jobless

Thatha... what a misnomer!

ok this post has been long overdue.. and after yet another sleepless night i have come and plonked myself in front of the computer to write this out.. its 1 30 in the night here and am feeling a bit hazy and i have pink floyd running on youtube in the back ground.. so pls forgive a few grammatical or spelling mistakes that may occur..
i write this post as the person this post is about, sleeps happily next to me, totally not disturbed by the light from the computer.. my grandfather, who is 80 years old and has lost all teeth, has been living in tanzania with mom and dad ever since my grandma passed away two years ago.. his life has been a mixture of ups and downs after that.. he was rushed to africa in a confused and shocked state of mind and had to get over his wife's demise in a whole new environment.. he did this with unparallelable grace..
he made sure his life was not cornered to this house in tanzania.. he made sure he read all the news papers available to him (he has even cajoled a few friends of his to bring kumudam and anandha vigadan whenever they go to india) he has given each person in the apartment a nick name including my dad! which he told me secretly at first :)he links the US politics so well with the events in the apartment that he'd do well to advise senators on their election campaigns.. apart from linking US politics, he also supports Obama and has prayed that he or his grandson, will break a coconut at a pillayar koil if Obama wins the election..he became so sad when benazir bhutto was assassinated that he went and took bath as a sign of mourning..in dar es salaam (the city where my parents live) there werent street lights on the roads that ran along the beaches, and since our apartment is along one such road, our road doesnt have street lights.. When george bush visited this place recently, street lights were put up instantly.. to this day, my thatha refuses to refer to those lights as street lights and insists on us calling them "bush lights" too..

every friday morning, he waits for dad to wake up and then asks him "inda weekend enga porom" and it sounds very much like a kid whos asking his parents what they will gift him for his bday..he used to take classes on bagavatham and has a lotta friends (i instantly started calling all the women in that list his girl friends to which he offers his toothless grin which is a favourite among the ppl in the apartment. )
he comes out with us wherever we go but insists on sitting alone at some place where he can watch ppl and kids playing.. while we take a walk or do whatever we went there for.. last week there was this place where they were chanting Sahasranamam and we asked thatha if he wanted to go. he said he got bored at such places and that he wanted to go to Slip Way, a beach resort where he could eat popcorn... and thats wat we did..

naturally all this made me feel he was very happy.. last week one early morning, at around 5 30, i woke up for a glass of water and on my way back to the bedroom i saw thatha sitting on the sofa staring at a photo of my grandmom.. it was a very profound moment and just as i thought i should leave him alone, a solitary tear crept from a soul that was probably even more solitary..i was blessed with a peek into the other side of thatha's world.. a world where he was alone because a huge part of it was ripped off.. a world where he held long cherished memories of his beloved wife.. a world where everything seemed perfect till a few doctors and his son told him that his wife had cancer...a world that crashed on him one sad day leaving him to fend for himself.. a world where his son and daughter in law and grandchildren tried their best to enter with all the love they could provide only to find the gate closed... a world where he felt he was being a burden to the ppl around... i'd recently read this book called "Tuesdays with Morrie" which moved me a lot and i could completely understand the amount of loneliness he must have felt.. i decided at that very instant that i was never going to let him feel lonely as long as i am here.. i made sounds of waking up and went and sat next to him. he looked at me and said "u shudnt be up so soon.. its not a good habit.." i took this as a cue and asked him to move to the edge of the sofa and lay down on his lap and we started talking. we talked for an hour and a half straight. we talked abt profound things like paatis life, mundane things like the plans for the weekend and even my specialization in the MS! the conversation was only interrupted by my parents waking up. they had no idea of wat'd happened. the next day i kept an alarm and woke up at 5 30 to find him already awake. he was again surprised and pleased to see me and moved to the end of the sofa when i asked him to and i lay down on his lap again.. the next day when i woke up, thatha was all set and waiting for me, this time on the corner of the sofa.. after his toothless grin he said "enga ezhundu vara matiyo nu bayandundu irunden.." that made my resolve to get up early for him even stronger.. and i am proud to say i havent given it up til date.. mom and dad soon figured out wat was happening and have learnt to respect it. they make throat clearing noises when they are about to come into the hall :)

i have been waking up early to keep him company.. to let him know that he doesnt have to face life alone.. to remind him that there are ppl who love him a LOT for what he is.. and will continue to do so till i get back to india.. after that i may not be able to keep him company but i know for a fact that the memories of the time we shared will keep him company for a long time to come.

i dont know if i should curse myself for giving him one more person to miss or to praise myself for giving him one more memory to cherish.. i dont know if he will feel worse when i leave.. but i do know that i made a change in his life. i gave him happiness fr a fortnight and it has made a change in his life...and the knowledge that i was able to make a difference in the life of an 80 year old man means the world to me.. we become so entangled in our life that we rarely pause to think what people around us feel.. or even what we think when we are alone for that matter.. this post is aimed at reviving those emotions because without them life is not lived to its fullest.. atlast i can now go sleep.. i have only 3 and half hours of sleep if i hope to be awake for thatha in the morning... goodnight and sweetdreams :)

College revisited... and OH the pain!!

as some of u know i was whiling away my time (helping out natraj sir with his phd in data mining or so i claimed) in cbe. when i first entered the hostel, it was around 8 30.. and students were walking/running to class (i thot at first that their speed is actually a parameter that can be used to measure their level of sincerity but then i realised that there can be conditions like unfinished assignment to be copied, last benches to be reserved, gf's/bf's to be seen etc in which cases a soul can be totally pardoned for wanting to rush to college..) i then walked past the n block grounds my mind whirring with different memories, some distant, some that seemed like they'd happened just yesterday.. i suddenly realized i was feeling philosophical and it was totally unlike me.. i then began thinking abt how poor these ppl were to go to coll when i could sit and idle away my time and a feeling of dumb euphoria overcame me.. a few more students rushed past.. a couple of them complaining abt how lethargic i seemed and debating whether i'd bunked or not.. one of them was observant enough to point out i was wearing a round neck t shirt and was probly a junior hoping to join the coll.. (bloody hell!)later that day i planned to go to the lab and see nat sir so i could get started on working (i can hear "yeah right!"'s).. i had no id and was surprised none of the security asked me for one.. i noticed that a lotta parents were waiting anxiously near the e block.. i caught the lift and went to the fourth floor admiring the bridge and a girl walking on it. i entered the lab and our juniors were sitting there as vetti as we were.. i pushed the door in and stood uncertainly searching for nat sir.. and one of our juniors, i dont know her name, gave me a v condescending look and said "BITSAT ENTRANCE THIRD FLOOR LA PA" (that brought an end to my dumb euphoria.. ) i mumbled weakly that i'd passed out and was her senior and walked off to the terrace :(from then on a few of our juniors have begun recognizing me. a few even ventured far enough to ask me how to prepare for placements for which i gave them a lotta bullshit anyway. there was this junior (lets call him junior_1) who asked me if i was planning to go to the US to which i ob very proudly said yes and that i was going to go to ohio state university.. he asked me if i dint get into IIT chicago cos thats where his cousin was apparently.. i patiently explained to him that osu was a better college etc etc.. he then asked me for my cg and i grudgingly told him the obscene number to which his reply was "ivlo cg vechu ungalukku dual eh kadachirukkume na?? why are u going to the US?" i felt it would be justified if i decided to jump off from the 4th floor.i then learnt two of our juniors are planning to write their gre and do their MS.. i hunted them down and spoke to them and then asked them wat their area of interest was.. they replied "area of interest ellam illa na.. we dint get jobs in cts, tcs or any other company so far.. our cgs are 6.8 and 7.1.. so only we are writing gre.." i could totally pardon junior_1 for asking me such a question.. i stopped trying to talk to our juniors after that and only responded to wat they asked.. so a warning to the 7 of u who are also going to the US..if our juniors ever ask u abt gre, tell them ur company, or in some cases ur cg first (do u read kona mooka?) :)that day i bumped into sisty in college.. he'd come cos his sister had got an admission in msc sftware.. a feeling of camaraderie swept thru me when i saw him. i dint tell him abt my distressed state of mind knowing fully well the bugger would take advantage of it :)anyways... the whole experience wasnt wat one with a sane mind would call delightful.. working with nat sir was the only compelling factor.. it was fun, exciting and v enlightening.. i worked in psg tech for the first time.. and enjoyed it..

(H)air India

i am proud and pleased to say that i have arrived safe and sound at the dark continent.. it is indeed a feat considering i came by air india... my flight from hyd which was to start at 3:00 am (wat kinda crazy airline schedules flights at these unearthly hours!) was delayed by an hour for no apparent reason. i sat bleary eyed with a coffee (that made my wallet a whole lot lighter) and kept scanning the airport for some pleasant sight.. no weak pun intended.. there were a few ppl leaving to the US for their masters.. all of them already developing an accent.. apart from that there werent many interesting ppl. one more coffee and a few phone calls (that resulted in a lotta bird words) later a fat guy with a burger in his hand called out my flight number and asked the ppl going by that flight to pls be a bit more patient cos the flight was delayed further.. this time for 'technical reasons'.. like that made it easier for us to wait... now a lotta ppl there dint know english and when he called out their flights number, they started forming a huge queue.. the poor fat guy had to abandon his burger (which i eyed wistfully) and go tell each person in his or her native language that the flight was not scheduled to leave until later...the boarding call finally came at 4 15 in the morning.. and i entered the flight.. now the reader has to bear in mind that the author hasnt slept for a long long time and wat he is about to enter is going to be his home for the next half a day, and shud therefore forgive him for his sarcasm and irritation.. from the inside, the flight looked a little smaller than a coimbatore corporation bus.. i was ushered in by wat i could only assume was the sweeper.. fortunately for me i had a window seat and my adjacent seat was unoccupied (not so lucky some of u mite say.. but believe me after waiting so long for a flight without sleep, staring at burgers and then later discovering that air india chose wat was probly the oldest aircraft to carry u across the arabian sea, a good looking girl next to u is the last thing u'd want in life..) i sat wondering if this rusty old piece of junk could fly.. i dont remember the next few moments.. the next thing i remember is being woken up by the sweeper woman.. who, as u ob. guessed turned out to be the airhostess... now at the inception of this organization/company called air india, they hired a lot of beautiful ypung airhostess, had a good fleet of air crafts and gave good service.. apart from the service, nothing else has changed.. the airhostesses and the flights continue to be the same.. this sweeper woman gave me wat i can only assume was a smile.. it revealed wrinkles that looked not unlike the view of the grand canyon from google earth.. she wanted to tel me that the aircraft hadnt taken off yet and asked me if i wanted something to eat or drink.. i dared to ask her if i could have a coke to which she said "NO!" with a note of finality that tempted me to cower under the sheet even more.. it turned out that she dint have coke and it was only that and not her desire to prevent me from having it, that she'd said "NO!"i dont know when the flight took off.. i dont remember eating anything.. i remember waking up a few times wondering wat my mom'd have made for me when i got home.. on one of these moments of conciousness i remember the pilot apologizing for the delay as if he did it everyday.. his voice had no hint of apology and in that confused psychadelic state of mind i deemed it necessary to forgive him.. dont ask me why.. i dont know..i woke up hours later and started reading some book i'd taken. the pilot announced us to look to our right and i looked out of the window at a sight that is hard to forget for the reminder of my life.. i saw a sea of clouds like cotton wads floating below us and from the centre of the clouds, in all its divine majesty and grace, rose Mt Kilimanjaro, the angle of the sun making the snow look golden...it made me think how small the problems in life were.. i was complaining about how stupid the airline was and how much i had to undergo when there was this sight so majestic, so powerful, so amazing waiting for me.. the snow capped mountain is one of africa's many majestic sights and not everybody gets to see it from the flight.. so thats one thing i am thankful to air india for.. the flight landed in nairobi for refueling and i stared out of the window at the flat topped trees that are so typical of africa, and at the grasslands that are on either side of the runway.. those grasslands (thanks to national geographic) make u imagine that there are lions and cheetas behind them.. and when u think u see the grass moving, ur heart does miss a beat..the rest of the journey went without much ado.. i discovered to my delight that mom had made pappu mammam and vetha kozhambu... ate to my hearts content and slept.. went for a walk down the beach in the nite and sat there wondering at how big and bright the stars appear from here.. i learnt later that it is because of the lack of pollution.. and they call this place the 'dark' continent!anyways.. sticking to my main idea of the post, air india is desperately in need of a make over and i request the concerned authorities to.. wait a sec.. why am i writing like am addressing the editor of some newspaper.. ! i better go grab some shut eye.. i still havent gotten over the jetlag (always wanted to say this... :)

note

these are a few posts i wrote in other blogs.. i decided i needed a blog of my own and so have revived my long forgotten blog.. :)

A day in second year

"Wake up u bastard" i said to the slightly bulky form lying on the bed across the room, "its 8:20.." The bulky form moved and slowly sat up, and from beneath the blanket, a pair of bleary green/gray eyes looked at me as if i'd committed some mortal sin, mumbled something that sounded like "kakka yaapa" and went back to the form in which i found it when i had to use the 7-letter expletive. The 'slightly' bulky owner of the bleary eyes, Ashwin, had been my roommate for a couple of years and a co-conspirer (am too lazy to look for the correct word/spelling) in many of my frowned-upon-activities. "If u dont wake up now, you are going to top the list of ppl with attendance lag again" I said, poking him with a ruler that we used to turn out the light or to open the door or any conceivable not-so-constructive purpose a ruler can be put to use for. He finally sat up, peered at his watch for what seemed like aeons and let out his customary "SHIT" when the profundity of what the two thin hands of his watch could convey, struck him. I went out to wash my face because i knew there was more to come. We'd lately developed this habit of taking bath in the evenings so we could sleep late into the mornings b4 going to college and so it took us only five mins to get ready to go to college.
That morning was no different. After i'd satisfied myself that i looked remotely human, i went back to my room to take my bag (which had my ipod, a couple of novels and one scrawny notebook in which my various attempts at drawing were carried out in class when the novels were seized). I entered the room to a sight that became much more familiar to me later on.. Ashwin was on his bed, lying on his back, with his eyes shut tight and his mouth open wide. The lazy bugger had gone off to sleep again and was drooling away profusely on his pillow.
Somebody had to do something about this sleeping habit of his. Somebody had to be stern with him and change him..Somebody had to teach him the importance of attending college.. well that somebody was not going to be me. i sat down on the chair, removed my slippers, lay down on my bed and closed my eyes and welcomed the magical feeling of content that came to one who knew that, at that very instant, his poor classmates were slogging away to college, when he was going to lie down on a comfortable bed and sleep his ass off..

PS:The word "College" reminds me of only two main aspects.. one is Tek Music (our music band) and the other is the amount of bunking Ashwin and i did together.. My first blog is dedicated to the 'slightly' bulky bastard who made my college and hostel life worth living.. Those were the best days.. u know the rest... :)