It is all in a name!

We all come into this world without anything, but go with a name. For example I was born son of John Mary and Prema John. Weight- 2.5 kg. But when I die it will be Arun John (1986-!!!!). I have my name to go with me.

I consider myself very fortunate that I have a good name to call myself, a rather common name but still you would think it is a weird name. Now let me admit, I have been a very mean person. I have asked some people their name and when it sounded weird I have laughed and spread the word that so and so guy/girl has a very funny name!

Naming is not limited to just naming people, be it naming political parties, auto rickshaws, movies, shops! At this point I am forced to ask myself a couple of questions...

Why would anyone name a party DIC(K)? Trust me...the nonagenarian from Kerala Mr K. Karunakaran did name his party that. Expanded it reads Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran)....but who cares!

What crime did Hussain commit before birth to get the initials MF? ...And Sheila Dikshit!!!

Why did the lady who liked Darjeeling so much name her own son Darjeeling!!! I heard America too

You might not believe me but there are people walking with the names Emergency, Particular, Prophecy etc...

I know somebody whose second name was Bang!!! However you pronounce it.

Why do Malayali’s name their wards after their dad and mom? For example if the kids name is Thangamma, there are high chances that the father’s name is Thangachan and mother’s name Ponnamma. If a person’s name is Sheeja, the chances are the father’s name will be Shivan or Shashi and mother’s name Jancy, Janu etc...

I saw a Tiffin box brand name ‘Hot Guy’. I can’t help assume this was a marketing strategy. Like a girl could message her friend...“I am taking the ‘hot guy’ home” and she wouldn’t be bluffing.

It is true, all of us are not blessed with awesome names...but I am happy that my parents weren’t one of those who vowed that they would break all conventional naming patterns.

The list can never end. Dearest readers of my blog...do post anything funny you find like this. I wouldn’t mind a good laugh.

Chinna break

Hi All

Sorry for the long break. I was on a vacation and still is. My stint with Delhi is over and my stunt with life is taking a new turn. Very true to the phrase "Like a rolling Stone" I've decided to be just to it. I am going to do a program with the All India Radio, Hyderabad on the History of Rock ( and I mean the music genre!) by mid March.

I am in God's own country now and I am enjoying my stay here. Will get back to you all real soon with some bullshit or the other. Till then okka chinna break mamu!

Delhi Diaries

Yet another chapter is coming to an end. In another week I shall wave good bye to Delhi at least for the time being. Being in the media and aspiring to do something good for the nation (Now don't say, go die!) New Delhi is inevitable. How much ever you don't like the place it beholds a zillion opportunities.

Every time I go back from Delhi after my short stay I go back a wiser man, or at least I think so. This stint was no different. Delhi taught me many things:

(1) Police all over the country are fools, some are bloody fools (they try to enforce the law).

(2) Delhi's street book shops and second hand book shops have a better collection than the actual high rated book shops in the place.

(3) People in Delhi so want to look good that they forget to actually be good.

(4) It doesn't matter where you are working or what you are working as, it all depends on how you work (Recent discovery- UNESCO driver owns a Honda City and a Merc A class).

(5) When you hire a rickshaw if the driver quotes a sum, quote ten less than half the amount unless the sum is less than 30. For eg: If the driver says 100 say 40.

(6) The best way to make friends in Delhi is by swearing in Hindi and letting others know you know those words.

(7) A quarter bottle of rum is as expensive as a bottle of mineral water or slightly higher.

(8) Aaloo is the national vegetable. It is A-loo or no to loo.

(9) If you ever feel like enjoying nature and going for a walk, take a train and go to Haryana or Haridwar, it is just not possible in Delhi.

(10) Delhi traffic is so pathetic that you can walk the distance faster.

(11) Even before the latest t shirts and gadgets hit the market, try going to palika bazar of chor bazar...chances are you'll see them coming out only next week in the actual stores but you can for sure pick up an authentic fake one off there.

(12) And last but not the least, if you ever develop a fever, always consult a doctor, a good one too! Chances are it is not just a fever, there might be some attached file with it.

aalo!!!!!

Hi
I don't know how many of you shares this predicament of mine to have aalo daily and that in all forms and sizes! I never knew I could get bored of a vegetable so much.

Now if you people think I am exaggerating I'll take you through the menu. Afternoon for lunch; palak aalo and roti, now at least you get to see something green for a change in contrast to oil and masala as always. Dinner, after much debating about eating out and sticking to the hostel food decided on the latter...the menu looked pretty good, some chaval, freshly prepared yet cold roti's, dal and...and...again aalo! mixed with some vegetable whose name I know not. After all that aalo in a day you can imagine how a Southie's system might react, true to my intuition my tummy started to rumble and giving hazard signals. It manifested in all forms which I wouldn't want to explain here, but feel free to let your imagination run wild! Anyhow with great difficulty caught some sleep! Morning went for breakfast, saw some bread toast, happy I was until I took one in my hands to see it wasn't bread toast, it was sandwich with aalo in it!! Bread toast with aalo!!!

This my friend is what I am going through and people complain of gastric problems and starch in food!

There is a malayalam movie by the name "Katha parayumbol" of which the bollywood flick 'Billu Barber' is a bad adaptation. In that movie there is a song about rubber and how much the malayali's love it and how it is inevitable for the malayalis...aalo reminds me of it.
for those mallus who read the blog and for the more adventurous non mallus who want to hear some tongue twisting hilarious song, here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X18sxlrUG6s

It is interesting how each place has its characteristics...
If it is baingen to Andhra, coconut oil to mallus, thaiyiru saadam (curd rice)to tamilians...here is aalo for the delhi, just that aalo can be more called a Northie favorite, much to my distress!

It is indeed a small world!

Hi

One fine Monday evening, going back from work, I was wondering what can be my next blog post. As a person who just started to blog, I'm enthusiastic and all excited about keeping my blog up to date. When I felt a dearth for topics, an incident gave me the inspiration for this latest post.

It was a very busy day in office, unusually busy!! At 18.45 I am frantically trying to keep deadlines before my boss looks at me as if I am the biggest sinner in the world. It is then that one of my friends in Hyderabad messages me asking for directions to go home from work by shared auto rickshaws and shared cabs. Now, my fascination for this mode of transportation is well known in my friends circles. I sitting in Delhi, 1600 kms away from Hyderabad down south directed or at least helped my friend go back home via shared auto rickshaws.

I don't claim it to be a great achievement nor do I say this is unheard of, but in me it evoked a couple of thoughts:

How we have reduced distances...I don't feel far from anybody. Even though 3400 kms away form my home, I know what is going on at home. I miss many of my friends but all I need to do is put in a text message or give them a call. Distances and boundaries cease to exist now. No, I am not arriving at concluding the world is a global village!

Working in a knowledge management platform, I am seeing the practical applications of technology on a daily basis, because my job demands it. But once faced with a real life experience for myself, I can't help but think what an easy world we live in where everything is there at your fingertips.

Thanks to the many dreary looking bunch of people whom we occasionally calls losers who did put their grey matter to good use!!!

What am I?

I was born on October 17, 1986. Was Christened Arun John after some months of debating if a name would do any good to the character I'm now unknown at that time.

So am I
Arun John son of John Mary and Prema.K?
Am I the eldest grandson of K. Augustine Joseph and Achamma Joseph?
Am I a malayali without oiled hair and hair neatly parted to the LEFT?
Am I an Indian?
Am I em employee of some company?
Am I an ex-HCU?
Am I an ex-Loyolite?

What is my identity?
Can I ever be Arun John without any tags attached?

You have seen one, you have seen the-'m all'

The heading is borrowed from a book by the same name about European reception of American Culture. The title I believe is self explanatory, you have seen one mall, it is as good as seeing all of them.

The reason for this latest post is self realization of how all of us are made fools. I had been to a DLF promenade mall in Delhi two days ago and before that to two malls in and around the same area. Some are big, some are moderately big, all of them are damn crowded and all of them have the same kind of people. But most importantly, all of them have the same shops. All of them have a Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Louis Phillipe, KFC, Mac Donalds, Pizza Hut...and name any of the international brands.

This I believe is the ultimate manifestation of Capitalism and Globalization.

It is nothing but packaging the same content in multiple avenues, as a first year mba graduate might tell you. But it is of concern and piety for me to think that I am also part of this gamble.

I remember siting for umpteen classes on globalization and hegemony, now when I sit in one of those malls and look around, I realise how much we've all complained about this hegemony, but how asinine are we to unwillingly or unwittingly support the culture that is!!!

Somebody thinks...therefore somebody is...

Its a weekend!!!

How I used to hate weekends when I was a student in HCU!!! All my friends would sleep through the Sunday...if possible into Monday also, as for me..sleep for the past 2 years has been a very seldom visited territory. So Sunday morn, I would wake up and start with the news papers and any material I could lay hands on to while away time.

Alas!!! spoken too soon. I got a job and started working. How soon weekends started to wizz by...all I worked through the week was for the weekend. To laze around, to have a beer on a Saturday without having the thought tomorrow I need to drag myself to office. Oh..how I love my weekends now!!

This my friends is typical human nature...

To quote Shelley
"We humans look before and after
and pine for what is not
Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught
Our sweetest songs are those
which remind us of our saddest thoughts"

Of engineering and arts and men...

Friends

Born and brought up in Trivandrum, I have seen the craze for engineering and medicine at its helm. I myself would've been a product of it, if not my sloppiness with numbers and logic and understanding parents. I have many friends, acquaintances who are now engineers, who are considered the most brilliant and the cream of the society. Over the past week, I happened to speak to a few of my friends who are the engineers of the country working for MNC's from outside the country. There was something common to all of them...all of them are in the complaining mode, why do I have to do this? Is engineering some societal norm? I am tired of this, yet I am helpless...!!!

Looking at the flip side, studying in a Central University, I have been in the midst of arts and humanities and social sciences. People pursing what they like, their talents and aptitudes used to the fullest extent. That did make me feel good. This paradigm shift in the outlook for a career gives me hope that someday we will be less of a mechanical society

I have a friend who is working in a radio station,earns half as much as an engineer in Bangalore or Pune does. The chances of she going to the US and A or to Europe on an official visit is close to zero. But I have never heard her complaining about her job, not once has she told me I am tired of this. This is believe is satisfaction.

We all studied to make money and be happy. I guess, now its all money in perspective, No Happiness. I don't want to sound like an art of living instructor nor is my present argument a result of the movie 3 idiots, but I believe in pursuing what you like and what can help you sustain.

What would it be to earn for nobody, just you? What would it be to spend all your life in the four walls of an office and not see the beautiful world outside? What would it be to work through the whole week to just booze on a Saturday night and and sleep trough the Sunday? This I believe is not happiness...you are bound to break through some day...the sooner the better.

I think my friend working in the radio station and myself is much happier than all of the engineers I know put together.

PS: To all those who don't know, I have changed 3 jobs in 8 months. Looking back, I am not complaining. I can speak about the media or the corporate sector more authentically than my peers. I know what I want to do and what I don't to do in life. As for the short term stints which screws up my chances of a great future...well, I am proud of my adventure spirits...not many at the age of 23 knows what it to be a rolling stone...direction unknown...

Oops...I'm forgetting to write

Hello

Yesterday I went to buy a pen. I was filled with a sense of pathos...now buying a pen is not all that big of deal. But what use you put the pen to...writing is. I realized how little I had written with a pen in the past 8 or 9 months. I can't remember using the pen to write an article for a long time now, to take down a quote I now prefer saving it as a draft in my mobile. My hand writing has become close to incorrigible.

The very existence of the blog is because people prefer to type and not write. Can typing substitute writing? In a wider sense, can technology substitute everything? I remember the debates about the television substituting the news papers, the internet becoming a threat to news papers...but writing with a pen is fading out.

I use technology as much as anyone else or maybe more...but somewhere down the lane knowingly or unknowingly we have all become very mechanical...

I remember the times when I used to fight with my dad for an ink pen worth 50 bucks when I was in my 5th or 6th standard; Hero pen was the fad then. I clearly cherish the Reynolds 045 with which I wrote my Matriculation and my Plus Two exams. While writing for the Hindu I used to write down the article first and then type it on to a computer, how I used to fight with dad who yelled at me saying I am wasting time doing it that way. Post that all I know is..I used a pen to write my post graduation, by that time a pen had become something to just write exams and to very few. taking lecture notes.

The duty of a pen is now limited to scribbling e-mail addresses, phone numbers and if lucky to have a taste of two lines of literature. Once we are out of studenthood rarely do we use a pen for anything else. Just like we Indians find that food is much more tasty when consumed with our bare hands and not by the spoon...I feel the article when I write it with a pen...be it of any make. To see the article or literary piece how good or bad it is...to see it taking shape in front of me gives me a childish impishness or excitement when I see it finished and ready to go to bed...