resisting reticence

Time for an update

2012-01-10T23:56:00.003-06:00

Several interesting things happened over the last year, for sure, but the one thing that forces me to return to the blog is that I had to reboot my server today, after a mere 400 days.

While I am at it, here are a few photos from the year that was.

Another update!

2011-01-23T05:47:00.001-06:00

What kind of a blog would it be, if I told you of rebooting my computer, but not about getting married?

So there you go. സുന്ദരന്‍ ഞാനും സുന്ദരി നീയും ചേര്‍ന്നിരുന്നാല്‍... :-)

After 636 days

2010-12-06T17:17:00.000-06:00

That is how long it took my server to grind to a halt. I rebooted it today (that beats the previous record hands down).

Unfortunately, the department does not support the Redhat installations any more. There is a plan to change mine to CentOS, but I haven't quite acted on it. I guess I am waiting for the next intrusion before I upgrade.

China, Israel

2010-07-06T16:52:00.008-05:00

A sure way to never get around to making a blog entry is to plan on writing a long one. So let me instead just post a couple of photos to mark my two week-long trips in the latter half of May and first week of June, to Beijing and to Israel (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem). I might add more later.

First was Beijing, and the tourist highlight was a trip to the Great Wall. I went to the Juyongguan. With an excellent public transportation system (if one is willing to sit through rickety bus rides, that is) it wasn't too hard, despite a near zero ability to communicate, to find my way to Juyonggaun. [For the next person desperately scouring the interwebs to find their way to Juyongguan, here's how: I took the subway line 13 to Long Ze, then took bus no 20, and for the last short segment took a cab for 10RMB without bargaining; on the way back I took bus no. 68 (which I could have taken instead of number 20 on my way to the pass -- in fact number 68 goes all the way to the pass) to Long Ze, and subway line 13 from there. It is useful to look for directions in Google maps, so that you will have some idea of which way to walk to get to the bus from the subway station. I think it took over 2 hours in one direction.]

The Israel trip, less than week after returning from Beijing, was surprisingly hassle-free. The photos show a view of the old city of Jaffa (from the beach at Tel Aviv), and a couple of views in the old city in Jerusalem. The wall is the one that goes around the old city. The cafe (showing men playing board games) is the same one in front of which I got to witness some interesting action the night before.

To round off this entry, here is a photo from my train trip from Chicago Union Station to New York Penn Station, some time in April. The trip turned out to be as nice as I expected. I would have taken the train back to Chicago, if I didn't have to rush back to teach a class.

More photos here, here and here.

Bike

2010-03-31T08:53:00.001-05:00

The one good thing about having a blog is I can look up when various things happened. At least various things that happened when I still used to blog with some semblance of regularity. So that's how I know that it has been a little over two and a half years since I got my bike. A couple of days back I got new brake pads for it (no more putting my foot down to stop) and replaced my broken helmet. (I don't exactly know when I got that helmet -- probably about three years back; seems like a short life.)

Happy New Year

2010-02-14T12:34:00.002-06:00

This happens to be the first post in this blog in 2010. But the new year greetings are timely, if you follow the Chinese calendar. It's the year of the tiger, but I'll make do with this photo from my Beijing trip last month.

Talking of blog posts, the archives tell me that I made 35 entries in the first year of this blog (2005, and that is starting in May), 26 in 2006, 20 in 2007, 10 in 2008 and 5 in 2009. The latest trend suggests I'll post 2.5 entries this year.

Mac Malayalam

2009-09-08T01:26:00.012-05:00

The promised Mac Malayalam font is available here for your reading pleasure.

It all (re)started when my brother recently bought a macbook pro. Used to the luxury of reading flawlessly rendered Malayalam unicode in Windows and Linux, the Mac experience must have been a little disappointing. The trouble is that Mac OS X doesn't fully support the advanced typography features in OpenType fonts, but instead expects you to use AAT fonts. Unfortunately, the only Unicode Malayalam fonts around (so far) have been all only OpenType.

Now, unlike in 2005, there's a little more information online about how to go about fixing the situation. If you have an (OpenType) font with all the requisite glyphs, then you just need to create a morph input file (MIF), and use tools provided by Apple to merge it into the original font and get an AAT font. Creating the MIF, with the documentation available online, seemed feasible. In particular, we came across Kedage, which suggested that it shouldn't be too hard to do it over a weekend.

Our first idea was to work with Kevin's pioneering Unicode font Anjali. Unfortunately, it turned out that Anjali doesn't explicitly contain all the glyphs it needs, but instead creates most of them by appropriately combining pairs of glyphs. It wasn't clear how to get that working with AAT. So we turned to Rachana (which thankfully was released under the GNU GPL a few years back). (In fact Anjali itself was based on Rachana, from before it became a Unicode font.) The new font RachanaMac.ttf is also, of course, under the GPL.

Finally, we took this opportunity to revive the old Malayalam keyboard. As it turned out, the keyboard was in great shape, and there was not much to alter (except for adding a GPL notice). We used inkscape to put together an icon (though the 16x16 version doesn't look that great) for the Malayalam keyboard. The above logo for the macmalayalam webpage was also created using inkscape.

[Update (Oct 14, 2009): I just came across another font via a Wikipedia article. From a quick look, their font does seem to work quite well, but it doesn't have nearly as many glyphs as Rachana has. So, our font effort is not entirely wasted :) ]

[Update (Jun 24, 2010): Apple recently released OS X 10.6.4 and it seems like it comes with a Malayalam unicode font! Unfortunately it is a bit buggy, and not the most beautiful of fonts.

But I am told that the iPhone withe new iOS4 renders it much better.]

[Update (Feb 25, 2011): Another set of fonts from Apple, for a variety of Indic languages including Malayalam, is available now (via m10lmac). While the Malayalam font doesn't have as many glyphs as Rachana (it has some conjuncts, but leaves out several including ones involving the "u" vowel symbol), it has a bold version.]

Malayalam font for Mac

2009-08-30T11:24:00.004-05:00

So, after all these years, we have a Malayalam font that works in Apple's macs. Well, almost. My brother and I have been working on getting Rachana to work, and it looks quite good now. The goal has been to make a font that can use every glyph provided by Rachana. You can see in the screen capture that it seems to work quite well in Firefox, but not so well in Safari (where the kind of chillu usage in wikipedia is causing some trouble).

Update (Sep 7, 2009): You can find the alpha version of the font here.

Obscurantism

2009-04-26T11:28:00.003-05:00

I had to look up "obscurantism" on wikipedia. That is what came to mind on reading how a new auspicious day for buying gold has become en vogue in South India. More here. Of course, I'd imagine that for some of the costumers it is just another festive occasion, with apparent discounts and such. Or they are just following an emerging tradition. But I'd also imagine that many really consider it auspicious.

Turns out, obscurantism is probably not the right word, going by wikipedia. But it comes close. What would be a word for deliberately manufacturing superstition?

Power outage

2009-03-08T19:40:00.003-05:00

1. There is a power outage on campus. I hope nothing melts down/blows up. But on the brighter side, if you'd excuse the pun, we will save some energy, I suppose.

2. I tend to listen to the regional news broadcast by All India Radio, Thiruvananthapuram, online. In these days of power shortage (there), what with all the summer and heat and drying up rivers, load shedding is the way to go. Not surprisingly, they have an interesting public service announcement that they run half way through the news bulletin, exhorting everyone to switch off their refrigerators in the evening peak hours. (Or, maybe it is a little surprising?)

Interestingly, the only thing that forces the state to suspend the load shedding is the high school exams (SSLC), as they have done again this year. I wonder if it reflects right priorities (kids, education) or a misplaced one (exams).

3. The last power outage I experienced (enjoyed?) was when my parents were here last summer. Everything was fine, except that I had to let a large load of laundry soak overnight, and the parents had to make do with a cold breakfast.

Updates

2009-01-13T19:07:00.010-06:00

A few small updates.

First the Germany trip (December first week).

The morning after Obama won the elections I was in Chicago, to get a German visa. It was quick and painless and got over in the morning. My return train was not until later in the afternoon. So I walked around looking for a cafe, and trying to pick up a newspaper on the way. Well, it wasn't easy. But finally I did manage to get one before heading back, at a crowded corner (and certainly looked odd in that crowd, buying less than four copies).

My first conversation in Germany (not counting the one at the railway ticket counter) was at the hotel check-in: "You are from... (looking at the computer monitor), ah, USA. So, how do you like Obama?" and later in the elevator (with another hotel staff member, on being told that I'm coming from the US, but I'm from India): "Oh, that means you can't become the president of USA."

My photo-activity (no, I don't quite mean that) seemed to be in for a revival, with the crowded Christmas markets at Frankfurt and Mainz. Until, I tried downloading all the photos on to my laptop using the USB cable and drained the battery. (Buying a charger didn't seem an exciting option.) So for the rest of my days in Germany I didn't have to continually worry that I'm under-utilizing photo opportunities.

After Christmas I was at UCLA for over a week. Nice and warm. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining that those were not the coldest days in Champaign. As always I did lug my camera along, and didn't use it much at all. Until my brother (who decided to come along, to escape a cold and lonely winter) and I visited the Getty Villa. Here's a random selection.

A few more photos are here.

And finally, today's news is that the little server in my office has been hacked into. It was a spam injection into the RSS feed of my somewhat dormant wordpress blog. Possibly sometime around Christmas (modification date on some files was Dec 28). Thanks to the folks at REN-ISAC for catching it. Not sure what all damage has been caused, but I did spend some time updating wordpress and removing an apparently new root user from my MySQL server. (I know, sounds bad!) In any case, for now, I'm not offering deals from an "online Canadian pharmacy."

Photos

2008-10-25T20:28:00.006-05:00

Just a couple of random photos.

The first one is titled "Working from Home." (And you will be justified in wondering what I was doing with a camera: welcome to the pleasures of working from home.)

The second one is called "Noh Photography." Why? Because I went for my first ever Noh performance (I went to watch, just to be clear), and started taking a few photos before I was told, "No sir, no photography." (So sure enough the photos have no Noh in them; it shows the setting for a little tea ceremony they had first.)

Onam Flowers

2008-09-14T14:50:00.003-05:00

Except for vague memories of having collected chemparathi flowers as a little kid, I can't really recall making a pookkalam ever. Let me put this one up here so that I won't forget again.

(From Saturday's Onam get-together on campus. Yes, UIUC does have more Malayalis.)

Bhopal

2008-07-07T17:47:00.004-05:00

It's not new, but New York Times has a good summary of the continuing tragedy in Bhopal. Some of us were part of commemorating the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, but I don't think at that time we really realized that not much would have changed in another four years.

The demise of the blog

2008-07-02T22:39:00.003-05:00

The death of the blog be blamed on Facebook (because it lets me make quick one sentence status updates). I'm afraid that sounds like one of those fast-food culture things: unlike the good old days when we used to sit down and read/write a long blog post.

Anyway, to keep things alive around here, here's a photo, from today morning. (Yes, parents are visiting, and brother and I took them around Chicago.)

Unicode 5.1.0

2008-05-09T21:28:00.002-05:00

Unicode 5.1.0 has improved support for Malayalam.

And having the new code-points for the chillus means that the chillus produced by this keyboard I made some time back (quite some time back, in fact) are now according to the standard.

After 333 days

2008-04-29T18:54:00.007-05:00

So after 333 days, today I rebooted my computer!

(The remainder is mostly a note to myself, so that the next time around I'll know what to do when things break.)

Since there was a kernel update waiting to take effect, it was a good idea to have updated the kernel-dev packages as well, just in case. In fact, this time it was indeed the case: on rebooting (after 333 days, sigh!) the graphics card drivers wouldn't work with the new kernel.

Fixing the video: Figure out the graphics card model (NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285), and download the relevant software from the NVIDIA website. Run it and, like it did this time, it might want to compile some modules against your spanking new kernel. Let it do as it pleases. Things may not look quite OK even after this (I tried running xscreensaver-demo using a GL* screensaver to confirm -- and got a bunch of "GLX" errors). Check/edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, and ensure that in the Module section Load glx is there but Load dri is commented out. The instructions I was following also had me edit the Device section to read Driver "nvidia" instead of Driver "nv" (so that, I suppose, the driver installed by Nvidia's script is used; not sure why that script didn't edit that into the conf file). Quite unexpectedly, at this point, everything started working.

Fixing the wiki: This is why I rebooted the server in the first place. The wiki on the server was a little broken, thanks to mysterious SELinux issues. It was probably a consequence of software updates leaving the newly installed files in wrong domains. I thought rebooting will fix all that. It didn't. What did fix it was the fixfiles relabel command.

And today's was the last lecture for the semester.

Spring

2008-04-19T00:32:00.001-05:00

NIU shooting

2008-02-15T09:31:00.006-06:00

This was in a mail from the Chancellor, this morning:

The University has learned that U of I student has been identified as the
gunman in a fatal shooting at Northern Illinois University that left seven
people dead and more than a dozen more injured.

The entire University of Illinois family extends its deepest condolences
to the friends and family of the victims, and to everyone on the
Northern Illinois University campus affected by today's tragedy.

(U of I being where I teach...)

Update: And it seems the assailant bought a couple of his guns from around here. I wouldn't have guessed we have any gun shop in town...

The frozen bike

2008-01-29T17:40:00.000-06:00

That's what happens when it's raining and warm in the morning/afternoon, but well below freezing in the evening. I should have thought about it, but like most of the time, I didn't. I just went down and found my bike all frozen. And I ended up breaking the cute bike-lock key -- could be something about things becoming brittle in the cold, or maybe I just applied too much force against a key stuck in ice. On the brighter side, that was only after unlocking the bike from the bike rack.

Anyway, at the moment, I'm waiting in my office for my bike (also in my office) to thaw so that I can ride it back home. (It's fun to listen to a micro rain, raining down from the bike onto sheets of paper spread on the carpet. Now you know what I do with all those announcements I get...)

I'll update when I get back home. I hope the road won't be too slippery... (Well, at least I'm not trying to ride a frozen bike on frozen roads, like the last time.)

PS: Yes, yes, I'm back from India, safe and -- despite everyone's curiosity -- single.

UPDATE: Yes, I'm back home, safe and -- thanks for asking -- in one piece. (OK, since my mom reads this blog, I can't keep pretending that it was such an adventure. Amma, trust me, my daily commute is too short to offer any sort of adventures, even on a frozen bike. And then it wasn't frozen either, at least for the first half of the ride...)

Still in India

2008-01-02T09:43:00.001-06:00

This time around there was little opportunity for me to take any interesting photos. So I suppose I'll post some uninteresting ones, grainy and shaky (which, unfortunately, is probably the most interesting thing about them).

Ezhunallath: the Deity's procession (slideshow)

In India

2007-12-22T22:16:00.000-06:00

So far, in this winter break: Chicago - Delhi - Chennai - Trivandrum - Bangalore - Trivandrum.

And here's from the morning skies of Trivandrum, about an hour back:

A conversation

2007-10-10T20:29:00.000-05:00

With a friend, today evening.

Me: Yeah it's a nice house. It's pretty old, but it's alright. In fact it's kind of too large.
Friend: You know what you should do about that, right?
Me: Huh?
Friend: You know what you need to do if you're feeling the house is too large, don't you?
Me: I don't know. I think I'll just get used to it...

<later in the conversation>

Me: Oh wait, is that what you meant when you said I should do something about the house being large?
Friend: What did you think?
Me: Well, I thought you were saying I should get more furniture. You know there's room for more furniture here...

Green Revolution, Kerala Style

2007-09-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

Or so goes the plan:

The policy will be ambitiously aimed at freeing Kerala of all chemical fertilizers and pesticides in five years.

Onam

2007-08-26T23:04:00.000-05:00

Continuing the tradition of the last couple of years, Onam was celebrated with much enthusiasm and good food today. We were a dozen, plus two kids, for a potluck lunch. I made an avial, which literally translates to something like "cooked stuff."

(It's curious that whatever I make tastes fine in my kitchen, but at a potluck it always turns out to be a little low on salt. Notwithstanding my efforts to correct for this by adding extra salt before taking it for the potluck.)

In other news, now I have an orange coloured bike.

Updates

2007-08-17T19:13:00.000-05:00

Several things happened since my last post, which I would have recorded here. (Not that they are all that important/interesting, but very few interesting things happen to me anyway.) This is probably a good time to update.

Firstly, I bought an apartment. It's an old building, with a toilet flush from the 1940's. Once I move in I may have more interesting things to say.

There was a work-related trip to New York. I stayed in the city for about a week, making sure that I can still stay (somewhat) cheap if I want to. I met up with many friends, old and new, on the way to NY, in and around NYC and Princeton, and on the way back from NYC. Several photos still need to be looked at.

On Sunday I happen to be flying out again, to Santa Barbara. Hopefully I'll be back by Thursday night, just in time to teach the first lecture of this semester's course.

The day before yesterday I took my new bike to the bike-shop for the 30-day tuning. Which was just as well, because whoever stole it today couldn't have taken it to the shop themselves. This time around the person who took it demonstrated a fair amount of ingenuity, expertise and guts (breaking the lock, twisting it using a metal cylinder -- taken from inside a cigarette stub receptacle near the bike-rack -- in broad daylight on a working day, in front of the department). I did call the police to let them have a look at the cylinder with the broken lock twisted around it. (Now you know how to steal a bike if it uses a cable lock. If I knew then, I would have bought the U-lock after all.)

And, Happy Onam!

Donation week!

2007-07-13T22:10:00.000-05:00

Made two donations this week. First, the second one. It was a rather "involuntary donation." And being not present at the occasion I couldn't do it very well. So, if you were the one to get my bike, I'll be happy to give you the key to the lock too. I know, I was being too lazy to use it properly, but I'd like it to be useful for you (or, if you don't have any use for the lock, I could take it back and put it to good use on my new bike).

That's the donated bike in colder times (and a light snow). Or see it here.

The other donation was on July 4.

Hello! Need Malayalam interpreter.

2007-07-03T17:43:00.000-05:00

Déjà vu! This time, this happened over phone. Someone called me up, at my office, in the middle of the day, and told me that they are looking for a Malayalam interpreter in Brooklyn, New York. It was strange enough that I thought I'll help out by blogging about it (again).

If you're interested in serving as a Malayalam interpreter, will be in Brooklyn on August 14th or 16th (and I suppose you may have to be eligible to earn in the US), please consider contacting Mathew Salinas of aLanguageBank, at 212-213-3336.

And in another similar (but probably less strange) incident, someone mailed me out of nowhere (OK, from Princeton, which is not exactly nowhere), and asked me if I could translate a couple of lines of Malayalam poetry for her. Apparently she is working on a Ph.D. thesis which looks at subnationalism in Kerala (among other things). She's also interested in knowing the publication years of the poems. I did the translation, but if anyone out there knows the publication years, please let me know. Here are the lines:

> paaTam paaTam uRachchu naam paaTippaaTi pOvuka
> paarilaikya kEraLaththin kaahaLam muzhakkuvaan.
> nam navaraNangngaLil, nammaL than thyaagangngaLil
> naam rachikkumaapputhiya kEraLam manOharam!
And,
> bhaaratham enna pEr kETTaalabhimaana
> poorithamaakaNam antharamgam.
> kEraLamennu kETTaalO thiLakkaNam
> chOra namukku njarampukaLil!

CCA

2007-06-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

I don't know if "CCA" stands for anything for you, but to me it invariably sounds like one of those things I would write about in my other blog.

Well, I suppose the next time I use the term, I'll be reminded of something greener.

"... inspite of the difficulties involved in conservation of natural resources for a varied number of reasons, CCAs still remain in the hundreds of thousands countrywide," says Ashish Kothari, founder-member of environmental NGO Kalpavriksh... Kalpavriksh is now in the process of publishing a directory of such [community-conserved areas].

Gender-neutrality and L337speak in Malayalam!

2007-06-13T19:40:00.001-05:00

A couple of Malayalam musings.

Call me Anglicized, but one thing that I often find jarring in Malayalam is the paucity of gender neutral terms in common usage. One of these days I'll sit down and collect some examples and come up with outrageous suggestions to "fix" them. Or, hopefully, someone will point out that a process of fixing is already underway.

[Update: if India gets a woman president, would she be called "rashtrapati"? (For the record, and for what it's worth, I won't say it translates to "the husband of the notion", but rather to "the Master/Lord of the nation.")]

Now for the Malayalam l33tspeak. I'm not too keen on it myself, but I'm afraid I've already seen this being used quite a bit in the Malayalam digitalscape (though mostly unintentionally). If you can read Malayalam, you'd agree that the digits one through nine (൧൨൩൪൫൬൭൮൯) bear an uncanny resemblance to certain characters (e.g. ഫ വ മ്പ ര്‌ ദ്ര ന്ന െ വൃ ന്‌). Of course there's a little more you could do using English characters and digits. (*shudder*)

Back to Yoga

2007-06-09T14:10:00.000-05:00

I'm expecting some body ache in the next few days, having rejoined a yoga class after more than a year's break.

Googling the library

2007-06-06T18:48:00.000-05:00

I barely ever go to the library now. And it seems more people can stop going to libraries.

This partnership between our 12 member universities and Google is unprecedented. What makes this work so exciting is that we will literally open the pages of millions of books that have been assembled on our library shelves over more than a century.

This came by e-mail today.

Graduations!

2007-05-21T21:11:00.000-05:00

Just got back from my brother's graduation ceremony.

Photos, at Princeton (last summer) and Berkeley.

More glass

2007-05-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

Summer is here, finally. Maybe not the season, but the break. And that's time for more absentmindedness. I bought some more glass for my camera. OK, that was not particularly absent-minded. But the address I entered at Amazon had 173 instead of 713 as the house number. It's of course a typo, except that the next day I was caught giving out my address with a 173 to some friends at dinner.

The lens arrived safely after I called up UPS and corrected the address. Something surprising happened though: when I called up, the UPS person asked if they should ship it to my old address from last year. Where did they get that from? More surprisingly, another thing I ordered the same day from Amazon (and hence with the same wrong address) was correctly delivered by Fedex. The package had my name and 173 as the house number, but Fedex figured out where it should be delivered! It seems then that UPS and Fedex do have some sort of a database where they collect names and addresses. I'm only glad that they do it, but not everyone would be pleased by that.

Anyway, here're the sample photos using the new lens. All photos were taken hand-held, with the vibration-reduction switched on. Exposure times are 1/2.5, 1/6, and 1/6, and focal lengths are 122mm, 200mm, 200mm.

Laurie Baker

2007-04-01T07:53:00.000-05:00

Laurie Baker died today.

Here're some articles on the master architect (from melam): [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

Spring break

2007-03-19T21:29:00.000-05:00

It's that time of the year, again! Photos from last year.

Amsterdam

2007-02-25T23:21:00.000-06:00

Back from Amsterdam. Amazingly, not much went wrong (despite not doing anything about the trip until that day morning -- thanks to a deadline the day before).

Didn't get a chance to take many photos, or even go around much. An interesting city, anyway, with numerous bikes, narrow roads, and an almost rural feel to it. After (and before) the snow and cold here, the weather over there was much appreciated.

snow, peacemaker, and v-day pic

2007-02-13T18:11:00.000-06:00

I just got back home, and I'm not sure if I had really seen such snow before. Anyway, unlike last week, I wasn't on my bike (took the bus, instead) which was perhaps a good idea. And the University cancelled all classes today (and tomorrow), which was also, perhaps, a good idea.

Saw an ad about this game. Really cool. Someone should make such games for all the conflicts around the world.

And, the picture is on the occasion of V-Day. (If you're curious where that came from, this may help.)

Global warming (and why I don't have a car!)

2007-02-03T19:03:00.000-06:00

Global warming is real for sure, and presumably far from being a local phenomenon: how else would you explain the freezing cold (in Fahrenheit, mind you) and this?

Anyway, in an effort to keep the warming a little more local, I have turned down the thermostat way down (well, at least by my usually warm standards), and taken to wearing a jacket, and sometimes even gloves, at home! Thanks to a pair of ski-gloves which I can wear over my (usual) gloves, I can still survive the 10 minutes it takes to bike from home to office. brr...

Why I don't have a car (or a truck)

2007-01-27T10:53:00.000-06:00

Who needs a truck, anyway? Not her either.

And in other news, not having a car is apparently not an excuse for being single: [1, 2]. (But I don't have a motor bike either, ha! But then, [3, 4, 5] or [6]! Never mind, I have better excuses.)

(None of these are my photos. Btw, in another bout of absent-mindedness, I've left my camera behind at a friend's place. Need to collect it...)

Google maps and Thiruvananthapuram!

2007-01-15T17:56:00.000-06:00

So what was I complaining about last year? Google Map's satellite images are still no good for Urbana-Champaign. But it turns out now they have more than ten times as much resolution for images of Thiruvananthapuram. And now with maps! (via Joseph.)

Wikimapia resolution has been good for a while, enough for people to clutter it with identifying their houses.

I must also add, MS' Live Search is pretty good for the local neighbourhood, but is not so great for Thiruvananthapuram.

Happy New Year

2006-12-31T11:32:00.000-06:00

Wishing you all a happy new year!

May you stay safe from all the spam and viruses of the season. (As for me, I'm still recovering from a cold.)

And here's the mandatory multimedia link: a merry song for the holidays (via Luca).

The Absent-minded Professor

2006-12-17T07:54:00.000-06:00

"You've not fallen in love, have you?" asked my friend and colleague. I wish there was some such simple explanation. But unfortunately the best explanation I can come up with is that I've become utterly careless. I'm back from LA, and while the workshop itself transpired fairly smoothly, the travelling was a comedy of errors. And I have no one to blame but myself.

The first incident was on my way to Sujit and Rajani's place (where I stayed on the first and last nights of this trip, as well as in the last one). When I reached Union Station from the airport, I forgot to collect my big bag from the FlyAway shuttle. Not until I was well on my way in the train did I notice the reduced burden. The problem was solved after a couple of phone calls and a trip back to the FlyAway terminal later in the evening. Sujit came along and we spent some time trying to take photos at the Union Station. No damage done.

Next day, I omitted to collect my not entirely inexpensive jacket from the city bus. I wasn't able to contact the lost-and-found folks during my stay in LA.

At the end of the week, on my way to the airport, I almost left behind my camera at my friends' place, but thanks to a delayed train, there was just enough time to retrieve it. No damage done.

At the airport I had a most surreal experience: I forgot that the first leg in my trip was with United and not American Airlines. So having waited through a long line at the AA terminal before making my way to the United terminal, I was too late to check in for my flight. Anyway, after another half an hour in a slow moving line (but not entirely wasted, thanks to a friendly conversation with a man returning to his homeland in Ethiopia for the holidays: at some point he wanted to ask me about a "math genius" whose name he couldn't recall; so he took out an iPod and went through a list of BBC radio programmes, and I noticed one on the Poincaré conjecture), United graciously resolved the problem: they put me on a direct flight to Chicago, in "economy plus" seating, and waived the ticket price difference (my original ticket with them was only till Las Vegas). I got into Chicago well in time to connect with my AA flight to Champaign (which had got delayed). No damage done.

Overall, it wasn't too bad (i.e., it could have been much worse). But next time I bet I'll be more careful. If not, I'll probably have more stories to share.

LA, again.

2006-12-08T18:54:00.000-06:00

Three times in as many months: going to LA again! Saturday to Saturday. And you would think I have no classes to teach here. Well, this time that's true. Today was the last lecture for the semester.

According to the forecast, it's going to be relatively warm here in Urbana-Champaign next week, with the temperatures climbing back to above freezing. I guess I won't miss that in LA.

In other news, brother went back (again), dodging a snowstorm. So I'm left to handle the winter by myself. When I get back from LA, that is.

Food for thought: this is real,

"Two percent of adults command more than half of the world's wealth, while the bottom 50 percent possesses just 1 percent."

and this is surreal:

“Few Bahrainis have not surfed over the contours of their kingdom, comparing vast royal palaces, marinas and golf courses with crowded Shia villages nearby ... Some of the palaces take up more space than three or four villages nearby and block access to the sea for fishermen. People knew this already. But they never saw it. All they saw were the surrounding walls.”

Back

2006-11-25T10:34:00.000-06:00

Back from LA and a vacation in the Bay Area. Quite a reunion it was: seems like much of my Princeton neighbourhood has now moved to Berkeley.

Among other things, went for a play on Gandhi.

Travelling, again

2006-11-11T19:44:00.000-06:00

Again, to LA. And then staying in the west-coast for a few more days, during the Thanksgiving break here. Poor brother will be left to take care of himself in these short, dark, and rather cold days. (So, any one in town, feel free to call him up for anything fun :-) There, I have done my brotherly duty.)

Trip

2006-10-20T12:18:00.000-05:00

Warmer weather for about a week. Leaving in a minute or two. Incidentally to Berkeley, and in the same flight as my brother. Then to LA, and then back.

Brother

2006-10-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

Brother is visiting (that is, staying at my place), and the weather here, for a change, is probably nicer than in Berkeley. At least today. He'll be around for a few weeks, but of course, I'm not the only attraction in town.

Back home, away from home

2006-08-22T02:32:00.000-05:00

Back in Urbana. Met the cats. We'll be seeing more of each other for the next couple of weeks.

The Chennai trip went well. Took a few pictures, from the flight back from Chennai, and later at the Shankhumugham beach in Trivandrum.

Update: Here's a cats-pic: Mia in the foreground, and in the background, Maple lounging (the furry blurry thing in the top-right corner) on the blue covers which will hopefully keep all her hair away from the cushions.

Update 2: The cats are gone. They won't miss me, I believe. Anyway, so far I felt like I was a guest (of the cats?) here. But now it's just me, and I have to take care of the garbage... And happy Onam!

More visits

2006-08-11T08:27:00.000-05:00

A few days back I visted an organization called Asraya in Thiruvananthapuram. It is remarkable in many ways, yet seemed very ordinary and almost natural. They describe themselves as an organization of "service minded ladies, mainly housewives and retired career women, motivated by concern, sympathy and love for the poor and suffering." There are about 260 of them now! They take turns to visit the Regional Cancer Center in the city, and provide a variety of services for the poor patients. Apart from palliative care, serving health drinks to the patients, giving guidance to the confused and traumatised new comers etc. they provide essential monetary help towards medicines, food and sometimes even education for the children of some of the deceased. Last year, apparently, they gathered about Rs. 24 lakhs (Rs 2.4 million), and disbursed almost all of it to the needy in money and kind. The founders of the organization were motivated by personal tragedies, and were inspired by similar organizations in some hospitals in USA that they learned about. Since then it has evolved with active support of the doctors and hospital authorities, participation from the increasing number of volunteers and donations from their friends and relatives.

I went there wondering what drive these women to do something so unconventional. But seeing them there it seemed like the most natural thing to do. I asked many of them about how they got involved, and their answers were nothing incredible: they heard about it from someone already involved, thought it was a good idea, started coming and would continue as long as they can do so without much trouble. After all it gives them a chance to make a difference in the lives of many people, as well as a greater sense of purpose for themselves.

It was curious to watch them complain about how the patients' relatives harass them for help. They talked to the invading crowd firmly, but kindly. Clearly they couldn't take care of everyone's needs, and had to make hard and subjective decisions about whom to help, how and how much.

While I was in their office, a couple of young girls approached them. They had lost their father a few days back, and were directed to Asraya for potential help with college fees for one of them. She had enrolled herself for a B.A. program. As soon as she mentioned this, came the questions. Would she get a job after her B.A.? Why would she want to do a B.A.? Asraya helps only with "professional courses." Anyway, she could leave an application behind, and Asraya will consider it.

On the way back, I went with a couple of Asraya volunteers to a nearby building housing the "Devaki Warrier Memorial" centre. It's in fact a small place which can accommodate about a dozen people. Since they don't have a website, I'll quote from the brochure I was given:

The organisation started functioning in 2002 under the auspices of Kerala Working Women's Association, in memory of its founder president Devaki Warrier. She was a veteran freedom fighter and dedicated woman activist till her last breath. Since Devaki Warrier left us in December 2001 due to cancer, one of the main objectives of the Centre is extending a helping hand to poor cancer patients. Free accommodation and food is being provided to cancer patients who are under O.P. treatment in the Regional Cancer Centre at Thiruvananthapuram.

Today, I visited a place called "Balavihar." Here's a photo:

It was as part of evaluating a project proposal from the organization to Asha St. Louis (not that I'm part of the St. Louis chapter, but being an Asha volunteer currently on vacation in the city was compelling enough reason). I guess I'll stay in the loop and post here updates on the project proposal.

Coming up is a visit to Chennai. This is more of a professional trip, visiting SETS and giving a talk on my research at IMSc and all that. Assuming of course that at the airport they let me take my laptop along.

In Trivandrum

2006-08-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

Today I happened to meet with Paulson who runs a small business producing "mathematics lab kits" for schools. Apparently his business is looking a little more promising than a few years back, when I met him for the first time. Here's a newspaper report.

Yesterday I visited Chilla. More about that later.

And here's a random photo from last weekend's trip to grandma's house in the village: a cat atop the roof of what used to be a cowshed. Stay tuned for more (more photos that is, though apparently, I'll have more encounters with cats as well when I get back to Champaign).

Moving, moved, and to move

2006-07-22T10:13:00.000-05:00

So I have moved, again. For the last seven years, I have been moving every year. And I have to move again next year, when fellow blogger Sariel returns from an extensive globe trotting, to reclaim his house.

For now it's onwards to India. Interestingly, the two questions I get when I tell anyone about my oncoming trip are, "For how long? Three weeks?" (well, four weeks), and "Are you getting married?" (no, not yet). You can't blame me if it makes me wonder whether three weeks is all it takes...

ps: My new address is in Indiana now. That is, on Indiana Ave, Urbana, Illinois. Nevada, Washington and even Illinois are all walking distance from here.

Summer

2006-06-17T16:28:00.000-05:00

If I'm not complaining about the hot afternoons, it's because Summer has brought with it amazingly long days. Sure they are not as long as in St. Petersburg, but I do gleefully notice the precious sunlight in the late evenings. It -- my noticing, that is -- must have something to do with my recently acquiring a new camera. (Not that I'm particularly eager to add to my ever growing collection of photos. Isn't it said, sweet indeed are the photos taken, but those not taken are sweeter still?)

As for news, I'm back in Champaign, with almost everything during my trip having gone according to plan (not counting the last night I got stranded in Chicago). Everywhere -- Ottawa, Seattle, St. Petersburg and New York -- it rained, and I got myself thoroughly drenched (especially in Russia). But there also were the remarkably bright and long summer days.

There's a whole lot I would have liked to share (like I did when I returned from a previous Europe trip). But there isn't enough leisure just now (which still doesn't prevent me from lapsing to Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, and feeling that I understand it when he talks about the summer in Petersburg; btw, I picked up -- or rather, downloaded -- The Idiot, after dining in a vegetarian (!) restaurant in the city, named after the novel). I haven't yet gone through all the photos I brought back with me. Anyway, here's a small selection (some of them shot under an excellent sun, though you will find some overcast sky as well).

And finally, after more than two and a half years (so I'm told), I'll be in India -- for almost a full month -- some time in July-August. If sufficiently many things go according to plan.

Happy Birthday

2006-05-29T09:19:00.000-05:00

Of St. Petersburg. 303rd, I'm told. I didn't know when I landed up in the city centre and was pleasantly surprised by the festivities. Here are a few of the hundred odd photos I snapped.

The crowd was unbelievably huge, and thronging the length of Nevsky prospekt. I'm a little surprised that I can't find anything about it in any of the (English language) news websites, yet. Is this the Iron Curtain?

(I have so many more things to write about: like how the sun rises at 5 in the morning and sets at 11 at night. Maybe later...)

So far so good.

2006-05-19T18:41:00.000-05:00

Or mission accomplished, I should say. A long process has culminated, somewhat anticlimactically, in a US visa stamp on my passport. So on I go in this trip, back to the US, tomorrow.

(Staying in a warm Bed & Breakfast place in Ottawa. Pretty cool place. Warm turbaned host and hostess, a dog and a cat, organic food for breakfast, and wireless connection for my powerbook. All very cheap.)

The Itinerary

2006-05-16T19:53:00.000-05:00

If sufficiently many things go as planned, this is where I will be on the following days:

May 17-20: Ottawa (where I'd be trying to get my US visa)
May 20-24: Seattle (where I won't be if don't get my US visa)
May 25-June 3: St. Petersburg (well I have my Russian visa, but my flight is from Seattle)
June 4 - June 7: Princeton/New York (alma mater!)
June 7th: Back in Champaign (where, whenever I return, tonnes of work awaits me)

If they don't go as planned, well, we'll see...

Spring is in the flowers...

2006-04-29T13:40:00.000-05:00

It has started looking more and more like spring.

Meanwhile had a glimpse of Canada, but didn't want to use up the hard-earned Canadian visa right away. (OK, it wasn't that hard. Canadian visas have by far been the easiest to get, so far. Coming up are attempts to acquire Russian and US visas -- the latter from Canada!)

St. Petersburg

2006-04-21T12:45:00.000-05:00

That is where I'm planning to go next month. Hmm...

Mon-not-so-soon

2006-04-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

As further raising the height of the dam threatens to leave even more folks homeless this monsoon, instead of delaying the dam work, apparently, the Prime Minister has decided to delay the monsoon!

(Via AID.)

Meanwhile the Bhopalis -- who marched all the way to Delhi -- have been celebrating that they have been promised clean drinking water.

Appalling

2006-03-28T18:11:00.000-06:00

Appalling! (via AID)

Lost in Transit

2006-03-08T13:46:00.000-06:00

Back. Last time it was the luggage arriving a day later; and this time the passenger. But it was great fun!

(50 e-mails to read...)

Dilli Chalo!

2006-02-23T22:13:00.000-06:00

If they should be marching all the way from Bhopal to Delhi, again, it must be something serious, mustn't it?

V-Day

2006-02-14T08:38:00.000-06:00

V-Day wishes!

V-Day’s mission is simple. It demands that the violence must end. It proclaims Valentine’s Day as V-Day until the violence stops. When all women live in safety, no longer fearing violence or the threat of violence, then V-Day will be known as Victory Over Violence Day.

FreeCulture

2006-02-02T06:58:00.000-06:00

"Culture should be a two-way affair, about participation, not merely consumption."

week ends

2006-01-28T01:06:00.000-06:00

Dinner, dessert, gossip and games. (If you guys are reading this, thanks -- for not lynching me!) Not a bad way to end a week.

(But of course not the best way to begin the weekend, if you're planning to get up in the morning for your sole source of weekly exercise and it's already too late.)

The new Google Earth

2006-01-13T18:49:00.000-06:00

For one, it works in my mac. And then -- it must be that I haven't played video games for a long time -- it was quite exciting to see the 3D perspectives of the terrain. Google Earth Community and Google Globe sound interesting too. Unfortunately their resolution for the local neighbourhood is quite bad. (So also for my hometown.)

Maybe I should compare the photos I took from the ~~satellite~~ plane on my way back from LA with the perspective images in GE...

Home is where...

2006-01-11T09:43:00.000-06:00

Home is where you get waken up by a cold-call.

Back in Champaign after weeks of warm (sometimes wet) Californian weather. (some photos.)

Hope they find my lost luggage...

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

2005-12-30T21:04:00.000-06:00

Did I say the Truth is not tasty? Try this!

May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage! Ramen!

And a happy 2006 to all!

Transcending The Truth :-)

2005-12-15T20:50:00.000-06:00

Philosophically I'm an artist. Of course, I too started off seeking The Truth. But then I found It, and found It too boring. --Anon.

OK, the "anon" is just me. I have been thinking of pouring out my personal philosophies here. (What's a blog for, after all? If you get the leisure, that is.) But it was going to be just too boring. Instead, true to the spirit of the above statement, I thought I'll embellish it a little bit and contribute it to Anon's wealth of quotes.

I should go and pack my bags now. California should be warmer...

Bablu and Mary

2005-12-14T22:49:00.000-06:00

Bablu and Mary, the couple of the year.

Random thoughts on education in India

2005-12-11T13:23:00.000-06:00

Some random thoughts.

Two cups of coffee

2005-11-30T23:16:00.000-06:00

"If [each rich person] gave the equivalent of two cups of coffee, we would cover all the needs for these 31 million people in a desperate situation."

The bicycle diaries

2005-11-30T19:51:00.000-06:00

No, not mine.

As for myself, finally I got a pair of "blinkies" for my bike. It gets dark a little too soon nowadays.

freeganism etc.

2005-11-26T16:02:00.000-06:00

I had made a posting on "vanity." Someone pointed out to me the dictionary meaning of the word:

1 : something that is vain, empty, or valueless
2 : the quality or fact of being vain
3 : inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance : CONCEIT
4 : a fashionable trifle or knicknack
etc...

So I must clarify. I was talking about vanity in the first/second sense: something valueless (in some sense) that one ends up going for. Something one could have easily done without: the car, the camera, the large apartment. So maybe I should have used the word luxury. Or consumerism, perhaps.

As I said, it's a slippery slope. Just watching myself. Blogging it helps :-)

Meanwhile happened to catch two reports on BBC Worldservice, one about freegans and one on "Buy Nothing Christmas." Not quite up to the mark for the former, but the latter is all right.

office photos

2005-11-22T11:57:00.000-06:00

still playing with my camera. took it to my office yesterday.

malayalam parallel cinema resources?

2005-11-21T06:50:00.000-06:00

Of late I have been wondering, how does one get hold of Malayalam "parallel" movies in the US? Any pointers will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

(And for those wondering what Malayalam parallel cinema is, here you go.)

hate call? :-)

2005-11-10T21:42:00.000-06:00

I got back home today evening and found this amusing message (in Hindi) in my answering machine:

"Manoj Prabhakar aa gaya hai. Sale ko India ke team se nikaal diya, America jaa ke [couldn't catch the words]"

Meanwhile, got my PhD certificate from Princeton. Sariel made me pose with it.

vanity, and a cold shower

2005-11-05T23:43:00.000-06:00

i have been accused of vanity. and unfortunately it's quite true. well, first it was the big apartment, then the laptop and the display, and now this camera. all this is quite expensive. or they used to be. unfortunately now they look fairly priced, quite affordable. and what more, my new friends and colleagues -- who are paid not much more than i am -- consider even more expensive things very affordable. and then there are those things that come with your job -- a secretary, funds for travel and such, etc. etc. it's a slippery slope, this getting used to vanity... (of course, i have been a little too vain with my charity too. the last few months have seen me donate probably more than what i had donated all my life.)

now about the cold shower. i don't have a car. and i have no immediate plans to get one. now, if i get a car, that would be vanity! (somehow no one seems to believe so.) anyway. i don't have a car. but i have a bike, which despite being old, and despite its partly broken gear system which can get stuck if i try to change the front gears, has kept me good company. i have been regularly using it ever since i moved to champaign (and will be, until the snow forces me to use the public transportation system here, excellent as it is).

and today, i went to this party. (vanity vanity!) i went by my bike, and so it was only prudent to ride it back home instead of leaving it there and hitchhiking back. or so i thought. but hardly had i set off on my bike when the skies cracked open -- complete with thunder, lightning, whistling winds and what not -- and poured buckets of ice cold water on me...

i just got back, safe but drenched. just now as i warm myself over a cup of hot tea, it doesn't seem too bad -- the ride in the rain -- when you have a cosy room (with good heating) and dry clothes waiting back home. i guess i don't need a car yet...

more photos

2005-11-05T16:01:00.000-06:00

it rained in the morning, and the winds brought all the fall colours out and down on the ground. it was not very sunny, but the pictures seem to have turned out ok.

and now it's a camera...

2005-11-04T20:46:00.000-06:00

I just bought a camera, and now I have to share my photos. Photos, like any art, is depressing when unexposed (not sure if I intended the pun). Especially when your camera is expensive.

Well, I haven't really started taking photos with it. It has so far been confined to the many walls of my apartment. Nevertheless it did have a chance to train its lens on those walls. But before I lead you to those photos, or even to the prelude of apologies for the not so great photographic quality, just wanted to say that things at home are not as depressing as the photos might suggest. Yes, I stay alone in a large house, and cook and eat alone. But these photos -- the yellowish ones with the flash turned off -- seem to suggest an exaggerated tint of pathos. I like them for that, as they seem to give some artistic value to my mediocre attempts: especially this one with the empty chairs and a larger than life projection of the lamp-shade (or see the large sepia version).

Now the mandatory apologies: I'm a complete newbie. This is my first digital camera and first SLR (and my second camera, if you were wondering). I did little or no post-processing on these photos (except to shrink them to a web-like size, with the good side effect of making some of the chromatic noise less apparent (especially in those flash-free photos, taken at ISO-800). I got a tripod too, but often I was too lazy to tighten the screws and such, with the result that a good number of photos in low-light suffered from shakes as I pressed the button, and were discarded. There are a whole lot more confessions to make, but since I don't understand a lot of the stuff, I will hold off, and simply give you the link to the photos from my dinner yesterday.

And while at it, here is a photo of a screen-saver featuring a scanned photo from my old (film) camera.

rain

2005-10-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

That is one of the numerous doodles I have been making ever since I got my old graphics tablet working on my (relatively) new powerbook. It's kind of odd that today, the day after I drew it, I was caught in the rain biking, wearing that red and black jacket (but I had left behind the oversized hood).

Tomorrow I have a flight to catch, but not before the class in the morning. Should go to bed now so that I can wake up in time to do some packing...

Malayalam unicode works with konqueror!

2005-08-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

For quite a while now, I haven't used a Linux desktop (I have a Mac, though the big servers I log into are all Linux). So it was very kind of Sariel to let me take a look at how Malayalam unicode showed up in his Linux box. Mozilla didn't do very well, but amazingly konqueror did a wonderful job!

So all Linux users out there, if you're having trouble with Malayalam Unicode, you might want to give KDE and konqueror a try. (If you do that, remember to use KDE control center to install a Unicode font, before firing up konqueror.)

update: konqueror for Mac OS X 10.4 also works just as well. some problems with chillus remain...

urbana-champaign

2005-08-10T22:02:00.000-05:00

Since the last posting, I went to Princeton and am now in Urbana-Champaign.

And, the last of PUN has been written.

my baby!

2005-08-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

പത്തു മാസം ചുമന്നു് നൊന്തു പെറ്റു എന്നു പറഞ്ഞതു പോലെ... thesis എഴുതി binding-നു കൊടുത്തു. എന്നു പറ്ഞ്ഞു ചുമടിനു യാതൊരു കുറവും വരാൻ പോകുന്നില്ല!

CS 598, Section MAN
Fall 2005
Professor Manoj M. Prabhakaran

An Excursion into the World of Expanders

11 AM - 12:15 PM Wednesday/Friday
1302 Siebel Center
CRN: 46032
Credit: 4 hours

that's the baby i have to look after now...

ps: updated the malayalam keyboard layout to use the new codepoints for ചില്ലുകൾ. this post is typed with it.

pps: latest addition to the MELAM collection: physicskerala.org

Subject: Need Malayalam interpreter

2005-07-20T21:05:00.000-05:00

This came by e-mail.

Need Malayalam interpreter for a basic interpreting case on the 4th of
August, 2005 here in Hakensack, New Jersey. USA

These hearings are quite informal and they last no more than 35 minutes.
Interpreters get paid a 2 hour minimum. We pay $35 per hour plus travel.

If u know of someone that might be interested have them call us at
718-402-9310

Julio
Morivivi Language Services

Right to Information

2005-07-13T22:25:00.000-05:00

Just got back from an AID screening of a documentary by MKSS on Right to Information. I had seen (parts of) it the first time when Aruna Roy was in LA last year (at an event organized by IFA). Vishal, a fellow Asha volunteer, who was present at the screening and is familiar with Mahadhikar (which works in Maharashtra where an RTI act has been in effect before an effective central law was passed recently) says however that without more judicial reforms the path to curbing corruption is not very easy.

In solidarity with all those tirelessly fighting heartless corruption...

Feed-aggregator errors

2005-07-11T15:51:00.000-05:00

A few feeds are getting dropped from the blogroll due to some feed parse errors. Will get around to fixing it when I get time -- in a few weeks. Sorry about that.

Ravi and Aravinda

2005-07-10T22:49:00.000-05:00

Aravinda and Ravi (and little Khiyali) were at the AID meeting today. Very nice talk, new perspectives/thoughts, and of course very inspiring. And there was a larger crowd too.

ps: For having slept just two hours in the last 24, I'm feeling pretty alert. It's quite a bit of distraction from the thesis, though.

Downtime

2005-07-07T16:07:00.000-05:00

Princeton CS dept servers had a scheduled downtime today (they were changing the UPS installation). So MELAM and the Kerala Blogroll were unavailable too. Sorry for not giving the heads up.

Thanks for checking. Now we're back!

Podcasting in Malayalam

2005-07-05T00:59:00.000-05:00

It's amateurish (of course), was never meant to be publicized, recorded sometime last year. But now it's clothed as a podcast. Or search for Malayalam in the iTunes podcast directory. (This is the only one that shows up as of now; it's titled "Malayalam Literature Excerpts.")

MELAM update: e-krishi.org

2005-07-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

Added a link to e-krishi.org to the MELAM collection. Found it through an email pointing to an article in the Hindu Business Line.

PS: On creating this post, I lost the last post in this blog. Oh, well.

IIM Kozhikode runs on rainwater

2005-06-13T03:04:00.001-05:00

"It is a model for other educational institutions and corporate houses." A report at Indiatogether.org.

Malayalam Localization

2005-05-26T03:19:00.000-05:00

This is a call to all active Malayalam bloggers to participate in Malayalam Localization efforts. Localization involves translating all the menus and messages of various programs to Malayalam (in Unicode). I'm aware of some efforts that were started towards localizing GNU/Linux to Malayalam (and to which I contributed a little too). See the localization initiative by the Government. Also see Swathantra Malayalam Computing and its associated mailing-list, the GNU-Malayalam discussion list and the Localization Newsletter from the IndLinux project.

I'm not very sure how active these forums are at the moment. But it would be great if various Malayalam computing efforts going on in different spheres (and the people involved) could come together...

The above efforts are not just about localization (they also work on input methods, rendering modules, fonts etc.) But localization is the easiest thing for everyone to participate in. Also localization is relevant not just for the GNU/Linux desktops, but for developing the vocabulary for Malayalam computing in general.

Localization calls for a lot of imagination and understanding. High up in the list of priorities, I believe, is functionality and usability. It's not about concocting high-sounding Sanskrit words. The challenge is to find easy to use words which are accessible to a large section of the Malayalam speaking population, across various levels of education. I believe the blogger community can rise up to this challenge!

Update: Came across a Malayalam Localization of Firefox.

കഥയ്ക്കു ചില interpretations

2005-05-19T03:36:00.000-05:00

കഥയെക്കുറിച്ചുള്ള comments കണ്ടപ്പോള്‍ വിചാരിച്ചു, ഒരു്‌ interpretation എഴുതിക്കളയാമെന്നു. കഥ എഴുതിയപ്പോള്‍ ഇതൊക്കെ തന്നെയാണോ ഉദ്ദേശിച്ചതെന്നു്‌ ഓര്‍മ്മയില്ല :) എന്നാലും.

ഇന്ദുവിനു മുരളിയുമായുള്ള അടുപ്പം ഒരു convenient arrangement മാത്രം ആയിരുന്നു. ഇന്ദുവിന്റെ മരണത്തോടെ അതു കഴിഞ്ഞു. എന്നാല്‍ മാധവനുമായുള്ള അടുപ്പം -- ഐക്യം -- വേറേ ഏതോ ഒരു തലത്തിലാണു. there's (one could argue) something deeply romantic about it. അവര്‍ വിഷാദത്തില്‍ ഒരുമിച്ചായിരുന്നു. (പിന്നെ, എന്തിന്റെ വിഷാദം എന്നൊന്നും എന്നോടു ചോദിക്കരുതേ!) ഇന്ദുവിന്റെ മരണം കഴിഞ്ഞാണു്‌ ആ ബന്ധം realized ആകുന്നതു്‌. (അതെന്താന്നു ചോദിച്ചാല്‍, അതങ്ങനെയാണു്‌!)

ഒരു comment കൂടെ: മാധവന്‍ comes through as a very unconventional character. മുരളിയും ഇന്ദുവും വളരെ conventional മനുഷ്യരാണു്‌. പക്ഷേ ഉള്ളിന്റെയുള്ളില്‍ അവര്‍ക്കെല്ലാം അതില്‍ നിന്നു break out ചെയ്യണമെന്നുണ്ടു്‌. (ഇല്ലേ?) ഇന്ദു മരണത്തോടെ conventions-ഇല്‍ നിന്നു സ്വതന്ത്രയാകുന്നു. അവളുടെ മരണം അങ്ങനെ നോക്കിയാല്‍ symbolic ആണു്‌.

ഇനിയും എന്തെങ്കിലും interpretation തോന്നിയാല്‍ എഴുതാം :-)

ഒരു കഥ (അവസാനിക്കുന്നു)

2005-05-18T05:31:00.000-05:00

"നാലാം നിലയിലാണു്‌," ഉണ്ണി മുന്‍പേ നടന്നു. എന്തു പറയണമെന്നെനിക്കറിയില്ല. എന്താണവന്റെ കത്തുകള്‍ക്കു ഞാന്‍ മറുപടി എഴുതാത്തതു്‌? എന്തിനാണവനെ മറന്നതു്‌? അവന്റെ കണ്ണുകള്‍ എന്റെ മനസ്സില്‍ തെളിഞ്ഞു, തീരാദുഃഖത്തിന്റെ കടല്‍ പോലെ...

"പിന്നെ, നീ ഇന്ദുവിനെക്കുറിച്ചൊന്നും ഇപ്പോള്‍ അവനോടു പറയണ്ട. അവനതൊന്നുമറിയില്ല." ഉണ്ണിയുടെ താക്കീതു്‌.

"ഇപ്പോള്‍ ബോധം ഉണ്ടു്‌. വേണമെങ്കില്‍ നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കു സംസാരിക്കാം. പത്തു മിനിട്ടു്‌," സിസ്റ്റര്‍ വാച്ചില്‍ നോക്കി. പത്തു മിനിട്ടു്‌. കുമ്പസാരിക്കാന്‍.

വെളുത്ത വിരിപ്പുകള്‍.

"മുരളിയോ? ഞാന്‍ നിന്നെ പ്രതീക്ഷിച്ചിരിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു." ഒരു രഹസ്യം വെളിപ്പെടുത്തും പോലെ അവന്‍ പറഞ്ഞു.

"നിനക്കിപ്പോള്‍ എങ്ങനെയുണ്ടു്‌?"

"സിസ്റ്റര്‍ പറഞ്ഞില്ലേ? ബോധമുണ്ടെന്നു്‌? ബോധമുണ്ടു്‌. വേദന അറിയാം." അവന്റെ പ്രിയപ്പെട്ട കടങ്കഥകള്‍.

"നീ എന്തേ ഇങ്ങനെ വിഷണ്ണനായി? ക്മോണ്‍, ചിയര്‍ അപ്‌! യൂ 'ര്‍ ഗെറ്റിംഗ്‌ വെല്‍."

"വേണ്ട മുരളീ..." അവന്റെ കണ്ണുകള്‍ എന്നെ വിലക്കി.

മൌനത്തിന്റെ നിമിഷങ്ങള്‍ പത്തുമിനിട്ടില്‍ നിന്നടര്‍ന്നുവീണുകൊണ്ടിരുന്നു.

"മാധവാ..."

അവന്‍ കണ്ണുകളുയര്‍ത്തി.

"ഞാന്‍ നാളെ തിരിച്ചു പോകുകയാണു. പാരിസിലേക്കു്‌. നിനക്കറിയാമോ, ചിലപ്പോള്‍ ഞാന്‍ വിചാരിക്കും, നീ പറഞ്ഞതു ശരിയാണെന്നു്‌: ഈ യാത്രയ്ക്കു ലക്ഷ്യമില്ല."

എന്തിനതു പറഞ്ഞെന്നെനിക്കറിയില്ല. ഞാന്‍ തുടര്‍ന്നു, "നിന്നെ ഇങ്ങനെ വിട്ടു പോകാന്‍ മനസ്സു വരുന്നില്ല. പക്ഷേ എന്റെ ടിക്കറ്റ്‌ നാളത്തേക്കാണു്‌. എനിക്കു പോയേ തീരൂ." ഒരു നിമിഷം ഞാന്‍ ശങ്കിച്ചു. "അവിടെ ധാരാളം പണിയുണ്ടു്‌."

അവന്റെ കണ്ണുകള്‍ ഏതോ അനന്തതയിലേക്കുറ്റു നോക്കുകയായിരുന്നു.

ഞാന്‍ ചുറ്റും നോക്കി. അവന്റെ കിടക്കയ്കരികില്‍ ഒരു കടും പച്ച ഫോണ്‍ ആശുപത്രിയുടെ നിറം മങ്ങിയ വെളുപ്പില്‍ നിന്നു മാറി നിന്നു. എനിക്കതു വിചിത്രമായി തോന്നി. ഫോണ്‍? ഇവിടെ? പതുക്കെ ഞാന്‍ റിസീവര്‍ എടുത്തു ചെവിയില്‍ ചേര്‍ത്തു. അനന്തതയില്‍ നിന്നുള്ള നിശ്ശബ്ദത. "ഇറ്റ്സ്‌ ഡെഡ്‌," ഞാന്‍ അതു തിരിച്ചു വച്ചു.

"നീ ഇന്നു വരുമെന്നെനിക്കറിയാമായിരുന്നു."

"എങ്ങനെ?" എനിക്കു തന്നെ അതറിയില്ലായിരുന്നല്ലോ!

"ഇന്ദു പറഞ്ഞു." ഞാന്‍ തരിച്ചു നിന്നു.

"മാധവാ..." എന്തു പറയണം?

അവന്റെ കണ്ണുകള്‍ ഉത്തരം പ്രതീക്ഷിച്ചെന്ന പോലെ എന്നെത്തന്നെ നോക്കുന്നു. പുറത്തു നര്‍സിന്റെ കാല്‍പ്പെരുമാറ്റം.

"മാധവാ, ഇന്ദു... ഇന്ദു മരിച്ചു പോയി!"

"മൂന്നു വര്‍ഷമായി, അല്ലേ?"

"റിങ്‌... റിങ്‌..." ഒരു കടും പച്ച ഫോണ്‍ മണി മുഴക്കി.

--------------------

That's it. Sorry for serializing it. And sorry for the surreal ending. It's just a silly surreal story, if you wish. Or, you could find therein some room for reflection, on meaning of/in life (and death). And on the changing lives of these three souls, Murali, Indu and Madhavan.

Or, with due apologies to Chandumenon's Indulekha, this could be just another Indu-Madhavam! :-)

ഒരു കഥ (ഭാഗം രണ്ടു്)

2005-05-17T02:43:00.000-05:00

"ഹലോ മുരളി!"

വായില്‍ വച്ച ഉരുളച്ചോറു താനേ ഇറങ്ങിപ്പോയി. "എടാ ഉണ്ണീ! നീയോ? നീ എന്നെ ഞെട്ടിച്ചു കളഞ്ഞല്ലോ!"

"എടാ എത്ര കാലമായെടാ, കാലമാടാ! നീ അങ്ങു മെലിഞ്ഞു പോയല്ലോ!"

ഉണ്ണി തടിവച്ചെങ്കിലേ ഉള്ളൂ. "നീ പഴയ ഉണ്ണി തന്നെ," ഞാന്‍ പറഞ്ഞു.

"ഞാന്‍ ഒരൂണു്‌ ഓഡര്‍ ചെയ്തിട്ടുണ്ടു്‌." അവന്‍ എന്റെ എതിരേ ഇരുന്നു. "പണ്ടു നമ്മളിതു പോലെ ഹോട്ടലില്‍ ഒരുമിച്ചിരുന്നു്‌ ഉണ്ണാറുള്ളതു്‌ ഓര്‍മ്മയുണ്ടോ?"

ഉണ്ടു്‌. എല്ലാം ഓര്‍മ്മയുണ്ടു്‌. ഞാന്‍ ചോദിച്ചു. "നീ എന്താ ഇവിടെ തിരുവനന്തപുരത്തു്‌?"

"ആദ്യം നീ പറ, പാരിസ്‌ മടുത്തോ?"

"മടുത്തു. പക്ഷേ നാളെ ഞാന്‍ തിരിച്ചു പോകുകയാണു്‌. എന്റെ ലീവു കഴിയാറായി." ഒരു നിമിഷം ഓര്‍മ്മകള്‍ നിറഞ്ഞു വന്നു, "ഇന്ദു ഇല്ലാതെ പാരിസ്‌ മാത്രമല്ല, ജീവിതം തന്നെ മടുത്തു."

"ഇനിയെങ്കിലും അതൊക്കെ മറന്നുകൂടെ? എത്ര കൊല്ലമായി?!"

"മൂന്നു കൊല്ലം, ഈ ഡിസംബറില്‍." അവളെന്നെ വിട്ടുപോയ ആ അഭിശപ്ത ശൈത്യത്തിലെ മഞ്ഞു മുഴുവന്‍ എന്റെ മനസ്സില്‍ വന്നു മൂടി. "ഡിസംബറില്‍."

"ചിലപ്പോള്‍ എല്ലാം ഇട്ടെറിഞ്ഞു വരാമെന്നു വിചാരിക്കും. പക്ഷേ ഇവിടെ വന്നു ഞാന്‍ എന്തു ചെയ്യാനാണു്‌? ഇവിടെയും എനിക്കാരുമില്ല. അതുപോട്ടെ..." വിഷമങ്ങളും ചോദ്യങ്ങളും ഒഴിവാക്കാന്‍ ഞാന്‍ പഠിച്ചു കഴിഞ്ഞു, "നീ ഇവിടെ എന്തു ചെയ്യുന്നു?"

ഉണ്ണിയുടെ മുഖത്തൊരു നിഴല്‍ പടര്‍ന്നു. "എടാ, നമ്മുടെ മാധവനില്ലേ?"

"ആരു്‌, മാധവന്‍ നായരോ? എന്തു പറ്റി അവനു്‌?"

"അവനിവിടെ ഹോസ്പിറ്റലിലാണു്‌."

"അയ്യോ, എന്തു പറ്റി? സീരിയസൊന്നുമല്ലല്ലോ?"

"സംഗതി അല്‍പം സീരിയസാണു്‌. നാലഞ്ചു ദിവസമായി ഇവിടെ കൊണ്ടുവന്നിട്ടു്‌. നിനക്കറിയില്ലേ അവനെ? ഏതോ കാട്ടുമുക്കില്‍ ചെന്നു കിടന്നു നരകിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു. അബുവാണു്‌ ആദ്യം അറിഞ്ഞതു്‌, അവനു വയ്യെന്നു്‌. അറിഞ്ഞ ഉടനെ ഞാനും അബുവും അവിടെ ചെന്നു. ഞങ്ങളെത്തിയപ്പോള്‍ അവനു ബോധമില്ലായിരുന്നു. നല്ല പനിയും. ഞങ്ങളടുത്തുള്ള ഒരു ഹോസ്പിറ്റലില്‍ കൊണ്ടു പോയി. അവരവനെ എടുത്തില്ല. അത്ര മോശമായിരുന്നു നില. പിന്നെ ഞങ്ങളവനെ ഒന്നുരണ്ടിടത്തു കൊണ്ടു പോയി. കഴിഞ്ഞ വെള്ളിയാഴ്ച്ച ഇവിടെ കൊണ്ടുവന്നു."

"അവന്റെ വീട്ടുകാരെ അറിയിച്ചോ?"

"അവന്റെ വീട്ടില്‍ ഇപ്പോള്‍ ആരുമില്ല. അച്ഛനും അമ്മയും രണ്ടു പേരും മരിച്ചിട്ടു കൊല്ലം കുറേയായി."

"ഓ നോ! പ്രിന്‍സ്റ്റണില്‍ നിന്നു പോയ ശേഷം എനിക്കവനുമായി തീരെ കോണ്ടാക്ടില്ലായിരുന്നു. അവന്‍ ഏതോ എന്‍. ജി. ഓ.-ക്കു വേണ്ടി വോളണ്ടീര്‍ ചെയ്യുന്നു എന്നു മാത്രം അറിഞ്ഞു."

"പ്രിന്‍സ്റ്റണില്‍ നിന്നു വന്ന ഉടനെ അവന്‍ നേരേ പോയി ഈ കുഗ്രാമത്തിലേക്കു്‌. ഞാനെത്ര പരഞ്ഞു നോക്കി, വല്ല നല്ല ജോലിയുമെടുത്തു, ഒരു കല്യാണവും കഴിചു..."

"അവനിപ്പോഴും ഒറ്റയ്ക്കാണോ?"

"അതെ..." ഉണ്ണി പറഞ്ഞു മുഴുമിപ്പിക്കാതെ നിര്‍ത്തി. ഞാന്‍ കൂട്ടിച്ചേര്‍ത്തു, "മാധവനു്‌ ഇന്ദുവിനെ വലിയ കാര്യമായിരുന്നു."

"അതെ."

പാരിസിലെത്തി ഒരു വര്‍ഷത്തിനുള്ളില്‍ ഇന്ദുവും ഞാനും വിവാഹിതരായി. അതിനു മുന്‍പു്‌ എനിക്കു മാധവനെ ഭയമായിരുന്നു. എന്റെ ഇന്ദുവിനെ അവന്‍ തട്ടിയെടുക്കുമോ എന്നു്‌! പിന്നീടു ഞാന്‍ മനസ്സിലാക്കി, ആ ഭയം അസ്ഥാനത്തായിരുന്നു എന്നു്‌: ഇന്ദുവിനു മാധവനെ ഭയമായിരുന്നു. അവന്റെ മനസ്സിലെ ദുഃഖങ്ങള്‍, ചോദ്യങ്ങള്‍, അവന്റെ വിഷാദ ഭാവം, എല്ലാം അവള്‍ അക്ഷരാര്‍ത്ഥത്തില്‍ ഭയന്നു. അവന്‍ എന്നോടു വാദിക്കാറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു, ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ അര്‍ത്ഥവും അര്‍ത്ഥശൂന്യതയും! അവനുമായി തര്‍ക്കിച്ചിരിക്കാന്‍ എനിക്കൊരു പ്രയാസവുമില്ലായിരുന്നു. പക്ഷേ ഇന്ദുവിനങ്ങനെയല്ലായിരുന്നു. അവന്റെ ചോദ്യങ്ങല്‍, ഉത്തരങ്ങള്‍, അവള്‍ക്കതു താങ്ങാനാവില്ലായിരുന്നു.

"നീ ഇപ്പോള്‍ ഹോസ്പിറ്റലിലേക്കാണോ? എങ്കില്‍ ഞാനും വരാം."

പന്ത്രണ്ടു വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍. പാരിസില്‍ ആദ്യം കുറച്ചു നാള്‍ അവന്റെ കത്തുകള്‍ വരുമായിരുന്നു. വിഷാദം നിഷലിച്ച വാക്കുകള്‍, വരികള്‍, വരികള്‍ക്കിടയിലെ നിശ്വാസങ്ങള്‍. എന്നോ ഞാന്‍ മറുപടി എഴുതാതായി. ഇന്ദു ഒരിക്കലും അവനു മറുപടി എഴുതിയിരുന്നില്ല. പാരിസിലെ തിരക്കു പിടിച്ച നിമിഷങ്ങള്‍ക്കിടയില്‍, അകലങ്ങളില്‍ ഏകാന്തവാസം നയിക്കുന്ന സുഹൃത്തിനെ ഞാന്‍ മറന്നു.

(അടുത്ത ഭാഗത്തില്‍ അവസാനിക്കും.)

deja vu

2005-05-16T04:01:00.000-05:00

I came across http://www.keralam.at/blogs/. They don't have this blog yet. I guess I just have to wait before they update their collection. :-)

By the way, if anyone is interested, I do provide a unified RSS feed that you can subscribe to (or further process and put up at your website). Of course, it's provided "as is" (if it breaks, you get to keep all the pieces).

MELAM update: Digging up usenet nostalgia

2005-05-14T17:49:00.000-05:00

MELAM has a section on usenet postings. After a long time (last update to that page was almost two years back) I have dug up a few more interesting postings from way back and added them. (Look for "From the Recycle Bin.") They were all posted in alt.culture.kerala (ACK). ACK was the predecessor of soc.culture.indian.kerala.

The ACK'ers would be the pioneers of Malayalam on the net. See the ACK FAQ for some history (and Part 2 for a transliteration scheme). There is a wealth of history (and fun) in the usenet for anyone with the time to dig into those old threads gathering virtual dust.

Sadly, the newsgroups went on to degenerate under the deluge of flame-wars (net rage?) and spam.

The Kerala blogosphere may be the new avatar of ACK...

ഒരു കഥ (ഭാഗം ഒന്നു)

2005-05-14T03:53:00.000-05:00

ആരംഭശൂരത എന്നു പറയും. ഇതാ ഒരു blog-entry കൂടെ ഇന്നു. ഇതു ഞാന്‍ പണ്ടു്‌ -- പണ്ടെന്നു വച്ചാല്‍ പ്രിന്‍സ്റ്റണില്‍ എന്റെ ആദ്യത്തെ വര്‍ഷത്തില്‍ -- എഴുതിയ ഒരു കഥയാണു്‌. ചെറു കഥയാണു്‌. വലിയ മെച്ചമൊന്നും അല്ല (പക്ഷേ എന്തു ചെയ്യാം, ഇതേ ഉള്ളൂ കൈവശം). ഇതിനെ serialize ചെയ്തു പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിക്കാം എന്നു വച്ചു. (സ്വന്തം blog ഉള്ളപ്പോള്‍ പിന്നെ വേറേ പ്രസാധകരെന്തിനു?) അഭിപ്രായങ്ങള്‍ സ്വാഗതാര്‍ഹം ("comments are welcome" എന്നു്‌. ശ്ശെടാ, മലയാളത്തില്‍ english-ഇന്റെ കലര്‍പ്പുണ്ടല്ലോ!). വരമൊഴി ഉപയോഗിച്ചു വലിയ ശീലമൊന്നും ഇല്ല. മലയാളമാണെങ്കില്‍ എഴുതിയിട്ടു കാലം കുറേയായി. (ഇതു മലയാളം "എഴുത്താണോ"?) തെറ്റുകുറ്റങ്ങള്‍ ചൂണ്ടിക്കാണിക്കും എന്നു പ്രതീക്ഷിക്കുന്നു.

ഒരു കഥ (ഭാഗം ഒന്നു)

ഇപ്പോള്‍ മഴ ഇല്ല. നനഞ്ഞ ഇലകള്‍ക്കിടയിലൂടെ സ്ട്രീറ്റ്‌-ലൈറ്റിന്റെ വെളിച്ചം. ഇരുട്ടില്‍ മൂടല്‍മഞ്ഞു പ്രകാശിക്കുന്നു. ഞാന്‍ വേഗത്തില്‍ നടന്നു. കുന്നിറങ്ങി, പുഴയോരത്തുകൂടെ; പാലം കടന്നു റോഡിലേക്കു്‌... എങ്ങോട്ടെന്നറിയാതെ ഒരു തീര്‍ത്ഥയാത്ര. യാത്രയ്ക്കു ലക്ഷ്യമില്ലെന്നറിഞ്ഞ രാവുകളിലൊന്നു. പിന്നിട്ട വഴികള്‍ വീണ്ടും മുന്നില്‍...

ദൂരെ ഗ്രാജ്വേറ്റ്‌ കോളേജിന്റെ ടവര്‍. കരഞ്ഞു കരിയൊലിച്ച കണ്ണൊപ്പി പിന്നിലാകാശം. പാതി മറഞ്ഞ ചന്ദ്രന്‍. ഇന്നും ആ ചിത്രം മനസ്സില്‍ നിന്നു മാഞ്ഞിട്ടില്ല. മനസ്സിലെ ഏകാന്തത ആ ടവറില്‍ തെളിഞ്ഞ വിളക്കുകള്‍ പോലെ. മങ്ങിക്കത്തിയ വിളക്കുകള്‍.

പന്ത്രണ്ടു വര്‍ഷം. ഇന്നു വീണ്ടും ഞാന്‍ ആ പാതകളിലൂടെ നടന്നു. പ്രിന്‍സ്റ്റണ്‍ യൂണിവേര്‍സിറ്റിയിലെ ഗംഭീര സൌധങ്ങള്‍ എനിക്കു ചുറ്റും ഉയര്‍ന്നു. പൊടിമൂടിയ വഴികള്‍ ഓടു പാകിയ പാതകളായി. ആ പാതകളിലൂടെ ഞാന്‍ നിന്നെത്തേടി അലഞ്ഞു. ഇനി നീ ഇവിടെ വരില്ലെന്നറിഞ്ഞിട്ടും.

"റിങ്‌ റിങ്‌..." ഫോണിന്റെ ശബ്ദം എന്നെ ഉണര്‍ത്തി. നീ ആയിരുന്നു. ഈ ദുഃസ്വപ്നങ്ങള്‍ക്കിടയില്‍, ഇരുള്‍ മൂടിയ നടപ്പാതകള്‍ക്കിടയില്‍, മിന്നിമറയുന്ന ഒരു നിലവിളക്കായി, നിറഞ്ഞുകത്തുന്ന നിലവിളക്കായി‌. കെടുന്ന വിളക്കില്‍ ഒരിറ്റെണ്ണകൂടി.

പന്ത്രണ്ടു വര്‍ഷം. അവസാനമായി ഞാന്‍ നിന്നെ കണ്ടതന്നാണു. അടുത്ത നാള്‍ നീയും മുരളിയും പാരീസിലേക്കു പറന്നു. ഞാന്‍ ഈ കൊച്ചു ഗ്രാമത്തില്‍ കൊച്ചു മനുഷ്യരുടെ ഇടയിലെത്തി. നിങ്ങളുടെ വിവാഹത്തിനു വരാനായില്ല എനിക്കു്‌. പാരീസ്‌ എനിക്കകലെയായിരുന്നു. എത്താനാകത്തത്ര അകലെ. ഒരായിരം ചോദ്യങ്ങളുടെ അകലം. ഒരിക്കലും ചോദിക്കരുതായിരുന്ന ചോദ്യങ്ങള്‍. ഉത്തരം കിട്ടാത്ത കടങ്കഥകള്‍. ലക്ഷ്യമില്ലാത്ത യാത്രകള്‍. തീര്‍ത്ഥയാത്രകള്‍! പാരീസിന്റെ വിളക്കുകളില്‍ നിന്നു ദൂരെ, കൊച്ചുഗ്രാമങ്ങളുടെ ആത്മാവിലേക്കു.

വീണ്ടും ആ ഫോണ്‍. അകലങ്ങളില്‍ നിന്നുള്ള സന്ദേശങ്ങളുമായി ഒരു കടുമ്പച്ച യന്ത്രം. നീയായിരുന്നു. വീണ്ടും. നാളെ മുരളി വരും. പന്ത്രണ്ടു വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ക്കു ശേഷം. നാളെ.

(തുടരും)