Notice!

I am awake at this ungodly hour because my neighbor lady is running her blender full speed! Gah! Anyways, since I am up, I thought I would pen a short post to say "I am alive".

First thing first. Thanks for the overwhelming response to the last post! It’s been days since I posted it and the readership is refusing to ebb. You people are so intelligent and refined that I want to nominate you for a Nobel in Good Literary Taste! :|

Secondly, work has been bogging me down and I am too tired in the evenings to write two blogs, so TP is suffering. Right now actively looking for a solution for the same.

Thirdly, thanks to all the Twitterers, most of whom I do not even know, who have been tweeting my posts! *hugs*

Thanks to people like Bangalore Mirror and umpteen other mags and papers who keep publishing my posts on a continual basis (after taking my permission first). I was pleasantly surprised to eat bhel puri wrapped in a newspaper cutting of “Holly Molly”

Fourth, I want to say something to a few people (read 'weirdos'). I am not that wet behind the ear kid that started this blog some time ago. I like to believe that I have grown up a lil bit since 2006....at least in blogsphere so please...

Stop sending me mails asking me for hair dressing salons in Bangalore. What a corny subject to get me to reply!

Please do not ask for recipes, because you saw my comment at some food blog. And I am not taken in by names like Priya Nair and Ranjitha Menon and Sarah Abraham! What a cornier subject to get a reply from me.

Stop emailing me news from news portals under my email ID. I do not read such mails and I think you are a loser who needs to get a life real fast.

Stop asking me for advice on Dogs, Cats, Communications, Public Relations, Fish Molly, Marketing and other stuff you have read on my blog! Bleah

I do not have an Orkut or Facebook or any other social networking accounts (excepting Twitter). So please stop bothering the other "Anjali Philips" at social networking sites with 'friend requests'. Admit it you are one of those "franndship loveship" types, kochu kallaa!

The lady has stopped ‘blending’!

Gunite folks!

p.s. I bet you a hundred bucks you got scared of the title of this post tee hee

Mobile entertainment

Now that the Big 10 bus services have been introduced in Bangalore, I find my self using the service to go to town...quite literally. During weekdays we car pool, so during weekends I use this service to give me a break from driving. During my travels from home to Brigade Road I find myself seated next to a lot of people who use the travel time to catch up with friends, relations, parents, BF/GF etc. Of these, the mallus are the most voluble.

Example no 1: The Mallu gal in Bangalore for higher studies.

This type generally chats up people back home in Kerala during the bus ride. The conversation is held in Malayalam. I have used the liberty to use English for non mallu readers. Typical conversations are like this:

Hellooo! Idhu njaana! Aa! Pinne…avide endha vishesham? Is it raining there aa? Aa! What about at Babuchayans place? Please be careful near the well. You will slip and fall due to the moss. Tell that Vareed to come and clean it no! Has achchan repaired the wall on the other side of the parambu? That Mathukutty's cows will have a hay-day if you don’t. Pinne… tell me what else is new there? Aiyyo jose chetande kada pootiyo? Eppo? So where do you buy vegetables from now? Teresa chechi is gone home for delivery? I hope I can get home by then. Pakshe test undu. Pinne businde ticketinde prashanam undo. Last minute ticket kitoola. Njaan innu onnum kazhichilla amme. Breakfastinnu breadum butterum ayirnnu. Maduthu! Pinne…vere endha vishesham? Aiyyo ende stop vittu poyi. Njaan vekkate? Illa, adutha stopil irangi nadannolam. Sheri! Amme vekkate? Aiyyo stop vannu. Koda eduthatundu. Vayiguneram vilikaam tow? Aiyyo conductor saare stop maadi. Eranganam.

All this is delivered at supersonic jaw crunching speed and by the time we reach the next stop I and other mallu passengers in the bus can write the biography of the entire Kandath family from Thodupuzha!!

Next specimen will be mallu gal from Kerala married to techie guy and now employed in some office. She will talk to her friend also married and living in Calicut.

Hiiiii! How are you? I am fine. Etan is also fine. Ende father in law sick aa! Ariyulla endha problem. Vayis ayille. Pinne enna visheshams? Ivide oru vishesham illa. *gasp* Really??? Aiyyo! I did not hear that! When? Where? How? Ende daivamme!! Did her parents bring her back? I knew it! I told her also. But she was madly in love with him! Pinne what else? Anyone else in our batch getting married? Job is boring yaar. Etan comes home only by 9. I watch TV what else! My neighbor is some Tamilian. Kandooda aa sthreeye! Ende stop vannu. Njaan orkuttil scrap chaiyyam. Balance illa. Bye!

To me: Is this Lal Baugh stop?
Me: No. This bus doesn’t go that way!
Gal: Aiyyo!
Me: Where are you going?
Gal: Majestic!
Me: You are in the wrong bus.
Gal: !!!!
Me: Never mind. Get down at Brigade Road. You will lots of buses from there.
Gal: Hello? Nasreen? I am in the wrong bus *giggle* hahahahahahahaha
And more ahahahaha

After that I and the rest of the passengers who can understand Malayalam can write the entire biography of the Krishnan Menon and Abu Backer Family from Calicut.

Unfortunately no guys will sit next to me as I sit in the ladies section. But like the other Bangalore guys, mallu guys are also not discriminatory and do not mind sitting on ladies seats. Their conversations will go like this after looking around and ascertaining that his neighbors are non mallus.

Hey da I met Sushmita, Renju and Baby yesterday. They are all here. Ramesh IBM’ill annu. Rejoyum, babyum Accentureil annu. Pinne Joemone kandu. Avan Bilkehalliyill aanu thamasam. Navin has gone to the US for his MS. I am in training now. Boring da. After that I will go to Pune. Yesterday was team lunch. Stupid food. Everybody wanted Andhra food. You don’t get malayalam movies here. So Sunday we spend roaming around malls. Jijo is in TCS. Harish is in Infosys. Srinivasan is in Mindtree. Abraham is in CTS and …..!

By the time this conversation is over, me and the other passengers who know Malayalam feel like picking him up and heaving him out of the bus.

R.I.P

Uncle passed away today!

The girl who bought you Pavakkai thoran will miss you a lot :(

R.I.P Georgie uncle!

The good life!

If you happen to go on the New B.E.L Road at a certain time in the morning and a certain time in the evening, you see a long convoy of over 200 light blue buses carrying employees of a Public Funds Sponging Unlimited (PSU) from around that area. Each employee has a seat and the buses will move like synchronized dancers turning and changing lanes in tandem till they split into smaller convoys and move into different parts of the city. The drivers of these buses (which I am told number more then 300) are also PSU employees. This PSU apparently makes a profit. But like someone in the know told us, it due to the fact that the powers that be I has made it mandatory for all other PSU’s to buy this PSU’s products and that includes our space programmers!

The employees of this PSU do not have much work and they use the free time doing small businesses of their own. They sign in the morning and leave for their respective homes or private businesses and come back in the evening to sign out. Many of them are small scale entrepreneurs in their own right. The ladies do knitting and other miscellaneous work if they are free…which is most of the time. To keep this elaborate machinery ticking, I am told a lot of the so called “profit” of the PSU is used up. This is a very cleverly camouflaged operation and has been going on for a long time.

Let me not even get into the other benefits they enjoy like free medical care and the number of ancillary services employed by this PSU like doctors, club attendants, sports field staff etc. It is a picture of absolute bliss and contentment.

I cannot think of a more attractive job in the country right now. Employment News here I come. I hear they have lost of seat to fill up as old employees retire making way for new people to come and avail the benefits.

I suddenly wanna serve my country real bad!

The Queen of Indian Cabaret

I first saw Helen in a Hindi movie video when I was in the sixth standard. I remember being absolutely awestruck and blown away by her, her costumes, instant costume changes and the way she peeled clothes away from her body leaving another garment beneath. I was hooked and with it began a long fascination and fan ship of a person who I think is a really gifted artist and dancer. Thereafter I saw every single of Helen's dances from the huge collection of movies my Dad has and I can safely say that I am amongst her greatest fans.

Soon, I and my friends were dancing behind closed doors to Helen's beats wearing lots of dupattas that we peeled away like Helen. Strings of pearl and colorful beads strung across our hair and colorful tinsel festooned on our bodies. My brother M would call us walking Christmas Trees. The poor guy would be scared out of his wits when he would bump into a girl walking out of my room wearing several layers of dupatta, loud make up, pearls dangling from her hands and hair and a dozen other “home-made” Helen accessories. My Dad tried hard to ensure that we never saw him laughing, my mom was sure were going to hell and my eldest bro wanted to know if this was the latest fashion.

My aunt from Frankfurt chipped in and she was our single biggest source of fashion accessories and sheer clothes that made all us feel like little Helens. It pays having an aunt with only sons.

The Helen obsession lasted long and let’s just say that most of us became specialists in Helen numbers. My mother could not understand our Helen fixation, but what she did not know was that the sheer color and glitz of a Helen number could not be rivaled by a Britney or a Nelly or the other reigning melody queens of our wonder years.

Aa Janne Ja is and will always be my favorite Helen number though I love each and every song pictured on her. The ostrich feathers, large bird cages, colorful ribbons that passed off as skirts, black tights and fantastic make up were oh so mind blowing and out of this world.

I think we spent a mini fortune going to Raja Market to buy pearls and stones to use in our Helen numbers. I still have a big box of them somewhere. Remnants of an era that is still reigns though all of us have grown up now.

I wonder if there is any Indian girl who has not been fascinated by Helen. Recently my NRI cousin dropped in home and I showed her a Helen number. When she went back to Los Angeles she carried every single Helen number she could get her hands on burned on a DVD! Recently she put up the pictures of a party she organized for her friends at home. The theme of the party was Helen. When I saw the photos it hit me. Deja vu to the extreme. The pearls, the rhinestones, dupattas and other paraphernalia that we used was all there, replicated on a bunch of Caucasian, Latino and Indians teenagers! A legend lives on.

I am proud that I was able to introduce yet another generation to the mystery and aura of the most glamorous Cabaret dancer ever!

What's in a Brand Name!

What is the height of branding I wonder! Is it Xerox? Even today in India we say “Xerox” instead of ‘copy”. And though most of us here were born in the era of Canon Copiers, we still use the term “xerox’ when we want to convey ‘copy’. This is because our parents use the word and have unwittingly passed it down to us.

Now you might argue that “Xerox’ was a monopoly back in the good ol days when our folks were cutting classes and going to the movies. But I still feel that it has set a precedent in branding in India.

Amongst the newer brands that have managed the same feat, one stands out distinctly in Bangalore. And the realization came to recently when I was unwittingly involved in the discovery. My neighbor has an old Maruti 800 car, probably the first one to roll out of the factory. The car has become a landmark of sorts. Recently neighbors noticed that the car had disappeared. One neighbor came to me to enquire over its disappearance.

Neighbor: Where is Mr Rao’s Maruti?
Me: He sold it and bought a new car.
Neighbor: Oh! Which car did he buy? Another Maruti heh heh!
Me: No, he bought a Meru.
Neighbor: Oh ok!

It was after my neighbor left that it stuck me that I had used the term “Meru” instead of “Mahindra Logan”. For non Bangaloreans let me explain….Meru taxis were the first professionally managed Taxis to run between the new Bangalore airport and the city. The entire fleet consists of Mahindra Logans. And by now I guess most of us have started calling a Logan a Meru. That’s why neither I nor my neighbor noticed the gaffe!

Way to go Mr Meru... if that is your name.

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Just desserts!

News has just come in that the I&B Ministry has warned the producers of the progamme Yum TV Toadies for abusive language and other violations. The Channel has been running an apology since the day before yesterday. While I am against censorship, I am glad that for once the powers that be took affirmative action when it was needed. Kudos to the I&B Ministry!

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The Black and White King

So the King of Pop is dead. Who the eff cares!! I must confess that his music never really hit it off with me. I did like some numbers but he was just another singer to me. Then came the child molestation charges and I vowed never to listen to his songs again. And I never did. I do not care how melodious the music if it comes from the soul of a pervert. Of course he was cleared of the charges of molestation but we all know how many children’s parents were bought to keep their mouth shut.

What appalls me is the never ending tributes that one encounters over the Internet for this man. A man who was never comfortable in his own colored skin. A man who was never proud of his race or color. A man who was so ashamed of his African roots that he engineered ‘white children’ with white women so that the Jackson name would be carried on by white progenies from the next generation onwards.

Where is the black pride that is so legendary amongst the African American population? What makes this man immune to contempt that he so richly deserves not only for the alleged child molestations but obvious attempts to ‘erase’ his racial heritage.

Has the world taken collective leave of its senses to worship this man?

While the world grieves for this man I wonder why no one is grieving for the children and that includes his own children whom he has left penniless after fathering them for his narcissistic purposes. What a screwed up human being!!! I cannot imagine anyone else that I hold with so much contempt and distaste that this man!

Another take on the subject.

People governance

The racist/mugging incidents in Australia have been done to death as an issue by now. I would not like to pass any remarks on the same sitting here in India at my keyboard. That would be too foolish. But there are some things that I want to comment about purely on a personal level. Personal as in if I were a student in Australia what would I expect if such an incident happened to me. I would of course expect the cops to take action, but most importantly I would expect support and diligent follow up of the case by the Indian High Commission staffers. I am told by some cousins of mine studying there that foreign students studying in Australia have their embassies at their beck and call for any problems that might arise during their stay. While the Indian High Commission as well as the Indian Embassies elsewhere are notorious for their absolute apathy towards their people. I am told they function more or less like Government offices renewing Passports, stamping Visas and giving foreign postings to government officials who have greased the right palms, besides some diplomatic overtures of course.

While it is easy to sit here and advice a change and petition the government to make our embassies more citizen friendly, what is needed is a deeper change in attitude by our government itself. For example, the new Tourism Minister put off her visit to Australia presumably due to the current situation there. A government communiqué however made it clear that it was her personal stand and that the government would have appreciated it if she had gone to Australia for the Tourism promotion scheme. While it is understandable that the government is keen to promote tourism and bring in the much needed dollar, it is also imperative that it shows compassion and empathy for its people there along with the eagerness for revenue generation. After all it was elected by the people to look after their well being and not mere revenue generation! Economic governance and people governance cannot be divorced. It has been for a long time in our country which is why our students are going abroad for higher studies and jobs. Which is why our embassies are cold mausoleums and why those Indian students bore up the attacks silently all these years. They have long stopped expecting anything from the government. Aren’t they in Australia because of the same?

The hundreds of failed Garibi Hatao movements are testament to this fact that we have governance without compassion. Rolling our official programmes will not help much if you do not understand the pinch of hunger or the humiliations of constantly living hand to mouth. What we need now is not only a government that can govern well but one that understand the more intimate problems of its people. Like crossing a busy road, getting a license, support when abroad, a seat for your not so brilliant son/daughter or personal safety to name a few. Right now our administrators are cold machinery's distant from the people. They only bother about getting the government institutions running and rules and laws enforced. What they do not realize is that these institutions and rules and laws apply to people and should be people friendly. Cold official governance as opposed to governing with humanness, the right mix has to be achieved for overall and better impact.

And when the government gets it right we will have our public servants falling over themselves to be of service to you. :) Maybe that was being too Utopian. But a visit to a government office is enough to understand how compassionate your government is towards you!

The language of work

My classmate, who is pursuing her post graduation in Mass Communications, recently joined a mid size company of 400 people for her industrial internship. The first thing she noticed when she joined the company was that the owner of the company, an NRI was a man of principles. Employees at this small IT unit were given all the benefits given to employees in the US without any bias. He did not believe in blocking Internet or Chat or Webmails. The working atmosphere in this company was however not very nice thanks to the Indians who work there.

To begin with the NRI who is a second generation Indian from US has no clue about the social dynamics in India. This led to exploitation of the situation by employee’s especially senior managers. The Sysadmin for instance had ensured that all his team members were from his religion. The technical head on the other hand had ensured that all his teammates were Gult. The facility manager had ensured that his team consisted of Malayalees only and so on.

All the team members talked in their respective language and soon enough a situation developed when there was a total communication breakdown between employees, teams and departments besides fierce protection of team members by team manager even if they were not upto the mark. Performance appraisals were similarly rigged in favor of team members.

An interesting thing to note about this phenomenon was that employees who have grown up in metros were resentful of this ghettoisation. It was people from smaller towns who fell prey to this trend.

The NRI boss was totally clueless to the problems on the ground and regarded hiccups like severe attrition as part of the industry trend. Into this scenario walked in an HR manager. The lady summed up the situation pretty quickly and rolled out rules and regulations that totally wiped out chances of managers from hiring only from within their community and or caste or religion. She also banned the use of any vernacular language including Hindi in the office premises and after a rough ride of implementation, peace and a lot of progress has returned to the company.

The NRI learned a valuable lesson and the divisions and misunderstandings caused by use of regional languages vanished. People became more professional and managers were left red faced when they realized their unprofessional conduct.

I was reminded of this incident when I read about two nurses in Delhi who were reprimanded for talking in Malayalam within hospital premises. On the face of it, it does look discriminatory. But such rules and regulations go a long way in providing a conducive work environment in a country like ours. It is not language chauvinism but prevention of language chauvinism. And the fact that such rules are increasingly being applied goes to show that Indian employees are yet to develop a professional attitude at their work places.

Puppies of a lesser god

I was reading this article from Tony and was immediately reminded of my one of own experiences with animal rights activists.

Every summer we head out to Ooty for our Annual Family Vacation. Before we all started working, we would go to exotic places. But now, time constraints do not allow that luxury and we are content with our favorite place on Earth i.e Ooty. We have been coming to Ooty every year from the time my eldest brother was born. So we are like natives here and know quite a few of the locals here. Mingling with the Who’s Who of Ooty has its benefits. You get to sit in a Box at the Racing Club for instance. We go for the races every year in May. As kids we were allowed to bet with the Government run Betting Booth in the private stall. The two punters who sat here were very middle aged ladies operating what looks like a contraption made in the 1800’s. We were very professional gamblers too. After studying the racing guide carefully, we chose the horses with a name we thought was the snazziest. We were allowed to bet Rs. 5 per game and by the end of the races we would recover some and lose some. The place has not changed over the years. The two ladies who sit in the stall taking bets are still there.

Over the years things have changed though at the races. A lady can be seen seated near the racing track with a binocular and every now and then she gesticulates and makes a noise. Since we were ‘insiders’ we got to know that she was from Mrs. Kenaka Handhi’s stables. A highly excitable creature that watches every race like a hawk and reports any “harsh treatment” of the horse to her Madam. Madam would then make life hell for you in the Press. I have seen several such ladies at the races. Each one more holier than thou who think nothing of the malnourished and over burdened Ponies in Ooty because it gives them no mileage in the Press.

Last year we saw a signboard on the roads that indicated a kennel with litter. I was eager to go and see the pups. A kennel is the place for people like me who want to pick up some puppies and play with them for a while. When we reached the “Kennel” what we saw horrified us. Small plywood boxes housed new born puppies separated from their mother who was trapped in a similar box under the harsh sun. The entire kennel consisted of a terrace with plywood cartons housing innumerable Alsatian puppies and dogs.

When I reported the matter to the lady from Mrs. Kenaka Handhi’s stables she pretended not to hear me and walked over to the generous bar laid out by the club on racing night. While she sipped the cocktails courtesy the prize bloodlines at the racing club stables, small malnourished puppies slept uncomfortably in small plywood boxes under the cold Ooty moon. Animals with no birthright because their owners could not provide the Champagne and Caviar needed to grab attention to their plight.

Dining in Hell

I guess this rant will be understood by people like me. By me I mean unmarried folks which would be the majority of people here.

I was at this popular breakfast haunt of Bangaloreans the other day. This place is like a holy place of us old Bangaloreans and we make a pilgrimage least once in two months to eat here. Most of us have had our first solid food here. I did, when I grabbed some Khara Bath(Upma in Hindi and Salt Mango Tree in Malayalam) from my dads plate and stuffed my mouth in front of my horrified mum. Then I insisted on finishing it and never looked at baby food again. Baby food tasted terrible after tasting Khara Bath from M.T.R. In fact everything tastes terrible after you have eaten from M.T.R.

I hated Baby food so much that my parents used it as blackmail to get me to eat food.

“Finish your rice Anju or you go back to baby food.” I was a very chubby as a kid.

So here we were three freinds on our monthly pilgrimage to M.T.R sitting at this table next to a large joint family. The joint family consisted of a grandpa, grandma, their siblings and the grandpa, grandma and their sibling’s older kids and the older kid’s younger kids most of whom were newly married with babies and toddlers. The entire Khandaan sat on half a dozen tables. The women wore ghoonghat (covered their head with saree pallu) and were perpetually busy keeping it in place. The men talked loudly amongst themselves and kids were like brats raised by a she wolf a la Jungle King for they crawled all over the table and under and generally behaved like a pack of baby animals escaped from a hospital for mentally retarded baby animals. Their parents had also ensured that they had all taken their Adrenalin tablets before coming to the restaurant. For good measure I guess they gave them twice the dose this day.

The food came and we watched with interest as the kids attacked the food like a horde of starving locusts. In the melee that followed most of us were treated to an aromatic bath of Sambhar, Chutney, Kesari Bath and Potato Curry and as an after shower perfume we were sprayed with hot Coffee and Tea. M.T.R. is one of the few places that serves you piping hot tea and coffee and this day it was scalding hot. Next time I take Burnol with me when I go there.

*Splat* and a blob of thick coconut chutney came and hit me like a slap. My white top looked like it had a splash of green color embroidered on. My friends started giggling. *Splash* a spatter of Sambhar sprayed on my other friends starched Organdy designer salwar. She looked like she was going to have a brain hemorrhage. I started cackling at the expression on her face and just then a half eaten vada came and fell on our table. The third girl at the table, a prim and proper missy had had enough. She took it and threw it back at the offending table. The occupants of that table stopped chewing, fighting, thwacking, throwing food and generally behaving like a bunch of cave people at an all you can kill and eat buffet and looked at us with disapproval. Then they promptly returned to the culinary orgy. I noticed that the kids had more food on their persons than in their bellies. Now that requires some serious talent I tell you! Hats off!

After the eating spree was over the kids turned their attention to the cutlery and crockery. Suddenly flying saucers and spoon appeared from nowhere and tables started bobbing up and down as determined kids tried to topple them from underneath. All this while the adults talked and chewed and talked some more.

We paid our bill and got up to leave. That’s when we noticed that the other neighbors of the Adams family had pulled their table as far away as they could from this family. Bummer. Wish we had done the same. :(

Blog Rolling

Back in 2005 when I started my Blog Roll, it was a list of blogs I read. It still is. A handy bookmark that’s all. It was never an affirmation of anyone’s writing prowess. And not being on my blog roll was not in any way indicative of a lack of it either. It was just my reading list. Soon I had people writing in asking me to put on the blog roll. I explained the situation and most were satisfied with my answer. But some were not. I was often accused of putting people who comment on my blog or linking people who link me which is ridiculous as there is more then 300 blogs linking me while only 10-15 of them figure in my blog roll.

Over the years my Blog Roll grew and this year it went out of control as I had over 35 new blogs to add with no space! I hunted high and low for a widget like the Google Followers Widget that so neatly packs in so many links in a small square. But I found none. The other choice was to avoid putting in new blogs. But then like I told you this is my reading list and I have no favorites. So last week I had to take the hard decision of deleting my blog rolls. I just could not justify excluding some bloggers due to space constraints.

My apologies to the people on the Blog Roll and to the awesome list of bloggers I wanted to add. I really have no choice with the present widget.

I also want to add something here. I am no King or Queen maker. Figuring in my Blog Roll will not guarantee anything. And not figuring in my Blog Roll will not make a jot of difference to your blog too. People read what they like and not what I like or link. Period. There are trillions of awesome blogs out there that did not figure in my Blog Roll. My advice to bloggers would be to comment at other blogs so that people can click on your link and visit your blog and through their comments section you get to read a Smörgåsbord of new blogs.

I am a compulsive blog hopper and that is how I found a lot of blogs. I am also a compulsive blog linker. I try to link interesting posts at the end of my blog posts here and at Poomanam. And I will continue to do so. But again…I link only posts I really like.

I am a bad commenter. I really am. I can only write “Good Post’ or “Hilarious” or “Touching” and more in that vein. I have nothing to criticize in any blog as the blog is the blogger’s personal opinion and he/she has a right to it. I cannot tell a blogger to write better or that he/she can do better because I feel that just because you express your thoughts in words and sentences should not make you a liable for literary criticism. That is strictly meant for professional writer’s not personal bloggers. That leaves me with little to comment unless I want to add an anecdote like the wonderful anecdotes people have left on Hindicapped.

If you see me commenting less and less it is because of a very tight schedule. My team which requires at least 8 people is running on 4 due to a hiring freeze. Which means all hands on the deck. And secondly I am hurting some people by not commenting at their blogs. So to be fair I have decided to comment only when I really really want to.

I hope I don’t sound pompous here, if I do I am sorry. Have mercy on poor, homeless, orphan and give me some money err I mean go easy on me folks.

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Down the long and winding memory lanes and by-lanes

I have a rather tartly friend. I might as well admit it she is my best friend. She is a tartly, sarci, sharp tongued female called Natasha. She is variously called as Pudgy, Pudges, Nats, Mittu and bitch. I might as well admit it; she is mostly called a bitch. She is a self proclaimed bitch because she calls a spade a spade and an idiot an idiot.

She is called Pudgy because she was very chubby in Kindergarten and we pronounced chubby as 'pudgy' for a long time till corrected. But the name stuck.

Pudgy and me met in kindergarten. The first meeting was not so nice. Pudgy was clinging onto her Dad’s arms bawling her lungs out. She kept bawling the whole day and I was pretty fed of the irritating noise. Next day the bawling continued and I remember going to her and doing the decent thing. I pinched her hard. She stopped bawling for a second and then bawled harder till she was blue in the face. I raised my hands to pinch her again. This time she lowered her volume a bit and began whimpering. I was about 4 years old then and there were no hard feelings. I was just using a technique that worked very well in my limited experience. By mid morning of our second day at school she had stopped crying. She still had a sad and mopey look on her face and sulked most of the time but despite that she kept a wary eye on me.

On the third day of school Miss F my class teacher assigned us our seats and Pudges, surprise of surprise was sitting on my table. There were four of us at the small table with colorful chairs. We sat around the table so that we could face each other.

Pudgy's eyes filled with tears when she learned that she would be sitting at my table. However she dared not cry. She had learned her first lessons well. By the end of the second week we were friends. Once classes got underway Pudgy forgot her parents and got immersed in the hand painting, goo making and spitting and barfing orgy that is Kindergarten. And she topped in these classes too. She spat out anything she did not like and that was most of the stuff including her Tiffin. Ms F despaired till one day a sandwich from my Tiffin went down well with Pudgy. It was a Ham sandwich and Pudgy had never eaten non veg before. Throughout our 17 years or so of friendship Pudgy has broken every rule in the vegetarian book courtesy my Tiffin. By the time we were in first standard my mother packed enough food for the both of us.

Her Tiffin on the other hand was greatly relished by the Alsatian dogs at the convent. The ill tempered dogs were always happy to see us and Kempanna their keeper was not too pleased with the fact that five years of training to ensure a very bad tempered beast was undone by a humble Tiffin and six snot nosed girls! Guess he didn’t know much about dogs. For that matter he did not know much about gate keeping either because we sneaked out regularly to buy spiced Guavas from the man across the road till a flasher showed up and the Nuns decided to hire a proper guard. The 'ding-dong man' err flasher still hangs around the school gates though rarely now as he has grown old. Guess he has become too old for the job or perhaps the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

In second standard as is the practice in my school we were shuffled up and the whole lot of us ended up in different sections. This did not go down well with Pudges. She screamed blue murder and her harassed mom had to come and meet Princi and beg her to be put in my class. I will never forget the look on her face as Sr. A bought her to our class and told the class teacher that she had an additional student. While Sister was talking to the teacher, Pudgy grinned at the class triumphantly. I swear we saw a halo over her head and the devils pointy tail swishing behind her. A halo and the pointy tail describe Pudges best. In college she shocked the prudes by drawling “ I have a Nun and a Whore complex yaar!” I explained to her hyperventilating mom the next day outside the Deans office that a 'Nun and Whore complex' means a ‘little bit of bad and a little bit of good.’ She heaved a sigh of relief. She was one of the most gullible moms I have ever come across.

By middle school we had a reputation. Good girls but undisciplined. Lots of potential but least bothered of developing the same. Talented but prefer wasting their talents. Talkative. Opinionated, clannish, fiercely loyal and should be separated for their own good. We did get separated by the shuffling system, but there were three breaks and the ride home in the same van to huddle together again. By 6th standard the shuffling system was done away with and indulgent teachers ensured that the Band of Sisters sat together in one class.

By 7th standard the band of girls grew up. By now tummy ache tablets, pads and PMS were equally shared. There is a lot of comfort in sharing pain than pain medication at this stage of your life. When we not in pain and discomfort we jumped over the piles of leaf painstakingly collected from the 6 acre tree lined campus by the cleaners and heaped up to be burnt. We never got caught.

By 8th all that was behind us and we began to notice the existence of a species called boys. They looked horrible! Full Stop! We used Mills and Boons heavily to block out reality. We are still convinced that good guys exists only in novels.

By 9th we were more of less sure of ourselves. Surprisingly the gang that was voted most likely to get boyfriends first, turned out to be horribly conservative. The reason behind this we suspect was that all of us had brothers and we were not the gawking gals in awe of guys. We just knew how stupid they were by just looking at our brothers and their friends. The Nuns needs not take credit for our “conservativeness”. For that fact if they want to rear good girls I would suggest making their schools co-ed from KG.

10th standard was one blur of tuitions, shopping, tuitions, movies, tuitions, mall hopping, tuitions, window shopping, tuitions , wearing skimpy clothes behind locked doors, tuitions shaving legs, tuitions, pajama parties, tuitions and some more in that vein.

College was boring. No rules, no regulations to break, no teachers to run behind you, no protective Nuns to keep an eye on you. We who led a life of crime in school were suddenly clueless and jobless. Thankfully the various clubs and activities in college absorbed most of us and we began cleaning and polishing our talents buried under tons of dust and neglect.

College also put us through many virtual relationships as we saw the life cycle of many a classmates relationships from close quarters. By final year we knew everything that we needed to know about relationships except for being in one. We learned our lessons well.

So what’s the point of this saga which began with Pudgy but ended up with me sneaking in the wonder yeas of my life too? Because today is Pudgy’s birthday. And I cannot imagine any stage of my life without her…the North Indian girl with a South Indian heart who feels so lost when she goes to Delhi for vacations that she rushes back to namma Bengaluru and ‘sane people’. The girl who will gouge your eyeballs out if I were to only point in your direction. She will later apologize for not having heard me through or else she would have heard that I was merely pointing to you as an acquaintance. She spitfires first...asks questions and apologizes later. The girl who is sure she will marry a South Indian guy or a guy from her community who is born and bought here like her. Poor guy. My heart goes out to you. She might be my friend but she is a terrible female and you better be smart and well read and down to earth like her to get any. Else you adopt. Period.

Happy Birthday girl! May we live long enough to take our grand kids to the very Kindergarten from where we started off. I will be nice this time I promise. I will tell my grand kid to not to pinch your grand kid too hard.

I confess...

I have been conferred the Honest Weblog Award by KPJ chechi. This means a lot as I trumpet from every available platform that one must be honest at ones blog. Someone heard my trumpet at last! :p

So thank you Ma’am. Mucho honored!!

Rules of the tag:

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog’s content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”“When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!”

So I confess to almighty God and to you my dear blog pals that what I am about to reveal is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so please don’t strike me dead God, if it is not.

1. I am terrified of sharp and pointed objects like Knives and Needles. But I love cooking…so I am the Brand Ambassador for Band Aid.

2. I cannot hate anyone or remain angry at someone for long. As I kid I used to get frustrated at my inability to hold a grudge forever. I dreamed of working myself to frenzy and taking revenge. Now I thank god that I didn’t plot dark revenge against the kid who took my beautiful pink eraser, pencil box, water bottle, homework etc. Someone rightly said “Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - and it's all small stuff”

3. I am a walkaholic and musicoholic. I can walk for hours listening to music.

4. I can bear cold but not heat. I plan to retire to the hills.

5. Blogging is a big stress buster for me.

6. I am not a feminist.

7. I get blog burn if I hang around blogs…including mine too long. Don’t ask me why. I rarely open my blog page and if I do it is only to reply to comments or publish comments.

8. I sleep like a log and am up bright eyed and bushy tailed in a trice. No lingering in the bed for me unless I am sick.

9. Kissan Orange squash is my comfort drink and moms cooking my comfort food. I love eating Milkmaid!

10. I have never worked under a manager. As a communications professional I have always reported to CXO’s. They are the nicest people to work for. Mature, always busy or traveling and let their team takes their own decisions.

Anyone who wants to wash dirty linen in public may please take up this tag. I badly want to point fingers and laugh rudely at you.

Yum T V Toadies

Pix courtesy Bryon

I hate Yum TV Toadies. Somebody please duct tape the Dysphoric Maniac who produces the show and the wimp he hires as anchor to compere the show!

I do not understand this show…so please bear with me here. We first have the channel advertising auditions for the Toadies show. After which we are put through a prolonged serial display of Dysphoric Mania with the Dysphoric Maniac (DM) and another wimp who apes him, selecting participants for the show in front of the camera.

The selection process does not allow anyone with balls to stand up to the DM and only people who the DM can intimidate are selected. But not before he humiliates kids half his age in front of the camera because they are so desperate for a break on television. Pathetic and absolutely abusive. If he thinks that Toadies is about toughness then he needs to kick himself out of the show and get some real men to select the contestants!!

After careful selection of the Toadies, the DM begins the show where a toy boy called Ran V Joy puts the toadies through various tasks. The Toy Boy looks ill at ease and stands like an emasculated eunuch when the Dysphoric Maniac walks into the show from time to time and abuses and scolds the contestants for the most weirdest reasons and walks out like a coward. After which the Toy Boy picks up the pieces and conducts the competitions and eliminations.

In between the tasks the Toadies face the camera and bitch about each other in Hindi. Just when you are settling in to watch the competition, in walks in the DM again...to stand in front of the camera and scream his lungs out at the Toadies for silly reasons like failing in the tasks. His voice is weak, tinny and irritating and he screams like a spoilt toy dog at a dog show snugly sitting in his rich mistresses arms away from the big dogs. His eyes bulges out, the veins on his neck stand out and you wonder if this guy is addicted to anger! A most unpleasant sight.

And if anyone from the ranks of the Toadies has the temerity to stand up to him, he is summarily dismissed from the show. “GET THE F&%K OUT” are the eloquent words used to remove a contestant from a show because he dared to face the bully. The DM then walks off with a look of supreme satisfaction like a man who has just had his fix after a long bout of cold turkey.

If you must know I watched the show out of curiosity the first time and the next time recently as someone urged me to watch the tamasha. I don’t know when the publicity starved populace of ours will realize the difference between opportunity and abuse.

Watch ‘Dance India Dance’ on Zee TV Mr. Dysphoric Maniac and learn from the judges how to conduct a show.

Degrees of separation

It is Friday morning and I am sitting at the Bangalore airport sipping a horrible Cappuccino and catching up on blogs and news. The airport is quite with sleepy passengers nursing their coffees, teas and hangovers in silence. Thanks to airport car pooling I have arrived very early for my flight to Mumbai. It was just a few months ago that we had individual cabs for airport drops. Sheer waste of fuel, I used to think then. Recession seems to have bought my snobbish company to earth with a gentle thud. Gentle thud…because many other wasteful practices still continue.

I am so engrossed in my laptop that I do not see nor hear a young girl sitting next to me. She is a really good looking Tambram girl. She looks very conservative though from her clothing. She carries a toddler in her arms. She seats the toddler on the chair and goes to get the trolley with her luggage. Before she goes she asks me politely if I will keep an eye on her son. I nod smiling at her. She smiles back reassured. I see her pushing a trolley with numerous bags which she parks near me. Then she glances at the airport entrance and gazes with some desperation at an old couple standing out side. The old couple is dressed in very traditional clothes of Palghat Brahmins. They look so nice and homely that I feel at tug at my heart for the girl who is obviously leaving them for another shore. A young man, perhaps her brother gently guides the old couple away from the door towards the car park. A very tactful move I think. The girl gazes at them till they are out of sight. She swallows hard, wipes her eyes surreptitiously and turns to me and thanks me for looking after her son and luggage.

“Are you the only daughter” I ask.
“I have an anna” she said smiling in relief. She is glad for the conversation.
“Are you married” she asks flicking her eyes at my neck and ring finger.
“No” I say with a smile.
“Don’t marry too far away from your parents okay?” she says turning her face away. She seems to be battling some emotions for it is a while before she looks at me and gives me a polite smile.

She asks me about my college and school and we find quite a few people we know in common. She had studied in a college in Malleswaram and then went on do her Engineering in Coimbatore. We talk about Bangalore and familiar hangouts in Malleswaram, M.G Road and Majestic area, the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of the people of Malleswaram and Rajajinagar and the numerous book fairs that we attended in droves. She tells me how intimidated she is of girls from my college and how surprised she is that I was normal in spite of being from “that” college. We talk about the eateries in Malleswaram and the movie theaters near Majestic. We realize that we had haunted the same places as college girls though a few years apart. She was senior to me by five years. She was married at 21 on the last day of her Engineering exam and left for the US with her husband soon after. In the US she spent many a boring day confined to the house till her husband returned home late in the evening. She never saw the town she lived in till the snow melted and they were able to go out. Then she was pregnant. She had her baby in the US and her sister-in-law came and stayed with her as her parents were too old to travel to the US. This is her first visit to India after her baby was born. She had apparently had a wonderful time and now a lonely home in the US awaited her after a tumultuous and eventful visit.

Out flight is announced and I help her board with her numerous pieces of baggage. In the aircraft I am surprised to see her heading towards me and asking the gentleman sitting next to me if she could sit next to me. The gentleman obliges. She settles in with a sigh of relief. We talk some more about her life in the US and her loving but rather busy husband. At Mumbai I find her a trolley and help her deposit her baggage.

At the gate we part promising to keep in touch. I spy my cab. Before I get in, I look back to wave good bye. She is standing near the door child in hand gazing at me with some desperation. I wave and quickly get into the car. A tactful move I think. Perhaps she will find another me on the next leg of her journey. I pray that she does.

View from the other side

An open letter to Gen Kayani by Col Harish Puri (Retd)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Dear Gen Kayani,

Sir, let me begin by recounting that old army quip that did the rounds in the immediate aftermath of World war II: To guarantee victory, an army should ideally have German generals, British officers, Indian soldiers, American equipment and Italian enemies.

A Pakistani soldier that I met in Iraq in 2004 lamented the fact that the Pakistani soldier in Kargil had been badly let down firstly by Nawaz Sharif and then by the Pakistani officers' cadre. Pakistani soldiers led by Indian officers, , he believed, would be the most fearsome combination possible. Pakistani officers, he went on to say, were more into real estate, defence housing colonies and the like.

As I look at two photographs of surrender that lie before me, I can't help recalling his words. The first is the celebrated event at Dhaka on Dec 16, 1971, which now adorns most Army messes in Delhi and Calcutta. The second, sir, is the video of a teenage girl being flogged by the Taliban in Swat -- not far, I am sure, from one of your Army check posts.

The surrender by any Army is always a sad and humiliating event. Gen Niazi surrendered in Dhaka to a professional army that had outnumbered and outfought him. No Pakistani has been able to get over that humiliation, and 16th December is remembered as a black day by the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani state. But battles are won and lost – armies know this, and having learnt their lessons, they move on.

But much more sadly, the video of the teenager being flogged represents an even more abject surrender by the Pakistani Army. The surrender in 1971, though humiliating, was not disgraceful. This time around, sir, what happened on your watch was something no Army commander should have to live through. The girl could have been your own daughter, or mine.

I have always maintained that the Pakistani Army, like its Indian counterpart, is a thoroughly professional outfit. It has fought valiantly in the three wars against India, and also accredited itself well in its UN missions abroad. It is, therefore, by no means a pushover. The instance of an Infantry unit, led by a lieutenant colonel, meekly laying down arms before 20-odd militants should have been an aberration. But this capitulation in Swat, that too so soon after your own visit to the area, is an assault on the sensibilities of any soldier. What did you tell your soldiers? What great inspirational speech did you make that made your troops back off without a murmur? Sir, I have fought insurgency in Kashmir as well as the North-East, but despite the occasional losses suffered (as is bound to be the case in counter-insurgency operations), such total surrender is unthinkable.

I have been a signaller, and it beats me how my counterparts in your Signal Corps could not locate or even jam a normal FM radio station broadcasting on a fixed frequency at fixed timings. Is there more than meets the eye?

I am told that it is difficult for your troops to "fight their own people." But you never had that problem in East Pakistan in 1971, where the atrocities committed by your own troops are well documented in the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. Or is it that the Bengalis were never considered "your own" people, influenced as they were by the Hindus across the border? Or is that your troops are terrified by the ruthless barbarians of the Taliban?

Sir, it is imperative that we recognise our enemy without any delay. I use the word "our" advisedly – for the Taliban threat is not far from India's borders. And the only force that can stop them from dragging Pakistan back into the Stone Age is the force that you command. In this historic moment, providence has placed a tremendous responsibility in your hands. Indeed, the fate of your nation, the future of humankind in the subcontinent rests with you. It doesn't matter if it is "my war" or "your war" – it is a war that has to be won. A desperate Swati citizen's desperate lament says it all – "Please drop an atom bomb on us and put us out of our misery!" Do not fail him, sir.

But in the gloom and the ignominy, the average Pakistani citizen has shown us that there is hope yet. The lawyers, the media, have all refused to buckle even under direct threats. It took the Taliban no less than 32 bullets to still the voice of a brave journalist. Yes, there is hope – but why don't we hear the same language from you? Look to these brave hearts, sir – and maybe we shall see the tide turn. Our prayers are with you, and the hapless people of Swat.

The New York Times predicts that Pakistan will collapse in six months. Do you want to go down in history as the man who allowed that to happen?

The writer is a retired colonel of the Indian army who lives in Pune.

Happy Easter!

Summer is here and the trees and shrubs in my house are a spray with blooms in myriad colors. This year we've had a semblance of a "Bangalore Summer" of yore...comparatively mild compared to the summers we have been having for the past seven years or so. I took some pictures of the flowers and trees in my house on a pleasant summer evening some time last week. Here are a few pictures.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!!

May the Lord continually bless you with heaven's blessings as well as with human joys. Psalm 128.5

What's the good name?

What is the height of adventure? For some people it is jumping from a plane...for some it is bungee jumping or scaling a steep cliff. The thrill and the adrenalin rush it gives you is a heady feeling. For me the ultimate adrenalin rush comes with flirting with grave danger a.k.a calling my mother “edi leelamme.” The thrill it gives will beat sky diving with an umbrella any day!!!

I come from a family where calling elders by name is forbidden even if the elder is elder by a couple of months only! If you were to ask me what my grandfather’s youngest brother’s name is I wouldn't know and he is my favorite grand uncle too! He is called Kunjitappan (Kunju + chittappan). His eldest brother is called Perappan and the guy after him Chittappan. The wives also follow the same naming logic and that is 8 pairs of names that we kids memorized by habit by the time we were 6 or 7 years old. I have to call both my elder brothers "chetan" even though one doesn't deserve it at all :p Even cousin brothers who are elder have to be addressed as “chetan” and cousin sisters are “chechi.” It is more or less a habit now and as a kid I amused elders by calling cousin brothers close to my age as “eda cheta”

Luckily for us we are allowed to call my Dad’s five brother as “uncles”. However there was a hitch. Every person in my family both from my mother’s side and father’s side has a nick name…sigh. And remembering my uncles nicks was really tough. My Dad is called Kunjunju, the next Kunjooty and so on. We could never tell them apart and to the usual question as to which of the brothers kids were, we usually messed up royally :p My family is 500 strong so you can imagine the number of names we had to know. It came naturally as we have heard them being addressed with their nick since we were lil kids. But there is a hitch here too. We do not know their “real names” It was very recently that I came to know that two close friends and cousins called “Kunjumon” and “Ciby” were Mathew and Sebastian respectively and the revelation came when they came here for their interviews and my Dad was going over their papers. For the past 21-22 years I had never known that they were Mathew and Sebastian!!!

So this Saturday I sat down and got my mom to tell me the “real” names of people I know so well except for their ‘real’ names of course. And out tumbled the Antony’s and Abrahams and Korahs and Thomases out of the family closet. I just couldn’t believe that these people had normal names! :-O

What is more surprising and somewhat miraculous is that my Mom and Dad married into almost identical families as far as nomenclature traditions are concerned! Else they are as different as chalk and cheese :p

Coming to the height of adventure….now you can imagine the grave peril I subject my life and limbs to when I dare to call my mom “edi leelamme”. And it is the absolute faith in my ability to outrun my mom and stay out of sight till she cools down that makes me take the chance! :|