Ernakulam Blunders

My vacations are drawing to a close and the start of college life is creeping closer with each passing day. Since I will be attending college in Chennai, my friends and I came up with the idea to make the most of our remaining jobless days and decided to go on a trip to Ernakulam, where my friend Arjun’s dad works and their flat is empty most of the time……….perfect right?
And so it was that I set off on a dark Monday morning (early morning I might add!), with my pals Vivek and Jairam, our host Arjun supposed to pick us up at the railway station. And this was the start of two days of mayhem including roundabout boat rides, getting lost, destroying the concepts of fine dining at certain reputed food chains, admiring local scenery (in more ways than one :P), breathalyzer tests, destroying more dining routines and getting shocked senseless by insane bills…….not to mention late night tv and gawking at an R&T modified Toyota Innova.



The first day included a morning coffee @ Indian Coffee House (hehe :) ) followed by a grand tour of the Marine Drive area by our expert guide Arjun. His plans further included taking a boat to Mattanchery and sightseeing before returning to mainland and lunch @ Subway. As luck would have it, the only available boat was to Fort Kochi, and upon reaching there we found a signboard to a landmark we had heard about (Dutch Palace-1.3km). So off we went in the thrill of doing some real sightseeing…
A lot more than 1.3 km and no Dutch Palace later, we found another signpost (Dutch Palace-0 km -->) with nothing but a dilapidated ruin in the area. Upon looking around we realized that all our eager walking had led us to Mattanchery bus stop, our original destination!
After promptly thanking our ‘guide’ for his vast knowledge of the locality, we headed back by boat, which incidentally stopped again at Fort Kochi and gave us a better look of the area, which showed that had we gone in the other direction for about half a km, we would have reached the sightseeing spots on the damn island………



The rest of the day was spent in horrifying everyone present at Subway with our vast knowledge of breads and sauces (Tip: I know Southwestern sounds like a delicious sauce, its actually just paste in a gay orange color), and roaming around the Oberon Mall, including making a mockery of their famous ‘Scary House’ (and giving the little man with the baseball bat at the end the surprise of his life in the process :)).



The next day was reasonably uneventful, except for missing potholes and bumps on the way to Veega Land and charging at tipper lorries in a Hyundai Santro (Who’s the man now?). Plus the wacky stuff we did in the wave pool, playing catch with a seed that eventually floated away into the ladies section of the pool and crowning the official winner of our privately judged wet t-shirt competition (God, she was hot!).



On the way back, given the nature of our trip so far, we were almost unsurprised when a few cops pulled us over and asked me to blow into a breathalyzer (suspicious because of our bleary red eyes from hours in the wave pool I suppose, or maybe they needed money for their evening tea) and then thankful when they let us go when I came clean, though my trusty friends attributed their lack of hassle to me having bad breath……
It is only fitting that this relatively ‘uneventful’ trip was winded up with a quiet dinner at Pizza Hut, where the normally civilized posh Singapore bred Vivek was reduced to debating whether he should lick the remains of his three scoops of ice cream off the platter while Arjun and I divided one slice of pizza neatly in half in a most gentlemanly manner.



Thankfully Jairam was content with his veggie pizza, compensating for his lunch of Pepsi and banana fries…….until the bill of Rs.1200 came that is.
And so, after narrowly escaping helping their elite cleaning crew with the crockery, we made our escape, and returned back to good ol’ boring Trivandrum the next day (by another darned early morning train!) and parted in high spirits, convinced that we had pushed the borders of wackiness just a bit further.

The Storm

In a very strange mood today....so I decided to write some fiction ! Technically, its called fanfiction.
What follows is my written take on the prologue in the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.
DISCLAIMER: Prince of Persia is a trademark of Ubisoft studios and Jordan Mechner. I don't own anything (obviously)and am just playing around with the story.
END OF DISCLAIMER
This one is dedicated to my friends Rakesh,Vivek and Jairam.
Rakesh, for having faith in my fantasy writing abilities, Vivek for introducing me to this wonderful game, and Jairam, for providing us all comic relief and taking an year to finish the game :P




The Storm


This night was going to be a long one. Winds lashed across the deck, crew members staggering this way and that in an attempt to tighten the rigging. The main mast creaked ominously and the rain poured relentlessly from the heavens as I made my way up the stairs from my cabin to the deck. The raging storm was pounding furiously at the Gull and the little vessel pitched and bobbed in the vast emptiness of the churning ocean. My armor felt cold on my skin and my cloak whipped about behind me as I squinted through the storm the way we had come, seeking out the darkness that I was sure was not far behind.

“This storm shows us no mercy, we shall respond in kind!”
The cry from one of the hands on deck brought me back to the situation at hand, and I motioned one of the crew towards me.
“Bring us closer to the wind”, I said, when he was within hearing range.
The grim man, apparently a veteran among the crew of this little craft, nodded grimly and hastened away, as I looked around once again into the gloom broken only by the occasional blaze of lightning spearing across the dark sky.
Ironically the turmoil around us seemed to reflect my own emotions perfectly. The parting words of the Old Man surfacing again from the depths of my mind.
“You cannot change your fate”.
The whisper had haunted my memories for many a day and I could feel the strain of having to stand against seemingly insurmountable odds catching up with me, the despair waiting to claim me…
Another brief flash of lightning diverted my attention towards the side of the ship, the most fleeting glimpse of something in the water beside us.
As I quickly moved across the deck to where I had seen whatever it was that the lightning had illuminated, another flash from the heavens confirmed my suspicions.
Another ship.

A much larger, sleeker craft, which was faring much better against the wind and the waves than our little Gull.
By now most of the deckhands had noticed it too, as it slowly drew alongside our ship, and we saw that there were men on deck, wearing a strange armor that even I, with my knowledge gained by travels in many countries, was not familiar with.
In the moment that it drew abreast the Gull, an unearthly quiet seemed to surround us, and in the same instant, the moon broke through the clouds for the briefest instant in time, illuminating the men on deck.
In that very same instant, I realized that I had made a mistake.

Not men, creatures. As if their glowing eyes and rising weapons were not proof enough, a glance down at the medallion on my breastplate confirmed it. It was glowing.
I shed my cloak and drew my sword in the same movement as I shouted out what would perhaps be my last command in battle.
“Unsheathe your weapons!”


It was then that I noticed the woman in armor as black as the sky around us standing amidst the monsters on their deck. She was staring straight at me with the hint of a smile on her misleadingly pretty face. And even amidst the metallic scraping of my crew members drawing their blades, I could see her mouth curve evilly and form the words, “Kill him”.
End

This was my first attempt at something remotely close to fiction. So forgive me for any errors I may have made. And someday I may just come up with my own story !

Realizations and deadlines

All right, I admit, I’ve been slacking off. Which is why (obviously) I haven’t posted anything in a while. But in my defense, I must say that it isn’t easy to come up with something interesting and worth writing about when you are basically sitting at home doing nothing but gaming and hanging out with friends. And it also doesn’t mean that anyone reading this right now should get the impression that I do have something interesting to write about now, because I don’t!
So what I’ve done is that I’ve sat my lazy self down at the computer and just let myself go……..again.
However, it’s been a nice few weeks, finally having all the time in the world at your disposal is a great feeling, and in that time I’ve actually managed to get a driver’s license!
Anyways the only really interesting thing that has happened is that I’ve decided what I want to do with my life. Yes people, I have officially decided to pursue a career in journalism and media studies. So that means I’ll probably be going to college in Madras!
And it’s also finally given me the satisfaction that I probably won’t have to sit behind a desk for the rest of my life doing nothing but staring at a computer.
So, in the meantime, I’ve been reading Shashi Tharoor’s Great Indian Novel and waiting for Transformers 2 :P.
So that about sums up my vacation activities. And now that I have a one month deadline until college starts, I suppose that time will be short, and posts may be few and far between. So bear with me and keep visiting!

Back from ‘Alright I passed school, lets go on vacation !’ trip

As you probably guessed, I’ve been out of town. So that’s the official reason I haven’t posted anything for a while. The unofficial reason is that I don’t want to post for the sake of posting, trying to keep it original you see.
So like I was saying, I’ve been off on a trip to my native place at Aleppey, and from there went on to see Munnar. Now going to Munnar with just my parents for company isn’t exactly my idea of a perfect vacation, but boy, does the place make up for less than awesome traveling companions!

I just loved the weather, its cold, but not the scarf and sweater kind of cold that makes your skin flake and go dry. Its just perfect! And the scenery rocks too…….whether it be those beautiful hills covered in tea plantation or the really cute tourists from all over the place ;P.
There are also tons of places to see around there too, unlike a lot of other hilly scenic places that we usually visit. .Of course I wont go into the details about those places, this is a blog, not a tourist handbook!
So I had a real blast, got myself a dormitory all to myself (imagine having four beds to choose from…sweet huh?), where I could read late into the night and sleep when I wanted, and visited all the really beautiful tourist sites there, it’s the kinda place where u just point your camera at just about anything and click away, and everyone who sees the pics goes ‘Wow! Great photography’.


However, coming back to spend the next few days at my grandmas wasn’t exactly peaceful relaxation. You try reading or listening to music when you’ve got three cousins aged four, three and one respectively chasing you around on BSA Champ cycles. I really believe my grandma should get a Nobel Peace Prize for putting up with their antics and having the patience to endure one hour mealtimes.
But in my opinion, the best thing about all the long hours traveling on this trip was that I did a lot of driving. Apparently Dad finally realized that I’m a competent enough driver to avoid potholes, so finally got a few real road miles under my belt, on my learner’s license no less! Cool huh?
So that about wraps up my ‘Out of School Celebration’ trip, it was great while it lasted, and I admit that after hours of hectic class cutting and sleeping at school, chasing around naughty kid brothers and breathing some fresh mountain air really recharges them batteries!
Until next time, adios ppl!

Elections over….finally……..

I know that I probably sound like I’m against the electoral system and against our wonderful Sovereign, Socialist ,Secular, Democratic Republic. Don’t get me wrong on this one, I believe in our country’s Government and the system in place as much as the next man. Though I agree that my knowledge about all things political is probably less than that of ‘Bombs’ of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na fame :P
However, the reason I’m so glad the damn thing is over is all the wonderful campaigning and intellectual ‘discussions’ (read stupid people shouting their heads of at other stupid people while stupider people watch on TV) that we witnessed over the past month or so.
I just can’t understand how all the yelling and finger pointing and woefully remixed songs can help a party or a candidate win (imagine having to hear “Pinaraaaaaaayi nammude Pinaraaayi” while waiting at the Thampanoor bus stand!). Plus we have our new age media channels covering all this stuff and fuelling the fires. One would think these media guys get some kinda pleasure from watching people go at each others throats!
I’d also like to add that I’m deeply disappointed with the Congress for taking advantage of the whole Slumdog and ‘Jai ho’ thing and also at the parties that roped in film stars to help their campaigns. And the Congress was the only party I had some respect for. How unfortunate.
While coming home by bus today, there was a madman sitting behind me and shouting at the top of his voice about how Sonia Gandhi had more sense then all the men in politics and his opinion about these men (in very explicit Malayalam, I might add).
If this current format of shouting, bitching, accusing and remixing goes on, I wouldn’t be surprised if aforementioned madman has a lot of company after the next elections!
Anyways, I’m just glad that its all over, though I did hear some news channels promising exhaustive and in-depth analysis of the elections in the coming days.
*Groan*…………here we go again…….

Going places!!! Or not?

You know, one of my biggest dreams is to travel the world someday. See the pyramids, visit the Eiffel Tower, and maybe even live in London for a while.
Why London? Because it’s always cloudy and has a quaint feel. The fact that the place is probably packed with classy British women helps too!
But the biggest attraction going places holds for me is the traveling itself. I guess I was bitten by the travel bug (or whatever they call these imaginary bugs these days!) when we used to get on the train from Delhi and come home during the holidays. This was back in my LKG to first standard days, but those train journeys are going to be etched in memory forever.
So ever since the end of school I’ve been planning on making good on my ‘backpacking’ aspirations. Maybe the Eiffel Tower may have to wait a bit but hey, plenty of India to see right?
And it was with this burning hope that I approached my parents one fine morning when Dad was reading the paper and decided to ask their opinion.
It went something like this:


Me: Dad, I was thinking, is it ok if some friends and I went for a little trip after my exams?
Dad: Trip? Where to?
Me: Well, I’ve kinda always wanted to visit Darjeeling but for now maybe Bangalore or Mysore, or somewhere?
Dad:*lowers paper* I see. And where do you plan to get funds for this little ‘trip’?
Me: Ummmmmmm, funds??
Dad: You see, I’m saving up my LTC and not enjoying its benefits so that you can go to a decent college you know?
Me: (Damn! Didn’t see that one coming!) I see……
Dad: However…….
Me: (Ever so slightly hopeful) Yeah?
Dad: How about you go to Kanyakumari?
Me:??!? (sigh).

So there go any immediate hopes of chilling in Switzerland or wreaking havoc in the French countryside Mr. Bean style. But I’ve got time on my side. Get filthy rich, and paint the town (or the world) red! Yeah!

Career Indecision

As I mentioned earlier, with Entrance exams looming, I happen to be going through a phase where I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with myself. And the fact that all my classmates have been replaced by nerdy zombies doesn’t really help either!
I suppose the core of my indecision is the fact that I’m not really into doing what everyone else in Kerala plans to do for a degree…………*drumroll*…..Engineering (yay!) .
So that leaves me in a real dilemma as I look for a suitable degree that won’t leave me high and dry someday in the future, and now that I’m able to look at the situation objectively, I’m starting to realize just how shallow our education system really is !
In a nutshell? Take an engineering degree or screw up your life!
So what happened to options and free will and all that stuff?? And this whole problem is compounded by…..you guessed it……the tuition ‘industry’ that we have blooming in our dear ol’ city! (not that I can complain, having gone for tuitions myself :P)
But the thing is, when I think about the conditions prevailing here, about how everyone goes for tuitions and then engineering and thingy ( haven’t forgotten medical aspirants, but that’s a story for another day ! ) , it reminds me of a kinda factory…….churning out engineers, like the stuff they show in Star Wars movies.



So I ask you, is it wrong to choose the path less taken? Do something creative with your own life? Make your own choices? Or are our wiser ‘advisors’ right? And we should just do what everyone else does, because it’s a safer option?
I guess that debate won’t sort itself out anytime soon, and my decision will probably have to be made and reinforced by circumstances……
But hey! At least I managed to add a new post…….cheers!