...as seen by...

A friend of mine, had mentioned in his facebook update that the state of Kerala sold 28 crores worth of liquor on Xmas day. So here I was, sitting idle, waiting for another friend to go to the movie Avatar in iMax 3D. Which meant I had a little time to kill, so I did a little math, which goes somewhat like this - Starting Official figure: 280m So including all the bars and toddy shops etc, the unofficial figure should hover somewhere around 130% of that: approx - 360m(I feel 30% is still a very small figure, thinking of all the toddy shop-scenes in Mallu movies. The soul of Kerala lives in those toddy shops, literally, If you know what I mean..) Population of Kerala - Around 32m Male population(Hmm.. we still frown upon females who drink!) approx - 15m (thanks to the superior sex ratio) Which got me thinking. Look at the development indices, and we are somewhere up there among the most developed nations. But mention a female who enjoys a drink or two to a mallu guy, and a ser...

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower" - Albert Camus Everyone had warned me about it. I had seen pictures of it. I had read about it. So I thought I was prepared, with my camera. I had framed my shots mentally, even found captions for it. I monitored foliage news constantly, and planned trips around the fall-peak. But finally, when it came, I was so overwhelmed, like a kid who forgot the first lines to utter on the stage. All my carefully charted out plans suddenly seemed like a chaotic mix of things to do which was not important at all. Maybe for the first time, I felt as if my camera is totally useless in my hands. The pictures I took screamed of my ineptitude. The plans, though executed, seemed hardly appropriate, or meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I was simply blown away by the beauty of fall. Finally, I decided to relieve some stress from myself. I told myself, it's okay if you cant capture it all, it's OK to feel frustrated to see a...

I did a remarkable thing today. I 'monetized' my blog. Like many of you, I didn't know what the hell that means. But fortunately, our brains and eyes are hardwired to cling on to anything that has the letters M-O-N-E in it. Even if the 'Y' is absent. Wow, I just made a super-cool statement! Good start! Bottomline, I signed up for google's adsense. So If I am smart enough to make a few people come read my blog, and they are prudent enough to click on any of those links, and a few and then a lot many of such clicks happen, google will send money to me! By the time I finished writing that, it has already started to sound like a bummer! What do I write, that millions of others cant write about? I have had many starts with this blog in the past, and many false starts too. By far, the most successful streak has been the time when I started it, when we had a bunch of friends who had time at their disposal, and I used to be a very active member in blogger cicrles. Means...

Thus, Bejoy Babu enters into the thirtieth year of his  great struggle for existence against the elements of this planet last week. Like his very first year, he did it again in a hospital room. Talk about the ironies of life. Back then, he had a young and energetic father, who had sat hours on end admiring the red little thingy in a white wrapper (am hoping he did, most newly promoted fathers do, don't they? At least Ross Gellar of Friends did when Ben was born!). And now, 29 years later, his father was lying down weak, with tubes attached to his body, while he sat hours on end looking at him. Not admiring, but worried when his father will become alright, he will be able to go back, whether his leaves would affect his job, how the great plans of a first birthday together with his wife was spoilt etc etc. Oh 'cmon, there's no use being pretentious about it. Nobody enjoys this particular disposition. He didn't do it either, and he managed to kill time with 2 activities. 1...

I have lost the knack of waking up to the alarm. I cant believe I used to wake up at 5:45 every day, and go for a jog. The pox had rattled everything. Now all I can do when I hear the alarm is: turn it off (even snooze aint an option!) or even better: not hear it at all, so that I can throw a tantrum when I wake up finally, some time when the sun has reached directly above the head. So last Saturday, I set the alarm at 5:40, as I was supposed to meet some friends at Madiwala at sharp 6:15 AM. And so, it was riding the bike at spine-numbing chill winds at 100 kmph, and jumping the traffic lights (its no harm when you are the only person on all the four sides of the junction, right? And besides, obeying rules is my principle, but its no use being a fool about it) Finally I met them at madiwala by 6:40. Turned out that they waited for a long 2 minutes or so. Afterall, we're all running on IST(Indian Stretchable Time)!!! We proceeded to our destination, which was in front of the Yeshwa...

I guess I have been quiet for a while. I knew that nations won’t go to war if I stopped writing. Heck, I thought no one cared. But what happened last week challenged all such notions of mine. I was asked 3 times, in a span of 48 hours, why I had stopped posting. And considering the fact that everyone suddenly got concerned after a span of almost 2 years, I have reasons to believe that the blog had started turning in its grave. Yes, I had decided to burry it. Now I need to dig it up, and create some magic, like Dr. Frankenstein did. And one of the three people who asked the question, happened my own dear wife, so I couldn’t just push it away. Hmm, well, you see, quite a few things happened in my life during this period. (We’ll ta lk about that, hold on…) So seeing this sudden spur of interest in my long-lost habit of blogging, I went back to the blog, and read it. It made me smile, several times. And then, I was convinced, I should resume writing. So let me write about what I did last S...

There are no rain pictures this week! Because it has been raining incessantl y for the past 48 hours or so... So I cant go out and take a rain picture. I cant go out and take a rain picture when its not raining either. Catch 22! Anyways, there's been this wonderful sight that has been raising my hormone levels whenever I go to drop my sister in college. Naah, its not girls am talking about, I have grown out of it(pretens ion, nevermind!) Its the lush green paddy fields on the way. So I took a calculated risk, and ventured out with my bike, when the rain seemed shying away for while today afternoon... I took a deviation from the main road, and I wasn't disappointed at all. There was this narrow pot-holed road lined on either side with trees, and beyond them lay the vast expanse of green green paddy fields. ***click on the images to enlarge Two women were cutting grass to feed cattle. They would have made a pretty picture. I contemplated walking upto them and asking for a picture...

Friday: This was taken in office, on Friday, just after I got into the car, relieved to have pushed one more week aside. This is my office building, all drenched in rain. Looks beautiful doesn't it? If you are being subjective about it... Today: The rain is arresting today... quiet literally!I remember someone saying something about the rythmic beat of the rain... No its not the normal pace that you're talking about... the rythm of the rain, starting.... getting stronger, then waning out into a drizzle, then heavy showers accompanied by winds.. and then calm for a while... That rythm. I've been meaning to go out and try some shooting thi s weekend, but somehow, found myself confined to home again.. Another day perhaps... I have a few more weeks before I leave this place.. and the monsoon is just about getting into its groove..

Am back! Yeah back again. I wanted to make a series on the monsoon. Yes. m onsoon in Kerala. With pictures. Thats where the rub is... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It wasn't raining when I woke up. There was a queer silence around. I strolle d outside... Yes it had rained yesterday for sure. But I cant hear the toads anywhere.. Where have they all gone? Perhaps they've already found their mates. And don't want to be disturbed on a rainy morning, from their sleeps, from th e cozy comfort of having their loved one near.. Toads!! So here's one to start off... ***** click on the pictures to enlarge***** The 'chembila' as it is called. Used to double up as umbrellas for school-children caught unawares by a sudden drizzle without warning. That would make a great shot, if I could get one. This is the June- 2nd week moss. Very adolescent. Very soon, this guy...

Someone said yesterday, "You've thinned down a lot". I've been used to that for quite a while. While folks at home are on the verge of a collective nervous breakdown over the issue of my thinning down, friends and acquaintances put it in a more comforting clothing, by asking "How do you manage to stay in shape?" "Oh its no big deal, I just go on a 5 km jog near my home everyday, and once in two days I play tennis. When I dont play tennis, I visit the gym. I don't know swimming otherwise I'd have loved that too, and yeah, I dont even look at fried or fatty food!" Truth is, I do nothing. And I am a big fan of potato chips, dark chocolate and and late night movies, in reverse order. Which should be your one-buck-ticket to obesity. Yet people have managed to say I have thinned down every single time I see them without fail, no matter how frequently or rarely. Which is kinda unsettling, if not exactly worrying. Unsettling because, at this rate, ...

Life's all about moving on. Shedding the scales, and getting a new one. Well, easier said than done. Because, accept it, we all love our pasts. We would be happier if one day, we could just walk back to our house and find it as it was ten years ago, those days when you were spilling over with the excitement of having discovered something called"college". Your room would be adorned with posters of Gabriela Sabatini(remember her?) or a very boyish looking Sachin Tendulkar! You'll once again open and adore the new "action shoes" that you recently bought. You had just heard about Nike and Reebok then. You're discovering the first signs of real conflict with your parents, when you've just hung up after that call from a girl in class. "Oh come on! She's just a friend. You guys just dont understand". Its another matter that you secretly admire her and you, with a couple of close confidante friends are plotting big time to break it out to her o...

It was really uncharacteristic of me to wake up in the middle of the night. I mean, I dont usually get up in my sleep even to piss. But here I am, having woken up like a shot bang in the middle of deep sleep. Wondering what was it that caused the sudden rush of adrenalin, I try to close my eyes and retrace the fading realms of any dreams I might have seen... or more likely, nightmares. No, there isn't any. I am wet. Err, I mean, I am sweating. I sharpen my ears to listen to the drone of the ceiling fan, which has a habit of melting in your ears once it goes on for a while, pretty much like the tick of the clock. You cant hear it unless you really strain your ears and concentrate. No, I dont hear any. The power must have gone off. And that explains all the sweat. I scrambled up, almost stumbled upon the bean bag, but found my way to the blacony door and opened it. Ah! what a relief. It was so cold and crisp outside. There was no moon but I could see the silhouettes of trees. And the...

It took about 38 Megatonnes of will and 5 snoozes on the alarm and 2 phone calls to make me lumber myself out of bed today, limp towards the bathroom, spend a rather unsuccessful 15 minutes there, and treat myself with a bone-chilling bath at 3 am in the morning. Am no masochist, mind you, all this because Sydney runs four and half hrs ahead of us. And my client happens to be there. So I drive 27 kms to office, kill two toads and almost kill a cyclist on the road, sing aloud with Alanis Morissette to keep myself from dozing off while driving, reach a deserted and ghostly looking office (duh! I need more choices in life, I sure do) and wonder why there aint been a call on my mobile yet, despite I being 10 minutes late for the meeting...I will most surely sleep off in the meeting, coz I was late to bed yesterday, after having a rather harrowing experience in trying to reach home in an overcrowded KSTRC superfast. With all this conflicting deliberations in my mind, I open my calendar, to ...

Somewhere inside my head, there still lives a faint memory of those days when the first thing I used to do after coming to office would be check my blog, reply to comments, wonder why there are no comments, check statcounter and see who all were reading my blog.. then think about the next post etc...go blog surfing... I realize I need to stop, and take a breath. And look behind, and around. I've been so really out of my own being I realize. Thank God there's at least a saving grace!

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

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 ...

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...

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 littl...

I dunno what is it that makes words drain out when you have a lot to write. I have the world to tell about, and I cant find a single word to start the proceedings. If you dont believe me, this is the fifth time I am starting off, and hopefully the last, before deciding this is the worst start I could ever hope for, only until I started again! I realized my problem, just now. These things I want to write about, are of gargantuan dimensions for sure, but they are so, just for me. Neither do they possess the the quality to create any interest in an audience like the Friends - season 9 could, nor do I possess that quality to make it sound interesting as someone like Dave Barry could. So having realized my handicap, and having set the expectations straight, its much simpler now. I am just going to write for myself. One would never really get a true list of the happiest moments of his life until the moment he dies, as was seen by Lester Burnham, as was told by Sam Mendez. I liked that scene ...

I'm simply astounded by the capacity of the human mind. To sink down deep into an abyss one day, to bounce back and fly high the next. To love unconditionally. To stubbornly believe in individualism but be ready to sacrifice everything for another. To find strength in the weakest, bleakest of moments, and pass on the strength to someone else. It's then that the age old Hindu notion of mind/soul having an existence of its own begins to make a lot of sense. Its just unacceptable that something of this immense profoundness shall perish along with the mortal physical state of existence. Just unacceptable. After 2 months long and arduous effort, I managed to finish “The motorcycle diaries” and move on the next book. Arduous was other things, due to which the reading had suffered, and not reading in itself. Otherwise, it’s not at all a tough book to read. The resemblance to “zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” is just in the name. There’s no metaphysics of quality here, just t...