I Am Doomed to 14 Years of Bad Luck

Yes, I am. Because I didn’t forward the divine mail I received, to 27 people. In fact, horror of horrors, I deleted it. I wish I could have done more, though. Hopefully they will invent a mail client which will allow you to manhandle your messages. And then I’ll haul the mail out and stomp on it, 27 times. Waiting for the happy day.

Few things on cyberspace irritate me more than one of those mind-numbingly stupid forwards. The luck-letters are top of the shitpile but the petitions to ‘make an effort to stop the murder of dolphins in Timbuctoo’ , to ‘condemn the treatment of Indian PoWs in Pakistan’ and to donate 1 paisa towards the treatment of my inflated head’ come pretty close.

Even fewer things baffle me more than the objectives of people who create/propagate these. What do they stand to gain from passing on the misfortune to 27 more people – Some people overdo the requisite <Insert-random-number> and send it to their whole address book. I mean if you are gonna do this, you can at least do this properly.

Anyway, my point was, why do people forward these ?Is it because

• Unlikely as it sounds, they actually believe sending/discarding will bring you luck/bad luck? Oh please. We are all healthy youngsters here who are perfectly capable of creating  our own ‘luck’. I am sure we can manage the hard work of screwing up our own lives without the blessings of Gmailmaa or Yahoo Bhagavathi.

• Duh!! Who believes in them? But you know, to be on the safer side? Why tempt fate, eh? Again a minority, but a sizable minority. I know people who belong to this school of thought. And it is a valid line of reasoning. If you are braindead. In the unlikely event that the president of Argentina received this mail, it is even more unlikely that he read it and unlikeliest his son died hence, do you think? – For the record, the president of Argentina is Christina Kirchner so it’s a ’she’ and She has a son Maximo who’s very much alive. False claims!!! who would have thunk?

• I like forwarding mails and I forward anything and everything .  I am not a forwarder and do not take kindly to relentless forwarders unless it’s a rare awesome-joke-you-haven’t-heard-before or a must-check-out-bro-NSFW Forwarding is NOT a way of saying you care, folks, it just means your address book includes me. And I’m sorry it does.

• I am a patriotic Indian/animal lover/kind heart and I am making a difference. Yes, You maybe and No, You’re NOT, respectively. I am appalled by the disrespect shown by the terrorists and I am bothered about the little panda missing its mother but that doesn’t make me clutter the cyberspace with just another useless piece of junk that goes nowhere. Assuming the ‘petition’ reaches the Pak Army Headquarters, adding your name to it in violet Monotype Corsiva with 36 font size is not a helping hand, it’s just an eyesore.

• Noone, repeat , NOONE tracks the number of times a mail gets duplicated to pay Rs. 500383.78 for the little girl’s surgery. I told someone this recently and his reaction reminded me of a kid being told Santa is a myth. Honestly!

• I thought you might be interested in knowing your horoscope. Yes I may be, but not 3456 times. And my star sign is the same since the last time you checked. I am still a Virgo and I am still as Dominant in relationships, Conservative, Always wants the last word, Argumentative, Worries blah blah…. – as the last time you sent me my horoscope. AND Horoscopes are stupid. To quote Sheldon Cooper

• It’s a mass cultural delusion that the Sun’s apparent position relevant to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.

Totally.

Motives galore and not one of them makes any sense. Not to me, anyway. I hope some of my tormentors take note and desist from sending me luck anymore.

You may feel I made a molehill out of a trivial thing, but try getting one of those when you are eagerly waiting for an important mail/sms. Yup, that’s what triggered this post though this has been simmering in my mind for some time.

And now you’ve read this post, and there’s no turning back. You’ve to forward this link to 17 friends or you will have 17 years of bad luck.

*EVIL LAUGHTER*

Catman and The Full Circle

One of my earliest childhood memories feature a scared cat. A scared cat in a deep well. Cats are supposed to be tough. At times they are even braver than dogs, particularly when dealing with humans. But even the toughest of cats would be scared shitless if they fell down a pretty deep well like the one we have at home. And it’s bloody dark in there.

Back then, we had just moved in to the new place and there was still work to be done. Like fitting an iron mesh on top of the well. My father put it off because there were more important stuff to be done first. But then we hadn’t accounted for the incident of the curious cat in the nighttime.

Cats are, as a rule, curious. The well enticed them and there would often be a snoop squad around it. And occasionally, one of them got too curious for their own good and fell over. fortunately, Curiosity did not kill the cats here and unfortunately, we were left with a yowling beast perched precariously on top of one of the lower rungs of the well.

I would crane my neck over the wall of the well, trying to locate the poor beast and if fortunate, some adult around would oblige with a brief lift-up. More often than not, I got reprimanded and warned that I would be following the cat down. The bottom of the well is  not a pleasant place to be, and having to share it with an angry cat doesn’t improve it one bit. I would reluctantly step off from the wall and whine “But when are you gonna take it out?”

Cue entry of our very own neighborhood Zuperhero. A spectacle of every other neighborhood in India, the Zuperhero takes on world-saving missions like… well every other errand that needs doing. Replacing a blown fuse, Harvesting – for lack of a better word – a coconut tree, fixing the leaky pipes and when push comes to shove, even climbing down wells to rescue adventurous cats. He is the fuseman, coconutman, pipeman and several other men all rolled into one – to unroll as the situation demands.

So word gets to the Zuperhero pretty soon- I told you, the cat yowls REALLY loudly – about the cat in the well. Whether or not he requires a personal visit from my father depends on his market at the moment. On a relatively stable-fused, sturdy-piped, no-coconutty week he will present himself by the well-side, overlooking the lack of an ornate invitation. But on a typical Indian week, he plays hard-to-get. The time before his appearance stretches accordingly and when the cat is particularly loud, we may make several calls to his PP number – Poyi Parayaam – before the irate neighbour refuses to be disturbed anymore. Of course, this being before the advent of mobiles, I assume it would have taken 10 missed calls today. Anyway, sooner or later, in true tradition to the ilk of Zuperheroes, Arrive he will.

The Zuperhero – henceforth to be referred as the Catman for the purposes of our discussion – has a distinctive style of attire and NO, he does NOT wear his underwear outside his pants. But we can glimpse his bermudas peeping out under his Kaavi – more often than not – lungi. The baniyan would be different shades of white, depending on how long it had been with him. A red towel – a Thorthu – would be draped around his neck and fulfills its multiple functions as a headgear before starting work and simply as a towel AND often as a fan after the mission is accomplished.

An imitation Rado watch – I came to know of the imitation part later – would adorn his thick wrists and is often an bone of contention among the younger bystanders who regard the duty of guarding it as its owner climbs down very prestigious. The footgear is a sturdy Hawai – I reckon the US forces should try it in Iraq – and last but not at ALL the least, a burning beedi stuck in the brown lips completes the Catman.

A silence descends among the crowd – with an average age of 8 – around the well as the Catman prepares to take on the daunting mission. I believe even the cat grew silent as it contemplates the silhouette of its rescuer from down below. He ties one end of the thick rope to a nearby tree and the other to his waist and begins his descent. When a circular array of little heads bobbing up and down around the rim of the well blocks the light he yells to stand back which is promptly repeated by any adult above and we all draw back. for a little while. But we are too fascinated by the art of climbing-down-wells-and-taming-cats to obey for too long.

For it is a sight to behold. The delicate art of descending down wells left me in the same realm of wonder that a Federer shot or a Sachin straight drive takes me to. The Catman shifts around to find the right area of each ledge to step on, with the grace of a dancer and yet never compromises on his speed like an f1 driver. He negotiates the terms of surrender with the kitty ever so smoothly – with a goody in the basket for the more stubborn ones – and gets it into the basket in the blink of an eye. And there is a collective sigh of relief and wonder upstairs with yours truly a leading contributor.

The basket is sent up first and the cat is frantic to get out. The Vaanarsena is warned a good distance off the wall before it reaches the top and leaps off to glorious safety. The rope is sent back in and the hero of the day emerges. From the shadows, the Catman rises with a smile, after saving the day yet again.He humbly – well, with some quibbling – accepts his due and ambles off, nay, strides off.

Friends, this was my very first goal in life, the first of my ambitions – to be the Catman. To learn how to tame cats. To harness the awesome power of going down wells at will and to gain the gratitude of cats and admiration of one and all. Well, all the kids anyway. The Catman was my hero and I had dreams of me pulling seven cats out of a one-kilometer deep well , in less than 5 minutes. Of course the best part of the dream was the standing ovation I receive when I emerge into daylight. Details may have blurred, this is a rough estimate.

Since then, I’ve ran through a long list of ambitions – from a Train driver, a pilot, a policeman………………… to a doctor, an astronaut, an engineer and an MBA. It’s a very long list, I’ve left out about 10 years worth of ambitions in between. There have been sensible ones, weird ones, achievable ones, plain ridiculous ones – how about The Guy Who Gets Paid to Watch TV. But curiously enough, I’ve come full circle now. After a long gap of 14 years, my dreams involve taming the CAT. Again.

All Hail the Catman.

He has had lesser superheroes steal his name

Image credits : rtsunlimited.com

And also wildly successful, yet less awesome spinoffs

Image credit : people.ucsc.edu

But the Catman still rules. Totally.

He has had lesser superheroes steal his name

Woe’s in a name

This goes out to all the people in this world with an unusual name.

Do you dread meeting new people because you’ll have to repeat your name thrice – and slower each time?

Do you heave an exasperated sigh every time you have to go up on  stage because you’re sure the  annoying announcer is never going to pronounce your name right?

Do you feel your spine tingle whenever someone mutilates that beautiful name you go by and looks at you with confused pity as though he isn’t sure whom to blame – your parents or you?

You’re not alone, bro(/sis). You’ll never be alone in this world teeming with lazymouths who would name everyone Tom or John or Jack, if they had it their way.

I’ve been called a lot of things over the years.  I’ve had to respond (extremely reluctantly) to Roof, Rof, Rao,  Rafu, Rouse (Seriously, WTF?). And it isn’t really that bad a name , is it? R-A-O-U-F. Come on, how tough was that? A wee bit tough,yes, I know. But not tough enough to justify the alarming frequency with which I get called alarmingly terrible versions of my own name.

A common mistake people make is calling me ‘Abdul’. I dont really know why, but it irks me like anything. BTW, My name in full is Abdul Raouf KP. It’s kind of understandable why people make that mistake. Hell, you don’t even see why that is a mistake, right?

Abdul Raouf – An Arab would pronounce it Abdurraouf because it’s actually one word and ‘L’ cannot ell if it comes before ‘R’. So Abdurraouf – translates to ‘Servant of the most merciful’.

Raouf is a synonym of Allah and hence I’m not supposed to be called ‘Raouf’ since that would mean I’m godlike. Well, that’s kind of true, but still . I’ve always been called Raouf – well not always , like I said earlier – and I prefer to answer to ‘Raouf’.

So, No, I am not Abdul and Raouf’s not my father’s name. Glad we cleared that up.

The ‘aou’ is in there to nicely round that sound. Let the ‘a’ and ‘Ow’ forth and melt into each other. My name wasn’t always spelt like this. I don’t actually remember what it actually was, it was either ‘Rauf’ or ‘Rouf’. Okay, it was spelt ‘Rauf’ I think. 6-yr old me wasn’t impressed enough with the ’something-missing-in-the-name’ and inserted the missing ingredient, an ‘o’ to nicely “round” it off.

6-yr old me was quite the little genius. I always had bursts of inspiration – like burn a patch of my hair with a candle – in situ – and mark my right hand with a marker pen so I didn’t have to choose a hand at random before eating. Unlike the other stupid – and cute – things I did, the ‘o’ in my name didn’t fade away with time. It stuck and found its way into a host of official documents and with time, it felt like the ‘o’ had always been there.

Do the perpetrators of ‘Rao’ and ‘Rouse’ know what a travesty it is to dishonor a name with such a beeeyootiful backstory?

Pfft!

I know there are names treated with even less respect. I rest my case. Waiting to hear from The Brotherhood of Mutilated Names.

PS :

I didn’t even get started on being misspelt! Now that’s another long rant.

Pazhassi Raja : A review

I cannot recall a movie that was anticipated more eagerly, in recent years. The hype was enormous, the expectations sky high and the wait never-ending. I had made up my mind to watch it on the first day itself, but I couldn’t as I was out of town.

I got around to watching Pazhassi Raja on Sunday evening from SriKumar theatre, Trivandrum. The balcony was fully booked – for weeks, rumor has it – and we had to make do with the sixth row in first class. It was a teeny bit uncomfortable but I stopped fretting in minutes. Why? The movie was so damn CLASSY!

I will breeze through the background and avoid a long-winded history session . In a nutshell, the movie deals with Pazhassi’s feud with the ‘Traders who are trying to rule the land’. Pazhassi had fought alongside them when Tippu invaded North Malabar but realises who the true enemy was, as the Company starts to break the backs of his subjects with unreasonable taxes and to curtail their freedom. So he prevents the tax collection, leading to the Company ransacking his palace with the approval of his uncle Veera Varma Raja of Kurumbranadu – Thilakan plays the megalomaniac to perfection – and the help of the Raja’s erstwhile associate Pazhayamveedan Chanthu.

The king who’s driven out of his home builds his lair in the forest and goes on to be a thorn in the flesh for the Company, with well-planned guerrilla warfare. His associates like his lieutenant Edacheni Kunkan, the tribal warrior Thalakkal Chandhu and Kaitheri Ambu, the brother-in-law of the Raja are all men of valour and cunning, thus making his dedicated albeit small army, a force to reckon with. The movie portrays the encounters between the two forces and how it pans out in the end.

So where to begin analysing this gem of a movie? Let’s start off with the portrayal of the protagonist by Mammootty. To be honest, it was very different from what I expected. Because in a role which could have been used to usurp each and every scene he is in, Mammootty does nothing of the kind and actually underplays. His portrayal of the Raja is restrained and finessed. But in no moment, does he come across as anything but Royal. Yes, Royal with a capital R. He doesn’t really have to do anything much but to be gracefully THERE and he does it with aplomb.

Sharathkumar enacts what may be the best role of his life perfectly. Edacheni Kunkan – The warrior with a fierce loyalty towards his king. He literally fills the screen with his presence – What physique!!! – and comes across effortlessly as a character you wouldn’t want to cross. Manoj K Jayan does a splendid role too as Thalakkal Chandhu, the tribal warrior whose tactical prowess makes one of the mightiest armies of the modern world look like blundering idiots.Kaitheri Ambu is portrayed decently by Suresh Krishna, though he pales in comparison to the performances of the former two. Suman dons the role of the traitor Pazhayamveedan Chandhu who conspires with the Brits to take down Pazhassi and does it well.

Of the female leads, Padmapriya steals Kaniha’s thunder with a memorable performance as Neeli, the tribal girl who is a lioness in battle, albeit one with amazing dexterity in using the bow and arrow. She did amazingly well, particularly in the martial arts scenes. Her dubbing was really irritating though, I wonder who felt they could pass off THAT as a tribal speaking Malayalam. Kaniha played the beautiful Maakkam, the Raja’s wife with grace. Well she did alright in the scenes where she was supposed to stand around and look beautiful – Not that she requires any effort there – but came up slightly short where more strenuous emoting was to be done. Nothing that can’t be pardoned for the other *ahem* delights of having her on screen.

Other characters – Kanara menon, Unni Mootha, Emman Nair, Athan Kurikkal, Kannavathu Nambiar,  Mooppan – are all safe in the hands of experienced veterans – Jagathy, Captain Raju, Lalu Alex, Mamukkoya, Devan, Nedumudi Venu respectively. Maybe some of them deserved a more detailed portrayal on the basis of their actual contribution to history, but the scope of the movie sidelines them to being fringe players. Not a drawback, only a necessity. And extremely well played, all of them.

Sayippanmar were generally okay, though I thought Baber looked slightly gormless on occasions. Could have done better there. His fiancee was sort of an unnecessary character – Doesn’t seem to be strongly backed up by history books – and reminded me at times of Lagaan. Still, it was acted out splendidly by Linda Arsenio. The scene where they enjoy the hospitality of the Raja was a nice touch – Not sure if there’s any record of it. Anyone? – The other Englishmen succeed in their task of being generally hateful and of holding a grudging admiration for Pazhassi.

Done with the actors and moving on to the technical part. Technically – WOW! The best done period film ever in Malayalam and arguably in India. Camera, editing, whatever – They have done the best they can in all technical departments. The camera in some scenes deserve a very special mention. The Raja doing SuryaNamaskar, on horseback watching the Panamaram fort burn – the instances are too many to be listed here. The songs were superbly shot and blended in well with the narrative – particularly Adiushassandhya and Kunnathe Konna.

The war scenes were all brilliantly executed. The battles in the forest and in open land were both very real , yet managed it without unwanted gore. The martial arts scenes were generally good but I was disappointed with the jumps at several point. They looked very artificial and not in keeping with the perfection of the rest of the movie. I would expect 27 crores to get you a bit more originality than the jumps in Jai Hanuman.

I was deeply skeptic at Resul Pookkutty going apeshit in the media about the sound effects, before release. But I have to say I retracted every word of it. The movie is a treat to the ears -  the clanging of the swords, the sounds of the forest, the soldiers marching, galloping horses – They have never been more real. The heavy rain pelting down seemed so real that I almost wrapped my hands around myself in cold, at one point.

So I finally get to the real geniuses behind this Magnum Opus – MT and Hariharan. There is an opinion doing the rounds that the magic MT weaved in Oru Vadakkan Veeragaatha has diminished in Pazhassi Raja. I beg to disagree – the comparison is flawed. OVVG was born off a folktale which gave MT maximum room to manipulate the tale to tug at our heartstrings, but in PR his artistic freedom is much more curtailed. He has to strike a balance between history and entertainment. And boy has he done that! Hariharan faced the same challenge.  Only wizards of their ilk could have taken such a subject and woven it into 200 minutes of Awesomeness (Yes I watch too much HIMYM).

On a final note, let me take on a point that the detractors of the movie are touting. No, the movie cannot be renamed Edacheni Kunkan, because you are not seeing the point. Sharath gets to hit it off with the audience because he is a warrior – and an awesome one at that. But in the end, he remains largely a one-dimensional character who is nonetheless crucial to the narrative. But the movie portrays the different sides of Pazhassi brilliantly. Pazhassi the patriot, Pazhassi the lover, Pazhassi the warrior, Pazhassi the ruler – The trio of MT-Hariharan-Mammootty have captured it so brilliantly that every other character pales – as they should – in comparison.

MUST WATCH!!

Compiler Design

As the soporific charm gets down to work in the classroom, random thoughts wander into the minds of those unfortunate enough to be rejected by sleep. As you may have guessed already, me being one of those, I chose to pen down those wisps of fancy; in all their randomness, in all their glory, in all their weirdness.

The futility of our bodies being where they were, with our minds being elsewhere should surely be one of the first thoughts to cross my mind. The design of compilers being the least of my priorities, one could always term my presence in this class as worthless. Couple that with the possibility of being somewhere else and doing something productive or even that of merely enjoying myself, the circumstances can be deemed almost criminal.

While getting babies to sleep may not be a dying art, with lullabies and cradles being still in fashion, I cannot help wonder if the stage is set for something new. A pathbreaking, novel way of getting the tykes to sleep. We could hit the market like a whirlwind, reaping money like mad. All we need to do is to bring a decent recorder to class. Easy enough, because almost all the modern mobiles come with decent recording capabilities. And then, capture the lecture we are subjected to. The recording should be flawless – the Gift of the voice etched into the immortality of digital memory, in all its glory. The nasal twang, the rise and fall of pitch, the uniformity of volume and the eerie silence which surrounds it.

Image Credit: http://www.sdarts.org/features/sdclassroom/student%20sleeping.gif

Behold, we have a champion product. A lullaby which can put the most stubborn of little monsters to sleep. Patent it as iSleep or uSleep or whatever – the name is but irrelevant before the uniqueness of what we have here. A musical wonder with no background instruments at all, yet perfect and enthralling in its rise and ebb. Buy it, play it and forget it.

Okay, I’ve written two pages of nonsense. A look at the watch tells me it has hardly moved. I tap it twice. Could it be that the inherent magic of the voice can put even a thing of cogs and wheels to sleep? No, it moves. The moments are not stagnant, they are merely stretched. Fuck relativity.

The third page dawns and I’ve almost run out of ideas.Seems the dulcet tones can not push you into dreamland, but can also suck thoughts from you, like a blackhole. The lethargy lies heavy, not only on one’s mind, but even manages to crawl its way onto your limbs and smother them. Remarkable.

SNAP!! The spell is broken and the class scrambles to wary alertness as a question is directed at the last bench. The victim looks like a convict woken up roughly by the jailer in the early morning to be told he was going to hang. Except that jailers dont normally go on to hang the guys in the neighbouring cells if the first guy wasn’t ready. Whispers fly back and forth as to what the answer might be, and more commonly, what the question was.

The guy asked is unable to answer (Duh!!!) and the urgency for the answer becomes even more frenzied, though the mute blanket over it is miraculously maintained. The neighbour of the victim follows his friend. They now look like two shy mute children in their first day at a sign language class. The regions of the class where the answers haven’t filtered through yet, heave a sigh , resigned to their fate.

Luckily, the next guy asked is someone who collects his bearings well enough to give a passable answer. The Voice remarks drily about the necessity of paying attention in the class. How unfortunate it is that some people attend the class just for the sake of attendance. If you want to sleep, better do it in the comfort of your own homes. And you are NOT watching a movie here. Kindly raise your heads and straighten your backs. And returns to the lecture.

Normalcy is restored within minutes. The class returns to its usual state of languor and the muted whispers cease. Save the three or four supernaturals, located close to the origin of the epidemic, the dark magic has claimed the class again.

A look at some of the more interesting members of the class may be rewarding. The hulk of the class is beyond redemption. Sleep has so overpowered him that he looks like a tiny gust of wind may knock him down. Like the Giant redwood being knocked down by a feather. Alright, I’ll lay off any more of my laboured analogies.

Glancing around at the rest of the class does not yield much information. I could attempt it, of course, but in how many ways would you have me describe someone sleeping?

A glance at my watch surprises me.It’s almost 3. Somehow, the effort to write everything down has saved me from braindeath. As the minute hand draws closer to 12, an air of anticipation fills the class. Like a group of statues coming to life, heads begin to bob and hands start to move, legs stretch. As the sleepers wake up, they have a hopeful look in their bloodshot eyes.

The anticipation reaches a crescendo as the the teacher in the neighbouring class leaves. Suddenly, an unnamed fear is invoked as the possibility of another hour with the Voice looms.

However, to everyone’s immense relief, the Voice asks “Latecomers, anyone?”, grants them attendance and walks out. The class breaks into huge applause – Mentally.

An announcement

I moved the posts I liked from my old blog http://raoufalution.co.nr/ over here. There were some nice comments on some of them which couldn’t unfortunately be moved. Due apologies to the kind souls who made them. Thank you, and hope you’ll continue to read my ramblings.

School in My life

It took me a long time to write this. I was asking myself what I owed to Chinmaya Vidyalaya. A lot. But I did not want this note to turn out to be a flowery article of hollow praise, lacking heart. Neither do I want anybody reading this to not fully take in what my school did for me. A fine balance is to be struck between the two and hence I tried my level best to do so.

It has been more than two years since I left the Vidyalaya. But it seems to me only days ago that I wore the brown and white proudly. The school was my second home for 8 years, a place I yearned for, and curiously enough, still do. Wandering through the corridors, looking out at the garden during lectures, bickering with friends, standing in the assembly, travelling places for quizzing, memories come gushing back , unbidden guests who are mighty reluctant to leave.

I am yet to love my college as much. For some strange reason, even with all the freedom offered by the college life, I prefer the comparatively under-the-reins fun I had at school. Maybe it was due to the over-expectations about college life that I found it wanting. Or maybe it is due to my inherent laziness which requires opportunities to be held out to me in a platter instead of me taking the initiative. Or maybe I resent being a small fish in a big pond and liked being a big fish in a small pond. Whatever it is, I am not doing the things which school helped bring out in me, after I have landed here.

When I say the things which school brought out in me, there’s a pretty long list to be ticked off. School made me what I am, today. And whatever I grow up to become tomorrow, school will have had more say in it than college. Being a Chinmayite has always worked to my advantage. The name carries respect and pedigree of a high order. Whatever, if any, talents I have was molded by the school. Different teachers have been instrumental in recognizing my talents and my weaknesses. I won’t name any teachers here since they’re too numerous to name. Lest I should leave out one of them inadvertently, it would be gross disrespect on my part and hurtful to them.

I joined Chinmaya Vidyalaya in fifth standard, a kid heartbroken at having to leave his old friends and feeling out of place in a far-off school amidst strange children. I used to weep silently during the Chinmayashtakam and then make up reasons for the tears, if asked. I wonder if any of my classmates then thought about why the new kid always got dust in his eyes during the assembly. The hour-long journey too, was hard on me till I finally got used to it.

Slowly I took to the new school and the new pals. Friendships were made, some of which endure to this day. Classes from sixth standard onwards were at Chala. So we entered the new campus, which was under construction then. It was in sixth standard that I discovered the pleasures of reading, a habit which has served me well. The school library fed me Enid Blytons and Hardy Boys which were my stepping stones to the world of English fiction. Incidentally, I remember I lost the first book I borrowed from the library and had to buy another copy to replace it. I haven’t lost a library book since, though purses, umbrellas and pens have kept up the disappearing act on me through the years.

I started to go quizzing in the sixth standard. Quizzing was a passion of mine throughout my school years and I doubt any other institution would have lent me as much opportunities as my alma mater did. The school has never flinched from sending us to any event if we had qualified to go or if we wanted to go, however far it was. This goes for many other events apart from Quiz, like Tennis, Chess, football etc. In my own experience, four Chennai trips and an absolutely awesome Delhi trip, not to mention several events in the state itself testify to this fact. We did the school proud on some occasions, couldn’t do so on other occasions, but the reception back home was never cold. We were lauded for success and praised for our efforts when success was elusive.

I fancy myself to be a fledgling writer and the credit to this goes to my English teachers over the years. They helped me build my style and self-esteem; maybe even bloat it a little by their overestimating my skills. I got the conviction that I could write passably well, ever since then I have been inflicting my ‘works’ on them and on my longsuffering friends. When Indian Express came to the school for the Youth Express, I even got a chance to try my skills on the unsuspecting public. If any of them had called me up to complain of ‘waste disposal in public places ‘, I’d have pointed my English teachers out to them. For good or for bad, they made me love the language and they will get a fair share of whatever my literary adventures bring me.

My ultimate ambition in life is to write a book. Not any book, a bestseller at that. From being a young kid to a young man, my ambitions have ranged from being a train driver to being a pilot to being an engineer. But there is a point where you realize what you really want. I believe I know mine. And God willing, if I am able to fulfill it at some point of my life, I will not forget the origins of it all.

Another pet dream of mine is to be famous enough, one day, so as to be invited to the Vidyalaya as a guest to give away prizes. What in the world, could give a man greater pride, than to walk down that aisle in the garden and listen to thousands of young hands clapping him on, his eyes roving up and down the corridors where he himself once stood? My friend Zamrud Wajdi, super senior at school and classmate at CET have already had that honor, as a result of the acclaim he received due to his exploits in the NCC. I envy him and hope to emulate it one day. Of course, it’d be easy once I fulfill my other ambition.

Mornings bring to mind assemblies which were commanded very ‘expertly’ by yours truly for a year. There were complaints that my “School Attention” came across only as “Cool Attention”. Which I denied vehemently of course, until a teacher told me as much. Helping the poor souls who forget the pledge midway, to avoid humiliation, by muttering the pledge sideways was another amusing experience. The most memorable occasion was of course, when I kicked off the assembly with a “School Disperse” instead of a “School Attention”. This absent-mindedness was a trademark of mine, during the school years. My class teachers will remember me being punctually late for everything. Any number of zero-periods spent outside still hasn’t cured THAT in me.

Looking back, there’s a lot more yet to tell. But for good or for bad, I’m not writing my memoirs, merely a collage of my school life will do. Sights and sounds which spring up are of various hues. Academic triumphs are a thing of the distant past with studies in a downhill slide at college. But oddly enough, studies are overshadowed by the other half of school life, which was the least important then.

The last 3 years are unsurprisingly the ones, which stay afresh in my mind. The fun we had in class. The absolute ruckus in the school buses. Evenings spent playing football at the ground and then the long walk down the hill. The excursions which were amazing experiences in bonding. Friendships built in the most vulnerable age of life. Pangs and passions of adolescence. The rapport we shared with the teachers – Incidentally, the lack of which is the single worst factor I find in college.

I miss everything. I miss school. I can say unabashedly that I miss my school. The admission may seem quite out of place, coming from a student pursuing a professional course and about to set out to face the world, but there you have it, the truth. I have missed my school from the moment I left it. Even with the glamour of a much-trumpeted College life beckoning, I knew I was leaving some part of me there, when I set out. I may sound clichéd, but I will give anything to live in the past for a week. And then, once the week got over, maybe I would give more for it continue forever.

Ad my two cents

When you, assuming ‘you’ to be a middle-class Indian in your late teens or early 20’s, look back to your childhood , what are the sights and sounds which come gushing back? I assume every kid grew up on a standard diet of Doordarshan. The days when Chitrahaar, Chandrakantha, The Friday night movie and dubbed evening cartoons were what we looked forward to, rather than the English Premier League, NDTV or mundane reality shows which pervade TV these days. DD is still pretty much where it was then, like an old uncle napping on an armchair, while the new generation punks zoom around on Karizmas.

With a sea change in TV culture, everything that has associated with it has done the same too. Growth. Change. For better or for worse. We may say that one of the most revolutionized area is that of advertisements. This post is about Ads. Don’t worry, I am not writing about the geniuses and morons who work behind them and I’ll keep mum about the drastic change in consumerism and market which brought about this change. This is just about a few Ads I love and why l love them.

For you old DD lovers, mention of ‘Ads’ usher in a burst of colour and a cheerful chorus of “Washing Powder Nirma, Washing Powder Nirma, NIRMA”. . Good old days. When advertising was all about a cute model, a catchy phrase and some passable music. Mind you, the templates remain much the same even today, but the layout and the presentation has been absolutely rebuilt, shall I say, repackaged. Speaking about old ads, It’d be criminal if I didnt mention Fevicol, Santoor, Dabur, Vicco Turmeric… Ah, I’m nostalgic.The modern Ad cannot afford to be that simple, simply because of the enormous range of products and the changes in the consumer mindset.

So on to the Ads I love. Down the years, there have been many which I liked. Due to a catchy phrase, due to a clever idea, due to a cute actor, whatever be the reason. Those which I simply LIKED may be too many, but fewer strike a chord with us. So, I apologize to the readers for their favorite Ads which I might have missed out on. Do point them out

The two-wheeler market is a warzone. There are many buyers , but just as many models and brands. The public has little ear for fancy stats, they look at the glitz , word of mouth and of course, the ads. Little wonder that this field give us some of our best and some of our worst commercials. Bajaj rip ass when it comes to ads. There are too many supercool bikes and supercool Ads from their stable. It may be noticed that , when it comes to bike ads, some companies tend to overdo the style and thus lands flat on their nose. Not Bajaj.

Bajaj Wind didn’t really hit it off but the ad surely captured hearts. Imaginative like hell, the short tale of a man who gets on his Wind straight from the shower and blowdries himself was great to watch. Bikes from the Bajaj clan which hit it off both onscreen and on the road are Caliber and Pulsar. The low growl -Kawasaki Bajaj Caliber- was macho and the song ‘Le Chalne vaale’ which accompanied the tale of a soldier who’s returning to his old sweetheart on a Caliber to find her married, touched hearts. Hearts which were gladdened at the sight of the man accosted by an even better chick on road. The message got across – A man on Caliber fulfills his caliber. The third Bajaj is one of the biggest and best bikes, and had one of the shortest and best Ads. Definitely Male – They said, we agreed. What else could be the sex of the Pulsar which cricked its neck to follow 2 nurses passing by?

The Royal Enfield had an ad which was royal just like itself. One of the best messages ever delivered unspoken was by the crossing which halted trains to let an Enfield pass.

Hero Honda Ads are generally either banal or average though the bikes are admittedly good. I don’t like those girl-impressed-by-bike-ads and ads overdoing the style quotient. Not remembering any other bike ads worth a mention at the moment. Feel free to suggest.

The other field where there exists an interesting Ad-war is the soft drink industry. Down the years, we have seen a lot of ad-battles between PepsiCo and CocaCola. Both have had good and bad ones. Pepsi hit gold with Yeh Dil Maange More series and the World Cup ads where Warne and co. tries to ship Sachin off.There have been too many others, these are the ones which spring to mind. They were fun to watch.but the standards have fallen. Oye Bubbly and Youngistan had me retching . Unimaginative drivel. From their stable, Mirinda ads are never given much thought to, 7Up ads border between okay-ish and good. Mountain Dew . Hmm… , Fuckall to say the least. There may be folks who love that type, but don’t count me in.

CocaCola team had their best moments with Aamir Khan and fewer with Hrithik Roshan. Sprite ads which made fun of the rival ads came across as funny sometimes – the inaugural one which mimicked Dil Maange more – and downright unimaginative and pathetic at other times. ThumsUp banks largely on the crowd-pulling capacities of Akshay and Salman. Raise your hands, if you were like me, tired of the stunts these steelmen pulled for a measly bottle of sour ThumsUp. CocaCola has hit rock bottom with the new ‘Aaj Tu jashn Mana Le’ series. Pointless crap.

I’ll round off with the field where competition is redefined. Cellular networks.

Airtel was the undisputed leader in creative ad-campaigns. Rahman magic together with some brilliant ideas made Airtel ads more than watchable. One of my all-time favorite ads is the uncut version of the original ‘Express Yourself’ ad. The one with Say yes, Say No, Say something, Say nothing, Confess, Conspire, Speak Out, Express Yourself with the appropriate images in between. The beauty of the Ad is that the images could not get any more appropriate.

Express yourself on youtube

There have been other finer Ads which had cemented Airtel’s place as the best advertised Network provider.

Noticed the use of had,was? Past Tense. Why?Because the Kings of advertising are here. Vodafone.

Vodafone have elevated advertising to an art. Without any stars, too. Unless you count the pug a star. Oh yeah, he’s a Megastar. Apart from licking stamps, he signs autographs too. Every ad featuring the pup was adorable, innovative, novel, you name it. The message was put across so simply, clearly and beautifully – Everywhere you go, our network follows. The other ads too had the Midas touch. Be it the very gifted Irrfan Khan making us nod our heads in agreement when he says “Didi To Didi Hei Na? “in his no-nonsense drawl or the guy who goes to meet his soul mate in the elevator, vodafone have had us eating out of their hands.

Their latest one manages the impossible task of raising the bar they set themselves. You know it. The Chota credit one.The setting couldn’t have been more natural. The boy looks exactly as I would, bored with the proceedings, and willing for the exam to end. The girl is very girly, she is cramming in every last word she can and she’s cute. The boy is eager to help the damsel in distress, like Yours chivalrously. The charm exuded by the boyish grin and the thankful smile takes you to another plane. You’ve been there, done that. Now vodafone is taking you back there with the most romantic music, too. The Ad of Ads. Brilliant.

Vodafone Chota Credit

I may have missed out on several other great ads , like HappyDent for instance. Only due to constraints of scope, time and space.

Happy Ad-watching. And feel free to opine and point out things I may have missed.

“A Marvellous Tag”

This is my second tag, and once again given to me by Hari, the only guy who spares a thought for my blog. Pardon me for sounding martyred. I know it takes time to get a readerbase and my irregularity doesn’t help matters . I had wanted to post more this month , but the lazy fool I am, I put it off for tomorrows. And then I received this absolutely spiffing tag that I HAD to do this as soon as I got it.

The tag says :

Jot down 5 of your favorite quotes from the various books you’ve read/movies you’ve seen. If you don’t have the books with you now, Googling (Wikiquotes and the like) can be used to find them. Tag five people and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

These are not in any particular order. I am putting these down in the order they came to my mind.

1. “One of the reasons why we crave love, & seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, & shame, & sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you“

- From Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

Shantaram is sheer poetry. Every other line is a quote. If you haven’t read the book, just check some of them out, here.  What you learn or realise about life from a convicted bank robber and heroin addict will astound you. I had such a hard time choosing my favorite quote from this book. There are concise and oh-so-true gems , and also, long and profound insights. It’s an awesome , awesome book. Many people give up on it saying it’s too long, but it isn’t. It is life. The most frank , beautiful and poetic portrait of it ever done. I feel so guilty about leaving out some of my other fav quotes from this book, that I will just slip one more in.

“Loves are like that. You heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and independence. After a while, you started throwing people out – your friends and everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take down with it.”

- Karla to Lyn. This is just so , so true.

2.

“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king”.

- From The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Another of my favorite books. Tolkien was a genius. Had he lived now and released the LOTR to compete against the HP series , I believe the world’s favorite boy wizard wouldn’t have raked in a tenth of the money he did. The LOTR too has many noteworthy quotes or rather, ‘quoteworthy lines’ , though this is the best of them I believe. Aragorn is , to me, the best hero ever, in a fiction. Yet he doesn’t dominate the importance of other characters or scenes he is not a part of, in any way, which speaks volumes about the greatness of the book, I feel. The book has many poems, some sad, some merry but this is the most meaningful one of them all, since it encompasses an important part of the story in it. It’s so simple. It’s so great.

3.

“He who forsakes the trodden path for the new road knows what he loses , but not what he will find.”

I don’t remember exactly where I found this quote. The closest bet would be the very first page of The Godfather Returns, but as I said, I’m not sure and even Google can’t tell me it’s origin. . But I identify myself with it. I guess every troubled teenager with big dreams does, but I do it even more than others. Yeah. Sure. Trust me .

4.

“You’ll always regret the things which you didn’t, more than the things you did.”

- From a poster on the wall of some bank I visited with my father.

It’s ironic that I thought it almost impossible to select just 5 favorite quotes from the books I’ve read or movies I’ve seen, I just have to include this one, which’s from neither. I am someone who think about things for too long before I do them, and more often than not, I end up not doing them or making a fool of myself. This extends from simple things like boarding a crowded bus, pinging a crush on yahoo messenger to very important decisions. This ‘eternal contemplation’ has cost me a lot. So, when I fall into such a dilemma , created by my inefficient self, I immediately recall this quote and that spurs me to action, more often than not. I noted this quote, as I said, when I went to some bank with my father(or was it LIC?). It is something I recall at least once a week, and has served me well. So it deserves to be in here.

5.Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it. She wished she could see Laila again, wished to hear the clangor of her laugh, to sit with her once more for a pot of chai and leftover halwa under a starlit sky. She mourned that she would never see Aziza grow up, would not see the beautiful young woman that she would one day become, would not get to paint her hands with henna and toss candy at her wedding. She would never play with Aziza’s children. She would have liked that very much, to be old and play with Aziza’s children.Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings.

- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

This cannot be termed a quote perhaps, not in the way this tag means it to be. It does not tell us any wordly truth, neither does it convey anything to someone who hasn’t read the book. But I just had to include something from one of the very best works I’ve read in my life. And what could be more fitting than the passage which bring tears to my eyes every time I read it?

That’s it. I’m done. This was a very hard tag to do, since I could pick only 5. I am very sad at having to leave out some classic dialogues like The Fight Club, The Godfather, The Matrix , The Shawshank Redemption and many other books and movies which I remember , yet couldn’t accomodate, and some I will remember as soon as I click this ‘Publish’ button. But that’s the way it is. .

To quote Neo in Matrix Reloaded.

Choice. The problem is choice.

PS: An open tag again .

My Stepping Stone to Greatness

I’m sure you’d have heard umpteen times how Dr.Ambedkar(or was it someone else?) studied beneath streetlights since his home didn’t provide a conducive atmosphere to study. Seems like that is a prerequisite for becoming one of the truly great. There are numerous chaps who have utilized streetlight, candlelight, whatever frigging light they could lay their hands upon, to put one over us, the teeming millions of well-provided yet lazy buggers to come forth in the later centuries. They were  screwed by life, they battle life( Cliched, isn’t it?) and they emerge victorious , discovering things, proving theorems, founding nations, whatever they felt like doing!! So, there seems to be a notion among parents that those of us who study(or pretend to study) under tube light are going nowhere unlike the heroes in the stories they are fond of reciting at us, who used those other lights to read and turn overnight into Giants. Well, I am pleased to announce that I am destined to be a giant of our times, by this yardstick of using-other-lights. You’ll see how, soon .

Engineering students among you will know that Kerala University’s most brilliant money-making scam is named ‘Improvement’. Once the results are out and the usual round of head-shaking and incredulous glances are over, next comes the mad rush to apply to ‘Improve’. There are 4 kinds of applicants -

1) The guys who know they won’t appear, but are doing it just for the sake of applying.

2) The guys who are not sure, but might as well try and improve if lucky.

3) The guys with rather low marks due to lazing during the regular exam, and who are determined that THIS time, yes surely THIS time , they will study their asses off and bloody IMPROVE.

4) The guys who have good marks , but get low marks in 2-3 subjects and are looking to bolster their GPA by whitewashing those blots off their marklist.

Me, I might as well put a thumbnail pic of mine ,beside the third category. I am the perfect example for it, because I’ve gone through the exact phase , after two out of two results. And you know what, things never bloody improve.

The reason Kerala University loves Improvement exams is that out of the 100 guys who applied, less than 20 turn up. Apart from odd members of the third and fourth categories mentioned above, the others scoot. Reasons may range from engagements with higher priority, pure laziness and the delight of a free day, not to be ruined by flunking an exam, for which no one bothers to study anyway. So, the K.U saves money, a lot of it. And even more when the Improvement comes in proximity of a regular exam of the current semester. Next to no one turns up, then.

This time around, all improvement/supplementary exams were sandwiched between s4 papers for us. Which kept the improvement-hopefuls away and God save those who had a supply.

So, to cut a short-story-made-unnecessarily-long-by-me short, I had applied to improve Logic System Design. One of the high-scoring papers, I had messed up in the regular exams getting a meagre 44 while both of my roomies scored around 80. So, in one of the resolve-to-change-your-life bouts after the result, I had promised myself I’d improve it. And that’s why I stuck to my decision, while my co-applicants refused to touch LSD with a ten-foot-pole as the exam neared. And the reason? LSD fell the day before the dreaded DSPM – Data Structures and Programming Methodology – was scheduled.

DSPM is a bad-ass paper even by normal standards. To say that it’s toughness was compounded by absolutely inept teaching would be… erm, partially true. Coz, it’s toughness WAS compounded  thousandfold. Not by inept teaching though. Because we weren’t taught ANYfuckinTHING at all. So, here I was , or most of us were, 2 days before the exam, and ‘Tree‘ still brought to my mind Acacia and Banyan trees, and ‘Graph’s were still only used in maths and ‘Linked List‘….. You get the picture. And the previous year’s questions might as well have been in Chinese, for all I understood.

So, while everyone was panicking about DSPM, I did not back off from improving LSD because I thought the subject was easy and I knew it. I opened DSPM the day before LSD and ended up studying nearly nothing at all. As night neared , panic crept in, I had 2 exams in 2 days and I had no idea about the tougher subject and hadn’t studied the easier subject. I started reading LSD, but got sleepy pretty soon. Which was not a good thing coz I’m a night person. And I’d two and a half modules ( out of 3 ) yet to finish .But there was no arguing against drooping eyelids and I hit the sack at ten, setting an alarm to wake me at 3:30.

I woke up at 3:30. Pitch black.Negotiated my way in between chairs and nasty-if-stepped-on oddities on the floor and reached the lights. Switched it on. Pitch black. Wait a minute. Panic started to rise. I pressed down harder on the switch. Still Pitch black. Realization dawns. The fan which I always leave on at full speed , was dead. And it was pitch black AND pin drop silence. I could hear the guys sleeping in the next room breathe. So, KSEB had screwed me. Royally. No current at three effing thirty in the morning. With the weather perfectly fine.

I thought, no big deal. Being the power-cut season, there was bound to be a set of candles somewhere. I searched in the dark, and sure enough , my hand struck wax. Thank God. No, wait. The candle was of no use without the lighter and it could be anywhere in a big dark house. Must have been ages since I saw the lighter, we always lighted our candles from the candle Aunty (Our house-owner who stays in another wing of the same house)  lighted and placed in the kitchen. So, I went lighter-hunting. No luck. Soon the ruckus I raised during the hunt, woke my friends up, who categorically declared that the lighter hadn’t been sighted in weeks and that I was screwed and that I’d better get back to sleep and that I was screwed, again.

I was in a tight corner. In CET slang, adichu kitti/ thechu kitti / thuppi kitti/… etc etc . College slangs are always rich in terms to describe messed up situations, aren’t they? Maybe that’s coz we’re perenially fucked up one way or the other in college. . Well, whatever, I was THE desp. I hadn’t touched DSPM to try and improve LSD, and now LSD was going down the drain. And I’d resolved that I WILL write this exam.

So, I was desperate. When you know what I did, you’ll know just HOW desperate. Ladies and Gentlemen, I studied under the backlight of my Nokia 6230i. Yeah, mobile phone backlight. . My faithful phone which had served me in many odd situations rose to the challenge with its life-saving sheen. The light was barely enough. It was arduous work,lighting each para of the Morris Mano with the phone ,the light moving with the eyes and pressing the red button every time the light died(after some time, I opened an mp3 file and kept the phone at low volume so that I wouldn’t have to keep on ‘refreshing’ the light).

So, the gravity of the situation and the thought of the extreme measure I took(You can’t sleep soundly, knowing your attention is capable of straying from a book when you’re trying to read it by mobile backlight)  kept me at it till 6.30, when it grew reasonably light outside . Then I went outside and read till 8.30. I was quite proud – oddly – to declare the extremes I would brave, to study. Roomies shook their head incredulously and declared I was a nutter. True.

Image courtesy: www.howardforums.com

So, I had crammed reasonably well, though I skipped some parts. And the exam turned out okay-ish, the kind of exam where you know things but still doesn’t feel very content upon exiting the hall. I believe I did reasonably well, to improve my marks by at least 10-12. Time will tell, with ample say for the university , of course.

So, hark, all you losers, make way for me, the true great of tomorrow’s world who braved the adversities life threw at me, by studying under mobilelight. I would bet, tomorrow would see your children learning how Abdul Raouf struggled in his childhood , before he reached the self-promised land of Greatness. Kidding? Time will tell. And again, with ample say for the university.