Here goes !!!!!!

Getting back home tired and spent one of these evenings, I had a special gift waiting for me sent by a friend. I quickly changed over and picked up the think book, not knowing what to expect and thought that I probably might lose interest in my tired state. Much to my dismay, right from the introduction to the last page, I just kept going, amazed at the subtle use of words, the deep sense of understanding of life and its ways, the so very narrative way in which the author described her whole family. I could actually visualize her family members……….. Here is a sample….. High are everybody’s dreams High are everybody’s rights High are everybody’s thoughts But low are everybody’s minds Yeah that is just a sample….What an amazingly simple analysis of the life and humans that is seen around you. Here is another pearl from the collection…..... Unlucky is I am Under the eyes of others But my Amma says I am the luckiest to be born to them ……………. Another snippet …………...

It was not to be, but still it happened. When a planned trip got cancelled, I was not really hopeful of making it to Calicut, let alone having a MCC get together. However once again proving, that if there is a will, there is a way, it took place. After the cancellation, when we made a sudden decision to drive down to Calicut for two days, I was afraid to inform people lest something came up again. And so, it was after crossing the border that I messaged Freddie. Interestingly, the first message that I got when I got the phone network back in Wayanad was a candy crush request!!!!!! Oh lord, will these ever end??? After umpteen breaks, we landed safely in Calicut and then I sent out an SOS in the group. ‘I am here’. Pat comes the reply from none other Sameer, ‘I am here too’ and so the wheels were set in motion and our dear old Freddie voluntarily took up the job of calling people up to see how many we can gather at such short notice. Abha had confirmed she would come down from Kal...

When old friends meet, time flies like it does nowhere else…………….Once again I experienced it yesterday in Bangalore, when a few of us from the batch of PDC 89, Malabar Christian College (MCC) met for a lunch. The lunch itself was the outcome of a whatsapp group we have got going. Though a few of us have been in touch throughout, for a few it was the first meeting after more than a quarter of a century !!!!!! Whew, any wonder then we got going as soon as we saw each other……….all at once, not a moment of silence, totally oblivious of where we were, and how we sounded. It was as if the years just fell away and we were once in the realms of the MCC…….Each trying to catch up with the rest of the crowd, the chatter of 25 years in one go J It really sounded like someone had thrown  a stone at a crow’s nest (Kaakakootil Kallenrinzha pole)………… And then the surprise came in the form of a cake ordered all the way from Calicut by our dear friend Freddie through one of his ...

‘Don’t you think these papers have piled up too much? Please do something about it……….’ That was the desperate plea of a lady who wanted to try and get the clutter away and out of the house …….. but the response as it has been for the past three months was same…..steadfast…….’Let’s wait a while longer, he will come…….’. I shook my head and wondered for the umpteenth when if ever he was going to come…… Who is this ‘He’?  He happens to be our regular paperwalla who has been taking our old newspapers, books, cardboard boxes and the likes ……….. An old person who comes on his battered cycle (come to think of it, both look the same - old, battered…..)  with a ‘Papaaaaaaaaar’ cry in a peculiar way (no two cries are similar and each of these paperwalas have their signature call ….) to alert you that he is passing by. I cannot recollect the years that he has been coming to our house…….from the time that my elder daughter was two or three perhaps……now she is eighteen. A long time inde...

He could not remember anything………….Everything was hazy………….Where was he? All he could figure out was that it seemed like he was in a hospital. The only people he saw were the ones in white who breezed in and out time to time to check on his drips and administer other medication. The faces were unclear as his eyes were not able to focus. His lips felt dry. Trying to remember anything was giving him a headache. So he just slipped back into blissful sleep. Dr. Krishna breezed into the ICU ward for his morning rounds. He wound his way through the ward and checked the records for each patient and discussed the cases with the junior doctors and nurses accompanying him. He reached the bed No.7 where the patient was in a deep induced sleep. The man was wheeled in to the hospital in a very bad condition, found on the roadside, perhaps left to die. It looked like a hit and run case and the police were yet to identify him and hence there was no family keeping guard as in the other cases. They...

Recently I watched the movie Two States and it stirred me enough to write this blog as I have been thinking about this topic for quite some time. I think this movie was a hit since it was a story that has been told and re-told umpteen number of times, so known to all of us. Two States has happened to most of us, all of us have those few people in our life to whom this happened. Luckily though, as in the case of two states, many are still leading a happily married life. What prompted me to write this post was the fact that in India, it is not really Two States, but Two Families………What I mean to say is that even though you go in for an arranged marriage and marry someone whom your parents chose, from the same caste, community even then this story happens, only slightly twisted. Two States talked about how the couple fell in love and fought to bridge the North-South divide and bring the two families together so they could get married. In the case of most other arranged marriages the...

I am a person who has always loved my freedom and independence. So it is only a given that I value the fact that I was born in an independent India, more importantly a democratic one. I am sure we all do. The truth though is that we hardly ever acknowledge our rights as a citizen of a democratic country when it implies a responsibility on our side, but always quote it when we want to assert our own views on others. Our idea of democracy is being able to do what we want, when we want, where we want, even if it troubles others. Since independence the state of democracy in this country has been such a way that most of us the so called Aam Admi have taken an indifferent approach to democracy and governance as a whole. We have accepted that this is the way to be and that nothing or no one can change that. So when we want any of our work done we pay a bribe without a second thought. It is now as good as paying taxes. Most of the times we feel that it is a waste of our time to go and vote s...