Varma-ed !

I'm in love, yet again. Yes. Again. This time its His Royal Highness. ooOOOooo. Aswathi Thirunal Rama Varma.

Varma at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLXiNj94rx8&feature=related

Namukku Parkkan Munthiri Thoppukal (Vineyards for us to dwell in)

One of the most beautiful scenes enacted by Lalettan. Truly orgasmic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_3GZxkjj6U&feature=topics&noredirect=1

നമുക്ക് ഗ്രാമങ്ങളില്‍ ചെന്ന് രാപാര്‍ക്കാം , അതികാലത്ത് എഴുന്നേറ്റു മുന്തിരിതോട്ടങ്ങളില്‍ പോയി മുന്തിരി വള്ളി തളിര്‍ത്തു പൂവിടുകയും , മാതളനാരകം പൂക്കുകയും ചെയ്തോ എന്ന് നോക്കാം , അവിടെ വച്ച് ഞാന്‍ നിനക്കെന്റെ പ്രേമം നല്‍കാം...

Let us rise early and go to the vineyards; Let us see whether the vine has budded And its blossoms have opened, And whether the pomegranates have bloomed. There I will give you my love...

Faak!

Apparently guys love to get robbed off their time, money and emotions. How how dumb can they  get in the name of love. Too bad, too bad.

I heard of a man ...from "Let Us Compare Mythologies" by Leonard Cohen

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.
If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips.
it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside the door.

Yes,I didn’t go for the industrial visit. Now, its not because I do not enjoy the company of my classmates (which I certainly do, once in a while), and its definitely not because I cant bear to live away from home for a matter of 10 days. No. It’s not that. You might not believe it, but it’s simply because, I’m bloody lazy. Yes, you’ve got NO freaking idea how lazy I’m.
I have never made myself a good cup of tea in my entire life. See, it’s not that I ‘vent tried or anything, I did try, and it was a disaster. The aftermath of which, washing up the pan and the cup, putting back the sugar and tea back in their places after a failed attempt, is simply back breaking. I’m not accustomed to such strenuous work, so pardon me.
Next comes cleaning my room. Okay, I never clean my room, but my mom does and I believe she’s got this strange ailment called, dust-o-phobia. I never encourage her in keeping it spick and span mainly because after each cleaning, a hell lot of my stuff goes missing, more like misplaced. She’s got this book of rules where each thing in a room is supposed to be kept, and she strictly abides by it. Like for example I’d scatter my books on the bed when I get back home and after a while they are neatly stacked on my table. In my book of rules, the table is just for the laptop, and books, especially engineering ones, I simply don’t care where they are kept. She calls it laziness, but I beg to differ, seriously. I can’t stand the sight of neat, well kept beds. I simply don’t feel like sleeping on them, as they are so uninviting, and I’ve got to undo the bed before I can catch any sleep on it. Again I get scandalized by Mom, and everyone else. I do keep my bathroom clean, in fact very well, but that goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
Let alone the tea, in general I can’t cook. I’m not a big fan of cooking and cleaning or anything that requires patience and forbearance. I do like driving cars, and was overjoyed when I got my drivers license. Only that it was a bane in disguise, as I was appointed the family’s official chauffeur. From picking up and dropping my sister from dance classes at unholy hours to buying vegetables became my duty and Trust me, its not exciting. Once I took my rage on the road and a distant cousin of mine caught me rash driving, and ever since I’ve not been encouraged to carry out errands.

My family, we are a bunch of misers, and we are proud of it. This attribute goes back to several generations, each competing hard to beat the pervious one. One could say that, not going for the Industrial Visit was again an act of penny pinching. Don’t see this as bragging, but I’ve been to most of those places n number of times, except for maybe Hyderabad. I don’t think I miss Ramoji Film city and Snow World as I’ve been to one of the best film cities in the world and also experienced snowing( or whatever it is called). So what my master plan was, since I am being such a cost effective kid, my mom would buy me something, like books for instance. That did not happen, and furthermore I was subject to lectures from Dad on how he constructively spent his IV at home during his college days doing his final year project. I always give a deaf ear to such stuff, but listen to my plight-It’s a time I don’t even have Facebook for pointless talk and changing profile pictures. I submerged myself to watching the tube and googling silly stuff. Once I was so bored that I even read an article on cultivating asparagus and another one on some clown called SRK, who rose to stardom by manipulating the emotions of weak hearted people. Yes, real pathetic.
So in short, my game plan didn’t work, nor do I miss going for the industrial visit. But what the hell, I get to sleep for hours; there is nothing better than romancing with the bed on a Monday morning, without fear of getting caught.

Live Flesh

We are an impossible dream seeking the night,
To forget in its shadows, the world and all else.
We in our daydream, painful and beloved,
Two leaves that the wind brought together in the autumn.
We are two beings in one, who loving each other die,
To keep the secret of our love.
But what will life matter, when we are separated.
We are two tear drops in a song, 
Nothing more we are...nothing more...  


Pedro Almodovar's Spanish movie, Carne Tremula (Live Flesh)

Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom)

I couldn't but share this one poem here

Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
and the rains
of separation
surround us tock
tock like Go tablets

Everyone has learned
to move carefully

'Dancing' 'laughing' 'bad taste'
is a memory
a tableau behind trees of law

In the midst of love for you
my wife's suffering
anger in every direction
and the children wise
as tough shrubs
but they are not tough
--so I fear
how anything can grow from this

all the wise blood
poured from little cuts
down into the sink

this hour it is not
your body I want
but your quiet company 


Michael Ondaatje. 

Those days of your life...

There are certain days when nothing goes right; starting from your hair that doesn’t stay in place to mood swings that stop you from doing truck loads of assignments for college. Those days you’d be sleep deprived and wouldn’t have a book to spend the night with. Even if you are lucky enough to get one you wake up next day with a dreadful headache and sore eyes, and plans made for the day go down the drain. When that daily cup of hot steaming tea you sip on while reading the newspaper doesn’t have that felicitous amount of sugar in it and you are too lazy to march to the kitchen to make it taste better. You realize that you’ve been engulfed by the appalling news in the papers and is definitely going to miss the college bus if you stop to have breakfast. With a near empty stomach you rush to the bus stop only to realize that you’ve forgotten the assignment which was due that day and rush back home to find you mom with a I-told-you-so expression. She takes pity on you and offers a ride to the next bus stop provided you listen to a lecture on time management and punctuality. You reluctantly accept the offer as you cant afford to miss class not because you want to attend class, but due to lack of sufficient attendance. You catch a heavily congested bus to college, clearly aware of the fact that the clock is ticking and if you beat the traffic you can make it to the class in time. You rush to class and find that the attendance has already been taken and begging for it would mean another lecture on what you mum preached over. So you are in a sorry state of affairs, bound to sit through a boring lecture on 8085 processor, without even getting attendance for the hour. You pull through it somehow and is hastily copying out pages of greek and latin from your friends’ assignment as you had procrastinated it to the 11th hour. Recess time comes by and you find that your luncheon comprises of roti and dal which you detest, but you best friend hops in and snatches your food and finishes it off to the last morsel in a jiffy. Your stomach is in rumbling, and can eat a horse now, and all you are left is a bottle of water you’ve brought from home. Your other friend understands your plight and offers you a slice of bread in which you sought refuge for the time being. The thought of sitting through three hours of lab brings forth sleep in you but you drag your ass out there and look blankly at the monitor pretending to solve a code but you are actually thinking of how many minutes have passed since you got in. Counting time you again make it through lab with an empty stomach and burning eyes and is waiting to get back home at the earliest. You manage to reach home suffice your gluttony and hits the sack after popping in a aspirin. You escape into a dream where you are atop a flying pig who takes you around Pigland where pigs rule and clouds are made of pink cotton candy. You get high on cotton candy and promise your aviator that you’ll include his part in your blog post and kisses him farewell after your small escapade. 

A memory with a watermark.

Many a times in life I wanted to leave the past behind me and start afresh, I’d want to leave everything that reminds me of a certain period of my life and move on seeking greener pastures. To an extent  I have been successful is phasing out all erstwhile memories each time they flash before me, but the naked truth is that, the more I try to cut loose of something, the more I attach strings to it, the more entangled it would get.
This is an tribute to someone who inspired me to write, to read more, told me that pitfalls now are Gods way of saying there is something better in store, who  taught me life isn’t all that easy and there were seldom any half volleys, with whom I’ve cut myself adrift these days. He is Istanbul.
I had met Istanbul on a cold February night in a virtual world when I got largely enamored by something he had written about a particular childhood hero of mine. A conversation was stuck and voila! Sparks flew and within minutes of conversing I realized that whatever I was going through in life at the moment, Istanbul had been though long back and for him, he could see and lot of himself in me. We spoke of The English Patient, his tryst with Istanbul as a Scouser, his travelogues, The Che, he being born on The Che’s birthday, my escapades, our love for Kerala food, beef, porotta, chicken, Tarantino, Woody Allen.
He would write for me, read out poems in his accented English, and sing hopelessly. He loved me reading out to him, lying in his arm chair eyes half closed perceiving every word I utter. I took him to his erstwhile life where in the midst of desperate Machine Drawing he sought relief in Keats, Shelly and Neruda. I sought refuge in him, from my monotonous world of writing codes to a whimsy world where in a magic carpet I’d fly around and see the world I long to be in. Life in general was cat whiskers, all bright, shiny, and full of life, not a tinge of gray to be spotted.
I sit and reminisce those times; I’d wait in the dusty balcony of my room waiting for him to call, and gaze at the stars, finding the brightest among them. Threads were woven between us and they animated patterns of love only that they were blurry and out of shape. I knew Istanbul was the forbidden. Anything that is forbidden has a special charm that it releases way too much pheromone for mortals to show any disdain. To me Istanbul was the forbidden apple and I being Adam wanted the apple for not for the apples sake, like Mark Twain said, but because it was forbidden.
Rational and ethical thinking eclipsed my impulsive naive self invariably and I knew I had to go. I went. Far away from his existence for his good and mine. He knew this was coming; he had anticipated that I’d press the panic button and flee. He felt heaviness within himself for dragging me through his marshy life and soiling my vesture. We parted ways. I made myself believe this wasn’t going to change the normal course of life, a minor turbulence in the roguery called life and I wasn’t going to succumb. I do not miss him yet, his memories still linger – the days we’d finish the cross word puzzle in Mint together, the day I sketched his portrait listening to his voice miles away from where I was, the Champions League final where Barca won…all that…

Bucket List Part-1

It was very recently that my childhood mate and cousin Tulika got married to her sweet heart Aravind after holding their horses for over a year. Since she and I are of the same age, and she being a few months younger to me, I’ve been subjected to high matrimonial pressure over the past few weeks or so. The wedding festivities begin a week before the D day, and I, being a bridesmaid was in and around her place enjoying good food and ushering the guests who had come to meet her. Well, with Tulika already scaling a milestone of her adulthood, eyes were turned to me as I was growing older by the day and not making much significance to the world around me. So to most of my kith and kin, I, to put in terms of computer jargon ,was a process in the Ready Queue, waiting to be executed. A lot of them telepathically told me “You are next in line *giggle*” to which I telepathically replied “Dream on *maniac laughter*”. 

So the wedding was big hit with good food, handsome people walking around, and also the relief that I shall not be stalked into the topic of getting married anymore. That was when an aunt of mine came over and told that she’s got an excellent news for me and my first thoughts being, Tulika generously gave half of her gifts to her dear cousin-Me. Sadly, that wasn’t the case, and in fact it was horrendous news. Apparently she had found me a match, something she claimed to be made in heaven( yeah right!) and went on to give me elaborate explanations on how the guy in question was a distant relative of mine. Unable to convey the message that I wasn’t getting head or tail of whatever she was trying to tell me I stood there thinking what Prithviraj would be doing then, and I figured he’d be with his wife then. Damn it. So when she paused in to take a few breaths while fighting a losing battle trying to convince me that the guy is as hot as Prithviraj, I took advantage of the situation to tell her that marriage wasn’t in the cards, at least for a few years in a deep stern voice (I was getting irritated a hell lot). Her face fell. I could see her pupils constricting. 

“I’ve got a long way to go,and as of now I’ve reached nowhere” I said, thinking it was convincing enough.

It wasn’t. “Where do you want to go? You can always travel after marriage” she cut in.

A mammoth club came and hit the back of my head. Well, that was my imagination, but that’s exactly how I felt. I then went on to give her a boring speech on the journey called life where one must experience all that’s sweet and bitter preferably before getting settled down. 

“You girls are influenced by internet and books these days. I’ve met a lot of girls like you. They have all brought North Indian lads, and some even Americans, when there are many eligible Nair boys around. Don’t be one of them.”

I wanted to sit and explain to her that my parents are okay as long as it’s a guy I get married to, but to her luck she got a phone call and scurried to find another victim. If she had the time and mind, I could have given her lectures on what I wanted to do in the years to come and why I was procrastinating the whole holy matrimony thing. 

However since she wasn’t all ears to what I had to say, let me put this down here.

1. I do a course in engineering where I get to study of outdated 8085/8086 processors and various ancient computer languages. I cant imagine myself sitting in front of a computer typing stuff that appear Greek and Latin to me for the rest of my life. So I desperately need a career shit, and I’m still in the soul searching mode.

2. I want to travel and explore places, write about them, take pictures, and dream about my escapades later on in life. Top priority as of now is given to a trip to Vaishnodevi temple/Amarnath ,JK ; which is supposed to happen as soon as I’m done with the  engineering.

3. My significant other, better half, whatever you may call for a best friend ever, who is in Ahmedabad, thinks that I need to improve on my humanitarian side, so she insists that she and I should do something for the impoverished kids in Africa. Apparently she’s got a thing for SA, which is why she chose the African continent.

4. Since I agreed on a boring SA trip, I got her to agree on a Euro Trip, covering Netherlands, Barcelona ( Thank You Woody Allen), and UK. It will be an all fun and frolic trip and No helping kids there. 

5. I’m enamored by football these days thanks to an old friend who introduced me to the beautiful game. I’d want to watch a match at Old Trafford, preferably one played between United and Liverpool. GGMU!!

6. I want to meet two people in person, one being Sourav Ganguly and the other (no points for guessing) Prithviraj ;). I have huge crushes for them from the time I’ve reached puberty, and meeting them is a dream come 

Phew! The list of things I'd like to do before kicking the bucket( here getting married) is never ending, but these are the first few that popped in. Maybe another post with lot more of my idiosyncrasies...

Watermark.

She couldn’t sleep that night, as it was terribly cold for a tropical countryside. High hopes by Floyd was floating through the speakers of her Noachian laptop as the chilling winds blew though the window giving the white curtains a phantom like appearance. She anxiously kept checking her mail every 5 minutes and kept logging out in anguish. She sat on her four poster bed stared blankly at the wall, though the mosquito nets. She kept thinking to herself, more like, she made herself believe, that he had just sent her some portion of the book he was working on. She kept re reading his mail, trying to make out the cryptic message he sent half way round the world.

“you cant put your arms around a memory. When wounds actually bled instead of clotting immediately under cynicisms gauze. As Neruda once wrote, we of that time are no longer the same”

 She went over to the cupboard and opened her locker to pull out a cookie box that housed Danish cookies once upon a time. It contained a thousand irregular bits of colored paper she could never bring herself to get rid of. It was her box of memories, snaps of their better times she shredded when they parted ways. Painstakingly she put together the pieces to make an elaborate jigsaw puzzle of the man who enticed her. Who gave her sleepless nights like this one. 

After minutes of brain teasing jigsawing she went on to check her mail and her pensive face broke into a sigh of relief. He had replied. The content of the mail was less cryptic; he came up with a request to hear her voice in his ever charming poetic style. She replied, picking and choosing her words, and asked him to call the following morning by 9. 

She popped in a sedative as she knew she’d be awake the long night anticipating his call. The dawn broke to a pleasant and sunny Saturday morning  when the rest of the world planned on the weekend nonchalant to her mind boggling thoughts. It has been quite some time, and still she thinks of him sometimes. Not thoughts tinged with nostalgia, as she consciously blacks them out. She remembers the weirdest of things, his bad taste of food, his mad love for football, the smoke rings he made while exhaling Davioff. She had moved on, put the pieces of life back together, only that they don’t fit neatly as they did once. 

Phone calls from former lovers result in a long walk down the nostalgia avenue. After a couple of hours she heard his voice on the other end of the line, his accomplished British accent and broken Malayalam. They exchanged the usual pleasantries. His upcoming book. Her writing. His girl friends. Her sister. Manchester United. Liverpool. The phone hacking scandal in the UK. Rafael Nadal. 

“its really good to hear you voice say my name, it sounds so sweet” he broke in after there was enough polite conversation for one day.

There was a long lull before she replied. “ummm, same here. The british air has altered your vocal chord though” she brought in.” so what was it in that cryptic mail”

 “ do you still think about us?” an uneasy silence followed this question.

“yeah, I do. Mostly during the EPL matches ”

“I listen to lips of an angel, and I think of you”. He cut in. “ I see an Indian girl, and I wish  its you. when  I read Neruda i hear your voice reading it out to me.  I see a Liverpool fan I think of how much you would hate him,  I think of you when I make love, I think of you when I drink bad coffee” he paused, panting.” You make it hard to be faithful”

 She listened to him dumbfounded, unable to pick out the most appropriate words to respond. Her breathing had increased; she held the phone with trembling hands. All that was audible were their synchronous breathing. 

“look, you are with rita. She loves you. Then why are these concussive thoughts coming by. It’s not right” she replied gasping.

“life took me to UK, and I cheated on you for the 1st time. But I tried to rationalize it by thinking that you’d leave me eventually. It didn’t work, so I had to tell you the truth. “

He heard slight sobs from the other end of the line. “I know I’ve given you terrible times, I was deteriorating in all aspects”

“how do you expect me to respond. To say that I forgive you for all what you have done, to forget everything? My parents have found me a guy, a Stanford grad, and I believe you’ve come to know of it, and hence why the call”

“yes, I heard that, I don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want to see you mother a bunch of kids and be a wife to some tech saavy guy. You aren’t meant for all that, at least for now. You are still a kid, how can you agree to some random guy who was auctioned from the marriage market.”

“it’s the most practical thing in front of me. I’ve been very insecure all my life, and I’ve jumped into a few mistakes, but not anymore. I’ve decided to leave my past behind and start something afresh” she said 

“you are killing yourself. You are not meant to be caged. And you’re killing that part of me who still yearns for you. I can still sense your skin touching mine, your husky voice. It keeps me going. I never had the courage to let you know all that after I cheated on you”

“I hate you D, I really do” she remarked slowly

She knew he could make her dance to his tunes. She knew that he has done it before. She knew that she’d rather be with him than Mr Stanford. She knew it would create havoc at home. She knew she wanted to run away, but only to reach to him. She knew the life ahead would be uncertain as before. She just couldn’t put up a cynical voice for long, for that’s something she’s not good at. She cut the call saying she’s got to think about it. But she knew the answer already. She didn’t have to think. Later that day she got this mail from him.

You were different and same, I was different and same, I knew that is how things happen. And yet, I’d met you because I wanted something more. We are all different threads, I told myself, and once we had woven others threads into something like a bow. Once. As I remember you, I define you, I choose bits of you and like a child with a coloring book, I fill you out. Once it was desire i filled you out with, not memory. You were a blown up photograph to me. But I chose, I was arbitrary, I took what I wanted..i took some and left the rest.  Didn’t know what the rest meant. I plead guilty but ignorant; I didn’t know what women meant. 

He had written, this was his favorite extract from the book she had given him on his birthday, A Night in Tunisia by Neil Jordan. It made a lot of sense to him, and to her. 

That four letter word called Love.

Love is this emotion of strong affection felt by a person for another person. 

“at the touch of love ,everyone becomes a poet”- plato. Well I’m pleased to say that I have proved this great scholar wrong( everyone clap) as I still suck at poetry as I always have. 

“when love struck every girl is like a cat, who stealthily finishes off a plate of milk” – Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. Well, this is yet to be proved, scientists are frantically trying to come up with a break through.  

 From time immemorial people from different walks of life have gone over and about and has many a times ran short of words to describe that strong emotion. It often leaves me in a confused state of affairs when my friends blabber phrases like “love struck” , “heart broke/broken heart”, “I have a crush on him/her”, “love is blind” and many more.

The term love struck, forces me to picture a scenario where a bolt of fluorescent colored four letter word “love” travels from outer space and hits on a  person  and he/she falls unconscious thanks to the extreme velocity. And when they gain back their consciousness, they are in love, and they find beauty in everything and anything and life is so blissful and everything is uber perfect so on and so forth.

Once a friend of mine came over to me and told me that she is heart broken, with eyes welled up and cheeks crimsoned. The rationalist in me would have dialled for medicos but, seeing her plight I figured it was a matter of emotional fatigue rather than any myocardial infraction like I feared. I tried consoling her by buying her an ice cream to which she showed great disrespect by declining it and hence I helped myself with amazing chocolate flavored iced cream. And in order to shut her up I has to finally hit the “heart breaker” with verbal abuses and asserting that there are plenty of fish in the sea and once she and I should go scuba diving to spot them. Sick jokes work on terribly hurt people. Trust me. 

once, my best friend and I were sitting in class listening to boring lectures on quantum mechanics when she whispered to me that she has a “crush” on the 4th guy sitting on the 3rd row. With much difficulty I spotted this chap and wondering what offence that mouse faced guy had done for her to feel like crushing and trampling him to oblivion. I pitied on his fate as she had a big bro who was a kickboxing champ who could break every bone with a single blow. It was later on I understood that she had “romantic” feelings for him when she turned green with jealousy when he was spotted with another girl and told me that she really felt like crushing him.

So what leaves me in a state of perplexes are those terms we associate love with. It can be often misleading and downright hilarious when we look at them in the literal sense. Connecting love with heart is absolute nonsense as; it has got nothing to do with love except that it beats at a faster rate on sighting the person you are in love with. A “broken heart” would absolutely mean that the circulatory system has shut down, which leads to the termination of life. But people still do live with a broken heart which is magical and breaks all laws of medical sciences. Amazing right, this Lowe is. So technically, according to neurochemistry, love happens due to the combined action of pheromones, oxytocin, vasopressin and a lot more of chemicals in adequate levels. Its basically the brain that makes you fall in and out of love and one should aptly say that he/she is “cerebrum broken” when their love is lost forever and when they are in a state of despair. Makes sense right? 

of scars, cinnamon and Neruda.

Just cooked up a story, so that I could share a few lines from my favourite poems. 

“I could meet you now,

And I would wish this scar

To have been given with

All the love

That never occurred between us”

Reading this in a very subtle voice, he paused. He was lying on the cold floor, on his bare back, and she on the unkempt bed gazing the damp ceiling.

 Her long hair was dangling from the edge of the bed, and he whiffing her jasmine hairspray. 

“that was not squeamish, for a change. I like it” she said in a somnolent voice.

“ would you care to write about something I gave you, for me to linger on, long after you go” he cut in.

“oh come on, you still thinking about that, we have chosen different walks of life, and you were supportive….”

“ever since you got you call from business school, there has been this void” he said in a broken voice.

She turned her face towards the floor to catch a glimpse of him. Her hair straight hair that curled at the bottom looked like baby snakes trying to spread their hood.

“you cant do this to me” her eyes slightly moistening up. “here, read one for me from this”

He flipped though the pages of Pablo Neruda and halted at one

“how you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,

My savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running…

My words rained over you….

I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees…”

It was a humid afternoon, and summer rains were about to kiss the scorched sand. He looked at her, and broke into a smile. So did she.

“why did  you go over to that shabby guy and told him you were awe struck,listening him speak”

“because I fell in love with the Prince Hamlet, he was then” she said with assertion.

“and not that guy who looked at you with retarded eyes and muffled mouth?”

“certainly not, why would I?” she said slyly

“Bitch you are” he said with love in his eyes.

“go on, my bastard, I’m craving for abuse, don’t make me beg” she said in a put up sad note

It had started to drizzle, the sweet aroma of the sand filled the room. The damp ceiling formed patterns as the rain came on heavily and looked like the blotches in a shrinks card.

“that bird with bright feathers that crept into my dreams and gave me sleepless nights has let herself loose. life isn’t going to be the same.”

“its not, going to be the same for the bird herself. She loved being smothered and pampered by her beasty master. But Life gave her bigger wings to add more to the brightness and she has to go”  she added to his train of thought.

He broke into laughter. “Poetry is never your strong point huh” he taunted

“Poda chekka. Ninte oru dark sarcasm”

“you love it, don’t you?” 

“ I love it when it come from those lips that hide behind the jungle of a beard you fancy” she paused . “Nemo, I’ll miss all that” she said in a low voice.

“o, my drama queen, chuck the sadness..how about, I’ll buy you  some ice cream?” he said pulling her cheeks to a makeshift smile.

“I’m game after you read me one more poem, how about the cinnamon peeler ?”

“if I were a cinnamon peeler,

I would ride your bed 

And leave the yellow bark dust

On your pillow…” he went on in his rugged deep voice through which she saw her Prince Hamlet.

Rathinirvedam version 2.0

The much awaited remake of the yesteryear cult movie Rathinirvedam was met with bouquets and brickbats, the latter preceding the former. When the two mavericks of the industry Padmarajan and Bharathan, joined hands and went forward to make a movie, sparks flew and a magnificent Rathinirvedam was born.

The flick circles around a lustful adolescent Pappu who is deeply infatuated by his next door neighbor Rathi, an aged spinster. The portrayal of the sensual Rather chechi by jayabharathi created waves among the malayali audience, and still remains as one of the most critically acclaimed roles of all times. 

The director TK Rajeev Kumar, has made a languish attempt on duplicating the movie, scene by scene. The audience on perceiving each scene tends to draw an analogy between the old and new versions which is a big blow to the latest version. That intricate love story that titillated the audience of the late seventies fails to do the same with present audience. The director has failed to make the movie as realistic as the effervescent Rathinirvedam, and in nutshell it is a cheap imitation of that cult movie.

 Swetha menon plays the role of rathi, and has managed to pull off a mediocre show and is pulling the audience solely due to her luscious charms. She desperately needs to shed a few kilos to look like a 26 year old maiden. Sreejith makes his debut in the show biz world donning the role of pappu, and has made a sincere effort to make his mark, but is overshadowed by poorly adapted movie. Shammi thilakan has made a stand out performance of an army officer whose marital joys are restricted to the two months of leave. The music is below average and fails to captivate the audience; the setting and screenplay are commendable. 

This movie on the whole is a warning to the new age film makers who are on the run to make remakes of classic old movies. A PG13 film, and if you have nothing better to do with that 50 bucks in you wallet, give it a shot. 

A letter to the 16yr old me.

Dear G,

You are 16 impulsive and young, and do not heed to anyone’s tidings. You are on the run to be a social butterfly, and trying to get attention by not being yourself. Believe me, its best to be yourself, as everyone else is already taken. By now you have spent a major part of your life in a convent school, toeing the lines the nuns drew, and the scent of a boy, would give you chills in your spine.

By now you’d have realized that your love for chocolates is much more than you thought it was, it is literally impossible for you to stick on a diet. You should stop worrying about that adipose tissues building up, and trust me later on in life you will know that its not the size ,but the shape that matters, and that size zero girl would be scorned upon. 

You are brimming with youth and should not waste your time wondering when that cute guy next door would ask you out. Your knight in the shining armor has set on his expedition to find you, its just that he is a little lost now, but he’ll soon find you. The cute guy next door is being nice only because he wants to use your playstation, and what you feel for him is just puppy love and you’ll forget him when you get a even cuter neighbor. 

 Everything seems colorful and bright and you jump into actions without thinking twice. My girl, only time will teach you twice isn’t enough you need more anticipation before you choose between what you need to do and what you want to do.

You are searching your soul and is still confused on what you should be in your future, but you are tempted to jump into that bandwagon your peers are in. all I’ve got to say is, its you and not them who will have to live with the decisions you take now, so be judicious. I know that you are a jack of all trades, but its better to be a master in one, than none.

Don’t take life all that serious, just be sincere,  be bold enough to take chances and don’t plan too much into the future, its not going to work just the way you chart it out. Reduce on reading Archie comics, never let your guy two time, just kick the crap out of him if he does .You may like Betty but see at the end of the day, she is a loser. Paint your heart out, even though you suck at it, you’ll get better by the day. 

You are lured to try out a lot of things older people do, but see, there is a time to try out as much as you want, and that day isn’t far off. Your sister idolizes you, and its just that she is too young to keep with your idiosyncrasies, and don’t forget to share that last piece of chocolate cake with her, she’ll be grateful.

 All this would seem uber boring to you, and you’d want to wind up reading this letter as fast as possible and travel to your magical world where pigs fly. Soon you’d realize that fantasies have predictable endings, but reality is unpredictable and out of control and that’s what makes life awesome. 

Once last thing, I know that your Dad is career driven, mum is trying to steer your ship, and you want to just run away from all that, but only time will tell you that its ONLY going to be these two people who will be there to give you a warm shoulder at times of thin.

Yours lovingly

Twenty year old G.

Untitled.

Disclaimer : "The events depicted in this snippet are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental."

“knock knock knock knock” she frantically hit on his door,

Rubbing his eyes, and cursing for breaking his peaceful slumber, he reluctantly got up from his unkempt bed and moved to the door to get it. It was his subconscious that took him to the door, and there stood a tall figure of a girl, and it took him a while to realize that it was Hiran . 

* Hiran.  The first thoughts that fleet into his mind about her were her welled up eyes and supple cheeks over which tears rolled down. She had come one morning all by herself to the busiest hospital, in the city,  seeking help from a shrink. This happened roughly 7 months backs when he was busy with his patients in the pediatrics ward. Dr Rameez, a yet to be certified shrink was asked to attend upon Hiran, to whom she poured all her melancholic stories and the reason on why she was there that morning when she should be listening to boring long seminars on Intel 8085 processor. Listening to her earnestly for three quarters of an hour, Rameez took a break from the counseling and rushed to meet Nishant, his best friend of eight years.  

 “Nishu, you have got to come with me, I’ve got an interesting case and I have a feeling you can help her”

“What are you talking about? How will I cure someone off mental issues, that’s your department, moreover I’m busy like crazy here” Turing rameez down

“No, this is important. She vaguely reminds me of Ria, you can’t back out”

Ria. Nishant stood motionless for a second. Images of a shepherd boy, a young girl with Moorish eyes, just flashed in his head. Giving orders to his assistant doctors to take up his duty, he amiably follow his pal to the psychiatry department, to find a young girl, barely twenty with eyes welled up .  He went to her and introduced himself and gave her a few napkins to wipe off her tears.

“I see you have a broken heart”

“don’t talk nonsense, my heart is not broken, I am just crest fallen. I liked a guy, but not anymore. I just need some help to get over him. I’m not one of those tender darling girls who would cry for every other thing. This guy was important, and that’s why this over reaction”

Yes, she is a lot like ria. speaks a lot, gives a lot of answers, even when not asked.

 This one needs to be tamed with care he thought moving all the sharp objects from the table, just in case, you never know. He looked into her eyes, and noticed that she had an epicanthal fold, symptoms of down syndrome, he thought. Now, was not a good time to point that out, as there was an extra chair beside her, which she could slam into his head. 

“we’ll sort everything out, I can treat your soul, cheer up” listening to her lingering story of lost love. 

That was how he met these jubilant, chirpy, wild, young lass. *

“nishu, Nishu, you have got no other choice, but to give me shelter right now, I lost my car keys and there is a thunderstorm outside” she squeaked.

“hold your horses Hiran” he said yawning and looking at the rain drenched Hiran. “why are you here at this odd hour of the day, what time is it? “

“its half past three nishu, I was loitering in your college park with a friend and as she left I realized that I lost my car keys, and it started raining” she said getting inside the room 

“here, dry yourself up, lest you might catch a cold” he said tossing her a towel.

“is it clean? As in do you wash it regularly? Its fine but, I was just concerned seeing your ransacked room “she interrogated

“Yes, it is clean, and I’m yet to use it, happy ?”

“Thank goodness, I was worried” she said letting off a sigh of relief, as though he was infected with an STD.

“ so I still don’t get it, why did you come to the college in the 1st place, and most of all how did you get into my room” ?

“O, nishu, you are such a kid, cant I come to the place I was born, its like homesickness when I leave this place ,this place is so inviting, and no one saw me in case you were worried” she said drying her hair .

“I am not scared, I just curious on how you ran into a building  full of testosterone charged beings, and yes, you can come any time, you blessed this hospital with your birth 20 years ago” 

“Cut the sarcasm nishu, I’m famished, you’ve got anything to munch? “She asked him partially dried up.

“Ummm, all I have here is some old rum and packet of arrowroot biscuits, nothing that’s going to revive you Hiran”

“Get them both; I’ll have anything that doesn’t bit me back”

“You are sure of the rum, it’s pretty strong, and you’ve told me how hopeless you are when you are drunk”

“Come on, get it, it’s an order” she demanded.

Knowing very well it’s not wise to reason out with her, he poured an ounce of rum into a cup and handed over the biscuits to her.

“So how have you been?  Do you still talk to him, you swore you won’t” he asked with a smile

“Yes, but not as much as before. I miss him at times, when it rains, when I look at that Smirnoff bottle.” She paused for another sip of OCR.

“You cried a lot that day; I didn’t know how to shut you down” 

“You gave me a lot of Kleenex then, and I thought you were asthmatic then” she said with a laugh

“Why? You were a damsel in distress and I was helping you out” he said perplexed.

“Yes yes, you were my angel then, you just reminded me of that guy from “my sassy girl” who always carried a handkerchief .Nishu, this is the 21st century, man has been on moon, you still carry a pack of Kleenex”  she said giggling

“the rum is working on you, reduce on the giggles, you might attract a lot of unwanted attention” he pointed out

“You are such a sissy my doctor boy, be a sport” she said dipping the biscuit in cold rum.

*Wild girl this one is he thought, smiling. Ria loved Vodka, and refused to drink anything other than triple distilled vodka. He used sneak vodka in a Sprite bottle and they would drink talking about Pablo Neruda’s erotic poetry and Shakespeare. She could recite entire verses from it when on a high. *

“Hiran you are too impulsive, naive and demanding, you know what, you are suffering from peter pan syndrome” he said in a pious voice

“So Mr. Doctor has come up with some new medical jargon. You mean, I refuse to grow up? Is that what it is about, and I am just 20 and not 80 how else am I supposed to behave”

“Exactly, it mostly seen in boys, and very rarely in girls.” He said slyly

“Nishu you intend to say that I’m like a guy, huh?  You want check me, my boy, do you want to see” she said standing up, with eyebrows raised.

“O, I wouldn’t mind “he said winking

“You freaking pervert, move your ass, the sun is out, lets go for a stroll and find my keys” she said aiming a pillow at him.

Dressed in shorts and tees, he ushered he out of the PG men’s hostel. The sky was sepia and the sun had just started to descent. Drops of rain were still falling from the trees as they went key hunting. 

“Nishu, hold on to me, the ethyl alcohol seems to be kicking, my knees are shaking, give me a shoulder, fast”  

He gave an I-told-you-so look and held her hand. Never in his wildest dreams did he think that he will have to walk around his college with a dead drunk girl. c'est la vie, he thought.

“Nishu, my legs are failing! Lest take a break, come lets sit on that stone bench”

Pulling him to their resting spot she asked him” how long have you been here”

“Around 8 years, My MBBS and now my MD, this place has given me all what I had wanted.  My 1st crush, my 1st heart break, my 1st degree, my 1st salary, all sugar and spice of my life, circles around this place”.

“Hey, so must be around 30right, but wait, you had a girl friend? Seriously? You don’t seem like a guy who can get cheesy and gooey for a girl”

“Come on, I’m not that old, 5 less than your estimation to be precise. Indeed, I had a girl friend, she was a lot like you, but not this wild I’d say. She was a friend’s sister, and used to borrow a lot of my books, and particularly liked “The alchemist”, and to me she very much resembled that girl with Moorish eyes”

“So there is a romantic side in my soul doctor, and now where is she? “

“Romantic, my God, she hated when I used to get a little cheesy, and we used to fight over trivial things like tennis, cricket, Sourav Ganguly.. and patch up fast ” He paused.  “Well, I was preparing for my PG when she was subjected to matrimonial pressure, and I wasn’t in a position to support her and finally we gave in. she fell into a post traumatic stress, but recovered with time.”

“You doctors are such timid beings, why don’t you fight ; you accept life as it gives you. This is what I hate about you people”

“Its not that I didn’t fight for her, I confessed everything to her brother, but nothing worked out, as they had already fixed her wedding with an Ivy League big shot. There wasn’t much I could do. I was helpless. And eloping wasn’t an option. But, in our case    universe never conspired in helping us …” he fell silent.  

“Aww my boy, I’m so sorry” she held his hands and told

“Its okay, so tell me more about you, yes, I know abut the horrible last guy who made you cry”

“Hey hey, I’ll vilify him, I’ll call him names, because I deserve to, I adored him. You dare not utter a word against him” she said, the rum really doing the talking. 

“Relax, I was just joking, go ahead”

“I had this unhealthy obsession over him, it wasn’t like I wanted to live with him, but you know, I wanted his presence, a hand to hold on to before taking every step. Sort of a life support. And I knew it wasn’t going good, and had to stop. Ah, let’s not talk about it, can we” 

“Sure sure, why not” he said feeling a little guilty for taking his patient to her old times

“Lets get going, I’ve got reach home before it gets dark, I think I left my keys at the park, lets go over there”

The keys to her car were lying abandoned in the wet grass. She picked it up and blew off the water on them, and gleamed. 

“I love this place, Nishu, the peace, serenity everything. It’s like home...”

“Why don’t you come over when you are free, you can have all the solitude you want and if you need any company, I’m just a phone call away?”

“O, Nishu, don’t be too nice to me, and beware of falling in love with me, I’m sure to give you terrible times”  she said and he could see her pupils dilating. a lot.

She exactly brought out the fear that crept into his mind, and he knew he was already falling….

My First Kiss

My First Kiss.

First kisses are always very special , those foot popping ones you see in movies, and a girl always knows if she would be seeing that guy again after their very 1st kiss. The 1st kiss defines it all.

Well my case was different. I don’t  remember anything about this guy, be it his face, the taste of his lips, the scent of his aftershave…. Those of you who thought this was going to be some really raunchy tongue game, you are grossly mistaken.

This happened some15 years back, way before I knew anything about the ones with the Y chromosome. I was a little less than 6 years then when my dad took pity on my grandma who was looking after me, and brought me to the US of A for the summer.

Amongst us 5 year olds, it was believed that America is the end of the world, literally.

There is no place, one can go farther than America and to be there was like the divine most deed a person can do, as holy as going to mecca or Jerusalem or kashi. So bragging to my friends ,about the American trip, I was counting down days to that D day. Well to be frank, I would have been a totally different person, if not for those holidays in the in the land of capitalist butchers.

Finally the long wait which seemed never ending, came to an end as I boarded the flight to Bahrain clad in my new maroon frock ,wearing those  golden anklets (something I was really proud of then). The flight went off well, with me the youngest person on board and the stewards simply pampering me with endless glasses of bitter orange juice and chocolate chip cookies. The 15 hour flight came to a stop at the JFK air port from where we were supposed to catch another flight to Cal. Having to kill 5 hours till the next flight, mum and I engaged ourselves in window shopping and feasting on ice cream. That was when I was I saw a very tormenting sight, something I hadn’t have seen in my short span of 5 years. A guy was eating up a girls face, especially her lips. I was more than shocked to sea a cannibal attack in front of my eyes, and that too the first thing I see after breathing the American air. I took the pains to keep my mouth away from the ice cream cone to tell my mom in a voice only loud enough for the cannibal, the victim and my mum to her “ Amma, look that man is eating up her face, lets go save her”

Catching the attention of my squeal the cannibal stopped attacking the girl and I was party happy that my loud squeal could save that hapless girl. To my surprise all of those  5  foot and above lot of them burst into a fit of  laughter, and to hide the embarrassment my mum dragged me away from the crime scene.

I was perplexed and sad that my heroic act was not appreciated with another cone of ice cream, instead they were laughing off such live brutality. That was when I confronted my mum , and asked her to reason out why I wasn’t taken seriously.

My mum in a very elegant voice told me “ Ninu, they were just greeting each other, in America people have strange ways of showing love. Just like we shake hands and give namste, they kiss each other”

Explaining this to me, and by giving me a peck on my cheek my mum continued window shopping and I drowned in the sweetness of strawberry ice cream, thinking of the perfect angle to tilt my head so as to greet Americans in the best possible way..

We reached California by midnight and my dad was there at the airport to receive us with a a bunch of balloons in his hand which read “welcome” . he then tied one of those helium filled balloons on to my wrist and went off to get the car, while mum and I waited with our  pile of luggage ( we had a hand full of them)  in the trolley.

Days in California were enigmatic with each day dawning for more malls, fly overs, escalators, ice creams, flashy cars, chilly breeze, pizzas, cola and what not. We toured Hollywood, san diego, san Francisco and few other places. I still treasure the horrendous drawing picture of mine sketched by the street artist in fisherman’s warf.

Weeks passed and I was getting sick of the croissant and scrambled eggs and was for once craving hot ghee dosais which I refused to eat back in India.

The month of April breezed in and Easter was in the air, and as any other Indian born wannabe American I also got excited about the Easter bunnies and most of all the Easter eggs.

 Easter in India comprised of neighbors serving us mutton biriyani and we finishing it off as soon as they were served watching some flick my mohanlal or mammootty( sadly Prithviraj was just in school and had no plans of acting then).

The much awaited Easter day started off with our German neighbors giving us a basket of chocolate eggs at the break of dawn and I remember fighting with mum for tasting them with out me, while I was sleeping.  I was having my regular meal of croissant and scrambled eggs with eyes,  glued to the tube, when the door bell rang. With mom busy in the kitchen I was asked to get the door and so grumbling for making me move my ass off our couch, I went to open the door. At the door was our other neighbors’ son standing there with a chocolate bunny in his hand. He held out the bunny and wished me Easter. Overjoyed in seeing more chocolates I couldn’t thank him enough in words so I thought of thanking him in deeds. I moved forward to his face and pressed my lips against his. As though stung by a sting ray he stood, motionless. I withdrew sensing his shocked impulse. Well, it wasn’t long before he reciprocated my peck with another on my lips. Soon it turned out to be a kissing game, where both of us took turns to kiss the other. That was when my mum came from to kitchen ,  only to find  her little daughter kissing and getting kissed right blow her nose. She could imagine what mayhem it would have caused if any Indian aunty came by. Seeing my mum , our exciting game came to a sudden halt, and Kevin ran away, for his life, I guess ( such a sissy, I thought). My mum looked at in a way she had never looked before all these 5 years, and all I could do was offer her the chocolate bunny, if that could help. Seeing the innocence in my eyes she asked in a stern but pious voice what was happening there, to which I replied in my most sweetest voice I could put up then “ Amma, I was greeting and thanking Kevin for the chocolates, and moreover it was Easter so again I wished him by kissing him. He seemed to like it, amma..”

I said those last few words as though it was my trump card. She fell silent, unable to express what was going through her mind. She then, broke of a piece off the chocolate bunny and told me, “ see ninu, we are Indians, we don’t have to kiss in order to show gratitude. We always have our shake hands and namastes at our disposal. Only Americans are allowed to kiss, not Indians. And that’s rule.”

The pea brained me went on to believe that for quite a long time, till I broke the law one hot October afternoon..well lets not get into that.

So that was the story of, my 1st kiss. I wonder what has become of Kevin these days, must have turned into some hot bloke by now and getting chicks laid. ..

i realized on the 26th of march 2011..

Yes its my birthday and its has never been a big deal all these years. I couldn’t be more depressed on this day, every year, knowing the fact that I am aging. Which IS a big thing for people like me who is affected with chronic Peter Pan syndrome.

It bites me, to realize that Miley Cyrus, Rebecca Black ect who are waay younger than me and  get to wear Armani night gowns and Gucci bathroom slippers and are filthy rich and bitchier than me.

I realize that if you don’t publish you birthday in facebook , noone is going to remember it. Some really nice people took the pains to wait up till midnight to wish me, bringing me to the realization that not everyone hates me.

I do realize that Bob Marley is God, and Prithviraj isn’t.

Marilyn Monroe and Cleopatra weren’t just sex symbols, but women like you and me. (Guys, relax. Not you.)

I am bankrupt, I don’t even have 2 dimes to rub. My 12 yr old sister is richer than me.

I am a poor driver, I  almost crash landed on a Land cruiser on my birthday( yes my cars’ got awesome breaks.).

George Clooney, the sexiest man on planet earth is single and  49.

It’s the 5th consecutive year I haven’t sung “Happy Birthday to me”, so Life isnt always unfair.

There isn’t any significance in history on the 26th of march, noone remarkable was born or dead nor any famous catastrophe happened except my birth. Again a reason for not celebrating.

I make sick jokes on C++, and that, I realize Engineering and Trivandrum aint my thing.

Thrissur is a great place, only second to Barcelona or Milan.

Sourav Ganguly is still the man of my dreams(not single and available). I’ll name my son Sourav, if I get married and have a kid.

I hate the twilight series, and that gay guy Pattinson and that retarded girl.

A friend told me I have down syndrome, seeing my eyes. Medial epicanthal layer(some medical jargon)

I cant imagine a life without fighting with my best friends at least once and month and asking them to get out of my life, and getting cool with them in less than an hr.

Yes, I have decided to keep my hair short, thanks to the tropical climate of Trivandrum. Yes, I love wearing high heels, irrespective of the fact that I have a decent height.

I write letters to my best friend kilometers away learning design( read carpentry, masonry..) every single week.Seriously. Period.

I tend to be impulsive and wild, but that has reduced down in the past 3 years or so, thanks to a school change and advent of college life.

My favourite place in Trivandrum is probably the MCH(weird , I know). Peaceful and serene with lots of lil puppies.

I have fallen truly madly , deeply and profoundly in and out of love with a coupla guys and my 1st crush was way back in kindergarten with a super cute guy Kevin.

I am linguistically handicapped. I need a minimum of 2 languages to convey an idea.

There is just quite a few, people who actually know Me. The rest of them probably was seeing my alter ego.

I haven’t done anything very worthwhile except fooling and goofing around, and I tend to call my self a jack of all trades, but master of none.

Yes, its getting boring. I should stop.

I am dedicating this note to a handful of people who called me up and wished me on this goforsaken day to remind me that I had completed 2 decades in this planet. . Also to the people of the world for not killing me and letting me live, all this while.

Thank You.