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Monday, January 18, 2010

My Space: New Year Curry

Prosit Neujahr! (Happy New Year!)

I have been either too busy or very lazy this year to write. 2009 was interesting enough to stir a few and a lot of fun to end with - some rather unusual highlights below:

Spared by the Wall of Death
I could have been long gone but I guess for some reason, I have been spared for another time. A 20+-foot high and 50 meter long stone wall next to my ancestral home and nearly 100 years old collapsed, missing my car by 15 minutes.

The car was parked alongside it all day and locals having seen it thru the day were convinced there was a car under the rubble! The wall is an extension of the wall of my ancestral home and is part of an old palace. The Wall of Death on the right of the picture below...



The Road(s) to Hell

I woke up one morning and found the road to my home dug up with a board by it that looked something like the above... Actually, if you wanna die a slow, very slow death, try the Crippled Road Works Zone. At least you know when you are gonna die unlike the stone wall above. 2009 was more like this ... Let’s hope 2010 is less crippled.

He Graduated Too Fast To Be True, He is Rising!







^^^My lil fella quickly graduated from cars to airplanes especially after that nasty blow he received on his head when we were negotiating the smallest pothole in town. He said No! to cars after that and chose to Fly! Hell! Who would not!!! Nevertheless, he along with the city he lives in, is Rising!

Enslaved, Insecure, Second-Class Citizens who read Third-class Newspapers
2009 saw the rise of many a childish Cyber Thug-ray who have a lot of world to see. They read newspapers that cater to less than ten percent of all newspaper readers, they don't wanna see beyond the boundaries of their towns, they wear beanies in tropical climes, they lie and spread lies, dig music reality shows and watch "mega serials"... If you thought there were Thug-rays only in Mumbai and Mangalore, think again!

Someone once said - "There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assume ascendancy over all others".

Education and money and an internet connection alone can't make you a better person, can it? You cannot really change what is in your blood, no matter what!


Inspector Gadget is Confused
This is about that Big Story (oh no! Don’t quote that ten percent newspaper again ) conspired by the I-am-Red-But-I-Need-God-In-My-Life, Genius-Mallu-Nurse, All-Muscle-No-Looks, I-Came-Looking-For-My-Roots-In-The-Outback and a few other beanie boys. The Big Story on which they still orgasm resulted in a few innocent cops having to admit their mistake arising out of a situation where they had to listen to several masters under severe stress and long working hours!


"Crap" Girl-Friends

This blog has always been an effort to not focus on areas like Politics or Infrastructure - two things that don't really improve in this part of the world and can irk a few insecure online souls. Instead, I have been inspired to write crap by two of my girl-friends (i mean they are girls, my apologies ladies ;)), one - my new hire at work who blogs a lot of crap herself, she gets home at 7 and sleeps at 10 and yet finds time to blog! And the other - my friend from quite sometime who now lives in the UK and blogs for hours every day. We all are very random writers who write the way we speak and not with the dictionary next to us. We do not research, we do not quote boring statistics and statisticians, neither do we believe in bigger is better, lol.

Work, A Reunion and A Missed Cruise

Towards the end of the year, life was all about friends and family. Took a break from work and had to choose between a luxury high seas cruise off the Cochin coast and a 'Village' reunion with the Kiwis (people I lived, studied, worked, ate and drank with). At the end of the day, I just made sure we mates hung out while my family sailed on board the Aquamarine.





The kiwis and I would eat dosa every morning and head out like backpackers and drink in Bangalore's VIP lounges and spend the nights at my uncle's extravagant farm-house in the outskirts where urbanization is fast catching up. The last time I went there, there was only the famous Dance School - Nrityagram next door.


The Wifey's Shopping Trip Next Door


The wifey was happy I took her to Cochin for shopping after X'mas. But now, she wants to move out of the capital. She likes busy cities just like me. She says she was happy to see a mall (Oberon) in Kerala and more malls like the Lulu being built as big as the ones she sees in the US every year. Which of course means, she wants to do nothing but shop in Cochin, which I myself do quite a bit of, once a year. In the very little time I had between two parties and the holiday traffic, I managed to buy myself a nice pair of jandals and eat authentic shawarma which I had last tasted in Dubai a while ago.

The Times of Family
During the X'mas-New Year season, we attended a total of 6 weddings and the engagements, bachelor's parties and wedding eve parties that come with each wedding. And all of this in just a lil more than a week. It was like wedding in Cochin at noon, party in Kottayam at night or the other way around...! An entire generation of cousins just entered a new phase in their lives.





New Year's Eve was calm and early but eventful and thankfully I could not hear any Ganamelas in the neighborhood. Some cousins - around 40 of us brunch-ed on the shores of the mighty Vembanad Lake in the Sailing Club at Kumarakom. There was the finest tequila, malt, BBQ pork  and of course the music. We had to drive the Breezers down from Bangalore. Kerala offers no good liqour, all the liquor you get is so ugly brown!!!


We had another engagement to attend the same night, so we wound up with a ride on a cousin's luxury yacht with some beer and chips, into the last sunset of 2009...



So, that was 2009 in a nutshell. I just had to write something ... and I promise to try to improve my writing skills.

3 comments:

My Kitchen Antics said...

'Crap' seriously? :)
Nice post..you should get outta that hell hole dude....and get back when you are so old and cant get out of the house. Or maybe you should come back to Triv to die..just drive through the Marapalam road (which will still be in that same state then also) and you can die an interesting death.
Trivandrum is never gonna change with all that drama happening there.

Arun Mathew said...

^^^ wow, that was some hardcore comment from u! lol, u know i dont encourage such talk here ;)

now, that will be an interesting but painfully slow death which i surely dont wanna go thru and wont have to!

@Marapalam - if not a "palam" at least a log of wood across would suffice. eternal wait yah but we are optimistic so let's see...

but again, dint u see the road works caution boards when u entered the marapalam road lol

! said...

Oh wow! That is a good turn.. ;)
Too much of things stuffed in tho'..And the encouraging part...I've no words..lol..Good to see you're inspired with confidence reading the absolute CRAPS..lol ;) Btw, Congrats to your lil graduate.. ;) On the more, thought you'd miss the ecology at least this time.. lol..


'We all are very random writers who write the way we speak'- Expecting more fun topics as the person you're... ;) Keep writing more..


And yes I agreed - 'Education , money and an internet connection alone can't make you a better person'
What if it is like 'No money, But work?' lol... Bighearted US!