Life in Kerala is a weird paradox. We shun development in its various forms, and are hell-bent against any real progress. All the ‘real’ development here has been forced upon us by the Central Government & Multi-state Corporate Majors – Rubberised National Highways, Cellular Networks & Telecom Boom, and the new revolution in Banking Convenience. The State Bank of India (SBI) has the highest number of ATM’s in India, including 14 ATM’s in Calicut itself.
My college is in a rural setting, 2 hours away from Calicut by road, with one town nearby. The SBI ATM here is at the entrance to this town. So, facing utterly disgusting food at the hostel, I and my friend take a hike to this nearby town to get some grub to eat. I climb into the ATM to get some cash. From the grimy, dusty outdoors with all the garbage spread around, we climb up a small set of stairs and into this fashionable enclosure, with design elements that are completely out of this world. After swiping my card at the door, a beep and a flashing LED certifies my entry into this restricted space. A sudden breeze of cool air coming from the two ceiling mounted split air-conditioners grazes my skin in a soft, cooling caress. I’m suddenly transported to a different, yet familiar place.
Back in Doha, air conditioning was as bare a necessity as Food and Water. With temperatures peaking in at 51 degrees Celsius in the summer, it was essential to keep them running 24/7. Even our school buses back there were air-conditioned. Somehow, living without it for a while made me realize how amazing it can be. Kerala, with its relatively high per-unit charges for electricity, caused by a cash-strapped state electricity board, finds a/c’s an invitation for trouble. Everyone can afford one, but nobody can afford to keep them running.
Meanwhile, I’m still in my ATM vestibule, enjoying the neat interiors, the glossy flooring, and of course the climate control which keeps the interior at a cool 16 degrees. The glass provides a wonderful pseudo-transparent window to the outside world, and all the sounds from outside are muffled by the vestibule. The ATM’s here in Kerala, and especially the ones they deploy on the Highways for the rural areas are truly a portal to another dimension. As I struggle to get my cash from the machine (the machine’s conked out), I give up. I’m not mad at the machine though. It’s a place that provides a unique escape from the madness that is small-town Kerala. A place that is so inviting, and so seductive, it makes me wish that the ATM machine somehow magically morphs into a big, shiny portal that transports me back to the commercial world, one of Fast-Food joints, Shopping Malls, and uninterrupted air-conditioning! On my way back to the college hostel though, the ATM made up for its rude behavior before. Another trip to my portal for a second attempt, I walked out 200 rupees richer!
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Feb 14 my @ss!
One of the worst days in the calendar ever… Feb 14 is loved by some, loathed by others. For me, it’s a perpetual tale of loneliness which becomes all too real on this horrible day. This time, however I made a point to not let it bother me. I wished whoever wished me (2 people) and spent the time trying to study, and work on my laptop that just made it back after a painstaking month of repair work back in Doha (to fix the DVD writer). Although I have a University Exam tomorrow, I was more preoccupied with tweaking the Graphics Processor to achieve more frame rates and visual quality in my Direct3D enabled games using the brand new Mobility Catalyst drivers from ATi. Any doubts now to why I’m alone?
I am probably a living manifestation of the Comic Book Guy in ‘The Simpsons’… heck,even he got lucky once with Principal Skinner’s Mom… There I go again, quoting TV Shows, just like the Comic Book Guy! Bottom Line: Valentines Day Sucks! (For me atleast...)
I am probably a living manifestation of the Comic Book Guy in ‘The Simpsons’… heck,even he got lucky once with Principal Skinner’s Mom… There I go again, quoting TV Shows, just like the Comic Book Guy! Bottom Line: Valentines Day Sucks! (For me atleast...)
Monday, February 13, 2006
The Gloomy Intro...
27th March 2003 . This day, will remain unforgotten for the rest of my life. I can’t possibly think of any other day that has changed my life so much. I wake up in the morning, late as usual… get my cup of coffee, entertain some well-wishers at the house… pick up some gifts. Towards the evening it was all about going around town, shopping, having the family pictures taken. I was busy on my phone talking to one of my best friends of the opposite sex (u know, a girl & a friend, but not a girl friend… heavens, no!), fixing a time to meet up.
Later everything’s ready, have a good meal in the house, dress up and leave with my brother in the car, after waving goodbye to my parents. We go to one of our favorite spots in the city, pick up a juicy falafel (one of my favorites…) and drive on. We pull up at KFC to meet my ‘best’ friend and her gang, have a great time and take a few snaps, exchange a few gifts. Then, all of a sudden it’s time to leave, so I get ready and say goodbye to all my friends. I’m back in the car, we drive a short distance… and reach my final destination… get my bags out, check in and pick up my boarding pass to Calicut, India. I snoop around the Duty Free Shop and pick a few final items … and then finally, board my flight. I’m all comfy in my business class seat, and take one last look outside the aircraft window and whisper a soft goodbye to my homeland for 18 years: Doha, Qatar. But that’s all I did then… it never hit me that I’m going away for a long time… that that moment would be the closing of a chapter in my life (one of my best, I guess), that my life would be all downhill from there. After I reach my country of nationality, I cry…. first a bit, and then so much that I’d never ever forget it…
28th March 2003 was the start of this new chapter in my life, a life alone… a life far from my roots (my childhood, and ironically, I came here to study in a place when I can get in touch with my ‘real’ roots!). From then, till now, sitting on a bed with my trusty laptop, little has changed. A flirtatious fling with my homeland, Doha, my country of birth, comes twice a year, once in May, and then again in December. Going back there is an adventure the first day I’m there, a sort of Jet-Lag period to get adjusted and then BANG… I’m right where I left my life behind. It’s a parallel life that I live that’s put on pause when I leave, and then continues right where I left it the moment I land back there.
At my ‘real’ roots here in India however, in the past 3 or so years, I’ve managed to make no real friends, land up in a third-rate college by sheer bad luck, and realize that I’m a 20 year old man who’s living in the present, but whose mind is so badly stuck in the past. Every now and then I have flashbacks about that day that I left, and realize that I should have taken that day more seriously, (like the last day of a man in death row, but who doesn’t realize that he’ll be no more in a few hours).
To make things perfectly clear, I have nothing against my country, India. It’s a great land, I am a keen political observer, keep up-to-date on everything that’s happening around me, patriotic about the way it’s developing and optimistic about its future. I love the freedom, the food, the relaxed way of life; I would quiet frankly say that I have adjusted very well over here. Sadly, I just happen to be in a hellhole part of India… down south in ‘Looney Land’, Kerala; “Gods Own Country” it seems…
The fact is that I really haven’t found the substitute for my ‘best’ friend. She was everything to me back there, a loyal friend, a comfort. The real reason I cried landing her was the fact that I could never ever speak to her like I used to (I’d get charged). I attended my first day at college optimistically, but never really could blend in. It took time, I’ve made a bunch of good friends, but I still haven’t found my substitute, a person who I could talk to when I’m feeling down, which is pretty much why I’m writing this.
Later everything’s ready, have a good meal in the house, dress up and leave with my brother in the car, after waving goodbye to my parents. We go to one of our favorite spots in the city, pick up a juicy falafel (one of my favorites…) and drive on. We pull up at KFC to meet my ‘best’ friend and her gang, have a great time and take a few snaps, exchange a few gifts. Then, all of a sudden it’s time to leave, so I get ready and say goodbye to all my friends. I’m back in the car, we drive a short distance… and reach my final destination… get my bags out, check in and pick up my boarding pass to Calicut, India. I snoop around the Duty Free Shop and pick a few final items … and then finally, board my flight. I’m all comfy in my business class seat, and take one last look outside the aircraft window and whisper a soft goodbye to my homeland for 18 years: Doha, Qatar. But that’s all I did then… it never hit me that I’m going away for a long time… that that moment would be the closing of a chapter in my life (one of my best, I guess), that my life would be all downhill from there. After I reach my country of nationality, I cry…. first a bit, and then so much that I’d never ever forget it…
28th March 2003 was the start of this new chapter in my life, a life alone… a life far from my roots (my childhood, and ironically, I came here to study in a place when I can get in touch with my ‘real’ roots!). From then, till now, sitting on a bed with my trusty laptop, little has changed. A flirtatious fling with my homeland, Doha, my country of birth, comes twice a year, once in May, and then again in December. Going back there is an adventure the first day I’m there, a sort of Jet-Lag period to get adjusted and then BANG… I’m right where I left my life behind. It’s a parallel life that I live that’s put on pause when I leave, and then continues right where I left it the moment I land back there.
At my ‘real’ roots here in India however, in the past 3 or so years, I’ve managed to make no real friends, land up in a third-rate college by sheer bad luck, and realize that I’m a 20 year old man who’s living in the present, but whose mind is so badly stuck in the past. Every now and then I have flashbacks about that day that I left, and realize that I should have taken that day more seriously, (like the last day of a man in death row, but who doesn’t realize that he’ll be no more in a few hours).
To make things perfectly clear, I have nothing against my country, India. It’s a great land, I am a keen political observer, keep up-to-date on everything that’s happening around me, patriotic about the way it’s developing and optimistic about its future. I love the freedom, the food, the relaxed way of life; I would quiet frankly say that I have adjusted very well over here. Sadly, I just happen to be in a hellhole part of India… down south in ‘Looney Land’, Kerala; “Gods Own Country” it seems…
The fact is that I really haven’t found the substitute for my ‘best’ friend. She was everything to me back there, a loyal friend, a comfort. The real reason I cried landing her was the fact that I could never ever speak to her like I used to (I’d get charged). I attended my first day at college optimistically, but never really could blend in. It took time, I’ve made a bunch of good friends, but I still haven’t found my substitute, a person who I could talk to when I’m feeling down, which is pretty much why I’m writing this.
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