Trichyfied!

Sporting Miracles

2010-04-26T11:32:00.003-04:00

My First Sports related blog.

I was watching the IPL game last night and witnessed RC take out DC and I caught myself talking out loud (in response to another DC wicket)...."Shit, these guys are useless!!"

The look on the batsmans face as he walked off the field triggered a memory flash...a younger me walking off the cricket field on the Sishya field, having got out first ball in an intra school tournament. A whole bunch of students watching (worried more about the girls though!;)) ...some sniggering...I remember the thought that ran through my head, "Machan, you dont even know how to hold a bat..."

In the same match, standing behind the wickets as the Wicketkeeper/Captain I remember my team-mate Mayank, a wonderful pace bowler (though with an erratic run-up that confused most batsman) bowling with full gusto at the opponent. Wonderful line, a gentle swing, perfectly pitched and rising to perfection, beating the batsman and into my gloves, standing 15 feet behind the stumps. I also remember the pain!

He was not bowling any more than 75 or 80 kmph (we were only in the 10th grade and small built)...but even at that distance behind the stumps my hands were killing me (though I had inner gloves and a brand new set of keeping gloves, grudgingly handed over by the PE teacher)....even though I had collected the ball cleanly, the stinging sensation running up through my hands made me see stars!

In world cricket we see speeds in excess of 120kmph...from a medium pacer! Even Kumble, a spinner (off break) generates speeds in excess of 100kmph. The wicketkeeper actually stands right there, up next to the wickets...imagine his reaction time when he makes a stumping or run out…mindblowing! To understand the magnitude of their achievements we mere mortals have to slow the video down to fractions of seconds and even then we need modern technology, with all its computing power and simulations and 100billion operations a second, to tell us something the umpire already knew 10 seconds ago, with his finger up in the air! An interesting example of the sheer pace of events on the field was put in perspective when, between overs, the TV producer replayed the images of a fielder at short midwicket hold a catch from a sizzling shot by one of the batsman. They replayed the shot and resulting catch in slow motion again and again, while measuring the time from when the ball hit the bat to when the fielder caught the ball. This entire sequence of events took 0.6 seconds! For humans to experience fluid vision we need to see 24 images (frames) a second. This shot and the catch was captured in just 14 !

If mankind is looking for inspiration we need to look no further than these tiny miracles that happen everyday in every sport at every level. Performance and human capability taken to the limits. At the end of the day, as mere mortals, who are we to Judge?

Want to watch a chip?

2010-01-03T10:01:00.003-04:00

'Films' were called films as the medium on which they were captured was a physical strip of photosensitive material. So you could watch a 'film' at the local theatre.

With the advent of digital technology and movies being recorded on re-writable electronic memory, the 'film' is almost obsolete.

Does this mean the local theatre now features the latest 'chip'? The 'chip' that I saw yesterday was very good. The 'chip' critic gave a thumbs down to the latest 'chip'. I went to the theatre to watch a 'chip' and ate chips and coke for a snack...and the list goes on.

Time to rethink?

Go figure.

Chapter 11- Laptop Blues

2009-02-15T02:13:00.004-04:00

My laptop seems to be on its last lap. Its memory is failing and it keeps losing its keys, on the keyboard that is. Viral infections have taken a toll on its system and it suffers from a bad case of the COLD (Completely Outdated Laptop Device). The software is hard to use and the hardware is overused. To get it fixed I have called in the handy-dandy service professional but from day one it seemed like I was talking to an Alien from outer space.

He tried to switch on my computer and could not get it to turn on. That’s when he mentioned that I had a boot-sector virus. I was a little embarrassed. I am not sure how he figured it out but I did have a little fungal infection between my toes. He must have smelled my shoes while entering the door. Embarrassed, I told him I would get it checked by my podiatrist soon. He also requested that I backup my hard drive frequently. So I have taken to driving my car in reverse in front of my house everyday. I dont understand how this helps my computer but who can keep up with technology these days?

The other day he came to fix some problem with the computer and nearly gave me a heart attack! He mentioned that I had low Level-2 Cache. How did he know that my bank account was short of funds? In fact I was so strapped for cash that I was not sure I could pay him for his services! Somewhere along the way he also mentioned that my chipset was old and needed to be replaced. The guy had some gall! Not only had he raided the snacks in my kitchen without my knowledge but he was complaining about the expiry date on the packet of chips. He finished his work and mentioned he would be back the next week. I quickly hid my boots as he left, for fear of another nasty comment from him.

He returned the next week and he mentioned that he had a new Motherboard with him. I could make neither head nor tail of this. Was his mother living with him now? Or was it someone elses mother? Maybe a stepmother? Why did he mention it now? Maybe he knew I could not pay and was looking to have his mother stay with me for a while! As he messed around in the computer he made another funny statement. He mentioned that he was going to rearrange the BUS to increase speed. Was he using public transport to move around? I could see his car standing outside so that did not make sense. Maybe there was a lot of traffic on the road and he thought public transport would be faster. Who knew? I let it go but I thought to myself that these geeks were a weird bunch!

Just as he left he mentioned that he was going to replace Windows the next time he came. That’s it! I finally figured it out. This guy was some sort of crook who under the pretext of being a technician scoped out houses, ate their chips without permission, used public transport to avoid detection and involved his mother to blackmail financially-stressed people like me. And now he was telling me he was going to replace the windows in my house, which he would then break into at some later date! Nice try pal! I am not falling for that one.

I let go of his services and junked my laptop. I had the last laugh too. I used the money to put up a new security system on all my windows. After all, he’s not the only one who can install a Windows Security update!

Jimbly

2008-10-05T09:13:00.000-04:00

The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all

Vande Mataram

2008-09-28T06:03:00.002-04:00

One of my articles published in the Indian Express a few years ago.

************************

It was a typical muggy evening in a sunny southern state of America. My sweat stained kurta sticking to my back, I stood in line waiting to buy a ticket for the Festival of India. This was an eagerly anticipated annual event and drew large crowds of the sub-continental people from all around. It also drew indigenous crowds of ‘educated’ people wanting to ride elephants, see snake charmers and shake hands with a Maharaja. They were sorely disappointed. The snake had escaped and bitten the Maharaja, who was then taken on the elephant to the emergency room.

As I waited, I glanced at the poster for the event. It promised a wondrous evening showcasing the diverse people, food, cultures and titillating splendors of an exotic country, if you could get into the auditorium. There were long queues for tickets comprising homesick Indians looking to talk to another human being without having to roll their r’s. What surprised me most was that not one of them was jostling for space to get ahead in the line, there was no fat uncle rubbing his smelly armpits in my face and definitely no one spitting paan on my shoes. Talk about culture shock! The odds of seeing such an orderly queue in India is rare. Some would say as rare as India winning the Cricket World Cup. Either of these events is cause enough for the general masses to rise up in union and exclaim jubilantly in chorus, “The gods are on our side! Our sins have been forgiven!” Of course, this would promptly be followed by political parties calling for a curfew to ascertain which gods were being propitiated and to include a quota for proper representation of the minority communities in these prayers!

But I digress.

An excited throng of sari, dhoti, kurta, salwaar and turban wearing multitude milled around the auditorium. The incessant babble of people around me was intermittently drowned out by music blaring from the speakers. Small shops had been setup selling everything from cheap imitation Indian jewelry at exorbitant prices to pirated Hindi movies, still running in theatres back home. Dance programs on stage highlighted the latest fads from bollywood songs, with enough pelvic gyration to give the local belly dancer a hernia! Even the large overflowing trash cans in every corner seemed to lend an aura of authenticity.

My attention was drawn to a table across from me. The sign above it instantly piqued my interest. I licked my dry lips with my tongue. A slight tremble in my hands gave away my anticipation. I moved closer to the table. I reached out slowly. My hand closed in around the plate of free, hot samosas. It was not a figment of my imagination. Neither was the small cup of sweet chutney on the side. I dipped the samosa in it and took a bite. An overwhelming surge of curry spice and sweet chutney enveloped me in a sense of well-being. I licked my fingers and wiped the delicious crumbs from my lips. I beamed from ear to ear. And that’s when it hit me.

It is well known that, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. The belief that love is governed by a base need like hunger leads me to re-state, “To know if man has a heart, fill his stomach”. I walked away with a renewed faith in my fellow beings, my country and in the unstoppable positivity of a satiated stomach. With a look of utter satisfaction on my face and lightness in my step, I thought to myself, “Fill the plates of the hungry and the poor in India and you will soon rejoice in its new found patriotism.” After all, one billion stomachs’ is a ‘whole lotta love!’

Chapter 10 - Vanakkam, my name is Mani.

2008-09-14T00:24:00.002-04:00

Was walking by a nice, clean building, single storeyed, blue and white exteriors. Looked like a bank. It was. The brightly lit sign outside said in bold white letters against a blue background, “GE Money”. Right underneath in tamil text, the same. With my limited knowledge of Tamil, it took me a while to “kooti padikku-fy”. And that’s when it hit me. GE Money, when read by a person in Tamil, especially if that person was from the boondocks and did not know about the existence of the mutli-billion dollar conglomerate, would make absolutely no sense. I stopped walking for a few seconds and a broad smile wrapped itself around my face as this imaginary conversation between two village bumpkins ran through my head:
First bumpkin: “Dei, yaarida intha G.E. Mani? Ooruku puthusa? Enna Vikuran?”
Second bumpkin: "Theriyada? Ooruku puthusa vanthurkire collector!"

("Dei, who is this G.E. Mani? Is he new in the town? What does he sell?")
("Dont you know, he is the new collector in town!")

I continued walking and i started to wonder if there was any other business names that rural folk would have a problem coming to grips with! Any ideas?

Jimbly

2008-08-31T12:36:00.000-04:00

Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.

Sleepless in Rockcity

2008-08-21T02:14:00.002-04:00

Five months of bus rides to and from work has confirmed the following: Everyone sleeps on the bus. Everyone. Only in their sleep patterns we find differentiation. There are three kinds on the bus. You’v got the Zen masters, the bobble-heads and last but not least you have spit-face. Zen masters are weird. They are neither asleep nor fully awake. They have their eyes closed yet manage to sit still as the bus jumps and jolts everyone else around. Then there are the Bobble-heads. These are the guys who have their eyes closed and their heads keep dropping onto their chest. Just when you think they are lights-out they jerk back up to an upright position and repeat the entire procedure again. And then come the spit faces. I envy these guys for they possess the unearthly super power to sleep like no human has ever slept before. From the time they get onto the bus they hit a snooze button and bam! They are of to la-la land. Its very easy to find these guys in the bus. They are the ones hanging half in and half out of their seat or generally smothering their unfortunate neighbor while maintaining a constant stream of spittle from their half open mouths. They will not wake up till the bus has reached the office and that too only if half a dozen of their colleagues dance the flamenco on their heads.

Its also funny the way seating in the bus has so naturally arranged itself. Zen masters always sit next to zen masters. Bobble-heads usually next to other bobbles but some unfortunate ones can get stuck next to a spit face. They never repeat the mistake. Spit faces predominantly sit next to each other. Oblivious to the spittle bath that they shower on each other, these somnolent beings find comfort in their shared inability to maintain consciousness in a moving vehicle. They cluster together like fungus. They also believe in more the merrier. You will always find them in the three-seater benches, never in the two seater, which is usually reserved for the groups of zen’s and bobbles. The other day I saw an incredible sight, what I believe to be the next Olympic sport: Synchronized sleeping! Like trained athletes three spit faces sitting next to each other, all with their heads lolling on their chests, with the same quantity of spittle in the corner of their mouths, jerking this way and that way with the swaying of the bus in perfect unison. Not even trained athletes could muster up such perfection. These unconscious beings swaying to some unheard universal melody; their body, soul and spittle tied together in an ethereal cosmic dance.

Wherever groups of humans get together patterns start to emerge. Are there any other patterns you readers have observed? In different situations maybe? In different circumstances? Do share. Im eager to know. You can say Im drooling for information!

Jimbly

2008-08-08T12:34:00.000-04:00

You do not find what you do not seek

Chapter 8

2008-08-01T12:14:00.002-04:00

“Dei Congratulations!”
“Whats with all the marriage fever in our batch? Anyway, congrats!”
“Who is the lucky girl?”
“Are you crazy??!!!”

Some of the messages on my facebook account. All because I changed the status on my page to seven simple letters, “Engaged”. I am sure there will be more to come and most will be real colourful. Will post some more of these as and when I get them. I thank my friends for taking a little time from their lives either to congratulate me or pass on their condolences!! That last comment was by one of my friends whose idea of a monogamous relationship is one woman only…every week. The last I heard of him he was fleeing from three angry ex’s, taking a trip to deepest darkest Africa. Wonder if he’ll have access to Facebook there?

So If you are wondering why my blog has remained untouched over the past two months ask my mobile service provider. I happen to be their single largest customer, helping them stay afloat in these lean times. My bills are astronomical as are my head, heart and soul (oh…so mushy!). Telephone conversations with this someone special is consuming all my free time and spare minutes are spent with my ears glued to the cell-phone, milking every last drop of juice from the batteries to get another sentence in. She calls herself my “phone-friend”. I call her, “The reason why Airtel has given me a credit line of ten thousand rupees”. I got a call from the customer service rep requesting me to prolong my engagement till the end of the fiscal year as they still had some bad debt to clear!

A twinkle in her eye, one watermelon juice, and a swish of her skirt and she had me hook line and sinker. Or should I say, “Cellphone, charger and Bluetooth!”

My special “phone friend”.

Jimbly

2008-05-30T12:27:00.000-04:00

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Jimbly

2008-04-24T12:41:00.000-04:00

Once i make up my mind im full of indecision

Jimbly

2008-04-07T12:47:00.001-04:00

He who laughs last...didnt get it !

Chapter 7 – A Lassi by any other name…..

2008-03-30T12:37:00.002-04:00

.....would be called...wait...wait....I’m jumping the gun here. Lets go back to the beginning. As usual this story also involves food but not in as much detail. It all started with just another innocuous dinner. I was about finishing a nice big chole-bhatura and coating my arteries with a fresh layer of cholesterol when I felt like it would be nice to drink something to settle my stomach. I called the waiter over to my table and asked him for a glass of plain buttermilk. He smiled a sweet broken toothed smile, scratched his head and said that he didn’t have any buttermilk. So I then asked him for a bowl of curd to which he replied that he couldn’t do that. Exasperated I told him to forget it, thinking that I would pick up a pack of curd on the way home from some shop. The waiter started to amble away obviously a little anxious at having annoyed a regular customer, one that tips well too.

He took a few steps and turned around and shuffled his way back towards me. I was busy finishing my bhatura, with my head down close to the plate. I caught sight of his slippers and I looked up wondering if he had changed his mind about the curd. He was looking at me a little anxiously fidgeting with the tray in his hand. I nodded my head at him and he stepped closer to me and bent forward. He then asked me a question, which I will come to in a minute, that must have taken a lot of courage and burnt quite a few of the grey cells in his head. Keep in mind that just outside the restaurant is a fruit juice shop where you can get freshly squeezed fruit juices. So he bends sown and barely whispers, “Saar, thayir juice venumma?” (Do you want curd juice?) I was flummoxed, to say the least. What in the name of God was ‘Thayir juice’? The look on my face would have scared any lesser human away but the valiant soul that lingered behind those tattered pants and grimy checkered shirt was not about to give up. He repeated again, “Saar, thayir juice, that they put in a glass with sugar and give you”. Now I have something to say here. If all those great geniuses all through the ages had a light bulb go off somewhere every time they had a great idea (did stoneage man have large fires go off somewhere…is that why there’s none of them left!) then global warming is not really a recent occurrence. Blame those geniuses and their bulbs. If they had only used fluorescent lamps! Anyway…that lamp went off…I got his drift and nodded my head vigorously at which his face beamed with satisfaction and I am sure he was mentally walking down the line of ten grey cells remaining in his head and patting them one by one on the back for a job well done. He brought me back a nice, tall, cool glass of “Sweet Lassi” which I downed with extra satisfaction. I could have missed this delight if it had not been for the quick thinking waiter who managed to understand my need, the constraints, the available resources and put it all together in one delectable “thayir juice”. I tipped that guy extra that day and every day after for the courage it must have taken to come up to me and ask me a stupid (in his own view) question and follow it up with some visionary thinking.

So why am I making a big deal of this. Because just two days earlier I had asked his boss, the manager, for a Lassi and he had given me a rude, “No! We don’t have anything like that here.” Which is why I was asking for buttermilk and curd in the first place and not for a Lassi. In his favor, the uneducated (but divinely gifted) waiter had seized on the opportunity to provide ‘customer service’ in its very intended form and showed that ‘manager’ a thing or two about thinking outside the box.

Lassi is now a featured item on the board outside their restaurant.

Chapter 6 - Rockfort temple

2008-03-24T12:07:00.001-04:00

I climbed all the way to the top of Rockfort. Barely. Along the way an elderly gentleman asked me to get out of his way as I was slowing him down. By elderly I mean he was around when god created man. And by man I actually mean woman (just in case there are some womens lib proponents reading this…in which case…”burn the sports bra!!”)

Apart from the incredible thirty rupees I paid for an “Archanai Thatu” (is that normal?) there were other incredible things…the old pillars, the huge temple sitting atop a few rocks, the cool breeze, the old man who raced past me, and the view of the Cauvery river (dry as a bone) cutting across the landscape like a ugly gash in the earth, oozing trucks and autos and motor bikes crossing the bridge. The actual Pillayar temple is small and sits right at the peak of the hillock and hence his name, “Uchi Pillayar”. Simple. Remember what I said about Indians and their lack of originality. Rough steps hewed into the rock face lead all the way upto it from a lower rest area. The rest area, btw, is where young guys like me lean against the railings trying to act cool, pretending to admire the view, when in reality we were just trying to catch our breath from climbing up so far. The nonchalant hand through the hair is us actually wiping the streams of sweat pouring down the back of our neck. And us lying prone on the ground means call the ambulance!

I enjoyed the mini trip, a good 1.5 hours of walking. Will go back when I decide to practice for the Boston Marathon.

Time for bed. Adieu.

Jimbly

2008-03-15T11:54:00.002-04:00

Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens.

Thank you for comments

2008-03-14T02:17:00.002-04:00

Thanks to all of you leaving comments. Sowmya, Lalitha aunty, Cheenu...and some weird Hispanic person who i dont understand. If you get a gmail account i can respond to comments but until then i will have to reply like this. Thanks for the encouragement.

Chapter 5 - The one with the push cart

2008-03-14T02:10:00.002-04:00

So we come to the push cart. Food as you have seen seems to be playing a central part in my life, off late. Its like sleep…its never a big deal unless your not getting any. So the lack of good home cooked food has made sure that I am on the constant lookout for 1) cheap , 2) healthy and 3) accessible food. And it must include some good vegetables (its just a phase of mine). And I found just the place. At a good 25 minutes walk from my house, this place is at the event horizon of my third condition but its worth every sweat drop oozing out my forehead and every shoe bite on my heel. Not to mention the chaffing in unmentionable places (jeez…I have got to get my mind out of the gutter).

Right opposite the main entrance to the Rock Fort temple is a small bylane filled with hundreds of shops. Congestion is an understatement. Sardines have it good compared to this. Little shops selling everything from clothes to bidhis to jewellery. A mini Mylapore with a hill in the middle. And as the saying goes, if Rockfort cannot go to the restaurant, the restaurant will go to Rockfort. Enter the push carts. Meals on wheels. Cruisin’ Cuisine. The gluttons perambulator.

It all starts with a nice little ritual. The first day my friend took me over there, around 8pm in the evening (only dinner is served), the “Iyer Mama” was just setting up shop. Its appropriately called the “Iyer Kadai”, of course. Hey! Nobody said the Indians were known for their originality! After off-loading all the “andaa’s” and “yelai’s” onto his pushcart from an auto (no cooking is done on the street, its all home cooked), he quickly pulls out a small ‘yelai’, scoops a big helping of “dhadhojanam” (or thayir saadam, curd rice for you uneducated people) onto it, lights incense, sticks it in the middle of the rice and then raises the whole yelai as an offering over his head, saying some prayers, looking towards the temple on top of the hill. That done, he places the yelai in one corner of his push cart. He then pulls out another yelai, heaps it with different food and hands it over to the waiting old beggar on the side. Charity before business. He then wipes his hands on his lungi, turns to his paying customers and says, “Cholunga Saar! Enna Saapudiringe?”

These happen to be the very words that God utters when he welcomes you to Paradise.

A multitude of “variety rices”, uthapams, idli’s, chutneys, sambhars, poriyals, appalams, sweets, and pongals lay bare the quintessentially heart warming nature of South Indian comfort food, that drives thousands of burger and pizza-sick individuals like me from the gold paved streets and milk and honey baths of the western world into the arms of the warm embracing smell of fresh ghee on hot “chakarai pongal”! With due apologies to amma, I must mention that this man makes the best Kesari on this side of the NH-45. He even offers ‘paruppu-podi sadham’, with ‘goju’ on the side. A dollop of this, a scoop of that, a spoonful of ghee and a lot of licking and lip-smacking later, the loaded ‘burp’ that escapes from the deep confines of your stuffed-to-capacity stomach pays the ultimate tribute to the ultimate meal and leaves you yearning for nothing more than a very short trip to a six feet by four feet of space and one pillow. On the side of the road if necessary.

I hope I have given enough incentive to see some of you people down here in Trichy. See you soon.

Chapter 4.5

2008-03-12T13:15:00.002-04:00

Short blog..hence 4.5.

Three continuous sentences in my previous blog began with the word "Now" and none of you commented on that!! I might have been half asleep while writing it but you guys better wake up and kick some sense into my head!!! :))

I will defintely cover the push cart kalyana saapadu next time...i promise. keep tuning in.

adios.

Jimbly

2008-03-11T12:25:00.000-04:00

You do not find what you do not seek.

Chapter 4

2008-03-10T11:09:00.001-04:00

Everything is so close to my house that I can actually walk there, including the dry cleaners!
(Trichy-1, Tampa-0)

The dry cleaner in Trichy destroyed my brand new shirt!!
(Trichy- negative 5, Tampa 1)

Anyway, I did deposit my first paycheck into my bank account so that just about evens out everything. OK. Last time around I did mention smells. Now this is a pet subject of mine. Now as some of you may have noticed, my blog has a profile picture of me and its caption is, “The Nose”, for obvious reasons. Now, I must say that other than for being a conduit for all the nasty stuff my sinus keeps throwing its way, my nose, or rather my sense of smell, is quite keen. I usually happen to remember the smell of a place (memory for smells, any budding psychologists out there with an analysis?). And India is a veritable treasure chest. With so much pollution in most of the Metro cities you have to come to one of these tier B cities to realize what you miss. The smell of jasmine flowers sold by the roadside vendor wafting over you like a cool breeze, despite the late evening traffic. The smell of tea from the “tea kadai” early in the morning, making your stomach growl with anticipatory pleasure. The coffee “podi” shop, grinding freshly roasted beans, driving coffee-holics insane with its heady smell. Fruits by the roadside, incense and camphor from the local temple, the open gutter, sweat from the auto driver, chilli bajji’s, the salt in the air (if ur near the sea) and more recently the American sweet corn vendor with a distinct smell of its own (I have never seen these in America btw). There’s also the slightly antiseptic smell of the clinic as you walk past its open door, the rancid-sweet-dungy smell of the cow as its ambles past you swishing its tail and of-course, always the not so far away distinctly harsh smell of a “beedi”. And all this walking down one street. Many more to explore. Many more to be smelt! All of America would not have the smells of even one of these streets. All the cities there have the same smell. The sterile smell of nothing. I have begun to enjoy my walks. As life slows down you pick up details you otherwise miss while fighting traffic. Its worth it. A good break from life in the fast lane.

I can hear the local gurkha banging his stick and blowing his whistle (ha ha…that sounds like a b-grade film) as he patrols the streets below. And its only 9pm!!! These people need to get a life.

Alrighty then, more the next time. The last two posts have been more descriptive than humorous. On purpose. There is only so much humor one can muster up in a day and I ran through my quota early in the evening to keep myself from kicking the dry-cleaning lady. But hey, as the saying goes, “If the dry cleaner aint good, wash your own clothes fool!”

Comment and let me know if there are any smells you like, on the streets.

Hasta La Vista.

Chapter 3

2008-03-09T12:18:00.000-04:00

I got mobbed by a bunch of women today! They were all going crazy around me! They just couldn’t get enough! Ahem…not of me that is…but of “Thalaivar” or as he is better known, “Captain”. A huge political do put together by this new political party, which shall remain unnamed, brought forth a sea of humanity to the area where I live. The crowd covered every available bit of space in an obnoxious mélange of feet, hands, slippers, plastic water packets, beetle-nut stained spittle, trucks, flags, banners, body odors (more on that later) and a cloud of dust, kicked up by the afore mentioned pack of women, as they swarmed their way around me towards the direction of the rally. I survived. Barely. One women accidentally speared my foot with the stick she was using for support. While I was magnanimous with my own unnecessary apology she took it literally and abused me for not watching where I was going and actually insinuated that I was merely a roadside romeo trying to “cop a feel”!! A 60 year old lady. With a walking stick. She’s got hopes !!! I retreated quietly just happy she did not attempt to blunt the point of the stick in my guts!

The sea of yellow and red and white continue to swarm around on the roads as I write this and the sounds of crackers bursting and musical horns and engines at full tilt still echo around the corner to my room. The whole situation was summarized neatly by my friend. As we walked back home from the bus stop, he looked around, sighed and said, “So many people in this world with so little to do and here we are working 12 hours a day!” Amen brother!

I did mention odors. I’ll dedicate the next chapter to this topic. And I have not forgotten the push cart kalyana sapaadu. All in the next chapter. Be there or be square.

Jimbly

2008-03-06T09:53:00.001-04:00

Do, or do not. There is no 'try'.

Jimbly continued

2008-03-04T12:13:00.002-04:00

I post one of these lines from time to time. Rules: it should not be more than 15 words long. It should be concise, hopefully humorous or full of wisdom and need not be original. But no more than 15 words. I have compiled all these over a few years. Here's this time's:

Cheer up! The worst is yet to come.

Chapter 2

2008-03-04T12:09:00.001-04:00

Lots of stuff to write about. Where to begin. How about a positive note. The thing I have begun to look forward to everyday. A hot tea at 7:15 in the morning at the road side “tea-kaddai”, while waiting for my bus to come pick me up. In one week its become so much of a routine that the ‘kaddai’ owner knows to have it ready as soon as he sees me. I don’t have to ask. That really gives me a kick. Oh! That’s only 3 ruppees for a delectable “chaya” first thing in the morning shared in the company of auto drivers and miscellaneous wayfarers, pretending to read the tamil paper while they are actually ogling at the pictures of the actresses on the last page. Share damn it! This alone, I feel, is worth the move back from Tampa.

And yes, I did mention a bus. A company bus that takes me to and from work everyday. Tuesdays to Saturdays full day. Sunday half day. Monday off. Déjà vu. I did this for 4 years going to engineering college. Is that why it feels so comfortable? I’m surprised that it feels so comfortable. And of course, at work, the hot coffee at 9:00am brought by the office boy (office thatha?). Tea if you like. All thick. All sweet. Just the way I like it. We do have to pay for it. 2 ruppees and 50 paisa. One in the morning and one in the afternoon to dust away those looming cobwebs of post lunch miasma. Don’t forget the snacks boy who comes around at 4:00pm on the dot. One egg puff for 4 ruppees. Yummy. As long as I’m on food might as well mention breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast and lunch in the canteen at work. A humongous hall filled with about 500 people. Eating. Noisy. Background music of some movie song remixed using classical carnatic instruments. Ten ruppees. Three idli’s and one vadai. One dosai if available. Lunch 17 ruppees. Meals. Two vegetables and okra (ladies finger) sambhar, with pappad, oily and half done. Yummy! And lest I forget, we clean our own plates, using dollops of dish washing powder using just our hands. No sponge. Nothing. Just heap a handful on to the plate, rinse it out and your done. For the sake of sanity you don’t imagine the thousand other people who have done the same thing with that same plate. Dinner is at any restaurant near my house (mansion!) Nothing really to write home about. Or blog about. But yes, food does play an important role not only in my life, but in every Tom, Dick and Hari’s who works in the plant. Strange but true. The plant might be going down the drain but goddamn it my tea better be hot!

Anyway…so much for food. It will pop its beautiful head up from time to time in further blogs. Will cover other stuff in the future. Keep loggin in. If not you’ll never know about the story of me and the push cart ‘kalyana sapaadu’. Aha! Intrigued! Same channel. Same webpage. Till next time. Vanakkam.

Chapter 1

2008-03-03T10:28:00.002-04:00

So here I am. The next chapter. Crossroads reached. Decisions taken. Crossroads crossed. Entrain. Detrain. Tiruchirapalli. Rock Fort City. City of temples! Travelled many time zones to get here but Trichy itself seems to be stuck in a time zone of its own!! (copyright soumya srinivasan!!) Call it what you want, it is still middle of nowhere to me! One week gone and I am settling in. I live in a so called mansion, which, for those familiar with irony in the “In-glish” language, will recognize as being far from its namesake. Like “Bombay duck” is a fish. Like the “Rockfort Express” stops at every goddamn station. Like “ladies-finger” means that the lady was an ugly mutant from Venus. Its home for now and there is not much to complain about except for the compulsory cold water bath early in the morning (NO hot water). Upside is its supposed to be good for health, if you are an Emperor Penguin living in Antartica. The 9 by 16 feet of space (I measured!) I call home includes an attached bathroom. The room is meant to be “double occupancy” but an extra person will mean enough space for only one toothbrush between the two of us. There is just no way I’m sharing mine with a stranger! Two metal beds on either side of the room. One covered with the quilt is my bed and the other covered with my junk is storage area. Two metal tables cum filing cabinets arranged in a neat little square in the middle of the room (pushed up against the long wall) is workspace. Clean. No-nonsense. Utilitarian. Not a domicile meant for prolonged habitation. I hope.

So this is the beginning. I will try and blog a post everyday. Incidences, Co-incidences and other general happenings, occurrences and activities will be covered. I consider it an adventure. You might consider it mundane......who cares what you think! For all its worth, please leave a comment if you think of something.

Time for dinner. Logging of.

Jimbly

2007-07-11T09:07:00.001-04:00

Money comes,money goes..for me..it just goes!

Jimbly

2007-06-15T14:01:00.000-04:00

Coffee isn't my cup of tea !

Jimbly2

2007-06-12T16:37:00.001-04:00

So what's the speed of dark?

Jimbly

2007-06-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about!

Simple Pleasures

2007-05-16T12:26:00.000-04:00

I recently moved to a new apartment. The more intelligent among you wince, envisioning the mind numbingly painful torture. The less intelligent will send me a congratulatory email. After signing my papers, the leasing office requested a small write up on my moving experience. The one paragraph I submitted contained the following words: broken, forgotten, ignored, cracked, chipped, dented, dinged, stained, damaged, torn, ripped, bleeding, scratched and smashed! Strangely, the leasing office has stopped requesting these testimonials!

It has been suggested that enduring the rigors of transplanting yourself from one location to another, without loss of life, limb, sanity or property (or what’s left of it after paying the security deposit), is a rite of passage. The successful completion of this prevents Nature from blackballing you out of the genetic pool! The moving experience involved hundreds of boxes, thousands of plastic packets and myself, intertwined in one of natures most beautiful yet poignant struggles. Defying all logic I had managed to pack my socks with the leftover food from the fridge, my shoes with my dinner plates and even a dead cockroach that had taken refuge among my clothes in its final moments (Sometimes I wonder if it was the smell from my dirty laundry that killed it, in which case I have found the ultimate excuse for leaving my sweaty clothes lying around the house. Cockroach repellent!)

Settling into the new house was a very unsettling experience. To add to my woes, the weather in my city could be as random as the costume change in a bollywood film song. Late in the night, just as I was moving hundreds of boxes from the car to my new home, a fat raindrop committed hara-kiri on my head, forcing me to ask myself this brilliant question: Which one of these boxes was the umbrella in? This question was soon redundant following the thorough drenching from a midnight storm. Dripping wet, the next question popped up in my head: Which one of these boxes was the dry underwear in? Mumbling and cursing my bad luck I wondered if it really had been that bad in my previous apartment? Was the ice-cold water flowing from the hot water tap that bad? Was the smell of stale dog urine from my balcony actually affecting my social life? Who could say that the mould growing in the bathroom gave me the allergic reaction that landed me in hospital? Was it realistic to expect the maintenance guy to repair the fire alarm in my apartment in just three months? After all, a fire hazard in a wooden building is so negligible!

Preoccupied as I was with all these thoughts, my mind was jolted back to reality by the more immediate need to relieve myself. Nature’s call had grown more insistent over the past hour and the cool breeze blowing over my wet clothes had only added to her appeal. I tried to find the keys to the new house but the urgency building up had slowed time down to a crawl. Papers, packets and clothes blurred in front of my eyes finding their way quickly to the pavement. The bushes around the house started to look more and more appealing. There! Found it! I grab the keys and rush to the front door. I fumble with them for a while, not knowing which one to use. I insert one in and turn the lock. It opens! Throwing the door open I skid and stumble to the toilet. I slam the seat up and let go. A sensation of pure pleasure rushes through my body in a warm gush, prickling the hair on the back of my neck. The smile returns to my face. The whole world looks rosy. Flushing the toilet I walk out. The wet underwear was forgotten and my regrets were no longer relevant. The glow on my face and the light spring in my step suggesting a lesson well learnt. Nothing beats the simple pleasures in life!

Heads or tails?

2007-05-14T14:13:00.000-04:00

We are all either victims or victors of Probability. Belonging to the latter category means you end up with a large shiny Mercedes parked on the driveway of your million dollar house. Belonging to the former means you still have the Mercedes, but it probably has a broken transmission, a leaky radiator, and the brakes work whenever they feel like it. Oh! And not to forget, your two million dollar house sits in an earthquake zone!

Probability has this nasty habit of jumping up and biting you in the rear when you least expect it. Like the time you got caught in a thunderstorm and you commended yourself on being prescient enough to have picked up an umbrella while rushing out of the house. That elation does a quick left exit as you realize that of the six umbrellas in the closet you picked the one that had been chewed up by the dog!

What about the time you decided that the itch in your crotch was irritating enough for you to invest a few seconds from your life scratching it. Like your other investment in an Ice Cream chain in Alaska, this one also took a turn for the worst, when your female co-worker caught you in the act. Of the one thousand nine hundred and twenty two people who work for the company, of the four buildings the company has and a cumulative sixty floors of office space, probability picked HER to walk into YOUR office at the exact time of your indiscretion. There is a saying out there that goes something like this: “The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of the act”. Most of us are not stupid. We know when we are doing something wrong. It makes more sense to say: “The probability of indulging in a stupid act is directly proportional to the fear of being watched!”

Probability is like that big bully in your high school. It has a cruel sense of humor and has no qualms against humiliating you in public, repeatedly. Like the time you were marching at “Eyes right” in your school parade and the elastic on your shorts chose that exact moment to snap. One hand up in a salute and the other holding your shorts up is not exactly the way your PT teacher taught you to do “Eyes right”. Your entire life flashes in front of your eyes and you wonder if you could rewind back to that exact point in time when you decided that today was the day you would not wear a belt. It’s also at this very point in time, you imagine, that the big bully Probability calls all his friends into the room, chuckles and says, “Hey guys, watch this!”

There are people who will argue that events in our life are dictated by choices we make. To those people I say phooey! In this vast playground we call life, choices are just that, choices. You can go this way or that way and the ultimate consequence is unpredictable. All you can do is gear up; wear that helmet, put on those pads, don those gloves, grab that bat, look up as you walk out onto the field and say a quick prayer. You can also hope that the big bully is having a good day and has found someone else to bowl bouncers at.

As for me, having given up the game of one up-man-ship with Probability, I hurt retire; hang up my gloves and walk slowly back to the locker rooms. In this moment of surrender I ask you to please excuse me. I need to go fix the brakes on my Mercedes.

Neighborhood watch

2007-05-10T13:06:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder why man decided that living with other humans in a social community was a good idea? Because he took this decision when technology was not advanced enough to allow his noisy neighbors to play techno music at 3 in the morning!

When your friendly neighborhood Neanderthal decided that having his best bud share a cave next to his sounded like a good idea he failed to fully and completely comprehend the repercussions of his actions. Yes, they could now go dinosaur hunting whenever they wanted, or just chill out by the swamp at any time, and there was always someone to come over and play “Whack your wife on the head with this club”, but not in his wildest dreams (and they were pretty WILD back then …remember…we were still quite low on the food chain!) could he predict the outcome of his actions.

Ten thousand years down the line man has built skyscrapers that sore into the smog filled skies, converted alligator infested swamp land into sprawling gated communities (with a few gators still hanging around for aesthetic purposes! Getting your leg bitten-off is a selling point for apartment complexes nowadays!), and has even figured ways to make $600,000 for 1000sqft sound reasonable. Yet, the one thing he hangs his head in shame and cries quietly about at night, away from the pointing fingers and mocking laughter of society, is a way to get his neighbor to turn the volume DOWN on his stereo system to a level where a lobotomy without anesthesia causes less pain. Thumping bass from a stereo system and a good night’s sleep were never meant to exist in the same universe! The laws of physics need to be re-written and Einstein discredited for his theories before we can start to make sense of this equation. If the entire hullabaloo behind parallel universes is true then somebody got it all wrong when they relegated these two to the same one.

For millennia, humankind has trudged across barren, inhospitable land, journeyed across mind numbingly vast oceans, endured the searing heat of the deserts and the bone-chilling cold of the poles, cowered under the constant fear of death at the hands of strange tribal headhunters (looking to add to their collection), suffered from diseases that debilitated the strongest humans and left them at the mercy of the elements, ate the grass on the ground, drank water from stagnant pools, bit and crawled and scratched and clawed their way across innumerable odds, all in search of new, un- chartered territory, providing un-seen vistas and spectacular sceneries, to see the world as god meant it to be seen; in all its splendor and glory!.

Wrong!!

All he was looking for was about 100sqft of land where his annoying neighbor would not drop in un-announced on a so-far wonderful Sunday morning and start to bring him up-to-date on the problems he has with his bowel movements (with sound effects too…oh! how difficult it would be for you to imagine his pain without the sound effects! God forbid that he be so rude as to make you stretch your imagination that much!). No wonder explorers like Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and Neil Armstrong decided that decades at sea, away from loved ones and life as they knew it, or risking life and limb riding in a giant bomb transporting you across the infinite expanse of space, were far better than enduring another story involving the neighbor’s travails in the bathroom!!! I am also quite sure that most major discoveries of the past millennia were instigated by an annoying neighbor who drove someone to such desperation that cooped up in a dark, dank and sunless lab for months at an end, trying to determine the size of an atom using nothing more than a broken magnifying glass and imagination, was far less painful than having to put up with the idiot next door!

But wait a minute, it almost seems like there is a positive side to the existence of neighbors! Do we dare say that the life we lead today, filled with the technology, gadgets and modern conveniences, from microwave ovens to hot tubs, computers to digital camera’s, electronic alarm systems (which, by the way does not keep any of your neighbors out!) to electron microscopes, have come about by this deep seated need in an individual to hide his mortal soul from a fate worse than death we call neighbors! This thought almost blows me away. Repugnant as it may seem, maybe those nasty creatures actually do serve a purpose! Could it be true that every living being that the good Lord placed on this earth (including that freak-show-reject neighbor of mine), has a significant part to play on this planet? The months I spent justifying my neighbor’s existence as the price I pay for the sins of mankind, were they all in vain? Am I wrong, so completely wrong?

Hold on…hold on…wait…yeah…I take it all back…no doubts, no second guessing, no uncertainty there…I was right…I was right all along…

Its 3 in the morning and my neighbor just turned the music on again

Travel Unravel

2007-05-09T12:26:00.000-04:00

A twin propeller plane. Two lines of single seats along the inside separated by a foot of floor space. Twenty people squashed together like sardines. The bone jarring rattles and shakes of a flying object attempting to escape the clutches of gravity. My nose buried in an in-plane magazine. Prayers mumbled through chattering teeth. The sweat dripping off my forehead slowly coursing its way across my glasses. My eyes fighting to focus against the dizzying reek of aviation fuel. Eyeing the little crack on the window pane, willing it to stay together till the plane landed. Stomach turning drops and climbs as the plane flew through turbulence. My toes curled tightly against the bottom of my shoes, hoping that this one random physical act would miraculously keep this flying heap of nuts and bolts in the air. But wait a minute. I’m getting ahead of myself. What I really wanted to say was, I love to travel!

You would think that a typically boring one hour flight from Tampa to Miami would be the most improbable setting for the adventure of my life. But guess what, it was! This journey somehow transformed into a fight for survival (All through the flight I FOUGHT this intense urge to jump off the plane. So yes! It was a fight for survival….in a way.) Why jump, you ask? Well, it seemed like a logical thing to do at that time, considering the alternative would mean plunging to death in this monstrosity of engineering! I might stand a better chance of living by taking a leap of faith out of the plane (it would also serve the dual purpose of fulfilling my dream of going sky diving one day!)

The plane was held together with spare parts from World War 2 and lots of crossed-fingers (and some of those crossed fingers were the same arthritis plagued ones that had put this glorified tin can together…so I didn’t place too much faith in that!) My apprehension was certainly not helped by the captain of the plane, a tyro, Latino casa-nova, with ruffled hair, dark aviator sunglasses, swaggering around with the top two buttons of his uniform undone. He would look more appropriate standing on the side of the road whistling at passing women. I also remember this big lug of a guy, who had somehow managed to squeeze his 6 foot 5 inch frame into the miniscule seat behind me. His knees brushed up right against his chin! He was traveling with an old lady, obviously his mother. Just as the plane took off he leaned over across the aisle (not too difficult, he was already occupying half of it!) and said to his mother, “Next time, I’ll pay the extra hundred dollars!”

There maybe some people out there who at this point might ask me, very wisely, I might add, “Why did you book yourself in this death-trap?”

Oh! wise one, let me put it this way. I didn’t!

All this, because of one pure, unadulterated moment of insanity on the part of a company secretary who decided that if getting me on time to my software training meant laying MY life on the line, then so be it, she was willing to do so!! I could have been booked on a Boeing 737 leaving a few hours later but the secretary believed that creature comforts like fresh air, leg space, and my right to live where an unnecessary financial burden on the company and cutting back on these would save a few dollars (which they could then use to put up a small memorial in my honor, subsequent to my unfortunate demise in a plane crash!)

The plane landed safely at the airport (Not before scaring all of us half to death by bouncing on the runway, twice, during touchdown.) The big guy sitting behind me whimpered, which I found highly amusing. Hey! Don’t judge me! I’m not a sadist. It was just this mental picture of a big, huge guy, ensconced in this teeny-tiny chair cracked me up! Heck, I was more worried that if he had peed his pants we might all drown inside this plane!

I literally jumped the last three steps off the staircase from the plane.

As I ran into the terminal, i was stopped by an attendant at the gate and he handed me something that looked like a coupon. A discount coupon for my next ride on this flying coffin! I resisted the urge to shove it back down his throat but just as I moved past him I let one of my carry-on bags bump him hard, right in the crotch! Oops! Sorry! (Yeah, right!) I walked on and kept a lookout for a trash can. I sure as hell was not going to use the coupon. I was not ready to die yet.

Just then, from out of the blue, a brainwave. The smile returned to my face. A gleam in my eye. A spring in my step, my heart a flutter. I put the coupon back in my pocket, and walked out the front entrance. Barely able to contain my excitement I touched my pocket again to see if the discount coupon was still there. Just as I flagged down a taxi, this one last brilliant thought raced through my head…“I wonder if secretaries take vacations!”

The American way

2007-02-11T20:30:00.000-04:00

I have spent roughly four years in America and have learnt a lot of things (besides how to ‘economically’ use toilet paper, how to drive on the ‘wrong side’ of the road and how to survive on top ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner!). I have also learnt that though very convenient and tasty taco bell food causes problems the next morning, that clothes can be worn again and again even after a sweaty day spent waiting for the shuttle outside the engineering building in the sun. Empty half a bottle of deodorant on them! Consequently I also learnt that the mixture of sweat and deodorant causes dogs in the colony to look at you with this strange look in their eye, you know, the confused look where they don’t know whether to bite you or be afraid of getting some deadly disease from you!

I also learnt how to stop the smoke alarm in my house from going off when I’m cooking. I stopped cooking! Seriously though, I don’t think anybody took Indian cooking into account when they designed the smoke alarm. We generate so much noise and smoke that the nearby steel mill complained to the Pollution Control Board!

I also learnt that ‘funding’ and ‘assistantship’ are as elusive as Osama-Bin-Laden! Its easier to get Saddam Hussein to hand over his ‘weapons of mass destruction’ than to get one of the prof’s to give you an assistantship!

Here are some other things I have noticed;
-The sprinklers are always left on, even when there is a thunderstorm in progress!
-Half a liter of water costs as much as 4 liters of gasoline!
-You can buy fruits and vegetables only by the pound and milk only by the gallons! Also notice the size of the vegetables and fruits. Each potato is enough to feed a small family of five. Cut into an onion and you’ll cry like you just lost a best friend.
-All clothes are extra large, extra-extra large or just plain old gigantic! I have to shop in the kid’s section to get clothes my size!
-I bought a milkshake the other day and donated it to the ‘feed the poor’ program. A third world country is still surviving on that one milkshake!

I also learnt that you should never leave cooked food out in the open for too long unless you want to start your own biological experiment in the kitchen. I saw pink fungus for the first time the other day! Who said Biology was boring? I also learnt that the smell of spoilt food is the only thing that can mask the smell of my dirty socks!

I also learnt the words of wisdom. Two powerful words, innocuous yet omnipotent. Two words that have held me in good stead over the past year. Words capable of bringing people from different races, ages, colors and nations together and unite them as one under its common banner.
“Waz’ up!”
Use these two words to travel the length and breadth of America. Forget the local customs and language. These two words can loosen the most closed-mouthed Xenophobic local’s lips!

Above all I learnt the importance of one’s family. All the small things that you took for granted back home take on a whole new dimension of importance. The way your father coughed, your mother doing her puja early in the morning, your brother waking you early in the morning by bouncing the tennis ball on the wall. Your sister singing along with a popular film song, totally out of tune. The small things over which you fought over seem so trivial now. Brother’s, sisters, mother’s and father’s left behind at home,17000 miles away, bring back bitter sweet memories. What you would give to have hot, home cooked food ready on the table. Clean clothes whenever you need them. Somebody to fuss over you. I learnt that every moment you spend on this earth is precious. Cherish it. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Make the most of today.

All the worlds a stage

2007-02-11T20:22:00.000-04:00

All comments are welcome...dis me...sas me....or like me...let me know what you think!

Cruisin' Together

2007-02-11T20:12:00.000-04:00

For two years I drove a run-down, fifteen year old car. Its paint was faded and peeling. It had mismatched tires, the engine power of a colicky toddler on a tri-cycle and the pick-up of a hyperactive tortoise on steroids. The windows on the car were covered with this dark sun-control film, which could protect me from not only sunlight but the fall-out from a nuclear blast! The stereo system was a misnomer. Only the right side speakers worked so there was nothing stereo about it! The headlights were so weak I strapped a torch with 2 AAA size batteries to the front of my car. A nighttime car trip was invariable preceded by a religious ritual, invoking gods from every faith and religion, calling on them to light my way with the radiance of their divinity or at the least bless me with enough of a pay raise to put a new light bulb in the torch! (I gave up on the headlights a long time ago!). I’m quite sure driving around in that car I used up all my luck and also borrowed heavily on all the lives I may have had on this earth (for all you non-Hindu’s...this may yet make a believer of you…if I’m still here on this earth its because all my re-incarnations have been used up!) I had over-drafted my account so badly that I was beginning to borrow on the nine lives of my neighbor’s cat!

The one luxury I afforded myself was an expensive air-freshener. It came in this tiny little spray bottle holding no more than a thimbleful of the stuff. I scoffed at the Ad which declared it to be the ultimate odor fighting formula. I would need gallons of this spray to mask the sundry odors that had taken up habitation in my car. Nevertheless, I decided to use it. One spray was all it took! The smell was so overpowering that the FBI declared my car a national threat and quarantined it for fear of a bio-terrorism attack (I had a similar experience when I took up cooking!) It also completely annihilated my nasal cells, proving to be (as the Ad declared) the one effective solution for the strange odors in my car…I just can’t smell anything with my nose!

The brakes have a story of their own. Metal squealed against metal every time I pressed down on them (brake pads were a luxury…I was not kidding when I said the air-freshener was the only luxury I could afford!) Sometimes, the squealing got so loud I felt sorry for them and would just stick my left leg out the door to stop the car. The weird part was that this was not new to me! The car was so small, anytime I had more than 4 people in it half my body was stuck out of the door anyway!

The redeeming factor about the car was the air-conditioning system. “Cold as Ice” the Ad claimed when I went in to buy it. They weren’t kidding! I store all my beer in the glove compartment now!

It served me uncomplaining and undemanding till the very last moment, when I traded it in for a brand new spanking ride. The tears in my eyes threatened to overwhelm the fragile resistance of my ego, as I traded keys with the car salesman. Clearing out the last remnants of my presence in the vehicle, a whiff of the smell inside bringing back a thousand memories, each one experienced inside the confines of this vehicle, coffee stained upholstery and all. My first car.