Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts

Sunday, July 3, 2011

most likely - forever hold in silence

I had a dream. Dream of becoming a writer. A writer who is remembered for what he wrote , not on how many he wrote. Some one like Harper lee or Thiruvalluvar (if he is real). I used to say that's what my life is all about. If anyone wonder why these sentences are in past, because now I am becoming doubting Thomas. Not a doubting Thomas who put his toil and at the end found "oh, he is not there", and he does not have it. But a doubting Thomas because he never moved his first step in the direction of his dream. Is it what still he wants or is it a distant past of him, which he could not find in him any more. It's OK if the bright fire that was once , not in distant past, has become a cinder, but it looks as if it has become an ash. An ash: which has neither a warmth nor the trace of what it was a while ago.

If anyone reading this (I know there is only one who reads it), wonders why I think so, here is the revelation. Well I never wrote that often while I am in India as I am in US. However I wrote at least once a month, at least few lines to keep it floating. Sometimes there were longer gaps, I came back vowing I'll write more. But now it is close to an year since I last wrote. I used to say may be I am busy with things, new job, new house bla...bla... But now I am in US for a short trip, all alone with the time that gets killed on no purpose. Still I didn't thought of writing something.

It dawned on me, well I couldn't find anything to write about. That is the truth, somehow, somewhere in the life, I lost my urge to tell things, I lost opinions, I am becoming someone who neither has anything to tell nor wanted to tell. Is it because I found that there is no one to read what I say? I guess not. I don't know what triggered, life carried it all by itself, It keeps me spinning . I am becoming a top which tries to not to loose its foot and thrown out when the whip called life keeps you spinning like anything. Or is it just one more excuse?

Anyway I decided to record down whatever for some time I was noting down in my phone. Things which are too small to be find a place as a stand alone post.

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02-08-10:
Once I asked my Kerala friend, why he always carry umbrella? He said it's Kerala, you'll never know when it'll rain. Similarly its Chennai and you never know when you'll get stuck in traffic. Every road has the possibility to get congested. Just like how a clear sky can surprise with a downpour, a smooth flowing traffic can stop. Reason could be someone just parked a lorry and went or simply lot of people choose to travel in that road on that eventful day. Till you reach your house, you can never tell how long you have to be in the road.


03-08-10:
When you have nothing to do , no one to laugh or fight or cry or to talk about weather (for that matter on anything that neither of you care), you start to think. when everything else shuts up, mind starts to run amok. For me, of all things the toughest is, when I hit bed and close my eyes or when I am awake in the night journeys which keeps going as if never end, to not let my thought train start. The trouble is the horizon it dabble, questions it throw. They neither make the days passed as worthy one nor the days to come as green.

14-04-11:
He looked at me. He said, "you want to become the one, you never is". Before I react he went. He is nowhere. Maybe he is the one everywhere and I am just trying to find him somewhere alone and end up finding him nowhere.

09-05-11.
Life is like a train journey. A destination less journey, disguised as the one towards a destiny. The truth is every one's only destination is death. Till then we travel. All of a sudden in a station we are asked to get down and catch another train. Sometimes we make the choice , sometimes other force us. But each time we hop, we think it'll be a better journey in a cosy class. But all we do is keep waiting for the station to do the switch by looking at the station boards and biting our nails on whether we catch the next train.

Instead if we board the train and enjoy the luxury it gives , all looks better for a while , but soon things go down , just like a long distance train toilet. It gets more crowded and we are damned. We can never sit and enjoy the ride. Moment we do, we miss our hopping station- all the vigilant hops we did so far become waste. Popular wisdom is always right about the station one has to hop,class one have to board. But the trouble is one has to keep hopping till death. It never stops. Either one adjust himself to live in the staleness of pond or keep flowing. There is never a neutral in war and a balanced in life.

There is nothing about the people who do the hop all their life. But for others. For those who are like me: So the question is who is smart the one who gives up as he has no energy to hop after several hops or the one who settled with the first stale itself.

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This is good, though just copying what I wrote some time back. I figured some or most I have written stinks. It could have been done far better. But guess what, I love doing it. It is not like one of those movies which you love as kid and now in your thirties , you watch again and wonder, Did I like this shit. Still I guess this is part of my life, My dream,( thought there is a good chance it'll be just my dream).

Monday, July 26, 2010

traffic diaries-2

What all we do is to play. Life and we exchange punch inside a boxing square. For an epoch of time, you go on defense mode, dodging the punch and for some time you try to make some hits. It might get nasty with some hits under belt. As bell goes round after round, it's not that easy to play a disciplined game. All gets fair. One fine day you enter the arena, but don't go for the square. You take a chair and watch the match while sipping a drink. It doesn't matter who plays against whom. You observe it like a passenger in a window side seat. It is called aging gracefully, a life well lived. But not all get this. Some are forced to play at square and for some the beatings they took in match make them to close themselves in their room , shut away from world, in a state of self imposed imprisonment.

Monday, May 3, 2010

traffic diaries-1

17-Feb-10:
Though you hate it,if normalcy is all you can have, why don't you try to have the better normalcy that most will admire you for?

03-May-10:
You got into a tunnel.It's completely dark. You are desperately looking for a light. Some light at the end of the tunnel- a ray of hope towards which you can run. You find one such light and start running towards it. But alas, you find that its not ray of hope but a train coming to hit you. Even if the destiny is that you have to hit by that train, won't it be better, if it had come without light. Why should it deceive you?How cruel it is! But that's what life does sometimes. It lifts you up in the air and let you fly for sometime and shoots you down. Can there be any reason for that other than you deserve some ting more than a normal failure? May be you are HIS favourite bitch whom HE decides to screw for good. Amen.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

years gone by

I just walked into the bus stop. A bus stopped, crossing me. There were few empty seats in the back row in common side. I went to notice the route. It was my route. There were already some people standing near the back door to get in. People were getting down from the front door. I rushed to the front to get in. Before I got in, few ladies entered. They were going in a relaxed way to ladies side and blocked my way to reach the empty seats. Things might be tough for women in other aspects, but in Chennai bus they have their laugh always. They always get their seat. Quite often guys would be standing and contemplating, can he take the ladies seat which is free for long time. Right then a girl will enter relaxed and think for few seconds as if which seat she can pick and would settle in one. So there is no hurry for them. But for me if I couldn’t get one of those few empty seats, I have to stand for another hour and half. I steered through the gaps, and got into a seat.

There is an hour and half that needs to be wasted. Instead of looking at traffic, getting frustrated and cursing it, I decided to hear some songs in FM. I used to hear FM regularly. Back then in my college days, I was having a tiny radio. Then we had only ‘Vaanavil’ (Government FM). They will speak a lot and put few film songs. I had that radio even in my initial years of work, I guess around that time Suriyan and Radio Mirchi came in. I liked Radio Mirchi during the day and Suriyan FM at night. Then I went overseas on assignment and got distanced from FM. Now there are more than a handful of channels. Just like cable TV, you can switch from one to another when there is a commercial in one. Lot of times I liked radio over cassette or CD. Main reason: hearing a song in radio is like life, there is an element of surprise and we never know what song comes next. If I hit upon a favorite song, the joy it brings is more than what I get when I select and hear it in a music player. With huge storage spaces in musical systems, we have more songs in our library, but often we hear the same song and miss our yesteryear’s favorite. When radio plays it, its like accidentally meeting one‘s old friend. It takes one down the memory lanes.

Radio played “nenjam ellam” song from Aayudha Ezuthu. When the album was released, it was my favorite song. The male voice and lyrics had an aura. Thanks to repeated hearing, the attraction faded over time and it ceased to pull my attraction. When the song was released, I had just joined work from college. Thinking back it had been long time, 6 years had gone by. Then I was a guy with big aims and strong opinions, now I am a man with lot more confusions, responsibilities and less hopes. During these years some things changed and several remained the same. I traveled around the world, stayed in foreign land for few years, fell in love, got married. On the other side, I had abandoned one of my goals and my other goal is still in air as fresh as it was then. While people around me had moved around or ahead and rode the waves of economic boom, I remained in the same company, almost same job, most often having my own excuses. I guess the common denominator behind everything was my comfort zone. It dawned on me, there is cost to every action but the cost of comfortable inaction is much higher. I looked through the window. Bus was crawling in the middle of heavy traffic, while some people were cutting lanes, finding gaps and moving ahead. For some reason it looked like my life.

Monday, August 24, 2009

All is not well


What am I doing with my life? So far its answer was eluding me through philosophical or existential point of view. Of late even in terms of my daily routines, I have no answer. Am I forgetting what I did or am I doing nothing? Time drips through my hand like the water in the hands of child. We never know what peace is unless it ends. The books are waiting like the old friend, who is waiting in his room to hug me and fill me with warmth. But still I am not able to get back to them. Its weeks since I finished last book, which by itself the one I have read for so long. To get back to our best pal, we need clarity and now in my mind everything looks like viewing a busy highway on a rainy day.


Responsibility is making decisions, taking a call, sticking to it and convincing others on that. For me any call made is bluffing with life and hence I always preferred to be a leaf drifting in the rapids of a great river. To the surprise of my own I bluffed with life. I started as a person entering for first time into casino, tightly clenching the few shillings in his hands and hesitantly took a table, observing fellow players, making calculation when shall he exit etc. But as game proceeds, as the web gets dense and as stakes gets higher, I recognize, there is no fall back. Things are going to change, leaving guilt in one way or other. To add more twists life brings in more responsibility. All of a sudden I become like a mother who got triplet in her first delivery. The guilt of ignoring other always lurks in her heart as she serves another. In the futility of making someone happy others are left hurt. Worse is yet to come- fatalism in the game of bluffing. It’s far more dangerous as the mind no longer takes how the cards are getting shuffled, who holds what. It simply bets, draws a card and drops it.


But everything has an end, though the traces will be in the air long after. All I wish is the hearts I hurt will understand me even though not forgive me.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Devil wears Prada

As the movie title rolls, we see two women getting ready. The scenes switch between their bedrooms to give a sneak into the way how they start a day. One, carefully gets herself ready in empty nice house. On other hand, we see a girl who chose 'a' dress . She leaves from her messy room , kissing her boyfriend in bed and then eats a heavy burger with garlic and onion smell. She is the protagonist of the story, Andrea. Andrea is getting ready for her interview to the post of personal assistant to Miranda (played by Meryl Streep), the editor in chief of fashion magazine 'Run-away'. Miranda can make or break any fashion designer. This job is what any girl would die for. For Andrea, fashion world is just a dress. She want the job for the contacts it gives.It's a temp place for her. While every one runs behind Miranda, Andrea just does her job. She puts all her effort. She works even ignoring her meeting with her father. She does it to show she is capable but not because she likes it. She doesn't get a smile from Miranda. She says Andrea disappoints her. Andrea decides to resign. But it makes her feel as if she is quitting. Andrea, the intellectual, smart girl. Girl with brains in a place loaded with girls whose brain knows only about food and dress. Can she quit ?Won't it mean she couldn't do what those girls can do. Does she concede? After this movie is about how Andrea wins the heart of Miranda. She shouts over the roof top when Miranda remembers Andrea name and ask her to do deliver notes in her house. But in the course she loses her friends, boy friend more importantly what she stood far. What is worse, when everyone says she has changed, she thinks she didn't, she thinks she is same old idealistic girl and now she had no other option. She does everything just because Miranda wants her do it.

Are we all not Andrea? The world calls it as growing up, becoming சமத்து. Are we not get seduced by the appreciation of our superiors .For that aren't we move far from what we stand for and get engulfed in the great grand spin? The greatest irony is that we never know that we are moving away from our base. At the end when we get changed so much, we no longer remember where our base is. Its same for an innocent college grad enters into corporate or for an revolutionary leader who starts his fight against giant system for the people's independence and sovereignty. We all wonder how he got changed so much, how he degraded from a Savior to a mob killer, how she changed from a heart of gold to surviving beast which will drink any blood to secure its position. The real world says its as being practical. What a vicious word? What a euphemistic way of saying nothing else is reality?

All start as a small compromise. Small compromise to stay in the game. Change yourself little bit so that you can be in the game and when your time comes you can do what you want. But for that you have to be in the game. But, history again and again shows, these people when they reach the point, which they wanted to reach- not for its attraction but for the help it will give to their cause- gets completely merged into the system and no longer remembers why they actually want to reach there.

It all starts as a simple game of visiting the boundaries of a dark forest. We just keep few steps in and get out. We keep playing. We think we can toy with it. But over time, before we recognize, we reach a point of no return. In the movie Annie just throws her mobile and gets back to her world. In real life, we couldn't say so easily, "I quit", even when we realize the cost of running it is getting more. Eventually we chose to surrender than to quit.

Friday, January 23, 2009

choose the correct answer

1. Which is worse?
a. Nothing to tell,
b. No one to tell.

2. Which is more vicarious?
a. Living through books,
b. Living through Gtalk

3. What is life?
a. roulette,
b.Russian roulette

4. What is history?
a. You beat someones record.
b. someone beats your record.

5. What is big lie?
a. There is a correct answer
a. There exists truth

Monday, January 12, 2009

Sunday mid night I am in deep sleep. It seems my phone has ringed and My room mate gave it to me saying you got a call and and it was over before i picked, It seems you have message. I read : “Bond died”. I was shocked. It was just few days I was chatting to him in gtalk , about his plan to go to kolkata. He was beaming that with that he would have gone to all metros...typical of him. He speaks speaks speaks for hours, elaborating on things...He will tell the story of a 3 hours movie for 3 hours.

I still remember the day i met him. I had joined company from campus and was looking for a house. I took room with Thiru who joined with me in the company. He said two of his college mates will join with us. I was moving to that house on night and bond was there. He told me his name is Vinoth and people call him bond. He started to speak as if he knew me for years. No one called him Vinoth. For all he is bond, even to the lady who came to cook food for us....

I think it was on Saturday or Sunday, I saw him in gtalk , but as I spoke to him just few days back I didn't ping him. I thought i can ping him later. Later , that's how we take things in life. We take things for granted. We take our things will exist and by a crude stroke by a moment its gone. Sometimes life is so cruel , it never gives a second chance. It throws us just questions, questions any single answer we find throws open hundreds of question and all of a sudden in fraction of moment it wipes us out. All this for what purpose? What greater good? what end ?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

System

There are four coins in the table I have an option to chose one. I chose one on my free will. So were all millions of people before and after me. Based on what every one chose surely there would have been a probability of what I might have chosen. As billions and billions people had chosen the probability would be damn accurate with an negligible error percent. If what I chose could have been predicted without ‘me’ does that not mean I have no free will? Didn’t I choose what I shall have chosen?

No. Because the probability is from the perspective of the system. If the system has predicted I might chose coin A and if I chose coin B then it is only a negligible error for the system for which I am one among the sample space of billions. I am no longer an error, only a noise. The fundamental premise of the system is the common denominator of a huge population, which is called the social behavior. It is not something that existed. It is something that has evolved just because more people decided to choose a coin over the other three. But the system conveniently can forget it and project on collective consciousness as it will make the system more reliable and simple. If a system has to be reliable it has to be simple enough for more people to believe and not simple enough to understand.

Do I change anything in system by choosing otherwise? No I can’t change the system. It’s not even my intention. My intention is my own ends. If my choice is in line with system prediction it embraces it. If not throws out me as noise.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Life is all about living

For the sake of convenience let’s assume I met this lady, who is in her fifties, somewhere in my life and we were talking about something which ended up about war.

I saw some news, it seems some blast in your country. Is it war? She asked.

Well it’s not war, as countries fight, but some fundamentalist and terrorist organization, I told her.

“War is bad, too bad”, she continued. They will give a warning and will drop the bombs. I was a kid. 10 years old. I was in street for shopping. One such sound came. People were running. I don’t know what to do. I saw a shop owner closing his shop. I went in. I was a small kid. Her hands were showing a small height, and her eyes were lost somewhere. So he allowed inside and closed the door. There was a heavy sound of shells dropping and guns shooting (actually she made the sound). Then after 10 minutes no sound. The shop owner opened the door slightly and saw outside. He asked me to wait for some time then after an hour he opened the door and asked me where I Live. I told it’s just few blocks away. I came out. Its dead bodies on street. I saw my parents searching for me in them. When I used to go to school, I will see these dead soldiers in age of 13 or 17 outside the church . It will disturb me. It still disturbs me. I take medicine. I talk with people, consult doctor otherwise I may get depressed. If I saw any such news in TV, my husband will switch off the TV. Suddenly in night I may wake up, because I may hear the shooting sound and the light that chased me when I tried to escape. If my son plays music loud, I ask him to reduce. I don’t know why there is war but war is bad.

I don’t know what to say. I simply saw her. She was regaining her control. She said life is going. When I landed in this country, it was cold, I was having no winter dress, I am standing in bus stop and I don’t know the language. Then I said to myself If I have to live here I shall first learn the language then some education to work. Now I am here.

Something got into my stomach, but at the same time I felt how lucky I was. I was not born in a place torn by war or by poverty or by natural disaster. It doesn’t mean nothing could happen in future. It simply means so far so good. I sit here and cry about my rat race failures: the guy next to me bought a house or got promoted or got ....,what not, while there are millions and millions of people who aren’t sure of the next day (and even if it happens it means nothing to them). I am not talking about getting complacency or renunciation of worldly desire or the emotional black mail ( you are in a better position than them). The thing that I am trying to drive to myself is: Life is not fair. Lot of things happens; you attribute it to chaos, probability or the God. But move on. That lady tried four times to escape and got and finally landed in a country with no money, no language. Now she is self standing women with a caring husband and nice kid. Yes, she is still tormented by her memories, but she never surrendered to it. She had her kept her spirits high. The spirit, the life, keeping it alive is the activity one is supposed to do. It’s what living is all about. Everyone has a way of doing it. Its not the end result, he gets in it that keeps his spirit, it is the process of doing it. The end result is a tiny moment. The process, the means, that’s where we spend most of our time. If you are not happy about it, it doesn’t matter what you get at end. Lot of things can decide how it turns it out but nothing stops u from doing it except you.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

weekend blues

When I don't know what I want to do, isn't better to do something to prove someone rather than brooding on what I want?
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During the moments of Saturday night, staring on gtalk looking for some one to pop up,sending "hi hru" , asking carefully chosen questions on location, climate, life, weekend plans, hearing and saying, 'my social life is becoming void.....", somewhere in my ear Tennyson screams loud, "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all"

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Does Time makes it?

It is the first day after summer holidays. Classes are bustling with noises. Students are in their new class room. Guys, who are lucky enough to maintain their coterie, are making up for all the talks missed during summer. The air is filled with narrations of truth and fantasies. In the room full of fun and hope there sits a guy in the last bench more introvert with an eye that doesn't conceal he is not part of the party. He is staring through the window. Some sit next to him. They know he was retained in that class. They whisper among themselves as if to not distract him. As hours progress someone calls him: " anna". He starts to talk reluctantly. They give respect and asks him on the new teachers, how to cajole or dodge them. He catches the widening eyes of them as he answers. The new superiority brings smile to his lips and an proud to his eyes. Deep inside, he may even enjoy his failure, for what it gives now. Or is it just his soul found a way to condone its failures? Even if he fails next year its just matter of few hours of gloom, till someone in the class calls him , "anna.."

It's just a matter of time to start saying, "Honestly dear, I don't give a damn..."

Sunday, June 8, 2008

why is it so infrequent

The movie was running in sci-fi channel. I don't know the movie name and it is one of the movies that they make 'in house'. Something horrible happened in her past and probably she is sitting there to think about what next but ends up in thinking about what happened and how it could be thwarted. When the director pitched it should have been like this: The lady is sitting on the banks of a stream. The place is serene. She picks up the pebble and throw in to the slow moving stream. It ripples and gets lost into numerous pebbles lying below. She picks up another and over time she just swings her hand there is no pebble in her hand and her eye is lost into horizon with the empty hand drawing an slowly moving arc on air which forms a poetic picturization in the viewers eye. But what we see is through the eyes of a camera which fails to focus what it shall focus and a face which has no clue on what it does and we end up in seeing a person who sits on a place for reasons she don't know and do things just because she had been asked to do.

But this happens quite often, something which looks so beautiful in mind but when started to put in action tatters and looks like, “பிள்ளையார் பிடிக்க போய் குரங்கு பிடிச்ச கதையாய்” When I am about to bed or when I wake up in middle of night or in the morning hours when one have time and wish to sleep and sleep eludes, something forms in mind, which looks so impeccable with all pieces of the puzzle in place . But as time slips and when I log in to transmit what is in the brain to to the tips of finger, somewhere in the channel it gets distorted. Sometimes I may miss the magic line, sometimes it looks things just not in order or out of context.....

Unlike that director I don't have deadlines so I press the delete button instead of publish button.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

class blood

I am planning to write about something. As usual after turning on laptop I started to browse and ended up in this line.

Eugene O’Neill said, "The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers."

Comments ?????

Monday, November 5, 2007

Alcatraz

It happened while I was in my primary classes. We visited Thiruchi and visited Srirangam, travelling over the big iron bridge over the vast sand dunes. My dad was telling me that this place used to flood and Srirangam is in the middle of water , like an island. (But I visualized Cauveri flooding with water only when I was reading the first chapter of Ponniyan selvan.) Back in school one day was teacher was teaching about peninsula, island and I wrote srirangam as an example for Island. The teacher scowled at me for it. I wished I would bring her to Alcatraz and show her the name plate that showed "Alcatraz Island".

Alcatraz technically qualifies to be an island as it is surrounded by water, but actually it is just the tip of an rock, whose total size is 20+ acres. Lot of things happened in this place just like on any other piece of land on this earth.But its mostly known for the jail it had, might be because it was the last of the biggest things to happen there. There was an self guided audio tour to help to walk through the jail. The audio tour was nicely crafted with supposedly voices of the wardens, jailer, prisoners etc and with the screeching sounds of the cell gates.

We were walking through one of the aisles, it has the cells opposite each of them there was a small glass window. They were supposedly the brightest cells, as there was a grilled wall above the glass panel. Through the glass window one can watch the San Francisco. The Freeland that is so near, but still so far. In the background the voice of one of the prisoner is reeling, " we could hear the voices of celebration, happening, new year sounds, sounds of girls giggling...". That was the moment I realised what 'JAIL' means. the biggest punishment of all was seeing the freedom in front of ones eyes and still not able to enjoy it. How cruel it would be?

When we started the tour , we were talking about the statement in the pamphlet. Food, shelter medicine will be provided. Everything else is privilege. My friend was asking what else one need. I got the answer when I was viewing the beautiful landscape through the glass panel.
I was wondering whether is this a bliss compared to be locked in dark cell or is this the cruelest punishment where the roaring waves and the sky scrapping buildings on the other side of the water teases you about what you miss. Not surprisingly most of the tour was about various failed attempts made to escape. Well that's one of the basic urge of an human to be free. Whatever be the dangers that lie ahead it can't stop the man's innate urge to be free.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

பூங்குன்றன்+இளங்கோ

நீர்வழிப் படுஉம் புணைபோல்,
வாழ்தல் வேண்டி,
ஊழ்வினை துரப்ப,
ஆருயிர் முறைவழிப் படுஉம்.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

SOLITUDE

Have you ever felt the pang that occurs when you are going to take the first bite of your food sitting alone in a table in cafeteria or hotel while all other tables have more than one occupancy or while eating the food you cooked for yourself in your room (forget home , it doesn't qualify to be house too...) with the television or laptop on?

The most ill-fated habit a person can have is thinking about the meaning of His Life or the direction its heading when he is chewing his first bite of his food. It never get swallowed...

Friday, June 1, 2007

Institutionalised

I was watching "The shawshank redemption". In the movie there comes an explanation on the word "Institutionalised", which is "You hate it, then adjusted to it and finally fully depend on it."
Now I am able to much appreciate what I heard some time back "Marriage is an institution , which one can't avoid in our society".
What a succinct truth it is that an elderly family man could say..

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Dinner @ Japanese Restaurant

I thought of writing last week itself. The reason for procrastination is my laziness. Valluvar said “ forgetting, laziness, long sleep all these are ships which people who want to hit failure will take” (I remember this because my dad scolds me only by saying that kural). I have all the three. I went to an Japanese restaurant. I went with my roommate who is in US for several years and been to these hotels for some time. So there was not any problem in choosing a menu. He ordered an combo for me which had an soup, spring roll, a piece of item which is similar to nugget but had sea food. He said it is of type clam. Well it was nice especially with the sauce that they gave. The main course was fried rice, steak and chicken. Before going to it I have to explain the table in which we sat. It was rectangular in shape and chairs were only on 3 sides. I was initially surprised why it had no chairs on other side. But it got clarified when we entered main course. A chef came with a trolley. The other side was actually a stove. They started to cook front of us. He made fried rice then fried vegetables, chicken and steak. To fry onion, He took an onion slice and separated each ring and placed them one above other like the tower of Hanoi and poured oil on it and lit a fire. The skillfulness, with which he did it, was a wonderful thing to look at. During cooking he was asking us about our country, our food style, culture etc.. It was a quite interesting thing to look out. Finally the bill came close to 26 USD per head.

Well we can see this kind of cooking in roadside shops of India also. Especially if you order an fried rice the way he cut and put egg in it and tosses the rice .. I love to watch it. The difference is there he will be in lungi, road side sound and dust will be the there, here the cook is in formal attire and speaks to us amicably and cooks.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

learning tamil

Though I read lot of tamil novels and I have scribbled something under the name of புது கவிதை, my knowledge in tamil grammer is virually zero.Honestly I never took the pain to learn something seriously. It is one of the biggest costs I have paid for studying in an English medium -matriculation school in a rural area. All the subject were in English but staffs and everyone spoke in colloquial Tamil. There was a Tamil paper but it was always treated as something not a worth one. Net result products, which were half-baked in both languages. Well this can be seen just as blaming game, and one can ask me why didn't you take any effort to learn something by yourself. I accept it’s my fault, but what i try to say is environment is not much conducive to give an impetus.

My father is a Tamil teacher with a science background, but I never took pain to learn from him. Because of some unknown reasons I believed he is more interested in science than Tamil. Even in my higher secondary days we never sat together to prepare for my Tamil papers. I took an easy path of reading just novels and புது கவிதைகள். He used to ask me to learn thirukural, whenever he gets a chance. But I was always contended with easy to read stuffs.
It took some time for me to understand that whatever i read and admired and tried to replicate were not poems they were just beautiful lines. How can I experiment in something without understanding the basic of it?
I was searching net to learn my mother tongue. Even at this point I never thought I can get back to my dad. Accidentally I got a chance to read a piece of hymn in remembrance of a person written by him, then only it dawned to me,” I can learn from him". I have to speak to him on this and i hope at least in a year I can learn something from him