Keralal*

I grew up adoring you,
In a tongue strange to the nation,
Most Sundays, except a boring few,
You adorned a telly station.
Be it Asianet or DD4,
Tragedy, comedy, never shoddy,
Left us begging for more,
Intoxicated by thespian toddy.
Though others cluttered the screen,
Mammooty, Jayaram, Siddique and Mukesh,
For this impressionable teen,
You epitomised owur Mallu Pradesh.
From the violence in Kireedam,
To the smiles in Naadodikaatu,
Via the tears in Ulladakkam,
And the hope in Thenmaavin Kombathu,
Each character, from achha to anna,
The script, you suffused with flesh and blood,
With Urvashi, Mohini and Shobhana,
Guaranteed never to be a cinematic dud.
Alas, now that you’re a superstar,
Exploited merely to please the masses,
Releasing movies that mercilessly scar
Brains while heating the arses.
A heroine young enough to be magal,
Classified as your lou interest,
Belated hridayam naranya onaashamsagal,
But Pa role trumps over cardiac arrest!
And now what do I hear, Lal etta?
Potential bid for an IPL team?
Sudden interest in faux cricket aa?
Bowled over by swing off the seam?
Appo Thiruvananthapuram Thamburaans aano?
Adho Boxers from Bhatinda?
Ende vaaku onnu kekuo?
Lal etta, inganthe kusruthi kaatinda!
*

*A bilingual request to Padma Shri Mohanlal

Lessons #Uno

Sometimes things are just perfect.

They can be.

Let them be.

Hostelgia

Us...and then?

There are times when I look back into the murky past with something that approaches fondness. Of course, when the concerned past was once the present, I couldn’t wait for it to whiz by. I suppose hindsight is indeed senti-senti. Anyway, one-time Fellow Blogger uploaded a couple of Pilani-ian snaps on Facebook a few days ago and set the hordes of alumni aflutter. Although the subjects differ between pictures, they still ring  true of the days of yore when the world revolved around CDCs and GPAs…and press clubs and photography clubs and dramatic societies and cultural festivals and wings and mates and movies and gate calls and “103 PHONE CALL ONLINE!” and ANC treats and C’not coffee sessions and masala chai at the redi and IC gulab jamuns and illegal room-heaters during those wintry nightmares and sweating out power cuts in summer and mess delicacies and questionable dhobis and filthy bathrooms…

Age creeps up on you fast, paradoxically.

No, I am not drunk or high. I just watched Michael and Pam fight on The Office and that had an unpleasant aftertaste. Life had to be re-infused with meaning by delving into the gilt-edged years. I’ll slip back to “cranky” mode in a couple of minutes so don’t worry.

To Khan? Doh!

I came across this piece of good news in my untiring coverage of Shahrukh Khan. He’s been given an honorary 5th-degree black belt in Taekwondo by the Korean government “even though he knows nothing of the sport”. This is in addition to serving on NASA missions and securing Gayatri Joshi. Hmm. Christmas has come early this year (ed: Get your presents at an accomplishment discount of 100%!). Posthumous awards, clearly as passe’ as their recipients, have yielded the podium to prenatal ones. Ah, the wonders of ultra-sound predictive modelling!

I am in the middle of a postdoc but that does not imply that I am impervious to the impending doom: moving on with life, getting a wife, a house with Parryware commodes and Jaguar taps (ed: “Hindware” is so arse-ist, and Jaguar makes the neighbours jealous. Why they would ever sneak into the bathroom, I do not know.), a car with a chauffeur (ed: And possibly an “L” sign, since Chote Sarcar-chalana-nahin-aata is vehiclelly challenged.) and a yard for someone else’s kids to play in (ed: at a suitable monetary rate, of course. It’s the economy, stupid!). Pipe dreams such as these require a job with handsome remuneration in order to achieve fruition. Who wouldn’t hire a doctor, right? Right? Given the gifted circumstances of today, I can only assume that it will be a matter of time before some samaritan drops global recognition into my vanity case. The old resume’ is slightly impoverished in that regard so any  unsolicited (ed: indeed, undeserved) help would be highly appreciated. For the benefit of Daddy/Mommy Long Legs, I have excelled or possess the potential to excel in the following categories:

Benevolent supporter of metal-working cottage industries in Scandinavia, Procrastinator par excellence, User of French phrases and/or sentences to boost intellectualisticness, Birther of nonsense words, Duper of Ph.D. thesis committees, Devourer of books while undergoing locomotion, Socialite-at-large, Exponent of marital arts…

To paraphrase a contemporary visionary in Gallic terms, “Je suis Can!” (ed: meaning, “I am Can!”, not to be confused with an even more profound statement attributed to St. Shaquille Of Neal, “I am Kazaam!”) So, future benefactors, I shall close my Statement of Purpose with a bonus quote from a great Hindu philosopher and renowned chiropractor:

“Impossible is nothing.”

- Adi Das

Orthodonsick

In tooth I know not why I am so sad,
It wearies me but I don’t say it wearies you,
But how I caught it, found it, came by it,
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof ’tis born,
I am yet to know.

Who is not familiar with the famous opening lines of Demure Chant of Dentists? Antonio’s dental anguish  can only be felt by someone who has spent his entire life under the harsh stare of The Man in the Surgical Mask. Since eighth grade, I have had various contraptions stuck in my mouth all in the name of enhancing my handsomeness. Some mothers are dead against underbites: not for them a kid with a lower jaw that is a genetic gift from thoughtful cave-dwelling relatives. The struggle towards public approval has led me through braces, retainers, bracing retainers and retaining braces. I have sacrificed 8 milk teeth in one shot…actually, with the help of 7 shots in strategic oral locations. Gums were scraped to expose coy canines. Permanent teeth were mercilessly executed to force the jaw to retreat from the frontlines. Most depressing of all, the waiting room was perpetually devoid of faces that had the potential to blossom once the chastiteeth grills were removed.

The visits never ceased. The odd cavity or decaying enamel always emerged to submerge bank accounts. My last trip home was mostly spent (ed: very apt) indulging the cash cow that is my mouth. The saga has been joyfully relived in this masterpiece. It was a watearshed event (ed: bloody crybaby!), the B.C.-to-A.D. transition of our times (ed: “Be for Chocolate” to “After Dentist”…snicker!). Holes were filled, crowns were slapped on, and I thought that was that. I was simply brimming with naiveteeth a year ago (ed: guess who was rooting his canal for Palin?). Circa 2009, I am back in that familiar supine position, helplessly watching objects violate the sanctity of my mouth. Syringes and water drills are totally blase at this point. For sure, those injections in the roof of the mouth still have a zesty zing; oh, and that delicious goo which you chomp on to make good impressions of your teeth, not to mention the stray blobs that stick to your face, thus imparting an infantile innocence to it; and how about all that suction to render the mouth as dry as British humour? Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun! Such is the price one has to pay to maintain street credit. After all, the other variety has been reduced to an ephemeral puff of dust.

Calyanam

Stupid code refuses to right itself. So, in order to maintain a shred of sanity, I’m going to talk about my recent trip to San Jose Kutty in order to attend a wedding. The regular reader of this blog will remember that a similar occasion presented itself in Chicago exactly one year ago. Almost all my seniors in the old research group have tied the Gordian Knot. I guess it’s just as well that I’m out of it, since the burden would have fallen on me to push the flame forward. The wedding itself was in a classy, old money-ish part of town, which was why I dressed for the part. Clad in a shirt that was crafted by one of Boulder’s finest purveryors of designer menswear (Mr. T. Arget), I proceeded to wow the gentry present.

Soon after the ceremony, both the bride and groom gave me some rather disturbing news. Now it so happens that my mom knows the bride, having met her during each trip to the States. She sent them a congratulatory email with a special clandestine attachment. She wanted the happy couple to show her “pig-headed son” the path to a righteous life. Perfect sitcom moment. The groom even offered his matchmaking services for my benefit. It fills my heart with joy to see that so many people want to commit me to an early death. Incidentally, this point of view received a surprising boost from a Facebook app called “Death’s Time”. It’s supposed to predict the exact time and day of your death using a highly sophisticated algorithm that uses a single input: the date of birth. I’ll gloss over the scientific details and simply state that I will die on July 17, 2017 at the ripe old age of 34. Possible cause? Medically speaking, cardiac arrest induced by a Facebook invite willingly accepted by a female hominid.

Morbidness aside, you might recall that the bride had asked me to pen a poem for the event. I declined to read it out due to my distinct lack of diction. I also requested that the poet’s name be kept a stately secret. This was not to be. The work was introduced as “a sarcastic poem on love by Nitish Nair”. Nevertheless, the audience loved it so much that most of them failed to congratulate me in the end. I am therefore on the path to the underappreciated-during-his-own-lifetime variety of brilliance. Score. But everything worked out in the end: the trickle of platitudes was reinforced by a flood of red wine accidentally spilled on my formal shorts by a friend. The persistent optimist in me saw the bright side of this immediately: red spots in frontal area below the belt…hmm…ideal way to dash mother’s sinister schemes.

Dye Another Day

Reflection in the mirror,
Shows a strand of silver,
Poking through the black,
Throwing age out of wack.
Is it stress or the vile air,
Causing a premature scare?
Or is six-and-twenty
The new old-and-benty?
With joints that creak,
And premonitions bleak,
Of teeth unable to crush
Nought but Cerelac’s mush.
Watery eyes that I curse
Register a fuzzy Ms. Universe,
Who’s forgotten in a snap,
Mistaken for an underfed chap
Clad in a bikini and thong,
Damn young ‘uns got it wrong!
Hark…what is this trash?
Why this suicidal dash
Into the mists of time?
It’s a timeless crime
To cause yourself strife
By reducing your shelf life.
Stupid, evil mop on head,
Wants to render me dead,
But I have the elixir of youth,
Barber’s blade’s sawtooth.
*

Tome Reader

My old roomie was renowned in Pilani for being an all-environment reader. He’d read while walking to classes and back, during meals in the mess, and even while…ahem…using the facilities (ed: close encounters of the first kind, not the second, mind you!). In Urbana, something drastic might have happened because I saw little evidence of this obsessive compulsive behaviour. Of course, he bought books by the multi-dozen but they were definitely not subjected to the same level of scrutiny as before.

One possible reason behind this detox scenario is that the contagion was passed onto me, his namesake. You know what they say about not judging books by their covers? Turns out that the logic swings both ways – bitextuality, I believe. Anyway, I’ve perfected the art of walking, reading and avoiding inconvenient obstacles like people, lamp posts, potholes and cars. Well, I shouldn’t be too carvalier about the last one, since there were a couple of occasions in Cambridge when I came close to being a muddied page in history. I’ve also almost mowed down pedestrians who were silly enough to cross me.  Serves them right for not paying attention to their damn surroundings. The pavement is not your bloody patio, lady!

Once I’ve gotten used to the lay of the land and the traffic patterns, it’s time to whip out the book. The strenuous trek from the lab to the apartment simply dissolves in the literary universe. I find it more enjoyable than plugging the ears with headphones and blasting the Walkman (ed: he’s endearingly old-fashioned). Studies show that you’re 3.141596 times more likely to be struck by a passing vehicle if you’re deaf than if you’re blind. That’s right. The statistics are brilliantly encapsulated in this stellar couplet by Kabir who was undoubtedly more groovy than self:

Ears blocked by iPod-aa?
Flat you’ll as pi be, by Yoda!

Tan Tan-a Tan

On those days warm,
Soaked by solar power,
They descend as swarm,
Partake of golden shower.

Lounging by pool,
Bodies bared to sky,
Ray-Ban’d to look cool,
Skin set to fry.

They’re pale to begin,
But ain’t satisfied,
Lack of melanin,
In occidental hide.

Brown they desire,
My colour au naturale,
Will pass through fire,
To become femme fatale.

I glance and sneer,
At supine ones,
Brimming with cheer,
For all Injuns.
*

Naked Fun: License to Swill

Listen to me, my dearies. I officially live in a disreputable apartment complex, which will work wonders for my sagging street cred. ‘Twas exactly a week ago that my sleep was disrupted at 2:30 am by the shouts and screeches of co-educational frolic at the communal pool. Quite evidently, the revellers were a tad tipsy because only inebriation would induce a desire to make a racket during the wee hours. Oh, and they decided to indulge in some skinny dipping. Mind you, although the majority of voices that penetrated my slumber were male, there was the requisite female representation as demanded by law. I will let you digest these snippets. Skinny dippers.  No gender bias. Within sight. Obscene hour.

Now comes the crucial question. Did I morph from a Sleeping Sam to a Peeping Tom? I should confess that after an initial peremptory glimpse to see what the fuss was about, I went back to bed. It was then that I heard calls to the tune of, “Jackie come on!”, “Jackie, I can see your nippty-doo-dah!”, “Jackie I’ve seen you in the noodly-pum-pum before!”, and so on. It was quite clear that Jackie was holding on with every ounce of her being to her apparel despite popular demand for the opposite. She stood up for women everywhere (except for the one shameless chick who was championing loose morals) by sticking to her principles – a modern-day Draupadi. Kindly keep note of the fact that all this information bounced off my tympanum. At no moment did optics play a role.

And then the long arm of the law caught these jerks off guard. Some well-meaning resident had probably sleep-dialed 911 and mumbled something about naked animals by the watering hole – clearly the result of a somnolent Serengeti safari. So, with radios bleeping, the cops busted some chops and sent the swimmers upstream. And I survived the ruckus with my morals intact, just like before. This bodes well for the sexual harrassment training that I’m supposed to undergo tomorrow on account of being a new employee. I kid you not, the programme is called “Discrimination and Harrassment Training”. I thought such sentiments came naturally. This will certainly jazz up my resume and social standing.