serendipity !

The sun was descending behind that tall minaret. Two beautiful eyes were settled on the faintly visible moon. Her kerchief was stained with mascara.

The icing on the cake was yet to be done. A bottle of jacob’s creek lay idle in the center table beside the unlit candles.

She wanted to buy something exquisite for the evening and drove all the way to banjara hills to buy this svelte black dress. She could feel a pair of glares staring at her from far. It was nothing new, but very familiar. She quickened her steps to avoid the scorching sun, but could not avoid the doom ahead.


A swift turn and lo!


Adnan !!!


No, it could not be. This could not be him.


After so many years, lost in her blissful life, she had almost forgotten him, except the face and the few lines from the poems he had dedicated her.


The situation would not have worsened if only she walked away, but like a ship in a whirlpool, she got entrapped in the vortex. They carried the brief meeting to an adjacent coffee shop. He still liked his coffee-black, and how come he started wearing blue. He never liked it.


She was impressed on hearing that he had secured a job with a leading financial consultancy. He was always good with economics in school, she remembered. She was sad to know about his father’s death.


Her eyes sauntered carelessly on his frame and stopped at his belly. A slight paunch!! His physique had changed as much as his psyche. From predictable to subtlety, from drab to finesse, from wearisome to witty, he had certainly transformed.


All the while, something was pounding within. Was it her conscience or just the throbbing heart? ..But why?


Just then she noticed, her right palm was masking those carefully clasped fingers. Did she deliberately try to conceal that ring?


An uneasy feeling gripped her. Were the old flames growing? Were passions being rekindled? She glanced at her watch and excused herself on pretense of office. God only knows where this conversation would have advanced to, if she had not stopped it. Why didn’t she tell him the real cause?


He focused his steely eyes on hers, as if asking the pertinent questions or was he trying to answer hers?


She wore her glares, but his eyes could still penetrate those dark glasses and he mustered enough courage to ask the question that jolted and shook her to the core


“Do you still love me?”


She wanted to look him in the eye and give the answer she had long rehearsed in her lonely nights. The nights she had incessantly wept and tried to retain him through copious messages and futile phone calls. A million apologies cannot bring her back those vital years. It cannot erase the embarrassment and pain it had caused, and here he was demanding an answer, unapologetic.


She paused for a moment. The words were reverberating in her mind, but something more powerful held her gaze and she left with a chapter unclosed. A faint smile crossed his face. Maybe he got his answer.


Emotions are stupid, unresponsive to logic.


Till yesterday, her life was such a bounty. A prosperous career, a caring college sweetheart, an elucidated mind and marriage on the cards, yet today on the anniversary of her engagement she had to face such an emotional turmoil. That one question had shattered her peace. She was sill trying to figure out an answer.


In a few hours, Akshat would come with a bunch of red roses apt for the occasion, but didn’t she tell him she liked daisies more. He would take her to dine in the 5-star lounge, he planned last week, but doesn’t he know she would have liked it as a surprise. He would praise her svelte dress, apt for the required dress-code but she hated wearing western outfits and at night he would love her passionately and kiss her a hundred times unaware of the turmoil she was going through.


She was chagrined momentarily. Why was she complaining today after six long years? She knew Akshat just wanted her to be happy. He would never want her to do anything she did not like, if only he knew.


She closed her eyes and a blob of salty water washed her mascara again and she wiped it with the kerchief. She tried to imagine Akshat in all those days he had loved and supported her. She had liked the way he had accepted her troubled past and comforted her in his arms. He had given her the security and affection that every girl desires. She pressed her eyes harder to find that charming face in the stark darkness, but all she could see were a pair of steely eyes demanding an answer.


Suddenly, a blaring honk brought her back to reality. She glanced at her watch. Impossible, how could it be 9 so soon? How long had she been thinking about him? She glinted at the dimly lit room. It was unprepared for the celebrations. Akshat would understand at first look that something was wrong, and then he would not stop until he comforted her. Wouldn’t he understand that tonight she wanted to be left alone? So what if it was their anniversary?


After three knocks, she opened the door. There he was in his best pin-striped suit, those bunches of unwanted flowers and that once attractive broad grin. He embraced her in his muscular arms and she responded to his pout, but the kiss was brief and her response was cold.


She looked at the face that she had admired for six long years, those lips that she had kissed all this while and those arms that held her in the most difficult times. She observed him closely. Those beautiful eyes fixated as if trying to find an answer to something. Was she comparing the two A’s of her life?


Emotions are seriously unresponsive to logic.


Akshat could not spot the dilemma on her face. He mistook it to be her inexplicable admiration for him. He was so elated. He flung the flowers on the table and bosomed her to his chest .With quivering lips he uttered the three words he had said exactly six years from today, the three words that bonded them for a lifetime, or so he thought.


She closed her eyes. Those steely, demanding eyes were still staring at her. She gazed deep into it. A sudden rush of emotions washed away all sense of guilt and the golden words sprung from her lips “I love you too “. A tiny glob of tear washed her mascara again.


She just found the answer !

Change of mind !!

Why have i obscured my vision so bleak
Why am i gnawing the husks of time
Why strand the dreams that once had wings
Why stall the hope that once would fly ??


No trouble beckons unless driven by mind
Why lose the sanity of frozen thoughts
Eyelids & lashes that would never droop
Why kill the smile & bear the sties ??


Once deep rooted trunk,now in shallow water'
Is nothing but a useless log
sauntering in the salty,teary water
It would reach nowhere, just lie and rot


And there i dwell on thoughts so heavy
With a flashing reckless smile
My soul would find peace i know
All i need is a change of mind !!

If numbers had langauge

(In this article i have used '$$' to denote my total failure in comprehending parts of conversations.Its not indicative of any slang and pertains to total respect for every language)

In recent times, my career requisites and personal pursuits have taken me to some of the major places in southern part of India( & not south India which sounds as alien as south Korea). My jaunts have seen the privilege of air-hosting to the skank of local buses, from the vantage of resorts to the inhospitality of motels.

However, no matter how rude the locals seemed or how crude the situations have been, i managed to pull out with a smile and that was only because of 1 reason- 'Numbers don't have lannguage' !!

I was dropped at the 'CMBT bus stand in chennai'at the insanely hour of 3.45 in the dark. I could not have asked my friend to come over and receive me at this ungodly hour so i waited for some time. I went for a coffee and asked the irated gentleman "Anna(yep,i picked this on my way) 1 coffee, how much?"

"$$$$$$$$$Rs.10, $$$$$$ Rs.20 $$$$$"

From the size of the cups, i could guess he was reffering to the quantity of coffee and quoting the price. I quickly opted for the large cup. Fortunately, my guess was correct.


Large coffee acquired.

The clock was ticking at its leisurely pace and the sky was turning crimson, when i stepped out to take the most valiant step in any part of India. Hire a conveyance. Swarm of auto-drivers engulfed me in their vain attempt to explain me various schemes or whatever, in highly accented Tamil(i guess). Suddenly, a young chap played the ploy and uttered a few words in hindi "Sir, keeedar ko jaana?" I felt like rewarding this guy,with my wrist-watch.

I jumped on the rear-seat of his tattered auto, which vibrated every part of my body when the engine was revved.


"Ashok-pillar hot chips kitna bhaiyya?"

....but then i realized he played me fool. He knew just those 3 words of hindi, or so he pretended.

He replied: "$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Rs.200 $$??"

After 5 minutes of a verbal duel in tamil(again,i guess) and hindi-english combo, in which only numbers were intelligible to each other,we settled at Rs.170.

Conveyance acquired.






We were at the CMBT bus-stand,trying to locate the pondicherry bus terminal. After my failed attempts to read from the information chart and locate the enquiry booth, i hit upon a group of conductors. They tried to explain me in their native language which ensued as follows " $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 200c $$$$$$$$$$$ EDA 20P $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" and a lot of hand-gestures.


200C and EDA 20P was the only filtered input to my ears. A 15-minutes break and then i saw the head of a deplorable state bus,marked as 200C make its much-awaited entry.

"Anna, pondicherry ?" i asked, to which he just nodded his head. Perhaps, sign is the only other language i could use in this part of my country,besides numbers.

After 3-hours of agrestic view, we reached pondicherry.


Travel settled.






"numbers too have a language" remarked my roomie, a day after,when i was describing my experiences. "In spanish they don't say one, two, three...instead they say un, dos, tres " he continued "and every language has its own unicode format of writing numbers, its just that we don't use it so extensively, and thankGod for that."


He nudged the unperturbed truth....

'touche'!!is all i could exclaim

....and yes,"Thank God for that ..." !!

Another brick in the wall !! :D

The alarm dutifully shrieked at 6 in the crack of dawn.I pushed the sheets away reluctantly, and then dwelled in that half-fazed state until the snooze time elapsed and the alarm jolted me back into reality. 


The toothpaste tastes much better at night isn't it ?? In the morning it reminds you of the schedule ahead !!


Starched shirts, pleated trousers,leather belts, matching boots-I take a while to realize, this is my newly shuffled wardrobe.The faded jeans and printed tees are allowed to spring up only on the weekends.
The proximity cards (another hot-bred corporate jargon) hangs around the neck like a noose for the goose. My recently trimmed hair strands all stick to each other daring not to kiss the temple. 
I have become a slave of time again. I follow my watch to catch the erratically scheduled bus,obediently standing in the bus stop with chores of other similiar tech-guys !


....& now here, sitting by the window(which i can't let go)i  realize that school life has come haunting back,after the 4 blissful years of quiescence in college,


..though this time we don't pay fees, we earn salary !


..& you can't ignore the alarm assured that papa is there to drive you to school


...nor rest assured that the uniform is pressed and shoes are polished and tiffin is hot and water-bottle is cold. 


The proximity card(arghh again) reminds me of the school tie i so severely despised. 
The swipe-in reminds me of attendance (and proxy calls).
Recess is just the same,though now after lunch instead of playing basketball we are more interested in smoking dunhill lights. 
..the swipe-out reminds me of the final bell, but now i am not in a hurry to reach home, i don't have  mama waiting with hot 'pooris and paranthas'when i reach home !




Now i know why they say life is an ever-learning process....its because we never graduate out of a school !!

All good things.... have to ....come to an end !!

On our farewell our placement officer said “these 4 years were the best years of your life”! Thanks to the good, old man for his kind platitude but I had the strong desire to question him for the very last time that “Dude, the princi of my higher secondary school said the same and so did my primary section headmaster. Why do you people scare the diver before he leaps?”

The last 2 weeks have been a roller-coaster ride for me. First, the official farewell then the exams and then again the unofficial farewell. Emotions formed a potpourri and by the time we could realize, time had done the trick. With lofty promises of staying in contact and hailing the mobile and social networking we exchanged good-byes. That night we clinked glasses of malt whisky and tried to drift into its blues and then the sudden but obvious question was raised

What did you learn from these 4 years in an engineering college?

Now, trust me , any proud engineer in all his senses would reply a proud- NOTHING to this question. But, I was not in my senses and my haughty mind wandered into the memories of these 4 years to find a reasonably sound answer.

True to its nature, B.tech does not teach you technology. Majority of the population in these institutions realize their dreams and passion, half way into it. But, there are a lot of things that these 4 years teach you. Where else do you think that a guy with 8 hours to spare would be able to keep his cool, wrack his brains and study just the bare minimum to pass and yet score a solid 8 point?

These 4 years we evolved and grew:
from Soft rock to Grunt metal,
from Sidney Sheldon to Jean Sasson,
from Orkut to Facebook,
&
from infatuation to love !

We learnt the terms ‘RECESSION’, ‘MAOIST’ and ‘SENSEX’. We saw the industrialization process of west Bengal smashed to smithereens .We also saw the upsurge of TMC and Mamata di over the long established Left-front and also, India win two world-cups-the T20 and ODI.

These 4 years taught us not to smile but to laugh out loud (LOL)!

Now come, corporate life or any martial challenge, we can handle it because we have practiced enough to ‘LOL’ our problems.

KALIYUG RAMAYANA : The World-cup final !!

I hope that you guys read it before the World-cup final is over.
and please share it if you like it, for INDIAN SUPPORT !

It is the first time that two asian countries will play for the world-cup and as Mahela Jayawardhene( VIBHISHAN) has put it, India is more likely to win the cup.
However the Kaliyug Ramayana has seen a change in SITA,the vivacious,scintillating beauty, the whole world is after - The World Cup ( though not abducted by Sri-Lanka, but c'mon a li'l twist is allowed and anyways they were the runner's up last season). LORD RAMA himself has reincarnated in the form of SACHIN, playing almost for more than the stipulated VANVAS(14 years) and now in pursuit of his better half- The World-Cup.
Supporting him is HANUMAN- Virender Sehwag, who has set the LANKA on fire many a times and as ARJUNA RANATUNGA (Daitya Guru),puts it, he is the most volcanic batsman in India. The rest of the talented team is the VANAR-SENA, with MS DHONI- the skipper captain, as 'SUGRIV' the VANAR RAJA.

When it comes to LANKA, who better than MURULIDHARAN to don the mantle of RAVAN (not coz he looks like a DAITYA :P, but because he is the only one to mess with RAM.) The lankan team has the whole middle order as 'KUMBHAKARAN' sleeping and dormant. However, if woken up, though unlikely, they could be devastating.

All said and done, the captains and other batsmen will do their required jobs, but the match will gyrate around the fact that whether Muruli is hurling top-spins and Doosras(read VISH- BARND) or SACHIN is tossing them with ease(RAM-BARND).

However, being a huge HANUMAN-BHAKT, i believe SEHWAG will play the pivotal role.

LANKA KO PARAST KIYA JAYE !!:)))

ITI

Unconventional Goa !!

There have always been the 3 B's that have been associated with Goa- Beach, Booze and Babes (though not neccessarily in that priority), although an impishly perceivable mind can think of a few more B's. When i say, unconventional Goa, i mean those aspects of this scenic territory that often goes unseen or maybe ignored, but something that makes this place so unique.

I got the oppurtunity of being a part of the big-bash organized by www.freshersworld.com, for their promising campus ambassadors. I was on my way to goa when i met this hermit, who was going to an Ashram in Old Goa. Now this guy was Awesome. His name was 'Baba Bhola' and i think i will need another post dedicated to this 'monk-who-sold-his-ferrari'
Anyways, this 'Baba Bhola' shared with me some wisdom about Goa, and he asked me to reach beyond the convention of this beautiful land.
The following day, we said our share of goodbyes and i had my eyes popped out to look for the unconventions.
The first night we stayed in Old Goa. It was almost dusk by the time we settled in, yet we put on our shorts and set the right foot out. We hailed an auto, oblivious about the plying buses. The auto-rickshaw was a closed,compact wagon with curtains and flowers carefully placed. We asked him to drive us to Panjim market, about 7KM from our present location, according to the hotel map, and the auto-driver demanded a whopping Rs. 120. We tried haggling, but the doors were opened without hesitation. We relented. That was the first of the numerous encounters we had with these omnipresent auto-drivers and by the next day it was clear to us that haggling does not work in Goa, because there is no dearth of willing customers.
However, we were saved by the plying buses between stations. These were small state run buses, with clear mandates for the number of people to be seated and stood, and by Jove, it was followed. However, Goa is low on chauvinism as the boys sit on the ladies seat unabashadely and the ladies in that for senior citizen.The conductor clad in funky clothes and flashy glares, never missed the fare. The buses had a pecularity, the small electric bell, that acted as a communication between the conductor and the driver.

The people of Goa, are multi-lingual.They can speak English, Hindi and local language with quite ease. However, when it comes to writing, the spellings are often erroneous.
Wherever you go, you can listen to peppy, foot-tapping ,melodious songs and towards the evenings you can try your hand at the karaoke or jazz competitions. All it would cost you is a Tuna and bacon, and a bottle of beer.
Speaking of alcohol, which happens to be a convention, i would like to draw your attention towards the local alcohol, which is priced at Rs. 100-400 a bottle, depending on the quality. Its called Fenny and is available in several flavours, my favourite being Olive.However there is another local drink available in the beaches early in the morning called Amaya, that not many people know about. It tastes better than wine and stones more than a bong. Its every alcoholics desire,in Goa.However,its illegal.
Another very unusual thing about this place is the architecture. The houses built around the capital, have such a refined, pre-historic look. Some of  them columbian enough and few deserving the flashes. The palm trees along the borders accentuates the panorama.
The best part of the entire trip was the last day, when i broke out of my group , hired a bike,a rusty old splendour(i had no choice) and rode around the city. Its fun to read directions, get lost ,discover short-cuts and live in the moment. However, before that let me tell you, hiring a bike on a weekend is one hell of a job. You have to be smart enough to strike a deal. Don't try haggling after the rent has been quoted. I took help from a a random localite and struck the deal for Rs. 300 for 16 hours, apart from the security and DL proof.
The people of Goa are the best i have met so far. However, the brokers and middlemen continue to be as reprehensible as anywhere across our country. Perhaps they all share a breed.
From the moment i stepped into Goa, i never saw a cop. However, on that day when i was riding my bike at an unaccountable speed, i was gestured by a white uniformed guy to pull over. I could smell bribery, and was weighing my wallet, when a smiling face greeted me and asked for my DL. I produced it, surprised at the smile, or was it a smirk??
He glanced at it, warned me to drive slowly for my own safety and then moved away. For the first time in my life, i was stopped by a cop and let go without a penny lost. I was all respect for the guy.
Parking is at whim. 'No-parking' signals are just for the pigeons to perch.
I had been to beaches, done all crazy things that you expect a young lad to do in a beach. After 4 days of conventional shit, when i broke free of it and gave a brief stint to my unconventional pursuits, the road from panjim to old Goa attracted me the most.

 The bylanes and boulevards and the ancient architecture located beside the calm and spectacular juar river was a speckle to the nitty-gritties of conventional Goa. I parked my bike beside the Juar dock and strode the 6 KMs up and back, while clicking some adorable pics.Sometimes, you want to savour a moment for lifetime. This was one such moment for me.
That night i was leaving for my hiking across Maharashtra and MP and i thought what better than a chilled glass of Amaya. However, it was dusk and i could not find it. However, i found something else, but its inappropriate to mention it, so i leave it to your wild imaginations !!
Foe more pictures on Unconventional Goa, click on the following link :

Unconvntional Goa !!