MEAOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!

i hope you get me... the d-day is on 18th of november, when i and some other 200,000 odd ppl flock to various schools and colleges to sit in front of question papers that come from some of the best b-schools of the world in one of the toughest examinations... and the toughest is even tougher.

i've been writing a journal (not an online one, tho...) for the last six years but ve always been unable to record my thoughts at situations like this... the first chance to fulfill one of my dreams is on this sunday, and right now, a thought struck me: what abt the match??? lemme check out... INDIA WINS THE SERIES!!!!!!!!!!! ho... this is what always happens! not just cricket. there ll be some other stuff to distract me from the actual seriousness of the day!

so left cat??? nopes!

(let me sign off n decide which product category had the greatest percentage increase of profit in the period 1999- 2003!) ;)

so goodnight!!!

watching Bhool Bhulaiya in Kerala

way back in 1993, a movie took malayalam movie industry and viewers by storm. a movie that redefined the theme of HORROR in Indian movies. when a couple decided to live in an ancient haunted house, everyone foresaw trouble. there might be spirits... ghosts... death sneaking at every corner... and what actually was happening???

superstar Mohanlal and gifted actress Shobhana acted as if competing with each other, and everyone else (except perhaps suresh gopi, who was not made for that role...) did their very best, to provide one of the best movies ever produced in malayalam.

over the last 14 years, it has been remade in every south Indian language and finally, this year, was remade in Hindi as a bollywood flick by Priyadarshan... and this humble movie-goer went to see that the day after release at New Theatre, Trivandrum. in there, i felt sorry for those who were being exposed to the plot for the first time, for, the director had done almost a scene by scene translation work and all of us mallus who were in the theatre had seen the original at least an UMPTEEN number of times and knew the sequence and the dialogs almost by heart. it was a comedy atmosphere, and the horror was not at all reflected. and i can't say the climax was well-taken either. but 'll have to say vidya balan has done well, and has emulated shobhana decently. now, don't, plz release statements sayin tht none of the actors had seen the original version- that wud b absurd.

so...
TAFN.
ll blog more later!!!!

september's ending....

September was once my favourite month. Not 'once' as you mean when you say, "Dinosaurs 'once' roamed the earth" or even, "Once, Dollar was over a 45 rupees!" In fact, I liked it till last month, before the university decided that the exams would start the next day of my birthday, and I had to leave home the day before my big day...

Well, that's a thing of the past. Got over it yesterday. Calicut University is as usual, making it hellish for students, and we are onto them, coz we also have learnt to take it in its stride. that ws already written once abt, so no more talk abt that.

so i'll write abt the silly exam that i wrote today. abt economics n principles of management. and one question was, what are the reasons for performance of the Public Sector? performance? Public sector? cud b corruption, mismanagement, red tapism... er no! tht was a question from the university. so the answer has to be, 'five year plans, experienced management, resources, good planning...' eh???? n hw to improve the situation? (don't use ur idea... wrt wat's written in books that were last updated before liberalisation, when India was not importing any food grain, fish and other stuff that it cud produce and when middle class was exotic!) so jus skipped the question and answered the optional question: role of agriculture in Indian economy and its contribution to the economy. just changed a few values of %s that i remembered from the text and wrote.

and the one about foreign exchange. what determines the rate? if export is greater than import, value of currency increases. does India then export more to the US than what they import FROM the US? else why does the dollar price decline???? don't ask such questions, they are out-of-syllabus, n learn wat's written in the text. is it becoz v r engineerin students tht we r supposed to study economics like this, or is it the same way for everyone? GOD HELP US ALL!!!!

so u c, it's not silly because of the subject... of course, i'll be the last man on earth to say that economics is a silly subject.... management studies is also not... it's just the objective for which university put exams for these...

oops!! got to learn a 100 status words by heart for my microprocessor exam on monday!!! (don't think i'm goin to start studyin rt now... that'll be later this evening... now gonna chumma take a cat-nap...)

TAFN

monsoon!!!!

They said, it'll start a week early this year. 24th, to be precise. i was not here, but i knew from my parents who were here that it rained on 24th in kerala, where monsoon starts. then, it was all very hot and sunny. Days after the prediction, they said that monsoon will get delayed by another week. it rained with a vengeance the next day....

Monsoon in kerala is something which everyone should experience. i dunno how it ll b for the visitors n tourists who roam around only in cars and other private transport. but for rest of us in kerala during monsoon, it is an exciting time. water splashing on the ground, with a threat of drenching us who are out on the road. ppl walking around without being sure of where the manhole is n when they are going to fall in. vehicles negotiating the depths of the puddles on the road, whining as if their axles were about to break. at times, umbrellas turn useless. and we often regret getting out on the road, only after reaching back in the safety of roofs over our heads and walls with closed windows around us.

For those for whom rain is an annual phenomenon, a shift to kerala is necessary to prove to themselves that rain could very much be a part of their lives. switch on any malayalam channel, and you can see colourful advertisements of a zillion different umbrella companies selling their zi-zillion different varieties of umbrellas. we have, other than the traditional no fold umbrellas with a curved handles back in fashion, and the comfy 2 and three fold umbrellas all released under fancy names, umbrellas which are hi-tech, atleast in their names. they have their names- atom, laser, etc.

Right now, at 3 p.m., the sky is overcast and forecasts heavy rain and thunder in the evening.so, i've to log off before thunder starts. so far, so many of my dial up modems that i earlier used to have, have been lost to thunder. also, we nearly lost a tv. but then, when it rains, who can complain? rain is what made kerala what it is. green. and lovely.

selling heaters in trivandrum

big bazaar opened without much fanfare in trivandrum last week. i went there along with A on a short visit last week, but couldn't see much of it. so yesterday, i went there with my parents. it's grand, resembling the huge big bazaars that i've seen at bangalore on my numerous visits there to see my chechi n jeejuji (ettan), and had escalators, a thing i hadn't seen b4 in big bazaars... i read somewhere that palakkad big bazaar also has them.

and there was the crowd.... my dad commented on it as a permanent exhibition that has opened in the city... it was fun, seeing all those stuff 'food bazaar', 'fashion bazaar', 'accessories' and all written meticulously in malayalam also...

roaming around, we came to the 'electronics bazaar' and kept there was, ROOM HEATER!!!! how can anyone think of selling one in trivandrum? who is going to buy them? when it's already sweltering hot tht u can't stand even at 33-35 degrees, all round the year, who's going to take pains in buying a room heater so that they can make themselves warm? well, one thing is, it's pretty cheap, somewhere around 1500... so ppl may buy it, those kinds who don't think what they are doing, and buy what they do not want....

market research by big bazaar also needs to come to kerala... not just the big bazaars... or are there people who buy heaters just in case it rains heavily and it goes freezing cold????

Poooooooooram!!!!!!!!!!

Every city's got its own celebration... Rio and many of the carribean cities have their carnivals. Mumbai has its ganesh chathurthi, mysore its dusshera, trivandrum its Onam (my favorite, since i'm a trivandrumite). and whole of Kerala has got - THE POORAM!!!!! the charisma surrounding the term pooram is astounding. that charisma echoes everywhere in kerala. and myself, a student at thrissur for the last two years, didn't want to miss pooram this year at any cost. so, after i reached home two days before the pooram, i started back on the day of the pooram, to thrissur, by train...


while at the hostel, we came to hear that a coupla elephants cudn't stand the humid damp climate and ran away to cooler shores. any way, we were a safe distance removed from them. by the time we reached poorapparambu (pooram ground) on the vadakkumnatha temple ground, there was an ocean of humanity. since it was my first thrissur pooram, i was really excited. elephants from one camp were all set for the colorful kudamattam (a display of colorful umbrellas). at the other camp, nearer to the temple, there were only umbrellas, no elephants....

soon, some more umbrellas came walking, without elephants... they had the shape of gods and godesses of hindu myths, and provided more colour to the already colorful festival...

then the elephants of the second group came, all decorated and dressed for the occasion...

people started shouting and cheering, and we also were drawn into that one common psyche of a single organism called pooram. we were also cheering, shouting, moving rhythmically with the melam.... the entire town of thrissur bcame one soul, with one thought and a lot of joy and fun...

kudamattom over, we had dinner. from indian coffee house, round south. it was stuffy and real humid. we were all bathed in sweat. then, i walked to my uncle's home, to catch a few hours sleep. for me, the next day was going to be as eventful as this, tho not as fun filled.

the aratt and the festive walk around the town by the elephants and the god on its top had begun, accompanied by music, fire and a lot of people. when all the constituent temples of the pooram complete their aratt, there will be the fire works- vedikettu.



so i woke up at 2. in the morning. raju was also with me. we were walking down the MG Road, and we reached near the round when we heard the fireworks start. we rushed down the side alleys to were our other friends were standing, and could see the final big blast from the round. so one side had been done with, this time. the next one started quarter of a km away along the circumference of the round, and would end right in front of us...

we felt the world shake, we felt the eaves hanging above us shivering in the blasts... we felt our ears paining quite joyfully... tat's pooram- thrissur pooram....

now ppl may say tht the fireworks of thrissur pooram will be nowhere near that at nenmara. ppl may say melam at thrissur is not as good as those at some other places. they may say the best elephants come at other pooram. but can anyone explain to me in simple terms, why thrissur pooram is still the best celebrated pooram in kerala????? the only reason could be, the tradition, so many temples that participate and the people....

and strangely enough, vadakkumnatha temple, that is the centre of all these festivities, doesn't have any special festival, ulsavom or pooram of its own!!!

thanx, calicut university

our s5 exams, december 2006 were scheduled to begin on 23rd feb. that unholy theory crap of analog n digital communications! it's one thing for a university to have 12 month long exam season, n it's even great to have university exams rescheduled because of its overlapping date wid University Youth Fest. well, exam shudn't b on the same day as uth fest, i agree, but they shud ve scheduled like that! then, the day before, adc exam got postponed unceremoniously. since v had received news a day in advance, we started slacking.

then, the next exam of mex ( we are eee's) was also postponed. then came two of our exams. in both, the infamous university played their naughty tricks! then, the day before our Power System exams, we came to kno tht that and the next exam has been postponed to a later date!!!! so our exam that was supposed to happen in Dec 2006 and began in Feb 2007, will end only in April, mostly between the heat of World Cup! i hate the 12 month long exam season!!!!!

മലയാളത്തിലും blog ചെയ്യാം

ഇന്നാണ് കണ്‍ടുപിടിച്ചത്. അപ്പോ പിന്നെ try ചെയ്യണ്‍ടേ... എന്ന് വിചാരിച്ചതാ. സ്ഥിരം മലയാളത്തിലൊന്നും ആക്കിയിട്ടില്ല.... so this is just a trial. just proud to use my mothertongue on net.... i knew such things cud b done, but cud get time only today. ironically, i ve a lab exam day after tommorrow, n so i got time today. morrow i ll b leaving home. so bye...