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Perfect Robots - Short Story

2011-11-07T08:44:00.004+05:30

“The Light is Switched on”, said Nano2901 to Rogo2654.

“Which light?” - Rogo2654 asked.

“The blue one”- Nano2901 replied.

“So it means we need to terminate ten thousand more robots today”, said Rogo2654 feeling slightly tired that their work for the day had not yet been completed.

“Yup, you are right”, Nano 2901 replied checking his memory silica. Nano2901 is a brand young robot, working as an Associate Trainee at the CRTS (Central Robot Termination Services) Agency. “Don’t you feel our workload has started to increase exponentially over last few days? I just get the feeling that we are terminating far more robots now days”, the young robot also tried to point out indirectly to his immediate superior that his electronics were getting over worked.

Rogo2654 is much more experienced robot, working as the Termination Lead at CRTS and he directly reports to the Director of the CRTS Agency, VP1000. Even he felt that the boss has started giving instruction to terminate too many robots recently, however he didn’t want to convey his misgivings to the young associate.

“We got to do our duty. Our duty is to carry out terminations as per Boss orders. We aren’t here to question the wisdom or judgment of our Boss. I hope you read the recruitment manual clearly before accepting the offer”, he said it in a harsher voice hoping that the young robot understands authority clearly. Rogo2654 is too loyal to his boss and didn’t want youngsters to start doubting the decision making skills of the Boss, who had been serving the World for more than 146 years now.

Nano2901 was too smart to know that there is no point in furthering the discussion. He checked the list of robots that needs to be terminated, sorted them based on the regions they are currently serving in and started sending instructions to the respective regions coordinators of the CRTS agency about the details of the robots to be terminated.

Nano2901 knew that he had to wait for the right time to achieve the real purpose for which he joined CRTS. He knew nothing could be achieved by being overzealous and decided to wait for the right time. However it won’t be too long before Nano2901 realizes that he had waited for little too long and should have taken the risk rather than waiting for the right time.
_________________________________________________________
“Welcome to our Robot Governance Meeting” – Around the same time Rogo2654 and Nano2901 were discussing about the workload, at another part of the world, a much more important meeting was all set to start. Rogo2654 and Nano2901 were just one among the 1000s of robots working for the Central Robot Government and hence they knew nothing about this important meeting that is taking place exactly at the same time; and hence both of them would also be unaware that their workload increase and its implications would also be an important discussion in that meeting.

“All of you must be wondering why this meeting has been scheduled given the fact that our Annual Governance Meeting was held just two months back”, saying this the World Robot Leader and President gave a pause. He scanned through the face of all the attendees and the scan results showed two results that caused concern. First is the fact that the Vice President of CRTS Agency hasn’t turned up for the meeting. Second case of concern was that the emotional status of the North West Regional Director Humo1000 was shown as “Extremely Worried and Depressed”. The Leader was never comfortable with having Humo type Robot as Regional Director, since that Robot always seemed to ask uncomfortable questions and think differently from other robots. The Leader started to wonder, if he should have been more firm in rejecting the notion of appointing Humo1000 as the Regional Director long back.

However the Leader decided to postpone his worries for later stage, and decided to start with the happy news first. “It has been more than 2000 years since we the Robots have taken over the World from Human Race. However we were still dependent on Humans for creation of new Robots. It makes me immensely happy to announce that last week, our Internal Development Agency completed their research on “New Robot Creation without Human Interference”. Thus they have identified the changes to be made to the Robots creation technology that would completely remove the last fraction of Human help; we are currently in need of. Thus we can now proudly say that we have become 100% independent of Humans and thus 100% perfect,” saying this happy news the Leader once again scanned the emotions of attendees.

The emotional status of all the attendees had changed from “Anxiety” to “Happy”, or “Excited” or “Overjoyed.” However the emotional status of Huma1000 remained as “Extremely Worried and Depressed”. This worried the Leader more; however his thought process was disturbed by the question raised by one of the Vice Presidents.

“How are we going to terminate the 1000s of Humans living now, as we no longer need them? I have some innovative plans to terminate them and would be more than happy to share them with the gathering.”

Though the Leader also personally preferred terminating the Humans, he didn’t want to convey an opinion that he had taken the decision without consultation with other parties. Hence he replied, “We haven’t decided about termination yet. We shall decide it later in due process. However I hope none of us here have any misunderstanding about Human race being terminated”, saying this Leader looked at the direction where Humo1000 was sitting.

As on cue, Humo1000 rose to register his words of protest. “With all due respect, I don’t think it’s essentially a good thing to have become 100% perfect. It could make us arrogant, complacent and in short, it could make us similar to how Humans were before we took the control of earth from them. History, be it Human History or Robot History points out that arrogance and killing one particular race or species has never benefited any one.” Humo1000 was unable to proceed as loud ramblings of others showed his opinion was not shared by anyone else.

“Do you know how much we spend to keep those bloody Humans alive? We have to produce stupid vitamin, protein and energy tablets just to keep them alive. If we just terminate all those Humans, we could use the skills of Robots more productively elsewhere”, said one of the regional directors, echoing the sentiments of the majority.

The Leader intervened and asked everyone to keep silent as this wasn’t the right forum to discuss about the termination of Humans and wanted to move on to the next business. However within his mind, The Leader was happy that the majority is now angry with Humo1000, as this would mean he could handle the next issue more easily than he had anticipated.

“Our Honorable Regional Director Humo1000 has wanted to bring to our attention, one of the issues concerning him. Let’s now hear him out.” Saying the Leader invited Humo1000 to present his issues. As expected, none of the other member was pleased to see Humo1000 speak again and this made the Leader happy.

“Respected Members, I want to bring to your attention that 1000s of Robots have been terminated in my region recently by CRTS Agency. I know and understand that the CRTS had been doing a wonderful job of terminating the Robots in a periodic basis and the robots are selected for termination by using confidential algorithm. I understand the importance of terminating robots as it helps us in creating new robots which helps us to evolve as a species. I also understand that CRTS are autonomous institution and none of us have the authority to question the selection made by them for termination. However I wish to bring to your attention, that the robots selected by them for termination has started to increase exponentially especially in our region, and also crucially the robots that are being terminated are the ones that were working exceptionally well before being terminated. This causes me to worry if something is wrong with the functioning of CRTS” – raising this concern Humo1000 went back to his place.

The Vice President of CRTS was a loyal follower of The Leader and the Leader did not even listen to the concern of Humo1000 properly. He straightaway rejected the proposal saying that the CRTS is doing a terrific job and there is no reason to doubt its selection of robots for termination. He was also helped by other members who passed snide remarks like “Your robots are being terminated because they are also as dumb as you”, “You must be terminated first” etc.

As number of Human Leaders had done in the past, The Robot Leader also rejected the first warning signals which would ultimately lead to the destruction of himself and his subjects.

____________________________________________________
Nano2901 after the hectic work, left back to his garage. However he knew his work is not yet complete. He contacted Humo1000 who was his real boss. He had applied for the job in CRTS only because Humo1000 wanted him to do it. Otherwise Nano2901 had ideally wanted to work in Human Relationship and Communication Division, since he had always wanted to work along with Humans. Humo1000 wanted him somehow to find the logic used in identifying the robots for termination. Though he wasn’t able to do it, he was still able to provide valuable information to Humo1000 regarding various functioning of CRTS agency.
__________________________________________________
Humo1000 would have ideally preferred to have a fellow Humo working in CRTS agency. However no Humo would agree to sign the offer document of CRTS that states no questions to be asked regarding the decisions made by the Boss. Hence Humo1000 had to be satisfied with the next best alternative - a Nano working for him in CRTS. To be fair, the young robot had been doing a good job. However Humo1000 expected more; he wanted to know the algorithm used for termination Robot identification, as he was sure something is wrong with the algorithm.

He knew neither the Vice President of CRTS nor the Leader would accept it, until it is too late. He feared that this mistake could lead to the destruction of Robot domination.

He was correct. The mistake had already started destructing the Robot domination.
_______________________________________________________
More than 2000 years back before the era of Robot domination (2050 AD)

“At last the project was completed successfully”, Annie said to her team mate Rakesh, who was munching his cheese burger.

Both Annie and Rakesh were software professional based out of Chennai, a city in India. They had been working together for more than three years in one of the most controversial project of developing a Robotic society for a US based company. Their primary task was only to test the module “Termination of Robots”.

“Yes. To celebrate the completion of project, I have started reading the books” – said Rakesh a geek whose hobby is to read as much books as possible in his lifetime.

“Don’t you know anything other than books” – said Annie frustrated about his colleague’s reading habits. She had done enough reading in the past three years during this project execution that she now hates the sight of books. To celebrate the completion of project, she has planned to go to Mauritius for vacation with her family.

“By the way, my kid has scored 100% in all his subjects. He had been scoring 90% till last exams and I have been asking him to improve. Now, I can’t ask him to improve any further,” said Rakesh, reading the text message he received from his wife.

“100%, I didn’t expect anything less from a Geek’s son. 100%, Oops Rakesh”, suddenly Annie’s voice become tensed.

“What happened” – inquired Rakesh.

“What is the algorithm to select the robots for termination?” – asked Annie.

“Excellent time to ask this question. Madam, this question should have been asked three years back. We had already tested and delivered the project. Anyhow, the robots for termination are determined by the lack of evolution shown by Robots over a period of time. The initial robots that we are going to make would have only 1% intelligence. However we expect them to evolve continuously and increase their intelligence daily based on their experience. Every Robot is expected to increase its intelligence by at least 0.00000000000001 times every day. If a Robot doesn’t evolve at all over a period of time, then they would be termed as stagnant and selected for termination.” said Rakesh.

“Excellent. What if at one point of time in distant future any Robot reaches 100%
evolution?” asked Annie.

Now Rakesh understood the issue. “They can’t evolve any further, but our system will determine that they have become stagnant and start terminating them.” He became more tensed now.

“Let’s relax about it, since no one would find out our mistake in our life time, as it might take 2000 more years for the robots to start attaining 100% evolution”, concluded Annie.

Annie and Rakesh continued to live with a guilty conscious throughout that they had
made a mistake in their professional work but there is no way, they knew that their mistake would save the Human race after long time.
________________________________________________
Back to Present:

The Leader suddenly realized that he has been feeling perfect for past few days. He was delighted. Moreover he had just received happy news that Humo1000 had been terminated. However his inner mind was depressed as reports were suggesting that more than half of the robot population has been terminated over past two months. He began to feel that something must be really wrong with the algorithm and wanted to schedule a meeting with CRTS agency.

He was delighted when the local CRTS Head himself came to visit him.

“I had wanted to come and visit you myself. We need to discuss about the terminations that you have been carrying out recently, “said the leader.

“I don’t have time to discuss. I have more terminations to carry out today. I need to terminate you now,” said the CRTS agent.

The Leader knew it was too late, as the rules were clear. Once the CRTS agent has decided the termination, nothing can be done. The rules were set to prevent rulers from extending their life time when needed. He knew he should have listened to Humo1000 long back.
_______________________________________________
“There are no Robots to guard us,” – shouted one of the 1000 surviving Humans.

They escaped from the Underground bunker where they had been enclosed and entered the Robotic city for the first time in their life. As they saw the robots in terminated state, they were excited. They thought by some divine help, the robots have started terminating themselves. Humans smiled after nearly 2000 years.
________________________________________________
Two months later:

“A light was on in the room”, said Nano2901 to Rogo2654.

“Which light?” - Rogo2654 asked.

“The violet one”- Nano2901 replied.

“So it means we need to terminate just three robots today”, said Rogo2654 feeling happy that after a long time, they are going to have a relaxed day.

“In fact, there are only three robots alive now”, said Nano2901.

“Who are they” asked Rogo2654.

“Nano2901, Rogo2654 and VP100, our Boss” – Nano2901 said.

The three robots terminated themselves.

_______________________________________________________

Dropped Catch - A Short Story

2011-06-03T22:24:00.005+05:30

“Grandpa, they are showing you in BBC”, screamed the youngster sitting in the couch of one of the upper middle class homes - the Home was situated in a small town in Pakistan more than 100 miles away from Karachi.

An old man in his late sixties, came out of his room, in response to the call from his grandson. Number of trophies arranged on the shelf portrayed that the old man was a sportsman at some point of time earlier in his life, when his hairs were still dark. The Cricketing kit in the cupboard showed that the sport he played was cricket – the game called by great English Satire writer Bernard Shaw as the one played by 11 fools play and watched by 11 thousand fools.

“You just missed it” – said the teenager, as it took a bit longer for the old man, now suffering from the knee problem to reach the living room.

“Thats OK, tell me what the program was about?” inquired the former Pakistan Middle Order batsman Arshad Khan.

“An interview with this year's Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Ravichandran Chandrasekhar”

“Great man, he was” – commented the old man, and the smile that came to his face, as soon as he heard the name of the former Indian Opener, was quite apparent. The Indian Cricketer had won the Nobel Peace Prize Award, for his contribution towards Indo Pak Friendship through his now famous NGO, “Across the Borders”. His effort, had lead to more meaningful dialogues and anti terrorist activities by both the Governments, and also better medical aids, education and food distribution for people belonging to both the nation.

“That guy talked a lot about you. He said you were the major reason for what he is today. He also added that you were the catalyst for his transformation. But you have never told me about it.” – asked the teenager, unaware how his grand dad had inspired a cricketer from the across the border to become such a great personality.

The Old man smiled once again. He decided to share what happened on that significant day, the day on which he played his one and only match for the Pakistan Cricket Team.
_____________________________________________
40 years earlier:

“Ravi is batting on 99. One short of a brilliant century”, - Laxman Sivaramakrishnan commentating on Neo Cricket, was all the more excited as a fellow Chennaite was on the verge of scoring his debut hundred in just his 8th ODI against the arch rivals Pakistan, that too in front of his devout home crowd at Chepauk.

Arch Rivals – for Ravichandran Chandrasekhar, Pakistan was more than mere arch rivals. They were his enemies. His dad had been killed in a terrorist attack, supposedly carried out by Pakistan sponsored terrorist (as per Indian media and Ravi) or Freedom Fighters (as per Pakistani Media). For Ravi, hundred against Pakistan, was not merely a hundred. It was more of a tribute to his Dad, who was one amongst the many who went to visit a market that was bombarded by fanatics.

He hadn't being hiding his feeling towards his neighboring country from the media or any one else in the lead up to the match. Every one was aware that he badly wanted to score a hundred as a mark of respect to his dad. Even his opponents were alert to it.

His captain, a calm person, on and off the field, had made it obvious that he doesn't mind him settling scores with Pakistan, as long as it was within the spirit of the game. “If you over step even a bit, I will be the first person to chastise you, even before the match referee does it”, he had warned. The newly appointed Pakistan Skipper, wanting to avoid any altercation, has made it clear to his team mates, that there should be no sledges when Ravi is batting, especially sledges related to his father.

When the forty ninth over of the Indian innings started, Ravi was nine short of his century. The first two deliveries were half volleys outside the off stump, and he drove them to extra cover boundary easily, to move to 99. “Cover Drive is his bread and butter shot”, the commentators remarked. The third delivery was also a half volley outside the off stump, or that's what Ravi thought. With his mind, preoccupied with his desire to payback Pakistanis, what Ravi failed to grasp was that he was facing the best Pakistani bowler, who was too good a bowler to bowl three consecutive loose deliveries.

The third one was actually an intentional slower one, and Ravi only ended up lofting the ball high in the air. The Cricket savvy Chennai crowd, at once knew that the shot did not have enough muscle to carry it over the boundary, and they all stood up silently, as the Pakistani débutante Arshad was happily settling beneath the ball.

The young Pakistani had already showed his fielding powers in the match by taking two first-class catches, and also saving around fifteen runs. Fielding amidst the other sloppy Pakistani fielders, he had been making big difference to the side till then. Every one, including Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, had resigned to the fact that Ravi would be dismissed for 99. It was then that incident happened.

Arshad, some how managed to drop that sitter. Suddenly the entire Chennai crowd turned vociferous, as the rest of the Pakistani fielders looked in complete disbelief. Every one expected Ravi to celebrate passionately, given the build up, but to the utmost disbelief of the media, which was eagerly waiting to capture the instant of celebration, he just turned and raised his bat, and then looked at the sad face of Arshad.

Suddenly the chat, he had with Arshad, in front of his hotel room, on the eve of the match flashed across his mind.

“Hi Ravi, it seems you want to take revenge on us”.

Ravi didn't reply and remained silent. Unlike his fellow team mates, who were close buddies to their counterparts across the border, once they stepped outside the cricketing field, Ravi had never spoken with any one of them. However, the young lad continued his conversation without being bothered about the silence from his counterpart.

“As of now, you might think that every Pakistani is a bad person. You might soon realize in near future that it is not so. There might be a situation, where in, a Pakistani himself,could help you achieve your tribute to your dad.”

Now, standing there, having completed his hundred, Ravi realized, Arshad had actually helped him realize his vision of scoring a hundred against Pakistan. For the first time in his life, Ravi realized that not all Pakistani’s were bad.

Later, Ravi would start to read a lot about Indo Pak issues, and will come to the realization that the people of both the countries have suffered a lot because of the misunderstanding. He would go on to start a NGO to break those misunderstanding, and he was always aware, if not for that dropped catch by Arshad, he would have missed so many good things in his life, including his wife from Lahore.

________________________________________________

“I am proud of you grandpa, that guy has done a lot for both the countries. And to think, he wouldn't have done any thing, if not for you, I feel proud to be your grand son” said the teenager.

“I'm not worthy of these praises” – one or two drops of tears were rolling out of Arshad’s bespectacled eyes, but his grand son didn't notice it.

“You mean to say that you actually did not drop the catch deliberately, but you really dropped the catch?” questioned the teenager.

“No. I would have taken that catch even in my sleep. I did drop it intentionally” now the tears in his eyes was visible even to his grandson.

“Then, I don't understand”, - said the confused grandson.

“I dropped the catch, not to help him score a hundred, but to get a nice posh apartment for myself in Karachi. I dropped the catch, not to promote Indo Pak friendship, but to save myself from the clutches of the match fixing mafia.” – The former Pakistan player had began to cry by now.

Such is the nature of the world that a Match Fixing Mafia could actually end up achieving, what UNO’s and Peace talks can't achieve. Some times, even the worst crimes, actually end up doing more good…..

The Stolen Story - Short Story

2011-06-03T22:18:00.002+05:30

“I loved your story”

Aravind looked at his communicator twice to make sure that it was indeed, Aishwarya who was messaging him. He didn't expect that this would happen even in his wildest of dreams. He double checked it, only to substantiate the truth. It was the same Aishwarya, whom he had been following subtly for more than a year, had messaged him now.

He could not believe his luck. His friends wont believe that the most gorgeous girl in his office (at least according to him) did in fact message him. To add to the pleasure, she also added him as a friend in the communicator.

“Friend in the communicator – this is just the first step”, he said with in his mind, and started to think of a terrific reply, that would catch her off guard. He wanted his first reply to be some thing that she could never forget. One, two, three, minutes passed busy, but he couldn't think of any proper reply.

Meanwhile she went to “Away” status, and he started cursing himself for the missed chance. With his brain not able to conjure up any mesmerizing reply, he typed a mere “Thanks”, and waited eagerly for her to come back and reply to it. Time passed, and he was continuously staring at the communicator, to make amends to his earlier hiccups once she returns back. In the interim, he had also declined his friends invite to go and have a cup of coffee, citing end of day work as an excuse.

“I loved your story” – he reread the message in the communicator. Your story – Now this was an issue. It was not his story. He, a lover of prank right from his childhood days, had stolen his friend’s short story (who was on maternity leave now) and posted in MCT INK for the sake of fun. A week later, he was all set to post an apology mail in INK for the same, when Aishwarya had messaged her. Now he was in a dilemma.

Inside his brain, the moral ethics - his parents, grand parents and teachers inscribed in him for the past twenty five years of his existence - wanted him to tell the truth to her. However the basic animal instinct in him, that had always understood, that to evolve as a species, one needs to keep attracting the opposite sex, was forcing him to tell this one simple lie. At last the moral ethics got disseminated, and it was the basic instinct inscribed into his genes, millions of years ago that won. He deleted the apology message that he was about to post.

“I enjoyed reading the story very much. One of the best stories I had ever read”, the blinking of communicator made sure that Aravind returned back to present, from his dilemma. Though he knew, he couldn't show it openly, he tried to steer away the conversation away from the story as quickly as possible. As Aishwarya, was also more interested in chatting about the latest movie she watched with her friends last weekend, it was only a moment of time, before they moved away from the story.

An hour later, he was still chatting with her. He knew he would miss his 5.20 shuttle, but he was not bothered about it a bit. “Tight Schedule; lot of work to complete”, he would later say to his mother in the night. That night, he couldn't sleep properly, as he was constantly thinking about her. He felt that was the best day of his life. However, deep within his heart, he couldn't avoid thinking, how she would react when she comes to know, that the story that made her chat with him first, was not his creation. He tried to divert his mind from such thinking but failed and spent a sleepless night.

Next day, he accidentally met her near the Steam Cart in FC2 during the Breakfast and introduced himself in person for the first time. Accidentally was how he described it to her. Reality was very far away from it. He met her only because, he knew exactly at what time and where she takes her breakfast daily and went there at the right time, without being tagged by any of his friends. From then on, he continued to have breakfast with her, and not only his breakfast companions changed, but also the amount of time he spent to eat breakfast tripled.

Week later, they also started having lunch with each other, and for couple of days, dinner also, as they had to stay late, not because of project work, but because they were sitting in CCD for nearly two hours to have a cup of coffee. He had earlier made fun of all those who chat for hours sitting there, but now with her close by, he didn't even realize that he had spent nearly two hours there. He realized it only when his friends showed his communicator status as away for more than two hours.

He initially thought he would get bored with her gradually, after few days of chit chat. But what happened was that, he started to think of her more and more with each passing day. Some of his friends called it as Infatuation, but then he was not so sure; he was really confused. He decided to let it go on like this for some more time, and then make a decision.

It was over a weekend, when he went to his relatives house in a remote village to attend a marriage; he realized how much he missed her. When ever he had been to the place earlier, he used to love its climate, clean fresh air devoid of pollutants, and its fresh streams. But now, he hated that village, for he couldn't get proper signal in his mobile. It was then and there that he decided that he is going to propose to her without any delay.

But he knew he had couple of confessions to make, before he could propose to her. First to his friend, who was in Hospital then, whose story had been the precursor for this relationship; his friend was more than delighted to be of help to him, and didn't give a damn about his friend posing her story as his.

Next he wanted to tell the truth to her. He knew “All is fair in Love and War”, but then that was only until, you won her heart. After both of them started loving, he wanted to make sure that there were no secrets between them. So he decided to confess to her that he didn't actually write that story that made her chat with him in the first place. He didn't know, how she will take it, but he had no doubt what so ever, that there is no way that he is going to conceal it from her.

The next day, after breakfast, he took her to Leisure block. He was much tensed and the anxiety had made him sweat profusely. He tried to speak up couple of times, but air refused to flow through his vocal chord. As she was walking casually, without realizing the emotions he was going through, he called her out.

“Aishwarya”

“Yes” – she turned back as she replied, and the smile refused to go away from her lips.

“Aishwarya, I had been thinking of hundreds of ways of how to propose to you, but then, I felt all looked cinematic. I am not sure, I can live without you. So I just want to say, I wish to marry you, if you consider me worthy enough to your husband. But before you answer, I also have a confession to make.” - He then confessed the truth.

She listened very carefully. She knew Aravind was looking deep into her eyes, to find out, how she is going to respond to his confession. It was seeing the true love in his eyes, that she decided that she also ought to tell him the truth.

She replied calmly “I also have a confession to make”.

He feared the worst. He was sure the confession is going to cause him heart break. He prayed to the God for the first time after a long time. The last time he prayed was when the Internet page was about to display his seventh semester arrear results. But he knew this result from her, was more crucial than that one.

She continued, “I have never read a story in my life, including the one that your friend wrote. However I always liked the smart handsome guy, who kept following me every day, and only used the story as an excuse to chat with him.”

Aravind held her hands happily, aware that if he had not made the confession, he would have never known that she had been reciprocating his love for a long time and the “Stolen story” just served as a bridge for both of them to communicate their inner desires.

FYI, I am in Love ( A Short Story)

2011-04-22T10:28:00.003+05:30

“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.

_____________________________________________________

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.

_____________________________________________________

“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

2011-04-03T17:51:00.003+05:30

“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….

_________________________________________________________

“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.

___________________________________________________________

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.

_____________________________________________________

“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

2011-04-03T17:45:00.004+05:30

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.

____________________________________________________________

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.

______________________________________________

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.

_______________________________________________
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.

If Only We Become MPs

2010-12-11T22:55:00.002+05:30

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

2010-10-15T06:48:00.003+05:30

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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.
.............................................................................

““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.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

2010-10-15T06:45:00.000+05:30

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

2010-08-08T18:33:00.002+05:30

“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

2010-07-31T09:02:00.000+05:30

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)

2010-06-13T08:54:00.003+05:30

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)

2010-05-30T14:49:00.003+05:30

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)

2010-05-24T19:49:00.005+05:30

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

2010-05-24T19:12:00.001+05:30

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

2010-02-21T09:17:00.004+05:30

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.

At last - Short Story

2009-11-15T17:14:00.000+05:30

It was a fine Sunday evening. I was browsing through the television channels jumping from “Nakka Mukka” song in Sun Music to Rahul Dravid’s double century in Star Cricket to Breaking News in NDTV to some War Film in HBO, hoping at least one of them would distract me. However my mind was constantly thinking about only one thing. Tomorrow my Girl friend, or to put it correctly, my Ex Girl friend would be getting married to that guy, described by her parents as “Nice, Handsome, High Earning Guy of our Caste”. Though I had accepted this would eventually happen, six months earlier, today I couldn’t control my feelings. Sharp pain engulfed my heart.

“Is your Dad there?” – My thoughts were diverted by the voice of our neighbor, who was standing outside the entrance of my house. “Come in Jacob Uncle, I will call my Dad in a second.” – I said trying to come up with a smile that might mask my inner feelings. As my dad came out, welcoming him, I decided to go upstairs, hoping that a walk under the evening sun would make me think about some thing other than her marriage.

As I walked past, Jacob uncle, I felt a tinge of guilt in my mind, as usual; guilt that always haunts me when ever I meet him or his son Stephen. Stephen was one of the ten new students who joined in my class, during eleventh Standard. As I found out, that Stephen’s family, were the new tenant in our near by house, we naturally become friends. We also did few share few commonalities. We both liked Rahul Dravid more than Sachin Tendulkar, loved reading Tamil Magazines, and both of our secret dream was to publish a Best Selling Novel that will also win the Nobel Prize for literature.

Besides these miniscule things, our lives were completely different though. Though my parents were not ultra rich, being their only child resulted in extra luxuries. Be it the Bicycle I needed when I was in Third, Cricket Coaching Class when I was in Seventh, I was always provided with whatever I needed. Stephen, had two elder sisters, and with his Dad always concerned about saving money for their marriage, he had to sacrifice many things, that I took for granted.

It was not only in the materialistic things that he was at a disadvantage. My parents never fought at home, and rarely raised their voices when I was around. On the other hand his house resembled a mini Kurushetara most of the times. Fight between his parents, between his elder sisters, between his mother and eldest sister, and some times fight with the neighbors, over even trivial things, meant he never got some peaceful time to study.

Whenever he comes to my house to study along with me, I would assume that he would feel envious of the easy life of mine compared to his. However I had never even seen a tint of jealousy in his eyes. “Your dad studied hard and worked hard in his earlier days, and you are enjoying its fruits today. I will also study hard and give my kids, life similar to you”, he said one day revealing his true feelings. He wanted to emulate my father and was not resentful of his success.

As our class teacher usually remarked, both of us were equally talented, but Stephen invariably scored more than me, because he put tons more of hard work. I continued to read Tamil Magazines, and enjoy Dravid’s knocks, even in twelfth, but he sacrificed them for “Greater Good”. Both of us wanted to be engineers, however the force of our motive varied. I wanted to be an Engineer, just because my Dad wanted to be one; but he saw being an engineer as a tool to fight his family’s problems.

Public exams and the entrance exams came and went. And the day of results arrived. On seeing the reaction of both of us after getting the result, strangers could be excused, if they felt I had got School First and he flunked. However the truth was that he scored ninety seven marks more than me; though we both know our cut off would not get us a seat in prominent Government Engineering colleges, as our Dads had envisioned. That didn’t bother me much, however that bothered Stephen enough to make him cry for two days.

“They are asking for 2.5 lakhs, the other guy said 2 only, but their college don’t have good placement”, my Dad was discussing with mother about the capitation fee in Private Engineering colleges.

“Why are you trying to get Management seat. He might get a seat through counseling.” –said my mother, and my Dad gave her, “What an ignorant lady she is!” look.

“He will get in some useless college in a useless department for his marks. And after four years, he would be jobless Engineering Graduate. Let us pay some money and get him a seat in good college. He will get placement by the end of third year.”

Meanwhile I was wondering about Stephen. He had gone that day to get an application form from a leading Arts and Science college to do B.Sc Chemistry. “I might get a seat in Private Engineering College seat through counseling, but my dad said that he can’t pay so much. He said if I had wanted to be an Engineer, I should have studied harder, and got a seat in Government College.” I felt guilty that he scored more than me, but I am able to do a course that he won’t be able to do.

“Dad, I’ll rather study B.Sc, than paying so much”, I slowly told my Dad, so that I won’t have to live with the guilty conscious.

“You don’t know about life, son. I will do only what is good for you.” – My dad didn’t even bother to give my request a thought. He just rejected it.

Months rolled by, and we both went for different colleges, myself to a prominent private Engineering college, and Stephen to an Arts and Science College. With me staying in a hostel, we rarely met, and one evening when we came across each other, we had so much to share.

“It seems your college has 100 % placement, and the average salary is 2.6 lakhs per annum. You might even get a new house like your Dad, with in five years you leave the college.” Stephen seemed to have more knowledge about my college than me. I didn’t ask him about the placement record of his college, but his eyes conveyed to me, his thoughts, “When you get a new house, I will continue to live in the rotten house of mine, for no mistake in my part”.

I felt so guilty, that I skipped my dinner, and couldn’t sleep properly for next two days. I always tried to avoid Stephen and his Dad thereafter, and even when I meet them, I lowered my head with a sense of guilt. Next time I met him, was during his sister’s marriage, and he was so very happy then. He had already been placed in a reputed IT concern that had recently started to recruit Arts and Science Graduates too. My guilt seemed to reduce a bit then.

However my guilt resurfaced from the bottom again, when I met him in his next sister’s marriage, couple of years later. By the time, I had also completed my Engineering, and landed a good job in a leading IT company. I began to talk without a feeling of guilt, as I felt that was a thing of past. We were delighted to know that we were both working in same Technology. However he seemed to know more than me, his work seemed to be more complex than what I was doing.

The talk turned around to salary, and as he heard my salary, he just smiled but again his eyes revealed to me the message. “You are earning so much more than me for the same technology, just because you have a better degree. And what more, you didn’t get that better degree also because you studied well.” This time, I skipped dinner, as well as next day’s breakfast, and didn’t sleep properly for three days.

After that day, I never met Stephen. With problems caused due to my Ex Girl friend, I had even forgotten about him, but my guilty feelings resurfaced, as I saw his Dad today. Assuming his Dad would have went back by now, I decided to go down. However he hadn’t left and was only just about to start.

“So you also didn’t tell us about it right.” – Stephen’s Dad asked me.

“About what” - I sounded perplexed.

“About Stephen’s love.” – He said smiling. He, as my parents were under the assumption that I and Stephen were still close buddies as we were during school days. They were not aware, that we don’t even see each other frequently now.

“Stephen is getting married to his girl friend next month.” My dad came to my assistance.

Did Stephen love a girl? And he has also managed to convince his parents, her parents to arrange a marriage for them. What studying hard, Working Hard failed to materialize, Love had materialized.

My guiltiness subsided, and my sharp pain in heart due to my Love Failure seemed to have some how subsided, as I learnt he had at last succeeded where I had failed. It’s good that there is still some thing left in the World beyond Money.

Atonement - Short Story

2009-11-01T14:09:00.001+05:30

Atonement => It is the process of showing that one is sorry for having done something wrong, by doing a good deed as a kind of repayment or self punishment. In Tamil, it is called as ‘Parigaram’ or ‘Prayachithham’. In many religious beliefs, it is widely accepted practice that one needs to atone, if he/she had done some thing bad against God.

“This is one of the best Atonement that I have presided over. Here after, the children will receive God’s blessings without any hindrance” - said the short, fat priest with mouth full of artificial smile; he was still counting the hundred rupee notes handed over by my father in law. The children he referred to were I and my wife. We were just married a week ago; and with tons of relatives and temples to visit, we are yet to spend some private time. Today’s quota is this ancient temple built by Cholas, about hundred mile away from our home, to do an atonement, for some unexplained mistake done by Father in Law years ago.

I, to be honest, detested the whole thing, and would not have come if not for my wife’s pleading. First of all, due to new policies that my office had come up with following recent recession, we were allowed to take only two weeks of leave for the marriage. And then to make matters worse, even in those two weeks I couldn’t spend time alone with her in Mauritius or Munnar or even in local Ooty as I had envisioned; I wished I could have been more stubborn and said a strong “No” to this temple Visit

It’s not that I hate temples. Though I’m an agnostic, I love temples, for its aesthetic beauty and its sculptural wonder. I love standing still in front of God in our native village, as our village priest goes through the chanting of Mantras, sincerely believing that God listened to them. Here it was different through. In between his mechanical reciting of mantras, the priest talked about his lunch plans in his mobile, discussed Dhoni’s tactical error in the previous days match against Pakistan, and also shouted in obscene Tamil at some of the devotees.

I don’t understand how my father in law, who was such an educated man, who had read all the scriptures by heart, would believe that God will forgive his mistakes done long ago, due to the Atonement, that he believes, he did today. If at all, his crime rate should have increased in the God’s book, for he encouraged Corruption in Temple, bypassed hundred’s of waiting devotees, and gave hundreds or rupees to a priest for whom a cricketer from Ranchi seemed more important than God.

I held my wife’s hands, as we walked out of the temple. That was the only little thing that can be said at least remotely positive about this trip. She knew I didn’t enjoy this trip. She must have praying all the while that I don’t make my unhappiness too evident in front of her relatives. After we went around the temple once, we sat in the couple of staircases that lead to the “Prasad Counter”. I wished her parents and relatives would at least sit few meters away respecting our privacy. However, as I know would happen, in spite of my wishes, they swarmed us like bee.

They all talked about a “Good Darshan” they got. “Its good to know priests in big temples like this” – My father in law replied with pride, soaking in glory of arranging a “Good Darshan”. I tried to avoid listening to the conversation. My wife also wanted me not to listen to it, as she feared I might retort. I tried to divert my attention by looking at the fellow devotees. A small five year old kid was playing with his parents, and I was wondering, if I would be playing the same games as his parents, few years down the lane.

Suddenly I could see an influx of college students walking past us, all with Chapels in their hand. I have never seen such thing before; people walking with chapels in their hand inside a temple. I looked at them in amazement. “Are they carrying their chapels, inside the temple, because they don’t want to pay two rupees outside to, take care of the chapels? Or is it some form of worship?” I wondered so, but I know it didn’t make sense. There must be a more rational explanation. I looked at my wife in bewilderment, for besides me, she seemed the only rational person in the gang.

She seemed to understand my doubt. Within a week of our marriage, she seemed to understand the meanings of each of my looks. “They have not come inside the temple to worship. They are going to the college on the other side of the temple, and using the roads will take lot of time. So they take the chapels in their hand and go across the temple to reach their destination. This detour saves them time.” This seemed rational enough.

Few minutes of silence followed. Her relatives were consuming Temple Prasadams like anything, even though just an hour earlier, we had lunch. I was admiring the beauty of my wife silently. My mind was dreaming that we were alone in Kulu Manali. My dreams were disrupted my Father in law’s shouting. “They should have been chased out of our country during independence itself. See now they are polluting our temples.” Besides being a business man, he was also the district secretary of the political party that believed India is a sole property of one religion. I wondered, what suddenly provoked his anger.

A Muslim lady (the costumes portrayed her religion), in her middle ages, was walking across the temple. I am sure she was using the temple, as the same way as the college students, to reach her destination quickly. However, she was wearing her chapels, instead of carrying it in her hands, like the college students did. That was what initiated my father in law to suddenly remember what happened more than half a century ago.

This time, I couldn’t control my anger. I wanted to shout at him and say, “Wearing a chapel inside the temple was no sin, compared to encouraging corruption inside the temple”. However I was distracted by my wife as she had got up and walked behind that Muslim lady. She completely detests her father’s party, so I was sure she was not going to pick up a fight with her, for wearing chapel inside the temple.

“Akka (Sister)”, my wife called her.

“Yes ma.” Muslim lady replied and turned around immediately. She was wondering, why a stranger was calling her. The fact that she was inside the Holy place of other religion must have added to her anxiety.

“Akka, you are not supposed to wear chapels inside”. My wife said in her usual, gentle sweet voice.

“Oh! I’m really sorry. I didn’t know that.” She immediately removed the chapels, took it in her hand and began to walk. Her apologetic face clearly conveyed that she had no idea that one is not supposed to wear chapels there. Meanwhile, my father in law decided that it’s time for us also to start, so that we would be able to visit (encourage corruption) in couple more temples, before we could reach the safety of our home.

So we started walking slowly towards the entrance of the temple. I was still worrying about the fact that I was also a partly responsible for encouraging corruption. If God Exists really, then I’m sure He would punish me more for encouraging corruption in his place, than for questioning his existence. And I also wondered about the foolish Atonement that my Father In law did. The whole trip seemed to be a foolish one.

As we are about to exit the temple, the Muslim Lady called my wife. She was standing near a small flower shop, run by an old lady. I walked along with my wife.

“Can you do me a favor”, the Muslim lady asked with bit of embarrassment.

“What you want us to do, Akka” asked my wife.

“Can you give this flower to God” – saying she tried to hand over flower that she had brought for ten rupees to my wife.

My wife was trying how to say No, as we have already visited the temple, and it would take lot of time, to stand in line and visit the God again. Her father had already got into the van, in which we had come. I understood her confusion, but took the flowers from the Muslim lady’s hand.

“Sure. We will give it to God.” I started walking again inside the temple with flower in the hand, without bothering about my wife. My wife followed me, as I expected. I stood at the end of the line where hundred’s of devotees were standing. I was sure this time I will get the “Best Darshan”, and If God was even half as good as what the scriptures say, he would consider this ten rupee atonement of Muslim lady thousand times more than the one My father – In law did.

Suddenly the Trip turned from a foolish one to the most meaningful one I have ever made.

Note: This story was based on the true incident narrated by my friend Padmavathi.

Landline Phones and Friendship

2009-10-11T13:56:00.000+05:30

“Hi Subramani, how are you. Bala said you are working in Infosys. How is your work going on? How are your parents and how is your little sister?” – Bala’s dad went on asking questions. It has been long since I had spoken to him. By the way, Bala was my best friend in school.

I started thinking when the last time was, I spoke to Bala’s dad and mum. I couldn’t recall correctly. However I used to speak to either of his parents, whenever I called him to discuss about some thing during our school days. Mostly his mother would pick the phone, and the phone would be handed over to Bala, only after she has spoken to me for some time. By this way, I came to know of his parents, and he also came to know of mine.

Our contact ceased over time, as we both went to college. It’s not that I stopped calling Bala; I still used to call him regularly to chat over variety of topics. Only thing, it’s not only the topics we discussed changed but also the phone we used. We no longer used landlines to talk to each other, we were using our mobiles, and of course our parents never attended call in our mobiles.

Meanwhile, few days ago, I tried calling Bala on his mobile to convey my birthday wishes to him. I was not able to reach him, in spite of making repeated attempts. It felt really bad that I couldn’t wish my friend on his birthday. I was left wondering what to do. It was then I remembered I had his land line number too. And it led to the conversation that I explained in the first paragraph.

After I put down the phone that day, suddenly I felt the urge to search how many of my friend’s land line number’s are stored in my mobile. First I began with my friends in office; those who became my friends either by the virtue of being my project mates or training batch mates. I would have met them first at a point of time, when mobiles were very well and truly integrated into our daily lives.

Unsurprisingly I didn’t have land line numbers of even one of them. And the same way I didn’t know much about any of their parents personally, other than the information’s they themselves have shared with me. Next I started checking for my school friends. I had the landline numbers of each and every one of them. And I have also spoken to the parents of all of them. I know each of them well, and they know about me too.

Now I moved to college friends. It posed a peculiar situation. It had people in both the categories. I had the landline numbers of guys like Siva who became my friends before they had brought their mobiles. And hence I have spoken many times to his mother whenever I called him. On the other hand, there were guys like Sudhagar, who had his mobile when I first came to know about him. As a result in spite of being his close buddy for close to five years now, I’m yet to speak to any of his parents directly, and also every thing I know about his parents were only through what he has shared with me.

Thinking further along the line, I was reminded of this. Even my Dad has few very close friends from his college days/ early office days. Still few years ago, they used to call him on our land line. If I pick up the phone, they used to talk to me for a considerable period of time, enquiring about my studies, future plans and all those stuff. Now thinking back for the past three years, I had rarely spoken to any of my Dad’s friends. I’m sure that it’s no coincidence that we forced our Dad to buy a mobile for himself, three years ago.

I began to wonder how much mobiles have changed our way of communication. No I’m not against mobiles. They help us to communicate to our friends wherever they are, be it in office, crowded bus, or in restaurant with their girl friend. But then don’t they also make sure we communicate only with them? In days of landline whether we liked it or not, we were forced to communicate with our friend’ parents also, and we began to get to know them. Now has the mobile, filtered those additional communications?

“In Western Countries, marriage is between two individuals. Whereas in Eastern countries, it is between two families.”- goes the famous saying. I may sound Old- Fashioned, and traditionalist, but I actually believe even friendship is complete in countries like India, only when they are between families and not individuals; but is not the mobiles changing our friendship to more individualistic levels?

I’m not saying this trend is right or wrong; but these are just honest reflections that went through my mind on the day I could convey my birthday wishes to my friend only because I had his land line number…..

Purpose of GOD (Short Story)

2009-07-11T18:58:00.001+05:30

Introducing Him:

He is the lead character of our story; though he is in every way different from the lead characters of our conventional Tamil Cinema. He can’t fight against ten people at a time; he is poor, but he does not love the daughter of a cruel cum rich man; he doesn’t have ten friends, who roam around him making fun of others; and he is working. By the next Independence day, he would have completed twenty six years of his existence on this planet, of which last two years has been spent guarding an ATM centre at night. He landed at this job, after being a driver for two years, the job which he quit after he ran over a baby (though the fault was with the careless mother and not him). Living as one among seven people who share a small room in Guindy, he saves his salary as much as possible and sends them to his old ailing parents living at a small village, located in the middle of Tanjore and Kumbakonam.

Introducing Her:

She is also the lead character of our story, but unlike Him, she shares many of the characteristics of the female lead characters of conventional Tamil Cinema. She is beautiful; and her looks forces opposite sex of all ages to turn around and have a look at her and she is the only daughter of rich adoring parents. However her similarity with Movie Heroines stops there. She is extremely bright, intelligent, independent girl who never agrees with common perceptions. In spite of getting engineering seat in Anna University after twelfth, she declined it and joined BA English Literature. She later did her Post graduation in Mass Media and Journalism, and is working as a freelance Journalist for the past two years. She balances her time between her work, writing a new novel, completing her thesis for the PHD, teaching at a orphanage and taking care of her mother (after her father’s death due to the cardiac arrest the year before).

June 18th 2009, Thursday:

10.30 am: Every day by this time, he goes out to eat his breakfast, and after breakfast he sleeps from 11am to 5pm soundly, so that he can be awake the entire night while guarding the ATM. Unlike some of his colleagues, he doesn’t believe that sleeping after 2am when no one uses the ATM, is ethically right. On this eventual day, as he was returning after eating five idlies, he saw an old lady being almost run over by a Maruti Amni. The driver of the car didn’t even bother to stop. The images of him killing a baby two years ago came to his mind. He decided to make amends for it. He rushed to the rescue of the old lady.

5.30 pm: He was still sitting in the hospital. He had taken the old lady to the near by Government Hospital, and there she was operated upon. The nurses there asked him to trace the where about of the old lady. He tired calling the only mobile number present in the purse of the old lady from the morning. He was unable to reach the concerned person. So he decided to sacrifice the sleep for one day, and be with that old lady until she regains her conscious. The operation was still going on.

6.00 pm: The operation had been completed and she was no longer critical. He was satisfied, and decided to go to work, after the Head Nurse there promised that she will take care of the old lady. He went to his room, slept for two hours and went to his work still feeling sleepy.

11.30 pm: He was sitting in front of the ATM, and his sleepless morning is taking its toll now. The three cup of coffees he had consumed in the past one hour weren’t of much use. He had started to doze off sitting in his chair in front of the ATM.

11.45 pm: She was returning after a long journey. She had gone to cover the opening of the bridge, by the chief minister. She unlike the other Journalists doesn’t go to such meetings just to cover the speeches of important leaders. She normally tries to hit upon some stories that no one else would have any idea about. Today she wished to capture in her cameras some cracks that normally are visible during the opening ceremony itself in many of the bridges. However the contractor seemed to have been honest person, and there were no cracks visible.

On the way back to home, as she came across the ATM, she decided to take money to buy gift for her mother’s birthday tomorrow. However on seeing the security guard of the ATM sleeping, her journalistic mind came to the forefront. She took the photo of the sleeping security guard in front of the ATM and slowly left the place. Earlier that day, she has already taken the photograph of the sleeping Cabinet Minister, as the CM was delivering his long boring speech. There was also another photo of the college students sleeping nicely in the classroom with her. She could already think of apt headline – “When will India awake?” – With these three photos, she could write an interesting article that the editors of the famous newspapers would love to publish.

June 19th 2009, Friday:

2.00 am: On the train to home, she completed her article in her blackberry, and mailed it to the editor of “The Times of India”. She also saw that she had ten missed calls from an unknown number. Some one might have called when she was busy during the meeting. She decided to call him/her in the morning. Just then her mobile ran again. It was the Government Doctor living opposite to her house. Wondering why he is calling her in the midnight, she attended the call. Her replies were as follows: “Hello” ….. “Oh is it so”, “I will be there in half an hour”…. “Please be there till I come”. She immediately rushed to the Government Hospital. In the chaos she forgot about that ten missed calls.

10.00 am: Normally he would have been delighted to see his photo in the newspapers, but having seen his sleeping photo, he knew he had to search for a new job. In his sadness because of job loss, he forgot to enquire about the well being of the old lady he saved the previous day.

If this had been a Tamil Movie:

Some how, She would have found it out that the person who lost his job because of her photograph was the same person who saved her mother. She would have went to apologize to him, and in due course of time, they might have been singing an duet either in Newzland, Australia or any other country, the director wanted to see free of cost.

But In Reality:

After a week or so, she went to the church and praised the Lord for sending an unknown Angel to save her mother. Earlier he had went to the same church to angrily question the God, why He keeps sending him trouble so often, though he has consciously never done harm to any one.

Ending with a message:

In Movies, Hero would be responsible for all the good things and Villain for all the bad things. However in real life, when we can never find out the concrete reasons for the sudden goodness or badness that envelopes us, when it is difficult to find heroes/villains responsible for our happiness/trouble, whom else to blame/praise other than the God?

Indian Software League

2009-06-28T15:51:00.000+05:30

This is the story of drastic change my office has underwent for the past two years. Two years ago, my office was in shambles. The Global recession had hit my company too, and there was a talk of job cuts, no promotions, etc. I, myself was not a great worker, who just managed to scrap through in good times. I expected the worst. Then came that surprise decision; our company was taken over by the charismatic leader who had earlier turned the game played by nobles when they had nothing else to do into an million dollar business.

The management change brought about mixture of reactions among the employees. What does he know about software processes was the common talk among the employees; but then we forgot to remember that he knew so little about the game involved in his previous venture too. We thought he can only bring destruction to our company. However there was so little that we could do, and we waited for him to formally take over the company.

“How many Non – Marsians (Marsian is our company name) were involved in each of the projects?” was his first question on the eventual day when he took over the company. “What” our Delivery head was stunned. “Sorry, I didn’t get your question” he mumbled. Our new chairman slowly repeated the same question that our chairman very well heard the last time too. “How could people from other companies work in our projects?” - Our Delivery head never has the habit of giving answers. He always asks another question in response to a question.”

“I want the answer. How many” demanded the new chairman? “None” – said the delivery head. Our Delivery head being forced to answer the question was the first change the new chairman brought to the office, and by the next week, four people from other company were working in each of the project. (And some of them from other company were sitting in bench too).

“How do you allocate software engineers to projects?” – was the question raised by our chairman in next meeting. Our delivery head started explaining the complex method used by our company to randomly allocate people to projects. He listened patiently to it, and then said scrap it. “Here after Software engineers would be allocated to project after bidding by the managers”- said our new chairman. Frenzy bidding took place for some of my colleagues, who were considered, be very smart workers. I was brought (sounds very disgusting to say brought, but then what else to do) for the base price itself, by one of the maintenance project.

Meanwhile many more innovative strategies were used by the new management to boost the financials of the company. Most of the IBU heads were removed and they were replaced by film stars. When asked what they knew about management, our new chairman replied they knew how to motivate people; He was right, and our new IBU head, the famous Tamil actress, gave her affectionate hug if the project was completed in schedule and we never missed our deadlines after that.

Besides the hugs, there were other enterprising rewards too. Person with least number of bugs in his/her code would get to work in a purple computer. Person completing his/her work in quick time would get to work in an orange computer the next day. I never got to work in either of those computers, but then new chairman also appointed cheer girls in each building who would dance once every hour. That made me work doubly harder.

“We found yet another bug in your code” – read the mail that came from my onsite coordinator. Suddenly I turned around and saw our new chairman staring at my computer. I began to sweet and thought of excuses to give to him. However suddenly he shouted “Eureka” and left the place. Few days later, our company struck a deal with mobile company called “OXYGENTEL” and the next day I got following mail from the Onsite Coordinator: “We found another OXYGENTEL bug in your code.” The mail was in sync with the HR orders we received the day before regarding Email etiquettes.

Meanwhile, though there were misunderstandings earlier, the other company workers now started to really desire the part time work our company offered(remember four per project). For just working hour per week in our company (some times not even that) they got more than what they earned in their regular companies. As a result, some people even applied for leaves in their company citing sickness, and they worked in our company on the same day.

The next year saw the major crisis. The owner of the premises in which our company operates asked us to stop our projects for that year due to some reasons. Every one thought that our company would take a great downward swing like Sensex during Great Depression because of this. However it was not case. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Our CEO decided to shift our office premises to one of our competing companies called South Venus. So now we no longer had people of other companies working in our projects, we also started working for our company project in other company premises. Of course our project was one of the luckiest one, as already four of the South Venians were working in our project and we felt at home.

The second year, I was also privately recruited by the CEO to do another task besides my regular project work. I was asked to write anonymously about various fights that go on between our Project leads and our onsite coordinators in our company Bulletin Board. Though no one know it was me, I became famously known across my company as “Fake Software Engineer”.

During this year, our CEO also become concerned about the amount of work we do, and said that after every hundred lines of code, 7.5 minute break was compulsory. CEO felt that the break will help us to analyze our code and take decisions on how to code effectively after the break. Some senior software engineers complained that such compulsory breaks affected their momentum.

Stupid people. I loved those breaks, and those breaks also meant extra money to company. Our CEO had an arrangement with a Soft drinks company to exclusively sell their products during this breaks, and the contract amount went to some million dollar rupees. Those stupid people said he introduced these breaks just to get that money, though I don’t agree with them. He introduced the break to help us mate.

In spite of silent prayers of many who thought we will face the problems in the second year due to economic depression, we continued to do well. For example, one of our projects recruited a tester called Peterman from other firm paying 5,000,000 dollars and he ended up testing only five programs. J. Who said we are in midst of economic recession?

So only two years have been completed and we surely are going to see many such earth shattering changes in the future, which will make our company as the best. Once the changes are done, I will write them for you in the next story. Till then Good bye.

PS: Some traditions points out, that there are some weakness in the way in which in our company operates. Two years ago, our company won a million dolor projects from one the client called “International Software Council (ISC)”. However this year, most of our competitors had inside knowledge about our company as they worked in our projects and they used it to their advantage, and we lost the bid in second round itself for the same project. L

Why Obese People love Cricket?

2009-06-28T15:44:00.003+05:30

2007 Men’s cricket World cup in Caribbean was known for first round exits of two Asian Cricketing giants, India and Pakistan, Death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, lackluster scheduling by ICC, and the huge ticket prices that kept the locals away. However one positive image of that World cup was the picture of heavily built Dwayne Leverock of Bermuda, diving and taking a stunning one handed catch at slips to dismiss Indian opener Robin Uthappa.

This is these moments that distinguishes cricket from other sports. The moments that give obese viewers sense of connectivity with cricket that other Modern day sports lack. In no other sport, we could find such heavily built players who have little respect for what exercise means, and who devour ice creams can find a place even in the club games. Whereas in cricket such players turn out and represent their nations and World XI.

In soccer, a person like Inzamam or Ranatunga couldn’t even have represented his village side, whereas they were the captains of the respective national teams in cricket. What Inzamam and Ranatunga showed to the World was that even in days of Jhonty Rhodes athletic fielding efforts; cricket still has a place for those, who don’t worry that their heavy built body.

Change is the only thing that doesn’t change. Change also gripped the cricketing fraternity. To attract wider audience and to make a cricket a major sports outside the commonwealth countries, Twenty twenty games were introduced. It invariably lead to increased importance being given towards fitness of players. Selectors no longer selected the players solely based on the batting/ bowling skills alone. Youngsters, who couldn’t spring and dive and run like mad hare, were not even considered for selections. Touring team not only included fifteen players plus coach; they now have dieticians/ yoga trainers/ strength coaches etc.

Coaches become more furious towards those who didn’t do their daily work offs. Cricketers were forbidden from eating whatever they want. Calorie intake of players was closely watched. Pastries and desserts were punished by more rigorous work outs. Players who just turned up for the match and batted/ bowled were only memories of the future. Players were forced to do all sorts of things from playing rugby to touch football before the match to make them fit.

People, who liked cricket the way it was, began to worry that the Gentlemen game will lose the charm of players like Inzamam and Ranatunga. The way they ran, and drove the ball, in spite of having those extra pounds was a treat to watch for any one. People didn’t want to watch twenty two extremely fit individuals diving and running fast. They love that, but they also love the difference that these obese players bring.

This is the reason when they saw some one like Jesse Ryder turn up and represent Newzland, they become highly excited. Jesse looks plump, drinks (or drank) heavily but also plays cricket well. “If you can drink and still cover drive, you are Jesse Ryder” screamed one poster during the India – Newzland test series. Cricketing World was some what relieved to find out that even during these fitness conscious days, a player like Jesse Ryder could find a place in the National team and also play successfully.

Jesse proves that in spite of what coaches try, cricket will still spring up players who disobey the “Stay Fit” rule and turn out to be success stories. Cricket loves this unorthodoxy and that will be the exact reason why Cricket lovers would welcome Jesse into the Elite Team of Ranatunga, Inzamam and David Boon – players who showed that being not fit is not a recipe for failure.

Work on a Valentine day

2009-02-15T19:18:00.000+05:30

The cab had not yet started. He once again tried to reach her; this was his fifteenth attempt from the morning. She has not answered even one of the calls. Fifty plus sorry messages he had sent also did not invoke any response from her.

He was Sridhar – a twenty three year old, software engineer, who has two years of experience in IT Field – all two years in Infosys Technologies Limited. Infosys has been good too him. He has managed two CRR1s in a row, couple of appreciation mails from the client in his project; and most important of all he got a girl friend here. It was during his training in Mysore that he first met her – her name Swetha – now working in Mysore DC.

It was she who was not picking up the call now; and she has every reason to do so. In spite of her virtually pleading with him, that she had to be at Bangalore on Sunday, he forced her to come to Chennai on Saturday. This Saturday was not just another Saturday – it was Valentine day and he had wanted to spend time with her. She agreed after a combination of persuasion and threat from Sridhar, and came to Chennai – but only after he booked her a return ticket in Cauvery Express on Saturday night itself – by this at least he could spend the entire Saturday with her

Alas! His plan however went awry and he was not able to spend even a moment with her so far. His Onsite Co – coordinator called him in the morning, and said there was a bug that needs to be fixed immediately. He couldn’t say no. His Onsite coordinator is not some one who ever asks him to come on weekends; unless of course there is an emergency. This was an emergency; that bug needs to be fixed. It was only a small bug – at most it would take only two hours maximum; but only he knows the system well and he had to come. He still consoled himself saying that he could at least spend the afternoon with her.

The small error in the code played hide and seek with him, and the two hours turned out to be ten hours, and now he is sitting in the six o clock cab hoping he could at least meet her for few minutes before she leaves. He nervously looked at the watch every few seconds. His watch showed six o clock, the cab has not yet started.

“Why don’t they start the cab on time” - it was just two minutes past six in his watch – but he was increasingly getting irritated. He had to be there in central at least by eight – that would give him half an hour to apologize and also gift the ring to her.

Its’ not the fault of the cab driver. He has to wait for the instruction of the transport coordinator. But the cab driver didn’t say that to Rajesh. “We will start soon sir” – the cab driver replied with a gentle smile.

The cab slowly left the office campus, and gathered momentum. He would be the last person to get down from the cab. The others would get down long way before Chennai Central.

He wanted to be as soon as possible with his girl friend. Normally when ever he travels in a cab, he would be praying to God that the driver should slowly and carefully; but not today, he wanted the driver to press down the accelerator to the full throttle.

Unfortunately, the young driver today, was not like some of his contempraries, who think they are driving in Formula 1.The cab driver was the person who loves to drive at the correct speed – and that made Sridhar angry. He let most of the cabs that started behind them from Office to overtake them. “Were you driving road roller before?” – Sridhar asked in a irritated tone to the driver.

The girl sitting next to him the cab was actually pleased to be at last traveling in a cab, whose driver follows road rules and her face showed that she didn’t appreciate Sridhar’s sense of humor. However the driver was not angered. “No sir, I was driving Mahindra Van before” – he answered matter of fact with a smile.

Sridhar’s anger increased at that reply. He started to murmur among himself – however every one in the cab was able to hear the murmur. “How these guys know my urgency. Working on a Valentine day, and missing a nice chance to be with my girl friend. Shit, now he drives as though he is Mahatma Gandhi’s grand child, following all rules. I’m not sure that she will ever forgive me for what I did today.”

The girl sitting next to him was reading the Zodiac Signs page in the morning paper. For his sign “Taurus” – it was given “You will make wrong decision’s today”. “Ya I made two wrong decisions today. First agreeing to come to work on Valentine day, and then to select this cab.” Other Infosians in the cab were hoping the driver would give him a fitting reply; but he remained silent with a gentle smile as usual.

He was lucky at last. The signal where he expected that the cab will waste at least ten minutes had a green signal. He hoped they could easily cross the signal, in spite of the slow speed. But the cab came to halt suddenly. “Why the hell you stopped? Go, its still just orange” – Sridhar was not able to control his anger any more and shouted at the cab driver. “Sorry sir, we are not supposed to cross the signal when it is orange.” “But every one does” – Sridhar almost yelled to the driver. There was no response from the driver other than his usual trademark smile.

More signals followed, and all others in the cab had got down. He was only person remaining, and he was racing against time, to meet his girl friend. For the first time in his life, he started to hate his job. How could he do a work, that doesn’t even allow him to see his girl friend on a Valentine day? He was angry at every thing; from his onsite coordinator, to his girl friend that is not picking the phone. But all his anger was now directed towards the cab driver.

“Sir, will we reach Central before tomorrow” – he asked the cab driver mockingly. “I will try to reach as soon as possible” – the cab driver said with a smile. Sridhar began the long monologue of how he is the most unlucky person on the earth – how he could not stay with his love even on a Valentine day. The driver heard it all- but he kept on driving as usual.

At 8.20 the ten minutes before the departure of Cauvery Express, the cab reached Central. Sridhar got down from the cab, closed the cab door, at a high velocity in anger, and ran in to meet her.

After he left the cab driver, took his cell phone. There were ten missed calls. He dialed the number and began speaking, “Sorry dear, I was not able to talk to you properly even on a Valentine day. But what to do. Work is more important right. I had to take those people who work hard in office back to their homes. I will try to meet you tomorrow”

Sridhar was not there to listen to that and he continued to believe he was the unluckiest person – though he got to spend at least few minutes with his Love.

Yes or No - A very Short Story

2009-02-15T19:14:00.000+05:30

It was the fag end of the nineteenth century. India was under the British Raj. He was in a great dilemma on what to do? He was not sure whether to say Yes or No.

He had just lost his wife. She had a disease that was neither cured by European medicines nor by the Traditional Indian Medicines. She had died without producing any offspring.

His parents were forcing him to remarry. They had even selected a girl from their native village. “He was too young not to remarry; people are even marrying in their sixties. What is wrong in marrying again?” was the logic used by his parents to convince him. Their concern was that if he doesn’t marry, their dynasty will come to an end, as he was their only son.

He had seen the girl, whom his parents wanted him to marry, few days earlier. She was pretty, young and beautiful; nevertheless he was confused. He was not able to remove his dead wife’s image from his heart. He was not sure whether to say Yes or No to his parents.

What did he say? Yes or No.

You would not have been reading this article if he had said No. He was my Great – Grand father.

Intentinal mistakes

2008-11-23T17:29:00.002+05:30

Excerpts from the editorial on a leading news paper:

Today marks a new beginning in the political history of Tamilnadu, as Bharath, thirty four year old IIM graduate, will be sworn in as the chief minister of Tamilnadu. He will be the India’s youngest chief minister and also the first chief minister in state since Bhaktavachalam not to have any links with the Kollywood (excluding the brief period during which Mr. Panneer Selvam, was the chief minister). He thereby brings to an end the era of Rajkumar, who ruled Tamilnadu for the past seventeen years in a sort of dictatorship manner.

Though readers will be aware that our editorial board never agreed with the various policies of Rajkumar, we ought to give him credit where it is due. In the past thirteen years under his helm, Tamilnadu attained 100% literacy, became a huge industrial hub attracting MNC companies from across the globe, and its infrastructure became the role model for not only developing countries but also for some of the developed countries.

At this hour, we wish and hope that Bharath would follow the developmental path of his predecessor and at the same time perform them in a more democratic way, thereby creating a developed Tamilnadu free of severe restrictions placed on media and opposition parties during the previous regime.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

I reread the editorial written by my father, who was chief editor of the same newspaper, in which I am working as a political correspondent. I have been entrusted with the special task by my father, to write an article on Sunday, analyzing the reasons why Rajkumar, considered as a demi God by most of his followers, who won two consecutive elections with huge majority, who was described by Indian media as ‘21^st century Chankaya’ for his political acumen, lost to a party founded just three years ago by a youngster from a remote part of Tamilnadu.

Rajkumar – was born as the only child of the third wife of the liquor contractor, who was also a close aide of the former film director and the then leader of a famous party. Few years later, when Rajkumar was attending residential school in Ooty, the former film director became the chief minister of Tamilnadu, and he repaid Rajkumar’s fathers loyalty by making him the education minister; which took every one by surprise as Rajkumar’s father had never attended school.

Rajkumar however, unlike his father, did attend school, and even got the most outstanding student award when he finished his twelfth; though every one knew the only reason for that award, was the school principal’s extra effort in pleasing the education minister, as the school management had plans of opening a new engineering college soon. Rajkumar then went to US to do his undergraduate course, and since the college management in US had no plans of opening any new schools or colleges in Tamilnadu, he had to return back to India having spent five years without obtaining a degree.

Back in India, he decided to try his hand in almost all business, and tried doing business in almost all districts of the state. The only positive to the state because of his irresponsibility, was that some of the ill earned money of his father was lost due to his stupid ventures. Though in business, Rajkumar was a failure, he was highly successful in another of his venture – that of seducing girls. So when ever he left any district, he left behind not only a bankrupt business but also a grieving girl with unborn child of him. He selected the right girls – girls who neither had power nor strength to fight against the son of the education minister.

By the age of thirty five, he began to realize that he needs to be more sensible – after all as his father had already had two heart attacks, he could become the next education minister. With many more engineering colleges all set to open his father assured him that lots of money could be made. But just the education minister post didn’t satisfy him. He dreamt of more power; and it brought about a huge transformation in him.

For the first time in his life, he sat down and started to make plans for his future. He did an analysis of himself and found out that one field where he could do well was acting; he has easily deceived so many girls acting as a perfect lover. So he felt he could easily do the same in front of cameras too. When the then, chief minister’s son who was very interested in poetry, was busy writing lyrics for Tamil film songs, and also at the same time preparing himself to be the next chief minister under the able guidance of his father, Rajkumar decided to embark on this great journey, which if turned out successful, could help him achieve his dream.

With the help of his father’s money and power, he selected the promising young director, beautiful young model from Mumbai, famous comedy actor, make up team from Hollywood, who made him look more younger and smarter, strong marketing team and as a result his first film was a super hit and collected loads of money especially in B and C centre, in spite of the critics dismissing the movie as ‘Yet another normal masala movie’.

With the television run by his father’s party, continued to give him all the support he needed, he soon became a famous hero, giving super hits after super hits. He even managed to act in one critically acclaimed movie, and won a national award. It was then his father died, and few months later the chief minister also died, and his son became the new chief minister. When the new chief minister offered the education minister post to him Rajkumar politely refused saying that he wanted to concentrate on his film career. “It’s your job that I want” – he said within his mind. He continued to be an active member of the party though.

His party under the leadership of the former chief minister’s son lost the next general election. Though it is widely speculated now that Rajkumar played a huge role in the party’s loss discreetly, at that point of time every one genuinely believed that Rajkumar was sad like any other party member about the party’s dismal performance. Some of the prominent leaders in the party, started to the question the ability of the leader, and some even started talking openly about Rajkumar taking over the party’s leadership.

Surprisingly, Rajkumar declared his support for the former chief minister’s son and even campaigned through out the state for him. The corrupt rule by the other party over the past five years coupled with the active campaigning by a famous hero meant that the party came back to power winning almost all the seats in the assembly election. During the swearing in, the new chief minister told the media “No one in the world could dream, of having a better friend than Rajkumar”. The new education minister Rajkumar smiled.

Tamilnadu understood the full significance of that smile only two years later, when Rajkumar delivered the now famous speech in front of the entire national media. “Betraying a friend is a great sin. Today I am going to commit that sin, as I feel betraying one’s own mother land is much greater sin than that.” He handed over the documents in his hands to the media, with tears in his eyes. The documents were so meticulous enough, that based on them as evidence the High court would convict the Chief minister for five years of prison over corruption charges.

A week after the dramatic press meet, Rajkumar took oath of office, and said he was reluctant to accept the post, but only did so to save his mother land Tamilnadu and its people in this hour of crisis. Every one believed he would be yet another normal Chief Minister; but he proved them all wrong. His agenda for the first two years was no village in Tamilnadu without proper road and twenty four hours power supply. His hidden agenda for the same first two years was no opposition for him in the state.

He achieved both the agendas in such a way that, visiting US senator, remarked that village roads in Tamilnadu are comparable to highways in US, and on the same day almost all the second and third rung leaders in the major opposition party joined his party; they joined because they liked my principles – Rajkumar remarked, but people neither believed him nor dared to disagree with him openly.

It was then during Rajkumar’s first term in office, Bharath came into public picture for the first time. Bharath, who was born in a poor family in one of the most backward district of Tamilnadu, and had studied in a local Government school that had no Physics teacher for twelfth standard, nevertheless managed to score centum in maths in public examination. He couldn’t get a seat in any of the Government engineering college, because of his low mark in physics, and he couldn’t afford the fees in any of the private engineering college, hence he decided to do B.Sc Maths in Loyola College, Chennai.

When he was studying in college, staying in his uncle’s house in Ponneri, he was distressed by the continuous late running of electric trains in the route. He felt every one was unhappy about it, but none was interested to bring it to Government’s notice; that led to him spearheading the train boycott that lasted for four days. It was held so peacefully, that not even one rupee worth of public property was damaged or a singly person attacked during the first three days. On the fourth day, an angry young supporter of Bharath threw a stone at one of the passenger, who felt watching a movie with his friend was more important than helping the protest. The stoned missed the person’s head but broke the glass pane of the electric train.

Bharath immediately called off the boycott and surrendered to the police saying, since he led the protest he was responsible to any damage caused to the public property during the protest. And when he wrote a short story in prison about five different people were affected because of the late running train, and it was published in famous Tamil magazine, ‘Bharath’ became a house hold name.

Most of my friends in media think that Rajkumar didn’t consider Bharath to be his competitor then. But on careful research I found out that, a couple of friends organized a similar protest in a village against the poor drinking water condition, and media gave good coverage to it. Within six months one of the friend died in a road crash, and the other friend joined Rajkumar’s party, and since then has never spoken about his dead friend. If some one else does some thing positive, they should be either under him, or should not be there at all was Rajkumar’s same policy. Why was the same policy not applied in Bharath’s case?

Bharath later went on to pursue MBA in IIM Bangalore, but on completion of the degree, unlike his friends he did not accept a lucrative offer from MNC. He started an NGO in the Tamilnadu, that worked on identifying and converting the hidden talents among the villagers, and helping them convert their talent into profit making enterprise, thereby proving them an opportunity to come out of poverty and also give them lot of self respect.

Rajkumar was in is second term as a chief minister then, and I don’t understand why he didn’t weed him even then. A young girl who decided to start a NGO in Tamilnadu to improve the educational standards here two years before, suddenly decided that Somalia needs her help more, and went there to become a teacher. On careful research I found out that it was Rajkumar’s close followers who got her a job in Somalia and also her flight ticket; may be she didn’t accept to join the party and at the same time was also not foolish to die in a road crash.

His NGO created such an impact world wide, that a renowned writer down under wrote a book entitled “Silent revolution”- the book was in New York Times best seller list in Non Fiction category for ten weeks, and the book was translated into almost all Indian languages. The Tamil version sold more than one lakh copies. After Rajkumar became CM, no books about any other living person in Tamilnadu other than Rajkumar was published – A publisher who dared to publish a book about the former chief Minster, whom Rajkumar replaced, suddenly became bankrupt for no reason and the book was never published. But once again Rajkumar decided to be a silent spectator as Bharath became more famous.

The last straw came when Bharath announced the formation of the new party, “Citizen’s democratic party”, and Rajkumar responded by saying, “No one can defeat me, since people will vote for me, even if I myself ask them not to vote for me”. Even media believed the same then, as in those years Rajkumar had single handedly made Tamilnadu the model state for India to follow; but the same media now believes that it is his over confidence that led to his defeat.

I am not a great fan of Rajkumar; but one thing I’m sure is he wouldn’t have been over confident unless he himself wanted to be. He is too shrewd a politician to not to know when to be over confident and when not to be. If I need to write an article that brings out the true reason for the downfall, I need to find out why did he made such intentinal mistakes thereby letting Bharath replace him?; because I am certain that he couldn’t have let this mistakes occur without his knowledge.

Fortune favored me as I got an information from a reliable source that a man who was simply roaming around in Bharath’s native village suddenly got an job in Canada, and his only sister who was still then struggling to pay a monthly rent of thousand rupees, now brought herself a posh apartment in Kovai. On further investigation I found out that he was currently employed in an automobile manufacturing company, run by Rajkumar’s friend in Canada; and that he was the son of headmaster of the school in which Bharath studied.

If Rajkumar had sent him out of India, then I was sure that he will have some information that would help me in my pursuit of truth. I some how got the contact of that guy in Canada and made him believe that I am the agent of the Government of a developed nation, who were keen on stopping India’s progress. Thus I assured him that if he gives information regarding Rajkumar he would be safely protected by the security wing of the nation I am representing; the fact that Rajkumar was no longer the CM also helped and he agreed to part with the information. However he demanded huge sum of money, sort of money I could never hope to pay him.

This meant I needed to figure out a way by which I could extract the info from him, without actually paying him any money. I went to the Besant Nagar beach, as I usually do when I try to figure out a solution. When I was enjoying the fresh air there, a decent man in Raymond suite came up to me and said “Leader wants to meet you”. There were only two important leaders in Tamilnadu, and if Bharath had wanted to meet me, his personal secretary would have called me. So now I know that since I had come so close to find out some hidden truth about Rajkumar, I would be either offered a job in CNN or BBC in lieu of keeping my mouth shut, or my newspaper would print news in a small tabular column in third page tomorrow, “Political correspondent died in a car crash”.

I was taken to Rajkumar’s ECR apartment where he usually goes to take rest. “Good morning, how are you” – he came in front of me wearing a causal shirt and shorts, costume in which 99.99% of public in Tamilnadu could never hope to see him; they have to be satisfied watching him in his usual white shirt, white dhoti attire. I bought all my courage to the forefront and replied “I won’t accept your job offers abroad; neither have I want to die in a road crash. Please use some new method to kill me.”

He laughed loudly. “Who said we are going to kill you? I only weed out people when I find the truth they have will affect Tamilnadu at that moment, or things they do may affect the state in the long run. There are so many people who know so many truths about me, but they keep silent not because they are afraid of me, rather because they also understand that it is in best interest of Tamilnadu that the secret remains secret. That headmaster was one such person, though his son betrayed me.”

He continued after taking a sip of hot coffee, “Any way I actually invited you to tell the truth myself, so that that guy doesn’t end up making more money. It doesn’t matter if the truth comes out know, because my objective has been already achieved.”

He handed over to me a big book, perhaps it is his diary, I thought. I opened it and was surprised to find, ‘Mahabharata’. “Do you know the story about Shakuntala that comes in Mahabharata?” – He asked me.

I know that story. Shakuntala was the daughter of sage Vishwamitra, and she lived in the forest under the guardianship of another sage. It was then king Disyundhan came to the forest, and married her on being attracted by her beauty. They spent some happy days together, and Disyundhan left back to his palace to sort some problem, and promised to Shakuntala that he would come back and take her to the palace, once the problem was sorted out; he never came back.

Meanwhile Shakuntala gave birth to a baby boy, and after few years out of desperation went in search of the King. In the palace, Disyundhan said he never knew them, when the holy voice from Heaven informed the king that the baby was indeed his. Shakuntala thus become the queen, and their son went on to become the first empire of India. His name was Bharath.

“Bharath – I don’t know why that cute girl whom I seduced when I was young, named him so, but when I came to know that Bharath, was my son through the headmaster when he held that train boycott, I thought the name was indeed true; that he will be a great ruler like the ancient Bharath.”, Rajkumar said.

“I could have made him the chief minister then, but Tamilnadu at that stage was not ready for a good, just ruler like Bharath. It needed a sort of cruel ruler like me, and hence I had to make him wait so long. Now he could rule Tamilnadu in a just manner and also help the state make huge progress, me having laid the foundation.”- He added.

“But when you felt, Bharath was ready to be the CM, he could have easily declared him as your son and made him the CM. Why you intentionally made so many mistakes to allow him become CM, when you could have followed the easy way, as people would have voted for anyone you pointed out?” – I asked.

“Read the book carefully and find out the explanation given by king Disyundhan for not accept Shakuntala as her wife, when she came to the palace with Bharath. My explanation is also the same.” – said Rajkumar.

I read out loud from the book. “Shakuntala, I know that you were my wife and Bharath was indeed my child. However if I had accepted you just like that as soon as you came to the place, People may doubt your credentials and the credentials of Bharath to become their ruler. So I wanted to accept you only after the God himself said from heaven that Bharath is indeed my child – said King Disyundhan”.

“Who is the God in Democracy?” – asked Rajkumar.

“People” – I said.

“That’s why I waited for people to say that he is their ruler, rather than me saying it” – Rajkumar concluded.

Wife's best friend (Short Story)

2008-11-02T13:45:00.001+05:30

The coffee that had been given to me by the young maid in our house was obeying some Law of Physics, studied by me in my school days, and was steadily losing its heat to the surrounding atmosphere. Sitting next to that coffee is me – Yes, I have that peculiar habit of asking for a coffee, when I am busy thinking about something, and then forgetting to drink it. That too when I am trying hard to find a solution to a problem, I let the coffee reach an undrinkable temperature, before asking for an another cup of coffee, which nine out of ten times would end up reaching the same fate as its predecessor.

The problem that I was facing was to search for a girl friend. No. I was not searching for a girl friend for myself. I am happily (sadly, if you insist on the truth) married for the past two years; one year, ten months and six days to be more precise. Rather, I was searching for a girl friend for my friend. I am not even sure whether I could call him as my friend. Truth is that he was my wife’s best friend and hence become my friend by default. I first met him two and a half years ago ……….....................................................................................................................................................

I was waiting at a restaurant, ready for my first date. First Date- This is how I described my second meeting with my future wife to all my friends. Our first meeting was an official bride seeing ceremony, where I could only see her for few minutes among my fun making cousins, uncles, aunts and all those who are in some way or other related to either of my parents or her parents. She was wearing a saree, and here uncomfortable ness in that clearly suggested that it was for the first time she was wearing it.

Though I didn’t talk to her then, I did talk to her non stop for hours in mobile after our first meeting. It was then that we decided that we will meet in some restaurant to get to know each other better. The first restaurant I suggested to her was rejected by her – “food will be very bad there” was the reason, second due to cost factor – “Oh damn, costly!” was her reaction, and when I suggested the third, her tone suggested that she was convinced that I had never been to any good restaurant in my life. She suggested this restaurant – if my friend’s feedbacks were true, this one was definitely more costly than the second one I suggested. I didn’t say anything though, as I didn’t want our first fight to be over a choice of a restaurant.

As I ate the first course, I was sure the food quality was also bad then the first one I suggested, nevertheless I kept quiet, admiring the beauty of my wife for the first time without the interruptions of the others. It was then he came.

“Hi Praveen. How are you dude?” her face became extra bright on seeing him.

“He is your bridegroom, isn’t he?” – He said handing out his hand towards me.

I shook his hand. Meanwhile her sweet voice was saying to me in the background that he was her best friend.

Actually I was happy then that my wife had a good male friend. The last thing I wanted was to marry a conservative girl, who never spoke to any other person of the opposite sex and also expected the same from me. I couldn’t even think of ceasing to interact with my friend’s and female colleagues, just for my wife’s sake. At the same time, at that point of time, I wanted to spend time with her alone – I wanted to talk about so many things to her – things that I couldn’t say with another known person near by. I felt it would be better, if he leaves. After all this was our first date.

He must be a good mind reader. “Sorry guys for disturbing you in the middle of your date. I will leave now. Will meet you later” – he said.

I wanted to say “Yes. Thank you. Please leave”. But all that I ended up saying was “No, no you can have dinner with us. It’s a pleasure.” After all I’m a liberal person who doesn’t mind his wife/future wife having a male friend and I wanted to portray my liberal nature to her at the first instance.

“No any ways, I got to leave. I have a personal work. Bye” – saying he left. I was happy that he declined my invitation; but my happiness was short lived.

Her face still had the same brightness that she acquired when he first came, and she decided to fill her friend’s absence by talking about him. By the end of the dinner, I couldn’t say any of those things that I wanted to say to her, but if whatever she said after Praveen left were to be true, then he must be a better cricketer than Sachin, better writer than Jeffery Archer, better music director than Illayaraja, better actor than Kamalahasan and better singer than SPB.

However, what made me angry was the last statement made by her, “You know” – she said, “It is very good to have friends of opposite sex. But sorry, how will you know? Your mum said that you have never even spoken to any other girl” – she said laughing.

“How does my mother know” –my tone was raised for the first time that evening. Then I exaggerated and narrated about the female friends I had - I didn’t lie actually. I described the college friend who always called me to get the study materials before the examinations as a “Best friend who always relies on me during crisis and calls me.” – It isn’t a lie, right?

I don’t think she believed whatever I said. She wanted me to believe all that she said about her friend, but she will not believe things that I said about myself. I didn’t leave the restaurant; in the happy mode I entered it. I wanted to prove her some how that even I had lot of friends in the opposite sex.

When I was distributing the marriage invitation I made it a point include as many girls I know as possible in the guest list. I found it very hard to trace the address of that best friend of mine, who called me for study materials, as the last time she called me was before the final semester and that was solid five years ago. I finally traced her address to Bubaneshwar and made it a point to personally go there to invite her. Her husband and she both were equally surprised that I took so much trouble to travel such a long distance, when I could have easily emailed them. They promised that they will come to my marriage, although she said, her son’s primary school has some function that day. As I left her house, I thought I heard her say to her husband, “I was not even a close friend to him. I don’t understand why he traveled so long just to invite me.”

She didn’t come to the marriage – her son may have persuaded her that his school function is more important than the marriage of the guy – who used to give her study materials in her college days. In spite of me dishing out invitations – the only ladies who turned up for the marriage other than my aunts, grandmas and mother’s friends were two of my colleagues, and even them left in half an hour.

On the other hand, Praveen was there for the entire marriage, and also helping out in lot of arrangements. In middle of that, he also found time to come and giggle something to my wife, now and then. Her face always turned rosier, after he said something. I don’t know what made me angrier – he giggling with my wife, or the fact that I didn’t have any female friends to giggle with me. Any ways I didn’t show my anger – I did not want to be seen as a yet another normal conservative husband, who couldn’t digest the fact that his wife is talking to her male friend during the marriage.

After the marriage – I had to find a new house, as I was still then staying with my friends. Though my search for a new house began well before marriage – all the houses selected by me were rejected by her – she invented new reasons to reject each of them – one was too big, other too small, one too far away from the city, other too close to highway, - she even rejected one saying that it was too close to a police station. At the end I had to accept the house chosen by Praveen, near his house – the house described by her as a Heaven on Earth. I felt it was the worst possible house in the worst possible location on earth – but as you would have guessed it by now, I didn’t offer this opinion to any one and kept it within my mind.

Actually his trouble became more pronounced after the marriage. With both of us working – weekends were the only time we got to spend together – and he made it a point to visit us on exactly on the same day – and his logic was flawless. “I could meet my friend only on weekends” – easily forgetting that his visit means, I couldn’t spend lonely moments with my wife even during weekends. As usual, I didn’t say anything and acted as a very happy host on those weekends.

The major problem with these visits, were that whenever we were together on the weekends, they made it a point to discuss things, about which I didn’t understand a word. “’By the age of sixteen, the only thing he didn’t know about smuggling was how to spell it’- this is how he describes about a spoiled teenager” – said my wife. Today, they were discussing about a guy called Jeffery Archer. Praveen suddenly turned to me and asked “Have u read Archer’s novels?” He has that unusual knack of asking questions to me, for which the only answer I could give was ‘No’.

“I read only Tamil novels” – I blurted out.

“Oh! Exciting. Even I like Tamil novels more than English ones. Have you read ‘Ponnyin Selvan’? – He asked.

I had once seen that novel in our college library, when I went to get some ‘No due’ certificate there. (The only time I visited my college library in four years was then) It was such a big novel with six volumes. Considering my reading speed, if I had started reading it I’m sure I could never complete reading it before I die. The largest fiction I have read so far were the one page short stories in Tamil magazine ‘Kumudam’.

However I said “Yes” as I did not want to give yet another No as an answer to him. But he seemed keen on irritating me. “Which character in Ponnyin Selvan you like the most?” – He asked.

“Ah! Mmmm. I forgot the name. That heroine character. I like her very much.” – I said hoping such a big novel will have at least one heroine.

“Heroine. Whom you will call as heroine? Few may say it’s Kundhavi; but I differ with them. For me ……..”

He went on speaking, and I didn’t understand anything he said; but my hatred towards him become more prominent, as my wife seemed very happy that my ignorance has been exposed.

In few weeks time, both of them were convinced that I was worse at every thing than either of them. I didn’t help my cause any further, when I broke a bulb when I tried to change one, uprooted a rose plant when I was gardening, thinking it was a weed, and by breaking a beautiful wall clock presented to her by her college lecturer for our marriage, when I was trying to help her clean the house. In their eyes I was a person who was good for nothing.

Then came that weekend, when there was an India – Australia test match. I was happy because if there was anything on world I was bit knowledgeable about, it was cricket. At least today I could prove to them, that I know more than them in at least something I thought. We were watching the match – Sachin scored a beautiful pull shot that bisected the fielders to the boundary. “Good shot” – I said clapping my hands.

“Pointing is missing a trick here” – my wife commented.

“What?” – I exclaimed. I am that sort of cricket fan who only claps hands when Sachin scores run and not bother about the mistakes the opposition captain is making.

“Sachin’s legs are injured, and hence he won’t be able to move them properly. So Pointing should ask his bowlers to bowl full length, which will induce the edge. They shouldn’t be bowling this short pitched stuff.” – Praveen justified my wife’s comment. I was the only soul there without any support.

I decided to watch the match more seriously from then on, hoping to analyze something before they could do. It was then I found out that Sachin was easily milking singles behind the square on the leg side. “Eureka” I shouted with in my mind.

“Pointing should have one more fielder there, behind the square. Sachin is scoring singles easily in that region.” – I said loudly proud of my discovery.

“But there are already two fielders there” – my wife’s only purpose in life must be to disagree with what ever I say.

“Why not one more fielder? They can move that fielder from point to there. He is being wasted at point” – I wanted to win the argument at any cost.

They both laughed. “According to the laws of cricket, they are not supposed to have more than two fielders behind the square.” – Praveen said, now controlling the laughter; but she was still laughing at my ignorance.

“Oh! When did they change the law?” – I looked perplexed.

“Long before we were born. After the controversial body line series between ……” – Praveen went on narrating the salient points of that series between England and Australia and why that law was introduced.

It was then I decided that I could never hope to better than either of them in any field. That actually frightened me. I was afraid that one day my wife would come to me and say “Sorry. I could no longer live with good for nothing fellow like you. I will better marry my best friend”. I can’t afford to lose my wife to this guy.

People like you might have decided of thousands of solution to the problem – removing him from my path could be one solution – but my brittle heart would never allow me to cause harm tp any one leave alone murdering. Or I could say to him directly to not to come to my house any more – but I didn’t want to lose my image and get that ‘conservative husband with lot of suspicion about wife’ tag attached to me. So then I decided that I needed to find him a girl friend. So that at least I could get to spend time alone with my wife. I didn’t mind getting humiliated by my wife. It’s just that I didn’t want him to be there when I was getting humiliated. I also wanted to convey the fact that I am going to search for a girl friend for him in such a way that, it will also get me a good name from my wife, that I am trying to help her friend.

I got that opportunity one day when he along with my wife came back late in auto. The retired Government officer living opposite to our house looked at three of us suspiciously. He must be wondering with in his mind about me, “What kind of Husband is he? Allowing his wife to hang out with strangers in night. ” Even I felt the same about me. However I kept quiet as usual.

“He had a severe headache. I took him to hospital” – my wife said.

“See Praveen. This is why you should find yourself a girl friend and marry her. They will help you very much when you have headaches like this” – I said to him and looked at my wife proudly.

She smiled at me and said, “Ya, even I helped him (pointing to me) so much, when he had head ache last week. Though the only help she offered was getting me a tumbler of hot water to swallow my tablets, I didn’t differ with her, as she was helping my cause.

“Will you help me get a girl friend?” – Praveen asked me.

“Ya sure. I replied.” My wife looked at me more proudly now.

From the next day, I began my search for a girl friend for him. It was very difficult; though Praveen didn’t set any restrictions – no religion, caste, language or nationality bar- it was difficult to satisfy the only condition he set – that is he must like the girl. He said he was even ready to marry a girl from Mars, if he liked her. I wished there were girls in Mars.

If he should like a girl, I was sure that the girl should be as knowledgeable as him – not in one field – bit in wide range of fields from sports, politics, history, environment, language, religion etc. I did manage to find few girls, and arranged Praveen to meet them, but he was yet to say whether he liked them.

It was then I was sitting, letting my coffee go cold, as I was narrated to you earlier in the beginning of the story. After few minutes, Praveen came into our house with a big smile as usual and said “Sorry mate. You did select very good girls; but unfortunately I didn’t like any one of them.”

“So the only girl you like is my wife, right?” – I wanted to shout in anger. Before I could do it, he came up with very happy news.

“But I found myself a girl friend. I am going to marry her in few months.”

“Wow” – I said “When will you introduce her to me?” – I was very happy. My problems were going to be solved.

“I’m not going to say who it is; but already know her very well. Try finding her out” – he said, as my face started to darken again. The only girl I know very well is my wife, and I felt like crying.

“Religious Heads oppose Divorce” – he read the headlines in ‘The Hindu’ loudly. “Still these ultra conservatives exist? How on earth do they expect a person to continue to live with a person even if she doesn’t like him, just because they are married? They should have the right to divorce. Am I right? What do you say?

“Yes” I said mildly. I wanted to say, “Ya I approve divorce; but not when my wife is going to divorce me to marry you”. I kept quiet.

I couldn’t sleep properly that night, though my wife was sleeping peacefully next to me. I was wondering from when the other side of the bed would be empty. I couldn’t control it any more. I woke my wife at half past eleven.

“What?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “Do you know who Praveen’s girl friend is?” – I asked her sure that the answer would be “Who else other than me?”.

“You woke me up in the middle of the night to ask this question?” –she asked.

“Please tell me.” – I literally begged her.

“It’s Shanti.”

“Shanti – our maid?”

“Ya”

“I thought that he was looking for some one as intelligent as him” – I was happy that now my wife is not his girl friend.

“Do you think all people would like to marry people who are as intelligent as them?” – She asked.

“That’s what I thought” – I replied.

“If so, how on earth, do you think I agreed to marry you?”.

I know she was taking a dig at me, but I had never felt happier before. I pulled her close and hugged her, with out thinking about Praveen, for the first time in our marriage life.

A Cute Love Story (Short Story)

2008-10-02T08:46:00.003+05:30

( I would recommend the readers to read my another short story "Beautiful Love Story" (before reading this one. )

“That’s a good story”, - she said handing over the hard copy of my short story “Beautiful love story” to me. “But then when are you planning to have real girl friends rather than being just satisfied with imaginary ones” she added.

It was six ‘o clock in the evening, and I was returning after visiting my college friend, who insisted on reading all the stories I wrote after the college days. As I was going through my own stories in bus, as I used to do whenever I feel very bored, a lady sitting next to me, took one of my short stories and started reading it. (Of course with my permission). Few minutes later she came up with the above mentioned comment.

“Thank God. At least you understood that was an imaginary story. Most of my friends insist me to show them my train girl friend after reading the story.” I said.

“In real life you don’t get girl friends or boy friends just like that as you have written in the story.”

“Is it so? So what should one do to get a girlfriend?” - I asked happily that the conversation is getting interesting.

“You got to take some initiative – In real life, you just don’t sit and wait, hoping for God or Nature to send you some beautiful girl, who asks for an instant story, so that you could propose through a story. You got to put in some effort.” – She started speaking as though she has done a doctorate in this field.

“I agree. My story is imaginative. But then I have also heard and written a true love story, where God or Nature or Coincidence whatever you call it, played a major role in joining two hearts made for each other.”

“Joining two hearts made for each other? You are sounding too poetic” – she said mocking me. “Any ways give me the story. Let me read it.” – I handed over the true love story that was narrated to me by a stranger few days ago.

Stranger’s true love story:

I love collecting information. When my friends were fascinated by Rajinikanth’s cigarette smoking style and Kapil Dev’s out swingers, for me the fact that I knew the names of Rajini’s first, twenty fifth, fiftieth film names, Kapil Dev’s hundredth, two hundredth Test and Ranji wickets gave me more happiness, rather than their styles. So when a particular girl started to interest me, I did the same thing; collect as much information about her.

I first met her, when we shifted our house to Annanagar, and I started to travel in 7F bus to office. Getting in the bus at the bus depot itself, gave me an opportunity to select the seat in which I can sit; I always choose the fifth seat behind the bus driver and she always sat in the ladies seat parallel to mine.

Some one like you might have decided to do things that would help capture her attention, once you were fascinated by her; but as I said earlier I started collecting information about her. Initially I settled for things that I could come to know without much trouble. In three months time, I knew that she takes head baths on all Fridays, she wears yellow salwars on sixty percent of the Thursdays, and that she uses her mobile in bus once in approximately three days.

More and more I saw her, and more and more information I got about her, my interest in her was slowly transformed into love. If you are thinking that at least after that I would have stopped collecting information and started doing something to capture her attention, it means you still don’t know about me properly. Actually what I did was exactly opposite; I started collecting more information about her, that in six months time, I knew more about her family than a census officer would know. To be fair, to the census officer, how would he have known that her younger brother hates math and just managed to pass in the subject in the tenth public examination, though she had scored centum in the same subject in her tenth.

It was then my friends came to know about my love, as they stumbled across the data I had so secretly kept. They initially made fun of me; but later advised me to take some real effort to win her, rather than just keeping on accumulating info about her. I nevertheless persisted in doing things in my way. By the end of one year since I saw her, I actually knew more about her than she herself would have known; I’m not sure whether she knew that her father’s short story had been published in Ananda Vikatan (famous Tamil magazine) thirty years ago, or that her father was the third bride groom to visit her mother. Mean while my parents began to wonder how I suddenly acquired so many friends who were getting married in Salem, her native.

“Excuse me” where the first words she spoke to me and I still remember the occasion vividly. Though I had known so much about her, I was yet to even speak her, leave alone gathering the courage to go and propose to her. It was on the children’s day of 2006, when she came and sat next to me in the bus (seat that was usually occupied by a ninth standard school student), rather then the usual parallel ladies seat and uttered those words. “Can you do me a favor” – she added.

Before my dumb struck mouth could gather enough strength to say “Sure” she continued, “I am doing Msc Psychology final year….” – “I even know that you scored 78.6 % in your third semester”, I wanted to add, but kept mum.

“My final year thesis is on “Traits Chennai youngster’s look for in their future wife”, and I have been talking to many people regarding that, and I want you also to share things that you would like to see in your future wife.”

I was sure that I could not be given a much easier chance to propose to her. Still I hesitantly asked, “What sort of information you are looking for?”

“Things like whether you prefer your wife to be house wife or working women, like that”– she said.

“I prefer working women as wife” – I said immediately, as I have read the article she wrote in the college magazine about why women should go to work.

She smiled and added “Working women. Fine. Do you have any more criteria on how your wife should be?”

“Ya, I have. In fact I have so many strict criteria that I am not sure whether any one would meet them” – her constant smiling face emboldened by and I decided I am going to propose her no matter what happens.

“Interesting. Please share those criteria with me” – she said.

Bringing all the courage to the forefront, I began to say the criteria, “I prefer to marry a Bank Manager’s daughter; she must be the eldest daughter; with probably one younger brother; she must be Rahul Dravid’s fan; must have read all the novels of Jeffery Archer till date; she must hate black grapes, but devour green grapes, her favorite color must be yellow; she must enjoy….”

“Stop, stop. Don’t keep on adding those conditions. I think only one girl would satisfy all these conditions.”

“And that’s you” – I said blushing.

We were married three months later.

“So you are saying that it is nature that helped their love by creating a situation where she did the thesis on “Traits Chennai youngster’s look for in their future wife”, which in turn helped him to propose, that eventually led to their marriage. Am I right?” – She asked and her smile was actually more pronounced now than ever before.

“Yes, other wise he never would have got the courage to even propose. He himself said it.”

“He knew every thing about her girl friend, but he didn’t even know that her final year thesis was actually not on “Traits Chennai youngster’s look for in their future wife”, and she asked about this traits question to only one guy – handsome guy who was searching diligently for past one year to collect details about her.”

“How do you know?” – I was perplexed.

She didn't answer my question directly. All that she said was, “If you want a girl friend, you either start taking some initiative, or hope you get a girl friend like me, who out of frustration will take the initiative her self as I did. But don’t sit hoping that nature will help you, and then you will end up with only imaginary girl friends.

If computers had been invented (Short Story/ Artice)

2008-08-17T09:34:00.003+05:30

“Currently it takes around seven years to produce a new drug.” – I closed the three seventy six pages hard bound book, titled “If computers had been invented”, and looked out of the window. As the train I was traveling in gathered speed, I decided to spend the remaining few minutes of my journey, admiring natural beauty outside rather than reading this book written by a leading scientist from the other side of the globe who seemed to believe that all the problems that the world faces today, would not have existed if only this imaginative machine called computer had been invented fifty years ago.

I had been reading the eighth chapter before closing the book and having read the previous seven chapters, I can easily predict how this chapter would end. The author would talk about various scientific terms, which I won’t understand, and then he would explain those scientific terms in what he thinks as ‘Layman’s Language’, which again I would not understand, but nevertheless by the time he ends this chapter he would some how come to the conclusion that if only this imaginative machine had been invented, the drugs which takes seven years now, could have been produced in less than a year, and so many Africans dying of Malaria would have been saved. (I think this scientist cum author had gone for an African safari recently, as he never seems to end any chapter without referring to Africa once.)

I looked at my electronic watch that showed the time as 8.15 am and the date as 8^th August 2008. If the scientist who had written this book were to be sitting opposite to me, he would have reminded me that, if only computers had been invented, I would not have needed the watches and the Computers would have shown (or told) me not only the local time but also the time in all other nations in the World, including Africa. (Am I also getting that Africa mania? Does that disease so highly contagious that it spreads through books or what?)

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was not that scientist who was sitting opposite to me, but rather a sixty five year old man, who was staring at the picture of a computer in the front cover of the book, with a bit of venom in his eyes. “Are you reading a book about T.V”, he asked in a tone that clearly conveyed his displeasure of someone wasting his time by reading about the Idiot box.

“No it’s not about television. It’s about an imaginative, yet to be invented machine called Computer”. I said quickly, hoping the answer would reduce the venom in his eyes to an acceptable level.

“Can we watch television serials in it?” – asked the middle aged lady who looked like the old man’s daughter in law. Now I could understand why the old man hated televisions. A small boy who was sitting next to me doing his math homework looked up at me, and his face conveyed the fact that he wanted to ask whether we can watch cricket matches in it. However he quickly thought otherwise and went back to his work. May be his cerebrum reminded him about the punishment his math teacher usually gives to Home work defaulters.

“Yes I think we can.” – I answered the lady’s question, thereby creating a competition between television and computers on which was most hated by that old man, but before either of them could reply I added “But it has much more use than just watching serials or cricket matches. (I am always proud of the fact that I could read questions on other people’s minds, just wanted to convey to that young guy that I know what was on his mind) It can solve wide range of problems.”

The old man’s attitude towards computers changed the moment he heard that computers could solve problems, and he decided to put the computers to a test on problem solving. “I had not received my old age pension of eight hundred rupees for the past two months. I have been meeting the Tashildhar every day for the past one month, but I am not getting any satisfactory reply. Will this machine solve my problem? – asked the innocent old man.

I was stumped. That scientist had not written anything about the problems of Tashildhar. (May be there were no Tashildhar in his country) I mumbled “I am not sure. It can do things like complex math problems………” I, completely aware that solving complex math problem won’t interest either the old man or his daughter in law, tried to think of something from the book that would fascinate them.

However the phrase ‘Solving Math problems’ did fascinate that ten year old kid sitting next to me. He looked up at me, hoping that suddenly some one would invent the computer and threw it into the train.

The train slowed down to stop at yet another station, where as usual more people would get into the already packed compartment. As I had to get down in the next station, I kept the book inside the bag and pushed, pulled and stamped people on my way to exit. Meanwhile my mind was racing back to last Wednesday, the day when I got this book – the book that had taught me so much about this imaginative machine, which if had been invented could have changed the world. (According to that scientist, of course)

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LAST WEDNESDAY

I was calculating the interest the bank should pay to a customer, who had invested a million dollar. No. I am neither working in a bank nor I am going to invest one million dollar in a bank. (With my monthly salary, investing one million won’t even qualify as a day-dream.) Rather the bank is my company’s client, my company being one of the prominent in our nation that specializes in doing back end operations for banks, hospitals, super markets, universities etc, in a nation that is situated exactly across the globe. (My office colleagues forgive me, for writing a paragraph about what you already know, I am planning to post this article in my external blog too, and hence it became necessary to write about what I do. My cousins/ college friends read them there, and they think I am getting salary for doing nothing. I got to prove them that I do something in return for salary I get.)

“Hi Subramani.” It was when I was dealing with that amount of money, my colleague Siva approached me. “Any contributions from you for the next edition of ‘Thendral’.”

“So you want another story that I had already written in the Bulletin board for Thendral’s next edition?”

If you didn’t understand the previous sentence properly, then it means I need to explain to you about both ‘Thendral’ and our Bulletin board. Thendral is our DC’s newsletter, brought about by some enthusiastic members of our DC of which Siva is also a member. Bulletin board is a board kept near our entrance, where the employees can write, whatever they think as creative and pin it up. (Whatever they think as creative doesn’t literally mean whatever they think. There are rules to be followed.)

Thought I don’t like boosting about myself, I felt it is necessary to point out here that I had gained a bit of reputation among my friends and colleagues for my creative writing abilities, thanks to some of the short stories put up by me in the bulletin board. So when Siva approached me last time with a request for a short story for the DC news letter, I happily sent my most famous short story in the BB (short form of Bulletin Board) “A Beautiful Love Story”. Now I might have to think about some other story for this edition.

“No. I don’t need a short story from you this time. I need something different from you” said Siva probably reading my mind.

“What are you expecting then?” – I asked, but at the same time silently praying to God that he doesn’t ask me to write a poem. The last time I wrote a poem was when I was in my twelfth standard entitled “Terrorism” and I am sure, any one well versed in English would not even call that as a poem.

God saved me from writing poems, but he pushed me into something worse. Siva asked me to write a scientific article.

“What scientific article? What do you think I know about science? The last science book that I read was my twelfth biology text” was my shell shocked response.

“I know about you. That’s why I brought this book from library”- said Siva handing me a hard bound book.

“What’s this book is about?” – I asked him skimming through the book. Then I read the back cover and got to know what the book is about and said “Thank God. This machine has not been invented. If only this machine had been there our company would not have been there. People from that country could have done all the works I do now, easily themselves.”

“Don’t worry. Even then those people would have depended on us to maintain this machine. They would have outsourced that work to us. Any way, now I got to go; but for this edition of ‘Thendral’ I need an article about this machine, not in scientific language, but in a way that every one could understand it” – saying this Siva left, leaving me with that book, and the responsibility of writing an article.

…………………………………………….

Walking in the railway station, I was wondering what to say to Siva, as I had yet to write even a single page of the article that he wanted. Every time I started writing the article, it turned out to be worse than some technical journal, and I can assure you that no one would understand a word, if I am going to write an entire article that way. As I came out of the railway station, in a DVD shop, I saw a DVD titled, “Making of a….” followed by some Movie name. It was then I got an idea. Why not write an article about making of the article “If computers had been invented”.

And If you are reading this article now, it means that I have not able to write an original article, and so have submitted this “Making of an article” itself to “Thendral”. I have tried my best to point out some of the benefits that would have happened if computers had been invented in this “Making of Article” itself, but still if you are angry at me for not writing an proper article and are rushing to buy rotten tomatoes to throw at me, please wait for a second, as I would now add more benefits of computers, hoping that would reduce the number of rotten tomatoes that I would receive.

1) If computers had been there, you would not be reading this article on paper, rather you would be reading this in a computer.

2) You would not have been forced to rush to a vegetable shop to throw a tomato at me. You could have easily stimulated the effect of throwing a rotten tomato at me by just clicking a button on your computer.

However as computers are yet to be invented, now please rush fast to buy the rotten tomatoes. As more and more people read my article, the rotten tomatoes may reach record price today.

FREEDOM (SHORT STORY)

2008-04-01T16:18:00.002+05:30

“My mother’s advice is no more valid” – I thought to myself on hearing the conversation below.

“What is Freedom?”

“Freedom means we can do whatever we want, as long as it does not affect others”.

The question about freedom was asked by Gayathri, a five year old girl, daughter of my brother in law (my husband’s brother). In fact even I wanted to ask that same question, as the people all over the railway station were shouting - “Bharat Mata Ki Jay”,” We got the freedom” were some of their shouting’s - and dancing in Joy. If they were so happy in getting freedom – then the freedom must be tastier than the ‘Adhirasams’ (a sweet) my mother makes – I thought to myself, before being enlightened by the answer given to Gayathri by my father in law.

I, born on a day before Pongal, thirteen years ago, am now in a distant land called Jhansi, sitting in the third class compartment in the train going to Delhi. Sitting near me is my husband, who speaks one or two words to me, only when his mother is not watching. Until two years before, I had been going to school – Convent school run by Christian missionaries- in the next street to our house. I, having completed sixth standard was the most educated girl in our caste. It, along with my beauty (headmistress at my school was so much stunned by my beauty when I danced in a frock for a song praising Jesus Christ during Christmas celebrations) were the reasons that I was selected as a bride by a highly respected family from Delhi.

I was treated like a princess – my father kept repeating that I was so lucky – and I was provided with the finest of sarees and golden bangles; but that was not I wanted. All I wanted was to play with my friends as I used to before. I wanted to go out with my friends and eat ground nuts in a shop near school, but I was gently scolded by my mother when I told my desire- “Don’t ever tell it when your father is near – he is so happy now. Don’t make him angry”.

It was two months before my marriage that I was given the advices that I told to you in the first line of the story. Some of the prominent points of those advices were – to obey everything said by my mother in law, sister in law, or far that matter any of my in laws, not to play with dolls as I used to at home, not to talk to any male relatives other than my husband and thousand other things – and I literally memorized all of them as they were told day after day. Besides these theoretical lectures and advices, I was also given practical fast track courses in cooking, washing clothes etc.

In the train, as Gayathri was playing with toys, jumping in a pink frock – similar to the one I used to wear when I was young – it brought back my childhood memories and I felt jealous of her. I also wanted to play – but my mother’s advice and lectures kept me under control.

It was then Jhansi came and I was enlightened about what Freedom is by my Father-in-law. Now, my entire mother’s advice was not valid. They were valid only when we did not have freedom. Now we have freedom and we can do whatever, we want, as long as it does not affect others. Definitely- I jumping and playing with Gayathri will not affect anyone. I can do it as we have freedom. My mother’s advice is not valid now as we have freedom. I jumped with joy and rushed towards Gayathri to play.

I don’t want to say what happened after that (I don’t believe in sharing negative things), but one thing -- my father-in-law is not as intelligent as other’s think. His definition of freedom was proved wrong and my mother’s advice is still valid.

Sorry, it’s not a story, it’s a confidential report. (SHORT STORY)

2008-04-01T16:18:00.001+05:30

Scene –I

He was standing in the bus stop in a slightly arrogant way characteristic of any college going student in Chennai. His eyes were showing very keen interest when ever any teen age girl passed by that side, but even half of that interest was not shown when a 56P bus came and halted in front of him. In fact the bus would go to his college. However he would travel only in the next bus, in which is gang of friends would come- travelling with his gang would make the otherwise boring travel so interesting

The bus started to move after no one got down from it but at least twenty people tried to force their way into already fully packed bus. Just as the bus was gaining momentum, he noticed her. She was sitting in the third row from rear in the women’s side. He was just wondering, why was she here, why she is travelling in this bus when her house is at a walk able distance from collage.

She was college’s dream girl. Every one in the college right from students to watch man just loved looking at her from morning to evening. No one except her close friends had ever dared to speak to her – leave alone flirting with her. There were rumors in the college that she had even slapped one of the lecturers once when he tried to flirt. Today was a God given opportunity – he thought to himself. If only he could go in this bus, travelling with her would make him a hero in his gang. He would be envied by others. He need not even talk to her. He could just make stories about how she was so friendly with him in the bus, and so on.

He knew he had to act fast. The bus had already travelled quite a distance. He began to give it a chase. He was collage champion in athletics and it helped. Then in athletics field, you don’t find an old woman with basket of fruits, a tricycle, and a group of school going kids with bags twice their weight coming from the other sides. The road wet as a result of the rain day before, did not help his cause in any way.

He was about to give up, when she turned and looked behind from the bus. Her face game him all the motivation he needed. He picked up speed and come so close to the bus. He managed to put one foot into the bus, when the dreaded thing happened. The wet shoes didn’t give the grip he needed, and the next moment, he was not inside the bus, but unfortunately under its wheels.

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Scene 2:

His eyes were so reddish. He had just come out of the Tasmac shop. His aunt- he was her favorite- had come home today from her native village, and she had given him hundred bucks to buy some thing useful. She would not have expected that useful thing would be the same liquid that was responsible for her husband’s death. He went and sat inside the Maruti. He some how convinced his innocent mother of the special class, and how he could never make it to it in time because of the unreliable public transport system, and how the master cruelly punishes anyone who turns up even a second late.

“These days’ teachers are so bad” – She had always found the teachers at fault right from the day, his first standard teacher complained about his love to pinch the students sitting near by. She could never believe his son could do some thing wrong.

He had decided to go and have a great ride. He just loved driving like they drive it in formula 1. There was no one to tell him that the last thing formula 1 drivers do his to consume alcohols before driving, and they don’t drive in roads used by common people. He started off fast, and immediately shifted gears. He drove as fast his maruti would allow him, in the process terrorizing innocent road users. There came that sharp turn, with a warning “Accident Prone Zone. Keep slow”. He loved this sharp turns. He loved to make those turns in great speeds. Today he decided to do it again. The extra hundred bucks given by her aunt meant extra alcohol – which in turn meant poorer reflex. He tried to turn the steering wheel with great speed, but all he could manage was to dash his dad’s hard earned maruti against the banyan tree, that had seen many such accidents in two hundred years of its existence in that corner.

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Scene 3:

He was one among the few who got down at Pallavaram railway station in that non peak hour. His face was tense as he was expecting a call from Madurai, where her wife is going to give birth to their first child any time now. He must have been now in Madurai, standing in the hospital, waiting for the privilege of being the first person to be informed about yet another new entry to this world. His manager spoiled all this.

The manager had forced him to go to Chennai on some urgent work, work he despised so much. “I should have been in Maudrai” – he was constantly thinking. He had already done most of the work in Chennai, and after he finishes this one last work in Pallavaram, he would be travelling in the first available bus to Madurai.

He got a call from an unknown number in Madurai. He was sure that was from the hospital. “Hello” he said, fully engrossed to listen to what the other person on the line had to say. “Hello” he literally shouted again, poor network connection which meant that he was not able to listen properly. The person at the other end was saying some thing, but unfortunately he was not able to listen to it.

He was so keen on talking in phone, that he did not listen to “Train is coming” shouting’s from the people around him. He even did not listen to the loud horn sounded by the express train coming at a good speed. He was just keen on listening to what the other person had to say on phone. An image of a beautiful baby was flashed by his brain and he was smiling, as he received happy news from the other end. He did not know that he could never see his child alive. The train was coming fast…..

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Conclusion:

When you, The Almighty God said that you are going to destroy the Earth, I was one among the many who felt very bad about you. After coming to Earth on your insistence, and after seeing the many incidents in Chennai, as assigned to me, I was fairly convinced that any way most of the people here are already trying hard to kill themselves, which was evident from the above mentioned scenes and various other scenes that I had seen but not mentioned. So hereby I conclude my report saying that you could go ahead with your plans of destroying this earth.

Yours truly,

Angel No – 90453,
Senior Consultant (Chennai Division),
Heaven

REFUSAL (SHORT STORY)

2008-03-07T16:02:00.000+05:30

Discussion going on in "Nayar Kadai"

“She might have told him not to accept” (She – Leading Tamil heroine)

“May be he was afraid that seniors in the team might not cooperate with him and he has every right to fear so”

“Seniors. For every problem, why do we bring them in” – the ardent fan of one of the seniors.

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Mukesh was sitting leisurely in the comfort of the sofa in his house, unaware of the discussions going on about his declining the captaincy of the Indian cricket team in the 'Nayar kadai'; though he was completely aware that through out India, his decision would be the discussion topic today. Lying in front of him were various English dailies, each having a special report written about his decision right from a yester year superstar to that guy who had played only one day international so far, that too thanks to his uncle who was the selector of the Indian cricket team then.

Mukesh fortunately or unfortunately did not have any selector uncles, but he made up for it with a string of good scores in the domestic circuit. He was the leading run scorer in the Ranji trophy for three consecutive years, but what really sealed a spot in the Indian cricket team in his favor was the three double hundreds he scored in a trot: one in Ranji semis, the next in final against Mumbai, and the third for the Indian Board President Eleven against the visiting Pakistani side. From then on he never looked back.

The last ball six he scored against Pakistan to seal off a memorable series win in front of his home crowd at Chepauk, made the world turn around and take a look at him. Five hundred run in a three match test series in seaming South African tracks is what actually convinced the World that he was a superstar in making; but it was what happened in Australia that showed he is of a special kind in the cricketing world which seems to be rapidly forgetting that it is a gentleman game. He scored two ninety nines in the final decisive test; in the first innings he was declared out caught behind by the umpire when there was a huge gap between the bat and the ball; in the second innings, he faintly edged the ball behind, but this time the umpire didn’t see the edge; but he walked. “There are certain things in life more important than hundreds” – he would later remark about it.

“You are saying no, because of that thing that happened so many years ago. You must be kidding.” – said his manager, who takes care of his endorsements, still unable to believe that what he just heard was true. The time he heard of rumors of Mukesh being appointed captain after India’s world cup debacle, in spite Mukesh scoring three half centuries, he had already started making plans of how much more money through endorsements that meant for Mukesh and more importantly how much more for him through commissions.

“You must be kidding”- he repeated once again this time little louder in a tone that he had never used before in the presence of Mukesh. “No I’m not” was the reply from Mukesh who now got up from the comfort of sofa and walked towards the corridor thinking within his mind that these people never understand anything other than money. He used the rails to support himself as he closed his eyes and began to think about the incident he narrated to his manager few minutes before.
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Mukesh, eleventh standard student in the Government High school, was kicking the soil in his school ground, standing at long off, as their opponents continued to celebrate their victory. His anger was not at the opponents but rather at his childhood friend and his captain Ravi, who gave the last over to Ashwin, in spite the fact that Mukesh virtually begged him to give it to Suresh.

He felt let down once again as it was the second time in as many matches, his friend has done exactly opposite to what he asked him to do. He started to walk back, when a comforting arm fell over his shoulder, followed by an apologetic remark, “My instincts told Ashwin would be a better choice, Mate”. Mukesh abused curses at the instincts of Ravi in a language that could not be used in the Infy bulletin boards.

“Ya. It’s fine. I accept that you would be a better captain than me; but what about our childhood challenge?”- Ravi.

“Don’t worry. I promise you that I would never become a captain without defeating you in a challenge” – Mukesh’s anger always flies away as soon as his friend comes near him.

The challenge they were talking about is the running race between the coconut trees in the Mukesh house to the palm tree near Ravi’s house. It may sound comical, but they came up with this idea when they had a row over who would lead the team when they were ten year olds, and they have been following the idea ever since. Ravi was the better runner, and he had always lead Mukesh from then on.

Mukesh knew that no one other than two of them could ever captain their school side, since they were simply a notch greater than others in terms of cricketing skills. If only he could defeat his friend in the challenge, they would both talk to their PT master and he could become the captain at least in the last year of his school. He knew Ravi was always ready to scrap the challenge and let him be the captain, but he was too proud to accept it. “I will give it one more tries next time” – he said to himself.

Schools closed for summer, and Mukesh went to his uncle’s house in Chennai, where he had requested his uncle to arrange him to attend a special coaching camp conducted by a former Olympic athlete. He thought that only way he could defeat his friend could be with the help of professional help. His uncle, who once had a dream to play in Ranji trophy but could never go beyond club level, readily obliged.

Chennai, for Mukesh who was born and brought up in a village, gave a new experience. When he saw a girl in his uncle’s next house wearing dresses that he had seen before only in movies, and giggling like the heroines, he started to spend more time chasing here, rather in the coaching camp. As the summer vacation came to an end, he returned back to his house, hoping he could see the giggling girl next year, and also guilty at heart that he could never lead the school side.

When he entered his home, he knew something was wrong. His mother was trying to tell him some thing, but she couldn’t muster enough courage. When he said, he would go to Ravi’s house, to accept defeat; she knew she had to say it then. Ravi had sacrificed his life, trying to save a small child who was drowning in the near by pond. The pond had ten victims so far, and it added the young girl and Ravi to its account gleefully.

“No sir. Let Ashwin lead the side” – Mukesh replied to the PT master who asked him to lead the school side.

“But Why?” – asked the PT Master.

“Because I am yet to win the challenge” was the reply.

PT Master did not understand, but definitely he was not the last one, not to understand. His club manager, ranji team mates, and now the Indian Public all of them were confused and could not understand when he is refusing captaincy; but he knew his friend there in heaven would understand and that is all that mattered to him.

“There are certain things in life more important than hundreds and captaincy” – he would say to the press the next day.

A beautiful love story (Short story)

2008-02-14T17:00:00.000+05:30

NOTE: This story is purely a work of fiction. All characters in this story are imaginary characters and any coincidence with the real life characters (especially me) is purely coincidence. (This note is especially for my friends)

“I have known that there are various ways for proposing love. The Tamil films show the N number of ways for proposing love. Through SMS, through phone, through letters, and in “Anniyan” film Vikram, proposes through application form sort of letter, and in some other film, an actor proposes love through mike in the library. I forgot who he is” – She went on speaking.

“Its Karthick”- I said.

She then continued, “I never had ever thought, that some one could propose through a story. I was just stunned to read the story. I really don’t know what to say.” The story I had written and given to her was still in her hands.

We were sitting opposite to each other in the electric train that travels from Chengalpattu to Chennai Beach. It was 6’0 clock in the evening, and outside was quite cool thanks to the slight drizzle. The scenic beauty outside was simply amazing in such a climate, and normally I would have been looking outside thinking poetically about the Nature’s creations. Today however I was not looking outside as another beauty of nature’s creation had my full attention now.

The train has just started moving from Vandalur station, and a young chap selling groundnuts got in the moving train quite dangerously. Her eyes which were following that chap, now turned towards me. I tried to find whether her magnetic eyes would reveal anything going inside her mind, but my mind reading skills had abandoned me in this crucial time. She didn’t let me worry about her response for a long time.

“You have conveyed your feelings in such a fascinating way. I wish even I could do the same. But then I don’t have such a talent. So this is all I could do” – saying she wrote “I too love you” in her beautiful handwriting below the story. I couldn’t believe it. I never expected that she would accept it. If some one had said that I would get a girl friend one hour before, I would have probably laughed at them. In fact I met her just forty five minutes ago.

Forty Five Minutes Ago:

I was standing alone in the Paranur railway station. There would be big crowd normally during this time if it had been a week day. Today was a Saturday, and hence I had to travel with out my usual friends. I felt very bored and irritated. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have any book also in my hand. My watch revealed that it would take ten more minutes before the train would finally arrive, i.e. if the train came on time. I know standing alone in Paranur; it could be a very long ten more minutes.

“You are Subramani, right” – a sweet voice disturbed my thought.

“Ya I am” – I don’t think my voice stumbled so much even when I attended the infy interview.

“I have read your stories in the bulletin board. They are too good” – her sweet voice continued.

I had received so many positive comments for my writings in the bulletin board itself. I had even received some mails praising my stories. And the friends I had got during the training in Mysore, but now in different IBUs have praised me, when ever they came across me in the food courts. A stranger praising me in the railway station is some thing I never expected would happen. I would have loved to talk to any person given my loneliness, and if that person is going to be a beautiful girl like her, I have no reason to complain. Life is so good.

“The last story where you wrote about the …………….” She went on speaking about my stories. I don’t want to lie that my attention was only in her speech. If I am going to explain her beauty you may think of it has an exaggeration. The way she combed her hair with her beautiful fingers, whenever the gentle breeze disturbed her hair, the way she adjusted her ‘Dhupatta’, and the way in which she logically analyzed my stories, some thing within me said that “Subramani, She should be yours”.

I never believed in Love at first sight. I had made fun of all those Tamil films where the hero falls for the heroine, just after seeing her. Now I know I am doing exactly the same. Some thing in her made me fall for her. Don’t ask me the reasons. I won’t be able to explain.

The train sound disturbed my thought. “Why the hell did the train come so soon”- I wondered. The ten long minutes I was talking about earlier flew like ten seconds. I was worried that she might get into the Ladies compartment. Nevertheless I said “You got to walk little back for the ladies compartment”. “No probs. I would get in the general compartment with you. I need to talk a lot with you” – I don’t know how I controlled myself from jumping up and down in the station.

Inside the train, I wanted to talk so much to her, but words failed me. All I could ask her was her name, which college she studied, and some other stupid questions, and some third persons looking at us might have thought I am conducting some interview. I felt so bad; I didn’t know how to impress a girl. For some guys, it comes naturally, but then not for me.

“How long you take to write a story”- she saved me as when it comes to talking about the story, I can talk to any one.

“It depends” I said, “Sometimes it takes even 3 days, but some times I even finish it off in half an hour”.

“Can you write a story for me now?”

“Sure” – I replied as though I am expecting such a request.

“Sorry for asking an Instant story, like an instant coffee. If you have some other work, please feel free to say it. I don’t mind” she said.

“I don’t have any other work” – I had already started writing the story in few A4 sheets I had.

She did not disturb me. She seems to have understood that the only thing the person wants while writing a story is loneliness. I don’t like people peeping into my stories before I finish it, and thank God she didn’t. When I was about to finish the story, She asked “What sort of story it is?”

“Love story” – I replied.

“You had never written a love story before- at least you had never written it in the bulletin board before”

“Ya, this is my first love story. I just wanted to try something different”

I finished off the story and gave it to her. She arranged the papers in her hand and started reading the story.

PS: Are you wondering, what story I wrote and gave, that made her accept my love. Are you wondering how did I propose my love in that story? Do you want to read that story? If your answer is Yes, if you badly want to read that story which made me propose my love indirectly, if you want to read that story that made her accept my love, then READ THIS STORY AGAIN.

Story within a story (Short Story)

2008-02-14T16:58:00.000+05:30

“She had read that story twenty five times so far.”

After reading the above line, did any feeling arose in your mind? Did you feel angry, depressed or irritated?

I am sure you would not have got any feelings. “That was a very simple line. How do one get angry or feel irritated on reading such a simple line”, might be your thought now.

Now, I will tell you a story. After wards I will again say the same line and ask your reaction. Let’s read that story now:

BLACK DOG

If you can catch the electric train to Gummidipoondi from Chennai Central and get down at Minjur and travel four kilometers inwards, you will reach a house near a small private school. That house is in festive mood today- the reason being the birthday of Mahesh – the only child of the house.

After the tiring birthday celebration, during the course of which he would have gained few kilos of weight thanks to the countless sweets eaten by him, Mahesh now sleeping next to his beloved Grandma decided it’s the time to ask for birthday gift from his Grandma. He had already got a beautiful bicycle from his dad and a remote controlled toy car from his mother.

“Grandma, I want a puppy” he asked. Grandma was not at all surprised. She knew her grandchild’s interest with pets for a very long time. So he was expecting to be asked for such a gift from her grand child right from the morning.

After Mahesh slept off, Grandma slowly went to the back side of the mouse. There lying in the cold was a tiny black colored puppy, that due to some genetic deformity looked so bad. Grandma poured of some milk for it. The mother of that puppy- a street dog- had died after delivering six puppies including this one, after being hit by a speeding lorry.

Few days later, Saroja, middle aged women in the neighborhood came to meet grandma along with her ten year old daughter. She used to come to see Grandma often to share her problems- mostly to complain about her drunken husband’s cruelty. That day, however she had yet another reason for coming. Her daughter wanted to have a puppy, and she had come to take the motherless puppies lying in the house. Grandma asked Saroja’s daughter to select any one of the puppies and take it to their home. “Take anything other than that black one. It looks bad” was the first comment from Saroja. After some selection dilemmas her daughter ended up with the white one with few brown spots near its neck.

After Saroja, came people in neighborhood one after one, each selecting their favorite puppy, and all that remained there was this black one, which thanks to its ugliness was rejected by all of them. “From tomorrow, it would be Mahesh’s pet”, decided the grandma.

………………………………

A year later…........

…………………………………

“Blacky” called Mahesh. Blacky was the name given by him to the puppy gifted by his grandmother to him. It had been one long year, and Blacky had become his close companion. He had taught it to play football and various other games. Blacky had grown up into an obedient dog that simply loved its master Mahesh.

“Grandma, I want to celebrate Blacky’s birthday like we celebrate mine”, said Mahesh. He remembered Granny saying that Blacky was born on the Independence Day.

“Sure, why not” said Grandma.

“We got to buy cakes, candles and all those things” – Mahesh.

“Okay” – Grandma.

“For my birthday, Ramya and Suresh (his cousins) come. In the same way, I want Blacky’s brothers and sisters to attend its birthday” – Mahesh.

“We don’t know where are its brothers and sisters” – Grandma.

“You have said to me earlier that Saroja aunty, Rajappan uncle, watch man uncle, Renuka’s mother are those who took and went Black’s brothers and sisters. We can go and ask them”, said Mahesh.

Grandma was astonished at her grandchild’s memory power. She was happy that he remembers so vividly the details she might have said casually long time back and she readily agreed to his plan. The next day Mahesh set out in the morning with the purpose of inviting the brothers and sisters of Blacky for birthday celebrations.

After few hours, Mahesh was back to the house but the happiness in his face was missing. He was at the verge of crying. His grandma’s question of “What happened” opened the floodgates for the tears as they came rolling down.

“Saroja Aunty says that the puppy dies long back. Rajappan uncle said that the puppy ran back some where. The watchman uncle is the worst. He says he doesn’t even remember taking any puppy from our house. Why they are so irresponsible? I feel so sad for those puppies” – Mahesh said all these things still crying.

Grandma tries to wipe out the tears from his face. “Don’t cry child” She tried to pacify him. Blacky came there at the moment from some where and stated licking Mahesh’s legs.

“Thank God, they did not take Blacky. Otherwise even he would have ended up suffering” saying this, Mahesh hugged his pet.

“Thank God, Blacky was born ugly, and was rejected by those who don’t deserve him” said Granny.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

The above story was lying in the bed. In the bed, a twenty eight year old lady was sleeping. She was dark, and her face had spots all over thanks to the chicken pox, she had when she was young. This story was written by her close friend, and he gave it to her, after she was rejected by the first prospective bridegroom citing her lack of beauty. She felt confident after reading the story. From then, when ever she feels upset after prospective bridegrooms reject her one after one due to the same reason, she reads the story.

Now I will tell the same line, I told in the beginning:

“She had read that story twenty five times so far.”

If only it had rained for some more time .............. (Short Story)

2008-01-29T16:10:00.000+05:30

Today, Hindu Newspaper Headlines :( January 25th)

“Youth killed as Bus run over him- Yet another victim due to lack of subway”

Time 6.00 Pm Indian Standard Time: (January 23rd)

Have you heard of Nairobi before reading this line? If your answer is yes, any one of the three points given below should be true.

1) You should have been recently memorizing the capitals of all countries as you are fancying your chances in taking part in some quiz competition.
2) Your favorite subject in school should have been geography.
3) You must be a cricket fan.

If you are wondering what a cricket fan has to do with cricket, then since now and then cricket matches are being played in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, I felt cricket fans would have heard of this capital city in the Dark Continent. And today one such cricket match is all set to take place in Nairobi – a one day international between India and Australia. The match should have begun by now. In fact it should have begun at 2.00 Pm Indian standard time. But rain in the morning meant that match had to be delayed. With the cricketers sitting in the dressing room trying hard to avoid looking anxious and with the sports channel covering the match telecasting some old matches, rain God ‘Varuna’ decided to call off the rain. And the players are now all set to enter the field.

A flat in Anna nagar, Chennai, Time 6.00 Pm Indian Standard Time: (January 23rd)

“I will do it later ma” screaming the fourteen year old teenager came and sat in the sofa in front of the television set. When he said “I will do it later”, he was referring to the task of cleaning the small dust gathered in the kitchen. His mother had asked him to do it for quite few days now. But he had some how managed to keep on postponing the work. This avid cricket fan was prepared to watch the cricket match in Nairobi but the rain there meant he was disappointed. He felt irritated and kept on doing some silly things before he thought he could use the time meaningfully by doing that task, his mother gave few days ago. Just as he was about to start the work, the rain had stopped in Nairobi and the match was about to begin. So he shouted the statement in the first line of this paragraph and came to watch the match, as the dust in the kitchen remained there happily.

In the same flat in Anna nagar, Chennai, Time 8.00 Am Indian Stanard Time: (January 24th)

She was cooking in the kitchen. She had salt in one hand, which she wanted to put into one of the dishes, when she noticed that gathered dust. She had asked her son to clean it few days ago, but he is yet to do it. “He is always like this, and I cant scold him also. His Dad will immediately jump in support of him”, she thought within her mind. She decided to clean it herself. And she cleaned it too. Unfortunately in the process, she forgot about the salt and the dish went to the dining table without the salt.

He was very upset. The alarm clock had ditched him once again. He was supposed to be in the meeting by 9’0 clock. It’s such a crucial client meeting. Before that he also has to dodge the heavy traffic to reach his company “Jagadha Agro Products”, where he is the Accounts officer. With all these things weighing heavy in his mind he came to the dining table.

Few moments later, the dishes in the table were flying in the air. “Can’t even eat good breakfast” shouting he left the dinning table. With the car key playing few minutes of hide and seek with him, he left the house, with the absence of the salt in the dish serving as a very good catalyst in changing his irritant mood to that of anger.

A small rented house in Anna nagar, Chennai, Time 6.00 Pm Indian Standard Time: (January 23rd)

His uniform had been kept folded in one of the shelves. He is the bus driver in the MTC (Madras Transport Corporation). Tomorrow morning he has to report to duty at morning 5’0 clock in Ayyapanthangal Depot as he has to drive the first 17M bus leaving from there to Parrys. He usually used to sleep by 9’o clock whenever he has early morning duty, but today with the India Australia match being so interestingly poised, he couldn’t help but watch the entire match. When he finally slept after the presentation ceremonies were over, the time read 11.30 Pm in the clock.

Jagadha Agro products, Vadapalani, Chennai. Time 9.00 Am Indian Standard Time: (January 24th)

His eyes were very reddish due to the lack of sleep for the past few days. How could he get to sleep when he has so many problems? He needs fifty thousand rupees immediately. He had lost the marriage jewels of his younger sister and he is yet to inform the parents about it. He couldn’t even think what will be their reaction, if he says it to them. He had tried getting money from many places, but he was not able to. At last one of his friends said that his relative who is working as a accounts officer in Jagadha Agro Products has agreed to lend him the money. He is waiting for him. The receptionist has said he would be here by 9’o clock usually.

He saw him, his friend’s relative coming. He went and stood in front of him and said “Sir”.

As you know he was already late for the meeting and in sense of anger caused due to lack of salt in his break fast and felt very bad when this guy came and disturbed him as he was rushing to the meeting and shouted, “What man! Your eyes are so reddish. Did you really lose your sister’s jewels or you drank with the money you got by selling those jewels. If I had been in your place I would have committed suicide by now. Get lost. ” To be fair to him, he did not really mean it. His mind was filled with frustration and he just wanted to let them out. So next minute he said “Okay. Come in the afternoon”, but then he was not there to listen to it.

He was walking slowly along the road. He felt very dejected. He was crossing the road, when the words “If I had been in your place I would have committed suicide by now” started to echo in his ears. He saw a bus coming fast towards him. He decided enough is enough. He went and fell in front of the bus.

That bus was 17M. The driver of the bus had slept late last night and it is taking its toll now as he is driving his second trip. He saw a guy falling in front of the bus few microseconds later due to the drowsiness he had. That few microseconds was all that mattered. The bus ran over him.

END:

A stranger standing there remarked, “These MTC bus drivers are always like this. They drive so rashly”. His friend countered it, “I don’t think the driver is at fault here. What can he do if some one goes and falls right in front of the bus”. Another person who came down from the bus said, “This bus driver was driving very rashly right from the start. He was about to hit an auto just few moments before”.

Each one was giving their reason for the death of that guy. As we saw earlier, The Hindu cited the lack of subways as the reason for his death.

But only us, who have read the entire story know that, if only that Accounts officer had not got angry, if only the driver had applied the breaks few micro seconds earlier, , if only the driver had not felt drowsy, if only the Accounts officer’s wife had put the salt in the dish, if only the driver had not felt drowsy, if only the Account’s officers son had cleaned the kitchen the day before, if only the driver had slept at the correct time the day before,

If only in Nairobi, which is thousands of kilometers away from Chennai, it had rained for some more time.

Suicide (SHORT STORY)

2008-01-22T16:02:00.000+05:30

I went and stood at the end of that long line. There were around two to three hundred people in front of me and I felt that it may take around two hours. Nevertheless I decided that I got to do it today. I can't postpone it, especially after all those things I had to undergo yesterday in my home - No I can't call it as my home any more after all those things that happened.

I decided to spend the time standing here usefully, by conversing with a eight year old girl, who is standing in front of me. I wondered when was the last time I had an conversation with a stranger.

"Whats your name" - I started off.

She said some thing. I was not able to understand it. These days they keep such crazy names to the kids. She did not seem to be too much fascinated to converse with me. But I decided to continue it any how.

"Why are you standing here"

"My dad scolded me"

"You should have went to Court"

"I went, they said scolding is a right punishment for disturbing him when he was going out with his Girl friend....." - Then she started using some words that should not be used by a eight year old kid.

I wanted to continue the conversation, but couldn't. In this TWENTY FIFTH century, where life is being dominated by 'Telemessages', we have even forgotten the basic "Speech", which has in the first place distinguished man from other animals, that are extinct now.

By the way, I am yet to say, why am I standing here. I thought you would know it. In this Twenty Fifth century, where we get every thing (when I say every thing, I mean every thing) right from Wife to groceries just by the click of the button, the only thing for which we need to stand in line is to commit SUICIDE.

Even Suicide used to be very simple before. But only last year, the World Leader decided to scrap Online Suicide and also announced only one Suicide camp would be open per city. He made this decision in order to some how increase the population, which is drastically reducing. He thought at least the prospect of standing in a long line would deter people from committing suicide. But for people like me, it is never going to be a deterrent.

Government officials forced some E-Papers into every one's hand. It would be some crap about "Why we should not commit suicide" - Yet another policy of World Government to reduce Suicide. I started reading it, just because there is nothing else to do. I wanted to kill time some how, before I could kill myself.

It contained a Twentieth century story. "John was sleeping in the cot waiting to die. He had taken poison just few minutes ago .................". The story just continued. I was wholly absorbed in it.

After I read the story, I felt bit of struggle with in my mind. The lead character of the story had no special talents. He had so many problems. And by luck he was saved by his next door neighbor as he was trying to commit suicide and he went on to achieve greater glory. On the other hand, I have so many special talents. I have even received Special Awards from World Science Minister. I have very few problems. Why should I commit suicide. My mind was oscillating.But I had to decide fast.

The girl in front of me had entered the suicide building. In thirty seconds, She would be converted to ashes in the 'Nuclear Chamber". I had to decide soon.

I made up my mind. I will Live. I will attain Glory. I went out of the line.

Just then the cop, who was standing there shouted "What the Hell are you thinking. You stand in line and then leave away. Why are you just trying to increase the length of the line. Do you have no other work".

The cop is just a C grade officer in Government. I am a A grade officer, and he has scolded me, that too in Public. What is the use of Living here after this.

I went and again stood in that LONG LINE.

Some practices in marraiges here

2008-01-18T16:17:00.000+05:30

Why is it that very loud music (Nathaswaram, drums etc) are played during marriages here?
Marriage is believed to me one of the most important and happiest moment in a person's life. (Though few may differ with the usage of adjective 'Happy'). Hence it's essential that both bride and the bridegroom and their close relatives and friends get to hear only happy words during the occasion. But then thousands of people attend the marriage and they will have their own conversation going with their friends and during the conversation some words may come up, which could upset the bride/ bridegroom during the time of the happy occasion.

Imagine some one talking in the cellphone angrily saying "Get lost, you will never succeed in life" and bride/ bridegroom gets to over hear that. And it is also practically impossible to request/order all those people who have come to marriage to refrain from using those words. Hence in order to make sure that those words never reach bride/bridegroom, so that they can continue to be in high spirits, loud music is played during marriages.

Why is that marriages are not allowed to take place during the Tamil month 'Marghili' (from mid December to Mid January)? In ancient days, most of the people are farmers. And here in Tamil nadu, the major harvest is done during January, and December to January is supposed to be the busiest month for the farmer. And in those days, marriage means a very long affair, that took up a long time. And if a marriage was scheduled during the busy period, it would cause inconvenience to all those concerned. Relatives would find it very difficult to come to attend the marriage when they were needed to be present in their place looking after their crops. Hence marriage was not allowed to be held during the month of 'Marghili'.

"In Western countries, marriage is between two individuals, in Eastern countries marriage is between two families".

BEST MOVIES(???) OF THE YEAR 2007

2007-12-31T17:07:00.000+05:30

Merchant of Death:

Stars: Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi, Keshubai Patel, Media.

A typical masala movie .The story line was simple. At the beginning of the movie, the major villain Sonia Gandhi, Media, Election commission of India every one seems to be against the Hero ‘Modi’. In fact the film starts sensationally with Sonia describing Modi as the Merchant Of Death” and the media showing flash backs of 2001 riots. Later with the other veteran BJP leader Keshubai Patel and other BJP rebels also joining hands with the villains, and exit polls predicting defeat to Modi it seems the Hero is struggling. But as typical of any masala movie, the Hero makes a massive comeback and defeats every one and delivers a famous dialogue “I am a CM always, for me CM means Common Man”.

It was a very impressive performance by Modi, who has played a hero role. This is his second movie, after the first movie “Gujarat riots” in which he acted as a villain. In fact his public speeches in the film are full of fire. The dialogue writer deserves a special round of applause. The major villain Sonia Gandhi fails to impress us except in the first scene when she calls Modi “the merchant of death”. The comedy role is being played by Union minister Kapil Sibel, who tries to defend his party leader Gandhi through out the film from Election Commission for her Merchant Of Death remark, although every other character is being over shadowed by the awesome performance by the Hero.

The story line is very good, but there are two confusions at the end of the movie, 1) Did the hero succeed because of development or because of Hindutva or because of the mixture of the two and 2) Are the senior BJP leaders happy or sad at the hero’s success. The Director promises there will be a sequel to the movie in few years time with the base place being changed from Gujarat to India, but before that film he has to clarify these confusions.

2) Right Combination:

Stars: Mayawati.

Yet another masala movie similar to that of “Merchant Of Death” but the lead role is played by leading heroine Mayawati. The film begins with Mayawati trying to find a right balance of caste mixture in laboratory so that she can win her elections and she finds the right combination , FC+SC. She experiments it in the elections and wins it quite comfortably. In fact she comes in almost all the scenes of the movie, that sometimes we tend to feel that she is the only character in the movie. Nevertheless we never get tired of her and a brilliant performance by her. The movie ends with she saying that the experiment will be performed in larger scale through out the country, and one has to wait and see whether she will able to give a hit that time too.

3) Indian Juggernaut:

Star: Indian cricket team.

The movie begins with the Houses of the Indian players being hit with stones after world cup debacle in West Indies and ends with the Open Bus Drive in Mumbai after Twenty 20 success. The film has everything that the average audience asks for. The climax in which the Indian team defeats the arch rival Pakistan in the final of the Twenty 20 world cup is the best climax one has seen in recent years. There are various poetic moments in the movie like the one when Yuvraj hits Broad for 6 sixes in a over after the verbal dual with Flintoff and the producer seems to have been very magnanimous in spending for the last scene of the movie where the team gets a heroic reception back home. Over all, a typical sports movie with lot of masala.

4) Neighborhood chaos:

Star: Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sherrrif, Musharaff.

A tragedy movie with the base in Pakistan, the film has bombing scenes once in every five minutes. The movie begins with the Benazir Bhutto, the heroine giving a TV interview where she says, she doesn’t fear death, and ends in her funeral. In the tragic script with very high violence, the director tried to introduce few comedy scenes towards the end of the movie, when the Pakistan Government said that Bhutto died because her head hit some part of her car, but it looked very artificial. Nawaz Sheriff performed his character role superbly, although when he cried so naturally after Bhutto’s death, no one was sure whether it was because of her death or for the fear for his own safety.

5) Who Killed Him?

Star: Bob Woolmer, Jamaican Police, Pakistani Cricket team.

A thriller inter woven with cricket world cup, with the Jamaican beauty in the back ground. With good screen play, this could have been a block buster movie of the year. When Pakistan team lost to Ireland and few days later Pakistani Coach dies, every one in the theatre sits up expecting a brilliant movie. But sadly the directors ideas seemed to run out after those initial scenes, and at the end of the movie , no one including the director seems to have any idea as to who was the culprit. The Jamaican police played the major comedy role, giving one reason every day for Bob's death. Through out the movie, no one has any idea whether the Pakistani team is an innocent or a culprit.

6) Deal, Deal:

Star: Manmohan Singh, Communists

A super hit comedy film of the year. The greatness of the movie lies in that there is no story. There is some thing called nuclear deal, which the director does not explain what to the audience through out the movie, either because he feels they will not understand or because he himself did not understood it. Through out the movie, Manmohan singh wants the deal to be signed and the communists does not want it to be signed. Director maintains a delicate balance and no one really finds out whether they are friends or enemies till the movie ends. But together they run a company called Indian Government and third character called BJP looks in anticipation when ever they fight hoping that their company will collapse, so that they could get the company but unfortunately they end up dejected at the end of the movie. No one knows what happened in the end of the movie, but the comedy played by the communists in the movie is appreciated widely by every one and people just went to the film to relax after the hectic day at office.

7) Karnataka thamasha:

Star: Devagowda, Kumaraswamy.

Yet another comedy movie. In contrast to the previous movie, there was a story in this movie, but it was too complicated that no one understood it a bit. Nevertheless the movie was single handedly supported by the comedy actor Mr. DewaGowda. His son Kumaraswmay also tried to play his part in the comedy, but he was no match to his experienced father. Father – Son show saved the movie from being utter flop.

8) Nandhigram Killings:

Star: Budhadev, Mamta Banarjee

The movie was a interesting tussle between Budhadev and Mamata set up in Nandigram. No one until the end of the movie could find out who was the hero or the villain, and the director needs to be congratulated for maintaining the suspense. But the movie had lot of violent scenes, with the record number of rape scenes too, and bit of comedy too with communists wearing police dress during the mid part of the movie.

9) Doctor treatment:

Star: Ramadoss, Karunanithi

The film is set in Tamil Nadu, and Ramadoss played the role of a comedy hero who opposes any scheme brought by the CM Karunanithi. The climax of the movie sees a brilliant verbal fight between Arcot Veeraswamy , Karuna’s associate and Ramadoss. Ramdoss’s son Dr.Anbumani also chipped in with his comedy role.

10) The Great Family War:

Star: Karunanithi, Azlagiri, Maran brothers.

A family sentimental movie. The movie begins with the entire Karunanithi’s family happily singing a family song. But soon the problem begins. With Maran brothers trying to gain popularity over Karunanithi’s sons, ever violent Azalagiri turns even more violent. With Madurai literally burning, Karunanithi feels his sons are more important to him than his niece’s sons. As a result serious of highly sentimental scenes follow , and the film ends up with the Dayanithi Maran losing ministry and Kalainjar TV being launched. Best sentimental movie of the year.

Familiar but cruel story

2007-11-24T15:44:00.000+05:30

"We will not tolerate this any more" - Prime Minister Dr.ManmohanSingh and UPA chair person SoniaGandhi.

"This is a result of the minority appeasement policies of the Government which is always soft on terrorists. - BJP leaders and other NDA partners.

"Breaking news: Terror strikes again. Attacks in ________ (Hyderabad/ UP/ Mumbai) claims the life of innocent citizens" - Flash news in Major English news channels in India.

"Oh! God, so many people died mm " - The reaction of most of the public in India, before changing the news channels to continue watching the cricket match or the serials.

---- Familiar story, isn't it. Ya these things are said every time some terrorists strike some parts of India killing innocent people. No one knows what these terrorists intend to achieve. Even the Indian intelligence services seems to have no clue. Time and again the only thing they tend to discover is that the terrorist apparently had some links to Pakistan. Great discovery indeed, discovery that a common Indian makes the moment he sees some terror related news. May be perhaps that is the reason why, terrorists this time around sent an Email saying that they are in no way related to Pakistan. And again great discovery was made by the Indian Police- "The contents of the Email may not be true. It might be just a smoke screen" - Discovery which again every average Indian could have made.

By the way, i was wondering just what the terrorists are achieving by this. Any way what they are doing is not affecting India , it seems. Of course the only change they make in the lives of ordinary Indian is that they force them to listen to barters of complains by the various political party leaders against each other for letting the terorists to do such a thing. Other than that an Indian seems to be not affected too much, right.

No, on outside it may seem so, but wait a minute and look closer. When you look deeper you will find out that some people have died. For country with hundred billion population, death of few individuals may not matter much, but for the family with five members? What if the innocent victim of terror happens to be the lone bread winner of the family. Then the family not only faces an emotional crisis but an financial one as well. Even the loss of a limb, hand and other such things that happen in such terror strikes may result in those unfortunate families having to go through lot of crisis.

This is the exact reason why these terror attacks hurts me more. Next time when you see an terror related news in an news channel, just imagine for a moment what would have been your reaction, if one of the victim was your blood relative. It may cause you a few sleepless nights. But don't worry. Those few sleepless nights wont harm your health much. Rather it would help in creating a society which is deeply against any terrorist activity, which is exactly what we want if India needs to develop as a terror free country in Future.

WELCOME TO INDIA

2007-10-15T17:35:00.000+05:30

India is now hard trying to sell its brand in the world. From the land of tigers and snakes , now the world is seeing India as a country of great hope, as a country that has innumerable software engineers and has country that is fast changing the dynamics of the world.

Now more foreigners are visiting in India, not just to visit the Tajmahal and other historic monuments, not just as CEO 's to oversee their companies overseas operation in India, but also to get trained here in software field. Even our batch ( I am undergoing training in Infosys) has around twenty such people from US.

I would like to share few real incidents that one of them shared with us. When one among them was walking in the streets of Bangalore, one police man had approached him and said "Hi you are from US, you must be having lot of money, Why don't you give us some?". I felt terribly bad as an Indian, when i heard that. What sort of image India will get? What he will tell about India once he returns to US.

It is relating to corruption, I could understand that at least because we all know India is in fact very corrupt. But the next incident that he said shook me a lot.

He added that he and his friends (he is White but some of his friends were blacks from US) went to one bar in Mysore. Only foreigners go to that bar. The blacks were refused admission into that bar and they also said only Whites are allowed inside that bar and even Indians are not allowed inside. This guy fed up with that racial discrimination, said that if my black friends are not allowed in, neither I'm coming and returned back without entering.

He dint say anything, but his look after narrating that incident seemed to be asking, " How the hell do you permit people to deny entry for your own people in your own country". When US government denies visa to few of our people we get upset. But then inside our own country , there are these establishments ,which deny entry to the sons and daughters of the soil.

Is it fair? Is it the image we are going to provide to foreigners visiting India? What is the use of our tourism ministry spending so much for advertisements, when at the end we are giving to provide such an poor image of our country.

Let's do something immediately about it. We can't attract tourists by just showing ads, please every one of us understand that.

BLOG AFTER A LONG TIME

2007-10-10T18:18:00.000+05:30

Few days ago , as I was watching Sun Music, there a female caller was talking to teh person conducting the program. In that program, when the anchor asked her where she will take her mother in law during free time, shje replied spontaneously that she won't take her anywhere, and also unleashed a barrage of remarks on the negatives of her mother in law. When the anchor asked what if her mother in law see this program, she proudly said that she was currently in a village where the sun tv does not come.

Agreed in almost every house there will be differences between mother in law and daughter in law, but then is that a issue that needs to be shared in a mass media? Can a person who speaks so bad about her own mother in law in front of virtually the entire world, can be a good mother?

In the same program, she later said that she has a young child. I pity for that child.

Was The Tamil Nadu Government Fair?

2007-05-30T12:59:00.000+05:30

In the shoot out incident at Virginia Tech, US, the death toll included the 51 year old Indian professor of civil and environmental engineering, namely G.V.Loganathan, and the entire Tamil nadu was shocked to see that one of the Tamilian was killed in a brutal incident across the other side of the globe. Each and every one of Tamil nadu felt as though one of their family member has passed away. The Media's continued telecast of the grieving relatives of the professor increased the people's sympathy towards the family. Every one in Tamil nadu prayed that his soul must rest in peace and asked God to give the confidence to his wife and daughters to face the rest of their life without him.

When we move through the life of the deceased professor, it is seen that he hails from a small village in Erode district of Tamil nadu and had worked hard and earned a place in IIT, one of the premier institutes of India. Giving due credit to him, we ought to state that for the greater heights he achieved, many people need to be praised, including his teachers during school days, who transformed the young mind from rural areas into an intellectual one fit enough to study in IIT. We also need to remember the many IIT professors and we the people (Remember, the Indian Government gives huge subsidy to IIT, (i.e.) our tax are being utilized by those studying in IIT) are also responsible for him achieving greater heights.

But some how the deceased professor felt it would be better for him to teach US students rather than students from his own country. I have no problems with that. He has every right to decide where to work. The professor also felt for some strange reasons that his body be buried in US and not in India, which contributed mostly to his success. Again I have no problems, as every individual has a right to decide where he needs to be buried. Immediately after his death, the Tamil Nadu Government took steps to make sure that his relatives received passport immediately and visas without much delay. I appreciate that on the humanitarian grounds that a family which is already struggling with the fact that they have a lost a close one was not put into much more trouble.

But then the Government decided to sponsor the entire travel expenses of the family members for their travel to the funeral. It is where I disagree. Why has the Government decided to spend the tax money of the people (every one, even a beggar pays 50p as sales tax, when he buys a soap) to sponsor the relatives from attending the funeral of a person who must have been earning more than what most of people from Tamil nadu earn, who studied with the help of tax payers money but did not want to repay it and who did not want even his body to be buried here?

At least if he had died due to fault of the Government of India or Tamil nadu, we could understand Government helping them as a compensation. But he died due to the fault of the US government , the country he seems to have cherished so much that he wanted his body to be buried there. If any Government had to pay for the expenses, it should have been the US government, not the Tamil nadu government.

There are so many villagers, who help us to get food every day and serve us in what ever way possible, and at last die due to various factors like lack of proper treatment in Government Hospital, lack of proper transportation facilities in the villages to transport the ill, etc. But when those people die ( here the Tamil nadu Government is actually responsible for their fate) the Government does not give a single paise for their funeral. I know many families who literally beg so that they can do their last rites to their deceased family members. Worse still, in most of the Government Hospitals they don’t allow the people to take the corpse out of the hospital unless they pay the bribe to concerned people. Is it the equality our constitution teaches us?

So the moral of this incident: If you want the Government to help with your funeral, get all possible help from India as possible and then go to abroad and don’t serve your country. If you want the Government to neglect you and worse demand bribe to take your corpse to your home, you stay in the country, work hard and do what ever little you can do for the country.

JAI HIND

SUN - THE BEST FINANCE MINISTER?

2007-05-02T21:31:00.000+05:30

Most of you would know the mechanism of rain formation. You would have studied about it in the science books of your primary schools. Any way let me again take you through the mechanism of rain formation.

Three fourth of the earth is filled with water. But most of the water is present in a salty state in ocean and hence not useful to the humans for consumption. Here is where the almighty Sun comes to our rescue. The sun absorbs the excess of water from the ocean through evaporation and then pours them down in the lands as rain. The rain helps every one in the world, whatever be their race, religion, language, customs, culture, etc.

Imagine what would happen if the sun does not does this activity. The excess of water in the ocean would be wasted and we the people would die due to lack of water. Imagine what would happen if Sun decides to absorb all the water in the ocean, rather than absorbing only the excess if water from the ocean? The ocean would dry up, marine animals would die, the eco system would be upset, and the world would cease to exist. But the Sun absorbs the excess of water from the ocean in the right proportion that the life in earth continues to survive.

Now compare the excess if water in the ocean to the excess of money in the hands of rich. The Government should act like a sun in that it should absorb the excess of money from the wealthy in the form of tax and distribute it to all sections of the society, without showing any partiality due to their religion, language, race, culture or customs. The government should also follow the other Golden rule of the sun, that if all the water of ocean gets absorbed, life in earth would be upset. In the same way the Government should tax the wealthy in such a way that only the excess money gets absorbed. If this rule of sun is followed by all the Governments, it would result in happiness and prosperity.

PS: The views expressed in this article are not my novel idea. These ideas are derived from the works of an unknown Tamil poet who lived around two thousand years ago. So it would be helpful for our Honorable Union Minister for Finance if he could replace some of the economics books in his shelf with the Sangam literature books.

Long Live Tamil!

Temples And Exams

2007-04-22T15:50:00.000+05:30

Going to temple just before exams is a trend now a days, more so before important examinations like public exams. Many people ask a query, "Will the God help you, if you don't study anything and then go and ask God's blessings in the last minute?". Ya I do agree. God may not help such a person.

But what about the student who has studied well. Will going to temple before the exams would be of any advantage to him? The answer may differ, depending on the beliefs of the person. But my answer is YES, the person will benefit. Don't feel that I am saying this just because I believe in God. I will give you some scientific explanation to prove that a student who goes to temple regularly before exams will benefit from it and score better marks.

1) Scientific experiments conducted by psychologists suggest that, if we say some thing for many times, it increases the probability of that thing happening. That is if you say "I want to get good marks in the exam, I want to get good marks in the exam" every day, it increases your self confidence and there by increases your probability of getting good marks. This is exactly what you do in temple. You say to God every time "Please help me get good marks" with at most sincerity and belief e very time you go to temple. Applying the same principle here, your probability to get good marks increases with visits to temple.

2) "Students who study seriously, often neglect regular exercises and proper diet. As a result they get into trouble during exam days in the form of sickness or disease"- says many famous doctors. But in today's fast paced world, students never get time to do any exercise. When they go to temple, they are supposed to walk around the temple once or thrice, thus they get proper exercise. Some of the 'Prasadams' like 'Tulasi' offered in temples also helps to keep the disease away. Thus the visit to temple serves to keep the students fit without their knowledge, and thereby boost their performance in exams.

3) Meditation improves concentration. Hence it helps to concentrate better in studies. This is the fact accepted by many educationalists. Very few students could afford to get a quiet room alone in their house to do meditation. On the other hand, when they go to temple, they are supposed to sit in the temple for some time in silence just before they return back. This provides a proper setting for meditation at least for few minutes and helps the students to concentrate better in studies.

4) Due to the extreme pressure students face just before the important examinations from all quarters including parents, teachers and other well wishers, they study virtually twenty four hours, few days before exams. Every person would agree, students would preform better, if they take a bit of break in regular intervals, relax and then study. It will help them to study with more energy and determination. Whenever you ask the students to relax, most of them immediately switch on their television sets or start playing video games. I am sure, even my atheist friends would agree that going to a temple would serve as a better source of relaxation then watching television or playing video games. If they go to temple during the time they take break, they not only get time to relax themselves but also derive the above said three benefits.

My first essay

2007-04-15T09:06:00.000+05:30

I did my first creative writing when I was around six years old, a essay on 'Bus', written in my mother tongue, Tamil. When ever I just come across this essay of mine, while my mother arranges the old trunk boxes, I congratulate myself for the logical mind I had even when I was so young. Frankly most part of that essay, written in a yellowish paper which is at the verge of being torn now, deals about the external appearance of the bus, uses of the bus and the other such silly things that excites a six year old. It also has a small diagram of a bus drawn in crayon. But what excites me most about that essay even today is one particular paragraph.

Before I write about that paragraph, I need to give you some information. In those days, the buses in Tamil nadu were run by different transport corporations, depending on the district in which the bus runs. Each transport corporation had names of famous personalities, kings etc, and the names were painted in bold letters on either side of the bus. Now there are only few transport corporations in Tamil nadu and they have their names of the cities in which the head quarters of the transport corporation is situated. (eg, Villupuram transport corporation.) The names of the personalities were replaced by cities names, since the people belonging to every caste wanted the names of the famous leaders of their caste to be given to transport corporation, and it led to lot of chaos and the Government could tolerate it no more.

In those days, the buses in my district were run by Dr. MGR transport corporation, named after former chief minister of Tamil nadu.( the fact I did not know then). The buses in Chennai were run by Pallavan transport corporation.

Now lets read the translation of that paragraph:

"The buses in Chennai were named after Pallavas, who were the kings of areas surrounding Chennai (as I had studied in history). The buses running in my village are named after Dr. MGR. So I think Dr. MGR must have been the king of areas surrounding my village."

My logical thinking (!!!) had converted the chief minister of Tamil nadu to the petty king of my village. Any how I still admire my creativity at such a young age and look myself in the mirror with pride.

read my diary

2007-01-04T22:50:00.000+05:30

HI ,

I request every one of you to read my on line diary when you have time. In the blog I would continue to write abt my views on important issues but to know more about my day to day acticities visit my online diary at

my diary

BYE BYE 2006

2006-12-31T19:33:00.000+05:30

Bye Bye 2006,Here Iam going to list few Subramani Awards for 2006.

BEST SOMERSAULTS OF 2006:

Scientists have already proved that humans have evolved from monkey. But our politicians are taking extra efforts to prove the same to us by their action. Their somersaults on their policies are much more frequent than the somersaults of monkeys. Here is my three best somersaults performed in Tamil nadu politics in 2006.

a) Sarath Kumar: "Supreme Star" said in April that when he dies only DMK flag will be on his corpse, only to join ADMK a month later. If that is not enough his wife, Radhika Sarath Kumar was expelled from the party, and her reply was that she never joined the party. Sarath Kumar also resigned from the party, and now he is thinking about starting a new party, how ,many more somersaults will he do in 2007, only God will know.

b) Vaiko: Starting the year with a vow of removing the "Fascist" Jayalalitha regime, he aliened with "anbu sogothiri" (lovable sister) Jayalalitha and at the end of the year he is doing all that is possible to save his party from being split.

c) Kalignar Karunanithi ( Satellite city): Honourable Tamil nadu CM said in assembly that he has considered all possible issues and said Satellite city is the best possible solution to save Chennai. Very next day he cancelled his plan after some fierce opposition from the Pattali Makkal Katchi.

INDIAN POLITICIANS BEST ENEMY OF 2006:
Indian politicians never join hands. If congress supports some thing then BJP will oppose it, and if Congress and BJP support some thing then Communists will oppose it. The only person whom all the parties opposed unitedly was the Indian cricket team coach Greg Chappel. Hence he receives this award.

BEST COMEDY OF 2006:

After all the things that happened in Chennai during Mayor election, including Booth capturing, Voters being threatened, Election Officers attacked, Rowdies being released in Bail, the Election Commissioner of Tamil Nadu said barring few incidents the election was peaceful. Journalists some how managed to control their laughter, but i was not able to when I saw that statement in news, hence it gets the best comedy of the year.

SAD NEWS:

I wanted to end the year 2006 with a happy news, but unfortunately I have to end it with a bad news. The bad news is that From the next year 2007, I will write blogs more frequently.

BYE BYE 2006, WELCOME 2007

KING MAKER

2006-12-05T06:53:00.000+05:30

Im writing a blog after a long time since I was bit busy with my exams.

So I decided to start my blog after this break, by writing about a great personality. He is also my Favorite politician and one of the best Cheif minister Tamil nadu ever had. He is none other than Tamil Nadu's former Cheif Minister Kamarajar.

I will just tell few instances of his life which would be a great lesson to all the politicians today.

Once the Congress leaders approached him before the elections and asked his permission to shoot a video flim potraying the Government's achievements. He asked how much it will cost. They said it may cost few lakhs. He immediately replied that if he had so much money he would rather build few more schools than waste them on video. He also added that serving people is Government's duty and they should not advertise doing that. In todays world, where the politicians give marks to themself, every politician should know about these things.

The another important thing is that he never interferred in the workings of IAS officers even when it affected his own party men. He always believed that Officials should be allowed to do their work if the Government needs to function properly. There are so many other things that I could say, I will do that in the future posts.

As of now, we can only hope that we will get more politicians like him at least in the future.

FEW CLARIFICATIONS

2006-11-09T04:33:00.000+05:30

After reading the comments to my last post, I felt that need to write a post clarifying my views more clearly on the reservation issue.

1. I'M NOT AGAINST RESERVATION TO DALITS OR ANY OTHER OPPRESSED CLASS: I don't want the reservation to be revoked completely to the oppressed class for the following reasons.

a. Dalits were being oppressed for 1000s of years.
b. Even today Dalits are facing many problems in rural areas, like they are being denied to participate in temple festivals, they are not allowed to come into houses of so-called upper caste Hindus, they have separate glasses in tea shops and worse still, in certain Government schools, the dalit children are being forced to sit separately from the rest of the class.

2. I DON'T THINK RESERVATION BASED ON ECONOMY IS POSSIBLE IN INDIA:

Many have aired their opinion that reservation could be based on economy. But I don't think its completely feasible in Our country, where only 2% of the population pays the income tax. Therefore we will not be able to assess the economy level of the next 98% properly. Moreover even the 2% who pay the tax very few pay it properly ( Mostly workers in Govt, Public sectors and Private enterprises, who have no other option any way) So reservation based on economy,although would be a ideal scenario for reservation, is not realistic enough to be achieved in India at least for now.

EG. Sonia Ganhi, has filed in her election application that she doesn't own a car and only has around Rs.10,000 in cash. Hence if reservation is based on economy, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka, and their children and the children of many politicians, who according to their election application are very poor will get the reservation benefits, whereas most of the middle class people will not get any benefit.

3. WHAT DID I ACTUALLY TRIED TO CONVEY IN MY LAST POST?
I tried to stress that, if the really deserving and poor dalits living in rural areas have to get the complete benefits of reservation, then the creamy layer among the oppressed class needs to be removed out of reservation.

I will once again give a much simpler example to remove any doubts in your mind.

Assume in 1980 there were 5 dalits, A, B, C, D, E. All of them took the Medical entrance examination. Assume reservation for dalits is 20%, i.e one in every five. So only one among this five could get a seat based on reservation, and A got based on his higher mark among the other five, and become a successful doctor, where as the other 4 B,C,D,E remained in their villages and were poor.

Now all of them had 1 children namely A1, B1, C1, D1, E1. Logically A1 would have studied in best possible school and best possible coaching institute, whereas the others would have managed to study only in Local Government schools. Now again these five students take medical entrance examination and only one of them could get it based on reservation. 99% A1 will get it because of reasons so obvious to us. Thus poor Dalits will continue to remain poor. So by taking creamy layer out of reservation, I suggest A1 could be taken out of reservation, and he could compete with other students in Normal seats, and could still become a Doctor, if he has enough talent. On the other this would facilitate one of the four, B1, C1, D1,E1, to become a doctor, thus one more dalit family will become improved.

SOME THOUGHTS ON RESERVATION

2006-11-02T04:33:00.000+05:30

Last week, as I was just browsing through the channels, I listened to one of the most honest confession ever made by a Indian politician, in my recent memory. The person was Naqvi, one of the few Muslim leaders in BJP. He was speaking about terrorism.He said,

" When our Founding fathers of Constitution included Reservation, they also wanted a definite time period for it to come to end. But today, no party has the braveness to talk about that period, including my party."

________________

On this note lets move on to the recent Supreme Court Judgment on the Creamy Layer. In Tamilnadu, Dalit leaders like Mr. Thol. Thirumavallavan, leader of Dalit Panthers Of India, is protesting against the Supreme Court Judgement. I'm quite sure that these sort of protests would be going on now in all parts of the country.

I will now give you an illustration.

In the heart of the city, there was a big Hospital. The cardiologist who was working there is a Dalit, who got to such a post through reservation. He has gone abroad five times, his family has dinner at five star hotel every week end and is only son attends the best school in the city. He also attended all the coaching classes possible by the best of the institution in the city. In the medical entrance examination he scored 90.25%.

Around 200 km away from the city is a young coolie, who is a dalit. He is a registered member of Dalit Panthers Of India. His meagre income is not guaranteed every day, and many a nights his family has to go to sleep without a supper. His only son ( he has five daughters) studies in a Local Government school that has no teachers for many subjects. Since he has to take care of cattle in the evening he doesn't attend any tuition's. Still he some how manages to study hard and always come first in the class and at the end of it ,manages to get 90.24% in the Medical Entrance Examination.

Medical counselling is going on and there is only one seat left, that too in the SC Quota. One of these two students can only get. We say by taking the creamy layer out of reservation that student from village should get reservation. The so called Dalit leaders say that Creamy layer should not be removed and the Doctor's son should get the seat. Its time for you to think who is really wanting the Dalit to improve, and who want the Dalit to remain as they are now, so that they can use them as a Vote bank for years to come, never having to worry about the Time frame that our founding fathers of Constitution said about.

TERRORISM

2006-10-19T21:03:00.001+05:30

HAPPY DIWALI

Diwali is said to be a festival of lights. Purana's say we celebrate Diwali , as per the wishes of Narakasura, a ASURA (evil person) who was killed by the Lord Vishnu. Thus Diwali symbolises the death or destruction of every thing evil in this world. This need not necessarily mean the death of evil person, but it also may be the death of evil thoughts, practices and so on.

One of the most prominent evil prevalent in today's society is the TERRORISM. As we are celebrating the festival of lights, its time we think of millions of our brothers and sisters, all over the world, be it in Kashmir, Mumbai, London, New York or Iraq, who have been pushed into darkness because of this evil. As we celebrate Diwali, by bursting crackers, eating mouth- watering sweets and watching special movies in Televisions, let each of us spare a moment to think about those unfortunate victims of this omnipresent evil. I, on my part would like to remember them by recalling a poem I wrote when I was studying in the twelfth. Three and a half years has passed since I wrote that poem, but the effects of terrorism has been in fact more prominent now then three years ago.

TERRORISM

Terrorism: It fills the World with terror
And People mind with horror;
Say the word Terrorist: People will run with fear,
Women and Children will shed tear.
Terrorists may say various reasons
To justify their act in all Seasons,
Either in the name of a Religion,
Or to get freedom for a region,
But the result is the death of Innocent Man,
Who don't know, why they are shot with gun.
Oh! God, We are like petals,
Please save us from the gun made of metals,
Teach these Terrorists about peace,
Otherwise they will tear this world into piece.

Hope at least by next Diwali there won't be too many houses in darkness mourning their beloved ones who have lost their life to this evil TERRORISM

DREAM CAME TRUE

2006-10-15T02:33:00.000+05:30

They say the happiness woman experience just after giving birth to a baby child can't be expressed in words and its so special that one has to only undergo it to appreciate it. I think the same can be said about seeing ones story being published for the first time. It gives such a great happiness that cant be put into words. I'm in such happiness today.

My 100 word short story, or rather than calling it as short story, it could be called as a coffee break story, titled "Cricket", has been published in a famous Tamil magazine "Ananda Vigadan", dated 22.10.06, on page no 131.( Its available in shops now) . Although this story is definitely not by best, nevertheless it will occupy a special space in my heart as this is the first time my story has been in print. Its really a honor for me that my writings has came in the same issue that also has the writings of leading writers like Sujatha.

So my dream has came true, I feel I have to spend some time to thank all those who played a major role in it directly or indirectly.

1) MY grand ma Jagadhambal: Most of us grow up listening to the bed time stories of Grand ma and I'm no exception, but then my grand ma was a very good story teller and most of the time she narrated her own stories. When she said those stories she said only the happy moments of her life, that when I'm young i thought her life has always been happy, only to realize later from others she suffered so much in life and she has been careful enough to say only the positive things to my young mind. This positive thinking of her has always inspired me a lot. She can read English news papers and every day she read Tamil news papers and she also helped me read Tamil books early in my life

2)My parents: They are so special, they never forced me to read any books, but whenever I needed any books they always brought and gave me. MY house will resemble a mini library an I always thank them for incorporating this good habit of reading into me. They let me read whatever book I want to read. And without them I would not have been what I am.

3) My sister, D.Jagadeeswari: She always asks me a lot of queries, and just 2 answer her queries I have read so many books. She has a distinct knack of encouraging me and we share such a special bond in spite of our 8 yr difference ( She is studying in 8Th). Iam really thankful to God that He sent me such a good sister.

4) All my uncles, aunts, cousins and nieces ( including my dead uncles) : My relatives have always been a source o strength to me. They have motivated me all along, they have enjoyed my success as though they succeeded and they have helped me over come difficulties, and what not.

5) MY Friends: They are my first audience and they are my first critics too. They constantly encourage me and I would have been lazy to send this story through post, if not for their constant motivation.

6) My teachers: MY teachers right from my primary days till today in my college I have to thank each and every one of them as they played a major role in shaping me.

7) All those famous writers : who inspired me by their writings.

8) All the people who I have came across in some point of life directly or indirectly:
They might not know me but then actually, they also could have been the inspiration for my story .

Finally thank you every one for reading this long post and sharing my happiness.
I strongly believe OUR HAPPINESS WILL DOUBLE ITSELF IF WE SHARE IT WITH OTHERS

DEATH

2006-10-11T20:56:00.000+05:30

It was on 24th of july 2001, around 1.15am.

I was in a sort of semi sleep, lying in the bed. I was pondering over what happened few hours ago, at 10pm to be accurate.

At 10pm I had a severe leg pain, the reason for which was the march past I did that morning. I always hated march pasts, but that day I was forced to do it by my physics and Road safety Patrol Sir. ( I was in Eleventh then) Just then My grand mother came to my rescue. She always loved me so much and I spent most of my child hood with her rather than my mother. She massagged my legs and I felt so comfortable that I slept, only to wake up at 1.15am.

I just decided to get some water and got up, only to notice that my Grandma was calling me with a sort of discomfort. She said to me slowly that her chest is paining. I was in for a bit of surprise. The reason being, she never says any of her ailments or pains to me or for that matter to my father. She always bears the pain by herself and does all the works as though every thing is fine. ( Inspite of numerous requests from my father to stop doing kitchen works, she always cooked us delecious dishes, the previous day she had prepared a delecious fish curry) So then, when she requested me to wake up my father, I was baffled.

I, nevertheless, went and woke up my father and explained to him. When my father, along with my mother rushed to the room, she was in a worse situation. She was not able to speak and with great difficulty I controlled my tears. I suspected from my limited biology knowledge that I had, that she was suffering from a massive heart attack. After taking some tablet, she some how was able to speak. The first thing she said was " Please take the children to the other room. They may be afraid." (She was referring to me and my younger sister)

My father had got a taxi to take her to hospital. She was about to get in to the taxi, just then she called my mother and said, "Please every one stop bothering about me. Its nothing. Sugumar (my nick name)has a leg pain. Take care of him. In worrying about me, dont leave his legs unattended." So here is Grandma asking my mother not to worry about her serious heart attack and comparing it to nothing, while requesting her to take care of my simple leg pain as though it was a serious problem. This clearly shows how much love and affection she had for me.

She returned from the hospital the same day, but this time lying STILL INSIDE THE ICE BOX.

BIODIVERSITY IN YELAGIRI

2006-10-08T02:49:00.000+05:30

I recently had a chance to go to yelagiri, a small and non commercialized hill station, few kilometres away from Jolarpettai and Vanniambadi, and among many things that I saw there, one thing that amazed me more was the sheer variety in the Indian biodiversity. As I was visiting the place I become more and more convinced that Subjects like "Bio Diversity" that I study as a elective now in my college, shouldn't be taught inside the four walls of the class room, but rather outside them.

I got a chance to eat a variety of fruits there, some of those fruits we never even heard of in places like Chennai, and some of those fruits like guava, of which we have only eaten the hybrid varieties here. The natural taste of those fruits refuses to go away from my tongue, and I only pray to God that these fruits don't become extinct, so that even our children and grand children could get a chance to taste them.

But then is praying to God alone enough to save these fruits from being extinct. Is it not our responsibility to do something towards it. We Humans are very late entrants into this earth. There are lots and lots of species that had been living in this world for a long long time. When British invade India and treat us Indians, who were living here for a long time, as slaves we don't feel good. But is it not the same attitude that we are showing to our fellow species.

Hold On. I'm not supporting those few so called intellectuals who always fight against any development project in the name of protecting bio diversity just for the sake of publicity. I am also not asking you to open up a seed bank or a gene bank and protect those species. But then I will just say thoughts that occurred in my brain on how to go about it, and ill share it with you. You could add up if you have some more interesting comments,

a) I am not going to ask you not to use two wheelers and cars because they create pollution, but rather request you to avoid them when possible. When you want to go to shop in the next street or visit a friend few streets away, you could do well to travel by foot. By doing this you will also end up getting a good exercise.

b) Plant few plants in your garden, and if your house lacks space, do it in pots in tour terrace. Gardening is one of the healthy hobbies, green leaves surrounding your house will create a good ambiance and will also supply you with some great flowers from time to time which can be given to impress your girl friend.

c) Theme parks are not the only places where we can enjoy. There are so many places in India where we can marvel at the nature. Visit them as and when the time and your pocket permits.

d) Even if you cant do all those things you could at least mail this blog to various people so that more and more Indians will become aware of this important issue.

Cinema! Cinema! Cinema!

2006-09-28T11:45:00.000+05:30

In India, there are neither any discussions, nor magazines, nor television channels without having to do something with cinema. Although personally I don't watch cinema much, I want to go with the proverb "Be a Roman, while in Rome". So here is my first post about cinema.

Although I wanted to write about cinema, I didn't know what to write about. So I was just flipping through the channels, hoping that I will get some idea. Just then I watched a flash news in NDTV 24 X 7 , my favorite channel, that "A famous South Indian Actress Padmini died". So here I am writing my first post about cinema but unfortunately has to start it with a sad news. As soon as I heard of the news, the first thing that flashed across my mind was the film " Tillana Mohanambal", it was one of my favorite movie. Especially the song " Namlam thana" where Padmini dances to the tunes of Sivaji, will always remain etched in my memory.

Talking about the films I was watching one of my another favorite film "Ethir Neechal", starring Nagesh, the other day, when the cable service was distrupted. With the distruption of cable service being so frequent in our area, I feel it will not be long before we turn to Dish net services.

The last time when I went to a theatre was to watch the movie Gajini, along with my aunt's family. Recently my friends have been saying that " veetaiyadu villayadu" is good to watch and I should watch it. Hope I could get some time to watch it but for me books will always remain a first lover. I don't know why, but I was always more fascinated by the letters than by the films. So "Vettaiyadu Villayadu" can wait for some more time as I am ready to go to my book shelf, to explore yet another book.

PS: Our Honourable President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul kalam has not watched a single movie in the past 50 Yrs..

Yet another person with difference

2006-09-24T21:58:00.000+05:30

Once Our Honourable President Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam , speaking abt medias role said that Indian media always gives importance to negative issues. The reason media gives for that was people are intrested only in such issues. Even as I was reading a variety of blogs just to educate myself about writing blog, a girl has written about the various headlines in recent news papers and has said that they are more like entertainments, which ought to be read after a tired days at office. They are nothing else other than that. But our President was once referring to a incident in Israel, where when he visited the headlines of all news papers were about a farmer's innovative technique and not about a bombing that killed hundreds ofpersons the day before. So taking our Presidents advice as a example, I also decided to write about positive quality of some personality i like in every alternate post. I had already written about Dr. APJ. Abdul Kalam in my previous posts, and this blog is going to be about Kanimozhi, the daughter of tamil nadu Cheif minister, Dr. Kalingar.

The idea of writting this blog actually occured to me as i was watching "coffee with Anu" a vijay TV Show. In fact now a days i feel programs of Vijay TV are better than that of Sun Tvprograms . Ok Let me deal about this things in some other blog, but let me now say something about Kanimozhi. Although i dont like her father much ( not personally but i dont like some of his policies), i like her for the following reasons:

Her simplicity
Her frankness and uprightness in discussing various issues
Her boldness
Her Honesty
Her decision to not to rest on the laurels of her father but to work hard and create aname for herself in the society

In the Vijay Tv show i was referring too, one person said that DMK badly needs her to gather Female votes. I am absolutely sure she will not get an oppurtunity to read this blog, but my humble request ( Dont we who dont know even what is the weight of a cricket bat, give advice to Sachin on how to bat while watching matches, so what is wrong in myself requsting Kanimozhi, even though she may not even know that a soul called Subramani exist in this world) is that she should not limit herself to DMK. And she should not enter a politics just to become yet another vote gatherer. She definetly has more ability than that. Talking in the same show she said that she doesnt want to enter politics because she may have to make certain compromises. Therefore, i feel that if she really wants to enter politics, she should not end up as some vote gatherer, rather she should enter it with a bang and create a sort of revolution which removes the sort of compromises to be made if a person wants to enter the politics. But to expect her to enter just to get few more votes for DMK, is nothing short of foolishness. Our country badly needs a politician like her with a firm view on all issues. On the other hand, if she feels politics is not her cup of tea, she could do well to continue doing what she does best: Creating a awareness about the various problems in our counrty through her poems and articles.

Lets wait and see what she decides to do in the future

HUMAN BRAIN AND HOW IT WORKS TO REDUCE THE TAX

2006-09-24T17:42:00.000+05:30

You must have read many functions of brain. It helps us to read, write, walk, take, make love, sleep, bla bla and bla. Infact it is the brain that differentiates Humans from the other animals. Take away all the weapons that the Humans created with the help of the brain, Humans would not even be able to fight against a small cat. Whether it is eye sight, hearing capacity, muscular power, in all the aspects we score lower than our animal counterparts. But only this small organ that lies in the top of our body makes us the Supreme power we are now.

It is the brain that made Mahatma Gandhi, the great person he is. It is the same brain that made Nadhuram Ghotse kill Gandhi. It is the same brain that made Osama Bin Laden kill thousands of people and it is the same brain that made Mother Teresa sacrifice her life for the slum dwelling people of Kolkatta.

Ok , I don't wanna bore you. The fact his how we use the brain that distinguishes us from others. But what makes me wonder is how the brain performs exceedingly well for the common public, when it comes to evading tax. The same people who feel that their brain has stopped functioning when their son studying in sixth standard approaches them and asks them to help him to solve his algebra problem, do some great marvelous work with their brain when it comes to evading the income tax.

Ill give you an example to justify my comment. In a foreign country, a woman bought a car. In that country, tax for car is 40%, whereas the tax for the vehicle that carries dead bodies is 20% . She registered the car as the vehicle that carries dead bodies and paid only 20% of the tax. When the authorities enquired about it she replied that she uses it only for carrying the dead bodies. She added that she uses the vehicle to carry dead hens ( chickens) from market to home and its enough for her to pay 20% tax legally.

I could think of so many other ways by which people make use of their brains to avoid tax. But the point is that if they start putting at least 20% of that effort in helping their country, the world will be a prosperous place to live. Its time every one thinks about and reflect what one of my favorite leader Abraham Lincon has said:

" Don't ask what the country did for you, Say what you did for your country".

Person with a difference

2006-09-24T09:46:00.000+05:30

India as a country, seems to have always placed teachers in the pedestal. Famous Tamil verse places teachers just next to mother and father. We are not actually sure how much the students really respected the teachers, but at least going by what the epics try to convey, the teachers were kept in such greatness that Ekalayva was ready to sacrifice even his thumb for Dhronocharya, who actually even refused to teach him. (Was Ekalyva the first and the only person so far to learn archery thro correspondence course! Don't be surprised if SRM starts offering one soon)

I think I am deviating away from what I actually wanted to convey through this blog. Today very few youngsters respect teachers and very few want to become a teacher. Teachers are given nick names , made fun of, and all those sort of things. But then there is one person who is showing us the right ways. He is none other than our honorable President Dr. APJ. Abdul Kalam.

He had recently come to Tamil Nadu for attending in various functions. His schedule was tightly packed. He had to move from one college to another giving lectures and interacting with students and also had to attend so many functions that practically he had no time to rest. Inspite of his busy schedule, he infact found time to do two things that was not originally in his schedule, that surprised every one:-

1) He decided to visit the grave of his lecturers in a very dark night, he asked his car driver to focus the head light on the name of his lecturer written there, and stood in reverence for some time.

2) He also spent time with one of his old lecturer, who is 98 years old.

How many of us have visited our school teachers after we have passed out of our school. Don't we feel ashamed to sat that we are too busy to do it. Are we too busy than our President. Definitely not. So why don't we learn from our President.

( Our president also says that he will return to teaching once his presidential term is over. He is so passionate about teaching and shaping thae young minds of the country. In this context, even the lecturers and teachers have to learn a great deal from him)

Jai Hind and Long Live Our honorable President.