My Pot of Avial

Dear Vineeth, Before the fanboys start sending me death threats or hate mails, please read on till the end. Thanks to being a product of the malayali NRI kid-sent to boarding school scheme, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my grandfather during the vacations. The long hours spent sitting next to him and letting him go into flashback mode, made me realize that it wasn't just his male pattern baldness that I would inherit. I wasn't that bad in narrating stories in animated ways. It was like my appachan just handed me the key to open up my mind to the infinite stories that the wonderful dream factory in our head could produce. Fast forward to Chennai in 2000, and I huddled up with a bunch of friends in a room at Gemini hostel to watch what I consider a milestone in story writing, The Truman Show. The titles rolled in and a few minutes later, the chirpy and extremely likable Truman waves out to his fake neighbors and tell them, " Good morning, and in case I

A few weeks ago my father blew out 59 candles on a cake that was meant to remind him of the day he parted ways with his umbilical cord. I sure don't think he's any less handsome looking than he was in his late 30's or early 40's but he's sure to get a few pats on his back reminding him about the 60's Club that he will soon be a patron of. It isn't hearsay that the 50's are the new 30's with a good word of thanks to Botox. But who cares, Botox and the several over the counter age defying drugs are the recreational drugs of the half centurions. Oh and not to forget a huge round of applause and praise for the Blue Pill. I loathe at the very thought of having a pseudo metro sexual parent in their 60's but I'm comforted by the close to zero chances of that happening. The fear does return in a chilling way looking at what my father's more accomplished peers are doing in Tinsel town!! Self denial is unfortunately a strong trait in my DNA, but

If someone were to ask me what the month of May 2011 meant to me, I'd probably talk about the demise of Macho Man Randy Savage. This man taught me what flamboyance is all about. He was the closest incarnation of a jock-strapped superhero to me as a kid. Guess he wasn't too super enough - the man drove off the asphalt to his death. Well, his demise MIGHT probably be something I might remember for a few years but the month of May 2011 is all about Pay It Forward. To those who're still guessing - it's a movie I just finished watching and it gave me goosebumps those felt like I could burst a vein. A real simple plot that could be hard to comprehend to those who've lost every last ounce of compassion in them owing to this rat race we call LIFE. A kid decides to help three people in a way that could change their lives for the better....BUT they have to in turn help three other people. Simple ain't it? Too stupid for an adult. Which is why we added some capitalism to

"Monne, do not touch that box. It's not for kids" is a sentence almost every parent comes fitted with from the factory. And don't we love to pay absolutely no heed to it? Well, I'd like to thank my father for always putting up those "Out of Bounds" instructions while I was growing up. That one sentence molded me into this curious bloke!! I broke almost every single one of those threats. Way of life, ain't it? Once the wonder years are over, there comes more rules in the form of Government laws, Traffic rules, Women's right(lol) and the worst of all....Grammar!!! A bunch of whackos sat and framed "verbs, nouns, objects, past participles....." and we ended up with those big red circles on our exam answer sheets???? So much for freedom of expression. I'm stoked at the very thought of the endless possibility of mind-bending dialogues that could have existed if not for the iron grip of Mr.Grammar. Grammar has made most of us creative

I hail from a land that's long been associated for the toddy it produces, the amusing act of mass immigration and the ever increasing alcohol consumption ratio. I take pride in the fact that I have indulged in all 3 of them - and lavishly that too. The pale colored toddy isn't exactly what I'd like to down in a bar, but none the less when you're sitting on a boat surrounded by a canvas that's dotted with coconut palm trees - a glass of amber colored drink doesn't paint the right picture. Immigrating to any corner of the world is definitely something I can teach at some university. The Great Mallu* Dream is something that we mallus know best and we don't like franchising it. I'm a Gelf born and raised Mallu who ended up in the "States" to live the Great Mallu Dream as opposed to the what the Yanks think(NYU - Class of Cultural Adaptability....any takers???). An NRI Mallu will earn in Dollars, Riyals, Dinars, Dirhams or even Yen but they all end

For those of you who've survived to read my minuscule share of cyber "space" can spot the filmy undertones to most of the posts on here. It takes me a lot of mental resistance to keep it minimal but I'm for some reason one of those film smitten blokes. A conversation that involves me isn't really complete without a reference to a movie. I ain't one of those uber-cool guys who can pull off dialogues from a 1930's classic. I can't even remember the exact words that Rose told Jack when he was getting his one way ticket confirmed to the depths of the Atlantic. Despite the spectacularly low gray matter performance, I'd love to address myself as a movie buff. And I can put up a mighty tantrum if someone thinks otherwise. A couple of days ago I spent a good 10 bucks on a movie that fried the rest of what my cranial cavity held. Equipped with my pseudo film critic look I waited as the titles came on. They began explaining the modus operandi of how they got