The White Wall

Ananda is a student of class 10 in his village. He paints very well. He wants to learn to paint from a great painter from his village Shiva. But Shiva was no ordinary painter and he doesn’t teach painting for money, which is an advantage for Ananda since he cannot afford the money. But Shiva only teaches to the one who passes his test.

On a nice sunny morning, after breakfast Ananda walks to Shiva’s house situated in a nice green farm. It was a simple hut with only the basic necessities. Shiva grew all that is needed for himself to eat. He only painted for others, there was not a single painting in his house.

Ananda knocks the door. Shiva opens it and greets him with a friendly smile, as if he knew he was coming.

Ananda politely bows down and asks “I am a school boy, I am interested in painting and I come here in humility to learn more in painting.”

Shiva let him in and spoke “This is the test my boy. Here is a white wall. You have as much time as you like. If you paint the most beautiful thing that you can think of, then I will accept you as my student.”

Ananda was very hopeful that he can paint his best.

Ananda was very good in painting nature.

On the first day he began painting mountains, rocks and houses around them. He sat there looking at it intensely for the whole day. He did not leave home. Seeing the boy’s dedication Shiva offered him some food and water. He ate and remained watching it unmoved, adjusting the painting, as the night fell.

Shiva said “My dear boy, I keep the door open. You can leave home and come back next day when you feel like”, as he slept.

Ananda was staring at the wall for too long and he forgot he had to leave home. He slept there on the floor.

He woke up the next day and with a flash of inspiration, began painting a river on this painting. It needed a water body. He continued to stay there and work on the painting.

On the third day, he added a nice orange shade to the subjects on the painting to show the light from the sunrise in his painting.

On the fourth day, he added some flying leaves, flower petals, and flowing hair and clothes of men and women to show the presence of a light breeze.

On the fifth day, he felt his painting was not complete. He wasn’t sure if it was the most beautiful. He sat there contemplating. He stopped painting now.

On the sixth day, he began to think there are too many things in his painting. He began erasing them one by one and continued to do so.

Shiva began to smile now, as if he knew what was happening in his mind and where he was going to get.

At the end of seventh day, Ananda erased the whole painting and turned to Shiva and bowed down to his feet.

Shiva calmly asked “What happened? Why did you erase all that you did for 7 days?”

Ananda got up with tears in his eyes “O master of masters! The most beautiful painting in the world, does not come from me. It is the white wall itself that is beautiful and only that can bring out a perfect painting from me! I do not know anything!”

Shiva held him up with tears of joy in his eyes.

“My boy, you have passed the test. I will teach you the art of listening to the beautiful white wall, which alone can tell you what to paint on it.”

The Body Builder

Suresh was getting ready for his Mr. Madras body building competition. He was very fit, had nice bulging biceps and V-shaped body. He was honest in his body building and used no shortcuts like steroids to get where he is right now. He knows the evil effects of steroids and has avoided it ever since he started this.

With 7 days to go to the competition, Suresh was getting a little bit nervous. He usually wakes up by 6 AM and after a brief warm up session and a few raw eggs, he goes to the Gym and gets trained by his master. He evenly spreads out his exercises – curls, presses and weight lifting and keeps hydrated throughout the 2 hour long session. He follows it up with a nice healthy breakfast. He doesn’t eat 1 lunch but splits it into two and has one at 11AM and another at 2 PM. His dinner is also spread into 2 one at 5PM, and then at 8PM.

It was another day of routine for him as he woke up at 6 AM. He heads to the bathroom, spits and takes a leak in the commode as he wanders his mind around how he was going to go about the competition. The urine flowed out of his body making the noise of a stream of water hitting a pool at an intensity that showed how tall he was. He relaxed as he took a deep breath. As he came out of his thought train he noticed there was a chunk of blood floating in the commode. Blood! He panicked.

It is said that if you take Anabolic Steroids to build your body, the first few symptoms of its effects are bleeding when you pee. Suresh was scared now, he hasn’t taken any steroids. He has taken protein supplements and has a very uncommon diet. He wasted no time and he rushed himself to the doctor.

Suresh: I don’t take any steroids, but I saw blood this morning in my urine.

Doc: Don’t worry, we will take these blood tests and we can find out what has happened. You will get the results in a day, you can come back tomorrow at 8 AM.

Suresh was very worried. His entire body building and perhaps his life is now hanging in balance. That night he didn’t sleep properly. He had nightmares of seeing himself bald, sick and dying. He didn’t know what it would feel like with the testosterone level as low as a 12 year old girl, but he couldn’t sleep at the thought of that. But he didn’t have steroids and hence he was not worried as much as he would if he had had.

Suresh waited for the night to go by. It was the longest night he ever spent in his life. The next morning he rushed to the hospital without showering, eating. He saw blood in his urine even today.

Doc: The results have come Suresh. They all look normal. Your liver is functioning very well. You have nothing to be afraid of.

Suresh: But Doc, I saw blood even today. Please help me, I have a competition to go to in a week.

Suresh went close to the doctor and pleaded. The doctor moved away as his breath was stinking.

Doc: Let me see your teeth. Say eee and aaa!

Suresh was bewildered but did what he said.

Doc: Do you spit in the commode?

Suresh: I don’t remember, may be I do!

Doc: Your gums are inflammed and bleeding. You must be seeing that blood in the morning as you spit. You need to see a dentist!

Suresh laughed out loud. He couldn’t believe it. It was his teeth. His teeth was inflammed and he was glad it was just his teeth. He was relieved and happy. Compared to what it could have been, inflammed gums was nothing to him. He ran out of the hospital excited.

In a few days, a happy Suresh won the competition and became Mr. Madras and of course he went to the Dentist after a week.

So folks, Don’t spit in your commode while you pee!

PS: This is a humble attempt at Story Telling like Sakhi combined with Nikhil’s Whackiness and Rambodoc’s Body Building 101′s with an ending twist of my own style.

PPS: Virtual hits with Rotten eggs and Tomatoes from “Pissed” off readers welcome

Super Sekar – Death of the Mega Serials

INTRODUCING SUPER SEKAR:

Sekar is an average ordinary young Bachelor. He has no six pack and is not a sportsman, but an average software developer working for a dinky little software company in Bangalore. His ambitions are not high. He likes his beer filled Fridays and yearns to win over a babe someday. He wanted to be a Superman but he was not sure if his company dress code allowed him to wear the underwear on top of his pants instead of the other way around. Like any average person, his life is a roller coaster ride and sometimes he likes to thrill himself with adventures and sometimes he falls into an adventure by accident. Gentle Ladies and Tough Men, I present to you Super Sekar and his adventurous life.

DEATH OF THE MEGA SERIALS:

Mega Serials are the Great Indian Soap opera shows that revolve around Daughter in laws, Mother in laws, Son in laws, Father in laws and their near and distant relatives. The Indian soaps that have been haunting Most Women and some men, episode after episode for nearly a decade, will come to an end.

Several TV channels have not been revealing the latest ratings for their Soap shows. It has found that there has been a start of steady decline of soap viewership right around the end of 2005. Media executives have been scrambling numbers and conducting surveys after surveys to find out what is wrong – is the relationship drama too boring? Do we need to add extra marital stuff? Do people need some explicitly revealing scenes? No was the answer for everything. Perhaps it was the new breed of reality TV shows, but they were not sure either. Till this day the executives are running around like chickens with head cut off and cannot come to any conclusion for this cause.

Super Sekar during his regular friday visit to the pub bumps into a Page 3 crowd which incidentally has some of the media executives. He speaks to these executives but no one seemed to divulge any information to him even after getting hammered with 5 shots of tequila. They just cursed Sekar with profanity and asked him to stay away. Super Sekar was really pissed, not just from the lousy pitcher beer, but for the treatment that he received from those executives and he is determined to get back at them.

Super Sekar decides to look at the market directly and hence he spends a few hours eaves dropping on the viewers and finds out what people were talking about. He travelled in his hypersonic jet to the heart of Chennai at T.Nagar and hears an interesting conversation, as he eats his Sambar rice for lunch “To Go”ed from Saravana Bhavan.

“I like his way of bringing out Humour in everything, that is the part that makes me want more and more”

“Clearly, he has the motivation of entertaining people. Do you know if there is anyone who writes like this?”

“Yeah there are quite a few, Here it is, I track them in my bookmark and visit each of them everyday without fail. The comments section is the best part, that is where all the riot happens. Total time pass”

Super Sekar jots down a few notes and flies in his jet to Mumbai. It was around afternoon at about 3PM as he enters the Dalaal street, the home of Indian stock market. He spots a conversation between two stock brokers and settles there, munching his Vada paav bought from a Push cart shop:

Broker1: “Ab ye dekh, yeh Chote khan apne Kutte ko Badshah bol raha hai” (Now Look, This shorty khan is calling his dog the emperor khan)

Broker2: “Are main inka bachon wali khel nahin padtha hoon. Apun to Bade miyan ka padtha hoon” ( I don’t read these childish fights, I read the Big Guy’s)

Passerby: “Hey guyz, leave those stuff. Did you see how RGV got back at his critics, man that was some juicy stuff”

Super Sekar notes down a few points after hearing the conversation and looking at the monitor full of red colored numbers and arrow marks pointed downwards. He takes off in his jet to the Capital city of the country, New Delhi. He buys a mug of Sweet Lassi on his way and parks himself by an apartment at the 3rd floor. He overhears the conversation of two housewifes:

“Has she delivered yet?”

“She must have, She is past her due date. May be she is still in the hospital that’s why she hasn’t written anything yet”

“Refresh, hit refresh, keep hitting it”

Super Sekar notes down what they were doing and walks away. He stumbles upon a flower pot in the balcony and breaks it. “Who is there” the housewives shout and Super Sekar quickly jumps into his jet that was floating in mid air by the balcony. The housewives see this and pick a small pebble from the broken flower pot and throw it at the jet, and it lands right into Sekar’s shirt pocket. Sekar doesn’t even realize this and he simply concentrates on turning on the jet and flees from the spot.

From there Sekar flies straight down to Bangalore for his final analysis and confirmation of the phenomenon. He lands straight into the campus of the biggest IT office in Bangalore (not his), gets off his jet and runs around the corner of the building carefully hiding himself. He steps on a box on the way. Sekar being the curious type opens the box and is shocked to find a bomb. With his Super duper Bomb diffusing skills he cuts the red wire, blue wire and then a magenta wire and stops the bomb from exploding. Sekar gets up and walks off to continue his mission while just then a security guard walks by and notices Sekar walking away from the box.

“Hey hey stop … you” cries the Guard. Sekar flees into the building up the stairs.

“What the hell was he doing with the power meter that we replaced!” exclaimed the Guard looking at the cut wires.

Sekar slips into a cubicle and tries to snoop in on a conversation. it was around 6PM now and the IT employees were now in a complete chit chat mode. He knows why they do not leave office at that time as they were trying to beat the traffic. To kill the time it seems they were doing the universal time pass task of IT employees – Browsing.

“Ha ha … That was a funny one, let me forward it to my friends.”

“Hey forward it to me, I am going to post it in my blog.”

“In your blog? no way I am going to post it in mine. If you want you can link it to me”

Sekar finally comes to a conclusion as visible in his clever wicked smoldering smile. He has now got what he needs, writes down a few conclusion points and runs away from the place. The security guard comes running down the pavement shouting “Hey, Stop” but Sekar quickly gets into the lift and goes down to the basement where his hypersonic jet is parked. He gets on the jet and starts up the engine. The security guards now gather in a gang and try to chase Sekar in their jeep. But due to a massive difference in horsepower between the ordinary jeep and Sekar’s hypersonic jet, Sekar gets away so fast that he can’t even hear their shouts. He hardly gives them the time to even recognize him.

Sekar flies off straight to the head quarters of the TV channel where the executives who humiliated him in the pub, were working. He peeks through the window and sees the executive sitting in his chair holding a cup and thinking seriously. He picks up a piece of paper and writes down a line quickly. He tries to look around for a weighty object and lo behold finds a pebble in his shirt, a pebble in his pocket thrown at him during his trip to Delhi. He picks the pebble and wraps it around by that paper and ties it with a rope from the Saravana bhavan Parcel potlam (Pack) and gets ready to aim and throw at the executive. Right then, he gets a wicked idea, a what if?

Super Sekar breathes in steadily and firmly. He places the tiny paper pebble bundle in his rear and with the power of the reaction between the Sambar rice, Vada paav with a neutralizing effect of the lassi generates an immensely pressurized gas in his stomach and propels the paper pebble bundle with a loud powerful fart. The bundle flies off in a trajectory in the direction of the window, the executive just then puts the cup down and starts a big lazy yawn. The bundle still flying crashes through the glass of the window and lands straight into the mouth of the executive.

The executive chokes a bit and manages to pull out the bundle from his mouth. He reads:

“It’s the blogs stupid!”

He then wonders, “Hmm… what’s that smell! and What the hell is a blog!”

Super Sekar gets on his jet and flies away as the camera zooms into his wicked smiling face and then into his eyes that seems to say “See you all Soon, Folks!”

SUMMARY: This is an imaginary story to describe how the Blogosphere is gaining popularity among the Indian Media audience and how the Television Soap shows are loosing its luster due to it. The characters and incidents are purely fictional. You should have found that out as soon as you read about Hypersonic Jet in the hands of a Software Developer.

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Wounded Then, Wounded Now

Venugopal Narayanan is an Accountant at the Royal Treasury of the kingdom of Pallavas. He was a talented young man and led a principled life. His morning routine was getting up to half hour of yoga at 6AM and then bathing in the river for 20 minutes as he practiced his singing. He then spends another half hour walking to the Palace to start his work for the day. King Mahendra Verma Pallava took care of his officials very well. Gopal, as he was called by his colleagues, was very glad to have a breakfast and Lunch from the Royal Kitchen.

The same Venugopal Narayanan in the present day works as a Software Developer at one of those big buildings at IT Corridor in Chennai. He wakes up as early as 7AM gets ready in an hour and eats in a small restaurant outside his apartment complex and starts off for a 1 hour ride in his bike to his office. His lunch is usually in the office that serves a variety of rice items in small quantities or steps out for an Andhra meals. Gops, as he was called by his colleagues, was very glad that he has a decent job, earning decent money.

Gopal is having a busy day today. They were getting close to the Royal Budget session of the year which means he had to work harder on the numbers as the staff would have to face the yearly audit by the minister. Gopal usually spends a good 1 hour eating his lunch, but he had to cut it short to 30 minutes and get back to his calculations. As the afternoon passed, Gopal’s friend had to leave soon for the day as his wife was in labour. Gopal took over his friend’s work and stayed a good 2 hours late to finish up before tomorrow’s audit. It was 7PM and it was now dark outside. He had to walk back to his home in the dark, all alone.

Gops is a manager’s favorite. He can code as much as 40% faster than his peer programmers. He likes to take additional responsibilities and so he was working harder to get everything ready for this weekend’s project release. Ever since his co-developer Madhavi had gone on a Maternity Leave, He had been working an hour late everyday and today he stayed back a full 2 hours late. He finished his dinner at the office and wasn’t ready to go until 10PM.

Gopal borrowed a lantern from the Security guard and walked home. As he got out of the palace, he felt unusual silence. He was not used to going home at this hour. The roads were empty and the air was filled with the noise of crickets, which was the way he identified silence. Gopal is a brave man but he was afraid of dark. Perhaps a feeling of not knowing what’s ahead and around, makes him afraid.Gopal treads for a few minutes carefully holding the lantern. He hears a rustling noise of the leaves and turns his head towards the noise. It causes 2 seconds of distraction making him look away from the road in front. But those 2 seconds were enough to make him miss a huge stone lying on the side of the road. Gopal stumbles upon the stone and falls on the edge of the road and rolls over to the side into a ditch and hits his head to the wall of the ditch. He sprains his legs and is unable to lift himself up.

Gops is used to driving back home at nights. A busy city like Chennai always had bright road lights and people moving around until 10PM, Just like Bono sings – “In the city of blinding lights”. So there was nothing to worry about except uncertainty. The roads were where the scariest of the accidents took place. Gops was driving back home in a one way street and quite unexpectedly he saw an autorickshaw coming towards him from a No Entry. Only 2 seconds he had to correct the course of his bike. But 2 seconds were too little for him and the autorickshaw to adjust as Gops goes too wide and falls into the middle of the road. A speeding bus comes from his behind and the driver of the bus notices Gops and his bike. The drivers takes aversive action that makes the bike, fall prey to the behemoth. Gops has enough time to roll over but only so much to leave his right leg to be run over by the bus shattering into pieces.

It was painful for Gopal to even lift himself up. He tried to use a cloth torn out of his dhoti to stop the bleeding from his head, but in a few minutes he went unconscious. There wasn’t much loss of blood, but it was enough to knock him out. There was no one in the vicinity. Gopal was all alone unconscious accompanied by the noises of cricket, the occasional breeze rustling the leaves of trees. After about 3 hours, a passer by in his bullock cart notices the broken lantern on the road and follows to the ditch. He sees Gopal lying there unconscious and without a second thought he bends down and pulls him up. Gopal was still alive. The stranger freshens him up with some water and cleans the wound. Gopal is then put in the cart by the stranger and is taken to the doctor’s home to treat him.

Gops was surprisingly conscious and was able to look at the pieces of his legs even in the sheer pain. Gops tries to stand up on his one leg and collects the pieces, still crying aloud in his pain. With the pieces in his hand he looks around. There were about 10 pedestrains who looked at him but were not willing to help him up. A cop comes around and marks the area as the accident spot and gets busy diverting the people and the traffic. The bus and the autorickshaw involved in the accident flew away from the spot. There were a lot of vehicles passing by that side, which had the civilized lot like the doctors, engineers, lawyers who were slowing down to look at Gops but none of them stopped. There must have been a 100 onlookers in a span of 1 minute but no one wanted to help Gops. Gops catches an autorickshaw, probably the only kind soul, who agrees to take him to the hospital. It was the hospital where his uncle is a surgeon. Gops is immediately taken in and operated on. The pieces of his legs are put together and his uncle takes care of him very well.

Gopal was thankful to God to send a passerby at that time of the night. Gopal thanked the stranger for saving his life. Gopal lived his life the fullest from the next day onwards.

As for Gops, There was only one thought in his mind. He wasn’t thanking God or thanking his Uncle or thanking the auto driver who brought him to the hospital. He would do that later, but right now he was pained by the fact that there was no one who cared about a stranger in distress. He could not even imagine what would have happened if he didn’t have an uncle as a surgeon in a hospital. It took several months for Gops to recover but the pain of his fellow human beings leaving him by himself when he was a victim of unorderliness for a fraction of a second left him scarred.

In an advanced civilization with a lot of people around and a lot of advanced technolgy on hand, Gops was left to stand on his own. Gops became stronger and lived his life as a brave young man achieving all the dreams in his life.

The Library

January 30, 1905. One stormy day in Madras, rain was lashing all over the city. Sundaram Pillai’s health, which rapidly deteriorated for the past 2 weeks was getting worse today. He usually was able to get up and sit in his bed for eating his food, but today he just couldn’t get up. He was worried that he would leave the world without accomplishing much.

A retired high school headmaster, he was fond of teaching and he considered sharing knowledge to others as the sole purpose of his life, best of all he believed knowledge should be freely available to anyone who seeks it. A few years back he had started a library using an old building he had inherited from his grandfather with all the books he had, books donated and books bought from his retiral money. It was not enough to match the city library, which was only for the priviledged, but not free though. He was disappointed that he couldn’t accomplish much with his library. Mohan Pillai, his son, a civil engineer, who graduated from College of Engineering, Guindy, last year was his only hope. But Mohan along with his British friend Harris were only interested in constructing bridges and buildings.

Mohan sat next to his father, trying to help him up to sit for his breakfast.

“I can’t son, It is all over for me. My dreams are still just a dream ..” he coughs and pauses to catch breath. “… dream… and will be gone when I leave this world”.
“No Appa! You will be alright. You just need some rest. Please drink this juice and sleep for a while.” He slowly lifted his father’s head and gave him some juice and medicine. He fell asleep, still thinking of his dream.

Mohan leaves downstairs to his study room, waiting for Harris to join him. Harris comes sharply at 9 AM even on that heavy downpour. He was always punctual.

“Mohan! Good morning. How are you today?”
“huh … alright! Come on in. Let me get you some tea first”
Harris hangs his coat and hat and sits on the jute chair in the living room, as Mohan walks to the kitchen to get some tea for him.
“Are you alright! You don’t seem to be ok.”
Mohan didn’t respond.
“How is your father? What did the doctor say?”
“He should be ok, Doctor said it was viral fever, it might take another week’s rest I guess”
A few minutes of silence and then Mohan walks in with tea pot and cups. He serves tea for Harris and himself.
“Harris! I think I should help my father with his library.”
“Look! I agree your father was a great teacher, but it is highly impractical to establish a free library”
Mohan sighed “There must be some way!” and he puts the tea cup on the table and heads to the study room. Harris follows him. They get busy with drawing the plan for a bridge.

The next morning, Mohan walks up to his father’s room. He sits near his father and gently taps him to wake him up. He waits a few seconds, taps again. Sundaram was in deep sleep, drained into his dream, his thoughts. He was in deep sleep, that he could never wake up, his thoughts remained, an unfulfilled journey of a soul temporarily ends.

Mohan was dejected, he wished one day his father’s dream would come true, Free knowledge for everyone. He went on with life, donated all the books in his father’s library to the city library and sold the building.

…

Summer 1935. Mohan is now married for 25 years and his son Sundaram was studying Civil engineering in the same college just like his father. Sundaram was very brilliant and active. Although he was an Engineer, his interests were to serve his country. He deeply adored Gandhi and his principles. He privately wrote articles in college and distributed it among his friends. He was dying to join the freedom movement and make a mark in the society with his ideas.

Sundaram finds a job in the city library during his summer holidays. It was actually no job, He hardly needed to work for an hour a day and for the rest of the time he roamed around rack by rack reading the titles of the books. He would be bored by lunch time and
return to his desk and start writing articles on various topics or simply pick a book at random and start reading. It was not interesting at all, he only understood his subjects of interest and the rest of it was simply random words for him. He was only able to remember some keywords.

“Ganesh sir! It has been only few days, I am already getting bored of this job”
Ganesh iyer was a middle aged man and would have been the only librarian if Sundaram had not joined him.
“Sundar, this is a big library, I am sure you will be able to find something interesting to do.”
“No sir … I don’t think so. I am going to join the freedom movement once I finish college. I wanted a job just to keep myself busy this summer”
“hmm.. Well! Are you busy?”

Sundar nodded his head sideways and slowly walked to the ladder to look for interesting books in the top shelves. Nothing interested him other than a small section of books.

The next morning, he came a little late to the Library.
“Ganesh sir, sorry I was late. I overslept last night”
“That’s all right, there should be no work today. But I hope you can get busy!”
Sundar curiously looked at Ganesh’s sarcastic smile and went to his desk. He was right, there was absolutely no work. He started wondering, what he was going to do the whole day. He was also feeling guilty that he was getting paid for doing no work. He had no idea what to do.

He starts off by picking a random book from a rack and read the first chapter. He remembers a few words, puts back the book, hops to another rack and looks for some of the words he read in the previous book. It took him till lunch to find 2 books that had those words. All of those 3 books were from different categories but it sure gave him some valuable information. He was standing at the first floor and shouted to Ganesh sir.

“Ganesh sir, we have a catelogue right at that corner that is arranged by categories and last names of authors. Is there any other way we can look up for books?”
Ganesh sir thought for a while.
“Well! You ought to know the subject that you are reading, which means you should know your category. That is why it is arranged like this”
“No I didn’t ask that sir! Is there any other way we can look for books?”
“What is your point genius?”
“If I want a book on History of Electricity, will it be in Category: Physics or Electricity or History?”
“History!”
“So History of Electricity is only of interest to a Historian and not a Physicist?”
At this point, Ganesh got up realising it was not a silly question any more. Ganesh realised, that question from Sundar explained everything that Sundar had in his mind.

Sundar had only 2 weeks left in his summer holidays, but was determined to atleast start with something on this mountaineous task. He took keywords from a book and tried to link it with any other book which had those same words. It wasn’t easy but he thought it would be useful to classify it that way. So he went on by grabbing keywords from book and with Ganesh’s help he kept searching all the books to find those that would match perfectly. He formed a separate catelogue this way.

Of Course, two weeks were not enough for this Herculean task. Sundar had to go back to College after that and then his path changed. He had no time for the library. The following week he came to the library in the evening just before closing time to see if Ganesh sir was continuing that.

“We’re closing!” said a voice behind a stack of books as Sundar pushed the door and got in.
“It’s me Ganesh sir!” Sundar said as he walked to the desk “oh! Where is Ganesh sir?”
There was someone else sitting.
“He had to go to his hometown, his Father died 3 days back. I am just a substitute Librarian”
Sundar sighed and walked to the door. The librarian got up from his desk and was ready to close the library.
“Just out of curiosity, did he say anything about that new catelogue in that corner?”
“Well! No … actually I didn’t know it was new. Although, I have noticed more people using the one you mentioned than the one here”
“Thank you!”
Sundar was delighted, that a small task that he did for a few days has been benefiting a few readers.

Life went on. Ganesh sir never came back. Sundar finished his college and actively involved himself in the freedom movement. He participated in the Quit-India movement and became a martyr, but his thoughts remained, an unfulfilled journey of a soul ended temporarily.

…

Decades passed. 1996. A bright computer engineer from Anna University gets to go to Stanford for his post graduation. He stuns a few brilliant minds with his capabilities. Sundar Raman graduates from Stanford after a couple of years and joins a startup company in California, which is now the leading Internet search company. The thoughts continued and a journey was getting fulfilled.

T

Feeling a terrible pain on the back of his neck, he looks around completely perplexed. He was standing on a green lawn, which looked like one of those tennis courts at Wimbledon. His body was a little wet even though the air was dry and the evening was bright. His brain was going through a sort of nervous battle and he wasn’t able to hold on to a single thought. Remembering nothing as chaos filled his brain, he could only see a small cottage in front of him. He decided to go into the cottage, even though his brain was neither able to make that decision nor identify if he could recognize having seen it before. In spite of lot of stress and confusion he enters the cottage. He was able to sense that he has to knock the door if it was locked; it was locked and so he was forced to knock. He looked around the lawn as he was waiting for someone to open it. A familiar row of yellow rose caught his eyes and he could remember seeing it somewhere. The sight of the same array of yellow flowers stretching long alongside the cottage where at one point it gets hidden by the cottage itself and from where a distant mountain begins it slope looked as much a déjà vu for him. But he was under too much stress that he wasn’t able to think beyond the fact that it’s something familiar.

The creak of the door was heard as an old man appeared before him. He was probably in his early 60’s wearing round spectacles, a white apron covering his shirt and jeans. His hair was completely white, long and uncombed and his face was covered with a thick beard and moustache. Before he could say anything, the old man exclaimed, “Swami! Nice to see you. What made you come 10 minutes early? Did you skip your date with Ramya?”
Confused by the old man’s statement of appropriateness of his presence in that place he asked, “Excuse me sir! I am feeling a little confused and my brain is a little chaotic, I am not able to think if I know you ..”
“Oh! Calling me sir, Looks like some heavy lightning struck your head, get in first”. The old man lets him in and asks him to follow.
“Sir! I am not sure why I am here”, he said walking behind the old man. He saw a dusty living room with a few jute chairs, an old television set in the corner and few magazines
on the desk. One of them had the old man’s face on the cover, but the words were hidden by some newspapers over it.
“Swami!”, said the old man stopping at the entrance of another room, “What happened to you, are you all right?”
“Sir! I am confused. Do I really know you? Do I really know this place?”
“God knows what struck you! You know me. I am Dr. Raman. You are my student. I had asked you to come today and that’s why you are here!”
“Strange! I remember my name and remember seeing few things around here but nothing more! Facts look unaligned, I am unable to recall a lot of things.”
“That’s Selective Amnesia. My amnikit system should make you all right. But we don’t have time for that now. Come on in, let’s get that going.” Dr. Raman hurried into a room.
Though he was bewildered by swami’s attitude, he hurried to what he wanted to do that evening.
“What!” said Swami following Raman.
“We are all set swami! My T is ready! We can do the test in few more minutes”
Swami looked puzzled. All he can see was a hazily lit room with lots of instruments and pieces of junks all around.
There was a shelf of books around the corner and a table in front had few books lying around open. Another table was set close to a small window with some setup of mirror and lenses and it was grabbing the setting sun’s light into some weird looking container, with a rotating spindle on its back. He could not picture and comprehend any more objects other than these.
Swami was looking at Raman puzzled as he asked, “Your T?”
“Yes, I had told you”.
Raman paused for a moment. As he saw outside through the window, the sun was setting fast and clouds assisting in diminishing the amount of sunlight gradually. His eyes were fixed onto the container collecting sunlight. The spindle fan on the back of the container started to slowdown rapidly. The clouds became denser and rain started to pour down in a few seconds. Raman didn’t speak for a minute. Swami was even more confused by Raman’s long silence.
“Sir!” called Swami.
Raman turned around and looked at Swami. He then moved towards a corner where there was a monitor running a lot of numbers. Looking at it for a few seconds he turned to
Swami, “We need just a few more photons”
As he finished speaking, he heard a loud knock at the door.
“Doc! Doc!” cried a voice from behind the door.
Raman went to the door and didn’t know he was about to be astonished.
“Hey Doc! I am sorry; I got caught up with Ramya’s Dad! Had to convince him about our affair. I came running. Gosh! I got drenched in the rain. Got a towel. Lets start the
Teleportation Doc! The sun is dying down” said the person. The person was none other than Swami himself. Raman was perplexed to see a second Swami.
Meanwhile, the other Swami in the laboratory came out and was shocked to see a look alike of him.
The Swami at the door, looking at Swami inside, bewildered for a moment, turned to Raman.
“What’s up Doc? What did you do with T? How did you clone me?”
“I didn’t. The experiment is done”; said Raman.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand! You made it work
without me?” said the Swami at the door.
“My T has done its job, but hasn’t teleported you. It has got you few minutes to the past and caused you a nervous breakdown”
“Let’s do it again then”
“We need more photons! With this I can only just manage to make it work. It is too risky, I may not able to capture your entire molecular structure, It can cause you nervous breakdown”.
“Nervous breakdown!!… Wait a minute … what time are we supposed to start this experiment? I mean doc, if you are thinking what I am thinking”
“Swami, I think you are thinking exactly what I am thinking!”
Raman turns towards Swami inside and says “why don’t you get into the red glass chamber in that corner!” pointing towards a 6 feet tall glass chamber which looked like an old telephone booth.
The First Swami gets into the glass booth and Raman activates the 1 minute countdown trigger.
“It was supposed to rain, but I think we braved to conduct the experiment with this risk …” said Dr. Raman
“and I was transported back a few minutes instead of being teleported to the green glass chamber” said Swami
“and the transported Swami appeared at my door at this alternate timeline, If only I send him back to his timeline, he would exists there!” said Dr. Raman.

They both watch the last few seconds tick by on the timer. The clock goes zero, the red glass chamber is illuminated powerfully and the First Swami disappears as they hoped that he would get back to his original time …

Reality Dream Reality

I am getting conscious of my surroundings now. I can feel the heat, I can smell, I can hear voices around, I can feel the love of my parents, I can even dream. They are not pleasant, I always die at the end of the dream. It is painful. I am bewildered and I don’t know where I am. My dreams are so real, it makes me wonder if this is a dream too and am I going to die in this? I don’t know. I am just going to sleep. Perhaps if I sleep in my dream, I can wake up in my reality. But if this is my reality then I will start dreaming again.

“When I look in to your eyes … I can feel the love restrained …” Ah! now that’s a beautiful song to jog for. It’s a fine weather today and too bad I had to work till 7 in the evening. But I decided to do my evening Jog inspite of that and I am glad I decided so. Who wouldn’t want to Jog in this perfect weather with a mild breeze and a great song on the radio. huh … huh … huh …(panting is heared for a while)…great … the light is green for me, let me quickly cross the road now before it turns red. screeechhh…. ahhhhhh…(a car runs over him)

Oh God! Another dream of death. I think I accidently kicked on the wall. Where am I now? looks like the same place. It feels like eternity. It feels like I will be here forever with dreams torturing me. I am only hoping this is not another dream. So far this has been pleasant. But all my dreams start very pleasantly and ends with me dying. I still want to hope this is not a dream. I am smelling my favourite now, it tastes great and I have had this several times. I just don’t know what it is.

“Vande Mataram!” Shouts of this slogan was heard everywhere. I lead my group of men in the huge crowd with an air of freedom slogans filling the entire nation. The police charged upon the crowd. One of the police was working his way with his Baton and as I walked raising both my hands and shouting “Vande Mataram!” the baton hits across my face with full force, breaks my nose and fractures my face. Blood gushes out of my face and after that I can’t hear anything. Everything was silent, as though someone had muted the entire world. I lose my balance and my eyes are pondering over the crowd, the police, the trees, the sky … until I see some familiar faces approaching him. I see them shouting something but I am unable to hear. I am weakly feeling them holding me. The light fades in front of my eyes.

And I wake up again as I let go my bladder. “When I look into your eyes … I feel the love restrained…uuhh” Oh God! I hear this song again …”Darling when I hold you … Don’t you know I feel …” sounds like the same song from my dream. I am scared now!

I fall asleep in my bedroom. I still feel body pain. Ok, Let me think of Happy moments. Oh god I can’t breath. This is something serious … I can’t move out of my bed. I can’t open my eyes … oh God save me!. Let me try to get the phone. Oh no, I can’t move my left hand, I am feeling heavy there. Let me try again … noooo…..ahhh…My right hand..I’ll use my right hand …I can’t reach the phone … I can’t shout help! Ahhh my chest is paining now …..

And I wake up again. Wow! This is the only dream in which I didn’t die. But it felt like I was dying. Hopefully I didn’t die. There it goes again, I think it is time for the water to cycle. It has been dirty for a while now and I don’t have much space to move around. Oh no … The water is receeding, it is going out. Can someone tell me what’s happening around here …! Mom why are you screaming now. Oh God! Please help me, I am slipping down I am not sure what is going to happen to me. Ok, now my head has hit the wall, I hope it stops here. I am alright now Mom, don’t scream. Why is she still screaming?

I throw up. I close my eyes and I see the black sky with a lonely star. The star is approaching me, closer and closer and is swirling in to form a tunnel and fills up the entire sky. Someone is pulling me into the tunnel. This is immensely painful.

And I wake up again and cry. Oh! I am born.