CheriyaSerry - The little place

Two must-to-dos during my vacation at home are a trip to Guruvayoor temple and a visit to Cherussery, my mom's village. Each time I visit the village, I feel more and more nostalgic about the many carefree summers I have spent there with my counsins and this time it got me thinking. My kids would never get to enjoy all the stuff I had enjoyed as a kid in this place.

But like the whole of India, little Cherussery is changing too. The winds of change are slow but sure. Like the growing pains of a teenager when he grows his moustache step by step and after a few years, before you know it, there's a bush under his nose; And then you sit and wonder where did that come from! Just like that, Cherussery is slowly becoming more and more un-village-like, much to my dismay. Every visit I notice one more paddy field turned into a concrete something………..

Maybe my kids would get to know about life in villages only through the stories I'd tell them. Some of the things they are definitely gonna miss......

- Playing hide and seek among the trees

- Machinga (miniature coconut) toys

- Puddle plays in untarred roads flanked on either side with huge trees

- Snakes and frogs crossing the road

- Snails, earthworms, dragonflies, scores of cats, squirrels, fireflies – you make friends with all of them

- Paddy fields exist not just in those wallpapers and screensavers

- ‘Stoning’ mangoes down. Right now if you throw a stone it will most probably fall on another building

- Sucking on sweet kodappan (plantain flower) sap

- Absolutely no flats/high-rises in sight. It's just green all around. And simple happy people around who are satisfied with their simple lives.

- No public transport after 7:30 PM. You would sit at home and listen to those wild stories from your granny.

- A place where everyone would know you by your granddad's name
"Aha, aren’t you krishan’s granddaughter? You’ve become so big….remember I bought you sugar toffees last year?"

- A punjabi suit and short hair is all that it takes to make you famous in that small place. If a girl wears pants, it might even come in the papers the next day.

- Swings made of different parts of a coconut tree and tied on jackfruit tree/mango tree – your fav afternoon pasttime

- There are more trees behind your home than the number of people inside it.....well, squared!

- Your afternoon snacks consist of fruits and berries your pluck yourself

- You get enough toffees to fill your pockets for just 1 rupee

- The only households that own a car in the village are the rich ones and the kids include them in their everday roaming itinerary just to have a peek.

- Walking around can be a lesson in zoology and botany - if you keep your eyes and ears open

- You learn swimming in the temple pond with coconut husks tied to your body so that you don't drown

- You learn how to dive without hitting any of those evil rocks inside the pond.

- Touch-me-nots are the most touched plants.

- Summer holiday - jackfruit season. Dawn to dusk. Breakfast to Dinner.

- Your friends are the iron wala's kids, coconut climber's kids and the local tailor's kids. They all stay near your house and are you best buds.

- Lunch would be served in a big vessel, made into personalised balls by the granny for each kid and then mercilessly stashed into your mouth. Yummy!!

- You cant survive unless you know Malayalam - Hindi or Enlish won't get you anywhere in little Cherussery.

- Going to 'town' is a once month big thing and is a privilege if you are allowed to accompany the elders

- Women walk around in chemmeen style - lungi and blouse - both very colourful

- Cinemas would never be House Full, and it is a great experience watching your hero doing his thing, while you are sitting under the cool leaking thatched roofs

- Those long hot oil scalp messages that no one can do better than your great-granny

I lost my granny to heaven two weeks back and......

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Applies both to my granny and Cherussery.

Life's oxymoron

They say they are happy.....

...and then they are murdered.

For some women, their greatest blessing ends up being their own garroter.
:(

Anandabhadram

No doubt about it - Santhosh Sivan is better at cinematography than direction, but his latest film, Anandabhadram is worth a watch. For so many reasons...

- Great performance by Manoj K Jayan. He paints the perfect picture as the black magician Digambharan. A good come-back for Manoj.

- Superb starting sequence. Revathi does a real good job in her 5 minutes guest appearance. She does it so well that it had me wishing that she had a longer role in the movie. Her narration of how the lamps talk to each other when they are alone is so endearing and sets out a fantasy atmosphere right in the beginning.


- The song Pinakkamaano where famous Ravi varma paintings come to life. What a superb idea. Charming. Couldn't help smiling throughout this song.

- Was it Athirampilly where some of the important scenes of the movie have been shot? The place looked so familiar.

- Prithviraj could have done a better job. His portrayal of the transmigrated character was not very convincing.

My favourite picks from this movie would be the Pinakkamano visuals and the reverse 'rape' scene. They way Manoj K Jayan, the evil character, gathers his clothes after he was 'taken advantage of' by Riya Sen and cries out loud "You spoiled me...". Riya Sen's role, which looks like an utter waste till that point, explains itself with this one scene. This scene still has me in splits. We were the only people who were laughing out loud during this scene, much to the chagrin of the rest of the junta in the cinema.

But have to admit this - the picturisation of this movie is perfect. Though the storyline is not very convincing, this is worth a watch just for the cinematography.

Yeh to hona hi tha :)

Everytime I come home for the term break, something always happens that makes me smile and then smile some more thinking about it.

This time, I had just one more day left to get back to college and nothing 'interesting' had happened. And I was consoling myself that maybe this was the exception that would prove the rule.

But no! Something did happen.

I had gone salsa-shoe-shopping in one of Trichur's expensive footwear shops. I had just 10 minutes to make the decision and I did choose a pair in 10 minutes. But then it needed some adjustments and I was talking to the salesguy about it. And while the details of where I wanted the shoes delivered and all that were being discussed, he slips in this question.......

"Are you an actor?"

A very wide-eyed me : "Huh? What did you say?"

I couldn't believe my ears until he repeated it. Maybe it was the utterly spoiled look on my face, or maybe it's my irrestible natural charms, or maybe he has the gift of seeing through people and he was giving it a little practice or maybe he was just trying to flirt. Whatever it was, I was immensely pleased that I had something to smile about in this term break too. No exceptions for the rule!

And I gave him a smile and answered
"Oh yes! And so is everyone else in this world. Don't you think?"

And I made sure that I left the shop before the poor man could comprehend it. I am sure he smiled too. And that makes me smile some more!!

Lotsa emotions

Thankful for some dreams remaining unfulfilled.

10 years back if you had asked me what I wanted to become I would have told you I wanted to fly around the world. And to fulfill that I felt there were no better options than either becoming a Pilot or an Air hostess!! But then someone told me I wasn't tall enough to become an air hostess and surprisingly was tall enough to become an engineer or a doctor!!
Well, whoever it was, thank you!
I had been talking to an old friend of mine who is an air hostess now, and hearing about her lifestyle, it seems they don't just fly around the world.......
I am glad I turned out to be a just a plain vanilla engineer!



Am really happy about something else too. Let me tell you why. Here at IIMK, we typically do around 5-6 projects in each term. That means minimum 15 projects in a year, and 30 during this trying-to-cocoon-out-of-this-MBA 2 year period. Most of these projects are typically googling assignments. But say, around 20% of them are done on organisations in and around IIMK.

But do these projects actually add some value to these organisations? Mostly not. The project ends in a neatly formatted report submitted and forgotten. But somehow the project we (a group of 3) did for our Operations Strategy course of this term, ended up being much more than that.

We only had to study the Operations of the Margin Free Supermarket and recommend some strategies for them. But we ended up starting a Marking Free Shop right in IIM Kozhikode!! Yup, a brand new Margin Free shop opening at IIMK Commercial Plaza.



Also damn confused about the sudden fork in my life. And to make things worse, there are no signboards too! I thought I had done with all the tough decisions for awhile, but someone up there likes to keep throwing them at me......enough already!
:|


Offtopics

A good dig at Bush!
Will Ferrell: Earth to America


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