So..Where are you from?

"So...where are you from?".

Now, this is one question that has always caught me off guard. I usually respond with " I'm from Tamilnadu" and I look forward to a change in the topic. But obviously, the questions don't end there. I am asked to zero in on a particular place - "Where in Tamilnadu?". This puts me in a spot. What the person wants to know is - "What is your hometown?"

I've seen my mother respond to this question with "We are all from Kadayanallur/Krishnapuram". This is my dad's hometown. Further probing would reveal that she hails from Mana Madurai. I have spent a summer vacation or two in these villages - thoroughly enjoyed them. But I wouldn't go as far to call them my home town.

I was born in Coimbatore. But I spent a very small duration of my childhood there, most of which I recall only vaguely (I do remember that my elder brother had a lot of friends and I used to irritate him to no end by tagging along everywhere). I met my wife and we got married there. My daughter was born there. So Coimbatore does hold some fond memories. But hometown?

I did most of my schooling in Tirunelveli. I met some of my closest friends there for the first time. I have a strong connect with this town. After I went to college, I was rechristened after a delicacy that Tirunelveli is famous for all over the world. And this name stuck. Very few of my batch mates know my real name. Tirunelveli is where I spent most of my formative years. Unfortunately, nobody lives there anymore. What good is a hometown if you don't have a home or folks to go back to?

I landed my first job in Chennai. I became financially independent here. My parents live in Chennai. I have a house in Chennai (which I don't intend to live in). But I have never had any emotional connect with this city. It has always been sort of a transit place for me.

Ever since I started working, life has taken me to various places - Cochin, Hyderabad, Mumbai and now Kolkata. But I still go blank for a few seconds when I'm asked this question, before responding with "TamilNadu". If probed further, I start with Coimbatore, proceed south towards Tirunelveli and Kadayanallur, and finally end up at Chennai. By the time I'm done, the person is either completely confused or bored. And it works all the time!

Can't wait to see this one

Now...a bilingual remake of "A Wednesday"...this should definitely be interesting!!

This time....Last year

Have been seeing lots of Gtalk status messages on "One year since ISB". I can vividly recall what I was upto last year, this time around.

This time... Last year... I was at home in Chennai - totally immobilized with a lower back sprain. The sprain had been so severe that the I had needed my dad's assistance to get out of bed. I had just wound up things at ISB and had shifted all my stuff to Chennai. Unfortunately, all the packing and moving taken its toll on my back. This in turn, had delayed my departure to Southeast Asia on the much awaited backpacking trip. I had been forced to miss the first leg of the trip. Fortunately, I did manage to get back on my feet, convince my parents and go on to visit Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia in the next three weeks.

I did miss orientation week at ISB, but this trip was totally worth it.

A message to Garcia

Very relevant message in today's scenario.



Courtesy - Bheem's status message on GTalk

Sorry state of affairs

Knowledge has this immense power to transform lives. I have come across so many incidents in my line of work that have reinforced my belief in this fact. Here’s an example.
My colleague VM recently travelled to his native village, near Varanasi. There he discovered that all was not well in his sister-in-law’s marital life. After a little probing, he found out the root cause – she wasn’t able to get pregnant. He got to know that she had had fibroids in her uterus. Apparently, she had travelled to Varanasi and had already undergone surgery once to remove the fibroids. This surgery had been performed abdominally, through a 6cm long incision. This had resulted in a long and painful recovery period. But after sometime, the problem of fibroids had resurfaced and the original problem of inability to conceive, remained unaddressed. So the couple had approached the same gynecologist again. This time around, the gynecologist had suggested a “brilliant” solution - total removal of the uterus – abdominal hysterectomy. Worse, he had also told the couple that this was the only solution, which was far from the truth. Needless to say, this worsened the situation in an already troubled marriage. Fortunately fate intervened in the form of VM who, due to his regular interactions with GYN surgeons in his line of work, was aware that the removal of the uterus was totally unnecessary. He confronted this gynecologist, who promptly retracted his statement. VM then brought his sister-in-law to Mumbai and got her surgery done laparoscopically. Also, the surgeon has assured the woman that she will be able to conceive through the process of in-vitro fertilization.




The alternative to abdominal/open surgery is to perform the surgery in a laparoscopic manner. This is referred to as keyhole surgery in layman language.
It is unfortunate, that a large segment of our country’s population is unaware about such options.
It is unfortunate for VM’s sister-in-law, that neither her gynecologist nor any other surgeon in Varanasi, was trained to perform laparoscopic surgery. Medical colleges don’t teach students how to perform laparoscopic surgery.
It is unfortunate that many doctors mislead their patients, to mask their inabilities and to make a quick buck.
It is fortunate that there are quite a few good doctors, who at least encourage their patients to try other options and guide them properly, before giving up.
It is unfortunate that unethical and unscrupulous doctors and surgeons outnumber the good ones by a large, significant margin.

Happy Women's day

I would’ve never paid special attention to this day (never have in the past) had it not been for the following reasons –

1. It was splashed all over ToI. Kareena Kapoor’s face was on every page. I wasn’t amused to wake up and read about how Kareena believes Saif gives her enough space and what she does on Sundays.

2. There were way more lingerie ads than usual.

3. Hilary Rodham Clinton had made a statement that investing in women should help us out of the current recession.

4. Quite a few people called up to wish my wife

I guess it makes sense to devote a day to celebrate the presence of women in our lives, since we do take them for granted the rest of the time. But I guess every year it turns into a gimmick, and newspapers and TV channels have a field day “celebrating” it.

Being the male chauvinist that I am, I started wondering if there was an International Men’s day. To my surprise, I found there is one such day. Among other things, this day is an opportunity for men to recognize achievements, project role models and highlight discrimination against men!! One more interesting fact – International women’s day was first observed in 1909, a full 90 years before the first Men’s day, which was first observed on Nov 19, 1999. Now, I wasn’t around in Bombay during the last women’s day, but I sure was around on Nov 19^th. I definitely don’t remember seeing Saif’s (or any other man’s) face on every page of ToI, giving me intimate details about how Kareena gives him enough space. I don’t remember if there were more male underwear ads than usual. It would definitely be interesting to find out!

Delhi-6

A story(?) revolving around the Kaala-bandar/Monkey man who terrorised the streets of Chandni Chowk, a NRI's cliched perspective of India, an oft-repeated message about Hindu-muslim unity...this is Delhi-6 for you.

The movie does have its moments. Using the kaala-bandar, the mirror concept and the Ram-Leela festival as metaphors to show that both good and evil reside within everybody, are smart moves. After the movie, I realised the purpose of the mirror on the audio CD cover only when Varsha mentioned it. Besides Abhishek Bachchan who does his usual "I'm too cool" act, all the other actors have done a very good job. Cinematography is great. ARR's BGM is good.

Negatives?? The editing is pretty bad..One actually feels like surfing channels on TV. The characters are all unidimensional characters straight out of the 1980's television show "Nukkad". This album is one of ARR's best work, but the director has done absolute and total injustice while filming the songs. Except for Masakkali, most of the other songs are shown in bits and pieces. And the climax - a big letdown. There is absolutely no build-up and quite predictably, the movie ends with a whimper.

Pretty disappointing fare, especially after Rang De Basanti.