The rules of the game.

The school head boy should be dating the school head girl..the topper guy should be with the topper gal and so on went the unwritten rule in my school for generations. Although dating as defined in the modified Kerala edition of the Oxford dictionary had certain restricted meaning than what the general audience would come to think. Stolen moments of private conversations behind the library, walks to home from tuition classes and if you were all right with being called risqué a brief holding of hands under the desk during physics lecture pretty much constituted the idea of malluland high school dating of the 90s.

Then again the gulf returned kids, the boors as the culture custodians would call them, pushed the limits with the occasional exchanges of err Toblerone bars and glass-tubed pencils which never seemed to run out of pointy nibs. Ahh the audacity. We the boys of the local breed (aborigines in their eyes) were crude male forms with a strange affliction which caused tongue paralysis in the vicinity of the sacred feminine. We liked to think that it was the pencils and the toblerones that made the gulf returnees a rage among the girls. Well you see both sides had fair arguments.

One such ‘assimilated but still an NRK’ knight in shining Nikes (Bata and Carona shoes were what the rest of us wore..and those weren’t exactly shiny) was the head boy of our school, the topper of the class and my best friend. He was smart and handsome and to top it off wore glasses which had strings which hung behind his neck. (For a brief period sometime in the nineties those rimmed glasses with strings became a fashion rage in my school and every boy worth his salt developed sudden bouts of myopia. Despite my valiant claims that I couldn’t read beyond the second line in the ophthalmologists alphabet chart my doctor, the quack hmmmph refused to believe that I needed glasses. I even tried reading ‘C’ as ‘X’ and ‘E’ as ‘W’). In short my friend let’s call him Paris (from the Greek Epic of course) had everything going for him save for a queen by the side. And when our lady Helen was appointed the school’s head girl our Gulf returned Paris (you see the irony?? I don’t) had all the bells ringing inside. Tall, fair and medusa-esque eyes (really, the boys found it really tough to see her in the eyes. God knows why) Helen was right out of Homer’s epic.

My match making ailment was at its unabated peak despite several Grecian tragedies and it was still decades later that I learned the valuable lesson of not poking my nose in another couples affairs.

Me: Dude, Helen brushed aside her hair from her face when she was talking to you after the Assembly today. Swear, that means she’s interested in you.
Paris: Huh, really??
Me: Yea I read it in the Reader’s Digest article on body language and cryptic signaling
Paris: Let me do an analysis in my Commodore 64. That should give some conclusive results

Commodore 64 was the computer that my friend Paris had got from Dubai last year. Whenever we had an disagreement on anything he would throw in the argument that his Commodore 64 said so. And since we didn’t even know what a computer was at that time we would just have to fold in to him. For example one such argument was whether Hitman or Hulk Hogan was the best in WWF (oh remember those days when it was WWF and not WWE??). I said Hitman but apparently the Commodore had told Paris that it was Hogan and that was the end of the argument. How could I even question what a ‘Computer’ said?

Days passed with several such apparent cryptic signals being sent out by Helen in the general direction of Paris which only I could see initially. But soon enough Paris was starting to see them as well.

Me: You know man I think it’s high time that you ask her once and for all if she likes you or not.
Paris: Hmm…I think so too. You know yesterday while she was standing in the bus stop her left foot was pointed in my direction. That is an indisputable sign isn’t it.
Me: Of course, I’m sure your Commode will agree
Paris: Dude its Commodore not Commode.
Me: Err,,right for all I care both are good for just one purpose.

Paris was well and truly bitten by the love bug by first term was getting over. All that was left was to summon up the courage and walk up to the lady herself and ask for the fair maiden’s hand. But then again it was a mere formality right? It was tradition that was on his side. You know the head boy and the head girl and so on.

Me: What the hell are you waiting for. You don’t want to wait till the term is over. By the time we come back after the holidays the whole momentum would be gone.
Paris: It’s not about momentum my friend it’s about the moment. The right time my friend, the moment is all that matters. As the greek poet Pontius Pilate said Give me the right moment and I would change time.

Now I was really convinced that he had lost his marbles well and truly.

The term exams were fast approaching and time was running out. It would be the holidays soon and two weeks in adolescent time is equivalent to a decade. Paris and I used to study together for the exams at his place. On the night before the dreaded maths test we sat in front of his Commodore 64 and typed out a detailed love letter. Now that I think back it wasn’t a confession of love but more an argumentative thesis on why Helen should accept his proposal. At a time when two hundred word essays seemed bigger challenges than swimming across the English Channel our collective brains churned out a five page letter of love in neat calligraphy written using red, blue, yellow and green Faber Castell sketch pens (of course from Dubai).

On the last day of the exams, Paris in his smartest uniform shirts and trousers and shine black Nikes trailed Helen at a distance waiting for the right moment. The right moment came an hour before the last exam in the afternoon when he spotted her all by herself sitting under the mango tree beside the school ground going through her tuition notes when our man approached her like a cheetah prowling up behind an unwary deer.

He stood beside her and with a clearing of his throat said a well rehearsed nonchalant ‘hello’.

Paris: Hello. Did you study?
Helen: (with a quizzical look on her face. Obviously it’s the day of the exam who wouldn’t study) No not at all. You?

The rest of the conversation was lost to me as the mercurial wind changed direction away from my vantage point. But I could easily make out what they were saying thanks to the Reader’s Digest’s article on lip reading. The conversation went thus.

Paris: Iraq was really cold yesterday.
Helen: Haha Mrs. Mathew’s dog had three kittens yesterday.
Paris: Oh really? Mr. Mathew must have some hand in it.
Helen: Yea yea Shakespeare had arthritis
Paris: Are you sure? Iraq is in Africa no?

Then I saw our man Paris slowly put his hand inside his trouser pocket and fish out a pack of chiclets (His stock of Toblerone had just ran out) and held it out to her.
Again quizzical look.

I thought she wasn’t going to take it from him but success she takes the pack from his hands with a smile.

Seeing his moment arrive Paris takes out the letter from his shirt pocket and gave it to Helen.
Quizzical look change to puzzled one. But she takes the letter from his hand and starts reading it. Expression changes again. Reader’s digest didn’t say anything about that particular body language. I’m confused. Midway through the letter she pauses to open the chiclets pack and pop the gum in her mouth.

After what seemed an enternity she is done with the last page as well. Again no expression.
She then folded the letter very deftely and made it in the shape of a paper plane and then took out a pen from her pencil box and scribbled something on the side of the plane. Smiles at Paris, gave the plane to him and walked away.

Paris looked down on the plane in his hand and had a confused look in his face. Oh yea..that’s exactly like the illustration in Reader’s Digest. I went running to him to know what she had written on the plane. It read – “The plane that crashed without taking off”.

Hmm..Dude, Chiclets just doesn’t do what a Toblerone does.

Entreprenuership as we do it!!

A few months back when I was visiting a friend in IIT Bombay he was getting eloquent about his plans to start a company, list it in the stock market, liquidate it and make a killing in the process. He was twenty at that time. I remember the time when I was twenty I was still trying to figure out why was it that I had taken it up as my life’s ambition to get into CET for Engineering, and having done that trying to figure out what next. Entrepreneurship was probably the farthest thing in my mind. The friend of mine was a marwadi whose family had business interests throughout the country. At twenty he was already making more money from his part time ventures than I did then after an engineering degree and an M.B.A. What struck me was that while children in Kerala are guided towards engineering colleges, these guys were guided towards ways and means to make a better living. Or in other words our destination was a means to a still farther destination.

For them education was a certain social necessity rather than an end in itself. In Kerala we were told to think of nothing beyond getting this degree. Things apparently would fall in place by itself after that. Risk taking was and still is not a forte for the mallu populace. This becomes very obvious if we look at the number of companies owned by malayalis which are listed in the National/Bombay Stock exchange.

When you travel through Surat or Ahmedabad you are met with large hoarding which exhort people to start their own businesses. The government has come out with several schemes for starting small and medium businesses. Frankly it’s not just the Gujarat government that has such schemes, but the central government as well as various state governments have schemes. In Gods own country they just contributes to the crores that go into undisbursed funds and gets lapsed every year.

Growing up in Trivandrum I was exposed to a population which was in many ways homogenous in their financial stature. Trivandrum is not a business town. The average family had at least one stream of revenue attached to the state or central government. And hence more or less every family was the same. Those families which had two earning members perhaps a little better off. The elite in the city were the doctors or gulf returnees. I remember a time when I traveled 8 kms (which at that time meant from one end of the city to the other end) to see a Mercedes S class. And this wasn’t long back mind you; circa 2002 I would say. It was only after I was plucked out of the social cocoon of malluland that I realized that Pillai doctor wasn’t after all the richest man in the world.

And the scene wasn’t that different in other parts of the state. But true Cochin was one of the first places in India to get Mercedes and BMW showrooms but that’s more down to the fact that mallus like to show off to the farthest extend that their means allow them to. Hence practically everybody who owned anything about 10 acres of rubber plantation a few years back (when the price of rubber was at a record high) was in a position to buy a Mercedes, and I guess most of them did. To make a case in point Narayana Murthy with his millions still rode a Fiat to his office at that time, Azim Premji still flies economy class while I remember the limousine which plied the roads of Trivandrum (How on earth did it ever get through Uloor junction god alone knows). No kidding, twenty foot limousine in Trivandrum. Well mallus let’s just say like to have their gold chains without the shirts on while the marwadi would rather sleep in his banyan on a mattress stuffed with five hundred rupee notes.

If you switch on the vernacular channels you get a fair idea of the business scene of the state by looking at the ads. I would say that 80% of the ads that you see in Malayalam channels are either related to property or to Jewellery (and recently ayurvedic creams and oils which cure everything from arthritis to zits) . And these are I guess the richest groups in the state. The nouveau-riche constituted by the property developers and the traditionally rich jewellery owners. Both these groups have inherent ties to the western shores of the Arabian sea. The few exceptions from this that we have heard for long are I guess the V Guard and the Manorama families. And the hoardings that line the national highway 47 are of jewellery stores, marble and granite shops, hawai chappals, banks or parallel colleges. And maybe we are infact taking a page out of the marwadi tales of success. The money lending business is starting to thrive (no doubt with the strings behind it pulled from the same Arabian shores) like never before with all those NBFCs sprouting up at every junction.

For decades we have been told that wealth is bad. Anybody who dared to create money for himself was assumed to have done so by crook rather than legal means. Wealth it was said wasn’t a social asset. It was for the individual and hence frowned upon.

Over the years mindsets have changed but mentalities haven’t. You can’t just switch over from a mentality that nurtured conservation and mediocrity to competitiveness and business pragmatism.

The mindset has been shaped by several factors not just political. Cultural factors played its role. How many mallu films of the sixties and seventies had themes of factory lockouts, evil rich man turning poor and so on (ahh these were the happy endings of the times). The financial climate had a hand. I’ve heard several times that to be a borrower is a worse sin that probably adultery. And frankly the foundation of any business is borrowed capital in whatever forms.

For decades to come, mallu parents will encourage their children to take up engineering without caring to see 1) if that is where the child’s interests lie or 2) if that’s exactly going to guarantee a safe future for the child; For decades to come mallus will measure success in life in acres of rubber (Things might change faster than that if the ASEAN FTA is implemented as it is); For decades to come mallus will think that an IIT is something slightly different from the ITI that the neighbor’s kid Shankaran went to get his diploma (Somebody once told me of a story when an erstwhile Kerala CM declined an offer from the Central Government to set up an IIT in Kerala saying that we have more than enough ITIs and ITCs in the state to fulfill the need for technical education).

I hope someday the state would stop giving its excuse about the lack of land as a reason for lack of significant enterprise and wake up to the reality that it’s the lack of will that’s the sole impediment. In fact I’m surprised when somebody defined the factors of production (land, labour and capital) they forgot to take into account the primary factor which is “human will”. Well economists never liked anything that can’t be quantified right. How the hell do you measure the power of human will.

But if you broaden your approach and look at it carefully the question is not just about entrepreneurship. It’s about wealth creation and that too over a period of time spanning at least two or three generations or in other words ‘sustained wealth creation’. And the failure is not really just a mallu phenomenon. There’s an inherent problem with the traditional family owned businesses that seems to be the default organization of Indian businesses. The problem of transition. The big family names that you heared in the eighties have gave way to new ones. And this is going to continue. The current crisis in THE HINDU group is a case in point. I feel it’s got something to do with our history where wealth alone is power. Narayana Murthy’s quote that the greatest power about wealth is in giving it away. Any takers?? ()

Disco Brothers.

-----Original Message-----
From: CHACKO, BIJI [mailto:bijimon@zzzz.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:13 PM
To: CHACKO, SAJI
Subject: Chettoi urgent help

chettoyi...As you know in this land it is very common for girls and boys to talk to each other as I mentioned in my last letter. After hearing your advice I have now managed to speak to a few girls here, but now I am in big trouble. I am supposed to go with a couple of friends here for a disco party. There would also be girls in this party and I am told they even drink whisky and brandy (Please don’t show this mail to Amma). Kindly provide the following information..

1) What exactly is a disco party?
2) Is it mandatory to dance in a disco party?
3) If its YES for Q.2)
* what exactly constitute such dance moves?
* Is shaking the legs just enough?
* Does a elegant dapankuthu help?
4) If it is NO for Q.2)
* What do we do?
* Shake your heads as if you know the music that is being played?
* Is it better to act like a onlooker who doesnt know to dance or to act like a dancer who has a sprained knee?
5) Is it okay to wear jean and t shirt for such a party? Are there dressing etiquettes?
6) Do you know any wikipedia links which explains the salient points of a disco?
7) I have seen people making very strange hand gestures while in a disco.
* What are the religious significance of those?
* Do they really mean anything? Or is its some sign of a brotherhood?
8) Is the disco a a fun event or a serious music program?


Please write back immediately and give me all the relevant information.

Your brother Biji.

The information in this e-mail is confidential. The contents may not be disclosed or used by anyone other than the addressee. Access to this e-mail by anyone else is unauthorised.


-----Original Message-----
From: CHACKO, SAJI [mailto:sajimon@zzzz.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:13 PM
To: CHACKO, BIJI
Subject: RE: Chettoi urgent help


Disco party I by definition does involve a bit of dancing. But dear Bijimon, don’t worry, there are ways to get around it.

Follow Chettoyis advice as listed below as it is. As you know I have gone to pubs in Bangalore and have even once touched a girls hands while she was dancing next to me.

First thing you have to learn is acting nonchalant and wearing a permanent look of contempt at those who are dancing --> this gives the impression that you are too much of a professional to waste your time showing your moves to this bunch of losers

Another standard porsture that I use is to hold a drink in the right hand and the left hand should be tucked inside your trouser pocket and gently rotate your drink as if you're enjoying some subtlety in the music that the others just are not getting.

Strictly stick to either of these stances if you want to play it safe.

Now what is more important is to know what not to do in a dance party....

First - dappanguthu is a strict NO NO. It’s just for those all male vellamadi (daroo) parties.
Dressing is of utmost importance - Yes Jeans and t shirt is fine but a casual shirt is the in thing these days. Casual shirts are to be of a dark shade. Shiny silky one like the one Mammoottikka wore in the move Hitler it seems has slowly reached the fashion circuits here. See if you can get such a shirt there. Ready-made shirts would be expensive so I suggest you get a similar material from a cloth which sells cut pieces for ladies’ blouses and get it stitched.

Now if you are forced to enter into the dance floor the safe thing to do would be to keep your limbs close to the body and not let the four left feet sway in all different directions. So a rhythmic shift of weight from the left foot to the right and back in tune with the rhythm would pass off as some sort of rhetro move that’s back in vogue. Try out your own variations in that. Then as the great actor Salim Kumar said the Mudra of the hands is also extremely important. Try out different combinations of fingers extended and wound up. The most famous one would be the peace sign of the sixties. But you can make your own variations depending on the flexibility of your fingers. The most awkward or ridiculous one could who knows become the rage of the party. But please be careful not to poke your finger into either your own or any one else’s eyes. If you remember the swollen eye that I had when I came to Kanjirappally last time that I said was from a bee sting was actually from one such disco party that I went to.

And towards the end of the party when the beat goes high and since its America there’s a good chance that it might all be this weird kind of music that they call heavy metal. If you can hold on without entering the dance floor till the metal beats starts then it’s easy for you. Coz then theres only one move that you need to know. And we being mallus would have seen that in several mallu movies where a man in red mundu and holding a sword gyrates his head vigourously (I think they call him a velichapaadu). You can perform a similar act easily. And make sure that you make a quick trip to the restroom to drench your hairs with water. This gives the impression to people that you have been doing the head banging thing for hours. But be careful and start off with a little warming up of your neck muscles or you might wake up the next morning with a really stiff neck. You can apply some coconut oil that Amma had packed in your bathing kit to the back of your neck before you leave for the disc.

Finally a disco is probably the most important event on your social calendar which can make or break your chances in the high echelons of your social circle there in the US. It’s a formal event disguised as a fun one. So be careful. There have been life changing events in people’s life that happened around and after a disco. People who otherwise would have been classified nerds have transformed themselves to playboys and Casanovas merely on account of their ability to lip sync to a song on the dance floor or make vulgar moves with their hips. You remember Kariachan uncles son Kurian in Mumbai. He told me that they call him pistol Kurian in Mumbai because of his pelvic thrusts.

Now this advice was given to me by Kurian. Hope this would be of help to you. He said that the most important thing in a party is this...To be in your senses when the party is over. The most happening part of a disco party where booze will flow is after the party. The men are generally all too sloshed and knocked out and the women are all too worked up. He said it’s a mere demand supply equation. Now whatever that means. Anyways wishing you all the best in your disco.

Your loving brother,

Saji

That day a hero was born.

Paul couldn’t really say for how long he was flying the thick white clouds spread like a carpet beneath and it stretched as far as his eyes could see. And the unchanging view kind of blurred his ability to comprehend the speed of his B-29. He left the plane to its course he knew there was some time till he reached his specified target. He checked over his shoulders to see if Charles was there at his side. Yes Charles was flying the other B-29 sent along with his; there like a trusted friend. “Charles Sweeny, Trusted friend indeed”, he thought. He knew that Charles was there just to ensure that he did his job right. The young major was a rookie compared to him. How dare they send this boy to keep an eye him, Commander of the 509^th composite group, Colonel Paul Tibbets. But then again perhaps they were right. He had been having all these thoughts about the rights and wrongs of his actions for some time now. And more, ever since Secretary Stimson himself had called him up to congratulate him on his selection for the great privilege.

He had no doubts about it. There are no just and wrong parties in a war. A war is much too complex to have such black and white distinctions. He himself had seen the way his colleagues used to treat the Philipino women in Clark Air base where he was stationed last year. When Secretary of State Paulson camped in Guam he himself had arranged in extreme secrecy for three women for the Secretary’s entertainment. And two days later he had come to know that the girls were quietly disposed off. Apparently the Allied propaganda machines didn’t want a blotch on the records of the much decorated four-star General. The media men were there everywhere. There were times in the battle fields when he felt that the battles were fought more for the photo-opps than for anything else. And these photos would be splashed across the front page of papers all over America by the end of the week. And that would create a spurt in the sale of war bonds. The realities that you face every second, in the center of the battle were ones that questioned your faith. Faith in God, Faith in his country and above all faith in himself. But still despite everything he believed in the American cause as he did in the integrity of President Truman. He believed that God is with this great nation and that in the end when judgment day comes the just shall be separated out from the evil. But today what he somehow seemed to lack was faith in himself.

The true implications of Secretary Stimson’s call a few days back hadn’t dawned on him when he thanked him and put the phone down. It was indeed a privilege. In a way this ensures that he won’t go down in history’s account book as a mere number. He wouldn’t have to struggle for the rest of his life as a war veteran as he had seen his father do. His dad had served with the British Army in India during the First World War after which he had migrated to the United States and settled down with his mother. But then was he ready to become a hero. It was an undertaking to be an actor for the rest of his life. His thoughts, beliefs and actions would henceforth be dictated by a propaganda machinery which read the American hearts and minds and knew exactly what had to be fed to them. But he had said thank you like a fool. God Damn you Stimson.

But this was no time to be thinking about that. The faith really needed some reinforcement. He was no longer sure what was right and wrong and he looked above for a sign. It was just calm blue above. He again said to himself, “There are no just and wrong parties in war”. This time somehow the conviction seemed a bit deteriorated. He again tried to convince himself this is for a greater good. In a way you are freeing them from the clutches of a stifling autocracy and an even more suffocating life. But what if all that is just what the government wants you to believe. Aren’t they too living breathing people with as much emotions in their heart as he? But even otherwise as his dad often used to say, “Every moment in this world is a cruel torture, a punishment for sins committed in this life and before”. The conflicts of beliefs implanted by his Lutheran mother and karmic-yogic father were a constant theme in his thoughts. If with one press of a button you could end the suffering in the world would you not do it, he argued.

He checked the watch. It was nearly five hours since they took off from Tinian. The plane held a steady course north east, 8000 feet above sea level, at a speed of around four hundred knots. That meant just a little less than an hour to go. The pocket watch that he kept in a chain around his neck had a picture of Angelle on its flap. He wished he could have discussed this with her. But that would be breach of protocol. He was much too professional to do things like that. But then again he knew what she would have said. The same thing that his mind was telling him now, “Answer the call of duty”. But Angelle, what about all the children. Hundreds perhaps thousands like our Catherine and Jennifer.

His thought was broken by the voice over the speaker phone. It was his assistant 2^nd Lt. Morris Jeppson. “Unit Armed Colonel. All systems go”. Jeppson was a cold soldier. In all their years together he had never seen him show a slight sign of emotion. And he had risen swiftly through the ranks. Emotionless – perhaps that was how the American Government wanted its soldiers to be. Hmm. His thoughts returned again to Angelle, Cathy and Jenny. They needed him to return to them after the war was over. It soon would be. But would he be the same person when he gets back. Is a hero what Jenny and Cathy needs in a dad? And Angelle? At least she would be proud of him. But something in his head told him she wouldn’t be.

“Colonel, Anything wrong Colonel. We are right above ground zero. Tinian has given the go ahead to deploy in thirty seconds. Press the button Colonel”, that was Jeppson.

Paul stood up, his face in cold determination. But before he could say anything, Jeppson said “Press the damn button Colonel”. His heavy hand pushed Paul down to his seat and with his other hand reached over and pressed the Release button. A brief beep confirmed the initiation of the release process. Jeppson smiled and said, “Great job Colonel, you did it”.

For moments Paul didn’t know what to do. He could hear exalted voices from the back of the place. He lifted the mike and talked to his commander at the base in Tinian. “Enola Gay to base. ‘Little Boy’ has been deployed. I repeat, ‘Little Boy’ has been deployed”

Fifty six seconds later when Little Boy kissed the ground at Hiroshima, a hero was born and about seventy thousand died.

“But Angelle, I wasn’t the one who dropped the Boy”.

PS: I guess an Atom is just too big a thing for human beings to be playing with.

PPS: All situations imaginary and doesn’t have any bearing to the actual events that unfolded over Hiroshima on August 6^th 1945. O.K, a little bit.

Prayers and Hope.

Karan had been sitting at the window in his dark room for over an hour, his eyes steadfast on the window across the street. The moon had come out over half an hour ago but she was nowhere to be seen. He had been watching every terrace that he could see from his Rajouri Garden apartment in East Delhi where women were doing their karwachaut Puja when the moon came out. But strangely her house was dark.

For eight years now that he had known her not once had she failed to keep the ritual. And for seven of those years he had also kept the fast with her, without her knowing. They’d been friends then good friends and then great friends. But always ‘just friends’. For eight long years.

When he first met her she was sitting on stairs of the fire exit in the office. He used to slip down the seldom used stairs to have a smoke rather than go all the way down to the smoking area. For some reason they sat there in the stairs that day and talked for ten continuous hours. They were both new in office and it was their first jobs. He remembered that the ten hours were spent mostly listening to her. She talked mostly about her college and that meant Rahul. A name that he then didn’t know he would hear a lot from her for the rest of his life. She was deeply in love with Rahul for four years in college but never had the courage to tell him directly. She just assumed that he would somehow realize it himself. But years passed in the wink of an eye without any confessions being made. And now he was halfway across the globe doing his masters. It was at one of those weak moments that overwhelmed her once in a while and she’d hide away at the seldom used fire escape that Karan chanced upon her. Her eyes red and with mascara drooping down her cheeks, she was a sight he’d never forget in his life. She looked like an angel just banished out of heaven.

They grew close within a short period. He didn’t have other friends in office and neither did she. They ended up being together all the time. He even moved into a house in her locality. They were together right from his morning wake up call to her goodnight call.

Soon enough he realized that he was falling for her although she was still just as obsessed about Rahul as the day they had met. Slowly it dawned on him that she would never think of him the way he thought of her but still he remained always by her side. Hope is often what sinks a man faster down into quicksand.

Seven years ago on a similar karwachaut day he was surprised to learn that she was keeping the vruth (religious fast) for Rahul. That meant not having anything to eat till the moon appeared in the evening sky. And Rahul wasn’t even her boyfriend in technical terms let alone her husband. He didn’t even know that there was a girl a thousand mile away staying hungry for the whole day apparently for his well being. That kind of made him realize two things. That her love for Rahul was deeper than he imagined and secondly that whatever he did she will never be his. That night when she called him up to say goodnight he asked her to confess her love to Rahul. She was dead against it as she believed that every girl deserved to be proposed to. But he knew that it was just another way to say that she was too proud to do that.

For several days afterwards their conversations would somehow turn to this topic and would end in the same way with her refusing to do anything like that. But slowly and slowly he managed to chip away at her wall of ego and pride. When Rahul came to India the next time after almost two years she met him and confessed her love.

Things moved really fast and the next karwachaut he watched from his window as with the rising moon she took the first morsel of her from Rahul’s hands. This time she was his wife.

Unknown to her, from the first time he had realized that he was in love with her, he had been keeping the karwachaut fast with every year. He wasn’t a religious person at all. But this somehow was different. He didn’t know nor did he care for the prayers but every year he would have his first meal after ensuring that she had had hers.

It was now almost two hours since the moon had come out and he knew that she wouldn’t have had anything. There was no light in her house across the street but he knew she was inside. The faint glow of an oil lamp in what he knew was the Puja room confirmed what he already knew.

At about 11 in the night he saw Rahul ring the bell of his house. He saw the light come in the Puja room and for a brief instance he saw her run towards the stairs and then the lights in the stairs came on and then the drawing room in the ground floor. And the door opened and there stood what to him was an angel come down to earth. But then her face clouded over all of a sudden. And he realized why when he looked at Rahul. He was almost too drunk to stand up by himself. He was propped up against the door frame and he staggered into the house. A little while later the light in the top floor room directly opposite his window came on. He could see from between the drapes that an argument was going on and she was almost in tears. Then all of a sudden Rahul raised his hands and hit her hard sending her sprawling across the floor.

The blood started to boil in him. He wanted to run across the street and pull her up. But he knew he couldn’t do anything. She was another man’s wife now. He thought if he was right in convincing her all those years ago to go confess to Rahul about her love. He thought if he would also have treated her had he been married to her. Perhaps. But something within him told him that it would never be so. She was just too precious for him and will always remain so.

He sat there inside the dark room thinking about all their times together; as friends. Him a little bit more than her. Then the door to her terrace opened up and she came out alone. She had a plate with a lamp on it and a mug of water. She did her prayers looking at the moon and then took tore a morsel of chapatti from the plate and brought it towards her mouth. But she stopped midway. Her eyes were a torrent. She looked across the street to the window where he was. Something told him that she knew that he was there although there was no light in the room and she couldn’t possibly see him. He just kept looking at her and prayed, perhaps the first time in his life, pleading to god to heed her karwachaut prayers and to keep her happy always.

PS: Today is karwachaut. And for all those who believe may your prayers be answered.

Phoket mein Phuket!!!

“Yes Dad, I should be there in time for dinner. I know George Uncle is also coming but they should be in another flight.”

“I don’t know what time I will get there exact. Bbye, I’ll let you know”.

And just as soon as I had put my phone down I realized that the ground below was awfully close and that we must be close to landing. But looking out the window it didn’t look out like any of the airports of Kerala that I was familiar with. A certain alternated conscience in the back of my mind said perhaps it must be the old airport in Kochi. Hmm..

I looked out again through the window and I could feel that the plane was moving really slow, even for the fact that it was about to land. It was almost hovering. Then the runway came to view. It seemed like a really small unused one and the ocean was just to the sides. The evening sun had an orange glow spread everywhere.

Then as the plane came down lower again and the runway became all too clear, panic stuck me. This was no runway. Again the alternate conscience spoke, it must be a taxiway and the pilot must have made a mistake. But can he really land the plane here it seems too narrow. And there were planes parked to the sides. Parallel parked like by the side of M.G. Road. And up ahead was horror. Another Indian Airlines plane had its nose stuck out into the the runway (or taxiway) and I was sure we’d crash into it. For a moment the pilot tries to pull up but seems late. But by that time we had moved past that Indian Airlines plane and now it seems that he has barely enough space to land and he does that amazingly. Almost like a helicopter. And as I look out the window I could see two ‘big’ airhostesses of an Airline (the voice in the back says Air Jordan) chatting away merrily and unaware that a plane had landed on the taxiway. But they did seem pissed off at all the noise around.

Meanwhile inside the plane there was panic everywhere. People are rushing out and aren’t even waiting for the ladder to be put against the plane. I too decide to join the crowd and started pulling at my luggage above. But again panic spreads inside my head as I realize that I don’t have a shirt on. This will have to do. I pull my blazer over me without a shirt and start walking to the exit.

When I boarded this plane I knew this ticket I had with me was for Port Blair. I assumed that it was meant to make a stop somewhere in Kerala before that and my plan was to get out there and make my way home to Trivandrum. But looking out the window this didn’t look like either Trivandrum or Kochi. It seems I wouldn’t be able to be home in time for Dinner.

The blond haired man (the voice in the heard said he’s an American) who was sitting next to me was just ahead of me at the exit. I gathered up the most severe of my American accent and asked him “Excuse me sir, where is this place exaclly?”

He turned around and said “Kuch kaha be tune?”

Feeling extremely embarrassed I said again in a more Indian accent, “I was just asking you sir where exactly this place is?”.

“Phuket, Thailand”, said the ‘American’.

By this time I was out of the plane. The scene there was really out of this world. Planes were parked on either side of the taxiway and there was a bustling crowd everywhere. I didn’t know what to do.

I turned around to the plane that had brought me there. It was all empty and two airhostesses were chatting away at the stairs. I approached one and meekly said to her “My ticket is for Port Blair”.

The lady was plump and looked like one of the ladies that you see in cnn or bbc that they show of places like Lebanon or Iran. She really should have had a scarf around her face.

The lady smiles and says, “Don’t worry I’ll take care of it”.

But as the sinking sun had disappeared completely making the flashy neon lights outside the airport all the more attractive there was a debate going on between the two voices in my head.

The one in the front said, “Hmm..got to call up mom to ask her to put my dinner back in the fridge I’ll have it tomorrow. I should be able to find another plane from Port Blair to Trivandrum first thing tomorrow”.

The one in the back said, “Dude you’ve got the weekend off. Have fun here in Phuket and we’ll find a way of getting to Kerala later”

No don’t wake up now no noooooooo..The beaches, the babes…ahh crap, I should have closed the curtains.

PS: Afternoon naps do bring the most wonderful dreams. The only problem is they always seem to end just when it starts to get exciting. I thought I’d write down this one before I forget it and publish it before i change my mind.

Of Wines, Whiskey, Weed and Cleo

Anish was a proud Syrian Catholic of the Pala Diocese. On one occasion when he was getting eloquent about the proud history of the Syrian Christians of Kerala over a bottle of Fine OCR Rum and the choicest herbs rolled in Rizla he was getting a bit unbearable.

Nitin all of a sudden burst out saying “Dude, you can’t be as much as a pure bred as you claim to be. You know that your surname traces its origin to Egypt? For all you know you might have got to the Mallu shores hanging on to a drift wood in the Arabian Sea. Or perhaps your ‘great to the power 20^th’ grandfather used to clean the deck on the ships that got spices to Egypt and he jumped out when the ship was parked for petrol in Kochi or Kodungalloor”

And Rajesh too quipped in saying, “Hey I’ve seen your grandmom and her nose does resemble Queen Cleo’s.

Anish (still not having regained from the shock of Nitin’s outburst): Cleo??

Nitin: Cleopatra you fool.

Anish: Dude that’s not possible. My ancestors were here in Kerala during the time of Jesus, and Cleopatra was probably in Dubai or wherever in Egypt at that time

Vipin (drunk as hell): Dude Cleo was in Rome. She was going out with Julius Caesar.

Nitin: I thought she was dating Augustus Caesar?

Vipin: Well you see they both lived in the same house, and once Augustus was working out in the gym Cleo saw him and fell flat.

Rajesh: And she used to terrorize us with her homemade Chakka Ada* whenever we went to her place.

Vipin: Who Cleopatra? Hic.

Anish: Please how is it possible that my ancestors be in Egypt at the time of Cleo. He would have been here in Kerala to get baptized at the hands of St. Thomas.

Nitin: Now don’t even get me started on that whole story. Man, even if the guy was here in Kerala I don’t think any ancestor of yours would have let himself come in contact with water to be baptized, at any cost. Just tell me when was the last time that you took a bath?

Rajesh: Maybe St. Thomas offered him a kilo of the finest ‘grass’ from the shores of lake Jordan

The whole group burst out laughing. And when the laughter and the smoke settled all of them looked at Anish. His face grim. Just as it was starting to feel as if the limits have been crossed he smiled and said, “Probably also a bottle of the wine left over from Cana”, and started out laughing himself.

Having had their fill of A, cut and diced the attention turned to Vipin. Vipin believed in balanced living. He balanced the barrel-fulls of beer that he consumed with hours spent in the gym the next day. Still he had a hard time balancing his tummy when he walked.

Nitin started: Dude hows that one pack ab of yours?

Vipin (struggling to keep his eyes open): Coming out good man. Round and fine

Nitin: Ahh I knew it. You were always an all rounder

Vipin: hehe. Hey you won’t believe it, I saw a sardar in the gym today

Nitin: So what’s the big deal. They have so much of butter chicken and booze, they got to burn it off

Vipin: No dude this guy was fit. He had six pack abs and everything

Nitin: A sardar with abs? Dude that’s ‘ab-surd’

Everyone started laughing again and Rajesh sprayed the beer in his mouth practically all around the room.

Another joint started doing the rounds.

Rajesh started getting up saying that he’s gotta drop a friend to the railway station.

Nitin: Dude which one? The girl friend? The partimer? The neighbor next door?

Rajesh: Oh shut up. She’s not my girlfriend

Vipin: Oh poor boy, don’t you worry I’ll advise you on some of my best tricks to make a girl accept your

friend request in Orkut. Start talking about your sick mother in home and the unmarried sisters…

Anish (cutting in): Ahh shut the F up V. Maavinte mandel irikkunnavanu aarelum mango juice kodukkumo (roughly translated: Do you offer mango juice to anyone who’s sitting on a mango tree?)

Vipin (obviously not pleased at being cut short): Why not what if he feels like having vodka mixed with mango juice when he’s on the mango tree?

Nitin cut in: Hey you two, FIDO.

Vipin: What???

Nitin: It’s short for F it and Drive On. Dude, Raj let’s just finish off this joint and take off.

Anish who had drifted off to sleep for just a few seconds suddenly opened his eyes and said, “Hey have you noticed that the best things in the world all start with the letter W. You know Weed, Whiskey, Wine…”

“And Women”, said Vipin.

Anish said: Women really are strange creatures, man. Yesterday a woman on the road called me a pervert. I didn’t know what that meant so I replied “It’s O.K”.

Nitin: Haha no surprises there, your face does fit the profile of a serial rapist

Anish: F off. It wasn’t that. This girl was walking towards me and just as she was a few feet away her dupatta just fell off. I swear I wasn’t looking anywhere.

And everyone just started laughing again. “We trust you Anish we trust you”.

Nitin and Rajesh got up and stumbled towards to the car.

*Chakka Ada – Something like a cake made out of jack fruit.

The Powers that be.

It was the silence at his official residence that seemed unnerving to Dr. Tiwari. More unnerving than what had transcribed in the just concluded discussions with Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. The silence let him think about the implications of the decisions taken. While all this time he was focused on our enemies at our right and left which made him oblivious to the designs of a foe pretending to be a friend. He had tried hard to convince the Prime Minister that the actions that he planned to undertake would eventually make India another client state of the American Empire. The worst fears of the nation’s founding fathers would soon turn true. The silence seemed to point a finger at him for his oversight.

Since the time he took over as the National Security Adviser of the nation Dr. Shashank Tiwari has been preoccupied with the menace of Internal Security with its links to the adversary across the western border. The United States had spread its tentacles from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Pakistan and now stood at the doorsteps of this mighty nation which had withstood the overtures to be part of the empire for several decades. And now it seems that it has no option but to surrender its forts. The Prime Minister would be talking to President Obama first thing in the morning giving his consent to use our forward bases to be used by American fighter jets. And by tomorrow the ball would have started to roll which would convert a regional skirmish into a full-fledged world war. What else would it be if the two most powerful nations in the world would battle each other? More than half the world’s population would be affected. The Americans had promised that they would use their bases in Taiwan, South Korea, Guam and the Philippines against China if India let them to the use our bases. It was part of their strategy to surround the enemy and attack from multiple directions. The Prime Minister seemed to believe that we have no other option left with the North East of the country left defenseless as our forces were busy fighting the war in the western frontier. But opening the door to the Americans would make India another Kuwait. It was somewhat like the lines of an Eagles song that he ones heard somewhere - The Americans can come in anytime but they would never leave.

Dr. Tiwari had for long anticipated a war with the Chinese. They wanted a reorganization of the world order. The current status didn’t give due credence to the Chinese beliefs of their standing. The geo political hierarchy still had nations like the UK, France, Germany and Italy punching much above their weights while the Chinese were still being considered outsiders. The war would change all that just as WWII had. What he hadn’t realized was that the Americans also had inklings of the Chinese plan. Perhaps much clearer than he had at that time. And what they did was make the Chinese fight the battle at a time and place of America’s choice. The Americans would now use the war to put the Chinese back to where they belong. The sole credible challenger to western supremacy had to be taught a lesson for dreaming too big. The plan for this must have been set in place at least a decade ago. And all this time he had thought the Iraq war was about the oil and Af-Pak was about terrorism. The silence seemed to laugh at his naivety.

But despite everything he couldn’t find a way out of this. The war between the superpowers will be fought in our living rooms. The destruction will be borne by us, the glory by the Americans. The lives lost will be ours the medals will go to the Americans. The irony of the situation is that in order to establish a democratic government the largest existing democracy would be ravaged. The country will be war torn and would take decades to get back to the growth path envisaged during the beginning of the twenty first century. Three Nimitz class American Aircraft carriers would move into the Bay of Bengal by the end of the week. The number of SSBNs already in the vicinity pointed to the fact that the Americans had much deeper intelligence into the Chinese plans than they were admitting. When he spoke three days back to Richard Alder the head of Pentagon he had acted as if he was surprised at the Chinese audacity. Since that time the Chinese had advance much beyond Tawang and India was just expressing denials of any such thing, hoping against hope that their objective is just to give us a scare and having achieved that would withdraw their forces and go back. But earlier today the Chinese Premier Lai had declared open war. With this agreement with the United States we were letting them fight the Chinese while we take care of the Pakistanis in the west.

Something had to be done and soon. The war had to be fought he knew. But fighting multiple foes on multiple fronts he knew would be a different ball game. Was there something that he was overlooking. Is there some place else that he could look for help. He put another cube of ice in his scotch. He took a sip and sat down in his chair looking up at the roof. Then a sudden thought came in his mind. There was another power that was looking to find its place. He got up, went to his study and picked up the secure phone and dialed a Moscow number. The silence listened to the conversation and smiled.

A cock and hen story.

I read an article which prophesy the end of the male sex with the depletion of genes from the Y chromosomes (the one that corresponds to the male of a species) from about 1400 a some million years ago to around 45 now (And you thought guys were just bad at hanging on to car keys. It’s all genetic. We just can’t help it). I wish there was an instrument to which you can just insert your finger and it would tell you the number of genes that you have in your Y chromosome. So when little Johny would come back after play time his mom would ask him to insert a finger into the machine and she’d go, “Not again Johny, how many times have I told you to take care of your genes”.

It just leaves you wondering, now what in the world did we as men do to have our gene count reduced from 1400 to 45 while women still have around 1100 left with them. You know what there’s some conspiracy involved somewhere. I don’t believe in coincidences but then it’s too much of a coincidence to be coincidental. I think it’s got something to do with all the roughing around that we do at home and work. While the missus sat at home Caveman Joe had to fight a bear with his club. And what about the sports that we men play? Look at rugby for instance. I’m pretty sure that if you go through with a fine comb you’re sure to find a couple of hundred genes from Y chromosomes lying scattered in the field after every match. And I truly believe if you do a thorough check on mallu men you’d find the gene count even lower. Generations of climbing coconut trees by hugging on to the stout trunk can’t have helped the gene cause any bit. Women I believe noticed this trend of dropping genes eons ago (I think they must have spotted it first while going through with a broom in those old cave houses. If only our caveman Joe had helped his wife with the housework then) and having realized this phenomenon, then on passed on all those gene losing chores to the men. They even cultivated something called a male ego (it’s all their creation I tell you, and if it was left to us we men wouldn’t even know what ego meant) and convinced generations of men that beating up bears and climbing up coconut trees wearing just their lungis (dhoti) would make them more of a man. And if their conspiracy wasn’t enough, nature decided to play a little trick on us (Well what else can you expect from ‘mother’ nature?), it’s just us men who have to do all that shaking after every visit to the loo (oops, sorry restroom) which itself must have over centuries caused a couple of hundred genes to drop off.

On behalf of men all over let me announce that “Women, your game is up”. We have woken up to the greatest conspiracy in human (even animal) history(I bet you would have changed the word to “herstory” in just about another million years when all men would have disappeared once and for all). The murkiness of the plot gets even deeper when you realize that the tool to replace men - the cloning machine, was invented by a man. Well we do have unparalleled skills in digging our own graves. So I say, men, let’s start a slow revolution to change things around. The next time your lady shrieks at you to hunt down that dirty black cockroach in the kitchen, let’s just let the lady scream off a few genes before we interfere or the next time she asks you to catch a chicken for the guests at dinner, let’s just make sure that it’s not a male chicken that she culls…hmm

Two teens on a train.

Most people wouldn’t remember the first step they took in life (Infact I don’t know of even a single person who does, except for my roomie AB who also claims that his first love was the little girl who took the adjacent cradle in the hospital he was born). I once overheard a conversation in a train between two moms about the age at which their child started walking. Well apparently it’s a big deal. It should be too I guess; bipedalism is not a feat achieved by too many mammals. And moreover people find correlations between the age at which that feat (pun intended) is achieved to everything ranging from intelligence to physique and everything in between. Well I was someone who learnt to do that pretty late. But once I did I was in a real hurry to compensate for all the lost time that I think I spent half my preteen years running around. And post teens I kept running around in a different way – working, studying and roaming around throughout this vast country.
So me, unlike my roomie AB don’t remember my first steps but I remember certain steps in life that were just as important in the context of my runnings. The first visit to the movie hall by myself without letting dad and mom know, the first time I ran away from home (that’s another post) and so on. This happened on my first train journey without adult supervision.
It was sometime in my teens when me and my cousin D decided to make use of our long summer break to visit another cousin in Bangalore. D was a year younger to me and you know how these youngsters are; brash, raw, and impatient hmm. So being the elder one I was entrusted the responsibility of taking care of my younger bro through the journey and back.
D was quite the ladies man even at that time. He was quite handsome, tall for his age and easily looked elder to me. Me, on the other hand was brought up with ‘sound principles’ taught by my peers in school that it’s an utter taboo to talk to a girl even to look at one, other than behind closed curtains and squinted eyes. To touch a girl accidently would lead to banishing even ostracizing by the male peers in school. The only cure to the fated girl-touch was to stealthily pass the touch onto another male peer upon which you would be accepted back into the herd and the victim is left to find another less fortunate to whom he can pass the baneful touch on to.
The first thing D did on reaching the train at Trivandrum Central was check out the reservation chart to check the obvious. I saw a familiar smile spread across his face. I knew that look. The one that I saw on Tommy’s face the day before three hens disappeared from my granddad’s place. I glanced at the chart and it was obvious what the smile was all about. Asha, Soumya and Fatima right below our names in the same compartment. D took out his pocket comb (there were days when he forgot to brush his teeth but nobody had ever heard of a day when he got out of his house without that trusted comb) and a blur above his head of two hands and a comb; voila, the slick black well oiled hair became slicker, blacker oilier. D jumped onto the train. I followed suit dragging the two heavy bags and yelling him to stop and help with the bags. Too late he had disappeared down the aisle. But when I reached our assigned seats D was as tense as a school girl on her exam day. The three girls weren’t there. It was almost past the scheduled departure time and the girls weren’t there yet. I had never seen D so tense. Not even the day when the tenth results were to be announced. But then that was just a matter of eleventh or Pre Degree. This was a matter of life and death, for sure.
His heart sank when the train jerked and started moving and the girls were still not there. He started cursing the gods. He had heard of stories from our elder cousin in Bangalore about nursing students who traveled on trains to Bangalore. Why god why.
But then suddenly his eyes turned a perfect circle and his cheeks flushed with delight as he saw three PYTs walking down the aisle. He started speculating and muttered under his breath to me. “I bet the first one is Fatima. Only muslim girls can be so fair”. Well I couldn’t say for sure. When somebody sang “Kahin pe nigahein kahin pe nishana”, it was all about me. Now don’t get me wrong, there was only so much that I could see with me face turned away at ninety degrees and the eye balls at the extreme end trying to make out how Fatima looked like. D was right, the girls came over to our coupe and took their seats and were chatting away incessantly when D interfered with a casual, “Oh thank god you girls got in, I thought you might have missed the train and was about to ask the TT to pull the chain”. The girls stopped their conversation mid way and gave him a look normally reserved for crazy people on the road, and one of them replied “Well we were down there with some of our friends, you didn’t have to worry”.
Hook line and well almost sinker.
D worked his squeezed into the conversation in his imitable style and conversation moved on the fast line. All this time I had my head turned away and gazed out of the window as if the most thrilling of Mohanlal’s movies were going on out there. Not bothering (daring would be the right word actually) to turn my head towards the conversation but my ears sharply focused on it all the time. I listened to every word of the conversation, never uttering a word and pretending to be busy in my thoughts, which went from their place of births to the mughal era and about the aalmaram (peepal tree) in kesavadasapuram junction.
Then suddenly one of the girls asked, “Hey D, by the way how old are you?”.
D had seen the girls’ age as part of the due diligence he did at the reservation charts and had found that the girls were all a year elder to him. Not even waiting to blink, he replied but increasing his age by a year and making a mental note to tear up the reservation chart outside the compartment as soon as possible.
Oh that’s cool, that’s exactly the same as ours and the cackle turned a notch up in all the excitement at the apparent coincidence.
But that’s exactly when I decided to open my hallowed mouth.
“Eda D, athenganeya ninte prayam athrem aakunnathu?”. (Hey D, how the hell is that your age?) Silence all around.
The girls all turned to look at D.
D was stunned. Caught like a cat with milk in his whiskers, he didn’t have anything to say. But try he did, “Alla Vinu, ninakku thettiyatha..” (No Vinu, you got it wrong).
But I continued, “Athayathu nee janichathu 1983il. Appam aa samayathu ninakku zero alle vayassu. Allaathe janikkumbam athine one aayittu koottan pattathillallo”. (See, you were born in 1983. So that means you were zero in 1983. Now you can’t be one when you are born can you).
Those words didn’t have an ounce of malice. It probably was the most innocent words that I have ever uttered in my life.
D somehow pulled of the greatest escape act in history (I mean his-story. Right from age zero to the day) and somehow managed to divert attention and conversation moved to different topics. The glare of his eyes had told me that I had committed some blunder and I didn’t dare open my mouth again. Embarrassed more than he was I just walked up and took off in the direction of where I thought the pantry car was.
By next day early in the morning when the train was pulling into Bangalore cantonment station D had the phone numbers of all the three girls. Proud as he was about his achievement especially after the unexpected disaster in between D was all a proud red when he saw off the girls at the door of the train (We were getting down at the Bangalore city station). The train started moving and D was still at the door waving goodbye when the three girls smiled and said in unison,
“Bye bye Aniya1…”
Aniya – is mallu for little brother.
PS: D didn’t speak a word about the incident for more than a decade but half a bottle of whiskey did make him open his heart about that most heart breaking of incidents of his life.
PPS: D did keep in touch with all of them for another three years and he wishes to inform them that he lost their numbers and would love to get back in touch.