At the outset, for people who think that this post is about the tribulations I suffer go through at the hands of my wife, let me clarify that it is not. My wife has expressly forbidden me to use her as a subject for my post, unless I paid her a royalty (?) for doing so. You would have noticed that the frequency of my posts have trickled due to exactly this reason. There is some good news though. I am working my ass off to save some money so that I will be able to do some posts on her. Anyways this is not about that.

Recently my company worried that I might develop seat sores (see I was serious when I said I was working my ass off) asked me to go to New Delhi. A high level delegation from Sri Lankawas visiting India led by their Minister of Health Honorable Maithripala Sirisena and other important health officials. They wanted to meet the representatives from the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry. The Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council, Pharmexcil for short, had arranged for a get together. Since I was handling sales and marketing in Sri Lanka(or it might have been due to seat sores worry) I was nominated by my company to attend the meeting. The venue was ‘The Taj Palace’ The meeting was to start at 11 amwhich meant that I had to catch the early morning flight from Chennai. Getting ready at that unearthly hour is a pain. Especially when you are going straight to the meeting hall from the airport. You need to be all dressed and decked up.  It has been quite a while since I flew the domestic sector. I am always a little weary of it. The flight was at 6.30 and so I had to leave home at 4.30 at least.  All flights that I take out of the country are around mid-night, which gave me adequate time to have my dinner and get ready to go to ‘land of the nod’. It is another matter, that by the time my co-passengers settle down after having the in-flight meal and you are about to nod, that it is time to land.

Anyways I didn’t have any problems in reaching the airport on time. The Chennai airport is undergoing renovation and as I entered the airport I was taken aback by the crowd in the check-in area. The whole area was teeming with people. There was a flight out of Chennai to every conceivable destination. It makes sense to take the first flight out and be in time for business at the destination, saving on hotel bills. Luckily since I had taken a print-out of the boarding pass and I was carrying only my laptop bag, check in was easy. There was a long serpentine queue for the security check. True to Murphy’s Law, when my chance came the security guy got a call and he left me standing like the vitruvian man. Since they had asked me to remove my belt and shoes for scanning, there was an uneasy feeling that my trousers would fall off. I have to do something about the pot belly.  It is situations like this which brings out the prasava vairgyam.  Luckily for me, before I could take a few more resolutions, the security person came and stamped my boarding pass. Since the traffic was maximum at that time of the day, my flight was not connected to the aerobridge and we had to go by the bus to board the aircraft. All these activities(?) made me hungry. I got a window in the first row. There was enough space to stretch my legs and promptly went off to sleep.  I was awakened by a sweet looking stewardess. She was standing next to the food cart. Ah food at last!

‘Would you like to buy something, sir?’ she asked smiling radiantly.

What was I hearing? Buy? Weren’t they supposed to give me something?

‘Pardon me?’, I asked, very sure that I hadn’t heard her correctly due to the grogginess caused by my sleep.

She closed her eyes and instinctively opened page 119, Chapter 19 of the air hostess training manual ‘How to answer dumb as a dodo passengers’. She opened her eyes, gave me a big smile and said, “Sir, you know that we don’t serve any meals on this flight, but if you are interested you can buy something to eat or drink. I asked her the prices for what they had to offer. There appeared to be a huge gap between the prices and the quantities they were offering. I was still undecided. I looked at the elderly gentleman sitting on my left. He looked like a seasoned traveler. He was wired to his ipod and was looking straight ahead, completely oblivious to what was happening between me and the air hostess. By the looks of it, he was not going to buy anything. So I decided to do the same. I informed the air hostess, that I wouldn’t need anything. True to the last line in the aforementioned chapter of the training manual –Remember never show your irritation on the passenger however dumb they might be- she smiled, said thank you and moved forward.

As soon as the airhostess had moved, the gentleman got up, opened the overhead baggage bin, took out a box from his bag and sat down. He opened the box to reveal steaming upma, setting my salivary glands into overwork. I turned towards the window and sat pretending I was watching the scenes outside, swallowing litres of saliva. It was a good thing that my nose was not working as it should; otherwise I would have flooded the aircraft with my digestive secretions. I consoled myself  that I might have my  breakfast in the comforts of a 5 star restaurant, anyways it was the company which was going to pay for it. But when I reached the hotel, the restaurant had already closed and I had to do with a tea and a couple of cookies.

The saving grace was that the meeting started on time. Obviously the Sri Lankan minister has a lot to learn from his Indian counterparts. After the customary welcome, the speech from the minister and other officials, the question and answer session, the meet came to an end in time for lunch. The stomach was grumbling so much, that couple of times the moderator looked at me to see if I had any questions for the speaker. The lunch was sumptuous and tasty. The minister had some other appointment and he left in a hurry. After some small talk with the other members of the entourage I left to catch my flight back.

The Indira Gandhi International Airport is very impressive and I hope that it remains so. This time around I was not going to take any chances, I bought couple of things to eat, in case they don’t serve anything on the flight. Though I will be home for dinner, you can never know what time you will reach home, given the traffic scenario in Chennai. Another thing is getting a taxi at the Chennai airport, you need to stand in a big queue before you will get your turn, unless you preferred the old Ambassador ones, that too without the A/C.

They did serve a light meal on the flight.

I have been suspended pending enquiry. For  misappropriation. I work as a clerk in the bank. Initially it just started as a game. I wanted to see if I could surreptitiously open an account. And when I did, I was exhilarated. I slowly started scouting for inactive and dormant accounts. I was careful in choosing my victims. Old people, who wouldn’t use technology to do their banking. Surprising, there were a lot of them who fit the bill. I started transferring small amounts of money from these accounts. To avoid suspicion I opened a few more accounts. It was a big branch and there were many accounts that I could lay my hands on. When I found out that I was not going to be found out, I grew a bit more confident and started transferring more money more frequently. In case  you were wondering, this would not be possible without some inside help for which I had to offer a cut from the proceeds. One day a customer had come to close his account. I had transferred some money from his account only the previous day. Unfortunately I was not in the bank that day; otherwise I would have been able to cover this up.  When the shit hit the ceiling, everybody else involved conveniently feigned ignorance. One thing led to another, and here I am under suspension.

When I came home, wondering how I was to break the news of my suspension to my wife, my son came jumping to me. He had never seen me come so early. ’Papa, he said jubilantly, I have come first in class. He is studying in the 5^th grade. He was holding the answer sheets in his hand. I was in no mood to share his joy. His happiness was explicable. I had promised to get him a Playstation if he came first in class. I perfunctorily took the papers from his hand. He had got 100 percentiles in a couple of subjects, around 90’s in a few more and in the last one, 92% was struck and in its place the teacher had marked 83 + 1  totaling to  84% and ‘honesty’ written near the 1. I looked at him enquiringly. He jumped up and sat on my lap.

‘Papa, I had not written the answer for a 10 mark question, but my teacher had totaled up wrongly and given me 94’, he said. ‘I pointed out the mistake to the teacher and she gave me a additional mark for doing that’, he added.

‘Would you have still got the first rank if you had only 83 ?’, I asked knowing fully well that  the boys always tally up their marks before the rank card is given out.

‘No Papa, I would have been 2^nd but now I am joint 1^st’, he said. ‘

But, didn’t you think about losing your rank and also your Playstation before telling the teacher about the error?, I asked incredulously.

‘Yes Papa, I knew that I would get only the 2^nd rank, but luckily the teacher gave me an extra mark, he said gleefully. ‘Grandpa always says, it is not right to take what doesn’t belong to us, he added as an after-thought.

Tears ran down my cheeks.

She had to move to a small town in Tamil Nadu, where the man she was married to was working as a medical representative. Leaving her parents, sister and her job, to adapt to the family she has moved into, as her own. Her husband continued to hang around with his friends in his free time, never realizing there was someone at home feeling home sick and lonely. Not that it was deliberate; he was not mature enough to know the real significance of the relationship.

The delivery of her first son was traumatic. A near death experience. It had to be a C section because of her physical structure. As she lay unconscious, before coming out of the anesthesia, her BP dropped. There was a mad rush to get her the blood she needed. The child was howling away with hunger. He prayed fervently that nothing should happen to her. A realization of how much she meant to him.

She moved with him to Andhra Pradesh, with their one year old son. His traveling job meant that she had to take care of the son, for most times on her own, from sickness and pain. In course of time, she had to follow him to wherever his transfers and promotions took him. The responsibility of setting up shop at each of these places was hers, as he did not have the time for all that.

The birth of their second son was problematic too. There were some blockages in his intestines, and the doctors had given only a 50% chance for survival. Fortunately she came to know of this only later. He had to go through a tense period before everything resolved itself.

She took utmost care of the children. For her the children came first in her set of priorities. And today, if they are doing very well academically and otherwise, the credit goes entirely to her, as he would be busy with his work that concerns a lot of travel.

But for her, he would not be half the man he is now. But there have been times where he had wanted to strangle her, whenever she made some observations that were unnervingly true and because truth, most times hurt.

The journey so far has been filled with periods of happiness, sadness, doubts, fear, uncertainties, contentment, and pure joy. A journey that was worth every second of it and a journey he wishes that would continue on forever. For she is always THE WOMAN for him. Today is yet another milestone in their journey. Wish them well.

A very happy DIWALI to you and your family.

PIC courtesy: INTERNET

HE:

He woke up as the sunlight hit his face. He was confused. Was it a dream?  Or was it for real? Then he saw her silhouetted against the window, as she drew the curtains aside. He still felt unsure of where he was. He was naked under the sheets. His head throbbed with a dull pain. He felt for it and realized that it was bandaged.  So was his leg. The previous evening came back to him.

He and his partner were to meet a prospective client for their advertising agency. His partner had to back out at the last-minute as his father had to be hospitalized. It was too late to re-schedule the meeting. So he had to keep the appointment with the client.  As it was he hated going for such meetings, but normally his partner would do all the negotiations and take the discussions to a favourable conclusions. All he had to was accompany his partner and smile his concurrence from time to time. His partner needed him for moral support. The arrangement had worked perfectly for both of them. Right from the time they came together last year to start their agency, he has been the ‘concept guy’ and his partner the execution man. For all their advertisement campaigns it was he, who would come up with an appropriate concept on which his partner would work his advertisements. You might remember the ‘genie in the bottle’ ad for the electronic major for their home appliances. They had just entered the home appliances segment and the prices were a little higher than the existing competitors. ‘Time is money’ he had said in one of the discussion they had with the manufacturer. So his partner had gone to work on the theme where he very decisively translated how the superior technology of the appliances was capable of saving time and in turn saved money. Whenever the appliance was used the genie in the bottle would come out, complete the work in a jiffy and would ask for more work. The advertisement had caught the imagination of the viewers and the client was able to garner a sizable market share, more than what they had worked out, in the first year itself. So it was, with other accounts too. He would come up with appropriate ideas/concepts that would be executed beautifully by his partner. He had a knack of touching a chord with the target audience, be it the affluent ones for the high-end products or the growing middle class who were making the economy boom with their newly acquired buying power.

They complemented each other perfectly and in the years they have been together nothing had come in between them, though there were a lot of people trying hard to drive a wedge between them. Both of them knew each other’s strengths; and their weakness’ as well. So last evening he had to meet their prospective customers on his own, much to his chagrin. They had lodged their customers in a resort some 40 Km from the city. He liked to drive and had never wanted to have a driver. He somehow felt that a driver would ‘overhear’ his thoughts. His partner had tried his best to make him see reason but eventually had to give in to his eccentricity. He drove all the way apprehensive of how the meeting would go. But the meeting had gone off well, much better than he had anticipated. The company was represented by their CEO and the Chief Financial Officer. They were highly understanding of the situation and had even said that business dealings could wait till his partner was able to be a part of the discussion. This in itself was a huge relief for him. He took an immediate liking to the CEO. The slightly balding man was soft and kind - a complete antithesis of a CEO that he had in mind. Added to that, he also reminded him of his father. He was surprised that he could make small talk. During dinner they had exchanged many anecdotes, you are never short of them in the advertising field or for that matter, in business. He had declined to have a drink, except for the toast they held out for the possibility of working together, citing that he had to drive back. By the time the dessert was served he was enjoying their company, the other two were visibly drunk and all his inhibitions had vanished.  It was nearly 11 pm when they got up and promised to meet again once his partner was back.

Driving back, he felt elated as to how the evening had unfolded. He was so engrossed in his thoughts, that he missed the first splutter of the engine. He became aware when it happened again. He pushed down on the accelerator and the engine caught on. He pumped a couple of times and it became alright. Then suddenly without any warning the engine died. He pumped the accelerator, but nothing happened. He cruised to the side of the road and stopped. He turned the keys but the engines didn’t crank. He got down, opened the hood and peered inside. Not that he knew anything about cars. He gave a customary tug at the battery cables but nothing much changed. He was resigned to the fact that he was not mechanically inclined and called the dealer. The security picked up the phone and assured that somebody would come in the morning. Damn, he had reached the outskirts of the city. 20 more minutes and he would have been home. He locked his car and started walking towards the city.  A few hundred meters on he had a suspicion that someone was following him. He turned back and saw a dark shadow of what seemed like two men. He quickened his pace and could instinctively feel that those following him were also walking fast. He broke into a run and entered a side street lined with houses on one side an empty ground on the other. He could hear the footsteps of his followers getting nearer. He made a mental calculation of what he had on himself. He had a few thousand rupees in his wallet, credit cards, an iPhone, a gold bracelet which his wife had bought for him on his birthday. A smile appeared on his face, she must be asleep peacefully at her mother’s place, he thought about his wife, momentarily forgetting about his situation. Suddenly he realized that his followers had caught up on him. From the corner of his right eye he could see a blur. As he turned to see what it was, a metal rod hit him on the forehead. He could immediately feel the warmth as the blood started flowing into his eyes. The stickiness of the blood was almost blinding. He blinked his eyes a few times and still his vision was hazy. He was really scared now. He could feel his heart pounding. He picked up speed, as the adrenalin helped his heart to pump more blood faster to all his cells. He could break away from them. Then suddenly his leg caught in a pothole, buckled, and he went sprawling on the ground. On the way down, his shin scraped the pavement, blinding him with an excruciating pain. The pain was unbearable. His body reacted the only way it could cope with the pain. He blacked out.

SHE:

Normally she would be home no later than 9 pm. She worked as a nurse in a private hospital. Though her shift ends at 7 pm, it would be 8 before she can leave the hospital. Occupational hazard of being a nurse, she would say, plus the fact there is none waiting for her at her house. She didn’t really mind spending some extra time  at the hospital. Her house is about 10 km from the hospital and on a normal day would take her 30 to 45 minutes to reach home on her scooter. Yesterday evening was different. A lorry had rammed into a school bus, injuring about 30 odd children, some of them critically. Since the hospital was close to the accident site, the children were taken there for first aid and treatment. Giving first aid treatment was a little tricky as the children were already traumatized by the crash. Then there were a lot of official formalities to be completed; worried parents to be assured, so by the time she left the hospital making sure that her presence was no longer required, it was already close to quarter past 11. As it was pretty late, the ward boy offered to go with her to her house, drop her at her place, take the scooter to his house and pick her up the next day. Given the late hour the traffic was thin and they could reach her house in 15 minutes. As they neared her gate they saw a body sprawled on the ground, face down. They turned him over. His entire face was bloodied. She checked his pulse. It was feeble. They managed to lift him of the ground. A moan broke out from him. They managed to take him in and laid him on her bed. Dry blood had crusted on his face, making it appear as if he is wearing a bizarre face mask. With some hot water, they managed to scrub the dried blood off his face. There was a gaping wound, on the right side corner of his forehead. A couple of sutures were required to close the wound. She placed sterilized gauze and bandaged his head. They sat him up and removed his shirt. The whole of his body was bruised. She wanted to check if there were any other injuries on his body. She undid his belt and the attendant pulled down his trousers. On his left leg there was a gash on his calf muscle. She dressed the wound and stitched it up. He was delirious the whole time, mumbling something, what appeared to be a woman’s name. She injected a pain-killer, a shot of tetanus and a mild sedative. The ward boy asked if she wanted him to stay back. She told him that there was nothing that he could do and so he might as well go home and take some rest. He left, promising that he would come and pick her up the next day. She smiled to herself; it was already the next day. She locked the door after him. She was famished and remembered that she hadn’t had her dinner. She was about to go into the kitchen when the door bell rang. It was the ward boy. He handed her a set of keys. He had found it near the shrubs by the compound wall. It must be his keys, she presumed. It should have fallen off his pockets when he fell down. After he left she checked the bedroom, the sedative was doing its work. He was sleeping peacefully. She pulled a chair, next to the bed and sat down looking at his boyish face. The hard day took its toll. She dozed off. When she woke up, he was moaning and also shivering.

HE:

Over breakfast of toasted bread and omelet, she was advising him to go for a MRI to rule out any concussions and also X-ray to check if there were any hairline fractures to his tibia-the shin bone. Most of what she was going over his head, as he sat watching her. She was not the classical beauty but she was definitely attractive. She somehow reminded him of Julia Roberts. Especially the smile. He was wearing a shorts and a T-shirt which she had given him. Both were a size too small for him. His shirt and trousers were unusable with all the dried blood. His attackers had taken away all his belongings. Luckily the car keys had fallen off. Either they could not find it or they didn’t have the time to look for it. Surely they saw him locking the car and putting the keys into his pocket. He called his partner from her phone. His partner was anxious as he was not able to reach him since late last night. He was relieved that he had called now. He was really worried when he could not get through to find out how the meeting had gone He was bemused to hear of his experience. Yes, his father was stable but was still in ICU. He would arrange to pick him up in the next half an hour and also follow-up with the car dealer for repairs and send them right away. He made another call to his wife but didn’t tell het about the incident of the previous evening. What is the need to worry her unnecessarily? 

SHE:

The ward boy came to pick her up. She informed him that she would be on leave that day.She told him that he could take the scooter if he wished as she wouldn’t be going out anywhere. She was visibly tired from lack of sleep and mentally drained by the happenings of the previous day. She would normally never take off, but this day was different. Besides she had to be with him till he was picked up by his friend’s car. She hoped that she would be able to sleep the entire day without being disturbed by any emergency. She looked at him as he ate his breakfast. He was grimacing as he chewed. The pain-killer was losing its effect. He appeared like a child with his boyish face. She realized she didn’t know anything about him. And he was not so forthcoming either. Must be the trauma caused by the incident, she thought. What is there to know anyway? He is just a patient and that was that.

HE:

The car came to pick him up. It was an awkward moment. He thanked her for all the care she gave. She just gave him her ‘Julia Roberts’ smile. He didn’t know what else to do. She reminded him about the scans and X-rays. He just nodded his head. Clumsily he got into the car. As the car started moving, he turned back to see her standing outside the gate looking at the disappearing car. Damn, he remembered that he hadn’t even asked her name nor had told her about him. Anyways, now that he knew where she lived he will come back one day this week. The people from the car dealer were already there. It wasn’t such a big issue after all. All it needed was tightening of some cables and voilá the car started without as much as a splutter. He drove home. Took a shower, without wetting the bandages. It was quite a feat. Changed to his clothes and went to meet his doctor. The doctor checked him physically and suggested a few tests to be done including the MRI  that she had  insisted. He also checked the suturing and observed they were professionally done. Nothing to worry, about it being infected. Anyways not to take any chances, he prescribed a course of antibiotics. The doctor advised him rest for a couple of days for his body to get over the trauma. He went home thinking how much of rest was possible especially with his partner having to deal with his father’s health. In the evening he got a call from his partner. His father had passed away. He immediately rushed to the hospital. He had never seen his partner so dejected and down. He always thought of his partner as someone strong. On seeing him he broke down uncontrollably. He instantly knew that he had to take things into his hands. He made all arrangements for the discharge and all the necessary paperwork. Since it was late evening, the funeral had to be the next day. Hopefully the old man’s sons and daughters would be able to reach by then. He had personally called each one of them to give them the news. It was a sordid business, telling someone, that their dear father was gone, however expected the end might have been. He then called the local crematorium and booked a time for the funeral. All the rituals had to be followed as the old man was a very orthodox man. So was the entire family for that matter. A few meetings were to be re-scheduled, some of them couldn’t be and he would have to take his partner’s place, as for the next 2 weeks he couldn’t be expected to go out on business trips. There were a lot of things to be taken care of. He had to do it for his partner’s sake. 

The next four weeks went in a tizzy. He never thought that he was capable of doing things that he did in those 4 weeks. An extroverted businessman had emerged out of the cocoon of introversion. So much so he forgot about his condition. The MRI had revealed a small clot in his brain. Nothing to worry about; nothing that couldn’t be dissolved by drugs, his doctor had assured him. He remembered that he had not thanked his saviour on that fateful night. He went to her house, but it was locked.  The neighbours were not of much help. They just knew she was working as a nurse and were without a clue about which hospital. Couple of tries later in the week  too yielded the same result. A locked house. With no name to go by, it would be difficult to locate a person in a city milling with people. He felt guilty even though it was circumstances that prevented him from trying to meet her and to thank her. Then he remembered. He had called his partner from her phone. He got the number and called her, but it was switched off. He tried a few more times till an automated voice told him that the number was no longer in use. He decided he will take some effort to trace her. He made a list of hospitals in the area and decided to go and find if she worked in one of them. He just couldn’t to any hospital and enquire about the nurses in the payroll. So he would go to hospital and just watch the nurses to see if he could spot her. Morning and evening, he would go to the  same hospital. He was not sure how many shifts were there, but he assumed there would be 2 shifts at least. 

In the fifth hospital, the ward boy recognized him. He had no recollection of seeing him at all, though he had come to pick her up the next day, while he was having breakfast. The ward boy explained that it was he  along with her, who had taken him into her house. No, he didn’t know what happened to her. A week back she had gone to her native place. Came back, resigned and left in a huff without even informing him. He didn’t know where to. His affection for her was evident in his voice. Obviously there were a lot of lives she had touched. 

Time as they say is a great healer. The wounds were healed completely. The one on his forehead had left a discolouration of his skin . It now appeared like a purple egg. He slowly started forgetting about her. Sometimes looking into the mirror, only the purple scar on his forehead would remind him  of that evening.

 They celebrated the fifth anniversary of their company incorporation. Business grew. More so, his bondage with his partner. They became very busy and were traveling frequently, mostly to different places to meet their customers or for various symposia. 

It was on one of those travels that he saw her again. His customer had come to pick him up from the hotel where he was staying. They were going to the client’s office. In one of the intersections, he saw a familiar figure, waiting to cross the road. She appeared to be holding a bag in her right hand. As they neared the signal, it turned red. The pedestrians started to cross the road. He watched as she stepped onto the pedestrian- crossing . On her right hand she was holding the hand of  a girl of about three. When they came right in front of him, the little girl turned towards him. She was very fair. And on her forehead there was a birth-mark. A purple egg.  

Most times they are seen fighting amongst themselves, even stopping work for which they are chosen. A lot of times they prefer to walk out of their work place or work without any consequences. A work on which a lot of money is invested on. But there are times when you will be witness to their solidarity for instance, when they have to decide their own pay rise (sometimes doubling them) and perks or when someone from outside the circle states the obvious about them which a large number of people for whom they are a supposed to be working would concur. No sire, they cannot take criticism. They quickly pass it on their enemies or tell you how better are they from their enemies. But, for them there are no permanent friends or enemies. Their best friends may turn their worst friends or vice versa every five years or less.

They promise that the singular purpose of their existence is the up-lifting of the downtrodden and other marginal people, but the people for whom they are purported to be working still remain downtrodden and  even more marginalized.

They are above the law and cannot be arrested unless the head honcho at the place of their work gives the nod. A few of them are worth crores of wealth, while crores of the people whom they are supposed to protect do not have even the few essentials. How they could make so much wealth in short period of times baffles even the best of the investment advisors, considering that they start off with nothing to show off.

When they go about their jobs, the lesser privileged people are made to wait to let them pass or are made to take a circuitous route. The roads in their neighbourhood never gets flooded and don’t resemble craters on the moon where the commoners live.

They are insulated from rising prices and inflation.

They are insulated from insecurity.

They are mostly insulated from terrorist attacks as well.

They wouldn’t be bothered by petrol prices doubling in a couple of years especially with the convoy that escort them everywhere.Or if a cooking gas costs even Rs.1000 per cylinder.

They don’t have to bribe anybody to get their ration cards. In fact they don’t need a ration card.

They are not bothered if the country goes to dogs.

They don’t face power shortages except when they fail to be chosen again when their power gets cut. They will go to any extremes to prevent this from happening.

They don’t have a minimum educational qualification for their job and I have saved the best for last; they don’t have a retirement age.

They indeed are a privileged lot.

Picture courtesy: Internet

(WITH DUE APOLOGIES TO TEAM ANNA)

(Thanks to SHAIL)

Yes, there is a fast. To say it is just another fast would be blasphemy given all the hype provided bythe media and their seamless coverage. And yes there are a lot of furious people thronging the Ramlila Maidans, the Tihar jails, the India Gates, the Azad Maidans, the Juhu beaches, the Marina beaches, the Freedom Parks. People who are furious with the government, furious with the politicians, furious about corruption. Then there is also the government which is furious with Anna hazare, furious with the youngsters who are supporting the crusade against corruption, furious about the opposition parties which are trying to take credit for all that is happening. So now we have a lot of people who are furious with everybody else except themselves. Therein lies a tale.

As tens of thousands of people are supporting the movement against corruption, holding candle-light vigils, and fasting; there are also millions of people going on about their daily routine of giving or accepting bribes, driving through red lights at the traffic signals, throwing garbage onto the roads or into their neighbours house, parking their vehicles haphazardly on the roads without any concern for other road users, jump queues officially or unofficially. People go on doing all the above as if they are oblivious to what is happening in the country now. Somehow nothing seems to be wrong when WE indulge in these activities. The underlying factor always being ‘I am supreme’ and I don’t care about anyone else.

I am overwhelmed by what I see on TV, So many people out on the streets lending support to a cause that affects all of us. The famed Mumbai dabbawallahs have come out in support of this movement, breaking a 120 year old tradition. The commercial sex workers have come in support of the movement. Don’t the politicians feel any shame, for the beating their image has taken? I am filled with disgust as various politicians try to score brownie points on TV. They appear like children fighting, trying to shift the blame on the other party. If the bill is introduced because of all the pressures from within and without, I can never imagine the parliamentarians making it a law in a jiffy.  None of the politician would want this. They will take whatever it takes to stall its entry or passing. The whole thing will be mired in technicalities. Even if the bill is passed, I am still skeptical of its successful implementation. After all is it not common knowledge that ‘Power corrupts and Absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Where I live, there is a law against smoking in public, a law against spitting in public, a law for compulsory wearing of helmets for 2 wheeler riders. Sadly there is no evidence for saying even one of them is being implemented. There is a song in Tamil and one of the lines goes like this ‘thirudane paarthu thiruntha vittal, thirutai ozhika mudiathu’, roughly translated it means unless the thief himself repents, it is not possible to stop theft. (The whole song is so apt for what is happening today.)Is it a wonder that I appear to be super cynical? I very strongly wish and pray that I am proved WRONG.

Jai Hind!

All four came to, at almost the same time. It was quite dark. When their eyes could adjust to the light, there was a bewildered look on all their faces. There was a young man and woman in their 20s, a middle aged man of around 50 and an old man of 70. They realize that they are standing on a flat round table-top about 25 feet across, highly unstable as if it was balancing on a pivot. They also realize that they have to balance delicately or the whole thing would topple over. Suddenly a bright light shines on them, and they are able to see each other clearly. The young man and woman are dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt with the name of a popular IT company embroidered on the left lapel. The old man is dressed in a white shorts and sweat shirt. The other man is dressed in a black trousers and a blue shirt. Suddenly they hear a gruff voice, sounding as if it was emanating from a badly tuned radio. “Welcome to my place. I am afraid I have some bad news for you. Only one of you can go back to your place and that, would be first person to reach the white circle in the middle.”  They blink their eyes and very vaguely see a small white circle in the middle. From where they are standing, the circle appears too small to accommodate even one. And all four are standing so far apart that they have to really shout to make themselves heard. The echoing sounds adding to the eeriness.

The middle aged man was the first to speak. “My daughter’s getting married next week. Almost all the arrangements are in place”. “My family needs me at this time”. “I request you to let me get to the centre”. The girl shrieked making the rest of them jump off their skins. “So what?” “It is your daughter who is getting married, not you” she shouted. “I will give you all lots of money or to your family and I will look after them very well, if you let me go back”. She was hysterical and losing control of her emotions. “What use are you all to society anyway?” She was ranting and totally on the edge. “Sneha, I am up to this with your ‘I will buy everything with my money’ bit “. The young guy butted in, pointing to his chin. It was obvious that he was really disgusted with her behaviour. It was difficult to make out if the girl was his friend or his wife. Maybe the eventuality of the situation made him come out strongly against her and she was clearly taken aback by his anger. She reacted the only way she could. She lashes out at him. “All the time you needed my money for everything. How I hated you as you come sucking up to me and now you talk as if you are pious saint. I don’t care what you think I am going to be the one who will reach the centre first”.

She suddenly starts running to the centre. The table top starts to wobble and she loses her footing. The other three instinctively move to balance themselves, as she falls  and starts sliding to the edge desperately trying to grip on to something to steady herself. They could only watch helplessly as she slides off the edge and falls into the darkness below. They could hear her screams trailing off, for more than a minute and then eerie silence. They  all remain silent for some tim; no one moved. Then the old man says, “I have lived my life well and have no wish to compete for it now. I wish you both well”. So saying he jumps off into the darkness. The remaining two balance themselves and stand face to face.

The young man starts crying,“I have never even in my wildest dreams thought my end would come so soon. You know, I just managed to find myself a lucrative job. I am just trying to payback and support my parents, who have sacrificed everything for my studies”. The middle aged man remains silent. Both of them know that they need the other to be able to reach the centre. The middle aged man says, “Maybe both of us can reach the centre and get away from this nightmare”. They gingerly start moving towards the centre, as the table top shifts every time they move. As they reach the centre, taking one painful step after another, they realize that there is after all no place for both of them.

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It was five in the morning when the call came to the police station, about an accident. The caller was not willing to identify himself and not very forthcoming about the details. The only thing that they managed to get out of him  was the location and it fell right in their jurisdiction. Apart from the head constable, he was the only one available at the station at that time. So he had to go to check. He shuddered as the December chill hit him as he started his motorbike. “Why can’t people find some decent time to get into accidents?” he murmured as he drove his bike. Another hour and he would have been off his shift and would be heading back home. Now the completion of formalities would take 2 to 3 hours. He cursed out aloud.  There was not much of traffic given the time and weather.  He turned a corner and saw the white car. It was a Honda City. It had climbed on to the pavement and crashed into the railings He parked his bike nearby and started walking towards the car to have a better look. There were a 3 or 4 people standing not knowing what to do. He motioned to them and they came hesitantly. He asked them to divert the vehicles coming from both sides of the road. They rushed away glad that they don’t have to do any dirty work.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. It was a bizarre scene. The front of the car was completely smashed and had caved in, leaving no doubt about the condition of the occupants, at least of those sitting in the front. There was a man doubled up on the railings. It was as if someone had washed some white clothes and put it on the railing to dry. He was somehow reminded of a popular detergent advertisement. He walked up to have a closer look. It was an old man, probably out for his morning walk He turned around to the car. He looked into the window. There were two people, one of them a woman, her long hair covering her face as she lay smashed into the steering wheel. Drunken driving, he thought to himself. The other was a guy, leaning on the seat, a trickle of blood oozing from his mouth. He appeared to be peacefully sleeping. The constable took a step back to check on the guy. It was difficult to reach the man as the windows were broken and jagged edges jutting out. He put his hand contorting his body and took the man’s hand. It felt lifeless.  He took a step back to check the registration plate. It was then he noticed a motorbike lying on almost the other end of the road. He crossed the road. There was a briefcase lying open, a lot of what looked like cards lay strewn. He reached to where the motorbike lay. There was a body lying face down, in a form that only the dead can achieve. What a way to start the day, he thought to himself. He took out his mobile and called the station. “Yes there has been an accident, 4 people dead, arrange for the photographer and a van to move the bodies to the morgue…….” he cocked his head as he heard a moan. The man beside the motorbike was moaning. “…wait, wait send me an ambulance, one of them maybe alive”.

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PS: Before anyone can jump and say plagiarisation, this was inspired by a program I watched on TV.

We moved house recently. We would have shifted houses 7 or 8 times in the 20 odd years we have been married. The shifting were mainly due to transfers and promotions. The first time we shifted from Madurai to Vijayawada, we only had my writing desk, a TV with stand, a kerosene stove, a bare minimum of utensils apart from 4 or 5 suitcases of our clothes, mainly our son’s who was just over a year old then. 4 years after when it was time for us to move from Vijayawada, we had enough things to fill a mini lorry. How we managed to accumulate so much is anybody’s guess.

There is a mad rush during shifting because of the time constraint. Just enough time to just grab everything and run. My wife always complains that I just dump everything after shifting and go on a tour, leaving all the unpacking and setting up the house to her This time around it was more planned. My wife’s constant grouse is that we shift houses at very short notices. We also tend to lump everything we have in card board boxes, label everything as miscellaneous and dump everything to the loft in the new house, promising ourselves that we will sort out the things in due time. But it has always been the case of the popular motorbike ad “Fill it. Shut it. And forget it.” This time around the lady put her foot down (didn’t you hear about the earthquakes in Japan) and said that we will only take things that are absolutely necessary, to the new house. So I brought down all the cases in the loft. I fixed up a cardboard carton that would hold only the ‘absolutely necessary’ items. I opened the first box and took out a steel vessel. I looked at my wife and she said, “needed”. Off it went into the empty box. Next there was a casserole and I looked up again and again she said needed. This was followed by a jug (you will never find these kind nowadays), a flask (will save time of making endless cups of tea), tumblers (oh, they were here?), spoons (thank god, I was planning to buy some), dinner set (gifted by daddy), plates (will come in handy when we have guests), some old clothes  (good for cleaning), old Bournvita bottles (can store pickles). By end of the day we had taken out everything out from the old cases and transferred to new cases and my wife had a plausible reason why it is needed. Only a few items for which she couldn’t think of a use within a minute were discarded.

It is this incident that made me realize that human beings are basically hoarders. Right from the time we were in the caves we have developed this habit of hoarding everything we find, thinking that it might come useful sometime in the future. The hoarding genes have been passed on to all of us. Some like my wife,  hoard plastics and other trivia while some others hoard money. Can we really blame the tax evaders and the scamsters for what they do? It is after all a genetic disorder.

In the course of our sorting we came across a steel plate dented and with frayed edges. “Do you remember?” asked my wife, “this was Abhi’s (my elder son) plate”. “You know it was his favourite one and used it for so many years, I don’t have a mind to throw it away”. So it was included in the necessary items to be packed. Abhi is now in college.

I wonder why old age homes are on the rise.

Image courtesy: Internet

It was  in 2003, when I became the product manager and moved to the head office, that I got to know her. The first thing that you will notice about her is her smile- warm and genuine, that comes straight from her heart and which will go straight into yours. She is a professional to the core always maintaining the distance at work, however close she is personally. A born diplomat, she is capable of warding off any sticky situation with that beautiful smile of hers. Her position entails her to interact with all the top managers and let me tell you that each of them is as wacky as they come. That she had managed to remain unscathed from the political cross-fire, speaks so much about her diplomatic skills. Her work also makes her privy to a lot of confidential matters and I have never seen her indulging in loose talk. The pressure of walking with such information is tremendous, that people tend to a) show off how much they know or b) crack under the stress of such knowledge, but not she.

She dutifully wishes everyone on their birthdays, anniversaries or any other special occasion. Hers would be the first wish that I get on such days. It should be true for others as well. Her data base should be phenomenally tremendous. Need I tell you that she is organized and very systematic? Most times the wishes would be accompanied by gifts that are hand made. She just doesn’t like to pick any gifts from the shops. Probably the only thing she buys from the shop would be the chocolates that accompany the gifts. The time and effort that goes into making these gifts speak volumes about how she cares for people. To say that she is talented would be an understatement. She used to do Telegu programmes for AIR (All India Radio), be the MC in all the official functions. In her present job she writes sub-titles in English for Tamil movies. How she finds time to juggle all her activities is a mystery.

In 2005, when our company closed shop, we all went our different ways. When we were ‘too busy’ to be contacting each and everyone, she used to be the one point contact to update us on what others were up to. Each one would have a fond memory about her and how she touched our life. My limitations prevent me from paying her the tributes that she deserves and capturing the essence that she is. I am sure she would have done a much better job if we asked her to do it?  Probably modesty would have prevented her from saying the truth.

Is it not true that only the good die young? Are the gods so selfish that they want to keep all the good things to themselves? But let me warn you all ye gods, be prepared for a make-over, for here she comes to make you all better gods.

We will miss you!