Candid Caricatures

The Marwar Anthem

2007-08-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

Clever old river
To flood your backyard
Came from yonder land.
Pious lone tither
Could cleave no plan man
With none to wonder and
Like a burnt down flower
Did Flay my wrought ass
The weather of time demand

Node at the road showed
My foed old code I toed
Goad me the load shod toad I plod
Never cowed I'm loud above my vow
Bow now for thou tau
Know no woe

The Marwar Anthem Video (Music by Dhananjay Thiyagarajan)

Made for MARWAR 7 7 07 at BIM Trichy by BISMARC, the Marketing Club at BIM.

Taking a Break from Adjectives and Adverbs

2007-07-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

As I was shampooing myself today, I was wondering why I was too poor at using adjectives and adverbs. The one good reason I could guess was that I seldom appreciated others. May be because the English etiquette I admired as a child allowed little room for superlatives and adulations.

The B-School life asks for adulations and back stabing. For a while I was wondering whether that back stabing was my kind of a thing. I was working on justifications. I did find them. But in the end it felt like prostitution. It actually is. I am yet to decide on that though. For now, I'm hell bent on something. To hell with adjectives and adverbs.

The power of 13

2007-03-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

As it has always been, the number 13 continues to be the unlucky number for the unlucky. Not for me. I am a lucky person. For me, anything that happened just happened. Cause-effect relationships in these lines can be at best be on my actions.

If I do not tighten every bolt holding my front mudguard, there is a probability of it getting in contact with the tyres as it vibrates. When my tyres are new and the buttons are huge because they are specialty motocross tyres, the probability increases because the clearance is reduced. When I fix a mud flap to the mudguard using a screw bolt projecting inwards, it starts working like a forked brake on the tyre. When the fork turns out to have the shear strength to hold a few kilos, you can take it for granted that I am going to screw up bigtime when it gets a jerk.

It was the 13th of February 2007. It was two days since we were back from Vellore, finishing the last rites for Sundar Raghavan, friend of ours who had passed away in a road accident. My comfort level with my Shogun was at it’s prime. Every ride gave me a hangover. The exhaust note was invigorating music. I wasn’t using my O2 XDA IIS for long. I had lost its phone book.
It was the IBE class and I had decided not to pay attention. The PDA would be the ideal comparison. And this is what happened…The PDA goes to class, together with the other mobile for internet browsing. I had been looking for my helmet that morning. Somebody had taken it. As I was starting for class, it was drizzling and I wanted it for sure. There were no replies for the messages sent to find it.

Adidas shoes, Nike socks, worked Pepe Jeans, grey collored tees, Tommy Hilfiger jacket, Cramster sling bag, and Suzuki Shogun… there goes Shiju to claim the luck of 13 once again.
The other time it happened was Jan the 13th, last year and the place was the Sanskrit college campus, Trivandrum. I broke four teeth and tore my lower lip playing football. 8 sutures were add-ons. This time it was 22 and just bruises.

The Forgotten God

2006-11-16T04:52:00.000-08:00

I have spent a considerable amout of my time on religion and in trying to find out the meaning of life. If you now ask me if that excercise was an useful one? Is it necessary? I have no real concrete answer. This is the truth about the issue.

I was regular to Church and was an ardent Christian. While on this way, life took a turn when I started to find out that there was something more to the whole issue. I started finding people who were defining Christianity as a way of life, which would define our value systems. May be they wanted a little bit of dogmatism, But at that point of time it felt like it was worth trying. I did try. Not just try, but I took a plunge. There was a sense of trying to live on an idealistic line. And, it really does feel good to know that you are on your way that is the best that can be done on earth.

Somewhere down the line, which I dare not explain now, things got messed up. The whole idea of Christianity and their way of life seemed to be damaging, on all scales. I do say that Christians do believe in something. But if their motive is to make conditions of life for the best for every human on earth, I pity them. They don't. They often end up making life hell for others. If you look at those on their own scales of rating evil, in my opinion, none of them would be worth being spared. But they are nice people. See you know, in business circles, if a person talks very nicely to you, you call them a very nice person. That's the way it is here as well. Only when you come in touch with another will you know that the business fellow was sucking your blood.

I went on to the secular world. Life began with a motive of making life better on earth. I was trying to be a realist. Very optimistic... Not everybody can turn this world around, you know. Life is nice this way. But very recently did I realize that it had taken a trun on the lines of an epicure. Now, it's not about getting back. It's about finding a balance that I am worried about. i want to put myself back on track. As I had often realised, i think it;s time for some homework.

Get back to you after I start off.

Love you.

Waves

2006-10-18T00:51:00.000-07:00

Walking up the Aisle of the bus, looking for 8U, I was waiting to snuggle into my berth that would take me to Chennai. As I moved closer, I was realising something… that I didn't want that berth anymore.

Why?

If it had been a few years back, I wouldn't have had a problem. The entire idea of gay marriages and the stigma attached to it had a bearing on my life as well. In a way, I hated that realization, because I would have peacefully gotten myself under the blanket for the night. The whole idea of sharing a double berth with a man felt nauseating.

Pulling out the Week magazine from my ethnic Auroville bag, I sat down to wait for the bus to pass through the last boarding station, Erode. The attendant onboard had promised me to offer a single berth once past Erode.

Sitting sideways, with the narrow aisle and the berths standing tall around me, I started feeling claustrophobic. At seven years of age, an effort at hiding myself in a chimney gave me the first taste of the feeling. And when I'm out there trying some hill climbing, you know, it turns out to be a pain.

Now, as i was sitting there gasping, trying to get a breath of fresh air in the low powered A/C, my eyelids were feeling heavy. Thoughts started wandering like a messy market place. Tired, I wanted to rest myself somewhere. I wanted a place where somebody would think for me and carry me afloat the surface of the sea.

The surface of the sea is beautiful and it was then that I felt it was worth my admiration. Seeing me afloat, I could see the continents, the people in them. I could see them like the waters, swaying with the wind. Some gathered together to storm, and the others were in a trough. The troughs knew not the crests. Pushed down, the troughs held high the crests. The crests could see their brothers lying low. Poor things, we'd roll down to help them, they said. Only then did they realise that the wind was their driver. They called their locality democracy. They lauded it knowing it as the way to freedom and equality. The wind turned back and said,” Today is your day, tomorrow can be his". The waves got back into their rhythm of swaying with the wind. All happy and sad, peaceful and fighting, order in chaos, enjoying every moment knowing they'd face eternity.

V.N.Shiju

Strangers in Paradise?

2006-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

Friendship and love is the Paradise. Now, this is salutation to someone dear, Jacob. I love you Jacob. Thank you. In this shitty world, it's all messed up and lopsided. We've been friends for long. We've loved each other. It's great to tell each other that we are friends, or even better, cousins. What the hell has all that ever done to each other? You bledy go around minding your own business and me, mine. None can help each other. You abandon your family and friends in a pathetic condition and you go help a begger, you become a saint. A begger is a stranger you help and your friend is the stranger, you say you love. We aren't strangers in a way. I pray for you and you do that for me. And more than that I remember your name. There's nothing more. Strangers.. Hun?

Aromatherapy

2006-06-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

My home town is Nagercoil, the headquarters of Kanyakumari District, Tamilnadu, India.

In the pre-independance period, our district was part of the princely state called
Travancore. After india got independance in 1947, our District was part of Kerala. Due to
conflicts, both linguistic and chauvinistic, our district was added to Tamilnadu in 1958.

Kerala, as a state is considered to be among the most civilized states in India. True today.
But history tells it was otherwise.

History tells us that evils like slavery, human sacrifices, sexual abuse, etc were rampant.
May be you'll say the world was that way then. You need to get into the details, which I'm
not making mention of here.

I thought of writing this because I had recently been to Padmanabapuram, the former capital
of Travancore. The Capital was later shifted to Trivandrum.

The picture shows a cage like structure made to accomodate a human. This was equipment
used for capital punishment. Men would be locked in it and left to starve, hanging on a
tree. Birds would peck off the juicy corpse, while the aroma satiates the royalty.

Duny Tunes

2006-05-13T22:25:00.000-07:00

I am on my way from Delhi to Bangalore. It is the second day on the train and I did not talk a word to anybody yesterday. I have been pondering over the many strings that play my life. So sickening were the Duny Tunes that I was trying to get rid of those plaintive feelings. For the aeons I had waited and the love I had for them, I should be reveling. I am wondering why they failed to tickle my senses in a symphony. I therefore decided to rewind and play them again, just the signature sections of the Duny Tunes.

(The playback ran for pages and pages. I found that they rendered me so because of the hurt I was carrying with me. Because I settled down to ask why God was allowing certain things to happen. They reminded me of the colonial era and its deep-rooted consequences. Through this all, I could see a line, which commented on my life, of my place in a new world order and the role in front of me.)

I patted my back and said, “They deserve a place in my archive”.

*I was in Dehradun on 19 March 2006.

Why I Never Took Interviews

2006-04-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

A Personal Interview is a place where you are supposed to talk with a panel and at the end of the meeting, the interviewers will come to a conclusion on whether it would make sense to take you for their requirement.

I have a problem. If you would suddenly ask me Newton's First Law, I would not be able to answer. Not that I do not know that it is the law of force. I wouldn't be able to tell that at that point of time. Further, knowing and understanding Newton's law is entirely different from being able to answer the question when it is asked in an interview. I may be a totally nervous person, but a great guy at my workplace. Not because I look at interviews as my Judgement Day, but because I simply become nervous when I think about them.

Forget this part of the story. If I wear white socks, how wold that mean that I wouldn't make a Warren Buffet? They never know what really lies inside me.

The worst, I know I was extremely confident and cool in this particulat interview. They were trying to stress me up and I decided that I wouldn't yield. I also put myself in the body posture and expressions that are most preferred by these guys. At the end of the interview, I got the feedback that I was totally nervous.

Crap...

I know that if I would take a job through an interview, I wouldn't make it to my best. I believe I can create a place for myself.

Yet I take interviews these days after a long time of averson (4 to 5 years) because I know I need a place there to make me what I want to be.

Sunshine on Sunday

2006-01-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

I was wondering what to do about my IIM ABM admissions coz my scores were good enough to get me a call. I thought I had missed it only because I had made a minor mistake while filling the form. There are some really interesting things that happened. Just because I had broken my teeth, I had to go to a Dentist who is a family friend of ours. He happened to tell us that someone from my hometown was working at IIM-A. Also, the people seemed to be extremely warm and welcoming. We met a relative of that person and in minutes, I was talking to the former Admissions Officer of the institute. Another gentle man wo felt extremely sorry for my situation and told that he could have helped me if I had contacted him before the calls had been declared. It was good though, to get some reliable end to the problem. I think I did not get a call because my splits weren't good enough.

I came out to take my car when found that the key was inside the car with the ignition turned on and it was almost 10p.m.. There would be no workshops around. I had to break a glass. Real tough things. My cousins Anand, Charles, Nirmal and Shimal's brother were with me. We waited for a long long time to check out if someting could be done. Finally, we decided to break one of the glasses. Real tough glass. Finally we managed to break it open using a stone. and reached home after eleven.

Relaxing

2006-01-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

13th Jan was an interesting day. I had taken CAT last November and was waiting for the results. I was expecting a call for ABM at the IIMs. The resulst were published on the 6th of Jan and I did not receive any intimation. I had 94.33 percentile and I heard that even guys with 87 percentile had calls from the institutes for ABM. I was wondering why, when I went on to check the photostat copy of the applicaton form I had sent. I found that I had made a mistake while filling the form. And so, the chance was lost.

I was desperate and then I decided that there was no use worrying. I decided to go out to play football in the evening. Me and a few of my colleagues went out to play, when I stumbled over my own leg and hit a cement platform nearby. I broke four teeth and got a few cuts on my lower lip.

I screamed and guys came running. Luckily, we had brought a waterbottle and some apple juice. I could wash off the dirt. Then Mr. Surendra kumar asked KK to bring his car, and I was rushed to the Casualty ward at the Jubilee Hospital, Trivandrum.

The doctor was a good guy and he did a good job. I actually could not keep track of what he was doing. I think I got around ten sutures. Unlike the other time, the anaesthetics worked. Thank God.

Varkey told me that there was some damage on the cement platform. Interesting.

I did not break my nose. No damage on my upper jaw. Good. yea? I'm at home and yea.....this is time to relax...

About me

2005-12-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Frame 1:
Born and brought up in Nagercoil, India in a CSI Christian family. My father plays lead roles in the church and it's administration in our district. My mother, chief cook and caretaker, the most sought after person in times of distress. Thank you mummy for the kind of support that you give. People who love me the most: Papa, mummy, Reju and Manju and my sweet heart ofcourse.

Frame 2:
Subha akka calls me 'Hyperactive'.
Sabareesh calls me 'Roller Coaster'.
JD calls me 'Scarface'.
Poochi calls me 'Mango'.
Chalie calls me 'Kaaka'.
Palich Mani calls me 'Ariapulla'.
and my sweet heart calls me ..........Sorry. She asked me not to tell you.

I think I'm REXORAVENS.

Frame 3:
I have fallen in love and don't ask me who she is. Lemme get married.

Frame 4:
I desperately want to know God. Please don't ask me to go listen to sermons. I've decided to take a break. I asked them to tell me about Christ and they battered me to the last bone, left with no brain and no gain other than pain.

Frame 5:
Atom...........Ato,..................Atoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom Ant.
Yuppie............... I'm back on the freeway. Hello World! hi!

Shiju.