Poem-God Laughing at me

This poem was written when my cousin died suddenly in a scooter accident.His scooter hit head on on a Toyota collis when it was coming from a side road.Vehicle coming from side road should have waited to allow vehicle coming from main road to pass.But nobody bothers much about traffic rules in this part of the world and naturally you can be treated as lucky if you return safe back home after a journey

God laughing at me


I asked him:
'Can I see the body? '
'Yes. before the doctors come'
He opened the door
and then
the mortuary drawer.
Out came my cousin's body
cuddled with that of a beggar
He looked majestic
all 186 cm
Designer shirt
with upper buttons open
to show a rosary on the neck.
Coffee brown pants
Imported stylish costly watch
stopped showing time of his death.
Specially made
elegant shoes.

His eyes closed
as if in sleep
not even a cut on his body
Only the body of beggar almost embracing him
in the same drawer looked
abnormal.
Otherwise he looked
just sleeping
his hands still in a position
holding bike.
I thought of calling him,
even his thick stylish hair looked live.

Coming out I strangely felt
envy for him.
He could escape from this world.
I had years and years of torture
unending torture
never ending stories of pain.

God must be thinking that
death will be my greatest enjoyment.
He being naughty
He must be denying it to me
like even a bit of love.

But I am working out my plans to defeat God
and his unending laugh
whenever he sees me

Poem-Alone, how long I can go?

I used to write poems from my college days.At Trichur Engineering college I was quite happy and thrilled to see admiring faces of my fellow students after hearing me reciting poems in Malayalam from the stage whenever an opportunity came.even during college election time,I used to write campaign material for rival parties in poems and poetic language.I have never kept those poems with me.But the poet in me still lives and as a poet you feel and experience everything in life differently with that extra vision on everything feeling intensely for every minute experiences of mine and others.I will reproduce some of the poems I published in a poetry site
Alone, how long I can go?


Alone, how long I can go?
Do I need to hear your voice near me?
Do I need to feel your sweating hand inside my hand?
Making me feel you are with me.
Do I need to look at your clear sparkling eyes?
Just to feel thrill of my heart
When it notices that widening of your eyes
When you look at me
as if seeing the most beautiful
being of this world.


Alone, how long I can go?
without feeling your smell close to me
without feeling your warm body near me
without feeling a part of me walking by my side
with my own legs
with my own hands
with my own mind
with my own dreams.


Alone, how long I can go?
without you calling the naughtiest of names
without you getting worried about
even sweat on my forehead
without you planning
our days coming
without you pushing me to move on
without you pushing me to face
whatever may come on our way


Then you told me
I was with you even before you
came to earth
and even when you go from earth
I will be with you

We travel
to eternity
Our road never ends.
Our legs never get tired
We laugh, hug and walk
hand in hand
to the never reaching
end of the world.

Kuttanad landscape

For those of you who think that Kerala does not produce any rice for food for Keralites,just travel to Kuttanad or interior Palghat.Even now they are cultivating rice in paddy fields against all odds.I have no idea whether the cultivation is profitable or not.I have taken few pictures of these paddy fields on the side of road on my way to Chengannur where I am building a house for an NRI
During my last trip, I think I have seen machines being used to take harvest of rice in the same paddy fields.Now they have planted small rice plants in a large paddy field.You can see workers doing work in the paddy field,a rare sight in Kerala where getting workers for agricultural work is a bit difficult.
By the side of paddy fields blank spaces are being taken by Ambal flowers( a smaller version of lotus).Seeing those flowers with their round leaves spread on water surface is something nice to see.You can see the picture here

Low cost house construction

This  heading by itself does not mean reducing cost of construction while attempting to build a house at least for Keralites.Possibly a foreigner architect settled ,lived and died in Kerala called Lawrie Baker introduced this concept called low cost construction with houses not plastered and looking a bit strange with odd shaped structural work
Basic assumption of Lawrie Baker was that material used for house construction is costly and labour is cheap.So every attempt should be made to save cost of material even if it meant increasing the labour input.
Today labour is not cheap and hence that theory advising to save only material has no relevance .Gradually those so called low cost houses are coming down and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find out masons who can do that type of brick work which do not require plastering.
In the beginning I was fascinated by the attempts to reduce cost of construction of houses.I have used filler slabs for roof which involve use of low quality clay tiles inside concrete to reduce steel reinforcement for roof slab,even though it meant searching for low quality tiles and using this type of concreting with not so happy reaction from my client.My client even though happy about reducing cost was never happy about filler slab roof concrete with reduced use of steel reinforcement and using clay tiles inside concrete as filler material
When you start doing cost reduction methods to reduce cost,you tend to become an architect for people with little money or more correctly people who are reluctant to part money which they have.Even after building the house with reduced house,my client will not be happy.With the usual Malayalee habit of always trying to find fault syndromme you end up having an unhappy client saying that even with all that low cost methods your cost of construction seems to be high!
To tell you the truth,I have never ever came across a client who does not say that cost of construction is high.Even if I build with loss,he will still say that cost of construction is high and normally no client will be happy to hear that the builder is making profit.All house owners pray and hope that the builder should make a loss.Even if the builder quit the trade after work on his house,he is not bothered.After  all he is not going to make another house
About five years back,I came across a christian priest who used to make houses for poor and then obtain almost double of his expenses for building houses for poor from the foreign charity organisations.In fact it was simply a lucrative business for him even though through paid advertisements in news papers he put his pictures and called himself as,"Karunyathinte nirakudom"(A symbol of mercy and love towards downtrodden)
When he called me to see construction going on in a plot for 40 houses for the poor,I have noticed that the poor were getting only poor quality construction and the contractor was simply getting rich partly due to ignorance of the priest on building related matters.After all he himself was not much bothered about quality of construction.He only wanted to take pictures of the houses and earn money from his foreign donors.

I offered to do the construction with better quality and lower cost.Naturally he was happy.But when I started doing the work with better quality materials and labour,he did not appreciate my good work.Just like any other client he started thinking that I must be making good profits.He started quarelling with me finding out excuses after excuses and started squeezing funds to me.Finally I was forced to get out of the contract after nearly 90% of work was completed as he avoided making payments to me even for the work done.
Then he started building similar houses directly without any contractor hoping that he can get the profit of contractor also.When he eventually spent more money naturally due to absence of professional management he stopped the project.
Almost all house owners building their houses think on the same lines.
They think the following
1.Contractor is making huge profit
2.If I remove the contractor and arrange materials directly and engage workers directly I will save lot of money.
He learns his lessons only by burning his hands and those lessons have no use as he is not going to build another house.
Any business need profit to survive.Profit is not a bad word.If somebody makes profit by running a business it is not due to looting of money.It is due to efficient management of the business.Not every person will  be able to make such profits if any without the professional capabilties,experience and capabilty to manage and run the business efficiently

Missed opportunities

I was standing in the queue for a movie ticket just behind the first man.A beautiful looking girl came and smiled at me and said-Can you take a ticket for me?Standing behind this queue I will not get ticket.
That was quite unexpected for me having come for this film alone just to kill my boredom.Before I could even think of an answer to her, man standing before me said-You will get ticket standing behind .
So she left unhappy.While entering the theatre after buying the ticket I noticed that she has not got the ticket.She looked at me with hope in her eyes thinking that I might have purchased an extra ticket.Ever since that day I kept on cursing my inabilty to catch that opportunity.She was looking so good.I could have become friendly with her and then the prospects looked so rosy.But a dumb fool like me has missed that golden opportunity
I have heard from many people many times-If only I have taken that decision at that time--
But the trouble is that we miss the opportunity when it knocks on our door and keep on lamenting about missed opportunities for days and years together
Basically we are reluctant to take decisions,act in time and catch opportunities life throws in front of us.
Those who are sucessful in life also might have missed several opportunities due to their reluctance or more often their fear to take decisions.But they might have caught opportunities head on more than most of us.Success need risk taking and abilty to take decisions fast and act also fast.

Less than 2000sft four bed economical house design

1900 square feet plinth area two bed rooms of size,300 x 360 cms (10 feet x 12 feet),two more bed rooms of size 300 x 270 cm(10 feet x 9 feet) with three toilets close to bed rooms(almost attached) house design is now ready with me.
This house has got sit out at entry,living space as big as 450 x 360 cms(15 feet x 12 feet),Dining space as big as 330 x 405 cms with a stair moving up by the side of dining,Kitchen and work area spacious enough.
A guest bed close to living space with toilet nearby which can be used also as a common toilet,double height area above dining space at first floor,balcony and family living lounge at First Floor.Three bed rooms come at first floor.
Living room is seperated from inner rooms of the house providing privacy for family members to move freely inside the house.Even though it is an economical design,the house will have a very attractive external appearance.Another major advantage for the design is that every room is well ventilated with almost day light natural lighting inside rooms.
For this economical but good design please write to me at vhthomas@viruvelil.com

House Construction -funds squeezing

One interesting aspect I noticed while moving from one client to another designing and building house for them is that no two clients are the same.By now I have directly built more than 200 houses in the state of Kerala with my first out of state work now progressing at Jackanarai near Ootty.

Each of the person I interact for the house construction is different with differing family ties and family equations.In most of the places it is the woman of the house putting more control on the matters.Man even though talk and act as if he is the boss,eventually bows down to the woman for practically every decision related to the house construction.So naturally I have to keep the lady of the house happy to keep the work moving smoothly.

It does not mean that there are no cases where the man calls the shots.In some of the cases lady of the house keep silent,submissive and practically has no voice.But such cases are very rare.

Some people keep trying to put a tight watch on funds by refusing to pay us in time or delaying payments.Such cases eventually turn out to be more costly constructions as delays and indecisions tend to prevent smooth conduct of work.In the process of such tightening of funds the client oftnen loose his cool and start firing at me or my workers thinking that such firing will save him money.In fact it causes the opposite effect as me and my team develop a sort of hatred to the arrogant owner of the house and will not guide him to have a lesser costly better options.

Of all the clients I have met my NRI client at Nilambur and Ootty client are simply not worried much about the cost aspect.They are more bothered about better quality work and I naturally tend to act to reduce costs wherever possible while maintaining the quality expected by the client

I have attached pictures of me with my client at Ootty along with her relatives and few of my workers and views during concreting of flat roof at Ootty