The Commodore 64 was the first computer my father owned. He bought it a couple of years before I was born and loved it dearly. It looked nothing like the computers we know today. There was no hard disk; instead it had to be booted using a large floppy disk. There was no monitor either; the setup had to be plugged into the TV. The operating system was neither Windows, nor Linux. It wasn’t even DOS. It ran on BASIC. But most of all, I loved the keyboard. It was solid piece, as thick as a briefcase with chocolate brown keys encased in a light brown body. It was an imposing piece of equipment, typing on it made one look very important.

Everything looked mysterious and exciting. The large and dusty floppy disks in brown semi transparent boxes, the thick user manuals, the miles of interconnecting cables, the flashing red and green LED’s on the floppy drive, the eerie blue screen on the television; it all looked so advanced. My father looked like a Geek God when he was using the computer. I would watch in awe from a distance.

When my father wasn’t around, I would take the brown keyboard to the loo and then surrender to my wild Sci-fi fantasies. I was the pilot of a spaceship, the bathroom -my cockpit. Furiously typing commands on the keyboard, I ascertained enemy ship locations, warned sister ships, launched missiles, dodged enemy fire and escaped into hyperspace. Little did the makers of the Commodore 64 suspect that their product was being used on the potty to conduct nuclear warfare.

Within a short period of time the keyboard stopped working. My father never accused me but I think he felt I was somehow responsible. I didn’t breathe a word. The Commodore 64 was buried at the bottom of the cupboard never to be seen again.

When I turned 16 my father bought a Zenith PC that came with a dial up internet connection. My father and I listened with interest as the modem hemmed and hawed, squawked and screeched until a connection was established. After that we didn’t know what to do. We spent several minutes just waiting for something to happen, for a window to miraculously open and connect us to the only website we knew: hotmail.com. It wasn’t until a knowledgeable friend dropped by that we double clicked on the internet explorer icon. From then on I was hooked.

The very next day, I came racing back from school knowing that no one would be at home. In a feverish state of excitement I switched on the computer and the modem, waited impatiently for the connection to be established. I opened Yahoo search and breathlessly typed “Pamela Anderson, NAKED”. It was my first brush with the infinite possibilities the internet offered. Until my mother came home an hour later, I gazed wide eyed at the screen as compromising pictures of the busty beauty flooded my senses.

If it was my first brush with cyber nudity, it was also my first lesson in the need for careful concealment of my dubious activities. Within minutes an email from VSNL arrived in the inbox warning me of the criminal nature of my pursuits and the punishment that was likely. I had no idea the email had come until my dad opened the inbox later that night.

What followed was a period of intense embarrassment. When my parents demanded to know what the devil was happening, I hurriedly came up with a cock and bull story of how possibly some one had hacked into our VSNL account and misused the same. My mother, a seasoned school teacher didn’t believe a word of it. My father however readily believed me and assured her that these things happen quite frequently, that cyber theft was a common occurrence. I felt couldn’t believe that he’d fallen for my story. Now when I look back I realize that my dad was just trying to save my skin.

With time I learnt to clear the history and remove the temporary internet files. I deleted cookies and used proxy websites. I was as careful as I could be. I always felt guilty though. My father used the computer to run mathematical software called MATLAB for abstract modeling. My own models were stark naked.

While my father and I frequently used the computer, my mother kept her distance. To me the computer was device to be used, misused and abused. She on the other hand would never turn it on but instead reverentially clean its surface everyday and warn me that if I didn’t dust the computer, viruses would enter and cause it to crash. I found her naivety painful and tried hard to ward off her superstitions. I never succeeded.

When she found other teachers at the school were beginning to use the computer to surf the internet, send email and make power point presentations, my mother too began to get interested. With me by her side, she hesitantly turned the computer on and began to explore its features. She never quite mastered it. She would open internet explorer before connecting to the internet, she could never remember where she’d saved her documents and when Microsoft Word formatted her text in ways she never asked for, she would have a nervous breakdown. She was always quite timid around the computer, afraid that any sudden movement would cause the computer to crash. If she hadn’t used the computer for a couple of weeks, she would forget the sequence in which it had to be turned on. The computer was always bigger than her.

But there were moments when the computer behaved and everything operated the way she wanted it to. During these moments, she would relax and grin, happy that she too knew how to use the computer. Having attended typing classes as a teenager, she would sit straight and primly type on the keyboard. I would watch from a distance and smile.

My grandfather was always curious to know what this internet thing was and asked me several times to explain it to him. I’d seat him next to me in front of the computer and enthusiastically launch into a detailed explanation of networks, servers, modems and websites. Within minutes he would be snoring gently.

I now use a HP pavilion laptop and it has been my friend, philosopher and guide for the last two years. In college I used it to make presentations, study, download music, watch movies and chat online into the early hours of the morning. When the hard disk crashed and had to be replaced, I suffered intense pangs of loneliness until it was fixed. Without a laptop, I had no identity, no place in the universe and no meaning in life. Friends would avoid me, knowing that I wanted their laptop. I was loath to join the other nomads who pathetically used the computer lab.

The Zenith PC now lies gathering dust in my house. Like the Commodore 64 it is a relic, no longer fit to be used in today’s fast paced world. It saddens me that’s it importance in my life was transient. For years it patiently bore the onslaught of my impatient fingers and took me to places far far away. I will probably never use it again but I can never throw it away. Perhaps one day in the future I wouldn’t mind if my son took it with him to the loo.

'Watch Out! We are MBA!'

The title caught my eye the moment I entered the Crossword bookshop on Elgin Road. 'Caught my eye' is putting it rather mildly. Instead it scratched, bit and pummeled its way into my consciousness. Its title left nothing to doubt. One glimpse and I knew everything I had to know. Just another wannabe Indian author baiting clueless readers with the MBA tag.

Of course it could be plain jealousy. Another young Indian author with his book published while I drift along with hazy dreams of being a celebrated writer and no concrete evidence of getting there.

But then this is just another one in the whole slew of IIT-IIM books that have wormed their way into bookstores. Books include “Joker in the pack”, “IIM --> Ganjundwara", “Anything for you Maa’m”, “Above Average” and so on and so forth. The blame of course is to fall squarely on those who thought that they could get away with cloning “Five Point Someone”. While Chetan Bhagat’s first novel is good for a few hours of time pass (after which you must lend it to a friend and ask him not to return it), it irks me because without the IIT tag, it would have tanked. It works because we are normal people with average intelligence and we like to be assured that those who make it to the IIT’s and IIM’s are not demidgods but have problems just like you and me. Period. If the book instead had been based on an incident in just another ordinary engineering college we wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. It is by no means memorable. At some level all these books are Indian versions of "Snapshots from Hell", a nicely written account of life at Stanford. "Snapshots" was a lovely read. These Indian versions though are just sad.

I don’t think any of these books will be remembered a few years from now. It’s just a horde of wannabe writers with MBA degrees cashing in on the IIT, MBA craze. After all, don’t we all want to know what life is really like at IIM A?

The sight of 'Watch Out! We are MBA!' affected me powerfully. I felt like time was running out. With so many books coming out how was I possibly going to differentiate myself? What was I writing anyway? Did it not sound suspiciously similar to the very same material I had ridiculed?

I’d like to think that I will write something more enduring.

The week sees me perspiring in Calcutta. I'm here for my cousin Prashant's wedding and I'm trying hard to get used to the feeling of the shirt sticking to my back. After experiencing a frigid Delhi winter, playing in the snow at Manali and then finally lazing around in Bangalore's mild weather, Calcutta's humidity makes me gasp.

I'm also gasping because I cant believe Prashant is getting married. Yes, he's four years elder to me but we've always shared a great wavelength. I've never really consciously acknowledged the fact that he's almost thirty. In my mind its still child marriage. His partner in crime is Bengali and that makes the wedding and my extended family very interesting. I've never eaten so many sweets in one sitting. I'm still slightly pop eyed after consuming vast quantities of Sandesh and Mishti Dhoi.

It feels really nice to see the entire family again. The house is buzzing with laughter and noise. Its quite chaotic actually. Its great to wake up early in the morning and have coffee with everyone.

This also marks the beginning of my travel plans. I shall be shuttling between Calcutta, Bangalore and Chennai over the next few weeks. Also planned is a trip to Sikkim with a friend from IMT and then finally a weekend visit to Mumbai to see all my classmates once before we begin to work for a living. I need to move around, it keeps me chirpy. For the last month I have been sitting in Bangalore quietly going out of my mind.

Here's to a chaotic and happy wedding :-)

I’m sitting in a Café Coffee Day outlet sipping Irish coffee and watching the ice cream melt on a piece of apple pie that I’d ordered in a moment of weakness. Much to my disappointment the Irish coffee does not contain real whiskey as I’d hoped for, only a non-alcoholic variety. Having had only filter coffee or the foul tasting stuff found in Nescafe outlets all my life I’d always been eager to see how coffee would taste with booze in it. It looks like I’m going to have to wait a little longer.

I’m sitting here for what writer’s call ‘inspiration’, the kind of inspiration that comes from a change in setting. At least that’s what Natalie Goldberg says in her book ‘Writing down the bones”, a book that promises to help ‘Free the writer within’. My cousin very kindly lent me the book after I’d shyly confessed that I hoped to write a book soon. She shares my dreams of being a writer too.

To complete the setting I also have with me ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho, a writing pad and a pen. The setting is perfect to write. I should riding the waves of inspiration that shall crash against the shores my notepad and recede, leaving behind lines of exquisite literature. My sister’s friend Anu even promised to help me get in touch with a publisher she knew after she read my blog.

“They publish anything!” she said confidently. “Actually they print a lot of Hindutva literature. Would you be interested?”

I mumbled something like “Let me write the damn thing first” and then smiled self consciously. It’s embarrassing to admit in public that you want to write a book. I can’t get myself to face all the raised eyebrows.

But I can’t get myself to write. I’m surrounded by college kids wearing expensive casuals and cooing couples who are pretty well dressed themselves. For some reason I get the feeling we are all a little self conscious, that all of us are trying a little extra hard to show that we belong in expensive surroundings. The college kids are slouching a little exaggeratedly in the cushions and their voices are louder than normal. Even the cooing couples take a break from each other now and then and look around to assure themselves that they fit in, that it is perfectly normal to sip iced cappuccinos that cost a bomb and make small talk. I think it’s the same way members of Indian Rock or Heavy Metal bands feel about their long hair, pierced ears, goatees and Black T Shirts with gothic Mettalica logos. They seem to be able to pull it of effortlessly but somewhere inside a voice niggles “Do I look like I belong?”

Of course I’m probably wrong. Nobody feels that way and my mind likes to poke fun at other people.

I know why I can’t write now, I feel too elitist! The Paulo Coelho makes me look so wannabe. I know I shouldn’t have picked up a book that has had a ‘life-enhancing impact on millions of people’. It’s such yuppie book to read in public. Where’s my originality? Who do I think I am anyway? A fancy writer who goes to café’s for ‘inspiration’? Get real!

When I was about nineteen, a Coffee Day outlet opened close to my home. I was going to meet a few friends there and I told my dad I’d be back late.

“Where are you going?” he asked

“The Coffee Day outlet, you know…the one on the main road?”

“That’s the place where a cup of coffee is forty rupees right?”

“Uhm…that the one”

It didn’t matter that the ambiance was nice, that I could chat for as long as I wanted with my friends and that the waiters wouldn’t bother us needlessly. A cup of coffee was forty bucks…and that said it all-about the place and about the kind of crowd that hung out there. It was a totally unjustified view he had held and now I realize it’s genetic. I have it too. I can’t believe I’ve paid a total of a hundred and twenty bucks just for a change in surroundings.

I eat my ice cream with apple pie morosely and then gulp down the Irish coffee. The pie is not bad but the coffee is awful. I tip ten bucks and leave.

God! The excuses my mind comes up with not to write!

When I turned 18 and tried to think of all my athletic accomplishments I realized I had absolutely none. Skinny, weak and quite timid I was hardly what you might call a talented sportsman. Deeply touched by James Thurber’s article on his sporting failures I sat down and reviewed my own history with sport. This was what came out of it:

Throughout my junior school days, if there ever was anything that was cause for sorrow, it was the fact that there wasn’t a single sports activity I was good at. My class mates were mostly indifferent, but I was downright bad. Being small of stature and rather weak, I considered a game of carom to be an incredible work out (not that I was any good at it).

Football, I considered too rough and confusing. My classmates often took advantage of my helplessness as I ran back and forth piteously asking every player which team I belonged to and usually convinced me I was in the opposite team. No matter which side I was on, I was told I belonged to the other side. Hence I was always forgotten in glory or solely responsible for defeat.

When it came to cricket, I don’t recollect being anything other than a fielder (another job I failed miserably at).No matter where I stood, the ball would always come to me. The deep sense of affection the ball felt for me generally led to my downfall and once again was I was looked upon as the scum of the earth. I do recollect being a batsman once. The bowler took one step forward and gently tossed the ball. Anxious to prove my worth, I closed my eyes and took a mighty swat at it. An awed silence followed. I opened my eyes and the inert form of the PT sir lying flat on the ground; about thirty meters away greeted my eyes.

"Did the ball do that?" I whispered to a friend. "No" he whispered back "The bat did".

After that incident I gave up sports altogether and spent my time carving my initials on the bathroom door. As time passed I moved on to the walls but alas! They were filled with inscriptions of their own, so I decided to give the games period another shot. This time I tried volleyball. It took a great deal of persuasion, but I finally convinced a senior to teach me the rules. I went out there brimming with confidence and promptly sprained my left hand. My confidence drained, I returned to the senior." Hit it with both hands" he said. I went out there again and sprained my right hand.I haven’t played the game since.

Frustrated by my unsuccessful efforts, I signed up for swimming classes during the summer hols (a decision I regret even today).The coach was an enormous man, about six feet tall and six feet wide. "Swimming" he said” is instinctive." upon which he roughly grasped me and threw me into the deep end of the pool. I thrashed about wildly for few seconds before sinking. "KICK THE WATER!" yelled the coach." PULL ME OUT OF THE WATER AND I WILL!"I yelled back. Looking back, I don’t think I ever was his favorite pupil. He transferred me to the kiddy's section after that.

Though not a good swimmer, I always managed to stay calm in the shallow region, quite unlike a friend of mine. He firmly believed that if the water level was above his ankles, he would die a horrible death. I am ashamed to say, I felt quite superior to him when he would stand in water 2 feet deep and scream for help. As time progressed, my swimming abilities went from bad to worse. Finally a kid, my friend and I were the only ones who had successfully learnt nothing. In sheer desperation, the coach started teaching us all from scratch again. "Now look here" said the coach, clutching the side of the pool. "You kick out like this". He kicked out against the water. He demonstrated about 5 times and stopped.

"Ooh! Do it again! Do it again!" shrieked the kid, jumping up and down with excitement. Puzzled, the coach obliged him. "NO! Not that! I want to see those pretty bubbles again!" (Needless to say the coach didn't oblige him).

I don’t know how I survived the coaching camp, but I somehow did. Other than learning thirty different ways to drown, I never looked upon it as an enlightening experience.


I’m about 25 now. A quarter century on this planet and I can’t say I’ve progressed athletically since the time I wrote that article. IMT had a lovely football field, a couple of badminton courts, a basket ball court, a volleyball court and a perfect tennis court…and I didn’t play a damn thing until my final semester.

It’s not like I didn’t have the time. Somehow my physical activity was limited to either lifting weights at the gym or running around the field. I ran the Delhi half marathon but nothing else.

In the final semester I picked up a tennis racket for the first time in my life and I was immediately hooked. A small group of us would play from late in the night to early in the morning and I loved every moment of it. Granted we were pretty amateur but running swiftly across the court, pausing, stretching and finally whacking the ball across the net gave me a tremendous high. I loved the sweating and the grunting.

I’ve joined tennis classes now and I’m learning to play the game properly. Eleven year old kids make me look silly in comparison but I’m glad that I’ve finally taken a sport seriously. I’m not going to let go of an opportunity again.

This is essentially how I spent all my time in IMT

Here's what I'm currently using to scare myself into writing everyday.

Attempting to write a book tests the nerves quite a bit. Unlike a blog entry which is written in a moments inspiration, consciously penning down the words of a story is like pushing an elephant through slushy mud. I’m crawling through the pages; my mind wanders all the time and I shudder when I read what I’ve written. It’s so awful, I have a grimace permanently etched on my face.

The scarcely filled notebook makes me feel guilty all the time. I know I’ll never get these three months of absolute freedom again. Yet having twenty four hours a day to myself has done little to inspire me.

I know that I do not want to turn thirty and realize that I’m single, pot bellied, grouchy, unhappy at the office and have done absolutely nothing with my life.

Okay, back to staring at the notebook again. Write you miserable SOB! Write!

“I miss the gossip” moaned Jo on the phone. I listened quietly, nodding because I could feel her pain.

“I miss the walks and the weird arguments we used to have” she continued reminiscing. You would have thought we were retired pensioners discussing the “good old days”. The truth was scarcely a week had passed since we’d left college.

Jo and I first met when we came to give the interview for IMT’s admissions. We didn’t speak with each other but I remember noticing this tall, attractive girl and hoping we’d see each other in IMT. Little did I know then that she was going to be one of my closest friends.

The truth was I didn’t know we were best friends until she told me so. Jo more or less decided that for the both of us. There was an air of finality to her announcement, that henceforth we would be best friends. Because I didn’t know what to say, I meekly agreed. Other friendships in IMT took months to mature and blossom. Jo and I were best friends by the end of the first week. When I asked her why she chose me, she said her logic was simple. I was a nerdy looking South Indian and thus totally incapable of hitting on her. My genes had ensured that I was harmless.

We became famous for our nightly walks. As we were among the first guy girl combos to be seen walking around campus, everyone just assumed we were a couple. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Jo went into fits of laughter at the thought. While my feelings towards Jo were purely platonic, I didn’t quite see why the idea had to be a source of amusement.

“I don’t know DD” she said between gasps “It’s just that I don’t see how I could possibly be attracted to you. I mean you’re a nice guy and all that, its nice talking to you…but I don’t know…you’re sort of dull…”

“You’re telling me I’m boring?”

“No…Not boring…it’s just that you seem to lack passion for anything. Passion is important you know? women need passion! Swaroop is passionate about tennis, Nags is passionate about making friends…but with you…I don’t see anything! What are you passionate about?”

“Err. lots of things…”

“Like?”

“Uh…lets see…books?”

From the look on her face, I could see it was the wrong answer. An interest in writing and books made me look like a painfully shy introvert. I had no caveman like qualities. I was neither a socialite nor a go getter. I could see why women wouldn’t want to have children with me. These conversations left me feeling rather depressed. Compared to Jo, I was dull and stodgy.

“You don’t market yourself well” she continued, clearly relishing the subject.” You lack the innate ability to promote yourself. Nobody knows what excites you”. I stared to reply but she cut me short “No, ghee dosa and filter coffee is not an answer”. I fell silent, squashed.

In the two years we spent at IMT, Jo rarely visited my room. Instead she preferred to stand outside my window and musically call out my initials until I responded. Even if she did come in, she’d do so with her nose wrinkled and an expression of supreme distaste on her face.

“It stinks here” she would declare and sit gingerly on my bed. “How long has it been since you washed the pillow covers?” Statements like these did little to make me feel warm towards her. Granted, there was a lingering smell of old socks and the dog did little to improve the odor but I liked it all the same. It made me feel at home. Every room had its own distinctive smell. My room smelt of socks and dog, Mathew’s room smelt of stale cigarette smoke and agarbathi and Sriram’s room smelt of Sriram. The girl’s rooms smelt sterile in comparison. Who wanted to live in a hospital anyway?

After we left the room, Jo and I would head to the Nescafe joint where I’d get a cup of tea and then we’d walk around campus while Jo indulged in “girly talk”. The conversations were usually one sided. I always listened closely, keen on learning the ways of the female mind. I felt gratified to be the recipient of such arcane knowledge.

When Jo got engaged to be married, several of my friends took me aside and quietly asked me if I was heartbroken. When I replied in the negative, they gave me a disbelieving look. Surely I harbored some sort of feelings for her. After all, she was hot wasn’t she? They declared that I was living in some sort of denial. “Admit it DD, admit it!” they would cry. I could only shake my head in response.

Jo’s engagement however filled me with a vague kind of dread, the dread that comes from watching friends readily move onto the next stage in life. It troubled me to watch 24 and 25 year olds girls get engaged or married. There was an air of certainty to them, like they knew what they were doing and were prepared to accept responsibility for it. They wanted to become adults and even worse, mothers. I felt hopelessly disconnected from them. They made me feel terribly immature. The guys remained guys. The girls became women.

I don’t know how Jo and I work. We have vastly different personalities. She’s intelligent, impatient, passionate, dismissive, opinionated, and frequently sarcastic. Yet she treats me with a certain grudging affection - an ill tempered, self appointed guardian. She’s the full bodied, hot blooded Salsa dancer. I sort of drift around and yet we have a beautiful friendship.

Don’t know when I’ll get to meet you again after the wedding. All the best Jo, stay in touch :-)

The period post IMT has been one of extreme disorientation. Time exists once again in discrete units. There is a sense of order. Monday ends when I go to bed at 11 PM and Tuesday begins when I wake up at 7. It was rather different at IMT. Day melted into night and night melted into day. We were always awake when the transition happened. A week was one long continuous event; in fact we rarely knew which day of the week it was. We existed in a different time zone altogether.

In some sense now, I feel the loss of a former identity. I’m no longer DD, one of the numerous eccentric characters who prowled the corridors of IMT but my sister’s younger brother. As I sit in here in the comfort of my sister’s house, where the floors are clean, my clothes washed and pressed and the rooms don’t smell of old socks and dog like my former room, I can’t help but sigh. In my head, I’m still in college – playing with the dog, walking around the campus with a cup of tea and the company of Jo, discussing life, love, sex, God and the meaning of life with Ali, randomly downloading movies and music and staying up all night finishing a project which was pure fiction. IMT helped me define myself. For two years, I got used to playing a certain role-a role that offered me the freedom to script my lines as I pleased. There was a sort of swashbuckling bravado in my wild existence – I was being my own man. Now as my sisters younger brother, I feel a certain loss of confidence. I have this nagging suspicion that women will find me less of a man.

I must however concede that life isn’t so bad here. It’s good to be surrounded by the comfort and love of my family again. Hygiene levels are certainly much better than the ones I got used to at college. I have an entire three months before I join work and I have some plans to keep myself occupied. The plans include writing my book, traveling across the country and learning to play tennis-a sport that began to interest me in college.

Here’s hoping I stick to my plans :-)

When I first read Arbits farewell to MICA post, I gulped. I gulped because I knew that’s exactly how I’d feel when I left IMT. I have exactly 24 hours left before I receive my degree after which I will be politely asked to leave because the batch of 2006-2008 no longer belongs here. Sure they’ll give us some time to linger around but we all know that in a couple of days the last bags would have been packed. In 24 hours, I shall no longer be a carefree student but an alumnus of the institute. I’m offended at the thought of being an alumnus. It makes me feel old. I don’t want to belong to the past, to be called only for alumni meets, guest lectures and the placement season.

I wish I had something more to say but I think Arbit has said exactly what was on my mind. My own farewell can come only when I’ve truly realized that IMT is over. At the moment the idea hasn’t sunk in one bit. I fully expect to be attending classes and hanging out with friends two days from now, instead of sitting on a plane that will take me away.

Chupke se kahin, dheeme paaun se
jaane kis tarah, kis ghadi
aage badh gaye, humse raahon mein
par tum toh abhi thi yahin
kuch bhi na suna, kab ka tha gila
kaise keh diya alvida

The final semester at IMT. These are the best days of our lives :-)

At 9 PM, I made my way out of the hotel and into the street. I was going to receive my mother who wanted to spend a weekend with me before she left for Chennai for the start of the next academic year at school. Hotel Shakti Paradise was one of the several lodging establishments that dotted the narrow winding road that led to the highway. Two stories high and painted a dull white, it was quite unimpressive to the casual passerby. The insides were no better. The rooms were cramped, dingy and dusty. Lizards padded about lazily on the walls and the ceiling, flicking their tongues out to trap the numerous mosquitoes that buzzed around the room. The mosquitoes usually ensured that every hot stifling night turned into a gory blood bath for the unfortunate occupant. The residents of Shakti Paradise often wondered what was going through the owners mind when he decided to name his hotel.

I passed down the street, duly noting the sights and sounds I had become familiar with over the past few weeks. Hotel Mohanapriya where I'd spent my first restless night in Salem, the rather bafflingly named "Decent Hair Cutting Saloon" and the ubiquitous software training institute that assured everyone of 100 % placements. "After college: just degree but after our course: JOB!" proclaimed the tattered banner that hung outside. I often found myself pondering on the fates of the students who joined these shady software courses. Did employment really await them at the end? Or was there a catch in the guarantee? What would it be like to attend these classes? Were the students eager, hopeful and excited about the opportunities that were supposed to be exist? Or was the course a last resort for the weary and cynical, the ones whom corporate India had summarily rejected?

Further down the street came an ancient and crumbling house that served as an incongruous setting for a firm selling industrial chemicals and then a restaurant that lured in customers by grilling chicken out in the open.I would watch with horrified fascination as the headless skewered bodies rotated slowly over the fire. As the heat slowly turned them a golden brown,a bewitching aroma would float gently over the compound wall and into the street, entrancing all those who passed by. The temptation to go sample some grilled chicken was always high but I usually moved on before I succumbed to it.

At the end of the street, I turned right and walked down the highway towards the pulsating, sweaty and chaotic mess that was the Salem Bus Stand. The Salem Bus Stand was an important one as the town lies in the dead center of Tamil Nadu, equidistant from all important cities and towns. Scores of buses roared in and roared out, disgorging people or swallowing them whole. The local economy depended entirely on the bus stand for its survival. Fast food joints, bakeries, hotels, STD booths, pharmacies, internet parlors and instant photo studios had coalesced together around the terminus in the heat of commerce. It didn't matter what time of the day or night it was, the place was always frantically busy.

An auto driver sprang out of nowhere and pranced around me nervously. Dark, sweaty and desperate looking, he defiantly demanded that I use his overpriced services. I shook my head and moved on.Auto drivers gave me the willies. Their fares were always exorbitant and intensely disliked haggling with them because I always lost. The hostile encounters usually left me feeling weak, helpless and very annoyed with myself. It was so much easier to give in to their demands than battle it out. My feeling of self worth however plummeted at the end of the transaction.

The truth was Salem depressed me. I felt like a stranger, someone who spoke the local language but felt no intimacy, no sense of familiarity with the people that surrounded him. Perhaps it was the unforgiving nature of my work or perhaps it was the loneliness that came from spending my evening and nights alone in the room with only the TV for company. Despite being a tamilian, I felt totally out of place in this small, crowded town. The culture, the values and the local lingo was rather different from where I came from. What I really resented most however was the intrusion of all that was bad and ugly about the world outside into small town Tamil Nadu. We'd been taught a clever term in class called Glocalization: the blend of global trends and local tastes. Glocalization had manifested itself in the form of cheap imitation malls painted a garish orange and cine plexes that boasted of glass and concrete on the outside and filth and graffiti on the inside. Practically every food joint proudly boasted of "Pizza" on its menu, a bloody goop of hard bread, cheese and tomato sauce and every second building was a call center training institute, promising the eradication of the "Mother tongue influence". Glocalization had robbed the town of its authenticity. Salem's aspirations seemed second hand, the hand me downs of bigger cities like Chennai and Bangalore. Modern India beckoned seductively and Salem was determined to get there as cheaply as possible.

At the bus terminus I bought myself a drink and stood waiting at the receiving area. The bus had left Bangalore at half past four in the afternoon. It took about five hours to make the journey and I found myself eagerly scanning the crowd that was discharged from every bus. Just as I was getting a little anxious, I caught sight of her sitting at the front seat of a bus that had just arrived, body tense and prepared to disembark quickly the moment the bus came to a complete halt. There was an expectant smile on her face, a smile that somehow conveyed a happy anticipation of meeting her son and simultaneously a grim determination to fight any crowd that came in the way of her getting down first. My mother was the queen of bus travel. Together we had traveled twelve years in Chennai’s PTC buses to school and back. I had graduated to a college bus and then finally auto rickshaws when I started earning. She had continued to use the bus; any other convenient mode of transport stank of elitism and wasted money.

She did not know I had spotted her as she disembarked and started making her way to the exit.

“Amma !” I called and pushed against the crowd and made my way towards her. She heard me, turned around and smiled.

“I didn’t know you’d come to the bus stand!”

“Well of course I would come. How could you possibly know how to find me otherwise?”

“I thought I’d ask around for a Hotel Saravana. You mentioned it to me several times over the phone...”

“I only eat there, I don’t stay there…” I chided her and reached for her bags. She let me take them with a smile.

“You want to eat first and the head to the hotel?” I should have known better than to ask.

“No, I feel too dirty from the journey. Let me freshen up first. Is your hotel far away?”

“No, just down the road. I got fleeced the first time I landed here. The auto driver charged me fifty bucks to get there.”

“Hmpf, you know what auto drivers are like…”

“It was two in the morning and I had no idea where the hotel was. What do you expect?”

“So you just gave him the money?”

“No, I strongly expressed my annoyance at being fleeced.”

“And then you gave him the money?”

“Can we change the topic?”

We reached the junction and turned left at the street to my hotel. Suddenly the street seemed familiar in a different sort of way. I wasn’t heading to a lonely room, I was heading home.

We walked in silence, quietly acknowledging the reversal in roles. She the dependent, me the protector and provider. The switch troubled me. It validated my rise to manhood but spoke of times lost forever, times when I was clueless and fumbling but happy and she cheerful, strong and brave. Those times were far less complicated. She had relinquished the role of navigator after my father passed away. I didn’t like to see her vulnerable, it just wasn’t her.

We entered the hotel lobby and made our way towards my room. The receptionist with whom I’d become quite pally over my stay stood up and grinned shyly as he nodded his head in welcome. My mother grinned back and nodded in acknowledgment.

I fumbled with the keys and then opened the door. “This is my room!” I announced, anxiously awaiting her reaction. After having spent the last few weeks sweating into the sheets and swatting mosquitoes in a dump my mind had snapped. I had hastily dumped any pretense of thrift and switched to a much more comfortable albeit expensive room.

She stepped in and looked around. “It’s pretty big… And air-conditioned too…”

“It gets insufferably hot here and let’s not forget the mosquitoes…” I began to apologize... “As long as you are comfortable…” she relented to my surprise.

I deposited her bags on the floor and she made her way to the bathroom. I felt lighter at heart. The sadistic boss, the physical hardship of the work and the heartbreak of poor sales paled in comparison to the pain inflicted by loneliness. Alone in the room for several weeks, every challenge I faced become insurmountable, every hurt I had experienced in the past magnified ten fold and my own human weakness seemed despicable. With her by my side, my mind stopped digging for dirt. I could relax without the sneers of the past or the fears of an unknown future. I felt happy because I knew she was happy too, to be there at my side.

She came out looking a lot fresher and stood in front of the mirror and ran a comb through her hair.

“The shower head is missing, don’t tell me you stand under a pipe every morning…”

“ I do…never bothered to complain actually. Most of the time I’m worried that I’ll miss the morning bus to Rasipuram. I just rush through the whole thing.”

“Its typical of you” she replied and continued brushing her hair. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes, enjoying the companionable silence.

“So where are we going for dinner? Saravana Bhavan?”

“There are two Saravana Bhavans here! One for the common man and one for those who want some peace and quiet. Food is the same everywhere though.”

“I want peace and quiet, I’ve had enough noise on the journey here. Did you know they played movies on full blast on government buses?

“I know, I travel on them everyday, makes the journey interesting. I’m already a fan of illaya dalapathi Vijay.”

“Bah…he looks cheap.”

“Don’t you dare say that aloud, he’s very highly regarded here... ”

“I don’t know how people can watch him. His movies are an insult to my intelligence!”

“Well you shouldn’t take him too seriously. People just want to be entertained. Neither are they looking to do some serious soul searching nor are they looking for intellectual stimulation. Give them some stunts, a few fighting scenes, some punch dialogs and a curvy heroine who loves the rain and they go home happy.”

“ Does that go for you too?”

“No… depends on the heroine…”

She smiled and made a few last adjustments to her sari. When I look back, perhaps the sight of my mother adjusting her sari in front of the mirror is possibly the strongest memory I will ever have. In the two decades that she taught at school, she would spend just a few minutes every morning getting the pleats of the sari just right before she caught the 7 AM bus. With her eyes focussed somewhere near the reflection of her knees, she would bend and squat ever so slightly a few times until the pleats fell exactly in place. We shared the mirror for twelve years with her making the last minute adjustments and me shifting around exasperatedly trying to get a look at my reflection so that I could comb my hair. I started off somewhere around her waist, scowling up at her reflection and eventually grinning when I towered over her and ran the comb through my head. Her bending and leaning no longer came in the way of my reflection. My mom was the tiny one now. With college, our timings were no longer the same and she had the mirror all to herself.

We left the hotel and walked down the street. I watched her as she took in the sight and sounds, trying to get a feel of the world I lived in.

"Decent Hair Cutting Saloon?" she asked, startled by the sight that made me grin everyday on the way to work.

"I guess the owner is a modest man"

She shook her head and we walked in silence. I had trouble keeping pace with her. She walked briskly, there was always a sense of purpose in her stride unlike my meandering gait. Her mind was focussed on getting to the destination. My own mind drank in the surroundings, wandered and then got lost.


I took her to the posher Saravana Bhavan that was a little further down the highway. The cheaper one was bang opposite the Bus Terminus and was the preferred eating destination of all the travelers. It was always crowded with customers who came in, quickly ordered without bothering to glance at the menu and then rapidly shoveled down plates of idly, dosa and pongal before washing it down with a tumbler of piping hot filter coffee. The waiters moved about with brisk efficiency, deftly making their way through the dense crowd, smartly collecting orders and delivering them with a flourish. It was never a place to linger over your meal. If you did so, you did an injustice to the man who fidgeted outside, waiting for a table. I had my breakfast there every morning. Surrounded by people who were impatient to go places, I felt some of their urgency seep into my own reluctant self. I usually left the restaurant with a sense of purpose in my step.

The Saravana Bhavan we were now heading to had a more polished air to it. Here families had their food in separate cabins. The restaurant was air conditioned and piped music played softly as waiters padded around discreetly. They wore suits and ties and recited the specials in hushed reverence. The lighting was dim and it took a while for the eyes to adjust to it. My mother and I were led to a cabin by a dignified floor manager and presented with the menus. I gave it a cursory glance and decided what I wanted. A year in the hostel at Ghaziabad had left me craving simple South Indian food. All I wanted was the usual fare of rasam, sambhar, rice and curd. I looked around and impatiently signaled the waiter. Only then did I realize that my mother had not made up her mind yet.

She sat with her back straight , regally regarding the menu with her reading glasses perched at the tip of her nose. She caught me looking at her and smiled. I realized that while for me it was just another restaurant, to her it was a special dining experience. I had eaten out far too many times and thrill of dining out had long since faded. For my mother however, it was a rare occasion. I felt a rush of affection as I saw her carefully consult the menu. She was the child, I was only a weary adult. My protective instincts surged. I would have savagely beaten anyone who had thought of hurting her.

"I will have a Gujarati Thali" she pursed her lips "it looks interesting."

"And I the usual meal"

"Bah, you come out and pay through your nose for what you could eat at home?"

"I pay to avoid an upset stomach. Your Gujrati thali for example would have given me a restless night"

"Eh? Whats wrong with it?"

"Nothing, just that I've eaten out far too much in the last couple of years to appreciate different cuisines. Nothing like curd rice..."

"Ha! I distinctly remember what a fuss you used to make when I served you curd rice. Not so fussy now eh?"

"You live and you learn". She shook her head.

"You know your father would practically finish a bottle of pickle with every plate of curd rice? I often wondered which was the side dish for which..." her voice trailed off. I didn't say anything.

She resumed after a few moments " Guess what your father's first words were to me when his family came home to exchange horoscopes?"

"Hmmm...cant guess. What did he say?"

"He sat silently for a while and then suddenly looked at me and announced " I eat non veg food!". Then he looked down at his shoes again and didn't say anything after that."

"Hahaha! He never told me!"

"I was frightened. What a terrible thing to say to a girl for the first time!"

"Well...I can imagine...you cant really blame Appa though. He probably had never spoken to any one of the opposite sex from outside the family. He was far too bookish."

Our dinner arrived and over the food I explained to her what exactly I was doing in my summer internship. My job involved selling candy at all possible outlets and looking for ways to increase sales of Perfetti's products. She listened with fascination as I narrated how I went from shop to shop with two jars of candy and begged shopkeepers to buy from me.

"Interesting, so is that what you'll be doing even after you finish your MBA?"

"No No! I'll be in charge of a sales force. I wont have to do the selling myself!"

"Good, for a moment there I was wondering why you on earth you quit your job as a software engineer."

We finished our meal and made our way down the road back to Shakti Paradise. It was quite late and the street was deserted. We walked in silence, each wrapped in our own thoughts.

She suddenly turned towards me and said " When I die, I dont want to be cremated. Donate my body to a hospital..."

I shook my head. For the last three years since Appa had died, my mother had repeatedly expressed a desire to join him. Her own life seemed purposeless according to her. The announcements which troubled me intensely in the beginning had now become routine. She often gave me instructions on what was to be done when she died. I had ceased to get upset after a while. The hospital idea though made me cringe.

"Don't be morbid. You aren't going to die anytime soon and I absolutely refuse to do anything of that sort. Why a hospital anyway?"

"Your grandfather scoffed at the idea of me becoming a doctor and got me married off when I was twenty one. Oh, I wanted so badly to be one!"

"So the only answer to a snuffed out dream is to become a cadaver?"

She smiled at the joke for a moment. "Let me contribute to medicine in my own way okay?"

I shook my head and both of us fell silent. A full moon appeared briefly from behind a few clouds, lit the street eerily for a few moments and then slid behind them again. We walked side by side, mother and son with thoughts of death and eternity beckoning enticingly to one and repulsing the other. The street had suddenly become unfamiliar to me again.

Having been brought up in a typical middle class household, three basic tenets were drilled into my head from the day I could comprehend basic sentences:

1.I should not smoke for it is evil

2.I should not drink as it is just as evil

3.I should remain a vegetarian because that was simply the sensible thing to do


There was no religious fervor in my parents instructions. My parents had never attempted to mix religion with their philosophy on how life was to be lived. I never questioned the tenets. I accepted them and doggedly held onto them because that was the gentlemanly thing to do. During my teenage years in Chennai I was naïve enough to assume that those who didn’t follow the three commandments were simply “Bad Company”. My middle class morals had firmly taken root.

With the passage of time I began to judge less harshly. My first year in IMT was an eye opener. Alcohol flowed like water. I attended numerous parties where my friends drank buckets, made long, passionate and mostly incoherent speeches, threw up and then passed out cold. I inhaled more second hand cigarette smoke in my one year at the hostel than my entire life in Chennai. My project team couldn’t get ideas on how to proceed unless they had lit up a few smokes. I gave up protesting after a while. Without nicotine their brains remained inert. Since I could very rarely come up with the brilliant analytical reasoning that was essential to fake an entire project complete with excel sheets and hardcore number crunching, I let my friends puff away in my room in order to save the project.

While I continued to avoid meat, cigarettes and booze, at some level I felt sad that I was missing out on some serious male bonding. My upbringing has ensured that I could never participate in several rituals. Numerous friendships had been forged on sharing the same cigarette and puking in the same bucket after opening one’s soul under the influence of beer, rum, vodka and whisky. I had felt the loss acutely while I was working in my previous incarnation as a software engineer. During team outings to fancy restaurants the men would huddle around a table and exchange bawdy jokes while they enjoyed a chilled beer. I was an outcast, considered far to goody goody to share the table with them. With instructions to “Go drink milk and eat curd rice”, I would be rudely dispatched to the ladies table. I couldn’t really blame them, I could never be part of them if I didn’t drink or smoke. The ladies felt safe with me, my mama’s boy’s image having endeared me to them. I didn’t quite enjoy the label. Surrounded by middle aged women who smiled fondly at me, I realized that I’d never be considered one of the guys.

In my time at IMT I became far more comfortable in accepting booze as a way of life. I did not indulge in it but I accepted that those who did were not necessarily spawns of Satan. While the rigid views I used to hold may seem amusing to most people, it takes a while to reprogram an outlook that’s been hammered into my head over a lifetime. On numerous occasions I helped my tipsy friends back to their rooms. The stories of their drunken antics could fill several volumes by themselves. I watched them laugh, cry, open their hearts and dance with gay abandon. Their antics roused a great curiosity in me. I wanted to know what it was like to completely lose self control and do or say anything I felt like. Being a very reserved individual under normal circumstances I was eager to know what it was like to completely lose inhibition. What would it be like to break all self imposed barriers?

In the end it was the curiosity that won. I did not regard drinking as cool nor did I think that the male bonding rituals were always required. Purely from a scientific perspective, I was eager to know how I’d behave when I was completely sloshed. A couple of months before the placement season a few of us who had never touched the stuff before decided that we’d get ourselves pig drunk after our employment had been guaranteed.

Placements whizzed by and then it was time to celebrate. Mathew was hired to be the bar tender. His vast experience in getting completely sozzled at every party automatically made him the unanimous choice. He took to his role like a duck to the water. Having collected the cash from us he sped to Delhi to purchase the good stuff. He returned with two squat and evil looking bottles of rum, a bottle of whisky and a beautifully crafted bottle of vodka. I admired the vodka bottle for a few moments. It was frosted all over except a small clear portion in the shape of a guitar through which one could view the drink. Topped with a blue metal cap, it was the prettiest bottle I had ever seen. The inscription at the back read “It’s magic when purity blends with smoothness. Magic Moments is produced from the finest grain and is triple distilled to achieve the mark of purity. Blended with French grain spirit, it is free from sugar and preservatives, ensuring a taste which is highly appreciated all across Europe. Serve Chilled. Anywhere, anytime”.

I felt very classy for a few moments. I was obviously going to have a very fine drink. My visions of French aristocracy however quickly faded when I read the small text below the inscription: “Manufactured in Daurala Sugar Works Distillery, Meerut”. So much for royalty. Daurala Sugar Works distillery hardly conjured up visions of European luxury.

The bottles were hidden in my cupboard. I kept the cupboard open and gloated over them for a while. Booze in my room! Unbelievable! What would my grandmother say?

The party was held in my room, a location I was assured by my friends no one would suspect of fun and merriment. I wasn’t quite sure of how to take the remark. Anyway we wanted to party to remain small and private. None of us were keen on losing our dignity in front of people we didn’t really hang out with.

At 11 pm, the participants consisting of Surya, Aritri, Shublina, Deepa, Gaurav and Mathew assembled in my room. We sat on my bed and chatted as we waited for Mathew to begin. The bottles had been neatly arranged on my table but were completely covered with a towel. Mathew waited for the chatter to die down. He then whipped the towel off with an exaggerated flourish and let us admire the bottles for a few moments.

“Ladies and Gentlemen” he began with an upper class British accent, “We have with us two bottles of rum, some whisky, some fine vodka and some soda. I have also purchased peanuts and some fried snacks.” He picked up each bottle carefully and showed it to us.

“Abey magic show bandh karo! chal daru pila!” barked a visibly annoyed Surya.

Mathew lost some of his poise but then recovered swiftly.

“We will be beginning with some whisky and soda. Now remember, drink it slowly, and don’t gulp it down like barbarians. You can’t appreciate it otherwise.” He passed us each a plastic tumbler filled with amber liquid.

I held the tumbler in my hand, grinning self consciously. There it was: a glass of whisky in my hand!

We counted to three, said cheers and began sipping our drinks. It tasted horrible. There was an unnatural quality to it, something about the way it tasted and smelled which said it wasn’t meant for human consumption. I felt like I was drinking medicine which was meant to be rubbed on the chest. We all grimaced after the first sip.

“Yuck! Mathew, this tastes disgusting!” I exclaimed

“Look, that’s not how you drink it. Hold it in your mouth and let it roll over your tongue. You feel the difference? See how smooth it is!”

I swirled it around but felt nothing. It just didn’t feel right in my mouth. I took larger sips just to empty the glass as soon as possible. Mathew meanwhile prepared shots of vodka mixed with Minute Maid Orange juice. I finished my whisky and paused to see if I felt any different. Other than a mildly queasy stomach, I felt pretty ok.

“Now this drink is called a screwdriver. I want you drink the vodka in one gulp. No slow sipping like the first one. Take it in one shot ok?”

We snapped our heads back and poured the liquid down our throats. The orange juice had mercifully blunted out the taste. I began to feel a slight buzz. My head felt slightly heavy now. I turned to the computer to choose some music. Somehow clicking on the right song seemed a bit of a task. Not difficult but I needed to focus a little more than usual.

I turned back to face my friends. None of them felt any different. I was disappointed with myself. The girls had had no problems, why was I the first to let the drink go to my head? Could I not hold a few drinks?

I will not go further into the details of every drink and how uncoordinated our movements became. A drunken mans experience though unique to him, remains a clichéd joke to others. Aritri and Shublina oscillated widely between fits of giggling and suicidal depression. Surya danced and moved violently around the room like he was being buffeted about by strong gusts of wind. His body jerked and twitched in a manner that was completely out of sync with the music.

I felt like a thick woolen blanket had settled around my brain. It was like the rational, reasonable side to me was slipping further and further away. I was dimly aware that I was supposed to try and be as dignified as possible but at the same time I felt my inhibitions melt and ooze away. It suddenly became easier to say whatever popped into my head without letting it pass through the usual filtering mechanisms that had been put into place over the years. From time to time, I would turn to Deepa and slur “Look, I’m pretty steady ok?” She always agreed with me, something that ticked me off soundly. I didn’t like the way she humored me throughout the party.

Every trip to the bathroom became a huge source of amusement. I’d chuckle to myself all the way to the loo and all the way back to the room. Each time I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I would grin widely, savoring the delicious irony of the situation.

I woke up groaning next morning with a splitting headache. As I headed to the bathroom it took the combined effort of all my brain cells to keep from walking diagonally across the corridor. I was rational but unsteady. Surya, I was told later threw on his bed sheet and then passed out cold in the bathroom. Aritri and Shublina luckily did not suffer as badly.

At the end of it, I can’t say I’m a fan of alcohol. It tastes terrible and at no point of time did I feel like I was enjoying myself. I was stricken when I looked at the photos taken. I was anything but dignified in them. My eyes were glazed over and I smiled like a common drunken lout. Why anyone would want to reduce himself to gibbering idiot is a question I know I’ll never get an answer to. I think I’ll just remain a mama’s boy…

I was going through some of my old writing, things I’d written before I began blogging when I came across one that described my home in a way that made me smile. While the humor may seem childish now, I love it because it was written in a time of innocence. While my home may be silent now, I’ll always remember the way it used to be. Some of you may have read it before. Here’s to you Amma and Appa.





For most people, Sunday is the time to relax, laze in bed, drool on the pillow and generally do their sloth impression. To lie in bed partially awake knowing you don't have to get up is a pleasure almost sinful. Add to this the pleasures of yawning, stretching luxuriously and absent mindedly scratching your bottom and there you have it, a hedonists utopia.

My mom however is not most people.

Unlike the males of the house (i.e.) my dad and myself, she does not care much for these simple pleasures. While at 4 AM, my dad and I snore in bed, dreaming the dreams of the blissfully ignorant, my mom has nightmares about dishes that must be washed, floors to be cleaned, houseplants watered, knick-knacks dusted, bathroom tiles scrubbed, pots scoured, closets organized and files filed.

As all males undoubtedly know, cleanliness is a key area in which my dad and I have enjoyed a key advantage over my mom , thanks to a superior blend of genes, evolution and good old common sense, we are pigs. We are content to see our pens gradually morph from a bacteria free environment, into a breeding ground for several small mammals and reptiles. Take my mom away from the house for a few days and you can see how living organisms evolve from single celled organisms to intelligent life forms which change TV channels with remarkable ease.

My mother unfortunately does not approve of our zoo keeper ways. An immaculate abode is one of her cherished ideals. Thus it is her sworn duty to arm herself with the broom and smote any traces of dirt that have the audacity to remain visible in front of her eyes.

When I come back from my college, I want to tackle my top priorities : eating, sleeping, eating and sleeping (though not necessarily in that order). My mom however prefers a slightly different routine. The moment she gets back home, she will remove her slippers outside, step inside gingerly, look around and perform a complete geological survey of the household. With the aid of her piercing eyes, she will mentally calculate the difference in dirt levels (before and after her leaving the house). Having ascertained this figure (usually 0.01 microns), she will curse us males for our primitive ways in cleanliness and hygiene. After this she will curse my servant maid and make scalding remarks about her skill with the mop and broom. This done, she will reach for the broom and once again go into sterilizing mode.

I often hide in my room to obtain sanctuary from my mothers rhypophobia (rhypophobia is a phobia meaning molysomophobia). Within these 4 walls, I am free to watch dirt accumulate to Himalayan levels. I spend hours staring at my computer screen while consuming vast quantities of chips, peanut candy, biscuits and occasionally even curd rice. Due to my slobbish ways, I occasionally spill some of my food onto the keyboard. These spills have accumulated over the years and I can now boast of a computer rich in carbohydrate deposits. If due to an unfortunate circumstance like an earthquake or a volcano, I am trapped in my room, I can stay alive for years merely by licking my nutritious keyboard.

My father and I generally find our incompetence spreading to other areas. Take for example the tube light in my room. Its a rather odd tube light which comes on only when it feels like. The moment I switch it on, it will come on for a few seconds, pause as if in deep thought and then go off again. After which it will flicker coyly for a few minutes, take a 2 minute break, marshal its resources and then continue flickering until I switch it off. Over the months my mom has repeatedly asked what was wrong with the tube light. She has rather naively assumed that because I'm a student of electrical engineering, I will automatically know what's wrong with tube light. That's obviously a ridiculous assumption. When the tube light flickers in class, we do what all electrical engineers do. We switch it off and wait for the watchman to come and fix it. This has not gone down well with my mom and she persists with her view that I learn nothing in college.

Typical conversation:

Mom: " What's wrong with the tube light ?"

Myself (Thoughtfully) :" Well, it appears to be flickering "

Mom( icily): " I can see that, but what's wrong with it? "

Myself (Even more thoughtfully): " Well, perhaps there's a problem with the capacitor, maybe the tube light has a leading power factor and is unable to draw a leading current, which means it might be drawing a lagging current which means there might be something wrong with the firing angle so the capacitor might not be able to provide a leading current.."

Mom: " What the devil are you saying? "

Myself :" Well, it appears to be flickering.... "

My expert knowledge has not satisfied my mom and she still feels that paying my college fees is an utter waste of money. That is very untrue. They teach me many fine things in college like " Touch the wire and you will be electrocuted!" or "Don't touch the guy who is being electrocuted, that way only one person dies.. " or " Please sign this paper. Now if you do get electrocuted, you can't hold the college responsible...".

My mom is however at her most crotchety self at the dinner table. Twice a day we assemble at the table to consume the healthy food that she has assiduously prepared. It during this time that my mothers blood pressure shoots up to sky scraping levels. While she scarcely looks down at her plate, her attention is focused exclusively on the bad table manners my father and I zealously display. This is quite a tiring feat as I sit diagonally opposite my mom and my dad to her right. So she stares menacingly at me for a few minutes and then suddenly turns right and stares menacingly at my father. This pendulum like feat enables her to realize that my table manners were genetically passed on to me by my father and that her genes didn't get much of a say in it.

Conversation recorded during dinner time:

Mom: " Don't eat with the spoon! We are Indians! You are totally ignorant of Indian culture and values "

Dad and myself: " Grunt.. Chew..swallow..choke..cough! cough! "

Mom: " Yuck! I cant eat with you people around! "

Dad and myself: " Water! Glug Glug..Aah!..Chew..swallow..choke..cough!cough! "

I have often suggested my mom wear blinders. This way she can only stare straight ahead and not be offended by our table manners. Or we could raise barriers on the table such that each person gets to sit on his or own cubicle. My dad has suggested ear plugs for ourselves.

While my mom struggles to keep the house clean, keep all the equipment working and tries very hard to keep our table manners from slipping below barbarian levels, my dad and I are quite content to let things be as they are. For we know that in the end entropy will set in and everything will deteriorate. Clean the room and within hours, it has to be cleaned again. Food particles, dust, run away news papers all conspire against us. Like that chap from Greek mythology who had to keep rolling that boulder up the hill and watch it roll down again, we know that cleaning is an ultimately futile affair. My mom however is determined to gain a temporary foothold in the struggle against chaos. She does battle against the forces of deterioration and disintegration. I suppose she's earned the right to be pleased with herself.

Placements have whizzed by and I find myself with a job in the IT industry...and for some reason I don't feel anything. My placement was supposed to be the climax of an arduous yet thrilling journey, starting from the time I decided to prepare for the CAT in 2003 to the time I shook hands with the interviewers and accepted the job offer. Try as I might to congratulate myself for having survived a taxing four years, there's a voice in my head which says "ummm...ok..so now what?".

I'm guessing the lethargy is mostly due to the fact that I once again have a knockout of a cold and and a gloriously upset stomach...not to mention that its absolutely freezing here.

Will the euphoria ever set in? Or am I just going to dully plod along? I'll just have to wait till my nose gets unblocked and my bowels smile again.

With my roomie (The original one spends far too much time in the library to qualify)

It’s a pleasantly chilly winter morning, the kind where it’s nice to be snuggly wrapped up in a quilt in bed. The dawn finds me enveloped in a warm glow of happiness. There’s no particular reason for the smile, I’m just in a good mood.

Yesterday I went out with my friends to the trade fair at Delhi. Despite the fact that we almost got squished in the stampede to the entrance we still emerged from that great swarm of humanity laughing, with numerous stories to tell on how we survived.

We spent the day roaming from stall to stall, eating every type of food that was on offer. We shopped, haggled with the vendors and spent a large portion of our time getting lost, getting repeatedly separated from each other and then frantically getting directions on the phone.

We huddled together in the cab on the journey back; the temperature outside being close to freezing. It felt good to be alive and surrounded by the warmth of the smiles of my companions. While it wasn’t mentioned, with placements around the corner, everyone was looking forward to that first salary. It felt glorious to be young, to be alive, to be with friends and to have the promise of a secure future ahead of us.

I’m aware of a certain amount of naivety that this post contains. But what is life without hope for a sunnier tomorrow? I’m just exulting in being alive here right here and right now :-)

Random Thoughts on a chilly winter evening:

1) Leaky nose, rasping cough, head filled with lead and a stomach that is gloriously upset, I want to go home.

2) The room smells so much better after I washed 16 toxic pairs of socks in one go. I managed to survive so far because of a partially blocked nose. My roomie spent the last week in the neighboring room.

3) The dog keeps following me around. She sits quietly under my bed not revealing her presence. I don’t even know she’s there most of the time. She follows me all around campus. She even dutifully accompanies me to the bathroom. Other residents in the corridor are not impressed. I have decided to call her Silk Smitha.

4) How can I possibly convince companies that I am dynamic, intelligent, eager to learn and anxious to undertake extra responsibility? Will the MBA tag make up for my utter lack of initiative?

5) Winter is a lousy time to be single. The campus is lovely and everyone looks nice in sweaters and jackets. It would be heavenly to snuggle up to a warm and loving woman under the blanket. Instead all I have is a dog under the bed and an insomniac for a room mate. I hate all couples.