House.. Home

The larger your home is more is the number of things you need to fill it up. Since i moved into this house in Ern i'v been hunting for things to fill it up, for gawd is it really difficult to fill up 1000sq feet!
I'v always imagined it might be fun to do up a house.. the 'house - home' thing was always a thing of the future.. like "the day i get a house i am going to have this or that.." a mental picture of that day in the future. but then suddenly that day is here.. a house..all to myself.. and only me to furnish, and not only that. only me to clean, wash, dry, iron, cook, clean again, pay bills, clear garbage, clean again !! dude i finally wonder is it worth all this effort.
Nope.. it isnt. that is the verdict.
even the most intersting part of the entire equation, doing up the house to a cetain taste and style.. TOO much work! I'v been thinking of buying new bedsheets.. and in three months i still havnt got arnd to doing that. I mean i havent even figured out where you buy good bedsheets.
and anyways in the back of the mind there is the big question of how long am i going to hold on here..

I shant deviate into that topic here as that would be an altogether different argument..

And i think houses generally take ages to fill up, and here i am trying to age it in weeks and months. Like my parents house, i wonder if all the things came at once... i am sure item has a story and a soul. when it came into the house, who selected it, why and where.. and i pretty sure the stories are varied and interesting.

I know stories of some items,.. like the small wood elephants that sit on the doorway.. they were picked up by mom in alleppey, by the lake i imagine. she loves elephants and so one day parents were driving to the grandparents house and somewere in alleppey, which is on the way, they stop for a break and on the roadside there is this man selling them, mom wants them, dad grudgingly buys them. sometimes when i am at that house, and generally when i am there i have a lot of time on my hands, i remember looking at those elephants and imagine that story as if it were a recent memory and not a story before i was born, told to me when i was a baby.

louve for fmcg

Why would you want to be in FMCG and in rural markets?

especially if you want that rural market to be Kerala..

> you should love the thrill of seeing buses hurling down 6 feet wide roads and missing the sales officers bike on which you are riding pillion by centimeters..

> you should like hotel clerks who look at you suspiciously when you check in late evening (which by the way is anything after 6Pm), smelling like the combined stale sweat of a football team.. and who insists that you pay up the entire amount and a little more in advance

> the smell of 'Parotta fish curry' in the morning, oily fat drenched 'puffs' for lunch, and of course the sweet smell of 'wine' in the evening should tickle your appetite, and the food smashed down on table by waiters should be the epitome of service

> after travelling for 10 days in a stretch when you come back home you should love the fact that there should be 15 days worth of cleaning up to do, that ants have eaten through the plastic jar holding your sugar and other eatables, and that the window you forgot to close meant that the rain is in your living room

> you should realize that not having paid your cable, newspaper boy and water can dude because you were absent when they came for their dues means you dont have any of these services in the following month

> and primarily you should love the fact that it is you responsibility that every mallu eats your product, and if not you forcible feed your distributors

anchor

what is a frame of reference when everything around you change. When you are hit with a everything from a new job to new geography, when friends, food, home, furniture.. everything familiar changes, is it possible not to change a little yourself. to lose some of that personality that you find in your familiar surroundings. How do you, or to what do you anchor yourself so that in a months time you forget how much you have changed..

Cochin

so a bit has happened between the last post and now. new job, new location, new home. another relocation. and now back to the city of my birth, Kochi. So it is back to being on my own in a new place, though it is home territory it is practically a new place to me. While Kerala has never been anything more than a holiday and weekend spot, and geographically limited to the Tiruvalla railway station and Eraviperur, it suddenly has taken a whole new dimension - this is my entire universe. Moreover, all the problems of Kerala were good for making jokes but now these are so personal.
wierd restaurants, staring people, attimari unions, single car wide roads, constant rain and super humidity, brown fat rice, lots of rice, insane bus drivers, closed shops.. are all here.. and looks like here to stay.

stop run go

In the stock and commodity markets apparently all participants are assumed to have perfect information..so the price of a script is expect to reflect perfect information of all market participants put together.. but still prices go all over the place all the time.. so perfect information cant do crap to predict the future

so what do u do in real life when you don't have perfect information and still you need to make those big decisions.. what about those moments when your gut isn't screaming or even whispering what to do..

seems like i am building up to the new Adidas ad.. no it isnt that, to me it seems like lot of big steps we take in life are pure speculation.. AND if it is so, then why not just go for it and do what you like.. for it is speculation anyways!

pack that bag again

now it is a year since we left college.. a YEAR!

i am tempted to do a mental account of what i have done or if i have changed in this year.. nay.. i shall resist.. why depress myself. anyway i think people around me have changed more, surnames have changed.. jobs have changed ..

all I have done is go from one city to another, rather town to another. and now suddenly it is Kolhapur! even Kochi was in the fray. At one point in time it used to appeal to me, to travel and live in different places.. the rather romantic thrill of finding new stuff about new places.. shoot and paint the new sights.

it is enough to say that love affair has died down now. and anyway the dream of living in different places was not limited to the indian map. still, now i get the feeling that that is not the problem. i am just not wired for this nomadic life. Home, car, friends, familiar hangout places, domestic help .. i want all that! maybe even a dog!

yeah i want that dog.

now i still live knowing i need to pack that suitcase again.

memory trail

Some memories stay stuck in the brain, i wonder what made them stick rather than be forgotten in the flow. For instance there was this one time i was in an auto with a friend in Bangalore on our way to work, i remember pointing out a new store on Bannergatta road to her. even now sometimes this picture randomly pops up, distinct in its clarity. i remember the auto, the traffic, smells, dresses..

Similarly there is one in Chennai where i am driving down one of the small side roads close to my home. i remember the place, the weather, and the general feeling so clearly, nearly 8-9 years later.

when these thoughts come and go, the aftertaste is distinctly melancholic. they are not unlike waking up early morning and realizing truly how lonely we are, how small each of our problems and fears are and that we have to stand up to them alone. like being caught in the headlights of a car bearing terribly fast down on you. the sense of futility and realization of smallness that can only be felt in those few moments of sleep induced clarity. feelings that lose their tangibility the moment we wake up and they are forgotten