Travelling Times

     As a kid, Sarah had spent most of her vacations with cousins. They were off the same age and caused a few heartaches for the elders. She remembered the first time he had walked into the living room. Lean and scrawny, there was something about the way he carried himself. The fluttering of butterflies in her stomach had meant one thing; she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She blushed. Shied away from every mention of his name. She was 10. She wouldn’t know that God listened to the wishes of little kids. And would set her life in that course.      Sarah was born in one of the hottest cities in India. Purists felt that it was the coldest at the beginning of the year. At most time it was dry. And hot. Windy. She did feel that her moods resembled the weather. Frequent swings, random outbursts followed by a submissive flow of love. She had grown up being the best. Her grandparents had looked at her as their darling angel; teachers ...

On rainy days, I gaze to the skies, Expecting the heavens to open up; Let that little sunshine through, That hides behind the gloom. When life's headed towards the worst, When it all seems dark and lost, I hear a voice, that opens up, The floodgates to my heart, Bringing a smile to my face. Everyday i see the sun, Burning so bright, lifting up the spirits, Yet, its only in the darkest hour, It dawns in me, life wouldn't be the same, Without you, My little sunshine.                                                           -Skv

     A bout of writer’s block and the depressing weather in Bangalore have combined forces to keep my story on hold. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been accident prone over the last 1 month. I’ve had a series of minor accidents (2 off the bike and 1 in a car) and that seems to have affected my creativity. Well, not completely! Because I seem to be able to handle cameras well enough during this period. Btw, I did finally receive my certificate from the University of Calicut that mentions that I am an engineer. Humbug!      "Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal, immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things. Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map. Be careful: in the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is." - Alan Moore

     “Roots is a study of continuities, of consequences, of how people perpetuate themselves, how each generation helps to doom, or helps to liberate, the coming one.”     The bureaucrat finished his speech. His ideals seemed to have struck a chord somewhere. She switched off the television set and walked over to the open balcony. The skies were clear; the meteorological department had predicted a ten percent chance for showers. In the distance, the lights of the Eiffel tower had an eerie glow. “Why had they named it as the iron lady?” she pondered. Does love eventually leave people stone-hearted?      Paris, the city of dreams, had always been her favorite destination. It evoked a mixed bag of reactions – old friends, conquered dreams and forgotten promises. The date had passed, passed a decade ago.      She had fallen asleep. The first rays of dawn brought her to her senses. She vaguely recalled her th...

     For a long time now, the concept of a story has been engulfing me. If it would increase reader interest, like the unfinished 7 PM soaps that run for a couple of years, I’d be more than happy to oblige. As of now, central protagonist is a reader – a young, smart intellectual. Let’s assume she’s a lady (they increase viewer interest, they always do – hard to imagine Jack surviving the Titanic debacle and doing a flashback!).   My blog’s open to comments, criticism, chocolates, gifts and flowers. So wait with bated breath (please please) while I hope to get it started over this weekend. This would be the apt time with three long weekends coming up, and not much work to do during the week. I’ve decided to name the story – Back to the Roots. Disclaimer: The story is in a way related to the book inset.

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” – Mark Twain.      One of the other reasons why I’ve refrained from blogging is because every topic is clichéd. I’m active on twitter and give vent to my fury on a daily basis (please note: this has nothing to do with my joblessness). Apart from the spitting, splitting and spatting (verb introduced after the Kalmadi-Dishit duel), we’ve had the jokes about Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth (surprising that MS word doesn’t take Rajnikanth, there’s a joke right there), how well we’ve conducted the CWG; used a 40cr hot air balloon to depress the taxpayer’s money, and then cover the depression in the stadium with 80 truckloads of sand. Anyways, I’ve decided that we quickly need the UIDs in place. And it’s not because Junior AB implemented a strategy to avoid racism (remember the racism ad from Idea). Mr. Nilekani decided that Infosys would get hold of a large project (they’re used to tagging goods in Walm...

Prologue: The quarter-life crisis is a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the early twenties to the early thirties. The term is named by analogy with mid-life crisis......      A friend of mine once stated that it would be wonderful if we could work hard enough to be millionaires by the time we're 30, or else start working at 30. Initially I thought it didn't make sense at all. If you're a 24 year old guy in India and not working, its a serious crime. Everyone looks down upon you like a piece of dirt (girls have an easier option! get married early or share the same fate). So where do I stand?     My crisis doesn't involve insecurity, unemployment or loneliness. I do realise the fact that googling myself doesn't set the search engines on fire. But I stand a better chance than most others. Kunnath Valappil Sajeesh is as unique as a dodo, or maybe a brontosaurus (one of...

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.” ~ Gore Vidal . The earliest memory that I have of our famed judiciary is the statue of a blind lady with a set of scales in her hand (they kept showing it in Hindi movies during the scenes of rape or injustice in the 80’s and 90’s). The modern day picture is a little brighter; in fact the lady is no longer blind and the scales are weighed in favour of the money on them. Someone once commented that newspapers and media always seem to have enough content to cover up their daily schedule. My humble, immature thought process feels that it requires immaculate talent to filter out the honorable (pun intended) antics of our prized stallions (read fat, greedy gluttons disguised in the form of politicians, law (en)forcers and the likes). ...

     "In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."       "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."      "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."     Three decades back, my uncle got married to my aunt. A couple of years down the line; they found my aunt’s cousin to be a nice, responsible young man and introduced him to my uncle’s youngest sister. They were married before long and they hardly knew each other. My mom was 18 and my dad close to 30.      Fast forward twenty eight years. My brother met my sister-in-law after everyone else in our family had met her. They ...

     " You can be obsessed by remorse all your life, not because you chose the wrong thing-- you can always repent, atone : but because you never had the chance to prove to yourself that you would have chosen the right thing. " - Umberto Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum"      A lot of people are pleasantly surprised (read shocked) when I inform them of my engineering degree. For those who don't know what I do, I smuggle drugs and weapons into Eastern African countries (meant to be a joke, please don't report me). I'm a recruitment consultant (like the sound of it). I used to recruit candidates in the US for big American companies, the likes of Microsoft, Accenture and IBM. And when people question my shift in loyalties from engineering to management, I have my answer ready, like instant payasam. Well not exactly like instant payasam . I wasn't good at what I did. So i moved to something that might be better.      I ...

     “If you're not making mistakes, you're not taking risks, and that means you're not going anywhere. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more changes to learn and win.” – John W Holt.           One of the reasons I was inspired by this year's Oscar for best movie was the concept. War veterans in the war plagued countries who swept out land mines. It got to a point when I could no longer resist the temptation of locating mines. I took the harder router, playing Windows' most distinguished game in majority of its operating systems. The first time I played Minesweeper, the game seemed so dumb (the fox and the grapes flashes past; Ahem, don’t draw comparisons). I would randomly click across the board, and it didn’t require Einstein’s hypothesis to register my losses. In due course, a friend trained me on the objectives of the game. To locate the mines, and to flag the (locate meant...

     There’s an old folklore that when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon he was shocked to see a Nair tea stall (check out the evidence). Mallus (a certain sect believe that they are the south Indian sardars) generally believe in pompous celebrations and gaiety. We’re earmarked for our drinking abilities (I’ve mentioned this before) and feast on meat like piranha.       To be knighted a mallu, there are certain precautionary measures to be taken care of; Rule #1: Should be born in Kerala to mallu parents. Our explanation of native location is pretty weird. Eg: Which part of Kerala are you from? Cochin. Oh nice. Actually not Cochin, about 200 kms from there (Objects in mirror appear closer than they actually are). Rule#2: Coconut oil is a part of your diet, skincare (for the ignorant, hair is part of skin too), rituals and lubrication (for cranky parts, don’t get me wrong). Rule#3: What’s in a name? A rose would smell as s...

Starting with, 1> Spending 42 out of 48 hours on the Southern Railways (Bangalore-Mangalore-Goa-Bangalore) to celebrate a friend’s birthday on the train (did I mention 37 hours in a general compartment?). 2> Bungee off a 180 feet crane with no safety measures at the bottom (it seemed funny till I read about a death in the same event a week later). 3> Wrote (and passed) 9 university exams in 8 consecutive days (and 15 in a month). 4> Travel from Noida to New Delhi Railway Station in 15 mins (luckily, I didn’t drive!). 5> Ride 800 kms in 2 days. Bangalore-Wayanad-Bangalore.      I should be able to follow this up with the craziest things that happened to me list. Not today.      “Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.”

     “Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.” - Evelyn Waugh.      Someone once remarked that IST was originally an acronym for Indian Stretchable Time. Are we Indians so bad when it comes to respecting (more likely disrespecting) the value of time? Read on to unveil the greatest myth of the new era.      The discovery of time was the biggest mistake. Why do we need a device to measure (and magnify) our slowness? A large sect of today’s population has the notion that if you're there before it's over, you're well on time. And it’s true to a large extent. The reason being that no one important is ever present to appreciate your punctuality. As a kid, my teachers emphasized on the virtues of character, punctuality, discipline and etiquettes. Strangely enough, I’ve reported to half a dozen people in my corporate life. And only one of them stressed on punctuality (do I have to provide an explanation for the rest of the...

     "Character does count. For too long we have gotten by in a society that says the only thing right is to get by and the only thing wrong is to get caught. Character is doing what's right when nobody is looking..."      Whenever I touch upon this subject, it is with total contempt. We all make our share of mistakes (didn’t someone mention about erring as human, and forgiving as divine). Totally acceptable. But what if the act is manipulative and intended towards unwarranted gain. Are Ethics important in today’s competitive world where the sole purpose is to win?      My observations of the corporate scene have been highly thought provoking. It wouldn’t be surprising if I get a patent for my thoughts. To start off, let’s go back to the classroom definition of Ethics. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality — that is, concepts such as good and evi...