tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-234251482024-03-14T12:38:57.149+05:30My Think PadThe world as I see it...silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.comBlogger305125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-78480191804272723722011-11-04T09:19:00.007+05:302012-01-17T08:42:31.950+05:30The gentlemen of the highways...I’ve been traveling extensively since I was a kid. When we were small we rarely spent a weekend at home. Weekends were synonymous with travel. We hit the road every weekend and I went to school on Mondays with a note to explain missed weekend homework. Karnataka has something called Dussehra holidays that comes as a welcome break during October. Dussera hols lasted ten days and we traveled a silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-84329623457908690772011-08-01T13:20:00.002+05:302011-08-01T13:54:50.790+05:30The new lower classI got out of Bangalore airport with my American colleague and looked for the taxi driver who normally picked up my colleague. He was smiling and waving and pretty soon we were on our way to the city. I had decided to share my colleagues cab this time as it was hired for a whole days run, my facilities staff had informed me. That would save us some serious monies in cab bills. On the way he silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-45382814013043709182011-05-05T11:36:00.003+05:302011-05-09T09:47:25.348+05:30Dummies guide to social acceptabilityI have often been told by “some” mallu guys from Kerala that non mallu girls shy away from them. In fact it is so bad that even NRK girls don’t want anything to do with them unless forced to marry one by their parents. After studying the phenomenon for some time, I can give a few tips that might make “some” of you mallu studs from Kerala, a little more acceptable to the gals…even if it is only insilverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-54141910962499683762011-04-26T10:58:00.003+05:302011-04-26T11:25:43.924+05:30Forced parenthoodsI was sitting on the stone bench outside the church. The church was overflowing due to the Holy Week service. Kids were playing around while the teens gossiped and young parents ran behind their tots. It was a jovial atmosphere notwithstanding the Stations of the Cross going on inside the church.An elderly lady from Kerala was walking around and rocking a baby who looked a month or so old. Time silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-73685578281059390112011-03-22T10:33:00.005+05:302011-03-22T11:01:51.480+05:30Suppression and ExpressionAn aunt from our family friends circle is a journalist. She contributes to international magazines. She writes mostly about social issues in India.Recently we were all recipients of a mail from her with a link to her blog. She requested the recipients of the mail to take a look at her blog. I opened the mail rather late and saw that she had very few hits and no comments. She sent the mail out silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-82342312310249796752010-11-11T13:34:00.004+05:302010-11-11T13:58:57.918+05:30Gender imbalance of a different kindI watched a program on Asianet recently. The subject was very interesting and I wanted to see what the modern Malayalee thought of the same. The subject in question was that women felt unsafe in buses in Kerala.The panel consisted of a few educated, articulate young ladies one of whom was a very well spoken actress. On the opposite side were not people who held a contrary view, but men, mostly silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-29365656772943325452010-11-09T19:03:00.006+05:302010-11-09T23:39:14.933+05:30A slice of lifeI like Art movies. I like art movies for its deliciously stark portrayal of real life. It’s a relief from commercial cinema that has no resemblance to real life. I find Art movies refreshing. The more stark the reality the better. It is like a purge, a purge from the one sided vista, commercial cinema brainwashes you with, whether it is patriotism, family relations, poverty, love, and silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-11847533153418807022010-09-21T12:50:00.015+05:302010-09-21T17:13:43.219+05:30Speak up and we will label you a slutI have an aunt in Kerala. She fights for women's rights, encourages women who keep quiet against abusive men whether verbal or physical to get legal help and helps them stand up for their right to a dignified life. She is a much hated woman who is accused of breaking up families ( made a lady who was beaten to pulp and eyeball pushed out, several compound fractures, to divorce her husband and silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-73495078210813353382010-09-05T22:54:00.005+05:302010-09-05T23:05:41.752+05:30Love in the times of prejudiceThey walked in hand in hand, and looked around in wonderment. The opulence of the mall seemed to overwhelm them. They looked like kids from the lower middle class. Their clothes tailored and out of place. They clung together, a little intimidated by the mall. They were in their teens I could make out. They walked in hand in hand. Their trust and reliance in each other was heartwarming. This was silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-10178901523617909072010-08-15T13:28:00.010+05:302010-08-17T21:46:48.724+05:30RituI watched the Malayalam movie “Ritu” at a friend’s home last week. The movie is ostensibly a new genre of Malayalam movie. What I saw left me disappointed and annoyed. Disappointed, because the story is a contemporary retelling of an old tale i.e. the Malayalee returning to the homeland to start a business venture etc. Annoyed, because the story is written by someone who has no knowledge of the silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-30918237753617013222010-06-29T22:19:00.002+05:302010-06-29T22:29:44.825+05:30Monsoon memories...My paternal grandparents’ house was made entirely of wood. It still is. Only the four walls of the home are made of brick, unlike the imposing structure I call my maternal grandparents home. The house is very old, built by my great grandfather, who was into the wood business too. He was a pioneer of sorts, who knew that wood would be worth its weight in gold, in a few years to come. People silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-6393393343917419242010-06-16T08:23:00.004+05:302010-06-16T22:07:39.289+05:30Educating the educatorsCorporal punishment is in the news again. We are a country that needs laws to curb grown up men and women from hitting kids. In fact we need laws to ensure we behave like a civil society. But let us not go there for now. Right now, I want to talk about teachers hitting kids.I remember as a kid waiting at the Cubbon Park to get on a peculiar type of carousel. There was a family already on the silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-90790225625461236602010-04-25T18:49:00.003+05:302010-04-25T19:17:34.638+05:30Stepping down and stepping up!Shashi Tharoor returned to Trivandrum, last week to a rousing welcome. People cutting across party lines were there to greet him. If he were to resign from the Congress today, and contest as an independent, then the capital city may be lost forever to both the UDF and LDF.Shashi Tharoor maybe the answer to Kerala’s professional politicians and their tight grip on the state. He has the potential silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-11738084867684463342010-03-14T19:12:00.005+05:302010-03-20T16:28:18.845+05:30The invisible gifts in our lives...The car was traveling fast through the familiar country side. As soon as we left Kottayam, it felt like we had entered the home stretch. Familiar buildings, trees and fields flashed by like wave upon wave of soothing familiar-ness. I knew I was enjoying the scenery due to the air conditioning in the car. It wouldn’t be so comfortable outside.We took a bypass and were on a narrow road. I used tosilverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-10090824102082846062010-03-06T17:51:00.003+05:302010-03-06T18:55:42.367+05:30The vacuum withinThe Swami Nithyananda scandal has ripped the society apart. On one side we have people who say that he has every right to sleep with women and on the other side there are people who say that having taken the vow of brahmacharyam or celibacy and exhorting his followers to do the same, he should not have cheated on their faith and belief in him.I am not here to defend him or run him down. But I silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-56411054887235807642010-02-21T10:21:00.002+05:302010-02-21T10:25:31.861+05:30Making it big while staying smallIf there were an award for a city that has remained static, despite the massive changes it has undergone, in terms of demography, industry and social culture, then the award should go to Bangalore. The last two decades has bought sweeping changes to Bangalore. IT has become an important part of the landscape both economic and social. Thousands of people have settled here, displacing the older silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-2789288367443477472010-01-14T22:05:00.012+05:302010-01-14T22:35:32.406+05:30The futileness of hypocrisyWhile we condemn the attack on Indians and lately on a Gurudwara in Australia, aren’t we conveniently forgetting that attacks on Churches, Mosques and Temples are routine in our country with hundreds of people dying over these buildings every year?We protest over Indian students being attacked, while we conveniently forget that Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt alive in our country and silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-82228352684538740242009-12-31T21:49:00.004+05:302009-12-31T22:54:39.601+05:30The last post....for this year and New Year Wishes!From a seedy cyber cafe in Goa (lappie left at home) here's wishing the readers of My Think Pad, warm wishes for a Happy New Year!!Thank you for dropping by to read my rather judgmental, generalized and highly opinionated posts, and being patient and counting to ten before posting your comments. Thanks for dropping by even if I haven't posted for weeks. The visitor count to this blog never ebbs silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-65079467631881529012009-12-25T22:50:00.006+05:302009-12-28T13:13:44.561+05:30EpiphanyI attended a wedding today in Kottayam. It was a wedding in the church of some vague Christian denomination. The wedding service was sweet and simple, but people like us were seen bolting for the door in panic when the sermon began. The preacher petrified everyone to their seats with his blazing sermon about God and his wrath. Apparently, if we do not repent and read the Bible and call His name silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-69553241408479930872009-12-16T21:33:00.006+05:302009-12-16T22:41:47.700+05:30UngoogleI was searching for a pals Flickr account having conveniently forgotten to bookmark it when she gave it to me over gchat. Faced with the prospect of quiz questions on the same by her in exactly one hour when she logs in from the US, I tried to search for her album using her name in the Flickr search tool.The result was interesting. (see text in the red 'rectangle')Face it Yahoo, you can never do silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-12879117543101271482009-12-10T18:42:00.008+05:302009-12-11T12:08:46.478+05:30Clipping their wingsA week back I walked into this electronics showroom and spotted a familiar face behind the counter that displayed laptops and computers. After racking my brain wondering where I had seen this girl, it struck me. She was my classmate in school!! I never saw her after board exams and later we heard that she had got married and quit studies after her 12th. I was accompanying a friend who is silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-83203198282134935772009-12-05T22:51:00.004+05:302009-12-06T08:06:49.825+05:30State victimsYesterday night while we were returning from a party, we saw a remarkable thing. Two cops were kicking and beating up a teenager. He seemed to be from a good family and kept fending them off by saying “Sorry Sir”. He cops kept hitting and kicking and punching him. So what was remarkable about this sight? They were traffic cops!Since the State government has banned random checking of licenses,(silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-35635529642515404822009-11-22T08:42:00.006+05:302009-11-22T13:57:04.199+05:30Time to introspectThe offices of a prominent News Channel was attacked and vandalized this week. Doesn't it make you think Mr. Managing Director of the Channel, that in your greed for TRP ratings, you made a molehill of a man into a mountain? So why are you surprised that the illusionary mountain dared to take on you now?Hope this is a lesson to you and your kinsmen in the media, that for your good health silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-54030972996687307672009-11-17T08:12:00.002+05:302009-11-17T08:16:28.311+05:30The Tiffin PeopleSorry friends if I am writing a bit too much about office these days. But it looks like ‘tis the season to be annoying' for some people. My team in office is pretty close and we sit together for lunch and go for coffee breaks together. We even go for movies together during weekends! Lunch at office is a simple affair; everyone tastes a little bit from everyone’s tiffin and then gets back to silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23425148.post-81846291500945496522009-11-12T18:55:00.003+05:302009-11-12T19:00:17.973+05:30The mysteries of the heartAnita (not her real name) was in awe of Rajiv (not his real name). He was dashing, manly, rode a smart bike, wore smart contemporary clothes and was very much at ease with the girls. Girls he had in plenty, vying for his attention. His attention on the other hand was mostly focused on his bike, weekend treks and mountaineering. Rajiv worked with me while Anita worked in another company in the silverinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16474136215458639419noreply@blogger.com6