The adda

As a kid these were my two favorite fruits apart from Nellikayi (Amla) and Mangoes. Mangoes used to disappoint a majority of the time, as most of them used to be bitter (except totapuri). Of course I am talking of the stolen mangoes. In fact I am talking about stolen guavas, pomegranate and nellikayis as well.

Some of my most memorable childhood summers in Bangalore ( i used to spend a lot of time in my village in Chitradurga as well) have been spent stealing the above mentioned fruits from my neighbours. We also used to fish for Tamarind and Gasgase (some form of red berries) during the summer. But since these were mostly available easily ( and hence probably never tasted that good). Custard apples always turned out to be raw, so never used to fish for the same.

Stealing Guava, pomegranate and Mangoes required some exquisite skills. usually follows a 3 stage process - finding the right target house, spotting the right fruits and timing the plucking. (and sometimes you need to be "Beware of Dogs", screeching gates, slippery floors etc etc ). Apart from that each fruit had its own set of problems

Guava - U need to get the riped one and not the rotten/raw one (the ones which fell on the ground were for secondary citizens)
Pomegranate - Finding a ripe one was tough and the plant has sharp thorny branches and you could not climb the tree as well
Mangoes - The size of the tree was somewhat scary.. the risk outweighed the benefits

I can remember sneaking out of the house from the backdoor (hated those doors which used to make screeching noise) during the hot afternoons of the summers. Between 2 -4 was the best time as most mommies who are the guardians of the fruits/ us would be fast asleep at this time. Before 2 pm they would be busy with the lunch and post lunch activities whereas by 4pm, the milkman used to wake them up. We used to roam around the locality during this period, take a guess at the least risky target (some spying ensured this) and u would go for the kill. Each member of the gang would take a turn indeed.

You would end up with half a dozen guavas / 2 mangoes/ 1 or 2 pomegranate / or pockets full of nellikayi for a day, which would be split between friends and savored along with some uppu/khara (salt and red chilli powder, except for the pomegranate). Also you were to make sure you would sneak back into the house and pretend to be asleep. Unfortunately you would be caught sometimes, which means being reprimanded, complained which would ensure no activity for a week when you would settle for Tamarind on gasgase. (and being condemned with bananas and moosambis from the market, these were the worst fruits along with apple)

this summer there are still plenty of guavas and mangoes... some kid somewhere in the by lanes of Chamrajpet might making his steal.. we will head for the street market sometime during the week and settle for some fruits using HKD....

It seems this poem is written by Shishunala Shareef. Interesting. The translation is easier for me to follow (than the kannada lyric)

Kannada :

Gudugudiya sedi nodo Gudugudiya sedi nodo vodalolagina roga tegedu idyado manasemba sanchiya bicchi dinadinavu maho ambo bhangiya kocchi nenevemba chilumeya hacchi buddhiyesuvantha kendava mele nee mucchi burudi yembodu shareera idanaritu sukrutakkittu kolavi aakaara, kolavi aakara varashishunalanemba neera tumbi arivemba ariviya hoccho mojugaara shuddha gnana maelaeri daaridra deha suttu, hogeyu haaruvudu buddhivantara yeledu varasiddashishunaladeeshana torvudu


TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH :
Smoke the hookah smoke the hookah smoke out the disease inside you and feel good open the small cloth bag called mind take out the hash called lust and crush it put it in a chillum called faith light it up with burning coal called intelligence.

The pipe is like the body understand this.

Do the good deed fill it with water called his name air-tighten it with a cloth called knowledge around it. Let the purity rise up with the smoke burning the rotten body attracting the knowledgeable who will show you the path to the great shishunaaladeesha.

The recession has affected JOBS worldwide. Instead of layoffs if we could have trimmed a day out of everyone's schedule it could have been fantastic. You start your week on Monday afternoon and end by Friday afternoon.

The economy will not recover until Jobs situation improves and the jobs wont improve until the economy improves.. its a chicken and egg problem..

Lesser work days and increased holiday might lead to better consumption.. traveling and a healthy work life style..

Atleast I vote for monday afternoon start and friday afternoon off..

If you are Infosys 1,00,000 empolyees, saving a day per/week will result in 4,00,000 days/month. Shaving 5000 jobs will result in 110,000 days with the much more side effects, the rest 95K will spend a day of their week worrying about their jobs resulting in a -ve 380,000 days (without saving cost benefits)...

But the practical problem is the implementation.. firing is probably more easy. implementing 25% pay cut across the board is quite difficult for a large company.

One of the finance companies which my friend works for in HK did an across board 25% pay cut. People not interested were let go (natural lay off). I felt it was a pretty cool idea. (though it was not a good deal for my friend, as he did not get an additional day off / week)

China recently detained 4 Rio Tinto employees, one of who is an Aussie of Chinese origin and is the General Manager/Head of the Iron Ore trading group, under the pretext of stealing State secrets (as a spy ofcourse). For the world this seems very rididculous - a business person stealing state secrets.



But from the Chinese point of view this makes sense..



How??



Chinalco - A STATE owned aluminuium company.. who is having a big stake (12.5%) and trying to expand its stake in Rio Tinto.



If the Aussie is digging some information on Chinalco which might be exclusive then it is a SECRET



So we have the STATE SECRET being stolen and he is allowed to be arrested under the law..

As sunday rolls on to give way to the Mundane Monday, I am listening to the Kannada movie Josh's song: Thanthane Thanamthane. The song is played almost everyday, the song is somewhat catchy and self indulging. The music director has used Depeche Mode's style of Guitar and vocals. Of course, I should mention that the heroine (whats her name?) is pretty : sakkathaagi idaale.

Aley Aley is another song which is good, but the supporting music is too much (IMO).

One comment about the marketing of the new Kannada movies: A movie promoter must promote a movie not a budding actor's image. Instead of having promotional shoots, why not use the movie stills itself ? That will at least attract attention for the story (IMO).

Also, I am suprised by the number of posts on kannada_movies. Do check it out here!

Labels: kannada_movies

idondu extra chinte eega....

i was quite relieved to read an article which suggested that working out more than 3-4 times a week after the age of 25 is not healthy in the long term.. hehe .. this is the kind of articles which help you :-).. believe me even 3-4 times can be a stretch..

it says you will be wearing-out your bones and muscles and cartilages blah blah and you will realize this only when u are 50ish around..

so maaja maadi boys and girls .. remember physical activity once is 2 days only.. and alternate between upper body and lower body..

but the article also said avoid Junk food.. now thats a suggestion even harder to implement.. ayyo hogappa yestu dina anta avoid madokke aagotte..
"you can run away from junk food, but cannot hide from it", it gets back at you somehow.. except you are lost in a tropical island/forest/desert/mountain which has no civilization.. (any other places where french fries has not made its way still..??)

They came, they destroyed and now they want it to be resurrected.

The Tatas gave the Air India to the government, who screwed it up and now want a TATA intervention to revive it again. For what?? screwing it again??

Sometimes feels like its an achievement India still exists under such anarchy. We need to cross check if the country as a whole has been pledged secretly to some other country(Just in Case). You might one day wake up and realize you no more are called an Indian but a Russian/Chinese ..argghhhhhhhhh

My dream yesterday was interesting (at least to me).

I have read about many bag packing stories in search of spirituality. I am really keen to do such a thing. Steve Jobs has done it. Hippies do it. My ex-colleague has done it. I want to do it.

So this dream was about me going in my car to Udupi. I am driving near the beach and I am listening to devotional music. My wife asks me, "Why Spiritual Journey ?".

I am livid by the question. I answer, "To find the spiritual meaning of life". And then I am about to explain what this is all about...

There is a traffic jam.

I ask the neighbouring Honda Activa guy : What is this all about ?
"Yenu illa Sir, Shivarajkumar was the new pilot of an AirFrance plane. He crashed it in the Arabian Sea and 220 people are missing. But he came out with the blackbox"

I say: Thats fine. But why the jam ?

"Sir, Karave have blocked the road and protesting that ShivrajKumar has to be released to them".

At this point I wake up. I was tired out and frustrated of the jam and the fact that my spiritual journey was ruined.

It was 3 a.m.

Labels: dreams