Event-ful week (5/52)

Event One

One evening during the past week, I happened to climb abroad this contraption, which would elevate me to my destination nine stories up on that building. Confined along with me, at that time, in that three-by-three space, where a family of three, including a teenage girl. They were the original occupants, with me intruding upon their familial space.

To say that I stunk would be an understatement. In turn, this made the matter of our elevation a very unpleasant one. As the door was closing on their hind sides, two floors before I had to leave, I could see their torsos swelling with a fresh batch of decent air.

The reason for my foul odour was the brisk thirty minutes walk I took, just before climbing on to the contraption. I was dropped at Edappally Junction after a meeting, and I chose to walk to my place. I eschewed the option of taking a bus, or the more urban habit of hailing an Uber, as suggested by my wifey, who has made Uber travel a routine.

***

Event Two

So after around a decade of dilemma, my parents have finally booked a Honda City. Going to sleep with a decision to book the car, only to wake up with a decision to delay the execution of the previous one was a recurring theme at home. With the car now booked, the question of where to apply for loan was quickly finalized. (SBI, of course!!!). Hearing this, a banker friend of mine, suggested that her bank had an offer for people booking Toyota Cars. When I asked her why this piece of information was relevant, she asked, "Isn't City a Toyota car?".

My palm could not have hit my face any faster.

***

Event Three

How much time does it take to repair a punctured Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350? Around 3 hours.

Around 12pm, I leave home, pushing my fallen beast of 200kg. Over the next sixty minutes, I was turned away by three different puncture fixers saying that they have no idea how to remove the tyre from the vehicle. Eventually, I was pointed in the direction of the Enfield factory workshop.

At the workshop, they say they would  be happy to remove the tyre for me - but for a charge, and that they can't fix the puncture. I would have to take the disembodied wheel to the puncture repair shop, get it fixed, and bring it back - so that these people can help it take its rightful place.

That's how we got the answer as three hours.

***

Event Four

I went through the stuff I've written over the years here. Turns out that like always, the self-depreciating sense of humour in me was the winner for the most read post of "Ormayundo?". So what do I do about that? I went ahead and shared that link again. And WHOA!!! Did I just do that again?? :D

***

Event Five

To end today's session, let me recount something which happened just today morning.

We were on our weekly pilgrimage to the Mall of Lulu, Edappally, and were entering the shrine from the less used second entrance. Ammu was on the seat next to the driver. As soon as the car made the turn into that entrance, she said what has said multiple times to the Uber drivers, "Why are you taking the car in from here? You could have dropped us at the main entrance."

All I could do was look to my left - and stare at her - in disbelief.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Maybe something in between too (4/52)

Ammu has started her yearly jaunt to master the skill of piloting a gasoline propelled body with four circular extremities, used as a mode of daily transportation. Yes, it is that time of the year folks - the time to keep everyone safe at home - Ammu has started driving lessons. And to keep up with the other traditions of this festival, I've started my own ritual of having food from restaurants for most of my meals this week. 

You see, with lessons in the morning, she leaves home early, so that she can reach office on time after the class. Since I'm predisposed to all my meals being served hot, I'm left to my own devices to materialize something edible from the dosa maavu. And it is a standing ovation to my culinary skills that I've had breakfast from a nearby Vegetarian hotel for five days running. Hence, during the special week, breakfast has been switched from dosas at home to dosas at Aryas. (P. S. Why is every other veg hotel named so?) 

Coming to the similar matter of lunch, like many of you, I prefer to have my lunch being something which was not cooked and packed 5 hours ago. But unlike most of my colleagues, I eschew the office cafeteria and visit the Punjab House on Broadway (two minutes from my office at Menaka) for some tasty and authentic, yet sanely priced Aloo parathas. Hence, during the special week, lunch maintained its status quo. 

Dinner for the weekdays were as follows : Steamed Tapioca with Ammu's special chutney(at home), Steak (meeting a friend after two months), Grilled Chicken (as the same friend came over), Rice soup (at home). Yes, I prefer my rice to be stewing in its own broth, than being drowned in a sea of spices and vegetables. So, the score was evenly poised at 2-2, as we arrived at the Seventh day of September 2018, the Friday that just was.

Eat Kochi Eat is an amazing group of people who go about Kochi and let the world know about the amazing food available at various places. It so happened that they had put up a post on Rahmaniya Kethel's Chicken, which had the two of us scheming as to when to attack the place. What we failed to comprehend was that the same "scheming" was done by a lot of people - the people who had seen the same post as us.

Which brings us to the night of the same day, where the protogonaist duos of our story - hungry as hell - were unable to find a space to park with 500m of the place, let alone get anywhere near the queue formed outside the restaurant.

This was one of those moments in my life, where hindsight epiphanies from a hard lesson taught me what a simple forethought could have.

Lesson No 2: Never visit a restaurant in a hurry, especially when it has just been given a promotion on social media.

Lesson No 1: Try Uber/Swiggy First.

***

WHY I PREFER EATING FOOD FROM OUTSIDE AT HOME??

[aka Why I have food delivered?]

1. Provides Jobs.

When food is cooked at my home, it employs only two people. And since they already have other jobs, this one is not of the paying kind for them. But if I eat roti from outside, I'm helping in making sure that some figurative rotis reach some homes.

2. Saves resources.

The best way to save resources is by making optimum utilization of the same. And that is achieved to a larger extent by consolidating the end use. So, eating food from outside helps in saving resources.

3. Saves time and money.

Compared to the home delivery concept, the act of dressing up, fighting traffic to get to the place, finding a parking space, getting a table, having the food, coming back home fighting traffic again - all with the chance of getting sidetracked into shopping - taxes your time and money.

Now onto the real reason why I gave these flimsy excuses.

***

I know people who are committed to home cooked food. Those who have grown up in such an environment will presume that this is the normal order of society. If they are not willing to adapt/alter themselves based on new information, they will look at the world with a prejudice that will place me on the wrong side of natural law, as far as they are concerned.

So when I'm having food from outside, the fact that there is no direct/indirect discomfort to them is irrelevant. Their presumed notion of social order is broken, and hence they feel irked by it. They might respond by reprimanding or shaming me. That is not okay. And it has to stop.

A step towards stopping such prejudiced behaviour was taken by our Supreme Court this week. Beating the depreciating Rupee and the appreciating Petrol to the punch of the week is the order which states that "Being Gay in India is not a criminal offense."

 

But just decriminalizing is not enough. The first battle has been won, but the war is still on. And for them to walk with pride, we must bury our prejudice.

***

As for what we did when we couldn't get into the place of our choice on Friday, we went to a nearby restaurant and had some parotta & that thing which caused the floods in Kerala. And during the special week, Hotels edged out Home food by 3-2 for dinner.

 

 ***

To right the write things at the right time is hard - 3/52

HALT!!!!

Art thou a consumer of online content??

A lost, lonely soul looking to while away time perhaps.

A purveyor of the virtual media at least

Well, you have come to the right place. Now I ask not much from you. Just please don't concentrate on the meaning of the words as you read the next few paragraphs - just try to hear them out in your mind.

***

It's hard two find someone who is willing to put down they're sells these days. Hour present generation is more interested in clicking the picture off the flour, instead of noticing the beautiful be collecting honey from it. Knight and day, they no know other activity than to will away their time on they're sells. Most would rather be at home in their cell than meat a friend, or weight to sea the son set at the beach.

Ass you can sea from the charade we have had above, one of the bear necessity in mastering the English language is two understand the difference in meanings between similar sounding words. Their will always be someone who feels that this is a pretty basic skill set, acquired in the nascent stage off learning the English language, but to right the write things at the right time is hard.

For example, if you are blindly taking down notes dictated buy your lecturer, without spending considerable effort too discern the same before using the pen, you might make the same mistake Eye have been purposefully making since the Italics began.

***

Even though this was supposed to be the bit before I stumbled upon the big topic for the day, typing out the above sentences made me realize something. There are no red squiggly lines in whatever I have written in Italics.

Which means that the average spell checker would not understand the difference between these Homophones - which means that if I'm not careful, I could be exposed for not having the strong control of this language that I usually flaunt.

We have this English Nazi friend, Ms.Viji. Don't be mislead by the "Ms" in front, she is way over sixty. I meant kilograms.

Well, she has this (nasty habit / great practice) of pointing out the mistakes made by others while wielding the English language. It's a great practice when she is applying it on someone else, and a nasty habit when the guns are trained on you.

Among the trio of us - Vg, Ammu and myself - the one who is at the end of the Nazi's wrath most often is my lovely wife. Since Ammu works in Digital Marketing, she spends a lot of time conversing in English - both in written and verbal formats. So by the time she lets herself free from the throngs of work, her mind switches off the auto-correct feature - which in turn makes her commit more mistakes than is necessary to tick off the Nazi.

So, it was with great joy that Ammu told me this past week that she could kick the metaphorical backside of her friend for committing such simple mistakes in the Insta story that the said person put up for a friends' birthday. The person who got a whupping was of the opinion that "you're" and "your" are interchangeable. All I would like to say to her is that "Your note write".

And it is from this spark that this fire was born. And I would like to thank all the embers involved, for it has helped me write the third part in this package with much joy.

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.

Lessons from Crisis - 2/52

Universe >> Milky Way >> Solar System >> Earth >> Asia >> India >> Kerala.

That's the address for my Home State of Kerala.

This year, on 25th of August, this small state of 14 districts was planning to celebrate the harvest festival of Onam. And as you might have already heard, all such plans were cancelled because of the worst flood to hit this side of the country in over a century.

Having received heavy monsoon rains for over two weeks, 35 of the 42 dams in the state had to be opened, which resulted in flooding of the low lying areas. Kerala is known for receiving heavy downpour during this season, but a three fold increase in rain was too much to handle. We experienced first hand the power of water to bring life to a halt.

A death toll of 375+; over 3 lakh people being evacuated from their homes and being housed in over 5000 relief camps across the state; landslides across the state making many areas inaccessible for relief and rescue; entire homes getting submerged in water, soaking every piece of material possession that family had.

My relatives have had water rise up to the roof level of their house, leaving mud on each and every piece of garment they have. I have colleagues who could do nothing but watch helplessly as water engulfed their newly constructed house. I know people who had their entire stock of wares get waterlogged in a matter of hours.

People were stranded in their own homes for days- with no power supply, no clean water, meagre food supply and no knowledge of what was happening elsewhere. To come back from the haunting memories of that trauma would require herculean efforts.

No one in this part of the world knew of a disaster of such proportions, but if you look at the way the entire state swung into action for rescue and relief, you would have been mislead to believe that they handle these situations on a regular basis.

As the water recedes, leaving in its aftermath tales of grief and misfortune, we as a State are determined to rebuild on the positives.

• Like how social media can be a powerful tool in such events, playing its' part in co-ordinating rescue activities and distribution of relief materials.
• Like people setting aside their differences in ideologies - religious and political - to help each other in this time of need.
• Like the Mr.Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram District, trying to get help from UN and WHO, in his own individual capacity and on his own expenses.
• Like the credibility shown by the Media houses to nip in the bud many fake news being spread on social media.
• Like the maturity of the Keralities to ignore the mass hatred shown on social media towards Kerala at the time of distress to concentrate on those who needed their help. And I must equally compliment them for making sure that these comments are not forgotten now.

I can show you hundreds of pictures and stories showing the havoc caused in Kerala. Instead I chose to let you see the following pictures, which lets us know that humanity still exists. 

1. Saying Thanks to the REAL SUPERHEROES. The Fishermen community was in full force at the water logged places, taking the lead role in the rescue operations. Their efforts were, and will never be forgotten.

2. Saying THANKS for the Chopper Rescue. With their home becoming an island, people were forced to climb on to the roof to escape the rising water. And they were rescued by the brave sons of the country using Helicopters.

3. Showing the way forward. The calamity has hit the state during festive season. Even though a decision was taken unanimously to not celebrate the same at the usually grand levels, the following picture from a relief camp reminds us how we used to celebrate - together.

4. Every rupee counts. The magnanimity of an eight year old, Ms.Anupriya in donating her entire savings towards the relief fund overshadows the lack of central aid and rejection of foreign aid. And the response from the company is truly amazing.

5. Techies to the rescue. Not every man can tame the sea, but everyone can help those capable to do so. These brilliant minds decided to help their brethren by making these effective power banks to be airdropped at the rescue locations.

***

The JK (pheno)Menon

When I heard that this person bought a Force Gurkha, I thought WHY??

When he pulled the following stunt by crossing a river using that Gurkha, I again thought WHY??

When he saved dozens of lives and helped in distribution of relief materials using the same Gurkha over the last week, I knew WHY.

Reboot - 1/52

As any IT support guy worth his hardware will tell you, if something is inexplicably wrong with the way things are now, just reboot the entire system. More often than not, things will start writing again.

So, yeah. We are trying to restart this conversation again.

***

It has been over a decade since I first blogged. Thankfully, I was blessed with the power of hindsight to delete them. The rest of the wrecks from that era are lodged in the drafts sections, serving as reminders of what not to write.

I will confess. I've had multiple blogs - trying to crave a niche. There was one in which I decided to document my daily life. It didn't click, but I find that it is working for some people now.

Then there's this blog - where I experimented a lot, and found a lot of joy and acknowledgement. I wrote continously, once a week, for over two years. And it was well received. I was evergreen blessed with regular readers.

This challenged me to make every blog interesting for them. And one of the most interesting blogs I wrote was one in which all sentences were questions. I liked having that challenge over the two years.

*Enter stage right - The year 2015.*

*Exit stage left - Time.*

So, in the first quarter of the year 2015, two monumental things happened - I joined the banking sector, and I got married. Now, people will tell you that working in Banks is hard. Others will tell you that getting married is hard. And I had to work through both.

Now, Ammu is a darling. The only problem I had with marriage is that everyone expected me to be this different person overnight. I was (still am to a large extent) this kid in a guy's body. I was inquisitive but withdrawn; playful but respectful; and always strived to keep maturity at an arm's length, because I thought it didn't suit me.

I chose to believe that I handle situations with a particular charm with these characteristics of mine. But, to be a functional member of this society, I had to make compromises over the last three years, and I'm glad to let you know that a sweet spot has been arrived at.

So the two changes that I went through in 2015 heaped on me enough challenges, to make the thought of being creative on this online platform a chore. That's why I consciously chose to withdraw from my blogging spree.

***

Today is the Eighteenth of August, 2018. My Ammu's age is technically being incremented by one today. So, I started off writing this blog as a gift to her. She loves reading what I write and I love to write for her.

But that's when a grander idea hit me. This will be the first part of a 52 part gift that I will give her for next year.

***

Obviously this blog was supposed to be uploaded one week before. But I chose not to do so, as unrelenting rain led to floods throughout Kerala.