'Macha'nism!

Bewildering thoughts and boisterous ideas

Ideals worth its weight in gold

With a fag on his lips 

Stands the man, clad in red and blue

A thought leader he is

Cognizable thinker to be

Wanting to spread the light of entrepreneurial glitz 

Walks the man of utmost wit

In his years of prime, did he have his bonnie may

Left him for the world ahead

Not knowing that he had it in him

The potential to be her universe

Hand in hand, heart in heart!

She hinted with a tinge

He asked her without cringe

She said yes!

And there it started!

Laden with subtle ornate charm 

The stage is set to endear

For the Gods have endowed them with love

And blessed them with grace

The plinths hail them success

The auburn sheen on the lamp reflects the glory

The artistic touches on the mandap 

All in place for your start of life

The garlands exchanged is a vow resorted

To be for each other, no matter what

To be with each other, forever

Let love alone prevail

Oh, dear friend,

Adorning the vermilion mark of promise 

She starts her life with you

Never let her drop a tear of despair

Clasping the cusps of her hands, 

The father of the damsel lets a sigh

A sign of belief in thou

Thy shall never let her down

Oh, dear girl,

He is a nice man

A man of words, set in solid gold

Grab a hold

For you shall travel miles

He shall not leave you

Forever shall his love for you kindle
I wish thee a happy married life....

Onam Movie Reviews

Onam is not only the festival for Malayalees but also a festival for the film fraternity of the state. 

The Onam releases that were expected to pull in people in large numbers are Peruchazhi, Rajadiraaja, Villaliveeran, Saptamashree Thaskarah and Bhaiyaa Bhaiyaa.  

Peruchazhi: The Mohanlal starrer hit the screens a week before Onam. Touted as a major entertainer, the movie failed miserably in terms of the expectations. The comedy rarely makes the lips curl. Baburaj and Aju Varghese, the aides of Lal were a disappointment. The story lacks content and punch. 

Verdict: watch only for the killer looks of Mohanlal. The die-hard Lalettan fan couldnt fall for the movie. 

Rating: 1.5/5

Raajadiraaja: The movie looks like a myriad adaptation of Baasha where the story falls short by several notches. Mammooty looks awesome with the beard and fares decent with his acting. However Joju George stole the show with his timings and quirkiness. The movie is a strict one time watch but still can make you disappointed. The action was blown out of proportions. The script was flaccid and nothing new to offer. 

Verdict: Mammooty is back with a bang but the bang did not seem loud enough. For the mass loving Mammukka fans

Rating: 2/5

Villaliveeran: From the Janapriyanayakan, this is not what we wanted. Sans a very few comedies from Shajon and Dharmajan, the movie is unbearable in terms of everything. Dileep has lost the flair of acting compared to what we wanted from him. The heroines were just props unwanted. 

Verdict: watch only if the movies on TV bore you. 

Rating: 1/5

Sapthamashree Thaskarah: This is the Onam movie that we were waiting for. This is that movie the one that clearly demarcates  the fine line between good and fine movies. Prithviraj with his subtle acting and Asif Ali with his fervent penchant for ruggedness kept the show going. Everyone did their best in the movie but it was Chemban Vinod who was the star of the show.  With his impeccable irreproducible Thrissur accent, Vinod took the audience to roll. Neeraj Madhav as Narayanankutty took innocence to a different level. 

Verdict: Despite a letdown compared to the debut movie of the director, this is a good watch for the festival season. 

Rating: 3/5

 

All in a day's flight

The tarmac seemed incredously bullish as the overladen, late running flight inched its way lazily on a cloudy and extremely groggy day. The flabs of fat that had accumulated all over me wobbled as the whole plane shuddered in anguish as a reply to woes on the pitiful runway of the Chennai International Airport.

Earlier, the fare wars by all the low cost carriers in the nation had peaked in all the airports running them into paradigms of operational ineffeciency.

The extremely sensous airhostesses were continuing their bored recorded monotone, greeting the tired customers who yearned for a seat rather than that red lipstick clad lip curlings. The wait for over an hour to get into the respective gates had made most of the customers grumpy. Add to the woes were the passengers who pooled up to form illicit lines or jump the queues stating lame reasons like boarding calls, wanna pee etc took the patience into the bidding.

The flight was the perfect fit for what was christened as a low cost carrier. The seats were a slim piece of fabric covering a stingy piece of cushion making your butt cryout over the course of the journey. Cost cutting was evident with the intermittent switching off of the aircon and pay-through-your-nose rates for that bottle of water purchased.

Lucky day it was till reaching the airport, hitching a free ride on Olacabs, thanks to their travel partner MakeMyTrip. I thought my luck was running out when I reached the airport when the jam packed winding queues of people started taking its toll on me, who were eagerly waiting to get to the lounge as early as possible for that dose of caffeine. The driver who picked me up was also in a state of non-alcoholic inebriateness which I assumed to due to being woken up at 3. He was swerving the cab unnecessarily and made me thank Heavens when I reached the airport unscathed.

The engines groaned, chugged and came to life as the metal bird hit the tarmac ready to soar. As the power reached maximum, the 200+ people garnered momentum and pushed off the ground. I could feel the pressure differences crushing and elongating the skull during the ascent. As the craft gained the altitude, the flight reminded me of the bumpy rides in the KSRTC. The petite figurines made way hawking the inedible, hilariously priced food stuff which at the spur of the momemt seemed tempting for the sans-tea-empty tummy, but the experience of experiencing it previously made me stay hungry to stay healthy during the much sought after vacation home.

We began descent after being airborne for less than 30 minutes.It was then, I lifted my eyes and the incessantly prodding fingers off the phone to see the white fluffiness of the vanilla dough up in the sky. The turbulence was making typing a theocldmeh (I actually typed tedious) task. As the descent continued, the lush greenery started appearing with the tinge of monsoons adding vividness to palette. I felt the chugging underneath as the landing gear had opened up the wheel trio.

The pale green was adding hues and the colours were more strong now. We were brushing against the windiness of the coconut trees and touched the soul and soil of the God's own country.

Touchdown Kochi. Now to grab my bags and run!!

The Flying Mortarboards!

2 years ago, with a heavy heart and weary eyes, we entered the temple of learning. 

50 subjects, millions of assignments, trillions of pages of assigned reading, countless cases, endless lists of powerpoints and an insane list of spreadsheets later, did we just become a little more wiser?

If the answer is yes, quit reading this and pursue satisfying your unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Harvard Business Reviews and The Economists of the world awaits you. 

For all the others who believe that this was the two years that meant life, read on!

We did become more humane, came out of our comfort zones, confronted lives, got crushes and got crushed, bridged the regional gaps, learned new crafts and became craftier. 

We became new individuals, more witty and eloquent, more personified, more strong, diligent, zealous, valiant, industrious, calm, composed, compassionate, elegant and all the more, better dignified human beings. 

To add to that, we stood for each other, regardless of who we were, where we came from, we stood up for our friends. 

As the last thread that was binding us snapped when we received the shard of paper embossed in gold, the inners have already gelled in and formed an inseparable mound of friendship coupled with sparks of love soaked in the ocean of the togetherness that lay frenzy in the course of time. 

50 mugged up subjects, millions of copied assignments, trillions of pages of assigned reading which we did not even bother opening, countless cases which we read and did not understand, endless lists of beautifully animated powerpoints copied and edited from Scribd and Slideshare and an insane list of jigsaw spreadsheets later, we just became a little more of what we really are. 

The mortarboards flew in the air

With a promise kept to spare

Forever shall kindle the flame

Never to be the flame

Friends shall we remain

Till time sets us apart

The Perspective

Didn't you ever feel for a fact that life is all about perspectives?

After all, what is right and what is wrong?

All that matters is perspectives. 

It is not true for a fact that the sun rises in the east. We took the perspective for granted. Our forefathers took up the direction as a perspective to map the other directions. 

Life is a wild race set upon the calmness, chivalry and cavernous attitude of perspective. We seek the endless meaning of life with either our carnal uncouth barbaric desires or shall relentlessly pursue it with the magnanimity of attitudes. 

If perspectives weren't a part of the tantrums in life, the whole cycle would be a circle of apathy. If our perspectives on life were moulded in properly with good incline, we would see the brighter side of things. A tube light spreads brightness with its light spreading white vision. If at all we perceive it to be in a negative incline, it is depressing white light throwing sight on to the misery that yearns to be hidden in the folds of darkness. 

Perspectives matter!

But when I wrote this, there weren't anything, no perspectives, no direction, no right, no wrong. 

If a perspective was put to it, it was directed to kill time!

The Delectable Palate-1

Foodie! 

A tag adorned by anyone and everyone who relishes a good meal.

No one can deny the ambrosia that a hearty good meal provides. 

Not even me!

Well, how do I put myself to the haters side?

I would put myself in a violent strife between the heart and the mind if I were to say so. 

Let me ask you a question!

How would it feel for you to go through the same mundane combination of rice-sambhar-thoran or roti-daal-subzi every day?

We would often put up with an answer saying that 'No, I was brought up like this. I wouldnt mind this everyday for the rest of my lifetime.'

And then you would start cursing who ever makes this same boring uninteresting menu every day. Be it your mom, wife, cook, the smile coated outers  would be accompanied with under-the-breath-muttering-curses. 

Come some special day, cometh some special dish. Put a mirror in front of you while eating/record you in action, thou shall see a horrendous glee while the pot is opened, followed by a miraculous escapade of saliva forming channels down the mouth. The digging in to the severely tasty dish would be accompanied with some smearing of the gravy around the face. 

With a tinge of boredom that crept up on a day when I was subjected to the usual rice-sambhar-no thoran-only pickle and pappadam menu for the night, it started!

The Delectable Palate embarked a new journey of and for taste!

Our Linguistic Slurs!!

India is a country of vast cultural and traditional differences. The transitions between every 5 kilometers has a change of dialect and renders the same language in a different voice modulation.

We, Indians, the descendants of the Indus valley civilization whose forerunners have been myriad combinations of Aryans, Afros and Whites, have in them one common element, English.

We have over 1500 languages and over 5000 dialects that reflects on our ethnic variance, we have tried in making the same amount of variance to the universal language.

How much do we degrade the language? It is a paradigm of how much jugaad people like you and me practice in our wonderful nation. 

Just as a Brit would buy a pack of chips and biscuits at the petrol pump after filling petrol, the Americans would grab a pack of crisps and cookies at the fuel pump after filling gasoline. Wait! Cookies have got eggs in it.

Fine, she is an eggitarian. She'll have it.

It seems it is in India that we coined this term that refers to the ovo-lacto vegetarians. How nice of us to flex the language according to our wish and will!

We have non-veg for dinner. Not specific at all. Means we could even eat the fluttering flies that accidentally goes on the plate and becomes the palate's appetizer.

The differences what we Indians have brought about in the language is immense.

What if we get to have a dinner date on Saturday with your eggitarian girl friend? With an important match on TV? You ask her to prepone our date to an earlier time so you can accommodate both.

The Americans or Brits never 'prepone' a meeting, but we do. They just schedule it prior to time.

While we play with our words, the language itself is a master of deceit. 

The word 'laid' says it all. The hen laid her eggs on a heap of straw stacked as her nest. The guy got laid off from work, went for a swig to forget the misery, met a girl and got laid. 

Funny language it is!!

Well, me and my Paagalpanti!!

Bangalore Days!

What's in a movie that makes it worth watching it more than once?

You will know the answer when you watch Bangalore Days for the first time.  

The second time in the theatre is a revelation that there are movies worth a second time. 

It is also a proof because the movie is still fresh despite you have sat through the entire 172 minutes once.

Bangalore Days is just another story which has nothing new to boast about. Well, if you stop here, you do not know that you have just lost the most beautiful 172 minutes that you would be spending in a theatre ever!  

The chemistry that Anjali Menon has made to work out is an act of sheer brilliance. The ensemble cast comprising of young stars Dulquer, Fahad and Nivin with the bubbly presence of Nazriya and an out-of-the-world performance by Parvathy has made extraordinary out of the ordinary. 

The movie has all its negatives put to rest by the classiness of on-screen combinations of the cousin trio and the rest of the reel held up by the powerful performances of Parvathy and Fahad. 

Dulquer is a treat to watch. Nazriya brings out a matured performance intertwined with her cheery girl image. Parvathy, despite wheelchair bound leaves the viewers spellbound. Fahad, as usual delivers his best despite less screen time. 

But the star of the show is Nivin who proved that versatility is his foothold. Comical timings with subtle and sublime facial expressions put up with ease has made Nivin the best of the lot, proving that the actor's diverse repertoire. The senior cast comprising of Vijayaraghavan and Kalpana has given their career best performances yet.  

Bangalore Days is the golden feather in the hat of not only the National Award winning writer-director Anjali Menon, but is a fresh breath of life for the Malayalam film industry, which is finding difficulty in accepting rustic youthfulness in movies.

Must watch! Theatres awaiting! Packed houses still!

Rating: 4/5

I Dreamt!

If dreaming was a crime

For a man in his prime

If loving is a sin,

The world would never win

Bantering around the crevices

We have created

Blinded with distraught devices

That we have accumulated

Have we lost the charm?

In a way that means only harm

To hover in the feeling called love

The question remains how

On seeing her eyes

I fell flat on the pyre

That burned me in the flames of love

To get her, it still remains how

On seeing the smile

Captivated me to that mile

Beads that fell astray

I fell prey

She made my life an ecstasy 

An ode to the love

I wanted her to be mine

Dreamt of her being mine

The question still remains

The question remains how!

Empty Chair Technique

In this technique, two chairs are placed facing each other: one represents the patient or one aspect of the patient’s personality, and the other represents another person or the opposing part of the personality.

Narrator

He loved her.

She loved him.

More than anything in this world. She felt that he was her man and he was irreplaceable and priceless. Slowly he started pacing out steps to end the relation. She was distraught with anguish. She was so inconsolable and here she is…..

Counselor- What has brought you here, my dear?

Gal (Stammering)- I… I…. I am heartbroken, crestfallen with grief. He, who I thought was the light of my life, left me.

C- I know it is hard to cope up. Did you try to speak with him?

Gal- No. I can’t face him. I’ll feel like burning into cinders.

C- I think you should talk to him. What did he tell as the reason for the break-up?

Narrator

She thought she was his bonnie may. Until she started getting hints of him being unfaithful. He was seeing another girl who worked in the same office as he was. His phone calling intensity had dropped down. Whenever she messages him, she gets delayed responses. He would take ages to reply messages on Whatsapp despite being shown online. Jealousy had sparked upon her.

It felt it would go smooth until that fateful Facebook status update came. The war was waged and they broke up. The more the lovers become involved in a romantic relationship, the more attached they are and the stronger feeling of sharing fate between them. At times, it becomes difficult for them to detach from each other.

C- How are you feeling right now? (Counselee fidgeting with fingers)

Gal- I am feeling bad. Frustrated at the moment (Looking down, eyes were moist)

C- What is the frustration like… for you?

Gal- Its just.. I can’t explain. It has been pricking my heart for a long. I can’t just come out of him.

C- Can you just tell me where the epicentre of the feeling is?

Gal: I just feel like a weight being carried on my chest, day in and out and it is burrowing in into my heart with agony.

C- Dear, Let me initiate a mechanism where I am going to make you introspect on your past life. I want you to focus on that empty chair and visualize seeing him here. I want you to talk to him. Tell him that you want to throw him out of your life.

Gal- With you out of my life, I feel lost. You just did not know how much I loved you. You took me for granted and took me out of your life. I must tell you that I am throwing you out of my life.

C- Now I want you to take his place and then have a conversation with the girl. The responses that you actually got from him.

Gal-(shifting to the opposite chair and composing her into a manly demeanour) 

I must say that you have been nagging me all along. You have been interfering too much in my life. Expecting me to call and message you all day without having my personal space. I need some air in my life. I cannot be with you, a person so intrusive into another person’s life.

C- This is an opportunity. (pause) You can vent all of your anger on him

Gal- (With a glitter in the eye)   With you out of my life, I feel lost. You just did not know how much I loved you. You took me for granted and took me out of your life. I must tell you that…..(pause) I AM THROWING YOU OUT OF MY LIFE.

C- How are you feeling?

Gal- I am feeling better.

C- Can you explain the feeling of ‘being better’?

Gal- I feel like I have heaved off some burden off my chest. I think I will be at peace now.  

Ajaya- Book Review

Everything is based on perspective. I might see the good in him, while you might see the bad in him. 

In fact, the whole world saw him in that angle. 

Ajaya- The Roll of the dice breathes fresh air into the great Indian epic, Mahabharata. The author, Anand Neelakantan has created a wisp of new aura around the first born Kaurava prince, Suyodhana who is renowed to the whole world by his evil name, Duryodhana.  

With every passing line and every page turned, Anand creates a halo of goodness around Suyodhana and portrays the ever-loved comely Pandavas as tracherous or evil. 

In the turn of events, the vicious cycle of life takes turn to pit against Kauravas and Pandavas which led to the hostility between the cousins. 

It was indeed the hatred of Shakuni towards Bhisma and the arch nemeses sisters-in-law Gandhari and Kunti made the plot of Mahabharata more sinistrous.

The fresh perspective is enticing and Anand had made a wonderful effort to make Ajaya a cheerful read. 

Kudos to Anand and his upcoming endeavours. 

The Evolution of Life (Mobile Phones, Ahem! & .....)

Our great grandparents would have never thought that at the push of a protuberance on the wall, a storage area would be filled with water. And the very thought of spinning a round (sometimes other shapes too) something, the water would come out of a hollow something-else would have been amusing. The flow being controlled at will and put to stop when wanted would have made them stand in bewilderment. 

Life is being made easy day by day. The small plastic-metal combination that are held in our hands was once upon a time giant massive blocks that could be used only for calls and texting. Dropping it from a height would create a hole on the ground, the height of the fall causing an isomorphic depth. The massiveness reduced with time and the packaging became more and more complex. Calls gave way to video calls, SMS became via the web. Integrating into them, were cameras, music players and video players making a person carrying 3 different gadgets for serving these purposes look like a Stone Age time traveller. 

As complexity gave its best to us, the directions to any place, understanding our voice, reading our biometrics etc became the need of the hour and found its place on the phone. 

We are being that dependent on technology where meeting friends is a time where we are 50% involved with them and remaining with our phone. Texts, Whatsapp, Facebook, and Twitter are indispensable. Like toilet paper (sorry for the sophistication, mug, bucket and water), iPad is the most essential tool to aid potty. 

We are slaves to technology. Loving and living the slavery shall be cursed and put on blamed one day.  

The future: A phone that would tap into the minds and be a companion. Who would want a wife or a girlfriend when there is a pal who has no mood swings irrespective of which part of the month it is?

But beware, it shall tap in so much that we shall be nothing more than zombies approaching an apocalypse.  

As I was thinking of this, another crept in to push this to the back of the mind. More room to proliferate.

The thought of how we came about the evolution of vehicles.

Remember we used to roll down the windows to come in contact with fresh air. Remember the struggle to turn the steering when the car was stay put. Remember how we prayed when we had to push a sudden brake. 

I am sure it is always there as a fresh memory in the minds of our parents who now drive in the lap of luxury. Not meaning that everyone drives a Merc or Beemer. Even a normal Maruti Swift now has all the necessary gadgetry as a part of its standard equipment. A push and the window goes down. 2 fingers is all what is needed to turn the steering. ABS, hopefully would take care of the braking. 

The yesteryear's driving had a wisp of fun involved- a feeling that you drive the car by yourself. Fidgeting with the bunch of keys to find the right one, to open the car, when rolling down the windows was quite an exercise, driving with all your might on the steering, gear, accelerator, clutch and brake and then reversing the same initial exercise to close and get out of the car. 

The life has changed when machines have taken over. Key in your pocket. The smart switch on the door knob senses it and you open the door and enter. Inside the car, is a myriad of buttons and screens making you confounded. Push of a button and the vehicle starts. Key still in the pocket. The rolling down of windows gave way to power windows which then came with an auto touch up/down feature. Drive the route, the GPS in the centre console will alert if any wrong route is taken. The AC adjusts to our wish of temperature. The seats are auto reclining, massaging and stores who likes what angle of recline in its memory. The car gives its share of entertainment, movies, music and radio and sets the theme with a mood lighting. Get down the car and your ride has its own way of saying goodbye with its follow me home headlamps.

Drat, you forgot to roll up the windows. The car can take care of her, it automatically rolls it up and hey presto, and the car is locked and safe.

The future is going to go somewhere beyond imagination. 

But aren't we being shackled to this dominion of technology? Getting lazy in the course of action. 

As I put you to thought, let me sign off.

Mother, I bow to thee!

Pampered we live, life giving us the best. 
But what we take from thy, puts her to rest
Shall we thrive to ignite a mind
Of a passion, thou shall see kind
Off I go, to sleep
Hoping never to weep
For the path we tread
Is I doubt the path we need 

Milady- The Mind's Malady

I couldn't help it to not

But to think about those sweet memories

That lay afresh in the mind

Kindling the pyre of the forsaken destiny

Watching with awe as you stepped in front

The way the braided plaits swayed

As you took those gorgeous footsteps

In a world appeasing demeanour

As the name of the damsel was called

She approached the stage for a moment

A moment that shook my world

And swept me across my feet

Like the circuitry wired to synchronize an output

My heart had infused the thoughts of you in me

The output was perfect with the cupid bow

Ready to strike out a chord in harmony

 Seeing you in the bus every evening,

Letting myself to stay rooted

In close vicinity to see the swaying of the hair

When the breeze kisses it in all its glory

The eyes that behold the charm

Casting a spell so enchanting

Wooing off anyone, god or mortal

Wonderstruck with thy beauty,

Being a mortal, insanely human,

Became I, a slave to the most divine proposition

Of the 3 worlds

You, milady, the lady of the dreams

Living in someone else’s heart!

The Roadside Melodrama

Engaged in a race that often leaves your life dangling by the edge of a thread is what the roads of Chennai have to offer. 

The roads winds and unwinds into a peculiar myriad of tarred blackness, so intangibly intertwined into the facets of hope and despair in all its plight. The routine of driving by the roads in moments of incessant crowding is sure to have you crave for the orgasmic pleasure of adrenaline rushing.

Motorists emerging out of nowhere, from pocket roads, from the blind spot of your ORVM or from God knows where, with just one motto in their mind, body and soul- show the utmost despise to make your day pathetically remorseful for having had the thought of taking your car out of the garage. 

Well, Chennai roads have a lot of lessons to offer. The patience that is upheld when the bikers ram into the teeny weeny gaps between the cars, the self control while ramming the brakes while someone pops into the road from somewhere and the nonchalant face while autowallahs jeer on the face.

Priceless indeed! 

The raging mobbing of the traffic comes to a halt at the red signal where hawkers and beggars throng onto the windshield of the car to get their business done. 

Beggars with sunken paleness and grief stricken eyes knock on the window glass for some change. As you spare a thought to spare some change, you would see contempt on their faces as the expectation from you rises as you graduate from a bike to a car to a bigger car. If the size of the coin is too small, the curses muttered under the breath would bestow upon you and your 9 generations, sinister afterlives in hell. 

Hawkers and peddlers of wares set in their sales pitch. An acceptance means you are poorer by 50 rupees and you now own a thing that is only priced at 20rs even at the biggie store. A denial from your side is surely to set you back atleast by a grand- the hawker's frustration is often blurted out as scratching with something on the metallic surface of the vehicle's body.   

Surviving all these would tire you more than your day at office! 

#roadfilledwithidiots

And a month later!

What to say? Where to start?

I have been quite out of touch since my fingers were smothering the touch of the keyboard for other purposes. (FYI, no puns intended!)

It has been busy for most of us. Marriages, jobs, travel etc etc has been on the cards. 

As we crossed the gates of the college, we were pretty happy on the thought that we are now going to a world of independence, a world that was not going to hold us back because we did not have gate passes.

Well, we were given our ticket to independence, with a little or no premonition that we had just entered the world of voluntary slavery. 

Just look back at what we had and what we did. 

Life by the lakes was a breeze, that sometimes had a frost bite, but easily manageable. 

Assignment submissions could have been at will. You could just copy some crap off the internet and submit it. What could happen at the maximum? The plus sign in the letter grade could be taken off or maybe take the vertical bar off it to make it a minus. Barely mattered. Plus, you had a week to submit the paper. 

The boss at office would come and ask you to do that same amount of work and submit it before you leave that same day. 

It is usually one or two assignments per subject. The office usually has the next work ready in line to start off with, as you just finish off with the one. One after the other, you would be doing whatever assigned to you, just as the genie who was uncorked.

You were happily on proxy in class. Clock that bloody, boring and tiringly long 8 and a half hours in office or else the lost hours would reflect as lost hundreds on your salary. No fool’s play. No goofing around. Business is business, pal.

We thought that money was going to come in big numbers. No more asking parents for money. Not answerable to anyone.

We are paying through our noses.

The internet in campus. High speed and unlimited. Now as we want to download that awesome IMDB 8.0 rated movie, we just go to the internet account page, check the balance, plot a mental graph that if the movie download would make you off the wire during the last 2 days of the month. 

ACs were on round the clock in the hostel rooms. Just try that at your new place. Better do it after giving the bank, instructions to credit the whole month's salary in the EB's account. 

Life, huh? 

Did you just realize that in a couple of years, almost all of us would heard the chime of the wedding bells? Did you just realize that getting married means hell lot of responsibility? Check it out with the friend who just got married last week. Future reference can be taken from the guy who is getting engaged this week. 

We are getting responsible. For our own actions.

So, 

Brace yourself, LIFE is approaching in full force.

Attye peace!

The Farewell Trance

I was overwhelmed. I was on the verge of being in tears. 

And the same is applicable to the remaining 120 people too. 

And you, Pallavas, you did a great job. Joining up as a team, putting in your hard work and dedication to bid adieu. Amidst the work pressure put forth by the professors, you rescheduled your days and nights to give us the space. 

As we exit, we are sure, the 2 year course that started off with us as exemplars, will be taken to greater heights. 

The retreat at Ideal Beach Resort was worth its weight in gold. The ambience, the programs planned, the menus set, everything deserves an applause. 

A dinner would have sufficed, and maybe top it up with some impromptu act that any one could have pulled up- that would have made a decent farewell. But you stepped it up by a giant leap, burning midnight oil and sipping cups of coffees to devise plans, to give us a farewell, befitting the most luckiest seniors. 

I have to thank you all, on behalf of the batch for the pomp and splendor you infused in the act of camaraderie. 

Ambi and Sudarshan, you guys were awesome as the hosts on stage. 

The girl who sang the Rock On song, 
I shall call you thee
For I do know thy name is Ridhima
You swept a wave of bliss across the hearts

Kaushal and Siddharth, you two, too put up a great show!!! Timings, man!! Respect!!

The Video team, the coordination team, the 'this' team, the 'that' team, the whole team... 
The Farewell video left us spellbound. The hard work behind this deserves mention. 
Who else, other than you could think of giving us a souvenir of the most cherished picture of the 2 years, framed and wrapped to cherish the memories!!!
  
I have no words to say,
You have won a place in the heart to stay
Loved your efforts
Love you all

Enough of being nice, 
I shall cast off the garb 
And pull a leg of the Mamalla
Or maybe two!!

We taught them to be awesome. They taught us what awesomeness was.

Anyways, Mamallas, here you go!

The winners of the Wall of Fame- the acts that you did on stage were awesome. But what took you there were the acts in the 2 years. Those were more awesome, I should say. 

Mr Vikas 'Pole Dance' Sharma, you taught the world what seduction meant. Did you know that you gave the strippers a run for their money??

Srini Mama, you were awesome as always. Do you have pins and needles under your toe? Drenched that little Ambi and danced when not needed. 

The roommates actually forgot the whole thing called pole dance. I know you people are rigid as the pole should be, and hence swayed the sh!t out of it (him)

Varun and Nambi, you did set the floor on fire!! 

The food needs mention. It was amazing. I remember seeing people seen as excited as a 5 year old in a candy shop, on seeing the well laid-out sumptuous spread.   

We had fun. Loads and loads. 

Dear Pallavas, 
You etched memories of a lifetime. 
You carved out  a slice of our world as we part
You did everything you could 
And gratitude with which we say,
We love you all!!!

Let the Dreams Assume Wings!

I have a dream.

We all have dreams.

Are we chasing them?

Yes, we are.

Look from within, conduct a retrospective study, knock on the guts, ask your inners and from deep inside you will listen to an entity called your conscience.

It will, with all due respect, tell you that you aren’t, knocking over your nuts.

You wanted to be a sky diving instructor, yet you became a glassware salesman just because of the bizarre and freak accident that was covered on TV.

You wanted to drive cross country on that Harley cruiser with your friend, but didn’t, because your neighbour fell off a bike and lost his front teeth. He fixed it all right.

When Martin Luther King Jr. had this thing called a dream, he meant it. He wanted the Blacks to be treated in par with the Whites. When he dreamt it, he meant it.

When we dream of something, do we actually mean it?

We aspire to be something.

We can if we want.

There are some hapless souls in this world who want to be treated as humans. But we fail to do so. If I may, it is about the differently abled souls. The people who are born with genetic disorders, who fail to cope up with the challenges of life, who are called the mistakes of God, also have the right to dream.

What do we do to them?

Do we allow their dreams to take wings and escape beyond? We treat them as diseased, untouchable and uncouth. Was it their mistake to be born, to be born in this manner? They are left to fate. Left to bleed out while we try to pursue our long lost and forgotten dreams, many a times in vain.

How do we talk to a person who doesn’t know much English? We break and pause and hum and put all the sounds between the words so that they have enough time to register the words, transmit them to their brains, translate to their mother tongue, understand, think of the reply in their mother tongue, translate and reply back in English.

Have we ever thought of helping people out by showing care, compassion and courtesy? Have we? No one cares a damn about the normal humans. Everyone is carefully secluded in their comfort zone. If they don’t retaliate to the oncoming fire, they are the cusp of getting run over or hit or whatever damage that may befall.

By layman’s point of view, aren’t we all differently abled? We all possess different talents and an uncanny ability to mask our disabilities. Yet we discriminate the real souls who fail to dream big. 

Dream big and help other to realize something.

It matters, after all.

The End is the New Beginning

The journey has been a roller coaster ride. 2 years of management education has made us wiser, I believe, if not by the volumes of education tried to shove up the brain, but by the life learnings.

It was not easy, coping with the pressure, burning midnight oil and what not. But we did it.

The assignment deadlines, persistent nagging by friends to send them your assignments, hunting down Scribd and Slideshare to get a teeny-weeny bit of your submission material, checking all the plagiarism checker sites known to mankind and finding that most of your hard work is the exact duplication of the public domain and screwing the remaining part of the night redoing the work using the right-click-synonym magic on MS Word were attempts to err the freshly baked engineer's life in the first term of MBA.

The classes were happening over and over, day and night. From the wee hours till past midnight. Then starts assignments of various sorts. The first term had marketing cases over cases with emerging markets flying over the head. Financial accounting was never ever willing to tally the balance sheet of life. 

Well, rephrasing became child's play when we were one term old. Then came the tensions of choosing electives and empirical studies. Not to add to the woes, finance became the back crunching exercise as we graduated from Accounting to Financial Management. The guys who were keen on pursuing CFA went to bow down to the world of operations management. 

The classes were tedious beyond the core as the count of the number of subjects crossed the hand and reached the toes. The teachers were persistent on our dedication in their subject and were overloading us with work as if that was the only subject to study. As the sections were shuffled each term, we actually had chances to mingle with more and more people. 

Before we knew what happened, 2 terms were over. Then came internship interviews and the 3rd term. We were a bunch of scapegoats in the brand mayhem caught up to strive for life in the raging sea. We were running behind internships while the classification that we had was to ensure us a paid internship that would leave behind savings post the expenses and booze charges. We dint. And an internship was an internship and we needed to have it. Time flew and we flew to different parts of the country and some went beyond the boundaries. It was a hectic task of getting up in the morning and going to office and submitting reports and actually working. 

Once we were back, life went on to reverse gear. The number of classes per day had fallen drastically and we actually had free time. And then we began to learn to be lazy. It was just less than a year ago, we had just unlearned the thing.

The second year actually was a year that split friends. You hardly had a chance to sit in class with your friends in class. When you attended service marketing, he would be sitting and gazing at the FRM teacher. The intrigued attention that was paid in class for some subjects were pretty much compensated for the lax in the others.  

The terms passed by, and we are here. Almost ready to be shown to the gate and to leave.

We hated the place. We hated the teachers, we hated the buildings, we hated the classrooms that made us claustrophobic, but we never hated the people whom we called friends. 

But now as we turn back into the way that leads us down the memory lane, we would know that, it was just the turn of events that made us hate them. It is just a matter of time that we would understand that how they meant to us. 

On a retrospective note as we leave, we are leaving a life that shall never return. We are leaving a life that we actually lived. We loved, we fought, we waged wars, we had indifferences and we patched it all up in a jiffy.

We loved the drooping eyelids and the happiness that brimmed in the mind as we ate a hearty meal (pun intended!) and went to the hostel for the great afternoon siesta. The crashing on the bed and letting go of all emotions are going to be a distant memory reserved for a Sunday.

We all loved copying our assignments. We loved to ask teachers for extensions. We loved the butterfly flutter in the tummy as we were midway through our assignment when the clock showed 1130pm (submission at midnight). We loved the panicking as we would go room to room, get hold of a few assignments, copy paste it and submit for the sake of it. Post college, you won’t be even able to do that even if you own the company.

I intentionally forgot about the most interesting part of the life here- proxies. The moment you queued up in the 'other' entrance to class, asked the people who sat in class to form a barricade while you could punch in, so that the teacher would not catch a glimpse of you and run away to avoid the teacher's eye- shall be a memory often thought with a grin and a tear at the edge of the eye. 

The midnight munchings and the walk with the chilly wind blowing to send chills up the spines would be missed. The coffees at past one at Bistro and the bland sandwiches from CCD after shouting our larynx out to wake the guy shall be missed. All has been a part and parcel of our life.

We loved to huddle up in someone's room and make plans. 

The bike rides to Mayajaal, the shared autos to Mahabalipuram, the beaches, the sun, the lovely chaats and ghee roasts of A2B, the restaurants of the temple town, the life- you shall be remembered. 

The crushes, the love, the break ups, the pals and gals- you too shall be missed.

As we gear up for life, we will get to know that the past was heaven. 

<Sniff, Sniff, I am getting emotional >

Everyone shall be missed! This life shall be missed!

Attye Peace!

Adios!

Love!

:)