I am the little one, right…?

Like in every Indian family, my kid sleeps along with myself and my wife.

He is turning 5. We thought, it is time for him to start sleeping in his own bed. So we set a bed in our bedroom, next to our bed for him. First day, he was excited to sleep all by himself. Next day, we put him for sleep and was reclining to the comfort of our bed after a tiresome day, few minutes later I found him standing next to our bed and poking me.

“Can I sleep with you?”

“Yes, dear, why not?”

I lifted him, he looked at me with his sleepy eyes and requested, “Can I sleep in the middle?“. (He wants to sleep between us, he usually does that when he has a bad dream or when he wants to express his readily feeling of fondness or tenderness)

Myself and my wife looked at each other, smiled and said in chorus “Yes, dear”

He positioned himself between us, locked his eyes at the ceiling and declared, “I will sleep here only…. now”

My wife hugged him and asked, “Why…, dear, you are a big boy now, right? You should now sleep alone. Only little ones sleep with Mom and Dad. See…., at Ro’s place, he sleeps in his room, in his bed and not with his parents. Won’t you think, you being the big brother, you should now sleep in your own bed?” (Ro is my brother’s kid, who is almost same age but a little younger than my boy)

He pulled the blanket up to cover himself and replied with all his innocence, “Yeah, Ro sleeps in his room and bed, coz he is not the little one at his home. He has a little baby sister at his home, who sleeps with his dad and mom. Here I am the little one, right?”

There was a silence for some time among us and then we both burst into a fit of laughter, with our kid looking at us with all the gullibility in this world. We both hugged him.

He repeated his question, “I am the little one, right…?”

We both kissed him and said, “Yes dear, you are our one and only, sweet, little one….”

Collective emotions

Have you ever seen Benetton’s controversial ‘Unhate’ ad campaign featuring world leaders kissing?

I “disliked” it when I first saw it, I hate marketing by creating unwanted controversies to sell a product, gross…!!

All us know that is the current trend, to make a controversy just before launch to have an initial cash in. It applies every where, even films. What more, just before launch of every iPhone, an Apple employee loses his test phone in a restaurant!! How come only Apple is having such irresponsible employees? 😀

Well…, these Benetton ad photos kept coming back in the social networking sites day after day, crying, “like….. man…. like…….”

Forced to see it every day, I felt like falling for a kind of mysterious Stockholm syndrome, and started being emphatic towards Benetton. I started appreciating, how close these pictures are with respect to the so-called “Unhate” campaigning.

A lot said with a single picture with very few or no words being said, which in turn has become inspiration for my picture blogs

This time, I want to talk about one of my pictures featuring a rainbow of emotions & expressions by kids.

Unveiling a picture of a band of kids, a story board of collective emotions  & expressions and inviting all of you to spot & n’joy the expressions diversified.

The band - Collective emotions

Now I have tried to put some spot light on to the visible faces, all bearing variety of expressions, which is vivid & amazing

Assert

Listen

Disgust

Arrogance

Lost

Sad

Amazing, isn’t it?

Priceless Expressions

Photography is one of the hobbies that I have carried through years. I am starting my picture blog. One of the subjects of my photography interest has been kids. Kids won’t pose for a photo and I love taking their expressions while they are playing and behaving. I would be presenting few of those snaps in this blog. I have used my Nikon D 90 and Cannon PS cameras for capturing these priceless moments. These pictures are taken at various locations in USA & India. Looking at these photographs make me relive my childhood and had been inspiration for some of my blogs. I hope you enjoy the kid’s innocent world of charming eyes, playful acts and innocent expressions the same way I cherish and value.

1. Happiness - Straight from heart

2. Grumpy

3. Innocence of sleep

3. Naughty

3. Dream

4. Joy

5.Matching Steps

6. Angry to be Sad

7.Loud Louder Loudest...

8. Silencing Guns..

9. Happy Feet

10. Inspection

I have given some captions but I would like you to suggest your captions for each of these photos, while you wait for the next set of photos… 🙂

iCar

It was after the World War II, most companies started spending their time, money and man power trying to differentiate their products and services from those of their competitors. In this age of consumer reviews, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and beyond, it’s hard to get away with just manufacture and not branding. The latest trend is to explore, establish and exploit the emotional connection between customers and brands. On doing so, brands can engage people much in the same way as humans can. In today’s highly competitive environment, improving consumer’s loyalty to brands allows companies to maintain a comfortable and sustaining foothold in the marketplace.
Brand Loyalty is someone’s conscious or unconscious decision, expressed through intention or behavior, to go for a particular brand continually, only because he/she believes that the brand connects with him/her and offers the right product at the right level of quality at the right price. The identity and personality surrounding a company’s brand is the principal source of its competitive advantage and is therefore the most valuable strategic asset. I think a unique, powerful and a bold company logo can also assist a company to generate brand identification by helping the customer to relate to a particular company. And most companies market their logos as the powerful way to firm their positions in the competitive space.
For better or for worse, these marketing overdoses has created a generation hypersensitive to the power of brands. The youngest generation has been standing out as the most brand conscious ever due to their deep brand knowledge, understanding and preferences, thanks to the advertisements pushed through the digital media. Whenever we go out for shopping, my kid has some specific brands, which he is glued to, for his juice, biscuits, pencils, shoes, noodles, pasta, toys etc. He will opt not to go for anything but refuse to have an alternate brand for those specific items. I consider and believe that all these are a normal young consumer behavior and thought that he is connecting to the advertised product by physical appearance or brand familiarity rather than on the basis of abstract or symbolic brand meanings. In recent past, one incident has taken me by surprise. I was amazed by his brand awareness and maturity in understanding the brand meanings.
I am a gadget freak and one of the latest addition to the list is an iPhone. My kid love playing games with it. When I am back from office, he asks for the iPhone, so that he can hear songs, play games and watch videos till I am back freshened up. One day, he was running high temperature and we had taken him to doctor. Once we got out of the car, and my kid called me,“Dad…”
I was busy checking whether the car is secured, answered “Hmm…”.
He again called, “Dad….”. He always wants full attention while he talks.
“Yes, my dear…” I looked at him.
He pointed his index finger towards the car and said, “I Car…”.
I answered, “Yeah… baby, it is your car only…”.
I checked his temperature, touching his forehead, he has the habit of talking too much when he is running high temperatures, picked him up and started walking in. He didn’t want to go in…
He insisted on putting him down and persisted, “i car…”
Once on the ground, he started walking towards the car and pointed towards the rear window of the car. I noticed the “Apple inc” logo, which I have put there the day before. He was able to connect “iPhone” and “Apple Inc” logo, disconnect “i” from “iPhone”, based on his understanding of usability of the device and connect “i” and “Apple Inc” logo to call our car “iCar”. I was left speechless but proud. I gave him a high five to celebrate that small but valuable moment of his great interpretation of an observation and the perseverance in convincing me on what he believed.

Probably all kid’s do this perceptual analysis and most of their parents’ do notice and appreciate it as well. Relating brands as a perceptual cue by the familiarity and visibility and conceptually through a deeper sense of what the brand means and how it connects to you are two different levels of brand understanding. The people falling in the later category is a matured consumer. I still fall in both the categories depending on my mood…. 🙂 Where do you stand….?

The ludicrous act

At college hostel, my room was the biggest among all the student inmates, only because it was assistant warden’s room, which was given to me. It had 3 closets, 2 beds, six windows and a door. Now you know how big the room was, if you have stayed in a college hostel. It had common walls only on one side and that too with the reading room. I loved my king size room and was proud of my room which had lots of air, natural light and friends visiting me. My circle of friendship included those who were very active in college social circles to the inactive, studious to frivolous, hostellers to day scholars, rich and poor, religious to atheist.  And most of them have enjoyed the warmth and fun of friendship offered by that room. It was in that room, I wrote my first article, which brought me to the social circles of my college campus. I unraveled the complexity of engineering, tickled my artistic, writing and acting skills and spend lots of fun time with my friends. It was in that room, we friends, used to pull each other’s legs, plan pranks, bunking classes, movies, booze, trips and you name it, we did it. I shared a special emotional bond with that room and when I vacated my room on completion of my course, I was crying loud like a child in my heart and mind.

In India, mechanical Engineering is one branch of study, where you don’t see much girls studying. The practical sessions of that branch demands some extra physical strength and most girls & their parents prefer not to opt that branch of study. Hence forth, generally in India, you will find very few lady mechanical engineers. While being in college, the machos of mechanical engineering branch used to consider them as an elite group and call them as “Royal Mech”. Most times, many of these royal people were treated just like anti-social elements, even though they were not.  (I am not generalizing, this is my assessment). One thing, what I have noticed with most of my royal mech friends is that, they themselves wear a mask of being rough, tough and hostile, even though 99% of them were not.

Among the numerous royals who were constant visitors to my room were Baiju and Rakesh (Both name changed). These guys shared great comradeship among themselves beyond having contrasting behavior skills and attitude. Baiju was one of the wittiest and wackiest friends of mine. Even though he was very studious, was infamous for his double meaning dialogs even with girls in college. Baiju was a typical royal mech. He is very much a fun loving, romantic guy with tons of energy, who projects himself as a rude, rustic and unrealistic guy. However when he enters my room, I always felt that he had left his mask outside the door and have walked in. We friends used to love his company, pranks & double meaning dialogs. Rakesh was a genuine guy; he didn’t align himself into the royal mech category which I explained above. He never had any masks. He was very studious, innocent, and straight forward. Sometimes whenever there are some double meaning talks flying in the air, he will be listening very seriously. However when we get into some other topic, we will hear him laughing… decoding the previous discussion. We used to call him “tube light” (In those days, florescent lamps used to flicker multiple times before it start emiting light steadily). He was very loyal in his friendship and used to share all his thoughts with whomever he thought is a friend.

During the college days, we live like Kings in the beginning of the month, when we get the monthly pocket money from our family and as the fund diminishes towards end of the month, we had to literally beg for funding our extra curricular activities. Start of every month, we celebrated with cigarettes and high end booze which lead us to beedi‘s and local booze during the month and no booze and stocked smoked cigarette butts, hooked on to our compass, towards the fag end of the month.

It was on a month end, Friday, myself, Baiju and few other friends were talking about how to spend that evening and how to mobilize some money for a booze. Rakesh walked into the room,

“Hey there is something strange happening over a week…”.

We all looked up with arched eyebrows. He continued sheepishly,

“One of my underwear which was put on the clothesline is not getting dried up, man… it was under the sun for last one week. In this scorching summer, it should have dried by same day….. All other clothes which were along with that including a bed sheet of mine have dried up that day itself.”

We all looked at each other and started laughing, except Baiju. Baiju was listening to Rakesh with pondering face. Rakesh was visibly pissed off, he shouted,

“Don’t laugh you jerks…, I didn’t tell you all this earlier, only because of this. I told this to Baiju, the next day evening itself. Just ask him… He also had a similar experience. Tell them, man…”

He looked at Baiju and prompted with his eyes.

“Bhoohaa…..”

We continued laughing at him…. This time Baiju also joined us… Feeling nettled from the constant teasing and peeved about being pushed against wall, Rakesh staged a walk out. I called him from behind.

“Come on Man… we will figure out the mystery… don’t go.. please….”

He didn’t stop…, but banged the door behind him and shouted while walking away… “F%^K YOU…ALL… ”

I was about to go behind him, Baiju held my hand and kept on laughing madly. I looked at him, and said,

“Come on, man.. he felt very bad, we should talk to him…”.

“W..A..I..T…” he struggled to breath in between laughter…

We all sensed a mischievous act; we all stopped laughing but Baiju.

“Spit it out…” I was eager to hear it…

As we all were curious to know the secret behind excitement of Baiju, he was not able to control his laughter and he was literally rolling in the floor, laughing to the point of tears as if he is having chronic laughing fits. When we were about to lose our patience, he managed to control his laughter and it fainted just like a switched off generator. He got up from the floor, catching breath, sat on my bed. After a mysterious lacuna, he smiled and explained

“Last Monday, I was coming back from restroom after shaving…. there was some water left in my mug, I just threw that water out and accidently/incidentally it fell on Rakesh’s underwear in the clothesline.  That day on the way to college, he told me about his wet underwear phenomena…. Possibility of a practical joke struck me…. I told him that, I also experienced the same phenomena for a week and all of sudden one day my underwear dried up. I exaggerated the same by telling him that, from seniors, I have heard that this happens to at least one person’s underwear in the hostel at a time without fail…. I even tried to play with his weakness by telling him, some people believe that, this in turn is done by the ghost of one of the inmates, who did suicide because his fellow mates used to bully him for passing urine in bed….. For the continuity of this game, I warned him also saying, we are not supposed to take the underwear off the clothesline till it is dried up”.

We all started smiling, sensing the effect of this emotional intuition on Rakesh, who was very afraid of darkness and walking alone, even during the day time in the road which takes us to college and back to hostel through a cashew grove… Of excitement, we all moved towards Baiju, eager to hear the rest of the story.

He continued, “From that day onward, I intentionally pour a mug of water on his same underwear every day… and kept watching him. Every day, he used to go to the underwear and check whether it is dried or not… Recently, I struggle very much not to laugh when he is in front of me. I wanted to tell you guys before I disclose the cause of wet underwear phenomena to him.… In fact, I was waiting for today…”

We all collapsed into gales of manic laughter, not realizing Rakesh is already in the room. He was at my door,  when Baiju started his story of wet underwear phenomena. On seeing abashed and totally humiliated face of Rakesh, we, including Baiju, could not control our excitement of a successful prank, we slipped into a hideous laughter…. Rakesh was having an embarrassing smile and was showering Baiju with all the abusive words, he knew but with his arms around Baiju’s shoulders in a friendly hug.

Nothing can really be compared to the excitement we feel whenever someone fell into our plot while we plan a prank and pull it out. However the ludicrous act of prank becomes enjoyable, when our victim is sportive enough to appreciate the prank and laugh along with us and enjoy.

“As we go on.. We remember… All the times, we had together… As our lives change…come whatever We will still be friends 4-Ever” 

American dreams – The inception

It was on a Monday, I was catching up with my emails accumulated over weekend. My manager came to me, “Do you have 5 minutes…?” I looked at him and said “Yeah!” I locked my system and followed him to a meeting room near my desk. He was holding the door for me; I entered the room and thanked him for that nice gesture. We sat facing each other. I was impatient; so many thoughts were going through my mind. I could not figure out the reason for this meeting as work wise everything was good till last Friday and even we received an appreciation email from the customer for the last release, we did.  He started with a preface of how well we did in last release, how well myself and team performed and then about the next release which is about to start next week. I was nodding my head however my mind was getting restless to know the real agenda of the meeting.  After that long preface he asked me, “Can you travel to client place in next 2-3 weeks for the requirement phase of next release?” Most unexpected however most awaited question in front of me, perplexed eyes and tight lips gave way to large eyes, highly arched eyebrows, and a big smiling mouth. I beamed, “Sure, why not”. Next question, “You have a valid passport, right?” I had to think, “I have a passport, but is it valid?, was it for 5 years or 10 years?”. Too many questions popped up but I gathered my thoughts and responded, “Yeah, I do”. “Okay, raise a travel plan in the internal portal and proceed with visa application and let me know your appointment date”. He paused and looked at me. That look means, do you have any other questions. I said “OK, I will do”.  He stood up, held the door for me. I was super excited, I was not sure whether I thanked him this time; I was literally running out to call my mom and tell her the exciting news.

When I told her the news, she was happy, she probed, “Good, when you have to travel..?”  I didn’t notice the anxiety in that voice, I was in another world, “I will have to apply for visa, for that I need to go to Chennai for the visa interview, then only USA”. The question again repeated, “When are you travelling…?” I was rude, “I don’t know, Mom… as I told I will also get to know only later…”. “OK…” that was the answer from the other end of phone; That OK was a stretched one… I got the message… again I explained… “Mom, it is not that I can travel now… I need to get an appointment for visa interview… pass the interview… get my visa stamped in my passport… then get some process done in office to get my accommodation and air ticket booked…. Then only I can travel…”.  Mom agreed, “OK, I understood… when do you think you will travel?”.  I now sensed the motherly anxiety in the voice now, I answered, “May be in 2 -3 weeks, but not sure. Don’t tell this to anyone, till everything is confirmed…”. Her voice was low.. the answer was a “Hmmm…”, but from the voice inflection, I understood, it was an OK. It reminded me of the situation when I selected Palakkad NSS Engineering college for my Bachelors and called her from the phone booth outside the Engineering Counselling centre (Where Colleges are allocated based on your Engineering Entrance exam ranking). I told her, “It is just for 3 months”. Again answer was devoid of any words but a “Hmm…”.  “Mom…” I called. She said, “Ok, then… finish your work. We will talk in the evening”. She disconnected the call… I wanted to call her… but suddenly my friend patted me from back “Congrats, dude!”.  I turned back and thanked him. “I heard you mentioning about your travel to your mom…” He explained… I smiled and walked back to my work station hiding my teary eyes.

As soon as I finished raising the travel request and went to my manager and said “I have raised the travel request, you have to approve”. He smiled at me and said, “I will”. I thanked him and walked back. I called my Mom again. “We have to go to our ancestral temple, do a ritual which is pending for long time”. I agreed, “We will do, after the visa interview”. She was excited, she presented a list of temples, we have to visit and offer prayers. She also wanted me to go and get blessings from my grandparents. I agreed.  She raised her stock question, “Did you had your food?” I believe most parents in India will ask this question regardless of the time they call you or you call them… 🙂 I answered, “No, will go in half an hour”. I reciprocated the question every Indian child will do, “Did you?”. “No, Oh! Good you reminded… Something burning… will call you later…” She disconnected the call.  After putting the travel request, I have been refreshing my inbox, to see if my manager has approved my request or not… “Early lunch?”, it was my manager. I said, “Sure”. On the way to cafeteria, I reminded him, “You have not approved the travel request, I need to get the appointment at the earliest, if you want me to travel in 2-3 weeks”. He was apologetic “Sorry man, I was busy with too many other things; I will approve the same as soon as I am back after lunch.” During lunch, I told him about my plan to visit my native before the travel, which he verbally approved. He kept his word, within 2 minutes, after we are back from lunch; I got the approval for my travel request. I called the travel desk, as they have to provide me credentials to fill in online visa application. The executive, who picked up the call said, “Sir, your travel request was approved 5 minutes ago. We need a day’s time to process the request. We will get back to you”. I felt the processes are taking too much time. However consoled my mind saying “Chill… dude… Chill…. It’s just one day…”

Next day morning, after reaching office, first thing, I did was calling the travel desk executive. There was no one picking up the call. I kept on calling… finally by 10 AM, one executive picked up the call… I was furious… “Why are you not picking up the call…? I have been calling from 9 AM…”, the person at the other end also got annoyed with the rude question “Sir… our working hours is from 10 AM to 5 PM. If you are calling during the non-office hours, no one will pick up the call…”. I had to digest the sarcasm… “Sorry… I called you to check the status of ticket# 124322”. “One minute, please hold…”. There was some music for some time. “Sir, it will be done only by tomorrow end of day”. I questioned, “Why are you taking this much time”.  The voice from the other end of the phone was calm and stern, “Sir, we have 100’s of travel request come in a day, we prioritize and work on the same. We understand, your’s is a priority travel and we are working on it. We need to pay your visa application fees in a bank approved by US consulate and may take to maximum of 48 hours get the details for you to be allowed to do your application online”. Dejected I disconnected the phone. Till then, for me, each and every minutes were like hours … I kept refreshing my inbox for the travel desk email.  Finally next day, when we came back from lunch, there was a email, waiting for me in my inbox, with the detailed step to fill in the application form. I offered my prayers to god and started reading the steps to fill the application. My manager walked to me, “Hey Ramu, there is some issue in the performance environment, can you please help Sanju in trouble shooting?”. I looked at him and asked “Now…?”. His eyes asked a question to me, “then when…?” but he said, “Yes”. I felt like, left high and dry. Since it was the cooling period before the next release, I was thinking, I can finish my visa application filling before I leave office today. I went to Sanju’s desk. “What’s is issue, dude!”. He, with his serious face, turned to me, raised his eye brows “No idea…” Well… we both spend around 3 hours and figured out that one of the configuration files have development server properties while he was trying to test in test environment. I felt mad at him, however smiled at him and said… “Here you go… dude…n’joy…”. He never lifted his eyes from the system but thanked me, doing correction of the configuration files. I rushed back to my seat to start my application filing … I logged in to the USA consulate website with the credentials provided by the travel desk, started filling my application to realize, I need lots of information from my passport to fill in the application. I called my mom to get my passport from the cupboard in the bedroom and call me back. I managed to complete the application by around 7:45 PM with my Mom’s help. I reviewed once, twice… I really don’t know how many times, but by the time I left office, after submitting the application it was 10 PM and managed to get an appointment with US Consulate, next Tuesday.

Next day onwards, I was ready to go for my visa interview. I have taken out all my certificates, arranged them in proper order. What more, I was ready with the shirt and trousers for the interview. I started counting days, sorry it was counting hours, minutes and seconds. Over the week, I got my tickets to Chennai as well as my hotel booking from the travel desk. The immigration desk at my office asked me to report to them on Friday. When I went there, all were busy with work. I went to a lady, who is little elder in her looks. “Maam…” she lifted her face, and looked over her tiny wire rimmed glasses “Yes”. I was like a small kid in front of headmistress of the schook. “Myself Ramu, I am supposed to go for a visa interview on Tuesday. I was asked to come and meet one Mrs. Sandy. May I know where does she sit?” She smiled and said “I am Sandy, please sit down”. Suddenly her desk phone rang. “Excuse me” she said and picked the phone. Someone was talking about some special approval for some immediate travel and she was speaking over the phone as if she whispering in someone’s ears. I can hear the guy at the other end speaking but not this lady. “Bye”. Finally I heard her saying something while she was in the call :). She moved her chair forward and smiled at me and said “Sorry”. I wanted to tell her.. “Make it fast, Madam, what is this suspense?” but said “no problem”. She said, “I called you to explain you the process that is there in the US consulate and how it usually happens”. I have already read all these process which is captured in the internal portal” but sat there like a studious student. She kept explaining the processes and steps and with vaious counters at consulate and what I am supposed to do at each counter… I was listening to her and she reminded me about my school time teacher, who used to teach me when I was in 3^rdstandard. They both shared more or less same features. Moderately fat middle aged Indian women clad in sari with an angular face with a strong jaw line, broad forehead featuring a red bindi, square chin and big eyes. She had a eye glasses with a tiny frame and most of the time looked over the same. “Are you clear..?” I was looking at her as if that question was not to me… She again asked “Are you clear with the processes?” I nodded my head. She said, “Don’t do this there.. they don’t understand that you just now said yes”. Please use words to convey your answers. I said “Ok…” She took out a green folder and showed me the contents and told me what needs to be done with each of it at the consulate office. I repeated my understanding and she extended her hand and said “best of luck”. I accepted he hand shake and said “thank you”.

I left office early on that Monday because I need to catch my train to Chennai for my visa interview next day. From home, after tearful good luck bidding, I started to Chennai. I reached the historical city of Chennai in first half of the night life. I got out of Chennai Central railway station, the hot humid air from the sea was blowing across, I felt very stuffy, I wanted to be in the hotel room. Just like pigeons fed with grains, from no where, the taxi and auto rickshaw drivers of Chennai mobbed me. I made no eye contact, straight up no’s and walking away fast. I finally got out of the station compound and most of them backed off looking for other passengers.  There was a middle aged man, who was like a walking skeleton, still persistent. He was walking behind me pulling his auto rickshaw. I can speak Tamil (Local language of TamilNadu) because one of my close friends mom speaks to me only in Tamil. Initially I used to respond my native language, which she understands, but as my friendship strengthened and as I started spending more time at his home, I slowly started picking up Tamil and started conversing with her in Tamil. I asked him in Tamil “I want to go to hotel Palm grove, will you go by meter”. He responded, “What sir, at this time… meter won’t work for me. Give me 100 rupees; I will drop you at the hotel”. I asked him “how far is the hotel”. He said “10 km”.  “Go by meter, I will give you double the meter charge”, I bargained.  “Sir, you too… give me 20 rupees more…”. I agreed, I was not thinking off anything but to escape the hot and humid atmosphere and take some rest and go for visa interview next day. I got into the auto rickshaw… that’s all… then it was a roller-coaster ride… I am not sure whether he was seeing the pot holes, speed breakers, vehicles coming head on, red signal etc… I felt, I have taken the biggest risk of the life to enter his auto rickshaw… after one or two signal jumps, I told him.. “boss, I will give you 100 rupees, please don’t jump signals… ”. “Don’t worry sir, nothing will happen. I am there.. naa….” He smiled and mouthed a famous Tamil song in which Famous Tamil Super Star Rajanikant acted as an auto rickshaw driver himself but he didn’t jump any signals till we reached Hotel Palm Grove. I  handed over a hundred rupee note to him and jumped out of his auto rickshaw and ran to the reception of the hotel, happy to be alive.

I checked in to the room. Kept alarm at 6 AM in the morning, the visa interview is at 9 AM. I requested the reception also to wake me up by 6 AM and tried to sleep. Beyond the tiredness of the long journey, I couldn’t sleep…the heard unplesent stories of visa rejections keep coming in when ever i close my eyes…   I tossed myself over for hours before I retired  to slumber because of overpowering tiredness. I was shaken to senses by the ringing phone bell… looks like I missed my alarm. I picked up the call, a sweet voice from other end. “Good Morning, Sir… It is 7:00 AM in the morning. We have been trying from 6 AM”.  I said, Thanks and sorry at the same time and jumped into shower and was ready for by visa interview by 7:45 AM. The travel desk person has told me that the US consulate is nearby this hotel and it is minimum charges for auto rickshaw and will be maximum of 15 minutes’ drive from hotel.  After last night’s auto rickshaw ride, I was pretty much reluctant to take an auto rickshaw and thought of walking to the consulate for a moment. But the thought of Chennai’s hot and humid atmosphere made me park that green idea of myself very fast. I had my complimentary breakfast and took an auto rickshaw to US consulate.

From outside, the Chennai US consulate looked like a prison/correction center. It was guarded by tall white walls and armed service personals. There was only one entrance (Probably there are some emergency exits), which was guarded by around 4-5 security personals. I reached there by 8:40 AM… there was a queue along the side of tall walls guarding the building. There was no shade; the morning sun has just shifted to the next gear. Humidity of Chennai and Sun is a deadly combination; I was sweating and feeling sticky. I joined the line. The guards were checking passport and the interview appointment letter of the applicants and filtering out the accomplices of visa aspirants. One guy was arguing with the guards, “My daughter is first time going for a visa interview, I also want to go with her, and she may not know everything. I can help her”. One of the guards smiled and responded, “She will go to US also alone, let this be an experience for her.” He requested that dad to leave and come after 30 minutes. That guy was there, requesting the guard till I went in.  As I entered the main entrance equipped with a metal detector. One guard asked, “do you have any sealed envelopes?”. I answered no. As if he is not convinced, he checked my folder… I asked myself,” if he had to check, then why did he ask?”. Asked to move to next post where I asked whether I am carrying any cigarette lighter, matchbox, mobile phone. I denied and was frisked to see if I am carrying anything suspicious. Then I was asked to join the queue in front of counter 2. There were multiple queues. I knew, it is the verification counter, since I was already briefed by Sandy. The queue moved in snail pace. I haven’t seen any American till now… the guards, attenders, verification offices and of course the visa applicants are Indians.

Next was my turn… suddenly an emergency alarm went off… followed by guards shouting… “Lie down on the floor…quick…” Commandos armed with guns stormed the sprawling US Consulate campus. I didn’t understand anything. Suddenly a strong arm from behind held my head and pushed gently down. I turned back to see a six foot tall security guard asking me to lie down in a hush voice. Someone next to me told, “Looks like some terrorist attack…” I looked at him with wide open eyes, he was shivering. There was one old couple, who was not able to lie down on the floor because of their age. One security guard came in swiftly and took them away… all in a flash… I had no clue what is happening… as time passed, my anxiety and fear exponentially increased, fueled by the repetitive pattern & shrill frequency of the emergency alarm and odd whispering…  I could hear me breathing fast… The fear of uncertainty pumped in… “Oh my god… I longed for this day, to fulfill my dream of US trip, now looks like it is end of all…” I wanted to come out and was in the verge of breaking into tears, I wanted to see my mom…. There is no way I can talk to her also… Sandy has asked me not to carry the mobile phone to consulate as it will not be allowed inside the consulate campus. Some heavy boots with armory ran past me… When I looked around, almost everyone was in same state as mine. There were people who already stated sobbing, some started chanting prayers, and some started crawling towards the main gate. Amongst all this, there was one kid, who was asked to lie down by her parents, giggling & enjoying, sharing the floor with her parents and 20 to 30 other people. Suddenly the guy who told me, it could be terrorist attack, jumped up and started running towards the main gate only to figure out the iron door is locked from outside. And one guard, moved in and kept him down on the floor in no time, without hurting him. Sensing the tense situation, the guard next to me shouted, “Please be calm… with us, you all are safe. Please trust us”. Anxious moments ticked slowly. Even though it scared the child out of me, I struck with the instructions and remained in the ground but to realize, it is only myself, the little girl and her parents who are still on the ground, the rest, few in crawling position, few sitting on their legs, few sitting with their legs spread and leaning against the pillars and some hushed discussions also kicked in beyond repeated requests by guards to keep quiet. It had been an hour; the fear has now slowly given way to anxiety. For the whole duration, we never heard a single gunshot or a blast. I asked the guard next to me what is happening. He looked at me and walked forward to take his position there. Suddenly the annoying sound of emergency alarm stopped. A senior official walked and announced, “We regret the inconvenience caused and thank you all for the kind corporation with the security drill”. I was furious and I believe almost every other visa aspirant would have been also but kept quiet as our bad thoughts have now given way to original American dreams.

After verification and biometrics, I was asked to go to another neighboring building for the VISA interview. My new blue shirt and black trousers have patches of brown, the dirt from the ground creamed with sweat. There were two people in counter#6 and I was asked to join the line. When waiting for my interview, I can hear other aspirants being badgered. The guy in front of me spoke English with a thick Tamil accent. The officer interviewing him kept on saying “I can’t understand you.  Speak slowly and clearly”. She finally did deny him his visa, I am not sure for what reason. The officer has handed over his passport and I saw him walking out dejected.  I could sense the pain he was going through on crash landing of dreams… I was quite apprehensive about the interview as I had heard quite a lot of stories about the randomness of the visa interviewers in rejecting the visas and now I have seen it in front of my eyes there were butterflies fluttering in my stomach… I prayed my heart out…. The officer waved her hand at me… I moved in…. Stern but good looking officer… She was scribbling something…“Good Morning…” I wished… I was sweating profusely… She lifted her face… that sparkling eyes, clinked “Good Morning…” Stern face… “how long are you are with your current organization?”. I was prepared for this question, but the answer was not coming, in fact my mind is in a dilemma, whether to tell the experience in months or years….Usually, I refer my experience in years but remembered reading somewhere, it is good to tell experience in months so as to give an exact figure and a professional touch. I told, “28 years… no… 28 months”. She looked up, fixed stare with lips pressed tightly together gave way to wide open eyes, raised eyebrows and burst into laughter…”From birth you are working there, anha…”. I felt like my American dreams are coming down like a playing card castle. She kept screening my passport, lifted he face and probed with a smile “How do I say your first name?”  I said, “ramu”.  “raAmu..?” she quipped. “Yeah…”. “Whatever you say”, I said in my mind. Next question was little unexpected, “Why do you have such a big name?  Your last name has so many parts”. I stumbled, unprepared question. In passport my name is “RAMU MADHUSOODAN PILLAI RADHA KUMARI”. “Actually, my name is not that big, it’s just ramu. Rest is all my initials expanded. My full name is Ramu M  R and the M represents my father’s name and R  my mother’s name. Passport application warrants for expansion of initials”. “Wow, that’s cute..!” she exclaimed… “CUTE…” I didn’t like that adjective. However I maintained my smile and tried to appear cool as a cucumber… “Why you don’t have a family name, most people have…” Again an unprepared question, “Am I giving a visa interview?”, I asked myself.  “My dad and Mom had a love marriage, which didn’t go well with their families so they didn’t inherit anything from their respective families and we kids didn’t inherit their family names”.  “Interesting… Are you married?” I was taken aback… stumped….  “excuse me…” that came out of my mouth unknowingly. She repeated with a pause between each words, “ARE YOU MARRIED?”. Amused I said, “No”. “How long you are going to be in US”. I replied, “3 months”. “Well…. what are you going to do in US, while you are there…?” I explained her, my work profile and involved activities for which I was travelling.  “So other than work, what are you going to do while being in California?” I said, “Visit… Disney land… & Hollywood…”. She looked up, looked right at my eyes…smiled… She pointed her finger towards the biometric machine and said “your left index finger”, as an obedient ward, I did. “Now the right index finger”… “Thank you, you will get your passport in 3-4 days by courier. Have a nice trip and enjoy your stay at United States of America… anha… by the way Las Vegas is also a good place to visit near California”. I thanked her “Appreciate that & Thank you…”.

By the end of a day which showcased see-saw of emotions, I was happy for myself. The day which featured the dreadful moment frilled with emergency alarms finally gave way to an intertwining combination of achievement and happiness. We all start with a wish, nourish it by grabbing the opportunities as dreams of our own and nurture it during sleep and waking with our efforts in pursuit of happiness.  And fulfillment of it sometimes needs bit of luck as well.  And lady Luck favored me that day for me to take my American dreams to Elaboration phase.

My Little Master…

 My kid has school only till noon, so he comes back home around 12:30 PM. I have my mom staying along with me, so till we come back from office, it is the world of grandmother and grandson. They share a unique bond; and she and my wife are his teachers in behaviour skills.  He has often surprised me with the way he handles different people whom he interacts with. He has his own unique way of dealing with a person, whether it is me, my wife, my mom or any other one.  He is very verbal and soaks information in like a sponge and is a highly adaptive child with a lot of pent-up energy.

Being a member of middle level management, one of the most challenging aspects, we all face, is the stakeholder management. As part of the stakeholder management, we need to identify the internal as well as external stakeholders who are relevant, do the proper analysis of the stakeholder information to recognize and acknowledge stakeholder’s need, concern, authority & relationships and engaging them with set values and principles the respective stakeholders abide by. One of the vital factors in all successful engagements is efficient stakeholder management. There is a lot of effort, energy and time is invested to ensure both internal and external stakeholders are kept happy.

Well… I am not here to talk about my work… 🙂 Off late, I came to notice a person who manages all his stakeholders effectively and keeps them happy most times without a stakeholder matrix or other big complex excel sheets. He is none other than my kid. He understands all his internal and external stakeholders, responds well to their needs, concerns, value their authorities, understand and appreciate the relationships his stakeholders share. One of the transparent, honest and open stakeholder management processes, I have ever seen.

He understands, in mornings, I will be busy with my jogging/walking, newspaper, catching up with my emails overnight, and getting ready to office. However in the evening, once I am back from office, freshens myself up, catches up with the emails that piled up while I was in the mad traffic of Bangalore, he knows, it is his time. He talks to me about his school, the adventures he and grand mom did at home, a new toy which recently got into his wish list and his destination for weekend trip (All these change every day 🙂 ) supplemented with lots of hugs, high fives, kisses and thumbs ups.  At times, there will be request for putting him to sleep, that also he has to sleep in my chest, which he used to do a lot when he was lot younger. I also never want to miss this session, so I try my level best to be with him for this session, regardless of my busy schedule at work. Off late, I am glad that I am able to do so, on a consistent basis. He recognizes the fact that I am a little tough nut to crack than his mom and grand mom and is not as positively vulnerable as them to his crankiness. Most time I relinquish his tantrums like the three bites rule. The first bite of something is the best, the second confirms it, and the third is to be savored and after that it is downhill. I try to remind myself that it’s a stage, but it doesn’t always work.

For days on end, he will test my wife at every single opportunity, just to see whether she caves in or not. He has succeeded only on rare instances. One of the top complaints my wife have about me is that I don’t talk too much. Just like, he heard the same, when he was in her womb; he started speaking when he was 9 months old.  She now just talks and talks and talks with him. During the process, she helps him discover that he is worthy of respect and understanding, and help in learn to respect and empathize with others. She encourages him to recognize how he feels and show it, whether the feeling is good or bad. She even talks to him about what may be making him feel that way. During those conversations, she puts me also in spot because in those conversations, I am projected as the role model. Now he thinks, I am super hero (Refer Me – The super hero…). :). Despite feeling tired at the end of her workday, she finds energy to play hide and seek, feed him, share thoughts and feelings about school and home, listen to what he tells and even what he doesn’t tell her. Sometimes it is amazing to realize that she gets the messages even in silence or outbursts of him. Probably she does the same to me as well by listening to feelings along with listening to words. (Even though I am good in listening to words, I am terrible in listening to feelings). You will see him emoting all his feelings to her.

Well…., talking about my mom and him, it was like my mom justifying the quote “Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild”. She was discovering another fresh facet of love through him.  Both being possessive of each other, his grandma provided him in abundance, unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life and in return, he accepted her for being herself, without rebuke or effort to change her, as very few people in her entire life has ever done, not her parents, siblings, friends, my dad, my wife nor even me and my siblings. I always thought that I am the closest to my mom, however he stand claim now. Despite her age, she marches with him, does his PT exercises, patiently helps in his homework, talks and listens to him for hours and lives for fulfilling his wish list. Whenever we are about to leave after a visit to any of my sibling’s place, he holds her hand and tells her “Come… let us go… say good bye…” He is afraid; she may stay back, once while he was sleeping, my mom stayed back at my sister’s place because my sister’s kid wanted her to stay. Next day morning, he was inconsolable and we called her over phone and gave the phone to him, there was a lengthy conversation and by the end of it, she was there at home. Now you know the bond they share.

It is very interesting to observe how he bonds with my sibling’s kids, who are younger to him. My sister has got a girl child, they both are childhood buddies as my sister came down to our home for her delivery and they continued to live with us till last year, now they have moved out to a place which is near to their office. Now whenever they get together my kid and my sister’s kid play cooking, mommy and daddy and some other games, which I never understood, along with solving puzzles & singing songs. I keenly observe them play mommy and daddy as that gives me live review of what I do day to day. 🙂 He dominates her mostly in the games and they listen to each other and they play without much fuss. At times there will be some hue and cry, when she revolts against his authority :).  He senses her unhappiness quickly and offers her what she wants and gets into a settlement of differences by arbitration. My brother’s first child is a boy and he is younger to both my kid and sister’s kid. They play a different league of game, mostly boy’s games like riding toy cars, bikes, watching cartoons like Ben 10, Thomas the tank engine, Pixar – car movies, hide and seek, space shuttle rides, running, jumping, making lots of noise and so on…  There they both try to dominate each other and at times reach the verge of physical fights, however I have seen at times my kid taking back seat and trying to solve the dispute. I have seen him aggressive only when he is emotionally hurt. He loves spending time with both of them and recommends a trip to any of their place over weekends. I and my siblings make sure; the kids meet every week, so that family bonds are intact.

Recently we were invited to my kid’s school for term review of his performance; his teachers were gaga over him… One of the proudest moment of being a parent, is when your kid is being appreciated. One of the interesting aspect, we learned about him at school is, he listens & obeys all his teachers and abides by classroom rules and procedures. I asked them again, “You said, he sticks to classroom rules and procedures?” His class teacher responded, “Yes, he is one of the most well behaved guys in the class”. I was taken by surprise, at home he dislikes to be constrained by any restriction. He just rebels against any rules set for him at home. So we present his rules in a different way, so that he feels it is not a rule or something he should not do. We tell him “You are a big boy now, big boys and girls don’t do such stuff, and only babies do it”.  He enjoys being called as big boy. In fact when we were kids, we always wanted to be treated as adults and as we grew up, we want to be treated and pampered like a kid. 🙂 What really amused me on that conversation with my kid’s school management is my learning of how well my boy adjusts to the situation demands and people he interacts.

The ease with which he strikes the chord of effective and efficient bonding with all and continually creating and developing relationships is pretty remarkable. Mostly, this is done without conscious thought; but whether it’s a child, parent, friend or the neighbor, these relationships don’t just happen on their own. You imbibe the knowledge and experience in understanding at different levels about the people in your life, and the most ideal way to deal with them. As a human being, all of us get pretty experienced in managing the relationships around us with age.

At work place, however, managing relationships takes a different dimension. There are a myriad of relationships that you come across in a day, you may deal with peers, superiors, subordinates, business partners and clients/customers, who has varied expectations on you to managing people up and down the corporate ladder both inside and outside the organization. Few tips, I learned from my little master on managing stakeholders are

• Don’t be afraid to communicate, whether it is good or bad news. You need to be transparent to win the trust.
  • He loves to talk and he does that with passion on different aspects to the people whom are interested on those aspects. He is very swift in communication and getting connected with people and is never afraid in telling them what he thinks/feels with his inherent innocence.
• Never leave any stakeholders unhappy, make sure we don’t leave any open ends and ensure you understand and appreciate the reason for their unhappiness and take them into confidence through effective communication.
  • He ensures that no one is unhappy because of him. When I am upset with him for anything, he makes sure, he comes to me, says sorry, gives me hugs and kisses followed by a thumbs up saying “friends!!”. There melts the fake wall of seriousness of mine and then he drags my attention to something else by talking about his friends or school or new cartoon character or an imaginary song/story of his own.
• A good working relationship is a dynamic one. This is the way they avoid becoming stale and falling into predictable patterns.
  • He keeps working on his relationships continuously improving the way he relates to people. Recently my brother and sister in law are blessed with a baby girl. And my mom wanted to spend few days with them. She told my kid that, “There is a new baby at uncle’s place. Baby wants grandma’s help for her growing up so that she can play with you”.  He looked at her, there was a silence, and tears rolled in, then came his response in a low tone, “OK, make the baby grow big, but I will come Saturday to uncle’s place and pick you up, OK…”, followed by a thumbs up… we all were surprised… my mom and wife hugged and kissed him. I saw him understanding and responding well to the dynamicity of the relationships.
• When people are in well-managed relationships they feel aligned, committed, on board and motivated.
  • Take the case of my mom, he was able to cultivate loyalty and trust in her among all her grandchildren because of which she always feel aligned, committed and motivated for him.
• Make mistakes, but learn from them.
  • Invariantly just like any kid, he makes plenty of mistakes while he build his little world around him however he learns quickly from it to not to repeat the same mistake to get into the wrong side of people. At work, at times, even small mistakes will be escalated, however you should be receptacle to learn from those and improve. One thing which I also noticed is in a well-managed relationship; your mistakes will be easily forgotten, just like your family.
• Take charge than control. 
  • When you attempt to be in control, you are trying to get other people to confirm to your picture of the way things should be, things will be rosy till all is well and the blame game will start with the very first glitch. Being in charge means you both see and accept a situation for what really it is, not what you long for. Having a better view enables you to work with, work around, compensate and accommodate the adverse situations. With his interaction with my sibling’s kids, I have seen him wearing thinking cap of taking charge and taking control as per situation.

The stark truth is that one party cannot be in total control of a relationship. However we can be proactive, hoping for a reciprocating response being open to inspect the situation, ready to change and adapt for long lasting relationship. Wish you all a successful stakeholder management, both in life and at work.

Note: The Caricature is prepared by a anonymous artist and not by me.

The Dream Chaser…

I had many friends at school and no friends in my neighborhood, primarily because my mom never allowed us as kids to mingle with kids in our neighborhood. I, my brother and sister share the same story. However we all have built great friendships at our school, college & work. Once out of school, regardless of Mom’s tight guard, I made friends in our neighborhood and my closest friends till date is from my old neighborhood. 

I met Shankar, Anand & Kumar (all name changed) the day after I joined college. In those days, we had the privilege to go to college just after completion of 10^th standard. The two years of pre-degree (+2) studies were part of college than school, those days. Any Guess, how did I meet them? …. Hmm….Sorry, you all are wrong… It was only my mom who introduced me to Shankar. He was in the same college as mine and since his house was very close to mine and his father was a college lecturer and was known in social circles, my mom trusted him with me. :). She instructed me “You can go with him and come back with him” and requested Shankar “He don’t know the bus stops and have never travelled by himself in buses, so please guide him through and make sure he is always with you”. Being a teen, I felt embarrassed by that introduction, however still I thank my mom for introducing me to a wonderful friend circle. Anand, Kumar & Shankar were childhood friends and even though they have several other friends, no one was able to get into that closely knitted inner group. May be, they sensed, very quickly, that I share same wavelength of thought process and energy as them, I was welcomed quickly into the “gang of three” to make it “the gang of four”, to so many people’s surprise including their parents. As we grew up, we all travelled in different directions to build our careers and are successful in our own lives in our own way and still remains best friends.

We all belonged to different family back ground. Kumar and Shankar belonged to upper middle class, me to middle class and Anand to lower middle class. 🙂 Funniest thing was it very much aligned to number of siblings we have. Kumar has a brother and Shankar has a sister. I have a brother and sister and Anand has 2 brothers and 2 sisters. :). As you all know, financial condition of a family is the reflection of the income head of the family brings home and how it is consumed. Kumar’s father was a Central Government employee, Shankar’s father was a college lecturer, my father was a State Government employee and Anand’s father was a priest. We had different customs, food tastes, skills, financial conditions, the way we express our emotions however we all shared a good synchronized wave length in the way we think and react to various situations and energy levels, we possessed. We showcase unity in diversity through our friendship.

Now when we all got busy with my own lives, long working hours, no more tuition classes & lectures, bunking classes, long walks to college, no second show movies, no cozy discussions at Shankar’s place, no bullying and pulling each other’s legs, no long bike rides, no talks about girls, no eating out at our favorite fast food place, no game of cricket…., in fact, at times, we won’t have time for ourselves. Sometimes in a relaxed evening, the good old memories flash by and I get a smile with a tear in my eyes and I wish I could go back…

In most middle class family in India, basically kids won’t decide what they want to be.  During schooling, every middle class family will be having a plan A and Plan B for the kid. Plan A remained same across families, to be a doctor or Engineer. Plan B is usually kept open, planning on that happens only after the grades from schools are out. (In fact, kids, rebel by scoring less marks so that they get a choice ;)) Shankar was destined to be an Engineer by his family, he was studying first group mainly comprising of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, Kumar’s family also wanted him to be an Engineer like his brother, and however his grades at school were not that great to pursue Engineering. His father’s plan B was to study Commerce. At my home, plan A itself was a bit shaky. My father wanted me to be a Doctor and my Mom wanted me to be an Engineer.  So to enable me to write both Engineering and Medical entrance exams (Entrance a competitive exam, whose grades will decide your admission to an Engineering/Medical college and which Engineering/Medical college, you are going to study) I had to study second group with additional mathematics, in which I have to study Physics, Chemistry and Biology and the additional mathematics. At Anand’s home, he told his decision to pursue Engineering; there the decisions are mostly done by his father and his elder brother. In fact they themselves have not discussed their plan A for him with each other. They looked at each other and his brother said, “You complete your pre-degree first, let us see… “.  He also took First group as Shankar.

Me, Shankar and Anand used to sit together and study at Shankar’s place as we have common things to study and we loved each other’s company. Our study sessions were nurtured by dosas, maladus, vadas and payasams by Shankar’s Mom.  Along with the magic touch and love of Shankar’s mom, it had the garnish of our friendship. We ate from the same plate, fed each other while we were unraveling the complexities of mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Anand had varied interests, he loved computers and given a chance, he will start talking about computers. You have to understand, he was a teen in early 1990’s in a small town in India.  He has amazing taste for music; he can drum in a desk with good rhythm besides having no formal training. All of us have an interest towards the game of cricket, however Anand is the only one who still plays the game, while all of us have retired to jogging & walking to keep us fit. During our studies, Anand used to surprise us every now and then by his approach towards a analyzing a problem and the way he solves it. He sometimes finds amazingly easier way to solve complex problems. I still remember, in one of the Physics class, he stunned our lecturer by solving a problem in an unconventional and easier way than what was taught in class and what textbook prescribes. For any complex problem solving, he was our guy. He spotted a geek look with his heavy concave glasses and shabby dressing. His lengthy oiled hair falls on his fore head, every time he puts his head down and writes. He just looked geeky, along with being our problem solver, he was one of the funniest guys, I have ever come across. He cracks jokes out of nowhere, sometimes it become so sarcastic, you will enjoy only if you are not at the receiving end.  I have been at the receiving end quite a few times. In fact, Shankar is one guy who was least at his sarcastic mayhem, probably because of the very childhood bonds they shared. Anand’s mom used to tell us, while he was a child; he came home only in the night to sleep, rest he was at Shankar’s place.

One day, we were having the study session together; he was not in his usual mood. He sat with his head on his arms and was looking out through the window. Before we asked anything, he stood up walked towards the window and announced, “I am not going to take the Engineering entrance exam”. We all looked at him, “Ahaaa..?”. Thinking, it is the takeoff of another joke/sarcasm from him. He turned towards us; we saw tears rolling down his thick glasses, we heard him sobbing…, It was Shankar, who recouped himself fast, walked towards Anand and held his hand. The childhood buddies went into each other’s arms. Anand murmured in a trembling voice, “There are some financial circumstances because of which I need to postpone pursuing Engineering”. I was awestruck and walked towards them; put my right hand in Anand’s left shoulder, “I can talk to my mom, for your exam fee”. The more thinking Shankar responded, “That’s not enough, what about the college fees and other expenses of study? Let me talk to my father”. (Shankar’s father was a very kind person, he was known for his kindness and social works he did in the locality.) However Anand was stern, “He said, no friends, I value your offer. I cannot afford to study for 4 to 5 years. I need to get a job as quick as possible to support my family. My father’s health is also deteriorating”. We were seeing another facet of Anand there. It was not our joyful, rib tickling, bullying Anand, It was a determined, highly mature and responsible individual on display. Both I and Shankar felt, we are lucky to have him as a friend.  Anand never regretted about that decision and he never talked about the lost opportunity again and we never brought that up as well. He went back to the old Anand, we all know, very fast. And we enjoyed our college to the fullest together.

Myself and Shankar gave Engineering entrance exam  and we both got into different engineering colleges in different disciples and began our journey towards being an engineering professional ( Even though I have given medical entrance exam as well, myself and my mom was able to convince my dad about Engineering). Meanwhile Kumar pursued degree in Commerce and Anand joined Diploma in Engineering. Before I and Shankar finished the college, both Kumar and Anand got into jobs. Even though Anand studied Diploma in Engineering, he took a job, which was nowhere related to engineering, it was more a clerical work at our home town. Kumar got into a central government organization and moved to New Delhi for his work. Passing out of the college both me and Shankar got into 2 different organizations in our home town. I, Shankar and Anand ensured, we meet most evenings at Shankar’s place. We had already moved to next level of friendship with all maturing to next level of adolescence. However when we meet in that room of Shankar, we all were those teens just out of school talking about everything under the world, pulling each other’s leg, planning for movies, travels, dirty talks etc.  Anand’s computer interest grew along with him and now he nurtures a dream of being a “System Administrator. I don’t know whether we can call it a dream, he lived it. He brought a desktop at home on loan and kept trying new things, he learned every day through books supplied by us and browsing at Shankar’s place. At that time, among us friends, only Shankar had an internet connection at home. Shankar, Kumar (He comes once in a month on leave) and me mostly used to check our personal emails while Anand used to spend most of his time there in learning about desktops, operating systems, servers, network etc. He had applied multiple times at his office for the post of “Assistant System Administrator” with his diploma degree in engineering and got rejected saying there are applicants with an Engineering degree already there in the queue.

It was on a Friday evening at Shankar’s place, when I reached, Anand was not there. Usually Anand will be the first person to reach, sometimes earlier than Shankar :). At Shankar’s, we three are welcome at any time of the day, we all share an unusual bond with his family. Me and Shankar were talking about new movie release and were planning for a second show. Anand walked in, he looked very happy and was beaming with joy. Even though, I have seldom seen him with a gloomy face,  it was very evident from his face that something good has happened. “At last, it is decided” he paused; we both looked at his face.  As naughty as ever, the famous story teller/bully was weaving suspense. I got impatient, “what is decided, are you going to get married?”. “Marriage, who want to get married, dude… I am free bird… never want my wings to be plucked and caged…” again the pause… Shankar asked… “Is there any positive progress in your system administrator application?”. Answer was just a smile… both me and Shankar looked at each other and started talking again about the movie. Anand jumped between us… “I am over joyed today… A door of opportunity is now opened for me to follow my dream of becoming a System Administrator. I am going to study engineering…” I and Shankar looked at each other and turned towards Anand and asked at the same time, “Are you planning to give the entrance exam?”. “Entrance exam!!”, Anand laughed… “See Entrance exams are for small kids like you guys….., for big guys like me, we go directly to Engineering College.” He paused and smiled, then continued “There is a department sponsored higher education program at office. When such a notification came, I just applied. I didn’t tell you guys that time as I was not expecting me to be considered due to my current job profile. Looks like there are not enough aspirants from the department and since I have high marks in Diploma, pre-degree and school, I got selected. The classes will be in the evening, so can work and study.” We could sense his mind jumping up and down with happiness. We were also very happy for him; we hugged him and we saw tears in his eyes after 13 long years but this time it was tear of joy. We celebrated it with a dinner out along with a second show.

He joined the college where my sister was studying as a junior to her. Five years later, he completed his engineering degree with flying colors as he does in every class and got promoted as System administrator in the organization where he is working. His determination & will power to conceive a vision and work with a conviction is something which rubs on to you. He inspires the power and energy to get it done from his dream itself. He was never afraid of the space between his dreams and reality. He believed in himself and walked the thought, if he can dream it; he can make it as well. When you dare to dream, makes up your mind to follow that dream and opens yourself to suffer through the pain, sacrifice, self-post mortems and face the opposition from the world then you will genuinely impress yourself. Self-esteem must be earned! Anand has earned his self-esteem through his determination, conviction and commitment. I salute you, my friend and I am proud to say, I am your friend. Sorry, we all are proud to say, “You are our friend”

PS: You are another living example of Perseverance…, dude!!

Perseverance…

In my childhood, we stayed in a rented house till I was 5 years old. It was a spacious three bedroom house with a big courtyard, lots of trees and plants, guarded by a five feet wall and a six feet gate. It was a single storied building thatched with tiles and floors finished with red oxide and black oxide. If I am staying at that house now, I might have enjoyed, however at that age, as kids, mine and my brother’s life got confined within those walls. My mom was busy cooking food, feeding us and keeping the house a home and dad was busy in his own dual world of work and art.

We never had friends in our neighbourhood, I was my brother’s friend and he was mine. Even though we were not allowed to mingle outside, our mom ensured, we have everything at home. She used to prepare more than one dish for every meal as per each and every family member’s taste; ensures she gives ample time of hers to all of us, squeezes in some money from the shoe string budget for some handmade toys, etc. Even though she tries very hard to ensure both myself and my brother is always kept engaged by her, there are times especially during weekends we are all alone by ourselves. Most often when she prepares lunch, sweeps and mops the house, cleans the mess behind us.

It was on those gaps, me and my brother, Pavi (name changed) who is 2 years younger to me, do our expeditions in our walled world.

• We play with sand, which is strictly restricted by mom citing it will lead to worms in stomach
• We climb small trees. In fact there were some trees like goose berries, guava, wax apple in our compound which bears fruits and are of our reach. There are big trees of Mango, Jack fruit and coconut which are inevitable part of our environment.
• We pull down things kept at a height down especially sweets and most of the time we make a mess of mom’s cub board
• We run around the house, play hide and seek, police and thief, train, cars….
• We love chasing the crows, they know we are not harmful, so they will not fly away when we go near, then just keep hoping and we keep chasing 🙂
• Another loved thing is catch butterflies, we were never successful in catching one at that age, but loved to chase them with soft feet.
• We fight… which would be curtains to our expeditions for that time

It was on one such weekend, when we had a fight, my mom got pissed off probably because she might have had a fight with dad in the morning, may be not… usually our mom won’t get pissed off with us that much, even though we both were extremely naughty. She locked us in one of the bedrooms. When I say locked, it is not locked-locked. In that house, most of the entrances had dutch doors (it is otherwise called as stable door or a half door), where a door divided horizontally, the bottom half may remain shut while the top half opens, especially meant for kids like us. 😉 We sat quiet in two corners for some time as an immediate reaction to the punishment. You know, as kids we cannot refrain ourselves for long, we started our adventures within the room by climbing up the window, jumping on the bed, pillow fighting till mom came for inspection. “Don’t fight, the old man will come and take you away”. We knew mom is saying this just to frighten us, but every time when she says the same we imagine an old man coming and picking us up and going, so we used to sit quiet for some time, but only for some time… J “I will get you milk, play like good boys”. She went back. My brother was lying in his back in the bed and shouting “I don’t want milk”. I got down from the bed. We don’t like milk at all. It would be more correct to say, I don’t like the smell of milk. So when I used to drink milk, I used to hold my nose with my left hand. 🙂

 I was searching the cup boards for something to eat, in the top rack of the cupboard, I saw a bottle. I pulled one chair towards the cupboard, climbed the chair, climbed on to the cupboard and took the bottle. But now how to get down, I have bottle in one hand, so I kept the bottle in the middle rack and stepped down to the chair and then successfully came down with the bottle. I looked at it, something is written it in English, D E T T O L. I didn’t understand what it is. My brother jumped up and yelled “honey”. Ok, I am also convinced, it is honey, by color it is honey only. Our mom used to give us some ayurvedic medicine for increasing our immunity mixed with honey. And she keeps honey in same room, so it was concluded that it is indeed honey. I was about to drink, my brother started crying… “Me first….” I usually don’t have any soft feelings, but that day for some reason, I was little considerate towards my brother… “Ok, take it…” I opened the bottle and handed over… he drank a mouthful…spitted some honey and then suddenly started crying big mouth…. and dropped the bottle… the floor was full of “honey” and broken glass pieces. I was raging with anger, for him breaking the honey bottle and me missing the turn to drink honey. I wanted him to be punished for that huge mistake of not sharing…

By the time I yelled “Amma…. Pavi broke the honey bottle….” our mom was inside the room, not because I yelled but my brother cried… she looked at the shattered bottle… took my brother in her hip and held my hand and moved to a corner of the room where there is no broken glass pieces… Once we are away from mess, she sat down, looked at me and asked “What happened?” “Pavi broke the honey bottle”, I explained sheepishly. Next question was “Who took it from the shelf?” Even she knew only I can take, there was no answer from me, I was like a thief caught red handed, tears rolling down… I moved towards her, she hugged me too and said “I have told you several times, don’t take things, which are kept at a height, those are things, which you and your brother should not touch or use, because those things may be dangerous for you” I nodded, “I won’t do it again”. Then she noticed, the bottle was uncorked. She asked me, “Did you open the bottle?”. As I am already in her arms and I felt safe speaking to her, me with all my innocence and head on her shoulders agreed with her, “Hmm…”. Again she quizzed with a tone filled with anxiety, “Did you drink it?”. The villain in me woke up, “No amma, I didn’t but Pavi did…” My mom suddenly switched to a panic mood… “What did you say…?” “Pavi drank the honey and broke it so that I don’t drink”, I didn’t try to hide my frustration of not being able to drink honey. She suddenly stated crying… I didn’t understand why she is crying, is she crying because I didn’t get to drink honey or the honey bottle is broken? I tried to console her, “it is ok amma…, don’t cry…, we will go out and buy new honey and then I will drink…”.

 My mom took both of us on both sides of her hip and ran out… I was very happy that she is taking us out straight away to get a new bottle of honey… she was running or walking fast I don’t remember… at the end of the journey in which both my brother and my mom cried throughout, we reached our regular doctor’s house, Dr. Pal (Name changed), which was near our house. I like him very much because I get to play with his stethoscope and also he gives me chocolates. He greeted my mom, “Hey, what happened at this time with these two…?” My mom was panting badly and tears rolling down the cheeks, I wiped them off and answered while my mom was catching her breath “Pavi drank honey and broke the bottle, we are going to buy new honey for me to drink”. My mom’s weeping transformed into bawling. Doctor said “come in”. We got in, she told the story. Doctor said, “Don’t worry, kids cannot drink DETTOL (liquid antiseptic cleansing product), because of the burning sensation, they will split it out…, as a precaution we can have his stomach washed, come let us go to hospital”. We went to hospital and had my brother’s stomach washed, just like  take one get one free… my stomach also got washed as my mom was not sure, whether I also drank “honey”.

One thing which is impeccable with my mom is her perseverance. If she had scolded me first time, I should have never told her, my brother drank “honey”. I have noticed several such instances involving her and my kid where both I and my wife being impatient, fails to understand my kid’s viewpoint, where she succeeds. Probably let us talk about that some other time. Perseverance is being able to tackle situations calmly. I see a living example of perseverance in my mom. The calmness with which she approaches adversities is one thing I always longed to achieve, hopefully it is in my genes and may become dormant with age :).

Family, the unexplained bond…

It was on a very hot day in September, I landed at Palakkad (Olavakkode) Railway station. My dad was with me. Since he is a frequent traveller, he knows most places. We took an auto rickshaw to a hotel in Palakkad town.

I have never stayed at hotels till then. Probably, it would be right to say, never had a memory of staying in a hotel before that. In fact, I never had a memory of, we as a family going for an outing or any outstation. Most of our vacations were to my dad’s ancestral home which is in outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram. However it won’t be nice, if I don’t admit, I enjoyed my time there. My dad has 9 siblings and on an average everyone has 2 children and most of them used to get together during vacations at our ancestral home. Now you know the crowd and the fun as kids we used have.

At the hotel, our room was spacious and it had a view of the hilly terrain and greenery of Palakkad through our windows. Through that window, Palakkad was infiltrating into my mind. She is surrounded by palm groves, forests, hilly terrain and rivers. Though Palakkad does not have any sandy beaches (I usually fall in love with any place with a good sandy beach), she was divinely beautiful, rather she had a wildly attractiveness. I would put her among one of my favorite places.

Even though that night went uneventful, I was not able to sleep properly. For the first time in my life, I was away from my Mom, and the feeling that I will be all alone in this unknown town, once my dad returns back, made me nervous and restless. To add to this, my dad was snoring very badly and the entire room was filled with cigarette smoke. He doesn’t like sleeping with windows open. It was very stuffy; I decided to open a window panel. Finally somehow when I caught some sleep, I had a bad dream. I jumped out of my bed.

 I was stranded in a narrow road with tall buildings with straight walls on both sides and all of a sudden there was a big giant ball, covering the entire street, came rolling towards me. And I was running and running screaming Amma….  (When I was walking through the wall street of NY, I had a flash back of this dream :)).

I was sweating profusely. I was looking for water; there was water in a jug near the window. I walked towards the window. The raging hot air during the day has given way to cool breeze. I opened all the windows, the room started cooling down and I slipped into sleep sometime in the wee hours of morning.

Next day morning, the hotel guys have arranged a taxi for us. The driver/Chauffer was a middle aged man, he was lean and tall but one striking thing, I noticed about that guy was his mustache, just below the nose the hair color was brown and rest was black with streaks of grey hair. When we came out he was smoking a beedi (local cigar). When he saw us, he threw the beedi away and saluted my dad, and asked me “What’s your name, son”. For some reason, I didn’t like him calling me “son”. I responded in a very low tone, “Ramu”. “Ramu!, what is this name?, what is the meaning of it?”. I kept quiet as I felt no need of this person to know the same. My dad was finishing his cigarette before entering the car, he took two three puffs in a hurry and responded, “It was his mom, who put him this name, it is name of a cartoon”. The driver busted into a laughter, “CARTOON…”. I was so pissed off; I shouted “it is not name of a cartoon”. My dad joined the driver and laughter got louder and I felt I shouldn’t give any further explanation. Actually it was my mom who coined the name for me. “Ramu” is not a common name in the southern part of India. When I was born, my mom wanted to give me a name from her name and my dad’s name. She spend long hours trying out permutation combinations and came up with the name. She took away the common alphabets from their names and came up with the name RADHAMADHU. My dad didn’t like it as he wanted to name me as “Deepankuran”, meaning born from flames. And the story behind my name goes like this, one day a renowned personality in social/cultural circle, Aravindan, who was my dad’s friend came home to congratulate my mom and dad on my birth. He asked “what name you have kept for your son”. My mom jumped in and said “Ramu”. He said, “Nice and unique name, I have kept the same for my kid as well”. (In fact he used to draw lots of cartoons and the hero of his cartoon was also named Ramu) That was a stamp, thus my name became Ramu.

The car kept moving, the roads were bumpy with lots of pot holes. After a series of big pot holes which made us feel, we are in a roller coster, there was a sign board “Malampuzha 5 kms” & “Akathethara 1 km”. The car took the road towards Akathethara. Our driver announced, “If you go straight, you will reach Malampuzha, which is famous for the dam and park/garden around the same. The road which we took now will take us to the village of Akathethara. Akathethara is famous for 2 things, one is a temple in which the two hands which are supposedly of the Devi, are worshipped and the NSS engineering college”. The car kept on going through bad patches of road, then took a 90 degree turn, then the driver started his announcement again, “the buildings to your right, on the other side of the open ground are the men’s hostel.” The car kept moving up the incline dodged with pit holes. There was a building in the left and a cashew grove in the right. He started again, “the building in the left is the women’s hostel and the building which you see in your right now is your college, son”.

We reached NSS Engineering College; it stood tall in the backdrop of a chain of hills with a thin silver streak of stream flowing down it’s peak, which is popularly known as ‘nipple rock’ for its striking resemblance.  We reached the office, finished the formalities and went on to meet the Principal.  There the scenes were a little dramatic, my dad and the Principal were some old time friends. They forget about my presence there and got indulged in their own world. By the time they came back to the real world, the butterflies in my tummy of being in front of a big professional college principal flew away… and never came back till end of my tenure in the college. We will talk about the eventful tenure of me at college another time. I was asked to go to office and fill in the fees; my dad gave me some money. He and the Principal got back to their chit chat as I walked out of the room. There was a big line in front of the fee counter, principal’s office boy, who was directed by the principal to escort me to fee counter, took the money and the paper works from me and walked inside, I stood outside. I felt bit relaxed and the stories of ragging in the engineering colleges slowly started taking back stage. I was enjoying the hot wind which was blowing across the corridor.

Out from principal office, my dad announced, “you don’t have to sit in class today, let us go to the hostel”. My dad walked toward taxi. I was expecting the taxi to take the route towards open grounds, as always my dad sprang in another surprise, he said, “We are not going to college hostel, you are going to stay outside, in a private hostel, which is railway colony”. The sense of safety which I felt being in college hostel because the principal of the college is my dad’s friend suddenly gave away for the heard stories of ragging in private hostels outside. With a perplexed face, I asked “Why”. My dad never felt the need of clarifying the same at that point in time. He lighted his cigarette. I hate the smell of the cigarette in a closed space. He never allows rolling down the window in the back seat of the car as his long hair will catch wind and expose his high forehead. I opened the door and got into the front seat and rolled down the window. He explained, “for first year students it is very difficult to get entry to college hostels and the principal has suggested another hostel in railway colony which is run by another teacher of the college”. It took almost 30 minutes in the car for us to reach the hostel. “I asked him, how you expect me to go to college”. The answer was straight, “Just like how other inmates go to college”. I had no answer, I was getting frustrated. From there to reach places where you can see a shop, minimum you have to walk 10 minutes.

We reached the hostel, suggested by my dad’s friend (For me now he is my dad’s friend than my principal). It stood next to a school, facing a very big open ground; I couldn’t see too many buildings nearby. The hostel has 3 buildings. The one which was facing the gate was a two storey building with two rooms in the ground floor and one in the top and the one to the left of it was the biggest of all three was also a two storied building, four rooms in the ground floor and three in the top. Straight opposite to the biggest building was a shed which was thatched with asbestos. I was not impressed, the big and beautiful buildings I saw earlier was still persisting in front of my eyes.

The gate of the hostel was locked.  Time was 12:30, sun is beating down, and I was feeling hungry as well as thirsty, I didn’t want to get down from the car. I sat there. My dad got down, opened the gate and went in. I was so tired of the sleeplessness and hunger, I slipped into a nap. I was shaken to senses by dad. He was shouting, “We are here for your stay not mine”. I was like “OK” and opened the door and stepped out. Then he announced, “No one is here”. My question was spontaneous “then?”. He didn’t say anything but presented me with a stare, which conveyed it all. He said, “let us go and have food first”. I welcomed the decision by getting into the car. Smoke started coming from the back seat. He told our driver, “Go to a good restaurant”. The response was another question “Vegetarian or non-vegetarian?” I wanted to say “Non-vegetarian”, however the smoke filled response came quicker, “which ever is nearer”. I was crossing my fingers and expecting it to be a non-vegetarian restaurant. At home, we seldom make non-vegetarian. Monthly one or two times fish and mutton for Diwali. Driver to my delight announced, “there is good non-veg hotel nearby”. No answer came from back seat but smoke. The car was moving, the hot dry air kept blowing on my face, I went back to my nap where I left off few minutes back. We reached the restaurant. There was no need for someone to walk me up; I woke up as if I knew it will take this much time to reach the restaurant. Dad invited our driver as well for food along with us, first he declined but later on accepted as if he was forced to do so. 🙂

At restaurant, I sat next to dad, and the driver opposite to us. Before the menu came, a glass full of hot water came. I looked at dad and said “it is too hot, I need something cold“. He didn’t look at me, just sipped water and said, “When it is hot, you need to drink hot water, so that you sweat and your body is kept cool”. I said, “whatever, I need cold water, I am getting head ache.”. The waiter at the restaurant was ready by then with the menu. I said, “One lime juice”, without looking at Dad. He & the driver got a menu. I was looking over my dad’s shoulder. I figured out what I need, ghee rice and chicken dry fry.  The driver offered me the menu, he also has done with his selection. I politely declined, saying “no, thanks”. He called the waiter and asked him “What is the fish?”. He responded “Seer Fish”. Driver ordered fish curry meals with Seer Fish fry. My dad returned the menu to the waiter and said “make it three”. I shouted, “I need Ghee Rice and Chicken Dry Fry”. There was laughter between my dad, driver and waiter. I was blushing, but I also joined them. Food came, I enjoyed my lunch. I felt like, I was made to choose NSS College of Engineering as my college because I have to taste this. 😉  In fact during my entire stay at Palakkad, I ensured at least once in a month I go there, Hotel Nice at Olavakkode, and have the same menu items, Ghee rice & Chicken Dry Fry :).

After food, we went to railway station which was nearby to see if my dad’s ticket is confirmed and then he said “We will go to hotel and get my bag and then go to hostel, I may have to leave directly from there as it will be too late by then”. I woke up when there was a tap at my shoulder, we were back at the hostel, and the room in right end of the building opposite to gate was open. We got down, and walked in. There was an old man sitting in the room with a table lamp on.  My dad handed over the letter from principal to him. He said “there is only one vacancy, since you have letter from principal you should get it, but I am not the person to decide that, you need to go and meet CPP sir (Names changed)”. My dad raised his eyebrow, looked at me. He visibly looked perplexed. He asked that old man, “when will he come?”. The answer was rude. “He won’t come and meet you, if you want a place, then you should go and see him. You come with principal’s letter doesn’t matter to me”.  I looked at my dad, as per my understanding of him, he should now explode. But he was calm, he quipped, “where can I meet CPP sir?”. Th answer was quick, “At his home, after 4”. “Where is his home?” my dad asked. I could sense the change of tone. The old man tore off a small piece paper from the notepad he had and started to scribble the address. Again back to car. In the car, my dad was furious with that old man. “What a rude guy, why cannot he give proper answers?” I just wanted to tell him, you are no better but I restrained my tongue. We reached CPP sir’s residence after some struggle with the route. He seemed to be waiting for us. The old man might have given him the news. He welcomed us in, gave us hot tea and snacks followed by his rules to be practiced within the hostel. The list was too long; I don’t remember all of it now. Anyways he was like a brigadier talking to his new recruit. The butterflies which flew away when I was at Principal’s room flew back in, and it remained there for CPP sir, till I left the college. 😉 He scribbled something in a sheet of paper and handed over to my dad and said “Give this to Govindan (name changed), the old man at hostel, and leave your son at hostel and go back with peaceful mind, he is my responsibility now”.

When we reached back the hostel, it was well lit, and it looked like an island in middle of darkness. All the rooms have light now. There are some people outside staring at me and murmuring something. My uneasiness started increasing.  My dad, sensed it, he said, “Don’t worry, they all will be your friends and the principal told me that everyone in this hotel is a fresher”. That brought some relief for me but the realization of I will now be alone with some strangers started haunting me more and more. I was allotted a room in the first floor of the biggest building.

The room was a rectangular one with three cots in it. First two from the main door were having beds. There were three tables and four chairs. There was one person sitting and drawing something. As we entered, he stood up and said “Hello”. I think, I have wished him back, I don’t remember. I went directly to the vacant cot and put my bed there. There was a window next to my bed. My dad was talking to that guy about food, commute to college etc. That guy was Renju (Name changed), first semester Electrical engineering and hailing from Ernakulum district. He said there is another guy named Ragesh (Name changed), Mechanical Engineering hailing from Trivandrum also in the room. I started asking renju questions about where to make phone calls, where to book the train tickets, leaves and vacations etc. My dad might have sensed, this is the right time to slip out. He stood up and said”I am leaving; it is almost time for my train”. I sensed tears rolling out of my eyes, first time in my life (may be it is right to say as far as I remember) my dad hugged me and I was sobbing inconsolably. I have read somewhere “Just because somebody doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you”. Renju walked out of the room sensing the situation, followed by my dad. I didn’t follow him but sat down in one of the chairs there, I am not sure how long I sat there, I was missing my mom, It took some time for me to gather my thoughts and sink into the reality.

Yeah, I am all alone by myself, miles away from the home among strangers in an unknown place. I never realized the value of home & family this much before. I always thought, I love only my mom & my siblings and I can never love my dad. But that day I realized, you cannot afford not to love anyone in your family. You are bound by an unknown thread of compassion, affection, harmony, support and togetherness.  That is family.