Mr. Menon Writes

The boys are getting married. So am I. The year started off with Sagar's wedding in January. Konman is getting married day after tomorrow. Mine's on Aug 20th and Gautham's is on Jan 24th 2027.  Our bachelorhood started somewhere around 2017-18. Now 8-9 years later, we can finally fill forms differently.  I don't mean the energy of this write up to be "Every boy fantasizes about his fairy tale wedding". But, apologies if it comes across like that. I used to have this weird feeling about married life when I was a teen. Might be such a cliche thing to say; given my teen brain was as magnificently dumb as anyone else's if not more.. I wasn't quite able to understand the mentality. How people accepted to dial down their lives and let themselves be domesticated like that. Somewhere down my late 20s, I met and befriended a lot of married people. Also what I made of my married friends like Apita and James, Vivi and Junjulan, or Ithaf and Firozka, Kon-Anakha an...

My history with Bangalore had been very nice. Until I moved there, that is. I used to visit my friend who lives in Kadugodi. We go out walking around malls, pubs, restaurants and cafes - he always tells me how Bangalore is a city that lacks history ; unlike his beloved Bombay where he lived for 1 year. Over 90mls of OldMonk, he relives his suburb commutes from Thane to Airoli, eating cheap and tasty vadapavs, rainy nights near marine drives. I'd been to Mumbai once- when he was there; I went for a wedding and I explored the city with him. No, too exaggerated - I visited the Gateway of India, saw that railway station from RaOne. What else, that's it. I think I had a Pav Bhaji. Had a good time, but the city is as unfamiliar to me as when I studied stuff about it in 6th Std Social Studies or when I saw The Company or Kakkakuyil . Rode my RE 350 to Bangalore from Thrissur on the 29th of March. Left work at 03:30 and reached Salem around 9PM. Ordered in from Burger king and watched...

Helluva week Put up resignation, accepted a new job. Now it's the notice period month.  Met a few many people during the job search, some fellow seekers, some hirers, some hirers who were also seekers. It's a crazy world the job market. Until it reaches the hiring manager, or in some cases the GM, the process is strange and unnatural.  You'll need to basically convince a computer that you're good at whatever you're applying for. Worse, you'll have to deal with HR. The urge to quit came from commute and some work dissatisfaction. But at multiple times it seemed that life was better before I started looking for jobs. Trusting The Process After quitting on the age old "Does the process trust me?" I finally took it serious and got ChatGPT Go. It was literally the same as it was before they messed up with the GPT5. I was copying JDs, pasting it in Chat and asking to optimize my resume to align my experiences to the requirements.  Somehow it felt like playin...

Jayaram started his career with Padmarajan — and what a beginning that was. Aparan , Moonnam Pakkam , Innale — films that didn’t just showcase talent, but revealed a certain grace in storytelling, a depth in characters, and an emotional honesty that Malayalam cinema would come to desperately miss. Padmarajan wasn’t just a filmmaker; he was a visionary. Way ahead of his time. His characters were flawed, vulnerable, and real. His women weren’t props. His men weren’t loud caricatures. He explored sexuality, grief, guilt, loneliness — all with a subtlety and courage rarely seen, even now. But he died too soon. And something in Malayalam cinema cracked. The '90s came in like a bad bad hangover. Many of the same actors who worked with giants like Padmarajan, Bharathan, and KG George found themselves in films that were loud, lazy, and depressingly regressive. Jayaram and Mohanlal — once faces of sensitive, complex roles — got reduced to one-dimensional, chauvinistic heroes in factory-...

I'll try to keep this one short. I found out something wicked and here it is. FYI This is not me nerding out (in a real sense). Rather, this is something that's bugging me, making me itch. The companies Act 2013 has 470 sections. Well the actual count might be more due to later additions, but the last section is 470. However, today I'm going to talk about a different section. Section 188 Related Parties. The section deals with how related party transactions are to be made by a company. The first sub section lays out the cases where board approval is mandatory which includes sale and purchase of goods and immovable property, leasing property, services, appointments in offices, and underwriting etc. .  Until now, everything is good: Nothing's making me wanna pull my hair off. The PROBLEM is with the first proviso. Provided that no contract or arrangement, in the case of a company having a paid-up share capital of not less than such amount, or transactions not exceeding s...

Thrissur Traffic Chronicles: An Accident Waiting to Happen (And it did)   So, here we are. Part 2 of my long rant about Thrissur's charming traffic situation. I mean, who would’ve thought that after my passionate blog post on how much I hate the traffic, the traffic would come back to bite me? Quite literally.   Yes, ladies and gents, I, the fearless Thrissur traffic crusader, met with an accident. There I was, minding my own business on a busy junction (which one? Take your pick – they're all chaotic). And BAM! Some careless driver slammed into me from behind. Next thing I know, I’m on the ground, leg fractured, all wrapped up in a plaster for the next 4 weeks. Ah, the sweet irony of life.   Now, I’m not one to brag, but this accident has turned me into something of an authority on all things traffic-related—mostly because I’m currently bedridden and have nothing better to do than think about it. I’ve become a full-time couch potato, working from 8 AM to 5/6 ...

The idea is to spark discussion and bring in great ideas and send them to PWD (or something). So feel free to roast this, and my stupidity. TT- Not thrissurkaran thendi. Thrissur’s traffic. Thrissur has a traffic problem. Our busy junctions: Toyota to Puzhakkal, Punkunnam, Patturaikkal, Eastfort, MG Road, Shankara Iyer Junction, Post office road, Railway Station Road. There are many reasons for me to bitch my heart out. Running late, stuck in sweltering heat, in heavy downpours, carrying many heavy bags. And yet I get by no thanks to TT. Coming from a guy who has been outside the city very infrequently, this might be … very… obviously… biased. But Thissur’s traffic problem isn’t really a traffic problem. It’s just poor management of traffic, bad roads and bad drivers. Poor Management of traffic: ·         Puzhakkal: No complaints here. With the NH 66 happening, roads are widening here too. For the first time in the history of Kerala, road c...