Even Bad Situations Lead To Some Good

August 18th 2007. A few of us friends had driven down to Chennai from Bangalore. A close friend was down from UK, for his daughter’s carnatic vocal debut performance. After a highly engrossing and entertaining debut performance by my friends’ 15 year old daughter, we met up in the hotel room to catch up with old times. We retired around 230 am, and my friend left at 345 am to run some airport errands to drop the Chief Guest of the previous evening and his wife’s friends who had come for the event.

I woke up around 7am and in quick time realized that my cell phone, my digital camera and wallet were gone. A complaint with the hotel management, and thereafter with the local crime branch police followed. We drove back to Bangalore around 2pm and I personally felt I had seen the last of everything that had been stolen. Precious amongst the wallet items were my Indian and USA driving licenses. Calls to cancel the credit and ATM cards happened as we waited at the hotel during the investigations by the hotel management and by the police. We later drove back to Bangalore, and as I retrieved my travel bag from the boot I had a shock. My shoes, which had been packed inside, were lying outside. On checking my travel bag, I found a brand new cell phone. A very dear friend who had come down and spent time during the time we interacted with the hotel management and polics, had slipped away to buy this, and took my other friends’ help to slip it into my bag, lest I protest and refuse to accept it if given directly!!

September 3rd, 2007. An early morning call that I didn’t pick up. At around 900am, my cell buzzed again and couldn’t quite place the location from which this call was coming. I was asked if I were Vincent Sunder. On my confirming, the person at the other end said he had found some items near his vehicle! Credit cards, ATM cards, driving licenses! An auto driver, who had chanced to see the little rubber band strung bunch of cards and other items. Seeing my visiting card, he promptly used a public calling booth to make the call, inquiring how he could reach them to me. How could he reach them to me? He did not even have a phone. I took his address and his a contact mobile number. A few more calls from my side and my friend’s Coimbatore based brother-in-law swung into action. Within a hour, he called me. The auto driver was at his office with the items. He had to force him to accept the money that I had requested to be handed over to him as a goodwill gesture.

Late in the evening, as I was driving back my cell buzzed again. The Coimbatore caller again. Why? What now is he calling for? As I wondered, he spoke. He thanked me for the money and mentioned that it helped him pay his son’s school fees and purchase the school books he had required also. I squirmed and closed the call saying that some day when I visit Coimbatore I would connect with him through the contact number he had given, and meet him. The Sub-Inspector at Chennai, who had been in touch with me on the FIR filed, sounded completely surprised when I called him to inform him of this development. Very strange, he commented.

Some good comes out of even the most terrible situations, and you encounter some amazingly honest people. People who go out of their way to take the trouble of doing what they feel is right – at a personal cost. The money had also gone to help a kid with his studies. I would personally never look back at the loss at the hotel with any sense of regret – anymore.

Bygone Days - Preparing For Kite Combat!!

Kite flying and the preparatory work that went into getting the “maanja thread”!! Amongst all the childhood activities, this was the most long drawn and challenging one! And, an expensive one too.

While technicalities relating the kite itself were minimal, getting the ‘maanja” right was a big and critical task. Maanja was the concoction that was necessary to make the thread to fly kites strong. Key ingredients for a strong maanja were finely ground glass and ‘vajram’. The first requirement was soda bottles, since the glass that soda bottles were made of were the strongest. Or so we believed!! And finding soda bottles free was quite impossible, so we had to make do with buying them from the local ‘kaka’ shop – the chipped bottles came relatively cheaper. Vajram was a thick brown colored dry material, which was available in the form of medium thickness slabs. When boiled with water it became wonderful glue that helped to bond the fine glass onto the thread.

The two popular options in threads were thread number 40 and thread number 10, and if memory serves me right, the most wanted thread brand was called ‘spade’. Number 10 was a thinner but stronger variety of thread, while number 40 was a thicker thread.

The hunt then was to find a tin and cycle tyres. Kissan jam came in tins, and more often than not the search was for this tin, which was about four to five inches in height. Yes, we did go around the neighborhood looking at the waysides and trash bins for this important item. During luckier times, one of us had managed to retain a tin when the jam bought at home was transferred to a glass bottle. Kissan jam tins were rated as the most appropriate size! Baby-food tins were found more easily, but these were too big in size.

Once we were lucky to locate a good tin and some cycle tyres, off we headed to the local graveyard. What could be better than graveyards that had smooth, well polished stones that covered graves to get the process of grinding the soda bottles to fine glass powder? Other requirements were a thin but reasonably strong piece of wood, a safety pin and three stones that could be used to hold the tin, and to have the fire set between them.

The stone covering the grave was first washed and cleaned so that there was minimal dust getting mixed up with the glass powder. A cloth was wrapped around the soda bottle before it was gently broken into the smallest pieces possible. These small pieces were then laid out on the smoothest grave stone we could find. Then began the painful and long but enjoyable process of grinding the bottle pieces to fine powder. This was the most time consuming part of getting the maanja thread done. The process was akin to the olden day household chore of grinding spices to fine paste on a rolling stone, and how we wished the grinding stone at home was available to do this very difficult activity!!

After a few hours of diligent work, the glass powder was in place. It had to be sieved through a fine cloth to make sure it was virtually as fine as talcum powder.

The fire was then set by lighting up the cycle tyres. The tin got half filled with water and small broken pieces of the vajram were set to boil. The ‘expert’ among us would check if the mix of water and vajram was right. The stick was dipped into the boiling concoction and the sticky liquid was tested by rubbing it between fingers. More vajram pieces were added to get the right blend. Once this was done, the finely ground glass powder was added and had to be continuously stirred. Once it was felt that the right mix of glass powder, vajram and water was in place, we added color powder. This was to give color to the white thread. This became another technicality when we mixed two different colors to come up with something different from the run of the mill colors! Rumours had it that there were some ‘secret’ ingredients that added more strength to the maanja leading to a stronger thread, but no one was willing to share any information. How could one share this information? At the end of the day, the victory lay in two kites getting into a ‘deal’ – the threads flying the kite getting into combat in air, and the stronger thread cutting the other thread!!!

Once the maanja was ready, the safety pin was tied to the end of the stick and the thread was run through the small hole at the end of the safety pin. One guy had to hold the tin with a piece of cloth – hot from having been under fire. Another had to pull the thread, which now ran through the maanja in the tin. A third guy had to hold the thread up, away from the rim of the tin, with a piece of cloth that had some more fine powdered glass. The ‘leader’ was the one who stirred the maanja with the pin attached stick, and he diligently moved the stick around the maanja in a circular motion. The person pulling the thread had to do walk forward at a measure pace, and at the end of the some distance he would have to hold the thread and wait for the maanja to dry on the thread. Some guys used to run the thread around an electric pole and come back, but we kids never did that since the part of the thread that ran around the pole ended up as a weak spot, with the wet maanja tending to come off when it came into contact with the pole!

The leader would stop stirring when the thread runner had stopped, and as everyone waited, he would check if the maanja had dried. The leader would also do a visual inspection to make sure the maanja was evenly spread on the thread. If there were weak spots, some maanja was “manually” applied to the weak spot.

The guy who pulled the thread would actually tie the end of the thread to the “lottai”!!! The lottai was the wooden equipment into which the thread was wound and stored. Those too poor to buy a lottai, ended up using a stone and winding the thread around it in the form of a ball. The lottai had a thick round wooden stick, about a foot in length, with two circular pieces of wood that were fitted at about four/five inches from the end of each sides of the stick. The edges of the two circular pieces of wood were again connected by several other pieces of rounded wood. The maanja thread was carefully wound over these several pieces of wood, and evenly spread. One end of the lottai stick was cradled at the elbow, the other end of the lottai was held between the thumb and index finger. While the thread was guided by the other hand – normally the left hand, the right hand thumb and index finger rotated the rounded wooden stick to move it in a circular motion; the left hand moved the thread evenly across the lottai!!

So, after a good four to five hours of effort, the maanja thread was finally ready!! Time now for combat with other kite flyers!!!!

The ‘maanja expert’ was normally the kite flier, and the next important chap was the guy who handled the lottai, especially during kite combats.

After the maanja was done, the left over maanja if any was given away to those who had helped through the maanja process. Of course, it could not be given to any enemy groups!!!

Some Funny Pics From My Camera

Can you be in worse trouble????!!!!>

Why is this TESCO door ALARMED???????!!!!>

IT outlets in every nook and corner of Bangalore!!!

Ideal weekend HUG!!!!!! ;-)

Santa Clara – 11th July 2006 - 7-11

Santa Clara – 11th July 2006 - 7-11

An early morning SMS woke me up. I thought it was a friend who had informed me that I would get a message confirming availability to have a talk. Just past 7am on Tuesday morning the 7th of July 2006 in the USA. It had been a late night earlier. But as usual I had a sound sleep before being woken up. The cell phone tinkled again, gently. I finally rose, and checked the message. Not the expected message but another dear friend from Mumbai. Five bomb blasts at Mumbai. I woke up fully without any caffeine in the system.

Called my friend who was to message me. And realized that I was conveying the news about the blasts. Short conversation. Tried my other friends in Mumbai. No luck. None of the calls went through. CNN was providing news. Surfed the web for news. Seven blasts. Browsed through an online network I frequented. Some mindless moronic posts on some threads. An email comes in. A bunch of Mumbai based bloggers dedicating themselves to provide information to those who were wanting information on their loved ones. Exchange of names and telephone numbers. Some confirmations. Some calls had no responses. The only comfort was the one friend who has messaged me was safe. Wondered how the others were. The blasts had happened at the peak hour of commute. On the crowded western railway lines. I spent more than one hour and was late getting to work.

Thankfully, there wasn’t too much of interest on the blasts at work. Some discussions. Some interested in knowing what it was all about. Some feeling bad. Some just disinterested, but curious. Another day at work. Frequent browsing to check the situation back in Mumbai.

Made my way back to my hotel after a long and eventful day. Dinner. Decided to check out a restaurant that had caught my eye while driving around. Kabob Korner. Walked in. 7 PM. Just one couple at the table of this large restaurants. Yes, they had take-out. The person at the counter was warm. Asked the rude question, unable to figure out his roots. Thought it could be Persian. No, Indian. Must probably have been a second or third generation going by his accent. Very impressive menu. He quickly made his recommendations after checking if this was my first visit. Yes. I don’t live here anymore. Just a visitor. I opted my own selection against his recommendation. Order placed to kitchen, and I preferred to wait rather than step out for a smoke.

“Did you see the news?” he starts.

“Of course. Very sad”

“I watched the news. Terrible”

“It is. Very difficult to protect the local railway lines. Have you been there?”

“No! Am from Delhi”

A few minutes and my order comes in.

Drive to a grocery store enroute to my hotel room. Water was running out, so had to pick a case of bottled mineral water. The chlorine content in US tap water is not to my liking. End up buying things for $45 – cost of the case of water was about $4. Walking out to the car, I encounter him. He looks at me as I put away my bags into the boot.

“You are from India?”

A decade ago, I was used to hearing “India? What?” Should I feel happy?

“Yes, Indian”. Fact is many a times have been mistaken for a Sri Lankan over here and more often in London.

“Terrible guys! The muslims have done it right?”

“No, some fanatics”

“Must be Al Qaeda”

“No idea. Some fanatics, surely”

“Muslims, man!! Good day!!”

“Good day”

I wondered if he had never heard of Tim McVeigh.

Whatever happened doesn’t make an iota of change in my attitude and affections for my Muslim friends or my Pakistani contacts. I am happy these incidents happen once in a while and not ever so frequently. The regret for the loss of lives is there. Innocent people who went to work to earn a honest living and were returning to there loved ones were so brutally massacred in a political action.

You could so easily have been there. The flight you take next could be ill-fated. The driver across the road could lose control and crash right into you. It is sensible to live life fully, live the day and stop worrying about the small issues in life. Life is all about making that day count. You may never see tomorrow.

Light Reading - Thrillers

Early April 2006. Got into some light reading. Had never heard of Lee Child, until I picked a book at LA International. A wee bit tired of the heavy reading, opted for something light for the long flight back home. And realized after reading "One Shot" that I had made an excellent choice.

End of April 06 and have read three of Lee Child's books - One Shot, The Enemy and The Visitor, the last one having been read under one day. And need to buy all his other books as well.

A very convincing writer. You finish the book, and then wonder - 'ahhh - never connected up that situation to the solution'.

Highly recommended author if you are looking for some light reading in the thriller/mystery category.

About me......

Greetings, and thanks for being here!!! I am an entrepreneur, since 2002. Alabos, the company I founded (after a long and rewarding career with Wipro and a few other majors) provides complete end-to-end value added back office services for clients at US, UK and Nigeria.

I have been a Bangalorean all my life but for stints overseas (about five years). My work takes me abroad quite a bit - spent almost a third of 2004 living out of my suitcase. How many of you experience that awesome feeling of happiness when your return flight home lands? It happens every time to me!

Cricket is my BIGGEST interest, and I managed a local club at Bangalore that plays in the KSCA league. Highpoint of my unimpressive cricket career was leading the side to the 3rd Division Championship about two decades back. Have an ample collection of cricket books, tapes, DVDs. I never get tired of reading or watching them ever - over and over and over again. Music, driving, travelling (both work and holiday outings), weekends with friends either indoors or dining out, collecting beer mugs, hats and caps - these are some of my other interests. And as one who always wanted to be a journalist (after realising early that I wouldn't be a successful cricketer) I dabble a bit in writing, and I have been goading myself to complete writing all that I have started - on cricket and the travel memoirs covering Nigeria.

Driving (not racing) is another big passion for me. Have done several trips between San Jose- LA, San Jose-Las Vegas, Richmond to Niagara to New York (Manhattan), Sydney to Gold Coast to Brisbane. I am the ever ready driver. Thankfully the Indian highways are now getting better, and the roads from Hosur to Krishnagiri now compare with the best in the world - but for the moron who is driving in your lane and in your direction!!! #@%$#

Travel is such a wonderful learning experience, and the interface with people of different cultures and traditions contributed a lot to widening my perspective of life, to becoming more tolerant of other cultures and practices. Its been a lovely experience to meet and mingle with folks from different places, and develp friendships from far flung places.

Thanks again for your visit, and good luck in everything you do!!! Do ping me, and I promise a response!! :-)

PS: ;-) In all humility - Vincent is from the Roman name Vincentius, which was from Latin vincere - "to conquer". This was the name of several saints. I guess I have the most inappropriate name!!!! :-)

Priorities In Life, And What I Missed!

29th July 2004! I have always urged myself to shut off the cell phone while driving. For the simple reason that it is against the law – even with a hands-free. And it was one law-breaking evening for me, as I waited for the red signal light to change, when the buzz came on. Quite simply the worst ever news I had received in my life.

“Grandma passed away”

“WHEN?”

“Just now…..

“Am on my way home"

I hung up. Grandma was 92.

I slipped into gear as the green light came on. For once I must have been unaware of the blazing horns and vehicles around me. Trying to let the reality of the news sink into me, I drove, lost in thoughts. For some unknown reason I drove to my parents place. They lived a stone’s throw away from my place. The phone being out of order, I broke the news. My sister was shocked, as was my mother. Inspite of her old age, we still couldn’t accept she had passed away. After all she had come out of a two hour long hip surgery to mend her broken bones. She came out pretty well, after even the surgeon had given us very little hope of her making it.

I questioned myself as to why my I hadn’t broken down yet as I went drove to my uncle’s place. There she was placed, lifeless, looking very peaceful almost like she was in a deep slumber. My most beloved grandmother, the person I had loved the most in all my life. I had met her a month ago. I had not made a specific visit to meet her. I had happened to have an appointment in the vicinity, and dropped into to see her having finished with my work.

With both parents working, grandma had decided to give up her teaching job to take care of me full time. And I grew under her care, love, and affection. Being the first grandchild in the family easily made me her favorite out of the nine grandchildren she had. She loved each and every grandchild, as would be expected, but I was sure where I stood amongst equals. And everyone else knew how special I was to her. A stern, disciplined grandma she was, but always loving and adoring. I could never ever remember anything that I asked for being refused by her. I knew exactly which door to knock when I wanted something as a kid. And I grew up as a pretty reasonable kid, who also happened to excel at school, thanks to both my grandparents having been in the teaching profession. I was with her every hour of the day and night as well. And I remember her proudly tell the baker who once offered me a biscuit, “He would never take it”. And her beaming face, so full of pride, when a relative whom we were visiting, came back home after having taken me out, announcing, “This fellow chose a book over the sweets when given the option”.

Until I was about seven years old, I was completely under her care. We then moved to a new locality and I moved with my parents, now having become sufficiently ‘old’. But the grounding years had been so strong that she had become the most loved and most wanted person for me. Very soon she also moved to a house in our locality, again very close by and I saw her every day.

Life went along. School, college, and then work. The regularity of meeting her was on the wane. Career, growth, travel took priority in life. Marriage subsequently, when she beamed with happiness “I would soon become a great grandmother!” But the moments and times spent with her reduced as life progressed. Seeing her was more of an unplanned occurrence than a planned activity. She always inquired lovingly about how I was. Changes in our residences took place yet again, and we lived on the upper floor of the building, and my maternal uncle occupied the lower floor. As a young man always in a hurry, I must have spoken to her more often when I had seen her at the gate. More were the occasions when she climbed the stairs to come and see me!

The thought did occur to me, very often, that I had put meeting her and spending some time with her to a very low priority. More working hours, more responsibilities, more travel, more foreign visits. And it made the time spent with her even lesser. A posting abroad didn’t help matters. She always inquired about my health, my work. Never once did she ever utter a negative word. Never once did she ask why I hadn’t come over to see her. She, on the contrary, encouraged me to carry on with my busy schedule. On the rare occasions when I went to see her, she would cheerfully announce at home that her grandson had come to visit her, , and then inquire in detail on how my life was progressing. “You travel so much” she would say with a smile and check where I was headed next.

Every time I came into my own house without dropping in to see her, there was a tinge of guilt which was overcome by some ‘priority’. Such ‘priority’ at times was even watching some cricket games on the TV. Grandma, to her credit, also took up to following cricket and even followed the domestic games and read the paper reports regularly. There were times when she would discuss zonal games, Ranji games and take names of players not even on the fringe of national selection. I was very proud of her, cricket being a big passion for me!

Age made her lose her sight slowly, and it took some effort for her to recognize people. She kept moving between the homes of my two maternal uncles. From the active grandma I had known, the one whose hands I held and went out as I grew up, she was now home based completely as age caught up. And somewhere down the line, in the hurry to be successful in life and the other pursuits of life I had completely relegated her presence to a completely low priority. Inspite of the feeling within that I wasn’t doing enough to spend time with her, life went on. Work, trips, friends, parties – so many things took priority. Looking back, there could have been many things which one could have avoided or moderated to allocate time for her. Never happened and nor will there be an opportunity to make good now.

I did break down completely when we finally moved her out to the burial ground. The comforting thought was that she had had a complete and full life, and had a peaceful end. On some occasions when I did get to be with her she would express her feelings – “Why am I still around? I have seen it all. There is nothing more really in life left. I have seen my grandchildren and great grandchildren. Now my sight is lost, and there is not much left than being a dependant on others. I can go”. We always admonished her and told her she was just doing fine and we needed her around to bless us and be with us.

After she was buried and we returned home, I told myself – Whatever the situation, I will visit her grave atleast once a month to pay my respects to her. And if she were to be watching me, to forgive me and bless one and all. Was it to atone for past sins that I made this decision, I asked myself. What I missed out when she was alive and around, I told myself, I would attempt to do now to ease a sense of guilt. How much we miss out in life with priorities that are muddled up, and so unfortunate that material aspects of life take precedence over emotional aspects. I wish I had taken some time somewhere during my busy life to sit down and write down all that was dear and important to me in life, and had taken stock of how I would distribute my very precious time to the various items in that list. Going forward I would do that. Thank you grandma, for helping me recognize this. You continue to help me learn even today.

Nine months have since passed, and thankfully I have made good the vow I made. I was particularly happy the day I switched off the TV when a crucial game of cricket was being telecast, and I headed out to spend some time with her. Something I never did during her living days. And I uttered at her grave, “This is also for you granddad”. She was buried at the very same spot where we had buried my granddad some twenty four years back.