iamninoy

Fish curry

2009-05-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing that a mallu syrian christian is pre programmed to do before even being conceived, is to eat fish.I was pretty lucky to be born to a mom who was from Alleppy (which is on the coast, for my geographically challenged friends), and so my childhood pretty much "swam" past with huge thulpings of sea food. Thanks to my mom's mom: the lady would cook almost anything that swam for me - Shell fish, shell-less fish, freshwater, saltwater, water, caught, bred, to be scaled, to be cut, all kinds of stuff

IIT was a royal betrayal, in all the multiple senses of the word. Like Achned the dead terrorist, I was promised virgins to be found after I had blown myself up in the JEE, but well, lets just say,there were virgins but not of the gender I'd care for. But THAT I could live with. What I could not was that the bloody institute was practically veg.

How stupid could that be? Chennai is supposed to be on the coast! There should be some fish to be found some where! My mom was close to tears after she had my mess food on the day she left me at the hands of RR Caterers. Almost felt like she was leaving to prison food. Frickin Sambar. Pee-some Rasam. And to top it all, no fish.
HOW I survived four years there, I shall never know. Perhaps discovering Besant nagar beach's fish fry stalls helped. SO what if I was toilet-ridden for a week? I had fish.

Apparently there is no end to shocks in this world. I asked my girl friend whether she knew to cook fish. She said No. I dumped her sorry ass. Now I was alarmed. What if none in the new generation of females knew how to cook fish? I started calling up my female friends one by one. No. No. No.No. Bloody Hell.

Depressed, I went back to the Mommy. "Amma ... I checked. No girl knows to cook fish. I am screwed in life"

Then she said some thing that proved to me why generations of daughters in law dreaded their mothers in law. She smiled, that wicked smile that she reserves for announcing the cruelest of her intentions.
"Dont worry. I will TEACH her"

All the best, future Mrs. NInoy

My Mom's Hayabusa

2008-10-14T02:04:00.000-07:00

My mom was the only person in my family to have cleared a driving license test without resorting to the 'finer' ways of getting things done. That's kinda amazing, because she is reasonably famous for throwing the SBT tag here and there for getting almost any stuff done (Think it doesn't work? We live in tough times, my friend). But the driving license, she was adamant to get herself, and without Dad's ex-students or her Bank-contis. The first step was clearing the "Learner's Test". You've seen your mothers 'study'?? Its a sight! Three nights of " to turn right, rotate your hands in the clockwise direction" and " dim your light" and " if you want to overtake, wink" .
She managed her learners', in spite of my 'wink' advice.

Then she took to the wheel. OMG. Educative, to the core. I never had such a period of intense learning in abuses before in my life, which lightened the work that my seniors had to do when I got to IIT. Whatever the truck drivers whose patience wore like the rubber on their tyres could not teach, my exasperated dad, sitting in the Co- Pilot's seat imparted. Anyways, after the road test at the end of which the examiner cried out " slow down" when mom sped at 70 kmph on Aleppy Changanachery Road , she got her license.

Then she did what any true Kerala Mom did. She ditched the piece of paper.

Maybe we were not encouraging enough. Could be. But you have to understand.. you just have one car, which your dad agreed to buy after lots of nagging, and it DOES NOT feel nice when some woman takes it for a drive and slams it into a parked road roller (HOW she managed it, we still have no clue)

So she was back to Maria Travels to take her home to bank to home, when one day, her brother's wife bought a Sunny.

The green eyed monster came as the Sari clad relative when she laughed at the idea of my mom driving one. Woman scorned? What can my poor dad do against wrath that even Hell knows not
We got a sunny.

Awesome. Almost as good as a Hayabusa. 0-50 in 3 minutes ; Max speed: 50 kmph ( 57 once when I accelerated fully at a downward slope, but then it made some shuddering noise, and kinda had smoke coming out of it. She never let me touch it again)

Anyhow, for the first time in years, she was free. Couldn't manage the raised slope to the road from my house, one of us had to do it for her, but then once we had started it and handed over the handle bar , she was pretty much independent. Still has to pick up a few things, like moving her head while driving from the straight-line-posture , or going at any speed higher than 30, but she's doing fine.

My mom never knew cycling. The closest she got to a driving seat in a cycle/scooter/bike was behind one of her bros or my dad. But once she bought the Hayabusa: she asked her younger bro to take her to the Municipal Stadium on a sunday. Spent the day there: Kicking, falling, rolling, panting, yelling, walking, diving... but at the end of the day, she drove the darn thing home.

Thats my mother for you.

I am Ninoy

2008-09-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

It might seem completely egoistic to come up with a blog titled after one's own name. On the face of it, it is. Certain things, like self love, are best kept below folds within one self where it can mature into the life long romance some one promised.

But in this case it is not. Yours truly was trying to fill that unforgiving minute with another round of random Google searches, when, like comrades else where on the planet, he keyed in his name. Viola! There comes a site named after him : IAMNINOY Never mind it is actually dedicated to an assassinated Filipino could-have-been-a-president, husband of some one who later-became-a-president, the idea of having an actual site on cyberspace asking the world to find the ninoy within, well, is absolutely amusing.

So here am I, heir to the throne of the slain, the one on whom a url was thrust upon, the one dude who can actually say, I AM Ninoy