All Roads Lead to Rome

He sat on the bench at the bus station, staring into the world beyond. The feeling of slipping away into an unpleasant emptiness was overwhelming. There was nothing to hold onto. The two faces next to him were unfamiliar and were of the opposite sex. Trying to hold onto them would have meant a good beating from the public. So he decided to just sit there and stare at the world beyond, wait and see whether he does slip into the unpleasant emptiness or does he get miraculously rescued like in the movies. He couldn’t understand it. Everything was supposed to work out fine like planned. He had lived with confidence that all his decisions would be easy for him because he believed in living life on his own terms. A little slow as he has always been, it didn’t strike him before. But now he was sure. This theory of his was not the case always.
"Hmmm… didn’t see this coming though. Apparently living life on your terms also means you come to forks in the road more often than not."
There has always been only one rule for forks in the roads. Well two actually.
1. Short cuts are never Short
2. All roads lead to Rome
The later however is a universal rule, not just for forks in the road. It is for reminding yourself that irrespective of the decisions you were going to end up on the same bench in the same bus station in each and every one of the parallel universe’s at some point of time or the other. For people who ask him what the proof for this proof is he has only one reply. Whats the proof its not?
The man around 5 feet 6 inch tall. Could have been six feet too. The boy on the bench was not very good at judging physical quantities. So nobody will ever know how tall the man actually was. He was well dressed, the black full sleeved shirt well ironed and tucked in. There was a black bag hanging from his shoulders. His black shoes were all shiny and well polished. His black hair combed immaculately, the parting line fully straight and perfect. The boy and the man were quite the opposite. There was the man all neat and tidy standing straight and upright, head held high. There was the boy sitting slouched on his bench at the bus station head hanging under the weight of the all so heavy life. The man stood at the right corner of the Bus station and the boy sat to the left corner of the bus station.
The man was mumbling away under his breath. More precisely he was counting numbers. After a while, as though satisfied that he still remembered his numbers, he stopped his count and started moving towards the left corner of the bus station where the boy was sitting. The boy was sitting and staring at the floor now. The patterns that the tiles on the floor seemed to be exhibiting seemed to tbe the most interesting thing in his life right now. At least it helped him get his mind off the countless problems he had in life. Suddenly his patterns were interrupted by a black tipped stick and two shoes, shiny black and well polished. He looked up to get a good look of the perpetrator who had interrupted his peaceful pattern watching activity. There was a man 5ft 6in tall or might be 6ft tall, dressed in a well ironed full sleeve shirt immaculately tucked in. He had on him a pair of black glasses and out from behind the black shades one could make out a scar emanating from where his eyes were behind the glasses. The man stood on the entertaining tiles counted till five and then felt the pavement with his black tipped stick for where the pavement gave way for the road. At precisely that moment, a bus moved in and the man stepped off the pavement onto the road and off the road onto the bus. The boy sat there staring at the bus as it left. He got up slowly form his bench. His back was all upright now. His head held high. He looked up at the clear blue sky popped out music player and plugged the ear phones in and stepped out onto the road. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel. It was from the street lamp’s of Rome on the other side of the tunnel. He smiled and thought
“All roads lead to Rome….”
Along came the bus he had been waiting for. As he jumped onto it there was no more a frown on his brow. He knew the bus was going to take him to the street beyond the street where he lived. He knew that there was a barber shop in that street. He knew he was going there and get that funky little haircut he had been half contemplating and half dreading for sometime now.

Greener Pastures?

Someone once said “Rejection makes a man stronger. Besides men aren’t ones who seek happiness.” To be more exact the someone who said this was a cartoon character. That too a journeying ninja with pervy inclinations. A man who had led the life of a sage in all respects except for the fact that he passed his time while journeying by writing adult novels. So, it is only understandable that anyone in their right minds wouldn’t give a second thought about this line. However, unfortunately, I wouldn’t say I am someone who has exactly found my right mind yet. At least, not as I sat there on my cozy little chair in my cozy little office oblivious to the blistering heat of the summer right outside the windows behind me.

For the umpteenth time that week, I had just made my almost religious third journey in the day all the way from my second floor seating space to my immediate superiors seating space in the first floor and asked “Sir, what do you want me to do today??” The first two unrewarded journeys were made in the morning and afternoon. The third was made in the evening after the tea break. Without even a bat of the eyelid the stone cold answer returned at me like the relentless returns from Rafael Nadal’s racquet. “Ah. Yes. I do have work for you. But I am a little busy today. Meet me tomorrow.”

The thought of why I ever got up from my cozy little chair to make the arduous journey’s did occur to me, but I swatted it away thinking “rejection makes a man stronger” might be if I keep doing this I will get stronger just like in that cartoon Dragonball Z where the people got stronger every time they recovered from a good beating. And so, the journeying had begun for reasons I do not remember and continued for a long time, again for reasons I do not remember.

Mind and ass numbed, as I sat there staring at my computer screen and wondering about the wise words of a pervy cartoon character the phone rang in the cubicle close by. For not even a fleeting second did the thought cross my mind that the ring was for me. But then that’s what you call serendipity I guess. Perplexed, apprehensive and excited I went to receive the call for me and the voice at the other end said “Vignesh. Tu neeche ek minute ke liye aa sakta hai kya?”

If teleportation had been invented I would have materialized in front of him at that very second. But since it has not been I decided to say “yes sir” and bolt down the stairs.

A week past that fateful day when I bolted down the stairs I sit on my chair (way past my punch out time) many wise sayings passed my mind “Discontentment is the root of all problems” “Grass is always greener on the other side” and “oh. How I miss my blissfully jobless days in office!!”

Blowing Up Things!

As the cries of a child rang out into the pitch dark starry nights of a remote village nobody realized it was much more than the usual vocal chord vibrations emanating from a newborn. The very first stench of the atmosphere, the very first lights that entered his pupils from a dirty old flickering bulb on that night told him there was something about this place that he didn’t like. If the infant could have understood what was going through his brain and put it aptly in words he would have said “I wanna blow up this place!”
Growing up, the little kid nurtured that feeling within him and gave it every chance to grow into something big. He realized he was not the only one with these feelings. There were others among his peers who shared his feelings. There were secret schools even, were they taught them the theory behind explosions and the reason why it was important to blow up things just because they felt so. As a kid some of his favorite pastimes were blowing up crackers under the teacher’s seat because he scolded him, blowing up the toy of the rich kid in class who wouldn’t give it to him to play with because he was weird and so on and so forth. The basic drive was the same as the one he felt on that night he was born. Blow up things that he doesn’t like or takes offence to. However, while his fellow friends were good at it, he alone would end up botching all his attempts. It was not because he was any less dedicated or because he didn’t plan it through. It was just that fate always seemed against him. Like the time when he tried to set of the cracker under his teachers table fate sent in a dog into that remote school in that remote gully to pee on his cracker’s fuse. The time he tried to blow up the rich kid’s toy, he managed to whisk away the toy and tie a cracker to it and was all set to light it when fate sent a dog again. This time it was the rich kid’s dog which decided to chase the scent of the new toy of his master. Hot on his tail came the mightily disturbed rich kid and his gang of bullies. But undaunted by the enmity that fate seemed to have with him the little boy continued with undiminished spirit.
Soon the little kids grew up. His peers decided it was time for a change. They had been told about whole wide world outside the village, waiting to be light up by them. How there was a way to get to that world without having a pass and how things would be fine as long you managed to keep away from the police. So they all embarked on the greatest journey of their life as soon as they hit their teens. Fate tried his best to hinder the little teen in this ordeal too. But he managed to overcome it finally and make it outside of the village though it took him a little longer than the others. On reaching there he came to know that his friends had already made a name for themselves blowing up things in this new world. Some had become consultants in the field, some teachers and others were still continuing to try and scale newer heights. His friends welcomed him with open arms and for once it seemed he had shaken off the evil fate off his back because there could be no better proposition to launch ones career in a new place than friends in top positions right? Thus armed with a all the cash his friends bestowed on him to buy his choice of crackers he set out with elaborate plans to light up the new land and one day become powerful enough to execute the desire since his birth… light up that stupid old village..
It probably would not be right to say ‘as fate would have it’ at this point because the little teen had finally managed to shake fate off his back. But then knowing fate it did want exactly this and purposely let him think he had lost it. Inn which case it wouldn’t be entirely wrong to say ‘as fate would have it too’. Either ways, irrespective of the fact whether I am right or wrong when I say ‘as fate would have it’, fact was that the sudden freedom from his fate led to him becoming careless and soon errors started creeping into his usually carefully knit seamless plans. On the day he was supposed to board the plane and set alight the night sky, he got on the bus to the airport in the morning only to realize he had caught the wrong one to his friend’s house. The day he planned for a fireworks display on a train, he picked up the wrong briefcase filled with manuals for his complex equipments rather than the one with the equipments. The day he decided he would light up the space near the water supply to the town he overlooked the fact that crackers don’t work once they are wet. And thus like this all the money his friends had bestowed on him was soon lost.
But if he had learned anything at all from his tussles with fate it was that one should not give up and to keep trying as there was always a way. “Where there is a will there is a way” he told himself. Unfortunately for him he was about to realize that it was not always happy endings as the movies in his old village seemed to suggest. It was exactly at this point of time that the villain in his life, Fate, caught up with him and send a policeman to him to ask for his pass to the land beyond the gully. Villainous Fate also used his trump card – a fateful revenge for the little mans teacher back in the village under whose chair he had tried to burst crackers so many times. The teacher had one day taught them “where there is a will there is a way” and proceeded to explain a little later that ‘Will’ was also short for a person named William in the land beyond the village. The little boy was so busy with his cracker that he missed everything that his teacher said between these two facts and hence truly believed that the ‘Will’ the teacher was talking about was indeed the one sitting right next to him at that moment. So he instantly flicked Will’s pass and showed it to the police. And the rest was… as Fate would have it….

(For all those who feel appalled after reading what was aptly described as a lenghty PJ by a friend, I can only apologise. This big PJ culminated from my desire to write a funny article and the story of Sheikh Abdul Khwaja who the authorities now suspect, after arresting him and interrogating him, to be nothing but a failed terrorist.)

KUCH BHI..!!!

( I have been in Pune for five whole months now. Well, five whole months if you ignore the week I spent back in Kerala in October, but more or less five months nevertheless. Over the course of my time here i have met a whole new set of people, made some friends, been bored, bought a lot of books to read, found a place to play football, bought a TataSky connection and connected it to my laptop, learned something’s about engines which should have preferably come to me as common sense and more than anything else watched a string of bollywood releases. In the process, the process of watching a string of bollywood releases more than anyhting else, i have become acquainted with a usage which has caught my liking – “Kuch Bhi”. So, this article is what I would like to consider as my tribute to this usage which when used with the right tone and stresses manages to so easily and simply convey a wide range of emotions that one could be feeling at that particular point of usage. )

“Life on earth goes on everyday second of the minute, every minute of the hour, every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year and so on and so forth unawares of the fact how fragile the entire cycle actually is. Never is much thought given to what would happen if there is the slightest disruption in the synchronization of the numerous cycles that makes life as we know it to be. Well, I don’t like the attitude anymore. These people take me for granted and I am no longer going to stand for this treatment.” Let me begin by adding that these are not my thoughts, which comprise usually only about football, but that of the Sun as he decided not to rise up into the sky.

As the whole world was plunged into darkness, man continued his slumber longer than usual both due to and oblivious to what’s happening around him. And as he slowly woke up close to what would have been usually a sunlit afternoon, he looked at his alarm clock, then the other clocks in his house and then thought “What the bloody hell is going on?? Is this some stupid prank? Hmm. Okay. Jokes over. You got me good. Come out now, whoever you are.” and after sometime of investigation and confirmation that it was indeed afternoon he continued “where the F*** is the sun??”

“I have so much to work to do on this day and it all starts with the sun rising up. I wake up with the sunrise. Cows probably give milk when the sun rises. How will I drink my coffee in the morning now?”

Suddenly to his surprise a voice broke out from the skies and said “How dare you take me for granted?” Man looked around in bewilderment for some time and finally after being sure this too was not some prank by his friends asked out to the voice “God?? Is that you??”

“There is no point talking to this idiot. As if god had nothing better to do. What does the self absorbed idiot think of himself? That the world revolves around him??” Thought the sun to himself “I thought I will be kind to this fascinating creature and probably teach him a couple of things too for he seemed to revere me. But as time went on he seemed to have got too comfortable with his life and forgotten all about acknowledging me. It’s almost like I am supposed to take his acknowledgment of my existence for granted or something. Well, I have better things to do.” And he marched off to find better planets to revolve around him.

Well, the thing is a movie can well be written titled “The story of life on the planet when the sun left”, followed by a sequel “The Wonderful Stories from the Journey of the Sun around the Universe In Search Of a New Planet”. However, keeping in mind the bare limited audience of my blog and in order not to to further reduce the numbers, the former's one long story that will have to go untold. The latter would flop because of its mightily long name unless and until it was rewritten in Hindi with a title that begins with a ‘K’ and Rakesh Roshan decided to direct it. But then the whole issue would get out of hand and I am pretty sure that the chief protagonist of the story would change from the sun to some guy named Suraj played by Hrithik Roshan or Shahrukh Khan.

Anyways, the point is I am going to skip the dragging middle portion where everyone is trying to justify their actions and blame others. Moving on directly to the final act. Man realized that one realizes the true value of something only when one loses it. He realized that while it is the best to be loved rather than having to love something, it was also essential to make the one directing this love and care toimmportabce is being recognized. Thus man started praying everyday that the sun would return and the universe which was getting fed up a rogue wandering interfering sun decided to answer the prayers. Precisely at that moment of decision from the universe, the sun suddenly realized that there was no place like home and that it is better to love then be loved. And that is how ‘The story of life on the planet when the sun left’ came to a happy ending.

At precisely that moment on planet Earth – A set of people watching news on T.V chuckled sarcastically at the nonsense being branded as news and thought “Kuch Bhi” A set of friends walking back after a tiring days work couldn’t help laughing out loud as one of them narrated to them what the next Salman Khan movie was about and they said out in chorus “Kuch Bhi” A set of people sighed in despair after reading news in the newspaper about the administration and thought “Kuch Bhi!!” A set professor’s in colleges were angrily shouting at their students with regards to the content of their answer sheets “Kuch Bhi??!!”

And last but not the least a couple of people who are reading this very article at this very point in time are thinking angrily “Kuch Bhi? Kuch Bhi ligta hai sala!!”

The Thoughts of a Boring Spider

Boris sat there all alone on the old wall, practicing hard in hope that one day he will get that perfect loop and texture, that all spiders dream about, to his webs. Peculiarly enough, there right below him on a table lay a book (opened to page 57) featuring the details of a compound eye, something that several bugs such as those from the arachnid family seem to possess or at least seemed to have modeled theirs on.

The words on the page read -

"A compound eye consists of thousands of individual photoreceptors. The image perceived by the one who possess such an eye is a combination of inputs from the numerous photoreceptors, which are located on a convex surface, thus pointing in slightly different directions. Compared to a simple eye, a compound eye possess a very large view angle, and can detect fast movement and, in some cases, the polarization of light even."

Boris read this and sighed. Apparently very few things escaped his eyes.

Normally spiders do not have a great life span as they constantly get crushed under someone's shoes or brooms due to no fault of theirs. They couldn't help that they were born hideous and evil looking. But Boris was different and had managed to survive years together by sticking to his wall on the shop floor. Ideally he should have been all knowing and god like, with nothing having escaped his eyes for all these years. But unfortunately the small head and consequently small brain meant he would not be able retain so much data. So the only thing that stopped him from being all knowing was that his brain kept erasing everything the moment it got full and he would start all over from where he was in the beginning like he was in some kind of a vicious infinite loop in a program.

Far below him on the shop floor, whose walls he had made his training ground in the quest for that perfect web, there was a buzz of excitement. The word was around that a fresh batch of graduate trainees had arrived. For those who don’t know, graduate trainee is the name given to a batch of elite fresher's from elite institutes making their first step into the industry as employees of this particular company whose shop floor walls Boris had made his practice grounds. They were selected from among their respective peers as they were deemed to be the most qualified for the jobs waiting for them when they arrived in the company. They were selected into the company by capable people who were obviously impressed by their skills, abilities and knowledge. And so as they entered through the doorsteps of the company they thought “Woo Hoo!! Finally we are here! Can’t wait for them to tell me what those bloody brilliant skills, abilities and knowledge of mine are."

"Hahaha" thought Boris "only if I could laugh out aloud. Skills, abilities and knowledge indeed. Hahaha." Fortunately or unfortunately Spiders couldn't laugh. The maximum they could manage was an evil grin.

Boris had seen the foolish creatures, labeled as Graduate Trainees, many times before and was no stranger to them. He had studied them to the extent that he had even plotted a graph for variations in certain parameters related to the creatures with respect to time spent on the shop floor. He had three lines on the 2-axis graph; one for enthusiasm towards work, one for skill and one for excitement levels. The one for enthusiasm was the same for each one of them; it would shoot right out of the roofs before plunging right into the ground immediately. After that depending on the individual and his interests it usually climbed a little before stabilizing or just stabilized in that zone below the ground. The second line for skill usually started from the negative infinity point on Y-axis (time being plotted on the X-axis) and very rarely did it manage to make it to the positive side. And that too when it did eventually happen it was only after several years of trying. The final line, for excitement, looked like the zig -zag shaped hill in the happy drawing of a happy child. The excitement levels started on a high every month with the influx of the salary and dropped to a low as the salary disappeared by the middle of the month. The levels then start rising again a little towards the end of the month, in anticipation of the next month’s salary and hit the ceiling again by the time the first of the month arrived.

As Boris sat there spinning his web and grinning evilly, the fresh batch walked in. They were no different from the others.

DAY ONE

The trainees were full of buzz and met the respective managers in charge, hoping to do some work, change the company radically and mesmerize others with whatever skills it was of theirs that had impressed the interviewers. True they had not been told what that particular skill was but surely it will show up by itself in the time of need. So full of optimism were the new comers that even thorns would seem to them like roses. So, as the managers proceeded to instruct them "you are not to touch anything, speak to anyone or disturb anyone. You are to practically make yourself invisible while you try to learn something" it sounded to them like "guys! Welcome to the company. Feel free to have fun!" And fun is exactly what they had as they went "oooh!" and "aaaah" at the robotic arms that swiveled and picked up things and swiveled again before dropping the item. As the robotic arms guided by the press of a switch of the human arm carried out production at amazing rates it was but impossible not feel as if one was nine again and in a theme park.

DAY TWO

As the graduate trainees rushed into the shop floor in high anticipation they couldn't help but notice that something was different. They couldn’t pin point exactly what it was but definitely it had something to with the robots. They seemed to have grown a little dumb for some reason. They were still doing the same swivel and pickup and swivel and drop routine. It was not fun anymore. It bewildered them how these marvelous pieces of engineering could do something so repetitive and boring. And after much waiting and hoping they realized the robots weren’t going to change so it was up to them to find something more interesting. After a long and tiring search for something interesting they decided to take a nap. And just as they took a nap the manager in charge woke them up asking "What do you think you are doing?" They mumbled back half asleep "trying to make ourselves invisible?"

DAY THREE

Graduate Trainees realized the hard way that the methods adopted on the previous day was not was not the right way to try to make one self invisible and as a consequence they get to work on the line today. "It helps one not to fall asleep" the manager had said. Hours later they stood there swiveling, picking up, swiveling and dropping things and as they stood there realization hit upon them like lightning struck some fool who ran around with a metal tipped kite several decades ago. “That damn fool Asimov! The robots will not decide to take over this world because they decide they are more intelligent. This crazy monotonous line work we put them to is going to be the reason they are going to retaliate.”

DAY FOUR

The Graduate trainees continued their expeditions of the shop floor. Soon they started noticing, for the first time, others around them. People who had been working there for as long as that shop floor had existed and who, as they were not from an elite institute with an elite degree like the trainees, were paid lesser. Right next to one such disgruntled fellow human being, who was staring at them with disgust, was a board.

"Three sentences to success - 1) Work more than the other

2) Know more than the other

3) Expect less than the other."

- William Shakespeare

They also started noticing that the days seemed longer now and that time was trickling so slowly that if there were hourglasses around they could have probably actually seen each grain of sand fall down and count along with it.

DAY FIVE

If they previous day seemed like eternity then this was even worse. The gloom began all the way from early morning as they got up, cursing the sun for not having come up still, they could not help but think "What happened to me? I could go all day without doing anything in college. Even when I had stuff to do I would be fine procrastinating. And now. Hmmm…” A very long 'hmmm..' it was too. Lasted five minutes followed by fifteen minutes of sleep and another five minutes of 'hmmm..'ing after waking up again. “I must be getting old and the stupid sun has still not shown up." And then they hauled their sorry posteriors to the shop floor for another long day.

DAY SIX

The trainees dragged themselves to the shop floors dealing with not only unending boredom but also putting up a fight against their brains, which were viciously battling in a bid to free itself off their stupid heads, sprout legs and run away from the boredom. However there was a little ray of hope to hang on to last out the day. This was the sixth day, which meant tomorrow was that much looked forward to elusive weekly off.

Boris sat there on the wall he thought "hmmm.. Watching this nonsense over and over again is such a pain. I don’t know how much longer I can take this." His mind soon drifted to grave matters such as whether watching this meaningless nonsense was indeed meant to be his purpose in life and why was it that he was chosen to be given this distinguished set of eyes and he thought -

"…this is my gift. This is my curse…. Who am i?? I am Boris the Spider!"

And as he sat there consoling and congratulating himself on his curse cum gift and trying hard to make sense of things, he had a moment of clarity and he remembered-

“Wait that’s not it. Now I remember. I have to spin that perfect web.”