Interpreted,Not Compiled.

  It has been roughly nine years since we landed in the city of dreams - the two of us with a one big suitcase each and one kid half-the size of a case. We walked into an empty apartment on the twelfth floor of a building on a hot June afternoon, physically exhausted, yet high in spirits (Age had not withered us then). Strangely, I seem to remember how the first day in Mumbai unfolded with a lot of detail - insignificant things like the first dress I wore in Mumbai, first road-side sandwich , the first shopping experience in the very Mumbai-sh "DMart", the first person I heard speaking in Tamil in a rather foreign place, the first maid I employed(who promptly quit on me), and of course, the first meal that we ordered (in a non-Swiggy era). Jhumpa Lahiri, in her Pulitzer winning collection "Interpreter of Maladies",  insinuates through one of her characters, who reminisces about his first day in America with a new wife - about how bizarre it is that the mundane first...

I wonder why I took so many years to get to this epic. Reflecting back, I think it would have been a hither-imposed fear to read complicated Tamil or the thither- proclaimed flair for everything English, books and royalty included. It just took the first 100 pages of this Kalki’s magnum opus to make me comprehend the irrationality of both the above self and external imposters. I realized how easy it is to read Kalki or how much I’m in love with my Tamil roots, literature and royalty included! If there was anything real about an organic change, it is what Ponniyin Selvan did to me, and I could not but write about it. And, the good news is that, I’m not the only one Ponniyin Selvan has done this to or will do this to.  I see the people of Tamilnadu in a new incandescent light, and with a bit of narcissism that I come from the same territory. I’ve always preferred the dusky complexion, but now, I’ve come to love the dark-skinned Tamil women who adorn their wardrobes with ostentati...

Its been more than a year since I last recollected my ramblings together. The reason I'd like to scapegoat for the dormancy is the rather insipid weather around the year at Delhi, that caused my grey cells to mature a trifle too fast, rendering me what common-sensical people would commonly call  'worldly wise'! A characteristic consequence of the afore-mentioned attribute is a distinct lack of inspiration in worldly affairs! Maybe I had a blogger's block! Or simply stated, maybe I was busy (read as lazy)! Whatever deadlock it was, the semaphore that resuscitated me was the Indian house maid, an Indian lady's personal lady! (The astute ready most assuredly would know where I pinched that phrase from, it's good old Wodehouse!)  The average Indian lady (working or otherwise) rarely manages the household without a maid. Some ladies are loosely dependent on them, requiring them just for 'trivia' like the sporadic sweep or the ' pocha '! Some have...

For all those who didn't know and were not astute enough to guess, I grew up in the 'Temple City' of Madurai. Raised amidst the temples in the temples city, I once believed that there is no world outside this city and its Gods (and its eternally reigning Goddess). That was when I had barely seen ten winters (For the astute reader: this is a Classical English style of declaring your age, notwithstanding the fact that Madurai does not have a marked winter). As I continued to see more winters, I could not help but accrue a different set of perceptions about the place. Honestly, the city (or pattinam as it is called in Tamil) did not morph much, but I metamorphosed. If you pick a few random Maduraites who live or live not in Madurai now, (but have spent atleast a couple of years in the place in a bygone era) and inquire for any three spotlights of the city,  and compute the statistical modes of the answers, you are likely to get - Meenakshi Amman temple , Malligai (Jasmine ...

         I was born in an Independent India, so the astute reader can decipher that I am not too old. I was born in an India whose economy was still Nehruvian. Now, my dear astute reader can  deduce that I am neither too young. I was born in an India when Indian Airlines was the only airline operator covering the "major cities" of this country and when the Indian Railways covered the length and breadth of this land through one of the largest rail networks of the world. Now, a couple of decades later, Indian Airlines might not be the only airline operator in the country (thankfully), but Indian Railways is statistically the fourth largest rail network in the world, which my dear astute reader, has many implications and explications.            This post is not about the analyzing the track records of  the politics and economics of the Indian rail, it's more about cherishing a few romant...

This is not the Truth about Life, the Universe and Everything . Neither is this truth about the extraterrestrial 'X files' that is out there. Nor is it the Truth about some layman's doleful life that, when dared, gets intriguing.  This is probably the truth about the Indian State and one of its Estates. This is about how we as a state, are capable of manipulating the truth about what transpired beneath the tables, and between the cables, as well as the The Source could create the all-fooling Matrix. And this is also about how a sect of people called themselves the fearless media, go to the limits of the Source to extricate the Truth. The question is - Is their quest for the Truth ethically and philanthropically justified ? Consider the recent furore over the breaking news that seems to break every other minute in the assorted news channels. The anti-corruption wave that has swept the country and the consequent actions/reactions/inaction by the state has brought many camou...

Yes, it is Mathematics. I am pretty sure that to the astute reader of this blog, this mathematically  knotty question of 'What is' the 'queen of sciences' is a no-brainer. How about 'whosaidit'. That's Gauss . That wasn't bumpy either. And now field this - Why did this great German mathematician call it the 'Queen' but not the 'King' of Sciences? Or why not 'Father' of Sciences? Well, am aware of many such conflicting phrases and sobriquets that extol one gender against the other(you don't have to spin-doctor against me), but not all of them have the same grounds of explanation. So what is the  plausible elucidation to the original question in specific reference to the context of Sciences? I do not know the correct answer. And I cannot possibly find out from Gauss either. Maybe he liked women in a good sense.Maybe not. Whatever it is, this peek into the transcript of a letter that he once wrote to a prominent French female  ...

Are you someone who takes some common pills for common-cold? Do you love to look more feverish than fever itself when you have one and flaunt your flu? Do you atone your once-in-a-while restaurant sins  with 'Digene' or 'Eno'? Or are you someone who does not prefer those extraneous  antibodies and depend on your own body to corroborate its internal police force and resurrect itself during those "minor, 'mostly harmless' injuries" ? - Or maybe, one of  those 'home-made organic medicine' lovers. You could be one of these categories, or a few of these, or even none, and yet, there are fair chances that you would have had a family doctor, for atleast a while.. A family doctor is not that just that  doctor at the clinic in the corner of the road who treats your occasional childhood wounds. He (or she) is someone who you grow up with, someone whom you can talk to about your favorite cricket player or your most-hated school teacher, as he checks you...

Its International Women's Day. Frankly, until last year, I hadn't found the logical grounds of celebrating "Women's Day". I mean, what were we supposed to celebrate? Womanhood? And what does it actually mean? Celebrating the biological characteristics associated with the gender or the sociological fashion quotient or the political cry for equality? I had always considered myself to be an impartisan specimen of the race, rather than a tendency towards my gender emancipation. One of the good things about growing up is that what seemed incomprehensible becomes less fuzzy and likewise the contrary. I grew up.. Don't get me wrong, it is not that now, I want to celebrate Woman's Emancipation or Equality or cheer-lead the Women's Reservation Bill. I have no reason to do so. It is just that these days, I sense the essence of womanhood better. I can comprehend the whys and wherefores for celebrating womanhood - its quite irrational a rationale, for the woman...

I've never completely comprehended what the sixth sense means, despite belonging to a species that is widely acclaimed to possess it. Is it the ability to "think" or the sense to emote or a sub-conscious prowess to interpret the mystic, not so obvious thing or is it nothing at all?? In any case, the human species is quite capable of all these, manifest in different degrees in different specimens. There are humans who are more logical and there are those poor emotional creatures, who react and not respond, and there are those salvaged souls who supposedly connect with their "inner selves". For a healthy mental state, one would do well to adopt a melange of all these variants of the sixth sense, in the right proportions. Quite often, the brain is associated with thought, while the heart is associated with emotions. I don't think I need to provide examples to illustrate that, there are far too many movie dialogues than there are IEEE papers to counter them. The...

You might have heard it quite a number of times, and if you are a female, you should have probably heard yourself say it, quite an extra number of times - "A father-daughter relationship is special" ! Indeed it is..I am a female specimen of the species and I have been fortunate to be blessed with a beloved father. And quite understandably, I know that it is as special as it can get. Quite understandably again, I cannot experience the other side of this divine relationship..I cannot fathom what physical or chemical reactions take place inside a male specimen, when he fathers a female offspring. Having grown up from being a boy to a lad to a gentleman, a father might not completely understand what is going on his little daughter's head, as she grows up from being a girl to a maiden to a lady. And yet, (or probably thats why), he adores her..And the doted daughter in most cases, dutifully reciprocates..A father-daughter kinship is probably an equivalence relationship. This...

I landed in Bangalore as a Chennaite..a rather rustic looking Chennaite, with rugged bags, unaware of the local language, unsure about the people, uninformed of the details of my new workplace, but yet, quite undaunted in spirit. Not sure why..Probably I was born not fearing the unknown, or more probably because I had a self-esteem (bolstered by my life's past conquests of fears) large enough to combat this new fear, or more plainly, I just didn't think about it. Of course, I had the backing of a brief tenure in an unknown land in the recent past to buttress me, or rather illusion me into thinking that "I shall handle anything, I am afterall, myself..." That was probably what they call the state of " unconscious incompetance ". Sure enough, I did handle quite a lot of things , just that none of the them were what I had anticipated..Life has a way of forcing itself on you, when you least expect it.The beauty of life lies in its mathematically and otherwis...

I am terribly attracted to a crow these days, a one-eyed, one-legged black fowl which visits our window-sill on the dot at noon during our daily lunch. It is probably some sort of modified conditioned reflex, just that its my mother who had stimulated the trigger instead of good old Pavlov, and that it is the crow, instead of the standard fat guinea pig or the poor pretty white mouse. It all began on a customary note. It is an ancient practice with South Indian families to feed a crow with the daily delicacies (even a simple delicacy like white rice). The passed-down reason quoted is that the crow symbolizes the ancestors (" pithrukkal ") and that feeding the " pithrukkal " was as pivotal as feeding the existing mortals in the family. There is usually no dearth of crows in this part of the world, so it wasn't any surprise when a bunch of crows lunged at the pithrukkal-feed on the first day. They pecked at a few morsels, ingested the food, exchanged deja-...

I am frequenting a gym again..The "signs" were out there for quite some time..And I refused to acknowledge them for a while...until this friend who has a naturally sharp eye for these signs, acceded their presence..The pounds were probably visible to the extraneous naked eye...notwithstanding the camouflages and concealment. So, there's no time to lose..the inches have to be lost...There is this new women's fitness center in the neighborhood - Pink (Fitness One's initiative) . I enquire, I go and I enroll, for a quarter-term.Its after all a few inches...and wouldn't a few months do? Habitually, I look around and evaluate the gym (after footing the bill).. The gym has a good-looking receptionist and even better looking models, smiling with their shining teeth and half bitten green apples from the posters. And some more disporting those hour- glass or water-glass figures in various positions (exercise positions), flaunting their biceps and concave abs, and shap...

Somebody in my commute shuttle made this rather observant observation the other day - "India seems to be dazed with potential confrontations from neighbors on all frontiers - east, west , south and the north" ( or any of their angular permutations)....And that seemed to half-open some fatigued mind's eye in my mind.. Another somebody in the same shuttle nodded dispiritedly (his spectacles notwithstanding the nod) and posed this rather oft-repeated , but seldom-answered philosophical pointer - "What is your suggestion offered as a solution to all these world issues?"... I happened to be the unfortunate creature sitting opposite to this another somebody, and consequently, my eyes met his, just as he completed his nugget. And that eye-encounter completely opened up my half-open mind's eye - I blurted out loud - "India should inculcate spirituality to its citizens and the rest of the world".. Was that something close to 42 ? A quick and so possibly ...

Paradoxes are prepossessing...paradoxes in people or paradoxes in proverbs..The beauty of a paradox is perhaps its quizzical complexity or the challenge it offers in unwinding the wired "usual" perception of things in general. This one (the title paradox) is no exception...When I (the average human blessed with average intellect) try to discern the paradox, it fails me at first attempt..How can a child become a father, of any man or mankind? How at all would one elucidate this statement - biologically or religiously or spiritually ? Most times, the most intricate knots are unwired only to unravel more intricate knots, at times, they unravel some nascent truths, naked to the human eye and yet, nebulous to the human intellect. The title paradox was romantically nebulous to me for a long while (romantic because it had been stated by the most romantic poets of all times - William Wordsworth), until recently, when I chanced to watch this Tamil movie ' Abhiyum Naanum '. ...

I'd rate Pride and Prejudice (2005 version) to be one of the finest movies ever made, not just for depicting an epic love story with a steadfast screenplay that captured most of the compelling narratives and conversational nuances of the book, thereby limning the quintessence of the truly outstanding classic that it is, but also for portraying medieval England naked, and yet beautiful - from its head to heels - from the 18th century English dance to the countryside gossip, the horse chariot to paper-ink-pen, English breakfast to the study, the ladies gowns to the men's boots.... and of course the ostentatious English pride... The English are supposedly proud folks...not just the Knights and the Dames, but every English butler and governess was known to be proud."The Sun never sets in the British empire" is a well-known anthem that aptly delineates their pride...And honestly, they had every reason to be...They'd ruled almost half of the globe, they've given...

This blog post is a digression...this is about my beloved bleeding country - India. Until a few days back, I'd been one of those unpatriotic, if not disloyal Indian taxpayer, too busy in quotidian qualms (like tax calculation) to be worried about the Indian state. To me or my "techie" associates, Indian politics or any banter bordering it, served as a contentious lunch-time discussion, and was comfortably forgotten on returning back to our qualms. This Nov 26, a few young men changed it. It's been more than a week now, the Mumbai episode and the sad state of India continues to plague me. Public memory is supposedly short-lived, mine is shorter-lived, and lest I forget, here's the post... There were terror strikes...lives were taken away in a way that was not supposed to be... feelings of apprehension, gloom and anger ensued amongst the Indian diaspora... a few political positions were re-arranged ...and with the mundane necessities of the lives that exist, amid...

Before you proceed, stop right now and answer this question - How superstitious are you? 0% - bad, 100% - worse, 50-50 - well, no comments..If unable to answer that direct question, answer these auxilliary pointers - Do you believe that your prayer would be answered the way you want it to be, when a gecko chirps (what do you call that irreproducible sound that geckos make) ? Do you check the Raahu Kaalam of the day when you kick start a new course? Do you wear the same dress that you wore on a successful interview, for every damn interview you attend, even if it is unkempt? Do you believe that the ring of a bell (be it a bicyclist's bell or a telephone bell ) asserts an event that you are discussing then at the precise moment? More generally, do you associate events and happenings in the present with the signs of the past and more importantly, do you predict the future with the signs and superstitions of the present? My Superstition Quotient (Its a new word I've coined skil...

No, this post is not another rave review of the recent film, nor is a critical analysis of the book by the same name, nor is it about Aishwarya Rai, the lead actor in the film. This post is about every Indian woman who happens to command the kitchen, be it sugar or spices, carrots or coconuts, halwa or their husbands who linger around longingly.....this post is dedicated to that Indian Woman...The Mistress of Spices.... Everybody loves their mother's food. A mom-made sambar is way better than a McDonald's burger or even a Subway sandwich and healthier too...simply because of the spices or the lack of it...more because she knows how you'd like it.. I love my mom's food too...I grew up savoring the various delicacies, be it idlis or mysore pak s. Yes, I did call idlis a delicacy. Its after all, mom-made..I can go down listing all my favorite recipes that my mom does, extolling her above all creatures, but I curtail myself, not just because of space constraints, but bec...