Just few minutes back, I finished watching "Jillunu Oru Kaadhal" on Arumika's computer. It was not bad. A. R. Rehman's music as usual is very good. I came to college at about 2 o clock after getting up pretty late. Actually I got some time to sleep peacefully last night after one very tiring week.
Yesterday I conducted the very first quiz for the under grads. Friday is my day to conduct quizzes and unfortunately the very first quiz was on Friday and I was completely inexperienced to begin with. We PA TAs had a meeting on thursday on how to conduct quizzes and that helped a bit. Our supervising TA, a PhD named Mohd. Arsalan from Karachi, Pak, guided me through this uncertain time and was very helpful. Friday morning I had to come a bit early (7:30) to get the photocopies of the question paper done at the Department Office.
At 8:30 I stepped into my first class to find a fairly low turn out (3 as against a roll of 15). But people started walking in as the session proceeded. Welcome to Canadian classroom- everything is pretty informal! Student come in go out, eat, drink and sleep in the classroom as they wish. Students come in all sizes and shapes. Guys come to class in Bermudas, Vests, hair dyed in the craziest colors humanly imaginable, boys wearing earings at every possible place on their bodies except their ears... and the list goes on. We were told at the TA orientation at the begining of the term that all this behaviour "must not be taken as a mark of disrespect". Well, the thought on how the faculty would react if WE had done such things back in Anna University was amusing.
Since this was the first session, no student bothered to do the assignment they were supposed to do (PA sessions are about clearing doubts in asignments and conducting quiz). So I had to work out each problem in tha ssignment for them. But I was surprised at their enthusiasm when I started working on problems. I guess that was partly because of their lack of aptitude. For a college level, I found these students had serioulsy low mathematical skills as compared to those in India. They need help even for elementary Integration and simplification of expressions. But I was happy atleast they had an urge to learn these things. I was not complaining... these students regard us like Professors! First impression is the best impression they say. So I made sure I didn't make any mistake on board. Also, I tried to set the test very simple (Arsalan had asked me to expect all this), yet giving some work for their brain. And I guess I did a good job at it. Over all, my first formal teaching experience was good.
I came back home early because a furnace company guy was coming home to inspect our heater and I had to be at home for that. After he left, I sat down to mark the answer sheets. I was happy to find some 5 of my students getting 10/10. But a couple of guys got only 5/10 and I was pretty much unhappy about that, more so after I had worked so hard that morning to teach them. But I think this is a part of every teachers life.
Today morning, the Weather Network (the 24 X 7 news channel which gives only and ONLY weather news at local, national and internatiional level. We depend on it for all the forecasts and watch it every morning before leaving for college. Their forecasts tell us what kind of clothing we need to take that day. Some times I'm surprised how these news readers maintain their mental stability while narrating the same old things about climate the whole day!) announced that today is the end of Summer and Fall begins. Well, I don't remember experiencing any real summer all these days either. But then we expect the coming weeks to get very very cold. I hope Miss Mary (Mr. Nihal's friend) brings me the blankets soon enough. The thin grey blanket I brought from India is increasingly proving to be insufficient. Every night I get into the bed, I find the whole mattress and the sheet very cold.
The classes are going good. Especially my Materials class. We had been working on Schrodinger's Electron wave equation for the last two weeks and I have started understanding a lot of concepts about Quantum theory I never understood in India. Though we don't do a lot of mathematics in that class (actually no physicist ever does!), we are being taught everything intutively.
I got to meet a guy named Parthiban from Rajapaalayam early this week. He had done his UG here and is continuing with his masters in Systems Engineering. I think Arumika and Parthiban are the only two known Indian Tamils here.
Since last week I have been drinking Black Tea every morning. The reason is more economic than anything else- milk is just too costly here. On cold mornings such as these, hot tea soon after getting up from bed is really refreshing
I came today to finish off what remains of my assignment and also to watch this movie. During weekends no one usually comes ot the lab and we can come here and watch movies, listen to music and do voice chat (Though today Gurpreet is in the lab... listening to Kishore Kumar!). Tomorrow I'll be going to the temple (free food!).
Monday, September 25, 2006
Getting Cold... Getting Used To
Sun shone today after a week of rain and its really good. Finally. the temperature touched the 20 degree mark.
This week was very very busy.
First I got my TA duties assigned. The instructor for this second year under grad course (Basic Circuits and Signals) is a Prof named Tom Ray. He is a pretty nice guy and I doubt he will exploit me. We are an army of about 10 TAs for some 200+ students. So each will be incharge for some 25 students. We had a meeting earlier this week about sharing of responsibilities. I had a choice of either becoming in charge for lab or taking care of Problem Analysis sessions and organizing weekly quizzes. I took Problem Analysis (PA) because Lab means I have to run around to each student clearing bugs in circuits and stuff. I have to come every Monday and Friday at 8:30 in the morning for this session starting from next Friday. My duties include grading the weekly quiz and making sure all students do their assignments. Yet, I had to supervise the first intoductory lab session yesterday morning which was about teaching the students soldering (because the lab TAs haven't been assigned yet). I had a pretty good first class and I believe I communicated the process to my students well. I had some problem with my Chineese students though. I'm not being racist, but I have observed that Chineese students' english is extremely pathetic in general. They ask me some doubt and I have to ask them again and again the same thing to understand what they mean. And each time, they re-phrase it , making the comprehension worse and worse! But I think I'll soon start to get used to their tongue.
I attended my first Materials audit course on Thursday. The class was terrific. The prof (named Tom Smy) is teaching directly from Feynmans lectures on Quantum Physics and its very very interesting. And there in the class, I met some 4th year undergrads from SriLanka. Finally, some one here spoke to me in Tamil! Of course their dialect is completely different. They introduce me to their friends like this :
"Yivar Peyar Aerevinth... Yivar Yindhiya Lirunthu Vanthirikkiraar" !!
They are really friendly people. One of the guy's name is Prakash, there is one Dileeban and one Satya ( I haven't met any Prabhakaran or Nalini yet !!) . They told me that there are over 200 Srilankan students in Carleton! Few of them came here with their families after the expulsion of 1995, but most of them are here only since 2001. Their plan is to come here to do under grad, get a job, and then sponsor their parents back in Colombo and bring them here as permanent residents. Most of them are native of Jaffna.
Even fall (autumn) hasn't arrived yet and already the temperatures have dropped to 8 and 7 degrees in the night! And whenever it does get above the 15 degree threshold by God's grace and I start breathing easy, people here switch on the AC, because its just too hot for them! The colours of the leaves have started changing and soon next month, the whole city will turn Bright red from green and there will be a riot of colours all over.
Some maintenance company guys came home today to inspect the heaters at home. There is a huge boiler and a furnace in every home in Ottawa which heats the house all through the winter. People usually switch it on at the end of October and turn it off only at the end of April when the winter gets over. It needs cleaning every September before the onset of winter. The guy told Mr. Shahadat that he needs to replace the furnace because there are some cracks. And Shahadat is working on it. Winters get pretty nasty here during February when there is freezing rain - rains drops frozen during their descent. That makes roads and pavements very slippery. And also, since days become extremely short then (4 PM sunset against 8 Pm sunset currently), many people go into depression because of lack of light! The cure for this psychiatric syndrome it seems is exposure to a table lamp!
One of Mr. Nihal's friend today dropped by my place and gave me a huge study table and a lamp. Its really great and has helped clear all the mess in my room (i just used to keep books and bag on floor).
I'm reading The Hindu e paper regularly. Mainly because the local and even the national dailies here are very much like the stupid Tamil magazines in chennai- mostly Page 3 stuff. A
This week was very very busy.
First I got my TA duties assigned. The instructor for this second year under grad course (Basic Circuits and Signals) is a Prof named Tom Ray. He is a pretty nice guy and I doubt he will exploit me. We are an army of about 10 TAs for some 200+ students. So each will be incharge for some 25 students. We had a meeting earlier this week about sharing of responsibilities. I had a choice of either becoming in charge for lab or taking care of Problem Analysis sessions and organizing weekly quizzes. I took Problem Analysis (PA) because Lab means I have to run around to each student clearing bugs in circuits and stuff. I have to come every Monday and Friday at 8:30 in the morning for this session starting from next Friday. My duties include grading the weekly quiz and making sure all students do their assignments. Yet, I had to supervise the first intoductory lab session yesterday morning which was about teaching the students soldering (because the lab TAs haven't been assigned yet). I had a pretty good first class and I believe I communicated the process to my students well. I had some problem with my Chineese students though. I'm not being racist, but I have observed that Chineese students' english is extremely pathetic in general. They ask me some doubt and I have to ask them again and again the same thing to understand what they mean. And each time, they re-phrase it , making the comprehension worse and worse! But I think I'll soon start to get used to their tongue.
I attended my first Materials audit course on Thursday. The class was terrific. The prof (named Tom Smy) is teaching directly from Feynmans lectures on Quantum Physics and its very very interesting. And there in the class, I met some 4th year undergrads from SriLanka. Finally, some one here spoke to me in Tamil! Of course their dialect is completely different. They introduce me to their friends like this :
"Yivar Peyar Aerevinth... Yivar Yindhiya Lirunthu Vanthirikkiraar" !!
They are really friendly people. One of the guy's name is Prakash, there is one Dileeban and one Satya ( I haven't met any Prabhakaran or Nalini yet !!) . They told me that there are over 200 Srilankan students in Carleton! Few of them came here with their families after the expulsion of 1995, but most of them are here only since 2001. Their plan is to come here to do under grad, get a job, and then sponsor their parents back in Colombo and bring them here as permanent residents. Most of them are native of Jaffna.
Even fall (autumn) hasn't arrived yet and already the temperatures have dropped to 8 and 7 degrees in the night! And whenever it does get above the 15 degree threshold by God's grace and I start breathing easy, people here switch on the AC, because its just too hot for them! The colours of the leaves have started changing and soon next month, the whole city will turn Bright red from green and there will be a riot of colours all over.
Some maintenance company guys came home today to inspect the heaters at home. There is a huge boiler and a furnace in every home in Ottawa which heats the house all through the winter. People usually switch it on at the end of October and turn it off only at the end of April when the winter gets over. It needs cleaning every September before the onset of winter. The guy told Mr. Shahadat that he needs to replace the furnace because there are some cracks. And Shahadat is working on it. Winters get pretty nasty here during February when there is freezing rain - rains drops frozen during their descent. That makes roads and pavements very slippery. And also, since days become extremely short then (4 PM sunset against 8 Pm sunset currently), many people go into depression because of lack of light! The cure for this psychiatric syndrome it seems is exposure to a table lamp!
One of Mr. Nihal's friend today dropped by my place and gave me a huge study table and a lamp. Its really great and has helped clear all the mess in my room (i just used to keep books and bag on floor).
I'm reading The Hindu e paper regularly. Mainly because the local and even the national dailies here are very much like the stupid Tamil magazines in chennai- mostly Page 3 stuff. A
First Week in Grad School
The week was sort of hectic. I ventured out into to the downtown a couple of times. The canadian war museum is worth mentioning.
We submitted the first assignment to ram achar and he suggested some changes and has asked us to meet him again tomorrow (tuesday). On thursday I had my first class.
The TA orientations were really good esp the general one where we had case studies on how to deal with under grad issues when grading and clearing their doubts. Its a challenge 100 times more than India to deal with UG people. Because in this part of the globe, college education is just a luxury and leisure affair. Most of the people don't even come here for jobs... all they want is to experience University life and socialize. Compare this with the govt colleges of India where only the cream of a state or the country is selected for the UG programs and every one is serious about t heir studies. Most people here don't even go to Grad school.
Most probably I will not teach- TAs here mostly do grading work and clear doubts and take tutorials. Nevertheles, it would be a great experience for a career in academics.
We submitted the first assignment to ram achar and he suggested some changes and has asked us to meet him again tomorrow (tuesday). On thursday I had my first class.
The TA orientations were really good esp the general one where we had case studies on how to deal with under grad issues when grading and clearing their doubts. Its a challenge 100 times more than India to deal with UG people. Because in this part of the globe, college education is just a luxury and leisure affair. Most of the people don't even come here for jobs... all they want is to experience University life and socialize. Compare this with the govt colleges of India where only the cream of a state or the country is selected for the UG programs and every one is serious about t heir studies. Most people here don't even go to Grad school.
Most probably I will not teach- TAs here mostly do grading work and clear doubts and take tutorials. Nevertheles, it would be a great experience for a career in academics.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
From the Warmest Place on Earth
This is the true account of my travel to the North-Western Hemisphere and my first impressions of Canada and Ottawa.
23rd August, 9:30 PM
I arrived at the Anna International Terminal only to find I'm the earliest among the 3. MK arrived shortly and after some wait, KG came at 945 (he had, as you might have guessed, promised 915). Reddy anna had come to seeoff KG. My family, my extended family AND my dad's colleagues came for my send off (you know some times popularity is difficult to handle).
The ban on visitors' entry, which came into effect after Mumbai TRAIN blasts, was lifted soon after the London AIR-scare. I wasn't complaining though. My parents, bro, patti and uncle came inside to talk to me till I went inside for immigration. The check-in guy told me the hand item which is usually allowed in addition to the hand luggage is prohibited after the Heathrow episode. I had to put my Intel bag into my travel back pack to convince him and though it weighed 10 kilos after that, he din't mind. MK had to check in one hand bag (which was done for free) becaue he couldn't squeeze one in the other.
After bidding my parents adieu, we went in for immigration and security check. There were 2 loooooooooong queues. We were confused as to which one is ours. A lady in sleeveless looking at our blank faces offered to help and told u any queue is fine. We stood behind her. I needed to take out my passport so showed my sweater at KG and said, "konjam pudichchikonga..."
KG: (with a dirty smile on his face) yedha?
I looked at him, and then the girl ... Hmmm... this is going to be a looooooong journey!
Since KG entered the airport a bit late, we couldn't get consecutive seats. Only me and MK were together. And as luck would have it, it was the very last seat of the plane. Hmmm... this is going to be one looooong bumpy ride! On a brighter side, I got the window seat. I fell asleep immediately and missed the dinner which was served. KG, of course, hogged.
When I got up, the sun was at the horizon and man how bright the rays were from that altitude! MK and KG came around shortly. KG and MK swapped places. I chatted with KG over the breakfast which was good hot pongal. KG was now and then gaping at the german air hostess who, he said, looked like Monica Belouky. The descent at Frankfurt was cool with splendid views down... cities and towns are planned with human settlements separated by vast tracts of green pastures and woods - lands which would otherwise be converted into engineering colleges in India. We landed at Frankfurt at 1000 hrs local time. The climate was pleasant with gushes of cold wind every now and then.
The airport is huge and beautiful. We went to the gate where our Air Canada flight was waiting. After the security check, we boarded te plane. This time, KG and MK got seats next to each other while I was next to a window seat.
I picked up Canada's national daily "Globe and Mail" and was shocked to see the lead story "Four Tamil Students arrested in Ontario while smuggling weapons to LTTE"... Oh... thats a good start in a new country...
They showed Ice Age 2 and X Men on the flight. My neighbour was a middle aged stocky man in shorts. I learnt that Allen was a psychiatrist in Calgary (Oh yeah... soon MK or Suren or La Chappel will see this guy). He graduated from Cambridge and was born and brought up in Johanesburg. He told me about the conditions which arise out of lack of sunlight in winters in Canada. This syndrome, which results in depression, is cured by exposing the patients to a table lamp 20 mins a day! Allen asked me where am I headed for and said , "Ottawa"
Allen: Pardon?
Me: Ottawa.
He was silent for a while and then exclaimed "Oh! You mean 'Auto-wa' !" (the spelling has been altered to accomodate the pronounciation)
Oh... I must remember that one!
KG, meanwhile, was having his own share of fun. Now, our Ma Kanna was having problem cutting his cheese pizza, and guess who did it for him? A 81 year old patti sitting next to him!
We entered the Terminal 1 at Toronto and after a very long wait at the Immigration at Port of Entry, went out to identify our baggaes and re check them. We bought some calling cards and called back home. I My flight to Ottawa wa leaving in an hour and so I left immediately bidding KG and Mk good bye. Of course I remembered to collect the gift KG had for me- a book on science and philosophy... you know, the things we psychos usually discuss.
It was a window seat again for me and a chineese girl was siting next to it. I stood next to her and she looked at me and asked, "Do you want to go inside?"
Me : Yes.
And in a flash, she just crounched and jumped over and stood on her seat and said, "Hop in!"
Stupefied, I went into my seat. A punjabi guy came and sat next to her. He was about my age and was wearing a college t shirt. I had a feeling that he might also headed for Carleton but I didn't mind asking him. I burried my head into my book occasionally looking out of the window. The journey was short- Toronto and Ottawa are like Bangalore and Chennai.
At the Ottawa Terminal, I was welcomed by Mr Nihal- an associate of my uncle back in Chennai. He is a Sinhalee who is now settled in Ottawa. It seems he had served as secretary to Sri Lankan Finance Ministry long time back (good to have a diplomatic welcome into a country!). He drove me to the accomodation I had booked. The land lord of the town house, Mr Shahadat welcomed us in and inspected my room to be. Shahadat told me he is expecting another student to arrive shortly. Nevertheless the bell rang and I was surprised to find the same punjabi guy at my door step!!!
He was Harjot Singh, the guy I had met in orkut TWO MONTHS back and to whom I had passed on Shahadat's contact details on request. But I had no idea he had actually booked the same town house as mine. And I certainly had no idea that we would travel in the same flight, forget about being in the very next seat! We see each other in the flight, he gets a feeling that I'm Arvind but doesn't ask me because I'm busy reading a book, he is then received at the air port by his acquaintance and I, by mine and then we converge at the town house surprised to find each other... Look at the odds to that!
After we came over our funny little episode, Harjot left to return the next day with his stuff. I moved into the room immediately though. Mr. Nihal soon left after he was convinced I was in the right hands. Mr. Shahadat, is from Dhaka and a staff at the business school in Carleton. The town house is really good, neat, furnished and with a well equipped kitchen. There are 3 rooms on the first floor. Me and Harjot took one each. The last one will be taken by Gurpreet Singh who arrives on Sep 8th from Bangalore for PhD under Ram Achar. My room is relatively small but adequate. I was too tired and just slept off.
The jet lag persisted the next day. I got up pretty early and had sandwich breakfast. Harjot arrived in the afternoon and Shahadat took us to the University in his car and showed us around. I had an appointment with Ram Achar at 3 and he took us to the Graduate Office and got some formalities done prior to my registration. He took us to the CAD lab and showed us our offices and introduced us to the students there. After a briefing about our course work, we headed back home. Later in the evening we went to a couple of grocery stores nearby and Shahadat took us on a tour of the beautiful neighbourhood. People in Canada are very friendly, polite and accomodative. People stick to traffic rules, give way, and show a hell lot of courtesy to the pedestrians. All cultures have been accepted here with a very open heart and there is absolutely no racism or crime here- the Stranger in Black inside me finally smiled after 20 years!!! ;)
Shahadat is a really nice and help ful guy and has made us feel home in here right away. He lets u use his stuff and gave me a sweater to use.
Shahadat and Harjot cooked delicious Rajma and Rice for the dinner. Saturday went eventless and we spent the day mostly at home.
It rained today morning which made it really chill down here. Some 16 degrees. At 11, Ram Achar came over to our place and picked me and Harjot up for the Vinayaka Chathurthi function at his place. There was a small Indian community attending the function and we had great South Indian lunch. We were chatting with Ram Achar's freinds over it. They are from diferent domains, from banking to Ottawa Electricity Board, and were really nice to us and gave us some winter tips. Professor's wife packed us some Idlis and Bisi Bella Bath for home!
On my request, Shahadat drove us to the Temple near by. Its a very huge one like the Birla Temple in Hyderabad. Shahadat keeps recounting his experience as a new student in Ottawa and is always praise for the city, "This city is not so fast but is fast enough... no crime, no hassles. People are very welcoming. It is ideal to raise a family"
Half way around the globe, I can feel my mom's stomach turning!
23rd August, 9:30 PM
I arrived at the Anna International Terminal only to find I'm the earliest among the 3. MK arrived shortly and after some wait, KG came at 945 (he had, as you might have guessed, promised 915). Reddy anna had come to seeoff KG. My family, my extended family AND my dad's colleagues came for my send off (you know some times popularity is difficult to handle).
The ban on visitors' entry, which came into effect after Mumbai TRAIN blasts, was lifted soon after the London AIR-scare. I wasn't complaining though. My parents, bro, patti and uncle came inside to talk to me till I went inside for immigration. The check-in guy told me the hand item which is usually allowed in addition to the hand luggage is prohibited after the Heathrow episode. I had to put my Intel bag into my travel back pack to convince him and though it weighed 10 kilos after that, he din't mind. MK had to check in one hand bag (which was done for free) becaue he couldn't squeeze one in the other.
After bidding my parents adieu, we went in for immigration and security check. There were 2 loooooooooong queues. We were confused as to which one is ours. A lady in sleeveless looking at our blank faces offered to help and told u any queue is fine. We stood behind her. I needed to take out my passport so showed my sweater at KG and said, "konjam pudichchikonga..."
KG: (with a dirty smile on his face) yedha?
I looked at him, and then the girl ... Hmmm... this is going to be a looooooong journey!
Since KG entered the airport a bit late, we couldn't get consecutive seats. Only me and MK were together. And as luck would have it, it was the very last seat of the plane. Hmmm... this is going to be one looooong bumpy ride! On a brighter side, I got the window seat. I fell asleep immediately and missed the dinner which was served. KG, of course, hogged.
When I got up, the sun was at the horizon and man how bright the rays were from that altitude! MK and KG came around shortly. KG and MK swapped places. I chatted with KG over the breakfast which was good hot pongal. KG was now and then gaping at the german air hostess who, he said, looked like Monica Belouky. The descent at Frankfurt was cool with splendid views down... cities and towns are planned with human settlements separated by vast tracts of green pastures and woods - lands which would otherwise be converted into engineering colleges in India. We landed at Frankfurt at 1000 hrs local time. The climate was pleasant with gushes of cold wind every now and then.
The airport is huge and beautiful. We went to the gate where our Air Canada flight was waiting. After the security check, we boarded te plane. This time, KG and MK got seats next to each other while I was next to a window seat.
I picked up Canada's national daily "Globe and Mail" and was shocked to see the lead story "Four Tamil Students arrested in Ontario while smuggling weapons to LTTE"... Oh... thats a good start in a new country...
They showed Ice Age 2 and X Men on the flight. My neighbour was a middle aged stocky man in shorts. I learnt that Allen was a psychiatrist in Calgary (Oh yeah... soon MK or Suren or La Chappel will see this guy). He graduated from Cambridge and was born and brought up in Johanesburg. He told me about the conditions which arise out of lack of sunlight in winters in Canada. This syndrome, which results in depression, is cured by exposing the patients to a table lamp 20 mins a day! Allen asked me where am I headed for and said , "Ottawa"
Allen: Pardon?
Me: Ottawa.
He was silent for a while and then exclaimed "Oh! You mean 'Auto-wa' !" (the spelling has been altered to accomodate the pronounciation)
Oh... I must remember that one!
KG, meanwhile, was having his own share of fun. Now, our Ma Kanna was having problem cutting his cheese pizza, and guess who did it for him? A 81 year old patti sitting next to him!
We entered the Terminal 1 at Toronto and after a very long wait at the Immigration at Port of Entry, went out to identify our baggaes and re check them. We bought some calling cards and called back home. I My flight to Ottawa wa leaving in an hour and so I left immediately bidding KG and Mk good bye. Of course I remembered to collect the gift KG had for me- a book on science and philosophy... you know, the things we psychos usually discuss.
It was a window seat again for me and a chineese girl was siting next to it. I stood next to her and she looked at me and asked, "Do you want to go inside?"
Me : Yes.
And in a flash, she just crounched and jumped over and stood on her seat and said, "Hop in!"
Stupefied, I went into my seat. A punjabi guy came and sat next to her. He was about my age and was wearing a college t shirt. I had a feeling that he might also headed for Carleton but I didn't mind asking him. I burried my head into my book occasionally looking out of the window. The journey was short- Toronto and Ottawa are like Bangalore and Chennai.
At the Ottawa Terminal, I was welcomed by Mr Nihal- an associate of my uncle back in Chennai. He is a Sinhalee who is now settled in Ottawa. It seems he had served as secretary to Sri Lankan Finance Ministry long time back (good to have a diplomatic welcome into a country!). He drove me to the accomodation I had booked. The land lord of the town house, Mr Shahadat welcomed us in and inspected my room to be. Shahadat told me he is expecting another student to arrive shortly. Nevertheless the bell rang and I was surprised to find the same punjabi guy at my door step!!!
He was Harjot Singh, the guy I had met in orkut TWO MONTHS back and to whom I had passed on Shahadat's contact details on request. But I had no idea he had actually booked the same town house as mine. And I certainly had no idea that we would travel in the same flight, forget about being in the very next seat! We see each other in the flight, he gets a feeling that I'm Arvind but doesn't ask me because I'm busy reading a book, he is then received at the air port by his acquaintance and I, by mine and then we converge at the town house surprised to find each other... Look at the odds to that!
After we came over our funny little episode, Harjot left to return the next day with his stuff. I moved into the room immediately though. Mr. Nihal soon left after he was convinced I was in the right hands. Mr. Shahadat, is from Dhaka and a staff at the business school in Carleton. The town house is really good, neat, furnished and with a well equipped kitchen. There are 3 rooms on the first floor. Me and Harjot took one each. The last one will be taken by Gurpreet Singh who arrives on Sep 8th from Bangalore for PhD under Ram Achar. My room is relatively small but adequate. I was too tired and just slept off.
The jet lag persisted the next day. I got up pretty early and had sandwich breakfast. Harjot arrived in the afternoon and Shahadat took us to the University in his car and showed us around. I had an appointment with Ram Achar at 3 and he took us to the Graduate Office and got some formalities done prior to my registration. He took us to the CAD lab and showed us our offices and introduced us to the students there. After a briefing about our course work, we headed back home. Later in the evening we went to a couple of grocery stores nearby and Shahadat took us on a tour of the beautiful neighbourhood. People in Canada are very friendly, polite and accomodative. People stick to traffic rules, give way, and show a hell lot of courtesy to the pedestrians. All cultures have been accepted here with a very open heart and there is absolutely no racism or crime here- the Stranger in Black inside me finally smiled after 20 years!!! ;)
Shahadat is a really nice and help ful guy and has made us feel home in here right away. He lets u use his stuff and gave me a sweater to use.
Shahadat and Harjot cooked delicious Rajma and Rice for the dinner. Saturday went eventless and we spent the day mostly at home.
It rained today morning which made it really chill down here. Some 16 degrees. At 11, Ram Achar came over to our place and picked me and Harjot up for the Vinayaka Chathurthi function at his place. There was a small Indian community attending the function and we had great South Indian lunch. We were chatting with Ram Achar's freinds over it. They are from diferent domains, from banking to Ottawa Electricity Board, and were really nice to us and gave us some winter tips. Professor's wife packed us some Idlis and Bisi Bella Bath for home!
On my request, Shahadat drove us to the Temple near by. Its a very huge one like the Birla Temple in Hyderabad. Shahadat keeps recounting his experience as a new student in Ottawa and is always praise for the city, "This city is not so fast but is fast enough... no crime, no hassles. People are very welcoming. It is ideal to raise a family"
Half way around the globe, I can feel my mom's stomach turning!
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Conservatives Vs Conservatives
The scourge of Tamil Nadu
One lasting effect of the Second World War on politics of the countries all over the world was to divide political parties into 2 broad classes- conservatives and liberals. The fanatical nationalist movement in European countries especially in Germany created an set of ideals which advocated narrow minded patriotism. These ideals could be put to practice anywhere and could be translated to any culture and hence such groups emerged everywhere forming similar (and hence opposing ) factions. Through the war and the period of cold war that followed, this class was usually opposed to the socialist parties of the respective countries and hence were given the name "Right Wing", as opposed to "Left Wing" (The term "Left" itself does not have any communist basis, it just means "radical". Since the communist movement was some thing of a sea change compared to the existing capitalist hegemony).
Ever since, political groups have almost always identified themselves either as Right or Left at least by principle- Republicans and Democrats in US, Conservative and Labour (or now, Liberal Party) in UK, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in Germany, Christian and Democrats of Italy, Republicans and Socialists of France and so on- and these groups confront each other in elections based on principles which can be more or less be categorized as "conservative" or "liberal".
India has had a strange history as far as this kind of grouping is concerned. The freedom struggle was led by the Congress Party which heavily borrowed from Marxist ideals especially under the leadership of Nehru and it worked with CPI in the national movement. Soon after Independence, however, as the Communist parties competed with Congress in elections, the nation moved a bit toward the 'right' and the economy was termed to be 'mixed'. And hence, Congress became the largest 'centre' party of the world. In the 70s, the Janata Party movement gained momentum and Hindutva Ideology as we know it today was born which advocated a Hindu nation. This emergence of extreme conservatives led Congress to move back toward 'left' and hence today it can better categorized as 'centre-left'. These neo conservatives in the form of the Sangh Parivar, with their involvement in scores of communal disturbances in the nation since independence and with their 'commercial' advertising of political agendas, have indeed have formed a sort of strong Right Wing in the country. We have redefined Right and Left in our own indegenious way- In India, consevatives are those who preach religion on the political arena and liberals are those who are secular. Regional parties in all states also have come to classify themselves on this basis and ally themselves with parties at centre with similar ideology.
All states but one. Try as much, I have not been able to find any basis of such classification in Tamil Nadu. There just doesn't seem to be any principle or characteristic, based on which one can distinguish between DMK and ADMK. Both parties carry out the same kind of political campaigning and propaganda which depends on arousing the feeling of regional and linguistic fanatism among people, both parties have a common history in the Dravidian movement and both parties, when in power, perform the duties of moral policing. Based on the Indian definition, hence, can we term both the factions as conservatives?
This puts us in a funny situation doesn't it? That these two parties actually have no real ground on which they can contest elections. The high rate of incumbency in the state ascertains this fact. Since there is no real ideology, people in the end have no real inclination toward any party and hence keep electing the opposition everytime hoping for some change. We have a perfect statistical paradise with mathematical precision in this state- every election is like throwing an unbiased coin. And perfect randomness in ensemble means each toss should give alternate results each time for a fairly long period. And it DOES happen here!!! One can easily postulate that if things remain the same for next thousand years, and that the elections results for those thousand years are plotted, they would very closely resemble the output of a pseudo random bit sequence generator they use in CDMA receivers!
It all started in 1912. Indologists discovered that the grammatical and phonetical structures of the languages north and south of the Vindhyas are strikingly different. This led to speculation that people of the south are a different race, Dravidian ("Dravida" = South in Sanskrit), which probably existed before Aryans arrived. The discovery of ruins of a magnificient urban civilization at Mohen-jo-daro gave rise to an even more controversial idea- that it was the Dravidians who started this civilization and that the invading Aryans burnt their houses down and drove them south. Early indologists, Max Muller being the prominent, termed this phenomenon as Aryan Invasion Theory. These ideas inspired the contemporary intelligensia of Tamil Nadu and filled them with pride about their own legacy. The flip side- it divided people.
Periyar started the Dravidian movement with legitimate interests of putting the superstitions and caste based attrocities prevailing in the society to an end. His struggle was indispensable in removing the Brahmin tyranny and creating equal oppurtunities for all in the state. But the very rationalism he advocated was infested with the highly irrational idea that 2 different races existed in the country, that the Brahmins in the state were unwelcome Aryan immigrants and hence should be expelled and that the North Indians were 'barbaric' Aryans who displaced 'civilized' Dravidians. What was supposed to be a completely academic debate was fought on the political arena. While his strive to reform the Tamil alphabet, and get it declared as classical language is commendable, his opposition to teaching of Hindi in schools was unwarranted. In a country like India divided by languages and cultures, the concept of national language is the only thing which can bind it as a nation. The other southern states were relatively untouched by these movements and have assimilated Hindi very well over the time. Periyar's claim for a separate 'Dravida Nadu' and his boycott of Hindi, which was carried on by his followers, has created a vast cultural gap between the state and the rest of the country which exists even today.
Mitochondrial-DNA analysis has today proven beyond doubt that the darkest south indian is no more closely related to his nearest African ancestor than his fairest counterpart. There is no separete race in this country. The dark complexion issue which is usually quoted is but a mere adaptation to life closer to the equator. This should have been obvious even during Periyar's time, even without DNA studies- 5000 years of coexistence cannot leave a trace of separate races in any country. Intermixing is a very rational process. Infact, South Indians have historically been the best preservers of Vedic Traditions while the North had been under the influence of Buddhism and Islam. His conservative campaign created a vast number of people ignorant of the national language and intolerant of other cultures and languages. It created regional fanatics.
DMK which formed on the ruins of Periyars movement took the Dravidian cause further and eventually became popular on the basis of a lie- probably a democratic version of Hitlers Aryan propaganda. After ADMK split from DMK, they ended up as the only dominant parties of the state. Having nothing to say against each other in principle, they swapped alliances and used nothing but populist measures to oust each other. What else can explain the Left and Right wingers at the centre switching loyalties between the two parties almost EVERY single election for about a decade? There seems to be only politics of convenience in TN, no politics of ideology.
When a northie hears the word 'chennai' he hears it as 'culture'. But it also brings to his mind the intolerance of people here. Winston Churchill said, "Even conservatives have to change with times if they want to remain relevant". This mess, though created by fanatic politics, can only be cleaned by a new generation of liberal rationals. Its time to open up.
One lasting effect of the Second World War on politics of the countries all over the world was to divide political parties into 2 broad classes- conservatives and liberals. The fanatical nationalist movement in European countries especially in Germany created an set of ideals which advocated narrow minded patriotism. These ideals could be put to practice anywhere and could be translated to any culture and hence such groups emerged everywhere forming similar (and hence opposing ) factions. Through the war and the period of cold war that followed, this class was usually opposed to the socialist parties of the respective countries and hence were given the name "Right Wing", as opposed to "Left Wing" (The term "Left" itself does not have any communist basis, it just means "radical". Since the communist movement was some thing of a sea change compared to the existing capitalist hegemony).
Ever since, political groups have almost always identified themselves either as Right or Left at least by principle- Republicans and Democrats in US, Conservative and Labour (or now, Liberal Party) in UK, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in Germany, Christian and Democrats of Italy, Republicans and Socialists of France and so on- and these groups confront each other in elections based on principles which can be more or less be categorized as "conservative" or "liberal".
India has had a strange history as far as this kind of grouping is concerned. The freedom struggle was led by the Congress Party which heavily borrowed from Marxist ideals especially under the leadership of Nehru and it worked with CPI in the national movement. Soon after Independence, however, as the Communist parties competed with Congress in elections, the nation moved a bit toward the 'right' and the economy was termed to be 'mixed'. And hence, Congress became the largest 'centre' party of the world. In the 70s, the Janata Party movement gained momentum and Hindutva Ideology as we know it today was born which advocated a Hindu nation. This emergence of extreme conservatives led Congress to move back toward 'left' and hence today it can better categorized as 'centre-left'. These neo conservatives in the form of the Sangh Parivar, with their involvement in scores of communal disturbances in the nation since independence and with their 'commercial' advertising of political agendas, have indeed have formed a sort of strong Right Wing in the country. We have redefined Right and Left in our own indegenious way- In India, consevatives are those who preach religion on the political arena and liberals are those who are secular. Regional parties in all states also have come to classify themselves on this basis and ally themselves with parties at centre with similar ideology.
All states but one. Try as much, I have not been able to find any basis of such classification in Tamil Nadu. There just doesn't seem to be any principle or characteristic, based on which one can distinguish between DMK and ADMK. Both parties carry out the same kind of political campaigning and propaganda which depends on arousing the feeling of regional and linguistic fanatism among people, both parties have a common history in the Dravidian movement and both parties, when in power, perform the duties of moral policing. Based on the Indian definition, hence, can we term both the factions as conservatives?
This puts us in a funny situation doesn't it? That these two parties actually have no real ground on which they can contest elections. The high rate of incumbency in the state ascertains this fact. Since there is no real ideology, people in the end have no real inclination toward any party and hence keep electing the opposition everytime hoping for some change. We have a perfect statistical paradise with mathematical precision in this state- every election is like throwing an unbiased coin. And perfect randomness in ensemble means each toss should give alternate results each time for a fairly long period. And it DOES happen here!!! One can easily postulate that if things remain the same for next thousand years, and that the elections results for those thousand years are plotted, they would very closely resemble the output of a pseudo random bit sequence generator they use in CDMA receivers!
It all started in 1912. Indologists discovered that the grammatical and phonetical structures of the languages north and south of the Vindhyas are strikingly different. This led to speculation that people of the south are a different race, Dravidian ("Dravida" = South in Sanskrit), which probably existed before Aryans arrived. The discovery of ruins of a magnificient urban civilization at Mohen-jo-daro gave rise to an even more controversial idea- that it was the Dravidians who started this civilization and that the invading Aryans burnt their houses down and drove them south. Early indologists, Max Muller being the prominent, termed this phenomenon as Aryan Invasion Theory. These ideas inspired the contemporary intelligensia of Tamil Nadu and filled them with pride about their own legacy. The flip side- it divided people.
Periyar started the Dravidian movement with legitimate interests of putting the superstitions and caste based attrocities prevailing in the society to an end. His struggle was indispensable in removing the Brahmin tyranny and creating equal oppurtunities for all in the state. But the very rationalism he advocated was infested with the highly irrational idea that 2 different races existed in the country, that the Brahmins in the state were unwelcome Aryan immigrants and hence should be expelled and that the North Indians were 'barbaric' Aryans who displaced 'civilized' Dravidians. What was supposed to be a completely academic debate was fought on the political arena. While his strive to reform the Tamil alphabet, and get it declared as classical language is commendable, his opposition to teaching of Hindi in schools was unwarranted. In a country like India divided by languages and cultures, the concept of national language is the only thing which can bind it as a nation. The other southern states were relatively untouched by these movements and have assimilated Hindi very well over the time. Periyar's claim for a separate 'Dravida Nadu' and his boycott of Hindi, which was carried on by his followers, has created a vast cultural gap between the state and the rest of the country which exists even today.
Mitochondrial-DNA analysis has today proven beyond doubt that the darkest south indian is no more closely related to his nearest African ancestor than his fairest counterpart. There is no separete race in this country. The dark complexion issue which is usually quoted is but a mere adaptation to life closer to the equator. This should have been obvious even during Periyar's time, even without DNA studies- 5000 years of coexistence cannot leave a trace of separate races in any country. Intermixing is a very rational process. Infact, South Indians have historically been the best preservers of Vedic Traditions while the North had been under the influence of Buddhism and Islam. His conservative campaign created a vast number of people ignorant of the national language and intolerant of other cultures and languages. It created regional fanatics.
DMK which formed on the ruins of Periyars movement took the Dravidian cause further and eventually became popular on the basis of a lie- probably a democratic version of Hitlers Aryan propaganda. After ADMK split from DMK, they ended up as the only dominant parties of the state. Having nothing to say against each other in principle, they swapped alliances and used nothing but populist measures to oust each other. What else can explain the Left and Right wingers at the centre switching loyalties between the two parties almost EVERY single election for about a decade? There seems to be only politics of convenience in TN, no politics of ideology.
When a northie hears the word 'chennai' he hears it as 'culture'. But it also brings to his mind the intolerance of people here. Winston Churchill said, "Even conservatives have to change with times if they want to remain relevant". This mess, though created by fanatic politics, can only be cleaned by a new generation of liberal rationals. Its time to open up.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Stranger In Black
This post was intended to be my very first when I started blogging, but I guess ideas don't come to us by will. One must learn to identify and grab them as and when they sporadically get ignited in our minds... probably that's the difference between great writers and us.
I had been to Shanka's place for lunch few weeks back. I had to get some passport sized photos done urgently and so gave the negative for print in a digital photoshop near his place and collected the photos while leaving for home.
Me and Shanka went on Seeku's scooter, me driving. While returning home, I stopped at a T-Section leading to his street looking at the signal going red.
Shanka: Dei... yenda niruththune?
Me: signal da...
Shanka: Dei!!!! enna da... ithukkellaam poi niruththure... naa intha signallai eppovome mathichchadhilliye da...
Me: machaan... athukku naanum niruththaama ponuma da?
Shanka: Dei!!! (getting restless over the wait) enna da nee...
...
I remember watching this movie 'Anniyan' about this time last year with some friends at Egmore ( I don't recall who exactly, but I remember Priya and Marun coming with me ). I've always admired Shankar ( don't get any wrong ideas people... I mean the director here... not shanka ) for packaging movies dealing with sensitive social issues, with glitz and glamour making it reachable to a wide Indian audience. This technique of his, which he has mastered over the years of his stay in the Film Industry, makes his movies more acceptable than those of Mani Ratnam's in the B and C centers. Of course, he alternates his masterpieces with boring, often-nauseating ventures, which has only glitz sans any worthwhile storyline or concept ('Kaadhalan', 'Jeans'... yuck!).
So... why am I writing this piece on Anniyan one whole year after its releasing?... No, this is not a movie review as such. This post deals more with what the movie actually represented and how stark the contrast is the ground reality in India, which is kind of a summing up of my observations of people around me over the past one year set against this movie's underlying theory.
Like all other Shankar movies showcasing problems of the country, this one targets a particular group of our society. Only that this time the group is very very large... 'Indian' showed us how administrators ought to be, 'Muthalvan' showed us how legislature ought to be. 'Anniyan' showed us how common people ought be. Like most of the previous ventures ('Gentleman', 'Indian'...), the solution he offers in this movie too is impractical, unethical and illegal.
The protagonist, Ambi, is a good man amidst filth. He represents that one honest person for every thousand 'normal' people of India. Unhappy incidents during childhood, an outcome of a chain reaction of negligence on the part of a wide range of people belonging to all the strata of the society, bring about his sister's premature death and that instills in him zeal to pursue his responsibilities as a citizen with utmost devotion. This obsession-like adherence to rules shapes him into a honest barrister.
Nevertheless, the complacency and selfishness prevalent in our society injures his mindset and the wounds slowly shape into another personality living inside the same body. This new face is not as merciful as Ambi who believes that even legal action must not contain corporeal punishment. Rather, 'Anniyan' proclaims himself to be the Judgment Maker of the souls and invokes the castigations of Hell, as recorded by Garuda Purana of the Vaishnavite school of thought. Hints of inspiration from the Morgan Freeman starrer 'Seven' are visible here. That thriller was a gory narration of an catholic fanatic who executes people for committing the seven deadly sins proscribed by the Bible. Anniyan is more of a national consciousness affair than any religious propaganda, where the significance of adherence to rules for national development is highlighted. The movie has scenes adopted from many other Hollywood movies and books, as it is usually the case with Shankar. But the Indianization of the episodes is impeccable and that's where Shankar shines. And at the end of the day you need to give it to him- accusing people AND IN THE PROCESS getting their acclaim is no small deal. The movie was a blockbuster.
But are the very people who made it a success actually moved by it, leave alone inspired? The movie cries out the fundamental truth of our society, which we have long taken for granted- we have become experts in accusing the system for all our woes and have forgotten to look into our mistakes. We have been committing mistakes and breaking laws for so many generations that today, we do it involuntarily without any sense of guilt. It is in our genes now.
Last monday, when we were waiting the long wait for IDP at the RTO in mount, Moksham asked me, "What do you think da, The government of Independent India could have done better these 50 years?"
Me: I guess theres something wrong on both sides. We have lost our right to blame them. We expect a lot of things from them but never respect the laws they make.
Sham: But our laws don't make sense
Me: Like?... take for example traffic regulations... how many times do you think you ve stopped before the Stop Line? and how many times have you waited for the waiting countdown to actually go to zero and the appearing of the green signal before starting your vehicle? Don't tell me Traffic rules don't make sense, its almost the same followed in every country
Sham: Well, I see no one watching over us there. Yes, if the maama (policeman) is present I mind the line...
Me: So there it is... you have no regard for the rules as such, you think you have a license to break rules wherever the enforcement is weak.
And isn't it so? Our sense of duty, wherever it is seen, is a mere offspring of the fear of stringent enforcement rather than any actual moral responsibility toward the system of things. The same people would follow the traffic rules with obedience if they were in the US. We follow rules not because our conscience tells us to, but because there are grave consequences of not doing the same. And since most of the petty rule breaking in India goes scot-free, our sense of right and wrong goes for a trip to the moon.
Forerunners of civilization predicted this complacency and thus forged Garuda Puraana like philosophies in every culture and religion known to man to instill in people, fear of breaking rules, which can easily go unnoticed. It is this notion- that there is a place called Hell where every instance of crossing the line is being accounted for and that justice will prevail eventually immaterial of how small or big the crime is- which maintains order and sanity and keeps the fabric of the society from disintegrating.
The Tambaram Sanatorium railway gate is notorious for opening for only short intervals with long waiting times in between. And pedestrians and two-wheeler riders alike have been using this as a reason for walking under the gate whenever it is closed for ages. Since it was built about a year ago, I have been probably the only regular user of the Sanatorium Subway(barring the fruit vendors who use it as godown). Most people prefer jumping over the tractions than taking the pain of walking down the subway. About six months back, after some accidents being reported along the railway crossing, red coloured chains were hung beneath the gate to prevent people from crossing over underneath it. With in a few weeks, the chains were broken down by the people beyond recognition and the authorities gave up. What difference does those few extra seconds of walking down the subway or few extra minutes of waiting for the gate to open make when compared to risking life? Somewhere, sometime, somebody gets killed while crossing and that will cause people to become 'extra' careful for a few days and then everything comes back to 'normal' till some one else gets killed again. Sometimes it pains me to ask myself how many deaths are needed to teach the people the simple procedure of using a manned railway crossing?
The above account of a railway crossing was but just one of the zillions of instances of complacency on our part. It still amazes me how trivial it seems for most to cross the gate or for that matter disregard a traffic signal while these things can make or break life. Immaterial of how well the nation scales in IT enabled services and semiconductors, without the basic etiquettes of existence 2020 is just a utopian dream.
Anniyan is not Tamil Cinema's all time greatest movie. It may not even be Shankar's best. Yet, it was a brave statement. It mirrored our society and cried out our inefficacies. It told us that there is an Ambi in every one of us whom we have forgotten. It also told us that there is an Anniyan out there who hasn't forgotten our mistakes.
I had been to Shanka's place for lunch few weeks back. I had to get some passport sized photos done urgently and so gave the negative for print in a digital photoshop near his place and collected the photos while leaving for home.
Me and Shanka went on Seeku's scooter, me driving. While returning home, I stopped at a T-Section leading to his street looking at the signal going red.
Shanka: Dei... yenda niruththune?
Me: signal da...
Shanka: Dei!!!! enna da... ithukkellaam poi niruththure... naa intha signallai eppovome mathichchadhilliye da...
Me: machaan... athukku naanum niruththaama ponuma da?
Shanka: Dei!!! (getting restless over the wait) enna da nee...
...
I remember watching this movie 'Anniyan' about this time last year with some friends at Egmore ( I don't recall who exactly, but I remember Priya and Marun coming with me ). I've always admired Shankar ( don't get any wrong ideas people... I mean the director here... not shanka ) for packaging movies dealing with sensitive social issues, with glitz and glamour making it reachable to a wide Indian audience. This technique of his, which he has mastered over the years of his stay in the Film Industry, makes his movies more acceptable than those of Mani Ratnam's in the B and C centers. Of course, he alternates his masterpieces with boring, often-nauseating ventures, which has only glitz sans any worthwhile storyline or concept ('Kaadhalan', 'Jeans'... yuck!).
So... why am I writing this piece on Anniyan one whole year after its releasing?... No, this is not a movie review as such. This post deals more with what the movie actually represented and how stark the contrast is the ground reality in India, which is kind of a summing up of my observations of people around me over the past one year set against this movie's underlying theory.
Like all other Shankar movies showcasing problems of the country, this one targets a particular group of our society. Only that this time the group is very very large... 'Indian' showed us how administrators ought to be, 'Muthalvan' showed us how legislature ought to be. 'Anniyan' showed us how common people ought be. Like most of the previous ventures ('Gentleman', 'Indian'...), the solution he offers in this movie too is impractical, unethical and illegal.
The protagonist, Ambi, is a good man amidst filth. He represents that one honest person for every thousand 'normal' people of India. Unhappy incidents during childhood, an outcome of a chain reaction of negligence on the part of a wide range of people belonging to all the strata of the society, bring about his sister's premature death and that instills in him zeal to pursue his responsibilities as a citizen with utmost devotion. This obsession-like adherence to rules shapes him into a honest barrister.
Nevertheless, the complacency and selfishness prevalent in our society injures his mindset and the wounds slowly shape into another personality living inside the same body. This new face is not as merciful as Ambi who believes that even legal action must not contain corporeal punishment. Rather, 'Anniyan' proclaims himself to be the Judgment Maker of the souls and invokes the castigations of Hell, as recorded by Garuda Purana of the Vaishnavite school of thought. Hints of inspiration from the Morgan Freeman starrer 'Seven' are visible here. That thriller was a gory narration of an catholic fanatic who executes people for committing the seven deadly sins proscribed by the Bible. Anniyan is more of a national consciousness affair than any religious propaganda, where the significance of adherence to rules for national development is highlighted. The movie has scenes adopted from many other Hollywood movies and books, as it is usually the case with Shankar. But the Indianization of the episodes is impeccable and that's where Shankar shines. And at the end of the day you need to give it to him- accusing people AND IN THE PROCESS getting their acclaim is no small deal. The movie was a blockbuster.
But are the very people who made it a success actually moved by it, leave alone inspired? The movie cries out the fundamental truth of our society, which we have long taken for granted- we have become experts in accusing the system for all our woes and have forgotten to look into our mistakes. We have been committing mistakes and breaking laws for so many generations that today, we do it involuntarily without any sense of guilt. It is in our genes now.
Last monday, when we were waiting the long wait for IDP at the RTO in mount, Moksham asked me, "What do you think da, The government of Independent India could have done better these 50 years?"
Me: I guess theres something wrong on both sides. We have lost our right to blame them. We expect a lot of things from them but never respect the laws they make.
Sham: But our laws don't make sense
Me: Like?... take for example traffic regulations... how many times do you think you ve stopped before the Stop Line? and how many times have you waited for the waiting countdown to actually go to zero and the appearing of the green signal before starting your vehicle? Don't tell me Traffic rules don't make sense, its almost the same followed in every country
Sham: Well, I see no one watching over us there. Yes, if the maama (policeman) is present I mind the line...
Me: So there it is... you have no regard for the rules as such, you think you have a license to break rules wherever the enforcement is weak.
And isn't it so? Our sense of duty, wherever it is seen, is a mere offspring of the fear of stringent enforcement rather than any actual moral responsibility toward the system of things. The same people would follow the traffic rules with obedience if they were in the US. We follow rules not because our conscience tells us to, but because there are grave consequences of not doing the same. And since most of the petty rule breaking in India goes scot-free, our sense of right and wrong goes for a trip to the moon.
Forerunners of civilization predicted this complacency and thus forged Garuda Puraana like philosophies in every culture and religion known to man to instill in people, fear of breaking rules, which can easily go unnoticed. It is this notion- that there is a place called Hell where every instance of crossing the line is being accounted for and that justice will prevail eventually immaterial of how small or big the crime is- which maintains order and sanity and keeps the fabric of the society from disintegrating.
The Tambaram Sanatorium railway gate is notorious for opening for only short intervals with long waiting times in between. And pedestrians and two-wheeler riders alike have been using this as a reason for walking under the gate whenever it is closed for ages. Since it was built about a year ago, I have been probably the only regular user of the Sanatorium Subway(barring the fruit vendors who use it as godown). Most people prefer jumping over the tractions than taking the pain of walking down the subway. About six months back, after some accidents being reported along the railway crossing, red coloured chains were hung beneath the gate to prevent people from crossing over underneath it. With in a few weeks, the chains were broken down by the people beyond recognition and the authorities gave up. What difference does those few extra seconds of walking down the subway or few extra minutes of waiting for the gate to open make when compared to risking life? Somewhere, sometime, somebody gets killed while crossing and that will cause people to become 'extra' careful for a few days and then everything comes back to 'normal' till some one else gets killed again. Sometimes it pains me to ask myself how many deaths are needed to teach the people the simple procedure of using a manned railway crossing?
The above account of a railway crossing was but just one of the zillions of instances of complacency on our part. It still amazes me how trivial it seems for most to cross the gate or for that matter disregard a traffic signal while these things can make or break life. Immaterial of how well the nation scales in IT enabled services and semiconductors, without the basic etiquettes of existence 2020 is just a utopian dream.
Anniyan is not Tamil Cinema's all time greatest movie. It may not even be Shankar's best. Yet, it was a brave statement. It mirrored our society and cried out our inefficacies. It told us that there is an Ambi in every one of us whom we have forgotten. It also told us that there is an Anniyan out there who hasn't forgotten our mistakes.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Sorcerers or ‘Soccer’ers?
This post kind of summarizes the events of this World Cup. Wait!!! No, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with football. Actually I must make it clear here that I'm pretty much a zero in football (Yes, we used to play it with great zeal in school, but I never cared to watch it on TV). Infact, the last match I watched before this World Cup was the finals of the 2002 WC. I didn't know that a man named Ronaldo existed before that.
Rather, this post relives the legend of how this WC turned few ordinary men into wizzards... how few mortals (read my classmates) discovered the power of divination within them... the power to tell the future! This post attempts to recount the innumerable predictions made by the guys of ECE, 2006 batch... And how NONE of them actually came true!
Sorcercer #1
Now what is a better media than blogging to tell the world your predictions. It all started with Asif's "Everybody is talking about the World Cup" ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/ ). And talking they did. Though Asif refrained from making any explicit prediction of the results in his post and was mostly discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various teams, he did hint a support for the world wide 'Brazil will Win' syndrome. He dismissed France in "Why don't they change formations" as having poor strategy and that very team with the same strategy made it to the final!
Sorcercer #2
Then comes, of course, our very own, 'The Dark Lord' alias 'Sirius Black' alias 'Siriusly Silver' alias Dijango Maama. This 'Disgruntled English Fan' ( http://siriuslysilver.blogspot.com/ ) constitutes those in this country who still loyally serve our old colonial masters. His devotion and deep 'love' for ManU players can be no less exemplified than Asif's post on this nerd ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-today-lets-look-at-my-buddy-ilango.html ) hehe! None of the teams in his "Order of Favorites" crossed the quaterfinals, and the "Woeful French...Again" AGAIN came close to claiming the honours. His "Go Three Lions!" soon became "Unconvincing Three Lions". Poor chap had a pathetic World Cup this time around. And as it always happens, his passions are often met with hostility by my classmates. Everyone hated England to begin with ( "They are overrated"- Asif ). I sometimes have a feeling people hate England just because Kilango likes it. Its this obsession with which he worships the sportspersons he likes that puts off most people. Everyone was celebrating the day England was out of the WC campaign. And Jango din't come online for a few days... I was worried if Jango, under a fit of passion, did the unthinkable! No one was complaining though, when I expressed this concern to my friends...
Me: "Dei, its been 3 days since I saw him online... you reckon he committed a suicide or something?"
Everyone else: "We hope he does that!"
Poor Jango almost always ends up as a "Black" Sheep. Then finally he was back with the post "Henry is No Saint!" which was but a mere offspring of his frustation and agitation at the world cup results.
Sorcercer #3
Next in the list of sorcerers is the Eternally-Fickle-Minded-Jerk, Kalyanaraaman. Now Kalyan is not exactly a blogger, but then he doesn't need a blog to let the world know what he thinks... His big loud mouth, which goes an extra mile in ranting, does it for him. During ABK's treat in Hot Chips, he proclaimed, "Dei, Brazil thokkanumna Ronaldovukku bedhi varanum, Ronaldinovukku vaanthi varanum, Adrianovukku jaundice varanum" (For Brazil to loose, Ranaldo must suffer from Diahorrea, Ronaldino from Nausea and Adriano from Jaundice)... apparam?... Kakavukku Kakavalippu varanuma?. Hmmm... I'm sure that after they went back to Brazil after the defeat in the Quaterfinals, the whole team WOULD have infact got Diahorrea watching the videos of their own games.
Sorcercer #4
A step toward sensibility was VAC. His "Heart says England... Mind says Brazil" ( http://thayir-sadham.blogspot.com/ ) gave away his "Go England Go!" mind set while acknowledging the power of the former World Champions. Unfortunately, neither his heart nor his mind gave him company beyond the quaterfinal! Later he acknowledged England's pathetic state in the post mortem "God Din't Save the Queen, Murray Did".
Sorcercer #5
One afternoon in the Lab...
Me: "Don't you think tonight's quaterfinal between Argentina and Germany will be pretty close... I mean both of them are playing great"
Kiran: "Dei, isn't it obvious? Argentina will win da"
And not so obviously, the hosts partied home that night. End of the road for the South Americans.
I must mention here that a respite from all these prophecies came in the form of Vivek's light hearted post "Football, England and a Bet" ( http://viveksniche.blogspot.com/ ) which narrates a funny account of how his ignorance of the game almost lost him a bet to his brother.
What I have understood, from my watching these WC matches, is that soccer is pretty much a random game with almost always, the stakes being 50-50 or something close to that. You can almost everytime draw straws between the teams. With no natural elements aiding or frustating the players (like pitch and weather in cricket), and the very tempo of the game being quite high, the game is left to the mercy of a chance rush of adernaline and a very rare display of genius even among the very great geniuses. And since the game has incurred a very defensive mindset over the years (unlike the flamboyance with which it was played in the 80s and 70s), most of the games this WC ended at 1-0s or 1-1s at full time which demand penalty shoot outs which, in turn, only increase the randomness.
And now... the greatest Sorcerer of all!
And then the night of the Finals came. Everyone was chanting "France, France, France.."... Orkut profiles, messenger statuses... almost everything on the internet was flooded with messages predicting a definite French Cup. Being online before a match is a tough time, especially if its the Finals. People just don't stop asking "Hey who do you think will win da?". I was wise enough by now not to make any statement. But my brother (who was as pathetic as me in football before this WC ) was relentless and kept messaging me asking whom am I supporting. Tired of his pestering, I uttered my ONLY prediction for World Cup 2006 Germany...
" I DONT know who will win... but I think there will be atleast one moment of great passion on ground and atleast one interesting Red Card"
... they say Lord Saneeswarar resides in my tongue. An what a red card it was! That raised hand of the refree pushed an illustrious career into oblivion. A rare moment in the history of football when you get to see a street fight during a match! Zidane fans, please don't be mad at me. Human actions are supposedly controlled by Lord Indra, not Saneeswarar!
And by the way, the French lost the match to Italians, and yes, again a penalty shoot out decided the result.
Now tell me folks... who will make a better Nostradamus... me or the self-proclaimed soccer-sorcerers of my class?
PS: Even Nostradamus got it all wrong! He predicted a Spanish win: "In the sixth year the Spaniards will bring the Holy Grail from the battle fields of Central Europe".
Rather, this post relives the legend of how this WC turned few ordinary men into wizzards... how few mortals (read my classmates) discovered the power of divination within them... the power to tell the future! This post attempts to recount the innumerable predictions made by the guys of ECE, 2006 batch... And how NONE of them actually came true!
Sorcercer #1
Now what is a better media than blogging to tell the world your predictions. It all started with Asif's "Everybody is talking about the World Cup" ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/ ). And talking they did. Though Asif refrained from making any explicit prediction of the results in his post and was mostly discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various teams, he did hint a support for the world wide 'Brazil will Win' syndrome. He dismissed France in "Why don't they change formations" as having poor strategy and that very team with the same strategy made it to the final!
Sorcercer #2
Then comes, of course, our very own, 'The Dark Lord' alias 'Sirius Black' alias 'Siriusly Silver' alias Dijango Maama. This 'Disgruntled English Fan' ( http://siriuslysilver.blogspot.com/ ) constitutes those in this country who still loyally serve our old colonial masters. His devotion and deep 'love' for ManU players can be no less exemplified than Asif's post on this nerd ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-today-lets-look-at-my-buddy-ilango.html ) hehe! None of the teams in his "Order of Favorites" crossed the quaterfinals, and the "Woeful French...Again" AGAIN came close to claiming the honours. His "Go Three Lions!" soon became "Unconvincing Three Lions". Poor chap had a pathetic World Cup this time around. And as it always happens, his passions are often met with hostility by my classmates. Everyone hated England to begin with ( "They are overrated"- Asif ). I sometimes have a feeling people hate England just because Kilango likes it. Its this obsession with which he worships the sportspersons he likes that puts off most people. Everyone was celebrating the day England was out of the WC campaign. And Jango din't come online for a few days... I was worried if Jango, under a fit of passion, did the unthinkable! No one was complaining though, when I expressed this concern to my friends...
Me: "Dei, its been 3 days since I saw him online... you reckon he committed a suicide or something?"
Everyone else: "We hope he does that!"
Poor Jango almost always ends up as a "Black" Sheep. Then finally he was back with the post "Henry is No Saint!" which was but a mere offspring of his frustation and agitation at the world cup results.
Sorcercer #3
Next in the list of sorcerers is the Eternally-Fickle-Minded-Jerk, Kalyanaraaman. Now Kalyan is not exactly a blogger, but then he doesn't need a blog to let the world know what he thinks... His big loud mouth, which goes an extra mile in ranting, does it for him. During ABK's treat in Hot Chips, he proclaimed, "Dei, Brazil thokkanumna Ronaldovukku bedhi varanum, Ronaldinovukku vaanthi varanum, Adrianovukku jaundice varanum" (For Brazil to loose, Ranaldo must suffer from Diahorrea, Ronaldino from Nausea and Adriano from Jaundice)... apparam?... Kakavukku Kakavalippu varanuma?. Hmmm... I'm sure that after they went back to Brazil after the defeat in the Quaterfinals, the whole team WOULD have infact got Diahorrea watching the videos of their own games.
Sorcercer #4
A step toward sensibility was VAC. His "Heart says England... Mind says Brazil" ( http://thayir-sadham.blogspot.com/ ) gave away his "Go England Go!" mind set while acknowledging the power of the former World Champions. Unfortunately, neither his heart nor his mind gave him company beyond the quaterfinal! Later he acknowledged England's pathetic state in the post mortem "God Din't Save the Queen, Murray Did".
Sorcercer #5
One afternoon in the Lab...
Me: "Don't you think tonight's quaterfinal between Argentina and Germany will be pretty close... I mean both of them are playing great"
Kiran: "Dei, isn't it obvious? Argentina will win da"
And not so obviously, the hosts partied home that night. End of the road for the South Americans.
I must mention here that a respite from all these prophecies came in the form of Vivek's light hearted post "Football, England and a Bet" ( http://viveksniche.blogspot.com/ ) which narrates a funny account of how his ignorance of the game almost lost him a bet to his brother.
What I have understood, from my watching these WC matches, is that soccer is pretty much a random game with almost always, the stakes being 50-50 or something close to that. You can almost everytime draw straws between the teams. With no natural elements aiding or frustating the players (like pitch and weather in cricket), and the very tempo of the game being quite high, the game is left to the mercy of a chance rush of adernaline and a very rare display of genius even among the very great geniuses. And since the game has incurred a very defensive mindset over the years (unlike the flamboyance with which it was played in the 80s and 70s), most of the games this WC ended at 1-0s or 1-1s at full time which demand penalty shoot outs which, in turn, only increase the randomness.
And now... the greatest Sorcerer of all!
And then the night of the Finals came. Everyone was chanting "France, France, France.."... Orkut profiles, messenger statuses... almost everything on the internet was flooded with messages predicting a definite French Cup. Being online before a match is a tough time, especially if its the Finals. People just don't stop asking "Hey who do you think will win da?". I was wise enough by now not to make any statement. But my brother (who was as pathetic as me in football before this WC ) was relentless and kept messaging me asking whom am I supporting. Tired of his pestering, I uttered my ONLY prediction for World Cup 2006 Germany...
" I DONT know who will win... but I think there will be atleast one moment of great passion on ground and atleast one interesting Red Card"
... they say Lord Saneeswarar resides in my tongue. An what a red card it was! That raised hand of the refree pushed an illustrious career into oblivion. A rare moment in the history of football when you get to see a street fight during a match! Zidane fans, please don't be mad at me. Human actions are supposedly controlled by Lord Indra, not Saneeswarar!
And by the way, the French lost the match to Italians, and yes, again a penalty shoot out decided the result.
Now tell me folks... who will make a better Nostradamus... me or the self-proclaimed soccer-sorcerers of my class?
PS: Even Nostradamus got it all wrong! He predicted a Spanish win: "In the sixth year the Spaniards will bring the Holy Grail from the battle fields of Central Europe".
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Land of Divine Nectar
The Great Kodai Trip, Day 4: Mystic Madurai
Day 4: Tuesday, 23rd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's House
I opened my eyes to the bright madurai morning. that sleep did good to me. there was no more turning of the stomach or any uneasiness. infact i was hungry. i went into the large front room to find everyone fast asleep. they were obviously partying late into the night.
jilu's mom was happy to see me walking around and speaking more than a sentence! she made me a hot cup of tea after which i went about my routine. i called up home and informed mom about my condition the previous night. she asked me to replenish water and salts at regular intervals as a safety precaution. slowly everyone starting coming around. a plan was made- to visit the Meenaxi temple and then ma kannan's place. we needed to move out as early as 10 o clock to keep schedule.
we took a bus to the Periyar stop near the temple after which it was a 10 mins walk in the hot sun. we were all terribly thirsty by the time we entered the south western corner of the quadrangle surrounding the temple. we relished cool fruit juices at a stall near by.
this is the view encompassing both the south and the west tower.
Madurai, Meenaxi and Tamil
the history of madurai is as old as tamil itself. it was the seat of power of the Pandyas, one of the 3 dynasties which ruled the south from the prehistoric times to the late medieval. they were confined to the southern half of modern tamil nadu for most of the time in history. after about 3 centuries of exile (1000 to 1200 AD) in srilanka, when they were driven out by the rising Chola empire under Raja Raja Chola, they found a new resurgence under Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan and reached their peak in the 13th century when they ruled from the banks of Godavari in the north to central Ceylon in the south. after that, Delhi sultanate, Madurai Nawabs and then the English East India Company came in succession.
legend has it that king kulasekaran, one of the most ancient rulers of the pandiyan dynasty, buit the grand meenaxi temple and a lotus shaped city around it. lord shiva danced on its creation and divine nectar flowed from his locks and poured on the city. thus the name "madhurapuri" which means the Land of Divine Nectar. some times, it is also referred to as 'Then' (south) Madurai, the 'Vada' (north) Madurai being Mathura.Tamil literature found its salvation in the city as recorded by the Sangam history.
Darshanam
I bought some archanai materials before entering the south tower. we were greeted by a spectacular model of the whole temple jus few yards into the entrance.
the temple has 12 gopurams in all- 4 entrances, the 2 golden shrines of meenaxi and sundareshwar, 4 internal gopurams surrounding Shiva's shrine and 2 surrounding meenaxi's. the entrance towers have a whopping 1124 figures engraved into each of them!
the huge man-made lake near the southern tower has a huge golden lotus in the middle. visitors are supposed to wash their legs here before they proceed.
we soon reached the shrine of the main deity and stood behind a long "special" darshan queue. thankfully it moved rather fast. sham, either 'sick of crowd' or being male chauvnist (he he...) prefered to stay out of the shrine and went on to explore the rest of the temple, vivek gave him company. i performed the archanai rites and we sat for a while in the quadrangle surrounding the shrine.
Historical Interpretation of Mythology
scores legends revolve around the meenaxi temple which is dedicated to the wedding between Princess Meenaxi and Lord Shiva. this wedding- of a warrior princess born with three breasts (possible initial demonification of the existent mother goddess worship), who goes to fight Shiva in the Himalayas and in the process becomes human and feminine, and then the ceremony being presided over by the 'dark skinned' brother of meenaxi- can be viewed as a symbolic marriage between the cultures of the patriarch aryans who came from central asia represented by Lord Shiva and that of the pre-vedic mother goddess worshippers.
these pre-existent tribes, who are believed to have migrated from the fertile crescent of Africa about 10000 years back, are the supposed fore runners of the dravidian language which later evolved into modern tamil and telugu with the influx of sanskrit and prakrit. the Fish ensign of the Pandiyas itself is a characteristic of many ancient proto-saharan tribes. even the name 'meenaxi' means "fish-eyed goddess". the worship of the goddess of fertility later spread to the northern india and became as essential part of faith all over the nation. this confluence hastened the evolution of the "sanathana dharma" or the Hindu religion as it is known today.
Sundareshwar
on the way from to Sundareshwar shrine, we found the abode of the Mukkuruni Viayagar. A huge larger than life image of Pillayar, which was believed to have been discovered by some traders travelling to a neighbouring kingdom.
we then proceeded to the Lord's shrine. the idol here, which is believed to have been dug out of the temple lake, is the usual silver clad "Nataraja" but with a difference. while the Lord of Chithambaram lifts his left leg in air while suuporting himself on his right leg on the Arakkan depicting a pose in the Thandava Dance, here its just the opposite. as we stood in the queue, Jillu told us about the legend that talks about a devout Pandiyan king who spoke to Lord Shiva during his prayers,
"You always stand on your right leg. It pains my heart to think that it hurts you. Why don't you change the legs?"
And lo! Shiva indeed changed the pose the other way round! this change of legs is the trademark of this temple among all the religious sites in the state.
after the darshanam, we set out to explore the huge hall in front of the entrance of the Sundareshwar shrine. it was ladden with the finest examples of medieval tamil art. to start with, at the door way, an optical illusion created with 5 torsos and one head of a monkey. looking at each tosro with the head gives u a feeling there are separate monkeys! then, there was this mythical creature called "Yazhi", as told by our guide jillu whose body was made up of many different animals.
then there were two idols of Shiva and Goddess Kali standing in identical dance postures- stretching their legs and placing it flat on their heads. jillu told us the story behind this strange sculpture. once, Lord Shiva and his Consort Parvathy decided to compete against each other in dance. Parvathy was able to do every move that Shiva made. finally, Shiva gave his death punch by bending his leg and placing on his head. stretching legs like this was considered indecent for a woman, hence Parvathy ceased to be a woman and took the form of Bhadra Kali, the goddess of death, and performed this act.
we also saw life size images of 'half-vishnu-half-shiva' and the 'ardhanaareeshwaran'. then there was this famous picture postcard sculpture of the Meenaxi Marriage ceremony. Lord Vishnu placing the hand of Meenaxi over the hand of Lord Sundareshwar. this sculpture captures the legend of the usually gory looking warrior Lord Shiva who turned handsome (and hence the name, 'Sundareshwar') with the arrival of Lord Vishnu. the facial expressions are well depicted here, with Vishnu looking Happy, Meenaxi blushing and Sundareshwar epitomizing man hood.
Vaigai
we left the shrine and headed for the aayiram kaal mandapam, when jillu narrated the story of how the river vaigai came about. for the meenakshi wedding, there were scores of relatives representing meenakshi's family while only Gundotharan came from Shiva's side. people ridiculed Shiva saying that they had prepared meals for 1000 people expecting a large following for him. Enraged, Sundareshwar kindles a fire in Gundotharan's stomach and he is plagued by monstruous hunger. he soon gobbles up the food made for a thousand people and still asks for more. then he devours the raw rice and vegetables and all the water available in the kingdom and still remains hungry. people get scared of his seemingly unsatiable glutton and realising the power of the Lord, ask for his forgiveness and plead him to satisfy Gundotharan.
Shiva consents and turns to Gundotharan and says "Kai Vai" (place your hand) gesturing him to kneel down to drink. as he bows down in front of him stretching his arms, water flows down Shiva's head and falls on his palm. Gundotharan drinks the water and the fire in his stomach is extinguished. the water which trickled down his palm formed a river. the phrase "kai vai" was reversed and was bestowed upon this river as the name "Vaigai". since it flowed down Shiva's locks like the Ganges, Vaigai is also known as Southern Ganga.
as we neared the mandapam, we stumbled upon an Aanjineya figure engraved into a pillar. this image was recently rumored to have grown in size!
Aayiram Kaal Mandapam
Next we proceeded to the famous Meenakshi Temple Museum or the Aayiram Kaal (1000 pillared) Mandapam. this was built much later in the 16th century. in addition to 990 odd pillars, this madapam houses some great sculptures from the same period. we met sham here. and he was not alone... there was a Hungarian Lady Tourist looking at the sculptures with him! our Mr. Know-All seemed to have offered her a free lecture on what he knew about the history of the temple. while he played guide, we set out to explore the place and take some snaps.
The Prophecy
we decided to leave at about 12 in the afternoon and as we headed for the exit, an old lady, an astrologer, stopped us and offered to tell our future! vijay decided to try it just for the fun of it. we all sat down, she looked at his palm and then asked vijay to throw seven sea shells on the floor. this was repeated a couple of times. looking at the pattern, she kept giving general remarks about his past and future. after some "you are intelligent and peaceful " (yawn...) and "you have the signs of travel to foreign lands" (yeah yeah...every body in india go to foriegn these days) ... she made a more specific statement "you are unusually lucky in what ever you strive to do"... (huh?, god knows what was running through vijay's mind when she said that... given that he was fresh from an emotional turmoil back in the college ;) !!!!
The Tale of a Jerk and two Wives
then sham tried to give it a shot. and after the usual crap, she said, "if you were married at 19, you would have had 2 wives (everyone on the floor!), else you will be married to a single lady of a foreign land at the age of 23!!!!!!!!( everyone rolling on the floor)". by the time we left, we were more sure about the former!!! though sham thought otherwise (which means some unfortunate american woman in Rutgers will commit suicide in 2 years).
after she was finished, she looked at me and said "intha kannaadi potta thambikku jotsiyam paakkanum!"
Hell NO! "er.... no thank you..."
we left the temple and were terribly thirsty. on the way to the bustop, we stopped at a cool bar and had 'Jigarthanda' the traditional thirst quencher of madurai. it was mix of milk, curd, ice cream, some javvarisi, some sherbet and just melted in our mouths. i had two of it.
Foot Ball
we reached home at 2:30 and given we were pretty wasted out, we decided to drop the plan to visit kannan's place. jillu brought some cds but no one was interested in watching a movie and soon after the lunch, everyone was snoring. at some 4 o clock in the evening, everyone was up and we decided to play football in the near by ground. jillu's pal since childhood, rakesh arrived with some other friends and we split up into two teams.
i was in jilu's team. most of us had the best exercise in years that day. but not without casualities... seeku tried to take the ball head on with his foot and bent his toe in the process! it was about 6:30 when we decided to stop and headed back home after taking a team photo...
we got ready for the 11 o clock train. it was time to take the final group photos of the trip. director sham timed his camera to cover everyone in the group.
lights... camera....
action!
The Last Voyage
we bid jillu's parents adieu and left for the station. we had plenty of time there and so chatted over a cup of tea about life, acads, where everyone was headed etc...
and then we boarded the train and bid jillu good bye. me, ravi, sham and seeku were soon ensued in an argument over the state of private schools in india which became rather loud (god save the passengers in the next cabin!).
late in the night, we decided to sleep. the Great Kodai Trip finally came to an end and 5 tired men made their way back to chennai.
Wednessday, 24th May, 9:00 AM: the train reached Tambaram junction. me, sham and ravi got down. while vijay and seeku stayed back to get down at egmore. we went our separate ways. i reached home at about 9:45 and dropped down to sleep with images of the woods and meenakshi flashing across my mind....
And they lived Happily (?) ever after...
Vivek: joined American Megatrends in Thorappaakkam, Chennai, in June. After a few hitches in the begining, settled well into his new job
Ravi: poor chap's miseries dint end with the trip. some infection in the train gave him Rat Fever (alias Leptospirosis)- a rare condition believed to be existent only in a few districts of Tamil Nadu in India. it weakens one's immune system and that triggers off further complications. in fact, at one point Ravi suffered from malaria, typhoid and rat fever simultaneously! was hospitalised for about three weeks. Rat Fever's only cure is Penicillin. and for those who are allergic to penicillin, things may go pretty bad as they are put in a awful situation wherein, both the disease and its cure are fatal. I couldn't thank god more when i heard from his parents that Ravi was, in fact, NOT allergic to penicillin. all's well that ends well... he recovered gradually and then joined Conexant Systems, Hyderabad in the end of May. he is still weak and on a strict diet. my brother has promised to take care of him as long as he is in Hyderabad.
Seeku: went on to win Intel India Student Research competition along with Kiran. is all set to join ME, Communications at IISc.
Sham: went on another trip, soon after, with school friends to shimla. continues to laze around his dwelling place. will leave india this August to join Rutgers with TA .
Vijay: the lonely lover put his sorry tale behind in chennai and left for Delhi to join Indian Institute of Foreign Trade for an MBA.
Jillu: kept roaming around all over tamil nadu visiting friends. came to chennai recently and visited my place before appearing for US VISA interview. made it. will leave for Ohio State University in September with Fellowship.
Mars: this idiot attended IISc and IITM MS interviews. got selected in both. will join Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada this September with Aid. awaits VISA result.
Shanka: went into hiding for a while. got selected into IIT M. will join ASU this August along with Harish. Last heard, he planned a trip to Goa (!!!) with school friends and... yes you guessed it right, cancelled the trip the night before the journey.
Day 4: Tuesday, 23rd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's House
I opened my eyes to the bright madurai morning. that sleep did good to me. there was no more turning of the stomach or any uneasiness. infact i was hungry. i went into the large front room to find everyone fast asleep. they were obviously partying late into the night.
jilu's mom was happy to see me walking around and speaking more than a sentence! she made me a hot cup of tea after which i went about my routine. i called up home and informed mom about my condition the previous night. she asked me to replenish water and salts at regular intervals as a safety precaution. slowly everyone starting coming around. a plan was made- to visit the Meenaxi temple and then ma kannan's place. we needed to move out as early as 10 o clock to keep schedule.
we took a bus to the Periyar stop near the temple after which it was a 10 mins walk in the hot sun. we were all terribly thirsty by the time we entered the south western corner of the quadrangle surrounding the temple. we relished cool fruit juices at a stall near by.
this is the view encompassing both the south and the west tower.
Madurai, Meenaxi and Tamil
the history of madurai is as old as tamil itself. it was the seat of power of the Pandyas, one of the 3 dynasties which ruled the south from the prehistoric times to the late medieval. they were confined to the southern half of modern tamil nadu for most of the time in history. after about 3 centuries of exile (1000 to 1200 AD) in srilanka, when they were driven out by the rising Chola empire under Raja Raja Chola, they found a new resurgence under Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan and reached their peak in the 13th century when they ruled from the banks of Godavari in the north to central Ceylon in the south. after that, Delhi sultanate, Madurai Nawabs and then the English East India Company came in succession.
legend has it that king kulasekaran, one of the most ancient rulers of the pandiyan dynasty, buit the grand meenaxi temple and a lotus shaped city around it. lord shiva danced on its creation and divine nectar flowed from his locks and poured on the city. thus the name "madhurapuri" which means the Land of Divine Nectar. some times, it is also referred to as 'Then' (south) Madurai, the 'Vada' (north) Madurai being Mathura.Tamil literature found its salvation in the city as recorded by the Sangam history.
Darshanam
I bought some archanai materials before entering the south tower. we were greeted by a spectacular model of the whole temple jus few yards into the entrance.
the temple has 12 gopurams in all- 4 entrances, the 2 golden shrines of meenaxi and sundareshwar, 4 internal gopurams surrounding Shiva's shrine and 2 surrounding meenaxi's. the entrance towers have a whopping 1124 figures engraved into each of them!
the huge man-made lake near the southern tower has a huge golden lotus in the middle. visitors are supposed to wash their legs here before they proceed.
we soon reached the shrine of the main deity and stood behind a long "special" darshan queue. thankfully it moved rather fast. sham, either 'sick of crowd' or being male chauvnist (he he...) prefered to stay out of the shrine and went on to explore the rest of the temple, vivek gave him company. i performed the archanai rites and we sat for a while in the quadrangle surrounding the shrine.
Historical Interpretation of Mythology
scores legends revolve around the meenaxi temple which is dedicated to the wedding between Princess Meenaxi and Lord Shiva. this wedding- of a warrior princess born with three breasts (possible initial demonification of the existent mother goddess worship), who goes to fight Shiva in the Himalayas and in the process becomes human and feminine, and then the ceremony being presided over by the 'dark skinned' brother of meenaxi- can be viewed as a symbolic marriage between the cultures of the patriarch aryans who came from central asia represented by Lord Shiva and that of the pre-vedic mother goddess worshippers.
these pre-existent tribes, who are believed to have migrated from the fertile crescent of Africa about 10000 years back, are the supposed fore runners of the dravidian language which later evolved into modern tamil and telugu with the influx of sanskrit and prakrit. the Fish ensign of the Pandiyas itself is a characteristic of many ancient proto-saharan tribes. even the name 'meenaxi' means "fish-eyed goddess". the worship of the goddess of fertility later spread to the northern india and became as essential part of faith all over the nation. this confluence hastened the evolution of the "sanathana dharma" or the Hindu religion as it is known today.
Sundareshwar
on the way from to Sundareshwar shrine, we found the abode of the Mukkuruni Viayagar. A huge larger than life image of Pillayar, which was believed to have been discovered by some traders travelling to a neighbouring kingdom.
we then proceeded to the Lord's shrine. the idol here, which is believed to have been dug out of the temple lake, is the usual silver clad "Nataraja" but with a difference. while the Lord of Chithambaram lifts his left leg in air while suuporting himself on his right leg on the Arakkan depicting a pose in the Thandava Dance, here its just the opposite. as we stood in the queue, Jillu told us about the legend that talks about a devout Pandiyan king who spoke to Lord Shiva during his prayers,
"You always stand on your right leg. It pains my heart to think that it hurts you. Why don't you change the legs?"
And lo! Shiva indeed changed the pose the other way round! this change of legs is the trademark of this temple among all the religious sites in the state.
after the darshanam, we set out to explore the huge hall in front of the entrance of the Sundareshwar shrine. it was ladden with the finest examples of medieval tamil art. to start with, at the door way, an optical illusion created with 5 torsos and one head of a monkey. looking at each tosro with the head gives u a feeling there are separate monkeys! then, there was this mythical creature called "Yazhi", as told by our guide jillu whose body was made up of many different animals.
then there were two idols of Shiva and Goddess Kali standing in identical dance postures- stretching their legs and placing it flat on their heads. jillu told us the story behind this strange sculpture. once, Lord Shiva and his Consort Parvathy decided to compete against each other in dance. Parvathy was able to do every move that Shiva made. finally, Shiva gave his death punch by bending his leg and placing on his head. stretching legs like this was considered indecent for a woman, hence Parvathy ceased to be a woman and took the form of Bhadra Kali, the goddess of death, and performed this act.
we also saw life size images of 'half-vishnu-half-shiva' and the 'ardhanaareeshwaran'. then there was this famous picture postcard sculpture of the Meenaxi Marriage ceremony. Lord Vishnu placing the hand of Meenaxi over the hand of Lord Sundareshwar. this sculpture captures the legend of the usually gory looking warrior Lord Shiva who turned handsome (and hence the name, 'Sundareshwar') with the arrival of Lord Vishnu. the facial expressions are well depicted here, with Vishnu looking Happy, Meenaxi blushing and Sundareshwar epitomizing man hood.
Vaigai
we left the shrine and headed for the aayiram kaal mandapam, when jillu narrated the story of how the river vaigai came about. for the meenakshi wedding, there were scores of relatives representing meenakshi's family while only Gundotharan came from Shiva's side. people ridiculed Shiva saying that they had prepared meals for 1000 people expecting a large following for him. Enraged, Sundareshwar kindles a fire in Gundotharan's stomach and he is plagued by monstruous hunger. he soon gobbles up the food made for a thousand people and still asks for more. then he devours the raw rice and vegetables and all the water available in the kingdom and still remains hungry. people get scared of his seemingly unsatiable glutton and realising the power of the Lord, ask for his forgiveness and plead him to satisfy Gundotharan.
Shiva consents and turns to Gundotharan and says "Kai Vai" (place your hand) gesturing him to kneel down to drink. as he bows down in front of him stretching his arms, water flows down Shiva's head and falls on his palm. Gundotharan drinks the water and the fire in his stomach is extinguished. the water which trickled down his palm formed a river. the phrase "kai vai" was reversed and was bestowed upon this river as the name "Vaigai". since it flowed down Shiva's locks like the Ganges, Vaigai is also known as Southern Ganga.
as we neared the mandapam, we stumbled upon an Aanjineya figure engraved into a pillar. this image was recently rumored to have grown in size!
Aayiram Kaal Mandapam
Next we proceeded to the famous Meenakshi Temple Museum or the Aayiram Kaal (1000 pillared) Mandapam. this was built much later in the 16th century. in addition to 990 odd pillars, this madapam houses some great sculptures from the same period. we met sham here. and he was not alone... there was a Hungarian Lady Tourist looking at the sculptures with him! our Mr. Know-All seemed to have offered her a free lecture on what he knew about the history of the temple. while he played guide, we set out to explore the place and take some snaps.
The Prophecy
we decided to leave at about 12 in the afternoon and as we headed for the exit, an old lady, an astrologer, stopped us and offered to tell our future! vijay decided to try it just for the fun of it. we all sat down, she looked at his palm and then asked vijay to throw seven sea shells on the floor. this was repeated a couple of times. looking at the pattern, she kept giving general remarks about his past and future. after some "you are intelligent and peaceful " (yawn...) and "you have the signs of travel to foreign lands" (yeah yeah...every body in india go to foriegn these days) ... she made a more specific statement "you are unusually lucky in what ever you strive to do"... (huh?, god knows what was running through vijay's mind when she said that... given that he was fresh from an emotional turmoil back in the college ;) !!!!
The Tale of a Jerk and two Wives
then sham tried to give it a shot. and after the usual crap, she said, "if you were married at 19, you would have had 2 wives (everyone on the floor!), else you will be married to a single lady of a foreign land at the age of 23!!!!!!!!( everyone rolling on the floor)". by the time we left, we were more sure about the former!!! though sham thought otherwise (which means some unfortunate american woman in Rutgers will commit suicide in 2 years).
after she was finished, she looked at me and said "intha kannaadi potta thambikku jotsiyam paakkanum!"
Hell NO! "er.... no thank you..."
we left the temple and were terribly thirsty. on the way to the bustop, we stopped at a cool bar and had 'Jigarthanda' the traditional thirst quencher of madurai. it was mix of milk, curd, ice cream, some javvarisi, some sherbet and just melted in our mouths. i had two of it.
Foot Ball
we reached home at 2:30 and given we were pretty wasted out, we decided to drop the plan to visit kannan's place. jillu brought some cds but no one was interested in watching a movie and soon after the lunch, everyone was snoring. at some 4 o clock in the evening, everyone was up and we decided to play football in the near by ground. jillu's pal since childhood, rakesh arrived with some other friends and we split up into two teams.
i was in jilu's team. most of us had the best exercise in years that day. but not without casualities... seeku tried to take the ball head on with his foot and bent his toe in the process! it was about 6:30 when we decided to stop and headed back home after taking a team photo...
we got ready for the 11 o clock train. it was time to take the final group photos of the trip. director sham timed his camera to cover everyone in the group.
lights... camera....
action!
The Last Voyage
we bid jillu's parents adieu and left for the station. we had plenty of time there and so chatted over a cup of tea about life, acads, where everyone was headed etc...
and then we boarded the train and bid jillu good bye. me, ravi, sham and seeku were soon ensued in an argument over the state of private schools in india which became rather loud (god save the passengers in the next cabin!).
late in the night, we decided to sleep. the Great Kodai Trip finally came to an end and 5 tired men made their way back to chennai.Wednessday, 24th May, 9:00 AM: the train reached Tambaram junction. me, sham and ravi got down. while vijay and seeku stayed back to get down at egmore. we went our separate ways. i reached home at about 9:45 and dropped down to sleep with images of the woods and meenakshi flashing across my mind....
And they lived Happily (?) ever after...
Vivek: joined American Megatrends in Thorappaakkam, Chennai, in June. After a few hitches in the begining, settled well into his new job
Ravi: poor chap's miseries dint end with the trip. some infection in the train gave him Rat Fever (alias Leptospirosis)- a rare condition believed to be existent only in a few districts of Tamil Nadu in India. it weakens one's immune system and that triggers off further complications. in fact, at one point Ravi suffered from malaria, typhoid and rat fever simultaneously! was hospitalised for about three weeks. Rat Fever's only cure is Penicillin. and for those who are allergic to penicillin, things may go pretty bad as they are put in a awful situation wherein, both the disease and its cure are fatal. I couldn't thank god more when i heard from his parents that Ravi was, in fact, NOT allergic to penicillin. all's well that ends well... he recovered gradually and then joined Conexant Systems, Hyderabad in the end of May. he is still weak and on a strict diet. my brother has promised to take care of him as long as he is in Hyderabad.
Seeku: went on to win Intel India Student Research competition along with Kiran. is all set to join ME, Communications at IISc.
Sham: went on another trip, soon after, with school friends to shimla. continues to laze around his dwelling place. will leave india this August to join Rutgers with TA .
Vijay: the lonely lover put his sorry tale behind in chennai and left for Delhi to join Indian Institute of Foreign Trade for an MBA.
Jillu: kept roaming around all over tamil nadu visiting friends. came to chennai recently and visited my place before appearing for US VISA interview. made it. will leave for Ohio State University in September with Fellowship.
Mars: this idiot attended IISc and IITM MS interviews. got selected in both. will join Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada this September with Aid. awaits VISA result.
Shanka: went into hiding for a while. got selected into IIT M. will join ASU this August along with Harish. Last heard, he planned a trip to Goa (!!!) with school friends and... yes you guessed it right, cancelled the trip the night before the journey.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Kodayil Kodai: Ravi's Redemption!
The Great Kodai Trip: Day 3
about an hour ago (10:05 AM, Wednessday, 28th June 2006... theres a lot of gap between the time i started writing this post and the time it was actually posted... my apologies!), kumbi flied to bangalore to join Montalov. i went with his parents to see him off at the airport. we were pretty early and so had time to sit there and call most of the folk from college and inform them abt the departure. the call for the bangalore passengers came and it was time to enter the boarding gate. as karthik turned back for the last time to say good bye to us, for the very first time i felt a belonging toward chennai. till date i had been thinking that hyderabad is where i have to find life and sooner or later ill end up there. probably it still holds good, but atleast i guess i ve now come to terms with the fact that the memories of the 6 years i ve spent in chennai, though mostly bitter, will be worth cherishing in some distant future as a phase of my life when i became wise... having seen both the abyss and peak of life.
hmmm... enuf of senti talk... lets get back to the story where we left of!
Day 3: Monday, 22nd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's Cottage
"dei mokka... yendhiri da.."
"huh...uh...yenna?.."
"machi nee dhaane yezhuppa sonne..."
"dei.... innum... innum 5 mins la endhudichhirven....."
5 mins.... "ye ye... ill be up now, before u come back from bath"
10 mins... i had a bath and got ready "ye the sleeps almost over da..."
20 mins... every one was up and were at their chores "dei im not goin to take bath anyway da (now thats a surprise) so wake me up when u are ready to leave da"... (i give up)
after half an hour sham walked out to brush his teeth.
he had asked me the prev night to wake him up at 7:45 in the morn as he wanted to make sure we wont miss any fun and sight seeing to "unnecessary delay". nevertheless, moksham's words are supposed castles in air.
at about 8:35, we were out having a pleasant walk to the hotel for break fast. the flower bed infront of our beautiful cottage looked just like out of a windows desktop background.
we had a nice breakfast after a long wait for seats to get empty.
Coaker's Walk
then we got into the car and headed for Coaker's walk. it was crowded as any other place we had been till now (except the cycle trek to the top near the lake). but there was enough room to walk freely and take snaps all the way. but we desperately wanted to go to a place which was sans people.
we had an mental agreement amongst ourselves not to mention the previous day's incident just in case it upsets ravi. so we were like fresh tourists busy taking photographs and talkin about all the good things.
the views were breath taking
after a long walk, we sat down to rest near the tower which was housing a telescope for tourists to have a view. there was an man-made wall made of rock and trees separating the path way and the private houses built along (lucky people... rising every morning to this great landscape). me and seeku climbed on to this wall and posed as PlayBoy models... sans stripping!...
Upper Lake View Point
we exited the Walk from the rear where our driver had already brought the car. we chked out some road side shops for soft drinks as every one was thristy. we stumbled upon a souvenir shop which was selling eucalyptus oil and stuff. the shop keeper showed us a trick, by wettening a handkerchief with the oil and lighting it up with a match. when the flames died down, the cloth was as good as new with no burn marks on it! i remember reading about it in Resnick... its called Leidenfrost Effect where when a liquid is heated beyond a point called film boiling temperature, it forms a thin film of gaseuos liquid shielding the handkerchief from the flames on the other side. since gas is a poor conductor of heat, the cloth is un harmed. the shopkeeper managed to sell us some six bottles of oil. we couldn't find refrigerated drinks there so went back to the car and headed of to Upper Lake View Point, a tourist attraction on the outskirts which had almost a full lake view.
the journey to Upper Lake View was pleasant with some harpin bends. the area around the view point is completely fragmented into various private estates and so not much room to explore. on reaching the place we found the view point to be excessively jammed and crowded so we never went inside. rather, spent some time taking photos in the beautiful road connecting the view point to the outside world.
this road had lush terrain with gothic steps carved into the mountain on one side and a deep valley leading to the plains of the lake on the other side.
and then jilu's obsession with Alaipaayuthey started which lasted for the rest of the trip...
The Suicide Point
then we went to the famous kodai suicide point. the steep path way to the top was flanked by a busy market resembling Burma Bazaar.
we finally got to the suicide point managed to find an unoccupied place near the guard wall.
in all these posts on the kodai trip i ve written, one character has never found any significant mention- vijay. thats coz he is the type who severly underplays himself and is seldom seen in any lime light. this Eternal Lonely Lover (a name which he has earned both because of his silent ways and the recent 'events' in the college ;) ! ), was staring into the suicide point with god knows what on his mind...
wired guard rails were put over the walls with a "don't cross this wall" board over it... but then when did our countrymen ever follow rules? there was a huge crowd fighting to cross over a thin gap in the guard rails on the left side. moksham couldn't obviously miss this chance to get better snaps.
vivek bought coolers which triggered of a fight for posing for photos with it (as it happens in every single college trip) ...
we got back down via the market place... and since we were terribly thirsty, we went to a cool bar and had some ice creams. me, seeku and vijay also bought a few packets of kodai tea in a near by tea shop...
and then we came down to the road to find a huge traffic jam with the whole road packed with cars of all sizes and shapes moving an inch every 10 mins. even walking thru this road was difficult. we savoured some mozhaga bajjis and makka chola. we sat there hoping our car will turn up. an hour passed and we were still stuck there sitting by the side of the road.
me and jilu decided to go back and look for the car while sham was trying to call up the driver's mobile in vain. me and jilu walked along a gold course where hundreds of cars were jam packed.
we still couldn't find the car. so we decided to follow the traffic (jam) to the Pillar Rock Point which was our next destination hoping the driver will turn up there eventually. on the way there we found another part of the nice golf course along the road..
Pillar Rock Point
we got to the pillar rock which seemed to be the source (rather the end) of the whole gigantic traffic jam. we got some stupendous views (this time of the mountains rather than the valley) at that point. the coolers were still passing around and the cam memory was being over loaded with snaps. my cam was running out of battery so i stopped to save it for the next location.
Entering Ground Zero- The Woods
as hoped, the driver met us there with the car and we started trying to figure where next. Guna cave was the initial plan but we were all sick of the crowd and wanted to go to a place which would be all ours to explore. jillu suggested a place just short of Guna caves which satisfied this criteria.
and wat a place it was... tall tress every where with no one around. cool place to hang out. there was huge trunk of a fallen tree which served jillu's , which soon became everyone's, purpose of doing the maddy act.
there was a slope after a few meters from where we were standing and we climbed up to explore the woods better.
i got bored of sham's obsession with taking photos with different photos and permutations and set off leaving the guys behind.
Ethereal Silence
i just kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods and in no time i realised i couldn't see the guys any longer. i could hear faint laughing sound of ravi though. i saw in front of me dense vegetaion completely blocking sunlight. i tried to call out for ravi and seeku but no one seemed to hear me. it was cold and a bit humid out there. i couldn't see anything moving except me. the mist condensed on my glasses. the earth was soft with atleast a feet of fallen leaves beneath me. i dint feel any tiredness walking up that slope. that silence was overwhelming and i felt like lying down there forever. this is the place to capture inthe camera, i thought but drat! my cam ran out of battery and i managed only one photo...
i kept standing there looking up at the trees. long time passed and i suddenly realised the guys may be looking for me and so started walking back the long way. after i covered half the distance i heard jilu's voice crying out for me! they obviously thought i had got lost... or worse committed suicide! then an idea struck me... to go a longer way making a loop and catching them by surprise from behind. i could see ravi at a great distance already looking for me in the wrong direction!
i ran down the slope trying not to make any sound and hiding behind the trees all along and watching out for the folk a la "Roja" climax! the calls from jilu and vivek got louder and louder. they really sounded a bit desperate. i had crossed them and was about to make move toward them from back when i skidded as i tried to hide behind a tree and jilu heard the sound and looked straight at me even as i tried to fall back. i dont think he was sure he saw me. he called to me at that direction anyway and i gave myself in (so much for the surprise)... jilu then called up the others and they came down running towards me. man they were furious or what...
nevertheless i got the usual treatment ...
after they were done with me, we resumed taking snaps. there was a stump which was climbable and everyone started doing it... and seeku posed as God Himself!
Ravi pays for his sins
and then something got into ravi which he might regret for the rest of his life (believe me, he will). he started throwing sticks at everyone, especially those who were posing for photos. probably he was still mad at the guys for playing that prank on him... one of his sticks almost missed vivek's $%*^# !!!!!!!!!....
everyone was furious but we continued taking snaps as it was getting late and we had to leave. sham whispered into my ear that we will catch ravi by surprise and give him treatment. sham obviously still had last night's episode on his mind and wanted revenge. soon the message was conveyed to everyone (except ravi of course). and then at the the right moment sham grabbed ravi. we joined him as vijay did the job of capturing the show in his camera. we dragged him, kicked him and... well, i think describing whole episode in words will be an injustice to what really happened. so i give u the video...
Video Link (make sure you turn on the speakers!): http://youtube.com/watch?v=8oru_IXFD-U (Duration: 56 seconds)
and just when we thought it was enough, sham yelled " DEI... maattu saani da!" ... yes! by the time ravi's treatment ended, he was actually lying on a heap of cow dung! sham had actually noticed it before but prefered not to diclose it till it was all over ravi's pants! (some people are filthy beyond description... and im not talking about ravi !). well, poor ravi tried to clean his pants with the very stick he was throwing at guys till then!
we took one last group photo...
... and got into the car. ravi was getting into the front seat when vivek said, "dei u stink da... now we literally need BREATHING SPACE!" (laughs) and ravi had to sit alone in the back. he was never the same for the rest of the trip. his 'cool guy' image was broken down into billion pieces by his tormentor- sham and the immortal words of Morgan Freeman "Every man has a breaking point" found its realisation that day in kodaikkanal. poor chap... guess this was his worst trip ever.
The Mound
we still had some time left so we decided to go to the mound me and ravi had discovered yesterday. the place was cool with a beautiful view of the lake. and everyone started doing wat they do best...
lonely lover #1 vijay sat down looking at the ground and lost in thoughts...
lonely lover #2 sham stood alone looking around... probably answering the calls of a cow which was tied up near by and was mooing loudly looking for a mate!
... and me and jilu posed for more photos!
Good Bye Kodai
we finally decided to call it a day and got back to our cottage. we rested for a while. ravi had a much needed bath!
i set out to explore the backyard of the cottage which looked upon a valley and had a splendid view. i collected some Kurunji flowers there. these kurunji flowers, found only in kodaikkanal, bloom once in 12 years and the last time it happened was 1994. our trip was well timed. but this wasn't the full bloom. during the peak season, it seems the whole mountains turn violet with a dense sheet of flowers. what a spectacle that would be!
i brought home some flowers from the trip and proposed!
and this was how ravi reacted the previous day when he saw the flowers... his attempts at looking romantic would put even Goundamani to shame!
we had dinner at a hotel near by and set off to madurai. seeku offered me avamin tablet for nausea. taking that pill was the gravest mistake i had committed. it turned out my body is allergic to that tablet and that, coupled with the freaking speed with which the driver took the car down the hill turned my stomach into a geyser! we had to stop THREE times before i puked out the dinner we just had and still i felt sick. at one of the stops, i actually jumped out of the car in a hurry and my flotter slipped down unnoticed. i realised i had lost one slipper only after we reached madurai. i started puking out even bile juice and it never seemed to end. i was praying for the plains to arrive soon and then i fell asleep.
we reached Jilu's place and his mom was there to welcome us. i was exhausted and still too sick to speak even a few words. i just managed to tell jilu's mom that i don't want anything to eat and i want to sleep asap. as i lied down, i could hear the others talking loudly over the dinner. my eyes felt heavy and i dropped down asleep... a very silent end to a dramatic day!...
about an hour ago (10:05 AM, Wednessday, 28th June 2006... theres a lot of gap between the time i started writing this post and the time it was actually posted... my apologies!), kumbi flied to bangalore to join Montalov. i went with his parents to see him off at the airport. we were pretty early and so had time to sit there and call most of the folk from college and inform them abt the departure. the call for the bangalore passengers came and it was time to enter the boarding gate. as karthik turned back for the last time to say good bye to us, for the very first time i felt a belonging toward chennai. till date i had been thinking that hyderabad is where i have to find life and sooner or later ill end up there. probably it still holds good, but atleast i guess i ve now come to terms with the fact that the memories of the 6 years i ve spent in chennai, though mostly bitter, will be worth cherishing in some distant future as a phase of my life when i became wise... having seen both the abyss and peak of life.
hmmm... enuf of senti talk... lets get back to the story where we left of!
Day 3: Monday, 22nd May, 7:30 AM, Jilu's Cottage
"dei mokka... yendhiri da.."
"huh...uh...yenna?.."
"machi nee dhaane yezhuppa sonne..."
"dei.... innum... innum 5 mins la endhudichhirven....."
5 mins.... "ye ye... ill be up now, before u come back from bath"
10 mins... i had a bath and got ready "ye the sleeps almost over da..."
20 mins... every one was up and were at their chores "dei im not goin to take bath anyway da (now thats a surprise) so wake me up when u are ready to leave da"... (i give up)
after half an hour sham walked out to brush his teeth.
he had asked me the prev night to wake him up at 7:45 in the morn as he wanted to make sure we wont miss any fun and sight seeing to "unnecessary delay". nevertheless, moksham's words are supposed castles in air.
at about 8:35, we were out having a pleasant walk to the hotel for break fast. the flower bed infront of our beautiful cottage looked just like out of a windows desktop background.
we had a nice breakfast after a long wait for seats to get empty.
Coaker's Walk
then we got into the car and headed for Coaker's walk. it was crowded as any other place we had been till now (except the cycle trek to the top near the lake). but there was enough room to walk freely and take snaps all the way. but we desperately wanted to go to a place which was sans people.
we had an mental agreement amongst ourselves not to mention the previous day's incident just in case it upsets ravi. so we were like fresh tourists busy taking photographs and talkin about all the good things.
the views were breath taking
after a long walk, we sat down to rest near the tower which was housing a telescope for tourists to have a view. there was an man-made wall made of rock and trees separating the path way and the private houses built along (lucky people... rising every morning to this great landscape). me and seeku climbed on to this wall and posed as PlayBoy models... sans stripping!...
Upper Lake View Point
we exited the Walk from the rear where our driver had already brought the car. we chked out some road side shops for soft drinks as every one was thristy. we stumbled upon a souvenir shop which was selling eucalyptus oil and stuff. the shop keeper showed us a trick, by wettening a handkerchief with the oil and lighting it up with a match. when the flames died down, the cloth was as good as new with no burn marks on it! i remember reading about it in Resnick... its called Leidenfrost Effect where when a liquid is heated beyond a point called film boiling temperature, it forms a thin film of gaseuos liquid shielding the handkerchief from the flames on the other side. since gas is a poor conductor of heat, the cloth is un harmed. the shopkeeper managed to sell us some six bottles of oil. we couldn't find refrigerated drinks there so went back to the car and headed of to Upper Lake View Point, a tourist attraction on the outskirts which had almost a full lake view.
the journey to Upper Lake View was pleasant with some harpin bends. the area around the view point is completely fragmented into various private estates and so not much room to explore. on reaching the place we found the view point to be excessively jammed and crowded so we never went inside. rather, spent some time taking photos in the beautiful road connecting the view point to the outside world.
this road had lush terrain with gothic steps carved into the mountain on one side and a deep valley leading to the plains of the lake on the other side.
and then jilu's obsession with Alaipaayuthey started which lasted for the rest of the trip...
The Suicide Point
then we went to the famous kodai suicide point. the steep path way to the top was flanked by a busy market resembling Burma Bazaar.
we finally got to the suicide point managed to find an unoccupied place near the guard wall.
in all these posts on the kodai trip i ve written, one character has never found any significant mention- vijay. thats coz he is the type who severly underplays himself and is seldom seen in any lime light. this Eternal Lonely Lover (a name which he has earned both because of his silent ways and the recent 'events' in the college ;) ! ), was staring into the suicide point with god knows what on his mind...
wired guard rails were put over the walls with a "don't cross this wall" board over it... but then when did our countrymen ever follow rules? there was a huge crowd fighting to cross over a thin gap in the guard rails on the left side. moksham couldn't obviously miss this chance to get better snaps.
vivek bought coolers which triggered of a fight for posing for photos with it (as it happens in every single college trip) ...
we got back down via the market place... and since we were terribly thirsty, we went to a cool bar and had some ice creams. me, seeku and vijay also bought a few packets of kodai tea in a near by tea shop...
and then we came down to the road to find a huge traffic jam with the whole road packed with cars of all sizes and shapes moving an inch every 10 mins. even walking thru this road was difficult. we savoured some mozhaga bajjis and makka chola. we sat there hoping our car will turn up. an hour passed and we were still stuck there sitting by the side of the road.
me and jilu decided to go back and look for the car while sham was trying to call up the driver's mobile in vain. me and jilu walked along a gold course where hundreds of cars were jam packed.
we still couldn't find the car. so we decided to follow the traffic (jam) to the Pillar Rock Point which was our next destination hoping the driver will turn up there eventually. on the way there we found another part of the nice golf course along the road..
Pillar Rock Point
we got to the pillar rock which seemed to be the source (rather the end) of the whole gigantic traffic jam. we got some stupendous views (this time of the mountains rather than the valley) at that point. the coolers were still passing around and the cam memory was being over loaded with snaps. my cam was running out of battery so i stopped to save it for the next location.
Entering Ground Zero- The Woods
as hoped, the driver met us there with the car and we started trying to figure where next. Guna cave was the initial plan but we were all sick of the crowd and wanted to go to a place which would be all ours to explore. jillu suggested a place just short of Guna caves which satisfied this criteria.
and wat a place it was... tall tress every where with no one around. cool place to hang out. there was huge trunk of a fallen tree which served jillu's , which soon became everyone's, purpose of doing the maddy act.
there was a slope after a few meters from where we were standing and we climbed up to explore the woods better.
i got bored of sham's obsession with taking photos with different photos and permutations and set off leaving the guys behind.
Ethereal Silence
i just kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods and in no time i realised i couldn't see the guys any longer. i could hear faint laughing sound of ravi though. i saw in front of me dense vegetaion completely blocking sunlight. i tried to call out for ravi and seeku but no one seemed to hear me. it was cold and a bit humid out there. i couldn't see anything moving except me. the mist condensed on my glasses. the earth was soft with atleast a feet of fallen leaves beneath me. i dint feel any tiredness walking up that slope. that silence was overwhelming and i felt like lying down there forever. this is the place to capture inthe camera, i thought but drat! my cam ran out of battery and i managed only one photo...
i kept standing there looking up at the trees. long time passed and i suddenly realised the guys may be looking for me and so started walking back the long way. after i covered half the distance i heard jilu's voice crying out for me! they obviously thought i had got lost... or worse committed suicide! then an idea struck me... to go a longer way making a loop and catching them by surprise from behind. i could see ravi at a great distance already looking for me in the wrong direction!
i ran down the slope trying not to make any sound and hiding behind the trees all along and watching out for the folk a la "Roja" climax! the calls from jilu and vivek got louder and louder. they really sounded a bit desperate. i had crossed them and was about to make move toward them from back when i skidded as i tried to hide behind a tree and jilu heard the sound and looked straight at me even as i tried to fall back. i dont think he was sure he saw me. he called to me at that direction anyway and i gave myself in (so much for the surprise)... jilu then called up the others and they came down running towards me. man they were furious or what...
nevertheless i got the usual treatment ...
after they were done with me, we resumed taking snaps. there was a stump which was climbable and everyone started doing it... and seeku posed as God Himself!
Ravi pays for his sins
and then something got into ravi which he might regret for the rest of his life (believe me, he will). he started throwing sticks at everyone, especially those who were posing for photos. probably he was still mad at the guys for playing that prank on him... one of his sticks almost missed vivek's $%*^# !!!!!!!!!....
everyone was furious but we continued taking snaps as it was getting late and we had to leave. sham whispered into my ear that we will catch ravi by surprise and give him treatment. sham obviously still had last night's episode on his mind and wanted revenge. soon the message was conveyed to everyone (except ravi of course). and then at the the right moment sham grabbed ravi. we joined him as vijay did the job of capturing the show in his camera. we dragged him, kicked him and... well, i think describing whole episode in words will be an injustice to what really happened. so i give u the video...
Video Link (make sure you turn on the speakers!): http://youtube.com/watch?v=8oru_IXFD-U (Duration: 56 seconds)
and just when we thought it was enough, sham yelled " DEI... maattu saani da!" ... yes! by the time ravi's treatment ended, he was actually lying on a heap of cow dung! sham had actually noticed it before but prefered not to diclose it till it was all over ravi's pants! (some people are filthy beyond description... and im not talking about ravi !). well, poor ravi tried to clean his pants with the very stick he was throwing at guys till then!
we took one last group photo...
... and got into the car. ravi was getting into the front seat when vivek said, "dei u stink da... now we literally need BREATHING SPACE!" (laughs) and ravi had to sit alone in the back. he was never the same for the rest of the trip. his 'cool guy' image was broken down into billion pieces by his tormentor- sham and the immortal words of Morgan Freeman "Every man has a breaking point" found its realisation that day in kodaikkanal. poor chap... guess this was his worst trip ever.
The Mound
we still had some time left so we decided to go to the mound me and ravi had discovered yesterday. the place was cool with a beautiful view of the lake. and everyone started doing wat they do best...
lonely lover #1 vijay sat down looking at the ground and lost in thoughts...
lonely lover #2 sham stood alone looking around... probably answering the calls of a cow which was tied up near by and was mooing loudly looking for a mate!
... and me and jilu posed for more photos!
Good Bye Kodai
we finally decided to call it a day and got back to our cottage. we rested for a while. ravi had a much needed bath!
i set out to explore the backyard of the cottage which looked upon a valley and had a splendid view. i collected some Kurunji flowers there. these kurunji flowers, found only in kodaikkanal, bloom once in 12 years and the last time it happened was 1994. our trip was well timed. but this wasn't the full bloom. during the peak season, it seems the whole mountains turn violet with a dense sheet of flowers. what a spectacle that would be!
i brought home some flowers from the trip and proposed!
and this was how ravi reacted the previous day when he saw the flowers... his attempts at looking romantic would put even Goundamani to shame!
we had dinner at a hotel near by and set off to madurai. seeku offered me avamin tablet for nausea. taking that pill was the gravest mistake i had committed. it turned out my body is allergic to that tablet and that, coupled with the freaking speed with which the driver took the car down the hill turned my stomach into a geyser! we had to stop THREE times before i puked out the dinner we just had and still i felt sick. at one of the stops, i actually jumped out of the car in a hurry and my flotter slipped down unnoticed. i realised i had lost one slipper only after we reached madurai. i started puking out even bile juice and it never seemed to end. i was praying for the plains to arrive soon and then i fell asleep.
we reached Jilu's place and his mom was there to welcome us. i was exhausted and still too sick to speak even a few words. i just managed to tell jilu's mom that i don't want anything to eat and i want to sleep asap. as i lied down, i could hear the others talking loudly over the dinner. my eyes felt heavy and i dropped down asleep... a very silent end to a dramatic day!...
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