The die is cast

Its been a hectic ten days with things hotting up on the daughter's marriage front. On the evening of 22nd Dec Ammu was to fly in to Chennai from Mumbai for her Christmas vacations. The General and his wife chose to fly in on the same day from Yol (almost 10 hours of travel!) - their flight was delayed by about 45 minutes and Ammu's by over an hour and a half! This meant that that they would have to wait for almost two hours at the airport if they wanted to get a glimpse of the prospective daughter-in-law! Surprisingly, the General and his wife decided they would wait till Ammu got in! This gave Sudha and me some time to chat up with the General and his wife and get to know some more about them. They seem very simple folk who are just happy to get themselves a daughter-in-law who will keep their son happy. Ofcourse, the Army had dispatched a Subedar Major to receive the General in a fancy car flying the General's flag - those folks had to wait too till Ammu got in.

After Ammu's flight landed her luggage seemed to take for ever! When she finally got out of the airport she had big hugs for me and her mother and big hugs for the mother-in-law to be and father-in-law to be too! Times are a changing arent' they?

Arun, the prospective groom would come in only the next morning (23rd Dec) and it was arranged that the Subedar major would come and fetch him from the airport and then by noon that day they would all head for our home. A little past the appointed hour I get this call on the mobile saying they are outside our building but have been told (by the General's brother on phone) that it is Rahu kaalam until 1330hrs and that they should not set foot into our home during Rahu kaalam! Much as I contest the concept of good time and bad time I guess I just had to fall in line now. I quickly decided that Ammu, Sudha and I would take them all to a Coffee lounge to kill time until the Rahu kaalam is over - the by line of the Coffee Day chain was beginning to sound profound now - 'A lot can happen over a coffee'!!

After a round of various coffees we were ready to head home and maybe tuck into a few beers which were nice and chill and waiting to be consumed! But as I broach the subject with the General he tells me he normally stays off alcohol while on leave! His logic being that this is the only time he can abstain from alcohol without other officers thinking he is being prudish! With lunch done we got to the business end of the proceedings and decided that we will have the marriage and engagement in Kerala for the convenience of the extended family on both the bride's and groom's side. The engagement was to be scheduled for late January while the marriage would be in September. Ofcourse, it was going to be tough for Ashwin to spend more than two days in Kochi for the wedding considering he will be in the dive-ticket phase of his submarine training.

Soon the General's brother and family arrived from Pondicherry and spent a while at home before taking the General and family on board his Innova to ferry them to Pondicherry. We were invited to visit Pondicherry the next day and Ammu was more than keen to go because that would give her another opportunity to spend time with Arun. The next day dawned and we headed off to Pondy by road - a beautiful leisurely drive along the scenic East Coast Road. Had some great food there and then headed back to base late evening.

All is nearly in place and it is now time to set the ball rolling for the engagement which is scheduled for 31st Jan 2010.

Its a heady feeling....

The last few days have been a blur - my little girl has been spending time with a boy we have found for her and trying to make up her mind if this is indeed the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with. It hasn't been easy for her because of the excitement that her meetings with the boy have generated among my family members and Sudha's. People have been calling her late at night and asking her 'So have you made up your mind, whats the decision?'. It wasn't long before the poor girl began to wonder why she was feeling pressured to make up her mind! Last Sunday she called her Mum and burst out crying on the phone saying she doesn't want anybody calling her and pressurising her to make a decision!

It is only then I begin to empathise with a 22 year old trying to make sense of society and its insistence on how a Nair girl should be married off. Hats off to the kid for expressing herself in this manner because most girls before her would simply accept societal pressure and plump for the guy chosen for her. While that is the way I saw her outburst on the phone, her mother was not very pleased with her wanting to meet the boy a few more times before she would be anywhere near ready to say 'yes or 'no' - Sudha's contention being that society may misconstrue her daughter's need to meet several times before making up her mind - after all, most girls she knew of seemed to have to make up their minds about the man they will marry in the blink of an eye and that too immediately after the first and only meeting bewteen the two, often overseen by the elders! What is worse is that Ammu's guy seemed to give the green signal immediately after the first meeting with her while Ammu was not quite ready to wave the green flag!

To cut a long story short, after a few meetings in person, a couple of coffees and a lunch together, followed by several night-long online chat sessions with the boy she finally decided, 'yes' this will be the person she will marry. Ofcourse, this must be one of those strange Nair weddings because the parents of the bride-to-be haven't even seen the groom-to-be and we're talking about a wedding happening!! I guess it is a sign of the times - things are achanging about us and we had better embrace the change!

By this time next week we the parents of the bride-to-be would have met with the parents of the groom-to-be and worked out how we should proceed with the marriage plans. It is clear that there will have to be an engagement before the wedding because Ammu has her final semester to complete before she has her Masters in Clinical Psychology. Then there is the issue of Ashwin needing to find a way to get leave from his submarine training program to attend his sister's marriage - this would mean that the marriage will have to be fixed for an appropriate time taking this and other issues (conveniences of the groom's family) into consideration. Talking about my young lad I find he does'nt somehow relish the idea of somebody new coming into his sister's life - he prefers that his family stay just the four of us! Hopefully, his brother-in-law will win over him and make him understand that his sister needs a man in her life just as he will need a woman in his life - thats the way nature willed it to be!

Of Pens and more!!!

We are scheduled to head up to the old school in the hills of South India this weekend for the Grand Raffle Draw in the school. Well, the prizes for the big draw are a) First Prize - 40" LCD Television b) Second Prize - Apple iPhone c) Third Prize Asus Notebook Computer and d) 20 Consolation prizes.

The consolation prizes were to be a beautiful pen set that the children in school would love to have. It was my job to source and ferry items b, c and d up to Ketti! So I went about trying to find these here in Chennai and with some luck managed to get hold of these within the stipulated budget. Well, this story is about my search for the Consolation prizes - the pen sets! I would normally set out during my lunch break to find the goodies - checked out the Spencer Plaza, Landmark (the mega book store here), several small stationery dealers and more but I somehow didn't find something that fitted within the budget AND was good enough to excite the kids in school!

Yesterday, on my lunchtime mission to find lunch and those pen sets I ambled into a mall right behind my office and discovered a pokey little stationery shop. The owner a 40 something Marwari businessman asked what I wanted and I told him what I was looking for - it turns out that this gentleman has been selling pens for close to 30 years and he claimed he has stocks of almost every conceivable brand of pen in that small store! To test him I asked if he had refills for a brand of pen called Caran d'Ache - its a relatively unknown Swiss brand and he says 'Ofcourse, Sir, those are, in my opinion, the best pens in the world'! He hauls out about 10 models of those pens with a price tag starting at 7,000 bucks! Ofcourse, I flinched when he cited the price! And he goes on to tell me that if you own one of those pens and you lose it anywhere in Europe, you need only make a police complaint and send the copy of that police complaint to Caran d'Ache and they will replace the pen free of cost via courier! Then he says he has pens that he has personally sold at the most astounding price of Rs 800,000!! He went on to show me a pen with a miniature projector fitted in its top which allowed you to watch a full fledged DVD movie projected on a wall (screen size 7" across)! He then pulled out a pen that was smaller than the average pen but he said it has a refill that will not need replacement in the lifetime of an individual (calculated at 85 years!).

I was gobsmacked by now at this man's knowledge of his product and asked him why he chose pens as a business specialty!! So he says, 'Sir we Marwari's believe that the pen you have in your shirt pocket and the one you have in your pants are the two most important instruments in a man's life - how they perform and what they do can make or mar your life'!! How's that for a business rationale?!!

I learnt something about pens and life yesterday and that too in my own backyard!! One lives and learns I guess!!

Network Theory

I have been meaning to write about this for some time but never quite got around to doing so - there have been a few reference to the concept of 'Six degrees' on several e-groups that I am a member of - indeed, the idea of 'Six degrees' propounded rather simplistically back in the late fifties basically was that every body in the world is connected to somebody else perhaps half way around the globe by six degrees of separation i.e in six hops it is possible for anybody to connect with anybody else in the world or in other words somebody you know, knows somebody else who knows someone else who knows yet another person and so in six such hops you can connect with a person who lives a world away and who you may never have set eyes on! Well, the idea was thought of as yet another urban legend or myth and nobody quite had tested it . Recently it turns out that it has been tested by a couple of Universities in the US and found to actually be not mere urban myth but very much true.

The testing involved getting a packet across from some of the remotest parts of the world to a particular person at Harvard University, Boston without actually having the address of the person in Boston. A couple of courier companies were recruited to fly packets addressed to that person for free, no matter from where it is coming and a notation was made as to how many hops the package made to get to Boston! Incredibly, some 27 out of 40 packets made it to Boston from far away villages in Kenya and India and Inner Mongolia in less than six hops!! In other words the network actually found the final address of the person in Boston as it went along its way!

So Six degrees is no more a myth - the concept has actually evolved into the science of Network Theory, a highly abstract, mathematical concept that has now become central to the idea of fighting stuff like terrorism and cancer!! A quick reading of the piece below will tell you how!! If you are too lazy to do that let me see if I can quickly summarise the concept for you here! A network consists of hundreds of connections, some connections have a lot more connections connecting to it than other connections - these are called hubs. Thousands of hubs and connections then form the network! The Internet works this way, as do networks of terrorists and this is the way cancer spreads in the body!! The beauty of a network is that if some connections fail, the network will continue to work, albeit a little slower! But if a hub fails, then the network begins to crawl and if a few hubs fail the network itself crashes! So does this concept tell you a few things about how to kill a viral infection in a computer network? Or how to knock out a terrorist network?

Albert-László Barabási and Network Theory

At one point or another, you’ve probably heard of “six degrees of separation,” the theory that, through social relationships, you’re only six handshakes from anyone on the face of the earth. Or, you may have heard of its pop culture

incarnation, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” a trivia game in which players attempt to link any Hollywood actor to Kevin Bacon through six films (or fewer). What you may not have heard is that an exploration of these concepts, which were

once dismissed as trivialities or urban myths, has led to a new, groundbreaking branch of science known as “network theory.” By examining the unexpected ways in which all things relate to one another – from musical crickets, to websites, to Hollywood actors scientists are honing on solutions to some of the world's most complex problems.

Network theory pioneer Albert-László Barabási, a Distinguished Professor of Physics in the College of Arts & Sciences, has emerged as one of the world’s foremost experts in the science of networks. Through such innovative undertakings as a complete mapping of the World Wide Web, Barabási has discovered that certain, basic patterns underlie all connections and relationships. In his book, Linked: The New Science of Networks, Barabási writes, “There is a path between any two neurons in our brain, between any two companies in the world, between any two chemicals in our body.

Nothing is excluded from this highly interconnected web of life.” Barabási’s work is already famous; Linked is available in eleven languages, and are among the most cited field. But his research will attain level of popular recognition this February’s U.S. release of documentary called Connected:The Power of Six Degrees (also known around the globe as “How

Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer”). The Connected documentary investigates the various mind-blowing applications of network theory in our everyday lives. In the film, Barabási and other scientists suggest that computer viruses, infectious diseases, proteins in the cell, and human social groups are all governed by the same fundamental concepts. And, through the application of these discoveries to the military, to technology, and modern medicine, Barabási has a guiding hand in research that may help us to control AIDS, break-up terrorist networks, and yes, perhaps even cure cancer.

What a week its been!

Indeed, its been a happening week this one - it all started with the news that our son Ashwin has made it to the submarine arm of the Indian Navy! The boy has been dreaming about this for some time now but he knew that it was not going to be easy given that the competition was going to be tough. Out of 16 that made it upto the Medicals in INS Ashwini in Mumbai the numbers were whittled down to 12 because 4 didn't make the cut on Medical grounds. Now it was going to be between the 12 that survived the tough Medicals and it would be upto the Training Officer to decide how many would make it out of the 12 remaining officers. Navy HQ obviously decides how many Submariners would be required in the year and that number was 6 - so out of the 12, only half would make the final cut. It was tension time for Ashwin but in the end all that tension was worth it because the Training Officer was convinced that he deserved to be part of the 6 that would go to Submarine Training School in Vizag for their 6 month submarine induction course in Jan 2010. We are so happy for Ashwin because he got what he wanted but it still beats me why anybody would want to spend the rest of his working life in the Navy under water!!

In the midst of all this important stuff happening in Ashwin's life we got word from a prospective groom's family that they would like to take forward a proposal for our daughter to marry their son! Massive debate erupted at home as to whether Ammu was old enough to be married - she will be 22 in a few days. My argument was that I think it was time for her to be married because she needed to have a slightly older man in her life to keep her feisty nature under control! I know she'll kill me if she reads this but truth must be told! So by my logic if we were to wait till she is older then the guy she marries will be older and may be into his thirties so it would make sense to find a groom for her while she is in her early twenties. Thankfully it seems like she is willing to bite the bullet. Horoscope matches have been done and there is this lad based in Mumbai, son of a Lt. General in the Indian Army who will see her on Sunday 6th Dec and we should have a go - no go decision soon enough!

Its been lovely to see the extended family rally around and call/email Ammu and tell her that she should go into this meeting with an open mind. Loved the way Veena from the UK, Bindu from Bangalore, my Mum from Kottayam, Sunil and his wife Ammu from Kochi, Gopichettan from Mumbai and so many others got in touch with Ammu to get her spirits up. So much so she's raring to go! Fingers crossed, lets see what the coming week has in store for us! Maybe there will be a meeting of minds in Mumbai this Sunday!

OGA Offsite Reunion Poovar 28th and 29th Nov 2009

The last few days have been a blur what with the build up to the OGA Offsite REunion in Poovar, Kerala and the travel to Australia in-between all the Reunion tamasha. But the Reunion happened and was most enjoyable.

Here's the low down on the build-up to Poovar, Poovar itself and post-Poovar! Somebody said 'theres never a dull moment with Georgians' - well there really couldn't be a more apt statement! The action started within minutes of us boarding the train for Poovar!! As the train pulled out of Chennai Vinoo had his pre-mix suitably camouflaged in Coke and was taking his regular swigs, he wouldn't put his bottle down and I think thats what attracted that Railway Protection Force policeman to Vinoo - he tugged the bottle out of Vinoo's hands, breathed deeply with his nose over the mouth of the bottle and motioned to Vinoo to see him outside the A/C compartment!! We didn't even notice what was happening until Vinoo was seen stepping out of the air conditioned area! Outside, Vinoo was told that it would be a 3000 buck fine and he would be de-trained at the next station for drinking on board the train!! After a little bit of pleading and coaxing the policeman settled for a bribe of 200 bucks and gave Vinoo his bottle back and told him to go into the loo and finish it!! Which ofcourse, Vinoo did without a whimper, glad that he got his vodka and coke back!! Soon it was time to hit the sack - I was billeted in the next coach while Sattar, Jen, Sudha, Kevin Lewis, Mary and Vinoo were in one area. I headed off and went to sleep - around 1030pm my phone (which was with Sudha) rings and Paan comes on the line almost desperately pleading with Sudha to put me on the line! She finds her way to my bogie and wakes me and puts Paan on the line - the man was charged with collecting 40 bottles of booze from the Naval Base in Kochi and ferry it to Poovar. It turns out he got busted by the cops the previous day - it is a non bailable offence to carry commercial quantites of booze without a licence in Kerala so Paan was about to go in to the cooler and be the guest of the Kerala Government!! He somehow worms his way out of that situation and calls me and says he cannot take the booze down to Poovar because it is too risky! His exact words were ' if you can ferry it please do so, I'm outahere'!! Now, our train would be passing through Kochi but we were to head straight to Poovar so how was this problem to be solved?!! The decision was taken that Vinoo and I would hop off at 0600hrs on 27th morning at Kochi and find Paan and the booze and find a way to get it to Poovar! Imagine a reunion without the hooch!! The thought was worrisome for every OG out there!! I called Sanil to see if he could arrange some police protection! He insists that we should not ferry the booze in a Tourist vehicle (Yellow number plates) and must do so only in a white number plated vehicle - he would try and arrange one for us but it would be past 10am when we have some news on that! It turns out that the Manager of the hotel that Paan was parked in was the husband of one of Sudha's 60 cousins! We latched on to the man who very helpfully offered to let us use his car to ferry the booze - that was very brave of him because if we did get caught, the car would never ply the roads again! But an ex-Army officer knows that some risks are worth taking! So Paan, Vinoo and I set off in a Maruti Esteem stacked to the roof with booze, headed to Trivandrum some 160 km south of Kochi. We smiled at every cop enroute so as not to look like a trio of boot leggers ferrying our booty! As luck would have it we got to Trivandrum without incident and headed for my cousin's home where Sattar, Jen, Kevin, and Sudha were parked. It was lunch at my cousin's place and Vinoo and Paan then took over and ferried the booze across to Poovar from Trivandrum! That evening all of us Chennai folks headed out to Poovar to check out the place for the games and other action that Sattar had planned. At dinner at the resort I get a call from Sanil saying that Ivan Jacob boarded a train from Calicut to Trivandrum with a ticket dated 26th October instead of 26th Nov!! Poor guy almost got thrown out but the TTE took him under his wings and provided him place to sleep - the train gets in at 0500hrs and the vehicles booked to ferry folks from Trivandrum station to Poovar wouldn't leave till 10am! So at 0530hrs in the morning my cousin's husband and I went and fetched Ivan! Now we were too many to fit in the car we were to bum from my cousin to get to Poovar!! Soon that was sorted out by arranging for Ivan to head back to the station to catch the vans ferrying folks to Poovar! In the mean time we hear that our man for all seasons - Thamilarasu was in Chennai on 26th instead of being in Poovar, so he was to fly to Madurai that evening and drive to Tuticorin, pick up his man Friday Vivek and drive out the same night to Poovar!! Mr Gardner and wife and Mr Wood and his wife were arriving with the Coimbatore gang next morning. There was another Chennai gang arriving at Trivandrum Station by another train - all these mind boggling logistics were beautifully handled by the Organising Committee consisting of NRK, Bhagee, Narayan, Singappa Raja, Rathinashekhar, Babu and a dedicated bunch of guys who worked their butts off to pull off the Poovar reunion. The Isola Di Cocco resort is a beautiful sprawling campus - we needed cell phones to pull in the foks to get the reunion going - which mercifully happened as per plan, under the shade of coconut trees on the backwaters of the Poovar river. Speeches done - Sattar took over in his own inimitable way with all the games and had the crowd buzzing in no time. The Treasure hunt for the kids was a terrific hit as also the other games arranged for the adults. It was quite hot and sultry by then which meant that beer could never taste better!! Lunch followed and what a spread that turned out to be - the mango fish curry was awesome as was the roast chicken curry! The EC Meeting was next - it was surprisingly well attended and the participation in the discussions was excellent. That was where the goody bags were distributed - super stuff - there was even a beautifully mounted Seashell with an individually personalised brass plaque! Ofcourse, there was lots of other goodies too - branded Sugar, Salt, Matches, Beedies, Curry masala and even a packet of condoms for good measure!! The beautifully personalised Appreciation Scrolls were also presented to those who helped put Poovar together. Hats off to the Organisers for the details they looked into. The highlight of the Poovar Reunion was the Banquet and Poolside Ball on 28th evening!! As usual Sattar had the crowd in party mood very early in the evening. The Live Band was fantastic - those guys deserve a big hand - they played on till 2am that night!! Because of the openness and large spread of the resort the music didn't affect any of the folks who wanted to call it a day early! The next morning folks were woken up by the Resort staff and told that the boat rides to the beach would begin at 0630hrs!! Many actually made it for the boat ride only to learn that the boat man had gone to church! So we hailed a boatman who was poling his way through the backwater and some hitched a ride in the boat which is actually used to ferry ducks about and it sure smelled that way!! By 1030hrs that morning it was time to start bidding goodbye to the 95 OGs and families who had shown up for Poovar 2009. Soon we discovered that a Mallu movie shooting was to take place in the resort and they needed some of us OGs in the movie! Paul and JC actually feature in one of the scenes of the movie - don't ask me the name of the movie - am sure one of those who attended will remember! The Valedictory address by Mr Gardner was short and sweet and basically focused on all the organising that had gone into the Reunion and terrific bonding that was on display. To put it in a nutshell - a great time was had by all! Click on the link below to check out some of the photos of our trip to Treasure Island Poovar 2009

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/Sailendra.Bhaskar/TreasureIslandPoovarOffsiteReunion2009#

http://picasaweb.google.com/vegaanba/IsodiLoCocooa?authkey=Gv1sRgCJWS1aGM0eeByAE#