If Only We Become MPs

In a drastic development, all the MPs of India were removed from office, and they were replaced by the youthful, energetic and passionate Software Engineers of a reputed organization. Given that India is a democratic country, preference was given to those individuals who had shown their worth in democratic discussions that takes place in their organizational Forum, called as CC.

Now, let’s have a look at how the new MPs performed in their first Parliament day ……

Indian Parliament, New Delhi …..
“We are professionals and we got to prove that we are better than politicians” the ever enthusiastic member started the proceedings.

“The easiest way to prove it is to pass some bill immediately. After all they used to take days to decide on bills. People will be astonished if we could pass some bill very swiftly”, responded the other member.

“Since we have been elected thanks to the superiority of our free speech, I sincerely believe the first bill should be on Free Speech. I hereby introduce the first bill that brings amendment to the constitution. The bill is “According to Article 451A of Indian constitution, any member of Parliament can degrade any public personality in Parliament, as long as he ends the speech with the customary NOM. (No offence Meant)”- The Ruling party leader concluded.

To the surprise of all the reporters, the bill was passed unanimously, with all members of parliament approving the bill whole heartedly. Little did the reporters knew, that this will be the last instance when the new MPs will agree to any thing.

After the bill was passed, the floor was opened for debates. A Social conscious MP decided to help his fellow MPs by telling about the Ultra modern house, that was constructed just 50 years ago, is available for rent for MPs who are new to New Delhi. He also said the place in which the house is present, is just 60 – 70 km away from Delhi, and well connected with all parts of Delhi by Bullock Carts.

As soon as the member told the rent of the house, the house plunged into a huge turmoil, which will be the first of the many more such commotions to follow. The fellow members started shouting among themselves about the greediness of the owners and slammed them for deciding to charge the poor Software Engineer turned MPs so much. Meanwhile the MP who opened the topic could not fathom why the people are reluctant to pay such a meager amount as rent. After all, his poor uncle pays the same amount as EMI for the loan taken to renovate the house.

He stormed out of the House, thinking of never to return back, though he was back in half an hour. This time he tried to start a debate to sell his computer bought in 1995. When the fellow MPs pointed out that for the price quoted by him, they could buy a new computer now, he again felt irritated on why people refuse to pay even the half the amount he spent 15 years back, and stormed back once again.

As the uproar slowly began to subside, another MP decided to look at the discussion in a different angle. “Well connected by Bullock Carts” – “How can we Professional MP’s still use poor four legged animal to carry us” She lamented. This diverted the discussion in a new side, with MPs slamming their fellow colleague’s non professional attitudes, in various aspects of life. For example, one MP was dismayed by his fellow colleague’s non professional attitude in not allowing the windows to be opened in the train’s AC Coach.

Members of the ICFP (Intentionally Create Fight Party) decided it was the time for them to be furious, on how the fellow MPs could differentiate common people and Professionals, just because they got a chance to quarrel in a nice ambiance, rather than doing it in a tea shop as the others do. Saying this he walked out, opposing the partiality shown towards common man, though the real reason was he had already received four missed call from his girl friend.

Speaker, worried that the topic has been diverted from house for rent, to animal cruelty to professional behavior, decided to call in for a new topic. A new member just returning from the restroom, livid because there weren’t any tissue paper there, decided to use it to take a dig at the country’s richest man. “I read a report yesterday, that his family had used 1, 56,348 sheets of Tissue paper last month. When we MPs, are trying to save Mother Earth by reducing our usage of Tissue Paper, how can he be allowed such usage? NOM” – he asked angrily.

As expected nearly 90% of the MPs were outraged at hearing the figure, and began to give big lectures about how it can be prevented. But the ICFP party members alone decided to counter it, by saying, “When the honorable members have the right to spend money to wear ‘Peter Newzland’ shirt instead of ragged clothes, why can’t a guy even have the right to buy as many tissue paper as possible. NOM”

One bored MP, who had never watched news channels except to know cricket scores, and who has never read any page other than sports page in newspapers, suddenly woke up as soon as he heard big numbers like 1, 56,348 being told. As far as he knows, the only big numbers are the number of runs scored by the country’s leading batsman; so he started reciting the stats he knew about the star batsman, the stats he had so religiously collected by researching his old forward mails.

Even though almost all members had already listened to these stats for 156 times previously, they all took turns to thank the keen member for sharing the stats, and made him feel like a Hero. However this discussion angered the minority few, who could only accept the star batsman as Good Batsman (that too only after he scored 200) but never as great batsman. As expected the discussion soon started to discuss about the captaincy record, number of world cups won, and number of runs he scored in book cricket when he was in primary school. In middle of that, when news came that captain of a former No 1 team, was beaten by a delivery in his training, the news was celebrated by distribution of sweets. As expected die hard fans of that team, who believe that only, reason their team is not No1, is because of wrong computer calculation, did not take part in the celebration.

Worried that the discussion would never end, the Speaker called for a recess, and decided to entertain the members with a short trailer of a movie. However it turned out to be a very poor decision. The trailer showed the hero bringing the aero plane of villain down by using a toy magnet. It led to even more commotion, as some members began to ridicule the hero. This angered the fans of the hero, who quoted every one from Einstein to Archimedes to Newton to prove what the hero did is indeed scientifically feasible.

With time running out, the speaker stopped the discussion and decided to do some thing to prove that Software Engineer turned MPs were in fact more knowledgeable than Politician MPs. So she decided to organize a Quiz show to test the knowledge of new MPs, with questions to be asked by fellow MPs themselves. The session started, but most of the questions were limited to movies and serials in foreign language, which angered many MPs who had never watched any serials other than those in their mother tongue. This led them to conduct a parallel parliament asking questions about a famous regional language serial that will roughly translate into “Big Mummy” in English.

It was almost time to end the day’s proceedings, when the most innovative MP gave a suggestion to end the day with a quiz for the citizens. The quiz was titled “Spot the MP” and the citizen who first finds where his MP is hiding would be mentioned in the Board of Honor.

Thus ended the first day of Parliament, which was in no way less interesting than when being run by politicians. A bill was passed, quiz was conducted and also some interesting debates were held – what else you expect to be done in parliament.

PS: Most of you might be surprised, why the parliament chose not to discuss about the Great Indian All rounder and the best number seven batsman. As any discussion about him could go on for ever, in a meeting before the Parliament, it was unanimously decided that no discussions will be held about him. However this angered 4 – 5 people who were bold enough to declare themselves as fan of the great player. They also immediately resigned in protest against the treatment of their favorite sportsman. As per latest reports, it is being told they are in some remote forest planning to over throw the parliament, and have formed “Liberation Front for Talent Challenged Individuals”.
NOM J

Markendeyan - Short Story

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The two- wheeler went out of control, as they took that sharp U turn. The motor bike dashed against the pavement, throwing both its inhabitants few meters apart. The guy driving the motorbike was wearing a helmet, and hence didn’t face any major injuries, save for few bruises. However the young sixteen year old sitting in the rear wasn’t so lucky. As he was thrown out of the bike, his head hit the steel railings kept at the side of the road. Even the tough shield given by his skull was unable to protect his delicate brain. He lost conscious immediately. With no visible external injury except for his brain, he lied there, as though he is in deep sleep, until his friend regained his nerve and called 108.
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““Whom do you want?” asked Lord Shiva. “An exceptionally talented bright son with short life on earth or a child of low intelligence with long life on earth. Choice is yours”, he concluded. Both Mrikandu Rishi and Marudmati were perplexed. Just when they thought, all their prayers had been answered; the Lord had forced them to make such a tough choice.

What Kids, don’t you think this is trickier question than the ones asked by your teachers?”, Paramasivam asking this question, decided to use the break to drink water, in midst of his discourse of the story of Markendeya.

The older people in the gathering, waited for the kids to respond. Most of them have listened to this story of Markendeya so many times. However, they have as usual gathered here to listen to Paramasivam’s discourse, because of the unique message he gives at the end of every story. He looks at these mythological stories with a different outlook, and comes up with a message, that holds well even in this fast paced globalised world. Smile was omnipresent in all their faces, for they didn’t know yet, that they won’t be able to listen to the conclusion today.

Meanwhile, Paramasivam looked smilingly at the kids sitting in front of him. However the kids knew he doesn’t expect answer for his questions. It is just his way of narrating a story - by asking questions in the middle, and then answering them. So the kids just like their grand parents were waiting for Paramasivam to continue the story of the Markendeya. As Paramasivam continues with his narration, let’s take a break, and go and have a swift look at the crisp bio of Paramasivam.

Paramasivam had been narrating the mythological stories from Puranas for the past two years in this small Shiva temple. He had earlier been working in one of the few Public sector companies in India that makes enormous profit. However he retired voluntarily, when his superior starting mismanaging company funds for his own benefits. He was too good to leave it unnoticed and also too timid to protest against it.

After the retirement, he didn’t want to waste away time, and decided to make full use of the loads of mythological stories he had read right from his childhood. His wife objected to it initially – but her objection wandered away, once she realized, how much he is enjoying doing this. “I had never seen him so much pleased with himself” – she said to her next house neighbor.

Back to the present, Paramasivam continued with the story of “Markendeya”. Mrikandu Rishi and Marudmati chose to have a bright kid who will die at the age of sixteen rather than a dumb wit who would live for a longer time. While explaining the early life of Markendeya, he explained it in such a way, that advised the kids on the importance of gaining knowledge, but the tone was such that the kids never felt as though some one is lecturing them. The story soon came to the scene, where Yama, the death God comes to take Markendeya at his sixteenth birthday.

The elders in the temple, who knew, that Lord Siva would defeat the God of Death and save Markendeya, were now eagerly waiting for the conclusion message. It was exactly then, the news of the misfortune beckoned them. The youngest son of Paramasivam, had been involved in a terrible motorbike accident, and had been admitted in a near by hospital. Paramasivam, accompanied by the neighbors, immediately set off to the hospital.

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Paramasivam came out of the Doctor’s room looking worried. He knew he had very little time to make a decision, but didn’t know what to do. He looked so confused. It was just then his neighbor arrived, bringing a Prasad from the temple. “Take this. Don’t worry. Lord Shiva will save your son, just like he saved Markendeya.”

As soon as Paramasivam heard of the word Markendeya, a steady resolve come to his mind. He immediately rushed back to the doctor’s room.

“I have made a decision” – He said to the doctor.

The chief Doctor looked at him curiously. He never expected him to make such a crucial decision so quickly.

“My son will live for eternity with Lord Shiva’s blessings”. The atheist Doctor tried to hide his frowning face, and started to wonder how to explain reality to this guy, who still believed God will come and save his child. However his frown started to turn to delight, as he continued to listen to what Paramasivam had to say.

“My son will live for eternity in the minds of those, who would lead a happy life, thanks to receiving his organ. Make the arrangements Doctor, and let me see my son once before the Life Support System is turned off”, Paramasivam wiped his tears off, and went to see his son for one last time.

Few weeks later, Paramasivam would conclude his sermon with this thought, “Just like Mrikandu Rishi and Marudmati, I too had a choice. Choice of whether my son can continue to live like a vegetable with life support system. Or if I should agree to donate his unaffected organs, and make many people smile. Just like the Mrikandu Rishi, I too made a choice, that quality of life matters over Quantity.” – He concluded.

UNCONQUERED FINAL FRONTIER - Short Story

July 2008, Suburb of North Chennai

Mani began his delivery stride and gradually gathered momentum. I was concentrating as hard as possible. Sweat for pouring from my forehead but I was least concerned about it. I was anticipating a bouncer; he was sure to exploit my limitation against short pitched stuff. Hence I decided to wait in the back foot, wanting to make full use of it. “We want sixer, we want sixer” came the chanting from the background. Mani though decided to astonish me with a full length slower delivery. I right away transferred my weight to the front foot and launched a fierce lofted cover drive, similar to the shot Sachin played in Sharjah against Aussies in the finals few months back. The ball sailed high in the air.

The moment, ball started to go so high in the air; it dawned across me that it was a dream. I never had the power to hit such a shot, so I was sure it must be a dream. However, I tried hard not to wake up from the sleep. It was such a good feeling, to be able to hit such a huge six at least in the dream. The ball soared high up in the air. However, at the last minute, Pooja dived from nowhere and caught the ball, and started making fun of me. Pooja is my cousin, living in Mumbai, and only in dreams, it is possible for her to take such a catch in the suburbs of Chennai.

Frustrated that I’m not able to score a six even in dreams, I woke up to the sounds of “Kandha Shashti Kavasam” (a devotional Tamil song praising Lord Muruga). If it had been a working day, I would have continued to lay in the bed, hoping to delay as much as possible, the inevitable task of getting up and going to school. But today, is a lucky day for us. Due to some reasons, the ruling party has called off a strike today, much to the bafflement of my father (What the hell is happening, how can the ruling party call for strike”) and to the delight of me.

Being a holiday, I didn’t want to squander too much time, rolling up in the bed. I jumped out of the bed, brushed my teeth within seconds, and rushed out taking my bat. My father would be out of prayer room in next five minutes, and I needed to be out of the house before that, else I would need to hear his depressing cum fuming monologue about the lack of responsibilities seen in today’s children. My grandma had said he used to play cricket for much longer time than me during his school days, so I have never paid any heed to his opinion.

I took the bat from the cupboard and rushed out, and as expected my mother’s voice came rampaging out of kitchen, “Have you ever woken up before 6’ o clock for studying.” I disregarded it as usual, and started moving out. It’s then I realized that I had forgotten to get the balls. We bought three balls the day before, since the shops might have been closed today, due to the strike. I forgot where I had kept them, and as usual I called my grandma to rescue. My ever loving grand ma searched and got them for me once again and I rushed out to join my friends, before my Dad could get hold of me.

The road looked uninhabited except for three of my friends, who were already practicing their cricketing skills. I joined them, and we began to practice and wait for our remaining six friends to join us, to start playing matches. Ramu was practicing batting, and I decided to try in my leg breaks a bit. Though I call it as leg breaks, I actually just bowl the ball slower in the air, hoping to get the batsman out due to the irritation in waiting for the ball, rather than my bowling skills. One by one, our friends came out of their houses to join us.

Today, our group was extended to eleven people, as Praveen brought his cousin, to play with us. He said that his cousin is also studying in eighth standard like us, but none of us believed it. He looked like the WWF wrestlers, and might be studying eighth, only if he had flunked each class thrice. Nevertheless, the task came to me to clarify the rules to him. Rules, in the sense, I am not talking about rules framed by ICC. Now, though we play cricket, we do have our own set of rules, depending on the availability/non availability of resources.

For example, we don’t have any stumps in the bowler’s end, and we use a small stone as the stump there. Since it is difficult to affect a direct hit on that small stone, we follow an ingenious method that was copied directly from Baseball. We allow “Current” – that has nothing to do with power supply – but it is a means by which the batsman can be run out just by catching the ball with our legs on the stump (stone in this case).

Now since this WWF guy doesn’t seemed to me the one who in interested in dealing in singles, I straight away started telling him about the boundary lines and about the unconquered Final frontier, and how any one hits the ball inside that house is declared out. Unconquered Final Frontier? Now its time to take you through a bit of history about the unconquered final frontier, as that day would be the last time I would be explaining that rule about the Final Frontier to any one.

Flash back time………….

Our Gang has been playing cricket here for the past two years, the time when most of our houses came into existence. Most of our parents were working in a reputed state Government organization, and they all brought flats here in this suburb of Chennai, because it was the only place they could afford with the minimal loan. We were lucky enough to get so many people of our age group together, and soon formed a gang and started playing India’s favorite sport. Initially we didn’t face any trouble.

But then the year before, five new houses, came near our colony. None of those people were fellow employees of our parents. None of them had a child, who could play cricket with us. This created a difficulty, as they didn’t like us playing cricket. They complained, shouted and abused at us. We, who don’t even worry about the shouting of our parents and teachers, as usual turned a deaf ear.

They complained to our parents, but since our colony association head, is an ardent cricket fan, he took our side. “Don’t come with these stupid issues” he said and slammed the door of his house on them. This meant we could continue playing cricket, but only problem was that, we ought to make sure; we don’t hit the ball into their houses. Then, no one could help us, and we had no other option than to buy a new ball.

So, we immediately declared those five houses as Danger Zones, and any body who hits the ball inside those houses, will not only be declared out, but he also needs to replace the ball. Now, playing cricket is not some thing that our parents enjoy, but they just put up with it. But they become intolerable, if we keep harassing them with demand of new balls, when ever we hit the balls to the Danger Zone. So we had to think and come up with some pioneering solutions to trim down, if not get rid of the danger zone.

However, our imperfect brain couldn’t come up with any solutions, and we continued with our tradition of Danger Zones. Then came the timely break. There was a small petty shop nearby our colony, where we always buy our two rupee Rasna Packets and One rupee water packets, at the end of our cricket matches. An Old man was the owner of the shop, and he was very fond of us. Who would not be fond of the people, who keep buying stuff from their shop? His son now took over the shop, and as luck would have it, the old man took the job of a gardener cum watchman in one of our Danger Zone House. The house soon went out of Danger Zone, as he took the ball from the house and gave for us, whenever their owners were not aware. We reciprocated his kindness by buying more Rasna packets.

Then a guy in another Danger Zone house got married and the bride become a close friend of my mother, as both of them were from same remote place in Tamilnadu. She always got the ball for me, as long as her mother in law was not in sight. Within weeks, she had also forced her husband to fetch balls for us. So that left mere three more houses, that were the danger zones. One of them in the house was childless couple and they adopted a young girl later that month. We didn’t realize that it will bring such a drastic change in their attitude, that they would start giving back our balls. When ever we were free, we started going to their home, and started playing childish games with their girl, making her joyful, and thereby maintaining friendly relationship with them.

Out of the remaining two houses, one of them moved to posh area in Chennai, after their son got a lucrative job in Chennai. The new tenants to the house didn’t seem to mind about the ball being constantly hit into their house. That left us with only one house, where we couldn’t get any luck. The House still remained in the Danger Zone, and the final frontier was not yet conquered.

Flash back Ends ……….

Having told our rules to the WWF wrestler, we decided to start our game. With odd number of players in the gang, it meant, we had to have one player as “Common”. For those who have never played street cricket, it means that player would get to bat for both the teams, but can’t bowl for either of them. A timid guy in our group, Rahul, who won’t argue with what ever we say, got the role of Common; after all he can’t grumble also, as he can’t bowl a proper delivery even if his life depended on it. So it is a win-win situation for him and others. The remaining ten players were split into two groups of five each, with myself leading one side and Mani the other.

It was time for toss. As we were lucky enough to have a one rupee coin that day, we had a normal toss. Else we would have to be satisfied with many other ingenious method of deciding which team has to bat first. I can’t explain all those methods here, for fear of copyright violation, but one such method was to use a small piece of stone, apply saliva on one side and toss it up in the air. The captain has to call either Mazlai (rain) or veyil (Hot).

We won the toss, and as most of the street cricket captains, follow the rule of “Bat first nine out of ten games. In the tenth game, think for a minute, and then bat first”, we opted to bat first. Now being the batting team captain, I have to make two decisive decisions. No, it is nothing to do with, who should be the openers. That would be automatically decided by the fighting team mates themselves. As long as they ask me to bat at number 3, I am fine with any others playing at any other position.

The choice, I had to make was regarding, who will be the wicket keeper and who will be the umpire. The batting team has to provide players for both these roles. We need to provide a wicket keeper, who has the talent of dropping a dolly so realistically and also can pull off a blinder when the team needs to get out the batsman who is batting slowly and also doesn’t agree to get retired hurt.

And then the umpire must be daring enough to ward off abuses from the opponent and give wide to any delivery that the batsman fails to hit. He should also think of some absurd reasons to say not out when the team’s main batsman gets out for low score. He can even say the stumps were dislodged not because the ball hit the stump, but rather because of earth quake in Indonesia, and the rest four will fight like hell to defend him. Cricket is a not a gentlemen game here; it is a game played between passionate future cricket stars (as we liked to think of our self.)

In the very second ball, Mani uprooted the stumps of one of our opener, and the next ball I edged a ball to wicket keeper, who took a diving catch, only for our umpire to turn a blind eye. Even our parents inside the house would have heard that nick, but umpire insisted he didn’t, in spite of abuses from the opponents of him being deaf. In midst of this commotion, I stared at our wicket keeper, who broke the sacred vow of never diving when keeping for the opposition team.

Rest of my teams batsman, didn’t play well, we shall skip those overs in between and move to the last over of our innings of this six over game. WWF Wrestler defended the first two balls of the last over, leading to annoyed glare from me standing at the non strikers end. Might be it infuriated him so much, that the next ball, he hit a huge shot, that just landed few feet away from the forbidden house and got us six more runs. However the next delivery, we were not so lucky and he hit it straight into the terrace of the Forbidden house. The first ball was lost.

We some how managed to scrap and win the first match, and batted first again, thanks to yet another street cricketing rule of “Winning Team Bats First”. The very first delivery of the match was again hit into the forbidden house by our very own WWF Wrestler. We didn’t shout at him, only because of the fear, that he might thrash us. Any way, we were all satisfied by just glaring at him. Second ball lost, and we had only one more ball. We warned the WWF Wrestler to be careful next time, but all the caution turned futile as the third ball was also lost, before he got a chance to face another delivery.

This time the culprit was Mani. I decided to bowl the third over of their innings, not because I had greater variety, but there was no one else who could bowl six balls without wides or no balls. I bowled the first ball, and it was so slow, that Mani had played the shot thrice before the ball arrived, but failed to make any decent contact. The next delivery frustrated him again, but this time, he was also down the track, and the wicket keeper had an easy stumping chance, which he fumbled deliberately. Mani was frustrated at giving two dot balls against me, and I also provoked him, by making fun of his batting talent. Next delivery was launched high into the air by him.

Odds should be so low against third six attempted going to the same house, but today was a day to defy all odds. The ball traced the same path as its two predecessors and rolled inside the main gate of the house. All three balls lost within an hour of play starting. With no shops open, we know, our day is going to be wasted. We were all very much upset and started wondering what to do. After some needless conversation, one by one every one started leaving. Finally only I, Mani and Rahul were left. Mani and I were wanted some how break the final frontier and get the balls. We started to think of a plan.

We knew at this point of time, all the three members of the family would be in house. First there is an old grand father, whose only hobby in life is to read Hindu from first line to last line every morning and then spend the rest of the day, writing various letters to editor. His letters on various topics has been printed in Hindu, ranging from “Why more budgets should be allocated to Military” to “Nuances of living with kids in the neighborhood”. We indeed felt honored that we were the subject of discussion in The Hindu.

The next person is his daughter in Law, who does make up to show that she is still in her thirties. She also tries to act as though she is the Mother Teresa of Tamilnadu, and indulges in many social services activates superficially. Next is her daughter, who is studying in a reputed engineering college, and whose only purpose in life is to read text books. And then there is her father, who spends most of his time in some tours and currently not in house. When all these three souls are in home, we could never think of entering the danger zone.

So we decided to wait and act. We knew, the mother and daughter would be going to a near by temple at 4’0 clock and the old man would most probably be sleeping. So we could peep into the house then and get the balls. If every thing goes well, we could still manage to play for 2 hours before the darkness comes. So we decided to meet at 4. Rahul, tried to escape from the plan, but we forced him to come to terms with us. He is too timid to say anything against Mani and agreed reluctantly just to come up to the main gate of the house.

4’o clock. We reached near the entrance of the house and waited for the mother and daughter to get out of the house. After they left, we climbed the main gate and got into the house. Rahul was supposed to keep watch standing outside and warn us if any one comes. After bit of struggle, we, Mani and I, climbed the gate and jumped inside the house. We tried to make as little noise as possible. As luck would have it, the first ball was lying just near the verandah and we pocketed it.

“We shall leave” – I said; but Mani was adamant on getting the other two balls as well. The second one, we knew was in upstairs. The staircase was inside the house. Mani said we shall try opening the main door and see if the door opens. The last positive thing, that happened that day, was we got to open the door. The moment we opened the door, we heard loud “Thief, Thief” sound from the main gate, and only then we realized that the mother and daughter in law had come back to the home.

Later we came to know from Rahul, that he had run away out of fear on seeing them return back. We just stood there, our legs trembling. Mani tired to explain some thing, but suddenly his vocal chord seemed to have deserted him, and only air came out of his mouth. What followed next is one of the worst moments in our life, and I am going to stop here, as I don’t want to spoil your working mood, by sharing my bad memories.

It is enough for you to know that, not only did Steve Waugh and Co failed to conquer the Final Frontier; but we also had failed to conquer our Own Final Frontier…..

A Man of Eternal Fear - Short Story

“Thou shall not fear, Thou shall not fear,
Even if sky breaks and falls on our head”

Our Hero was born in the same district as Subramaniya Bharathiyar who wrote those everlasting lines. However our hero, Ramalingam, was an embodiment of fear. If only that patriotic poet had seen the way our hero had lead his life, he would have probably turned in his grave. Oops, a cliché, but it is the characters like our hero, who force the writers like me to keep repeating clichés.

To prove to you, that I am not exaggerating the “Fear” factor of Mr. Ramalingam, let us go through a concise tour of his typical day. His usual day begins at morning four. For he believes that early morning dreams will come true, he hinders them out with the assistance of an old alarm timepiece, that has been doing this task for a long time. As soon as he wakes up, the first thing he does, even before adjusting his now half-removed Lungi, is to keep his fingers near his wife’s nose.

His wife, who had been married to this man of fear, has never known that she is being tested if she is alive, every morning by her other half. After making sure, that her lungs are still pumping out Carbon-di-Oxide and taking in Oxygen, he does the next examination, as vigilant as an expert medicinal practitioner. He checks her pulse, and makes sure that heart is still doing its function of pumping out the blood properly. At this point of time, his wife nine out of ten times turns over in her bed. Though she never wakes up, for she is such an ardent sleeper, even an earth quake can’t wake her up before seven; leave alone her husband’s minor livability test.

So our Ramalingam, having made sure that his wife hadn’t passed away, in yesterday’s sleep, will now get up to make clear his other fear’s that has got accumulated over his six hour sleep period. He has to now make sure if his material processions are safe. He first checks his safety vault, the place beneath his bed, and makes sure that his ATM Card (given by his son that won’t have more than Rs.2000 max) and Rs.5000 in cash are safe. Though no sound logic could be proposed, on how some one could ransack that amount without his knowledge from under his bed, he does fear that the money had been stolen on daybreak. But I speculate if there is any burglar who takes such efforts of breaking open a house, and then finding ways of retrieving the cash from under the bed without the knowledge of two sleepers on it, for such a scanty sum. If there is really such a thief, he wouldn’t even get CRR4, if they have their appraisals. Pity thief!

Having done that, he would then go out of the home, and make sure no one has stolen his age old, TVS 50. He will also open the gasoline tank and make sure that the half a liter petrol inside it, had not been stolen. Then he would make a walk around his house and check on his still older bicycle, that will lye harmlessly near the well. Though his wife had repeatedly told him, that no one other than an archeological undergraduate would steal that, he can’t get the fear out that his bicycle had been stolen that day.

Satisfied that no break-in had been committed in his house, the previous day, he would turn on the television. But then there are some traditions to be followed before, turning on the television. He would check the voltage thrice to make sure there are no fluctuations, and then have a peek into the clouds to make sure that there is no chances of lightening any where near his proximity that could affect his television. He even thought of buying a telescope for this reason, but only his tighter purse, after retirement, prevented him from doing that. After the customs are followed, his television would slowly see the light.

His journey of browsing the channels would first begin with Tamil News channels, to get rid of his fear that no awkward occurrence has happened in Tamilnadu, then to NDTV’s and CNN-IBN’s to make sure India is safe and sound, and then to BBC and CNN to make sure the entire human race is secure. He is still waiting for some one to start a News channel to cover news from other planets and galaxies, so in spite of watching all these news channels, a fright would still loiter through his brain, of what if some thing dire had happened some light years away, which could possibly have an effect on him.

If it had been a year before, his next step would be to telephone his son’s family staying in the US to make sure, they are safe. Since his new Gujarati daughter in law had made it clear, that any more dim-witted daily calls from him, to check if they have not died, would force her to file divorce from his son, he had restrained from making that call. However he would call his old friend of him, who is also residing in New York now, and make sure there had been no issues there. After getting a pleasing answer from his friend, he would begin reading amalgamation of yesterday’s newspapers that would have been delivered by now.

He will read and make sure he hadn’t missed any significant news (read as “News that should force him to take additional safety measures”) from a variety of newspapers ranging from ‘The Hindu’ to ‘Dhinabhoomi’. Today, he had read an editorial about how hotel foods are not good for health. His daughter, now residing in Bangalore, would be getting a free sermon today, on why she should cook every day for her children, in spite of being a Project Manager in one of the MNC’s there. Little did he knew, that she would just put the phone on speaker mode, and go on to do her household tasks, whenever he calls. She would just come near the phone, once every five minutes, to say “Yes Dad, Yes Dad”.

By the time he completes reading his newspapers, his wife would have woken up, and would bring him his cup of _______. Now what is there in the cup would vary depending upon what scientific article he had recently read. One day he would say caffeine is good for health, the next day, he would read some where that caffeine is not good and switch from coffee to some thing else. Today what was inside that cup was a cup of buffalo’s milk. It had found favor recently thanks to the “Siddha vaidhya muraigal” (Ways of Siddha medicine) manuscript he had read in the Central District Library, the week before.

The quantity of milk in the cup before him was around half way mark. An optimist would have called it half full, and a pessimist would have called it half empty. But our hero of fear would only think about the possibility of microbes in the milk and the diseases that it would cause. He noted in his mind about the need to enquire about Milk Sterilization machines available in US from his son. It could be better if that apparatus could do it specifically for Buffalo’s milk.

Let’s skip an uneventful his next one hour spent on walking, and once he returned back, he felt a slight soreness in his knees. And now it has set alight a new horror wave of thoughts through his mind. He straight away switched on the computer. Ever since his son had taught him how to use the Internet, that was Ramalingam’s place of visit, during times of panic. He goggled “Knee pain” and came out with thousands of cures, each of which will be tried out in the coming month. Meanwhile he also came up with a list of diseases whose earlier warning sign was a knee pain. That was a even bigger list than cures, and he decided to set up an appointment with doctor to make sure he wasn’t infected with any of those diseases. His instincts told him that the disease that had implicated him was the one with the longest unpronounceable Latin name in the list. Little did he knew, that the disease came only to Africans and that too only for one in one million people. Still those facts wouldn’t have made a difference to him and his fears.

Having been worn out, thanks both to his light sleeps in the night, and his browsing to find out the cause of his knee problem, he decided to take a short nap after his lunch. As he was having his lunch, of carefully selected food substances that he believed would safe guard him against various diseases; his monthly “Reader’s Digest” copy arrived. The edition had an article advising the perils of sleep during the day. Thankfully he didn’t read it before going to nap. However he would be definitely read it by evening and this would be his last mid day nap in the near future that is until he gets to read yet another article that points out the rewards of having mid day nap.

As he is sleeping, we can just skim through his memoirs to know more about his fear factor. No one knows for sure, if it was heredity that his responsible for his fear factor. As none of his old relations are alive now, we can’t find out if he had any great grand fathers, from whom he inherited this great trait. However from his friends, we could know for sure, that he was like this right from his school days, and he was born like that.

Especially his friend, Namasivayam, now a District secretary in a party run by an actor, would tell never-ending stories of his fear factor. For Namasivayam was the greatest beneficiary of it, as he would intimidate him for no cause and get pockets of ground net, slates, pencils as bribe. Our heroes parents thought he was a spend thrift. Little did they know he was actually being bullied. It would be ironical to see Namasivayam threaten Ramalingam, as the latter was actually better built. However, the fact that Ramalingam would fear for every thing right from a Harmless PT Master to the gardener on the way to school, helped Namasivayam to build up his supplies. It’s not fair to say that Ramalingam feared only Humans, as he also feared for every thing right from “Muniyandi God” in village entrance to tiny chameleons.

As he came to Chennai, to pursue his college degree, the only thing that accompanied him besides his luggage, is his fear for every thing. Chennai, then called as Madras, offered him more occasions to dread. He sat in the first row of college for fear of his professors, supplied free cigarettes to his rowdy classmates, for the fear of last benchers, but never smoked any of them for the fear of his parents. By the time he had completed his degree, he would have written more than fifty records (for almost most of his class mates), and did day to day help for half the professors who took classes for him. No one knows even for sure till today, why he even feared college watch man, and supplied him with free Beedis every alternate Fridays.

Thanks to his father’s friend, he some how landed a job at Indian Railways. There people were only too pleased to welcome him, as he show cased his fearing abilities the very first day. He did the work of almost all his colleagues, but still got the admonishment of his superior. Of course the manager could only vent his fury on a guy, who won’t report any thing to the unions, what ever he said. It doesn’t mean that Ramalingam was not a member of any union. He joined the very first day, not wanting to upset Union leaders, who looked like Tamil Film villains. However his manager knew very well, that he was not daring enough to report anything to them, so he continued to irk him.

Mean while Ramalingam feared that even looking at the girl’s features might land him in prison, and he must have been the only guy in Chennai, not to know where Queen Mary’s college was present at that time. As a preventative measure, he began to consider all the girls he knew as sisters, aunts or grand mothers depending on their year of their birth. So it meant unless his parents assisted him in selecting a good girl, he would remain a confirmed bachelor all through his life. And that’s how he was married to a girl, who wasn’t even half good looking as he was.

The girl understood the very first day of their married life; of how uncomplicated it was be in command of him. From then on, Ramalingam had one more human being to dread in his life. Though that didn’t prevent him from loving his wife, but the only concern was he didn’t know how to portray his love for her. He believed that listening to all her hysteric shouting mutely was the best way to show his love. In site of all that, they did help in increasing India’s population by two. Sooner his son and daughter also joined others in utilizing his fear.

The lowest point of his life would be when his son threatened him to sign the mark sheet, without the knowledge of his mother when he had flunked all the subjects. He obliged; and he later used the same fear factor of his father to get support to marry his Gujarati girl friend. His meek threaten of “We will commit suicide” was way too much for this feeble soul.

On the other hand, his daughter also helped herself to what ever she wants. Even now she makes sure she got half of her father’s retirement benefit, spending just a solitary tear as investment. That tear was enough to set panic waves and made Ramalingam give what ever she asked for.

As we had skimmed through Ramalingam’s biography, he had also gotten up from his nap. We could go on and on about his fear for every thing, but I think I have established the fact that he was a man of eternal fear. Hence I am no longer interested in taking you through more of his fear filled life, I would rather take you fast forwarding to the day of his passing away.

He died of massive cardiac arrest. No one knows what news brought about sudden cardiac unrest in him, but as we are sure that could have been more probably due to some inconsequential issue, we not going to be too concerned about it. In fact, we are not even going to spend time watching the reaction of all those people who had a lost a person whom they had threatened all through their life. We will rather move to Heaven to see the discussion regarding his death there, as it might prove more fascinating.


In the Heaven

“Ramalingam is dead”, said the fairy.

After being quiet for few seconds, God replied, “Send him to heaven.”

“But God, he is the lifeless soul that feared the entire life and didn’t do any thing positive. I don’t think he deserves a place in heaven”, the fairy looked offended, and began to doubt why God is having a soft spot towards him.

“Oh, you know the hell is so over booked now days. You know I need to book places for so many corrupt politicians and mean while sports authorities have also started competing with them now,” God said.

He then after a minute of silence added, “I don’t want to squander a place in hell for this guy, because with his fear, he won’t enjoy heaven any ways. So even Heaven would only be like Hell to him”.

Fairy approved and smiled positively towards God.

Nostalgia - Short Story

The End…..

Tip Tip Tip ……

The water droplets started falling on me gradually. The source of the water droplet is the drenched waste cloth that just fell on me. That waste cloth was thrown by Sreethar. He had just wiped his majestic “Royal Enfield Thunderbird” bike with that cloth and threw it over me. I felt spiteful on looking at that bike. It was standing boldly right in the middle of the veranda; the veranda that had been my place. To be more specific, that had been my place till today’s morning. To be frank, I shouldn’t be complaining that I was pushed to the corner. As an old Bajaj M80 scooter, I should be thankful, that I was not yet been sold, and at least still have a place in this corner. Actually I feared I might even be sold this morning….

Today Morning…….

“That’s why I asked you to sell this….” – Sreethar was talking in a deafening voice with his dad and my proud owner. “Don’t raise your voice. After all that was his first vehicle. How can he sell it?” interrupted Sreethar’s mother, who had always played a mediator role between them.

“No Ma, but please understand. Where will I park my bike then?” – Sreethar had just returned a week earlier from Pune; he got transfer from his office there after a mighty struggle and after bogus threats of quitting the company. I was very happy when he came back; I have warm memories of him. However my cheerfulness was short lived, as his bike followed him a weak later. It turned out to be a contender for my place.

“If you want I will leave the bike at the outside. Let some one steal it”, – saying this he stormed into the room furiously, showing his annoyance clearly towards me.

“Its okay pa. I will leave my scooter at the corner. You don’t get angry” – His Dad, slowly moved me from the veranda, towards the corner. I just lost my place of 15 years to this new bike. I could see the tear in his eyes. However I am not sure if that tears were for me or for him. Probably for both of us, as we both felt worthless now.

Today Sreethar may feel that I am useless, but I had not always been useless. In fact I had not ever been once to mechanic shop for major repair, until that fatal day. That fatal day, I met with my first severe accident.

The first accident …..

Sreethar even then didn’t have very good view about me. He was then studying in the third year of his Engineering, but had been pestering his Dad for a new bike.

“I don’t even want for me Dad. At least you buy a new one. I will use it very rarely.” – He always used to say.

“For this Clerk in Government office, who isn’t bold enough to get bribes, who had to marry off three of his younger sister’s with his salary, who had to ….” – His dad went on ranting, but the bottom line was that he couldn’t afford another bike that time. I would have rather preferred if he had said “Nope, I can’t think of any other bike when I have such a valuable scooter”, but was at least contented that I was still of use to them.

However on that day, Sreethar had to rely on me, whatever be his attitude towards me. He was watching an Indo Pak cricket match, when his friend called him. He came out with his newly brought Mobile phone outside the house, as he normally does when he doesn’t want his mother to eavesdrop his secrets. Today his face turned passionate as he listened to the communication from the other side. He right away went inside, came back wearing a better shirt and combing his hair for the first time in his life.

After a moment of indecisiveness, he decided to make use of my services. He started to murmur the then latest love songs and tried to make me go to more than 50 Km per hour. For me who was used to run at conservative secure 35 Km per hour (when his dad drives), it was little too much. On seeing his cheerful mood, I tried my best to help him out. But he didn’t seem to understand my concern, and hurled abuse at me for not moving fast. “I can never meet her, travelling in this tortoise” – he said.

Again his mobile rang, and he decided to attend the call, still trying to gather every bit of pace from me. As his attention was disturbed, I saw the car coming off from a turning at a higher speed. That was one of those rare instances in my life, when I thought “How nice it would be if I had been given a control to stop myself, when in risk.” However when I was made, the science had not yet developed so much, and I had to go and hit straight into the car, putting me in disarray and throwing Sreethar into the nearby bush.

I had to spend 15 days in the mechanic shop, whereas Sreethar spent 3 days more in the hospital. There’s nothing more to say about that incident to you; having said that my interactions with Sreethar had not always been that mournful. We have had happier moments together.

Secret Rendezvous……

It was two thirty in the afternoon on yet another sweltering Sunday. Sreethar tipped out of the house cautiously. His now much famed moustache had then just started to grow and he was then in ninth standard. I was also much younger then and more blissful. He slowly pushed me out of the veranda, careful not to make any noise. For this clandestine rendezvous with me, he always selected this time. This is the time his father would be taking his Sunday afternoon nap after having heavy meals. His mother and younger sister would have gone to the aunt’s house in the next street.

So there will be no one in the house, to warn him that he is too immature to drive a scooter. He will not start me till he reaches the end of the road, to make sure he doesn’t wake his dad up. Once he reaches the main road, he will kick start me. Normally he will succeed in third or fourth attempt. He will then proceed through the streets, where none of his relatives and his father’s friends resides.

Then within an hour, I would be back in my usual place in verandah, before his father wakes up and drives me to a Siva temple, where he will meet his set of friends. I just used to love those days.

But then it was not that Sreethar started driving me only when he was in ninth standard. He used to partially drive me, even when he was as little as in forth standard. Those were much sweeter memories.

Much Younger Days…..

The beautiful moments of when I was driven partially always happened, when Sreethar’s dad takes him alone on me to a trip to some far-flung places outside the city on weekends. Those were days, when I was very new having been just brought. It also coincided with the time, when Sreethar’s mother was carrying her second child. As Sreethar’s dad wanted to drive me as much as possible, and his wife refused to accompany him, citing pregnancy as the reason, Sreethar always got the chance to accompany him. As they crossed the city limits, and reached empty roads, Sreethar, sitting in front of his dad, was given the opportunity to control the accelerator alone. With the combination of horrified and passionate look in his face, he used to control the accelerator, driving me carefully only in thirties. He always used to listen to his Dad’s instruction of “Slow down, go little quicker” carefully, and handle me so well. Thinking back now, it must have been the most wonderful moment of my life, but then there was one more day. The day I was brought by his dad.

Genesis

That was a week before Diwali. I was just brought by Sreethar’s dad. I still remember the day so vividly. I was moved to the centre of the verandah. Sreethar, his mom, dad, and his grand dad all looked at me in awe. I was given special Poojas. Every one just adored me. I felt so proud about myself. It was then Sreethar’s dad noticed a small dust over my seat. He felt so troubled, that he immediately shouted at this wife to bring a wet waste cloth. He cleaned the dirt carefully. I was proud that I was brought by people who take such a good care of me. He threw the wet cloth after cleaning me. It went and fell on the old cycle standing in the corner. I looked at the bicycle in a degrading way. The water droplets started falling on the bicycle gradually….

Tip Tip Tip ……

Myself in 26 verbs- Part 2 (Myelf and Praying)

The other articles in this series can be read here : Introduction to "Myself in 26 verbs"
Myself and Acting

A I had started off with a Verb starting with A, you would be expecting for a veb starting with B. However I felt it’s time to astonish you. I am going to write about a verb starting with P – Myself and Praying that is; After all even Thiruvalluvar did began his work “Praising the God”; let me follow the best poet the human race ever had.

Myself and Praying:

When you are a child, your faith in God is supposed to be directly proportional to your parent’s conviction in God. I was no different. My dad was a devout Hindu – for him temples are best tourist places, and sending considerable time every day with God, chanting Mantras is a routine. I was no different too. I believed that nothing is more important that praying to God. One of the most vivid reminiscence that flashes across my brains as I think of my faith in God is the clash I had with my cousin Vignesh.

My clash with Vignesh

Those were not days of CD and DVD Players and movie downloads from Internet. If you had to watch a movie, you either go to a theatre or hire a VCD Player and bunch of videos. We very rarely go to theatre; however during summer holidays, when all my cousins are gathered at my house, my Dad used to rent a VCD Player. One such time, along with VCD player, he rented quite a few movies; few latest ones, and few old movies based on stories of God (of course acted by Sivaji). When every one wanted to watch latest movies first, I couldn’t just grasp it. “How could some one not watch movies of God fist?” – I began to wonder. I had no doubts what so ever in my mind, that God will be awfully disappointed with their stance.

That was what led to my brawl with Vignesh, as he was the most vocal backer of watching latest Movies First. It looks silly to me now, but then at that age, I earnestly believed what ever was said about God. It led me to get a name a one of the most God Fearing Kid, among my relatives. After all who doesn’t like a God Fearing Kid?

Doubting my Elders

Meanwhile it is not that I blindly believed what ever is said about God. I used to view them with suspicion, but I never conveyed it to my elders. This made them think I believed what ever they said. I will offer one instance that I can think of straight away. My Grand ma used to say, that if we keep our hands on floor while eating, ‘Bhooma Devi’ (Goddess of Earth) will take up what ever we eat. I always had this uncertainty of what will occur, if we keep our hands down while we consume Non Vegetarian food. After all Goddess are not supposed to eat Non Vegetarian foodstuff, so what she will do. However I kept my reservation with in myself, and complied with my grand ma’ appeal always. I am glad that I did that, for that helped me in developing fine sitting posture.

One more thing, that always surprised me during my numerous visits to temple with my Dad, is the relative quantity of time my Dad spent near each God. He always used to spend more time near the Major God in Temple, and less time with other Minor Gods. I can never comprehend how come there was prejudice shown even towards different types of God.

Inner Meanings of Stories

I always tried to identify the inner significance of the stories of God, rather than just take pleasure in the slaying of Demons and Devils in it.

For example, once as we were playing, one of my cousins poured sand on God, for we didn’t have milk to offer to God. One of my elder cousins watching that was angrier on me than my cousin. “You know so much about God. How can you allow him to put sand on God? Wont God be annoyed.” I could never really work out why she was so angry. After all I had grown up listening to stories, where God had even accepted pork, if offered with good intent. (Kannappa Nayanar tale) “So why would he be livid just because sand was offered. That too with good intention by a naive kid?” – I wanted to ask, but my “Never Upset Elders” mind-set made me remain quiet and also express regret to her.

Influence of my Mother and Grand Ma

Though my Dad was very God fearing guy, my mother and Grand mother were more realistic people. Both my mother and Grand Ma, used to pray/chat to God like as though He was their associate / well wisher. I liked that sort of praying to God, rather than mere chanting of mantras. More over, both of them explained the rational thought behind praying to God, and answered my regular questions of God with rational explanations.

“It is always good to have some one we can turn up to, in times of difficulty” – My mother used to say, while talking of God. “There is only one God, but we worship him in diverse forms. We also worship great human beings who had God like traits” – My grand ma said when I asked for the count of Gods.

Middle School Days

With me joining a Catholic institute in sixth standard, my familiarity was extended to other religions too; and I started saying the Christian prayers in school with the same spirituality and truthfulness with which I used to say prayers to Hindu Gods at my home. I could never feel any dissimilarity between both of them. I also enjoyed the parables in Bible in the same way I enjoyed the Hindu mythological stories. It also helped me that I had the luck of being taught by some very secular teachers like Mr. Ambrose. He used to tell about the greatness of Thiruvannamalai mountains where Lord Shiva abodes. Teachers like him strengthened my conviction that in what ever name God was called, he was similar.


Higher Secondrary School Days

I faced an authentic examination on my spiritual viewpoint during my Eleventh standard. I had a friend called Pradeep, who was Hindu by birth, but got converted to Christianity. He used to tell me all the negativities of Hinduism and his one and only purpose of life must have been to some how make me switch loyalty to Christianity. During those times, I had restless nights, wondering if I had been following an erroneous religion till then. However instead of believing him, I decided to find it out myself. I started reading a lot about religions at that time. I found out that each and every religion had its greatness and also had their short comings and Hinduism was not immune to it.

What Pradeep had done successfully was, he had only pointed out short comings of Hinduism to me. Having found that all religions are one and the same, I also decided that with lot of varieties that Hinduism offers, it is most appropriate to me. Hence I was relieved that I had been following the right religion. I continued to be good friend of Pradeep, and still believe that religious belief and viewpoint, can never affect a good comradeship. I would always be grateful to him, for he gave me an opening to explore about religions, though his intentions were different.

Though I had always remained secular; it was more obvious during my Twelfth Board Examination. I used to pray from outside a mosque near Minjur Railway station, as I start for the examination. Then I go to church near our school and offer my prayers. To conclude it I go to a Shiva temple near the school in which I had to take my examinations. Even today as I pray, I don’t to pray to any specific Gods. I always address my prayers to God (Kaduval or Andava in Tamil) rather than addressing a particular God.

My Philosophies of God and Prayer

During my college days and now during my office days, my dealings with prayers mostly involve analyzing my viewpoint of God with in myself. Whenever I do get free time, I start thinking and reading about various philosophies of God, and come up with what seems to be a perfect philosophy to me. These views and philosophies might not be original, but that fact that I found it myself and found that best to me, always gives me a sort of close bonding with these theories and philosophies. Let me explain to you few of those philosophies now; -

My philosophy of God is very straightforward. I mean, it is uncomplicated to me, but if I begin elucidating in words, it may start sounding complex. Any ways, let me give it a try.

“I am not sure if God Exist or not, but what I am sure is I could never find an accurate answer for it in my life time. However the confidence that God exists had helped me so far in life, and I am going to carry on with that conviction.”

Its like when we are childish, the mere thought that our parents are around will soothe us, even though the parents might not actually be physically present. Same way, the simple notion that the God is there to steer me and show me the light, will always help and I don’t want to ruin that belief.

I have always been sane enough to know that prayers can’t execute miracles. However what prayers can do is, help us execute our works to the best of our skill and help us to focus all our efforts and vigor at the task at our hand. That’s why I love this excerpt that says “Praying to God doesn’t make mountain smaller; but it makes climbing easier.”

Hold on. I can actually keep on going about my various philosophies regarding prayers, religion and God, but then I wont end this piece of writing. Let me write about the same some where later, but as of now, I feel I have taken you through an adequate voyage of my progression with respect to praying. So let me stop this article here.

PS: Oops, Sorry Rakesh for one more abrupt ending. Will try to end the next one better.

Myself in 26 verbs - Part 1 (Myself and Acting)

Before, reading this article, you could read, why I started writing this series here => Introduction to Myself in 26 Verbs

Even Tamil Saint Tiruvalluvar, started his work with the first letter of the Tamil Alphabet. I have decided to follow his foot steps. So here I am beginning my “Myself in 26 Verbs” with the Verb starting in the first letter of the English Alphabet, ‘A’.

Myself and Acting:


Before the commencement of this piece of writing, I want to give you a statutory advice. When I say ‘Acting’, I only mean Official Acting. This article will not speak about “Unofficial Acting”. For those who are baffled about the difference between Official and Unofficial Acting, here is the meaning from Subbu’s Dictionary.

“Official Acting is where the spectators are aware the concerned person is acting. If the Viewer is not aware that the concerned person is acting, then it is called ‘Unofficial Acting’.

Still confused? Thought so. Definitions in Subbu’s dictionary are so technical, that mere mortals like you, won’t be able to grasp it. It requires a PHD in English Literature to comprehend ‘Subbu’s Dictionary’. Let me explain ‘Unofficial Acting’ with an uncomplicated illustration, that even layman would appreciate.

Let’s say there was a Chemistry Teacher from your school, you hated the most. Now, you come across him / her as you cross the road. When they smile at you, you are expected to smile back. At that time, you will be reminded about the way he/ she distressed you in the class rooms, but still you are expected to smile back. Your inner heart will be commanding you to aim the stone lying near by at his/her neck, but still you have to disguise the feelings and grin at him/her. The teacher, oblivious of your inner sentiment, would go back thinking “What a respectful students he is! Those days students were so nice, when compared with the morons today”, totally forgetting that we were shoddier than the current set of students, when we were at school.

This is what, I mean by ‘Unofficial acting’ and the reasons for not writing about it are two fold. First is that, My chemistry teacher might actually end up reading this blog, and all the good name that I had acquired through ‘Unofficial Acting’ might fade away in no time. I don’t want to take that risk. Second reason is that, if I start writing about it, there is a danger of Internet going out of space. That is an overstatement of course; but I hope you got the point. After all writers are allowed to exaggerate a bit, so you shouldn’t grumble. If I start explaining my life without exaggeration, then my blog might end up as your sleeping medication; in the same way my engineering text books acted as my sleeping pills cum head support, during those four long years.

Okay, enough of my blabbering. Let us get back to our topic, “Myself and Acting” or to put it exactly “Myself and ‘Official’ Acting”.

Like most of you, majority of my acting was restricted to the annual day celebrations during my primary school days. I, as some of you might be aware, studied in the school run my mother from UKG to Fifth standard. (I studied less than three moths of LKG. So those of you, whose kids aren’t doing well in LKG, beware, your kid might turn up like me). There I got a chance to act in the Annual Day celebrations every year. No, don’t blame my mother for soft spot shown towards her son. You could blame my mother for many things, but showing partiality toward her son, could never be the reason for it. For her, all the kids studying in her school are one and the same.

When my mother was studying and then working as a teacher in another private school, one thing always annoyed her. Whenever there was any event, only the smartest and cutest kids were preferred to take part. Hence she vowed that when ever she starts her own school, she would give chance for each and every kid, irrespective of their brightness or beauty. That is the reason; I got a chance to participate in all the Annual Day celebration.

Now, during annual day, we were given a choice of whether to participate in play or Dance. Most of them selected Dance, for reasons I can never work out. However I always ended up selecting Drama. The official reason to who ever asked was that “I hate Dance”. The true explanation was – No your guess was wrong. It is not because I don’t know to dance. For that matter, I don’t know to act also. Fact was, in some of the dance, you could end up being asked to dance along with the girls. For some reason, at that age, I couldn’t digest the idea of dancing along with the girls. “Acting with the girls” is fine, but Dancing, it’s yuck.

Dancing along with the girls could also make me an object of fun, among my class mates, relatives etc. That is the risk I never wanted to take. However I couldn’t tell this as a reason to my mother. Hence I maintained the version of “I hate Dance”. If I had told my mother, the true reason for not dancing then, I might have got a chance to dance for a “Boys only dance”. However, I never told it, and as a result, I had to act in all the six Annual Day Celebrations in our school. The most daunting task in that, is to convince at least few of my friends to act, so that I don’t end up being the only person for Acting, whereas every one else is dancing.

However acting, didn’t stop me from getting ridiculed either. In one of the Annual Day, I had to act as a Father, taking his daughter to a Toy’s shop. The skit involved showing the performance of each Toy to my daughter. This was one of the ideas of my mother, to get as many kids to act, irrespective of their gift. As a kid, who can only recite a poem, could be made up as a “Poem Reciting Doll”, and a kid who can’t even do that as a “Head shaking doll”; whereas highly talented kids, could act as complex dolls. Nice Idea. Only draw back is that I was made fun of, for already being a Dad when I was in first standard.

Thankfully, from second to fifth standard, my mother gave me rolls, that no one could make fun of. In Second, I acted as India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. My cousin Arun (Anna) wrote and gave me a big speech in English about Nehru that I memorized and recited. I remember the new Pyjama Kurtha and the rose more than that speech now.

In Third Standard, it was the comic Tamil story of Paramatha Guru and his foolish disciples. My dad even got a “Paramatha Guru” book for the same, as I enacted the role of ‘Paramatha Guru. I am not sure, if the comic play elicited any laughter from the audience, but we definitely enjoyed the show.

In Fourth Standard, I played the role of Tamil God Muruga, in the play that enacted few scenes from “Thiruvillayadal” (Plays of Lord Shiva). I enjoyed that role, though only thing that kept bothering me was the attire. The rented costume for Lord Muruga kept infuriating me. However, I enjoyed the role so much, that I even remember few of the dialogues now. My favorite being “Illaya pillay yenral yedupar Kai Pillaya” that roughly translates into “Is the younger child, less favorite child”. (May be I liked this dialogue, as I was the eldest child in my family) This dialogue was narrated as “Vinayaga” gets the Divine fruit, after coming around the parents, saying that parents are equal to World.

However the most memorable aspect of the skit was Saravanan who acted as Vinayaga. During the annual day, pomegranate was given as the Divine fruit. He, who was studying in third standard then, thinking that it was a mango, started eating the fruit along with the skin. He with his recently removed trunk, lying near by, trying to bit through thick Pomegranate skin, made us all laugh like any thing. With myself also named after “Muruga” and as I also acted his role, he became my favorite God for some time during that time period.

Then came the fifth standard, my last year at my mother’s school. My mother decided to feature a play on Sillapdhigaram (One of the Tamil Epics, where Kannagi plays the lead role.) My mother felt, one of my class mate Amuda was well suited for Kannagi’s role, and she wanted this play to be featured. I played the role of the Pandiya King, who gives a wrong judgment and kills Kannagi’s husband. It surprised many, that being my last year in her school, my mother did not feature me in a play, where I get a chance to play the lead role. However knowing my mother too well, I wasn’t even a single bit astonished.

The only major difficulty of playing the role came when; I had to remove my crown. As Kannagi proves, that I caused injustice, I had to remove my ‘Crown’ saying that I’m not worthy of it. However, when I tried to remove my crown, my wig came along with it. Some how, I managed to remove my crown alone.

As I moved to St. Mary’s AI HS School to further my schooling, and later at SRM Engineering College, I put my acting skills to rest. During those eleven years, the only time I came close to acting was when was we went for outing to Ooty during our tenth standard. We had a camp fire, and each team had to perform a play. Our team planned a nice skit; however, with mikes not working properly, all skits were cancelled during camp fire, thereby leaving, my acting skills left unnoticed.

After college, as I joined Infosys Technologies Limited, we had an intensive four months training. Once our Technical training got completed, we had a week of soft skill training organized by “Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI)”. Though many felt those sessions were boring, I for one always enjoyed them very much. In one of the sessions, each group had to represent different styles of leadership with an example. With many not ready to take up the acting role, I took gleefully the opportunity to act like an “Indian style egotistical Boss”. My team mates appreciated my performance, and I felt happy that my Primary School acting skills hadn’t forsaken me.

The only other acting chance I got so far was during a “RETL Mela Event” conducted by our Retail Department in Infosys. Our account depicted a Mime about “Railway Safety”, and I played a major part of that play. If I had not been there, that play wouldn’t have taken place. I played the role of one of the Railway Platform :)

Myself in 26 verbs (Introduction)

Every writer from Shakespeare to Jeffery Archer would have gone through this sort of phase. The “How to Write Short stories/ novels sort of books”, that I used to read, when I was in college, term this phase as “Writer’s Block” (Read it as politically correct way of saying “I had been lazy for long, and didn’t write anything). The best way to get out of this block is to write something – those books used to counsel. Write Something – What “Something”, shall I write about, to get out of this block? (By the way “Something” is not really a silly word, in fact there is even one website called www.something.com).

All said and done, I decided that I had to write about something that I know very well about. What do I know very well about? Cricket? But then there would be definitely many guys out there, who know more about cricket than me. Politics? Writing? Education? Same holds good for all of them too. I am not an expert on anything. But then there is one guy about whom I know more than anyone else. If you can’t guess who that guy is, please stop reading. I don’t want dumb wits like you to read my epic work. (Oops, now I know what my major shortcoming is. From starting to write just for the sake of coming out of Writer’s Block, now I want to write an epic, dreadful!!!)

Okay, so you might ask, “who will want to read about you”? Didn’t people want to read about an orphan in England (Oliver Twist)? Didn’t people want to read about a small petty thief in Punjab (Train to Pakistan)? Didn’t people want to read about a cruel Jew and a Kind Merchant (Merchant of Venice)? So why won’t people want to read about me. Fact is people will read about anything, as long it is presented interestingly. The catch here is only way you can find out if I write interestingly is by reading through this epic. If I could manage to write interestingly about a boring life of mine, I am sure I can write New York Times Bestselling Novels in the future. No, I don’t want to write novels that wins Nobel Prize. Even my mother won’t read my novels then.

Having decided the theme of my work, I now need to decide how I can make it interesting. I want to present it in an interesting way. I don’t want to begin my story saying “Once upon a time”. You know, how difficult it is to write a life history of a guy, who has never done anything worthy in his life. How can I write interestingly about a guy, who doesn’t even have a girl friend? Nevertheless I am going to write. If even I don’t write about me, then who will?

Eureka!!! I found a way to make this story interesting. I am going to describe myself in 26 verbs, one verb from each alphabet. What an idea!!! I can read the News York Times review now itself in foresight, “What an intelligent way of telling a boring, dull life story”. So here begins my tryst with 26 verbs. India began its tryst with destiny at midnight and has done reasonably well. I am beginning my tryst
with 26 verbs @ 7.45 pm Indian Standard Time. Let’s see how I execute it.

PS: I will try to post at least 2 - 3 verbs per week. If I don't do it, please scold me in very bad words. Let's see if at least that forces me to write regularly.

Following Our Passion

Every one of us who are reading this article is working in a Software Industry. Now guys, answer this question honestly. How many of you honestly wanted to work in a software Industry in the first place. I could hear more than fifty percentages of you shouting a big “NO”.

But then why are we working here? There could be hundreds of reasons. And I’m sure most of them are valid ones too. It is easy to say, “Go and Follow your Dreams”. But then how easy is that to follow it in reality. For a day or too, we would fiddle our minds with the thought of “Following the Dreams”. But then once our next credit card bill comes up, or when we listen to our parents discussing silently about paying the loan next month, reality would sink in.

After all just for following our dreams, it’s not fair to give more difficulties to our parents. They have already suffered enough for us, as they have taken care of us for more than twenty years. No other Animals except Humans take care of the young ones so long. Last thing, they want us to do now, is quit our safe job now, and take risks.

So how are we to follow our dreams? We don’t work 24 * 7 hours. Most of the software companies don’t work on weekends. Why can’t we use them as time to follow the passion? One might argue weekends are time to catch up with friends, both in real world and in virtual world through Face book and Orkut.

However what if you friends try to find a common passion and follow it. It helps us to serve two masters at the same time. You not only get time to catch up with friends, but you also don’t while away the time doing useless things. You make that useful, by taking one step at a time, towards a summit of achieving your passion. Face book no longer will remain as a place of useless status messages. It will be one more place for you to let other know about you and your passion. It will just serve as one more stepping stone.

These are not my own ideas, and these are not unattainable. Don’t think, it is possible only in Utopia. My friend Siva, together with his gang of friends, has just done in real whatever I had said so far in this article. His Passion is Music. He is a great Key Board player and Music Composer. And like each and every one of us, he is also working in Software Industry. And of course he can’t quit following his passion, just like most of us.

However he and his friends joined hands during weekends and late nights. They not only got time to catch up, but also found a chance to follow their passion. And follow their passion – they did with unwavering commitment. Their hard work has yielded results today. They have launched a Booksai (a combination of book and Music).

Ranam Sugam is a musical novelette that satisfies multiple senses of us at one go. The story line might be a simple love story, but it was effectively narrated and the music is also soothing to ears. This is not exaggeration guys, just because Siva is my friend – Quite a few Directors and Music Directors who got a chance to go through their work, have voiced similar sentiments. (You can know more about them at www.ranamsugam.com)

While going through their website, this thought crossed my mind. “Oops. These guys have done justice to their God given talents. Have I done the same?” These guys have kindled a burning fire in me to follow my passion. And they have showed me a way too, to do that without leaving my financial security and without completely cutting myself away from my friends.

I have not written this article to make you buy Siva’s works. I have not written this article to force you also follow your dreams. I know my writing ability is not that great to convince people to do something. However on seeing their work, my Guilty at not following my passion, nor doing justice to my talents, struck me hard. My passion is writing and I haven’t done any proper writing for some time now. I wanted to write something immediately, something that will help me get over the writer’s block, that I had been suffering from.

Thanks Siva and friends, for rekindling my passion ……………..

Sessions that saw India reach its Zenith

Having been a fan of Indian cricket team for more than fifteen years, I had to face quite a few disappointments; but then the boys in Blue also delivered Magic often, that forced me too keep my loyalty unwavering. The T20 World cup win in 2007, Dream run to world cup finals in 2003, Sachin’s amazing run in Sharjah, some wonderful chases (against Pakistan in Dhaka and England in Lords) have all made me cheerful.

But then like any other true cricket fan, I love Test cricket more than any other form. Hence now as India sits comfortably on the Top of the table, this is one of my most treasured moments. Great wars are won or lost on some crucial battles. Similarly test matches as most of you would agree, were won or lost on one or two crucial sessions.

So here is the compilation of some of the most amazing sessions of play that propelled India to this zenith.

PS: a) For its ranking ICC has considered only matches from August 2006. So I have also considered only those matches.
b) The sessions are not rated from 1 to 10. They are just sorted based on past to present.

Sree swings it India’s way at Wanderers.

Vs South Africa @ Wanderers, Day 2 Post Lunch Session



Indian batsmen have often failed the acid test in fast seaming pitches abroad. So I was bewildered when an Indian pace men dished out the same treatment to the opposition. Before this series, South African coach wanted fast bouncy pitches to test Indian batsman. However it was the Home team that danced to the tunes of the Kerela Fast bowler who loves break dance. This session saw Sreesanth take a five wicket haul and also dismiss South Africa for their lowest total (84) since their readmission into International Cricket. The session also set up first Test victory for India on the soils where Gandhi began his struggle.

Zaheer shows his class in England:

Vs England @ Trent Bridge, Day 4 Post Tea Session

After surviving the first match of the series with a draw, thanks to Dhoni and rain, India took a mammoth 283 run lead in the first innings of the second test. However by Tea on the fourth day, England erased much of the deficit (221) for the loss of just three wickets. Even Post tea session began to go England’s way, as they erased the deficit without losing any more wickets. It was then with second new ball in hand, Zaheer paid back for the Jelly Beans Joke England played on him when he was batting. In one over, he removed English Skipper and centurion Vaughan and Bell, to complete his five wicket haul. Kumble polished of the tail as usual, and by the end of the day Indian openers even began to bat chasing the modest target, that eventually gave them a win over their former colonial rulers on their 200th test match abroad.

Rookie Pacer troubles Ponting:

Vs Australia @ Perth, Day 4 Morning Session


Just one Australian wicket fell in this session. But then no sane Indian cricket fan would forget this session. It was in this session, Ricky Ponting; one of the best test batsmen in the World was all at sea facing a rookie Indian Pace Bowler at perth, known for its pace and bounce. There were edges, Close LBW shouts, near misses and what not. We have to give credit to Pointing as very few batsmen would have survived such carnage of spell for so long. Ishant was getting tired and Kumble was about to take him of the attack, when Shewag, Ishant’s Ranji team mate, asked him to bowl one more over. “haan, main karoonga” (Yes, I will bowl one) said Ishant, and Pointing edged the very first ball of the over to Dravid’s safe hands at slips, and walked back to pavilion having been sorted out by a youngster twice in the same match. Such was the impact of the spell, that it not only gave India a famous victory after Sydney episode, but has also made it difficult for selectors to drop Ishant, even when he is not delivering the goods.



Sehwag cracks Mendis mystery and Murali magic:

Vs Srilanka @ Galle, Day 1 Morning Session

In the first test of the series India scored only 223 and 138. Mystery man Mendis making his debut picked up 8wickets, while magical off spinner Murali accounted for 11 Indian men. Every one was wondering how the Indians were going to tackle the spin combo in the rest of the series. Sehwag showed them how, by adding 151 runs in the first session of the Day1 along with his friend Gambhir. In Mendis second over of the match, Shewag hit a huge six and then picked up a two fingered googly easily and cut it past point for four later in the same over. Murali bowled a Doosra on his very fast ball and Sehwag crashed it to deep point boundary to reach his fifty. He would continue to show how to handle the spinners and reach 200, but none of the Indian batsman will learn the lesson, as Mendis would once more pick six wickets. However, Sehwag’s knock did help India level series.


Defensive tactics or Great Cricketing Acumen???

Vs Australia @ Nagpur Day 3, Morning Session

Only 42 runs were scored in the session in 24 overs bowled. Only one wicket fell. Passage of plays like this separate test match fans from T20 fans. Any one can enjoy Shewag murdering Murali and Mendis; but only true cricket fans can enjoy the session that saw Indians bowl wide outside off stump with packed offside field. India lead the series 1 nil, and hence they just needed a draw to win the series. Though Indians scored 441 in the first Innings, Aussies had raced off to 189/2 at the end of second day’s play. Indians were guilty of bowling too many boundary balls, and wanted to some how dry up the runs. It was then Dhoni came up with this plan on the Third day morning. You may call it Master piece thinking or a defensive ploy that kills Test cricket, but the fact of the matter is the session helped India seize the momentum and dismiss Australia by the end of the day’s play and get a healthy lead. India went on to win the match and the Border Gavaskar trophy, and this tortoise like session did help India to turn the tables against the then World Number one side.


Sehwag delivers Knock out Punch:

Vs England @ Chennai Day 4, Post Tea session

In this test series that happened just after Mumbai blast, England won each session till Tea of the fourth day. Just after tea, as they declared setting India a massive target of 387, every one thought only two results were possible – draw or an England victory. History points out how difficult it is to chase huge total on the fourth innings in subcontinent pitches with its wear and tear and hence Indian victory was ruled out. But then there was one guy in Indian dressing room that cares little for History. He lives in the present. He sees the ball and hits it, and keeps it simple as that. In just 68 balls, Sehwag with 11 fours and 4 sixes scored 84 runs had delivered the Knock out punch: he made India believe that they can challenge any total. The next day Sachin would go on to score a memorable century and help India set history. Just like after Kolkatta test, every team though ten times before enforcing follow on against India, after this match, they will think long before declaring with this maverick opening Indian innings.



It’s Pay back time Kiwis:

Vs Newzland @ Hamilton, Day 1 Morning session

Last time India toured this tiny island, they played in a pitch that was hell for the batsman. The entire Indian batsman struggled, and Indians lost the series easily. However by the first session of this tour, every one was clear which team batsman are going to struggle this time around. By the team Indians went for lunch (back home, Indian fans awoke from their sleeps), six of the Kiwis were back in the den for just 66 on board. Indian pace trio of Zaheer, Ishant and Munaf were just too hot to handle for Kiwis. Though Ryder and Vettori would score centuries to rescue Kiwis, the early damage was enough to help India win the match by ten wickets.




It’s time to save:

Vs Newzland @ Napier, Day 4 Morning session

Champion sides not only win matches, but they also save matches from hopeless situations. Champion batsmen not only thrash the bowlers on their day, but also fight for survival, curbing the natural instincts when pushed to the wall. Asked to follow on, and having lost their skipper Shewag to a reckless shot, India were tottering at 47 for 1 in their second innings. New Morning; charged up Kiwi bowlers to level the series; India just needed to crack a bit and Kiwis would have swallowed them. However Indians refused to give in. Gambhir, the new Indian Messiah and the old wall Dravid, blocked every thing thrown at them. At the end of the session, the score card still read for 1, and Indians knew they have won the session. The session that turned out to be the stepping stone, for one of the famous Indian draws in recent times.


India reaches the Zenith:

Vs Srilanka @ Mumbai, Day 5, Morning session

Just 4 wickets and amazing Sangakkara batting on 133 stood between India and their Number one ranking. However I remembered the proverb “Many a slip between cup and the lip” and posted “I am keeping my fingers crossed till the last wicket falls, because Indian team keeps finding ways to disappoint me” on the Face book. However very first over of the day saw Sangakkara edge one behind to Dhoni, and it was only a matter of time before India reached the Numero One position. We were delighted; however the fact that South Africa could over take India soon, saddened us a bit.


Eden Post tea Magic mystifies South Africans too:

Vs South Africa @ Eden Gardens, Day 1 Post Tea session

After the convincing Innings win in the first test, South Africans needed just a draw to get back the Number one position from India. Toss helped them, and by tea they had raced to 228 for the loss of just two wickets. Amla and Kallis, the first test Heroes were still at the crease. Every one thought South Africa would just bat India out of the Match and the number one position. However when Bad light stopped play couple of hours later, it was the last wicket pair of South Africa that was at crease. In those in between overs, Harbhajan along with Eden Garden crowd had spun a magic web against South African batsman. Suddenly the Indian attack that looked a meek cat turned into a ferocious tiger. There’s some mystic force in Eden Gardens that acts on visiting teams after the Tea. It was this session that helped India drew the series and Keep their Number one Position. If not for this session, I would not have written this article.