FYI, I am in Love ( A Short Story)

“Hello Subramani, How are you? Why are you sleeping, instead of doing the work?” squeaked the Betal hanging upside down from my monitor.

Its voice sounded like the voice of my next door neighbor (who has a cute 18 year old daughter), and I squeezed my eyes trying to make ascertain that I am not in the Dream World.

“What, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be hanging on the trees? More over I thought you belonged to the era of Vikramaditya. What are you doing in this 21st century?” – I sounded as excited as Danny Morrison when Max Mobile Time out comes during the IPL.

“I live in all eras and all places. I have seen the Romans slay the Gladiators and Indians slay the Lankans in the World Cup Finals” said the Betal and it added, “Now days, there are no trees for me to reside, so I have decided to live in the Computers.”

“Okay, Okay” I agreed, as I do whenever any one speaks more than three sentences continuously, because I still some times get lost in the nuances of English language, despite working in IT field for nearly three years. And also Betal was speaking with US accent which it must have picked up from some Call Center. (I am sure about it, because I don’t think even Americans would speak in such perfect slang)

“I am going to say you a story as usual. Are you ready? Or you have some thing important to do?” asked the Betal with its sheepish grin.

I looked at the wall clock, oops no, looked at the lower right corner of my monitor and the time read 10.00 PM. I should have ideally been lying on the bed and jumping from one TV Channel to other at this point of time. Instead I’m sitting here, trying to debug a code, written by a _____ _____ programmer (substitute any bad word you know instead of dash), who relishes on making simple things complex. The way this code was written is like giving a 1000 page manual on how to boil water.

So I decided, that doing any thing else would be better than analyzing this stupid code, and got ready to listen to the story of Betal, but with the only condition, that it shouldn’t say those old boring King stories to me. I wanted to listen to a modern story. Betal complied with my request, and started narrating.

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Once upon a time, there was a place called Narashima Town, in which was present a big company. There were thousands of projects being executed from that company, but we will limit our attention to the one cursed project. The project was so cursed, that there were no unmarried girls in the project.

Three very close friends namely Designsekara, Codeananda and Testakaran had been working in that project ever since it came into existence. All three of them, were so dumb, that girl friends have eluded them till date. When people from other teams, go for lunch and treats with gorgeous girls, all they could do was just watch them with envy.

They all worked hard. In fact they worked so hard, that the only reason their manager could tell for not giving them DRR1 is “There are no slots.” But they were neither worried about DRR1, nor about onsite opportunity. All that they wanted was a stunning girl in their team. They even prayed for that.

At last, their prayers were answered. A gorgeous Angel (No, that’s not her name, this name was given by our three friends) joined the team. The three friends were straight away stumped by her. She looked like the sort of girl who has never done any work in her life, and got all her work done by people exactly like our friends, who were ready to do any thing just to speak with her. Her body weight also suggested she eats less than what a 5 year old kid could consume. And less we say about her dresses, the better.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her Onsite Coordinator was a lady, and hence she was forced to do some work for the first time in her life (i.e.) if you don’t consider applying make up every half an hour as work. The work was fairly simple and she was given five long days to complete it. She wasted the first three days, thinking that she could get the work done on two days, but then she couldn’t work on the fourth day also, as she was mourning for the loss of her make up kit on that day.

She opened the requirement document on the fifth day, and it looked like some alien script to her. She started biting the company provided pen (in same way Kerala born Tamil heroines do). She was sitting there confused and saddened that she won’t be able to complete the work. It was then our Designsekara came to her rescue with a comment that she looks more beautiful, when she is sad. He started reading that requirement document, without her asking him to do it and found it so simple, that he couldn’t fathom, how it looked confusing it to her.

He however to impress her, exaggerated that it was a complex requirement document, and that he would help her design it. That exaggeration was like, telling a college Kid, that solving (a + b) the whole square would get him a Nobel Prize. Well not exactly, but that comes closer.

Designsekara, then sat beside her (without bothering about jealous looks of the other two guys, that was hotter than Chennai May month Sun), and gave her a simple design on how to code the program. He explained the concepts in such simple terms, that a LKG Kid could have understood, but even then she couldn’t. However after he repeated the concepts four times, she at last understood the design and thanked him by holding his hand. Our Designsekara thereby entered the dream world and left the place to continue his duet in Australia.

The design that looked so straightforward when Designsekara was there, once again looked like some complex code language for our Angel, once he left. She continued nibbling at the pen, but started to code some thing based on her limited understanding. She coded complex things like, initializing the variables etc, but even got stuck about in that.

It was then our second friend, Codeananda entered the scene. He saw the worried face of Angel and the half baked code. If any one else had coded it, he would have laughed at their face. But he said to Angel, that it was an amazing effort, and almost everything was correct, except for few small mistakes. The few small mistakes unfortunately occurred in 99.99% of the code.

He almost rewrote the code, making the logic further simple, giving comments where ever necessary (the comments were so good, that even our Angel could understand it), and also optimized the code. Our Angel was so happy that she patted on his shoulder and thanked him. Codeananda decided to go to Swiss for his duet.

Angel now started testing the program, and some unfathomable error came up on the screen. She stared at the screen trying to understand what the error says, but as usual she couldn’t understand any thing. As expected, came there running was our next friend Testakaran. He saw the error “Object not found in Test Environment” and explained to the Angel that unfathomable error - how one should move the object to test environment before trying to test it there, or the stupid system will give stupid errors like this. He also added that even Managers make this mistake, and it was nothing to be ashamed of, to console her.

Then he moved the object to test environment, did the data setup, and tested all possible scenarios and completed the work for the Angel. Angel was so impressed by his dedicated work (he even didn’t look at her while doing the testing), that she gave a pat on his face as a reward. Testakaran chose Mauritius for duet.

The work was so good, that she even got an appreciation mail the next day. It was not the only mail that she got though, as she had also got mails from three Friends separately proposing to her.

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“Now as usual I am going to ask you a question” said the Betal.

“What, questions? I hate questions” I screamed.

“Nope, I have to ask, if you don’t answer the question correctly ……..”

“What will my Head break into thousand pieces” – I interrupted the Betal.

“Nope, you will get DRR4” concluded the Betal.

Now I was relaxed, since any ways I will get DRR4 only, so asked Betal to go ahead with the question.

“All those three guys have helped the Angel so much. So whose proposal would the Angel accept? What will she reply to each one of them?”

Very easy question. She would mail them saying “FYI , I am in Love already. Please find attached my Boy Friend Photo. :)”

“Right answer, but how did u know”, asked the Betal.

“Four years experience mate. Which beautiful girl comes from college without already having a boy friend? Only in dreams mate. “Now go back and come up with much tougher questions”, saying this I continued to debug my code in a half sleepy state.

This is not the END

“This is not the end of the road, Mate.” – The coach tried in vain to console his broken ward. “You are just 27. You can win the next World cup and wipe out this tarnished image”, he sincerely hoped his words will help his Star player get over the grief.

However nothing seemed to stop the tears rolling down the eyes of Andres. He knew he was single handedly responsible for his country’s exit from the World cup. He was not worried about what his friends, fiancée, fanatic fans or even media back home might say. He was more worried about his conscience. Within him he knew he had failed in his duty, and that pricked him more than any thing else.

That night he couldn’t sleep. He rolled over and over in his bed, but sleep had deserted him. His mind went back to the events that happened earlier….

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“We would conquer the world and come back” shouted the fellow team mates of Andres and they followed it up with shouting obscenities at each other just for fun. Andres, watched their enjoyment, but as one of the few Columbian footballers who grew up in a family that taught good manners, and one of the luckiest few to have had good education, Andres did not get involved himself in the nasty brawl that always accompanied, when ever the teams stayed along each other. He was a perfect gentleman on and off the field, and that’s exactly why he was called “El Caballero de las canchas” (The gentleman from the stadiums in Spanish.)

Rather, Andres decided to go out and meet his fiancée. He had first met her five years back, and had immediately fallen in love with her. “Next time, I meet you, I will be the World Cup Winner”, said the proud Columbian defender to his girl friend, Pamela, whom he had planned to marry after the conclusion of World Cup. Pamela, wanted to say, that she will love him as ever, whether he wins the football world cup or not, but she didn’t comment anything then, as she was aware how much “Winning the World Cup” meant to him.

Andres having met his girl friend then called his relatives in Las Vegas, USA. “As soon as I become a World Cup Winner, I shall be staying in your place for some time. You must be so lucky to play host to a World Cup Winner”, he said cheerfully.

Hopes of winning the 1994 World cup to be held in USA, was not high just among the Columbian footballers. All their fans, the media and even the outside World considered Columbia as one of the favorites; especially after the 5-0 thrashing Columbia gave to Argentina in their own backyard.

Andres and his fellow team mates, thus set forth their foot in USA, all set to create History. However just few days later, reality struck them hard. Romania hammered them 3 – 1 and Columbia faced a daunting task

They needed at least a draw against the host USA in the next game to keep their hopes alive of qualifying to the next round. The crucial fixture was played in a wonderful atmosphere watched by more than 90,000 people. The first 33 minutes of the game, went without much fuss with both the teams trying hard to gain momentum. However, it was in the 34th minute that the disaster struck. John Harks, the US Mid Fielder crossed the ball into the penalty area. Andres stretched across, trying to cut the cross. However, all that he ended up doing was deflecting the ball into his own net, to give USA their first goal and much needed momentum. That one minute mistake by Andres was cheered vociferously like any thing by the home crowd, but back in Columbia, fans and the drug dealers who had bet heavily on the Columbian Victory, couldn’t believe what had just transpired. USA would go on to score one more goal and win the encounter despite the last minute goal by the Columbians, thus kicking the pre tournament favorites Columbia out of the world cup in the First round itself, leaving Andres with tears in his eyes.

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As Andres revisited the scene in his minds, he couldn’t control his emotions. He was not sure when would be the next time he would get proper sleep, and when the nightmares of revisiting that Goal would leave him. He thought “Probably Never”.

The next day, he got two important calls. The first one from his relatives in Las Vegas, enquiring when he is coming to their place, as he had promised before World Cup began. Next from Carcol Radio, asking him to stay back in US and do the commentary for them, for the rest of the World Cup as the second round matches were about to start. He declined both their calls, saying “I need to be in my home at this point of time. I can’t think of any thing else”. To which both of them replied the same thing, that his coach had earlier said, “This is not the end, Mate. You have much greater things to do in Future”.

Ifs and Buts have no place in life, but Andres could have lived till date, if only he had accepted either of those offers on that day. Though all the people near by said otherwise, somewhere within his mind, he must have known, “This is in fact, the end”. He wanted to be at his much beloved home and nothing else mattered to him at that point of time.

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“Even I thought that was the end”, said the Dad of Andreas, speaking at the third Death Anniversary of his beloved son, who was shot dead in a restaurant for the own goal he scored. “But then, some thing within me, told, that was not the end. I wanted to fight on for the sake of my son. My son was killed, because the drug Mafia had bet heavily on Columbia Victory. Government won’t do any thing to destroy the Mafia. So I took it upon myself to do it. I can’t fight them with arms, so I decided to make inroads into their customers. And I used my son’s Andreas favorite Soccer, itself as a tool to achieve it.”

Andreas’s Dad who had started an organization that gives chance to poor young people to play foot ball instead of being on the streets and getting addicted to drugs, looked proudly at the young people standing in front of him.

“I am not striving to produce great soccer players, rather great Human beings” – He said looking at them, reiterating the point that Sports must never be the end of the road but rather be the beginning always.

PS: This is based on the real life of Andrés Escobar Saldarriaga, a Columbian Star Defender.

Overthrowing the Morons

Couple of Centuries Back:

“Give us today Our Daily Bread” – She had been saying this prayer ever since her childhood. During those happy days of the past, the prayer seemed to be a mere custom. However today, she really meant each and every word of the prayer. Two nights had passed, without her having even a grain of food. She had her last meal before her younger brother left in search of food. Her elder brother had already been killed by the Army.

Today was a Sabbath day. She, a devout Christian, should ideally be praying in the church. But the streets outside were so dangerous for women, that she had to pray within her house. She was getting more and more feeble and weary. She wondered if she could sell any thing in the house and get something to eat. She sadly noted that any thing of worth had already been sold.

However there was only one thing remaining to be sold that could get her some money to satisfy her hunger. Being brought up in a conservative family with Moral values deeply inscribed within her mind, she couldn’t even contemplate thinking about it. Reality however pointed out, many of her friends, brought up with similar values had already started doing it, for want of food.

She cursed the corrupt, incompetent rulers, who had brought about such an awful state to this great country. “God had created our country to prove that in spite of all possible gifts showered on it, the country will suffer if it has a Corrupt Leader”, her father had long back remarked from his death bed.

It was then she heard the sound of footsteps, outside her house. She saw a gentleman from the neighborhood, soaked in blood, trying to find a place to escape. He was panting for breath and came running into the house.

She knew him. He was one among the many who had taken up arms to fight the Corrupt Ruler. Their revolutionary group has promised that if they gain power, “River of Honey” would flow in the streets of the country. She was realistic enough to know, that would be only an idealistic dream. But then, she was sure of one thing. Their rule will definitely be better than the current rule of the moron. “Even Satan’s rule can’t be worse than this” – She thought.

“They are going to kill me. Around five army men are trying to kill me. Please save me until my friends come” – He shouted and hid in the backside of the house. She was confused what to do. She saw the army men coming on horse back. She could even show the Army, the man, and get in their good books. They might even give her some food.

On the other hand, she knew what she had to do, for the good of the country. She knew even girls from decent family like her had to do their part, if her country has to escape from the corrupt moron’s hand. She wanted to do much more than merely saving the guy from the swords of the army men. “Only a sword can answer a sword” – She decided and took her brothers sword in her hands.

The Army men didn’t see her having the sword. They came near her, asking for directions, distracted by her beauty. May be they thought, after killing the man, they could take her as a prize. She made use of the distraction. Before the army men knew, what had struck them, she swayed her sword, cutting their neck. She didn’t realize that she had so much power till then.

Men from near by area, emboldened by a women fighting against army men, came in support of her. She was surprised, that she, described as a kind, gentle, charming girl by her neighbors, could kill five men. The army men were bled to death. “Long Live the Revolution” – she shouted in Joy.

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In 2050:

He was in a state of half sleep. He felt lazy to get up from the bed. He was thinking of all the money, he had made in his trade the previous day. He might have made around million. Even then he didn’t know if he could get his daily food. Thanks to the Corrupt Government, which had sold all the agricultural land to the Multi National Corporations, his country was now dependent on smaller countries for their daily food supply.

It irritated him, that in spite of all those intellectuals in the country, it has to suffer from lack of food, because of its corrupt, crooked politicians. He, like most of his fellow colleagues, had been living on ever reducing canned food supply. He wished they would be rooted out of power in the coming elections. It was only then it dawned on him that, it was the Election Day. He knew the opposition parties weren’t angels, but at least they wouldn’t sell the country like the current Morons did.

Thanks to recent advancements, he no longer had to travel to Voting booth to cast his votes. He could do it from his laptop. He opened the laptop to vote against the crooked Government. It was only when he opened did he realize, there was a crucial T2 Cricket match going on between Chicago Riffles and Moscow Leopards. He was so immersed in the match that he forgot about his pending official works. By the time he could realize it and complete them, it was late in the night. His Vote went unregistered, as did thousands of other across the nation, who had important work to do like watching a match or a movie.

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Later that night, the army came in full strength and burned all the huts in the village including hers. Even when she was about to die due to burns, she knew she had made the correct choice. Her conscience was clear that she had taken the right step to over throw the morons, even if it meant sacrificing her life.

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He went to sleep happily that he made million more today. He opened the refrigerator, and saw the reduced food and cursed the Government again. Though he didn’t vote, as he was busy, he was sure, many others would have voted to throw them out. But deep inside his conscience he knew that he didn’t even take the simple step of clicking the right button to over throw the moron ruling his country.