Of late, Mount Abu became a Character in my life! It was a pleasure trip planned at the end of mounting pressure from Ebie of not taking her to any of the worthy-to-be-seen places! I was not willing in the beginning as my purse was not as heavy as I thought sufficient to take us happily. But it turned out to be an exciting trip to the only tip of Rajasthan!

You know, sometimes things fall in places like you have dreamed of. It was like such an experience for us, with a last minute planning. Our decision of not booking a hotel online proven to be right, as we got a lovely hotel at a cost we could afford. Hotel Vrindhavan was such a warm place amidst the frozen Abu town. The people were very friendly and helpful.

I noticed that Abu is not such a place like Ooty or any other tourist spot notorious for people cheating. Couple of hundred bucks popped up from my pocket and were about to fall down and one old Abu street-seller just shouted out and alarmed me. Where else could we see it?

Monkeys played pranks, as we had some Peanuts in hand. I just threw the packet in my hand but the Monkey wanted more. I saw that it was staring at Ebie and she was staring back confused. I caught that in a jiffy and threw it again. Ebie stared at me like a monkey-in-trap.

In the nights it was colder than a freezer, and we used almost all the clothes on the first night itself. Bathing; we never thought of it till the third day.

I had seen this Air-gun seller, and bought one, mainly of curiosity and secondly, thinking of gifting it to my father. He would use it to drive-off those wild-cats those come to stay at the rooftop and pee in the nights, or might show it to a robber if ever one lands up, and lie that 'hands up, or it could kill him!'

On return, we had to board our train early in the morning, and we got a taxi booked through Vrindhavan at 5 A.M. We came to Ahmedabad and spent almost 7 hours there before boarding our Volvo for Mumbai. In the meantime, we went to Kakaria Carnival, a famous city-fest there. We went to the Zoo and met all those unlucky animals. What took my attention was the mirror fixed at the Snake-home. 'Enemy of Snakes' it was titled. We saw ourselves in the mirror, and realized that we too never liked snakes around like others. We stopped thinking about it and came out with a heavy-heart.

We reached Mumbai the next day morning, with a mind full of Mount Abu!

I gave an almost-full shave on my face! After long waiting! Not it was to check how better I looked clean-shaven now, (I always knew it looked unlovely) but to love my bearded outlook much more, through a week-long awaiting!

Talking about beards and shaving, no good subjects to talk ? eh?

Cooking Classes ........ sponsored by: Wormex Toilet Cleaner! Mischievous Advertising, What else?

I was talking about this incident to Ebie yesterday.

Till 8th standard we had to learn stitching as a part of our school curriculum at my High School in Edamon.

The stitching teacher came with a beautiful kerchief she had stitched, and wanted us to re-iterate the same. I did not like the period overall but half-heartedly I had to do this assignment.

Keeping the cloth on my lap, I took long time to stitch as half as my exceptional buddies did, and at the end, it was more than a fun.

I tried to raise the cloth and show my work to the teacher. Bad, it was also raising my shirt! Oh Sad, I realized with a senseless smile that all these time, I was stitching on my shirt that fell on my lap while sitting.

The 'rewinding' kept me busy for another period.

Agnes Femin wants her son to cry. Every time. Not just cry, he should cry aloud. He should not only just cry sometimes, but also skew his face in a particular way, with eyes reduced and lips glued on one another so that it should show him up in the pinnacle of some agony.

By now, you must have assumed a mad mistress of early forties, hating her son for no reasons and keeps on pestering him. But you go wrong as the curtain raises and I introduce a new character in this LIFE of mine, who is none other than our cute little babe Aggy!

Agnes Femin is her formal brand name! She is my niece, my wife's brother's daughter, of almost thirty months age.

Aggy is the only daughter of her parents and the apple of everyone's eyes. But some time back, she was on the lookout for somebody, whom she can love. Love like the way she is being loved; a baby in her hands. Her parents gave her many dolls. She tried acting like a mom to them, but they did not respond ultimately. And that's when I came into her life.

Don't know whether she has assessed me as a child, somehow, on a fine day, she has adopted me as her baby without my knowledge. She would call me "Unni" with a cute sweet-coated mother's tongue. No hassles, I have started helping her with nice baby-cries and instant-insistences and other symptoms every child shows. But she was more demanding; she wanted my cries to be louder so that she shouldn't feel like deserting her child and leave for office! She wanted me not to eat with my hands, so that she could rightfully feed her child, (in a thousand spoons). She wanted me to sleep on her lap, so that her baby would feel most comfortable.

That was where we started.

One day, I did not show up for the act. It was Eby's (my wife, synonym; Shelby, Steffy & more.) turn. She had played her tactics on Aggy so that it came out to be great fun. As her 'mother' approached her with her 'demands' Eby used the chance so grandly. She asked this restless mother to do that and this and those and these, and Aggy had to really run around to keep her ‘child’ entertained! Finally Aggy said, "Stop! Now you be the mother, and I will be your Unni"

Fun of all times!

There was this fun happened at my brother, Vinod’s engagement. And as you would know me already, needless to say, the cause was mine.

The custom stated that we, the groom’s party, should arrive first at the church and then await the bride entering. We stood by that and came punctually to the famous Parepalli church in Changanacherry, where the bride belongs to.

It was showery and somebody told that the bride’s party would arrive late. My parents took this opportunity to greet all our guests in person, and soon they vanished in the crowd. The groom, my brother kept waiting in the car, looking at the mirror, confirming and re-confirming his looks.

I happened to see the bride, Jaimol entering the premises. As I couldn't find my parents with my naked eyes, I alone hurried to greet them at the gate and welcome them to the church.

My blazer misguided the photographers as it was not so familiar that someone wears a blazer for such occasions, unless he or she is the groom or bride. Even before Jaimol could see me, one of the photographers pulled me from the side and kept me close to my brother's fiancé while the other took one snap. I sniffed the danger and tried to leap behind. The moment Jaimol looked at me she screamed, “No!!! This is not my fiancé, this is his brother!”

I nodded.

Somebody rushed to the Car and then got the boy and solved the scene.

I've advised my brother not to wear a blazer for my engagement, which happened the following week.

Hope that you are not in a bad mood! I mean, I was just asking how you are.. No, Oh! God, nothing, please don’t look like that, it’s killing me.

Cool a lot down, and I’ll tell you this; I met this girl, Ebie. Yeah, I mean I met her before getting engaged to her… and and and way before marrying her… hey I’m telling you, yeah, You!

Long time, said nothing, and on a fine morning like this, when I alight here like a Sinosauropteryx in front of you and saying that I got married, don’t you have any feels? You died my blog? Okay, you just hide, but not died, I believe.

Let me stop pretending that I’m apologizing. I actually am apologizing for not keeping track, but let me tell you, I have been thoroughly occupied with my pre and post-marital miracles.

Listen to me, I will ward off your scuffle with a narration of what happened last Sunday.

My second week in church after marriage, and my forth of fifth week altogether. You can assume, how well I would be known in the church and how my matters would matter to them within such a short time. Very few people knew me personally, and some remembered only my face.

After the church, seeing my wife standing beside me, one uncle asked, ‘Is she your sister’? Huh, he did not know that I got married. He had seen me before in the church, but not with a girl beside me. I did tell him what had happened to me 

Ebie started to laugh all the way, rewinding the same question, and saying, Oh peace, at least I don’t look like one married woman..’ I stopped walking.. and asked ‘what?’

‘Yeah, that’s what’! She replied.

‘No, I don’t think so, he actually would have meant whether you were my elder sister, still not married and begot kids, but not staying with your husband and still bothering your younger brother!!”

Poor Ebie, her face was shining like that of a devil in no-moon night!!

Yeah, I have had enough of it; Head Thandoori. And now decided not to have it till this climate cools down. That's why I kept my bike at home and vowed not to put the helmet on my head. Under the hot sun, facing the traffic signals and moving 'inch-by-inch' in the ruthless traffic blocks in my city, I have been receiving a tandoori smell around my helmet! I was being cooked.

What could be the height of carelessness? Is it something like throwing out the garbage along with your house-keys? What is the height of luck? Is it something like keeping the door unlocked while gone to throw the garbage?

What do you think I have done today? If you think that I had a quiet April Fool's day, then you are wrong!!

I just clicked photos of all my friends with my Camera-less phone!! Now they want me to send those, nicely-posed, group-photoed, giggle-bubbled, horn-played poses of theirs to them!!

You know what I'm going to do? I'll send them some animal group photos!

A friend of mine (name not to be disclosed), who has been trying to get married since the day he became 26 years old, has come up with a new exciting campaign for his matrimonial search-and-find.

His profile was headlined like this- "GET MARRIED TO ME AND WIN A FREE TRIP TO KERALA."

No, not 3G again.

I’m about to apply for a Guinness Record. If I tell you why, you will apply for me too.

Last week some day, I slept for a couple of minutes while riding the bike on highway at a great speed.

Yeah, it’s still the ‘living’ me, who is writing this, but shocked to read today’s news that all the members in a family killed in a mishap on the same highway, as their driver had fallen asleep while driving.

The Guinness record will read - The First person to sleep and ride the bike, ever.

See you here again :)

The procession carrying the man’s dead body was reaching the public crematorium. Like the sun that was setting at the horizon, the procession looked dull and grieved. The Crematorium was nearing and as its sight appeared, the laments aggrandized.

The crematorium was situated close to an areca nut (adaykka- in Malayalam and Tamil) farm. Hundreds of lean and straight (the F-TV types) Areca nut trees stood in the farm, waving in the winds and French-kissing the sky (on its lovely lips, the clouds).

The procession stopped in front of the crematory and it was time for the final rites. The lead cleric had uttered the final prayers and then a relative of the dead man had lifted fire on the crematory. As seconds passed by, as the fire grew by, as the laments amplified to the maximum, the 'unthinkable happened'.

Like lightning, sparkles of fire came down from the nearby areca nut tree and the dead man stood up alive! The lamenting mouths and the gloomy faces at once thrown open aghast and then cried aloud for life. In a jiffy, all of them vanished from the scene!

Heard that someone from the fleeing squad had turned back while running and then stopped for being fooled. Because it was the Areca nut farmer Shanku, who came down from the ‘heaven’ and not the dead man. Shanku was on top of the Areca nut tree close to the crematory. As the fire blown up, the dried leaves of a black pepper plant which was growing on the tree too caught fire. The fire went up spirally to the unexpected tribulation of Shanku, who at once lost his grip and plummeted, strewing fire all over and finally landing on the edge of the crematory.

Shanku must have received a funeral attention from all.

My parents say I never used to cry when I was a baby. I used to amaze them with smile, by holding up to my name, even when falling down and hurting myself so badly. Yes, I even remember an instance when a Doctor, who was stitching a cut on my hand, without using anesthesia or any other pain-freezing options, asking me 'aren’t you a child, don't you feel like crying?'

Today I've changed. I cry like a child. Would you call it growing down?

I have noticed this change last year, when I met my younger brother after long time, and when both of us had a toast. I just looked into his eyes and he was doing the same. I cried and hugged him like a mad man and he cried too. We cried together for a long time. Ahoe!, We weren't alone there. A Whole group of friends who was watching this started to cry. :)

Last time I cried was when Nishitha told me that she never liked me. I cried like a new-born. I cried a complete night without letting anyone know much. I did not know why I felt so bad. May be because I loved her so much! May be because I could not believe someone disliking me! May be coz I felt like cheated. All my thoughts for her came into me at once and I felt like dying in my tears. The fun was that I met her only once in my life and the rest of our relationship was only through chatting! :)

Sometime back I literally cried when a man had returned my lost mobile phone that I never expected to get back. I thanked him in tears that he jocularly said 'I shouldn't have returned this phone'! He meant he did not want me to cry. :)

Today I can cry for anything. Every time I pray, I cry in secret. I cry for all my happiness. I cry for all my sadness. I cry for all who love me and hate me.

Someday someone was saying, you are an eccentric, too nimble with emotions but too bad at managing it! Is that right?

Sreeji, (Our old Blunderman) has learned the tricks to survive in due time. I have got the latest proof for the same. Though a bit stinky, I thought it would be great fun to tell you about that and moreover a great relief to his sunken image in his world. After all, it’s a brainy act, so what if a bit stinky, right?

It was an urgent call from the stomach that led Sreeji to the lavatory in his office. He swears by all Gods that he never reaches to such a state usually, as he always comes clean stomached from home. But this day was really bad in that sense.

In an eye blink’s time, the stunt was over and he felt light and relieved. But life wasn’t that easy. ‘No water’ to complete the formalities!! Though he squeezed the tap to their utmost limit, not even a single drop did appear. He felt like the most ‘shitty’ and ‘shabby’ ever in his life.

For his luck, there were some napkins left in his pocket.

Once he solved the puzzle and came out of the ‘labor room’, what he did made all the twist in the story. He called up the house-keeping guy and scolded him for keeping the toilet so ‘unclean’!! ‘I couldn’t even step in’, he argued. He went on and demanded a check on who goes without properly cleaning the lavatory after the ‘anal impaction’

Sreeji’s ratings have now flown up.

While writing this, what was coming into my mind was another second degree joke, which was highly prevalent during our school days and stirred endless laughter in the young world. It said that one annachi had once used a ‘Poison Ivy’ leaf (‘Chorithanam’ in Malayalam. It is a skin-irritant) in stead of napkins as there was no water nearby. Later he had to jump off the river bridge.

Don’t know whether true or fictitious, but the story of the ‘Madhaviyamma’ could keep on revisiting my memories. I first heard this story when I was studying in my Upper Primary school, of which I would tell you more in another chapter.

This story was told to me and my classmates by our favorite English teacher Biju, addressed as Bijusir. By practice, he used to tell us stories in order to keep all of us attentive and bothered about the class. This one was striking.

Golden ornaments were such a weakness to Madhaviyamma that she wished to get buried along with her ornaments. Belonged to a respectable family of affluent means, her husband and children could not resist to this wish of hers and that was how she got buried with all those golden bangles, chains and other heavy ornaments. She died at the age of 55 due to some heart-related ailment. As per the tradition, she was buried in the nearby cemetery and a mourning family came back home.

The day died like a lamp snuffed out. And the night came, spreading darkness in the cemetery which did not have any lights. In fact, why, who would want to spend time in a cemetery in the night, other than those lifeless bodies which are dumped there! But that wasn’t right at all, as the darkness along with it, brought two thieves to the cemetery. They came sniffing the big loot awaiting them in the graveyard of Madhaviyamma. They had noticed the golden gloss on her corpse.

Silence benumbed the whole setting. They went near the tomb of Madhaviyamma, making sure that no one was spying. Slowly, they removed tomb-lid and peeped in avariciously. The coffin was not seen as covered by earth. With hands, they removed the warm earth and there came the pricey coffin box, gilded by golden drapes. One of them opened the coffin and what they saw was unbelievable. The corpse of Madhaviyamma was lying, with golden ornaments all over the body. Greedily, one of them caught hold of her hand but in the next moment, something unthinkable had happened; Madhaviyamma opened her eyes. She stared at the thieves as if confused. She wasn’t dead. The thieves, who couldn’t understand anything, tried to gesticulate something but failed to convince each other. One after the other, they lost their consciousness and fell alongside Madhaviyamma.

Early next day, someone who came to look over the cemetery, found the ‘dead’ Madhaviyamma embraced by two young men who were lying asleep on her sides. Heard that, later Madhaviyamma opened her eyes and the story was unfolded. The thieves were released as regards to the vice-turned-virtue.

From the way things happened, this is what I can presume now; Madhaviyamma would have become some Human God beatifying devotees, and the thieves would have become some Panchayat Presidents or MLAs somewhere in Kerala.

What’s the definition of stupidity? If you have one, wait, listen to me and then you may need to revise your definitions.

It was just incautiousness, which egged me to buy one of those big, blubbery balloons from the window-side seller near Andheri airport. I did not think where, when and how I was sitting and in a moment the deal was done for 25 rupees.

The BEST bus which was carrying me to Kandivli did not have windows as big as the Balloon I was holding outside the bus-window by a thread. The vendor had left from the scene and the bus moved on. Like a tumor on the bus, the balloon beetled outside.

Later at the next bus station, I got outside and took the balloon in with me. People kept on staring at the balloon as if telling it, ‘hold him tightly, he’s got a lot of brains’!

Long long ago, in a small village called Edamon, when there were no cosmetic revolutions and beauty pageants to come to live in people’s minds, one naughty boy recommended a ground-breaking idea to grow his sisters’ hair long till their buttocks.

It was this - ‘Tie and hang stones on hair and stand in the sunlight’

Not only did he recommend, he even went on and staunchly helped to tie those stones on their hair. Together they stood and looked as if snake-gourds in the village farmyards. (In the farms of Kerala, like exclamation marks, the longish Snake-gourds would lie topsy-turvy and stare at people as if sentenced to be hanged till death. Stones used to be tied on them to grow them lengthy.)

They were later called as 'Snake-gourds. And that naughty boy was my father.

Like tit for tat, today as I see my hair falling one after the other, the same sisters of him have remedies for me. ‘Apply Snake-gourd paste on your hair or try to drink Snake-gourd juice if possible.’

Revenge sustains through generations, what else?

Life can be cruelly funny at some times. It can ridicule. It can tempt us with a warm curvy smile but by the time we smile back, what we see there would be a mere scoff.

It seems that I’m good. Good! Though this realization came to me a bit late, though you would have enough reasons to flout this argument on my face itself, though I don’t promise I’ll be this good forever till doomsday, all of a sudden I have realized last week that I’m too good! In fact Donnymol (name changed) told me. She told me that ‘You were such a good man’.

Why did Donnymol say that I’m that good? Looks like I don’t have answer. I did not transfer any of my bank credits to her name; I did not buy her vegetables from the market or I even did not write an article on her good deeds to the society! The only thing that I did to her was that I liked her. And how did that happen?

It happened uninvited. Like a mistake. Or rather, like every other mistake I do. Like how I catch wrong trains and jump off at wrong stations at wrong times. Like how I came to write the Marketing Management examination on a day when it was supposed to be the Advertising Management examination. Like how I once misplaced a bottle of oil with water and poured it into the boiling milk to make a nice tea. (This is how oil tea is made; justifications need no raison d'être).

However, this mistake was a bit more cavernous, characterized by a deep sense of frustration and uneasiness. Because, Donnymol did not want to get married to me and thus she said ‘You were such a good man’. A nice way to end something like an alliance. A nicely said ‘bye bye’. After all, it sounded like ‘You are such a nice guy so that I don’t want to get married to you!’ Funny isn’t it?

Her uncle wasn’t agreeing it seemed. But he had given her a choice before expressing his disagreement. ‘Would you feel bad if you don’t get him?’ Kin mattered the most to her and she said ‘No, I should not’. A friend of mine said that I should have first proposed to her uncle!

But what’s the big deal in turning down a marriage proposal? After all, it’s just that. A marriage ‘proposal’. She had the right to say ‘No, I don’t like you’ But wait, things were different and that’s what the big deal about it. One day I even told her that I should not speak to her anymore the way I used to do, as we were still not sure of getting married and becoming one. Yet the talk continued. Yet the emotions got created and feelings, babied. The sad love song ‘arikil nee undayirunnengil’ got looped in the background endlessly. Sorrows were trimmed down by sharing and joys multiplied. Love sprouted with a ‘we are almost sure of getting married… so we should speak’ kind of an affair.

Like the way she started talking to me, she stopped talking to me too. Both times, unexpectedly. One idle day, when I was not thinking about anything in particular and not really keen on doing so too, her first call came. She told me that she wanted to know me better as she would like to have herself married to me.

Whatever, if you really want to marry someone, you would stand up and say that you want to. Donnymol did not stand up. May be that she forgot to do so. That’s the big deal I was coming into.

If I would use a simile, I would prefer rains. An untimely rain that got me wet but unclean at the same time.

Heh heh!!

What to say, YCYCY Bank seems to be behind me. If you have seen what happened to my previous telecon with one of their telecallers, you wouldn't expect me to write one more post about the same topic this quick.

Everything looked the same like earlier but this time the credit card was launched on the 1st of Jan this year and they could call me in just 3 days of its launch.

Any guess what would be my answer??

"Ohh no... don't want to take it up so early.. let me observe it for a couple of 'years'.. I'll see how it performs and then decide"

Awaiting the next call in 2011. :)

I don’t know why. I don’t feel the same urge to write like I used to have earlier. The words look like frozen drops and the sentences dizzy. I feel like a fish starving of water and breaths; or a juggler who forgot his charms!

Can I try a comeback?? Will I get my words, sentences, water, breaths and charms back??