All the best for a fellow FUM

He took a brave step...and I hope this is just the beginning of many more things to come...

All the very best Sidin...

P.S. - Also happy to know that you are going to write for Hindu and not for one of those tabloids :)

RDB

There is no point on cribbing about our system, unless you want to participate in the cleansing of it. One of my friends quit his job and joined a NGO and is doing something he preached, unlike most of us (including me), who say and write but when it comes to action...not yet there. The last time I was complaining of the Political class and their corruptuion, he said, dont sit in KL and pass comments, come here and start or join something which fights them.

There are lot of issues why we/I cannot jump into this. I cannot afford to leave a good job/pay and start something, which might not even get me one square meal a day. Our parents/family depend on us to see them through the rest of their lives. I think these are reasons good enough for us to not step into something like this.

Our time will come...maybe after 10-15 years...I still remember our NTSE camp in Thrissur in 1995, where during the course of some studies and lot of fun, I met up with some really strong characters. I do not know what those guys are doing now. One guy whom I cant forget is, Arvind Menon. I guess my memory is good enough for me to remember names. He went to the stage and made a very strong speech, which impressed one and all. We (some of us from KV Pattom) were talking of general stuff and decided to form a party called People's Party of Kerala. Well, now when I look back, I think we should have started it. I dont have any clue where this guy is now. He was from Cochin. I am sure Bala must have some idea on his whereabouts!!!

Inquilab Zindabad! India needs a second revolution to cleanse the corrupt political class...

Some Interesting and Important Pictures

This is the Indian Restaurant on the basement of the mall. Thats Ayyapan, who is in front. He and one of his colleagues in that restaurant came over to my apartment to watch the Indo-Pak cricket matches.

Claim to Fame : Thats where I sometimes have my 3 meals




The pic below is of a house, which is on top of some pillars, standing on a small hill in Petaling Jaya. The guy chose that plot and made it stand on those pillars. He is crazy about pillars you see.

Claim to fame : He is the Chief contractor for pillars in Flyover work in KL!!!




Finally our man, Aaru. No not named after the Surya movie (yes I have seen more Tamil movies that you can actually think). Works in Philippines, where he doesnt get to see so much of Indian food. So hogs like crazy when he comes to KL, which is once in a month.

Claim to Fame : President, Students Association 2003, RECT

Friends and Wedding

“When I was growing up, I didn't have a normal mom and dad, or a regular family like everybody else, and I always knew that something was missing. But now I'm standing here today, knowing that I have everything I'm ever gonna need... You are my family”

Well this is what Phoebe says on her wedding in Friends. My favourite character in Friends is Chandler, for his smart comments and for his trying hard to be funny. But Phoebe is one weird character in the soap. Each one of us have these weird things to say and think once in a while, only problem with her is that she is like that always.

I wanted to write on weddings and how I missed one of my close friend’s, for a long time and as luck would have it, when I switched on the TV, I saw this particular episode of Friends in TV. So here I am…

One of my roomies, Pal got married couple of days back. I knew that he was getting married this month, but I completely forgot about it. Not that I was planning to go to India for that, but for the fact that I wanted to call him up and chat up with him. Just be part of his happiness for sometime. I did call him up today morning and he was in Goa. It was nice to hear his voice, but I felt “you-know-the-kind-of-feeling-I-cant-describe”, when he recognized my voice, when all I said was Hello. It took me back to those days we had all spent in “Happy Valley”, that’s the name of our apartment complex in Thane. Those movies we frequented in the multiplex, those Royal Stags we opened and poured into the 3 similar and 1 different small glasses we had at home, those walks to the Garden View restaurant for Chai and sutta, those morning rush to catch the Patni bus and the evening arrangement for dinner. Well some memories can never be re-lived.

He is a married man now. God! And in couple of years he will have kids. They might not come back to India, if his work keeps him there in US.

And couple of days back, I was chatting up with another close friend of mine, who is married and is also in US. We were generally talking stuff on life and movies and dinner and how she has become an expert in makin Fish curry and how guys are good at making only one thing in the kitchen, no not “mess” – Egg Curry. You can check with a lot of guys on what they are good at cooking. Don’t be surprised if they say Eg Curry. There is something between Guys and Egg curry.

So we were generally, discussing stuff on marriages. I was telling her that I would be tying the knot in the next 2 years. She gave me some advice on the whole thing and told me about life after marriage. Her final line made me think. She said sex isn’t everything; there are many things which will matter after you get married.

I was stumped. Ya there is definitely something about our marriages, right. I might know that only after I get married I guess. To top it I read this story on Lisa Presley’s fourth wedding, attended by all her ex-husbands, her two kids and the best man for the wedding was her ex-husband, father of her two kids. I fail to understand, why is it that they are not able to adjust their lives with the situations and people.

Different shades

Its raining here

And when it rains it pours...

Reminded me of the rainy season in Kerala with special visual effects (Lightning) and sound effects (Thunder)

In this Taxi you are not allowed to...

RECT...the link continues

I dont buy the newspaper daily, as I think half the stuff is rubbish which I do not read anyways and the only time I read is in the loo. I have Bunker 13 also lying in the loo, which I have just started. So today morning in the loo session I realised that Rang De Basanti is running in Mid Valley...wow. If I had known this like yesterday, I would have gone and watched it...going alone is a pain but when you have no choice it is ok.

So after the morning breakfast I was on my way to the office when this guy approached me.
"Are you from REC Trichy"
"Yes, very much"
"Well thought so, I remember seeing you there"
Thats how it started...and it turns out, he is a junior of mine, Kutty and Vineesh's batch...Kutty do you know him his name is a rather long Tam name...but he calls it short and sweet as any Tam in South East Asia does...Aru...I think its arumugham...2003 batch Chemical...currently working as a consultant with a company called ECCI Consultancy. He is placed in Philippines but keeps coming to Malaysia. His office is in the same floor as mine.

Well my morning has just been made by this little acquaintance. Hope to go for Rang De Basanti with him!!!

Size does matter!!!

This is the parking lot when empty at the Largest Ikea Showroom in Asia...

Notting Hill

Wanted to write something on life in RECT but this movie was playing in TV3. I don’t know how many times I have seen this movie in full as well as in bits and parts. It is not a great movie, but it is one movie which makes you feel good, atleast some parts of the movie do.

If you look at the story this is like a guy’s fantasy come true. A famous actress, chance meeting and happenings, she finds happiness in your simple life and friends, comes over to stay at your place, misunderstands you, goes away, she comes back into his life, she dismisses him, she comes back and he dismisses and finally a climatic ending.

“Aint no sunshine when she’s gone…” is one beautifully picturised song. Hugh Grant plays the loser guy and with his loser friends in a completely loser life and he is not unhappy running the “Travel Book Company”. If something like this were to happen to me, then I would wish the actress to be Julia Roberts itself. She is too cute and her smile is just amazing.

Some of the dialogues towards the end are pretty neat.
“I am fairly level headed bloke…”
“Can I say no to you?”
“I live in Notting Hill…you in Beverly hills. The whole world knows your name and my mother has trouble remembering my name…”

And Julia Roberts with the amazing smile in between a heavily emotional voice says something like…“I am a girl, standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.”
Well I should say lucky bloke Hugh Grant!

Malaysia Snippets 2 – Eating out, Petaling Street, Good deed and Holiday Crazy Country

These Malaysians love to eat out and when I say eat…they eat non-vegetarian for breakfast, lunch, dinner and if there is any other opportunity to eat in between, then also. One of my friends took me out to this restaurant called Sri Paandis (well if there was a restaurant with this name in Kerala, it would have been at the receiving end of many a joke). I don’t know why Malayalees have this thing about Tams and Paandis in general…anyways the point is something else.

I have eaten nice slurpy meals in many a Tam and Mallu restaurant in India. But never in my dreams would I have ever thought I would see this sight. Imagine a Chinese family, sitting around a table, eating rice, sambar, and of course non-veg from a banana leaf!!! Well that is something I should say. Forget the Chinese, even a Sardar family. I have often seen that in India too, the south Indians prefer eating with their hands and the north Indians like to eat with the spoon. Ok this is a very general statement but even then, most of you would agree with me on this. So that was something.

Last Sunday went to a place called Petaling Street here in KL. This is a place where you would get stuff like clothes, shoes, bags, watches etc. So most of the people frequent this place just before leaving for their home country!!! The government has made this small area into a tourist attraction, so you have proper roof which is at a height of 2-3 floors. And guess what music they were playing when I went there – Dil To Pagal Hai.

There is a mall called Mid-valley close to my place. The designer company that is doing the interiors of my office has their office in the office complex of this mall. So we were in the basement parking about to park our car and saw this young girl walking around really worried. In between getting our vehicle parked in the huge and confusing parking lot, we saw this girl pass us atleast 2-3 times. So we thought we will get involved. The girl had forgotten where she had parked her car. All she remembered was that it was near a door and was in section 12. Ok, so there is not much we can do right. Please search. We go to the office, come back in 15 minutes and see this girl, still looking for her car!!!

Ok so we thought we should get involved. She thought someone had stolen her car. Well girls can be sometimes very clumsy with number. So we checked with her if it was 12 only. Coz if she has forgotten the number, then god only save her. So the car was red in colour, Proton Wira, no it did not have the remote locking system. So we told her that she can get into our car and we will go around the entire parking lot section by section. My friend told me that he has helped a lot of people in finding their way around the parking. Well it didn’t take us a long time to find her car. It was in section 11, near a door and wall, past which is 12. So she must have got past the wall, looked around thinking that it was 12 where she parked and got confused. Well she was so relaxed. She was like I thought the car was really stolen and all…we told her we do this to good looking Chinese girls around Chinese new year for blessings ;)

Have you heard of Thaipusam? Well chances are it is difficult if you are not from Tamil Nadu. And even if you have been in Tamil Nadu, say take my case, I was there for 4 years, and you might still not know what it is. I don’t remember getting a holiday for this particular festival. In Malaysia it is a national holiday. Can you believe that? For a festival of Tamilians for which it is not a holiday for the country or the state in India, it is a holiday for the entire country.

Of Tags and Girls

Well personally I don’t like Tags. I think it’s the blogs version of a forward mail or spam! Now why would anybody tag others?

Coz they don’t have anything else to write

Coz they want to know something which the blogger never touches upon

Coz of the human tendency of curiosity

Coz you want to know the opinion of your blogger on this specific topic

Coz you want to show others that you have ten bloggers to tag and passively ask, how many do you have?

So I won’t continue the tag.

But, I have been reading some blogs and I have seen this particular tag being written about by guys as well as girls. I couldn’t resist but make a few comments on certain blogs.

Now since it is about the opposite sex and writing how you want your partner to be. I find the girls to be too ideal. Ok, my friends have been mostly guys and very few girls. My group of friends in Engineering as well as MBA has been a circle of guys who had minimum interaction with girls. Well, we never thought that was important. It was quite normal. We would notice the attractive ones, through nudges and eye talk. Though I used to screw up the clock positions (you know the 6’o’clock and 10’o’clock thing), that was a good methodology adopted by guys in general. Booze and movies, watching friends and movies in crowded rooms, playing footer volley and sleeping without taking baths, sometimes more than 2-3 guys in single rooms was very normal.

So coming back to the point, the wish list that I have seen in blogs of some of the girls (I think I have seen 2-3, I know that’s not a good number to make an assumption, but I am not making an assumption, I am just giving my point of view, I guess that’s the reason I signed up for this blog). Here is my take on some of the comments by these girls

Most of them want us to be sensitive!

Ouch! Well I find silence and indifference to be the most common quality in guys I know. It is not that I always knew the happening guys, but it is quite natural for us to react to the same situation in 2 different ways/emotions at two different point of time. Ok you want to know the reason, very simple, I don’t know. Yes some football/cricket matches make us emotional. Yes we cry but it would be nice if you don’t point it out to us and just let it pass as normal.

I want my guy to be funny!

Yes marry a circus clown then. Better still Shekhar Suman/ Siddhu/Cyrus Broacha. Give us a break, all of us are not funny all the time. It is like sachin’s form, brilliant sometimes, forgettable otherwise. Take us the way we are. If on one holiday you had him cracking a lot of jokes then maybe next time you would find him silent. Reason – Well I was enjoying the drive, nice landscape. So was silent in the entire trip. Now how in the world can that mean that I am upset about something? Maybe one beer or one cigarette can set things on fire again.

I want my guy to be rich and have a car etc!

One of the DJs here made a remake of one of the popular numbers “Don’t you wish your boyfriend was fat as me, don’t you wish your boyfriend had more money” I think he was echoing the thoughts of girls in general. You know what, when you are brought up the hard way, make your own way through the jungles of entrance exams and campus placements earn enough to buy a car, you think I would like to give you a ride just coz you were looking out for a prince charming to drive you around in a Ferrari. I would rather get couple of friends and hit the highway.

Not snore!

Oh c’mon. So what if we snore. I know a lot of girls who wouldn’t mind this particular phenomenon in guys. They too just fall fast asleep, as soon as they hit the sack. If you girls keep a condition of snoring, the subset formed from the superset of studs would be alarmingly small, believe me.

Now, here is a list of clarifications from us guys…

1. Yes we can forget certain important dates and anniversaries. But we don’t get late for our appointments, rather we try to be on time.
2. No we don’t sleep with every girl we think looks attractive. Do you think girls are that easy!!! If you do, you are stupid.
3. Ya so what if we find other girls to be attractive. Some girls have good legs, others good lips, some of them have a good smile. We do admit that we are not Tom Hanks.
4. Football matches are of 90 minutes, which can go overtime by 3-4 minutes. There are 11 players in each team and the best matches are played in Europe, so there is a time difference, hence most of the matches are either prime time (so please excuse us from using the remote) or late nite (the crowds are noisy and it is boring watching in mute).
5. Boozing once a week doesn’t make you a drunkard. Beer is after all Barley water. I do agree that too much of anything is bad for health aswell as family life.
6. I think however tough a guy is from the outside, he will have a soft corner somewhere inside. Remember, even Federer cried…

Yes I have a car but I don’t drive, hope she will drive!

Yes I snore and hope she doesn’t mind!

Khudahafis!!!