The Truth About Trains

The software for allotting berths in Indian Railway has just gone open source. For the non-geeks, that means, they’ve released the code for all to see. And I’ve reproduced the same here.

#include<stdio.h>

void main()

{

if(traveller=male && is 18-25 years of age)

{

remove from( compartment with ladies of 18-25 years of age)

put into( coupe x)

if

x=Boring old uncles who disapprove of modern-day youth and are prone to long-winded lectures on social degradation

or else

x= Depressed old aunties with 3 or more ailments

or else

//On a really terrible day

x= babies ( crying non-stop(volume++))

}

if (traveller = Any other than 18-25 yr old male)

{

allocate(random)

while(in any way as to the seating scheme of previously mentioned young males is not compromised)

}

A view of Trivandrum Central from the Railway Overbridge

Well, my programmer friends may raise their eyebrows, as there are some very unconventional programming methods used. But you get the point.

Regardless of whether a software does the dirty work or a human does, it is my firm belief that there indeed exists a huge conspiracy to eliminate the little joys we derive from travel. So much so that even the involvement of Taliban in Indian Railways cannot be ruled out. This is no unfounded accusation, it’s an observation fuelled by years of train journeys.

However, a software cannot be faultless, and a human even less so. So, on rare occasions, we do find ourselves in the company of a beautiful female, and rarely in the company of an intelligent female and even more rarely, in the company of an intelligent and beautiful conversationist. *Bliss* I cannot put enough stress on that ‘rarely’ though. So rare that it remains a dream .

However, on this particular occasion I am about to recount here, the computer had fucked up and fucked up royally. I had made the reservation late and hence was able to obtain only a side upper berth. My tall frame offers considerable difficulty in contorting it into a teeny side upper berth. Hence I was not very pleased with the seat allocation. Till I boarded the train.To be precise, till I dragged my heavy bag over to the seat, deposited it with a sigh and straightened up to face my fellow sufferer.

Well, she was a stunner. I cannot recall her features in detail, all I remember is that she looked good. In an ideal situation , we would be alone in the compartment and she would react with mild amusement to my ridiculous stare and I would take out my guitar to strum a romantic song and impress her and it would later blossom into a full blown relationship. But this was not  Vaaranam Ayiram a.k.a ideal -ridiculously so- situation . So I had to check my gaze and settle down with my customary kill-time-in-train magazine.

*To be continued later….

Sorry for the half-baked post.

I hit sort of a roadblock with the tale, and I just can’t finish it.  The blog’s been held up for a long time, and if I put off posting any further, it’ll go dead again. I’ll complete it later, I swear.

Meanwhile, this almost-post is dedicated to my friend Harishanker who’s incidentally on a train himself, right now. He’s the guy who urges me to keep on blogging. Cheers and best wishes , buddy. Bell the CAT.

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 mountain 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!!