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To tell you the truth, I'm an individual who's highly biased towards Kerala and its people. I've had this strong affinity towards them since time immemorial. So much so that, whenever anybody speaks against the state or it people, I get disturbed. I’ve come across a lot of people with various stereotypes who’re against my beliefs. My friend from Nagpur (let’s call him ‘Wise Guy’), who works as a coordinator of sorts with various hospitals across Kerala happened to be the cynical detractor this time. Here, I share with you the conversation we had on Facebook chat (I'm still wondering if this was meant to be an affront).

I: Hey wassup bro?

Wise guy: Hi I’m fine. In Trivandrum now.

I: Oh that’s cool. So, till when are you going to be there?

Wise guy: What do you mean by “cool”? I’m dying of the heat and humidity here. And I’ve to be here till March 4th.

I: Hey I said it was cool because you’ve got a chance to see the place.

Wise Guy: Dude I feel like getting out of here. I’ve had enough of Kerala.
I have started “liking” the people living here

I: ha-ha-ha... Then you should probably start searching for a nice girl from Kerala and settle there itself?

Wise Guy: I meant “Disliking”. Not liking.

I: Why what happened? What makes you say so?

Wise Guy: One of the reasons maybe that people here don’t work. Rather they make a lot of noise after doing something simple and make you feel that they’ve done something great. This was what I inferred from working here.

I: Huh???

Wise Guy: People don’t work with the intention of developing the overall organization. They only work for themselves.

I: Ok that’s the issue... You know something? Keralites are one of the most hardworking people when they go to work outside Kerala, but in their own hometowns, they may be like this. I say maybe because not all are like the way you think.

Wise Guy: They don’t even take ownership to the work they did if it happens to be a failure.

I: Dude, have you ever seen Keralites working in the Gulf or other big cities in India? I don’t think anybody else can match up to their work. I think we give the best deal when it comes to hard, fruitful work for a given price.

Wise Guy: I know bro, but I don’t understand one common phenomenon here. Why do women boast so much in this place?

Wise Guy: I find this annoying habit in every working woman I see here.

I: Huh???

Wise Guy: Yeah man. It’s true.

I: Dude it may be only with you that such things are happening. They’re probably bragging because you’re from another state, or they may be trying to impress you ;-)

Wise Guy: Nope man. It’s not only with me.

Wise Guy: Here, people who are in top positions are nothing but liars and all that they want is to grab money from people in some or the other way.

I: Huh???

Wise Guy: Only a few people who are in the topmost positions are sincere in keeping up their words and bound by some principles. Others are just hopeless to work with. Because, you never know when these guys are going to cheat you. I’m telling you my experience.

I: Oh my God! You're getting really passionate about this topic.

Wise Guy: I'm telling you all this because I've met and studied the behaviour of more than a 100 people who are in very good positions in both private and public sector. That’s because I deal with these people on a daily basis.

Wise Guy: Yeah dude, they are like this, they are like that blah blah blah……Strikes, rallies, etc. They’re also bad in this, that, yada yada yada.

Wise Guy: Hey man where are you? Got bored with the foolish topic, eh?

Wise Guy: Hello????

Arjun is offline.


PS: I found many of the above "allegations" surprising. I think every individual has his/her set of biases to justify with and this was just one of those examples. I have never worked in Kerala and that is why I probably don't know of the situation there in this context, but I definitely don't want to create some unwanted and malicious prejudice against it from hearsay or without experiencing it myself. All I know is that I enjoy the place whenever I go there, I enjoy travelling, I enjoy the superfluity of natural beauty, I enjoy the local cuisine, I enjoy the company of my associates there, and I don't think I can ask for anything more. So, as of now, I'm going by only one policy. The policy I'm using for my own reasoning which says- IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

A lady's mind

I can ask you all but this kind...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Did it hurt you when I boldly opined?
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Inside her head are a million things confined...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Difficult it is to comprehend and unwind...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Surely would be happy if you at least defined...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Does she really care or is she being unkind?
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Many a brave hearts have panicked and resigned...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

To understand this we are most inclined...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Trying to know, the ultimate sufferers are us "man" kind...
What really goes on in a lady's mind?

Wasted dreams

It was on one of those dull and boring days in college when my friend Harish broke this piece of information to me. It immediately brightened me up.

"Dude, there's a cookery competition coming up in Delhi. Wow! I'm so excited"

"That's so cool! So, when are we going?" I asked, with a tone of conviction. I wasn't going to miss this opportunity for anything. It also had back up from college. 

"In October. A fortnight from now."

"Brilliant! Gives me all the time in the world to prepare for it." I said.

"What??? Don't tell me you're actually getting ready for the competition. This is so not you." he blurted out immediately.

"Who on earth said anything about the competition dude? I was speaking about preparing for the Delhi trip. Muhaha!!! Who the hell cares about the competition? We're going to lose anyways."

"You have a point there bro. Even I've wanted to visit this place all my life. We definitely can't prepare for the competition in such a short time." 

Both of us got lost in our own dreams. But somewhere, somehow, it seemed to have boiled down  to one common desire. The desire to see and witness the aura surrounding the magnificent Mughal structure; one of the wonders of the world- The TAJ MAHAL. Obviously, we couldn't be going so close to the monument and return without seeing it. It was also our first North Indian trip.

October 2006: Six friends, representing our college leave Bangalore on the train bound to Hazrat Nizamuddin in New Delhi. After passing through some half a dozen states, visualising their diversities and being amazed at the changes from state to state, we finally reached the Capital city after a long 36 hours.

The first day of our visit was spent by running around the college campus, visiting a few places in Old Delhi like Chandni Chowk, Jumma Masjid and The Red fort, eating out, and shopping. The thought of the competition was nowhere on our minds. Being October, the weather wasn't too bad either.

A week went by. We participated in all the competitions that we had enrolled for (obviously we didn't win any), travelled by the Delhi Metro, visited some more places in Delhi such as the Lotus temple, India Gate, Connaught Place and Palika bazaar, and also planned our Agra trip within this time. My dad, who happened to be in Delhi at the time even booked a car for us to go to the capital city of the Mughal empire.

Friday, 13th October, 2006: We were ready with our packed bags for the trip to Agra. The car arrived early in the morning at 6am. Our destination was only 120 km away from us; a three hour journey from Delhi.

My friend Harish was the most excited among us all. He was a lovestruck bloke, and what more could he ask for than visiting the biggest tribute ever made for love, the Taj Mahal. He had also promised to buy his girlfriend a miniature replica of the mausoleum made out of marble as a token of his love.

Agra wasn't how I had imagined it to be. It was hot, filthy and dusty, had narrow roads mobbed with vehicles, bullock carts, people, and it even had a generous smattering of cows, as if the ones that I mentioned earlier weren't enough already. It's leather industries produced a blatant stink, while happily disposing their effluents into the river Yamuna. The water in the river resembled a big open sewage system which ran across the city. It was literally black in colour.

We reached Taj Mahal at around 10 am. As we walked towards its gates, unaware of the big shock awaiting to numb us all, a guide approached us. "Please come this way sir. I will take you through a secret entrance from where you can have a nice peek of the Taj Mahal" he shouted out in an attracting manner. "What do you mean you'll take us through a secret entrance, eh? We're not thugs or ruffians to go through some stupid secret entrance. We'll go through the main entrance and watch the structure, the right way. The way millions of people from all over the world do it." I said to him out of annoyance and sheer ignorance. I didn't want somebody to loot us of our money in this manner.

"But, the Taj Mahal remains closed for general public on Fridays. Didn't you know that?" he said with a condescending tone. "Only Muslims are allowed inside to do their Friday prayers" he added. That was enough said. We were dumbstruck already. Coming so close to the most famous monument this side of the country and not being able to go inside it was a rude shock for which we weren't prepared. We even contemplated on buying ourselves the skull caps worn by Muslims in order to gain entry, but it wasn't practical.

The "secret entrance" to catch a glimpse of the Taj came in the form of an old house located very "close" to it. We had to pay a small amount of money to the owner of the house, who in turn led us to the terrace from where we could watch the place we had come so far to see. Even this venture turned out to be disappointing as all we could see was a dull and zoomed out version of the Taj. Harish was almost in tears. We left the place after taking a few snaps of ourselves with the Taj in the background, located somewhere on the other side of the horizon. We even got a glimpse of it from the Agra Red Fort, but it didn't satiate our desire. This trip turned out to be one of the biggest ironies in my life which came with a hefty price tag too.

After visiting the Agra Red Fort and Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, we proceeded towards Delhi. On our way back, Harish and I promised ourselves that we would come back to this place again just to see the Taj Mahal. The only conditions we had for our visit were: the next visit would be with our respective wives, and the day we visit it will definitely not be a Friday.

Reminiscence of 'Kalifo'

How gleeful I was, I realized as I lay thinking
so fast could we strike a chord I never did imagine.
Always have I desired to see you in your full glory
and now I believe that moment has finally come true.

Did that give me smile or cheers I asked myself
to have experienced your rich history and your benevolent past?
Was it the joy of discovering my roots
or finding the unexplored territorial waters of my kin?

Stranded away from reality was I in the years gone by,
to have snubbed you away from my rather unequivocal vision.
Never will this happen again, I swore to myself
as enough of losses I have to compensate for already.

Now that the door has cracked open and the gaps narrowed,
like the pages of an open book my feelings are exhibited.
This had to happen one day I told myself with conviction,
that it’s obviously better late than never again.

Do I love it or loathe it?

Have I landed up in the wrong place? Why should I stay in such a hostile environment? Sometimes I feel I was born in this place by mistake. My heart lies somewhere else. Some place far away. The hectic city life has taken its toll on me. This is indeed a dog-eat-dog world, a place overflowing with rat races. Building an association with nature has become so obsolete here. Sure we do have our parks and gardens and lakes, but we also have our development authorities felling trees by the truckloads in the name of road widening and other infrastructural projects. And in spite of all these "developments", the city doesn't have space to accommodate it's vehicular traffic. The public transport systems are jam packed and the three wheeled menace aka the auto rickshaw gets on your nerves like nobody's business. Welcome to Noise-galore, oops! Pollution-galore, nah! Population-galore, OK OK, lets just ban all this galore. Welcome to Bangalore!

To be honest, I really admired this city when I was young. Being from Bangalore was like a value addition of sorts. The weather, the cosmopolitan culture, the lifestyle. Looking back, the place was not as crowded or polluted this way. The IT revolution was unheard of and the concept of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation were still in its infancy and sounded more like fancy nomenclatures. Yes we were happy about our city's development and the cash cows coming in, but we didn't bother to realise if we had the required infrastructure to accommodate them all. Bangalore wasn't planned to be such a metropolis.

So what do we do to tackle all this? We start off with destroying our tree lined avenues, we start acquiring properties and demolishing them, we start erecting structures which, leave alone for the future, isn't even sufficient for the current level of traffic. Our roads are currently handling more than four times it's specified capacity of vehicles (add to this the number of new vehicles getting registered in 8 RTOs spread across the city and it spells Mayhem with a capital 'M').

 

Image courtesy: www.time2news.com

Whatever be the situation, the number of people migrating to the city hasn't reduced one bit. Migration in the name of studies, for work, for settlement, etc. All I hear these days is 'Old Bangaloreans' venting out their frustrations on this haphazard and unclear development. What are we planning to become? The world's most densely populated city per given square kilometer? You need to stop at least five to six times before crossing a signal in bumper to bumper peak hour traffic. No wonder blue-chip companies like Infosys and Wipro have threatened to migrate to other states if nothing is being done about the infrastructure. 

All I have to say is, city life has really reached its saturation point. Moving away from cities is in vogue. We moved to large cities expecting civilisation, better lifestyle, convenience and of course, with the intention to make good moolah. But again, with the level of developments spreading across, I feel you can live a much better life in the suburbs and rural areas with the same (if not better) convenience levels as living in a city. Back that up with a more serene environment and the freedom from--- pollution, road rage, pressure levels building up, tolerance levels going down, etc.--- and the saying, 'You CAN have your cake and eat it too' is developed.

Why rot in hell when there are other options available?

The better way to commit mandatory suicide

Disclaimer: For people who wish to get married only. A debatable topic. Only the Indian perspective covered here.

Last night, I was having this very passionate discussion with my best friend about which type of marriage is the better option- Love or arranged? My best friend was hell bent on proving that arranged marriages was the order of the day and that love marriages always landed the couple in trouble afterwards. She even cited a few live examples of the disadvantages of love marriages to prove her point. So, I thought it would be better if I throw some light on this topic from my angle.

First things first, I believe you should always look at both sides of the coin before coming to any conclusion. What with the various stereotypes that people have come up with against both types of marriages. "How can you marry someone whom you don't know anything about?" or " Doesn't knowing a person before marriage enable you to have better respect and understanding of each other?" seems to be the most common questions that a person favouring a love marriage will ask. "Love marriages don't last and will bring in a lot of complexities in the future" is what people opting for an arranged marriage seem to argue about. Both are right in their own respects, but again, not always.

We Indians are a very tolerant lot. We've tolerated the various invasions from foreign rulers, we've tolerated the hostile robbery of all our wealth, the takeover of our political boundaries by other nations, we've tolerated the British, we've even let different cultures merge into ours, and we know how to live with one spouse better that any other country does. Yes, the divorce rate in India* is just 1.1%. That means, only 11 marriages out of a 1000 end up in a divorce. Compare this to the population and the divorce rate in the USA (54.8%) and you will know what I'm talking about. Yes, I'd definitely agree that love marriages are a major failure in the US, but the overall figures show a different picture here in India. Even occidentalisation and changes in lifestyle couldn't alter the numbers much.

Coming to the main discussion, Love marriages are said to offer more freedom and comfort levels among couples. They tend to know each other's likes and dislikes and behavioural patterns well. This way, they are well adjusted to each other after marriage. This is what should happen under ideal circumstances. I say ideal because most people, according to me, don't actually understand the true concept of love. For some, it is only about acquiring physical or materialistic benefits from their partners or pursuing beauty or perfection. For some others it is only about lust. This kind of marriage should be labelled 'lust marriage' rather than be classified under love marriage. It is only the others, who pursue true love and happiness in this category who last an entire lifetime of togetherness.

Speaking about arranged marriages, they surely are the most popular kind in our country and are considered to be more secure with a high success rate. This again does not mean that arranged marriages are ideal. Some marriages under this category are strictly based on parental pressures/emotional blackmails or again, in some cases, for materialistic benefits or snob value/status. The likes of the person getting married is totally ignored sometimes.  Many people have been known to have tolerated an abusive relationship for years just for the sake of family pride and societal pressures. There are also various norms to be followed (horoscopes, astrologers, caste, dowry, status, matrimonial agencies, etc.) which makes arranged marriages a big turn off these days.

All these leads us to one big question. Which kind of marriage is ultimately good for you? As far as I'm concerned, it can be either. The individuals getting married must decide their ideal choice. Yes, family plays a big role in this decision, but they will not be there by your side throughout your married life. After all, a marriage is an institution formed to share love, happiness and sorrows. Doesn't matter if it's love marriage or arranged marriage.

PS: What do you think about live-in relationships? :) 
*http://www.indidivorce.com/divorce-rate-in-india.html