Another trip to home.

After a hectic forenoon, it was time to kick start for home. There's an engagement ceremony in Lekha's family that needs to be attended.

The drive was uneventful but interesting as mom was in her elements, regaling us with her anecdotes. We'd stopped at a roadside eatery for the evening cuppa and to freshen up. There was a line up of a flight of stairs and negotiating them with mom made me feel guilty. Made a mental note that I'd never again visit the place with people who've problems of locomotion.

Reached  home a bit after sunset.

Some lingering doubts....

I've been following the spate of news that seem to fill both, the air and the columns. And I've begun to wonder as to whether the numerous doubts that have cluttered my mind regarding them are genuine or whether they're the product of an information overkill when the actuals start getting fuzzy in the wake of continuous reportage. Let me try to list them out:-

 (a) The SNC Lavalin case.

      Pinarayi Vijayan, the CPM's state secretary and his cronies have been claiming it as their leader's

      exoneration when the CBI special court had given its verdict to the effect that Vijayan and the 

      bureaucrats could be delinked due to some technicalities. It's another matter that the Canadian 

      company, Lavalin is yet to respond to the chargesheet till date. So, in other words the legal battle

      against the company will continue.

      And this peculiar decision is being tom-tommed as the leader's moral victory and proof of his

      innocence!

      The consequential questions that arise are:-

                 (i) the loss of Rs. 345 crores to the state's exchequer is only attributable to the company?

                (ii) the whereabouts of Rs. 100 crores to be paid to the cancer research institute at Kannur.

               (iii) if everyone from the Indian side, who'd negotiated the deal, is clean then how is it that the

                     CAG has found gaping discrepancies? Now, don't tell me that it's out of personal vendetta

                     or witch-hunt?

  (b) The PM's dilemma.

        The Indian Prime Minister seems to be in a dilemma. To attend or not to attend the Commonwealth

        Heads of Government Meeting at Colombo is the bugbear. The political matrix of Tamilnadu has put

        the spanner in the works.

        My queries essentially are as follows:-

                  (i) Shouldn't the Sri Lankan government's treatment of their Tamil population be brought

                      to the fore when 58 other countries of the world are participating?

                 (ii) With the international spotlight on the meet, wouldn't we be botching up our chances if

                      we pass off this golden opportunity to prevail upon the other countries to push for a positive

                      response from the Sri Lankans?

   (c) Frequent power disruptions.

        It's getting to be curiouser and curiouser. The generators of the Moolamattam power house seem to

        be going out of order a bit to frequently. The latest incident when the power supply has been affected

        is due to the burning away of a 220 kv powerline of a connected transformer. The Kerala State 

        Electricity Board and the Government need to ask themselves the following:-

                    (i) What's the reason for the high rate of failures of this powerhouse?

                   (ii) Weren't the the generators overhauled recently? So, why should these breakdowns take

                        place at all?

                   (iii) Aren't preventive maintenance being carried out as per their schedules?

                   (iv) Are the spares that are being used not upto the standards?

Tailpiece.

As a citizen, these queries bug me. No one seems to care. Efficiency and straightforwardness seem to have made way for sleaze and rampant corruption. And we seem to hurtle on with a gay abandon! 

           

                       

The world is indeed small.

Two things that happened today cannot be forgotten - the first was because I'd not done enough homework and the second was a matter of coincidence, coupled with a bit of carefully done homework!

My uncle and aunt had to go to Chengannur in preparation for their grandson's wedding and had decided to go by the Kerala Express from New Delhi, passing through Ernakulam by 0930h. And I'd dropped them at the railway station about 15 minutes before the train's arrival time. Because of the parking woes, I'd bid them bye and made my way to the office.

I'd come to know that the train was late by an hour and a half when my uncle had called me to announce his arrival at the destination by about a quarter past 2.

Felt miserable, because I should have checked the train's schedule before taking them to the railway station. Bad show!

My mom had to got to a local bank for her 'life certificate' as she's a family pensioner. Based on prior homework, we could reach the bank at the appointed hour, with mom, to complete the formalities. The whole rigmarole didn't last more than 10 minutes despite the fact that my mom's pension account was actually at the bank's branch near my dad's house near Kottarakkara.

As we're through with the necessary endorsements and online submission of the certificate to the parent branch, the manager and I came to know that we're from the same school. And then it was on to our journey down memory lane.


Tailpiece.

The spat within the scientific community that the Mars mission is nothing to be proud of, as nothing much is being achieved in terms of new equipment/systems being tried out, has been a dampener. The continued dependence on the PSLV rocket is also being bandied as something that could have been replaced by the indigenous cryogenic engine!

A case of showmanship without substance or is it a wilful clash of egos? The British press has also not been very enthusiastic about the 'Mangalyaan'! 

Li'l Paro's proprietorial behaviour.

I'd come down the stairs to the ground floor to go on my evening walk. And, all of a sudden, a little hand held mine and when I turned around, I noted that it was none other than my li'l Paro.

Holding my hand firmly, she wanted me to take her, by the lift, to her house on the 12th and top floor of our building. I'd no choice but to follow suit as per the little lady's directions and she pointed at a few red blotches, on her knees and elbows, obviously because of missing skin thanks to a fall on a rough surface. To my query as to who'd pushed her and caused the wounds, she very calmly said that it was due to her own fault and no one else was to blame. Her mom, exercising on the lawn, had sent her to her home to have the wounds cleaned by her brother - a class III student!

On reaching the house, she's in a bit of a dilemma - albeit, for a very, very short while - as to whether I should be sent away forthwith or whether I should be kept waiting so that she could accompany me downstairs, after the cleansing of her wounds. She waved at me, gave me a cute smile and walked into her house!

I must admit that I was quite pleased by her 'proprietorial' attitude towards me!!

*                             *                             *

After what seemed to be a long time, we could finally look up my friend's grandchild. The li'l boy was being lullabied to sleep by his mother when we'd reached their doorbell. And he then decided to give his sleep the go by and we'd held him in turns with him watching each one of us rather intently, through his wide bright eyes!

He's all of 40 days and would probably fly to his dad, currently in the US, doing a project!

*                              *                              *

And soon after, we'd gone to li'l Shanaya. I was able to make amends to my earlier faux pas with her. I carried her around to make up for my previous lapse of not having done so because I was sweaty after my exercises.

And she seemed to accept my proposition without any reservation, whatsoever!


Tailpiece.

I seem to be readily getting accepted by the little kids! Am I becoming their Pied Piper? 

Snippets...

My uncle from Nasik is visiting us. And his discourses on the Bhagvad Gita have begun in right earnest - and boy, it's an experience! They'd arrived earlier in the day and shall be with us for a couple of days.

He's a fantastic grasp of the Gita and his interpretations, peppered with anecdotes, make it a very wonderful experience. He's here to attend his grandson's wedding and will be around in Kerala for the whole of this month. Another reason for feeling close to him is the similarity that he has with my dad's outlook towards life.

*                             *                                 *

There was a trip that I was planning to do and the preparations had been going on for the past few days - like deciding the place of our stay, the itinerary - and that'd have been hectic as I look back, in hindsight and the jotting down of necessary stuff to be done within the short stay. I'd even called up my friends about our programme with a promise that I'd be meeting each of them.

Well, it's to be shelved due to some technical reason. The youngster who'd realised that he'd made an error in his briefing earlier, based on which I'd made my decision was in tears when he realised that I was gonna lose some money because of the cancellation of our air tickets.

I tried to pacify him with the following:-

            (a) that the money that I was losing never belonged to me in the first place and so, it didn't pinch
                 me a wee bit!
            (b) that I was glad that he'd told me the harsh fact now rather than making me go through the whole
                  hog and end up with cuts in my pay at a later stage!!

He'd that puzzled look on his face as he went away. Did he expect me to throw a tantrum at him and howl away?

*                              *                                  *

I'd spoken about the actress, Shweta Menon's angst just the other day. Wonder what sort of pressures from which quarters had been brought to bear upon her that made her drop all the charges!

Her nightmare seems to have just begun. And I sincerely hope that she's able to tide over the relentless onslaught.

The guys who'd been implicated earlier and after having been absolved by the lady by her naive action, have now started singing a different tune. How shameless can guys be? And what about the visuals that show them in their true colours? Can they ever overcome that?


Tailpiece.

The lady who presses the clothes for the people dwelling in the residential area had come to me saying that she's being unnecessarily victimised by one of her customers, asking for a hefty compensation for a saree that had got burnt accidentally while pressing. While she'd agreed to pay Rs. 4 grand in return for the burnt saree,
the owner was insisting on taking the money(as a punishment) as well as retaining the damaged garment(because of sentiments)!

I'm flummoxed! There's never a dull moment!!

Diwali - the festival of lights.

The day had begun with a bright sun, a welcome change from that of yesterday which had an overcast sky and pitter-patter rains in instalments, with strong accompanying winds that made the lighting up of the small earthenware lamps a nightmarish proposition.

In Kerala, the festival was celebrated yesterday but the inmates of our residential area had kept the major chunk of their crackers and other assorted gear for this evening. And boy, what a wonderful evening it was! People were out in their Sunday best after prayers, soon after sunset. Visits to the others' houses to convey the Diwali wishes made it a great social evening and the whole place was lit up with spectacular ornamental lighting. There was gaiety and bonhomie all around and the bursting of crackers, numerous rockets that exploded in midair into colourful spangles and the chorus of gregarious noise of the children and their elders rent the air almost incessantly all through the evening, much past the usual bedtime.

There was a steady stream of visitors into our house with wishes and home made sweets. I must shamefully admit that our stock of sweets - used to receive the guests - had run out in between and we'd to dip into the ones that we'd got as gifts! Poor anticipation of the number of people who came by, on my part!!
It was mom's first Diwali with us and she seemed to be the most excited of the lot, striking conversation and exhorting everyone to partake the sweets in her unique style with a smattering of Hindi, English and Malayalam - she's made quite a few friends in the bargain.

Earlier in the day, it was catching up with many of our friends through e-mail, smses and calls which had gone on almost non-stop. It was simply great to catch up with the news of one's inner circle of friends and relatives.

A great day indeed!


Tailpiece.

This is the last 'Diwali' for me as the patriarch of this small but wonderful bunch of people as we shift berth to our home by the end of this month. And it has been a great experience!    

Shweta Menon's angst.

For the last two days, the local media has been on an overdrive to cover the ignominy suffered by the actress, Shweta Menon while she was the chief guest at an official function at Kollam, a couple of days back. .

In these days of an all pervading mistrust engulfing the society, any unwanted visual is designated as 'morphed' by the parties directly involved, for their own selfish reasons to get a reprieve. And a few of them have proved to be so in the past as unscrupulous elements had succeeded to create a smoke screen to cover their mistakes. In the process, one often comes across the hopeless situation when both, the aggrieved and the accused end up crying foul over an issue!

Her difficult moments

She'd arrived at the venue of the event at the appointed hour and was received by the organisers that included Peethambara Kurup, the local MP of the Congress party and the Collector, among others. She was at the venue till the completion of the event, delivering her inaugural speech and even partaking in a singing bout with Kalabhavan Mani, her colleague from the film world despite her 'nightmarish experience'.

The MP was continuously endeavouring for a body contact at the slightest pretext. The Collector - who was the main organiser - had sympathised with her on her plight when she'd reported the matter to him. And her agony had begun. The opposition's wing, the DYFI, has filed a case against the MP for his alleged misdemeanour and even, had burnt his effigy!

Two aspects need to be touched upon at this juncture:-

    (a) The media visuals that had covered the event show the MP trying to make body contact with the
          actress many a time. Again, two factors require mention at this stage, which are:-

          (i) there wasn't any surge or unmanageable movement of the crowd in the immediate
              vicinity of the actress, the MP and the other dignitaries.
         (ii) the MP has not been at the wrong end of the media's coverage as he hasn't been into
              any controversies, thus far.
 
     (b) The Collector has vehemently denied that the actress had reported the matter to him and that's what
           has saddened the actress - painting her as a liar.

She and her husband are preparing to give their written complaint to the chief minister.

Meanwhile, the media has gone to town on the issue and is all agog with quite an array of 'panel discussions'.


Tailpiece.

1. Is anyone of us, among the common public, of the opinion that actors are of easy virtue and anyone has the freedom(?) to misbehave with them?

2. If one respects one's mother, sister and wife and expects everyone else to follow suit then he has no right to misbehave with others' mothers, sisters or wives. Period!

3. While the media is doing a fantastic job in bringing out wrongdoings into public domain and must continue to do so, being the most effective watchdog for the society, it needs to show restraint and maturity in the subsequent coverage of issues.

PS.
Didn't I tell you that we, Malayalees, are a sexy people? I mean, we've sex in our mind always!