Grandparents, memories!

I’m a small town boy, have always been one despite growing up in a city in my late teenage years and spending the rest of my life mostly in cities. And for kids like us, grandparents play a role in shaping us as a person, not as massive as our parents did but they always were there, they would wish you well every day before they got to bed, they would perform religious rituals in your name for your well being and longevity, visit temples and there would be chants for your good, every single time, they would tell you stories, they would cook amazing food for you, they would treat you sweeter than how your parents would. I’m fortunate to have had grandparents like that and even better since they were also small towners, we remained a priority all through their lives.

Today i’m mourning the death of my Muthi (mothers mother), a sudden demise, while I’m in another part of the world from where even getting to her funeral on time is impossible.

My Muthacha (mothers father) was the first, he died when I was 11 years old. He was quite critical and doctors were surprised that he managed to survive that long, he was 56 when he passed away. Well, I didn’t know how to shed tears unless I was physically hurt, I didn’t cry. Muthacha was a great man, an early riser irrespective of the weather, he would then make tea for everyone and he would call its ‘Vettiyal muriyatha Chaya’ (translating to tea which wouldn’t get cut). He was a God fearing man, has been to the Sabarimala shrine about 20 times. He was well respected in the town, even now people address me as his grandson. 20 years after his death, such legacy isn’t easy to cultivate, he was a man who managed to do that. And being the first grandson in the family, I was his favourite, I always got what I wanted. I clearly remember this incident where I managed to test his nerves though, I went hiding under my uncles bed and didn’t get out. Everyone in the house were shouting my name, not knowing where I was and it led to a commotion at the house, which I didn’t realise since I was privy to what was happening outside. And then, after an hour or so, I get up from under the bed, shouting that I managed to trick them all. Remember Muthachas fury back then, he thrashed me for the emotional trauma they endured. But yeah, that was love in its purest form. And yeah, Muthacha named me Rahul.

It was followed by my fathers mother, she passed away in the year 2004, she was bedridden for a while and even during my summer vacation dad would coax me to keep an eye on her and stay home instead of going out to play. And he would be furious when I didn’t don the role of the Man of the house in his absence. But she survived my summer vacation and later in the year she decided to bid us goodbye. I couldn’t attend her funeral since I had moved to Chennai for my higher secondary schooling and I had just gotten back in the morning when this happened, dad was heartbroken, she helped him shape his life, she was a person who remained highly respected in the family, took charge of situations, kept everyone together. She was an amazing cook too, can never forget the snacks she would prepare for my brother and I, him being the rascal he’s, would always end up donating the snacks to our neighbours and I would nudge her to make them again for myself. She would do it with pleasure, nevertheless.

This was followed by my Muthacha (fathers father), he is an ex army man who decided to let go of his career for the betterment of his unruly kids, my father and his brother in particular. He was given a warning by Muthi to choose between his career where he’s away from family or his boys, who could grow up spoiled. He, of course, chose the latter. He has been my least favourite, I always felt he took sides of my cousins and not mine whenever we had fights or arguments, looking back, I realise it was just a kids mutiny. But he was an honest man, someone who would sit with us and tell us stories when we were kids, I remember lighting the lamp every night and watching the stars with him sitting in the courtyard of the house. Those were the days when load shedding was prevalent in most parts of Kerala and we would be devoid of electricity for about half an hour to an hour. My most favourite memories of him is during my 9th and 10th standards, he would wake me up at 5 am every single day. Pappa (my father) was a chainsmoker, Muthacha has done his best to get Pappa quit. A really sweet thing I remember is when Muthacha packed a medication (the packing was so lovely and time consuming for him) which Pappa was to try his hand at, to quit smoking, one of those episodes when we all hoped he would quit but then he couldn’t. Pappa managed to quit smoking after his heart attack which he miraculously survived. Muthacha had to endure the pain, his son in a hospital bed in critical situation, I hope no father goes through that trauma, they don’t deserve it. Muthacha was also quite ill later in his life, he also had an eye condition which led to severe loss of eye sight. Rakesh and I drove to Kerala when this happened, those days when we would drive between Kerala and Chennai like it was just any other drive.

And finally, God decided to call back yet another beautiful soul from our lives, my Muthi (mother’s mother). I’ve spent the longest amount of time with her, growing up. Someone whose world revolved around all of us, if you were low and wanted someone who would be happy hearing your voice, I could just dial her. She would tell me all that was happening, tell me that I should visit her soon, pray that she doesn’t end up bedridden and that God goes easy on her. She had it her way, I’m sure she had wishes which went unfulfilled. But she had it her way. I’ve spent majority of my school vacations in Gudalur, with Muthi and I’m sure she has always looked forward to having my brother and I spend time there. Those delicious food that she would cook for us, those nudges to ensure that we got up from bed, ate on time. Regularly going to temples and taking us to temples, filling us up on family rituals and traditions. She would always handout a few hundred rupees everytime I left after my vacation in Gudalur and she would have be shedding a few drops of tears to see us go and urging us to come back soon to spend time with her. I will miss having her around in Gudalur, calling her up a thousand times before she answers and irritating her, nudging her to step out for a dinner with us. I would miss those delicious mutton pepper masala she would make, the best you can ever get. With my improved culinary skills, this time around when I went back I so wanted to cook something for her, something she would be proud of I hoped. But it would just remain yet another wish, unfulfilled.

I’m 31 right now, I’m lucky to have spent quite a lot of my time with my grandparents. Kids would always have a love-hate relationship with their grandparents, it isn’t easy winning them over and they are persistent most of the time. And, as we progress on our careers, have our own families, travel around the world, we tend to forget that they exist, that they think and pray for you everyday. My life without them won’t be the same, but won’t be very different for most of the times. But there would be times when would really yearn they stayed, they didn’t leave, that I had taken better care of them, that they deserved better from a grandson. But, I very well know, wherever they are, they would pray for us and they would bless us. If you’re reading this, I urge you to pick your phone and talk to your grandparents. Do a video call if necessary, I was trying hard to find some pictures of them with me and it isn’t easy, I was never a photo guy. Tell them you love them, in your own words. Ask them to take care and that you will see them in your next vacation, make an effort. We live in a small world most of the time, but when you lose a loved one while you’re thousands of miles away in one corner of the world, the world wouldn’t feel small anymore. It would feel like a burden, losing people while you’re running your corporate rat race and you no longer can be there when you’re needed the most. Spread happiness by expressing your love for your dear ones, relationships matter.

A long break!

I have been through a fall, I am not very sure if I am left with even a little of those writing skills I had but thought it is high-time I get writing and here I am, back!

I was just trying to go through the past and wonder why I in the first place started blogging. Way back during my 3rd year of college I started my CAT coaching classes to get that deadly combination of Engineering + MBA and live the dream life. And you have dreams of trying to get into the best B-School,somehow get that dream salary from one of those investment banks and see your name appearing in the newspapers, MBA graduate from a moderate family gets an XXXXXXXXX salary from a certain YYYYYYYY bank. This could be followed by an interview in one of those papers and coaching institutes behind you to tell the world that how influential has their classes been in helping you secure your MBA degree followed by the dream job. And work for a few years, then get married to some politicians or industrialists daughter who could either be not-so-educated or spoilt. But that is okay you get to continue living the high life with the help of your father in laws wealth and influence,may be join politics and get your hands dirty too.

But yeah none of these things worked out in my case, I went for the classes and took the test. Got a par score but never bothered applying at too many places and then yeah I forgot the MBA dream. In my class we had this soft skill trainer who told us, it is good to start writing/blogging since it can stimulate your thought process. It really helped stimulate mine, am sure.

I have gone through one of the worst phases of my life since I left blogging, not really the worst but just that things haven't been clicking and dad also had to go through a difficult phase. There has been a lot of learning, for one is after 3 decades of love with cigarettes dad realised it is injurious to health and the consequences can be brutal. Rakesh graduated. 

I had to just scribble something to start off with after such a break, writing is something I always missed and this is very close to heart. I will try to follow up this post with some regular daily-life stories about the monotonous life I lead right now. Counting my posts till I can get back to being the real blogger in me!

Love,

RM 

Turning 23 and in sometime 24..

I have been writing this post about me turning 21. And then I turned 22, sadly 23 and now in sometime I will be 24. Looking back at my life, it has actually been great. The number of people I have met, the miseries and happiness and loads of other things have taught me great lessons. I am always thankful to my parents for being friendly and never conservative.

I wrote enough about my life at Trivandrum. I kinda found that place nice, and it has been a long 9 years since I have been there and I badly miss Trivandrum. I have reasons to go back there soon, hopefully I will. Need to walk along the streets I walked before. Those Hindi tuitions(for those of my friends in Mumbai, I was really bad in Hindi back then. Now I can clear your Hindi doubts :P ) and those really fast cycling I would do on my way to the tuition. And Sagara and City Chef, our favorite spots for Fish Curry meals and Porota and Chicken Fry. Trivandrum was a foodies haven back then, I believe it is even now.

And finally had to say a bid good-bye to that wonderful place, was I really happy to leave Trivandrum? I don't really know. But by the end of our times there we faced real serious issues with our house getting robbed and those incidents were never pleasant. And yeah that was the first place from where I tasted Beer and rakesh too tasted it.lol. We had been on this family trip to Kutraalam(water falls) and on our way back we went to a KTDC hotel and tried it. It tasted yuck for me and Rakesh since then found drinking beer awesome :P. Then one really nice thing that happened was joining the nature club there and we went on this trip to hmmm I forgot, but we went on a Butterfly observation trip along the forest. It was fun.

And Pappa got his transfer to Vadakkancherry branch I guess. It was not really great coming back, I didn't have any CBSE schools back then closeby other than Chinmaya and getting an admission was not so easy there. So I ended up getting into Gurukulam, another place which influenced me very much. A not-so-great school back then, with good enough infrastructure. Coming back from a great school in Kendriya Vidhyalaya,Pallipuram my expectations were high. But here I found this modest school nothing significant to boast about. But yeah, there was good enough education there. I went with mummy to finalize the admission and stuffs. The classes had begun there and so I was asked to study well and take down the previous classes notes and stuffs.

Everything was kinda fine but then here we had this sets and functions in Math, which I didn't know before and the classes on that topic was among the ones I missed, thanks to my late coming back and late admission. So I was quite weak in it. And yeah the class, I didn't see any known faces the first time I went inside. Then I met Govindan, he studied with me at Gangothri 3 years back before I left for Trivandrum. A thin fellow, not-so-tall and he was just the same. He had this unique way of running. And talking about Gangothri, I missed mentioning in detail about my life there. I need more time to recollect, so let me keep it in buffer for later. And yeah Govindan helped me make more friends I guess, I don't remember how I made friends there initially but I did make many friends.

Yeah yeah, got it. I made friends with students who came from Nemmara, there was quite a few of them in the class and so I started going back with them. We would at times walk till Trippalur, it was like 10-15 mins walk from school after crossing the High way. And we would even have some snacks there. It was fun studying in a school, not much problems and tension. Only thing you need to do is enjoy and study. How easy a life that was way back. And yeah the first unit test happened. I guess I failed in Math and biology. Maths exam was like full of questions from sets and functions which I was not good at. And this invigilator, she would keep looking at my answer sheet to see if I wrote anything. And I remember not writing anything good enough. And while the paper was being distributed, I had to go through a caning from Binil Sir. He kinda liked me and expected me to score well, I very much disappointed him.

Then it was not too long by the time I made good friends in the school. There was Manoj,Sandeep,Sooraj,Sarath,Jecin,Jayesh and a few others who became very good friends with me back then. Manoj was also a new joinee like me and I guess we sat together. State syllabus was easy and fun. But then you had to be good at mugging up and if possible some understanding. If you could do both then its like the easiest. And forgot to say, since I was no mug with Malayalam, not that I couldn't read or write but I didn't really want to learn Malayalam since I knew enough for my calling myself a Malayali, I took special and additional English. We had a teacher from near by college to take that subject. So everytime this class came, we would go out to attend it at one of the last class rooms by the right end of the school, it was a make shift class separated from the Malayalam medium class for 9th standard.

And yeah the first infactuation at Gurukulam, seriously not my mistake. Everytime I would go for this Special english class, there was this girl in the Malayalam medium class who would look at me at every opportunity. Am seriously not boasting, but back then I looked better :P. And we played this eye-to-eye game just looking at eachother and no talking. Lol it was one way to get over with the class without boring myself much. And it became a habit, she was kinda okay I guess I cant really recollect how she looked now. And that particular year the State Sports meet was scheduled at Palakkad, so being a known school there our school was to participate in a small parade kinda thing and so all of us were taken to the college where the meet was held. And there this girl was very close to me and still we would only look.lol. It was fun, thinking about it now. And my friends would make fun of me saying this and that.

And then I guess she changed the school and shifted to somewhere else. Later I heard from friends that her name was Athira, and she was kinda poor at studies, that could also be the reason for her parents deciding to change her school. And yeah the school cultural festival, I participated in Tamil poem recitation,english essay and I guess English poem recitation as well. I didn't do one of them well and that was when Haseena came over and was trying to console me, yeah yet another great friend I made over the years. She has always been a great friend, got married last year. I went for her wedding too:). Thanks to the recitation or me not doing it well I made a good friend. And I won th English essay, I don't know about the other things I won but I did win another event as well. Not sure which one. And we had this interesting activity at Gurukulam called Srishti(means creation). There was this board right at the entrance of the building and every class was assigned the task of decorating it and posting interesting articles or drawings on it. It was a fun activity.

By this time I made friends with everyone in the class, the list is big. It was a nice class to be in and my place was always at the back. A back-bencher who would keep murmuring all through every class. There is lot more to write about this school, will be continued.

A post after sooo long!!

Am employed now. Boring life. But yeah Mumbai is a great city to be in, no doubts. It has been like a smooth job, nothing really interesting though. 4 hours of travel everyday makes me regret a lot thinking about the amount of time I waste travelling everyday. Enough of my current life, nothing great. I would rather write from where I stopped last year. I cross my fingers, hoping it wont be too big a post.

Life is always like a roller-coaster they say. And it truly is. It was fun studying, or the fun was that there was not much studying in college. My part time event management jobs were good enough. I worked with the IPL at Chennai, it was fun but it really showed me the other side of a this big event. Which I dare not speak about. I learnt a lot of things there, and the funniest things that happened there was that cause of my sincerity to what I did there, I ended up in real deep shit trying to stop the then city asst. police commissioner and he wanted me to be put in jail right away. I somehow escaped, I can never forget those 10 mins in my life. You shouldn't be the bad man doing the good job with the big guy!!

After ILP I did few other small stuffs, and then bid a big bye to events. I don't think I did the wrong thing. It was good to move on. And now Rakesh does events, he is happy with it and wants to keep doing it. And by the end of my 4 years of college, I found the love of my life. More about her later lol :)

And then life went pretty fast, it still is going fast. My results came and I cleared and became an engineer. I was never proud, I was just another of the lakhs of engineers this country produces, not good in what I learnt. No regrets though. That was when Pappa got transferred, he got Delhi first, with some force we changed it to Mumbai. The big Indian city, it was like a dream to be here. I followed Pappa to Mumbai, I was slow to follow him here, and he would pester me with messages saying time once lost doesn't come back..do something and don't waster your time doing nothing there..learn some Java or some programming, it will help..You haven't decided what you want to do next..and finally I booked my ticket to Mumbai. I had registered in TCS website a day before I booked the ticket and on the day I went to take printout of my ticket I got this hall ticket for a campus program scheduled at Mumbai right on the day I would reach Mumbai. Coincidence, is the term they coined for such an occurrence. And yeah while I was at Chennai, I used to majestically waste time doing nothing. Everyone kinda joined somewhere either an IT company or some BPO for the time being. I was almost a loner then, atleast for the better part where I wasted time.

Then I came to Mumbai one fine morning, got ready and went for the placement drive. I didn't want to inform Pappa, mummy or any of my friends about this but had to tell Pappa since I didn't know about Mumbai. I was of the impression that, if at all I get in then they would want me to work in an IT company, I was not very keen about it. I didn't come to Mumbai to work in an IT firm. But life goes the way it wants to, not listening to us. I got selected, thanks to that cool guy who interviewed me. Pappa called up mummy, she also came to know. lol. She wasn't surprised. Getting a job made me lazier, I became more lazy thinking I have a job and I don't need to find a new one anymore. That I believe is one of the biggest mistake I did my whole life. No regrets now, that stage again passed the test of time.

And I did attend 3 interviews after that, one was for a sales company. I kinda felt bad, cause that job would have taught me few things I am not so great at now. I should have taken it up atleast for a few months. Then the next one was another IT company, if I were in the interviewers shoes I wouldn't have picked myself then. I was bad at answering their questions, but they said they got what they looked for in me since I asked them why. I feel they had to meet target.. :P Another interview was the one I wanted to be through, but I couldn't, not having been rejected before it was not a good feeling. But again time makes you forget atleast a few things in life. And coming to Mumbai meant, I could meet many of my relatives I only heard about. And having met them made me feel I have company here. Thanks to my cousins here, last Diwali I had Pani puri for dinner :D. Thanks to Prashanth etta and Shefali Chechi. It is always good to have someone we can gel with easily at a new place, and here it turned out to be my cousins since I didn't have any friend in Mumbai initially.

Then my passion for finance and enough research made sure I would write CFA exam. I started studying and after a long wait TCS call came. I was just about to register for the exams then, but decided against it till my training got over. I went for the training and I can say it was once of the best times. I was like a single mallu in a group of nearly 190 students, there were no Tamilians and there were a few Telugu people who were born and bought up in Mumbai. So I was the only certified South Indian there in my batch. I made friends there, they had a difficult time coping up with my broken Hindi. It was really fun time at the training. One thing I really thank TCS for. It is not always easy to gel with different people, but it was great there. I could learn about the different states in India and know about its people.

We went on a lot of tours and stuffs during training, the Northest I have been in India. And I learnt there are a lot of places to be seen. I wanna visit the whole of this country, with such rich diversity. I am happy to have met some really great people during my training time in TCS. And thanks to all of them, I have a better Hindi now, though Java still remains bad. :) I would like to mention a few names here, but the list can actually go on. And yeah my birthday, not always anyone would have such a birthday like the one I had. Thanks to the guys for all the fun we had there. I can't say more about my b'day in here :P

Then I was deployed at Mumbai, an office 2 hours from where I live. I had no other options. But its good, I kinda work with a good team. I have learnt a lot of things. And yeah I had enrolled for my CFA Level I exam, it got over and am waiting for the result. I have done pretty well, the most effort I have ever put whole my life for any exam. Lets see what the result would be. I want to continue blogging, this is just an effort to kick start my writing habit again. A deliberate effort. But yes, I would be updating my blog regularly from now on, I at least want to do so. And its already too big.


Rahul

The unexpected workshop.. :)

Off late life has been kinda good. Not many things to do, I quit the BD team as well :(. I miss it, seriously. It was so much different from my usual life but I couldn't continue the work. I stopped working on events as well. I just wanted to enjoy the life of a student thinking of studies and future all the time. It's fun, believe me. Don't really know how I manage to spend all these lonely hours at home doing nothing still its like a different life. Things have been good. The last major event i did was for NIIT and God it was an experience for me personally. And why I resigned my job? Well I felt that I wasn't spending much time with the family especially couldn't make it for the dinner with Pappa,Mummy and Rakesh and so Pappa wasn't that happy. I would most probably be with them for another couple of months(after that I will have to search for my next destination) and the best thing I could do is to keep them happy. Now back to the NIIT activity.

I had to do the NIIT Edgineers activity in some 10 colleges but I managed to do it only in 3 colleges, not really my mistake certain colleges were not ready to let us disturb their already kinda tight schedule. And this happened couple of weeks back, my friend Naren and Rakesh coordinated the activity in 2 colleges since I had college that day. Then on a Saturday we had to do the same activity in another college, pretty good one. And all engineering colleges. So since I was free that day I went for the coordination stuffs that day. The flow of the activity was like there would be an emcee playing some interactive games with the students and then there would be this NIIT guy who conducts an hour long workshop on Open source technology.

On that particular day the activity was suppose to happen at about 11 in the morning and get over by 2. So we reached there and got all the set up ready. It all went fine and then the emcee started her work. I really thought that she was a good emcee before the event started but as it got progressed I blamed myself for having brought such a useless emcee for it. She had absolutely no energy in whatever she did though the students were kinda enjoying the rare freedom they got in colleges like these. And we were waiting for the NIIT guy to come and do his part once the games were over. But the NIIT guy never turned up(God knows why), and being the coordinator I had to do something about the workshop cause the HOD of CSE in that college kept asking us about the seminar.

Helwin and Naren were also there along with the that day for the activity and they asked me to take the seminar. I was having no other better option than do it myself. I gave it a shot, infront of 150 odd students and staff members in a reputed engineering college I was suppose to take a seminar on Open source technologies and also Cloud Computing. I started and believe me it went good. I used all the knowledge I had on open source technology and got some inputs from the students out there who were familiar with the technology and just kept talking about it. I was surprised I could do it, I didn't stammer much either and it all went smooth. After explaining I just interacted with the students to clarify their doubts on the technology. And few of them did come up with doubts and even the staff members had doubts, I could manage to clear them as well and no I wasn't blabbering some shit, it made sense. Thanks to my project on cloud computing without which I would have found it difficult.

And the students really did enjoy the session. They were patient and ready to listen. At the end of the session the HOD wanted to ask a doubt and all of us were worried as to how I would manage that, but thankfully his doubt was again on the lines of cloud computing and I could give him a perfect answer. At the end of the day it all went good. Thank God. :)

First post from Office!!

Hey fellas, this is like my first post sitting at my new office. I am in the business development team working to get Business for the company and keep it going. It feels great to know that your business can let the company move on, though I haven't started my work yet and all that am doing as of now is going through our products and also chumma whiling away time with those regular coffee and chit chatting(am the only guy doing nothing out here as of now). We are a team of 6 as of now, I joined on 26th January(if you are wondering why on Republic day, my shift is from 6 to 3am and I follow American holidays now:D). And if you ask me what difference is there between a BPO and my BD team, we are a b2b team who try to bring direct business unlike the BPO.

Its super boring for me to just sit idle and do nothing in particular. My team leader Kk told me that I can start my work by next week and that I will get trained before that. And my colleague Pavan said he will help me on how to do some online research on the colleges and stuffs like that which is part of my job. So in a way am happy working here. The only disadvantage that we guys out here have is that we need to come by ourselves and there is not cab, but thanks for my Pappa and my bike I got no problems in coming in bike and Pavan stays close to my house so we planned to use one of our bikes a day to save some fuel as well. Then comes the dinner, we need to have the dinner from the food world out here and its kinda nice.

Kk is in a team building process and hence I feel I can grow with this company atleast till I take up my MBA and this can become an added advantage for my MBA. This can definitely be a good platform to learn a lot of things in sales and it would help me when I start my own venture. Let me see how things work out over here. Wish me all the very best. :)

And you should be at the entrance of the Tidel park main building to enjoy the windy nights. Seriously, its super windy as good as the beach wala. And super refreshing, however sleepy you are it can just boost you up so easily. I have decided that I don't try smoking in the night to keep myself nocturnal cause I feel that habit can get on top of me and I end up being a chain smoker atleast in the night. And believe me its good to not smoke and work(not that I have tried smoking when working chumma :P). Presently I need to work on a software called proretension and it is used to decrease the number student drop-outs happening in universities in US. This software is used to bridge the gap that exists between Universities and students and bring the Universities closer to the students mentally. I appreciate the concept and the way they have brought out this business. As of now my company is mostly dealing with educational products but out technical team is working on few other domains as well and products are in the pipeline.

Turning 21.. post 4!! :)

Chinmaya life was a memorable life. Good enough with loads of happenings and stuffs lol. And when I was in Chinmaya was that my Grandfather died, he was someone who loved me more than anyone else in the whole world and he died. It came as a shock for many cause he was just 56 when he died and he was a heart patient. He was the pillar of my moms family. No one could really take it when he died. But i guess I was too young to feel his loss. I was in 5th Std and though I did love him I could never cry when he died. I never knew what death was like but for the loss of the one whom we loved. I called him Mani Muttacha(grandpa), he was a hardworking person, God fearing and demanded respect. Everyone in the small town of Gudalur knew him. I have seen him get up early by 4.30 in that super cold weather and go for work to Conoor which was 3 hours of travel from Gudalur, you wont believe not everyone can do that. I dedicate this post for my Muttacha, and I did love you Muttacha but I later realized that I can never cry and we do miss you.

I spent my 5th Std vacation at Gudalur with Grandma and uncles. Ravi mama and Manikanda mama were not settled when Muttacha left them. I went back in the taxi that had come to drop Mummy back to Nemmara. I did wonder why Mummy kept crying all the time those days, later I realized that it was her love for her dad. I don't remember too many things about that vacation, obviously I was missing Muttacha and his love and pampering. I was missing those days in which he would comb my hair in the least modern way and I would tell him that I don't like that hair style. I missed his tea(vettiyal muriyatha chaya means tea that doesn't get cut). If at all anyone shouted at me he would warn them and ask them not to shout at me. He was a great man. And this was a funny incident. One day when Muttacha and Muthi(grandma) was sleeping, Muthi got hold of Muttachas neck and started shouting Kallan Kallan(thief thief) it seems. And Muttacha had a hard time waking her up and made her realize that she was actually dreaming at his cost.

I went back to Nemmara after the vacations and that was when Pappa got the well deserved promotion and also the transfer. We had to leave for Trivandrum, mummy wanted a change and the change had come. So we all left for Trivandrum. It was one of the most excited journey for me and Rakesh. Pappa and Mummy had been there last vacations leaving me and Rakesh at Gudalur hehe. :). I have written about my journey to Trivandrum, check it out :).