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

Chutzpah of a blue gazelle

It was yet another starry night, when the stars had glowed bright in an entrapment of a resplendent moonlight. Mileu was restless, her mind bubbling with effervescence of yearnings in the wild blue yonder. Meandering formations of Orion Stars, flight of the Grey Falcons and taciturnity of the Astral Elephants fortified her belief against all frivolity of common sense. The Astral Elephants supreme in their art of prophecy; had been there for millions of years, always overwhelmed in a state of trance, meditating ceaselessly on the Orions. The Orion Stars controlled the eminence of time, place and action in the trilogy of thought, light and formation. Mesamosus, one of the Astral Elephants meditating on the tender plains of Neverland, had foretold that little Mileu had been entrusted with a mission by the Orions themselves. There had never been an antelope so blue in color, with eyes of such boundless innocence and with a pair so majestic, those horns of exemplified glory. Mileu had been watching the waxing and waning of the moon for quite sometime now. And today the moon glowed with an abundance of both fullness and radiance. She did realize the impermanence of both time and vision, analogous to enshrouding of the moon. Teramosus the fairest disciple of the great Mesamosus, had unveiled Mileu’s purpose in a dream and had foretold her connection to the faraway bluish planet named Magasheka, to which her ancestors belonged and to which she had to reconnect when the stars were ready and when the new Orions struck a full eighteen faced diamond. Just before birth, a cosmic event had trapped her in time-space warp and she was born in a planet ever unknown, never seen or never heard of. 

The eighteenth face of the diamond was developing tonight across the new Orions and it was time. The grayest of the Grey Falcons, Jahrena, flew across the full moon in an instant and then he was nowhere to be seen by a seemingly engrossed Mileu. It was said that the Grey Falcons impervious to space-time phenomenon traversed the dimensions of an entire galaxy in no time, swifter than light itself. They had been born of pure energy with a subtlety encompassing all the eight elements of light. Boundless, formless and ageless they were, and with a benediction of mystic powers had they been honored. Jahrena was standing beside Mileu, watching her with an intent yet expectant vision. Astonishing Mileu with a chuckle, by the duality of presence and pedagogical precedence, made little Mileu was stunned for a while. Never having seen a Grey Falcon from such close distance, she was stunned to speechlessness for a few moments. Jahrena continued, “Thou shalt jump across the Macedoza sea, from the highest rocks of Eon facing the first moonlight, when the eighteenth face of the diamond completes itself. For thou has been long entrusted with thee connection to be established from thine’s gift of light”. Mileu quite surprisingly could understand every bit of what Jahrena’s had said. 

Thus began her journey towards the far eastern cliffs of Eon. Though impossible for even a grown up antelope to climb beyond the rough moors, surrounding the snowcapped mountains of Eon, she had already beemn bestowed with limitless strength of purpose with an audacity of hope. The eighteenth face of the diamond of the new Orions consummated which eventually outshone even astral systems of faraway galaxies. By the grace of Orions, she reached the mighty cliff of the mountains of Eon, the point where the moon shed it’s first light, the point which attributed diminution to everything and anything living or non-living. And then, little Mileu leaped across the cliff towards the bluish rays of horizon and the connection was made within moments. Eighteen dazzling rays coming our of the celestial diamond refracted the whole space-time continuum and these rays created multitudes of cosmic bridges of time, across the skies. Mileu found herself in the bluest planet of the galaxy, which was all encompassing those dreams of yonder. It was the place she had dreamt about all along, a place of utopian wonder and poetic surrender, the fairest and bluest one in the entire cosmos. It was home.

Wonder Years

Awesome Little Devils

These were the days when, ceaseless dreams could manifest every cloudy moment of our lives. Perhaps it’s a kind of reminiscence which we can so ill afford these days. These scenes started invariably in the classroom after usual morning prayer sessions and dissolved with the eventual bong of the school bell, a familiar feeling which still carries on itself, with after-marks of the rush and rumpus, and ever sizzling in our minds. Audio cassettes (both pirated and genuine ones) used to rule our musical temptations in a way maggi had reigned our appetites or rather non-appetite for the usual cuisines. Days were kind of marked with conceited collection of trump-cards, magnetic-stickers of cricket players and comic-book heroes, which came wrapped with bubble-gums. Sometimes, we were able to find the card only after chewing the gum and it was eventually wrapped in gum spittle to our utter joy of discovery. He-Man and Complan pumped us with powers both figmental and futile. We used to kind of discuss the travails of superheroes at great lengths and contest on the most powerful ones (which would usually be each of our favourite one namely, Styro-Dhruv and himself, Shirin-Superman, Gamma-Nagraj, Shelly-Powerpuff Girls and Sigma- Doga). Selection and decision making systems for these contests were basically electoral and the majority usually won easily, discounting any sort of logical reasoning. 

                To make a drift towards our superheroes who made the morning sun dazzle bright although sans any discernable super-powers, these were Sigma, Shelly, Gamma, Shilin and Styro. Usually Shelly, Shirin, Gamma and Styro used to finish well within the top ranks while Sigma took care of the bottom five. Shelly and Styro aspired to be doctors while the rest were clueless about their ambitions with the except the likes of Sigma who wanted to replace Sachin in the Indian eleven. Sadly, he ended up replacing some unfortunate female of the States and works in a call-center these days. Gamma topped in either academics or in body fat content. He never could quite achieve both the things at the same time. Though he was a bit of animal lover, he habitually doted on chicken and mutton. Styro was armed with a much young looking birth certificate and he occasionally ended up messing with his own year of birth. Shilin kind of hated everything equally but his love for the language never died. Though he could never replace Gamma in either academics or corpulence, both of them enjoyed beating the hell out of Styro every moment. Shelly was one focused female who was genuinely worried about the explosions preceding sun’s white dwarf formation which was perhaps some billion years away, given it could easily gulp away our planet.What will we do then!!

                              Shilin used to idolize Rahul Dravid while Gamma revered Shane Warne (both his bowling and scams), when neither of them knew anything about real cricket. Yet they could endlessly go on debating about proper seam positions and cover-drives just to sink Styro. Vanity seemed to have developed its inadvertent roots in consumable popularity. The only ones who really played cricket were Sigma and Styro. Styro and Gamma also used to worship Nagraj and Dhruv in their attics. With zillions of comic-books they were a kind of Sith-lords for comic-book lending. Shilin had a bunch of Asterix-Obelix comic-books which neither he nor anybody else wanted in exchange. Time went on till these kids could evolve into boys and girls and the gross sins of the universe could then start materializing. Gamma had a heavy incessant laughing sequence which usually landed up the whole neighbourhood in trouble. His boisterous laughs used to portend some unusual punishments by the teachers. Most of his preys were recently transferred fellow students and certain perennial Jackasses. Sigma gradually perfected the art of conditioning anonymous calls to neighborhood girls. He used to be called the Pana-phoner. Shilin and Gamma tried to learn the trade of lying while Styro could perfect the gospel of illusion in the meantime. Hailed as Faadu-Samrat, he once recalled an anecdote of a smallish purple dinosaur coming out of an lunchbox sized UFO, which had landed in a dirty puddle in his locality, post midnight. And then again on the following day, he saved a cute puppy from drowning in quicksand, inside the same holy puddle. There is also a self-proclaimed true account of Styro of how he had hooked a cricket ball to hit a flying airplane, in a place called Dolumundai, Cuttack. Perhaps, Shelly was the only one who could keep her grace, modesty and exuberance intact over the years. And the only one to notice it at that instant was Styro, thanks to his young birth certificate.  No doubt Styro was unusually versatile in painting, singing, academics, fabricating incredible anecdotes and cricket, but unidirectional laws of attraction seemed to tether his other flairs. Emotions seemed to drool over time while the others found it quite entertaining. Gamma and Shilin were kind of anxious, while Sigma was confused as ever. Confusion and frustration led to permanence of a perpendicular hair style of Sigma which later led to his comparison with another magnificent being better known by the name of porcupine.Then there was a certain Lambda who was equally gifted in both corpulence and mawkishness. Emotions were kind of utterly-butterly reserved for only the fairer ones and an inception of any kind of attachment took him only an exchange of a few words. The prettier ones were in their comfort zone till they had divulged their telephone numbers (fixed land lines in those days). Then the King-kong of torrential emotions would let himself loose. He gradually developed one odd habit of repeatedly getting himself bereft of mobile numbers of his dreamy muses, and getting them back from his connects. If you are one of the fairer ones and you happen to be reading this, may God save you from him! The anecdotes could go on and on, but its better to keep some things under wraps, at-least for a while.
                                                  Meanwhile Styro, Shilin and Gamma were able to make seminal discoveries in the cyber world, all as a part of growing up. They made significant inroads in to the world of curses and offbeat movies. Once upon a time, Sigma once got caught red-mouthed while trying to be an anonymous entertainer of a pretty girl over telephone and he was promptly nicknamed by her as CDA Jhinka- the local equivalent of a porcupine. It was later learnt that someone had purposefully leaked Sigma's identity to that very girl,earlier that day, as she was supposed to be one of his first true loves. Days were closing in till Styro could make his existence matter with Shelly. Perhaps there were feeble incipient signals from the other end too. He discussed this matter at great lengths with his prime advisers namely Shirin, Gamma and Sigma, who unanimously advised him to blindly forge ahead. Sigma also fancied his chances post-rejection. As, this was the concluding year at school and they really wanted to have some serious amusement. Styro had to face an instant rejection serving to the delight and expectations of his usual audience. Strangely enough someone had said that though we cannot change the cards we are dealt, but we can change just how we play the hand. And a few years later, he got back his lady luck. Styro at that time had also helped develop what is popularly known as Clove Theory, the story of lost keys after an immediate exposure to a scientific journal with seriously inappropriate content. One time, Gamma was caught abetting one felony which involved guarding a promising wanton love schedule of a person known by the holy name of Ved. Unfortunately, Ved's activities were at the other extreme and this was the not the first time he was caught red-handed publicly, thanks to his dear paramours. Ved had incidentally promised Gamma of some settlement to be done with that girl, asking him not to allow anyone else to enter the classroom. The settlement ended up in complete notoriety with the blissful ignorance of innocent Gamma.  After that Gamma got baptized as The Jaguali, the colloquial for a watchman. Sigma later had a perky disappointment with a Perk bar he had chosen to gift someone with the name of Seona. He painfully gnawed eight perks after that incident took place.  A few months later, Shirin tried a vain proposition with one Maroon and had to face a miserable rejection. He never could quite recover after that. Gamma and Shirin were content with their lives at that point of time, much to their agonies later.They later became needless replacements for American automation system and were rechristened as software consultants. Shelly completed her dream of serving the society as a doctor along with the Styro. Sigma incidentally made his mark in the world of anonymous call-reception, popularly known by the name of business process outsourcing. Living their lives after being separated by vast geographical distances, they still exist inside one another heart, as pieces of poetic nostalgia. Had mobile telephony not been invented, they would have found it a little difficult, living those mellifluous memories again and again. Perhaps there is a Sigma, Shelly, Gamma, Shilin and Styro living in each one of us who tries to connect to the other.

Momentary glimpses of the past still foreshadow what future holds for each one of these. Still these characters continue to live in the present, at least in the happy framework of mind and ever transient dreams. Cheers!!

Disclaimer

All characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Rolling Wheels

The train for Calcutta was scheduled to arrive at the station at 2230 hrs. Umpteen announcements about the coach positions preceded the arrival of the Howrah Express though the relevant announcements concerning the time of arrival and platform number were dropped out from the list. I was slowly getting wearier with each passing moment. My skybag seemed to bear a thick slice of my ennui as it had become crumpled from the edges with my leaning weight. I did realize this but apathy seemed to dominate my attitude towards its plight at that moment.

As I was leaning leisurely to extract certain vicarious pleasure from my immediate environment, something led my focus towards the other side of the platform. A cluster of people with  clamorous  sounds in what seemed to be a kind of hurried hindi dialect, were moving an abundance of luggage in between the mark-posts. An octogenarian lady with her docile sons and daughter-in-laws appeared to be guiding the whole bunch. There was her young twenty something grand-daughter who was actually trying to lift one of the boxes which surpassed her amply in both height and attitude.  I was still unable to get a precise view. Some hawkers moving their trolleys with shrilling announcements were obstructing my view. They themselves seemed to be unconvinced by their marketing strategy primed with their piercing broadcasts. I silently rendered loads of indignant curses to them.

                        It was around 2300 hrs when the Howrah Express arrived at the opposite platform. My ever vacillating mind told me that I was waiting at the wrong platform. I pushed out the extensible handle of my skybag and ran towards the connector rolling the strolley across the platform. Within moments I arrived at the assigned coach and found my berth inside the train. Shortly, had I began pushing my luggage under the seat when the overburdened-with-luggage family arrived at the opposite berth. And yes, it was my fair lady's seat too.

I started exactly where I had left. Putting on my ipod earphones to avoid losing my attention to the hubbub of incoming passengers and moving baggage, I began noticed her sparky lips with its hazing movements. Perhaps there was some fast talking going on with her bhabi beside her and those sounds were lost in the mellifluous song of Raajneeti pulsating within my eardrums. Wearing tracks and sweatshirt for the overnight journey did not make her lose any of her allures. A bewitchingly chiseled face with tantalizing eyes were the most dominant things governing her overall charm. Hand gestures were gracefully creating imperceptible ripples in the fragrant air surrounding me. There were a few more enthralled eyes nearby. I guess I got an inconspicuous angle of sight as I was reclining on the pillow. I maintained that. It was already past midnight and the main lights were out leaving the low powered night bulbs do their job. I guess the oculus adjusts impartially to both brightness and splendor. I was camouflaged enhancing my surveillance capabilities.  It happened one moment that my eyes reflected a pair of lustrous stars staring back. Perceiving certain lip movement and I promptly clicked my hands-free to a pause. I waved my hand in a little clockwise move to convey a denial of reception of any message. With a muffled yet honeyed voice there were two words. 'Hi' and 'Good-night'. I courteously returned the greetings. A loud cough of her grandmother in the upper berth put us both on high alert and gradually I fell asleep waiting for the coughing to subside.

The next thing I could realize was that the train had entered the destined station and a rush of red-clad porters came pouring in inside the coach. Sadly, I was unable to locate her and with an agonizing prick in my heart, I started collecting my luggage to walk across the platform. I went to the taxi-stand to purchase prepaid tickets to hire a drop to my apartment. Then suddenly a gradually accelerating Innova and an apparently waving hand came into view. The hand was very fair and the car was on the other side, for I could catch neither. I noticed the opposite berth girl gazing through the window, all excited and vivacious and then with a certain tinge of lament,  hiding her waving hand from the insiders yet with a sheer apathy towards the outsiders. I could only manage to return a smile which was promptly conveyed back.

Love, Stuck with a few Platonic Verses

An immaculately sculpted countenance with a definite verve for the ongoing turn of events suddenly refracted my languid eyesight on a focus. Being there for the last two and a half hours with a regressive mental absence of my sense of being, I recalled that it was supposed to be an 'enjoyable' reunion of our alma mater. Sadly, it was akin to waiting for a ravaging matador to rage towards a complaisant bull. I was waiting for a few known ones from our alumni group until that very moment. Till then, I tried to keep guessing the nature of magic potions being taken, by measuring the dynamics of different people when they were invited to the dais for the one 'big' talk- precisely from the manner of walking or rather snaking through the crowd when there was ample space beside, the way of greeting us with a legendary "hello" or the time lag between the syllables 'H', 'E', 'L' and 'O' and the basis of combining India's economic growth with the amount of booze available in this very party, as some of the necessary indicators of measurement among others. Still I would bet that only a handful had actually seen been to a dais before.

Returning to the focal plane, for the first few seconds, I kept wondering about the origin of this Aphrodite-like splendour. Chances were like (1) Girlfriend=80%- these  studs from our college make the most of it whenever they get even the slightest of  an opportunity after passing out, for they usually convert it having faced the negative side of the LAA(line of acceptable attraction) range for four excruciating years, (2) Daughter-5%, taking into account the family  type father figures who were not 'on a  so high' and the rest (3) 10% - an alien from Venus or a humanoid terminator who first attracts you and then terminates you because its whole mission is to terminate humans and things prevalent to these schools of thought.

                                                                             I 'star'-gazed my already moonstruck eyes towards this resplendent personification of beauty itself. Her hands were carved with a poetic finesse, which seemed to wave with a measured magnitude of impatience upon the ongoing conversation. Her eyes reflected a soothing sense of peace and humility, ears were accessorized with simple jewellery reflecting a strange sense of austerity yet serving its purpose, lip movements suggested an aversion to loquacity and the sculpted milky-white face revealed that she was not a direct alumna. She was wearing a glowing green salwar-kameez, with white dazzling sandals caressing her smooth pearly feet.

                                             
The other people in the coterie were an elderly man with a definite ardour for wisdom and another man with jet black hair, which was perhaps achieved by using loads of hair-gel, a dark complexioned face, frame-less spectacles and he probably had umpteen stories to tell, for his mouth seemed to be action-synchronous like sun-synchronous satellites with the valve for drinking water being frequented by guests. I realized that it had been twenty minutes of appreciating the beauty next door. Not to forget the swaying shiny black hair with a longitudinal free fall to her waist. A gusty wind was present to keep things in motion and for the hair at least. Maybe the breeze was inherently enjoying the sway. I was met with three mean stares from people at slightly different angles when I swerved my line of vision compelling me to look in another direction and probably at my watch. Within moments, the elderly man was standing in front of me. Perhaps it would be another hit and run case, but this time sans the BMW and Salman. The hair-gel black jack was also excitedly hurrying towards me like he was going to have a gala time watching my plight.  I mentally tried to frame up a defense in case I was first charged with ogling and was then hit.  Actually, I had spent an inordinate amount of time appreciating a ‘strange foreign beauty’ which was quite improper by Indian traditions.

Then came the words, "Hi, Sonik", with a curiously familiar accent. I could almost recall the semiconductor lectures during my sophomore year at NIT. He was Prof. Goutam Patnaik. On one side, I was elated that I was not being hit and on the other I anxiously anticipated that he would have just spotted me but not earlier than the moment of realization. The other man was one of my batchmates and branch-topper whom we lovingly called the 'The Dark Knight' for obvious reasons. I stood up and exchanged hand-shakes and pleasantries with the two. And yes, the prof took me to the lady in green to introduce her as his daughter to my utter elation and the three mean starers' envy. She belonged to that prefigured five percent to my absolute delight.  I happened to be Prof. Patnaik's favourite student as I could figure out from my introduction, with a feeble complaint that I was never quite industrious.  Had he given complementing marks, I would have lovingly missed a few bad grades. Back to her, the name was Sonal and she was doing some course in bio-technology which I failed to grasp as I was too busy getting a close up confirmation of my previous readings. With a surprisingly compact voice, I introduced everyone to my present job explaining about my technology and clearing the occasional doubts of the festering dark knight. Soon to my sheer relief Prof. Patnaik went to meet the other professors and I knew that I had to somehow engage this dark knight in someplace else. Probably, had to inform the ‘Joker’.  Then one of the three jokers known friends barged in with a stupefied bearing on his face which was similar to greeting an E.T crawling out of a crashed U.F.O. Even, I initially presumed that he had really seen some exotic alien creature. I pleadingly signaled him to engage the 'dark knight'. He was steering the conversation towards grade points which I had lovingly forgotten and had forgiven myself for. Somehow the joker succeeded in showing me the finger and taking the 'dark knight' away at the same time, on the pretext of finding certain soft-drinks.

My dream run had just begun. It was akin to Tendulkar batting in his purple-patch. Discussions started from technology and headed towards personal hobbies and common interests and even criticizing the boring conceited purview of the ‘dark knight’ to my joy. Even a shred of my vanity was chastened by her steadfast humility. We went to the ice-cream stand and both of us skipped dinner perhaps driven by the sole motivation of spending a few moments together. The discussion was pretty, making her look even prettier was her equally infectious smile. Then an exchange of contact details happened. All too soon, she was to get back home and was close to leave a parting kiss on my cheeks when suddenly the background was disturbed by a loud banging noise. With an abrupt dissolve of the immediate surroundings as in Harry Potter novels, I found myself lying on a bed  with someone shouting at the door. Probably, the last kiss was the ‘portkey’ to the real world. Whatsoever, in this other world, it was 0400 hrs and my roommate had just returned from his hometown. A brief span of forty five seconds of winking eyelids had created a wonder which I would be glad to barter with this reality.

Random escapades of Pique Pie

Pique Pie ran for his life in a bitter frenzy. But this was not the first time he had done this. It has been quite a while now when this had become a routine exercise. He never valued his own life at an exceedingly imposable stake, but then he would be bereft of his unfinished business, should he die. It was time for deliverance. He was quickly running out of all his strength to keep the pursuit on. It was time when he needed a teleport. He glanced at his wrist with a look which indicated neither expectation nor despair. The battery of the portalpass had been drained last night when he had performed fifteen unsecured teleports. He remembered Dr.Zine's cautionary words when he had presented him the portalpass, "Use it well, and make sure you recharge it once with a 35nm ultraviolet charger after every 12 teleports." And then, Dr.Zine disappeared into thin air. This was the last he had seen of Dr. Zickely Zine. He came near the platinum turnpike. The giant screen at the entrance displayed the the year 3100. It was a 1200 km long spiral road extending to the shore of Daydalis, which was a safe haven for the Pine Raiders.

He took the diversion to one of the nastiest areas of Daydalis called the Hall of Doom. A not so ubiquitous bar, where wretched scums of the society made merry with their days being numbered. Here is where he was destined to meet his fate as the stars had told. The stars had went wrong rarely, most of the times they were bang on target. Pique knew his destiny. A bright green cylinder was hung from the ceiling of Hall of Doom. It was glowing with luscious green which seemed to flourish inside the enclave. The ceiling had been created by the Dune King and it provided a real time mirror image of all the constellations of fortune. Naysayers always ascribed the mirror in helping the fate of the bandits. Pique went straight into the dingy chamber which was connected to the sewers. He has to travel 500 miles more to connect to his destiny. He jettisoned his rucksack in the sewers and climbed the ladder to the run way. The pursuers had come behind him but not for long. Pique activated the turbochargers and started running. He was gaining monstrous speed each nanosecond. A few seconds were left when he would touch a speed of 299792458 m/s. 10...9...8...........3......2...1 and flash. It was flash of blazing white lightning and it was touch and go. It was indeed time travel.


Few moments later, some billion light years away Ray woke up. He was feeling rather dizzy. He looked upto the wall and the calendar told him it was August, 2009. He tried hard to hold on to the fleeting memories but he could not. He had to go to college. And it was time, again!

The Reason

"Some of us find a reason good enough to live our lives and a few find one impeccable enough to define their lives."

A imminent juncture usually has its antecedents in an emotive sphere. Delaying the very cause for even a iota of alteration is a natural human response to avoid any sort of predicament. Born into this world of bondage its has become quite inveterate to see things as the way they are.

One night, staring askance at his reflection on the window glass, Ralph was having the same line of thoughts. Simultaneously, he was disapproving the same with a bit of ambivalence. It was around 2 a.m but his eyes were still wide open. They were staring back at him from the  inside of the glass. It had been a week since he had realized that something was really amiss. His arduous efforts at work had left him with very little time for introspection. He was missing the engineering life definitely but there were a few more additions to it. He had a job, of course with a salary then independence and all its appurtenances. Then suddenly the bolt stuck like lightning. It was her, he was missing so much. It had been almost six months since he had talked to her on a genuine sense. It was like 'happy new year', 'happy friendship day' for a while. Formality had crept in with an indefinite label.

Nothing was wrong, yet nothing seemed right. He smiled at himself for a while. Her candor, her smile all the reminiscences were flowing into the fluted architecture of his thoughts simultaneously. Her most innocuous lies which was made the truth just obvious. Silly jokes and instantaneous comments about what the elsewhere people were doing. Immaturity just belying the immense understanding to promote the bit of hilarity. These had made his life so much comfortable. The very next phase of thoughts made him delve into reality again. Calls went unanswered during this period of brief standstill, messages not received and yet he was one who was undeniable to any extent for he had the inviolable rights.

She was pretty of course. The reminiscence had just created a fleeting glimpse. Almost, three months later lady luck seemed to smile upon Ralphy as he got in touch. He had a penchant of being appealing since birth either in a good way or in a devilish way. At least he thought it was so. There came an undeniable proposition from his own tongue on which he still stares with utter disbelief. As time went by things grew like they were all innate. It had been all there but there was no particular effort of spewing it forth. The proceedings at Red Hot Chilly Peppers was quite interesting. Most of the time was silence with an occasional penetrating glance into each others' eyes. And he had been in the receiving end of drops of water with a fork and was impelled to oblige. Then he had to listen to a very dumb explanation of why she enjoyed this. Actually he was enjoying these proceedings quietly. He had the same green t-shirt by coincidence and he was listening to the plots behind it. It was all smiles which he could manage at this time.

This was a new journey to embark. It could not be defined yet it occupied a flawless mental image. Time in the case was the greatest motivator. And there was some song, slowly coming out from oblivion,"She's got eyes of the bluest skies, as if they thought of rain...."

Entree Galore

Thinking about Montford, Lauren and Randy, ah! well, they better be kept out of this. Funny thing was that Montford was obsessed with Lauren and Lauren was simply self-obsessed. Randy was too happy with his brandy, to think of anything else. Those were the handful of people who could make Ralph less introvert. The rest of the history was left intact along the footnotes of time. Every one should have a tinge of darkness from the past, which made Ralph incapable of thinking otherwise.

Berks did advise Ralph on his four sacrosanct steps which were principally based upon gross physical emotions rather than mental well-being. Ralph knew Berks' diabolical nature to the extreme intensity which Berk's had proved again and again. Now gleaming in his mind, were these thoughts which made him feel to be in a state of elevated sainthood. What he ignored was that he was incapable of accepting the unexpected.

Brief flashes of past flickered in his divergent mind. Thoughts took him to Montford, his good friend seeming proficient in managing his own organization. Ralph still had to attain proficiency in his current assignment and he perhaps eternally waits for a kind, he would love. For Monty, it just required the power and bent of mind to convince one colossus of a person especially when Monty preferred to differ. There was a thing for which Monty decided he would undergo self-customized atrophy, and it was Lauren. Good friends since college days and the relationship still halted to an impasse as the time evolved. As for Lauren, her heart was still like an open highway. Ralph had some concern about this. But he was more interested in redeeming his own life rather than understanding the abstruse complications of the secondary ones. Little did he know that these things accentuate to a point when credence gradually begins its own devastation. Berks a kind of always had a certain ingenious way of expressing thoughtlessness.

Randy had been always a kind of innocent escapist, still having creed on the virginal self- image of being. Just having a blissful time roaming and enjoying parties in the places whose name had become hackneyed enough to even qualify for one. He was in a school of thought which believed in keeping all the candles out, so that all the women remain fair. The hiatus of the Monty-Lauren seemed to a permanent one to Randy. Still he had his own life to deal with.

Ralph did think himself to be a kind of extreme genius at times, when there was no conclusive semaphore restricting it. Most of the time there was one, and to his utter dismay. His thoughts had been put into an spinning web. His confusions, his diversions and finally the premonitions did befuddle him.

Lauren had been in her world of dreams, lacking even a single vague touch with the real world. Always having thought herself to be flawless which had compelled a few affirmations from similar dim wits. She was in the illusion of some concerted effort, she was raising in order to prevent relationships from deteriorating further. These things just floated and made her bloated. Some things get into the head so quick that one never realizes it had to be kept in control.

Ralph admired one person to the acme: Berks. He always annotated his every direct speech to Berks with some obvious slangs. Yet he was like the Rolls-Royce of emotional-excellence. Always suited up to the occasion however frivolous the host may be, invited or not, he always was there. He wasn't always that smart. There was a past to it, a typically brutal past. Brutal on Berks, you got to be kidding. He is the Emperor of all diabolical schemes after all. Let us keep this past to some time else.

The time had come for once and for all to take a final stand. It could just prevent the impertinent convulsions. Monty could not make himself undone with any obsession. As for Randy he continues to live in a certain non-committal manner. And by the fall of pain, Ralph acquiesces with the reality, and seeks out for his own life where he has something to fall back upon. Berks still doesn't bet a penny to this as always. And for the lucky Lauren she remains as always, buffeted around by her life. She perhaps had a golden hand in its creation and its aftermath.