THE BELLS STILL RING IN KOLLUR

PART I - FROM THE DIARY OF AN ANONYMOUS LADY

02 - 08 - 2008
Mangalore

The train was two hours late. It was 11AM when we reached Mangalore. Meera was already very tired by then. I smiled thinking of the fact that the trip was actually her idea. A girls' weekend. Me, Meera and Maya. Ever since Maya got posted in Mangalore, we haven't seen her. She was waiting for us in the platform. She has become plump. It was obvious that she is eating a lot of junk food. No surprise in that, considering the fact that she is also a Software Engineer, like us. We went to Maya's house. For a brief time we shared the gossips about our friends. (We girls can't change that habit, can we?) We had a tight schedule. We are to return by Mangalore Mail which leaves at 4.30 PM tomorrow. Our plan was to visit Mookambika Temple on the first day, and roam the city in the next day. (There were some Kannada girls in our hostel at Chennai. They were all very pretty. Let's see how the boys are.)

Well, we were not exactly the deeply religious, temple loving mallu girl prototypes. But we wouldn't have got permission from our parents for this journey if it was just a pleasure trip. So Maya proposed this idea of including Mookambika temple in our itenary. I still remember my phone conversation with Amma [mother].

Me: Amma, we are planning a trip to Mangalore
Amma: From your office?
Me: No amma. Just me and Meera. Maya is now working in Mangalore. She has invited us for the weekend.
Amma: I don't think your father will give permission for this. Who will be there to help you if something happens to you and Meera, in train.
Me: Amma, if that is the problem, I can invite Arun to come with us. His friends are also there. He can stay with them.
Amma: Arun! Why are you still in contact with that useless boy. If he is going to be with you, I will never allow you to go to Mangalore.
Me: OK. I am not calling Arun. Will you grant me permission now?
Amma: Well, I will try to talk to your father. I can't give you any assurance.
Me: Amma, it is very important for Meera. Her mother called a few days back. It seems there is some problem in her horoscope. Her astrologer has said that if she prayed at Mookambika temple, her marriage will take place in this year itself. Please understand, amma.
Amma: Silly girl, you could have said this earlier. If that is the case, there is no problem. I will make sure that your father will raise no objection. And make sure that you also pray very well for a good husband. I hope your marriage also will be possible in this year itself.
Me: Love you amma. I will call you later.

So amma will be now in our home, dreaming about my marriage with Prince Charming. I bet Meera also would have had a similar conversation with her parents. Since we had told our parents that we will go to Mookambika, they will expect us to bring them some prasadam. And they will also ask a lot of questions about the temple. So there was no way we could skip the temple visit and roam around the city today. Mangalore city will have to wait for us till tomorrow morning. After lunch, we set out for Kollur.

The temple was located in picturesque surroundings presented by the banks of the river Sauparnika and the lush green Kudajadri hill. It is believed that Shree Adi Shankara perceived the idea of having a Mookambika Devi temple at Kollur and himself installed the idol of deity in the temple some 1200 years ago.

The custom is to take a dip in river Sauparnika before visiting the temple. Sauparnika was flowing very violently unlike the rivers in Kerala. Venturing more than a few feet from shore was dangerous. Initially Meera and Maya took dip in it while I stood on the shore with a towel for them. When they came back, I went down the steps, to the river. The water was very cool. Closing my eyes, I took the first dip. It was a new sensation to me. I froze totally. I felt like I am being part of the river. I don’t know what gave me the courage, but I walked a few more steps forward to take the next dip. I took the second dip. Again I felt that strange sensation. I cannot describe it, but one thing I was sure. It was divine. By the third dip, I felt like I already had my meeting with God. When I came back on shore, I got scolded by Maya. It seems I walked too far into the river that water level was just above my neck. They said they also shouted to come back. But I don't remember being neck-deep in water. I haven't heard any shouting from them. I heard only the sound of Sauparnika.

After walking for some time, we reached the temple. There were no crowds or queues. It was a calm and peaceful atmosphere. This was totally new to us. Before entering the complex that housed the sanctum sanctorum, we have decided to perform pradakshinam [customary circling around the sanctum sanctorum]. There were small complexes of other deities along the path. It should have been ended as a normal temple visit. Little did I know then that it was not to be.

We were praying in a small complex set aside for Lord Ganapathy. There were three large bells in all complexes which the devotees can ring themselves. (This was also something not usually seen in temples in Kerala.) I rang one of them. It was then that I noticed the nearby complex of Lord Siva. A mother was praying there. Her two daughters were standing behind her. The elder girl could have been about 17-18 years old. She rang the bell and then started praying. The younger girl could have been about 12-13 years old. Her face was very attractive. When I saw her, I felt the same sensation which I felt while dipping in Sauparnika. That girl wanted to ring the bell, but she couldn’t reach for it. Her mother and sister moved on to the next complex. But she remained there to have another try. She jumped for it. Still she couldn’t reach for it. Then she saw that I was noticing her. Embarrassed, she smiled at me. It seemed like there was a halo around her face when she was smiling. I didn't know what I was doing then. I went near her and lifted her in my arms. She rang the bell.

The sound of bell rang in my ears. But along with that, I also experienced the sound of flow of Sauparnika in my ears. I also experienced a lot of other sounds which I couldn't identify. After a few seconds I recovered.

Me: Hi. What's your name?
She: Ambika
Me: Where are you from?
She: There

She pointed to towards the Kudajadri hills and ran away. I was dumb founded. Ambika - Mookambika - Kudajadri. Just then Meera and Maya joined me.

After completing the customary circling, we entered inside the main complex. The idol of Devi Mookambika shone in the light of diyas inside the sanctum sanctorum. I closed my eyes and prayed. And when I opened my eyes, I noticed that the face of idol resembled that of the girl I met just a few minutes back. I tried to ignore it as an illusion. I closed my eyes and prayed for some more time. I again looked at the idol. I was convinced that the face bore a striking semblance to that little girl. I rushed out of the temple to look for the girl. I saw the mother and the elder daughter walking away. The younger girl was nowhere to be seen. Then I walked around the main complex. Still I couldn't find her. I was confused. Was this whole thing a delusion? Was it possible that my mind has created the girl? I thought of it during the entire return journey to Mangalore. By now I am convinced. That girl was Devi Mookambika herself. I saw her, touched her and talked to her. Do you believe me?


PART II - FROM AMBIKA'S DIARY

02 - 08 - 2008
Kollur

Today is amma's pirannal [birthday]. Every year, we come on this day to Mookambika to pray. Archa is becoming bossy day by day. She may be my elder sister, but does she have the right to behave like my mother. A few days back, I asked her to put mehndi in my hand. I have seen her doing that to her friends. But when I asked, she refused and told me that she has no time for that. She doesn't have time for her little sis! Yesterday, while I slept a bit in the bus and fell on her shoulders, she woke me up and scolded me. Today was the extreme. After we visited the sanctum sanctorum, we proceeded to do the pradakshinam. While praying infront of Lord Siva, she and amma rang the bells. The bells were a bit high for me to reach. I requested her to lift me up so that I too can ring the bell. But she totally ignored me.

I prayed to God to help me. And then, something happened.

Three chechis (chechi - an elder girl) were praying infront of Lord Ganesa. I saw that one of them was smiling at me. She was very beautiful. Her face seemed to be glowing. I smiled at her and tried to reach for the bells again. Still I couldn't reach it. Then she walked over to me and lifted me. I rang the bells thrice. She asked my name and I replied. Then she asked where I am from. I was confused. If I tell her the name of my small village, she may ask further questions like where it is, is it far away... Amma and Archa were already walking away and I will have to hurry. The lodge where I was staying was on the base of a hill. I pointed to that direction and ran away to catch up with Archa.

We came out of the temple in a few minutes. But her face stayed in my mind. It reminded me of someone I have met earlier. But I couldn't determine who it was. Slowly I began to think that the chechi may have been sent by the God to help me. I decided to meet her again. I told amma that I need to ring the bell again and that I will be back soon. Since she knew that I am familiar with the temple, she agreed and told me that they will wait for me in the nearby shop. I ran to the place where I met her earlier. She was not there. Then I went to the inner complex. There I saw the two other girls praying in front of the sanctum sanctorum. The chechi was nowhere to be seen. Then I realized where I have seen the face of that chechi before. The idol of Mookambika resembled her face. So she was God!

I have heard that God comes in different forms to help good people. I have decided to live as a better girl now onwards. I won't use Archa's shawl to wash my face again. I will not tie her hair to bed while she is sleeping. God, please be with me when I need help again.


AUTHOR'S NOTE

Our forefathers had put forward the concept of ‘Tat-Wam-Asi’ – the presence of Divine spirit in all forms of life. Hiranyakashipu’s son Prahlad had said that the God is present in pillars and rust and everywhere in this universe. Just like that this Divinity is omnipresent. But our mind is not developed enough to accept this reality. But in some rare circumstances, our mind gets enlightened to this fact and in those occasions we can feel the presence of that Divine power in us or in someone else.

Even though most of the characters in this story are imaginary, some characters are indeed real, but with names changed. The story is based on some of my experiences during my visit to Mookambika.

THE STORY OF HAROLD'S GIFTS, JOHNNY'S LOVE AND MARY'S KISS

In America, there was a small village situated in a valley. It was a quiet and beautiful village. The village road met another road that goes up the hill forming a junction which could be called the center of the village. The few shops the village had were situated near this junction. But there was an exception. About half a mile down the village road, there was a tiny gift shop. It didn’t have a name. There was a glass screen in front of the shop, which exhibited some of the cute gifts the shop had to offer. The glass was dusted and not cleaned for a long time. But still, the gifts made the shop look attractive. Kids, ladies and gentlemen, all happened to automatically turn their heads towards the gift shop and savor the picture of those beautiful gifts when they happened to pass by that road. The kids wished to buy those gifts. The grown-ups wished to buy those gifts for their kids. Quite a good number of young men wanted to buy gifts for their lovely ladies. But those wishes remained as wishes because the shop keeper was Mr. Harold.

Old man Harold was quite a dreaded figure among kids. And he was resented by the rest of the village populace too for his rude behavior. It was not much of a problem for Harold because he was not living in that village. His house was a few miles up the hill road, where only some rare tourists passed by. Nobody in the village knew much about him, not even his first name. The only thing they knew was that Harold was very very old. All the grown-ups agree that Harold’s shop was there even in their childhood. Some of the old men and women remember Harold in youth running the shop. But they were not able to remember much about that, except the fact that he was even then an unpopular figure. Harold’s problem was that he got angry all the time. He had no control over it. When he tries to speak, it becomes a shout. When he tries to close a door, he automatically slams it shut. And there was no question of trying to smile, he just couldn’t do that. It may be because he may have had a tough life. Who knows? He may have had a dead daughter, or a wife who have left him or any other tragedy in his life. We will discuss the exact reason for his behavior later. But whatever be the reason, he continued to be rude to the world.

When somebody opens the door of the shop, enters it and closes the door the old man will shout about the need to keep the door opened. If somebody opens the door, enters it without closing the door, he will shout till the visitor closes the door. None of the gifts had a price tag. If you ask the price of a gift, he will ask you to quote a price. Now whatever price you quote, how large that may be he will scream that it is a beggarly sum. He will shout and ask you to leave the shop. Sometimes, when someone wants to buy a certain gift, he will just say that is not for sale. And if the person’s time was bad, he would ask the reason and then he will get a mouthful of scolding from the old man. Kids had the worst experience. He usually does not even allow them to get into the shop. He shoos them away. And if some kid managed to sneak in, he threatened them with a wide variety of punishments. The threats were often enough for the kid to start running for life. And thus, the gift shop remained inaccessible to the village.

Due to his curious behavior, he was the favorite topic for gossip and rumor. Some said he was mad. Some others said he was just acting and that he was actually a spy in hiding. There was a talk of his eating roasted snake. Then there was the story of his wife and children locked up by him in his house. None of these ever had any effect on Harold. How can there be any effect since he didn’t talk to any of these people and so didn’t hear any of these stories.

No one dared to enter his shop. Harold was very satisfied with this absence of customers. It was fine for him. For him, every day was the same. There was no change in his life. And there wouldn’t have been any change in the future too, if not for Little Johnny and Mary.

Little Johnny and Mary were friends. In the evenings, they played together. One evening, while they were fishing together, Mary asked Johnny whether he remembered what day it was. And when a girl asks you this question, it is usually her birthday. So it was in this case too and Johnny realized the fact with horror. He wished her very warmly and asked her to forgive his mistake. He begged her not to be angry with him and promised that he will give her whatever she asked, even his new catapult or the baseball cap his father brought him. Innocent men don’t know the dangers of promising women ‘anything in the world.’ More often, the lady in question may ask for Moon or a Ferrari. And this occasion was Johnny’s practical lesson on this subject. With a smile on her face, Mary asked Johnny to buy her a gift from the mad old man’s gift shop.

Little Johnny wished to jump into the river and swim away to avoid Mary seeing the horror in his face. But he didn’t know how to swim. Running was out of the question since she was faster than him. Johnny suggested that he will go to town in the weekend and buy her a nice and expensive gift. But when a girl has her eyes on a particular object, no amount of inducement will distract her. She told Johnny in clear terms that she wanted a gift from Harold’s gift shop before that day’s sundown and threatened the end of friendship if he didn’t oblige. Johnny knew that he was in for trouble. And he became ready for the greatest compromise in his life. He told her that he will give her his new bicycle. Boys love their vehicle an infinite times more than girls love their pet. Johnny was making a big sacrifice to avoid losing Mary. But Mary didn’t agree to the suggestion. And then, she attacked the weak point of every boy. She questioned his pride and courage. She accused him of being weak and courage less. She called him a sissy. Of course she didn’t know the meaning of that word. But she has seen it used in similar situations in television. And this was the last nail in the coffin. Little Johnny agreed to buy her a gift from Harold’s shop.

Mary relieved Johnny of the difficult task of choosing the gift. She has seen a wonderful glittering bouncing ball in the parlor of the shop and she wanted that ball. Little Johnny wanted to say that girls were supposed to play with dolls not balls. Even though he started protesting with a, "But Mary...” the change in her facial expression made him swallow the sentence. Off he went, to his home to take some money. Being a grown up child, the Tooth fairy no longer left him any pennies. His piggy bank was almost empty. It had only some cents which he gathered and ran to the gift shop.

Harold's dreams were interrupted by the bell which rang automatically when someone opens the door of the shop. He opened his eyes to see a frightened lad. Yes, Little Johnny was frightened. But that does not mean he has forgot the good manners which they taught him in school. So he said, "Good Evening Mr. Harold." The old man replied in a loud voice which seemed to shake the shop, "Get off from my shop you little rascal. I am not going to let you steal anything from my shop." Johnny told him that he was there not to steal but to buy a gift for his friend. He pointed to the bouncing ball and asked Harold about its price. For that thirty cent ball, Harold quoted a price of one dollar. Johnny counted the coins in his hand. He was ten cents short. Johnny requested Harold to give a discount. The old man stared fiercely at his eyes and Johnny got the message. Johnny then requested Harold to allow him to take the ball for ninety cents and promised that he will give the remaining amount the very next day. Little Johnny was about to cry. He glanced to the road to make sure that Mary was not there. And then he cried. And while crying, he also managed to tell Harold about the helpless situation he was in. But that did not melt Harold's heart. He disliked anyone disturbing his peace in the shop, especially children. He didn't want any of them in his shop. He had enough money to live peacefully. The shop was just an excuse to stay away from his wife during day time. So he pushed Johnny out of his shop. Before the door was shut, Johnny managed to shout, "Mr. Harold, haven't you also liked gifts while you were a kid or were you born as an old man?"

When Johnny went to Mary to tell her about his failure in obtaining the gift for her, he thought that Mary will never again talk to him. Mary asked him to close his eyes. He did so, bracing himself for receiving a slap. Instead, he got the first lip-to-lip kiss of his life. And when it was over, Mary said, "I just wanted to know how brave you are, Johnny." Good work lady, next time you can test my bravery by putting me in a ring along with a prize fighting bull. Of course, he just thought that and didn't dare to voice it. Johnny has earlier decided to marry Mary. But now Johnny thought that he may be expected to undergo such bravery tests at least once a year. He concluded that even two Marys are not worth taking such risks. He just escaped from the scene giving some excuse about a nonexistent home chore he was expected to complete that day.

Sometimes, some statements uttered in some specific conditions can have a profound effect on us. Little Johnny's question was having such an effect on the old man. In the shop, Harold was thinking whether he was in fact born as an old man. And he knew it was not so. He too was a child once. He got nice birthday gifts from his parents every year. Santa never forgot to leave good gifts under the Christmas tree every year. He remembered the enjoyment every new gift gave him. He took the bouncing ball and threw it to the floor. He watched the ball bouncing and bouncing till it halted. He threw it on the wall and tried to catch it while it rebounded. He was not able to do it for the first time. He tried again. No luck. He tried again and again. And after eight or nine failed attempts he managed to catch it. And when he did, he smiled and cheered. And then he realized that he hasn't in fact forgotten how to smile. He hasn't forgotten how to enjoy. And if such a ball were to cause this much happiness for an old man, what value would it have been for Little Johnny. He imagined giving that ball to Johnny and the smile that would appear on Johnny's face. He imagined how happy Johnny's girl friend would have been if she got that ball. And if Johnny didn't smile, if Johnny's friend wasn't happy, it was only because of him. He had a chance to make them happy and he didn't use that chance. But then, he realized that he had that chance, the chance to make others happy, for a long time. But he never used that chance. Instead he shooed away all the people who wanted to buy some gifts for their loving ones. He realized that clamoring for the peace that he didn't get in his home; he has grown as a beast. And thinking of that, he cried.

Next day, Harold didn't come to open the shop. The shop remained closed the next day too. It was the month of December. It snowed heavily unlike previous years. All the roads to the village were blocked. There was no way for the people in the village to go out of the valley. Christmas was nearing. The children were expecting gifts. But the parents haven't done their Christmas shopping. And they became restless when they found that even in the day before Christmas; Harold's gift shop remained closed. The influential people of the village gathered and tried to find a solution. The road leading to Harold's home was also blocked by snow. So there was no question of meeting Harold and asking him to open the shop. They knew that even if Harold's shop was open, that wouldn't have made much difference since he never allowed anyone to buy anything from his shop. And so, they decided to force the shop open, buy the gifts at a fair price fixed by the local Sheriff who was to keep that cash in his possession till he was able to give it to the old man when he returned. They went to the shop and broke the lock without much difficulty and opened the door. But the shop was empty. There were no gifts inside. They left the shop with a heavy heart. They knew that their children won't find any gifts under the Christmas tree. Santa is supposed to leave the gifts there. And if there are no gifts, then children are going to hate Santa. They are going to hate Christmas. If a child doesn't love and enjoy Christmas what else can we expect him to enjoy?

The snowfall didn’t cease. On the night of Christmas people were not even able to step out of their homes. Mary was trying to sing a carol when she heard a 'ho ho ho' sound from outside. She went and opened the door to find the Santa Clause waiting outside. Offering her a beautifully wrapped gift box he said, "Merry Christmas little lady." "Merry Christmas Santa," she replied. She started to unwrap the gift. She found a glittering bouncing ball inside, the same one which she wanted for her birthday. She turned her head to say "Thank You Santa," but uncle Santa has already left.

In that night, all the children in the village got gifts from Santa. And that included Little Johnny too. When the Santa started walking back, Johnny shouted, "Goodbye Mr. Harold." The Santa looked back, smiled and continued walking towards the snow filled road.

Three Unfinished Stories

The last time I wrote a story was in April 2008. (I posted that in ch1blogs. I moved all those blogs to blogspot after I resigned from Cognizant.) One year has passed. In this one year, I have tried to write story a lot of times. Some plots were in my mind. And I even started with some of them. But I was never able to complete any of them. After writing for sometime, my mind was hitting a wall and I never got back to the mood for writing. The techies even have a definition for my situation. Wiki says this about the issue - 'Writer's Block - a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.' After thinking for an year, now I am convinced that I will never be able to complete these stories. So I am presenting these to all of you. And I will be very glad if any of you can suggest any continuation for any of these stories.

MIRACLE ONLINE

Read this slowly, “God I love u and I need u, come into my heart now”- Send this to 10 people, including me, see a miracle tonight, plz don’t delete...Seriously it works"

Tat was the latest scrap in Priya’s scrapbook. The scrap was from Smitha, an old time pal. Once Priya left school, she hasn’t maintained contacts with her. But last week, she got a friend request from Smitha and she accepted it. This was only her second scrap to Priya. Now tats an interesting one, thought Priya. Such messages usually come in email or SMS. She’s seeing one like that in a scrap for the first time. The question in her mind was whether to send it to 10 people or not. ‘What the hell. I just had to copy it and paste in 10 friends’ scrapbook. If there is a chance for miracle, let’s try it.’ She started sending the scrap to her friends, starting with Smitha, then to Kavya, Suchi, Anju… U may be wondering why the list contains girls only. That’s Priya. Even though there are some boys in her friend list, rarely does she send a scrap to one of them. Now why? That even this author doesn’t know. She is peculiar in her own ways. Always a bit different from others…

THE LOCAL VOLCANO

On and around the Vilangan hills…

1

Father Gregory noted with satisfaction that in spite of the rainy season, most of the people have come to attend the morning mass as usual. He thought about the newspaper reports stating the meager attendance of believers in Christian churches in Europe, some of the churches even being sold and converted to auditoriums and public halls. Perhaps its time they take a look at this southern state in India. While devout catholism was collapsing all over Christendom just like the fall of communism, Christianity (and interestingly, communism too) has been growing and developing here. The church is so strong that they have more power than any political party. That too, without any bloody conversions, temple destructions or inquisition courts unlike the case of Goa. Here, the activities of churches were legal and they were serving the society well, especially in education and health sectors. Reverting from the thoughts, he started giving his speech.

‘Believers of Christ, listen. I had a vision last night. A vision that a great danger is approaching.’ he paused to get attention. The hall became suddenly silent. All were eager to hear what he is going to say. Fr Gregory noted with satisfaction that some of the boys who were taking a nap suddenly have become attentive. ‘This place of ours, Vilangan hills and nearby areas is going to face the wrath of our Lord. Yesterday, our Lord showed me the real Vilangan, the Vilangan volcano.’ Suddenly the hall became filled with chatters. The silent hall became a noisy place. Some of the elders were in an ‘I told you so’ mood because such a rumor existed there. ‘Silence, all. Even though what I have just said is disturbing, what I am going to say is more disturbing. Our beloved Lord told me that the volcano, which is now disguised as a hill since its mouth is covered, is going to erupt, the DAY AFTER TOMORROW.’

There started an outcry among the people. Some people were already screaming the name of Jesus Christ. 55 year old Annama was among the few who were still calm. She was calm because she believed in God. She believed in Bible and its teachings. She believed that every human being has to suffer for his/her sins committed. But she was sure nothing will happen to her because she had only some small sins in her account. Not that she has not committed that many sins, but every week she meets the Father, confesses the sins she committed and asks forgiveness. She did it last Saturday. She noted that today being Wednesday, she can’t wait for Saturday, the day of eruption for her next meeting. She has committed a few sins in these three days. She has beaten a boy in the neighborhood for entering her garden and stepping his foot on her newly planted lilies just to take his wretched cricket ball which had fallen there during the play. She thought it her luck that she then decided at least not to take custody of the ball, cricket being originated in Europe. Else she would have the sin of stopping the play of children too to add to her list of sins. Then there was the beggar she scolded for coming the second time in the same week. Then… She was mentally preparing the list of things for which she should seek forgiveness as soon as possible.

Grace was now 63 years old. She was confident that with sufficient prayers, this danger can be averted. She remembered a past event. A year after the tsunami ravage in South Asia, Father Gregory predicted another tsunami. Even the local media didn’t heed the warning then. But the believers got together and prayed a whole day, continuously in the mass hall, without food or water. Their prayers were heard. No tsunami came. She now really thought they wouldn’t have organized those special prayer sessions. Even if that meant death for a lot of people including her, the media which buffed Fr Gregory as a lunatic would have learnt the lesson. They would have now become believers of Christ. Then they wouldn’t have dared to write those dirty things about Church as they are doing now.

Fr. Gregory continued, ‘We don’t have to worry about our fate. We have devoted the whole of our life in the service of the true lord unlike the pagan worshippers. Our place in heaven is assured once we die. But for the future life of the younger ones here, we must ask forgiveness from lord for the sins committed by all. Special prayer sessions will be held on the day. I request you to be present during those prayers and pray wholeheartedly so that the lord may help us.’

Fr. Gregory knew that those special prayer sessions will be attended only by a few stern believers. Others would have fled the place by then. He didn’t see any wrong in that. Life is that much precious and life is what he is trying to save now. He thought about that sound he heard from beneath while he was walking on the hill, last morning. Then he got an idea what was about to come. But if he told his experience like that, no one will believe it and discard it as an old man’s rumblings. But when it is wrapped like this way, it becomes the divine announcement. That should warn most of the people, or atleast, his flocks. He wished to say to all of them to flee. But then, the King of Rome would become unhappy. Not that he cared about that, the church here has grown so powerful that it was able to question the Godman of Rome when he told that St. Thomas didn’t visit India. But Fr knew that he is the captain of this ship. When the ship sinks, he should sink with it. So he should do it in a prudent manner.

There suddenly started another commotion. Fr saw people carrying Annama away. It was later learned that she had a heart attack.

A NEW LIFE

The Impact

Driving is a passion for me, be it in bike or car. When the traffic is mild and road is good, I like to literally fly. And that day too, I was flying. NH47 was not so busy since it was a Sunday. The maximum rated speed of a Passion Plus is 89 Kph. I have reached there a lot of times, and most of the times, it was achieved in this highway. I glanced at the meter. 80. Still more to go. More turn for accelerator, more gasoline for the engine. Suddenly a guy on a bike, who was a bit in front of me at the left, remembered that he had to turn to the small road at the right. It was already late for the turn. His impulses made the turn, but at such stimuli-response actions, brain doesn’t have time to think of looking back to make sure no vehicles are coming or switching on an indicator or giving a hand signal. And so he was right in front of me, his girl friend holding on to him. The only thing I can do to save the situation was to apply the brakes. I did it and then, I was really flying. I counted the number of times my head was bouncing on the road – 1, 2, 3… I blacked out. In that instant, I felt I was in my classroom, and Nandini teacher was taking the class – “Newton’s first law of motion - Every body continues in its state of rest or of motion unless an external unbalanced force acts on it…” Then I came back to the senses. A lot of people were around me. “I’m ok” proclaimed me. I took off my helmet and kissed it. “Are you sure, you are ok?” asked most of the people. I said I am fine. I don’t know why I used my hand to feel the chin. But I did that and it was wet there. I looked at my hand then, and it was full of the blood from my chin. The color of your own blood in such quantities is not a good sight, and I again blacked out…

A ghost and some Cogni-boys

Prologue

Gopu woke up at midnight hearing the scream. A woman’s scream. He called his friends, Kishore and Nandu. It’s been the second time they have been hearing the screaming. It seemed that the scream came from the terrace. They decided to check it. They went up the terrace to find that terrace was filled with white light, that too in a moonless, starless, cloudy night. They saw something approaching them. They didn’t know what it was. But they knew for sure, whatever it was, it was danger. They ran, not to their room, but out of the house. They didn’t look back till they reached the beach. None of them were able to speak a word. They decided to stay awake. But they were so exhausted that, in few minutes all of them were sleeping on the sands, not aware of the approaching crabs, or rising waves…

April 9, 2008

In the evening, when I walked into Fatah and Ajith’s house, they seemed to be in some serious discussion with the other inmates of the house – Kenny, Tilju, Charles and Jaseem. Rahul was nowhere to be seen. Fatah and Ajith are my batchmates, and live in a house near to our flat. The house had ample space for all of us. So I visit them often.

Me: “What’s up folks? Planning something?”
Fatah: “There is a problem da. Something is wrong with this house.”
Ajith: “Lot of weird things are happening here. We are hearing sounds from the terrace at midnight”
Fatah: “All of us had similar experiences. We checked the terrace. There is no cat or any other thing. We often here sounds that seem like falling of stones. But no stones are seen in terrace”
Ajith: “You know what; none of our phones will have range once we take it up to the terrace. Actually it should be the other way. When we go to the terrace, the range should be increasing. Only Rahul is not convinced about the ghost. He made fun of us all and is now watching a film in Kenny’s laptop.”

At the same time, Rahul came to us in a hurry.

Rahul: “Daaa, I agree, there is something wrong. Weird things are happening here. You know what; I just noticed that the iron box is still hot. I am the only one who has been to that room this evening. I agree. There is a ghost in this house.”
Fatah: “That’s it guys. Everyone is convinced. I think we should conduct some pooja here to get rid of the evil spirit. Arun, do you know whom to call for that?
Tilju: “Wait guys. I agree that there is something wrong here. But Rahul… that iron box… that’s not the work of ghost”
Rahul: “How can you be so sure?”
Tilju: “Because, just now I remember that I forgot to switch it off in the morning when I left in a hurry”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”, every one except me pounced on him. This was the second time someone was forgetting to switch the iron box off and each such occasion adds about Rs.100 to the current bill. Once Tilju got his fair due of beatings from all, we were back into our discussion.

Me: “Tilju, did you have any experiences with the ghost?”
Tilju: “I don’t know. I mean I am not so sure. When I was sleeping, I heard some sound and when I tried to wake up and put on my glasses to see what it is, the glasses were broken. That ghost has now started damaging our things. Soon, it will turn to us too.”

I noticed that Rahul was flinching.

Me: “What’s it Rahul?”
Rahul: “Well Tilju, I had something to say to you. I was waiting for a good opportunity and I think this is it. Yesterday, when I woke at 5am for doing yoga as usual, your glasses were not in the place where you usually keep it”
Tilju: “That’s what I am saying. The ghost destroyed it and put it away.”
Rahul: “No. What I meant to say was that you somehow misplaced it in the night and it was right under my leg when I set my foot on the floor to stand up and walk. Then the glasses..”

Rahul never saw it coming. The blow was delivered instantly and he felt the pain. Then another session of word duel ensued and finally it was all settled and we were back to our topic.

Me: “Guys, I think you have a point. Do you remember how we conducted the birthday celebration of Kenny at the terrace in the midnight? That time, however we tried, we couldn’t light the candle on the cake whenever the candle is lighted, it will blow itself off instantly. There was not even a slight breeze. But the candle won’t light. Finally we had to settle with a lighted cigarette on the cake.”
Ajith: “And when we tried to inflate the balloons, they all burst shortly after inflating. We tried it a lot of times. But the same thing happened.”
Kenny: “But still there were some balloons. It was night. I couldn’t see anything clearly. But I think there were balloons.”
Me: “Those were not balloons, Kenny.”
Kenny: “Then??”
Fatah: “Some other thing, also made of rubber”
Ajith: “Inflatable”
Jaseem: “Transparent”
Kenny: “You mean… “
We: “YES”
Kenny: “You are kidding, right. How can you do that to me? Using it for my birthday party?”

April 10, 2008

It was Rahul who found it out. He was casually going through the channelone blogs and found out the post, ‘The ghost of Thiruvanmiyur.’ I heard about it when we all were having lunch together at Suntech cafeteria.

Rahul: “I even chatted with the author in the communicator da. His name is Gopu. He confirmed it.”
Me: “It may be any home in Thiruvanmiyur. Did you ask the address of the house where he stayed then?”
Rahul: “Yes, I asked him and he gave our address.”
Fathah: “Our house!”
Rahul: “He also gave the entire layout of the house. He is sure it was the house that he and his friends vacated last year due to fear of ghost. He warns us to leave the house immediately.”

There was one more problem. Except Tilju, all others were classmates in their engineering college and they are leaving tonight for their convocation. They will be back on Monday morning only. Tilju have to spend three nights in the house.

Me: “Come to my flat Tilju. You can stay with us till Monday.”
Tilju: “It’s not needed da. I will manage.”
Charles: “You better go to Arun’s flat tonight da.”
Tilju: “Whatever happens, I won’t go. That’s final.”
Me: “Then I will give you company. Don’t say anything. We will be together in your house till the others return. ”

That night, after seeing off our friends, we returned from Chennai Central. We had our dinner and by the time we reached the house, it was already 11.30. We felt so sleepy. We talked for sometime and slowly we slipped into deep sleep.

April 11, 2008

We were very very bored. Left with nothing else to discuss, we turned to the ghost. We decided to deal with the ghost head-on. For that, we should meet it. We decided to write a diary about our life on these days. (The inspiration was Bram Stocker’s Dracula) So hereafter, I will be quoting only from the diary

Today we decided to meet the ghost. We decided to lure it towards us. For getting some courage, we decided to have a bottle of beer. So we brought two bottles at noon. But when we searched for it in the evening, we couldn’t find it. So we had to do away with the ‘kick.’ We decided to sit alone so that the ghost may come to us. I sat at hall while Tilju was on the terrace, One hour passed and nothing happened. We decided to sing some songs to grab the ghost’s attention. The way we sang the tamil songs proved our skill in the trade. In a few minutes, all the open windows of our neighbors were shut. Tilju put on a white pants and shirt. His idea was that the ghost will think of him as another fellow ghost and will come to befriend him. But nothing happened. I felt that the ghost was a female. I wrote a love letter for her and placed at the terrace. No one came to read it. At last we were fed up and decided to go and sleep.

April 12, 2008

Dear diary, this evening we decided to watch some horror movie. But then most of them were deleted from the laptop for lack of space. But there was a classic Malayalam psycho-thriller Manichitrathazhu. We decided to see it. (Tamilians, this is your Chandramukhi. And for other fellow Indians, you have seen the film as Bhool Bulaiyya. But believe me yaar, None of these remakes come nowhere near Manichitrathazhu, and none of the actresses in those movies perform well like Shobhana did in Manichitrathazhu.) We have seen this so many times. But since we were in a room suspected of the presence of a ghost, a story about spirit’s possession of a body had a quite interesting effect on our mind. Atlast, when movie ended, we heard a clap from our behind. We looked back and saw the ghost. A lady. But she was not clad in white. She wore a colourful churidar. She smiled at us and said, “Manichitrathazhu enikku ettavum ishtalla cinemeya. Shobhanayude ettavum nalla abhinayam ithila.”

Tiju: “Are you the ghost?”
Me: “Ishwaraaa, malayali!” (My God, it’s a keralite!)

She was not so fair nor so dark. She had long hair and had a divinity on her face. She is the typical mallu girl. And she replied, “Njan Nisha.” (I am Nisha.) Hereafter all our conversations are in Malayalam. For the comfort of viewers, we are putting it in English.

Nisha: “Tilju, you are true. I am the ghost of this house. And Arun, I am from Thrissur, Kerala.”
Me: “Me too, from Thrissur.”
Tilju: “How do you know our names?”
Nisha: “Oh, all of you had been here for months. So I know all about you.”
Tilju: “We heard you are very dangerous. The previous people of this place, Gopu and others, you nearly killed them by terrorizing.”
Nisha: “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to you all. After all, you are mallus na. Its been a long time I’ve talked to a fellow keralite.”
Tilju: “Then you could have come before too. We all have been here for the past 3 months.”
Nisha: “I don’t like that much to come out in the open. Now it’s just you two and I thought I should come.”
Tilju: “Then you could have come yesterday. We were trying everything to get your attention.”
Nisha: “Oh, that. Sorry. Yesterday I got knocked off after having your beer. It was a desire for a long time, to try beverages. Thanks guys. Anyway, I got the kick and was grounded for a long time. So I didn’t notice any of your activities yesterday. But I surely got the love letter from Arun.”
Me: “Sorry Nisha. It wasn’t meant to intimidate you. We just wanted to see you.”
Nisha: “It’s ok. Never mind. And since it’s the first proposal I have got in a long time, I may even accept that.”

We all smiled. We talked for sometime about life in Chennai, news about Kerala… Then Tilju decided to take the plunge. He was never shy in taking initiatives.

Tilju: “Nisha, how did you become a gho.. Oops, sorry. How did you become a spirit?”
Nisha: “You know what; I too have been working in your company. I stayed in this house with 3 other mallu girls. They too were working in our company. Once I was assigned a small project of a big client. At that time, there was a newly inducted trainee in our team and it was my task to make him a professional programmer. I was asked to give him code to work on. At that time, one of my best friend’s marriage came up on a Friday. I had to attend it at any cost. The project that I was working on had Friday as the deadline. All my other teammates were busy with their own work. I couldn’t ask any of them to bail me out. There were only some format validation functions to be written. I assigned the task to that trainee and I went to Kerala. I was confident that he will be able to complete it. But when I returned on Monday, I found that my PM was waiting for me. My task was not completed. Due to me, we missed the delivery deadline. I was asked to deliver it on Monday itself or to get out of the job. It wasn’t much of a problem because I just had to do some small functions. The trainee was nowhere to be seen. May be he too have gone for leave. I opened my project code and compiled it just to see an error summary containing 1573 errors and 2341 warnings. My dear trainee has messed up with all my work. I decided to kill him. But that was priority 2. Numero uno was to correct the program and deliver it. I worked on and on till Tuesday morning. There were 186 errors left when my suspension letter came in… I returned to my house, this house. I couldn’t return to Kerala with the shame of suspension. So I hanged myself, here in this house….”

She was weeping. She wept and wept and then, she disappeared.

April 13, 2008

Today evening also, she came. We talked for a long time.

Me: “Nisha, how long will you have to live like this as a ghost?”
Nisha: “Till the day I correct all the bugs in my program. Then I will be free.”
Me: “But it would already be corrected by someone in our company way back.”
Nisha: “No. When I was terminated, they built a new program from scratch. They discarded my work. Can you help me in correcting it. I can get you past all the firewalls and security (the advantages of being a spirit!) and give you a remote desktop connection to the system I was using. I will give ip, username, password… Just try to correct the bugs. “

She made the connection possible bypassing all security. We logged into her system and opened the code. We found that the code was left untouched. 186 compilation errors. We tried everything to correct them. It was well past midnight. Then, just by chance, one thing hit me.

Me: “Wait a minue. What’s line number of the first error?”
Nisha: “2908”
Me: “And the total number of lines is just above 3000. And there are 186 errors. That may mean that all the lines from 2908 onwards are affected with this error. And that means.. we have been looking at the wrong place. The error is not in 2908, but somewhere above. We have never looked there because there was no error reported from there.”

We looked closely and suddenly Nisha screamed.

Nisha: “2897, look I forgot to put a semi colon there.”

I happily put it there. We were relieved that we corrected atleast 1 error. I just compiled it. It was our turn to scream. There were no errors remaining. All the remaining 185 errors were due to the cascading effect of this one error. We were speechless, so was Nisha. Finally she regained her posture.

Nisha: “Thanks guys. You have helped me in this. Now I am free to leave this world. But before that, Arun, I have to speak something privately with you.”

She looked at Tilju and he got the point. He went out of the hall.

Nisha: “Arun, were you ever in love? Did you ever propose someone?”
Arun: “mmm, actually… once. She was a very good girl.”
Nisha: “Did she accept your proposal?”
Arun: “she.. she didn’t tell that she loved me. Neither did she tell that she didn’t love me. But she stopped talking to me after that. No phone, no scrap, no mails…”
Nisha: “Well Arun, your second proposal is accepted. I really liked you, and love you. These two days I spent
with you were truly memorable. Bye Arun…”

There was a flash. I had to close my eyes. When I opened my eyes, she was gone.

Tilju: “What did she tell you da?”
Me: “She… how can I tell that da?”
Tilju: “Tell it.”
Me: “She told… she told that there is one more beautiful spirit in this house. “

Epilogue

When all others returned on Monday, we told the story to them. None of them believed it. Well not entirely. They seemed to believe the last part, about the remaining beautiful spirit. Some of them still don’t sleep at night. They stay awake just to get a glance of that spirit…

To my Valentine, with L ♥ve…

There was a slight cold wind in the morning and Mridula loved that. She opened the window of the bus and put her face outside like a child trying to get some raindrops during the first rain. In the bus, she can see other associates chatting happily. The excitement was more because today is Valentine’s day.

The bus stopped at Thiruvanmiyur junction in front of the signal. While looking out, she noticed the girl. She has been seeing the girl everyday here for a long time. The girl is about 8-9 years old. She wears a simple white shimmy and doesn’t have any slippers. But her face even though not so fair, had something attractive on it. The innocence of childhood or was it the charming grace on the face, she was not sure. The girl usually sells ear bud packets. The packets look like home made ones, may be they r made by her mother in the home. When the vehicles stop at the signal, she runs towards them and sells her ear buds. Most people boo her away. Even if anyone buys it, it’s usually not because he wants it, but he just thought that may help the girl a bit.

Today, instead of earbuds, the girl was selling roses. Mridula smiled at her. And she came near to Mridula’s window. She asked, ‘amma, poo venama?’ Mridula thought about buying one. Seeing the sweet smile on her face, she was mesmerized and she brought 10 roses. The bus started moving. Mridula quicky gave the money. The girl was beginning to return the balance, but by then bus have started moving fast. The girl started to run behind the bus. Mridula was terrified that something will happen to the girl. She shouted to keep the balance with her. The girl heard that and stopped running.

In a few minutes she reached her office. There was the usual Valentine’s Day stuff going on. Proposals, rejections…

In the evening, she went to Beasant Nagar beach. It’s always nice to sit in the beach, looking at the sea. The sea breeze has a nice effect on everyone. She sat there thinking about her family. She laughed thinking about the scene her son made in the morning when he left for school with a red rose, claiming that he will give it to the beauty of the class. A fifth standard student celebrating V day!! Then she thought about her husband. Married lives of IT professionals are always tough. Even before Mridula wakes everyday, her husband would have left home since his company is far away. In night too, Vivek returns very late. But still the relationship is not much affected. They still get some time to spend together. Mridula have already decided that she will quit the job this year. She was on the verge of breakdown managing a home, husband, child and a job. One of their dreams, a good home was already finished a few years back. They always wanted a good car. Vivek has a craze in cars. They were planning to buy a Skoda. Now Mridula has managed half of the cash needed and Vivek the other half. They have paid the advance already and they will take the car tomorrow.

Gazing around, she noticed that the girl who sells the roses is now here. Just then the girl too noticed Mridula and she came to Mridula. She tried to give back the balance amount of morning, but Mridula refused. Mridula was thinking about the girl. She was almost of the same age as of her own son. What all hardships she may be facing. Why is she not going to school? Mridula didn’t want to ask that question. It doesn’t matter. She probably has a sick mother in home who is abandoned by her husband, or may be he is dead. Real life stories are always sad. After chatting for sometime, the girl went away.

It was night when Vivek came. Mridula was waiting, with her roses. ‘To my husband…’ said Mridula and gave him one Rose. ‘And what are you going to give me in return?’ she asked. ‘A car, a big luxury car. Just wait till tomorrow.’ Vivek said. While sleeping they discussed about their day. Vivek had a lot of office talk to share with. Mridula told him about her encounter with the flower girl, the proposals made in the office…

Next day passed as usual. In the evening, Mridula was waiting for her husband bringing the new car. Time passed and there was no sign of him. Finally, at 10 clock, vivek came, riding not a Skoda, but a Nano. Vivek hugged Mridula and said, ‘I have a gift for you darling.’ But Mridula just pulled him away. This was too much for her. She has given her hard earned 7 lakhs as her part for buying a Skoda, and he is back with a Nano. This has happened before also. Whenever they saved money for something, some emergency comes for some of the relatives of Vivek and he instantly pools his money for them. But this time, it was too much. Such a large sum, just to placate his relatives!! She went to the bedroom, closed it and wept and slept.

The next morning, when Mridula woke, Vivek have already gone. Mridula opened the door of her bedroom. She saw an envelope on the doorsteps. On it was written, ‘A gift to my Valentine, with Love…’ In it was a bank receipt of fixed deposit of Rs. 10 lakh deposited in the name of the little girl who sells ear buds and flowers. Mridula wept…

Birthday Boy@Mahabalipuram

It was 4.30 am and the mobile alarm of Maniesh began to sound. In a few seconds he snoozed it. Swearing against him in the mind, I returned to sleep. He does that every day. If he wants to wake at 6.30, he needs to set alarm 2 hours prior and then snooze it every 10 minutes! I slowly drifted again into my dreams. After what seemed a very small time, in the dream, a girl in a nice voice began to sing. After a few seconds, I realized that it is not the dream girl, but my mobile phone alarm. 5.30 am. I looked around the hall in which I was sleeping. (FYI: I usually prefer to sleep in the hall. Not because I don’t like beds, but because I don’t like to suffer the kicks and punches of my bed mates, that too in the name of just a (few!!) inches of invasion of his territory of bed. Hey guys, how dare you call yourself Indians? Look how India reacts to border incursions of Pak and China. ) There was Anoop lying in the couch, still tightly clutching the tv remote control. Just then I noticed a veiled figure walking in the verandha. Thief?? No way. Any thief will leave their own cash for us if they see our financial condition, especially in the second half of the month. Then I realized that it was Jishnu, studying for the software testing exam. A soft voice, like a song was coming from the bedroom. There was another dear friend still with his Motorazr. I was going to ask him when he woke up. But then I noticed his eyes and understood that he is continuing the chat he started yesterday night.

I was very happy this day because it is my pirannal. (For non mallus, pirannal means the day I was born according to the kerala system of calendar.) To make things more interesting, today we are going for batch outing, to Mahabalipuram. I quickly had a bath and then went out to Marudeshwar temple. I was dressed pretty well I thought, but in the temple everyone was staring at me, even the priests. While praying I suddenly had an idea that I should act decently atleast this day. Today I will not say any bad things. But its difficult. If I open my mouth in the company of my friends, there is a 50-50 chance that something inappropriate will come out. Then I found a way out. I will avoid talking as far as possible. It seemed that should work. But I still have to keep my mind pure and that needed desperate measures. So I decided to stay away from girls. (Truly, it was a tough decision.) When I came out of temple, I searched a lot for my chappals but couldn’t find it. After 10 minutes, tired of searching, I found that I was wearing the chappal. Now I know why all were staring at me in the temple.

It was decided that we depart from Tidel Park at 8.30 in the bus we booked. Out of 25 of us in our batch, 7 have already stayed away from the outing. The reason of most of them was that their parents were coming in the weekend, and some of them were genuine. But in the early morning, some more parents decided to come and see their children (!) and that meant that more people skipped the tour. In the end we were 16 people. That too because Fatah and Ajith decided to take our friends Tilju and Jaseem along with. Then we started waiting for our bus. Then came the luxury bus. Bus cleaner suppamani looked around to find the crowd of guys and gals he expected. He stopped near us and asked whether we have seen a bunch of about 50 people waiting for bus. When we told that we are the group who booked the bus, admiration glowed in his face. 16 people traveling in a luxury bus meant for 50 people. He thought we will be very very rich guys. And that meant problem!! In Chennai you should never give such impressions. He suddenly started demanding an extra Rs 1500 for the bus. Then started a stalemate. The problem arose because the bus agency to whom we paid the advance outsourced the task to another agency and that agency moved the task to other agency and when that agency sent their bus, the driver was not well and they hired another driver from another agency. So when we called the manager to whom we paid the advance, he called the other agency, and that agency to the other agency… It was a confusing scenario. Finally it was all settled and we started our journey.

In the bus, Fatah found an expensive toffee pack (made in Switzerland) that someone discarded leaving behind a significant number of toffees. But we were not sure whether they were good or not. Fatah himself found the solution. He started distributing the toffees claiming that he brought them. We waited for about half an hour. No one vomited or asked to stop the bus. The quality of toffee was assured and we ate it. (Most people of Dotnet 32 still don’t know this secret behind Fatah’s toffee.) We danced for some time and then settled for Anthakshari. It was easy, because while all of us know most of the Tamil songs, only we, the mallus know the Malayalam songs. So we picked any line randomly from the songs and claimed that the song started like that. Sometimes we even made lyrics and music of our own!

We reached the shore temple at about 10. We had breakfast and then started walking towards shore temple. While walking some the girls in our batch were found missing. Search for them began. We started with the most obvious place. The shops which sold bangles, necklaces etc. But we didn’t find them. Then we searched in the textile shop. They weren’t found. We searched the restaurants. They weren’t there. At last we found them near a pond. They said they were admiring the beauty of that dirty local pond. (That too when there was a beautiful beach just a half kilometer away.) Why girls act so weird? Or is it that only we, the boys, feel that girls are weird??

In the shore temple, I was putting my plans in to action. I talked very less and stayed away from all. Lot of people asked me why I am acting so dull in my birthday. To boys, I told the truth. But to gals… tat was another matter. I still don’t know how fluently lies came from my mouth. When they asked what’s the problem with me, I gave different answers to each of them.

The mostly repeated Qn: ‘Arun, why r u so dull and inactive today? Anything wrong?’
Answer to Arya and Aparna: ‘Because you people don’t mind me these days’
To Sharanya and Vegela: ‘Because I was thinking that I turned 22 today and still I haven’t got a girl friend’
To Vinita: ‘Because my sweet heart didn’t call me today’
To Akshaya: ‘Because I am so tired after studying C# for the whole night!’
…

There were some foreigners lying in the garden to have their skins tanned. One of my friends went there to talk and mingle with them. The next thing we saw was that all the foreigners dressed and packed up and escaped from the place. (Don’t ask me the name of that friend plss..)

From there we moved on to the caves. There, in a low lying tree branch, I saw a bunch of monkeys sitting there. They were busy discussing :

Monkey 1: What a boring day. No excitement. No fun.
Monkey 2: Yeah, these people aren’t even looking at us.
Monkey 1: Lets do something to grab their attention.
Monkey 2: Yes, yes.. lets have some fun. What should we do?
Monkey 1: Ey, did u see that girl in the umbrella. Even in this scoarching heat, she isn’t sharing it with anyone.

In the next instant, the two monkeys started to pull the umbrella of the girl. (I know her. But for the sake of my own health, let’s call her Umbrella girl.) The monkeys and the umbrella girl were having a struggle and the girl was in no mood to relent. She threw away the monkeys with her own hand, retrieved her umbrella and shouted

‘U dirty monkeys, u can have my necklace or anything else. But my umbrella, that too in this scorching heat.. neeeeeever. I have to take care of my complexion na.’

The monkeys felt that their pride was hurt and they have to retrieve it at any cost. And the next victim they choose was the poor me who is taking their pictures with mobile phone. It was over in an instant and the monkeys were back at the branch, now with a Nokia 6233 in their hand. They smiled at me. I was furious. But still I managed to give back a smile. There was no use in being hawkish. I have to negotiate with them. I thought of taking Ajith’s mobile phone in my hand and dropping it. Seeing that, monkeys should also drop the mobile phone, at least theoretically. (U remember the old story na?) But then I remembered a recent email which depicts a similar situation in which, in the final scene the monkey asked, ‘U fool! Did u think only you have grand father!’ Even monkeys have grown smarter.

Me: Jai Hanuman
Monkey 1: Hanuman! Who is that?
Me: Didn’t you ever hear about HANUMAN??? One of your great great grand fathers. The one who even saved the life of Lord Ram. You know what, even during those days, monkeys and humans were close friends and Hanuman never took Ram’s mobile phone away.
Monkey 2: Ohh, that Hanuman. Yeah, we have heard of our friends in forests so far from here talking about them. But don’t you know that our chief minister don’t like these guys – Hanuman, Ram… So we usually don’t talk about these people.
Me: What should I do to get my mobile?
Monkey 1: Can you give us the umbrella of that girl?
Me: No way. She will kill me.
Monkey 2: Lets cut a deal. Give me the black goggle worn by that guy and the mobile will be yours.
Me: Ok done.

Fatah never got the time to respond. I suddenly took his googles and handed it over to the monkeys. They kept their part of the deal and returned my mobile. If you happen to go to Mahabalipuram, you can see one of these monkeys climbing and running around, wearing Fatah’s goggles. (For those of you who want to know how I know the language of Monkeys: ‘If you are that much insistent on perfection, truth… you have reached the blog of the wrong person yaar.’)

We returned from the caves and moved over to the beach. Since I had sworn that I will be a good boy today, I didn’t go with my friends to watch the north Indians playing in the water. Instead I settled in the sand itself. A lady who claimed to be well versed in palmistry offered us her service for just Rs. 10, and one of us readily agreed. She predicted, ‘Two wives, benz car…’ He was delighted. Then one of the girls showed her hand, ‘Raasathi… Will go abroad with husband, he will be a very nice man…’ She showered praises on anyone who showed their palms. At last I decided to take a chance and showed my palms. She looked at it for some time and said:

‘Cheating, lying, stealing.. all are evident in your palm. You will fall in deep love with someone, but she will ditch you. The lady whom you will marry will be actually cheating you. You look so humble and decent in the outside, but inside, you are a selfish and uncompromising man…’

The lady was going on and all my limits of patience ran out and some sweet f*** words flew out of my lips before even I knew. The birthday resolution was broken. Since its broken once, there is no point in continuing with it. No need for acting decent. Time to revert to the ‘Normal Arun Mode.’ In to the beach, in search of beautiful faces…

[Ok, I admit, not much of fun in the story na. I too felt that. But I’ll be back shortly. With the birthday celeberation photos. It will be a proof that one photo is worth a thousand words.]

Celebrating Pongal@Chennai 600041

Two days holiday due to pongal, that too, a Monday and Tuesday. That makes it a small vacation of four days. What should we do? Go Home? NOOOOO WAY! We just joined on dec 21^st. Then Cognizant sent us back saying that classes start on Jan 2^nd only. When we returned, and said we have 10 days holiday, most people thought it as weird and they aired their opinion too.

Friend: ‘da nee avide poyi valla prasnavaum undakkiyo? Ninne avaru purathakkiyathono?’ (Those who dont know malayalam, contact your nearest mallu :-))
Neighbour: ‘ninne avaru pattikkyallallo? Njan cap geminiyil refer cheythu tharano?’
Cousin: ‘leave the company yaar. Join merchant navy.’ …

So I can already visualize the situation if I retured on pongal too, just a few days after my classes started.

Neighbor aunty to another neighbor aunty: ‘Sreedevide monte karyathil entho prasnamundu. Cognizantil join cheythunnum paranjalle poyathu. Join cheytha udane pathu divasam holidaysannum paranju vannu. Ippo da pongalnum paranju veendum vannirikkunu’
The other neighbor aunty: ‘Sheriyatto. Nammde doctorde molum cognizantilalle, chennayil thanne. Aa kutti randu masam koodumbola onnu varanathu thane. Athum oru divasathekku’
Neighbor aunty: ‘avanu joliyonnum kittitundavilla. Allengil trainingile valla examinum thottittu avane purathakkithavum’ … (For all the non mallus, you will be confused why other people gossip about us. Welcome to kerala. Here gossips and rumors run faster than electricity does on kseb lines. Oops, electricity in kseb lines! The probablility of that happening is matter for another post. Maybe some other day.)

Thus we, the cognizant mallus at thiruvanmiyur decided not to go home. The next thing to be decided was what we are going to do in Chennai for four days. It was time to chase the fantasies we weaved in college. To roam with beautiful girls. Beautiful girls! Now that was a concern because that specific genre of species is so rare and most of them are, (sorry, no offence meant on the oncoming word) booked :-(. So what to do? We changed our requirement from ‘beautiful girls’ to ‘girls’. So we started calling all girls we know, including our earlier college mates, present colleagues in cognizant, so and so. Some of them tried even an old school friend who is now in Chennai (y u r staring at me. Ok. I admit. It was me). Now lets have a quick look at the phone conversations that happened then.

Smitha: ‘Sorry da. Ente cousin (read boyfriend) nale ivide varunundu. Appo pinne nale njan engana ninte aduthu varua.’
Meenu: ‘Oh shit (did she mean me??)! You could have called earlier. Me and my roommies have already booked tickets for tomorrow to see tzp’ (biggest lie coz I know she already saw tzp and said she didn’t like it)
Keerthi: ‘I m sorry da. I m not physically well. I cant tell u wat. But u understand the problem na’ (I understand it damned. The same excuse she gave last Friday too when I called her for a film. How can she have it twice in two weeks :-0 )

Things almost similar were happening to my other friends too. So finally we found out that no girl was ready to come with us. (somewhere in the background a sad drama tune plays.) Anyway, leave it. Let all the boys rock it together. Thiruvanmiyur beach, we the cognizant mallus, sorry, I mean the cognizant (single) mallus are coming…

DAY 1
We slept till 2, had food and after that went out, to thiruvanmiyur beach. But bad news yaar. Every where we look, we see couples and couples only. We tried to keep up with the malayali tradition of ‘vaynottam’. But whenever we see a couple we gets depressed. So overall the day was wasted. We decided there was something wrong in our life. We need help, from God. Thus we charted plans for next day. Over to Santhome church.

DAY 2
Our desire was to reach Santhome at 10.30am, just on time to attend the Malayalam mass. We being professional and punctual IT employees, managed to reach there at 11.30. Just after 5 minutes of hearing the mass, the non Christians among us couldn’t stand it (Our admiration for our Christian friends grew. How they suffer this every week). We left them and went to the back of the church to the beach. There we found out that we were not the only people who escaped from the church. After playing sometime, we went back to the church. While sitting infront of St. Thomas tomb, someone said that when we are coming there for the first time, we can have three wishes that will be fulfilled. Some of us were so busy shortlisting three wishes that we spend about 1 hour just thinking what should we wish.

Next destination was spencer plaza which was a feast to the eyes (u understand it na :-)). First we went to a footwear showroom when our friend who calls himself a fashion expert (lets call him X) stepped in with his opinions, as usual

X: ‘Did u guys see this superb shoes. How streamlined it is. How stylish’
Us: ‘No da. It looks so foolish.’
X: ‘Ey ey, u people are not at all updated about latest fashion. This is now used by film actors like SRK’
Us: ‘Look at its cost da. 8000 bucks. Its not worth it yaar’
X: ‘U unfashionable people. U people never change. Watch it guys. When I get my first salary, I will buy it and wear it. Then you all will exclaim and saw wowwww’
Just then, the salesperson at the shop came to us: ‘Excuse me sir, this is ladies’ shoes. Shall I gift pack it for you?’
Then we decided to let the dream of X be fulfilled and we all said ‘WOWWWWW’.

DAY 3
We found out that the restroom inside Sathyam theatre was more clean and beautiful than our own bedroom. But the film (Halla Bol) offered no justification for our 120 Rs ticket. How can we get the most out of the cash then? Since we can’t change what’s going on in the screen, we diverted our attention to things happening around us. We started to look at back first. A northy couple was there.

Gal: ‘Rahul, move ur hands away from my pants. All people r staring at us’
Guy: ‘First move that popcorn packet from ur pants dear’
Gal: ‘Oops, I thought…’ (We too :-))

Then we changed attention to our left where a beautiful couple was sitting. Whats the way to act decent but pass comments in an undecent way? We started commenting in Malayalam. (For the sake of censorship, I am not going to write here what we said.) Finally we heard the girl telling ‘Evidem undavum, oru paniyum illathe kore vaynokkikal.’ A scream automatically came out from all of us, ‘ayyo, malayali aayirunno!!’

Meanwhile in our right side. (For guys from north India, pls don’t kill me after reading this. I have tried my maximum to reconstruct the hindi conversation)

Gal: ‘Bholo tum muje pyaar karthe he ya nahin’
Guy: ‘ha’
Gal: ‘Sirf ek ha!! Bholo I LOVE YOU’
Guy: ‘arey film dekhne dho yaar’
Gal: ‘Tum I love you bholon ya nahin?’
Guy: ‘Mein kitne baar bhol chukka hoon. Ab mujhe film dekhne dho.’
Gal: ‘Acha, thum film dekho. Mein wahan us red shirtwale ke pass jaata hoon. Dekthe hoon ki who mujhe care karthe hei ya nahin.’
Guy: ‘Ok, u go then’
Gal: ‘Dekho, mein zarror jaonga aur use kiss bhi karega’
(My heart lept yaar. That red shirwaala was meeee)
Guy: ‘Acha thu jao. Sirf muje mera credit card bapus dedo’
Gal: ‘Ohhhh darling. See how well ajay devgan is acting. Lets stop chatting. We should see the film’
(Another sad climax for my dreams. Orchestra, please sing that sad tune again in the background)

DAY 4
Enough of traveling. We decided to take rest and study sql. Which to start first? We tried to sleep. But couldn’t sleep. So we tried to study sql. Then we couldn’t study but was able to sleep easily. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

That’s it for now guys and gals. Bye.