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.