Panchu Pandava Caves @ Bhubaneswar

T-1500 years into the valour of the last Dwapara 

A chance discovery yesterday, led us to a rather impromptu visit to Panchu Pandava Caves today. It's located in Old Bhubaneswar, Odisha not far off from the more famous Rajarani Temple. A touch with the vibrations of dharma in the end of this rather remarkable year 2020. We cycled the short distance and it was an enjoyable ride along with chilly gusts of a pleasant winter.  

          A signboard by Odisha Tourism at the entrance, dates the monument between 500 & 600 AD. 

                The caves were renovated with the help of ASI (Archeological Survey of India) in the recent past. On entering the courtyard for the first set of 5 caves, a large banyan tree and a well will welcome you from either sides. 

These caves have been converted into a temple for the worship of Lord Shiva. The Pandavas are often depicted worshipping Lord Shiva in other texts. The Pandavas refer to the five Pandu brothers: Yudhisthira, Bheema, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahdeva and their wife Draupadi from the Hindu epic, Mahabharata.

                There is a priestly family who serve the temple with the daily puja rituals. I met the youngest in the family and his mother. He performed a puja specific to my name and Hindu root, with clear syllables in Sanskrit. He also mentioned that the Pandavas remained here for an unknown period of time during their Agyat Vaas (12 years incognito) of their famous 13 year exile. The deep well outside, dates back to the times of their stay too.

The first partition of the temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva & the Trinity along with a statue depicting the Pandavas and their mother Kunti. The next partition depicts Goddess Durga along with a few manifestations of Divine Mother. Paramhansa Yogananda had mentioned that he was born as Arjuna during those times and his most advanced disciple Rajasi had been Nakula then. So the Pandavas are in many ways closer to the heart of many Kriya Yogis. I meditated in this cave for a few minutes, with calming vibrations of fearlessness.

 Here is a closer portrait of the statue depicting the Pandavas.

A cavity on the roof of the cave, was possibly used to keep a vigil on the outer gardens. It seemed to be resembling an area with dense vegetation.

                  Exactly below the cavity was another tunnel which connects to the Khandagiri Caves, at a distance of 12 kms by road. The tunnel is now closed and the ground is covered by tiles and marbles. You can always see the other end of this tunnel at the Khandagiri Caves, is what the priest explained. Once we bade our goodbyes, we went on to visit the other cave sets.

There are two more set of caves towards the right which have been renovated with roofs and gates. Unlike the temple cave however, they are not used.

A huge mound has been created by white ants in the last set of caves. Probably years of hard work in their own Agyat Vaas!

We had to bid final goodbyes to our little friend, who was busy with its brunch.

Time and ‘Alka Aunty’ wait for none

It’s been quite a while now, in real terms say around nine hundred and forty six million seconds, since it all began. That is about the time I have been serving on this planet or it might as well be the other way round. From the nine hundred and forty six million seconds, it takes a normal human being less than thirty one million seconds to understand the nature of life and its materialistic incongruence, once he or she is able to apply Pythagoras Theorem in school. However, for me it took around two hundred and thirty million seconds, which is about the time in which one would have reached Uranus starting on a normal space shuttle from Earth, cruising along at a constant speed of 28000 mph. That’s about 100 times faster than the Volkswagen groups’ Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (Originally French), the fastest production car till date. Production car means you can actually sit on its seat, supported by gravity on your bum, while its wheels are turning and travel from Mumbai to New Delhi in less than three and a half hours over a perfectly deserted freeway sans any potholes or bumps without seeing any death angels. The absence of potholes is completely theoretical since it would render around ten million citizens jobless, and many more contractors and city municipal corporations penniless at the same time. And as someone had said, even the moon is envious of potholes in Mumbai roads. Pardon me for my mathematical analogies, for my dreams most certainly pertain to John Von Neumann types whereas outside the matrix it’s a cubicle with a dizzy screen to stare at and do whatever I am told by an assortment of Weasels^#.  And that dizzy screen is also my own laptop’s, since we had byod (brick bring your own device).

From the classical Indian context or say rather from the kaleidoscopic perspective of an Alka Aunty, a perfect life mandatorily constitutes of the following: Engineering from an IIT or NIT (by Alka Aunty’s exceptional mercy NITs were allowed to be on the list since 1990s via a special amendment) , MBA from an IIM (No other B-schools are approved by Alka Aunty within India, even if they feature within Top-10, MSc/PhD from the I-Bhee League was added later) OR a Hard-bard in US , an intra-caste marriage to a good-natured girl belonging to a decent family (Special approval may be sought for intra-caste love marriage against arranged ones), having kids who would always top from Pre-nursery to Post-Graduation and finally landing up with a aaMaNCee job, till death takes you apart. Pre 1990s, it was perhaps cracking the UPSC examination ending up with a high-profile government job instead of a MNC one, with other factors unchanged. Kids still had to stand first in each and every grade. All these things would be materially and spiritually fulfilling for the rest of one’s life. Social life in school should be pursued with like-minded people excelling in various fields and people aspiring to be a Dhoni or Sehwag (Tendulkars were alright though after he had won the Opel Astra[MoS] in Sharjah in 1998) neglecting studies lacking even the mild potential of a Gagan Khoda, are strictly untouchables. Boys looming behind girls are destined to end up as beggars or possibly lepers, in distant future and are worse than untouchables who have to be dealt with a poker-face insulting their intellect or rather the lack of it. This was about the idea.

This formulae is probably what Alka Aunty has seen succeed throughout her life. There might have been many others who would have been done things very differently and still would have done as well if not better in their lives. Limited to middle class towns, belonging to middle class families, these outliers or rather aliens like someone’s uncles’ sister’s son are simply ruled out by frame of reference, sometimes as myths and other times as lucky ones. Dinku has been voting for last ten years but is still living off his father’s pension at his father’s place, because he was hitting the cricket ball when he should have been reading books. And yes he could not equal Gagan Khoda forget a Sehwag or a Dhoni. Even worse, Dinku was composing love-letters to Dinki when he should have been solving quadratic equations. Dinki ignored those, thankfully to Dinku’s poor English and is now a successful and well-settled doctor. Had she not, she would have been selling vegetables after eloping with a vegetable seller on a bicycle which again would be a borrowed one, as her staunch father would have refused her any help. Though theoretically, she could have simply lived off Dinku’s father’s pension.

After performing the rituals one has to look higher up in Maslow’s pyramid for a challenging job. For someone like myself, both the person and the need is beyond comprehension. Something monotonous might require a change, but challenges beyond challenge is abominable. Long ago, our class-teacher asked the class to name of the tissue in the human eye where the image is formed. Amidst the chorus, one lanky bespectacled fellow firmly stood up and confidently answered it as “rectum”. The teacher almost fell off her chair in mirth, before correcting it as retina. That day he was probably written off from Alka Aunty’s books and possibly her alluring daughters’ too. Even that guy craves for a challenging job today, with incessant updates of his facebook status with thought-provoking latin maxims, either on world cup matches or during anything that is being broadcasted to two or more people. Even the concept of ambition is so abstruse, one frequently confuses with what someone wants to do and what others want one to do. My childhood ambition was limited to being a traffic cop, since you get to see all the cars from the front side. Gradually, giving in to my friends and relatives constant disapproval, I upgraded that to an engineer where I would still get to see those cars. Now, that was a secret till now. I am told that my next childhood ambition was to become a truck-driver, and my guess is that it might have been true. It must be fascinating to have a moving front view from a height of 8 to 10 feet. But it is not so fascinating for the people around me.

Lack of ambition for doing an MBA post engineering landed my friend in pre-marital affairs of a completely different sort. (Note - From Alka Aunty’s books, he is already written off) Although, post-engineering  he was doing great in his life in the US, he was bombarded with similar questions related to his ‘doing an MBA’ ambitions, whenever he met a prospect. The questions were either direct or carved out in utterly ingenious ways starting from, “my friend’s father’s uncle who is CEO of Y Company thinks that this world requires an advanced management degree to deal with todays business problems, so what is your opinion on that” to “all my other pretty friends are married to b-school grads, so will you please do it later ?”.  We learnt that this happened invariably when three conditions were met : (1) The prospective wife was very pretty (2) This was their second meeting (3) Third meeting never happened. So, his logical response should be to avoid meeting very pretty girls or just meet them for the first time and keep the memory. Being human, that too in the male format in late twenties, both were difficult and second response was possibly catastrophic. And in two to three weeks time, he would deluge himself with both gloom and Royal Stag, once he could see the engagement album of the earlier prospect in his facebook feed, till news of meeting the next prospect arrives. How did this happen ? Was it due mere lack of ambition for learning or simply a social cost ?

In contrast Learning seems to be the new buzzword to crack interviews. Even if you are sure that you are roughly ending up with a similar set of weasels, almost doing the same thing but with a pay hike, you have to emphasize on the steep learning curve the new weasels group would have for you,  ascending to newer heights of Weaselry. They all need a go-getter, self-starter ambitious little hog who would takeaway all the weasel work from them and yet stay motivated till the end.  What you do will perhaps never match with what you felt you were supposed to do.

Feeling mystified by ambitions, interest and social costs, most of us would keep thinking rather than working on newer things, keeping everything in eternal abeyance.

^#- Weasel is synonymous with office workers who can/will project your work as their own, It’s a Scott Adams invention

Mumbai Diaries-I

The joining location was mentioned as Mumbai in my internship letter and incidentally it was the first time ever, I would grace this city inhabited by our fellow earthlings with my exalted presence. However, somehow the very thought of spending sixty days in the least economic city of the country started giving me goose bumps. Apprehensive of a should-be-more stipend, plummeting bank balance ever since I began my so called pursuit of higher education and an ongoing (still wonder whether it’s ever historical) inflation (whatever it is, the end result makes us consumers poorer and the sellers richer and that’s exactly where they get their BMWs and iphones from), second thoughts of balking it altogether and doing some phoney summers at my hometown seemed a lot more appealing. Thoughts of having home cooked food seemed to manifest as countless delectable dishes right at my study table. Futility of a weak-will against biryani converted into a call to the concerned human resources executive. 

                                   Globalization seems to have bestowed certain inadvertent benefits on both employment and employability. Projecting clerical and routine tasks as momentous ones created executive out of mere clerks and supervising those without even the faintest idea of what it entails, created managers (of course this is what we are supposed to do). This surely means more jobs (however redundant) for the same quantum of work and perhaps even menial quality.  But it does not necessitate dividing the same piece of pie; it’s more like making additional figmental pie out of thin air (note that the marginal cost of producing it is zero) while promising intangible and non-existent benefits such as quality and consistency. It can take a while to understand what the term consistency really means. It can be put in a few words as, “Truly replicating the same level of hopelessness over a much broader time horizon”.

                    

Fancy thoughts always seem much more comforting than genuine words. The executive surely could not cite her incompetence or lack of authority in assigning a new location. Instead she included a few management buzzwords like career opportunity; financial capital and broad scope in his conversation rather deftly about which I am sure that neither of us had even the foggiest idea. I even tried to note a few of them for future utility. It was still a hard bargain for me even though I knew that none of those words stood by their dictionary meanings. But still, there had to be something in my resume to brag about for a stretch of an hour or so during placement interviews.

These turn of events finally led my joining at a Mumbai location. One of my friends had booked a lodge for our stay and it turned out to be pretty good decision afterwards. It was cozy enough with the number of bed-bugs and cockroaches just below the lower limit of endurance and shoddy enough not to charge a supernormal rent at an already posh locality. And of course, the thoughts of some random rendezvous with Katrina or Genelia (for the uninitiated, they are bollywood stars who still have both age and beauty at their side) during some unknown shoots at marine drive had been crossing my mind like umpteen times.

                                                           

We quickly found out the cheapest and quickest shortcuts to convey to our offices. It was again another posh locality where these rich wasted and crazy psychotics had access to only the latest models of Audis, BMWs and Mercs. They comprised a major chunk of vehicular traffic like Altos and Santros elsewhere. Nevertheless these psychos inculcated a regular practice of a certain type of we can call it as neck yoga. It is like identifying a BMW from the logo on the bonnet and quickly turning your head to grasp the model from the trunk as it speeds away. Pretty fast, uh! Looking around for others, it seems some pre-destined wannabes have inborn neck-turnaround flexibilities, sometimes turning their necks till a knot is established. I will report if they develop two or more knots, for we could be on the verge of discovering some alien wannabes from a lesser planet. I still want to find out the proportion of wannabes who still manage to make the jump to at least a Honda City.

                                    

                                          The good part is that this city seems to have an innate style of welcoming visitors in umpteen ways. Even with a broken Hindi accent, you can manage to get almost anything in this city, discounting purple dinosaurs and their pretty precedents. One of our South-Indian friends who normally manages to scare off small time snack vendors, is actually managing a pretty decent life here. I had suspected myself to be agoraphobic but these suspicions seem to have dissolved away. An overcrowded and ever-rushing city, still manages to embezzle anxiety out of your mind. One of the greatest memories which will perhaps remain with me for a lifetime is watching India lift the World Cup’2011 trophy, a journey which has been an absolute phenomenon. Mortal absence at the Wankhede, could not inhibit its electric atmosphere from being mirrored all over this city and especially at the Irish. Though the Mumbaikars seem busy in their own little universes they still manage time to help you create yours, but with an obvious discount to your fancies and fantasies.

 

It still seems a long way to go from here, till the advent of a less cruel summer with a bit of drizzle from the heavens. Speaking of some nostalgia, I still miss the serene life at the hillock. Even in all the glitz of the city after dusk.

Ethereal Reminiscences II - The Homecoming

This second ethereal experience has more or less defined my life's path. Let me try to concisely recapitulate the turn of events, that had manifested towards this particular encounter.  

Somehow lacking a sound sleep or simply after losing the motive push to get up from bed at 0800 in the morning (quite unusual for an early riser), I was still in a state of deep slumber, but was aware of it. There was also a gravity of feeling within this slumber, which could have been along the very lines of death. Breath drawn out, heart almost still, lack of any wilful control over my body. May be my own, may be not, but it was just powerful and it was in a sense, omnipresent. Add to that, my mind's utter ineffectiveness, as if held by a sudden uncontainable force, I was made to delve into a strange form of communication. Later someone explained this as an intuitive message, made possible via one's spiritual eye (point between the eyebrows). I was not able to decipher anything, neither about the source nor the medium of communication, till late afternoon. What could only be deduced, was that, it was an impending death with a sudden painful bereavement within my family. Someone very close! No visuals or anything similar, but in a way an irrefutable! And at the same time, I was certain that this was never a dream, it was a real-time precise communication, intended for a specific soul. And the thoughts of portending mortality supposed to occur in my family, filled all accompanying thoughts with merciless anxiety.

               Moments later, I got a call from my Mom, and she shared regarding urgent official orders from the Central Government for my Dad. He had to take one of the earliest flights to Delhi. And eventually reach one of the remotest villages in Uttar Pradesh (UP). It was to oversee that the running elections go peacefully. There had been some shooting incident earlier and one of the earlier observers had been injured by bullets. Of course, remote villages in UP or anywhere in India don't have airstrips. It had to be a composite air-road-air-road journey, with a hundred or more miles to be covered by road. After listening to these accounts, I was mentally shaking with fear. Dad had to take two flights and two cars to reach that particular village. What if my premonitions came true! Somehow I was sure of a death, but lacked any idea on the subject. Unable to tell any of this to Mom and with shaken prayers to God, I boarded a train back home. It was a planned trip and the tickets had been made a few weeks earlier. 

    Comically though, my accompaniment was Chetan Bhagat's new book then, 'The 3 mistakes of my life' to help cover these six or seven anxious hours, with some senseless comedy. After going through a few pages, a realisation dawned upon me, that it was perhaps Bhagat's fourth mistake to have written that book, in the first place! Bravely with scyllas of sarcasm and with an almost dispassionate reading, three-fourths of the book were completed. This was when my Mom called again, sobbing. I got to know that my maternal grandfather had passed away! So it was he, the soul behind the communication. Contrary to a relative scenario of losing one's parent, I felt an immediate sigh of relief and surety, that my father was safe from harms way. Along came the sadness, that my mother had lost hers. All I could do was to console her, with my heart and soul. She mentioned that she would be leaving with her sister at around 7 pm, which was roughly coinciding with the time of my arrival at home. I wanted to go with her, to help unfold this mystery. The rest of the journey helped give a thought to subtle (astral) forces, of which we become aware only when, we are not aware of ourselves (A tiny bubble of laughter I, Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself). Pretty concocted is the human being. Composed of the same elements as Earth or Stardust, how can (s)he be so misplaced to assert with ample confidence that the Earth & the Stars are just gases, without consciousness!

       And the last page of Bhagat's fourth mistake was flipped with a high dispassion for content. After reaching home, and having some food (devoid of any spices as per Hindu customs) and we embarked on a greater journey, back to that quiet place, where my grandfather, mom, dad and even I was born; the ancestral home where, grandfather gave away his physical being. We covered six more hours by road and it was well past midnight, when we reached the place. 

         Paying my respects to all elders present there, all of us went to pay respects to our late grandfather's physical body. He was lying on his usually unadorned bed, and I noticed a perfectly straight spine, and a remarkable expression of freedom & peace, on his face. Blood circulation had stopped, which added additional lightness to his already very fair skin. Some cotton balls were plugged in his nose and ears. Then, mysteriously while I was exiting through the other door, suddenly I felt a substantial force field (astral field perhaps) enveloping me. And it was felt, whenever I entered my grandfather's room again. Trying two or three times and it did seem certain, that an(many) unseen forces had been encompassing and enveloping that very room. It was a strange feeling, and there were doubts regarding these forces sharing the same origin, as to the forces which led the original communication. I can't help feeling that the room was surrounded by angels, blessing everyone, since it uplifted the energy :)

 My maternal grandfather had been a spiritual (not religious though) person throughout his life, keeping himself engaged in his spiritual quest through Kriya-Yoga (& meditation) for extended times. During the golden times, when we were kids, I can remember him doing Bhramari pranyam with long AUMs (pronounced OM), audible even at a distance, coming from the prayer room. My recollection comes with a photo-frame of Paramahansa Yogananda & Maa Kali, on his altar. Later I came to know from my mother, that he had received his teachings from a direct disciple of both Paramahansa Yogananda & his Guru Swami Yukteswar. In case you may not know, Paramhansa Yogananda is known to be an Avatar(ava - down, tri - to pass, or Divine Descent in human form) and the most loved author for many as well as for me, personally. He was assigned the responsibility to spread Kriya-Yoga in the West, by Mahavtar Babaji (below is a photo of the revered Babaji by late Sananda Lal Ghosh, a disciple & younger brother of  Paramhansa Yogananda). 

The most famous Yoganandaji's literary works is Autobiography of a Yogi (AY), which records a Man's eternal quest, played by a young devotee (he himself). The book has sold more than 10 Mn copies worldwide and has changed the lives of at least 30 Mn people across the globe at least in some way. Many successful personalities in creative and business fields, including Steve Jobs, George Harrison, Pt. Ravi Shankar among others, have been deeply inspired by the AY book. It is also known that, this was the only book on Steve Job's iPad and he used to read the book once every year. 

     This brings to memory, rather some funny anecdotes. Six years ago when one of my close friends (& engineering batchmate) had asked me whether I had read this particular AY book, I just expressed utter bewilderment, on who reads these kind of books. Later onwards, I did discover that the same book had been lying there in our bookshelves for the last 15-20 years. And when I had asked my mother, what brings joy, she first told me to study and get into one of the best engineering schools. Then again, after a few years when I asked the same question after completing engineering, she told me that may be I might be happy with further studies in one of the top B-schools. Then I asked again, and she handed me the AY book.  Six years later, I found myself gleaming greedily through this book's content again and again and again! My mom could have just given me the book and reduced those blind efforts of six years. For, Joy as I discovered later, is something that is within yourself, you just need to tune into it, by calming your outflowing energies through meditation.

The AY book though does not tell much about the greatness of the author himself, who was perhaps much greater many of the spiritual personas he has met in AY, and whom he has praised so generously, so humbly. That's when you want a continuity to know more about the author himself. This brings me to the second most prolific author with the same aspect of divine love & kindness, better known by the name of  Swami Kriyananda. I can recommend one of his books from my heart, for people who have loved the AY. Kriyananda authored The New Path. There is also another loved book Mejda by Yogananda's disciple and younger brother Sananda Lal Ghosh, which encompasses funny but deeply spiritual anecdotes of their childhood.

Coming back to the story, I still inwardly get a feeling that my grandfather was much more spiritually (a devotee in complete secret) elevated, than we could have possibly imagined during his lifetime. My mother was told that he did not have any karma left on the physical plane by the Brahmin doing the puja, since there was no mark left (An old Hindu custom where a mark left on sand decides what the next incarnation/form for a deceased one could possibly be, personally I am not the right person to comment on it). However, the fact he did consciously convey his death to his grandchild before it actually occurred, does give a strong enough reason to believe that he knew his time of leaving the physical body. A devotee in complete secret, who did bless his grandchildren with directions (including my maternal cousins & we together constitute one closely knit family), for our own spiritual searches, given respective spiritual inclinations: divine love for the devotee, divine wisdom for the discerning and right action for the karma yogi. Many miracles followed the event in the family, some decipherable other not so, close to our hearts. 

         This experience had established an alternate reality, with a much greater scheme of things, beyond the usual mortality of life & death and perhaps a vast array of thoughts and hidden inside man's real ambition. The following year I joined one of the B-schools, located in one of the most scenic towns of India - Indore. And almost every day of this rigorous course, I have asked God to give me Kriya. I could start on the path of Kriya Yoga only 4-5 years later and have been able to validate these experiences with different aspects of divine contact. Never knowing that my grandfather loved me so deeply, I am glad that he did in the same way Master (Yogananda) does.

Here is a picture of both my paternal (left) and maternal grandfathers (right).

PS: Some additions after six long years, when understanding is relatively deeper & after finally taking all four Kriya Dikshas. 

Ethereal Reminiscences Part-I

One of my inceptive experiences with the evanascent glances of the 'eye of intuition' occurred on the day my paternal grandfather passed away. Immediately informed about the incident by Mom, I took a bus back home on a nine hour long night journey. Those days were my student days in a far off place called Rourkela. It was after consciously closed my somnific eyes that I unconsciously started to converse with my grandfather.  My paternal grandfather had some of the qualities that are most difficult to emulate even today. A God loving man, who took upon the oath for seeking the divine at a later age when he had been freed up from his worldly duties and became a pensioner. He had made it a habit to lead his life in the most simplest of ways, non-fussy with his daily readings of Bhagvatam and Bhagvat Gita. A person who never ever spoke ill of anyone and loved his descendants unswerving. A golden hand in anything and everything related to household agriculture, be it vegetables or fruits :). He always made it a custom to bring sacks full of homegrown fruits and vegetables whenever he came to his our home. And alas! papayas again, which I grudgingly called durniti(english equivalent is 'corruption') as it was mixed with peas-potato curry cooked in our home, in the most camouflaged manner, for I was the one who always hated papayas, which substitutes potatoes. Like many my love was for that pristine peas-potato curry, unadulterated with durniti.

         That night with a slightly heavy heart and my mind focused on my grandfather, I consciously closed my eyes after being seated in the bus. After a few minutes, someway conversing with him started, through the middle of my forehead. None of the events was within the control of a sleepy mind, it seemed to be proceeding automatically and intuitively. It was love on his part which was manifesting, love for his grandchildren. Suddenly I asked him to take me with him if he so chose. And could never learn why such a unusual request! And that was it. A screeching pain occurred in the middle of my forehead as if something was being forcibly drawn out of it. Immediately screaming "NO! NO! " with out any external manifestation of noise, I could only then open my eyes. This was my first ever ethereal experience, after death of a close one.

And perhaps this was also a start of my belief in a higher reality which manifests besides this visible world.

Megalomaniacal Mediocrity

We think, we aspire, we achieve. We desire, we dream and we do. Unfortunately enough if doers were so much prevalent, Scott Adams would not have the luxury to sketch Dilbert regularly.

And fortunately enough, we all have a fair chance to dream and succeed however incompetent we may have become or be from birth, when the doing part is kept with as much clarity as a puddle of muddy brown water. Here comes a living legend who is most talked about and its not because of his impeccable talent but due to his grandiose achievements. We all fondly call him "Daroga", now he is known as D0(pronounced as 'Deo'). He is a strategic achiever in the field of his own core competency or rather incompetency as a consultant. And above all, his ersatz verve for achieving whatever lies on his way is so laudable that we get a new kind of vivacious energy and it rightly caters to our amour propre with an exclamation.

Truck Loads of Coffee

The story starts with a red little truck with a yellow load, called import button. Perhaps D0's fetish for trucks starts from his childhood, when he had his mind less screwed, along with the same diminutive body. But, he wore the same 'Bermuda Browns' those days too. Whenever, he saw a truck, he tried to figure out whether he would have to buy a ladder or not so as one day he would fulfill his final destination of riding them. Know what, he could not buy a ladder, his father would hammer his head those days, obviously with a hammer because it would cause the least damage at that location. Then with the eternal search of trucks in his mind, he set sail towards the software field. Now, how would he find a truck in a field of computers, all hi-tech as he used to boast about, in front of others! All he could do earlier was to gaze upon a black cobol screen with a few alphabets on it. He took a year and a half to get the coffee out of the coffee dispenser, forget COBOL programing. May be he thought, he needed to learn some esoteric cobol code to get the coffee out, by chanting a mantra-program infront of the dispenser. Anyway he survived seven valiant years without figuring how to get a cup of coffee from the coffee maker. Then came the IT revolution. Every 1.5 people in 2 were getting jobs in software. Deo wanted a change for the first time in his life. So 'Self' as he calls himself, shifted to one of the companies he would never have even dreamt of in those days of trucks & ladders.I bet if the Nazis were there, they would have definitely killed him in their pogrom even if he is not a Jew. I personally feel he is a cross between an alien moon man-an ass-a beetle-an eucalyptus tree-a cactus plant-a pegelite zinovicks* and a plastic bucket.

*They are polyphrite ant suckers according to some research published in scientific journal Dublello Didicles.

Riding with the truck

He felt an incredible amount of elation when he was given his onboarding material in a carry-bag. Of course he had seen a carry-bag, every morning when he went to get vegetables from market. But that was made up from his own discarded bermuda brown and this was made of colored paper and the greatest of all there was a LOGO on the bag! He had no logo on his bermuda browns. He was assigned to lead his first project.

He had mails requiring urgent transports to production box and to his indignation everybody had left. He saw two types of trucks for the first time. One was half empty other full. He thought of his position as a lead and pressed the full one, half one was for lesser mortals like members and all. At least this is what he thought proactively. And then all the changes were transported into production. Next day he came to office unaware of anything with victorious smile on his face. He had burned the candle from both ends, 6 hours straight overtime to oversee the completion of his full-truck button. Once in a while he wondered why he could not have someone like Size-zero or why did the clocks turn round and round! Truck went straight then. He must have thought that it takes overwhelming effort to unload a full truck anyway, and may be after he hit the full truck, a Tata truck went all over to Germany from his office and it was unloaded.

Run Over

The nasty client had escalated with a hefty fine of $100 000. They wanted only one change in production not on the thousands of waiting ones. D0 looked as if he had seen a banshee wailing for his brainless dickhead to be served for supper. What he did next, to save his ass, only three people know in this world. God, Self and Self's Local Gods. May be he had willingly inhaled his Local Gods' farts but let's not jump to conclusions with such a little knowledge of the premises.

Return of D0

With a tinge of vengeance on his face, D0 was back at work. He had been promoted to something manager, the position from where he is likely to cause the least damage to technical work. It not that he is good at managing and bad at technical. It was precisely because still after 8 years of IT experience, he could not achieve puberty in technical know-how. And if its a case, then of lot of scrapping of projects could be in the air if Do was rolled into any of them. One fine day, when stickers were distributed for free, he got his own sticker of a half horse and joyously stuck it on his laptop. He fondly gave the nick name of 'Pegasus' to his laptop. It felt like a warrior within , the horse with wings that he would ride in near future. But most of the times it was the mythical creature that rode him. He tried Yoko height enhancer, but to no avail. He blamed yoko, and explained to his wife that he would have sued the organization, if he had time.Then came his first thanks award. He was incredulous at first, but gradually he gave in to his clairvoyance. The very thought that he can stay in a industry gives me jitters, yet a subtle confidence exists that if he can, then probably any ass could do it.

Epilogue

Do would love to do an La Shiney anytime, but the only problem is that he spends more than sixteen excruciating hours at the screen, trying to figure out what the role of a team lead is. He is strangled between half trucks, full trucks and bermuda browns. Still, IB-Confidential (you could as well call him 'Jackass') promotes his talent, may be rather the lack of it. All his work involves carrying papers from one conference room to another, with Godspeed hurry but with an insane lack of purpose. The legend will continue to live on till he is ousted by a more incompetent successor. We will address his successor as D1 once he arrives. He once aspired to go for the NBA championship , so he decided to start playing basket ball from the office side. Alas! the participation paper was posted a bit high and he could not reach it to sign it, even when he tried 16 times that day. I guess he washes his yellow full-sleeves at least once in his lifetime. It will be a welcome full moon for him then. Yet megalomania exists and so does mediocrity.

Camouflaged in a Black Glass

14:00 hrs IST: 21 killed as cyclonic storm hits Kolkata..(I get a call from my friend telling me to stay put!)
15:30 hrs IST: Worst storm in 20 years hits Kolkata..(Cellular Network lost)
15:50 hrs IST: Two people including me try to brave the storm. We find a lone taxi standing. We hire it. But alas! it cannot reach my place. Tree trunks lie everywhere preempting any movement of vehicles.

16:30..31.... I get out of the cab and start walking.
Somewhere in midst of a storm outside, I felt the futility of a mere black umbrella against a behemoth of a kind. A similar kind of feeling delved into my thoughts and that was for myself, I suppose. Ah Boy! Leave that euphemism aside.


The sky was already looking ominous, perhaps with a streak of prophetic entanglement. The trees started swaying with the wind, but it was in anguish rather. I could not hear them cry, but I could rather see it through the wind. The view through nakedness looked like one through a pair of black sunglasses, with the lenses having an exceptional defect of optical aberration. At that point, I happened to realize that my fate could be no more optimistic than that of the trees and then even a bigger fact that I did not seem to care about it any longer. I was still walking, unaware and unconcerned of the distance left to cover. Trees had crashed into their own species, stray inanimate cars, man-made obelisks in a theme park and then, I saw some survivors scampering ahead of me in godspeed hurry. A little while later, I witnessed an unusual sight: A girl picking up flowers from a fallen tree and a boy holding up an umbrella above her head with a precious meticulousness. Although, the rain was falling at a near horizontal angle. A tinge of a faint smile came to my lips, with a silent wish, "Careful! Dolts."

I could see a gigantic tree trunk lying ahead of me and it stuck my mind like some paralyzing force with a trace of wistful longing. I did not want to go ahead nor I wanted to admit the unverified veracity to myself. I took a few steps that exhibited my reluctance to continue yet my steps goaded me to carry on. I could get under the log with an aching screech coming from my backpack which had rubbed against the wood.

Sometimes in life, a devastating force is all that what serves to make equilibrium with a forsaken will. The living force needs to serve its own verve to make it worth living. I could get the portentous message: "Be the change you want." Thinking of my dreams and fleets, I started running among hushing inhabitants. I needed this life as badly as the storm and perhaps as exuberantly as its intensity. I reached the house marked "11" and barged into it through the front door. I felt the gloom gradually clinging to evanescence as I fell asleep in the couch..

A Sweden Trip

Sweden (n): is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Its capital city is Stockholm. It is surrounded by Norway (west), Finland (northeast)........It never took part in any of the world wars. ..peace-loving...highly developed...

These were the scant pieces of information I had, before I began my journey ahead. Any way this issue seemed minor in front of the other issues which had just surfaced in my mind, which was itself in a perennial self-distracting trance. I had been assigned to the project as a subject-matter-expert(SME), the subject of which I knew almost nothing. Then boarding the flight(it had been more than ten years since I had boarded any flight and the previous ones were obviously as a minor) and all those issues mingled along with the official clearance issues. They were concomitantly staring at me like a draconian monster spewing forth fire.

The way I got into Sweden concludes in a single word called 'WoW', which forms a mottled imagery in my reminiscences. I got here all in one piece!yuppie!

The itinerary in a rough sketch looks somewhat like this:

28/03/2008-----1600 hrs

CCU--> DEL

Quite surprisingly my mom and dad had come to drop me off at the airport, perhaps they knew of my nausea well before. It really bolstered my self-confidence. I was no where prepared with the luggage. And so we went to the nearest mall and bought a samsonite cabin baggage with a laptop case for my laptop bag does a real favor to hold the laptop only.[It sucked in 11k :(, International flights allow only one cabin baggage]. The universal truth is, mom always excels in packing. No matter how hard you try, mom will beat you.....And I was ready. I checked in at Kolkata domestic airport at 4:25pm along with my parents, who had to board the flight back home. The flight from Kolkata to New Delhi was in Jet Airways(Boeing 747-400). Food was delicious and the air hostesses pretty : Ah! food for thought. It was a pleasant trip all over, though a slight headache had germinated in my head. The boeing landed in the domestic terminal at 8.00pm. I had to take the bus to international terminal (around 15 kms ) from the domestic terminal. Then, I had to check with my passport and the only good thing I did was that I filled in the immigration form beforehand, special thanks to Pajji in the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines helpdesk.

28.03.2008-----2000 hrs

DEL--> AMS(Sounds Dutch)

Pajji told me KLM Royal dutch airliner(Boeing 747-400) was delayed by 6hrs. It would have the departure time at around 7.25 am(Mar 29) instead of 01:30 am on the same day. Then one of the charlatans associated with Airports Authority of India duped me for 200 bucks for the service which was never required. Then, I had to collect the boarding pass for Amsterdam(Holland) , do the immigration check. I made a through check in of my luggage to CPH(Copenhagen, Denmark).This business finished at 12:00 am. At 2:30 we were given snacks from KLM for the delay which was pretty hopeless in both taste and amount. We waited in the so-called lounge with hundreds of Indian Airforce Personnel waiting for their flight on an UN mission en-route to Congo. Then the Delhi KLM agents, they just mismanage so well that you would prefer domestic flights instead. After lots of hue and cry, I was finally on board. Flight was good, food better, and the air hostesses best. We were served with food and beverages(alcoholic/non-alcoholic) at regular intervals. The Boeing went above Kabul, Berlin, Warshaw then finally arrived at Amsterdam. I had a view of the mighty Himalayas running through Indo-Pak-Afgan borders, which were all covered with snow caps like some one had covered the peaks with marble lining, from 21 000 ft they appeared as majestic as I had read only in the geography text books. And finally, it reached Amsterdam after 7 hrs(11:30 Local time). I managed to get off the flight at 11:50 AM. The connecting flight to was at 12:35am. I didn't have a boarding pass. I had to collect it from KLM counter. So it was rush-hour for me.

29.03.2008------1130 hrs

AMS--> CPH

Oh God! the Schipol Airport at AMS is so well-organised but too big for I had very little exposure to follow organized travel. I rushed to the terminal after checking in at AMS security cordon and they threw away the water with me(500ml -Aquafina) with my kind permission of course, the sole reason being its volume was more than 100 ml! Then I came to T2 the KLM terminal. I stood at a counter of eternal enquiry there, which propelled me to collect another ticket for counter(like in icici banks). I faced racism for the first time in my life. After a while, I got my boarding pass for CPH. It was already 12:10 am then. Within 10 minutes, I had to board the (Focker-40 passenger ) and fortunately after an hour I reached CPH.

CPH--> Malmo Central (SWEDEN)--> Nassjoe--> Vetlanda

This is the perhaps sweetest part of my entire journey. The trains are the the very best(unlike Hwh-Mas mail). And the people are so co-operative in Sweden unlike Amsterdam(Some are real racists). The first frontier at CPH airport for me was that I had to to collect my luggage from downstairs at Arrivals(as shown in the ever spawning sign-boards). There was a guy from Hyderabad and another from Toronto who helped me collect my own luggage! I exchanged 100 Euros for 830 SEK (Swedish Kroner) at the exchange counter there. Then, I got to the train terminal which was located at the airport exit. I purchased the tickets with amex card which would take me inside Swedish frontiers i.e Malmo C. A Swedish family helped me out. They were perhaps the best people I had met outside India until now. Now some where inside the train caught fire all of a sudden. It stopped abruptly after the announcement was made in local dialect, which was all greek to me. The alternate one came after 10 min. So I went to Malmo Central thanks to the Swedish family as they helped me with the local announcements. And missed the connecting one to Nassjoe. So I had to wait for two hrs. The tickets cost me around 460 SEK. (1 SEK=Rs 6.6). Its quite costly even here. I took an apple and a cup of coffee during the wait. (16 + 5 SEK). Meanwhile, I purchased a calling card, called up Chandra and apprised him of the situation. Then finally at 1714 hrs, I fortunately took the train which was going all the way to Stockholm. After half an hour of passing the snow lining on either side the train caught up a speed around 250 km/hr as per the screen-information. The journey was most comfortable of the whole trip. A Swedish girl helped me reach the taxi stand. She braved the cold and snow just to show me the way and went back. Nice gal! Then I took a cab(Saab make, Gps navigation screen, amazing, he only fed the information Vittalagatan 15 C for street and house number) for 40 kms and it costed me 465 SEK(way too much). Finally I arrived at the apartment at around 2000 hrs and for me, and it ended with a 'WoW! Finally I reached'.

Life on a Fast Lane

'Let's get it started'.. Perhaps this phrase has qualified enough to be termed as a cliche. But, let it be some other time. It's the overwhelming confusion, Ray is facing this time. The typical may be, may be not situation.


Drifting in darkness, may be it was a natural consequence of his unconscious choice which made him think of what needs to be done. Some one had told him earlier, "Listen kid, If you want to win in the future you need to be prepared to lose now." He had made the naive mistake of taking it too literally, when it had de facto a subtle inner message. You need to fight the battle first. If you lose it at first, then awaken your spirits, exorcise the demons within and fight it ab initio. It sometimes necessitates to lose a battle to win a war.


But what is the proverbial war! It is the war within self , the war of an individual in an apparently eternal quest for a segregated identity to be known as 'Ray'. To be proclaimed in life for the very reason he exists for. Does it have a role to play with the manifestation of this singular life or it is eternity he is thinking about. Never having given even a speck of thought on what he really wants to do, at twenty-something he decides to take up this matter. Didn't he give a thought to it when it mattered less or was he engulfed by this life to such an extent that he didn't really look into it as a matter of concern. Better be late than never, he says to himself. All he finds is blinding darkness within. Can it be enlightened by the flames upon which he has utter faith.


Flames! Yeah, flames. Those guiding angels which show the path when we are lost, those which make us happy at times of sheer despair and which incessantly burn within us to give us our purpose sooner or later. Ah! the mind of a man can just dart off to the subject least apropos at that time. "Oh Ray! why do you ever discount relationships as a tool to kill boredom", he quietly introspects himself. Introverted, intuitive, thinking and perceiving was he as termed by others. Some thoughts just came in and out of his mind akin to clouds which make the cuddled sky. Immature was the term used for him by his closest friends. But, sometimes irrationally held truths are more harmful than reasoned errors.


Relationships may be the greatest strength at some point in the time-line unless they are shattered when they prove to be the greatest weakness. These memories come as a bane to the exigency of the situation. Thoughts needed to be diverted to a single route without blood streaming into the veins and its subordinates. Let's now try eliminating the impossible so that whatever remains may point to the truth. It might be pointless at times, but for that very cause, we are still humans. Looking askance to the mirror on the right, he made a investigating look at the distant flustered image, which wavered with the flames.


So back to flames and their subtle vibrations, singing and ringing into the ears about matter unheard for a long long time. Flames, yes it is the very self which burns inside the conscious and the unconscious reminding us of our existence as a whole. But only when you make allegiance to them, they help you discover. Else, these sounds quickly go unheard in the vast depths of time. It is the credence in self which is at stake and it's not akin to some self-obsessed theory which emerges when self-esteem is on the run.


Ray has to live his dreams but has he got any? Oh yes, they have always been sky high. It was time to ponder upon these dreams with the an intensity which might invigorate the very purpose of this life. And the quintessential requirement is to do a logical deduction on each of the stairways to them. He took his stand, the purpose could only be defeated by reason. Is it such that everything in life is logical or has logical explanations? No, perhaps they are understood as humane.


His thoughts made him think of the eternally diabolical paradox. It always made his mind to ponder whether the thought process always foreshadows some baleful instance or not. Clairvoyance for despair made a comical sense that time.Thoughts and countless thoughts streaming through the fluted architecture of the mind had been clouding his judgement. But this time, clarity was back, his mind was more focussed and a seeming vexation was receding away in the form of gentle waves.


Time had steadily evolved to enforce a definitive decision. It was Ray's and it was only for himself. It was time to seek vengeance for the lost. The elusive suddenly became the most obvious. Like still water, clarity fought back with an audacious elegance. The voice of the flames appeared nascent and forthright, acclaiming all his virtues from within. Those which never condemn for the so called blasphemy. They heed to only higher moral reason.


Ray had already made his decision. "It is time", he quietly said to himself. Self-esteem slowly crawled up to his craving and with his credence restored, it seemed to be another belle epoch. This was his last-stand with an unshakable resolve. The radiant sun had finally dazzled.