Coochikoosutra - The fine art of Cochikooing

(The author does not have any credentials for the particular piece. So before accusations start flying back and forth, let it be put on record that his work experience in this field tends towards zero. However, he has the precious objectivity and insight that only the third party’s roving eyes (and ears) can afford. So here goes.)

Coochikooing is an art and a science. There is no particular reason why I say so. But I had to say something intelligent to begin the article. This article is a set of guidelines for all those young men and women who want to coochikoo efficiently but dont know whom to ask. It is also for all those losers who are yet to find a gf/bf so that when the time comes they are armed with the divine knowledge.
(A warning for the sick – All those people who Ctrl+f on the article for ‘sex’ will be disappointed. This article explores only the stage when love is expressed verbally. Anything beyond, is out of scope. So, well, you may like to get down at this station. THANKS!)

Pre coochikoo preparations -
These guidelines are especially applicable for voice based mobile coochikooing. Nothing strains your mental and physical faculties like a full blown mobile coochikoo. You may be required to walk during the period (Thigh and back muscles) with a mobile held to the ear (shoulder,biceps,triceps, ear, earlobe) yapping continuously (jaw, teeth etc). A 15 minute jog followed by 3 sets of bis and tris each should be a good prep. Sri Sri Ravishankar also insists on the values of Pranayam and Sudarshan kriya for quality coochikooing.
For the mental aspect, there is a lot of intellectual depth required to generate gibberish for 6-8 hours. Read a lot. Mills and Boons is the Bible of Six Sigma Coochikooing. Keep 10 of them handy and revise the chapters on a monthly basis. Watch Vidya Balan-Madhavan Airtel ads, memorize the dialogues and improvise on them when required. Some old Indian scriptures are also very useful but not at this stage.
Important Note - All this is good, but as Geoffrey Boycott will tell you, there is ‘noothing like maatch praacteece’. 15 minutes before the potential coochikoo start time call up a friend and get your voice, jaw position, footwork and follow through right. So by the time the real thing starts, it should be second nature to you.

During the coochikoo –

Every coochikoo worth its heart shaped cake starts off with a 2 syllable user friendly name. Give one to your opposite. Names like Schweetu, Schweetie, Kittu, Chomu… you get the point. These names are to be used only during the c’koo. It’s a signal that all is well with the world and the dam stopping the flood of sweet nothings can be opened for mutual consumption.
Voice is of utmost importance. The tone has to be decidedly different (from the one you use for e.g. with your parents), or the better half may take offence thinking that you don’t love her enough. If whisper to a scream is a scale use a voice which lies at 1/6th of a distance from the whisper. A dash of huskiness to that range can do wonders. If it’s a face to face c’koo, 1/10th of the scale would also do as you would be essentially whispering the tripe into the better half’s ears. Needless to say, don’t use that tone with your parents.

Time can be anything from 6-8 hours during weekdays and 10- 24 hours during weekends. Sounds difficult, but the veteran coochikooers will tell you they don’t know how time flies by. If push turns to shove, you always have the office dormitory.

Content is as always the king. At the end of the day you are there to yap and what you yap is what makes or breaks the c’koo. Whenever you feel that the conversation is veering dangerously into the territory of being anything remotely intelligent, take control of the steering and drive back into talking about plucking stars from the sky and comparing flowers with the contours of your sweetheart’s eyelashes. The voice based mobile coochikoo is NOT a platform to discuss economic recession.

Post coochikoo warmdowns

As with after any intense activity, it is extremely important that you relax your muscles post coochikoo. Switch off your mobile before your gf feels like calling you again, run 2 rounds around your flat, come back, lie down in shavaasan position and take 5 deep breaths. Stretch your legs, stretch your back, stretch your jaw, stretch your ears using your indexfinger and thumb, drink a glass of water and put your mobile back into charging. A good long sleep is advisable to make sure that the blood circulation is maintained throughout the body.

And Finally

Coochikooing is a gift of God. But inappropriate coochikooing can result in all kinds of medical, emotional and physical complications. So make sure that you do it right and feel its afterglow forever.

Signing off.

P.S –
HAVING TROUBLE TALKING TO YOUR GF!
CANT FIND THE RIGHT MOBILE FOR YOUR DAILY DOSE!
NOT SURE WHAT COOCHIKOO NAME TO KEEP FOR YOUR GF!
.
.
.
Don’t ask me I have got better work to do.

A-Z of Kerala

This is inspired from a similar piece of writing for Bengalis (Check out http://adventuresofatraveller.blogspot.com/2007/03/bengalis-z.html. Couldn’t trace the original source)

Aandy – A reference to all middle aged females in Kerala. All aandies love to talk about there sons and daughters and how well they are doing in school. ‘Jijumon got yaity six marks in Yingleesh’, ‘Jinnymol is a favourait of her teacher’ and so on. Warning - Conversations with aandies can result in low self esteem as you inevitably start comparing yourself with there stupendously gifted sons and daughters.

Beef – The meat that every Malayalee carnivore digs his teeth into. The saffron cadres in Kerala talk about enforcing cow worship over a plate of ‘puttu-beef’.

CP Yaii/CP Yem – The communist brothers in arms who have ensured that no one dares to start a company in Kerala. They organize state wide bandhs for crimes against humanity as grave as, asking the workers to work for more than 15 minutes (bourgeois conspiracy), increasing bus fares by 1 paisa, party leader tripping and falling over a stone, opposition leader combing his hair the wrong way etc.

Coconut oil – Pronounced as ‘Kokknut oyl’, it’s the secret behind the precisely parted Malayalee hair. Malayalees don’t believe in washing their hair with water. They use coconut oil instead.

DD4 – The erstwhile dedicated Malayalam Channel of Doordarshan’s. DD4 ensured that insomnia never reared its ugly head in Kerala. Many a good Malayalee has slept off without having dinner while watching a sitar recital by Payyannor Sivaraman Pillai or techniques on improving rice productivity using squirrel dung or an ancient black and white classic with Adam and Eve brushing their teeth in the background.

Elephant – pronounced as ‘Yellifent’. The animal Kerala is identified with, no festivity in Kerala is complete without an elephant killing its mahout. It is so big that it gives Shakeela a complex (Refer ‘Shakeela’).

Faratha fagya vidhaata – A pronounciation quirk in southern Kerala where ‘bha’ is pronounced as ‘Fa’.

‘Gelff’ – The karmabhoomi of Keralites. Gulf is to Malayalees what Canada is to Punjabis. Every mallu and his neighbour goes to the middle east at least once to earn his pot of dinars and riyals. And amazingly the atrocious working conditions and the obnoxious capitalist sheikh does not rile the Keralite as much as they do in Kerala. The ‘Gelff return’ is a highly respected entity in Kerala easily identifiable from their flower printed shirts, short Bermudas and goggles with the price tag hanging.

Hartal – Vernacular for ‘Strike’, it is a staple feature in every Keralite’s life. Every day is classified as a hartal or no hartal day. And political leaders have to give explanation to their high command why there is no hartal on a particular day. Generally a 12 hour celebration of absence, starting from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening, school kids utilize it to play cricket, office going aandies watch the reruns of their favourite serials and office going ungles devour the last ‘Mathrubhoomi’ available.

Iranjalakuda – And other such places with tongue-defying names. Other examples – Parappanangadi, Kadappakada, Olakettiambalam, Pathanamthitta et al. The plight of the bus conductors who have to reel off these names in quick succession is heart rending. Many end up with their tongues twirled into a fisherman’s knot.

Johnymon and Jollymol – J is a regular supplier of the typical Malayalee name. The names of people unlike the names of places are short and uncomplicated. Sample – Jijo, Jiju, Jiji, Joju, Joji, Jomy, Jolly etc. They are not too narrow minded about having a meaning to their names. Most of the names are easy on the tongue and grating to the ears.

Kitex lungi – The 3 yard piece of cloth used by Malayalee men to cover their modesty. A sartorial miracle, scientific research is yet to uncover the secret of how it manages to stay in place. They can do absolutely anything in their lungis, starting from playing football to driving bikes without the knot loosening. Warning to imitators – The stunts are performed by experts and can result in loss of face.


Lockout – The result of prolonged hartals by trade unions owned by political parties (Refer ‘Hartal’ and ‘CPYaii/CPYem’ in conjunction).

Mohan lal/Mammootty – The two big superstars in Malayalam film industry. Every 2nd movie stars one of them, dancing with girls 1/47th their age and 1/54th their size. If you feel that someone is trying to kill a snake with his leg in any of those Malayalam movie channels with the accompaniment of music, watch a little more carefully. It may be Mammooty dancing. Mohan Lal has become so horizontally challenged with age that now, special cameras are being invented to keep him in a single frame.

Nurse (pronounced ‘Nezhs’, refer ‘Zh’ sound) – It’s the dream of every Malayalee parent to get their daughter into a ‘Nezhsing cozhs’. As a result almost every hospital in India use the services of the Malayalee nurse extensively.

Onam – The main festival of Kerala celebrated in remembrance of the King Mahabali. Onam is the only time when cows feel safe in Kerala as the food is primarily vegetarian (called ‘sadya’). All non resident Malayalees converge to Kerala during this time, feel sufficiently nostalgic and go back to earn more money.

Parotta/Borotta – A ‘roti’ like preparation had best with beef. Prepared using gallons of oil, the regular porotta eater keeps Eno as a constant companion. A porotta gone wrong is used in the gym in place of a bullworker.

Qatar/Quwait – Countries in the middle east. Popular destinations for the Gulf hungry Malayalees. Most families have at least one appam earner here. Refer ‘Gelff’

RSS – The sworn political enemy of CPI/CPM. It does not have anything by the way of seats in Kerala. But still has a place in the popular imagination. Reason being its ongoing cadre fight with Communists. All newspapers have a dedicated scorecard column everyday (“RSS 3- CPM 1”) which tell how many killed how many of whom, and predictions by experts for the next day. Favourite playground being the district of Cannanore.

Shakeela/Silk Smitha – Every Malayalee worth his chest hair has had dreams of a drenched Silk Smitha and nightmares of a drenched Shakeela during their teenage days, at least once. The resigned and reigning queens of the Malayalam C-grade movie industry respectively, both have there pouting pamphlets plastered across every wall in Kerala. Generously endowed by the creator, rumour has it that Tsunami was a result of Shakeela jumping into the Arabian sea for an underwater shoot.

Sreesanth – A recent addition to the Malayalee hall of fame, Sree is a psycho who also plays cricket competently. Known for making faces envied by Kathakali experts, he is reportedly being pursued by the film industries across India for zoo based roles. Potential Quote – “I am playing this bubbly monkey in YashRaj films latest, and no, Bruno and me are just friends”

Toddy – The forbidden drink, it’s the beer of the masses. The Malayalee labourer after a hard day’s work needs a little bit of toddy to energise his system into doing productive activities like beating his wife, shouting at his neighbour, jumping into the well etc.

Ungle – The silent and pummeled into submission, husbands of aandys (Refer ‘Aandy’). They open their mouths only to yawn and eat.

Vanitha – The women’s magazine of Kerala. It was the primary source of entertainment for housewives before television channels replaced them. Widely ‘seen’ by men as well.

Wogay – Malayalam for Ok. Not to be confused with Karan Johar.

‘Xam – (The dangers of such an xercise. You can never find enough xamples starting with X). Pronounced ‘Eksaam’. The battlefield where Malayalee parents pit their wards against others. A lot of statistical and empirical evidence is gathered to prove that their son Deepu is an absolute nincompoop compared to Valsamma’s son Nebu in studies. Which may be the complete opposite of what is proclaimed to the world (Refer ‘Aandy).There is only one truth in this world, which is the Final term report card.

Yell KG/ Yu KG – The stepping stones where the budding Omanakuttans and blossoming Babykuttys are prepared to face the world. All Mallu kids are supposed to go to these temple of education to learn ‘A for Yapple’, ‘B for Boll’, C for ‘Kyatt’ etc.

Zh sound – The ‘Zh’ sound which is typical to Malayalam and tamil with few equivalents in other languages. It adds a few more layers of complication to the names of places (Refer ‘Irinjalakuda’). Sample – Kazhakuttom, Ambalapuzha, Kozhikode etc

Alive and cooking!

Yes folks. Its official. I have started cooking. It no longers remains an exotic activity performed by doting mothers for their ravenous children. At least for me.

It all started with the great economic meltdown which started pinching my pocket enough to make me stop eating from hotels. Like minded roomies who had a similar dispensation towards the Undefiled Rupee in the Purse made my decision easier. At least the cost of stove, matchsticks and vessels could be shared.

Cooking has always fascinated me. I was always amazed at the unscientific sprinkling of condiments which quite miraculously resulted in the perfect plate.

I am no stranger to it though. There was a time when I used to make tea for everyone at home. The entire process required me to have the following set of equipments for superior performance

1.) 1 cup to measure amount of milk to be poured

2.) A different cup for measuring water

3.) A teaspoon of ‘Dinko’ brand, for measuring tea leaves to be sprinkled (2 teaspoons with the mound not more than 1.5 cms high)

4.) A tablespoon of ‘Rinko’ brand, for measuring sugar to be used (2 tablespoons with the mound not more than 1.6 cms high)

5.) Scale, compass, protactor, log tables, electron microscope, supercomputer DEEP BLUE etc

Since these set of specifications were to be used for 4 people, any increase or decrease in the number of people required some deft mathematics. Example, for 5 people Rinko mound would be five – fourths of 1.6 cms and milk poured would be 1.25 times of milk cup. My mother (and indeed all mothers) manages all this through a terribly unmethodical sprinkling of tea leaves and sugar. The better tasting tea is no compensation for the criminal lack of rigour. The tea making experiment was annulled mid way by my mom when the kitchen started resembling a physics lab.

After that tryst this is the first time that I have dabbled with cooking. V has had some experience with it before. So he was the process consultant. I happened to be a little lower in the value chain trying my hand at cleaning, cutting, peeling, shredding and sometimes annihilating vegetables. I am also pretty good at lifting the plate of cut vegetables and dropping the stuff into burning oil. After that V takes over sprinkling masala, water and salt to taste. Resulting in something edible.

One of the days when V was absent, I tried my hand at it and it resulted in tears of joy (Ok, I am lying. I had prepared a plate of lava). From then on my enthusiasm for cooking has been tempered by the love for my tongue. Admittedly I am not half as good at cooking as I am at eating.

Angrejji na samjhe hai babuji

Unfortunately English movies dont have English subtitles. That rules one billionth of the Indian population atleast (that’s me) out of the Hollywood movies viewership numbers. I talk Englis, I walk Englis, I write Englis but unfortunately I don’t understand an Englis movie. I don’t get what those actors mumble. And the Chinese (or is it Korean) subtitles at the bottom are slightly difficult to comprehend.

I remember watching ‘Sixth Sense’ in a movie hall within 10 days of joining my engg college. I went with a few engineering friends all excited. Excited because that was the first English movie I would have been watching in a hall. Also since it was made by Manoj Night Shyamalan – the Night in Shining armour for Mallus at that time.

First half an hour –

Bruce Willis – …mumbling inaudibly…

Kid – ….Replies to the mumbling, inaudibly…

I am at my seat trying to keep the bugs feasting on my backside away. True to his name the director has made a movie with enough darkness to fuse a bulb. At about 15 minutes from the start when nothing much seems to be happening on the screen I decide I will concentrate. I understand the first 2 or 3 words and lose it midway. I console myself by saying that I will get the context some time when the movie is into its business end. At least that’s what happens in Hindi movies. You can watch a movie 2 seconds before the end and you can guess what the story was all about.

Next half an hour

Bruce Willis – …mumbling inaudibly…

Kid – ….Replies to the mumbling, inaudibly…

The bugs have found a feistier back side. I still am trying to make sense of whats going on in the vain hope that I will get it some time. I am making assumptions about the story. ‘That fellow must be eyeing the kid’s mom. So befriending him’, ‘maybe the kid is dyslexic and the fellow is helping him out’ (Yeah baby, TZP has not given proper reference for the storyline) and so on. Meanwhile there is the kid’s mom for our eyes.

Next 45 minutes

Bruce Willis – …mumbling inaudibly…

Kid – ….Replies to the mumbling, inaudibly…

However, to his credit the director made this part interesting by introducing kid ghosts and violent camera movements. Overall activity levels in the movie has increased. I have a feeling that the lamp is going to light any time, and I would be able to piece together everything that has happened and voila! I would be delighted by the ending. And go back to the hostel bragging to my hostelmates about seeing the greatest masterpieces of all time. I visualize myself telling everyone ‘No wonder it is nominated for the Oscars’. Meanwhile, I can hear my neighbour snoring and there is nothing inaudible about that.

Next half an hour

Khatam, Finnis, Khallas, Poi pochhe. Yes folks, it doesn’t have another half an hour. Out of nowhere the credit starts rolling. Others in the hall are jerking themselves out of their siestas. I am dumbstruck. 25 INR of my dad’s hard earned money gone (Baba log and baby log,you can rearrange the jaws to proper position. Indeed there was a time in independent India's history when movie tickets costed only 25 bucks). Add to it 3 Rs of transportation charges. I ask everyone around desperately to tell me the story. No one has much of a clue. Some tell me that Bruce Willis was a ghost. GHOST. GHOST!!!The ‘ghost’ I knew off walked in white wardrobes, sang beautiful songs and laughed hysterically. Anyway the movie is done and dusted with and I have that empty feeling in the wallet. I promise myself that I wont have lime soda for a month to compensate for the expensive misadventure.

I have not watched an English movie without English subtitles completely after that. Ironically I watched a Spanish movie fully once as there were English subtitles in it. I love good cinema, even if in Spanish. Salma Hayek is just incidental to it.