Most fervent prayer

"
... and my father drops me off a Saturday morning services.
 "You should go," he tells me.
   I am seven, too young to ask the obvious question: why should I go and he shouldn't? Instead I do as I am told, entering the temple, walking down a long corridor, and running toward the small sanctuary, where the children's services are held.
  I wear a white short-sleeved shirt and a clip-on tie. I pull open the wooden door.  Toddlers are on the floor. Third-grade boys are yawning. Sixty-grade girls wear black cotton leotards, slouching and whispering.
  I grab a prayer book. The sears in back are taken so I choose one up front. Suddenly the door swings open and the room goes silent.
  The Man of God steps in.
   He stalks like a giant. His hair is thick and dark. He wears a long robe, and when he speaks, his waving arms move the robe around like a sheet flipping in the wind.
   He tells a Bible story. He asks us questions. He strides across the stage. He draws close to where I am sitting. I feel a flush of heat. I ask God to make me invisible. Please, God, please.
   It is my most fervent prayer of the day.
  "

---Mitch Albom in 'Have a Little Faith'

My Struggling Lower Nature

I found this nice little verse, which very well describes life. At least my life. 

In the swamplands long ago,
Where the weeds and mudglumps grow,
A Yipiyuk bit on my toe…
Exactly why I do not know.
I kicked and cried and hollered “Oh!”
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
I whispered to him soft and low.
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
Yes, that was sixteen years ago,
And the Yipiyuk still won’t let go.
The snow may fall, the winds may blow.
The Yipiyuk will not let go.
I drag him ’round each place I go,
And now my child at last you know
exactly why I walk so slow.

As Saint Paul puts it, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?, so do I.

Thanksgiving Weekend Bonanza

It had literally been over a month since I watched a movie when Thanksgiving weekend arrived. Movies was what I had in mind for the weekend. Although I watched just 4 movies, none of them were worthy to be missed either and thanks to my brother Benjamin I got the perfect preview to each one of them.
Here are the movies and what I like about them. 
V for Vendetta - Awesome futuristic thriller. Great concept.
Side Effects - Too many twists to resist watching.
The Game - Classic brain-boiler. Very engaging movie.
Zodiac - In the end my desire for a biographic movie fulfilled. Serial killer fantasies. 

For Thinking

For thinking.

A year is 365 days because the earth takes that many days to complete one full revolution around the sun.
A month is 30 days because the moon takes that many days to complete one cycle of waxing and waning.
A day is 24 hours long because thats the time earth takes complete a rotation about its axis.

What about week? Why is a week 7 days long? Is there any natural reason for that?

For Bible believing creationists, its simple. God created the earth in 6 days and rested the 7th and that completes the creation.

Any other viable reason?

MotherBoard Diaries

BSOD, an acronym that's given me a lot of head ache ever since I knew about it. For those who aren't familiar with this, it means blue screen of death, a blue screen that is generated by windows due to some error. The system has to be restarted to use again.

BSOD has plagued my system at home for as long as 4 months. 4 months of frequent blue screen while trying to use a computer can freak any sane soul out. So the least said about me the better! From my part the best that I could do was to turn the desktop background colour to deep blue same as the colour of BSOD just to acclimatize myself to sudden bsod attacks.

Long story short, the repairing started with a HDD change, it then moved on to a full system service and format, a RAM change until finally the technician was driven crazy. Ultimately the motherboard was opened and worked upon and my relation with BSOD was unceremoniously cut off. BSOD attacked my system once again but left it unscathed.

PS: My relationship with BSOD rekindled at work when multiple systems were attacked by BSOD. All I could do was G-R-I-N seeing colleagues struggling with it.  

Allahabad Ride

Allahabad, the Kumbh Nagari, is an interesting city. One gets to experience a lot of things he wouldn't have had gone through all his life.

Tempo rides in Allahabad takes a lot of determination, sweat, energy, and even teaches you patience. The two seats facing each other is packed with 4 pupil each side and the driver refuses to start the vehicle unless all 8 possible seats are filled. But the driver keeps things interesting with the tracks he plays in the CD player he has fitted in the vehicle with skewed shape. The songs ranges from bhojpuri dj mix to gangnam style to even Avicii's levels!

I've read about public ear cleaners of Mumbai and road side dentists of Varanasi. The road-side hair cutting and shaving facility in Allahabad in comparision is much less strange. It is as common a sight as people spitting chewed tobacco in staircase corners of government buildings. But the real surprise is when you spot guys asking the 'saloonist' to shave their armpits.
The first thing that went through my mind seeing this: "Shaey, should have taken the camera"

Traveler vs Tourist

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” - G.K. Chesterton

The difference between a traveler and a tourist is something I hadn't noticed until recently when I embarked on a 'travel' to Munnar with Jyothi. It was then I realized that one becomes a traveler when he plans for a Ernakulam visit and ends up in Munnar. The traveler sees what he sees but the tourist see what he has come to see, is the lesson I learned after the trip.

My journey was to begin from Trichur, my hometown, with the plan to visit the recently opened much hyped LuLu mall in Ernakulam. That's when Jyothi, who was in Ernakulam calls me up with the Munnar idea. Within no time, we meet in Edapally and take a bus to Adimali because we didn't want to wait for a Munnar bus (traveler's instinct). On our way, a car rammed onto the bus and we changed to a Munnar bound bus. Munnar welcomed us with some heavy rain which set the mood for the rest of our trip. It indulges our olfactory system with supreme odors of high quality coffee and tea. But a call to a friend is all we needed to  decide that TopStation, some 35kms from Munnar, would be our destination.
Took a slow jeep ride to the TopStation. The top station is not a tourist destination, so all the top station can boast of is just a small tea shop and a old guy's house. We rented a room in his house complex for the night. Enjoying the nature is best when there is minimum human exploitation around and that's exactly what top station offered. Sound sleep too.
Early next morning we walked back till Yellapatty some 7kms before deciding to take the jeep ride back to Munnar. Thus ended the trip that made me a traveller! Travelling is all about doing whatever you think you can.

          

English Vinglish

One of the techniques used for memorization is association. Recently when Fernando Alonso won the European Grand Prix, the first thing that came to my mind was a friend of mine who is a die-hard Alonso fan. I had associated Alonso to my friend to help memorizing about Alonso.
I then found out that its the same with English words as well. Most of the english words I know, I can relate that word to something or some incident. Here are some interesting ones.

Swashbuckling : I still vividly remember that day when Shahid Afridi demolished India at Kanpur and the next day's local daily 'Patrika' faithfully reported the incident when this word attracted me. The 15 year old me decided to flash the word in school which was warmly received by my friends and was made a sensation by one of my more eloquent friend at the school assembly.

Obnoxious : The Hayden-Bhajji incident during the infamous 2007 Down Under visit.

Meander : Class 9 Geography, Sulekha ma'm explaining the course of Ganges

Shimmy : Renee Zellweger's interview in Reader's Digest had a picture of her dancing and the caption read: Zellweger shimmies down the ramp in 'Chicago'

Counterpane : This is a word my younger sister taught me, and the ego in me couldn't bear the fact that she had outdone me. Thus I remembered the word though recently when I asked her, she had forgotten the word and the incident. (SheldonCooper Grin)

Complacency : Learned this word on that unusual day at church when I wasn't sleeping during the sermon.

Hex : I remember this word coz this landed me in the staff room after one of my classmates mistook the word for another similar sounding word while I was shouting it in the class. I was shouting out of excitement in the word's resemblance with 'sex'.

That Moment of Indiscretion

The giant leap that Neil Armstrong took somewhere sometime has been described has one of the most influential and inspirational act that changed the whole course of mankind. Leaps have been in news ever since right from Silas'(Who's this?) dwarf leaps in his backyard to Yelena Isinbayeva's pole-vault leaps.Yes, leaps have come a long way before I decided to take that fateful leap.

Boarded on the NorthEast express, I had known right from the beginning that it doesn't have a stop at Naini Jn(the nearest station to my home, I had reservation up to the next station from which I'll have to take an auto back). So I had figured out that I will have to get off the train when it stops for signal somewhere near Naini. As the train passed through places that started looking familiar to me, I got my backpack and moved on to the door. Just then the train stopped. Now I had to decide whether to get off or wait to make sure this is the right place. By the time I could make a decision-given as lazy as I am my brain has to deal with a great amount of inertia- the train started honking and moving again. So I waited to see a platform approaching. And lo, its Naini.

Now(to my amusement later) my decision taking abilities had warmed up and was ready. So, I decided in a split second to jump off the train to the platform, thinking of all those days back in Kerala where I used to jump off  near the overhead bridge just to avoid all the walking through the platform. And it turned out that all my velocity gauging capabilities had gone in for a short hibernation after the 'nice and pleasant' Biharian summer day I spent in the train.
After the leap came the fall, and with the fall came the skin peel. And the explanation I came up with at home was a simple statement. "No pain, No gain" 

Supposed IIT visit

Here was a I, a mediocre engineering student with no real enthusiasm towards studies or innovation an average engineer is required to have, standing a chance to visit an IIT, the undoubted holy grail for a prospective engineer. The fact that it was IIT Guwahati, a relatively new one in the remotest of places in India, never dampened my spirits. But with all the furor about how the IIT standards would be compromised with a combined entrance exams, I had added reasons to be excited to get a first hand experience of the so called 'high standards'. With all excitement, geared up was I for an almighty entry when Indian Railways decided to play spoilsport. The NorthEast Frontier Railway is definitely not the best railway zone I have traveled in, in my extensive travelling career (huge lol), but in my long career ranging from the highs of Himalayas to the lows of Keralean backwater treats have I never faced such a situation when a train abruptly decided to take a halt, a rather long halt, which in the end amounted up to almost 7hrs.

Yes SEVEN freaking hours it was. Swearing at the coming-soon monsoon for being late was the only respite in the once lonely but now bubbling AlipurDuar Junction other than wishing to borrow the genes of those women in Thar desert who walk kilometers for water or even their whole nervous system. Wonder how do they cope! So stuck in a station in a bogie with a broken ac and bad ventilation, it was a 127 hour like 7 hour ordeal.
In short, with AlipurDuar Junction all my pre-trip excitement waned. BUT it was in that very same station that I had that proud moment when I put my 2 year old niece to sleep on my shoulder for the first time or was it that she decided to sleep there after weighing all other options in the station. Anyway, I was so over the moon that I ran through the platform to find that elusive i-cream guy and bought one for her twin sister!
PROUD UNCLE that i am! And so, the supposed grand IIT visit turned out to be just another holiday trip with a twist in the tail which will make way for another post.

The Overheat Tank

A recent UN survey revealed that at the present rate, the world as we know now wouldn't sustain human life due to acute shortage of water. They say all this would happen within the next 50-60 years. I have been facing my share of this water shortage in recent days.The water table in India has been reducing at an alarming rate in recent years due to numerous illegal activities, boring being one of them. The borewell (don't know whether the digging was legal) at my house standing at around 150ft deep has been struggling to give me good quality water for some time now. Its been around 6 months since the color of the water turned from slight yellow to the present acid stinking brownish-yellow. All water related appliances from the overhead tank to the water purifier has been bearing the brunt of this cobra-sting like water. All of my plastic buckets, no matter what their color was, had developed a brownish dark yellow lining.The candles in the aquaguard too has got a very dark muddish creamy layer on its surface which calls for a weekly cleaning.

Yes, the tank too had its walls lined yellow and had a pile of a mixture of sand, mud, among other things ranging from small stones to screws&nuts on its base. Now touching anything kept in the sun all day long on a hot summer day of late May is nothing short of daredevilry. Its the same about the overhead tank. So me and my sister had planned to clean it early in the morning when the temperatures would be the lowest. We had plans to go to bed as early as possible so as to get up at around 4 am, a schedule we are not accustomed to. Right then came the bad news, water in the tank has gotten over, so the do-it-now order came from mama and we as obedient as we are pulled our lazy arses up to the terrace to do the most demanding job in over past 2 months of my life. Climbing up to the platform we slowly lifted the lid on tank, and just when I was going to poke my head into the tank's mouth, to take a initial surveying look of the tank, out came a cloud of vapor so hot that I could feel it from the sight of it. Terrifying was the idea of actually getting into the over heated tank clean it. Being the elder one, I had the 'privilege' to order my sister to take the frightening jump-in, having papa's instruction that people with small structure should only get in the tank helping my cause. Rest is her's story to tell form the boiling left-over water  to her bucket-filling sweat.

All I learned was that next time I visit home, I would make sure its in winters. Cold is so me!

Movies Galore

Its a unearthly feeling to be 'stuck' at home. Not that I'm an outdoor-guy just that I can be as indolent in this baking hot summer as in cozy winters. Now one thing that needs the least of movements is movie watching and that is exactly what I have been doing over the past one whole month. After some prolonged sit-in-your-easychair-watch-movie sessions, I have slowly started appreciating the aesthetic value of movies. From the minute details in the screenplay to greater nuances of story telling.

In this period I saw a lot of crap and some great pieces of art.

Hugo: Just for its art value

12 Angry Men: Henry Fonda's antics

One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest: Jack Nicholson's smile and for the character Billy

Usual Suspect: Keyser Soze turnaround

Kahaani: Bob Biswas

Paan Singh Tomar: Run Tomar Run

SuMmEr TiMeS

#getting up to see 6am mornings, when the fan isn't working and the air conditioner is blown.
#when you open the fridge and smell those ripe, yellow mangoes!

#bollywood comes up with songs like 'pareshan'

#driving around the town in a 1960 model Rajdoot with your dad's shades from the 80's

#singing at the top of your voice sitting on the top tier of the kitchen cabinets

#watermelons and oiled rotis with milk
#those spanish sports commentary, from the 2 min long gooooaaaaaaaaaal scream in soccer to the 'oy oy oy' remark after every winner Federer scored in Madrid (btw its so easy to spot the tennis ball in the blue clay than the red clay in rome or roland garros)
#sweat behind the knees after 10 minutes of pranayama in Lotus position

                             summers are beautiful.. at least in its own ways!!

Seventy Five

75, that's the number of days I have as vacations but unfortunately 75 isn't the number of yards from which Suarez scored.
Yes, it has been a football crazy month or so with so much happening that it just wonders me why just enough happens to fill the third sports page of the Times of India.(courtesy Seinfeld).
There are a lot of things I started noticing about soccer like the person called Arjen Robben. There is no one in the whole football fraternity who wears his jersey tighter than Robben and add to that those yellow boots.#sogay
And again 75 would be the micro-millimeters from the goal did Petr Cech pull out a wonder save. Damn him, Liverpool end up with just a Mickey Mouse cup this season. 

Resolutions

Around the first week of any new year, there is this big fuss about ' new year resolutions' with anyone you meet springing up that vital question. And now here we are into the second month of the D-year, the year when the Mayans decided they were too lazy to go any further. I tried analyzing the probable situations I would end up in had I taken some.
 If my new year resolution was not to sleep during lectures, I would have kept it for the first week coz I didn't enter the classes. Had I entered I would have comfortably slept in the front bench. Even worse, I continue sleeping during sermons in the church :-(
  If my new year resolution was to brush my teeth twice daily, it would have been an utter failure. Leave alone twice, brushing even once on the second day of the year was not-happening with me soundly asleep on the upper berth. And it hasn't happened for atleast 10 days in the latest update. Orbit and other mints are spoiling my attempts to brush daily.
  Had my new year resolution been to wash my clothes at least once a week, should say it took a heavy beating. Here I am into the second month with the same pair of denims.
  If my new year resolution was to study daily it would have been the only thing I would have done daily except sleeping and eating. The only other thing I have done daily during the first month is download atleast 2 songs on average.

On a positive note, I have been successful in getting up from sleep early (7am). I have been doing this for the second consective week. Some say, doing the same this for 16 days regularly will become a habit. But a lazy saturday is all I need.

Winters

Entering into the northern plains of India in the last week of December is in all sorts a nightmare. Here was I seated in Garib Rath doing exactly what a nightmare can be, coming to Allahabad in a sweat shirt to find your brother waiting with your jacket and other winter accessories in some platform far away from where you are!

But once you are home, its the winters to love, especially if you are laziness personified.
  The best thing about winters is that you can stay under the blanket all day long and mom would never be angry, unless you forget to put the washing machine drain pipe to the drain-hole and she finds your bathroom a foamy mess.
  Again, its only during winters that Anna Hazare had to break his fast without the government agreeing to his crazy ideas.(Although I think the reject your MP idea is good)
  You know its winter when it takes more than a second to fix your wedgie with so many layers of clothing to be pinched out from. It actually is embarrassing in the public thus encouraging longer stays under the blanket.

  AND, no of layers of clothing worn would be equal to the number of days you haven't bathed. 

                                                                    Winter at its best

Cricket

Isn't it just amazing that with all the talks about how test cricket is dying, we have been treated with at least 4 thrilling Test Matches over the last 2 months or so?  Since mid-October we've had an unprecedented amount of cricket almost equal to three times the number of exams I've faced during the same period.
The first is the most unexpected on from the Gymkhana Stadia in Harare. A Brendon Taylor blitzkrieg threatened a fifth day Zimbabwean win before things settled down and NewZealand won by the slightest of margins,
Then was the Ashwin classic. First test series of his life and this guy was in play whenever it mattered for India, just that he was a touch slow for the last vital run.
Thursday,Nov 9 was the doomsday for batsmen at Capetown. I saw South Africa's first innings before current went at my place. When current came back SA was batting again!
Then the Trans-Tasmanian war at Hobart. The pitch on first day was almost as green as the rest of the ground. And by the end of 3rd day we had New Zealand celebrating a famous win!

      //This entry was supposed to be made much earlier.

Exams

The Thing. The dreaded thing. That thing. Yes, examination. It has this knack of bringing the best out of people. Pressure situations always does. A'int it? So, for the last fortnight or so I was undergoing this dreaded thing and  found myself and others in situations words can't describe. Here I am trying to describe the indescribable.

 - when 5 minutes after you get the question paper all you find in the examination hall are: jawdrops, awe struck gazes, whisperings, a frantic searching for pen and that guy in the corner showing certain selected finger at you (the one near the ring finger).

- you spend almost half an hour humming songs to yourselves and doing nothing else. On hindsight, i'm so thankful Dhanush didn't come up with the kolaveri thing then, else the half an hour limit would have extended to incomprehensible lengths of time .(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR12Z8f1Dh8&feature=aso)

- your first korean movie was on the evening of your last exam. Infact it was a great story. Worth it. A Moment to Remember (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428870/). Ironically enough I couldn't remember anything worthwhile during the exam next day.

- you finish reading as many as two to three novels during the course of the exam fortnight, whereas till a month ago, you had read just a single novel all through your life.

- you have your neighbours yelling at you from a distance that can be measured in vernier calipers because you where too loud while studying or in displaying frustration over the latest Afridi mishit in Sharjah.

  

 And after this, what are we treated with? 

Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di? Awesome. Can't ask for anything better. Can Beti B be named Kolaveri? :P

Tweet Favs

For bona fide updates on frivolous gossip, read newspapers.

Nitin Gadkari walks into a bar. This was after he tried to enter a temple and got stuck at the door.

I joined Engineering when DMK was in power. Now worried it might be converted in to an MBBS programme.

Duh! Ramlal in Sholay was more macho than Rampal in Ra.One

Today is 08/10/11. A date with no apparent pattern. Such randomness may not happen again for 823 years. Or it may.

A blogpost means having to write a hundred really sensible tweets. Tough job.

Anna may end fast. He will surely. If he doesn't end fast.

I have an impression that the elephants in Mayawati's park are already in 'poll' position.


#F1IndianRadio "......aur Sutil ne chahalkadmi karte huye ek lap poora kiya..."

#F1IndianRadio #VividhBharatiVersion ".......aur is car ki aawaaz sunna chahtey hain itarsi sey raju, pappu, munna aur unke mummy papa..."

#F1IndianRadio "...aur yeh car tappa khane ke baad bahar ki oar nikalti hui...."

#F1IndianRadio "....Track mein halki nami hai....uchhaal kuchh zyada rahne ki ummeed hai..."

#F1HindiRadio "Aur yeh androoni kinaare se DRS..."

Of Laziness

This past week I scaled heights of laziness that is rarely seen in a normal man's lifetime. Does that make me abnormal or extraordinary!?@!?
- Laziness is when your back starts to itch due to exposure to sun for more than 10 mins because the back is unfamiliar to natural phenomenon. This happens because your back is accustomed to the warmth and comfort of cushioned bed or even the cold marble floor!
-You are affected with acute laziness if you decide against switching off the TV just because the remote isn't working and the power switch is over 5feet away from you. The allowed displacement at a stretch when suffering from acute laziness is 4.5ft to be precise. Another case is when you watch DD LOKSABHA for an extended period of 45mins citing the same reason.
-When you decide against making omelet even when raw eggs, cut onions and chillies and even a hot tava is at your disposal, you are LAZY
-If the first thing you do after getting up in the morning is pull up the curtain of the front window and fall back to another long nap, you know that your just preserving your energies for the future!!

That's lazy me 3 years ago. Nothing Changes.