A Little Boy's Meeting with Horrible Fate !

The little kid on the block

Looked up at the clock.

He very surely was late

'Cause of Horrible Fate!

He had left for School early,

As the clock touched Seven barely!

Singing and Hopping along the way

His Mother saw him go away.

On his way he met - Horrible Fate!

Who planned things to get him late!

A dirty plan that was really filthy -

Powerful enough to nauseate the healthy !

Stomping away on the side of the road

Backpack filled with educational load !

He failed to notice the Filthy Pit,

Or the fact that all were avoiding it !

Mind caught up in a lovely song,

Looking a up at the Church bell's gong,

He put his right leg into the hole

And staggered and swung like an empty bowl !

Weight of his bag carrying him sideways,

Made him skid to the end of the pathway

And into the ditch which was open there

That soiled him as black as a bear !

The poor little boy had no one to help!

Finally straining he got up with a yelp

And ran back to his home

Looking dirtier than a gnome!

His annoyed mother gave him a stare.

He began to cry unable to bear !

She swept him up to give him a bath

Collecting his soiled dress in a bag of cloth !

He realized it was already time

For the first hour at school - Rhyme !

Fully aware that his teacher'd call him a fool

He ran again in the direction of his school!

The little kid on the block

Looked up at the clock.

He very surely was late

'Cause of Horrible Fate!

The Teacher did not understand though.

She glared at him as if he were a foe!

Bringing out a ruler that was already breaking

She gave him a very hard spanking!

So be careful little ones

Be careful a lot!

Never walk on the roads

Fully lost in thought!

--------------the end------------

Writing for children is absolute fun!!I love writing little non-sense poems so that one day I can entertain some kid or the other with them! If you people have a kid at home try reading it out to them and get me their reactions!!! This is the first full length poem that I am putting up on my blog, hope some of you who are kids at heart still like it......

Adieu!!!!

Courtesy : Amrita ( Sis of Sharnita) for help with finding a rhyming word for "help". She was the one who suggested "yelp" among other words! Thanks dumbo!

Insane FUN....

Hiya Hiya hiya guys,

The Best things in Life happen unplanned. This Saturday, one such thing happened and its probably the best!! I had gone to my school friend Manikandan's sister's wedding in Tiruchengode along with ten other friends from school in the evening After chatting for sometime, one guy began talking about how they had gone to Yercaud from Erode late one night after the engagement of another friend's sister. Then somebody else asked "Why not go today too?" But there were apprehensions from many quarters, some thought it was boring to be going back to the same place everytime, others that we could simply watch a movie and take rest to be fresh for the Wedding the next morning!



On my part I badly wanted to go, after all it is such spontaneous moments that make life worth living! But I didn't nag the others who didn't feel like it because we were going to be using their vehicles and probably they had problems letting their vehicles travel such a long distance at night! Let me tell you here that Yercaud is 80 km from Tiruchengode and the last 30 km were on a hilly terrain. I even secretly prayed," God please make this trip materialise and in exchange you can fail me in all the four subjects for the second internals !!!"



After a lot of debating and reasoning one of my best friends Vignesh single-handedly got everyone to agree and after dinner we left. Cibi, Manoj, Kauvya Deepak and Prem were in a Honda City and Vikraman, Rajesh, Sethu, Manivannan and Vishnu were in the Dzire and Vignesh and myself got onto his R15 and were off on the Salem road at ten thirty!


I had travelled this way a number of times before as a student of Montfort with tears streaming down my eyes and now too there were tears in my eyes but only now it was because of travelling at the speed of 85 kmph on the bike!!!! I was thoroughly enjoying it - my first long distance travel in a bike and that too at night in a very fine climate. I was so excited that I didn't even mind flying one feet high into the air every time the bike negotiated a speed-breaker.


Finally we were in Salem and we came together at the foot-hills , Kauvya gave me his you-guys are-insane look but trust me Insanity is FUN! Poor thing he was the only one who didn't enjoy much I guess (at least thats what his expression told me). It was eleven thirty and we began to climb the hills.

Now, the road to Yercaud was built by the French in the nineteenth century. Since then it is only being over-laid or repaired and no new one is ever constructed in its place. The French were excellent Mathematicians and constructed a one-of-its-kind road in such a way that its slope was 1. No other hill road in this country has its slope as 1. Now what is the significance of this??? You can climb the entire twenty-hair-pin-bended hill in first gear itself without having to change gears at all!!

Of course we didn't do that now and went ahead in good speed! The view of Salem from here was breath-taking and the cool breeze on me was therapeutic. We stopped again at a bridge on the way and took a few photos and after sometime we started off again.

Now on the way all of a sudden our bike's light shone on an empty ambassador parked in the side of the road with broken glass and all and my friend shrieked and hearing that I too caught my breath only to realise that it was a vehicle that had encountered an accident. It so looked like a car out of Hitchcock's genre of films that it gave both of us the creeps. A cross on the way was the next thing to give me the creeps. But we sped on sandwiched between the two cars! The wind was colder but it was unable to dampen the spirit that was raging within me!

At the twentieth Hair-pin bend we stopped and sat on the wall and spoke for sometime and then decided to go in front of the lake and chat! It was Midnight!

We drove up there and were only talking for two minutes when three policemen came there. We didn't take any notice thinking that they'll go away but they came straight at us and asked what business we had discussing things over there at that part of the night! They took down the car numbers and the details of the car owners of the vehicles. They told us that in that same spot a guy had been stabbed on his butt a few hours ago and had been taken to the GH in a critical condition. They then let us go asking us not to stop anywhere but to go straight to where-ever we intended to go!

Our next stop was our dear school, Montfort - we stood outside her gates and looked at the newly constructed entrance and the 100 ft tower with a statue of St. Montfort on top. The school had changed so significantly since I left two years ago and that was evident from looking at the Entrance alone! I tried taking pictures but it was no use in the dark!

The journey continued from there in another direction - 20 km from Yercaud town through forests and forest-like estates is the small village of Kottachedu where a friend of ours Thenappan lived in his dad's estate - The Beverly Estates! The way was infamous for being frequented by bisons at night! Now that definitely gave me much less creeps than ghosts. The spirit of adventure took over and we rode on to the Estate.

The path was very beautiful even at night and no bisons cared to greet us on the way so we reached the estate home by 1:00 am and after some excited chatting and plans to watch a film on a laptop we all dozed off.

Getting up at 5:30 wasn't much of a problem. We got ready and started off down the hill from Kottachedu itself through another path and the way down was breath-takingly beautiful! My phone had run out of battery so forgive me for the absence of pictures! But I got you a few pictures of the estate from a friend's phone ! And the return journey in the Sun back to Tiruchengode was rather uneventful!

Yercaud is more of my first home. The only town on earth where I can find my way blind-folded. The place where I rubbed shoulders with the greatest of great teachers who inspired me! The place which moulded the way I think, reason and act! It is always a pleasure to go upto this beautiful place nicknamed poor-man's- Ooty for all the rich fun she has to offer!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this trip and would love to do it again another time.....Now as I sat back and relive this recent experience in my head "Adieu! You guys! Godspeed in whatever calling that has come your way!"

The Big Fat Trivandrum Wedding....

Hiya guys,

I actually wanted to name this post " The big fat Mallu Muslim Wedding" but fearing that some people may take unnecessary offense I chose another appropriate title for it! I knew that the day would come when I would witness the wedding of one of my classmates but never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to come this soon!

The Wedding of my batchmate, Kadhij Fathima to Dr. Mohammad Meeran took place in the very beautiful town of Trivandrum in God's Own Country! 19th of May was the actual Wedding Date but seven of us Kaarthik, Vetri, Vignesh, Balaji, Iniga, Anusha and myself got there a day i advance. The guys were booked into a hotel while the girls stayed at the bride's home!!

Before I got into describe the ceremonies let me tell you a few interesting things. Of the five of us guys who went four had never talked to Kadhij much before. Infact the first time she talked to me was when she invited me to her wedding last month. Another interesting fact which my friend pointed out was - even to our close relatives' weddings we'd go and land just in time for the ceremony but here we were a day in advance to celebrate the marriage of a friend. Well thats the power of our batch spirit, I guess !!!???

After freshening up on 18th morning a vehicle was arranged to take us to the majestic Padmanbhaswamy temple and then after a not so eventful trip to a museum we were whisked away by the same vehicle to Kadhij's home. Her dad was at the door giving us a warm welcome and he asked us to wait for five minutes so that the groom can come and the lunch would begin!!

I had to keep chanting " Selva! Be Decent! BE DECENT!" to prevent myself from vociferously reacting to the delicious smell of chicken fry and mutton gravy that was forcing its way into my nostrils! All five of us were quite restlessly waiting for the bride-groom to arrive! He came an hour later and after a quick "Hi" to him we pounced on the tables! A sweet named kinatheppam really stood out among all the dishes served.

Then we learnt that the evening there was going to be the mehendi . So we thought of making alternate plans but finally decided to return to the house after freshening up at the hotel on Kadhij's request!!!

We returned at six thirty and little were we prepared for what we saw. The tables were set with the Night's dinner and there stood Uncle asking us to have our meal. We told him that we'd have it later. Then we were shown into the house where we took a photo with Kadhij and conveyed the greetings of all the people who had wanted me to wish her. All my initial thoughts that she was too young for marriage disappeared the moment I saw her happy and cheerful and excited about her Big Day!

Then we went for a more-than-sumptuous dinner after which we witnessed a portion of the mehendi function! Unlike in the North here it was a very simple event without all the girly singing and dancing! The bride sat in her sofa while all the ladies gathered took turns to go sit next to her and keep a dot of mehendi on the leaf she held in her hand! We bid good bye to all of them and left the house.

The Wedding as such took place in "Trivandrum Club". We reached there well in advance and had a light breakfast and were treated to delicious Pista kheer!

The groom arrived and the ceremony started at around 11:30 am. The first to speak was a Mallu religious guy who shared some very interesting points on Islam and marriage. Would love to share those with you on another occasion. Then two more people gave speeches which were rather dull. Jerin sitting at my side had to point out that we were not supposed to clap to prevent me from applauding a guy after he finished his speech!

The Ceremony began - the Groom sat opposite Kadhij's father and an elder sat in between them reading out the scriptures and asking both of them to repeat. Then, it happened all to suddenly and before we knew it the wedding was over and all the men in the hall were hurrying towards the dining hall. The elder just declared that Mohammed Meeran was asking the hands of Khadij Fatima in marriage in exchange of 35 sovereigns of gold!" Both the groom and the bride's father were asked if they were willing and they both said,"Yes!" and lo! The wedding was over!!

Then Kadhij was brought out from her room and like our customs they were given a glass of milk which they were asked to share and they were asked to exchange garlands and other rather usual formalities.

Then all of us from our batch who had come to attend the wedding went up together and gave our gift and took a photo with the new Husband and Wife! Here too I proved my knack for doing things which should not be done by shaking hands with the bride, which I guess is not the etiquette in a Muslim Wedding! But I came to know of this only when Jerin pointed it out to me after we came down the stage!

Well, you guys would've guessed what would've followed next - an awesome wedding banquet!!!!

With the traditional Mutton biriyani, mutton kurma, Chicken fry et al , it was simply too good and we loaded ourselves upto for the next two days! lol :-) We concluded the lunch with delicious Vannila Ice Creams served there!

Thus ended the Wedding of the first of my batchmates! Fun in its own way! Wished all of you guys could've come, not only to share in her joy but also to share in the excitement we guys felt!

Keeping my fingers crossed about who is next in line to get married!!!!

Bye bye for now!!!

P.S : She was later sent off to Thenkaasi, the groom's town. May she have a Happy Married Life!

I Have Carved You on the Palm of my Hand. . .

Hey Phantoms,

Today I ve decided to tell you in detail about Prakriti-2010, our Inter batch culturals. You must be wondering whats with the topic of this post. Don't worry by the time you finish reading this post (If you are reading it at all) you'll understand!

Prakriti 2010 was a two day event held on the 9th and 10th of this month. On the 9th morning was the English Debate, it was supposed to begin at 8 o clock and there I was at 9 o clock prancing the auditorium waiting for one other team mate who had failed to show up - frantically making phone calls to trace her whereabouts. Finally Aishu showed up! We ran up to pick our lot and get the topic for the preliminary round and divide our own team into two and debate on the given topic. Our topic was ," Should same sex marriages be legalised? " I almost fainted! But still we sat down and prepared and with Rats and me on opposite sides we cleared it easily as it was going on just like how we fight in class - it was so much fun.

Then came the finals, we had to debate with Divya Swathi akka and team, the topic -" Borderless Worlds - Dream or Reality?" We were given Reality. Again we sat and prepared and did it. Although our inner feeling was we didn't give it our best, my personal feeling was Rats, Varna, Aishu had done very well. As soon as it was over I ran away from the place as I couldn't take the tension of waiting for the results -as I was walking to the canteen I heard a huge scream from behind and I knew we had won! But I didn't go back, I went to the canteen with Amrita, who had come and got ourselves something and then I slowly returned!

The next was Mockpress. My topic - Ketan Desai- I withdrew- Our class guys won all the top three prizes!

Our batch folks won almost all the off stage events.

One competition in which I was really impressed with our guys' performance was big bore - Sanjoo, Ramya Devi , Arivoli and Bhanu had me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off with their paatu class!!!

Solo Singing went off well and Raj won it as expected!

Then came Tamil poetry, I was initially scared if I could still write at all in Tamil as I had never written anything in the past one year but I was glad I could and finished both my Haiku and long poem in fifteen minutes!

JAM in the afternoon was my ultimate trial - I sat as a mere spectator to the event on stage!

Then Keena, Keerthi and I went on-stage for the Tamil Dumb-C and what awesome fun we had. We had gone up there to have fun and thats exactly what we had! We walked down with the third prize!

Then evening came and I geared up for my first Western performance - It was a debacle as we couldn't even achieve co-ordination as the music was started without intimating us. But since only two teams participated we got the second place. 2k7 had hired choreographers for a handsome sum of money and we stood no chance against them with just a day of practice but still everyone praised us for our attempt and we were the proud runners up!

Orchestra followed I compered for it, with a lot of glitches and lack of spontaneity I came off ok! But the performance by the guys was mind-blowing and rightly they got the first prize! Raj, Rashmi , Suganth, Pranesh, Rajeev and Jerin were in their elements. I thoroughly enjoyed it all!That brought the day to a close!

The next day dawned and I was super-excited as we were having Tamil debate as the first thing in the morning! Our team had Shaikh, Keena and Sanjoo along with me. We were definitely stronger and were sure to win it but the topic spoiled it for us - we had to talk against making Tamil compulsory in primary education! The Stupid Judges had come with a pre-written judgement that we would take the second prize! Felt totally pissed and wanted to go and question the judges but Shanta ma'am called and consoled saying that the topic was the problem and next year onwards they'd try and give non-political topics!

Was totally upset the entire day! But I performed well in the Adzap for which our team got second. I didn't want to write the English poetry but still attempted it and finished in ten minutes! Our guys had started cooking for the Cooking Competition and I had a fun time tasting all the dishes and then devouring them after the judges had gone - personally loved Changa's Sur puttu, Ratna's Biriyani, Yogi's prawns and Sharni's Cashew chicken was ok!!!! Our batch swept the prizes!

I still felt totally off from the debate debacle and refused Navin Raja's persuason to get me to participate in ship wreck. Then got news that I won the Third place in both Tamil poetry(haiku) and english poetry!

The evening was much more fun! I enjoyed doing the role of Kaataamai a spoof on Naataamai for the variety show for which we won the first place!

The Fashion Show was good inspite of a lot of technical problems but we had to settle for the second place!

The Ultimate event was the Indian Dance which we did extremely well and I was literally screaming and yelling on stage when it was over. It had gone on very well and People we won the first prize. As my friend pointed out I was involved in winning the first and the last event of Prakriti - 2010 and I was proud of that fact!

But still I was upset over the Debate and was constantly quarreling with God that ha had forgotten me and that he did not care for me and all that! I was feeling totally worthless. That was when Sathish sir announced that there was a prize for the person who was involved in winning the most number of competitions and I was numbed when he read out " Selva Saravanan". The prize was titled " Most Valuable Performer" - where did all that feeling of worthlessness disappear at that instant???

Standing on the stage that night, with the entire college applauding and my friends all chanting my name I just remembered the following words from the Bible which my sister had once quoted to me :

"See!

I have not forgotten you!

I have carved you on the palm of my hand!" - Isiah 49:15

Felt so ashamed for questioning the wisdom of my Father, my Creator, the One who takes all the trouble to keep telling me in his own unique ways that he is always there by my side and that he always cares!

Now, why did I share all that with you? Definitely not to boast about my spirituality. It is because I know that in Life all of us are bound to go through the phase of loneliness where we feel that no one cares about us. In those times, dear Phantoms, please remember the above lines and you'll feel much better in no time! Thats the reason why I kept the topic of this post as " I have carved you on the palm of my hands..."

Ta dear phantoms till I meet you again with another interesting but shorter post!

Take Care till then!

May the good Lord be with all of you, always!!!!

One Large Happy Family

Hi Phantoms,




I had a long hiatus from the world of blogging as I was caught up with our Interbatch culturals and the Intercollegiate held in our college. I ve been having a whale of a time and simultaneously discovering new things about myself and people - all in the good sense. Tell you about it ??? I sure will but not in this post! In this post I will be talking only about the practice sessions that preceeded the culturals. So here it goes!


The practice for the group events started two weeks in advance and I was in the Indian dance which was very ably led by Mahesh! And obviously I was the one playing the fool around for most of the first week. Thinking of how I used to irritate Mahesh just to get on his nerves makes me flash my evil smile even now! But second week onward by popular demand I went back to my serious mode! I was actually very happy to be dancing with my chechi in the Dhandiya part of a dance sequence which also featured Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Gujarati folk and a latest Tamil Kuthu !


Here I have to let you know that Mahesh, although a very sweet person has such a short-temper! Now who can sit idle when you have such information at your hands. So Vetri and I would take turns to irritate him! Be it in asking him to teach simple steps again and again till he gives his trade mark stare or purposely making mistakes in between both of us did all it took to get on his nerves. The others would often join in the irritating by disappearing during practice or turning up late! Man, all that was so much fun and I am missing all those days!


I was the pessimist of the group! Our seniors had hired choreographers for 10,000 bucks and I was sure that they'd win the dance events! So everytime some one asked me to be serious or work harder I would say," For the second prize this much is enough"! That much was sure as only two teams were going to compete and I was sure we will be the proud runners up. But it turned out to be much different which I'll share in my next post!


It had all the ingredients of a big family event with a huge number of people involved and all those small fights that are bound to happen. All that while I was having a whale of a time! Getting to know people I would otherwise have not many chances of talking to was fun. Jealousy, Joy, Throwing my weight around, fun, frolic, pessimism - everything about those days of practice was fun!


But this thought of "one big family" came later on when both the Indian dance and the fashion show teams were on stage together two days before the start of the Inter batch culturals! ( How clearly I remember that evening with all of us crammed in on the stage with the curtains drawn in for privacy's sake) Watching each of the fashion show pairs walk up the ramp and do their acts was exhilrating. And then together applauding and shouting and cheering for each thing well done was even more fun. It is definitely fun to watch the people you know so well do different things and discovering their strengths and weaknesses. All this is much more fun than you can possibly think trust me.

It brought us all much more closer! Above all, it brought out how much we as a batch care for each other!!!


So Prakriti- 2010 and Utsav 2010 were fun but more was the practice sessions and all the behind the scenes galatta that preceeded it.

Good Night folks be with you soon!

The Bicycle Thieves

Hi guys,




Just watched the old Italian film, The Bicycle Thieves which is supposed to have inspired Satyajit Ray and is touted to be the Seventh best film ever made! Whoa! It was so poignant and very realisitic! To think this film was made in 1948 is truly astounding !!!

It is about a poor guy in a employment less Italy who finds a job as a poster-sticker for which a bicycle is essential! By selling of the linen sheets the family owns he gets back his bicycle which he had pawned to feed his family only to lose it again to a street theft(filmed very nicely) on his first day at work!

He and his little son begin a futile search for his lost bicycle and they get so close to catching the theif but the fellow escapes! Saddened the protagonist turns thief and is caught when stealing a bicycle and is bashed up in front of his son. The owner of the cycle lets him go for the sake of his son!

The film showcases the plight of the post-war under employed Italy and the struggles of the poor! It also gives insight into the people's belief in clairvoyant seers and how at times of tribulation even the sensible people are made to turn to it for help! It shows the fantastic father-son bonding between the protagonist and son, their petty fights and how the father tries to make up for it and their trip to a little restaurant amidst all the ado! Its really cute to see the kid struggling with his bread containing sticky mozarella cheese!

The little kid's cute and brilliant acting shines throughout the film. The rest of the cast too have delivered fantastic performances which is way too realistic considering the film scene of the 1940s!


Watch it and do let me know what you guys think!!!!