Animals are beautiful people

My knight in shining armour - Sigmu christened as Sigmund. Born in 2007, resides at Sarayu hostel, IIT Madras. Very affectionate towards ladies. Freedom fighter and often gets injured in quarrels with insti monkeys. My baby boy :)
Will miss you for 3 months.

And then it so happened

“And then it so happened” is not the opening lines of an action packed, on the edge Dan Brown kind of storytelling. Neither does it belong to any of the verses from the Holy Bible. So it would neither shift the ground beneath your feet nor it is going to preach anything into you. Then what the heck is it all about? All of us have opinions about people, places and processes (didn’t wanted to use a technical term here but could not resist the temptation to make it three Ps) around us and often these thoughts linger on for some time and then just fade away. It’s an effort on my part to navigate those mangroves of thoughts and share with you guys the under currents which nurture them.

So very similar to the origin of the line “And then it so happened”. No, not the birth of this statement in English vocabulary but how it came to be part of my own lexicon and ended up being the title of this blog. Long time ago, before the age of keyboards and touch screens, the humble pen used to rule the roost in the corridors of schools and colleges. It is of those times when the pen was mightier than the mouse (it suddenly occurs to me now that if pens used to have been fixed to a notebook as a mouse is to a computer then I would not have lost so many pens through my academic sojourn). Not that their numbers would create any impact in the Guinness Books but just that it was always a matter of grave discussion at home. And then I, both sad (may be got thrashed by the dark forces- parents) and happy (ah! who doesn’t like a new pen), would set out to buy my next pen. The selection process would then begin by writing a few bits with all the pens that the shopkeeper had at his disposal. Usually people try writing their names to check the flow, texture and colour of the pen. Some of us would put down our signature and see how it looks.

A few others would just draw lines, circles and what not. But that’s where I discovered “and then it so happened”. I felt that I needed to write something more, more than just names and signatures to make sure the pen really fits the bill. I didn’t knew about “a quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” (Pangrams: a sentence which contains all the letters in the English alphabet) then so I settled for the modest “And then it so happened”. Don’t remember how it came to being (and I don’t want to put undue pressure on the nerve ending in the grey matter) but it has stuck with me for sure. And now every time a pen needs a closer inspection I always write “and then it so happened”.

Now it feels so apt that I title this blog with the same words which were just as mundane as tap water but really very important when you needed it most. It’s my attempt to payback to those humble words which have stood the test of time and to make sure they become a part of the transition to newer means of communication, just as I have been (from pen to keyboard, keyboard to touch screen, touch screen to motion sensors and also mail to e-mail, e-mail to blogs, maybe who knows, blogs to emotion sensors).

P.S: So what do you guys normally scribble with a pen, the very first time? Comment and share it with me.

Animals are beautiful people

Of all the places one could imagine, I found this sight at Utroda beach, Goa. I felt envious at the satisfaction, pride and comfort of the buffalo. I had always imagined buffaloes to be happy in murky waters or swamps but this salty water was no different to them. I was amazed at how happy even the boy rearing him was, watching his buffalo take a dip in the ocean. Animals are beautiful people. They make the best of what they have around.

A Million Little Pieces

I am often attracted by the title of a book: obscure, satirical, witty, philosophical are my usual choices. Even though it’s not the final word on it, I know somewhere I am hooked by it. This one too had a good title and beyond that I found there were a million little things going wrong for this book. This being an autobiography there are limitations on how exciting one can make it, not that the author has not tried but more on that later. James Frey, 23 years old, an alcoholic, drug addict and criminal, details about his stint at Hazeldon rehabilitation clinic in the state of Minnesota and intermittently flashbacks on the kind of life he had lead outside.

Now when I look back, it’s hard for me to not draw an analogy of the storyline with an elephant. Yes, even I am surprised how close it comes to be that. Let’s start with the trunk, the most existing part, if I may say so, for no other animal has it, often intriguing, sometimes violent. The story too begins captivatingly; James is missing his front teeth, has a hole in his cheek, a broken nose, swollen eyes and can barely stand. He’s on a plane to the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Treatment Facility in the world. You feel the story kind of gripping you there. But once at the clinic it’s all about vomit, urine, bile and blood. Every day the same routine and it continues until you reach the middle of the book. It keeps coming and coming and coming, the vomits. Somewhere through those pages you yourself feel nauseated and your stomach revolting. But still I continue with the pages.

The reader then leaves the trunk and moves towards the head and the big flapping ears. James has kind of settled in and explores the world around him. He does not like following the rules; and being a rehab facility there are lots of it. The story then revolves around the daily routine: cleaning job, breakfast, lecture, lunch, lecture, dinner and some other things thrown in between. You rush through the pages and nothing exciting comes up; not that anything happens in a rehab clinic otherwise. But yes there is a root canal procedure which James goes through, without any anesthetic, which kind of flaps your ears but again it is very ghastly portrayed. Then there is the ‘not getting along’ scenes with the authorities and with the inmates, the usual stuff which happens when you are a new to a confinement unit, full of not very nice people and all trying to get out. Fortunately for him, James makes more friends than enemies.

The big body of the story is about how James ridicules and shuns the clinic’s Alcohol Anonymous program called the Twelve Steps because of the programs dependence and belief in the higher power. Not sure if it’s the right kind of message he wants to send out to his kind of people, going through the same grind to get well. The daily routine of lunch and lectures continue, but there are also details pouring in about his friends from facility and their stories. James then starts to like a girl, Lily, from the women’s unit, who herself has a history of drug and prostitution, and there seems to develop a spark between them. His parents also join the clinic under a family counseling program, much against James’s wishes. He then goes into extensive flashbacks on how, as a twelve year kid, he starts his stint with drugs and alcohol, and anything and everything that can cause a high. This part is where you want your kids to close the book because there are so many graphic descriptions of these episodes that the young guns might want to give it a try. He also describes his run-ins with the law and that he is wanted in an assault case against a police officer. Even though being friendly with girls in the unit is against the rules James falls in love with Lily and starts to think of life beyond and after Hazeldon. There are other bits and pieces that happen in between but that only adds to the pages and nothing to the reader’s experience.

And then when we think things will pick up, we are shown the tail, an insignificant appendage. James has miraculously got the criminal charges against him reduced to felony and misdemeanors and just has to face three months of jail. He gets to being comfortable with his parents and goes ahead to do his jail term. In the last page of the book James describes the state of affairs of his buddies from his rehab time and how Lily commits suicide the day he gets released from jail because her grandmother passes away because of cancer.

But as a whole when you look at the elephant of this book, you feel that’s not all it is. You search around and realize that there is a lot of hue and cry in the literary circles about the authenticity of the events that James has mentioned in his book. People are debating about his criminal cases being conjured and not being as serious as been depicted. The root canal treatment, without anesthetics, is being questioned by the same very clinic where it happened. And so on and so forth. James, giving into these allegations, has agreed that a lot of it in the book are embellishments to make the story richer and to drive a point to help addicts and alcoholics. So much was the discontent around that the author has added a ‘note to the reader’, in the starting of the book, suggesting that all is not true in the book. Another grouse, mine though, is the utter lack of punctuations and quotation marks throughout the book. He might have been snorting crack during his grammar classes too, but the publishers should have had a steady head. The book even made it into Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Book Club’ and in one of her shows she described it as ‘like nothing you’ve ever read before’. Hope she fired the chap who shortlisted this one for her.

Similar to the attraction towards titles, I have a certain dislike for prefaces and prologues. I am sure if I had read the note by the author I would have stayed away from this one.

Animal are beautiful people

King cobra discovered by 'Who' and friends during trekking. It was dead though :P

Two cups of tea with Cherichikutty

Cherichi, that’s how everybody called her. She never knew what it meant, though baptised Mary which she was rarely referred to as. Like all girls of twelve years she liked playing hopscotch, carrying her younger brother on her hips, she played with the neighbourhood kids, taking pride in being the eldest of the lot.

One fine day as she was hopping around she saw visitors coming to her home, oblivious of it having any connection to her she continued playing. The visitors being elderly men startled her. She was summoned by her mother. The men smirked watching her. Her father was a man of small built and her brother was only three years old, they being the only men she had ever seen up close. But these men were tall and hefty and their moustache frightened her.

“You are going to be married”, her mother told her. She did not understand much about it except for the fact that she was no longer to wear her long skirts and petticoats. She would now wear the funny outfit her mother wore and if lucky she could wear a silk one for her wedding. She went for her confession, not realising it was a matrimonial confession. She confessed the same petty fights and stealing of pickles.

She stood at the altar all decked and excited to notice a six ft tall man next to her. Her husband was crestfallen after a rejected proposal and wanted to be married immediately, though the bride to be was still a minor. “Let the girl be at your place till she matures, we just want him married”, said her prospective father in law then. So she was married. She felt no difference as she came back to her own home and took care of her pregnant mother and younger brother. But all the playing stopped suddenly. She was asked to talk in hushed tones and not to venture too far away from the house.

She was often invited to fetes, being newlywed, and there she again met the six ft intimidating man. He tried being soft to her and once asked if she needed soap or any fancy item. She ran away frightened at his baritone. He left all attempts to rekindle affection thereafter.
On an unfortunate day she found herself bleeding profusely. She thought she was going to die but people around her seemed to beam with joy. She was invited to a fete again where a granny asked her husband to take her back with him.

She was not even left home to take her stuff and she was told this was her new life . And from that place she came as a guest she returned to her husband’s place She slept early to escape the intimidating man only to wake up and see him next to her in the same bed. She ran away frightened, but she had no women except an old granny to run to, who laughed at her plight.
She soon discovered her belly swelling and knew it meant pregnancy, remembering her mother, but still had no clue to the mysteries of her body. It took her four childbirths to associate the process of impregnation with menstruation. She understood when one stopped the other began. She was weary as she made these simple correlations. She trembled each time she missed a period out of fear of another nine months and the pain thereafter.

He was not intimidating to her .anymore, not that they ever spoke of love. She was comfortable with his huge frame and with age he looked more helpless. She got used to child bearing, rearing and being a submissive wife, though she often wished she knew things earlier.

She missed her long skirts and hopscotch which she traded with her daughters. She hated the elder women for not explaining the mysteries of married life to her. To a family who had no women for three generation she gave eight daughters. She prayed they all be freed from darkness, ignorance and servitude. She saw to it that they were all employed and informed about ways of life.

And years later narrating this to her granddaughter, who was getting ready to face the altar, she said, “They are all intimidating in the beginning, but they are more vulnerable than us “. I just smiled looking at her.

Animals are beautiful people

German shepherd puppies new born.