If not Mtech, then..

It's still dark. For some bru coffee drinking, bespectacled fellows, furiously hitting the keyboard, its still a few hours away before they can call it a day or rather good night. There are a few who need to leave the comfort of their beds to work for a master who is a few seas and an ocean away. Some kids are jolted out of their dreams with their first crushes because they have to prepare for for a 3 syllabled exam like JEE,CET,PMT,AAA,BBB,CCC etc!

Its a phase in life for them. Its a way of life for me. Long mane, sometimes flowing, sometimes tied into a bun. Face painted. Reading the most esoteric of works ever written by mankind everyday. Not everyone though is sure, if they were written by mortals. A non payer of tax. Revered by some. Branded a fraud in other quarters. I play with fire. Eat in calories considered fatal by the men in white coat and a stethoscope. Earn filthy money, Yet, I don't demand any. I have the smallest of wardrobes and the simplest too. Perhaps,some “normal” folks too wear it once in a blue moon or a no moon day should I say.

Swamiji,Panditji,Bhattji,Gurukal,Shastrigal,Vadhyar or whatever I may be called. I would have been a so-called priest. If only, I was not doing Mtech.....

One of the most convenient aspects of Indian tradition is the ease with which your sins get washed away. Five years back, when I stepped into an engineering college, like lakhs of other innocent kids, little did I know how grave a sin I would commit. And four years in college, sure the punishment big.Yet , to be completely sure that I had washed away all my sins, the first to-do list after engineering would be to tonsure my head, sell my jeans to the nearest utensils-for-dress fellow and take bath in the holy Ganga once.

Four years of trying to make a program run 0.1 seconds lesser than what it ran before can surely result in permanent tonsure(read baldness). Speaking a language which only a computer can understand has made me forget the language of love! And the reward for the 4-year ordeal is life-long imprisonment in one of the cubicles of a giant company. And the Indian middle class has a specific nomenclature for landing a job in one of these cubicles. Its called, “uska life abhi settle ho gaya”!

Being a computer science graduate, I am much used to throwing jargons. In the same vein, one of the pre-requisites of a marriage is a settled life. Priesthood is a turbo-drive towards settling in life. The only place where tens of thousands of rupees is offered as “bhiksha”!

Income Tax Hikes? That is the last thing to bother about. Petrol hikes? Increase the conveyance allowance.Having studied marketing religiously in the summer semester, boys after all being mere products in the marriage market(“finished” products once they get married) need to differentiate in order to find a suitable buyer. (buyer need not imply dowry money!) Having an introduction which says, “Hi, am Amith! I work in ADB corporation, I work on C, C++ (I know they sound more like grades now.)” is the worst a 25-something guy can have these days. Every other Tom,Dick and Harry starts with the same introduction. Will my mane and the rather obscure profession help me in the marriage market? Mostly no, Nevertheless, there is no harm in trying.

And perhaps, my most favored way to pass time in the afternoons would be gossiping about the technology students pondering over a “,” they missed in their code which is giving them sleepless nights. Ironical it might sound, but instead of paying fees, I would be paid fees for the poojas in the very college that am studying. For all my criticism of engineering, it might not have entirely been a waste of time since the engineering education would surely help me connect more with the IT crowd who could well be the biggest donors for this poor Brahmin.

Nevertheless, the life of priest isn't as rosy as it sounds. No more train tickets to home every weekend, every festival. A festival inevitably has to be celebrated at a client's place rather than my home. And it's not only the festivals. While a doctor may or may not have treated a patient in his death bed, its the priest who has to make sure his spirit reaches his right celestial abode. At least that's what people think. And most importantly, that's what we live on. Sometimes, isn't it cruel for me to hear a broken mother's wails? How do I go home and play with my kids after the funerals?

Being a priest is so much like being a doctor. The famous patients,sorry the big clients are the big fishes. Assuming in one year of “service”, I did manage to land a few of these big fishes, standing in line for the passport office might look a distant dream. Rather, I would have enrolled myself in a soft skills course to learn the art of “Kaapi” drinking with the officers. Like a doctor, work timings too are never fixed. And sometimes, people think we are philosophers too!

Since a year of making my chance, and standing against my parents, relatives and friends, I can proudly say that I have made a right choice. From 4.30 am, when I wake my eyes up till 10 pm when I close them back, its a life of principles. A life where every minute, every second, I can see myself as one of the torchbearers of Indian tradition. Once in a while, when i see my old friends earning a couple of lakhs more than me, there is a small feeling of having to go back to my second home-computer science. The biggest reward would be to sit back, observe the mad rush and live in another world. If only, though.

Summer of ’96!

The mercury reads 30 degrees. It is still a good 10 degrees lesser than what is in a place where I spent most of my summer before the first trace of black graced my face. Coca-cola was unheard of.  Rasna was the only “cold” drink we knew and Rasna making was a huge task in itself. But, before the clock stuck 3, granny would be there with 2 tumblers of Rasna, carefully filling both the tumblers with the same quantity till the last drop. One drop extra in either of the tumblers and hell would have broken loose.  The sense of competition was not restricted to the quantity alone. Sometimes, we drank to finish first. Sometime to finish it just before 4! The competition never mattered. We had to fight. And, we LOVED it.

                Long before Friendship Day forced us to buy worthless bands, update status on FB, wish even the “hi-bye” friends. Long before we knew, “A friend In need is friend indeed”. Much longer before crushes came and screwed our lives. Much before we knew what a best friend was, each one of us has had a best friend. Our cousins.  It’s only later that we realize, who our first best friends were.

                The relation between cousins is mysterious and sometimes even misunderstood. It might lack the intensity of a sibling relationship, the raw emotions between a mother and son, the cuteness of a father and his darling daughter and the understanding between couples. Yet, there is a certain charm in the fleeting meetings with our cousins. They tease and fleece you, care and scare you and if lucky, even love you. This is probably because the relationship is safe from the curse of time. Before, our egos take over, its time to say good bye! Or, does time mysteriously shrink itself when in the company of cousins? I know not the answer, but the validity of the question.

                We never chose our friends. And neither are they our parents to whom we owe our life. Yet, they seem so much like us. They fight with us for our share of grandparents and yet, fight together for our grandparents! On one hand, parents try to make the cousins share bed and even bathroom (rather there were no bathrooms and we bathed in the pump!) in some cases. At the same time, they compare us with the elder cousin who always scored 100/100 in maths and conveniently choose to ignore him when the case for love marriages came. Yet, we learnt to lock jealousy in a far attic whose keys we have lost.

                Like all of you I had my cousins whom we met every summer! The tantrums, the fun, the fights, the scars!  For some of us, they are the first ones to whom we revealed our first crushes!

                Summer is here. But, I need to go leaving behind my cousin. Back when he was a kid, I remember him earnestly asking my mom for an old trouser of mine to wear. Today, I want to ask his mom for a piece of him, to keep in my heart.

Time to reach for the handkerchief.  Wear the glasses, pick the bag and walk on.

Bleeding Red, Bleeding Gold. But bleeding KingFisher?

Its hard to imagine a trivial misunderstanding because of a guard could give a community an identity, a language holier than thou and pride everytime we are quizzed-”Where are you from?”.

“Karnataka”.

Circa 390-415 CE. A certain MayuraSharma from the Kadamba clan embarked on a spiritual journey along with this grandfather, also his Guru to Kanchi to master the Vedas. Owing to some misunderstanding between a guard at Ashvasanstha (a place of horse sacrifice),a quarrel arose in which Mayurasharma was humiliated. There was born the seeds of revenge against the Pallavan empire. From their erstwhile capital of Banawasi, the flag with Genda Bherunda fluttered for the first time. Today, it occupies a place of pride in every bus ticket, in every government ensemble. Genda Bherunda stands for Karnataka.

It seems strange that I was supporting a team which masqueraded to represent Bangalore without the two headed mythical Genda Bherunda as the logo! Even a very creative logo could have stammered in comparison to The Genda Bherunda but having to contend with a logo which is used by a liquor company? Surely, Karnataka deserves better. The initial excitement of seeing Bangalore play on world stage has surely faded into a steady disillusion with the owners,BCCI and most importantly with the fans. Indeed, its amazaing to watch Chris Gayle tear bowlers to all parts of the park. But taking a step back, not for a moment do I feel He is representing Karnataka. Not for a moment, would I want Virat Kohli to lead a Karnataka team. The state which has nested and craddled the various profound schools of philosophies like Dvaitha(Udupi), Advaitha(Sringeri),Visishadvaita(Melkote) has to represented by a team owned by liquor dealers, captained by a Delhi brat who is'nt shy to flash his middle finger at the drop of the hat.

But wait, dont dismiss me with a simple “Why dont you support your Ranji team and just shut up?” Thanks, I do that. I follow my team. I followed my team last year at Gangothri Glades in Mysore, when the stadium got behind Manish Pandey. Ah, Days! But in IPL, is the world stage. Would not it be wonderful, if there were atleast six players for Karnataka in the playing XI? We would not even care about the results if the team did a decent job of representing us, the true inhibatitants of Karnataka on the world stage. Thanks for all the Washington RedSox cheerleaders from US. But, we would like the Yakshagana artists to entertain us better. And a theme song in “Game for Life”? There is no denying that, unless some other clubs (especially a certain club, whose players wear an obnoxious yellow(:P)), we have never been trying to prove our slum love.

Do this Vijay Mallya, for us. Keep your liquor advertisements out of a team that we love. We love RCB, but with the guilt that it does not represent us. Neither can we hate RCB, for the last name says “Bangalore”. While matches in Bangalore will definitely help you fill the coffers, Mallya Sir, what about our brothers from other parts in Karnataka. A couple of matches in Shimoga,Mysore and Mangaore will surely help build trust.

While, we do want to see foreign players in the league, we want them as players representing my city and not a franchisee called RCB. Not that we expect a Gayle to learn Kannada (of course, it would be pleasant if he tried doing so.), but to see a superstar like him being captained by a Kannadiga would do a world of good to fans. And for a land, which has given birth to Javagal Srinaths, Gundappa Vishwanaths, Venkatesh Prasads, lack of talent is a reason as genuine as lack of funds cited by the government for every charitable work.

By the way, for a name, Royal Challengers? Thank you.

LOL! TTYL, CYA, BYE

After the first week of my college, I made a strong note to myself - “I shall not rag my juniors!” and some more lofty idealistic notions. That was till, when I got ragged. Even amongst the 70 of us crammed into a bus, my senior Raghu could scavenge for the last of the juniors left 'un'ragged. Getting ragged in some senses, was like losing your virginity. There are two phases in a junior's life. Before getting ragged and after getting ragged.

You know a guy is not ragged, if you see him sneaking silently into canteen with a couple of friends and escaping without a trace. He is happy to sit in the front in the company of the teachers whom he despises from morning 7am to 4pm. Again, from 5pm till the next 6:59am, she turns a vixen! But that hour in bus, in the teacher, he finds his comfort, kind safety from the evil raggers! Alas, some day that back seat is forced and Raghu has had his prey. The more difficulty in obtaining the prey, the tastier it is, they say. And yeah, dont they love the caged ones who are more animate! And there I was, on the 10th day of college, I did a simple cut to “I shall not rag my juniors!”. COULD NOT WAIT FOR MY JUNIORS TO ARRIVE.

And arrive, they did. And rag, i Did. Or, so thought I. For two years, I occupied the central place in the last seat, the place reserved for the ring leader. He is supposed to be the rude master, the kind soul if the ragged soul sheds a tear, shoots trouble on seeing the teacher's glance behind, share numbers to help the junior! Yeah, most importantly, he has to VASOOL sweets! Phew!! Happy I was, following some Nitte tradition of “Introduction in resume format”, “Bhaw Bhaw tables”, “Proposing a boy/girl”(Of course, I made the little hotter gals propose me!:P) and “THE NITTE SALUTE” for the kirrik boys. However, cliched it sounds, Years passed by!!

It was the fourth year. The baton had to be passed. I shifted to the window. The folks whom I ragged came to the centre. I could sense the same enthusiasm which had clouded me when I was studying algorithms and datastructures. I was more than happy to bide my time looking at the other buses and casting a passing glance at the ragging sessions. Nothing much had changed. The tradition was much alive.

Until, she came.

Suddenly, I saw a gal who was not scared of being ragged. Neither was she desperate to be ragged. She was not scared. Neither, was there arrogance in her eyes. She was a little beautiful too(:P). I could already see some of my juniors turning pink,everytime she spoke to her. Her English smacked attitude, but her tone, humility. I could sense, she was upmarket. But, her home was near mine. I thought she was a Tomboy. Until, she cried in front of me.

Here was a person, dripping with irony. Yet, unmistakably, she was attractive.

It didnt take long for me to start talking. Thats an advantage a senior enjoys. A junior is usually, obliged to talk to a senior. Soon, we used to walk home together and halt at the last point common to our walk back home. We used to stop for a short while. Just that, half an hour soon became too short for us. And till date, she believes, she jacks me royalllllly!

For the first time, I could see the lines between a senior and a junior blurring. And we were 365*3 days apart each other. And, much much later, close friends later, in another couple of minutes, the person for whom I stole minutes at home to have a quick word is finally leaving her teens. For the first time, there is a tiny feeling of she getting older. To me, she was always the kid. Yeah, she plays the granny too.

Yet, I do not find a better way to wish my beloved friend than this.

“Happy Birthday, Jenny!”

PS: This is what she texts me these days for which I have my complaints.

Nafraat Achcha hai.

India, the land of KamaSutra? Umm,it houses Kurushketra too. One of the biggest wars in the eternity of mankind was fought here. Irony, that it might sound, the land is now considered holy and the spilt blood noble. Haven’t we Indians always celebrated war? Or shall we say,a fight? There are countless Dharmayudh(s), the war between the good and the bad or between the holy and evil, fought with so many people and even with ourselves. They say, you cannot be a spectator in a Dharmayudh. You are either black or white. You will vanquish or be vanquished.

            As a nation, we have always liked to fight. The challenge, sometimes against our self is consuming and the feeling of overcoming it, is more special. Yet, wouldn’t be better if we could fight on TV? Wouldn’t a simulation satiate our desire for blood? Sport, by no stretch of imagination, is war.  Yet, it is Dharmayudh, for there are no spectators. The biggest rivalries are not fought on the hallowed twenty yards of Wankhede or Chinnaswamy stadium. Those are the canvases where the Tendulkars and Dravids weave their magic. The biggest rivalries are fought in the packed stadiums. Have a doubt? Get a DVD of Dada leading PWI in this IPL. Hear Edens roaring torn in heart between its Prince and KKR. For every shot on the ground, there were a million shouts for and a million against. These days of course, we have Twitter and Facebook to rant in.

            And for this, I find IPL more interesting. Switch back to World Cup’ 11, I have watched the match in various surroundings.Nothing seemed to change. We all wanted India to win. Yeah, my friend was a Sachin fanatic. My mom, too. Dhoni was my man.  All the arguments started and ended with players.  It was forgotten if we, yeah WE, won. Losing a match did make us captains, selectors, coaches, cricketing pundits and sometimes an umpire too. Everything apart from a spectator. Still, all my misgivings over IPL nevertheless, it is more FUN. When you have dad supporting CSK,mom MI and myself RCB you know you every 6 from Gayle will be met with a sigh.

            And I didn’t add the main course yet. Welcome to FB and Twitter. The same friends who supported India during the world cup victory, have suddenly crossed swords. Gayle and Kohli might fight for their dollars. For me though, they are fighting for my bragging rights. There is a definite satisfaction, every time I see CSK fail. And to think of it, I dont hate CSK for winning the league a couple of times. Its CSK, which has the maximum presence in Bangalore after RCB. The battle might well be between Dhoni and Kohli now. Kohli,now. Come July, I shall be back to supporting Dhoni. For now, he remains my sworn enemy. I love this banter. Thank you, IPL.

He scores when He wants

If he was a four-legged creature, he would be a leopard. If he could fly, which he does so often, he would be a butterfly. If he did dance, he would be a peacock. Run everybody does, dance everybody does, fly too, many attempt too, but few have done in it style, that this man does it when he wears the red and white shirt, Robin Van Persie.

            Ask a cricket fan, and he will tell you, how much more elegant the left handers could be. To attribute Persie’s elegance to being a lefty would be injustice to the the great man’s talent. Born to artists, Persie’s canvas is the green grass in a football ground and in Emirates, how often he has transformed into something bigger, something more elevating. In some ways, this season the number of goals that Persie has scored diverted the attention from the artistry that he employs to dazzle the opponents.

            Being a part of an artist family, Persie would well know numbers are poor ways to measure success. For a man, who has so well expressed himself on the football ground, he lies on the threshold of a big decision to make. Should he chase numbers? Or, should he chase love? A chance at glory. A chance at living in the hearts of The Emirates faithful for a lifetime. Sports does not lend itself to rational thinking. Sometimes, the most instinctive decisions are the best ones and the heart often makes better decisions than the brain. Persie has two choices now. Either, he could decorate his cupboard with medals. Or, He could be content with seeing his poster in the bedroom of every Gooner and a special place reserved for him.

            When he arrived as a youngster from Feyernood, not many teams bid for him because of his Balotteli like reputation. Even in times, when Arsenal was frustrated with injuries which regularly affected Persie, Arsenal respected his talent. Tonight is a chance for Persie to redeem himself. To repay the faith that Arsenal have reaped on him.  To say no to a truckload of dollars from the oil country is going to be tough. But to earn the shouts of “Persie, Persie” at the Emirates is tougher.

            A chance to remain a good player. A chance to become a legend.

King Persie, Ball is in your court. Gooner Forever.

The dawn of The Apocalypse

THE glories of our blood and state
         Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
         Death lays his icy hand on kings:
         Sceptre and Crown
         Must tumble down,
         And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

 So said, the greatest of men, who never tasted death,nor would they. Ironical as it may sound, the immortals found death fascinating. For them, death was just a play of thoughts, food to brood on for hours in darkness, ammunition enough to make generations weep. Much as these men could make death sound romantic enough, the more unfortunate ones are fortunate enough to know death more closely. Death for us is seasonal. I have died many times in the last few years. It might disguise itself in arcane ways.Yet, not so tough for mortals like me to find my hands shaking, brows breaking in sweat. The death bells have started ringing. In a grad college,death is known by the calender. The dusk of the semester is the dawn of the apocalypse.
The end of the semester is a great leveller. To watch the kids who knew not was darkness was for three months, who conquered the angel called sleep, who so beautifully seduced you everytime you opened the notebook, the ones who knew not what was life was for three months, to watch their face glow in the end of semester is a joy indeed. And then, there were some other people. The ones who knew not how to tell a NO. They never disappointed sleep everytime she courted him, their mind tried to drag their fingers away everytime the fingers went over the words t,w, i, e, r to write “twitter”, the ones who impulse always made them tell “hello” even though, somewhere at the back of mind, they knew the other person has finished his work. Truly, the end of the semester does even it out all. The inner guilt of not competing enough is consuming. For every person who drops in to say, “our project worked only at the last moment!” and watch him heave a sigh of relief, there is a river am forced to swallow down my throat.
This is not the first time I have felt this, and probably not the last time too. Its in these times, we promise ourself, “Come next time!”. I am waiting for the next time from the past 22 years. Elusive, she is! Nothing truly pinches you more than a walk across the wing where you stay. To see rooms bolted, lights switched off and to see people sleeping is a rare sight. Probably, they are sleeping after a hard day’s work. Err, a hard semester’s work. In a few more days, all the lizards will have to leave their habitation. The bags will be dusted. The clothes will adorn the bag which has locked itself for months in the cupboard. The tickets are already booked, i hear. The smiles have already started to break. It wouldnt be long before,they call all their near ones whom they resisted talking to for months about them coming back. Smells of victory there.
 For them, the holidays will mean vacation. For me, its a wait.A wait for the semester to begin. For me, its a wait for another chance to redeem myself. The end of the semester is not death in itself. Its only the ringing of the death bell. Its much worse than death itself. Infact, death can only relive the pain and release you to the next birth. The feeling is terrible, when you can see the writing on the wall, however dark life is. You know in this dusk, it wont be long before the moon washes the earth with milk. Yet, that hope, false hope that I mistaked dusk for the dawn.