life of pi

Weirdest dream ever!

Standing at the back of my house looking to the direction of the beach (you can't actually see the beach), I noticed the clouds above looked pretty gray. There was enough daylight to make the whole scene look gloomy.

All of a sudden a sprout of water in the air. It wasn't a continuous stream; it was as if someone tossed a huge glass of water into the air. And it was at a great distance. It was not a tsunami either.

Then all I can remember is ending up in the middle of a vast ocean, all alone. There was no tiger. I deduced this fact since I wasn't actually floating on a boat. I really don't know what I was floating on...

And then I woke up from my sleep. The movie Life of Pi was better a movie; its frightening to imagine how it would be in real life - stuck in a calm sea with nothing around you but a vast horizon on all sides. I actually woke up to this part - sensing the vast horizon.

Imagine this. Wee hours in the morning and you wake up from a semi Life of Pi like dream, except if that was made into a movie or even a book it would not sell. Then you relate to the movie. The beautiful calm ocean on which you can see your own reflection. The vast horizon at twilight. The carnivorous island. The whale. The fluorescent algae you get to see at night...

I thought to myself

...at least you could have dreamt of the fluorescent algae...

...and dozed off!

so whats in a name...?

So everyone used to ask why the name deostroll? What does it mean?

Frankly it doesn't mean anything per se.

It was back in the second half of the year of 1998, while I was doing my schooling (9th Std) in Hill Top Public School. The movie Titanic was popular then. For some boys Jack Dawson was a character they wanted to be more like...and hence the craze of maintaining long hair ensued. God knows how business fared for the barber shops back then; but I was a pseudo Jack Dawson back at the time. 

My hair was pretty unmanageable to maintain, and more difficult to keep it well kempt. Leonardo Di Caprio's hair was blond; yet it was always smooth. So I had to improvise...

I found a spray can at home I could refill. Filled water into it and took it to school. Whenever head felt dry enough took it our of the bag, and did the required business. And then the whole back benchers I sat with joined the lingo; not that everyone had long hair, but the spraying was fun.

That was also a time I had created my first email id. Was doing a small MS Office course over at NIIT in calicut. The instructor was teaching us how to create one. And when he kind of stressed on the fact that the username should be unique, I kind of pondered for a while. A funny guy like me, who used to walk around with a spray can (much like a deodrant can) to maintain my hairstyle - deostroll!

And thus the name.

So even after 13 years, why did this silly name stick?!

I don't attach so much of significance to what the name means...that time is what I attach significance to...because those were the best days of my life. I can't begin to describe the crazy things we did in our school but I can safely publish the fact that we busted an amplifier system which some famous personality had donated for school assembly use. God how we stood for assembly that day! :)

when sometimes "I make chicken curry"...

Learned the art of making edible and "safe" chicken curry while I was living in Chennai. This was fairly easy due to a very ingenious invention called the pressure cooker. However, I haven't been able to make chicken curry that way for a very long time; ever since I've moved to Bangalore.

But a few weeks back I met a woman; she was someone who has a future plan of being a chef (which I wasn't aware of at the time) asked me if I knew how to cook. And me being modest and all said "I only know how to make chicken curry".

Thus unfolded a whole chain of events...and I ended up explaining her the method anyway. 

Most IT folks would be aware of the term BSOD (aka blue screen of death). Its just a blue screen you get when windows encounters an error. You'd normally see a blue screen with some text which is dumped onto the screen. At a time when Windows 98 was in vogue, everything about that operating system was slow, but this was known to happen super fast. 

My recipe came out even faster than that.

However, how that conversation ensued was even more embarrassing...

To explain I'll need to share a bit of the preparation technique: you saute onions in a kadai, add chopped tomatoes to make it somewhat consistent, then you add your spices, then you add your chicken and other vegetables. After you feel the spices has been absorbed by the mix. You just dump the whole thing into a pressure cooker for one whistle.

I never get it right however. You need to proportion your spices correctly to get the magic, if you know what I mean. 

But most people do it the hard way. They actually use the kadai for the whole preparation. The pressure cooker is faster, and much easier to manage. And I find that the probability of such people (in that particular age group) not knowing that you could use a pressure cooker to cook chicken curry, is very high. The other person. to my surprise, was actually listening...

By all means I wanted to stop the narration, but I just went on...at the end of it was a strange emotion. 

I was thinking to myself, "Hey maybe I'll ask you for my Nobel prize for that narration later... but really?! You never knew you could use the damn pressure cooker!!!"

Then I was feeling a sense of accomplishment: "So I have successfully pressure cookerized another soul"

Then the most awkward thing happens:

She asks: "Why use the kadai?!"

Then I thought, "Yeah sure, the straight answer to that was - to mix the spices. But why couldn't I do it in the pressure cooker before putting all the chicken? The chicken had to go in there anyway..."

The embarrassing bit is...in all my 3+ yrs since I knew how to make...I never asked myself this question!

So naturally where was the answer?! I paused for a while shrugged and said, "I never really had that much of  kitchen sense", and smiled.

Days later I when I started reflecting on myself, who really handed me down the recipe; it turns out that my mother and sister both don't use the kadai for preparation. Now this was getting seriously like WTF.

There is only one person responsible for all this. and I am sure to whack him the next time I meet him. :)

Ps: on a serious note, never ever invite me over to your place for preparing chicken curry. You kitchen is not a lab; and I am not a chef.

Mishaps

What seemed like a normal day turned out to be a series of mishaps.

It was a friday night. And I was on my way to Kozhikode to spend the weekend. The Chennai Central Railway Station seemed nominally crowded. Got here with ample time to verify which coach my berth was, but I didn't do that right away. I just had small dinner after which it became around 8 pm. I went to the coach and checked for my name against my berth; to my horror, it wasn't my name. It was only then I looked at the date in the ticket print out; it was for a future date.

So then I decided I must get the correct ticket printed out immediately, and rushed to the internet cafe inside the railway station. I informed the guy (the cashier cum cafe-employee) out there I just wanted a printout. I couldn't believe what he told me next: "The printout would cost you Rs. 30. Is it ok?". The train was scheduled to leave @ 8.25 pm. I had to say "Yes". He said that the printer wasn't free for the moment; so I had to wait. The printer was at the cashier's desk too. The cashier looked at me and told me that I can browse using anyone of their free machines. He elaborated that the browsing rate was Rs. 30. So I confirmed that this was inclusive of the printout charges. He confirmed that too. There was a little, if negligible, sigh after he said that.

So I gladly did. I assumed that the computers there were networked somehow so I could adapt the ticket to a word document, and then give that for printing. I quickly browsed to the IRCTC website, logged-in, and found the correct ticket. I selected the option to print. Normally on Internet Explorer you'd be prompted with a Print Dialog box. But the dialog box showed that there were no printers installed. I canceled the dialog, and selected all the text in the page which showed me my ticket, opened up Microsoft Word, pasted the whole thing out there, and was about to hit Ctrl+S to save, when all of a sudden, POOF!

All the UPSs were whining like "I want my power supply". But they didn't have enough backup to power the computer. And it was already 8.10 pm.

Okay do I have to pay Rs. 30 to the cashier or not. Maybe he will ask for it. Maybe he will not. For some strange luck the cashier told me to go to the next building to see if I could get the printout. I ran.

I gave up looking for a cafe, at the other building. In fact I don't think there is one. This was when I decided to go die-hard and board the train. I did make note of my berth for the train I was supposed to be travelling in. So I went to my coach, looked out for my name, and made note of my PNR number. There was a TTR standing behind me. He was answering queries in Malayalam. I went up to him and told him about my problem. He replied that I can occupy my berth, but I'd have to pay a fine of Rs. 50 for not presenting the ticket. And therefore I went and sat in my berth.

After 1.5 hours of traveling the TTR comes. Assuming that the TTR would have forgotten the problem, and, not even caring to see who the TTR was I spoke in Malayalam, I explained my problem. At the end of the explanation, the TTR said that he'd have to write a charge sheet, in tamil. That was the only time I noticed the TTR's face. He wasn't the same person I spoke to before.

Next morning, while still in the train, and only few hours remaining to where I had to get down, I came to realize that without getting the charge sheet I might face a problem if I'm caught in the platform. So I resolved to find a TTR, and get the charge sheet. There were two TTRs I met in the process. The first one was quite alarmed when I told him I didn't have a ticket. But after explaining the whole situation, he told me to meet the second TTR.

The second TTR was even more dramatic. For starts, he wasn't usually in his seat. I had to check every half-hour if he was there or not. Finally I found him in his place and approached him. When I told the person that I needed a charge sheet, he too was surprised. He moved from his berth to the coach entrance door. I told him I had taken the wrong printout; took the printout for the next month instead of the current month. He looked at me and asked: You've reserved a ticket the next month also?!

I was stumped. I mean why was that question even called for? There are probably millions like me who reserve at least one ticket every month. That TTR's astonishment was like he had discovered that I had stolen his favourite berth or something. I didn't was to react to his question. I simply told him "Yes I did".

That TTR then started to red tape the whole affair. He wasn't informed by the previous TTR (the one who came to my berth) that there was someone traveling without a ticket. From what was actually said, I gathered, all the TTRs who board from chennai, get down at Palakkad. That is their end-of-shift. TTRs belonging to a different shift aren't supposed to fine people who have boarded the train before that shift. The TTR admitted that he cannot issue the charge sheet.

This wasn't good news to me. I had to pay a fine of Rs. 250 plus the whole train fare. I only had a debit card at that moment. I accepted the fact that there was no use talking to this TTR. And I was on my way back to my seat. The TTR humbly iterated that he can't do anything about it. And he also told me to try not to get caught by the platform checker.

I sighed again.

I got down at my station. Took the foot bridge which lead to the exit on platform 1. And as i descended the last flight of stairs, the checker was present. I was too frustrated to look scared. I walked normally. He was taking a call on his mobile phone. A few feet from the exit, and his hand was pointed at me. And then all of a sudden, he turned away. I was never checked! I fled the scene as fast as I could.

I am still choked up with the hangover of what happened that cruel day. But then what can one do about it:

Every dog has his day.

The surreal status update

The most strangest thing happened.

I had visitors. They kept on asking me if I knew them or not. And finally they said that we are related! All of a sudden, a funny feeling like, I have known them before, comes up. This usually happens when people say that they are related, in front of people I know; like my parents or close family. So either, I pretend that I know them, or, I am usually encompassed by that strange feeling of being acquainted earlier.

But the fact is, I get this a lot; especially when meeting distant relatives. That brief episode left me in a state of mild embarrassment. These were people close to me, yet I couldn't place them! However, I wasn't so bogged about it. In fact, I was so determined to "share" this experience via a facebook status update. I began thinking what to write. Perhaps I should say something like "...Must update database; can't place my own family relatives. Now searching for the photo album..."

I really liked the stuff I quipped up for the status update. To me it seemed witty, and humourous. Hence I was determined to post it right away. But I wasn't near a computer; and my phone was out of reach too. And as I made a start for it, I quickly seemed to take note of the environment I was "actually" in: the room was dark except for the light coming from the window. I was staring at the ceiling fan, lying on the floor, only to realize I had been dreaming while asleep.

I might have sighed, or, I did not. Its hard to say: I was relieved all of that was a dream. I was equally ashamed of the fact that I was about to update my facebook status, in the same dream.