tholainthupoonavargal : krishna.
This weekend I read tholainthupoonavargal – a novel by Sa. Kanthaswamy (incidentally his son was my (and Sreekanth’s) school mate). This book is about four (Damodharan, Shankaran, Ramaswamy and Venugopal) friends who grow up in a village together and then get separated. One of them (Damodharan) tries to get them all together with the hope of recapturing the magic of their younger days, but the other three are all struggling in life and are not very keen at the idea of this get together some reason or the other.
This story was made as a tele serial a few years ago and proved to be quite popular then (I was told then, that the makers of the serial found the sponsors not very excited about the negativity in the title and wanted to change it!).
I had expected a lot from the book (I have not seen the tele serial) and honestly a bit let down, esp. with the ending, where Damodharan fails to get all his friends together. The entire story (except for Damodaran) depicts all other characters as utter failures in life, which again is a let down, I firmly believe that stories should have a positive thread running along, even if the end is sad – Marocharithra as a movie and Marquez’s “Love and Other Demons” as a book, comes to mind…Some sequences are also not tied together, intentionally maybe, but still for a layman reader like me, there were some things that were up in the air. But the switch between the present and the flashbacks and back were flawless and the friendship between he boys, beautifully told, which makes you wonder why they have been torn apart like this. Maybe in this current age of email, mobile and not to mention Orkut, we may not be able to appreciate the drift that the friends (who were so close) have experienced. Net net, it was a good read for a quite weekend.

True Blue

Trip to Chennai…

Sep 12, 2006 – 9W445 – Seat 21E…the seat back was just not holding straight, I would press the button and pull it up (as per flight regulations) and lean back and the seat will just slide back with me. One of the many airhostesses with a semi stern voice will, “Sir, Seat back upright, please”. Meekly I would mumble that it is not holding up and in response, she would give a disapproving look as if it is somehow my mistake. This repeated some 3-4 times, with all the airhostesses taking turns.
Oct 2, 2006 same flight… and I was on 23B seated diagonally across 21E, had the pleasure of being an audience to this drama unfold again with another hapless soul. Mind you this is not the no frill, bring-your-lunch- along, cheap (fare) airlines, this is the true Blue - Jet Airways!!! Bit news, one of the air hostesses name was Konica, wonder if she has a sister who goes by the name Kodak!
This really reminds me of my days (in 1997-98) when I used to travel by Venson Transport between Chennai and Bangalore, while booking the tickets, I would list out the seats that I don’t want as they will have some fault (not sliding back, arm rest broken, etc). Next time while checking in, I would do the same to Jet, when the girl at the counter asks me for “window or aisle?” I would say - anything but 21E!
What is the matter with the captains from the “Deck”, why do they always mumble when they make an announcement, you really have to strain your ear and brain (which has already gone dull at 35000 ft @ 70% of mach) to make any sense out of their rambling, and in any case, who is interested to know the outside temp and “for your comfort the cabin temp is 22 degrees” otherwise they are fine with -40 degrees (which, if you are interested, is the outside temperature).
I guess the terrorist threat perception is not there anymore, we don’t have this silly “no liquid, solid and gas, jut you and your ticket in the cabin” revoked and back to good old days of the security officers going thru the routine and not really worried about what I’m carrying.