I wanted to title this entry as “Proud to be mallu – II” but then I had quite a few things to scribble in and the ideas were too varied. Essence of that title being the part where Onam just went by and I felt endearingly close to my family and culture. Physically far away but still so close. The idea of going back to Pune and home thereby seems so alluring. I spent the day with my family in Bangalore which included and are limited to Ravi uncle, Radha aunty, my cousins; Ammu and Kuttapi and granny. I always knew about the fact that Radha aunty would never let me miss home. She’s an amazing cook, a very concerned mom and a very easy person to connect with. I’d always agree that I’m much closer to her than I’m to my uncle.
The day began with breakfast that included something called “Ada” this is made up of rice dough which is stuffed with jaggery, bananas, coconut and then baked. Another version of the very famous malayali rice cakes or “puttu” if you might. The only difference is that “puttu” is baked in powdered form and this here is roughed up and doughed like the dough you’d beat wheat up into to make chappatis. That and cooked up bananas (don’t try to imagine this because non-mallu’s just find this gross and distasteful, but we the mallu’s dig it!) formed the initial part of the breakfast. I then stuffed myself up with chips and some other tasty tit bits! I was so full that I could not move. We then headed to a temple nearby and I prayed my heart out. Here was when I discovered that I’m extremely pious during occasions like these. I smirked when I prayed cause god must know about how busy I am, tssk tssk.
We then got back home and I introduced Kuttapi to Ubuntu; which had already caught his attention when using it at my place. We got it installed and he needed all the programms that I had running. They use BSNL broadband at their place and I realized how much it sucks. I somehow managed to get almost all the important programms installed and asked him to do the rest. I am forgetful and thats something that came to me like an nth-fiddle. I had installed Ubuntu at my place a few months back and I had performed manual partitioning flawlessly but I forgot how to do it and had to google it out. Damn! I dunno, I feel sometimes as though there is a lot of space up in my brains. My memory is unused and its decaying up there. If small things like these don’t stick why do I even have a brain? Pfft. Lunch called and its aroma filled the air dragging me from in front of the computer right upto the table. Radha aunty’s lunch tasted amazing all spicy and full of love. Again, I stuffed myself up and headed home to watch some tv and relax. Which is precisely what I did. I’ve been watching all the mallu movies that TV could show within the last 3 days and I feel closer to who I am when I’m with my people, my language, my movies. I feel owned by malluism!
I couldn’t get much sleep on Saturday after shift since I had to attend the workshop. This time it was arranged to be at this really endearing place called “Alliance Francaise” which I assume was largely to introduce the French language and its culture to people interested. The language, its art and other things falling in its agenda. Also, plays and other forms of creative expressions seemed to be all over the place. It was a green-spot, serene and I loved it there. The ambience is still stuck to my head and I’m not sure if they charged a lot but then this was way better than being at a noisy coffee shop. We discussed play-writing this time and a play-writer called Abhishek spoke to us about his experiences with play writing. It was interesting even though play-writing isn’t one of my things. I enjoyed the whole discussion nevertheless and I’d love to see how people enact these plays when its presented next week. It’d be funny. I can’t act or talk stage for nuts and it’d be really embarassing if I have to! Connecting to people still seems to be a difficult thing for me to do and all I can do for now is try. I don’t want to push myself too hard anyway.
It was raining boredom today cause I had to work the morning shift because of Hemant the dickhead. It was his birthday today and this was why I agreed to work in place of him for today. Anyway, I watched tv throughout the day and slept some. There wasn’t much to do and it was one of those really boring days. Music, writing and tv helped me passed my time as I felt myself starve till like 4. Hunger pangs struck somewhere around this time and I ran over to Radha aunty’s and devoured everything I saw. By that time I was dying for it to be 6 and the final two hours seemed to be the slowest. Finally, I drove down to Ajay’s and we went over to Purple Haze since I was in the mood for some rock music. Chetan was reluctant but then he tries to not say a no to me. Thanks Chetan, we needed you to sing along. Purple Haze was loud but the DJ played some good music along with videos and man it pushed my adreneline level up and I enjoyed being there and head banging to some really nice rock music. I heard a couple of songs that I really liked and I’m listening to them now. Neat place overall, Purple Haze. I heard from a few acquaintances though that it wasn’t as good as it used to be and that its lost its charm. I’m not sure, I liked the place anyway. Chetan said that the repeat the music over and over again, everyday. That’d be annoying to the regulars!
So thats it for today. I’m not too sleepy cause I had some redbull and I feel fresh as ever. Might watch a movie or two and then get some reading done. I fiddled around a bit and found this theme. Its inspired from the devine design of deviantart and I love the way it looks. I really don’t care much about what others feel about this design. Its staying for the time being cause I like it. Might go out with Chetan tomorrow. I had tons more to write, but then I choose not to, cause its pointless. Delhi blasts, over 30 dead. Whats the point in writing about it? Terrorism seems to be something we Indians have learnt to live with! Its no biggie, I guess. “Ohh, a bomb? Cool, how many did it kill this time?” Bastards, what do you get out of this? You kill 30 and within 30 minutes India would have replaced those bodies with different souls somewhere else. You just can’t kill us, you know? We’re like a never ending plague spreading and we’re spreading fast. How many do you think you can kill with your puny bombs? I loathe your existance and your attempts at bringing about an Islamic rule (or whatever the reason be) is futile. We will prevail and one fine day your ways will seize to exist. So suck it up and leave now.
-Anup