Eye for an Eye for an Eye...

[This story was published on the Deccan Herald - the link is here:
http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/Sep102006/artic134821200699.asp]

Rajendra Patel was nearing his destination; the train would reach where he wanted to go in about another twenty minutes. Rajendra felt strangely at peace; there was some stillness in his mind and his heart. He believed that he is actually coming to a logical conclusion and felt there was a closure in his life. He had been carrying a big cross for long and in tomorrow’s news paper he would see what he had lived for since that fateful 24^th day of September 2002.

As Rajendra was looking out of his window seat, he saw the town sceneries go past; He saw a family in a scooter: man, his wife and their child. In his mind, it might as well be his wife of 6 years, Sonali, his 4year old child-son, Ankit and his would-have-been daughter, Ankita. Yes, it was, until that fateful day.

The distant past:

Rajendra was moderately successful businessman; he owned and ran a small chemicals factory, that supplied finished materials to various factories around Ahmedabad and Surat – his business was growing and he had found new customers in Mumbai. He had everything that he wanted; and when his son Ankit was born, he was over the moon and he doted over him. He had recently bought a nice house in a decent neighborhood and he had made friends across all faith. His joy was complete, when his wife announced to him that he would become a father all over again. His business was doing well and his family life was content and happy. He knew he has been blessed and his cup was full; until that fateful day.

It was Sonali’s wish that they pay a religious trip to the temple; thanking the lord for all the good things in their life. Rajendra had no heart to say no to her and he himself did not want to anger the Gods, whoever they were.

So on that day he had left his factory early, had asked Sonali’s brother, Suresh, to take care of things. The temple complex had some play-area and Sonali had wanted to go early so that Ankit can enjoy a bit more than just the prayers. It was around 4.30PM, had driven down to the temple with his family; and Ankit headed straight to the Tora-Tora area, with Sonali trying hard to keep up with Ankit. Rajendra left them there and sauntered off to the exhibition hall.

As he entered the hall, he glanced at his watch and it was around 4.45PM; he had wanted to quickly finish up and then go out for dinner. Then the hell broke loose; there was big commotion and he heard blasts outside and sound of what he had assumed to sound of crackers; then he saw two people running into the hall; it appeared completely incongruous to him and his keen mind immediately realized some thing was wrong and he wanted to rush back to where he left his family; but he just did not have time; he saw one of the men take out a gun and start shooting indiscriminately; a late middle aged woman ahead of him get shot and fall down bleeding; as she fell next to him, she grabbed his hand and pulled him along with her; perhaps that’s what saved him; Then he saw the two men run out of the exhibition hall towards the play-area; he desperately wanted to run ahead of them and ensure that no harm come to Sonali and Ankit; but the lady who had grabbed him was over him and had held to him tightly and there was no way he could have done it; in what appeared a short-time, he saw uniformed men come in and quickly and forcibly evacuate people who were alive and carry out the injured.

The next few hours and then days were a blur. He learned that both Sonali and Ankit never stood a chance when the grenade that lobbed went off just near them. He was thankful that they would have gone quickly. Once he heard about them, he had fervently wished that he was in the lady’s place and taken that bullet. He spent the few days in agony; and thought through several permutations on how he could have avoided the whole thing; he cried and anguished about various what ifs scenarios; what if Suresh had not turned up to relieve him that day ? What if he had not constantly reminded Suresh that he needed to be on time? What if he had stuck to the original plan of visiting the temple on the earlier Sunday, instead of choosing to snooze?

Over the next year or so, slowly, his anguish turned to anger and then to rage. He was also deeply disturbed on how the government and others went about; he being a sane man could see right through some of the designs of such guardians of public. He also saw similar events across the country and only found that they were being used for the politics of vote; having been one who has gone through, he felt felled by hopelessness. His sense of futility and from being someone who felt helpless, he metamorphized, inexorably, into a cold man; he had acquired something that was deep; both his parents, and in-laws just could not get through to him. Rajendra had become a complete recluse, not physically, but mentally. Rajendra’s conviction on what he needs to do strengthened, when he heard rumors around the terrorists and what they had done and who had protected them and helped them in their preparation – the preparation for the murder of his family – it added fire to his fury, that people who provided refuge and logistics to the terrorists were people who could have been part of his neighbourhood – and in his mind he blamed them for his irreparable loss; Rajendra was plotting revenge; he had sworn silently that his connections with God broke that day and he’d enter the temple of his favourite God – Bajrang Bali - only when the revenge was complete.

The recent Past:

It was nearly 3 years since he had lost his family – the first year was spent on grieving and being an automaton and going about his business; as his mental transformation happened, Rajendra had Suresh run the day-to-day business; and then the overall business itself. Suresh seemed very able and was growing his business steadily. Suresh was worried about Rajendra and had first refused to take care of the factory, so that it would force Rajendra come to work. He also had asked Rajendra to get married again – but every time, he was silently and very politely rebuffed in a way that Suresh did not feel any offence. Rajendra had told Suresh that he completely trusted Suresh to run the factory and he is going away on pilgrimages since he wanted some peace of mind. Rajendra used to disappear often from Ahmedabad and everyone would assume his visiting various temples. Reality was different; Rajendra was executing his plan: he had found dark corners in Mumbai, Lucknow and Bangalore where he could source raw materials for his plan. His chemical background was helpful and he was skilful in putting things together; he voraciously learned more about weapons of destruction – mass destruction in soft targets. Finally, he believed he found the perfect place where he can wreak maximum damage. He was also nearing in constructing his bomb. It costed him quite a bit, but he had so very well woven an intricate and well thought out story, Suresh had no idea that Rajendra was spending the money on it.

It was nearly six month since Rajendra had started execution of the project and it was now very close to fruition. He had found a mosque in a very crowded neighbourhood, which was just right – it was just right, since it had a very decrepit and a run-down, and barely surviving garage. The garage had a empty ground that was adjacent to the mosque; and nearer to the wall that separated the two property was a shell of an old car, with rust on it; the car shell was kind of planted into the ground; the years of decay through various seasons had rooted the shell and there was mound around it; in short it was a perfect place for Rajendra. His plan was almost done; he just needs to brush up some of his acting skills from his college days – a week later, he would have avenged the death of his family; its been more than 3 tortuous years; but it was worth waiting, in his mind. The fact that his plan would be executed in Bangalore, he was sure, would get it high attention and send out a message to everyone – ‘you mess in my neighbourhood, I mess in yours”

The Current Day:

It was two days ago, disguised as a drunken beggar, with scruffy and dirty clothes, with a garbage bag over his shoulders, Rajendra ambled into the garage compound and took refuge in the shell – presumably as a cover from rains – Rajendra assumed that Gods were in his favor: the unseasonal March showers in Bangalore came to his aid. The people around did not doubt his presence; it was common sight for them, perhaps. Over the night, he had expertly assembled the bomb, timed it to go in two days time; he then had ambled out of the place; later he was taking a train out of Bangalore.

Rajendra was jolted to the present; his train had stopped in the station. He checked his watch; it was close to 4PM. His revenge would be complete – the bomb would go off around 8.00PM today, the time when the crowd would be most dense; and the notice had also said the local community leader was to address a gathering in the ground of mosque. He was thousand miles away and he would read it in papers tomorrow

Rajendra was making good of his promise now; since his revenge would be complete, he was on his way to pay his thanks to the Gods – the one he had spurned over the past three years, but now its time for thanksgiving. Rajendra alighted the train, headed straight to one of the lodges that dotted the railway station area; he freshened himself up – asked the lodge help, Rehman, to get him some food and coffee. Having eaten, Rajendra headed straight to the temple.

At the temple he prayed fervently and thanked the God; he chose a silent spot and sat down to think – he strangely felt no elation and felt extremely empty. He felt cathartic inside the temple and tears started streaming down. For the first time, he seemed to doubt if his chosen path was the right one. He grieved again for his wife, his son and their unborn child. Along with them, he grieved for the lady who saved his life without her knowledge; and for her family, who lost a mother, wife and a daughter; and for hundred other such senseless losses. Amidst the stream of tears, he saw the face of the vagabond child in Bangalore who was around the mosque in Bangalore – he saw that face morph into the face of his son – that jolted him; he just wanted to get away from the temple now.

Rajendra Patel, completely confused of what he should be doing, stumbled out of the Sankat Mochan Hanuman temple in Varanasi at 6.15PM on 7^th March 2006. 30 minutes later he heard about the bomb-blasts in the temple and railway station, killing the innocent people at both places. As he got out of his room, he found Rahman rushing off towards the station, taking some blankets, whatever supplies he could lay hand on, to help the injured.

Rajendra Patel knew he was given a second life by the Gods; he just needed to decide how he needs to use; after a brief thought, Rajendra left the lodge looking for a specific place, so that he can heed his calling.

Epilogue - Timeline:

24^th day of September 2002: This was the day when two terrorist attacked Akshardam Complex near Ahmedabad and killed more than 50 people

7^th March 2006 6.30PM: Two serial blasts rocks Varanasi killing more than 20 people

7^th March 2006 7.50PM: Bomb disposal squad in Bangalore defuse a bomb in a garage in Bangalore adjacent to a mosque, based on anonymous tip received via a long distance phone call an hour earlier. It was believed that if the bombs had gone off, it would done considerable damage; and created widespread conflagrations across the country.

The Neo Barberians

Do you ever have this feeling that things around you are ever so slightly changing, slowly, innocuously, but suddenly one day you have ended up in a situation that is completely different; and you wake up and feel like you have been Ripped-Van-Winkled ?

I had one such experience a week ago. I had decided that I will have a hair-cut and as usual, paid a visit to the friendly neighborhood barber shop. My usual visit time is early mornings on a week day or later afternoon on weekends when his load is not at his peak. This time, however, I chose to go on a Saturday at 6PM – it was quite obvious to me that this was his ‘prime-time’ and he was running at his full capacity – all the three of them were busy with customers and there were two others waiting ahead of me. I too decided to wait.

…I wait; for the first time, I really look around the “shop”. There are lot more variety in magazines and news papers, than I could recall, with couple of English papers; also scattered around are must-in-every-barber-shop-two-months-old filmfare. I see he had upgraded his black and white TV to a color TV; a post-cricket match analysis was on. I watched that for a while; when those guys ‘returned to the studios’, after a bit of channel surfing, he settled for a music channel playing Hindi songs, where the VJ, with an accent, was trying to advise listeners on the ills of not having a steady ‘significant other’. I picked up a magazine and was trying to find out why King Khan felt he is not the numero uno in Bollywood, when my turn for the chair came. In response to the question from Barber #3, I told him I wanted a summer cut and settled down. Then something else caught my eye; in the chair farthest from me, barber #1 who had just finished a hair-cut, started applying some white solution on his customers face; Apparently, the customer was getting a facial. Through my hair-cut (I should call it styling; perhaps), I watched with fascination the whole process of facial – on the reflection, of course. B #3 was finishing up on the left side; then one of the phones rang; just like in the Airtel advertisement, each one of us reached for our mobile; and just like in the Airtel ad, all of us were left with sheepish grins, when the B#3 walked across to pick up his phone – a land line. He talked on the phone for a while, leaving me waiting.

In the meantime, in the adjacent chair, Barber #2 had finished the hair-cut and had gone on to the next one – it was not the usual shave – but apparently a “head massage”. He applied loads of oil on his customers head and went on to massage it, rub it, beat it, knock it in turns… it was a riveting sight to watch; I was amazed at the repertoire of services offered here; my barber returns from his call and proceeds on to finish; he asks me if I need a head or face massage, facial, shave … I reply in negative; for two reasons: I still need time to adjust and get used to this new era of hair-styling and men-makeovers; secondly, for a guy who used to go with 20 bucks to have hair-cut and then have a dosa at the nearby darshini, I’m not carrying enough corpus to buy any of the new services…

As I pay and exit, I ask for his phone number and store it in my mobile. Maybe the next time, I will have to make an appointment and actually carry my purse: I may choose to have a “make-over” than a simple summer crew-cut; got to change with the times.

Soliloquy

[This story was published in Sunday Deccan Herald under the title (linked) "Train to enlightment" ]

I was late. I had exactly about 30minutes to reach the Bangalore Cantonment station. My office was close to the Frazer town and somehow (and perhaps stupidly) I had assumed that Brindavan express would stop in Bangalore East, that was 5 minutes away. I worked in a small software company, along with 12 other guys that had a small office in Frazer town. We were all working on the next big thing that will give us a lot of fame and money; atleast that’s the dream that was dominating all of our waking time. We were working crazy hours – that typifies a start-up and set of people who are dreaming about the big pot-of-riches at the end of the IPO. I would steal hours wherever possible to get some work done. I travel to Chennai quite often, as a means to assuage my parents – they have this worry about me that I do not spend enough time with anyone other than work and still remain a bachelor, considering I will be 30 this coming Nov. Given the work pressure, I end up spending most of the time working even when I’m in Chennai; it was also perhaps my way of sub-consciously avoiding the topic that my parents always want to talk about.

I took by overnight tote-bag and packed my laptop and essentials into the tote-bag stuffed with clothes, came out of one of the rooms in the house (that was converted into an office) called out for my colleague, Rajeev, who had agreed to drop me at the station. Thanks to his skilful driving, I was at Cantonment station at designated platform just around the same time; I heard the horn of the engine coming into the distance. I got in along with the crowd that pushed me in, found my seat, which unfortunately was the middle-seat and settled down. I found that I had an old man about 65 already ready to doze off on my left at the window seat; and at the aisle seat another man about 40, very serious reading a book and not really interested in having a conversation. It suited me; I can complete the presentation I need to complete to meet a potential customer next Tuesday.

As the train started rolling out and picking up speed and once the din has settled down, I took out the laptop and the battery pack and began to work. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the old man’s interest peak up suddenly and was kind of craning to see as to what I was doing. I tried to ignore him to get on with the work. Supposedly, his patience ran out, he touched my forearm and asked,

“Nice computer, how much does it usually cost?”
“Its about a lakh”, I responded, perhaps tersely, so that I could get back to what I was doing
“That’s a lot, is it worthwhile?”
“Yes, I guess. Atleast it helps me to continue on my work, even when I travel”. I was hoping he would get the hint.
“I suppose so. I have a PC at home in Chennai”, he said.
He added, as an afterthought, “My son in the US had bought that for me”

I smiled and turned back to work.

After a brief silence, he asked, “Are you working in Bangalore or Chennai” ?
“Bangalore”, really trying to come across as terse as possible.
“My son is working in San Jose, in California. He is also in the computer line”.

I remained silent, with the fading hope that the conversation would stop; I wished I could have swapped my place with reader on my right.

“Oh, by the way, he should be your age; he passed out from IIT-Chennai in 1994; Computer Science. Where did you study?”
I lost hope of getting back to work, “Guindy”
“Why, did you not get IIT?”

The conversation went on, on what seemed forever. I lost hope and closed my laptop. If I were to be in the middle of the conversation, I wished I had gotten a seat next to that 25ish year old, good looking women two rows behind me. Hopefully, the old-man will run out of steam after the barrage and if I could answer all of them to his satisfaction.

Within the next 15-20 minutes, I had the complete life history of Mr.Vaidyanathan and his family. Mr. Vaidyanathan is retired from Railways (hence he travels in AC chair car). He has been a widower for the past 5 years. His son (name is Keerthivasan) has been in the US for the past 8 years in California. ‘Keerthi’ has worked in various companies (“They all are after him”, he had declared very proudly), had made some money during the late 1990s (“around the same time his mother died”) and has now settled down in a big company. He has bought a house in the US, and his children are beginning to go to school. His daughter, who is married to another IIT-graduate, is in the other coast in the US. Mrs. Vaidyanathan after a very brief illness had passed away in 1999.

As I was being fed with the life-history of Mr.Vaidyanathan, the catering staff had started selling eats in the train. The cutlet looked quite tasty (and now I can understand why Rajeev prefers traveling AC chair car – it meets his taste and interests). I had asked for one plate and asked the old man if he’d have one too. He did, but insisted that he pay for his own.

As we dug into the cutlet, he continued the conversation,

“What do you work on? And why is that you are not interested to go in the US? I assume for people from Guindy also get some opportunities”.

I started enthusiastically about what we do, then saw distinct lack of interest and gave the reason as to why I did not work in the US like his son. I could see that he thought my excuse was pretty lame and it was just that I could not land a job in the US.

“Where do you stay in Chennai?” I told him.

After asking more about it, he declared that he stays in Besant Nagar. “Keerthi had bought the flat for me. It has all the amenities, including park for me to walk on. He has even arranged for a cook that comes in and cooks every day”. He then went on to say more about the good things his son had provided for him and comparing as to why only the brightest and best go to the US and rest of the undeserving few, like us, have to stay back…

He was getting to me. I found the old man not only vain bordering on arrogant ignorance, he was also keeping me away from my work.

I focused on my cutlet and finished it; the old man had already finished it and something outside had caught his attention. The reader had disappeared and the seat next to me was vacant. I had decided in my mind, that in the next few minutes, after dumping my used paper-plate, I will come back and clearly tell the old man that I have some work to finish and hence I cannot carry on with the conversation.

I got up, took my paper plate and asked the old man, if he had finished. He nodded. Wanting to optimize, so that I don’t have to get up once again when he wants to dispose his plates, I picked up his plate, went towards the toilets, dumped the plates in the bin (or what seemed to be one), and washed my hands. Dreading to go back, I stood near the door for a while, looking at the scenery, as train was about an hour away from Jolarpet.

10 minutes later, I returned to the seat; the reader was back and so was the old-man. The reader was back into his reading. As I eased into my seat, I found the old man lost in thought and face turned away. Perhaps he wants to doze, lucky me, I thought. I took out my laptop and opened it with a prayer that I am left alone…

Damnit, I thought; the old man touched my left forearm again, and tentatively called “Mr.Karthik”. Impatiently, I turned to look at him. What I saw was different, the old-man seemed completely subdued, completely devoid of bravado and I could have sworn that there were tears in his eyes.

He said, “What you did was very very touching, not many people do that”.
I was not sure what he was pointing out, but mumbled, “I did nothing”.
“No, no, not many people really do this – you cleared my soiled plate. These days even paid servants don’t do these. The last time someone did that to me was when my wife was alive. Mr. Karthik, you know, to the outside world, it looked like everything has been taken care of. There is one thing that never gets taken care of…”, he trailed off.

Realization struck me. I closed my lap-top; put it back in the tote-bag. Mr. Vaidyanathan no longer appeared to me as a proud and vain human being – just an extremely lonely old man. Perhaps I should give him something that he misses very badly, some companionship, atleast for the next two hours.

My IPO-riches can sure wait another 2 hours, perhaps another 2 days as I spend the weekend with my own parents...

God's Own Country

It is nine and I’m bored, to death,
I’ve had my six-pack of cold froth;
For this day, I’ve bent my daily share of rules,
Pushed around these cops and bureaucratic fools,
Some for a fee and some for free
Who shiver at the mention of my great daddy.

Let me pick my gun and collect a few friends,
Get down to the bar at towns end,
In my Beamer or my SUVee,
Maybe knock down a few men -
Who'll miss a couple, in a billion and ten?
I’m God, freeing those poor bastards from hunger and pain
From their lives, so sorry and so in vain.
I’m God, no one dares to touch me,
Or he faces the wrath of my great daddy.

By the authority vested in my daddy and in me,
By the constitution of my great country,
Yes, I will just go have a ball,
Drink, be merry, may be shoot a Lal
And walk away scot-free,
Invoking the name of my dear-daddy,
In this fine land of freedom and liberty!!
(that’s just scripted right for me...)

The Ideal World

Kadir (alias Kadirvel Kuppuswamy) was almost falling asleep; he was in his office, a police station. He was the Sub Inspector; Given that that the Inspector of the station, Kannan, was under suspension for a month, until an enquiry against the inspector was complete, made Kadir the lord of that police station. Kadir appeared as if he had no opinion on the case against his former boss; if he had he held it within himself and nicely disguised it. Kadir, in fact, was very happy where he was in the hierarchy, until his inspector got suspended; he just had to do things that were told to him, did not have to take decisions, leave his work at 6PM, go home to his loving wife, Thamarai and more lovely 8yr old daughter, Aruna. He had no ambitions and was very content with what he was doing; the police uniform gave him some respectability and Kadir also ensure that he stayed clear of visibility and also trouble. The town’s setting was perfect for him – a very small town – Ootangarai – it was a non-decrepit town with one main-street running through it with shops and a few hundred houses on either side of the main road. It was, essentially, a bigger village trying to be a town. The primary profession of the town being farming and the Brick kilns; the bricks produced in this town were sent to nearby bigger towns of Krishnagiri and Thiruvannamalai and then out. The word out on the streets was that his inspector did not want to get into pay-in along with his Deputy Superintendent of Police of that district with the local rowdy-sheeter, “Sengal” Maran, who ran a small illegal operation in transporting of the bricks, which gave a neat profit for him and to the DSP and the inspector before Kannan came to the station. Kannan was young and an idealist – Kadir found Kannan to be a new kind of police man that he had not come across in his 11 year old policing career; he came to respect Kannan for his stand and began to help him out, in his own subtle, but none-too-obvious ways. Kadir’s world came tumbling down, when Kannan was suspended for a month on some trumped up charges; Kadir’s disappointment did not stem completely from Kannan’s suspension; he regretted a bit that Kannan was not successful; but he was more apprehensive that he was in the driver’s seat and will need to take decisions when need arises.

Today afternoon was trifling hot; drowsy and the summer air was dry and stifling; the ceiling fan made more noise than it was circulating air. He had returned about half-hour ago after a good lunch at home; as usual Thamarai’s had made tasty lunch. It has been nearly 15 days since Kannan’s suspension and Kadir had gotten away without having to do anything major; he was just counting days – may be he would take a week of sick leave. With nothing happening, Kadir was almost falling asleep; when the jarring telephone ring woke him up. It was the DSP on the other side…

“Ennaya Kadir, Thoongi-ittu irrukiya” (what man, Kadir, you sleeping ?)
“No sir, Yes Sir, Good after noon sir”, said Kadir, getting up from his seat and trying to get it right.
“How are things? No problems at the brick factories ?”
“No sir, everything is fine”

DSP continued, “Looks like that Maran fellow is creating some problems, one of his fellows would come and meet you, talk to him”. Kadir could not fathom what kind of trouble Maran was creating – not sure if it was real trouble for the town or trouble for DSP.

Kadir started, “Yes Sir…”, and realized DSP had already finished the conversation and had disconnected the phone.

Kadir had exactly dreaded this situation. The DSP has put him in a quandary, he was sure; the same kind that sent Kannan packing home, He wished he had listened to Thamarai and had gone visiting his in-laws in Pondicherry. Although Kadir did wish away, the inevitable happened; in the form of a man, who introduced himself as Kumaran. Kadir noted that Kumaran had a smile that was completely out of place and without any mirth. He said he was Sengal Maran’s cousin and had come to meet with Kadir to “discuss a very important matter”. Kadir listened to him, all the time wishing he was not in the police station and be in his in-laws place, facing his father-in-laws inquisition, which seemed much bearable now.

Kumaran left and in the nutshell, the important matter he wanted to discuss was that Kadir get into the pay-off with Maran. Without Kadir’s in the chain, things will not work as smoothly as it could, since some locals may actually file a complaint. Kadir can make a neat packet over his monthly salary and be happy; Kumaran concluded, “inspector-saar” – Kadir was about to correct him that he was Sub-inspector, but let it pass, “everyone is happy, including the DSP; after this Kannan will not be in this station and you actually become the big man of this town; but if you refuse, saar, why saar simply bring about problems for everyone; including yourself”. His innuendo and implied threat was unmistakable; Kadir did not react. Kumaran smiled at him one last time and left.

In what looked anything but coincidence, Kadir saw Kumaran in his street in the evening when he was reaching home – Kumaran had flashed his sinister smile at Kannan. Late that night, Kadir was still thoughtful about what had happened that day; he had absent mindedly gone through his dinner, pensive. Post dinner, he stepped out of his house into the small garden for a smoke (after a long time), sitting in a cement slab, lost in his thoughts.

Suddenly he felt his daughter Aruna, tugging at his hand. She had tears in her eyes; behind her was Tamarai, smiling proudly.

“Appa, I did something bad today”
Kadir stayed quiet, but gently pulled his daughter to sit next to him in the slab.
“Appa, in school today, when my class-mate, Latha was away, I had taken away her pencil and scale, appa, Without her knowledge, appa; and brought it home”
Kadir continued to look at her.
“Appa, amma told it was a wrong to steal somebody else’s things. I am very sorry appa. I will give back the scale and pencil back to Latha and give my ‘sorry’ letter to teacher. I will not do this again, appa. I'm very sorry...”, she trailed off, looking at Kadir, with frightened eyes...

Kadir was overwhelmed at his daughter’s talk and tears. At that moment, his adoration and love for his daughter grew, as he gathered her in his arms and hugged her tightly, reassuring her…
…and instantly, he knew what his answer to Kumaran and Sengal Maran will be.

The next day at the station, Kadir called Kumaran and got into Sengal Maran's pay-off along with his DSP. He loved his daughter too much to see any harm come her way.

Till Death Tears us apart...

Vijay Thakur is going through tough times. He has had nothing but a horse that was in his last leg, in fact all its four legs were in their last leg. But he got to make do with what he has, if he has to reach his love of his life, Lakshmi Kumari. He had no kingdom to swap for that horse., but he did swap his fathers (unknown to him, ofcourse) expensive television and his scooter for the horse and some money. He knew Lakshmi’s father had forbidden that she could not meet him; ever. But he had challenged that an old man can never stop his true love; and here he is on the horse, the only thing that could take him through the ravines of Hambal to Lakshmi’s village. He knew he had to be very cautious; he had just fought a gang of 10, who perhaps were sent by his would-be father-in-law to break his every haddi; they did succeed a bit, but when they tried to steal his horse, it was last straw on Vijay’s back – he “un sabko apne naani yaad dila diya”. As he passed through the ravines, he heard gun shots and suddenly the bullets whizzed past his ears and one even nicked his hand; but that did not stop Vijay from drawing his gun from the rucksack he had, looked directly into the sun, see the famed dacoits of Hambal and shoot each one of them. Funnily, as the dacoits were shot, they fell in somersaults; and some even fell in a way that would have put Greg Louganis to shame. Having warded them off bravely and one of his hands bleeding and his throat parched, Vijay Singh Thakur galloped on – on the horse that saw so much action that it forgot it was on its last leg; Vijay was tantalizing close – far away he saw Lakshmi running towards him in a slow-motion… On cue, his horse collapsed, he was now on the plains that separated him and his love of his life and started running towards her; strangely he heard a song as he ran towards her…

Lakshmi Devi was on the other end of the plain, on a bullock-cart that was part of the caravan. She was in the middle of the caravan, and the people around in the caravan wearing colorful dresses were singing and dancing as the caravan moved forward. Earlier just before the dawn, she had gone to the terrace of her house and climbed down the wall, bruising herself badly – she knew this was just the pain she would go have to go through – the love of her life – Vijay was waiting for her. Lakshmi had plotted her route carefully through the mangrove so that none can see her; except those five ruffians from the village, who happen to be in the mangrove that time. They started chasing her; one even caught up to her; but the stray-dog she had lovingly fed came to her rescue; she escaped his paws (the kamina's and not the kutha's); and the chase re-started - miraculously she evaded all of them; but they were gaining; as it was getting dangerous for her, she heard the sound of the cowbells and creaking wheels of bullock-carts; she ran towards it; the five ruffians who were chasing her gave up at the sight of well-built riders of the bullock cart. SLakshmi thanked the leader of the bullock-cart profusely, who although did not ask as to what she was doing at this early hour, but said he consider her to be his “beti”. That was this morning; in the interim, there was a chorus song by the people in the caravan; and over fire and over brunch, Laskhmi sang soulfully about her love, pining on to see Vijay and her future life with him. All of that was coming to fruition; they were in the edge of the plains and she saw Vijay in his horse; as soon as she saw him, she jumped off the cart and started running towards him. She saw Vijay doing the same and running towards her in slow-motion. She also heard the song she sang in the morning in her, but it was the joyous version of it…

Vijay ran, Lakshmi ran; and they ran as the birds sang, flowers bloomed... They were very close – with 20 meters separating them; and in a minute, they’d fall into each other arms and live happily every after…

“Engeetham stopped his writing and read through what he had written. It looked so déjà vu and he realized that this is the story of every other movie that gets made. He shook his head and tore what he had written into two, crumpled them, threw it in the garbage and left the room to have his coffee; hopefully that will induce some creativity”

...as Vijay and Lakshmi ran, suddenly there seemed to be a big divide appearing in front of them; They could no longer see each other; a crushing-searing pain passed through them…

Beneath Hope Lies

[Punctuation of the title is left to the discretion of the reader]

Chris’ Story:

Chris was in a heavy and slow moving traffic. Still, Chris of today, had the sense to not to get impatient and do something stupid. The days of stupidity are long gone by… As she waited for the downtown Los Angeles traffic to clear up, her mind wandered off to the past.
Christine Summers was an intelligent, strong and only child of her parents – Harry and Brenda. Harry was a very bright man, with a flair for life and humor, he was very much in love with his pretty wife Brenda and both doted on their daughter. Brenda was exact opposite of Harry; she was petite, sensitive and gave way to have Harry take the lead and be a strong support to the family. Chris had inherited her father’s sense of intelligence, independence and charm; combined that with the grace of her mother, she was quite popular and well-liked child. Those were the best days of Chris’ life, as she remembers it. Then the disaster struck – Harry was killed in an accident. Although, Chris, just over 9 years then, never understood it really well, she did feel a great sense of loss – she believes even today there is a thin vein of grief that can never go away; as she saw her father every time she looked into the mirror; she finally did come to a conclusion that Harry would be an inescapable and indelible part of her life.
After her father's death, Chris began to understand how much Brenda required someone like Harry – understanding, strong and someone who will never take advantage of Brenda’s diffidence and sensitivity. Brenda tried working at different places; because of her timidity, she always was taken advantage of. One such person was Vince – he was Brenda’s co-worker in the store, became friendly with Brenda and finally proposed to Brenda; Chris did not like Vince at first sight; she could rationalize that it was not because Vince is taking Harry’s place, but believed Vince was out to exploit her mother; things moved fast, Brenda married Vince; and then things grew worse. Chris’ impression of Vince proved right – he was a smooth talker, but he looked like one who could not hold on to the job. A year after the marriage, he began to be abusive. First words, then physically; Chris started staying away from home often – sometime staying at her friends’ house; or working late hours in the store; rebelling, she took smoking and drinking when she had gotten together with bunch of high school dropouts. When Chris was 12, Vince tried to be a tough father to Chris and tried to spank her since he had caught her smoking. Without blinking an eye, Chris slapped him hard across his face, and held the baseball bat that Harry had bought her and very calmly told Vince that she would not mind smashing his head in, if he tried that with her. She actually saw Vince then to what he really was – a blustering coward, who wanted to show his strength on people who were weaker to him. As abuse of her mother grew, Chris started staying away from home a lot; only come home when Vince was not around – she tried to counsel her mother to get away from Vince; somehow that never happened. Slowly, Chris stopped going home and rarely saw her mother. She moved to a different town, continued to do various jobs, got herself deeper into crowd that was mainstream and had history much more like her. Having started smoking and beer, she graduated into drugs and became a regular drug user; in spite of all this, Chris retained her interest in reading and continued to read whatever books she came across. It was an aimless life for her, but she did not really worry about it; once in a while she wondered of how her life would have turned out if Harry was still alive – maybe she would have been the lawyer that she said she would be, but then that momentary lapsing into reason will give way to what she did. Then she once drifted into her hometown – it was nearly 5 years since she had left it; first thing she did was to go see her mother. Hearing no answer after knocking at the door several times, she went around the house, gotten through the basement window and climbed up to the 1st floor. What she saw shocked her – her mother was unrecognizable wreck – she seemed to have lost all her beauty, thinned greatly and was sprawled out in the sofa; she seemed very sick; Chris found that her mother had very high fever and perhaps over a few days; Chris’ natural intelligence took over, she put her mom in the hospital, nursed her through, rediscovered each other (and discovered that Vince had left her mother for someone else), brought her mother back home, cleaned up the place and checked herself into a detox center. With 3 months, she had kicked her habit, took up a job and went to night school, got a degree, moved to LA with her mom and became counselor at a de-addiction center – she was slowly rebuilding her life and building her relationships with her mom and some real relationship outside; She had met one of the recovering addicts – Joshua Feldman at the center about an year ago and she knew Josh’s past; and sometime saw parallel to what she had gone through.
Earlier today, she had met Josh in his apartment this morning on the way to work – she had dropped the DVD of the movie, “Shawshank Redemption”, which she has watched several times over and over – to her Andy Dufresne mirrored her own spirit. Josh and she had gone out on some informal dates and she liked the way the relationship was moving – slow and its own pace and not something that is being hurried through – like the dinner last night at Josh’s house (until the magical moment got interrupted by the phone). It seemed it was like a small plant growing, but grow it will and flower. This morning, Josh was in the kitchen and she joined him in preparing breakfast and liked the closeness. They had breakfast together; as is wont, Josh was quiet. It was time to go, as she got up from the sofa to leave she kissed Josh lightly on his lips and cheeks; Josh reached out and hugged her. She could feel the warmth of the hug and just enjoyed the closeness; Josh’s embrace was tight; she slowly extricated herself, promised Josh that she will see him in the evening on the way back from work and maybe they could have dinner together. She was now driving through the suburbs of LA on her way to meet with Josh.

Josh’s Story:

Josh was sensitive young man with a flair for arts and with a keen mind for the abstract – Josh’s life was very similar to that of Chris; except that both his very rich and very much feuding parents made his life hell; as a very young kid he hardly saw them; Josh discovered that the stories where father read stories to their son before bed sounded exactly like those fairy tales – untrue and imagined. As 9 year old he had laid awake to see his parents when the come home, with a hope of a story being read to him; only to be disappointed as they were in no state to read anything to him. As Josh grew older, he found that he had enough money and he could buy whatever he wanted including love. Quickly he found that distasteful and then switched to alcohol – he liked what his favorite drink (well, any drinks) did to him. It gave him solace and made him sleep quicker, so that demons no longer haunt him. Josh had become a good artist and he started doing small exhibitions that was well received in the community. He believed he could do well there, which was anti-thetical to his dad, who wanted Josh to get into the business that he was running; This constant pull made Josh go into depression; quickly his friends introduced him to new type of drugs and that seemed to help him out of it. Josh’s first moment of joy turned traumatic as his debut art exhibition was panned by the local reporter and agreed on by his dad; that was the first time Josh tried to end his life, but swallowing fistful of sleeping tablets with good amount of alcohol already in him. He was found in time and the doctors managed to save his life. Josh continued to do his art, although he was getting convinced that he was not going to be successful in it – he had yet another unsuccessful attempt at suicide. Then one event changed his life. What he thought would be his last attempt as an artist, his last exhibition exploring the dark side of humans turned out be highly successful and a critical success; Josh was suddenly the new talent and the toast of people who he did not even know, but who claimed to know him. As he gained name and reputation Josh also realized that appreciation of his art was the high he sought out now; and started on the road to recovery and successfully kicked his habit. Although he was completely off the drugs and alcohol, Josh still did have haunting thoughts of death and his suicidal attempts); talking about it to his psychiatrist did not seem to help and make them go away.
Things changed about a year ago; he met Christine Summers; he saw her first as she was attempting to counsel a teen-ager and was riveted by the earnestness which she worked with that young-woman. She was beautiful in her own way and carried herself with certain strength and poise; as he came to know more about her, he appreciated her for the way she treated people with dignity. He slowly felt he was drawn to her; for the first time, he believed he could have meaningful relationship with people. He had gone out with her couple of times. He was just waiting for an appropriate moment to let her know; however he had no idea of how Chris would react and was mortally scared of rejection. That was his worst nightmare. And a recurring one.Yesterday, Chris had dropped Josh from the Gallery last evening; they had a nice quiet dinner at Josh’s house – Chinese take-away. They sat later on watching a movie that they caught half-way… As Josh started to tell her about how he enjoyed her company and perhaps would have gotten to it, when the phone rang – it was Josh’s father asking about his work; somehow the magic of the moment was broken and she left. Again this morning, Chris was at home and while leaving, she had given him a peck on the cheek; he wanted to hold on to her for more; she seemed uncomfortable and slowly extricated herself, quickly told her byes and seemed to be in a hurry to leave…

Chris and Josh’s Story:

Having successfully navigated late evening LA traffic, Chris arrived at and knocked at Josh’s door, she found it unlocked. She could not find Josh in his paint-room. As she walked through, she found the bath-room door ajar; in the tub was Josh filled with water, with both wrists slashed; and a note on the counter; she read the note, sat down on the edge of the tub, broken; after what seemed hours of crying, she slowly got up to call 911; and with despairing futility, she read the note one more time – “Chris, I love you a lot, but I just cannot take your rejection. Good Bye, love you always - Josh”

Lesson From Dravid's Lesson

[I hate to be proselytizing on the blog; but I'll use my bronze bullet for this exception :)]

Dravid, as we all know is perhaps the most technically accomplished batsman in the world cricket today; one amongst the best ever and perhaps the best in contemporary. However, some three years ago, he was struggling as an One-day bat; apparently he went and talked to Bobby Simpson and asked for help. When Simpson asked him to talk about his mindset, Dravid talked about how mentally he prepares himself before every inning, taking in the cricketing environment, ground conditions, pitch conditions, wind conditions, brightness so and so forth. Impeccable preparation - no one can fault those. A standing example of how perfection and excellence could be achieved by practice and devotion to what one is doing. Since Dravid was not a big hitter, he needed to rotate the strike and run singles and twos; In spite of his technical brilliance (and poetry if I may add), Dravid wasn't able to articulate why he cant be successful at OD cricket. In the course of discussion, Dravid also explained to Simpson that he had the mental map of the environment and had the unaagi/awareness of what was around him; his peripheral vision was strong. Then came the root of Dravid's travails. He told Simpson that he exactly knew where the fielders are even while concentrating on the ball being bowled and still could not get the ball past them.

Simpson asked Dravid to make a slight adjustment. He asked him to redraw his mental map with the gaps between the fielders highlighted rather than the fielders themselves. Dravid did just that. The result is obvious. For someone who had a strike rate in early 60s those days, has now a healthy career strike rate of 70; this would mean since changing his mental map, his strike rate would be around 80+, which would be with the best amongst best, considering he is averaging 40+ in One day format...

There was a lesson in there for me here... Am I focusing on the constraints or on the opportunities. I believe (and have personal experiences) that when I start focusing on the gaps, invariably the things I've set out to change have changed. Opportunities appeared to me. When I saw the fielders, I got stuck by the constraints and invariably ended up frustrated...

In the end, maybe we should look at constraints as what they are - to do a job they are put in the world to do :), but no more. If we could have a refractible vision around them, may be there are opportunities and miracles waiting for us there - It may be worthwhile to discover, to know those; That to know that what we do can touch people, change things, in ways that we do not know or we can ever imagine…!!!

Ps: Maybe this is an apocryphal story; but that’s missing the woods for the trees :)

Of Root Canal and Cavemen

I’m on almost 180’ recliner and I don’t feel any bit comfortable.

In the past month or so, I have been having pain in my teeth. I could feel a crater had formed in the last molar on the bottom jaw and that had slowly started causing pain. The pain has not been acute, but it was always there to the extent it had become an irritant and kept gnawing. For the first time in my life, I had visited the dentist and she had said that my tooth is as good as gone and the decay has set in to the root and touched the nerve and hence I need the root canal treatment.

Hence, I’m here today reclined most uncomfortably in the dentist with a masked and gloved dental surgeon sternly poring over me, with the spotlight blinding me. In front of me was an assortment of needles, hooks, scalpel, injectors – it looked surreally part and I felt I was the recipient of an inquisition. First she ordered my mouth wide open, studied the situation with a grave disposition and then she set out to work; and did she set out to work… For the next 30 minutes, it was a combination of filing, drilling, gnawing, excavating and all that. Just a bit of digression: apparently every tooth has two nerves in them and they go to the root of the mouth. They are quite sensitive. She was successful in excavating one of the nerves; the other one seemed to hold its nerve against the invasion, which is not good news for me. Every time it was touch by the instruments, there used to be this pain – it is not searing and it is not big – but a pain that encompasses the whole jaw, more like an wholesome pain. For me, during the process, the anticipation of pain rather than the actual pain itself was more painful. She seemed to have the process set-up: drill, excavate, file and return to process – I joked with her, amidst pain, that if she drilled any further, she might even strike oil. I’m sure she enjoyed the joke behind the mask!! This went on for about 40 minutes, during which she realized that local anesthesia might actually be helpful and administered it.

Now, I’m still on the recliner and she picks up the drill one more time – I saw apparitions of Dr.Torturer in “True Lies” and I fantasized that I was Arnold Schwarzenegger. At that point in time, she had broken me completely – I was ready to confess to things that no one knew about me; Heck, I was even willing to concede that I was the second gunmen in the grassy knoll on Nov 22^nd 1963. It is in such a state of mind that she had brought me into, when she declared that we were done. I had no idea about that, anyways; Firstly, after the 45 minute drill, I was ready to believe whatever she had said and two I didn’t feel a thing or the pain, since the anesthesia had taken hold of my right side of the face.

As I exit the clinic, I wonder what would have our predecessors and forefathers have done in such a predicament – I’m talking about the cavemen. I picture that scene in my mind: A cavemen in pain with a tooth that needs a root-canal treatment. He goes out to men-only community gathering (called a stag party these days) party around the fire. Downs a lot of liquor (general anesthesia); gets into a scrap with the right person (designated dentist), gets socked across the jaw, loses couple of tooth (general extraction of painful tooth and a couple of others, that could have possibly caused a problem in the future) and finally gets clubbed over his head and loses consciousness (post-operative tranquilization). And when he wakes up in the morning, he probably has a hangover and has no recollection of the root canal treatment.

Let us see the argument on both sides here. On one side, we have the scientific method of filing, drilling, extracting, and so on and so forth. Ranged on the other side are liquor, scrap, stupor… Hmmm, let us see which the preferred option is…

I believe this is a true true example of where civilization sucks!!!

The Myth

Authors Note: (no, this is not about Mallika Sherawat)

It has been a good morning thus far – in fact, I can go to the extremes and declare that it has been a great and wonderful morning. I had woken up early and was out of the house at around 6.30AM. I had covered a good distance by speed-walk carrying some weights on a rucksack; after that had run for about 2kms and then closed it out with some real streeetchhhhhheeeeeeeeessss and stomach crrrrunches. As I checked out the results of my hard work, the stranger in the mirror was seriously beginning to look alien – looked fit, a flat stomach (with a little bit of desperate help of Mr. Tummy Tuck) and what looked like lean countenance. An irrelevant thought occurs to me: isn’t it odd that when you admire the fruits of exercise and labor in the mirror, one tends to miss the additional fat and additional chin in the face?

At work, the team had met a milestone and we decided to go out for a celebratory lunch. A few of us are at lunch in a decent restaurant; it was a buffet. In hindsight, I can trace the downfall to that. I am ok through the main-course: I am very conscious enough, just to eat a bit of roti and a bit of that buttery-tasty-rich paneer stuff. Then the disaster strikes as I move on to the dessert area. My will deserts me. The bits have become big bites, in fact long long bites. Seemingly, the amount of resistance one could have in yielding to temptation is indirectly proportional to the triglycerides that traverse through one’s blood stream and lurks for that ultimate coup-d’etat. I indulge in guilty pleasure – dive into that nice ice-cream with nuts and the hot gulab-jamun. Wow, a spoon of cold ice-cream and hot-jamuns is heaven!!!

Oh, by the way, now I know for a fact that under-wear-ad-guy-with-sculpted-abs and a washboard stomach is just a myth. What is certain in life are three – death, taxes and a tummy. Particularly for us special breed of men, who are in the wrong side of thirties; and in the 30+ zone. Yes, at 30+ 12 years, it is.

Musafir hoon Yaaron… Na Tikana…

Have you ever felt, in your life that you are running harder and faster just to stay in the same place; and sometimes even if we manage to outsmart the events and tread-mill and make forward progress, you get besieged by doubt if you are directionally correct and true-north? What if you (or the unit of the organization) are on a path that is untrodden and never been done before; and you are discovering the path as you go on it? And to the rest, you just appear to be aimless peregrine and worse, sometimes to yourself. You have a goal in mind – a generic goal, but at the point in time you embark on the journey you do not have the shape, size, color of the goal – it wasn’t something that can be touched and felt; and you did not have the enough capability or skill even to envisage what that final goal or destination would look like? How do you know that even if we get to the end of the rainbow and start digging for the pot of gold, there isn’t a note from Murphy that the pot is on the other end?

That’s the conundrum that we started with. We did not really know where exactly we were going, although metaphorically it came to be known as Tirupathi; just because the leader of our pack had a new car and went to this temple-town the previous day we met talking about where we needed to go. The vision looked great, appealing, mesmerizing and intoxicating. Its like taking the whole ship traversing south (pun intended) and to known destination with all the known resources needed to take it there and having those resources in abundance; and trying to steer it North; just because a group of people (or one) had (seemingly stupid at that time) illusory visions that South isn’t good enough. It was tough, tough, tough and if you can imagine, tougher than tough. The big problem with such a vision is when you are doing something that is out of sync with rest of the eco-system and mental make-up of this eco-system, the journey also involves changing this eco-system, atleast at touch points that impact you; so, now through the journey you have an heavier baggage to carry; In our own context, not only we needed to keep moving in a direction that we thought was correct, we needed to continuously slow-down, retreat and bring (and sometimes carry) more into going directionally north. We were in a grueling cross-country marathon, but were under-prepared and under-equipped; and as fit as an obese couch-potato. Yes, the vision looked great, appealing, mesmerizing and intoxicating and all that; but it was also bloody all-consuming and pervading – both physically and emotionally and both professionally and personally.

Some three years later, now we seem to have arrived – with the conviction in the vision as our compass; The past month, pieces have been falling quietly; I know we have arrived at the suburbs, I can see contours of buildings, semblance of order; I’ve further tangibility on what our goal is; I can clearly see the color of the goal (its not red, gold and green, simple black and white with shades of grey J…) I understand and internalize the enormity of the size, and I can see the fuzzy shape morphing into something definite. I believe those are distinct colors and definite contours are that of our vision, our dreams. I look back at the path we have come, it no longer seems strewn with thorny bushes and stones and an unseen path that we thought we were going on. I can now clearly see the path that we took; it wasn’t straight and the easiest and the shortest route all the time; the different vectors have resolved up into a significant force in one single direction – true North; seemingly opposite vectors have taught us where not to go the next time; I saw places where we have stumbled and fallen badly; but the force was with us – we have picked ourselves up, bruised but now experienced; I see the past path strewn with experiences and as an organization new capabilities; We seem to have gathered enough people on the way, who are now willing us to reach that goal; some of them are providing us with the water-stations for this cross-country marathon; some of them have cheering us on and are giving us the experience that we sorely lack; I see someone else that I did not know earlier from some other organization joining our race – he is the coach that I could not have afforded otherwise; now he is coaching us for free. This now has become a reverse marathon – fewer people at the start; more at the finish!!

We are tantalizing close – maybe this is it; we don’t know what is in store for us… Is this the final destination or merely a resting place for us to go on? Is this the Tirupathi that we started for? Are we there? Perhaps, we will know in a couple of units-of-time… I’m reasonably confident that we are there, I see all signs of it – we just need to keep going; We will definitely know when we have arrived; and arrive we will.

I pause – as I introspect, I wonder if it is still Tirupathi that I, as an individual, wanted to go? Is there an ennui that’s around the corner that will set in? Will I actually enjoy reaching the destination or will it be a let-down? Is my pot-of-gold, the destination or the thrill of traversing the path unknown and discovering the space around me and space within me? Time will tell, I suppose.

Tale-Spin

My phone rrrrrriinnggss… I pick up the phone – it was my boss at the other end of the copper. “Rahul, I would like to meet with you today sometime, around 4PM; can you make it ?”.

“Yes”, I responded and after some status updates back and forth we ended the conversation.

Before I go on, a little bit of myself. I work in a multi-national in a middle-management position. You could call me a more than moderately successful professional. I had joined another firm as the shop-floor design engineer, apparently showed a lot of promise, as I had taken some initiatives on automating the shop-floor processes. My manager liked my idea and relieved me of the shop-floor design duty and moved me into the IT department to actually develop my idea into something that they can use. A year later, after most of the bugs had been killed, the software I was primarily responsible made its debut. It was reasonably successful and saved a ton of money for the company. During that one year I had enjoyed the work and the creative energy it gave was tremendous – it was being on endorphins the whole year ! And then came the let-down – since the company itself was not an core IT company, I needed to move back to their core business or maintain their existing IT infrastructure and the application; that’s when I left and joined an IT company…

…which is where I work now. In the new place, for the past 8 years, I’ve had a successful career rapidly growing into the middle-management position. Along the lines, I developed other interests like learning keyboard and rediscovered some other like quizzing due to a keen interest in trivia and curiosity; I ensured that I had some other interests outside of work that anchored me to reality and kept my general engagement levels higher. I also believed that extra-curricular things kept my mind fresh and be able to successful at work.

For the past 8 months or so, I had developed a new interest. I had started writing – stories, musings, observations, articles and such. That couple of them were published peaked my interest and motivated me to write more. I began to read a lot more than I ever did before; particularly some of the editorials in the papers for the vocabulary and style. I started looking at people and events all around me with renewed interest and for angles to feed my stories. I started noticing strange behaviors and sometimes in office meetings looked for plot-lines than the content of the meeting itself. Sometimes I did believe that I over did it, since I had slipped up a couple of times at work on what was expected of me. My boss was not exactly happy, but he was ok I guess, since I did not see him giving me great grief over it.

I had also started giving gyaan to other aspiring writers and bloggers who were never published. There was this colleague of mine, who I thought wrote really well, but was uni-dimensional. I had advised him that he needs to have couple of more ingredients in his writings other than just tickling the humerus bone; My advice to him was that he focus on two things – that he also let his writings appeal to the sensitive and emotional side of the people – at the end of it, they should feel what he feel, be it happiness, sadness, sympathy and so on; and the reader should be transported to the emotion the writer had. The second advice was that he needs to have a ‘spin’ in the tale. Like Jeffery Archer said, A Twist in the Tale. Take the story in a direction and then spin it a bit for a surprise ending, which the reader has not had an inkling for. That, I declared, was the key for a successful writing.

Thinking about it, a new idea forms in mind – its about a well planned life going awry. I tentatively label it “Tail-Spin” and start writing the outline.

As I do that, I realize it is almost 5 minutes past 4PM, I realize I’m late for my meeting with my manager. I rush to his office and by the time I get there I’m 10 minutes late. My boss seats me across his place and shuffles through a set of papers.

He looks across me and starts off about my performance in the past 9 months. He talks about how my output has been declining, milestones being missed, the results not up to the quality of what is required and how I had messed up couple of key deliverables (if I may add around the time my stories got published) and how it had lost some money for the company and so on and so forth. I tried to make some excuses and started saying something…

He just looked across, stopped me and said, “Rahul, we have gone through this discussion a couple of times. I would really like to have your resignation, so that…”

His words trailed off as I sat there shell shocked and dazed; the irony of it all hits me: my career story is in a spin and ending…

A Tale of two Towns

Bengalooru:

Mohan Kumar felt very good about what he had done, but still was restless and frustrated. It was around 10 PM at night and he was just recapping the events throught the day. Earlier in the day, he had just posted a nothing-held-back kind of message in his company’s intranet message board. Somehow it seemed cathartic for him momentarily, until despair returned. For those who do not know Mohan Kumar, he works in Bangalore – and an assumption that he works in an IT company is correct. He has about 7 years of experience in the IT industry and has had it very good; but of late he has been extremely angry. To understand Mohan’s anger, we need to rewind a bit more.

The IT industry in Bangalore has been booming, from the late 90s. The growth has been tremendous and the employees were king. Yearly salary increases of 30% were the norm. Then the bubble burst in the US in 1999-2000; and the companies shutting down was the new normal everyday event. These events found its echo in Bangalore. The salary raises came down; and worse, certain companies whose planned business growth did not pan out, spiraled out of control down to closure. Some companies had to cut costs drastically, which translated into very little salary raises… In the company that Mohan worked for, they had gone through the exact same path: a period of nearly 2 years, where the salary raises were non-existent, with a few exceptions that covered the cream (ofcourse, Mohan was unaware of this for obvious reasons). In the past year, his company has stabilized and so looked the industry. Also the IT industry seemed that they never get back to the heady days of the 90s, but stabilizing and tending towards maturity. In ground, it translated to yearly raises averaging to be around 10%... For Mohan it came down to much less. Personally, Mohan was planning to upgrade his car to the mid-size; but with his EMI payment to the flat he had invested in and the “meager” salary raise, he just could not afford the upgrade…

…And hence Mohan’s angst.

Mohan was extremely aggravated and unhappy. He has not seen the kind of raises that he was used to when he joined the IT industry. Inspite of what he had experienced, he believed that elsewhere the picture was different than what his company was in. He had tried to change his job. From the days of “trespassers will be recruited”, the hiring criteria seemed to be more stringent. For one of the jobs that he had interviewed for, where he went with utmost confidence of being able to walk-in and the job was his to lose, he came back empty-handed. Where he was offered a job, the compensation offered was not to his expectation; Mohan felt he was being pushed into a dead-end alley…

…And hence Mohan’s frustrations.

And in his own company, his prognosis was bleak. He did not see much change happening in how the employees in general and specifically how he was treated.

…And hence Mohan’s outburst in his company’s message board (that his company has provided for the employees to post their opinions and their thoughts). He had posted as to how he and his colleagues are being taken for a ride, how the employee benefits are being withdrawn, how they are being paid pittance and finally, how they have all suffered through these times and all seems lost with no hope for redemption…

Cuddalooru :

As Lakshmi was lying down to sleep in the narrow confines, she was confused and hopeful. She had some idea of what was going around here, but she wasn’t old enough to understand it fully. Her life had turned topsy-turvy in the past twelve months.

About twelve months ago she was a happy child. Her father had a small grocery shop; although she understood that they were not rich, but they had enough to live happily – her sister, older to her by a year and she went to a government girl’s school and her brother who was very much younger to her, was going to a different school – the whole family doted on her brother. The schools were closed and she had gone with her family – father, mother, elder sister and her younger brother to a bigger town, to visit her periappa (father’s elder brother). It was holiday time and it was one of the best times she had. She had visited the zoo, saw a lot of animals that she had read only in her books about; also since her periappa’s house was very close to the beach, she had great time playing with the water. More than her, she found her brother to be really excited as any 5 year old boy would be – initially, he seemed to be scared. Lakshmi was proud that she actually taught her brother on facing the waves and how to splash water on each other. She even remembered how her she and her elder sister swung her brother back and forth holding his arms with every wave coming in pushing them out to the shore and on retreat pulling them back into the sea.

She could never forget that particular night and the next day. Her periappa’s house was next to a big church, as everyone called it. For the first time the whole family saw a building that big, lighted with bright and twinkling lights of various colors going on and off and she could hear music and singing from the church through the night; the night chill perhaps started her cold; and had to return back to the house. As the next day, they were leaving town, her brother wanted to play in the beach one last time. As she had cold from the previous night, she very reluctantly (with a tear or two) had to stay back in the house with her mother; with a promise from her elder sister that she’d bring some shells and her brother, some sea-water… That was the last time she had seen of her father, sister and family…

As she was grappling with things going around her and making sense out of it, she really was swept from one place to another place, along with her mother. Finally, both of them ended up in their Chitthi’s (mother’s sister) house nearer to their place, so that Lakshmi can continue her schooling; also initially she found that her Chithappa (uncle) was very welcome and seemed very nice and treating them well. She also instantly liked her cousin who was about her brother’s age. Also she over heard that Government had given her family some money for the loss. She found her mother getting to be recluse, not very talkative and staring somewhere, silently crying. When Lakshmi went to her, her mother would hug her but not say much. Lakshmi did not know what to do, but hug her mother, but that seemed to increase the sadness. Slowly, her mother was in bed more than she was out of it – she continued to have racking coughs. As her mother fell ill, she found that her chithappa was beginning to get ruder with both of them. One day, her mother too passed away and Lakshmi was broken; she could not go to school for a week then; one of those days, her uncle was shouting at her Chitthi about something Lakshmi’s mother had done with the money they had got. He was saying that now they have to put up with Lakshmi until she turned 18 to see the money – Lakshmi was scared, but her Chithi was still kind to her and took better care of her when the chithappa was not around. Her schooling had become irregular and around August, she altogether stopped going to school. Her Chithi too started going out to work. Her chithappa had asked to do some odd jobs around the house and to take care of her cousin, which she loved to do. Slowly, she did all of house chores and baby-sitting her cousin.

In the past 3 months Lakshmi was puzzled the way she was changing. She did not know what it was but she definitely looked different and felt different. Her Chithi made her dress differently now. However, what was worrying Lakshmi was she did not understand when sometimes her chithappa came home earlier than her Chithi, he was gentler to her, but returned back to being harsh one her Chithi came back home. Lakshmi was confused; and she used to be scared sleeping alone in the kitchen and sometime stayed awake for long. Three days ago, she saw on the TV, that a collector named Radhakrishnan was doing wonderful things for children like her in another district. It was also one year since she lost her family and six months since she lost her mother.

That night, Lakshmi remembered her family and the time they had in the big town and beach and sobbed softly. At that age, she couldn’t recognize that she was suffering, but she definitely had a hope that the collector would also come to her town and do something for her. That day she said a silent prayer and fell asleep…

Epilogue:

Thus fell asleep two tortured souls, unrelated in two different towns; one with hopeless and futlie rage in his mind; the other full of hope that the things could change, without even knowing if the worst was behind or yet to come.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be...

I've this wonderful image of one specific period in my life. This was between years six and ten. We, my parents and older sister, lived in a small town called Katpadi that is about 100km from Chennai. We had a fairly a "BIG" house (rather a LOOOONG) house, which had a passage going through set of successive rooms with another room to its right. Each rooms on the passage was designated to have separate functions by my mother. It had huge space at the back (never have gone to the rear compound for the fear of scary and creepy living things near the thicket of shrubs) and relatively bigger space on the front and sides. Whats so special the house ?
- This is where I first learned to play cricket. I used to bounce the ball against the wall, and angle the bat in a way, i had assumed Vishy plays his 'cut' (later realized its Azhars-edge-to-slip-thing)
- This house is where I found how I can change my hair style to look like 1971-6for38-at-the-oval- B.S.Chandrasekar
- Its this time, I consistently beat my sister in Chess after having learned it
- Its the time when mother grew a garden; we used to get vegetables from the garden to be cooked the same day
- Its this time, when my Sis and I used to race to the corner of the streets to touch my father returning from work; and my father as his choice would be on that day, dodge one of us to get the other to touch him first
- Its the time, when we used to have "Nila sappadu" - taking the food upto the terrace and have dinner in moonlight
- From our terrace, I used to look at the hill and small fires burning there; and get scared looking at it, since someone said thats where the 'robbers' live and they are cooking their dinner; My fear disappeared as my fascination for constellations grew and was able to recognize the the Polestar and the Great Bear...

and I can go on and on with those wonderful memories and with many more such recalls. It seemed that those images were frozen, sculpted and stored away in my psyche...

Then reality happend...I visited the place after decades recently. With some difficulty I found the house; I was first struck by the open drain and light stench from it. The house was converted into an office and it was shockingly decrepit. It definitely could do with one coat of paint or three. There were no signs of Jasmine or December flowers in the "Garden", that my mother had nurtured so carefully; The garden had remnants of thorny bushes, if that piece of barren land can be called so. And the Katpadi summer with adjoining hills was inimical and scalding hot. The house itself seemed to have shrunk in size; The whole experience was anti-climatic - a jolting disappointing let-down...

...May be I should have never tried to connect my images burned in my head with the reality now. The past is not the same once you revisit it; On the other extreme, its also possible the past was not really that pristine as we sometimes remember it to be. Its just a memory that we choose to remember...

In the end, perhaps Nostalgia is overrated; its really not what it is made out to be.