Ars Gratia

Sometimes past midnight, I like to step out onto the balcony of my 10th floor apartment and stare at the sleeping sentinel that is Cochin. Tonight is one of those nights.

One part of me just likes to observe the stillness of the infinite night that seems to have lulled this ancient city into inaction; the other part of me quietly revels in mundane Ansel Adam-like snapshots of the night  - a row of autos napping outside a sodium-lit street; the simulated fluttery panic of drying trouser legs in the night breeze; the surreal mists of the distant refinery drifting about, searching for a place they can call home; the occasional glimmer among indigo waves as ships seek respite from the depths of darkness.

At such times, one feels compelled to let the mind wander on its own accord, sweeping through childhood memories, existential dilemmas, imagining grandchildren, wondering why Million Dollar Baby had to end thataways, why Erich Segal had to kill her, why do men kill whales, why our next generation will not probably see a magnificent live tiger…or why one wrote the blog that one did. It also helps that when one wants to sound unearthly and philosophical – in sync with the god-like feeling that a 10th floor view at midnight can inspire - one starts saying “one” more often that “I”.

It is this that brings me to recant some of what I wrote about martial arts in my previous post – as an immediate penance, let me affirm that there are obvious and serious benefits that practicing Martial Arts can bring about:

Health
Unless you are a diehard aerobics practitioner or have your own personal trainer, it is very unlikely that you are doing enough exercise to justify the tonnes of Lays, Pepsi and Black Forest  that you inflict on your stomach (Speak for yourself, you say?- I hear you!).

An hour and a half of martial arts can take care of this – normally any martial arts class starts with warm up exercises which would include stretching, pushups, jogging etc. Next in line would be slightly more rigorous muscle group exercises like crunches or squats or swinging your limbs. Now comes the more serious business of specific punches, blocks and kicks – variations on upper/ lower/ middle/ left/ right themes…and then katas – these are sequences of punches, kicks, blocks which usually involve movement.  Next would be sparring with an opponent and then the warm-down.

At the end of this, your joints creak and the muscle pain kicks in after the endorphins wear off – but it is such an exquisite pain – the pain of realizing the limits that you can push your body to perform – the pain of growing new muscles – the pain of putting in 2 hours of effort and having reached that ledge on a mountain face where you can take a glance at the rising sun & then move on to the next narrow toehold…now that’s a tad too poetic, so to get back to where we were – yeah, you definitely do get healthier if you start practicing tae-kwon-do or karate or kalari. You choose.

Confidence
No, its not the adrenalin rush of that last para that’s talking – its me – really! For a species that claims to have evolved enough to start measuring EQ, there’s still a considerable amount of respect reserved for brute physical/ muscular power among us peoples. And that’s where yours truly ancient Japanese/ Chinese/ Indian practices can kick in – like the much blamed Drill Sergeant of generations of army cadets, the Arts (ahem!) whet your body and mind into a fine fighting weapon – like the respective presidents of both India & Pakistan would like to claim, the possession of power (nuclear or otherwise) has a far superior effect than its actual exercise. That you go through a regime of self defence exercises and therefore have a finely honed body and mind can be at times extremely exhilarating, but mostly bring out that quiet sense of self-assurance that “situations” can be “handled”. I remember imitating “Clark” after reading Tom Clancy - scanning the environment constantly for any deviants/ anomalies – human or otherwise; assessing threats and adjusting oneself to handle a situation should one arise. While this gives a few initial fake rushes of blood to the head, over a period of time, this habit gives a clear sense of confidence to a practitioner arising out of superior knowledge leading to control in the event of exigencies (my GMAT vocab prep, how it shows!).

Focus/ Concentration
Surprising but true – when you are in the dojo floor against an opponent, you are in a parallel universe where nothing else matters. To succeed in this case, to get in a punch, to  force a block or to snap a kick, your mind has to handle more than 10 different vectors of thought – the terrain, your position, what blow should be used, from which direction, what is the fall back option, when should one attack and what should this blow achieve (for e.g., make your opponent retreat/ immobilize him/ create an opening for a more powerful blow/ block a potential offensive blow while you get into position etc). At the onset, all this is total chaos meets sheer survival instinct – you just need to last there for 5 minutes vs. a taller, fiercer opponent without going down – and so one does all that is required to fill the 5 minutes – including kicking up dust, hugging your opponent in sudden gushes of affection, prancing (dignified running ;-) around the ring while your pal tracks you like a wolf circling around a lamb. But over a period of mind, if one is interested enough, you can bring about the power of focus to the arena – for e.g do a quick check of height/weight/SWOT of the opponent beforehand, deciding when one needs the adrenalin rush and what the mind need to conjure up to deliver the rush of hormones, checking out which side the light is and therefore which angles are likely to be blinding etc. Once the fight is underway, you can even do better – there is the classical argument about what reveals more about your opponent – his body or his eyes – I have heard enough cases arguing for either. Then there is the special arsenal that one builds up and uses – a specially devised series of punches/ locks or throws that one practices and gains reflexive expertise to execute in half-a-second. All these do not appear on enrollment or do not develop in a week’s time – sometimes one earns a broken nose or a twisted ankle or a kick in the balls for the wisdom to be driven home – but what you gain out of such lessons and what you start doing to avoid these is of immeasurable use – inside and outside the ring.

Fine Arts 101-Ars gratia, vita brevis
If despite my New Year resolutions, am quoting Latin, then gentle reader, it must be good Latin – in this case “Art is Long, Life is short”. It is no accident that these are called
Martial “Arts”.
As much as they are self –defense techniques, as much as they are physical exercises, “Martial Arts” are also an indulgence in a world of art no less exquisite than the sight of a Van Gogh or a Henry Moore…I would go on to add that it is precisely because of their inherent quality of possessing life and the impossibility of exact repetition (If I was Murakami, I would have called it Monoganashii – the beauty of that which is fleeting- but me, am just your everyday burnt-out martial artist ;-), that they qualify for a far more appreciative and concentrated approach as compared to, say that used to evaluate everyday paintings or literature. (Ah! The danger of being carried away by verbal convolutions disguised as arguments on aesthetics…tch tch).

Martial Arts are obviously so much closer to the performing arts such as music, dance or drama – but because of their very unpredictability, they bring a sense of spontaneity that needs to be discerned keenly to be appreciated in its entirety. Regular performing arts demand that you appreciate their subtleties at some levels like
1. Understanding/ appreciating the context of the performed piece
2. Understanding/ appreciating the very personal grace or glory that the artiste brings to the piece by sheer force of his/ her unique personality.
3. Understanding the subtler nuances – those subtle shifts in tempo, mood or direction, those points of fulcrum around which such performances rest.

But watching a combat performance by martial artists on the other hand requires your understanding not only on the above but also demands that you tread on different mental planes apart from the levels mentioned above (NO, this isn’t supposed to evoke the image of a critic stretched out in all directions multidimensional space – if it does, you are doing something wrong with your mind – go back to your Ishiguro and try again later) - One, to appreciate what has driven the artist to make any move; Two, the execution of the action (the actual artistry as seen in other arts) and Three, the evaluation of alternatives to that particular move and the results that they might have delivered.

This of course would be impossible for a regular bystander to appreciate - all one sees is two figures approaching each other, a series of indecipherable blows and pummeling that results in either the two separating to fight again or one of the artists biting dust. But for one who has been in the heart of combat, such a fight (how vulgar of me, such a performance!) is much more than mere grappling around – it is at once a revelation of how two minds work, seeking in milliseconds to draw the knowledge of countless practice sessions and the seamless flow of thought into action and intuitive counteraction.

I would love to go on – about the beauty of a 1000 layered katana, the deep perambulations that the Five Rings of Musashi can evoke, about how the stilled mind becomes that single thought which flows into the edge of your hand that launches itself into the universe at your opponent…but…but apparently these subtleties are lost on the high-flying mosquitoes of Cochin; a well-coordinated attack is on its way and I am afraid I must retreat into the Mortein-enveloped confines of my room and seek somnambulistic respite.

And Bolero, which was playing, is winding its way to a crashing crescendo – signaling the waning of my waxing…so here ends a night-induced defense of the very special Arts that I swore to live by.

Someday I shall smite again…until then, watch your Jet Li and read your Musashi.

Good night, gods of the darkness.

The Slightly Desirable Agony of Being Tagged By Irrefusible Women

6 people who top your shit list..... and why:

• G.B&$%u@#$@s&*$@#h – for everything.


• A former boss who made sure everything got personal. I forgive you.


• Specific Hindu/ Muslim/ Xian leaders for their noble  attempts convince others through various disgusting means that their religion is the best for India. May a hundred suns set on you.


• People who hunt animals/ birds for fun – try it with your God-given bare hands, bravehearts. (The people who hunt them for money are also jerks, but a degree less darker in my book)


• A priest who made me run around a lot on the starkest of days, get 7 signatures, asked for proof of belonging to the parish and finally refused to conduct the funeral mass for my father. I give him the same line my cousin did when people laughed at him trying to imitate a solemn church ceremony and later tried apologizing to him “Don’t say sorry to me, say sorry to Jesus”.

Close brushes with death/danger:

• Velankanni - Age 5. Fell into lagoon. Before I went in I waved; Dad dove in, pulled me out – hung me upside down to dry. Apart from the weekends, am so far dry! Hic.

• Highway off Madurai. Hero Honda Sleek stickered BMW @ 70kmph, no helmet. Traffic at halt due to railway crossing. Old woman jumps into road. I swerve, she screeches, we roll over. After the world stops spinning, wake up – head on the road 12 inches away from a lorry’s double tyres and neck against the silencer. If the train had been on time, this blog would be going thru an existential crisis right now. Since then my Guardian Angel’s been asking for stress allowance.

• Halfway into French class. Class XI – a bored and hungry hand slips into someone else’s bag searching for something to eat. Comes out with bunch of letters. Love letters. Lovely long love letters. Smuggled them out. Read them a lot. Xeroxed them, just in case we lost them. And then did nothing with them ;-( Death? Danger? When loverboy is 6 foot tall at age 18 and is the son of a CBI officer. That’s danger. Or rather Death.

• Main road @ Madurai. 2nd year college. Friend getting beaten up in front of college in middle of Madurai town by 8 thugs with various assortment of weapons for proposing to a girl-and for other related incidents, shall we say. Approx. 60-70 bystanders with traffic halted to watch the fun. GT trying to hold a 7 foot tall, 4 foot wide specimen from pulling a long dagger from his belt. Other courageous classmates trying out gentle holds on thugs but not working. At this point, thugs decide to temporarily transfer violence to another name mentioned by the much maligned “proposee”- into this melee, floats a gentle question “Who is Ganja?” All familiar eyes turn to me. As shakes off an ant, an elephant – the 7 footed giant shakes me off and lifts me by shirt and says “Are you Ganja?. Silence of 5 seconds in which the world slows down to a snails crawl...Me, in what’s supposed to be angry growl, but more an enraged squeak: “Hello baas, my name is Turtle – please put me down”. Ever since then I have stopped cursing all concerned for the 5 names that I was baptized with.

1 preferable(?!?) mode of suicide:

• Disappear down an abyss.


• Without a mess for anybody else.


• With a lingering sense of mystery.     


• Hopefully after everyone I know is no longer around or remembers me.


• God forbid.

9 Guilty pleasures:

• Random Poetry @ Work.


• Beer; Toddy; Sake; Vodka; anything with generous hints of alcohol.


• Madchen Amick in Dream Lover.


• Running fingers through somebody else’s hair. Preferably PYTs ;-)


• Revving the throttle, roaring at 90. Forgive me, o fossils, am a cretin, crude at times.


• Giving just that perfect gift to people and watching their face shine. Why guilty you ask? My credit card sighs.


• Chocolate.


• Petrichor.


• Giving Gyan on life, love, management, Mars…anything.

8 things you never want to forget:

• My 1st nursery rhyme for which I won a recitation prize and still is recounted fondly at family functions much to the embarrassment of the protagonist “Piggy on the railway picking up stones, Down came the Engine Driver and broke his bones; Oooooh, said the piggy, that’s not fair. BAH, said the engine driver, I don’t care” The protagonist as he likes to call himself on such distressing occasions, was well known for his long drawn “Oooh” with pursed lips as well as the Calvinesque screwed-up-face “BAH”.


• The life of my father – from scraping barnacles to sighting the stars...that such a man lived on Earth.


• My 1st interview – the interviewer told me to get out after 5 minutes; I refused; at subsequent intervals of 10 minutes for the next 45 minutes, I was told in different various ways to leave the room. I stuck around pointing out the various facets of my personality that he hadn’t explored. I got the job. Am still at it. And sometimes wonder why.


• Again what my bro & me shared with my father – from waking up at 4am to get “fresh” beef or fish, to riding a brand new Sunny  - triples-a hard & hefty 90 kg man,2 boys of varying sizes- to church to bless it on the 1st day of purchase, to waking up at 5am  and splitting into teams on Dad’s orders to help mum cut vegetables  for breakfast, lunch, dinner and the next day (even if she wasn’t interested too much) and vacuuming/mopping the floor. He loved her, you see.


• Challenging an English teacher that I could teach Tennyson’s Ulysses better than her. And finishing with applause the day after.


• All my pets.


• The way my mother smiles.


• The rush of blood with which I wrote a poem for the 1st time. Didn’t even know it was one.


• 3 days in  Switzerland which included…Finding that you can hire a free cycle by just showing your passport…Listening to a live organ concert in the 12th century Grossmunster church and writing a poem as I listened to the music…Watching the ethereal beauty of stained glass inside The Fraumuster Church…Sitting by the Lake Zurich and feeding popcorn to the swans…Gobbling sprungli on the go…Flirting with a Swiss Bank teller (I always found exhange rates rather fascinating, y’know)…A little blonde angel who wanted me to lift her from a pier- by frantically gesturing with her hands and smiling at me and finally grabbing at my legs until I gave in, held her up, hugged her and put her on the ground – in return, a smile that was worth so much more….Watching car drivers smilingly halt and gesture me to go ahead as I fumbled with the gears on my cycle at traffic crossings…Finding that beer was the same price as water….Drinking water from the many fountains in the city…Watching amateur musicians play amazing classical music at various “platz”s in the city…Stalls on the platform with noone to watch over them – if you want to buy something, you select it and look around for the owner of the stall – who would be nowhere near the stall – Trust Works…Finding out that when you put on an accent, foreigners understand you better; and then realizing that I was speaking like that to some colleagues also…They way the Swiss Landesmuseum was maintained – from suits of armour in humidity controlled rooms, to paintings of the Virgin by Renaissance masters to a miniature of a battle scene – The Swiss do so deserve Switzerland. Being startled by a Swiss girl at a souvenir shop in Lucerne: You are Indian,right? Yes. Indians don’t eat meat right? Yeah, lots of proponents (Ok,ok…I didn’t say proponents – I said something which I don’t remember…) of Hinduism, the majority religion in India, don’t. YOU PEOPLE don’t eat meat but wear leather shoes YOU PEOPLE don’t eat cows, but wear leather belts, carry leather bags, wear leather straps. ME: DUH?!?!? (After consideration of this ultimate question, I came up with the best alternative availability theory; however the next day when I went to the souvenir shop to explain it to her, she was missing ;-(

4 things you wish to forget but never will
Beating up my brother black and blue with a cycle tube. Forgive me, MM, for I did not know what I was doing :-/
Losing in the tiebreaker round in two different national level quizzes.
The day a woman said No. Maybe she didn’t know what she was missing. Maybe she did.
The last few months of my Dad’s life.

5 really exotic dishes you have tried:
1. Homemade Sweet & Sour Pork which my father supposedly learnt from a Chinese friend. Remember the Indo-Chinese Conflict? This was how it started.
2. Cherry Brandy – what goes inside your mouth is a dish.Period.
3. The groom figure made with icing on a wedding cake. My cousin got the bride. Grotesque you say? Tasty I say.4. Various homemade pickles attempted by mom. By the time shes finished with them and after they are discovered 2 years later, declared “NICE & TASTY” and force fed at lunch, they become exotique.5. 3 scoops of Movenpick icecream at a restaurant atop Mt.Titlis. 18 Euros; Rs.900 for a minute of pleasure; Rs.300 a scoop. Yes, I am an Indian. But the pleasure was all Swiss.

5? 5?!?! YOU KIDDING?!?! crushes/loves in your life... Divya-sister of Selma (that was the way I prayed so that God doesn’t confuse her with any other Divya and therefore possibly forget the showers of blessings! ;-), Urmila, Vaishnavi, Sindhuja, Uma, Devi, Arti, Saranya, Naushine, Annie, Vanita, Amita,Vinita, Rebecca, Shalini, Yasmeen, Anjali.


Strangest dream you ever had:
Machine gunning a switchboard that refused to break.
Why machine gun? Why switcboard? Why not break?
Ha Ha Ha (evil laughter) Strange you ask, strange you get.

5 most valued personal possessions:My mom.
My books – all of them.Ring(rosary) gifted by mom.
My poetry. Amazing but true, I do.
My biceps. Next question.3 favorite superheroes..... and why:
Phantom – The Skullring was too good. And his nom-de-guerre too – The Ghost Who Walks.
Mandrake- for a long long time, I dreamt of Xanadu and of course the beautiful Narada.
Karna – Yeah, an obvious superhero  - after reading Amar Chitra Katha, no one would think otherwise.
Doc Savage – After reading Doc Savage, I tried isometric exercises with the legendary Bullworker. My biceps said Yes. Everybody else said Naaaahhhhh.

A wise man once said “The extent to which some men can go to, whilst pandering to the yearnings of strange therefore exotic women is mostly ridiculous, sometimes funny and rarely sensible.”

Ganja Turtle was once a wise man.

On Globalization

…or How the French saved the life of Angry Indian Fists much confused by Japanese fundae of Chinese Origin.

Of childhood cruelties & character building…
As I neared the tender age of 5, my father, a firm believer in the survival of the fittest and much inspired by Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and the 36th Chamber of the venerable Shaolin temple, enrolled me into “Exerkai Karate” at SS Colony – then taught by none other than the (in?)famous Shihan Husseini. This entailed waking up at 5am on alternate days, donning the customary gi and the white cloth belt, hopping onto my Dad’s shoulder and marching off to the “dojo” like a good lil Ninja.

At the dojo, we proceeded from warm-up exercises which involved rotating the eyeballs in sync with some exotic chants like “Miki, Hidari, Mein, Hura”, lying upside down and stretching your legs till they achieved the magic 180 degrees. Guess who was the poster boy - in comparison to pot bellied, well-tyred 30+ men in their mid age crisis, there I was, twisting, turning, splitting and screaming! I remember reveling in the thought “A few months here and the teeming millions would be beating a track to my humble home waking me with “Maascha, cheech me Kung Fu, maascha! And I in all my noblesse-oblige, would start the days lessons with some Oriental music in the background…sigh, what dreams we had.

The Awakening…
Later as we shifted home to remoter regions, where one could kill readily available scorpions and snakes without much of a fuss, I made the mistake of reading Doc Savage and The Ninja– apart from what was then considered basic erotica, the exotic weapons, funny-named fighting techniques (how about treading the Getsumei No-michi, huh? Or finding whos in the next room with Haragei?) and the action hooked me back into Karate – now enrolled into the much feared “BuDoKan” style!

I must in all honesty add that me and my brother were pretty tired of getting stuck in half-Nelson holds or being spun around and pinned to ground every time we tried to escape cleaning the bikes or bathing the dogs – by HeWho Had Learnt Karate and Believed That It Taught Discipline And Ensured Survival in a Tough World.
AKA Daddy.
AKA He Who Believed in Building Character By Waking at Dawn to Vacuum The House.
AKA He Who Sidecarred a 1980’s Chetak & Rode Through Main Streets While We Cowered Inside.

So it is a possibility (comfortably clouded by faint memories) that we may have also joined in the hope that somehow, someday, after developing overdeveloped pecs, we would be able to take on The Big Bully who because of 30 years as a mariner and subsequent 13 inch biceps had an unfair advantage over us at arm-wrestling…we weren’t so smart those days – me and my brother – we prefer to blame this on my mother who didn’t drink much kashayam when she was pregnant.

So there we were a bunch of kids doing wide ranging exercises ranging from upside down splits to hair raising “KIAI” screams to marathon runs around the campus in ascending order from little Vavachi at 2.5 feet to panther Pandi (one of those hardy milkman became karate freak after “Fist of Fury” types ) at 5.9 feet – all this gave us the brief illusion that we could tackle anything from groups of drunken monkeys to the many evil dark villains of vintage Tamil cinema - the Andhonis, Mykills and Raaberts of that sullen scowling Eastman coloured world.

Later in a half hearted attempt to regain those seemingly glorious days, I joined up at another dojo at Coimbatore – where the latest entrant is a “Junior” regardless of age or sex. It was thus that I found myself bowing before a 1 metre tall female specimen called Shalini everyday saying “Ohs! Senior” and she would reply-squeak-growl with a grim “Ohs” with all the ferocity that a 8 year girl with pink nail-polish and double piggytails can muster.

Nett nett, as us misguided corporate slaves say, at the end of all this, after various sparring sessions and legendary nun-chaku fights mostly against the unseen but most powerful demons of the air, my fists, knees and elbows were irrevocably scarred with dark calluses. And sigh…there started the shadow that fell on the eternal sunshine of that spotless Zen mind…

The Misfit ;-( (Oriental slant in that frowney to be noted)
Strange as it may seem, there exists a small minority of peoples who haven’t done the High Crawl or Knuckle Press or the Frog Jump on alternate days during their childhood. And by the sheerest of coincidences, this minority has always come back to haunt me through my school, my college and even B-School – the 1st thing that is obvious to them is not how what weaklings they are not to have calluses all over their body but how DISGUSTING it is for someone (like ME?!) to have them on my fists, knees and elbows.

Initially I tried showing them what one can do with such powers – slamming my Reverse SunFist blow against hapless ants on concrete walls, delivering Roundhouse Kicks to innocent hostel underwear drying 5 feet above the ground…but for some weird reason these were dismissed very arbitrarily (much to my martial frustrations) as antics typical of a local ch%$@)(# from AttaKumar Taap**..

Later during my first days at B-school - those butterfly meetings, flower touching-touchings, delicate blooming sessions with the fairer sex where one opens up their heart to show “Look,what wonderful dhak-dhak inside”, I was informed in no uncertain terms that these “Angry Fists” looked quite “eeeks”…Now, initially I tried my best - I paraded in no particular order - the merits of a tough manhood, the character that calluses build, how brave Texas Rangers of the Wild West had calluses in even more delicate places after trailing Indians, the Shaolin techniques of punching into hot sand – but try as I might, naaaahhhh…it seemed that soft, delicate, tapering long fingers were the “in thing” when minds mingle and hands start the holdings. Too proud to concede to these requirements, I always managed to hang around in shady places of night and light and half-light where none could see my darkened fists, but Houston, we had a serious wimmens problem here. None of them liked the Angry Fists. Proud Young Man not liking such wimmens. Ah…The Vicious Circle of Life,The Universe and Everything …

So with such uneasy compromises, 8 long years went by and none the better – friends, womans and countrymens always were OK discussing politics, Pink Floyd and similar things until the Angry Fists or the Night Filled Dark Knees came into view. Then there was the usual hush hush  of “Hey,whats that?” “What did you do with your hands”, “Jeez”, “Ugh” and similar weird sounds building into a buzzing crescendo and then sudden silence - a point when suddenly our local hero was left alone holding an Angry drink in his Angry Fists –usually this was quickly downed into an Angry Mouth after which some Angry Knees went on a hazy search for a round of introductions to soft & delicate effeminate jaws unfortunately fit into deplorable specimens slightly male. All this anguish was drowned only at periodical meetings of the ROWKuThaKas* where North Indian accents (Yae for Yapple,D for Daailhi, G for Gudbudugaon)  were discussed with great gusto – until the lone 7 foot Punjabi took exception and sat on innocent Mallu/Tamil chests. We immediately agreed that the accent wasn’t as bad as we thought.

So there I was caught – driven to the very edge of existence – having to make an immediate choice between becoming an angry ruthless violent sociopath and choosing Garnier Body Cocoon…

Guess what I did?

Behold the fists fantastic. Wrapped in a creamy yet light cocoon, deliciously fragranced with micro fruit oils of avocados, olives, grapes, blackcurrants now unbelievably soft and supple. Ready to hold a slender wine glass or point to that fake Cubist painting in the corner, they are even willing to wrap around you – yes, YOU – you lil PYT – till that scary thunder gets over…

Now,now, all ye pretty wimmens of the world, get in da queue.



Glossary

*ROWKuThaKas
Real Original Wommale KUrunthaadi KAzhagam – A rebellious outfit formed at a local B-School in the early 90’s by 6-7 male bearded students who preferred Corex to water; True connoisseurs of the local Ganja sold by a wrinkled old lady under a rickety bridge, their many accomplishments range from sitting on each others chests as a sign of protest to spinning stories about a mostly naïve member of their clan-Three Ball Nair.

**Taap (N)
Hangout of a slightly shady kind - corruption of “Top” – corruption of er…whatever.

Taap Adichufying
The typical Tamilsapien habit of hanging around and establishing quasi-illegal territories (characterized by them Madurai buggers) much like bears marking their territory by scratching bark or dogs doing slightly less dignified acts. For eg. when caught in a conflict about who is whose pigger (slang for slightly decent looking woman) or who owns the local rights to create a ruckus in which bar, the “Taap*” that one belongs to establishes ones credentials.

A typical strretside/ bus-stand conversation might go like (direct Dil-se translation, no subtitled embellishments):
Andhoni: Dey, who you are? Waat u vaant? That is my pigger on A24 bus.
Mykill: Baas…you are citizen, am also citizen. My eyes, they watching. What you do?
Andhoni: Aey Aey…careful! Know who I am?
Mykill: Sorry baas…I didn’t see police notice for pickpockets this morning – please tell me…
Andhoni: Bloody $%&#!!! Am Andhoni from Attakumar Taap! Your motherXXXX! Your sisterXXXXX! Your familyXXXX! Your entire ancestorsXXXXX!
Mykill (cringing): Anna! Sorry! You are my leader!
Andhoni (gloating): Saar which taapu?
Mykill: Sorry, beloved brother… am Mykill from Golcha Complex Ravi Taap…but am new in town. First time, please excuse.
Andhoni (Leaning very kilose): Next time I see you coming near my pigger shadow, am slicing off your delicate anatomies in front of Golcha Ravi. Vokay?
Mykill: Baas, my only brother, from now, she is my sister!
    

On being tagged...

On being tagged by a virtually humourous & hopefully pretty woman, Ganja Turtle reacts…

At Pecos. One Afternoon.
As I enter and seat myself at Peco’s
seeking Thoreau’s aloneness
and respite from the pink slip
in my rucksack,
a voice to the left of my stool starts:

“THE 21ST CENTURY
IS A POWER HUNGRY BASTARD
THAT MANUFACTURES LONELINESS
& THEN MAKES US BUY
CATHODE RAY ROBOTS
-SELF ADMINISTERED EMOTIONAL BLOWJOBS,
THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE”

Laboured random breathing.
The elements of puking
fall into place
and a man follows them
thudding onto the floor.

And as I look around
searching for the fire exit
from this absurd afternoon,to the right of my stool:

“THE GRAPES OF WRATH WAS A
TRUE-BLUE FLUKE;
STEINBECK WROTE IT TO PAY OFF
HIS LANDLORD WHO THREATENED
TO CUT OFF HIS WATER SUPPLY
FOR UNPAID RENT”
- turns around, looks at me -
“YOU GET MY POINT????
WHY THE F*#@ DO YOU THINK
THEY NAMED A SEA SLUG AFTER HIM?”

And I wonder - why me?
I just came for a beer.

*** END***

Hero of the masses, since I don’t know anyone else who is as funny as you used to be, you are next  -  tagged with writing  a small fictional something that contains I, me, blowjob, grapes, random, power, loneliness, water, robot, and blue. Kindly enjoy!

IMITATING THE MASTER

Written when I was a junior manager; since then GT has reached new, inscrutable highs ;-)

DUPLICATE - Cubicle Love
© Ganja Turtle

I thought of killing myself because I am only a cubicled junior manager
      and you a woman who loves the Vice President with a seafacing corner room.

I don't care like I used to; I speak in meetings louder than I
      used to and I visit the tea dispenser just to stare at the setting sun.

When the computer resets itself and revenues are down and my
      pay hikes delayed, I think of you.


ORIGINAL - Bricklayer Love
© Carl Sandburg

I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer
      and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.

I don't care like I used to; I lay bricks straighter than I
      used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons.

When the sun is in my eyes and the ladders are shaky and the
      mortar boards go wrong, I think of you.

Resolutions for 2006

Thou shalt not put senti.Cheap senti or otherwise. Not online, not offline, not phone line.

Thou shalt read more Nabokov. Luminous angels with purple wings, here I come.

Thou shalt fit back into 32". Hello treadmill and sixpacks.

Thou shalt write and publish. Poetry/ prose/ even letters to editor should do.But do.

Thou shalt get 700+ in GMAT. All else be damned.

Er...Thou shalt write GMAT and not postpone it.

Thou shalt move to Bangalore/Chennai. Even though one will miss the sunsets and the fishing nets.

Thou shalt carpe the diem, festina lente and in vino find the veritas.

Thou shalt not practice fake Latin or write bad blogs for timepass.

GANJA is the new TURTLE!

GANJA TURTLE - THE TRUTH BEHIND THE LEGEND

Let me put an end to all this speculation about my blog name. Obviously am not going to explain this without a fair bit of story telling, so sit a while, have a drink, put on some Floyd and read this...

At school in Madurai, when we weren’t forming gangs to beat up classmates, when we weren’t following pretty girls home, when we weren’t hiding from people who wanted to beat us up, when we weren’t hanging from the footboards of town buses, when we weren’t stealing love letters from classmates' bags, when we weren’t (no, that’s not true, make that "when I wasn’t") trying to somehow crack integration/differentiation fundas and barely pass in HSC math, when we weren’t sharing beer bottles & mutton balls in dark underground bars, when we weren’t bullying weak lady teachers, when we weren’t writing English exams with letter writing sections addressed to Chelsea Clinton, when we weren’t sharing bowls of thickened goats blood after basketball practice & gym, we also QUIZZED.

In high school, along with Pervert by Social Compulsion (PSC) and another guy called Roshan, I was part of the local school quiz team & our ultimate goal was the MADURA COATS INVITATION TROPHY - not without reason - this was hosted by a local school called Vikaasa - the school with the prettiest babes in town. Besides that, this was the only trophy where they had an awesome cash prize of Rs.500 each! So me & Roshan (PSC wasn’t yet part of our quizzing gang) prepared like mad - memorizing capitals, currencies, sobriquets, books and authors, species, animals, historical dates, presidents...we coaxed our parents and teachers to let us prepare during weekends & PT period; Google was non-existent then, so we had to rely on print and print only - I started off from the end of the McMillan encyclopedia and Roshan started working from the front...thus did I learn the meaning of zymurgy and realize that Zenia is a flower (which I proudly recognized years later in the hilly slopes off Peermed). The big day came...and there we were against the strength of the Kendriya Vidyalayas and Bhavans of the world, along with a whole lot of very smart looking students as audience.

Although slightly shaky against these bastions of propriety, we cracked the prelims &  semis and moved on to the finals...against smart tie-laden personalities with funny English accents, we seemed totally outdated...but somehow after connecting Singapore to a stinking flower and pointing out the old name of Tokyo was Edo and explaining why women tennis players skirts were called Jesus Wept, we won! And how! My mom and Dad took that Rs.500 note from my hands and have kept it somewhere safe, till today - first earnings senti.

When we came back, we were local heroes...the Principal- a very distinguished man called Nandakumar (who was used to calling me into his room usually for perusing aloud whether I should be suspended or dismissed from school) this time actually praised us in the school assembly. It almost erased the blot I had earlier earned when he shouted at the same assembly in front of LKG-UKG, 1st to 12th STD students "GJ & RAJKUMAR, GROWN LIKE MULES AND YOU CANT EVEN KEEP QUIET DURING THE FLAG SONG - and boomed at me separately "WITH YOUR FATHER IN THE NAVY, THIS WAS THE LAST THING I EXPECTED!"

Sometime during the MC invitation quiz, we realized that both of us were pretty bad at Indian Music-both filmi & classical (I had brushed up-or so I thought-on Western Music by buying a whole lot of Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson tapes)...and during our various interactions with PSC, he seemed to know a bit of Indian Classical/Hindi Music. So he became part of the quizzing gang. And from thereon, there was no looking back - right from the Vikaasa Youth Festival to LOSA (Old students association) culfests, we were local studboys.

One of my favourite showdown moments was - LOSA 94 or 95, I think - As usual it was, Us vs Vikaasa-final round...Vikaasa team consisting of Mr.American accent + PY fair babe with Sanskrit sounding name + geek looking Northie - all with mini clouds of perfumes floating around their heads...us - slightly sweaty students of varying heights in tight bluechecked uniforms...a lil background check on the quizmaster had revealed the fact that he loved a particular type of round as the final round - asks you to choose a topic and then he asks for "ANY TEN" somethings related to that...so we thought that if we said American politics the only choice this guy would have would be to ask us for names of 10 American presidents - so Yours Truly had memorized the names of American Presidents - from George Washington to about Chester Arthur...so the moment came and he asked us exactly what we wanted him to ask and  phat phat phat - I shot out the names of the 1st ten and asked him if he wanted ten more...I know, a bit of arrogance...but hey, those were the days when I was made of light - if you cut me I would shine! (Na, not mine, Billy Collins' line).

Next was Vikaasa & we all know what Amaerican-accented perfume cloud floating Indian boy will choose as his topic - Wastarn Meesic! Having apparently waded through the kilos of MJ/ Aerosmith/ Beatles musikassettes at home to reach this quiz, what else would he ask? And what was he waiting for? TEN GRAMMY WINNERS?-he could reel that out in 5 secs...TEN OST ARTISTES? 7 secs...TEN AFRO-AMERICAN ARTISTES? TEN BOY BANDS? You could see that puppy like eagerness in his face..."Give me my juicy question! Give me!" his face said...and that’s when the clouds parted and a light from heaven seemed to shine down on the quizmaster and suddenly he looked even more wise, revere-able and Moses-like...like the Matrix, where everything happens in slow-mo time-slices, the quizmaster turned around in a measured masterly movement and faced the Vikaasa team – giving them the grimmest look he could muster, he said "GIVE ME THE NAMES OF 10 WESTERN CLASSICAL COMPOSERS"

The uniform next expression on the Vikaasa teams faces, in all its yummy memory can be expressed exactly in the Tamil phrase- The "Inji Thinna Korangu" look. Translation being: The look of a monkey that wanted something sugary to eat, found something and biting it, realizes that it is ginger...time stood still as they looked at each other, at us and then at the audience...

And slowly they started off “Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi.... er.... Tchaikovsy.... Andrew Lloyd Webber...Phillips?…and faltered off! And that’s when the audience got to its feet and roared their throats off (we were on home ground)! We had won again!

After schooldays, we parted – me, due to er…familial compulsions, went on to do my B.Com at a local college, PSC went to do his integrated MCA at Madurai Univ, Roshan went on to Anna Univ for his Engg...after joining college, I was looking around for a quizzing partner when I chanced upon a fat, seemingly slightly intelligent "Arunthur Dent" (he was in the top 5 in his class)...those days he used to swing to "Backstreets Back, AWRIGHT" and his home was the local lunch get-together place for us all, conveniently located next to Bhaikadai, local sherbet + vada +cigarette shop, which again was conveniently located next to Lady Doak College – our sistah institution...he wasn’t yet the heavy metal loving slim boy karate kid nerd that he now makes himself out to be;-)

With a fair application of thought, we concluded that since technically American College came under the Madurai University jurisdiction, we could join up with PSC and technically call ourselves the Univ team...This was one of the best times of my culfest life - FESTEMBER @ REC Trichy, Cascall, Harmony, PECOFES, JIPMER, IIT-M,Fisheries Institute, Kovilpatti - we went everywhere where there was even a remote possibility of a quiz being organized- in T-shirts, dirty jeans and Hawaii slippers (Arunther Dent was the decent exception). Along with this, me and PSC also got into crosswords/ JAM/ Dumb Charades/Creative Writing...our culfest to culfest existence was what made life in Madurai barely tolerable during those years...each fest had its share of local heroes and invariably we would turn out to be the wild card entry from “Madurai-Jeez, wheres that??!!?” that walked away with the prizes! (ok…maybe only some of them ;-)

Sometimes in the middle of all this we started attending open quizzes...like the Landmark quiz (we never even got into the finals), the Odyssey quiz and the LIMCA quiz-in this, we got short-listed and got to travel to Chennai for the finals-staying at a 3 star hotel for the 1st time in our lives was awesome-Arunthur Dent was jumping up and down when he saw the two TVs in the room and was so excited that he applied moisturizer to his head thinking it was shampoo. It took us approx. 2 hours to convince him that NO, HE WOULD NOT LOSE ALL HIS HAIR AND WOULD HE PLEASE CHANGE FROM A SHORT WRAPAROUND TOWEL AROUND HIS BODY INSTEAD OF POPPING OUT OF THE BATHROOM AND ASKING WEIRD QNS AFTER DOING WEIRD THINGS! (Maybe slightly exaggerated! ;-)

We managed to beat teams from Bangalore and Chennai to reach the finals and were up against the quiz-lords of the metros - IIT/IIM/MCC/BISHOP COTTON/ LOYOLA...one team (IIT?) broke away right from the beginning and raced ahead...us and Loyola, I think, were tightly tied for the 2nd place- and there was no 3rd prize...after 3 rounds of tiebreakers, we were still tied and tension ran taut in the room -it was then that a question involving Io & Ganymede happened – and try as we might, we couldn’t narrow down - all of us had totally different answers, so we decided to wild guess and alas, we went wrong! To this day, Arunther claims that he had said Jupiter, but we tend not to believe him – he’s like that only.  And thus ended yet another long tension fraught adventure. But this time in failure.

And finally......yeah…finally, coming to the point, the fallout of these open quizzes was that you needed to have a different sounding team name...like say "I, Iyer, Iyengar" or "Morons of the Nth order"...After several rounds of brainstorming, we could think of only one group of weird creatures similar to us  - the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"...while we could claim to be "TEENAGE" (without doubt) "MUTANT"(something that both our parents and the Bhaikadai gang would swear over to), "TURTLES" (it was doubted several times over whether we belonged to the human species - with a name like PSC, you can understand right?),  "NINJA" was a thing that stuck like a fish bone in the throat...try as we might, we just could not find any connection between us and NINJAs (despite…ahem...my Karate brown belt!) and unfortunately all of us were quizzers in the purist traditions - unless we found a decent connect with NINJA, we wouldn’t touch the name with a quiz-pole.

Which is when I got to thinking about typical personal characteristics of each of us - not finding anything noteworthy, my lightning fast mind moved on to college/city references... During the 60s/70s, The American College was reputed to be a hotbed of rebellion-wild western music echoing Morrison and Hendrix, anti-war movements, strong causes, passionate arguments that divided the entire college on philosophical lines - these were the stories that were passed on to us about our now watered down alma-mater...and the fuel behind these fires was allegedly blessed Ganja - legend has it that the hostel students of Dudley Hall lovingly cultivated ganja plants in their gardens and actually cured and smoked them-a lovely self sustaining model of economic viability!

This really struck a chord or rather several wild riffs in us - that otherwise unkempt, wild eyed, acid rock loving, dirty hostel students could so dedicatedly bring themselves to do something as neat& basic as ganja cultivation - ensuring that wee green saplings got adequate sunshine, water, making sure no weeds grew nearby...it really seemed so delightfully incongruous! Esp. given that people like me/ PSC etc (sons of respectable university professors) now had turned wild and wanton somewhere in our quest for truth, justice, beauty and beer...

And Voila – the TEENAGE MUTANT GANJA TURTLES were born!

2 wild quizyears later, after Arunther Dent left for his MCA, TMGT became Perverts By Social Compulsions (a name coined by PSC obviously)...but since “TMGT" was a personal brainchild, I still love that name...I can’t call myself teenage anymore (especially when the kids are calling me “Uncle”) and neither am I still a mutant species - these days am as propah as a starched shirt, dimple-tied, power-pointed, mobile wielding corporate specimen can get- a shadow of my college self - as irritatingly human as one can get.

But yes, deep inside, the GANJA TURTLE lurks!

AMEN!

UPDATE ON GMAT PREP

UPDATE ON GMAT PREP
Down with a throat infection so am downing some antibiotics everyday and falling asleep as soon as I start to prepare everyday. Somewhere deep inside, I appreciate myself for making a noble albeit useless gesture. The show must go on... even if I do fall asleep, let it not be said that I didn’t try!

WHERE AM I?
After my last KAP test (where I scored 540), I had to attend a couple of interviews at B’lore, which meant almost no prep happened for the last 1 week. Now am back clocking approx. 40 problems a day - on various subjects from Reading Comprehension to Math to Data Sufficiency. But somewhere there’s this feeling of unease - that am not focusing on where am going wrong...let me try and summarize again:

WHAT AM I DOING RIGHT?
1. Getting English-SC/ARC/CR mostly right.
2. Finishing well within time in the above sections
3. Doing well in the AWA section

WHAT I CAN DO BETTER?
1. Take more time on each SC/RC/CR problem and double check answers.
2. Create and follow structure/process for dealing with Eng section

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?
1. Not finding where am going wrong on the "Two planes/trains/ people approaching each other" problems (sorry, but to admit that am weak at time/rate/speed problems would be too much - i get some of them right ;-)
2. Quite unsure of number properties problem
3. Unable to time and finish problems-esp Math
4. Getting distracted with SMS etc during practice sessions
5. Starting practice too late after office and sleeping off in between problems (ahem it happens, re ;-)

WHAT AM I NOT DOING AT ALL?
1. Managing practice sessions within time limits - only Maths.
2. Taking stamina sessions - cracking 80 odd problems in one go
3. Checking GMAT forums for tougher problems
4. Not reviewing wrong problems seriously
5. Not identifying weak areas and working on them.

Have about 7 weeks to go before GMAT; this weekend will sit and work out a solid schedule for at least 2 hours prep and 1hour review everyday.

• Need to crack this SOB!


• Must crack 720+!


• Must go to Tuck!

20 YEARS OF BARKS AND BITES!

Although it is not World Animals Day, I wish to commemorate this otherwise boring day to the various animals that I have shared my life, love, bites, balloons and brother with...we moved into the University quarters in December 1985 and the 20th anniversary of this occasion deserves a commemorative post – here’s to all the other species who shared L4 staff quarters with us!

DAAG #1 - Lucky
We called him Lucky because our auto almost ran over him in Madurai but didn’t. Dad immediately picked him up and we took him home. My brother and Lucky grew up together-it was damn cute to see both of them-running around, curled up in bed, sharing biscuits. Although only a mongrel, Lucky grew up to be a partner in entertainment - some games that us evil boys played were to pin a hairpin on the tail and watch him go round and round.... another was to put a rubber band around his ears and confuse him- that an evil spirit was holding back his years.... Lucky was quite tolerant of all this and never bit any of us...The University quarters was ideal for him - long winding paths with trees, peacocks and every other thingamajig - it was a miracle that Lucky didnt get bitten by a scorpion or a snake during those early years - given that the area was called Nagamalai - every other stone concealed a scorpion and there were hajaar snakes all around. All of us shared and survived brawls, beatings and bones. Lucky grew old and died and is now buried under the biggest of the 5 mango trees around our house. A lot more interesting thigs happened but somehow my memory clouds over -a discussion with bro and mum should set things right.

DAAG#2 - Brownie
Not very imaginatively named but then that was Brownie for you- she had such a sleek brown coat that we couldnt have named her anything else...Brownie was another paavam mongrel brought in by my paavam younger brother. Brownie was a she and was a very loving she....Dad had this thing about discipline - every puppy that entered L4 Staff quarters was taught the importance of discipline from a very early age. And how - beatings without mercy until a tired, exhausted all pissed out Brownie finally extended a paw to SHAKE HANDS. But despite all this, Brownie was a free spirit - every now and then, she would slip her collar and roam around the quarters with us boys chasing us down on cycles and Dad on his Chetak, finally cornering her around some thorny bush...after various curses and screams, Brownie would get thoroughly beaten up and spoken to about the value of DISCIPLINE. Often at night, some of Brownie's suitors would vist her and we would spot them kissing her through the wire fence - Dad took this as seriously as he would someone trying to make out with his daughter and would carefully aim and shoot at the Roadside Romeo Gang with his airgun...not that it hurt them too much-what can 5mm soft lead pellets do against raging hormones...not that it kept them away...one of Brownies dalliances resulted in 4 pups...each one totally different!
Thus were Michael Jackson & Doberman born. It was a bit too difficult to keep up wth 3 dogs esp for a working woman like mom, considering that Dad was going to be on ship 8-9 months of the year. So after about 3 months, Dad as usual took the tough decision (and absolved us of guilt and further caretaking responsibility) of leaving Brownie so that we could take proper care of the pups. I still remember the day we went to leave Brownie about 12 km away from home...she totally trusted us and I was holding her in the backseat of the scooter. Finally we dropped her off and Dad accelerated away...man, did she run....like some greyhound or stallion with ears straightened out, she ran full speed behind us for about 3 kms and finally dropped off...then in the distance, she slowed down ...my eyes were flowing, so everything still seems blurred. Even now.

DAAGS#3/4 - Michael Jackson/ Doberman:
Michael Jackson - Named because he was black and white and also because I thought naming him Michael Jackson was one way to get the better of a singer I never could understand in those days.
Doberman - because if we couldnt buy a pedigree dog, atleast we could name a mongrel that.
Grew up under the same disciplinary clouds and learnt to shake hands at the tender age of 3 months. Although mostly embarrassing, being the only owner of scooter+sidecar had its rare plus points - unlimited no of dogs/ kids/ general mish mash could be bundled together into one shakily cohesive riding mass and put into loud motion. Michael Jackson and Doberman loved fitting into the sidecar and during vacations 3 shouting boys, 1 screaming girl and 2 funny looking dogs could be seen screeching up and down the quiet roads of the University campus.
Dad being very fond of seafood bought lots of crabs and prawns and insisted that MJ & Doberman be fed the vitalizing leftovers - unfortunately MJ developed some infection after eating crab shells and died soon after- he was around 4 years.
Doberman barked on for another year until Dad returned from ship and decided that me and bro should start contributing to the family by starting a rabbit business - and although we strongly insisted that Doberman was gentle enough, Dad somehow felt that she would be a danger to the rabbits - She was Dad's favourite and he still did that- a tough man, my Dad. Amidst many protests and cries, Doberman was taken to be abandoned under the pretext that she was big enough to manage for herself. This time around, I remember refusing to  go along and do the abandon act.

SQUIRREL#1-ANIL KAPOOR
Sometime while we were chasing around Doberman & MJ, some squirrels decided to make their home in various lofts in our rooms - given that we lived (and still do) at the base of a hill, there were many trees all around the house - so squirrels had free access to various rooms. It was thus that we found lots and lots of squirrel nests every time we climbed into the lofts/ upper shelves. One nice summer afternoon we heard a thump and lots of squeals - rushing into the hall, we found a fallen squirrel nest. Put together with bits of cloth, coconut fibre and bits of sofa sponge, it seemed like the softest bed in the world. Inside were 3 pink baby squirrels-their eyes weren’t even open yet and they looked miserably unhealthy. Mom, in her usual hustle bustle manner, quickly arranged a shoebox with holes (my mom firmly believes that all living things require a "well ventilated room" to live in). Initially they refused to do anything except squeal a lot...we realized that two of the squirrels were male and one was female...It became quite embarrassing when the female of the species in her hungry quest chanced upon the male organ and started sucking it...ugh, we thought and tried to keep them away from each other - but no one could put up with their high pitched squealing when separated, so we had to ...er...unite them again...as was expected, the boy didn’t survive the onslaught of Evil Eve and died shortly. A week later despite a different diet of milk etc, the female also died - we gave them proper Christian burials with plastic shrouds, deep graves and sufficient mumbo jumbo prayers...am sure there’s a moral in there somewhere ;-) By this time, we had found out that we could feed them by wetting the edge of a wispy cotton saree in milk. Later we graduated to filling up ink feeders with milk. However with two down and one to go, we decided to name the survivor - and we named him Anil Kapur (Anil is the Tamil word for squirrel). Anil Kapur became a stud in the house!  Despite various innovative feeding technologies and wildcats around the house, he survived and graduated to idlies, cream cakes and almonds. Imagine a squirrel walking around on tiptoes- for the 1st 4 months, thats how Anil Kapur walked around...on his tiny tiptoes. A severely friendly character, he was extremely portable - fitting into caps, pockets and cloth bags...for quite some time, he was the resident alarm clock - mum, when she wanted us up at 7am, unleashed him and he gradually explored our ears, nibbled at our necks, ran across our backs until we woke up...sometimes when there was a loud noise, he rushed into our palms and cradled their - small heart beating very fast and later slowly peeked out to check if the world was safer yet. Anil Kapur gradually grew up into a full fledged hero and started exploring the wilds behind our house- he occasionally came back for idlis and chocolate, but was last seen flirting with a demure female squirrel in the green dales at the edge of our universe.

FURTHER UPDATES OVER THE WEEKEND ON...
RABBIT#1-JACKISTAN
RABBIT#2/3/4-INKY/ PINKY/ PONKY
RABBITS# 4/5/6/7/8
MYNAH#1
CURRENT DAWG #5- BLACKIE ALIAS RAMASAMY

TRIPPING - KERALA STYLE!

Lazy as usual…so posting something I wrote about a year back after going to the Pooram (temple festival) at the Tripunithra temple. Unwillingly dragged off by an over-enthued roomie, I later ended up spending the entire night there and returned back to my flat at 4am…mind still resounding from the sounds and the furies whipped up as the night unfolded. Originally had named this in a minimalist fashion “Old man to young boy”, but later my ego took over for want of a creative, “funny” title. As is apparent, I am not as funny as I think am.

I didn’t want to make it mushy-mushy at the end…but sometimes you don’t make the end, it makes you ;-)


HOW TO TRIP AT THE TRIPUNITHRA TEMPLE FESTIVAL(

Walk slowly in, past a half-demolished arch
that once was heaven's gate,
taking in deep whiffs of elephant dung,
lime-soda and the masses.
This evening and the lighted night to come
must be done slowly,
imbibed in, like a rare wine,
salvaged from a shipwreck in the Atlantic,
to be seen, stirred, smelled,
Let it seep slowly through all the senses,
into every dark corner of your mind.

Walk slowly in, dont miss a thing,
it is essential that you do not
miss even the small sleeping figures
of resting elephant-men,
lying beneath the grey mountainous figures
of fifteen majestic pachyderms,
this is their day out, decorated as they are
with chrome & gold,
coloured plastic paper and small umbrellas,
its all about symbolism.
Maybe the seven on each side are jealous,
to only stand and wait,
beside the alpha-animal, the 8th elephant,
the bearer of a Golden god,
and so deserves a bigger umbrella, more colourful paper
and generally better things in life.

If you had come there earlier, perhaps
you would not have missed
these gentle giants extending a foot,
for their mahouts to hold their trunk
and jump on for the ride of the evening.
not very unlike a dog offering a handshake,
friendly, final acceptance.
If you had come earlier,
you would not have missed this.

But you still have time
to see, feel and maybe get dripped upon,
with hot oil by the many six-footed candelabra
that wiry old men carry with Christ's ease
and light the temple's world,
burning torches towering high,
but not so high as any of the 15 elephants.
This being the era of affectations,
of artificial light, sound and thunder
you think that the strobes and speakers would
somehow overshadow these antiquated bearers,
not so, not so,
these men seem to stand out, seem to burn
with the vigour of a lamp in its last minutes.
But do not get mesmerized,
by the burning of the candles,
or the bearing of the bearers,
this is the side show.

That was a sideshow,
but the Carnatic concert in a dark long hall
with a holy-ash smeared singer,
a man with an upturned pot, a Ghatam,
and a small mridangam player,
is most definitely not a sideshow.
Since you are late, you will miss
the frenzied competition between
the Ghatam and the mridangam,
these men do it with utter ease,
as if to play were to breathe,
reflexes born of a million hours' practice,
But you are late and have missed this,
so try to elbow your way into the front
and get a glimpse of the ecstatic singer,
as he launches into the final stage
of a performance closer to his heart
than all than those done in the big cities,
for this is his temple, his town,his own.
Listen carefully for you might miss
the lowermost note of the sonograph
that his voice flows down to,
before reaching a crashing crescendo,
as he smiles at his brothers-in-arms,
some understanding, some heavenly concord,
some magic seems to bind them
in a way you simply would not understand
unless you have seen them caught,
immersed & finally engulfed,
in the rhythm of one equal music.
John Donne's words, not mine.

But you cannot risk missing
what the French would call
the tour-de-force, a beginning
of the end of all ends,
the panchavadyam,
music of three drums,
clashing cymbals,
and shining horns,
music that whirls your mind
into thoughtless throbbing,
music that seems to resonate
from times older than mankind itself,
music that seems to evolve
from the centre of your gut,
and slowly flows through
the corridors of the temple,
music that seems to make
the warm yellow lamps flicker and
frenzied sweat from ebony skin glitter.

You cannot risk missing this,
so go in advance, well in advance
so that you can stand before the God,
well before the God's bearer,
the gold & grey mammoths,
and the dripping oil of the warriors of light.
Stand well in advance and safely bask
in the noisy glory
that temples and men's belief can evoke.

As you stand so,
doubtless you will be distracted,
being the hot-blooded young man you are,
I know you will be...
by the whitesaree clad,genteel girls
sometimes looking back at you,
with such boldness,
as even your girl back home wouldnt.
At your age, boy, it would seem
that a challenge has been thrown,
perhaps a call for a duel,
and an invitation to meet your destiny,
If you feel so, if your head reels,
and your skin flushes, rest easy, boy.
Rest easy for it is not you or them,
it is the crackling hypnotic air,
the air that lilts
with the blowing of the ancient horns,
the air that pulses
with the beat of the drums,
the air that sparkles
with the fire of the torches,
the air that resounds
of bygone aeons,
with only this day and time left,
to deliver us ,if only briefly,
back to our confused, entangled roots.

But if you must be distracted by the women,
be distracted in their entirety,
by their gold entwined sarees,
by their sandal dotted foreheads,
by their lush black hair,
by their small bare feet,
Be distracted by the ones who look back at you,
and the ones who coyly turn away.

Be distracted by the royals,
who shun the common & bare ground,
and stand and sway a floor above,
watching the rest of humanity,
15 elephants and one golden god,
from lofty imperial heights.

Be distracted as I was every year,
by a serene, smiling princess,
some vestige of nobility,
a reminder of the royal past,
caught, framed and enshrined,
in my mind,
at this meeting,
this meeting of all the ancient arts,
this meeting - the Pooram.

Be distracted as I was,
for all the 3 years that we were there,
and looked at each other,
swaying gently to the hypnotic waves,
that the panchavadyam washes you with,
as we looked and looked,
not a word spoken, the glance unbroken.
Be distracted and give yourself wholly
to the girl you are distracted by,
your eyes, ears, skin, everything
tingling with a heightened madness,
that you can experience only in the magic
that is the temple festival of Tripunithra.