I sometimes feel, Murphy wrote the law “if things can go wrong, they will” based on my life. Wherever Murphy is, he’d probably nod an “amen” if he hears my life story. In professional life or personal life, I have had this unique quirk of fate that, before any major surge of joy, I need to have a moment of absolute, utter and complete panic.
Like earlier this week, I was in this certain city, expected to go for one of the biggest meetings of the year. I arrive overnight, get a wake up call sufficiently early from the hotel reception, take a shower, breakfast, and then get ready for the meeting and…
Panic Attack 1: I pull my shirt from the hanger and while removing the collar button, the button breaks off. Now how the heck am I supposed to wear a Tie without buttoning up my collar!!! I pull up the sewing needle and thread from the hotel bathroom closet, poke my fingers 15 times, curse my luck 25 times and we finally have the collar button where its supposed to be..sewed up in red thread on a pristine white shirt…oh, what the heck!
Panic Attack 2: I put on my trousers and ramble up to my suit bag, search in one of the pockets for the belt, and voila I’ve forgotten it. Its 3000 miles away at home!!!! I mean, in all my bloody years of doing this job, I have never gone for a meeting without a suit trouser minus the belt.. Here I was staring at my half naked self in the mirror at a hotel room at 8 am in the morning, with my shirt on, tie in place and holding my pants in my hand! Ok, call the bell boy, get me a belt from the hotel shop, he brings 3 belts after 15 minutes, one of them a snake skin belt, another one a white leather belt and the third one looked like a cotton rope. We’re hyper-ventilating. I decide to just go for the meeting minus the belt.
If you think this is a random event in my life. Take another example, The year was 2005 and I was in Bahrain trying to close the biggest deal that I had ever closed in my life. One of the largest banks in that country was about to buy a software which it planned to roll out to 8 countries. I was presenting to an audience of over 25+ people. I had arrived along with the CEO of the company and had spent 2 weeks preparing for this meeting.
Everything had surprisingly gone well, pants in place, shirt in place, laptop is working fine, software is working fine, windows hasn’t crashed..And then I start my presentation. People who know me well professionally, know that when I present something, I can be quite thirsty and drink water often. I’m facing the audience and my boss who knew this habit of mine, quietly walked up from the back and kept a glass of water near my laptop. Like a ballet dancer, I do a pirouette and..CLUNK! THUD! CRASH! disaster..the glass of ice cold water tips on my laptop keypad. Keypad is floating in water..panic panic panic…the Bank IT guys rushes in…the audience and me watch in horror at the mess…we rush the laptop to the wash room, keep it under a hand drying fan, no good..laptop dies…The audience is surprisingly sympathetic..(in fact they took some special liking for us after that disaster, maybe we just seemed more human) ..we agree to postpone the session, but guess what finally emerges from this one...a month later ..I bag the deal!
God must be sitting and watching a sitcom comedy with my life, but he sure seems to be a sucker for happy endings, for he always ensures that every time I have a panic attack like that, I end up going and having a meeting of my life…
Well I guess, that's why they say "a hard beginning makes a good ending"
Some songs are just so magical that how many ever times you hear it, you can never tire of them. I happened to read somewhere that, those who wish to sing a song always find one. The song from Ra.one “Dildara-Stand by me” is like one of those songs, a song which I always wish I had sung.
I must also admit, though Stand by me" is like this super duper chartbuster of all times, the first time I ever heard it was when a certain RJ I know and some others in the station (City 101.6 UAE), remixed that song and made a theme song out of it, and then I happened to hear it last week as “Dildara-stand by me” in Ra.one
The song was so melodic, that I just had to dig up more info on the song. Apparently the original of the song “Stand by me” was sung by Ben E King in the 60s, and it turns out it is one of the most remixed and re-sung songs in the world with over 400 versions of it available. Everyone from John Lennon, Jim Hendrix, Elton John, Seal to Alvin and the Chipmunks have a version of it. Am wondering why Bollywood took so long to remix this song, but I must admit, what a marvelous job by Vishal-Shekhar.
The lyrics of the original are just timeless.The original version sung by Ben E King is still the best version of this song, sung with one of those "chick a chik" thingy instrument (can someone tell me what you call that instrument) and a guitar in the background. Perfect song for one of those moments, when you're sitting somewhere quietly at night, looking into infinity and watching the magic of the universe unfolding in front of you...
When the night has come, and the land is dark And the moon is the only light we will see No, I won't be afraid, oh, I won't be afraid Just as long as you stand, stand by me
So darlin', darlin' stand by me Oh stand by me Oh stand, stand by me, stand by me
If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall Or the mountain should crumble to the sea I won't cry, I won't cry, no, I won't shed a tear Just as long as you stand, stand by me
And darlin', darlin' stand by me Oh stand by me Whoa stand now, stand by me, stand by me
This trip to India had a lot of firsts in it, but the most significant one was that, for the first time in a decade the whole Kainikkara Cousins gang was present in full attendance in one place. My initial thoughts were that it would be difficult to break the ice and start conversations; but it was surprising to note that even after a decade, we could pick up on conversations like we had them unfinished yesterday. I thought it would be a good idea to leave some feedback on my cousins on the blog (as a note to Adi, for future references), so here goes: (Note: The description order is only alphabetical and not necessarily age wise)
Arun :The second in line in the family cousins generation tree, he is about (I think) 3 years younger to me. The first thing you notice about Arun is his eyes, You cant miss them. They look like he was on a steady diet of “Somras” mixed with “Cerelac” when he was a baby; I was always a bit surprised when he chose to work in Kerala, but Mr Droopy eyes cousin’s little one (Agastya) and Soumya’s luck, managed get his Dad a career shift into Chennai. Here’s wishing you lots of luck.
Ani (Pramod) : Thankfully Ani is a good 5 years younger to me;. Top Engg college pass out, Top B school pass out, not a geek, plays the guitar, good looking…Fortunately for me I was never bench marked with him in my wonder years, else I would have been in a mental asylum by now. Ani and I spoke quite a bit, but what will remain in memory from this trip was the smile in his twinkling eyes, when he sang the song “Papa kehte hain…” (he sang it twice) and both times when he sang the lines “koi engineer ka kaam karega, business me koi apna naam karega…” I can bet he has ambitions and dreams beyond compare. Godspeed!
Kuttan (Prasanth): The man of the moment, the last time I met him he was still in school. I hardly remember anything significant of Kuttan from a decade back, except that he’s a good tabla player. Deloitte, Mumbai and a US project have surely made him mature. To the barrel chested, Hummer shaped cousin of mine, I wish him lots of luck in his married life.
Varun :I don’t have any major memories of Varun from a decade back either, why? Because I think in the 10 years that I knew him back then, he would have spoken about 10 sentences maximum to me. Varun never spoke much back then, he was this silent, brooding , living in another planet guy, but the married Varun seems to have changed quite a bit (Thanks to Deepti also I guess, she compensates for all his above traits). His passion for photography of bugs and insects was well known folklore, so am not quite looking forward to the pics he took during the wedding.. I mean, his 24x zoomed shot would probably be capturing Kuttan’s nose hair, instead of the marriage ceremony. Just kidding, wishing him loads of luck too.
Kannan (Gautham) : The memory of him a decade back was of this anemic fair skinned geek guy with soda glasses to match, but when I met him in Dubai a few years back, he had morphed himself into a good looking dude. Marriage hadn’t changed his proportions; that I figure has to do with the kitchen experiments going on between Swetha and him, as typically, in my humble experience, for about 3-6 months after marriage, most meals cooked would go into the garbage bin (at least that was the situation in our case). Professionally, he seems to be juggling quite a few interests, hopefully I’d be seeing more of him in the middle east region; which would indirectly mean he's printing $$$$ too . Good luck Kannan!
Mol (Gayathri) : The school girl in pig tails had obviously blossomed into an elegant lady with poise and grace. Over the years, I had kept hearing about her achievements in dance and academics through others, though she was never on my social network (baby sisters are never on social networks with big brothers, anup makes a mental note to send her a friend request as she's no longer the baby anymore). The most significant thing about her was that, She’s just gone ahead and proved “Matches are made in heaven”, I mean how else can you define, two people (nandu/ mol) separated by about 5000 miles geographically, falling in love with each other and deciding to take wedding vows. Just as long as they don’t name their kids, "Facebookan" and "Orkutti" :P in honor of their love affair, I don’t see why Prabha chitta, Pappa chittan, Manikuttan appan and Anil appan would have any problems in their marriage :P! Good luck Mol!
Vinay : He’s got one career path which can definitely make him money, No prizes for guessing –Stand up comedy! I saw a visibly embarrassed Kochappan, trying in vain to control Vinay’s Chalus, but he probably forgot he’s looking at the man in the mirror. Vinay’s “Order in Chaos” attitude clearly makes him my favorite cousin; its also probably got to do with the fact that I related with his attitude too. Thank you Vinay for introducing me to the Meluhans and the 3x3 algo solution (for the uninitiated the former is from a book he recommended I read and the latter is the algo to the rubik’s cube which I have been busy downloading/ learning). Good luck in your exams and honestly don’t worry about having a facebook account, it’s a gross waste of time at your age :) unless your name starts with “P” and ends with “D” or starts with “G” and ends with “M” or “I”
Ammini (Uma) : Adi’s “Amina Chechi” was Adi’s age when I last met her. One lasting memory of her (The last in the line of the cousin family tree, unless one of my appans/ chittas decide to pull of a surprise) would be on how she brilliantly she played the “Wordmole” game on my blackberry. Just goes on to show that “brains and smarts” runs in the family.
So why did I ramble so much on my cousins, lets just say every man sees in his relatives, especially his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself..makes sense?
...who else did I meet, the appans and chittas who refuse to age, the distantly/vaguely related muttashis and muttashans who came up and loudly announced (the ever embarrassing lines) "ninakku enne orma undo, ninakku randu vayasu ullapol, ende dressil muthram oyichathu okke" ..yeah right! All that and more in the second part "The Kerala Trip Trilogy - Part II - The Aunts and Uncles"
