That age thing again

 

I wonder what’s with this age thing. No, no I am not cribbing yet again about old age. The thought this time is on looking back and thinking, sheesh that’s so young! Like when I was 18, I decided that I have reached the peak of maturity and I told a few of my mates it was a hard feat to reach. I told them don’t worry they will reach there too, just wait a few months for your 18^th birthday.

But now when I look at 18, the first word that comes to mind is kid. Its been that way all through life. When I was 10, I thought up to 8 its kids, and when I was 15 I thought 13-ers were babies! And every time this 2-year difference seems to me a lot more than 2 years. Now I look at 23 year olds and think yeesh kids! I wonder what earthly feat I achieved in 2 years but it sure seems a long time ago! But its not some fancy idea I cooked up. I really feel that way and I feel certain that I grew up a lot more in 2 years, and the way I think about things have taken a really steep curve. One trait I hope I have ditched forever is naivety!

Wonder if everyone feels this way growing up, so that maybe, just maybe 25 may not seem so old at some point in life – which I hope I wont find myself in too soon! Does everyone feel this way?

Just another day, nice though

 

After an errand I had to do today, I decided to try something I have wanted to – go sit by a tree alone and read a book. Mm yes I was wise enough to exclude the trees in the streets. I chose one in the museum. It felt a little odd at first cause everywhere around me sat people in groups. Being a lone traveler was alright, but being a lone sitter-by-trees seemed weird. Nevertheless I did what I went there for. It was all working fine, cause once I had my eyes on the books I brought I didn’t need to look up and see the many eyes that chose to look at the mysterious museum-book-reader. Admittedly the idea was not my own, I spotted a guy doing this one day and made plans for self.

Problem came in the shape of a crow. It would stutter towards me and I would resist the urge to shriek, try to shoo it away with my book. But every time, it returned in a matter of seconds. This was not looking good. A lone reader, people may forget about but one that played hide and seek with a crow was an unusual sight. Without doubt, my actions made a really comical sight. So walker bys and sitter bys saw me and my crow-friend in action, faces dipped in amusement. Finally when I gave it a little more time in my neighborhood, it revealed its purpose. It was not, like I suspected sneaking around to eat me. Must be a vegetarian crow, it took a cone ice-cream left over by someone and vanished. Whewwwwwww I heaved aloud.

It was wonderful once I had the ground to myself. Crow-less grounds, I found out, were pretty serene. Second problem, relatively minor, was when I wanted to add extra effects to the whole serenity in the form of my music player. Music player ran out of batteries. But I already had it glued to my ears it felt a shame to remove it now. Everyone would know! Yeah right, they had no other business but to wonder how many of my batteries worked! I didn’t feel like doing a battery change now, having already attracted enough attention; what was I there for anyway – some time for myself or to entertain the museum-goers?! So I just stayed there with the ear phones glued to my ears, absolutely no music coming out of it.

That didn’t end my day’s adventures. I chose to walk some way home and came across this group of youngsters performing in the street in front of Keltron. I watched in awe as the group including 4 or 5 guys and one girl sang aloud the old forgotten folk songs in harmony. They were good! I talked to one of them who was walking around collecting contributions from people. He said they worked for a group called “Abhinaya” and they do it every Sunday at 5:30. This has been around for over 15 years now! Wow so much happens around me I had no idea of – well the-not-knowing part is not unusual, but this was something big!

Well it’s just, it was a nice day.

Urgent call to all! Help keep our cities clean!

I have found a brand new urge to spread the spirit of keeping our city clean. Enthusiasm comes from watching auto rickshaw drivers take a left and then a right – I don’t mean the road turns, I am talking about their habitual ugh spitting. I have tried a few times to tell them “Chetta (Brother) we shouldn’t do it, we should keep our city clean”, but thought better of it, reminding self of certain barking traits they have shown incredible talent of. Besides its not just the auto rickshaw drivers that are to be blamed. I have seen people who study with me or work with me, do the same. I thought it’d be right to start with them first. Their excuse mostly is: so what do I do when I suddenly need to spit?

Unfortunately there always may not be a bin around the corner to tell them, “go use the use-me”. So this is what you could do. Carry a tissue paper. Its not a bad thing at all. If you could do it when you are abroad you could do it here as well. Actually you should keep them in plenty, so you wont have any reason to use the whole public road as your little washbasin. Spit on it, and keep the tissue papers with you, in a bag or a cover or wherever you can find some space in your personal being, and drop it at the next bin you see. There’s nothing more easily possible. Give it a shot.

Another often-dropped object is a chewing gum. I use chewing gums and I use them mostly on my way to some place (for fresh breath). I always take an extra piece of paper with me first before taking a chewing gum. Once you are done refreshing your breath, get your gum on the paper and keep it with you; I normally keep in my bag. On seeing a trash can, dump it there.

If your, ahem, emissions can be solved this way, there is no question about other wasteful deposits. They could wait to see a bin, and if you are not yet aware, you get huge black colored packets that could hold a humungous amount of waste. Those are meant for us people. Its quite cheap actually, you get plenty of ‘em for a small amount of money. And use it to cover the inside of your waste baskets so when it’s full you can wrap it up, take it and drop it in your nearest bin – its easier than you think.

Ok those are the main areas. I cant think of more immediate problems. If you think there is any, let me know. Les try and solve them together and keep our city clean. Actually the message is to keep wherever we are, clean, your city or mine is not the question.

Subramaniyapuram, from self-appointed official Trivandrum reviewer, me

Been waiting forever to see this movie. Heard a lot about it and yesterday watching the song kankal irandal (which I had heard and forgotten about) decided, today shall be the day. Just back after watching it and in one word: disappointed.
So why did it get such a name, why did everyone keep telling this was a not-to-be-missed movie? Because it was realistic, I told my Mom.

I went in a bit late so missed the beginning. The story was set in 1980, I realized a little later. I am not sure what TN looked and behaved like in 1980, but I think they have done a pretty decent job there. The song was the only thing I knew about the movie so I anticipated it to be a romantic-realistic movie, maybe something like Kadhal. Yes romance played a huge role. But there was also politics, there was also friendship and what came with friendship – hard-core bonding, treachery.

All the men, well most of them sported long beards – maybe that was the in thing in 80s. Few scenes that touched me, cant tell them all cause it’d spoil the climax of the movie – but one of them was when Mr Hero tells Mr Hero’s Mother “Amma paathu po ma” (Mother, watch yourself).

When a movie is realistic, you have got to expect a lot of really boring stuff that came with it – to capture the essence. So there were long minutes of festivals and whatever came with it, there were times when if someone was running they’d show it all the way from start to end and there was whatever goriness that came with the whole reality stuff.

It also gives out a scary message: once you start on a wrong trail, you won’t feel like coming back, you will somehow keep going. No, no, no that wont do. You feel like stopping them to tell them, enough you have already done bad, now stop and turn back please. Alright maybe that’s not what you feel like doing, you might want to turn yourself away from the Cinema and take an auto home! But for some reason, I waited till the end to do that. I was waiting hopefully for a deeper meaning, for something more to suddenly appear on the screen. Yeah, yeah get a grip girl it’s a movie!

I wouldn’t say it was bad as in yuck, but I wouldn’t ask someone to go watch it. Unless they were one of those utter realistic kinda people. Its a simple story of a few simple people, and how the simple happy days change to complicated suffering ones. One word about the Heroine. Amusing. Her smile is. Anwyay here, Ze official site

A victim of addiction, need help

A professor who teaches me said that addiction was no more a thing of drugs, like you see in older movies where victims turned violet without it. No, he said, that was a thing of the past – today’s mad men and women were produced by one little thing on top of everyone’s desk – no marks for guessing, a computer.

Another professor said that the biggest saints or munis were not those people who stood on top of Himalayas but the young people who sat before a computer from morning to evening – cause they didn’t need food or water, they sat there not letting the world know of their existence.

I laughed both times. But when I thought back – yes I am an addict too and yes I am a muni too! One day when we lost internet connection last month, I made a whole lot of fuss, barking at anyone who came across and blaming them all for this super gigantic loss! Life proceeded only when I could find a café by evening and sit there for a few minutes. And I pointed out my reasons: this was my job now! Mm yeah, right.

And the muni thing – argh true again. My mother would be the first to give testimony – she’d call me for hours to eat, she’d tell me about things and I would brilliantly miss them all even if I took a minute to look at her. Cause I find it hard to keep 2 things at a time in head. So after whatever I was doing was done, I’d try think back what she said, and then answer her, in a matter of fifteen minutes :-D. She somehow doesn’t find the whole prospect too interesting.

And sadly fact is I waste a lot of time doing that. Before, when I had a regular job, I used to find time to watch TV, movies, read books, and even browse for a while – but browsing took a short time, cause after all that monitor staring at work, I’d prefer staying away when home. And now I switch on my computer and I have no idea what I actually do all the time I have it open, but what I think was a matter of minutes would always turn out to be huge long hours. I would by end of day, realize there’s a ton lot of things I had wanted done, books past due dates, articles pending from weeks before, movies I promised myself to catch up, and a lot of other things planned to bring myself up.

Each day I decide next day would be different – I would push off switching computer to later. But next day comes and I change that to, ok I will just switch on the computer maybe do a quick go in fifteen minutes and get back to other things. Needless to say, that thought fades away the moment I see my XP loading.

I need a solution. I need an antidote. Any suggestions/help/guidance welcome! (And don’t tell me to switch from XP to Linux!)

Vegetarianism and Non-vegetarianism, all about killing

Another sensitive topic. But a long talk with a friend the other day got me penning this. He argued for a while about food chains and how humans were part of the chain, before he realized I was in fact a non-vegetarian.
The old 5th grade food chain, to refresh memory

Now posting a disclaimer before any terian attack: this is not to prove either is wrong or to promote any isms. As far as I am concerned, that is a completely personal choice. You want to eat meat, you kill animals, you want to eat leaves, you kill plants. So I don’t have a problem unless a vegetarian starts calling me a cannibal. And living a non-veg life, you wont run short of people who call you merciless murderers or cold-hearted flesh-eaters.

I asked one of them one day “So you don’t mind killing plants?”
She smiled sheepishly and said “Nope, I don’t”
Cause you see, they didn’t have legs to run away, blood to ooze out or voice to eject yells of pain. But that doesn’t rule out one little fact people: they are living!

Now I am not saying this to justify my non-vegetarianism. Killing in any form of any living thing is killing. I’m a culprit as much as the plant-eaters are. And some people (Ros and VK, skip this part if you are reading) do not eat chicken, but eat their babies – the eggs. Again, I’m not pointing fingers at them, when I am guilty of eating the mother. But when one of them tells me its people like me who drive the world of animals into an endangered one, I have to show them a piece of my mind.

Another case of inhuman selfish killing happens for Onam athapoos (where we have floral arrangements on floors). Such a waste of lovely flowers! I remember in my first year in college, I stayed away from the part where petals were torn apart for the Athapoos. Of course, I couldn’t speak authoritatively cause I was responsible for a few chickens having their legs separated.

But when it comes to plants, it somehow becomes a petty laughable matter. What if you attached a human form to it and considered the petals human hands. Dead or not, how would it feel cutting limbs off a human body? Absolutely gruesome!
And yet, that’s what we do cause we have by some strange rules taught ourselves that those are simply pretty looking things meant to be cut to pretty little pieces and laid out on floors. Who cares if they had a life, just like we did?

So in my talk with my friend, I asked if there was any system by which man could live without killing another living being. I suggested milk but he pointed out that was again taking away what rightfully belonged to the baby calves. At least it was better than killing. I don’t know if there is any such system and I find it incredible when I hear stories of people surviving without food. My friend asked if I would subject myself to such a system in case one existed. I wondered aloud, would I? I hope I would.

Trivandrum-sick!

I don’t know what it is with me and Trivandrum city. One cant seem to part with the other! Hmph – that last line is the contribution of a friend who never misses to point that out whenever I announce a long trip – “You? Go there? You mean outside of Trivandrum? No way!”
Dying to prove him wrong, I had a Coimbatore trip all planned for the weekend, tickets all ready in hand. And bang, Thursday morning I show signs of an impending fever which by Thursday night was all here!

Same thing happened last month when I was frantically trying to attend a blog camp in Alleppey.
It’s a scary thought! Unable to get out of a city all your life?! Ok ok I took a Thrissur trip in Jan, so its not entirely impossible. Maybe it’s a summer thing, it will wear off. Its not summer anymore? Gulp.

Why Cris?

This is one question not a single person failed to ask me whenever I gave my clichéd line “I love being called Cris”.
So blogging about it, the story that led to Cris.

When I was about 8 years old I used to know a candyman, his name was Christopher. He was an Anglo-Indian and came by our street every other day to sell candies. And he would tell us kids “Candies from the big Chris Man, take ‘em kiddos take ‘em”. And I would go back home and announce “Candies from the big Chris girl, take ‘em people take ‘em”. I repeated this at school, to the girls there and they started calling me ‘the big Cris girl’, which became ‘Cris girl’ later and over the years, Cris.

The name was forgotten as I grew up cause I stopped advertising candies. Christopher was not seen anymore in our streets and he was soon forgotten. I moved away too. Somewhere in my 8th grade, I ran into Christopher outside a market place. He looked a lot older at 70. He didn’t have candies anymore. I was thrilled when he recognized me and he in turn was thrilled when I remembered his big line “Candies from the big Chris Man”. Christopher told me he had enrolled to study literature and that took me by surprise. At 70, a man who sold candies for a big part of his life, had decided to seek education. But that’s something he always had in mind. “Yes Sir, that’s what I have always wanted. I been saving up”. I was quite pleased about this.

I kept contact with Christopher and he told me how he progressed in studies. Sometimes he used to pop up with his books and ask me to help him with them. Its because of him, that I started taking an interest in reading, in language. Christopher had lent me a few books at the time which put me on track. It was also on Christopher’s suggestion I started writing. My first works were simply horrifying and he’d frown and say “You could do a lot better than that Missy”. Christopher became a man who did a lot, to inspire me.

One year later Christopher passed away. And I christened myself Cris.

Reality Check. Mm ok. I just wanted to make the whole story interesting, but now that I have written it I wish there was more truth to it! But there isn’t, and every word was made up – the name Cris came to exist from 9th grade because my cousin and I came up with an idea to create a cyber name apparently for security (!) and I stuck to it till I have stuck so much that I couldn’t unglue myself from it! So there that’s the real story and it seems so absurdly lame! Sigh! Anyway I am Cris cause I am. Period.
And now I could actually picture Christopher so much I cant help wishing he was real! But if he was, I wouldn’t let him die.

Onam walk around the city

Today, I finally got around to doing what I planned for a few days now – walk around the city and see the Onam celebrations. Both times I went out last week were during day time so I missed the illuminations. Well past evening, it was all there today. I promised a sick friend I will make a report, so doing it though it was pretty much a usual walk around the city.

The lights were gorgeous, extending all the way from Vellayambalam towards PMG (I am beginning to learn the names this way!). I stopped at a groundnut vendor and got a mixture of green peas and vegetables, something like chaat. Taking occasional spoonfuls, I continued my walk. Then there was a vendor selling soap bubbles. I checked – Ok the world around did not know me, I decided it was harmless to blow a few bubbles in the dark. Who said only kids did that? Unfortunately my bubble blowing skills were minimal and 7 out of 10 times I blew hard nothing came out. Hmph, passerbys instead of watching lights and celebrations decided to watch the lady in inaction!

Anyway my walk proceeded and I tried to squeeze into Kanakakunnu amidst the thick crowd. Boy what a crowd! I had no idea so many people lived in Trivandrum!
Kanakakunnu, besides people had giant wheels (I mentioned in my previous post), other rides and a number of stalls. In addition, the star attraction was a gang of 3 elephants right in front standing still for hours. Poor guys. They must be so bored. Luckily, some people decided to bring some drums (chenda) and play for them.

Going out of Kanakakunnu I spotted a small boy throwing some toy up in the sky, it had a small little LED which made it glow. I was of course enthralled and watched the boy in action. Too bad I forgot my autograph book. I took the next turn and my first throw went 3 inches high – (which was bad, considering his went 60). After pretending oblivious to the whole crowd seeing that, I went for my second marvelous throw which came down and hit a car. But it went high. So Tada, I was a star too now!

On my return trip I was wholly engrossed in bubble blowing so was surprised when a couple of acquaintances showed up in between the bubbles. Gulp, I was spotted. Oh well now that they knew it was just as well I blogged about it.
I walked back home, happy having down all the stuff I have always wanted to do and couldn’t because someone with me would always stop me. Today I was my own woman. Yippeee.

And if you looked up, nature had brought out its own illumination in the form of a bright and full moon. The ones here were loud, but the one above was quiet and pretty. It was a beautiful night.

Orkut community meet

I actually went for an orkut community meet today. Why the actually-part needs stress is because like one of the people there pointed out, I usually have a face covered pic in my profile – so going public was not really my thing.
Anyway, this entry is to do an official report of the meeting. So here goes.

I landed late with my friend, who had to be tucked into the community a few minutes prior to the meeting. Five of them were there already. A couple of them I already knew and seeing them after years of scrapping was a huge joy – Sreejith and Vids. Three others were Sajith, Vivek and Sambath. And then there was my friend, Drisya.

First task was finding free chairs. This we did with all grace. You should have seen me in action, I was a hero when it came to finding chairs. Sitting down, 2 of the community moderators, Sreejith and Vids took orders and brought the food – again in all grace. I could have sworn Vids was born to be a waitress. She wouldn’t agree though.

Ok a meeting essentially calls for talking. So that we did. Self introduction came first, and I was introduced as the sis of Nish. I realized being a community owner’s sis came with its own price. Well actually, not much. No one recognized me, and my friend asked “Hey you told me everyone knew you”. She has a problem of taking things too literally.

Sajith and Vivek were dueling now and then – I didn’t exactly catch up on that. Sambath, was my competitor in bagging the quietest person award and he got it. Wise kid.
Vids suggested giant wheels and I mistook them for ship-rides (why it was a dumb thing to say was cause ships don’t exactly ride next to giant wheels, in an exhibition ground. Well not yet). These things happen you know. So Vids gave me a valuable piece of advice – “Cris its ok to think these things, but you don’t speak them”. I believe her, that kid seemed to know these things.

Now that I come to think of it, I cant remember many cracks from Sreejith, hmm I wonder what he was doing. My guess is eating cause I remember noticing that the pazhamporees (banana fries) were not there anymore.

Few talks later, the moderators took a second round of orders. Few more talks where Drisya introduced a concept of second round of self introduction later we headed for Kanakakunnu. As part of Onam, they had a number of rides running there. Vids came up with err some kind of a circular ride. Seemed harmless. But harm came when we went in cause it stopped circling. So for that money, we were taken to giant wheel. Gulp, gulp and gulp. But it was better than I thought. I managed to live. With just a few yells. All 7 of us.

Sajith, Vivek and Sreejith did a few clicks now and then, I have no idea of what.

At 5, friend and I had to run off. So I don’t know what happened after that. So report officially ends here. 🙂
Afterword: Absolutely loved it. Would have loved to stay more too. Maybe more gulpy rides together. 🙂 Think I wont have many qualms about attending the grand one Sreejith says is coming. But then again, gulp.