The College Diaries #5

One fine night. 10:30 pm. My hostel room.

My roommate looked at me. I showed him a thumbs-up gesture. My other roommate got up from his bed and moved towards our locker. All the three of us gathered around. 
Inside the locker, along with the now-dust-ridden certificate holders, lay our stash. My roommate looked at me again. 

It was time for the mission. 

The three of us walked out of our room. The long corridor of our hostel wing that led to the rest-room was empty except for a guy, unknown to any of us, who was grinning widely, looking at his mobile screen. 

"Namma pasangal'la yaaru yaaru ippa paal kudikka povaanga?!" my roommate asked. I gave him the list. A list of four guys. Two of them belonged to the room opposite to ours. The door of the room was shut. One problem was eliminated. Or rather, two.  

"So intha room prechana illa. Ippa namma wing la concentrate panna vendiyathu antha 2 rooms thaan!" my roommate said pointing his hand consecutively at two of the rooms where our friends stayed. 

"Nee oru  room'ku po. Avan innoru room'ku pogatum. 5 minutes eppidiyathu manage pannunga. Yaarayum velila varra vidathinga. Naan poi porul'a eduthutu vanthuren!" I told my roommates. 
My roommates nodded and started walking towards the rooms. I shut our room door and walked towards the staircase. I had to reach the next floor and had to ensure that after I retrieved the device necessary for our mission, I had to reach my room without being seen by any of my friends in the hostel. 

About 4 minutes later, I was seated in my room with the lights turned off. I was waiting for my roommates. One roommate walked in just then. 
"Vaangitiya?! Yaaravathu paathangala?!" he asked me. I shook my head to signify a 'no' and led him towards our locker. Inside it, lay the device along with the stash. 
"Enna nu solli vaangina?" he asked me. "Harish nu oru friend ku venum nu sonnen. Avanuku ethum doubt vantha maari therla!" I replied. 
"Yaarra Harish?" my roommate asked me, puzzled. 
"Yaaruku theriyum?!" I answered him, smiling. He let out a laugh on hearing my reply as my other roommate joined us. He locked our room door as he entered. The three of us looked at each other, filled with excitement. 

Our mission was successfully underway.

We ensured that the windows were locked as my roommate placed a long waste cloth at the foot of our door. The stash was taken out of the locker, the plug of the device was inserted in the socket and we turned on the switch. 
A few minutes later, there was happiness written in capital letters over all our faces. Our mission was nearing a victory.

And then it happened. 
Two knocks on the door.

The three of us looked at each other terrified. 
But we had already planned as to what had to be done in the event of such an unexpected disturbance. My roommate grabbed the plug of the device from the socket, hid the device inside the locker and shut the locker's door. My other roommate ran to his bed and lay down on it. I jumped over my bed and played a random video clip on my laptop, inserting my earphones and pretending to watch it. My roommate pulled the waste cloth from the door's foot and waving it wildly in mid-air near the spot where the device had been placed, he threw it on the clothesline. He then checked if we were at our positions and walked to the door to open it. 

It was one of our friends. He entered the room and walked towards my roommate's shelf. "Trimmer eduthukaren!" he said as he reached the shelf. Searching around for a few moments, he spotted the trimmer and took it. As he was about to leave the room, he suddenly turned and looked at my laptop screen. 
The random video clip I had played on my laptop, unfortunate to our mission, had been the 'Baby Doll' song. 
With a loud "Daiiii..." exclamation, the friend sat down near me. I hit my forehead hard with an imaginary hand. The friend moved the video-player cursor to the beginning of the video as it played from the start again. My roommate gave me an angry stare. For the first time, probably, I wanted the video to end and after it ended, I let out a relieved sigh as my friend turned towards me smiling. 
However, within a moment, his smile disappeared and his face assumed a questioning look. 
"Etho oru vithyasamana smell varala?" he asked me. My other roommate let out a loud cough. I remained silent trying to keep my face blank. 
"Velila irunthu etho.." My roommate began but the friend had gotten up from my bed and had walked forward into our room. His nose shrunk and a moment later, he turned towards our locker. Slowly opening the door, he looked inside.

"Ada pavigala dai! Maggi pannitu irunthingala da neenga?!" he shouted, in surprise.

My roommate silently switched on the light and walked out of the room. I started staring pointlessly at the laptop screen as my  other roommate arose from his bed with a devastated look on his face.

Mission failed.

Twenty minutes later, 7 other guys had gathered in our room and had seated themselves on my bed and my roommate's bed. They were eating Maggi noodles from their drinking cups. 

My two roommates and I looked at the noodles left inside the electric heater. A small yellow lump lay at a corner. 
I looked at my roommate sorrily as he looked at my other roommate who looked back at me. Someone among the 7 guys played the 'Baby Doll' video clip on my laptop as a loud cheer erupted.

(The College Diaries is a shameless attempt to increase the number of posts in this blog in a short span of time and in the process, recall and cherish various instances and incidents of my college life that strike pain and pleasure in the heart in this last fortnight I spend here.)

The College Diaries #4

"Machi.. Hostel poga venaam. Konja neram nadapom da. Oru vishayam.. Enna panrathu ne therla.." A request from a friend on the way to hostel.
"Dai! Paal pidichutu room'ku vaa. Inniku oru prechana aagi pochu." A text message from a friend in hostel at 10 pm.
"Roll call yeppa unnaku? 8:30 ku thaane?! Apram enna.. Muditu okaaru. Pesanum!" An order of a friend at 7 pm, seated on a bench near the college entrance.

All such statements trigger a mixed feeling in me whenever I hear them. Joy that a friend is about to share a fragment of his living experience with me. Sadness that he has been made to encounter a problem in his journey.

One-on-one conversations have a magic of their own. 
While in a group, there might be an attempt to impress some member or an act of false vanity. But one-on-one conversations reveal the true nature. 
Words that are uttered, take birth at the heart. Not in a calculated way at the brain.
No effort is taken to justify an action. No effort is taken to glorify an action. An act of jealousy is explained as such. An act of insecurity is confessed as such.

One-on-one conversations also help you learn more about people. 
A person who seems like he could crack a joke even when in an accident tends to break down at the slightest hint of a problem with a loved one.
A person who seems like he could withstand a 35 hour secret service interrogation tends to collapse at a tiny hurtful remark of a friend.
And these conversations, on many occasions, steer back to the past which make them even more memorable. 

A tale of an impossible choice between a friend and a lover, a tale of not meeting the expectation of a parent, a tale of having been misunderstood by a friend, a tale of not getting the deserved recognition, a tale of inability to talk to a liked one, a tale of possessiveness since a liked one has a really close friend, a tale of having an artistic talent fade away with maturity, a tale of not having an aim in life, a tale of being constantly mocked at by classmates, a tale of feeling inferior to an intellectual friend, a tale of failing at one's passion - All these, however often they may be depicted in stories and films, always have managed to adopt an uniqueness when narrated by a friend. 

All such conversations that would involve me and any of my friends have always had the spoken-amount ratio of 9:1, 9 being the amount my friend would speak and 1 being, my amount. The main reason - I love listening.

Many people fail to experience the ecstasy of listening. 
When a person utters a statement, they hurriedly try to register their opinion or pass out their suggestion. They are in a hurry to make themselves heard which completely jeopardizes the objective of the conversation. 
A person opens up, primarily, because he/she wants to give the heart a vent. But most of such conversations are misunderstood as a cry for help or suggestion. 
There are, of course, conversations that call for a suggestion. But most people tend to open up for the simple sake of sharing and by the time they end their tale, all that they look for is an assertion rather than a suggestion. An assertion that their actions in their tale were right. An assertion that the way they want to proceed further is right. 
Our duty would lie in absorbing, completely, the tale and pointing out, politely, if there was visible a wrong intention/act instead of turning it into a discussion as to whose life is better or worse as is usually done. 
And I guess this is the reason that I am chosen by many of my friends for sharing their stories. Simply because I listen.

It pains me knowing that these one-on-one conversations would be coming to an end, at least, on a face to face basis.
There is definitely not going to be a shortage of friends as I move ahead with life but I believe that the problems that formed a basis for the sharing are what made the conversations special.

Life, in a short time, would become too serious to worry about a friend not wishing for a birthday at midnight or to worry about not being in the Facebook profile picture of a loved one.

(The College Diaries is a shameless attempt to increase the number of posts in this blog in a short span of time and in the process, recall and cherish various instances and incidents of my college life that strike pain and pleasure in the heart in this last fortnight I spend here.)

The College Diaries #3

As a hosteler, there are certain things that are prohibited. 

Falling in love with the mess food.
Setting a condition that a particular pair of jeans should be worn only twice.
Expecting a 500 gram Boost pack to last more than 5 days. 
Waking up before 8 am.

Of these, I started breaking the fourth law by the end of my second year. Not with the aim of excelling in academics.

The purpose was much more purer. 
A morning walk.

How did the idea of a morning walk take its root in my head - I know not. 
I neither have any issues of diabetes (I hope so) nor am I a person concerned with physical fitness. I guess the desire for solitude and silence was what led me towards this now-treasured routine of mine.

I have re-discovered the beauty of many a forgotten song during my walks. There is nothing more exciting than the beginning of an unexpected song as you take a turn leading to a long empty road. 

But the ultimate gift of a morning walk would be the undisturbed nature.

Leaves that dance in their branches like the supporting dancers of a 90's Tamil film romantic song, squirrels that keep running hither and thither as if in the wedding preparations of a close friend, birds that keep crowding at random places to disperse after a minute and conduct a meet elsewhere like a political party's members on an election day - all such moments lay waiting for the eyes of a privileged few like the health conscious joggers, the dark skinned old man riding on a Hero cycle to operate and start the motor pump and the sleep-deprived-colorfully-dressed security guards returning to their homes.

"The same route every morning.. The same locations and surroundings.. Don't you get bored?", One of my roommates asked me, one day, after I returned from my morning walk.
I gave him a simple answer (after which he gave me a Ada-Goyyale look). 

The path might be the same but every morning has been different.

And I meant every single word of my answer.

The sun would decide to show up earlier than usual, one morning. 

Another morning would symbolize a standing testimony to the previous night's rain.

There would be mornings when the weather would complement your mood.

You would come across a To-hell-with-life lazy dog enjoying its slumber once.

You would come across a not-so-lazy tree lizard another time.

A beautiful flower ostracized from its community would catch your eye on a morning.

Every morning I have walked has been unique. For reasons like the above ones. Also, primarily, due to the memories that get carried over from the previous day. Many happy ones and a few, sad.

It was during my walk today that I decided to post this. But after the decision had been made, a sad truth hit me. 
And it has begun weighing me down since its revelation.

I have only 13 more morning walks left at my college.

(The College Diaries is a shameless attempt to increase the number of posts in this blog in a short span of time and in the process, recall and cherish various instances and incidents of my college life that strike pain and pleasure in the heart in this last fortnight I spend here.)

The College Diaries #2

17 years. 
17 complete years I had stayed at home. 
And on one fine day, the 13th of July 2011 to be exact, I was suddenly left alone at my college hostel room to spend the next 4 years away from the comforts of home and, more importantly, away from my mother. 

But I had been given an option. A lifeline of sorts.
13th of July 2011 was a Wednesday and I had my TNEA (Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions) Counselling appointed on the Tuesday of the next week. I had 3 days - till Saturday, the 16th - to decide if I was ready for a hostel life. 
And this is the story of what made me stay back. 


When you are a boy and when you spend your eleventh and twelfth standards at school with a very close bunch of 5-6 boys - boys who do not have even a single friend from the opposite gender - the attraction towards the opposite gender tends to increase manifold. It increases to such an extreme point, at times, that when a girl borrows your pen for a moment, you start wondering as to why the girl chose you in particular for borrowing a pen and you start making assumptions if the girl has romantic inclinations. 
Trust me. These things do happen. Especially with friends who, after the girl returns you your pen and leaves, start making a huge fuss about such a trivial thing, shouting,
"En?! En correct'aa unkitta vanthu pen kekkanum?! Irukku.. Etho irukku da! Ithelaam elaarukum amayaathu machi!"
So much so for a simple ball-point pen. Phew!

But this had been the way my last two years of schooling had been. And after my mother left me at hostel on 13th July 2011, to make compensations for the solitude I guess, I would have fallen in love with even a girl who simply looked in my direction. 

2 nights and 2 days had passed since my first moment at my hostel room. I had taken a liking to one of my roommates. I had become close with two of my classmates. I also had a schoolmate who had joined my college and our friendship had grown stronger in the 2 days that had passed than it had in the 5 years spent at school together. Things were starting to look good but there still remained a yearning for home.

My schoolmate, who had come to my hostel room that night (Friday), in the midst of our conversation suddenly drew out his phone from his pocket and showed me the picture of a girl. The girl looked extremely pretty. I kept staring at the picture with a wide grin. 
"Ennoda 12th standard tuition center la thaan ivalum padicha. Ippa namba college thaan sernthirukaa. Romba close friend. College vantha 2 days'aa ivaloda night laan nallaa chat pannitu irukken. Nethiku night full'aa unna pathi thaan pesitu irunthom!". 
He paused to look at my face. I looked at him wide-eyed.
He let out a chuckle and continued, "Bayapadathe da! Inga college la ennaku yaaru romba close nu kettaa. So unna pathi solla aarambichu appidiye poiruchu."
My eyelids refused to decrease the width of my shock.
"But unnaku theriyuma.. Unna pathi pesa aarambichu avaluku unna nallaa pidichu pochu! Un number ketaa. Unnaku text panren nu sonna. Unnaku ok'va?!" He asked me.

My jaw dropped. 

My schoolmate placed his hand on my mouth and got up to leave my room. 
"Un number kudukren avaluku. Msg pannaa reply pannu. Bayanthutu vitturathe. Nalla ponnu ava." He said and left. 
I immediately grabbed my phone and held it firmly in my right hand. It remained so for the next one hour after which the first text message came from her. 

About 20 hours later, by Saturday evening, the two of us had become really close. As much close as two people can get over a night's conversation. My schoolmate had been surprised by the volume of messages we had sent each other and had started a pleasant tease. It was in such a situation that my mom called. 
The call reminded me of the decision I had to take. I looked at my schoolmate who was sitting nearby and my mind remembered, immediately, my roommate, the two classmates and my new friend. I replied happily to my mom that I had adapted to hostel life and convinced her that a hostel life would change my opinions about the real world. My mom, rightly, could not believe that I had undergone such a transformation in 3 days. But she was happy that her son had grown up and ended the call.

Adaptation to the hostel life, forming opinions about real world did matter. But frankly, the biggest motivation for my stay had been my schoolmate and my new friend. 
The conversations with the new friend continued that night and by Sunday evening, they had reached a new level. With a heart filled with happiness, I went to my schoolmate's room. Sharing with him all the text message exchanges I had had with our mutual friend, I asked him if he was okay with the three of us meeting the next day. His face suddenly bore an expression of panic. I asked him the reason for his panic. He did not reply. Leaving his panic aside, I picked up his phone.

"Enna da panna porre?!" He asked, his panic reaching a peak.

"Onnum illa. Oru phone thaan! Nee ava kitta pesi sollu.." I said, smiling, and started typing her number (I had memorized it by then). My schoolmate tried to grab the phone from my hand but I managed to keep it out of his reach.
"Dai.. Call laan pannathe da! Ava thappa nenachippa da! Phone'a kudu!" He started shouting. I did not understand his fear. But I finished typing in the number and pressed the call button. Exactly two seconds later, the screen flashed,

Calling.. 
Jim (roommate)

I looked at the screen puzzled. At the same time, I heard a phone ringing in my schoolmate's room. I looked around and saw a guy in a bed, nearby my schoolmate's bed, holding his phone and looking at me with an awkward smile. It was his phone that was ringing. 

My mind could not grasp the occurrences. I looked at my schoolmate. He had sat down by the corner of his bed, placing his left hand on his forehead with a blank look at me. I ended the call and dialed the number again. 
Again, it showed the same message. Again, the guy in the nearby bed smiled awkwardly. Again, his phone had started ringing.

It took me a minute to put together all the events and as my mind arrived at the conclusion, I looked at my schoolmate shocked. He turned away his face. I could not believe it. 

I had been prank'ed!

I silently placed my schoolmate's phone on his bed and walked out of his room. He came running behind me and started pleading forgiveness. I did not reply and proceeded silently to my room. That night was a very difficult night. 
But the next day, thinking about the prank and more importantly the replies I had sent, I couldn't help laughing. I went to my schoolmate's room that evening and we had a nice hearty laugh about it.

This prank, whenever I thought about it in the first year of my college, seemed a very funny and silly attempt at making me a fool. But as I recall it now, it seems much more than a prank. It could have probably had much more serious consequences but it didn't. On the contrary, it partially helped me in making one of the most important and probably, one of the best decisions of my life.

The prank, however immature it might have been, played its own part in making me stay. 
A life-changing prank, I guess, in that sense.


(The College Diaries is a shameless attempt to increase the number of posts in this blog in a short span of time and in the process, recall and cherish various instances and incidents of my college life that strike pain and pleasure in the heart in this last fortnight I spend here.)

The College Diaries #1

I was walking along with my friend across the playground of our college, last Sunday. He was about to vacate his hostel room and leave the college two hours later. An excellent corporate job awaited him.

Between the two of us, we had a little game. A game we always played whenever we walked across our college playground. 

At any time of the day, there would be, at least, 3 cricket matches being played amongst our college boys on the ground. My friend would select a particular match and ask me if the batsman on strike then, would hit a sixer or not within the time-span we crossed the playground. On many occasions, I would reply positively and at times, my answer would be on the negative side. If my prediction turned out to be right, I would win and if not, my friend. But it was the victory prize that mattered. 
If I won, it would mean that I would be the first person (between the two of us) to get committed in a relationship and if my friend won, he would be the first.

"Yess! Yess!! Six adichitaanaee! Saavu da!! Commit aagi, daily night, un kannu munaadiye 5 mani neram mokkai pottu kadupethraen paaru!" I would shout happily, if I won.

"Hello!! En pa!! Yaaravathu intha six'a paathingala?! Ayyo.. Ayyo.. Dai! Unnaku ithula kuda rasi illa da! Nee kadaisi varaikum solo performer thaan! Duet laan out of syllabus!!" my friend would say, if he won. 

The two statements above, as I typed them now, seemed very childish. But the game, for the two of us, would always be a very dear memory. The prospect of leaving the fate of our romantic lives to the batting skill of an unknown person, an equal 50-50 probability for success and failure - such factors seemed more than tempting.
And I always felt that the reason we loved the game was because the two of us knew very well that there was a very bleak chance of romantic success in either of our cases and we could carry on the game till the end of our college.

Which brings me back to last Sunday. 
The two of us had had our evening snack at our college canteen and were returning to our hostel. We had started walking across the ground and I who had been speaking to him in length about how people would be more competitive in a corporate environment, was suddenly caught off guard when he uttered this statement,
"Anga oru red shirt batting panraan paathiya.. Antha pitch! Enna sollre?! Six pogumaa, pogaatha?!"

It took me a few seconds to process his statement and I replied smiling, "Pogum da! Kandippaa oru six pogum!". 
We continued walking and we would have not taken even five steps ahead before which the red-shirt wearing guy hit a huge sixer on his off-side. I looked at my friend with a broad smile. His eyes had become watery. 
"Inime intha maari laam velayda mudiyaathu la?!", he said.

My heart sank, hearing his statement. He was right. We had played our last game. 
But I knew I had to change his mood. 
"Dai! 4 varusham mottai pasangalaa irunthathu pathaadha?! Innum vera velayadanuma?!", I asked him. 
He let out a laugh, wiping his eyes. We continued our walk towards our hostel with my friend happily recalling our earlier games.

About two and a half hours later, as I stood at our college entrance to bid him goodbye, I tried remembering our evening and I wished in my heart - probably for the first time I can truly remember - that I had lost the game.


(The College Diaries is a shameless attempt to increase the number of posts in this blog in a short span of time and in the process, recall and cherish various instances and incidents of my college life that strike pain and pleasure in the heart in this last fortnight I spend here.)

La la da pa da le na da na!

"Crazy about Kaara Aatakkaara (eyes-buried-in-love emoticon)^3"
"Mental manadhil - simply superb (normally-smiling emoticon) (blushing emoticon) (gleefully-smiling emoticon)"
"Aye Sinamika - ARR rules (hands-joined-in-respect symbol)^2"

The above mentioned phrases are a few of the many WhatsApp statuses I have come across since the release of the songs of O Kadhal Kanmani.  

Inferring from the statuses, Kaara Aatakkaara and Mental manadhil seem to be the stand-out winners of the album. Aye Sinamika seems to be in the next place followed by Paranthu sella vaa and Theera Ulaa, in that order. 
Reading the reviews of the album seems to indicate that the critics are inclined more towards the Naanae varugiraen track for Rahman's exploration of the Kaanada raga and Malargal Kaettaen for re-establishing how sweet and graceful Chithra's voice sounds. 

But there seems to be very little mention about the stunning piece sung by Rahman junior, A R Ameen - Maula wa sallim - and the fact simply pains me more every time I listen to it. 
The first time I listened to Maula wa salim, the feeble percussion filled background rhythm reminded me of another Rahman favorite, If I rise. But with every listening of the former, the love for it only seems to grow. 

Like it always does with a beautiful song in a language I know not.

****

There goes a story in the eleventh chapter of 'Genesis' from the Bible that claims of a time when all the people on earth spoke the same language. A group of migrants from the eastern part of the earth who had settled at a place named Shinar had decided amongst themselves to build a city with a tower so high that it would be an achievement and would also contribute to their name that would unite the people all over the world. But God, on seeing the city and the tower being built, had realized that as people with the same language, they would become extremely powerful and hence had decided to confuse their speech, making them unable to understand each other's language and had scattered them all over the world. 

"And the LORD said: 'Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they purpose to do will be withheld from them.
Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' "

****

People speaking different languages cite their differences as a problem for communication. But at times, a break in communication is what paves way to a deeper understanding. Words that make sense carry the burden of implications upon them. But words that fail to strike a meaning, touch us in a way an infant devoid of emotional baggage does.

"La la da pa da le na da na
Ve va da pa da le na la dumda"

These words sung by Lisa Gerrard for the song Now we are free are part of her idioglossia - an idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one person or very few people (as put on Wikipedia). 
But her words bond with me more than the words of my well known languages do. 

A very similar bonding arises on listening to Shosholoza from Invictus, Yerushalayim shel zahav from Schindler's List and even Mini-Sloths Sing-A-Long from Ice Age: The Meltdown.

I often wonder as to the reason of this bonding.
The musical element? The artistic connect that so mystically occurs with any great work of art? A yearning for chaos? 
But the thoughts always seem to point towards a very simple answer.

Perhaps, the real understanding lies in not really understanding.
Like it happens with a newborn.
Like it happens with nature.
Like it happens with ourselves. 

Musing on the sun

Every nature photographer has his/her own natural 'muse'. 
The sea. The sky. The leaves. The hills.
But irrespective of their likings and interests, every photographer would cherish one natural entity in particular.

The sun.

How could one not?

Imagine a leisurely walk on a road. The sun is about to set. As you walk on the path ahead ignoring the sunset, a tree captures your attention. A tree not burdened by foliage. The leaves that are so sparse appear to be waiting for their freedom. And as you slowly walk around the tree, standing at a spot that enables a direct face-off with the sun, you get to witness something poignant. 

Something that makes you happily sad.

Like when you find your puppy seated silently near the doorway with a sorry face after having erased the rangoli drawn ten minutes earlier.

Like when you find your kid brother's sketches of Pokemon characters on your school laboratory record note the day before the practical examination.

Like when you find a fallen flower filled with light life.