Onam again !!!
This time amidst untimely rains ,unusually bigger potholes on our so called roads, longer power cuts and glaring administrative apathy and celebrated arrogance visible everywhere...
Onam there fore has more meaning in our troubled times..... Onam is an introspection for every Malayali hereafter to be referred as mallu , to think about the days that has gone…
Mahabali on whose memory onam is celebrated was supposedly the best ruler that any society could hope for and we had it here in this state......
Liberty, equality and fraternity ruled us and we were happy… no one stole.. no one ever told lies and no one cheated…Well ! If it sounds utopian it is probably because we have got used to the system other wise.....Our rulers today would have taken a lot of hard work to take us where we are today .......think over !!!…
Long after the golden age is lost ,mallus world over sit and ponder and get sinked in nostalgia unparalleled ,when onam comes calling…
Onam for me is missing many a things…
The words are mine but the feeling is every ones’s… nostalgia is there for everyone… I know the Gujarati in US too misses home and so is the Tamil in Malaysia… but when the Mallu misses it it is a different feeling..,,,, why because it makes him work more ..,....it makes him more productive which inside the state he rarely is…
When a huge sum of 40 pounds is paid to eat an onam sadya in a vazhayila at the leaf in Birmingham and Rasa in London ,the Mallu miss onam and his home state…..
when he toils in the endless sands of dubai and the middle east he misses the rains and the tender touch of the soft breeze that the monsoon so very benevolently has poured on this small state....
when he is taking the sun in the long topless beaches of Sydney he misses the beautiful women here and their attire and the oiled hair with a tumba or tulasi to adorn it…
I have missed it all ...... and have seen how deep that feeling is when you are away from this place, which some tourism director inadvertently termed as Gods own country, which later on became one of the best positioning statements…
I miss my childhood with all my 24 cousins under one roof, all the unless and aunts and ammavans, ammayis, aliyans, and machunans and all the team work that naturally built in us…..
I miss the long baths in pamba and the unabashed frolic that we had and what my kids now miss in their concrete abodes and TV onams….
I miss the pookalam made of thetti, thumba and mukkootii not the imported chrysanthemems that come all the way from other places to adore the mallu courtyard,,, I miss the poovili and the ona pottan..
I miss the pulikali and the karadi teams that roamed around in the street making onam one of its kind…
I miss the women ,who woke up at 5 and did a lot of work.. and then in the attire that BBC has ranked as simply elegant did rounds and rounds of kaikottikali….
I miss my grand mother who would make wonderful mambazha pulisseri ,inji kari and pazhamanga uppilitathu,..and it was enough to eat truck loads of rice and still feel energetic..
I miss all the friends who in herds moved around and made pookalams everywhere.. no jealousy and no apathy..who carried loads of stones and threw them on every mango tree, climbed on every jack tree and jumped into every pond and river…
I miss the sadya.. the kalan, the olans and the innumerable varieties of payasam…
I miss the mundu and the comfort that it gave as compared to the pants, the formal shirts and the attachments… no matter whether it’s a Louis philipe or Van huesen, the mundu and the natural ventilation and aeration is a mallu luxury that we have missed out…
I miss all my cousins and brothers and sisters who all for search of lively hood have migrated and are not able to come home, even though it is said that mallus world over come home for onam… in their minds yes, but not always in practice…
I miss the long swings that were made for onam under mango trees and jack fruit trees when I see my kids enjoying onam glued with their favorite cartoon network and my wife with the onam special interview with nayarthara OPENING her heart…
I miss my mother who told me last day that she has forgotten how to make a good sadya.. when there is no one to eat it what is the point in making..?
I miss onam as it was..as the great poet ONV kurup has described ..oro vattavum onakaliyudu talam ayanjeedunu njangalil…. I miss the fun but am happy that atleast I am here unlike my brother who works for a foreign bank in a foreign land for a foreign boss and worse eating foreign food even on the Tiruvonam day…
With all its imbalances to live here is great…
Enjoy the day, but please go back to your roots… how ever high a tree grows the roots are important...…
Happy Onam !!!
Sep 10, 2008
Sep 9, 2008
Onam is here!!
Now U dont need me to say sumthing rite.... nostaligia big time is Onam for me and for Mallus across the world.. its a week of joy and celebration...
Untime rains and powercuts.. a drastic change of season, imported flowers and Non resident relatives are all a pain but neverthless we need a reason to celebrate...
Onam is here and my so is a week long holiday..to life and to blogging...
Happy onam !!!!
Sep 1, 2008
If logic could reduce petrol prices !!!
A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the Kirana store he pays Rs. 12 a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are Rs. 22 a dozen.
When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, 'The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly'.
This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms.
The small egg farms have been driven out of business. The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit.
The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on.
As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.
He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.
Then week before Diwali the price of eggs shot up to Rs. 40 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, 'Cakes and baking for the holiday'. The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up.
Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen. This pattern continues until the price of eggs is Rs. 60 a dozen.
The man says, ' There must be something we can do about the price of eggs'.
He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs.
Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need. He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.
The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs.
Maybe wouldn't need any all week. The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.
At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs. To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price.
The distributor said, ' I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free'. The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again.
The grocery store owner said, 'I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again'.
The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying. Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few paisa.
The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, 'when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen.'
Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.
The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while. And those chickens kept on laying. Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell.
The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price. And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.
Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.
What if everyone only bought Rs 200.00 worth of Petrol each time they pulled to the pump? The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the petrol coming from the huge tanks. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the petrol coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the oil fiends.
Just Rs 200.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill up the tank of your car. You may have to stop for gas twice a week, but the price should come down.
Think about it.
When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, 'The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly'.
This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms.
The small egg farms have been driven out of business. The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit.
The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on.
As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.
He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.
Then week before Diwali the price of eggs shot up to Rs. 40 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, 'Cakes and baking for the holiday'. The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up.
Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen. This pattern continues until the price of eggs is Rs. 60 a dozen.
The man says, ' There must be something we can do about the price of eggs'.
He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs.
Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need. He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.
The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs.
Maybe wouldn't need any all week. The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.
At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs. To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price.
The distributor said, ' I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free'. The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again.
The grocery store owner said, 'I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again'.
The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying. Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few paisa.
The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, 'when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen.'
Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.
The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while. And those chickens kept on laying. Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell.
The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price. And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.
Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.
What if everyone only bought Rs 200.00 worth of Petrol each time they pulled to the pump? The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the petrol coming from the huge tanks. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the petrol coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the oil fiends.
Just Rs 200.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill up the tank of your car. You may have to stop for gas twice a week, but the price should come down.
Think about it.
Aug 27, 2008
The Good Neighbour!!!
I was lying in my easy chair and having beer when I noticed my dog dragging something under the fence. Upon inspection, to my dismay, I realized it was the next door neighbor's 10 year old daughter's rabbit.
For years I had watched her come home from school and head straight out to its cage, free it and play with it in the yard. I knew today would be no different and fearing for our dog, I had to think fast.
The rabbit was quite dirty, as if it had put up quite a struggle, so I washed it off with the hose, combed it with the Dog brush and blew it dry with the leaf blower. Upon finishing it's grooming I jumped the fence and replaced back in it's cage hoping it's death would be written off as "natural causes".
Back to the easy chair and beer..Within the hour the neighbors car pulled in as usual and out popped the little girl, and as usual she headed straight for the cage. Only this time she stopped about six feet away and screamed: "DDDDDAAAADDDDDDDYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Her father panic stricken stood looking at the cage. Being the good neighbor that I am I rushed to fence and asked if there was anything I could do.
Her father less than calmly blurted, "What kind of sick individual would dig up a little girl's dead rabbit and put it back in it's cage?!?!"
For years I had watched her come home from school and head straight out to its cage, free it and play with it in the yard. I knew today would be no different and fearing for our dog, I had to think fast.
The rabbit was quite dirty, as if it had put up quite a struggle, so I washed it off with the hose, combed it with the Dog brush and blew it dry with the leaf blower. Upon finishing it's grooming I jumped the fence and replaced back in it's cage hoping it's death would be written off as "natural causes".
Back to the easy chair and beer..Within the hour the neighbors car pulled in as usual and out popped the little girl, and as usual she headed straight for the cage. Only this time she stopped about six feet away and screamed: "DDDDDAAAADDDDDDDYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Her father panic stricken stood looking at the cage. Being the good neighbor that I am I rushed to fence and asked if there was anything I could do.
Her father less than calmly blurted, "What kind of sick individual would dig up a little girl's dead rabbit and put it back in it's cage?!?!"
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