Category: Yesterday

  • A Matter of Choice

    As he finished answering the last question in his aptitude test, he smiled at the irony of it all…
    There was a time, a long time ago, when the fear of injections and vaccines had put a noble thought in his head – that he would become a doctor, a doctor who would take care of all the illnesses in the world, without hurting patients.. well all patients except some teachers,a few boys from the other gang and some assorted enemies he had made during his seven years of life so far…
    But after he had heard his grandmother say that there was nothing better than to be able to sing and bring joy to millions of people, he had thought he should become a singer…considering that he had been won a whole lot of music competitions at school and otherwise in his twelve year life, he had every reason to believe that he would make a good singer…
    He hated the injustice happening in the world, the way humans were treating other humans who were less fortunate than them… how humans were taking things for granted, and going along a path where the only aims were achieving more power and money without any concern for anything around them.. at 15 years of age,having been a part of the school debate team for over 3 years, he did believe he would make a good lawyer…
    engineering was a good career option, especially if you were the kind who could build bridges,airports, railways etc.. that way, he could become directly involved with the development happening around him.. 22 years of life had taught him that noble thoughts had to go hand inhand with practicality, and there was a career to be made…it also taught him that an MBA could be a ticket to future successes.. that was why he was writing the aptitude test…
    as he finished the aptitude test, he realised that it was quite similar to life.. for there were a lot of questions in which he felt that all the choices given were possible..
    unfortunately,among the options, he could never find ‘all of the above’…
    until next time, life’s like that….

  • The Cycle

    D wants a cycle. D rarely wants anything, but this one she wants bad. this post is to explain to her, why we are not buying one now.. yes, it makes sense writing it !!

    A long time ago, when others wanted alphabets and numbers to be my priority, a bigger priority entered my life, a cycle, to be more specific, my neighbour’s cycle… and thus a little human had his first lessons in the vast human emotion of envy.. and theonly other requirement that was in my mandatory list was that it had to be more horny,er, the horn had to have more sound than my neighbour’s cycle… since i was not a very demanding child, materialistically that is, i got the cycle… the envy lesson also took with it a lil bit of innocence… but i was very happy.

    a few years later, i realised the importance of balance in life, no, not the work-life one we talk about now, but the balance required to drive a two wheeled contraption..that balance was quickly mastered and armed with that, i made the demand for my second cycle, of course, the trigger being the envy felt for the peers who already had a bigger,better cycle… a little more innocence lost, but a new cycle gained.. and i was happy.

    a few more years later, i needed something that i could use for transportation to school,and the old cycle obviously didnt fit the bill, that was the functional excuse i used…and i got a new cycle again.. a few road rules bent, a lil more innocence lost (yup, by that time, there was hardly anything to lose 😉 ), but after all i had a new cycle, but there was nothing to be very happy about.. it was as though i had to have it, so i had it..

    now i have a cycle thats hardly a month old.. every morning, i curse the damn thing, wake up and cycle a few kilometres… i am not exactly happy about it but theres loss of weight, clothes that come fitting right back and a whole lot of other advantages… all said and done, a much better deal than the other cycles..

    D shares this cycle with me, but this is an execycle, it doesnt move..she wants one that moves..she isnt grumpy when she uses this one.. she is, in fact, quite happy…now, tell me, what kind of husband.. human being!!.. would let another innocent human being go through all those other cycles of life that take away your innocence and leaves you sad??especially when she has by passed all those other cycles and reached this one directly?

    thats why we are not buying D a cycle!!

    until next time, lets use karmic cycles

  • Imitation of Life

    He was a fixture at the campus.. it was difficult not to notice him if you had stayed at the university campus for a decent amount of time… beneath the tough exterior he tried to portray to people he wasnt familiar with, was a kind hearted gentleman. when i knew him first, he was in charge of the university’s security, a routine job, because at that time, kerala was not called “god’s own country”, and therefore it existed as one…

    but i knew him better as the man who used to do a whole lot of jobs for us – paying water and electricity bills, getting my dad’s license renewed etc.. his ‘consultancy’ fees were fixed and not at all exorbitant.. and it came with a broad grin. the reason you noticed him was his mannerisms, they were funny, and i used to be able to imitate him pretty well and everyone had a good laugh over these performances, little goodnatured fun…

    a long time later, when i had to get my license done, it was the same man who did it for me…i learnt that, as far as liasoning with government personnel went, he was the best and could get practically any job done with his contacts.. his modus operandi was simple, based on a huge network of people for whom he had done little jobs for, and who wouldnt mind doing him a favour.

    i also learnt that his two sons were well educated now, and settled abroad. they had repeatedly asked him to stop doing his odd jobs, but he had refused. it was clear that he didnt need the money, for his rates were even more nominal now, sometimes as ridiculous as a diary or a folder. besides he had a good pension and his sons regularly sent him money.someone once asked him why he still did this, specially since he was getting old. he flashed his trademark grin, and said that it made him happy to make other people’s life easier.

    in a world where the lunches were becoming increasingly costly, he was a man who gave buffets almost for free… an old man, with old school values… i still imitate him, better than i did earlier.. sometimes i wish i could imitate his spirit too…

    until next time, dont imitate, innovate..

  • Small Town blues

    No, its not about SwB..hehe.. its about guys like me, who have migrated to a bigger city,managed to find a particular groove here, and are comfortable the way they are.. except for the moments when the ‘small town blues’ hit them…
    i have always said that you are lucky if you are born in a big city, no, not because of the neon lights, but because you can choose to spend your entire life in a city you were born in.. of course, all of us do have that choice, but the small town guys make most of their judgements with a lot of constraints’ baggage, the biggest these days being job availability…
    there is a certan joy of travelling on the same roads, watching things change, going by yourold school, seeing familiar faces, walking in the parks that you played in as a child, feeling the sea wind on your face and watching different ships on the same port, feeling safe, speaking in a language you have been speaking forever, hanging out in places that you know inside out, seeing the night lights – forever growing brighter…
    of course floyd has a different version in ‘time’ –
    “kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown,
    waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
    tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain,
    you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today,
    and then one day you find ten years have got behind you,
    no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”……..
    (speaking of floyd, please check this out)
    but i’d still say that for people born in a big city, there are memories of a time that once was,for us, there are memories of a time and place, that once were…. “but i guess thats why they call it the blues”
    until next time, blue is my favourite color

  • Lights… Action!!

    four days of holidays ahead, so the grateful self thought he should write a few words about the phenomenon thats making it possible..diwali…
    the earliest memories are getting dressed up in the white kurta,pyjama set(the one for special occasions), going into the storeroom, taking out the earthern diyas, cleaning them and arranging them on the window ledges… career highs included being allowed to handle oil and light the diyas myself…
    simultaneously happening was the cracker department, which had its own career path- from a rookie user, who was not allowed to handle stuff without permission, to the gradual scaling up of the stuff that could be used..the pinnacle being the rocket, i guess, which had to be launched carefully lest it created a “neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride’ effect in the neighbours’house… and finally , the top seat being the buying of crackers and their division among users…..well, once we reach the peak, the only way is down..
    i stopped celebrating the year we shifted residence…did celebrate in patches later, but more as a desperate effort to recreate the magic of the days that were gone… a lost cause that redeemed itself only in the joyful faces i saw around me…….
    P.S. though south indians usually use ‘deepavali’, these days, in our house, it is ‘diwali’, since ‘wali’ pronounced slightly differently, means ‘fart’ in malayalam, and….
    until next time, have a blast 🙂