Time to call my house a zoo?

First I live here.
Then lot of crows come in.
Not to mention the squirrels that frequently build their homes inside mine.
Also add the cats that roam around.
The occasional parrots that fly by.
A hawk or two have visited us too.
We even had an owl come inside our house long back.
And the latest one is this Kingfisher. I saw it 2 days back, but before I could get my camera, it flew away. Today, I managed to capture it, but from quite a distance. I went some 15 feet near it to get a closer look, but probably this was one camera-shy bird and it just escaped to the neighboring house.

My investigation inspired by watching the CSI TV Series

On the morning of 22nd April, I decided to look around the house to find any other evidence that the thief may have left behind. Armed with my camera, I first went to the balcony which was the main point of entry.

The 2 pictures below indicate clear fingerprints. My suspicion is that while the thief was running out from the balcony, he would have supported himself with his hands on to this window ledge and then hopped on to the drain pipe on his way down.



And BTW, this is the picture of his chappals. Though I don't have a comparison picture, the size of this is bigger than the hawaii chappal that I wear at home. So it must easily be a size 10 and I guess we can safely assume that the thief was at least 5'9".


This next picture is evidence to me that someone placed their feet on the iron bar. Examine closely and you will find that the bars are all dusty, but the flat bar that appears at the bottom-right actually has a section with no dust. And you can further see that this section of the grille is the closest to a wall. That wall is the same one that goes up to the balcony. Also, the footwear that the Police found was right below this section of the grille.


On the same note, this below picture shows a dusty white iron rod. But there is one bright spot there, which could have been caused by brushing of the thief's body. Also, if you zoom real close, you can see something like a fibre/hair around that spot.


I had mentioned earlier that the suspect, while running out of my house, would have climbed down using the drain pipe nearby. I was able to get two fingerprints and I think we can actually nail it as being thumb impressions. I have marked them with circles just so that it is easy for you to spot it. You may have to zoom the picture to get a clearer look at the prints.


Now I am getting inside the house, to the room where that guy was hiding. The picture below is that of the bed and the region below it. If a person who was lying under the bed tried to come out, he'd have to drag his feet and body along the ground and the marks you see on the floor match that type of a movement. The portion you see is actually where the thief's legs were.


The last picture below, is a mark left by the dude when he was running out. His body brushed against a steel almirah that was in the room. Evidently, like most thieves, this guy was also wearing some oil on his body to avoid getting caught. That oil has left an impression on the steel almirah.


So, if our Police was willing enough to run for traces, I think we can surely see if this guy exists in the system already. Or at least, use this information to create the record in the system. But since there was no loss of property and since there was no physical harm caused directly by him, the Police didn't really seem too keen in following up on this case.

Pearl Anniversary of Fort Knox at Besant Nagar, Chennai

30 years and one week ago to this date (March 8th to be precise), my parents (and their slightly grown bundle of joy) (that was me in case you didn't catch the meaning) formally shifted to this house in Besant Nagar, where we have been living ever since. The house and the neighborhood have undergone dramatic changes since that time.

I was rummaging through some old pictures, but couldn't find anything that actually captured the house in its early stages. There were few pictures of me, when I was probably 5 years old, standing with a cricket bat in my hand. That place has over the years become the place where my Maruti 800 is parked. In fact, in that old picture, one can even see that on the eastern side of our home, there was no house built and it was just a vacant plot.

There were also few colour pictures - taken with the first camera that was given to me in 1987, the Agfa Snapper 35 - of my terrace and the sunshade in the front of my house. That sunshade area is of course now the most attractive portion of my house - the balcony / veranda / sit out (or upparigai as a neighbor referred to it).

So to celebrate that great day, my parents and I went to Mathura for lunch. Since it was their house built out of their hard-earned money, I let them treat me on the occasion! :)

And in case you are still wondering why I call my house Fort Knox, you can have a quick look at the last portion of this post.

Do you have any issue?

"Poor man, he has no issue"
"How many issues do you have? 2? Very good, very good."

Reading the above sentence might make you think that the person making these statements must have a twisted sense of humor. Unfortunately, that is not the case. He/She is probably a middle-aged or above middle-aged person in the TamBrahm community who is saying this with the best of intentions.

When you look up the dictionary meaning of the word "issue", one of the many entries it returns says "offspring" or "children" or "progeny" etc. This is a very formal word used mostly in legal parlance. But it has somehow manifested itself into the list of words spoken by the educated people of the British Raj in Tamil Nadu and Chennai in particular. The usage has come down quite evidently; though I still hear the previous generations use it whilst conversing amongst themselves.

Now that the background has been established, I would like to share a funny incident that took place last Sunday.

I have finally decided to let out my new house at Sholinganallur for rent. Though I haven't made formal advertisements or published anything in any medium, the word on the streets of Devaraj Nagar is that my house is available for rent. So last Sunday, we got word from 2 parties who were interested in seeing the house. One of them was a small family comprising of a husband and wife, with the husband working in the same company as I do, albeit in the local branch. While I was showing him around the house, he informed me that he had a 2 year old kid.

After this couple had taken a tour of the house and were impressed with it (they however did feel that it was too big for them), we were just chatting up niceties. My father who joined us only then, asked this guy "Do you have any issues?" The guy simply didn't understand what my father said and asked for the question to be repeated. My father thought that perhaps he didn't hear him properly and gave a slow but loud "I was asking if you have any issues?" The guy was now bewildered and just didn't understand what my father was saying. He couldn't equate "issue" with "children" in this context. He was probably thinking "Is this man trying to understand if I am leaving my present house because there are some issues with the house or landlord?" or "Is this man trying to understand if I have any health issues?" or "Why should this man be bothered about the issues that I have in my project" or something else along those lines. His wife had a similar expression on her face and so it was time for me to step in.

I cleared the air for all of them; told my father that people no longer use "issue" for "children" these days; told that couple that my father wanted to know if they have any children. After a general round of nervous laughter, the wife said that they have a 2 year old daughter. Perhaps the guy still didn't get it or wanted to play it safe, but he started telling us about his siblings and parents as well! And all the time, his face was exhibiting a confused state.

Anyways, I haven't heard from them after they took leave that day.

P.S: After I typed "2 parties" in this post, I started to wonder if the way I used "party" itself is as archaic as the other meaning of "issue".

Homework

I didnt go to work on Friday since there was a need to clean out rooms in my house, as the painters were expected to move to the inside of the house.

I cleared out couple of shelves in the cupboard of my room. These were basically being used by me as a glorified dumping yard. Some of the things I was able to recover from these shelves included:
* 2 tennis racquets (one is my friend's)
* 1 small cricket bat - free compliment for buying Boost
* Carrom board coins - an entire set
* Chess coins - entire set
* Nylon hammock
* Some 100 ruppees in coins, stored in a box
* A wallet I used in College - it became dust when I touched it
* A backpack I bought in USA - it doubles up as a stroller
* Voltage converters - 220->110 or the other way actually
* Lots of used clothes ready for disposal

Thankfully, I don't have much evidence left of my teenage years (if you know what I mean), so I didn't have a difficult time in involving my parents in the clean-up process. Yesterday too, there was a lot of cleaning work that took place in my room and also my parents' room. I lugged a lot of things from the lofts upstairs to the loft in my Office room downstairs.

Today, as a continuation of the process, I was handed a big stack of papers to be shred. These were basically a collection of horoscopes that have been sent to us for our perusal. We do this exercise quite periodically and this one was done after a good gap of almost a year and a half I think. I managed to fill up around 80% of a 20 litre bucket, with the shredded paper.

I took a self-timed picture of me in my cleaning mask today. If I'd taken a picture yesterday, it would have had more impact on the reader since I was sweating profusely and had strands of cobwebs on me. But today was more of a sophisticated cleaning and I wore the mask only to avoid the paper dust.


And btw, this is how my house looks now after the Primer. Makes me think if I should leave it like this itself.

Bad luck?

I am sure there are a lot many of you out there who have similar experiences, but I thought I would list down few of my special ones:

1. Bought a 29 inch down for a whopping amount and within 6 months, the price was reduced by almost 50%.
2. Bought a big car and within a year, the prices were slashed by 25-30K and by the 3rd year, the model was replaced.
3. Bought mobile phone and within 7 months, it was on sale at 50% of the cost.
4. Bought another mobile phone and within a year, it had a 30% reduction in price.
5. Bought a Printer-Scanner-Copier model and within 2 billing cycles, there was a better model at the same price.

While the list above is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, the latest bulb that I got happened 2 days ago.

We at home, finally decided to repaint our Besant Nagar house after a gap of almost 12 years. We contracted the work to Asian Paints and they started early last week. By this Monday, they completed cleaning the exterior walls and applied the "primer". They completed the primer stuff by Tuesday and from that night, it has been kinda drizzling and raining in Chennai. This was due to a depression being formed off the coast near Nagapattinam.

This is probably in the first time in Chennai's history, there is rain in the month of March. But I can proudly say that it is all due to our luck!

You are welcome to share any such bulbs you may have experienced and assuage my feelings to some extent.

Another new house

While on the topic of new house, there is a bee-hive coming up in one of the trees at home. I captured this image on Tamizh New Year's day. I plan to take a picture every Sunday, just to track the progress.

Jet lag without crossing any timezones

I experienced major jet lag yesterday, between the hours of 10 AM and 1 PM. Of course, me being in the office didn't help matters.

Since I had the grihapravesham (separate post will follow soon) of my Shollinganallur house on Sunday - 29/Apr/2007 - I didnt get enough sleep on Saturday night and Sunday night. And naturally, I had a lot of work to do during the function and the net effect was that I was quite exhausted by Sunday evening.

We kinda overlooked the saasthram of having to sleep at the new house and forgot to take proper bedding with us. So on Sunday night, we had to sleep on a jamakkaallam without pillow. Am not used to sleeping without a mattress and a pillow and so it was quite difficult. I had enough pain all over my body and lying on the floor did nothing to alleviate it.

And to make things worse, we realised that the servants of Count Dracula were present in the house in full strength at 6 PM sharp. I have not seen such big mosquitoes. They are so big that when they land on your hand and start looking for a good spot to pierce your skin, you can actually see small craters left behind on your skin, along the path they walked on.

We had two mosquito repellents working but even their combined might didn't work against these creatures. (On a related note, we were using two different brands in the same room and probably, the chemicals from one negated the other and so the mosquitoes were having a party).

In effect, I had a very disturbed sleep and for the first time in recent memory, I actually had to wake up my parents and ask them to get ready and return to Besant Nagar.

Anyways, I settled down and opened my Inbox. Had a quick scan of the mails and realised that it was not going to be a difficult day. That's when jet lag hit me. I started feeling drowsy. I could feel my eye lids getting heavy and falling prey to gravity. Luckily I didn't cause too much of a spectacle by falling asleep with a thud or even simply leaning back on my chair and sleeping. I somehow managed to push myself to stay awake. It was an ordeal for an hour. Luckily I started getting few phone calls and messages and I kinda recovered.

The experience was pretty similar to the one I had on my very first trip to the US of A. My first afternoon at work there, I was looking at the application on the screen and making notes. At least that's what I thought. When I was called for a tea break, I looked into my notebook and found lots and lots of lines going in every possible direction. It was a classic case of being physically present but mentally absent.

Anyways, I had a decent sleep last night and hope to log more hours tonight as well.