how I got kicked, got maniacal and landed hard on my butt...

let's start with why recession happened. pre fannie and freddie days, no worries, all is good on the western front.

and then, i got into my final year.

i started working on my project, and the economy crashed like the world trade centre, the babri masjid, the dunlop factory in ambattur.(but wait, the place is alive. with cobwebs, snakes, stray dogs and the occasional share holder who wants to buy the stink).

we have to go back to my project first. my friend had abandoned me, the fellow who was supposed to work with me on this project, for something so petty-he ended up with an internship in paris,(yes, gay paree, the hot chicks, nude buffs, champagne, and jean reno;hell they have a kiss named after their country). and i had to endure my head of department's taunts all alone. i had to explain, why figure had a small f in one place, a capital f in other; why the page number looked slightly offset from the centre. after discussing all these serious issues, i somehow managed to submit a thesis, which in retrospect is a big pile of rubbish.(as every self-respecting engineering student knows)

The time when you usually start applying to the universities is much before all this. recommendations(butt cheek kissing, both sides- of the professors and those pompous seniors who pretend to be supremely busy with nothing), statements of purpose(i had a purpose, but now that i am here, i am left purposeless, must find one soon), and the exams. I have dreams, i told everyone. i have dreams these days too, but of topless dancers going up and down the pole, wanting something. Me. and that's when i realised that these dreams are as vain as the previous ones...

coming back to the united states capital a america, the polls are held, everybody votes, obama asks everybody to start spending their (***) off, and says everything's ok, under control. he mildly asks people from other countries to pack their bags and not make a noise on their way out.

now,i land in america.
 research funding drops, there is no money in the automotive sector, oil prices fall, real estate crashes, dow jones is not seeing anything positive, the world gets to know a soulless leach named madoff and many like him,  and its cold as hell just froze over because its 14 freaking degrees below zero.

my parents and all those i know were telling me that things would get better. and they got worse. unprecedented rates of unemployment, screamed the wall street journal. so much for optimism.

till this day, my parents and my sister believe that things are getting better. and it will always be getting better even if i start cleaning gutters and wash dog poop off the streets; to them, i am always a source of hope and pride. they will make sacrifices in the process of making me a better man.

the camaraderie i shared with my friends, who took me out for vacations, who shared the occasional weekend meal with me, and who cracked  jokes about the next hot girl/aunt on the street, and talked about love and life and philosophy.

my books, cheering me up with stories of people falling and falling hard, and some moments of happiness; sadistic you say? no, it is the rule of life, and not just schadenfreude.

my blogs, making my friends shudder in disgust as to the number of times i have to whine, and how i badly need to get a life.

this is how you tide over a crisis in your life. surround yourself with life, or you might end up being a plastic bag. and all that is left of you would then be a mummy, fit to be wrapped and entombed. for all the misery in the world, those few moments of happiness are a great balance. they more than balance the equation, in that they instill something in you that would be good to tide over another wave of despair.

Before i could even think properly, the year is gone,  but i did add a lot of new things,loosely called memories-strangely, they would come and haunt me when i am down, and cheer me up, like a mirage which is like a temporary stimulant that makes your heart skip a beat as you walk down the path of the times when life was so simple. simple, as in the time you spent unnecessary money on a super cool watch, when you pestered your parents for the 8-bit video game with mario and islander because your friend was moving up the levels and you needed practice, when exam results meant squat, when the next game of cricket was at 1 in the afternoon in the month of april in madras, when the electricity went out and shouts of abuse chorused through the hall like a symphony, the long meaningless talks with your friends that led to more meaninglessness ,the hostel playground and the times you spent with your friends are all that you remember of your undergrad life.

cheers everyone.

have you seen madras when it rains? 

what is it with rains and us?
when it rains, i take a chair from inside our house, and place it outside underneath the sun shade that is at best, a shade against 1/100th of the sun's intensity. when it rains, it does nothing to protect you from the rains, allowing you to get moistened by the beautiful rain drops, and soaking the parts of the chair which is not occupied, only to seep into your body through what you are wearing. i love this feeling, as much as it irritates-nothing can be more pleasant than a rain in madras. why? because the people toil under the heavy gaze of sun almost all throughout the year, that the complaints about improper roads and the water-flooded drains during rains is a very comfortable pretext to hide their inner childish happiness. after the rains, i see those rain drops on the electric cables, and the wooden poles in some places gaining weight that they had lost to the sun, the roads as full with water as a pregnant women's belly is big(nera maasa garbini!) as she is almost about to deliver, my terrace slab, dripping water onto the floor, into our house, like a stream collecting dust and sand and everything on its way, not wanting to let them behind  to wherever it is going. there is water inside the traffic signal shelters of traffic constables, on the ceiling of our house, on the leaves of the trees on the roadside, on the light posts, on the onyx garbage bins, on the gopuram of temples trickling down to the bottom, on the corporation ground, on the park benches, on the hoardings, everywhere! such a sight, that we fail to see, to understand that it is important to appreciate the little things in life-only these things really matter.

once the rain stops, it is moist everywhere. the temperature is down, and it is as if a scorching earth drank a full bottle of water after a really long time, and is longing for more, not just because she is thirsty, but because she relishes the taste and does not want to let go of that taste that lingers on her tongue.The people huddled together in local shops, or outside the tea kadai, or under the bus stand with their rooftops leaking, dripping water onto the people occasionally(always?!), the bikes that waddle through the water pool on the road to see all this, an amazing sight of human endurance, and equally enchanting.

i for one, never complained about rains. those are the best times. come october, i would wake up everyday morning to smell that rain breeze, that is probably the closest thing to bliss(bliss,as i mentioned in one of my earlier posts, is my amma's chakkara pongal). when my mother would come to wake me up, i would notice something different. the smell of rain! i would recall that line from the English literature reader (tenth standard,i think), "the  intoxicating smell of wet earth" that would make the day for me! and if you want to see god, just sip coffee watching the wide gray expanse pouring down on the people of the city!

in the nights, when it would start to drizzle, you would see the street vendors hurriedly pulling tarpaulin sheets over their thallu vandi, and the pedestrian moving at a gradually increasing pace that would increase with the intensity of rain. the cars would start the wipers hoping that there would be more rains, equally frustrated, equally exhilarated. but wait, what about the kids who badly wanted to play that cricket match that they had planned for days together? what about the eager employee waiting for a bus on the water clogged streets to take him to his office? what about the street side digging of the telephone companies and the chennai corporation workers, which is now no more a pit than a well? a break! that is what they all get! a break from the rigour of sweating and toiling and playing in more than 35 C temperatures for months together!

much better, the railway tracks! they gleam like platinum and the oily patches form a unstable pact with their water counterparts to not disturb each other, as the water floats on top the oil patch, making it look like mercury! the train compartments and the buses-the window seats(my favorite!) are completely wet, there is a big puddle, and you would have no other choice! have you noticed the electric rails on top of the tracks suspended on rectangular structures over regular intervals? they would be dripping wet, and the trains with their pantograph(the antenna like things on the trains, that conduct electricity?) would hit those drops of water, and the drops would understand and fly away, understanding the hurry the train is in to get to madras, to see how beautiful she had become since it had rained! the garbage on the roads would be a mix of organic paste and water, flowing down the roads, and like a slimy trail would lead on to a bigger puddle, to settle down finally!

every one talks about rain. be it good or bad, they talk about it, because it is not normal! it is a strange phenomenon, that can throw life out of gear, still create happiness in people. when i was really young, i would wish that it would rain for days together heavily, so that the schools would close for a long time. my dream did not materialize, i hope some one else's does!

right when i thought of writing the blog about rains, the first thing that came into my mind was the train ride from madras to arakkonam with my cousin brother amidst heavy rains. and from there, we had to take a bus to sholinghur, when it rained even more heavily! we were completely soaked when we got to my periamma's place.

my amma told me, the day before i was born, it rained very heavily. maybe i got out the next day because of the whiff i had caught the day before, it must have been strong enough to reach me!

i completely agree with shashi tharoor-no matter where you go(away from india), there is a inexplicable pull that the mother india exerts, that she just wont let you go!

take care of my madras for me...

p.s:

1. we are not talking of floods, i would cautiously like to steer clear of some of the disastrous scenarios.

2. when i say i loved rains, i am not talking of rains that destroy crops in the rice growing hinterland of thanjavur or ramnad district. i feel sorry for the millions who depend on rains, but when it does come, it causes them damage for some sin not of their own. a collective one, maybe.

3. kindly discount the possibility of the outrageous spreading of pandemic due to water borne infestations, due to which a number of people suffer.