DENVER!!

We humans usually end up missing something long after the incident or the related people have crossed our life. But for the first time in my life I plan to do the opposite; to post a write-up about my second home, Denver!!

There are some people or places which have a karmic attraction to us even though we may not have reciprocated in the same manner. So many times in the past I have felt that today would be my last day in the beautiful city of Denver, but every time I have been proved wrong and somehow my life has continued marching in this amazing city.

As I saw the bright lights of Chennai shinning below as the flight took off the tarmac four years ago, I pretty much knew that a long journey awaited me. I missed my parents and my sister, best friends and my bike. I slowly started understanding how much I missed Chennai itself. I had roamed through the beaches, temples, theatres and eateries and missed them dearly as I landed in a dry deserted land, Tucson. Though I would soon come to miss the mildly pleasant Tucson winter is another topic of discussion.

As my journey progressed to Mexico, for my internship and to Houston, for a short stay with a great set of friends, it was Denver, which eventually was to become my second home. It was end of summer when I landed in Denver and I was completely unaware of the extremely harsh winter that was in store for me. I somehow weathered the first winter, ice-skied in the second and am eagerly looking forward to my third snowy winter in as many years.

I am lucky enough to have my office in downtown which is unlike any of the other downtowns’ in US. I reside close to the 16^th Street Mall, which bustles with people even during the harshest of winter weather. The street mall is a mile long road, with about 100 food joints making their presence felt on both sides of the street. The 10 to 15 Starbucks shops lined up on the various corners of the mall street quench your thirst for a morning cuppa hot chocolate or Frappuccino. The united artists’ theatre had provided a perfect getaway on many a Friday evenings for movie buffs like me.

Denver is nicknamed ‘Mile High’ coz it’s a mile above sea level, which makes it an even colder place in winter due to its altitude. But the beauty of a place lies in the people that we meet and I have been really lucky to meet great office colleagues like Ojas, Nachiket and Nikhil with whom I have shared the most memorable times at my office. I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to my first room-mate in Denver, Chaitanya, who provided a roof over my head when I first landed here. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my roomie, my good friend and my younger brother, Arun Kalyan, for without  him, life would not even be half as interesting in Denver. Our Safeway and Gym sessions will definitely be missed wherever I go. A big thank is also in store for my amazing client, Xcel Energy, who have helped me grow immensely in my professional career and have provided me with a very friendly and cordial team to work with. A big thank you to my team-mates Abhishek and Alok also for memorable pleasant hardships we crossed together at work.

However, this post would not end unless I thank the absolutely amazing public transportation system that has brought me safe and sound during the freezing winter nights or from the many trips from the airport to my home and helped me survive without a car in US, as odd as it may sound. As I finish this post I do remember that it time for me to catch my free mall ride and my 83L bus back home with a beautiful ARR melody playing on my I-Phone.

What more can you ask of life? Oh ya, there is lots more to ask but this is one hell of a good start as ‘King Leonidas’ had said in the movie ‘300’.

Rainbow People!!

Have you sometimes wondered why people behave the way they do – either good or bad or sometimes, both? I have and so I thought I would write a post on some very interesting people I have met so far.
 
As mom and I watched a Tamil serial “Ethanai Nirangalin Manitharkal” (How many shades of humans), I used to wonder why people do good and bad things to others and sometimes to themselves. Many of these characteristics are transmitted from parents, friends and people we meet in the professional and non-professional world, but some of them exist in our genes by birth.
 
Over the short span of my life, I have met good-hearted, selfless people who would never do harm to anybody like my mother, father and my best friend, Narendra and many others. These people make me believe that if you do good things to others, somebody down the line will return that favor. I have learnt a lot from these people and try to follow their footsteps.
 
To compensate for these good people, I have met certain curious characters, whose main purpose in life is to keep disturbing people, to plot against others and make sure that they create an environment of distrust. In trying to understand these people, I happened to read a few books and also had spoken to some of them. I understood that some of them thought they were doing well to others while others knew that really manipulated people to their advantage. I certainly would not forget two dark shaded characters who have crossed my life for they made me understand the importance of meeting good people.
 
The third group of people are the most amusing ones. They are neither bad nor manipulative, but get manipulated easily. A classic example is a person I know who thinks he has a very good childhood friend but does not understand how his friend uses him to get his work done.
 
So finally I tried analyzing how many people from these groups I may have met and kind of ball-parked on a percentage of 60% good people, 5-10% curious characters and the rest in the easily manipulated state group.
 
All these three groups of people with different shades of characteristics form the different colors of the rainbow. I hope that, as I traverse through many different places and situations in future, I get to meet the only good people. Not all wishes come true or do they?
 

Rest In Peace!!

Early morning when my Chitappa broke the news of my grandma’s demise, a sense of shock overtook me. Even though, we all knew it was going to happen sometime in future, the real news perhaps delivered a sucker punch to my normal life.

My earliest memories of my paati were about twenty-five years back when I first went to my native place. She would smile on seeing me, invite me into our ancestral home and give me some sweets to eat. She was ever-smiling and so resilient in life. I have never seen her say that she is hungry or thirsty on any of our long temple trips. She could walk faster and longer than any of us.

She was always beautiful and ever youthful. The last six months were quite cruel to her as she suffered second degree burns when her sari pallu caught fire in the karthigai deepam. Perhaps now, she was at peace with herself. I don’t know how or what I would feel while entering our ancestral home the next time I visit Inida without my paati being there to welcome me. As I begin to choke with emotion on finishing this post, I hope that my Paati’s soul would rest in peace!!

What are you doing, Maddy?

As I patiently stood outside a small internet shop about 9 years ago in Tirunelveli, wondering what my cousin would be doing, she came out happily with a printout in her hand. One look at the printout left me in awe. For the first time I had seen somebody take a printout of an actor and it was none other than R.Madhavan or famously called Maddy after his very successful blockbuster movie Alaipayuthey.

I happened to watch the movie long after its Hindi version released on a lazy Sunday night on KTV and instantly I recognized why he was the guy to bet all your money on. Charming, sweet, remarkable acting skills and all girls labeled him ‘CUTE’. I quickly remembered Maddy from the one of the previous serials called Sea Hawks where he essayed the role of a navy officer fighting against drugs and mafia and added a lot of color to his character portraying his funny side more often in it.

His next movie, Minnale instantly became a cult movie and was also re-made in hindi called Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein. But my favorite movie of his is ‘Dum Dum Dum’ in which he essays the role of a young lawyer who is forced to marry a village belle against his wishes. This is one movie which I would have watched over 50 times with my mother (not an avid movie watcher like me), for she likes the movie too.

Movies like Run changed his image into an action hero and his last major solo hit Thambi gave him an extended lease of life. However, his career took a wrong direction after Anbe Sivam(his role was praised in the movie), and he has seen his career plummeting like the Nasdaq during the recent recession.

I read his recent interview where he said he had no idea where he got the chocolate boy image from. Oh, com’on Maddy, your that's your USP mate. Not everyone is a Kamal Hasan to be able to do anything and everything they want and even he did it only after 25 years of acting in chocolate boy roles. I believe Maddy should look closely at the career of SRK who was praised for his roles in Bazigar and Darr but it was the next door lover boy roles in DDLJ, KKHH and Dil to Pagal hai that has helpd rise to dizzying heights.

I was very upset to see a great actor like him just stand behind Aamir khan in most of the scenes doing literally nothing in 3 idiots and perhaps even worse was his acting in comical negative shade character in his latest flop Manmadhan Ambu. His next flop ‘Tanu weds Manu’ has only strengthened my opinion that he should leave off his fixation over Bollywood movies and get back to a superb lover boy role with perhaps… Mani Ratnam.

A romantic movie with you, Asin and Mani sir would be the perfect platform for your re-entry into Kollywood back again. I hope you can enthrall us all again with your million dollar smile and some fabulous acting back again. Hoping to see you in a good movie soon..

West Mambalam.

Sometimes as I ponder what I am doing in this place far far away from the people whom I love and care about, I get more questions than answers. Something seems missing from life and perhaps it because of the awesome place that had been my home for nearly 18 years that any place in this world would always not interest me.

Be it the dry and deserted Tucson, greeny Merida, hot and humid Houston or cold and snowy Denver, none can match the sheer abundance of joy and happiness in West Mambalam. With a small area of less than 1 square KM it’s always teeming with enough people to make to safe even if you return home after midnight.

Whether it is the two minute walk to a very big and cheap sabji mandi or a 5 minute walk to station where all major trains from South stop or a 10 minute walk to the bus terminus in T.Nagar or a 15 minute walk to the busiest shopping place or innumerable temples surrounding my home, I believe no place can match the sheer central location of West Mambalam. Perhaps that’s why I have never heard of any person leave my building over the last 20 years unless they had an appointment with Lord Yama.

Whats more funny is the fact that third floor apartment in my flat is costing no less than 40 lakhs INR. Well, if you wanted to buy a home in West Mambalam, you should try to contact Mani Ratnam to be casted in his movie to match upto the building costs of more than a crore in here.

Perhaps all these make my sweet home all the more pleasant and hopefully, I should soon be able to return to the place I love and to the people I care.

End-Of-World!!

When I was a kid the “End-Of-World” feeling seemed quite funny and remotely plausible. My sister would fondly say that she and her father should be saved somehow :) I hope that now her wish would get changed to she and her brother just being saved.

When I visited the Mayan heartland for my summer internship in 2009, the rumors of 2012 prophecy were so strong and had caught on like a wild fire and there was an entire section in a book store dedicated to that. I passed off the incident as a rumor-mill working its strongest to sell more books.

Even the 10 minutes of extreme catastrophe in the movie 2012 when the entire state of California is shown to be destroyed by a massive earthquake did not affect me and still the end-of-world feeling seemed very distant phenomenon.

But as I and my roomate were watching hundreds of homes being swept away in the strong tsunami tides that lashed northern Japan after the strongest earthquake in its history, I have started to believe in the end-of-world phenomenon and that our end is bound to happen sooner or later unless we take drastic steps.

I can vaguely remember my trip to Kalpakkam nuclear plant many years ago where I saw tens of hundreds of jellyfish being killed when sea water was sucked in and used to cool the plant. Perhaps the Sea god is angry that we have dumped every waste product into the sea that we have had two major Tsunamis in such a short period.

I believe our mother earth has been far too silent and accommodative to all our atrocious activities from mining, to drilling oil to torturing and killing animals and polluting all river bodies that the time for a payback is very near. Unless we learn to live in harmony with Nature, I believe our end is very near and I hope the latest warning given to us would open our eyes and help us and our future generations survive.

Harry Potter!!

(Trying to footsteps of my friend, Narendra Reddy by blogging often)

It was in my college first year that I heard about a very famous novel called Harry Potter. At that time, I neither believed in magic nor felt that I needed them.

Flash forward ten years later; life had completely changed to me and I depended on miracles to survive on a daily basis. So one day, in one of those not-feeling-to-work type of days, I decided to give Harry Potter a shot and before I realized, I was devouring through the book at break neck speed. I somehow felt that I was traversing through the same struggles that Harry was facing. I believe that everybody who read the book has somewhere felt their connection to this story in some place or other.

Even though the book lags and drags in some places, the friendship between Ron, Hermione and Harry pretty much carries the story forward and highlights the importance of great friends in our life. I was also amazed the ability of the author J.K.Rowling’s to connect every minute detail in the story to its climax. Sometimes a detail specified in one of the books is connected to a later book.Just awesome; coz I know how tough its to devise a story.

As I finished the last chapter of the last book, a certain gloom descended on me. The book series had been my best friend for over six months making me happy in depressing situations. I believe that any book I read in future would be a no-match to this absolutely great novel which has completely redefined the word MAGIC!!

P.S: Oh yes.. I have had the absolutely great opportunity to meet Voldemort and Bellatrix in real life. Blessed I am!!