It has been a long time since I wrote a blog. Its time I started it again. Since I didn’t have anything to write (you must be wondering when did I have stuff to write, that’s probably true too :)), I decided to write whatever came to my mind.
One of the main regrets of my life is that I was not able to attend some of my best friends’ marriages. Sathya to start with – it was in 2006 immediately after my marriage (in fact just two months after my marriage), couldn’t go as I was stuck in some s….t project work. Suresh’s, Venkat’s, Revathi’s, Parthi’s, Viji (Vijayakumar). Given how short my friends' list is, this is pathetic l which will haunt me for my life. The only exception to this list was Dinesh (I made it to his reception). All my friends will surely be unhappy with me.
As a child I always wanted to be a doctor. My father thought I will make it too. Coming from a Tamil medium background, we didn’t realize how difficult it will be. Also, my family probably overestimated me (as all the families do). Finally, common sense prevailed and I changed my mind to become an engineer. That was more reachable given my IQ and the marks I scored in my higher secondary.
My father always asks me a simple question. Well, simple for him, but too complicated for me. What do you do in office? I am always tempted to say “I produce paper” as one of my senior managers used to say. But on a serious note, he wants to understand, what do I do starting at 7 AM and extending till 12 midnight most of the days. Is the job so complicated that I have to be there everyday for about 15, 16 hours or I just wile my time away? I tried to explain him once. When I started my first job at a call center, I yielded to his continuous taunting and explained him about what I do from 6 PM to 3 AM (yea that was a night shift). He kind of understood that, but didn’t understand the connection between my MBA and the job. I told him, this is more like it. We don’t necessarily do what we have studied. However, that job description didn’t last longer. I changed my job within a month of me explaining the job profile to him. My new job was completely different from what I did earlier and luckily it had some MBA connection too. Again, one fine innocuous morning, my father started the conversation. “What do you do”? I said, Father, chuck it, I am not going to explain it coz, I need to first understand what I am doing :).
It was 2002 when I was in my MBA and went for a tour to the north which included Delhi, Manali and Agra. During the journey, I proudly said to my friends how good the buses in Bhopal were (I studied my engineering there). I told them that nobody can find people standing in the buses since the police will put a spot fine on the driver and the conductor. It was true and I was building up the story for my friends when the train reached Bhopal. To my horror I saw people sitting on top of the buses and Suresh (Sr.) immediately pounced on me. “Santa, you are right. Nobody will stand inside the bus, they will all sit on top of it” and I was not able to control the guffaws that surrounded me. :)

Today's generation

I always wondered how the current generation of children will shape up. They have loads of information in front of them, but are they able to assimilate them all? They don’t play outside. The maximum workout they have is for their fingers when they play computer games. My childhood days were different. When I come back from school at 4.30, I usually play for three to four hours outside till we are blinded by the darkness. And they were not sophisticated games. Some days, it was gilli danda; some days it was kabaddi, some days it was volleyball (with a plastic ball) and most of the days it was cricket that occupied my evenings. And my parents didn’t say anything about me playing outside. One more thing to note here is that we didn’t have home works those days. Those were reserved for kids studying in convents. For students studying in government schools, we hardly had anything either during the school time or after that. So we were free to do anything and everything we wanted. When I think of my childhood, it was free of TVs, movies, Shopping or even video games. It was mostly physical games and sometime chess and carom. Look at today’s generation. They have everything, yet if you think of it, they don’t have anything. First of all, they have bad memory. Before the cell phone days, I used to remember, almost all of my friends’ and family’s landline numbers by heart. But now, that is fading away. Today’s kids almost spend their entire day in front of TV. They watch what the adults watch, they speak what adults speak. Yet we are oblivion to everything. They know everything by 10, 11 which I didn’t know even when I was 17, 18. We pat ourselves on our backs if our kid is singing a song from the recent movie. Another worrying trend is the advent of realty shows for kids. Some of the shows I watch are simply outrageous. Some loser might come in as a judge and give comments to the kid that are so insensitive to say the least. I am not a psychiatrist to assess the effect these comments have on the kids when they grow up. But I can assure you that they are not going to be good. This is where playing outdoor games come in handy. They tell you how to lose and still be happy about it. The worrying part still is that the parents seem to relish that and push their kids to do things which they wouldn’t have done even in their dreams. The advent of internet also has cast a spell on today’s kids. The other day, my niece who is all of nine years old, sent me a friend request in facebook. I immediately called my sister and scolded her for being so careless. The parents should at least know what their kids are doing infront of their computers. It doesn’t mean that we should watch them over their shoulders, but at least the kid should know what they are supposed to be doing. My neighbors have two children (girls) aged 12 and 9 respectively. They were at my home recently and watching hindi songs on TV. They knew most of the songs by heart and sang the songs as they were played in the TV. Not sure if they had the same interest towards studies. My only worry about today’s children is their ability to assimilate information and apply them . Its one thing to have information infront of you and another to apply them. That’s where the worry is. Some of the worries about today’s generation are –
Are they physically and mentally fit?
Is our education system keeping pace with the changing times?
How will the kid react if they are faced with a dire situation?
Not sure I know the answers yet, but I will once this generation grows up. Till then I will have to keep my fingers crossed.

Inlaws

Getting married has a lot of implications. Apart from the fact that you are going to support one other person lifelong, you also need to realize that you will have to cop a lot of issues which the in-laws (s) bring. In my case the problem was pentupled (don’t know how to say “five times”) because I had five brothers in law. Yea. You read it right. Five. The problem started when met her for the first time. It was November of 2005 and I had travelled to Chennai to see her. After getting lost five or six times, my cab finally arrived at her place when I was greeted by two of the five. It was not intimidating outside the house, but when I went in, the hall was full of people, rather there were these five of them but coupled with a small hall it looked like I was entering a theater releasing a Rajnikanth movie and it was first day first show. By now you would have understood the scenario in the hall. The more I think of that set up, the more I believe (after four years of marriage) that I said yes to the marriage probably because I was worried about my safety.
After marriage, things get even worse if you have so many in laws. First of all the question of them coming to Hyderabad from Chennai to help the bride and the groom to settle. The more I think of it, the more I wonder whether it was any help at all. First of all I had to book tickets to a total of nine people. My father, mother and there ends my family. Now coming to the extended family – Her mother, father, one of the brothers, one of the brothers’ father in law and mother in law. So including Priya and me it was nine people who boarded the train (by the way I booked tickets for all). I don’t understand how so many people make two of us comfortable. The problem didn’t end there. I had to look for three autos the next day to take these people to safety. The issue was that I was the only one who knew where my house was. I had to literally coordinate with the two remaining autowallahs to make sure that we go in tandem (and you know how the autowallahs in Hyderabad drive). Predictably I reached home first. I looked for the remaining two autos. They were not there. None of the others had a cell phone for me to coordinate. It took them an hour more to reach my place (I had given the autowallahs some direction on how motinagar looks). But for that one hour, I was walking up and down the moti nagar roads and checked each and every auto which passed by to make sure that not anyone with close resemblance to my family members was there. Looking at this, some people on the road even came to me and said “bhai saab, aap police hai kya”. Some autowallahs even tried to bribe me. By the end of it all I was so jaded that I was about to call all my friends who were still bachelors and tell them about the perils of marriage. I don’t want to go into details about how the next four days went. It was about the same problem day in and day out.

April 2010
Even after four years of marriage, the problem with the in laws still remained at large. One day, my wife said that one of her sisters in law will visit our place. You know how men react. When these conversations start, you know that you are in big trouble since the way you react will make your wife know how you feel about them. I tried to keep a straight face and said “oh is it. How nice”. The next day she said, “you know what, my mother and the eldest brother are coming too”. Again the same reaction from me. The next day, one more person was added to the list. I don’t even remember who that is. The D day arrived when they were supposed to come. By that time, I had lost count of how many people were in that visitor’s list. So the day before their arrival I asked her “how many people are coming”, She said that three ladies are coming. I said okay. I will see if I can pick them up. The next day, I had to get up at 4.30 AM to receive them at the station. I woke up, and saw my wife sleeping. I said, “Priya do you want to come, I want company”. She readily agreed. We went there and when the train came, and I saw them, my jaw dropped. There were four adults (including three ladies), three kids and five baggages. How an earth they will all fit into my i10 is anybody’s guess. I went inside my car and sat in the driver’s seat (without uttering a word. That is important because you don’t want to jeopardize your chances of getting a hold of your meals). They opened the boot and tried to fit in as much as they could. They had one bag and two people left outside the car at the end of this ordeal. I looked at my wife and asked her “how many people you said were coming”, she said “three ladies and my brother”. I don’t know where the kids will fit in her category (ladies?). I replied, “if you knew very well that these many people are coming and you know our car’s capacity, why did you agree to come with me in the first place?” There was no reply. I couldn’t do much either, I asked her to come in an auto and tried to bring the remaining people home. The arrangement was that all the ladies sat at the back, with my kid and I had three kids to manage in the front seat. How I drove that day is another blog worth of story. Long story short, I literally had no control over the gear box. If i10 people come to know of this, they might probably reward me for the adventures I performed with the vehicle.
Oh no. Time is up, I need to be going back home. Yes the in laws are still there and I need to take them out tomorrow. Till the next batch of inlaws visit my place - adios.

This was a story i wrote for a competition.

“Just beat them to death”. As Aashish spoke these words, a chilling fear went through my spine. I never contemplated killing anyone, not even in my dreams. I know that it’s beyond me. I have had no experience in doing this. What if the authorities found out that it was me who killed them all? But, I realize now that I have to do it. There is no other go. Every day, rather every night for the past three months has been a nightmare. As these thoughts flashed through my mind, the thoughts went back to the events in the last three months. Working late has never been a problem for me. But in the past three months, working late and going back has been a constant struggle as these five gangsters (as I would like to call them) prey on me day in and day out. When I told this problem to my supervisor, he had a hearty laugh and said “the city has changed a lot. You have to adjust to the changing times. You can’t go home early just because you have this issue. Everybody faces this problem. Even Aashish faced this kind of situation sometime back. Ask him what he did to overcome that. Just work around as you know we will have a lot of conference calls late in the night”. “Sir” I said, “The other day when I entered the street at 2 AM, they were waiting to pounce on me. It is as if they know when I will come. I can’t take this anymore. If you can’t guarantee the safety of an employee, then I don’t see any point in working late. I am not able to concentrate after nine since I know that these predators will be there waiting for me”. Aashish gave me a piece of wisdom, “you know what, initially I was also struggling to come to terms with these, but as time went along, I understood that it’s fear on the person’s eye that they feed on. So try to stay calm and bully them back or better still, try to befriend them”. I said “What are you talking about? I can’t be friends with these thugs. Never. The other day I tried to shout at them but they came back with a vengeance.” I was on the verge of crying. That’s when Aashish suggested that I kill them. I decided to use pepper spray to unsettle them and then attack. I know that it needed a lot of courage but I have to do it. Somebody has to stand up and let it be me. I will show the world that I am not a coward. May be my son will take some inspiration from me if I am able to do it. It was 2 AM, and time to go home. I packed my laptop and started going home. My home is 3 KMs away from the office, and there is a dark corner near my apartment where these predators usually wait. I could sense my heart racing. From a distance, I could see my apartment and the dark corner as well. I was sweating profusely as I neared that corner, waiting for them to pounce on me. To my surprise I found no one. That’s when the watchman of my apartment came running towards me and said, “Aarthi Madam, the authorities took note of our situation. They sent a dog catching van today and caught the dogs that usually loiter here. So don’t worry, you can go home peacefully now”.

Avatar - a review

Finally, I had to join the bandwagon. When people started asking me these million dollar questions, I had to oblige. “Have you seen Avatar, it’s a great movie, you must watch it, and remember watch it only in 3D. You will be amazed.” Add to this, all the social networking sites I go to were flooded with messages saying the same thing. Frankly I am not a big fan of these movies, I like the old ones filled with emotions and I am a great fan of director Bala. That must tell you something about my taste. People have already started telling me that I am getting old for the new generation, still listening to Ilayaraja songs, not knowing how to play video games and doesn’t understand the difference between a PSP and an XBOX. So, here I was, trying to decide whether I should go for the movie of the year or the decade. Finally, I decided that I will give it a shot. I shelled out 600 bucks for three tickets and waited for the D day to arrive. In between I had to persuade my three year old son to allow me to watch. I had to do this, since during my last attempt at a 3D movie, “Monsters vs Aliens”, I had to literally stand outside the theater, since he didn’t like me wearing those glasses and didn’t like those cartoon creatures. This time though, he behaved better allowing me to watch the movie. Now coming to the movie, I was quite amazed by the spectacle that unfolded in front of me. This was a visual spectacle and nothing more than that. The storyline is as thin as a wafer. In fact we have seen this story innumerable times in Hindi, Tamil and English films as well. Human race as greedy as ever, trying to get hold of unobtonium (frankly, I thought James Cameron could have come up with a better name for the rock, Goldanium could have been apt given the skyrocketing price of gold :)). Creating Avatars and trying to persuade the Navi race to give that up. Then the hero turns the savior. Then the usual story of how the evil loses to the good. For a movie with a thin story line, the length of the film is unusually long. After some point in time the initial awe gives way to boredom. This is not to say that the movie was of no use, but the director could have concentrated a little more on the length and the story line. Probably, this film was not to my liking (and age probably), but has transformed me as a cine goer. For example, as I initially said, the visual spectacle that unfolds in front of you in incredible and that too in a 3D environment, the experience is amazing (for the lack of superlative words). As a normal cine goer, this film has transformed me and I am not sure, whether I will be able to accept anything less than a visual spectacle in future. I know this is not possible since most of the tamil films I watch have not really taken off in terms of using technology. My rating – 3 out of 5 (I know this is kind of stupid and you will laugh at me for saying this on a film which has grossed $1bn in revenue so far and expected to sweep the Oscars). But, I feel that good films are not those which create an aura around them, but those which create an impact which will be difficult to come out of for at least three to four days after watching them. Sadly, I did not have the same kind of experience with this. But as my friends say, I think too much while watching the film about the loopholes and that’s why I am not able to enjoy them. Probably true and let me see another film to check whether I am able to enjoy it without thinking too much about it.