Forgive me....

Idling on the couch and watching “Combat Hospital” in CNN, am in a hyper philosophical mood…times when I have occasional jaunts of introspection. I believe folks should try out to sit alone, have a coffee in the balcony when the wind is blowing on your face and think Hope readers will find my blah blah bearable...

Forgiveness...let me share with you a great quote..

Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much… Oscar Wilde

I was just thinking how much we forgive others. Is the human psyche engineered to foster grudge and anger? Does all that famous “Human brain cells” stop making sense and reason those times… The program I was watching showed docs treating injured people in make shift hospitals. The groans of the injured were not like the one we have heard in movies...They were real pain...Death was real…Reality was painful...the culmination of our own greed hatred and anger…
Coming to the point I intend to talk might be in someway related to the “reality”...

Somehow isn’t forgiving a really difficult thing to do?. Am not talking about forgiving Saddam Hussein or a Pol Pot…but about forgiving the guy who just took your coffee mug and kept it back without washing it. Are we able to really forgive the person for something as silly as that? Dont we after sometime look at him as the person who never bothered to wash my cup. Unfortunately many a time “YES”...Although we have a habit of proudly declaring that we don’t carry any rancor for such insignificant matters.This kind of pseudo-forgiveness is nothing but denial, repression or suppression of feelings.

Let me say, it is so easy to retort when someone makes fun of you. But have you tried to look like an idiot when someone is making a mockery of you….not to respond when someone is giving a shower of obscenities at the holy thou face of yours??

It’s against nature…against all that we have been psyched for..

We don’t become un-macho (for us guys) when you do that. It calls for more guts to fight your natural instincts. And it works!! It is isn’t possible to do that every time, but it gives a lot more sense of satisfaction and a lighter head...coz the protagonist will definitely expect you to get angry every time he irritates or screws you. But then when he gets the unexpected result ...the ball is in his court...

I know people advocate “speaking your mind” in any such conflict situation. It is the other way of solving the problem..the easy way out. And you have a fake sense of satisfaction after speaking your mind. But I somehow feel if we are able to forgive someone..."really forgive someone"...the satisfaction is ethereal……

Don’t we have those some days when we are happy for no reason…those days when nothing spectacular happiness but still you are on a high…I believe we can have those days every day if we can really forgive all those little things that irritates us. Somehow we have a stereotyped reasoning that ‘doing no harm’ is as good as ‘doing good’. But isn’t ‘doing no harm’ is same as ‘doing no good’.

So lemme tell dudes and dudette’s ,do little good things. And forgiving someone is a little good thing……Wont the world be a better place to live then......

Should practice more of it than I preach!!! :-)

It takes a strong person to say sorry, and an ever stronger person to forgive.
-Unknown

Oliver twisted!!

Another special tag that evokes fond memories..Silverine has tagged me on memoirs , when we were kids about the age of Bobanum Mollyum(mallu child heroes)..Days when we never knew what globalisation was..what professionalism was..what inflation was…ah..those days when you just had to bother if there was a power cut when Giant robot was being played

..The Wonder Years Tag
1. Write 8-10 things about childhood ( 1-12 years) that you miss.
2. Write 8-10 things that you disliked about childhood.
3. Tag a few people.

What I miss about childhood

1. The first thing that comes to my mind are those yearly summer vacations when I went to kottayam and spend weeks at my grandparents place...My cousins used to come over and we had our own hardy boys tales. Hitching to the nearby cemetery and finding out the oldest man sleeping there..It was our own way of learning maths the fun way!! :)

2. The simple basic ice cream my grandma used to make. That taste still wafts in the air as I write. Whoever said Baskin Robbins is the best...I remember my grandma saying years later that I never used to drink anything cold. The feeding bottle had to be wrapped around a towel and I still cant believe I did that!!

3. The jigsaw puzzles which I did many times over again and again..The novelty and enthusiasm never was lost even in the nth time..I stll have a 1000 piece puzzle which was a precious treasure for me…er..is still a precious..

4. I miss going to the beach with parents..When my parents seemed to be more wary of us going careless deep into the waters..Those silly attempts to touch the wave at its edge..and watching your name disappear in the next wave..cross checking if the sun sets in the east or the west..The trip wouldn’t be complete without a masala dosa from the nearby coffee house..

5. I miss Christmas times..That seemed to be the only time when I was master superior at home..I was very conscious that I run the crib making process..That feeling of being the architect when your parents just watched how far we did go..I barely survived a full mass during christmas and most often had to be carried back home on shoulders..

6. Watching new year programmes in doordarshan..Might be the only other day when I must have been awake till midnight..Prannoy Roy if I remember right used to host “the world this week”..I used to watch with dad even though I barely new anything happening outside trivandrum ..

7. I miss the camel color painting competition..Those rare days in school when I felt like "Elvis Presley." When I eagerly waited for teachers to appreciate my “Picasso” paintings..

8. I miss making the paper boats or four squares..or paper planes..I vaguely remember getting caught by my class teacher in 111 C , I guess for tearing half the pages in my notebook to make paper planes..

9. I miss the train journeys to bangalore…That was the northern most part of the country for me those days..I used to stretch my neck outside the coachwindows lest I don’t miss anything ..the sounds..the sights..the smell..

10. I miss the sheer joy when Amma or Appa comes back home after they had gone somewhere..nowadays we are so limited by the so called beingness of “maturity”!!

What I disliked about childhood

1. Drinking milk. I disliked being forced to drink milk and almost every time I vomited it out but my mom wouldn’t relent…Ditto..dint have to edit Silver’s post

2. Long prayer sessions at native place...I always wondered what so much to pray for..For me it were just 3 things which I repeated daily..

a) Give me some brains to study
b) Keep Dad and Mom happy
c) Keep all of us healthy

I couldn’t think of anything further then...

3. I disliked showing my report cards to Dad..That was real nasty..I never did score those huge marks in upper primary...

4. Being forced to eat vegetables..I never liked avial or infact most of the vegetables except bitter gourd..Things I ll kill for now..

5. Hated when guest came in at home and I had to stop the television for their sake, when any of my favourite programmes were running.

6. Visiting the eye doc..I used to break my glasses very often and I was made to read the chart as many times..Towards the end it was like..”I can read the V T and U very well..F T E and Q quite easy..but am finding tough with the Y L Z and S”..The doc used to go crazy.

7. The school drill..and somehow it always happened when it was the sunniest..I thought it was torture of magnanimous proportions.

8. Combing my hair. I still remember the fuss folks made if they couldn’t see the proper parting line ..Any deviation was dealt as if the Pakistanis just tried to change the line of control!!

9. Helping father in household chores..I tried all sorts of ingenious ways to wriggle out, though with a failure rate of 99.998%.

10. Getting up in the morning for school ..I think this comes by default for all!!

I would like to thank Silverine for creating this suppa tag that takes you down the memory lane..And I invite Velu,Rama,Sreejith,Maya,Anand,Rashmi,Dhanush,Shakhi,Neers,Amu,priya and Jac to take up the journey of those wonder years.

neo-realistic cooking!!

Long long ago there is used to be good food...good wine...and the familiar burp that signaled the finale of a sumptuous meal...now it sounds like one of those fairy tales...my experiments with truth is taking its toll…

Due to certain unforeseen circumstances I have begun to cook...am not talking about a silly tea or lowly omelets…am talking about real full fledged meals...in all grandeur and decoration. I proudly declare that I have become a Melam certified culinary professional (MCCP)... Mind it the Microsoft certificates are not in vogue these days!!

Now something for guys who ever thought cooking was difficult. It aint anymore. Introducing to you the new cook from Bavaria…”Korah”… Bringing exotic dishes from germanipuram and hamburgpur….You can tune in for the live video telecast in CNN ..@ Korah King live…or in ABC @ Desperate cooks!!

After cut throat research and analysis using the latest software’s, I found out what really irks us is that the cooking guide book says...put salt to taste... For god sake why don’t they write like this...

1) Take a beaker and empty the salt packet in it.
2) Measure 15 mg of salt using a electronic weighing machine
3) Transfer it to the vessel in which we are cooking.

That makes life a lot easier for us...So next time I write a cook book you can expect a better deal. And the dish for the day is finkenwerder pork dipped in Maui Mango BBQ Sauce …and a full course meal that goes with it...

The following is version 1.1 of the gastronomic delight...Its exotic coz it tastes a lot different from conventional dishes and has the extraordinary ability to test the limit of your organs...neways just like in old chemistry record book, here it goes..

Materials required. Pork..1+ 1 kilo... (The extra kilo is to compensate due to high probability that the dish might get over burned)
Onion (as much as u can get)
Meat masala (buy only melam..please..am its brand ambassador.. :-))
Oil..(cooking oil..not kerosene if any americans read my blog)

Guess this will do..In case we need anything more I ll say in later stages.

Make cubes of 1.5 cm * 1.5 cm by cutting the meat and keep it aside..Raw meat can be really yucky..u can wear gloves if u are allergic..
Start cutting onions..Place the knife at an angle of 45 degree on the outer contour of the onion and start iterative to and fro motions along with a simultaneous lateral movement at a speed of 1 mm every 2.5 seconds... Stop when it really starts irritating the eyes and you cant bear any further the emotional outpour that is overwhelming now.

Get some ginger garlic and green chilly...Slice it if u are really interested...Now mix the masala with the meat ...
Measure 200 ml of oil in a beaker and heat it in some vessel that is near where you are standing..
Put the onions..garlic and stuff and move out of the kitchen for a while..Unless you want to cough for a long long time...Its safer to keep the windows open unless you want to get killed by aroma poisoning.

Come back after catching up with the latest Gwen Stefani song in MTV.

Don’t be surprised if u don’t find anything in the vessel. The mix might have just got burnt and vanished in thin air...in such a scenario , you have no choice but to do the same process again …Now put the meat and some water in the mix..Add salt if you want...Neways it aint going to make a big difference...

Its time to relax after the exhaustive procedure. Come back to the kitchen whenever u feel like..And the delicious finkenwerder pork is ready!!..You can pat yourself on the back and appreciate the aroma of the exotic dish you have just made..So after that put some rice in the pressure cooker..and heat it up with water ..Stop it when u hear some whistle or something(it sounds like when a eve teaser has to whistle at a score at the same time)..And finally make some pappads to complete the grand meal..The pappad may look brown and burnt..but they are really tasty and nutritious..

Finally the part that’s really important..Decorate the dish…put some unused tomato or green chillies around the plates..grab any leaf that’s popping near your window at home..dip it in water to make it look clean and the keep it in the plate along with the tomatoes..Keep as many forks and knives you have at home around the plate to make it look chic...

If the dish you have made looks something like below then you have cleared the beginner level of my certification programme.






Ladies and gentlemen .the dish is ready and it makes a awesome meal for guest coming at your place. Guaranteed that they never be back home again. :-)

Statutory warning
Its always safer to try the dish on someone else in first attempt. Don’t panic if the consumer shows any distorts in the face or convulsions. Its part of the package..That gives the person a wholesome experience of culinary delight!

P.S I couldn’t help writing this after I made a meal and it was duly relished by a Brazilian who dropped at home at the right (this usage is debatable) time!!

mm..Not seen him in office off late!!

blog analysis..A P tharakkan report!!

I was tagged by Her Holiness Sri Sri or Sreemathi Silverine. I will be granted moksha when His Holiness Sri Sri bloggerdotcom publishes it without any hindrance…


1. Are you happy/satisfied with your blog, with its content and look? Does your family know about your blog?

I am quite happy with my blog. Analysis of my own blog was never part of my agenda. Infact I feel quite awkward weighing the pros and cons of my blog. For me the blog is just my thought process in alphabets…my family knows that I do blog. But then they don’t read it. I show Mom some of my articles but then am in a comfort zone when I see that they are not particular about reading all my crap!!


2. Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or you just consider it as a private thing?

A few of my friends know that I blog. But then most of my friends don’t bother a big deal about blogs. I don’t feel embarrassed to let my friends know, though I don’t want my friends to weigh me based on what I write in the blog. I would like to keep it as an outlet of my own free will. Cancerians play it safe…u know!!


3. Did blogs cause positive changes in your thoughts?

Yes. It definitely has given moments of laughter…introspection...Empathy...Sadness...Infact it can generate a whole gamut of emotions. Some blogs have really inspired me. Some others have given that fleeting moments of anger…Some still leave me happy and contended that world is after all a good place to live!! Just like some celebs are “media shy” I have always been “other-sex shy”…This place is a good place for folks of my ilk!! :)


4. Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or you love to go and discover more by yourself?

I am comparatively new to blog world. I used to blog hop when I started out. Of late I have restricted myself to a set of blogs which I frequent. Comments are definitely a boost. But then I read blogs for my own leisure.


5.What does visitors counter mean to you? Do you care about putting it in your blog?

I put the counter sometime back. But then I don’t frequent that site anymore…It has more to do with a feeling that It doesn’t matter neways!!! The initial curiousity about the search links folks use or my visitor stats have died down…


6. Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures?

Yeah I create a mental picture of the person. That is something that happens while reading the person’s blog. But then that changes for the same person when they write on different themes. I have visualised the same person as a nun as well as a hot shot rockstar..eh.Just kiddin..

7. Admit. Do you think there is a real benefit for blogging?

Yes, We have frank conversations. All those blocking points like sex...looks...caste...creed...whatever… is absent here. I think that’s the best part of blogging.
8. Do you think that bloggers society is isolated from real world or interacts with events?
It is isolated from the unreal world of show biz and fake camaraderie…fake etiquettes. If the real world is Page 3.Then blogger is Page 1!But then blogger is most of the time a small place in our day-to-day life.


9. Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing?

I get annoyed in the beginning if it is unwarranted...The toughest part is to know the intent of the criticism…I don’t show the person that I get annoyed. And then I just think about it. Most of the time I try to find rational…

I haven’t received any cutthroat criticism in my blogs. Anyone dare do it…It is a veiled threat...hehehe…


10. Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?

I often do read political blogs. Though social issue blogs interest me more. Political blogs sometimes get into unruly war of words that leaves a bad taste. I don’t frequent propaganda blogs…


11. Did you get shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?

Yeah.Those .5-volt shocks send shivers down my spine. Am not aware of bloggers getting arrested. On a serious note I ll say anyone one using blogs to harm anyone should be duly punished.


12. Did you think about what will happen to your blog after you die?

It will be institutionalised in the bloggers hall of fame and commemoratory parties will be held once a year to mark its death!!!..


13. What do you like to hear? What’s the song you might like to put a link to in your blog?

I have varied interests in music and I hear any language as long as it sounds good. Neways the song for the day is...this beatles song..hey jude..


Hey, Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it bette
rRemember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better


Hey, Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better.


And any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
Well don't you know that its a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder


Hey, Jude! Don't let her down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember, to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better.


So let it out and let it in, hey, Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you, hey, Jude,
You'll do, the movement you need is on your shoulder


Hey, Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better


I would love to pass this one to my friends…Angeline Jolie..Vidya Balan..Meg Ryan…yeah my celeb friends do blog. But then I visualised people like I said before!!!

Eden Gardens....

Some snaps speak louder than words……..

A trip to the botanical gardens in Hamburg left me in doubt that "nature" is god’s own creation..There wasn’t symmetry or a pattern to speak of..The kaleidoscope of colors and shapes were random.Still it lent an air of perfection..In the maze of bits and bytes we see everyday ,we miss out on many things..I realized that when I got a glimpse of the artist in God!!

I have never been interested in flowers till now..I always associated them with girly- womanish “If I dare say so..”ideas and interests..But sometimes you have to set aside stereotypes and start admiring things..I bet these snaps nowhere comes close to seeing it in its own pristine environs ..

I don’t know the names of these flowers..Infact I am disgusted at those people who gave names like “Cycas revoluta” or “Welwitschia mirabilis” for flowers..They sound drab and not synchronous with beauty they radiate..

I guess better stop my crap and let you flow to the final snap..

hamburg diaries...

It has been pretty long since I updated my blog... Everything happening to me is new and am exploring this part of the world with child like curiosity.

Okay let me confess you that am flattered by the place..things move here fast.The cars..the trains..even the mails..

My first international flight from Mumbai to Paris was in itself a experience exemplified. The French airhostess left me in no doubt why they are a admired lot.With great difficulty I began to eat continental food with dangling forks and knives with as much élan as possible..U guessed it right ..I failed miserably in that.I slept hardly for a few hours through the nine hour flight as those adrenalin rushes kept me awake most of the time.It was fun operating all those electronic gizmos in the aircraft.A novice like me had to do some peeping act to see how they operate em..After catching a few naps I woke up in the wee hours of the morning..Boy ..it was a spectacular sight watching sunrise in some Scandinavian country from top of the world..The flight from Paris to Hamburg wasn’t nothing much to talk about.

Then finally the next day afternoon I set foot on hamburg..SO just like Neil Armstrong said a few years back..A small step for me but I giant leap for my lofty dreams!!

Out of the airport I waved for a TAAASKII!!!An absolute shocker it was when a E class Merc landed in front of me.And then my gyan revealed that germans are too rich to use any less a car for taxi.After getting all comfy in my hotel room I began exploring the place.Within 24 hours I learnt a lot of things…

1) Germans drink more beer than water. Scientists reveal of high concentration of beer in the Rhine.
2) 99% of Germans smoke..The government has replaced buses and trains with hydrogen powered engines to reduce pollutions..But smokers more than make up for their efforts.
3) You are expected to blurt “thank you” for every silly help you get. I have said more pleasantries in 1 week than what I have said in a year.
4) Everything runs on time here.Dont expect your bus to come 10 seconds late.Transport is run so godamn perfectly here.
5) Germans wear anything to office..Poor us have to look professional!!
6) For every Man there is a prostitute..Here its legal!!For god sake this place is either way ahead of civilization or ages behind.
7) I saw beggars in Hamburg..Our India is not bad..
8) Was absolutely shocked when I found people don’t us orkut.com,espnstar.com,yahoo.com or any popular site during working hours..They really work when they are at work!!
9) This place is the second biggest port in Europe and second largest city in Germany.Everything looks like old fashioned buildings from outside ,but all of em are state of the art inside..Did a ferry cruise of the city on day 2 itself.
10) And finally hamburg has nothing to do with hamburger..
I have moved over to a house from the hotel..I found a cool Indian roommate as well!!
Its pretty cold out here and it should snowing sometime in october..Thats the part am looking forward too..

Till then ..

Ein schoenen Tag noch!!! :)

hamburg is great!!

Its ironic that i took a sarcastic take on s/w industry few weeks back..And now am in hamburg ,Germany for project work.This is my first onsite assignment and am pretty apprehensive of this new land..new people..new culture..And i finally told myself ..Am going places!!! :)

Will update more on German stories once I settle down..Sorry for the delay in updating the blog..

Happy onam for my mallu brethren!!