Roomie

On a sultry Saturday evening many summers ago in a small room in Chennai 2 Software engineer trainees after doing their laundry drenched in sweat are standing at the terrace adjacent to their room. Their abode resembles an oven thanks to the unrelenting sun.Barely, a month back they were in the comforts of their home in God’s own country with dreamy eyes proud of the fact that they had been campus recruited to one of the biggest Software Companies of the country.The excitement was palpable because it was the first time that both of them were to leave their respective homes to live on their own. But nothing prepared them for what was going to come upon them when they landed at the headquarters of the Software major. The grueling training months includes the class room training from 9-6, Monday to Fridays. At temperatures close to 40 degree Celsius with absolute humidity levels touching 90% we were expected to turn up in formals along with a tie in tow. Saturdays would be spent on laundry and Sundays would be reserved for church and sleep. In the midst of such a demanding schedule during your early 20’s it is quite difficult to maintain sanity. 

Among many things like eating Kerala food or hanging out with our very own malayali gang,what kept us going was the impromptu enactment of Malayalam movie scenes by my roommate Srijith featuring his favourite actor. With my limited world view until then I was quite astonished to realise that there were people like him who analyze each of these movie scenes with a great amount of detail. I was pretty impressed with his commitment to what he did to mimic his favorite actor .Let us not discount the fact that all this effort is just for a 1 man audience.This was something which was way beyond my comprehension, you call that passion I guess .For someone who is already homesick all this evoked a deep sense of nostalgia.It also helped me appreciate the Malayali way of life which so far I had taken for granted. 

For the first time in my life I was able to identify myself as a Malayali. Spending 15 years in Kerala I had never had this feeling of belonging. It has to be noted that I spent a good part of my childhood in Madhya Pradesh where my father was posted as an Indian Police Service(IPS) Officer. As an 8 year old in my initial days in Kerala I still remember how I missed roti and dal. How odd I felt that no one spoke Hindi? How difficult it was to pick up Malayalam . Later in life when I ended up living in Delhi and Bombay I had no qualms of getting adjusted to new food habits or language . Thanks to this exposure early in life I was able to fully embrace the Mumbai way of life where I lived for 8 years. 

Now coming back to Srijith naturally being from the same state and also encountering similar tumultuous times during our Training days we developed a very strong bond. We still remain thick friends even though we only met a couple of times in the last 12 years.

Fast forward 2020 in the midst of the Corona lock down Srijith invites me for a zoom session to one of his performances with his group “First drop theatre “. He has been part of this theatre group for more than 2 years now. I just dropped in to see my friend in action after so many years.

                                            Photo credits: First Drop theatre

I am in for a surprise because I was expecting a conventional theater setting where there would be a play and the actors would follow the script. The team turns this very concept in its head and the art of storytelling takes a 360 degree shift.Here the feelings and emotions shared by the live audience forms the basis of the act. The actors on their part would quickly improvise on the spot and present to the audience an act based on the inputs shared.My fascination didn’t end there. Here the spectators are not mere observers of the act but rather are very much part of the narrative. This was a totally new experience for me as this is the first time that I have been exposed to this innovative concept called Playback theatre. When I walked in before the show we were just a bunch of strangers but at the end of it feels quite unique to have a connection with a number of people in the audience .

                                                Photo credits: first Drop theatre

It was a deja vu moment for me once Srijith started his performance and I was taken back in time to the terrace in Chennai many years back.I admire his persistence to follow his passion in acting and I am proud to say that I have played a tiny part in this journey. Here is wishing you and the entire team of First drop theater all the very best to scale new heights on your field.

If you are more interested in Playback theatre you can find more details in the below link.

First Drop Theatre

Work,wife,balance

I have been thinking of writing something but was not getting a good topic when my wife walks in.I tell her of my predicament and she suggests to write about her. I think to myself “My wife overestimates her prowess and feels there is a lot in her to write about”. To be on the safer side I ask her the question. “Tell me about one writer who has written about his wife and made money”. She points to the book on the shelf “2 states” as she walks out.I ponder for some time and go back to reading my current book by Hussain Zaidi. A brainwave hits me and I scramble for my laptop. We have been married for more than 5 years now and have been in totally different professions all along. I have been an Engineer/Manager for quite some time now and she has been an Assistant Professor all this while in Engineering colleges across Kerala and Mumbai. Life was simple, we had 2 different work lives, different colleagues and varied work problems. Things changed when about a year back I came back to my home state of Kerala for work. After spending a few years in the world of academia Jeslin decided to move on and starts to explore opportunities in the IT sector.

Picture courtesy: Vishnu Madhusudanan

Turns out that she bags a job in my company and suddenly our workplace becomes one. But nothing prepares me for what happens next. Not even in my wildest dreams have I imagined that we would end up working together. On the first day of work as we are walking through the lobby one of my colleagues makes a comment “Oh hi, you folks are a couple right ”. It is like going back to my college days in the picturesque Kerala University campus Trivandrum. If you are walking with a girl for a couple of days in a row you get asked this same question.The only difference being that you can walk with a different girl the next week but not in the current milieu.

During her first few days we used to go together for lunch because she hardly knew anyone. That itself was a huge ask for me because I preferred to eat alone to get some me time. With the new arrangement that goes out of the window. As luck would have it within 2 weeks after my wife joined I had to pack my bags and leave for an onsite assignment in Germany which lasted for a couple of months. Once I am back it is a totally different ball game altogether my wife has managed to get herself into a gang and goes on lunch with them. Phew, I let out a sigh of relief at getting back my ‘me time’. Not to be left behind I also manage to form a gang to go out for lunch. I have almost made it a point In my best interests to try not to hang out with my wife’s gang because there is a chance that whatever I say can circle back to her eventually. Previously her friends were only people in the periphery of my attention whom I hardly got to meet.

Picture courtesy: Vishnu Madhusudanan

Now it so happens that for the Company anniversary we have a Party arranged in a cruise ship through the scenic waters of the Vembanad lake. Without me realising my wife pulls out a fast one on me by asking me to take the car for the day. That would mean I cannot drink during the party. But I don’t let that dampen my spirits and start to break a leg because it has been a while. As the evening progressed adrenaline starts to kick in and I started to put the dance floor on fire. As luck would have it my colleagues who haven’t seen me in such an informal setting start to remark to my wife that I am a jolly good fellow post a couple of drinks. In reality it was only adrenaline working its magic. For the record she did check on me a couple of times just to be sure. Her offer to dance with me for a bit was also on these lines .I bet if it was back in Bombay she would have even kissed me just to be double sure. Anyways in office we had made it a point to try and stay out of each other's sights. Thankfully we were allotted two different workstations where there was a minimal chance of meeting each other. But everything has gone for a toss with the lockdown in effect where both of us have ended up working in the same room. P.S: For all my well wishers out there I have vetted this piece with my better half before publishing, so yes I live to tell another tale. If you like this post please check out another post "how i met your mother" on similar lines(click on the link below).

How I met your mother

Memories #9 - A different kind of a 'Challenge'

“Today we again called a challenge during our games period against 6B. We played hard but lost by 3-0 they have some very good players like CA,Bijo and Joshua among them. We are definitely going to win next time”

This is an excerpt from my daily journal which I had written almost a decade and a half back. The context of the piece is a football game between my class 6 A and the other class followed by my musings at the end of the day. Since both the divisions have the games period at the same time it was kind of like a ritual that one class would challenge the other for a game of football. I wouldn’t agree with it then but in hindsight I definitely feel that we were the weaker of the two but always played with the heart to make up for the deficit in talent. Boy once in a blue moon we used to win and our elation would make us feel on top of the world. This continued until we parted ways until class 10.

It is quite amusing to recollect another instance from my journal in the 7th standard. We were asked to write a composition on ‘My favourite game’, literally everyone in the class wrote about this ‘Challenge’. Our English teacher who also happens to be our class teacher the effervescent Mrs Radha Nair was perplexed when she realised that she had no inkling of this new game which her entire class was crazy about. Further, on inquiring about this to her amazement, she came to realise that it was actually a game of football that all of us were talking about. With a bemused smile, she explained to us that we had to rewrite the entire thing by primarily specifying football as the main subject and extending its scope to include the so-called ‘Challenge’.

Looking back I feel that instances like these exposed us to the competitive world quite early in our growing up years and instilled in us on how to overcome the fear of failure. My point being even though we knew that we only had a slim chance of a win still 6 A would be the first one to call a ‘challenge’. Reminiscent of this very ‘challenge’ down the years we never let slip an opportunity to play a game of football be it the beaches of Goa or Divekar beach(a drive away from Bombay) or our very own alma mater Loyola school Trivandrum ,the list is endless.

In addition to this it also helped us to gel very much as a group and developed a keen sense of bonhomie which has undoubtedly stood the test of time.A testimony to this is the fact that a bunch of these students from the erstwhile 6 A and 6 B scattered all across the country and the world would meet up today in a video call . The virtual meeting includes an Army Major, a MNC CEO,a hotshot lawyer, a Doctor,a Navy Commander, a MNC Vice President ,a playboy among many others. On a closing note I have got to say that even though I have been part of an Engineering college or a B-School later in life. I have never experienced such warm camaraderie even after so many years of leaving school.

These days it seems ‘challenge’ is the buzzword in facebook where all kinds of challenges are doing the rounds and people are posting their photos left right and center. But for me the word ‘challenge’ invokes a beautiful memory etched in my mind  from my childhood.

P.S : If you liked this post please click on the link below, another blog post of mine dealing with  the topic football in school.

'Mitochondria'