venti

I think I better go and get some work done. I had a review of the
stuff I spent that crazy week on. The only other biped that knows
what we are building, is a 60 year old Bhagvath Geetha scholar with
monocular vision (the metaphoric kind) and binocular vision (the regular kind).
He ofcourse was not available to evaluate anything on account of his
daughter gave birth to a baby which isn't as much a problem as that the daughter lives in a blighted inchoate piece of geography they call
Sweden. (Sorry, I use adjectives bordering profanity when referring to
Sweden these days...I don't think the Swedes are being bothered enough
to stop being Blonde, Blue eyed and beautiful.... I see no reason to
stop.)
So, I got a ".....good so are you ready to go?" from my
boss. Which is sort of like the Penguin saying, " Never matter... I
will get you, yet again, Batman!!" After Batman escapes the
sharks with lasers attached to their heads with Robin and his spandex
ballet stockings all intact.
So, I know next time will be harder. "Go" of course refers to Kerala
and my reply in the form of dance drama silence was to both indicate
that the question was highly rhetorical and should not be answered by
the rules of "Let's learn English grammar; textbook for class 5" and
as a sign of dissent. Kerala may be God's own country, but in the
monsoon God packs up and goes to visit his Chetta in the Gelf.

But bosses are at a unique advantage in that they sign paychecks and
I am at an unique disadvantage in that I like paychecks. I am leaving on
Sunday and will be back in a 5.3125 days if all goes according to
plan.

Show me the monay!!

I had a bit of a conversation today with a communist Malyalli driver of a Bajaj meter-less auto.
You would think a conversation would be rather difficult, what with me not speaking “communist” and all.
But, eight minutes into my ride somewhere near the Vytilla- NH-47 intersection, he turned on his Sonosonic tape player and hit play on the "50-cent Massacre" album.
I have on occasion heard Michael Jackson on autorickshaw tape players and maybe even a tragic Bryan Adams single about his losing battle with being boring.
But, 50 cent?!
So I asked him....tentatively......in malayalam.......and he laughed....and pointed and laughed some more.
So anyway, his name isn’t Shorty and it wasn’t his birthday. I checked.
He is a devout Malayalli orthodox syrian with a passport, a dream and name.
Jobie.
I didn't laugh.

We spoke about life, his brother in Bahrain (the person responsible for the tape) and the trials and tribulations of being an auto driver in the shadow of your brother who is a well-off vending machine cleaner in the gulf.
All of this while 50-cent explained how he pops caps irrespective of one's tendencies to being a playa' or a ho.
Sibling rivalry is probably as old as the "We two ours one" triangle. The "Gulf" stamp being the seeding agent to this particular instance. It is all that Jobie can talk about, to him it is more than a money thing. It is the romance of adventure, the experience of sights and sounds that makes his brother the centre of attraction during his flying two week vacation.
It is the freedom of being known as Jobie alone, disconnected from the burden of patrimony and the obligation to his genes.
It is the irrational sense of accomplishment and success when you walk down the street, just like the one you get in new shoes.
It is the inner strength to make any bed you sleep on as warm and comfy as the one you have at home.
It is the urge to find ones own self and indentity.
It is the reason I came to Kerala.

Jesus of Suburbia

I had the real pleasure of being in Kerala during the Christmas season. For me one of the things that makes Kerala, magic, is that being born to her fertile, fussy womb, is like a toothache.
You have to concentrate and will, overcome, pretend, become another ....thing, to be anything other than Malayali.
While religon in parts of the country nay the world, has become a volitional platform to essay the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred. Kerala seems to regard religious polarisation with the amused equanimity of a parent at their child's temporary conversion to the religious order of the "Mighty Morpin' Power Rangers."

I think it is secret knowledge bred into the cranial cavity of Keralite progeny that no religious power or principality can move that head of hair; such is it's cargo of Malayali pride and "Vellichanne"
Anyway, I think what I am trying to say is pretty much summed up in the picture below. I took it on the long walk from my then apartment to a telephone booth, the only one in the municipality, to engage in what then became my epithet - an international call!!!
My epithet incidentally translates to STD-boy. An abbreviation whose internationally accepted exansion is not the least bit flattering. Like the superhero side-kick of VD-man. Veiled in shadow, secrecy, public disdain and LATEX.

Anyway.............

A fiberglass neon coconut christmas tree, would be the natural course of rationale if religion was tailored to fit people rather than the other way around. It is the the suppressed madness in us that makes us want to force Santa Claus bundled up for openair supersonic stratospheric travel into a chimney designed for spicy fish curry vapours.
The same madness that mandates the death of a million surgical cotton enrobed conifers each year, crucified to the bloated muggy heat of the tropics.
So, this tree (and the other one) thrilled the rationalist in me quite a bit! Plus, you have to agree, in 8th standard craft period terms, the gluemanship deserves five smileys!!!




But, the curry-ification of christmas cheer is not restricted to christmas flora.
We decided to drive one night, to the "Arthungal Palli" (Arthungal church) a gothic vestige of the 18th century when Christianity in India still had that fresh "Made in the foreign" sticker on it.
Arthungal is a church of St. Sebastian.
The prelates of today have a serious quandary on their hands in honouring the martyrdom of St. Sebastian who was first tied to a tree and perforated by a death squad of archers - lived - spread the holy (Oh god! horrible pun) word of god, and was then beaten to death - died-.
I am not sure if pontifical consent was procured on this one, but the entertainment the evening we visited was an energetic, dance-aerobics demonstration set to a Tamil song entitled "Chickoo Buckoo, Chickoo Buckoo Railae"
















I guess the point I am trying to make is that Kerala's take on "God" and the possible plural thereof is something really refreshing.






Oh! and it was only a matter of time right.....
Communism already claims responsibility for so many things we consider sacrosanct,
like Siberian prison camps and Cuban cigars!
The precept of Christianity is but another star on it's tunic.
I can quite easily imagine the scrupulous comrade in the P.R. department at C.P.I [M] world headquarters getting a double quota of state sponsored Brandy and a "Mao's little helper" badge for this idea. Many people like icons of religious scripture, many people also are not communists. Whoa!! hold on a minute!!! What if we........!?

Who knew.....the star that the three wise men were using as a beacon was actually the enigmatic refulgence of Marxism!!

Star streck

It is a rather pleasant evening here at Kochi.
I think I saw a monarch butterfly earlier. It was splattered against the windshield of the bus I was traveling in so it might have been anything from a largish dragon-fly to a smallish albatross, it is hard to be sure.
The bus by the way was my first VOLVO experience, I positioned myself at a wonderful vantage spot behind the driver and watched him with rapt attention for several hours. I must say, I was pretty impressed with the little studio apartment the driver has.
For trekkers such as myself, the similarity to the helm of the USS Enterprise, in ST:TNG; is more than obvious and infinitely thrilling! Also, as a spatial reference I was sitting roughly where Counsellor Deanna Troy would be (I also sat for a brief period in Lt. Cmdr. Riker’s seat and before you point it out, I did sit as slanty as I could and as is customary employed only one butt cheek. But, most awesome is the fact that the pneumatic door actuator sounds almost like the bridge door on USS Voyager. How cool is that!!!!! “Captain on the bridge!!!!” “Bridge is yours number 1”

Gear changes are at 2000 rpm. Something, I never knew before, I wonder if it is approximately the range on all buses. DIESEL TORQUE ROCKS! or more accurately TWISTS! I love diesel engines, they are never whiny, never high strung, take all the torture in the world with a manly grunt and run happily with with no fancy electrical bits, they are the bull-mastiffs of the automotive world, where formula 1 engines are the Chihuahuas.

Best served......Launched!

Flotation is a curious thing, somethings about it well just don't ...sink in.
Things that don't float for example; my G I JOE SIGMA 6 Mission Ocean Attack Figure, several brands of rubber slippers that fraudulently claim to be "floaters", and Jack from that movie with the ship and the lady's heart that insists on going on.
Things that do; my large orange swimming trunks (especially when liberated from my person a result of an attempted one-half somersault dive), and as luck would have it ELDEMER!
Yup, with one final collective heave and a toddy enriched grunt on the 15th of January 2006, our 3 tonne backyard ornament became as weightless as a rubber duckie.
From an out of context piece of architecture to a sublime form willed upon by sea and wind, anything but inanimate even in the placid waters, meeting each crest and gust with a feline eagerness to break moorings and spread-eagle.
I know now why every one claps furiously when the space shuttle is launched, there is little else to do when the mind orders you to fly!!

Anyway, garlanded by public demand to inspire solemn thoughts; as, the Dalai Lama of Tibet; the Moogum of M'bwango; the temple of Apes in Ceylon; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt; the Mufti of Moosh; the hair of the dog that bit Noah, etc, Eldemer, survived her first test of structural integrity with coconuts loosing the battle between ship's bow and coconut.
Coconuts replacing the traditional bottle of Champagne, because we are in Kerala and Champagne costs money and money does not grow on trees, but coconuts do.

Ship christenings in the days of the Vikings were marked by the spilling of blood, human sacrifices and incantations by high priests to appease the gods.
During the Middle Ages, papal representatives having found more pressing uses for human sacrifice agreed that a libation of wine – offered as the vessel hit the water – is just about as good a substitute for the earlier blood sacrifice. And coconut milk being one of the many liquids that serve the Keralites in place of state religion is a worthy replacement as well.

For more than a century, the tradition throughout the world has been that women christen ships. A resource that our project has marked dearth of. The job hence falling to the able humerus-es of Mrs. Dominique Radhakrishnan and Mrs. Karen Nejedly; what with our boat having 200% of the usual manifest of hulls and all.

All in all a day that couldn't have gone better and a day that couldn't have been been hotter, a shipload of people that could not be happier or sweatier and the excitement is only just beginning.

Punni-mal!

The city of Ernakulam is beginning to look up. A casual survey while driving from one place, the name I can't remember to another I can't pronounce. Revealed puns that would make any connoisseur of really really bad jokes, such as myself proud!























The picture below required calesthenics on the foot board of a Kerala private bus that any body with a windage or inertia greater than my own is ill advised from attempting. But, it had to be taken, for a particular friend, you know who you are!

There was a another one a few weeks later which said," Rang de buns and tea" which you would appreciate as well.

I know this is something I have been holding back. It is information that I can’t withhold forever, it is bound to come out sooner or later and it might as well come from me. Yes….
VH1 is channel 42 on the television here.
It was the first thing I checked and as a frontier reporter I can assure fellow VH1-o-philes that in the deepest darkest parts of Kerala; steeped in ritual, coconut oil and practically every know form of banana based comestible. You will find the briny warm nimbus of pre-packaged 14 minute segments of really awesome music!

On the same subject, the show I was watching was “VH1 classic” and while I was wondering if the only way to get oneself out of seventies polyester pants was by squeezing yourself out of them like toothpaste. There was a commercial break and then the show returned with unmistakable Casio keyboard on steroids beginning of a “Spice Girls” song. I think it is called “Spice up your life!”

I remember losing my appetite as a food-eating machine of a teenager to that song. So, I will leave you with a selected portion near paragraph 1 and the definition of “classic” from the dictionary that comes free with every 5 Kg bag of Surf Excel and leave you desperately clutching at an analogy that fits.

Spice Girls - Spice Up Your Life Lyrics
La La La La La La La La La
La La La La La La La
La La La La La La La La La
La La La La La La La

Yellow Man In Timbucktoo
Colour For Both Me And You
Kung Fu Fighting Dancing Queen
Tribal Spaceman And All That's Inbetween

Colours Of The World
Spice Up Your Life
Every Boy And Every Girl
Spice Up Your Life
People Of The World
Spice Up Your Life
Aahh

La La La La La La La La La
La La La La La La La
La La La La La La La La La
La La La La La La La

clas·sic (kl s k)
adj.

Belonging to the highest rank or class.
Having lasting significance or worth; enduring. :a classic piece of research.
Of or characteristic of the literature, art, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome; classical.

All rise!... and a little bit Sambar.

Much like most South Indian families, all of us including the German Shepherd were brought up on rice.

I understand it's wondrous versatility. A meal that did not have an allotropic modification of good clean white rice was certainly not satisfactory and generally proscribed. I remember a particular "very tamilian" friend of mine who after finishing off 200% of a KFC zinger burger meal, four slices of pizza and two softee ice-cream units. (A bangalorean will recognise that we were on Brigade road, walking downhill from MG road. )

Went home that evening to elicit genuine pity from his mother that he had survived all afternoon on nothing but bread.
Rice is bankable currency. It's value dearer than mere nutrition.

The group that I live with takes their eating seriously. A genuine reason for gripe amongst most of the crew at the end of the first week was that motivation was impossible to muster when they were being subjected to the punitive encumbrance of dealing with the rice available in Kerala.

"Sir, What kind of rice it is here! Full quarter inch outer-dia.!"

By the miracle of modern day lorry technology an emergency ration of high quality rice worthy of a Bengalooroo-ean was imported from back home. When I say emergency ration I don't mean survival packets like the Cadburys, Fruit and Nut gift pack I got shipped to myself by Fabmall.com; but those gigantic bags of food that find themselves hurtling out of B-52 bombers at small impoverished famine stricken African nations.

I am informed that the the first consignment of 30 kilograms; the approximate weight of the treasury of the small impoverished famine stricken African nation, was consumed in all of ten days at one meal a day. So if one were to work out the energetics of our consumption, assuming the thermodynamic calorific value of cooked rice at, 611Kcal/100gm, then the crew is burning an astounding 8125 watt-hours a day just to survive! Now I am not sure but fairly certain that is more than the power generation capacity of any small impoverished famine stricken African nation.
You know you are leading a life of decadence when a East Somalian wall socket can't sustain you.

Well anyway, I am also mildly amused by the tacit feudal order that seems to have established itself at the dinner table. You have the imperial bourgeois class of one, V. Dhamodaran, executor of the funding requirements of all and sundry. Whose monetary munificence determines if one gets 7 parottas or 12 for breakfast, or if one is scheduled to the kerala "quarter inch" rice or treated to the "“sona masoori". The rest of the crew is nested around his omnipotence in a hive like system. It is efficient and it ensures everybody gets some sambar when they need it.
And is - some would argue- exactly what is needed in most small impoverished famine stricken African nations.

Home bon homie

So I am sharing accommodation with a droll bunch of tradesmen, a list inclusive of, but not exclusive to V Dhamodaran, S/O K. Venugopal Naidu, Suresh Kumar, S/O Divakaran Nair, C.K. Mohanan, S/O C. Kunjunni
N. Gopal, S/O Nanjunda Swamy, I. Charles Paul, S/O Irudhaya Nadhan, T, Puttaswamy, S/O D. Thimmiah
Narayana Swamy, S/O Munni Thimmiah, V. Kannan, S/O Venkatraman, L. Muthu, S/O Lakshmana Achary and
K. O. Francis, S/O K. O. Ouseph

Which makes me the only "homie" whose nightly undress does not include mundu snapping, (possibly to eject bandicoots that might have been trapped within.) I am also; it turns out a source of infinite hilarity. Everything from my classification of the chocobar as a revered food group, interoperable with any square meal. To the fact that I claim ownership to a pair of pyjamas with very dignified business suit like pockets sewn onto them.

But, it isn’t just me. The group is a techni-coloured melee of characters, demeanours, motivations and burping sounds.

I think the very fact that a group this disparate is able to survive living together is testament to how all encompassing this project has become to us, not to mention how woven in to the enigma of its figure-head we are. It is what binds us unites us. It is always the reason we all wake up, the reason altercations have to be mollified and the stuff that fills the awkward silences.

Corpus Alienum

For me moving to Kerala was a start I was eager to make. I was eager to assimilate and be assimilated. But, it is the ridiculous stuff that really lets you know you’re still an outsider. A damn khaki shorts wearin’ picture takin’ tourist.
Like the other day, we had prawn curry on the menu for lunch.
Now like most kids know, it is a well-established fact that every action has a culinary consequence. You decide to Cherry Blossom, every thing within a four foot radius of the shoe rack including the dog for the sake of colour coordination- you know dinner is going to involve steamed pond scum and other things that salute the colour green and textureless mushiness.
The geography teacher gives you an “A” mostly because your volcano unlike the others' puny baking soda-vinegar fizzy fountains, is capable of obliterating class 7A- and Voila! Viva la Deep frying!
Something in the rank of Prawn curry at home would be warranted by ….a coronation of some sort!?! So naturally I ask our galley chief what the occasion was.
To which, he looks at me with the expression that one makes when he realizes that the person he has been talking with is being cheeky with him and says, “Prawn was there ?!”















Now I KNOW I am not in Shivajinagar anymore.

I remember a friend telling me about vegetarians in the Bengal justifying their consumption of fish, calling them water lilies.
Well in Kerala; the backwaters are your carpool lane, your tub, your toilet and your grocery store.