Car Care

My car bears an eternal dent on both sides of it; visible ones. One on the front left door and other on the right back door near to the tail lamp. I have been living with it for the past 2 years or so. Neither do I find the necessity to repair it nor do I have the means. Now that I am away from my car and because it lies untouched for months together, I take my car whenever I am at my home town to all social gatherings. Being the introvert I am, I find my ‘handicapped’ car a good ice-breaker. People measure me up with the physical status of this car and ask what happened. Then I would start off with a story which has been repeated like a million times.

Some people offer me suggestions about I should get it changed immediately and that they know this friend’s friend who knows a mechanic’s uncle and suggest me to take my car to the workshop to get it right. I politely nod along. When this suggestion and advice goes beyond a point I would say, I have no problem in driving my car in this condition, If somebody has a problem, that is not my problem, and let them better live with it.

I don’t know why people are so obsessed with the external appearance of their cars. As far as I am concerned, I need a car to commute when it is raining. Ofcourse now I have  put my car to better use. It serves as a goods carrier – transporting coconuts, jackfruits and other stuffs from our (say) farm to home. I would readily offer my car to anyone who would want to fine tune their driving skills, although they might feel shy to drive around.

Well, I might give my car a facelift – but somehow I presume few more bruises are on the way and I would address them all together. Three main reasons for my not maintaining my car properly: one, I don’t get enough time spent at my native, where my car rests; two, I don’t have enough money to get it done; and more importantly three, I don’t care.

Just wait..

“Oh God, Acha look at my struggle. I am tired of shuttling between my wife and amma to keep them both happy under the same roof”, complained me.

Achan said with a smirk, “Wait until your son gets married”

Seat or Pride?

Assume you are the first person to get into a bus, from its origin. Where would you prefer to sit? Window? Aisle? Middle? Front? Back? Just behind the driver? On the last row? Beside the conductor?

Well, I’ll probably choose the one beside the conductor – the window seat. May be because that gives me a sense of pseudo authority. Conductor will not be at his seat during half the duration, which means the seat remains empty. Not many would bother to sit down on the conductor’s seat, due to the fear of losing out the pleasure of a (relatively) permanent seat. Only trouble is clueless prospective passengers checking with me if the bus would take them to some certain place or not. But that is fine with me. So my ideal bus journey would be the one when I am traveling by a window seat beside the conductor. That said, my joy couldn’t be explained when I found the above seat free when I boarded the bus from Sreekaryam to East Fort. Ha! Rejoice dear me, because I am on my favorite seat observing Trivandrum on the move. I settled, with my backpack now on my lap and waiting for the conductor to issue me my ticket. The bus crossed another major stop and all other seats were occupied by the time the conductor approached me demanding for the ticket. Shock !!

The bus had a female conductor!

I began to sweat. Big fat confusion doomed upon me. Should I stand up, or should I continue to hold the seat? I have to remain standing if I leave the seat and for sure others would stare at me. Some other might still stare at me if I did not stand. I was worried that if I did not get up would that amount to misconduct from my part? Would I be dragged to police station for ‘accidentally’ touching a female (albeit a bus conductor). Damn I forgot my hand kerchief as well, which I could use to cover my face from the eyes of media. Or may be the conductor is used to a male sitting next to her? What if she asks me to vacate the seat? I had to make a choice between my favourite seat and my pride. Seat or pride? Seat or pride? Pride took precedence. I was just about to get down at the next stop, and continue my journey in another bus. At the right moment my savior appeared in the form of an old man. He was asked to sit beside me – for the rest of the journey. Phew! I remained on my seat, proudly.

PS : Made up incident for the blog post.

Saving Little Kitten

Once I was casually walking around my home at my native and heard a soft cry; it was a kitten. I was aware that there were three kittens in the back yard and so I ignored the cry. But the cry was becoming louder and with increasing frequency – as if something is wrong or ‘help me out of this trouble’. I glanced around and discovered that a kitten got itself stuck in a broken piece of PVC pipe, with its head and front legs in one end while its hind legs in another. Clearly it got itself trapped inside the pipe and desperately wanted help. By a short distance from the trapped kitten was its mother, who was also meowing.

I wanted to help this kitten out of the trap, but didn’t know how. I being the engineer plus MBA was thinking abut the diameter of the pipe and assumed that if the kitten did not cry and exhaled, its stomach would shrink and then I can probably push it with a long stick. Or may be if it was left starving for some time, its stomach would shrink and then I could help it get out. But all the while I kept an eye on the mother cat, because it might attack me thinking I was troubling its little one.

I also thought of pouring some water mixed with detergent powder on to the kitten so that the pipe might get lubricated and the kitten could get away. All the while the kitten was crying aloud and little did I know that the mother was scared to come near the kitten as it was apparently worried of my presence. I have almost made a plan, but was scared to get near the kitten fearing its scratch. So I decided to wait until it is asleep, buying myself some time to design a method for its rescue.

My son came along and I warned him not to go near the kitten; so he was also beside me and so was my wife. We began discussing how to save the kitten. Unaware of this my grandmother (aged about 94) walked in and asked me what we were discussing. I explained the situation and warned her not to go near the kitten as its mother was close by. Grandma did not listen to me, walked towards the kitten, grabbed the pipe with kitten still in it and gave it a shake.

The next thing we see was the kitten running to its mother. Grandma walked away as if nothing happened.

It took us a while to realize what happened and to close our open jaws.

Just for laughs

Random comments from my 4 year old son

He was assigning characters to all of us from his story book– he was the puppy, his mom was the squirrel and then he turned to me and asked “Achan kozhiyaano?” [Loosely translated : He wanted to ask "And Dad, are you the hen?" but colloquially it meant "Dad, are you a womanizer?"]

Some characters in an animated movie talks about all things that go fast are made in Japan. He liked this thought and connected everything that moves fast were made in Japan. So he used to say ‘Acha, look at that bike, that’s a racing bike and that is made in Japan’, ‘Acha look at that red car, that is moving very fast, That is sure made in Japan”. So once we came across this man who was jogging wearing his sweat-pants. He took a look at this person  who ran past us and commented. “Acha, aa appoppane Japanil undakiyatha” [Dad, that person is made in Japan]

He was staring for long at the calendar hanging on the wall and suddenly exclaimed “Ho  pathu mani aayi, acha” [Oh, it’s ten o’clock, dad!]

PhD by KITA

A research student works in the principle of KITA. KITA is the acronym made famous by the celebrated author on motivation, Herzberg. It simply unfurls as Kick In The Ass.

Oh yeah, that is what we researchers do to get ourselves motivated. Kick in not anyone’s ass, but in ones own and not by anyone else, but by the person alone. That is only how a research can be done. Research can’t be done at gunpoint (data can be collected thus, though). It is to be self motivated and with some amount of eustress. The research supervisor often does not really pay attention to the student because he knows research can’t be done with force. There is a time for it, and it is for sure. Some may have to wait for it and others may have to build it.

There can be days, weeks and months with no progress at all. Nothing to do. And all of a sudden the vault opens and 24 hours seem like few minutes. That is when dejection, disappointment and disengagement makes way for plethora of activities in short notice. Hardly can anything be planned for a research, although veterans strongly recommend having a plan and research diary and stuff. There is virtually no research student who would not have atleast once wondered why has he taken up this task anyway? But the experience and learning is fabulous – not just the subject part, but with regard to the patience required, KITA, reading, writing, reviewing..

I am often asked  - so dong a PhD ah? How long is the course? I say ah well.. this is not a course but research to be done at ones own pace and interest, so it cant be compartmentalized into these many years. Takers are few for this explanation. So now I say 4 years. But what if this gets extended more than 4 years? I’ve an answer : I flunk in few papers and am yet to pass those, hence the delay, I’ld say. I can see those smirks in the faces. 

Time for a  KITA ..

Unflutter by

She was beautiful, or so she seemed in that split second when I could catch her glimpse.

But probably she thought she was ugly.

Well she was, although I would not call ugly, rather ‘not-so-beautiful’. This I realized after a moment, when she came close to me; very close.

It would have been bothering her that she was ugly, unlike her friends. Perhaps that’s why she wanted to end her life. She died; infront of me. In a way I am responsible for her murder. If it were not for me and my vehicle at that moment, at that spot, may be she wouldn’t have lost her life.

Was that intentional or accidental?

I killed her.

Or rather, she committed suicide.

I don’t know her name.

And I don’t want to name her, just for this obituary. Let that be a mystery. Just like her life.

Life in her cocoon must have been a bliss, and she might have seen hell in this world.

Rest in peace, dear butterfly.