Concentric circles ......

I struggle to keep myself off drawing circles and keeping things 'in' and 'out'. But some how they just appear and things begin to fall in and out. I don’t know how they got in, but when they leave the circle, it is sure to keep my face frowned for at least from 'moments' to 'seasons'. As I am too bad in drawing or it is just the way the curves and brush behaves!!! Each time I select an invisible paint, on time the more invisible paint was, the more pronounced it becomes! Every time I thought the circle was so good and strong but the paint was too loose and it just required a gentle weep or a precious tear ….. :)

This is analogy at it heights and I want it to be like this. I hope no one understands but for those who does, I think experience taught them :)

Pain ......

Some how when ever I end up in a pressurized situation, out of water on the ground, gasping for some energy for life, all of my so called ‘friends’ gets busy. I don’t know if it is bad timing or my so called’ friends’ are unable to realize that I am in trouble! It is just plain pain when I realize that I don’t have many to talk the things I go through - fire fighting issue in project and life. I always have a smile pasted on my lips ploughing through what ever I face. It really doesn’t mean that I enjoy what I do all the time. There are crunch time where I would look around if any one is watching what I am going through and how long I have been doing this. No! If you are thinking about sympathy, I am not talking about that, what I am talking about is a little care from some one around! No I don’t want to make my life as a big thing and say that I am doing the most tenuous job which no one has done. I am just doing what everyone of my age would have been doing. I am doing this all by myself for almost 5 years now. Yes things done and taken care is only for me and for no one else. But I was there for so many people when they wanted some one to burst out their frustrations, their problems and their worries. I never shared or never tried to share such things with any one. I thought there will be some one some where, who will have time and energy to see the things I am going through and understand me. May be I am too proud to ask my friends to hear me out. Either way too proud is making me suffer things all alone

I am not talking about plain loneliness, I can say proudly that, if my friends have a problem, may be a screw fix to a big decision in their life, I will be one among the foremost whom they will reach out and talk. It has been like this for years now. Even when a big failure, a big loss , a huge excitement, yes they call me, But they call me , reach to me only when they need me! There wasn’t one person reaching me asking what I am going through, this includes my family and so called big group of friends. I don’t know if I am alone in this or there are unlucky folks like me out there. I don’t think it will make much difference writing this out here but it helps a lot as writing shells out a lot of frustration in mind and feels like I was talking to some.
Another realization that all I have is myself and have to gather myself from the broken pieces back to smile pasted bulk face and go along. The expectation of having a great friend is too much in this busy world where careers is bigger than care for any one. Expectation just doesn’t reduces joy but it just kills the instinct to smile J

Half the time, I was living through my wonderful past and experiencing anxiety about my future. Let it be a small matter about today’s climate to about big matters like family and career. I came to present moment only when it is of extreme happiness or sadness. Otherwise mind just swings to and fro from past to future. I have read some where that ‘present’ is where we need to live and people who live in present moment are mostly happy. I thought about this for long and realized that when ever I am in present moment, I am never bored. But to be in the present moment is never easy. Trying my best to shift to the present winter leaving the memories of a fresh summer at home and trying to stay happy!

Manju Kalam ........

I struggled for about two minutes to get the rite spelling for 'Manju- manzhu - manzju '- what ever, i mean Winter :) I asked my roomie for the english spelling of manju and he said 'S -N-O-W' and started laughing .... So the title is Manjukalam .... ok about the new experiences in winter ....

It is the last week of November. Starting of another winter season with lots of memory! During my school days, November was always a time with a lot to study, a lot to finish off. It these days bring back memories of cold early morning hours sitting on my balcony looking at the dim light across my compound wall with a text book on my hand. My eyes would be searching for some thing interesting in and around, but not in the book. Eyes will fall back on the books only when I hear foot steps of my mom with a hot black coffee. Most morning would be misty and rainy. I never realized that, those where one of the best November rains I experienced.
Today when I wake up to a cold freezing morning, yes here freeze means, (it literally freezes) I have around 5 to 10 things in my to-do list which includes my laundry, my insurance memo, to my project release dead line, list goes on. Now I feel the mid term exam of November or December is a luxury compared to what I have today. After the exam its care-free days until the next school day / term day start. No need to worry about the back log of emails I need to reply or work pending when I come back after vacation. No worries about the contract renewal or the lease I have signed. But going forward I guess even the to-do list what I have today will be a luxury. I guess that’s what life is all about. But the winter here in US is different. It is more some how paints a painful memory of empty trees, blank looks and dull atmosphere. I have heard that only thing which is good about winter is Xmas. Winter for sure affects my daily life

I started understanding new meanings of shelter: The heated indoor feels like heaven when you are made to wait in the freeze outdoor for 5 minutes by your roomie.

Even after igniting your car, you have to sit in a freezed car with ice over all the windows for 5 minutes to see outside.

Running is as close to impossible as its slippery. So car or heated place 500 feet away means, you are 8 minutes away from heaven or you have 8 minutes before your nose burst with blood or freezes down where you cannot even yell ( Like rose was freezed in Titanic climax :) )

Anything in refrigerator is no more interesting as they are too ‘cold’ that goes for ice cream and beer too

Nature call means taking off layers of cloths in seconds to unleash the power-with-in in-time, otherwise ends up in smelling wet dreams!!!

The only territory on your bed to sleep is where you are already occupied; any other place means dead cold!

Driving nightmares comes with new names as ‘Black Ice, un serviced roads, hidden pavement in Ice. The list goes on and on…

Random thoughts ....

Random thoughts …..
I have heard about writer's block but never felt one. May be becoz I am not a writer or never got blocked without crap thoughts. But here in my new work place which is no more much 'new.
It has been 6 months and it still feels yesterday.I had several blocks to my blogging hobby. First and foremost was my smart client who have blocked all the blogging sites. So no more blog away while charging my client a hefty '$' rate per hour. Also, no time to read thru interesting posts and comments. My blog world almost came apart as I didn’t find time ….

I was busy taking drive to DMV, playing tennis / cricket, eat outs and movies. In last 6 months I must have watched 25 movies in movie theatre apart from online and movies over cable TV. The count will defenilty be more than 200 if i include everything. Went out on weekend trip 6 times, each time traveling at least 200 miles. Innumerable booze parties at house / outside and a sports fest which kept me busy through many practise sessions and matches. All of them made sure that I don’t have time to sit in front of my laptop and type out this crap. Ok I had started with the random things which came to my mind lately and I am unable to find answers for these ….

1. Every time in any of the restroom, people show all their frustration to the poor tissue paper holder. You can just pull out one tissue easily but people just hammer it / pull it / and bash it at times.

2. Why marriage is the buzz word? Every friend of mine is getting married or all they have to ask is about when’s my marriage. (And I hope that unfortunate soul is happy some where )

3. Why there is a season like winter? It is damn cold, winter doesn’t help anything. No one can farm / harvest, people cannot go out / plants can’t grow properly/ even we cannot play. Why it can’t be like without winter?

4. Why there is a day light saving? India works without daylight saving for ages. Why this country cannot live without that?

5. Why a problem is detected only at such a time frame where there is no going back but just to get stuck with it for a life time ( eg : marriage, Job and career )
Planning to continue this, rite now got a call with a production issue :(

last on ..in a hurry, why I always get some block wehn I feel like blogging away :)

Wht's there in a name ?????

I think I heard this a long time ago in some old Malayalam movie
‘ Wht’s there in a name ?’
But believe me, there is a lot to do with a name, I am not talking about numerology which suggests a names starting with V is for Victory and each word and the sounds it makes is evil ‘Evil or Good’. What I am talking about is the names which have to go with the personality of each being.
In an average Indian family the naming comes with following factors
Grand parents name will be cut into pieces and jumbled around to find a word which looks like a name and ppl will start calling the poor baby with that.
The family name attached with one or the other god / saint’s name forms another name
Apart from this, it will be film star’s name, the local popular figure name.
It can be a popular Hero’s name in a movie followed by the Family name, Village name, Gothra and the list goes on. ( In 1980’s it was Vijay, 1990’s name Rahul was the favorite, then it turned to Raj in 1990 to 200 and the latest is names or sound what ever that starts with the Alpabet ‘A’)
Now a day, it is mostly the Dad names her daughter with their long lost love or Wife names her boy with her long last love! (This is a trend which I have noticed lately, it was only passwords earlier but now loved once are honored by naming their kids!)

Taking all of this into consideration, I was named after my Grandpa. Yes, his name was butchered around and fitted in to give me my name. But the name was not good enough for me or I was not fit enough for the name. That’s what I could make out from the list of nick names I had in these years.

Each of the nick names I got until now comes with a story attached to it. Small stories but stories! First and foremost was – ‘Viruthan Shanku’, later got cut shot to ‘Shanku’ which came as I was very small in size when compared to my cousin but ‘smart’, taking into consideration that I didn’t talk until 3, but always did what I was asked to do ( I am good at Dumb C ;)). Now adopted myself as ‘Shanks’ as I couldn’t get shanku!

The next name I got was a ‘Bhaiya’ attached to my original name and later my ,name faded off and ppl started calling me only ‘Bhaiya…’ That sounded good but it was only at home circle. By the time I reached my high school, my nick name was re assigned to ‘Kakka’. This refers to ‘crow’ in Malayalam. Thanks to my skin complexion and slim frame. I am invisible in dark nights until and unless I ‘smile-in-cheese-click’ mode. Also there was one more boy with my name, so I was called with a prefix of ‘Kakka’. It was like Kakka-XXXXX. This name went on until I completed my 10th. Going on with my Diploma, I had to move to middle Kerala from the south side. The south side (Thekkan) nativity which was more closer to Tamil Nadu, gave me a name ‘ Paandi’ which is the colloquial word for a tamilian in Kerala. My ‘Tamilian-looks’ was one of the factor other than the fact that I knew to speak in Tamil which encouraged ppl to call me Paandi. For the engineering college stint, I was spared and ppl called me with my original name. The same went in my office until I reached the current office location.

In last three months, I got almost 4 names, each with its own stories. First one was ‘Vista- man’ as I was the only person associated with the new windows operating system in the new work location. As I was all new in this crowd of strangers, I had introduced myself several times at several different places on different occasions. In each introduction, people were interested to hear about my Japan stint (or I had only one thing to talk everywhere, which was ‘Japan’). Anyways there were some unfortunate common audience to all of my introduction speeches who got bored of the Japan stuff (I can’t blame them; even I got bored telling the same things). They thought out and pre fixed my first two letters of my original name to form a new nick name for me, which forms ‘RA- JAPAN’. This was further faded to form Rajjappan and to Rayyappan in proper Trivandrum slang! This name got a sir name attached to it which was linked with my DMV incident where I forgot to put my seat belt for my driving test! So the name was further elongated to ‘Belt Rajjappan’. Some thing like ‘Sir CP’. Now after each introduction, as soon as I finish, there will be at least two ppl saying,
“He says his name is ‘XXXXX’ that but we dearly call him Rayyappan, Belt Rayyappan!’ Obviously ppl will be interested to know why and the story goes around !!!

Hey, got to go now, some one yelling at the door
“ Rayappooo, Vannu vathil thurakkada!!!”
Translation --

Drive to DMV V

So if any one has doubt about my long standing stint with DMV’s in US, please check it out here As my job demanded a location shift, it also made me go to a DMV to give a driving test. I have to say, it is destiny. But I have to wait until next month to see if it is actually destiny.
As per the US law (GA state law), driving license expires together with I -95. So my precious US-Driving license which I got after all the memorable events was expired on April 15th. I moved to a new state by May 21! My visa extension paper took a big route and reached me on June 28. I don’t know if its my luck or just fate that June 25 means 60 days mark for my expired driving license, which mean I have to get a new driving license, going to DMV, stand in queue, Write the test, get a slot for driving test, gave a ride to another fellow DMV officer and not to mention the number of documents to be submitted.

So after an initial search I found MR ‘B’ who was also planning to go to DMV for driving test. I got with him and other two friends to the DMV. The first trip was un eventful. We where four folks appearing for test that day and all cleared the written test. Mr B had a tough time answering the last question of 16 in which we were allowed to have 4 wrong. He had already 4 wrong by the time he reached 16th question. The question being the % of speed reduction on a snowy day on road with provided answers where like
1) 50%
2) 25%
3) 75%
4) No need to reduce
Was a little tricky, But he cleared it and we got driving slot for two days, two guys on a Tuesday and other two on Wednesday. The other two folks cleared it on Tuesday, B & I had on Wednesday. As the other two folks cleared it on Tuesday, we (Me, B) where under real pressure. Mr B has been driving in US for last one year with his Indian Driving license. I had been driving in Georgia (I drove exactly three times)
So on the charming day, we left our office by 12:35. B’s wife also accompanied us as the owner of the car is required. I had a very bad feeling about the test. On that day I got to know that even B had the same feeling. We reached exactly at 1:00 pm for our test appointment at 1:00 pm. We had to wait until 1:45 to get our driving inspector to get to the car and start testing. B went first with the car as I waited for my chance. He came back after 20 minutes. He came directly to me and said,
B: It’s your chance, best of luck
Me: How was the test?
B: I flunked
Me : How come !

I was thinking if B, who is driving for last one year was made to fail, which means I don’t stand much chance. Anyway I had to give the test. I went in, sat in the driving seat. I am driving this car for the first time. The seat was too close and I tried pulling all the cables out from underneath the seat, but of no use, the seat didn’t move back. Finally I thought, I will give the test like this only. I started acting as required by adjusting each of the mirrors, and driving seat. Then the Driving inspector asked me to back me up.
Even when there was not a living thing around, I looked 360 before backing up and backed up the vehicle. Then went around the ritual of stopping at each stop, giving signals, changing lines until he took me to a big junction with an protected green for a left turn. I had a straight green but I waited for my protected green to take a left.
Driving Inspector (DI): Why are you not taking an yield left?
Me ; I am waiting for my protected green
DI : Ohh, you are pretty safe guy.
Me : Thanks
DI : By the way, please put you seat belt.

My mind went blank for a moment. I had drove almost three miles from the DMV office crossed a rail road, covered two blocks to the main street without wearing my seat belt on my driving test with my inspector sitting next to me!

Me : I think this was the most stupidous thing I have done lately.
DI : hmmm may be, I don’t know what else you have done!

I kept on driving, pretty cool now as I already know the test result. The DI took me to a free way, I reached around 60 MPH and got a lane change also and got took an exit from there to the DMV. In between I had a signal where I had a steady yellow in which I could have stopped but I accelerated. I think by the time we reached back, DMV, my DI forgot what all mistakes I had done as there were too many. So the stint with the DMV continues as I have next driving test on Sep 2nd! God knows whts in store for me there!

Onam 2008

A totally unplanned Onam celebration at middle town, CT in our aprtment. We started planning out only on last wednesday and the toughest job was to find out the group with which we will celebrate our onam. Any team , project, mallus, southies northies, all were too big to be acccomadated in our small apartment. Finally settled to have it with only 'mallu bachelors', which counted up to 15 follks ... And we had things sorted out by end of friday with who makes what, how much and lots of details ... Only thing we missed was plantain leaf. the best part was the cutting and shaving session on friday night which went to early morning 3:00. But it was one of those cherished moments...On saturday we started our Onam celebration with typical ' Arrpooooo irro irro irro ' shouting it loud and hard, three times. We expected a 911 call from the old American couples staying in the apartment above us, but thankfully their patience has increased a lot these days ...
The menu was Parippu, Pappadam, Ghee, Sambar, Pulisherry, Rasam, Mango pickle, Inji curry ( Ginger curry), Kichadi ( Cucmber + curd), Olan ( Pumpkin Olan), Payaru mezhukkuperatty ( Beans fry), Cabbage thorran and Semiya pal payasam. We had to settle for white rice as Red rice ( Chabba rice) was not available. As host we had settled for making five dishes + rice. Parippu was a big challenge as the quantity challeged our vessels! Five dishes we made were Inji curry, Pulisherry, Parippu, pappadam, Kichadi and Payasam. We 15 folks drank up 4 gallon of palpayasam on that day.... followed with some onam photo sessions...
Couple of people were towed away after the feast as they havn't ate this much in a long time ... seriously ate ate ate and out .... :) The ambiance was too good with a lot of nadan pattukal, some good old jokes which is apart of any mallu gathering and awesome food ...
Full thanks to all of the guys and their offshore online buddy (Mom / aunts). Half the people got help from mom / aunts who are cooking experts, who were on phone when ever required. My thanks goes to my mom and her sister who guided me through Inji curry and Kichadi... Snaps will say the rest ...
Belated Onam wishes ..... Ente hridayam niranja onam ashamsakal

Cutting and shaving -I

Cutting & shaving II
Hot paal payasam

Pappadam

All dishes ready to be served


Parippu

Sambar

Avial Pulisherry
Cabbage thoran ( fry)

Pandhi - I

pandhi -II

Tolkilla njan ....

mundannmaar

Still going strong ....

Aftermath ...nobody can sit .....

Just before serving .......

Aftermath ...rest

Special guest, checking the food :)

Trip de Newyork - July 4rth

I wanted to write up a travelogue for the trip to New York but I am pretty bad at it. But worth a try I guess. We (Abhijit, Sreeraj, Deepak,Rajeev(Non-mallu), Rajesh, Sanu & me) was the gang assembled. Sriraj and Rajesh joined us in New York. Poor Rajeev had a bad time roaming around with five mallu speaking guys who took liberty to talk all the time in malayalm. But it was nice that Rajeev understood 'Enniku Vishakunne - I am hungry' all the way because that was one phrase that repeated all day.



This was not at all a planned trip and we liked it that way. None of us had anything specific to see in NY. So we started off around 5:30 am from Newhaven train station. The Newhaven station, CT is a small compact station with a great waiting lounge. Also took a snap of the toy train display in the station.



We had a 2 hour train journey from Newhaven to Grand central railway station. The train journey was made memorable with some amazing snaps from my friend Sanu and a good deal of posing.


Me trying to read the NY map, its really complicated! Courtesy Sanu



Abhijit giving a pose Courtesy Sanu

Deepak, lost in the poster Courtesy Sanu

Grand central station stands up to its name with heavy looking pillars, a four sided round clock and some beautiful sealing drawings.
Grand Central Courtesy Sanu
From Grand Central our first stop was at Brookline Bridge. A long cable stayed bridge with twin pillars which made us think about SRK running around in the movie ‘Kal Ha NA Ho’. The view to Manhattan from the bridge was too good.

Brookline Bridge Downtown view from Central park
The day was too hot and humid. It made us think about days we had in Trivandrum and Ernakulum. After a 30 to 45 minute walk and bird watching the fellow joggers over the bridge we head to the Battery park. One thing I did not understand was, why these joggers where particular to run on this busy bridge on which people hardly allowed them to run. But on an empty bridge even I would have loved to run.
This is my second visit to central Park in New York. Last time when we came here, we were busy doing this
Sleeping Beauty - Anoop (last trip to NY)


This time we went into the church near by the ground zero which had lots of memories from the sep11 day. The place was quiet and I felt really heavy going around. . On the way we visited another church with heavy and beautiful glass windows. I struggled to get a good shot of it. Even with a 'No-photography' sign board, people were crazy taking snaps @ this place
A fantastic shaded glass work in Trinity Church


Next to the famous 'Bull'

Next stop was near the fire holding lady.
Lonely lady on the back ground Courtesy Sanu


Kids playing in water fountain, A joy to watch .....
We didn’t bother going to the island as the queue length was too much and we spend almost three hours sitting around the bench doing bird watching and also one of the best things I can do – Sleeping. My cozy cushion bed was a better option to sleep but sleeping in the busiest city in the world is another feeling. The central park had a touching moment when I saw this ballet dancer who was posing herself like this for more than an hour for money. The worst part was her mom was sitting by a side bench watching her doing this.

The dancer and Kid posing

Kids @ Central Park

Saxophone player ....all alone


The small girl trying to pose hardly knows what exactly is going on. We spend another three hours in the central park before moving to the Time square.


Relaxed horse ride @ Central Park


A peace ful evening @ central park Courtesy Sanu


Contrasting smiles ;)


After another set of photo posing in front of NASDAQ and time square we headed for the 34rth Street to see the fireworks as it was on July 4rth.We managed a place by 11:00 pm on a drizzling rain to see 20 minutes fire display. It was not an ideal place to get snaps of Fire works and I didn’t bother much to loose the amazing fire works by futile attempt to catch them in my snap-N-shoot camera.

Other than posing for snaps and bird watching we didn't visit any place of particular interest. It was a wonderful get away trip to New York. Some how I felt New York is crammped than any other place I have been to, even crammped than Tokyo ...

More snaps at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kurianjose

Random thoughts

Life has entered a cruising mode for some time. It is like a drive on a long drive free way where my cruise control is set for 70 km and no lane change required for another three hours… So I mean no surprises… But the side walks looked boring … Then I started thinking about what would make me happy … The little things that bring happiness to me? I have heard that a beer and a full stomach food is enough to make any guy happy but I thought about it for a while and started counting them. There were very less things that made me happy. I am talking about day to day small things …. Like

A good morning message / mail from some one so forgotten

A smile or ‘U made my day’ from a total stranger

A good ‘checking out’ look from a pretty a gal over the walk way while jogging

A smile from a kid any time any where … Just a smile

A phone call from some one, calling up to talk about nothing, but just ‘what’s up’ ?

A forgotten coin in a trouser taken for washing

A lucky snap of an early morning sun

A comment on my ‘blog’ for a long forgotten post, from some stranger who stumbled on it.

When rushing to bus stop late, the sight of all my co traveler waiting for the bus which is a coupe of minutes late

Some ‘take care’ messages from long forgotten people

A good swim for about an hour on a humid summer day

An exciting gully cricket game where anything would be possible

A cup of cold coffee in fridge after a long walk

A ‘Nice food’ gesture from any one unfortunate to eat my kitchen experiments with boiled vegetables and the array of masalas’ which were put to test

These are very small things which make earth a better place to live.

I would pass on this as a tag to anyone who happens to read this blog. Just list down things which makes you happy … small but there are things which makes our day!

DejaVu!!!

This is going to be really absurd, but still I feel like putting it in words

I was feeling too thirsty in the middle of the night; blame it on our heater or on bad weather. We ran out of water stock for two days now. I went for a refrigerator raid; all I could find was a can of diet coke in the midst of beers and drinks. Came back with it, opened the can. Some how I felt like drinking it while lying down. I drank the coke and slowly …. No I was angry at that moment. With my mom! She does not have time to talk to me. Why? She didn’t even know that I am angry. She is too busy talking to some one. I left the room. The road I walked from my childhood seemed different. It is a stormy kind of night. Just the atmosphere waiting for rain! A cool breeze dwindling away! Felt like running into the breeze. The walk way was un-naturally straight. I started swift walking which changed into frantic running with in moments. Into woods into the breeze I ran with all my energy.
I didn’t know were I am running into, a territory which I never ever be footed. It is all greenery every where, too much of greenery. Lot of trees but the way to walk is clear. There were lots of creepers from woods hanging touching the ground. I checked couple of them; they are strong but still green. I kept on walking. It looks like an ancient place. There I saw a stepped walk –way, steps down to an ally. Steps made with old granite, looked like made in last generation. I went down the steps. I ended up the ally looking at a huge structure. The structure looked like an old fort or may be an ancient temple. But nothing of sort I have seen in my life. Rounded headed entrance with no doors. I felt a bit scared, but went on. The open stone door lead me to a corridor, a wide stone structured corridor. I could feel moisture in the atmosphere with a lot of old green algae everywhere on the wall. Some where water is dripping; I could hear the sound, but very far. I heard a woozing sound, some thing like a bee. The sound gradually increased. The wall in front of me looked like an opening to the next level, but a little too high to climb. I stared in the direction of the sound.
It was like a flying scissor, but I didn’t get enough time to analyze the structure. Some thing from my mind told me to run. I left sprinting to my left around the round surfaced wall. The flying thing followed me. I didn’t see how close it was, but the woozing sound was gaining on me …very fast. The front opening I earlier saw on the stone wall looked climbable now. I ran all across the round structure once to get back to the place where I saw the opening and I jumped in to the next story. It was some thing like a coniferous structure with a lot of algae over it, but built of old huge stones. The flying thing which was round in shape was little big to enter into the opening, but the sound changed rite behind me. I felt like it is trying to cut open the stone. I kept on climbing up frantically round the cone. I don’t know how many I climbed, but reached the summit of the building. Through a small opening I reached the dome. It was some thing like a 30 meter diameter dome. Again stony structure. The tress with creepers were dangling over the huge structure all around the dome. Some thing told me that I do not have much time. I ran towards the dome edge and jumped over a tree. The dome was again slippery, wet. I almost fell down but got grip on one of the creeper, strayed my self up. Reached the tree top, held my birth and watched the dome head with horror. With in seconds the whole circle dome collapsed and a stream of flying things came out. This time I had a better look. It is being flown by some thing. It has the outer look of an old wet grinder and the top part looks like a water scooter. The sound is produced by some saw blade tooth in circle form which makes it float. I think the same blades where used to cut through the stone wall.
There were three of them, with the last one being the biggest. It flied around the dome for a couple of minutes, but they couldn’t find me on the tree top. The algae on the wall had made me almost green and I was on camouflage in the tree top. The woozing thing disappeared back into the building. I started to think, where am I….?I heard some foot steps on the first path way which was visible by now from the tree top. There was a group of ppl dressed like native Indians, say ppl who were on the movie Apocalypto. I slowly went down. I could make out, they were praying the fire for some thing. I could make out, it was some thing like gratitude to a field which gave them rice. I tried to join them but no one noticed me! With in moments, there was a thud sound from some where. The natives gathered their stuff and disappeared into the woods. Most of them climbed the dangling trees and they where gone. I looked for some thing to defend myself, in case it was the flying thing. I slowly walked behind the stone building, to see the source of the sound. The ground was again going steep, but there were stoned steps. I walked up slowly … Found a big statue. Looked like a human face, but so big that I could clime on it and I could stand on its hair. I tried to hide myself in the statue. As there was some sort of sound coming. I held my breath and waited. With in a moment a helicopter appeared right next to me. The pilot was looking for something but strangely, there was no sound. A very small air chiseling sound was there when the copter turned around and the tail rotor almost hit the statue. But again the pilot looked very much scared and he was constantly searching the ground with his thumb on fire arm. Then I heard foot steps again. This time it was a group of proper American soldiers
They all looked scared. They were trying to be very silent even with their foot steps. Following them there was a plane, an ATR model one, which was pulled and pushed using the tree creepers. They where headed a little west of the statue, going towards the valley. Suddenly, that thud again, this time, every soldier started to run. The thud was repeating and approaching towards the group. I stood still on the statue, making sure neither the soldiers nor the thing that might be causing the thud will notice me. Many of the soldiers left the plane but some made sure that, it reaches the slope and got in. It rolled down to the valley …I held my breath and waited to see the source of thud. But nothing came. I sat there for a while. After some time, I gathered courage and came down. Slowly came out into the open ground and checked the place. It looked like no mans land in an old map. A way which is dividing two countries! Both sides looked like old tribe hide outs but nothing concrete to see. The breeze stared again, and I started walking towards the breeze …after a while I again started running, this time I struggled to keep my eyes open …the breeze was changing to a storm, I tried to cover my face with hands while running. Some thing fell on the face. I took it off the face and opened my eyes.
I was lying on my bed wet with my sweat. I was feeling awkwardly thirsty. Woke up and checked the refrigerator, saw the same can of coke still in the refrigerator among the beers! I thought for a moment, am I dreaming now? Or I dreamt earlier ……? I left the can and headed towards the bedroom to see what happens next!

Summer Vaccation

Last 51 days following by today, it feels like my good old school days. I am now at a new client place in a new state in US. Unlike the previous state, the current place is a laid back one. Lots of wide drive ways, full lush green lawns and it looks typically like the AMERICA I have seen in movies. I should consider myself lucky as I go with two mallu roomies.
I found it a little difficult to shift from the vacation mode to working mode, had been at home for last 51 days doing almost nothing other than mailing my managers saying, ‘I am available!’ It is not a good feeling to go out on a hunt for a project when you are in proper visa dead lock. Just go through the visa formalities for h1 b extension in h1 b, you will get to know what I am talking about. One of the highest rated assets which I added to my valet, my US driving license, is invalid now as it is expired! So much for the trips down to DMV! Still, will be visiting DMV in another state in us for some more adventures!

My new client had a lot of surprises for me. First and biggest surprise or better phrased ‘shock’ was my work timing is from morning 7 to evening 4! Think about working from morning 7 for a guy who was sleeping for more than 16 hours a day for last 51 days. Big ask rite? On the third day at my new client place, my client manager caught me napping in the QA lab. Thankfully she had a good sense of humor and asked me that I can try out the work out area if I want to keep myself fresh. Her advice was to come an hour early and work out, which will help me keep myself fresh! I had my sleep calculator inside my head screaming, complaining about cutting out one more hour from my precious sleep.

My lucky charm is still continuing with me breaking everything and every procedure I touch. The security team in the new place took three snaps of me (I was seriously thinking of smiling wildly for the third snap to make sure at least a white strip is visible in the snap) for my ID card. First, the camera broke, second day, the data cable didn’t work and third day the operating system itself crashed. After three attempts, I got my ID with my grin face on it, rite now hanging over my belt. After seeing my snap, a general realization, it is very important to smile in any snaps! Even in ID card snaps. If that was no enough, the client cubicle allocation system got disrupted when they tried to find a seat for me near to their team. Until now, client is fighting to find a place for me, but working from an office which is shopping complex-leased office where a walk from my current work place to my QA lab is about half a kilometer with three escalators and decoding of a stupid map, is fun! I got lost my way so many times in this building and still finding some lonely corridors which remind me of the grass maze shown in Harry potter movie. This place is scary at times.

I am moving away from the topic, the summer vacation is about the 51 days I spend doing nothing! I never thought it will have such a bad effect on my routine. For the last one week, I am literally struggling to keep me awake during day time. A bitter drink, chewing gum and music with full volume are my only weapons against a very strong urge to sleep. After three days, bitter drink tastes good. I preferred this drink which tasted the worst of the lott, to make sure it make my senses realize that I need to be awake. But senses are working in the exact opposite way by developing a likeness towards the drink!
By Indian terms , the summer is gone but here the summer is around the corner and every one is talking about their ‘schedules’ to see when they will work! Hopefully by that time they will find a proper work cubicle for me. Sitting on a temporary cubicle is pretty tough when my super – super boss is just two feet away from me! Now vacation is over and back to work. The biggest shock is blogger.com is blocked in client place!!!

Palavattam .....

Mallu post ahead ..... :D
One of the best combination of Talent and marketing ... Salim kumar used at his best ;)
Best part ....

"Nirasha kamuka lokathil oru pradaniyay nan ninu
Parrekshayil njan tunnam padilea...
Supplikal theerthoru kottarathin munpil pakachu ninu
Matha pithakal gundakalayilleeee"



Hats off to Vineeth Srinivasan....

5 Star Haircut

Scene may be around 15 years back at home, probably on a Saturday evening.

Me: Cough cough

Dad: Who is coughing ?

Mom: Its R, he had a bath!

Dad: put 'rasnathi podi' on his head, why did he play out in sun?

Mom: He needs a haircut

Dad: I will do a 5 StarCut.

Me: Cough..., no mom, no I don’t want five-star-cut. Plz mom ..plz

Such a conversation was repeated, every month until I grew up to high shcool Until then my dad used to cut my hair. A hair cut costs may be 6 to 10 rupees back in 85 to 90's. My dad used to cut his hair all by himself, may be from his 20’s. Blame it on misery or self saturation, I was his victim. I have to say the truth, even after 20 years of experience cutting his own hair, my dad was really bad in cutting hair. My hair looked like cockroach bit into my hair after each haircut. It was so evident that even my teacher used to identify in the whole class. Thanks to my geanes which make my hair grow fast and get me out of cockroach-bit haircut with in a matter for two weeks. But the same thing made me sit for my dad’s experiment with in the next month!

My dad says 5-Star because, if he cuts my hair all by himself, he will give me 10 rupees to get a five star chocolate. One of the biggest dream to eat a full five star bar. As I have given my head to my dad, I need not share the bar with anyone else. I can eat it all alone and hence the name ‘five star cutting’

But things got changed when I went to my high school where I was aware of my hair style. Even before ‘spiking’ the hair was a stylo, my hair always stood like antenna of ‘Akashawani-Radio’ all the time! My mom had a tough time in my childhood to make this hair lay down on one or the other side. Anything youdo, it will stand up the moment moisture goes off my hair. By the time I reached 10th, I gave up working on my looks as it was almost ruined by a stand up hair style. A hair style hardly mattered from there on as looks was not on the priority list, until I went to my office. Tried so many different oils and shampoos to make my hair lay down, but my hair always won the battle. As no one from my family was around when I started moving around in and around, I tried growing my hair a bit long to check if it helps. But It gave me bad head ache and a rough look from many barbers / beauty saloon people like

“What I am supposed to do to this. I might loose my scissors in your hair”

That was the moment, I realized my dad was doing a favor to me by cutting my hair all by himself. Now in US, I went for a haircut twice and both the time, I end up looking like I had a 5 star haircut. Head saloons here have ladies do the haircut. They just go around your head with a trimmer. The choice a victim gets is whether one needs a blade of number 2 or 3. I had to ask them, which one will cut my hair shorter; I mean blade number 2 or 3? Irrespective of what I choose, I always end up like I had put my head on a grass cutter. Thanks to my dad who made sure that I won’t feel a thing if ever I have a bad haircut! I was trained from childhood! you what I mean!
We miss certain things which looks like so small …a haircut, a bite of cream bun from your favourite bakery when rushing home hungry back in our home town. We realize how big it is when we live our life so distant from what once sounded as home! I still miss the 5-star bars I relished.

Looking at my hair style on the mirror, I miss 5 star, but still my head looks the same!

American Adventures - III

Time: Saturday early morning 1:30 Am
Place : My rented apartment

It was a perfect weekend until that moment. I had couple of beers, a nice English movie and an extended discussion over the story line with my roomies just before getting under my cozy comforter. I was finding peace! Then my phone rang.
Tring…. Tring….
I saw the number and it was from my friend, let us call him ‘X’

X: I need a help
Me: Yes X, Where are you?
X: In jail and I need you to get me out
Me: What?

In slice of moment, a stream of thoughts went across my mind. All I know about US jails is like this. The people in captivity are given one phone call in which they usually call their attorney. Then there will be a stream of procedures to get the person out of custody. The victim or the accused will be made to sit in a small room with one side transparent mirror. There will be two to three police officers looking at them and the person who comes in can meet the accused in the room. I had a feeling, things will be different here.
Then the question came, what will I do, when and how!
Now, back to the call

Me: ok tell me what happened and what you want me to do.
X: Come here with a sum of 400 $ and call me up on my number. I am at xxx Jail. Will you come?
Me: yes, don’t worry; I will be there soon with money. But what did you do? How you end up in jail?
X: I will tell you when we meet, you will come na ?
Me: Is this the only call available for you or you can call me again?
X: I can call you again!
Me: Call me after 5 minutes with directions to this place and the exact amount I will require and the procedure I need to follow. OK?
X: Yes..

My fellow roomie have a car and I got him out of bed, got him ready, opened GMAP to find the driving directions from the name I got. We laughed on thinking that we might end up in jail because we had couple of beers three hours back. But the need of the hour pushed us out. We got into the car and drove to the nearest ATM to get money. We were scared to get out of the car in the early morning. We have heard stories about mugging near ATM in and around mid nights. So we went for a drive-in ATM with the other two guys watching the surrounding when I took money. It was a funny moment because we weren’t scared much but none was brave enough to get out.

As usual we got to the place where map took us but we couldn’t find the Jail. We roamed around to find a nearest rail station and parked our car. We went on playing around with GMAP over the mobile phone to find out where exactly we are! My friend who got up in the jail called two times checking if we are on the way. The second update I gave him was not the best one would expect.

X: where r u ?
Me: Actually we are in a place which is meant to be next to the place you told us, but we are not sure if we are there, where we are meant to be! (There might be grammatical mistakes, but this is what I said)
Me: We lost our way to the place, we will reach there in another say 5 minutes.
X: What? Ok….

Finally we found another police vehicle with a police officer in the parking lot and got the directions from him. It was the next junction and a huge building which we drove past. The officer said, it was too big to be missed, but we missed! We parked our car on the jail parking lot and walked towards the reception. We could see couple of men walking in and a big officer standing on the corridor talking to another woman. We went in and the officer at reception asked us to leave any metal object or cell phone. We kept cell phones and came back. The officer at reception asked my friend’s last name and I didn’t know how to spell it correctly. It was a long name! After three rounds of me telling it out, she (the officer) handed me a pen and a notebook to right it down. I gave a spelling which is the closest to the correct from my guess work. She managed to pull out his photo and the charge sheet on her computer and confirmed him with us, saying this is the guy we are looking for.

. The officer said I had to give 350 $ for some ticket amount and a 13 $ amount for some bond fees. She also mentioned that I need to have 350 exact change on one hand and 13 $ exact change on the other hand! All we had was twenty 20 $ bills from the ATM. We looked each other and I did something stupid. I asked the officer at the reception if she had change for 5 $ as fives 1 $ to make 13 $. Then we had to empty our all our valet on the near by wait area to sort out an exact change of 13$ and 350 $. Then we were directed to the next room. A big white painted room with three metal grilled and glass covered window. There three officers sitting on the other side and the room some how reflected a gloomy place. The officers were afro Americans and one lady officer there confirmed with me if I got exact change as mentioned by the reception officer. Then she went ahead with the procedures of taxing in the amount I handed over and filled in two envelopes, my guess would be bond fees and ticket amount with exact change!

Once it was over, she gave me a receipt and said, the process is over and they don’t know how much time it will take for the guy to come out. There were two other like us, one father who was there for his kid and another lady for her client. We all went out and sat in the waiting area for our friend to come out. It was around 4:30 in the morning and the chairs where not so comfortable to sleep or dozz off.
When we were waiting, a tall, old looking man passed us. Another officer, he came back to us and asked

Officer: You came to bail out some one?
Me: Yes, Our friend is in there.
Officer: Procedures complete?
Me : Yes
Officer: It will take another 2 to 4 hours for him to come out. Where are you from?
Me: we are from India.
Officer: Which part?
Me: Kerala, South state.
Officer: Where in Kerala?

I was a little surprised to see some one who knows about places in Kerala out there in US as a jail officer.

Me: Trivandrum, Sir where are you from
Officer: I am from Kottayam, have been here for last 20 years! Let me see If I can help you. What’s your friend’s name again?
Me: X…

Where ever you go, you will find a malayali, but never thoguht I will find a Malayali officer in a US jail
He went to the computer screen, checked and came back.

Officer: I think he will be out in another 30 minutes.
Me: Thanks a lot.

My friend marched out of the long corridor with a not so proud face. He was looking for his back pack. He collected it from the reception and started towards our car. Ironically our topic of discussion at that moment was what to cook once we reach home, which will be 5:30 am in the morning. All of us where damn hungry, by just visiting a jail to bail out some one!

I was comparing what would have been the scene if it was in our country? First of all jail or police station, it will not be 24 X 7 to go there at 2:30 am. Even we go there, there might not be a single person, awake enough to talk and check if we are there for the right person. Even if there is, we (who ever went there) will go through a series of questions on who, why, what to get the person out! But none happened here. It was a different experience! About lessons learned, When going to American jails for bails, keep the change!

Off-note

Trying to get some peace of mind by flushing out my endless- meaningless thoughts!
Disclaimer: Bad thoughts ahead!!!
I think I have a lot of time and not much things to do and I am playing with my mind with lot of un-wanted feelings. A feeling of being not wanted anywhere is nothing new to me, but these days it is pocking its nose in my life a lot more than usual. This feeling got real boosters with things that happened over last weekend. After a small debate over whether to go or not, I ended up in a small lunch out with a group of people, whom already gave me a farewell just three weeks back!
From the group, the moment I arrived, I started getting questions (On a funny note) r u still here? I’m shocked to see you here! Oh my god, I never knew you are goanna be here! Some people just stopped with a surprise look! It is all funny but some where it gets into one’s nerves when we don’t have any other thing on mind. The worst part was to end up watching a movie which was close to a porno movie in the near by theatre with the same group. I felt the genre of the movie going bad from the initial scenes and walked out, but later learned that it was freaking stuff. I think it added to my burning disgusting feeling over ‘me’ to end up there. Some how I manage to end up in the wrong place in the wrong time with the wrong mind set.
The feeling of being not wanted around is not one which is easy to get over. This is one of most overly rated feeling in the IT community where it is very difficult to identify friends over colleagues. In this IT-culture we end up with a group of people on a foreign country just because we have to work together! After being tied up with the same people for a period of time, some how our mind starts to treat them as friends. This mistake I do again and again but never learned ‘how to keep people out of my heart’. But when we get out of the work environment and when work force never make you see / mingle again, we slowly start realizing that it was just another person who was our colleague over a period of time. At times, it is a depressing feeling. It gets worst when we learn about the good things happening with them from a third person which make you convince your realization of colleague and friend.
I think most of the people of my generation reach a level by the age of say 24 / 25 where they cease to make new friends by heart. Most of them just treat any passer by person as ‘passer-by’ and nothing more. I learned that I am one among the amateur fellow who is yet to learn this art of keeping the old friends and treat passer by as ‘passer-by’.

The time I spend lonely in my rented apartment just adds it to all this crap feeling by making sure that I don’t get anything to engage my mind into. On top of it my so called friend’s advice saying, a marriage is a good solution to so called ‘problems’. I don’t think adding another person to my life will ever solve any problems but it might give me some rest by engaging my mind-time in analyzing and making new problems involving the other person : )
I know the above things doesn’t help me in anyway but some how, I have to agree, just writing this out here makes me feel good. I don’t think It will make any sense to people who might read this!