My Love Stories

Am I ready to blog about a love story? I cannot be!

I don’t read books. I do not read stories. I rarely read magazines and newspapers. How can I write an interesting story?

What is a story?  Google terms it as a “narrative” or “recounting of a sequence of events”.  And a love story? Bring in some emotion to the story and it could read as “a love story”.

Let us see how I will fare in writing a love story.

Love is a very sensitive experience, a great feeling, it makes you feel very comfortable, radiant. And when you are experiencing it, it makes you do the unthinkable. It makes you very stubborn, very sensitive and very humane. You would do anything for your child in this world. That is the power of love. It even makes you want to die for the other person. I understand the feeling but sometimes I wonder, “Is death a solution?”

It is very difficult to comprehend love. I sometimes find it difficult to understand that a person who has so much love and attachment for their partner cannot understand the love and affection of their parents. I have seen people fight it out and succeed after about four or five years in convincing their parents and then getting married together.  I have seen couples leaving their parents altogether for ever and in a few cases for some time before both parties understand.

Times are changing. People today are more considerate to the feelings of their children and understand the change in society.

I once had an experience of a father coming to me to complain about a lecturer. During that time, the lecturer had taken long leave and was not in touch with her parents. She liked somebody and they were planning to get married. The boy’s parents were okay with it but the girl’s father was not. It so happened that the boy and the girl were cousins too. The father was very particular that I should not allow this to happen. In what capacity? As head of the institution, my job was only to ensure that the lecturer took her classes. It was none of my business to tell her how she should live her life. The parent was a very old person and would come every day to college in mid-summer afternoon and ask me to instil some sense into his daughter. I tried my best to make him see reason that she was only his child and make him understand that he should give in at his age. He wanted me to give his daughter’s degree certificates to him as she had studied with his money. Finally he gave up coming to the college and bothering me because he saw that I was in no mood to oblige him.

Another story. Two students of mine in their final year of post-graduation fell in love and wanted to get married. The girl’s father was dead against the match and wanted me to convince his daughter. How can you convince a person that what they are doing is not right? You can tell them about the advantages and disadvantages of getting married in spite of parental objection. Leave it to them to analyse the pros and cons and then hope for the best. I remember the girl being very adamant. I was constantly telling her and the boy too that they should first equip themselves properly to face life and take the right step at the appropriate time. This is what happened to another set of my students who were mature enough to finish their degrees, take their time, convince their parents and are happily married.

There was once a girl who went missing. The girl’s parents were very aghast and blamed a boy because they knew that the boy and the girl liked each other. The boy was a regular visitor to their house and they alleged that he had kidnapped her. On enquiry, it was observed that the girl had eloped with a friend of hers. Such stories are so difficult to believe and the scars they leave on all people concerned is something which should make anybody think twice before doing things that hurt others.

I hope that you all remember the complex equation in maths, a + ib where a is the real part and b the imaginary part. This story represents a complex equation and has both fiction and reality associated with it.

I actually wanted to write a love story. I knew that I was incapable of even writing a story, forget a love story, and then as I typed my note, I thought of recounting some real experiences with an imaginative description and here it is. 

WHERE I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE

Am I ready to blog about where I would like to live in this whole wide world?

I am not too sure whether I am ready to blog but the question is not that tough to answer, I guess.

Where would I like to live in this whole wide world? My world is actually too small. I don’t travel too much and I don’t look at the places I visit as potential places to live in.

I have so many houses to live in today and I have felt very, very comfortable living in each one of them. I was actually surprised that I have been so comfortable living in so many homes. These are some of the places that I have spent my life till now.

My parents’ house in Chennai, my uncle’s in Chennai, my grandparents in Andhra, my uncle’s brother’s house in Bobbili, Andhra, the houses where I lived in Bangalore and Hosur, my in-laws’ house in Guntur and finally our house in Chennai.

In each one of them, I have spent a lot of time and each one of them has given me great memories. I have never missed any of the houses or the places.

But of all these, I would like to live in Chennai maybe because of my job, though Bangalore would be a very close second. Bangalore might have been the first choice if not for the traffic and the pollution today, because Chennai’s climate is not much to write about.

My Favourite Things

Am I ready to blog about this week’s theme, ‘My Favourite Things’?

Who will not be ready to share details about their favourite things?

Most of us will be and I am too.

 What do you classify as favourite things?

 A very tough question indeed.  It is very subjective. And here are some of my favourite things which I can immediately recall.

My favourite games: Cricket and tennis to watch, cricket, shuttle and carrom to play. I can never forget Chetan Sharma’s hat trick in the World Cup 1987 in our college hostel where about 500 of us were watching and the atmosphere was electrifying. I was sitting in front of the television in the first row and I will never ever forget that moment.

My favourite years: Definitely college. I studied in Bangalore away from the place where my parents and uncle stay, Madras. I was so lucky that I never once felt homesick, even the first time I went to Bangalore to stay. I loved the college, my evening dance classes, then cricket till 6.30 pm, discussion about that day’s play and a game of shuttle after dinner in the night.

It brings a smile when I remember how, at 8.30 pm in the night, I would suddenly go off by bus to eat bhelpuri which was about 20 minutes away, and watching night show movies in tent houses. There were days when we would play cards. Maybe you can call it gambling but the stakes were very small. My happiest tour was to Mekkedaatu along with some of my classmates. And to top it all, I never missed Bangalore when I came to Chennai.

My favourite trips during my initial years as a lecturer: Going with a few of my colleagues on day trips. We went to Muthyala Maduvu, Shimsha and Hogenekkal. How much I enjoyed those trips and the innumerable photographs I had taken then!

My favourite restaurants: Copper Chimney, Red E-Food Court and during college days, a Punjabi restaurant in Bangalore.

Two of my favourite walking trips: Thumburu Theertham on Tirumala Hills and Edakkal Caves in Sultan Bathery (Battery), Kerala, about 25 years ago. You should do them too.

My favourite moments during the trips that I have gone along with my wife and uncle are walking to Tadiandamol in Coorg, wandering in Cabo de Rama, going to Doodhsagar waterfalls in Goa, looking at the architectural marvels of Hampi and our half-day trip to the dilapidated Alamparai fort near Chennai.

Some favourite photographs:  I thought it would be nice to make a collage of some of the photographs I like.

Clockwise from extreme left: At Alamparai fort; One of the best dance programmes I've ever seen; Coonoor tea garden; Cabo de Rama, Goa; Hampi stepped tank and Doodhsagar waterfalls, Goa

My favourite moments now: Spending time with my niece and listening to her chatter.

And finally this quote which I picked up from Facebook, “If a single teacher can’t teach us all the subjects, then how can you expect a single student to learn all subjects?”

Thank you, Aparna, for giving me this opportunity to relive some of those great moments.

Giving You Red?

Am I ready to blog about the theme for this week - “Gimme Red”?

Not at all. Just got back after spending three days with my niece which is both exhausting as well as exhilarating. Great kid, and both of us together have a great time.

About this week’s theme, “Gimme Red”.  The moment I saw the announcement, I thought it would be a great idea to request my niece to do some art work for me and I asked her to paint and give me something in red. And she asked me, why red, why can’t it be brown? And in a couple of minutes made me a tomato on paper which is the photo shown below.

When I googled about this topic, I found interesting details about red which made me smile and share with all of you.

“It was observed that red roses are a gift of love, that red cars appeal to Italian men, that the colour red is ubiquitous in weddings and married life and that red is the tilak worn by the groom, and also the color of sindoor used by the newly-wed bride. The wedding day is supposed to be a red-letter day in our lives and that many marriages unfortunately end up with both partners seeing red.” – Harish Bhat in the Times of India

            My initial impressions about “Gimme Red”, which was a popular ad for the Eveready Battery? As the color of the battery was red, and you were asking for red, it made me think that red was very powerful and the ad symbolized the craving for power.

Power, the one thing which drives people crazy, makes them do crazy things to stick onto that seat of power, disregarding morals, ethics and what not. I have seen so many such people.

 Do I want more red?  Not too sure though, as I sum up this post.