Parts Known : #4 The Mountains are Calling

“If the gods lived somewhere, it’s probably here.”

Mt.Nyiragongo: Getty Images

Debris from airplane crashes, a border-crossing with armed guards, roads that are in such an enigmatic state making you wonder whether they were roads of the past, or of the future — these are some things that make up the boundaries of Goma, a small city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a stone’s throw away from Rwanda.

None of its boundaries are as interesting as the one in the North of Goma. A lava lake on its foothills, billowing smoke and fire to let everyone know that it’s still active, Mt. Nyiragongo stands oblivious to what’s happening around it. Wars, UN intervention, airplane raids, raids by local militia — Nyiragongo has seen it all. What are we humans, but fleeting glimpses, in the lives of the mountains? The people of Goma, who are no strangers to gunshots, and the sight of army tanks, have lived through multiple eruptions of this volcano; the most recent of which was in 1977. Look 9000 miles to the west, and in the relative comforts of the Pacific Northwest, living among people who look at gunshots and army tanks through a tinted glass, you can find a calm and composed Mt. Rainier.

Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lakes, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington.

On a good day, by which I mean on a day when the clouds are forgiving, you can see Mt. Rainier from most places in Seattle. When I first moved to Seattle for the summer in 2015, Mt. Rainier was the first thing I saw of Washington. Visible from the windows of my airplane, it was as if the mountain was calling out to me — “come see what you’ve been missing.”

In the year and half since, I’ve visited the park a dozen times, I’ve looked at the mountain over a hundred times with an ever increasing admiration. I also moved to Seattle for good.

Rainier invades your life. If you’re in Seattle or the vicinity, it is always on your mind; like the girl you have a crush on, wearing different shades, showing just how many things about Rainier are beautiful. Are you taking a walk to Kerry Park at sunset? Rainier is right there, purple and pink competing with the Space Needle, asking you “watchu lookin’ at?” You avoid Kerry Park, and go to Olympic Sculpture Park instead? Rainier is right there, donning a brilliant shade of red-orange, slowly turning into pink as the sun sets. After having moved downtown, I can’t even look out my window without seeing Rainier blush at sunset.

I’m not letting this apartment go.

There are articles every few months warning people that Rainier might erupt any year now and the entire west coast seems to be in a constant state of earthquake paranoia. Setting all these aside, one cannot help but enjoy the mountains at every opportunity.

A sense of calm fills you when its just you and the mountain, with the snow silencing every sound there is. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

It isn’t just Rainier. My favorite hike this season was in Mt. Baker when I went snowshoeing all by myself — a foolish idea in retrospect. The weather was projected to get worse but I’d driven for four hours nearly all the way to the Canadian border up north. I wasn’t going to go back without doing the 2 hour hike. I was on the slopes of Baker but I couldn’t see the mountain. That was the state of visibility on the day. However, I did manage to climb as far as I could. Only now, descending was a problem. The snowshoe trail isn’t a maintained trail in the Mt. Baker area. It is backcountry and the trail is essentially you following the footprints of the person who went ahead of you.

Visibility wasn’t the best. The trees provided enough contrast to help stop me from walking in circles. Artist Point at Mt. Baker, Washington.

A blizzard had started, and there was no trail thanks to snow filling up at a pace faster than people were making footprints. It was an amusing 45 minute detour where I was following what I thought were footprints of people, dogs, and the occasional dog poop. There were points at which I was thankful for having brought hiking poles with me because I was stuck in snow that was well above my knee. I’m not tall but I’m not short either. Let’s just say that you couldn’t have guessed whether or not I had my pants on. I was wading through a good 2–3 feet of snow, and I managed to keep myself distracted from the reality which was that I was lost. It was quite a while before which I could spot the ski trails that were close by, and I managed to descend without taking my eyes off the ski trails. It was silly, what I did, but now I have a story to tell.

“The mountains are calling, and I must go”— John Muir. Artist Point at Mt. Baker, Washington.

When you’re up there, you don’t think about the small things — that looming deadline or the student loan, that break up or the identity crisis, taxes or the fact that you should take out the trash when you get home — you’re one with the mountain and it calms you down. The mountains are there to tell you that they’ve seen it all and no problem is new or one of a kind. The mountains are there to tell you it’s going to be alright, and it doesn’t matter even if it isn’t. They’re there to tell you to live in the moment and become one with it.

Mountains as far as the eye can see. Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington.

It was the 4th of July 2016. As the entire nation was preparing to light the sky on fire with beautiful pyrotechnics, several thousand people across the country were preparing to be propelled from wherever they wanted to be, to wherever they had to be the next day — from family, a friend, a loved one’s arms, to work, school, a different family. The long weekend had come to an end.

It was Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Outside security checkpoint-2. I was among the several hundreds giving and receiving hugs, kissing amidst tears. Goodbyes are hard. I remember standing there, till I was doubly sure my hand wave was no longer visible; walking back slowly, trying to capture every detail of this moment. I was turning back every couple of seconds as if someone from the airline would come out and say “we’re not flying today, go spend time with the people you love” and I can go back to where I was, just a few moments back. Goodbyes are hard.

The next time a goodbye was that hard, the next time I walked backwards without being able to take my eyes off the moment, was when I watched the sun set over the mountains at Mount Rainier National Park, almost four months later, in October. This time, there were no tears.

How is it that everything that’s dangerous is also so beautiful?

Parts Known : #3 Cross Country Trains

At my philosophical best, I sometimes find myself asserting that the best way to experience a country is through rains and trains.

Back in the Winter of 2014, which was my first proper break after moving to the United States, I was looking up things to do and places to see. I learnt about the California-Zephyr Express which connects Emeryville, a tiny city across the bridge to the east of San Francisco, with Chicago. I thought to myself I should certainly take that train. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible right then as I was a broke student in Arizona who really didn’t have a reason to go to Chicago.

The route taken by the California-Zephyr.

After two years, in 2016, I figured this would be a great graduation present to myself so I decided to take the train from Chicago to Emeryville. By that time, a good friend had moved to Chicago as a result which I had ample reason to visit Chicago. It is one of the best decisions I made this year.

Just a short while after pulling out of the Union Station in Chicago -- Leland, Illinois.

There’s no assigned seating hence I was pretty anxious about finding a good window seat since I’d been looking forward to this journey for close to two years. Fortunately, not a lot of people got on at the Union Station in Chicago and I was able to find myself a good seat. Everything about this was just perfect. It was only going to get better. And it did.

For the first couple of hours there wasn’t much to do besides reading or listening to music. All that was visible through the windows was the steep gradient between the cities of the country and the rest of it. Houses no longer looked all the same, most had backyards and a driveway. Space was taken for granted which is a luxury elsewhere, especially in cities like Chicago and where I was headed towards, San Francisco.

And that’s how we crossed into Iowa from Illinois.

The first noticeable thing to catch my eye was when the train crossed into Iowa from Illinois across the Mississippi river. That was my very first sighting of this magnificent body of water. It was the first time I was crossing a state via a water border. It was a day for a lot of firsts, just like what this paragraph has turned into. I think it’s best if I let the photos do the talking.

The mighty Mississippi between Gulf Port - Illinois, and Burlington - Iowa

A town by name of Mt. Pleasant in Iowa. I think the name does complete justice.

After Iowa, Nebraska was a whisk. The train reached Lincoln, NE in the middle of the night and all I saw of Nebraska was the stadium of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Then we move to Colorado in the morning. Oh, Colorado, the place that breaks my heart. I can’t speak enough for and about Colorado. Although there’s a personal reason behind me falling in love with Colorado, every bit of it is justified. It makes me sad and happy at the same time whenever I think of the fact that I haven’t seen enough of Colorado, yet. Every time I see pictures of Colorado, read about it, or hear people talk about it, I have a lump in my throat. It is one of melancholy, that which you feel only when you miss someone. Colorado is as good a part of me as my arm or leg is. It made me appreciate beauty, miss places, miss people. Whenever I think of Colorado I am flooded with emotions — I’ve laughed till there were tears, I’ve cried my heart out, I’ve said goodbyes, far too many. It is almost as if I’d spent lifetimes there. Oh, Colorado.

What summer? That’s what I love about Colorado. It is always Fall in Colorado. At least in my heart, it always is Fall in Colorado.

Even the train stations are so pretty I could cry.

Tracing the route of the Colorado River. Am I allowed to have a favorite river?

What did I say about trains and rains? — Kremmling, Colorado.

A tiny stretch of the Colorado River near Bond, CO called the Moon River. It was fun to learn the story behind the name. As any naive tourist would, I assumed that this had something to do with the celestial body. Funnily, the name was given to this portion of the river because rafters along the river address the California-Zephyr with what’s appropriately called the Moon Salute. It is exactly what you think it is — pants are lowered and 5 second anatomy lessons are taught. By the time the guide aboard the train finished explaining the reason behind the name, those aboard did not need any further explanations as the rafters were visible at that point.

Rafters on the Moon River. I was so enthralled when it actually happened that I couldn’t really catch anyone ‘in the act’.

The train was leaving Colorado for Utah. We weren’t losing sight of the Colorado River (we won’t for a very long time). Colors to canyon lands, I was saying goodbye to Colorado yet again.

Did I mention this place has the most beautiful everything? — Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

It was as if the clouds were trying so hard not to break into tears till I left — somewhere along the Colorado-Utah border.

Nevada was a vast stretch of barren lands.

And of course, the Colorado River was twisting and turning, but relentlessly following us (Or were we the ones following it?).

It started to get sunny was the train was moving into California. Before the train moved into civilization though, was Donner Pass which had water, greens, mountains, and snow all at once place. The train goes around the mountains, and there you see a reservoir. It is a pretty sight. But the stories about the place aren’t as pretty as the place seems. The place is named after a group (Donner Party) which en route to California on a train was stuck due to a snowstorm around these parts. The story is that they had to resort to Cannibalism to survive.

Donner Pass, California.

Thus came my 52-hour solo journey to an end. I made a friend in my co-passenger who was a Swedish exchange student to Canada visiting the United States as a tourist. I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the train with a different set of people every day. It has been the most unique experience of my life till date. I had wonderful conversations with a ski instructor (who was the quickest to eat her lunch as she was scared of her luggage being stolen!), a professional poker player (he totally reminded me of New Zealand cricketer Ross Taylor), and a delightful couple from England who had retired and were traveling full time.

There are several more trains in America that I plan to take over the course of my life here, but the California-Zephyr will always remain close to my heart. Life has been so different and full of surprises ever since, but nothing quite as vivid and rich as the train journey. I moved to Seattle two days later. What did I say about rains? :)

Parts Known : #2 Pacific Blues

Summer had arrived in Washington. In Summer everything’s brighter and colors stand out, people are more cheerful than usual, sometimes overwhelmingly so. There is usually two weeks in July when the heat goes up just a notch and people start scrambling for portable air-conditioners. Coming from Arizona, I can’t help but roll my eyes. That aside, July is when people get ready for fireworks, freedom, and the most anticipated long weekend. When the mainland was preparing for bright lights and drunken nights, I packed my bags and headed towards spotty mobile connectivity, no light pollution, and 23 hours of daylight.

This pitcher of cream spilled over mountain tops is what you see just before you land in Anchorage, Alaska.

You have to see it to believe that it is possible for a place to be as bright as day past 10 pm in the night. The picture above was taken just before I landed around 10 pm in the Anchorage airport. It is these little things that keep a sense of wonder in you alive. I would even go as far as to say, it is these little things that keep you alive. To bring us back to reality, we ended the night with surprisingly decent pizza from a place which doubled as both the living room of a house and a pizza kitchen.

Grizzlies in Denali, Alaska. This is how far they’d gotten after which I didn’t really remember to take pictures.

It is easy to forget just how large Alaska is. There are two places where you can base your travels in — Anchorage, and Fairbanks. Unless you’re spending the better part of the week seeing places and taking in as much of the experience as possible, it is wise to decide on a handful of things to do. My top N favorite things about America are all National Parks. So, my first recommendation if you visit Alaska would be to go to Denali National Park. Your life is never the same after you watch a mama bear and her cubs cross the road as you wait inside a bus.

If you can’t drive up inside the park, the best option is to take the park tour in a bus. The roundtrip is close to 8 hours, you’re spent by the end of it, but the experience is like no other. I got to spot grizzlies (cubs!), a peregrine falcon, a bald eagle, moose, elk, and wild squirrels. I’d been to the zoo only a couple of times as a kid, and most of what I remember are all memories that are half made up in my mind. To see all these animals walk about and be themselves in their natural habitat was such a precious opportunity. 8 hours pass by without you really noticing as there’s fantastic narration, animal spotting, and the scenery makes up for it when you’re not spotting animals. The drive back to the hotel was a blur but I didn’t fail to notice (and continue to wonder) that the sunset close to midnight and in an hour it’s back up again!

Climbing on ice at Matanuska Glacier, Alaska. Humans for scale.

After having read about glaciers and icebergs, it was time to actually see one of those things. Matanuska Glacier is one of the larger, accessible glaciers that’s a couple of hours drive away from Anchorage. At the time I hadn’t seen a glacier in my life yet. So, whenever someone mentioned glacier, I imagined a large block of ice and didn’t really give it a second thought. It was pretty fascinating when I realized I could walk on it, that it had small pockets of water within it which were like tiny lakes within the glacier, and that there are small mounds of ice on it which were little peaks that I could climb (albeit being woefully unprepared for walking on ice, let alone climbing).

The day after was one with more glaciers. There’s a cruise called the eleven glacier cruise, which is approximately a 4 hour round trip, that takes you up close to several glaciers in the Prince William Sound region. Seals, Otters, and if you’re lucky a bald eagle sighting, and an Orca jumping out to catch a breath are all bonus elements (No Orca pictures here as I was busy thanking my stars for being able to catch an Orca dive out of the water).

The cruise culminates with a waterfall showing the summer home of Kittiwakes — A point where over 5000 Kittiwakes congregate during the summer to lay eggs. The ridges are both deep enough and shallow enough and act as a naturally formed nest for these birds. The availability of plenty of salmon in the waters provides an added incentive.

Each of those tiny white specks is a Kittiwake -- Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Standing there, the farthest I’ve been from home, the sights in front of me didn’t give me a window to think about my life. I had more questions than answers, and in those three days, had lived a life so rich whose existence I was unaware of till then.

One of the glaciers named after the colleges on the East Coast. Part of the ‘college glaciers’ collective.

Parts Known : #1 Desert Sunsets

It was the end of Summer in India when I decided I liked the season way too much for it to end so soon. So, I moved to a place where Summer refuses to leave till Fall starts to force its way in, sometime in September, only finally succeeding as October comes around. Beginning with the more-than-comfortable South Indian population, first day movie releases, wonderful Indian restaurants, and enough roaches to go to war with, there couldn’t have been a better segue to this South Indian’s American life than Arizona.

I still remember the scorching heat of the fateful August afternoon I first came to the Grand Canyon State. I hated every moment of it, until I didn’t. Arizona is not romantic like, say Seattle, that you tend to fall in love at first sight. It is like the uncomfortable night when you’ve had way too much coffee to go to sleep that you lay awake, twisting and turning, then you fall asleep all of a sudden. That’s how I came to be fond of the state. It took its time, but it was worth it (or perhaps it was Stockholm Syndrome. We’ll never know).

I lived in Tempe, a reasonably sized university town. It was happening, and quiet all at the same time. You’re never short of things to do when you go to school in a place where pub crawls and 7 am classes happen on either sides of the same road. I was well removed from the school that I got a glimpse of living in the residential part of the city while at the same time not missing out on watching the Superbowl at the loudest sports bar.

Golden sunsets in Tempe.

Writing this feels almost like sharing about my secret crush to someone I just met. I’ve never spoken highly about the state to anyone. There are other places I swear by, those that I’ve explored much more of than Arizona, and I surprised myself when I thought “damn, I miss Tempe!”

I didn’t make many friends in AZ. In fact, I’ve made only a handful of friends after moving to this country. Back in Arizona, I mainly spent my time with four people, three of whom were my roommates, and the other was my friend from school. But I had more than my fair share of fun. I drove in a car all alone for the first time, slept through an exam for the first time, worked at my first job that had nothing to do with what I was studying, stayed up all night playing Monopoly, walked two miles from the university lab on several occasions just for the heck of it, and did plenty of things only a carefree student can afford to do.

This included a whole lot of traveling (I will never have 9 hour work weeks in my life, ever!). In my first year, I had a very small set of things I’d do — attend classes whenever I wasn’t sleeping, take advantage of first world internet and watched movies and TV shows, or sell my soul to Chipotle. Toward the end of the first year in USA is when I realized there’s plenty of fun to be had, and time in school was fast running out. Though I’d seen a handful of states by the end of my first Summer (I escaped the peak of Summer as I’d moved out of the state for a couple of months), I tried to see as much as Arizona as possible in my second year. That also was when I’d gotten my driving license.

Coconino National Forest — Flagstaff, AZ.

Fall is a beautiful season no matter where you are, and in Arizona, it brought some rain, some life, and the much anticipated relief from the summer.

Sedona and Flagstaff are two places one should make it a point to visit in the late Fall/early Winter. Fun fact: Flagstaff has ski resorts, and gets quite a bit of snow in the Winter.

Around Thanksgiving is when I visited Flagstaff. It was more of an easy access to Grand Canyon idea rather than Flagstaff itself. I wish I’d seen more of Flagstaff though. The drive was fantastic, as I get way too excited whenever I have to drive a car. It was a pretty ambitious itinerary though there were four of us as I was the only one who was to drive — Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Las Vegas, then back to Tempe. It was absolutely worth it.

I will admit, I didn’t expect the Grand Canyon to be cold. I am a fan of sunrises and sunsets, and after having heard enough about the Grand Canyon, we decided to catch the sunrise over there. Cold winds were slapping my face, freezing my palms so badly that I was legitimately risking myself by trying to take pictures. It was a sunrise I will not forget.

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon is quite the sight.

This is how I fell in love with the place, slowly, as I saw more and more of it. There’s so much I’d missed seeing when I could have — Lake Havasu with its aquamarine waters, plenty of parks, and forests, the casinos and golf clubs in Phoenix, and a host of other things. But the things I did see, will stay with me for a long time in the form of the conversations that were had there, and the memories that were made there.

Those were testing times, but on this day, which was my last day in Arizona, I felt as light as the balloons you see here.

I couldn’t wait to get out, and now I sit here wondering when I will get another opportunity to go back. I sometimes wonder what it is that I miss about Arizona — the place, the people, the memories, or whatever it was that made it home for 2 eventful years.

Parts Known : Part 0

I moved. Again. This is the fourth apartment I’ve moved to in the last 6 months, across two states. I’m not a nomad, or a serial traveler. Every time I moved, it was out of necessity, though it was by choice. It has been a trying six month period — graduating, starting what’s my first full time job, taking what was my first ‘travel’ break, getting my heart broken, making my parents visit a new country, and moving, lots of it. I’m in Seattle, with rains going about with their pitter patter on my new, clean windows (which isn’t quite the unusual setting for Seattle, I’ve learnt), in my new, clean apartment, I got thinking I should do something new.

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

I recently started watching Anthony Bourdain’s Netflix series, Parts Unknown (yes yes that’s where the name of the post was obviously ripped off from) and have been fascinated by it. I thought to myself, unless something miraculous happens, I will likely never get to live a life of a story telling traveler like Tony does in the series. But I do explore the outdoors a fair amount. I don’t fly to Columbia to enjoy a stew, but I have taken a train from Chicago to San Francisco. I thought I have a fair share of pictures that I don’t really share anywhere, and ample time to make up stories that those pictures can corroborate. I also felt I should do something with serious discipline.

Through this post, and the series of posts that are to follow, I try to tell the stories of the parts of the world I have seen, parts of the world several others have been to, parts of the world thousands of people visit every year, parts of the world where people live and go to work in, parts of the world I have enough pictures of, parts of the world that don’t cost an arm and a leg for someone to visit over a long weekend, parts that are all too familiar but at the same time hold a lot of curiosity, parts that are not quite unknown.

By the time this is published, I will have written enough content to publish a few posts at the least. That’s the promise I make myself. A promise that will make me disciplined because, the stuff I write (as mediocre as it is compared to many, many wonderful things I have the fortune to read every day), I consider too precious to be left to die unshared. That’s the reward I get for being disciplined and writing enough, sharing the same. So read on, for a glimpse into what I’ve been seeing so far, what I’ll probably see in the coming years, and some gorgeous pictures that are all captured with the help of two devices in my possession — my phone, and my first camera.

Cinnamon

I wrote this with Krish Ashok's rendition of Scarborough Fair in the background. Listening to that was what made me write, so I'd encourage you to do the same while reading the post. It was a damp morning in the beautiful American Southwest; reflecting the mood of the day as well. It was the kind of dampness that lasts for a couple of hours after a small shower, the kind that prompts you to shake that low hanging branch playfully when you're walking alongside someone.

I had to leave in a couple of hours. It wasn't sudden, it was an eventuality. After all, I didn't belong there.

But I'd made up my mind before the big move that home is where the heart is, and my heart was here in this small university town, removed from light pollution and the sound of the freeway. I was in a house inside which you can hear the neighborhood creek if all was quiet. It was straight out of a tourism brochure or, perhaps, a postcard.

It was Fall, the season of colors. Just as the season begins with vibrant colors and ends with wilting branches and fallen leaves, my weekend had begun with a tonne of hope and was coming to an end, like a book that promises that there isn't going to be a sequel but doesn't quite give you the closure.

It was a Monday. It didn't matter but it didn't help either. I was going to hate this day, and the ones that followed. It was too early in the morning to cry, and I'd used up all my tears the previous night. I didn't quite understand what to do. Like an Olympic diver, no matter how many times she'd practiced it before, she had to do it one more time and this time, it was different. How do I say goodbye? What was I going to take away? How do I capture this moment until the next time? What if there never was a next time?

She was making breakfast, and the house smelled like cinnamon. It wasn't grandiose, it was cereal. But it was breakfast that smelled like summer. To this day, I'm not sure if it was the cinnamon, or if it was her. But when you are out in the meadow, you don't ask questions, you just take it all in. That's what I took away.

The weekend was long past. I was scouring the neighborhood Walmart to find that cereal. I needed to take it home with me, before that day becomes a memory.

I ate Cinnamon toast crunch for breakfast for the next month. Or perhaps longer, I don't remember. But what I remember is that it never smelled like summer, nor did it taste the same. But it was all I had to cling on to that day.

Cinnamon. Until next time.

Kumudhavalli

I'd really like it if you read this after watching the movie. There are some spoilers, I think. These are essentially what I felt after watching the movie, most of which have worn out as it's been a day. The men of my stories cry, just like I do. They cry when they miss people, when they see someone they love after long. They cry because that's what relationships do to you, make you go weak in the legs; make you hyperventilate. The men of my stories dream of a time when they were together, when they were happy with whom they think was the love of their lives. Men of my stories have a woman, they walk with the confidence that a woman likes them back. Men of my stories know, and live with, and for a Kumudhavalli.

I am not here to talk about the phenomenon that is Rajinikanth. I am neither an expert in analysing how he can act, nor do I claim to be someone who understands what's realism in cinema. I am here to talk about Kumudhavalli.

We don't know who she is, how she grew up, or why as someone who could have had a better life (in the man's words) than the protagonist of this movie came to be in a Malaysian farm. But I am glad she did, and he sure as hell is glad she did. I have seen many of Rajini's films and what I usually find is him being revered and him making the women fall for him. There are elements of the same in this movie as well, but they turn out to be mere glimpses.

It's the woman who makes the love story this time. She is loved, she is missed, she is longed for. When she cries we cry, and you fear for her life as much as her man does, perhaps even more; because you know they've spent several years apart. And no two people in love deserve to be apart, certainly not for so many years.

They say she's dead. You come to terms with it. You think she is going to be part of some backstory where you're not going to remember her face. Like a distant memory of holding hands and walking with someone for the first time. Something about which you're unsure because you don't really know if you're recounting the moment, or the times you've recounted the memory. You're okay with it. You only know her as someone who used to live.

They say she's alive. The man takes off in search of her. The fear decades of Tamil cinema has planted in you starts to creep in. You spend the rest of the movie waiting for her to die. Why is killing a woman the only way to show how vulnerable her man is? You know when he's the most vulnerable? When she's around. When they haven't met forever, then they do.

When they meet, they start where they left off. This is as real as it gets, because you know it is true, we've been there.

More often than not, when you remove all the elements of a Rajini film, there is very little left. But this movie has this story arc where he explains how she's shaped his life, and how she is important, and why it is important that we should get to know her. He tells us, and we get to know her, and boy are we glad we do. When they meet, you smile because you want to share the joy with them. You want to experience the happiness of meeting someone you love, someone who loves you. And when they cry, you cry with them because you have felt their separation too.

I think that's what stands out in this movie for me. Not his style, not the statements he made, not the bullets he fired, but Kumudhavalli, and her love.

Making a case for Teaching Assistants

After two decades in school, probably the most significant of my frustrations is knowledge gap. There are things I failed to pick up here and there due to several reasons ranging from having skipped a class to having skipped the class where the pre-requisites were discussed. More often than not this goes unnoticed because the stuff never comes up again; rather it never comes up in a test. On the contrary, when it does come up in the future, either in the form of a question in a quiz, or during a discussion among friends, it almost always quickly gets resolved when someone explains it.

A variant of the above scenario has been playing out throughout my life with the role of someone played by my peers — I look at my parents as my peers as well because the setting is informal (not simply because we’re working towards the same goal: my success). There are plenty of studies that suggest learning from peers is one of the most efficient forms of learning, and that people learn better from someone who doesn’t have authority over them. This is widely attributed to the success of Massively Open Online Course platforms like Coursera, and edX.

Having taken advantage of teaching assistants, and also having experienced being one, led me to wonder why this model is not popular back home in India. With that in mind, I am going to try and make a case for introducing the TA/Office hours model in my alma mater. [I write this with CEG in mind, but I see no reason why other institutions cannot also adopt this model. In fact, I believe this is a reasonable model that would work everywhere.]

• There are qualified students, several of whom are interested in helping their peers learn.
• CEG is one of the handful of colleges in the state of Tamil Nadu which follows a credit based schedule (i.e.) there is enough time to accommodate office hours in between classes.
• It is time we addressed the fact that classroom instruction is in itself not sufficient. I believe office hours are an excellent way of dealing with students who are otherwise not motivated enough to ask questions in class.
• Office hours with peers are particularly important because sometimes an alternate perspective really clears things up.
• We can finally move out of a test based curriculum to a problem set based curriculum. Reform has to start somewhere.
• Expanding on the previous point, tests make it ridiculously easy to plan 11th hour work. Problem sets would keep students engaged through the semester in chunks, and also make them spend more time with the material.
• I got my first job (a part time job) when I was 22. I think being a TA would be a really good way for someone to get into the workforce, and perhaps learn to manage money.
• Ultimately, we can address the problem of poor instructors. If institutions can’t avoid hiring poor instructors, at least presenting ways to circumvent the problem would benefit students.

It might seem hypocritical for me to have coasted through the 4 years and suggest measures to provide more work, but looking back I feel I would have immensely benefited from this model. I know for sure that sooner or later this model will be adopted. I say this because we’ve been aping the west (in this case for better) but not soon enough. I think it would be a really interesting experiment to try — may be trying it first with an intro to programming class and take it from there. If there ever is a win-win model, this is certainly a good candidate, in my opinion.

Neengal Kettavai | Thoughts on Uttama Villain

[There are some spoilers in this post, you have been warned. This neither a review, nor an explanation of plot points.]

For me, a movie is good if I liked it. That's pretty much the only benchmark I have. I might have a lot of complaints about it, there might be several things that aren't technically right or illogical, but it doesn't quite matter as long as I come out of the theatre without a headache(ref. Lingaa - what the hell was that?).

It is said that when Balu Mahendra was 'accused' of not being able to make crowd pleasing masala movies, he made Neengal Kettavai with all those elements regarded as crowd pleasing, title being something of a slap to those accusers - here, I've given you what you asked, now what?

Uttama Villain is Kamal's or KB's (there isn't much of a difference in this context) Neengal Kettavai of sorts. In the post movie discussions with my friends, all of us pretty much agreed upon the possibility that KB and Manorajan swapped roles, Margadharisi being Kamal. It was as if KB asked Kamal for a swan song. I am conflicted between trying to find deep, underlying meanings in every dialogue, and just sitting back and be entertained. I thought I'll be able to write a coherent post reflecting on this but I will spare you the pain and make discrete points about what made Uttama Villain work for me. (It is fitting because the movie in itself (and the movie within the movie) was a set of discrete scenes - like a highlights reel).

• KB. It is probably really cold of me but I honestly don't know if Uttama Villain would have worked at the same level for me if KB was still around. This disturbing thought has been lingering on my mind ever since I came out of the movie hall.
• I really like plays. In retrospect, what seemed like actors going overboard with their acting is in fact Kamal and KB going back to the first principles of acting - emoting without subtlety. This definitely wouldn't have worked in, say Panchathanthiram, but it most certainly did here. May be KB wanted to do a drama after all, for one last time.
• I wouldn't want to be Ramesh Aravind :) People aren't crediting him at all. That seems unfair. I don't know how much of a free hand he had in dictating how things shaped up, may be it was a new experience for everyone involved, but it could also be that he was so good at directing that it didn't stand out at all. Like Mysskin said to Madan after Pisasu, (and I paraphrase) if people start noticing the camera work, or the lighting, or some other aspect outside of the screenplay, in that particular scene the story has failed.
• I didn't like pithukuli Pooja at all. If it was a KB movie, may be Sridevi would be playing it? I can see her pulling it off wonderfully.
• I would have really loved to see more of Manoranjan's life. For some reason I keep thinking Abirami (the heroine in Virumandi) would have perfectly suited Yamini's role.
• The whole point of the movie could also be Kamal questioning his own battle against commercial cinema. Just as the movie was facing problems with release I was discussing with my friends that if Kamal was still making Sakalakalavallavan-esque formula movies perhaps he wouldn't be facing so many protests.
• Also just like plenty of others, I felt I saw Nagesh in everything KB did. Everything from him saying, "aiyo" to the shakes in his voice, looks like immortality is a given when you're a true craftsman.
• In the end, he didn't give us a commercial,lazy movie where the hero magically recovers from whatever disease that caught up with him. Saagavaram pol sogam undo?

I saw some brilliant writing. Youngest old man - oldest young man, touché-poosai, and plenty of other things including referencing 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. It was fun watching Alavandhan, Punnagai Mannan, and not to forget, Aboorva Ragangal, all revisited like a magician doing his last show, not failing to miss a single fan favourite.

This movie has been more entertaining than most movies that have come out in the recent times. May be we needed this to go back and refresh our idea of a good movie, during the times of formulaic nonsense storylines. I'll stop it here as I'm scared of repeating the same things over and over again, because  theerakadhayai ketpaar undo? 

Theera Kanaa Theera Vizha | Thoughts on OK Kanmani

[I don't think there are any spoilers, but I would really like you to read this after you've seen the movie.]

There are two things that make writing about a really good movie difficult - everything to be said has already been said by someone else, there's plenty to talk about that you are spoilt for what to mention and what to leave.

I, just like several others, got really excited for OK Kanmani after the teaser came out. I knew right then that I would be writing about OK Kanmani, because it has been really long since I got this excited for a movie. I don't know what prompted that emotion, may be because this is the first Mani Ratnam love story I am watching as an adult, after having lived and loved. The Alaipayuthe-2 talks started to surface. Personally, I have seen Karthik and Shakthi's happily ever after. It is done for. They're in their late thirties, with their eldest demanding double digit candles on his birthday cake, and youngest losing her first tooth.

It is time for Adi and Tara. Funny how these commonplace names become, "I am naming my kid that" after Mani uses them. Do you realize how he doesn't give you a background story, how I grew up story for most of his characters? Because we don't need them. Make them fall in love already. We want to hear what he calls her this time around. Calling the girlfriend pondatti has become so commonplace. He tells us, at the beginning of the movie, "Oru oppandham senjupom. Indha sentiment, azhugai, edhuvum vandaam. Sandhoshama irupom indha 2 mani neram, wild-ah." We agree before we know what hit us, and as two people exchange wedding vows, Adi and Tara exchange phone numbers. You leave the next two hours in the hands of Mani, PC, Srikar Prasad and Rahman where they pull one trick after another on you. It is nothing special, but you come out of the theater telling yourself, that's how happy I will be in my life. I can. (While telling your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife - "Namma kal vaapas varom.")

Now that that's out of the way, it is Bhavani and Ganapathy who stuck with me after I came home from the movie. It has been more than 12 hours since Adi and Tara got married, but I want to go back to the moment when my heart melted as Prakashraj says "Kalaila Ganapathyyyy nu koopudumbodhu ellam seri aidum." May be Mani wanted to warn all of us after he saw how Alaipayuthe ended up shaping how men and women will fall in love in the coming years. When Ganapathy stands there and looks at Bhavani as she is slowly moving her head to Malargalai Keten, and you fully expect him to shed a couple of tears (and he doesn't, you do), Mani is screaming through the silence "You idiots! That's not how it happens, this is how."

Mani is as real as it gets, and Mani is as far away from reality we can go. Everyone is middle class. Everyone has enough money. Karthik and Shakthi did not worry about EB and Phone bills. He knows we don't come to the movie to be reminded of the very things that we came there to forget.

Mani is this person who cannot contain himself when given a stage to tell a story. We often complain a lot that he doesn't talk much, that his characters always have short dialogues. But Mani always conveys a lot more than we hold him accountable for. From Kamal and Saranya in Nayakan, like that famous photo of a couple kissing when a riot was brewing, Amudha longing to give her mother one more hug while a bunch of people are holding with their dear lives to their motherland, to Bhavani. Mani knows that as much as we enjoy the vennpongal that is his unparalleled boy-meets-girl-falls-head-over-heels story, we long for and romanticize the milagu in the form of the mature story that he manages to squeeze in. It is healthy.

According to me, Mani has set everything right and has shaped the next couple of decades of romance.

"Onnala Ganapathy uncle mari irukka mudiyuma?"

"Mudiyum."