Life, the Universe and Everything

Managed to get this published in the college magazine. I was rather sure it would, seeing I threatened the editor, an extremely nice fellow, with great bodily harm.The title, is as usual, ripped off. But this time from a book and author I literally worship. Those sadly unaware of this book, kindly go here.

For AA, a friend without equal.

The characters in this article are very much real. Any unfortunate resemblance to people living, dead, passed out, thrown out, missing and presumed dead, are very much real. So feel free to sue me.

It feels funny to write this for the college magazine, as though life has come a complete circle. I remember seeing the first (the very first) magazine the college brought out. It was called Creme (or something of that sort, anyway) and it set the tone for the magazines that followed. From being a black and white, dull and excessively boring bound sheaf of paper, the college magazine has come a long way. And in many ways, the last magazine was the exact antithesis of the first one: bright, colourful and full of life. In many ways the only thing common to a majority of the magazines is Antony Sir, who though absent in the first one, had no choice but to be in all the other three (including this one), because he is the Chief Editor. Student Editors have come and gone, Magazine committees have been formed, fought over and dissolved, Patrons moved on and Congratulatory messages changed with every electoral rearrangement. Yet, the magazine has flourished, prospered and gone on.

This brings me to the subject I intended to discuss in the first place: college life, a topic done to death by every student, every year in every magazine in every college that does a magazine. The evolution of the college magazine brings into spotlight the evolution of the college, which is something, as a student, I have observed with interest, frustration at times, amusement at times and sometimes, frankly, sheer anger. Anyway, I'm going on with my story, and it all began one day (17th August, to be precise)in 2005.

First year was fun, really it was. Everyone was excited, and I mean everyone, with the possible exception of me, because I thought the college was the most boring place on the planet after my first day here. But I soon caught on. First year never changes for any batch. Never ever; it has all the recurring themes like ragging, excitement, lots of girls (or boys, depending on your taste), many budding love affairs, and even more broken up love affairs. You find the people you are comfortable with, you try to get in the good books of the seniors who matter, and for the last time in your life, submit a couple of assignments on time. Sessionals came to haunt you thrice a year, and once or twice you actually study for it, before realizing it pointlessness and giving in. The first memory I have of college is Fr. Jose Konikkara speaking to the students and parents in the big hall (now it is the library, though it seemed very big then). I immediately liked him, though his voice had a definite toughness, mellowed with a sharp humour. The first rule that was spelt out was that no cell phones were permitted at college. I heard a lot of groans amongst the students, but I didn't mind, specially since I didn't have a cell phone in the first place. But I developed an immediate apprehensive towards the power that banned it, meaning the management, because I thought (and still do think) that banning cell phones in colleges make absolutely no sense at all (of course, using them in a class is totally different case, and banning their use during classtimes is perfectly okay). Ragging was the theme of the day, stressed on by the Principal, and reinforced by all the Who's Who of the college. The other theme of the day was girls and pornography, which may lead some of you to think in dastardly fashion, but I am merely speaking of the talk we got from Fr. John Tharayil. I am an impatient guy at best, and sitting and listening to counselling was the one thing I had no intention of doing. Anyway, lots of people where interested in what he had to say, so I shut up and kept quiet. I met some of my best friends on that day, and they are still the people I turn to first. I got my first taste of what kind of idiots are cast as seniors when, on enquiring where the digital library was to a senior, my friend Shine got a marvellous flow of convoluted Malayalam words of the worst possible meaning, in return. I nursed a passionate dislike for such people from that moment. The college bus was fun, because I met some seniors who were quite the opposite. This was followed a couple of weeks later by Onam, where we saw all the teachers from other departments, and lots of seniors who would later go on to be a big influence in my college life, including a gent who did the best impromptu Chakyar Koothu I had ever seen. I also met two teachers who would influence me the most: Jose Sir, and Haneesh Sir. The College Union Election came and went, I became the class rep (beating, of all people, the man who would one day become the most famous quizzer in the college, but thats another story).Sessionals followed, Christmas (and Christmas friends, and gifts, of course) and Arts Day came and went. We did a mime for Arts Day, and it was a complete and utter disaster, to say the least. March came, and we were talking about University exams, Practicals and sessionals. It was utter chaos, and I hardly remember how we went through those months. The model exams were an utter disaster, as it was right around Thrissur Pooram. And finally, the university exams. That, for many students, would be the most tension filled month of their college life. Not for our crowd though: Jeril, Saneesh, Prijish, Jobson, Allwyn and other dudes. We were confident of flunking half the papers we wrote.

Third sem was all about two things: the S3 ("Study") tour and the S1S2 results. The S3 tour was one wonderfully choreographed disaster (full credit to me though, I was one of the chief planners and ended up paying 13,500 rupees as fine to the Indian Railways) the high point being most of us getting unrecognizably drunk, getting sentimental, and finally setting one of the beds on fire. Fortunately, the bloke who rent us our rooms, didn't check it when we cleared out. Juniors joined us in November, due to the issue between the newly elected Communist Government and the Managements. Of course ragging occurred, and people were caught and threatened with suspension, dismissal and disembowlement. S1S2 results came, and by some complete fluke, most of us passed. The third sem exams set a new low as far as the University exams were concerned, because for us it began in February and ended in April. Fourth sem was a blur, because we had almost no activity of interest.

It was around about this time that Orkut fever caught on at college. The net lab was blocked by students who were chatting and socialising on India's most popular social network, from who else but Google. Orkut blossomed because of its appeal, and many virtual affairs came up. Orkut was controversial because of the porn, its huge reach and its uncontrollability. Soon, surpprise, surprise, Orkut.com was banned. To be fair to the authorities, many other colleges too were doing the same thing. One of the places I dont frequent in our college is the netlab, because it does the opposite of what the Internet is supposed to do: open up new vistas for people. We have incredibly obsolete filters here that block anything that sounds remotely unpolitical. Youtube is blocked, and so is orkut, and well as a number of blogs. Please, people can we have some common sense here. Not everybody has dirty intentions when they log on. Youtube? I mean, come ON! Just pointless. And the ones who mean to do dirty stuff, do it anyway, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. Even googling is tough, and I mean to the point of intense frustration. I once googled sonething about Andy Roddick, and it was blocked because the filter, I presume, detected the last four letters. And this Big Brother attitude just kills me. You need to give kids space, and time and understand that they will work out what is best for themselves. Why do we fall down? So that we can pick ourselves up and walk better.

Which brings me to one person I have conspicously left out, and that's the Principal. Dr. U.Lazar John is probably the only person who can control our college at will. And though he has been villified by many people, many times (including me, admittedly) many times without reason, he deserves a lot of credit. And personally, a lot of what I call my achievements would not have been possible without his active support and encouragement. Many more people can testify to this, but that won't make a difference. Two teachers who made a difference to our class are Jose Sir and Haneesh Sir. The latter has influenced many students across all departments, though he is no longer at the college. The former, is, by acclamation, the best teacher we know of. Period.

Third year is the year of a lifetime. It is the year where you finally branch out from being juniors and would-be seniors, to the real thing. Our fifth semester was fun, and we had a blast. A classmate became the chairman, and as a result of which, most of us now had official reasons to be roaming around. I fear that our batch has contributed a lot of the heartburn the Principal has had, more than any other, but anyway, thats how it turned out. By fifth semester, you are the seniors your juniors look up to. Fourth years are too busy with their work and have already gotten tired of the run-of-the-mill life. And all of a sudden you realize the galmour of being a senior. Ragging sounds utterly banal, and it is usually left to the second years to think up more monstrous ways. Personally I think ragging sucks, because it doesn't do anything useful at all. Most students are anxious when they come to college, and bundled with insecurity and apprehension, the last thing they need are six foot gorillas asking them questions that would make an MTV Roadies host blush. I did a year at the hostel during third year, and a bit of fourth year, and finally became a line bus commuting day scholar, and so that completed an evolution for me: from college bus to hostel to line bus and train. The college hostel though, is a completely different world. We did our best to drive the wardens, Fr. Jose and Shivakumar Sir crazy, but they almost always trumped us. Shivakumar sir (or SK as he was referred to underground) must have caught us a few million times out of bounds, and yet neither of us tired in upending the other. I have great memories of the college canteen, it being the room I spent maximum time in, after the clasroom. It is also the semester for getting a job, if you are lucky and talented enough. Some people show us why they are so damn good at it (PR Deepak of my class is fine example), and push back mere factors like marks. Luck is a huge factor, especially when you consider people who must have been so happy when they got into Satyam Computers. It's like going from a Millionaire to a Slumdog.Sixth sem brings you to the beginning of the last hurdle: a mini project. Just a small one mind you, and while you may intially think you can change the world, you usually end up copying some project from electronics4u.com or howstuffworks.com.

Fourth year is the year when you are bored: completely and utterly bored. You have seen it all, and nothing is new. All the juniors seem the same: the same bewildered, scared kids you once were. Even ogling has lost its charm, and it dawns on you that with every day, your time at the college is dwindling. Every celebration is the last one. There is no next Onam, or next Christmas. There is no next year. This is it.

Teachers no longer try to right you, because by now, you are either right or wrong. Permanently. Nobody threatens you with sessional marks, because its pointless. Assignments are xeroxed and submitted, on time. People arrive at lunch and leave after lunch. Labs get full attendance, because they are the toughest papers. Theory classes are usually made up of one bored teacher, the class toppers and most girls. The others simply don't turn up. The final (the very final) semester is all about just one thing: the final year tour. I remember the Principal once scolding our then-final-year seniors saying that they wanted to come to college only for the final year tour. It's true. That is the only thing you look forward to. And of course, the final sem exams and course viva. But nobody looks forward to that.

The full realization hit me in the face when the final year tour was announced, and I wasn't surprised to see I wasn't very unhappy or anything. Life goes on. The college walls will always be there, and they will continue to house many generations of students, and the college will prosper. The college, in the end, is only as good as its students.

At the end of the journey, you are really exhausted. Four years, in many ways, is a long time. And what do you have left with you? Memories and a few photos. And if you are lucky, a job too.

I have always heard that your entire life flashes before you when you die. In that case, what would you remember? In the end, when you have finished the trip, and walk out as a student for absolutely the last time from this college, you realize something very important. It wasn't the destination that mattered. It was the journey, stupid.

My batchmates and seniors will understand what I'm talking about. But juniors, you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure.

But don't worry... you will someday.

The Origin of a Species

My life changed forever (the first time around, as regards many other lifechangers) one day in third grade (circa 1995 A.D) when dad came home in the evening and gave me these two large (long?) illustrated books. The font inside was much smaller than any usual third grade book. But it had some funny drawings inside and on the outside. The two books were respectively titled:

Asterix and Son

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Life has never been the same since.

The Vamos! ends

One of the greatest streaks in sports ended on 30th May 2009 when Rafael Nadal lost in Round 16 of the French Open to Robin Sodeling, the 23rd seed. 

Being a die hard Rafa fan, I had a few heart attacks when I saw the match. However, I hope Roger Federer wins the tournament, since he is still, by far, the second best player on clay. And arguably the best clay courter never to win Rolland Garros.

Vamos!

It Happened One Night

Just around 00:00 am on 6th May 2009, I had what I now like to call as my Moment with God. Now I believe.

The Green Apple Twist College of Water Resource Management, Ahmedabad (with branches in Trichur and Calicut, with a new branch in Mumbai)

K and I went for a quiz at the Vidya Academy of Science and Technology today. We won by a few miles, and in the process, proved that some of the organizers have nothing but lots of empty spaces in their head. The convenor of the event was my good friend AP (Vivek), and he was left totally embarrassed at the situation.

We had given ourselves the team name "Green Apple Twist College of Water Resource Management" as a tribute to one of our favourite-st items in the world. 

The quiz was a pretty decent one (a very decent one) by Arun AS.

In the end, that gem of an organizer wrote us a certificate, congratulating us for winning the First Prize and representing the Green Apple Twist College of Water Resource Management.

Oh Lord. They must have broken the mould after they made that idiot.

By George! I shall frame that certificate and save it for posterity.

Yes, Your Majesty.

I first learnt the importance of my surname when my third grade Malayalam teacher, Shailaja Miss (and also my relative in some twisted way) told me I was related to the great painter of the late 19^th century, Raja Ravi Varma. Of course, it was probably very deeply ingrained in my mind as a young child who craved attention.

As it turned out, I realized, much to my chagrin, that he is the probably the only Varma who I can safely say is worth the attention he got.

I remember stating in some earlier post that we Varmas have perfected the art of infighting (we are probably next only to the Kerala Congress, and of late, the CPI (M), in this) Never has this been so beautifully illustrated to me like every single time I go to my favourite place in the world, Ennakkad. Ennakkad is a small village in Alapuzha, in the southern part of Kerala.

It is to this region that my ancestors, not exactly famed for their valour, fled more than two centuries ago, when Tipu Sultan invaded Malabar in the late 18^th century.

The beauty of the place is that nothing ever changes (of course, Reliance has already made inroads, but I have great hopes the place will hold on for a decade atleast) No cellular network can reach you once you get into the house (BSNL rings feebly in some corners, including a toilet or two).

But it has come to my attention for the past 6-7 years that something has changed at Ennakkad.

There are 3-4 major families over there, and I think, by number, ours is the smallest. Out of these four, three are variously engaged in guerrilla warfare (over property, civil rights, dignity (now wtf?) amongst other things). And in some cases, it’s plain enough that people would want to blow the other’s head off. How royal.

The quiet little family temple, which unlike many other temples, holds an allure for me, has been the unfortunate site of many a battle most unroyale.

I spent a good majority of my childhood outside of school here, and I know the place like the back of my hand. Some of my most precious memories outside of school are of this place, and the timeI spent with my cousins here. Since there are such a lot of people around, there are an even more number of kids around. Or should I say, there were?

One thing my generation must be thankful to our elders is their refined cruelty towards each other, their finesse in making such complete asses of each other that there is no longer anything known as relation in the true sense, forget love or trust. Trust? Ha, yeah right. People here have more trust in their barbers than in their brothers.

I was listening (eavesdropping to be precise, but it was an accident J) to a most interesting story of two brothers who had been quarrelling for so long that my dad reckons they’ve spent more years out of contact than , in contact. So much for brotherly love, gents.

I know of fathers who kept their sons fighting. I mean, isn’t that positively brilliant? Fucking good, really. What else like good old fashioned father-son bonhomie?

The Royal Family. Man, I haven’t seen anyone come anywhere close to royalty in that place. The only person I have seen who could indeed be called “your highness” was my grandfather. And he died more than a decade ago. I mean, seriously, its so sad. People are forgetting the whole bloody big picture. I miss the people I grew up with, because mainly, most of them rarely come back to this place.

Disgust is the word that comes to my mind when I think of the generation above me. There are a few gems, but most of them are really swine.

Mother says I should learn to love my relatives, but I doubt if even she sincerely believes in what she says. Anyway, I can’t. I never have. And I doubt I ever will. Most of them aren’t even worth the effort.

Thomassukutty lives!

I saw the best Mallu comedy since Thenkasipattanam (2000 A.D) yesterday. It was absolutely the best comedy I've seen in college. All I have to say about it is:

"Thomassukutty Vittoda!"

Adios

Jose sir left Kerala today. He was/is my favourite teacher, and probably one I owe my degree to. I never could manage to raise to the level of performance which he expected from me.

Adios, Sir!

Crossroads 2009@ NIT Calicut

Theme: Quizzing

Suitable Old Saying: Expectation reduces joy.

Net Result: Depressed and/or pissed off

Memorable quotes: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Thanks are in order

The results of the only exam I wrote seriously in college were out yestereday, and I did exactly as I expected: screwed it up.

However, thanks are in order for a few people, for helping me see through this mess.

Arjun Shankar, Aswin Ayyappan, Hemant Sushant, and Sukesh P S : for being the best buddies ever.

Abid E H: Friend, mentor, inspiration and a third rate criminal.

Joseph Sir, Sam Sir and Nagarajan Sir: teachers, guides and mentors non pareil 

Arun A S: Friend, quiz partner and co-drunkard.

RRV Murari: Inspiration. Mentor.

Manoj Raghunath, Bijith P B, Nithin Jyothis: for all the assignments completed, notes taken and lifts given.

Srj : Smoker. Always ready to waste time.

Arun Chandran: The Brain. Friend, fiend and straight talker, and quiz partner of yore.

Jose Sir: H.O.D. The greatest teacher of all time. Period.

George Mathew Paily, Manjith Kumar: Gentlemen. For e-Advice and psycho cleansing :)

Gautham Rammohan: Geek, friend and co-screwed-up gent.

Arun Warrier: friend, role model, quiz guru, mentor, and a mixtue of everything said above. Also the bastard who cracked A and C ! His bad luck has hopefully given way!!

Yes. There are females. Let's see.

Padmalatha Vivek:  Inspiration.

Ummm. That's it I guess :)

Cya!

Somnanbulist

Wrote this long back, when we became National Runner Up in the Inter University Quiz, at Shivaji University, Kolhapur, Maharashtra.We (Arun A S, Viswas Viswam K C and yours truly) made it a hattrick of titles at the South Zone level, day before yesterday.

Your heart is beating wildly against your chest. There is a slight applause when you get up, microphone in hand, and take the longest three steps in your life.

“Introduce yourself please”

“Hrishi Varma. University of Calicut”

Jesus fucking Christ, you think. Sixty seconds to screw up all the answers you worked out in the previous rounds. All the high-fives you had with Arun bhai, the tense silence before you gave the right answer, all the hours of sleeplessness you spent on wikipedia: they all count for nothing in the next sixty seconds.

You’re not representing yourself, the college or your University. You’re representing the fucking South India.

“Thank You Hrishi. The rules are clear: one minute, six questions. Ten points for a right answer. I will come back to the questions if you pass and if there is still time. And once you attempt a question, there’s no going back.”

You do not hear what he says. You do not nod, but simply stand with your right hand with the mike near your mouth, and the left behind you, clenching a cold sweated fist.

“All the best. Your time start now”

You go into cardiac arrest.

The first question is arbit. You think for a second. You do not know the answer.

PASS.

The second is an FAQ.

“What does the C stand for in CFL Lamps?”

Your mind goes “Choloro-Fluoro… FUCK. You cannot recollect.

PASS.

You think you hear a slight groan in the background. Was that your team? You can actually see the happy grin on the opposing teams face. If you miss the next one as well,
you’re out of the top three, possibly tied for fifth.

And then you close your eyes, and relax. Let go.

Something happens inside in you when you are pushed to a corner, when your knees buckle and your body tells you that you cannot take it anymore. When a cold sweat trickles down your side, and your hand cannot hold itself steady for a second, you know you’re no longer a resident of Planet Earth. You have been taken out of your realm cruelly and left gasping on some oxygen less planet in some galaxy named Sirius XDC123.

You open your eyes.

“In the twelfth century, what did Kamba translate into Tamil?”

And then, somewhere, deep within, something wakes up.

“The Ramayana”

“Correct. Which commercial organization’s motto is “Broadcast Yourself”?”

Silence. Then half a click occurs in your head. You open your mouth to say “World Space”, and stop with ‘WO..”

Then something runs. You bend back, and the answer pops into your head.

“YouTube”

“Correct. Who are Desmas and Gestas?”

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, you want to scream out.

“These are basically the criminals crucified along with Jesus Christ”

“That is correct, and finally, who is a somnambulist?”

And then, you smile, relax and say

“A sleepwalker”

You are through. Even as the quizmaster repeats the first two questions, you are no longer listening, because you know that you have pulled it off.

Even as the bell goes off, signaling the end of a minute, you receive a large applause, the loudest yet. The creature in your chest roaring with delight, you walk back the now short three steps to your teammates, and allow yourself to share a high five and a fist pump with them.

But then, as you lean back on to your chair, you are relaxed. There is no emotion. There is peace.

On A Few Spineless Gents (And Ladies)

For NJ, the biggest goddamn prick around, who is undeniably right every where except on exam answer sheets.

Also for RST, who is nearly always as right. And much more so on the answer sheets.

With a few apologies to some hurt feelings of SCR. (Some. Not all.)

I hate this point of time when you realize you’ve been suckered.

Big time. Like you know, BIG time.

And I hate admitting even more that NJ was right. And he’s been right the past 7 times running, so I’m doing worse than Murray against Nadal (1-6)

I’ve been going through this amazing (catastrophic, depressing?) cycle since the college election: immediately after it, I realized who my real good friends were, and who were not. Substitute good for true if required in above context. Then comes the part where I get new friends, most of who are recognized to be gold diggers (refer wiki or just click here) and will definitely swear allegiance till death or the next Union election, whichever comes first. And then, you actually begin to think that not all are gold diggers, because some of them are nice. They actually seem to like you and your friends and your doings. And its all working out SO well. You are so goddamn happy. You mentally show the middle finger to NJ because you’re sure you’ve proved him wrong as concerns his theory of young men and women who study in my college.

And then, as it happens, NJ turns out to be right, and I end up sucking my middle finger which a moment ago I was wagging at him.

Of all the kinds of insults, the one I can’t stand are insults to my intelligence (that’s right, I have an ego about that, especially in the place where I study). Well I just plain can’t accept the fact that I’ve been mothered by some S.O.B who isn’t even quite sure what the difference between a milf and a mofo is.

Damn. I can actually imagine that prick NJ grinning from ear to ear even as he reads this, the bastard.

Only I CAN’T talk, mind you. Because he was RIGHT.

Well as it turns out, scenario No. 7 for which NJ has turned out to be right (to be fair to myself, I had an inkling about some spelling mistake that was occurring) has just occurred and I cannot imagine facing HRH NJ next Monday. Damn.

I’ve interacted with a lot of bastards, and bitches, mind you, over my student life, but most of them (not all, just about 95%) have been found in and around the premises of Jyothi Engineering College. Heck, it should Bitcheneering College the way some females have turned out over 4 years of college life. Or probably “BITS (Bastards Involved with Total Sluts): An Institute for Lower Education and even Lower Lives” would be a more appropriate name for the college. Too bad there are some great teachers and students here who don’t belong in the above category.

Man, back stabbing is so common here that it should be declared an event on Sports Day and be awarded with medals and cash prizes. The competition will be high and the events exciting.

Fuck, this latest event is depressing beyond words (and forget it, I’m not deranged enough to admit what the event is) because obviously besides being mothered by a sub human level idiot, I even let myself be fooled for another four months.

Friends. Pfaah. (To use a favorite Malayalam quote of mine, “Thengakola!” )

Damn, damn, damn.

Ah.

Peace.

After insulting myself so much as to the point of exhaustion, I have regained my equilibrium.

Shut up, NJ, I haven’t admitted that you’ve won. The battle maybe lost, but the war is not over. I’ll see you in hell before I admit you’re right.

Which might turn out to be sooner than later, seeing our exams will be starting in soon.

Damn. This is not turning to be so good a day. Or Week. Or Month. Or Year.

For A Few Dollars More

Over a year ago (jeez, I’ve been on this blog for over two years now) I posted an article titled On Fellow Conspirators. That was a about a few of my friends with apologies to many who were left out.

It’s funny how people change, and from a neutral point of view, its fun to watch. But then, when it happens to you, and you’re on the wrong end of the change, you find it not that easy to laugh as hard as you did.

Well now that a year has passed, its time for an annual review, and friends like all market commodities are subject to deterioration and renewal.

Out with the old, in with the new, so to speak.

So who’s made it back to the list from last year? These dudes:

Jeffy Thottan
Manoj Raghunath
Mohammad Fazil
Narasimha Rao
Nithin Jyothis
Prijish Unni
Roydon S Tharayil
Saneesh K R
Sanoj Jacob
Sunil Kumar V V

And this dudette:

Deepthi Divakar

Friends who’re not on the list from last year can be categorized into two types:

Drifters: Kind of like above except that we drifted off and things were never the same. (Tessy Thomas)

Kickers: Should have been kicked out-ers. As name implies, terminated. (Joy Jeril C A Joy, Sara C Rajan)




New Entrants:

Bijith P B

Small, well kept and smart. Was my roommate for the most happening six months of my college life. Friend, guide, helper and soul mate. That says it all. Stood by me during the most difficult of times.

Drisya Mathilakath

Smart. Very smart. Cribbed when she found her name missing last year. She’s through because of a combination of frankness and solidarity mixed with a shared sense of purpose and lots of time spent discussing things that were worthwhile.

Jerin J Manjaly

Slim, well built and shy. Resembles Sylvester Stallone in facial features. Strong, silent and will stand by you till the end. A pleasure to work with him. A silent worker.

Jesse Elizabeth Alexander

Complicated to explain. Didn’t exist except on paper till December last year. But are good friends these days. Bothers to ask questions when they should be asked. A bit senseless maybe, but then, nobody around me scores highly in that department.

Vishnudutt T N

The find of the season. Bigger and better than me (no pun intended). True, sincere and ready to help always.

It’s been fun being around you guys, and it means a lot. There were some very memorable moments during the last one year with some of these dudes, not least during and after the college election.

As always, thank you for the memories!

Adios.

The French Revolution: Spanish Style

On June 8^th, Sunday, 2008, Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer, who is World No.1 if you please, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 in the Finals of the French Open at Rolland Garros. A 6-0 score line suggests a no contest, which is what the clay court season has been since 2005. He hadn’t dropped a set in the entire tournament. The last person to do that, the legendary Swede Bjorn Borg, sat above in the President’s Box, overseeing the two finest players of the generation slug it out for glory. And Borg did it back in 1978, mind you.

Nadal has never lost at Rolland Garros: never. Out of 28 matches, he has won all 28, starting in 2005. Since 2005, the man is an incredible 115-2 in clay courts. Against Federer, arguably the greatest tennis player ever, he’s 9-1.

It’s not like Federer is some loser on clay courts: he can probably beat every other player on clay with one hand behind his back. But when it comes to the Magician from Mallorca, the only chance Fed seems to have is to tie both of Rafa’s hands behind his back. Not that it would give him much of an advantage.

Just before the final, ESPN posted the following as the only possible scenarios in which Federer could beat Nadal:

• The clay on Court Philippe Chatrier could part like the Red Sea and swallow Nadal whole.

• The blisters that took him out in Rome could suddenly bubble to the surface.

• The drop shot, a new weapon in Federer's arsenal, could really make a difference.

As it turned out, scenarios Number 1 and 2 didn’t turn up to save Fed. So Fed unleashed his drop shot, and tried to volley. He started this off in the second set, long after the first set was gone (now, had that been swallowed up by the Red Sea?), and started pushing Rafa. He raced back from 2-0 down to 3-2, with a couple of superb passes and drops. The sun came out, and the French crowd smelled a match at hand.

Smelling is just about how far it got to.

Nadal won the next 9 games, and sealed his walk into tennis’s pantheon of legends with both hands raised in celebration as a Fed shot went too far.

After the final, he was nearly apologetic “Roger, I’m sorry for the final”. Makes sense to apologize, really: the last time Federer lost a set 6-0 was in the 1999 Queen’s Invitational against a guy named Byron Black (Byron who?). Nine years ago.

After the French Open, Federer still hasn’t answered definitively the question as to whether he is the greatest player of all time. He is yet to win at Rolland Garros, and to set that 16-10 career record against Rafa straight. Rafa, on the other hand, had no such problems. If anybody had any doubt as to whether he indeed was the greatest clay courter of all time, he cleared their doubts in the Final by systematically tearing apart Federer. This was the most lopsided of their career meetings, and one Federer will never forget. To put things in perspective, the most lopsided Rolland Garros final was in 1977 when Guillermo Vilas unleashed some unheard-of force of nature on the famous red dust, and that day the score line read 6-0, 6-3, and 6-0. Federer went one better this year against Rafa. One game, that is.

As though the French humiliation was not enough, Rafa then produced what was arguably the greatest ever tennis match ever played, on the hallowed turf of the Centre Court at Wimbledon, and upstaged Federer at what was considered his birthright with a chanceless performance which lasted 4 hours and 48 minutes, the longest Wimbledon final in history. He overcame physical and mental exhaustion, two disappointing loses in tie breaks and produced a classic 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 6-7 (10-8), 9-7 performance to tear away from Federer the one thing pundits reckoned Rafa couldn’t : the King George V Cup awarded to the Gentlemen’s Single Champion of Wimbledon.

Did he realize what he had done, this Nadal? Did he realize, how with one masterful, classy, authoritative and even arrogant performance he destroyed a player who out of the last 65 matches he had played on grass, had won all? Did he realize what he had done by stopping a machine that hadn’t lost in Wimbledon in six years and well, 40 matches? Did he realize the colossal impact it made, the waves he created, the dreams he destroyed in the mind of a person reckoned to be the most talented to ever pick up a tennis racquet?

I sincerely hope that he did not, for then it would destroy the romance of the whole thing.

At age 22, Federer had One Major to his name (Wimbledon 2003). Rafa has five.

The thing about Nadal is not merely his hurricane creating ground strokes and lightning quick movements on the court, what drives the opponents most crazy is his incredible never-say-die attitude, his resilience which came to the forefront earlier in the season during the Monte Carlo Masters final, when down 4-0 and 40-0 against Fedex, he came racing back to scream through the match and win the tournament.

While Nadal’s game may never have the aesthetic beauty that Federer possesses aplenty, there is no doubt that he is the one man capable of defeating the Swiss genius anytime anyplace. He is the Agassi to Federer’s Sampras, the McEnroe to Federer’s Borg. And anyway there is raw beauty to him, the muscle bound Rambo to match Federer’s slick James Bond. His supreme athleticism has no match today: not in Federer, not in Djokovic, not in Hewitt. And he has done the one thing no other player in the past five years has managed to do: get under the psyche of Federer’s cool cutthroat like thinking.

But in the end, who cares who the winner is, as tennis is the winner every time these two step on court: they are one of the most compelling sights in the game. And as the Spanish armada screams every time Nadal steps on court…

VAMOS RAFA!

The Left and Right of Perfection

"Sachin Tendulkar! If he isn’t the best player in the world, I want to see the best player in the world."

- David Shepherd, former umpire

Anyone about to read this article in the belief that it might be a critical examination of two of the greatest players in the modern context of the gentleman’s game, please turn over to the next article. This is going to be one short essay filled with adulatory, just-short-of sycophancy paragraphs on two cricketers: Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and Brian Charles Lara.

Where do I begin? Where do I end?

How does one become great? Indeed, when does one know one is great? Is it when you were all of 14 years and made 1,028 runs in five innings at school? Four of them not out for an average of, well, 1,028? Is it when you score 501 runs in a single innings, a score most teams often struggle to match on their best days?

Vivian Richards wasn’t even born in the era of Don Bradman. Gary Sobers didn’t play alongside Sunil Gavaskar. But Sachin Tendulkar was ruling one half of the globe while Brian Lara began his conquest of the game. Very rarely do we ever see two of incredibly talented players play in the same era: it simply isn’t meant to be. Maradona started half a decade after Pele stopped. Tiger Woods conquered after Jack Nicklaus had passed on. Of course, there are exceptions: Muhammad Ali fought against Joe Frazier, as did Bjorn Borg with John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. But large and by, the town is not big enough for the two of them.

In Sachin and Lara, we have two players who differ in their game so completely even from the bud: one left-handed and the other, right-handed. The first comes from a respectable middle class background in downtown Mumbai: he lived breathed and ate cricket, was reducing opposition bowlers to tears at age 14, and by age 17 was the new sporting icon in a country never shy of worshipping its heroes. The second was the 10^th of 11 children: at age six, he was more interested in soccer and table tennis, and received little or none of proper training until much later. His international debut had to be kept for later as his father died just a few days earlier.

There the differences end.

The rest is one long sad history for some of the finest bowlers in the history of the game starting with Shane Warne, Muthiah Muralitharan, Wasim Akram, Craig McDermott, Brett Lee, Waqar Younis, Saqlain Mushtaq. The list continues.

First the Sachin Story: The Great Tendulkar Show that as Indians we have been privileged to watch with intense joy over the past two decades. As cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle once famously said: “If Sachin plays well, India sleeps well.” How aptly put, it makes one think. For two decades, the man has handled the mountain breaking pressure of being the sole hope of a nation so obsessive with cricket, that it is no longer a mere sport, it is a religion, and He is the God. A billion hearts flutter as he steps out to bat and no Brett Lee beamer can quite convey the tension as a billion heartbreaks does. When he steps out to bat, things do seem quite surreal: there is an ethereal feeling in the air: for once, grandfathers who fight for the news, grandmothers ad mothers who fight for the soft stuff, and children who want to see some action, all agree on what to watch on TV. We worship him, sing praises of him and dance a jig of joy when met by the familiar sight of him dispatching a 160-kmph Akhtar delivery with all the nonchalance of a jogger in a park. Yet we curse the god when he fails: when all things go bleak, when the sun sets on Indian cricket as the umpire’s finger goes up and we are reminded that even gods are immortal. Ah! How we flirt with genius so much that we do not understand the specialty of what we see. We have taken the impossible for granted for so long that we cannot face the improbable. It is only when the others bat alongside him and choke over a ball that he just vanquished, that we realize that what we just saw was the impossible being made look like a walk in the park. The Australian pace bowler Michael Kasprowicz once said, after getting the hiding of his life, “Don't bowl him bad balls, he hits the good ones for fours."

As the BBC famously put it:

Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don't know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their television sets and switch off their lives.

The fable of the Prince of Trinidad is something as thrilling, if not worth the same admiration. If there is anything more feared than the front side of Sachin’s bat, it is the flourish and flamboyance with which a Brian Charles Lara brings down his blade. Lara is the master of the long inning: twice he has romped past 300, once past 500: a figure so huge that he ran through 5 partners before he reached that massive milestone. Statistics do not convey the whole picture, but they do seem to magnify greatness to the common man. Though it would be insulting to rate his greatness on statistics as it would be to rate The Beatles based on the number of records they sold, here goes.Just before the West Indies tour of Sri Lanka in 2001, Caribbean newspapers came out with a scathing attack on Lara: criticizing him for his lack of form and saying that he should quit. His response? 688 runs in six innings: including two centuries and a double century. An amazing 42% of the runs the Windies scored during the series were by one man. After that massacre, in a comment worth of Shane Warne, Muthiah Muralitharan said that Lara was the most dangerous batsman he ever bowled to. People would kill to play like him: and indeed Ravi Shastri has been quoted as saying he would pay to watch Lara bat. The thing about Lara is that he knows only how to play in one gear: the top gear. He lived his cricketing life to the lease, and unlike Sachin never slowed down: he killed the bowlers with the same speed he did a decade earlier. Lara had his share of controversies, and unlike the quiet Tendulkar, has been never shy of speaking out with his mind.

In an age where every new starlet is being touted as being the real McCoy (Sania Mirza getting the Padma Shri, wtf?), we have been blessed to live in the Sachin-Brian era. Greatness sure can’t be measured, but if your IQ isn’t below 0, you should be able to realize the godliness of what you’ve seen every time these two have stepped on to the field.

To end with something that should put all doubting Thomas’s to rest, consider this. Just over 40,000 runs, 134 centuries, 249 half centuries, 113 Man-of-the-Match awards. Two Men. Period.

I rest my case.

"You get him out and half the battle is won"

- Arjuna Ranatunga, former Sri Lankan captain on Brian Lara

Up the Creek without A Paddle: on why you should not let an idiot near you in water.

They say you never realize how valuable you eye is until you lose your eyesight. When you suffer from short sight and the power of your spectacles reads like something out of a bad horror movie, your spectacles are your eyes. I knew they cost my dad just over Rs.1420 (including taxes, VAT being introduced only a few weeks later) three years ago from M/S George Vision Care. Anyhow that didn’t prevent them from being ending up at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. Here’s how it happened the story of yet another IV (Industrial Visit) minus alcohol.

Yeah, that’s right. I wasn’t drunk, wise guy.


The Place: Room No. 435, Santhome Men’s Hostel, Jyothi Engineering College.
The Time: Just after 6 am on 7th February, 2008.

“Da, get UP! The bus leaves at six thirty!”

“HMmWrSTWats…”

“DA HRISHI!”

“ALL RIGHT! I’LL GET UP!”

You wake up. You are not happy. Your mind tells you that with the honorable College Union Chairman Roydon S.Tharayil in charge, the trip is not starting anytime before seven. However your lips are stuck together by just under four hours sleep and your last effort at shouting has cost you enough.

Your hands search for the bottle of water under your bed. You find it. Your lips feel they’ve been watered after years on sipping a few drops. You find your voice.

“Where are my glasses?”

“On my table”

There they lie. You put them on, and the world starts making sense. Hazy shapes take sharp well-defined sharp edges. Bijith’s worried face comes into focus.

Relax, you tell him. You get up.

The Place: The usual arbitrary tourist bus
The Time: Just after 10 am on 7th February, 2008.

“Sani, are you sure you are as light as you look?”

You have a right to be concerned about Saneesh’s weight. He is seated on your lap, and he feels uncomfortably heavy and very painful when the bus jumps over potholes and your private parts are suddenly bearing the entire weight of a fully grown man.
You adjust your glasses and turn to face Jyotis, Gleena and Midhun. They are unusually quiet. Gleena is actually lying on Midhun’s lap. Woah! That’s unusual for a trio who love to chat with each other.

As you’re about to grin at Anu Miss seated opposite to you, the bus runs over a bad hole in the road. Trust me, a very bad pothole.

Your glasses jump off your face. For a moment you forget that Saneesh is seated on your lap; that he will probably fall off and be knocked silly if you jump. For that moment, all you’re concerned about is one-thousand-four-hundred-and-twenty rupees worth of hardware that’s just fallen off the bridge of your nose.

You have been wearing glasses since second grade. Since 1994 A.D, ever since a frowning eye-specialist told your heart-broken mom that “yes madam myopia seems to run in your husband’s side of the family and your son too seems to need specs” you’ve known that for your personality to be complete, you need those glasses on your nose. When you have been trying to protect tour glasses from damage ever since you can remember, you’re used to them falling off.

Sometimes your reflexes react in a way that it won’t unless your life depended on it.

In half a moment, you push Saneesh off, and bending at full stretch, snatch the glasses a few centimeters from off the floor. Anu Miss looks dumbfounded. Understandable, you think, smiling at her. Big things aren’t expected to move fast.

“Ow.”

Saneesh is on the floor, with a totally unimpressed expression on his face.

You smile, bend and pick him up.

The Place: Cherai Beach, Cochin
The Time: Just after 5:30 pm on 7th February, 2008.

“Ha. So much for bravery, Dhanya! The water isn’t even up to your knees!” (frowning)

“I’m SCARED, you baboon!”

“I can see that” (grinning)

“VERY funny” (irritated)

“So keep smiling”

“HRISHI!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll take you back to the beach.” (still grinning)

“If you’re so brave, why don’t you take a swim?”

“Glasses, D, glasses on my face. I haven’t taken them off”

“Yeah, some excuse”

(grinning continued)

What it is with girls and water, you think. Either they’re too scared to wander even a few meters into the sea (like Dhanya is), or they’re so dumb (NOTE: not brave) that they don’t know when to stop (like Ramya). Men belong in water, you observe philosophically, taking Dhanya back to the beach.

You go back: “DA SANI! Wait for me!”

You know what is going to happen even before it is done. Joby is coming towards you, in a posture that can only mean he’s planning to dunk you in the water.

“Joby, No.”

“I said, NO, Joby! My specs!”

“Joby, NO! I have my specs on!”

“You idiot, NO!”

“NO!”

SPLOSH.

I remember saying earlier that my reflexes act in a way with my glasses that are superseded only in if my life depended on it. When you fall head down into greenish blue water that your brain has recognized earlier as the sea, your reflexes act as if your life depended on it. Your hands automatically fall away from your body to cushion the fall. And even as you’re falling you know that the moment you hit the water, you’ve lost your specs.

And now the moment has come and gone. And so has your specs.

“YOU DAMN FOOL! YOU PATHETIC FOOL! WHAT THE FUCK DID I TELL YOU?”

“Da, I’m sor-”

“CUT YOUR SORRY, YOU S.O.B! I CAN’T SEE A DAMN THING!”

“Da I-”

You raise your hand. You are beyond rage.

“Enough. Get out of my sight.”

He looks bad. You wish you could make him feel a lot worse. He wades away. That’s when you realize your precarious situation. He is actually out of your sight: meaning you can’t see him. You look all around you. People who looked like a few foot away half a minute ago look miles away. Everything is a dark greenish haze. You cannot see.

“SANI!!! DA SANIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!”


The Place: The same arbitrary tourist bus
The Time: Just after 6:15 pm on 7th February, 2008.

The world is a disco minus the sound. All you can see are the bright yellow lights of incoming traffic on your window side.

A few minutes ago you had been chatting with Shine only to realize it was not Shine you were talking to. Fortunately, whoever it was, was under the impression it was his self being addressed.

Bijith is by your side. He is sleeping, leaning on your shoulder. You’re sure he’s Bijith because you’ve made sure by asking the person in front of you.

“I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now!” Oasis’ Wonderwall is playing in your ears, courtesy the Apple iPod. Quite right, you think. You don’t believe that anybody hates Joby the way you do then.


The Place: Aswin’s house, near Thiruvambadi temple, Trichur.
The Time: Just after 7 pm on 12th February, 2008.

“Here are your new specs.”

You can actually feel your pulse quicken. Your eyes brighten up. You take the case with your specs from Aswin. You take it; walk a few steps to his prayer room. Close your eyes in front of the lit up prayer area. Take your specs off. Put the new ones on.

You open your eyes.

You see the figure of Baby Krishna, surrounded by lit lamps. The figure is clear. Crystal.

You smile, turn back at a serene Aswin and a smiling Nithin, and relax.

“Phew.”

You breathe again.

On the naming of a child: With some observations on asking the advice of relatives on the same subject.

By a most concerned uncle, who has gotten tired of calling his nephew as RRV Jr., The Junior Kid and worst of all, X.

Inspired by and dedicated to Mukund N.G, Kripa Varma and most of all to Nila M. Varma, a little bundle of joy whose time I skillfully stole to write this piece.


What’s in a name?

This question asked to a few relatives in my family will provoke the most bitter of arguments, the most sadistic of comments, a few unconcerned smiles and a laugh from two individuals, that being from me and my cousin in the US of A, Kiran Pookote.

On November 5th, 2006, I became an uncle for the first time (not taking into account any nephews/nieces I may have via relations unheard of) with the birth of the daughter of a first cousin of mine. She’s now just over a year old and a foot tall (meaning, she’s not two foot yet) and like me, loves Mohanlal and Cadbury’s and Airtel (or more specifically their latest ad showing two kids playing soccer at a border area). The last is quite a happy irony as my cousin is an employee at Vodafone.

Her name is Nila.

(Note: This is strangely reminiscent of the name of the heroine lioness, Nala, in my all-time favorite cartoon movie, The Lion King)

Before you start asking questions on the name, let me explain that its supposed to be one of the usual million odd names a Hindu God/Goddess has to have in his/her C.V in order to be divine. The more names you have, the better it is, I’ve been brought up to believe. Take poor Lord Vishnu for example. Highly divine, holy, worshipped in the maximum number of temples (in his self or one of his avatars) and possesses at least a thousand names: hence the Vishnu Sahasranama.

Nila is, according to my uncle (the dad of the afore-mentioned cousin), is an AKA of the Bharathapuzha, a river which is most famous to my generation as being the centre of illegal sand mining in the state. It is also a river I see every other day as it flows quite next to my college. It is also a river that has more sand than water nowadays.

Now to the subject matter: I became an uncle for the 3rd time on November 6th, 2007 with the birth of the son of my (again) first cousin, this being the elder brother of the earlier mentioned first cousin.

I haven’t yet met the kid so I can’t tell you how small/big he is, except a vague idea I got through photos he has sent me. But from his photos, I understand that like most babies, he is unbelievably cute and looks a bit like his dad of old, which is saying something if you’ve met my cousin.

Ahem…

And like any obedient, law-abiding, true-blue husband/son/son-in-law he asked his wife, his parents and his parents-in-law to suggest names for his new born.

Invitations were also open to close relatives like my parents, the parents of my cousin Kiran (of the U.S of A fame) and of course his two brothers.

I think he allowed himself the freedom to suggest names as well, though I’m not so sure now. (smiles all around)

What happened as a direct consequence?

All hell broke loose. Trust me, I have a feeling he regrets asking anybody else for names now.

My uncle (his dad) came up with six names at last count. His in-laws another half dozen. His wife came up with a few which finally was cut down to one acceptable to both of them (or more like she made sure he accepted it). In the meanwhile, while this was happening, people started getting obsessive with the naming: my uncle who is as temperamental as they come is openly obstinate that his son should stick to one of his names or he shouldn’t have bothered to ask a grandfather at all. His wife, who is quietly obstinate, is insistent that she get to name the child. My aunt, who is well-experienced with this naming thingy, is hoping that her eldest son (just to prove how bad this naming thing is… all three of her sons, including the above mentioned two, share wildly different surnames) chooses carefully so as to avoid yet another family feud.

This is a good precaution because we Varmas are so good at family feuds that I reckon with that even with the relatively less number of relatives I know, all we need for a feud are two people who are distantly related and share one of the following surnames: Varma (the most preferred)/ Raja (the next) or combination of Raja, Ravi and Varma. Husband-wife, sister-brother, brother-brother, son-parents, daughter-parents, and cousin-cousin: you name it, we have it.

The more the murkier, so to speak. And we’ve actually improved with age I think. The most famous family feud of my era began when an uncle said that his sister’s house could be aptly described as being located “in front of Oolanpara Mental Hospital”. Her husband could not bear this insult, and here we are. As simple as that.

The funny thing is, when in Trivandrum, if you go to the Oolanpara Hospital, you’ll notice that there is a small path going downwards, just on the opposite side of the road. At the end of this muddy path, after crossing a paddy field or two and some half-finished houses, you’ll see a house. My uncle’s sister lives there with her family.

Q.E.D: How utterly futile.

NOTE: There are various other urban legends floating around in the family as to the origin of this feud, so I guarantee no historical accuracy.

Coming back to the point, which is the naming of my nephew, my cousin is still stuck. I usually send him a couple of mails every week or simply sms him, reminding him or rather asking him whether any progress has been made. The last reply I got from him ran thus:
“Will let u know”

Close as we are, and as cool as he is on such matters, he must have finally lost his cool with me, I guess. Everybody’s human, you know.

But I think he’s had enough of this nonsense by now. People, let go of this, will ya? Give the guy a chance. Asking you for names is a formality. One of those things that must be done in order to keep the pipe-of-peace smoking in the family. Parents name the child. Grandparents don’t. Nor do in-laws. Or uncles for that matter.

I really hope the kid gets some name soon: good or bad. I really don’t care. Would it make a damn difference? Will the kid become a mass murderer if he’s named Hitler? Or will he break all the written and unwritten laws of a scientific discipline if his first name is Albert (Einstein, dunderheads)?

Moral of the story: Name thy kids thyself, or don’t have a kid at all. Latter half relevant
specially if you can’t follow first half and you’re a Varma.

As a very handsome man with very bad breath said seventy years ago, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Immediately after I finished writing this, I had a strange vision of me sitting in front of my uncle’s place and playing with my nephew, calling him “Come here, Adolf! Here boy!”

With that scary thought adieu reader!

Note to the Not-So-WellWishers

After one tumultous month of no alcohol, two fights with mom and no other events of any major reprecussions, I'm still alive.

HVR

PS: Whew! Period.

Chronicle Of My Death Foretold

"I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.

Good Bye."


One of my favorite speeches: that was an extract from the farewell speech to the US Congress by General Douglas Macarthur, again one of my favorite heroes of WW2. Why am I quoting great men? Because I've taken some oaths myself: New Year changes.

Ugh. Even I can't believe I let myself be talked into this. But here goes:

1. Quit drinking.

2. Quit meddling in other's affairs.

3. Quit making silly bets.

4. Quit being rude to mom (unnecessarily)

5. Quit making promises I can't keep.

6. Quit making downright stupid blogposts and waste webspace.

7. Quit disagreeing with relatives, friends and acquaintances that God is a figment of the human imagination.

8. Stop being a hypocrite.


If any of you find my photo in the papers under the column saying " PAST THE EXPIRY DATE a.k.a EXPIRED", have no doubt at all, I've done myself in. It won't be any of my willing murderers at work, it'll be me with a cyanide laden pizza/burger/cola.

Adieu.


HVR


P.S: If I'm still posting on my blog in a month, be sure that none of the above have worked out.
Yours expectantly,

Hrishi Varma

How The West(ern block) Was Won (Part I): The Fellowship Of The Rats

The Western Academic Block in Jyothi Engineering College is the makeshift auditorium at the college: makeshift in the sense that we don't have a proper auditorium. This is the place in the college where all inaugurations/major events/stageshows are held. It is also the place the two most powerful branches (w.r.t muscle/masses power) of the college call as their playground: the Mechanincal Engineering branch and the Electrical and Electronics Engineering branch. I belong, rather proudly, to the latter branch.

The College Union election was on last Thursday (13th December) and we were pitted against each other in the post for the Union Chairman.We won, with the support of the Electronics and Communication branch and the Computer Science branch, by a very reasonable majority.

In our college, in about 99.95% of matters, the College Union is irrelevant.

The Importance Of Being Earnest

With due apologies to RRV (who made his point clear here) and others who may have read the blog before I wrote this prequel note, the following is an account, mostly true, of my visit with a senior to a friend's house warming.

With thanks to Tessy Thomas for a grand lunch.



earnest /’:3nıst; NAmE/ adj. very serious and sincere: a earnest young man

-Oxford Advanced English Dictionary, Seventh Edition 2005


“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?”

— Albert Einstein


You see the red car a hundred meters ahead of you, and approaching. You stop walking. The car pulls over; you open the door and get in.

“Bought the gift, bhai?” you ask him. The answer is not in the affirmative.

You utter a well-practiced oath. He smiles. The red car moves to City Centre. The new iPod in the pocket, you get out and follow him into the mall.

You run up three elevators, earning glances from people, which read plainly
“Son, what the fuck are you doing running up an escalator?”

You are the one who is already a half hour late, not them. He leads you into Hallmark. You smile because you know the reason you are here now and the reason you came here last are both because of the same person. He chooses a gift. You remind him that it is not yet Valentine’s Day. You choose a gift, being rather liberal than usual. After all, he is shelling out the money. It is his money, his petrol we are burning, and his need that is being satisfied.

He is happy with your selection. You give the thumbs up and move on to choose the wrapping paper. One look and you know which to choose. It is done. He shells out the two hundred for the gift.

You feel magnanimous. You shell out the ten bucks for the wrapping paper.

Funny how “My” becomes “Our” with ten bucks.

You walk to the car, turn in, and turn on the air-conditioning. You take your iPod out. You relax.


"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

— Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz (1939)


Twenty minutes and a wrong right turn later, he turns the car left. You are unfazed. You have been deeper shit. He swears. You smile. He gestures wildly in front of your unseeing eyes and points at a spot a hundred metres up front.

You see a bevy of beauties walk towards you, and away from a white house.

The iPod stops midway with Nickelback’s “Feeling Way Too Damn Good”

You don’t feel too good anymore. That’s because your eyes are directed on a girl ten metres behind the bevy of beauties. You hardly notice that the black dress she wears reminds you of Jacqueline Kennedy at the funeral of JFK, Jr. All you can see are the red in her eyes. On her face, are spelled the words “You-are-DAMN-late”.

You start hoping god exists, and that hell doesn’t.

He parks the car a hundred metres AFTER the house. Praying to the suddenly existent 33 million gods and goddesses of Hinduism, you step out, and hand over his phone to him.

You walk up to the house. You see that the girl has been replaced by a 5’10” hunk. You have seen his photo before. He is the brother.


"Bond. James Bond."

— James Bond , Dr. No (1962)


“All I know is that one of you is Hrishi and the other and the other is Ajay Chetta” he says.

You realize the importance of making an impression.

You point at your companion, and say with full confidence “That’s Hrishi, I’m Ajay”

You wish your existence be culled by an instant flash of lightning.

The boy sports a puzzled look that turns into an amused grin when the companion makes the necessary and far more importantly, the correct introductions. You move into the house, muttering the choicest swear words, which most of the guests leaving around you are lucky not to lay ears upon, for your sake and theirs.

You see the girl. She smiles at you. You grin back. You stop grinning when you realize the smile was for your companion.

The girl introduces you to her dad. She does the introductions correctly. You give the dad a hand-shake. He smiles and gives you the customary “hello-nice-to-meet-you”. You splutter out something that’s just above the range of respectability. Then you meet the mom. She is nice. You are as comfortable as fat on fire.

The mom asks you whether you have lunched. You reply in the negative. She asks the girl to show you the food. You are happy.

The girl says the food can wait. You are not at all happy.

Gesturing to the kitchen, the girl says there are some people you know, in there.

Flashes of kitchen knives flying and heads being popped and long-forgotten screams of Hitchcock movies ram your head. You hesitate, instead pretending to admire the extremely boring and totally insipid architecture of the table chair in front of you. The mom insists. So does the girl.

You walk into the kitchen, half expecting to see a madman with an axe in there. Seeing Shilbin in there, you start wondering where the hell the madman with the axe has left to.
There are the usual miscellaneous kids in there. You socialize. You are bad at it. You feel a sigh of relief escape you when the girl says she will show the group around the house.

You leave last.


"The stuff that dreams are made of."

— Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon (1941)


The house is good. In fact, it’s rather quite good. Most impressive. Most things have been thought of carefully.

The girl showcases her “tiny” bedroom, and also the miniscule rooms of her siblings. You make a mental note to look up the meaning of the word “tiny” back at home. She asks the group, specifically you, how the house is.

How her tiny, miniscule home is.

Five and a half cents in a stinking rich housing colony. One tiny bedroom on the ground floor. Four tiny bedrooms on the second floor. A reasonably tiny balcony. A tiny third floor terrace. A tiny car porch.

And you can add two tiny bathrooms to that as well.

You remind yourself that your house is roughly one-third of their car porch. Your brain tells you it is wiser not to mention that. You make some naturally-acerbic-to-the-core comments. The others laugh, though the only one who gets your point is the person not laughing.

It is over. You descend with the group. The others leave. You are alone with him. You realize how Neil Armstrong must have felt on July 20, 1969.

“Aren’t you eating?” the mom asks.


"A martini. Shaken, not stirred."

— James Bond , Goldfinger (1964)


Fortunately, the girl leads you to the dishes. You are instantly at home. The food is good. She leads you to the side room with him. You invite the brother and sister to join in. They are nice company. You start developing a rapport with the brother. He is in no way like his sister, the elder sister that is.

You chat with the brother, both acutely aware that the eyes of the girl are watching the duo with great care. You notice your companion playing with a kid half his age and fourth his size. You are amused.

The food is over. The photo session starts. You are bored. The chat session starts. The younger sister is interesting. She sits quiet pretending to be totally disinterested while it is rather obvious to the good observer that she is listening and observing everything we do.

You chat with the brother. He seems to be the only interesting thing around that has a mouth. An hour later, you are bored. This is not your cup of tea. You stand up. You shake your head. You have had enough. You don’t want all this. You detest all this.

“Let’s go, bhai”

You step into the car. You take the iPod out. You relax.


“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

— Albert Einstein


You earn for the long lost untidy beds, littered with books that you enjoyed lying upon at Unni’s house. You wish vainly for the well-cushioned bed in Aswin’s bedroom, the legs of which groan under your weight. You can see the terrace on Hemant’s house, the sun shining down on its grimy floor, which all of you used to lie around playing cards. Suku’s room with its well-postered walls.

All you want is a lazy Sunday afternoon. With Arjun, Aswin, Hemant, Suku and Unni at your side. To stretch comfortably on the bed as Hemant leans back on you. To laugh out aloud and earn an approving smile from Unni’s aunt. To relax. Let go. Live.

Later that night you message the girl.

“Don’t worry, stupid. Relax. You were very good. Civil enough. In fact, quite rather unlike yourself.”

With a deep sigh of satisfaction, you lie back on your bed. You take the iPod out. You relax.

On Fellow Conspirators

To All My Friends Whom I Missed Out In This Article.

And,

To A, A, H and S in particular; because you have always been there for me, and because I know I needn’t write down how special you guys are for me.

And for SCR as well, because without her I wouldn’t have gotten about writing this.

Today being Friendship Day, whatever that is, I thought I should write about some of my friends without whom I wouldn’t be me, for better or for worse.

I don’t believe in Friendship Day, to make my point clear. I believe that having a good friend is worth celebrating all your life, and not one day a year.

But moving away from all the suckers who’s celebration of friendship for some obtuse reason is restricted to one day a year, I’ll come to the topic, which is composed of brilliant array of individuals who often wouldn’t make any sense if taken collectively, but would seem to fill the whole world in an individual sense.

Roydon S Tharayil a.k.a R.S.T

One of my two best friends at college. Philosophical, simple and sincere. Possesses an excellent sense of humor. I trust him the most amongst my college friends. One of the few good things that has happened to me at college was sitting with RST on the very first day of college, on 17^th August, 2005.

Joy Jeril C A Joy a.k.a JJ

The other best friend at college and a man of honor. Handsome, muscly and naughty. Like A.P, a natural sportsman. We often conspire to do a lot of dirty things nut never have the energy to follow up.

Saneesh K R a.k.a Sani

Tough, immaculate, mature and immature at varying points of time. Reliable and trustworthy. Worth admiring unashamedly.

Manoj Raghunath a.k.a Manjo (that’s right, as in M-A-N-G-O)

Humbles me every time with his simplicity. Practical and prosaic. Hard working and the source of all my assignments, seminars and homeworks.


Sunil Kumar V V a.k.a Sunil

Practical, smart and always sporting a smile on his face. A natural mechanic, born to tinker with electronics and electrical gadgets.

Prijish Unni a.k.a Prijish

Simple, sincere and lazy. A good man. Mostly desp but manages to see the lighter side of life every time.

Shine P Sunny a.k.a Shine

Easygoing fellow with a frank nature but does not express his feelings much. The owner of an incredible humor sense.

Jeffy Thottan a.k.a Jeff

Comical, sincere and casual. Practical, reserved and loves to fool around. A good conversationalist.

Sanoj Jacob a.k.a Sanoj

Large, rubicund and funny. Words fail me when I describe this friend of mine :). An internal toughness that is often overlooked prevails within him.

Nithin Jyothis a.k.a Nithin

Passionate, tough, stubborn and resourceful. Often claims to have the lack of talking ability but can talk rings around your head. A true friend.

Mohammad Fazil a.k.a Fazi

A copy of all the qualities of Nithin except that he is far less stubborn but the end product is the same. Pleasant and pleasing.

Narasimha Rao a.k.a Rao

Humorous, passionate and dedicated. Resourceful and incredibly tough. Hard to find anyone who dislikes him.

From the guys side, I guess that’s it. The girls side unsurprisingly has a lesser number of entries, because good girls (in a certain sense of the word) are hard to come by. And anyway here’s the list of girls who have endangered their life with my company.

Sara C Rajan a.k.a Sara

Passionate, pretty and confused (pretty confusedJ). I fight with her the most, mostly because she’s as bad as me when it comes to diplomacy. Smart.

Tessy Thomas a.k.a Tess

Intelligent, smart and cute. Kind of like Sara, except that she gets very pissed off when I irritate her too much (with Sara, it’s the other way around).

Deepthi Divakar a.k.a Undamalli

Always smiling, sincere and VERY talkative. A favorite hobby of mine (and Nithin’s) is to terrorize her frequently.

Some people who I believe should have made the cut, but didn’t.

Satyan, Able, Justin, Arun Das, KV, Vineesh, Vinoy, Jinu from the boy’s side.

Reshma, Ilma, Gleena, Dalia, Mittu, Minu from the girl’s side.

All said and done, I'm glad I know these guys and girls, because what I am today, what I will be tomorrow depends a lot on these people.

Thank You, People!

Of Chicken Bones, Amongst Other Things

Last night was a wonderful night.

For the first, and hopefully not the last time in my life, I was invited to the house of one my Christian friends, to join in on the celebrations that were ritualistic with the local festival, this one being in honor of the honorable St Sebastian.

There was Richard, and then there was Vaisagh, Unni and myself. There was also however, every single living member on Richard’s mother’s side. If I ever thought one room couldn’t be too full, I was mistaken. There were more than twenty five people who sat there in the living room, talking merrily to each other as though they were meeting for the first time. The Airbus A-380 couldn’t have produced that much of a racket. And there we sat, amongst all those people, Unni, Vaisu and I, watching as every other little kid in the family came up and hugged and kissed and kicked and jumped up on Richard. I wondered if I would ever have that kind of patience. We were introduced, of course, by the most magnificently pleasant man I have ever known (him being Richard’s father), to the other guests, besides being showcased by our friend himself.

And of course, there was food.

There was chicken, and pork and fish soup. There were chicken cutlets and chips and wine. And of course, that left us in no doubt of Richard’s mother’s culinary capability. Unni had wine, which he swallowed more than drunk, and which went up to his head, than down to his stomach. Vaisu ate everything and had no such problem.

And how sad, all I got were but chicken bones.

Hrishi Varma

Coming from me, this is an unusually short piece. I wrote this short piece in my diary two and half years ago, when I was in my Plus Two.

This event actually took place, and I’m sure the people mentioned in it remember it quite well. It was a memorable day, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I haven’t gone to Richard’s house, or seen his parents since that Monday.

Richard is currently in his final year in the Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics at St Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Vaisagh, like Unni and me, is in his third year of B.Tech (in Industrial Engineering) at the College of Engineering, Trivandrum.

I haven’t seen Richard for a long time now, and Vaisu too, though the both of us still live in Trichur.

The thing about chicken bones is a strange business. That night, I, who had the greatest appetite among us three, was in a mood to ravage the feast that was laid before us. But out of that large plate filled with chicken, every time I tried to get a juicy piece of chicken, all I got were chicken bones. I never got a good piece of chicken that night, though I tried my level best.

The Life And Lies Of HVR

This post was inspired by Ravi Ananthan, currently in what he claims to be his final year of smoking cigars and drinking vodka inside the hallowed halls of NIT, Calicut.

The title was obviously ripped off from a far more famous book by Ms.Rita Skeeter, recently reinstated star correspondent of The Daily Prophet:)

With thanks to Arul Mani from whose blog postings I learnt the value of the injudicious use of the F Word (F-U-C-K)

To Anil Sir, you are our own Mallu version of Arul Mani. May the only thing you lose in the coming years be whatever hair that is left on your head:)

With due respect to Kanhayil Kunjiraman Nair (WHAT the fuck?!!) who I hope will never read this blog.

For K and W, from HVR.


Whores! I'm back!

There are whores and there are whores but there is no whore like a quizzing whore.

(To anybody who thought the above two lines were original and funny/interesting, I plagiarized it)

Since this is my blog and my opinion we're expressing here, I have some notes to make on my favourite subject here at my blog.

And no, it has nothing to do with either a Mac Burger/Pam Anderson/other disgusting but incredible interesting and necessary things of the same family.

I am online wasting my dad's hard earned salary not to describe the carnal pleasures of the hitherto unknown private life of HVR the First and water the mouths of some of you, but to talk on an illuminating subject known as quizzing, variously known as waste-of-time, nutters-party, hopeless-harrys-club and other interesting synonyms in many house holds and hostel rooms across the country. More specifically I come to tell the sad story of Kerala quizzing, the recent quizzing history of my native state, which apparently has so much literacy that when during a GD session at last week's IEEE meeting at the college, not a single student knew enough of the Munnar land encroachment issue to talk five minutes about it.

Welcome to God's Own Country!

There are three kinds of quizzes- The good ones, The bad ones, and the VERY bad ones.

There is Anil Raghavan and all the others (naturally the swines number more than the enlightened ones) belong to either the last or second last category.Before I vent out my well poisoned spleen on The Victims For The Day, I have to tell you that I have nothing personal against anybody I may lambast/shout at/maim/disable here in this posting.

Kerala quizzing sucked big time from the date I joined college, till March 2007. And I didn't even have anything to do with this muck. Whores! No one can screw this on me!

Incidentally, the first college quiz I attended was one by the afore-mentioned Anil Raghavan (yes he of the terrifying answers at the KQA, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named), the young baldie with more enthusiasm than a barrel of monkeys and more knowledge than most encyclopedias put together. It was, in one word, a dream debut.
But more of that later in my much un-awaited autobiography, provided I find a publisher.

But nearly two years after sweating it out after between Abid:Warrier and Sarin:another-of-his-irrelevant-partners on that great October afternoon, I have come across more bad quizzes than good ones. What inspired this post was one of the former category of quizzes.

I went solo for a quiz by a nightmare set of quizmasters at the place X, at another one of those colleges whose location was decided by the cheapness and availability of mud and stone rather than its location. And all ye bastards who screamest of the location of my college, well you've mothered yourself. My college is atleast located at a place where there are hotels and a few kilometres from a Railway station.

The quiz was terrifyingly terrible. MATHS??! You want to ask MATHS at a quiz?
And all ye whores who monger behind my ass that my fear of Math questions doth arise from my red ink filled report cards and binary coded math marks of school, you're been mothered again.

Quizzing is NOT a scholarship exam. It is NOT a Maths/Physics/Chemistry/Biology Olympiad.

To quote Warrier: "Quizzing is a test of your ability to stand psychos and to test your memory by trying to retain totally useless trivia"
You will forgive the poor translation from Malayalam where the words where far more juicier and funnier.

And those who would like to oppose that view, please pay a visit to the nearest toilet, stick that unused cranial cavity into the Big Hole in the Ground and flush hard.

REAL quizzing is the kind, as they say, which has the ability to "attract the attention of the non-quizzer". It is NOT about maths or remembering the marriage anniversary of the third bastard of old Will Shakespeare. real quizzing makes you smile when you hear the answer. Some questions make you sit up and applaud the quizmaster.
Most questions I met at the secret location X were of the category which made you want to sit up and give the quizmaster a close up view of the underside of your soiled boots.

Another point: there is no such thing as "grassroots level" quizzing and "top-level" quizzing. There is only good quizzing and bad quizzing. Of all the years the KQA has been doing quizzes, when have they asked you at what age Pascal formulated his laws?! This was actually asked at a big money quiz here a couple of years back.

Screwballs, are you listening?

NUMBERS aren't cool. Newton's Second Law belongs in a ninth grade text. Atomic numbers are part of the Mendel's Periodic Table. Sex is allowed , though strictly off-stage. (However, Anil Sir tells us of the Lao-Me-Thanda-The Love Quiz by Arul Mani which he says is more exciting than an entire factory of Viagra, or most issues of Playboy)

So whores! The ball( or balls depending on which category you belong to) is in your court. I stick up my middle finger(s) at you and challenge you to exhaust your knowledge of the detailed works of Kanhayil Kunjiraman Nair and be damned.

And let loose the dogs of wa(ho)r(e).

I hope in twenty years time that Greycells will have mothered, smothered and otherwise wiped off from the much maimed face of Kerala quizzing, all those pseudo quizzers and of course, those damned quizzing whores.

If I'm alive and kicking and screwing in twenty years time, this post shall have a sequel.

Beware whores!

I'll be back.

The Joke Of Ms.Patil

First off, I give balls to politicians, and specially politicians in India. Secondly, I don’t support any damn political outfit, including any in college. And thirdly, I specially give the middle finger to the CPI (M), with the exception of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and V.S. Achuthanandan.

I have nothing against feminism, women or anything female. The only thing I believe in is merit. And yes, I give two middle fingers to reservation.

With all due respect to all the past Presidents of India, most of you can’t even hold a candle to the current one.

The President of the Republic of India is a post that was first occupied in 1951, when the illustrious person of Dr. Rajendra Prasad took office as the first office bearer.

It is a largely ceremonious post, with very limited scope for power, and the even the use of that power, the Constitution states, is solely on the “advice of the Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers”

That is, I guess, another way of saying you are ball less, but I’m not getting into an argument.

Every five years since 1951, the Rashtrapathi Bhavan has been occupied by toothless old men whose occupation has been long gone, and whose only qualification for the top post has been their “loyalty”, not to the nation, but to the ruling party of the day.

Few have bothered to comment or raise their voice against anything the ruling party does, partially because it is not their job to do that, because they understand how politics works, and mostly because they owe a “gratitude” to the outfit that brought them to office in the first place.

If you go through the list of Presidents from 1951 through to 2007, barring two or three, you realize that every single time, the top post has gone to persons who neither deserve it nor are worthy of occupying the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

Which is why the Presidency of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is of so much significance.

Forget everything the man has done, including being the brains of every indigenous development in India’s defense department. For the past five years, the man has redefined the office of the President with his passion, his commitment, and his sheer grace. For once, the nation had a Supreme Commander of Armed Forces whom we could proudly say was the First Citizen of India. You could not help but admire the man. When have we had a President who by his mere presence inspired a whole generation?

For five years, The President has redefined the office he holds.

And now his period is over, and his time has come. There has been only occasion when a President has been re-elected, and that was nearly fifty years back, when both the incumbent President and Vice-President were re-elected. Since then, no President has ever spent more than five years at the building on Raisina Hill. I’m not arguing that President Kalam should be re-elected, but if it were my call, he’d spend another five years in office. He deserves it, and we know it. However, the politicians who do call the shots realize that President Kalam has got balls and will not willingly stoop to their level, as he is too way above them in stature, learning and dignity. And as a result of this, the man will exit the office he does with more grace than anybody previously. Let us, for the sake of the argument, say that it’s an accepted norm to have only one term for a President.

This leaves us with the presidential nominee of the UPA, who is sure to get elected by sheer weight of numbers, the incumbent Governor of Rajasthan, Ms Pratibha Patil.

Ms Jayalalithaa recently called Ms Patil “a joke”, and though it is an insult, I agree wholeheartedly. I couldn’t believe my ears and eyes when I heard who the Presidential nominee. I knew it was going to be friggin joke, but hello, where’s the punch line? As fucked up as the Congress party is (they actually managed to let a rather infamous Italian businessman escape from under their noses recently, though it was thought impossible), this takes the cake.

For god’s sake, who the hell is Pratibha Patil?!

Till a few days ago, she was what most people believe she is – a nobody. Then all of a sudden, we have the Congress saying that she will make “a good president”, like she was prophesied to save the nation. We have the Communists saying that she will be the ideal choice to “project the image of Indian women”, while licking their lips at the Vice-Presidential post, whose incumbent has been fooled by the NDA into believing that he could actually win the Presidential election.

You want to project the Indian Woman?! Which Indian Woman are you specifically talking about, excuse me? I suppose the modern Indian Woman is on an average, 72 years of age, works for the Congress Party and has as much personality as brick wall. My grand mother could fill the requisite conditions, but fortunately she is in no way affiliated to the Congress party except that she wears white saris.

I know another type of Indian Woman, such as those found in Kiran Bedi, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. You want a women candidate? Then why not Kiran Bedi, the first female IPS officer of the nation? I’m sure she has inspired a hundred thousand more little girls in India and done more for Indian women by merely achieving what she has, than Ms. Patil has, or anybody else for that matter (specifically that irritatingly obnoxious female called Brinda Karat).Oh, I forgot, she has a backbone in her body, and that makes her a no-no. And I don’t think it is stated anywhere in the Constitution that the President must be above seventy years of age.

Let’s not make The President a laughing stock. Its all fine and dandy to say “I won’t be rubber-stamp President”, Ms Patil, but you’re going to find that very hard to do in practice, and what’s more, you already know it. So please don’t start lying even before you get into office, and make this a whole lot more embarrassing.

The friggin irritability of the whole thing is that there’s nothing we can do about it but make our voices heard, which anyway no ruling party gives a damn to. Of course, we could vote them out of office next time, only to let the BJP come to power and possibly elect one of their VHP Brahmin cronies as the next President (though admittedly they put Dr. Kalam into office). I hear there’s a new Third Front, called the UNPA, though I’m not sure how much of a Progressive Alliance they’ll end up being.

End Result: The Nation loses. We’ll have a grand old lady for President, and have the outhouse of 10 Janpath as the Rashtrapathi Bhavan. Balls to politicians, and this is so friggin fucked up, having a fossil for President. Dr. Kalam must be laughing within himself, though we may never know it. Of course, there is a one in a billion possibility that Ms Patil will uphold the dignity of the office of the President as Dr. Kalam did with a refreshing change. I sincerely hope and pray she does.

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

-the closing lines of the silver screen classic “Gone With The Wind”, delivered by Clark Gable in his immortal role as Rhett Butler.

The King And I

I’ve been meaning to write a piece on quizzing for so long now that it’s a relief to get this over with. I attended a quiz at Trivandrum recently; on 27^th May, 2007 to be precise. It was a written quiz called the Maha!Quizzer conducted by India’s premier quizzing organization: The KQA- Karnataka Quiz Association. It was fun, admittedly, and this is a not-too-far-from-reality account of what happened at the quiz.

Greycells is Kerala's official quizzing organization, and trying to promote open quizzing in Kerala. I was part of the team that won their first open quiz.

Quizzing is a strange business. There are those who pretend to themselves that they are good quizzers, there are the good quizzers, there are the obscenely talented quizzers, and there are the very best quizzers.

And then there is Arul Mani.

All The King’s Men:

The King : Arul Mani

I : I

The Rest of the King’s Men in Order of Appearance:

The Man : Manu Sudhakar a.k.a Manu Uncle

The Prof : Professor Vijayakumar

Kerala Quizzer Miscellaneous : Vishnu Namboothiri

Kerala Quizzer Two : Arun A S

Kerala Quizzer One : Dr. Sarin P a.k.a Vedi Nakki

Kerala Quizzer Three : Viswas Viswam K C

The Man in the Greycells Suit : Anil Raghavan

The Quizling : Harikrishnan Menon

The Law College Student : Binu Thomas

And Special Appearances by:

The Man On The Phone : Abid E H a.k.a K-Man a.k.a DILLIGAF

The Other Man On The Phone : Arun Warrier a.k.a W

The Lady Who Messaged : Padmalatha Vivek a.k.a Padma Chechi

The Cartoonist Uncle : R. Hari Kumar Varma a.k.a Hari Ammmavan

The Time: A little past 09:30 hours

The Place: The Front of the HH the Maharaja’s College for Women, Trivandrum

You step out of the auto, enquire twice to the auto rickshaw driver that this IS the right place, and receive a nonchalant nod of the head in return. You are not, however convinced. But you pay him his money, and after polluting the air around you with some more noxious fumes, he leaves.

You are alone.

You turn around. On a board just below the one telling you that this IS the college are written the words “Centre for JIPMER Entrance Examination 2007”.Your heart drops.
Then you remember The Man. You take out your beaten up mobile and dial His number.

“Hello is this Manu?” You enquire.

You are on the right track.

“Yes, Hrishi?” Your heart beats again.

A few moments later, The Voice on the phone tells you that you are at your destination. You say thanks, cut the connection, and turn around to face the board. And you lament that you have wasted a phone call.

It is because your line of vision is targeted on a single man ten meters inside the compound. He is wearing a jubbah that is obtusely long, well over his knees, and just above his ankles. The hair on his head would do the long tresses of a lady proud. The beard is right from Leo Tolstoy. The beer belly protrudes. The King has come.

You walk up to him, and say “Hello Sir!” You desperately hope The King recognizes you (even though your only meeting with him lasted just five hours, three months ago)

He smiles at you, and says hello.
Before you can continue, a small unnoticed man on the left of HRH says hello to you, under the mistaken impression that it is him you have wished. You have never seen the man before. But his stance and your intuition tell you that this is The Prof.

The Prof tells you the way to the Place. You say bye to both and walk. You see Kerala Quizzer Miscellaneous with some friends in front of you. You call to him. He is a nice guy.

As your intellect and pain in the legs tell you that you are hopelessly lost in the campus, the mobile rings. It is KQ Two. He tells you the path. You go.

There they are, Kerala Quizzers One, Two and Three. Standing in front of a building they inform you is the venue for the day. You join in.

“There he is! Oyo!” KQ One calls out.

It is The Man in the Greycells Suit.

He waves back and walks towards the group. He is hardy, jovial, warm and a scary quizzer. You respect him.

A few moments later, The Man arrives.

He is unusually smart today, and looks a different fellow, like a local Baron. You chat with him, replying to whatever bit of obtusely British accented English he speaks that you understand.

At ten past ten, somebody points out to the others that The King and The Prof are coming. The time has come. The crowd goes in. You go along with them.

You are seated in The Room of Torture. The King is speaking, and there is pin drop silence. When He speaks, quizzers listen. You take out your Canon camera.

Five shots and ten minutes later, you are seated between The Man in the Greycells Suit and Kerala Quizzer Two.

The King is handing out the papers, and finally he reaches your bench. You smile at him. He does not smile back. You hope nobody has seen this incident. The handing out ceremony is over. The King speaks “You may start now!”

You pray to the gods, kiss your lucky charm and turn over to the first page.

The exact meaning of a phrase commonly used by students after the IIT-JEE strikes you with the force of a rampaging rhino.

The phrase is clichéd one- “It was Greek to me”
More like Gothic and Yiddish and Mandarin, you think.

An hour and a half later, it is over. The remains of the day will be spent in solving the paper.
Another forty five minutes later, as you chat with The Man, the results are being announced. You take the Canon again.

The City Winner is The Quizling. It is then that you realize where you have seen that bearded face – right under the most improbably tough questions at the KQA Blog, with the correct answer next to a cross-eyed face.

You had expected that it would have been either The Man or The Man in the Greycells Suit. You were wrong.

Then the college winner is announced, and you turn to smile at The Man, in the surety that it is He who has won it. And then, The King asks The Law College Student to come and claim his prize. You are stumped. It is not your day.

You have lost.

With a So-Long-And-Thanks-For-All-The-Fish, The King dismisses the group. While the crowd is thinning, you request The Prof to take a photo of you with The Man. The Prof, being the jolly good fellow that he is, agrees.

Then you summon all the courage you have ever had and ask The King for a photo alongside him. He agrees. You are relieved. You ask Kerala Quizzer Three to do the honours. It is done.

You ask Him if you could check out your score. He agrees. You go to the pile of answer papers, and see your name on top. You are dumbstruck. You have topped The Man in the Greycells Suit and Kerala Quizzer One. You turn and see The King smiling at you. You smile back, dazed.

You take out your mobile and see an SMS from The Lady Who Messaged. It runs thus: “heard you were out quizzing at some girl’s college”

A grin sprouts on your face.

You call up The Cartoonist Uncle, and tell him the results. His voice tells you that he appreciates you.

The Man On The Phone calls you. He is happy. After all, he has helped you a lot in quizzing.

You call The Other Man On the Phone. He is your mentor.

Two weeks later, the All India Ranking list is put out. You see your name next to the number 65. You laugh out aloud.

You have not lost.

A Series Of Fortunate Events

Again I'm back with half a travelogue. And again it concerns my classmates and alcohol.

So as they say, Let The Show Begin!

“Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot”

-nursery rhyme immortalizing Guy Fawkes, the man who was executed for treason after he tried to blow up the British Parliament on November 5, 1605.

07:51 am, 25^th April, 2007

The bus slowed down to a stop at god-knows-what village, arguably the sleepiest of all sleepy villages that I’ve come across. The conductor/co-driver/whatever-his-name-maybe reached out to the sliding doors, pushed them back, and stepped back to allow Anoop to step into the bus. Only I saw Jinu wince, understandable as the sliding doors had slid right over his toes. Rakesh, as always, used his knack for aide stepping by moving a safe one feet from the door.

A roar welcomed the last of the EEE-ians of S4-EEE, Jyothi Engineering College into the tour bus, now on its way to Silent Valley, for a one day trip as part of the curriculum of its Environmental Studies paper. Environmental Studies or ES, as we call it, is an Enigma of Sorts.

Nobody in the University of Calicut knows who set the paper as part of the curriculum of B.Tech students, and there’s arguably not a single person around who either knows the subject and/or its usefulness for a group of budding engineers whose only intention is to stay out of way of anything natural as much as is possible in this world driven by micro chips and satellites (which is quite possible, let me tell you). It’s a curious mixture of ninth grade Biology, seventh grade Chemistry and third grade English. And in our context, it’s taught by a man who can at best be described as a mystery wrapped up in a riddle, cloaked by enigma- Haneesh Sir.

However for reason both unknown and strange, it was not He (with an H for Haneesh) who was accompanying us, but Sumesh Sir, whom we knew well, as he had accompanied us to Chennai for our class trip and had proved to be quite nice company, unlike so many teachers we all lament about. I turned to tell Sumesh Sir, now toying with his Nokia N-70, that all 59 members for this trip had reported and accounted for and that we could move on. For some strange reason, Sir just smiled. The trip was on.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed”

- First words spoken from the moon, by Commander Neil Armstrong on

July 20^th, 1969

10:12 am, 25^th April, 2007

“It’s ready” Arun Das whispered into my ears.

We were nearing Silent Valley, at the most a hour or so away. Mumbling something about being tired to curious onlookers, I moved past the dancing masses, whose enthusiasm was limited by the two square feet of space between the seats. Now, when you put 59 students and two teachers into a bus that has fifty seats, it means there’s going to be some serious jamming involved. I can dream of it clearly now, see and hear clearly as I did then, the sights and sounds I lay eyes and ears on as I walked to the very last row of seats in the bus. And as they say, what a sight it was!

There was Renjith talking to Reshma as though the world was coming to an end any minute now, leaving poor Deepa Miss alone at the window side to enjoy the barren countryside. Jyothis, Midhun, Dalia and Metsy were as usual keeping to themselves, busy talking about arbit stuff in a manner reminiscent of Einstein discussing quantum physics with Bohr. And then there were the usual girlish giggles and excited whispering and chattering, most probably emanating from the mouths of the likes of Minu, Reshmi and co.

“Because it is there”

- George Mallory, the legendary mountaineer, on why he wanted to risk his life to conquer Mt. Everest. He was later lost on an attempt to conquer the Everest in 1924, along with his companion Andrew Irvine, and his body discovered in 1998 by a National Geographic team.

I really could not notice exactly where the whispers came from, as I then came to very dangerous and large obstacle, classified under “Mountain Ranges” in Geography: Jitha. Now when I tell you I’m large-REALLY large, and Jitha is my counterpart in the opposite gender, you’ll realize how easy it would for the both of us to get stuck in between the beggarly two square feet that lay between the two rows of seats. As I had no intention to find out the exact meaning of the phrase “between a rock and a hard place”, I masterfully maneuvered myself through The Gap, smiled at Jitha and sighed inwardly for such a close call. I turned to find Able with an obtuse smile on his face, which I was sure, had popped up on seeing my movements. My eyes fell upon Sarika and Sanoj; busy chatting away, which somehow looked absurdly comical to me, like a scene right out of an Edward Albee play. Now, I really was serious you know. Well, what else can one do but laugh, when you see two people who are able to derive the Taylor Series without consulting their notebook, unable to talk a few words in normal Malayalam, without interruptions, hesitations and bumbling all the way? I smiled, and I’m sure no-one else saw me.

I stopped midway to crack some notoriously horny jokes with Sunil, Saneesh, and Prijeesh, as Asif, PR (that’s PR Deepak for you. I just find it easier to call him PR) and Manoj stood watching and laughing. Sajith lay in zombie style, staring out of the window. Justin joined as and the laughs grew louder. They really are a jolly gang – Saneesh, Sunil, Justin, Prijeesh, Asif and Able.

After some more jokes, watching Rajavu (a.k.a The King, real name Vineesh) vainly try and make Vinoy dance to the music (not humanly possible) and enquiring to Sibildas about our plans at Silent Valley, and walking past snores, I reach the last row. Jinu sat near the right window, a faraway look on his handsome face. Next to him sat the omniscient Roydon Stanislaus Tharayil – RST to us, who gave a nod to acknowledge my presence. And then there was Anil and Jobson, the latter with a glass of something that most definitely was NOT water, in his hand. And there sat The Masters- Jibin with the bottle and Satyan with a packet of cigarettes sticking out of his shirt pocket.

I smiled. I had reached my destination. I sat down in between RST and Anil.

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it”

- Richard Phillips Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics (1965)

As a matter of principle, I don’t smoke. The exact reason being I don’t like the smell of nicotine smoke. And other miscellaneous reasons include minor side effects such as Lung Cancer, severe migraine, and many other curious and incurable ailments. But I don’t mind drinking now and then, now and then meaning whenever I am with friends, ten miles away from mom, and in the company of RST. As it happens with all noble ventures, everything had fallen into place that morning. Getting drunk has a fun not explained easily by words. Ask any properly drunk fellow, and he’ll tell you.

Lady Astor: "Sir, you are drunk."

Churchill: "And you, Madame, are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober."

- One of the many classic comments by Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and voted the greatest-ever Briton in the 2002 BBC poll for finding the 100 Greatest Britons.

I drowned two glasses solidly from Jibin’s hands, and waited patiently as he filled my third one. Three was the limit I’d set myself that day- three glasses. As the third glass was millimeters from my lips, I felt a tug on my shirt. RST wanted a glass. Officially, RST never drank. But officially he was also a silent kid who did no harm to others. The tug became harder. Reluctantly, I passed it to him, while sporting a grin. SIP. I got back an empty glass. The others laughed as I shook my head, muttering about greedy pigs and filled the glass for a fourth one. As I took my first sip from the fourth glass, the bus bounced badly over what was either quite a large stone or quite a small boulder, and I spilled half the glass on my shirt. As I didn’t want to reek of alcohol all through the trip, I handed the glass to the guy in front of me. I quickly poured some water over the shirt and cleaned it with the kerchief (RST helped).

I stood up to say thanks to the guy who was patiently holding my glass only to stop half way with the “Thank You”. I managed something that was between a mutter and a chortle. For now it dawned to me as to whom I’d handed over my precious few last sips to –Jobson.

“Heresh yours glash”, mumbled Jobson, handing over a now empty glass to the space between where RST and I sat. Gone were my third and fourth glasses. And then I turned to see Jibin ruefully smiling, pointing to Satyan trying to lick off the last drops from a jnow empty bottle. So much for my three glasses! I snapped something incoherent and better left unmentioned at Jobson and sat down at the window seat which Jinu had deserted for greener pastures, and next to RST. I couldn’t help smiling, however.

“There are some things in life that money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard”

- Legendary motto of the MasterCard Group, Inc.

“You know,” said RST, as the wind brushed my face and we lay satisfied after drinks, “there really are some things that money can’t buy”

I just smiled. I hate admitting that others are right.

Mission:Impossible

This is a modified version of a short story I had written for my English Language Paper at the First Terminal Examinations during my Plus Two, circa August 2004.
I haven’t changed the plot or the storyline, but have tinkered with the length and use of words.
It elucidated the following comment from Ms. Jaya Narayan, my teacher.
“Interesting”
She also said a few more things which I have no intention of writing here.
Not to worry, none of her comments involved anything good about this.

The inspiration for this story is mainly Unni, partly Vaisagh and AP, and definitely not AK


Any resemblance to people alive, deceased, passed out, thrown out, killed, simply lost or even … still around, is purely intentional.




Why do people fight?

Why are they content in trying to knock the mandible off their opponents face than engage in friendly talk over a cup of coffee and biscuits?

I guess I’ll never know.

Anyway, I sure didn’t know the answer to that question when I walked into Class XII Science, one fine November afternoon, after having spent the last 10 minutes over at the Plus Two Staffroom, in a vain attempt to convince Ms.K.N.Beena, my much feared Physics teacher, that the Physics exam scheduled for the next Saturday should be postponed, owing to it clashing with the hotly awaited EPL match between Manchester United and Arsenal, in the most eagerly awaited match of the season.

This was the sight that met my eyes - Arun Krishna (AK) and Unni were engaged in a fight, street-fighter style. And besides them, eyes’ twinkling with mischievous laughter was the beaming Hemant.

After Francis and I had successfully separated the two idiots, Hemant explained to me over lunch that it was HE who was the cause of this fight-HE had simply suggested that to the twosome that, to decide, once and for all who the more popular among girls between them was, one of them manage to take Tina to the Ball.

Francis and I burst out laughing.

Now, Tina was, in my eyes (and everybody else's), The Girl in class-THE most beautiful, THE most charming girl around. And it was on this jewel among girls that my best buddies had bet on, I later learned, for five hundred rupees and not a paisa less! I was disgusted, to say the least! Over a girl! Come ON! This was the 21st Century-no Prince Charming, and all that sort of a thing.
Now, I'm no Brad Pitt (Hemant prefers the title role in "The Nutty Professor" as more suiting to my nature), but I could in no way understand this War of the Roses... I tried the diplomatic route, of course, but was discouraged by the largest biceps in class (AK) on one side and the cheapest mind (Unni) on the other. So, with one thing and another, Hemant and I resigned to our fate and stood back to watch this (soon-to-be) epic battle.

It was, in my words, Mission Impossible (though they did not accept my terminology for the situation)

The ball was on Saturday, the 20th of December. There lay nearly five weeks between the goal and the Dueling Duo (as we now knew them).The Warring Sides took immediate measures to assure that no-one[NO-ONE],would spoil their party-anybody (boy, girl and anything in between) who even innocently looked at Tina was being noted. To detail all the bloodshed that occurred in that one month when Class XII Science was besieged, will be boring, but I'll mention some excerpts to convey the seriousness of the situation.

Ah! But where do I begin? There was the case of Abdul who found himself flat on the hospital bed with a broken leg from an accident after his bicycle tires suddenly stopped working. Then there was the case of Govind who caught a sudden and mysterious bout of dysentery, and Anthony who found deep red rashes all over his skin one fine morning and had to give school a miss till a day before The Ball. All apparently cases unfortunate ill-timed luck. But I knew the ill-luck originated from a set of pliers, a bottle of cleaning fluid and chalk-powder respectively. Anthony’s mother still is at a loss at how to explain all the chalk powder that was found on Anthony’s bed, especially since her only son had a most terrible allergy towards it.

Anyway, the above mentioned “cases” should convince my reader as to how the class was besieged for a month. Worst of all, Hemant and I, who considered ourselves safe from any attacks as we falsely believed ourselves to be in the Circle of Trust of the Dueling Duo, were horrified to find out that the pages of my History text were strongly stuck together with what Hemant’s forensic examination revealed as half a bottle of Fevicol. If Hemant was under the impression that he was excluded, that was soon put straight after his new Parker pen set was found to have two very badly crushed nibs.

All in all, the whole class was relieved to be still walking on their two legs as the calendar turned over to the 18th of December, the last day of the exams, and just two days from the Ball. As Hemant and I had learned by then (through sources alive, dead and recuperating), the two Warriors of Love (as we knew them then) had decided that they would asking Tina out that evening.

Over lunch that fateful day, Leo, Francis, Suku, Aswin, Hemant and I (amongst others) discussed the possible results. Half an hour and a sumptuous lunch later, the odds were still fifty-fifty! I distinctly remember Hemant repeatedly telling “She’ll kick them both in their faces!” to great laughter and applause. Smiling, I packed my lunch box in and went off to wash my hands.

Finally the moment had arrived! Seven boys pretended to be packing their bags and doing other things they had no interest in doing, as Unni and AK walked upto Tina, who was left alone to pick up her books(again, some chocolates had changed hands to get the other girls out of class).

Ah! I can see them now, two tall young fellows, towering over Tina, and yet cowering under her smile. After a second that contained an eternity, both burst out together
“Uh… I ... You ... Ball…me willya the ball go ME??”

Pin drop silence. Every single person had stopped trying to pack their bags and was staring at Tina’s back. Aswin’s pen fell down with an echoing crash.

And then, everyone watched with disbelief as Tina smiled at both of them, and said to both, not one, “Sorry! Somebody’s already asked me out and I accepted.”

You could have stuck the Eiffel Tower up Unni’s mouth then.

It was amazing, I thought, how she managed to show every one of her brilliant teeth while talking.

The next day, to much public relief and celebration, Unni and AK shook hands and hugged themselves and put an end to the feud that had by now, reached epic proportions.

And finally, on the day of the Ball, The Losers (as we knew them now) turned up in their best suits, alone (all the other girls had been taken by then). Atleast, I thought, Hemant and I would have some company, as the past few parties had been very boring talking only to each other. The Losers walked upto Tina, and with horribly forced smiles on their faces, apologized for their “highly unsophisticated and uncultured behavior” (to quote AK). Tina, all grace and smiles, of course accepted it.

“By the way, just for the record,” Unni asked, as if he couldn’t care less, “Who ARE you dating today?”

Tina flashed her brilliant teeth once again, and replied, “Oh! It’s a surprise…. You’ll know when he comes!”

After a few moments of anxious waiting (all the other guys had lost interest in their girls by then), Tina cried out “Oh! Hi! There he is!”

The Losers stood gaping as a smiling Hemant walked upto Tina, took the hand she had offered, and calmly walked into the hall.

There...and (somehow) back again....

The following is an extract of my experiences during the class trip at the beginning of my second year in college.


Most of what follows, is actually true....




“Oy, Jeril! You jackass, where’s the MC?”

This unpleasant intervention into my dreams (which featured, amongst other things, a Nokia N91) has just woken me up from my slumber. Groggily, I throw open the window on my side, and is immediately met by a cool, humid wind that screams of M-A-D-R-A-S (not Chennai).

I push away Jeril’s hand from my stomach, and in the process, knocks down a bottle that had the words “McDowell” on its front. Jeril reeks. Yawning, I turn around to look at what remains of the twelve boys who had started on 7 bottles of beer, 6 bottles of white rum and a pint of “small” (the layman’s term in Malayalam for alcohol) just an hour ago.

Jibin is the only one awake and he is currently employed in shaking a seat of the bus, and screaming,

“Jeril, wake up!”

After I point out to him that Jeril had only two arms and not armrests, and give him whatever was left of the white rum, he too goes to sleep.

I run an eye around the bus. Good - everyone is asleep (though Suraj is still muttering profanities under his breath). I slide comfortably down into the cushioned chair, and snuggle as best as I can.

I haven’t yet told you what I am doing in Chennai.

S3, EEE of Jyothi Engineering College are on their study trip (a.k.a excursion) to Chennai and Mahabalipuram. The date is the 20th of August, 2006. It’s the last day of the trip and so far the day was engaged by a morning at the Marina beach, (where Sathyan and Rakesh were a hair’s breadth away from having a meeting with God, a good lot earlier than they must have planned) and now shopping at T-Nagar. (Why girls forget that its hot under the afternoon sun when they see a discount sale, I’ll never know)

Its 3:30 in the evening. The sun has receded a bit. I try to find my shirt from amongst all the entangled bodies, all wearing happy faces. I find the bottle of beer which I had polished off myself, and now unceremoniously dunked under Mikki’s shorts. I smile. After all, its not everyday in life when my food consists of 3 cups of coffee, two 500 ml bottles of Coke and two bottles of beer.

The day has nearly come to an end and I, who provokes thoughts of the richest delicacies, has not had a morsel of solid food (that is, not if you consider an orange as food. I mean a SINGLE orange).

A warm wind suddenly blows in through the open side window, and hits me full on the face. I pass onto wonderland.

It’s the 17th of August, and coach no. ST6 of the Dhanbad Express rings with the laughter, screeches, songs and snores of 46 students.

Renjith can be seen wearing a shorts and a Lionel Messi jersey. He has retired to listening to music after he realizes Reshmi has no intention of listening to his dumbass jokes all the time. Jitha and Sarika are lying peacefully, the head of each on the shoulder of the other. Prashant, Jibin, and co. are resting at the last set of seats, a bottle full of liquor at the bottom of their otherwise empty stomach. Shine and Saneesh are whispering excitedly about something they think I’m unaware of.

Meanwhile, three persons stand at the entry point of the next compartment, just at the doors. One of them is standing at the middle of the entry area, his face set in a happy smile. He is of medium height, muscly and good-looking. The next is thin, has very noticeable curly hair and is seated on the seat reserved for the TTR. His face is set in a grim smile. The last one is tall, large and is seated on the very edge of the door, a sublime smile on his unshaven face.

The first one is Jeril, the second Roydon and the last, myself.

The landscape is slowly but inevitably shifting from the greenery of Kerala to the stony expanse that welcomes the traveller to Tamil Nadu. Roydon cracks one of his classic jokes and all of us laugh. No one is really talking, but the feeling of travelling together makes the mood so wonderfully intoxicating, that all of us are just savouring the moment.

Time passes. Roydon stills looks as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. Jeril has such a peculiar smile on his face that I’m sure he’s thinking of Sara. I make a snide remark to Roydon, just loud enough for Jeril to hear, and all of us start laughing again.

Then Roydon shifts his seating, just like every time he does when he goes into his “philosopher” moods. He mutters something insensible, and then turns around to us and says importantly

“Hey guys!”

“Yeah?” pat comes Jeril’s reply, snapping himself back to Planet Earth.

“I’ve just realized...” begins Roydon

(I roll my eyes as Jeril smirks and Roydon gives us both the “guys-I’m-serious” look)

“Realized what?” I ask.

“Silence!” snaps Roydon. Both of us fall silent and watch, interested.

After a few moments of total silence during which the unnerving sound of the train passing over a bridge is booming into our ears, and when Roydon knows he has our full attention, he coughs importantly. Our heads snap up.

“Life, my dear fellow conspirators, is nothing but an electron.” says Roydon

(Silence, only broken by the constant thudding of the train.)

Then, spontaneously, our eyes meet, and all of us, once again, start laughing, admiring the philosophy of life, and appreciating the company we share.



Silence again.

Then…

“Oy, Hrishi, wake up man, what the hell are you doing sleeping as though you’re dead drunk?”

I wake up to see Jibin’s laughing face. Talk about drunks, I think. The rest are slowly awaking, all groggy.

Jeril is still half asleep at the next seat. Mutterings of “Sa…a..ra..” ring from his mouth.
I smile.
Jeril wakes up a few moments later. He smiles at me, and says in a strangely croaky voice,

“You know, I just had a dream about our talk in the train…”

Hours later, as I poured water over myself in a vain attempt to stay cool, I still couldn’t help smiling.
Then I thought, as I often do these days, Roydon's grim smile on my face,

“Ain’t life just Grand?”

I wonder what Roydon would have replied to that thought.

Ground Zero...and other things of little Importance

The title of this posting was inspired (a.k.a copied) from the Blog Of George Mathew Paily.

Not a nice way to begin, I suppose,but I suppose George wont sue or anything.

So, Hell-o and Welcome to my new No-sense (not "non-sense") Blog.

Here goes nothing...

Across fifteen years of my miserable (and etcetera….) existence as a student, I have come across only a few unanswerable questions.
This blog is but a feeble attempt to have a go at those questions, and end up slowly but surely…. nowhere…..

Disclaimer: Author does not mean to include his Maths, Physics, or Chemistry studies in the above context.

What have I learned from my life so far?
Nothing useful, really.
Except perhaps never to call a pretty girl “a half-dead duck” and Diego Maradona “Hand of Dog” in the presence of his fans.

I suppose that I should write out a few things concerning me so that at any later interval of time, if any reader should have a doubt on what I am referring to, they can come back here and find out……..



I have fallen in love with one girl [one], quizzing, Lord of the Rings, Brazilian football, burgers and pizzas.

I truly hate five boys, three men, two girls and four women.

I trust few people.

I believe in God, though my concept is quite different from what my mother and grandmother had in store for me.

I believe at first hearing only what six people say. And that does not include my parents.

I studied in the damn best school in Kerala, called Hari Sri Vidya Nidhi, which is conveniently located 100 metres from my house.

Arjun Sankar, Aswin Ayyappan, Hemant Sushant, Krishnanunni P N, and Sukesh A N are my closest and probably only true friends.
Arjun Sankar, a.k.a Thumba is the most hard-working amongst us and the one who cracks the best jokes.
Aswin Ayyappan (also known as Asachu, Jackass, Achu and various other miscellaneous names) is the most lovable among us, and is a puzzle within a nutshell trapped in a daze.
Hemant Sushant or simply H.E is the most comical and blundering of them.
Krishnanunni P N or simply Unni has been my best friend as long as I can remember.
(We got to be friends after seeing that we had a common knack of getting into trouble together)
Sukesh A N is the most trusted and the last of these five to become a friend of mine.



I have a friend named Arun Chandran V whose IQ is so astronomical that he is much, much more than a friend.
Arun Warrier, George Mathew Paily and Arun Chandran V are the friends I respect most.
Of these, the first two are some kind of heroes…
George Mathew Paily is 6 years elder to me, has studied in IIT Kanpur, and is doing his PhD in god-knows-what Physics at Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A. He is arguably Hari Sri’s ultimate genius: the greatest all-round Hari Sri-ite of all time. [And I’m not taking no for an answer]
Arun Warrier, was, is and will be the Greatest Quizzer to ever come out of Hari Sri, and my mentor in the field.
I also hold in high esteem a person called Blesson Gregory.


Among girls, if you take the whole of my life, the only ones I have really liked are Aswathy Kishore, Gayathri G and Tara Thomas. I included Gayathri’s name in this list after a lot of thought. 
I thought I liked Tara the best among these three, but I know now that it will always be Kishore who will be closer to my heart than Tara.
Though probably, Tara knows me better than Kishore.

Amongst my cousins, the one I admire most on my father’s side is Vivek Varma, the eldest of my generation, and married to thankfully the one crazy lady amongst my cousin-in-laws. I hope she never gets to know I’m a big fan of hers.
(The shaaamee…..) 
On my mother’s side that honour goes to RRV Murari, currently doing his PhD at IISc, Bangalore. How his parents managed to somehow find the only girl who’d ever marry him is still a mystery to me. Then, I suppose, these things are fixed at a higher level…
Among my cousin-in-laws, [no competition here] my favourite is Rahul Varma, currently employed at Siemens, Bangalore, and the owner of the funniest brain (or, to be specific, whatever is inside his head  ) on this side of the Himalayas.

Just for the record, I have 9 cousins on my mother’s side and 5 on my father’s side.


I am in college now, doing my B.Tech. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering [ EEE ].
I study in a college called Jyothi Engineering College.
I am, at the time of publishing of this blog, in my Third Semester.
My favourite teacher is the H.O.D of EEE, Asst.Prof: Jose P Therattil


My best friends in college are Roydon S Tharayil, Joy Jeril C A Joy, Renjith Paul, Vivek K V, and Shine P Sunny.
Among girls, I have no particular favourites [Honestly], but Sarika P Mukundan and Sara Rajan are probably the two favourites.
The persons who have attracted the most of my attention are three in number, two boys and one girl- Prasanth P Chandran, Renju Sebastien and Tessy Thomas. The first is my classmate, the other is a Royal Mech and the last is from Electronics and Communication Engineering [ECE] branch.
Prasanth is intelligent, highly cunning and a dangerous enemy. But, however, he is a below-the-belt fighter. Renju knows more about girls than their own mothers and is good-looking enough and smooth-talks well enough to turn most girl’s heads. A highly capable fellow.
Tessy is smarter than the rest of the girls in the batch put together, pretty, has a fan following and I like her. She is also a highly accomplished actress.
I trust her least among the above three, though I like her the most.


I suppose I haven’t mentioned a lot of people who ought to get a mention-but they’ll come by-and-by.
Also, I have mentioned more about some people than I intended to.

For now, I’m stopping abruptly because I don’t think I have anything else to write.

Adios!