Piccolo Posts

One of the very first essays that we write at schools is ‘My Home’ - back then, I pondered on what is the difference between a home and a house.  I have many friends who have left their homes at a tender age to pursue better education; to get a job or for a healthier standard of living than their primary locations. Some keep moving throughout the country because their parents have jobs which require them to get transferred periodically. I never realized what it meant to be away from home till I got a chance to stay outside home for about two months in Kerala on a work assignment. It is tough to adapt to a new place away from the comforts of our home and its locality. A new place means finding a new vegetable market, a new doctor, the nearest bus stop, an ATM,  a new barber, a new cablewala, doodhwala, kiranawala, laundrywala and also finding new friends. I consider myself fortunate that the working hours would not last beyond 7 -7.30 pm – a general Kochi day will ...

We were here! Even on that rock. On a beautiful Saturday morning, it was time to board that flight to Delhi which would mark the start of a nine day full of a breath-taking experience. For me, there were many things on this trip that would be my debut; travelling through the clouds * , walking on the ice clad mountains,  trekking to heights as huge as 15000 feet,  seeing my own breath coming out as vapours in those cold nights and walking close to a 100 km in a 5 day span. * travelling through the clouds is an over-excited first timer’s representation of boarding a plane. Day 1: Potholes In The Air ! On the 18 th   of July, 2015, at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport’s Domestic terminal in Mumbai, the most happy and excited soul was probably mine. I was enjoying it all; collecting the boarding pass, security checks, and specially the boarding. When the plane left the ground; I could see the jam packed roads, the bandra-worli sea link,...

Someone someday said and has said it spot-on that having a smartphone does not necessarily make you smart. Your phone is smart and you have to use it smartly. It all depends on how you spend time with your phone; how many nitty-gritty details you get into or how many hours can you play Candy Crush continuously. Using the smartphone effectively is more about cleaning the app cache for Candy Crush than playing Candy Crush because if you concentrate only on the latter then your phone is going to crush someday. It will lag. Just like your bike needs servicing to keep kicking the roads, your phone also needs servicing– cleaning app cache, system cache, residual, files, unused files will help your processor get more breathing space. Killing unused app processes will keep your RAM free. When these two #technocrats are happy, your phone is happy. Take care of your phone. Phones today are loaded with so many features that life has become so much easier. Everything is a touch away. Book ...

Jab We Met is a poetry. The metaphor is that the train symbolises the way of life. There are two passengers, two ways of life and the movie is of two halves. In the first half, we fall in love with Geet, who is a bubbly, young, carefree girl trying to live life as it comes by following her heart. Everything works fine for her that way, till the beginning of the second half.  Aditya is depressed with his life; he does not know what he is seeking but the moment he understands Geet and her world, he gets his answer - C'est La Vie. The second half makes life easier for Aditya who learned to live life to the fullest from Geet. Taking decisions at his family business by following his heart makes his company witness success that it had never seen before. The movie has a connect and the connector is Geet. She is so full of life that after the first half, I wished that their journey from Mumbai to Bhatinda had a little more show time. There is a sweet scene in the second half ...

Mahabali at our Hotel Kerala celebrated its state festival Onam last week. It is celebrated over period of ten days. I was always indifferent abut this festival until I landed here during the festive season. It is believed that King Mahabali or Maveli as the malayalees say, visits them during Onam every year. Mahabali is an asura king who is good; the only bad thing in him marks Vishnu's fifth avatar - Vamana. The people under the good king's rule were happy and prosperous. The king soon developed an ego that he had everything he wished in the world.  The king had kept a yadnya where he promised that he would grant anyone with anything he asked for. Legend has it that Lord Vishnu in his Vamana avatar asked King Mahabali for three pieces of land equal to his feet. As soon as the king granted his wish, Vamana grew into the skies, kept one foot on the entire heaven; the other on the entire earth. When Vamana asked, where should he keep his foot for the third piece of land...

Two weeks after staying at a hotel with complimentary wifi and breakfast at M.G.Road in Kochi, I learned that every motorized vehicle here is a prospective killer. In these super small lanes, the vehicles go super fast. I have a new phobia now of crossing roads beacuse you never know which vehicle decides to surprise you. Even the government buses; they do not run, they fly. When I first saw a KSRTC bus, I noticed that there are only open windows; no glasses. Later when I boarded the bus to go to Allepey, I got to know that there are shutters inside the windows. There are no glass windows probably because of the heavy rains; the shutter type windows are easy to move up and down and need less maintenance. The big M.G.Road earlier known as the Seventy Feet road is reduced to half its size due to the Metro;  "work in progress". But the size of the roads do not matter here — everyone likes to go zooooom. KSRTC Buses:   Source Unlike Mumbai where people always run —afte...

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. They say it right – I agree with them and Mr. Sajan Fernandes too will agree with them. But Mr. Fernandes has nobody who will want to reach his heart through his stomach. He eats alone; travels alone; works alone and stays alone. He unintentionally glances out at his saamne wali khidki every night after eating home delivered food while he smokes a cigarette from his balcony. That family dines together every night with children running here and there; loud discussions and noise all over. There is a small girl who notices Mr. Fernandes and closes windows. Mr. Fernandes’ house is exactly opposite of them – yes literally too. Meri Ammi hamesha kaha karti thi ke kabhi kabhi galat train bhi sahi jaga pohocha deti hai, says Sheikh who has been newly recruited to replace Mr. Fernandes who Is about to retire in a month. When Mr. Fernandes gets a delicious  dabba one fine day, he goes and praises the hotel guy who...