Of black halwa and Wrestlemania 21…
The deafening silence was but an interval while I got a job, got my degree, vacated my dorm room, said farewell to IIMA and trudged back to my little village in Kerala. Damn its been an overwhelmingly pacy two years hasn’t it? And ever since those heady days last summer when my blog counter went ballistic I’ve had a brilliant time writing, getting emails and yes even filling in a few surveys on the side 
Now I have a few weeks of peace till I join AT Kearney in Mumbai on the 16th of May. Its been a terrible few months especially since my last post. Its been just one big whirlwind of work, emails, CVs, companies, recruitments, press conferences, impossible deadlines and some unbelievable results. It was a relief to be back home doing nothing, but only for a while. Now I am just dying to get a rock hammer of my own and find a nice little poster to tunnel behind. The languour is exhausting.
There was a certain poetry to the way the pope passed away around convocation time at the Insti. Poetry at a personal level I mean. I am not a weekend churchgoer by any means but the news of the Pope slowly, inevitably, letting go of life did tug at strings somewhere. I guess its the lousy feeling when one of those things you took for granted all your life is now no longer a default parameter. And trust me it does not take long to institutionalise some things in your mind. Two years and BANG!!! off goes IIMA and a lifestyle and another thousand things I took for granted. Sob.
Enough melodrama. Back to malluland and what better way to continue writing than with a nice little home-grown post. I haven’t been home this long for well over 4 years. And everytime I go through this weird mini-culture shock when I’m done changing and getting a good night’s sleep. The local temple had its Pooram a few days ago. Every temple celebrates a Pooram once a year with special prayers and processions, elephants, hawkers and fireworks. The size of the spectacle depending on the largesse of the devotee community. The local temple is not the richest, and neither is the local populace that nourishes it, but they still manage three elephants and a fantastic percussion performance at night. I walk across to the temple with my brother, nodding to everyone who I think I recognise and anyone my brother talks to.
I have on and off been at home for the Pooram over the last many years, but it has not changed at all. The shops remains the same, the hawkers come every year, and VAT or no VAT, the prices seem to have increased only by a shade. But this time there are a few handicams here and there and many cellphones with cameras. I buy the usual quarter kilo of black halwa and a packet of puffed rice. The rice will never get eaten and, like old furniture and luggage, will be preserved in the storeroom till we run out of space or the next year we get more puffed rice at the Pooram.
The black halwa is one of my favourite sweets back home. Treacly sweet and dripping with oil, packing it and labelling it “Permanent Artery Lining” would not be off-mark by too much. I have put on a little bit of weight since Christmas and everyone tells me to exercise when they see me. When the “lose weight, you are very young” talk gets on my nerves I tell them about my job. Try telling a “coconut harvesting contractor” about strategy and management consulting. They walk away with a look of feigned understanding while I jiggle away, belly and double chin and all.
Nothing at the Pooram costs more than twenty ruppes. You cannot spend more than hundred rupees at the festival unless you do something stupid like buy enough black halwa to cardiac arest one of the elephants, all three of whom we just missed by a few minutes. Elephants have a way of making their presence felt even when they’re gone. Big, dirty green and around the size of footballs they lay around till late evening when the courtyard is cleaned for the procession. Ironically that has an elephant too. And he is not holding back any.
Back home I buy an internet pack. The cyber silence is worse than starvation and dehydration. I install a dialer and tons of other crap and then finally find out that the server has crashed and won’t be up till the next evening. I tell them they are an ISP and don’t people have serious business to do on the net? Their call centre give me the names of a couple of other ISPs whose services are working. They could do with some consulting, I grin to myself.
It takes me two days and three more internet packs to get the net to work properly, but it is worth it. The connection is fast and there are many emails to read. I also notice that the site has crossed 200000 hits. Clap clap.
Since then I have been to a couple of weddings, zipped through the latest Arkady Renko novel by Martin Cruz Smith and fought over 30 times with my kid cousin who will let nothing but wrestling to be played on the TV at home. I try to change the tempo by playing out Jurassic Park 3 on the VCD player. The kid, who jumps for joy at the sight of Iron Cage matches and human beings being dropped head first onto steel furniture by a person called the Undertaker, is terrified at the sight of CGI dinosaurs. I have to pacify him by giving him a pillow he then uses to do mock bodyslams with.
In a way the dissonance is comforting. While I have gone from manufacturing to a website to now a consulting firm in Mumbai, home here remains the same. People still don’t see why I took IIMA over the one in Kozhikode “just a bus ride away”, chose a company they can’t even pronounce over a Tata company, and then when they see what salaries people get there is a moment of awkward silence. I always say it is good to know that there are things that will remain the same, even if I don’t.
Now I go back to my latest book by Tim Parks about Verona and football and random combinations of both. Hmm… I feel a little light today. A slice of black halwa should take care of that. Ciao all… and as long as there is only wrestling on the TV I should be writing a lot more.
welcome back…!
amazing write up as usual! talks about the life in the bylanes!!…please don’t lose touch with this obeservation of common and everyday events while you work at AT KEarnye and go on to do greater things in life. the rustiness that is presented touches me and the sauveness in your presentation gives a good after taste.
was waitin for a long time for ur blog. Jus when i was getting screwed studying this course called “fundamentals of semiconducter physics and devices”, i popped up to u r blog and had great time reading it.tq sidin.
keep reporting from malluland
finally!! good to have u back…ur blog was almost out of my daily checklist.
Hope, its only wrestling ..thru out ur visit home.
It was a room where few s/w engineers and two project trainees were working…
Suddenly i overheard the conversation between the trainees…(ofcourse not intentionally)
“that sites name was….rr…..
yes..sidin.blogspot…”
as far as i have come across…
i have heard of only one sidin…
got excited and asked those guys..
is he from IIMA?!!
the answer was YES.
Those guys asked me…hey..how u know he is from IIMA?!
I said,i know sidin…
and peeped into your blogspot…
and it was worth spending those 45 minutes..
which wud have gone for browsing or cribbing about s/w industry..
keep writing..thats really cool..
Rectian…
It was a room where few s/w engineers and two project trainees were working…
Suddenly i overheard the conversation between the trainees…(ofcourse not intentionally)
“that sites name was….rr…..
yes..sidin.blogspot…”
as far as i have come across…
i have heard of only one sidin…
got excited and asked those guys..
is he from IIMA?!!
the answer was YES.
Those guys asked me…hey..how u know he is from IIMA?!
I said,i know sidin…
and peeped into your blogspot…
and it was worth spending those 45 minutes..
which wud have gone for browsing or cribbing about s/w industry..
keep writing..thats really cool..
Rectian…
Poster… tunnel… “The Shawshank Redemption”, right? Man whatta movie and what an ending! Good to have you back, Sidin.
Oh Si-DIN…
Great blog… gets one nostalgic on Kerala. I agree. Somehow the people, the things, the perunhal - it never changes. And that’s the beauty of it.
Great to have you back… and wrestling it is this month!!
Enjoy your break…
Even before I read yer latest post after so so long, gud to have you back dude. You blog (uttered to the tune of ‘You rock’)! And now, back to reading yer post.
whoa.. look who’s back with his mumblings… welcome to the alumni fold
Now let all your creative juices flow, the way they did last summer… at wilson college and sai cyber cafe. Somehow you seemed to have written your best pieces in mumbai. Glad to know u’ll be back in may and hope mumbai weaves that magic on you again.
NicePita
And hey, may there be nuthin’ but wrestling on yer TV set. Fun as always, this post, I say. Chow fer now.
Hi, Can’t help filling this space..
Was just thinking about the post…
Even though we love the fact that things never change at ‘home’ - that very reason sends us packing away from the state.
The fact of how people can remain in the same place doing the same thing with the same people year after year after year really beats me.
But then, to each his own…
Just a thought :).
how I wish ur cousins bores u till death by watching the wrestling and u have no option but to write more
Skilled blogger Id say u are..
Just as ur name, somehow u also keep ur blogs UNIQUEly interesting. Looking fwd in reading more of Sidin Life
Cheers,
~Feebz
Just when i thought about giving up reading the blogs all together, you have come up with a good one(You in the sense that hope you(sidin) are reading all these plaudits). Good writing and really something that i could relate to. Maybe, i just might buy the book.
Thomas
PS: MALLUS ROKZ!!!
Had been to Chaos.Gr8 time we had there.
Enjoyed the time we spent with Total,Paro(still single??),Baba,Shrijith.. what’s up with those ppl?
P.S. Don’t quite remember seeing you during chaos
(There was Chaos,how could i see ??)
You have a regular visitor now.keep writing.
Hi da
Enjoying life ? Me at GS. Things are about okay. Missing home and you made me all senti with this post.
See you sometime.
8u1×0
Hi sidin,
i was checking ur blog site for a long time only to find that u hadn’t updated it. its a great feeling to read ur post after a long time. i request u not to take a long time for new posts.
Rakesh
priceless ,machan
hi Sidin - remember we’d met via LEM. Give me a buzz when u r in Bombay - my no is 30484001. You should start writing a column for JAM
btw I too started a blog - youthcurry.blogspot.com. Check it out sometime.
Hi Sid,
Great Blog. BTW Welcome to Mumbai. Should see you soon on the Mumbai’s quizzing circuit.
Amit
Hi Sid,
Great Blog. BTW welcome to Mumbai. Hope to see ya in Mumbai’s quizzing circuit.
Finally, you have added ATK
yes we get the picture. must be nice this village of yours with oily black halwa and elephant droppings and coconut contractors and doingnothingness.
i suggest you go for long walks thru your paddy fields by dusk shake some fat off and cook up some mischief to write on.
before we loose you to mumbai’s fast pace.
iw
There is a Hagar strip in which he is talking to Lucky Eddie and says, “I have travelled to thousands of places around the earth, eddie, but i tell you, there is no place like home”.
A pause, while he takes in the view of his house, after which he says ,
“That is why I travel so much”.
I would be joining Asian Paints on 16th May too in Mumbai. Last year, we stayed in hostels across the roads, but never got around to getting together. Let’s hope fortunes are different this time around!
Mallus & Kerala seldom Change. Everything about Malluland from the infightings in Congress to the student strikes by SFI has been existing since time Immemorial .
Sidin,
Seriously!!!
You cant be that busy at HOME!! You promised more posts… (sniff)
Post post post.
Exact sentiments are resonating in my home. As, I’m about to leave India in a few months, my mom still hasn’t found answer to her ques - Why do you have to quit this nice job to check out teh shores abroad and even go in huge debt for that?
Can’t give her any practical MBA type bullshit but have to only say “Maktub” - it’s written maa and so I go!
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