It is the first weekend of spring 2009 for us. All of us were tired of being inside our apartment for the whole of winter. Without much plans, Mr D got a ‘Check out the groom’ interview in Jersey City. So we thought of clubbing a driving experience and an interview together for the weekend. On last Tuesday night, on half sleep D rented a car and he left a message saying he got a deal for ‘Ford Mustang’. We were on a high on Saturday about the car and went to the rental office on Saturday. We were received by an elderly chinky aunty.
Chinky Aunty: Hi Gentle man, How can I help you? or you want to proceed to the kiosk machine ?
D: Hi, we are here to take the rental car
CA: Your last name please …
D: He said the 24 character long name and handed his driving license.
CA: Oh ….You r taking mustang out for this lovely weekend. Have fun! We have a convertible also available! It is going to be sunny this weekend. Do you want to upgrade?
Me: How much it will come to?
CA: Don’t worry; I will give you 10 bucks less. Are you in? (Flashing a chinky smile)
D looked at me with a pleasant smile and I returned the smile
CA: OK, do you want full coverage
Me & D: yes

CA finished the formalities and she asked another lady to pull out the car for us.
When we got our hands to the car, we knew we are going to have a good time. For the first time in my life time, I had to look into the manual on how to operate the car. We were looking for the light button, gear shift lever, the hood open/close procedure and the audio system controls. Man this is what we call GIZMOZ! With a good car in hand, the atmosphere changes drastically. Everyone is ready to go out even if it’s a little on the cold side. We went out to HammanoZet beach on a chilly evening just to take snaps (posing with the car). Everyone had their dream snaps on a convertible. You know what happens if there is a digital camera, guys with nothing else to do and a sports car. In the crowd of 6, poor Mr. R had some thoughts of sitting lazy on the ground resting on the car, but see how the snap came out. Blame it on our creativity.

The best part about the car was its stability, sudden acceleration and comfort. Speechless about the audio system and wonderful power! Now I know how a Ferrari owner would feels when a Ferrari just zoomed passé s us. I had my hands on the steering and give a thought of giving a tough time to the Ferrari but before I could put my thoughts to action, Ferrari had long gone out of sight. That much for racing on the roads! We had our fun ride in jersey city with hood open with two of us with shades looking like vampires ( karinja vampires, vampires are meant to be fair, we are on the dark side!) People do look when you travel in a convertible, even if it was a rented car, it got style and we did turn some good looking blond heads.
These are some things which can be done only in US or such foreign countries. I can only dream about driving a merc back in India. A convertible will be not even in my dreams. But US gives you such wonderful options to have things for a day on rent and feel it like you own it. Only regret I had was on Monday when I stepped inside my good old ‘Vasumati’ ( that’s the name I had for my car, again we have mary kutty, meenakshi and kalyani around, mind you these are names of heroines in different Mohan lal movies except Vasumati). and peddled it, it was taking more than 12 secs to reach 60 MPH where as the FM would have jumped to 85 MPH in 7 secs ! .

ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am writing this as I am taking the tag from 'Devil's thghts’ on writing 25 things about myself. But to tag 25 ppl would be tough, I don’t think 25 ppl read my blog :D. So I would leave it to the readers if they wish to take it on. Now 25 things is a too long list for anything and when it comes to talking about me, that too in my blog, I feel a little ‘I’ centric. Folks if you get bored reading the list, please curse ‘her’. I would try my best to ensure that I don’t start each sentence with ‘I’
1. I am very good at lies but now the skill is put to rest
2. Can talk and talk for hours to ppl about usually nothing if I get the right ppl to talk
3. Have a pretty big inferiority complex on my looks ( Seldom displays photos anywhere)
4. I can’t stand looking at myself over the mirror for more than one minute!
5. Named modest-kumar for various reasons which I wouldn’t disclose! ( C’mmon, I got a little common sense not to write out all the ways in which ppl pull my leg)
6. Somehow ppl likes to keep various nick names for me and very less call me by my original name
7. Most of the time, ppl identify me when I am talking to them over phone and I does the same, almost
8. I am a movie freak, let it be any language (Malayalam, English, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Japanese)
9. I can sleep for any duration at any time given an opportunity to sleep
10. I love cooking.
11. I am blessed in a peculiar way that I don’t put on much weight ( Still 6 kg under weight for my height) even after travelling around and munching into fast food / gulping down beers
12. Pretty easy to talk with if the other person can start the conversation!
13. I seldom say ‘I am busy’ even if I am busy. Usually I don’t answer if I am busy :D
14. I make noise out of flute, guitar, mouth organ and keyboard. I meant it about ‘noise’
15. I have attempted and failed to clear Japanese language test but know broken Japanese for asking ‘Food’, shelter and nearest railway station, same with Telugu and Kannada!
16. Malayalam is my mother tongue but if I write in Malayalam, it will definitely have more spelling mistakes than single letters ( My English spelling is no better, thanks a ton to spell check) The peculiar spelling mistake creeps in when I have all the letters in the word but in different order. So whenever I write up something on paper I will be ‘Singing’ a check, ‘desinging’ software and the list goes on.
17. I thought I had a good deal of patience until I met my niece / nephews on my last vacation
18. I love kids (kids under age of 1.5 years), they just cuddle around ur neck and keep smiling. They are best entertainment if given to you properly fed / packed until they feel hungry. Baby leaks are ok until they don’t poop. They don’t ask for treats after kissing you!!!
19. I love big families and love to live in a place with lot of ppl around. You always get a choice of fighting with someone and go talk to the next person. In a nuclear family all u get to fight is ur sister/brother!
20. Loves swimming and beaches are the best time pass for me
21. I don’t enjoy shopping much as I get tired making decisions. I can walk around a mall not buying anything but stuck inside a shop with smell of new cloths is a big ask!. As I mentioned earlier, doesn’t care much about looks, neither spends time choosing outfits.
22. I am a strong believer of ‘karma’ ( ur deeds will reflect ur gain / loss) and I try to make sure that I don’t hurt ppl badly
23. I hate to be alone anytime
24. I get bored with same set of places and faces and it truly fits in for my current job profile
25. I like to live with a low profile, just like another face in the crowd who came, lived and left this place without much fuzz. Given a chance for getting another life, I would choose to be myself anytime! ( At least until now, all my dream have come true baring may be one :))

If we were given a chance ......

Disclaimer: Any non mallu reader wouldn’t enjoy this post much. It has lot of words taken from day to day conversations and Malayalam movies.


Some how I agree to the statement that men never grow up but simple become aged boys J. We stick on to the same kind of ppl and do almost the same sort of things for fun. It is amazing that how we end up keeping nick names for people around us. Matter of fact these nick names makes us converse so easily about others even in their presence. Converse in the sense, most of the time it is for fun, just for our own group not hurting anyone’s’ emotions. I used to have this going everywhere I went, mostly the names where more confide to me and our group. This is the first time I am publishing some names we (tetrad) are using this in our group. It is no hard guess; it is just names given to girls as a side product of ‘Vayinottam’ (Bird watching). Not all of the girls are given names, but some are due to peculiar reasons. As I am really bored with lot of pending jobs, I felt like writing up some and here it goes J

Killi – This is given to one of the sweetest good looking girl around and it evolved from the name ‘Chella-killi’ from the movie ‘Rajamanikkam’ so who ever roams around with her would be ‘Vedan’ So the names are now a days associated as Vedan 1 to Vedan 10. Yes killi has a long fan list following her. (We, the tetrad are just observers,, we don’t get into hunting!)

Subramanyapuram –This is a recent hit Tamil film in which the heroine just checks if hero is looking at her all the time during a song. We have one girl in our office that does the same. It is written all over face as if ‘Is anyone looking at me?’, Am I beautiful ?

De silva :A girl who just looks like Aravind De silva’s daughter and yet the name De silva

Panji kettu: Meaning ‘Bundle of Cotton’. I haven’t seen any person plump than this girl. I guess it is her body constitution, I have seen her burning her calories for hours at gym but some time we have to be happy the way we look!

Lottu loduk & Gul gullu: The best dressed girls at our work place who are always seen together. Being from SriLanka, they have a unique skin texture and they got some nice curves and have an awesome smile every time they are spotted. As they are together all the time and one of them has a name close to Gulgulmal, we kept the pair with the name from ‘Balarama’. If you have happened to read ‘Mayavi’ from good old ‘Balarama’ then the mad scientist ‘Lottulodukku and gulgulmaal’ would be familiar to you

Captain: One who just dominates any place just by her hefty looks! She must be 5’10 weighing over 170 pounds with broad shoulders and a commanding pair of eyes. But she is an angel at her heart but still she didn’t escape our naming radar! Matter of fact she is a good friend of mine

Kullikka-cura: (The one who doesn’t take a bath) Somehow every time we spot this girl, we get a feeling that, it has been weeks before she had her last bath. May be it’s due to her tiny eyes and the peculiar hairstyle but yes, she got that look. Generally we say that If we happen to see her any time in the morning, it is bad day for us (Proverb says if you face a person who hasn’t taken bath, your day is gone. But from my experience half my client personnel never takes full shower in the morning until they get two hours to spare)

Cutticura : She is another half of kullikka-cura and a little short. So we see them in pairs and hence the name Cutti-cura

Kuthira: (Horse) she just shakes the whole floor while she passes by with her high healed boot and ‘Bajaj–chetak’ like walk. We prey each time she passes by us that she doesn’t break the floor.

A’s Girl friend (Self explanatory) : Unfortunately this girl sits next to my pal ‘A’ and we named her ‘A’s gal friend. ‘A’ hasn’t even talked to her in one year time but still we tease him with the same

QA lab: Just because she works in the QA lab, she was named QA lab. This is used just to mention when she is around. She was earlier voted to be mayor of our company as she smiles at every one and say hello to everyone around.

Shalina sundary (Homely good looking girl) : This is one peculiar girl who behaves like a proper Kerala girl from a remote village even if she is in USA. Everything about her reflects simplicity and hence name SS. It is pretty tough to be simple in this complex world!

Vella Bandar (Partially Malayalam and partially hind – translates to white monkey) Nothing particular about her towards monkey but got this name as we were leaving the cinema hall after the movie ‘Delhi-6’. I guess by being an ardent fan of Abhishek and was screaming about kaala-bunder, she got the name.

Kalliyankattu Neeli : Kalliyankkattu Neeli is a famous mythical character from Kerala which is supposed to be a ‘Yakshi’ who lures and kills young men. Here the name actually came from the amount of lipstick used by this girl which looks more like she just finished drinking blood from someone. Different people and different dressing style, so we cannot blame her but at least we make fun of it in our group. Doesn girls think that my putting a lopt of lipstick means anything to guys ? Still wondering about this!

Motta kutti : The lady with boys cut named as ‘Motta’ and added kutty later on

Akashdooth: Name taken from the old tragic Malayalam movie. This is one girl who is always on the phone with a very sad face moving around at a snails pace. Looks like she is recently married and her better half is somewhere else which makes her face so sad. If by any chance you have seen the movie ‘Akashadooth’ you will understand why the girl is named so!

Challu (Translates to poor joke) : Nothing to do with her humors sense but her name has already a ‘Challu’ part in it and henceforth she is named as challu

5 Minutes: This purely depends on the mind processing speed of a girl who laughs about a joke after 5 minutes. It had happened for more than one occasion that she laughs in the car for a joke she saw in the movie! So even if we ask her some question, we would wait for 5 minutes to get the answer. This name is an accepted even by the girl!

15 Minutes: This is 5 minute’s friend who takes more time for realizing what is happening

Round Floor: This is just broken English translation of one family name

I feel like writing up some guys-nick name also but the censorship of this blog doesn’t allow un-parliamentary words to be published. So even if try to write, it would be more of ***** or #####. So I will leave it here and start running my jobs again!