8 simple facts

I was tagged by The Piker way back in June but somehow never got around to replying. Even the holy cow, KR, responded. It would be very rude of me not to do the same. I copy-paste the rules of the tag from Piker’s post, blatantly disregarding any copyright notices.

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

As I started listing possible facts, I detected an eerie similarity between mine and The Piker’s. You be the judge.

1. I too love music. That is, any music which is not rock music. I cannot tolerate any variant of rock music – punk, heavy metal, trash, garbage, whatever. This hasn’t, however, stopped me from venturing the most ludicrous guesses during the obligatory 10-15 rock music questions in every Lit Sec quiz.
2. I watch any and every crappy show on television. My favourites though are Arrested Development, Seinfeld and 24. I have recently started watching Veronica Mars, and swore that I would never watch another CW show if they cancelled it. Like that’s going to be very tough!
3. I am an extremely funny guy – I think you all realise that by now. Even in school, my PJs were legendary. I specialise in a brand of PJs that cater to a niche audience of Mallus well-versed in Hindi. Sample this.
   

   Q) What is the height of velaapan?
   A) I don’t know. Why don’t you ask his friend Kuttapan.

4. I am an internet addict and have the capacity to avoid normal social contact for abnormal periods of time. I have subscribed to over 50 feeds on Google Reader and spend most of my time on the forums of Digg and Slashdot or on Wikipedia.
5. I can spend as little or as much time on sleep as I choose. Depends on whether I have anything better to do during sleep time.
6. Like The Piker, I too am suffering from hair loss. But unlike him mine has progressed to a stage where I cannot hide it with “tenuous layer of hair”. My mom has given up hope.
7. When I was in third standard, my mother forced me to take music lessons – classical music, no less. I hated it so much, I begged her to discontinue lessons. Finally I resorted to locking myself in the bathroom every time the teacher came. That did the trick.
8. I am an Ubuntu fanboy. You will find Ubuntu stickers in the oddest places in my room. In fact, the day Google releases Google Talk for Linux, I am dumping my Windows installation.

And now, on to the hard part – finding eight people to continue the tag. So I tag – Arjun*, Philip, Unnikuttan, Kishku, Nishita, Lefty, Khandekar and Banga.

* Arjun may take up the tag whenever he is in the mood to start another blog.

PS. Another similarity to The Piker. I am also single. Sigh!

van Kalip Demerit Thorn: Kerala Cafe

As you all might know, or not – I really don’t care – I had spent most of the summer in IIT Delhi. When a Mallu goes to a new place, he is dying to meet some fellow Mallus – so that they can reminisce about Mohanlal’s classic movies from the ’80s or speculate where Achu Maama is going next with his bulldozer. He also hopes to find an eatery of some sort where he can get good old rice, sambar and thoran. If not, any South Indian place with masala dosa and idli on them menu will suffice. What he doesn’t want happening is to hear from his friends about a “Kerala Cafe” located very close to the IIT only to find that it is a dhaba that serves, well, whatever it is that you get in a typical North Indian dhaba – paranthas, rajma chawal and so on. So much for his dreams of some porotta and maybe even beef. Their speciality, advertised on huge boards, is chowmein. This is just plain offensive to any Keralite who likes his karimeen porichathu and neymeen vechathu. The owner of the ‘cafe’, with his moustache and chandanakuri, was evidently a Mallu and I had half a mind to let him know how uncool this was. But I decided to punish him with something even worse – the van Kalip Demerit Thorn.

* * * *

The van Kalip Merit Stars and Demerit Thorns are loosely based on the merit and demerit system used by van Kalip’s teachers in middle school to reward the good students and shame the bad ones. There would be a chart in the classroom with the names of all the students and columns for merits and demerits. (I always felt sorry for the loser kids that made them.) Good deeds, like topping a class test, would be rewarded with a merit (black dot) and bad ones, like talking in class, fetched you a red demerit dot. Collect 5 of each kind to get a star or a thorn. It was without any doubt, an unfair system as merits/demerits were awarded arbitrarily upon the discretion of the teachers, without any sort of guidelines. van Kalip caused so much kalip even in those days, you could say he had a penchant for picking up demerits. And also for speaking of himself in third person.