Where history cannot rest

Last week the announcement came. House no. 55, 1A main, Stbed, 4th Block, Koramangala is going to get vacated by the end of April 2007. Dishkans are finally leaving the house to, possibly, a younger crowd of bachelors. Its been five long years since the first set of dishkans stepped into it. But the end was not unexpected. It was being made inevitable as, one by one, we chose to take the risk of plunging into marriage and move their lives forward (or whatever direction that is).

The dust. The mosquitoes and the bed bugs (the latter calls for s separate blog!). The drain flowing behind, which Bijunu so lovingly named "Kaalindhi". The paint fall (or snow fall as it was called) from the ceiling when there's rain. The pile of clothes and books on the (supposed-to-be) dining table. The collection of footwear near the entrance. The air or rather the lack of it. Masthan's old scooter and the rats that play with it. The front door lock which taught us many a lesson. The TV that has has spent a good part of its in repair shops and now resting in peace. The stress-tested washing machine that jumps and jerks. The kitchen where many a rat has become a martyr, sometimes after surviving many a war. Well, there are a lot of things that we are leaving behind for. hopefully, the better.

And there is many a thing which is going to be missed dearly. The joy of living together and sharing the experiences. Watching each other's lives curiously as they took their turns and jumps and changed in pace, sometimes trying to influence, support, or interfere with, them. Understanding and accepting how different each of us was, and was becoming, in spite of all the commonalities. The general good-will for each other. The discussions and the debates. The jokes and the laughs. The constant vigil for the next opportunity for a friendly paara. The magnification of even the smallest incidents where the presence of a member of the opposite sex was detected. The nostalgia of our college days. The emotional moments. The occasional flare-ups and restlessness. The games played and matches watched together. The movies (of so much variety) watched and talked about, the music enjoyed, the stories shared. The birthdays celebrated. The photos clicked. Those lazy holiday mornings where the only major activity was eating a good malayalee breakfast. Cook chechi's sambar. Santhachee's midnight tea and biscuits which he made with so much passion (some of us wait till this tea to sleep, while others wake from sleep to have it). The list goes on.

The memories of stbed cannot fade. The stories, which it was never short of, cannot be lost. At the least, as long as we continue to be stbians in spirit. For as stbians we never allow our tiny personal history to take rest. Now and then it was being made and recorded. And when it was not being made its chapters were invoked and re-invoked with joy, interpreted and re-interpreted with interest, and sometimes twisted and re-twisted with malice.

Or perhaps it is the reverse. As long as we preserve these memories, we'll continue to be stbians. For when we recollect we'll smile, and in that smile there's the hint of that often-silent love we have for each other.

Well, there was one emotional proclamation
"Enikku ningalodu sneham maathrame ullu" - Prasanth A.G to roommates. Nov 2001

Life is changing

Some friends suggested that this blog shoudl contain ocassional news updates from my side. Especially when there are relatively big changes happening in life. So here we go!

Have brought Subha into my life. We tied the knot almost a month ago at Guruvayur. its much more of a change for her as she had been in Delhi for the last quarter of a century! She brings with her some substantial peace of mind (which i hope to preserve), love for music (we've WorlSpace radio now as the only source), and good listening ability (so that i can have a new audio blog)

Bid adieu to stbed after almost four years of life there. There's so much to remember and tell about life in that house no 55 on the dusty 1st main. Where history never gets the time to rest. Where there is music and movies and midnight tea. Look out for future blogs!

We've moved into a flat near Kundalahall (Brookefields on way from Marathahalli to ITPL). It's a new kind of life and hope to watch it, enjoy it and perhaps write about it too! The first few days have been peaceful. There's light space and water, and other people have started moving their lives to our vicinity, so far so good!

The expected office move to Krishnarajapuram did not happen. Now its dated for this May. So for the tiem being, that's one change less!

A New Blog

i've started penning a new blog. And this one is special simply because it speaks in my mother tongue. The address is http://deepakkan.blogspot.com

To read the blog, you will need to install a Malayalam unicode font (eg. the font AnjaliOldLipi which can be dowloaded from
http://varamozhi.sourceforge.net/fonts/AnjaliOldLipi-0.730.ttf ). If you are on windows just save the file to the folder C:\WINNT\Fonts.

I've found the experience of blogging in malayalam much more comfortable than i'd thought. The varamozhi editor is a neat piece of work, kudos to the development team. It is almost as intuitive as it can possibly be, especially for those who have previous manglish experience.
For people who want to try a hand at it here's a FAQ link.
http://vfaq.blogspot.com/

There's a nice community of malayalam bloggers out there. Mostly comprised of expatriats currenlty in the gulf and the US, the club is a mixture of people with varied interests bound together by their love for their mother land and mother tongue. Among them are people narrating hilarious incidents from their good old days at home, people discussing current affairs, people writing stories, poems and literary criticism, people writing about reading and other cultural experiences, people teaching and advocating pure malayalam, people posting photographs taken in kerala, people who describe their daily experiences with a distince malayali touch, people writing kerala recipes, people filled with a lot of nostalgia for everything keralite from puttu to politics ..... They find time to read each others' blogs and comment on them and then comment on the comments. Such discussions are friendly. sometimes quite funny and sometimes quite informative. Here are links to a few of those blogs which i've got chance to read until now.
http://kodakarapuranams.blogspot.com/
http://peringodan.blogspot.com/
http://viswaprabha.blogspot.com/
http://sakshionline.blogspot.com/

Deception

Hotel Chandrika, Cunningham Road, Bangalore

Following was a real-life incident narrated by the guy who sat opposite me at the lunch table to his friend next to him. Well, yes, i was overhearing.

Man, you should be very careful if you are doing business. And very professional. Recently I had an experience which taught me this. You know that girl who was doing a course with us last month. She said she prepared a logo for some association while she was in college. It seemed like we'd become good friends by then, so I asked her to do a logo for me which I can put on my business cards. She agreed enthusiastically. After a couple of days she came to me with the logo and I liked it somewhat. Then I committed that mistake. I told her that I'm a thorough businessman, quite professional and since I'm going to use the card for business purposes I would like to pay her for the logo. In that friendly mood I went on to tell her my business plans and how much profit I was expecting out of it. She just smiled and said she was happy to have done the logo and she did not expect more. We parted, or so it seemed to me, as thicker friends. I gave the order to print 500 cards with that logo on them.

Two days later she came back and told me that she was charging me Rs.5000 for doing the logo for my business. That took me by surprise. Every time I casually give away a business card, I'm going to pay her Rs.10! I told her to come later as I did not know what to do then. I was running short on money those days I deny that I'd told her I would pay? Shall I argue that she had to tell me her charge before she agreed to do the logo? I did not speak to her for a couple of days after which she came to meet me. She accused me of being non-professional and violating business ethics. She said it was important to have a good name in business. It sounded like some blackmail. Then I got angry and told her whatever I had in my mind about her, her logo, her exorbitant charge and everything. Finally, I paid her RS.2500 and ended it all. Man, you should never assume anything in business. Not the least about women. T
They have hidden intentions. And they can be so very deceptive.

Cunningham Road, Bangalore

As I walked back to my office I carried the story with nee. I tried to imagine those two scenes, one where he boasts of his business and the other where he gets the unexpected shock. I had just passed the old an who sells bananas and was thinking of the advise on women and deception, when I was blocked by that middle aged woman.

She was crying. She told me that her husband was in hospital and she needed money for medicines. As I had heard previous experiences of my friends having got cheated in the name of train tickets, medicines and so on, I refused to believe her. I felt the urge to nail down her lie with logical questions like which was the hospital, which ward or room he was in, what was his disease, where is the prescription and so on. I'd completed just the first question when I looked more closely at her face. It struck me that there was a lot of genuine expressions there - the slow tears running down, the shrunken eyes, the curves on her forehead, the pale cheeks, The worried and desperate tone of her voice was also striking except when she tried to invoke sentiments (apni maa samajkar dhedho). At this point an on-looker came to me and warned that this was common here and that such women can be very deceiving. As he started his round of interrogation, and the woman started fumbling for answers, I gave her just one-tenth of what she requested of me and departed from the scene

During the remaining walk to my office, I was thinking of her. How could her face be so convincing? How could she be (or she act) so natural? How could she be so deceptive? Perhaps she was trained in it. Maybe she was telling the truth. Perhaps her truth was different from what she conveyed but equally or more sad, and that truth is what brings out her genuine tears. If the latter is the case, then why did she not speak out her reality? Why did she have to invent the story? Perhaps her reality was something middle-class, comfortable, moral, optimistic people like me cannot (or would prefer not to) associate or identify with. Perhaps her reality was far more stranger and depressing than her fiction. Perhaps she did have a real reason to deceive.

And hey logo girl maybe you had a real reason to deceive too. Why dont you and a friend come across to my lunch table one day and share your version of the story with your friend?

Wish you a beautiful year

We comprehend... that nuclear power is a real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the greatest danger of all. We have understood that the destruction of the environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes?
- Werner Herzog, German film director

I'm not sure I've fully understood that quote. Nevertheless it inspired me to search deep into my memory to bring up images which have been stored there sometime during the last few years, and have not been erased. Most of them contained friends and family in special moments. There were some fro school and college. There were few recent ones (a couple of cure girls at Mayohall, for example) But there were some other special ones too, like the face of an old man whom I'd seen just once which I'm attempting to describe below.

As usual on that day (some 3-4 months back) there was chaos and hustle near the Indian express bus stop. Mad rush of people and madder rush of vehicles. And amongst all this, I noticed an approaching face which looked so serene that I wondered for a moment whether it was an illusion. Judging from his attire, he seemed to be returning after prayers in the mosque. He had crutches which supported his slow but steady walk. He reached the bus stop, found a relatively calm place to stand, and waited for the bus. Everything about him looked so peaceful yet majestic - his posture, his face, his movements. He was looking around, but was he smiling at the chaos? He missed one insensitive bus on his route but got the next one as the driver noticed him and halted near him. As he walked slowly towards it and waited till others got in, the whole world seemed to have calmed down a bit For a few seconds, I became blissfully unaware of the honks, the jostle, my bus number and my watch.

If you are wondering what is so special about this image then you are with me. Some images just remain there without telling us why. And even when we know why, we might just not be able to express it.

Wishing you all a great 2006 filled with beautiful and deep images. Let me today share some recorded images, from some nice places I've been to in the recent past, which helps me dig up more pleasant images from memory.

Bus No.164/166

The Top Topic
In some buses there are seats near the middle where people sit facing others, like in the train compartment. That provides a good setting for some public conversation. I've wondered what topics do people, strangers and from different age groups and home states, have to discuss in common. As far as bus travel is concerned, I've got the answer. The most common topic of discussion in the bus is about buses themselves. The most important questions have the format "Which bus goes there?"

So on one day I hear some kids on way to school discussing about where and how does the 164's and the 166's go and which takes lesser time. As usual, there was one boy leading from the front, mapping numbers huge enough for him to places he has probably never seen, and taking pride in it. There were many ones among them he was seemingly not sure of (or had no idea of), but he handled them cautiously with casual glances around to see who among the unintended tall listeners looked dangerous. There was the other boy beside him, who was chipping in between with his limited but genuine knowledge, but listening intently to the former one seemingly trying to memorize what he heard. Then there were the two girls in the opposite seat, who may have been the only real intended listeners, one of them nodding in agreement and asking some questions to both the boys, and the other little one who seemed to be flying around somewhere in her own small beautiful world (was there a gentle rhyme on her lips?)

And on another day I see a man in his sixties talking about the same to an audience in their twenties. The listeners seemed to belong to the newly landed forward looking young crowd of bangalore having little idea of its history and geography and more gravely, of bus numbers and routes. So the old man took on the responsibility of education and seemed to be doing it with conviction and genuine interest. He seemed to know as many bus routes as the number of grey hairs he had, and seemed to enjoy this opportunity to talk. And the three young listeners again seemed to consist of a learner, a listener and a dreamer. Just that the learner was finding the job easier, the listener was asking more questions than needed and the dreamer was getting slightly irritated by all this discussion.

The universality of a topic depends on what the universe is.

The Curious Twins
The young boys were looking outside through the window and talking to each other, each one having one arm over the other's shoulder.

They hear the sound of nadaswaram into he distance and get up from their seats to get closer to the window. Soon they spot the marriage crowd near the temple and watch them with curiosity. They notice the decoration and the colors. They see a lot of happy faces. They try to imitate the music. Boys, enjoy the music of hope and union!

The bus moves forward from the stop. Another few minutes, and they here another loud sound. They look out of the window again with same curiosity. They see the ambulance struggling to pierce through the traffic. They see the flash light and the white paint. They see a lot of largely indifferent faces. They attempt to shut their ears with hands to block the sound. Yes boys, that sound reminds of despair and separation.

Childhood is bliss!

Smiling Together
It was a crowded bus and passengers were struggling for space. Rains and traffic were at their peak and the bus was moving like a snail. The air was cold and smelled of frustration. The conductor came to us near the rear of the bus for giving tickets. Suddenly he seemed to have remembered something, looked outside and then started shouting aloud "Left, left" turning towards the front of the bus. The bus then took a left turn and he turned and explained that the driver was new on this route. This seemed to enthuse some youth at the back seats who took up the job from the conductor. They started shouting the directions in unison "Right, right", then "left, left", "straight, straight" and so on. They got supported by some voices at the front as well. The air was becoming warmer and happier and there were a lot of smiles around. Some more mischievous ones started shouting out wrong directions as well, inviting laughter from some and anger from others. The bus suddenly was livelier and seemed to be moving faster. Well, not sure what the driver was feeling amidst this though!

On another day, and in another crowded bus, there were again smiles. The bus had just left a stop and was fast accelerating when there were some shouts from near the door asking the driver to stop the bus. The driver did shouted that there was enough time to get in or out during last stop and now he will go on. Then someone shouted out that it was none other than the conductor himself who was left out at the last stop. That provoked laughter, multiple shouts of "holdeee, holdeee" and combined bangs against the roof. The driver put the brakes and there were many smiling faces looking out of the windows welcoming the conductor woo was running towards the bus from behind.

When God send man to live, he gave him a powerful weapon. It is called humor.

Sampling
I stand and listen to the voices. Kannada voices discussing bangalore and work. Tamil voices talking of the latest stars in movies. A Hindi voice sharing his dreams of job, car and family with his yaar. A malayalee arranging friends' get-together over the phone. Telugu voices talking I understand not what of. An English voice whispering metropolitan love. And others too, which I fail to identify.

I look for signs of Silicon Valley, I see a young man reading "C Programming" very intently at the bus stop while waiting for the bus. Inside the bus I hear discussions about SQL, java, windows and Linux. I hear of placements, foreign trips and salary differences. I hear call-centre experiences.

I feel the population. The big rush when the bus arrives to get the seats. Is it the sense of accomplishment, victory over others that we seek or the actual comfort of seat? Or is this fight for space simply natural for us necessary to move ahead? The bus moves slowly disadvantaged by its size in the vehicles' fight for space to move. And more often than not, in wars there are no rules.

I'm still sampling!

The woman with the bag

Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore

I was walking from Shivaji Nagar bus stand to my office in Indian Express building. It was a routine 5-minute walk usually made interesting only by some beautiful faces, smiles and glances that one might come across near the two bus stops. But the week before last, my attention was caught by an old woman with a bag who led me to introspection.

I saw her first on Monday morning in front of the building with the board Dutian Furniture. The door of the shop was closed and no one else was around. She stood with one leg on the first step in the staircase and the other on the cemented ground, the former supporting an old bag. She was searching for something in the bag and seemed quite occupied with this activity. Her sari looked old and no longer colourful, and I concluded that she should be one of those unfortunate poor women who needs to beg or pick up rags in order to survive and feel life.

I did not see her in the evening, and the incident would not have remained in mind, if I'd not seen her again. On Tuesday morning, as I walked past the shop, lost in some thought, something struck me. I took a couple of steps backward, and saw that she was there. I then understood what had struck me. She was in the same sari, and almost exactly in the same position (the right leg on the stair and the left on the ground), the bag resting on the right leg and being searched intensely for something which just did not seem to have any intentions of allowing itself to be discovered. I looked at my watch. It was almost the same time - maybe 5 minutes or so later - when I'd passed this place the day before.

On Wednesday, I expected to find her the same there at the same time and it turned out to be correct. The bag really did not seem to have what she was searching for, and quite probably had nothing significant in it I stood for some tiem and watched, but she did not notice for her preoccupation with the bag continued. I concluded that she is probably more unfortunate than I thought her to be. Has she lost her mind? Has her will become too different from the rest of the society? I felt sorry , though i suspected that she might be quite happy this way than otherwise. I even started to attach some philosophical angles to her act of searching the bag (some typical ones like does it symbolize man's search for absolute truth and happiness in an empty life?), likening her to the great Naranathu branthan(http://www.naranathubranthan.com/) but then withdrew from it suspecting its cruelty.

On Thursday morning, I had little doubt that I would again find her, but did not. Well,were my conclusion was premature? She might have been just arranging the items in her bag after her ealry morning's work of picking them up. But why almost exactly at the same time, in the same position, and with same concentration on all days? As I looked at my watch to confirm the time, I suddenly felt the urge to ask myself '"what about you?". The answer was simple but striking. On all four days around this time, and many days before that, I was walking by the same road after getting down from the same bus, going past and looking at the Dutian Furniture shop stairs, with the same bag on my back, and probably very similar thoughts. "Well, just routines of life" I sighed, and absolved the old woman of all my earlier conclusions.

And then I realized, that on the fourth day of the week, she had successfully found some way to break her routine. Where might she be? At some other place, searching the same bag? No, I should not be so pessimistic. I pictured her, standing near her shelter picking up jilebis from the bag for her grandchildren and showing the day's collection to her daughter. I pictured her in the queue for the latest movie in some theatre in Majestic picking her from the bag her earnings to buy the ticket. I pictured her, throwing away the bag into the Ulsoor lake, after she got a new one, and continuing to collect new things to fill the new bag, fresh and excited. I fetl happy for the her in my pictures, and felt s surge of inspiration.

On Friday morning, I reached office via a different route. I'd left my bag and mobile at home for a symbolic beginning . I spent time in the bus chatting with the stranger next to me, instead of reading the novel of my routine. These were some initial steps towards making a refreshingly different day at office. And so it turned out to be!

Hello

HP, Indian Express Building, Bangalore

The first diary i wrote was more than a dozen years back. I do not remember what inspired me then to continue it meticulously for a year, for there was nothing secret about and in it. The diary was meant to be accessible to all, and contained factual descriptions of a lot of things that happened around me - cricket scores at our ground, visitors at home, sometimes newspaper headlines, and so on.

That also happens to be the last daily diary of that i wrote. Again I do not remember hoiw it suddenly ended, though i would like to beleive it as a time when i decided i've had enough of being too regular. The problem with conventional diaries is that the blank pages in between expose how idle you are. Maybe I did not want to have blank pages, and ended up having no diary.

Soon postal letters took the place, and i really enjoyed them. Now the reader was no longer anonyous, and i could tailor the facts accordingly. Maybe it was the first time i started thinking about what others would love to read. The feedback for your words would come in the reply, and it was eagerly awaited. The scope was much greater- . the letters had in them the past, the present, and the unknown future, with the facts sometimes adulterated and decorated. They taught me to use words with sensitvity and emotion and i enjoyed the exercise.

A couple of years later, and i was doing my bachelors then, the number of letters that i wrote and received started coming down. Most of the time were spent with friends around and there were a lot of interesting things happening. Letters written then would have been much more eventful and colourful, but as it happens almost always, you are too much immersed in life to have any time to record it. There were oments of regret too, as i realized that i was oving farther from the old freinds at an interesting stage in life. However it could not be reversed and in my final semester there, i did not write a single letter.

Then, we came to Bangalore's IT industry and the email came to us. Simple and powerful. Instantaneous delicery. The quick replies. Less effort. The flexibility - choice of how may and who to send to, the groups, the forwarding. There was a slight loss of individuality however, the hand-writing and the corrections, but it was more than compensated by the fact that people, who had never written letters, started writing emails and some of them were quite a joy to read. I loved the variety in the words and became an ardent fan of diversity. There were emails of love and hatred, of importance and mischief, of facts and fiction, of fun and gloom, of dreams and reality, of boredom and excitement and so on. Contacts with many old friends could be re-established and reading and writing emails became fun and an integral part of life.

But unlike the letters and the diary, the email had a much shorter life. Rarely were the emails re-read, and it became difficult to search and locate esome of the more interesting ones given the quantity of emails that were in the inbox. Also it was a time, in my final semester at masters, when i'd re-started serious reading, and my love for words was growing. In an attempt to preserve some of my diary-like emails, i put them on a webpage. By this time, the reproduction of event in words had gained an identity which was quite different from the event itself, and there was always distortion of facts in an aim to make it interesting.

Last week, two years after the webpage, i got an email saying that the server which hosted the pages will no longer be available. It is a signal for a change, and so here i'm blogging for the first time, and hoping to enjoy it. Looking forward to writing more and getting some comments too. I plan to put some old ones, which were on the webpage that is no longer there, with the correct dates if possible, so you might find some blogs dated older than this one.

That's long enough for the first!

On the banks of Kallai

Kozhikode, Kerala

We were in kozhikode a few days back to attend a friend’s marriage. After a full sadya, the natural inclination was to hibernate but then we decided that we can postpone that to the next "working day" and do something better there. We had watched the film “achuvinte amma” the previous day, and had enjoyed it thoroughly, so we did not want to destroy its feel by watching another movie. We had been to REC a few days ack and so that too was ruled out. Then my friend Cinish suggested “Kallai” and it struck a chord with some of us, for the film song “Kallai kadavathe, kattonnum mindeela” was fresh in memory and its lyrics and the scenes were indeed inviting.

We did not know that it was so near kozhikode, so when the auto stopped near the kallai bridge with no kadavu in sight, we grew suspicious. “Chetta, kadavinte aduthu pokumo” (can we go near the bank)?, we asked the auto driver, Seeing him turn back with questioning eyes, I clarified “Kallai kadavathey ennoru pattilley .. aa kadavu” (the bank described in the film song). We had begun to sense the beginning of yet another memorable trip, taking spirits soaring. “Athetha pattu - pazhayathano? (is that an old song?)”. “Alla, permumazha kaalathile paatta” (No, it is from new movie perumazhakaalam). Then Cinish added, as if to cement our case for a kadavu there. “oru pazhaya pattumundu - pathinaalaam ravudhichathu maanatho, kallai kadavatho” (there is also an old song about this bank) As the auto driver joined our smiling party,he pointed us to a path from where we can reach the river and we got down.

Kallai is, or once was, famous for its timber industry. We could see many locked gates with timber related boards and the river bank always was beyond them. We spotted a group of men, seemingly engaged in their usual round of chat, and asked them a way to get to the river. After their round of questioning, which seemed to assert their status as the grand karanavars of kallai, they showed us an open gate through which we reached the river. It was marshy land near the river but there were many logs to hop around. The river flowed calmly reminding of some old soft lullaby. Near the opposite bank there were many birds – mainly egrets white and beautiful - and we could see them in the water mirror as well. Then there were the kites, diving majestically into the water and rising up with their catches. And the colourful kingfisher, perched still on a trunk, thinking or dreaming, gracious either way undisturbed by the camera clicks. Harmony indeed!

We had still not found the kadavu we came for. Nor the vallam. Nor the breeze. Nor the people. So after having a refreshing kattan kaappi, we asked the hotel guy about the nearest kadavu. He informed that the nearest was chakkum kadavu) was after the brdige. Yet another auto driver was asked about a kadavu. Seeing the camera, he asked whether we were journalists or serial makers. We said we were neither and we came that we had come after hearing of kallai, which seemed to impress him and he started enthusiastically describing about the place. As we reached the small kadavu, we could feel the cool breeze, see the yellow sun, and hear a loud parody song. The vallam, coming from the opposite bank, stopped some distance away from us - there was not enough water to row it close – and people got out of it and started walking to the bank. This upset the old woman beside us, who was impatiently waiting for the vanji, and she started shouting “njammalengine abide varum makkaley” (how will i reach the boat). One of the men held her hand and helped her walk to the vanji upon which her face blossomed with relief and her words became full of pleasantness. We joined them and had a nice short trip listening to the river, and the oar, and the talk in the boat. .

The sky was already in its brilliant evening gown but the sun was not fully in sight. So we decided to go to the beach, proclaiming “you never get tired of sunset and the sea”. It was an enjoyable walk along the river bank, carefully avoiding the marsh, with this unique feeling that the river was almost like one of us, also moving with the singular intention of reaching the sea. Of course, it was only her that knew the route! A few meters down, she giggled as if to say “you can come with me further if you like” but, in spite of her beauty, we had to decline because we saw our path along the bank end! We took the diversion into a mud road and continued our walk. We could feel the sea now, in the breeze, in the trees, in the people, in their words. We asked a woman, standing commandingly in front of her house, the way to the beach, to which she gave a striking reply “nalla kadaline kurichu maathram ezhuthikko, ee tsunamiyokkey manushanmar undakkunnatha” (write only about the good sea, tsunamis are made by man) before showing us the way.

As we climbed over the rocks and then down to the beach, we could see our river merging into the sea and vanishing, both from sight and from our thoughts. The Arabian sea was in its usual grandeur, and the sunset clear and splendid bringing into our mind memories of so many other beaches where we have seen the two together before. And each time we wonder at the expanse of the sea and the land beyond, enjoy the waves lashing against the beach wondering whether they will reach as far as our footwear, feel the mud slipping away beneath our feet, collect the salt on our pants, feel amazed at that unexpected high wave which soaked our shirts, and bask in the glory of the sunset. There are very few repetitions in life that we love - this would definitely be at among the top of the list!

The Trespasser

He crossed the border and entered the new land with no apparent hesitation. He was in search for a territory for himself and knew that he had to violate many an existing border before he can draw one. And this was not the first one he had trespassed – he had been doing this ever since his mother disappeared on that fateful morning.

At this time, the senapathi was on a usual stroll in his verandah, full of energy andenthusiasmsm. From one end of his walkway he could see the border he was protecting and from the other end he could see the palace he was serving. At each of those ends he would stay, stare and dream of the wars he would lead and the prizes he would win. In between the dreams he would walk and think - the thoughts never seemed to converge.

The mahamanthri was lying on his lawn, occupied with thoughts. He considered himself the greatest planner of his time. He would plan a thousand schemes and dream about all the great things that these would achieve for his land. In between the schemes he would get up, shrug and look around lazily - the sights never seemed to influence his thoughts,

The maharaja was resting in his mahal immersed in prosperity. He would alternate between the taste of the delicious meals on the platter and the comfort of his manjal. In between the food and the sleep, he would look out through the window and think of his rule and immediately feel elated – the pride never seemed to have a reason behind.

The protagonist continued his destined walk wondering what he would have to face in this alien place. The senanayak was the first to spot the enemy. He sensed a great opportunity to win accolades, for the enemy did not look menacing at all. He started off in a spree, making loud threatening warrior sounds. He had already started imagining the ferocity with which he would attack, when he suddenly banged against the door and fell in anguish. From the balcony of the second floor of that green house which had no ground, he stared down at the enemy, who now looked strong and confident.

The manthri was brought into reality by the sight of the enemy walking in front of his lawn. He had an immediate problem to solve and ad to put his thousand brilliant schemes aside. He walked up to the enemy and tried to convince him about what dangers would befall him. There was no acknowledgement for his words of wisdom, let alone any response. The manthri could stand the indifference no more. He decided to attack, hesitating in between for a moment before concluding that the enemy was weak enough, and started to run towards him. Immediately he felt the terrible pain on his wounded leg and was suddenly reminded of his throat that could produce only groans and the left eye which could no longer see. He stopped midway staring at the enemy, who looked so young and energetic.

The maharaja had been woken up by the senapathi's groans which he felt was unusual and he looked out of the window. He was surprised at seeing the alien in front of his palace. Why did his prajaaas - the mightiest and the brightest of all – fail to stop this? He himself could attack and kill the tiny enemy, but for his stature. He was the powerful king for whom it was a shame fighting an enemy of no match on the street. He was the prosperous king who had to maintain the dignity of the palace. He had enough of duties on his plate already, and this is not a king’s job. He did not move - he simply stood at the window staring.

The hero, amused at all the happenings around him, suddenly paused and looked back. This looked like a nice peaceful place to stay. He looked at the three pair of eyes staring at him and found more appreciation than hate in them. He had almost made up his mind, when he decided to turn around and look forward for one last time. He wondered what life lie beyond the other border. Maybe ahead are more of his kind, the youthful and the spirited, with whom he can engage in games and adventure. Maybe ahead is a piece of virgin land, where he can rule, where he would find lots of food and love. He could not stand the urge to explore – after all, he was too young for peace. He decided to move forward.

The maharaja, seeing the foreigner move farther away, reasoned how noble he had just acted, allowing a foreigner to pass safely through his country. He felt proud and elated about his rule once again. He could have treated the visitor to some fine food too, for it did look as if he came from a place not as prosperous as this. At this, he suddenly remembered the meal which he had not yet finished and returned to his plate. The bones never seemed to taste so good before.

The sound of an approaching monster on wheels shook the manthri off his statue like posture. He looked once at the monster and then at the young one in the street and rushed back to the lawn. From the centre of the lawn, he looked around with appreciation - as if he was seeing it for the first time. He shrugged off the physical realities, foldedfour legsrlegs and returned soon to his world of utopian dreams.ambianceience around seemed to have been made specially for his high thinking, and almost as perfect as the world of his plan.

Seeing the enemy reach the border, the senapathi felt relieved. After all, there was no harm done. Maybe it was his threats which drove him away. Maybe it was the gods themselves who did it. Such arrogant aliens should not be allowed to set foot again. At this thought, he looked at the closed door and was diving fast into depression when he saw the door opening and his little mistress coming towards him. There was the kindest being he had ever seen in his life, the epiof loveflove and care. He had a last look at the young orphan and rushed onto the hands of his mistress. The hug seemed to be warmer than ever before.

As the street puppy crossed the next border, a few meters away from our house on the 1A Main, Stbed, Koramangala I could hear another crowd of angry royal dogs proclaiming their rights.

The Other Deepak

Intel, Airport Road, Bangalore

Well, it was just another dull afternoon in office. My sleepy eyes were just fooling around the computer, passing over lots and lots of letters, which at times, joined together and made sense and at other times joined together and made nonsense. The sight of minimized work windows in the toolbar made the situation more pathetic by reminding of all that's left for the day.

The telephone rang. "You have a visitor" said the guard with his (and mine) typical mallu accent. Delighted, went down immediately to see who had this wonderful idea of not informing beforehand and giving me 6 floors of suspense. The guard pointed me to a tall fat guy in the sofa. I did not recognize him. He also looked puzzled. He said "No no, he is not Deepak Sreedhar"! I could not even stand the thought of losing my name, let alone the identity. I retorted "No no, I'm deepak Sreedhar". Then he says, "Deepak Sreedhar is a short guy with no specs - I met him last week". Now totally convinced that he is not looking for me (see I had my specs when I was 10 and time travel is not here yet!). I told him "boss - I know i'm Deepak Sreedhar, but you may be looking for another Deepak". He smiled, apologized, shook hands and left. Refreshed by the turn of events, I returned to work.

The telephone rang again. "Deepak - are you coming for the meeting>". Oh no, yet another meeting coming up. "Which meeting are you speaking about?", "Mohan's meeting". "Which Mohan?". "Are u not deepak". "Yes I think so". "You dont know mohan?" .. set me thinking - neither my ex classmate mohan nor mohanlal works in intel .. "No, not here - I think I'm not the kind of deepak you would love to invite for this meeting". "Sorry, can you transfer the phone back to the reception?". I did that. A minute later, the phone rang again. Same voice. The reception had directed the call back to me!

Evening: I was just about to shut down the system and get back to house, when I saw a new email from a new female who had a nice name. It said "Hi Deepak, i think you are the cousin of Padma, if so writing to say a hi to you, otherwise, sorry for the mistake". Ha, the third incident! Of course i had to reply - "I do not think I have a cousin by that name"

The next day morning: I was happy to see a letter in my mailbox after a long time. The letter was unfortunately from Citibank and said something like "last week you asked for the TPIN and we gave it to you". Ha! Banks beginning to do automatic transactions for us was a frightening prospect. I checked the address again - it started with "Mr. Deepak Sridhar, Intel Technologies". Again " D E E P A K correct S R I" ..

Yahoo! That is it and this is him.. Mr. Deepak SRIDHAR. I send the Sridhar a mail, "Hello The Other, lets sign the treaty to transfer mails and calls and visitors to the correct person. Thanks, The Other" . Next day morning, i got a great reply "I hope it stops with misdirected letters - I would hate to send away a good looking girl looking for me!"

You Shooting Me?

STBED, Bangalore

It was just another wonderful saturday night (or sunday morning, deoending on perspective - 2 A.M to be exact). We (myself and friends - Santhosh, Binoy, Riyaz) were at our home in STBED - "where history never gets the time to sleep" - enjoying the usual mixture of malayalam film songs + english movies + adventure + hindi music and wondering why this week has had no really interesting stories to offer so far. Our other roomie, Bijunu, was still in office, thanks (not at all) to his project release.

"Tak, Tak" ,, knocks on the door .. seemed like Bijunu has returned after hammering all the bugs. We looked at each other with the "open the door you lazy @#$%" kind of smile. Finally Santhosh decided to take a break from the yahoo messenger windows and walked towards the door. The gamer-adventurer that he is, and in addition hailing from Kannur, decided to give Bijunu a wlcome in military style. . ..

He got ready with his imaginary shotgun and switched to commando operation mode, in a posture that would have humbled even the black cats. He stood behind the door and slowly released the lock without making noise. Then, after another second of silence, he suddenly opened the door and jumped outside in full commando spirits. While still in the air, he released three bullets from his shotgun, along with the appropriate sound effects "dihkou. dishkou, dishkou"

Then, to our surprise, he suddenly seemed to have got transported straight to the madame tussauds museum. Stillness for a second. Slowly, the shotgun disappeared. .He turned and looked at us with a peculiar smile. And then we heard a loud unfamiliar voice from outside "You,shooting me?"

We rushed to the door .. and saw the sight that made our weekend . There was a couple of people standing outside seemingly as amazed as we were. Only that they were both wearing khaki uniforms. Police!

And as they left and the door got shut, a hell of laughter broke loose. The saturday night was still young. .

A Vishu Kani Like This

STBED, Bangalore

It was early morning on vishu day. My sleep was into its last yaamams when I faintly heard noises of a couple of my friends getting up to see the kani. I did not get up, partly because I was not impressed by the idea of seeing the kani on TV (yeah, that was their master plan made the night before!) - though there was some truth in their claim that TV is the only place where u can see the "full" kani, I maintained that it's actually the TV they're seeing as kani - and partly because I did not want to lose my sleep so early for that sort of a kani. Of course, the latter being the bigger part!

I had my own plans of kani which was pretty simple. We have a photo of lord krishna in our room - that would serve a good part of the purpose. Nut what about the rest of the kani? That was the master stroke of the plan - u know, its not difficult for you to imagine a full-fledged kani provided that you know all the necessary contents - so just close your eyes as soon as you get up and imagine!

But then there was this truth about sleep which I ignored - u lose a bit of ur sense of direction and purpose when u sleep! And then there was the Murphy's law. So, as soon as I opened my eyes I had to shut it back because what I saw was one of those TV-kani friends of mine! I made it up a little by executing my earlier plans - of course, the imagination was not to the expectation with respect to the colours and it did take some time to retrieve from memory, the list of kani items - but nevertheless it was a valiant effort.

Still whatever that happened was disturbing. So I decided to ask my kani-friend whether he had seen the kani on TV. My logic was this - it may not be that bad seeing, as kani, a person who had seen some kind of a real kani - "aishwaryam" might just be passed on through him. My friend laughed and answered "yes" - to my delight. He continued - "We woke up at 4.30 am, switched on the TV, opened our eyes, and saw with the background of konnapoovu..." - and then came the statement which caused my infant delight to vanish - none other than Kunjacko Boban!"

What a course!

Dec 6, 2002 - Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

I'm about to write about a cuurse i had audited in the Mathematics dept at IISC. Algenra, it was called. No, no i'm not going to put down equations here ( as if i remember any ) but plan to write about the most important part of the course, which happened yesterday.

2 days back the prof. sent us a mail inviting us for a "High Tea" at his home after the course at his house! We were a little bit reluctant at first - we had not attended all the lectures, we hadn't submitted assignments and we hadn't taken the test .. and after all this going for tea? Doesn't it sound bad?

But then our sense of duty woke up, though a bit late. Someone quoted "Yatha yatha hi chayasya, ma courseshu kadha chana" and said that it meant " drink ur tea, dont think about the story of the course". We did not attend all the lectures, we did not submut any assignemtn, we did not take the teat .. and after all this if we do not even go for tea .. will it not look too bad?

So we reached there on time. After 1 hr of great chatting, it was time for our main program to start. SURPRISE. Instead of high tea what was awaiting us was high hot kannada DINNER! Most delicious bisibelebath, curd rice, raitha, pickles and a whole lot of other items, some of which i didn't know the names of ..finally ending with a payasam .. what a sin it was, to have ever thought of not coming here!

Performed my duties well.. 2 rounds each for bisibelebath and curd rice, and then 2 rounds of payasam. Realisation was striking - that kannada food can actually be good! Of course, we did find some time in between to thank the hands that made the food. Finally when we were about to leave the house, there came up this last question to the prof - "are you offering any course next semester?"