To all drivers!

Anyone who had had a very close encounter in a road accident knows that all it takes is a few milliseconds to change your world, your family's world & even somebody else's world. I & SH had had a very close shave in Feb 2003 at Bangalore and the only reason we survived was helmets - The helmet almost broke into two and my head was intact... Apparently most of these awakenings/self-realization come only when one personally go through such a trauma because words, in any language, does not have the power to translate all that trauma into paper/web/media.

Drive Safely, Wear Seatbelts, Use Helmets if riding a bike! You are saving your life and may be a lot many others too. Nobody thinks high of you when you are speeding!

Watch this video & this is one of the closest that I have seen where the author/director has been successful in translating the trama - I dont know if it is just that I am able to correlate to it well..

Watch it here...

A Toy Story...

Act #1
Driving back home from office along with little one.
Started at 4PM since it was a Friday

LO: Daddy, Can we go to the store?
Me: What do you want to buy?
LO: I want to buy a baby toy.
Me: You already have a lot of toys to play with. What toy do you want to buy?
LO: Just… a baby toy… please?

I decide to go to the store, double it up with some pending grocery shopping.
Since SH would anyways take another 3 hours to reach home.

Act #2
Grocery shopping done, she did not get the toy from the Food Mart. Little one is hungry (time for evening snacks) & my mind worked a plan [LOL]. Mc Donald’s has a kid meal package that comes with a small toy. And she already has two suitcases full of toys that gives me Goosebumps when I think of packing up.

Me: Let’s go eat a burger? You must be hungry.
LO: No… I am not hungry daddy. Let’s go to this store (pointing to the nearby store in the shopping complex) & buy a toy
Me: Alright. Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything?
LO: Yeah…

Act #3
Little one picked up a miniature school bus from the store, and we are walking out to get into the car.

LO: Let’s keep this toy in the car & go eat the burger. OK?
Me: What??!
LO: Let’s KEEP this toy in the car and go EAT a burger… (Slow & loud – just in case if I didn’t understand… LOL )
Me: You said you were not hungry… just a few minutes back.
LO: Well, I am hungry now.
Me: OK. We can carry this toy with us. Let’s eat & then we will go to the car. OK?
LO: Okay.

We head to Mc Donald’s & she is particular about the kid meal with the toy!

Act #4
At home, me describing what happened to SH. We are having a hearty laugh over it

Me: ഇവള് നിന്റെ കൊച്ച് തന്നെ. നസ്രാണി ബുദ്ധി. സമ്മതിക്കണം.
SH: അത് കൊണ്ടു അവള് പെഴച്ചു (ജീവിച്ചു)പൊക്കോളും. അല്ലാതെ നിന്നെപ്പോലെ ആയിട്ടൊന്നും കാര്യമില്ല... നിന്നോട് ഇങ്ങനെത്തന്നെ കാണിക്കണം... പിശുക്കന്‍...

Feel at home - for a change!

Fourth of July calls for a lot of celebration in the United States on account of Independence day (July 4, 1776 from the British). It is a federal holiday and it is marked with a lot of fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics and concerts. And if we are in town, we never try to miss the nearest fire works that starts shortly after sunset ~ around 9 PM.

This time, we had a birthday party to attend in the evening and managed to scoot just in time to get to the venue at Florham Park, NJ only to find that the parking lots were full! There was a policeman controlling the traffic, walking up to each of the cars in the queue telling us that there is no parking space and we might have to turn back & look for alternatives... We had the expectation built for little one and were disappointed that we had to head back home or find any other viewing spot - which I had no clue about and the show will start in another few minutes!!

We did some roaming around & finally decided to go home and while passing through the Columbia Turnpike, by a very low-lit open space, I thought I saw a bunch of cars parked there. We took a chance to take a U-turn & get back to the open space. There was not a bunch of cars, but scores of cars, each of them neatly parked on the right side of a road, winding through a large open grass land and families waiting outside their cars, some in their beach chairs, some sitting on the bonnets of their cars waiting for the display to start!! We got a spot at the far end of the line, and a couple of more joined later, behind us.

I sat on the bonnet of the car, while SH & Little one leaned on to the door, waiting for the fireworks. It was a large grassland (with some swamp somewhere - I could smell it), unused space, sounds of cicadas piercing the night, no street lights and some mosquitoes too (yeah!) and I started getting a very familiar feeling... a very close feeling that I use to get when I go to see the fireworks early in the morning at Pariyaanampetta Pooram or Elavathikkal pooram near my ancestral village!

What a spectacular place to see the fireworks than this one! We were actually happy that we did not get a spot at the venue. And for a change, I decided to watch & enjoy the fireworks with my naked eye - so decided not to pull out the camera, hence the only photographs are etched in my mind!! ;)

We realized later, while returning home, that we were near the runway approach of Morristown Muncipal Airport & that explained the open space with no trees or construction!!

Day 3 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Disney World has 4 theme parks and 3 Water parks in Orlando. Water parks are more or less like the Veega Land / Wonder La kind of parks – though I had been to neither of these places :) – and do not even have a good liking for Water Parks. The 4 Theme parks are Magic Kingdom – Built on the theme of the fairies and princesses, Animal Kingdom – Built on the themes of the getting to know the different animal species around the world, Hollywood Studios – A sneak preview of how the different Disney & Pixar animation films are made and EPCOT which is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow – An Utopian idea of Walt Disney which was never completed.

I was very impressed by the way they are organized and especially the way how everything is managed in the parks. During the 5 days while we were visiting the Disney Theme Parks, I was NEVER disappointed for anything except the weather – which of course, they can do nothing about :). Parking lots up to the size of 20-30 football fields, trolleys that keep running every 5 minutes to take you to the gates, the SMILE on the face of EVERY employee starting from the parking booth attendant to the sweepers cleaning the walkways– it is just amazing! It is very true that a smile can do wonders and I really wonder how they manage to have each and every employee to have a pleasant and smiling face always - rain or shine. I am sure there must be lot of lessons for organizations on induction and orientation programs for employees.


So, Day 3 belongs to Disney’s Hollywood Studios!

The Park has various streets named Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Streets of America, Pixar Place where they had the various attractions & the shops selling Disney Merchandise. The first show that we got into was the ‘Voyage of the Little Mermaid’ – Little One’s favorite – in the Animation Courtyard. Almost every other day, ever since she read the story of The Little Mermaid, she turns out to be Ariel and myself King Triton!! This was a stage show with real people acting up as characters and I was really awed by the way how they created the 3D effects without having all of us wear those polarized glasses. The best one that I thought was very innovative was how they created the effect that all the audience was under the Ocean, They created some mist in the theater by fine spraying of water and used the laser beams on the 4 corners of the theater to make an illusion of the waves at the water level – which was projected on the mist! Little One did not want to go out even after the show ended & made up a small scene there.

We went on to the see another stage show next – Play House Disney. If you are a regular at the Disney TV Channel, you would have come across this show; the only difference was this was live. The kiddos had the option to dance along with their friends Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pooh, Tiger, Handy Manny, Piglet et all (Phew! I got most of them…:) ). Little One was very cranky by the 10 minutes waiting time and added to the fact that she wanted to use the rest room, but wanted to go home & not use the public one – Her paranoia of public restrooms still continues after she got really scared by the noise of the flush after using one in an airplane. She also met Mickey in person near the Animation Courtyard & we took a couple of photos with her & Mickey.

The next pit stop was at the Toy Story Midway Mania where we rode on spinning vehicles wearing polarized glasses to play interactive 3D games by using the Toy Cannons to throw darts/shoot at an imaginary projectile to hit the target. Little One enjoyed this one and I was pleasantly surprised to note that she & SH had a better score than me!! (enough to brush up my male ego… grrr). We went on to see the attraction of the Chronicles of Narnia which did not really excite us – mainly due to the factor that we hadn’t seen the film series and had no clue on what is going on – I had an after thought at this point of time. If Little One had not been in our lives forcing us to read & see most of these story characters, we would have been really lost in most of the places not knowing what was going around. All I knew about animation & cartoons until she came to our lives were Tom & Jerry and Mickey Mouse (mascot)!

We decided to have our lunch at the Mama’s Italian Grille near the Streets of America where SH & Little One had a bountiful lunch of Raviolis, Pasta and Spaghetti. I ended up paying through my nose for a tuna steak, grilled to perfection (?? huh) on a fire-wood grill decorated by crossed asparagus resembling the swords in the Saudi Kingdom’s emblem. After lunch, we started off to see some of the attractions in the Streets of America. We skipped the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular and the Extreme Stunt Show where they enact the various stunt scenes from the movies to give you an idea on how some of the scenes are shot in the movies. We did some walking around in the Streets of America around the sets created as New York City and San Francisco and we ended up at the Kid’s attraction – Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! Based on the movie by the same name, you get into a kids play area where you have large grass & weeds & Coke cans as large as you – A total change in perspective when you get onto a lawn as a small ant or a fly. I rested a while under a ‘leaf’ while the girls went around playing in the play area. I lost my cool for the first time during the vacation because the girls went missing & I ended up scouring the whole area to find them. We then decided to check out the 3D Muppet Show. The waiting time was boring – mainly because we were not a big fan of the muppets, but however the A/C hall on a hot afternoon was welcome :). Indirectly, we were ready to even get bored to hide away from the Florida Sun. It was almost 3:30 PM by then and we decided to get back to the hotel for a quick nap.

Up and recharged by 6 PM, we decided to make a quick entry to the Disney’s Magic Kingdom since we knew that this park is open until 10 PM (We had a park-hopper ticket which actually allowed us to hop between the parks). The best park among the four, truly living up to their punch line – “Where dreams come true” – Magic Kingdom is a true wonder.

From the parking lot, you are ‘transported’ into a Magical World either by a Ferry or by a Monorail (you can chose what to take) and this place is where all the characters in the Disney’s Princesses, Fairies and other animated magical stories live. The kind of happiness and surprise that I saw on Little One’s face when she got to see Tinker Bell, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rosetta, Jasmine & Aladdin in life – It is just beyond description! Very true to their slogan and the punch line – To believe in your dreams, you should believe in yourself – they motivate children to dream bigger, larger, king size and to believe in their dreams… It will then come true… It is not a surprise that even now, most of the innovations happen on this side of the world.

The biggest attraction and the icon of the Magic Kingdom is the Cinderella’s Castle. We walked through the Main Street USA which leads to the castle and went through the castle to the Fantasy Land. SH & Little One rode on Dumbo – The Flying Elephant and the Cinderella’s Golden Carousel - The oldest ride in Disney World, while I went out to get the Fast Pass for the Mickey’s PhilharMagic – A 3D movie experience with Mickey & Donald. It was already 8 by the time we finished up with Philhar Magic and we wanted to grab our dinner and get a nice place to watch the “SpectroMagic” parade that starts at 9 PM and “Wishes” - The Fireworks Spectacular that will start at 10 PM after which the Park closes for the day. We grabbed some bites from the restaurant at Tomorrow Land since we could not find a good place to watch the SpectroMagic Parade, and waited for the fireworks to start.

And the Fireworks, it is all in here!!! Just no words to describe (Listen with the Audio on to hear the background theme song – Wishes!)

I was again and again impressed by the management & organizing skills of the Park while at the end of fireworks, thousands and thousands of people exiting out of the park at the same time, and the only way to get back to the Parking lot (real world - as they say) was through the Ferry or the Mono Rail, it took us no more than 25 minutes, end-to-end. Talk about Capacity planning…

Day 3 ended past 11PM while we crashed back at the hotel.

The absent minded -

Sometimes, your brain tells you to stop, take a breather and then step on the gas again. And you don't listen because of 'priorities' - A convenient name that most of the professionals use to hide behind. And after a while it starts intervening with your day to day routine.

I had been having very long working hours in the past few weeks - thanks to some of the excellent support I receive from my counter parts. And it started to show off. I came to office one of these days to realize that I left my laptop back at home! Thankfully, I stay just a mile away from office, I could drive back & pick it up with in 20 minutes.

The best one happened yesterday evening. I locked myself out of my office with my car keys inside the office at 6PM. The regular office time ends here at 5, so visibly only a very few folks around. The icing on the cake? The keys to my office AND my home was inside my car! Thankfully, the admin assistant had left her office open last night and I was able to search the drawers to get the spare key to my office.

I & little one would have been stranded yesterday without the car ending up walking to our home or call a taxi to home which is just a mile away and waiting outside for SH to come home at 8:30PM (She carries a pair of the house keys)!

I think I should learn to stop for a while when my mind tells me to -

Day 1 - The 'Home Alone' Story

The end of another tiring week and by the time I & my girls came home on Friday, it was 30 minutes past 8 in the night. We were very excited, not just by the fact that it is going to be a weekend, but that we were going to be on a week long vacation!! At the same time, we hadn’t even started packing for the week. I am a very ‘light’ traveler, (there had been instances while as a bachelor, I had gone home from Bangalore empty handed – and Amma would be like…Did you lose your bag?) but things have changed since the last 7 years… My significant half (SH) is a ‘check-list’ traveler. She normally keeps a checklist of stuff that she plans to carry & ensures that they are packed (talk about quality control…) and 2 girls – they are a crowd!

It was past 1 AM by the time we finished packing, finished QC checking round 1 & 2 and retired to bed. With the fact that we have to catch a 7 AM flight and the airport 14 miles away from home, we decided to wakeup by 4 so that we can plan to push-off by 5:45. I was entrusted to change the daily alarm to 4:00 AM from the regular 5:45 AM, which I religiously did & we crashed.

PAPPAAAA!!!!
That one jolted me up from the sleep!

“The alarm did not go off… It is already 5:30!!!” The long story short, we literally enacted the ‘Home Alone’ scene to start off in the car by 6. I did my first ever (in 2 years) over-speeding of 15 miles above speed limit of 65mph (in patches) and managed to reach the Airport by 6:20, returned my rental car at the counter, caught the air train to the terminal, went to the counter for baggage check-in, security check & to the gate, to see the half the crowd has been boarded & the rest of them in the queue. “Run, run, run… run baby run….” I bought some chocolates & some other stuff to engage little one during take-offs & landings and we finally boarded the Jet Blue flight 531 as the last set of passengers heading towards Orlando Florida.

The three and a half hour flight gave some time for SH to catch up more on sleep, little one to mess-up with the drawing board she carried & me to introspect why the alarm did not go off. After the take off was complete & the permission granted to switch on electronic devices, I switched on my phone to see what went wrong. It didn’t take longer for me to figure it out… Advanced settings are so convenient, but do not take care of exceptions! There was an option in the Alarm settings – ‘Ignore on Weekends’, because they knew most of the people will sleep longer on weekends & my phone did exactly what it is supposed to do. It ignored the Alarm on the weekend! Damn!!! So far so good, thankfully the vacation did not start off with a disaster & the excitement started to flow back in…


We landed at the Orlando International Airport at 10:45 AM (on time), collected the baggage & went to the car rentals office - Our companion for the next 8 days was a Chevrolet Equinox. I am no expert in SUVs (never owned one & have had some of the drives with friends), but I felt it was a decent one & comfortable. I started the GPS, punched in my hotel address & started towards our hotel in the Lake Buena Vista area. We decided to have our brunch before we checked in & had a Mexican brunch at Chevys (A Mexican restaurant chain). After an initial hiccup (check-in time was 3 & the rooms weren’t ready), we managed to check-in to the hotel at around 2 PM & got some sleep for a couple of hours.



At around 4, we started our drive towards the Clearwater Beach, Florida. It is around 100 miles from Orlando & takes about 2 hours to reach there. The sunset at the Pier 60 is a famous attraction and even though we visitied the place we couldn’t afford to stay until sunset which was around 8:30 PM because it would be too late for us by the time we get back & we may end up spoiling our next day too – especially since we hadn’t had a good sleep the previous night (After all, a vacation is to relax & unwind – right?) Little one & SH had a good time at the beach (I am very reluctant to get into the water) while I watched them from the shore & took photographs. The real paradox of the story is that among us, I am the only one who knows swimmimg & I am the most reluctant to get into the water (at public places)! Little one did a very thoughtful act of collecting sea shells to give it to her classmates when she returns back after vacation (And she did that yesterday!). I am pretty sure that ‘sharing’ was out of my dictionary when I was 4… LOL.

We wound up by around 7:30 after an hour and half in the beach to get back to Orlando. One sight that amazed me was the drive over the Howard Franklin Bay Bridge on the Interstate 275 just before you arrive at Clearwater, immediately after you cross the city of Tampa. It is approximately 8 miles long over the Old Tampa Bay. At one point of time, you feel like you are driving on a bridge at the middle of the sea – though you can see buildings on each side, pretty far away… We stopped over at a Thai restaurant for dinner to reach back at the hotel by 10:30 in the night.

End of Day 1

In Layman's Terms...

On our way back from school, walking to the parking lot...

Me: How was your day baby?
Baby: It was fun, Dad.

M: What did you do in school?
B: We played in circle time

M: And then?
B: Shared my little Ariel toy during show & tell... And I passed it around for everyone to touch & feel it...

M: And then?
B: then... we practiced for our concert, we sang the speckle frog song....
(I don't know what on earth is a speckle frog!!!)

M: And then?
B: then.... we played the freeze dance and... Kavi is not my best friend...

M: Oh! why?
B: Because he pushed me...

M: So what did you do?
B: I said... stop it... it is not nice to push friends...

M: okay...
B: So, what happened in Office?

M: I was working in the office
B: what work did you do in the office?
(Where is this going!!??)

M: Well, I attended meetings, wrote emails, talked to people
B: And then?
(This is definitely not getting good...)

M: And I attended more meetings...
B: You already said meeting, what else?

M: And I worked on documents (trying to simplify spreadsheets & proposals)
B: That's Mama's work, she writes documents...
(aahh... so a similar talk had happened on the other side too...)

M: OK, but I too have to work on documents
B: What work do you do with documents?

M: Well, Baby, do you like this song? Do you want to sing along?..
(We are already in the car by then and the stereo starts playing when I started the car...)

There was a time when I grew up in school where I used to think what do so many people do developing banking software while all that a bank does is to keep your money & give it to you when you want it... And later when I joined one of the German banking giants as a software developer, I realized that 'retail banking' is only a very small portion of the larger business called 'Banking'...

And another one was that - a company/factory would have an engineer who helped make the machinery (my understanding of engineering was only mechanical... LOL), so what do all other engineers do for a living?

How difficult would it be to explain what you do for a living? - in layman's terminology.
Does anyone want to try it out?

Welcoming the New Year

Another year went by... with its share of ups & downs.
And it is already 2009 at some parts of the world while I write this, we share messages and wishes for a very 'Happy' New Year...

There was a phase in my life when we partied (read as get drunk...) the whole night, have count downs and even light fire crackers at the middle of the night to welcome the New Year. The New Year never used to be a good start; thanks to the swearing of the neighbors who lost their sleep & worse got startled in the middle of night due to the fire crackers and finally thanks to Bangalore, the long lasting barking of the canines that followed the crackers. That was never a botheration, but celebrate - was the motto.

I have realized that over a period of time, the whole fizz of this celebration with me has gone over, and to my own surprise, I responded to a friend today morning who asked me about my New Year celebration plans, I made this bland statement - "New Year?? Arrgh, just another day. Whats the big deal about that..." And he was taken for surprise to the level of asking me if everything was OK with me.

Sometimes I ask this question to myself - What should I be happy about 2008 that I take into the New Year? Family relations getting staler day by day? Or the credit of 10+ terrorist attacks in my homeland? Or the fear factor that leads to the fact that I regularly get "randomly" selected for additional security screening even at domestic flights in the richest country? Or the fact that we still continue to waste food & other resources where a significant percentage of people in this world does not have access to even clean drinking water? Or even the fact that religious fanatics are showing their thump on the nose to humanity and taking over control of the people by literally running parallel governments?

There is this point of the seeing the glass as half full or half empty based on each one's thought process - whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. But here is my point - Irrespective of whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, the truth is that the glass is only half full where it ought to be really FULL. There are no excuses for having it just half full when we have the calibre to make it really full.

I hope this New Year be a fresh start (as always!) to hold up our values in building humility, resilience and appreciation for what each one of us is and have.

A salute to humanity!

Some secular thoughts...

I am a Hindu by birth. I am a Hindu by my beliefs. But I am not a religious lunatic. My beliefs & my faith are very personal to me. And I don’t wear my religion on my sleeves and I am a strong believer of secularism. And I believe we can co-exist. Before writing this post, I had thought about whether to do this or not - for a long time because I feel I am going to be ‘profiled’(1) soon by who ever reads my blog. But I am what I am – so beat it!

Do we have agendas in our life? It is quite possible that we have goals in life ranging from who you want to be 10 years from now to how can I secure my next meal? Can we call our personal goals in life as agenda? What differentiates somebody’s goal from an agenda?

I see a lot of secularists around me in my day to day life; or rather people who call themselves secular, media who call themselves secular, organizations that call themselves secular. Off-late, I am getting a feeling that many of the so called secularists think that being secular means being the one who ‘dares’ to bash up the majority. Being that ‘smart-ass’ who only sees problems with anything and everything the other does and adding that typical twist in the tale. The permanent “devil’s advocate”. To be more specific, in the Indian Context (Kerala in particular), secularism has reached an all time low which means that any Tom, Dick & Harry who can talk loud and shout on how they think Hindus in India are proponents of in-house extremism (read as terrorism) – They are secular! What a Shame!

And on the other side, there are a bunch of maniacs who believes that ‘Indian culture’ has to be safe in their hands & the solution for that is to send every non-Hindu back to their original roots. While it is true that many religions, faiths that came to India thousands of years ago have chosen to stay with us and we embraced them as family and we co-existed for all these years. We are still known to be one of the most resilient & civilized communities ever known to man kind. I (a south Indian) might have many things common to my Muslim/Christian neighbor than a Hindu in the North or Eastern India. And this is the most talked about 'unity in diversity' of India. The culture or the ‘way of life’ as you call it - that everyone chose to adopt & live with

I condemn and do not subscribe to any kind of aggravation in the name of faith or belief that amounts to intentionally or unintentionally overstepping on anybody else’s beliefs or faith. Some do it covertly and some others in the open. The guys who do it covertly are the more polished ones that create support in terms of money, media and education. And they know how to be politically correct to ensure that they stay within the boundaries of the law of the land, but still push through it. 61 years into Independence, I am wondering if it is time to re-write a few sections of our constitution.

Do we still need caste/religion based reservations? Is it really helping the real needful? Or has it got to a rotten state, only to be another money minting business in the hands of religious leaders and vote bank politicians? We left casteism & untouchability two generations behind us – and it looks like we are getting our children ready to really go back in time there. A lot of examples to quote here starting from the 7th standard textbook controversy(2), compulsory teaching of subjects not prescribed by the state department (e.g. moral science for non followers) in minority controlled schools, racial profiling in similar schools in the pretext of uniform codes that amounts to banning the use/wearing of any commonly accepted religious symbols of other beliefs to school – e.g. head scarf, bindi et all. These activities have really started undermining the resilience and is really testing the patience of the so called majority.

As far as I understand from my modest upbringing, Hinduism consists of a very loosely coupled set of beliefs and is more a way-of-life than a religion with a four wall boundary & a binary approach (us vs. them). I don’t remember my parents or anyone else telling me when I grew up that I would be penalized for not going to a religious place once a week or once a month by denying me a place for burial or revoking the heaven for me when I die. It is more of a faith that deeply intertwined into our day to day lives and I believe a lot of other religions have also adopted a large part of this 'way-of-life' being a part of the Indian culture – vidyarambham – is a classic example.

Given this background, I strongly believe that the real people who help maintain the secularism in Kerala is this set of majority and not really the Congress or the Communists or the Janata party or any other Political party who proclaims themselves as the custodians of secularism. We see their secularism in colors of orange & green & blue & yellow flags flying high during the elections. I feel sick in my stomach when I read about secularism in election manifestos that has a Rashid or an Abdul contesting from Malappuram, a Chaco or Mathew contesting from Kottayam and a Narayanan or a Sekharan contesting from Kollam – irrespective of which ever party they claim allegiance to. It doesn’t come to me as a surprise that the common man has distanced himself from the politics and found solace in self proclaimed swamis and vicars and mullas who don’t give a damn about society or national integrity or co-existence but just to fill up their pockets, spreading religious hatred and sucking up to their promoters sitting out of Vatican or Pakistan or Gujarat.

With all due respect to the blogger community, there are many bloggers out there who talk about these issues from a text book stand point, from the constitution, quoting IPC sections and other academic stand points. And I don’t know how many of them face it in reality. I am really starting to get worried about the society into which my daughter will grow up to, in the next 15 - 20 years – (beyond which I expect that she will acquire the maturity to handle issues on her own). She is a half Hindu through me & half Christian through her mother (a living example of Jeevan). I am seriously worried about the crisis that she might face in a severely polarized society that is even intolerant to ‘Jeevan, the Casteless’ in a textbook(2), constantly subjected to provocation by each other and the related smearing by the lousy “secularists”.

And that makes me rethink on my plans to return back, invest or do anything worthwhile in this piece of land called Kerala – It may be much better to stay in the city to be a Bangalorean & ruminate the past & nostalgic memories of my village & homeland.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1)An interesting trend that I see off-late (especially on the web media) is profiling. It has to be either us or them – always binary. If you are not a communist, then you are a capitalist; if you are not a believer, then you are a communist; if you don’t agree with what I say, then you are one among them. And the latest among that nowadays is that if I don’t massage the minority’s bottom for anything and everything and condemn the majority, then I am not secular – which indirectly means I am a ‘Hindu extremist’ – I totally fail to understand this crude and narrow point of view that ‘if I don’t agree with you then you are one among them’.

(2) There was a large controversy that was caused by a chapter introduced in the 7th Standard Social Science text book of Kerala syllabus - The Chapter name can be roughly translated as 'Jeevan, The Casteless'. The chapter progresses through an admission interview of a child named Jeevan whose parents are from different religions and the related topics - underlying the fact that which religion you belong to is secondary, but thought provoking to children to start looking above race, creed & religion to humanity. Read more about it here in one of my older posts.

Oh Mind, Relax please…

My friend Kummi (Senthil) keeps sending me emails every day with a one liner that is very thought provoking and insightful. He has setup the series as “Oh Mind, Relax please…” and today is the 1137th issue - phew! That is a long time! - Since he started sending out this on a daily (working day) basis. I am sure that these one-liners definitely touches somebody every day and even makes their day – He has, many times, made my day by these one/two liners.

What prompted me to write this post was for two reasons.

1. Oh Mind, Relax please # 1137 has a very strong message – thought of sharing with my friends & readers
2. To thank Kummi for his continuous efforts to reach out & make a change in your everyday life

Oh Mind, Relax please # 1137:-
We grow through experience if we meet life honestly and courageously.
This is how character is built…

Isn’t that a wonderful truth?

We all hear about the experience that people have. My colleagues talk to me about their professional experience, my dad talks to me about his experience in the defense & having seen the world, my brother talks to me about the experience of running a business, my wife talks to me about the experience of strained relationships, my mom talks to me about the experience of running a home, my friends talk to me about their experiences in life – ranging from bachelor day adventures to drug addiction to girl friends to almost everything, my manager(s) talks to me about their experience of working in multiple organizations, industries…

What do each of us really take away from these experiences? Are these experiences worth if we have not met the situation honestly and courageously? Did we chose to flow by the tide or did we meet them courageously, true to our heart?

These are questions that at some point of time, we should ask ourselves. And then you would find inner awakening, which will lead you to tranquility & peace.

May be that explains why we find a lot of experienced people around us - who are still immature, hypocritical and political.

Thank You Kummi: -
I am not sure if somebody had ever taken notice of the wonderful job that you are doing by reaching out to everybody on a daily basis, sending a sweet & short message which is equally thought provoking and sometimes even makes somebody’s day.

I wanted to let you know that you have made my day more than a couple of times in the last 5-6 years by these messages, and I profusely thank you for making that change in my life.

Thank you, my friend!

Is Our Culture = Hypocrisy ?

I know that I am touching a raw nerve here! Much has been talked about the Indian culture in the global context and there is no doubt – we are all proud of what we are. But in the past few months (well, more than a few) when I see the stuff going around me, I tend to believe that we are slowing transforming into a big bunch of Hypocrites!

While I started writing this post I looked up on Wiki (being my favorite source of information) for a definition of a Hypocrite/Hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy (or the state of being a hypocrite) is the act of preaching a certain belief or way of life, but not, in fact, holding these same virtues oneself. For example, an adult telling children not to smoke cigarettes, even though the adult smokes


Now let’s try to look a few examples from the various facets of our day to day life.

1. I don’t have any issues….
I have married outside my ‘religion’ and that had created a lot of hullabaloos in my family when I announced my decision. I had heard stories from my mom on how she had been subjected to insult by the extended family by means of sarcastic comments & statements during family gatherings. Over a period of time, things got evened out because people had new stories to talk about – but the bitterness with quite a lot of the extended family continued. As an effort to straighten out things, I started reaching out to the people to understand what their problem was & to initiate dialogue to sort out things.

And to my surprise, nobody had any problem! And then who had the problem all these days? I guess it was me then… J. Being bitchy about somebody at their back, but start buttering out while you see them face on – And believe me, I personally know a lot my friends who had similar experiences in their lives... more than once!


2. Worshipped woman
Woman is worshipped – according to our culture. ‘Amma’ is widely considered the embodiment of the god that you can see, feel & touch.

I remember reading a few articles on the internet last year about the increasing divorce rates among the IT workers in India. The authors go on claiming that it has got to do more with the sedentary lifestyle & ‘viewing the computer for a long time’ that an IT professional normally does that leads to impotency which in turn results in divorces. Somebody even goes to the level of mentioning that the exposure to the western culture that IT brings is leading to a loose lifestyle.

I am not challenging the risks involved with leading a sedentary lifestyle, but I personally think that the increasing divorce rate has more to do with financial independence. The new arena of work opportunities has given the women the financial independence – which they never had earlier – to walk out of an abusive relationship. So, the couples (man or woman) do not necessarily have to put up (guilt/dependency) with the abusive nature of the partner.

So, two questions here – Are women REALLY worshipped? Second, do they still behave WORTHY enough for worship? – Some food for thought.

But no matter what, when some discussions happen about cultures, we still have our blood boiling about our ‘respect for woman’.


3. That is not OUR culture!
This one is my favorite! – Come Feb 14th every year, you find arson, stoning and all sort of things going on in pockets of India – protest against the Valentine’s Day! The main argument here is that this celebration is against our culture! To celebrate or not is a personal choice & I don’t intent to make any comments on that here.

But I personally know a little girl near my house in my home village who was just 16 years old while she committed suicide by drinking a bottle of pesticide – And she was 6 months pregnant! When it came to a situation that she can’t hide her growing belly anymore, she decided to end her life. Had she been educated of the pitfalls of engaging in unsafe & prenatal sex, had her parents been more open to talk about these things to her instead of considering that a taboo, I feel it would have turned out to be a different story. And many such stories does not even come out, if the parents are financially sound.

My point is that such things happen everywhere. Instead of pretending that this does not happen because it is not our culture, parents should take necessary steps in creating that bond with the children to have free dialogue & educate them. Leaving it to the culture could be a disaster - because it is not as it is perceived to be!

My daughter would be 3 in October this year & I was awed to hear from one of the parent in the school that in the curriculum for the Kindergarten they have a lesson on ‘Touch’. Helping the children to identify the different ‘touches’ and help them to realize what is appropriate & what is not.

So, isn’t providing the education right at the beginning & enable the children to deal with the world rather than playing the moral police of arson & stoning shops a better option? Why do we fail to see the obvious?


4. I am the perfect – all others are sloppy!
This is another that I see at my work place & constantly deals with on a day to day basis. We talk so much about separating the 'problem' from the 'personnel' while you have an issue to deal with. 80% of the people whom I deal with have some or other excuse of not having completed a particular work item. “ABC was supposed to give that component & I can only start after that, he has not completed yet” OR “PQR had a delay, so I am delayed” – The surprising factor is that it is never because of ME! I am the perfect man & nothing can be delayed or go wrong because of ME.

And the same people if they have something delayed from somebody else, you can hear statements like… “You know what? He is lazy. You can’t expect a timely delivery from him”… It was so easy to box somebody because of an instance… Couldn’t that ABC person or the PQR component be applicable to him too?


5. “I just had my tea”
I should say that this one is very specific to malayalis. You are visiting a friend’s house & as it is in the common tradition, they are offering you a drink – cold beverage or tea/coffee - & is asking for you if you have a specific liking for any of the choice. The immediate response (most common) is “We just had our tea a few minutes back”. And the fact might be that you had not had a chance to drink even a glass of water since you had your breakfast! I had raised eyebrows within my family when I say “Yes, I prefer tea, but I like to have a plain glass of water first!”. My question is that why do we need to show that formality? At least while we are with friends?


I don’t know – May be our 'unsaid culture' is to be hypocritical!

Dysphemism, Cacophemism & Swearing

What happens when somebody swears at you? From the time it hits your ears, through the message getting transmitted to your brain, the brain deciphering them and you understanding the message, the message getting registered in the encyclopedia called your memory; working like a neural network, continously assimilating information and learning from the day to day activities...

Pretty interesting thought - right? Well, I had somebody swear at me very badly (for what ever reasons that I dont want to mention here) that it would be my last {something} before I die. WOW! What if people had such powers like the old saints in the epics of the Indian civilization - that somebody could turn somebody into a rock, or a buffalo or whatever according to their whims & fancies.

I was initially angered, then pained and then saddened by what I heard and I thought that 'time', the super healer would take away that from my mind. But wait! There is a new emotion that started to play after this incident. The emotion called fear. An unprecedented fear have started gripping me in every activity that I do. I had never felt such a fear based on swearings before (Now, dont start thinking that I am so bad so that people are continously swearing at me... LOL - just being candid) like I felt this time.

I had had a very close brush with death in the year 2003 which was a rude awakening for me. I learned that all it takes is just a few seconds... irrespective of what ever fort or career or money or muscle power that you have built up in life. And this is probably the first time I am being sweared at - after that incident. It kind of makes me feel how vulnerable I am - when it comes to matters like my need to live, the need to support my family, the need to support my kid until she gets on her own feet... I realize that I am not able to drive confidently and every other minute I think of a truck coming crushing on to me. I don't feel confident of getting into the pool or the beach - though I am a decent swimmer... I don't even feel comfortable walking on the foot path!

It is a psychology thing - I understand; and may be the more amount of the perpetual healer (time) will get me out of this... In my mother tongue (Malayalam) we say something like "Aram pattunna vaaku (അറം പറ്റുന്ന വാക്ക്)" and I used to brush off that out saying that it is just a 'mind thing'. And 'just a mind thing' can create so much of imbalance in a person's day to day life affecting everything in his/her life.

Words are very powerful - handle them with care.

A few research on wiki on Swearing took me to the following words - Dysphemism and Cacophemism - hence the title

To Listen or not to

Off late, I have come across a lot of examples and situations in my personal & professional life that had gone in a totally different directon because of the influence of listening skills. Do we need a special 'skill' to listen? Or just by having a set of ears mean that you are a good listener? I beg to differ. I have also found that many of the problems - starting from the ones in your day-to-day life up to world affairs - can be effectively solved if both the parties in arbitration develop some kind of listening skills.

When I took up this new assignment mid last year, I was meeting with managers & analysts at different levels as a part of my on boarding process and I had this telephonic conversation with a senior manager (some 25+ years in the present organization). She is in a distant location and I have not even exchanged emails with her before - the first interaction. We introduced each other and talked about the background and experience and the general expectations from each of us. She then started talking about where she grew up, her family, kids, family life and philosophical outlook and on and on... And I just listened with patience when the talk went on about how bad she thinks life had treated her, how frustrated she is with her job, her personal life and differences with in the family. In a few minutes, I realized that I was becoming a weeping shoulder to someone whom I had never met, never spoken to before and have very less chances of even working together in a team! At the end of it, a full hour, she thanked me for listening to her and did not forget to apologize to me for piling me up with her frustrations. Since then, we share a very cordial work relationship.

Another instance was recently, a month back, with one of the Project Manager - who is very senior by age (in her late 50s). I used to meet her in the hall way when I go to the Cafeteria or the Bank. This time, she looked very depressed and sulking and as I walked past her, I asked this question... "Hey XYZ... Are you OK? You look very tired...". Unexpectedly, she stopped and told me that she is not OK. Her mom had expired the last week and she was very much concerned about her dad (who was in 90s) being all alone by himself at this age. When she said this she almost broke down and mentioned to me that... "Thank you Santosh - that you asked. All I wanted was somebody to listen to me and help me drain out the stress that I have accumulated over the week". And I was surprised! Because she stays with her family, have kids and grand kids, but none had the time to take a break from their busy schedules and empathize with her.

Sometimes I feel we all get very busy with our own lives, or pretend to be busy with our own lives and forget the humanitarian part of it ... that we all are human beings, we all will need some kind of support at some point of time. Spending some time to "keep our mouth shut" and listening actively would enlighten you in many ways. You get to know the perspectives of others, what they are going through & how they feel about it. It definitely makes you a better individual in terms of emotional & philosophical maturity.

I have personally known people who respond to emails with out reading them out completely (read the first few lines & then bingo!) and understand what they are trying to communicate. Many a times when I get responses similar to that, I just pick up the phone, call them, request them to read the mail completely, and most of the times I could visualize they biting their tongue... "Ouch... I should have read the mail completely before sending that one out". So, what is that called? Prejudice? When you allow your prejudice to drive your actions, you can't expect anything better than where you are now or even worse. You are shutting out a communication channel which otherwise could be invaluable inputs in developing yourself as an individual, or an innovative business plan, or sometimes even a feedback on how badly you might be screwing up your own work & life.

So, is it just that we are so busy that we really don't have time to be a sensitive person? Or is it that we pretend to be busy as a part of hiding away from the inevitable parts of our life because we want to be seen along only with success? Or is it that we have become so obsessed with success and goals so that we forget the small little things that (who knows) might make somebody's day?

I feel there is some food-for-thought in there!

Loving is giving

Today afternoon I (again) saw the tamil movie - "Kizhakku Cheemayilae" - directed by the coveted south indian director Bharatiraaja. I had seen this movie a couple of times earlier and I like Bharatiraaja's films for their smell of the soil, fragrance of true love and the prick of emotions. This movie is about the love of a brother to his sister, the different phases, situations, face-off, egos that their families go through after she is married off. Despite many provocative attempts, the love, giving & caring of the brother to his sister triumphs over everything even if that meant loss of physical property, loss of ego, loss of pride and what ever.

There is a message in for every one in this movie. How many of us are ready to give away in the name of true love? Or if I rephrase this question; How many of us truly - in all sense - love their loved ones? How many of us get upset if the so called loved one did not, or does not behave or reciprocate in the way that we expect them to do? Answer this honestly to your inner soul.

So, there is a dimension of exchange or barter system in there which takes away the essence, the purity, the sweetness of true love. I remember seeing this board in front of one of the very famous shrines in Bangalore - "The more you will love me, the more I will bless you!" (No offense meant to the shrine or the related beliefs - This is just a analogy)- Isn't that what percollates down to every individual - though not explicit - in terms of setting expectation for love?

I am a person who feel that the moment you say something like - "If you do X, I will do Y" - it is pure business, not emotion. The head works there and not the heart. And what happens there is just actions to fulfil your own 'agenda of life' - if you are the ordinary mob - and take care of the agenda of your family, if you are one of those 'broad minded' people.

It reminds me of a school story where a kid caged the parrot because he 'loved' the parrot. There were teachers then, who corrected the kid telling him that if he truly loved the parrot, let the parrot find its happiness - and the parrot would never find happiness being confined to a cage. I guess in this generation, we don't have good parents, we don't have good teachers or good mentors who can guide us understand what true love means & how to achieve that. We are all in a rat race to prove something to somebody and in the process forgetting to live & love to fullness.

I have, off-late, started being numb if somebody tries to emotionally blackmail me. It used to be a turbulent affair everytime earlier and it never helped me as an individual or as the head of my family. I will just shutdown my response system if I feel somebody is trying to push me to the edge. May be I will look like an idiot or joker or even like Narasimha Rao (no offense meant to the individual or the party - just another analogy)- But that helps me to love my dear ones without having a personal agenda in mind and not being affected by an agenda!

I, Me, Mine

I have not seen an individual or a leader or an activist who admits what they do is wrong. All of us, including me, believes, strives and gives away for the good of the environment - At the capability each of them is. Every one; be an individual, be a community, be a state, be a nation, or even mankind; has a story of how much they have given away for the benefit of others and how they feel betrayed - And interestingly, all of them pardons the other and is living an idealisitic life.

I was listening to a telephonic conversation last week that my wife had with our erstwhile house-maid about her employment.

A quick flash back:-
We had a house-maid with us since more than 2 years and she was pretty good in terms of looking after our baby while we were at work and running the cooking-cleaning cycles. We hired this lady after some horrendous experiences with few others and luckily this worked out. It was more because she was from a well-to-do family earlier and the sudden demise of her husband had forced her to take up a job and she had kids to raise. It also worked out for us too because she was not yet exposed to the manipulative behaviour of the 'typical house-maids*' and was pretty straight forward - but not very longer.

Now, my wife has a problem. Sometimes she is prejudiced (I hope she is not reading this... LOL...). If she likes somebody or hates somebody from the first instance, her logical thought process just shuts down. That disaster happened here too. The maid's problems started becoming her problems and she started getting actively involved there - to an extent of giving her monetary loans to pay off her debts! And in return she looked after our little princess very well.

Her immediate monetory problems were solved, her daughter got a job and it was nice to see a broken family getting together and making progress... And the inevitable happened. As the days and months and years went by, she started taking us for granted that eventually ended up in arguments and recorded telephone conversations and remote monitoring of what is happening at home while we were away at work (Technology if correctly used; can do wonders!)

Then I decided to pick up an assignment away from Bangalore (There was other reasons too...) and we moved to the United States for a year and that forced her to find another job.

Back to Present:-
Now the points of argument at both sides are as follows:- "We gave her everything what she wanted, even helping her kid to find a job, help her close her debts by lending money et.all and never treated her like a maid - and Why did she do this?"

On the contrary; "I took care of their kid like my own - I haven't taken care of my own children like that - Why are they negotiating on my fate that drove me to be a house-maid".

Both the sides - ours and hers - has a point. And this is really interesting. When we start coloring the facts with our imagination, we lose the point.

Lets take our argument:- "We gave her everything..." - Why did we; when she wanted only an employment? We assumed that loyalty could be bought and that proved otherwise by due course of time. We forgot that it is human nature and tendency to look for more, ask for more and evolve (Didn't we learn from Darwin?)

And her argument:- "Why are they negotiating..." - That is not a fact; but a colored imagination! My wife asked the money back that she borrowed from her - which is a fact and the fact ends there. The rest of it is imagination!

In one of my earlier posts, I had mentioned about "Fear for failure". And I feel it is this fear that prompts and motivates people to color their thoughts and take it from a state of pure fact into a state of perceived fact coupled with imagination and look others through that colored glass - An attempt to make your point stronger so that you dont fail! And in the process conveniently forget how this might impact others, how the environment perceives it and eventually become a "self made martyr"!

And what made me write this post now is the theme of the month of October in my kiddo's play school. The theme is "I, Me, Mine". Basically, the teachers help the kids to identify themselves by their names, and then identify their parents by their names and photographs and then identify their school bags and personal stuff which belongs to them! - Pretty simple and straight forward- huh? But the "I, Me and Mine" that they drive into this kids at this age makes them to be a more self-centric generation who does not give a damn about others but only themselves.

I am sad.

* --> The house-maids in India are well known for their manipulative behaviour in terms of influencing the children, insensitive to their presence while using vulgar/adult language over phone and sometimes even to the level of abuse to the children - mentally, physically and sometimes even sexually. When accountability is ignored with associations and labor groups to endorse them; justice becomes a distant reality for affected children and their parents.

Walking the talk

Leena started working here and another chapter of hectic schedule in our life has started. She goes to Manhattan (New York City) every day which is a train journey of an hour and a half from Morristown which makes me a close-to-full-time home maker.

Amiya had the habit of putting her toys in the mouth or biting them and I used to tell her not to bite the toys lest she get worms in her mouth…

Yesterday, we were coming home and I had parked my car in our parking lot and was helping Amiya to get out of the car – The car seats and regulations in the US is a bit annoying especially when you are in a hurry, though it is meant for the safety of the kids – I had the laptop bag on my shoulder, had to keep the door open and pick up her from the seat. After picking her up, I need to lock the car and was lazy to keep the keys in the pocket and take them back again! I held the keys with my mouth and was picking her up when she gave out this statement – “Thakkolu vaayilu vekkallae pappa…. Puzhu varum…” (Transalation – Don't keep the keys in your mouth, Pappa… You will get worms in your mouth!) I was stunned for a minute hearing this and then realized how small kids catch even the small statements that we make, watch every thing that elders do and even try to emulate them…

Yes, charity begins at home, Walk the talk – A quick lessons learned for me!


Note: Text in italics is malayalam, my mother tongue

Save their souls

I had been dropping and picking up my daughter at the play school for the past 4 weeks now. The look at her eyes when I say bye to her at school, slowly watering, yet trying not to cry, it pricks me hard some where in my heart. Both of us know that we will meet again in another few hours, but for some reason my soul clenches when I see that look on her face.

And when my wife calls me up to find out how she did when I dropped her, I would lie that she did well (And in all practical sense she did well - except for mothers). The interesting fact is that she knows that I am not going to tell the truth and I too know that she is not going to believe what I said. Still, we do that. Mothers - They are a different species. I keep telling my friends that there is no two, but three sexes - Male, Female & Mothers.

Last day I was driving back from the Indian store in Parsippany and I had this CD playing in my car. "Aaalaapanamm... Thedum Saanthwanam..."; This is a very touching song from a beautiful 80s malayalam movie (Endae Sooryaputhrikku) acted by Amala & Sreevidya. The lyrics & the melody really touches you. And the story line is about somebody forced to being an orphan because of the social stigma associated with un-wed mothers in a conservative society like India.

At one point of time, I tried to draw a correlation between my experience of dropping my kid at school and this story line. If you ask me, my daughter is my life; She is all that I have got and I will go to any extend to take care of her. I was trying to correlate the pain in her eyes when she is left for herself for a few hours with a child who has to face it right through his/her childhood. The caring and love is any child's birth right; irrespective of being in any country. The thought sent a shudder through my spine and I did not have strength to think of that any more...

A parting thought to all the fathers & mothers who has created so much of orphans in the world (Ofcourse, cloning is pretty new to the world!) - If you cant take responsibility of your orgasm, please use what ever preventive mechanism you have (pills, condoms... what ever). The cost of that is very less compared to the trauma and pain that you put those children through.

Atleast save them from that!

Living your life inside out

I really do not know how to start this post. This is kind of stuff that sometimes I am at loss of words expressing...

I have pretty much lived my life so far based on what I thought is right and felt like doing. "Living life in your own terms" if you could call it that way. But honestly, who will be interested to know about that? Consider my life as a canvas, where a director is painting a beautiful story - Who is the hero? MYSELF!! EVERYBODY is the bravest, smartest, cutest, strongest IN THEIR OWN LIVES... There is no better way an incident could have been handled by somebody else if they were in your role... given that background, let me get into what I wanted to say.

I keep telling my wife and few others that I as an individual is happy and content if the environment around me is happy. Like when it comes to personal life, I am pretty happy & content (Ahh, now we see the seggregations...) because I think my environment is happy. Perceptions too have their part in the story... Being happy does not necessarily mean being together at the same house or calling up and being in touch every day through emails or phones. It is just that feeling that we all exist for each other. You could be out of touch for ages together, but still if you have that feeling inside, thats the point.

So, I keep talking (read as lecturing) about this non-materialistic way of living and being happy from inside and not necessairly the materialistic gains and assumes that people around are so much excited & happy to listen to me... And my environment continue to put up with me despite this boring yap yap... until recently when my mentor (during our first meeting) threw this curve to me. "What is your Philosphy of life? Do you live your life inside-out or outside-in?"

Honestly, I was stumped by the depth of this question and I realized that I was somewhere between. (I always wished there was a half yes, half no - somewhere between the yeses & the nos). I should admit that more than a few times, I had allowed my environment to take charge of my life and I remained being a spectator. To live your life inside-out takes a lot of courage, commitment and focus and I realize that I am not there... To a great extend, it was mediocrity that drove my decisions because I have a tendency to make everybody happy. I am OK... to let it go, if that makes my environment happy which inturn is my criteria to be happy and content. Does the famous Indian corporate worker who does not know how to say "NO" ring a bell somewhere in this context?

To be or not to be... difficult choice. You can be really there and live your entire life sleeping peacefully EVERY night with no regrets - Be prepared to be ignorant to your environment's feelings. Or try not to be there, keep everybody happy and live a life of guilt & remorse.

Or try to balance it off between the both ends based on specific situations and live your life by doing a continous Cost-Benefit-Analysis, and feel regretful about running your life like a business.

I sometimes feel that way when on top of a drink or two ;)

Some Favourite Lines

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you will work for justice, equality and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done.

Another New Year and some ruminations

Another Vishu passes by… And without much fanfare and without any major excitement; it turns out to be another lazy weekend.

Sometimes, I wonder when is that me and many of my acquaintances (friends and others) have developed this indifference to festivals. As any nostalgic soul like me who always like to live in the ruminations of the past, I too take a deep breath, sip a cup of tea and then let it drown.

It was so exciting during my childhood days when we wait eagerly for Vishu so that we can light crackers, the sparklers and lots of them. We wake up at 2 AM to see the Vishukkani – The auspicious first sight during the year – prepared by my achchamma and then the most interesting part, the Vishukkaineettam – The fresh 1 rupee and 10 rupee notes that we, children, receive from the elders as a token of prosperity, and then run to the courtyard to have a blast with the lights, sparklers and the fireworks! We even had competition among the kids on who will burst the first cracker during the dawn. The fresh notes would be preserved in our text books, mostly mathematics text books because they were the thickest ones among the six subjects.

“Nowadays, people treat/live every day as a festival and there is no difference – hence the indifference”, my granny explained and my conscience kept telling me that it is something more. It can’t be only this. We all have developed a sense of indifference for everything – A sense of fear for failure – A feeling that it is better to die than to fail. And I am really disturbed by this. We are being overcautious about everything and we pretend to be indifferent – and that is more dangerous – We “pretend” to be indifferent; where we actually are more than cautious and careful about events, functions and all related things, but are not ready to admit – May be of false pride, may be of fear of failure or may be of peer pressure.

And I take another deep breath, sip another cup of tea and let this drown…

By the way, may this Vishu bring all of my friends, acquaintances, well wishers, people whom I know, whom I do not, and everybody else – peace, happiness, prosperity, health and wealth

Note: Vishu is the Malayalam New Year that starts on 14th/15th of April every year. This also denotes the season for seeding for the first crop during the year. Achchamma is paternal granny