bhagatram's

i was sitting at work when my phone rang. well, actually, it makes this nice little electronica space music thats never gets in the way of whatever's happening. i take a look and realize its a call from india. i pick up the phone and hear my sister on the line.
"we're lost. we're on dispensary road and we need to get to commercial street. how do i get there."
i'm thinking... dispensary road? i remember the name. then i think. hold on. im sitting here 3000 miles and 3 years away, and she wants me to remember the name of a street? strangely comforting that she thinks i've got perfect recall. but you've got to understand. i dont expect street signs in bangalore. i just know how to get where i have to go. from viveknagar to coxtown to banashankari 2nd stage to cornerhouse. (cornerhouse demands its own location on the map) well, i didnt know where it was. but google comes to the rescue again. i type in dispensary road and find this map. from there it was pretty simple. and that's how i got a box of bhagatram's burfi.

fair and lovely

found this post at Vikrum Sequeira's blog Vislumbres

had to chime in.

the results are in

for the ethics and blogging survey conducted by the Singapore Internet Research Center

View the results

preethialli dhamar agi bidbidthay

working in collaboration with pooja, we came up with the kannada remix of UB40's "Can't help falling in love with you"

Sing along, lyrics below...

Wise men say, only fools rush in.
punta helthanay, goobe bega odtharay

But I can't help falling in love with you
andhre naanu nin preethialli dhamar agi bidbidthay

Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?
nan idbidla? adhu pappa agatha?

I can't help falling in love with you
naanu nin preethialli dhamar agi bidbidthay

As the river flows gently to the sea
kaveri heriyothara nidanakay samudra athra

Darling so we go, some things were meant to be
darrrrling, nadionna, solpa samaan hagaynay

Take my hand take my whole heart too
nan kay ethko, nan poorthi hridaya thoko

'Cause i can't help falling in love with you
andhre naanu nin preethialli dhamar agi bidbidthay

aside to mother earth

knocked blindside up on the techno revelry of the past. we rot and roll, pushed out of our shells and wondering at the pristine gore. laid out in morgue fashion, lost in the tepid scrawl of waxy black tar that spills over your furrows of clay.
i wonder at the images filling my head.
the stark black shutter stop click click click and off we go. running at break neck speed down the winds of tomorrow, we slide past grottos that hold secrets we will never grasp. lost amidst the insouciant wraps that clothe this world in green.

aiyo

Mallu Vocabulary Lesson 1

aiyo - an expression used to denote shock, horror and emotional or physical pain.
It is often used when something unfortunate happens and can be uttered either by the victim or by witnesses. To add authenticity to your mallu disguise, use aiyo whenever you stub a toe, burn your tongue on some hot coffee or get beat by your parents.

Transcript
Aiyo - aiyo

Examples

Aiyo kashtam - oh how sad...
aiyo daivame - oh my god
aiyo karthave - o christ...
aiyo njan oru arishta manushen - o wretched man that i am

Repeat after me

Aiyo

the music of the spheres

i love going to church.
inspiration strikes me here in the assembly of the saints. our anthem of praise a banner that floats on the winds of time. our songs of joy a foretelling of bliss to come. our cries of longing, the spirit's call for revelation.
i stood in church today and heard the love song for my savior. the chords filled the air as ordinary people took up the words. my voice wandered the throng that surrounded the throne of grace. blending into the melody that rises on this sunday morning, standing on the fringes of the joyous crowd, i am lost in the beauty of the song. yet again.

christianity is for ADULTS

im tired too. of the vanilla flavor that permeates the knowledge of the holy. the washed down version of christ we portray on the stained glass windows of our soul. please. no more pink frilled sunday school classes full of beautiful pictures and g rated stories.
i want the sweat, the blood, the tears and grimy dirt in the corner of my eyes that tell me i'm bleeding and broken, splinters of the cross under my nails, sleeping in the garden of my gethsamane. tell me of the acrid sweat tinged air that surrounds a betraying kiss.
i wonder sometimes, when it was decided that the god of the little children could not handle growing up.

manjesh in america

this post will probably be full of kannada references. in keeping with the situation. adhikay, kannada kalsbittu ba... (so, learn kannada...)

praveen and i showed up at the airport to pick up manjy. for once, we were early. so we spent the time looking at travellers and wondering if it was manjy. then we spent some time wandering the terminal looking for him. finally he showed up, and went straight to the phone booth. yeah. we were watching him go by and laughing the whole time. i wanted to take a photo, but praveen kept telling me i'd get arrested.
manjesh at the airport
manjy looks the same, but like most of us, men and women..., he's got himself a buddha belly.
so we drove him over to the hotel where he was staying.
manjesh and praveen at homestead inn
that whole hotel seemed to be populated by indians. after checking in, the first we noticed was the king size bed. yes, of course i asked him to pose on it. he seemed strangely reluctant. i want to know what he associates with a kingsize bed. oh, did i mention that it was the only bed. and he had a roommate showing up later. you would have to ask manjy if he was cute...
well, after eating some really good "sweets" that manjy carried all the way from bangalore, we settled down to the serious business of unpacking. manjy ate some too. thanks, raghu and preetham. i heard raghu did all the actual buying and preetham was managing... this hotel had a kitchen, so off we went to buy enough food to see him through the next few days.
in the lobby, we met this nice indian girl. so we asked her where the nearest indian store was. she said "goh straiiigggghhhhttt, take a laeft, you will come to circle. there are some shops there." man, immediate flashback to bangalore. yes, she was kannadiga. no. no pictures of strange indian women here. we managed to let her know that we knew kannada too, by talking to her in kannada.("oudha, neev ella bangalore indha...") then we found out she really didnt know too much about the place. so we went off to explore. picked up some food and a knife from a chinese supermarket. got back and decided to start cooking. praveen was in charge of the whole curry operation. i sat around looking good. like i usually do. manjesh kept on talking about how he knew cooking. turns out american kitchens are not like indian kitchens. puntaaaa.... excuses, excuses. then we figure out he doesnt know how to cook rice either. hahaha. so now praveen tells him. 1 cup rice, 1 and a half cups water. while praveen and i cut up the stuff, and throw it in the pot, we hear noises about showing him how to cook. instead of paying attention, manjy is busy putting his nonstick frying pan together. the one that he got for free when he bought another one. then he showed us how you dont need to put oil in a nonstick pan when cooking eggs. after scraping off the resulting mess, we made some more eggs and settled down to eat dinner.
cooking eggs
praveen will give you the recipe for the curry if you want. it was chickpeas, tomato paste, onions(?), whatever spices manjy brought( the hero brought sambhar powder, rasam powder and chili powder. what is the world coming to when indians dont know their spices... we threw them all in) and coconut milk. i think.
did i mention that a girl who works with him dropped by to say hi. far be it from me to say more. other than say that he went up to her room first. and she told him to come over the next day and learn cooking.
our kitchen dada did send an email about how he was really busy, didnt he...

entomology

pinned down by the glue
of my inadequacy
i strain against the skewer of
doubt that pierces my
soul
and holds me fast on
a sea of glass
without wings to lend
impetus to my struggle
choking to death on a
surfeit of hope
i lie back and wait

balanced on the fulcrum
of mediocrity
my days pass in the
silence between
my ears
foreshadowed by hope,
weighed down by waiting
i seek cheap thrills,
lifting a foot, dancing
on the edge of my
seesaw of life

bushido mio

seppuku
my entrails spill
on the altar
at the general's request
an offering

blood and guts
my reasonable sacrifice
an offering of love
torn out of me
day by day

praise falls
a scattershot of blood
forced, choking,
from my throat
it flows

gah

gah,
anger rips
through my
throat, caught
by my
glottis
the rage burns
in my wrists
forcing words
on paper
quicksilver fire
runs in my veins,
held back by the
epithelial
lining of grace
here lies my
transmuted venom

back to the fold

i am undone, betrayed
by flesh and blood
grasping fingers, the
skeleton bones of my
past wont let me go
they hold me back,
cold grasp on my
ankles,
cold hug for my
shoulder
bleached ivory white
entwined in my palm
a jawbone whispers
in my ear
malayalee
malayalee

existence, anyone?

Would you choose nonexistence?
To never have lived?
the whole thing started in the comments section of this post, when i took exception to a phrase uttered by jake
a separate thread seemed cleaner...

edit. jakespeak

introducing the konkani kiss master

also known as the mallu hridaya kallan (MHK)
or the brahmin beast of love.
the one and only dove raja.
will be, in collaboration with me, telling us how he wooed his one and only.
since he refuses to let me know anything about her, i have made it part of my mission to find out details and let the world know who actually got omkar's banner of love all over her...
If anybody has any information to contribute, do post it as a comment somewhere...
So far i've found out that she is from philly.
and he's only telling me good things about her.
a picture of our hindu brother

heena manu jananam

this is a malayalam post.
i heard a song that went like this. and i post this because i love the tune.

Heena manu jananam edutha
yesu raja nin samipay nilpu
etu koll avanay thalladhay x2

literally translated, it goes like this

weak, man incarnation/birth/form took
jesus king your side standing
closer inflict/take him dont push him away

or

the one who was incarnated as mortal man,
lord jesus, stands by your side
confess him, dont reject him.

It is not easy translating malayalam to english.

thoughts on organized religion

the insidious fear that keeps us bound to tradition betrays a lack of trust
we wonder what will happen if we let go of the familiar structure of our religion. if we stop, will god still love me?
will he still stay with me?
will we be lost, adrift abandoned by God after we have abandoned our religion?

everybody's guilty of this. those who embrace the rituals of denial by atheism and those of us who strive for holiness with our pure lives and never miss church attitudes.
if only we realized that god's love is predicated on nothing we do but on who he is.
what freedom.

on main street

the bleeding ribbons of my soul
flutter in the wind

left out to drift
and fall,
streamers, after a parade,
tossed aside by
revelers
in their
pounding frenzy

the wind whips by
lashing confetti

abandoned streets
darken to dusk
as the sweeper appears
picks up the
fragmented remains
and puts back together
a piñata,
treasure inside
a papiermaché man

weird mallus - thengapatti

i can already see that this is a subject that is going to end up with a few posts at least. call this the mallu version of those milf videos. i find a mallu in a kerala chat room, and try to get the lyrics for the song nada nada by the band avial. if you want to try, follow the link and go to the music video. All i want is the lyrics. names have been changed to protect people from spam.

this is the man who wanted to shit me bloody...

[04:49] thengapatti: nallathu thanne
[04:49] zimblymallu: ok.
[04:49] zimblymallu: evidunna?
[04:49] thengapatti: ekm
[04:49] zimblymallu: ?
[04:50] thengapatti: ernakulam
[04:50] zimblymallu: oh.
[04:50] zimblymallu: ok.
[04:50] zimblymallu: how old are you?
[04:50] zimblymallu: old/young ?
[04:50] thengapatti: u?
[04:50] zimblymallu: im 25
[04:50] thengapatti: Young
[04:51] thengapatti: 27
[04:51] thengapatti: m/f
[04:51] zimblymallu: oh ok. cool.
[04:51] zimblymallu: im male, monay.
[04:51] zimblymallu: entho cheyana. sorry
[04:51] thengapatti: iam f mone
[04:52] zimblymallu: oh. ok. manoj.
[04:52] thengapatti: ok
[04:52] thengapatti: 8its my nick name
[04:53] zimblymallu: hmmmmmmm
[04:53] zimblymallu: yeah.
[04:53] zimblymallu: well. can you help me out?
[04:55] zimblymallu: aiyo. entho pati?
[04:56] thengapatti: para u
[04:56] zimblymallu: hehe.
[04:56] thengapatti: What help u want
[04:56] zimblymallu: well.t here is a song in malayalam and i dont know enough malayalam.
[04:56] zimblymallu: so i need some help with that.
[04:57] zimblymallu: to figure out the words, and maybe then i can put up the words on my blog.
[04:57] thengapatti: ok
[04:57] zimblymallu: ok. the site is at poormanproduction.com
[04:57] zimblymallu: its the music video nadanada original.
[04:57] thengapatti: Shit u Bloody
[04:57] zimblymallu: what?
[04:57] zimblymallu: shit me bloody?
[04:58] zimblymallu: :))
[04:58] zimblymallu: eda, njan serious a
[04:58] thengapatti: ok Clear it
[04:58] zimblymallu: clear what?
[04:59] thengapatti: for that name
[04:59] thengapatti: of the song
[04:59] zimblymallu: what do you mean?
[04:59] thengapatti: poda
[04:59] zimblymallu: do you want the link or something ?
[04:59] zimblymallu: the name of the song is nada nada
[04:59] zimblymallu: which i know means walk walk
[05:00] zimblymallu: it was done by a band called avvial.
[05:00] thengapatti: ?
[05:00] thengapatti: Please sent a photo
[05:01] zimblymallu: of what?
[05:01] zimblymallu: vattano?
[05:01] zimblymallu: its on the site.
[05:01] thengapatti: Its nice Adipoli songs
[05:01] thengapatti:
[05:02] zimblymallu: ok.
[05:02] zimblymallu: thats cool. now could you hook me up with the lyrics ?
[05:02] thengapatti: =;:o)
[05:02] zimblymallu: yeah...
[05:03] zimblymallu: i c how it is. lol
[05:03] thengapatti: ok

born on the battlefield

dropped in the mud,
breathing the foul effluvium of war
fighting from nativity
no respite, retreat or refuge

sam nikhil philip was at church for the weekend of 4/10. he talked about a lot of stuff, and the phrase 'born on the battlefield' stuck in my head.

if i ever wrote a song, the chorus just might be

born on the battlefield, dropped in the mud x2