Beneath the Devil Tree - A review

I am no book critic. In fact I don't think I understand how a book is critically analyzed. But I am an earnest reader. And the reader very well knows how the book made him feel. Here is a reader's take on Anjana Varma's novel, 'Beneath the Devil Tree'. 

In the very beginning of the book, one reads 'If you want the truth to come to light, there is no better medium than fiction'. Given that the genre is historical fiction and the events in the book are woven around the Moplah Rebellion of Malabar in 1921, one could only read the line with ambivalence. The 'truth' around the events is a highly debated one in the modern day, where it ranges from being only an agrarian revolt to it being only a violent communal rampage. But as the pages turned and the events unfolded, I was completely taken in the narrative. I could not pause for once to sit and think whether the book is shading the color of events in one end of the spectrum or the other. And that is where I loved this book. To keep the reader glued onto the story is no mean feat and the author has done that with elan. So then the question arises. How am I writing this piece? Well, I read the book again. And this time, my curiosity quenched, I could put more thoughts on the characters and events. The opening scene of the book, the Gods procession under the Devil tree, is probably an allegory to how the book views the events of 1921. The Yakshi (she-devil) atop the Paala tree is what one sees when taking a birds eye view and so does the events of 1921 appear, with violence and destruction and man's worser instincts. But beneath that tree is the God's procession and beneath the gloomy events one sees the shining of humaneness and godliness of its many human characters. 

Speaking of characters, I felt that the book is a motherly view of man's world. Starting from the aristocratic matriarch Mathu at the Kovilakom to the forest-dwelling Cheenkanni, the women of the book are looking at the deeds and misdeeds of the men, and are trying to take the mean to the saner side. Even at their worst moments of personal difficulty, mostly induced by the men, they look to protect their loved ones from harm and adjust their life to the situations they find themselves in. There are ample instances of this in the book, but one was particularly poignant to me. The character does not have a name mentioned in the book and is portrayed as Beerankutty's umma (mother) who is unable to understand what her son is fighting for without coming home to meet her. An Empire? She couldn't care less. All that mattered to her was her boy and she knows she just wants him by her side and nothing more!

While Pathiriumma felt caricaturish, Benu and Raziya portray the women who generally keep themselves to the house and not meddle into the lives of their men. But when time comes, they know what is right and are ready to take things into their hand and act accordingly even if it means going against the men. Sethu and her discovery of letters which leads her to a greater sense of maturity is something one has seen elsewhere, but my love for the written word makes Sethu dear to me. Priya, with her innate haughtiness and dare devilry seemed a little out of place for a 1921 Malabar girl. But I think every take on history also involves reflecting the present onto events or characters of the past and this felt no different.

All the male characters are equally well rounded. While The Outcaste happens to be someone to like and a hero figure, it is the antagonists that were more interesting. The scheming Alijan and the Black Thangal duo's backstories and their long history is well woven by the writer and establishes believable motivations for their ghastly acts. Mammad and Mithran, with absolute surety about their deeds and self righteousness are really the portrayal of the majority of men who mean well, but end up in conflicts due their self-righteous views. The driver Beeran, who is stoic in his bearing, makes one feel the presence of a calming influence among the otherwise restless men. He is not a hero nor a devil, but he is the silent man who sees all and withstands all. The British characters like Stanley Pat were well gelled into the sequence of events, but were otherwise just tools to portray Winifred and Cheenkann's bond.

Anjana depicts the story revolving around the Ernad Taluk of 1921 by making her characters see the events and thinking about them. This makes those events very real and is a technique which works wonders in the book. Even while certain events like Priya's decision to jump in with a Beretta to save unknown people from Thangal's brigands bordered on the cinematic, they were immediately tempered with reality in her easy capture. The friendship of Unni Thampan and the Hunter, Mathu's sessions with the elephant Eli, Alijan's settlment of local conflicts, Mithran's care for his pipes and revolvers were things which that I enjoyed for their uniqueness and vivid portrayals by the author. I could go on and on, but my intention is not to reproduce all the events of the book!

Overall, Beneath the Devil Tree is a fantastic debut by Anjana Varma. In a world where binaries seem to be the norm, the book positively refrains that easy route and tingles the reader with how small incidents involving ordinary humans add up and drift the world into extra ordinary conflicts. And how those wounds are healed by small acts of selflessness and forgiveness.

If you want the truth to come to light, there is no better medium than fiction!

A woman who defines womanhood

The white figure, draped in a white sari, wearing black spectacles, holding a bag in her hand that sported a black wrist watch, turning to the alley from the main road. That sight is now more than 30 years old and is my first memory of Muthashi (maternal grandmother). In that distant memory of me watching her gait from the gates of Lakshmy , there is someone standing next to me. But I can't recollect who that is. This should  have been towards the end of my grandmother's long career as a mathematics school teacher, for soon afterwards I took the role of her travel companion whenever she travelled outside my hometown.  As a kid I never was a 'grandmother's boy', so to say. Muthashi still mocks me that as a kid I never used to mind her when she visited us at my paternal grandparents' house. Even when my younger brother started sleeping beside Mutashi in her room, hearing her bed time stories, I used to cry for sleeping in my parent's bedroom. So, how did this happen? When did I transition from that child who did not really care about his grandmother to the current self who wants to be like Muthashi? I can't place a particular moment in time. There are many people and books that have influenced me and makes me the person I am today. But if I had to put a single face to those influences, it would undoubtedly be that of Muthashi. As she celebrates her Shathabhishekam (84th birthday), I am attempting to jot down Muthashi as I saw her.

When I try to recollect my moments with Muthashi, the first thing that comes to my mind are the bus journeys. I would tag along Muthashi and we would travel to meet a relative or to attend a function. And there used to be a recurrent event in these bus journeys. Muthashi would run into a former student of hers at the bus stand or in the bus. And invariably they would offer to take the tickets, "Thampayi teacher (as her students call her fondly), please allow me to pay the bus fare". How much ever  Muthashi dissuaded them, they would not agree. As a kid I had this notion that you wouldn't need to pay bus fare if you become a teacher by profession. To my astonishment, many of her students looked elder to her with their white hairs when my Muthashi still had jet black hair. When asked about this, Muthashi would say "I had taught that kid (note the point your Honour, 'kid') during the early years of my service. Back in those days, there were a lot of kids who would spend many years to clear the 10th standard, losing the exams year after year. So there is not much of an age difference between us. May be thats why". I had been a witness to many students visiting her at our home and could see the respect and the affection they had for her. When I reached an age where I could guage how much a teacher should have influenced a student to gain that sort of respect, my admiration for Muthashi grew.

One of those days, I went with Muthashi to Thrissur to attend a wedding. I should have been a kid in 7th or 8th standard.I was sitting a few rows behind Muthashi in the crowded bus. As the bus reached Thrissur, I got down at the first stop within the city. I looked for Muthashi and saw that she had not! She was planning to get down at the next stop and I thought we had to get down here. As I saw the bus speed forward, I was tensed. But soon I got my act together. Muthashi always used to keep some money with me whenever we travel. Our plan was to go to Raghu ammaman(uncle)'s house and go to the wedding venue from there. I knew the area name of Raghuammaman's residence. So I got into an autorickshaw and started guiding the driver. The driver soon realised that I didn't have a clue about the route. So he told me to keep quiet and took me to the area and on seeing the street, I could remember the way to the house. I paid the driver and thanked him. All this while my mind was worried about Muthashi. Muthashi is infamous for her tension. She would get tensed for even trivial stuff at times. On reaching the house I saw that Muthashi's footwear was not to be seen outside. My heart skipped a beat. I was worried now that she would be searching for me back in the city. But to my surprise, I was told that she indeed had reached the house before me and had proceeded to the wedding venue asking my relatives to guide me to the place when I reached. I walked to the venue and met her, standing there smiling at me. " I knew you would easily make your way here" she said. I could not fathom how Muthashi was not tensed then. But when I look back, I guess she might have understood that I could travel on my own. Probably a skill the teacher who taught kids for more than 30 years gets; to gauge a kid's abilities accurately. It was a day which boosted my confidence immensely. Whenever I see the quote, "A good teacher is one who makes oneself progressively unnecessary” among the list of quotes which I have noted down in my notebook, I am reminded of this incident. Muthashi was preparing me , making me do simple tasks of buying tickets, doing the math to make sure the balance received is correct, getting to know the places by reading boards and so on, for this day when I have to travel alone. She had taught me a non-math lesson without me realising it.

If there is one trait that defines Muthashi as a person, its her care for others. Comfort of others before mine is her primary motto in life. She might have got this from her childhood days as the eldest among the siblings. That the eldest one should look after the younger ones is a belief that is ingrained in her. This is one of the very few advices she keeps giving in life. In her efforts to make life easier for others, she doesn't care for her own comfort. There are many examples to this. But the funniest one is her eating habits when someone is visiting us home. Muthashi would suddenly reduce her food intake so that the guests would have enough to eat. Even if there is a lot of food, the habit is so ingrained that she would still eat less, at times leading to food being left over for the next meal. Most of the relatives who visit home have realised this now and they make sure Muthashi does not reduce her food intake. It is when I try to emulate this character of keeping other people's happiness before mine, and fail miserably, that I bow to Muthashi in my mind. She has been doing this for years with ease, without ever pretending that she is doing something so difficult to do. Every child who grew around a grandmother would remember the stories from her dearly. So do I. A character who has influenced the grandmother would radiate more than others in the stories she tells. Muthashi also used to tell us children stories from Ramayana. And there is a character who shines a lot more than Rama in her stories, Bharata. All those 14 years, after Rama left the kingdom one fine morning, Bharata protected the kingdom looking after the subjects and family well. And when Rama returned, he gave back the kingdom without taking any credit for his efforts and hid himself from limelight of the epic.Well, who else could be Muthashi's favourite character?!

In the stories which my grandmother used to tell us kids, many were real life experiences. Either her own or of someone she knew. These stories and behaviours of the characters influenced our thinking. When we kids grew up, as we acquired more knowledge on the ways of the world, those incidents relayed further levels to than the simple narrated content. Our own world views started to change and we started asking questions, we started debating on what is right and what is wrong. And as it happens between generations, we saw ourselves in opposing view points. What was right to us was not so for her and vice versa. But in all those debates never once has she made blanket bans on our views. She has never said "You should not say that" or "You should not approach it like that". She was always ready to question her views and if she found resonance in our arguments, she would change her opinion. But if there was no common ground, she would say "You can continue to believe that. I am unable to agree to that. I beg to differ". This made me realise that even while disagreeing with a person, your respect for that person can increase. Another of the qualities of Muthashi is her amazing capacity for self-reflection. While narrating some happenings which she now thinks was incorrect on her part or was plain stupidity, a wry smile would cross her face. The philosophical smile of a person who understands herself quite clearly.

It is tough to stop writing this. Memories come down in a tumble. I am talking of a woman who graduated and wanted to study more, but realised the financial situation at home and made way for the siblings to get better education, worked and helped the siblings to be on their own, looked after her parents, lost her husband in her middle age but grew her children as a single mother, cared for and nurtured her grandchildren and looked after everyone in the extended family as a mother figure. A life which stretches beyond the realm of words. In the first memory I have of Muthashi, I said there is a vague, irrecognisable figure standing next to me. May be it was the all pervading figure of time and might have told me then "Kid, here comes a woman who defines womanhood. Indira Thampayi, the person who would be your role model. Your Muthashi". Muthashi,I prostrate to you on the day of your Shathabhishekam!

The teacher gets to learn!

  9 years! A long time! A lot happened in this world, a lot happened in this life. The junior engineer who wrote the last blog has become a senior engineer (yeah, the same way chimps turned men with the flow of time). But this space remained still, without any change. And partly it was the change within me which caused that. I read more and realized I don’t write well. So I decided better to stick to reading than writing, at least in English. So what happened that nudged me back from the self-imposed exile? A ‘Secret Santa’ game at work.  The Santa was the intern for whom I am the mentor. Mentor! Strong word I still find it difficult to grapple with the word as referenced to me. I am not used to guiding people. The gift I received from Santa caught me spellbound for the amount of effort which went in to making it and the clarity of thought on what would make me happy as a person. And in addition, it had a letter which said I had been a good teacher all this while. To say I felt humbled by that, would be an understatement.

  On the way back home, I was thinking about teaching and how it influences the teacher and the student. Through my years of education, I have had good and bad teachers. And I know how the student thinks about a good teacher. The respect that you feel for someone who influenced you or taught you something in the right manner is something I as a student had perceived. It is something I have seen when my grandmother’s former students come visiting her. I knew exactly how the student felt like. But I never understood how the teacher felt, until today. And today I got a glimpse of what the teacher felt like. So this blog is about the teacher and what the teacher felt.

  I always viewed student-teacher transaction (not in a formal classroom sense, but more in the sense of an interaction where one person explains and the other absorbs the information) as a one-way flow when it comes to learning outcomes. The person who absorbs information benefits from it, the person who explained has a feel good factor. But how wrong I was! Working with the intern I realized how it provided clarity to my own understanding of something. I would explain a concept or how some code worked and then I kind of see how it cemented my understanding of the same. In that process, in my mind, I would have filled up some areas of my understanding which were hazy or not really thought upon. At times I could not answer some questions and would go about learning new things myself. And then, there was the aspect of realizing how vastly different a person who has background knowledge of something, and one who doesn’t, think about it. I would have asked the intern to do something and then assumed she would be able to easily do it. But then she would come to me with some question which I thought was trivial. And then it hits me that what I thought was trivial was not trivial to the intern, for she had not spent 4 years on it, the way I had. It was easy for me to forget that fact and consider myself superior. But what I might interpret as my superiority in knowledge was actually my stupidity. I was foolish to think that I had given the right direction. I had not! I understood that I should get a feel of how much the other person knows and find the correct starting point before providing instructions.

  The first lesson I had passed on to the intern was to not address anyone by ‘Sir’ as we go by first names at work. Right out of college you find it difficult. I did address seniors ‘Sir’ till someone taught me not to. So what I learned from my teachers in my work-life, and thought was a good lesson, I passed on to the mentee. Respect need not be linked to what you refer a person as is what I learned. I have a lot of respect for many people whom I address by name here. She did follow my advice and I was happy about it. And then, in the letter she addressed me as Sir and she explained why she was doing so. And that was another learning for the teacher. The teacher enjoyed the respectful irreverence! I think the teacher would want the student to learn what was taught but should be happy to see the student weighing in on the teaching and being ready to let go of the lesson, if that was a needed step.

  In all, the process has been a refreshing one for me. I realized how much one benefits by trying to pass on things which he thinks he knows. I realized how the teacher felt. As I roughly read my previous posts here, I realized how my language has evolved, how I as a person has evolved. All this triggered by the kind words from someone who considered herself the student. I wonder; who was the teacher, who was the student?! I fail to see a line. And if I unwillingly consider myself the teacher, I can only say, “The teacher gets to learn!”

Free as in free coffee

“What are you upto these days? You have not blogged since July 08!!” Well, if you thought it was a question from somebody very keen on reading what Mithun Varma writes, then you are totally mistaken. But then I ‘ve been hearing this question for some time now, from a person who actually loves every word yours truly scribbles down (You might know him I guess). And I don’t want the person to wait anymore. After all Chetan Bhagat has wrote his next book and what the hell stops me from making a post! I started reading the book today in the morning and was impressed by the title “2 States”. “Shall I write something with the same title?” The person I mentioned above snapped “ Are you shameless?! Don’t you know that this is plagiarism.” If he feels so, I cant deny that fact. “Sorry mate, I wont plagiarize.I will come up with a title when I finish writing this.” So at the time this line materialises on my screen, this post is “Untitled”. I have this uncanny knack of screwing up my first para with totally unnecessary information !!

The point is “I am amazed”. The question that would follow this is “Of whom/what”. And the answer is “I am amazed at the way the demi-Gods at the higher echelons of this corporate world come with policies which are totally beneficial to the employee!!” . For instance, lets take an example “Coffee”. All my life I have been notorious for my coffee drinking habits. “You drink too much of coffee”, “This is too high a number of coffees /day for your age” , “Hey, you should reduce this count drastically. Drink may be 2 or max 3 glasses” “Buddy, this is not good” has been the some of the very frequent statements which I had stumbled upon. And what did I do to improve?! Frankly, nothing!! And while coming to work ,Coffee was something I looked forward to every day. “Free as in free coffee” was my favourite line inline with the fact that “Free as in free beer” was something which I was unable to correlate with my habits!(Fortunately or unfortunately)

This is exactly where my company came for the rescue. They simply introduced a policy where you have to pay for even a single drop of coffee! How can they be so helpful, so careful about employee’s health?!! The end result is that I don’t drink more than 2 cups a day! Something else surprises me more. I bow to the gentleman (or her ladyship!) who rephrased the depressing sentence “From now on pay for the coffee you drink” and coined the words for the mail which mentioned exactly the same thing, but reading the mail you would feel that this is a great privilege. It said about the privileges of having multifarious options as tea , coffee and the many health drinks and a lot more! As only free coffee tastes good (proven by research! ), I decided to stop taking coffee from the new tech-savvy machines which would allow you to draw coffee only if you flash the “card”, which comes at a cost and needs to be recharged as soon as you drain out the money it carries. As it turned out( atleast to my not-so-perfect eyes) the new machines offered only one more addition to the earlier machines that it recognises the card so that you don’t get free coffe. “Didn’t I hear something mentioned about options?!! Didn’t I hear something about health drinks?”.


Looking back at it I find that the abrupt end of the “Free Coffee” era was again something quite unique! Usually curb on something happens in a very slow manner. There are numerous examples I can think of now. When those were implemented I was unaware that it was getting implemented. This slow manner will make sure that nobody feels bad about it. For example , I will analyse the algorithm on how curd served with the meals is reduced. When it starts there will not be any restriction on the quantity of curd being served.You will be allowed to take as many cups as you need. As days pass by they will slightly reduce the amount of curd in the container. This will reach a point where they fill only a half of the cup. People will complain about it and they will allow those who complain to take more. This continues till the point where the size of the cup itself reduces. By this time people would have got used to the cups being half-filled! So now they serve half a cup in the small cups. At the end of it, one fine morning they will say that you are not allowed to take more than cup of curd with the meals. People will complain for some time. But as time goes they will get used to single cup of curd!! Even after all this nobody can complain that they don’t serve curd. They still “serve” curd!!


That’s the tactics and a brilliant one too. This example applies to many more areas (Unfortunately!!) . And the “sweet ,sugar-coated” mails continue to flow in, about the welfare and the privileges that each employee in the organisation is vested with. You are deprived even from the privilege of knowing that you are deprived of many privileges (Whats this?! Recursion?!!). But when you earn your salaries sitting in a/c rooms, you can (rather should) adjust to these sort of manipulations. After all you are a bunch of over-paid (in comparison to other industries) labourers! It has been real fun to watch all these “happenings” from inside the system, being a silent observer of “the art of deception”!

“(Corporate) Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think”.
And I cannot agree more!

The 3 mistakes of my life!!

Greetings! After wailing about my life in Bangalore in my last post, I am back with a new "experience". One thing I should say is that I have acclimatized myself to the ways of Bangalore life which I mentioned in the previous update ;) One year into production support in a software company has made the word "update" a regular usage in my everyday life. When you earn your bread by giving more "updates" than solutions, you have every right to that :D. Atleast I feel so. Forget all that, this was just something for the first para and does not have any relation to the context of this post. So pls continue to the next para. I know you dont feel like, but pls read through as I am about to spend my valuable time tonight (ofcourse I am writing this after the day's office work) on the other paragraphs which do not exist as of now! :)

Thanks for considering my request. This post has no relation whatsoever to Chetan Bhagat's new book "Three mistakes of my life”, other than the fact that I am adopting his title for this post and the 2 characters other than me in the events mentioned are given the names of the hero and heroine of the book (I think I should mention that I had a good time reading the book). So the hero of my story is, as the name goes Govind and the heroine Vidya and the lead role (a ridiculous one unfortunately) is yours truly. :)

Govind and I grew in our hometown together. And having grown together, we knew each other pretty too well :). The 3 year age difference was no bar for our friendship and let me tell you,Govind my cousin is one of the sweetest persons I have ever come across in my life. It all starts with Govind well settled with a good job, and the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood and myself the boy next door who just completed his graduation and having a pretty decent job offer in a multinational(Pls allow me to project myself at par with the hero, atleast make an attempt). That’s it for a general intro on the state of affairs when our story takes place.

Some of the mistakes a person makes, starts with some prejudices that person keeps in his mind. The mistakes of my life belong to this category. I always had the notion that Govind was the "good boy" of the group (trying to look things from a parent's perspective). He may make comments on girls when in our company, he may talk freely with girls whom he knows, but I always thought "He will never fall in love with a girl”. The first mistake of my life!!

Our "most eligible" is still a bachelor getting a lot of marriage proposals. I knew about this as Govind himself had told me so. The stage is set for the second mistake. I was killing time with my new hobby of reading the Orkut profiles when I happened to go through Govind's profile. I thought of scrapping him and opened his scrapbook. My dear reader here comes the third character to the story. Vidya,our heroine's scrapbook entry :) As there were no other scraps from girls and there were two from this lady, I clicked the link which took me to her profile. Sorry Govind no mood to scrap you now! As expected no photo of the lady who will eventually become the heroine in this blog. After some more days I saw her scrap again in Govind's profile. The next day I saw Govind and asked him "Hey man! Been seeing too many scraps from this girl Vidya in your scrapbook. You know her?” And the reply came "Met her in orkut. We chat sometimes. Thats it". "Will this end up a love story? Or you are already in l.., hehe" I teased him. He replied, with the very innocent Govind expression, "Nothing like that". I believed that statement from Govind.Of all the certainties I believed in this world, this one was the most certain (melodramatic exaggeration, sorry for that), "I will be the first to know if Govind falls in love with a girl". And that makes the second mistake!!

Now there is a long duration in time and by this period, I had made my previous post :). I was on a weekend visit to one of my relative's house in Bangalore. I was busy talking to them when my phone ringed. The name "Govind" was displayed. Since I had a talk with him 2-3 days back, I was surprised and thought why he will be calling now. A very odd time, of 3 on a Sunday afternoon, knowing the person who was calling. Usually Govind will be busy "THINKING" at these times after the lunch. :) I answered the phone, with a modulated "Hello" since I did not want the relatives to hear our usual way of talk. And then I heard the shocking news! No it was not "I am in love". I could have withstanded that news pretty well. But this one was worse. "Hi man, my marriage is fixed" Govind's voice rang reverberations through my head (sorry again for giving such terrible and pathetic melodramatic descriptions repeatedly).I could not ask anything else. I just heard all the events at his end for the day. How he and his parents went there to see Vidya and how everyone liked her. My third mistake was this: ‘I believed I will know well in advance from Govind if he was going to see some girl as per some marriage proposal which was proceeded forward by both families!’

All is well that ends well. It turned out that Govind had asked his parents to proceed with Vidya's proposal(horoscopes, go to hell !) since both of them were in love( I am not sure how much Govind and Vidya will agree on this statement, but still I believe thats the truth).Govind and Vidya are happily married now and the best of it all is that I find Vidya fitting easily into the talks and friendship that myself and Govind share. The one moral of this story, which I learned "Never trust your cousin when it comes to matters regarding love ;)". This blog materialized after a chat Vidya and I had in Gtalk. During the chat I came to know that Govind had gone to Vidya's house to see her once, much before he went "officially"!!!!!. No, I cant add more to the count of mistakes. :) "Upon God, never trust your cousin when it comes to matters like this". :) I called Govind the moment I heard this last revelation and promised him "For all this secrets you hid from me I will make them public. I will blog them!". And this one is for you Govind. :)

Last nail in my coffin :

I am trying to present a love story of myself before Vidya during a chat session (Ofcourse with the finesse Kevin Spacey's character tells the story in "Usual Suspects"). I messaged Govind that I am going to tell a story and the name of my lady love :O and that he should co-operate. With this I started crafting a magnificent story with all the essential ingredients for a love story and presented it to Vidya. I said it in the most convincing manner and even showed her my lady love's photos!! I was so impressed with my imagination and was about to stop the story when Vidya said "That was a nice story, I enjoyed it". Govind had told her what I am doing!! Thats it, the last nail in my coffin. I am dead!! May my soul rest in peace ..

Changing times

Well, time goes so fast. Atleast your engineering college life. And that is something very depressing. You will be reminded in every single moment, that you have passed the best moments of your life and that you wont ever get back those memorable 4 years,and you cannot do anything about that. So thats exactly the situation in my life. I have moved from the sweet "college life" to the "corporate life". And with that i have moved from Kerala to "namma Bengaluru". Obviously this one is on my 'experiences' of my first few weeks in Bangalore.

Let me start on the positive note. With that previous statement you got the whole point.'This guy is going to throw dirt on Bangalore life'. This is strictly my personal view and as one of my good friends puts it, "the view of a person who should have been born 60 years back". I am sure there wont be many takers for these opinions.Please bear with me.

Let me try to see the glass "half full". The climate here is really good and having a job is nice i agree. I am free to spend money on whatever i think of, just because it is my own. I dont feel that pride when i buy a shirt or shoe or anything like that. But i feel that pride when i eat something. Seems silly? But thats truth. I can eat as many icecreams as i want. I can have as many chocolates as i want. Wow! i like this state of things.

Well cherish those statements guys, the rest of the blog sees it "half empty" almost everywhere. And the characters who are being mentioned are mostly not Bangaloreians. They are from all parts of India and most of them,if not all, are seen in the corridors of the corporate world. So this is not on Bangalore as it is but on corporate world. I have started seeing many things that i have not seen for the past 22 years of my life. And most of them are not pleasant,atleast for me.

Within these very few days here, i have found one fact. The only thing that matters here is "money". You have value only if you have money. And that too in large quantities. Not only you should have money, you should show it in the way you dress. That fact is the most evident when you enter shopping malls. If you are not wearing branded attire, the sales people in the shops dont even bother looking at you. So the next time you are out to shop in any mall make sure that you have that branded jeans and shoes and other accesories in display on your body.

The next is about my food eating ways here. All my life i have eaten iddlis,dosas and rice with my hands. But now i eat it with a spoon!!! Why i cant eat it with my hands is simple. Ego.Its a prestige issue. With all the people eating around you eating with spoons and forks you have no choice but to eat with spoons. If you eat with your hands, its "really nice" to see the look on the faces of the waiters serving the food to you. You can see this statement on their face,"Duh! Third rate cultureless fellow, eats with his hands in this high class hotel!! ". If you think this is an over statement, well i have seen it in Bangalore many a time.

Following is about the traffic here in Bangalore. The driving habits of the people here is really good. They dont know their vehicle has a thing named "horn" fitted into it. And if they enter some main road from a pocket road what they will do is to drive on till the middle of the road and then put a brake on the wheels. The bikers are the best. They "invent" roads on footpaths. I have seen persons driving their bikes right through a bus stop!!!!

Being born and brought up my entire life in Kerala i have seen women smoking cigars and taking liquor only in movies and that too villanous characters. But here i see 'heroines' enjoying these things without even a bit of second thought. If men can smoke then women surely can, i agree. But then it is a very disturbing sight for a person who comes from a village in Kerala.--You loser from Kerala this is 21st century. "Zamaana badal gaya hei !!".

So what was the whole point in this blog. Nothing i guess.Just something for a new post. But these are some of the thoughts my first few days in Bangalore evoked. As i said "The thoughts of a person who should have born 60 years ago!".

Kanyakumari Trip: The Road to Kanyakumari

The blog is turning into “updated once in a month” category..Well didn’t find anything worth blogging..Unlike the previous posts this time I am making it a bit more personal. I had gone for a Kanyakumari trip last week and so have decided to blog about the trip. I have been living at Trivandrum for 4 long years and have not gone for many outings during this time( I mean to places which are nearby). Everyone from our house wanted to go for a trip to kanyakumari but it never happened .. We had made the plans many a time but it never “happened”..Finally it happened last week and I learned a lesson-The trips don’t happen if u plan them too early..We decided to go for the trip on Wednesday and went on Friday. Such quick planning is the best way to go for a trip. Just pack your bag and go.

So we are ready to go for the trip..4 from my house Vivek, Sharath ,Varun and me..Two other friends Shabeer and Mujeeb joined to make the total 6. They arranged a car and Mujeeb was to do all the driving. As per schedule we started at 9.15 in the morning. I noted down all the timings in the morning newspaper –“save trees, use less paper” . After a light breakfast and filling diesel we started the journey..We just moved 1-2 kms when Sharath thought it was high time the music system came to the scene.. The first was a Tamil song “Kattippudi kattippudidaa” (one “hell” of a song for me, actually)..But since such a fast song was too unavoidable for others I decided to try enjoying it..Suddenly I missed Chandu(my room mate) very much..This song is one of his favourites and I really missed his presence all during the tour..But still the tour was great..

10:00 am : Shabeer has gained his form..Started with his bunch of comments and jokes..Mujeeb is going fast and Sharath reading the sign boards well to know the routes to take..Its 10.55 now and we have crossed the Tamil Nadu borders. The “Welcome to Tamil Nadu. Enjoy 56 % reduced (??) roaming rates now.” sms was delivered to our mobiles. I noted down the place- “Kuzhitura”. Still the sign boards were in Malayalam and English and we did not have problems knowing the directions. But it was not to be so, as we were soon to realise. Our first destination was “Pathmanabhapuram Palce” at Thakkala ( the one shown in 'Manichithrathazhu'). Without much difficulty we found the place where we had to take the deviation from the main road. Thus we reached the palace at around 11.15. The palace was much more magnificent than my expectations. The architectural beauty was beyond description. We roamed around the palace relating every place to the scenes of Manichithrathazhu. Having seen the movie more than 25 times, I could say which shots were at which place quite easily. There were people to describe each and every room about their purpose and all. I liked the room where the famous “Oru murai vanth parthaya” was shot. Another place was where the song “Varuvanillarumee” is shot. A long corridor where you can see your reflection on the floor. When I saw the movie I thought it was because they had sprinkled water all over the place that they got that mirror effect.. We took a lot of snaps there Varun being the photographer..I was really wondering why I havent seen a beautiful girl yet..(Kaanan kollavunna penkuttikal tourinu pokku nirthiyo eeshwaraa !!) And then….. This paragraph is getting too big; let me move to the next ;-)

And then , I saw her..The most beautiful girl I had seen that day (Strictly speaking the title of “most beautiful” was to remain till the afternoon only, hehe). I was relieved. So the beautiful girls have not stopped going for tours.(Samadhanamayi..) As there were no more of the above mentioned category to be found anywhere at the palace I decided to watch her.(Njan oru vann vaayanokki alla tto..Plz don’t misunderstand me ;-D ). We moved around the palace always sticking to the gentlemen attitude “ladies first”. Or to put it more frankly “beautiful ladies first”. Even though I watched the girl now and then, I never forgot the scenic extravaganza offered by the palace. I really envied the kings who lived there. What a great place to live in. With each nook and corner of the palace gleaming with uniqueness in one way or other, it would be the best home one could have. Atleast I felt so. As Sharath exclaimed “It would have been easy for the people who lived here to spend time. Start walking at one end of the palace and by the time you finish you will have spent a large part of the day!! Simple.” . We didn’t think of the time that passed by. By the time we were out of the palace and completed a quick walk around the archeological museum it was 12.45. Vivek reminded that if we cannot reach Kanyakumari by 3 we wont get a boat to the Vivekananda rock. So we dropped the idea of having lunch there. After having a small refreshment we all got in to the car and started to Kanyakumari..(Mujeebe vittoo..3 maNik ethaNam) .

Now if I don’t mention Mujeeb’s driving expertise it would be a big mistake. He was really fast and at the same time very cautious. I was wondering why the Tamil Nadu roads were so clean..After having travelled to Madurai during our s3 trip I really had the notion on how the TN roads were..But this time the roads are clean!!! We didn’t have to wait too long..The roads started showing their real nature. Whatever I had thought in praise of the progresses in cleanliness of the TN people was flown down the drain..Old Chankaran still on the coconut tree..("Pandathe chankaran thengumme thanne" ,hehe). Considering the fact that Mujeeb was driving at 90 kmph(not a tint of exaggeration in mention of the speed) we were sure to make it easily before 3 and get there before the boat service stopped. Now to our dismay the rain clouds were starting to show . By the time Vivek finished saying that the trip would be spoiled if it rained, it had started to rain and that too quite heavily. Was this going to be the sad end of a much awaited Kanyakumari trip?? No way..It was destined to happen this time..The rain stopped soon and the skies opened up and after a few more kilometres it was again bright sunlight. And the sign boards were encouraging too..We were nearer and again the roads were in the best of their conditions as Mujeeb would prefer it. The car started gaining speeds again and I was now looking at the speedometer . Frankly, I am little bit afraid of high speeds. But then I saw that the others were not at all concerned of the speeds. So I kept watching at the speedometer without saying anything. And finally it happened..The meter showed the 100kmph mark..No comments on that coz speed is still increasing and I saw 110 kmph..The only thought in my mind,though I didn’t mention it to anyone then , was to reach there quickly so that I could get out of the car soon. And to my great relief the first signs of the Kanyakumari town were showing up. Its 2 pm and we saw the Kanyakumari railway station. Soon I could see the sea right ahead. We parked the car by the roadside and got down. Now to the boat jetty to get a boat to Vivekananda rock..This is the end of the beginning..