Kuttalam: Yea you heard me!!

Kuttalam Waterfall, Old Kuttalam (Courtalam)

Beautiful landscape

Meter gauge railtrack over a colonial arch bridge

Sankar, Sankar Nair, 000

Road to the heavens

WilD domestic peacock..or hen or whatever ;)

Yippee, camp fire..

The background and the colors just did it!!

Scarecrows

Moi..

The gang, Jonathan behind the cam

Bleeding BackwArds

Trivandrum has been my hometown for quite some time now and even though I was not born here, I do have a strong sense of belonging attached to this place. Each time I come here I feel that something very special inside my chest. The pride one feels about his own hometown.

But as a few hours pass by and I move through the roads, I am invariably disappointed. Nothing has changed. I can even see the same tea stalls and the same pot holes playing mentor to the upcoming young pot holes. None of the roads have improved (Mom enlightened me that Kerala did not have a decent minister for roads in quite a while), and I hear people cursing Japan Kudivella Pathadhi which I do not have any idea about, and no one knows much about it anyway to enlighten me.

The number of vehicles on the road has increased drastically over the last one year, with the roads teeming with the big fellas of the road like the Scorpio, Innova and Civic cluttering up the already breathless roads. The half done flyovers sport all new political banners and shabby writings. Vishnu enlightens me that these will stay untouched for a minimum of two years, before someone analyses the design and finds that the design is not at all sufficient and we'll have to start from scratch. So the contractors hired to restart the project can get more money smashing up the crores that already went into building those piers and eke out more money to build to even more rubbish designs (Gamon flyover in Hyderabad, even though crashed due to bad staging, really impressed me with the pace at which the lagging behind project progressed , with the pre-cast blocks assembled very fast).

Mom again enlightened me that the Peroorkada-Kudappanakunnu road was completely unusable until the public went on a protest and made the ground shake with their demands to repair the road ( they have done a quarter lane width tarring of the supposedly 2 lane road).

And I keep listening to the anti-entrepreneurship government dissuading foreign/domestic investment, may it be Reliance/Infosys/Patni/Vizhinjam etc (check out pending land requests at technopark here). I also read about the general disdain that Malayali investors have towards hiring malayali help in their ventures outside the state because of the lack of cooperation from kerala government/trade union tedtape (silverine's blog).

I also read a few very interesting articles on Kerala politics and development projects related to tvm at Vinod's blog.

But it got me thinking on what the underlying problem is. I am sincerely fed up of all the non kerala resident mallus pointing out the mistakes of all malayalis. Philipose was very very insistent of point out the lack of insight and incapability of mallus, which as far as I'm concerned, would fail to explain the success of mallus all over the country. Maybe the answer is like what some others say; mallus working for mallus inside kerala is bad, and as soon as they step out of the state they start making money. Here too, the out of state businessmen are reluctant to hire mallus in fear of the backfiring from mallu workers union backlash.

The cause of the problem has to be complicated and would probably be part reason of the success of our race, what ever it might be. It could be communism in the last generation or it could be a collection of too many small reasons to enumerate clearly. What ever the reasons for the growth/holding back now, it is definitely time for us to break free, change our views and look at everything with a new perspective.

Today talking to my friends here, especially Sankar gave me an insight into how mallus hold on to cliches that held good a good generation back, but have been blindly adopted in a generation when everything deserves a fresh approach. I do not have the vocabulary to try for a clear discussion on the modern/traditional mindset debate, hence am stopping this post here..

Will add on more later ..

BIS certified work

Well, its not like I have been working my ass off for the last few weeks in office (smothered by the work load and the works) but still compared to these last few days I had been working quite a lot earlier. That is to say that quality of work that I do makes up for the quantity or rather the lack thereof for the period under consideration.

Thinking of going home, and that too for 10 days is enough to keep me from even starting on any of those pending things. And to top all that the weekend was awsome with a P200 ride through the city, all the salsa acrobatics with Anuhya, a birthday party at Soni's place, a fun filled coffee outing with Anuhya/Cho/Pritvi (or Prit as his american friends call him he says) and to give it that sense of completion, Beowolf on Imax 3D with a cute little monkey. Well I would say I am pretty justified in feeling completely off from the, working hard, frame of mind.

Well lets hope my onsite/offshore managers do not fly off the handle when they do find out about my quantity/quality of work...!!

Admirers UniTed !!

All of us need a respite from our hectic schedules, to unwind, to relax and think about something else other than work which occupies every inch of disk space in our heads. Even though there are some people who never unwind, most people do something which would help them unwind (consciously or unconsciously).

Now most people in my office revert to the healthiest of such recreations: Admiring the beauty of nature (pachha malayalatthil paranjaal, vaayinottam). So during lunch hour our daily escape from an environment thick with code, scripts, deadlines and appraisal cycles begins at about 1...

It usually involves a tingly sensation in my body (the vibration of my mobile phone ringing in my pocket, Shinu calling). So after I do a "Right Click> Refresh" in my head a couple of times, my mind is clear of the cluttered thoughts of all the problem tickets, artifacts and other issues with which I would have been wrestling with till then. I make my way out of the ODC trying to irritate all my team mates on the way out with what ever jest available. That might involve a smile or a mocking face at the new chick in the team (and she IS hot, if you are wondering, as I know you are), asking how many problems a new team member created that day or just enlightening someone on how their module is the uravidam of all bugs in the system.

Shinu, would usually be waiting at ground floor, with hands in pocket scrutinizing everything around him. As soon as he spots me walking down the stairs, there would be a reaction on his face to what ever I am wearing, which is usually a look of horror thanks to my god given gift for fashion (I do wear a black party shirt with wide shiny green stripes, which glows like bright green laser beams in the light, to office).

The paradooshanam (finding fault) starts soon after, and we shift to top gear soon after. Now, when Shinu starts it is something on a different level. I mean I was always the forerunner everywhere I went in this direction till now, but he is definitely a bonafide, certified master Vaayinokki (admirer, for the poor uninitiated non-mallus). Comments flow from his mouth as smoothly as the fountain in front of infosys campus here(both are equally examples of a work of art). I found that malayalam is an excellent language to express a myriad of situations and feelings to a such a degree of precision which cannot be nearly matched by english. This continues throughout our small walk to the cafeteria, and through our wait in the queue to get the food coupons.

Absolutely every girl in the office campus worth a look at has a nick name which fits her to such a degree that we would never need worry about forgetting their nicks or getting confused about them. There is Seema, who comes along with Muscle'an and Kuthira. This is the gang, on whom the whole campus of atleast 5k employees concentrate. The guys wont take their eyes off Seema and the gals cant get enough of the almost 6 foot Muscle'an. Then there are our favorites Princy Jacob and Annamma Varghese. Now first time we saw Princy we were 110% sure that she was a mallu. Hence one day I went confidently and asked her whether she was a mallu, to which she replied with a dazzled look on her face that she definitely was'nt. Anyway the saga continued with us mutually waiting for them everyday and escorting each other across the corridors(with our eyes ofcourse). Annamma was just the side kick whom no one noticed, untill we decided that we would drop looking at Princy and concentrate on Annamma since "Princykku ippo marana jaada. Nee aaradi thilothamayo" (Princy was acting too pricey). Now Annamma was definitely taken aback by this. She underwent a sudden makeover from a butch boyish type with a soda kannadi to a contact lens sporting, feminine churidar wearing lady who just could not hide a smile each time she sees either one of us.

Then comes Shinu's personal choice, Maanpeda. "Maanpedayude Kannukul. Aaha. Pennungal aayal ingane venam. A kaanukalil maanpedaye pole aa pedi kandille!" Sure enough from the very next day we started sighting Maanpeda only with dudes, and sitting on the phone for hours. So Maanpeda was suddenly dropped as the personification of feminine timidity.

There are many other notables among our regulars. Face-off, for turning her head suddenly when caught looking at us; Model, which is self explanatory, Kingini, Thakkudu, Nettholi, Shakkeela, Shinu's Vedala Romancham, my Vedala Romancham (most names are self explanatory, and don't ask me the meaning of vedala) etc..

Now, if I have given an impression that we are the only one monopolizing this industry, you are gravely mistaken. During the one hour between 1 and 2 in the afternoon, hoards of Vaayinokkis (from either sides of the gender barrier) line the verandahs on either side of the corridor to the cafeteria engaging in code review of all the people walking across. So we join them and sit on the verandah, along with some leading women professionals in this field on the other side.

All in all, lunch hour is only for admiration of nature's beauty and not even one thought of coding or work enters ours minds.

Now this, my blogosphere friends, is our Happy hour!!!