Some News...Some Views - 12

My eight year old boy sleeps with us. Either one of his parents bathe him, feeds him and gets him ready for school. Never think that he can't do all these things independently- he does it many times. Still we do it for our own pleasure.


We the three siblings- One just above me and the one just below me slept together along with our parents till we were taken to Keralam from our birth place Visakhapatnam. We quarrelled, cried, crushed our teeth and even might have pissed while in the bed. My kid makes our nights miserable with his teeth crushing and kicks with legs so many times ( I snore a hell into his ears in return!!). Does not matter much. Memories of those silly things fill the heart with so much of sweetness that make us so light hearted. I am sure most of the readers of this write up have similar experiences to narrate


I am also sure that none of us were spoilt or indisciplined or dishonest because of our style of upbringing. Of course upbringing is very important. The famous MGR song underlines this : Every child is born good. They become good or bad depending on how the mother brings them up. It is very important to teach our kids by example. We must teach them how to share, how to be honest and how to be compassionate with fellow living beings. Everything depends primarily on the parents.


It is not so  important as to what kind of cloths our kids wear, what kind of toys he/she plays with and if he/she sleeps with parents or not. The Norwegian society things altogether different way, alas! Recently, one three years boy and a one year girl have been taken away from their parents, citing some out of the world reasons like this in Norway. Now, these kids will not be re-united with their natural parents till they attain 18 years old. There is a phrase in Malayalam "vellarikka pattanam". If anyone does not know the meaning of this phrase, please click the link :

http://www.prlog.org/11779093-two-bengali-nri-children-forcibly-taken-away-by-norway.html

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Did you hear, Taliban is opening a political office in Qatar? They want to talk peace with US! Taliban talking peace? The ofice is expected to open by the end of January this year and negotiations to start in due course. Whatever may be the motive behind such a move, it is going to accord vital acceptability to such a horrible outfit. Will they issue regret statements for all those inhuman acts they unleashed so far in the name of religion before they sit for talking peace?


Let there be peace in Afghanistan, but it has nothing to do with the perverted and sick minds of Taliban. They must be decimated and handed out the severest punishment for all that they did ( No God in this unverse can punish them, for, they never give a chance to God to decide. They decide and punish everyone). Let the history write them off as the most inhuman organisation that never bothered for the well being of the human beings.


Never expect grapes from thistles. Everyone knows this fact. It is imposible to believe that US and their friends do not know this. Perhaps they pretend to be ignorant with a hidden agenda in mind

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The Army Chief moved the court. Unfortunate. Government is insensitive and trying to fight with him. The babus in two offices just could not regularise the Date of Birth issue for such a long years. (It is learnt that the DOB in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate is marked as 1951). This is a telling example how our government offices work. If a Big Babu like the army chief had to face such a problem, think about the common man who approaches the Sarkari offices everyday. Will a "strong" Lok Pal bring about change??

Appooppanthaadi - 33

The landmark of China is undoubtedly the Great Wall. It is simply great. No eulogies are required to narrate its greatness. Built in 220-206 BC, this wall has a length of about 6250 KMs. It winds from one hill to another and dissolves into infinity.

The magnificance of the construction is mind blowing. The wall stands there as a symbol of human perseverance and the immortality of the ancient engineering technlogy. The wall has steps in it. We can walk on these steps along the wall.  There are certain stretches along the path of the wall that are well maintained and fit for walk. These spots have thousands of visitors everyday

The easiest way to reach the Great Wall  is to travel from Beijing. It is around 80 KM journey to the nearest point. The nearest place is called Badaling that is around 80 KM north of Beijing. ( Beijing is around 1600KM away from Harbin). There are so many tour operators in Beijing to take us there. From the foot of the hill, there is cable car to reach the top of the hill from where we get access to the wall.

The journey in the cable car iteslef is a thirilling experience. The cable car takes us to the dizzy heights and a view from there is simply marvelous.  Behold and cherish the experience forever as a piece of memeory of the visit to the Land of Dragons

The wall has a maximum width of 9.1 m         (30 ft) and is about the same colour as the soil surrounding it.

Standing (or sitting) on the steps of the wall and clicking pictures is a feeling that takes us to the top of the world. One has to live to that dream and I wish all of my readers a chance to see the Wall unfolded right in front of your eyes with all its grandour.

The see more photos click : Photos from The Great Wall of China ( taken in November 2007)

"The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications running in general east to west through the entire northern part of China, which is made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, built originally in part to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or forces"

To read more about the wall, click : Great Wall of China

Even as we may go breathless at the sight of this magnificient stretch of wall, I could not help spare a few minutes to some wild thoughts. How many lives would have been sacrificed by the the autocratic rulers to build such a big wall?

The entire stretch of the wall runs through hard hilly terrains and reahing there with stones and other building materials would certainly have been extremely dangerous. Though it is hard to take the arguement that every greatness has some crimes behind it, in this case we have to take it, even if grudgingly.

Appooppanthaadi -32

Food could be a big problem, especially for the vegetarians in China.  But somehow this problem can be solved if we were able to cook our food for ourselves. For non -vegetarians, there are wide range of food items that , one can afford to eat.

When it comes to language, it is so easy. We are free to use English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil , Telugu or Bengali as we please. Everything would sound Greek and Latin at the receivng end!

It will be an overstatement if I state that no one in China knows English. There are a good number of people, especially in the younger generations, who can even correct our English. Still, in general, China is a no English zone, though many are apologetic about not knowing the language.

Communication will be the toughest task we will be facing there. Even the ones who know "a little" English can never make out Hinglish and Inglish we speak. They demand us to speak slowly so that they could understand something about what we say.

We have to complete a sentence with each word is clearly and slowly pronounced. If we are lucky, they will make out head and tail of what we said and give a response. Most of the time only action language helps. Despite all this, there are quiet a good number of Indians who can speak Chiense with agreat deal of easiness.

Never venture out in China without carrying the names of the places you stay, the places you want to visit written in Chinese language in big size. Most of the taxi drivers can not read small letters as they have poor vision! When we show the paper with the destination written on it, they really struggle to read if the size is small. This is a common problem all over China.

I used to keep all my destinations written in Chinese in big letters so that I could travel in taxis so easily. Taxis in China roam around like autorikshaws in our country. Almost every car in every city is from the Volks Wagon stable. Though we get consitent meters everywhere, there too we can come across black sheeps. All are not angels in China too!

In Harbin city, taxi drivers, after picking us from the road side, turns on the meter and moves on. If anyone on the way shows hand, they stop and take him/her along and charge the meter reading from both the parties. Still we will be paying much less than what we pay to the autorickshaws in our country.

Let us come back to English. Receptionists in the hotels, shop keepers in big shopping malls, employees in big manufacturing units and hospitals are all in the same boat. Receptionists normally spotting us immediately take out a note book and place in front of us.

Whatever we have to communicate can be written in English. They can read and understand what we write but still they may not be able to reply in English. Many times, I found myself at wits end while communicating with the receptionists of my hotel. They always give embarassing smile whenever we wanted to communicate something.

It is better we learn their language. There are so many Indians who can handle Chinese comfortably.   Chair, switch, computer, car and even for the word English, they have equivalent Chinese word.  We have surrenedered our mother tongue to the channel beauties and handsomes and the FM radio jokeys, who speak a language neither English nor the local dialect. 

Not knowing English is never a crime. Showing off the knowledge of it and mixing it with the mother tongue is a crime. We have perfected it and perhaps converted this heady mixture into our mother tongue.  I only pray, the Chinese do not learn English at the cost of their own language....Let them never learn English, for, the only edge we Indians have in the international job market at present is our knowldege in English....

The Beautiful Childhood

We had no practice of wearing shirts while going out to spend our leisure time. The only thing we had in abundance those days was time. The main assembly point for spending our time was the temple premises. Everyone assembles there after the school time. Everything else can wait, even the home work. What follow is varieties of games. From ‘Kuttiyum Kolum’ to ‘Kallanum Polisum’ to Kabddi we play as the day’s mood demands.

Though we had so many favourite games, Bhagavan and a few other guys had some other preferences too. They prefer to play with cashew nuts. In our area this game was called ‘andi kali’. There was a particular kind of a game in which a few cashew nuts and coins are thrown to a small hole. Then each nut or a coin is hit with a small stone standing at a distance. Whoever manages to hit the target owns it. Bhagavan had an awesome aim. He could hit the nuts and even coins several times in the game. Since he was from a poor back ground, it was a mean of earning a few cashew nuts and coins for him. In my belief, the reason for his sharpness might be his poor background. A burning belly makes people do anything.  The nick name bhagavan stuck to Sasikumar because of this enviable capability. The losers in the game were jealous and started calling him Bhagavan.

Sasikumar and family suddenly left Olavaipe one day. His parents sold off whatever they had in our village and went to a remote place. Since then we never met Bhagavan. Where ever he is, may the Almighty keep him happy.  I don’t know if I can recognize him if I come across this man at the corner of a street.

Sasikumar’s house premises had a big ‘ambazham’ tree. (sorry I do not know the English word for ambazham). During the season, it used to give a lot of ambazhanga. I am not sure if we can call Ambazhanga a fruit. But it is extremely sour while it is raw. This fruit in raw state, if kept in salt mixed water for a long time, turns into a tasty thing. A chutney of this ambazhanga with coconut is really a very delicious dish. Did you ever try it out?

Bhagavan’s family earns a few bucks from these fruits every year. My grandma too buys raw ambazhanga  from them and soaks them in salt water in an earthen pot. These earthen pots are famously called bharani. Bharani has of late become a showcase item in the modern days rather than a common utensil in the grandma’s kitchen.

Now in Olavaipe, it is hard to spot ambazham tree. Recently, when I came back from India to Syria, I brought pickle made of salted mango. Tasting this, one of my colleagues here opined that it was salted ambzhanga. Though it was not the truth, I did not deny this. Anyway, I thanked him silently for bringing the memories of my beloved friend Sasikumar.  

So, the question of wearing shirt does never arise. No shirts, no footwares and no restrictions from the elders. We were above all control. How can anyone freely involve in games like hide and seek, “kallanm Polisum” or kabaddi with shirts and footwares on? These extra fittings suit only the modern day kids who fiddle with jockeys and key boards all the time while gulping Complan and crunching Lays.

Above all we had a very crucial mission on our shoulders. Making our Victory Sports Club the Rial Madrid of Olavaipe. It could have been impossible for the ‘sports boys’ to achieve this if we turned up on the field in these paraphernalia. Bare feet and bare chests were the best gears to create the  edge of the seat experience while playing the game with the ball.

But here too Babuchettan intervenes, here too! He wants us to wear shirt while going out. We never liked this diktat. We initially fought it tooth and nail. We dodged him several times. Still, as in the case of any of his diktats, we had to ultimately surrender and we did. We were exceptions in the group. I don’t remember if any of our friends wore shirt while spending the leisure time. Of late, the practice of wearing shirt even while sitting at home has become quiet normal. Look at the serial actors. They wear the costliest saris, churidars, pants and shirts even if the scene is kitchen. The highly urbanized behaviour has caught up with even the remotest villages now.

One of the adverse fall outs of wandering around without slippers was itchy feet at the end of the day. Boils all over the feet and toes gave miserable nights. This, in our Malayalam is called “valam kadi”. It was a horrible experience. I don’t think anyone of us wound have escaped from going through such a harrowing experience at least once in your childhood. Itching will be at its peak while we set for the sleep. It is impossible to lie down calmly and it is impossible to manage the disturbance with two hands alone. We used to take help from the elders in the family. Our eldest sister lent her hands many a time. We had to spend even sleepless nights with this monsoon misery. Gradually itching graduates into boils paralyzing the mobility. Interestingly, even in this agony, we two brothers were together. Valamkadi’s season was the monsoon.

The boils in the feet had a treatment too, administered by the elders in the family.  It was a simple treatment but was never as simple as it sounds. We had to only dip our feet into water boiled with neem leaves. In one of the Monsoon seasons, it was the turn of our father to treat us. Father washed our feet inside the hot water. The pain we underwent during this simple treatment was unimaginable. The shouts by my brother during this operation are still reverberating in the premises of our home in Olavaipe. He screams, I shall cut off the mango trees , I shall cut off the coconut trees and so on. Warnings of colossal damage to moveable and immoveable properties! After the wash, a blue coloured solution is applied to the wounds. The feet become blue after this. Looking back at those incidents, we can not but have a good laugh now.

In the present day Olavaipe, I can not spot a single kid without foot wares on his/her feet. Even if a kid wants to go out bare footed, parents may never allow this. They want the kid’s feet to remain as smooth as a petal of a lotus. The lotus feet that shall tread the path of roses laid by the ready for anything parents. The kid has to just walk, and ascend to the ergonomically designed chair of a software engineer or a money minting doctor. Even I can never walk from my home to our temple bare footed whenever I go to Olavaipe  

During one of the Monsoons, a scary incident took place in our life. As usual, we were attacked by the ‘valam kadi’. The situation turned grim and there needed medical assistance. Those days we were usually taken to hospitals in Kuthiyathode. It is a small town on the other side of the backwaters. We have to cross the backwaters to reach Kuthiyathode. Ferry service was on small wooden boats. The backwater that divides Olavaipe and Kuthiyathode has a width of at least one kilometer. Banks of the backwater is far off. It is too frightening to travel on small boats during high tides as there will be waves. Though Poochakkal was a town connected by road, we had preferred Kuthiathode those days

After the consultation with the doctor, the same boatman took us back. By that time it was slowly getting dark. The boatman, no doubt was an experienced hand. The boat started sailing slowly. Suddenly, as is the characteristic of monsoon rains, huge clouds started gathering and it suddenly started pouring down. The heavy downpour was not alone. Monsoon rains never forget to bring along with them heavy winds and deadly lightning. The boat had suddenly caught in a turmoil. It started swinging as if it was a swing. Scared we could do nothing but pray to our Gods. Our grandpa was unmoved. The rocking boat could never rock his confidence.  He knew his “olavaipil thevar’ will never let us down. He had an unshakable faith in the presiding deity of our village. I am still wondering how the boat never gave in to the fury of nature in that night. As I believe, my Almighty can never harm us. The boatman almost lost control of the boat, but still he managed to row the boat. Somehow, he could steer the floating thing to the safety of the bank. We reached the bank where the church of our village located. We took shelter in the Church.

Many years later, I found myself in a similar situation, but this time it was not on a rocking wooden boat. The scene was a reputed hospital in Ernakulam where I had just become a father. As we were celebrating the arrival of our little vampire, Manju was treading an extremely dangerous path to the edge of life inside the intensive care unit of the hospital. The condition of the patient was somehow not informed to us till it turned serious.  The attending doctor tersely told us before taking her to a second operation that everything is unpredictable. Just like the boat in this story, my life suddenly found itself in the midst of a  turmoil. The giant waves started rocking the boat and threatened to drown it. Darkness started engulfing everything. But this time too, luck was on our side.

Manju was lucky, but thousands of unlucky women are sacrificing their lives for the sake of sustaining the human race. Knowing well that their own life is at risk, every woman is willing to take that risk. They possess a kind of courage that no ordinary men possess. Casting an evil eye or an evil thought on her is akin to disgracing the womb that carried us all.

Some news ... Some Views - 11

The Supreme Leader passed away. The Great Successor takes over. North Korean strongman Kim Jong- il died while he was travelling on a train. He travelled on a train, since he feared air travel! The new ruler is Kim Jong un, his third son. Ever since its inception, North Korea is being ruled by one family. Kim ul Sung and then Kim Jong ul and now Kim Jong un.


People who hate politics and politicians and having a craving for ushering in Military Rule in our country shall take a look at the rule of this dynasty. The only ahievement this dynasty brought about in N Korea was Neuclear Bombs and long range Missiles with Nuke Head that can strike even the US.

The people in the country are in dire straights and are seemigly cut off from the rest of the world. (The news about the death of Kim Jong ul had been hidden for two days by the government despite the prying eyes of the "enemies" that weild ultramodern communication systems.) Dissent is curbed with heavy hands. It is highly advised to read a few articles on The Korean famine and the living standard in that country in the internet.

After reading some of the articles on N Korea, I am sure, the ones who forward mails from his/her arm chair abusing politics, politicians and the democratic system in our country will think once again to do so...

Though it is important to weed out bad politicians and bad polotics from our democracy, in my considered opinion, we need only democracy in our country with good people leading us

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Jarawas were made to dance half naked in front of a camera. They were offered food for that. Disgraceful act by some insensitive visitors to Andaman.


Jarawa is a tribal lot consisting of around 200 odd human beings living in the forsts of Andaman Islands. They are largely kept isolated from the more civilised outside society by the authorities in the name of protecting their identity.


Authorities fear mingling the dwindling population of Jarawa community with the outer world may lead to its extinction. However, their total isolation from the main stream prevents them from becoming more sophesticated, that may lead them live a modern life.

There is a road passing through the forest where Jarawas live. The road connects south and north of Andaman Islands. On the north part of the island, there is a volcano that is not active but emits mud continuously. This is a tourist attraction and so many tourists cross this forest area to reach the volcano.


The tourist operators, in the pretext of taking the visitors to the volcano slow down the vehicles when they spot Jarawas on the roadsides, allow them to take photos and offer food to them.

Travel in this stretch of road is conducted in a convoy system at stipulated times. There will be a gun weilding policemen in the pilot vehicle. All other vehicles have to follow this. Still, violations happen simply because the authorities who are expected to do their job don't do it as expected.

Appooppanthaadi -31

My journey to Harbin was via Hong Kong. I just had a stop over there. We can have an areal view of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a place full of hills. To me, looking from above, it was like a blend of tall hills and equally tall buildings.


I could see water everywhere. Hills on the shores of the sea and a concrete jungle all over summarises Hongkong. Well, it may not be fully true as this is an opinion made after having a bird's eye view


The airport was just on the sea shore. As the plane decends for landing, we get a feeling that it is going to land on water. The run way is projected much into the water. It was an interesting view however.

Only one other thing I could see from above the city of Hongkong was the left hand driving. The remnants of British rule left it driving on the other hand while the Peoples Republic of China drives righ hand. Left is not right in that country, alas!


Honghong has seperate currency -HK Dollar- and the Chinese who wants to enter HK has to take visa. Though HK is a part of PRC, it is being maintained as an autonomous region where only military and foreign policies are controlled by Beijing


Hongkong is the hub of Cathepacific airlines. They operate several international flights that connects the world. Like Emirates that makes the Dubai airport a favourite destination for the world travellers, Hongkong airport also handles hundreds of passengers everyday

The flight from Hongkong to Chennai took 5 hours 30 minutes. The flight was full to the capacity. One of the most pleasing things on board was the ever smiling Air-Host (not Hostess) who served everyone with his charming behaviour. His smile was good enough to soothe any discomfort.

I used to wonder during my numerous air journeys, if the girls on board slowly forget to smile. To those who started increasingly believe that air hostesses are no longer the people to entertain on board, this host is definitely an aberration.

I spent my time on board watching the Hindi movie- Stanley Ka Dabba. I enjoyed the innocent childhood that was charecterisied in vivid hues and eloquent style. A film worth watching...

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Victory Sports Club

Victory Sports Club was nothing less than Rial Madrid. What if we had no Cristiano Ronaldo? We had Ravanan . Our team was a star studded entity - one of the two football clubs our village had those days. The other was Nehru Sports Club, our arch rival.


Most of our friends tie their knickers to the waist because the knickers did not have buttons. Buttons fall as the cloth gets old. They could afford to only old cloths. Still their spirit could never be dampened. They were as cheered up as any one of us. Guys make a knot with the two sides of the front part of the knickers to make it tight around the waist. This exercise, like we do with our dhothi, had to be repeated several times. In fact, keeping the knickers at the right place was really a tough task for most of them.


Even with these uncooperative knickers, we all celebrated our childhood. No worry about first rank in the class. No worry about learning English and flaunt the fluency of our English in front of the visiting aunties and uncles. We found no qualms in speaking to them in our own mother tongue. 

No one pushed us to study. Perhaps lack of push was the reason, many of our cronies could not make to the higher strata of the society. Anyway, I don’t think anyone of us regret about it. Being happy in life is important; no matter how much is the bank balance


Victory sports club was founded by our seniors. They had a football. They used to play football at our LP school play ground. The Governmant Lower Primary school and an Ayurveda clinic were the two public institutions we had in Olavaipe. Now, in 2009 too, the situation is no different.


Those days, every one of us had our primary education from this LP school. The nearby Aurvada clinic did have many patents that time. Now, like the LP school, this clinic too is a crow scare in this village. The students of the yesteryears of this LP school take extra pain to send their children to English medium schools far away from Olavaipe.


Victory sports had a B team too, consisted mostly of the younger brothers of the senior team. Ramachandran aka Ravanan was our star striker. He dribbles with the ball with dexterity. To our standard, he was just like Maradona. I too was a striker! Our team had a conspicuous difference from the senior team. We could not afford to a football in the beginning. Most of the time, we played with a round thing made of rag. We then graduated to rubber ball of late.


For a long period, we played football without a football. Even with the rubber ball, we never thought we played anything less than a European League. To buy a rubber ball, we had to collect paltry sums from every guy and then go to Poochakkal. Rubber ball often gets burst. This was a great cause for concern for us as, we never had any source of income. The concept of pocket money was not existent those days. We had never handled any big money in the denominations of fives and tens.


Our play ground was the premises of our houses or any other vacant lands. Playing around the coconut and mango trees on the ground was fun. We enjoyed it. We organized matches with the Nehru Sports Club many times. These matches used to raise the temperature like in an India Pak cricket match. Prestige was at stake. We could never afford to loose to our arch rival. Still we had to concede many a match, though our captain Ravanan presented several glorious occasions to us too. Though the matches produce high voltage competition, we never quarreled each other.


Perhaps our upbringing has helped us a lot. We never learnt to hate or look down upon others. With a great sense of pride let me say one more thing. Despite the strong undercurrent of caste system that was (is) prevalent in the villages of Keralam, we were above all that, well, to a great extent. We lived together, shared our happiness irrespective of our caste lineages. No barriers kept us apart. Sadly the sectarian mindset will disappear from our society only when the much awaited big deluge occurs.