The Wolf Pack

Every guy in his school or college days would have been in a pack of wolves. Now by wolves I mean his friends. Now the question why wolves? Heard of the term “Hungry pack of wolves”?

A pack, let’s say 6 to 7 guys go to a canteen or hotel they order a single dish cause you know finance issues! ;) Now all their brains will have instructions to give

Mr. Brain to nerves: “Assemble the team we are going in for a mission”

Mr. Brain to the Jaws: “Okay Mr. Jaws! Here is the thing, whatever Mr. Hand passes you chew it, grind it quickly and pass it on. Remember don’t chew more than twice. Do you get me?”

Mr. Jaws: “Yes Sir!”

Mr. Brain to Mr. Tongue: “You job is needs to be quick and efficienct Mister! I need you to get the taste of the food as quickly as you can and pass the info to nerves to react!”

Mr. Tongue: “You can count on me Sir!”

Mr. Brain to Mr. Stomach: “Assemble the best of acids you have got, we might be attacked more quickly than we expect, be prepared commander!”

Mr. Brain to Mr. Right-Hand: “Soldier! You make me proud… the courage you show in the battle field is outstanding! I need you out there now, no matter what happens, who ever crosses your way; make sure you pass the food to Mr. Mouth. Soldier, make sure you give them the hell!”

Mr. Right-Hand: “Yes Sir! I’ll die trying sir!”

Mr. Brain to Mr. Left-Hand: “Soldier! If anything goes wrong with Mr. Right-Hand, you rush out there and take his job! Don’t wait for my command!”

Mr. Left-Hand with evil smirk: “Aye Aye Sir!!”

Now the food arrives, if you have eaten in groups you know how the situation will be, the dish will be emptied in seconds. I imagine this is how the brain handles the situation.

Mr. Stomach to Mr. Brain: “Captain! We have code red! The attack is quicker this time, the news from tongue is that the taste is good but he couldn’t tell what is present inside it. We came across the same situation two days back sir! Our hormone guys haven’t found the way to digest them quickly yet! Sir, we are running out of Gastrin and Secretin ammo’s, we need them quickly sir!”

Mr. Brain: “I know what it is… the bloody moron… he is targeting us with JUNK!!”

Mr. Brain to the neurons: “This is direct order from me to Commander Pancreas & Liver; ask them to assemble the best of Gastrin and Secretin and attack immediately!”

Mr. Brain: “Mr. Nerves I need you to help Commander Pancreas and liver by providing your best Acetylcholine on the job!”

Mr. Brain to Mr. Stomach: “I don’t want any of the material to hang around make sure to get a sample of the attack material and push the rest out… we will show them we who we are!”

The battle of digestion is won; losses were severe yet the victory was classy.

Mr. Brain: “Call in the Adrenaline girls, my militia needs to relax!!”

It is not the speed alone but sometimes people are amazed how much we eat. I decided to write this because the following happened few weeks back in Gandhinagar. I was with my friend Mr. Bekar and Mr. Durai (I know I have used a real name but very less people know his real name so I choose this ;) ) We were in a sweet/fast food shop for our dinner. We ordered 3 Chole puri, 3 channa samosa, 2 pav bhajji, 1 mixed chat, 1 dahi chat and some sweets. Our orders came one by one, it was busy and we were having our dinner standing. On the other side of the table were two girls they were sharing a SINGLE chole puri! First we started with 2 chole puri’s, then the next plate came in. After that 3 plate channa samosa came in, they moved their plates a little so that we could occupy the dishes. Next 2 pav bhajji plates came in; we squeezed the plates in the space available. Next the mixed chat came, they both started smiling at our array of dishes they moved their plates again to the edge of the table. Last the Dahi chat came in; now they couldn’t stop sneering and whispering looking at our plates. As usual we didn't give them a damn and started eating.

Few minutes later girl one said to girl two: “Hey I am full…!”

Girl two to girl one: “Yeah! Me too”

The three of us were stunned! They still had a portion of chole puri left! Now we felt weird…!! Are we eating too much? Two of them shared a single chole puri but we were on rampage!! Just then we realized the important thing “Who cares?! We didn't give them a damn!” Read more!

The Endeavors

Mr. Kill-Bill: "That’s all…!! Enough is enough!! No more!"

Rest of the friends looked at him, they knew he was correct. It was right on their face. It was time… things had to be finalized…

Few weeks back school summer vacation had started. Five friends decided that it was time to take their cricket to the next level… Bet matches! But they didn't have the team for it. Five of them were decent players. A bet matched required eleven players in a team. It was not hard to find players during vacation time in Chennai, every kid would be playing "Gully" cricket on roads! They started conference call with few schoolmates and they agreed to join their team! Now they needed an opponent, they should play well but not too good!! ;) Few more conference calls a team had agreed to play against them. They were thrilled! Every night they had conference for two hours! Deciding the team formation and strategies! At least that was the main intention, but it would end up having discussion about meaningless topics and still they laughed and enjoyed the conversation! Every now and then someone would bring up the topic of match then again after five minutes topic would have drifted away. The five enjoyed these long conferences even though it had no meaningful talks and it would go late into night adding to the parents’ fury! ;) They started practicing well before match; this is where they will decide the team formation. The opening bowler was the first slotted that needed to be filled. It is always difficult to find a good consistent bowler for a team ours was no different.

Mr. Kill-Bill was a good all-rounder. Calm, patient, opening batsmen and bowler of the team

Mr. Thiloth supposed to be another all-rounder. Short tempered and thinks he is an exceptional cricketer. His bowling action has raised questions with opponent.

Mr. Simkesh, the opening bowler. More than SIX feet tall, lean and athletic body runs in hard, jumps high and bowls a ball which a seven year old could smack out of the park. Dedicated, good hearted and ready for anything we do.

Mr. Wine, our wicket keeper (they kept him behind the wickets so that he doesn't have to take any catches!! And he would stand well behind so that he can stop the ball somehow! ;) But the guy improved far beyond their expectations) he was also above-average batsmen, on his day there is no stopping him. So he was given the one-down slot.

Mr. Wordsy, he was dedicated player. He could do a bit of bowling when other bowlers were taken for runs, a decent middle order batsmen and a good fielder (whose position in field is always deep mid-wicket!)

Rest of the team members were not fixed, they used to come and go as match goes by. A guy is recruited in team by the selection committee (the five friends) mostly because he must have either thrashed their bowling or ripped their batting line-up apart! So the selection committee would conduct another conference call and woo him into team!!

A day before match, they were practicing, Simkesh charges in jumps high with tremendous force and bowls a ball which is so slow that it pitches twice before reaching the keeper, who makes a big fumble to collect the ball! This was the situation. But this didn’t make them stop, they decided to go ahead. The bet was for Rs.100/- for a 12 over match. Match was scheduled on morning 6 A.M at IDPL ground near St. Thomas Mount, which meant getting up by 5 and cycling half way across the city! And they made it on time too! ;) You know… all these conference calls they didn’t come up with a proper team name so let’s call them “Endeavor”. Endeavor arrived at the ground. Time for toss; Mr. Wine lost the toss (Nobody knows why he goes for toss! He is not the captain!! :P :P ) opponent decided to field first. The captain of other team informed that they have only 10 players and so they should get last man batting i.e. last batsmen will play without a runner on other side. The generous good heart “Endeavor” team agreed to it!

Endeavors started batting; things went horribly wrong, entire team was all out by 65!!(Thank god there were runs for extras! Else they wouldn’t have crossed 40!) Everyone knew that they have to do exceptionally well to win it! First few over’s they had no luck. Mr. Thiloth was a medium pace bowler but suddenly he said he will bowl spin. Mr. Kill-Bill kept saying to him to continue his normal bowling style and not to change it, the guy wouldn’t agree! So again the five main members met on middle of the game.

Mr. Thiloth: “I will bowl spin today, this is a spin track”

Mr. Wordsy: “Dei!! We are playing in local ground not chepauk stadium and that is sand you see on pitch not green grass!!”

Mr. Simkesh: “Ok! Are you sure you can spin the ball?”

Mr. Thiloth: “dude! I can spin the ball either way!”

Mr. Wine: “Do you want me to stand up the wicket?”

Mr. Kill-Bill: “Onnum theva illa… nee nalla pinnadi poi nillu…” (Not necessary! Go and stand well behind the sticks)

Per bowler only 3 over’s was allowed. This was Mr. Thiloth’s first over! The first ball he bowled was called a no ball by the umpire for chucking the ball (means that you don’t have proper arm action when you are bowling). Umpires are not professionals they are just batting team members. Mr. Thiloth got angry and started arguing.

Mr. Thiloth: “Hey my arm action is like muralidharan”

Umpire: “Dei mokka! Poda poi olunga ball podu!”

Endeavor surrounded the umpire and somehow made him agree that it was a perfect arm action! The next ball he bowled didn’t spin at all but the batsmen had no time to react, the ball crashed into the stumps!! Mr. Thiloth continued the over and got two wickets! That was the break through over Endeavor was waiting for! They kept on taking wickets; Mr. Thiloth took another two wickets in his next over! The match came to the last over they needed four runs of it. Endeavors brought in Mr. Thiloth, this was crucial over, opponent were down to the last batsmen there was no one at the non-striker end. The last batsmen was a junior school boy, opponent team brought the kid just to fill in the place. Mr. Thiloth bowls two balls giving away no runs. He fires in the next ball; it passes the edge and Mr. Wine makes a brilliant diving catch! Mr. Thiloth is ecstatic and jumps all around, but the umpire gives not out! Mr. Thiloth is furious and kicks the stumps of the ground. Rest of the team comes to console him and convince him that it was not an edge. He is charged up and bowls the next ball; the kid clears his right leg and smashes the ball over the boundary! They win! It was agony! To lose coming so close to victory! The opponent walked over to collect the victory money.

Mr. Wine: “Let’s play a three match series and winner of series will get the prize!”

The opponent agreed to the three match series. Endeavor had to win the next two games at any cost! The next match Endeavor practiced even harder, they recruited in better players this time. The second game and this time the opponent chose to bat first and placed a target of 84 to win. It was not easy for Endeavor, they reached the target huffing and puffing on last over. The last match of the series, this time again the opponent chose to bat first. Endeavors were pretty confident now. They had won the last match; they kept played with unchanged team. Mr. Simkesh runs in for the second over. The batsman is a new guy (looks like opponent team has started following policy of recruiting people like endeavor). Mr. Simkesh bowls a normal delivery, looking at the height of the bowler and the speed at which he runs in the batsman miscalculated the shot and played it too early. The ball just misses the stumps.

Batsman to his teammate: “dei ennada evan mala-madu matiri odi vanthu.. ball a oruti vidran!” (He runs in like a bull and rolls the ball along the ground!)

Teammate: “nee nenaikara mathiri avan periya bowler illa…” (He is not big bowler as you think)

Mr. Simkesh heard this conversation charges in the next ball… again the batsmen misses, the ball was close to the edge…

Mr. Simkesh (sledging): “Aadra atha… aadra…” (Play that!play!)

The batsman just glares back at the bowler… Mr. Simkesh walks back talking to himself positioning his hand as if practicing some new type of delivery! Runs in even harder for the next delivery; the batsman stays in the crease waits for the ball and THWACK! No one even bothered to move!! Mr. Wordsy at the boundary couldn’t stop laughing; if Mr. Simkesh had not sledged it would have been a single! Mr. Wordsy walks up to Mr. Simkesh.

Mr. Wordsy: “ethu unnaku thevaya? Periya brett lee nenapa? Olunga offside le ball a podu pothum!” (Do you need this? Do you think you are brett lee? Just maintain a off side line)

Mr. Simkesh: “dei avan six adipannu enaku epidida theriyum?” (How do I know he would smash it for a six)

The opponent went on to make 125 in 12 over’s and the opening batsmen crossed half century! Endeavor batting started, Mr. Kill-Bill went in with Mr. Thiloth, and they got a good partnership going. Mr. Thiloth got run out and it was given out my Mr. Simkesh! Mr. Thiloth got angry again, he started shouting at Mr. Simkesh for giving him out! Mr. Thiloth said he will do the umpiring for the rest of the match. Mr. Wine walked in, five over’s 50 runs were needed then, Mr. Wine played an innings of his life but eventually he got out. Mr. Simkesh was listening to famous "Arujnar villu" song from Ghilli walked in, 8 balls 15 runs were required. Mr. Simkesh being tall guy can swing the bat a long distance!! He walks in and hits a four and a six! No one has ever seen him play like that might be the effect of the song or his fight with Mr. Thiloth. Final over 5 runs are needed now, Mr. Kill-Bill was exhausted he needed a runner, last over runner is a crucial decision, he calls in Mr. Wordsy. Mr. Kill-Bill hits a four of the first ball… Relief!! And the next ball the scramble for a single! Endeavors made it! They won the series! The opponent gives them the Rs.100/- but they made a request. Let us extend the series to a five match series and Rs.150 bet! Endeavors think over and agree as they need to win one of the two matches! That didn’t stop them from celebrating their victory at Saravana Bhavan with plates of Idlly!

Match four: The opponent sets a target of 90! Endeavors play a decent innings until last few over’s wickets start falling badly. Mr. Wordsy who has been sent up the order plays well to bring the target within reach, four runs of last over last wicket in hand…! The first ball of the last over, Mr. Wordsy jumps down the pitch and tries to smack the ball but misses it completely and stumps are shattered! Endeavors have lost it!! Next match became crucial!

Match five: The match was scheduled in the afternoon at 3.30 PM; the wind was strong across the ground. Endeavor was put to bat first! They intelligently used the wind to advantage; the wind was blowing from leg-side to off-side for right hand batsmen, so a well timed shot on off-side meant ball would run away at great speed. Endeavors posted a target of 120. Now they needed to defend it.

Mr. Wordsy: “The wind is too strong on off-side, let’s keep minimum fielder on leg side and maximum on off side” the team agreed to the idea setting only 3 fielders in leg side.

First three over’s were favorable to endeavors, the batsmen had a little chat. The next ball the batsman walks across the stumps and muscles the ball to the leg side boundary. Endeavors were dumb stuck by the batsman’s power! Three sixes of that over! The opponent continued to exploit the leg side… The entire team gave a threatening look to Mr. Wordsy!

The following conversation really happened on match, this was well before it came on movie:

Mr. Wordsy: “Dei avan thaan leg side le adikaranu theriyuthu le off side le ball poduda” (Try to bowl in offside as the batsman playing only in leg side)

Mr. Kill-Bill bowls on off side; the batsman hits the ball through the line for a boundary.

Mr. Kill-Bill turns to Mr. Wordsy: “Dei avan epidi pottalum adikaran da!!”

The opponent won the match hands down! Endeavors had to give them the bet money.
Mr. Simkesh to opponent captain: “I’ll give you the money later we don’t have it now” The captain agrees.

Mr. Wine: “Should we extend this to seven match series?”

Mr. Kill-Bill: "That’s all…!! Enough is enough!! No more!"

Rest of the friends looked at him, they knew he was correct. It was right on their face. It was time… things had to be finalized about the bet money. They decided to talk this over conference at night because most of players of didn’t play the entire series nor did they enjoy the Saravana Bhavan idly and hence who pays how much has to be decided. The conference started at night… bet money topic was lost in the sea… six years have passed and the bet money is yet to be calculated…! Read more!

One Night under Anna flyover

It was a fine evening; Mr. Wordsy was with his school friends buying gift for his friends sister’s wedding. They decided upon few wedding gifts and Mr. Wordsy emptied his pocket money on the gift. Mr. Wordsy didn’t have to worry about dinner because he had a great reception food to rampage on. For the rest of the evening the group decided to roam in Spencer plaza and do the routine. :) The reception was brilliant; they had sumptuous dinner which started simulating their brains. It was already 9 PM by then. The group of friends decided that they had to go somewhere and afterwards they will go home. It happens a lot of times with friends that they can’t decide where to go in few minutes. The group kept talking and talking in bike stand but didn’t decide where to go!! One of the crazies in the group suggested “let’s go to marina beach da… At night it will be awesome”. Idea was perfect; they will go to beach sit in sand and continue talking. The clock showed 10 PM; remember they were in school so no one had proper license for the vehicle they drove. Someone in the group did mention that it is not really good idea to drive from Ashok Nagar to Marina at this time of night. But as they say young bloods never thinks twice. :)

From here on narration will be from Mr. Wordsy’s view.

We started in four vehicles, a pulsar, a bajaj chetak, a Kinetic Honda, a Scooty (mine). I was driving alone while other three had pillion rider. The pulsar shot off, as you might have guessed already, the other three were together for two reasons:

1. The drivers of the other two vehicles were people with negligible directional sense. They have to ride a million times on same route to know the route. It was past ten so going alone meant getting lost for them!

2. Their vehicles were too old to match up to the speed of pulsar.

So happily chatting and laughing we took the G.N.Chetty road, we were almost near Anna flyover I told them clearly that we have to go below the flyover and turn right. And what happened was the kinetic Honda shot past me saying “okay fine da” and rode straight up the flyover! I was like “what the hell!!” I raced after him shouting “stop da! Stop!” watching me going over flyover the Bajaj Chetak also followed me over flyover!! I caught up with kinetic Honda on top of flyover.

Me: “Dei!! Ennada panre? (What are you doing?) I told you we had to go below the fly over and then right”

Kinetic Honda guy: “oh like that ah… I though take the flyover and then right machi…”

It was one of those moments were stupidity had to be ignored and next step was to be taken. It was past 10:30 PM, the roads were deserted except few vehicles. The bajaj chetak also caught up with us. We decided that we will get down the flyover and take a turn to left and ride on wrong side of one-way to reach under the flyover and then catch up with the proper road. I asked the other two vehicles to go ahead of me while drive behind them. This was the turning point of the night. They rode ahead of me and I followed them, they look the left turn from the bridge, enter the one-way and rode in wrong side, it was empty, we raced through the wrong side of one-way road, they turned and went under the flyover. I took the turn to go under the flyover. Shock of my life was waiting; a white figure with its hands out was moving closer towards my vehicle. I hit the brakes hard, stopping my vehicle just before the white figure. I heard the sound of my tires screeching. I looked up; the white figure had a blue cap, with a symbol on front. It was wearing a khaki pant and brown belt with steel buckle. I heard the croaky voice “Take out your license!”

I was caught by a traffic police under Anna flyover at 10.30 PM! I cursed my luck! What are the chances for that to happen! It was night 10.30, even the traffic lights at few junctions stopped working at 10 PM! But I was caught red handed driving in the wrong side of one-way and taking a turn under Anna flyover. In a distance I could see two small red lights fading quickly, how the hell did they miss this police? Was he hiding and jumped out as soon as I took the turn. My thoughts were interrupted by a raspy voice.

Traffic police: “Thambi enga poring evalo vegama?” (Where are you going so fast?)

Me: “Sir… sir… (It was night ten thirty I couldn’t lie about late to school or tuition) Friend veetuku group studies panna poren sir…” (Going to friends place for group studies)

Traffic police (TP): “unna patha group study panna pora matiri therlaye… seri license edu… (You don’t look as if you are going for group studies… okay! Take out your license)

Me: “Sir… license veetule iruku” (license is at home)

TP: “License illama epidipa vandi ottaringa… one-way le opposite side vandi otti irukinga athuvum mount road le” (How can you ride without license? You have gone in opposite side of one-way… that too mount road)

Me: “Sir Sir please sir… next time I’ll be careful”

TP: “Hmmm… naan veetuku kelambitu irunthen appo than rendu vandi wrong side of one-way lenthu turn panni ponnanga athu naala wait panni pathen… opposite side of one-way ottrathu thaapu thambi unga nallathuku thane solren” (I was about to leave home when I saw two vehicles turn from one-way… it is not good to ride in opposite side of one-way, it is for your safety)

I was caught because of one stupid friend and they were lucky enough to miss the traffic police. I tried saying so many sorry and please but in vain.

TP: “one-way le vandi ottinathu, license illa… purse le evalo iruku?” (You have driven in wrong side of one-way, no license… how much do you have in purse)

I have heard stories of bribing but never so explicit! I took out my purse, searched every nook and corner of it, I had only two rupee coin with me. Rest of the money I had spent in gift and eatables at Spencer plaza. Should I try running from the place? Or should I tell him the truth?

Me: “Sir… rendu ruba thaan iruku” (I only have two rupees)

I seriously couldn’t read his reaction; his eyes bulged out, his lips shortened… I really feel he didn’t know whether to scold me or feel pity for me! I didn’t have mobiles those days. And where am I going to find a STD booth to call someone at this time, plus only two rupees in hand!!! Traffic police gave me intense look. His voice and attitude totally changed after that.

TP: “Give me your vehicle key!”

I looked blankly at him. He repeated the same line again only this time angrier. I gave him the key.

TP: “We will go to station… let inspector decide what to do with you…”

I was shell shocked… I heard the filmy dialogue in my head “No one in our family has ever stepped into a police station… You are a disgrace to the family…”

Me: “Sir please… sir pleeeaaaaseeeeee… Naan romba naala payyan sir” (I am a good boy)

Me: “Sir innime naan vandi wrong side le ottave matten… Promise” (From here on I won’t drive in wrong side of one-way… Promise)

TP: “Inspector vandi seize panni Nungambakkam station le vechu iru paaru… kalaile vanthu Rs.1500/- fine kaati vandi eduthukittu po…!” (Inspector will seize the vehicle and keep it at Nungambakkam station. Pay Rs.1500/- fine and take it home)

Me: “Vadapalani varaikum ponnum sir… please” (I have to go till Vadapalani)

Me: “Sir… Naan student sir… padikanum sir…” (I am student. I have to study)

I got another ugly stare!! Then at that moment I heard voice… Was god was speaking to me? Was god calling my name from behind?

Voice: “Vikram…!”

I turned around to see a figure from dark walking towards me… I knew this guy…

Guy: “What are you doing here?”

He came closer I realized who it was… Mr. Wine… One of the pillion riders of the other vehicle… and he is asking me “What am I doing here?!” should I slap him?! Or just kick him?! Or both?!

Me: “I rode on wrong side of one-way and didn’t have license with me so…”

Mr. Wine: “oh…!”

TP: “ethu yaaru? Innoru bike le ponnalage athule oruthana? ” (Who is this? Is it one of the guys from other bike)

Mr. Wine: “No no… I live in Nungambakkam only. Came for a walk and this guy is my friend”

TP didn’t say anything but gave both of us a terrifying look.

Me to Wine: “kaile kaasu iruka?”

Mr. Wine opens his purse to starts counting notes… Lots of notes but denominations are very small…

TP to Wine: “Thambi purse kattunga… (Show me your purse)

Mr. Wine: “Sir… veetle kaasu enga nu ketpanaga sir…” (When I go home they will enquire about the money)

TP: “Adu ellam pathukalam… pursa kaatu” (That is okay… show me your purse!)

Mr. Wine reluctantly showed him the purse.

TP: “Evalo iruku totala??” (How much you have in total?)

Mr. Wine after counting: “120 rubaa iruku sir” (120 rupees)

TP: “seri… thaa… illana neeyum evan kooda bike le vanthenu fine poduven” (Okay… give it or else I’ll put fine saying you were travelling with him)

Mr. Wine looked at me, I signaled him to give. Mr. Wine passed the money, TP started counting it. After counting it he handed back to us two ten rupee notes.

TP: “Intha pa vechuko…” (Here have it)

I was surprised by his action. Why would he give back just Rs.20? Why not Rs.50? May be Mr. Wine’s words moved him to return back Rs.20/- : ) : )

TP: “Drive home carefully, from now on don’t ride in wrong side of the one-way.”

Me: “Yes sir…”

TP left the place; I turned to Mr. Wine and said “Thanks man!” He smiled back.

Me: “Where did you get so much money?”

Mr. Wine: “Oh..! That… we realized you were not behind us so we returned to see what happened. We saw you talking to TP so hid in a dark corner and watched. We saw you searching your purse. I knew you didn’t have money so all us shared. Kinetic Honda had Rs.30, Bajaj chetak had Rs.10, and rest was mine.”

Me: “Where are the others?”

Mr. Wine: “They are waiting for us in the other street”

Me: “Shall we go back to home? It is already late”

Mr. Wine: “Yup.And are you planning to tell this at home?”

Me: “Nope! You? ”

Mr. Wine: “Nopes”

Me: “We went to Marina beach right?”

Mr. Wine: “The breeze in the beach was awesome!”

(This part was contributed by Mr. Wine)

Once we sent the Police aabiser , then came a ultimate situation .. On moving 25 Mts forward your tyre got punctured ....

No puncture shop was there near by, in the first place (come on how can u expect a puncture shop just under Anna Flyover that too at 10 45 Pm!!)... Then we were searching for a puncture shop as if, if we find one we had the money to fix the puncture .... All the four's purse was emptied to satisfy that TP (I meant Traffic police , nothing else :P )... No one had no idea and at a point of time we decided to walk 10 Km from Mount Road to Vadapalani with the vehicle (as if we are protesting against the fuel price hike) .

Then came the saviours .. Those Pulsar guys , not thet they had lot of money , after they came the combined money we had was around Rs40 (including Rs 20 given back by the TP )..

On looking at gang of guys standing just outside the American Consolate at night 11 30 , a security gaurd equiped with AK 47 approached us .. Finally the light at end of the tunnel, a old man was passing past us and i stopped him to ask about any puncture shop near by ... Damn Comes a reply from him "Naan cycle kada dhan vachirukien Thambi , naan puncture otrien ..".. It was "Kanna Laddooo thingaaa aasaayaaaa" for us..

Once he fixed he asked for Rs 60 just for a punture !!!!.. and No one had any thing to talk when he asked that amount .. But again God smiled at us , that security gaurd came to us again and asked "enna dhan prachana ungalukku".. for us it was like "Kannaaa rendu ladoo thingaa assaiyaaaaa"... We both complaind to that gaurd "this guy is demanding lots of money for a puncture".. (as if two kids talking to a pricipal).. He started shouting at that cycle wala and finally we started our journey back home .. and it was 1 AM when I reached home and next day morning at 5AM we had tuition for extrance exam coaching ..

Note: Thank you Mr. Wordsy and Mr. Wine for letting me share this story Read more!

Guy’s Eye View

For a youngster the thought processing mainly involves two things: Love and Girls. And I guess you must be thinking why I didn’t mention academics in that list… seriously… no… nooooo….!

So, first the girls… The phenomenon I should say starts early in a guys life. In primary school, the boy sticks to his gang of friends (boys), watching cartoon, playing in dirty sand and his toys. The boy hates girls (he says this… but I doubt) There is always the chalk throwing and paper throwing. Boys and girls are two gangs always involved in fighting and complaining to teacher. But if you look at in a different point of view, there is famous law, opposite poles attract each other ;) And I believe this is where the first seed of “the phenomenon” is planted. Forwarding a few years, the boy goes into higher classes. This is when he starts acting “cool” listening to English songs, doing hair style… All these he will have a laugh when he grows old. And the fighting with girls magically stops… the boy doesn’t fight with the girls but he won’t talk to them either… but steals a glance at every chance he gets… And for every guy there is always a girl for who he develops a soft corner… this is not infatuation or love... so I call it “the phenomenon” (and don’t believe guys who says he hasn’t gone through this… that is a lie) 

The boy enters senior class (say eleventh or twelfth), he starts listening to melodies and real music, starts building a true character. I believe this is the time where they guys divide…the “dudes” and “ordinary”… The dudes have the guts to talk to girls goes ahead but the ordinary doesn’t. This is something to ponder, why is talking to a girl so difficult?! She is not going to kill or an exploding bomb! But few things are difficult to explain in life this is one of those. The “dude” meanwhile steers past the “ordinary” making the “ordinary” very much jealous. The poor “ordinary” guy tries to put up a smile when he sees a girl but his guts is so bad that lips don’t curve enough to make a smile!! The “ordinary” guy is frustrated with his efforts and enters college. 

Now, in the transition from school to college, the guy comes across the chapter of “love”. Every human being has their own definition of love. He must have seen so many love stories and girls. He gets confused on the word “love”. How would he know who is the right person? Who should he run after? Or is it better not to run? Looking at his past life he is sure that no girl is fall into his hands… Who? How? “Ordinary” guy becomes more frustrated and confused with him attempts with girls, but the real reason is he never had the guts. When the “Ordinary” guys hang out for “bird watching”, this is generally what happens. A gorgeous girl coming at a distance, one gang members alerts the gang. But there are few moments when a girl passes by the “ordinary” guy do not alert his mates. He doesn’t know why the reason he did that. She looks beautiful to his eyes. Now why the difference, it is because the other girls seen by him are his fantasy but this one girl is “real”. Let me explain, consider Aishwarya Rai, every “ordinary” guy likes her and wants a date with her but he knows that she cannot be his love or wife; this is called a “fantasy”. And “the phenomenon” with “real” girl might turn into “love” if he decides to persuade it.

People say “love at first sight” or  “love after getting to know each other” in all these cases few things can be assured, these people are brave, live a life they want and willing to adjust to see the other happy.  So the question is not about how do I get one or who should I choose, it is about how ready you are.

Note: These are just my views; don’t blame me if it doesn’t work out. And I haven’t said anything about girl’s point of view because let’s just say ‘No one knows what girls want’ ;) ;)

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A Project What?!

It all started on November 2007, the talk about projects. Everyone had their own thoughts and dreams. Four years of studies and this is the time they could prove their skills. 90% of the ECE students decided to do their project outside college. I was among the 10%. But I needed few partners so that I can form a team. I found 3 guys who were ready to do project with me.
Mr. Buddha: Very calm, dedicated, ever smiling, quiet person, hard working, very trustworthy.
Mr. Pongal: Super active (only when girls around and hence the name), talkative, fun loving, puts up a great talk show with professors, very dependable person.
Mr. Aruva star: click on the name to see the meaning of it. He is not a terror but lethargic (but the name just stuck). Serious only when someone provokes him. Has a talent of writing beautiful poems, Movie freak, and very reliable person.
And Me: I am a mixture of the above three.

We were good friends and knew each other very well. We knew we could pull off the most difficult and toughest jobs in the world. But we were self content. Team was ready but we needed a guide/professor who would give us a project to work on. We came to know that Mr. GP was working in a project to get his Master of Philosophy degree. He was known to be an easy going professor who doesn’t trouble the students much. We asked him if we could give us a project. He was very glad we asked him and agreed to provide us a project. That is when for the first time in our lives we heard the word “Soliton”. A single thought rang in our brains “cooooool”. He told us this is one of the hottest topics in electronics, if you can implement this project then your names will be published in IEEE. Our eyes were gleaming with happiness and smiled at each other “awesome”.

For final year students last semester began late so that they can work on their projects longer. Four of us met Mr. GP before our holidays and decided that we would be back to college after two weeks time. Only few final year students were doing project in college and very few were staying in hostel. This meant that wifi in hostel would be super fast and you can download as many movies as you wanted ;). We met Mr. GP and we discussed a few things and he said we start doing the project next week since he was busy now with paper correction work. He gave us a material to read so that we get an idea about the project. We happily roamed the college, enjoyed the high speed internet and slept well. We were final years no one bothered ask us what we were doing in college as well as in hostel. We were the four uncrowned kings. A week flew by junior classes started, college became little crowded.

One fine day we started reading the material we got from Mr. GP because we had to meet him the next day. Our eyes were glued to the writings; no one spoke to each other. We started having our dinner in silence.
Me: “Did you guys understand anything in that material?”
Buddha: “Vikram, I didn’t understand anything!!”
Aruva: “Actually I read only a page, since you guys were reading so serious I thought I’ll learn from you”
Pongal: “I understood.”
Three of us were staring at him.
Me: “Pongal, there is no girl around”
Pongal: “dei… dei… enna da… (what da…) It is just a wave…”
Buddha: “yes we know that and…”
Pongal: “oh… after that definition I didn’t understand anything.”
We looked at each other, what we have gotten ourselves into! The entire material had so many equations and scientific terms that made us so so so so sleepy!!!! Monday morning we met Mr. GP, we confessed to him that we didn’t understand much. He said that is fine he will explain the theory part but he cannot do it now since he had so many classes to attend. We were pretty much happy by now since he agreed to explain to us the theory, world became beautiful again. He asked us to meet on Friday afternoon. Mr. Aruva came out and said “Machi! I am going to Chennai”. Rest of us just looked at him. He continued “I am getting bored here so let’s go and have a good time in Chennai and be back by Friday.” We had to get permission to from warden and our professor to leave home during project time. That part was easy. We went to Mr.GP and asked him to just sign the letter and he did it. Buddha, Pongal and I were from Chennai but Mr. Aruva was not. So he had to tell a lie at home to come along with us.
Me: “What are you going to tell at home?”
Aruva: “Nothing elaborated, just going to buy a transistor”
Me: “what????”
Aruva: “You know we are doing an Electronics project, we need a transistor!”
Buddha: “So you are going to Chennai to get a transistor??”
Pongal: “Sounds great to me! Make sure you get a resistor also”
Buddha: “dei anniyayam pannathigada!( don’t be atrocious!) We don’t even know what the project is about and you are going to buy a transistor and a resistor? Aruva, your sister is an Electronic engineer, won’t she ask you about this?”
Aruva: “In the material I saw a transistor in circuit diagram; I’ll manage my sister with that diagram”
Pongal: “super da mappi!!”
So we all went for a week to Chennai and had a great time.

Two weeks passed, i.e. half a month, plus another two weeks taken as holidays which made up a month. By now people who did their project outside had their models or codes ready. We spoke with them they seemed to be more or less in same situation like us. But for sure they will get an output because they have paid for it!! We had to give four reviews about the project in college – 3 internal reviews and one external review. Our first review was on January, one more week left. We had a million dollar question in our hand; we didn’t know what we were supposed to do in the project. All the time we were thinking about the material and its content. We actually forgot the “to do” part! In the first review we were supposed to give an over view of what we have planned to do on the project and what steps are to be taken to achieve it. The students doing outside college even got presentation prepared from the company!! Next day we met Mr. GP and asked him what we were supposed “to do” as first review was coming soon, he asked us to prepare few slides with theory and some equations and said we will show the mathematical equations as a project. We were dumbstruck, that’s all!! We were going to show mathematical equations?! When people are going to produce models and implement stuffs we are going to show this?! When we came out Buddha said to me “It is not too late to go to one of those companies and get ourselves a project.” I did not agree. “We have spent two weeks on this project we will continue with this. We will prepare a presentation and bring it to him tomorrow.” So we set out to a hard day’s work of cutting copying and pasting. We prepared a six page presentation and met Mr. GP next day. He said the presentation was very good and explained only the equations which we put on the presentation.

On the day of first review we were nerves, we entered the room and there was a professor sitting there. He was a known to be sarcastic and show off. We started explaining the presentation and he just kept nodding his head. The reviewer asked what does the term “C” means in equation. As an electronic engineer “C” refers to only one thing capacitor or capacitance. Mr. Buddha promptly replied it is the capacitance.
Professor: “so when you are implementing the circuit are you going to calculate the capacitance value?”
We looked at each other. You know sometimes in exam you face a two mark question for which you don’t know the answer but you write an answer so amazing and full of technical words which makes reader stupefied… what happened was nothing short of it.
Mr. Pongal: “Yes sir when we implement the Non Linear Transmission Line circuit we will make use of the capacitance value so that we can modulate the Soliton amplitude”
Rest of us knew for sure this is one of the biggest blunders Mr. Pongal has ever said! Implement the circuit! Amplitude! Modulation! The professor just said “oh! Fine!” That is when we realized that no one knew about this topic!! Whatever we said became the BIBLE for that topic! We had the ultimate power now! We cruised through our presentation and review was done. We walked out happy and started singing “happy days… happy days” (it was a famous song from telugu movie). Life was beginning to look normal. Second review was a month away. We spoke to Mr.GP and decided that we will implement an oscillator circuit for producing the Soliton waves. Mr. GP was delighted by the idea and said he will provided us trail version simulator software. College also started for final years. Second review was on February and we had to present whatever we have done so far. As we all know time flies quickly than you think, second review was around the corner. Mr.GP has not given us the simulation software. We read the material about a million times now so we were sure managing the theory part. Mr. Pongal got serious this time he went to Mr. GP and demanded the software. He somehow got the software and we started working on the simulation. Soliton waves can be produced from Non linear transmission lines (forgive me for brining electronics into the blog) so we have to produce two circuits. We had slightest clues of what non linear transmission lines were, but we are engineers!! We do things even if we have no clue about it and succeed in it! And we started with input circuit which produces NLTL. We only had a formula and we converted formula into a circuit. (Sounds cool… looks horrible) Designing part was easily said in a sentence as converting a formula into circuit but it took us two weeks to complete it.

There was a chaos during the second review with juniors mid semester exam colliding with our review dates. It was decided that everyone will give reviews to their respective internal professors! We were in cloud nine!! Guys who did project outside college had an internal professor as guide but for us it was Mr. GP! Mr. Pongal has awesome talking abilities as I told you. We went to Mr. GP and told him that our second review was is to be conducted by him. Pongal spoke “Sir, what is your expectation from us for second review, we have been giving you the daily update about the progress we are doing and you have appreciated our work as well.” Mr.GP was confused on what to say. He nodded his head and said “Yes correct. Just give me a presentation on work till date rest I’ll deal with it.” We walked out doing “happy days” dance again!

We started working seriously on the simulation; Mr. GP had no idea on how to simulate the circuit. So it was up to us to design, we spent weeks together on it. On a fine evening, I was working on the simulation watching “Billa” movie in my room, it did a few changes in the circuit and it happened. An output which looked so horrible and yet beautiful to our eyes appeared! I was stunned. I called everyone and showed them the output! Next day we met Mr. GP and showed him the output, he was thrilled he started telling stories about how is going to apply it to IEEE and stuff. By now we knew his and our standards so we just smiled along. Before the 3rd review we went to Mr. GP’s home to learn the equations parts and what explanation to give in case if anyone asks. Mr. GP gave us a not so satisfactory explanation about things; even we raised so many questions that had no answers. But the good part was we got juice and biscuits. ;) We were confident on one thing, this stuff was totally new to many and we also had a simulation to support what we were going to say! We also decided on who would present what part of the presentation.

We were well all set for the 3rd review. The reviewer was the head of the department and this was this area of interest! We walked in and started our explanation and showed him our presentation, he said “I don’t have time to go through all your equations and presentations, just give me the key points of your work.” When you have prepared so much to present and when you are asked summarize all that in few words it is very difficult! We had to cut down so many of our work. We were shattered! We started blabbering! Just when we thought everything was going wrong, Mr. Aruva said a sentence that stunned everyone in the room (including us) “Generally in all circuits we filter the noise out but in our circuit we use this noise to generate Soliton waves.” The professor was clean bowled. He didn’t know what he could say! We just looked at Mr. Aruva, where in the world did he come up with that!! Since the professor didn’t entirely go through our presentation I quickly showed him the output of our input circuit (NLTL circuit), which looked like crap! And then showed him our original output i.e. the Soliton waves! (Bigger crappy waves) Professor looked at us and said “Good”, it came from head of departments! We nailed it! We told Mr. GP about the review he was very happy about it and he asked us to explain to him on how we created the simulation and give him a copy of the work.

The final review was done by an external. We were very confident about our work compared to others who did outside; they were still studying and preparing presentation while we were doing well. Our review was scheduled after lunch at 2PM but it only happened at 5 PM!! We were waiting outside; I got so bored that I started watching a movie in the laptop :) we were called in for the review and external heard us out completely. He was not totally convinced by our explanation. But when he saw the output he went speechless! He said he had no more questions. It was time for one more “happy days” dance!! We worked hard and party harder or just party harder!! ;)

A year after our college approved a fund of 2.5 Lakh to proceed with Soliton project!

One thing I learned from the project phase is that put an engineer in any kind of situation they will find a way to succeed in it!

This blog is dedicated to my project mates! :)

Note: Names have been changed to project the identity of the people. Read more!

Tale of Kopy Kats!!

Again, I would like to go back to my school days, but this time location changes to Jawahar Higher Secondary School, Ashok Nagar, Chennai. First time in life I had the option of leaving out the subject "Hindi"(if you want to know why i gave up hindi read this Hindi$#@! ). In 11th standard, I chose Sanskrit to be my second language (a dreadful decision if you are a Hindi student :( . In Sanskrit the grammar part was crazy!! You can say word "ram" in so many different tones and at last you completely forget what the original pronunciation is!!! Yes you are right again, I never learnt how "ram" was supposed to pronounced or written in so many crazy ways! I copied!! A gentlemen named Mr. Wine (name changed to protect the identity of the person) who was behind me in exams helped me.

I didn't blindly give up Sanskrit grammar, I tried hard but I was tough job to mug up so many simple words pronounced so different and written crazily!!! On the day of exam I did study well, just before entering exam hall there is a ritual among friends to say this line: "Machan dei exam le helps pannu da"(Dude! Help me out in exam). I didn't skip the ritual that day; I turned to Mr. Wine and said the exact same line. He shook his head in agreement. I did the paper well till the grammar part, I was stuck half the way through! Time was ticking; almost entire class has finished the paper, seeing this invigilator sat down. This was it! I had to do something; I had no idea how I was going to write the entire grammar. I turned my head, my eyes met with Mr. Wine, I pointed to grammar section on my question paper. He nodded his head and started writing. I was like "ada cha! Waste fellow! vidu adutha exam le paathukalam" ( Damn it! okay, I'll try in next exam). Just then I felt a pinch on my shoulder. I saw Mr. Wine passing me his question paper; it had answers writing in it. I had an adrenaline rush. I grabbed his question paper and threw mine to him. Yes everything was done in fraction of seconds. I came out of exam hall with his question paper. He smiled at me. I saw my guardian angel in him. I couldn't stop thanking him!! We followed this classic old but trusted style of copying for many exams, only the swoosh of the question paper would be heard!!

I was not always the one who copied, I helped others too! I'll always remember my 11 standard, Quarterly Computer Science paper. I was good at Computer Science, always managed to score well. In Tamil Nadu state board syllabus, Computer Science was for 150 marks and in it you have 75 objective questions (one mark). People lost their mark on this, but not me ;) (I know you must be saying "look at him blowing his trumpet!" after all, these are few things I am damn good at. so no compromises). Exam started, I got the question paper and I started reading the first question. Mr. Wine poked me, what???!! So soon, the invigilator hasn’t even finished giving out question paper to all!!!!! I turned my head, Mr. Wine gestured me to move. Okay for understanding this you people have to know that I am left handed. So when I write my paper is positioned in different angle, and if I move my body a little the person behind me can see my paper clearly. Back to story, Wine had decided to copy my entire paper. I don't blame him! It is not that he didn't study but at times even though you know the answer you don't feel like straining your brain when answers are just a glance away. (I am saying this cause I have done this!!) But copying entire paper was difficult job. He has to keep up to my pace and copy it into his paper. But he did it! We walked out of the hall with big smiles as though we have accomplished an impossible mission! Mr. Wine “Machi! Full paper I copied da!” “dei how da you wrote that fast?” “athu ellam talent da”(that’s called talent) with a victory smile! I said “dei mattika motom le” (we won’t get caught right?) he said “athan paper koduthachu le” (we have submitted the paper man!) “ama da next two week vacation!! Dei raga team oda match sollitangala...?” (Yes! Two weeks’ vacation!! Have they told raga team about the match…?)

Vacation was good we were back to school sitting next to each other, paper was being distributed. My name was called, I got good marks. Mr. Wine name was called he went to get his paper. When he came back he had a strange look on his face, I asked what happened? “I got 2 marks less than you da. How is that possible? We copied entire paper right?” “I don’t know da, you think she reduced for handwriting?” he said “rightu vidu… who cares? ;) “. The class got over, before leaving the teacher called our names alone and asked us to come and meet her in staff room. We knew we were in trouble. Me: “dei we need a plan, if she asks why both papers look same we will say we studied together for exam. And never agree to her that we copied.” Mr. Wine “Oki da done!” she was in staff room talking with another teacher, she look at us and signaled us to wait on her table. My mind was racing, was she telling the other teacher about us? Oh! Man now every teacher will re-check our papers alone! Why is she doing this to us!! She came to the table and looked at me in the eyes

Teacher: “why did you let Mr. Wine copy from you?”

Me: “What? No madam! I never let him copy”

Teacher: “Mr. Wine, why did you copy from him?”

Mr. Wine: “Madam! God promise I didn’t copy!!!”

Teacher: “I can take both of your papers and pin point on stupid mistakes you did. Take you to principal after that!”

Me: “Madam! We studied together may be that is why we did same mistakes” I knew she was not going to believe us.

Teacher: “Mr. Wine has struck off the same words you have struck off in your paper”.

I felt “pochu da! Soothapitan” I kept silent! Mr. Wine also kept silent.

Teacher: “Copying is very bd. You are not in small sections to act like this. You’re in eleventh, act matured (I heard this on every class of mine so the dialogue didn’t have an impact). Shall I take you both to the principal?” Again silence from both of us. “Your English teacher was just now saying you both were very good students” (we knew that was a cold blooded lie). Again we reminded silent and kept looking at the table. “I didn’t tell your English teacher that you guys copied”

Me: “Madam we never copied” my friend gave me a glare which meant “shut up! Or else we are going to be in deep trouble”.

Again we both went back to silence. She kept looking at us and we never looked back. She must have gotten bored “Next time if you guys repeat this, I am going to take you both to principal and call your parents.” We surrendered, “Yes madam! We won’t repeat this.” Again we did a triumph walk out the staffroom! We knew that we lied to her. Highlight was that invigilator never found out we copied but the teacher who corrected the paper did.

But everything changed in my 12^th standard. When it came to academics I changed a lot in my 12^th. I had lots of tuitions in 12^th. Even during school exams tuitions were never cancelled. I had my physics tuitions on Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning 5 AM; chemistry tuitions on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday at 5 AM and my Math tuitions at 9 PM every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Though our monthly or any school exams were announced at least two weeks earlier my friends circle was not geek enough to study early. We studied only before the exam and we are proud of it! :P So it meant that we had to go to tuitions come back home and study. Also we had to write tuitions exams as well! Most of the guys were frustrated, some of them failed in exams. But I wanted to pass badly. One event which I had in past is enough for me. I started doing night outs. I would come back from tuitions at 10 PM, study till 3 AM. Sleep and wake up at 4.30 AM to attend tuitions and come back home at 6.30 AM. I slept again and went to school by 8 AM. My aim during night outs was to pass. I wanted only 50% anything more than that was just a gift. I always got lots of gifts. I dare say I never copied in my 12^th exams. When I say copying I mean I never took help of my fellow student or any paper. But I did continue the noble act of helping my fellow class students to get the answers right. It involved more serious acts of passing my answer sheets to my fellow student. Sometimes it just not single sheet, I even passed my main answer sheet (which has 12 pages) to my fellow student. I never regretted any of those. I am happy that I went through all this in life. If copying is done at right amount and at the right time then it is not going to affect you.

For all those who have never copied in life, you are missing something in life!! The adrenaline rush of blood, your sense starts working extra sharp; it even starts reading the movement of invigilator. Your sixth sense knows when the invigilator is going to turn and which way they are going to walk. You can calculate at what speed you can write and what speed you have to turn to snatch the paper from your friend. You start inventing sign languages. Your eyes start talking. Your eye brow becomes your mouth. You execute time management to perfection (which you might have never done in your life). You start seeing a person in new light which may lead to blossom of new friendship. You are doing a noble and helpful act by helping a person pass in exam, if you don’t he might be in sorrow and misery “Nallu peruku nallathuna eduvum thappu illa” (An act done to make 4 lives happy is never immoral). Above all you know how to look calm and composed when you’re looking down the barrel. So, have you copied?

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Hindi $#@!

Most people won’t start their first blog with a story of how they failed for the first time. But I am, because I feel that failure is the stepping stone for success :) . So here its goes.

I was in 7th standard, studying in St.Mary’s residential Central School, Ramankulankara , Quilon, Kerala. It was my Hindi period and exam papers were being distributed. My name was called. I went to get it… Horror!! In my school we had exam for 50 marks (except final exam) and you had to get 20 out of 50 to pass. And yes I got 19! Till then in my academic history I have never failed. My heart was wishing that there was a counting mistake. I counted, the total came to 20.5! I breathed sighs of relief. To recheck I asked guy near me to count again, he counted and said the total is correct. I felt an intense pain in my heart. The truth was sinking in... I FAILED!! I FAILED!! How will I face my parents at home?! Slowly my eyes became moist. I knew I was in a class full of people but I couldn’t stop it and slowly I felt a warm trickle of tear on my cheek. When you are in junior standards, there is this habit, when a student finds out something interesting about his/her fellow student, they scream like “Madam… This fellow didn’t do his homework…” or “Madam… This fellow is sleeping...” The same happened in my case too. I felt all eyes upon me; still the small boy couldn’t stop crying!! The devil who failed me spoke “You didn’t write anything on paper! That’s why you failed, no need to cry for this”. I had taken two additional sheets of paper for this exam, how can she say I have not written anything!!

The Devil read my mind and decided to put me in a more embarrassing situation. My sister also studied in the same school, she was in 10th standard. And to worsen the situation even more, she was damn good at Hindi! The devil said to one of the student “Call Kripa from X ‘A’ section, say I want to meet her now”. To give you a heads up, my sister is a very sweet girl. When devil asked her to be summoned, I knew that telling my sister will not be a big impact, because I knew she was always sweet to me. My sister came to my class. As she entered the entire class was watching her, and my poor and shocked sister was searching for me in the midst of so many students. I couldn’t see her face out of shame!! My sister always thought I was a little genius! How can I face her in such a situation?!

The devil spoke “Your brother has failed in his exam”. My sister looked at me. I couldn’t read what she meant by that look. The Devil said: “He keeps talking in class and never listens in class, that’s why he has failed”. So that’s the reason!! She failed me purposely because I kept talking in her class, so my brain is intact and I have my abilities with me! The devil is bad, I scolded her very badly in my mind (Malayalam bad words ;)), I glared at her with rage, but my tear gland was working super hard to make my eyes watery and hence my glare was overshadowed. She kept telling so many things about me, my poor sister didn’t have a response for this; she said he will do well in next exam and left the class. My mind was running scenes of my parents chasing me at home with a stick! How am I going to face them!

I decided to go through my paper again, hoping that there might be some answers which she has failed to correct. I opened the paper, there were so many red marks my blue ink was hardly visible! She has almost marked every spelling I have written with a circle! To be frank, I was never good at spellings. So I couldn’t argue on that. So naturally she had reduced marks on every question. If you are a Hindi student then you must know that we had to spilt a big word into two words and the vice versa, i.e. sandhi, ling parivarthan. Again, I never understood the logic behind it! I spilt and joined the word as per my wish! I kept browsing through my paper of red inks, when the guy sitting next to me said “You know you copied in class test that’s why you failed in exam”. I felt like giving him a tight slap on face. The devil had wasted a full red ink pen on my paper and failed me because I was a chatterbox! Why is this dumb fellow talking nonsense?

I admit that I copied in class tests. We had a test on every Friday and we had to bring our “test note” for it. I hated it. So I devised a plan to copy. I kept my bag under the bench, between my legs. I opened my bag zip wide open, but well within my legs. I opened the Hindi class work note and kept it inside the bag, so that I could see what was written and copy it into my test note. When teacher comes close, all I had to do was move my legs closer so that the note and bag both closed and all would look normal. So on every class test, I would get decent marks, and I never copied the whole thing from note. I wrote my own lines in between. (I guess every one must know this trick. Hee hee :) ). But in my 12 standard I totally stopped copying (hmm... might be worth writing my next blog). Coming back to the story, my tear gland must have dried out and tears where no longer there. Just then, devil made her last move. She wanted everyone to get the paper signed by parents! She looked at me I knew this meant only to me!! Evil teacher!!!! I realized there were two ways out of this without getting thrashed by parents:

• I can put my father’s sign and give her paper( I never did this in my life, I was just very good boy to do such stuff)
• I have to hold back all my tears now and cry like hell at home! (I have noticed that when parents are angry they never have the heart to hit a crying child, at least my parents didn’t)

So I decided to follow the second plan. I had to change 3 buses to reach my home which was 18 km from my school. I tried to maintain a sulking look all the way to home. My sister was with me while travelling back; she said “its okay da… you can do well next time”, she patted my shoulder and gave me a soft pleasing smile. When she consoled me, my spirits lifted a little. I reached home. It was 4:30 PM. I knew if I switch on the TV, I would be as good as dead. It was Power zone time on cartoon network. At 4:30 PM it was “SWAT KATS”, and at 5:00 PM it was Scooby-doo. At 5:30 it was ed, edd and eddy which I didn’t care much, but at 6:30 there was Johnny Quest! I loved the show, and then at 8:30 there was Popeye show, 9:00 PM Scooby-doo again. Because of the devil I had to miss all these shows! I cursed her even more.

Mom greeted us with a warm smile, but I had put an Oscar winning sad and dejected looking face, hoped that tear gland would start functioning extra hard, and it did. Again I felt tears trickling down my cheeks. Mom was worried; Ah yes, these were good signs. She asked if I had fallen down. I simply shook my head. Sister replied; she said “he didn’t clear his Hindi paper”. Mom was angry; I could see her face reaction changing, I knew I was in big fix! I was waiting… As I mentioned earlier when I cried, my parents tends to loosen up. It worked! Mom did not thrash me but I was not let alone, I was in the firing line. She scolded that I played a lot and “cartoons!!! Eppa pathalum cartoon! Booka thoranthu patha thane theriyum enna irukunu. Examku munnadi etho konjam padicha epidi thaan mark varum”(Cartoons!! Always cartoons! You have to open the book to know what’s in them. If you study for few hours before exam this is how you will score). I was simply standing with my head down and eyes moist. But mom’s are mom’s, they can never be angry for long J but they have the ultimate weapon of terror “Wait till your dad gets here”. OMG!! I knew I could even escape mom with some tears and acting, but dad?!!

I had to be very careful for the rest of the day. Any mistake on my part would lead to extra scoldings. After little refreshment from mom, without switching on the TV, I went and opened my books. Yes I know this is too much but I had no other way L My mom must have had a good laugh!!!! Dad comes home by 7.30, and yes I was acting as if I was studying the whole time till dad got home. He came home. On normal days I would be sitting and watching TV. When he realized I was not watching TV, he knew something was wrong. He refreshed himself, took his seat and switched on the TV. I heard mom’s voice “unga pulla Hindi le enna mark vangi irukannu kettela” (ask your son how much he scored in Hindi). My dad spoke in his cool and composed voice: “vikram inga va” (vikram come here). Hearing that voice my heart skipped a beat. I went with my Hindi paper. He asked “evalo mark?”(What’s your mark?). My voice didn’t come out when asked for mark; I just showed him my paper. Again my tear gland started working. He went through the entire paper, “so you failed by one mark?” I nodded. I couldn’t stop my tears. I had to give him a reason. I slowly said “the teacher purposely failed me because I spoke in class, she did it on purpose. You can ask Kripa, teacher even told her the same.” My sister glared at me. I knew the glare meant “don’t you dare pull me into this”. My father asked me to sit; I looked into face. I didn’t see anger or rage. He was cool and composed. I sighed in relief, “dad this is the first time I have failed”. But I was wrong. It was the calm before the storm. He asked me “I need to know why you failed.” I was stunned. This was not what I expected!! I was expecting him to blast me. I didn’t know what to say. I mumbled to him “next time I’ll make sure to get good marks”. He looked at me “Since first standard you’re giving me this reason ‘next time’, I don’t know when this ‘next time’ is going to come.” I was caught; I knew a day will come when this question was asked to me!! I knew this lame reason was not going to get me out!! “What is stopping you from studying? That’s the only duty you have to do. You wanted TV, you have TV, you wanted cable connection, and you have it, you wanted cricket bat and you have it. Tell me why you are not able to pass in this?” Those words were atom bombs. My tear gland broke; I started crying very very badly. And I made a statement “I am not going to school from tomorrow” (I never knew this was the life saving statement), my poor father was moved by my sincere crying effort and his tone completely changed. “Vikram, crying is not going to help you. Failure is not end of life. I have failed many times in exams. In fact I even bunked schools. I never used to study the entire portions for exam; I studied only what I could but I made sure that before next exam I had completed portion of previous exam. So, by finals I had done almost every portion. So, next time prepare well.” It was hit by thunder twice! I realized people who are well settled in life had also failed in school. I just looked at my dad in awe. I was confident now. I knew I could crack the next exam. He patted me on back and I also stopped crying. He gave me the paper back. Then I remembered devils voice, “You have to get the paper signed by your parents”. I scolded her, evil mastermind she was, just when I thought everything was over, cha! I said “Dad, teacher needs parents sign on paper”. He looked at me “I’ll sign but I’ll write comment that my son will try hard and pass the next exam. You can give him any kind of home work to improve his performance.” I was horrified, more homework?!! No no, this is not fair. She failed me purposefully. But I had no choice. I nodded my head. So my dad signed the paper with the comment. I was relieved. And I went to room and opened the book with smile on my face. Mission accomplished.

Next day I took the paper to class and showed it to teacher. She read the comment and just smiled. An Evil smile. Fortunately she didn’t give me any extra work. A week after I received my report card. My class teacher gives report card based on rank. My name came; she held the report card and said a red mark for first time. I had a smile on my face, I knew this was not the end, I could prove myself next time. I didn’t have to give my tear glands any work to get report card signed since the situation was already known at home. Dad has signed the report card; next exam is more than a month away! Things were back to normal. I returned to normal routine of cartoons and games! And for the record, I did pass the next Hindi exam. And the guy who sits next to me asked “so you have stopped copying in class test?” I gave him a smile. Read more!