All in the game – part III

All in the game – part III

---------------------------

Anna international airport welcomed Anil with all grandeur it had to offer. He practically didn’t have any time for anything. All he had in his little suitcase were unwashed rags!! He had to run around the campus to get various things done in a very short time. But Imran looked as cool as ever even in such tense times. He arrived at the last possible moment to the airport and looked like he was going for a vacation.

As they were going through the formalities Anil asked Imran.

“Man!! How can you be so unaffected by anything around you??”

“The game does not affect you much if you realize that you are just a spectator and not a player.” Imran replied calmly.

Anil didn’t want to talk any more about it!

If there is one thing that made him look forward to the trip then it was his expectations about the airhostesses. He had never been in a flight journey before and had been to the airport just once. He had once come to see off his friend. That was when the famous “kissing the sculpture” incident took place, which was briefly mentioned in first part of this story. His friend looked the other way after the incident and Anil had to return home ruing his bad luck.

As he walked up to the plane he was thrilled by the size of the huge bird. Here is one machine which regularly transported scores of people over thousands of miles across seas through the air!!!!!!!! The enormity of the functionality stunned him.

He walked up the steps and handed over the ticket to the hostess who guided him to his seat in economy class. His seat was in a three-seater setup. As he sat on the one corner, Imran took his seat in the middle. The other seat was already taken. There was a lean man with a very neat moustache and fancy spectacle seated there. He was wearing a dark suit and looked very decent. He was more like “don’t-disturb-me-and-I-wont-disturb-you” kind of guy by the looks. He was comfortably seated and was reading a magazine.

As they settled on to their seats Anil’s heart was beating faster with excitement. He looked at Imran only to find that he was as composed as you would find him sitting in his cubicle. Being a restless chap Anil couldn’t help talking to Imran. So he said!!!

“So!! Imran, how do you feel?? aint it exciting???”

Imran turned to him with his lips expanding slightly into what looked like a smile. Then he said

“Giving in to feelings shall only leave you reeling in the end”

On hearing this, the bespectacled gentleman looked at Imran through the space on top of his spectacles and then continued to browse through the magazine. But his behaviour wasn’t the same after that. He looked disturbed and soon closed his magazine and put it aside. For a minute he looked like he was deeply in thought and then he took his fingers to his eyes as if to control his tears.

Anil who was watching all of this, felt bad for having talked to Imran. He resolved not to talk to Imran during the course of the journey, but wasn’t sure how long he could keep this new resolution.

After a while he could hear the announcement ”Good evening, ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking, please fasten your seat belts as we will be taking off very soon”

He could see that the airhostesses were helping the passengers to put on their belt. He was hoping to fumble with his belt long enough so that he can get some help from them but surprisingly and sadly there was no need for that and he got it right after a couple of tries!

As the plane took off he could feel the butterflies in his stomach. He felt the way he had felt when he got into the giant wheel for the first time when he had gone to an amusement park during his childhood. As he was struggling to come to terms with the anxiety he felt someone strongly clutching his hand. He turned to see Imran closing his eyes tightly and forcing himself to the seat. And the funniest part was that his other hand was grabbing the hand of the bespectacled gentleman who was looking at Imran with fear and confusion. Anil suppressed his smile with a lot of effort.

Soon the plane was into the sky and Anil was able to see the beautiful view of the lights from the city under him. Imran had released his hand and apologized to both Anil and the man on the other seat. While Anil acknowledged with a smile the man responded with a hesitant shake of his head. He was looking a lot more nervous and confused than the way he looked before. After a few minutes Anil decided to break his resolution and wanted to tease Imran about his fear of flight travel!!

“Hey Imran bhai!!! How were you feeling some time back??? Or should I say you were reeling !! ha ha ha!! “ exclaimed Anil

Imran who was visibly disturbed by this replied with a mild smile!!

“Feelings and Reelings are inescapable when you are a pawn in God’s dealings!!”

Upon hearing this, the bespectacled man threw a disturbed glare at Anil and Imran. He looked at his watch and grew restless as he started looking around.

Then out of nowhere he jumped up from this seat and shouted “Long live mother earth” and suddenly all the airhostesses pulled out sophisticated firearms and started pointing it on to passengers nearby to them.

At the same time there was an announcement from the speaker nearby.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your new captain speaking. The plane has been hijacked, just sit tight and be nice boys and girls and nobody will get hurt”

Anil couldn’t believe his ears. Plane hijack with a bunch of girls???

To be continued…………..

· All in the Game - part I

· All in the game – part II

· All in the game – part IV

· All in the Game – part V

· All in the Game – part VI

· All in the Game – part VII

· All in the Game – part VIII

· All in the Game – part IX

· All in the game – part X

· All in the game – part XI

All in the game – part II

The next day as soon as he logged on to the system, he saw couple of other defects logged. He had barely scratched the surface of the first one.

Just half an hour after he had been working he could feel panic setting around him. Peter looked as if he had committed some heinous crime and was seen running around as if he was trying to escape from police. After a while he was seen discussing something very seriously with the PM. Anil tried to stand up and have a quick peek at the PM’s cubicle to try to find out what was going on.

He could see that Peter was furiously arguing something and turned to Anil’s cubicle with a finger pointed to him. Anil dropped to his chair. A chill ran through him.

“The most active goose is the one which will be shot by the hunter first” Imran.

Anil ignored him.

After a while, he could see his PM and Peter walking towards him. Anil’s PM was a very busy man. At a given point of time he had an average of 10000 worries. So he never worried about any, lest he missed out on other worries. And he always required a quick KT from his immediate subordinates if he were to deal with any issue, as he had no knowledge of the happenings. As you might have guessed he had too many things happening under him, so he didn’t want to risk missing any happening by remembering the other ones!

He came straight to Anil’s cubicle and beckoned Anil and Imran to the nearby meeting room.

After entering into the room and getting seated, his PM asked.

“So how are you guys doing???”

Anil wasn’t sure what to answer. He had a strong feeling that he was going to be thrashed no matter what the response was.

“How we do depends on what we do and what we do depends on how we do” It was Imran again. PM looked at him with a puzzled expression, as he could not fully understand the meaning of the statement just like everybody else.

“Anyway, I heard from Peter that there is some small problem in onsite for your project”, PM continued.

Peter looked at him as if he done something blasphemous.

“Iam afraid it is by no means small Sir”

So saying he turned towards Anil and Imran.

“Folks! You might be knowing that there was a problem with the code that was deployed recently in production” he paused for just a moment to note the change in expression in the faces of both of them, then he continued.” this meeting is not about that”

Anil heaved a sigh of relief.

“This is a bigger problem than that”

Anil couldn’t guess!! What else could possibly be bigger than this?

At this instant Anil looked at the PM for which he replied. “Show them”

Peter carefully removed a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and gave to Imran. As Imran looked at it Anil peeked into with curiosity. It was handwritten by Sekar,the onsite coordinator and it read.

“God save this project. Me escape – Sekar”

Peter continued with his inimitable tone,”So now you know what is wrong!! We got this through fax from the onsite manager. He found this in Sekar’s desk. Sekar is missing from yesterday night. He was searched everywhere, but not found”

Anil couldn’t believe it!!

“This is totally unbelievable. How could experienced software professional like Sekar do such a thing? This statement looks grammatically incorrect. It even looks incomplete”

“I think the correct usage would be ‘I escape’” remarked the PM, who prides himself for following the “The perfect English” series!!! “I ran a grammar check on this and there were no other grammatical inconsistencies found”!!

“But that’s not the point!!!!!!” Peter intervened with an irritated tone.

“We need to find someone to replace Sekar and we need to find fast!!” he continued.

Now Anil looked very deeply in thought as if he was trying to find a solution for this problem. He had always wanted to go onsite. At least to satisfy the curious oldies who had asked frustrating questions in public gatherings! His wish turned into a raging fire when one aunty with heavy make up humiliated him on one occasion by asking “Why aren’t you in onsite yet?? Aren’t you doing any project work?” But this is too fast and also situation was too dicey.

“And we have identified the suitable resource for that” Peter said and after a brief pause the PM continued.

“You both shall leave in the next available flight and shall manage operations together. As you might know, the climate is not very smooth but we have confident in your abilities and we are sure you will do your best. The future course shall be charted based on the developments.”

Anil stood there virtually stumped. One day he was at the bottom of his career and the next day, he is going onsite.

Life is crazy. He thought.

That was just the beginning.

To be continued…….

· All in the Game - part I

· All in the game – part II

· All in the game – part IV

· All in the Game – part V

· All in the Game – part VI

· All in the Game – part VII

· All in the Game – part VIII

· All in the Game – part IX

· All in the game – part X

· All in the game – part XI

All in the Game - part I

Had decided not to post this as this was too long but have decided to post this spurred by a friend's suggestion.
Hope you wont mind!! :-)

All in the Game - part I
--------------------------
Life

Is a great enigma.

Like all great things it’s a collection of simplicities.

Its about simple sorrows and smiles with a fair bit of grievances and guiles.

For most of us it is day after day of endless insignificance.

“It is an interesting boredom”

Who said that???

Oh ! its just our friend Imran . Say Hi to him, because you might have to get along with him through the course of this story.

Sitting diagonally across to his cubicle is our poor little Anil.

He is gently disturbed from his “work” by the expression of personal philosophy from his teammate. But since he is used to the occasional “outbreaks” of his eccentric friend he focuses back to his “work” of scanning the forwards in his inbox.

As he sheepishly reviews the rare snaps of his favourite model(female , of course) he is thrown aback by the deep voice of his PL Peter.

“Anil!!!!!”

Now Anil’s PL is a weird character. He always looks serious and expresses the gravest of expressions for any situation whatsoever.

“Anil”

He called him again as if to make him ready for the news he is going to break out.

Anil looked at him with all seriousness of a LKG student who looks up to the teacher for the first time.

Peter looked around once as if to confirm that nobody is listening and spelt out the words in a deep hoarse voice as if he is acting in a mani ratnam movie.

“Production bombed”

After saying this there was an unnoticeable gleam in his face that can only be seen in the face of a covert agent who had just carried out a top-secret mission.

After that brief moment his face turned to even more serious note and it looked as if he was contemplating the idea of distributing cyanide capsules to his teammates.

But Anil was overjoyed on hearing those words as his puny mind had suggested that any physical damage to production infrastructure could only result in the extension of his deadlines!!!

“Who ! …. I mean how???”he enquired as he struggled hard to suppress his obvious glee.

Now Peter’s face grew even darker and he started to grow a little anxious.

“It’s the code we deployed yesterday”, his voice grew a lot huskier as he added,” the one which you coded”.

Anil did all he can to look apologetic. He even tried to look shameful for his mistake, even more shameful than the day he was caught kissing the decorative sculpture in chennai airport!!! He failed.

After happily noting the regret in Anil’s face, Peter continued.

“That’s ok, please try to investigate into this issue, I need to the reason for the failure ASAP”

“Absolutely!! I will……I mean….I always thought…….I think its………….”, Anil stammered. His suffering didn’t last long as peter turned to his cubicle and eventually reached there safely after dodging invisible arrows to his head.

“No other bomb inflicts the most damage like the one which never explodes” it was Imran again.

Anil slowly descended into his seat with a deep breath. He had long stopped responding to such involuntary outbursts from Imran.

For the next few minutes he tapped all keys of his keyboard crazily with frequent noises of “Oh!!!” “damn!! “ “Oh my Gooooooooooood” and a few other unparliamentary words, while carefully making sure it was audible to people around him, especially to Peter.

Then he decided to quit this nonsense and do something constructive. He locked his computer and set out to food court.

..... to be continued

· All in the Game - part I

· All in the game – part II

· All in the game – part IV

· All in the Game – part V

· All in the Game – part VI

· All in the Game – part VII

· All in the Game – part VIII

· All in the Game – part IX

· All in the game – part X

· All in the game – part XI

IT - not my cup of Tea

It was during one of the evenings of yet another mundane work day when my friend Deepak pinged me in office messenger.Now,if you know anything about CHNINK I dont have to tell you who Deepak is,but for others he is one of the most popular writer in my company's literary group CHN-INK and has written a lot of dramas and novels and has even released a book.
What followed was tiny bit of poem conversation,which abruptly stopped after i wrote something which pissed him off so much that he refused to go on!! :-)

Anyways i thought i will post it here anyways!!

IT - not my cup of Tea
-------------------------------

Deepak :
Sitting alone in a crowd with a false smile

surrounded by mindless people for over a mile

I hear the sounds of typing endlessly in a stream

Jargons spoken in a strange language out of a dream

CVR:
alone you are,sharing the same frustration

with scores of fellow robots of your generation

imprisoned inside the land of liberty

confused as to, what is the place to be

Deepak:
I walk around seeing shameless faces
scurrying around in pointless rat races
They always talk of projects and code
I wonder if there is no end to this road

CVR:
Day after day its the same old grind
failures around and reasons to find
i wonder ,will there be an end to this
to this crazy pursuit and a way to peace!!

Deepak

Deep down inside I know the truth
gone and wasted are the days of youth
I cannot sell anymore my soul or heart
I wait for the day when from IT I'd depart

CVR
But there is no gain if there is no pain
The returns make sure that you still remain
you might crib,you might rant or you might even wail
but I dont think you are gonna leave IT atleast a while

Unseen wonders

I had had enough if it. So I was relieved more than anything else when I was told that my onsite term had come to an end and I had to come back to India. I was getting sick of cooking after coming home tired after a hard day’s work. I was getting sick of burgers and the idea of having to wear shoes for going out even to throw trash. Though the charm of living in the world’s most powerful country did put a pride smile from time to time,it was fast being replaced by the yearning to get back home. I was missing the elliots beach, I was missing my scooty,I was missing my mom’s food and my dad’s jokes.
I was getting sick of professional smiles and emotionless greetings.

It was during one of the last days of my return,I got to know Hariharan. He had posted a query in one of the many technical forums crowded on the internet. I myself had logged into that site to find answers for one of the problems in my project plaguing us at that time. As luck would have it I knew the answer for his query as I had faced a similar problem before and unable to control my excitement on knowing that I actually knew some answer for a technical question, I posted the answer as a reply with my login name “Coding beauty”.
Soon I bumped into him a couple of times in two other websites where he easily recognized me by my unique display name “coding beauty” which I used everywhere.He genuinely commented to couple of my posts in my blog and even seemed to share a deep interest in chess.
I was in India by the time our friendship had become thick enough for us to share our email ids and we often had a quick greeting or two in instant messengers from time to time. Some of them during the weekends led to lengthy conversations. We chatted about world’s famous chess games,the players, deep blue and every other thing under the sun that can be remotely connected to these topics. Soon the long conversations were pretty regular with some adhoc ones sprouting up during the odd weekday. He used to stay up late night in US time to chat with me while I logged into the messenger first thing in the morning after coming to the office. My “alt+tab” skills grew faster as my fingers danced on the PC notwithstanding the occasional glare from the passing PM We discussed everything about women’s rights to philosophy. I was pleasantly surprised at his interesting viewpoints and thoroughly enjoyed the intelligent conversation which I knew I won’t get from many of my other friends.
It was during one of those long conversations, when he said that his room mate was teasing him.

Coding beauty: teasing for what ???

Hariharan: me spending too much time on meseenger

Coding beauty : mm

Hariharan: with you

I didn’t reply,I just didn’t know what to.He continued.

Hariharan:he is asking who is that girl with whom you are chatting day and night.

Coding beauty : tell him its his grandma!!!
Even I was a little surprised at myself for getting angry so much.
Hariharan:hey!!dont be so angry!! You know these guys!! They just tease for everything

Our conversation didn’t go on long on that day!! It did appear as if he was casually referring to his friends’ teasing him but I couldn’t help being upset. Suddenly, the giggles my room mates used to hide when I tell them that I am going to the browsing center seemed to hurt more. Its very common at this age for folks to tease a boy or a girl with someone else of the opposite sex. I had done it a lot myself,but I realized that there was something different in the way the folks were making fun of us. It was markedly restrained and it even seemed that they didn’t treat it as too much of a joke.
I had never seen Hariharan as anything more than a good friend with similar interests. He looked ok in some of his snaps I had seen in his Orkut profile. He had a decent mix of goofiness and seriousness that I wanted to see in a life partner.Many a times I had been convinced that I would probably never find someone who matches my tastes as perfectly as him.But…….
I was not sure.
The next time we chatted there wasn’t even a remnant of any of the self discussions in my mind.
As our relationship grew on, Haran (ya thas how I call him) suddenly told me one day ,that his project might most probably be scrapped. It didn’t mean anything to me until he said that the news could mean that he might be coming to Bangalore the next week.Though my home town was Chennai,I was staying and working in Bangalore.
“Wow” I said.”we will meet sometime”
“hmmmm ya!!” he replied.And after a short while he added “Why not”

I was hoping for him to share his mobile number once he came to India, but surprisingly he never did. I was waiting for him to give his number and was too proud to ask him myself. Infact our chat conversations got shorter ever since he came to India. He complained that he was busy and gave me reasons that at onsite there is very little to do other than work but back home its not the same.
It was when we were discussing about a chess puzzle that had come in the local newspaper ,he casually remarked”It would be interesting to play a game with you”
“For that you have to meet me first”I replied!
“Oh ya!! Sure why not!” he said.
“how about this weekend” I suggested.

After not so ready response we agreed to meet in a park nearby to my home.He didn’t even suggest where he stayed.
“Give me your mobile number” I said.
“give me yours,I will give you a missed call” he said.
I typed my mobile number in the chat window shortly after which I received a missed call. I saved the number in my mobile.
That Saturday , I got up around 9,the previous day I had reminded him about the meeting for which he acknowledged doubtfully. I wore a maroon chudi with mild make up and lipstick.
I thought of calling him several times but stopped myself!! I wanted the first call to come from him. I didn’t start from my home even when I had got ready by time. I was waiting for his call and wanted to leave only after that!! But the call never came. I dialed his number but changed my mind and cut the call before a connection can be made to his mobile. After dilly dallying for a minute I put on my chappals and walked to the park.

The park near my home was more like a playground encircled by pathway and benches for people to sit. There was a group of guys playing cricket and another group playing soccer.A bunch of friends were watching them in a bench and some there were a few other people sitting in the other benches.I chose a bench farther to all the actions all while looking around for him.
Haran had told me that he would wear a checked Tshirt and black jeans,I looked around trying to fit the face I had seen in the photo to the many men strewn in that place.I couldn’t find him!! I gave a missed call from my mobile to his number. By this time I was at verge of crying. After some five minutes I called him. The ring went on and on and he didn’t pick up. I felt utterly humiliated,tears started welling up in my eyes.
I went home and crashed on the bed. I told my room mates that I was not feeling well and skipped my lunch.
Evening I went to the browsing center, hoping that the fresh air along the way would make me feel good.
My eyes were all over the screen hoping to see him online when I logged into my machine. He was not.

There was a mail in my mailbox.It was from him.
I clicked on it in a flash.

“Hi,
I know you are angry on me. Words aren’t enough to express how sorry I am for having put you through this. But please hear me out before you decide the punishment you might want to give me.
I have had friendships before. People meet me, they admire, they respect, they talk and then slowly the admiration fades away. The smiles aren’t so deep and the words aren’t so forthcoming. The meetings aren’t so interesting and conversations don’t go so long. Its like they lose interest in me once they have seen me, once they have met me.
I met you very accidentally but yours was one of the enjoyable friendships I have ever had.This “virtual friendship” suited me just fine. There was an aura about me and the conversations we had were mutually enriching. We were looking for our next online meetings.
I believe there is always an optimal distance that needs to be maintained for a friendship to stay healthy and fruitful.But many a times we do the mistake of getting too close too fast. We burn out the friendship with this unwanted closeness. The earth can support life only because of the distance it maintains from the sun,there wont be life if it were any closer or farther. Ours is a friendship that will stay in its best shape if its maintained online. Meetings would complicate things.For all you know I might have bad body odour,or my voice might be funny,or I could be a stammerer or my teeth might be misshaped or there can be a million other things that would push me down from the position you have placed me in your mind.Iam perfectly enjoying the relationship that we are having right now and would like it to continue the way it is.

Whatever I am talking might sound like total bullshit to you but I would want you to give your thought and time. It’s totally your choice as to whether you want to continue our friendship or not.
Yours friendly,
Haran
The Unseen is the most wonderful”

I was staring at the monitor speechless.



……………………………………………………………………………………………
“Got to admit, I had never expected our program would send out that email” remarked professor Gary as he nonchalantly sipped his French vanilla in the cafeteria of the world’s most advanced research lab.
“Mark of genius!!aint it??!! We always knew our artificial intelligence program was the best, that’s why we had set our traps on the internet with names from cultures all around the world.I couldn’t believe that the gal fell for it though” chuckled Dr Edwards.
“Takes a just a little bit of work with false profiles,phony mobile numbers and all that jazz and the trap is well set”Gary remarked.
After a brief moment he continued”How do you think the gal would react after seeing the mail?”

“She will probably think he is an idiot or a jerk and remove the name from her contacts” Edwards was beginning to laugh out loud.
“Suits us just fine!! We have already got enough inputs with this experiment. Our program is a grand success”.Gary joined him ,raining the cafeteria liberally with his loud laughter.

Meanwhile in the remote corner of Hong kong,18 year old Erwin typed gingerly on the keyboard with his heart pounding.
“Elissa! I think iam in love with you”

--The End

பாரதியின் பிறந்ததினம்

இன்று (11-Dec-2006) பாரதியின் பிறந்த தினம்!!
இவணை பற்றி என்ன என்று சொல்வது?? சில சமயங்களில் பாரதியை பற்றி நினைக்கும் பொழுது எனக்கு ஏதோ, என்றோ இறந்து போன என் சகோதரன் போன்ற அன்பும் பாசமும் பொங்கி வரும்.(ஏக வசனத்தில் பேசுவதும் அந்த உரிமையில்தான்)
இவணை பற்றி பேசுவதற்க்கு எனக்கு தகுதியோ,திறமையோ எள்ளளவும் கிடையாது. ஆனாலும் உற்ச்சாக மிகுதியால் ஆர்க்குட் வலைதளத்தில் பிதற்றிய சில வரிகள் இங்கே !!

http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=1990919&tid=2491003032949304534

வாழ தெரியாதவன் என்ற உலகத்தார் மத்தியில்
வாழ்க்கை என்றால் என்ன என்று வாழ்ந்து காட்டியவன்

பயம்,அச்சம்,சிறுமை,மூடம்
இவைகள் சுற்றி சூழ்ந்திருந்தும்,ஞாயிராய் ஒளிர்ந்தவன்

குழப்பம் அடர்ந்த உலகம் மிரட்ட
தீயை போன்று இருளை எதிர்த்தவன்

வறுமை தினமும் வலியை கொடுத்தும்
திறமை கொண்டு வேதனை விரட்டியவன்!!

தமிழ் மேல் எந்தன் காதலை வளர்த்தவன்
கவிகளால் வழிநடத்தும் காவியத்தலைவன்!!

தனிமை

* Wrote this long back!again spurred by orkut!
Iam sure of you might think that i wrote this coz i felt lonely!!
That aint true!!
I love to be alone and this poem needs to be taken in artistic sense and nothing more! [:)]

தனிமை
---------

கண் சிமிட்டும் கணிணி
கை அருகில் பாடல் கருவி
குழுமியிருக்கும் மின் அணு சாதனங்கள்
ஆனாலும் அறை முழுதும் வெறுமை
இதன் பெயர் தான் தனிமை

குளிர்சாதன பெட்டியில்
உணவு வகைகளின் பட்டியல்
சமைக்க செல்லாத மனது
சுவர் ஓரத்தை வெறித்திருக்கும்,இமைக்காத விழி அது
இதன் பெயர் தான் தனிமை


ஆயிரம் நண்பர்கள் இணையத்தில்
மின் அரட்டை ஆரம்பிக்கலாம் நொடியில்
ஓசை கேட்காத பல நூறு குரல்கள்
பார்க்க முடியாத பல நூறு சினேகங்கள்
இதன் பெயர் தான் தனிமை

தலை மேலே அம்மாவின் ஸ்பரிசம்
திரும்பி பார்த்தால் காற்றுதான் முறைக்கும்
மூச்சை முட்டும் அளவு நினைவுகளின் கூட்டம்
ஆனால் கண்களில் மட்டும் கண்ணீர், துடைக்காமல் இருக்கும்
இதன் பெயர் தான் தனிமை

அழ வேண்டும் என்று இனம் புரியா ஆவல்
காரணம் இல்லாததால் அது மனதினுள் காவல்
அயல்நாட்டில் அடைந்திருக்கும் இளைஞர்களின் நிலைமை
தமிழ் என்ற தோழி மட்டும் துணையிருக்கும் கொடுமை
இதன் பெயர் தான் தனிமை

இது போதும் எனக்கு

Was spurred on to write this after seeing a flurry of love poems in the tamil community in Orkut.
http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=8383044&tid=2481898344368504726&start=1

இது போதும் எனக்கு
------------------
மாலை நேரம்
கடற்கரை ஓரம்
மடி தனில் அவள்
ஒளிந்து கொள்ளும் நிலவு

இது போதும் எனக்கு


இருட்டிருந்தும் கண்களில் ஒளி
மறைத்திருந்தும் மறக்காத மேனி
அணைத்திருந்தும் அகலாத பிரிவு
அனைதுமிருந்தும் தீராத மோகம்

இது போதும் எனக்கு

தனியாக ஒரு தீவு
தண்ணீரில் விளையாடும் கால்கள்
கரம் பிடிக்கும் மென்மை
கண் எதிரே குளுமை

இது போதும் எனக்கு


வான் முழுதும் மேகம்
வெளி முழுதும் மழை
கையருகில் அவள் துணை
ஜன்னல் வழி சிறு தூரல்

இது போதும் எனக்கு


வெளிநாட்டில் பிள்ளைகள்
லேசாக மூட்டு வலி
எனக்குத் துணை அவள்
அவளுக்குத் துணை நான்

இது போதும் எனக்கு

Something on the lines of "idhu podhum Enakku" from Vairamuthu's "Peiyena Peiyyum Mazhai"!! [:)]

Dreams and realities

I usually post stories/poems in my blog!!
Just wrote this as i hadnt written anything for a long ,long time!!!!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How things change!!
I remember the the good old days when i prepared myself mentally during college times, to enter a life of software. A life full of moments of furious typing and gruelling thinking leading into creations.
Create !!! thats what i was hoping to do!! Make things that will be useful to people, make software that will make it easier for people to use computers!! Things that i wanted to have for myself and set about doing it when i dont find such a thing.
It could be a tool,an application and i was even stupid enough to think that i would be making OS-s someday.Create!Create works of art which would make people's eye expand with surprise and will reveal the teeth with joy!!Works that would make the heart forget all the worries,works that would shout out the power of computers,works that would enthrall one and all with the magic of technology!!Works that would make people smile!!
I was imagining to be this brilliant programmer with fingers dancing on the keyboard,churning out lines of code that will operate and flash around the monitor bringing out colors into people's lives!I was in for a shock.I didnt know it!!
Now as Iam looking to complete three years into my job did i get any of the stuff i was looking forward to have???if you are a budding engineer looking forward to an exciting and enticing career in the world of computer science,please dont read any further.
Things started off pretty sweetly,getting into one of the topmost IT company in India with an impressive list of cliental in the garden city was nothing short of a dream!! My dream of an interesting career in IT had began,so i thought!And from then on i thought i would be in those private cubicles creating things that would reach common masses and create a difference in everyday life!Something like a google or Youtube or meebo ot flickr/picasa.I can go on forever.

I had never imagined a B2B atmosphere and i had never imagined applications that would be used by a few hundreds or even tens!Most of all I hadnt imagined support!!! It had never occurred to me that support and maintenance was to be the major chunck of business of all the indian IT majors.!!I didnt know that most of the time work was spent in patching up stuff and to keep the business up and running,SOMEHOW!!
In close to 3 years most of my time has gone in talking to people,cajoling colleagues,doing thousands of mean jobs,millions of hours of junk work in the name of process,negotiating with offshore if you are at onsite,onsite if you are at offshore,struggling with totally unknown stuff,scores of moments figuring out what to work,prioritising among chores,juggling among tasks and self motivating to do mundane worthless stuff and so on!! and very very little creation.Hardly any scope to use my right brain and barely any chance to use creativity. I would have taken with a pinch of salt if it werent for one more thing!!
Night shifts!I HATED THEM!! I knew i wasnt cut out for them,when i spent some 2-3 months in a technical support center.And my beloved support made my life even more hellish by adding that extra bit of frustation into the concoction. I hated them the most!! But thats how mulitinational make billions!! By saving in that extra dollar by reducing resources as much as possible at onsite and moving work to offshore.Every dollar saved,converted into fancy figures during the quarterly reports and as evidences as how the "company" adds values to the "stake holders"!
No complaints !!! The companies are in a highly competitive market if they dont then somebody else will!!Stricter SLAs and lesser people, longer nights and more stress!!It all adds up!!!Managers are under pressure to quote lesser and lesser in the proposals for projects.Senior managers are under pressure to hold on to projects and gather new ones,even senior executives are under pressure to acquire more and more clients! Its a crazy race and if you dont keep your chin up ,you will drown!! Companies cant afford to worry about employees,not any more than the competitors , at least!!The clients are in a sticky situation!!They got to offshore it to the lowest bidder to keep their "edge".Its all business and everyone is doing their job!! Shorter time and lesser people!!! Cheaper work!!!

But where does this leave me and my dreams? What will happen to millions of youngsters like me who entered the industry with different expectations??what will happen to our aspirations to create,the hunger to make something???Is it going to be blunted by the endless drudgery and the limitless red tape??What will happen to the sharp minds and the fresh thoughts that churned out ideas like raindrops from the sky??? What happens to the souls who dont want to do night shifts??What happens to the innocent idiots who are forced to do just a little more than BPO/call center work??
All said and done,i have had my fair share of rewards!! I have been shaped up by the innumerable moments of pressures and have become more composed and street smart,my communication wouldnt have become any better if I had been in any other industry,got to live in one of the most amazing city called bangalore(no matter how much people crib abt it),got to visit and stay in the most powerful nation on earth,saw a real surge in my bank balance,got to meet some incredible friends in the world and most of all, i was able give my parents a lifestyle markedly higher than they would have imagined to have and had made them feel proud of me.That for me is the beggest gain from this job and I will forever be indebted for the same.

But after all my dreams keep me awake and confused!! Making me wonder many a times,what the hell am i doing here!!Bringing a feeling of helplessness,the feeling of being stuck in a stinky situation not knowing how to get out!! Fatasizing about entering into photography/advertising and the likes,getting back to reality and trying the digest the facts with vomits from time to time!!
Life goes on!albeit pointless!!

A LIfe to Live

A Life to Live – Part I

“Could you explain how you can do that??” I was getting cocky.

The girl in front of me panicked. She stammered and blurted out a few words before settling down to a meek “I am not sure”.

The other members of the interview panel smiled very lightly on seeing the candidate duly put in place.
Although we were looking for an excuse to recruit the candidates, we get charged up when a candidate behaves as if he/she is doing a favour by coming to the interview.
My role was to get the candidate to a balanced state of mind from where we can work on the “real interview”. The girl in front of us was one such candidate.
As the other members continued questioning we realized that the girl was reasonably smart and could do the job if she could stop herself from overdoing the “confidence appeal”.
After five minutes of grueling, the interview was over. We thanked the interviewee and the girl went outside.

“Iam glad we have you in the interview panel”, remarked Baskar.
Our manager nodded in approval with a gentle smile.

It felt nice. My growth in this company has been phenomenal. In no time I have risen to a position where I am included in the interview panel.
Life is good.
Except for the memories of the tragedy that happened a few years back, my life was just about smooth.
I had no indication that it was going to change very soon.

We took a copy each of the Bio data of the next candidate.
I started browsing the paper rather casually until my eyes locked onto the photo of the candidate on the far right.
The name of the candidate read “Archana Stephen”.
So it was confirmed.
I put the papers down and started staring at the window facing the road.

“Is something wrong Subbu??”Bhaskar enquired as he noticed my face going white.
Just then our manager looked at me and asked.
“Is everything alright Mr.Subramaniam??”

“I..Iam………….Iam Ok.
“I mean… Can I go home now??? I think I am not feeling well” I was blabbering like never before.

The manager stared at me quizzically.
“I hope you are not joking Mr.Subramaniam”. There was a tinge of anger in his tone.
“Hey whats wrong da??” bhaskar sounded more empathized and genuinely concerned.

“No nothing.Iam not feeling well. A bit of head ache.I think I might throw up anytime.”
It was the most unconvincing excuse I had ever heard.

The manager was looking hard at me in disbelief for a while.
“Ok, Mr.Subramaniam. You can go now. Please take care of your health”.
“ThankYou Sriram”

I staggered as I got up from my chair.
“Take care da”,remarked Bhaskar as he was looking for an answer in my eyes.
He knew he would know the answer sooner or later.

I came out of the room and was struck by hundreds of prying eyes hoping to get any sort of information. The crowd got back to their curious conversation after a slight commotion.

As I was scanning the crowd as casually as possible, I saw her sitting with couple of other candidates in the sofa placed for the candidates to wait.
She was calmly listening to couple of other people who were discussing about something very seriously. It seemed that she hadn’t noticed me coming out, as she was deeply engrossed in the discussion.
She looked a bit leaner than I had seen her before and her face had a bit more maturity and refinement than what I remembered.
There was something more to the expression in her face, which I couldn’t quite locate.
If the face is the index of someone’s mind, her face was like a page with a simple and abstract design with no content.

I got down the stairs, as I didn’t want to wait for the elevator. My mind was not in my control as I was coming back home.
My mom looked surprised as I entered my home. She peered through her glasses as she was seated in front of the pooja room with a sloka book in her hand and with her lips murmuring the regular verses.
I didn’t say anything. I went straight to my room , got changed to dhoti and came back to the hall.
As I sat on the big swing that was hung in the middle of the big hall and was swaying gently,I heard my mother approaching me.
“Are you alright,I remember you were saying that you will be coming late today.” She enquired as she gave me the tumbler full of hot coffee.

I sipped it gently as I was contemplating whether to tell her or not.
And then I said.

“I saw Archana today ma”.
She stopped on her tracks as she walked to the kitchen and turned back. After recovering from the initial shock, she asked.

“How is she doing?? Did you talk to her”
and then as an after thought she added.
“How is he??”

“I didn’t talk to her ma,she didn’t see me. Only I saw her” I told her as I sipped the coffee with my eyes fixed on the TV which was switched off.

She was standing there looking at me for a while then she went back to the pooja room after taking a deep breath.

Soon I could hear her chant the hymn from the book. The murmurs soon turned to subdued weeping sound as she tried to control her tears.
My mind was thrown back to the events which made me hear the same sound from my mom.

To be continued………….

A Life to Live – Part II

Iam the second child for my parents, after Archana. Archana was elder to me by 4 years. Archana was the one who took care of me when I was young as my mom was diseased for fairly long time during my childhood. She used to feed me, clothe me and put me to sleep when I was a baby.
Its even fair to say that I was attached to her more than I was attached to my mom. I was the apple of her eye and she used to look for me all the time. I used to be with her always and she used to teach me everything she knew. She would even fight for me when I was being bullied by jerks. She used to motivate me a lot and would spend extra hours to make sure that I did well both in studies and other extra curricular activities.
She was brilliant in maths and she used to patiently teach me even when she had exams of her own.
Oh!! How I revered her!
I would turn to my dear Archana Akka* for anything and everything. Be it studies,sports,movies or any other thing under the sun. Being a timid and shy boy I always needed her guidance for every step of my life.

I never kept away from her even when I was advised to stay away from her by my relatives when she had become a “big girl”. I used to play the game of dice with her and her friends all the time.

She was always my dear Archana akka.
The person who can never go wrong.
The person who knew everything under the sun.
The person who will do all she can to see me happy.

My friend
My mentor
My guide
My respected Goddess Saraswathi!!

All that came to a grinding halt one dark day!!
I was studying in 12th standard at that time.
As I returned from my tuition class, I realized that our home was unusually quiet except for the screeching sound of the swing.
As I entered the home my dad was swaying fairly hardly on the swing. I have grown to know that oscillation rate of the swing is directly proportional to my dad’s mood.
I carefully stepped into the hall and saw my mom weeping with the tip of her saree pallu tucked into her mouth.
Archana akka was standing in the corner of the hall busy tearing off her handkerchief with her teeth as she blew her nose from time to time. Her head was hung low and she was facing the floor but I could see that she had been crying hard. There was a noticeable red hand print on her fair skinned cheek clearly signifying that she had been slapped by my dad!!!
I knew right then that something was terribly wrong.
After looking around for 2-3 minutes , I went to my sister and asked.
“What happened Akka??”
She looked upto me slowly and before she could say anything I heard the angry voice of my dad.
“Go to your room and study,Subbu”.
There can be no second thought. I dragged myself into my room.

After a while my mom brought me some coffee. She looked hugely shaken.
“What happened ma?” I enquired.
“You are a small boy. This is a matter better left to elders,” she said as she wiped off the tears from her eyes.

My sister left the house one week after this incident leaving back a short letter, which my dad tore off in a fit of rage.
I later learnt that she had left the home to marry her colleague who was a Christian.
In a conservative Brahmin family like mine where uttering the word “Love marriage” is considered as an ultimate heresy, she had done the most outrageous act by marrying someone from another religion.
All around us we heard jokes from our relatives about how the only daughter of a strict disciplinarian had “run away” with a Christian. Our family had become the laughing stock for the whole relatives circle. We locked ourselves within our homes and didn’t go to any community gathering fearing humiliation. My dad was never the same after this incident and he died within a year more of heartbreak than anything else.
My sister was widely seen as the demon who sucked out the life of my dad. I had to struggle a little after my dad had died, as I had to take care of my education and family responsibilities until I got a job.
I never heard from Archana and I never took any extra effort to find out about her.
I was afraid to take her name in front of my dad and after my father died I was too busy making the ends meet to worry about her.
I always remembered her as a guardian angel who was everything for me during my childhood and I always prayed God to keep her happy in the bottom of my heart.

I was happy with the status quo until I saw her again in the office today, after years.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the current situation. On one hand I was not comfortable with the fact that she was responsible for the death of my dad and on the other hand I felt she was not at fault for anything and I was yearning to see my nephew/niece if she had any kids.

I couldn’t remember when I went to sleep that day but I didn’t realize that I was to be delivered from the predicament into even more heartbreaking news soon.

*Akka - Elder sister
To be continued…………

A Life to Live – part III

I was not my usual cheerful self when I went to office the next day.
Bhaskar came running to my place and said.
“Have you gone crazy?? Why are ruining your career after putting a lot of hard work to build it in the first place. What was wrong with you? Don’t tell me you were sick. Iam not buying it!By the way,the manager wanted to see you. Let me see how you talk yourself out of this!!!”
“Shut up Baskar. Did you select anyone??”
“Yeah , Some Archana Stephen. She has quit her job in Bangalore and has come to Chennai recently. She was ready to join from today itself and we weren’t complaining!!I think she will be inducted today.”
“Where can I find her??”
He looked into his watch.

“She should have returned from induction by now. You can find her in the seat reserved for her position. Why do you ask?? Is it something about the candidate??”
“Will tell you later”, so saying I walked towards her place.

I saw her taking out a photo of a small boy from her box and place it on the table as I entered her cube.
She looked very weak and her shoulders were slumped
She turned back as she heard me coming. She forgot to say anything, as she looked at me in disbelief.
Then the first signs of joy erupted in her face.
“Subbu!!!! How are you doing da???”
Her voice broke off as she got up from her chair. It looked as if tears of joy were going to erupt any moment.
“You have grown up so much, how come you are here??”
She asked as she ruffled my hair with her right hand.
“I work here Akka!”

I simply didn’t know what else to say. I was too over whelmed with emotions to say anything.
“My God !!!! Iam so happy to see you!! How are appa and amma doing???”
“hmmmmmmm… Akka I have to talk a lot to you. Can we go to the pantry??”

We started walking towards the pantry as she enquired about my studies and job.
As we located one of our tables and took our seats,she mentioned.
“Iam so sorry to leave you alone Subbu!!!”
I could see tears in her eyes.
“So how is appa?? Is he still angry with me??”

“We will talk about dad later. How is Attimber*?? When can I meet him??”

Her face suddenly went dull. She looked away towards the door for a while and then said.

“He has left me Subbu
“He died around six months back”
She added as she was trying to stop herself from wailing out aloud.

“What??? Why….I mean..What happened????” I was out of words.

She leaned back on the chair.

“I had told about my relationship to our parents long before you knew about it. Dad was livid. He dismissed the option without even discussing anything. But I used to raise the issue every now and then but never persisted with the discussion as Dad used to get terribly furious and noisy.
“But then Stephen got a better job in Bangalore. I realized that it was time to come to a conclusion and raised the issue one last time. All hell broke loose and there was a huge fight at our home on that day. That was when you knew about the confusion.
I realized our dad would never accept my marriage with Stephen. So I moved over with him to Bangalore where we got married much against the opinion of Stephen. He wanted our marriage only after the comprehensive approval of our parents. I convinced him that they would agree after a few months if we were married.
“Our life was heavenly for some three four months. Then suddenly Stephen got ill and was admitted in a hospital. That was when we got to know about our twisted fate.”

She paused as she tried to control herself and then continued.
“Stephen had been tested HIV positive”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“Stephen had studied in a college reputed for ragging. It was particularly serious in hostels. The seniors make the juniors do unspeakable acts to derive sadistic pleasure. One day he was caught in between a bunch of such seniors. He had to sing and dance for a vulgar song in front of them, as they were lost in drugs. One guy remarked that he wasn’t dancing well and the bunch forcefully injected him with the infected needle.”
She started weeping mildly.
“Stephen had come back to his hometown soon after this incident. The problematic students were arrested soon after that as one of the juniors had committed suicide unable to take the disturbance from seniors. He went back to the college after one whole month during which the authorities had become stricter towards ragging and he soon forgot about the incident.
“He never knew that the needle was HIV infected and he never knew that he had contracted the AIDS virus. “
“My God!! How can you be so cruel!!!” I told myself!!

Just then it hit me!!
“Akka!!! Does that mean………”
She looked at with glistened eyes and smiled faintly!!

“Yes Subbu,I have contracted the virus from him”
I felt like thousand lightnings passing through me.
My Akka has AIDS.
My only sister whom I revere as Goddess has got AIDS. My guardian angel who brightened my day is dying!!!
“My God !!!!What kind of sadist are you!!! Why do you have to punish good people??
What motivation is there to live if you keep disproving “Cause and effect” time and again.
I closed my face with both my hands!! I couldn’t face her. I could control my tears but I tried very very hard to stop myself from crying out loud.

I wanted to comfort my sister. I wanted to lend her my shoulder to cry. I wanted to serve her and protect her from the perils of the world. I wanted to cover her with my blanket of affection and keep her away from any more sorrow. I wanted to cleanse her off the depression and freshen up her with laughter!!!
I wanted to go back in time.
I wanted her to teach me maths again. I wanted her to shoo off her friends as they tease me for being with my sister all the time.
I want you akka!!!
I want you to live.
I want you to live happily.
Somehow all my words seemed to have no meanings at all!

To be continued………………

* Attimber à Brother – in - law

A Life to Live – Epilogue

“Why didn’t you tell us all this???” I asked her
“How can I tell you?? I thought I had given you enough pain already so I didn’t want to bother you guys any more!!”

“And that boy” I was reminded of the photo she was placing on the table when I went to her place.
“Its my son Suresh.My worry is about what will happen to him when I am gone from this world.” She replied.
“Don’t worry Akka , I shall take care of him. I shall take care him like you took care of me”so saying I held her shoulder with my hands as if to comfort her.
“Thanks Subbu” she touched my left hand with her right hand with gratitude in her voice


I brought her home that day and she lived with me for the rest of her life. Suresh was a delightful little kid and I could see all the brilliance of his mom in him. Incidentally that day was the last day she ever cried in her life. I made sure she got all the happiness she could have ever wanted.
I took her all the places she ever wanted to visit. I made her the best possible cuisine she might want to taste.
I bought her the best dresses and jewellery any woman could ask for. I made sure she lived a queen’s life until she died.
My sister died a peaceful death 5 years after she came to our house. Usually HIV infected people live a normal life until they are affected by any disease. Only after they get any disease they become weak and wage a losing battle, as their antibodies don’t work. That’s when they officially have AIDS. So technically you don’t have AIDS even if you have HIV virus in your system, provided if you do not any disease.
In my sister’s case, she had been infected TB from her husband so she didn’t live longer.
But before she died, she had drastically changed my life.
She made me realize the purpose of my life.

Whenever I see a destitute woman, I see the pain of my sister in her eyes. Whenever I see orphaned children, I can only think of Suresh. Whenever I see any socially challenged people yearning for company, I remember the days of loneliness my sister had to go through.
I realized that it is my duty to do whatever I can possibly do, to help the needy in whichever little way possible. I started a small organization called “Nesam*” with regular sponsors and some enthusiastic volunteers from my company.
We process educational requests, medical requests and help them with the funds we get. We have organized weekend visits to destitute homes and orphanages where our volunteers give company to the lonely and put smiles in people’s faces. I myself go to a trust, which takes care of children born to HIV infected parents.
We know that we might never be able to cater to all but that is not going to stop us from doing whatever little we can do.
I know God has given me this life for a purpose and I have identified what life I am going to live.

The End.
*Nesam – roughly translates to affection , in tamil.

Final Word

Final word – part I

I was falling uncontrollably. I could feel the gravity sucking me to the ground. The rate at which I was falling was increasing with the time. All I could see was frames of trees, farms and all other greenery in the area, which revolved around at a crazy speed. Suddenly I felt a scratch between my stomach and rib cage. And soon there were scratches all over my body. The pain was spreading like wild fire as the rough leaves and branches of a tree brushed past me as I fell into it. Then I felt a little twig passing right through my left eye and hitting the bottom of the eye cavity. Before I could scream in pain there was huge blow to my right shoulder as it hit a strong branch of the tree.



I woke up shivering.
God!!
What a nightmare. I knew dreams can be realistic but can you even feel the pain???
The sights, the smell, the feeling, the butterflies in the stomach, everything was so very real.

I looked at the clock. It was 10.13 am. There goes my sleep for the day.
I had returned home after a strenuous night shift and was trying to get some shuteye. I have been getting such dreams lately.
Weird dreams
Wild dreams
Crazy dreams
Haunting nightmares!!!!

I felt a burning sensation in my eyes and there was a searing headache. I felt as if thousand men beat me up. I was extremely extremely tired (the repetition of the word extremely is intentional).
I lazily brushed my teeth and climbed down the stairs to the hall. The breakfast tasted strange, as I had just brushed my teeth. I switched on the TV. The eyes were very sore and I walked up to the mirror to find that they were red. I slowly remembered the tough time I had at work, the previous night. I closed my eyes as I tried to take it off my mind.

Just then, the telephone rang.

“Hello”
“Hi vivek, its me da”, it was my friend Praveen.

“Oops,sorry da!! I just realized you are having night shift,did I wake you up??” he added.

“Its Ok, I myself woke up just now. You know I can’t sleep in daytime.”
“Nothing da, I just called to tell you buy one extra roll of film for me. I will be coming directly from office and I don’t think I will have the time”
“Sure boss, will do that”
“And….…..that’s it man!!! I am really excited!! And take good rest, you will need all your energy”, I could hear him smile.
“Sure man”, I replied tiredly.
“Chalo Bye then”
“Bye”

The placed the receiver back in its place. We were planning for a trip to Yercaud for a long time. And after a lot of postponing we finally got it right and we had planned to leave that evening. I was fairly excited myself. It would be a welcome break from my tight work schedule. Also I had an uncontrollable desire to visit Yercaud, brewing up in my mind lately.

We all met in the railway station that evening.
We had planned to take a train to Salem and then will reach Yercaud by road.
There were three of us.
Myself, Ravi and Tamizhchelvan(called as Selva).

Praveen joined us late, as usual.

As the train started chugging along, the reality of a vacation dawned upon me and my heart was filled with joy triggered by the expectations.

I realized the hope of happiness and fun is the biggest contributor of happiness. In reality, there is no such thing as happiness. It’s just the hope of better things to come that gives us the happiness most of the times.

“When shall we reach Salem da”,I enquired.
“Dunno boss,think around 5.00 am”,replied Ravi.
“Good”, I replied.

I was still feeling fairly tired. I was thinking whether I should sleep. I was afraid of getting one those weird dreams again.


To be continued…………

Final Word – part II

“Ok guys,think I will have a bit of a shut eye” I declared as I was got up from my seat.
Praveen laughed out loud.
There was a chuckle from Selva and Ravi didn’t seem like he understood what I said.
“Don’t try to funny Vivek,you don’t have the talent to be funny.”,that was Ravi.
“I am not trying to be!!!I really want to sleep.” I replied.

The guys were not in a mood to hear any of it.
“Don’t be silly Vivek” Ravi advised as he took out the pack of cards from his bag.

The whole night we were playing various games with the cards. Soon we got bored with one and jumped to another and finally settled to the game of “7 cards”. We were playing late into the night and soon we chatted and Praveen even started singing much to the discomfort of the other passengers in the coach. Luckily he was singing in a fairly unobtrusive volume so nobody bothered to complain.
Finally when we felt like we should sleep, we were very closer to Salem and in no time at all we had to wake up as the train had reached Salem.

We liked the peaceful station with no bugging porters. Once we were out of the station we booked a cab and set out to Yercaud.
I found the scenery changing quite smoothly as the car started climbing up the hilly region. I found the place to be beautiful in its own way. It was not a cultured beauty as in Ooty but it had the charm of wild and uncontrolled youth.
We got dropped in the TTDC hotel and found our way to the cottages. After a brief rest we went out for sight seeing and visited a few places, which were different vantage points from where we got breathtaking view of the hills. In the evening we went for boating in the lake, which was very close to our hotel. The day was amazingly enjoyable. But all through the day I felt as if somebody was monitoring me and I even felt I saw a girl clad in red salwar everywhere I went. She wouldn’t be there when I would want to have a good look but I felt she was always there in the vicinity.
After a long day we chatted for sometime and settled to the beds at 11.15pm.I slowly fell asleep.

The air was very cold. I was not shivering but I was not comfortable with the coldness around. I rubbed my palms and hugged myself. I wasn’t sure where I was but the place was strangely familiar. Since it was just one night after the full moon night everything around me was very clearly visible in spite of the darkness of the night. I wandered a while between the greenery and trees and then I saw her.
She was sitting with her back towards me. The breeze lightly disarranged her long hair every now and then .It looked as if she was wearing a red salwar although it looked a lot darker in moonlight. I suddenly remembered that the height and weight of this girl was the same as the one whom I noticed in quite a few places I went during the day.
I went near her.
“Hello” I called out as I walked towards her.
She didn’t respond.
“Hello madam!! Can you hear me??” by this time I was very close to her.
I touched her shoulder as if to beckon her.

She turned around very slowly.
My God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Her eyes were huge and ghastly. I could see the lines of the arteries very very clearly in one of the eyes. The other eye was half closed. But it looked very very dark, like it was fully red due to some injury,just that I couldn’t see the colour due to the darkness.
There was a deep cut extending right from the bottom-left corner of the nose to her right temple passing right between her right-eye, which had this injury. It didn’t look like anybody could have survived such an injury or rather sit calmly in a park with such injuries. The skin of her face was ghostly white and it even looked like it had decayed a little. The hair was badly disarranged and the strands wildly strung across everywhere adding to the goriness.
The left eye, which was the only operational eye, showed some emotion as she looked at me.
My heart had forgotten to beat. After a few seconds I realized I had stopped breathing and started taking short gasps. I was terrified more than I can ever put in words. I wanted to run away from the place as soon as possible but I was paralyzed.

“Why????” she coldly asked me. Her voice had a metal tinge to it and a lightning of fright ran through my body.
“I……………….I ……………….Iam…………………” there was just air coming out of my mouth. I stopped as my lungs ran out of air after a few seconds.

“Why?????? Why did you kill my baby??I trusted you so much and I gave up so much for you but how could you do this to me????????????why????????????????”

She suddenly got violent and caught hold of my shirt collars with her over grown nails and started shaking me violently.
That was the point when I jerked back to reality!!!!!!!!
It took me a while to realize that I was not in a dream. The realization added up some more fear to the already frightened mind. I forcefully removed her hands from my shirt. I felt as if her hands were a little sticky!!!

Then I screamed like hell and started running away from her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I ran away I can hear that spine chilling voice in the back.
“Where are you running????You can never escape from me shankar!!!!!!!!!!!!I will have my revenge!!!!!!!!!”
After running for a while I was into the main road and I could see the lake where we went boating that evening. I realized I was just out of “Anna Park” which was near the lake. I could quickly visualize where my hotel would be. I have to cover a few meters on the road along the lake and I shall reach the hotel. I started running wildly on the lonely road. I didn’t know what time was it but I figured it should be well past midnight. I turned back to see a “lady in salwar” some 50 meters away, inching towards me.
My heart skipped a beat. I started running faster even though I was struggling to breath. When I entered the hotel I turned back again only to see the same shadowy figure taking a turn to the street !!!!!!!!!!!
I rushed past the reception and straight to our cottage. I knocked at the door frantically.
“Praveen!!!!!!!!!!Ravi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!somebody get up !!!!!!!!!!!!” I shouted at the top of my voice.
I turned back with my heart beating at the fastest rate. I half expected to see the red salwar lady approaching towards me but there was none.
Just then I heard the door being opened.
It was Praveen with his eyes half open without able to withstand the light.
I almost knocked him off as I rushed past him into the room!!!!!!!!

“Quick!! Quick!!!!!!!!!! Bolt the door!! Bolt the door da! Please!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I was shivering and was sweating profusely and was gasping for air.

“Hey Idiot!! What the hell are you doing in the middle of the night???” that was Praveen as he came back to the bed after bolting the door. The other two were busy sleeping.

“No da!!!I … I ………I just went for a walk” I didn’t know what else to tell him!!
“And what??? You saw a ghost???? What a wimp!!!!! Go get some sleep “ he was dismissive as he wanted to catch up with his sleep.

“Noooooooooo”I cried as he tried to switch off the lights.
“What?? I want to sleep” Praveen was clearly irritated.

“No……. I mean…….I am gonna stay awake for a while…..”
He looked at me confused and then retired to bed, as he was too sleepy to argue.

I tried very hard to remember how I found myself in Anna Park But I could not remember anything. I was half expecting the lady to come past the bolted door and strangle me!
I was too frightened to sleep. The ghastly face flashed in my mind whenever I closed my eyes.

To be continued……………..
Final Word – part III

I entered the home.
“Gowri I am home”, I declared as I removed my shoes.

“Iam a little busy here,could you please see how vinodh is doing??”
Vinodh was sleeping in the cradle and was making some weird noises.
It looked as if he was on the verge of crying.

I stared at the baby for a while and entered the kitchen.
Gowri was preparing chapatthis. I hugged her from the back.
“Hey leave me,what are you doing in the kitchen???”
“Iam just hugging my wife in my home, why should it matter whether its hall or kitchen??”
so saying I kissed on her left shoulder.
“hey!!!! Your moustache is pricking” she said with her girlish voice as she wriggled in my grasp.
Just then there was a noise from the hall.
The baby had started crying.
“Ohohohooooooo,what has happened to my sweet vinodh!!!!!!!” so saying Gowri rushed to the hall after forcefully removing herself from my arms.
I felt so cheated. The baby was bugging me big time!!!!!!!!!!!

“Hey Vivek,wake up!!!!!” it was Praveen.
I woke up with a jerk.so it was all a dream???
how real!!
I remembered all the occurrence of last night!!! I involuntarily shivered a moment. What an terrifying experience. I should have fallen asleep sometime after coming back.
“Hey did you go outside sometime last night??? I vaguely remember opening the door for you but don’t remember anything more!“ Praveen was enquiring.
Good he doesn’t remember much.
“Hmmm.……yes da. I went out for a short walk”
I didn’t tell him anything more.He didn’t bothered to ask.

That day we had planned to visit “Killiyoor falls”.We took an auto and the auto wallah dropped us in a place and said the remaining distance need to covered only by trekking. The way looked very remote steep.
“I think this would be quite an adventure” Ravi remarked.
“It’s a lot better now Sir,they are laying railings of some kind.Earlier there was nothing.The visitors were few and the path was not very well identified. It used to be quite a bit risky.”

I was not talking. Even though this is my first visit to Yercaud, I felt that I had been to this place before.
My mind was not in my control. I felt as if it was taken over by some entity, which was deciding what to think and what to do. And slowly I remembered everything.

I was called Shankar in my previous birth and I was born and brought up in Coimbatore. I was the only son of the owner of a very famous cotton mill. I had never tasted failure. I didnt know the meaning of the word misery and I can never relate with the term “try again” as I used to get everything the moment I asked. I met Gowri in college.It was love at first sight and after a bit of hesitation Gowri agreed. We roamed around Coimbatore and I can bet that we had visited most of the cinema theatres in the place.
Soon our parents got to know about it and there was trouble and our parents were very very adamant. My parents relented after a while but her parents never seemed to budge. And they made a huge mistake. They secretly arranged for her marriage and before I knew it she was married to some guy in Madurai.
I was totally broke.I was roaming around dejected trying to wash away my memories but I couldn’t. That was when I decided that I will have her back. I went to Madurai and met Gowri privately in a retaurant.
She was startled at my suggestion. She gave me a lecture about Indian tradition and all that crap. But I was unconvinced. And then she told me that she is pregnant. I was unruffled. “Just get a divorce from that guy”I said “and marry me”. She walked out.

But I never relented. I used to meet her whenever possible and push her to take the decision. And soon her husband got to know about me and life became hellish for her.
Her husband used to come home drunk and would beat her; abuse her even though she was pregnant. What a sick guy!!!!!!
Gowri couldn’t take the abuse and harsh words and one fine day she agreed to get a divorce and marry me.
I had enough money and power to silence anybody but Gowri’s parents were totally taken aback. They totally washed their hands off their daughter and Gowri became my wife with the infant. The baby was mentally disabled, all due to the mental torture Gowri had to go through during her pregnancy.

The next few months were perfect. But celebrating my honeymoon with some guy’s baby was not something I enjoyed a lot. Also the baby reminded me of that guy all the time. I realized that the baby is the only thing in the world that prevents Gowri’s full attention towards me.

A male lion would kill all the cubs when it takes over the territory of another lion. This is to make sure that the lioness is dependant on him to sustain the species.

I had made my decision.

I meticulously planned for our trip to Yercaud. I vividly remember the visit to Killiyoor falls.

Inspite of Gowri’s concerns I took her to the falls and volunteered to carry the baby.
And when she was little away from me I threw the baby away with my very own hands.

Gowri came running towards me on seeing me without the baby.
“What happened?? Where is the baby? What happened to my vinodh”
I didn’t say anything and was looking to the drop with confusion.

“Oh no!!!!!!!!!! my vinodh……….. my baby……………oh my god!!!!!!!!! Somebody help!!!!somebody get my baby!!!!!!!!!!!! VINODH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
She was getting very very restless and was losing her balance .
I caught hold of her!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Hey , cool down,the baby is gone . there is nothing we can do about it!!! You have got me!!! Its just an accident”

“You killer !!!!!! you always hated the baby and now you have dared to cold bloodedly murder my baby!!!!!!!!!! You demon!!!!! You are pure evil!! I will never forgive you!!!!”

She was getting more and more uncontrollable.
“Yes I did!!!! I killed the baby ,so what?? We can have any number of kids we want. Don’t you see why I did this?? I did this for us!!!!!!!!! I did it for our love!!!!!!! I thought the baby would compromise our love!!!!!”

She stopped suddenly and looked at me with confusion.
“Is that it??? Is it why you killed the baby?? You killed the baby because you doubted my love?? You killed the baby because you lost confidence in out love???
I don’t want to talk to you ever in my life. Leave me. Don’t touch me”

So saying she forced herself away from me and started running on the steep tracks.

“Gowri!!!!!!!wait!!!!!! Gowri it is a dangerous place” I ran after her.

After running a few paces she lost balance and she fell!!!!!!
“Gowri!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I screamed and watched her tumbling down the hills on the way to certain death.
I wanted to do a thousand things at that time but all my body was numb.

I quietly went back to the hotel. Took my car. Went back to Coimbatore and shot myself.


I was sitting right on the tracks and my friends were nowhere in sight. Think they didn’t notice that I had stayed behind.
Gowri appeared before me with the red salwar and the injured eye.

“You killer!!!!!!!!! You killed my baby!!!!!!!!!” so saying she started strangling me violently.
I was gasping and was trying to free myself from her clutches. As I tried doing that my weight shifted to my left and I tried to catch hold of a plant. It snapped and my foot slipped on the muddy surface. I fell down and started tumbling down the hill.

Soon I was falling uncontrollably. I could feel the gravity sucking me to the ground. The rate at which I was falling was increasing with the time. All I could see was frames of trees, farms and all other greenery in the area, which revolved around at a crazy speed. Suddenly I felt a scratch between my stomach and rib cage. And soon there were scratches all over my body. The pain was spreading like wild fire as the rough leaves and branches of a tree brushed past me as I fell into it. Then I felt a little twig passing right through my left eye and hitting the bottom of the eye cavity. Before I could scream in pain there was huge blow to my right shoulder as it hit a strong branch of the tree.

That was the last sensation I ever felt. And then there was peace.

The End

Lights Camera Action

I had written this to my friends as a summarization of our work for the short film and as a remembrance for their efforts.

Thought some of you might want to read it!!!

We have won the second prize!!!!!!!!!

There was joy ,there was jubilation and we were jumping all around.

I smiled.
It was one of those smiles where every inch of the lip movement is an involuntary reaction to the uncontrollable outburst from the heart. It was a smile where you forget about your not so perfect teeth and smile without any concern about your looks. It was a smile where the edges of lips hopelessly tries to expand more and regretfully stops somewhere near your ear all the while cursing the limitation of human body.

A smile,
Celebrating the magic of friendship.
A smile,
Reaffirming the sincerity and sheer hard work.
A smile,
Proving the power of teamwork.
A smile,
Reflecting the confidence in life and acknowledging the sign of better things in this unforgiving world.

A smile that knocks the doors of your eyes looking for tears of joy!!!!!!!

(Somebody stop this guy!!!)
Ok!!
So much for a smile , let me get to the point..
On September 9th , a bunch of “happy go lucky” software professionals (and one happiest go luckiest HR person! J)Were gathered in MC room, bldg number 1, second floor, Infosys, Sholinganallur campus.

The occasion????

The screening and the announcement of results of the short film competition with the title “Community empathy and Social consciousness”

My mind rewinded back to the first meeting of this team. We had come to the meeting based on a post in BB.
“No!! We are not gonna show a usual issue thing!! The one where we see a touchy depiction of some social evil and accusing the audience of all problems and eventually making them feel bad for watching the film. We are not gonna be problem pundits !! We are gonna be solution sheiks!! We are not gonna show what you have not done.We are gonna show what you CAN do!!”
The words echoed in my ears!! This was the unanimous decision we took at the end result of our brainstorming.
What a refreshing thought!!

I knew we had won it right then! We had won in deciding the right concept and outlook of the film.

The next Monday there was a flurry of emails. A few of us had written scripts and had made a few stories (quite a few INKers in the group so it was obvious that we were never gonna run out of stories).
We met again and finalized the story. The readiness with which people agreed to unanimously decide on a story amazed me. All of these guys were proven storytellers but they agreed not to press on with their story and willfully accepted one of the many good ideas and wanted to go forward.
I knew we had won it right then! We had won in killing our ego (creators have a biiiiiiiiiig ego,trust me!! J), and work towards a common goal.

Soon we decided on our roles and started looking for people to act in our movie. After a few auditions we narrowed down the actors/actresses.
Soon it was time for shooting. The first day we decided to shoot at a beautiful road in Annanagar and “Jeevika-a home for the aged and destitute“ with a simple handy cam without even a tripod.
My God!!!!!!
The ideas started pouring like I never imagined. We shall zoom from here and then pan it across to there and then zoom out and then this that blah blah!!! Now we were in a fix!!!
Which idea to decide on?? We only have five minutes and five thousand to show our movie and all these ideas are enough to make five movies!!!!!!!!! Perhaps we had too many people with lots of ideas.
Compromises had to be made, pride had to be swallowed and the sweltering heat added to fatigue didn’t help much. There were times when the frustration and irritation threatened to erupt and destroy the setting like an ugly volcano destroying a peaceful village. But common sense prevailed.
By the time we went back to our homes at 11-11.30 on that Saturday night, we had shouted, thought, argued, decided, walked, ran, taught, negotiated, imagined, traveled like no other day.
As all this happened with the veil of making a movie, when the veil was removed, the enormity of the efforts settled on our bodies as pain and tiredness with the sweet feeling of achieving something!! It wasn’t entirely peaceful sleep for all!! Some had to get up early next morning to go office on a shift on that Sunday. (duty calls, sometimes it orders too!! J)
After another day of hectic shooting, the cast and the crew heaved a sigh of relief.

“Substantial amount of work is done”, someone remarked with a tone of satisfaction.

I heard a smirk from somewhere. I didn’t realize at that time, that it was God laughing at our innocence.


To be continued……………..
It was then time for editing!!!!!!

A bunch from the team went to the studio located in Kodambakkam.
What an incredible experience!!! The magic of movie making spread before our eyes as the professional started to isolate the shots and started putting them in place!!!!
And as we guided him through, we ended up with one single piece with the whole flow. But before that we had to decide the right “take” to include and had to regretfully exclude some very good shots.
Now we have a problem!! The film was supposed to be just 5 minutes and we had lot more than 5 minutes to our footage. We had to cut out a few shots!!!
But which one????
It was like asking a sculptor which part of the torso can be cut of his beautiful sculpture!!

Sacrifices had to be made. Scenes for which we had to toil in terms of acting,lighting,camera angles etc etc had to be cut. It got harder as we started nearing 5 minutes and the last two minutes were the most painful.
In the end we had a film for 5 minutes without any sound. We were fairly satisfied but what is this??? Not many outsiders were able to understand it!!!!!!!!!! L

What could be wrong??? Why isn’t the flow very understandable?? Is it because there is no sound?? Should there be another round of editing??? That will be extra money!!!!, not to mention the time and effort. In the end we decided to make a small change in editing and go ahead with the dubbing!!

The effect of sound to a non-talkie is amazing; no matter how much you can imagine its importance.
The actors gave their voices to the characters as their “astral projections” moved on the screen.
The tweaking, the fine tunings, the adjustments we made to each and every dialogue was to be seen to be believed.
It was 2-3 am , by the time the dubbing was over. We went back sleeping to the nearest shelter available to get a shut eye. The eyes got “shut down“ very soon but not the minds. The movie played over and over in our dreams.

“What time is it ????
Its time for MUSIC!!!!!!!!!”

Creating music is always a challenge. Creating it for a movie, tougher!!
Creating it for a five-minute movie so that it brings out the essence of the message??
Forget it boss!! J

It was with these constraints, our music director started his musical venture. When it was over we were bowled over by the originality and serenity of the music.

The movie was played to few outsiders again and this time almost everyone liked and most importantly understood it!! J
Feedbacks were implemented and our movie was ready.
We made our posters and by this time, the date for submission had arrived. We submitted our movie and our fingers were crossed. Some of us even crossed our hands and legs.

Before we could realize it was 9th September , the day when the results were to be announced.
We gathered in MC room, where all movies were to be screened and the results were to be announced.
As the movies were screened one by one, I personally felt that our movie was more complete than any other movie in terms of story, screenplay, acting, originality in music, message etc.
And then the announcement came.

We have won the second prize!!!!!!!!!


Take a bow Sudharshan, for your neat camera work .
Take a bow Venu, for your camera work, non-intrusive guidance and millions of other incredible things you did for the film, which I won’t be able to mention, due to the sheer enormity of it!!
Take a bow Deepak, for your great work with the story/script and wonderful direction.
Take a bow Megh, for your beautiful music and your inputs to help us narrow down the concept.
Take a bow Vidhatri, for your effort in direction and the time you spent in finalizing logistics and locations.
Take a bow Vineetha, for your encouraging leadership and your unstinted help and support all the way through.

Take a bow
Imay (Rishab)
,Neena (Suprita)
,Madhu (Caretaker)
,Swetha (Anjali)
,Saurabh (Vivek)
,Santhosh (Shaam)

for your mature acting and the receptiveness with which you took our inputs without any ill feeing.

We have won in making an impact in the competition.
We have won in presenting a sound and practical idea.
We had won when we succeeded in making this movie with absolutely no exposure in limited time.
We had won when we juggled our time and made sure we don’t compromise on the quality of the movie all the while dutifully working in the office.
But more importantly,
If the message reaches the audience and if they spend a minute thinking about the topic,
We have won a prize, which cannot be matched by any other.

Thanks for the fun,
Thanks for the experience,
Thanks for the sweet pains,
Thanks for the exhilaration,
Thanks for the smiles,
Thanks for the tears (of joy)
(fine fine!! I will stop!!!! J)

Thanks for everything.
Good luck,
Bye

Special Thanks :
SNEHAM
and
Manimegalai, Jeevika-a home for the aged and destitute (Padur)(little girl in the movie)
,Mr.Subramaniam ,Caretaker, Jeevika-a home for the aged and destitute (Padur)

The end. (its about time anyway!!!!!! )

Perfect Imperfections

Perfect Imperfections
********************

I finished drafting my mail to onsite. It would be hard for any outsider to believe the cycle of emotions I go through during the process. I looked at my watch. I realized there was enough time to go to the canteen and have a quick bite, by the time I get a reply to my mail.As I walked towards the canteen, I saw Mahesh sitting alone in one of the tables outside the canteen. I was expecting to bump into him in the canteen.
He usually takes a break at this time.He was looking somber as he sipped his juice with his eyes aimlessly fixed at distant clouds.

I felt sad to see a chirpy character like Mahesh reduced to such a state. I shook my head with the realization that office life has taken its toll.I approached him from the back and patted on his shoulders.“Why hero!!! You looking so glum!???”He turned back with a jerk and then his mannerism went back to the “laid back” style once again.“Hi da”, his words were lifeless.“My God!!! You look like the way Ricky Ponting would look if he loses the Ashes series”, I exclaimed as I took a chair.He smiled briefly and said ”Nothing da, tough times” He took a sip. “In project” then he added.“Don’t worry boss !!! Everyone one of us get into tough times” I tried to cheer him up.“Yeah!!! and Iam the only one who never gets out of it!!!” he sounded genuine.I realized any more talk of project or work is not going to improve things.So I decided to change topic.

“Hey know something?? You know our training batch mate Neha ?? Somebody actually proposed to her last week. Can you believe that?? Ha ha ha”, I grinned widely.He looked at me stunned for a while.“Really?? Hmmmm….Who ????”I knew I had got his attention.“That she didn’t tell, can you believe that?? I refused to talk with her!! How can she not tell me!!! After all, I am such a close friend of her”, I liked the way the conversation was going.“Girls are always like that da, they are very secretive” he suddenly seemed to have lost interest and continued to look at the oblivion.“Weird bunch da, you know what?? She actually rejected him”I continued.
He smiled with minimal facial movement and said “hmmmm”“That’s the strangest part da!! She said the guy was actually perfect guy , smart,well mannered and all and still she didn’t like him”“People’s tastes are different da” he sounded as if it was the most obvious thing on earth.“What nonsense?? You have got someone with all the right qualities ,then why cant you like him”, I was getting louder.“You might like a person for that person’s qualities but might not love him or her da” he replied with his usual calm style. “But this is ridiculous na!! I mean , how can you not love a person when he or she is perfect” I was adamant.He started smiling wider.

“Imagine you have a business proposal with all the right ingredients. Right client profile , right revenue generating model, good scope for repeat business and all. Won’t you accept that offer without any questions???”I looked at him puzzled.He paused for a while as he looked away.And then he turned towards me and said.“You think love is same as that????” now he was looking straight into my eyes. I was speechless. Whatever he said seemed to convey a very strong and acceptable truth but my mind wasn’t able to process the message.“What are trying to say boss??”the confusion in my voice was unmistakable.“Listen man. Love is not something we can understand with any other general pattern in this world. It’s a totally different concept. It’s not just about roaming about with your partner, celebrating honeymoon in scenic location, having kids , raising them , and then dying at last with quarrels and confusions in between. This you can have with any person. And doing this is all the more easier with the “perfect person” you were talking about. Neha could have agreed to that person if this is what love is.”I nodded my head very slowly. He continued.“But I believe love is something different. Its a feeling caused by divine intervention da. You can’t force yourself to love someone nor can you make someone to love you forcefully. That’s why we say we fall in love. It’s not our choice. If Neha does not feel love towards that person, she cant agree to his proposal just because he has all the right credentials. She can agree only if she feels the love as that guy does. Otherwise the guy has to simply accept the fact and get on with his life. It’s not perfect, it’s not fair, but this is life!! And we can only hope to learn to get used to it.”I was look down in the floor thoughtfully.“Ok boss I have to leave now, got a lot of work,Bye”, he got up and started walking.I wished him good-bye and started staring into my juice without drinking!!I looked up on hearing a ruffle nearby. I saw Neha talking to one of her friends. She was saying something to her and then her friend left. Then she turned and started walking towards me. My mind started recollecting the events of the previous evening.
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Both of us were sitting exactly in the same table.
“Whats wrong Neha?? Why are you so dull??” I enquired.
She didn’t reply for a while and then she said.“He proposed to me last week CVR”I leaned back on the chair.“I told you na this would happen???? I expected this to happen long back……..hmmm”I was sounding as unsurprised as possible.
“But I didn’t expect this!!! How could you guess? ”she was sounding genuinely surprised.“It was so obvious madam!!! How can you not see it??” there was more impatience in my voice than I would have wanted.I didnt say anything for a while“So you rejected him?” the tone in my voice was more of a statement than a question.
“Of course CVR!!! I dont even have 1 percent of love towards him and then how can I accept???” she retorted as if she was waiting to hear my question.“You did the right thing, if you don’t have the same feelings ,then it is better to let him know clearly and as early as possible than to prolong his pain.” I was at my empathetic best.There was silence for a while.“How did he take it??” I was curious.“He didnt say anything. He just asked is this what you feel and after I said yes he just said I am sorry and went back.”“Hmm…….nice chap” I blurted out .“I feel so sorry for him. I don’t want him to think he is inferior in anyway!! Its just that I don’t feel ……… “ she was out of words.“hmmmmmm………….. don’t worry I will talk to him” I assured her.“Noooooo… you will end up making him more upset”she replied.“Trust me! I will be discreet” I made sure that I sounded as convincing as possible.
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My thought was broken by Neha’s voice.“So you talked to him??” she was anxious to know.
Only then I realized that she had walked to my place and had sat in front of me.“yeah!!! Don’t worry he is more matured than I thought”,I replied.“Good….”she leaned in the chair as a sign of satisfaction with my reply.“But he was looking so dull and upset” she asked as she suddenly remembered it“Of course!! Remember that he is going through one of the painful moments in his life. Its natural to be depressed. But don’t worry, he will get over it pretty soon. And try not to contact him unnecessarily”“hmm.yeah” she nodded in acceptance.“Ok madam!! Time for me to leave” so saying I got up from the chair.“ok bye!! And thankyou so much CVR” she replied.“hey come on!! Its nothing” so saying I started walking towards my building.

I couldn’t help feeling sad about Mahesh’s position as I was walking towards my building. Then I remembered that I would have got a reply for my mail from onsite by now. I started walking faster.
The End