internet Archives - Kavi Arasu

Rants & pictures !

They don’t call it Gods own country for no reason. It provided some wonderful opportunities for playing with light and the camera. Here are some snaps from a Kerela trip that happened some time back.

Just as the snaps load up on your screen : My MTNL internet connection is woeful at home choosing to go on strike on a whim. I am hastily pushing through this post, when it has chosen to show me that it ideed can work at top speed and this months bill will include charges for internet !

To compliment that, to blog on such esoteric topics from the workplace, well, err, is not allowed. So, please people, put up with my silence.

In the meantime, I continue to shout out into the world through the twitter accounts and I don’t have a modicum of memory of what all I have shouted out to the world. The chief twitter account I use is @KavisMusings . Well, that’s a subject for another time.

For now, here are the pictures.

Silhouettes have fascinated me since the time I knew they were called ‘silhouettes’. I used to hate the spelling but quite liked the way the word is pronounced. With a twang that has almost an Italian connection !

All these snaps were taken at places somewhere around Kottayam. ‘Panchali Medu‘ is one such. I don’t raise an eyebrow everytime we go far off, deep inside Maharashtra or down into Kerela where there is folklore around the exiled Pandava brothers with Draupadi in tow having lived there for a while. Panchali as Draupadi is better known in the south, has this hill named after her.

She is supposed to have taken bath in the local pond etc etc, details which I omit writing on, and leaving your imagination to do its work.

The modern day ‘medu’ (RTT : raised plateau) has 14 crosses. I wont tell you why. For I don’t know myself. I only know that the place has an extravagance of ‘awesome’. There is an endless breeze, a feast of green for the eye. The clouds rolling over your head and tease you to reach and touch them if you can.

Off Kuttikanum is another green zone : Wagamon. Sometimes spelt with a ‘V’ instead of a W. Whatever, it is , It doesn’t alter green beauty. Green as in GREEN. Meadows. Plateaus. Hills. Throw in some mist. Some people who are ever willing to help. Water bodies that tempt. Well, in sometime, you could have romance brewing in the air.

Value for money romance. For the place is relatively unexplored ! Some unconfirmed news has it that Wagamon is called the ‘Scotland of Asia’. I haven’t seen Scotland. But I can go as far as I can and tell you, Wagamon is a lovely place to go to.

If any of those didn’t get you excited enough to pack your bags and include Kerela a big mindshare for your next travel, here is something that will do the trick. I ooze confidence in stating this.

Chips. Slices of a particular type of plantains. “Plantains” was to give the humble ‘banana’ a twang of fancy. Nevertheless, slices, deep fried in authentic coconut oil. You just cant stop with one or two for that matter. Two minutes on the lips and a lifetime on the hips. For sure.

But those two minutes they are on the lips, they give you a lifetime of yearning for the next time you will head to Kerela !

Earliers posts on the same trip are here, here, here and here !

In public interest !

Pirates. Robbers. Thugs. Mafia dons. Hoodlums. For a normal person, these words would get the adrenalin ready to flow. Either in flight or fight. Movies over the years have heaped on us villainy in such abundance that even the nicest guy in town can be the subject of an average mind’s serious investigation, because of a shuffle of feet or a lurking look!

Whats caused this recollections of the criminal kind.

There was a mail from the Income Tax department which let me know that I was eligible to a tax refund of Rs.40,135/-. Now, the amount, a mail coming in from the IT department and all of that, should have relegated the issue to the status of ‘get real and move on in life’!

But.

Rs.40135/- was a mouthwatering amount. The scenario outlined was so plausible. ‘typing in a letter A instead of G makes your incorrect..’ and that seemed tailor made for types like me. Types that perpetually are in a race to outdo themselves in such stuff. The mail harmlessly had a ‘click here’ sweet spot. Before the mind could say t-h-i-n-k , the finger went ‘click click’ as an embodiment of ‘reflex action’ !

Which lead me to this incredible looking website. Having much congruence to the Income Tax season and innocuously asking me the detail of the bank the refund request must be send to. Before you could say j-i-f-f-y, my fingers were on overdrive, I came face to face with the HDFC login page.

The allure of getting what rightfully belonged to me ( a tax refund is about money that belonged to me), saw some ferocious typing ! The keyboard resonating with spirit ! Midway through, reason reappeared. The fingers paused.

“Immobiliere-guessous.com/image/smilies/…..” instead of the usual ‘netbanking’ URL caught my eye. Doubt crept in. The fingers went off the key board as though they were fraught with hot oil ! Realisation dawned that another fluttering presses of a few more keys, I could have been swiped clean of whatever small sums that honour the bank account with their muted presence!

In a short while, colleagues confirmed that it was what they called a phishing attack.

There I sat. With relief plastered all over my face. Realising that I was almost mugged. By someone sitting perhaps languidly infront of a computer screen somewhere ! I was almost mugged by someone who didnt resemble the hoodlum with yellow pants, villainous laugh and a Tata Sumo powered battery of thugs like they show on Tamil movies!

This must have been some wise guy who thought I would cough up my customer ID and password, promising the unthinkable. He sure is a wise guy. Atleast half of one. He almost got me!

So, my bank account remains safe. Atleast so far. Life goes on.

On another note, a dear friend asked me what was the closest that I came to blogging in the ‘interest of the general public’. ‘Socially Responsible blogging’ he emphasised. Almost as an afterthought, he added that he had read several of my posts and made particular mention of “ ‘loo contraptions’ & such other posts of eminence’.

Well, sir, this post is inspired by our conversation. ! In public interest.

On that note people. Beware ! There are many that lurk the net !