tedy kanjirathinkal

TUSGIR:The Unofficial Survival Guide to Indian Roads, Part 1 - Introduction

2009-12-22T11:22:00.001-08:00

I learned to ride a bicycle when I was around 10; and was promoted to an active cyclist by 12 when my father bought me a blue BSA SLR on the eve of Easter 1992 – my first public ride on it was to attend the Easter mass at our parish church.

The only ‘rules on the road’ I knew that day, were:

Ride on the left side of the road (courtesy my father)
Look both sides before you cross (courtesy my mother)

Simpler times, they were… and I did pretty well.

Later that year, one of my teachers at school posted a GK question: “How many of you know road rules?”
I shot my right hand up, beaming.
”Yes, Tedy”
”Miss, drive on the left side of the road, walk on the right side”
”Nonsense!!!”
”Eh!?” I was flabbergasted!
”Who told you all this?”
I kept quiet, and put up a ‘sad puppy’ face
”Alright, listen – you can walk on any side of the road – not just the right” (she pointed a not-as-this-idiot-says finger at me) “…and, you have to drive on the middle of the road!”
My jaw dropped, and eyes popped!

Life was great on the road - traffic lights were fantasies, seen only in movies, and it was an urban legend that the traffic policeman’s ‘dance’ was applicable only for motorists. We cyclists, impervious to rules, ruled the road. Some of us picked up many tricks, including ‘frightening’ the drivers of “KSRTC Superfast” buses on the NH 47.

Four more years later, at 16, I took the driver’s license test for under-50cc auto-transmission two wheelers, which are the only MVs permitted to be driven by 16 & 17 year olds in India. (No motor vehicles under 16; manual transmission LMVs from 18). It was then, I got a gist of what rules of the road could be, and I looked back at all those years I used the road with just two rules, and the rest based on a curious phrase called ‘common sense’.

But alas, the enlightenment didn't leave a lasting impact, as there was little opportunity to put them in practice. Since the rules were not really "enforced", the need to concur seldom arose; and moreover, if one took an initiative on himself to practice them no matter what, he never made it to the destination on time and in shape. Well, that's one item where karmic laws didn't really seem to apply :-) The law of large numbers too didn't make sense, as daily commutes never really add up to one long journey, but rather are individual entities with own goals.

At 21, I earned my license to drive manual transmission two wheelers and LMVs. And, to acquire it, interestingly, I took the test on an auto-transmission two wheeler (Kinetic Honda), and demonstrated a pathetic 15 seconds’ jerky ride on an ‘Ambassador’, where I stalled four times while shifting from 1st gear to 2nd, after which the next candidate was asked to drive. Thanks to the colorful world of bribes, my driving school instructors got me the license as was guaranteed when I enrolled with them. I learned no rules of the road during my entire training there – well, I didn’t learn to drive either!!! :-)

I learned to ride a manual transmission motorbike by myself, on the roads of Bhubaneshwar, when I was 22. A good friend’s battered Suzuki Samurai did the honor. Later that year, I bought my first motorbike, and soared the streets of Chennai. Still, not many rules! The only rules were, be alive, stop at a red signal if interested, and keep safe from the police. Chennai also taught tricks on how to handle policemen who solicited bribes with minimum drain from your wallet.

A big break was in the U.S.A, at 24, when I at last learned to drive an LMV. And with a sad heart, I realized that my common sense alone was not going to help much there, and that there indeed were rules, that they indeed were followed, that you indeed were expected to follow them, that they were enforced quite efficiently, and that bribes doesn't work on a policeman who spots your on a violation! A few years later, the U.K. too would confirm similar facts.

It is with such a realization that I hit the Indian roads again, on my Hyundai Santro, and began observing items that were taken for granted during the time I didn’t know of a world outside. And, with a big grin, I realized that we have a traffic world here – one of its own kind… of adventure, fantasy, comedy and drama!

Thus was born, The Unofficial Survival Guide to Indian Roads!

How I came to carry two mobiles!

2009-05-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

It was on Sat Aug 16, 2008, that I won the bidding on my "HTC touch diamond" from Ebay, for £295 + £15 postage. It was my first smart phone - well, just that in another two days, I painfully discovered that it was "smart", but not very much of a "phone". It showed me google maps when I needed direction, it showed my GPS position when I was lost in a forest, it helped me write documents and create spreadsheets while on the move, it helped me take notes, draw pictures, record videos, click snaps, listen to radio - yup - all the works - except that I prayed each time I made a call, or took a call! Yeah - it worked like a charm except for everything except "telephoning".

The complaints were of two kinds:
- The device hung randomly when I was on calls.
- I lost cell phone signal randomly, on calls or not
In both cases, I had to restart the phone (4 minutes) to get things working again.

I couldn't get a replacement handset from T-Mobile, as I had got this one off Ebay. Having not yet lost my tech-edge, I took it as a challenge to mend it rather than put my hands up - I observed the pattern of failures, I researched around, I tried to flash a new ROM, and I even changed the O/S from windows 6.1 to Android! I learned a lot in the process, got my hands burned too - I emerged wiser at the end, but the device remained the same! Can't call - can do everything else! :-)

After almost a year, I decided that its time to move on, as my professional requirements demanded a more reliable communication device. But I still needed a PDA, whose gap the HTC was so brilliantly taking care for the past one year! I researched each device out there in the market, but found that they were either too much of an investment at the moment, or too meager to meet my requirements.

At last, the Spock in me spoke - buy a cheap "phone" to meet your telephoning needs, and retain the HTC for your PDA needs. This resulted from logical conclusions from a number of parallel threads spawn to resolve the issues I faced with my communication device, against the solutions offered by the market, and my own engineering skills.

Having decided on a secondary phone, I started researching for the cheapest phone which could pass my communication requirements, which included an inbuilt speaker phone, a decent LCD screen, a versatile address book, and bluetooth, along with trendy looks. Although I could have opted for £10 phone, the alpha-arien in me just couldn't digest the idea! a I narrowed down on two phones - the Nokia Xpressmusic 5310, and Motorola RAZR V3i. I could have got one of them free with a subscription, but since I didn't intend to stay in the UK for a time period long enough, I chose not to go for a subscription one - my only option was to either buy a handset, or buy a pay-as-you-go (prepaid) bundle. Having done my research on all UK cellular service providers, and resellers, I roamed Ipswich town-center on Saturday, the 16th May, targeting each of their counters.

After spending around an hour scanning the counters of T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2, Carphonewarehouse and the likes, considering their prepaid options, and ruling out the locked cases (which I could get easily unlocked, but recently I had been making a few wrong choices - so didn't want to take the risk provided the pattern continues dictated by some unknown cosmic laws), I found that there was one handset available for purchase immediately, from carphonewarehouse, one that didnt suite everything - but one that suited the most - the Sony-Ericsson W580i, along with a Virgin plan, for around £80. I went to the lady over the counter -
"Good morning, I'd like to purchase a Sony Ericsson W580i with the Virgin pay-as-you-go plan"
"Sure", the sweet lady smiled.
I waited as she disappeared beyond a "Only Staff" door, to fetch my phone.
As she typed stuff on to the screen, I enquired "... and, this phone could carry any SIM, right? I have a T-Mobile"
"Oh yeah - anything - its not locked" and, she paused "um..."
then she continued hesitantly, her eyes fixed on the computer screen "why did you want a virgin plan?"
"'cause I found it the cheapest?!" (the phone alone came to £135.00, and with a plan, it was cheaper)
"No, Vodafone is the cheapest"
I looked back at the display where I found Virgin the cheapest, and narrowed my eyes
Then, with a smile, I turned to her "... then, vodafone it is!! Thankyou very much for mentioning"
"My pleasure" she went back to fetch my vodaphone package

A few minutes down the line, I emerged from the carphonewarehose showroom a winner, along with Subin a Nambu who had been helping me out make a choice all the while, took out the T-Mobile SIM from my HTC, plugged it into the Sony-Ericsson, and stowed the Vodaphone SIM into the HTC. (My credit card dropped down on its spending limit by around £80.)

I took a deep and contended breath, as the W580i came to life.

Later that day, I connected both the devies to my Toshiba Portégé, ran MS ActiveSync to get all my 580 contacts from the HTC onto my Outlook 2007, and then the Sony-Ericsson PC-Suite to get them all onto my new W580i. (Unfortunately, I don't have a data-plan on my company-provided T-Mobile, else I could have done a GoogleSync) The SMSs would now be taken care of the other software I have in place to browse the internal phone contents, but I'm now on a quest to see if I can get my T-Mobile SIM cloned, so that both my devices can have the same SIM for inherent benefits. Not sure if T-Mobile supports multiSIM (have heard so, with business accounts - one which I hold), but not sure how accurate the legal subscription is, to the lines of usage portrayed in Bourne ultimatum, or National Treasure 2 - but, however it is, I'm sure of one thing - I'll anyway be politically correct - one thing my profession has instilled in me!

Thus, I, Tedy Kanjirathinkal, became the carrier of two mobiles!

"Numbers": How they change perceptions!

2009-02-11T05:40:00.000-08:00

It was lunch time, and during general chit-chat, I broadcasted to the crowd around the table, my latest addition to the fitness regime - 20 push-ups and 20 sit-ups every morning, with an aim to raise it to 100 gradually in two months' time!

And, guess what the first response from an overwhelmed colleague was?! "How do you find time for all these!!" A couple of heads nodded along, as if, yeah! How do you!!?

I was puzzled, but then answers have to be answers... so, I went something like this -
"Do you know how much time it takes to do a single push-up action?"
"2 seconds?"
"Yeah - pretty much - make it 3 if you really want to squeeze those muscles. So, how much does 20 push-ups take?"
"3 x 20 = 60 seconds"
"Exactly - it takes only a minute extra from your regular chores to do it - add a minute or two to preparations etc, so if you set your alarm to, say, 3 minutes earlier than your regular time, you can do 20 push-ups every morning!"
"Hmm... true"

How perceptions change when you talk in terms of numbers, or say, when facts are laid across bare!

Simple analogy, but wide possibilities! Look at the following typical questions, from across walks of life:

Why should I switch off my computer, or say, lights or fan or whatever, when not used? What difference can it make!? (think a billion of yous doing it)
How would a sachet of sugar less in my cofee help me in my fitness!? (put 60 sachets (a month's set-aside) together, and lets see how much of sugar it amounts to!)
Oh my God, its a long walk! (dude, its just 2 kilometers - you used to walk even more, to school, when you were a kid)
How do you drink that black tea without sugar? (ahem, well, its more of an acquired taste - remember the first time you tasted alcohol? It would have been like "yuck, how do you guyz drink this?!" And now, you might just be drinking and making merry everyother day!)
Oh, I've worked out a lot today (dude, your treadmill says its just 50 cals!!!)

Nah... you wont turn into a machine, or loose your human nature, or loose fun in life if you think numbers or facts where they are required :-)

5 addictions of life

2008-10-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

Alright, been long since I'd been consumed heavily by work; and my good little friend Cris has nudged me, with a rather loud "Oy! wake up!" :-)

:-) thanks, Cris... for the nudge... and more than that, for caring to...

Well, okay, the tag is to list 5 addictions of life... and here I go...

1. Family chat: Talk to my entire family at least once a day, where ever on the globe I am; an addiction since around 2003; gets all jittery if not done - really, can't sleep :-))

2. Undulations of craziness: Need a change of seasons along with the nature, and each season has its own tinge of madness - sometimes work itself... sometimes art... sometimes health... sometimes literature... sometimes music... They all come and go in a rhythm, to return again; I'll go crazy if they don't i.e., if they don't undulate - and that undulation itself has become the addiction!

3. A little discipline: Hates over-sleeping, sleeping during the day, being late, breaking promises, not washing the dishes you soiled, and not cleaning up the mess you created.

4. Pizza: A true addiction - can eat it for all three meals, and even for snacks :-)) Although an Italian item, my choice is the Americanized version, specifically the thick-crust ones from Papa Johns & Dominos, and that too, the ones they make in the USA (yeah, I don't really like the ones they sell elsewhere in the world - believe me; however justified, it tastes different)

5. Ice cream: Vanilla, with a tinge of chocolate in it. Yup, can keep on eating dawn till dusk! :-) Prefers Cornetto cones and Magnum sticks for their taste and convenience :-) Oh no no, I'm not an brand ambassador of Unilever's heartbrand :-))

Now, I'm passing on the tag to five of my pals; you're tagged, guyz: :-)

1. Nithin
2. Aneeshji
3. Alco
4. Vini
5. Sreenath

;-)

The "late" Indians: a quiet retrospection

2008-09-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

This may sound rude or offending to some, but tell me, when's the last time you had attended a function or a meeting, with all the "Indian" attendees arrived on time? Well, my motive here is not to condemn this trait or anything, but instead, to take an interesting perspective on it.

An event pops in to my mind as I ponder more on this topic: I slept over at a friend's place on a Friday, and the referred-to episode happened the following morning around nine, as we sat sipping coffee at the living room, frisking the newspapers. My friend's elder brother and family too had come over the previous day, as they had to attend a wedding in town. The wedding was at 9:30, and there was around half an hour's drive to the venue. The elder brother had a son, aged five.

So, around 9:00, the boy tells his father "papa, lets go, or we will be late"
The father, without lifting eyes off his magazine, replies, "Its okay; no one would arrive at the scheduled time. If we are on-time, we will be the idiots"
The son, having received a precious piece of advice on life, picks up a kids' magazine and squats at the veranda. In time, he would pass on this little advice to his next generation (if not learned otherwise in due course), as his father got it from his, and he from his.

Amongst us Keralites, the dialog mentioned above is quite a popular one. Its one of the greatest pieces of advice passed on from generation to generation, equipping people to live a smart life on land. This advice and the related practice, though frowned upon by some idealists, is not considered an evil in the society (you know, each society has its own culture eg: Say "dating" in India, people freak out, while its a way of life at most places in rest-of-world; say "late" in England, people freak out, while its a way of life at some places in rest-of-world); its just that everyone "knows" that others will be late, and hence smartly adapts to the scenario.

Now wait! "Everyone knows that the others will be late"? hmm.. interesting! Being a man of science, I can't help not breaking it down into an equation, and analyzing further.

Let's take two people: 'x' and 'y', positioned at two different families. They both are to attend a function at a time 'z'. Now, 'x' thinks that 'y' would be late, and hence gets himself late to handle it smart. In the meanwhile, 'y' thinks that 'x' would be late, and hence gets himself late in response. Both turn out to be right, as the other person was late.

But hold on, isn't there something wrong? Its a freakin' catch-22 situation!!! 'x' was right about 'y', because 'y' was right about 'x',
Putting it into an equation, if ψ denotes "was right about", and β denotes "because", then,
(x ψ y) β (y ψ x)
=> x ψ y β y ψ x
=> x (ψ y β y) ψ x
=> x (0) ψ x , because (ψ y β y) is just vanity (~ bullcrap).
=> x ψ x

i.e., 'x' was late for the function, because he was late for the function!!! The other person, parameter 'y', doesn't really play a role at all in this phenomenon, as 'y' nullified itself in the equation - its just a "temporary hypothesis" borrowed to prove the phenomenon. In other words, "the others would be late" is a 'hypothesis' brought in to set up this social institution of justifying oneself to be late, and prove that one was quite right in doing so. You take out that hypothesis, and it all breaks down!

Ah! the vanity!!!

Tail piece:
Hmm.. what if I once become the President of India, and proclaim on the Republic day to the nation, "dear all, according to the recent secret survey conducted, your fellow citizens have informed my team that they wouldn't be late anymore from the 27th of January, ie, tomorrow. You might want to plan accordingly."

Would everyone think from the morning of 27th, that "Oh, all would arrive at the scheduled time; its bad if we are late - lets go early", or would they think, "brrrrr... we know them - no one would keep their word; lets go late and prove we are right!"

:-)) the catch-22 might just continue to roll on...
oh, me the bloody pessimist!!!
LOL

"On the move" blogging

2008-08-30T02:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, now this might sound a bit like a technical boohoo, or like the confessions of a bloody technocrat a geek; but here I go... cant resist the temptation of just blabbering it out :-)

As I "write" this directly on to blogger.com, I'm cruising in a super fast "national rail" train to "Newcastle" in northern England, a place just below Scotland (to meet my cousine brother and his family). I started at 6 am from Ipswich, (South-east England); time is now 8:40 am, and I still have over another hour to reach my destination.

Gone are those days when train journeys used to be unproductive... Here I sit with my "HTC touch diamond" Pocket PC running windows mobile 6.1 (which also, by the way, serves as my mobile phone). Connected to the train's wireless internet, I'm browsing the net, scribbling emails using the stylus directly on to the touch screen which dynamically recognizes my handwriting and transcribes it into ASCII text...

I sit finishing off my spreadsheets and word documents and viewing pending powerpoint presentations using the installed MS office 2007 mobile suite! Entering text is a breeze with the transcriber, those days are already memory, when touch screens used to recognize scrits only character by character!

I check where my journey has reached, using the google maps application, zooming to the rail lines of England's map. I turn on the inbuilt GPS system, and a blue dot blinks to life, moving up north along the rail, indicating where I am, realtime! I switch to satellite-view mode, and the screen shows the beautiful green landscape through which the rail line runs like a vein! In the near future, probably I might even be able to see the train streaking along the vast green!

Phew!!! I remember the days of childhood - the early 80s, when I learned the alphabets on "slate"!!! How much has technology changed in a mere less than three decades! And I wonder, how much would it change in the next three... So much it may, that I might write once, about a younger generation "pocket pc" that I had in the 2000s!

Here I submit my first ever post "written" (literally!) entirely using a stylus on a palm-top device.
Amen!

Fearless!

2008-08-08T08:14:00.001-07:00

!Its called "fight or flight", and we all choose one of the two, when confronted with a hostile situation. We either avoid the situation, or decide to face it chin up.

What do you think the majority chooses? Lets take some situations, right from childhood (my non-Indian readers might not be able to relate to most of the following):

You are a 6 year old kid, playing in your front garden. A ragged man comes by, and peers over the fence. You study him for a few moments, he looks dirty, he has a rucksack, his hair long and grown, he looks at you and grins. Would you just resume what ever you were doing, or would you run back home to your parents?
You are a 10 year old kid, your class did something to irritate a rather violent teacher, and she is disciplining the entire class with a cane, delivering each blow on to the outstretched little palms with a ferocious face. You watch each blow, your friends' palms red and bruised, most of them crying with pain. As your turn nears, would your heart be thumping, or will you be stationed with a calm pose, ready to accept what ever would be delivered to you in the next few minutes? When its your turn, would you calmly stretch your hands with an expressionless face? Or would you be trying to escape the blows with quivering hands and teary eyes?
You are a teen fresh into college; on the second day, a bunch of seniors round you up for the so called 'ragging'. Would you piss in your pants, or stand up head high?
You are a young employee, and your boss gives you crap, treats you crap, you hate the job. Will you stand all the pain, or quit and get another job?

Cases go on... and most of us might react different to each of these, and we have our own honest reasons behind these. I'm not generalizing, but I did a short survey, presented these and a few other standard scenarios; for those who chose the "flight" option, I encouraged them to just imagine what if they had chosen the "fight" option. I helped them with scenes, descriptions and outcomes in the short-term and long-term. I also carefully noted down the anecdotes of those who had opted the "fight" option in their lives.

And, the result was something like this:

Flight: Those who took this option claimed to experience the following:

Short-term deliverance from the situation.
Constant fear of facing the situation once again in future.
Reduced levels of self-confidence.
Restricting self from involvement in any activity connected to the situation (I know someone who stopped going to beaches after he took flight from an incident at one)
Long-term sense of insecurity.
Inability to command respect, or inspire confidence and trust in others.

Fight: Those who took this option claimed to experience the following:

Possible short-term repercussions.
Ability to successfully deal any similar situation, or anything even remotely connected, anytime in the future.
A mammoth boost in self-confidence.
Long-term sense of security.
Command respect; others look up for courage, guidance and protection.

Many more exist in both buckets, but to summarize, flight (or in other words, fear) might provide you short-term reliefs, but plunging you into long-term suffering; while fight (or in other words, courage) might get you into short-term issues, but guarantees long-term glory.

Fear, quite an emotion in itself, at times narrows down to a deadly thing that can ruin an entire existance. Caution and care are good alternatives, but fear somehow seems to have a different purpose or perspective. Take the classic example of walking across a railway track, and suddenly finding the train around the corner. If fear grips on, you are paralyzed, your limbs give away, and you'll end up staring at the train and scream. Else, you'll just walk across in peace.

Again, interesting thing about fear is, that it seems to provide a false security of short-term gains. It lures its preys in, only to reveal itself in black some point down the line. Courage, interestingly, can not only provide what you think fear can, but even much more.

Well, at the end, it seems that its always your choice to make :-) After all, you 'start' like everyone else, you 'end' like everyone else... but between these two, what you are, how you are, and where you are depends solely upon you and your choices.

An interesting line from Gabbar Singh goes like this: "Jo dar gaya, woh mar gaya!" (meaning, if one gets frightened, consider him dead) :-)

Reminiscing a road trip

2008-08-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

[A memoir - a carefree, scattered email to Alco, sent on Jun 2nd 2008]

Three years ago, around this time...

Not sure if you remember,
but, it was three years ago, around this time, that we went on that legendary Chicago trip :-)

2005 May... It was the Memorial Day long weekend... we had been planning a trip for a couple of weeks...
We even went to the coffee place we use to haunt often (Mug Shots? ), and checked out places over the internet... noted down placed to visit... it was chicago, which we planned there..
But, nothing really got finalized... until everyone had already left for their long weekends...
We started to consider other options too... at the 11th hour... Utah..? :-))

Monday was the holiday... but most folks took the Friday too off, to add a day more to the holidays...
We didn't have any solid plans... but at the last moment, we too decided to take the friday off... I remember Sashi had dropped by in between, but fell off after a while...
We started burning CDs... borrowed few from Aneeshji too...
At last, around midnight, we set off from Irving... on a Buick Rendezvous... did some purchase off Walmart, had a heavy dinner from Steak and Shake...

You drove first... we switched hands somewhere while it was still dark... and then I drove...
We dropped first at Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, on the way... then we switched wheels again...
the stereo was playing songs from Udayanaanu Thaaram...

We passed St. Louis... I was sleeping when we passed the arch.... :-)) We stopped at a Fast food joint ( a McD? ) for a late lunch...
I drove for a while, I guess till we stopped for Gas at a country side... there was a beautiful farm house at the middle of vast green...

You drove... we entered Illinois... it was raining... there was a rainbow...
Had real fun with the soft drink cans... :-)) the rear of the SUV was filled with rattling empty cans of pepsi and lemon tea.

we were slowly nearing Chicago... we drove towards O'Hare... halted for the night at Elk Grove Village...
Had to drive around a while till we found a place to park our car...

Checked out of the motel next morning... went straight to downtown Chicago... well, soon we had got lost somewhere... pulled over at some gas station, and figured our way out...

Parked near Sears towers... checked out Sears' sky-deck and saw the entire vast of Chicago from sky-height; had long walks along the downtown... walked along river Chicago...
walked along the Magnificent Mile... checked out lake Michigan...
Visited the Buckingham fountain... walked along the park... saw a wedding party and their Limousine...
We checked back in to the motel at Elk Grove Village... kinda had lost our way a bit in between...

Started off morning next day... Visited some real beautiful villages on the way... a beautiful church, its graveyard... what was the town's name...? St. Marys..?
Dropped at Black Hawk's 'fort' too...
It was on this way, that we saw that Irish Pub, which said "May the roof above us never fall in & May we friends gathered below never fall out"... it was a beautiful place in blue, red and brown...
We then stopped by a small town called Galena... had a walk around... remember we had coffee at a place, which displayed the story of "Kaladi", the shepherd who discovered the coffee bean..?

We started off again, halted again to wet out legs at River Mississippi :-)

We drove overnight... it was the fourth day... we had started to feel exhausted, and yearned to reach home, to take a smooth nap :-)
By the time sun rose, we had reached Kansas City... drove around the city for a while, drove to one of the highest spots... took a look around... spotted river Kansas...
We were hungry by the time we started off... pulled over at an exit not far away, saw a flea market called "Merriam Marketplace"... I guess we pulled over at a Sonic's drive-in or something.. and got some deli...
By around afternoon, we took an exit which led us to Bonca City... a beautiful old town... we drove around... checked out the Marland Estate Mansion.. took the only photo in the trip where we appeared together :-))

We started off again, and joined the interstate back home soon... The stereo was playing "Chaanju nilkkana pootha maavinte"..

Oklahoma city welcomed us on the way... we checked out the "Myriad Botanical Gardens" at first... and drove to the bricktown....
exhaustion had consumed us... and we soon turned the wheels to hit the interstate again...

We pulled over somewhere near the texas border, into a Subway, where there was an extremely tensed rookie waiter boy... :-)
We joined the interstate soon... but unfortunately found ourselves in a loooooooooooooooong traffic jam, due to construction work... did we spend a couple of hours in it...?
Soon, the traffic thinned, and we were shooting out again.... and as night closed, the city lights of Dallas closed in... I35 gave way to I635... and soon it was McArthur... and then Hidden rdg, and atlast the Jefferson park apartments...

Whew!!! How much has life changed... wonder if days like those would ever come back... those were the best days of youth... days which are lost for ever, but whose very memory brings on a smile across the lips...

I wish Irving comes once again into our lives... sometime not too far away..., I mean, before its too late for a lighter life...
may be it would never... and life might have something else in store...
Still...............

The magic of incentives

2008-07-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

Sitting late at office is a common trend found among (very) young Indian IT professionals. There are many reasons why it is so, probably I'll have another article on it later, as it by itself is a topic worth writing. Anyways, everybody accepts that its not really good for both - the employee, as well as the employer. Its the employer who has the most obvious repercussions, and each keeps reminding their employees in various ways to get out of office in time, not to sit late, and have a life outside. Well, the trend hasn't changed a bit in the past many years I myself have been observing it; people still sit late - most of them, browsing the internet, or even playing games. I'm not considering the ones who genuinely work, in this article, that again would need another account of itself :-).

Now, if you go and ask many of these folks why they sit late at office, they might have many reasons, but at the end, if you put all these reasons together and factorize and re-factorize them, you'll find that people don't leave office in time, because they don't have an incentive to! While, to sit back, they have enough and more.

If we take a look at any average human behaviour seen around, we'll see, that people really don't do anything if not for an incentive. There need to be somekind of a positive (extremely subjective term) motivation for a person to really do anything. I've seen real lazy dumbos happily jogging on treadmills and juggling dumbbells when their marriages got fixed (Well, they get back to the old nature once the wedding is over), I've seen stingy busters spending a fortune to impress pretty ladies... when does people get so excited, that they break all their basic instincts and get to do something? Its when they have an incentive to do it!

In one of my previous projects, I tried out something to get my people to leave office in time. This was the deal - there is something called 'performance measures' in our appraisal system - its a measurable entity to track your performance during the appraisal cycle. At the start of the cycle, a goal is set by the appraiser for the appraisee, which would help him/her with her career/skills. For eg: "Knowledge building & sharing" could be a performance measure, with a goal of say 5 points, set by the appraiser for the appraisee. The appraisee could learn something new and write a technical article for the knowledge shop, and win a point; he/she could deliver a session on some new or useful topic, and win a point etc. The target would be, to meet the goal or surpass it by the end of the cycle. Now, one would surely try to meet this goal, as there is the incentive of a reward attributed to the achievement, as it is linked to the appraisal system.

What I did in my project is, I declared another performance measure for my people (ofcourse, of very low weightage compared to the other 'serious' ones) - "Adherence to official working hours". I assigned a certain target score (goal) to each, based on their individual 'adherence patterns'. I would easily get attendance information (time-in & time-out) of my reportees from the system, and applying a formula to the data would get me the score for each person. Every three days initially, and then weekly, I kept informing each of them their deviations, and how it impacts the incentive they are going to receive at the end of the cycle. Along with that, I helped them ponder and discover evening-activities which they previously had probably overlooked to have no incentives.

In a matter of time, the new incentives worked their way up, and all my people were at office only during the official working hours - they came in time, and left in time. The wastage of time during the day decreased and productivity increased as people focused to finish work during regular work hours, so that they could get back to their life outside in time (which had incentives in and out). People were more happy than before as thier lives were more balanced, and that in turn, reflected in their quality of work.

Dear managers, do try to invent incentives in your project management practice - they are a wonderful way to motivate your team, to direct them, and at your intelligent command, to create a positive effect.

Tail piece: Check out nature - do you think any animal would possibly exist today, except for may be those single-celled bacteria who split into two, if the 'process of procreation' didn't have an incentive of being 'entertaining'?

The importance of co-locating your team

2008-07-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago, back in one of my previous projects, I had to ramp up my team by one, to resource some new work that came in. The new person was a 1.x years experienced lady, with technical skill set cohering with what I required in my team.

Now, before this lady came in, my team used to sit in two large multi-occupant cubicles, with just a small partition in between, which practically made it a large bullpen. This facilitated much interaction between the team members, who utilized it well to maximize exchange of information & knowledge, and of course jokes and light moments. I too found it most efficient in conducting stand-up scrums and short ad-hoc meetings, as we just had to pull our chairs together into a circle, and not hunt for a meeting room. We had consumed all seats in the two cubicles, and there were none free, when the new lady came in.

I had another smaller cubicle reserved for my team, just next to the current ones, for future expansions; I stationed the lady there. She started off in the team, and days passed by. I had performed background inquiries before I accepted her into the team, and all reports said that she was a good engineer, and a great person to work with. With days passing by, I did see the outputs of her work, and they concurred with the reports, but something kept telling me that she's quite not into the team, which contradicted with the second part of the report, that 'she is a great person to work with'. She was rather silent in meetings, responds to 'work-jokes' with a wry smile, while others laughed-out merrily.

I started observing her more closely, and soon I deduced that she might be feeling left-out due to her physical location. Although it was just the next cubicle, the fact that the rest of the team were together, worked negative here. If someone said a joke, the whole bunch would hear it and laugh, but she couldn't hear it, or even if she heard it, by the time she got up and leaned over the cubicle wall, the moment would have been over. With work, say, if I had to give a quick announcement, I could just push my chair to the mid, and shout it out, but she had to be summoned either to lean over the wall, or come around, to join the group. The lack of these important aspects of communication and camaraderie worked bad for her, which in-turn would work bad to the team.

Once I was sure that my deduction couldn't be wrong, I called her on for a casual private chat, and asked how things are, and informed her how I felt how good a work she's doing in the project. Once the moment was light, I asked how she was finding her physical location, and whether she felt alright sitting there. To let her open up easily, I added that I sensed she felt being left-out from the rest of the team. She stood surprised for a moment, and then came out telling that she was indeed a bit sad that she was missing what the rest of the team were enjoying. I assured her that I'll set things right, and we got back to our seats. I could feel the happiness in her voice, when she said 'thanks', which came from the realization, that someone noticed, and someone cared to respond.

Now, I had another trouble - as I mentioned earlier, the cubicles were occupied to the permitted seating capacity, and to have her in, I need to kick someone out. That again would would spoil the play, as one would again be out. After much thought, I felt the best would be, to make room in the current space, without disrupting anymore team morale. I got come long network and power cables issued, did some petty wiring stuff done; couple of my team members (wonderful people they are) adjusted their seats and PCs so that space for one more could be made, and atlast, we did it - within 3 hours since we had that small meeting, the new lady was at her new seat, and at the middle of the 'happening place'. Everything was well!

Now, the interesting part was yet to come - having moved into her new place; we started observing multi-fold improvement in her productivity and commitment. Her interaction with the rest of the team was easier now, and that contributed in-turn to the team's performance!

Alas! A talk of just over two minutes.... a shift of just over two meters... and it made the world..., a heaven lot different!

Creating a bolder generation

2008-07-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, back in Kerala, I was on a visit to a certain school for some social work. It was lunch time, and kids generally play around for a while, before getting back for afternoon sessions. I walked around through the school grounds, watching the kids play, and kinda reliving the moments of my own childhood.

It was a muffled cry which drew my attention to near a tree, where three kids were standing around. They seemed around eleven or twelve; there was a girl, and two boys. It was the girl who was crying, and the expressions / body language of the boys did look a bit nasty for their age. It seemed that the boys had said something, and the girl had started crying. I looked around if any of the staff were around; upon seeing none, started towards the trio, intending to solve the issue. But hardly had I reached there, when another little girl came running towards the three. The new girl came to the crying girl, wrapped one of her arms around her, and looked furiously at the two bullies. She was probably of the same age, but smaller than the boys. Without uttering another word, she pulled the crying girl by the arm, and walked towards the school building. She gave a 'warning stare' back at the two, as she marched ahead. The bullies in turn, look at each other, and walked away to join another group of playing kids.

Now, what got me interested was the phenomenon that just occurred. What was not in the first girl, which the second girl had? They were of the same age, same tiny size; the first girl cried, but the second girl came for rescue, and stood against two boys who were in fact bigger than her. Yes, I know, that its 'bravery' the word, but I'm looking beyond that word or the obvious - I'm tying to find out what lead to the bravery in the second girl and its lack in the first.

Fear creeps on to a human being only after he/she is five months old. Till then, no fear, none at all! From then on, social conditioning plays the major role in feeding a person with all the fears he/she has to live with in life. Starting with ghosts, it moves on to robbers, policemen (yeah, its so in India!), gundas, beggars etc etc etc, and a good percentage of the parents advice their kids not to indulge in many things, lest they get 'hurt'! Now, fear creeps in from each of these quarters, and the growing child develops a sense of insecurity against any hostile, unfriendly, or even just strange situations. The repetition of "be careful", "you are weak", and its acceptance as "fact" (as the child might not have had an experience yet to prove it wrong to himself/herself) leads to a feeble psyche, and the resultant levels of low self-confidence. The amount of this conditioning varies based on the socio-economic-religious backgrounds of a child, and specifically, the nature of immediate family. Children, by the time they reach school, would have already started exhibiting traits of this confidence or its lack, which gets further reinforced over the next few years; school adds to the social conditioning, from one more angle.

The concept I want discuss here is not just about the psychology of this lack of confidence, but how to instill back in a child, the self-confidence he/she has lost due to the above mentioned social conditioning. The basis of this lack of confidence is a 'knowledge' that 'I am weak', that 'I shall perish if I defend myself'. Once we remove this belief, its easier to win back in the child, his/her self-confidence. And to reach the mind to perform this re-programming, the easiest way is to take the route via body.

How do you get to the mind via body? Physical training, of course! And, what's the best form here..? I'll say, 'martial arts'! Various forms of martial arts have been practiced in various lands, each evolving over centuries. Martial arts can be used to fight, to train physically, to cure ailments, to improve concentration, to meditate, and a large number of other benefits. But, the most important aspect we discuss here, is the effect of a trained body on the mind. Once the feeling comes that, "hey, I can defend myself", or "hey, I can fight decently well", the fear that had crept into the mind slowly dissolves off, and a fresh feeling of security gets instilled. With fear washed away, and the courage that "I can face the world" comes in, self-confidence boosts up, and eventually most of the harm gets undone.

Kids, it might be a good idea to ask your parents to get you enrolled in a martial arts school; parents, that might be a good investment for them. And, my young friends and parents, its never too late, to get into that Kung-fu outfit and do some 'hiya hiya' :-) Yes, all the above is applicable for you too! Of course, I know, all human beings don't come off the same mold, and not everything works for everyone; but, hey, isn't it still worth a try?!

Roadrash!!!

2007-03-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

Back in college days (1997-2001), when PCs were becoming popular in Kerala, 'Roadrash' was one of the games which had glued me to a seat. (Well, to be frank, I was never much of a computer-gamer; Roadrash, Minesweeper, Solitaire & Mah Jong being the only ones I've ever laid my hands on, other than the ones I had authored myself: a flavor of Othello, a memory game which I christened 'Ormma', and 'MathWars' which I wrote to improve my calculating speeds.)

I guess Roadrash got popular exploiting man's inherent urge for transgression, adrenaline, and a passion for lawlessness. I used to play on all the four routes available in my version, and was thrilled to the core when I could take a real-life drive along two of them: the 'Napa valley' & the 'Pacific Highway', when I worked in the USA.

Anyway, my taste of Pune roads during the current month-long visit surpasses all those elements of transgression, lawlessness and adrenaline-rush!!! read on...

Check out the picture to the right (from vitualpune.com) - this is the typical traffic on a busy Pune road. Okay, you might think that it sucks - you'll be stuck in traffic. hehe... Are you kidding..???? Yeah, if you are on a bus or a car, you might be stuck... but if you are on a motorcycle or an auto-rickshaw? That's the thrill !! Let me explain:

Imagine you have a glass jar, and you fill the thing with pebbles. Now, the jar is full, none of the pebbles can move. Say, you drill a tiny hole at the bottom of the jar - a real tiny one, through which none of the pebbles can pass. Okay..? Now, this is the traffic condition, and pebbles are the 4-wheelers and higher. Now, say, you start pouring sand into the jar :-) You see where I'm getting at..? ;-) You pour the sand into the jar, and keep shaking the jar - the sand flows seamlessly out of the hole at the bottom - the sand is the millions of motorcyclists and auto-rickshaws. Now, tell me... how would you like to crawl and slither out of a hundred pebbles, racing against the other motorcyclist like "Hey, haha.. I found a 2-inch gap there, loser !!! Lemme stick my front-wheel in there.. whoo hooo... the sucker infront of me twitched an inch so that his motorcycle doesn't get scratched!!! Loser!!! I win.. I win... now I plunge into that inch.. okay, now, there is the next sucker there.. he seems to be holding back not to scratch that car... loser!!! Its not yours... its somebody else's... why do you care..? there is no place for courtesy here... just the race to get ahead... its only fools who are polite... okay... enough of philosophy... here I commmmeeee.. Cool... I got ahead, and hehe, scratched that car too... Now, this guy in front - lemme honk my irky little horn, so that the loser gets pissed off, and move quarter an inch - I can push myself through it" And, thus, they go, everyday, dawn till dusk and dusk till dawn!!

The first time I saw the following, I couldn't hold my laughter :-) :
I was riding along this one-way lane, and suddenly a car comes against me!!! Against me, on a one-way lane, and he honks me, and gestures me, to get out of his way!!! ("Easy, tiger!!!") And then comes a motorcyclist dude, honking his irritating horn all the way, non-stop (don't they have eardrums???), again, against the traffic on the one-way lane. I mean his face is like "Can't these jerks see that I'm coming? Losers!! all of them mere filthy human beings who follow traffic rules - I rock!!! I'm the king!!! I'm so cooooool"

Then, I got used to this sight... So, I just give way to the cool dudes... And sometimes, I gesture them to appreciate their 'cool'nessness (ofcourse, sarcastically!) - A thumbs-up or an appreciative face-gesture... I mean, I could never do this!!! (I feel responsible to follow traffic rules. I know how it contributes to the big picture.) That makes these dudes cooler than me! They are the 'next level' citizens, above civil laws.

There was something funny that happened while I was returning from office during one of my initial days here: there was this traffic junction where the lights were red, and I had to pull up. A car pulled behind me, and started honking. After 10 seconds, I pumped up the volume of my iPod to cut out the annoying sound, but after another 30 seconds of constant honking, I turned back, and gestured (circles against my temple with forefinger) to the driver whether he had gone cuckoo, and pointed to the red-light. He paused for a while, and continued with his honking ("Dude, gimme a break").

Well, I guess people adapt, even with annoying things of life... We learn to live with it :-) a couple of weeks in Pune, and I don't feel bad about these anymore... Its just funny to watch how people live their lives out...

Who knows..? may be if I stay here long enough, I might adapt even further, to be part of them... And one day, one of my friends might be on a visit to Pune, stuck up in traffic, and I'd be doing my 'sand' thing... :-)
He/she might call out to me "hey!!! tedka, is that you..?"
And, I'd be like "Hey, buddy!!! watchu doin' here..? oops, hold on.., email me, okay..? I see an inch clearing up there... gotta go... (and, to the poor guy infront of me, who moved an inch yielding to my filthy honk) hey loser, here I come!!!!! scooooooooby doooooby doooooooooooo"

:o))

Tail-piece: Pune Traffic control branch's website: punepolice.com with instructions to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

Aati kya Khandala?

2007-03-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it was my 2nd weekend at Pune; half of saturday went partly at the gym, and mostly in reading up stuff and working on a presentation. Dude, weekends are to chill-out - throw that laptop away!!!. So, mounted my (? oye, its Shoby's!) motorbike, and took off to Dann's & Ajith's. Dann was already off to Trivandrum for the long weekend, and Ajith's bro, Sreejith had come to Pune for his. So, we decided upon a Hindi movie (Hattrick) for the evening, and a bit of trekking for the afternoon. So, rode to Baner and went up the hill to fetch a glimpse of sunset. But alas, the stupid sun had already set!!! An hour there, and then off to E-Square for the movie. Dropped by at a Smoking-Joe's on the way, for some Indianized Pizzas. Well, as for the movie, Hattrick turned out to be a pretty good entertainer, after all!

Thus came the dusk, the dawn and day 2nd !!

Went to church, worked on the presentation again, and got bored. Why not go on a trip somewhere..?? Khandala ? Why not ? Checked with Sanjay, the caretaker guy of the svc apartment if he could show me around, for which he happily cheered. Okay, mounted the motorbike, filled up from the nearby fuel station and off to Khandala.

Pretty long ride for a hot day! You know what..? I'm always at Pune at the wrong time of the year - Summer!!! The last time I was here, it was the summer of 2004 (There's another tale on it - A mid-summer memory). Anyway, we were at Lonavla by 1:30 PM, saw around a bit, checked out the Valvan Dam, which ought to be at its height of beauty after the Monsoon in October; but pretty much sad, dusty and dried up now.

Back on track on the Mumbai-Pune highway (Oh, not the expressway - two wheelers are not allowed there) to Khandala, reached the Rajmachi point in another half an hour or so. Well, what should I say except "I ought to come back after the monsoon"? sob sob... its all dried up and dusty, dude!! and they say its heaven after the showers!! Its like the film and the photo - the opposites !!!

Anyway, went down the steeps of the highway for a while more, and then took a U. Back on track to Pune, but the Karla caves had other plans for us. Okay, now, this was pretty cool - the whole thing is up on top of a pretty tall granite hill, and was built during the 2nd or 3rd century BC by Buddhist monks. Two ways to reach the top:
1) All the way up in foot
2) Half the way up in your vehicle, and the rest on foot.
Being lazy, I opted the second.

Ha !! you won't believe it!!! 45 degree climbs!!!!! I've seen such stuff in the USA (like a block of the Lombard street in San Fransisco), but that was in a Car!!! On a motorcycle - wooooooh - you ought to try it once !!! The ascent and descent - both are cool - when u climb, u'll feel that the bike's gonna fail you any moment, and you might fall all the way down; and as you look up to see what's there beyond the climb, all you see is the sky!! And, when you climb down, again all you can see is the blue sky beyond the turn at the end of the descent!!!! wooooooh :-)

Okay, picture this now
1) u r climbing up the 45 degree one, and say, u r lowering ur gear from 2nd to 1st, and u pull the throttle a bit tight! :-) hehe, ur front wheel goes up, the weight of the pillion rider adds to it, and there u go. Question - would you go down the hill, or straight up ? (to ur Father in Heaven!!!) ;-)
2) You r climbing down the 45 degree one, you are almost at the end, near the turn to the next steep, and say, suddenly you pulled the clutch lever :-) hehe... Would u go up, or down..? ;-)

Okay, enough of adrenaline-puzzles - once the motorway was over, and we had to climb up in foot, it was a different story :-( May be I have to work out more - an extra hour of cardio..? perhaps..? Anyway, it was pretty decent - all the way up, and on top of the world!!! The stone-carved caves and shrines where pretty cool too. The inscriptions on the walls and pillars were in Brāhmī script, so, couldn't do much other than staring at them, and trying to act smart ;-)

Well, that was it !!! A pretty cool (or hot??) afternoon, was back at Kalewadi by 6.30 PM, Sanjay made us strong coffee, I browsed through the day's TOI, and then got back on my presentation :-)

Sorry that there are no snaps :-( but I was kinda lazy to pack my camera and stuff when I took off to Pune :-) !!! (Idiot)

Reminiscing 2006

2006-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

A year which vitnessed just too many things in life... bringing about a cataract of changes from all conceivable angles...

2005 had ended in indomitable glory, basking in ecstasy, jubilation and euphoria, that companionship can ever provide. The era of solitary dwelling had already dawned, when in October '05, I had moved into my own apartment. The whole gang in Dallas-Fortworth made 1133 Hidden Rdg 2116 their tent, and life couldn't be better in the merry team of Alco, Aneesh, Chinku, Krishna, Renjith, Aneeshji & Vini (and an occasional Vakkan aka 'Ajith MP3 George'). Christmas was best of all days I had in 2005, and all (minus Chinku & Renjith, plus Fareen & Chithra) were at my house cooking the feast and partying hard. The ladies decorated the chirstmas tree, Aneesh was as usual the DJ, threatning anyone who came near the music system with a Bruce Lee - kick.

Nature is all about seasons, so are our lives... If 2005 was summer, 2006 came with the autumn of this phase of life. Chinku had already left the party as he got transfered to St. Louis, and then to New Jersey. Alco stood next, and as nature got ready for spring, he bid farewell, looking forward to a life back in India. Aneesh and Renjith didn't stay back long either - both of them followed Alco, and soon the trio were at the other side of the globe, at Infosys - Chennai. Krishna stayed back for a while longer, but then he too called for time-out.

Life is not all about loses, is it..? :-) well... seasons do change, but each season has its own contributions. Although the rythm of life had taken away so much, it did bring in something wonderful too - for this was the time Rajesh came back to Irving. The three of us - Aneesh, Vini & me - stood bewildered at the sudden void left, when on a fine saturday afternoon, while I was deep immersed in the 3rd book of "The Chronicles of Narnia", Aneesh rang me up calling to his place, to rescue date from a crashed laptop. And there, I met Rajesh Kuriaparambil (who owned the unfortunate laptop) again, after our first short memorable introduction in late 2004.

The day marked the beginning of another merry phase of life, and the strength of our gang increased by one. Soon, there was another addition, when Sweety Brigit Valepilly Xavier embarked on the legendary mission to save the doomed EA IOM project :-) Well... it felt as if life was gaining momentum again. Friday evenings were eagerly awaited for the start of the weekend, which were well adorned by playing cards, dining-out, sports bars, movies, malls and what ever the merry mind could mould out. Sighini too joined our escapades a couple of times, when she was in Dallas on deputation. It was all starting to get wonderful again, although a sigh or two often escaped reminiscing the glorious 2005...

Oh yeah - seasons - will they ever stop changing...?! Autumn of life might have felt its time to remind us of him once more.... and thus we saw Sweety off to Chennai... And, Rajesh had to move to Plano from Irving, his work got tighter, and we saw less and less of him as days crawled on. May be summer was still trying to cling on, and for a moment, it seemed that it was able to win its way back in, for it was at this time, that Aneesh came back to Irving for another Voice-Portal project. And, soon... as if a wonderful miracle is dawning over the horizon, we heard that Alco too might be travelling over for an assignment.

The wonderful thing about undulations is that we could swear with mathematical certainity that a crest is to come, while tumbling down the dark and cold trough. Well... it was just a matter of time, when a fraction of the old gang regrouped at sweet Irving, as Alco joined us on a warm summer evening. A fresh face in the story, Inish, landed too, and joined (occasional) Vakkan to make the gang even bigger.

The gang was almost all-mallu one most of the time, except at two times. One was when Krishna moved-in to 1133, but anyway, he was Tamil, so was not much of an exception :-). The second exception came in around this time of the year, when once Vidhathri joined us for a friday-evening dine-out. Well, from then on, weekends were not without her - she blended in perfect, and at times even reminded of Sweety, who'd tell her roomies "I'm going out with them - shall be back soon" on a friday evening, to return only by dusk of Sunday :-)).

Autumn did succeed atlast, u know..? The idea of moving out of Infosys had sprouted by now, and I was in the long process of researching on companies/organizations to switch to. By mid June, I had made plans, drew a career map for the coming 5 years, shortlisted Marlabs, and had started dialogues. Then came a cascade of interviews, and by mid July it was all finalized - I had the job, and was required to relocate to Chicago. Well - it was the season for goodbye again - only change this time, was that it was me who was leaving the herd !!

July had been all exciting, or rather, I didn't have much time for emotions, as my mind was all focused on the switch, interviews and paperwork. But, as the final of Irving days neared, it seemed as if all that I eat were going into my heart, as it was putting on weight each moment. Irving was home for almost two years... It had staged a wonderful time of my life... I know this place, and there were people here who know me... It had everything that I wanted from a den...

But... life, again, is not about just docking at a harbour which is safe... its about sailing... and sailing till the ends of the world... to have adventures unlimited... to look forward... to dream on... to aim higher...

Stupid heart was throbbing painfully when I plugged the key into the ignition of my fully-packed car, on the 9th of August. Alco, Aneesh, Vini & Prem watched with solemn faces. No one spoke much... the green Camry rolled ahead, my eyes scanned the mirrors more, watching the four of them, than the road... I saw Alco advance a step... they grew distant... and then disappeared, as I signalled left into Meadow Creek Dr.

Chicago had wrapped herself in a chilly blanket from the day I arrived. It was a totally different place, I should say, for a man who lived two years in Irving. Well... life moved on, with the new routines, new work and new aquaintances, like liquid moulding itslef into shape of the beaker. But, somehow, I felt the distant chill of a season of winter creeping up the lane of life. Neverminding that, I let myself drown in the busy work, chilly winds and fast lanes of Chicago.

A break came when all of the mallu gang regrouped at Jaggu's place at Houston for Onam. It was a most welcome break. Ofcourse, we bulls, bears and cubs had an Onam at Chicago too, along with the celebrations of the 'north-west parish ward' of the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese, Chicago, where dear old Nanappan wholeheartedly agreed to play 'Maveli' :-)

The daily drama of life continues... with its small surprises, whoops and yelps, lessons and revisions, books and computers, trains and cars... and like a faithful historian, my mind keeps on scribbling down the events, chewing it on... smiling... learning, adapting, planning and trying to create a destiny of my own choice... and wondering what life would be 50 years from now !

Contact me

2006-10-01T16:16:00.000-07:00