Angels in anguish

(Inspired by an article from 'The Hindu')

As the sun slowly peeps from behind the clouds
The mother hurries to wake up the peacefully sleeping child
Sleeping with a smiling face as undisturbed as a placid lake
It would seem difficult for any mother to wake up such an angel
But the clock ticks, the husband shouts and the pressure-cooker whistles
Shaking the angel out of her sleep
Shaking her out of her fantasy world, the mother brings her to reality
Asking her to get ready to face another day in hell..

An hour later, the angel sits in front of her breakfast plate
Slowly tearing apart the toasted bread
Trying to make a story out of its crumbs
"Its getting late! Eat your breakfast without any games!" shouts a voice
Frightened, the bread pieces rush down the food pipe
And up comes a cough from suffocation
And immediately lands a pat on the head and a shout of anger from the mother
With the bread unfinished, rushes the angel
Carrying a bag heavier than her
And books with more pages than the number of days she has lived
For the school-van has arrived..

"I told you to solve the problem! Do it!" shouts the math teacher
Seeing the little angel drawing a little house on her math book
4x5=20 seems more important than this little angel's masterpiece
Little does the teacher realize her mistake
She has asked Georgia O'Keeffe to stop drawing
And the angel obediently erases her art
To join with an entire group of similarly forced angels
In solving something she doesn't see as a problem but needs to do
Just because the society says so
Just because of the independence not yet attained from the British educational system
Just because we still care about creating clerks..

As the door of the school-van opens
Rushes the angel towards her mother waiting at the gate
Like a wave that rushes towards the shore..
The angel removes her colorless uniform
And gets into a flowered skirt, the flowers making this flower look more beautiful
But she has no time to rest
In 15 minutes starts the 'Hindi Tuition'
And why should the angel attend it?
Just because the neighbor's son is attending it
Just because it is a crime to let your girl not know what the neighbor's son knows
Just because comparison means everything..

The hour hand in the clock seems to be approaching eight
And the angel looks at her artwork again
A dog and a cat playing with a ball
As only can happen in a child's mind
Not waiting to see how the artwork would be appreciated
She rushes towards her father, hidden behind the newspaper
Showing him the picture, she waits
A nod is all she gets
Because the stock market seems more interesting than this angel's art
Saddened, she walks towards her mother
Showing her the picture, she waits
"It is nice!" comes the reply even without a glance at the picture
The boiling rasam needs more attention, after all
And walks the angel out of the kitchen
Throwing the drawing along with the older newspapers
And seating herself in a corner
Waiting for the dinner and for the night's sleep
That would pave way to another day in hell..

****

Right from the sunrise to the sunset
Right from the cock's crow to the owl's hoot
Many such little angels seem to be forced to do things they hate
Many such little angels seem to be forced to give up things they love
Not the fault of the father
Not the fault of the mother
They just want to be a part of this society, after all..

But as if all these cruelties were not enough
Just like nothing really is enough for a man
Ever since he started hunting his own kind
Ever since he started evolving from a much kinder species
Many little angels, at many corners of this country
And many corners of this world
Seem to be becoming prey to animals
Animals more cunning than the fox
Animals more vicious than the vultures..

Not knowing what to say, not knowing how to say
Afraid of resisting or opposing
These little angels remain silent
Just like they are taught to be at home and school
These little angels - God's another incarnation, as we happily say,
Who are sexually abused!

25/07/2014 - Won't you happen again?!

I looked at my watch. It was 1:10 am. 30 minutes had passed after my interview. For most of the students, the interview panel had let out the results as to if they had been selected or rejected within five minutes of their interviews. But 30 minutes had passed after mine and there was still no glimpse of a result. And as I was thinking about this, the last person from the group of students who had been selected for the final interview came out of the interview room. A few minutes passed and all the fourteen members who had come for the interview process grouped together and called all of us to gather before them. They were holding large envelope covers with offer letters. My heart skipped a beat. No one had told me whether I had been selected or rejected. My mind had reached its highest state of panic. I stood holding my breath as the names of the selected students were called one by one and they were handed the offer letters. Every moment that passed seemed torturous. I even began to fear that I might have a cardiac arrest. And then, for the first time in my life, I jumped out in the utmost joy when those two words were uttered.

"Soorya Prakash!"

I walked, rather ran towards the person who was giving away the offer letters. I extended my hand and received it from him. A few minutes later, as I opened the envelope and saw my name on the offer letter with the lines 'We, Mu Sigma business solutions pvt ltd. are pleased to inform you of our intent of extending you an offer of employment for the post of Trainee decision scientist', tears flowed down. 

July 25 was going to be a date forever etched in my memory.

It was not a job I had wanted badly but it was a job I needed. It was the first step towards forming an identity for myself and I looked at the offer letter again, smiling at it and wondering if there could be a happier moment.

I was proved wrong in about 10 hours!

****

Three hours of classes had gotten over at college. I had already been bathed in endless affection by my mom and my grandma when they had called me in the morning. Moreover, everyone at college were also congratulating me on having gotten myself placed. A fact that many people around me are unaware of is that I am a sucker for appreciation and I was living the happiest day of my life. And as things were really going great, something totally unexpected happened. 

A huge cake was brought inside our class room and my classmates gathered around it calling me forward to cut it. I became speechless. I had realized that my placement had made my classmates happy - the barrage of wishes in our class Whatsapp group had showed it to me so plainly. But I had never thought that they would go to such an extent to celebrate it. And frankly, I don't remember the 5 odd minutes that happened between me walking towards the cake to cut it and me walking away from it letting my classmates have their share. My brain had gone to so ecstatic a state that it had failed to record it. I don't know how I would have felt if my classmates had failed to record those minutes on their mobile phones, which luckily they did. 

And as I kept licking my fingers not wanting to waste even a tiny bit of the extremely tasty cake, one of my classmates told me to stop licking and handed me two folded sheets of paper. I took it from him and opened them only to be surprised further. There was a huge blowup of one of my childhood photos with congratulatory comments from many of my classmates, with their signatures below their comments on the other side of it. Another sheet had two photos of myself and one of my classmates who had accompanied me in the selection process of Mu Sigma till the 4th round, only to be undeservedly rejected. It also contained similar wishes all over it on the other side.

None of the wishes seemed as if they had been written just for the sake that they had to be written. Every single wish seemed honest and genuine. And as I completed reading every single one of them, I felt myself experiencing a feeling I had never ever felt before in my life. It was not joy. It was not happiness. It was not ecstasy. It was something else. A feeling I was finding very hard to relate to any of my earlier experiences until I remembered my mom describing me the feeling she had experienced when I had been handed over to her in the maternity ward. 

****

As I woke up today morning, I felt the feeling of immense joy still lingering from the previous day and I set out on one of my morning walks. And as I slowly kept roaming around our college campus, trying to recollect again and again the events of the previous day, I decided to do something I had not wanted to in a long time.

I walked towards the small 'Vinayagar' temple that was located in our college. The door of the main deity's room was shut and there was no one around. It had been a long time since I had even cared to look at it whenever I had crossed it. But today was different. I removed my slippers and entered the temple. I sat down near one of the pillars of the temple. And I closed my eyes.

And for the very first time for as long as I can remember, I thanked God.

I thanked him for showing me what if felt like to get an opportunity to stand on my own legs.

I thanked him for making me a part of so lovely a class and so large-hearted a group of classmates friends.

I thanked him for showing me what it felt like to be loved and cared.

And a few minutes later, I walked out of the temple, still a rationalist, but with a deeper understanding of what love and gratitude meant.

The priceless touch

A chilly evening it was
Scarves and sweaters were all around the park
I sat there shivering in the cold
Sitting beside me was she, enjoying the sight of the mischievous kids playing..
Not withstanding the cold, I grabbed her hand
The warmth of her soft palm pressed against mine was bliss
I moved myself closer to her, making her cheeks turn a shade of pink..
Resting my head upon her shoulder
I shut my eyelids to open the gates of heaven
Blew a cold breeze then
Her hair caressed my face gently and spread a smile
My grasp on her hand tightened
A moment's fight to take back her hand from mine
But she soon gave in, her palm growing warmer by every minute..

"Shall I ask you something?" she whispered
I tilted my head
And looked into those two beautiful black lotuses floating in the white sea..
"Which is the touch you like the most?" came the question
The eyebrow rose up above my eye
 "The touch of my palm or the touch of my hair?!" she completed it..
I let out a chuckle
But those black lotuses remained stationary determined for an answer
What was love without such silly questions?
And I decided to give her the answer..

Raising my head, I took it closer
Our breaths battled against each other
The mole beside her right eye looked like a star in the endless sky
The lotuses in her white sea had grown bigger
And I placed a kiss
A kiss on her cheek!
Even a botanist would have mistook them for roses
So blushed were they
She had gotten her answer for my most favorite touch
And she looked away, smiling and letting me rest my head on her shoulder again..

But I felt guilty
As guilty as a child with a broken toy
I hadn't told her the truth
The kiss was just a cover-up
But how could I tell her?
The warmth of her palm
The way her hair stoked my face
Her rosy cheeks
All were my top favorites
But there was a touch I loved more than any
An addiction from my birth
A touch she might not understand
A touch with a power of its own
A touch that fed and cared and blessed me

The touch of my grandmother's wrinkled hand!!

Becoming GOD!

I might be wrong but I generally see more believers trying to persuade atheists rationalists to start worshiping God than we rationalists who try to explain evolution and big-bang to believers.

Yesterday I watched a movie - Oh my God!
One of my classmates had repeatedly been forcing me to watch it saying that the movie would make a believer out of me. When my roommate saw the movie in my 'Hindi movies' collection, he too said the same thing. And so I decided to watch it out of the hope that it might really make a believer out of me.

There is a general notion that rationalists look down upon believers and pity them. I don't know about other rationalists but I seriously envy people who have faith. It is much easier to believe in a higher power and tie up all the happenings to him/her. When life is good, it increases your faith in the higher power and when things go bad, you have someone to blame upon. But for a person like me, when life is great, I start to doubt if I really deserve such goodness and when things go bad, all the blame falls upon my head. Who said being a rationalist makes a person arrogant or egoistic?
It just makes him a human.

Anyways, coming back to the movie, as it proceeded towards the end it only made my rationalism even more stronger instead of making me a believer. It just gave me one more word to substitute atheist - humanist. The movie was trying to drive home the message as to treat every single person as God instead of searching for the spiritual element in temples and mosques and churches. It was the same thing I had believed in ever since I became a rationalist.

But for some reason, the movie started a small battle inside my head last night and today, as I woke up I could still find that the battle hadn't ceased. A slow and relaxed walk around my college campus with soothing Rahman music is the treatment I prescribe myself whenever I find myself in such situations and I did the same thing today, with the extra step of hanging my camera around my neck just in case.

And as I slowly walked down from my hostel along our avenue, my mind too started walking down the calmer lane. As I crossed our college library, I stopped. A bunch of small violet flowers (I am very weak in botany!) in the garden of our library had caught my eye. I sat down on the ground and observed them closely. As I was held captive by their beauty, my hand unconsciously went towards my camera. I clicked the 'on' button and slightly adjusting the 'focus' option, I held it ready to capture the beauty of the flowers. And it was then that something happened.

An inexplicable feeling took over my mind and though I sat on the ground, I felt myself soaring high in the sky. That beautiful moment I had witnessed through my camera lens made me rise above all the mundane routines of this life and petty wars of this world and for a moment, I felt like I was God!
Only just for a moment.

And as all the random and useless thoughts started filling my head again, I came back. I lowered my camera. I did not want to record the beauty of the flowers on my camera. I wanted the moment to be more personal and so I got up and started walking. But after walking some distance, I couldn't control myself and I went back to capture those beautiful violet flowers on my camera. As I kept looking at the photograph I had taken, on my camera screen, a question hit my head.

When such beauty could exist in our world why couldn't a God, perhaps?!

I still haven't answered it.

The funeral

He shook my hands firmly with a big smile on his face. "We will let you know the results in a short time" he said and I shook my head and left the interview room. I never knew then that my first ever interview for a job would be a failure.

As the results were announced, my heart sank. Though I am a pragmatist, I had pinned a lot of hopes on the job and losing it, especially after realizing that the written piece that the interviewer had asked me to write about any particular thing of my own choice had failed to impress the selection panel, hurt me a lot. After all, what is the purpose of all these posts if I am not able to write down a worthy piece when it really matters?

As soon as the results were announced, I walked out of the waiting room which is situated on the terrace of our management building with the intention of deleting this blog. But as I walked towards the elevator, I looked up at the sky and saw its vast expanse. As my agitated mind slowly calmed down, flew a group of birds with the beautiful sky as their backdrop. And I stood mesmerized. Within a minute, my mindset had gone from complete depression to serenity.

And I realized many things.

I did not belong to the group of people who waited in waiting rooms for their interview results. I did not belong to the group of people who shook hands with HR managers with a wide grin on getting placed in their firm. I did not belong to the group of people who wrote codes or put on a sincere customer-friendly act for the mere purpose of meeting the targets/deadlines and I definitely did not belong to the group of people who 'worked'.

I belonged to the group of birds that flew across the bright blue sky. I belonged to the group of puppies that played by the roadside. I belonged to the group of flowers that bloomed every morning. I belonged to the group of people whose souls though formless, was not story-less and I definitely belonged to the group of people who 'lived'.

What a brilliant escapist statement to make after flunking the interview, isn't it?

From the moment I witnessed the beautiful scene on the terrace, my mind has been emphasizing again and again that a job within a cubicle is not meant for me. And I just can't find a way to shut it up.
I know very well that I cant skip the next job offer that presents itself just because of all these ramblings my mind does. I am a son, after all and most importantly a part of this power/prestige based and money crazed society.

But what then to do with all these passionate revelations?
Bury them deep, perhaps.

Is it not the way most of us move forward in our lives burying our passions and building tall monuments of wealth?!
Is it not the way this society is designed - to look down upon any artist and celebrate a bloody damn bureaucrat?!
Why then try to change it?
After all, we are afraid of anything apart from normalcy and conventionality, aren't we?!

What did I ever do?

There are moments in your life that make you introspect - they make you look back at your life and wonder what you have done to have a life so good!

I had such a moment yesterday. I would probably describe it sometime later. But it made me look back at such moments that had happened in my life and every single minute after that long flash-back, I have been asking myself only one question - What did I ever do to deserve all this goodness?

****

Every time I start from my hostel to my home, I try really hard to start the 7-hour journey by noon because whenever I start the journey by night, the next morning I would find my mom's happy face welcoming me at home but her eyes would be a bright reddish shade - the result of staying awake the whole night worrying that I should have a safe journey.

Every sacrifice made, every fight/ argument lost intentionally, every minute of caring, every single rupee earned by her spent just to make me happy – Why? Is it just because I carry the same genes?

****

It was a very hot day. I had gone to my home for a three-day holiday. My mom had gone to work and only my grandmother and I were at home. We had had our lunch and I, generally having this uncontrollable tendency to eat sweets after a meal, couldn't find any that day. And I complained about it to my grandmother and went to my room and started watching a film. About 2 hours later, as the film got over, I removed my headphones and I could hear the clattering noise of vessels from our kitchen. As I went there to see what the cause was, I found my grandmother, fully covered with sweat, preparing baasanthi - a sweet which requires at the least one and half hours of care dedicated to it during its preparation. The poor old woman of 73 years had been preparing it just because I had complained that there were no sweets.

I had shouted at her innumerable times for completely silly reasons. I had made fun of her innocence whenever an opportunity presented itself. I had mocked her restless nature to extreme limits. But the old woman never really cared about them and spent most of her energy trying to make me happy.

****

Wrapped in a blue cover, he handed me the gift. Though I put on an act of refusing it and said that there must not be any formalities between friends, I was very happy within and accepted it from him. He told me to open it after he left. As we sat chatting about our school-mates and their current relationships, as we usually did whenever we met, I asked him slowly as to give a clue as to what the gift was. He refused outright. I kept asking him what it was but he never even uttered a word about what the gift was. And after he left, I hurriedly tore apart the wrapper and looked at the gift. It was the first time I had shed a few tears after seeing a birthday gift that had been given to me. The gift was not something extremely costly. But only the both of us knew what it meant – a miniature wooden bat with the digital signature of Sachin Tendulkar.

I had not given him really memorable gifts for most of his birthdays. I had not visited many places or watched many movies with him like most close friends do. I had not even talked to him much after joining college.  But he, who never liked Sachin for certain reasons of his own, gifted a miniature bat with Sachin’s autograph just to make me happy.

****

My sister was seated, typing something on her mobile. I took the menu card in my hands and started going through all the dishes served in the restaurant. “What film did you see recently?” asked my brother trying to start up a conversation. I never knew that that conversation was going to change my life. Both of us had fallen in love with films and had decided to go in the direction of film-making but that conversation as it continued was the one that surprised both of us as it was the first time we realized that we shared the same passion.  

I started to write because of him. I got into photography because of him. I had had love for both these fields but I never thought of getting into them until I saw my brother creating magic with both. Apart from making me take an interest in these fields, allowing me to add two beautiful things in the ‘extra-curricular activities’ section in my resume, he also showed me that a resume was just a piece of paper and there was more to life than a job and a few thousand rupees in the bank account.

****

As I think about all these, along with the inexplicable warmth, a lot of questions flood my heart.

What did I ever do to deserve such a patient and caring mother? What did I ever do to deserve such a doting grandmother? What did I ever do to deserve such a great friend? What did I ever do to deserve such an influential brother?

There seems to be no answer but the questions just keep piling up.

What did I ever do to deserve having the greatest guys as friends at college? What did I ever do to deserve falling in love with the most fabulous girl I have ever met? What did I ever do to deserve being cared and helped by most of the people I come across?  What did I ever do to get all these good things that have happened in my life?

No answer.

And I am pretty sure that I might never get one.

But there is one question that you could probably answer. I wouldn’t want to know the answer as certain things are best left unsaid. But I would be happy if you could answer it to yourself. So, coming to the question,

What did I ever do to deserve a reader like you?

Stories and atoms

"Once upon a time..." - how fascinated are we by these words! There may be a child not interested in toys. There may be a child not interested in cartoons. But there is no child that is not fascinated by stories.

Many of us think that we come across 'moral-inducing' stories in our childhood through our grandparents, 'Bedtime stories' through our parents, then 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' in the form of novels and films and that's it. We fail to recognize that we live in a different story everyday. We fail to recognize that we are the protagonists of our stories.

"Do you know what Sheela from G2 did today?" begins a story between two home-makers in an apartment. "Do you know what my puppy Jimmy did to the rose plant yesterday?" begins a story between two kindergarten kids at school. "Did you hear what Ravi said about the new project?" starts a story between two professionals in an IT-firm. "Did you hear about Ajay's break-up?" starts a story between two college students. "Did you read Joseph's article on the space-time conundrum?" begins a story between two scientists.

Stories tell us about civilizations. Stories tell us about revolutions. Stories tell us about science. Even an apple falling on Newton's head is a very short story that has a phenomenal epilogue to it in the form of gravitational force.

Every job we do has a story rooted in it as well as a story behind it. It is just that we fail to realize it. But I guess that once the realization hits us, we would probably start living our lives a little more liberally and proceed happily towards the entropy this world and its every entity is marching towards rather than the forced equilibrium state every single one of us humans strive very hard to achieve.

After all, "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms" according to Muriel Rukeyser.

FILMS - They just wouldn't understand!

"Don't you do anything useful other than watching movies all day long?" most of my friends ask me, when they see me lying on my bed the entire day, headphones on my ears and my eyes focused on the laptop screen.

I generally don't reply to them in words. A smile is all they are privileged for an answer.

How would I be able to make them understand the extent to which films have changed me as a person? How would I be able to explain to them that films are much more than just films for me?

They would never understand the fascination that Terminator 2: The judgement day created in me the first time I watched it in my eighth grade. The scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger chases the villain in his super cool motorbike over a bridge is one of my favourite movie scenes till date.

They would never understand how 12 Angry Men changed everything about the opinion I had on movies till then. Every movie I had watched till then had entertained me but for the first time a movie, rather a film, lingered in my mind long enough even after I had watched it. I was shocked as to how could an entire film be shot with just 12 men in a single room with no action sequences or comedy tracks as most of the English movies I had watched till then fell in either of the above two categories.

They would never understand how films like The Prestige, Memento, The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense put me in a state of astonishment as the end-credits started rolling.

They would never understand how much films like Reservoir Dogs and Saving Private Ryan mattered to me as it lead me into the world of two of my most favorite filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino and Steven Spielberg.

They would never understand the life-changing impact a film like Schindler's List or Seven Pounds or Children of Heaven or The Bicycle Thief had on me. I, who had only been thinking constantly about myself, about my welfare, about my 'very huge' problems like not being in a relationship, till then, opened my eyes to look at the real world that lay out there.

They would never understand the hard-hitting/heart-wrenching effect that 21 Grams had upon me. Unlike the title that signifies the weight that we lose during the exact moment of death, I felt my heart becoming unimaginably heavy after watching it. It was the film that changed it all. It was the film that made me want to become a filmmaker.

They would never understand how much films like The Three Colors trilogy, Cinema Paradiso, Apocalypse Now, Empire of the sun and 2001:A Space Odyssey influenced me and made me decide to set myself a mark in film-making.

They would never understand the shocking blows that The Lunchbox, Ship of Theseus, Kattrathu Thamizh and Charulata landed upon me at a time when I was under the completely wrong notion that Indian filmmakers were never capable of producing works of art at par with the foreigners.

They would never understand how much a movie like Udaan helped me at a phase in my life when I did not know how to deal with my passion that kept burning wild in my heart.

They would never understand how big a role a film like Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya played in preparing myself to be able to let go of my girl when she decided that I was not the correct person for her. 

They would also never understand how movies like Into the Wild, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty or The Motorcycle Diaries knocked me hard on my head and shouted in my ears that there was more to life than the mundane routines most of us go through.

They would never understand all these because to them, a film is nothing more than a film. They would never experience the life-changing moments that a film unleashes upon its viewer because to them, a film is nothing more than a film. They would find it difficult to understand as to how could a person take films so seriously but then again to them, a film is nothing more than a film.

Yes. I care more about camera angles and backlighting than 'Protein Engineering' and 'Cheminformatics' I am being forced to study, pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Bioinformatics.
Yes. I care more about Inside the Actors Studio than our monthly Bioinformatics conferences here at college.
And definitely yes. Satyajit Ray, Bala, Mysskin, Anurag Kashyap, Inaritu, Kurosawa are closer to me than most of the people I interact with everyday.

But again, they wouldn't understand all these, would they?

That day, three years ago...

Today, as I walked from my hostel towards our college canteen to have a cup of coffee, I saw a boy and his mom hugging each other firmly and crying profusely. The father, I presume, was consoling both of them and asking them not to create a scene. And a few feet apart from them, I could see another family holding hands together and crying silently (probably a family from a richer background!).

These were scenes I had gotten used to in the past two years I had seen new guys and girls being left at their hostels by their parents. And so, this time was no different from those. But these scenes never failed to bring a gentle smile on my face looking at the unsaturated affection of the parents on their kids. They also unconsciously brought to my mind the day three years ago when I stood in a very similar way, pleading and begging my mom to stay a few more moments, despite the security guard of our hostel continually shouting at the two of us that it was already half an hour past the time allotted for the parents to stay with their kids.

I still remember even the clothing I wore that day - an orange t-shirt over a dark-blue jeans. Even while entering the college premises with my mom, carrying more luggage than a boy would require even if he is left stranded on the Antarctic islands, I had not realized the magnitude of the situation. I had guessed that it was going to be very difficult being separated from home after having been showered limitless affection for the 17 years I had spent in it. But that moment, as my mom stood a few feet away from our hostel entrance and lifted her hand to wave me good-bye, it seemed as if my world had come to an end.

It had all seemed so normal earlier.
We had entered the hostel and as a few volunteers helped us identify the room that had been allocated for me, my mom had quickly entered the room and had taken a good look around. None of my other three room mates had arrived. She had immediately looked at where the windows were, where the shelves were, where the tube-light had been fixed and had immediately placed the luggage on a cot that was according to her, the best one with the ample light, the ample breeze and closer to the shelves. My poor mother didn't know then that in hostels, your bed is not just your property but it easily becomes the property of every one of your friends.

Anyways coming back, she had started to take my things out of my bags and spreading out old newspapers on the shelves, she had started arranging the things - the highest shelf belonged to the respectful idols of Gods, the second shelf was filled with daily-used products like oil, comb, etc. with the lowest shelf provided to my clothes, which had two more newspapers covering them once they had been arranged neatly, to protect them from dust. She had then started giving me instructions, for the seventh time since the day I had got an admission to my college and it had been confirmed that I had to stay at the hostel, about all the things to do and not-to-do at hostel. Even now, whenever I think about all those instructions that my mom had given me, I just can not help laughing as none of those instructions seem possible at a hostel - like for instance, the most important thing she stressed upon was for me to go to bed early by around 10 pm and wake up everyday by around 6 am. Now, after all these years at hostel, even for a single night, when I try lying down and pulling my blanket over my head at any time around 10 pm, the first thing my room mates ask me - "Are you not feeling well?"
It is an unwritten rule in hostels that the sleeping time starts only after 12:30-1 am and anytime you sleep before that, the people around automatically assume that you are not feeling well. And when a person wakes up anytime before 7:30 am for the classes that start everyday by 8:40, he is considered an insomniac.

But my mom did not know all these unwritten rules about hostels then and she had kept giving me instructions in length. I had kept nodding at every pause she gave between each of the instructions. As she had finally ended her 'instruction' session after about 20 minutes, arrived one of my room-mates. The parents had greeted each other and had started exchanging their working and residing details. I had looked closely at the guy who was going to be my room-mate. With his hair cut to its shortest, rectangular spectacles resting over his nose and a wide grin, he had looked the picture of innocence and obedience. I  had forced a smile upon my face and shook his hand lethargically. "My son is a very good boy. But this is the first time he is going to stay away from me. So, you must also take care of him a bit", said my mom to that boy. "That guy himself looks like he needs to be taken care of. And you want him to take care of me?" I had asked my mom after we came out of the room. "Don't talk like that. You are going to stay in a  hostel and you need to change this arrogant attitude. That boy seems like a very nice fellow. His mom also told me that he is very studious. So you better become good friends with him and both of you start helping each other out in your studies once the tests begin", she had said. I had not wanted to oppose my mom and become a victim of another of her advice sessions and remained silent. But I had not had even the slightest idea then that I would go on to become very close friends with that guy and spend most of my time at hostel, bunking classes and watching movies with him, to my mom's horror later. As my mom and I had slowly descended the stairs from my room to the hostel entrance, I had slowly felt my heart becoming heavier.

But it was only as I realized that my mom was going to leave my side in a few minutes and I had to spend the next month and a half before the 3-day holiday to visit our homes that I felt my entire body trembling. I quickly grabbed my mom's hand. She looked at me and looking at my face that had begin to sweat, she understood my panic and patted me saying that it would be alright soon. I had little confidence in her words and we walked silently to the entrance of the hostel. The security guard near the entrance shouted to my mom that she had to leave as it was past the allotted time. My mom gave him a nasty look and gave me a quick recap of all the 'to-do and not-to-do at hostel' instructions (eighth time!). I was not in a mood to nod to her instructions as the feeling of loneliness had already started to sink in. I just kept looking at her, my eyes ready to open their tear-gates. My mom once again comforted me saying that it would become a very liked place by me soon and handed me a few hundred rupee notes and her ATM card, saying that she would deposit further cash in her account. I couldn't understand how my mom could be so clear-headed even then. Wasn't she undergoing any kind of emotional turmoil inside? Did she consider it a relief to be separated from me? A lot of questions kept bouncing around my head as tears flooded my eyes. I had told myself earlier that I was going to be a man and not shed any tears but at that moment, it seemed impossible.

"Aren't you going to cry?" I asked my mom, who kept patting on my shoulder trying to console me. She was a bit taken aback by my question and let out a chuckle. A few minutes later, as the security guard started shouting very harshly at my mom asking her to leave, she kept forward the steps that marked our separation.

As I unknowingly smiled remembering all these that happened that day three years ago, I looked at the guys who were crying holding onto their parents and thought to myself that they too would soon be smiling some time later remembering the incidents that happened on their first day of hostel life.

After all, a hosteller might forget even his last day at hostel but he would never forget his first day there.

Spicy Capsicum Biriyani

From my grandmother’s diary:

Ingredients:

Onion – 1

Capsicum – 2-3

Beans – 5-6

Carrot – ½

Potato - 1

Garam masala – 1 tea spoon

Salt – ½ - 1 tea spoon

Garlic- ginger paste – 1 tea spoon

Chili powder – 2 ½ tea-spoons

The most important ingredient – One good-for-nothing grandson

Procedure (Never ever follow this):

Before you wash your vessels and get them ready to cook, wake up your good-for-nothing grandson who is busy watching Alia Bhat’s Offo number for the nth time and ask him to help you. He might first try to give extremely silly reasons to avoid coming to the kitchen to help you and when he does so, please do let him be and never ever call him again. Because, if you do, you might regret it for the rest of the preparation.

But unfortunately if your grandson agrees to help you, never ever start by giving him a carrot. If you tell him that half a carrot is required, there is a very high possibility that your grandson might bite and eat away half the carrot and try to hand you the other. If this occurs, be clever enough to drive your grandson out of the kitchen. If you allow him to stay further, be prepared for the worse.

As you give your grandson the cut pieces of the red, green and yellow capsicums and ask him to cut further, please take care that he is really indeed cutting them. Because there is a very good chance that he might be trying to cut and arrange them in such a way as to bring out a ‘vegetable face’. And amidst all this, as you sincerely try to peel the onion and as a few tears drop, please don’t lose patience if your grandson tries to crack one of the worst jokes you have ever heard about the onion-tears.

You finally realize that your grandson is no good with vegetables and decide to just give him the simple task of adding tea-spoons of salt and chili powder. But before giving him the task, do make sure that the fellow is not messaging someone on his mobile. If you fail to do that, you will notice after a few minutes that instead of the 1 tea-spoon salt and 2 ½ tea-spoons chili powder intended, 2 ½ tea-spoons salt and 1 tea-spoon chili powder would have been added by your distracted dear grandson.

Even after all this, if you somehow manage to stop yourself from driving your grandson out, kudos to you! But if you are one of the very patient ones still managing to seek your grandson’s help, you might probably decide that the only thing your grandson could probably help you with might be in the decoration process and might hand him over the cashew nuts so that he might carefully break them in halves for the decoration. But while handing him the cashews, please be sure to mention to him that they are for the decoration and needed to be broken into halves carefully. If instead, you hand him the cashews thinking he might understand the purpose and get busy in preparing the dish, your grandson might leave the kitchen with the cashews only to return a few minutes later to say that it had been a long time since he had eaten cashews fully.

At that point, you lose your patience and finally apologize to him for having called him to the kitchen. He might say that he could help further but if you don’t want to throw the entire dish you are preparing into the trash can, please do drive him out. For the next half an hour, it is up to you to lessen the effect of the extra-added ingredients and increase the effect of the missing ones. Eventually, as you finish cooking the dish despite your grandson’s ‘very helpful’ efforts and go to his room and serve him the dish on a plate and ask him to taste it, you might get such a comment:

“It’s really good but it could have been a bit more spicy.”

Don’t lose your patience. Just smile politely and ask back the plate and add about 3-4 tea spoons of chili powder and hand it again to him. Few moments later, you might find your grandson rushing to the refrigerator and pouring water in his mouth like he has crossed the entire stretch of the Sahara desert.

‘Revenge is best served cold’, they say. But sometimes, when occasions present themselves, revenge is also best served hot!