Friday, July 23, 2010

Turtles

A fun episode I recall in my life was those initial training days at Allsec. We were doing accent training. And you've probably already heard how these things go. Everything thing is 'American'. You've to learn something about their culture everyday. We were doing a fun session one day - dumb charades - on American movie title's. Its usually played with two teams. A team thinks of a movie title, and picks a target from the opponent team. The person from the other team has to enact it in front of his/her team until they figure the movie.

This activity is really fun. The only sad part was, that day most people were only getting to know what dumb charades were - they were being 'trained'. (Sigh). So, my trainer was the one who enacted a movie she thought of. There were several teams in this case; and I belonged to a team way back in the last seat.

Most of the people there were not exposed to this 'american movie culture'. Hence they were slow at figuring out movie names. But there were a few who were quick at it too. The trainer, took a bit of a pause trying to figure out what to enact next. She began; she hinted the title contains 4 words. She was going to enact the 4th one. She put her hands one above the other, and started moving her thumbs. She was trying to convey its a fish; she was hoping people would figure out the word 'turtle' eventually.

I began to think:

Fish?...Do I know a movie with a "fish" in it?

Then someone accidentally spurted 'turtle'. By now, I thought, damn, any one could have guessed this by now. The excitement in the trainer's eyes was proof enough.

I laid back. The trainer was actually enacting it to some other team if I remember correctly. It seemed to me that they'd pass.

And they did.

Still no one could figure.

She started doing the "fish" again. She couldn't speak; it was how the game had to be played.

I finally did it. I shouted TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

Dead silence in the room. Everyone turned their heads towards my direction. Everyone was probably thinking how can he guess that movie from a "fish"? Someone posted a doubt quietly: did he go to college or the cinema theatre for graduation?

I on the other hand wondered how was she going to enact the word 'mutant'? - She was still standing there, surprised, doing the fish...

Damn, I could have had more fun! :)

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Trip to Hill Top

I did my 9th & 10th std frm hill top public school, puthiyara, calicut. V were on our way bck 2day frm our classmate jamshad's marriage; en route to my plc, i suddenly thot, 'hey y don't give our school a visit?'
V went up the small 'hill' tht leads 2 t school's entrance. Found tht ther ws no lock on t gates. Opened it, took our car inside. Got out of t car n headed straight to t basket ball court.
At t bck f our head v knew all f this ws illegal n v cud hve gt sacked big time fr this...but tis ws a common activity v used to do while v were doing school ther - barge in2 t school on sundays!!!
All v evr wanted 2 do ws taken some pics w/ t cam, visit n then leave.
V were just getting started w/ our photo session vn t security guard appeared. V politely told him hu v were n wht we intended to do. He ws adamnt. Told us v r nt supposed to do such things her. After several retries v thot it ws best v let him do his job.
V had already taken sum photos. Aftr he told us nt to v bluntly said 'oh no v hve 2 delete those photos immediately'.
V decided v close the gates b4 we went down. So 1 of my frnds went to the gate. We kinda started t car, n approached him.
Our frnd started yelling at us...'don't u knw 2 day is sunday, n no 1 is supposed to take photos here. DELETE ALL THOSE PHOTOS I SAY'. Don't knw wht t guard felt. Mayb t nxt time v c him v'll send him a sorry card, probably even a bottle f rum.
Altho v knw its illegal, if he hadn't shown up, v wud hve had an awesome nostalgic evening.

Monday, July 5, 2010

center of attention

Last evening I was walking through crowded streets for some shopping. It was sometime long after sunset. I was getting tired of carrying my helmet with my hands. So I just put it over my head such that it exposed my face. So picture this - me in black jeans, black round neck shirt, and a black helmet sitting on top of my head. The only thing not black were my shoes. (Even my socks were black)! I removed my glasses and let it hang on the neck of my shirt. It was kind of disturbing me because of how I wore my helmet. My friend didn't notice me wearing the helmet at first; and then, when he saw it he couldn't help smiling. It won't be difficult to find you in this crowd he said.

I didn't mind the occasional stare I got from people. What was important at the moment was they noticed me and let me pass. They noticed my head and sometimes even stopped to take a good look at it. But people who enjoyed it the most were the women. I noticed a woman was walking through the crowd speaking on the mobile. Her eye sockets weren't so distant. She had a huge head. I could notice from the distant her pupils were transfixed onto my helmet, and she carried a smile. She was probably on her way back home after work. And, when she passed me, she gave a light, playful, knock on the helmet.

I noticed a lot of smiles from a lot of woman that day. Most of the smiles I got made me assume that they thought I was young and crazy. Kinda realized, what the heck, its not something they see everyday. However I remember the last smile I got. This woman was probably 30-something. She looked kinda in a hurry. I was just ascending up the stairs and almost jumped into her path. She looked at me, smiled and bobbed her head in approval. Yeah! She realized what I was up to...and so I smiled at her back.

I was just celebrating life...