Land

Yousuf was a happy man.

This year had been a good year for them. After the economic crisis they had given up hope that things will become normal again.

But their fancy store business had recovered. They dealt with regular fancy store articles like bags, women’s adornments, video game cartridges, imported chocolates etc. Recently they had opened up a mobile phone unit and recharge unit in the shop which had become a real money spinner.  

People seemed to be fascinated by mobile phones. They kept buying the Korean sets and the cheap dual sim mobiles even though they knew that they will never be the same as a good Nokia mobile. Some people on the other hand just lust over gadgets. Yousuf had this friend. His name was Krishna. He had just bought a Corby Pro just four months back. But as soon as Samsung came out with a new Android mobile last week he sold his Corby and bought this new phone. What a nut ! As long as there were people like them Yousuf would  keep turning profits.

Thanks to the mobile business along with the fancy store (which has become secondary now) they had started to make profits few months back. Yousuf decided to invest a huge fraction of that in renovating their ancestral home. They had gotten rid of old stuff, trunks filled with papers, journals, documents etc in the attic and modified it into a children’s room.  They had modified the front and made a portico, tiled the floors everywhere and created an entertainment room and a fully furnished dining room-cum- kitchen from their profits. The highlight of the house was a tree in the middle of the house. His mother used to tell him when he was eight years old that the tree was as old as the house itself. He never believed her. It stood majestically in their make-shift courtyard.

Yousuf’s family had never been this happy either. They never forgot to thank Almighty Allah for all that he had given them when they sat for lunch or dinner.

His great-great grandfather had bought the house off from an impoverished Brahmin some two centuries back. The house had been passed on to the eldest son through the generations and now Yousuf owned it.

They were so euphoric that they were not prepared for what was in store for them.

Ramanujam was a regular Brahmin who got up in the morning, did his Sandhi, did his chores, had his coffee, went out to have a smoke, came back to inform his mother that he was having lunch outside and then went to Rawther’s Biryaani House and had a half Chicken biryani with Prawn fry. He came from a lineage of temple priests and nearly everybody he knew in the previous generation were or had been priests at temples in their time. To his knowledge some had even lived in the temple premises.

Ramanujam did not have a proper job. To be very fair he did not do anything which was remotely useful. His family had always been known for their strict moral values but somehow he had been born as an exception to the heritage. Even during birth he was born with only four fingers in one hand. The Doctors had no explanation but once they discussed it for some time they came to the conclusion that in the fetal stage as he grew out fingers Ramanujam had somehow managed to absorb the finger into himself. In other words, he had eaten it. He was born a non-vegetarian.

Now in his thirties without a money earning premise he had nothing but religion at his disposal. But it was his luck that there was no Temple in their locality which was dominated by minorities and rationalists. He would have to travel 10 Km for the nearest Temple but that too was a Vaishnavite temple. Despite his name, Ramanujam funnily was a Shaivite. His learned father had chosen to name him after the mathematician. But he was jobless, clueless and useless.

It was at this point of time that, one day, as he was going through some old trunks in the attic that he came upon the document. It was written in very old Tamil and looked like it belonged to his ancestor Krithivaasa Iyer. Since Ramanujam did not have anything better to do he sat down to read the document which was no mean task, given the complexity of the ancient language. But what he read gave him hope. As the only male of this long lineage he was overjoyed to hear his ancestor mention a family inheritance. A significant piece of land where once a temple stood. Where his ancestor had worked and lived. He decided to take the document to BOSS immediately

BOSS stood for Brahmins Of SSouth Madras. SSouth? They had changed the name a few years back when an astrologer had told them that two SS’s in the name of the association would bring them good luck. That soon a big temple would spring up right in their locality if they did that. They dreamt of Tirupathi. They dreamt of a huge Hundi. They dreamt of numbers, zeroes and currency. So South had become SSouth. But luck had not smiled upon them. She had eluded them. That is until today. That is until Ramanujam walked onto the steps of the association with The Document. That is what it would be called in history. The Document.

It talked of a land in the locality where a temple once stood. It also talked about how the land was sold off when money became scarce for the poor Brahmin who had been neck deep in debts after his daughter’s marriage. But they would forget the ‘selling’ part of it. An important thing was a Temple was there in their area. Why was that important?  Right now there was NO Temple in their locality. But then where is the Temple which is mentioned in The Document? That is the question. The answer would put the BOSS back on the map. They would once again become important in the community if a Temple came into existence.

Yousuf and his family were leaving to watch THE MOVIE- Robo.

Everybody was excited. They had got very good tickets that too in the box. It was a premiere show and Yousuf’s customer, a Mr. Antony had given him the tickets.

It was when he was dressing that he heard the calling bell. Who could it be at this time?

He went to get the door. He saw four or five people standing outside in dazzlingly white dhotis. Tide???

“Yes?”

“Are you the owner of this place?”

“We would like to talk to you.”

“Actually my family and I are about to go outside for an important event. Can it wait?”

“Unfortunately it cannot. It’s very important that we talk now.”

“Ok . Come in.”

 He led them to the living room. They looked around as if repelled by all the wealth that was surrounding them. They looked to be uncomfortable. They looked to be hostile.

“Tell me. What is so important?”

“Do you know that the land on which your house stands belonged to a Brahmin?”

“Actually, yes. My ancestor bought it from somebody centuries back. I have seen it mentioned somewhere.”

“Do you happen to have any documents which support what you say?”

“You mean proof? What is going on? Why would I need that? We have been living in this house for a long time. Everybody knows it belongs to us. What do you mean whether I have documents to support it?”, he was losing his patience.

“The thing is, Sir, there once stood a temple in the very spot you have built the house”, he turned and pointed to the tree which was visible through the window, “that tree that stands there. That is a Bael tree( Vilva maram). Somebody built a house on the land where a Shiva temple stood.”, he said dramatically.

Yousuf could only stare at them with disbelief.

That had been a month ago. As news of it spread around it became a big movement. A political party offered support to the BOSS .Their youth wing called RAMBO( Ram Avatar Mandal for Brahmins and Others) started to protest vociferously.

Yousuf was forced to leave the house. They were left with no choice.

Why are they doing this? Did not Waapa say that their ancestor had bought it from a poor man?

If a temple really did stand here, in a Hindu majority country, is it not possible that at some point in history, any given piece of land would have been a house for a Temple or some sort of structure if we go back in time sufficiently?

What happens to the concept of ownership?

Why did I spend money just a month before it was going to be torn down like this?

So is that tree really as old as the house as Ammi said?
Did his ancestor cheat the man in any way? Was this poetic justice?

Why me?

Why here?
Why now?

WHY?

Yousuf could not find answers to anything as he stood and saw a monster with huge jaws tear swallow their portico.

The front gate had a sign.

“ Vilvamoorthi Aalayam, Coming soon”

Two men without a job…

7.00 AM

The last one month has been hard on him

He has been a busy man all his life. He had a job. He had earned a decent living to put his two sons through school and then college.

They had grown up into selfish worms. It had always been the elder one who had posed a problem for him. But lately the younger one too had become rebellious.

With these thoughts Raghu got up.

Coffee. The family was addicted to coffee. They were jus not able to perform as normal people without it.

The newspaper was late. It had always been late.

The younger son was not at home. He had been placed in Infosys. He was in training. Atleast he was on his own. He had wanted to pursue higher studies abroad. But that was no longer relevant.

The elder one. The useless one. The one with no virtues. The noisy brute. Sleeping in the middle of the hall. He wont be awake until 8.45 or 9. That too only if I shout in his ears.

Buffalo!

8.48 AM  Krawida

‘Beeraaa, Beera beeraa beera beera beera beera beera!’

It was my alarm on my Corby Pro. I opened my eyes. Turn off alarm. Shall I go back to sleep? Another ten minutes?

No. Mother nature calling out to me. Its time to get up and spread the joy.

Which one is the toothpaste and which one is the face wash? Both are blue. This one says Pears. So the other one is probably it.

Laptop.Password. Mozilla. FB

Notifications.

RT commented on her photo.

DB likes your status.

BS thinks he is a mythomaniac. Comment :krawida-I second that dude!

LOL. ROFL. ROTFL.

Sign out.

Open Drive G:

What movies did I download y’day night? The apartment. A monicca Belluci starrer

Play in VLC media player.

9.45 AM

The loafer had got up. Raghu did not understand whether it had been a call which woke him or a call from that girl. He seems to listen to her properly.

‘Here, take the coffee. Shall I ask the maid to buy Chocos?’

He nods. Lazy oaf! Does not want to exercise his vocal chords.

How can somebody clean the house and do the chores if this big buffalo is sleeping in the middle of the floor.

If it had been a one month back Raghu would have sent him flying across the hall by screaming and increasing the volume of the TV. It irritates him but it gets him awake.

But now he was not at work. He did not have work. They did not need him anymore. Because he had turned 60.

Now he did not have to worry about being late to office.

It bothered him to sit at home all day discussing some inane matter from time to time with his eldest.

What is your bro doing? Why has he not replied to my message? Why has he gone late for work today? Are you going to do samithadhaanam  tomorrow before you change the sacred thread? Have you booked ticket for your brothers return next week? Did you check whether tickets are available for your cousins marriage?

This is all that his eldest and him discussed. Either it was regarding his youngest or it was about the Tri-series.

103! Pitiful display of cricket

11.02 AM

This movie is slow.

I Don’t really understand whats happening. The narration shifts between two timelines. But apart from that nothing interesting seems to be haapening…

I had finished my Post Graduation two months back.

I had also been placed in a Chennai company long time back but they were set to call me. None of us had been called yet among the people who had been recruited.

I chose to chill out.

But it gets boring after a period of time.

Yesterday had gone on a long drive to Ambur for a friend’s marriage. Returned late in the night.

Today had been very uneventful unless you count the squabble with DB on FB.

The movie is getting interesting. Suddenly it has transitioned into a multi perspective narrative.

I like that. The more confusing it gets the more I like it. The more simple it is the more I hate it. That has become a motto for my thumb rule for liking movies.

So Inception? It is as good as it comes. Very complex psychological thriller which reminded me of Shutter Island though they shared nothing except the protagonists agony.

The sweeter the people talk the less I like them. The franker and upfront people are, the more I like them. That has become my thumb rule for liking people. So to say the least I don’t seem to like a lot of people. I am on my way to becoming a misanthrope.

Its nearly 3.00! Let me not delay my shower any longer. The mosquitoes which bit me are dying.

Lunch at 3.45! I am having my lunch early today! Must have done something early!

6.00 PM

How can he sit on that laptop of his for the whole day, wondered Raghu. The desktop was not working. Otherwise atleast he would have something to do. Like play Solitaire or Freecell!

Time for fourth Coffee of the day. No milk.

‘Diwan, are you going out somewhere? Some milk is required.’

Raghu thought he said ok.

Raghu did not seem to be hearing things properly lately. Along with his Asthma he was a prize catch for Doctors to experiments their drugs on. That’s why he avoided them. It was because of wrong medication that his mother had spent her last year on earth on artificial respirators.

He was reading The Story of My Experiments with Truth on his mobile now. He had found it on a wapsite. Gandhiji was describing his new acquaintances- Thilak and Patel.

In one or two hours his eldest would go to Raghu’s brother’s place to eat. He would then bring over dinner for Raghu.

He did not like his sister-in-law’s culinary skills and he did not make an effort to hide it. It was too spicy, he told her. But she always thought it was ok.

His life had become a monotony.

If only he had  something worthwhile to do…

9.00 PM

The food was ok today. I enjoyed dinner. The cousin who was in her seventh grade was a little chatty today. She had no interest in academics and whenever some song from Villu, Vaettikaaran or Sura came up on TV she would tell everyone how he looked like him and embarrass him. Sometimes her friends were there and they would argue with her. That was more embarrassing.

I don’t want to be compared with him now. Not with the direction his movies are taking. A few years back he liked it when people told him he bore a slight resemblance to the actor in looks and mannerisms. But now he did not want to hear about it. He was krawida who was jobless as of now and a blogger by right.

He would go back now. Give dinner to father. Go back to his ‘girlfriend’- his laptop, that’s what his real girlfriend called it-  and resume the movie or FB whatever he felt like doing at that moment.

I watch movies till late night well after midnight and when my eyes start swearing at me i would go to sleep at around 2.00 AM

 My life had become a monotony

If only i had something worthwhile to do…

Serendipity

Ellen was not much of a religious person. She was a Psychology student and though she was not a Science fanatic or an Atheist, she had her own opinions about the concept of God. She did not believe in the Big Bang theory nor did she believe that Jesus was resurrected or that Lord Shiva had a third eye with which he could incinerate people.

So what she was essentially doing in that church on that Sunday morning was by no means a religious pursuit. She had a thesis to turn in soon for her degree and she really could not decide what it is going to be about. What better place to look for a subject for Psychology than in a place bustling with people?

A place of worship is a funny place, she thought to herself. Most of us here are here to repent for our sins of the past week, some for peace and some for the free food after the session. So which of these people are here for what, she wondered. She was seated near the end of the end of the Hall and given her unusual height of 178 centimeters; she was able to see nearly everybody. At least when she stood up she could. She could see that child pestering her mother to accompany her outside because she had to pee. There was a boy who was looking very uncomfortable in his church clothes. There was a couple who were bickering about God knows what. God knows what, she thought to herself. There were a group of teenagers visibly distracted by something. It’s a girl of course. There she was, pretty and innocent in her pink dress and completely unaware of the effect she was having on young minds a few aisles back. There was this guy who looked out of place in a church. Dressed shabbily, with four days growth of beard he was looking around scratching his head. Probably dandruff. The family next to him seemed to be more worried about his appearance than he was and the mother was asking her kids not to sit close to him. So where is he? The subject for my thesis?

 There he was.

As usual he was late. As usual he had a lit cigarette between his lips. As usual he was walking with a self- assured cockiness which only he was capable of.

Bobby.

She had been going out with him for more than a year now. What did she see in him?

Initially it has been the very same stuff which had attracted her to him. His courage. His bad-ass attitude. His swagger. The way he looked at her. The way he smiled when he was able to get an answer right before everybody else in class. The way he did not give a damn what anyone thinks and did what he wanted. And yes. The way he stepped in and knocked a guy out when he started harassing her. That singular act made me fall for him, she thought. He was not a bad person. He is anything but that. But his hot headedness is something she could not put up with all the time. He had a very short temper. So short that it could have been in Gulliver Travels. Last week Bobby broke her brother’s nose. For what? Because Eddie, her brother, told him that he was a punk and asked him to stay away from her.

Now she has to talk to him. Her parents want her to talk to him. He is going to blow a fuse.

Oh my God! Somebody ran into him without looking where he was going. This is not going to be good. Coffee on Bobby’s favourite shirt. It’s going to be a blood bath!

The other guy was yelling. They had just rammed into one another while everybody was going for the exit. This guy who was yelling, had been talking on his phone with a sandwich in his hand and he was clearly not aware that somebody was walking towards him and he just ran into this ‘other guy’. The ‘other guy’ now had vegetables and sauce on his shirt but he was calm and was just looking blankly at this ‘yeller’.

Yellers are crazy people. You can see them everywhere. They are basically people who are very insecure and are going through some rough times in personal life or career. They are these really hopeless people who are not able to tell their wives to get off their back or tell their bosses that they cannot work overtime daily because, honestly, they were not getting paid for the extra work. They can also be socially frustrated guys or guys who live out of their parents’ pension even when they are thirty. When these guys come out they have this huge balloon of feelings inside them ready to burst. They go about doing their work with that balloon perilously in danger blowing up any second. So when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a stand-off, like in the traffic or in Supermarket or wherever, even if the fault is their own they just start yelling. Like it’s the other persons fault. It somehow makes them feel better. Well, whatever works!

Anyway, as Ellen watched and thought about ‘yellers’ she recognized that this guy was one and usually the other guy in the stand-off also becomes involved emotionally. It may be another ‘yeller’ in which case you are in for a treat or it may be just a normal guy who gets pissed off when he is wrongly accused. In this case the this particular ‘yeller’ was asking for trouble because he had no business talking on a phone inside a church. Also he had not been watching where he was going.

Why was this other guy calm then? Interesting, she thought. She had never seen one situation act out this way before. There is always yelling from both sides. They yell till they get tired and then they leave. She thought that may be she would talk to this guy.

The yeller had by this time got tired and since he was not getting any back talk from the other guy he just threw some curses at him and left. Now that’s a good Christian. Cursing inside the church!

When she approached the ‘other guy’ she saw that he was much older then she assumed he was. He must have been sixty probably. That probably explains his calm demeanor. But she thought that even that was not enough reason to give a piece of your mind to a disrespectful young man.

“So you want to know why I did not tell him off, do you?”, he asked her, even before she could say anything.

“Well, yes actually. But before that I think we should get that shirt cleaned, sir. I think there must be a tap outside in the lawn. For the hose, you know”, she said.

He smiled.

“Call me Robert and that’s a good idea, young lady.”

“Call me Ellen, Robert”

“Ellen!”

Ellen could not get the scene out of her mind.

She kept playing it again and again in her mind. It HAD been a blood bath.

Bobby had taken a soft drink bottle which he found on the nearby table. He had asked the guy to apologize. He had asked nicely but for some reason the other guy did not want to do it. And he called Bobby a ‘ faggot’.

For Bobby that was like hanging a board around your neck saying ‘Hit me’.

So Bobby did just that. He hit the guy with the bottle so hard that Ellen was sure he had killed him.

There was blood everywhere. The guy’s head had started bleeding profusely immediately after contact and he had gone into shock and had started twitching.

Bobby’s shirt looked like a modern painting with Coffee stains and blood.

The guy was alive and he kept mumbling “Grass hopper.. grass hopper ..” all the way to the dispensary.

Bobby was wearing a green shirt and he was very lean. With his sticky hands and legs he did resemble a grass hopper.

 They both looked at the grass hopper.

“Sometimes I wish we were able to camouflage into the surroundings like a grass hopper”, Ellen said.

“We all have our purpose in life. We have been made for that. We have been made with unique attributes fort that higher purpose. The grass hopper does not know why it is green. It has adapted itself to do certain things. Like hide in grass. It knows it is safe but not why. But we should be able to realize for what purpose we are here. And why we are what we are.”, Robert said.

They had cleaned the shirt and had decided to sit in the lawn for some time till it dries out.thats when the grass hopper caught Ellen’s eyes.

“A philosopher , are we?”

“No, not a philosopher but a person who is seeking the truth about us. There was a time when I was hot headed like so many others in the world but it did not bring me anything but misery. There was a time when I thought there was no God and that nature was the only real law. But now I have broadened my horizons.”

“ Wow! God uh? Funny that you should talk about him. I have often debated it myself too. Answer this. Each day as we go we seem to find new ways to understand things around us. New laws. New equations. New theories. Everything seems to suggest though we are in no way close to complete understanding, we are making progress. So soon we might be able to explain everything through science or mathematics for that matter. So where does God figure in this equation, no pun intended?”

“Very thoughtful for a young girl. You actually remind me of someone I knew. Let me put it this way. Assuming that God did create this Universe let me make an analogy. Human beings create so many things. Say robots, ,machines, whatever. But even for something created from understanding of science and laws of what not we are never able to say how a certain machine will work. A machine made from the same parts , obeying the same theories may not work out to be behave the same way. So how then do we explain the fact that Gravity is the same everywhere? Or the Fibonacci series in sunflowers ? It is the same eevrywhere. So all these has been created by something much more advanced than we ever can be. What I am trying to say is if there is a God and you think you are able to understand stuff with mathematics it can only mean that mathematics is meant to be the language through which we can understand It. God speaks to us through mathematics. That is if you assume that there is a God.”

 “Hmmm. That’s one way to look at it. So tell me why did you remain calm inside there?”

“That’s nothing actually. Before I explain that let me tell you this. I have not been here for twenty years now. I used to live here. This church actually played a very important role in my life. It is responsible for what I am today. When I decided to change my ways I did not know where to start. The first thing I did was start reading on various religions to understand the concept of God. You can say there is no God all you want. That’s easy to do. But an open minded person would also want to look at the evidence that is there in God’s favour. I wanted to be that person. I travelled the world in search of something I lost. But I came away with something else. My travels helped me to read people. I can look at people and can just register what they are going through. Happiness, sadness, shock,puzzlement. That is one of the reasons why I come to church. So today when that guy started yelling I could see that his anger was misdirected. I was sure he was another poor soul who was having a bad day. I did not want to make it any worse than it already was. So I just meditated on the moment. Zen philosophy says that you can clear negative energy with positive energy. I think I did that today. I could see his anger subside. In the end he looked defeated. Ahimsa”

“You know something. You and I are not very different. I come here to observe people too. So tell me what is this truth?”

“You have a whole life ahead of you. You will figure it out.”

“Anyway. Have you got plans for lunch. No? Good. Then I want to have you over for lunch. My place his just couple of blocks away.”

“Ok. I have learned that in my experience free food tastes better no matter how bad it is.”

“Don’t worry my grandma is a great cook. So you are really not going to tell me the ‘Truth of Human Existence’?”

“Tell me the truth, Bobby”

“What do you want to know, El?”

“You know what I am talking about. I well forget that you broke my brother’s nose. I will forget what happened just now. Just tell me what I want to know? Were you or were you not involved in the fire that happened at the church on Friday.”

“El..”

“Answer me honestly, Bobby. Please tell me the truth.’

“Yes.”

“Why, Bobby, why would you want to do that? Not believing is one thing but, really? Arson? That too in a church?”

“It is not a church. It is an Evangelist paradise. On Friday they had this fancy evangelist fly out from somewhere and he was conning the poor out of their money promising them miracles. That guy was actually saying children infected by AIDS are Satan’s children and they deserve to perish in hell. We went there to threaten them. To expose the fraud that they are. But this guy was too much. He has a private jet. A 747. All from swindling the poor and the rich alike. He said he could cure epilepsy. There is no cure for epilepsy! He said that people with epilepsy are possessed by the Devil and he would exorcise them. And that after five exorcisings the epileptic would be cured. He said exorcising would cost thousand bucks because he had to import some special holy water from the birthplace of Jesus and some crap like that. We could not take it anymore and so we had to throw a Molotov at him. God or no God it was preposterous. Be thankful that he is alive.”

“ What if somebody else was hurt?”

“What do you think I am? Stupid? We had only enough gasoline in that to frighten the crap out of him. Nobody was going to get hurt. But then he was wearing this frock which caught fire and that f****r removed it and threw it at the curtains and ran out. The curtains caught fire and soon everything was on fire. The police should arrest him. That’s what they should do.”

“Bobby, you are not making it easy for us or for me. You know that my parents are devout Christians. How do you think they will accept you? They are going to hear about this soon. They have already started discussing my marriage with another family that they know from church;their boy is doing law at Harvard. His name is Timothy Downey. I think you have blew it this time.”

“ Are you telling me we are through?Answer me. Answer me, El. God Damn it, answer me.”

“Yes, grandma. That’s what I said. We have a visitor for lunch. Come down and keep him company while I go dressed.”

“ What did you say? I can’t hear you”

“I said come down”

“Ok,I will turn the volume down.”

Ellen sighed and went into her room to get changed. Robert started looking around the living room. There were photographs of Ellen everywhere. They must have taken a lot of photos. There was Ellen when she was four or five holding a fish which her father had caught presumably. There were photos of her during dress rehearsals. There was her getting some medal in college. And then there were some black and white photos. Of a young man. Must have been Ellen’s Father, thought Robert. And there was one of him with his degree at Harvard. Robert Downey. Robert uh? What a coincidence, he pondered.

Ellen returned from her room.

“You are looking at the photos uh?”

“Yeah, actually I was just wondering how weird it was that your father’s name was Robert too.”

“Oh! Actually I forget his name was Robert sometimes. Everybody calls him Bobby. My grandma used to call him that and it stuck.”

“Oh! Your grandma, is it? Her name would not happen to be Ellen would it, like yours?”

“Actually, yes. How did you guess?”

“Let’s just say I acquired psychic powers when I learned the truth about human existence”, he said looking at the mantel where he saw a very old photo of a girl in her twenties who he assumed was her Grandmother and who he knew to be Ellen.

Ships that don’t sink?...I don’t think so

Recently I saw this movie. Before sunrise. It’s an English movie starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. It’s a very well made film and discusses a lot of intellectual stuff and realities of life.

So this movie is about a boy and gal who meet on a train and decide to spend a day together and in the process fall in love. But they are from different countries the guy being an American on his way back and the girl being French. So now they have this problem. How will they meet again? But they both decide that they don’t want to exchange phone numbers because relationships over long distances have a way of disintegrating mysteriously. They do not want this memory that they share marred by phone calls which, for all they know could become infrequent and rare and thereby creating a rift in their relationship. They decide to meet six months later at the same place, Vienna. Do they meet? You find that out for yourself.

But when I saw this scene where they discuss what could possibly happen if they exchanged phone numbers or addresses, it triggered something. I had a sense of déjà vu. Not that it had happened in many of my romantic relationships but that it had infact happened with all my friends.

It is quite a wonder if we sit back and think, about where all the friends you make right from the time you started learning alphabets, went. All those people. Hundreds and hundreds of them. You stuck to them, they stuck to you. We proclaimed that we would remain friends forever and never once did we think about the possibility that five years down the line that we probably would not recognize each other and may not even know where each other is. We placed more value on this relationship more than anything else. Our friends meant more to us than family. But where are they now? I certainly don’t know where all my friends are. Even with orkut,myspace, facebook and all this social networking I simply don’t know where they are. And well to be frank that probably is not a worry at all to any of us now.

Why not? 

Because the definitions of words have changed though we refer to them by the same words. So friendship is not the traditional Best friends Forever stuff but it is companionship. Bonding is not about knowing your friend to such a level that, ‘you can think what he is thinking’,but it is about ‘hanging’,’chilling’. So spending time with your friends is not about sharing thoughts which mean the most to all of you or jus sharing other equally important but inane stuff, but it has become a practice of just watching movies together.

‘We are still friends because we go to the movies together twice a year’.

The only people who really bond are people who share something common. Like smoking, drinking or dope. What if you do not do any of this stuff?

Well’ in that case it’s a lonely road for you, my friend. Of course I don’t mean you are my ‘friend’. I am just saying that because it sounds cool.

So I sit back in my chair and think about all my close friends right from the time I put my tiny feet in a uniform trouser.

At that early phase we had a gang. Of course we were in KG but still we were a gang. We were five in number. We did not know what fear was because we did not know any alphabets so we did not know any four letter words. One had serpent in his name. Nag. One was a Vayu progeny. Maruthi. One was small like a Vishnu avatar. Hari. One had a name of a sage though he was not one in any sense .Kaushik. And me? I was the Sun himself. We terrorised the school. Of course the teachers knew nothing about us because though we were the Famous Five we were the Secret Five also. We were together for five years. After that, Three of the Generals transferred to a better establishment and one was going away from Duty because of personal reasons. For two years I did not hear from any of them. After all there were no cell phones at that time. After those painful two years I go to this establishment where my old Generals are and to my astonishment I find that they have ‘moved on’. That was my first lesson in life.

I do not know about diamonds but Friends are not forever.

I form a new gang. This was a big one though at the heart of it only two of us were controlling things. One was the Pampered Spoiled brat who wore Blazers to school for his birthday and brought the whole class lunch almost every day. We would have killed each other for his mother’s home cooked chapphathis and a unique side dish. The other one with the control was the wise and unruly me. There was another famed member. We called him The Auto. The reason for his codename is “Confidential’. There was another who was as wise as me if not wiser and bolder and much taller with victory etched forever in his name. Vijay- the six foot fourteen year old. The lot of us stayed together for five years. And in those five years we went through a period of Cold War with the opposite sex when our hormones had just started acting up. After our reign the time for another crossroads. To stay or not to stay in CBSE. That is the question. Most of our loyal members chose State over the Central and though I preferred Central, since I did not want to lose the whole gang again I chose State. But Fate played its cards differently. We were like Jokers in a pack of cards. We got shuffled randomly among the sections and at the end of this game the gang was no more functional as the members were scattered among the different sections of masses. It was time for recruitment again.

Once again the warriors parted ways and the army had to be built from scratch. Among the old fellows only The Auto was near. And still faithful to the cause. The new army was formed. But now the new environment caused an army of diverse soldiers. Rogues and scoundrels we were, intellectuals we were not. The Auto though still a Loyal Soldier was pushed to the background. He chose a different path and he chose well. He chose the path of Pseudointelligence which was held in high regard in State where how intelligent you were was measured by the marks you scored which in turn was dependent on your ability to learn things by rote. Among the rest of the Soldiers four rose to the forefront. The one with music in his language. The Mallu- Hari. The Athlete- Chinu. The Wise Giant- Ram and of course me in an all new avatar of Dirty,rotten,Scoundrel! There was also a loyal member though not entirely accepted by everyone. He was the Jester. Our friends would know him for his confession of love to the girl of his dreams. A simple but yet profound poem he wrote for her and boldly read it out to her in the vicinity of her friends.

“I like you. You like me?” Which was followed up by her quick and equally endearing response,” Are you mad?”

There was also the passive but yet impressionable Hermit with silent wit as a weapon. His name was Datta. There was also the Introvert. There were also many Know-it-alls!

Those were the best of times. Those were the worst of times. Best of times because we made lots of ‘friends’ especially in the fairer sex(One of them screamed and said she would call the Police when I went behind her to ask her how she was, couple of years back. A weird thing memory is. To her once a friend I was, but now became I the Stalker). Worst of times because I slowly increased my status from Best guy academic in class to Most wanted Self destruction Expert. Especially among the teachers. They tried their best to exorcise the Beast but to no avail and which finally led to my ostracization. That was when I started losing contact with my fellow camapigners. And it was during these two years that The Auto introduced me to his cousin. The Almost Albino- TRB. He would become one of the few people with whom I still maintain contact.

After those two years of school which was the last two years, I never saw a lot of them again on a regular basis. Somehow everybody was too busy for a reunion.

College is said to be many things but a place to make real friends, it is not. So many things happen and a lot of them come out of their cocoon and try to do new stuff like talking to girls only after they enter college. Along come the rewards of peer pressure- Cigarettes and booze. I made a few friends with whom the disintegration began in the phase of four years itself. There was the Power man- Shakthi, the Don Quixote of our class with personal tragedies and weight issues. The other one was The Uncle with whom I had a falling out. And there was the The Nut-Case who was on the same of the same wavelength as me as far as intellectual pursuits were concerned though he was more ambitious.

In the six years of college I also made another friend. Another Hari. The Sportstar.

There have been so many friends and a lot of close friends through the years but at the end with how many of them am I still in proper contact with?

The Sage.The Brat. The Auto. The Jester. The Almost Albino. The Uncle. The Power. The Sportstar and The Nut-Case!

Nine .

It has dwindled down to a mere nine people. And its not that I maintain regular contact with all of them on a regular basis. I just know where they are and they can be considered friends because of that. It has been a long time since I spoke to The Auto,The Brat or the Sage. The Power also seems to be very busy with a lot of personal issues.

The Nut can be called a friend because I trust him and so can The Sportstar but how things will go with Sportstar only time will tell as it has been a very recent acquaintance.

Where are my friends when I need them? Does the word ‘friend’ hold any semblance of meaning at all? Or where was I when these people needed me? Surely more than one of them needs support of some kind. But I am here wasting my energy and time writing blogs because that’s easy to do than ACT.

Love has become corrupted. It is no more a romantic notion about selflessness and a promise of unconditional care. It is a weapon of selfish manipulation and emotional blackmail. Love of all sorts has been plagued by the darker side. Even the love between Family members. Parents are worried that their kids will leave them on the streets and the young ones are worried as to why  parents are wary of the idea of ‘Chosing your own partner’.

Love has been this way for years now. Now Friendship is seeing the same plight. Friendship may become just another word in the Dictionary which future generations would be unfamiliar of or like many practices today, it may become a farce, like the concept of justice.

Friendship- the ship that never sinks? In what sense? Is it a metaphor for Strong Bonding? Or is it a metaphor for selfish mutual dependence where I steer the ship to keep you alive because you have got the extra life jacket and you hold the Jacket as insurance because you don’t know how to steer it?

Is it a symbiotic relationship like it traditionally was or is it a parasitic relationship?

The word Friend does have an End. The word friend also has within itself the word Fiend- a demon. A supernatural being of evil. Like Satan.

Friendship- a cause for pain and instrument of selfish manipulation? Work of Satan?

You know who I am and I Believe Friendship is well on the way of becoming a Myth!

English and Tamil- Rejuvenation and Passion

Throughout my 19 years (I took UKG twice) of academic affiliation with the languages have shown me the shades of two different languages and also the way in which my teachers who taught the languages differed. If something can be said about the English teachers in my life they have always been encouraging at good times but take a condescending tone when things go bad. But with my Tamil teachers they have always understood the conflicts within me and supported me in my bad times too. In my early years when I lost a close family member all teachers in general were nice to me. But when I got into trouble the same English teachers to whom I had been a pet, took me to task. They did not beat me up (thanks to the Montessori type of school education I was in till my fifth grade) but still their tones were admonishing and rather than make me understand my follies I was forced to apologize for the sake of apology. And I had been in my fair share of troubles right through my school days. I don’t know whether curiosity killed the cat but it sure did me in. Even as a six year old my overt curiosity near the combined restroom in my school got me in trouble when the caretaker Mr. Seetharaman caught me. My father was called in and it was my class teacher Geetha teacher (an English teacher) who filled my father in on the details of my mischief. That may well have been the prelude to the fall from pride I will experience throughout my school life as far as English teachers were concerned.  On the other hand my Tamil teachers’ attitude towards me never changed at any point.  Maybe the language let them be that way or maybe they were not told about my misadventures

And in my third standard I had this very santa-clausy nice  teacher called Rukmini teacher. She was the sister of our schools Principal. We called her Rukku Akka. One fine day we were asked to write an essay about ourselves like the one they ask during Campus recruitments- ‘Tell me about yourself’. In a similar context we were asked to write this essay. There was a girl near me (I was more a player when I was a kid then I am today) and so to show off I wrote that I like to have pins for my breakfast. Don’t ask me why I wrote that. I thought it was something to be proud of, you know, like when kids used to say ‘I have a rare Undertaker WWF card’. And incidentally after finishing it I showed it to my best friend. He wanted to disprove to that girl (I don’t remember who it was) that I was bluffing. He took out a safety pin from his ID card and told me “Eat that”. That sentence would mark the birth of a moron in the history of my school. Because I took the pin, closed it and popped it into my mouth and down it went into my intestines. Supposedly my best friend happened to be smarter than I was because he turned to Rukku Akka who was unware of the happenings, and shouted for all to hear,” Heeee swaaallooowed a piiiin!”. She turned to me and said something. But I don’t remember exactly what it was but this is what she meant “ loosaapaa nee!”. Everything after that was a blur. Clinic. X-rays. Tablets to make me poop. Father . Interrogation on why I did that. I tell him about my best friend (which was the biggest mistake of my life because till date he is the only friend my father remembers and not in a good way too). I remember Rukku Akka shouting at me all the way till we reached the clinic. At one point she told me “At least you had the sense to close the pin”. Thinking back I have always wondered why I closed it. It was not like it was my daily breakfast and I knew what to do with it. And coming to the point I am sure my Tamil teacher would have been more understanding and she would have made me understand that swallowing pins was bad for health and that if I had swallowed an open one I would have seen Gandhi. Amidst all the commotion and all that scolding I only knew one thing- I was getting a lot of attention and I wanted to swallow a few more pins!

Come sixth grade- different school- new teachers. I have to say here that from sixth grade onward till twelfth I have had different English teachers but only one Tamil teacher throughout. She was the best. We learnt to cherish Tamil when we learnt Tamil in her class. We learnt to look at Tamil as something which is ours and we learned to be proud of it. The teachers name was Mrs. Malini. And because we liked her classes so much that when we had a substitute teacher we did everything to show our hate for her because she was nowhere near our Tamil teacher in ‘class’ and she could never really replace her. She managed to make language class boring and sleepy. So I took it upon myself make it interesting. So I started pulling stunts in class to distract everyone from this morbid excuse for a Tamil lesson. I started making fun of her and started harassing her in a way that only 11 year olds can. She was not able to handle me because afterall by nature she was a compassionate Tamil teacher and this abominable pain in the name of an 11 year old was not something she could handle. So one fine day in a very boring Tamil class I got up and told her I am leaving. She was taken back and she pleaded not to disturb the class but I wanted to exactly that. So I walked around the class clowning around, doing stupid stuff while the class was enjoying it.  In walked my English-cum-Class teacher. She saw immediately that I was being a pain in the rear. She asked me to come to the corridor. I obliged, shaking with fear in my pants( thanking god for giving me control of my bladder). She grabbed the front of my shirt and gave me one hard slap across my face. The shame associated with the incident hurt more than the slap and I spent the rest of the day outside in the corridor. I tell you my Tamil teacher would have handled this better but if she had been there this never would have happened in the first place. But the same year when I received an award of merit for Proficiency in academics my English teacher was one of the happiest persons. I learnt one of my most valuable lessons on that day. Even if you sell dope in school, if you are a good academic they can’t and won’t treat you badly. Everything is jolly and merry for the brave and intelligent. That in short summarizes everything that will happen in my 21 years of Education.

7^th- We had a new English teacher. Her name was Sarayu, like the river. She had great command of the language and she was one of the first people who inspired me to take an interest in English. I remember her well for the following incident. It was during this incident that I revealed to myself my disbelief in the concept of God. We had a discussion about God when the subject came up after we finished a lesson in which a man sends letters to god telling him about his financial problems and the guy at the post office sends him money after reading his letters. So after this lesson during the discussion I told her that I don’t believe in God because I lost my new pencil box. Not only did I lose it but two weeks after I lost it I found out that another girl had it and when I tried explaining to her Class teacher that it was mine she started crying and in the end everybody looked at me like I had committed murder. I did not think if there was a God he would ever do such a cruel thing to a twelve year old. And she asked,’ You don’t believe in God because of a pencil box?’ I told her that that was one reason and along with the fact that he seemed to enjoy taking things away from people and enjoy the whole process and that if there were a God he would not have taken away a close Family member when I was just a kid and when my brother was just an infant. She said still that was no reason for me to not believe in God but more reason to believe in him. How? We did not see eye to eye and i did not want to push my luck. She did not understand my reasoning but my Tamil teacher would have. My Tamil teacher was always receptive to inquisitive questions and she always had been ready to discuss anything without sounding biased. The incident with my English teacher was the first time I voiced out my thoughts and after that my Agnostic nature only got stronger. Sometimes I just prefer agnostic because it is too arrogant to presume something does not exist because there is no proof now. But for now God is just another fantasy like Superman or Time-travel or Aliens. My English teacher to whom I had been a bright student till then thought I was being stupid.

8^th and 9^th – The most influential English teacher in my life. Tara teacher. Like her name she was always had a twinkle in her eye and had the enthusiasm of a teenager. She was a cheerful teacher who brought a great ambience to the class. She did not just teach us. She tried to educate us. She used to bring newspaper cuttings and would make a game out of guessing what it was about. About Bill Gates and how he was handing over the company to his partner. About Indian politics. She told us to give up reading Hardy boys and M & B and try reading Archer and Wodehouse. My affair with Archers novels started at that time. And for the first time English exams were fun because they required no preparation but pnly creativity. If there is one thing I never lacked that would have to be creativity. She used to say to me,’If only you tried harder you could be in IIT’. Well, she meant JEE and what can I say? English teachers are such romantics and they believe in so many things. So if she believed that I could crack JEE I did not want to burst that bubble. Things were fine with her too but the trouble maker in me wanted some action. So eventually I got into trouble with her too. The screw up happened during an India- Australia series held at Chepauk If my memory serves me right. To know the score people had brought radios. And since she was a very amiable person when she entered the class we told her the score but for some reason that day she did not find it amusing, as radios or any electronic gadgets were not allowed in the school. But after the class an over-enthusiastic friend of mine went and apologized to her as we were passing her in the corridor. I asked him, within her earshot, why he apologized, because an apology would mean that we had done something wrong and this for some reason enraged her. All I could say in brief was that my foot in my mouth got me into trouble for sure but  for a change there was no slap but the shame went to a new level. Because we started arguing in the corridor and it was end of school and other students from other classes were passing us just as we stood there having a clash of words. My brother passed me and he got nervous. At that point he was not the stubborn ass he is now. And the next day I was at the Vice Principals room explaining my actions along with my Father. My father has been asked to meet with teachers only on three instances. One during the restroom incident, second during the tasty pin incident and third was this. And it so happened that the other guy involved in this incident, the one who apologized, and my best friend from 3^rd grade share the same name. Kaushik. After this incident this name will forever be imprinted on my Father’s name. He came to believe that the name is a jinx for me.

And soon after in my Board year I had another teacher who was no Tara maam but she was good in her own in her own right. Tara maam on the other hand was never the same after the incident. Something was damaged that day that was irreparable. Or maybe I was just imagining the coldness I felt whenever I saw her after the Clash of the Titan and the Timex.

In high school I saw something which I had not seen before. I saw English and Tamil work together to protect the future of a person who was lost in the distraction that is high school. While my English teacher (Mrs.Rama) brought me lunch daily to make me stay back and study because I was not performing to my capacity, my Tamil teacher (Mrs.Malini teacher) counseled me in her free time and offered to take me to her husband, a doctor, when I started having episodes of epilepsy. An alliance of English and Tamil, Rejuvenation and Compassion, Yin and Yang to protect this being with a frail mind, I never will see again. But it helped me understand what people expect from me and how I nearly threw away a chance offered to me because I could not adapt to State board culture. But the prevalent rumor in the school at that time was quite different. Everybody thought that the reason I was not performing was because of something else and they even had my section changed.

Sometimes I feel that the Principal calls the English teachers and Tamil teachers and asks them to play Good cop, Bad cop as far as Students are concerned so that they can attempt to protect their innocence. So that they can teach them, impart knowledge but not educate them to the realities of life because we have a lot of time to understand realities by ourselves. So that they can help us imagine, dream and create a magical world for ourselves where we are on our own. Where we make decisions, where we can make people do what we want, where we can create the future we want. While English teachers played the role of a correcting Father away from home the Tamil teachers seemed to have played the role of a caring Mother. And in my life these teachers have made a lot of difference along with a certain Maths teacher Mrs.Bhuvana.

In my life the two languages have played a role in making my imagination fertile. Essays, poetry, diary entries, letters. Everything became a medium to express myself. Though 11^th and 12^th grade gave no room for creative writing I made use of them wherever I could to compensate for my laziness. Now after so many years when I sit before my laptop I still seem to have remnants of the creative industry alive and I am trying to revive it so that I can revive myself spiritually!

I am Krawida and this is a tribute to my English and Tamil teachers! 

Dear Diary…

Yesterday…

After all these years of working in the Scientific community today I made a breakthrough. And a remarkable one at that. Every man of Science’s dream! The answers that man has been seeking for a very long time. All these within my grasp.

You want to know what it is? Of course you will know. You, as my diary , is the only thing living or non-living who will know what I am about to tell now.

I have been part of the SETI program for a while now. And I am among the elite now. The top echelon of researchers have in their possession a Universal Transceiver. It is what it means. It is used for sending signals into the stratosphere and beyond with a hope that they will be picked up and responded to by ET life forms. In the twenty three years since this device was mass produced Earth has been sending such signals continuously from various sources around the world with no effect. Until now.

Today at 1715 hours my transceiver picked up a signal. It is usual for the device to pick up signals occasionally what with a lot of us roaming around with replicas which are on transmitting mode too. Sometimes even radio channels are picked up. Not unusual. But today was different. Initially I could not hear anything but it was showing that it was receiving something. Then I heard the barking. Jackie was getting excited. Maybe they were transmitting at a lower frequency. In the infrasonic range. When I took the receiver close to Jackie I could see him cocking his ears and he gave me a confused look. So he was able to hear it. I had to know what they were trying to transmit. I hooked up the Trans to my Alienware monster and connected it remotely to our satellite database. Within minutes I was getting statistics about the source of signal, distance from earth and other data and within a hour I was downlading a transcript of translation. How come? If what I had was a translation of their message in some language it could only mean that the ETs knew that language. I wikied the script of the message and I was told it was Devanagiri script. When I went in for a manual precise decoding, the script matched a present language upto 95%. Tamil. It could only mean one thing. Ancient South Indians must have had a Visitation at some point. I am getting the message translated to English tomorrow and am planning to make Contact. Rest for later

Today

Today has been another exciting day and things are going to turn for the best as far as history is concerned.

I got the message translated by my friend Mahakavi, a South Indian. He was intrigued but he did not ask too many questions because he knew it would not make a difference. He said that it was Tamil but the script was ancient as I suspected. When I asked him about any references of ET Visitations he said that he could only think of one. He said that in epic called Silapadikaaram the protagonist is said to have been picked up by outsiders in a flying vehicle. Since Indians behave in myths such as heaven and hell it is widely believed that it could mean that heaven is real. But from a scientific point of view it can only mean one thing.

So once I had the message I asked him to help me with sending messages back and forth. Once I convinced him that it was with a silly romance game which I was playing with a girl I met on Cyberspace he agreed unwillingly. With his help I made contact.

Here I will record the exciting progress in a gist and it may well be the last time I do so. This particular ET (it seemed it was just one) with whom i made contact was a friendly one at beginning and as we corresponded more increasingly so. In the past, it said, their people have visited Earth especially India and it said that some of its ancestors are still there. I was confused by this as if this was true it could not have remained a secret for this many years. When I asked for a clarification it said that they had superior technology with which it was possible to transfer one’s conscious self across space and time into another being in exchange for another self. In other words exchanging ‘vessels’. So its ancestors are in India living as human beings. Or were in India. It seemed that sometimes it was required in their planet to go through such exchange progrmammes to gather intelligence. To compare theirs with ours. But it also meant sharing their knowledge which they are okay with. So this particular one was on the lookout for a ‘vessel’. So it sent an ‘order’ across space and here I was. So was I interested in this offer? Sure, as a man of Science I sure was but what was in it for me? It did not understand this concept of ‘benefits’. But it nevertheless tried to sell the offer to me. It seemed they were light years ahead of us in technology. Also genetically they are mutants- atleast that’s what they will be called if they lived here. They have ‘abilities’. They have ‘collective intelligence’ which means that what one knows everybody knows. And apart from that they have the ability to heal and manipulate nature and absorb energy from it. Their sole existence seems to be for intelligence and research. I wanted to be there and live like them. I wanted to live for a change. I wanted to get away from this life. I wanted freedom and this is my destiny. So I agreed. Tonight I travel across the galaxy to their planet. We made a pact to return after one year. This will be my last diary entry for this year.

Few days later…

The human transferred awareness with me a week back. Their language is very elementary unlike the other one. And in this one week I understood what he meant by ‘benefits’. If I had known I would have asked him to explain my benefits too in this transfer. But I understand that I was purposely misguided. In human emotions I would feel ‘cheated’.

This human with whom I transferred self is a defective one.

He is confined to a mechanical vehicle. He seems to have a medical condition what human ‘healers’ call ‘lateral sclerosis’. The whole of this human’s vessel from neck downwards seems to be unresponsive. He seems to have been using his vehicle for all his duties. This vehicle resembles human furniture called the chair but it has wheels and a controller with which I can mobilize myself. And his throat is incapable of producing any sound. He uses another device which he has upon his self at all times, to reproduce his thoughts as sound. I understand that’s how he has been communicating. And there is another device which is a super computer of some sort –super computer in human standards- and he uses it for everything from typing documents to answering phone calls.

His name –my name for the time being- is Stephen Hawking. He is a human researcher of Science and the Universe.

And that is not the least of my concerns now. A human year consists of 365 days with each day consisting of 24 hours. I was not aware of this. The Dronian day takes much longer though it feels the same. It may be because of an anomaly in the time-space continuum but somehow according to my calculations Dronian hour is 35 times longer than a human hour. If this human is 30 years old then it would take another 30 years for a Dronian year to end.

But humans with lateral sclerosis like the one this human has, do not live beyond thirty two years after they were affected and his Wikipedia (a human virtual space for intelligence) page says he has had it from the age of 21.

I am going to perish on earth.

My ancestor always told me humans had something precious. Hope.

It is something diametrically opposite to logical reasoning. But Drones are beings of intelligence. I know only to listen to reason.

If only I was human…

If only I had hope…