My Generation

I was talking to Laukik of LSD, while listening to this CD of Marathi Little Champs. He was telling me about each song that the tiny tots were singing. I was like totally surprised about the varied genre for the selected songs being sung by these kids. Folk songs, devotional songs, patriotic songs and the best part was, not all were from movies. From the Lil Champs show in Kerala and even the Senior Champs in Kerala, most of the songs in Malayalam is just movie songs. I mean it's what everybody listens too, it's the main stream thing in Malayalam. Movie songs, that is the it thing in Kerala I mean that's what everybody hears, that's what everybody sings in these contest. If it's not in a movie, it's not sung on TV.

Now he as always a true Marathi, and now with Shveta, the LSD as they would be known, are like twice Marathi, talk about the theater scene in Marathi, the music scene, about how they still know a lot of the folk songs, how it gets passed on from their parents. And how there are all these music being passed to the next generation in various ways. 2009 or 2010 there is this Marathi culture that's been passed on from generation to generation. Maybe there is a generation of non Marathi speaking Marathi growing up, even we have a mallu generation finding pride in not know to read write and speak Malayalam. The point I'm making is, 'MNS' or 'no MNS' there is a part of the culture that's been passed on from generation to generation. I like that. And I miss that in my being a Mallu.

After every discussion about this I end saying $h!T man why don't my Malayalam have this. Where is all this in malayalam, when I want to tell my next generation about what being mallu is, I still don't have an answer. Would I just end up saying being mallu means Harathaal, Mamooty. Mohanlal, Yesudas, AKG, EMS and Sreeshant. Where's my Shivaji equivalent? what about stories of some Mallu king who fought fearlessly and ruled his country just and wise? When will I be able to name a Malayalam theater actor and say that, this guys acting is rocking? When asked about the various Genres in Malayalam music, what will I say- Mimicry, Movie and Devotional.

Will my next generation ever learn a Malayalam folk song or is it going to be a generation that just knows their rhymes and Backstreet Boys. Do we have a generation who know the diffrence between 'theater' and theater 'theater'. The Tele-serials and reruns of 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' is not the only thing other than Movies. Is there a generation that knows how to 'make' butter and ghee. Where did we go wrong? Did too much 'oil money' make us more modern? Are we moving to a Pizza and Cornflake generation away from the idiyappama and puttu generation. Is our syllabus so not true to my culture, are we too much into breeding Engineers and MBAs that we compromise dropping Malayalam in 10th just to make space for another extra class for Maths and Science

Is there a Mallu generation there that is still in touch with it's true culture. Have we lost it... do we still have a chance to save what's left of it?

Dispatches

Yesterday I downloaded a documentary about the 26/11 Mumbai blasts. It's not like those normal documentary where some guy re-enacts the scene or anything, where there's lots of officials and cops being interviewed. The story from the cops angle. This was totally different. It's told from the POV of the terrorist and the survivors for this attack, backed by CCTV footages and radio dispatches. It's titled 'Dispaches-Terror in Mumbai'

How do you program people to kill? It takes a lot of courage and a very twisted state of mind to kill a person. And when it's people you have no reason to kill, it takes a lot of brain washing to do that. Would you kill for a promise of heaven after death? Would you kill for a whole lot of money? The terrorist looked numb, devoid of any emotion.

And who are these guys on the other end of the radio. Sounded like the joker from the 'Dark Knight'- an agent of chaos. People who simply trick naive minds and get them to do very mean things. As Alfred Pennyworth from the movie 'The Dark Knight' rightly puts it:

Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Is there a solution for this, if people can be programmed to hate, can we program people to love/tolerate or do we really have to burn the forest down.

Get off the Coke!!!

It was simply irresistible, I had to have one, so I had one.

Rest of the guys at home were having a beer and I had to have something. You just don't want to be the guy with no glass in your hand when everyone else says 'Cheers!!!'. So now what, well tonsils, still the size of a grape.

We all swiped out from Satyam Cyberspace, yesterday was the last day for me at the place where it all started. I still do remember the day, the first day at Cyberspace. There was nothing here in Cyberspace. They were practically building the place when we joined. There was no 9th floor Cafeteria, it was at the 2nd Floor. But the food was really good initially, there Chinese every week and mind you 'Chinese Buffet'. The normal buffet lunch was also pretty good. Breakfast was wicked too, Poori and curry everyday, Dosa made right in front of your eyes.

Initially at Cyberspace, there was this unrestricted internet access. Google, Gmail everything was open. We guys in our project had a proxy which still gave us access to these sites when it was blocked for the rest. I used to watch trailers online of upcoming movies on Yahoo! Movies on Fridays. Talk about unrestricted acess, I even managed to get Appa and Amma all the way to my workstation and meet my team when they had come to Cyperspace. It was pretty late after that, the whole place got like creepily secured like it was some CIA Research Facility or something- No music players, No Cameras

Then after I moved out of the 'Proxima' project I moved down to the the 1st floor, with VnA and then met up with the craziest set of guys in the whole world. A very important part of my family which I call the 'Chappi team'.The name originates from the 'Chai Peene' breaks we had a zillion times in Cyberspace. We used to pick our coffee tea and move to the Fire Exit in the 'Lobby walli Front-Side' of Cyberspace. I so loved these breaks, it was during these breaks that I got inducted to this amazing fun place called 'Goa Institute of Management' aka GIM. I became friends with not just the members of Chappi team but made friends with a whole lot of characters like Uprety, Jaggu, Wikeh, Patru, Chadda. More on this in some other post. We really did have some fun Chappi breaks at Cyberspace.

We shifted from Cyberspace as a team to another building only to shift back to Cyberspace after a few months. Now we are shifting again, only this time there's definitely no shifting back to Cyberspace. From November 2004 to November 2009 it's been a good time swiping in and out of Cyberspace. What would I miss most about Cyberspace? Nothing actually, maybe the ATM inside CyberSpace. After the whole Chappi Team disbanded, I already had missed what I always liked about Cyberspace the - 'Chai Peene' breaks at Cyberspace.