To Backwaters and Beyond

Videos of the week

I have been on a lot of travel recently and wanted to write about it. It all started with a trip to the state capital for a couple of days. Is it always humid like that? Man it was sultry and I was on the road for the better part of the day and took in the full blessings of Mr. Surya (no not the actor, Ra the sun god). I was sweating profusely that I had drenched my hankie that it no longer had a dry spot to take in my sweat. Came to my hotel in the evening and had a bath for a quarter of an hour,my bath time at the max would not be more than three minutes,so that's 500% increase. But the metro water only added to the woes and I felt salty all over. Disgusted I left to meet my pals whom I haven't met in a while and found a fermented barley water solution to cool myself. That helped through the night to a good sleep and in the morning woke up to the papers saying it was the hottest day with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees. No wonder I felt exhausted as there was no winds too to break the heat but the forecast for the second and last day of my trip was heartening with temp around 34 and slightly breezy. With that hope I headed back to my hotel to close out the day and run home where it will be hotter but not humid. I hate humid places. Mr. Surya was less active on that day and by early evening the sea breeze came in to save the day. Made a mental note not to visit the city during that time of the year. By night I hopped onto the train and there was this girl from the Vaanaram Aayiram movie in my compartment,wow I thought,I thanked the heavens above and chatted with her till late night. When the train came to a stop at my destination we both decided to tie the knot,so headed to a temple nearby, married and lived happily ever after. Just then the alarm went off and slapped me from my dream and took my long walk home wondering what if the dream were true.

Exactly a week later after a last minute arrangement I was again on a trip but in the other direction to my last trip. If it was Bay of Bengal the first time, it was Arabian Sea now. I was on the Tea Garden on my way to the place famous for its spice market earlier,now for remittances made from Gulf which amounts to the longest runway among airports in India and yet again on the sea front. What did I say about humid places. And history repeated itself on the first day. Spent a week there but the monsoon had not yet arrived. I had to be back at base for some work so came back to find it had been raining in Trichy while I was away. Cruel rain. After a short stint in home,I again headed back to Spice city and my friend monsoon had arrived in full force. Enjoyed the rain which had brought down temps considerably lower. By the weekend I had to make a trip from Arabian Sea to Bay of Bengal and was back on the train again(I told you I was travelling a lot). While I was leaving it was pouring heavily that I was afraid if I would miss my train. Maybe my monsoon friend did not want me to leave. I did leave and a 12 hour 700km journey took me to the other side. Have you heard about extreme climates. Well I have heard before but

experienced it first hand. Not a single drop of water on the skies but the relative humidity was as high as the crowds thronging the city. I headed straight to see my pals and all I needed was a 15 minute salt water bath to cool off,after which I finished my work. The day ran off in a jiffy and I hoped never to come back to that humid place. Again a 12 hr. journey back to spice city that night. Nearly 1500kms in 2 nights and a day and I was wondering if it all will be over. I headed to a coffee shop inside the station annex and that was when it struck me that my friend Rain had not come to welcome me. I asked for Tea and the guy behind the counter looked puzzled. I thought he had not heard me and yet again asked for tea and that's when he shouted to the kitchen in the back “Oru Chaaya”. A friend of mine had said that I should say chaaya for tea when am in this part of the country. But I insisted I will say Tea only because its a single syllable,time saving word. It can be expressed by a single English alphabet compared to the two syllable “Chaaya”. Besides if I had “Chaaya” without her knowing, she would kill me. Wait is “Chaaya” one syllable word or two? I was sipping my tea deep in this thought when I heard the remark made by a woman on the next seat. She was pointing to the dark clouds approaching the area very fast. It was like my old friend did not know of my arrival and when he knew, he was ready to burst and hug me to say “Dude I missed you”. And burst he did,less than a minute later after I walked out of the coffee shop and the station my friend was hugging (thrashing) me. The rain was so hard that there was no autorick in the stand and I was forced to wait for nearly half an hour at the prepaid counter before a driver yelled out the name of the place I was to go. I shared the ride with a fellow who was on the same route as me. He had one thing that I dint, an umbrella. That was when it hit me that whenever someone pictures a Keralite,they picture him with an umbrella. The whole day it was pouring and the same next day. My friend did miss me as my clients remarked there wasn't any rain when I wasn't there. Heavenly connections I wondered. A week and daily drenching and wet clothes later, it was time again for me to head home. But the clients insisted that I stay and be their rain man and bring rain to all their people and livestock. Unfortunately I had to leave and that night it was like a storm had arrived. My friend was angry and showing all his prowess. I had to convince him saying “Buddy you can reach me wherever I am. So why don't come over to my place and stay for a while”. Suddenly the rain stopped and the train rolled.(Awesome rhyming there with rain and train dude). I came home and I think I pissed off my dear friend. He is yet to reach my place and worse still is the news that 30 districts in UP have declared as drought-affected. Rain,Rain come again.

Doctorate Research

Speaking of syllables, have you ever encountered words where a 'j' comes in the midst of a word and not at the start. I have come across quite a few, the first being Bjorn Borg. Tell me how did you read it. If the 'j' was not present it would have been “Born” as in “Born to be wild”. Now fosho Born is a single syllable word. But when a 'j' comes there it introduces a syllable ie a stop gap when there is none. So “Bjorn” should be read as “B” gap “orn” like “Be on”. So the conclusion of my research states that “ If and when a j comes in a word except at the start it is meant to break the word into another syllable”. Now give me a doctorate in English. If you haven't heard of the ice cool Wimbledon champion, you techies should have definitely heard of “AJAX”- Asynchronous Javascript And XML. So how did you read this without applying my rule- AJAX like Ajacks. But its not the way to say it A AX-Ayacks would be correct . Now I feel like comedian Goundamani explaining to a waiter how a Paper Roast should look like . So I will let you decide the best way to read it. I know I have been thinking a lot these days. Even when I speak to someone I am thinking something in the background. My brain has grown so large that I have yet again shaved my head. This is my second this year after my first on Feb 14. I hope to make a record by shaving my head again coming December to make it three in a year with full grown hair. These words were revolving in my mind rile, Neanderthals and Nio rivoste. I had found the meaning for the first two but the last is of my making and even Google had no answer to that. I thought it would be Spanish but it aint. So I am giving the meaning to the word I created. Its “New Revolution”. Mia culpa if the word already exists and means otherwise. Now read the following words:

Economy,Finance,Divorce,Direction,Dimension,Career.

What about these words, I will tell you in the next post. But am not done yet.

Wimbledon

If you haven't heard about Bjorn Bog, you certainly would have heard or seen Roger Federer. I personally dislike the guy. He makes Tennis boring. My hero was and is Andre Agassi. Anyway this May in Paris, Roger joined Andre as the only guys who have won all the four Grand Slams in the Open Era and my man was the who gave away the trophy. A month later at Wimbledon Roger won once again in an epic final in which Federer was unable to break Roddick's booming serve right up until the last game when Roddick dropped the game and with that the The Championship. A disconsolate Roddick was gracious in defeat and was in tears by the end of it all. C'mon Arod you will maul that Fed in your own backyard at the US Open. Am with you. Just so you know that boring Federer got past Pete Sampras(whom I hate as well) as the leading winners with 15 slams. Although no Rafael Nadal was present in both Paris and Wimbledon which enabled Roger to eke out a win. Roger you know that Andy was the better player that day. Your luck will soon run out man.

MKT

I just had to write about him. He was one of the first to achieve Superstar status in Tamizh filmdom. He was M.K.Thyagaraja Bagavathar ,the pioneer of “Bagavathar crop” and more importantly he was from Trichy. It was

believed that at the height of his career he used golden plates for taking food. When Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru visited Trichy, they came to his “Bungalow” and interacted with him even though he was not in politics and affiliated to the party and sought his support. Such was his fame and reach. He had a great voice and who can forget “Manmatha leelai venrar undo”. But he was wrongly implicated in a murder case along with comedian NSK who also hails from Trichy (NSK's grandson lives in Palakarai,heads up Pups your area). MKT suffered a lot during his term at the jail and he lost his biggest assets, his voice and when he was acquitted finally, he ran into financial troubles. He experienced both extremes of life and later died in oblivion. I pass by his grave everyday and very few know that he lies there and I felt it my duty to highlight one of the doyens of Tamizh cinema.

Serious Issues

Now onto some serious issues. Yesterday I read a news item on the Beeb that on two separate

incidents two toddlers aged 3 and 4 shot their siblings when they were playing with a loaded gun.Of those one victim is in critical condition and the other is stable. Its one thing to keep a loaded gun at home,but its altogether different thing to let your toddlers get hold of it and “play” with it.Moron of a parents. And an even disturbing news article I read today in the papers took me by surprise. A four year old was so angry when his 18 year old relative accidentally stepped on his foot, that he went up saying he will get a gun and promptly got hold of a shotgun,loaded it with one shot, came down and blew the guy's head off. Now where did he learn to load a shotgun and use it. We guys are called the TV generation since we were hooked upto the box from our early lives and satellite TV really changed during our childhood. Our choices were limited to a few channels and anything untoward shown were immediately censored upon by either our parents or by the big brother government. Now the present Internet generation is spoilt by choices and are highly uncontrollable. Its impossible to monitor them 24x7 and keep track of their activities. The other day I was watching CN, primarily a kids channel, during the ad break Deepika Padukone comes half naked posing for some cosmetic (Fiama di Willis) telling which part of her body should be supple and smooth outlining her curves. Should this be shown on a kids channel? The actors should have a clause in their contract barring their “expressive” works from being shown on kids channels if they are socially mindful. Enough said about the TV now lets move on to its younger electronic sibling the computer. I am honest when I tell you I enjoy playing games on it. One of them is GTA2, a pretty old game going by the standards now. In that game you can steal a car,drive it rashly and run over pedestrians. Even better is that you can train Bazookas on innocent people and burst them into pieces or burn them by hurling Molotov cocktails on them. Better still is you can ride a military tank down the main road of the city and stamp down anything that comes in your way. Essentially what is mean is, the game is a violent one and I would be lying if I said I did not get a thrill shooting people indiscriminately. Yet another simple game I went through was a bow and arrow game ala William Tell where your friend holds an apple over his head and you gotta shoot the apple with a bow. Sounds simple, but if you shoot the arrow wrong you could cut his head off or gouge his eye with blood splattering all over the place. Now if an adult kid like me can get a thrill outta this, imagine if kids get their hands on this. And they can get it easily, its the availability and accessibility of these violent media that scares me. Even on the news channels they show repeated running of violent acts. In this scenario it will be difficult to shield a child from all this destructive formations, but its not entirely impossible. A teacher plays a vital role in the formative years of a child because a child spends more time in school than at home and is under the direct supervision of a teacher. A collective action plan is needed to counter all the negatives around the child and make a positive impact. The government needs to be aware of what is being promoted on kids channel and act upon it. A regulatory authority needs to be put in place to monitor all electronic media including the Internet. But they can do only so much, they cannot enter your house. A caring parent can bring control upon a problematic child and make him mend his ways. This could be the only solution to news of children acting out what they see on TV like Power Rangers and Spiderman and trying to enact them and jumping off roofs.

Human Spirit

I hope to post this blog entry before the Tour De France ends today. Its an symbol of human endurance and spirit. Riders clock over 3500kms over three weeks including picturesque mountain climbs over the Pyrenees and the Alps that will take them around the length and bredth of France . Today is the last stage to Champs-Elysees,Paris where the most consistent rider throughout the tour will wear the coveted Maillot Jaune (Yellow Jersey). Every year during this time watching those professional cyclists ride it out, I get an urge to cycle to work thereby trying to reduce my carbon footprint I leave after me. This time I made my urge public and tried out few laps on the cycle just up and down my street and was the laughing stock of the street and my guys. Will get there next time Lance. Who knows may be next year I could cycling alongside Lance and Alberto.

Until next time ciao,aregato and good day.