Manu'scripts

Chillari - Chapter 2

2012-01-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

Read the earlier part here before proceeding further...

Although I had tried, I just wasnt fast enough to reach the car from the teashop. So once again in a gap of a week, I saw another kid being pulled into the confines of the rear seats of the car. Just as I reached about two feet behind, the car which was slowly idling and gently moving forward, spun its wheels and took off like a rocket, leaving behind dust and splashing water on me. At least this time I was closer and was in a position to do something about it. Unlike the last time. Chandru. The last thing i recall about him was his face, frozen, without any emotions of surprise or fear being jerked into the same car that I was following now.

The car raced through the wet roads of the city at breakneckspeed, but well within creating any mishaps. I kept up as much closely as Icould without sliding down the tar roads. It required all of my driving skillsand focus to avoid the potholes, disguised by the stagnating water in it andkeep the vehicle in sight. We came tearing out of GP road onto Mount roadwithout losing speed or toppling over, both of which I had so far thoughtimpossible to do. Both of us sped on Mount road, weaving between the slighttraffic at that hour.

I wiped my face, not knowing if it was rain or tears that blindedme. The past one week had been a myriad of emotions. Shock at the accident that I had caused. Relief that there wasnt any serious injury to the boy. Happiness at the friendship that I made with him over the next two days over cups of tea. Expectation when I went to meet him on that day to give him my old pairs of jeans. Shock at seeing him plucked off the road like a wayward flower. Anger at myself for notdoing anything. Frustration with the police for not taking my words seriously.Both of these led me down the path of discovery of the underground life inChennai, into the dark world occupied by these invisible citizens clinging onto life at its lowest form in a city growing huge on the grime of asub-society. I roamed the streets surrounding the mall trying to make sense ofwhat had happened, piecing together whatever information that I could get aboutChandru and the life that he had led, to find out about his family if any.

The people I met were reluctant to speak, to say the least anddownright offensively aggressive when they realized I wasn’t going away withoutanswers. Finally a girl not much older than Chandru had opened up for a promiseof a 500 rupee note and a glass of tea. Chandru had no family. He wasn’t from thestate even. He had come running away from his hometown which was either avillage or town somewhere in northern AP, I couldn’t get the name of the placeclearly. Here he had managed a string of petty and menial jobs before being “bought”into the business of begging. The girl, Anandhi had stopped at this juncturescared to open up more. The lure of more money, more hot food didn’t seem towork. She was genuinely frightened and refused to talk more about her “handlers”or for the fact, Chandru’s “handlers”. However much I had pushed she didn’t talkagain about the same. While leaving however she turned and said,” ennaiyumyaaravathu seekram vaanguvanganu vaendren…akka sollichu…avana yaaro vaangaporanganu..”. I watched her move away into the darkness of the city whichabsorbed her fully, which had already taken in so many others like her. Buying?Chandru was bought? So that cab was the buyer? For what? The options that cameto my mind gave me a shudder.

After I spoke to Anandhi, I tried to emulate the same conversationwith others but wasn’t so lucky. It was as though someone had come to knowabout me and had warned them not to speak to me. They ran at the sight of me,not being tempted by the lure of money or food. I spread the word that I wantedto know what happened and that I was willing to pay. How much ever I tried, I couldn’tget them to talk. I needn’t have tried too much, for “they” sought me out. Inthe most inopportune time and place. I was having dinner with my parents at Saravanabhavan near Peters road when I saw them enter. They didn’t fit in. A man and awoman. Don’t get me wrong. They weren’t in rags. In fact they were theopposite. They were dressed well but it wasn’t sitting well on them. Call it intuitionor whatever you may but I knew that they were there for me. They stood at thedoorway with no apparent hurry or plan. I excused myself from the table andwent towards them. As I approached they moved outside the hotel and I followedthem onto the street.

“thambi, neenga thana athu…niraya kelviyoda suthikittuirukkeenganu porul sollichu.”

“porula? Enna porul”

“pasanga thambi..namma pasanga sonnanga..”

I was slightly revolted at the callous way that they equated kidsto products but kept a straight face.

“Chandru ku enna aachu”

“atha than naangalum unga kitta ketkalam nu vanthom…nalla paiyan…ennaachu..moochey illa avana pathi…moonu naal amount um varala.”

I retold the entire incident that I saw, not knowing why I wasdoing that to these people. As I finished they turned and looked at each other,some hidden message passing between them.

“hmmm seri thambi…ithoda itha vitudu…un thalaiku melapoiduchu..theva illatha velai paakatha..puriyutha”

It wasn’t that he or his tone was menacing..but something in theway he said those words gave the seriousness of the content and the truth thatwill come to pass because of his words.

“uhh chandruuu…chandru ku enna aachu..”

The woman turned. She had been silent so far. She looked at me andsaid.

“Chandru va vidu thambi…avana chillarai thookiduchu…thirumbi varamaatan…enga iruppanu entha nilamai la irupanu yaarukkum theriyathu….chillaraikaila maatina appram thirumbi intha ulagatha paaka mudiathu..poi vera velaiyapaaru thambi..”

Chillarai..The name echoed in my mind. In a city which was famousfor its adjective surnames before any two-bit politico or wanna-be, this was anew one indeed. But these people looked like they have handled people like that all through their life, if not for them being people like that themselves. Who could this Chillarai be that he could strike such a fear down these swines' spines? Courage and idiocy are barely deferential. I had to find out more about this guy. Courageous or idiotic, that’s why I am onmy bike chasing a cab down the city’s arterial roads, battling this rain. I hadto find out… I had to find Chandru…I had to rescue him.

Chillarai - Chapter 1

2011-12-28T04:46:00.000-08:00

I stood under the awning of the tea shop trying to get as much cover as I could possibly get from the drizzle. I lit up a smoke and waited for my tea that I had ordered. This was my fourth tea in 30 minutes and I really didnt know what I was doing there. I was waiting. The drizzle had started out suddenly and though the people on the road initially felt a bit of relief for the sudden change in heat, it was gaining pace and now it was a irritant. I had shifted positions in the last one hour, moving from a tea shop on the opposite side to this one. I needed a different vantage point. I stood waiting.For what, was a question that I wasnt able to answer to myself. And I have been asking myself that question for so long now. Chandru. This was all because of him.

A week ago. I cant believe it all started a week ago and what an insignificant beginning to all of this. I closed my eyes for a second. To rerun the entire thing in my mind. To relive it.

I was cruising down Whites Road just about to enter Express Avenue. I was running late for a movie. Not unusual. I have never till date, watched a film from the first scene and had the notoriety for being chronically late. That day however, I tried to make up for time lost. I had my own reasons. Main one being a new girl that i have been dying to meet and who was part of the group that i was now going to the movie with. With thoughts of her on my mind, I wrested the accelerator further than it would normally go and was about to break out into a song in my mind. When he came in between the road. It was all so sudden and the fault wasnt entirely mine. He was a lithe and puny figure and had moved incredibly quick trying to cross the road amidst the racing vehicles there. Before I knew it, I hit him and there was a suspension of time and gravity as he flew a few feet before crumbling onto the road. Within seconds, a crowd had gathered around him and I couldnt see what had happened to him. In between the gap, I saw crimson. Blood.

A crack of thunder and I came out of my thoughts to the reality around me. The drizzle was no longer a drizzle and it was coming down pretty strong. More people crowded the tea shop, trying to get an extra inch of foot space to escape from the onslaught.I finished my glass of tea and kept the glass on the counter-top. That's when I saw the car. The car that I had been waiting for, the car that had been the target of my evening.

It was a pretty innocuous looking vehicle, totally nondescript. It looked like any other cab that ferries the thousands of IT employees across the city every day, except that i knew what to look out for. The small sticker on the left side of the rear windshield.FS575. I dont know if there was really any company using the same tag but this couldnt be a coincidence. Same area, same time, same symbol. I recall seeing it a week before, the image burned into my mind. Now, if only...

There..a small girl was crossing the road. She was one among the hundreds of homeless that you see everyday. Faceless, nameless and most importantly nobody to miss her. I watched the entire thing play out in front of me, in slo-mo as though you are running it on your dvd player at 1/2 x speed. The car shuddered to a start and switched on its head lights. The rear door opened but nobody stepped out or got in. The car slowly started moving forward towards the dimly lit section of the street. Irony in the fact that the biggest mall in the city has a seedy neighbor-hood right beside it. I had seen all this happen. Not too long ago. Just a week ago.

When Chandru was taken. Right in front of my eyes. Not this time, I muttered to myself. I leaped on my bike and pushed the electric starter and took off, my eyes not leaving the car or the girl.

Click here to read the next chapter

Chillarai - Preface

2011-12-28T04:20:00.000-08:00

Preface

Don't think that I have become too big for my shoes or my writing hat that I am starting off with a preface but I think this story of mine deserves one. Why? Because I think when I sit back at a later stage in life and do indeed think of venturing into the world of fiction writing, I shall revisit this one and expand this to make it a full length story, not because I think its a great story but because this one means so much to me.

The story, the characters, the events that happen in this story are all inspired by things I have seen, heard, cried about, lamented about, tried to do something about, failed miserably at and finally made peace with as to how much i could do about the whole issue. I think its a story that deserves to be told.

My brother, over some late night conversation said something that i think i will use as my opening defense for my ideas of literary grandeur. "Every body has a novel to write. A film to make. Every body has something to say." With that being my opening salvo, i have to also mention the statement made by another friend who was present at the same late night session. " A writer who writes..such a work is just masturbation...self pleasure." Pardon my french or rather this case latin as the word's etymology clarifies.

Today I read another twit from the random people that I follow. Writing, perhaps is the socially accepted form of schizophrenia. Amen.

I have often been commended for my writing(however bad or good they may have been) and commented rather strongly by people. The most common comments have been that sometimes my language isnt simple enough for people to understand and sometimes my concepts arent simple enough to be understood. Now you people understand why i never try for publishing. Because of these two reasons. If the language is too complicated then i have to learn to dumb down my vocabulary. If the concepts are too complex then i have to dumb down myself. If 20 years of institutional education cant do that to me, I dont think I will be able to do it. So I am stuck with being the way I am and therefore not great business prospects.

So I shall continue to write in this medium, whether I take the plunge later on or not depends on what fate has in store for yours truly. So without further adieu, my next offering. Chillarai

No Smoking

2011-12-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

The following story might be a bit hard to follow for pure English readers as i have typed out dialogues that happened in Tamil. This is not completely a true story, although some of the events in it have been witnessed by me. By the way, i am using the first person here purely as an author's right and i am not the person involved in this story in any way at all.(Sathiyama pa...nambunga)

I came to a grinding stop in front of the tea shop and kicked out my bike's side stand with as much hatred and force as I could. I fumbled with my laptop bag and it took me a couple of minutes before I could untangle myself from the heap that my bike was and step into the shop.

I asked for a pack of Wills NavyCut and a tea and settled into the rickety benches that lined the inside of the small shop. I lit one and started puffing away and it wasnt before the end of the first smoke that I started to notice the shop and the busy clientele that was frequenting it.

I saw a boy of perhaps 14-15 years old entering the shop. He went up to the master sitting at the cash counter and held out change to him. " Oru Wills kudunga." he said nonchalantly and turned away.

"Cigarrette ellam illa.." , the master replied and proceeded to shout instructions to the guy at the tea stove.

"Illiya??? hmmm...seri" the boy walked away as quickly as he had come in.

I was amused at this spectacle because I know for sure that there was enough packets in the shop to export.
I couldn't even start thinking as to the reason why the master was behaving this way before another kid entered the shop.

This kid was almost similar to the earlier one. Same 14-15 years old. Same physique or lack of. He also walked right up to the cash counter holding a fifty rupee note in his hand.

"Oru packet Wills kudunga anna" he asked.

The master quietly picked up a pack of Wills and handed it over to the boy. He noisily searched and got the change back for the fifty rupee note and handed it over to the boy. The boy pocketed it silently and moved out of the shop.

"Enna master, packeta vaangina varumanam jaasthiyo??? Mothala vantha paiyan kaetta cigarette maayama eppadi intha paiyan ketkum pothu vandhuchu? Neengalum wholesale vyabari ayiteenga pola?"

The master turned to face me and with a smile said " Athu illa sir...mothala vanthavan chinna paiyan..intha vayasula dum adikkalama..athan avan kaettathum illantu solliten...namakku antha mathiri kaasu sambathikka vendam sir.."

This got interesting. "Appo rendavatha vantha paiyan dum adichu kettu pona paravaliya? oru dum adichavan evalavu kettu povano atha vida oru packet adichavan kettu porathu jaasthi la master."

"Sir, oru dum vaanga vantha antha paiyan avanukkaaga vaangran. avalavu than avan kaila irukra kaasu. Oru packet vanga vandha paiyan, avanukkaga packet vaanga maatan sir. Avanga appa vo, illa maama vo , illa chittapan periappan, evanaavathu kaasu kuduthu vaangittu vara solli iruppan. Athanala than avanukku vithen.."

"hmmm correct than...nalla than purinju vechurikeenga customers uh"

I got up and paid up for my tea and my smokes and was about to leave when something struck my mind.

" enna pathi enna purinju vechurukeenga master"

He smiled.

"Summa sollunga" , I prodded.

"Sir, neenga etho bayangra tension la irukeenga. Neenga styleukkaga dum adikkala...athu ungalukku oru amaithi tharuthu. athukaaga pidikreenga. "

"eppadi solreenga"

"vanthathum packeta kaila vaanginathum neenga mothal atha piricha avasaram. atha patha vechu atha izhuthu rasichu peru moochu vittathu.antha modhal cigarette mudiyum bothu ungalukkulla iruntha amaithi. ithu ellam than sir. appram oru vishayam."

"ennathu"

"Romba mukkiyamana clue enna na..neenga ulla vantha appovae 500 roova note kudutheenga cigarette kum tea kum...balance vaangara alavukku kooda porumai illa..mothala cigaretteum tea theva pattuchu.. athulernthey theriyala neenga nalla tension la irukeenga nu." he said smiling, handing back my five hundred rupee note.

I grinned and took the note back from him.

Happy wedding anniversay (a.k.a ippovae kanna katuthey)

2011-12-11T10:54:00.001-08:00

A year has gone by

Wasn’t easy (not a lie)

Many a time I gave in

Just to see you win

A year sped past us

With many battles and similar fuss

Many a time you let go

To see me happy- I know

A year of joy and fun

With many tough times inter-spun

You stuck by my side

Wiped my tears as I cried

I know you deserve a lot more

(and me too for sure J)

I know you made me happy

(and write this rhyme really crappy)

All that I ask is for a few hundred years

With your laughter and your tears

In return I will do what I can

To show that I deserve you for my lifespan

All the times you made me angry

All the times you made me happy

All the times you made me cry

Just pushes me, harder to try

I know you are asleep when I type this out

When you will read this, I really doubt

But I know that you know what I feel

This feel is true and not a reel

Happy wedding anniversary Yamu

One year has already come-u

Congrats you survived a year with me

Just one question, Still no kolaveri di?

Namma Chennai..ethavathu panra vennai

2011-11-28T12:09:00.001-08:00

I wanted to shop once and went to T nagar

Couldn’t get a place to park my car

The area was so noisy and crowded

Pickpockets and perverts would have loved it

I wanted to spruce my car up and went to Pudupet

Managed to find a parking spot and parked it

Bought everything from tyres to car horn

By the time I got back, alas my car was gone

I wanted to get religious and went to Mylapore

More people on the roads than sand on the shore

Realized that it wasn’t just a temple

A gossip hub, lovers spot, business place – cheap and simple

I wanted to get some breeze and went to Elliots beach

But alas the stench got to me even before I could reach

I walked the pebbled pathway by the roadside

And watched in disgust at the debris washed away in the tide

All the places in chennai seem to be gone for a toss

And all the people seem not bothered by this humongous loss

What we enjoyed for so many decades is slowly going and gone

Aah what do we care, but ponder as to which road to spitupon

Pincushion no more

2011-10-25T02:39:00.000-07:00

Left alone, with no help at all
struggling on, with no one to call

Thought you would be there by my side
wouldnt have hurt atleast if you had tried

Wounds are there, too deep to see
wounds that will never ever heal

No blood on my front from your attack
but slowly drips where you stabbed in the back

Thought you meant the world to me
was a lonely thought, now I could see

Never again shall this ever happen
never ever will my spirit dampen

Today will be our last and today will be my first
the last time I forgive your misgivings
the last time I suffer your shortcomings

Today will be our last and today will be my first
the first time I think about me
the first time I open my eyes to see just me

The Kill

2011-10-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

The place was the crowded parking lot of a popular private bank. Rows of bikes were parked in a neat manner, marred by the haphazard parking of hurried customers who want to finish of their pending banking matters before reaching their offices. The entire area was a buzz of activity and everyone there seemed to be there with a purpose.

Even Rahul had a purpose to be there that morning. He stood nonchalantly there, almost hidden amongst the various groups of people in the lot. By his looks, nobody would be able to guess the serious focus he had on his purpose. He was here only because he had a target.

He remembered the training that he had gone through. The three tough weeks that he had spent being grilled by the instructor who put him through all sorts of rigorous training. He recalled how tough it was to perform especially among his peers who were as fanatically focused as he was. The tough training sessions the instructor had put them through, the insults, the times that he thought of giving up, the times that he had almost given up; all came rushing to him.

He snapped out of the painful memories and looked at the rapidly filling up parking lot. He clutched his bag. All his tools were inside. He grasped it as tight as possible, the handle wearing down his skin on his palms and leaving a mark. He searched around the lot trying to locate the target. There he was.

It was a young man. Not more than early thirties.Smartly dressed. With a tie around his neck, he looked just like a new joinee in an IT MNC. But the bluetooth headset in his ear, the expensive watch on his wrist, the car key hanging out of his pant pocket, the impeccably polished shoes all showed that he was atleast three or four pay-grades more than an anverage IT employee. His hair was slicked back and gelled to perfection, with not a single hair out of place. He too had a sense of purpose about him and carried with him an air of superiority and arrogance that automatically came with the rich. He was the target.

Rahul narrowed his eyes on him. The intensity in his eyes was fierce. If only looks could kill, then the target would have been burned down. Rahul gripped his bag even tighter. Beads of sweat formed instantly on his forehead. He wiped it all down. This was the moment . This was the moment he had been trained for. He shouldn't flop here. The critical moment. He tensed himself and prepared himself mentally for what was going to happen in the next few minutes. He slowly but firmly moved towards the target. His heartbeat grew faster as he closed in on the target. The target was just a few feet before him. Rahul tensed. NOW.

"Sir, I am from FRE bank. Would you be interested in a personal loan? Very few and quick documentation, Sir. Within one week you will get the loan amount. From 2 lacs to 15 lacs, sir" Rahul spit out, just as his trainer had drilled into his head.

Kerala - En puguntha veedu

2011-10-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think I need to lay down the basic facts before I start this one. My dad is a Malayali (or Malayalee or Mallu). When i say that i actually mean his father was a Keralite who settled in Chennai decades ago. My dad is like me; born, brought up and spoilt in and by Chennai. But he does speak Malayalam so that makes him a Malayali. That makes me a half Malayali. ( I am also a half brahmin, half christian, half wit and half naked at times).

I didnt exactly plan to remedy this but I ended up marrying a malayali girl. When I say she is a Malayali, she is in fact the typical Malayali, having not spent more than 2 yrs in continuance in her home state. Her passport has the stamping of a couple of middle east countries ( which I think is the basic criteria for a Keralite). So now I have upped my quota to become a 3/4th Malayali. The sad part is that I dont speak much of this language except for a few choice words that I learnt just for the sake of cursing at the lungi clad maniacal drivers out there.

Don't mistake me. I like the state. I like the greenery. I like the laid-backedness of everything there including the people. I like the calm and the quiet of the whole side. I like the fact that they dont give a damn about false appearances like other people. I have been to shops there where the owner wears a similar lungi as his lowest paid worker. They just dont give a damn about external appearances ( how else would a cylinder like Mohanlal continue to play typical hero roles or a state have someone like Sreesanth). I like whatever else my wife tells me to like. That's it. Nothing more after that.

What I dont like, however, is innumerable. I dont like the arrogant attitude of almost all the people that you meet out there. " I am-holier-than-thou" attitude is normally common across all geographies but especially in Kerala it seems to be a bit more pronounced. Anything and everything is better in Kerala according to them. Erhhh..Okay. If you get back to them with stats stating otherwise then they shift the conversation to Dubai. I never knew Dubai was a province in Kerala. ( with the population split-up being the way it is, I guess India could try and annex it ). You talk to anybody older than 50 years in Kerala, they would somehow work the conversation about Dubai into it.

I see a state that has so much natural abundance but screwed over by itself. And by the skewing of the communist ideals that have been twisted beyond recognition to suit their own selfish needs. For the first time in my life I heard about something called Nokku kooli.(Nokku kooli at its best) It's an absolutely brilliant concept where you have to pay somebody to allow somebody else to do the work that the original somebody is/or supposed to do. Read more about it here.(Government trying to regularize it now. Read this. And once the government is done with that they are going to regularize murder and kidnapping, I suppose) When I had first heard about this I thought it was just some sensational journalism about a one-off incident. But my last visit to Kerala, we actually had to pay this. If something like this existed in other parts of the country, WOW..I would love to see it in action. Our MPs and MLAs would be the first person to demand this wage and frankly I wouldn't mind paying up if that would mean uninterrupted parliament sessions.

The next thing was brought to my notice by a friend I got friended with on my return trip. Sunil, Ascott limited, and me spent our entire return journey talking about what was wrong with Kerala. Unlike me, he was a born malayali, still a malayali and single. And there the differences end. He was pretty much on the same wavelength as me. Whether thats a good thing or a free ticket to the local MHS, you decide. He told me about an incident that happened to a colleague of his friend. I couldnt believe it so I checked on it. Here's the article. He says the moral policing out here is at an all-time high. If this is the case with a supposedly high literacy rated state, one can only imagine. He had a beautiful way of putting it. People here are literate but not educated. Same difference, you say?

On the day that I was leaving from Kerala, the government announced the commencement of the Kochi SmartCity project. An extensive sequel to the IT parks that are already there in Kochi. I was glad for a while. Then I was told that this was supposed to have been done about 5 years back. Great. I had to take a cab from Kochi to Thrissur and I wasnt able to get one anywhere. My friend out there, Subin told me, that there definitely would be cabs at Amrita hospital or near-about. So he took me in his car to ensure that I leave Kochi (Just kidding Subin ). You wouldnt believe the size and the condition of the access road to possibly the best hospital in the state. It was pathetically small and overrun with potholes.

En-route we crossed a railway crossing, which had an overbridge by the side of it . I asked Subin, why dont we take that bridge, Does that lead somewhere else? He turned and smiled and replied," Its an overbridge for this railway crossing only." I asked him," It's not completed yet? " He replied," It has been completed about 5 years back. The bridge is perfect. It would reduce the congestion and make it easier for patients and emergency ambulances to make it to the hospital in time. The only issue is that the bridge is complete , but there is no access road to it, on both sides. "

It certainly seems to fit the tagline " God's own country". Just that Everybody out there thinks they are gods.

Autocorrect this

2011-10-04T03:47:00.000-07:00

I recently got an iphone 4 ( about 4 months back) and it has been an infuriating life from then. Dont take me wrong. I love the phone. It truly is amazing. The features on it are just amazing and dont get me started on the apps. They are simply wonderful and a very very interesting way to while away your time. The problem is even before my i-fantasy came about i have been hooked, line and sinker into the Blackberry world. I cant live without my blackberry as i have been using it for almost 6 years now and love the utility i get out of it.

So two phone, both equally cool and essential. The issue was carrying them both so pretty soon my iphone became my leisure phone and my blackberry my official phone. But over the past few weeks i have been tinkering around with my iphone and ipad more than the usual amount and thats when i found it to be at its most infuriating level.

We have all been used to the autocorrect feature in all our phones over the times and more often than less we have learnt to use the phone without this feature turned on. But since i am using my iphone very minimally, i never bothered to do that.

Last week i was typing out a big mail on my ipad when after typing out i checked the screen to read through my output. The result was hilarious. The iOS had decided that i was trying to talk about something other than what i have typed out and had deemed it necessary to autocorrect my input.

One of the mails that i had typed out was regarding my new office stationary.. I had wanted my letterhead in executive bond paper. My ipad had thought i am a pervert and decided that i needed executive bone.

In another, an entire chat with the word Machi had become machine. poda had become soda. ur became us. yeah obviously some of these are easily recognizable and correctable but what happens if you miss some of them. The result can sometimes come about really funny.

So i decided to do the next logical thing. I went on the net and searched for such epic fails of autocorrect. Guess what? there is an entire site dedicated to such humongous fails of the iphone's feature.

Check them out here. Some of them are dirty and disturbing and i need to give a disclaimer here. Although i enjoyed every minute on that site i am not promoting it in anyway. I dont want to be castrated later on by my already meager readers.

One example that i really really liked.

Talk about being honest to your wife...

yeah right...i believe that one...pen indeed

I also recently heard of a team member who messaged his boss saying that his mom is unwell asking for permission and the very next message that was sent was discussing about a movie that he was planning with a friend...coincidence??? i think not. That too has happened a lot to me. And as usual i went on the net to get some more examples of such epic fails. Found a few too.

Makes all my texts and mails look so lame and normal...lol

From the beyond - Part 3 (finale)

2011-08-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

Ashok woke up, once again shook up into the real world by the highly squeaky voice of the flight attendant. He was back in the States and it was going to be a return to the high-pressure of his job in a day's time. A week off from his work and he knew that he would be buried under the loads of emails that he had to respond and repair any situations created by the person he had left in charge.

He caught a cab from the airport to his studio apartment and before long he was lugging the two heavy suitcases into his tiny but comfortable home. He went about the flat, trying to correct any mess that came about by an owner not being present in the house. He watered the plants that he tried to grow in the corner of the flat. He looked at the blinking messages on the answering machine. It must be people from the office. He hadnt given his number to anyone, not that he had any friends here to whom he could give it to.

He poured himself a drink and settled into the huge couch that doubled as his bed at times before hitting the answering machine. The first couple of messages was from work.It was Tom apologizing for the earlier call and saying his condolences for his dad's demise. The second message was from Tom too. Tom was asking for status on the Winderhoff file. This must have been the first call. Must have got the info about the death in the meantime and called back. He deleted that message as well.

He took a sip of the whiskey, withholding the ice inside.

"Ashok..you there?" Ashok almost spat the shot of whiskey in his mouth. He hadnt expected to hear this voice ever again.

"Ashok..It's me. your dad. you there?"

Ashok shook his head in disbelief. Things like this happened in movies. Not to him. Not to people living in the real world.
" Ashok..if you are there and dont want to talk to me, it's fine. I just felt like talking to you. It has been some time since i spoke to you and even then i dont think we talked as such. Listen...I dont know what went wrong between us or whether even things were right to begin with. As long as your mom was there, i never had to worry about any of this. She took good care of you and of me. She knew that i wasnt great father material or even a great husband. But she knew that i loved her, that i loved you and i cared for both of you and did what i could do within my limits to ensure a good life for both of you."

Ashok shook his head. A deathbed confession. Typical of his dad.Having the last word.

"I am not trying to justify myself or my actions to you. I dont think i need to. And frankly i know that nothing is going to change even if i do. What you view as my shortcomings or mistakes are because of what i am and there is nothing i can do about it. I am proud of what i am and what i have achieved in my life. But with victory in some areas, must come disaster in others. Your mother understood this and she ensured that i dont lose much in other areas and supported me. Of course i couldnt reciprocate much to her or to you. "

There was a pause in between and Ashok wondered if that was all that was there when it continued.

"I dont know why i am talking all this to you....or whether you are going to listen to all of this even. I dont know if i am expecting a change or result out of this. But i finally feel my energy has run out. What has pushed me on for so long, for so many years..i can feel it coming to an end. I know that i am at the end of my lifespan here. I just wanted to ensure that i dont leave without telling you certain things. You may hate me for the way your life turned out, but i am proud of the way that you have turned out. Damn proud. I know my trust in Susheela wasnt in vain. She has molded you into the person you are today. When you left the other day for the US, what i saw was not the shy boy that used to cower behind his mom, or the reluctant school kid or the lazy college guy..i saw a grown man and i am proud to call that man my son. I wanted to hug you tight and hold on to you but i did what i think gentlemen do. Shake hands as equals.Or as superiors. You are on the verge of beginning your next phase in life and i am just glad that you didnt turn out like me. Susheela has ensured that. "

Ashok felt a tear run down his cheek and wanted to wipe it away but let it go.

"I have so much to tell you. Of how my life has been. Of the lessons that i had learnt. Of the people that i had met and interacted with. To teach you so many things that i had learnt the hard way. But i see that there is no need. You are learned man, a grown man and a son any father would be proud of. I dont expect to suddenly get close to you, now that i am in my final years. To get a shoulder to support me. To have someone to take care of me. I dont expect any of that because i never ever met that expectation of yours while you grew up. I just wanted to tell this to you. I would have preferred telling you this in person but i dont think you will ever come back soon enough for that to happen. Son, I just want to tell you this.I love you. I am proud of you and wish that i hadn't been the way that i ha..."

The message ended. The tape had run out. Ashok stood up, took a towel from the hanger. He was crying profusely. He looked around at the empty apartment synonymous with his empty life. He broke out in tears and cuddled into the couch.

From the beyond - Part 2

2011-08-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

The sound of deep humming and melodious notes broke through the silence of the early-morning. Ashok slowly woke up trying to get his body to match his mind which had never gone to sleep. He looked around the dark room trying to place his whereabouts. As things came to a clarity, he realised that he was back in the small upstairs room that he had occupied three years ago. Things still looked the same as he had left it.

The ceremony had gone well yesterday. Much much better than he had expected it. There was so much crowd that it became an issue with parking in the silent by-lanes of their neighborhood. So many had come to pay their last respects to someone he had thought was a socially reserved and lonely man. What was the word that he had heard his father call himself? Socially challenged, yes, that was the word that he used to describe himself. A small wry smile came up on his face and disappeared even more quickly.

He walked down the staircase slowly, carefully feeling for the steps that he had run across, stumbled upon, at one point even crawled upon, trying to relearn past memories. He bent down to see if there was formidable company in the living room, which he had been trying to avoid for the past two days. It was empty. There had been an endless run of distant, not so distant relatives. The origin of many of these were unknown to him and he wanted it to remain that way.He just wondered where all of these people were for the past 3 years.

He nestled into the rickety easy-chair that had been thoroughly worn out by usage by his dad over the years. He still remembered when it had first been bought and the first time his dad sat in it. A faded memory. His father had always been a hands-off dad. Aloof. Caring but aloof nevertheless. He wasn't the sort of person who would take him on his lap and play with him. He would be there to rush him to the doctor in the middle of the night when he got an asthma attack. He was the guy who stood in the cold early morning to grab the newspaper for his results. He wasn't there for his birthday parties but left him the costly pen that he had been wanting for by his bedside.

The bond that had held them together and functioning as a family had been his mom. She ensured that the blows werent hard and at the same time ensured that the parental control never got diluted. She had been a buffer, a glue that held both the men in the family together and co-habiting. She had been a wonderful person. Then she died.

A heart attack out of nowhere took his mom away. There were rumors that his father's drink drove her to the point where her heart couldnt take it anymore. That had been the end of whatever semblance of a bond that had existed between them. His college years had passed in total silence apart from the basic dialogues regarding food, shelter and money. And even then it had been kept at the bare minimum.All said and done, he had been a good provider. There had never been any want and the request for money for any of his needs, necessary or luxury had always been met.

It had been years since they had last spoke. When he had left for his job onsite there had been an awkward pause at the gate just as he was about to get into the cab waiting to whisk him off to the airport. For a second, he thought there had been a crack in the rough exterior and his dad might possibly show some emotions. Then his hand jutted out. For a handshake. Which father gives a handshake to his son? Ashok shook it and had got in the cab and left the city.

That had been years ago. He had left the house that he had grown up. His memories of his mom. His dad. And now years later he was about to do the same. Once again, packing up and leaving as though this was a deja vu moment transported from across time barriers and reliving it all once again. Only this time there was nobody standing outside the gate to send him off.

Why i will never be a superhero

2011-07-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

In the past few months there has been a spate of movies about superheroes- costumed and otherwise. I had somehow managed to avoid watching most of them in the theaters. Two reasons for that. The less trivial reason or excuse i give myself and my compatriots is that i am busy and kind of impoverished for going to the movies. The more important reason is that whenever i go watch a superhero flick i get upset and disappointed that i will never ever be able to make it as a superhero.

It's not only the fact that i dont possess super-human abilities that hold me back from being a superhero but a lot of other factors too. I thought i will list down the reasons below.

1. No Avenge Motive: or NAM as it is called. I absolutely dont have an avenging motive at all. I dont have any relative who was murdered in-justifiably( although i dont know if one can be murdered justifiably ) . I wasnt raised in a POW camp or a Nazi concentration camp. Nor am i a refuge from an exploding planet many many light years away from earth.

This is a very important factor because one must have angst against evil and injustice to do something about it. (Atleast that's the way it is for the superheroes) Just imagine whether the comics or the movies would sell if Magneto was born into a middle class suburban family and was in a happy childhood.

2. No Scientific access: At no point in my life have i been exposed to body-changing gamma rays like the hulk, or cosmic rays like the fantastic four or even been bit my a mutant spider like Spidey. Once i got bit by a really sick looking bug and i waited anxiously for two days to become BUGMAN but nothing except a rash came about.

It would have been real cool if like Dr. octopus i too had a machine which blew up and gave me powers. After a couple of unsuccessful tries to enter the Kalpakkam nuclear station, i gave up. The maximum i could do was have a tea at the teashop outside the complex, hoping fervently that the tea had enough radiation in it. Even if it did have something, it was flushed down the very next day.

3. No Big Money: Sometimes even when you are not blessed with abilities, one always makes up for it with money. Like Lex luthor or even the ridiculously crappy Green hornet. But where they lacked in bulging muscles and abilities to see through ...uh armor and stuff( you were expecting something dirty there, didnt you?..naughty naughty) , they more than made it with an almost unimaginable amount of moolah.

4. No Spandex please: The primary and most important factor. I look awful in spandex. Imagining myself in tights, that too brightly colored tights is unimaginable. Do you remember going to some high-end pubs where they give you a proprietary matchbox with their name and logo and stuff like that printed on it? Some of these places also try to make it look as unique as possible. Their matchsticks are differently colored. Purple, orange, green. Do you get where i am going with this?

For the safety of the public i always think its better that i dont come out in spandex.But being a hero or a villain i would need to don my colors. I wonder why nobody fights crime and injustice in chinos and gucci shirts.

5. No Human Quotient: The most important reason why i could never ever get to be a superhero is because i dont like the basic fact that i have to be charming and "nice" to people all the time. I do generally try but most of the times, people are...lets face it , IDIOTS. I am scared that i might turn on my heat ray on a guy who cuts me in traffic, or use my superhuman strength to punch someone in the face if i feel they deserve it.

And what's with the people who get caught in dilemmas and expect a superhero to save them...Hello, if you live in an old and ancient building, its obvious its going to catch fire someday. Dont expect me to fly down and save you from a burning building. Call the firemen. And if your car stalls in the middle of the tracks, tough shit...you should have listened to your mechanic and given the vehicle for service, instead of trying to test the strength of an oncoming train.

So this is why i will never be a superhero...but there are a few good things about being one also..well that's for another post on another day.

Up up and away...

A quickie

2011-07-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hi,

A quickie before the next part. As usual I was browsing the weekend away when I landed upon a gem. I found it too funny and I knew that I would forget to write about it later on. I came across lots of sites with really inappropriate web urls. I am sure some of them are old and it might be an old joke for you, but nevertheless I liked them and wanted to document my comment on them

www.webone.com.au

I know australian men are rugged but do you need to put it out ( Pun intentional ) like that.

www.wtf.org

WTF...its apparently a taekwondo foundation....once again WTF

www.accesstherapist.com

Access and do what?? ask for tips? or does he have merchandise that he sells, like chloroform or roofies?( not that i am going to use any ).

www.dollarsexchange.com

Pretty cheap operation I guess. Also check out their two-penny circumcision

www.whorepresents.com

No no no, its not a shopping site....although i am sure they would have a cash on delivery option.

and the best of the lot..

www.molestationnursery.com

Couple of these sites dont open any more but many still do...there were still a lot of sites with such wonderful urls.

Send me any that you come across as comments

From the beyond - part 1

2011-07-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

Ashok sat still in the darkness. In that darkness, he could feel the thrum of the engines. It had been 18 hours stuck inside a cramped metal container costing about 10,000 rupees the square feet you get to rent for a few hours. That's how his mind had always worked. There had always been a costing psyche to him throughout his life.

The internal lights suddenly came on followed by the static on the PA system.

"Ladies and gentlemen, We are now preparing for our descent in to Chennai. The captain has switched on the....."

Ashok searched for the seatbelt to put it on when he realized that he hadn't unbuckled it from the time he got on board at NY.

The plane continued its descent and soon was safely latched to the gate. He made his way down the aisle and outside the airport eventually.

"Ashok...Inga..here man...here" there was a voice screaming as he stepped out of the terminal. He turned to see his father's friend, Mouleeswaran or Mouli uncle as he recalled him with a placard in his hand.

The card read ASHOK MURALI and in small letters below S/o MURALI SUBRAMANIAN.

He walked the length of the walkway and finally caught up with Mouli uncle. It was 4 in the morning and surprisingly Chennai was biting cold.

They both rushed to the parked Maruthi 800 and struggled a bit to put the baggage inside.They both got into the car and started their drive in silence.

"It was a peaceful thing, happened in his sleep. The doctor said there was no pain or suffering." Mouli uncle said breaking the cold silence.

"Hmm hmm" Ashok murmered. He really didnt want to talk about it. He was still sleepwalking. The moment he got on the call with Ambujam maami a day back, till now, he had been just sleepwalking, scared of waking up to the reality of his father's demise.

But it looked like that sleep would be disturbed soon. He had to wake up to the reality. Wake up to the fact that Mr. Murali subramanian was no more.

The car's horn broke him out of his thoughts. They had reached their home. It was just the way he had left it three years back.

Stay strong

2011-07-01T00:56:00.000-07:00

The calm before a storm
Life was just in its norm
But all that changed in an instant
All things held dear now seem distant

Everyday becomes a battle to survive
Tougher each day to stay alive
Enough with the crying and sadness
Its time to take hold of this madness

Its not enough if we just live
Its time we started to give
Give back to the world all that we could
treat both good and bad as equally as we should

So go out there and stay strong
For the battle is going to be weary and long
Never ever give up this fight
lets show them all our might

At times when despair and sadness linger
turn back and show them the middle finger
Turn your back on the nay-sayers
Tell your folks to keep you in their prayers

We don't need any help from anyone out there
its enough knowing that they care
This is a battle we fight alone
no time to stop,cry and moan

Every single day dawns with hope
till all this gets too easy to cope.
Till then you got to hang on
Till then you got to stay strong

Dedicated to all the people that have suffered; along with me; because of me; caused suffering to me. For the quintessential human race which never gives up despite the odds stacked against them. For all those who decide to fight rather than sit back.

My dad used to tell me a definition of Heroism.

"Son, A true hero is the person who is able to hang on one minute longer. Suppose there are ten people hanging on the cliff's edge. If there is one person who is able to hang on to the hope of life and survival one minute longer than the remaining people, that person is the true hero."

I have been hanging for quite some time now. But with support from fellow hangers like you all.

Tackling grey hair

2011-06-27T02:14:00.000-07:00

Last week, something monumental happened. At least it was monumental for me. My wife discovered my first grey hair. It was pretty upsetting for me. Even more upsetting was the victory dance done by her around the house, tom-tomming and chest-thumping for a good solid 10 minutes. She looked something like this.

I was in doubt whether she was right. I was hoping that her eyes were blinded by jealousy. She has been behind me telling that I need to act my age and stuff for quite some time. I had always come back with the smart reply that I am indeed acting my age-that of a teenager. So when I met some close friends over the weekend I asked them to check out if indeed the improbable had happened. That perhaps I was turning old.
They confirmed. I wanted to just shrug of their comments because one of them is recently going through a clean shaved look and the other spends time on dyeing her hair once every couple of months.

But the inevitable cant be delayed forever however much the heart wants it. I am turning old. For 29 years( yeah i am 29 years old although i dont look that old, i hope) i had survived all symptoms of hair problems that seems to plague all my peers. I know of my colleagues and juniors who started having white hairs at a very young age and some people who had an early onset of Male pattern baldness even before their first paycheque.

Which one is you ?

I had thought i had slipped through the net of problems all my fellow mates have got caught in and that i would forever remain in the dark and (slightly at least) handsome mysterious stranger look. Alas I guess that I can no longer remain in that way.

This was how i used to look

Which brings me to the next big question on my mind. All through my growing up i had always said that the day i have a white hair or show signs of balding i would either completely dye it white or go bruce-willis style completely. Now my mom who has been for years warning me about my shampoos and conditioners and gels and creams is finally calling my bluff. She is asking which of these am I going to do.

Can you try on this

I tried opening up a couple of photos and see how it will look either white or totally bald. But not able to do much on photoshop or in paint. Does anyone know how to go about doing it...Please do that and send it across.I need to call my mom's bluff, one way or the other.

But on another note. It is an end of an era. Now i join the ranks of the greyed and the wise. Not that i was not earlier. But this is a very emotional period for you. I now sink beneath gloom and despair brought about by age and experience and can be consoled only by ablutions of material gifts. So please shower your gifts upon this old and tired person...make him feel young and renew his energy with gifts aplenty.

(Cash and credit card also accepted)

Upma - aiyayo amma

2011-06-17T02:12:00.000-07:00

EKSI...for the uneducated that means enna kodumai sir ithu...(click here to know more about it ) .

The first message i saw today in my blackberry was this

"Upma dish wins $100,000 top prize" (Here is the original article)

Out of all the dishes that my mom makes, this is possibly one of the few dishes that I hate to the core. Not that it isnt tasty or good. As always all of mom's dishes are amazing...i guess everyone would feel the same way.

The reason that i hate this dish is... well actually, because of two reasons.

1) this dish is typically made in our home when either my mom gets up too late or if there is absolutely nothing else to make. Both ways i hate it. We have always depended on our moms for mouth watering, palate teasing food. So you can always understand how disappointing it is when we land on the dining table and see piping hot upma on the plate. It just feels as though your mom has given up on you and that you aren't worth the effort anymore.

almost wants one to tear this t-shirt up

2) the second reason is this dish goes well with two things. Pickle or sugar. One i dont like, two i am not supposed to like. Ever since the doctor put me on a no-sugar or low sugar diet( some crazy new-founded theory that diabetics arent supposed to have sugar...where did these guys get there degrees, i dont know) sugar in all its form is being kept away from me. Not that it keeps me away from the sweet stuff... But you know how Al pacino finds it difficult to grab the gun from behind the water closet in the Godfather movie.Now just imagine me trying to hide a box of sweets behind the closet. Yeah ..its difficult.

So when i read the news that the dish that i hate so much has won a prize of 100,000 dollars, i didnt know what to say.Except that perhaps i need to treat my mom's upma a little bit better...or start praying that nobody tells her about this. Then we both know what it will be like at home.

HAG 4RL? LOL..W2F

2011-06-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

I have always been on and off FB for some time. Most of the times it is indeed a wonderful tool to get in touch with people in your past. Although most of the times you keep getting requests from unknown people who are on a hunt for similar jobless cronies for their farming and zoo activities on the various games there.

Most of the time I dont login into the chat facility out there in facebook. I prefer to remain "unchatty", but having installed the latest yahoo messenger which has an integration to FB chat, i became online once again.

It was fun to catch up with some people whom i havent spoken to in a decade, in some cases a couple of decades. My heartfelt thanks to Zuckie boy for that. Anyway i think i have already written about FB in an earlier post( you can read about it here). The thing I wanted to write about today came about through FB but not about FB but rather about how fast the world has become.

On a dry and boring day as usual, I logged into my yahoo messenger and was browsing around just like that, when a small chat window opened up. It was from a long lost friend whom i hadnt spoken to in about five years. I didnt even realize that she was there in my FB friend's list. We chatted for a while, she told about her life, her kids, her hubby, how she is missing India and all that stuff. I was at the listening end or rather the hmmm-typing end of the chat for about 30 min.

I had had enough of bonding to last for another five years and was gently pushing the conversation to an end. I guess she too had some sort of emergency on her side, something about glue and hair and pigtails. I guess her kids do keep her busy. Anyway we started saying our good byes and took oaths to keep in touch, when suddenly she typed out HAG in capital letters.

I was struck for some time. I was thinking maybe her hubby is back and he has jumped on the jealousy bandwagon and is coming up with words to hurl at me. But hag??? couldnt be. Even my worst enemy couldn't bring themselves about to call the sweet, dark, mysterious looking dude that comes in the small chat window as a hag can they.

Then i thought maybe it's her kids who are playing drums on momma's laptop. But the way the word was lettered out in block told me that wasnt really possible either. I was getting my exercise that day as i kept jumping from one conclusion to the other in such a brief time. Before i could type out "What" i saw the words that gives hope."...... is typing....."

"u there?" she asked me.

"Ya.." i replied.

"Then y silent all of a suddn"

" I didnt know what to reply. Y u angry all of a sudden. did i say anythn wrong"

"Wat r u sayin...when did i get angry"

"Then y r u callin me hag then?"

"Oh buddhu.. i ment hugs and kisses...oh god, are u 4rl? W2f W2f"

I didnt know whether she was out to get me, or why would should she put in acronyms in a reply about acronyms and my ignorance in that.

Later i went to the net and found out what these mean. 4rl means for real. W2f means Way too funny.

WTF, AFAIK, IDGAD.

PMYMHMMFSWGAD.

Didnt get the last part? Go to the net and find out. IDGAD

Quitting your job

2011-06-02T05:09:00.000-07:00

3 years and 2 months. or 38 months. or somewhere around 1150 days..or about...ok..let's stop at that. My stint at my company(ex-company) has come to an end. There are thousands of people who really bitch about their job and company. But I am sure most of them, when they leave the organization always reminiscence about it. Well. I am part of the majority and fall under both the categories.

When I used to work there, it was invariably a continuous barrage of the issues that we faced there. It was a typical human reaction to shout out as to how badly treated we were. I call it "The crying baby syndrome". A child will cry only when he or she sees that there is somebody close by who can appreciate the high decibel value around. Similarly an employee. He or she will crib about how bad it is to certain types of people.

1) People who are in the same situation like them

2) People who are in a better situation than them

3) People who are in no comparable situation at all

This happens primarily for the following reasons.

1) to get sympathy

2) to assess who has got it worse than you

3) to make someone glad or happy that they arent you

4) to make someone jealous

The sympathy reason is very short-lived. There is a limitation on the duration that a friend or colleague or relative or a partially deaf grandmom will listen to you rambling about your work.

The assessment reason is also short-lived. Once they find out that they are worse than you, they will either move into the sympathy mode or just hate the very sight of you. Either you will get tired of them cribbing back to you or they will disappear faster than a paycheck.

Making others happy wasnt the reason why we were put on this earth so the happiness reason also is short-lived or rather non-existent.

To make someone jealous with the state of your issues at office either requires two things. One, your version of having things bad is like A.Raja having to count oodles of money. It just isnt bad. You think its bad. The other thing is you must be talking to a really sick masochistic person whose version of fun is to have toothpicks prick him under the nails.

So it all comes down to this. CRIBBING IS SHORT LIVED.

Let me get back to my life here. I have absolutely nothing to crib about my job. Aspire was a really fun place to work at and great people to work with. I would say the best three years of my life had just ended. Dont ask me why. Lets just leave it at that. I miss the people, the bonding that existed not merely as fellow workers but friends beyond work. I miss the activities that happen there. Being a part of the team that comes out with ideas for the same, it was indeed a pleasurable burden. I miss the break sessions in the evening, which sometimes become distributed sessions eating up all our time. I miss driving out in the night to catch a quick bite to eat at a local dhabba or restaurant and returning in time for a client call.

Now that i am almost thi...uh ... twenty six, i think i have earned the right to give advice to people who are at work. Complain all you want about your job. But do that to the people who can make a change about it. If change comes, it comes. But cherish all the moments that you have when you are inside the office. Trust me, those are never coming back. You would move on to a better office, bigger place and most importantly a bigger paycheck but that instance, just right there wouldnt be coming back at all. And when you come out at the end, you might not have left with a lot of memories, a lot of friends, a lot of enemies too. But whatever little you get is going to be very unique for the rest of your life.

Love you guys at Aspire...and also love you Aspire.

Enforce - Finale

2011-05-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Naveen sat leaned back at his desk, balancing his pen between his fingers and tapping it occasionally on the hard table top. He hummed to himself, the tune of which was unknown to him as well. His juniors maintained their distance from him and kept to themselves, not even wanting to be visible to him. They knew he was tensed and the best thing to do right now was to be invisible.

The revolving doors opened and the clerk from downstairs came up, carrying with him a bunch of papers and packages. Naveen almost broke the aluminium partition door of his office as he rushed out.

"Anything for me? " he asked eagerly.

The clerk nonchalantly browsed through the entire set in his hands, slowly. Naveen wanted to grab the entire thing out of his hand but waited patiently.

"Ah , Naveen sir, here is a package for you." he said as he handed out a thin packet to him.

Naveen grabbed it and left to his room without a word.

He settled down in his chair noisily and cut open the packet.

A CD was inside.

He picked up his phone and dialed the number without having to go to the contacts page.

"Sir, It has come" he told grimly and disconnected the call.

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

The room was crowded with people, visibly the top brass of the department. There were a few faces that were new. Rumors was that top officials from other departments and from the center have also turned up.

Naveen entered the room, followed by his boss. They moved to the front of the room. The hushed whispers became louder and more unclear as they proceeded to the front.

"Some of you know why you are here. Some of you have been asked to be here by your superiors. Thanks for waiting so long. As all of you know, we had a spate of killings in the city over the last few weeks. Some of you were involved in the investigation and you know the helpless state we were caught up in"

Naveen's boss cleared his throat as though to talk but clearly a bit uncomfortable with the way Naveen had phrased his opening statement.

Naveen continued.

"Things reached a pinnacle. The killer had killed a total of six people. Common public as far as we know and he was telling that he would be doing the seventh killing on 13th. Yes , on election day. We were in a state of high alert, more than what was decided for the elections. We were confident that we would be able to stop any incidents with the heightened security but there were some concerns because of his style of operation. All the previous killings were high-profile and used hi-tech weaponry and methods, so there was a little bit of doubt if we were prepared enough for this."

He paused, took a gulp from the water bottle on the table, took a look around the room. The whole room was poised on his every word. He kept the bottle down and continued.

"The whole day we were monitoring all the radio traffic from all the stations in the city and the outskirts and also the special centres setup near the booths. But luckily nothing happened that day. Or so we thought. I got a call on my mobile around two in the afternoon. It was from Epanastasi. "

"What did he say"

"Did you trace the call"

"What was his demands"

He threw up his hands and asked them to quiet down and continued.

" I am coming to that. First of all he didn't have any demands. Second, he didn't have much to say. He just told that he has couriered a package to me and everything will be on it. The call was for barely 20 seconds. Too little time to trace it effectively. Since the call was not through the normal telecom. We suspect it might have been a voip connection. We will trace it soon to its origin. But it becomes redundant now.The package arrived yesterday to our office marked to me. It contained one CD"

"Whats on that? Have the IT people traced the line?"

" The CD had a video file in it. I think its better that all of you see it for yourself."

He took a glass CD case from inside a folder and placed it in the open CD tray in the DVD player. He fiddled with the controls for a couple of minutes before moving to a side of the room to allow a clear view of the TV screen, which suddenly looked too small for an audience of this size. The room hushed itself to silence as the images on the screen appeared.

The image was a bit shaky and looked as though someone was setting up the camera. It gained focus and showed a room with just a chair in it. The wall behind it had been covered with some kind of cloth. A man appeared on the screen, having moved into the focus area from the side. Although the image was clear, the man was not distinguishable and was surrounded by a dark shadow which didnt allow any recognition.

"Good afternoon, Naveen. And to the other officers who must be gathered around by now. My name is..well..for the sake of this video, lets continue with the name Epanastasi. By now, I hope your department has woken up to the fact of the murders that have been committed. I had sent in mail to your police department and also one letter to the C K Nagar police station much before any of the killings happened. But I guess it was as usual lost in the bureaucratic mess that your department is."

Looks exchanged across the room. Everyone knew that heads were going to roll or atleast get chewed off by the end of this session.

"I had told you Naveen, that I shall be confessing to everything on the video.The reason I am doing this...let me come to that later. Let us first talk about how it was executed. All the murders were planned and executed by me. The choice of my victims. Well, thats a silly part. All their names, first letters form the word ENFORCE. I had to have some criteria, right? I decided to use that as a selection criteria. "

The officers in the room, frantically turned the pages of the folder that they were all given, detailing each of the murders and started mouthing of the letters one by one.

"No need to check. It is correct only. I should know. I only chose them all, right? ha ha. Anyway that was how i selected the victims. What is that? Why these people? why not anybody else? hmmm, good question. My answer why not? Why not these people? These people were perfect. Perfect in the sense they fitted the profile i was after. Common people. Who said any revolutionary statement or political assassination has to be about prominent people or celebrities. My main reason for this entire thing is i wanted a revolution. I am sure your lingual experts would have told you what Epanastasi means already. It means revolution. I want a revolution and the revolution had to happen where it is most wanted. Amongst the people. Who better to sacrifice than the common people who need to get empowered with a revolution. "

With a pause, the man in the screen continued.

"Where is the point in murdering a political figure or a celebrity. They come and go at a dime a dozen. There will be 10 days of mourning, a statue in a prominent place, a new toilet for the crows of the city and every year all the politicos will come and garland the freshly cleaned stone. That's why I decided to sacrifice the common man to make this issue public. Aah. I know. What's the big deal? Thousands of common people die every single day. A thousand faceless commoners die without getting so much as a two line obituary in the newspapers. Did you know the bloody newspapers charge 2000 rupees to run a single line obituary for a commoner. If it was the case of a celebrity, even if that person suffers for diarrhea, its the headlines for the next day. Thousand of well wishers, prominent politicos go running to wish good health. Where is the same apathy for the commoner. "

There was a pause as though he was expecting us to answer his question.Then as though he knew that there will be none coming, he continued.

"Why am I doing this? I am a commoner. A mere commoner. One among the millions of people around the country. I was tired of being that. I had a good job that allowed me to buy a piece of land outside the city, a second hand car, a monthly outing to a good restaurant, a yearly visit to a temple city somewhere in the country. I had it all. Yet I had nothing. I was tired of being a commoner. Being treated like a commoner. The total disrespect given to the commoner by all of you. By you, I dont mean your department alone, your government, your politicians, your officers, your bureaucracy. All of you. For all of you I was a non-existent. Not any more. Not any longer. I am some one now. I am something to be reckoned with now. And you know what? I am not stopping."

The threat in his last statement took some time to sink in all of the people present. But they were all mesmerized by the voice so far that they didnt jerk out of the trance-like state.

"Ten years. It took me ten long years to plan everything. But it wasnt in vain. This is just the common man's reply to the years of being treated like s**t by all of you. This is a wakeup call. Not for the whole society. I am not doing a bad remake of the movie where naseerudin shah takes revenge against the terrorists. This is just me, showing to the world and to me, that I am not just another commoner. I am not that big on social change. I believe change has to come internally first. I have changed. For me that is a good start. But as I said I am not stopping at this. I am continuing. Not now. Definitely not next week or month. I have a couple of places to visit. But things are definitely on. If you recall, I had ten years to plan. Dont think ten years was required for just six murders. No no no...There is plenty coming. "

"I know that you will try to catch me. I wish you all the best. In fact it would be great if you would catch me. It would give me the recognition and fame that any commoner yearns for. But I am also sure you will not be able to. Someday when I feel tired or bored, maybe then I shall come in. But not until then. I am not sure what will be the statement you will issue to the press. Anyway, heads up. I have sent a similar package to a couple of news channels too. Not to our reporter friend though. I know that you have your tabs on her. So this story will break out somehow or the other. Let the common people fear. Let them be aware of the basic non-existence of their lives. Their non-significance. Let them atleast yearn to be something more than what they are. Let them atleast be scared and pray that they are not next on my list. "

Naveen shook his head and muttered something to himself.

"Hey hey one more thing. I almost forgot. I promised you seven murders right. The seventh one. It's me. As of 13th I am not alive. Atleast not in this paper world of yours. There is no trace of me existing anywhere in your world.It took some years to plan and do but I got it right. That's why I am even more confident that you will never get me. How do you catch someone who doesnt exist? You can't. The seventh killing was of my own. Of my life in this world. Of my pitiful non-existing life. Now I exist only as Epanastasi. So long, farewell. I hate to say goodbye."

With that, the screen went blank.

Nobody spoke for some time. Then the chief turned to Naveen.

"So what do you plan to do , Mr Naveen?"

"You heard him. How do you catch a ghost? "

"We shall meet in my room after this and discuss the next steps"

Naveen turned and left the room.He smiled to himself, happy that someone had the guts to change their life. Someone made his life significant to himself. At the cost of six other lives, nevertheless. He waited for the next round to start.

Week 4

2011-05-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

Naveen paced the short width of the cramped office room. The room was clouded by swirls of smoke that had emanated from the dozen or so cigarettes he had already smoked. He reached out for the pack of cigarettes on the table. He crushed it when he discovered it was empty. He looked at the spectacled blob of a man sitting in front of a snazzy looking laptop, totally not in sync with the rest of the ancient looking room.

"Any luck? "

Only the sound of keys clicking came as response.

"You have been in front of the system for the past 4 hours. What is happening. Have you found anything useful or not?"

The man looked up from the small monitor and glanced at him.

"This person is a pro. Used multiple dummy accounts to create this mail id. and each of the ids have been generated from a different city, sometimes even country. The routes he has taken is amazing. The origin of all this goes back about to somewhere beyond 15 years. I guess this was not something that was planned in a day, not even a year. I see atleast a decade of planning behind this. I would need some more time to track down the IPs. This is not an easy thing like what you see in the movies. Even with official permission, getting the info is like pushing back paste into the tube."

"Please work on it as fast as possible, we dont have much time. Day after tomorrow is the 13th. This is our best chance of getting this psycho in custody."

The spectacles went back to the screen.

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

"What happened Mr. Naveen? How close are we to getting this guy"

"Sir, We are doing all that is possible. We have got the best technical person trying to locate the person but its taking more time than ever. And i am not even sure that at the end of all of this, we would be able to get him"

"What are you saying? We have the entire force behind this operation and we are still not able to get one person?"

"Sir, This is not someone who is doing this for his kicks, nor is he driven by any psychotic delusions. This is the work of a person who has dedicated almost a decade of his life planning this to the last detail possible. A person with clear conviction as to what he wants and how exactly he wants it to be done. Our main disadvantage is that we dont know his motive. We have so long been treating each case that our department comes across with that basic factor set in. We fix up on one or two possible motives and trace out the culprit but here we are blind. We dont know why all this is being done, the reason behind his choices. We are clueless as to why all of this happening and the way it is all unfolding. We.."

"Stop giving me excuses and get me results, dammit. Tomorrow the entire state goes to election. There are about 54000 polling stations in the state. In Chennai alone its about 3200 and along with the suburbs and kancheepuram area add another 2800 to it. What do we do if his plan is at any of these places? "

" I can understand Sir, but you have to understand that we are doing our best and there isn't anything more that we can do at this stage."

"Can we give more additional security to each of the booths in chennai area alone? What's the force level being used?

"Additional security? We have about 1.25 lakh security personnel, both central, state and reserve already involved. I doubt if we can do more. And even if we do more, what is the use? you have seen his modus operandi. Another sniper attack? another mine? explosive? What is he planning to do? How could we possible prepare for something like him?"

"So what do you suggest we do? Sit and watch?"

"As of now, I guess that's the only option we have, Sir"

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

The sun dawned lazily, upon a city, that was half asleep while the other half was running around frantically and at their posts for the past 12-18 hours continuous. The fate of a state was going to be decided. 234 seats. Contested by 2773 candidates. Overseen by 1.25 lakh security personnel. All of Tamilnadu focused on one thing.

But there were a few people who had a different focus that day. Naveen was heading that group of individuals. They were prepared. But they didn't know what to prepare for. They didn't know what was going to happen, where it was going to happen, to whom it was going to happen. All that they knew was something was going to happen.

They waited.

The polling booths opened up. Most booths saw people lining up much before opening time to line up and cast the vote. Polling was proceeding smoothly across the state. Naveen was however focused on what was happening inside the city. The control room that he had set up was receiving radio feed from all the stations inside city. They waited. They waited for the news that they dreaded.

Around lunch time, news trickled down that polling was still proceeding smoothly and there was a good turnout. Although official news channels pegged it at around 45-50 % polling, it was expected to cross 60-65 % by end of day. Still the core team waited. Tensions were running high, but energy level was dripping low. They had been on alert for such a long time that it started to show. They desperately wanted the day to end. They even wished that the psycho would do what he promised to and get it over with.They waited.

Around two 'o' clock, a phone rang out. The officers in the room startled to attention. They looked at each other. Amidst the noise of the radio chatter they weren't able to identify the phone that was ringing. The table was littered with 4 phones, their lines tangled and intertwined.

Naveen held up his hand. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out his mobile. His mobile was the one that was ringing. He took the phone to his ear and said , "Hello"

"Hi, this is Epanastasi"

A century and a half

2011-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

A big apology to all my regular readers (i am sure i can count them with one hand). Those who have been following my latest short story ENFORCE have to give a slight break. One of you brought to my notice that i had touched a magic number (its magic for me at least) in the number of posts i have written so far. I had touched 150 posts without realizing it. YIPPEEE !!!

I went back to my archive to see where this started...March 14th 2008. I had always been a writer, dabbling in writing poems and short stories, entertaining a very select audience(namely ME). I started this blog after i joined Aspire systems, through my campus placement. As i have stated in my first posts, there was never a reason for me to start this blog.My first post is here to rekindle memory(mostly mine).

I have come a long way..150 posts in 3 years...averages to about 50 posts per year...further spreads to about 4.something posts per month....further spreads to 1 post per week..further spreads to..lets leave it at that. I would like to thank all the people who have been behind me, egging me on to write more, shouting at me sometimes, criticizing my writing style etc etc over the years. If not for you, perhaps this world would have been free of such diatribes and ramblings like mine. So if at all in the future i am being sued i would like to ensure that these following people are added as co-accused.

Topping the list would be Viji. She has been a very strong and vocal supporter of my writing, and has been always pushing me on to write more. I seriously think this was because of the fact that she was dropped on her head when she was a kid, and has been a victim of bad taste from then onwards.

After that its just a myriad of names of people who have been somehow actively(read as during office hours when they dont have anything better to do) reading my blog. The list would be

etc etc etc... I have left out a lot of people in this list here...but come on, you know that i am just another lazy bum. My most vocal supporters include Hari, varun, anamika, ram, my sis priya, priya neelam,my dad ...so on and so forth.

Now comes the interesting part. I am planning a series of changes. Not only to my blog, but in my life also. Things are moving around and if all things work out as i have planned it, i would be spending much more time on my blog. I would also like to announce that i have been given a publishing offer from one leading book publisher for a collection of my short stories. Which once again leads me to believe that a lot of people were dropped on their heads when they were babies. ( this is going to be my upcoming post too ).

At the end of the day i am just so happy that i have been able to vent my angst, share my laughter, provide a place where you can laugh(mostly at me), where you can think for a minute(60 seconds of your time to think about my post is more than enough success for me) through my blog. Keep reading and i hope that i keep seeing you people in the comments page.

I have always enjoyed S.V Sekhar and his comedy and i would love to wind this sort-of note of thanks with an old, funny and favorite one.

"Maama, Sachin nooru adichutu adikittu irukaaru" ( Sachin has hit 100 and still playing/dancing. The tamil word for playing and dancing is the same)

"Ithu enna periya vishayam..inga oruthan 500 adichitu aadama nikkuraru"( what's great about that. here one guy has hit 500 and still not dancing. 500 here refers to 500 ml of alcohol)

Naan ippo 150 adichitu aadrana illa aadama irukena nu theriala...thanks guys....

Week 3

2011-04-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

Naveen read through the mail that Anjali had forwarded to him. He once again went through the mail a couple of times, this time rereading every single line.

"Epan..asata...epanastasi...What sort of a name is that...all greek and latin" Naveen thought out loud.

"You are right...it is greek. It means revolution in greek. " answered Anjali.

"Hmmm. And this was the only mail that you got from this epana..this person?"

"Yes. As you can see I got this about four days back.After we did a bit of research we took the story live. This was too important to be ignored."

"You should have come to us, as soon as you had got this. Instead you went ahead to use this for your career. A good four day delay. We could have even stopped the remaining 2 if we had a chance"

"COME ON...there is no way that i could have known that this was authentic. Even after running the story we aren't very sure whether this was true until you came around and confirmed it. We receive so many mails everyday talking about everyday miracles to charlatan saints to government conspiracies. How do you expect us to run to the police every time a crazy shoots out a email"

"Anyway what is done is done. The IT team is taking over and they are going to track this down"

A phone beeps. Anjali takes out her phone from a snazzy looking holster.She looks at the small screen intently going over the contents with a serious face.

"Well, your team better get cracking fast. I just got another mail from him."

"Oh god ...not again...scroll down please..."said Naveen, leaning over Anjali and trying to read from the smartphone in her hand.

Anjali obliged.

"So we have three more days to find this idiot.What are we going to do now?" asked Anjali.

"We aren't going to do anything. You are going to keep silent on this. No news..no breaking news...no cover story..nothing. I will mobilize a team and try to track this bastard down within the election day. It's very obvious now that he is following you and has you in his sights. For your own safety, I am telling you this. Stay low. Stay with your friends or relatives till we get this person. Once the situation is safe, I shall tell you. Until that time, please stay out of trouble and out of contact with this mad guy."

Anjali looked a bit miffed and wanted to protest but held her silence as the severity of what Naveen said seeps into her.

"Ok I shall"

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

Week 2 - N

2011-04-17T23:51:00.000-07:00

There was a silent rumbling under the forced silence of the temple. It was mid-morning and the temple doors were about to be shut down during lunch hours, whether the lord residing inside was hungry or the people managing were hungry was unknown. There was a few scattered devotees listlessly walking the huge area encompassed by the temple's compound walls.

A separate altar to the right of the main building. A priest is there waiting for the clock hands to move faster so that he can close and go have lunch.

Two women come close to the barricade in front of the deity.

"ennama archanaiya...yaaru perukku" ( What madam, special prayers? in whose name should it be done)

"saamy perukkey pannidunga"(Do it in god's name itself)

The priest goes inside the altar and starts to say out the prayers aloud. Loud though it may be, it isnt coherent and sounds like random mumbling.

The two women outside pray for a minute, with closed eyes. They finish and open their eyes.

"yendi lakshmi, nee ooruku porenu sonniye, pogaliya ?" ( Lakshmi, you said you are going out of town , didnt you go)

"atha yen maami ketkareenga...kilambra neram varaikum polam polam nu than sollitu irunthaar...thideernu avanga officer phone panni, godown la prachnai...stock taking edukanum..seekram va appadi nu sollitar..ivarum appadiye potathu pota padiye vitutu poitar...naan kuduthu vechathu avalavuthan.."( dont ask about that. Till the last minute we were ready to go only. That's when his officer called up and told him that there was some issue at the godown and he is needed for stock taking. He just left things as it is and went off to work. That is only my fate.)

"Bhagavan irukkar...onnum kavalai padatheengo maami...inthanga prasadam eduthukonga" said the priest coming out of the altar with a plastic cover. ( God is there, dont worry. Take this prasad)

Both the women bowed down and closed their eyes, prayed for a second and then reached out for the plastic cover when suddenly they felt something sticky on their face and hands.They started shaking their hands vigorously to get rid of whatever it was. They looked up and saw the priest tumble down on the altar steps. The red tilak on his forehead grew bigger in size and finally a thin line of blood trickled down into his face. The temple's bells rang signalling the closing of the temple for lunch hours.

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

" It has been two weeks now and the count is now at 7. What exactly is happening, Naveen. The CM is literally jumping down my throat. I am not in a position to answer anything to him or the media. "

Naveen shuffled himself and settled deeper into the armrest of his chair. He looked at his chief; the chief was boiling mad and about to go into one of his temper tantrums for which he was famous.

"And how did the media get a hold of this? As far as i know all were random members of the public. There was no connection between them nor are any of them reputed enough for this to become a sensational issue, but i see every news channel are now rooted on this"

" We have no idea, sir. We ourselves weren't able to piece together all these murders together till monday. We have no idea how the media arrived upon the conclusion that all of these were connected."

"That is an irresponsible answer, Mr.Naveen. You are heading this task force. You should be knowing more, telling more to me rather than telling you don't know how. Is there anything at all that you know?"

Naveen, looked up, his ego stung a little. " What we know so far is this, sir. We are dealing with someone or a group that has access to high-grade weapon technology. The likes of which i am not sure any of our police have even heard about, leave about seen and used. Sniper rifle for the first murder, suppressed pistol for the last, a frag grenade to take out a housewife when she opens her fridge. Come on sir. What do you expect us to do. The killings are all random and are done with no apparent connection. What is more scary is the use of technology and weaponry that is very expensive. I inquired with a few people. Do you know the cost of one bullet that was used in the sniper killing. An armor piercing round alone costs close to 3000 rupees. Rifle scopes start anywhere from 15000 to 15 lacs. And i am talking about imported stuff. There is no local variations available."

Naveen took a pause to see if the chief had anything to say, and when it looked like he did, he continued, not allowing him to speak," Take the last case, a temple priest in the middle of his morning duty is taken out when he is standing among devotees. The ballistics confirmed this was not a long-range shot. This was done from barely a distance of 20 feet. Even 20 feet is too long for such a shot. Which means either the guy who shot was an excellent shot or had some sighting equipment, like a laser sight mounted. Even with that such a shot is tough. And none of the other people in the temple heard or saw anything. The autodriver killing? a landmine. a freaking landmine in the middle of the city. Ripped the auto and the driver in half. What do you suggest we do? At this point, i am ready for any advice. Any directions. Any clue. We are not dealing with a normal person here nor are these normal killings. Give me a sickle murder or even a gunshot murder anyday. This is too much for our force."

The Chief started to open his mouth but shut it quickly when he realized that Naveen wasnt finished yet.

"We are doing all that we normally do and more too. We just need one break. One clue and we can close this. And since our lab cant handle such technology we have sent it out to other labs and we are waiting for reports from them before we can move anywhere in this case."

" I can understand your efforts, Mr. Naveen. I am not in doubt of your skill or handling of this case. I am just letting of some steam. High pressure from the top. You understand, right?"

"Sir, we shall get this one. We shall definitely get this one. Seven murders in 15 days. All unconnected. All common public. Use of high-grade weaponry. Carefully planned out. Our initial thought that these victims were mistakes is wrong sir. They were chosen, chosen for some reason. Yet there is no obvious connection between them. Nothing stands out. They were the choices of the killer and we dont know why they were chosen. What we know is that after all the investigation is that these killings are connected. "

"What is your next step here "

" I am bringing in the reporter from the tv channel that first broke this news. We need to know how they figured out all this was connected even before we could. "

" Yes Yes do that. Seven murders in 15 days and all in different areas. In a day there are about 10-20 killings in the city and barely 2 or 3 make it to the newspapers and 1 makes it to the TV media. That is a good start for this investigation. Go ahead, Naveen. If you need anything let me know." Having done what he perceives as his duty, the chief gets up and walks out feeling good that he has been productive

"Damn the pressure from the top. You should come and be on the field. Then you will know.." Naveen mumbled to himself.

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

" So Ms. Anjali, is it?"

"you didnt know my name before you ordered me to come down here to your office? Yes Ms.Anjali here."

"Alright. lets get down to business. This alleged serial killing rumor that you have come up with...."

"It is not a rumor and you know that. In fact whenever i have tried reaching you for a comment you have always brushed me off. That denial itself is enough to show that it is a true story. "

"Let me finish... This rumor...uh...serial killing that you reported on. Where did you get the info on that. You were the first to move on that, and you are not even a local news channel. how did you get the inside info?"

"A good reporter never reveals her sources, Mr. Naveen. Just like you police never do"

"Thats for good reporting. It shouldn't be a problem for you. What you have done is basically create a sensation. A case where there is none. This is pure yellow journalism. Nothing more than that."

" How dare you say something like that. Are you denying that these murders took place.The families of the seven people don't think so. They are seeing no action being taken place. They are saying that there has been no info from the police end. We have hours of footage of interviews with each of these families. We have.."

"Hold on Hold on... I don't care what you have. I am not saying anything here. All that i am asking is how did you make the connection that all these murders are linked. In a city as big as this , there are numerous killings happening every single day. You know in a single police station, how many cases of killing and murder we register. Especially with the elections around the corner. how did you go from a list of unconnected murders to calling it a serial killing is what i am asking. "

" The modus operandi....the method of operation in all these are the same..."

" You read too many crime novels or watch too much of TV crime shows. Modus operandi..ha ha ..indeed. There wasn't a single repetition of the killing methodology in any of these murders. Yet you have named it..what is it..let me recall...yeah CHENNAI IN THE GRIPS OF A SERIAL KILLER...If that isn't sensationalism, I don't know what is."

" The actual methods may change but what about the basic concept...Its the same. Common people being killed. Has that changed? The people have a right to know. "

" The people have a right to know...not to get scared...not to get scared by headlines like this. "

"We aren't trying to scare anybody. We are simply reporting the events that are happening in the city. The people should know and be aware of what is happening. "

"Everyone in the city is now in the grips of fear, wondering what might happen next..whether they are next. You have managed to scare an entire city with your report. They are all afraid whether they are going to die."

" There won't be any more killings..." she mumbled.

"What...What did you say...how do you know that."

"Nothing .."

"Come on Ms. Anjali. Help us. We are nowhere in this case. You know something. We need to know what you know. "

" I only know that there wont be any more killings. Atleast thats what it said in the email."

"Email? what email" asked Naveen, grasping at what seems to be the break that he has been waiting for.

Week 1 - E

2011-04-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at a thriller...planning to put it down in the form of a screenplay...be liberal with your comments.

The sun was just about to break open over the horizon. People had just started to turn and laze around in their beds, still half contemplating whether to get up or not. But there were some of their counterparts for whom the day had begun a couple of hours back. The newspaper boys were busy peddling their cycles through the roads, avoiding the ladies who had come to put the traditional kolam , and threw the papers into the households before speeding away.

It is such a wonderful moment, just as the sun is about to break through the horizon, when the first streaks of sunlight cut through all. It is almost as though a captured soul breaks free from its chains and ready to wreak vengeance on the world for wrongly imprisoning him. Everything becomes beautiful at daybreak. Everything becomes peaceful.

The ladies finish up with their work and come out, hearing the cries of the vegetable vendor shouting out his prices. It is an early start for him as he has to finish off before it becomes time to take his kids to the school. At least this street the households buy lots and don't haggle too much. Unlike the posh gated community next street. Those skinflints, he thought to himself as he wiped his face with a towel. It was very unlikely that he was sweating, so early in the morning, that too in the middle of December. Something was bothering him but he wasn't sure what was wrong.

"Vaanga ma...vendakka fresha irukku...thakkali cheapa irukku ma...paarunga...thevai yanatha eduthu intha koodaila podunga..."( come madam come. Ladies fingers are fresh..even tomatoes are cheap today...take what you want and put it in the basket) he spoke to the growing crowd of ladies surrounding his cart.

"Enna Easwar..rendu naala aala kaanum...enga poi iruntha...koyambedula settle aitiya.."( what happened Easwar..you were missing for two days..where did you go..got settled in koyambedu vegetable market itself?) quipped one of his regulars.

"Athu ellam onnum illa ma...paiyanukku school la exam...kaalaila avana ezhuppi padikka utkara vechutu appram school ukku kootitu pogarathukulla neram aiduthu...avanavathu ozhunga padikanum"(nothing like that madam, my son has got exam in school. have to wake him up in the morning and make him sit and study and then drop him at school. that takes time. atleast he has to study properly) ,he beamed proudly.

Before she could open her mouth to reply, a single sound split the early morning silence. A gun shot..a rifle shot.In the early morning hours when the noise levels are just picking up, this was almost thunderous. Just like thunder before a lightning storm, the single shot rang out and left the people confused and dazzled.

Where Easwar's head had been, was a mangled mass of flesh torn apart to accommodate the bullet's physics. Parts of his head were now lying among the vegetables and fruits that he was selling. The ladies didn't realize anything for a couple of seconds after which they started screaming...

The car came to a stop in front of the decrepit government building. No one from the outside would possibly understand how such a building was still being used when it looked like it would collapse anytime if someone sneezed hard. The issue was that particular building was on corporation land and there had been a tussle for long time for reclamation. The police wing that occupied it didn't budge out of it, even for minor repairs since they feared the loss of such a location in the prime of the city.

A middle-aged man stepped out of the car and walked up to the first floor of the building. A couple of officers saluted him as he made his way, room after room and entered a small office. There was a desk and someone sitting on one side already. He made his way and sat down. The other man didn't budge.

" Switch on the fan...do you have a smoke."

The other man looked up at him, took a pack of cigarettes and handed it over to him and switched on the ceiling fan before sitting down again.

"enna solranga Mr. Naveen... report vandhucha.."( what are they saying Mr. Naveen...did the report come)

"Yes sir. A single shot, from a high powered rifle, possible use of sniper scope. .50 caliber. typical overkill. Shooter used armor piercing rounds."

"Damn it...who ever heard of such a thing...a military grade weapon being used to kill a commoner..unheard of. Any leads?"

"No sir, we are investigating. So far, we weren't able to identify any VIPs in that area...We have no clue as to who was the intended target. We are doing a door-to-door screening of the entire neighborhood. Since the defense colony is nearby, we suspect it might be some person in the military sector. We are waiting for more information."

"hmmm seri seri..(alright) and what about the vegetable vendor? what about his background? its confirmed that he hasnt anything shady in his past? We dont want the media to come up with an expose that he was secretly some government operative. Ensure that its properly researched."

"yes sir, it is done. He is just a commoner. Nothing noticeable stands out in his past. Its confirmed that this was a wrong target...he was at the wrong place the wrong time."

"Get moving on this.. I want this closed at the earliest." he said and walked off.

Naveen shrugged off and lit another cigarette. "ithu seekram mudiyaathu"(This will not end soon)

We are the champions

2011-04-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to write this article for quite some time but was afraid to do so. I didn’t want to jinx the happenings. Now that the sensational Saturday is over and we are the reigning champions of all formats of the game, I feel much more at ease getting this out.

For the past couple of months, an entire nation was glued to their TVs, mobiles and computer screens trying to get an update on what was happening on the cricket ground. Tea benches became discussion hot spots. Coffee breaks at offices across the country were the places where each player’s and team’s stats were discussed in detail. An entire nation had only one thing on its mind. CRICKET.

I had always been a dabbler of sorts in sports. I can possibly say that at one time or the other I would have played all the sports that was there to play.( I mean conventional sports…don’t talk to me about show-jumping or trap-shooting here) . But cricket was always a sport close to my heart, especially since I thought I was a bit good in it. There was a time when I used to wake up early and head to the nets to practice, although much of the time was spent bowling to senior players and batsmen who had established themselves. It was after a long stint at bowling and rolling up the mat pre and post practice sessions that I think my coach permitted me to pad up and hit the nets.

I can never forget the day when I played in the zonals. Facing up to the terrible speed of lanky, scary fast bowlers who seemed to have injected steroids only into their arms was a terrifying thing for a teenage kid. The euphoria I felt when I glanced a wayward ball on the leg-side to the boundary and another when I played a late cut to the boundary behind was unimaginable. For the first time, I was being applauded by more than equals from the stands. I may have achieved other laurels in other fields but that 7 second applause from the team sitting in the batting pavilion was something I had never experienced before.

Those were the good old days. I later slipped out of cricket and moved on to plenty other things being the butterfly that I was. Cricket went from being a passion to being a past-time to being a once in a while thing to being playing when there was a shortage of players at the ground where I used to hang out. Years went by and I was just another of the million fans who watched TV and got in to the frenzy only when the Indian team was playing. Even then, if there was a flurry of wickets falling down, I used to switch channels and see what else was playing on the idiot box.

My sister on the other hand was a cricket fan. No no no…let me rephrase it. She was a Sachin fan. She watched only when sachin played. She adored, admired and had a borderline obsession about him. And being a brother and doing what brothers generally do, I used to tease her as much as possible using sachin.

Not that I didn’t like Sachin. I admired him, loved his strokeplay, his humility and just about everything about him. But when you see that the maximum you can needle your younger sis is to talk bad about her idol, I am sure that all brothers wouldn’t take the high road. I didn’t either. There were numerous occasions when I used to tease her, taunt her, pass not-so-nice comments about Sachin, just to get the raise out of her. This has been happening over the years and doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon.

Come the world cup of 2011. From the beginning , India has managed to somehow remain in the favorites in the game, even though they had a couple of bad games and narrow misses. It all boiled down to the final stages of the game. I never realized the cricket fan inside me was dormant for so long. And the time for the dormancy had come to an end. And it came to an end in grand fashion. The need to be updated on the game, to see what is happening (despite the firewalls at office, low connectivity issues on my mobile etc) was paramount.

I was surrounded by equally charged up colleagues at office. It was the bitter end of the month and we had absolutely no liquid cash(no solid cash either…) to be able to go to a pub or elsewhere to watch the game. We scrounged around, got a few bucks together and hit the unlikeliest of places. MARRYBROWN near office. Our total order amount was around 800 bucks but we spent close to 4 hours in that place. The orders were placed at timed intervals (we also had big egos along with our small purses) so that the staff there didn’t think of us as free-loaders.

The semi-final saw me as being the only person in office. All my colleagues had taken off and were watching the match from the comfort of home. I was in the meantime trying my level best to break through whatever firewalls my system admin had put up but was coming up short on technical skills. My mobile was my companion throughout the long day and finally after a while couldn’t hold back and left for home. My trip was not in vain, as our boys won their rivals and moved into the ultimate showdown.

Everybody has written a lot about the final, discussing from the stats of each player to the combinations, to the starting line-up to the bowling lineup, to the batting strategy etc etc. Suddenly everyone was an expert. And I was a confused fan. I didn’t know what to believe, who was stronger, who would survive, who would outwit the other. At the end of it all, I just wanted one thing. INDIA MUST WIN.

The game proceeded and looked to be in our favor for most of the time, barring the last overs where our bowlers were literally run whores. Still the total looked gettable. We had the butcher and the master blaster on our side, didn’t we? All such illusions of supremacy was destroyed when Sehwag got out. The entire arena came to a standstill and deathly silence(except from the scattered Srilankan supporters) prevailed when God got out. The going looked tough. But that was when the tough got going. Gauti prevailed. Kohli survived. Yuvi supported. And Dhoni. What does one say about Dhoni. He mastered, destroyed the defenses, struck the offence and carried India to its victory.

When the entire team erupted onto the field shouting, screaming and running wild, the entire nation was engulfed in celebrations. Fireworks burst across the country. Fans were wild throughout the night. One billion prayers had come true. I have always been accused of being an atheist. I have to clarify. I believe in god very much. It’s just that I hate him/her(not being a MCP here) a lot. But that day god redeemed him or her self slightly. If anybody deserves the cup, it had to be the mortal GOD of cricket, Sachin. As I saw him hold the cup high, I didn’t even notice the tears streaming down my cheek. Yes. I was an Indian. Yes. I am a cricket fan. And Yes. I lived to see the day when Sachin lifted the cup.

Hold my hand

2011-03-09T07:42:00.000-08:00

Come on, hold my hand
let's walk through this together
let's make our final stand
dont let go of my hands ever

Each day shall bring in anew
hopes, dreams and troubles few
Come on, hold my hand
let's make our final stand

Every turn might rub us wrong
every problem might prolong
Come on, hold my hand
let's make our final stand

Our steps may falter
Our energy might drop
But we shall go closer
till we reach our target, not stop

Come on, hold my hand
let's make our final stand
for the whole world to see
from all our troubles, free

Ripples in the rain - Storm

2011-02-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

The coffee mug nestled in his palms. There was nothing left in it. And it had been that way for the past two hours. The last drop had been licked of an hour earlier. There had been no offer of a refill.They had been talking and both didnt want to stop. There was comfort in the sound of talk. The pauses had been the problem.

Ratna glanced at his watch. It was almost dawn. He went over what they had talked about and realized that there had been nothing. It was all small talk. Gap-fillers. Movies, shopping, politics etc etc. but he didnt even know what movie she had watched last, where she went shopping. Nothing. She was friendly but a closed person. She still remained what she was, the first time he had met her, an enigma.

Ratna smiled as he continued to listen to her talk about the latest scandal and what she felt should be done to the dirty politicos and officials involved. He thought about that moment, about him being there, at her house, at that time, with her. There was absolutely not a single thread of logic or general possibility that this was happening, that this could be real. A week ago...a day ago if anyone had told him such a thing might happen, he would have laughed it off. But being here, in that place and that situation it was all he could do to stop from pinching himself.

Yet he had no clue as to why he was there.

"Uhh...Malini? " ,he interrupted her.

"..they probably would have got a sha...yes, Ratna?"

"What happened...Why this call suddenly...anything wrong? anything i can help with"

She looked at him blankly, looking hesitant.

"If its something too personal ..." he prolonged.

" hmmm I think you deserve to know that. In fact I am surprised that you didnt ask earlier."

She paused, took a deep breath, as to prepare herself.

"I havent been totally honest with you. I am not yet divorced. I mean, i dont know if I told you I was separated or divorced. I am still married. At least on paper and as far as the society is concerned. It was a love marriage. We met, fell in love, roamed around, and settled down. Both parents sides were fine with it and there was no hassles, atleast from that side. Things started off well. Both of us were new to the city, earning well and generally life was good."

Ratna eased and stretched a bit on the sofa. He continued to look at her keenly, captured by her recital.

" Then things started going sour. He started coming home late. Calls never got returned. There was a visible gap developing between us. No outings. No movies. No eating outside. I dont know what happened. He started to withdraw from me. I was confused. Wondered whether there was something wrong with me. I changed myself. I didn't know what to do or what to change but I wanted the early days back. But that never happened."

His cell vibrated in his trousers. He ignored it.

"Then I met one of my friends who was working in the same office as him. She told me rather hesitantly about Raghu and one of his colleagues and how the whole office was buzzing about them going around. I didnt know what to say. I didnt think it to be true or read into it too much. I didnt want to accept such baseless rumors too. But sometimes these things take root and refuse to budge. I too changed over time. I withdrew from him. Slowly but steadily."

He adjusted himself on the sofa, looking at her intensely.

"Things came to a boil and one fine day there was a big shouting match. Words were uttered which couldnt be repeated or repealed. At the end of it all, both of us just sat still, all our angst and frustrations out in the open, left with nothing to talk. He just got up and walked away. A week later I find some of his stuff gone from the house.That was 8 months ago."

His cell once again vibrated. He shifted slightly to allow it to go into some dark recess in his pockets.

"Yesterday night he came back. We talked about some thing or the other and kept hunting for topics to talk. Finally we were both exhausted. We had both run out of things to talk. Then he told me. He wants a divorce. He is going to marry someone else. What was there is now confirmed. It has been finalized. The end to it all."

She paused, took a sip from the glass of water before her and placed it back on the table.

"I was shocked, although I knew it at some inner level that there was no comeback or revival. I accepted. I told him to get it ready. I wasnt going to contest anything. He started to talk about support and all. I didnt want anything. I just wanted it to end. The turmoil to end. He left around seven in the night. I found myself sitting in the dark. I didnt want to be alone. I just wanted to tell all this to somebody. I just didnt want to be sitting alone.."

"No problem, malini...i am sorry to hear...but isnt there anything that can be done...I know, you would have tried if there was anything...just wondering if there was something left to do" Ratna interjected.

"No ...there is nothing that can be done now. It is done. "

His cell vibrated. He took it out. He glanced back at her sitting there on the sofa.

" I need to take this. Give me five minutes." Saying that he stepped out of the house.

"Hello.."

"Hello...how long should i keep trying your number. What? were you sleeping. Dont you remember. I am coming back today. I have just crossed Chenglepet... I should be in Kathipara in another hour...you are coming to pick me up, right?" a female voice shouted out of his mobile.

"Yes da...I shall come and pick you up..."

"Hmmm Mom and dad are coming home next week. To finalize on the wedding hall and the invitations. They told me just yesterday. Your parents will be free, right? to go with them"

"Yes they will be. Listen. I will talk to you in some time.okay? line is not clear now."

"Okay bye then...see you soon."

Ratna kept the phone back in his pockets and glanced back at the gate he had just walked out of

Ripples in the rain - Hail

2011-01-25T05:48:00.000-08:00

He remained silent. Then looked at his mobile. It was a land line number.

"Malini...who? " he asked as though he didn't know.

"Malini, remember you gave a lift to me..u dont remember?" she asked pleadingly.

"Ah yes yes...of course..tell me...tell me.Nice to hear from you"

"Pheww..i thought you didnt remember me..i didnt know who to contact.There is no signal in my mobile and that's why i am calling from my landline...errrrmm..am I disturbing you"

"No..not at all...I just didnt expect your call, thats all. I think i sent a message to your number, dont remember exactly...This call is totally out of the blue.."

" Oh i am sorry.. I did get your message but wasnt able to reply. Things have been hectic this past week. I never really got around to thank you too for the lift that day.. i am sorry"

"You are the sorriest person i have ever met"

"What..." she asked in a flustered tone "What do you mean"

"Just kidding....repeating what you said the other day"

"huh...oh ..ok.."

"Something wrong? you dont sound too good. Any problem?"

"Huh..no nothing like that..nothing serious..where are you now."

"Me? I am at home now...Just entered."

"Oh k ..fine ..leave it."

"No tell me..where are you..at office? not gone home yet?"

"No i am at home only...needed a help..a big help..but..."

"What...tell me.." Ratna asked, eager to play the knight in shining armor.

"No..nothing..it doesnt make sense or logic even asking you for this help..leave it...sorry"

"No no ...tell me..dont go about being sorry once again...what did you want.."

"hmmm..errr...can you come and pick me up...if its not possible, i can understand..it doesnt make sense asking you this...but...but i dont know what to do.."

"I am on the way...I will be there in 10 minutes.."

"Do you remember the place?"

The small crooked road that curved and bent for a good half mile before touching her individual house...the road barely lit by the streetlights that interrupt the darkness far too less on that quiet side road...the unnecessary speed-breakers that did nothing but threw a jerk in that one minute of silent journey...the lazy street dogs that lay on the road, wary of their kingdom and jerked their heads up to see who is the intruder on their land and quickly moving to the side of the road as the car had gone through.

Yes, he remembered.

"Yeah , i think i do..if I am lost i will call you up"

"ok..plz...plz hurry"

He remembered getting into his car and lighting up a smoke. The next thing that jolted him out of his daze was the bark of the street dogs. He had reached the street and the place where he had dropped her that night. He took out his mobile to call her, but even before he could dial, the call came in.

He attended.

"Can you park the car and come in?"

Ripples in the rain - Drought

2011-01-24T09:12:00.000-08:00

The sun blazed on brightly. For a week now. The rains had stopped as abruptly as they had begun. And the sun had come back with a vengeance. The climate was horribly hot, combined with the humidity levels that had set in, making life generally miserable.

Ratna drew a deep puff from his almost over ciggie and dropped it on the floor and squashed it. The evening buses were ready to depart from office. He looked yearningly at the packs of people moving towards the buses and to resume whatever resemblance of a social life that they had. Resemblance that he didnt have. He returned to his cubicle.

He sat down in his swivel chair, brought his system out of hibernation and stared at the screen. He leaned back and brought back that night to his mind. The night he dropped Malini...

She stood with her hand on the door and asked one more time.."Anytime?"

It was almost like a challenge.He responded " yeah anytime"

She laughed and walked away. He stood there watching her leave. Suddenly she stopped and turned back and walked towards the car. He reached out and opened the door. She stood in the doorway and smiled.

"Thanks..My number is 9323321224." and she walked off.

Ratna had stored the number happily in his mobile that night.But that was the beginning. He had shot out a sms the next day saying that he hoped it rained that night. There was no reply. He didn't have the courage to call up that number. What if it was someone else's number? What if it was her number and she didnt like that he called? Questions numerous he asked himself. Then answered the same himself. If it wasn't her number then he would just apologize. And moreover she didn't look like she would lie about her number. And if she hadn't wanted him to call or message then why give the number.

Still he had not called or messaged in that number for almost a week now. As luck would have it, there was no rain for a week. He had gone to the teashop almost on a daily basis but there was no sign of her. He had stopped count of how many times a day he picked up his mobile just to glance at the contact page. Even more than the number of times he had picked it up when it vibrated thinking it might be her.

He went on with his work and put her thoughts out of his mind. The day went on and before he knew, his stomach started to grumble. It was time to leave and to get some food inside him. He packed up and left office.

As he drove down the OMR, he drew on his lit cigarette and tapped the ash away. He had neared the tea shop where he has now become a regular customer. He checked his box and found it half full. There was no need to buy anymore ciggies. He didnt stop as usual and proceeded to drive down to home.

He entered his flat and parked the car. Just as he was closing the gate, his mobile vibrated. Another email, he thought. But the vibrations were continuing. It was a call.

He picked up the phone.

"Hello, Ratna??? "

"yes"

"Malini here....can i talk to you?"

The road we traveled

2011-01-20T06:27:00.000-08:00

When a full moon shines upon you

or an old song plays on the radio

Past memories hit you out of the blue

Don't know when again i will see you

We have come a far way from where we started

after all the trouble we have been through

where did we go wrong, when did our paths parted

which one of us first withdrew

I havent really left at all

Still on the same road that we traveled

alone now, tired and walking at a crawl

the security and warmth all unraveled

I have received more than i have been giving

taking for granted this life we were living

But when i sit back and think about it

We both made more mistakes than we admit

The road that we traveled

seems to be so old

The road that stretches in front of us

seems to be cruel and cold

Walk with me through the dark now

Stay with me through the cold

Even if there aint no more love

Stay with me till we get old

The road that stretches in front of us

The road the bends and curves

past unseen troubles and darkness

seems safer, no longer just me but us

Ripples in the rain - Drizzle

2011-01-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

Read Part 1 and Part 2 before reading this...

The door slammed shut, shifting the water drops on the rim onto his face. He tried desperately to keep his face forward and not stare at her as she settled into the comfy seat. He was glad that she had taken the initiative, for had it been left to him, he wouldn't have gathered the courage to ask. After a minute of shuffling around, finally there was silence in the seat beside him. He turned around to look at her.

"where do you have to go? " He inquired.

" Adyar" she said and added with a pause"If you are going that way"

"No problem" he smiled and turned back.

He slipped the car into gear and started to move.

Another 2 minutes went without any sound. The rain kept up its pace and didn't seem to slow down a bit. He started to speak , to make small talk but stopped himself before any sound escaped his lips.

" You work in E-gates? " she asked.

"What? yeah I do. How do you know? " he replied jolted out of silence

"Aaah that's my secret. I can read minds and know about a person by just looking at them. " She replied matter-of-factly.

"what? are you serious" He almost shouted.

"Ha ha . No no . I am just kidding. I saw the sticker" she said pointing to the vehicle pass sticker from his company stuck to his windshield.

"Oh k. And you work for TCS, I suppose."

"I guess thats obvious from where you picked me up. So you are also in IT, let me guess, Project lead?

"No" I smiled.

"Team Lead?"

"Nope"

"Senior software engineer?" she asked endearingly.

"Nope"

"DONT tell me you are a software engineer and you are able to afford a car like this...I am a SSE for the past two years and I haven't been able to make the down payment for the last one year."

"No no no...i am not into coding. I am into functional..I work as an account manager."

"Oh k k. That's an impressive title. Nice nice."

"So I guess you are caught up in project deadlines, working so late.." I prolonged the dialog.

"Yeah that is there always...throughout the year only" she sighed.

"Don't they arrange transport for you to get back..."

"They generally do, but not beyond 9. After that they do it on a project basis, and only if it's a quantifiable number."

"Oh that's bad. Can't someone from home pick you up? your father? your husband? .."

"Father's no more around to do that...Husband? do i look as though i am married? Am i looking that old? "

" I am sorry...i just assumed...i am really sorry..i shouldnt have..you dont look old..i am sor.."

"Hey chill chill chill..."

"I am sorry"

"No issues...and you are right anyway...i am married...atleast was...He is there no more"

"Oh i am sorry to hear that...I shouldn't have pried into your private det..."

"Oh not to worry...He is not dead...just seperated"

The rain fell on my car's screen, swept away by the swaying wipers. There was silence in the car. He didn't know what to say or ask next..What do you ask someone who says what she just did. Nothing seems to be the logical answer.

She broke the silence.

" You are possibly the sorriest person i have ever met. I mean, the number of sorrys in the past ten minutes. Working in a large company, you never get to hear much apologies...you are indeed polite"

I smiled to myself, although initially I was slightly irked when she had said that i was the sorriest person she had met.

"You can drop me here...My house is down the street and it will be tough to turn your car around" she said.

"That isnt a problem, i will reverse it the whole way.." he said, not wanting to let her leave.

" No no no ...i cant impose myself like that on you...thanks a lot for this lift..."she said, getting out of the car and holding the door ajar.

"No imposition, no trouble at all...anytime"

"Anytime? " she asked with her hand still on the car door

Ripples in the rain - Pitter Patter

2011-01-09T01:37:00.000-08:00

Read part 1 before you go about this

The alarm went off in his mobile, vibrating and slowly increasing in volume. He glanced back at the bedside to see the light flashing. He had woken up an hour ago to the sound of thunder and was staring out of the window when the alarm went off. He was looking at the drops of rain collect on the window beams before dropping down. The rain hadn't stopped. It was now 14 hours strong. And it hadn't stopped or slowed down in the night. He knew. He hadn't slept much last night.

He let out a sigh and went to the kitchen to make his morning coffee. He returned to the window to continue his gazing. He thought back about last night. Somehow it had managed to worm it's way into his head and remained there. He had deliberated quite a bit as to whether to offer the girl a lift or not. He had even got into his car, gave it a couple of minutes before firing his engine. He had then lowered the window and shouted out, "You want a lift or something..?".

The girl, sorry woman had looked at him with doubt in her eyes, unsure whether to take his offer up or not. He realized then that he must have cut a scary image with his unruly hair, scruffy beard and drenched from head to toe. Before he could say anything more, either to reassure her or to withdraw his offer, he himself didn't know, another car had slid out of the office building.

"Malini, you not yet gone home? Shall I drop you?" a female voice emerged from the car. The woman turned towards the car and started walking towards it, pausing to turn and utter a single word,"Thanks".

He sipped at the cup, drawing only froth and air, not realizing that it was empty. He smiled to himself and proceeded to get ready for office.

By the time he reached office, the rain looked as though it was loosing it's vigor and was slowing down. When he came out after lunch for his smoke, the sun was already out and looked well set to dry out the evidence of the onslaught.

However during his evening coffee break, when he and a couple of his colleagues stepped out to the terrace, the sky was darkening and dark clouds gathering all over. He smiled to himself when the sky broke open with small drops, picking up pace and soon became a good paced drizzle.

Seated in his 6X6 cubicle, he kept stealing glances amidst the curtained ceiling high glass panes to see if it was still raining. The tiny pitter patter on the glass gave him a warm feeling.

He left the office a bit earlier than last night and proceeded to drive with his window down, not even having the customary driving smoke. He reached the teashop where he had stopped last night and alighted. He got a pack of smoke and ordered a tea.

He had no idea why he was there. He had no idea what he was expecting to happen. He just realized that he had been looking forward to this tea and smoke from morning. Or rather from last night. He realized that he wanted to see that woman...no, see Malini once again. He thought of how ridiculous he was being, how stupid it was to expect to see her today. What scared him even more was he had no idea what he would do if indeed he saw her again.

It was already the fourth smoke and the second tea and time was past 10:30. He laughed at himself and shook his head. He turned back to the shopkeeper who had surprisingly kept the shop open later than last night. He paid for the teas and got another half packet of cigarettes and turned to finish his last smoke.

That's when he saw her. She came out of the office, holding an umbrella, straining hard to keep herself dry. He turned quickly back to the shopkeeper, as though avoiding her stare. He ordered for another tea and waited till he got the tea glass in his hand before turning, hoping she was still there. She was.

She was standing at the bus stop, looking out to see if any buses were on their way. She kept peeking out of the umbrella, as though that action would make the bus come sooner. That's when her eye fell on his car. He had parked the car a little further away but there couldn't be anyway it could be missed. It was tough to miss out on a yellow esteem, however dark or raining it is. She surely should have recognized the car, he thought.

She continued to stare out at the empty highway looking both ways, as though the rules of traffic had changed and buses could come from any direction. That's when her eyes rested on the car and stayed fixed. There, she has recognized the car, he thought to himself, allowing himself a smile. She darted her head around trying to search for the owner of the car, not realizing that Ratna was in the teashop near her office gates, behind her.

"Sir, Glass sir." a voice interrupted Ratna. The shopkeeper had finally had enough for the day and had decided to shut shop. Ratna gulped the cold tea down and kept the glass back. He had been startled by the voice and it looked as though it had managed to startle her too. She had turned back at the sound and realized that there was a shop near the gates. But she had quickly turned away.

Ratna paid up and walked back to his car. He slowed his pace as he walked past her trying to catch a glance of her from his corner eyes, not minding the rain getting him wet. He reached to his car, shuffled his pockets searching for the key, quickly glancing back at her in between. She was looking at him too.

He got into the car, still not sure as to what to do. He started the car and slowly pulled out. Should he or shouldn't he? He needn't have bothered. He saw her put her left hand out with the thumb stuck out.

He stopped the car and opened the door. She got in, folded the umbrella, turned and said, " Hi , I am Malini"

Ripples in the rain - Riffle

2011-01-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

The wipers moved across swiping the heavy fall of the rain of the already blurred windshield. Ratna strained his eyes, beyond the rhythmic movement, to see the road, which was already splattered with enough potholes to test his car's suspension. The rains had further destroyed the remaining traces of the road that existed. The infernal rain.

"IT highway...crap..." Ratna shouted out to himself.

The rains had started a week back. This particular spell however has been pouring down for the past 7 hours nonstop. No signs of slowing down either.

"What the..." screamed Ratna as he was jolted out of his thoughts by an erratic bike who had appeared out of nowhere and seemed to want to swim on the right on his car's path. Ratna almost stood on the brakes to avoid hitting the bike which had come in from his blind zone. In this rain, anywhere except dead ahead was blind zone though. The bike having successfully entered the middle of the road had slowed a bit, long enough for the traffic behind him to test their brakes and then quickly sped away.

Ratna was still a bit rattled." I need a smoke and a tea " he said to himself. He realized he had been talking a lot to himself the past few days. Not that he had many to talk to before this. He started scanning the roadside for a teashop with some sort of cover from the pouring rain.

It was another km or so before he could find a suitable oasis. Oasis, he thought, what an oxymoron. He got out and hurried to the shop. It looked as though the owner was closing up. He took a glance at the time. 10:15. Not that late. The blasted rain is shutting down everything in the city. Except my office, he grinned.

He bought a pack of smokes and begged and got a lukewarm tea.There was a bus stand nearby catering to the IT company that was behind the teashop. There were a few people standing with their umbrellas open trying to protect themselves from the onslaught. Buses came and quickly the crowd dissipated and soon the place was empty.

The owner didnt even wait for him to finish off his smoke and by the time Ratna finished he was standing outside a closed shop. He ditched the bud into the water and ran to the car, hopping across the small water pools that keep forming and shifting shapes. Even before reaching his car, he got his car remote and opened the car. Just as he reached the door, a bus came, swerving in, dropped into a big puddle which happened to be in the right place and of the right depth, to ensure that Ratna gets totally drenched. In a second, Ratna went from being slightly wet on his head and shoulders to someone who took a dip in the swimming pool with their clothes on.

"Damn" , he shouted out for nobody to hear, another nameless hit and run victim. He stood there brushing off the water with his hand, as though magically all the wetness would disappear from his drenched body.

"excuse me, has 19b gone? " a voice inquired.

"yeah yeah . They just gave me a bath and just went without stopping. Bloody bas.." He stopped midway turning to see a young woman standing underneath an umbrella, just not enough for the job of keeping her dry.

"yeah the bus just went" He quickly recovered.

The woman turned and looked into the road, trying to see another pair of headlight, silently praying for a quick relief from the rain.

Ratna opened his car door and started to step in. He was not basically a very chivalrous person, but something tugged at him. Should he or shouldn't he?

Ripples in the rain

2011-01-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

Hey people,

I apologize for my temporary absence from my blog. The last one month (or was it two ) had been a whirlwind. What with me getting married and all..oh yeah...I forgot to announce it here, I got married on Dec 12th to Yamuna, although she still remains just engaged according her FB profile. ( am i under any probationary period??? ).

So to begin the new year and once again get back to my writing groove, what better way than to start off on a story...once again delivered in parts.

Doing a story, and doing it in parts has many advantages. First being, people who read it in parts dont really remember how bad your earlier post sucked so they still read it. Even if they remember, they come back with the hope that perhaps by some impossible act of nature I may have improved.

Also it gives a universally accepted lazy bugger like me time to write...under the guise of parts I can hide my eternal laziness and churn out the parts when I am able to ( or when I feel like it )

So, to begin with, I am starting off my new story, Ripples in the rain. Thanks for your support ( both the love and hate mails )

New year - New thoughts

2011-01-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

With the New year, I once again sit down to analyze my past year and my plans for the new year. Overall, I think it resembled my boss's appraisal cycle( and frankly that hurt less than my version ) . Although this would probably be the image that goes through my mind...

..I know that there are certain things that I could certainly tweak a little bit.( purely as a favor to other people )

But all said and done, we have to look at the reality and see what is possible, much like below.

Enough with the copied cartoons. Let's get down to business.

Important things ( both past year and the new year )

1) Health : On the health perspective, things have been much better the last year. Fewer hospital admissions( oh how the nurses must miss me ) , fewer incidents of instability of sugar levels ( maybe i am plateauing at 300 now ). I dont know what differently I did last year but I know for sure what I am planning to do this year. I am starting off on a new diet. ( to be discussed in another post coming soon ). The underlying idea of the new diet is to go off any processed food or chemical intake. ( I just chugged down a Pepsi can before writing this, so you can see that I am already started off well )

2) Physical exercise : The whole of last year's physical exercise can be summed up like this : some 10 hours of shuttle-cock, 15 hours of working out in the gym ( I use this the term "working out" very liberally...it includes stolen minutes of oggling at 20-somethings stretching on the floor mat and good looking 30's on the step machine ), 10 hours of walking up and down the stairs (when the lifts weren't working), another 200 hours of walking (inside the house, in malls, during intervals to the snack counter at the movies, walking to the kitchen for midnight munchies etc. etc.) This year however I plan to hit the gym on a more regular basis. ( the above statement was made in a state of euphoric dizziness as the new year hit and should not be held against the writer )

3) Work : The last year has been a so-so year at work. I not only managed not to achieve my target, but also managed not to even come close to it, though for not lack of trying. Many prospects have remained just that, Prospects and not gone to the next level of commitment, to being a customer. Come on people, show your commitment, SIGN THE CONTRACT. ( the above statement is put in bold so that in case any of my leads do a google on me and land up on this post and survive past the starting paras and wind up here, they know what they should do SIGN THE CONTRACT ). I believe the year past would have been the year when I was the closest to achieving my zenith in terms of my KRA. (Zenith meaning the greatest height....and i am somewhere around the height of Yelagiri now, compared to the K2 I face). In the new year i hope all my prospects wake up from their slumber and check their mail boxes and read my mails and ....SIGN THE CONTRACT....or at the least remove me from the spam list.

4) Family : The past year there has been an addition to the family. I got married. I think that rounds up this post and why I am getting all these resolutions. She motivates me to get around to do all these things.

No turning back

2010-11-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

I shall always be there
when you turn to look
Never far away, always near
love across distance never took

When trouble comes up to you
when you are left with options few
Just remember to turn to me
my reassuring face is there for you to see

When you feel tired and cant go on
we shall walk the road together
for ever and ever
you are never alone

The days may come when it feels I am not there
I may be gone but its not ever over

Wrong number

2010-10-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

An old but lovely melody rang out from my mobile phone. I got up from my couch where I had fallen asleep as always. I tried to search for it amidst the wires and papers on my computer table. Finally I found it nestled between a hard-drive and some DVDs. I picked it up, no name was announced. My cell normally spoke out the name if I had stored it.This call was from some unknown number. I usually don't pick up calls from unknown numbers, might be either people trying to make me take a loan or make me pay for a loan I had taken. Either way I wasn't interested.

I almost threw the phone back amidst the crap that it was lying in when I decided not to. I answered the phone.

"Hello" I said in a bored tone.

"Hi" a high pitched voice. A female voice. A voice that I didn't recognize.

"uhh..hi", I said nervously, trying frantically to recall the voice. A name , a face, anything.

"Listen, you don't know me. I also don't know you." the voice said in a low tone, almost whispering. " I am walking home from office and the roads are lonely and a couple of guys are following me and I want to talk to somebody aloud so that they back off and leave me alone. Is that fine? "

"uhh..k..I guess" trying to understand the words that she almost rapidly shot off.

" I am sorry if I am disturbing you. I know that its very late" I guessed that it was around 2:30 am.

"No problem..I was awake only" I lied.

"Even then it is really late and this is too big a favor to ask someone just like that. The thing is I just moved to town last week and got my mobile sim card only today. Dont have all my contact numbers yet. I just dialed out a random number. The first number I tried wasn't reachable. You are the second number I tried." she blurted out the whole thing without a pause. I knew she was just taking a breather before continuing. So I just said "hmmm"

" I joined office today and they had the induction program and all that and they got me to the call floor by 7 and I was put on Job training immediately. They had said they would provide cab and I thought that it would be doorstep. Finally when the shift ended at 12 and the cabs started moving, it was almost 1. The cab driver just left me on the main road and left saying that cabs cant go into the road." she paused momentarily.

"Which company are you working for" I managed to get a question in.

" Oh me? Techno-Flex .... you know, the one at the corner of Doribala avenue. Anyway, I didnt realize that it was a long walk. I mean, in the daytime when I walked it took me barely 10 minutes to get to the main road. But as soon as I entered the side street, I saw two guys get up and start walking behind me. I didn't realize it for a couple of minutes but then heard the drunken stagger behind me."

"Are they still there?" I interjected again.

"uh...no.. I dont hear them anymore. Should I turn back and look? I am really scared. How stupid can I be. All alone in a strange place and I walk the roads alone at night."

" Dont turn and look..keep walking to your place. Keep talking. You will be fine. How close to your place? Which area are you in?" I asked

"I think I should be reaching it in another 5 minutes. Just need to take a left and down a straight road, it is at the dead end. I am staying in Jamnagar.New colony. I got a great deal. A paying guest accommodation. But totally individual. I get good food from owner who lives across. A sweet old lady. She makes great chicken curry. And the rent is cheap too. Its only 6 thousand per month. No extra stuff like Electricity or maintenance. Isn't that great? " she paused.

A rhetorical question but I anyhow felt the need to answer, just to keep myself alive in this conversation, " Yes it is."

"Last Saturday, She made lemon pie and send over a couple of slices to me. So sweet of her. It's my favorite too. That's so weird. As though she knew that it was my favorite. Do you like lemon pie? " she paused to ask me and continued without an answer," Anyway I went and helped her to clean up afterwards. She is living with her grandkid. That boy is studying in the eight standard. Both parents are living in the US and the kid is growing up with her. Ain't that sad? " her voice totally free from the fear for which she had called me.

"Hmm hmm" I murmured, encouraging her further.

"Hey I must be boring you. Already I am keeping you awake at such a late time. I reached my place. Looks like I am safe. Thanks for being on line for so long. I am really sorry for disturbing you. Thanks a lot. "

"hey no problem. Its okay now. You are safe and thats enough. Go sleep now and from now on, make sure that you aren't caught in such a situation at night."

"Ya. It was stupid of me. Like a blind person, I got caught up in work and this trouble. So sweet of you to help me out. I shall call you again later and talk to you. Thanks...friend. Bye for now."

I smiled to myself. Not at the friend remark. It is so good to make friends and to make one like this was unique. I threw the phone on the couch and grabbed my cane and tapped my way to the fridge.

Destiny

2010-10-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

Is this destiny
Is this fate
Has it all been written
with an expiry date

Destined to struggle
I can accept
Destined to fail

The fabric of life
held together by hope
disappointments it cant cope

To gain something
we lose something
which is needed more
which is more core

every step we take
closer to the end
of one struggle and strife
marks the start of another

Where will it end
how long do we defend
when there is no relief in sight
how long do we stand and fight

Everything will be fine
will rise up from the decline
That's what we should believe
one more hope to live

Everything will be fine

2010-10-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

Do you want me to lie
or should I just say good bye

what do you want me to say
that things would be okay?
what do you want me to do
dont have the strength to see things through

Staring at the sky constantly
looking for a break in the bleak
wondering why all this happens to me
looking for the answer that i seek

Will things ever be normal again
will I ever be sane
Will I want to live once more
spread my wings and soar?

Everything will be fine
will rise up from the decline
that's what i want to believe
one more hope to decieve

Going Flat-hunting in Chennai

2010-09-28T08:13:00.000-07:00

Man has evolved over time and his needs and wants have changed from time to time. There was a time when he would settle for a nice leg of dinosaur meat whereas now living in a gluten free, fat free, carbo-free diet is all the rage now..The next step in this evolution would be food-free. But one thing that hasn't changed over the years has been the need for shelter. Sure, we have come a long way from fur-covered cave floors and mudhouses to living in high-rises and duplex houses. But you get what I am saying. We all want shelter and a comfortable shelter at that. (leave apart the fact that we screw over other living things in the meanwhile)

Being of marriageable age, the first thing that any salaried young person(mostly male) of this generation sees is to where and how to purchase a place to call it their own. With the way real estate has been recently, people are scrambling to search, locate and buy a house that is within their budgets(or rather the loan limits that the banks are willing to trust us with).

I too joined the bandwagon recently, not because I needed a place, but purely based on doing what everyone else does. So my exodus started. I joined the team at office and outside friends on their site visits to upcoming apartments both inside the city and on the outskirts. I heard terms like floor-rise, pre-emis, carpet area, ccp, stilt parking, corpus fund all swim over my head during these conversations. I too nodded, acting knowledgeably but simply couldnt make heads or tails of what they were talking about.

All that I seemed to look whenever I went to see any half constructed building was the model apartment, the interiors, the view etc. Mundane stuff to the serious buyers but exciting stuff to me. My journey took me to all the prominent builders in the city. Man , Are they out to screw us or what.

Take for example my recent visit last week to a couple of projects happening on the OMR. We went as a group of five, all packed tighter together than a stack of chips in the Pringles box. At the first place, we slowly unwound ourselves and untangled our bodies and got in to the sales office. The layout was huge and they had cleverly put their sales office at the very end of the layout so that we get impressed and bowled over by the size of the layout.

The technical details were all being discussed in detail by the other guys( the serious buyers) and as usual I had nothing else to do( except nod knowingly ). When it looked like the questions were coming to an end, I asked the only question that I had. " Can I see the model apartment"

The Sales guy took a glance at me and immediately recognized me for what I am . A joy seeking voyeur who just wanted to glance at the flat and not worthy of the sales effort. But luckily my colleagues joined in and requested to see the flat as well. Phew..thanks guys.

He nodded his head to say no" the model flat isnt ready yet". That was interesting. I went back and did some research. About 45% of the layout had been sold out already and they had did that without having a model flat. Impressive? No. It was purely out of the brand name that they had. After the serious buyers left their numbers and contact details we all packed in the small car again( later I realized, my "friends" had filled in my details in the contacts form...Friends...you cant live without them...you die because of them)

The second place that we visited was a step up in terms of the pricing and brand equity. It typically showed in the off-handed way that the sales guy was treating us. We decided to have fun and kept battering him for details and pooh-poohing his statements about Unavailability of certain stuff that we wanted. By the time we left, the sales guy was confused whether we were serious buyers or window-shoppers and kept giving details about upcoming projects which would satisfy our requirements. We kept a straight face and walked out.

The last place that we visited was the highlight of the day. It was possibly the most expensive layout in that piece of road and brand equity of the builder was sky-high. It was a name recognizable not only in our city but across India. Just before entering we had lowered the window on the passenger side. We had made a pact to act as professional and as high-funda as possible. Lady Luck was and is a bitch. Pam( that's the name of my car ) decided to play hookey. The window wouldnt rise up as we parked in the vast parking area in front of the marketing office. Whatever image that we wanted to project was seriously shot to hell as three guys tired pulling the window up from inside the car door frame.

Finally we walked in to the office( leaving the window wide open ) deciding to salvage whatever little image that we had. One of my colleagues openly gaped at a BMW coupe parked. We shot him a glance to say" SHUT UP" and entered the office. One has seen offices and then one has to see this office. This was the epitome of all sales offices ever. Normally one gets carried away by the model apartment but the look and the grandeur of the sales office was enough to silence us.

Sure enough, a tired and holier-than-thou sales lady came to greet us. She must have quickly assessed that the possibility of one of us buying a flat here was equivalent to Chennai getting a snowstorm. But I do appreciate her. She went through the motions, with reduced vigor but nevertheless the long sales spiel. She didnt sit us down and talk through the details as its normally done but quickly proceeded to what she guessed was our main intention of walking in.

She took us to the model apartment. One word described it. AWESOME. We were left speechless with the way the entire flat was done and she walked through the whole layout making a 30 second power walk, what usually she would be doing for 30 minutes. " This is the bedroom, that is another bedroom...and that is one another bedroom" Frankly we didnt even deserve that.

As if that wasnt enough she had the audacity and gall to take us to a bigger and better apartment. If all doubts of whether we were the right clientele existed for her before, it was quickly dispelled. We were open-mouthedly gaping at the grandeur and the richness with which the entire flat had been done up with.

We offered the same sweet nothings, gathered the pamphlets and started for the door. Something stopped me and I turned her and asked her for another brochure and payment plan. She turned, tiringly to the security guard and said," Give another brochure to them" and walked off. That off-handedness and casual dismissal rubbed me wrong.

So I have decided. I shall definitely buy a flat there. Even if it takes me my entire lifetime ( by the looks of it, it really shall) and my entire salary goes to paying it. Seriously I would need two..make it three salaries to pay the monthly EMI. It comes close to a lac.

So I arrived at this second plan. It involves some explosives, a good getaway car, some weapons and a bank with a fully stocked vault...any volunteers??

You have got mail !!!

2010-09-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

More than often, we had to write letters that weren't totally pleasant and some were downright tough and hard to write. But even then, they had to be written.

Here I compile a few letters that I think would have been as tough to write as it was to read.

(DISCLAIMER : All these are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to any living or dead person. If such people do really exist, then, well you have got a template now to base your next letter upon )

Love letter

Dear Jessica,

I know it has been quite some time since we last met. In fact the last time that we met, you ended up paying the dinner bill and catching a 32 mile cab drive home. You can probably attribute to the fact that I went to the rest-room and scrambled out of the window. You maybe thinking that it was because of the fact that for the entire 29 minutes of the meal, you had to talk about how your 7 dogs had to be de-balls-ified. What more, Your recital of the same procedure seven times in such a short duration had me thinking as to how exciting a life with you would be. More exciting than watching paint dry while someone plays the recording of fingernails on the blackboard over and over …and over again.

Any way I hope you have a great life ahead. One pointer..in the future, when on a date, it would be immensely better if you would start of the date with something pleasant like the weather or even your job(which I doubt is pleasant) and not start with the flatulence incident of last week. Trust me. It’s not funny.

All the best,

Jimmy coburn

Job application

Respected Sir,

Foremost, I would like to thank you for granting me your valuable time for my interview for the position of junior aisle cleaner in your esteemed establishment. I apologize for arriving at the interview venue well past the mutually scheduled time. I was afflicted by a serious case of incapacitation due to an excessive intake of alcohol and thereby intoxication by aforementioned substance.

As I recall, there might have been spontaneous outbursts of verbal profanity, often comprehending genealogy and particularly certain offensive verbiage against your female parent. I profusely apologize for the same.

I would certainly be much obliged to you if you could provide me with a second chance at redressing my earlier application to be successfully employed by your organization. As you can see I went to great pains to ensure that my language is above par to ease away the memory of our earlier meeting.

Respectfully yours,

Michael

Agony Aunt

Dear Aunt Agatha,

I have been a reader of your column for the past six years and have always found the advice that you have given to your readers to be extremely useful. I have been married for the past 10 years and have been living happily with my husband and two kids of age 7 and 3.

Recently I read a reader’s question to you in your column, who talks about how her husband seems to have lost interest in the marriage and seems to be spending more time at office than required and always looking for a reason to start a fight. I drew parallels and saw that my life was exactly in the same position as the person who had written to you for advice.

You had advised her to be more caring and open to her husband’s needs and talk to him directly to see how best the situation could be handled and the romance could be revived.

I followed your advice and talked to my husband sweetly and in a understanding tone. I asked him what his problems are and how I could help to solve them. I also asked him, like you suggested if there was anything that we could do to revive our marriage. From that time onwards, he has become suspicious of me and refuses to eat anything that I cooked until I ate it first. He is paranoid and maniacally screams that I am out to kill him. Can you kindly help?

A distressed wife

Fourty minutes of love

2010-09-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

9:47 am

He was standing amidst the throbbing crowd in the bus stand. He saw the private buses of many IT companies come and pick their employees up and stuff them into the bus with closed windows, a precursor to the rest of their days, being kept in fluorescent lighted cubicles. Damn, he cursed himself for missing the morning bus. If only he hadn't went to the movie last night. Any how it wasn't a great experience. He was the literal third wheel. Rahul and Pooja were too busy cootchie-cooing that they hadn't even noticed him slipping out to get a cold coke.

He looked around and saw lots of young people rushing about him to get loaded into their buses. He could almost feel the sense of urgency and hurried life that they all led. That's when he saw her. He lost count of how long he was looking at her, until another company bus arrived. There was a collective rush among the crowd to get on to the bus. That's when he found himself praying that she isn't working in that company and like him she also missed her bus and waiting for the public transport.

She didn't board the bus

10:04 AM

The public bus arrived. Since they were standing at Madhya Kailash, the beginning of the IT highway, he was very sure that she must be working in one of the IT companies that is on that stretch. He was sure that she would get into the bus and boarded the bus, controlling himself into not to look in her direction.

She got in.

10:09 AM

The bus jerked itself to a stop at the signal. He moved slowly but steadily to the back of the bus, holding out a ten rupee note, looking to buy the ticket but more importantly to get close to her. She was standing just near the rear entrance of the bus. He got the ticket and stood closeby. Close enough to smell her. She gave off a gentle waft of jasmine. Although mild, it shook him to his very core.

He slyly glanced at her trying to read off her ID card and identify which company is lucky enough to have her. He immediately envied the male colleagues who worked with her.

10:17 AM

The bus stopped at the stop and a whole bunch of smartly dressed professionals stepped off. He stole a quick glance to see if she was still there. She was. There was a vacant seat in the last but one row. He made his way to that and promptly settled in. He took a glance at her, wondering whether to offer her the seat but wasn't sure if she would feel comfortable sitting in a gents seat. Moreover he had no intention of allowing her to sit with the guy seated next to him. He took a look at him. The guy was looking smart. Neatly tucked in shirt. Wavy hair. A small stud in his left ear. Looked tall and athletically built too.

No way was he going to offer her his seat. No way.

10:24 AM

The guy seated next to him got up to leave. On his way up, he gestured to her to take his seat. Oh thank you thank you. Definitely would build him a statue. He moved to the window and gestured for her to sit down. She looked at him, in a quick glance capturing his six foot height and body into her two inch eyes, quickly analyzing whether to sit or not. She sat down next to him. The smell of jasmine now at close proximity overpowered him and he turned his face to the window to take in the grime and sweat of the city, to bring him back to ground.

10:32 AM

The bus crossed the Sholinganallur signal. He got anxious, wondering when this dream trip was coming to an end, not wanting it to end. Wishing that the bus could travel a lot more slowly than its usual snail's pace. The city police should make the speed limit at 10 kmph.

Although the thought of sitting next to her was euphoric, he found out that it had its disadvantages. He couldn't look at her without her obviously knowing that he was staring at her. But desire overshoots fear and he frequently stole glances at her. She was immersed in whatever song was played on her iPod and didn't seem to notice the existence of him. He had managed to find out that she worked in TCS by her ID card.

The question now throbbing in his mind was which facility did she work out of and also he was praying for a glance at her card to find out her name. The trouble with IT majors was that they had several locations and TCS had more than four facilities littered on the OMR road itself. His atheism took a back seat and he prayed that she worked out of Siruseri, where his company was located. Not that proximity would mean a damn thing, but at least it increases the probability of meeting her again.

10:37 AM

He decided it was time he took some action and did something if he ever wanted a shot at her. He thought over what he could do or talk to engage a decent conversation. Should he ask for the time? that was so cliched, that too in this days of cellphones, even if he managed to slyly remove the Omega knockoff from his wrist without her noticing.

Should he talk about the weather? too british. About the traffic? too generic. He rattled his brain thinking what he could do and not come off as a creep trying to hit on her. Whatever came to his mind, when he replayed it, it sounded corny or cheesy or lame and very much like a bad pickup line in a lousy bar.

10:44 AM

He finally decided to ask her where she worked and introduce himself. Then he would ask her about her job. Talk then about how the office structure is at her company. Give funny anecdotes about his office. Then gently prod her about her family, where she was from, her marital status etc. Then get a bit personal, ask her about her hobbies, how she spends her time. Talk about his personal interests. Tell how he loves to watch movies but lately hasnt been able to catch many, because his friends are all out of the country. Then invite her to catch the latest movie. Exchange mobile numbers. Then leave it up to fate.

He gathered his resolve and turned to face her. Her face was tranquil and she was immersed in her music. He couldn't disturb her. But he couldnt leave it like that either. Before he could interrupt her, the bus came to a screeching halt and both of them jerked forward. She woke up from the trance-like state and looked around oblivious to him staring at her. She stood up and walked down the bus stairs.

He watched her walk away towards her office main gate. He glanced at his watch. Forty minutes he had been in love. Not a bad start to the day. Who knows maybe this forty minutes shall repeat some other day and that may end up differently. He settled back in his seat, reliving the forty minutes, until he knew it would fade away, just like always.

My childhood ambition

2010-09-09T03:19:00.000-07:00

Every one has had a dream when they were kids...what they wanted to do...what they wanted to be. I too had such a dream...not of any specific job or career. Imagine my surprise when I came across this strip from C&H. One more reason why I believe that Bill watterson is a pseudonym my dad uses...come on, the kid is just like me.

That's exactly what i wanted to be when i grew up. Filthy rich. No idea as to how i am going to get there. Just wanted to get there and get there fast. I didnt grow up drooling on careers like astronaut, cowboy but instead just thought how great it would be to filthy rich. Just to spend on things i never would need. The material objects never interested me but rather drooled on the power to be able to buy anything i wanted, everything that i would want, not to have any wants only.

Hmmmm twenty years later, here i am. I have definitely made my first million. But the only problem is that i am right now in the midst of spending my third million. So the doubt arises whether i am a millionaire.( for sake of simplicity, my million is not one million dollars but rather 10 lac rupees.) I have been slogging at a broken drown rollercoaster of a career for almost a decade now.

Did i turn out the way that i wanted it too? Do i regret the way my life is right now? If ever there is a question that was relative and ever-changing, this was it. Some days you feel that you have stuck to the plan and on other days you feel like Danny glover in the movie Lethal weapon 2. Here is a snap to remind you of what i am talking about.

You just dont have any control on whatever cr*p you do...

Anyways i believe that there are still some more years left in me, before i could make my childhood dreams...and i still believe there is some more time for my dad too ...hee hee. love you, Pop.

Scatologically yours

2010-09-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Some of the readers might not find the following post funny. Some might be downright disgusted by the nature of the content. All that i have to say is that i wasnt the person who created the content. I am just a medium through which this has come out...once again.

The main driving force behind the post is when i recently had to use the rest room facilities at a swanky mall in the city. The swankiness and grandeur of the mall had me spellbound, that was until i happened to use the restroom. Bathroom graffiti was not new to me having seen the artistic and literary efforts of so many in so many public restrooms, their content just being crap ( rather apt for the location ).

This one was especially funny to me.

Ram was here....

the one below that read

..and apparently he left in a hurry. please flush me

This rather witty dialogue left me wanting for more and i tried to recollect other funny toilet literature that i had read. But unfortunately all that i could recall from my formative years at schooling and college were all about the physical endowments of female colleagues, deragatory remarks against teachers and just plain foul language.

So i did the next best thing and went web-hopping. Here are some nuggets. I enjoyed them. I am sure some of you would do too...the scatologically challenged amongst us would definitely do so..

Necrophilia means never saying you’re sorry.

Oh shit...i thought this was the men's room

Hope atleast your aim was good....unlike me

Ha Ha.. i used up the last roll of paper

and my favourite...an old old one...nowadays its being repeated everywhere..

Why do I go on

2010-08-10T03:07:00.000-07:00

Give me one reason
why I still go on
After all this strife
After all these fights

After all my struggles
after all these battles
after all these defeats
after all these deceits

broken down so often
broken up in so many ways
misled on paths astray
just ended up being broken

Why do I still go on
everytime I die
I get up and respawn
living once again the lie

Why do I still go on
why do I not give up
this never ending scam
Maybe it's just who I am

How many times must I fall
before you let me stand up
how many times should I die
before you let me live

How many times must I fail
before I get to win
How many times should I lose
is wanting to live a sin?

My sins against gender-stereotypes

2010-07-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

I happened to see that I was tagged into this by my friend Harsha on his blog. Thanks a lot, you fastracker (that's an inside joke)

If you are a man,

Have you ever wanted something that only women are supposed to want – like bags, shoes, clothes, creams, perfumes, babies, flowers? A peaceful home and a happy family? Have you ever been afraid of the dark or of insects?
As a kid did you ever want to play ‘teacher-teacher’, cooking or did you like playing with a doll? Have you ever enjoyed cooking? Bought something in pink? Loved chocolates?

If you are a woman,

Have you ever wanted something that is considered ‘manly’ ? Like a basketball, a cell phone, a dog, a camera or a new laptop? A new car or motor bike? Ever wanted to be a pilot? A doctor or not a nurse? And the manliest want of them all – The remote!
As a kid did you enjoy playing with a bat and a ball?
There was a time when books were considered ‘manly’, women authors had to pretend to be men – would you say books are still rather manly – women should want to embroider and crochet?

So here’s the tag – Please list at least ten things you have ever wanted or done which your gender is not supposed to.

The tag is called ‘My Sins against Gender-Stereotypes’. And you must tag twelve blogging friends or else you will be cursed to wear blue ~~clothes~~ pants if you are a woman and PINK shirts if you are a man – for next twelve years .

So here it goes...Ten things I wanted to do or did which my gender was not supposed to do.

1. Spend more than 2000 bucks for your hair - (did it multiple times, and sometimes in multiples of 2K)

2. I have worn pink shirts(have four of them, in multiple shades too :( )

3. get a manicure and a pedicure - never got thru with this, though every time I look at my dirty toes I wish i did

4. watched Amanda bynes in She's the man and worse than that liked the movie and her.

5.read sweet valley twins - did the mistake once and barfed the whole night, not fully due to that though.

6. Love bharathanatyam and did my arangetram also - still love the dance form, wish i could have pursued it though i left it because of gender stereotyping when i was young

7.Used to blast Aqua and Backstreet boys in my discman - yugh!!! i shudder now when i think about it.

8. Read Stephanie Meyers twilight much before the movie came out and actually liked it

9. used to think Ricky martin was hot and tried to sing like him - thank god i dont anymore before he came out of the closet

10. picked up a t shirt when i was in college when malls were new to chennai and bought it and came back home later to find out that it is a girl's tee - It fit me perfectly though.

There it is done now. I dont have 12 people to tag although I certainly want certain people to get cracking on this.

Priya ranganathan

Kiran kallakuri

Praboth panda

Ramasamy Kasi

Namitha

Shivasundar

Kavitha

Harharan nagarajan

so it's your turn now guys and girls...I shall remind you through email about this and keep hounding you till you do it

Right or Wrong

2010-07-26T02:33:00.000-07:00

As I just completed my magnum opus, I thought I deserved a big break. For those who have no idea what I am talking about, it's a challenge I gave myself to see if I could write a longer short story ( that's not an oxymoron, it's just me a moronic ox who writes shorts stories usually). And I did it. So, coming back, I thought I deserved a break and wanted nothing to do with blogging for a week at least. But I couldn't. I couldn't resist opening up my blog and checking on the comments, the bouquets and the brickbats, opening up my drafts to see if there was anything left unfinished that I should probably finish up.

NOTHING.NADA.ZILCH.

There was absolutely nothing for me to do in my blog. No unfinished posts that I could just brush up and publish. No more comments for me to moderate. So the only thing left to do was to write a new post. And that's what I am doing right now.

Isn't it funny how in life you often come up with the same situation over and over again. It's almost like your whole life is on a loop and you continue to do the same thing over and over again. Even more funnier is how in spite of getting repeated shots at a thing, we almost end up doing the same thing, take the same decision, make the same choice. But how does one really know whether it's right or wrong. Take for example the following situations. I am going to put in the wrong thing, which was probably what I did, and the right thing which is probably what I should have done.

Situation 1

Your girlfriend is busy making lunch for you. She sweats and swelters in the compressed space that you call your kitchen, while you are lazing on the bean bag watching season five of How I met your mother, laughing at the corny jokes and the relationship mantras that they keep coming up with in each episode(It's a fab sit-com...you guys should catch it.. read this)

Right thing

Help her out with the preparations, cut the onions, clean the vegetables, set the table( at my place its more or less couch food, so set the plates). Get water to drink.

What I did

"Baby, can you make sure the omelet isnt done too well? last time it was terrible and you know how I dont like it when it's cooked like that. I like it semi-liquid. Hey that reminds me, how did you like the scene in Raavan where Aishwarya jumps into the water. Doesnt she look sexy in that."

I know, I know. That was probably the most idiotic thing a guy could have talked about. Come on. Aishwarya in Raavan?(for those who dont know what Raavan is, read this) she looked old and forced. Okay, seriously I probably could have handled that one a little better.

Situation 2

You come home late in the night, obviously after a long day at office and a longer time at the tavern with your friends. Your shirt stinks of smoke and it's very obvious that it might have been more of a first person issue than a third party influence. As luck would have it, this was the one day that your dad, who smokes heavily and thereby either attributes the smell to himself or to his dead nose cells, is fast asleep. My mom opens the door. One thing about my mom is that she missed out on her life's calling as a sniffer for the bomb squad.

Right thing

Fall down on her feet and cry out, "I am sorry mom, I will never do it again. It was a mistake. Please forgive me." wet her feet like that and you are good to go. No mom can be harsh with you after such a melodramatic scene like that.

What I did

First thing I did, was to hold my breath as though I still had smoke left in my lungs and if I breathe I might let it out. I rush to the rest room, on the pretext of urgent urinary needs and grab my close-up tooth paste out of the cabinet and wash my mouth. I open the door of the rest room and I find my mom standing up close to me. Still I am not floundered and ask in a cold and harsh voice, as though I am upset and angry with something, "What's for dinner? go get it. I am very hungry" She continues to stare at me and then says" what's the smoke smell. Did you smoke?"

That's when I break down. I need to make a clean sweep out of it. The only way to escape was to confess and beg for forgiveness. And I do just that.

"It wasnt me. It was my friend ma. You know i dont like that. He was sitting next to me in the teashop and was puffing away to glory. I didnt like it but I couldnt leave. I needed the books for that exam that is coming up. I know, I know. You dont like him. Fine. After this I will never ever meet him. I swear. . . you don't believe me....aaaah...smell my mouth...aaaah...does it smell of smoke...just my clothes smell like that."

She walks out of the room, shaking her head. All this had been tried and failed by the man of the earlier generation.My dad..how much I look upto him.

So in conclusion things can be done the right way or the wrong way....only thing is for the opposite person, its always the opposite of your right and your wrong( at least the right part like you know in a mirror )

21 Days - The finale

2010-07-20T06:34:00.000-07:00

It was a cloudy day. The sky was overcast with dark clouds threatening to open up anytime and rescue the people from yet another sweltering hot day. I prayed that I didn't get caught in the rain when it starts. I had just reached the driveway of the hospital when all of a sudden it started. Looked as though someone had been waiting with a bucket of water and just toppled it on my head. I entered the hospital soaking wet, the wetness already draining me of energy on what looked like a long day.

Smita's treatment was done. The course had finished. There was no blatant issues or remission episodes. On the whole, it looked like the treatment had took. But it was still too early to say anything.

I entered her room but quickly backed off when I saw the entire room packed with people. People who I had not seen the entire duration of her stay at the hospital. People who had come now, confused whether to be happy that she is leaving today or sad that it happened in the first place. Visiting someone at the hospital is a thing of timing. And people who had missed their timing had it more tough. Since whatever they do after that it will look like it was a last minute scramble.

I went about the ward checking up on the other patients but Smita was on top of my mind throughout. I wandered past her room a couple of times, but found it always occupied with people. The conversation had now drifted past the actual reason they were in the hospital and it became more or less like a impromptu family get-together. I could swear I heard someone there talk about an upcoming wedding.

It was lunchtime before I could once again get back to her room. I entered and found her sitting upright. She looked up and smiled at me.

"So...today is the big day. You are leaving the hospital. The course is done. "

"yeah it is. I am leaving today. I am so happy to leave. I can't wait for school."

I didnt have the heart to tell her that although she is leaving today, she isn't out of it completely. There is going to be checkups, tests and the whole rigmarole once again in a few months. I didnt want to break the bubble she had conjured up.

"I can understand why. It must be pretty boring here...and painful too, with all the tests, drips etc."

"Oh that..ya that too. More than that, Dad will be at home. He told me last night. He is going to be here only with me and mom. He is not going back abroad. Isnt that great?"

"Oh that's nice. " I said in a neutral tone, not sure whether to be skeptical, unsure as to how long the truce between husband and wife will hold.

The door opened and the characters in discussion stood there framed in the doorway. They both entered in, together. That's when I realized this was the first time I am seeing both of them together.

"Doctor, What time can we leave?" inquired Jayakumar.

"The report is getting ready. Dr.Arul already gave you the schedule for the testing and the follow-ups this morning right? Once the report gets ready, you can leave. Billing came back in the morning with the NDC"

"Yes, we got the schedule from him. We already fixed up the next appointments."

"Doctor?" a voice beckoned me.

The nurse was there with the discharge report in her hand. I checked the reports. 21 days of hospitalization. Hundreds of reports, pages of history, test results. I patiently checked the entire lot and signed at the end and handed over the copy to her mom.

Smita got up from the bed. I was so used to seeing her in the hospital garb that it was surprising to see her get out of the bed in an orange t-shirt and jeans. She hopped and stood in between her mom and dad, looking at both of them.

"So Smita, say bye to the doctor. It is time for us to leave." prodded her mom

"Bye doctor...thanks" Smita added.

"Bye Smita, Take care. Take the medicines at the proper time. All the best."

I watched them grab up the bags in one hand and in another the punctured hands of their kid and step out and walk the corridor.

I looked at the patient charts and saw Dr.Arul's scribble on the front.

"Extremely fragile. Handle with caution. Needs constant supervision"

I looked at them turn the end of the corridor and step out of sight...for the moment.

"Doctor, bed number 8 is vomiting heavily. "

I turned and returned to work.

Check out another story in 3 parts - Cup Of Tea

21 Days - Day 20

2010-07-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

"Good morning Smita" I chirped as I entered her room.

I hadn't knocked or waited to enter before I shouted out my greeting, so I was slightly taken back by the sight of her mom in the room.

"Good morning Madam. How is she today?" noticing the sleeping form of Smita on the bed.

"She is fine. She got up, had her breakfast and went of to sleep. Should I wake her up?" she replied.

"No no no...let her sleep. I will just check on her vitals and the charts.", I said, taking my scopes out.

The thing about being a patient in a hospital is the ease with which you get used to the constant probes and tests that are done on you. A week or two in the hospital and you wouldn't even wake up when somebody checks your pressure or does a blood test.

I went about my work and entering the values and checking the earlier values entered in the charts. She was doing good. Her pulse was normal. No other issues had cropped up. Yesterday had been the last day of chemo and radiation. The lab guys had come early morning and taken the blood samples.

" We are not splitting up"

The sudden statement caught me off-balance. Not that it was shouted out. But in a silent hospital room, even a whisper can be loud. The nature of her statement added to the deafening resonance in my ears.

"uhh...what?" I asked.

"We are not splitting up. Me and Jay. I know that you heard us arguing the other day and talking about divorce. We decided not to divorce, for Smita's sake. We think that is the best course."

I didn't have a ready reply to that. Of course it was the best decision. I couldn't even imagine the additional trauma that such a thing could do to Smita. I wanted to hug her and say thanks. At the same time I wanted to give her a tight slap for even considering something like that at a time like this.

All that I said was," Hmm hmm"

"Jay and I talked it out. We had some issues, with his absence and other things. We have decided all that can wait. What is important now is Smita...and her health. "

"Hmm hmm.. If you want I can ask our resident psychiatrist to recommend some marriage counselor. That really works. Atleast you should be in a support group. There are lots of support groups for parents with affected children. It might be very helpful."

"Yeah yeah, maybe we should do that." in a very nonchalant way, which made me think she isn't going to do that anytime soon.

"Listen, Mrs. Jayakumar, I know how tough all this is on you. Shuttling between home and hospital. A sick child...that too at this young age. It takes it's toll on you. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad idea. Just consider it.", I said, surprised at how intrusive and bold I had become.

"Yes. I shall surely consider it.", she replied.

"Mommy, where is dad?" suddenly a small voice came out.

Smita had woken up. We both turned to look at her.

"He is here only, baby. He will be here only" , her mom replied

I turned and left the room.

Day 21 - The Finale

21 Days - Day 19

2010-07-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

By the time I got to get some food it was lunchtime and the cafeteria was crowded. The whole morning had been hectic, as usual. I grabbed my plate and scouted for a place to sit and had to roam around the hall before I spotted an empty place at the corner. I made my way there and settled down.

I wolfed down hungrily and before I realized I had finished my first helping. I made my way to the lunch counter and helped myself once again and made to my table. The crowd was thinning now, I guess not everybody had my appetite. I was through my second helping when I heard a voice.

"Mind if I sit here?"

I looked up to see Smita's dad standing there with his plate. I motioned him to sit down, my mouth still half full.

I swallowed what I had in my mouth, gulped down some water to make it easier, so that I can talk to him.

"So, you saw Smita, she is back in the room, right?"

"Oh yes yes. I did. I spent the whole evening yesterday with her. She looks much better. "

"Yes, she is responding to the treatment well. The course gets over today. Tomorrow we shall run some tests and see what's the status. "

" Yes Dr. Arul spoke to my wife today morning and told her the same."

"Oh your wife spoke to you?" I blurted out, realizing my mistake even as the words were coming out.

He looked at me quizzically and said "Yeah, she told me about an hour back", still puzzled with the way my question had come out.

"I mean..I meant, she has given you the update already. Good."

"Yes.Yes" , he went back to his plate.

I watched him play around with his spoon on an almost empty plate. He seemed to be thinking about something, mulling it over in his mind. I wanted to urge him on, but held back.

"Doctor, one serious question. What are her chances of survival? I mean, be frank with me. I don't want the normal promises of doing the best you can and stuff. I want to know the truth. What is her state?"

I realized then why he had hesitated so long. It was not a easy question to ask and certainly not an easy answer to give. My mom had told me when I was a kid, never to ask questions that I don't want to know the answers for. I didn't know whether he really wanted to know the answer, whether he will be able to take the answer, to accept the answer.

"Mr. Jayakumar, Honestly speaking, we don't know. We know the effect of the medicine that we are treating her with. We know her vitals, her blood count, her WBC count. We are monitoring the tumor as well. But in the end it is all up to her..I mean her body. If there are no remissions , then we can be assured that she will be healthy. We really cant say. I am sorry."

He looked at me, eyes wide open.

"Thanks doctor. I needed to know that. I really needed to know that"

He abruptly stood up, pushed his chair back in, left the tray in the wash area and walked out of the cafeteria.

Day 20

21 Days - Day 18

2010-07-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

The day started off very bad. Really bad. It all started when I got a call at 3 in the morning. Doctors over the years develop a vibe when they receive phone calls from the hospitals at odd times. Sometimes it is a serious complication. Sometimes it is just a new nurse who doesn't know what to do if there is a change in protocol or wasn't part of the SI (standard instructions). And sometimes it was calls that go like this.

"Hello..Dr.Cathy" a tired voice called out my name.

"Yes..this is she..What happened" I said groggily, still sleepy but awake enough to recognize the number of the hospital on my cellphone.

"We have a situation. It's Seth"

" What happened, Sarala? " I said recognizing the night shift nurse's voice.

" He is going into convulsions. The duty doctor is trying his best, but I dont think he will last long."

Mr. Seth, or bed number 7 as we call him, has been in and out of the hospital for the past 3 years. He was 37 years old. Not a bad age. But a very young age for a person to be in the medical deterioration that his body was in. Nobody knows what exactly started it, but we know what condition he is now. It started with a small accident four years back. That's when we discovered that he was suffering from leukemia. From there it was downhill. Diabetes came in and left him weaker than he already was.

"I shall be right over" I said, now fully awake.

I got dressed up pretty quickly. That was one personal thing that I learned being a doctor. I could get ready in six minutes flat. Comes in pretty handy when one needs to be at the hospital at inhuman hours. I was almost out of the door when my phone rang again.

"Cathy, we lost him"

I paused but momentarily and locked the door and ran all the way to my car.

By the time I reached the hospital the duty doctor had finished all the formalities. I almost ducked out of the room when I saw the wife, but stuck around to talk to her. It was not unexpected but just because you know what is going to happen doesn't lessen the pain any less.

The day had started bad, and when a day starts bad early, there is no way that it would get better during the day. There was a couple of minor crises and by the time we got on top of that, it had metamorphosed into major crisis. It was almost lunch time by the time I finished up. That's when I realized I had gone 8 hours without any food. There had been 2 coffees and a half finished cup of noodles but that was so many hours ago I forgot about it. I headed to the cafeteria. It was full of people and I realized that I would be stuck with a plate of food in my hand and not a place to sit and eat. I decided to go out for lunch.

As I almost walked out of the hospital, I thought I will check out on Smita.I headed to the ICU.

"Hi Smita" I said with as much cheer as I could muster.

"Hi doctor. Guess what I am going back to my room today. The nurse who was just in told me." She beamed her good news.

I checked her chart and could see from the notes that she was doing well. The ICU doctor had written 'To shift to room' in bold at the bottom. This was a good break from the way the day had been so far.

"Yes. You are going back to the room. Told you right, that you will be fine."

"Oh yes. You were right. I can't wait to see mom and dad. They couldn't stay in here for long inside this room I guess. They didn't spend much time with me for these two days."

"Yes, that is right." I smiled.

"I heard about Mr.Seth.It is so sad" she said in a subdued tone.

I didn't expect that. I didn't even think that she knew who Mr.Seth was.

"You know him? Who told you"

"I heard the nurses talking when they came to check my vitals. I met him many times at the radiation lab. Then I found out that he was on the same floor as me. We used to talk lots about his trekking and his European tours."

I didn't know what to say. I had been treating him for so many years but didn't get a response out of him apart from what was bare minimum needed. I didn't know that he trekked. I didn't know that he had traveled outside India. But here was a nine year old who seemed to have connected.

" It is sad" she said, bringing me back to the room.

"Yes it is. He was in a bad condition. Not responding to treatment or radiation. He was getting infected often. But that's the way it is.It probably was for.."

" I meant that I didn't get to meet him and say bye to him. I wish I could have talked to him one last time. "

I realized I had once again jumped the gun and had gone off on a tangent all alone. She was sad to have missed a friend. And I had thought otherwise.As usual.

"Don't worry about that. Get back to the room soon. Your mom and dad waiting for you.I will see you in the evening" I smiled at her.

"Oh yes..ok see you" she beamed.

I stepped out of the hospital and headed to a local joint to grab some food. While I walked alone, I thought about Smita and her zest for life.The way she made friends quickly. Her friends. Her parents. Her condition. Her dreams. Her battle. How she was dealing with all that. Then my thoughts quickly moved to compare myself with her. After a couple of minutes I stopped thinking about that.

As I said the day didn't get better.

Day 19

21 Days - Day 17

2010-07-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

"When will I get back to the room?" a small voice quipped.

I looked up from the charts. Smita was doing well, considering the scare she had given me yesterday. Her vitals were looking good and she was able to take semi-solids today. My guess was that she should be normal, or as normal as she is ever going to be in a day or two.

"Two days max. You will be back in your room by then" I said, cheerfully.

There was silence for a couple of minutes.

"You never take leave uh? I always see you in hospital. That too so late. Wont your mom shout at you for being outside for so late?"

I didn't know what to feel or to say to her. Whether I should tell her how my 'planned' leave yesterday went haywire and left me back at the hospital. Whether I should tell her that doctors,especially in their early stage of career had never-ending shifts. Whether I should be glad that she still thinks of me as being young eough to get reprimanded by my mom. Whether I should be sad that whether young or old I dont have a mom to reprimand me anymore.

"No. She wont shout at me. She knows that my work keeps me late." I managed with a smile.

"What does your dad do?"

It looked like today was going to be a tough question day for me. The questions by themselves were innocent, but each question brought back suppressed memories in me. Memories that I had fought hard to keep it from boiling over and taking over my life.

"Nothing. He is retired now."

"What did he used to do"

The questions were not stopping. I didnt know what to say about my dad. I had tried my best to forget my dad. Been trying very hard for the past 10 years. Trying to forget the day he came home with Sheila aunty. Trying to forget the day that he and mom had a fight. Trying to forget the day me and my mom moved out of the house on Cardinal road and into that single bedroom apartment in Officer's quarters. The day that my mom died. Seeing a blurred image through my tears of my dad coming there drunk.

"He was a manager in a bank. That was long ago. He is retired now."

"Oh..ok. My dad is a manager too. In Softech. Very big company, you know. But I dont like it. They keep sending him abroad. Often he goes away for months and I dont get to see him. It must be nice for you to be able to see your dad every day."

"Ha ha .. ya ya it is" I laughed, thinking when was the last time that I had seen my dad. It had been 3 years ago.

"So you saw your mom and dad yesterday? " I asked, slightly curious.

"Oh yes. Mom came in the morning. She bought me a new sketchbook and set of oil paints. She was looking very tired but stayed with me till lunch time. After I ate that gooey stuff they gave as lunch she left. That gooey gooey thing was terrible. Tasted like chalk. Yuck"

" Yes I know. It has to be that way. We cant put any spices in the food for you. That's why it is plain." I said and paused,"What about your dad?"

"He came in the evening. He was also looking tired. I guess running around between home and hospital is making them both tired. He bought me a new dress and promised to get me the new cycle that I have been asking for. Isnt that great? been wanting to ride a cycle for so long. Mom never allowed it. But she doesn't know that I have been borrowing from my friend at school and trying it in school."She said with a mischievous grin.

"Good good. It wont be long before you are out of here and riding that cycle" I said.

"Let's see", she said with visible excitement.

I wished good night and left the ICU.

Day 18

21 Days - Day 16

2010-07-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to go to the hospital today. I had been pulling double shifts so many times the past month that I had many comp-off saved up. Not that I ever use my comp-off. I spend most of my time at the hospital that I simply don't know where or what I will do with all those accumulated leaves.

I woke up lazily, thinking I had slept in for longer than what was usual. But the clock showed seven. I had slept in for barely thirty minutes extra. My body has been conditioned to getting up early and there was nothing I could do about it.

I went around the small flat that I rented out in one of the quiet neighborhoods near my hospital, looking for chores to complete. The whole flat was a mess, and I didnt really want to start on getting it upright because I knew deep in my heart I wont complete it.

By 8:30 I had run out of patience and could no longer take the quiet and calmness of my dirty flat. I changed from the crumpled slacks I was in and into a plain salwar. Now that I had decided to go out, the destination wasnt much of a confusion. I headed towards the hospital.

Stepping into the hospital the day that you are not working has always made me feel different about it. It's as though everything is in slow motion. Without the hurry and hectic running around that is on a normal day, I was actually able to see the patients and see the impact of their disease on them. It was as though all through my duty time I had been wearing a different set of lenses.

I said hi to the duty nurses, shouting out even before they request me for assistance, that I am on leave today. I joked with them, laughed out aloud and then went to the cafeteria. I had just then realized that I hadnt eaten from morning. I had a filling brunch session and just wanted to stretch out and sleep.

I proceeded to my ward, proceeding to just check in on all my patients. Taking a look at the reports that had come in after I had left for the day. Seeing if the duty doctor had changed any of the protocols or medication. Everything looked fine.

I worked my way through the corridor, checking on each patient and leaving instructions where needed, sometimes revoking orders, sometimes accepting the changes.

I purposely kept Smita's room for the last. I thought I will spend some time with her today, talking to her. I opened the door and stepped in. The room was dark. That's when I noticed that the bed was empty.

That wasn't odd. We normally wheel around the patient in case they require some tests to be done which cannot be done at bedside. I went to the cafeteria again to grab a cup of coffee. I had to lurk in one corner of the room as I didnt want to get spotted by any of the seniors. Or by Smita's mom or dad.

I walked upto the nurse station and asked the head nurse the whereabouts of Smita. Sometimes in order to do tests, the patients will be moved around. The head nurse looked at me and said," You didnt know? they didnt call you last night? "

"What happened?" My voice almost shrieking.

"She is in the ICU. Around two in the morning she developed some breathing issues, and needed support. Nothing serious, the line in her room wasnt working. So the shift doctor decided to move her to ICU"

My breath of relief must have been audible. For a minute she had given me the shivers. I pushed back negative thoughts and almost ran to the ICU ward in the opposite side of the building.

Day 17

21 Days - Day 15

2010-07-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

" I am not sure whether we should be trying that" said Dr.Arul.

I looked at him, helpless, wanting him to accept my suggestion. We were discussing on Smita's medication and he was reluctant to try out the new drug that had come out recently and was in trial stage.

"But it could work and could possibly her body could not have issues with that. What is the harm in trying that?" I asked, my voice quivering in high pitch.

"It is still in a trial stage and we are not sure about it's delivery mechanism and post-delivery impact on minors. I am sorry but it's too much of a unrecorded risk that we can take in this case."

I sighed and decided that he was probably right. I gathered up the notes and the charts, got up and left his consulting room. I wasn't really angry at him. I was at the desperately trying to see if there was anything that I could possibly do for Smita.

After a half-eaten lunch in the hospital cafeteria, I walked into the ward. A fortnight had passed since I first met Smita and I wasnt sure if there had been any progress at all that any of us could visibly see or measure.

I walked past her room, almost decided in my mind that I shouldn't enter but then changed my mind and entered her room. She was alone.

"Hi Smita. How are you feeling today? The vomiting stopped?" I asked knowing the answer even before asking.

The vomiting had stopped post breakfast today, mainly running out of material. We had put her on a NLBM diet. No Liquid By Mouth. In other words we stopped food intake and put her on saline and glucose drips.

" I am better. Tired. No vomit since morning." she replied in a weak voice.

" That's good. I meant the vomit part. Dont worry, you will be back on solid foods in a day or two."

"Can you give me some water?" her question coming out of a parched mouth.

In NLBM, the patient isn't allowed to even drink water. I dipped a cotton ball in water and squeezed it in her mouth, wetting her dry lips and tongue. She lapped up the water desperately. She looked at me hungrily for more, and I repeated the process, knowing that too much water and she might throw up again.

She laid back on the bed after this, tired out by this small task. I looked at her frail form and vowed internally to do something for her.

"Where is my mom?"

I looked at her. I thought she was drifting away to sleep but she was still awake.

"Where is my mom? I didnt see her today" she repeated.

"I dont know. I will check around and see. She must have come in when you were asleep. I will ask the nurse. You want her to get something for you?" I enquired.

"No. Nothing. Where is my dad?" she continued.

"uhh.. I dont know, I will have to ask the duty nurse only." I replied.

"Ok.. Tell them to wake me up if I am sleeping when they come."

"Oh sure I will leave the message at the nurse station. But now you go sleep." I smiled at her and tucked her into the hospital bed-sheets.

"Good night Smita. Sleep well now"I said, switching off the lights.

She didnt reply. She had fallen asleep already.

Day 16

21 Days - Day 14

2010-07-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

"Doctor, we have a problem"

I squinted up, jarred by the sudden burst of florescent light in the small, dark room where night shift doctors crashed to catch up on some sleep during night shifts.

I wasn't in a mood to get up and asked her, still lying on the bed,"What happened..who"

"Patient number 6..she is vomiting heavily. For past 20 minutes"

I woke up. Vomiting alone is not a serious issue. Most often it can be treated with antiemeitc pill or shot. But when a patient undergoing chemo takes to vomiting, it is a very serious issue. More complex than your run-of-the-mill vomiting. Vomiting or nausea means that the chemo medicine was causing some problem. Trying to choose the perfect mix of medicine which has the minimal side effects was a crucial part of my job. And it looked like I had failed.

I rushed to her room and opened the door ajar. I had come in just in time to see her throw up green liquid which I suspected to be bile into a kidney tray. The tray was in the hands of someone I could not identify from the back. I walked to the head of the bed and realised it was the dad. Mr. Jayakumar.

He didnt seem to have even noticed me. His eyes were focused on his daughter and ready to catch any more spew that might come out. He carefully wiped away her mouth with a wet tissue.

"Do you want some water, to gargle..to drink??"

" No daddy. That's it. I am fine now."

"How long have you been vomiting" I interrupted.

He looked at me as though that was the first time he knew that I was in the same room.

"She has been throwing up since evening 6. Whatever she ate came out, followed by even water that she drinks. She had one apple juice at 5. That was the last food she ate. After that only water has been given. But she hasn't stopped vomiting only." he replied in he behalf, his voice tight and tense.

"Did she have anything to eat from outside, apart from hospital food" I asked, desperately praying for another cause for this.

"No, she didn't. I have been with her since morning and she hasnt had anything like that."

I wrote down an antiemetic as a stop-gap remedy. I would need to discuss with Dr.Arul as to change in the medicine.

I looked at him, him staring at his daughter who was now resting. She was exhausted and sleeping already. He kept looking at her with so much concern and intensity I didn't interrupt. She will be alright. She has to get alright. I left a kid with her father to take care of her.

Day 15

21 Days - Day 13

2010-07-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

"So how you feeling today.." I asked in my most cheerful tone.

Smita looked up, managed a smile, that just broke my heart into a million pieces, before replying," I am good.."

I checked on her vitals and her charts and saw that she was stating the truth. She was managing quite well and her results were looking up. Only one small thing was down. Her WBC count was down. We could look at this in two ways. The radiation was working. The other way to look at it was now she was losing her immunity. She is prone to infection about 10x times more.

"So..no issues of cold, cough or fever right?" I enquired.

"No...Had headache in the morning but now I am fine."

I nodded and went back to writing the status on her charts.

"Excuse me....Is this where Smita is ..oh Hiiii Smitaaa!!!!"

I turned around so quickly I almost lost balance. The voice belonged to a girl of about Smita's age. She had peeked through the door and now with affirmation that she was in the right room boldly entered.

"How are you Smita...when you coming back to school...You know the play we were practicing for is happening on the 23rd....we miss you there...so how are things...how you feeling now...Preetha also wanted to come but she had her violin class....my dad brought me here....we got a new car...you should see it....it is so big and it speaks to you..."

The barrage of questions interspersed with statements continued for another 3-4 minutes before she stopped. I guess she ran out of breath and was just about to start off again when Smita interrupted.

"Doctor, this is my classmate Jaanvi...We live in the same apartment also...Jaanvi, this is my doctor...she takes good care of me."

The girl turned to me and gave a 3 second smile, practiced to perfection before turning back to her friend.

"So...how are things...did you hear about the new watchman we got in our flat...oh he is so funny...he has got a funny way of walking...our block kids have already named him Mr.Penguin....Mrs.Shanthi is killing us with more and more homework every day and we have a test on.."

I gently closed the door and let them two converse alone. It must be good for Smita to get to meet a friend, and get back a glimpse of what was normal in her life. A link back to normalcy. I went around the ward checking up on my other patients.

It must have been 15-20 minutes before I came before Smita's room. I hesitated before opening the door, not really wanting to disturb them. I, however found her gone and Smita lying on the bed reading some book.

"Oh is your friend gone?" I asked.

"Jaanvi is not my friend. She is just in my class and flats." Smita replied curtly.

"Ok..I understand." I said, getting to know a bit more about Smita's friends than I needed to.

"Have you ever felt like, whatever you do, how much ever you try hard or want something, that you might not get it in the end? What do you do then?" she asked.

Not knowing the reason behind such a question, I prepared to give a suitable answer when she continued.

"When you are not going to get what you want, why should I even try to get that? Knowing that I am going to fail, why should I even try?"

Now I was confused as to how to answer this. But she once again took away that worry from me.

"Isn't giving up before trying better than trying and failing? "

This time it ended as though she was waiting for an answer. I gave it to her.

"Smita, nothing is certain. In anything. Whether you will get or not get what you want is never confirmed till it happens. Till the time it actually happens. So how can you give up on something without trying? What if by giving up you are giving up on getting the thing that you wanted? You say that you are not going to get something and want to give up? think in the reverse. What if you will get that thing that you want only if you try, which you are not doing because you think that you will not get it. Dont you think that is wrong?"

She looked at me as though I had just said something that was either path-breaking or pure nonsense.

I continued.

" All of us are given chances to get what we want. It is upto us to see if we use that chance and try and get what we are capable of getting. If we give up on that chance then what we are doing is refusing the chance that god gave us."

"But why does God have to make it so tough and hard? What did I do wrong that I am not getting it after trying so hard?"

I was not sure as to how to handle this. Sure, I went through psychiatry during my medical course, but only as a credit point and not in depth. I wasnt sure whether to broach the subject of death and the inevitability of death for all human beings when she spoke again.

"Jaanvi got the lead part in the school play. I wanted to be Snow White so badly. I really tried hard. I even got a new gown stitched and all"

The relief on my face must have been obvious. It was about a play after all. I smiled and said,"Dont worry, you shall get it. If not this time , the next time for sure."

I switched off the light and turned to leave at the door. At the door I turned back and looked at her still form now. She was a kid after all. Just a kid.

Day 14

21 Days - Day 12

2010-07-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

" I am sorry"

I looked up. The scene was reversed. Smita's mom stood in the doorway of my small duty doctor's room.

"Uh..ok..for what? " I asked, not very clear.

"For you having to see that yesterday. It was not supposed to be...not supposed to happen that way."

"Oh that's ok.. I am sorry to have barged in like that. I just had some good news and wanted to share that. I am sorry...Hey what happened"

She had started to cry and I wasn't sure as to what I should do.

" Nothing. Nothing at all"

I hoped that was the end of that line of discussion but I was wrong.

"Twelve years. Twelve long years. I have lived with that man. I cant anymore. I just cant."

"Mrs. Jayakumar, I am not sure if I am the right person you should be talking to. There is Dr. Tom, our psychiatrist. He is very experienced and would be able to provide proper counse.."

" I cant believe it has come to this...It's over.. 12 years is over..." She mumbled to herself, no longer talking to me but to herself.

"I am sorry..but I really think Dr.Tom would be able to help you. It's very common to see strife and tension between the parents of terminally ill children. He would be able to guide you both." I said and stopped, waiting for a response to continue.

"Mrs. Jayakumar ...Mrs Jayakumar?" I prompted

She broke out of her trance, "What..oh yes yes...What is the good news"

"Uh..good news? " surprised at the abrupt change in the topic, "yes yes the good news. We just found out that there is no side-effects to the radiation and her body is not rejecting the medicine. So in all probability, we would be able to get the tumor under control and treat it without any complication."

" hmm hmm " she nodded absentedly.

" Without any remission, we can hope that she will be able to lead a normal life"

She got up abruptly. She wiped her face with an almost soggy tissue. She put it back in her purse, as though she didnt want to leave any evidence of the crying.

She opened the door, stood there for a moment, " Thanks doctor...thanks... a normal life..thanks."

She left.

Day 13

21 Days - Day 11

2010-07-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

"There has been remarkable progress. There seems to be no rejection for the medicine nor has the radiation seen any complications. I wouldn't be surprised if we manage to get her back to zero state in six months."

I nodded, wishing I had learned gymnastics in school at the moment, because all I wanted to do was a double somersault and possibly cartwheel through the ward's corridor. It wasn't often that we got good news, working in the Cancer ward. So whenever any such things happen it was always a welcome break from the usual.

"That's great news, Dr. Arul. It is indeed good news, provided there isn't any remission."

What had just happened was simply this. The medicine that we had given to Smita was not being rejected by her body which is generally what happens in more cases than you would think normal. Also my biggest fear, the radiation wasnt creating any other complications. So in all possibility the treatment can proceed and might eventually turn out to be a success. I know that it sounds like too far-fetched and too premature to break open the champagne and the party hats.

But this is the cancer ward. We see more suffering and more deaths than what one would normally encounter in one's life. So whenever we get a single positive, however small it might be, it's just another reason for us to continue the next day.

I was in a jubilant mood and almost hopped down the dully lit corridor. I made the visits to the other patients. There wasnt much change in the other patients condition. Most days that itself was good news. No news was good news when you are dealing with terminal illness. Being status quo was a good state to be in and in many patient's condition, that was what we were able to do and promise. Longevity, not eradication. Prolonging the inevitable.

No No No. I almost shouted to myself. I wasnt going to go down that path. Today was a good day. There was a chance, however slim, but a chance nevertheless that we would be able to do something for Smita. To validate our experience and apparent expertise. It was for moments like these that we became doctors.

As I signed off on one patient's chart at the nurse desk, the head nurse motioned her hand calling me towards her.

"Yes, sister. Tell me"

"I just went to number 6 to give her after lunch tablets and to check on the drips. I see that the dad is here now. Dr. Tom was around earlier on. I would suggest you get Dr. Tom to give them a bit of counseling. I have seen it happen before. Parents are the hardest hit and they then start the blame game."

Dr. Tom was our resident psychiatrist and counselor. Meeting up with him might not be the worst thing for the Jayakumars.

" I will see what I can do"

I wanted to burst in the room and shout out the good news and I nearly almost did. I could hear loud conversation but the words weren't audible. I opened the door to hear the last statement although.

"I want a divorce", said Smita's mom.

She turned to the door that opened just then and I stood there framed in the doorway.

Day 12

21 Days - Day 10

2010-07-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

"Who are you", I almost shouted.

The sight of a middle aged man in Smita's room in the wee hours of the morning had startled me. I was doing a double shift and had thought of dropping in and seeing how she is around 4 in the morning, when I saw him.

" Who are you..What you doing here", I repeated.

He slowly got up to his feet. He was looking tired and like a perfect candidate to be the inhabitant of the bed that he was leaning upon when I had walked in.

"I am Jayakumar, Smita's dad"

"Oh I didnt know you were coming. Her mom didnt inform me."

"She didnt know. I didnt know myself whether I would be able to come. But here I am."

We both stared at each other for an awkward moment before he asked, " How is she doing now"

I walked through her status, the treatment that we were giving her, how she was reacting to the treatment, the medications she was under..

"I dont understand most of what you just said. How is she doing...I mean how is she taking all this.", he interrupted.

"Oh she is fine..she is cooperative. She takes her medicine properly..."

" I didnt mean that. How is she taking this entire thing? It has been some time since I saw her. She looks so thin and frail now. How much is she weighing now? Is she eating properly? Will the medications do that to her? Is the treatment very painful? "

I was silent, not knowing which of the questions to answer from this continuous barrage. Was this concern true or was it a last minute effort to project some authority over us and his seemingly estranged family? I don't know and didn't really want to know what dynamics run in Smita's family. I glanced at her chart.

"She is 50. She was creating some problems earlier this week but now it is fine. She is eating properly. The medications are pretty much standardized now and have been in usage for some years now and are totally safe. Pain is on a case-to-case basis and cannot be accurately measured or quantified."

He must have noticed the change in my tone with my curt reply and looked up at me, alternating between his daughter and me when I spoke. He turned back to her and sat on the chair beside the bed with his hands on her arm.

I stood there for a while, looking at the father who didnt have time for his daughter during her best years, but rushing down during her worst, to spend some time..whatever time was left.
Day 11

21 Days - Day 9

2010-07-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

" He never called"

I didn't raise my head to hear nor show any reaction to her statement. I continued to change the drip bottle and checked the flow rate.

" He said he will but didn't call. We tried his number and it went to some machine voice. " she repeated.

"Hmm hmm"

"Why didn't he call?" she questioned.

I couldn't remain without answering, "Maybe he was busy Smita, you know your dad is a very busy man."

"It's always the same. My birthday, my dance at Annual day, Aunt Leela's wedding..Always the same excuse"

"He is out there working hard for you only. So that you can get everything that you want. He will be able to buy everything that you want. To go to the best school. To get you new dresses, toys, books etc. to get you .."

"What is the point of all that now... I cant play..I dont want to play... I am not going to school..I want him"

I was stunned to silence by this outburst. For a second I didnt know what to say. All through my life I had to struggle to get each and every thing that I have ever got. Past memories flooded over me. The orphanage..the foster parents..running away..the hostel life..the scholarships..every single phase in my life had been a struggle and here is a girl who got all that. Not just silver spoon but an entire silver cutlery had been given to her...yet, there is a mile of difference in our lives, yet so similar.

"He will come, dear. Dont worry about that. I am sure that he will come as soon as he is able to come."

She replied with a sniffle.

"What about school? Do you like your school? " I asked, wanting to talk more.

" I guess it's fine. I like my school, especially crafts class. We have so much fun..you know last week Prabhu in my class dropped the glue bottle on the floor. Preethi then put all the glitter and chumki on it. Then Preetha slipped on the floor and rolled on all the stuff. She was looking so so funny. Every time she tried to get up she kept falling down. oh it was so funny."

I looked at her animated face, seeing it full of energy, despite the pale color brought about by her condition. For a brief moment I caught a glimpse of the innocence, of the life that was prior to all these...the dull blue hospital walls, the faded linen, the frequent pricks, the constant pain...this life.

"..and then Prabhu came to help her up and he also slipped and fell. It was so funny and Anita madam had to come and help both of them up. We laughed and laughed till it hurt."

"Ha ha I wish I was there to see it...must have been really funny. So what other classes do you have? "

" Oh there are so many. Most of the classes I like but I hate Hindi class. Bubble gum always makes me stand up and answer questions. She knows that I dont like or understand what she says only. She speaks in such a squeaky voice...like a cat."

"Bubble gum?" I interrupted.

"Yeah that is the name we kept for her. She keeps on going and going non-stop, like a chewed bubble gum..ha ha..nice na? I only kept the name for her."

I nodded and smiled and prodded her to go on. And she did. For the next forty minutes. Without a break. She went to a different place. Totally at calm. Not worried about the next injection. Not worried about the pain. Not worried about her dad. Not worried about her mom. Not worried about the crafts class that she is missing. Not caring about whether Preetha had a better birthday dress than her. Not worried about the Hindi exam. Not worried.

I sat through the entire monologue, just nodding and prodding her along. Watching her. Watching her be herself. Watching her be her age. Watching a child.Watched her get tired and sleep off, her words slurring, while talking about her field trip to the planetarium. Watched her head fall to one side while she slept. Watched her as she slept, only to awake to another day.

I left the room as quite as I can.

Day 10

21 Days - Day 8

2010-06-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

"How you feeling today" I asked.

Smita looked up, her eyes half open. She looked tired. I had come back late last night to see her after her radiation but she was asleep. After spending an hour in silence, I had left for the day.

"I am fine..." she replied, her voice without any strength.

"Don't worry, you will feel much better soon.", I replied, wishing she wouldn't start off on that thread again.

She didn't.

The door opened and framed in the doorway was her mom clutching two heavy bags. She came in heavily and placed the bags on the table, pushing aside the slips of medical bills. With a heavy breath she came near the bed and sat down.

"I just spoke to your dad. He asked for you. He called last night but you were already asleep. He is trying to get leave and fly out here. I have told him that you are fine and was sleeping."

"I wanted to talk to him. You could have woken me up, mommy..I miss him so much..when is he going to come."

"He will come soon, sweetie. You know how tough it is for him to get leave. He will surely come. In a day or two....I will call him around 5 and give the phone to you. You can talk to him then, ok baby?"

"He always says that but he never comes..Please tell him to come soon. It has been so long since I saw him. "

"Yes baby...he will surely come this time. You also tell him when you talk to him today evening."

I finished up my notes and checked the vitals and was about to leave the room.

"Mom, give me your cell na...keep alarm..I dont want to be sleeping when he calls."

I turned and left the room.

Four hours later, a couple of catheters, one discharge report, two new admissions later, I was dead tired and needed caffeine to stay awake. I walked down to the cafeteria and noisily settled into a corner table.

" Ram anna, one coffee, strong with no sugar.", I shouted out.

That is when I noticed her sitting in the other corner of the cafe. Smita's mom. I should have probably left her alone. I dont know what I was thinking but found myself getting up and suddenly I was standing in front of her.

" Can I sit here"

She startled out of whatever personal world she was in and looking at me, nodded slowly.

"How you holding up?"

She nodded and managed a brief smile.

"Don't worry. We will do a round of tests and see the effect of the treatment. We should be able to see some results soon. In fact by the time her dad comes, she should be.."

"Her father isn't coming" she interrupted.

"..fine. What? I heard you say that he is .."

" ya I know what I said..but he isn't coming."

"oh okay." I said and sat there, not knowing whether the conversation was over or not. You know how sometimes one never knows what correct etiquette is. Whether to leave or to stay put.

She helped me decide.

" This isn't the first time. Always some reason or the other...onsite trip to US and UK, deadlines, boss pressure..all crap...it must be that girl, Reema...mentor-trainee..my foot...all those late night calls..even when he came to India on vacation.."

I dint know what to say. Should I point out to her that there is a time difference between here and out there..no no no..she would know that. Or should I tell her about the rigors of working in the IT industry? No she would know that too. Maybe what she said had some value and what she doubts is exactly what is going on. Maybe Reema was more than an associate.

So in the end, I just said a bye and left the cafeteria.

Day 9

21 Days - Day 7

2010-06-29T05:45:00.000-07:00

It was a big day. Smita was going for Chemo and we had to prep her. I have seen this break down even the strongest person and it certainly was one of the most painful treatments. In short, it was killing of the rapidly multiplying cancer cells by medicine. The only problem was that this also affects other cells that are important; like the blood cells in the marrow, hair follicles etc.

Smita was in her terminal stage. Meaning that we caught on to the cancerous growth very late...too late in fact. What we are trying to do is to see if by chemo, we can reduce the cancerous growth, combine that with radiation and see if we can stop any recurrence, prolonging the lifespan...sounds good in theory but as any doctor would tell you, nothing is sure until we actually go through the process. No gambler would ever take this risk to ascertain as to which way the body would react to the treatment. It was totally case-specific.

The medicine that will be administered is the painful part. Chemo medicines can be given orally or as a shot and intravenously. This is determined by testing the absorption of the drug by the body. Luck wasnt with Smita. She was showing a very delayed absorption meaning that we need to get the drug into her blood circulation quick and that left us with one of the most painful ways-Intravenously.

I have seen grown men, strong men in fact cry, unable to bear the pain of the medicine coursing through the veins. I have seen people beg me to stop the treatment, not bothered that this is our last resort, our last shot in saving their life. A shiver went down my spine...damn. I dont know how Smita was going to react. The thought of the catheter in her arm...the coldness of the medicine...the throbbing pain as it races through the body.

I entered her room. It was filled up with people from the lab. Nurses ran here and there, trying to match up to the speed of the orders that were coming from the technicians. The actual radiation wouldnt happen for the next 3 hours. It was a short time gap that they had to administer the radiation after the chemo medicine has been administered.

I went by the side of the bed, placing my hand on her hand, the one with the IV line from her drips. It had been long disconnected and the line kept wrapped up on the stand.

"Doctor, can we?" the nurse opposite to me interrupted.

"uh..what? oh yes yes. Proceed" I said noticing the IV catheter in her hand.

Smita looked at me, a slight fear in her eyes. But more than fear, I saw confusion. She is in the dark as to what exactly the treatment was all about.

"Now Smita, we are going to place another line in your arm. No need to be afraid. It will pain initially but then it will be cold and no pain after that. So relax. You will be asleep in some time"

"Ok...Where is my mom..Is she not here"

Her mom was standing outside the door and chose to remain there, although I had told her that she can be there for the initial stages, right upto the point where she is taken for radiation. I didnt want to press her on and left her outside, clutching a kerchief to her face, either to stop her tears or as a last line of barrier against infection.

"Your mom is standing outside. She is not allowed inside. Dont worry. Once the procedure starts she will be beside you...you relax now"

The medicine was administered. There was a lot of twitching and twisting for some time and a short gasp and an intake of air. I turned my face away. They prepared the stretcher and loaded her onto that and took her to the radiology department. I silently followed the technicians and the nurse.

They loaded her into the lift and as the doors closed, I caught a glimpse of her face. She was asleep.

I stopped in front of the small altar that was in front of the lobby area of the second floor. I looked at the crucifix, saw the unrealistic blood where the nails had entered, the crusted blood that the artist had skillfully painted on the limbs. I was about to make the sign of the cross when something stopped me. I walked away.

Day 8

21 Days - Day 6

2010-06-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

I ambled in to the ward about ten minutes later than my shift timings. It had been late when i had gone to bed last night. I had come to the hospital after my dinner, not really knowing why I had come back. I had spent some time roaming the wards, checking in on everyone before I entered Smita's room. I found her sleeping and not wanting to disturb, slowly tiptoed out. Not that I had anything specific to talk to her or to counter her earlier statements.

I stifled a yawn and went about my job. Couple of crisis, three new patients, one discharge later, I was tired and had missed lunch already. Not bad for a day in my life. I walked past the duty doc's room and internally debated whether to rest my tired feet or not before I caught sight of Dr. Arul come out of Smita's room. Dr. Arul was head of Oncology and was one of the most senior people in the hospital, possibly the country.

I rushed towards him and was still in motion as i sided by him.
" Ah Cathy, Just the person i wanted to see. I just saw the reports for bed number 6..."

"Smita", I interjected

"..uhh..what...ya ya Smita Smita...the reports look good..the BC count is picking up...We can start the chemo soon."

"Oh okay...we can prep her then for the treatment?"

"Oh yes..i think mostly tomorrow or day after we can", he paused,"hmmm Cathy, have they made the payment for the treatment?"

" I will have to check with the nurse and see, Doctor. "

"Good good...anything else? nothing? ok then... once you check them up, send a word to the lab intimating about the Chemo schedule"

" Yes doctor"

I watched him walk off, suppressing a reflex action to throw up. I dont know what irritated me more; His callousness or his obvious sellout to the corporate hospital we worked in.

I pushed the door open and entered. Smita was sitting up, staring into nothing

"Hi, how are you feeling today? had anything to eat or still fasting?"

"Hi,yeah had food." came a weak voice.

I turned to look at her. I have never heard her sound so low on energy.

"What's wrong, Smita?"

"Nothing...nothing at all"

"Tell me, ...What's wrong"

"It's just..just that its paining...Whenever I breathe in, there is a sharp pain. When I cough also it hurts."

"did you cough up blood? is it a dull local pain or is it a poking pain in one specific place"

"No..not now...not yet anywa.."

She couldnt talk anymore. There was a coughing fit. It threw up some blood. I rushed to her side with a kidney tray. It wasnt the first time she was getting this. It certainly wont be the last.

I wiped her face and got her some water to drink. She looked tired and weary. I lowered the bed for her to lie down.

"Dont worry. It's fine now...sleep now. I will come and check up on you later."

I couldnt move away from her side and sat in the chair next to her bed, watching her try to sleep.

"Dont worry. It will all be fine...soon..one way or another", I said to myself.

Day 7

21 Days - Day 5

2010-06-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

“ Why are we writing this exam only” I asked out aloud.

“ What” queried Ashok,” What exam are you talking about. I asked if you wanted cheese on your chicken burger”

I then realized I had shouted out aloud what was in my mind. Not a bad thing to do but decidedly queer to do it standing in the queue at a KFC counter.

“Uhh..no no no…was thinking about something else..make it single cheese”

We collected our trays and got back to our tables. Finding a table to sit would normally have been a herculean task but it was relatively easy on a weekday, and that too so late at night.

“ So what exam are you talking about? You have something coming up at the hospital ? “ asked Ashok.

Ashok was a software guy, some project leader or something like that in one of the big IT firms in the city. You know the soulless, dark, tinted glass buildings that are littered on the IT highway. He worked in one of those and I suspect that he was like Neo, from Matrix, able to look at the world only through code and project deadlines.

“No, nothing like that. There is this patient at the hospital. Just something that she had said”

“Oh she is got an exam coming up? You know Dilip, my new trainee I talked to you about, he just took three days off to write some certification exams. The Australian project looks like its going to get further delayed. I don’t know what to do with these people only. They are so careless and …”

His voice trailed off as my mind went back to earlier that day. Damn it. I had vowed to myself that I should not let her to get to me and I had done exactly that.

“ …and the client has been behind my back asking me what is happening with the latest requirements document he had sent in….honey, what is wrong…why are you not eating”

“ ehh..nothing Ashok nothing.. Ashok, can I ask you something? What is the purpose of all this? What we are doing?”

“ hmmm, what are you talking about… we are getting dinner. If we don’t then we end up hungry. If we remain hungry then we feel faint and get sick and end up taking leave..”

“sigh..not that …not what we are doing right now. But overall. I don’t see any purpose or result in what I do, day in day out. I am prolonging someone’s misery at the most and adding days to their lives. But apart from that, I feel so …so … useless”

“ phew…Cathy.. I don’t know how many times more we are going to have the same conversation over and over again. You are a doctor by choice. We both got the same marks in our boards. You wanted to pursue medicine and I went with computers. Look at where I am today and look at where you are. You keep doubting your abilities, your knowledge, and in general the choice that you took. There is no point in all that only”

“ Ashok, I am not talking about the choice that I took. I am talking about the choice that none of us ever had a chance to take. A choice that was taken for us, a choice that was as basic. Who decided that we should be born like this, grow up like this, do this or do that? Are we really people who have choices? I don’t think so”

“ I can’t understand what is getting to you. You always had this uncertainty about life and your choices but now you have gone one step further and are bitching about birth itself..come on..chill..relax. Life is too short to be spent worrying….we should enjoy life as it comes”

Hmmm. This from a man who flew his parents out to meet him from his hometown and then had to spend time cooped up in his office because his client was asking for some urgent release. His parents spent the entire week cooped up in his three bedroom apartment in one of the posh localities of the city. When I dropped in on them, they were like literally screaming with joy and begging me to take them out.

“ yeah life is too short to be spent worrying…too short indeed..even that is not in our hand”

“What?”

“the duration…nothing ..leave it..finish up…I need to go back to the hospital”

Day 6