The thailand that enthralled

42 is not the answer!!

Its been nagging me for a long time. I have a newfound disrespect towards the world now. And to think all this because I  read Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams. I am probably not writing this in facebook because, well lots of people might not comply with my views and may post lewd comments on how the banking life has caused a rotting effect on my brain( though it is true to an extent) .

Till we are around 12 or 13 years old, life usually revolves around exactly what our parents and teachers say. I sometimes wonder why I listened to some of them. I mean why did I listen silently to a teacher who called me and my friends- uncivilised barbarians ? What qualification did she have? All she did was teach social studies and not too well. Why do I have so much respect for the Chemistry sir who taught us in the first year of engineering. He was not the most successful because he taught chemistry while the other so called lecturers taught strength of materials and fluid mechanics. Why did I have a crush on a girl who had none of the qualities of an intelligent , straightforward that I was looking for?
But the main question that comes to my mind is- What is the purpose of all this?
What would have happened otherwise if I hadnt fallen of the scooter when it was rammed by a cow?
What would have happened if I didnt go for the stupid exhibition where I met my best friend for the first time?
Does the universe care?
My grandfather was a pretty normal guy. Lived a normal life,  grandma departed early with tb. Then he had to raise 2 sons on his own . Then after both his grandchildren were born and when one of them became adolescent and fat, he got dementia. Every day, some small part of his brain would stop working . After around 4 -5 years of struggle , he went away. Now nobody talks about him. If they did talk about him, what difference would it make?

I think we are being played into thinking that money and power would get us somewhere. Recently I went through some photos of myself and my schoolmates with a friend and we remembered almost every bit of it. The memories remained. And when I got to connect this memory with another person who was with me when it happened, it made me happy. I finally found out , not what the universe wanted because I care less about the universe than the amount of potassium in my diet, that it is the memories that make up our life. And if we think even for one second that money can be a substitiute that's it.... Not only do you make yourself a ticking time bomb, you let those people close to you come in the blast radius....

So either have a blast or be the blast.

The Bangalore Climax

As i sit in the hall of my flat, I keep on looking at the stuff lying around and reminiscing about the story as to how it got here. I just made tea ,( and a very good one i should say) , and the mug in which i am sipping the tea belongs to a guy named Vineeth Zachariah. Zachary as we call him, got this mug as a gift on his birthday. The tag from hypercity mall can still be found underneath the cup. The straw mat on which I am sitting has a totally different story. As we were moving into our new flat from the pg , me and the zachmaster(same guy) went to a chinese goods shop and were buying buckets, mugs, dustbin and whatnot. I saw this straw mat lying and asked the rate. The grumpy shopkeeper said 40 bucks. The zachmaster was not at all interested in buying a mat which was 40 rupees. 'It is too costly', he said, 'it won't last,we will buy bean bags like you said'. I listened to his words very carefully and then decided to buy it, because as we all know , whatever Zachary says, the exact opposite should happen or else the apocalypse will begin.

9 months. 9 months in Bangalore city. I remember Dec 4 , 2012 , a chilly morning as we landed in the K R Puram railway station. There were 2 of us. Myself, Appu S , a fat dude from a city called Thiruvananthapuram and my classmate from college, a guy called Ashik Sharaf who was beefed up(for people who don't see hollywood movies, it means he went to gym) and from the same city. We were given an address supposedly written by a man who hated his job because the address was so complex that even google maps failed to find it. The taxi driver of a maruti omni seemed to know where to go so we hailed that cab. That cab was an Omni, but with no inside parts. The stereo, the fan and some parts of the dashboard were missing. We thought maybe the guy was poor and may have sold off the parts because he needed money. That was before he got a call on his mobile and we saw that it was a samsung galaxy note. Maybe he sold off the parts to buy the phone. By now we should have guessed that every 'andan and adangodan' meaning every other idiot in this city owned a smartphone.

As the 15 days of our company sponsored accomodation was about to get over, we went in search of a pg that could accomodate 8 malayalis. Our demands were as follows:-

1. It should be seimfurnished . Meaning, it should have a tv,washing machine, geyser, individual cupboards, beds, and cemented walls.
2. It  should be neat and food should be prepared in a good and safe environment.
3. The pg should be near to the road.
4. The pg should be near to the bus stand.
5. The rent should be less than 5k.

Except for the 5th demand we got nothing else. The rent was 5k . There was no tv. The pg owner, the most execrable man I have ever seen promised us that everything would be available, the next week. Apparently next week went on for about 3 months when he finally got us a tv .The washing machine worked fine for some time, then the tap near the washing machine stopped giving water and yours truly had to fill water in a bucket, pour it in the washing machine( 4 bucketfull make one wash) and then make it work. 

Soon 4 of the founding 8 members left for greener pastures in other parts of the city. Myself, zachmaster , ashik and a guy named Jithin were left. We were very skeptical about the 4 people who were going to be sharing the rooms with us. There were 2 toilets and 4 rooms each with the capacity of 2 beds. The hall was good enough to accomodate 2 beds. The nefarious dumbass pg owner whose name was Mahesh put 4 beds in the hall, 3 each in the remaining bedrooms and then suddenly one fine day, there were 13 HATTE KHATTE PUNJABIS sharing the pg with us. So, now it was - 17 people, 2 bathrooms. 13 punjabis, each of them twice my size except one guy chabbra who was small and thought himself to be funny, and 4 teeny weeny malayali dudes. Since we were staunch followers of Mahatma Gandhi we decided to let them use the bathrooms first and we would wait. 

Now Jithin had a brilliant idea. We started looking for flats. Ha ha. Beat that Mahesh. For more than a month, we searched every nook and cranny of Marathahalli and Kundalahalli only to find that unoccupied flats were aplenty in the area. Only problem was that none of them allowed bachelors. Finally with the help of a group of money hungry brokers, I found the flat that was going to be our home for the coming months. Owned by a thiick moustached man who couldn't talk English and his English speaking 4 foot tall, thick moustached son who I believe thought himself to be Siddharth Mallya with a moustache. 

So then we bid adieu to "Mahesh international spa and luxury pg" and moved into this 2bhk . The basic idea was to cook the food ourselves and except for Zachary ,everyone did just that. This was until we found out that Jithin who was the curry chef could make only one curry- Egg masala- I should say , he makes it very well and in different styles. Chapathi and egg curry became a norm and for me it became a tedious task . Hence i digressed onto sandwiches, maggi, corn flakes, empty stomach and so on. By the time we were accustomed to the living environment of the flat, we had decided we needed entertainment. I carried a TV from home and we bought TATA Sky. We watched the entire ipl on a 14 inch crt tv which would turn off automatically if used continuously for more than a 1.5 hours. Then exactly one week after the ipl had finished, the TV thought itself to be without a purpose and commited suicide. All the kings' men and all the kings horses could not put prima tv back together. It died in a shop called MS electricals which opens for one hour every week(I seriously believe that the electrician sitting inside has underworld connections). 

By this time, I have done so many things that even people living in bangalore for more than a decade haven't.

• Once I lost my way in Koramangala 6th block and walked about 5 kms before I found myself on a road with no vehicles and lots of cows. Yes, it was a tarred road. I walked back the same way I had come and went back to the flat without thinking too much about it. Btw my phone had no balance.
• The above one happened at 6 in the evening. One fine Saturday night at 8 30 , I started walking from a place called Queen's road in order to find a bus that would take me to civilisation . By 10 30 I had walked 7 kms, my phone had no charge because I was checking google maps, I called the cab guys who told me that they were overbooked , it was raining quite heavily and I found myself talking in Kannada to a traffic policeman who had no idea about what I wanted to say and I had no clue as to what he was saying. I was so tired that I caught an auto whose driver thankfully didn't ask me to  hand over my house deed papers as his taxi fare. 
• While going to watch the IPL, I walked around 3 kms from Corporation to Chinnaswamy stadium, and reached 15 minutes before my colleagues who had their own vehicle.

It is a fact that Bangalore is one of the most difficult cities to live in. Every other person is an IT engineer, the food is costly, the rent is exorbitant, the income is less, the people here believe the weekends are supposed to be spent in malls and pubs, almost everyone is narcissistic and if your morals and ideals are not strong, you are bound to become what i call- a Bangalore zombie. That is what the city does to you. It provides you with a pseudo image and because all the other zombies are doing it, you also join in lest you become am outcast. 

Still, as inquisitive as I am, I have travelled through the city , studied the people, made unusual friends, and I will miss Bangalore. Its noise, the skyscrapers, the office, the food, the aura, the naive people , the more naive and the most naive people. But most of all,  I would miss that set of people called friends whom I would not have met ever, if I hadn't come to the garden city. Thanks for that Bangalore, thanks a lot.

23 years of pure sachinism

Aah yes. 23 years . Out of which I remember most of what happened in the last 20 years.

My first glimpse of sachin was , it may also be my imagination, in a videocon tv that we had at my grandfathers  house . A straight drive over the top of the bowler's head is what I remember. The year was 1993. 

There was a lot of talk about this so called Sachin. I had no interest whatsoever in these matters because I was 3 years old and my main interest lay in...err..well... eating dirt, throwing tantrums and god knows what. The infancy stages are always a blur. By the time we moved to Delhi, there was no TV . There was radio though, but I cant remember playing cricket or even hearing about cricket in those days. But I do remember the first time I played cricket. I believe it was in the year 1996 . There is a small bit of open space in front of every 4 blocks of quarters in Sarojini Nagar where the big kids play. The small kids play in a part of the road, with the stumps ...err.. sticks kept right at the place where the steps end, so that the wicket keeper can stand on the first step. I was made the wicket keeper. Third ball of the first match of my lifetime, the batsman swung his bat, i was standing too close and voila , a hit to the head. This incident may be the reason, I turned out the way I am. Tears gushing through my eyes, yes i admit - i was a crybaby, i ran into my house, vowing never to play with these children again. 

The next week , I played an entire game of cricket. Not really enjoying because this time it was mostly fielding. 

Meanwhile Sachin was playing dream knocks, hitting hundreds and fifties at will. I dont remember watching the '96 world cup but I heard stories about it in school. These stories always had a  mention for Sachin. By the time cable tv came to my home, I was already collecting cards mostly of Sachin. Then watching him play on the telly, hitting shane warne in the famous sharjah endeavours, hitting wasim akram through the line, coming up to the pitch of the ball to hit muralidharan because if you let his ball spin, you are in trouble. Heath streak, Henry Olonga, shawn pollock, waqar younis, Ashley Giles, courtney walsh, ambrose nobody stood a chance. Every single part of the ground was covered. Through the air, driven through the line, cut, hook, pull, bham bham pow kabooom!!  Sachin would always walk off the pitch unscathed whereas the bowlers looked more tired than the soldiers fighting in the Kargil war.

By this time,I had joined 4th standard and Sachin had crossed Desmond Haynes record of 18 ODI centuries. World Cup 1999, I was in Kerala for the summer vacations and remember watching India vs Kenya match . Sachin came out to bat, two down and along with Dravid scored a century. He scored the century and he looked up to the skies. Three days prior, his father had died and he had come to play for the country, smashing a bowler named Angara all over the ground. Till then, I was an ardent fan. Afterwards, I became a devotee.

I used to own a four square bat. This was the same company of bats that the likes of Sidhu, Dravid and Ganguly used. I used to stick a paper over it and write MRF in my squiggly handwriting. I liked to ball leg spin not because of Shane Warne, because Sachin bowled that way. Every single thing about Cricket was taught to me by Sachin. 

I was a bad student in the beginning but picked up the trade as time went on.

I came back to Kerala in the year 2000 and brought my Sachinism with me. Every single Essay, article , speech was about Sachin. Role model- Sachin, hero- Sachin, My dream- To meet Sachin, favourite person- Sachin. Every single thing could be mapped to Sachin. I even wrote stories about Sachin. Naturally, there were a group of people who would always rebel against this devotion. I didn't know it then , but I later formed my theory of being a Sachin hater. There is nothing called as a Sachin hater. The people who say they don't like Sachin analyse his game so well in a way that even Sachin fans could not. They tell themselves , they don't like Sachin but are mesmerised by his performance and to hide this , they start telling the finer points. 

During the years 2001-02 , Sachin was severely hit by injuries and I was constantly taunted at school for Sachin missing these many matches. Then came the 2003 world cup. With Ganguly leading the side and John Wright in the coaching position India was a strong team but not the best. Australia, Pakistan, South Africa were the ones who were in the position to be crowned champions. But then the analysts never took into account the trump card that was overlooked. Every dog has a day. I knew I was not a dog because after every match India took home the victory , the hero in majority of the cases would be Sachin. I had many days to call my own when I would walk in the class and ask them who the man of the match was yesterday. Nobody would dare answer. 

The best innings I have ever seen of Sachin is not a hundred. On March 1 , 2003 Pakistan gave a daunting target of 274 to India to hit in 50 overs. Sachin and Sehwag opened up the batting. I saw every single ball of that innings. Sachin smashed Shoiab Akhthar again and again and again and I have never seen a bowler's face so deplorable and with so less confidence that if I was the bowler ,  I would have retired the next day. Sachin hit 98 off 75 balls in a ruthless answer to Shoaib Akhthars comments that Sachin was afraid of his pace. 

On March 23 , the world's most incapable astrologer had set the date for the marriage of my mother's close cousin sister and the function was to be attended mandatorily. Right after the ceremony, I took an auto to my grandfathers house and put on the TV. Zaheer Khan was being pummeled. After a few more overs , I fell asleep. Woke up  to find out that Australia had put 359 as a score to chase down . Sachin had already got the news that he was the man of the series for his 669runs he had scored . First three balls of Mcgrath , he was unable to decipher. The fourth ball was pulled from outside off stump for a four which I still believe was the best shot of the tournament. The fifth ball , however , was given straight into McGrath's hands. Despair loomed inside me. The reception was going on and I was in the grooms house attending it. I watched the entire second innings feeling really stupid as the only one in the entire house watching the game whereas everyone else was celebrating . By the time I had to go for dinner, 7 wickets had fallen and so had my confidence and pride.

Afterwards, Sachin kept on making centuries, players retired. Once Sachin was compared with Lara, then with Ponting, and almost always with Bradman. The speculation was that these people were better than Sachin. The points were quite clear. Ponting had 3 world cups. Lara had a quadruple century and Bradman had an average of 99.94. Sachin had none of these. Sachin had no world cups to his name, his highest score was a meagre 236 at that time and average was nearing 53 at that time. But still , these comparisons were made. The prediction by the super awesome analysts was that Ponting would surpass Sachin in the number of centuries, Lara would be the highest run getter in tests and  Bradman was the greatest ever. Ponting miserably failed to come close , Lara's record was surpassed in a matter of months and Bradman, well that one has been going on for a long time.

2007 , with Dravid as captain, India failed miserably, including Sachin. We did hit the highest runs in a world cup mathc against Bermuda. But failed to win against Bangladesh. After that, Dravid quit as captain and the selectors turned to Sachin. Sachin said, give it to Dhoni. That was how the most successful captain in Indian Cricket history became what he is today. Dhoni , who had the artillery formed and developed by Ganguly , valiantly led and defeated the troops from every other country in the 2011 world cup when Sachin finally got what he wanted. 

2012 December, I went to Bangalore. After 15 days of stay provided by the company, we moved into a pg. The first weekend at that god damned place, I switched in the TV and found out that Sachin was retiring from One days. In 2013 October, during my training for SBI in Lucknow, I get a message from my friend that SAchin is retiring from tests as well. 

But there are no complaints. No regrets. I have watched him play at his best and play at his worst. As he gets ready for the last match of his career tomorrow, I am also ready to accept his resignation. The time is right. Sachin can go. From a shoddy little team led by Azharuddin, to the strongest ever Indian team in 2012 , Sachin has inspired a billion Indians to do what they like. To pursue something and finally achieve it. To be a part of a team , to win, to lose , without any problems, any issues , to be liked all over the world. To be gifted Ferrraris, to be praised by leaders of nations, to be a God. 

To be my hero. A part of my conscience. MY Sachin. 

TATA CRUCIBLE: A lost hope!!

Every year , i go on a pilgrimage to taj residency in cochin marine drive on usually the second week of march.!! Wierd isn't it..Well that's just me..Being a huge business buff, i am highly complacent about my abilities to win the prestigious tata crucible..This quiz is unlike other quizzes...There is a genuine feeling of ease whenever i try to answer the business related questions...fo e.g - in other quizzes they mat ask the desert in which the good , the bad and the ugly was shot!!! A brilliant question , claps all around if someone answers it right and claps for the quizmaster if anyone doesn't...in the crucible they shoe you the poster of a simple down to earth film like "udaan " and ask you who the production house...the so called "gods of quizzing " may not be able to answer it but the normal film addict would!! thats the beauty of this quiz..its too simple in a lovely way!!! business!!

For the first year , i just went about the quiz like an amateur with my quizmate anand, with no dreams only hope!! It was not a disaster mind you...for first years , we scored a lavish 10 points where the cut off was 13!! a good start ..thats when i realised this was for me!!
how wrong!!
the second year , i prepared for 2 weeks rigorously...seeping up every bit of trivia i could find on business!! They announced the finalists and yet again our names were unsurprisingly missing.

I decided it was time for me to step up , and prepare for the crucible 2011..this time the whole year was spent on writing a diary full of facts that you would crave to get your hands on!! This year Ronnie Raju would be my partner...From november 2010 i started preparing in a hardcore manner!! I had to atleast be in the final this time around!! 4 months of vigorous preparation, ended on march 21 9:00 pm ...when i decided this was enough!! Unfortunately, the next day i found it wasn't...Everything i studied was just rubbish and i had wasted my time on researching these topics...Huge mistakes in the prelims saw us losing out to 2 points in the prelims!!! How sad!!!
i guess that is what they call life!! this is not a positively inspiring post!! , this is just my way of letting out the agony i felt!!!

The uncrowned superstar: Rahul Dravid

First person to catch the ball 200 times ... Not so tough is it!! Try doing this in international cricket and it will take you 15 years.. Third cricketer ever to score 12000+ runs in test cricket.. He has been part of more than 80 century partnerships , a record in itself.. And not an ounce of complacency has creeped into this man whom i personally refer to as the true blue gentleman of the gentleman's game.. In the middle of october, while we were on an industrial visit , me and my friend arun were standing near the visvesarayya museum .. That is when i glanced upon a floodlight stand sprouting from a clutter of trees.. Dragging my reluctant friend along with me , crossing the road at the anil kumble square, i stood before the gates of the chinnaswamy stadium, which many bangaloreans aka software engineers and more software engineers take for granted...

beyond the gates was the "wall" a wall erected in honour of the dravidji that we know of.. The same one who doesn't care whether its shoaib akhthar or brett lee bowling... dragging their spike clad shoes running with the wind and bowling at unimaginable paces , the ball stops its motion with a mere touch of his bat! The bowler, astonished, tries the trick again and again but to no avail!! Commitment consistency and Class, the words imprinted on the wall at chinnaswamy are the words inscribed in our minds when we hear the name dravid.. This man was denied a slot in the Indian world cup team, (which by the way features half the chennai super kings) , yet he did not complain and he did not whine, ..That is the story of a true gentleman!!

The change that is the tamil film industry!

Now that the malayalam film industry's woes can be forgotten for a small amount of time since "traffic " has released, let us take a look at the booming tamil industry....Last year telugu and kannada film industries boasted an overall gross output of 1600 crores into their films....While tamil industry didn't go to that level of money just being wasted for unnecessary purposes(excuse enthiran) , they put their money where their pen was and claimed the most profits in the whole country....The most sensible explanation is that the tamil industry is going through a phase where the yesteryear crew is working even now, the 90's crew also doing great and the newcomer's are creating new never before heard genres....And its not just the actor's , it includes the whole set-the scriptwriter's , the directors, the composers and the art directors....while the malayalam industry is straining under the influence from the likes of prithvi, anoop menon and all, the tamil industry has definite superstars in the making which include arya, jayam ravi, karthi and jai.... Talking about the director's- instead of doing the old age tactics and references that the mallus use, they are thinking ahead and want to take a risk with the audience....Even though the below par films like vettaikaran and others got what it should not have, the audience definitely did not neglect the likes of madrasapattanam , payya and some....Last year saw the further upliftment of the brand -rajni...Even though his acting skills have been consistently put down by the critics , there was a definite enigma to his performance.... director shankar had thought too much and left some glitches behind but still the most expensive film in indian history was a must watch on the list of all ages alike....There is nothing more to say but that the tamil industry will keep booming while the stocks last!! And that will be for a very long time!!!!