Pictures...

My camera has been largely lying idle for sometime. But this is what it has been doing in between.

Monsoons!

It has started.

As always, the metereologists' hit the bull's eye this time too, they predicted the monsoon will start exactly on May 30th, 11:23 am, right after you'd have pulled up your zippers after taking the first break of the morning. So it started last week. Actually I don't remember when, but today I suddenly realized it had, and had been for quite a while. We were just about to finish our lunch and I heard the noise, sudden, unmistakable. The sound of approaching rain. And it came down with quite a brute force, some people in the restaurant actually got scared and deserted their lunches halfway and ran for their lives. And before they could complete two full steps in the open, they were as wet as they ever knew. Each drop was the size of an ostrich's egg. Thinking what's with the raindrops and ostrich eggs? You should have paid attention in 12th grade when they taught about terminal velocity and surface tension and stuff like that, instead of sizing up the physics ma'me. I hate to explain such silly things. The former. Latter, with pleasure!

The entire srroundings take a pregnant, aching and vulnerable look. (This line is borrowed). Evenings are so beautiful. Yesterday I was so struck by the blueness of the night when I came out of office, that I stood there with my mouth wide open and hands on my hips for quite a while. It was not the blue you normally see, it was so unreal. Then I realized there were some people staring at me. One of these days am gonna get that into my camera. Some very pleasant, cliched, nostalgic, evrlasting imageries from the monsoon season -

Kids going to school with their multi-colored umbrellas, splashing each other with water by rotating those...

People wearing raincoats in scooters.. though those in bikes are not as pleasing to the eye..

The working woman in saree, balancing the umbrella btween her shoulder and neck and holding up her saree from wetting, displaying a good-looking leg or two...

Areal view, a sea of blackness...

Mist on the windshield...

Transluscent atmosphere...

It makes you want to weep, sometimes. Along with nature.

I coudn't help but compare..

I guess, I just wont have enough of comparing...

Then: It's a sin, sitting a minute more in the office after 6. My fingers find its way immediately to Windows+L, and I spring up. Watch all the ladies hurrying towards the door, grabbing their falling handbags, lunchboxes, shawls, sarees or whatever. I make way for them, wearing a weary smile. 6 o clock is normally the time for the top-rung managers too, the suits (none of them in a suit, actually) looking at their watches and walking swiftly, those leather-finish laptop bags on their shoulders... Whereas the menfolk are waiting impatiently, to let their ties lose and start getting a bit loud now.

I come out, pick up the helmet, and run down the stairs. Am in no hurry, but I just love running down the stairs. I reach the bike-parking lot and try to remember where I parked mine. There are a few guys smoking and chatting with each other, with coffee in one hand. I find her, from among a hundred others, stuffed into every inch of space aviable. I carefully draw her out, and kick her up, and let her loose.

It's a sudden transition from the noisy highway as you take the turn at Chavadimukku. The road is relatively quiet. There are bunch of engg students, totally absorbed in their own world, oblivious to all those eyes staring at them. As I take the turn at the engg college junction, the settings take an even more rural character, with the devotional songs playing from the krishna temple nearby, people returning from the temple after the deeparadhana, sound of chenda and stuff. Eerie stillness everywhere. I reach home, unlock the gate. No one else. I park the bike, sit on it for another 5 minutes, lazily. Then I put the helmet down and walk, with my hands in my pockets, to get that pack of cigarettes.

Now: It's still a sin sitting in the office after 6, if u can afford getting out. My fingers find a way to Windows+L again. But there are very few other people who've contemplated moving from their seats. With a shrug, I walk out. Some people are staring at me. Like I care. I walk down the stairs. The parking lot has fewer bikes. She's wearing a thin sheet of dust, thanks to all the construction taking place nearby. I kick her up. She fires up rather haggardly and catches on. The longer commute to work daily is taking its toll on her as well. And I realize my attention towards her has dwindled a lot I find my way through the maze of crazy evening traffic @ Kochi, survive a few traffic signals as well as life-threatening auto and bus drivers, and reach the highway. which is the slightly enjoyable part of the journey. But the heavy traffic spoils all the fun.

I reach home, pull her up, and sit on top of her for a while. Mom opens the door and demands to know whether I've had tea or not. I reply absent-mindedly. Smile at her or try to crack a joke, either of which must be really unconvincing, as she quietly goes back to her serial at 7. I feel wierd that I dont miss that cigarette anymore. I go straight up to my room, grab a book/turn on the music.

Then I wait...

10 things I miss from my previous job

Read someone's meme and thought about this. Mind you - this is in no particular order.. oh yes, it is in the order that it came to my mind, and you know things can get pretty messy out there, wherein the first thing I think about after waking up in the morning could be taking up a netflix subscription when I go onsite, after which, comes relieving myself off 8 hrs of liquid waste! U get the idea..

1. Evening tea at Hotel California: If u r in technopark, dont be surprised by conversations like these -

Software Engineer No. 1 (SE1) : Hey man, how ya doin?

SE2: Awesome! havent seen you lately?

SE1: yeah I had been onsite... California! Came back yesterday. U seem to be in a hurry?

SE2: yeah, going onsite man... coming?

SE1: Sure, lets go!

SE2: And lets go to California after that, u got a bike na...

Naah, we dont have such motorcycle buffs out there who'd think of taking up a world round-trip in their bikes.. anyway not since I left. Hotel California, alias Cali is the little tea-shop nearby, where you get steaming hot and crisp vadas, ethaykkappams, deep-fried houseflies etc and tea - custom made to your choice of strength (of tea-leaves that is). And cigarettes of course if you're of that smoking kind!

And onsite smells heavily of odonil/urine depending upon when was it cleaned last.

2. The balcony and birdwatching : Lunch-break was the best time to do this activity. This is best enjoyed in the company of a few experts, whose knowledge in ornithology might come handy while analyzing certain features of rare and migratory birds. Such sessions would mostly come to a close after mourning ebout extinct species.. dodos and the likes..uknow!

3. Rainy days: Rainy days meant sleeping till 8:45. And then a couple of frantic calls here and there, to people who've got a car for a lift, only to learn that they're already gone. Then the inevitable, change back to homewear, and get that remote! Or just sit about and chatter away. Its another matter that anyway you'll end up reaching the office wet, which classifies the time spent above as a waste! Or is it?

4. The three humps: I loved the three humps on the uphill/downhill road to bhavani. I loved braking hard in front of those humps and feeling the gentle roll-up in my tummy while taking them. The second was the loveliest, coz we had the TCS training centre right in front of it, and I have to say the hump played a major part in reducing the number of motor-accidents in that vicinity. But they do happen nevertheless. And ch loved taking on the humps with his hands off the handle. God, let me live till the day which finds him flat on the ground, which shouldnt be very far. And which is pretty difficult I mn considering the way his tummy is challenging him, its hard for a flat-fall, it would be more like rolling down. Whatever!

5. The technopark club: If you'd ask me which was the best place on earth to booze, this was the answer. used to be. :( . Several factors made it unique. Hard day? Just stroll down after getting out from the office, and there you are, the great Vyshakha lawns of the club, the night sky with all the stars, music, and yeah, I have to admit that the food used to be good too. It was another matter that we've never left the place without being involved in a brawl with the waiters about something, like the fries being too oily or the beer bottles having a wierd green color or that the toilets used to be on that side of the pool when we came here last time...

They closed it down a few months before I left. Compelling reasons? Maybe.

I guess thats enough for one post. The remaining five will follow in the next...