Tagging Along... (My 8 little "Thank You"s)

I was thinking about 1001 different reasons not to write this blog as i thought that the idea was pretty lame. But after lotta chiding and severe criticism by Nasia (my tagger) I finally decided to pen down my eight little thank yous. There aint any particular order or priority as for that matter in the list below, am scribbling just as the words are getting outta the top floor window of my little body. But i have reserved my favourite "thank you" for the last slot.. ahem cough cough so here goes...

1) My Parents

My dear parents, i thank them for everything, for making me what i am today. I know that no words of gratitude from a child would suffice the love,care and hardships endured during parenthood (and thats why i thought this as a lame idea @ nasia). Hmm my dad, the person i respect the most in the universe. Whenever i think of him i get a mental picture of him sitting in the living room reading a fresh copy of "The Hindu" with a hot cup of tea strategically placed on the right side of the coffee table by amma. An engineer from the IISc, a person who easily commands respect from his subordinates but equally helpful to amma when it comes to cooking (he makes the best mutton curry in the whole world!!), housekeeping or raising the two brats (me and bro). And my sweet little amma, who can go on and on with her never ending conversations. Sweet but equally strict at times, more of a dear friend to me than a parent. If i find myself half as good a parent as u two were i would consider myself really lucky !!

2)The Guy Sitting Up There Somewhere

I thank God, first of all for making me a human being and not an ant, a roach or a mosquito. I aint much of a regular temple going guy... but i always have a belief that He resides somewhere inside me, always watching over my deeds. But most important of all i thank him for putting me under the care of my parents.... Look God i sincerely thanked you, so please make me a human in the next life too... WHAT?? only cats get to live nine lives...ah then why didnt you make me a cat in this life !!!!

3)My Grandparents

My very lovable grandparents, who took me in while i joined the engineering college in Trivandrum. They sternly objected to my staying in a hostel and took me in with them much to my relief plus the bonus i got in the form of granny's cooking.I was a stubborn teenager when i stayed with them but they never complained to my parents about my attitude (which i am quite sure i musta shown). My mouth still waters when i think of granny's bright red pickles,chakka varattiyathu (jackfruit jam) and payasams.

4)Daimler-Maybach

For my laymen readers, these are the dudes who invented the motorcycle. In the early 1900s these two german dudes had the weird idea of fitting a bicycle with an internal combustion engine and thus was born the motorcycle aka motorbike aka THE BIKE !! Time has passed by and since then the bike has evolved into a complex and amazing machine. If it werent for them much of the indians would still be on the bullock carts. And we would have had "Bullock Language" as part of the elementary school syllabus to learn the different bullock controlling commands like "Hurrrrr Hurrrrr" or the 349 other different chuckling sounds to be made to communicate with the bullocks.
For most indians a bike is just a piece of machine that takes them from point A to point B but for me its much more than that...

5)Chennai

I thank this city. I came here as a young man with not much knowledge about how life treats us. This city has made me a lot tougher and taught me a ton of how to lead an independent life. Living in a Metro is hard... the confusion, the traffic and no ones has got time for anybody. A perfect boot camp to train yourself for whatever challenges the life throws at you. I hate the salt water in the chennai water pipes though... ;-)

6)Mr Alexander Graham Bell

Hope i got the name right. I thank this dude for making the telephone... which i consider is the invention of the century !! If it werent for him humans would have had to breed pigeons like crazy and practise the "Kaboothar ja ja ja" song to send messages to their loved ones. There would be no Nokia, no Sony-Ericsson and no SMS and of course NO INTERNET AND THAT MEANS NO BLOGS EITHER. So this blog is the direct consequence of what Mr Bell did almost a century ago.
Mr Bell, thanks man for making this world a smaller place !!!

7)Internet

Who knew a network created by a bunch of techies for the US army would turn into something so important for an average man, that now i cannot even imagine a life without it. I thank the internet for geting me back in touch with my old pals of school. And for changing the paper mails to a beep on my desktop. So used we ve got to the net that the scene below aint tht rare across the country.

dude1: (types in a mail) hey dude lets go for a coffee
dude2:(flirting with his GF on his cell and misses the beep of new mail)muaaahh !!!
dude1:(restless for not getting a reply shoots another mail)MAN!! COFFEE???
dude2:(still on fone)muaaaaaah !! (this time a wet squealing sound)
dude1:(turns his head and this time verbally to dude2 sitting next to him)dude i sent u 2 mails !!
dude2:(verbally)oh!! is it?? lemme c...(checks and types back) 5 mins!!

8)My Pals

And last but certainly not the least, my pals. I had a little circle of friends in school, college and now where i am working. I am a nobody without them. An incomplete person... just 5 feet 8 inches of flesh and blood. What makes me a person are my friends. Whenever i am down on something i turn to this little friend circle of mine to seek refuge. I know that they ll be with me through the thick and thin of my life and so will i for them. Friendship i believe is not just an ordinary relationship, its somthing much more than that nurtured over trust, love and care.Its a bond forged in the strongest of fires.I thank all my dear pals from school, college and office for being with me there always. I dont have to mention the names... those reading this will know who they are. And as Phoebe rightly said "Boyfriends and girlfriends come and go but friends are for life!!!"

Salaam Bangalore !!!

I make a trip to Bangalore every month but the last one was the most miserable yet the most memorable one so far!! The misery started last week when I had a severe dehydration problem er... from top and bottom [courtesy: my office food topped with dead flies, and sometimes they move their legs like a downed soldier who stepped on a mine]. I was kinda semi-hospitalized and lost a few chunks of my weight. So I decided to go over to my parent’s place in Bangalore to hog as much as I could and gain the lost pounds. I finished the crappy work assigned to me at the office early to take the late night Bangalore Mail.


I hitched a ride on our company bus and reached Chennai Central only to find a stupid strike going on there and all trains were delayed indefinitely… boy!!! this was gonna be a loooong wait. Why do such crap things happen to me every time I go to Bangalore, another time my bus broke down in the middle of nowhere (that’s another long story). It was an agonizing four hour wait during which time I learnt a lotta new things about Chennai Central. Finally when my train arrived at the platform I could do the following things :

a) I had come across every single stray dog at the station and now I could prepare a chart on them cross referencing the breed, coat color and their barking frequency.
b) I could quote the badge numbers of all coolies working there.
c) I learnt that the clock at the far end of platform number 7 was running on Ethiopian National Time.

Anyways my train came and I reached Bangalore four hours late the next morning. And as per plan I started hogging down food much to the happiness of my mom. I had no initial plans of meeting my buddies in b’lore… but it had been a long time since I met any of them, so I decided to meet them and catch up on some good old times. First call to Jerry… place and time decided… The Forum Mall on Sunday. I asked Jerry to pick up Jithu and meet me there. I hadn’t brought much of my clothes with me other than the office formals I was wearing and a few changes for home. I rummaged thru the cupboards and found an old white tee and a pair of jeans which I used to wear when I was in college. Both fitted perfectly and off I went to Forum to meet my buddies.



As always I reached almost an hour before the others, but this was Forum and I aint gonna get bored even if I were alone. After babe-watching for a few minutes I decided to mug up some books for free at Landmark. I went straight to my favourite section… “comics”(:-D hee… I still like comics). I dragged a chair and started reading “Amazing Spiderman Vs Batman”. It was going good and just when Spidey was gonna kick Batty’s butt I felt a hmmm er well… a pleasant air-conditioning in my jeans. The MasterCard ad started flashing in my head where the guy says that its priceless to find yourself unzipped before someone else does… how true!! But how can this be I aint a 2 year old kid, how can I be so sloppy!! Thankfully I hadn’t tucked in my tees, hence no one was gonna spot the open post office, unless I lift my arms or wipe my forehead with the edge of my tees or do anything remotely stupid to that.With a quick flick of a magician’s hand I zipped myself and headed for the upper levels of the store. I was climbing the stairs and here we are again… the air-conditioning returned again. It was like some enemy of mine had created an African voodoo doll of mine and playing around unzipping it, to make me frustrated. I realized the zipper lock was gone for a toss… this was the worst nightmare for any civilized male homo-sapien.

Beads of sweat started forming on my forehead in the 5 degrees Centigrade climate of Landmark. I said to myself… “dude don’t panic… as long as ur tee is out u r safe… and don’t do anything stupid”. And here I was… walking around unzipped at the most happening place in Bangalore. And somehow it reminded me of our very own “mundu” of Kerala. Finally Jerry and Jithu arrived and as we failed to get any movie tickets decided to hog down some food. Meanwhile I called up K and asked him to join us.

Me: K, where are you? We are at forum... can you come here?
K: Yeoh man!! I am at a free lunch… u know if I don’t hog for free it ll be blasphemy!! I ll meet ya guys immediately after this party!!
Me: ok cya bye.

Then we headed to a place outside forum and gobbled up chunks of biriyani. I told my pals to wait while I go n fix my zipper at the rest room. I went inside to zip up, but this time the zipper hook came off totally!! I returned to my buddies and showed them the trophy- the broken zip hook. Both of them almost lifted me by my arms and took me a place nearby to get myself changed. I had to shell out abt 550 bucks to get a new pair of jeans and save the day. Meanwhile Jerry called up K

Jerry: where are you ?
K: Damn my Honda aint starting… I ll be a little late (Sound of breaking chicken bones in the background)
Jerry: Ok (hangs up)

We headed back to Forum to meet Rep and Thomas… and I was wearing my new jeans. We huddled around a table at the Transit food court and started on job crap, tech crap, bike crap, gal crap and discussed on how many lines were drawn in the past one year, how many lines got broken and how many lines became circles. Jerry called up K again.

Jerry: where are you ?
K: Man!!! I just slipped on a banana peel… I ll be there in no time… promise!!
Jerry: grrr (hangs up)

Rep and Thomachan joined us and so did K, with a look on his face which proclaimed that he was waiting for us there since two days!! . It was fun, it was the first good dude-talk of my wavelength since college. One thing that moved me the most during this trip was, I expected only a hi-bye conversation over phone with most of my pals, but to my surprise every single one I called turned up at Forum, some even keeping aside their already scheduled plans… and I am still on cloud nine for that!!! I am a man with few friends but the few I have are worth dying for… and of course I will miss my old jeans.

Plastic Life …

A routine Monday morning… as I seat myself in my cubicle my phone buzzes. Beep Beep!! Beep Beep!!

“Citibank Alert: Your salary of Rs XXXXX has been credited to your savings account”

Ah phew, just when I was thinking of my dwindling monetary resources in my bank. Boy!! Some relief!! My phone buzzes again. Beep Beep!! Beep Beep!!

“Citibank Alert: Your credit card statement for the month of June has been generated. You have a current outstanding of Rs XXXXX. Please pay the dues on or before 10-JUL-07 to avoid interest charges.”

I blurt out “Naasham…ollakkede moodu!!”. When translated, literally it means “Destruction… bottom of the grinding stick!!” (Yeah sounds loco). My big 70mm smile upon receiving the first SMS changed to a grimace, which could have given me a chance to win the part for Gollum in the next LOTR movie.

I can’t disclose on how much those XXXXXs are but the latter one had Rs134 more than the former. There are only two ways out of this misery

a) My salary gets doubled.
OR
b) I start spending less.

The first option is far too unfeasible and second one… haha that’s another far cry. When I flick open my wallet, I get a sense of false pride when I look at all those little golden cards studded onto it like the medals on the chest of a five starred Army General. Ah those little devils… every time I get a statement my sane self shouts out loud “Cut those wretched pieces of plastic and unceremoniously flush them down the toilet”. But I am more insane than sane in these matters.

I am a big spendthrift. I am the kinda guy who spends first then thinks later… sometimes for stuff absolutely useless to me. But if it weren’t for the plastic cash I wouldn’t ve got any of the stuff in my wishlist since college. And I am over-possessive about the stuff bought outta my money, hard earned by banging the keyboard everyday. Like there was an occasion when my roomies who had thought me to be a nutcase confirmed their fears, when I bought my bike (of course by swiping the card) and christened it Romeo. Another example, I was once riding the bus to office while listening to my iPod which I had kept on the seat next to mine. A dude got in the bus and came over to my place and sat on top of my iPod, with the songs blaring at full volume in my ears, I (in a natural tendency to hear my own voice over the loud music) shouted at the man “YOU ARE SITTING ON MY IPOD!!!”. The driver missed a heartbeat, the bus missed a gear and everyone riveted their eyes on me. The terrified dude got up and I yanked the ipod from underneath his butt. There was clear terror on his face. He wanted to get as far away as possible from this Josef Stalin with an iPod. I ve sooo got used to credit cards that I hardly hold any cash in my wallet these days. Be it petrol, clothes, food or movie tickets SWIPE! SWIPE! SWIPE!

I still remember those sweet enticing voices which made me sign up for the credit cards. One of my teammates in office asked out a "credit-card caller" just for fun. She agreed and they started dating and he ended up falling in love with her and eventually married her!! That proves that credit cards can give competition even to Mr. Cupid and run him out of business.

After a grueling day at office I stop by at Odyssey and take a walk thru the audio section, I spot a CD which catches my attention. I go through the contents and find one song which I had seen on TV and kinda liked. I flip the CD and check the price Rs. 399. I fish out my wallet and find only a torn hundred bucks note, instinctively my hands reach for the credit card and I hand it over to the cashier.

The Fear Factor

Ever been afraid of something all through your life? Well I thought I was a person who didn’t have any phobias (or anxiety disorders). I was never afraid of any stupid scary things, when I was a kid, like darkness or the boogeyman who hides behind the closet, I was never afraid of heights, closed spaces or water or whatever. It was not until high school that I realized that I was not free from fears. My family usually used to take a train to our hometown during vacations, but that year my dad decided that it was high time we upgrade to a flight.Being trapped in a pressurized aluminum tube at 35000 feet up in the sky always gave me the creeps. I felt terrible all throughout my first flight. It was monsoon season and flight was bumpy and it appears that I held my mom’s wrist so tight that it went white coz of my grip (damn…and she still makes fun of me for being such a sissy boy that day). I thought that the beautiful flight attendants would keep my mind distracted from the fear, but to my dismay it was an Indian Airlines flight and the flight attendants looked so old that I assumed that they had kids of marriageable age. Since then every time I used to board a flight the fear would come rushing back to me. But eventually I learnt to hide my fear and look cool… but still it is always there inside me whenever I board that dingy aluminum tube.

Hmmm so that was about aviatophobia. After my tenth standard my parents decided that it wud be best for me to continue my education in Trivandrum. So off I went to my hometown Trivandrum. I used to stay with my grandparents in their very old traditionally built house with tiled roofs and false ceiling made of wood. It even had an attic. My granny warned me that there might be rats running about in the attic… but ha I wasn’t afraid of mice. So I decided to explore the attic one day. I climbed up to the attic and started rummaging through the stuff kept there. Then I felt something crawling up my leg, I lifted my pants and found a gigantic spider almost as big as my palm, I went white with fear. It was of the likes I had seen in discovery channel and animal planet!! I had held golf ball sized beetles in my hand when I was a kid but this was ridiculous!! I did some weird tribal dance to shake it off my leg… banged my head somewhere in the process and somehow managed to avoid trampling the poor creature. A few days later I found one of its relatives in the bathroom and this one was even bigger, maybe the daddy of the one in the attic. Afraid to take a shower with a deranged spider watching me all the time, I asked my granny to somehow shoo it away. She had a look at it and told me that they look big and dangerous but are quite harmless, but again I insisted to get it off my bathroom, then she brought a broom and ZAP!! the daddy spider went to insect heaven.

Hmmm so I am scared of flying and weird looking spiders… what are you afraid of ??