My Purely Fictional Story!

Post from 2011 :

"Okay. This is it.
My summer internship experiences would Remain just in the mind; those memories are forever. I had briefly narrated The Start in my previous post. Now, I'm posting this after about four months after the whole charade of internship got over. I'm afraid, I won't be able to continue with it as I'm paying a visit to blogosphere again to put down into words a few pressing thoughts which have been , ahem, taking up too much of my free time (which is twenty-four hours) these days.

So, here goes."

My Purely Fictional Story!

It's a complex state of the human mind. It could be you, me or anybody we might know. Persons and names don't matter in this scenario. It's the bond, the relationship and the underlying emotions which cause all the complications.

There used to be a boy-A boy who had stars in his eyes and who still has that boyish streak about him as a not-so-grown-up man of around twenty five years of dreamy existence upon this lonely planet.

This boy was not normal. By not being normal didn't mean he didn't do normal things. Instead, he did the most normal things one could ever do and appeared normal to normal people. Inside, he himself knew the fact that he was a misfit for normal society. He had a wide circle of friends who loved him for his varied character. Some liked him because he made them laugh, some were impressed by his knowledge, some liked him as a person whom they could always count on, some considered him to be their trustworthy aide and secret-keeper and thus, the list of roles that this poor fellow has had to play over his lifetime goes on.

This not-so-normal boy had dreams. He dreamed of making obscene amounts of money and seeing the world for all that it had to offer. But none of his dreams were as strong or intense as the one about finding that ONE person in the world. Yes, this boy was a die-hard romantic who had been fed on a regular dose of Indian movies extolling about the invincibility, purity and all those other-wordly features of true love. He, like many of the romantic heroes of yore who have romanced quite a many damsel on the screen, believed in the longevity of love-at-first-sight.

The boy started searching.

In fact, the search had started long back, from the time of development of his cognitive ability as young human being. He had a brain cell which was perpetually on an HR overdrive, analyzing the situation before hand, calculating the various permutations and combinations that could be derived out of a potential situation at hand and helping in forming a complex solution in his mind. Ah, the mind.

The mind under discussion here is a unique specimen. Part of its uniqueness lies in the fact that it has almost always remained in a state of romantic entanglement, although ephemerally, with fictitious persons. One can only wish if these fictitious persons had manifested in the boy's life. Again, that super-intelligent brain cell of his caused havoc in this romantically-entangled mind leading to negative results for all the prospects that presented before the boy.

Still, the heart marched on....in defiance of that quirky brain cell of his.

Then, it happened. The boy saw the girl. Suddenly, all the characteristic traits of his fictitious love manifested before him, in real life, through her. He admired her from a distance as part of the crowd. His admiration swelled with each passing moment till she disappeared from his view.

The seeds were already sown. Atleast, he had a name to keep in his mind; a face to attach to that imaginary heroine in his mind. He started dreaming with increased enthusiasm. The not-so-normal boy lived in anticipation of his oh-so-very-normal next meeting with his girl.

After about a year, it happened. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful days of his life. They got acquainted with each other and each smile of hers just confirmed the belief in his mind that she was the one for him. The boy was calmly confident that she would have realized by then that she wouldn't find a better guy than him in the entire world.

History will record that as a chance encounter and even though the day ended on a positive note, it was destined to remain a chance encounter with just a fervent hope for repeated occurrences in future. The ever-so-romantic boy believed in the much-despised adage of true love taking its own sweet time amidst all hardships and so, he didn't do anything from his part which could have initiated regular conversation with the girl. May be, he expected the girl to be romantically inclined like him so as to let time take its own course, which in any case, happened whether or not she was of a similar disposition like him.

Time flew again. After another year, weirdly enough, he spotted her at the place of their first meeting, accompanied by her gang of happy friends. He was also in the company of his equally mirthful friends. She was laughing, pure uninhibited laughing like a free spirit, after exchanging a joke with her friends and hadn't seen the boy staring from a distance. The boy doubted whether she would be able to recognize him and decided not to face the ignominy of hearing the condescending words of 'I'm sorry but I can't remember you'. But his friends were adamant and were successful in convincing him to try his luck after he started developing cold feet at a potentially life-changing moment. He summoned all this courage, walked up to her and asked for a word with her.

Everything fell into place- Her gang of giggling friends stepped aside seeing the intent on the boy's face and she was happily taken aback, seeing him after a long time. All inhibitions were put to rest. They chatted for quite a while, in that serene setting, oblivious of the hooting and whistling from his friends behind the trees and the knowing glances and giggles from her friends. Time again proved the villain as she had to leave urgently but this time, he wanted to initiate contact through a modern day invention known as e-mail. The boy carefully noted down her strange-sounding e-mail address in his mind and went back with a permanent smile on his lips.

The boy felt light. Yes, it was the lightness of love- that feeling of floating around in the fresh morning air like a white feather upon a garden in full bloom, emanating the richest of fragrances and glowing in the golden glow of the morning sun. He could feel a bubble inside his chest; a happy bubble infusing every bit of wellness possible in the world to his heart. That night, he had the most amazing dream that he had ever had. He dreamed of holding her hand and walking on a green meadow tipped with morning dew and the cool, still air of morning under a blue, cloudless sky.


"to be continued...."

 Post Date : March 27, 2013 -  1: 55 pm, on an empty stomach
 "....continues..."

With his new acquisition- the fancy but weird-sounding e-mail id, the boy went about his pre-ordained task, armed with the latest of technology at that point of time, in the form of a dial-up internet connection. He laid down all his intent and resolve into a few words in his e-mail which would have put many a business manager to shame for its clarity of message and crispness of thought. He clicked send and waited.

And Wait, he did. He did wait for more than a year. He had grown paranoid in the meanwhile and had tried initiating contact with her through her friend's friend of the umpteenth degree until he found out that the proclaimed maximum of '7 degrees of separation' between one dude smoking weed on the top of Mt. Everest and another one clearing sea weed from the depths of Mariana Trench, is just another scientific hogwash to console these desperate romantic souls who find succour in those innumerable mushy movies of old.

After more than a year of desperation, the thought struck him finally that he might have heard the e-mail id wrongly and may be, he could have been pouring his heart out to some psychotic serial killer in the dangerous suburbs of LA. In any case, the id was fancy and weird enough to have been taken up by any crazy, convoluted soul on this planet. With a new fear in his mind that all his heart-rending communication since THAT day could have gone to a complete stranger or worse still, reached nobody in the cyber world, he gave it one more try. He changed one word in the id and replaced it with a homophone, a digit.

With newly-formed butterflies in his stomach and twinkling stars in his eyes and amidst a shower of white flowers sent from Above by his usual band of well-wisher White Fairies, he clicked 'Send' again. And again and yet again, just in case the dial-up or Yahoo! ditched him. The romantic interlude by the fairies ended and we were back in real world.

Yet another agonizing wait (how many more can any protagonist take?). One fine Friday, he logs into this account and lo, there it is.
On the sad occasion of the 9th death anniversary of his first pet cat and one of his best friends, the reply came floating over thousands of miles in cyberworld and chose to enter his dreary inbox on the anniversary of one of the most tragic days of his un-eventful life till now. Talk about injustice in this world.


"Again, to be continued..."

Summer Internship!

My friend told me that if I start putting down my internship travails into writing, I might be able to give Chetan Bhagat a run for his money !
Let's see if that happens. Another matter altogether - The undeniable fact that I've been incredulously lucky all my life came true when I received a call from the HR generalist in my company one evening. Unnaturally, the sweet voice on the other side of the call was a little perturbed. She told me in a quite apologetic tone that there has been a change of plans and that my project location has been changed. Quite the efficient person that she is, she hadn't communicated the project location in the first place. That'll remain a mystery for now. And the new project location, as she said, is in Trivandrum. Wait, she must be kidding.

I held my breath and pinched myself. Was that really her or was it some hoax call? Nope, it wasn't. I was being posted for my summer internship in Trivandrum. Hallelujah, it's a 2 month-vacation at home. Again, I would be reporting to my mentor in Chennai whom I was asked to meet on April 18th. Chennai wouldn't take long, she assured. She said it would take a day or two. Mistake.

Arrival

Come April 17th, and I landed in Chennai. Hot would be an understatement. It was summer alright, so it would be hot and humid. Accepted.
What is not acceptable is that there's always a permanent heat cloud omnipresent throughtout the city wherever you go. It feels as if you're walking through a heat cloud. There goes my humble attempt at explaining the Chennai summer.

Instead of the promised 1 or 2 days in Chennai, I spent 5 jobless, rotting days in Chennai doing practically nothing. I was staying at my friend's flat and as a classic case of bad timing, he was occupied with tons of work throughout that entire week. It meant he would be leaving in the wee hours of the morning and coming back home close to midnight. That Sunday, out of sheer boredom and heat-induced desperation, I ventured out looking for a bottle of Kingfisher. After two sweaty hours scouring the entire locality in an auto and on foot, I returned with 4 bottles of Black Knight. Beer has never ever tasted like that and never will, as that night will testify. I got the gyaan later from my friend that even a pint of KF is extremely difficult to scour in Chennai.

Day 1-Chennai

It was Monday morning and I was dressed up and all set to join the Regional Office (south) of my company for work. I got to experience first-hand the dacoitry practised by the tribe of Auto-drivers in Chennai. A 10 minute ride to the office set me back by a cool 100 bucks. Little monetary matters like these have never bothered me really. So, here was I, in 7th Avenue of Harrington Road, Chennai,looking for my office. Ah. Where? A couple of litres of sweat later, I located it. The office where I slogged for 8 months in my previous instance of professional life and this one couldn't have been more contrasting. This was a normal, sales office which was actually a big 2-storeyed house converted into an office. I made my grand entry to the office after waiting outside on a creaky cushioned sofa kept on the verandah along with the security guard who thought I was some new non-sense in my official looking avatar with a pair of my 'customized, made-for-summer' shades and a tie.

Atleast, they had AC inside. One guy who introduced himself as HR, broke the fantastic piece of news that my mentor had gone on a pilgrimage to Tirupati and would be back only later in the evening. I merely drifted here and there in the office after that and he later showed me some pity by asking me to go through a booklet which he said would be helpful for new joinees. The next 2 hours were spent turning the pages of that boring book and dozing off intermittently. Enough's enough, I decided, and I went up and told him I would come back tomorrow morning to meet my elusive mentor. I never expected things to be so bad that he would have to take a pilgrimage upon hearing the news that I would be coming to Chennai to meet him. As I was leaving, the HR (Uncle, really) asked me about my graduation details. When I told him that I'm pursuing my degree in MBA, he was pleasantly shocked. And then he asked me if I was doing part-time MBA with Symbiosis Distance Learning or something like that.
Ah, I fled. Internship. Yeah, right.

Day 2-Chennai again!

Fleeced by the auto driver and shorn of any unnecessary contraption like a tie, I arrived at around 10 am the following day. I straightaway went upto the HR uncle to ask if my mentor had turned up only to receive information that he's unsure if the King would turn up that day. A phone call later, I realized that it's highly dangerous for my sanity levels to stay any minute longer there. I was back in the flat by 10 25 am after spending close to 200 bucks for to-n-fro travel. Again, I say, money grows on trees for me!

Day 3-Chennai, unfortunately!

It's a story of "How Deepak Nair bargained with the auto driver, got a good bargain, reached office on time and got to meet the mentor". My mentor looked like some long-lost twin of a certain notorious professor from my college. He had a huge, scary-looking dragon (or some other prehistoric animal) tattoo on his forearm and I could see a generous helping of gold, bracelets, anklets and stuff everywhere. ( No, everywhere doesn't include That 'everywhere' !). The next two hours of my life will tell a story of how I nodded off in agreement to a potential dangerous 2 months in Trivandrum at the end of which all paint dealers and contractors in the 2 districts will be practically up in arms baying for my precious, warm, B-school blood.

Macro Trouble

I had a paper on Macroeconomics today which went so horribly wrong for me that I might get the privilege of giving it a second time in the next semester. I got so bored trying to cram up jargon into my saturated cranium that it shut down completely. Clear of any moronic distractions like studies, I thought of penning down a few lines in respect of my short but fatalistic tryst with studying this monstrosity of a subject. ( As I said before, it was a short thing after all. I quit out of sheer desperation. ) I dedicate the next few lines to Macroeconomics for being the incorrigible thing that you have always been, still are, and will always be to future generations of poor, hapless management students.

Macro Trouble

Inflation is spinning webs in my head,
Of sizes that can put a Black Widow to shame.
Policies and governmental spending seem inconsequential;
How does it matter to souls concerned most about a value,
That all important figure of 0.7,
Which when multiplied by that incredulous number called the Average,
Gives us merry folks Nirvana-
The Nirvana of a C.

Philips must have drawn it,
Seeing some of 'em curves around in his University.
As if that wasn't enough,
Stagflation was invented to confuse young minds even further.
ISLM, or IS and LM, or IS-LM,
They call it by diffent names,
But it's all the same-
A collection of criss-crossing, hastily scribbled lines.
I could've drawn them better,
Using the laws of symmetry and geometry,
Of which I was a champion,
Back in those halcyon schooldays of yore.

A weak cousin of a song.

I like song-writing. I have tried my hand at it and I don't suppose I'd be any good at it in any measure. Exam season is on and this is how I spend time instead of wasting my precious time studying pointless stuff. I wrote a few lines of absolutely trash quality, the kind that comes in Pop. Yeah, I have an excuse now- These lines might just pass as yet another trashy pop song. It doesn't make for good reading but if composed well, it might turn out to be well. Touchwood. So, here goes...

"I'm all over You"

Hey. You. That voice, that tune, those lips.
I can listen forever,
I wanna lose myself and I don't wanna wake up.
Don't wake me baby, don't take me away, my baby
I have fallen for you and I will lie here,
Here in this heaven, watching you,
I'm merry this way but you are ignoring me.
Don't break this heart 'coz this is all yours.
Please stay, stay on a moment more,
Let that moment be a lifetime.

Baby, come, let's sink in this and wake up together.
This is a pleasure and this gets me on high
High in my head,
High all over you.
Girl, I'm all over you. I'm yours forever
And there is no escape for my mind.
You have taken me, babe, in full
And told me that you gotta go.
Don't go babe, 'coz I will follow you.
I'm yours all along.

The Monk and the Cops

Cops can do only so much,

Bribes promise a momentary release,

But the Old Monk marches on,

Providing the best example of customer satisfaction,

To entertainment-deprived impoverished management students.

Chilled, bubbling cola makes an enervating mix,

With that dark elixir of seven years' worth of distilled purity

To provide moments of unbridled joy to the young at heart,

Who can shake a leg to the beats of joy that come with it.

The Face

I look around, in search of that familiar visage,

With its last enduring image firmly imprinted in my consciousness.

The image refuses to fade away and so does my yearning,

To gaze unblinkingly into those intense eyes full of vivacity

Which has unknowingly driven many hearts to the last shreds of desperation,

All for one last time.

My mind races back to those happier times,

Those carefree times when it knew no sorrow

And gloom was something which just couldn't be felt.

I knew nothing apart from togetherness

And it was meant to be forever,

Until the cruel,devious ways of destiny intervened,

Ably assisted by the treacherous warps of time.

I was a lost being,

One among the multitudes who have been happily blessed,

By that holiest and purest of fixations.

There was immense joy in those initial feelings of hurt,

Rejection provided optimism

And it led to euphoria.

It felt like an endless streak of love

And how I hoped it would remain so.

Those were happier times,

Illuminated by the bright lights emanating from that blessed soul,

Coloured by the paint brush of the Artist of my mind

On the wide canvas of my life.

Sweet memories abound,

Of those leisurely walks, hand-in-hand,

Whispering sweet nothings to each other in those beautiful boulevards of life;

Of those dreams that we saw together,

Lying under the shady bowers of a sheltered life.

Those were the best days of my life,

When each day brought with it the purest joys of companionship;

When each passing hour meant another hour well-lived

And each moment created an eternal symphony meant to be savoured for a lifetime-

A lifetime of waking up to that smile which is forever etched in my memory,

And gazing lovingly at that face,

Lost for words even though they are needless in those golden moments of silence.

Today it's no more and my senses have gone numb,

More so by the loss than the lack of it.

There's a melancholic chord in every piece of music I compose,

For I have lost all capacity to love and live.

Each passing moment reminds me of nothing but the loss of happiness

And the object of my dreams;

Pleasant thoughts are but messengers from a painful past that still rankles.

I keep searching in the dark days of the present,

Hoping to find that Face in a future whick is all but grey;

The visage has disappeared in the glorious chapters of a colourful past

And I still make that painful journey through my memories,

To look at that face-

To make it all happen once again in my life.

A season of Literary disasters.

A season of literary disasters comes to a close. As a person who lives and dies by the motto, 'Never say never again!' I live to fight another day.

Literary events are far and few in between this slew of Management fests. During my engineering days, I always looked forward to non-technical fests. Same is the case with my present status a Management student. I (still) look forward to non-management(technical, in this case) fests. Unlike undergrad days, there aren't enough events to satisfy me.

So, after waiting in anticipation all these months, I located two events where I could parade my seemingly dazzling set of literary skills on display :P. And, needless to say, both ended up as disasters after putting in the hard grind to qualify in the final round. What a shame!

Let it be. I can live with it. I am at a stage of life where these things don't rankle me that much. It still rankles, albeit, not in a way that it used to be. Yes, I have matured :); but that doesn't mean I will stop participating in literary fests with undergrads as competition. I don't mind losing to them either.

My most fantastic memories of four years of engineering are from the various successes and failures that came my way in my unending quest for glory at all those intercollegiate cultural festivals. Winning was a good feeling and I wanted to make it a habit although it didn't always transpire like that.

I can still remember those innumerable disastrous quizzes where my team failed to qualify, those masterly performances in quirky events like Dumb Charades and the like, undefeated stretch in What's the Good Word? and appearing in the finals of a Spelling Bee competition for the first and last time in my life and that too on stage.

Coming third in an Antakshari competition which would probably remain my first and last official Antakshari event ever, singing a plethora of songs in my own lyrics on a mike for the first time in my life- That was totally worth the effort. I can also boast about my being a vital cog in our 4-member team which could quite rightly be called the Champion Treasure Hunters of the Trivandrum undergrad scene at that point of time. I still remember vividly those mad, adrenaline-filled moments where we ran, jumped, fought and competed like possessed men to get to the ultimate prize.

We came up with the wackiest and cheesiest of Ad Zaps once where our overtly adult references and double entendres' in our presentation led to much consternation in the saintly among the crowd but had several similar-minded young-at-heart beings in splits ! Another everlasting memory is our performance of a gay skit on stage before an audience of about a thousand college students which was so authentic that there was an attempt to boo us off the stage.

Suddenly, I got a little nostalgic thinking about all those events. In fact, I had just wanted to write a few lines about my recent literary disasters and now this post has turned into an outpouring of all my memories about a few of my 'exploits' as an undergrad. I will leave this at that. Ciao !

60..Diamond jubilee of posts!

I just discovered that this will be my sixtieth post on my blog. Yeah, 60. So long and still happy.

There was a phase-my most productive phase in 2009-'10-when the posts kept on coming and the desire to keep writing was still burning furiously in me.

Not any more.

It still burns, but I've become used to it. I can keep the fire burning for years at a stretch and I'm sure that it will neither die nor can it be doused out by any external interference. Writing is something which I love; it's the most natural thing in the world for me to do yet it becomes the most difficult task to accomplish during some particularly tricky and confused moments. I'm always short of time but I keep fantasizing about the verse/prose that I would be able to pen down in my free time. I create magnificent poetry in my mind when I'm supposed to be doing some other responsible work and when I finally have time to sit down and collect my thoughts, I find myself grievously bereft of ideas. If this is what is called writer's block, I should already be knowing, deep in the recesses of the mind, that I'm in trouble. It hasn't sunk in yet, not the least to that level, and this is what gives me hope. I can still WRITE. And I'm all the more happy because of it.

Time for some self-praise.The-congenial-human always finds a way to the come out of the mess that he finds himself in, almost every single time. Call it luck, timing, sense of occasion, whatever. As long as his story continues successfully, he needn't bother.

And yes, My blog refuses to die. Ciao!


(P.S: Prose works. Verse will follow.)