The Eighth Habeet

Its been more than a month since I blogged. The reasons are listed below:
(1) Travelled to Kerala for a cousin's engagement.
(2) Travelled to Goa for obvious reasons. (Break from what ever I am doing, being the prime reason)
(3) Travelled to Mysore with family over the weekend, last weekend or was it the one before?
(4) Travelling around the city as part of work.(That hardly qualifies, but reasons are also excuses.)
(5) Reading
(6) Movies
(7) Travelled to WonderLa(thats hardly a reason, but to make the next excuse an even number)
(8) and finally laziness.
I shall add a few photos from the Goa trip ans Wonder La trip, to conform with the shop- worn phrase, "a picture is worth a thousand words."

One Year Older.....

Yesterday I turned one year older. Messages and calls flowed in, the whole day from all over. Much thanks to all my well wishers. Though it wasnt anything special, the day as such. The usual happened work, chai in the morning, informing my clients that we would be launching a gold fund soon, some gossip on the latest movies, meeting friends for lunch and dinner.

Thought I would treat myself to couple of new books at Premier, but forgot to carry my coupons care of the KQA. That was a disappointment.

Everyone at office was quite gung ho that I had turned a year older. The joke around office is that I turned 32, a reference to my balding pate and other characteristics of what is generally seen in what they term affectionately an "Uncle". Jokes apart I have turned a decade younger than the aforementioned number. As Mr A, a colleague of mine puts it, age, is after all a number.
A first of its kind was witnessed by yours truly yesterday. I cut my first birthday cake! Surprisingly I cant remember having cut a cake during the whole process of having existed so far in my life. Thanks again to everyone in office for that distinction. Apart from having cut the cake, it was me who also the chose the cake, another dubious distinction in professional quarters. The day also left me richer with a Pepe short shirt, slightly in line with shirts worn by Jaswant Singh, the ones with flaps on the shoulder blades. Though his shirts donot have any juvenile slogans and designs!
Birthdays are also a time to reflect on the past and what can be witnessed in the future. So heres to a great year ahead. Cheers.

P.S.- Saw Pirates the Third today. Quite Bollywood in nature with a "Dus Saal Ke Baad" end after the credits. The high point for me would be Keith "Dark Prince" Richards appearing as Sparrow's father, pickin' at the guitar(Spanish?) with the usual aplomb of a sinister wizard. And of course Jack, himself and his dainty moves around the screen.

P.P.S- This made my day. At the back of an auto, "Aunty Joot, Uncle Tus"

Kozhikode Welcomes You.

In Kozhikode right now, had to attend a marriage of a cousin. Came by Rajahamse, the semi deluxe KSRTC bus. Like always I managed to pick a seat which was located in between two windows with neither opening out near me leading to my sweat cells (what ever they are) working over time. Finally having managed to wedge a part of the glass open things started to seem better, but for some guy behind me who was probably returning from a trip round the Sahara, who wanted the window to be shut. Ignoring his frantic nudges at my hand didnot work my way and he finally prevailed, closing the window completely. Sleep was not the first thing on my mind at that moment, considering that I was being stifled to death. Anyway the blood did cool down later, aided by some ice cold mango crush.
I managed to finish a couple of chapters of that infamous book by Dr. Gonzo before nodding off. The first pitstop for loosening bladders and revitalising the senses was some place just before Mandya, a dirty dingy establishment filled with Malayalis on the way to Talassery, Kannur and my destination(also present spot where I am writing now from). Most men after hurrying down their food were heading to the lone cigarette shop, probably their last smoke for some time(eons apparently for them).
I quickly settled back in my seat and let the movement of the bus rock me back to sleep.

Kozhikode appeared faster than it seemed it would. It was also hotter than expected. The pores just let their sluice gates open, they knew they had no control over it. Five minutes in the sun and it was like I had just stepped out of a shower. It was torrid to say the least.
The morning was occupied with a pre marriage ceremony. The rites having the least of anything to do with me, took ages to finish. What saved the day was the food. The food was just wondrous. Rice covered in thick sambar, with a variety of dishes decorating the periphery of the aforementioned rice. The smell of coconut grated and cooked to perfection in ghee, banana chips, rasa kalan, and other condiments. The rest, is a gastronomic journey to truly understand the "naadan sadhya". To top it was the most heavenly payasam I had ever tasted, in recent times.

Post lunch the rites continued, but I had enough of that. Headed for a movie, its essential to watch a Malayalam movie when in Kerala. Saw Vinodayatra, starring Dileep, Meera Jasmine, Mukesh and a bunch of veteran comedians who would basically push the movie through till the interval with various antics and wordplay, essentially clearing the platform for the lead actor and actress to romance around till the end, peppered with various struggles through their lives, some contemporary issues like lawless demonstrators fighting the police and finally like it has always been atleast in most movies ALL OF THEM LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Well that wasnt an exact review of the movie. But it is quite watchable, the second half tends to border the situation where you are about to let out a sigh of relief and get up from the seat under the impression that the movie is over, but NO its not, this happened quite a number of times. But what really piqued my interest was the number of ads for gold and tiles before the movie started. And all of them sounded and looked the same with the same voice overs, hardly bringing out any message or individuality for the brand.

Anyway the marriage was today. Again the notable activities of the day were related to the stuffing of yours truly, breakfast and lunch.
Right now at a house of a relative's relative. Thats another thing to astounds me, how everyone has some kind of a connection with each other.
Waiting for the bus back home, at 21:00 Hrs. Another long back breaking journey ahead of me. Atleast tomorrow is Sunday... Can rest the whole day and then its back to work. That reminds me I need to buy some halwa and chips, quite a number of people are eagerly waiting to swoop down on that oily jelly like sweet which I hate. The chips will not last long though....i can eat most things which are fried.

Boogie Chillun'

Read an article on the blues in a Brit Folk music magazine. Though I forget the authors name, he writes about the new avatar of blues and how the old guys still influence the new breed in much the same way as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters re-created or re-stylised their predecessors music, who were mostly talking of their lives on the "Pickin' Fields". Anyway the author gives a brilliant tail-piece to his article which has been published below-
"There's more blues available to you today than there ever has been. Most of the giants, I grant you, no longer walk among us, and those of us old enough to have seen some are increasingly grateful for the experience. But if you want to immerse yourself in the subject from top to bottom, using all the media available to you, and still go out to get drunk and boogie occasionally, then the time to do it is , as it always has been, right now."
Will try to find the author's name and link soon.

Sat Tzu and the Art of 'Board' room Warfare

Heres a tip to do well, when you face corporate bored(ro)om. Play Monopoly in office! Thats what we did yesterday. The topic of discussion over coffee in the morning was a weird German sounding chess move which was brought into the topic as an analogy as to how Reliance screwed up some other company in the telecom indusrty, which made an abnormal twisted reference to my favourite board game MONOPOLY.
So we headed out to Sapphire on Brigade Road to purchase the deluxe version of the above mentioned game. The first step inside brought back memories of my pre-high school days when I battled alone in my mind with GI Joe and Cobra figures
Those youthful yet violent days have made way to board room warfares, of course these are choreographed on the table in our conference room; our artillery, money(of the fake pound kind) and our business acumen. Though most were not familiar with the nitty-gritties of the game they picked it well and proceeded to thulp the shit out of me, the apparent veteran on the Monopoly gaming circuit.Mr A and Ms AM teamed up to show us how a duopoly works by joining hands and building houses on sites which they jointly held. A considerable investment was made in developing the key sites of Park Lane and Mayfair, which proved beneficial at a later stage when all opponents including yours truly made uncanny rolls of dice to land exactly on the aforementioned sites.
A stupid move on my part to hand away Fleet Street with all its journos to Mr M in exchange for Liverpool Station turned out to be disastrous with the rest of the game slowly being taken over by the joint team of Mr A and Ms AM. Though Mr M made a few decisive blows intermittently, the impact on the financial prowess of A&AM was next to negligent.
The game finally ended with A&AM emerging on top of the corporate ladder with their assets closing at 10K Pounds, Mr M followed at 4K odd, yours truly with a respectable 3.8K and Mr S on the verge of filing Chapter 11.

Some one mentioned Apna Sapna Money Money as a parting shot to the days events. I shall stick to "Show me the money!"

Till the next board meet....