The gentlemen of the highways...

I’ve been traveling extensively since I was a kid. When we were small we rarely spent a weekend at home. Weekends were synonymous with travel. We hit the road every weekend and I went to school on Mondays with a note to explain missed weekend homework. Karnataka has something called Dussehra holidays that comes as a welcome break during October. Dussera hols lasted ten days and we traveled a little further like Darjeeling or Jaipur or Kashmir. Summer break usually meant a holiday in Kerala or abroad. My Dad’s love for driving has seen us driving through pitch dark jungles roads, getting a puncture in deserted places and getting stranded on a mountain with a ruptured fuel pipe. But he was an experienced driver and had a remedy for every eventuality...more

The new lower class

We drove into the Oberoi and I watched as the driver quickly retrieved the bags and deposited it with the bell boy. Shaking my colleague’s hands and bidding him good night and promising him to pick him up in the morning, the driver came back to the car. He got in looked around and asked me tersely where I wanted to be dropped. The sudden change in tone of this amiable man was startling. He drove out quietly when I gave him my address. I asked him a few questions about the road near my house that was under repair. I wanted to avoid it. First he refused to answer and then when I repeated the question snapped that it was still under repair. I asked him to bypass the road and gave him directions to the bypass. He replied rudely that if he was going to deviate then it would cost me more. By this time I had had enough and snapped that if he charged me more than whole days hire rate then he can find himself another company to work for...more

Dummies guide to social acceptability

I have often been told by “some” mallu guys from Kerala that non mallu girls shy away from them. In fact it is so bad that even NRK girls don’t want anything to do with them unless forced to marry one by their parents. After studying the phenomenon for some time, I can give a few tips that might make “some” of you mallu studs from Kerala, a little more acceptable to the gals…even if it is only in friendship. Of course the majority of you can ignore the post. This post is for a select crowd only. You can see them hanging out at Brigade Road on weekends, talking loudly and discussing the ladies assets as they pass by.


1. When you leave the borders of Kerala, remember you are no more in Kerala. You are entering an alien land, where people live and interact very differently from what you are used to. Look around you and take at look at the way guys your age behave. You could learn a lot.

2. When you see a girl on the road or in the mall, she is here for shopping for necessary things. This is not a secret code that she easy and available. She is dead serious about shopping...more

Forced parenthoods

I was sitting on the stone bench outside the church. The church was overflowing due to the Holy Week service. Kids were playing around while the teens gossiped and young parents ran behind their tots. It was a jovial atmosphere notwithstanding the Stations of the Cross going on inside the church.

An elderly lady from Kerala was walking around and rocking a baby who looked a month or so old. Time and again she would peep into the church as though looking for someone. When the baby got restless, she went inside and came out with a young girl. The young girl went into a car and fed the baby and gave it back to the lady who I presume was her mother or mother-in-law. The baby got restless again. The lady peeped into the church apologetically, her face pleading with the girl inside. The girl walked outside in some annoyance and grabbed the baby and went to the car to feed the baby again. I heard the lady telling her to feed the baby well. In five minutes the young girl was out of the car again and after handing over the baby to the lady, she walked back to church to join her husband. The baby, mercifully fell asleep. I felt bad for the lady who seemed to be the only person who cared for the baby...more.

Suppression and Expression

An aunt from our family friends circle is a journalist. She contributes to international magazines. She writes mostly about social issues in India.

Recently we were all recipients of a mail from her with a link to her blog. She requested the recipients of the mail to take a look at her blog. I opened the mail rather late and saw that she had very few hits and no comments. She sent the mail out again. But the post was not getting the attention she was seeking... (more)

Gender imbalance of a different kind

I watched a program on Asianet recently. The subject was very interesting and I wanted to see what the modern Malayalee thought of the same. The subject in question was that women felt unsafe in buses in Kerala.

The panel consisted of a few educated, articulate young ladies one of whom was a very well spoken actress. On the opposite side were not people who opposed the view, but men, mostly middle aged (and a few young guys too) who I observed were present only to oppose the view. Instead of this show being a discussion that concerns the entire society, it turned out to be a man vs women kind of a fight with the men opposing the view only for the sake of opposing. They had no concrete facts to support their argument and instead tried to dismiss the whole issue by trivializing it. It was almost as if, they opposed the ladies having a view point and more importantly a platform for airing it...more

A slice of life

I like Art movies. I like art movies for its deliciously stark portrayal of real life. It’s a relief from commercial cinema that has no resemblance to real life. I find Art movies refreshing. The more stark the reality the better. It is like a purge, a purge from the one sided vista, commercial cinema brainwashes you with, whether it is patriotism, family relations, poverty, love, and relationships… anything and everything and the way it is shown.

For people like us, who live in concrete cages, Art movies are like a bite of real life...more.

Speak up and we will label you a slut

When all else failed to stop her, the most powerful weapon in the men's armory came out. And what is that you may wonder. And that is …calling her a “physically frustrated woman”. This is pretty common in Kerala. If a woman even raises her hand to stop a man beating her or defends herself in anyway and a man cannot do anything about it, then the ultimate weapon i.e. sexual innuendos are used against her to control her and make her act in a manner that is acceptable to men. My aunt has had more than her share. Her husband, a highly supportive man is called “henpecked” which is the weapon of choice against men who do not “control” their wives and treat their wives as equals...more

Love in the times of prejudice

They walked in hand in hand, and looked around in wonderment. The opulence of the mall seemed to overwhelm them. They looked like kids from the lower middle class. Their clothes tailored and out of place. They clung together, a little intimidated by the mall. They were in their teens I could make out. They walked in hand in hand. Their trust and reliance in each other was heartwarming. This was no ordinary romance. They looked so comfortable in the silence that enveloped them as they gazed around...more.

Ritu

I watched the Malayalam movie “Ritu” at a friend’s home last week. The movie is ostensibly a new genre of Malayalam movie. What I saw left me disappointed and annoyed. Disappointed, because the story is a contemporary retelling of an old tale i.e. the Malayalee returning to the homeland to start a business venture etc. Annoyed, because the story is written by someone who has no knowledge of the subject in the modern/IT context and panders to the misconceptions that people in Kerala have (specially the older generation) about IT professionals and Bangalore. The story is written to touch the raw areas and sweet spots of its audience. Nothing sells like misconception that people hold dear because it gives them a sense of security of knowledge...more.

Monsoon memories...

My paternal grandparents’ house was made entirely of wood. It still is. Only the four walls of the home are made of brick, unlike the imposing structure I call my maternal grandparents home. The house is very old, built by my great grandfather, who was into the wood business too. He was a pioneer of sorts, who knew that wood would be worth its weight in gold, in a few years to come. People laughed at him when he started a small wood shop as a side business. They laughed louder when he loaded the wood into Lorries and sent them off to far off markets. They stopped laughing when he leased his own fleet of Lorries that took wood from Kerala to Chennai and from there on to, buyers distributed it around the country. Perhaps they went out of the country too. I am not sure...more.

Educating the educators

Corporal punishment is in the news again. We are a country that needs laws to curb grown up men and women from hitting kids. In fact we need laws to ensure we behave like a civil society. But let us not go there for now. Right now, I want to talk about teachers hitting kids...more

Stepping down and stepping up!

Shashi Tharoor returned to Trivandrum, last week to a rousing welcome. People cutting across party lines were there to greet him. If he were to resign from the Congress today, and contest as an independent, then the capital city may be lost forever to both the UDF and LDF.

Shashi Tharoor maybe the answer to Kerala’s professional politicians and their tight grip on the state. He has the potential in terms of popularity to lead Kerala out of the peat bog, to unfetter its feet and lead the people from indifference to participation...more.

The invisible gifts in our lives...

The car was traveling fast through the familiar country side. As soon as we left Kottayam, it felt like we had entered the home stretch. Familiar buildings, trees and fields flashed by like wave upon wave of soothing familiar-ness. I knew I was enjoying the scenery due to the air conditioning in the car. It wouldn’t be so comfortable outside.

We took a bypass and were on a narrow road. I used to come this way as a kid very often. My favorite grand aunt lived here. She was called Ellaimma (because she was junior to other aunts), the youngest sister of my grandfather...more.

Making it big while staying small

If there were an award for a city that has remained static, despite the massive changes it has undergone, in terms of demography, industry and social culture, then the award should go to Bangalore. The last two decades has bought sweeping changes to Bangalore. IT has become an important part of the landscape both economic and social. Thousands of people have settled here, displacing the older population by 7 to 1. Yet the city has held firm. Not a single new road has been created. Nor a single gully carved out of its stubborn landscape, all thanks to a recalcitrant administration, that seem to have gone berserk collecting the windfall on the city...more.

State victims

Yesterday night while we were returning from a party, we saw a remarkable thing. Two cops were kicking and beating up a teenager. He seemed to be from a good family and kept fending them off by saying “Sorry Sir”. He cops kept hitting and kicking and punching him. So what was remarkable about this sight? They were traffic cops!...more

Time to introspect

The offices of a prominent News Channel was attacked and vandalized this week. Doesn't it make you think Mr. Managing Director of the Channel, that in your greed for TRP ratings, you made a molehill of a man into a mountain? So why are you surprised that the illusionary mountain dared to take on you now?

Hope this is a lesson to you and your kinsmen in the media, that for your good health exercising a lot of discretion while covering certain elements would be a good idea...more.

The Tiffin People

Now how do we tackle this delicate problem? It is not nice to not share food. But they had their tiffins too. Besides we felt that they were not realizing what they were doing. We tried everything to tackle our hunger problem. I bought extra food, but it was to no avail. One guy got up and went and sat at another table, but the guy and gal merely wandered to his table and helped themselves to the food. We went for lunch early, late, very late, but the duo was always onto us. It was an embarrassing situation and none of us knew what to do...more

The mysteries of the heart

Rajiv worked in the same department as I. He was a nice guy, who knew how to treat a college going girl…like a big brother. Anita badgered me to introduce her to Rajiv. I was scared. I regarded him like I would an elder brother and did not think it was respectful to be doing such a thing. But Anita was persistent. One day while we were having coffee at the Foodcourt, she came and sat down next to me. I introduced her to everyone at the table including Rajiv. I let out a sigh of relief. I did not have to do the intro now. During the course of the evening, Anita talked only to Rajiv getting monosyllabic replies. But she was undaunted. Pretty soon she had added him to her Orkut account. But Anita was just another pesky fly for Rajiv. He rarely replied to her scraps. He rarely replied to anyone’s scraps. When he was not working he was battling rock faces...more.

Typesetting

Look at the way Nature/God has created us. Each species is divided into Type A and Type B. Type A and Type B are equipped to produce more Type A and Type B so that all the species on Earth reproduce and keep the natural cycle going.

But in the case of humans, if a Type A goes with the Type B of another Type A it becomes adultery. Because he is supposed to stick with his Type B and vice versa...more.