A collosal chain of events

sorry for not posting for such a long time but some things take time to work at. and when its something like your own life story some details are vague, some are too private and some frankly you get scared of revealing. and in these past few months i have been struggling with my inner-self to come out of a mental nutshell i had created for myself.

right, back to the business at hand. there was essentially no major event in my life (that i recall) , from the age of 1 year to about the time i became 4 years old. except of the fact that i was just like any other normal child and had all the pleasures, pains, and desires that such a child would have.

but during this time there are some major events that took place and it lead to a major change in my life, a change that in some ways helped shape my childhood until the age of 10 .

some are very small things that we kids make a big deal of some others are things that we as kids completely overlook but as adults we reflect and realize the impact it makes on kids .

right enough beating around the bush...

these events are not necessarily in order and they certainly do not reflect any hierarchy as far as "impact" is concerned .

EVENT 1 - my first television

For a small kid whose favorite past times involve playing with toys and playing under the water tap situated at the back yard of the house, the television was perhaps the holy grail. i remember the day my father got his 14 inch solidaire color television. In India in the 1990's like in America in 1970's the television was perhaps the greatest luxury a middle class family could have, cars were a rarity, and transistors were barely being used by anyone except one transistor in a locality. the television brought to India what the radio couldn't. visual entertainment. access to news , cricket matches, while all of India listened to the news of India winning the cricket world cup in 83 , 1990's ushered in an age of fanaticism among Indians be it in sports, in entertainment or in politics. people at least those who could afford it.. where glued to dd1 like we seem to be glued to orkut, yahoo messenger and and video games today .
i remember the television not for what i saw in it for most of it i don't remember anything i watched in my television . i remember the television for the few memorable moments i spent with my father. i remember sitting on his lap and watching news. and he would rock me like i am on a horse. those days, my father was away longer than he was around. his irregular shifts often meant that i spent most of my time with my mother. and when he was around it was in front of the tele.. (at least thats how i remember it ) .

another impressive fact about the solidaire television is the fact that it lasted almost 15 years before it encountered its first ailment . and ofcourse it never managed to last 15 years. but it is a well known fact that although we have advanced so far technologically sometimes the oldest forms of todays inventions are most durable. i have seen 1950 enfield motorbikes still running smartly on the road chugging along while people struggling to maintain their spanking new "push button start" bikes. i have seen 15 year old televisions work without a complaint while the latest tv's start coughing and bellowing in 3 -5 years . that i feel is the ironic beauty of technology itslef. that as we progress we compromise on durablity. today people change their cellphones as often as they change their dresses . they are forced to change our computer configurations according to the lastest game that hit the market, irrespective of how well the computer was functioning in the first place.
people now cell thier playstations to buy ps2 only to repent their decision in less than 5 years and they go about buying a ps3. my solidaire is no longer with me. today we own a 7 year old sansui television that looks like its barely clinging to life. we are considering a new television.

but no matter how many televisions i'll buy in my life. no matter what these televisions have as a technological feature that old solidaire 14 inch will remain my most favourite television and the memories it gave me, the images it clumsily displayed on its narrow face will remain in my memory vivid, and beautiful.

fits ,feni and lots of worry

i don't have any memory of the event i am about to post in this blog entry.
i was about 1 and half years old and we were living in a small flat in porvorim in goa. we were in a secluded region surrounded a cashew nut jungle.
we had some close neighbors and friends there or rather my father did as my mother was still pretty much alone in this crowd. it is part of her nature i guess. she hardly speaks with anyone even now. always reserved and pretty much spent her time watching the new 14" solidaire tv my dad bought or perhaps taking care of me.

my father still says that it was her only pastime.. to feed me put me to sleep and to well. ermm things a baby does, you know the drill ... she has spend her entire life for me.. practically and even now that seems her only aim. to live for me. how can anyone be so lucky i dunno.

There was a group of Nigerian football players who had come to stay in a flat above ours .. and they loved to play with me . i was this fair curly haired cute kid that everyone loved to cuddle and play with. (once again these details are from my parents ) . i used to even speak a spot of konkani then

one of those Nigerian fellows offered me a guava and i ate it a bit.. nibbling on it a while.
the nest day i fell ill, my temperature rose and finally i had a seizure of sorts what we call fits.

there was a great hew and cry my mother worried sick and a local fisherman poured a whole bottle of kaju feni over my head saying it will help me cool down.. my mother picked me up and ran out in her housecoat through the streets of porvorim and took me to the hospital.. well i guess thats one of the things about being a mother. the maternal instincts.. the urge to save your child always makes a woman stronger than she would ever be. great evil fails in front of a mother.. even god.. at least thats how i feel.
till today that incident is the only time i have ever been admitted in a hospital because my mother was always careful with me sometimes a little too careful/ people might call it over pampering or molly coddling but then aren't all mothers a little overbearing???

so after a round of fits a bottle of feni and a lot of worry i was back at home.. with a caution from the doctor , that if i were ever to have fits before the age of 6 i will possibly have it forever.. i am 19 now. and i have no one to thank but my own mother who saved me the trouble of having seizures every time some pain occurs to me or somethign worries me.

its not just my case its a case of mothers and children everywhere. we take our mother fore granted, scream when they get too worrisome , leave stuff around for them to pick up and just leave the house without even looking at them.. even today i kiss my mother good night and good bye..

god forbid... you never know..
for those who read my blog. old or young.. call you mother wherever she is. and just for once thank her.. you never know what difference it might make ... mothers don't need a day..
they don't need a year from UN they just need that one look of happiness on your face..

i salute all the mothers and those who will be mothers someday. god has created you so divine and so pure.

thank you

what's in a name??

These words start one of the greatest or perhaps the greatest romantic ,tragedies in english literature,"ROMEO AND JULIET".


What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.

They are so simple , yet so ingenious.
Now i am no fan of shakesphere, lets face it, he is no detective novelist or dan brown , or robert ludlum or sidney sheldon, who spice up their works.

To me his work is like a bland oat meal breakfast with sour milk as base. Perhaps thats why classics are classics.Just like text books are text books. Neither are fun to read/watch but are accepted as the best in their respective fields.

But have you ever thought about it? why are you named the way you are? why did your parents name you the way they did?

In our malayali ,hindu tradition, unlike some parts of the world, a child is not named immediatley after he/she is born.
i was a nameless human offspring for 28 days. thats right.
i was not named anything. simply"the baby","he","it".

So on the 28th day since my birth, a ritual of sorts took place, with my parents and their families gathering.

In malayalam its called "irupaththi ettu" which simply translates as 28.

Similar rituals exist in other places, they call it as naamkarans in north. the jews have the bris on the 8th day.Perhaps it is only christians who actually name their children as soon as the birth(correct me if am wrong).

For us , there is no circumcision involved(thank fully). The ritual involves a parent or in many cases a grandparent , taking the child up in his/her arms and calling its decided name 3 times by its ear.

Idonno if calling a name 3 times sort of embedds the name in our cerebral harddisk.
If so, this would ofcourse be the first bit of non ,natural data that we recieve.

Now , my name is ASHWIN. and it means a knight or cavalier.
I like my name.
It actually can be spoken by british(who are terrible at names ), remember naming , oothakamandalam as ooty or thiruvandandapuram as trivandrum, or better yet simple sweet mumbai as bombay ( who can't say that?)

There was argument over my name i am sure. my dad wanted me named kannan ( malayalam name for krishna) but my mom wanted it as ashwin.I guess logic prevailed.

I don't think kannan would be that easy a name to live with , especially outside kerala.

Ihave noticed , that several times the name we are given means something thats totally opposite to our character.
Now my name means a knight, and yet i don't think i have ever been to brave, chivalrous. or even a true gentle men at best?
Well maybe i didn't notice it that much.

This is not just in my case.

Pretty, fair kids are named krishna(means dark, or black)

Hot tempered girls are named shanti( peace).

Hard headed politician is named mulayam(soft)???

Guy who is been involved in a fodder scam, has changed the face of indian railways economy is named lalu(simpleton)

should i continue?
So really?


What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.

Name means nothing.
Not just the name that we get written on our ssc cirtificates, drivers license and ration cards.
But the name as in name and fame.

But does name mean nothing?


when we die. we die with nothing. no money, no name goes to heaven.
all we need when we die. is that people know our name.and talk about us as, that was a good man. that was a famous man.
and they know us as we are called.

but in another sense,
if gandhi was called something else? would he have changed?
if hitler was called by another name? would he change?

the thing is we donot know.
we have no infrastructure or say ability to tell of what would have been.

for now, my name was, is and will remain (even if i convert my religion)

ASHWIN

P.S Picute shows me at the naming ceremony being carried by my mother as my grandma(dad's mother) is tying a waistband (aranjanam) , believed to save a baby from evil eyes ,diseases, fear. Not sure it worked.

the day i was born 2

Well i am born. ....
Thing about events such as birth, death, marriage e.t.c , is that , we get a little remeniscent at the occasions . we tend to wonder what lead to these events. the things that happened before this event.
about the last time this event took place. like in case of an anniversary, wives always tend to compare and contrast the current anniversary celebrations with the previous one's. and ask," am i being loved as much as before? does he care about me? is this what i married him for?

and you don't even have to be married to know al these.just sit and look around you. i always hear my mother complaining about how last time she had got a saree and jewelery and this time dad tries to patch up with a small take home dinner.

the point that i am trying to make again is about remembering what happened. to understand why it happened? how it happened. we men keep saying that women fight for no reasin.
the truth is we don't really know the reason.
they may be fighting ovber a silly issue. but the real cause is hidden somewhere deep. we overlooked it and they picked it right up.
It helps immensly to write a diary. to jot down all events, even the most insignifant things.

I started off too late for it and so now i am facing a lot of difficulty to bring up details and topics especially in a chronological order.

well when i wrote my last entry about my birth. i wondered about the things they say about the cosmic influences regarding one's birth. like the birthstar, astrological details like which zone my star was, and what my life would be like because of the stars position.

I am not a big fan of astrology but my father had a rendezvous with an astrologer friend after i was born and he is positive about the fact that things that happened in my life and what i will tell you all about as well were already predicted by this astrologer. whether it is true or not, i really don't want to know.

we hear about people bragging rather famously about what happened on their birthday, who was born, who died.
some of my friends have their birthdays on really famous days, like new year, christmas, india's independence day, gandhi jayanthi.

sadly i feel they've just wasted a good day to take a break.

so i wanted to know about the events that took place on 8th january, searched it on wikepedia. and found a huge collection.
the rest of this blog will be just that.
i am too afraid to draw conclusions from the list. as the readers i leave that job to u folks.

Events

• 871 - Battle of Ashdown - Ethelred of Wessex defeats a Danish invasion army.
• 1198 - Innocent III becomes Pope.
• 1297 - Monaco gains its independence.
• 1499 - Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany.
• 1734 - Premiere of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• 1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
• 1790 - George Washington delivers the first State of the Union Address address in New York City.
• 1806 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
• 1811 - Unsuccessful slave revolt led by Charles Deslandes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.
• 1815 - War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans - Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
• 1838 - Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
• 1863 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield
• 1863 - Yorkshire County Cricket Club is founded at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield, England.
• 1867 - African American men granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia.
• 1877 - Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).
• 1889 - Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine.
• 1900 - United States President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
• 1906 - A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, kills 20 people due to the excavation of clay along the Hudson River.
• 1908 - A train collision occurs in the Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City killing 17 people, injuring 38 and leading to increased demand for electric trains.
• 1912 - The African National Congress was founded.
• 1916 - World War I: Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli.
• 1918 - President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.
• 1920 - The Czechoslovak Hussite Church was founded by Dr. Karel Farský.
• 1922 - The Social Democratic Youth League of Norway is founded.
• 1926 - Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud becomes the King of Hejaz and renames it Saudi Arabia.
• 1935 - Arthur C. Hardy patents the spectrophotometer.
• 1953 - René Mayer becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1956 - Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
• 1958 - Fourteen-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.
• 1959 - Conquest of Cuba by Fidel Castro is completed with the conquest of Santiago de Cuba.
• 1959 - Michel Debré becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1962 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time (National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.).
• 1962 - Harmelen train disaster kills 93 people in The Netherlands.
• 1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
• 1973 - Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
• 1975 - Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States who did not succeed her husband.
• 1977 - Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
• 1979 - The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland (The Betelgeuse incident).
• 1982 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
• 1987 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 8.30 to close at 2,002.25 -- The Dow's first close above 2,000.
• 1989 - Kegworth air disaster kills 47 people in Great Britain.
• 1989 - Beginning of Japanese Heisei era.
• 1994 - Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He will stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
• 1996 - An Antonov 32 cargo turboprop powered plane crashes into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350 people.
• 2004 - RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
• 2006 - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake epicentered just off the Greek island of Kythira hits much of the country and is felt throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Births

• 1556 - Uesugi Kagekatsu, Japanese samurai and warlord (d. 1623)
• 1583 - Simon Episcopius, Dutch theologian (d. 1643)
• 1601 - Baltasar Gracián y Morales, Spanish writer (d. 1658)
• 1628 - François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, duc de Luxembourg, French general (d. 1695)
• 1632 - Samuel Pufendorf, German jurist (d. 1694)
• 1635 - Luis Manuel Fernández de Portocarrero, Spanish Archbishop of Toledo (d. 1709)
• 1735 - John Carroll, first American Roman Catholic archbishop (d. 1815)
• 1763 - Edmond Charles Genêt, French ambassador to the United States (d. 1834)
• 1786 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States (d. 1844)
• 1788 - Pavel Kiselyov, Russian general and politician (d. 1874)
• 1792 - Lowell Mason, American composer (d. 1872)
• 1805 - John Bigler, Governor of California (d. 1871)
• 1805 - Orson Hyde, American religious leader (d. 1878)
• 1817 - Sir Theophilus Shepstone, South African statesman (d. 1893)
• 1821 - James Longstreet, American Confederate general (d. 1904)
• 1821 - W.H.L. Wallace, American Union general (d. 1862)
• 1823 - Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist and biologist (d. 1913)
• 1824 - Francisco González Bocanegra, Mexican poet (d. 1861)
• 1824 - Wilkie Collins, British novelist (d. 1889)
• 1830 - Hans von Bülow, German pianist, conductor and composer (d. 1894)
• 1836 - Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Dutch artist (d. 1912)
• 1843 - Frederick Abberline, British police investigator (d. 1929)
• 1852 - James Milton Carroll, was a Baptist pastor, leader, historian, and author (d. 1931)
• 1860 - Emma Booth, the fourth child of William and Catherine Booth (d. 1903)
• 1862 - Frank Nelson Doubleday, American publisher (d. 1934)
• 1867 - Emily Greene Balch, American writer and pacifist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (d. 1961)
• 1870 - Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain (d. 1930)
• 1871 - James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (d. 1940)
• 1873 - Iuliu Maniu, Romanian politician (d. 1953)
• 1881 - Henrik Shipstead, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (d. 1960)
• 1883 - Patrick J. Hurley, U.S. Secretary of War (d. 1963)
• 1883 - Pavel Filonov, Russian painter (d. 1941)
• 1885 - John Curtin, fourteenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1945)
• 1885 - A. J. Muste, Dutch-born civil rights activist and pacifist (d. 1967)
• 1888 - Matthew Moore, Irish actor (d. 1960)
• 1891 - Walther Bothe, German physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics laureate (d. 1957)
• 1891 - Bronislava Nijinska, Russian choreographer (d. 1972)
• 1896 - Arthur Ford, American psychic spiritual medium (d. 1971)
• 1897 - Dennis Wheatley, British author (d. 1977)
• 1902 - Carl Rogers, American psychologist (d. 1987)
• 1903 - Igor Kurchatov, Russian physicist (d. 1960)
• 1904 - Karl Brandt, Nazi war ciminal (d. 1948)
• 1905 - Franjo Cardinal Seper, Croatian Catholic cardinal (d. 1981)
• 1905 - Giacinto Scelsi, Italian composer (d. 1988)
• 1908 - William Hartnell, British actor (d. 1975)
• 1909 - Willy Millowitsch, German actor (d. 1999)
• 1909 - José Ferrer, Puerto Rican actor (d. 1992)
• 1909 - Evelyn Wood, American educator (d. 1995)
• 1910 - Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, Russian ballerina (d. 1988)
• 1915 - Walker Cooper, baseball player (d. 1991)
• 1923 - Larry Storch, American actor
• 1923 - Johnny Wardle, English cricketer (d. 1985)
• 1923 - Joseph Weizenbaum, German-born computer scientist
• 1924 - Ron Moody, English actor
• 1926 - Evelyn Lear, American soprano
• 1926 - Hanae Mori, Japanese fashion designer
• 1926 - Soupy Sales, American comedian
• 1931 - Bill Graham, German-born American music promoter (d. 1991)
• 1933 - Charles Osgood, American journalist and commentator
• 1933 - Jean-Marie Straub, French film director
• 1934 - Jacques Anquetil, French cyclist (d. 1987)
• 1934 - Roy Kinnear, English actor (d. 1988)
• 1934 - Alexandra Ripley, American writer (d. 2004)
• 1934 - Gene Freese, baseball player
• 1935 - Elvis Presley, American singer and guitarist (d. 1977)
• 1937 - Shirley Bassey, Welsh singer
• 1937 - John Hume, Irish politician
• 1938 - Bob Eubanks, American game show host
• 1941 - Graham Chapman, British comedian (d. 1989)
• 1941 - Boris Vallejo, Peruvian illustrator
• 1942 - Stephen Hawking, English physicist and author
• 1942 - Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan
• 1942 - Yvette Mimieux, American actress
• 1944 - Terry Brooks, American writer
• 1946 - Robby Krieger, American musician (The Doors)
• 1947 - David Bowie, English musician
• 1947 - Samuel Schmid, Swiss Federal Councilor
• 1951 - Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia
• 1951 - John McTiernan, American film director
• 1953 - Bruce Sutter, baseball player
• 1954 - Robert Dumas, Yellow Mustang Club Member
• 1955 - Mike Reno, Canadian musician (Loverboy)
• 1958 - Rey Misterio, Sr., Mexican professional wrestler
• 1959 - Paul Hester, Australian drummer (Crowded House) (d. 2005)
• 1961 - Calvin Smith, American athlete
• 1967 - Michelle Forbes, American actress
• 1967 - R. Kelly, American singer
• 1969 - Ami Dolenz, American actress
• 1969 - Jeff Abercrombie, American musician (Fuel)
• 1970 - Dave Eggers, American writer and publisher
• 1971 - Jason Giambi, American baseball player
• 1971 - Pascal Zuberbühler, Swiss footballer
• 1973 - Mark Knight, English sound designer
• 1973 - Jason Stevens, Australian rugby league player
• 1975 - DJ Clue, American DJ and producer
• 1975 - Sean Paul, Jamaican singer
• 1976 - Jenny Lewis, American actress and musician (Rilo Kiley)
• 1976 - Carl Pavano, American baseball player
• 1977 - Amber Benson, American actress
• 1977 - Lee Yoo-jin, Korean actress
• 1978 - Marco Fu, Hong Kong snooker player
• 1979 - Adrian Mutu, Romanian soccer player
• 1979 - Sarah Polley, Canadian actress
• 1979 - Seol Ki-Hyeon, South Korean footballer
• 1980 - Rachel Nichols, American actress
• 1981 - Jeff Francis, Canadian baseball player
• 1982 - Gaby Hoffmann, American actress
• 1983 - Chris Mordetsky, American professional wrestler
• 1985 - Rachael Lampa, American singer
• 1986 - Jaclyn Linetsky, Canadian actress (d. 2003)
• 1991 - Asuka Hinoi, Japanese singer

Deaths

• 482 - Saint Severinus
• 1100 - Antipope Clement III (bc. 1029)
• 1107 - Edgar of Scotland (b. 1074)
• 1198 - Pope Celestine III (bc. 1106)
• 1324 - Marco Polo, Italian explorer (b. 1254)
• 1337 - Giotto di Bondone, Italian artist (b. 1267)
• 1464 - Thomas Ebendorfer, Austrian historian (b. 1385)
• 1557 - Albert the Warlike, Prince of Bayreuth (b. 1522)
• 1570 - Philibert de l'Orme, French architect (bc. 1510)
• 1642 - Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer (b. 1564)
• 1707 - John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair, Scottish politician (b. 1648)
• 1713 - Arcangelo Corelli, Italian composer (b. 1653)
• 1775 - John Baskerville, English printer (b. 1706)
• 1789 - Jack Broughton, English boxer (bc. 1703)
• 1794 - Justus Möser, German statesman (b. 1720)
• 1815 - Edward Pakenham, British general (b. 1778)
• 1825 - Eli Whitney, American inventor (b. 1765)
• 1854 - William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, British general and politician (b. 1768)
• 1865 - Aimé, duc de Clermont-Tonnerre, French general (b. 1779)
• 1874 - Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, French writer and historian (b. 1814)
• 1878 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Russian poet (b. 1821)
• 1880 - Joshua A. Norton, American eccentric (b. 1811)
• 1896 - William Raine Marshall, Governor of Minnesota (b. 1825)
• 1896 - Paul Verlaine, French poet (b. 1844)
• 1901 - John Barry, Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1873)
• 1916 - Ada Rehan, Irish-born American actress (b. 1860)
• 1932 - Eurosia Fabris, Italian Catholic (b. 1866)
• 1934 - Andrei Bely, Russian writer (b. 1880)
• 1935 - Jesse Garon Presley, stillborn twin brother of Elvis Presley
• 1941 - Robert Baden-Powell, English founder of scouting (b. 1857)
• 1942 - Joseph Franklin Rutherford, American religious publisher (b. 1869)
• 1944 - William Kissam Vanderbilt II, member of the Vanderbilt family (b. 1878)
• 1948 - Kurt Schwitters, German painter (b. 1887)
• 1948 - Richard Tauber, Austrian tenor (b. 1891)
• 1950 - Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian economist (b. 1883)
• 1956 - Jim Elliot, American Christian missionary (b. 1928)
• 1958 - Paul Pilgrim, American athlete (b. 1883)
• 1963 - Kay Sage, American artist and poet (b. 1898)
• 1969 - Albert Hill, British athlete (b. 1889)
• 1970 - Georges Guibourg, French performer (b. 1891)
• 1972 - Kenneth Patchen, American poet (b. 1911)
• 1975 - Richard Tucker, American tenor (b. 1913)
• 1976 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
• 1976 - Robert Forgan, British fascist (b. 1891)
• 1979 - Sara Carter, American country musician (b. 1898)
• 1980 - John Mauchly, American physicist (b. 1907)
• 1981 - Matthew "Stymie" Beard, American actor (b. 1925)
• 1983 - Tom McCall, Governor of Oregon (b. 1913)
• 1986 - Pierre Fournier, French cellist (b. 1906)
• 1989 - Bruce Chatwin, English novelist (b. 1940)
• 1990 - Terry-Thomas, British actor, comedian (b. 1911)
• 1991 - Steve Clark, English guitarist (Def Leppard) (b. 1960)
• 1993 - Eleanor Hibbert, British author (b. 1906)
• 1994 - Pat Buttram, American actor (b. 1915)
• 1994 - Harvey Haddix, American baseball player (b. 1925)
• 1995 - Carlos Monzon, Argentinian boxer (b. 1942)
• 1996 - François Mitterrand, President of France (b. 1916)
• 1997 - Melvin Calvin, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
• 1998 - Michael Tippett, English composer (b. 1905)
• 2000 - Fritz Thiedemann, German equestrianist (b. 1918)
• 2002 - Alexander Prochorow, Nobel Prize in Physics laureate (b. 1916)
• 2002 - Dave Thomas, American fast food entrepreneur (b. 1932)
• 2003 - Ron Goodwin, British composer and conductor (b. 1925)
• 2004 - John A. Gambling, American radio talk-show host (b. 1930)
• 2004 - Aaron Weaver, American soldier (b. 1971)
• 2005 - Campbell McComas, Australian impersonator and broadcaster (b. 1952)
• 2005 - Warren Spears, American choreographer and dancer
• 2005 - Michel Thomas, Polish linguist (b. 1914)
• 2006 - Tony Banks, British politician (b. 1943)
• 2007 - Yvonne De Carlo, Canadian-born actress (b. 1922)
• 2007 - David Ervine, Northern Irish politician (b. 1953)
• 2007 - Iwao Takamoto, American animator (b. 1925)
• 2007 - Francis Cockfield, British politician (b. 1916)

Holidays and observances

• Commonwealth Day is celebrated in the Northern Mariana Islands.
• The feast day of Our Lady of Prompt Succor in the Roman Catholic Church.
• January 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

so ?
what conclusions did u draw?
do comment about it.

the day i was born......

While she was pregnant,my mother was back in kerala and my father in goa....

Perhaps this is tradition everywhere,that the first baby is born under the supervision of the mother's family..
If this is true everywhere or not ...I donot know..

Perhaps the idea of the woman being with her parents and relatives at the time of delivery has to do with the simple fact that she is more comfortable going through the whole ordeal with the people who raised her and who also underwent the same ritual with her birth ... or maybe its the simple cultural element that states that this must be done...

Well whatever be it, my mother was in the care of her family.


I was expected to be born around 25th december but i had no intention to start out any time soon.
And so finally on 8th january 1988 ( yea i mentioned the year.. whats the deal with hiding your age anyway?? i am not a woman so i don't need to anyway)

As i was saying ,on 8th january, i was cut out of my mothers womb , perhaps without my permission.(Meaning my mother had a ceasarian operation).

Maybe it was better inside as i feel now. I have always had a special attraction to my mother's womb. Even now sometimes i kiss my mother's womb good night as a sign of affection, gratitude, remembrance.....( don't call those mental hospital people) . yes it is wierd. but like they say,
a man should never forget his roots and where he came from...

so where did i come from?????

Very often we find children cut themselves far away from their parents , almost as brutally as the umbelical chord is cut after delivery.

The fact is that in many countries like the U.S, children live under the care of a nanny, or grand parents while their parents work day and night earning money and buying the "luxuries" of the world for themselves and their children. Or the fact that in many countries parents look at children as a liability or as a mistake in their life .It is both saddening and disgusting.

Why bring a child into the world when you can't take care of it??
What does a child need more???
A nice bed time story from his/her parent or the playstation3?

Far too often children are forced to grow up too early, asked to fend for themselves.,live on their own.
On the face of it , it looks quite a better solution. A child that grows on its own ,stands on its feet and runs the world without fear..right???

WRONG... the world might run this child.
This child might be a drug addict, a sex-maniac, a criminal....It is the parent that should be present at their time of need and care for him/her and Nip the bad behaviour in its bud.

If the crime rate in the USA or the rest of the western countries is high, it is simply because they let off their children at barely 14 years of age.
You let them get high on drugs by the age of 16. By 18 you allow them to get married or even have unsolicited relationships.

Crime in India is harldy ever because of bad parenting, the only reason crime exists in India is because there is a lack of awareness or due to poverty.

society makes laws, parents shud teach the law to the child.
society makes criminals , only because parents don't save the children from such circumstances..


I am fortunate to be born to a family that has always put its child above rest of the pleasures of the world. my mother is a house wife and in a way, dedicated her life to my education and welfare. and my father worked day and night bringing home food and money, for the welfare of me and my mother.

Here , I became the gel that held this family together. ..The both of them found a reason to live, moreover a reason to live together.

many a times in future their marriage will come to the threshold of a breakup but even then,I will still remain the single factor that held this marriage.

shud my parents be hailed???
shud i be thankful for what has happened?

These questions i never thought of , when i lay in a crib at the cosmopolitan hospital in thiruvananthapuram, kerala.

With my mother in sleep, and my father far away from me.

What future lay for this child?
What future was the world to have with this child...

Truth is these questions are still unanswered..............

situation gadbad hai....

So now we have a wedding. We have the bride and we have the groom.
They go home and they start a family..

"The stories of the events between my parent's wedding and my birth are few but are quite significant to me.."

now many of you people after reading the following post might want to speak with me.
I shall reply if i myself feel confortable.

The truth i speak about the things that have happened and are still happening even today ,

" the whole truth and nothing but the truth....."

My dad had married a remarkably beautiful lady, my mother had done her B.A in economics. and was pretty much sitting idle at home.
Her older sisters were married and already having children..
Pretty obvious that in every house a woman of marriageable age is always a burden.

They send requests for allainces got several proposals some pretty good..

Now when my dad's proposal came around, it was not very "attractive", and was rejected, but after 2 years when it returned. it was accepted..
To tell you ,perhaps it was against my moms will, or perhaps some things happened immediately after the wedding...

My mother was unhappy with the alliance and this was pretty evident from the beginning..
perhaps it was the expectation she had about her husband that didn't match up with my father or maybe the advices she recieved from relatives and mother was sort of misleading.

My mother was difficult to manage.. she was easiy irritated, was mostly sad and quite lonely.
when my father's friends would show up. she wouldn't open the door until dad was home.
Stories of her walking out of a post wedding party is pretty famous , even though i came to know about this quite recently.

situation sachmuch gadbaad thaa.....

things deteriorated... families got involved. and finally my mom would go back to kerala...
leaving my dad alone. talks about a divorce raged on both sides, perhaps a lot more on my mothers side.

But by now my mother was pregnant. and in the womb i acted as the umbelical chord in the marriage..

Recently i saw a comic on t.v speaking about wives who keep saying " main to apne bachchon ki khatir tumhare saath hoon" and i thought...how true is this... lots of parents get divorced for silly reasons , never once thinking about their child and a lot of others stay together cribbing, nagging ever abusing each other in front of their child .
which is worse? which is more agonious to the child ?

Today, where both the parents are working members it seems quite simple to do the "sane" thing // to end the agony of a marriage... but there the children have a serious lack.. they lack what they need the most.
The word family.
To have to see ur father visit you once a week or to have to watch your step dad in front of you while 3 blocks away your father is sitting with his new found girlfriend watching casablanca..

well this did not happen in my life.. my parents are still married. not happily and i can't lie about this.
But things today aren't as bad. happiness is slightly more than the sorrow in their marriage today.

But i have always wondered.. what if that day when i was born i was with a single mother ?
In my case that was bad because my mother didnot have a joband didn't have a support system..

Maybe to say that their marriage is a result of a sort of sacrifice or an act of kindness from my father is ridiculous.
but isn't it?


The thing about hindu philosophy is that we uphold marriage with a great reverence and passion , with honour, marriage is forever in our culture. and the western culture of divorce is not something we can understand or accept.

But isn't it better sometimes to end something thats just too bad to keep going.
Perhaps the idea of a "live- in" relationshiip be4 marriage is not such a bad idea after all.
Or the idea of a love marriage.

But the trouble seemed to have a solution in my parents marriage...

ME

11th february,1987.........

Now that you know about my father, i'll introduce you to a second important character in my life.


.On 11th february 1987 ,my father v.sreekumar.nair. married hansa devi.a.r in a gala wedding ceremony.
well it was a good enough ceremony..


(now seriously don't even tease me by asking me how i would know.... i saw the tapes.)

my mom is one of the sweetest ,nicest ,kindest ladies around (naturally!!!everybody says these things about their moms.no suprise there..) .
when my dad married her his friends must've been jealous of him to have married such a gorgeous lady.
although now most of her beauty has been lost to continuous illness, post pregnancy fatness,and negligence ,she still is quite pretty..(atleast to me she is).

In the coming posts i shall introduce you to my mother,
but now we might have to talk about the wedding itself......