The Nomad That Is Me - Part 3 (The Story Of My Homes)

The summer sun in Muscat is quite stupendous. As soon as you get out of the creaky Indian Airlines flight, you feel the heat hit on you like a fresh waft of plain sunny-ness. In the summer of 2000 I returned to Muscat. Dad was running his own business, albeit a small one. I remember two years back dad had a huge Volvo sedan (I think it was the 850 or 900 model.) But things change and Dad had shifted to a more modest car – the Nissan Primera. We were heading back to dear old Al-Fayha complex. The same fourth floor. The same second last door on the left. But not for long. It was just a temporary stopover for us.

Ruwi at night, the Sultan Qaboos Mosque in view (Photo courtsey: Sudheer S)

We were moved towards an apartment in the more crowded-industrialized area of Baladiyah street, close to Ruwi. It was a fresh start, and there were loads of things to do. For starters, me and dad took up charge of cleaning the whole place up from scratch. We began with the kitchen, since Mom needed it ASAP. And it was quite difficult cleaning the place up. It was filthy dirty the first time we saw it. A lot of pest faeces, darkened corners, and dusty cupboards – all washed clean and disinfected. And then there was the carpeting, starting with the drawing room. There were two bedrooms. The master bedroom had a huge bathroom (which my Mom didn’t like at all – because it is difficult to clean such a large space – she cursed that bathroom for as long as we stayed there.) I kinda liked the enormousness of the bathroom (kinda made me feel like a king.) Then there was the laying of the tiles for the corridor, that Dad got from his new wood workshop. And it was totally my masterpiece; I laid all the tiles across the 15 foot by 4 foot corridor. Still very proud of it.

The neighbourhood was not that great. There were too many metal workshops and what not out there. It was not the ideal residential place. And maybe one of the reasons that I didn’t even have any pictures of the place. After long, we resumed going to school by bus, which was again quite boring. I don’t exactly remember who used to stay next to me there (I think it was Clayton or somebody.) But there are some beautiful memories of the time when I was staying there, although outside of our home. I used to go to the Al Safoor plaza (was it?)(it was on the Bayt Al Falaj street, that’s for sure), where Nikhil used to stay. He was a big fan of basketball, and me new to the sport. But I guess I did try my best to gather what I could do about the sports and used to play it along with him out there. Then there were the carom board sessions with the masters of the flick and fingers – some of the most awesome-st carom moves I have ever seen – and they were the local factory workers and the watchmen who used to amaze me with their skills. Nikhil too was really good at it. But I really did have good times out there.

But then it was another trip that I enjoyed quite much. Jonathan and I used to head out to Qurum with his Dad in the evenings on weekends. And we used to roam about the handful of malls that dotted the Qurum commercial centre. John’s Dad used to be at the SABCO centre, while ma Dad at the Wadi Commercial Centre. Our hang out place usually used to be at the electronics store on the ground floor. The Playstation (yes the first series) had just come out, and we had a chance to play it. But it came with a catch. We had to play Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (yes the PS game), and get to at least the fifth question to play one of the any games available with them. Since John liked quizzes, he got to play that, while I got to play the games part. It was a win-win situation. The weekends were real fun, and I also remember heading to John’s place to work on our computer project for the exhibition. John’s a genius I tell you. While in our eighth grade, he bought a Bible of sorts on the software Flash, and read the entire manuscript, and made his own animation for the start of our crude quizzing game (made on Microsoft Powerpoint!) So there I was working on the computer, even though the latest I had till the end of 2001 was a Window 3.1. Whatever I know about computers, is all thanks to Jonathan Prakash Kotker. Great guy. Great time. Great memories.

Tragedy struck us toward the end of August. Dad got involved in one of the worst car crashes. If you saw the sight of the Ssangyong Musso he was travelling in, you would be amazed to know that all three travelling in it survived. Dad was the most affected. We had to take him back home for rehabilitation. He was very badly injured and there were just too many stitches all around. So back to Kerala we headed. It was a sad end to a new start.

The usual lush greenery of Kerala greeted us once again. Dad spent a lot of time with the Ayurvedic doctors, and he made good progress. And we were staying at our Grandparents place. Again. But there was an eminent move on the way. But that is for another blog post. Another day.

The Nomad That Is Me - Part 2 (The Story Of My Homes)

Calicut beach (digitally altered photograph)

Kozhikkode (a.k.a Calicut) has this magical feel to it. Lush greenery as you come down the table top airport, the smell of rain in the air, the signs all around – even on buses – written in Malayalam – it is quite literally – another world in itself. And that was exactly what I thought, when I came down to live there for the first time. I had left behind some of my best friends back in Muscat, and it was horrible for me.

We stayed at our ancestral place (you could not call it ancestral per say, since the house of my grandparents (mom’s side) was built in the 1970’s.) Our family is originally from Mahe, the erstwhile French colony (a lot of the Frenchness can still be seen around, and this Mahe is on the Kerala side, not Tamil Nadu.) My Grandad moved to Calicut to start his own business – Mahe Tea Mart (wholesale and retail sales of tea, coffee and later even milk powder.) The ancestral place was huge. There were around 5 rooms and as many families to fill it up (the need for a nuclear family was not even in the heads of anyone till then, and everyone felt comfortable living with each other as a joint family, almost.) But my mom thought if we too moved into the same house, then it would get a tad overcrowded. So we decided to head out and shift into an apartment close to the ancestral home itself. Thus came my third home – Shikha Apartments.

It was just barely 50 metres away, and it was a normal sized building with around four apartments in them. We took the one on the right hand corner on the ground floor. This time around, Dad was not there (he was still in Muscat, making ends meet.) So it was just Mom, brothers and myself at the new 2 bedroom apartment. I don’t think I have too many memories of this place, but I can muster up some enjoyable moments I had outside of it.

It was while at this home that I was able to cultivate the passion of cricket in me. Every weekend I used to go to the nearby ground in Jawahar Nagar Colony, where the neighbourhood boys (most of who studied with me at the Madrassa) would get together to play some of the most engrossing games of cricket (or any other sports for that matter) I have ever played. We also used to have cross-neighbourhood, wherein we would be challenged by the chaps from the Nadakkavu junction (the neighbouring locality.) The bet used to be for a meager amount of 10 or five rupees. But there used to be a lot of tension since it was the case of upholding our pride. I used to be sent in as a pinch hitter, and I was good with that (I guess) – a couple of sixes here, a couple of fours there, and then get yourself out. And yes, I used to be on the boundary line always – good fielder you see. The Nadakkavu boys used to hit hard, and I used to be there to catch hold of any ball that came my way. 

Shikha Apartments is also the place where I got my first bike – a Hero Devil. It was awesome – since I never had a bike of my own. Ever. And it was my pride. I used to take it out to go and play. I remember my elder bro had an accident with the new cycle just weeks after buying it. And surprisingly I had remained cool about it. It was my brother after all, and it was a cycle, not his bones (but yeah, he did lose one tooth.) Oh and I remember me throwing down my brothers bag on the floor thinking that he had replaced my bag from the chair. I was a very disturbed kid, who’d have his tantrums every now and then. I must have been beaten up by every other uncle and aunt I know.

School was another thing that I didn't enjoy much. After getting the adoration and admiration of the teachers in Muscat, how could I start building my reputation from scratch? I used to go to the Hill Top Public School (yes, as the name suggests it was on a hill-top). We used to go in Amba Travels, a trusted old tempo van that used to pass through the lane in front of us. Again, not much great memories with that van, since most of ma friends used to go in another – ultra super cool van – whose driver was kick-ass. Our tempo van consisted of most of the snobby kids, so it was not that great. But then again the travel was quite beautiful. We used to take the same path everyday, through our lane, in through Kottaram road to the magnificent Azhakodi Temple road and then out through Arayadathupalam to the congested Puthiyara junction and the beautiful winding road up to the top of our school (which was incidentally surrounded by huge chimney’s of large tile and brick factories that you could (and can still) see dotted around that place.) The winding path was made up of red bricks from the very factory. I should say this – it is one of the most picturesque schools I have ever been to. Life was pretty normal. Nothing major out here.

But getting back to my home, as I said earlier – not much to talk about, not much to cherish (we didn’t even have a TV out there, but yes we had an aquarium.) I have more memories of my ancestral homes in Mahe and Calicut, during the time we used to come for vacations from Muscat than of the two years I spent here. Yes, we shifted after two years, back to where I belong, back to old friends, memories, but old home? Well for that you have to wait for the next one. So it is adieu to an almost memory-less Calicut for now.

The Nomad That Is Me - Part 1 (The Story Of My Homes)

Its true when people say that this generation is not going to have a hometown to support or be passionate about or even boast about. We have become nomads. With very few people sticking to their roots, people are travelling anywhere and everywhere their jobs take them. I am no exception, but with the case of job being my reason, is only very recent.

I was born in a small yet historically relevant city in God’s Own Country (Kerala, in South India) called Calicut, a.k.a Kozhikkode (historically because that was where Vasco de Gama landed almost five centuries back.) But I didn’t stay there for long considering the fact that my father was one of those millions who had shifted base to the oil-rich Gulf in the 1970’s. (and yeah, I am the only one born in Kerala among my siblings. Both my brothers were born in Muscat, Oman.) So sooner than later, I was in the Middle East getting used to the constant air conditioning and biriyani or ghee rice on Fridays (it used to be a tradition for up until the late 1990’s in our home – Mom used to make neychor (ghee rice) with chicken curry or different biryanis on Fridays, so that the whole family sat together and ate peacefully after the men came back from the Friday Juma prayers). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention – the sweltering heat, even though nobody ventured out before it was at least 4 in the evening.

I vaguely remember where we used to live when I was really very tiny (I have to ask ma mom one of these days about it), but yeah when I was around 5 years of age, I clearly remember staying in this flat in Muttrah. It had huge halls and there were around 10 apartments within that hallway. It was fairly a huge apartment with two bedrooms and very friendly neighbours. It was the 90’s, people did talk to each other then. My mom, used to being the clean and practical one used to even get out of the way into cleaning the hallways, clearing it off the cobwebs and dust from time to time. I remember a Malayalee family, with whose children I used to play around with. When my mom left for Hajj, dad used to make us breakfast in the morning, cover it with a plate and head off to his office. Me and my brother after having our breakfast (which mainly included bananas or Upuma) used to head out to our neighbour’s place, where we played our hearts out until it was evening and our dad came back. It was a fairly nice place to stay. I remember my mom walking me down the steps towards the bus to take me to the school, which was situated towards the Corniche side of Muttrah (and yes, this very school would metamorphosize into the once prestigious Indian School Al Wadi Al Kabir).

That apartment was also the site of one of my worst personal accidents. I had burned myself real badly when I knocked over a mug of boiling hot water, which was being used as a vaporizer to clear off blocked noses. Ugh, the pain of having my skin peeled off when my dad pulled down my shorts to help take the scalding hot water away from my body was absolutely excruciating. For the next one month, I had to visit the hospital every day to have new dressing on both ma thighs. But that was just one of those many things, that you will encounter in your life. You will never know when the next incident that will scar you for life can come along.

The Al Fayha Complex as in 2009 (courtsey: Jonathan Kotker)

But after living there for almost three years we shifted base to Al Wadi Al Kabir, when the new school came up there. It was called the Al Fayha Complex and it was the company building. It still remains to me the best place I have ever stayed in my entire life. We lived through there from 1993 until 1998. We started at the second floor, and after my Uncle (Dad’s brother) brought his family down from India, we shifted our flat to the fourth floor. It was a two bedroom apartment with a sitting room, two bathrooms and a very nice kitchen. We lived a very comfortable life there, with mosques on all four sides of the building, the school was just walking distance and I made quite a lot of friends, with whom I still keep in touch.

I also remember heading off to three buildings to the left, behind the Adam and Sons Jewellery (who have been robbed quite a number of times), where my close buddy Jasper used to live. We would take out the Four Square, mom had gotten for me when she came back from India attending her sister's wedding. We'd go on out to the road, and make the pipes on the side of the wall our wickets and play gully cricket. Occasionally we were disturbed by the Omani hooligans, who didn't take a liking to us just minding our own business. But we did have a huge Asian contingency there. The Pakistani boys in our building used to get together in the evening and display some of the most awesomest gully cricket i have ever seen. I was basically blown away by their fast bowlers and big hitters. Being the small me, i was not able to be part of their teams, but time to time i too got a chance to see my wickets being shattered with a 100 km/hr ball.

Other than that our building had so many interesting people. There were the sisters (i don't remember how many they were) from Hyderabad, who used to always come out in their Hijab, which made them all the more mysteriously attractive. There were also the bachelors on the first floor, who used to work in the printing press on the ground floor. There was Jijesh uncle, one of the coolest friend's my Uncle ever had (he even got me a walkie talkie from Singapore when i asked for it, but leave it my elder brother who asked me not to accept it, since he thought our Dad won't like it.) I remember the time when me and my brother got into a fight destroying the huge balcony window (and the subsequent punishment by Dad, who beat us with his now famous cane stick.)

I also remember the time when my Uncle decided to cook for his sick wife, and literally got the pressure cooker to explode by trying to open it before it had lost out on all its pressure (the dal was all over the ceiling.) Relatives used to visit us. We had parties. This place sure did have quite a lot of memories and anecdotes to go along with it. It was a beautiful time. It was a beautiful place.

But all honeymoons get over. Sadly, my Dad hit a rough patch after his Sheikh expired and people were in danger of losing their jobs. He decided to send us back to India at least for the time being. So there, after almost 12 years in the Gulf I was heading back to the place I was born in - Calicut.

I didn't like it one bit that we had come back to our motherland. I was getting comfortable with the kind of life i lived in Muscat - quite, slow and relaxing. Its not like i hated Calicut or anything, but you know how it is when you leave your best friends in the world, and come to a place to begin a new life all over again. It was quite tough. And this was one of the main reasons, i initially didn't like the place. But things change, and it sure did for me. But that is for another blog post, when i move into our second home.

A revisit

3 years back, on a very sunny March morning, i had put up a story on this very blog. It was written after the devastation of the 2004 tsunami. It pained me to see the number of people who had lost their lives without warning, without a final goodbye and without a word to their loved ones.

The very story has now been chosen by New Asian Writing, a Bangkok based independent press to be published in their yearly Short Story Anthology.

http://www.new-asian-writing.com/?p=665

The Beginning of the End for Pixar?

It’s Pixar’s 25^th anniversary and what it has offered on this momentous occasion has failed to live up to expectations. While the first movie was termed as one of Pixar’s weakest movies, this movie has easily taken over the mantle. From a predictable story line to a role reversal of characters, Cars 2 has all the making of Pixar’s halt in the production of world-class movies. From a studio that has produced blockbusters like Toy Story, Wall-E, Findin Nemo and Up, we really did expect nothing short of an impending blockbuster.

The story begins in an almost James Bond-ish setting with the arrival of a new character, Finn McMissile, immaculately voiced by Michael Caine trying to disrupt a scheming group of thugs. The animation department takes no second chances in putting good use of 3D technology in creating the huge colony of oilrigs in the middle of the ocean. After a tense ten minutes, you fall in love with the newest addition to the Cars 2 character list and wait for a striking plot and exquisite storytelling.

But that’s where it all goes wrong. We go back to Radiator Spring to meet the hero – Lightning Mcqueen (voiced by Owen Wilson)? Unfortunately this time around the hero is a side character from the first movie, Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy). McQueen is taking his time off with his girlfriend Sally (voice by Bonnie Hunt), when yet another addition to the cast, Miles Axxelrod (voiced by Eddie Izzard), a billionaire announces a world grand prix. While initially refusing to race, McQueen gets pulled into it by an egotistical Italian car, Francesco Bernoulli (voiced by John Turturro), which is again voiced in a very stereotypical Italian voice. The parallel thin story is what Pixar has been trying to very conveniently portray through its trailers. Now since the movie is out, people will be wondering if they have been duped.

Finn is on a mission to disrupt a sinister plan by some really old cars, called ‘lemons’ in the movie, accompanied by the lovely Holley Shiftwell (voiced by Emily Mortimer), when the rusty old tow truck comes into the fray accidentally. Mater’s mix up as an American spy is where all the action lies, and the audience is left yawning over a period of time, even though there are some laugh-worthy moment at times. Axxelrod’s plan to introduce alternative fuel to actually disrupt the use of the same, is another confusion to the plot.

With exotic locations making way for pure American race tracks, and a spate of thugs giving way to scheming racers, Cars 2, directed by Pixar genius, John Lasseter does serve up its technical brilliance, but only to be foiled by an average script and weak characters. If you go in looking for the speed and thrill of racing cars, don’t be disappointed to return back with the feeling that this is the beginning of the end of Pixar magic.