When your car is for sale..

Yesterday our Swift got its last service done before it will be put for sale. While S was on his way to pick it up from the service station I couldn't fight back tears thinking how, one day, in very near future, I would have to stand at our basement watching somebody drive it away, never to see it again. Probably I'd break down.

Well, for most of the 4 years that the swift was ours, I have hardly sat on the driver's seat. So it sounds weird even to myself that am so emotionally attached to it when S, who, loves being behind its wheel, is not so much! One major reason could be the excitement for the new toy he is trading this one for. Or probably because he is so used to seeing his dad sell their car often. Or probably, as they say, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus :-)

Coming to think of it, I realise that its not just the Swift that I had problems selling! I've had trouble giving away just about ANYTHING that was mine :-p I was shocked when mom gave away my bicycle as an 'Onam gift' to the maid's daughter without asking me. I am pretty sure the scooty might see a similar fate. Worse still, I remember how, at about 4~5 years, I got granny to get back all my old clothes that she gave someone the previous day. It was embarrassing for her, but I was just not consolable for hours.

It is hard to explain why a few people react this way. You can't call it selfishness. It is not that I don't want the other person to have it. It is that I can't keep my emotions in check when the actual parting happens. It tears me apart to see that thing in somebody else's possession and as the distance between the thing and me increases, there is this sudden urge to scream .. "No, wait! Please! Give it back to me!". If am able to get through those few crucial seconds, usually, am OK with the parting - out of sight is out of mind!

And so, coming back to the swift, am dreading that moment of parting. Probably S would ask me to stay home to avoid the scene, but I do want to be there too :-p

The For Sale ad is ready and we would be publishing it soon. I hope we do get a decent deal. The new toy is expected by early Feb and both of us are looking forward to it.

But, for reasons unknown, the Swift will remain emotionally attached to me. (I would love to add the word "forever" at the end of the statement for drama-sake, vendalle? ;-))

The same old sorry post of Dec : Yet Another year - or was it?

I hate to see the stats, but yeah, they are there to speak the truth - 7 posts so far in year 2011 and this is the last one. Bloggie Dear, I am just too embarrassed to say sorry again! May be I have lost interest to write long posts! And that is why I come once in a while and scribble two lines, conveniently tagging it as 55-fiction (or sometimes even less) and leave 55-fiction cross and confused :-)

Anyways, there is no point saying anything now. Its all over the blog to see. I have lost interest and yes, I do feel guilty!

Year 2011 started well, in fact. If you remember, I got the DSLR as a surprise gift. We took off to Ooty to spend a quiet weekend soon after. A rather uneventful trip, but, nevertheless, enjoyed it as all we did was laze around. Had somebody told me then that that January-trip would be the first and last holiday of 2011 I would have "Bah"ed and laughed it off. More on it later!

We lost somebody dear in March. It was the first time I saw death before my eyes. There was something very eerie about it. A feeling of defeat, yet, something calming about the silence. I wouldn't want to face another one in my life! No wonder literature loves to personify death so obsessively.

Two back to back weddings in April. The March and April travels took a toll on my poor back and I declared I wasn't going to travel anymore for another few months. I guess I had not really meant it literally. But that was indeed my last train I saw this year :-p

I can't remember what happened in May and June. Oh yeah, I inched another year closer to 30 in June! And I tried my hand at baking. The result was not bad and I was quick enough to announce it all over the online media. And going by the Gemini trait, I haven't touched the oven much after that! "Just like the DSLR" - S would have loved to add!


June-July had us earnestly planning for that big holiday of the year. Only, this time, there was more planning than usual. We didn't even have a place we could go to. Project Budget Dreams wasn't moving anywhere even after weeks of browsing and estimates. By early July, all we had was a go-ahead for a week's leave from office - usually the last bit to fall in place on all our other vacations! Surprising! And we should have guessed everything happens for a reason and He was having his own fun here!

So began the roller coaster ride which makes 2011 not-just-your-yet-another-

year. Needless to say, the holiday plan didn't work out. We nevertheless took the 1 week break because, well, I had to. Meanwhile, we realized to our pleasant surprise that the next trips will have to wait until an infant ticket is booked too :) I have no idea where August to December got lost!

Ride so far has been good, though my to-do is filled with "Take doc's appmnt", "Take scan appmnt", "Meet doc"s! Hoping to have an exciting 2012! And I hope I won't be doing this sorry-post again in Dec 2012 too!

Happy 2012 :-)

Unconditional love, anybody?

Boy : I love you*
Girl : I love you too**



*Conditions Apply
** Limited period offer


~

The Curious Case of Kuttan @ Wipro

They say that any stone you throw in Bengaluru will invariably land on an IT professional's head. I say any stone a Mallu(1) throws in Bengaluru will invariably land on another Mallu's head. Putting two and two together, lets all say that there is a ver huge probability of you listening to a "Poda #$%#%. Ninde okke appanu kallu perukkal aano da pani(2)" when you throw a stone in Bengaluru.

And so with that great "Law of Kallu-on-a-Mallu" explained lets move to a problem I frequently faced sometime ago.

Precisely, the one and a half "fresher years" of Wipro days. Those were the times when IRCTC was friendly, Kallada Travels did not mean Impossible and weekend trip home was not that big a chore to be planned months in advance.

In fact, meeting relatives and friends were also not a big deal. And so was attending somebody's wedding. Or a temple visit.

A common episode that followed in such occasions.

Random Person is RP from now on.

RP : "Are you working in Bangalore?"
Me : "Yes, RP Uncle/Aunty."
RP : "Which company?"
Me : "Wipro."
RP : "Oh Wipro? My sister's husband's sister's son also works in Wipro."

(Comment: Corollary to "Law of Kallu-on-a-Mallu": Any Mallu back in Kerala can, at any time, produce a list of at least 4 other Mallus he/she knows who works in Wipro AND TCS AND CTS AND Infosys in Bengaluru - Yes, I mean 4 separate lists - mind you!)

Me : "Is it? That is nice. Wipro is a very big office. "

(Comment: That is my way of telling them to stop that thread from going to the exact direction I feared. Nevertheless, nobody bothers to pick that hint!)

RP : "He has been there for 2 years now. Campus placement."

Me : "OK. That is nice. Which office is he in? "

(Comment: The hint is lost in the sea of Nadaswarams I guess. RP is keen on continuing the thread - in that same direction which I didn't like)

RP : "Bangalore Office. Wipro. "

Me : "There are four big Wipro offices in Bangalore. And few smaller ones."

RP : "Athonnum ariyilla (I don't know). All I know is that its in Bangalore."

Me : "What is his name, RP Uncle/Aunty?"

RP : "Aiyyo mole. I don't know his real name. We call him Kuttan at home. "

Me : (Smile)

(Comment: I knew what would come next. I had to "discover" a Wipro-ite who cannot be searched on the company database, is tall, fair, curly haired from Mannarkkad. My lone clue : he is called "Kuttan" at home.)

RP : "He is very tall. And fair. His hair is curly. "

Me : (Smile)

(Comment: Yeah, it was not a great info. I guessed that anyways!)

RP : "Molkku kandupidikkaan pattuo? (Can you find him?)"

Me : "Not without his full name, RP Uncle/Aunty. We have a database and we need the name to search it. "

RP : "Oh. OK. I think his name is Arun. I don't know his full name. He is very tall and fair. You can't miss spotting him in a crowd. "

Me : "OK." (Smile)

-----------------------

Well, now you know why I quit Wipro ;-)
Since then I have moved to a company where the probability of the existence of a Kuttan or a Baiju is remote. So people change topic the moment I mention the name of my current company. But for people who remember the fact that I was in Wipro once upon a time, the story remains the same!

So how many Kuttans have you tried hunting for in Wipro? :-p



Note:

1. "Mallu": I have not used this word to offend any of my Malayali brother/sister. I am quite comfortable being called a Mallu. I understand many of you might not be. Apologies, if this hurts.

2. (Not effectively) Translated to: "Get Lost! Does your father pick stones for a job?"

Thriller

She chewed the pop corns slower than before. She sat motionless; her gaze steadily fixed on the TV, almost forgetting about the caramel flavor soaking in her mouth.

He looked up from the book he was reading for a split second and exclaimed

"Oh this one! Where Bruce Willis is a ghost?"

and walked out.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Loosely based on a real life incident; thanks to my bro :-p

Urumi = Pazhassi Raja + Raavan + Asoka

Disclaimer: No, this is not a review. I can't dare to write a review on a movie when I didn't understand half the dialogues!

After a week of initiating the Lets-watch-Urumi-today mail thread among the OPT-ians, Sand and me decided to go on our own when skpan gave the great news that most of the people in the group watched it already!

So yesterday we set out to Innovative multiplex after dinner for the 10 pm show. Crowd was less.

I had read at least 5 reviews, all calling it an average-above-average movie, each one mentioning the excellent job Genelia D'souza has done in particular. Having never liked Pritviraj so much I was honestly only interested in the Genelia role that the reviews liberally lauded.

I had read the plot too. Even read that the first 20 minutes would make little sense. I was least perturbed when it didn't :-) I consoled Sand repeating what the reviewer said.

I think I rather not discuss the plot much. I would need somebody to narrate me the story again. So let the story rest in peace. Some thoughts that ran into my mind as I stifled a million yawns

1) Pritviraj's Psychological Problem(PPP):

I think Pritviraj watched Mammootty's Pazhassi Raja a thousand times that he
started empathising and after a while "being" Pazhassi Raja - a la Shobhana-Nagavalli in Manichitratazhu. He must have threatened Santhosh Sivan with dire consequences while in his "psychosis to neurosis" if he didn't direct a movie for him with Pritviraj doing a quasi-Pazhassi role. And so Urumi happened.

2) Damsels:

But Pritviraj was clear about his heroine. He didn't want the Makam style damsel of Pazhassi Raja whose only role was to weep through out the movie - Weep when hero gets up, weep when hero walks, weep when hero laughs so much that the makam lady would have had a muscle cramp(!) on her face every night! So he chose Arakkal Ayesha (Genelia) who is at her lithesome best! He left the weeping part to be done by Chirakkal Bala (Nithya Menon) in the end when she lost her love(Prabhudeva with a strange name - Vavali something?) to a bullet.

3) The Set Wet Look:

Raavan had the whole crew in drenched clothes, wet unkempt hair in the entire movie. People always looked as if they just had a bath under a water fall. Aishwarya rai's clothes were always soggy. Her hair always dripping with water. Asoka had Kareena Kapoor in water. SRK too. Drenched clothes and unkempt hair again. So is in Urumi. Genelia is dripping in water in most of the scenes with Pritviraj. All songs are shot as if in an "ancient water theme park"! All damsels are wet in at least 1 song. Santosh Sivan likes the wet look and the unruly locks of hair falling all over the face. Period.

4) Vidya Balan:

I still didn't understand what she did at the temple. Was it a dance? Who was she? What was her role? Really, can somebody appear and disappear from a movie like that! I guess it was the Santosh Sivan brand name that she fell for which made her sign this one! Santosh Sivan would have clarified her role thus "Mole, nee onnu ivde vannu mudi okke azhichu oru 4 times clock-wise and 4 times anti-clock-wise tala karakki veettil pokko." (Roughly: "My dear daughter, just come over here and let loose your hair and turn your head four times in the clock-wise direction and four times in the anti-clockwise direction and you can go home!"). Or Vidya must have taken this item song as a practice session for her next movie where she plays the famous deceased South Indian sex siren. Whatever!

5) Amigos! nao inimigos:

Vasco Da Gama provided some comic relief with his strange giggle before he started his dialogues. Almost like in the Angry Birds "he he he". Pure unadulterated fun. From where did they manage to get the cast?? Vasco's son Estevao-something was equal fun to watch.

6) Genelia D'Souza:

Arakkal Ayesha was the saving grace of the movie. The camera has pampered her well too. Never noticed that she had such lovely doe-eyes. The surma added the right charm to them and the Muslim princess looked gorgeous, even when she did apparently manly fight scenes. Good job and thank you :-)

7) Tabu? :

Appeared for 1/100th of a milli second and fled the fields, in the same outfit. Was that really Tabu or did I imagine this part?

8) Urumi:

I wouldn't have cared even if it had been a sword, dagger or a hockey stick - Seriously! Does that make any difference??

9) Cinematography:

Can't comment much on Santosh Sivan's direction. But when it comes to cinematography, he is a second to no one. Urumi would have left me sleeping in the multiplex had it not been for this. Classy location (I hear same as Ravan's), beautiful shots though some look like repeated from Raavan and Asoka.

10) The blah-blah-blah:

Sorry, but I hardly understood 40% what they spoke in Malayalam! In fact I was relieved when they spoke Portuguese, because they showed the subtitles in English then! Most dialogues were long and complicated. The ones that were short were mostly jokes. And fortunately, worth a laugh. KPAC Lalitha's narration in the beginning felt reassuring!

11) Innovative Multiplex:


I-multiplex sound system was a huge pain. The seating looked strange with so many extra cushions on most of the chairs! Most of them were moved to the nearest empty chair and piled. Wonder how they came in the first place! The chairs were uncomfortable. As always, I never got to see the full screen - the silhouetted head of the guy sitting in front of me was embedded on the screen like every time.


Back home at 1. Discussions on the movie till 1:35 until we started feeling really bad about watching it. So watched the "Poorangalude pooramaaya..." dialogue from "Pranji ettan and the Saint" on You-tube for stress-busting and fell into a comfortable sleep.

A Whine

Will I see the light of the day?
or will I be saved for another day?
or will you trash me without a delay?

Will I be read?
Will I be loved?
and will I be shared?

Will I be commented on?
Or Will I be left to move on?
But don't I deserve to be smiled upon?

Will you laugh?
Or will you be rough?
Is that coz you are too tough?

Will I be waited for?
Day after day for more?
Or will you see me as a bore?

Am explained it's not easy
That I get made everyday, you see
Now why does my creator act like a busy-bee?

Yours,
A blog post.

Why can't I find him handsome?

Long long ago, when Bollywood was singing all about dil, jigar, pyar, deewana and mastana again and again, the 7 year old me used to swoon at Aamir Khan's boyish charms in QSQT. He was the cutest I thought. Soon enough Salman Khan and Bhagyashree did all those Friend-cap and Kabootar things and I was again floored by this guy's eyes.

The Khans kept me glued to bollywood for a very long time and I switched tags from one Khan to other as my fave hero. Mr. India, Darr, Baazigar and all those Khiladis didn't deter me from my duo-khans.

It took a DDLJ to shift loyalties towards the third Khan and I was lost in those swiss cow-bells, mandolins and sarson ke kheth, and of course, Shah Rukh Khan. KKHH and DTPH reinforced the devotion. I was the loony-toony SRK loving teen eagerly waiting for his next movie.

A new guy on the block - the Roshan son, failed to impress because I hated his light eyes. John Abraham was liked for a few obvious reasons but I still remained SRK fan. Then came the big shocker - KKKG - It was hard to believe that somebody could draw out so much of hatred from me, that too for somebody I used to like! I still think it was KKKG that brought the fultoos change in me - I not only started hating SRK like never before but also lost interest in the other Khans, the Kapoors, the Kumars, the Abrahams, the Roshans.. everybody.

For years it never struck me that I did not have a bollywood pin-up hero like every other girl. Just a few years back I gave it a serious thought - so who do I like in Bollywood? Blank. I watched a lot of movies but never really liked/bothered about the hero. Gosh! What was happening? Oh my god, I don't like any of those hot bollywood young or old stars!!I panicked! Am I OK??!!!

As soon as I confided my worst fears with S, I also realized I didn't like anybody in Tamil industry or Malayalam industry either, save a few oldies from Hollywood like Sean Connery(almost bald!), Nicholas Cage (almost bald!) and George Clooney (not yet bald!). Now, this was so un-Indian-girlish!!

When S asked me to think of all possibilities and say a few names of bollywood stars whom I might find even remotely attractive, I thought.. hard.. for a very long time.. and then carefully picked the answers..

"Rahul Bose... Ranvir Shorey...and.."

and before I could complete, S stopped me with a motion of his hand.

S: "That's enough.. Can I tell you something honestly?"

Me: "Yeah.. whats it?"

S: "Please don't tell your choices to anyone"

:-S

So, there I am, wondering, why I can't find the usual stars handsome!!!

This and that..

I'm back! I agree it was an unreasonably long hiatus and even the customary new year post was missing. I blame it alllll on motivation - err the lack of :-) What a relief! ;-)

There has been no one-great-change that has affected the attention on Doodles. It was just a culmination of zero motivation, lack of enthusiasm and my good old laziness which got the better of me. The handful of visitors have also dwindled. People (let me be specific - Dad) who used to come atleast to feed my pet panda,Po, some bamboo shoots also don't come now. No wonder my dah-ling Po looks so malnurished :-(

Did I tell you about the surprise gift I got recently? Surprise gifts and I rarely go together - be it the gifting part or receiving part. Explaining the goof ups in the former will require a blogpost on its own so I'd rather stick to explaining the latter, which are relatively lesser in number. You realize how pathetic you are when you kept a surprise secret for almost 2 days but broke it when there was just an hour more to go. No more comments!

Yeah, now about the receiving part. There are two types of surprise-gift category here. Receiving a gift from somebody you didn't expect one is a surprise gift. Receiving an unexpected gift from somebody you expected one is The Surprise Gift that I like! The probability of the first category happening is HUGE. On the other hand, the second category is extremely rare. This is because I either end up guessing what the gift can be or they tell me what they are getting for me or mostly, I demand that they give me this exact thing that I want. Let me admit, I remember JUST ONE INSTANCE of being Surprise-Gifted in the true manner of the second category and that was 12-13 years ago when Dad gifted me a cycle pump (yeah folks, I agree no frills. But you would realize the worth of having one at home when you had to push your cycle almost everyday all the way to the guy who did this).

So I, naturally, almost fainted when the second one came last month. We were celebrating our 4th anniversary of Marital Bliss (oh yeah, laugh!). Being the 4th and as the limit tends to infinity we had apprehensions about having those cliched cake cuttings, wine and PDA's. So this time around we decided to stay at home and spend less! Spend Less - Ok, I got the point immediately. Probably I would be gifted a mug with You-are-the-best-Wife type lies written on it or may be I will "earn a Bournville" as I have never earned one until now or something from the Archies shop that they call cute, cuddly and sweet which is priced equally cute. I believed I can probably demand a dress too, he might relent.

When the D-day came I had still not decided what I would gift him. It was not because I was confused with the options. I simply thought it was much easier to take him somewhere and allow him to pick what he wanted. And since Spending Less was his part of the agenda, he would keep my purse stable. May be another mug if he isn't able to :-p

I now wonder why it didn't sound awkward to me when he kept conveying the same message throughout the day on all possible communication channel - chats, mails, calls, SMS, face to face - multiple times.

The message was "Talk to me if you have plans to get me something expensive. Talk. Talk. Talk." I
didn't pay heed to it as it was just not applicable! I wasn't getting him anything more than 500 bucks anyways!

After work, I got busy searching for a good place to dine and that was when he dragged me to the next room to "show me something interesting". There, in a Croma packet was a box with Canon written on it!!!

I guess I won't get another Surprise Gift from him from now on - the shreik almost brought the neighbours in! And my question almost made him shreik.. "Nee Canon aano mediche??" (Did you buy Canon??) for he replied "What??? Did you also buy a Canon for me???" For the innocent man that he was he thought his worst fears were coming true - we were going to have 2 Canon EOS 1000D at home :-p

Fortunately, I was far less romantic than he thought. It was embarassing that I had not got anything
for him then, but adding salt to the wound was my next statement "No..But I wanted a Nikon!!". There, the damage was done! After a little bit of cajoling and statements like Yeah, Canon is good too, things got back to normal.

So that was my Surprise Gift that I almost lost. Since that day I have been mostly found with the gift around my neck zooming on random things at home - garlic flakes, boxes, vegetables, pens - you name it, I have captured it. I think he now regrets getting me this.