Been ages and I don’t know what has been stopping me from blogging. I wouldn’t blame it on work for I had always found time to write and not the want of events either. There had been some over which I could keep writing until I feel bored of expressing them in different ways! But today, the thought of day after tomorrow has pushed me to write this in a last minute effort to feel closer to the best ever times I had had back home in India, celebrating Diwali.
The only thing I like about religion are the festivals it holds. A reason to celebrate, a reason to unwind and feel childhood every passing year. It feels shocking to me when some of my friends tell me that they don’t celebrate Diwali because they have grown up. Is this how you grow up? To lose the celebration, the anticipation and the fun? And a few of them turn environment conscious and child labour conscious and stop celebrating. This is a baffling paradox. India is such a huge country with a huge socio-economic barrier. Let there be no blame game, instead there could have been support. You stop the purchase of fire crackers since the NGO’s shout that the majority of them have child labourers and if you don’t buy them, who is going to feed them anyways? So, why cant there be support and regulation and then everyone is happy! Instead there are these emotional stories, pictures and advertisement which makes you feel like a pathetic human being every time you light up a sparkler. Truth be told, I’ve never felt that way.
Escape from this feeling and then here comes the environment friendly part. It is ok for the government busses to emit pathetic gasses all around the year. It is ok to sell doctored petrol and diesel and even give emission clearance for vehicles even without checking it. It is perfectly ok for the roads and traffic to be chaotic which increases the emission and it also perfectly fine for huge trucks and lorries to roam inside the city limits during day time and most important of all, parks can be converted into IT parks, trees can be cut to make broader roads, lights and blarring speakers can be run 24 hours for political purposes. And now you have rules for a one day celebration to protect the environment. No firecrackers before 6AM and after 11PM and no high decibel crackers. Wow, the government really cares!
Diwali is one festival that turns every grown up into a kid. For people who realise this, welcome to the club. Else, thanks for reading until this! I used to love the celebrations in my apartment. Loads of kids in the age group, juniors to whom we were heroes and seniors who were heroes to us. It was perfect. 12 Midnight used to witness intense competition on who lit the first firecracker of the season and after the first one burst, we used to go back home to prepare in the more traditional way. Oil bath and prayers and then off at 4AM in the morning with the back of crackers, candles, incense sticks and matches. I love the smell of crackers and the color of my hands after an intense session of bangs and poofs. Sulphur and Phosphorus and burnt paper. Combine this smell with the ones emanating from several kitchens in the apartment cooking elaborate festival meals and you can get an idea how heaven smells like.
The first session of fire crackers used to last until 8AM and after that is a pause to stop the bursting hunger inside the stomach. I don’t know why, but the sweets taste more divine when eaten with the chemical smeared fingers :P Though for weakly immune people the side effects could be a disastrous stomach! The early morning Diwali special programs on the television were a treat and a time killer until the next bursting session would start. The day would be filled with visits to my grandparents house and if lucky, my cousin brother’s visit to grandmothers would coincide and creative naughtiness would be at the peak. New firecrackers would be manufactured by us by reverse engineering the existing ones and certain experiments have taken place that would rise several eyebrows!
I felt the same intensity every year, the same anxious wait for this festival and the same restlessness. This is my third year away from this festival and I miss it, dearly.
Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The spirit of my lab coat(s)
My office room has been silent for a while now. No rhythmic beats emerging from the most hit gadget in the world. Imagine the number of people hitting it everyday all around the world, wow! Huge! Yeah, it’s the key board! Anyway, this exclamation has nothing to do with the blog that follows. Just my respects to the keyboard!
Before I started on a holiday to India, I hung it in my lab.
July 2007 was when I got it, a fresh, new, stark white, thick cotton full sleeved lab coat. Class XI was the first ever when we were asked to wear lab coats. It was very exciting and believe me, even though I outgrew sizes, I wore the first lab coat I bought then, till the end of my bachelors education. In school, we used to feel proud wearing the coats. The look in the eyes of the junior students when they see us going for the lab sessions gave us a sense of superiority. Well, I had the same look of longing when I used to see my seniors! But then I learnt that most of the students picturise themselves as medical doctors when wearing the coats and still continued to hate Chemistry and lab sessions and the only time they were proud about their lab coats was when they flaunted it before juniors and maintained it stain free!
A stain free lab coat?! This is a blasphemous by my standards. Come on, a lab coat should have stains. Well, that does not mean that you are careless, its just how involved you are and if you lab coat has acid burns, then it’s a wow and thumbs up from me! And wearing a lab coat allows you to have some fun beyond what would be considered safe. I remember us signing our names with potassium permanganate solutions and spraying the coloured solutions on each others lab coats and not to mention the unlimited fundas and art work that used to roam around on each lab coat! The usual was to write ‘Kick me hard ‘on the back of some ones lab coat. Drawing danger sings, designing cloth tattoos, signing names and designed splatter of non harmful chemicals are some.
Each lab coat has been special for me and every stain always brought back memories of experiments and happenings. Here, my coat bore my name, chlorophyll stains, Trifluoroacetic acid burns, protoporphyrin streaks and the pockets contained personalised spatulas, NMR labels, and custom designed crystallisation grease dispensers and markers.
When I came back to the lab from holidays, my lab coat was missing.
I never faced a situation like this. It was suddenly like realising that you had lost your arm or leg. I searched places even where it was least probable to find it and finally complained to my supervisor and put a word to all my co-workers. They were surprised that a lab coat went missing! Guess I have some secret admirer here!!
I ordered new spatulas, new markers, made my custom equipments again and finally loaded them in a new lab coat. To wear this now is like having your memory whitewashed. But now, my new coat bears on its back, in huge fonts, “Ask me if you want a souvenir! Don’t take away this lab coat too!!”
Before I started on a holiday to India, I hung it in my lab.
July 2007 was when I got it, a fresh, new, stark white, thick cotton full sleeved lab coat. Class XI was the first ever when we were asked to wear lab coats. It was very exciting and believe me, even though I outgrew sizes, I wore the first lab coat I bought then, till the end of my bachelors education. In school, we used to feel proud wearing the coats. The look in the eyes of the junior students when they see us going for the lab sessions gave us a sense of superiority. Well, I had the same look of longing when I used to see my seniors! But then I learnt that most of the students picturise themselves as medical doctors when wearing the coats and still continued to hate Chemistry and lab sessions and the only time they were proud about their lab coats was when they flaunted it before juniors and maintained it stain free!
A stain free lab coat?! This is a blasphemous by my standards. Come on, a lab coat should have stains. Well, that does not mean that you are careless, its just how involved you are and if you lab coat has acid burns, then it’s a wow and thumbs up from me! And wearing a lab coat allows you to have some fun beyond what would be considered safe. I remember us signing our names with potassium permanganate solutions and spraying the coloured solutions on each others lab coats and not to mention the unlimited fundas and art work that used to roam around on each lab coat! The usual was to write ‘Kick me hard ‘on the back of some ones lab coat. Drawing danger sings, designing cloth tattoos, signing names and designed splatter of non harmful chemicals are some.
Each lab coat has been special for me and every stain always brought back memories of experiments and happenings. Here, my coat bore my name, chlorophyll stains, Trifluoroacetic acid burns, protoporphyrin streaks and the pockets contained personalised spatulas, NMR labels, and custom designed crystallisation grease dispensers and markers.
When I came back to the lab from holidays, my lab coat was missing.
I never faced a situation like this. It was suddenly like realising that you had lost your arm or leg. I searched places even where it was least probable to find it and finally complained to my supervisor and put a word to all my co-workers. They were surprised that a lab coat went missing! Guess I have some secret admirer here!!
I ordered new spatulas, new markers, made my custom equipments again and finally loaded them in a new lab coat. To wear this now is like having your memory whitewashed. But now, my new coat bears on its back, in huge fonts, “Ask me if you want a souvenir! Don’t take away this lab coat too!!”
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Solar Cooker, more memories of 2000
The previous blog was induced by boredom but triggered up real good memories. But this one is an inspired recollection derived by the comments of Vivek on the previous post.
Standard X is an important phase of life and it’s supposed to mould you into what you wan to pursue in future. Although in schools a students future depends only on his mark sheet and not on his potential, I never gave a second look at scored. True, it did result in a lot of tension during admission to the next level, but it was unable to stop us from mischief and what I am right now!
Physics classes were the funniest ones for we had the weirdest teachers. IX standard saw us through with one whom we named ‘kuthiral vaal gundama’ (pony tailed fatty: P). I seriously don’t remember what her name actually is! But this named suited her for her curly haired pony tail and squeaky voice. In standard X landed in our class, the most brilliant physics teacher we ever can rejoice of, of torturing to the maximal extent. Indira alias Aaya. Aaya in Tamil means servant maid and she was named so because of her looks, language and behaviour! Well to simplify things in her language, she has no capaquity whatsoever, even to handle electriquity and her classes were pure atroquity.
She commanded our class to submit a project in Physics for which we would be granted 5 precious marks and this would be added to the final score of the practical in turn to get added with our board exam marks. The final threat to make us all work. BOARD EXAMS! The class was divided into groups and mine had my dear companion Vivek. I can remember only Vivek in my group for it was only the two of us who decided to work weekends and actually submit the project. I think our group also had few other students who failed to understand the importance and need of our project, to construct a working model of the solar cooker!
Initial days went off in designing the cooker in paper. Well, there wasn’t much to design, but me and Vivek drew on pages and pages and finally came to the conclusion that it had to be rectangle! Unfortunately there was no Wikipedia to guide us instantaneously! Then came the list of raw materials required to build it. In principle, it was a small list. Wood to make a rectangle box, nails, hammer, black paint, mirrors to reflect the light inside and a pane of glass to cover the top.
The above bill was not passed since making our own box seemed a bit out of way for the project and hence we decided to buy one. Now the problem was how to get some box like that. Jumping from one hardware store to another finally taught us that we need a box which translates into English as 5 ½ woods and 3 inches (anjara katta, moonu inch). I still have no clue what the dimensions mean, but we did get one that exactly fitted our need. The next weekend was a black one owing to painting of the box with black enamel. For some reason it was a good feeling to smear our hands with the paint and then remove it using turpentine!
The reflecting mirror was bought from Vel glass works, just near to Sanskrit college and had been fitted with supporting styrofoam as a reflector. Now the task of getting a glass cover remained. We scanned the glass works but then they all asked for exorbitant rates for a small piece of glass cover. Finally we hit upon one kind glass workshop in St. Marys street and the owner allowed taking the glass broken covers for free! Rummaging the throw aways, we fished out a huge piece of broken glass sheet, got it cut neatly and placed it to complete our cooker!
It was really funny when we took it to class. That was the last day for submission of the project and our ingenious Aaya kept our cooker in the middle of the playground with a bowl of water inside it for testing purposes. A thermometer was kept on the water and we were told that only if the temperature rose above 80 degrees we would be given marks. Seriously, we couldn’t take that risk though the sun was at its hottest. So, after few minutes of waiting, we replaced the water in the bowl with hot water taken from the chemistry lab and once the thermometer showed 80 degree Celsius, we ran to fetch our teacher who reluctantly gave us the full marks!
And then the cooker remained in the attic of our class room and the students made good use of the mirror to comb and style. After a few months, the same was used by my sister for her project submission and I guess it still remains in some classroom shifting hands to fetch easy marks!
Standard X is an important phase of life and it’s supposed to mould you into what you wan to pursue in future. Although in schools a students future depends only on his mark sheet and not on his potential, I never gave a second look at scored. True, it did result in a lot of tension during admission to the next level, but it was unable to stop us from mischief and what I am right now!
Physics classes were the funniest ones for we had the weirdest teachers. IX standard saw us through with one whom we named ‘kuthiral vaal gundama’ (pony tailed fatty: P). I seriously don’t remember what her name actually is! But this named suited her for her curly haired pony tail and squeaky voice. In standard X landed in our class, the most brilliant physics teacher we ever can rejoice of, of torturing to the maximal extent. Indira alias Aaya. Aaya in Tamil means servant maid and she was named so because of her looks, language and behaviour! Well to simplify things in her language, she has no capaquity whatsoever, even to handle electriquity and her classes were pure atroquity.
She commanded our class to submit a project in Physics for which we would be granted 5 precious marks and this would be added to the final score of the practical in turn to get added with our board exam marks. The final threat to make us all work. BOARD EXAMS! The class was divided into groups and mine had my dear companion Vivek. I can remember only Vivek in my group for it was only the two of us who decided to work weekends and actually submit the project. I think our group also had few other students who failed to understand the importance and need of our project, to construct a working model of the solar cooker!
Initial days went off in designing the cooker in paper. Well, there wasn’t much to design, but me and Vivek drew on pages and pages and finally came to the conclusion that it had to be rectangle! Unfortunately there was no Wikipedia to guide us instantaneously! Then came the list of raw materials required to build it. In principle, it was a small list. Wood to make a rectangle box, nails, hammer, black paint, mirrors to reflect the light inside and a pane of glass to cover the top.
The above bill was not passed since making our own box seemed a bit out of way for the project and hence we decided to buy one. Now the problem was how to get some box like that. Jumping from one hardware store to another finally taught us that we need a box which translates into English as 5 ½ woods and 3 inches (anjara katta, moonu inch). I still have no clue what the dimensions mean, but we did get one that exactly fitted our need. The next weekend was a black one owing to painting of the box with black enamel. For some reason it was a good feeling to smear our hands with the paint and then remove it using turpentine!
The reflecting mirror was bought from Vel glass works, just near to Sanskrit college and had been fitted with supporting styrofoam as a reflector. Now the task of getting a glass cover remained. We scanned the glass works but then they all asked for exorbitant rates for a small piece of glass cover. Finally we hit upon one kind glass workshop in St. Marys street and the owner allowed taking the glass broken covers for free! Rummaging the throw aways, we fished out a huge piece of broken glass sheet, got it cut neatly and placed it to complete our cooker!
It was really funny when we took it to class. That was the last day for submission of the project and our ingenious Aaya kept our cooker in the middle of the playground with a bowl of water inside it for testing purposes. A thermometer was kept on the water and we were told that only if the temperature rose above 80 degrees we would be given marks. Seriously, we couldn’t take that risk though the sun was at its hottest. So, after few minutes of waiting, we replaced the water in the bowl with hot water taken from the chemistry lab and once the thermometer showed 80 degree Celsius, we ran to fetch our teacher who reluctantly gave us the full marks!
And then the cooker remained in the attic of our class room and the students made good use of the mirror to comb and style. After a few months, the same was used by my sister for her project submission and I guess it still remains in some classroom shifting hands to fetch easy marks!
Monday, February 09, 2009
Electrical Gadgets, some memories of 2000
A sudden urge to write just filled me. Is it because the volume of diethyl ether I have kept under argon will probably take 4-5 hours for evaporation or am I getting bored of trying to fix the conformation of my compound to perform density function theory calculations? I guess it’s because of the Harris Jeyraj music in the background and the fact that I just read a lot of very good blogs (some of my old ones too!).
For the past few minutes I have been staring at my screen deciding on what to write. I know that now, whatever I decide on, is not going to hinder my thought flow and words are going to be typed until my co-worker sitting opposite to me goes mad due to the non stop sound of the keyboard.
Somehow my thoughts stray back to my 10th standard EG classes! Every Friday was a treat for us because the two classes before lunch was EG and typewriting and we had so much of free time and fun. Our EG teacher was a very old yet stylish mallu guy named Balakrishna Nair. I have a very clear picture of how we were seated too! Two parallel rows and boys on one side and girls on the other and the teacher could move in between. I used to sit at the very first and opposite to me was her as usual and always. Besides me was Karthik followed by Vivek. The line further down had no significance since the source of maximum distraction and fun has already been listed.
Our master seldom took classes. Usually the blackboard had some stuff already written with which we had to copy to our record notebooks and then idle away the rest of the time silently. But me, Karthik and Vivek had other plans. We started directing movies with our EG master as the hero! We even used to tell it to him and every time he moves or tells some stuff in the class, we used to pre phrase it by ‘ Movie name – Scene 1 – Take 1 ‘. The hero entry for the movie was like this… Our EG sir comes in, takes a live wire to his head and the shock makes the hair on his head stand straight. Then he takes some styling gels and puts his hair back and then pick up his 1 meter long wooden scale and walks to hit the students, Darpan, Siva Saravanan and Arvind who have been playing sharpener game! Our EG sir for some reason disliked when students played that game in his class: P
I always wondered how he heard the chaos of the sharpener game in the last benches for in the first row; we used to make such a racquet. I always used to sharpen a small knife on a touchstone with Karthik trying to spin the touchstone faster and faster to produce more noise and sparks! Somehow he never scolded us for doing that, though the girls opposite to us complained.
May be he was frustrated with scores of students taking his subject as a fun session or may be he didn’t really mind all this as it reminded him of his younger days. Whatever is was, these are just beautiful memories!
For the past few minutes I have been staring at my screen deciding on what to write. I know that now, whatever I decide on, is not going to hinder my thought flow and words are going to be typed until my co-worker sitting opposite to me goes mad due to the non stop sound of the keyboard.
Somehow my thoughts stray back to my 10th standard EG classes! Every Friday was a treat for us because the two classes before lunch was EG and typewriting and we had so much of free time and fun. Our EG teacher was a very old yet stylish mallu guy named Balakrishna Nair. I have a very clear picture of how we were seated too! Two parallel rows and boys on one side and girls on the other and the teacher could move in between. I used to sit at the very first and opposite to me was her as usual and always. Besides me was Karthik followed by Vivek. The line further down had no significance since the source of maximum distraction and fun has already been listed.
Our master seldom took classes. Usually the blackboard had some stuff already written with which we had to copy to our record notebooks and then idle away the rest of the time silently. But me, Karthik and Vivek had other plans. We started directing movies with our EG master as the hero! We even used to tell it to him and every time he moves or tells some stuff in the class, we used to pre phrase it by ‘ Movie name – Scene 1 – Take 1 ‘. The hero entry for the movie was like this… Our EG sir comes in, takes a live wire to his head and the shock makes the hair on his head stand straight. Then he takes some styling gels and puts his hair back and then pick up his 1 meter long wooden scale and walks to hit the students, Darpan, Siva Saravanan and Arvind who have been playing sharpener game! Our EG sir for some reason disliked when students played that game in his class: P
I always wondered how he heard the chaos of the sharpener game in the last benches for in the first row; we used to make such a racquet. I always used to sharpen a small knife on a touchstone with Karthik trying to spin the touchstone faster and faster to produce more noise and sparks! Somehow he never scolded us for doing that, though the girls opposite to us complained.
May be he was frustrated with scores of students taking his subject as a fun session or may be he didn’t really mind all this as it reminded him of his younger days. Whatever is was, these are just beautiful memories!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Di-shirt-ster : Ode to a white linen
I have always treated them with loads of affection and some of them with high respect. They were instrumental in presenting me at various occasions and have been the reason for loads of head turns and a reason for starting conversations. They definitely make up 50% of me where ever I go and I believe that they are the most essential to build self confidence.
I am speaking about my shirts. I definitely am crazy about shirts and brands and like to flaunt the best ones in parties and functions. I care for them like they are a part of my body. When I was home, there was a time when I never even used the detergent on them. It was substituted by shampoo for I have a feeling that the detergents will be hard on them and destroy the fabric. Such is the care I have taken and still, there was this black Saturday for me and them.
Not many shirts had lined up for the wash but I thought there was enough inner wear and socks and pants and it was time to take them to the wash machine. It is a brand new Siemens with loads of programmable options and I set it up in the best way to suit the shirts. Special non caustic detergent was added and the temperature of water was set to 40 degrees. The rotations per minute were optimum and the wash time was ninety minutes. After switching it on, I went on to make a brilliant Saturday morning breakfast. Hot steaming pongal with coconut chutney. The breakfast was devoured over a conversation with my mother and I finished reading the morning papers online. It was then time to take the clothes out for drying.
It was a total disaster. The brand new ‘jockey’ that was sent to me for diwali was a spurious product. The colour had washed out and it was all over the other clothes. My soft cotton linen white shirt with brilliant green, red and orange stripes had turned a shade of grey. Gone with it was a couple of white vests. It was such a painful moment for me, to take the damaged shirt in my hands. Memories of when I wore that shirt came flooding back and that made the situation more unbearable.
I didn’t throw away the shirt, but did the spurious jockey. Next time I wash my clothes, I am going to wash this stained shirt along and see if the colour will drain away. If not, it still remains white in the photographs.
I am speaking about my shirts. I definitely am crazy about shirts and brands and like to flaunt the best ones in parties and functions. I care for them like they are a part of my body. When I was home, there was a time when I never even used the detergent on them. It was substituted by shampoo for I have a feeling that the detergents will be hard on them and destroy the fabric. Such is the care I have taken and still, there was this black Saturday for me and them.
Not many shirts had lined up for the wash but I thought there was enough inner wear and socks and pants and it was time to take them to the wash machine. It is a brand new Siemens with loads of programmable options and I set it up in the best way to suit the shirts. Special non caustic detergent was added and the temperature of water was set to 40 degrees. The rotations per minute were optimum and the wash time was ninety minutes. After switching it on, I went on to make a brilliant Saturday morning breakfast. Hot steaming pongal with coconut chutney. The breakfast was devoured over a conversation with my mother and I finished reading the morning papers online. It was then time to take the clothes out for drying.
It was a total disaster. The brand new ‘jockey’ that was sent to me for diwali was a spurious product. The colour had washed out and it was all over the other clothes. My soft cotton linen white shirt with brilliant green, red and orange stripes had turned a shade of grey. Gone with it was a couple of white vests. It was such a painful moment for me, to take the damaged shirt in my hands. Memories of when I wore that shirt came flooding back and that made the situation more unbearable.
I didn’t throw away the shirt, but did the spurious jockey. Next time I wash my clothes, I am going to wash this stained shirt along and see if the colour will drain away. If not, it still remains white in the photographs.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Tom, Dick & Kambodhi
It is early morning and I am sitting in my Arbeitsraum (work room). Its Friday and work at the moment is saturated and slow. I much my milk bread and scan the Hindu online for news. A caption brings back nostalgia. Quiz on carnatic music.
Way back in 2004, two amateur flautists and one vocal maestro joined forces for a quiz on carnatic music. My efforts to dig out the article that was published in Hindu turned futile and hence owing to my crammed memory, I have to skip details of the organizer. But I think it was carnatica.com or the like. The quiz master was Sanjay Subramanian.
It was none other than me, Vivek and Karthik. Notorious trio we have been, right from standard VI till B.Sc and we shared a common interest in music. And so, we decided to press our luck and participate in the carnatic quiz that was being held that year. Knowing that there would be a prize for the best team name; we racked our brains hard for days to find one. The three musikteers, Masters of Raga and many more were flushed way with the thought that they were common until we realized that we need a name which conveys a meaning that music is for everyone. Standing outside my apartment and balancing our cycles on null velocity we were rolling with laughter over the ingenious and ignoble names that cropped up until there arose a statement “jeez dude, some Tom, Dick and Harry is going to walk away with this prize.” That did it. Tom, Dick and Kambodhi was christened upon our team and the application was submitted.
The quiz was on a Sunday at an auditorium in a school in MRC Nagar. We cycled there and registered at the front desk and as soon as we went inside, we knew that we were not standing any chances to qualify for the finals! Music stalwarts were participating and we were just a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs! Yet, we took up the written preliminary round and were happy with the number of questions we answered right but as anticipated, failed to make it to the finals. We sat back and enjoyed the quizzing and then it was time to announce the prizes. Away went first and second and then came the best team name. Sanjay’s voice was booming in our ears “The best team name award goes to Tom, Dick and Kambodhi. What an innovative name! Come up on stage guys and which one of you is Kambodhi?!” That was a brilliant moment for us and our expectations were not in vain!
I feel a bit sad now, that I am not able to pursue this wonderful art of music with zest and zeal from here in Germany and I guess Vivek feels the same too being in USA. But we are happy that our Kambodhi ( Karthik) is doing it for the three of us back home. Cheers to you and our team!!
Way back in 2004, two amateur flautists and one vocal maestro joined forces for a quiz on carnatic music. My efforts to dig out the article that was published in Hindu turned futile and hence owing to my crammed memory, I have to skip details of the organizer. But I think it was carnatica.com or the like. The quiz master was Sanjay Subramanian.
It was none other than me, Vivek and Karthik. Notorious trio we have been, right from standard VI till B.Sc and we shared a common interest in music. And so, we decided to press our luck and participate in the carnatic quiz that was being held that year. Knowing that there would be a prize for the best team name; we racked our brains hard for days to find one. The three musikteers, Masters of Raga and many more were flushed way with the thought that they were common until we realized that we need a name which conveys a meaning that music is for everyone. Standing outside my apartment and balancing our cycles on null velocity we were rolling with laughter over the ingenious and ignoble names that cropped up until there arose a statement “jeez dude, some Tom, Dick and Harry is going to walk away with this prize.” That did it. Tom, Dick and Kambodhi was christened upon our team and the application was submitted.
The quiz was on a Sunday at an auditorium in a school in MRC Nagar. We cycled there and registered at the front desk and as soon as we went inside, we knew that we were not standing any chances to qualify for the finals! Music stalwarts were participating and we were just a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs! Yet, we took up the written preliminary round and were happy with the number of questions we answered right but as anticipated, failed to make it to the finals. We sat back and enjoyed the quizzing and then it was time to announce the prizes. Away went first and second and then came the best team name. Sanjay’s voice was booming in our ears “The best team name award goes to Tom, Dick and Kambodhi. What an innovative name! Come up on stage guys and which one of you is Kambodhi?!” That was a brilliant moment for us and our expectations were not in vain!
I feel a bit sad now, that I am not able to pursue this wonderful art of music with zest and zeal from here in Germany and I guess Vivek feels the same too being in USA. But we are happy that our Kambodhi ( Karthik) is doing it for the three of us back home. Cheers to you and our team!!
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