Railway station, Name Board and a Red checked shirt…!

Have you ever seen people holding boards with some names in the airport receiving area, and wondered if you would ever get to be received like that?

Have you ever thought more and asked yourself do they have the right names? What if they had something like “Hell …Welcomes.. Moron of the millennium” or something stupendously funny!
Well a guy asked me to such a thing once.

This is about one of those guys I knew from Cookeville. .....

have to edit some super mean lines by the author who later thought it needs to be deleted..appreciate for pointing it out.....

... and this happened in one of my high on ego days....so bear with me!

It was sometime in November 2003 when he stopped me on my way to my apartment and was for some reason….he was overtly nice asking about how and whereabouts. I was almost thrown back to rethink about his sexual orientation for such a display of his new found affection. I thought….

Is he all right…I don’t know about you buddy…but am straight…don’t friggin hit on me!

Then a day later, I was walking the same way…. again this guy stopped me….this time he wanted a favor….

Now I think I can pattern recognize….

“So what can I not do for you….oops I mean what kind of a favor you want”

“Dude you are going to India this December right, could you be of any help to me there?”

Well yeah…. I can teach what life is all about and let you know how to live….atleast in my own idiotic way….

“Yeah! If that’s something that I could do…sure why not”

May be he wants me to get some package to or from India….Oh God …these package monsters have already started their killings…even a month before my trip…..I am going to be victimized now…how many…3, 4 or 5 lbs of chocolate and FedEx….not again….why are these people doing this to me in spite of me not telling anyone to deliver or bring anything to me…save me...!

“I am coming to India sometime mid December…..”

Ahh! Thank you God …he is not one of those folks with their humungous packages!

“….I will be flying in to Chennai ….I have a friend who is coming from Hyderabad to receive me in the airport and go with me to my home town….he is new to Chennai and he is my best friend …..he comes sometime in the morning and he does not have any place to go to in Chennai …would you be with him and entertain him for the day…I would be taking the train that night to Hyderabad …if my flight comes on time…else I will have to take the next day morning train….”

Did he say entertain?

“What do you want me to do exactly?”

“Well…basically….”

I don’t know what is that almost every other Indian (including myself sometimes) use this basically word to begin a sentence…. why would everything start from a basic level…even if you are in middle of the conversation…is it just an Indian thing?

“…you will have to receive him from the Central station and take a car from a local travels….put him in a lodge closer to the airport ….take him around the city …show him places…wait for me to come to the airport in the evening and drop us later in the Railway station that night else next day morning….that’s it!”

That’s it!? Then you should wake up and go back to school starting all the way from kinder garden…

“Dude…are you high on dope or something…you realize what you are asking here right….you don’t even know me that well….and I am going there for a mere 20 odd days and you are asking me to spend a day with you and your beloved friend…? Are you out of your mind?”

I was not able to bear a face of disappointment.

“Okay…I can do a part of it…not all …I can receive him from the Railway station and may be drop somewhere closer to the airport the same morning after breakfast or lunch…I cant spend the whole day with him…Honestly I don’t foresee having anytime …you can try other people who are coming to Chennai and ask if they are of any help”

“I did…and Balaji said he could be of some help”

I don’t understand this …I don’t know why people ask a same favor to two people and not let the two know about it…

A couple of days later….

“Barath…I spoke to my friend ….he said he is glad that you are coming to receive him…”

“Do you have ticket details and such?”

“Nope”

“How am I going to know who is he?”

“Do you have his picture or something?”

“Nope”

“You don’t have a picture of your best friend..?”

“No….May be you can do this…”

“What? Take a picture when I meet him?”

“No....Can you have a Name board with my friend’s name and stand in the Railway station so he can come by to you directly?”

“Are you kidding me? What do you think am doing for you….a favor buddy…remember that…am not going to go and hold some board with your friends name on it!”

“Okay…okay…I understand”

Then he asked me that….I don’t have a clue what his thought process was just before he was telling this…..he was god damn serious….

“Can you do this then?”

“What?”

“Can you hold a name board telling that your name is Barath? So he can find you directly and talk to you?”, he was drop dead serious….!

There are several moments in my life where I was completely bowled over by someone’s thought process…. this is certainly in the top 10….

Did he just say what I think and heard as what he said?

After few moments of silence and shock, “Dude…WTF is your problem man….do you expect me to hold a board with my name on it….so everyone on their way out of their train…come to me and congratulate me for being the Barath I can be?…..!!@&^#(*&@", he reacted in a..May-be-you-are-correct way.....

What is the reaction...? Dude...you need some serious help!

If I do what he had told me to do...

What would I look like… May be like this?








Then I suggested that his friend would wait for a while in the same platform as the train arrived….and come with a specific shirt color of his choice and let me know about it earlier….the point was to go a little later so he would be all by himself with the shirt I know…so would be easy to get hold of him…..sounded like a fool proof plan…

The day before he called me to say that it was a 4 30 am train.! I had to say no to the previously arranged temple visit and was bored of getting all the thrashing from parents for not visiting god for a guy I don’t even know and like..

The day came and I was told he would come with a red checked shirt….twice… I was told red checked shirt…..

I drove to the station around 5 with my friend….and went around looking for the man with red checked shirt …..and no where I found anyone of that sort…The central station was huge and after an hour of search in vain I called it quits….These were the days with no cell phones and stuff….so I have no way of communicating to this guy!….All that guy had was my home phone number….so I called my folks to see if someone called for me …and Nope… was the answer….. I was pissed to the core….

I was reminded of the quote that goes on the lines like…."Tell me about your friends …I will tell about you”…!

May be I should have guessed it

I guess I will have a long day… I thought to myself before heading back home

I stepped back in to my home and the phone rang…the guy calls me from the station and after waiting for more than 2 hours…I told him to get an auto and reach my place….

Cirrreeeeeng! The calling bell cracked….

I opened the door and there was this guy……

“...Hey.....You are Barath….I saw you in the station”

“What? You could have stopped me!”

“You were running up and down …looking for someone….I never knew it was me you were looking for”

I was even more pissed…!

Then he took his books out of his small tiny bag and asked me if I could tell him where the library is as he intended to pursue some reading before meeting his friend….!

That was the most simple looking person I have ever met.

I was dumbfounded again …in a nicer way…he did not ask about food…shower…what do we do next…anything…..Library!…that’s the first thing he asked!

He stayed there at my place for a few minutes and he said he had coupled some important academic things so he wanted to visit the Egmore library and left soon after the shower and breakfast. While he was leaving, I asked him…..

“What happened to the red checked shirt?”

“No…! He told me blue checked shirt…..Twice…he insisted blue checked shirt….”

I was dumbfounded again

Now I am sure that quote is not exactly true in all cases….!

Hilarious!

'Love' from a Kodak moment - WY4 - Part 2

Part 1 is here

As days progressed, we understood each other and started to spend time more and more with each other as we finally approached the big stage called Marriage.

Man it sounds great. I wish it was like this. But as you all can guess it was not. I was getting Romeoer day by day, doing stupid things with the motorcycle, sunglasses et al.

One fine day, Mr.Bob, my beloved pop, stopped by my street-cricket stint and told me to get in his transportation device that he calls a scooter. We went towards an unknown destination, as I was enjoying it because the path was towards her house. Within the proximity of her apartment, dad stopped his vehicle and asked me "Where is her apartment?"

"Who?" with a suddenly-developed puzzled look.

"Don't act. You know who am talking about. Priyanka!" he said.

As I realized how my beloved friends, who were there at my house last evening, found their way to appreciate the veg briyani that they had in my place, I said, "Here is her apartment. Don't worry I am not serious or anything, it's just for fun"

"I know, still I wanted to know how she looks like" he was curious and led me to spend our rest of the 10 min journey eventfully describing her, the way I saw her...yes to my dad.

Hence everyone in my family knew about her and also understood that I was not serious and I was in love. Yet again. Whatsoever, they were curious to see her.

Few days later, a pretty close family friend of ours, who lived downstairs, planned to have a Salwar exhibition opposite to my house. Naturally the billing section was few feet way from where I eat everyday. As I said already, Salwars and Dhuppatas means the world to Priyanka as well as her friends, henceforth the laws of attraction prevailed. I knew she was going to be there. Unfortunately, my whole family as well as the friends knew this. She came. She conquered. I pointed who she is from a distance, and left the place without being able to bear each one of my acquaintances walking close by and having a good look at her. It was funny to witness that. The point is that my family was approved by the way she looked and was assuming that it was important to me.

Days passed by, I grew up, went to college, found new interests. As I said, she became a part of my pastence....not history yet!

One day, as usual, I made a new friend over the train journey from Madras to Chidambaram. Needless to say, it was a She. Like I always do, I made the world smaller, and found that she knew Priyanka. I spoke to this girl as if I knew Priyanka, and the rest of the night was spent with the clan trying to explore more and more of each other.

A week later, I saw this girl again in the train. This time she was with a surprise. She said she spoke to Priyanka, and apparently she claimed to know me. For a guy who was assuming to have taken a rogue role in her life, she claiming to know me is a big thing.

"I spoke about you to Priyanka. She seem to know you from somewhere, she said that you are a nice guy. Just that you were caught in a Bad gang" is what she said.

The first thing that came to my mind was my folks. That weekend I got back to rip their lives apart. "Guys, see what's the result of us being naughty and unruly. If not for you guys, may be she would have considered me. It's all in the game, I was not serious and right now I am busy with other interests anyways. But remember I won't forget this…and I know what to do when I am serious with anyone down the line" which is the most seriously funny thing I have ever told to these folks.

Days passed by, Guna was waiting over the weekend. I still don't remember that if I heard this thro Guna or someone-else. Whatsoever, the essence of the story was in there.

"Dei, how do you think that she know your name?", he asked

"May be one of you guys shouted when she was around! Comeon da! We have our own way of finding the girls name we are interested in. May be she had her way of finding the folk's name who was interested in her. How does it matter anyway?", I said.

"Apparently, the guy she was talking about is not you!" he said as I was not surprised. "Remember, my friend Bharath, who hung out with us the other day, it was him she was talking about. She met him a coupla days ago and he found that apparently 'he had claimed to her friend in a train that he knew Priyanka'" - Oops! That was me - "And did you know who the bad gang was? Us As you always claim…the clan reflects the leadership….so do you understand the repercussions of staying in excited state for life"

I was dumbfounded. …Man I am the self-proclaimed leader, as every one of us, of this bad gang…am not even in the vicinity of being in her good books at the least! I was assuming that she thought I was put up with a bad gang ….but now it's needless to stay …that am Bad gang…the next thing was that we were rolling on the floor and laughing at this….. Celebration started…drinks all over….we all went to the bunk shop to drink the infamous "Rs.1.50 Rasna" that comes with a tag line that we stole from Pepsi "nothing official about it"

We were drinking and discussing how bad we are and how we can improve and get worser! Momentarily, I heard the sweetest voice asking for some thing in the bunk shop. Without my knowledge my jaw dropped...I turned around …and looked in to her…The voice, the eyes, the looks…for the 54th time in my life, I claimed that "I am in love for the first time".

'Love' from a Kodak moment - WY4 - Part 1

Time for some walk down the memory lane…after a series of seemingly serious posts, I thought I should take a break and post something less read-worthy but remember-worthy!

As I claimed before, somewhere in one of my previous posts, I have fallen in love quite a few times. Well, with respect to love, I am not even close to Forrest Gump, because I safely would say that I don't know what Love is. But sure I loved to tell that 'I am in love', without knowing what it is. Yes! That's what I did quite a few times, and this is one of those! Good gods, that it stayed with me and didn't take that humongous amplification, unlike some stupidities, and push me to tell it to those people involved.

For some reason, throughout my life the girls that I come across with the name Priyanka were all on the best looking category. It started from the one that I have been trying to forget but couldn't do so! And henceforth the flashback begins…

Statutory warning: There is no message at the end of this misery called a series of comical sequences in the life of yours truly.

"Dude, I have nothing to do for the next few hours? Do you want to go to the Marina beach?" Guna tried to make it sound as an unusual remark to overcome a fact that we are always jobless.

"Yeah! Let's go there! I know that one of my friends is coming there today with a couple of her friends…! Dude! She is so damn pretty da…quite lately I have been thinking of falling in love with her!" said Santhosh, indicating the motivation factors to step in and start our walk towards the coast.

In a jiffy we were along the coastlines of the Marina, trying to find the three seemingly good-looking girls. After quite a while, looking for them all along the second largest beach in the world, we found them near the waves. We were a group of six notorious young "wannabe" men, at least we thought so. So, everyone around was looking at us for the reasons that we did not want to know. But all we wanted was that one look from her and she did. "Cloud 9!" I screamed within myself!

After few following stints, it started to get monotonous. As for me, I did not find her particularly attractive. She was good. But nothing in her shook me, the way I wanted to be. So I was trying to find someone else to entertain my late-teen self for the rest of the evening, so was the other four with me…. all of a sudden…something stuck us…we thought of using the camera we had ….and may be get a good picture of her.... so she lasts longer than she would!

Now, who is going to take it…and it's important that we need to get a good closer shot…tough job indeed…. and henceforth we needed a scapegoat …someone who doesn't think about the world, rather at that time world is just those girls, or someone for whom it doesn't matter…. well we had one guy who was a perfect fit…and he was the volunteered one…Hemanand…. We went closer….

We stayed a few steps away…and he approached…as he heard the three girls were talking bout what means a world to them, the color combinations on their dhuppatas!! He stepped in closer…jus 3-4 ft distance … with the camera in the right place for the snap….

I don't know if it's the movies or in reality, a beautiful girl always hangs out with a couple of below average ones (dochus) and always stay in the right position! Not that I want to make statement about the other two, but even in this case, she was hanging out with them and sitting exactly in the middle as the side fiddles talking as I said what meant the world to them. She was in the perfect position as if she knew that we were going to take a picture.

"Excuse me" he screamed, the moment they looked at him. Clicked it. Thanked them. Swooshed in 2 seconds.

Obviously the Paprazism doesn't happen to them quite often, hence they were perturbed. They picked all their stuff and started to follow him, as he started running. We all did not know how to react and hence scattered all around the beach. This is not something that we all wanted to do, but something excited us and we followed the gut feeling that turned in to partial guilt. We ran all over the place, and finally finished the evening, meeting back at our usual joint near my place.

After an argument of developing/exposing it…we finally agreed on seeing how it came out to be….right away we paid our visit to the studio.

Few days passed by as we started to forget what happened. One fine evening, Santhosh stopped by to show us those pictures.

The picture was not perfect! But she was! For the 37th time in my life, I claimed that 'I am in love for the first time'. She was ravishingly beautiful, much better than how I saw her in person. But then, Santhosh was interested in her, henceforth as a sacrificial anode, I had to control my emotions that were overflowing.

Days passed by, Santhosh found a new interest. Never told me why he found a quitter in himself. I was more jobless…So I planned to cement my Love. I was exactly like those road side Romeos that you get to see in Tamil movies, making fun of people around me, trying to get her attention in all possible ways. And the fact that she was living a few streets away from me helped to stay within her spectrum of vision and thoughts. Finally, she knew me for all possible reasons that I don't want to know.

As a matter of fact, I asked her once if she needs a ride back home from her software center, where she was waiting on something. She smiled, which by the way shook me the way I wanted to be, and said that she would some other day as she is expecting someone to pick her up that day. I know it sounds stupid now, but then it was bliss then. She smiled!

Part 2 is here

Roomies!

My life with roomies started from my first year of collegiate education - 1996….sounds like a long time ago! Since then I have never experienced an “alone” stint for more than few weeks, and when I do there is always someone I will find my fun with! Be it a roommate or a friend who shares the same thought process, the fun part will always appear, getting rid of the “alone” feeling!

Well, with roomies, the seemingly idealistic case is when we spend the few months/years of together time that we have and peacefully part with or without the sentimental bull and promises to stay in communication grounds, spending the rest of the lives trying hard to keep it in tact. Or sometimes we end up as great friends for the rest of our lives. But things doesn’t always flow this smooth! Sometimes turbulence prevails in every step we take!

“Don’t try to teach me how to live! I think I can manage at 22”

“I don’t think I can be with you guys any more. I can’t stand the way you guys make fun of me, and just me all the time”

Right after the regular Wal-Mart grocery shopping, “Well, I guess its time separate grocery bills! I don’t think I will eat chips, so I don’t want to share that in the bill”

And this happened even before the invention of cell phone, “I won’t receive any phone calls! So I guess I won’t share the phone bill”

All these quotes were from people who claimed to be my roomies one time or the other. So you can see I was not the best roommate in the world and so were they. Considering the fact that I had quite a lot of roomies (you are bound to when you have such a long student life) and only a few have lodged the first information report, I can claim to be a reasonably good human! May be all these roomies are the most important reason for the little patience that I think I possess. Anyways, let me step out of this autoroomiography and make this generic to make it an interesting reading material.

It is amazingly true that a good friend doesn’t necessarily have to be a good roomie and this holds true the other way too! The constraint holds good only when your character is almost framed, and is definitely false when you are stepping in the so-called character development stage. Most of the roomie problems start with the daily chores or stuff that involves money. I have seldom had/heard of roommate problems during my undergrad days when neither money nor the chores is a headache. Perhaps it’s the age thing, or may be it’s all those other petty stuff that derives this enormous amount of importance.

But life without a roomie wouldn’t be fun as well. Both from the monetary as well as from the fun perspective, it is easy with a roommate. I have seen loads of people who fail in the “adjustments-0001” course. The examination revealed that these people were never passed through the “life-with-a-roommate” phase and have learnt just to demand and not to accept. Life with a good roomie shows you lot of good things and life with a bad roomie teaches you even more. Again, good and bad is a personal definition so there is no point in arguing which one is right.

On the other hand, how could we create peace? As I said earlier, I have had several roomies and there is atleast one quality that I would like to learn from each one of them. And that attitude certainly sowed the seeds of harmony under the roof. This learning process was mutual most of the time, and I had my way through by making them believe that I might have one. More the qualities that we look for, more the harmony we derive. Sometimes, if we keep looking for those qualities in vain, it creates chaos as well. So it’s highly necessary to accept what they have and not expect a lot of what they don’t have. If we try not teaching life rather than learning it, I guess roomies wouldn’t be such a problematic term.

Remember to derive fun in everything we do. I had this roomie who was amazingly adept in cooking! Ofcourse it’s sarcastic! He had once displayed all his talents in the art of making something he claimed to be sambar. Everything was fine with that except for one thing. What he made was a bread sambar. Yes! you read it right. Bread was the major ingredient. Right off the bat, it was horrible. Couldn’t resist, but finished the dinner with curd rice et al without even going near the untouchable. Till date we cease his energy with this! Whenever he is in high state making fun of everyone around him, this story pops to shut him up! Like my soppu story. That day would have been a mess if we had irritated him as well as ourselves for making that sambar. Instead, we waited to appreciate his effort and not the product and till date its fun to get back and see how bad it was.

I don’t want to compare roomies to co-passengers in the life-train, where they get down as they reach their destination. Roomies are beyond co-passengers, sometimes they teach how to live and sometimes how not to! Either way it’s a positive progression. So you derive something with them and remember it unlike what you do with co-passengers.

When you are miles apart and even if you live and die with your cell phone and other communication devices, a “personal-comfort” is always priceless. Be it from a friend or from a roommate, it is worth beyond the words of expression. So when we claim that he/she is a bad roomie or a good roomie, be aware of the fact that it reflects what you are with him/her.

Communication hain! In vain!

Don’t worry this is not a Hindi post.

“Abbe, Mere ko thoda help chaaiyiye, tu free hain na?”, he asked, assuming that I can understand whatever he was trying to convey!

“Kabhi haan kabhi naa” I said, the first movie title that came to my mind, as my ass fuming on his assumption!

“Acha, sun…” and he started talking something which is no where near my comprehending capabilities! After extreme difficulties, I had to search, invent and live with words like Ruk… Nahi or something like that to stop him in the middle to say that I really did not know that my first answer failed to convey the message that I don’t know Hindi and am really bad at it.

Hindi along with English is listed as the official language of India and a significant number of people use this language to communicate, yet I was able to survive my 25 years, actually 26 as of today, without knowing it. As a south Indian, it was never a big deal for me. I am not sure about the other states, but as for Tamilnadu, you aren’t lost without Hindi. Considering the fact that my school population was dominated by a fair amount of Hindi speaking people, my Hindi skills(!) are quite surprising to most of my acquaintances. On the other hand the Northern most part I have been to, in India, is may be somewhere in Andhra! So, I never felt the necessity.

Yet, it never stopped me from going to all those so-called contemporary classics of my age! Hindi movies! I still can’t forget Dil to pagal hain 1st day 1st show. Couldn’t get a better ticket, so paid Rs.65 for Rs.6.50 ticket and was watching the movie from the second row. This is time when subtitles were like time travel….impossible to achieve….especially in theatres . The climax was on…needless to say that I was lost…

“Rahul! Nam tho sunna hoga!” or something like that. Shahrukh Khan was about to dump the gorgeous Madhuri (the very reason for me being there) and himself, when Guna and myself couldn’t understand a single speck of what’s happening in the movie! …What the hell..? They were just singing together…why in the world they are dumping each other! is what I was thinking!

That’s when I saw that….two typical Indian girls in the first row…in tears with uncontrollable emotions!

“Guna! I think this is an emotional scene. May be we should react!...What ya say?” I did not have a clue how to respond!

“Ok! Mams. Let’s appreciate the acting! There is nothing else we can do” he said, and thus we ended the emotional exhibitions with a row of whistles for Shahrukh and Madhuri’s acting…who as usual did nothing but walked away from each other and called it as acting skills. Ended up saving some of the worst “Are you from this planet?” stares from the folks who were involved in the senti”mental” sorrow.

So, in summary! This is how we both reach each other. I meant Hindi and Myself! Never goes well together.

But it’s quite different when you are outside India or may be outside Tamilnadu. Almost, everyone assumes that you understand Hindi. Let me not delve deeper in to the sanity of that assumption. But, not knowing a language that most of the other country folks think as one of the basic attributes of a person from India could be hurting. I have had people asking me, “You mean to say that you don’t know the language the most of your country folks speak?” Before explaining the fact that, I can still be at my best in my country without knowing it, and sometimes arguing it based on the distributed Hindi speaking populations and dialect stories, it would occur that perhaps I could have avoided a whole lot of crap by knowing Hindi.

For some reasons, all my attempts to marry Hindi failed miserably.

I still remember one of my good friends emailing me about my completeness as an Indian association Leader with a little Hindi skill. In the end, I turned out to be better than few of my predecessors who were blessed with all language capability.

Perhaps it’s a South Indian thing, which is sealing my brains from learning and understanding Hindi. Or it’s a jinx of some kind. But from where I was, I have certainly improved and have started to accept and understand it or at the least attempting for it.

“Abbe, amazing catch! yaar!” I was attempting to appreciate a decent catch on the field that day, when a friend of mine noticed a tinge of Hindi.

“Baratha…Kya bath hain! You are good man! Hindi and you…may be you both are coming together yaar” he said.

Abbe, amazing catch! Yaar, if this is Hindi. I think I can survive anywhere overseas.

In anycase, as you see, I have never felt the necessity of learning it. I was never pushed to a point, where Hindi was my only way out. All I hope is that if a situation arises and when I understand the necessity, it shouldn’t be late. Right now, may be the Abbe, amazing catch! Yaar Hindi is good enough to be in this clan and say that I can manage with the language that atleast 180 million people in India speak!

Student..! Eternal!?

“6 X 7 = 44”, I said as the Evert in my mom demonstrated her forehand skills to my Cerebellum!

“Tables are the most important thing for the rest of your life! You make sure you are not making any mistakes!” she said as I struggled without realizing a calculator would help me in years to come! – It was 1983 and I was forced to listen.

“Physics, Chemistry, Biology….ah ...here you go! it’s not going to be easy this year. You better start getting serious…No more baby talks brother!” my brother was competing for the most improved Satan of the year award! It was 1987 and I was confused and did not have a clue if I have to listen or not.

“Well, it's 9th standard. This means no more street-cricket. You need to pull your socks and work your heart and soul to get in to the first group!” my father was dead serious and something in my heart said may be he is right! Lets do it! …after last few days of cricket and fun....... It was 1993 and I was changing.

“What do I say? I still can’t understand why and how you screwed it up! Your marks are not that bad …but certainly doesn’t reflect your skills” my mom was concerned.

“Maa! No worries…for this mark I will get the group that I want to go in…Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Comp. Sci with French!…I still can’t understand what’s the big deal in this 10th standard exams. Its just a formality to get in to a group” with vengeance and furious anger I claimed myself to be the Lord!

“Shut up Barath! After scoring like this, you dare to raise your voice!?” that’s mom’s way of telling I don’t have an answer!! It was 1994 and I started to talk.

“Barath!!? Its 4.10 in the morning!!” my dad woke me up!

“Yes appa! Am up!!” I responded with my 12th standard chemistry book right beside me.

0420 coffee. 0745 breakfast. 0815-1405 Gill Adarsh. 1445-1700 Math or French tution. 1800-2130 Physics and Chemistry. 2200 dinner. 2230 homeworks, exams preps etc., 2345 and after sleep. ….0420 coffee again! No weekends! No holidays! Day in and Day out this was my schedule for a year! That’s how middle class corps works!!

I fell in love! With an open category (OC) dream, called a professional degree. May be it was a forced dream!It was 1995, I was focused for the first time.

“Well, you have options Mr.Barath. Chemical or Computer Science? Which one do you prefer!?” I can’t bet if I was the first on in the world, but I am sure I was the only one in the room thinking that Chemical Engineering sounded geekier than computer science! It was 1996 and I started to see a future!

“Machi! Could you explain this shrinking core model!?” my friend was absolutely lost in translation. As for him, Chemical Engineering was Latin.

“Mams, it’s the first one on the Appadithan concept list!” I kindled!

“What the f(*& is that? Man are we in the same planet..did I skip a chapter”, he was thinking loud!

“Appadithan means “it’s like that”, which means you can’t understand a shit! You will, when you do your masters degree! So, shut your garb and assume that you understood and just puke it back if you need marks. For heavens sake, we just have 2 hrs before the exam”…did I just let my secret out!!? I guess it was 1998 and I was not even attempting to work!

“Perfidious?” I asked Vivek, who ran the query in his word-list-data-base-system and said, “Treacherous, Disloyal..!”

“Perfecto!” I said as we explored our brilliance with Barrons! It was 1999, I was preparing for the inevitable brain drain.

“Did you finish the assignment? If so, email the file to me. I will make some changes and submit! After the cafeteria job…I don’t think I will be able to finish the homework myself” my earthquake friend cried as he was trying to be in touch with his M.S course material. It was 2000, and I was working!

“Dr. I guess I can say that I just finished my final exam of my final course in life!” which means I did not have anything to talk for that meeting that day.

“Never say that Barath! You will never know how much you would have to learn later in life! May be you have a PhD in the making!” said my advisor! It was 2002, and I was en route to add a couple of letters more to my educational adventures!

“Dei Chinni! How are you?” my friend usually calls me with all new made up names, especially in the excited state!

“Who the f*&^ is that? Chinni?” I had no clue what he was talking about!

“Machi that’s you da…you are the only one in our gang who is still a student…25 and studying!! You are our Chinni Jayanth da” I was rolling on the floor for this! (for non-tamil folks, Chinni Jayanth is a film artist who is known for acting as a college student even at his late 30s)

Did I just finish my last course work, my candidacy et al and finally have just my research left?Its year 2005, I am still a student and loving it. I am listening. I am changing. I am working. I am learning and with all this I am living! Living in a dream of reality. A technocrat in the making, killing an almost eternal student!? May be in days to come! Right now I have nothing but “I am still an academic student” to proclaim! And sure I am in love with these last few months!

Hopefully!

Car, living room, earthquake and days after! WY-3 - Part 2

Part 1 is here

But….I responded with the accelerator instead of the brakes!

In few seconds I was inside my living room. Yes! I looked back to see that the car was right inside my living room.

“What the f#$%? The walls used to be stronger in India!” said one of my multiple personalities!

How did I penetrate my own living room! How much do I have in my bank account!? What am I going to do… were the thoughts that were flowing thro’ my mind as I pulled my car out of my living room! Soppu was still undisturbed. I gave her that piercing look and said “We are divorced”. She smiled back and said, “We were never married” with just a few scratches on her forehead.

My friend, who was fighting for world peace upstairs, came down running. If a car can pierce through the wall, imagine the tremors in the room right above the living room! “Machan! Earthquake!” that’s what he was shouting! I gave him that look that gleamed with Pride and Honor! “It’s me” I said, without taking my eyes off the achievement!

The car that was assumed to be a useful piece for in-town activities, ended up to be used for in-house activities! In few minutes, I understood that I cannot do anything about it. So, I said to myself, “Let us enjoy this moment!” and hence the cameras popped up! Digital cameras were luxury then, so bear with the scanned versions!

Inside view

The cops and the landlord came to witness the miracle. They were amazed by the fact that the unthinkable happened! The cop was dumbfounded and this was the conversation.

Cop: “Hello Sir, are you okay?”
Me: “No, I won’t be until I know what the consequences are”
Cop: “Can I have your License Sir”
Me: “No Sir, I don’t have one!”
Cop: “Oh! Can I have your learners permit?”
Me: “No Sir, I don’t have one!”
Cop: “Oh! Do you know your License plate is expired 4 months ago?”
Me: “No Sir, I don’t”
Cop: “Do you have any kind of insurance to this car?”
Me: “No Sir, I don’t”
Cop: “Oh, Man you could end up in jail for this!”
Me: “No sir I don’t want to”
Cop: “Are you the one who just ran the car inside the living room?”
Me: “Yes, Sir I am”
Cop: “I know. I am just making sure that you know to say yes”

Well, after the initial formalities the cool cop took some pictures for some insurance issues. Luckily, I had a way through the mess without doing anything, which the cop handled. And the rest of the day was filled by seeing the mess from different angles!

Front view

Two days after this incident, I was at a coffee shop, waiting on the line to pay for the celebration. A bunch of undergraduates, were enjoying their ignorance, as they were talking about some funny incident that happened near their apartment complex.

This white guy who standing in front of me, with his excitement popping out as much as his eye balls, was narrating something to his friends, “There was dis guy wita huge car who jus slammed in to his own livin room man! That was so damn kool!! I have neva seen nythin like dat bfore!” without realizing that I was right behind him.

After listening to it, I said, “Buddy! It was me. Do you want to see some pics?”

Other view

The funny part of this story was that the whole similar kind of a mishap happened again, to the same wall. Six months later! The cops was rolling on the floor and laughing at us! This time it was my friend, the one who came down running did the honors with a different car. He was not able to match the standards that I had set, but he certainly did well and made it easy for us to get out of that apartment right after that without any problems with the lease!!

Earthquake friend and myself

May be we should have had a Stop sign right in front of our apartment. As for the house, its still struggling without a good door!

Here we go! One last good lookat it!...Man I did a good job!

The Final Look

Car, living room, earthquake and days after! WY-3 - Part 1

I guess its time for a less serious post! This is one of my best kept secrets from home and I guess I don’t have to store it anymore! Here we go with one of my Indiana Jones stories!

Grad student life is different from what we think it is before we come here. I don’t know about others, but for me USofA was all about technology and comfort before I came here. I was not exactly looking for Skyscrapers around me but I did not expect a small township as well. Cookeville was one such town. But you can’t ask for a better place than this to do your Grad studies. Extremely affordable cost of living, above average nice people who are willing to understand different cultures amidst those usual morons and more than everything, it’s so damn small and connected. Especially, within the Indian community that is not more than 120-140 in number, which never let you walk alone in the few years of Cookeville life. Everyone is a celebrity and everyone is a kid to be taken care of! Even if you break the wind, people will get to know it in a jiffy! It’s that small!

It was more than 4 years ago, when one of my friends told me about our senior’s car which was lying in the parking lot, asking for help. This amazingly huge almost antique piece was in very good condition with respect to Cookeville standards and henceforth was assumed to be a useful piece for in-town activities. All we had to do was to change the tires and start using it, which took us less than 100 bucks! Hence in no time, we the 4 roomies were the owners of this late 1980’s Oldsmobile car. We did not pay a penny for it as the owner was happy to get rid of it in the first place. The car was functioning properly, we drove it in the parking lot and hence we were good to go!

Everything is set, except for one thing. None of us had the License to hit the roads. And hence we coasted towards the walls! The car was in the parking lot for a while with occasional visits from us to drive only on the space outside our apartment complex. We named her Sopanasundari (Dream girl) and not Swapnasundari (the correct way of telling it).

It was April 9th 2001, Monday

One of my roomies was pretending to work in those browsing centers that are diplomatically called as PC labs. The other one was sleeping his day off around noon. The last one was tired and almost dying with a viral fever or something like that. The only one who was home and conscious was yours truly. It was then, my desi-neighbor, Ramdas who was just 5 apartments away, came by for the usual onions and cooker issues.

Our apartments were duplex kinds, where we have the living room and the kitchen and in the ground floor and the two bedrooms in the 1st floor. So when I say he was 5 apartments away, it’s on the same row, which is less than 30 seconds walking time.

Few minutes after he conquered the onions and the cooker, I asked that question,

“Ramdas, do you need a ride back home!?”

I still wonder, why I asked that question. I was so damn bored, I wanted to do something, and hence driving, which was always an adventure with Soppu!

In minutes, I drove him home! I dropped him and returned to my apartment when all his roomies and his friends who had gathered there was looking and smiling at my sweetheart. Well, now that Soppu had her attention flowing, she was supposed to be parked!

Soppu! She looked amazing and exactly married! Huge and undisturbed.

Our parking lots are different. Every apartment was allotted two spaces facing the front entrance. The space between the car front and the wall will be approximately 3 ft. Soppu was parked exactly how it should'nt be..the amateur driver was still learning. But then the perfectionist inside me wanted to finish it in style. As a matter of fact, he did. I changed the gears from Drive to Reverse (automatic craps)…with my right forearm over the passenger seat…I was hoping to re-park her! I wasn’t expecting to disprove Newton’s Second law, but Soppu did not react! She wasn’t moving back…I used all my force to the accelerator, the car went in the wrong direction….front instead of the reverse direction.

Instincts popped up to say! “Hey! Baburao! Press the brakes”

“Yes Mr. Instinct” I said.

But.....

Part 2 is here!

Bachelorhood

Is life better when it’s singular? I really don’t know! I have never been plural before and I don’t have any complaints except for the fact that like all men I always tend to propagate towards plurality! Either trying to add something that’s fun or family!

It was one of those, designated-driver Friday evenings for me, when few of us were discussing crap over some Miller lites. As we were talking about life and time being monotonously up-yours’ing and the fact that we needed a break from celebrating stupidity, a camping plan was born! In less than few minutes, almost 2 45 am early morning we started driving towards Smoky Mountains in search of camping spots. With neither the motel reservations to cuddle with the few hours of necessary sleep nor the camping reservations, we were driving towards a so-called spontaneous adventure ahead of us! No worries! I am not going to describe the trip here which is of no importance to you! But to provide a closed form, let me take a sentence. We went there, found a motel after a couple of hrs, found a camping spot along with the rain gods, camped in the rain, talked non-sense around the camp fire with dripping water, went for a 60 minute trail along the stream next morning, checked out few artificial rides and were back in 37 hours! We did not do anything different, but yet it was fun spending few hours without thinking about anything else.

As soon as I got back to my abnormal usual, I was thinking if I would ever do this if I was married, this spontaneously at 0245 hrs? I don’t think I could. It’s a different story when you get married. Not that I know anything by experience but just a prediction. When we are married, the fun part will be doing this whole thing spontaneously and may be making it more on a romantic plane. But this is different! Comparing these two and commenting on what’s better is like talking about apples and air! No connection whatsoever!

The part I was thinking is, what is that we enjoy being single or romantically challenged, as the Orkut people call it. I might miss a few, disregard the ignorance and enlighten me!

As I thought about it a little loud, Mr.G suggested a few earlier overlapping thoughts on this. One of which I want to use. As such, let’s stick on to the two types of bachelors, primal (18-30 years old) and advanced (30+). Since most of the readership is from the primal bachelor clan, and I don’t have any clue on the advanced stage and I don’t have any intentions knowing about it either, so let’s see the life from the primal kind’s eyes. These gentlemen, fresh from schooling, are limited by the meager incomes that entry-level positions/ graduate-student salaries provide them. Thus, they sometimes tend to live in primal groups, pooling resources in order to maintain a level of adequate sustenance.

Thought pattern – Most of the time, the thought pattern is associated with the people around the visible and invisible friends. Family members do pop-up now and then depending upon how far you stay away from them. Anyways, the life steps are taken with total personal control and none blocking it. It wouldn’t be the case if one is truly married. Even if you are committed, it wouldn’t be the case. Every step you take in almost everything you do will be overtaken by the thoughts on your own family or other half. As such, this covers the whole thing that I want to say, nevertheless it’s better to describe.

Listening – We listen to ourselves and none else. Organized or disorganized. Clean or dirty. Whatever it is, we do it only when we feel like doing it. Regardless of the economic conditions/necessity, it’s the right of the primal bachelor to get what he wants when he wants! According to us, a person who differentiates his luxuries and necessities is someone who doesn’t know that we are ear plugged to those conversations. Things don’t work that way, when you are married.

Kitchen culture - The cooking place is never to stay for more than the cooking time. Daily cleanliness is not what we expect to extract out of the kitchen as long as it can feed us the right way, with reasonable taste and devoid of bugs. The kitchen keeps changing as we approach marriage. Initially, it would be in the impossible-to-clean category for quite a long time, and then it might turn out to the approachable category, then once a month cleaning stage and then once a week. After that you would be married!

Flirtations – You flirt with almost every member of the opposite sex even with a reasonably attractive class, and above all, you accept it! Be it a girl in a grocery store or your common friend whom we just got to know – we flirt and we accept it! If you are married, in most of the cases, you don’t like the consequences of accepting it. Exceptions are not examples!

There are whole lot of other areas we can address, bathroom manners, bedroom ideas, learning to spend, proactive living etc. All these, leads to one thing that bachelorhood is all about freedom and whereas marriage is something which constraints this freedom with some things that we would be convinced to reinvent us with.

Being a bachelor is more different than how an ordinary person, who has no clue about it, personify. “A man is a man until he marries, then he becomes a husband!” is a quote from If a Man Answers that I partially agree with. Because most of us are much different before we get married and we tend to change as we start growing up with someone else after we marry them. Right now all we can claim is that the marriage with the bachelorhood is as amazing as the real one in days to come. So letting it pass as we breathe the days out of it and reasoning it with responsible living is something on the grounds of future regrets!

The Motorcycle Diaries - WY 2 - Part 2

Part 1 is here

Now that the not-so-typical-Hindi-movie-triangle is all set with Aravindan, Monal and my self as the vertices, we were looking forward to understand who she was attracted to! Aravindan, a true believer of fate and destiny presumed that his single life is all set to crash, with a single glimpse from her. On the other hand a voice popped on me saying “we had a whole lot running ahead of us”!

We planned to leave Gangothri before they start, just to negate the skeptical father-eyes! Waiting on the end of the road, on their van to start, the butterflies started to resurface!!

1920 hrs - A block away from Gangothri!

“Pathetic! Hopeless…and what else in the word that can describe my state now. I never thought I would wait for someone… like this on the road!” I was pissed on the way I was treating life!

“Machi! lets wait and see! May be there is more in store!”, Aravindan was defining perseverance

As the van passed us, we were back, tailgating, exactly at the blind spot staying away from her father’s vision! The van took us all the way to a Lloyd’s road apartment. She signaled us to wait there...Now that we were outside her apartment, we expected her to return with a usual walk or terrace-outing excuse, for exchanging numbers or at least for a coffee. After 20 minutes of nail biting walks across the apartment, we gave up!

There were no signs of her coming back! We decided to return another day and continue the adventure.

1955 hrs – My place, Mylapore!

We did not converse for the next 15 minutes! By then, silence was the best answer for all the questions that were popping up defying gravity!

With just a nod, I looked at him and asked if he is up for it!

He started my Lakshmi and told me to drive it!

2030 hrs – Outside her apartment!

I wanted to earn something for the hours spent on stupidity. The gut master woke up again! I went to the watchman and as usual started to talk crap in the intention of getting her apartment number! While Aravindan was waiting on the other side of the road expecting her to peep out and regulate steam!

B: Watchman, I forgot monals apartment number, do you know what it is?
W: Monal? No. There is no one called Monal here!
B: No Watchman, I remember coming here last time! Her father has a white Maruthi van, TMP 8073. The car was right beside the watchman’s living roof, so I just looked at the number and told him.
W: No. None in this apartment has a Maruthi van. Even this one is some guest’s vehicle.

It stuck me! I realized that she did not signal us to tell about her apartment. Instead she wanted us to wait for her to comeback! As for Aravindan, it took much lesser time, than what he spent on Boyles Law, to understand the situation!

There we were, at the end of the road waiting for her van to pass on!

2130 hrs – The bunk shop

As the Rasnas started to quench our ordinary thirst, we saw the van passing us! In few minutes, we saw Monal looking for us! The amount of love or lust or whatever she had on her eyes as she was looking for us is unquantifiable.

Looking at this, I told Aravindan “Man! If we can produce such amount of curiosity and the byproducts without a single word! How would it be if we were to talk to her?”

He looked at me and said! “Machi, Monal is looking for both of us so desperately, just because we did not utter a single word. The moment you or I deliver a word, she would be running across the city...so shut your *&*%$*&…and make sure she sees us!”

We came out the blind spot and provided the much awaited darshan for our beloved girl! It was bliss to see the achievement on her face. It sure does feel good when you are a part of any girl’s happiness. Be it a girl on road or the girl of your dreams/reality. It makes a world of difference to understand and share the feeling of completeness!

While my mind was in Rome, dancing with Monal along with Aravindan’s lighting effects, the possessive Lakshmi almost ran in to my could-have-been father-in-law’s van. My reflexes helped in swaying away from an almost accident but did nothing in dodging the father’s eye. The moment he saw me falling apart, he placed me well from Gangothri. By then all the previous scenes came back to him like the M.Night Shyamalan’s footage, helping him to correlate and understand that am the Ghost from the beginning!

2145 hrs – Finale

Without realizing the seriousness of the father-eye, we were following the van through the roads of Missapettai market, in the vicinity of my dear old Gill Adarsh, all the while signaling Monal to come out once she gets in to our future property, her home!

The van stopped in a Triplicane street. I guess it’s near Big Street or Sidoge lane! If am not wrong, it was a Sunday night, and hence the street was almost empty…! As the van stopped in front of us, atleast 100 feet, we drove slowly and to make that eye contact. The moment she saw us, she ran all the way to the top floor and signaled something from the window.

By then we did not have time to wait and understand what was going on! So we passed her house took a left and parked Lakshmi.

B: Aravinda, lets park the vehicle here and walk there!
A: Machi are u sure there is not going to be any problems!?

My search for the answers resulted in silence, as we decided to give a couple of mins before we start walking towards her house. The early hide-and-seek games helped us! Peeping from behind the walls, I made sure that her father was not in the vicinity of our adventure!

We both walked all the way on the other side of the road. After a couple of to and fro walks, we both stopped right in front of her house…on the pavement on the opposite side. Trying to look for the answers for the past 3 and odd hours spent. Faint lights, Empty Street, Triplicane smell…I was hoping it to be short! I had no clue of what was I going to do if she was out then.

She was right there! Smiled at us and said something from the top floor window! May be the pressure difference that was caused by our parallel duets in Ooty hill station, we were not able to hear a single word!! The lights were not helping us either. Without our knowledge we were in the middle of the road, trying to get near her so that we can hear or see what she was trying to say!

As we stepped in closer, we heard her whispering “Papa…Neeche!” or something like that! For a moment, I thought, Mother you were right, I should have learnt Hindi.

I smiled at her and said, “No... Hindi” Made sure she understood it completely by enacting it!

She signaled something and pointed down.

As my pupils went down! I saw her father…who was in a hurry trying to unlock the door! For a fraction of a second, I looked at Aravindan. We both knew that it was not the right place to think about the next plan of action. We both started to sprint! As I was running, I realized Aravindan was not with me, I looked back. He was running in the opposite direction!

I was running towards my Lakshmi, while he was running towards nowhere, hoping for me to join him at some point of his life! Lucky-me, the father was chasing Aravindan!...I came running to my Scooty as I witnessed her, saying “that’s the difference between true love and lust! Look at me I am waiting on you...I set you free, you are now back to me to save yourself”

I started my Lakshmi and drove all the way, taking the back roads looking for Aravindan. With some luck he was running towards the direction I was trying to get to! The old father was quite athletic as he was still running behind Aravindan few feet away from catching him! The few seconds we wasted on spacing our posteriors on the life savior…got him closer by few inches. By the time I was accelerating Lakshmi, he had his fingers on Aravindan’s shirt….Lakshmi did quite well on anticipating it and acted pretty strong to escape from the grab.

The nice father screamed at us... relating my kith and kin to his fantasies, when we turned around and said “No ...Hindi”

It took a while for us to get back to our senses! I dropped him home, laughed for quite a while and got back to my sleep hoping to see the dreams ahead!

Even today when I go back home, I talk about this to Aravindan. Sometimes we even drive by that place to see if she recognizes us. But never had we got a chance to see her and complete our existence. Quite often she does popup like this in my memory and says “I was a part of your stupidity”

The Motor Cycle Diaries! - WY 2

Motor Cycle Diaries!

This is my Second on the Wonder Years Series - The Motorcycle Diaries

Statutory Warning or Exciting news: This is not one of my ideality posts.

Place: Madras

Time: Sometime during the year 1997

I haven’t seen the movie The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) yet. But I heard it’s pretty good. Anyways, I have my own Motor Cycle Diaries in the making! My stories are not really the motorcycle kinds but somewhere in the same vicinity though! Well, out with it! I have to drive that girly TVS Scooty almost all the time! It’s because that most of the time I lose those cold fights (for Hero Honda) with my dear brother who easily clears it based on the seniority factors.

Well, every single person in Madras (I prefer it over Chennai) would have done this. The motorcycle love stories. The ones that live short in reality but stay long in memory. The ones that give you butterflies and leave you brain dead. The Manirathnam kinds. There are quite a lot of varieties in these stories. The Annanagar-to-Alwarpet kinds, the ones that ends up in traffic violation and ‘Mama’ools etc.. This one is quite on the same category, but a little different, as it lasted a little longer! 3 hrs and 25 mins precisely!

By the way, this is not a dream in a dream stunt I am trying to pull. The narration describes the events exactly as happened with a little bit of flavor!

1835 hrs - Chennai Kaliappa Hospital Signal

I was driving my Lakshmi (TVS Scooty) along with Aravindan.

The best part about the Madras girls is their looks! Not the way they dress, but the real looks and stares. The way they exchange the glares, which stays for a fraction of a second, with that controlling smile is priceless. The beauty of it is that most of the time the eye to eye will be perfectly timed. In this case it was different. I was at the signal bored on waiting, started to tap the break levers with my restless fingers.

God heard me!

Just like in the Tamil movies, a wonderfully ornamented hand peeped out of the window of a white Maruthi van behind us to respond to the taps! Well, my rear view mirror was perfectly loyal to its boss and captured the response faster than the thought!

I told Aravindan, about the girl who was responding to us. As expected he shifted from ground state to the excited state as soon as he understood what’s going on! We both adjusted the rear view mirror and made sure that we acknowledge the response! The face was yet to be seen though, but the response started to become more associated. She started to play with us, and pulled us inside the game which was catalyzed by the excitement!

After a couple of honks and shouts, I had to respond to the green light! Without any discussion we, Aravindan and myself, understood each other and decided to follow the Maruthi van!

The evening was set.

As we followed the van, we made sure that she knows that we are following her! After a few accelerations and coastings, she held her hands outside and pointed at a clothing place near the Alwarpet signal! (There were no flyovers then) Now that we made sure that she is not disturbed by the fact that we are following her, we just tailgated the van. The van drove all the way and stopped at a fast food joint! Gangothri!

1855 hrs Gangothri – Madras!

Mixed emotions. We were thoroughly confused and had absolutely no idea on how to proceed! The gut master inside us woke up and pulled us all the way inside the joint! I remembered her Salwar, so my eyes were looking for the colors of similar kind! Certainly did not do it at the expense of the other beauties around...After minutes of Random search, I locked my eyes on her!

She was eating some Dahi puri or something, who cared what she was eating, but I did not forget to lock my sight on the lips that sealed it. She made sure that her parents did not face us. BTW she had come with her parents and was doing every damn possible thing without their knowledge. Long live Madras guts! We shared glimpses and responded to the smiles! The butterflies went down all the way from hearts to the abdomen.

B: Aravinda...she is smiling at us!
A: Machi, are u sure…I think she is laughing at us!?

I wanted to have a good look at her! So from then I developed the habit of washing my hands after drinking Coke!

She was breathtaking! The smile was the first thing I noticed. She had this naughty smile on her lips that was screaming “I like you stalker” …the eyes were glowing with innocence, demotivating all my intentions of quitting!

I walked back and told Aravindan, “Machan! You have that luck factor da…how in the world do we end up with beauties all the time!?”

Aravindan had that look gleaming with pride and honor, as I said, “You never understands my sarcasm, do you!?...She is pathetic da mama!” Well, I always have this extra expectation, so I was certainly not accepting her falling short of it! She was! Everything but her eyes and smile was falling short of my expectations!

“Another word about Monal, you will be dead!” Aravindan was boiling!

“Who is Monal”, I had no clue.

“In Chidambaram (his home town) there is this Sate kutty (Maarvadi girl) I like, her name is Monal. This girl doesn’t look like her, but I think she is also a Marvaadi and I like her…so no matter what her real name is…she is Monal from now on!” Aravindan was on the roll, when my search for the words to respond had just begun!

Part 2 is here!

New Student Emails!

Throw some sensible ones!!

Apologies for the promptness in delaying the posts that were not supposed to be delayed but to be prompt! It’s been more than week since I posted anything interesting! May be I was partially motivated and directed towards research and development! Now that the advisor-factor has been negotiated through the scheduled weekly meetings, I can start thinking away from the thermodynamic spectrum with the dell pad thought-production systems! The past week was hectic with cricket tournament followed by the sweet victory and hence the delay is justified!

Anyways, I started to write something on Responsibility and it occurred to me that it would be too heavy a thought to transfer and hence here am with something lighter ….

We have this phenomenal way of trusting our standards and presuming it to be high. I have done this all through my life and failed miserably at times. Especially through electronic communications! Sending emails to someone with subject “check out the attachment” and forgetting to attach it in the first place. Signing “Lots of Love” to a professional email! Things like that pops up every now and then, but the frequency curve hopefully goes down, especially when you claim to have developed the so-called “professionalism” and have that reputation (false) to protect!

If you are a graduate student here in the States, I’m sure you would acknowledge this post! Most of the Indian grad students here would have to contact strangers far across, electronically, to know the status of the assistantships, living style et al. No matter how much time the pre-existing graduate students have already spent on clarifying everything on the association website, it takes lots of courage and little less brains for the new students to ask those questions that would make you ponder, “Did I ask these kinds of questions?” Ironically, I had to be connected through these communications! Here are some of those email communications that I still have in my inbox! I haven’t changed a single word from those emails I received except for those identity revelations!

hi bharat,
u got my VISA today.......

A little less attention to detail changes the whole meaning!, u and I are always closer together in a keypad!! We can always look back as we read again before clicking that send button!

I am a guy from Hyderabad so can you suggest any shops to get the clothing that you suggested in the link of the Indian association.... Please wish me luck as i am going for my VISA on 19th....

I was rolling on the floor for this! This guy assumed that I was from Hyderabad….well I have this weird last name which motivated him… BBrao…does it sound Hyderbadi?! Apparently it did for him!

Dear annaya, (Some start to make relationships!)
I would like to know which of the following I need to buy in INDIA. 1. sweaters 2. wind cheaters 3. blazer/ suit 4. scarf/ muffler 5. woolen gloves 6. monkey cap (ROTFL :)) 7. rugs / blankets 8. comforters 9. umbrella , torch , college bag 10.rice & dals 11.alarm clock 12.razor blades 13.tiffin box And a few more Questions. are pirated CD's like Songs or software written allowed.

To be really frank, my dad was a bit nervous in sending me there since I am his only child (eklautha beta)
My dad says he is happy about someone from India being there he was extremely pleased.

Would it ever occur to them that somneone on the other side is not asking for any details! Unnecessary details are always a turnoff! I used to get emails addressing me …Hello Barath Sir, Hello Prof. Barath, Pranam Barathji assuming that the president of an organization is always an old man like S.D. Sharma. The funny part is that most of the people who email me like this are much older than I was.

Well, everyone makes mistakes. But one should never forget to step ahead and learn something out of it! In one of my early correspondences to a grad student, I signed the email with “Love”. The student was kind enough to thrash me with that “don’t try to act weird/smart” response! From then, I always pay that little more attention when I am finishing up an electronic communication.

The point I am trying to focus was on the assumed standards on standards! Setting high standards is fine, but gauging it is very important. High, low, small, big ...all these terms are relative to something. So it is when it comes to standards. If we assume to have set high standards for ourselves, then justify it! On what basis do we think that our standards are high? On instances when we communicate to a stranger whose standards are of no knowledge to us, it is important that we have to be really careful with the word transfer.

I remember this from one of those Steven Segal movies (guess its Under Siege 2) that I generally hate, “Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups”. Probably the only saner thing from the martial art master! Absolutely true! Assuming your assumptions to be right is as bad as it can get! So stay away from it and learn the art of electronic communications!

Wonder Years or Wonder, Years? – (I)

I was talking to my friend the other day, we had a decent discussion and I was amused to realize a fact that we were talking about some of our teen wonders! It looks so far away! May be wisdom stuck us so early. On one end it is beautiful to realize that we developed the maturity to reason and understand life much better than what we did at that time. However, on the other end, it was hard to accept the fact that we lost the formula to enjoy the trivial things in life. May be we don’t have time! Or may be we know too much now! Ignorance was certainly bliss!

The funny fact is that, sometimes, when we don’t have something, we try and try to posses it and once we acquire it, it would not be as enjoyable as we once thought. On the other hand, from one perspective you can make it enjoyable as we progress! Maturity and reasoning is of that kind, when I was young, without my realization, I was fighting my way through to get rid of the kiddo feeling. Once I got through it, it’s impossible to get that back.

As for me, making friends was always easy, but the process was much enjoyable then than now. There were no hurdles to pass through then; acceptance was prevailing when evaluation was demoralized. The present days are aligned with unintentional and unstoppable habits like judgmental, evaluating phases!

In one of those blank moments, I thought of those few people I grew up with, those now-so-stupid memories and where they are! Well, it’s been an awesome journey and one can’t rule the world much better than how we did then. So, in the series of what I call (and we know) ‘Wonder Years (WY)’, which might come up every now and then in my blogs, I thought of glorifying our moments of stupidity and remember them once in a while!

It was during the start of my 3rd year of engineering, I used to shuttle from Chidambaram to Chennai every weekend (to get rid of the (pea)nutophobia)! Guna and myself were planning to drain our brain to the States then. So we were in the initial steps of the passport application formalities!

Rangaswamy studio, Mylapore. If you had ever been to this place, you would definitely corroborate my conclusions! Once you are there, it’s almost impossible to control those laughter releasing natural tranquilizers, pain relievers and endorphins. Especially, after seeing their enormous network display, from S.Ve Shekhar to Riskshaw Maari.

“Machi! What pictures da..? Comedy! May be they will hang ours right after we take our passport pictures!” I was expecting the photographer to show his skills.

“We will see! No matter what…the camera won’t lie mame!” Guna was well within his own world of reality.

Rangaswamy Jr., took us in to the studio, we were in our usual dresses and posing as normal as ever, without realizing the fact that the picture was going to stay with us for atleast a decade from then. Two clicks for each of us was on! The pictures were due to be collected the Wednesday from then. So it was unsaid that Guna was going to collect it and I was going to get it from him the following weekend.

A week went by with my train and his bus adventures! A Saturday was waiting for me to realize the reality.

Knock! Knock!

“Machi, we need to apply for our passport next week! Anyways, did you get the pics from the studio?” there was certainly some electron transfer to transpire my excited state!

Guna with his unusual sorry face turned in my pictures!

Rangaswamy Jr., was definitely not P.C.Sriram, but was skilled enough to replicate reality! It was a total shocker! I looked like an AIDS patient and Guna’s look was competing with a Con as well as an Autodriver!

“Ot*a! Om**la! Enna yezhavu da idhu! (WTF)! How can this be so damn miserable!?! Impossible!” Reality was not easy to accept!

“Yes, Mamse…do you still think that these pictures will be hanging outside the studio or a few buildings along in the E-1 police station!” Guna seemed to have gone through cribbing part already!

I was curious, was looking at all angles in my own perceptional Santhosh Sivan that always showed me what I wanted to see! The Mirror! Well, reality seemed to sink in then!

“Machan, we are’nt this bad da…what happened to the other pic! He took two snaps did’nt he?” was trying in vain!

“Mams, if you are so damn curious now, imagine my level when I saw the picture right outside the studio. As a matter of fact, I asked him about the other picture! He took a deep breath and patted on my shoulder and said Buddy! You did not see the other picture; if you had you wouldn’t have been asking this question to me now”

We certainly did not have words after that! All we could do was roll on the floor and laugh and make sure no one else sees that picture!

Gunasekhar Natrajan! We still talk once in a while, when he is staying Sleepless in Seattle. The irony is that, right now, his Meg Ryan is Bill Gates!

I still see that picture almost every semester start! Its smiling from my passport, portraying that ‘looks are the last thing that matters’ at the least for my girl it has to be the last thing! May be I should scan that and post it once!

I know this incident certainly doesn’t reflect what I was trying to convey in the first paragraph! But what I realize is “On the other hand, from one perspective you can make it enjoyable as we progress!” statement is very true or I would like atleast to make it so. Great friends and great memories are almost similar, you don’t lose them anytime. The best part is that, both stays there forever waiting for you to be touched and realized. The funny part is that we don’t communicate frequently with the few best friends that we have in our life, and it doesn’t matter! As long as you realize it that no matter when, where and how, its there waiting for us! And once in a while it needs to be touched and realized. Doesn’t matter how frequently you do it but how true you are when you do it is more important than any other thing!

Sleep(i)ness in Studyville!

No philosophies this time! I don’t want to reach a state where being normal is abnormal! So here we go, a deliberate attempt to portray normalcy!

Fridays! Generally, the day will be filled with research and deadline responsibilities! This time it was a little different. I did not have loads of work to do. Had a couple of hours of hard core thermodynamics before the scheduled Friday eve research meeting!! But the motivation was rolling on the floor and laughing at me in the form of a note! Budvisor’s non-thermodynamic communication! “I won’t be available today”!

Well, that explains it! Am here writing stuff that’s no way related to what I had been thinking!!

Sleeping in the class!

The other day, I was wondering about how gifted I was, with respect to the concept of sleeping. Never in my life I have struggled to find sleep! Let it be the most populated un-reserved compartments that I was rarely forced in to during my weekly trips from Madras to Chidambaram or a disturbed research thought process! Doesn’t matter! I have always found a way to sleep! That’s the same case with the disturbance as well! If my dad is correct, there was never a day since my 6th grade someone worked hard to wake me up!! I always think that I can take pride on the control I have over my sleep!

But it teases me! Especially when my crown succumbs to the gravitational force, simultaneously as someone, in their highest degree of passion trying to make me understand something that they desperately want to communicate!! Particularly in the classrooms! Right from my undergraduate days of thought amplification, seldom a day goes by without a wake up call from the crown-gravity reaction!! I have tried everything, pinching my arms, pulling my side burns, shaking my legs, taking notes, writing unrelated articles etc., nothing helped! Drinking coffee during those talks helped a little, but once the coffee is over, in the next few mins I will be sleeping with my unconscious nods through out the lecture! As a matter of fact, I have slept even on several one-on-one meetings/presentations! May be the second person’s thought communication was monotonously motivating!

Recently, I was talking to one of my academic acquaintance! He said that he could see me sleeping during his lectures! Ofcourse he can! It’s not difficult to notice if 33.33% of his class is sleeping! I was embarrassed in the first place, but quickly woke up and said “May be you have to make it interesting!” May be its true! Don't expect to list the events that I have not slept on! But there are always instances that motivated me to stay awake for more than even a couple days for that matter!

Is it the tone of the talker that puts me in to sleep? Is it the amount of interest that I have on the subject that puts me in to sleep? Is it the rice that’s taking it? I really don’t know. Except for those one-on-one meetings, I always had company! Right after the class or a presentation or any discussion for that matter, I will have someone in the room sleeping and giving me that final smile of achievement (!!). Well, my “blame it on yourself” philosophy suggests me to wake up and find a way to keep myself awake!! But the verdict is that one really can’t help falling asleep during some of those lullaby sessions that are being called as lectures and presentations! You never have to feel guilty about it!! Enjoy those motivators who are trying in vain to gain the best from their learning curve of “how not to put someone to sleep, by just talking”!