Disclaimer :
This is a fwd which i got almost an year back.
Proud to be a TamBram :)
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TAMBRAM Thouroughbred"YOU graduated in Literature, right?" asked my young cousin. "No, in Economics." I hastily clarified. "Economics Honours," I added for good measure.
The question coming from anyone else would have been innocuous, but from my cousin who was a third year engineering student, it was almost offending. As a card carrying member ofthe Tamilian Brahmin community,or TamBrams, as the endearment goes, I knew that in his world - and that included his parents, relatives, colony friends, project group, dormmates, someone whograduated in Literature obviously did so because he or she had a learning disability.
The poor thing was a freak who couldn't get admission into an engineering college or even a pitiful, but definitely more acceptable, science course. Or worse, such a specimen was a wasted wanton whose desire to do B.A. was an irresponsible, rebellious act, almost akin to joining aNeo-Nazi like cult group and living on the edge of civilized society. In any such conversation with a bonafide TamBram, I find myself fervently hoping, that despite falling under the horrifying category of B.A Economics, with its connotations of statistics and analysis of numbers and trends, would redeem m a little in their maths-science obsessed eyes.
For a middle class Tam Bram family (and that means the whole lot of them for all TamBrams qualify as middle class if you take outlook and behaviour as parameters), mathematics andscience are not merely subjects in the school curriculum. They are a religion. And the dharmaof every Tam Bram student is to master them and pave his way to the heavenly portal of an IIT. Or at least, to the ordinary portal of a local engineering college, which the family will eventually reconcile to, in the absence of the 'real thing'.
The first time I seriously understood this was when I was in primary School and on one sunny day was gleefully reading out my final exam results to Grandpa who was sitting on the porch and frowning in attention.
"English: 90 percent, Hindi: 85 percent, Social Studies: 87percent.." I prattled on. "How much inmaths?" interrupted Grandpa. "Maths: 97 percent," I said grinning widely. "What happened to the remaining marks?" was his unexpected reaction. After which he asked me to fetch thequestion paper, spent the next two hours going through each problem and figured out where I could have lost the precious three marks. "Nothing less than a centum in Maths next time." he said finally.
'Centum' is a word unique to the TamBram world, that a child grows up listening to. It is a figure that even if sometimes elusive, is never lost sight of throughout the academic career.
Centum, Maths, Science, Brilliant Tutorials, Engineering, IIT, B.Tech, Computer Science, USA,Financial Aid, I-20, Student Visa, M.S, San Jose, California, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel.
These words and names are like carefully arranged furniture in the mental landscape of a TamBram boy - and increasingly girl - below the age of 25. Care is taken not to clutter it with anything related to useless stuff like literature, history or art. Show me a TamBram boy who wants to be a fashion designer, VJ, historian or air force pilot and I'll show you something wrong in his blood line. For all such are heathen, a blemish on the fair face of the community.
Till about 15 years ago, the only heathens were girls who did not sing. Formidable maamis from the neighbourhood would drop in for a casual afternoon gossip session with grandmom and onspying any hapless young girls in the vicinity, would pounce on them with the dreaded entreaty, "Oru paatu paadein." (Sing a song). A simple three word sentence, you would think, but in maamiland it is a deceptively camouflaged barometer of the girl's cultural grooming and readiness for TamBram society (read marriage market) and her mother's efforts in making her a fine Tamilian lady.
A TamBram girl's singing talents always have to be on standby, as they could be called upon by anyone no matter what the time of day, nature of the occasion or profile of the audience, bysimply uttering the three powerful words, "Oru Paatu Paadein." And woe betide the girl who in shameful ignorance, takes the words at face value. When the words were uttered by a visiting neighbour, I readily accepted and joyously broke into a popular Hindi film ditty. I had finished the second paragraph when I stopped to check audience response. My mother had a strained, embarrassed smile on her face, grandmom was scowling hard, an aunt hurriedly excusedherself and went inside and the venerable neighbour looked so disturbed, I thought she was on the verge of a heart attack. "Well..that was nice, but don't you sing any varnams or keerthanais?" she finally asked, after an awkward silence. My mother hurriedly explained how in the culturally bereft North we were unable to locate a Carnatic music teacher nearby...but hopefully by thissummer she would manage to do something about it.
That's when I realized that the only music that was expected to pour out of your mellifluous throat were classical Carnatic songs. If you didn't know any, you simply shut up and ducked out of sight of visiting maamis.
And if like me, you are a non-engineer-non-Carnatic-trained loser of a TamBram, you should be drowning yourself in a drum full of idli batter for having wasted this life time. And all the best forthe next one...
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
My cycle's story!!!
It hardly takes 30 min to walk from my house to my office, but it will be little difficult to spend that much amount of time and of course energy early in the morning. I used to walk for some 15 min to the Jayadeva bus stop, wait there for 5 min, get into a crowded bus and come to office with a lot of difficulty. Even this took me almost half an hour and it depended a lot on the famous Bangalore traffic. So I decided to get myself a vehicle. I didn’t have any option other than to go for a bicycle. Yes, I don’t know how to ride a bike. Many people used to ask me one question when they saw me coming to office in my cycle or whenever they hear me talking about it. And the question was “Why did you buy a bicycle rather than getting a bike?” Here is the answer. : )
Starting from my childhood days I didn’t have any attraction towards bikes. I started going to school in a cycle when I was in my 5th standard. We were in trichy that time and my father got two BSA SLR cycles, one for me and the other for my brother. Once we got transferred to Madras after that, my school was almost 12 to 15 Km from my house. So I started going to school in PTC bus. We have a Bajaj scooter at home which my father uses. I didn’t even bother to learn it as it doesn’t look good and of course that was an age where always wanted to prove point to people around you that you are the best and you do all the best things in life. I switched back to my cycle during my last 2 years of schooling in Pondicherry. I didn’t get an opportunity to learn bike driving during that time too as I was totally engrossed with my studies.
In college I didn’t have close friends who can lend me their bikes so that I can learn. I did learn how to drive un-geared vehicles. Once I drove from Mount road LIC building till my college in Chromepet after my friend who owns the bike met with a minor accident. It should have been a 20 Km drive. So I don’t have any fear when it comes to driving on busy roads.
Even after my college days, I didn’t get any enthusiasm for driving bikes. But I contemplated over getting a second hand bike from my uncle and start learning it from him. But a friend of mine gave me a very good suggestion that it is better to get a 4 wheeler license along with a 2 wheeler rather than getting only a 2 wheeler license. Considering this factor I dropped the idea of getting the bike from my uncle.
I had another reason for getting a cycle. I was not doing my exercises properly and I my physical fitness was going from bad to worse. My mom suggested that cycling will be a good exercise and I can reduce my tummy. Another reason was that most of my team mates in office were making fun of me that I used to ask them lifts to my house.
So one good day I decided to buy a new cycle. Now I need to find a good place to buy it. I searched in newspapers, enquired people in office and also had a post in my office bulletin board. First I went to a cycle shop near the jayadeva signal but found it to be too costly as it was a retail shop. Then I decided to go to K.R. market which should be 10 km from my house. I wanted someone to bargain for me so I took one of my college senior who works in my office. We both went in his vehicle and tried out in 2 or 3 shops there. At last we found a shop named ‘Madras cycle importing Co.’ and thought that the shop owner is a Tamilian and we can easily bargain there. Unfortunately he wasn’t a Tamilian and we somehow managed to bargain for 300 bugs and I got a new Hero Exodus bicycle.
Then came the toughest part of the whole game. I have not been on cycle for almost 6 years and I had to ride back the cycle to my house which was 10 to 12 km from there. Somehow I managed to do it 45 min thanks to my iPod. : )
I called up my parents to inform about my new vehicle. My mom was very happy that I have at least listened to her words and got myself a cycle. I had a wonderful sleep after that for two reasons. One due to tiredness and the two, my father told me something which I can’t forget for my life. He said “Even I started my career with a bicycle”.
Starting from my childhood days I didn’t have any attraction towards bikes. I started going to school in a cycle when I was in my 5th standard. We were in trichy that time and my father got two BSA SLR cycles, one for me and the other for my brother. Once we got transferred to Madras after that, my school was almost 12 to 15 Km from my house. So I started going to school in PTC bus. We have a Bajaj scooter at home which my father uses. I didn’t even bother to learn it as it doesn’t look good and of course that was an age where always wanted to prove point to people around you that you are the best and you do all the best things in life. I switched back to my cycle during my last 2 years of schooling in Pondicherry. I didn’t get an opportunity to learn bike driving during that time too as I was totally engrossed with my studies.
In college I didn’t have close friends who can lend me their bikes so that I can learn. I did learn how to drive un-geared vehicles. Once I drove from Mount road LIC building till my college in Chromepet after my friend who owns the bike met with a minor accident. It should have been a 20 Km drive. So I don’t have any fear when it comes to driving on busy roads.
Even after my college days, I didn’t get any enthusiasm for driving bikes. But I contemplated over getting a second hand bike from my uncle and start learning it from him. But a friend of mine gave me a very good suggestion that it is better to get a 4 wheeler license along with a 2 wheeler rather than getting only a 2 wheeler license. Considering this factor I dropped the idea of getting the bike from my uncle.
I had another reason for getting a cycle. I was not doing my exercises properly and I my physical fitness was going from bad to worse. My mom suggested that cycling will be a good exercise and I can reduce my tummy. Another reason was that most of my team mates in office were making fun of me that I used to ask them lifts to my house.
So one good day I decided to buy a new cycle. Now I need to find a good place to buy it. I searched in newspapers, enquired people in office and also had a post in my office bulletin board. First I went to a cycle shop near the jayadeva signal but found it to be too costly as it was a retail shop. Then I decided to go to K.R. market which should be 10 km from my house. I wanted someone to bargain for me so I took one of my college senior who works in my office. We both went in his vehicle and tried out in 2 or 3 shops there. At last we found a shop named ‘Madras cycle importing Co.’ and thought that the shop owner is a Tamilian and we can easily bargain there. Unfortunately he wasn’t a Tamilian and we somehow managed to bargain for 300 bugs and I got a new Hero Exodus bicycle.
Then came the toughest part of the whole game. I have not been on cycle for almost 6 years and I had to ride back the cycle to my house which was 10 to 12 km from there. Somehow I managed to do it 45 min thanks to my iPod. : )
I called up my parents to inform about my new vehicle. My mom was very happy that I have at least listened to her words and got myself a cycle. I had a wonderful sleep after that for two reasons. One due to tiredness and the two, my father told me something which I can’t forget for my life. He said “Even I started my career with a bicycle”.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Double dhamaka at Madurai
I switched on the TV today morning after an eventual Saturday night. India thrashed Australia in the T20 match, ManU drubbing Aston Villa 4-1 at Villa Park and my darling Massa taking pole position in his home grand prix.. I saw a marquee running in Kalaingar TV yesterday saying that they are going to telecast “Mozhi’ for the second time. The movie had started and I should have missed some 45 min.
I went to Madurai this Feb I guess along with my uncle to see few temples in and around Thanjavur. We went to my aunt’s place in Madurai and we didn’t have any plans as such. So I took my cousin brother Jagan to watch some movies. I was looking at the posters outside and there was a theatre complex (sorry I forgot the name) where they were showing 3 different movies, “Mozhi”, “Pachai kili Muthu charam”(PKMC) and “Pokiri”.
Being the greatest fan of Vijay(of course sarcastic) I decided to try out the other 2 movies. I am a person who watches the movies for the directors. Mozhi was Radhamohan’s movie and PKMC was gautam menon’s movie. I wanted to watch PKMC first because of Gautam’s reputation of giving very good movies but because of my cousin’s wish we went for Mozhi first.
Mozhi – in Tamil means language. This should be the best movie I saw this year and I wish this doesn’t remain the best as I am eagerly awaiting the release of “Dasavatharam”. The story is about a music composer who falls in love with a deaf and dumb girl who lives in his own apartment. It is a very sensible movie and the whole credit should go to the director Radha Mohan. Of course Jothika, Prithviraj and Prakash raj did their roles to perfection. It is one movie which you can watch in theatre with your family. I think such movies are becoming very rare nowadays where directors give more importance to masala stuffs rather than giving good movies.I wanted to take my parents to the movie but my mom watched it in pirated CD and my father is not interested in watching movies. So I had to drop that idea. :(
But I wonder how many of you have watched Radha Mohan’s first movie. Any guesses for the movie name?
The movie is “Azhagiya theye”. To me this movie was slightly better than Mozhi. I watched this movie in Udhayam theatre during my final year of college with some 20 of my class mates. It is a movie about a young man who wants to become a big movie director. This was also a Prakash raj production with Navya Nair donning the lead role with Prasanna. The story begins with Navya getting engaged to Prakash raj but she doesn’t want to get married to him. She introduces Prasanna as her boy friend to Prakash raj, and Prakash raj lets them stay together in his house and only after that the whole movie starts. This is one movie where the director had pictured a living together relationship with dignity unlike movies like ‘Salaam namaste’. It is one of my most favorite movies and a must see if you are a fan of good movies.
After Mozhi it was the turn of PKMC. We went for the evening show and my cousin didn’t like it at all. But it was a good movie but bad to gautam menon’s standards. If one watches the movie without knowing anything about the storyline or the character Jothika plays in the movie it will be a good watch. We thought of going for a late night show after PKMC but decided against it.
For ppl in Bangalore I am going to give you some shocker now. We watched these two movies in a A/C theatre with DTS for Rs.20/ticket. So for 2 movies we spent just Rs.80. So when are u ppl travelling to Madurai. :)
I went to Madurai this Feb I guess along with my uncle to see few temples in and around Thanjavur. We went to my aunt’s place in Madurai and we didn’t have any plans as such. So I took my cousin brother Jagan to watch some movies. I was looking at the posters outside and there was a theatre complex (sorry I forgot the name) where they were showing 3 different movies, “Mozhi”, “Pachai kili Muthu charam”(PKMC) and “Pokiri”.
Being the greatest fan of Vijay(of course sarcastic) I decided to try out the other 2 movies. I am a person who watches the movies for the directors. Mozhi was Radhamohan’s movie and PKMC was gautam menon’s movie. I wanted to watch PKMC first because of Gautam’s reputation of giving very good movies but because of my cousin’s wish we went for Mozhi first.
Mozhi – in Tamil means language. This should be the best movie I saw this year and I wish this doesn’t remain the best as I am eagerly awaiting the release of “Dasavatharam”. The story is about a music composer who falls in love with a deaf and dumb girl who lives in his own apartment. It is a very sensible movie and the whole credit should go to the director Radha Mohan. Of course Jothika, Prithviraj and Prakash raj did their roles to perfection. It is one movie which you can watch in theatre with your family. I think such movies are becoming very rare nowadays where directors give more importance to masala stuffs rather than giving good movies.I wanted to take my parents to the movie but my mom watched it in pirated CD and my father is not interested in watching movies. So I had to drop that idea. :(
But I wonder how many of you have watched Radha Mohan’s first movie. Any guesses for the movie name?
The movie is “Azhagiya theye”. To me this movie was slightly better than Mozhi. I watched this movie in Udhayam theatre during my final year of college with some 20 of my class mates. It is a movie about a young man who wants to become a big movie director. This was also a Prakash raj production with Navya Nair donning the lead role with Prasanna. The story begins with Navya getting engaged to Prakash raj but she doesn’t want to get married to him. She introduces Prasanna as her boy friend to Prakash raj, and Prakash raj lets them stay together in his house and only after that the whole movie starts. This is one movie where the director had pictured a living together relationship with dignity unlike movies like ‘Salaam namaste’. It is one of my most favorite movies and a must see if you are a fan of good movies.
After Mozhi it was the turn of PKMC. We went for the evening show and my cousin didn’t like it at all. But it was a good movie but bad to gautam menon’s standards. If one watches the movie without knowing anything about the storyline or the character Jothika plays in the movie it will be a good watch. We thought of going for a late night show after PKMC but decided against it.
For ppl in Bangalore I am going to give you some shocker now. We watched these two movies in a A/C theatre with DTS for Rs.20/ticket. So for 2 movies we spent just Rs.80. So when are u ppl travelling to Madurai. :)
My first Blog
I welcome myself to the blog world... i just wonder why it took so many days to start blogging even though i have heard my friends talking a lot about it. I am planning to write everything that comes to my mind. Truth and nothing other than that. I am a little bad when it comes to writing so in my blogging process i wish to improve it.
My first story is about something which i love a lot and very dear to my heart. "Carrom"
I started playing carrom from a very small age when we were in Thanjavur. I was then a small kid say 3 or 4 year old. I used to go to my neighbours place and disturb then while playing. I used to come back home and tell my father that even I want to play that game. I was so excited and interested in playing carrom and i got used to it very soon. I will go crazy if i lose a game. Mostly my father and my brother used to be in the receiving end of my coins and striker missiles. We 4 of us, i.e my Appa, Amma and Sriram used to play doubles and i always chose my Amma to be my partner. She is little bad in playing carrom and I always wanted to prove a point to my carrom Guru "my Appa" and my dear bro. Most of the times we used to win with some help from my father and at times my bro used to furious. Hope he agrees with me regarding this.
I used to play carrom very seriously and i cant accept defeat. I always feel that i can beat anyone in this world, even Maria irudhayam on my day. I had a wonderful carrom partner in my college days. Seeni is some one who understands my game a lot and we always formed a very good doubles pair. We won 2 doubles championships together and i had won another with Vikram in my second year. I won the singles championships 4 times in my 4 years stay in MIT.
After my college days i played carrom very few times. I also tried out snooker, 9 ball pool when i was in the Infy mysore campus. But nothing made me happy and i dunno the reason. Carrom was so dear to me. For the past one week i have got back my happiness. Yes, i started playing carrom again. Honeywell has a yearly festival named HTS Utsav for which they conduct various competitions and carrom is one among them. So they have few carrom boards for practice and I am started playing from the first day. I was the person to inaugurate it. :)
Yesterday after a very long time i played tough carrom. It is a very tricky game when it comes to doubles. There are lots of decisions one need to make especially if ur opponents are good and a single mistake cud be fatal. I was playing with a beginner and we were against 2 champions from2 different colleges. So it was only me who had to take up the whole responsibilty. Carrom is one game i tell u where if both the players are good then it becomes little disadvantageous to the team. It is always better that one take the hold of the game and the other person plays for his partner. This was how I used to win a lot of games when i was in college. Seeni used to play for me and it was that understanding that helped us winning.
Even though we gave a tough fight coming back from 19 – 0 we eventually lost it 29 - 21. The game went on till 11 in the night and i just wonder how i was able to play till that time. Ennala pasi thaanga mudiyathu. But this was very analogous to wht Thiruvalluvar had said
"Sevikku unavu illa tha pothu sirithu
vayirukku eeya padum"
I was totally involved in the game and i was very happy that i played well yesterday night. I reached home by 12 30 walking from my Honeywell office with my greatest companion "My iPod". Woke up to my Mom's call at 8 in the morning. It is ayudha Pooja today and she was shouting at me and asked me to go to Thatha’s place for Puja.
I came back to the real world from the wonderful world of carrom.
My first story is about something which i love a lot and very dear to my heart. "Carrom"
I started playing carrom from a very small age when we were in Thanjavur. I was then a small kid say 3 or 4 year old. I used to go to my neighbours place and disturb then while playing. I used to come back home and tell my father that even I want to play that game. I was so excited and interested in playing carrom and i got used to it very soon. I will go crazy if i lose a game. Mostly my father and my brother used to be in the receiving end of my coins and striker missiles. We 4 of us, i.e my Appa, Amma and Sriram used to play doubles and i always chose my Amma to be my partner. She is little bad in playing carrom and I always wanted to prove a point to my carrom Guru "my Appa" and my dear bro. Most of the times we used to win with some help from my father and at times my bro used to furious. Hope he agrees with me regarding this.
I used to play carrom very seriously and i cant accept defeat. I always feel that i can beat anyone in this world, even Maria irudhayam on my day. I had a wonderful carrom partner in my college days. Seeni is some one who understands my game a lot and we always formed a very good doubles pair. We won 2 doubles championships together and i had won another with Vikram in my second year. I won the singles championships 4 times in my 4 years stay in MIT.
After my college days i played carrom very few times. I also tried out snooker, 9 ball pool when i was in the Infy mysore campus. But nothing made me happy and i dunno the reason. Carrom was so dear to me. For the past one week i have got back my happiness. Yes, i started playing carrom again. Honeywell has a yearly festival named HTS Utsav for which they conduct various competitions and carrom is one among them. So they have few carrom boards for practice and I am started playing from the first day. I was the person to inaugurate it. :)
Yesterday after a very long time i played tough carrom. It is a very tricky game when it comes to doubles. There are lots of decisions one need to make especially if ur opponents are good and a single mistake cud be fatal. I was playing with a beginner and we were against 2 champions from2 different colleges. So it was only me who had to take up the whole responsibilty. Carrom is one game i tell u where if both the players are good then it becomes little disadvantageous to the team. It is always better that one take the hold of the game and the other person plays for his partner. This was how I used to win a lot of games when i was in college. Seeni used to play for me and it was that understanding that helped us winning.
Even though we gave a tough fight coming back from 19 – 0 we eventually lost it 29 - 21. The game went on till 11 in the night and i just wonder how i was able to play till that time. Ennala pasi thaanga mudiyathu. But this was very analogous to wht Thiruvalluvar had said
"Sevikku unavu illa tha pothu sirithu
vayirukku eeya padum"
I was totally involved in the game and i was very happy that i played well yesterday night. I reached home by 12 30 walking from my Honeywell office with my greatest companion "My iPod". Woke up to my Mom's call at 8 in the morning. It is ayudha Pooja today and she was shouting at me and asked me to go to Thatha’s place for Puja.
I came back to the real world from the wonderful world of carrom.
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