3 States

Life has so much to offer. There is so much to do, so much to experience, so much to know. Sometimes one lifetime isn’t enough; sometimes all it takes is 1 evening & 3 states.

23rd October 2008, 13:00 Hrs. Bangalore, Karnataka:
Riyaz and his wife Farzana are waiting outside my office in a Santro. As I settle inside I am informed that all the others have dropped out. We are off to a small village near Calicut, Kerala for one of my best buddies, Vinesh’s wedding. We had planned for 2 cars and 8 members and as it always happens most of them dropped out at the last minute. So it was only the 3 of us. As it was Diwali the following week I had booked my tickets for my onward journey to Mumbai from Kerala so that I could attend the wedding and then go home and celebrate Diwali with my family (the way I like it). Hence there was no turning back for me. We decided not to disappoint Vinesh who was expecting a crowd and had made all possible arrangements for our stay. The estimated travel time was 9 hours and we would reach Vinesh’s place before midnight. But if life had been so predictable it would have been so boring!!!!

23rd October 2008, 16:45 Hrs. Mysore, Karnataka:
Zooming through the excellent Bangalore-Mysore highway we reached Mysore which was getting drenched. When we were almost in the heart of the city it was pouring and every nook and corner was flooded. It was so scary we thought we would get washed away. But this problem was only inside the city, as we reached the outskirts it was only drizzling and life seemed better….only just.

23rd October 2008, 18:30 Hrs. Gundulpet-60 kms from Mysore, Karnataka:
This small town is about 56 km from the Mysore-Ooty / Mysore-Calicut road and about 200 km from Bangalore. It is the last town in Karnataka enroute to Ooty or Calicut. A right (literally) turn at Gundulpet & life would’ve been different. Life was indeed different as we entered the Bandipur National Park. We were enjoying the good roads until the point where I noticed that there were no other vehicles plying. Why was nobody travelling to Calicut today?? Growing darkness & the frequent signboards to watch out for tigers, elephants didn’t help either. Farzana was totally freaked out with what she was experiencing. We weren’t exactly brave either but were feigning our bravest faces. The good roads were now gone & we hit some kind of a dirt track. It was dark, it was cold, it was lonely & it was the jungle. The only thing missing was rain. Someone up there wanted to make this as exciting as possible & it started raining. Riyaz was maintaining admirable composure & was describing the do’s & don’t if faced by a wild elephant. One sharp turn in the darkness & there it was, a wild elephant in all its glory. The entire do’s & don’t went out of the window & pressing the accelerator hard was the only option. Luckily the tusker wasn’t standing in the middle of the road like they usually do, luckily it wasn’t in a herd like they usually are & luckily Riyaz sped away in panic & didn’t stop. Imagining the elephant attacking our car sends shivers through my body even today.

23rd October 2008, 20:00 Hrs. Bandipur check post, Tamilnadu:
It was like a scene from one of those B-grade horror movies. Our car was stopped at the check post & an old forest guard flashed his lantern at our window. The conversation was in Tamil & it went like this…

Guard- “Where are you coming from?”

Riyaz- “Coming from Bangalore sir, travelling towards Calicut. How far is it from here?

Guard- “Calicut?? What the hell are you doing here if you want to go to Calicut?? You are on the wrong route sir; you have travelled about 60kms in the wrong direction.”

We didn’t know how to react except for staring at each other’s nervous faces. It was pitch dark, it was pouring & there was no way we would go back into the jungle. The advantages of being in a woman’s company are people are nice to you & offer help. The guard asked us to reach Sultanbethery which was about 65 kms from this check post & Calicut was about 90 kms further down. We had another 160 kms to go & if all went well we would reach there by midnight. We had a quick bite & were on our way to the 3rd state for the day, Kerala.

23rd October 2008, 21:00 Hrs. Somewhere in Kerala:
Similar environs, good roads, and a high dose of nature on either side greeted us but thankfully it had stopped raining. These areas were inhabited. We could see houses punctuated at a distance of half a kilometer or so. Such an ambience brings out the best ghost stories & when we were at it we could see somebody jogging towards us from out of no where. I could feel my bones freeze. This guy kept running towards us & before we could comprehend what was happening he whizzed past our car. Who was he, why was he running on such a dark & lonely stretch, couldn’t register anything. Did we just have a paranormal experience or was our mind playing games?? As we reached Sultanbethery fatigue had taken over & the only way to end this never ending night was to get a room & crash. That’s exactly what we did. When you are too tired it’s not difficult to fall asleep but when you are too excited you can’t sleep for long.

24th October 2008, 07:30 Hrs. Sultanbethery, Wayanad, Kerala:
We were up early. One, because we didn’t sleep well & two, we were excited to reach the venue to see Vinesh getting married. Breakfast was hot pooris & tea & we were all set to enjoy the views of Wayanad. God’s own country is not just made of beaches & backwaters but also boasts a breath taking slice of the Western Ghats. The journey down through the various hair-pin bends was a pleasure & took away most of the stress from last night. But before we could relax we were faced by the next challenge. Torrential rains!! It rained like I have never seen before & the coconut trees on either side threatened to show us their might. We could feel our Santro swaying to the tunes of the gusts of wind accompanying the rains. Fortunately there were no blockades in spite of the heavy rains & we by-passed Calicut & were moving towards Parappanangadi the venue of the wedding. We had a map for help but it wasn’t easy reaching there. We were just in time to see Vinesh getting married to Rimna. It was continuously drizzling but it didn’t dampen the spirits one bit. The festivities continued without a hitch. We had a sumptuous Kerala style lunch with the pitter-patter of the rains above. This was at the bride’s place & the location is still etched in my memory. The sea shore was just a stone’s throw away. The beaches were secluded & we were on our own enjoying the untouched beaches. We spent a lot time at a spot where the river merged with the sea. All these were our tranquilizers which we desperately needed.

The adventure was overwhelming. It’s still fresh in my mind after years. All it took was 1 evening & 3 states!!

The Perfect Strangers

After failing to convince my extended family for a trip to Mysore to be part of the Dussehra celebrations I was able to sell the idea to a friend of mine, who was more than eager to hit the highway and break the routine. He was more interested about the adventures the highway had to offer. Headlights, dipper and indicators was what he was excited about than the light-laden Mysore Palace. But then, two of a kind always make a good pair. When in Mysore we experienced everything my family had feared...heat, traffic, crowd, commotion...but we also experienced history, grandeur, and the spirit of the Mysore Dussehra. But this post is not about the Mysore Palace or the city itself decorated like a bride that night. It’s about a family I met during this trip…

When on the highway I was informed by my friend that we would first visit some family friends of his and then go about doing our exploration. I really didn’t like the idea as meeting strangers, even though I am good at it, is not something I really enjoy. But I had no choice and our first stop in Mysore was the Central Food Technology Research of India, CFTRI. As we entered the gates of the CFTRI colony I went into flashback, of the 16 years of colony life I had in me. The CFTRI is one of the most beautiful colonies I have come across. Green, clean, expansive and peaceful is how I describe it. Legend has it that the Mysore kings allotted a mini palace and 150 acres of land surrounding it to Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru for a rent of Rs.1. The palace is now the office of the CFTRI and the beautiful colony surrounds it. Colonies are a world away from the world. Difficult to explain but a pleasure to live in. Though I couldn’t explore this colony to my heart’s content, I longed to spend my retired life here.

Here we met a typical Tamilian family. Well educated, highly informed, traditional and soft spoken is a typical Tamilian family for me. Warm, affectionate and friendly are the adjectives I would like to add now. This family knew my friend since he was a kid and their affection towards him was justified. But I was so floored by their simplicity and openness that I became an instant fan. One of the other reasons could also be that people in the so called metros have become so self-centered that anything and anybody coming in the way of their plans or lives irks them badly, me included. I was shown around the house, and then we had a sumptuous meal with drumstick saambar being the highlight. The discussions ranged from cricket, history, entertainment, education etc and I found myself so comfortable with the family. It was so hard to believe that in this day and age when people have so less time for themselves this family had no issues in cancelling whatever plans they had and being the perfect host.

We, the so called metro dwellers take ourselves so seriously. Kindness, warmth, affection among strangers is so hard to find in a city. On a popular reality show Javed Akhtar reminded that the real India is still alive in the small towns, I got a glimpse of it in Mysore.

Hare Krishna!!!

21st September was no ordinary Sunday. My cousin had got passes to a workshop called the Yoga Retreat at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, popularly known as ISKCON. Although I am spiritual and religious but my mind wasn’t ready for a full day's session on a Sunday. But I decided to go through it to experience a different side of life and a different side of me which always got neglected. As it was a full day session there were many activities and discussions, I’ve noted down some top of the mind events which I was very impressed with.

Vraja
As we were being seated down in this well equipped indoor auditorium with BOSE surround and 2 giant screens, they played this multimedia piece called the Vraja as filler. This had exclusive ISKCON paintings of Lord Krishna in all his forms, ages etc. But the highlight was the music which played in the background. It is one of the best tracks I’ve heard in a very long time. I wasn’t able to place it in a particular genre as it had everything Trance, Techno, Indian and of course the maha-mantra chanting. I had made up my mind to get hold of this track and bought the CD for a mere Rs.40 at the end of the day.

The Speakers
The workshop had 4 different speakers covering various topics like meditation techniques, mind control, existence of God etc. I won’t deny that I’ve seen speakers with better presentation skills but what caught my imagination was these guys in their mid 30’s were highly educated and had qualifications with brands. Couple of them were from IIT’s, one of them had a MS from a US university and another one was a scientist with IISc. The only thought which kept me baffled was what made them give up their illustrious careers and choose this path.

Exclusive Darshan
This was another experience which will remain with me for a long time to come. The whole batch of 400 odd participants was taken to the main temple hall for an exclusive darshan and it was a sight worth watching. The doors to the 3 idols were closed while all of us were chanting the maha-mantra. The hall was vibrating with the chants and then 3 swamis blew the conks to announce the opening of the doors. The doors opened to a bhajan composed by George Harrison the lead guitarist of The Beatles. The idol rooms were filled with a thick blanket of smoke from dhoop and it cleared slowly with a magical effect. The presentation was so simple yet mystical it could put all the new age special effects to shame.

Next Change….Krishna
An animated short movie was shown as a part of the workshop. This was an episode where Krishna lifts the Govardhana Parvath to protect Vrindavan. This movie has already won an award at the recently concluded Cannes festival and it deserved to. It was at par with any Hollywood movie like Ice Age, Finding Nemo. The sketches were fantastic, the sound and dubbing world class and the execution of the story was very effective and appealing. This movie and a series of such episodes of Krishna will be hitting the theatres in November. So watch out Spiderman, Superman….here comes Krishna!

So no regrets whatsoever for spending a Sunday at the ISKCON. I wouldn’t call it a life changing experience but it certainly looks like a turning point.

Read Carefully.....Writer's Block Ahead!!

Had heard of the term “writer’s block” a longtime back and laughed it of as a lame reason writer’s gave to take time off writing. I simply couldn’t understand this phenomenon where a person wished to write but couldn’t. But now when I am experiencing this phenomenon for the past few months I truly understand what it is all about. The mind stops thinking and the fingers refuse to type. Millions of thoughts run through your mind but it’s blank when you sit down to type.

Wikipedia says writer’s block can be closely related to depression or anxiety, which fits my bill perfectly. I have been experiencing both due to various reasons for sometime now.

To overcome this it’s suggested to practice “mindwriting” for sometime i.e. to write impulsively what comes to mind without being overtly worried about the quality of the output.

Well I am doing that and feel its working!!

The Big Fat Indian Wedding....

I was on leave for 9 consecutive days, 2 weekends included, on account of my cousin’s wedding. This period was a welcome change from the lonely life I was leading. For 9 consecutive days the word “privacy” was out of my life. There were relatives around me at any given point of time. These 9 days had travel, rituals, gossiping, feasting and catching-up as the main events. Seeing my cousin go through the rituals has left me a worried man because sooner than later it’ll be my turn on the hot seat.
After 2 days of rituals at the bride groom’s place we left for Hyderabad for the wedding. The travel was the toughest part of the whole process. Taking a marriage party of 30 people and double the number of luggage is no joke and is a task every manager must go through. Add to this the fun of traveling by the Indian railways in the sleeper class during the hot Indian summer. Moreover we had reservations in 3 different bogies and this didn’t help the commotion in any which way. After a lot of efforts for trying to stabilize the chaos we simply gave up and took our seats and left the checking to the TTE. Gradually people settled down after exchanging, re exchanging their seats. It was fun to travel with such a huge group but it would have been better if all of us had got seats in the same bogie.
Next morning we reached Hyderabad and were faced with same problem of handling the luggage. Hard bargaining and negotiation were the lessons that came out of this when we hired coolies for our luggage. A whole trolley was required everywhere we went to move the luggage. The heat, crowd, kids and the barrage of instructions you get from the elderly in the gang can really test your temperament. One of my cousins’s whispered in a lighter vein “too many directors and too few actors”. But the few actors made sure that the story moved on. We reached the wedding hall safely and with the entire luggage intact.
More chaos greeted us as the hall had only 4 rooms and 2 each were shared by both the sides. It was really an experience for some of us used to good bathrooms and no- questions-asked bathing time to manage time in the bathroom as the next person in the queue would go nuts knocking on the door if there was the slightest delay. But the chaos and lack of facilities didn’t stop anybody from looking good. Everybody was at their best during these two days.
Good food, long forgotten relatives, gossip, lots of photographs, exchange of gifts and more rituals were the features of the two days. Unlike north-Indian marriages music is not really an integral part of our marriages and that is one thing I really missed. Some naach-gaana would have really added colour to the fun. Food makes or breaks a marriage. My observation has been that most complains of guests can be killed in the stomach by offering excellent food and that’s where the bride’s side scored. The food on offer was more than delicious.
Traditionally people used to deliberately pick up a fight so as to keep the bad omen away from all the overflow of happiness during the marriage. But there were no reasons for a fight during this marriage and the bad omen was kept away by the way of an unfortunate accident and some heated moments.
Those 2 days were gone in a blur and we were back on the train headed back to Bangalore. This trip was a refreshing change and has mentally prepared me for a bigger change in my life which will happen sooner than later…………I hope!

Game On !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My romance with gaming began when I saw one of my friends gaming on his Personal Computer (PC). This was in the early 90’s when PCs were a luxury and were rarely found in middle class homes. My friend’s dad was into some kind of research and a PC was more of a necessity than a luxury to him. My friend was allowed a couple of hours every week on the PC and he used it to do the best thing one can do on a PC….GAME!
He was kind enough to invite me on one such day and I played Tetris and Pac man for the first time. I was so happy that I recited tall stories of my gaming experiences to my other friends for a long time to come. A few years later my dad brought home a video game from one of his colleagues. Lasso and tennis were the games this time. Dad was totally hooked to tennis and even though he enjoyed the experience thoroughly he knew it could get addictive and denied us buying this new medium of family entertainment.

Flash forward to the year 2000, we got our first PC and I went totally berserk. I played all kinds of game I could lay my hands on. Cricket 96 and Unreal were the favourites then. Though the graphics were average they were way above the video gaming genre. My gaming skills were really honed during my MBA where I met real gaming addicts and was exposed to awesome games. Those were the days of Medal of Honor Allied Assault (MOHAA), Max Payne, Freedom Fighter, Soldier of Fortune, Half Life, Need for Speed etc. The best gaming experience I’ve had was on the hostel LAN, where 8 of us divided into 2 teams made plans, killed, captured the flag through out the night on Quake 3.

MOHAA made a home in my heart because of the World War 2 setting and the intriguing story line and never before graphics and controls. Everything was perfect; the weapons, the characters and the game play. During this time I saw a PS2 displayed in a mall and was awestruck by the graphics and the fun one could have with this machine. I promised myself I would get one of these when I started earning. Now PS3 and X-Box are the buzz words. Things fell in place and one my cousins was in the US at the right time where you can get these consoles for half the price when compared to India. So I’ve kept my promise and have got the PS3 and Medal of Honor Airborne is the game I am playing.

Gaming for me is the best form of escapism. You can play characters which are far away from real life. You can use weapons and vent your frustration and anger. Best way to be part of fiction.

The passion and the kid in me are still alive.

GAME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Randomly Accessed Memory...

I am struggling so hard for topics. I don’t want to write about movies as none of the recent movies has caught my attention or would inspire me to start typing, I want to write on Sachin Tendulkar, but that will have to wait as I am not done with research for it yet. I also want to write on how hollow the IT world is. But that needs more research than Sachin’s topic. When the present and future look so blurry it’s best to fall back on the past. So let me slip back in time and relive some moments from school. These memories are from a place called Mancherial in Andhra Pradesh. I spent 6 wonderful years there. I’ve extracted this from one of my posts on Orkut and edited it.

1.My first day at old school......Mary sister introduced me to the class (Std 5) saying I’ll b joining from the next day......my best friend in school Deepak shook my hand over excitedly....I really didn't like him at that moment!

2. Our school day performances....I was in a skit where I played Mr. Twiddle, the forgetful husband and a disco dance on Hassan Jahangir’s song “booba booba”. Annie sister was the principal then. She liked me a lot!

3. Cycling to school from home in a gang......everybody had a straight handle cycle while I had a BSA-SLR. I sold that and bought a street-cat. I was so happy.

4. A new girl joined our class in standard 7th.....she gave me a Bruce-Lee sticker.....so many guys had a crush on her.

5. Our dance performances on feast days.

6. Having lunch on the stage.....passing our dabbas from here and there.....my usual targets were guys who brought egg related dishes.

7. Our band practice.......till this day I regret for choosing those cymbals....they looked so cool initially but it was not much fun. I wanted to be a drummer.......but all positions were filled.

8. Sherly miss....our beautiful class teacher in Std 7. Is it wrong to have a crush on your teacher?

9. Watching the movie Terminator-2 at Laxmi talkies. For the next 2 days I was impersonating the “mercury man”....I used to walk, run etc like him.

10. Holi, Diwali n Annapurna (food festival) functions at the colony club.....awesome fun!

11. Cricket near my home.....we were so competitive.......a lot of matches with the other section in school....but somehow my talent was never recognized.

12. Our badminton sessions.....me and Deepak were damn good.....but fate had me and another guy as partners winning the rotary club competition. Our name appeared in the newspapers the next day.

These memories are what Brand experts call “top of the mind recalls”. Maybe sometime later I’ll write a sequel to this.
Time to go and create more such moments……….