The dark night!

          

A geek. A programmer. A thief. As he was fixing the last of the bugs in his baby, he noticed something strange in the compiler output:

Last Compile on 12 October, 00:02

The numbers seemed mysterious. But within seconds the entangled strings in his brain were threads he could stitch together. But, he could not waste any time. And he slipped out of his home like a snake. The light in his room was consciously switched on and his favourite music played like an orphan. Its admirer had slipped out stealthily into the dark.

            Her home was only a couple of streets away. On a fine Monday morning, all it would take is a few tens of steps and a  million curses for making him walk all the way to her home when she could have come home in a bike. 5Th cross to 8th cross was all it took. She used a bike often and flaunted it even more. And she teased him for this and more. He liked the teasing too. But was far too egoistic make public his pleasure. He recollected her best joke in recent days as he dragged his feet towards 8th cross.  As he reminisced the conversation and marveled at her wit for the nth time, the sight of Rama stopped him in his tracks.

            Rama was the friendly neighbourhood dog. By the day. By the night, it drew a more ferocious avatar. And in the company of its friends, Rama was death incarnate for our man. Trembling, he stood there for a second. A little more. Going back was not an option. Not anymore after Rama had seen him. Any scene of weakness gave an extra bout of strength to the adversary.  Instinctively, his fingers motioned

            kill

NOTHING. Except the deep stare back from Rama.

            Kill -f     

Rama's languid demeanor now seemed to change. A hapless victim seemed to be waiting.

And in one final throw of dice, our man's fingers are typing furiously at his imaginary keyboard.

            SUDO KILL -F

And his habitual cry of “F*&K YOU!” got the better of him. The final move done. Rama and his comrades were in the game. Letting out a loud bark, the pack tested its feet in the dark. Our man knew nothing but to run. It was all adrenaline or testosterone for him now. And he ran in the direction of her home. All these years of running behind girls had finally helped him in such dire situations as he found his comfort behind a car near her home. And he managed to recite a Gayatri Japa of which he barely remembered a few words.  The most sincere prayers are heard from the tongues of those in mortal fear. 

After enduring the entire trauma, he was still unsure of the futileness of his mission. Should I go back? He reckoned. He had dreamt of this day for a year as he climbed his way to her room through the rear door. Parents with a girl never seem to learn their lesson even after watching so many films. And he see stood at the balcony seeing her face content in sleep, he was confused and wondered. She seemed mysterious. Was she the same girl who never seemed to smile? She even looked innocent for a moment. When the sun was shining bright, she was evil. Pure evil.

It was strange. He made a small hissing sound, “Shhhh, Shhhh” Careful enough to not wake her abruptly. It was not the fear of consequences of being caught sneaking into their home, but he did not want her to wake up in panic. He wanted it to be beautiful. And sure, she woke up. And came looking till the balcony. And in the first abrupt motion of the night, he grabbed her ears and whispered, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”

            The thief stole her heart. 

A girl, a crush and a phone

As I left for office yesterday, It felt like the day before. Or the day before it. Or the day before the day before. My companion for the day, the laptop tucked in, the handkerchief to give sinus company and the identity card to help my company “authenticate” me before entering “their” campus. 100 re. for food. A good 10 minutes before the cab would arrive, I was on road. Yet, something felt incomplete. And then it dawned, I had forgotten my phone at home.

               Two years ago, I treaded the same path to catch my college bus. And as soon as I stepped away from the glare of my mom who would anxiously remind me about the 15 re .(Yes, that is how much I carried to college everyday) still lying on the table or the handkerchief I would slowly slip the mobile out. And look into it all the way till I reached college.

7.30: Good morning 

              And wait for the next few seconds staring at the phone. Has she not started yet? Why did not she reply? Should I reply back asking whatsup! Or does she not have balance? OR Is she angry? Did I tell something yesterday to upset her?  As if her world depended on me!

7.33: Ain’t the weather like you? Teasing and threatening to pour with a little prod! Whats up!

              And I press the button SEND instinctively. Sometimes a reply would come within the next 30 secs. Sometimes 40.  A second more and I would go back to sent items to check if I sent something offensive. Something stupid was acceptable. Or was she busy with someone else? Did I show my desperation to talk by texting a minute earlier? How much longer should I wait.

              Every SMS might have had a maximum limit of only 150 characters and costed at most 10 paise. (I was clever enough to never text on holidays!) But, it costed me a lot more thoughts, a lot more time. They say love happens at first sight. Sometimes, love happens over the first SMS. And most crushes after the first conversation. After half a decade of exhausting my free messaging limit, perhaps it is time to reflect on how texts affected me and how different it is from other mediums of communication and kadallai putting.  

              The beauty of texting is the intimacy in the conversations.  That extra second to digest a message and feel it before replying back.  That second when your crush sets your heart aflutter with a brilliant bit of wordplay to tease you. When you know you made her smile even if it is at the cost of making you look stupid.  Back in the days of failing internet, telephone was never a great option. However hard the poets might have tried to romanticize silence, middle class economics surely rubbished the theory. With a phone, there was a fear of dad asking, “Yaaru pa avallavu nerram phone le!” (Dai, who is it on phone for so long!). A fear of the balance getting exhausted before the phone’s charge drained out. And most importantly, the pressure to initiate a new topic.  When you are texting, there is that extra second to reply to that conversation killer, “LOL!”, “hmmmm” with something better! Something to keep her talking.  To dream about the tone of her replies. To wonder if she indeed is laughing after the last “LOL!”.  Every sms is a small story in itself. Every conversation, a small part of the larger story.

              Way back in the third year of my engineering, I recollect watching this movie “Happy Days” with her.  Not in the same theatre, not on the same computer. In our homes. Commenting on scenes in between. Making comparisons of the characters in the movie with our friends. So much to talk about, so much to discuss, so much to debate we thought! It was like watching the movie together. Perhaps, it is not. I have never gone to a theatre with anybody.  Bitching about the guy sitting next to us in classroom under his nose. No, we did not have to bitch about him. Did not mean it.  We needed something to talk. And then her mock anger. Her refusal to talk sweetly, but not stopping to reply. One of the first heuristics to differentiate real anger from the mock ones.

              Texting might not allow you to share photos. Or to type longer paragraphs. We did not have to use pixels to prove a lie. But wove beautiful lies around smaller lies. To entertain and be entertained. An extended conversation with different people across different hours of the day. The phone might have turned silent today. The memories refuse to.

              

When on Twitter, do as the Twitterati does!

140. 140 characters only to impress a girl, to get a thousand followers, to incite an opposition party leader, to beg for votes, to outrage! But 140 characters have helped shape a language, not just the language of outrage. Not long ago, SMSs introduced another lingo bcoz it wz 2 tuf 2 typ using a T9 keypad! But, this lingo assumed a universal character. A message from a boy asking his girl out for coffee would have been the same in the States or in a remote lane in Gurgaon. Add to this a local flavour and there emerges a new language – Lingua-e-Twitter!

While Kaveri remains firmly in Karnataka's grasp, Twitter has been invaded by our Yellow jersey supporting neighbours from down south-Tamil Nadu. With numbers firmly in their side and many an intelligent Tweep speaking the language, It is inevitable for any regular Indian Twitter user to follow them and allow them into our TimeLines.

A geographic analysis of these Tamil tweeps is sure to surprise many. Contrary to what common sense would dicate, a large mass of the Tamil tweeps stay in Bangalore. Yes, most of them hate RCB! Jury, please note the point! The rest are spread across Mumbai, Delhi, the far lands of Uncle Sam. A few, of course currently mark their address as Sennai-Metras or Chennai, as it is less commonly known.

But Chennai or New York, I bet 80% of the handles have a reference to one of TN's famous exports. Idli, Dosa, Chutney, Getti Chutney, Sambar, Vada. Why even Vadu mangu! Infact, the handle names of TamilTweeps will help depict the colourful heritage of TamilNadu in the shortest of possible words. Movie names, that handle-bar moustache adorned villian, some pun-tastic remake of a uniquely Tamil artifact. As they call it, #ThatThatBoyThatThat. And if my description deluded you into thinking that these were but a bunch of college kids smelling the first whiff of internet and asking for their coffee with a girl, it is a mistake of the Himalayan magnitude. There is @Vajrabhrt, a professor at CMI doing research on knowledge and mathematics, which are best kept out of a troll post of this nature. A @krishashok, Head of TCS Web 2.0 labs! @mohank, Director of IITB-Monash programme. @nandini A celebrity cook and blogger!

And a host of other youngsters in their mid and late twenties working on some of the jobs that most students of the country would not mind swapping with. It is usually easier to find the entire circle of friends from a single seed friend in this circle. And I am not selling you any seeds!:P Please ping me for it.:)

However, what every greenhorn tweet would have to be educated about is the language. I doubt even if Victorian English would stand any good in the hinterland of Tamil Twitterati. And with the noble intention of helping out the newer Tamil tweeps who have just got their moustaches sneaking out, I will outline the most important rules.

Rule 1: Address every gentleman as Saar/Boss. Gentle-ladies maybe addressed as madam/Boss! Only when you get close to them (no.ofmentions > 4), use dei!

Rule 2: Do not try fancy language like “Arrange a treat!”. Please make it “giu treat.”

Rule 3: Do not vazhunjifiy with any girl on TL. For every girl, there are 4 boys #noting you!

Rule 4: Do not usually have one-to-one TL talks. Tag some 3-4 people in every Twitter. Tams on Twitter hunt in pairs. Sorry quadrapules?

Rule 5: There are many things where you have to add “esh”. Link = Linkesh. Meet = Meetesh. My knowledge at the moment does not allow me to help you with exact semantics of when to use “esh”. When in doubt and have nothing better to say, use it!

Rule 6: Always, and I stress always when a girl changes her DP , use “whatte wow!” It is the de-facto standard to express exclaimation.

Rule 7: When extremly bored, start tweeting about random things and point them out in your random tweets. E.x. Hi rain. Hi Iphone. You understand?

Last, when you are going to eat something very famous in a hotel, please tweet about it before eating and please make sure a few people have their mouths watering. Oh sorry, I forgot. It should be “Thayir saadham will be had!”. Will be had adds the feeling of burning sensation among the already not so hungry fellow tweeps.

Before, I see the guns loaded,

#kthnxbye.

Masters, they say!

One by one, the last bit of dirty linen went in. On most other days, my thoughts would have already been captured by mom made curd rice. If on the rare days the thoughts did not travel this far, they would have been eagerly waiting for the next 356. Today, they refused to leave the room. The thoughts took the form of a lump in my throat.
Slowly, I locked the doors of my room. But the eyes were threatening to open up any instant. My legs led me to Subbu's room. My mouth murmured, "Yennada naaye, weekend yenna plan". Ears heard something, did not listen. Did not want to listen. I walked away. The mind did not. How could it?

The address of my home has not change. But, the address of my room has. This is MY room, MINE. This is the place where I found my solace, my identity. Where I could lock myself all alone an err, no not cry, but compose mails to sometimes troll, sometimes lol people. Where I could sometimes study, yeah sometimes! Where I could simply sit! Imagine doing THAT at home. Where I could find myself waiting for me, every afternoon, every evening, every night!

Indian kids across generations are threatened,"eat your food right or else you would be sent to hostel". Little did my mom know curd was served in abundance in the hostel. Perhaps, I will force my kid to a hostel. Because, It is only here you know how to talk to a person who has flunked his fourth re test! It is only here you know how to share happiness. Here, you know the art of running away from birthday bumps, even if it is not your birthday.

The transition from a non-hosteller to a hosteller does not happen on the day of joining the hostel. Takes a month. You know you are a hosteller when the formality of knocking your friend's door is invisible. Your phone becomes our phone. Huddled in a room together with the high and glorious aim of studying one day before examination and ending up cursing the teacher, only to come back to curse yourself and your friends. Asking your friend to wake you up knowing fully well he would be fast asleep. Knocking each door after coming back from home. Never feeling shy of letting an expletive from the mouth.

Sigh, the journey from home to college was long. From a boy to man. The journey from college to back home is longer.

A nation awakens, The youth arise

        Frodo: "You're late Gandalf."
        Gandalf: "A wizard is never late, Frodo Bagggins. Nor is He early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

    The journey is more fulfilling than the destination, they say. The build up to an event more exhilarating than the event itself. The mind conjures up many a picture of the destination before the universe unravels the physical reality of the event. A cricket match is played in the minds of not a Tendulkar or a Dravid the night before. It is played in the dreams of scores of children who have subjected themselves to the scorching summers of Chennai or the famous Bangalore weather, which today resides only in the cherished memories of old timers. A hackathon too. The holy grail of hackers. Best known for the fancy hotels, free lunches, free beer, free t-shirts, free goodies.

    But, today promised to be different. It wasn't only the gum chewing, MacBook flaunting, Adidas shoe wearing,  JQuery mantra uttering, the oblivious-look wearing geek who was invited. A few "others" too were. The data nerds. The design wizards. No longer an event for the geek hiding behind the green and black Vim editor, the ones behind the colourful posters too were invited. To say the event was precluded by a sense of excitement would be an understatement. There was anxiety. There was doubt. There were questions. It was confusion. Perhaps, mayhem too.And hope.

    It was tough to miss the last emotion. After scouring the venue for a common theme, after scavenging through various tweets, pictures and posters, for a common theme and just when I was about to resign to my inability of find one, I did. If, there is a word to characterize the entire exercise, it is HOPE.


                A nation has just risen from its slumber. Will we finally meet our tryst with destiny?

    It is 10.30. After marvelling at the beauty and splendour of IISc like Hanuman who casts his envious glances at the regal luxury of Lanka the chatter of a few kids brought me back to the hackathon. The registration form read 80 teams from Bangalore. Hacker city after all. Hardly, a few teams had braved to come this soon though. Cut to 11 am and suddenly there is a buzz around the venue. The cast as promised was diverse. The symbols of a hackathon were all there. The MacBook was out. Ruby,Rails,Java, Cobal, Gopal.The air was ripe.

        Frodo: "You're late Gandalf."
        Gandalf: "A wizard is never late, Frodo Bagggins. Nor is He early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

    Even amongst the hackathon veterans, when the booming voice of Sam Pitroda went on air, a new sense of patriotism and enthusiasm was evident. And when Montek said, "An endeavour to not bring the plan to people, but people into the plan", even the voter ID card less Bangalorean suddenly felt a part of the government. "Dilli,abhi dhoor nahi hai". If I were to accord myself the luxury of opinion, it was already mission accomplished. India 1 Detractors 0.And to talk of it, this is only the beginning of a story. A story which we hope is as romantic as the story of India itself.To a question on how the progress of India was not as fast as China, Montek quipped, "China has been progressing at a faster rate than us from the last 25 years. It is only in the last decade that India has started performing to a higher degree".

        Frodo: "You're late Gandalf."
        Gandalf: "A wizard is never late, Frodo Bagggins. Nor is He early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

    As the afternoon wore down and the participants settled to what do they best, a stroll past them revealed a lot about the teams. While, each participant had a story to tell, it was the passion for contributing meaningful to the country which united them. And as any Tom, Dick and Harry would guess, the Bangalore demographics made sure that majority of the participants planned an app. The tech city sure did live up to its name with the highest participation. Arun Manohar, an engineering graduate from Bangalore and freelancing software projects for a day job was furiously abusing his MaCBook Pro when I interrupted him. Hailing from a middle class background and having faced a lot of problems himself, he was building a mobile application to help find the nearest officials to communicate to when faced with urban problems like drainage, water supply etc. A veteran hackathon visitor, Arun was a bit miffed at the quality of the data. But give a hacker a challenge and it brings out the beast out of him. As they call it, he was using his "bleeding edge" brains to cleanse the data. In a bigger canvas, a nation was getting cleansed. There was a Phillip, a reverse engineer working with geological data. There was Naveen. There was Akshay. Different apps. Different stories. A common theme. And then Shwetha and Abhinav. Kiran and Pooja. Hackathons were no longer a men's bastion. While, it would be foolish to be blind towards all the problems that women in India face, It was encouraging to find young girls tapping code. Yes, the ratio is still skewed towards men. But, the story of India is only just beginning to take shape.

        Frodo: "You're late Gandalf."
        Gandalf: "A wizard is never late, Frodo Bagggins. Nor is He early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

        Perhaps, this is the only place where India cannot afford to wait for its time to come. Things have to be done now. Today is the time. Now is the time.

    And then, a design team who call themselves Team "Hack-choo"! One team member calls himself geek at heart. Studies design in a day school. His accompanier, a long-haired guy with all the marks of an artist. A girl, who didn't seem to bother about her make up but beautiful nevertheless. A small grievance they had. Not many participant interactions till the evening,they said. Small lessons to be learnt for us as we embark on the journey.

        I did not wait for the results. It did not matter. There was only winner yesterday. And the winner was India. Yes, the story of India is best summarized by Gandalf.

        Frodo: "You're late Gandalf."
        Gandalf: "A wizard is never late, Frodo Bagggins. Nor is He early. He arrives precisely when he means to."


PS: I forgot to ask the name of THAT  girl. my twitter handle: @accusedengineer

hASH DEFINE AGHORI

  It could be a garage in one of the down market lanes of Seattle. Or it could be a cramped cubicle in Bangalore. Or it could be in the dark confines of a bedroom in Bangkok. Deep dark when the dogs have finished barking, when the roads can be used to play cricket, there is a peculiar unrelenting sound which fails to pause till the Sun starts its foreplay with the earth.

            To the muggle, this tapping noise is a distraction. In His world, you are the noise. The tapping beats underline the perfect beat for the myriad ideas that are playing choir in his mind. The fourteenth cup of caffeine for the day. (It is 2 am and yeah, He would call it day, but not call it a day.) With the scantest regard for his failing health, he has been outcast from the society even before the first hairs of his moustache popped out. He is called a programmer. Some call him, software engineer. Some others, geek. A few, nerd. But, nothing comes closer than a hacker. Or maybe not, He is an aghori.

            Aghoris are human flesh eating, corpse worshipping, ganja smoking worshippers of Lord Bhairava. Known for their ferocious and esoteric worship practices, the Aghoris are feared, worshipped and more importantly socially banished by the Indians. Playing at the edge of Indian moral values, the Aghori through severe penances has developed the art of detaching himself with the world. Unkempt, unable to remember the last when he took bath, ash smeared, dreadlocks in some deep thought. Boy, isn’t our hacker similar to this aghori?

            Or perhaps, there is an aghori in each one of us. Afraid to unravel the aghori within us.But, the hacker is perhaps the first among us to reveal his aghori self. Most of us are convinced the hacker is a wizard working on his witch craft through the night. Some of us do not believe in magic. They say, hacking is a myth. Within the community, I have heard hackers say, “Today I broke upon the Blah Blah company’s network!”, “Ah, that is nothing! Ever tried breaking crapcountry.gov.in?”. Some say, it is fraud. Some believe in it. Some try to imitate them. But, there are only a few of them. And these do not work in the Infosyss, Flipkarts or the Yahoos! Or maybe, they do! Like the aghoris unite over a puff of ganja or marajauna, the hackers over cups of caffeine. Pure caffeine. Try telling them, the word health! The world was never for them, anyway! And like most popular fascinating science, for mere mortals like us it only imagination and speculation that allows us to wander the territories that these hacker aghoris roam in every day.

            The next time, you see someone type hASH DEFINE AGHORI,…

B grade

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As a child, when I was asked to write an essay on “Myself”, I could fill up sheets, or atleast lines about myself with ease. However, yesterday when I was trying to fill my bio in a popular so called social networking site, I could not manage a word. And I thought, maybe a couple of lines were not enough to describle someone as dynamic, as charming, as smart, as witty as me!

Or did I? A little more introspection, a couple of cups of coffee later, another long ride without the phone disturbing me I realized, perhaps my life was drowned in the large ocean of medioricity that the most apt bio would be “Just another guy!”. Back when I was a kid, my world was too small to realize it. My world was amma, appa and me. My cousins were yet to be born. I was my parent's world too. That was when I thought I was maybe, different and even better than others. Learning to write “A” would have made my parents so proud of me.

A couple of years later, when I learnt to read faster than others, I wondered if I was perhaps a little different, or even better than others! Those were the days, when in a film I only saw the hero and the villian. Romance made no sense to me. Comedy only understood in parts. And immediately, I could put myself into the hero's shoes.I could see myself coming out victorious in every battle that I fought. Only the villians changed. When I saw cricket, I imagined myself as Sachin pounding bowlers all over the park.When I saw Cartoons, I was Mowgli. I was the hero.

As time passes by, you realize not everyone is a hero in life. Some of the characters just make up a movie. The hero's brother, the villian's sidekick who goes to fight with the hero only to land up in a fruit stall with a broken nose, the friendly shop owner in the film, the doctor, the onlooker on the street. It is only now I realize, I am one of these characters. And am sure, there are many others who too play similar roles. Infact, most people in this world play these characters. We live for those two minutes in a three hour film when we get our friends to the theatre to excitedly show them our role which never altered the script of the movie. Far later, when the lights are off and we can listen to our voice carefully, there is a slow voice telling, You cannot rest my boy! Yes, your role does not alter the movie and that is why you should not rest. There is always someone else to play yours! The hero can rest.

In a college, the A graders are the cynosure of teacher's eyes, subjects of envious glances from peers and well respected. There is also a another group which sits in the last row usually bunking classes and make their presence felt in the only way that they know when they are present. While the intended target of their paper rockets might be the lecturer, they actually hit the girl's hearts with undiluted precision. Most of them are also good in all matters outside classroom. But there is the overwhelming majority like me who lay trapped somewhere in middle. Not the best in studying. There is always this cousin who is better than you in Math, the friend whose English speech is notches above your writing skill, the neighbour who codes stuff for which you took ages and the batchmate who makes you look a fool on the football ground.

But, as I write this, I seem to have found a new found identity for myself. I am the B grader, and a perennial one at it. That guy with spectacles, who makes his way into the class five minutes before it starts, understands a little, goes to play only to concede a stupid goal, that guy whose code you can bet never is the most efficient. That guy, who is omnipresent in every class., I am the B grade boy. After all, for every Sachin Tendulkar, that are nine Sanjay Bangars toiling away in a nondescript ground somewhere in Rajkot.