this & that

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Greatest Match Ever

Picture Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports

This year Wimbledon was over in the first round.

Isner and Mahut played one game for more than 11 hours that has the most outrageous scorecard ever in tennis history [6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (9-7), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68] and eclipsed anything else that could happen over the course of the next two weeks.

WOW!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Beautiful Game

No other game fascinates the world as football. Unbelievable that there were more countries (208 of them) participating in the qualifying matches for this World Cup than there are countries in the United Nations! Even Olympics sports fewer countries.

Here is a link to be bookmarked: http://www.wolfatek.com/fifa-world-cup-2010-calendar

Saturday, February 6, 2010

In Memoriam: J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)

Friday, February 5, 2010

Blowin' In The Wind

What do you do when you discover that what you want to say have been said brilliantly by great souls, years before.

Just listen.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

And here for you a take on the original, which turns out to be equally good.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Work Hard, Be Kind

Photo Courtesy: Flickr

Commencement Speech to the Harward Class of 2000 by Conan O'Brien

I'd like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious. I'd like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought exactly what you are now thinking: What's going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24 hours and my roommate's Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out. Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working.

It's particularly sweet for me to be here today because when I graduated, I wanted very badly to be a Class Day Speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to read a portion of that speech from fifteen years ago: "Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic Ah-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold: "I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small Southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority." "I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule." "I believe that one day, a high speed network of interconnected computers will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chit chat and pornography." "And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals." And then there's some stuff about the death of Wall Street which I don't think we need to get into....

The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student here once much like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in Holworthy. I was, without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman Face book. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make matters worse, when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of '85 but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of "Dynasty." My photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.

After freshman year I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he'd have shot himself a year earlier. 1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old. Do you know what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean bad. It would be no contest. If any one here has a time machine, seriously, let's get it on, I will whip your seven year old butt. When I was here, they sold diapers at the Coop that said "Harvard Class of 2000." At the time, it was kind of a joke, but now I realize you wore those diapers. How embarrassing for you. A lot has happened in fifteen years. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around our TV sets and watched "The Cosby Show" on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called "Cosby" on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver's side airbags, but if you told us that one day there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft.

But of course, I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard Grad School, a plum job at your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job in your father's firm. But let me assure you that the knowledge you've gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America-you know, that guy-will enrich you for the rest of your life.There is also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Well, let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the day you die. Right now, a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he had a brass toe ring and they aims to get it. Imagine: These people just raised 2.5 billion dollars and they only got through the B's in the alumni directory. Here's how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you're tired and most vulnerable. A voice asks you for money. Knowing they just raised 2.5 billion dollars you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then there's a long pause and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We don't need it, we just want it." It's chilling.

What else can you expect? Let me see, by your applause, who here wrote a thesis. (APPLAUSE) A lot of hard work, a lot of your blood went into that thesis... and no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis: Literary Progeria in the works of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Let's just say that, during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come up much. For three years after graduation I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car so I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over. (ACT OUT) License, registration, cultural exploration of the Man Child in the Sound and the Fury...

So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"

But to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell you my story because, first of all, my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it's an amazing rush to stand in front of six thousand people and talk about yourself.

After graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles and got a three week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380 a month apartment and bought a 1977 Isuzu Opel, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that, technically, it's not a car. Here's a quick tip, graduates: no four cylinder vehicle should have a racing stripe. I worked at that show for over a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me they were letting me go. I was fired and, I hadn't saved a lot of money. I tried to get another job in television but I couldn't find one.

So, with nowhere else to turn, I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure they knew I had been to Harvard and that I expected the very best treatment. And so, the next day, I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. When you have a Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose Graduate School. You see their faces everywhere: in coffee cups, in fish tanks, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man, in good conscience, would ever wear. I tried a lot of things during this period: acting in corporate infomercials, serving drinks in a non-equity theatre, I even took a job entertaining at a seven year olds' birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox Network as a writer and performer for a new show called "The Wilton North Report." I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way, it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks later, news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into applause.

Eventually, though, I got a huge break. I had submitted, along with my writing partner, a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live and, after a year and a half, they read it and gave us a two week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons and I felt successful. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom and, when the network decided to make it, I left Saturday Night Live. This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here's what happened: When the pilot aired it was the second lowest-rated television show of all time. It's tied with a test pattern they show in Nova Scotia.

So, I was 28 and, once again, I had no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and didn't know what to do next. I started smelling suede on my fingertips. And that's when The Simpsons saved me. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a Monorail and Homer going to College. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use, writing dialogue for a man who's so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good.

And then, an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way . A chance to audition for host of the new Late Night Show. I took the opportunity seriously but, at the same time, I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot. I couldn't fear losing a great job I had never had. And, I think that attitude made the difference. I'll never forget being in the Simpson's recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a fire lane. But a week later I got another call: I got the job.

So, this was undeniably the it: the truly life-altering break I had always dreamed of. And, I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building that show over the summer, gathering the talent and figuring out the sensibility. We debuted on September 13, 1993 and I was happy with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment and put my very best foot forward. And this is what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post: "O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He had dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who should never have come. Let the Late show with Conan O'Brien become the late, Late Show and may the host return to Conan O'Blivion whence he came." There's more but it gets kind of mean.

Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it hurt like you wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid.

I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.

I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it's all right, I'd like to read a little something from just this year: "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever."

Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there's always delusion.

I'll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.

Thank you.

Read @ http://www.february-7.com/features/conan.htm

Monday, December 21, 2009

Merry Xmas!

Get your own snowman at http://snowman.yahoo.com/#/intro

Monday, December 14, 2009

Trivandrum: The Promise

There is some real and quality effort underway in promoting Trivandrum and it's potential. Good work, TDF.

Even if 50% if what is proposed gets realized, the city may be in for a complete makeover.

http://www.tribiz.in/TDF_ITBrochure.html#

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Reciprocity

Dont mind one more from Loudon. A different genre. Pretty serious and sensitive rendering ...

Could not get hold of lyrics. Please post if you have them.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Father and Son

A nice song for Saturday evening. From Loudon Wainwright III. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

When I was your age I was just like you,
And just look at me now; I’m sure you do.
But your grandfather was just as bad
And you should have heard him trash his dad.
Life’s no picnic, that’s a given:
My mom’s mom died when my mom was seven;
My mom’s father was a tragic guy,
But he was so distant and nobody knows why.
Now, your mother’s family, you know them:
Each and every one a gem,
Each and every one a gem.

When I was your age I was a mess;
On a bad day I still am, I guess.
I think I know what you’re going through;
Everything changes but nothing is new.
And I know that I’m miserable; can’t you see?
I just want you to be just like me.
Boys grow up to be grown men
And then men change back into boys again.
You’re starting up and I’m winding down;
Ain’t it big enough for us both in this town?
Say it’s big enough for us both in this town.

When I was your age I thought I hated my dad
And that the feeling was a mutual one that we had;
We fought each other day and night:
I was always wrong; he was always right.
But he had the power and he needed to win;
His life half over, mine about to begin.
I’m not sure about that Oedipal stuff,
But when we were together it was always rough.
Hate is a strong word; I want to back-track;
The bigger the front, then the bigger the back;
The bigger the front, then the bigger the back.

Now you and me are me and you,
And it’s a different ballgame though not brand-new.
I don’t know what all of this fighting is for;
But we’re having us a teenage/middle-age war.
I don’t want to die and you want to live;
It takes a little bit of take and a whole lot of give.
It never really ends though each race is run,
This thing between a father and a son.
Maybe it’s power and push and shove,
Maybe it’s hate but probably it’s love,
Maybe it’s hate but probably it’s love.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Kerala Cafe

A novel experiment in Malayalam cinema. If you have not seen it, I would recommend watching. (http://www.keralacafe.in/)

A good anthology of 10 stories all claimed to be connected by the common theme of journeys. While the anthology in itself was good, the connection was very feeble if any. Some characters in these stories who share nothing else otherwise in terms of their profile, circumstances or role in the movie spending some time in the Café is hardly a connection in my opinion. And in one case, it was just a phone call to somebody working in the café. But that apart, the individual movies themselves had existences of their own and done well.

Below is my ranking of the 10:

1. Lalitham Hiranmayam
2. Makal
3. Aviramam
4. Bridge
5. Island Express
6. Puram Kazhchakal
7. Nostalgia
8. Happy Journey
9. Off Season
10. Mruthunjayam

BTW, I feel like watching the movie again. The movie is personally special to me in that this was the first movie in a theater for my daughter.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Children's Books

Reproduced below is a compendium of children's books that appeared in Young World of The Hindu today. A good list, I thought, when you are in the market next time to buy a book for your child. The first ten in this list were called out as 'Must Read.'

• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass: Lewis Carroll
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
• Charlie And The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• Heidi by Johenn Spyri
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• The Mahabharatha by Vyasa
• The Narnia Chronicles by C.S.Lewis
• The Ramayana by Valmiki
• What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
• Hardy Boys by Enid Blyton
• Swami and Friends by R.K.Narayan
• Feluda series by Satyajit Ray
• Stories from Ruskin Bond
• Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson
• Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
• The Boggart by Susan Cooper
• Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Monday, September 21, 2009

Chikka Tirupati

Another day, another trip. This time to a nearby place, Chikka Tirupati which means 'Little Tirupati'. Twenty-seven kilometers from Bangalore city limits and a nice short drive away is this cute little temple. There are signboards on the way (my advice: when in doubt, just take the left!). Areas in and around Sarjapur are quite green and that makes this short drive, a scenic one.

There are many farms en route and we stopped in one of the Chrysanthamum farms on the way back. In addition to being great spas for the mind, these stops also offer good photo opportunities. While clicking our way to glory in the field, there was this one small boy who came running and was curiosly watching what we city aliens were up to. He figured out none of us had seen so many flowers in one single place together before and he let us have fun. I offered to take his snaps and in his true village innocence said, Yes and readied himself for the click. And when we walked back to our car 10 minutes later, there was placed on the windshield of our car a nice big chrysanthamum flower. Oh boy, you really warmed our hearts by this nice gesture.

Every short trip through a village always gives back nice memories. Village is where life is playing out. Producing real products from the earth. Where men and women are naturally in harmony with the environment. Where there is still place for little pleasures. Villages are real, authentic. For all the material comforts a city offers you, sad that it still lacks genuineness. Never warms one's heart and mind.

So here I am, blogging from a big city about a nice little village on the outskirts.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Happy Onam!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Drive of Life

Have been making more long-distance road trips these days and made another enjoyable visit to Trivandrum couple of weeks back. Unlike the earlier trips which were all marked by a sense of urgency to get to the destination, this time it was a pretty relaxed drive.

From Bangalore started pretty late, around 7:00 or so in the morning, had a 1-hour long breakfast buffet near Hosur and still managed to be in Palakkad for lunch by late-noon. Taking the Mettur dam route and thus bypassing Salem helped (while taking this route, look out for a diversion on the left couple of kilometers before the Mettur dam and thus avoid getting into the dam to save some time unless of course you necessarily want to drive through the dam, which by the way is a beautiful drive). We stopped over in Palakkad for the day with a visit to Malampuzha dam in the evening (relived the memories of a trip there with my parents and sister 25 years ago!).

Next day was another one of lazy driving with generous stops for breakfast and lunch (a sumptuous one at a new-found place called ‘The Travancore Palace’ in Cherthala; would highly recommend that if you are in the area). Stopped at Kollam, Jyothi’s ancestral home for a break and reached Trivandrum by around 7:00 in the evening! Contrast this with my earlier trips to Trivandrum; when we start from Bangalore at 4:00 A.M and reach Trivandrum by 6:30 P.M the same day and you realize how relaxed the trip this time around was.

The next five days were spent savoring ShashiTharoorville!!! (borrowing the term from one of my colleagues in Bangalore)

The return journey was also made a two-day affair with the change being that the stop-over was in Guruvayoor instead of Palakkad. And was in Bangalore by lunch time the second day.

Done with the mundane details of the trip, was musing how a drive is more than a drive really. Isn’t it a metaphor of one’s life itself. A microcosm of the macrocosm of life.

Planning a trip, the build-up of expectations as we approach the day, kicking off the trip, the journey itself with it’s share of experiences and then touching down to the destination; don’t all these resemble one’s journey of life, in a way. You (and your family) is out there on the road trying to get to some place, so is the case with everybody else out there. You are on your own and but also not completely on your own. Potholes on the way that you have to avoid smartly. There are guys ahead of you and behind you any time and all the time. Some close, some not so close. Some in more hurry than others. All forms, shapes and sizes. In your direction and opposite. Some racing, some slowing. Some overtaking, some falling behind. What is beyond the next curve is unknown. But you have to face it and then look out for the one after. And at the end of it all, if you manage to reach your destination safe and in good spirits, you arrive.

But by that time the journey is over!

Friday, July 24, 2009

All For This One Moment

Flying back to India after a two-week looooonnnnnnnng trip to the US. Unlike my previous trips , this time around in one single place all along, Burbank off LA.

The business trips are fun and not-fun. Fun for the work that gets done in the face-to-face meetings, thrill of going to new places and meeting new faces. And not-fun for the trouble of being away from the family. But then the not-fun part morphs into the greatest joy of a travel when you are packing your bags for the return trip. I have my bags packed, hotel bills settled and will be shortly on way to LAX to catch the return flight.

The feeling of anticipation of getting back to one's family is something special. As a leading airlines puts it, 'All for this one moment'.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Daughter

On a hot day, sitting alone in a hotel room in LA had few options but to surf channels. And doing so chanced upon a movie, 'Knocked Up'. Enjoyed it. For good reasons, was moved by a song in the movie. Takes only a little over 3 minutes. Highly recommended for fathers with daughters.

Credits

By: Loudon Wainwright III
Lyrics: Peter Blegvad

"Everything she sees
she says she wants.
Everything she wants
I see she gets.

That's my daughter in the water
everything she owns I bought her
Everything she owns.
That's my daughter in the water,
everything she knows I taught her.
Everything she knows.

Everything I say
she takes to heart.
Everything she takes
she takes apart.

That's my daughter in the water
every time she fell I caught her.
Every time she fell.
That's my daughter in the water,
I lost every time I fought her.
I lost every time.

Every time she blinks
she strikes somebody blind.
Everything she thinks
blows her tiny mind.
That's my daughter in the water,
who'd have ever thought her?
Who'd have ever thought?
That's my daughter in the water,
I lost everytime I fought her
Yea, I lost every time."

Kerala and Back!

After a long time, made a quick trip to Kerala covering Guruvayur, Chottanikara and Ambalamugal over the weekend. In all, 1200+ kilometers in a span of 60 hours. Not bad I think, looking back.

I am not a big fan of pilgrimage trips that too covering a series of ones in one stretch but a trip to Guruvayoor was something I had promised my better half a long time ago. And since any way we were going up to Guruvayoor, it made sense to cover the other two places as well. We had been postponing our long distance trips for a while now because of the pending car upgrade. Now that the car upgrade is itself being deferred, wanted to cover whatever we can in the smaller car. And the fact that we have at home a new I10 of my SIL is helping matters, of course. For me, any trip (any day for that matter) is incomplete without something to say about food, so this trip also had some fond food memories. Especially the meal near Alwaye with steaming brown rice and beef!

First leg of the drive from Bangalore to Thrissur was a breeze with nice roads all the way up to Palakkad. Though the stretch from Palakkad to Thrissur which had a lot of potholes scattered all around the place considerably slowed down my averages, we were well in time in Thrissur for a relaxed lunch at the Spoon restaurant. The last 28 kilometers or so from Thrissur to Guruvayoor had it's scare though with the multi-coloured private buses zooming past through the comparatively narrow roads. They come at you at 80KM or plus from behind and honk like hell till you give way. I soon realized it is a battle I should not get into and religiously gave way every time I sensed a rainbow (in the form of a bus) behind me. I sorely missed our dear vehicle inspector Srinivasan ...

We were off to Chottanikara and Ambalamugal the next day morning and the drive was a pleasure. Driving through some plantation areas in Ernakulam were really energizing. The drizzle lashing against the rubber trees were an awesome and priceless sight. The only disappointment was that in the hurry to cover all places in our agenda we could not stop to savour the environment. No photos either! Back in Guruvayoor in the evening and after a darshan and a Thulabharam with Nidhi on my lap, we called the day off.

Sunday morning gave opportunity for another round of darshans at Guruvayur and we were off to Bangalore by around 7:30 in the morning. The drive back was uneventful and by evening we were back in Bangalore, with a heavy heart.

Missing Kerala. There is nothing like one's own home land, I guess.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Trivandrums's gets it's Obama

Photo Courtesy: Flickr

Election results are turning out to be a pleasant surprise.

Dr. Manmohan Singh and the Congress Party are being voted back to power. This time with probably the freedom to enact policies on their own. And being the original chief protagonist of the economic reforms unleashed in the country last decade, I hope, he will use this opportunity to lead India further ahead in the path of economic development. India is truly lucky to have got Dr. Singh for another five (i hope) years.

Huge relief that the Leftists got reduced to an insignificant number in this round of elections. India would a far better place with lesser of those types around.

Personally, delighted to see Dr. Shashi Tharoor emerging victorious in Trivandrum with a huge margin. Congratulations, Shashi. Very proud to be represented by this new face in Indian politics. Huge expections from you ...

Sunday, May 10, 2009

One more ZooZoo: This time a Mallu

Looks like a coup from some Mallu in O&M; a gentleman Mallu trying to woo his better half with Parotta, Puttu, Kadala, Kappa & Meen, while on their trip around the world