I exist to be extinct…

The story which I’m going to tell you does not contain fight scenes, or romantic melodramas, or any kind of rhapsodies or melancholies. The leitmotif of the whole story may not interest you; I know you are in the ‘smart’ age with many things to care about. But, you should realize that about 500 years from now you will be dumb enough to eat all the ’smart’ phones, you created in this world. Sounds weird!!! Hmmm you will get the grasp slowly. We were also like you, after we were born. We too had food, flew in the sky, went to restrooms and swam in the water like any bunch of you did. Thanks to you, we got a name and our family had the origins in Midway Ocean, a beautiful island in the North Pacific Ocean, Mother Nature’s gift to us. Our family name is ‘Diomedeidae’. Yeah it’s different from the normal Tom Dick and Harry. Never mind, we didn’t ask you to remember us, save the pains for you to Google us to find out ‘what’ we are.

But just understand that, we are like you and live in the same blue earth. Maybe we lack cognizance and forgot to inherit the survival traits. We too breathe and drink water. I don’t think (sorry we do not have the sixth sense of thinking, may be that stopped us from being cruel) you ever cared about us. Sorry, I know; you people fight among yourselves and kill your lot lol…where in the world do you get time to think about us. Perhaps your lexicon obliterated the word ‘humanity’ from it. Well! We do not have the strength to retaliate either. I know only some of you loved us and for them I would say, after some years from now, you can happily enter us in the list of endangered species and later on, in the extinct list. We would be just pictures that had life that existed about a century ago. Kids would see us only in their smart books, meanwhile listening to their live robot instructor say, ‘Dodos existed, and then exited, and some creatures in the Midway Island also once existed’.

Still wondering, who we are. Hmm, sorry we do not have beautiful apps to message you about the condition we are in today. All that I see around me are, my fellow brothers lying on the sea shore, dying of pain and sufferings. Thanking you again for not coming and living with us. We never wish to see the creators of our life’s upheaval. We never bothered you for our daily bread nor waged wars for lands. We just needed peace, and I think you misspelled it as ‘piece’. Yeah all that is now left is full of pieces, a whole lot of garbage coming out from our ugly bellies, as we lie their motionless, waiting for the decomposition to start. We do not blame you for what you did to us; but we pity you that you will also be one day just pictures in this world for no one to see. Maybe the next generation monkeys will study about how you looked like and what all atrocities you did to this world.

Yesterday I think we had the last get together, dinner was delicious. It was full of putrefied garbage and it tasted like heaven. My family died few moments ago, and as I learned to write and read from a nice man who came here for making a documentary of us last summer, I thought I would pen this down before you could see any last of me.
With love,

My common name is Albatross!

Inspired from : https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200096980125409

It’s my village….It’s my paddy field….

London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, Sydney …. Well! sorry to say these are not the part of my travel itinerary, nor the list of meeting locations I need to attend. Nah! I’m a not a rich guy who can’t keep track of the countless leaves he has in his account nor an itchy feet who can’t keep his toes firm on a single place and loves to roam around. A normal youngster abnormal in some ways, and paranoid about many things, I was cultivated in a loving city which is often stigmatized by the ‘so’ called metro dwellers as a developing VILLAGE in the tip of south India.

Trivandrum aka Thiruvananthapuram in the local parlance had its etymology linked to the abode of Lord Anantha (Vishnu). Surrounded by the mighty Arabian Sea on one side and the plush herculean mountains to her east she had the befitting sobriquet as ‘evergreen city of India’. Her geography was pleasing; she is in the tropical wet vegetation zone making her Temperate and Tundra sisters envious. Now don’t ask me where Trivandrum is in Koppen Geiger Map. As her lovely ‘city’zen right from my birth all I know is, she never sheds her leaves, neither she is irksome having huge downpours nor making her inhabitants niggling about the sweltering heat. So people were at ease of getting acclimated to her gentle wafts and her warm monsoons.

Her morning kick starts early at 5’o clock in the morning (Sorry we do not have night life. We are diurnals) by the righteous puffing of the famous Venad Express starting in the south where she has carved the busiest railway tracks for her commuters in south India. As the rooster wakes up everybody in the dawn the temple bells ring in unison, concurrent with the reverberation of the holy conch. The morning chants and rituals take place in the temple with lark persons jostling through the temple boulevards, draped in dhoti and chanting verses. Sunday mornings are blessed with blissful church bells with faithful followers flocking the church for the holy mass with cross necklace in one hand and a holy Bible in the other. One can’t miss the evening mellifluous euphony of Holy Quran from the nearby mosque which is usually crowded on Fridays for the Namaz.

One can’t deny the fact that she is the only city (later introduced in Cochin, her neighbour) in her state which has transport buses plying in the city. I know it’s puzzling, but other cities had private buses famous for hooting their vexing horns and driving with reckless speeds toppling off poor grandfathers from the doorsteps, while the delightful drivers enjoying the ridiculous and detrimental bus sports with other private buses. Trivandrum has always welcomed newbies to her city with great charm. Apart from the four metro cities in India she was the first to be bestowed upon an International airport adding to the feathers in her glory hat. She houses great educational organizations in par with the first IT Park in India, engendering roughly 5000 professionals every year.

She has clean roads, not so wide, neither narrow too. (We don’t throw garbage on the road, but if we are at our nerves we may dump it on the garage of the next door neighbour). The only concern about her came from funky dudes or geek techies fussing about the lack of perfect romantic hangouts or huge Malls herded with hot babes to old fashioned nannies carrying their shiny leather bags. But, we did have malls, oops I forgot a prefix ‘S’, it was S(mall)s, and had only limited savvy outlets and a small tinge of urbane air. The conservative laid back society slowly transformed to a suave living. Even though Trivandrum witnessed the meagreness of an urbane society in the early nineties, the next generation compensated that with their debonair perception. Ice cream parlours and Beauty parlours swarmed various parts of the city adjoining newly opened north Indian dhabas along with new age gadget shops.

Being the state capital, half her inhabitants were middle class government servants trying hard to make the daily bread, helping the smooth functioning of the government and sluggish enough to be on time for work, at the same time yawning big time, with a wide open Malayalam daily in their lap, and a half burnt cigar held precariously between the fingers, yammering about the inevitable hikes of petrol and why the corruption was still at large. Another trait about Trivandrum subjects are the mix of ethnicity they had. From staunch Malayalam speakers to genteel English society and from typical Tamilian to a zealous Punjabi, all sorts of people loitered in the city. Business was at full bloom with flowers, fruits and vegetables agglomerating the market pavements. High class vendors to chintzy merchants made a living here.

Even if she is small, with no skyscrapers, she is my den, my igloo that sheltered me with her tiny treasures. It’s my village…it’s my paddy field!!!

As the time changed so did the clock!!!

Wrngggggggggg …. A perfect cacophony startles you, as you rub your eyes, see the two pristine hands of the perfect circle hung in the wall, see four hands instead of two, due to oversleep and jump from the bed with dismay of being (as usual) late to kick start your day. Well, it happens to most of us, its banal and a mundane task of our life. The clock or any other, time device which helps us to keep track has reformed so much that we seldom think of it.
Gone are the days, when the Neanderthals and the era of Australopithecus relied on the wonderful avian ‘Hen’ not only for her precious eggs, but also for her punctilious cooing, early in the morning waking all the Flintstones around. It took some time when one of the brightest member in the Flintstones family realize that, the shadow caused by the mighty Sun could also help us know the time. Well Thanks to Christian Huygens, we got the Pendulum clock.

I remember the day when my cousin in her early thirties helping her 5 year old son to teach the hands of the clock. The humble lady with much apprehension had a tough time to make him comprehend the essence of 60 minutes, 3 hands and 12 gleaming digits which randomized our chores wisely. The kid, tired of equating 60 minute as 1 hr (Gosh, it makes me remember velocity, time and ugly Physics) finally freed himself from his mommy’s clutches and came back with his Daddy cool’s ‘smart’ Phone, pressed the bottom button hard and asked ‘what is the time now’. A female voice replied. ‘Its 10 30 AM ‘there you go’ was his reply with a childish smirk on his face. Perhaps my cousin realized her cyber kid was well apprised about the tech buzz and was fortunate enough to have a digital assistant at a young age.

Clocks and watches were replaced fast. Born in late eighties, the breeze of nostalgia makes me think of Grandfather clocks with a tenuous pendulum and a bob made of Invar recurrently moving to and fro to show us the time. Wonder how it got its name ‘Grandfather’ clock. Well, those are fond memories when we study how properties of Invar changed with weather and how Hook’s law discussed the principles of oscillation. (Don’t worry; I’m not reinstating the law here). We even had a rhyme about the Grandfather clock.

“The Grandfather clock was too tall for the shelf
So it stood ninety years on the floor”

Thus goes the rhyme. Maybe now the syllabus (syllables) changed and they might have rephrased it as

‘The Smart Phone had an app which was so fast and best
‘That we could touch it to see the time’

Hmm that clock is rarely seen in households now. Watches on the other hand revolutionized two fold. Talking and Recording watches were a matter of pride among us during my schooling days. After much alibis I too got one as a gift from my aunt. With such pomp and pride I strapped mine onto my wrist ‘showing off’ and with a great propensity jabbering the talking button habitually which announced the time with great vibrancy, that my bench mate couldn’t resist and gave a helping hand in the class and eventually, the watch landed up safely in the hands of the teacher, a grumpy old lady who fussed about fanciful items that kids coddled with.
Clock Towers are famous all over the world and gratified enough my city too embellished her priced possession like the Big Ben. We had a ‘Methan Mani’ near the Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple. The specialty of that clock was that it has two Ram (Sheep) and they banging into the cheeks of a bearded man when the clock strikes the hour. It was a design of great impeccability and it still works with great accuracy (http://www.hindu.com/lf/2004/11/01/stories/2004110101450200.htm)

Years passed, and watches and clocks developed well. We also coped up with the new inventions. We had a clock which chimed the no of times the current time was. It helped me a lot to count and thus get the time correctly. My family then purchased a new clock when I finished counting, replacing the ‘Grandpa’ and welcoming ‘Mrs Hen’ to our home. She used to push her door majestically from the clock’s wooden creaking door at periodic intervals flapping her wings, and cooing her throat out. It was such fun to have her around. She was busy at work to make our schedule go neat. The pestering me would wake her up in odd hours by pushing her door open and giggle at her and then getting caught red handed by my grandma reprimanding me not to repeat it. But that clumsiness never stopped, until Mrs Hen stopped visiting us one day and we all knew she was ready for her burial. (Thank God, nobody suspected me of my culpability; well I didn’t know she was too fragile).

The transition from the Analog to the digital world was fast. Kids no longer took time to imbibe the hour minute and seconds hand. The neat 7 segment display displayed the time correctly making life simpler. Small watches which used to fit the wrist nicely were later supplanted by heavy ones, adding to more functionality and addling us more. Hmmm, the on-going revolution has indeed bought us some ‘cool’ inventions. Let’s hope that it’s still, 60 minute – 1 hour after 100 years.

After all, we just need to know the time. Needn’t know how we get it. Phew!

From Puttu Kadala to Pani Puri to Panini….

Days change, weeks do and even Seasons do, but the one thing that never wished the same was my tongue. The 4 inch long thing comfortably resting in my buccal cavity often peeked outside to complain whenever it felt a change of taste. Ranging from the famous ‘Sweet Land Bholis’ to the spicy thattukada Puttu, it had the essence of a ‘spicy’ life time. Yes! It grew well, discerning the churning mixtures of Kerala’s finest spices and condiments. Till my late teens my tongue learned about a melange of south Indian dishes. Born in an orthodox Vegetarian family, my kin tried with utter wariness not to harm the animals. Considered sacred, we just munched the leaves of plants with such ravishment and nourishment relishing it with great zeal. My stomach, a tiny little thing (who never wished to grow, saving me from great efforts not to stand with my back upright in photos, not to expose his ugly protuberance) was very contented with what my tongue passed on.

Things were fine till my college days, when the whole digestive system enjoyed the occasional inputs of what I gave them, morning breakfast consisting of a wide variety of homemade dishes encompassing the dining table either with white circular dosas, neatly stacked on an aluminium plate with mustard oil dripping from its pores, or a bowlful of puris lying on top of each other, showing their great bellies boasting about the wheat content in them. Lunch was a great deal for my tongue. He eagerly waited for the stomach to ring the ‘Hunger Bells’ sounding the warning of a prospective acid flow making the lethargic me walk to the College food court. He knew I served him numerous bowls of tangy dishes comprising of bubbly sambhar to loose rasam with one or two ladies finger floating on it (oops, sorry I din mean it literally , Okra was called ladies finger in India, I still don’t get the etymology behind it ).

South India, famous for its wide variety of dishes, my poor stomach was never at rest. I think it had a huge factory built in there ready to grab every chunk of food passed through my alimentary canal mixing it with copious amounts of intestinal and pancreatic juices. Well! Digestion was well taken care of lol…. With Exceptional gastric problems and unbearable stomach aches my system functioned quite well, even during my short vacations. Well! Things had to change and my tongue knew that he can’t have his great companions, his taste buds along with him forever. Adaptability and Adjustability were the two abilities that my tongue learned new, when I started my Career in a software company in Mysore, a picturesque town in southern Karnataka. Things seemed different when my tongue meticulously figured out things are quite different than he had anticipated, my tongue witnessed famous ‘sweet’ Kannada Sambhar, tangyyyyy Andhra Biriyani, and of course ‘Balle Balle’ Pani Puris to the mouth-watering Delhi Durbar Delicacies. Hmmm He had to finally give in to whatever food I bought.

My poor stomach on the other hand had to install a new biological clock for my body. He did not get timely foods which were pertained to the heavy training sessions in the company. He used to instigate my hunger and anger by his assiduous nature producing more acid. Perhaps God saw his mishap and granted him a boon which made me shift to my home town after finishing my training. Both tongue and stomach heaved a sigh of relief and thought, finally their ‘happily ever after’ was coming true! But to their dismay, I had to relocate again due to inevitable backache and to pursue a new career.

This time, it was an International trip; crossing the seven seas and climbing many tortuous mountains, I finally reached America lol… My poor tongue took some time to get accustomed to the wide variety of dishes my eyes saw. Hmmm People say all roads lead to Rome. With the same insight I too tried Mexican, Chinese, Italian and American food. Yeah all food lead to stomach lol…My mouth started to pronounce Parmesan, Cheddar and Mozzarella with great ease, while my tongue erased ‘Idli’, ‘Pongal’ and ‘Dosa’ from its lexicon. Lettuce was a new leafy vegetable my stomach learned about and He knew that Cilantro was nothing but Coriander. After all, genetics taught us that we adapt easily, and we are adept at it. The only loathsome vegetable that my tongue fussed about was ‘Broccoli’ . According to my tongue, it had no taste, bland and flavourless. Thus my tongue had tasted the variegated food in short span and it finally learnt that mustard and custard are not the only food in this world!!!

After all, you eat to live and not live to eat lol…..

The TamBrahm milieu in me!

As the day dawns and sweet music enunciated by the gifted MS Subbulekshmi [Kausalya Suprajha Rama Purva…] fills your ears, you yawn, stretch yourself and cuddle nicely in the bed when suddenly a man in his late fifties clad in white dhoti, chanting mantras, reflecting the sun’s rays from the oily pleats of neatly combed hair and three neatly made white streaks on the forehead with bone ash, comes to wake you up. Well! It’s my dad. I can’t depict a so called south Indian Kerala origin Tamil Brahmin more than this lol. Your day kick starts wonderfully from a clichéd phrase from your dad, ‘deii Suryan Vandu romba neramachu, endruda , sandyavandanam pannu ‘which can be perfectly translated into ,’ you lousy bag, its high time that you get up and start your Surya namaskara’ !. lol

The day you enter Brahmacharya , i.e. since the day you have the sacred thread around you, you have to play by the rules. The set standard protocol goes thus, get up early in the morning, take a refreshing shower, perform the morning rituals and chant the Gayathri mantra. It is said to open your third eye (Upanayanam), and imparts more knowledge in you. Well! Having difficulty in opening my god given two eyes every morning and promptly getting rebuked by your father, no amount of alibis or tantrums can make your day worse.

After much more insults and sardonic statements from your father, you get up from the bed fussing about being born in a Kerala TamBrahm family. You go downstairs, enticed by the sweet aroma, lingering in the air, coming from the kitchen combined with caffeinated scent from a filter coffee cup left unwashed by your bespectacled grandma, you rub your eyes and stand in front of your mother with a sheepish grin ready to take in more scolding. But you see, the generous lady having her hair tied with a bath towel and very busy in her chores, console you, and offer a steaming cup of coffee. With great affection, you take that and walk towards the veranda to see your sister in law, adjusting her hair adorned with beautiful Jasmines, showcasing her artistic skills of Euclidean geometry on the ground with her embroider dress smeared with various colours of Rangoli powder. After all, she was drawing the ‘kolam’, the daily routine of drawing a pattern on the ground with a special flour mix. The tradition was that it served as the food grains to the ants. Every ritual did have a meaning and served a purpose, but born in the digital world, youngsters like me seemed too preoccupied with their smart phones to care about all this lol. I nodded my sister a hello and was busy texting my friend when a hand comes out of nowhere and smears oil in my head, it was my granny, a 70 year austere soul dressed in cotton draped lengthy sari of 9 yards, who usually loiters around the house with a Bhagavad Geeta in one hand, and a bunch of Ananda Vikadans (Tamil Magazines) in the other.

The heavy odour of warm coconut oil indeed smelled good. ‘Boy, go and take your bath’ she tells. I go inside to find my elder brother savouring his idli pieces floating in Sambhar licking his fingers with great extent, eyes glued to the Hindu newspaper lying on his lap. ‘Amma , where is the curd’ he asks. Hmmm you see, TamBrahms are supposedly to be so fond of food, boasting about a large sized pot belly as the only thing they inherited as wealth lol. Especially when it comes to milk products, TamBrahms have a born affinity for it. Contrary to this, I seemed not interested in milk and its derivatives, and detested curd more like anything. Maybe ‘Cow’ was not ‘Wow’ for me. Lanky enough, I ate little and have never had curd rice in my entire life. It may sound puzzling to hear, but you see they were many cousins in my family who advocated me in this behaviour. About 5 of us hated curd, butter, buttermilk etc.
Another fact about being a TamBrahm born and bought up in Kerala was the typical distinguishable slang you developed. Perhaps the linguistic characteristics had its foundations in Tamil but embedded Malayalam words popped up here and there making it sound like a new language called Tamayalam. The only fact that amused me was the slang which made the rest of the world brand us as Palghat Iyers. Hmmm, but when people find out, ‘No I’m from Trivandrum..’. ‘Oh! Your lot is there in Trivandrum too’… I just have a stoic expression and say ‘Yeah my LOT is there too, in fact lot of us ‘…lol….

Being every day in a week significant to us in one way or other, we celebrate every Moon Waxing and Waning, Sun Rising and falling, with such zeal lol…yeah it’s hard to remember the myriad festivals and auspicious days we have. We don’t light lamps during ‘Deepa’avali (meaning : group of lights) , instead we have a special day called Karthika where we embellish our Trivandrum roads with all the lamps and oil we got in our house blocking the whole Agraharam (street) infuriating many pedestrians and drivers out there lol…

Music runs in our blood, sorry don’t ask whether it is artery or vein, we are said to be very brilliant that we rarely visit doctors lol… Yeah! So everybody in the family knows some art form or the other. Yes and as you realized, we give the TamBrahm girls a tough time, we make her sing, dance, cook etc lol…. It’s presumed that she knows a bit of everything! We have the TamBrahm wedding ceremony for about 3 days, (don’t worry; food is served for all the days!)…with festivities starting about a week ahead with paternal and maternal athais (aunts) to sharp nosed periammas (mom’s elder sister) swarming your house calculating the no of betel leaves needed to the no of gifts you need to give the guests lol… yeah let’s call it ‘The Great Iyer Wedding’…lol… The Bride and Groom can enjoy sitting in the swing and enjoy their duet song, sit on their maternal uncle’s shoulder for a breath-taking Garland exchange sports, the groom getting tired with all the paraphernalia, decides to visit Goa (oops that was not in the plan, its Varanasi!) to get out from this, but reluctant enough by giving way to the pleading cries of his father in law!. Hmmm, maybe the whole screenplay and dialog makes our wedding 3 days to last long lol…Marriages so are made in Heaven !

After all, it’s good to enjoy for being what you are once in a while!.

Save the Mother Nature…..

As the little drops of water touched my cheek
I felt lonely in the boulevard so lean and weak

Nobody with me, and not knowing where to go
I stood still, searching for a friend or foe

Glimpses of events flashed through my mind
The stench of human blood made me rewind

There was once peace, when the Sun shined
Now it is just a flesh piece, where vultures dined

So, why did my brothers fight to kill
Oh ! It was just a fate created by the will

Trees cut, rivers drained, huge flats arose
And no garden left , even for a beautiful rose

Hunger, thirst and helpless cries
People started to fight , even for a slice

After all, we destroyed the nature and her glory
Now there is no time for regrets and sorry

Water water, not a drop to drink
Nothing left, even for a ship to sink

There was no Earth to show my son
Not even a path to play and run

Save the land save her soul, save each drop
As our children need, to water their crop

What we cut and kill, we won’t suffer
But all we destroy would drain the buffer

So friends, lets spread the glory of green
And teach our young ones not to be mean

A Glimpse of Earth in 2080…..

I see the star at night, it is so bright
The only glow I can see, no other light

It is like this for so many years
It has happened true to my worst fears

All the energy from earth drained out
Man did nothing to save; I doubt

There was a time when, there was some hope
But, all went behind luxury grasping the rope

Fan and light on, the place so bright
No one to switch off, such pathetic plight

No one bothered, no one really cared
Everybody thought nothing is to be spared

They used the water, they used the land
They built the buildings so rich and grand

All papers used, all trees were cut
Alas, they even crushed the last nut

Thus the life in the earth vanished,
The street lay empty and varnished

No more generations to come and flourish
No more kids, for the mothers to nourish

God created the world, so beautiful and nice
And Man was happy to cut and slice