You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Sangham’ category.
Jose’s visit to Cochin is always an excuse for Celebration…and RC and MCB.
And what a celebration we had last weekend…Pattar had suggested that we meet at Mercy for old time’s sake, and for many of us it was a homecoming of sorts – returning to the rooftop after so many years…
Ani, Biju, Jose, Joydeep, Low Cost, Pattar, Rojo, Suni and Varkey were there. Everybody sort of rediscovered the fun of jamming together and when we split at midnight, everybody agreed that we need to do it again, pretty soon.
Go to Cochin…
RAMS Era. Biju, Chittapps, Paramu and I. Jamming in The Right Place, Residency’s coffee shop…“highly vocal drunkenness” to quote Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the three guys on the next table were getting very annoyed.
After a few rounds, when I went to take a leak, the trio followed me; Chittapps sensed something wasn’t right and came over to the loo. The guys had assumed we were making fun of them and were spoiling for a fight. Chittapps was trying very hard to save the situation – using a combination of physical intimidation and smooth sales talk – but the threat of violence was very much in the air.
Then Biju and Paramu joined us. With the shift in the balance of power, the mood changed…and the guys were suddenly like ‘Some night, Macha!’. We exchanged cards. They were into some computer-related business. They took one look at our cards and froze. ‘Macha’ became ‘Saar’, they bought us a round, wanted us to join them for desserts, were all of a sudden very nice, and promised to keep in touch…
Peace. Harmony. Happiness.
Vaal Kashnam – The visiting card that one of my friends handed over was that of a customer he had met that day…some bigshot in a hotshot company, a company with which the trio had some business links…
Welcome back Osa!
Chennai, Jose and I go back a long way…gotta do a post on our Chennai days…
(It still bugs me that i got the ‘jaws’ wrong in Jose’s Rajagiri autograph book…)
Around 1993-94. TV had a dinner meeting with a customer in Chennai. His plan was to pack the customer off quickly, and start jamming with Koomar and I. We reached the restaurant, the customer didn’t leave, and so we started jamming together. After a few rounds, the customer was decidedly uncomfortable, and struggling to make small talk…
He asked Koomar, “Are you married?”.
Pat came the reply, “Ya, Gandhi Square”.
The customer disappeared.
Of course, what Koomar heard was “Are you from Maradu?”.
All these are very nice jokes in Malayalam.
One day when I entered ICH, there was this guy regaling the Sangham with some tall story. I asked Jose, sotto voce, who’s this tamashakkaran? Osa replied ‘He is Tamashakkaran’.
It was the post-engineering era, and TK was part of the Trichur Invasion that swamped Jose Jn. After that season of fun, we all drifted off in different directions, and a few years later, TK moved into Chennai.
I remember the fun times in his pads at Mahalingapuram and Nungambakkam, the amazing jam sessions (No jam was complete without TK’s rendition of Nakshathra Deepangal Thilangi), and the times Tamash stood by me…
Again, when I got thrown out of the Perambur flat it was TK who gave me asylum at RAMS. Though I soon joined Chittappan, when Raghu left for Kerala, I formally moved back.
TK and Paramu were the two pillars of RAMS. Velan and I were the caterpillars who crawled in and crawled out. Perhaps because TK and Paramu worried so much about shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. Velan and I could concentrate on having fun – and what fun we had.
In those days, the 24-hour coffee shop at Residency (The Right Place, when they still had those beautiful sepia prints of teapots on the walls) was our regular after-party haunt. Once we scandalised the hep crowd there by landing up in lungis. And once, after midnight, unable to find an auto to get back, we hitched a ride on fish-cart and dozed off in the cart with our legs dangling behind (It took us two days to wash off that matsyagandam).
Pretty soon Velan left for US, TK got busy with his MBA and then his fiancée, Paramu left for Dubai, and…kadavil njan mathram aayi.
During that time a shippie friend of mine stayed with me for a while. Every evening, we would set out on our valakkal mission, and return back without success. And every evening he would tell me…“Ente bharyede odukkathe prarthana…”.
I am sure Sangham will agree with me, it works, even today…
I fell for ICH’s famous MD during my pre-degree days…and I can still remember the first time…on the long table next to the wash.
But ICH was never about food – more than a restaurant, it was a hang out, a haunt, a meeting point and when you couldn’t afford a coffee, a waiting room. During the ’80s, ICH was Sangham HQ.
ICH was…
- Never-ending bull sessions
- Top performing Mass with masala dosai and coffee
- Pattar’s mutton omelette and rose milk (Those were the days, ICS to ICH for breakfast)
- Post-engineering coffee marathons – 5 tables, 4 hours, 20 guys, 20 coffees
- The coir carpet, the tiny square tables
- The photographs – Gandhi, Nehru, AKG
- The poster – ‘A fine type, A fine coffee – Both are Indian’
- Bird watching outside Vettukattil, Coffee at ICH, Bird watching outside Vettukattil, Coffee at ICH…
- Ciggies from Ali-kada (Customer: Oru Week thanne. Ali: Dishum!, BHH)
Sunil Hyderabad-il aanu…(Available 24×7 at +91 9849902063)
(Thanks to Sunil M for the no.)
Rare pics of Sangham at Rojo’s place.
Does anybody know what happened to Lineman?
Last month we celebrated the Return of Dijiraj. Jam session at Biju’s. TV was there. Jose phoned in. Bobby was away (or as the famous song goes, kappalil aanu ku**a).
The jam almost didn’t happen. Unable to locate Biju’s house, Diji was actually rushing back home when I saw him in Panampilly Nagar. And then I knew, though I had not met him in a decade, he has not changed a bit. Good old Japan, the man in a big hurry – pouva, pouva, pouva.
Before he became Japan, he was Idi Rajappan, the nemesis of Onakka and other school bus kids. He was also the Commando fan, the ‘fastest man’ and a pioneer of hard tackle football. Actually football’s gain was boxing’s loss. The windows of MSc Chemistry lab in Maharaja’s (and many of us) can vouch for the power of his punches.
During the pre-degree days, I was a permanent fixture on his BSA SLR. We discovered Eloor together, filled in our engineering applications together – then I went to Calicut, he went to Kothamangalam…and the rest…is history.
Welcome back, Diji.
Dijimobile: +91 99472 76214. Photos courtesy TV
Click on the image to enlarge.
Babu Kuriakose 