modified species who lost their innocence very early in life. I was friends with my seniors as well Vinayan and Prasad. One good thing is that even when i meet any of them i can recognize them and i still remember them, and even they can recognize and remember me. I meet Sarath, Vinayan and Prasad almost every year. I haven't met Govind since he left school when i was in 4th. I have met Justin some 3 years back i guess, he was drunk then :(, but still he recognized and remembered me very well. :).

I am getting more names now. Jayan, Sreeju, Govindan Kutty, Sapna, Anjali, Brinda, Sreedevi, Ratheesh, Bhuvaneswari, Girish I seem to be remembering most of the girls names hehe. Jayan used to be bad in studies, last time i met his mom she was asking me about my where abouts, that was when i was in 11th or 12th i guess. I have met him couple of times 2 years back as well when i went for Nemmara Vela. Sreeju is Prasad's cousin, i meet him as well at times when i go there. Govindan Kutty was my school mate at Gangothri and later on became my first friend at Gurukulam as well when i came back from my Trivandrum expedition and joined Gurukulam. I have no contact with Sapna all that i can remember is that her dad used to work abroad and he used to bring all those curious scales, pencils and erasers from in there. I don't know much about Anjali, Brinda, Sreedevi and the rest. I am sure they wouldn't even be thinking about me and would be busy with their life, they won't know how it feels when we dwell into the past, do they? hehe :)

The last time i met Nimmy was at Guruvayur temple, i heard she shifted over to Guruvayur. I met her some couple of years or even more since she left Gangothri, even i left that school to join Chinmaya that year. I went to Guruvayur for my uncles son's naming function i guess and i saw her at a distance but since i was on the queue to the shrine i couldn't go talk to her. We smiled at each other. :). I spotted her in orkut as well but now she has no activity online i guess. Last thing i heard of her was through Deepak, he said her dad expired. :(. I meet Deepak regularly, he had been to my house in Chennai quite a few times as well. He is a very nice guy and a good friend. He is doing his Marine Engineering now.

Will continue in the next post.. :)

Dear Pranab Mukherji.. :)

2009-07-05T12:22:00.003+05:30

As we all know tomorrow is the day of Budget, it is definitely going to play an important role since the recession and its after effects have taken a toll on most of the Indians set aside the world economy. Its no more gonna be Mr. Chidambaram delivering the budget and am really happy about it. We got a better human being in Pranab Mukherji and he will be delivering the much awaited budget. As an ordinary Indian I do expect quite a lot from this budget and in this blog i would discuss about it.

I have been tracking the budget over the last few years and it has not been that great or never really made an ordinary Indian happy. I always appreciated the increase in taxes over the alcoholic beverages and tobacco products and i would always appreciate it, i hope at least that can make many of the regular smokers and drinkers in the community to put an end to their smoking and drinking habits. I am sure the class of people who have lost their jobs in the near future would definitely have a second thought over continuing their smoking habits by this. Yeah, if you are thinking why this guy is talking bout cigarettes and liquor when we have more serious issues, i am an Indian who believes that we can get real quality citizens only if these habits of our people stop. In a populous country as ours the quality of its citizens is more important than anything else.

Secondly, the security of a common man. What can the financial minister do for security? Is this your question. It is the same with me, I expect the financial minister to allocate more and better budget for the INTERNAL security of my nation. I am among the Indians who believe that India is not secure anymore. I want to see the police equipped with better weapons, up gradation of the police stations and effective classes for the police men on how to talk to the public. Especially for the ones who think that being a police gives them the license to do anything they want, i pity the ones who have lost their lives cause of the misinterpretation acts of our Policemen. But the more important step would be to form a set of trusty people who can monitor the usage of these funds in the best possible way, I really appreciated the move to constitute Mr. Nilekani as the Chairman of the council for allocating Unique Identification Cards for every Indian. So the government must do something like that even for the effective use of money. Am sure even though it means usage of more man power, am sure it is worth it.

Now the plight of Indians who live in the villages and towns. For me India is really the villages and towns. Those people out there form my nation for me, am annoyed why is it that these leaders never look at that community, the community which struggle hard in their fields to get us our food to eat, the people who stand under the red hot sun working for every single Indians survival. Those people out there who are deprived of every basic right to his living, no good education it sounds as of the politicians want those poor ones to keep struggling all their life. I want the finance minister to allocate extra money for their development in all aspects. They must get better education, better facilities from the government not just the normal ration that every Indian enjoys, they must have more preference in the premier institutes of the country. There are no FIITJEE or TIME or IMS to train them get into the IIT's and IIM's and that needs to be understood by our government. There needs to be better health facilities for them. Unless the rural India develops there can't be any significant improvement in our country, India is still a third world country if not for the Urban India and that face needs to change significantly.

I would like to see the finance minister taking more steps to encourage our scientists to foster the development of indigenously built fighter jets and submarines. India is far behind China in both these categories and significantly behind Pakistan in the development of Submarines are concerned. If India can develop both these indigenously then we would be far ahead in the military perspective and that can even generate a lot of foreign currency as well. The other reason would be that at present we are spending a lot of money in acquiring military equipments from other countries and that can be reduced a great deal. I know that the development of such machines is not really easy but with some motivation Indians can make it, its lot easier than developing space vehicles i guess. Then comes the radar systems for which India still depends very much on Israel, if a small country like Israel can be so good in it, why not the giant India?? Which is definitely considered to have the best of brains in the world set aside you and me. ;)

I want Mr. Mukherji to do something about the volatile markets, i mean they need a far push and that can trigger more investment in them unlike over the recent past which has seen a significant decline in the flow of foreign investment. I would want the finance minister to allocate some resources for promoting the awareness among every Indian regarding the stock market and investing in it. I want to discuss this topic with further detail and hence i wouldn't ponder much with the stocks and trading in here. But i feel an awareness is very much necessary since only around 5% of Indians are presently investing. We should know that the more we invest in Indian stocks the more are we fostering the development of our country. Our markets would no more be controlled by the big guns from other countries.

I do wanna discuss few more issues in here but its time up for me to leave. Let me see how big a smile i get when i listen to the budget tomorrow, am afraid i might even miss it cause of my friends marriage. But still having seen the railway budget which was good enough i expect a little more from Pranabji. Please don't disappoint, I want a better India and its not just a single I, there are a billion of those. :)

Jai Hind!!

Its been 21 years!!! :)

2009-06-15T22:51:00.015+05:30

Yeah finally after 21 years of struggle, am old enough for a register marriage :)(all kinds of marriages but registered ones in particular). I mean the first thing that has come to my mind being 21 now is this :). In this blog i just want to look back at my life, it might end up being a big read though. Its not that i have achieved something great in life or am someone successful, but its just that it has been my life and i have had the best of lessons from ma life, that makes me say "MY LIFE IS MY LESSON".I was born in a small town called Gudalur near Ooty , days i can never forget in my life. I am still renowned as the most mischievous kid in ma family. My childhood was all the happy happy wala, wow i still relish those days when i used to climb the guava tree at Ammu chechi's place and the Paneer tree at my mom's house, yeah i was a good monkey then,J,still i am.

My mom will never ever forget those days in her life, the pain that i have given her and still for all the love she showers on me, thats how i got the first Angel in my life. Mummy i love you, if not for your patience and love i wouldn't be living in this world and if not for your sacrifices for us i wouldn't have ever learnt what love is all about.

I was more than happy to go to my kinder garden then. It was called 'Kalaivani' and it no more exists.):. Kalaivani was right opposite to ma house just beside Ammu Chechi's house. I have not much clue on how i spent my days at Kinder Graden, i still have little memories which say i hated to wear trousers(the shorter ones) and they had to get it replaced with the longer ones extending till my feet for me to stop yelling.

It seems during my kinder garden days i used to undress myself completely and put kumkum all over my body and call Ammu Chechi from my house to see and comment on my reddish-looks, its like whatever i do then i wanted her to see it and smile. Gudalur used to be a very small town without much development. All that we had in there was some few shops and a lot of Tea Estates, but the atmosphere was serene and kinda quiet except for those trucks which passed the town regularly. I used to look at them with amusement, i believe looking at them i would have wanted to become a truck driver..an adventurous profession J. I used to find the lorries with Karnataka registration more beautiful and charming, cause of their different from usual designs.

Pappa always became emotional when he said this. It seems when i was really really young, i mean a baby i used to sleep only if he makes me sleep. He used to sing that ''Kannae Kalaimane" song for me and that was when my eyelids would hug each other then. The few years of life when Rahul was really the so called innocent kid, i think i am among that group of people who lost their innocence very soon in their lives.

Then was the arrival of the next most important person in my life, my brother Rakesh. Am sure i couldn't have got a better person as brother but for him. Oh his looks when he was young, with those curly hair, very fair, he was a kid whom anyone would want to pamper. He is again the gift that God gave me, Pappa, Mummy and Rakesh this was everything to me then. But in the initial days i hated Rakesh, just because i felt that my parents were loving him more than they loved me but then when i started loving him i understood my mistake and realized that no one can ever stop loving that idiot. From then till date he has been the one who keeps us going, he is our pet and will remain so however old he becomes. For me he is my care-taker, the charming brother who loves me a lot.

I can never forget this day in my life.

I used to be with my grandma then, and mummy was at Pappa's house i guess. One fine day after granddad left for work, i went and hid myself under the cot in my uncles room. Grandma kept searching for me when she realized that i wasn't to be found anywhere around. From morning some 10 till 4 in the evening i was hiding in there, without even coming out and with no clue of what was going around. By noon all my relatives and neighbors were informed of my missing, grandma started crying and even granddad came home from work all of them worried to the core not knowing what has happened to me, with no clue on what they gonna tell my dad when he calls up. Finally at about some 4 luckily just before they were planning for a police complaint i came out of the cot saying "I fooled you", and for the first time in my life my granddad beat me, i don't remember the intensity of the beatings but it was lot lesser than the emotional and mental stress i had given them. :).

My uncle used to take me to our estate whenever he went there to pay the wages for the workers, it was always fun there. As always i would keep myself busy by climbing the trees and all, and then jumping on the plucked tea leaves and running around the estate. They used to be fun filled days, the water falls out there and all those really big estates with loads of greenery in them, they are all a pleasure for our eyes. (:.

Then the life at Wayanad, the schooling there, the coffee estates, the Pookode lake and the apple milk shakes that Pappa made everyday after we were back from school. Life at Kalpetta (Wayanad) was really nice and beautiful. I studied at NSS school, it was right behind my house a very big one. In front of my house was a small coffee estate, i used to play hide and seek inside it with my brother and neighbors there. NSS was the school which made me realize the fact that am not and can never be a good dancer, that was where i played some of the first cricket matches in my life diving like Jhonty Rhodes, that was where i learnt the basics of football, loads and loads now thinking of those days i miss many things in my life, yeah that hollow part of my heart just becomes more hollow as if i am missing something very significant in making me who i am now. I had a very good friend named Ashwin, i wonder if he would ever be thinking of me now but one good thing about me is that i can never forget the people in my life. Thanks to God for that.

I tried my first shot at dancing at NSS during my Annual Day, for the super hit song "One Way Ticket", the song was so rocking that it dragged everyone outside the hall to come and see what's happening inside. I had practiced the dance pretty well but seeing the crowd i guess i forgot all the steps and rest all was history J. Since that day most of my seniors whenever they met me at school would be like "Rahul i will teach you some good dance so that you can perform well next year". There had been days when i tried escaping their vision and going the other way just to make sure that they don't comment again.(:.

We met with our first accident at Kalpetta, Pappa,Mummy,Rakesh and Me were the victims. Myself and Pappa escaped with not much injuries and even Rakesh was kinda fine. But my poor Mummy got scratches all over her hands L since she was trying hard to make sure that Rakesh doesn’t fall down and she held him even when she fell down. That’s love, I learnt.

We were there at Kalpetta for quite sometime, I don’t remember the number of years though for I haven’t stayed at the same place for more than 3 years if not for Chennai. A little behind my house situated one of my dads friends house and my friends(mostly my school seniors) had told me that another house near that house had ghosts in it. I feared to look that side when it got dark. That was the age when you tend to believe everything you are told, especially about ghosts and all. Whenever mom went out in the evening she would ask myself and Rakesh to sit at home and not go out since there would be ghosts around.

This was funny when I think of it now. At times Mummy used to switch off all the lights in the house and spread her hair and act as if she is a ghost. Oh myself and Rakesh used to get dead scared of it. But its all fun and it was nice. We didn’t have much entertainments but for such things. As I had said, my school was just behind my house and so was the school playground. So everything that happens at the ground could be seen from the house. My Physical Trainer at NSS used to be really a harsh person and he used to abuse the students badly, Rakesh would listen to most of them and one day he abused my PT sir with those words he learnt listening to him, all this happened in front of the students am just imagining how embarrassed he would have been then hehe.

To be cont.

mArRiAgEs, exPeRiEnCes!

2009-03-03T18:03:00.005+05:30

I consider myself to be someone really rich, no not in the financial front but i got LOADS of people who make my life more beautiful. Firstly my parents, the best dad and mom i could have asked for. Then my brother, i am sure that no other person in the world would be so thoughtful of his brother like the way he is to me. And then my friends, they are as important as anything else for me in my life and they make me all the more rich. I don't really have an elder brother and sister, yes over the past few months i have got a handful of them and i would treasure them forever. But still my friends siblings have been just like mine and so every marriage of theirs or any function with them on the lead would mean that am around enjoying every bit of it. My parents and aunt would always complain of me attending too many of my friends sisters and brothers marriages but that has never stood on my way of taking part in them.

The first function that i attended after joining college was that of Hassan's sisters marriage. She was then working as a lecturer in my college, we some 15 of us were there helping them with both the engagement and marriage as well. We were there till every work was done and made sure that everything went just well. It happened some 2 and a half years back, we had just joined college and soon we became very good friends. The way we went for his engagement still remains a great experience. Some 20 of us had to end up traveling in a goods auto with an open carriage area in the ECR road, that day most of us were broke but we wanted to get to his house somehow and help them with the function and the last option that was available was the share auto. A really great experience, people by the roadside were gazing at us. We were all really happy to be traveling that way and few of us were singing as well, that was more than enough to attract the crowd out there lolz... :).

The next one was Raja's sisters marriage. It took place at Madurai very close to the Meenakashi Amman Temple, but no we never made it to the temple. This time again it was an experience. A very funny one in fact. Myself,Adi,Kandu,John,Namachi and Gopi were suppose to go for the marriage, but we didn't book the tickets in advance. Among friends nothing is really certain till the last minute and that was the same with us as well. At the last minute Gopi backed out saying some lame excuses. So we ended up buying 5 tickets for Madurai . The train was suppose to depart at about 12 or so and we were waiting for John to come. When we called up he said that the TTR of that train was also coming with him and so the train wont depart till he comes. We were all tensed up, they train was so crowded that we could no more get into it. But still we trusted his words and waited outside thinking that the TTR could get us the berths. And after sometime the train started departing, i called up John and told him this and he was like the TTR who was coming with him works with Mumbai Suburban railways Lol.. :). We didn't know what to do and so by the time John came we went and cancelled the tickets and planned to go by Bus. When he came he was like lets wait for some 5 hours, there is another train at 5 PM and we would go in that. So we again went and stood on the queue booking tickets to Tiruchi this time. The TTR who was along advised us to seat ourselves somehow, as if we didn't know how to do it. lolz. And finally the train arrived and we got into it. We had our dinner from Tiruchi and got into a bus to Madurai. We reached there late night, Dinesh and Raja were there to welcome us. We were given a room in a lodge to stay, we enjoyed the marriage as well.

Though we thought of staying for another day and going to the temple we couldn't since most of us had to leave for college and pay the exam fee and all that. So we decided to leave that day night itself. Ah.... the return journey was even more pain lolz. :). This time 6 of us were there, Dinesh also joined us on our way back. We went to the railway station and took tickets as well, but the trains seemed to be so damn crowded, we tested our patience to see of we can catch a less crowded train but we were left disappointed. So we decided to cancel the tickets and go in bus. We had a tight budget and so could afford only the cheapest of buses. We found a mini bus which offered to take us till Chennai for just 160 bugs per person and we got into it. That ****er waited for 2 more hours to fill the seats and took 11 hours to drive us back to Chennai. Ah... traveling in a mini bus for nearly 600 km was indeed a pain. But at the end of the day it was yet another notable experience. :)

Post will be continued.

Thanks Brother!

2009-02-23T14:27:00.008+05:30

Rahman, Resul Pookutty, Gulzar and Danny thanks brothers. We love you all.

Rahman we respect you for all that you have given us,

That was all that we ever wanted,

Soothing music for our ears,

You did it with purpose and love,

That made us love you as well.

And now you have made us proud,

Proud to be Indians and proud to be your brother.

Thanks my dear brother,this is all that we want.

May God bless you.

Resul finally you have made it,

Finally you got the recognition that you deserved,

Not many of us knew you until the Oscars

And now not many of us would ever forget you.

Your words had patriotism brother,

Thanks for being an Indian at the Oscars.

We love you and we wish to see more magic with your magicians.

Gulzar you have taken our mother tongue till there,

The world listens to your lyrics now,

Its the story of many Indians,

It talks of the sufferings of the succeeder.

Jai Ho, Jai Ho, Jai Ho, Jai Ho
Aaja Aaja Jind Shamiyane Ke Tale
Aaja Jariwale Nile Aasman Ke Tale.

Not every achiever makes it easy.

Finally Danny thanks for loving this nation.

Thanks for giving my brothers an opportunity to prove,

Thanks for the movie,

Thanks for being humble.

Thanks for being Indian.

Jai Ho!

Jai Hind!

Govinda Govinda...

2009-02-03T00:00:00.000+05:30

Wow, finally(lly)... we made the Tirupati trip, its almost been 4 years(5 years for me) at Chennai and only now we could manage to do it. A darshan at Vaikundam , great and i never knew that Vaikundam is actually Tirupati and that Lord Krishna also faced death and died(yes not much related but i didn't know that he died). It was Mummy's b'day on 24th and my grandmom's(mummy's mummy :) ) on 25th and so right after my exam on 24th evening we left for the holy place. Mummy arranged for the tickets and stay through her colleague, so that we don't struggle much on our first visit to Tirupati. So that was the gift for mummy, the trip to Tirupati and yes yet another gift was there but its not yet a confirmed one and thats from Pappa.

Being at Chennai for nearly 4 years, we were often made to issue a veto for the question "So, did you visit Tirupati?" by all our relatives and friends. And now we can proudly say, "Yeah, of course staying at Chennai it is hard to miss Tirupati, a great temple and the place is also equally beautiful, it was a memorable trip. Make sure you visit it someday". Yeah, a long reply for the small question but it just makes up for all the short answers till date. So let me just give you a gist of my(our) experience at Tirupati.

** The first and foremost thing is that Pappa wants to quit smoking, the tradition says that we are suppose to leave something at Tirupati and we have left back that habit of his. I don't know whether it would get back to him, yes Tirupati is just 160 km from here and a storm can easily bring the habit back, but he seems to be confident this time. He is a desperate dad (and husband) who wants to make his family happier and for the first time i find some sincerity in his pledge. Lets see. I wouldn't complain if he smokes again, but i want him to reduce the number of cigarettes significantly.

**I never expected Tirupati to be such a humongous place, and it was such a nice and very well maintained town. The weather was a bit shivery, and early morning wait in the queue did make me shiver a bit. We had to wait for some 2 and a half hours to get the darshan, but by Tirupati standards that is a lot earlier, there has been times when devotees waited for more than a day it seems, lucky you Rahul( and family). But we had a big struggle with the language, though there are a handful of people who speak tamil, it is difficult. So i have decided to dedicate some time to watch Telugu movies(any recommendations???) to improve my language.

**The drive was also a nice one, on the Onward journey i did most of the driving with Pappa sitting behind and yelling at me for careless driving(i wasn't really careless, but he gets tensed fast especially when i drive. Yeah, just like your dad, all dads are like this is it???). I have improved my driving considerably, my dad is happy(but he doesn't even show a sign of that, last time he told mummy that am a good driver, but didn't agree when i asked him that, yes mummy never keeps secrets).

**One of the best things was that, the road to and from the temple(its situated in a hill) is one-way and we don't even get to locate the other road when we are going in one. It must have taken them some great planning to do it. Hats of to the architects, and the return journey(i mean the road) is a lot shorter than the other one. And the places at Tirupati had a historical significance, its a very nice place to be on a vacation.

**The crowd at the temple, i was pushed like anything when i just entered the main temple, the devotees behind me were pushing me and added to that were the temple staffs(staffs who are assigned to push the devotees, what an idea Govinda?) they were also busy pushing everyone but that's part of their work to moderate the crowd(i suppose). I still managed to have a good darshan but this entire pushing saga made me unknowingly step on a little girl(poor girl), i told her sorry and smiled at her, the innocent child smiled back. I was really unhappy with the way they moderate the crowd, and the issuing of tickets on the basis of the money paid by the devotees, i never support that idea. Mummy did manage to get us the tickets through one of her colleagues.And yes, i got the ladoo.

**The most pathetic things was that, only 4 of us were there but we ended up buying 5 tickets thinking an aunt of ours would also be there but she couldn't make it. Every ticket actually cost 200 Rs., there should be more expensive tickets as well i guess. And we had to pay the person who got us the ticket(Mummy's colleagues cousin) 5oo Rs. per ticket, that meant an additional 300 and we weren't really happy for that. But we couldn't bargain either and we told ourselves "Tirupati is a place like that, the God here will make us pay for him" and walked back.

**We went to Tirupati on 24th of November and this post has been in my drafts for nearly 2 months, just today when i was editing that section i noticed it and just when i thought of deleting the post i found that most of the work is complete and thought i would flag it. If you haven't been to Tirupati do go there irrespective of caste and creed(i don't believe in both). It should be a nice experience and you can see an entire town developing just because of its temple and the crowd out there should surprise you.

And finally "Ezhukundalavacha Venkataramana Govinda Govinda"...

Getting drunk!!!

2009-01-28T21:38:00.009+05:30

Day:-December 27,2008

Place:-Anna Nagar(Chennai)

Time:-Post 10 PM

Incident:- Rahul getting drunk for the first time.

Gopi started it all when we met at Besi, he said "Mama why don't we booze today" to all of us and i was like "Mama even i would like to try" and i wanted him to promise that the plan won't be called off. I always wished to try and findout the reason behind people getting drunk very often, though i had tasted wine many a times never did i touch the hot ones. He did promise, all that i had to do was to tell Pappa and Mummy that i am staying at Anna Nagar that day. He also agreed. So i went to Anna Nagar, Gopi and Me went and bought liquor, Mcdowell's Whiskey. "Alcohol doesn't come that cheap" i said to myself. We bought enough of beef chilly to feed ourselves as well. I was all set for the party. And we went over to Balaji's and Naga's colony, our destination was Naga's balcony. I should appreciate his courage, he stays at the 3rd floor of that apartment and we are gonna get drunk in the balcony just above his flat and he is just fine with it, great guy! We waited for our gang to assemble there and i was examining the bottle through all dimensions, and reading every word written over it and it was the closest i could get to a liquor bottle and i was desperate to try it out if not for Gopi who kept stopping me from opening it.

And by 10.30 i guess we started the party and the first round was poured into our plastic cups, the desperate me took a sip, it tasted yuck. But it didn't check me from finishing my first round pretty soon and guiding myself for the second one. I was made to wait till the rest of my gang finished it, and i did wait with least patience though. I still wonder how i managed to finish that bitter glass of liquid and yearned for more as well, but i did(Is that the reason??). Then was the second round, i finished it pretty fast, post that i took Gopi's share as well without his knowledge and i drank most of his share as well, then i took 2 sips from Naga's glass as well but he saw me doing that and so hid the glass from me.

The effect of alcohol was working on me but i was enacting as if it was not, and my friends were like "Keep talking and you will get a high" i called my close ones and spoke to them, my tongue was twisting as if every word happened to be a tongue twister. And by the time i had finished talking Gopi had served the 3rd round and since only very little was left i was not served my 3rd peg. When i got back to my place i saw my glass empty and so went for Gopi's glass, he had just then filled it with raw whiskey and i just took it and drank it neat. My friends were like "Gosh, mama it was a raw drink", i was happy to hear that and i could feel the heat on me. And the rest of whatever i did was just what an alcoholic would do, i ended up being a pain in their ass and gave them a night that my friends would never forget. I ended up talking non-stop non-sense for 3 and a half hours, and all the effect the alcohol had on my friends were just washed away by my inebriated behavior.

I was trying to convince my friends that i was perfectly fine and was talking just because of the "Keep talking and you will get a high" statement. I was counting from 1 to 10 , trying to walk properly and saying the names of my friends and abusing the ones who made fun of me and all sorts of non-sense just in an effort to convince them. I was walking as if i was on a dance floor and talking with very less clarity, was shouting at times. And the best part was what Naga had said, he was like "I thought Rahul was a civilised fellow but he seems to be very local". Then i slept for sometime and my friends escaped from my clutches, but the mosquitoes around made sure that i didn't rest for too long and i again got up. But this time i was less violent and seated myself at one corner of the balcony to escape from those mosquitoes. We got up around 5 and went to Balaji's house to get some better sleep. I guess i was fine then, don't really know if i was. I had a sound sleep for nearly 5 hours and got back only at about 10 and that was when i really knew what a pain in the ass i was for my friends. But they did enjoy the day, i really did.

Getting back home i was very much gloomy and wanted to hit the bed soon. I had my morning breakfast and spoke to my parents for sometime and went on to sleep right away, got up only by 1:30 for the lunch and then left for my CAT classes. But the whole day i was very sleepy and kinda tired, it will still remain a nice day in my life. I have never been such a pain for anyone for a long time if not for my Mom when i was a very young kid, i was known to be the most mischievous boy in my whole family.

Movies… Talkies… and now Smellies!

2008-12-26T12:19:00.016+05:30

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*/Cinemakaran thats how he calls himself. And thats what he is trying to be, a cinema personnel. We now each other for some 3 years or so and we have had a wonderful time together. Sajeesh ettan came here as a student and now he is a lecturer. He has experienced the highs and lows of life, but am sure he is set to achieve great heights. This article is something he wants to work on. Its feels great to host his article in here. I conclude by wishing him the very best in all aspects of his life.*/

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Have you ever felt cinema is handicapped when it comes to projecting reality? Is cinema lacking something? Give a thought to it. If your answer is ‘NO’, you are wrong! What about Smell?

Didn’t you ever feel the need for smell in cinemas? If a fragrance of love was incorporated with the ‘I am flying’ sequence in James Cameroon’s “Titanic”, wouldn’t it have been more awesome? With the spectacular cinematography and amazing music in the background, a pleasant fragrance of love would have given an extremely romantic experience for the sequence.

With the sight and sound making cinema a realistic way of representing life, there was always one thing that cinema lacked; the power of Smell. If smell can be incorporated to cinema, it will have the real 3 dimensional experience with the 3 ‘S’ operating, i.e., Sight, Sound & Smell!

Smell in Cinema

Smell is one of those sensory experiences which are strongly associated to human memories. It brings back the memories of places and people. It is also associated with spirituality since divine odors are an important ingredient of most of the spiritual practices. Taste buds also work only due to the existence of smell. Recent researches have also proved that the smell can be used to induce certain feelings like nostalgia, fear, romance etc.

Once smell was considered least important. In fact smell was ignored and left in the trash in an era dominated by the computers and electronics. But the sense of smell is now considered as one of the means by which visual media’s delineating effects can be mitigated.

The sense of smell is poised to break free from many of its assumed delineation. The mystery of how smell works, for instance, has defied scientific understanding for centuries. However with the award of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine to Neuroscientists Richard Axel and Linda.B.Buck, the basic code by which scents are perceived and cognitively processed seems to be on the verge being cracked (Nobel Prize Org. 2004)

Smell and Cinema is not a quite new concept. In fact attempts to incorporate smell to cinema dates back to 1916; even before sound was introduced! It was S.L.Rothafel, the owner of a film theater in Forest City, Pennsylvania who deluged the audience of a rose bowl game newsreel in the scent of rose oil. He dipped cotton in rose scent and held it in front of an electric fan, there by suffusing the theater with floral fragrance. But soon, a new fad hit the moviegoers; Sound. The technology that would one day be known as Smell-O-Vision was lost in noise!

Hans Laube and Smell-O-Vision

Later on, Hans Laube was excited by the idea of smell in cinema. He invented Scent-O-Vision, a system that released scents connected to individual scents in movie theaters, and debuted it at the 1939 New York’s World Fair. The basic concept involved a projectionist manually releasing various scent vials at specific points in a movie, such as the scent of flowers during a romantic scene or the smell of gun smoke during a shoot-out. The original Scentovision system failed to catch on for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the substantial amount of conflicting fragrances which eventually filled the theater.

Scent of Mystery

For years, the technology was forgotten. But it was re-introduced in 1960’s in the mystery film aptly titled as “The Scent of Mystery”. Laube perfected his technology into a “Smell Brain”; a series of perfume bottles with scents that were released into the theater automatically as the film threaded through the projector. The process was called Smell-O-Vision.

Ads for the film read, “First they moved (1895)! Then they talked (1927)! Now they Smell (1960)! Scent track was incorporated on the film itself to trigger odors, analogue to a sound track. The release of the odors was synchronized with specific audio visual events in the film. Several of the film’s most prominent clues were set to be conveyed by the Smell Brain.

Even though the idea got a positive buzz before the release, the experiment was a flop. In fact Times Magazine’s (2000) Reader Poll has selected it as one of the ‘Top 100 Worst Ideas of all Time’!

Even though smell was synchronized with the audio visual content, its immediacy was restrained by the slow diffusion of scent, especially in a large theater space. Audience members in the balcony found the smells delivered to them several seconds delayed; the entire system was olfactory out of sync. Other parts of the theater barely got the smells.

Release of one scent to another was not instantaneous and had to be carefully managed to avoid odorific confusion which was not desired. Subsequent removal of the smell also had to be carried out to avoid the uneasiness created by the odor in the atmosphere. This also was not possible. Smell-O-Vision was temporarily snuffed out.

There was also another attempt to mix smell with cinema. The process was called “Aromarama” which dispersed smell through AC with Freon gas. An Italian travel feature about China, “Beyond the Great Wall” (1958) came with this technology whose tagline read “You Must Breathe it to Believe it”!

All these attempts during that era can be related to the frantic efforts taken by the film makers to retain the cinema audience from Television. Certain techniques like 3D, Cinerama etc never caught on like Smell-O-Vision. But still cinema survived with spectacular viewing experience rendered to the audience. Thanks to Cinemascope and 70mm technologies.

Odorama

The idea of smell kept on exciting film makers through the years. Modern attempts at reviving Smell-O-vision were undertaken by John Waters when he released his film ‘Polyster’ in 1982. He handed over ‘Scratch and Sniff’ cards to the viewers and they were asked to smell it during specific scenes.

The ‘Scratch and Sniff’ cards had some 8-10 spots which were numbered. The audience had to scratch and sniff each spot when that particular number appears on the screen. This turned out to be quite popular and more fool proof. When the MTV re-aired the film in 1992, they handed out the “Scratch and Sniff” cards at convenient stores.

Smell in Gadget Age

In the gadget age Smell-O-Vision lives on. Digiscents inc. is developing the ismell personal scent synthesizer; a device that will let smells be transmitted through the internet scent synthesizer can be compared to the desktop speakers.

In Cinema, the Collin Farell starrer “The New World” which was released in Japan in April 2006 tried to bring back the essence of smelling cinema. The film which was released in certain theaters in Japan had an internet based fragrance system. The movie goers were exposed to various scents to heighten their sense of joy, love, sadness etc during key scenes.

The technology was based on NTT Com's Fragrance Communication (Kaori Tsushin) system, which uses a special scent-emitting device programmed with information obtained via the Web. Scents were emitted into the theaters using devices placed under viewers' seats. The system was employed at one theater each in Tokyo and Osaka.

The system downloads an aroma recipe and distribution schedule from an aroma-control server and stores the information in a LAN box, which can then be disconnected from the network and moved freely. The box is then connected to aroma-emitting devices placed under a number of seats in the theater. Each device contains six base oils, which are combined according to the recipes for specifically generated aromas. The LAN box controls the automatic release of these aromas during selected scenes of the movie.

Future Prospects

Research has shown that the human sense of smell can create stronger, more lasting impressions than sight, suggesting that smell has the potential to greatly heighten the intended effect of communication for diverse purposes. So, the idea of smell in cinema will never die. In fact it will get on to Television and of course internet too. And who knows, if we have more fool proof technologies, the entire structure of cinema might change just like sound changed the structure and story telling styles of silent movies.

There should be provision made to remove the scent as and when it is released to avoid the foul smell sticking on to the environment which inturn will create suffocation in the viewers. And there should be attempts to make the fragrance reach each and every member in the audience at the same time. If minor things like these are taken care off, in the digital age, as the mystery surrounding how the smell works has been almost clarified, there will be no looking back for the idea of smell in cinema.

Cinema is always a novelty. Cinema has not reached the saturation level yet and it will never reach there! More and more newer things will come up to make the cinema exciting as ever. Let there be more efforts to make the cinemas smell in the coming years with the increased and better understanding of the Odors and how they work and transmit. This will make cinema a real 3 Dimensional visual experience!

-------------------------------

SAJEESH RAJENDRAN

Faculty –DFM, SAE, India

Reference : The Smell culture Reader Edited by Jim Orobnick (Berg Publishers)

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/staffinfo/jacob/teaching/sensory/olfact1.html

Minor's Intellections

2008-12-20T23:04:00.023+05:30

Chapter-2

Atul was happy to see her smiling and waving back, "It always feels nice when someone smiles back" he thought. He reached the school in little time and got along with his friends. But still a little of him was busy thinking of something else and so he didn't give his ears to his friends much and to whatever they said, they discussed mostly about cartoons,story books and a little of sports. "I got a new bat" said one of his friends named Rohan and everyone except Atul started intriguing him on the make and details of the bat. Soon they got back to the class and took their places.

Atul sat next to Jishnu, they were thick friends. Atul is the chubby fellow, got penetrating looks, yeah very much thoughtful boy, mostly silent, stays at the same place every class and a little attentive as well. Jishnu is the naughty, eccentric and electric kid, keeps shifting his place every class, disturbs the class but he is the one who gives life to the whole class. Both Atul and Jishnu are the favorites of most of the teachers. Though their acts seem contrary they make good friends. At the age of six you don't really know much about friendship but if someone asks Atul "Who is your best friend ?" and he would be fast to respond with the answer "Jishnu" and the same happens with Jishnu. They had created some kind of an internal bond that had kept them close and perhaps more closer.

Anne teacher had come in, "Good Morning Miss" the whole class would uniformly wish her and "Good Morning Children" she would wish back. This has been a routine affair between them. Anne teacher has been in this profession of nurturing these young children for over 2 decades now, and still she loves what she does and does it with the utmost sincerity. Every single child in that class loves her, and she would be the first one they invite for their birthdays and give chocolates. She would take them to the assembly ground every week, narrate stories, recite poems to them. They loved to listen to her stories.

"Dear children, today i am going to ask you about your ambitions. I want all of you to think of it and tell me" Anne teacher said. Suddenly the whole silence transformed into some discussions. Atul and Jishnu were talking to each other. Rohan, James and Azhar were discussing as well. The atmosphere had become a lot more thoughtful for many who knew about ambitions;it seemed dull for the ones who didn't know much about ambitions;some of them had a mixed feeling, especially the ones whose parents always spoke of them being doctors and engineers.

Anne teacher interrupted them for a while "Ambitions are your long term goals. They are aspirations. You should be living to achieve them and that will make you a successful person. This is the time for you to start thinking about ambitions. They give us ideas on how to lead our life, plan your future. So i want all of you to decide on your ambitions" she continued "As a young child my ambition was to become a teacher. I was inspired by my grandma who was a great teacher of her times. As a kid i grew up seeing her as a teacher and said to myself that i would be a teacher as well. I took her as an inspiration. And now i am a teacher. I have been teaching for 20 years. I love what i am doing and that makes me happy".

Not every child in the class understood her conversation fully. But then they recognized the importance of the term 'ambition' and that is just what Anne teacher wanted, despite knowing that they are too young for the challenges ahead she put forward them, that is why Anne teacher is different, different from the rest. She was one who wanted the children to be practical and know the realities of life. "So now let us start from Aashik". Aashik got up quick, he is among the ones who understood a bit of what Anne teacher spoke of, a fatty in himself he is very fond of wrestling and so it didn't take him much longer to say "Miss i want to be a wrestle-man. I want to be like " and sat. The rest of the class had a mixed feeling, Anne miss had a gentle smile. She always expected such answers from them, but as time goes by she knew it would change. But the ones who stay static in their childhood ambitions were more probable to succeed. "Its not wrestle-man Aashik, a person who wrestles is called a wrestler, w-r-e-s-t-l-e-r" she spelled it.

All the young minds were curious and excited to announce their ambitions, Rohan the cricket lover wanted to be "Sachin". "Rohan you can better Sachin, i am sure. But Sachin would be your inspiration" Anne miss said knowing Rohans passion for cricket even at this age. There were many who wanted to be cricketers. "I want to be a soldier" was Jishnu's answer. Anne miss was happy to hear that. "I want to fight for my country like my uncle" he continued.Jishnus uncle is a martyr, there was patriotism in his words. The whole class applauded Jishnu, Anne miss was the first one. And post Jishnu a few others also wanted to be soldiers and Anuj the son of a police personnel wanted to be a policeman. Many wanted to be doctors and engineers as well, just one footballer. Among girls "I want to be a teacher like you" gained the majority. Anne miss always seemed delighted hearing that. All this while Atul was listening to his friends and their ambitions. Atul hadn't decided on his ambition yet. "I will answer tomorrow miss" was his sincere reply, the thoughtful look in his eyes meant he hadn't decided and so Anne miss accepted his plea. "Alright Atul, tell us tomorrow". She knew that unlike other children Atul made firm plans and hence he took his time.

Anne miss's class got over by then, the rest of the day was not as interesting as hers except for the P.T period they had. P.T periods were always fun, they enjoyed jogging around the ground, the exercises and playing some outdoor games as well. And at the end of the day they bid bye to all their classmates, set of for their homes. Atul had decided to talk to his dad and mom about his ambition, he knew that they would be able to help him. He was confused, he wanted to be someone who could do good for the community. His dad always spoke of bad people ruling our nation, he wanted to be someone good among that bad and then turn the bad guys into good. He wanted to be the different among the usual.

He was keen to get back home, but that didn't bury the thoughts on the boy who could not afford ambitions, who had to work for his parents at this young age. Atul's eyes were searching for his unknown friend, the friend whom he feels sorry for, the friend whom he considers unlucky, the friend who is responsible. And he saw him, he felt great. Atul looked at the boy with respect, he was keen to know if that friend of his ever noticed him, but the poor kid was busy at work. Atul smiled hoping it would reach his friend. The rest of the journey was the same thoughtful one for Atul. He was eager to get back home and talk to his parents. His dad gets back home an hour after Atul, mom is the home-maker. So Atul always had the company of his mom, but he wanted both of them together to hear him, play with him, talk to him. His mom was anxiously waiting for her sons arrival. As soon as the boy reached his place, Atul bid bye to his bus mates and got down.

His mom was happy to receive her son, her lone day at the house gets a bail when he is around and that always makes her happy. That is always the among the most happy things for every parent, to see their children around and seeing them happy. Atul was happy in his world. He held his mom's hand and took her back home, seemed as if he is her caretaker, it was a nice scene to watch. They got back home and finished his evening chores like having snacks and freshening up and stuffs and was anxiously waiting for his dad to arrive. Finally his dad arrived, Atul was excited. He gave his dad some time to relax after his busy office schedule. Then he went to the kitchen and held his mom's hand and brought her to the hall, that was where his dad was having his cup of tea. " Dad i want to talk about my ambition" Atul said.

(Will be continued)

A minor's Intellections

2008-12-17T12:20:00.017+05:30

/*Hi i am trying my hand at a little of story writing and this is the initial step. Its just a fiction, hope you like it. Please do leave your suggestions and comments on this, this story might not be a good one but with your suggestions i can definitely improve on this skill. And the story seem to take a lot of time and space, hence i would post a single chapter at a time. Please do go through... Rahul */

Chapter-1

The little boy slyly got up from the bed, he had not slept well all night. Even at the tender age of 6 he has been thinking about his future and everything that he has been doing all day long, he could sense the recursive way of life of his. He found his parents awake so early in the day, "They slept even lesser than me" the boy said to himself.

He busily ran to his dad and greeted him, then asked his dad "Dad, did you not sleep well?". His dad was not so surprised by this question since the boy never got up so early, "I did sleep well son, its just that am used to getting up early" said the dad to his son and started reading the newspaper again.

"Oh, so i slept lesser than dad" thought the boy. Then he turned to his dad "Dad i could not sleep well, i want to know few things please help me dad". This time around dad gave his full attention to his son and was listening to him patiently, "Dad i want to know the reason why i need to go to school and study", dad was rather puzzled at this question and he thought for a while and then answered "Son you need to take care of yourself after few years and for that you need to study well and get a job".

Son was nettled by the answer, the other day he had seen a young boy of his age working at a garage "Why is it that he is not going to school for studying?" he had asked himself this question then and since then he has been busy over this thought. He asked the same question to his friends and they found no good answer, so he has come to his dad. He asked the same to his dad, here again dad took his time to answer and then said "He must have been really poor and his parents might not be in a position to afford his education, so he has taken up the task of working in the garage and look after his family".

Son was again into his world of thoughts and left the place without saying anything to his dad, dad could sense this from his son's face and so didn't interrupt him either. The child went about his daily chores with little care, he had forgotten to make his morning prayers as well which he used to do everyday right after he woke up, he had taken more of tooth paste than he normally did and half of it had fallen into the wash-basin without him noticing it, he spent more time under the shower thinking till his mom knocked the door and called him, "Monu it is getting late for you, come out soon" called out his mom. He quickly finished his bath and came out. Yes, at this young age children don't really tend to know the value of time and that responsibility is always entrusted on their mom, same was his case that day.

His mom could very much infer that her son is unusually careless that day, she had to persuade him to get his things done. She had to comb his hair and feed him while he was wearing his shoes and taking his books since it was already late. "Sorry Amma, i was really slow today" he said to his mom when she was accompanying him to the bus-stop. She responded with a smile and he smiled back. They were just about there when the bus had come, he waved his hands at his mom. He didn't sit at his regular place and rather at another seat because that was where he was sitting when he saw that kid working at that garage yesterday evening. "I will see him today also, poor boy" he thought. But that was too early for the garage to start and so to his disappointment he couldn't see the boy, and he had missed many of the things he noticed everyday on his way to school, he missed to notice the traffic police who managed the traffic with his actions, he forgot to watch the big-boys practicing cricket at the ground, he even forgot to wave hands at his friends mom but just when his friend got in and the bus started to leave he ran towards the rear end and waved at her, she also smiled and waved back.

(Rest in the next post)

What is wrong?

2008-11-28T20:39:00.009+05:30

Finally, after nearly 2 days of horror and terror, India(the world) is tardily getting back.

Back to terms with what has happened!

Back with loads of questions!

Back after the scenes of blood and death!

Back after the sincere efforts of the commandos and police putting their life at stake!

Back with a pride of having ceased the militants and saving the life of hostages!

But for me more than anything, the questions remain the priority. I still can't reconcile to the fact that around 20-25 militants kept the the whole nation(even the world) gazing at every action of theirs. The country of 1.1 billion watching with fear and anguish at these militants, the Mumbaikars visiting the spots of terror and the rest of India tuning into their tv sets for the latest update and you find different stories coming up every hour.

Yes, we tend to get angry at the terrorists, think if they have a family, think of their backgrounds and ask ourselves about them, but will that ever give us back what we lost?

The answer is a big NO. Yes, there would be support and a shoulder to cry for the affected but how long will it sustain? For a month or 2? or till the next attacks(elections)?

I am proud at the way our commandos and military and police did their job. The tv channels did a commendable job as well, if not for them we wouldn't have been aware of the happenings but they did a little too much i suppose. I wonder if it was their mistake, every hour you had a different headline coming up and at times i even felt that they were just commercializing the entire situation. The hotel staff according to me were the real heroes, their efforts to save the lives of the occupants demands salute and respect. Great job mates, we love you. India loves you!

What has the political community contributed? I heard people saying with pride that Mr. Deshmukh flew all the way from Kerala as soon as he heard of the incident. Is that not his responsibility? What big did he do than that? He is just another Indian politician who has just used the opportunity he got and managed to announce his arrival back to Mumbai in the loudest of ways, expecting a better rating for all the way he has been ruling the state of Maharashtra over the years. His ways of approaching the regional conflicts clearly evinces his ignominious governance. I would rather call him a crybaby running a government, sorry Mumbaikars its your mistake did you not have a better leader? This mistake of yours has definitely proved costly dear fellow Indians!

What has Mr. Narendra Modi got to do there, has he even seen a rifle in his lifetime. I wonder if he is so stupid, a gull. His preposterous and absurd remarks shows his inferiority as a leader. Is he not aware of the situation out there, bloody he himself needs protection and if i were a security person i would have shot him right there, at a time when the life of the commandos and police are at stake his acts had to have some sense. Senseless idiots ruling this nation, poor India again!

I saw the footage of the terrorists in the tv channels, they could get hold of the terrorists where the hell were the policemen then. Its been a regular scene in Mumbai, we don't find the security personnel when we badly need them, even when the MNS attacked the railway station they were no where near the incident and here again they have repeated the same mistake, i wonder when they would learn from their mistakes. Its high time they stop repeating it. Should we arm the journalists and not the policemen?

Both the BJP and the Congress were found to be cooperating yesterday in spite of the various differences and i was just all the more excited and happy but i need to check that again. Days ahead i am sure there will be a lot of voice over these issues, it definitely is a lack of proper security in Mumbai but i hate to see Mr. Advani and his men campaigning for the elections citing this as their reason for a change of government. This is just bad politics being played. They would have done nothing different in the national perspective, without a proper action plan i believe India can never eliminate this. We have one of the most disgraceful and scandalous politics in the world, unless and until we the citizens of India act unitedly and elect the best(among the worst) representative for ruling us.

I am sorry for Mr. Karkare, Mr. Salaskar, Mr. Kamte and all those who lead from the front and sacrificed their lives. Your families miss you, even we do miss you. I hope the significance of your loss is understood by these atrocious politicians and they at least now work against terrorism leaving behind this inglorious game of politics behind. We will see the pictures of these brave men as part of the election campaign as well but this will be limited till the dawn of the election and further that they are forgotten heroes. I just heard Major Unnikrishnan's dad speak of his sons brave death, he sounded a proud dad, i wish even my dad would be made proud someday. Unni, you have done the best a son can do. We are elated by your effort to rescue your fellow mate and sacrificing your life for him.

I cannot stop yelling at this politics of ours, the terrorists stand more united than these ruling men who are so divided and that makes my country fall in every minor issue, wonder what would happen to this 1.1 billion odd people if this politics sustains.

Whose mistake is it? I ask myself, the coast-guard? They were incapable of making this long coast of ours more secure. The police? They were incapable of acting swiftly when the tv channels could get hold of the militants. The hotel authorities? They had not performed the necessary security checks on the guests. Needless to say of the politicians. But the coast-guard later were capable of locating the ships which aided in the transportation of the militants. The police though a little late put their life at stake to save the people. The hotel staffs who were among the heroes who cared a little for their lives and considered their guests lives supreme and did the best for the safety of the guests many sacrificing themselves. And here again the politicians stand isolated, unitedly isolated.

Nothing seems perfect, absolutely nothing. As long as these irregularities are addressed in the best possible way i find my India nowhere, transparency rules my country. Everything bloody thing is so transparent that anyone can do anything. I wonder if this is what we shamelessly call democracy and independence. People fear to go out of their houses, explosions at will, no one is spared not even the new born baby. Seeing the Israeli child whose parents died in the attacks at Nariman house made me feel his pain, his parents have left him and he is an orphan now i wished if i could take care of him. India needs to act together, act wise. Each of us need to understand our significance, individually you can do a lot for this nation but together we can do a lot more.

Finally let me put it this way, the basic fundamental right that every citizen of India has is the right to vote, but even in the recent elections i found the turn around to be just around 50%. Why is it so? Please my dear Indians, your vote is precious and if you ever feel the necessity of a more secure India for your successors and heirs you need to be part of the change yourself. Don't you want your children to live in a safer India? I know the answer is yes, so please vote. I just enrolled myself today. Its never late.

Just log in to: www.jaagore.com

You have all the details there, you just need either your birth certificate or driving license or PAN card to vote. Just go through the website and enroll. I respect the effort by the organizers of that website, please do it. Let our children wake up in a safer India, let the world happily visit our nation with no fear of life, let us go out with the belief of getting back home safely. Let us do it!

JAI HIND

Mumbai again!

2008-11-27T17:08:00.004+05:30

They have targeted the financial capital of India again, and the rest of India looks at them with helplessness and sympathy. Terror strikes in 11 different places at regular intervals, it includes 2 important hotels in TAJ and OBEROI-TRIDENT. And they have held around 100(or even more??) as hostages in both the hotels. The hostages include foreigners as well. The worst part, more than 100 people have been killed which includes 6 foreigners and 14 policemen.

The terrorists disguised themselves to be musicians and entered the hotel and occupied their rooms, the hotel authorities had not checked their baggages and the boxes they had carried, this shouldn't have happened in hotels of such standards for sure which are mostly occupied by the delegates of various nations and the businessmen. The hotel authorities not knowing that they were at jeopardy let them in with no security checks and this act has definitely raised eyebrows around the world concerning the security measures adopted at the various high profile hotels around the country.

This attack has definitely raised questions not just about the security of our nation but at this period of immense financial crisis and economic slowdown this has come has an even bigger blow to our economy. The foreign investment would definitely take the blow and that will affect the Indian investors as well. This should be the other reason why the terrorists chose Mumbai as their destination again. The best way to hinder the growth of this nation would be to attack and exploit its economy, and they just exploited that transparency that was rather inviting for them. I wonder how the markets are going to act to such turmoil, it does smell much of the 9/11 attacks on America that hit their economy (indirectly the world as well) in a really regretful way.

What is happening to Mumbai? The execution of this attack clearly evinces the amount of planning that has gone into it. 11 planned attacks in regular intervals, the amount of effort that has been put has to be taken into consideration deeply. This indicates the significant lapse of security in the city of Mumbai. From using the sea route to reach Mumbai till executing the attacks, the terrorists have had the upper hand. They have done what they wanted to do, let know the world that India is not a safe country and again targeted the financial capital.I wonder what the people held hostage would be thinking or feeling. As such its been the poor who have been targeted most of the time but this time around i believe this is a deliberate effort by the militants to attack the upper class and the rich. But rich or poor Indians remain Indians.

The sincere efforts of the military,commandos and policemen sacrificing their lives for the rest shows their commitment towards this nations security. I salute them, but why could they not prevent such an attack? As we know the whole country is in an alarming situation, they should have been more careful. Past is past, there is no use dwelling at it. I am sure that our forces can tame these militants, but the question of hostages still remain isolated.

The whole political scene has changed today, the different political parties seem to have been cooperating with each other and the Congress led government. Yes though it is just a temporary action, this is what India needs. This should definitely be encouraging the forces who are working hard to wash away the terrorists and wipe them out completely from our nation. The whole nation needs to stand together, and i feel that it is the only way we can decimate these terrorists.

For now the rest of India needs to pray for the dead and diseased. We definitely need a better system for tackling these attacks and this issue needs to be addressed with significant priority among other issues. May God bless India!

JAI HIND

Happy B'day Mummy and Muthassi!!

2008-11-24T06:00:00.001+05:30

It is my mummy's b'day on 24 and my grandmom's b'day on 25th. They are among the most important people in my life.

Mummy for being more of a friend than just be a mother and for being there and supporting me, fighting with me, making the house all the more cheerful, convincing Pappa whenever we wanted her to, making us responsible and working hard for us. She is the best mom in the world. Yes, your mom is too is the best. They are the angels sent by God for making our lives more beautiful and eventful. I don't want to thank her, never will i do that. I will always be her loving son, a loving son will never thank his parents hehe :) . And i know, she doesn't expect anything from us, even when Sunil mama(my uncle) told her that we(me and Rakesh) will not be taking care of them(mummy and pappa) she declined his words. We will prove him wrong mummy, thats all i can say. Love you mummy!!

Now my Muthassi(i call her muthi), she always remains as the most caring person. I am her favorite among all her grand children and i am proud of that. She takes so much care on me, that she still considers me to be a little child. She is worried every time i go out, let that be in a bike or cycle or in the car. I love my muthi a lot, and miss all the comforts she gives me. Love you muthi, and happy b'day for you!!

I dedicate this song for you both mummy and muthi :

Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mamaa

Hoo Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mamaa

Haatho Ki Lakerien Badal Jayengi

Gum Ki Yeh Zanjeerein Peeghal Jayengi

Ho Khuda Pe Bhi Aasar, Tu Duaon Ka Hai Ghar

Meri Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Hoo Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Begdi Kismat Bhi Sawanr Jaayegi

Zindagi Tarane Khushi Ke Gayegi

Tere Hote Kiska Dar, Tu Duawon Ka Hai Ghar

Meri Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Hoo Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Yun Tu Mein.. Sab Se Nyara Hoon

Tera Maaa Mein Dulara Hoon

Yun Tu Mein.. Sab Se Nyara Hoon

Par Tera Maaa Mein Dulara Hoon

Duniya Mein Jeene Se Jyada Uljhan Hai Maaa

Tu Hai Amar Ka Jahan…….

Tu Gussa Karti Hai, Bada Accha Lagta Hai

Tu Kaan Pakati Hai, Badi Zor Se Lagta Hai, Meri Maa…

Meri Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Hoo Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Haatho Ki Lakerien Badal Jayengi

Gum Ki Yeh Zanjeerein Peeghal Jayengi

Ho Khuda Pe Bhi Aasar, Tu Duawon Ka Hai Ghar

Meri Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

Hoo Maa, Meri Maa, Pyaari Maa… Mammaa

The first's in my life!!!

2008-11-22T16:47:00.001+05:30

I was thinking a lot on what to write about, and few days back myself and rakesh were talking of our times at Trivandrum. There were many firsts that we did in life there. They are all memorable experiences, from buying our 1st car to drinking my first beer those moments will always stay in me. It always feels great when you do something different for the first time.

We had the same feeling then and yes even the long journey from Trivandrum to Palakkad and from there to Ooty in the car with our achu(our puppy). Achu is not with us anymore(we handed him over to Vijaya mama), in this busy Chennai life we were not in a position to bring him here, i do miss him we had a great time playing with him. The black and white looks of his, he was really among the cutest when he was really young. With Australian dad and a Russian mom he wasn't that lucky to be living in India but then even dogs were not spared in this century. We took the best care of him. No he was not our first pet, we had Tobby and he is with my grandmom now.

And the first car, its always nice to be traveling with the family in a car. You tend to attach a lot of emotions to it(the first car), and that is the reason why my dad didn't want to sell it even after buying a new one. We gave it to Ravi mama, and now its like our car, Achu and Tobby all are at the same place and are neighbors. What a coincidence seth ji! The first drive on that car, my dad almost went and hit a transport bus on our way, he wasn't that good a driver and the fear of taking the car out on the road was very much evident on him. And we used to get tensed when some vehicle came close to our car(yes,worried for both the car and that vehicle as well).

And then we made the first long trip on our car from Trivandrum to Palakkad somewhere around 350 km, being our first long journey we had Shabeer ettan accompanying us to help my dad out with driving such a long distance. Shabeer ettan considered himself to be superior driver to my dad. We started sometime after 4 i suppose and Shabeer ettan was giving cues to Pappa on driving in the highway. He is a fast learner. The forward journey was accident free and nice, but in the return journey we were not that lucky, we took the route through Kottayam and a bike fellow came and hit our car while trying to overcome a gutter. Our wheel plate was broken into pieces and that noise gave us the feeling that the bike fellow was severely injured but by God's grace though the bike got damaged he was fine. My dad managed to call one of his friends out there and deal with that bike guy and gave him some compensation for the mistake of his. And then we hustled back but with lot more cautious driving by my dad.

Next is the first drink day, we(my family) were on our way to Kutralam on a Sunday, Kutralam is not that far from Trivandrum and dad wanted to go for an outing then so we chose Kutralam. We had Shabeer ettan and Reji chechi(they are not couples) accompanying us, yeah Shabeer ettan was there not because my dad was not a good driver then, he had mastered the art if driving by then but just accompanied. On our way we saw a cycle wala selling Toddy and we stopped there and even myself and Rakesh had some toddy, it tasted nice. And then we reached Kutralam and got under the water falls, it was an enjoyable experience. On our way back we saw a KTDC(Kerala Tourism Development Council) hotel cum bar and so just went inside and Pappa asked us if we wanted some beer, and we were positive and there we were drinking our first beer with dad giving us company. Its not that my dad wanted us to be drunkards ut just that he wanted us to taste them and he knew that we wouldn't like it. He guessed right, i didn't like its taste, but Rakesh fell for it and since that incident every time we go somewhere he urges Pappa to get him some beer(no he is not an alcoholic, just once in a while), but that was Pappa's deal, he was like if u want to have anything like that i will give you company and don't go with your friends or anyone else. I respect that theory of his very much and that has made sure that we are no alcoholics and will never turn into one.

And thirdly, the life at Malloor Nagar, its a colony of 13 houses and we were lucky enough to be part of that colony for sometime. It gave us some nice memories, and some bad ones too. Among the nice ones were the monthly get-together at a house. There was a get-together in our house as well one day. It comprised of dinner as well. I had a nice time at all the get-together. And then the Annual celebrations out there was also great, Pappa's palada pradhaman became really famous that day. And i even won the Tambola(a number game) game that we had played. I somehow managed to win a lot of Tambola games then.

The sad memory would be the death of one of the family from inside our colony in a car accident. That is one of the most unexpected incident in my life, we were at Palakkad that morning, just reached from Trivandrum in car and on our Journey at around 2 we saw a car lying upside down under a truck. Ravi mama had accompanied us then, and seeing the accident he was like all the passengers would have died. That day morning mummy woke me up and was like the car that we saw belonged to one uncle in our colony and in the incident their whole family perished. I was shocked, he was the person who asked my dad to buy the car and even they had the same car. They were a sweet family, uncle,aunty and their 2 sons, children were very cute and young. God tends to be bad at times.

There were lot more happenings i would like to share with you, but its being too big a post and you will get bored if i go further. I will continue this later!

Cheers!

Special Fever!!!

2008-11-11T10:06:00.003+05:30

"Special Fever" i know sounds aberrant, fever seldom is special especially when its just before the day of your all the more important semester exams and it doesn't leave you even on the day of your exam. It is a horrible experience, it was the same for me but then again this time around my fever was special. (I change my stands in the next paragraph)

In an ironical way if i say, fever during exams itself is special. For those studious guys it leaves them thwarted, for the bindaas wala guys it doesn't matter but just another excuse and explanation why they didn't pass this time around, and for people like me who are not among both these categories it would be great to see myself passing the paper and anything extra would be a bonus (Under Anna University passing is never a big deal, but we have made it all the more complicated and say to ourselves that passing is laborious undertaking). And i managed to do the exam pretty well, yes i will surely pass :).

Now the real reason why the fever was special, i am not a regularly-feverous guy. I don't even remember last time i got a fever(come'on not because i have a bad memory, just that it was a longtime since it happened). So this time i wanted mummy to do this for me, i was like mummy it would be really great if you could wet a piece of cloth and keep it on my forehead, its a long term wish and please do it for me. Mummy was telling rakesh, i think your brother has turned mad, he is not letting us take him to a doctor(yeah, at 20 you go to a doctor only if you want and no one can take you like it used to be the case a decade ago,and no i wasn't scared of injection) and he wants me to do this wet-cloth-on-forehead mechanism which will seldom work out. But my dear Mummy, she did it for me, and believe me it is a temporary relief, for me it definitely was.

And yesterday i managed to go to a doctor, i don't like to go to doctors, if you ask me for the reason, well i don't really know. But yesterday i felt the need to go to the doctor, i was really tired that i couldn't even walk properly, am not used to staying at a single place for a longtime and it was irritating me to the core, the most illogical dreams(you get logical dreams only when you get nice sleep, or else the dreams turn illogical) made my sleep all the more no-sleep business. He gave me an injection, and 2 tablets as well. The injection made me dizzy and almost unconscious for sometime everything turned dark for a while and rakesh who had accompanied me to the doctor went to get the tablets from the pharmacy. I got a support and closed my eyes for a while, it took sometime for me to get things back to place, and rakesh got back by then and i managed to reach home. The injection was so powerful that in 5 mins my fever was almost gone(the doctor whom i consulted is very famous for giving injections whatever your problem be).