Curiosity..Should we call it curiosity?

It's another episode of an interesting story on my friend in Hyderabad dearly called as "HK".

Last time I did mentioned how curious he is. He won't rest until he finds a convincing answer for any query he got in mind. The word "Fate" has been pondering his mind for quite a long time. In one of his school classes his teacher mentioned about the fate. In Indian context, we call it as something written by god on the head of every human being. We believe everything happens based on what God has written on our head.

HK wanted to know, what is written on his head or somebody's head. He then heard somebody saying, the fate is written on the skull. He decided to get a skull, and after much effort he got a skull from a nearby crematory. He bought it home. His sister was much scared on seeing the skull. Obviously, the skull is the symbol of danger.

He started analysing it. He even tried to see what was on the skull using the lens also. He was not able to figure out what was written on it. Anyways he was not having any intention to drop it. He kept it in the pooja room. That should be the safest place, coz people seldom go there. He wrapped it in a cloth and kept in a corner of the room.

His mother one day found it. And there was a big hush. Everybody thought somebody has done black magic. They were all discussing to find out who might have done it. But HK's dad is much forward. He didn't take it as a black magic. When all were confused, HK came forward and said it was him who kept it in the room. A neat confession.

Everybody wanted to know why he did it. Some others were eager to know, how he managed to get the skull. HK's dad took him to the room and started questioning. It was not an interrogation, though. HK is a curious guy, his father knows it very well.

Dad: "Where from you got the skull?"

HK: "I got it from the crematory, I bought from the undertaker. I did paid for that too"

Dad: "Hmm..Why do you do that?"

HK: "I wanted to know, what fate is and what is written on his head".

Dad: "Who said to you that fate is written on head?"

HK: "The teacher"

After a small pause

Dad: "It's correct, the fate is written on the head. But you should be forty plus to read it."

HK: "Oh..so I can't read??!!"

Dad: "Yes, you can't"

HK was not going to leave it that way though.

HK: "You are forty. Read it for me"

His dad got in a trap. He was searching for a way out. He finally said

"One should be a genuine believer of god and shouldn't ever say lie in his life. Only yogi's can do it."

That answer convinced him.

Guiness Record

Well as everybody in IT do, I also changed my company after 3 years of stint with ITTI. New company, new faces and new enviornment. But what not changed is the work. Start tapping the keyboard the moment you enter the office...ufff. But new challenges, that is what makes the current work interesting.

Well its been 3 months since i made my last post. Thats quite a long gap. From now I should be making atleast one post a month. It seems making promises, wont ever work with me. Hmm..still I will try.
Enough about me, now let me get into what am here for. This time am gonna share with you an interesting real life incident my collegue shared with me. It’s worth writing here, you would be enjoying the post..Again promises!!! And as usual I shall try to make it interesting.

My collegue, is born an bought up in a remote village in Andra Pradesh. He says, those who had a chance to live in villages would have enjoyed the most of their child hood days. I completely agree with him, I treasure the memories of my school vactions at my moms place. I consider those as my best in my life.

My freind lemme call him as HK, is intelligent and is a kind of guy who asks many of the questions when it comes to tasks or working with new technology. One day after the Knowledge Transfer section, he came to me and we were discussing about technology. For some reason we slipped into our childhood days.
In childhood days our Raju was attracted much towards the Doordashan serials like Giant Robot and Guinness Book of world records. He was much particular about the Guinness book. He would not ever miss an episode of it. By seeing all the records created by people, he also wanted to get one on his name. He in fact had spent much time in burning his grey cells to find a much convincing way of getting a record of his own. After examining many options he decided to train a cock(read it as a male hen) to fly. He would be the only guy in the world who has a cock which can fly long distance.

It was festival time in his village. Usually as in any village in South India, they also got the famous Cock fight tournaments.

His neighbor has bought one cock aiming to win such a tournament. It was quite a huge cock, very muscular. Raju targeted this cock. He wanted to train it to fly. It was a vacation time for him, as usual in his villag.e people used to sleep for a while after having lunch. I guess this is a kind of habit for people in every village in India. He decided to use this time to train that cock for his record dream.

HK tried to catch the cock, well, the cock was much difficult to catch and as it is fighter. Our HK got enough from it. Somehow he managed to catch hold of the bird. He went to the terrace of his house, he also took a jute rope to tie the cock. One end of the rope was in his hand and the other end tied on one of the bird’s leg. He dropped the bird from the terrace. The fighter cocks have got a different body shape. Their wings are very short, but the leg and the neck are quite big. Their body fits for a fighter, and they never fly. The poor thing was trying to keep itself floating in air by beating its wings. But the fanning was not enough to keep its weight and literarilly was falling very fast. The rope was not having enough length to touch the ground. The bird was hanging. He pulled it up and repeated the same act for few more time. He was done with a day,s training and was confident that the bird would fly to some distance in a couple of week.

He did the training excersice for 8 days. On ninth day he found it very easy to catch the bird, it was sick and was not even in a position to stand. He decided to do training only two times for the day. This time he have a longer rope. He took the bird to the terrace, he dropped it. It didnt even fanned its wings. It fell very steep, and banged on to the ground. The body of the bird shook for few times and then no movement happend after that. He pulled it up. The bird was dead.

He didnt know what to do. He threw it down again and went downstairs, picked it up and kept it near to a bench in his neighbour’s compound. He was much disappointed, he couldnt reach upto the record. After few hours, he could hear the old granny of the neighbour’s house shouting. She was alleging, somebody had killed it and was showering abuses on the person who would have killed it.

HK also went to the neighbours and aslo joined with those people blaming the guy who had killed the bird.
His record dream ended there, but the thrive to do something different still pesists in him. Amasingly intelligent, he dives deep into every thing he gets. I should say, I found myself in awkard situation sometimes when I was not able to answer his queries.

How to live in Bangalore with Rs 10 in hand

As usual it was month end. No money in bank and no money in hand also. Well its the last day of the month, the day we used to get salary. I've got Rs 20 with me. How do I cater to my expenses for the day?

I usually used to go by auto rickshaw. That day i cant afford going by rick. I got into a BMTC bus to Lal bagh (gottu pay Rs 8). My office is about two kilo meters away from lalbagh. Took out my mobile head set, switch own my music player in my mobile and started walking. In 18 minutes i reached my office...Wow pretty good 2 kms and 18 minutes.

Reaching office, my first activity is to go to the petty shop. I cant start a day in office with out a good smoke..I just threw my eyes to find my friends there. Yes, I can see one of my colleague enjoying his smoke. I joined him, one cigarette was burned off. And my generous friend paid for my cigarette.

Well we used to come down from our office atleast 5 times for smoking. All the time I managed to get it paid by my friends.

It was lunch time. Lunch at our cafeteria would cost Rs 30. What was left with me? 12 Rs. I decided to go out with my friends. They used to go out. And as I was seldom out side goer, my friends paid for my lunch too.

Well with Rs 12, I gottu return home. I waited for my friend who goes my route on bike. Well I used to give him a company every day in evenings. Thus I saved my bus / auto fare for that day.

Reaching my place, I usually used to have tea from a bakery. I got Rs 12 with me. I had one tea and Paid Rs 2 for that. What left with me is Rs 10.

I manage to live with Rs 10, in Bangalore for the first time. Usually it used to be 100 - 200 a day. We used to prepare dinner at our home, nothing to bother about it.

A day with Rs 10 and that too in Bangalore is the biggest achievement.

Beware!!! Gals are big time pranksters

Guys always fall victims to sweet talks by gals. However tough the guys are; they are prone to all kind of blarney by gals. Well gals are you in agreement with me. Hear from me, a real incident, this happened in my early days in Bangalore.

I used to stay in Indira Nagar, this particular day I went to meet my friend in Madiwala. BMTC buses were my only commuting medium in those days. Well am returning back to my adda in Indira Nagar. I boarded on to a 201M bus. While in initial days, I used to get confused with these 201 busses. It took long time for me to understand those route codes. Well some of the 201 almost takes you for a full sightseeing trip around Bangalore. 201M would directly take me to Indira Nagar.

It was a weekend and there was no much rush in the bus. Almost all the seats were empty. From Koramangala water tank, two gorgeous gals got into the bus and they sat behind me. They started talking, (A universal fact, when two gals meet, they would be having lot to gossip), they were talking my language; Malayalam. Ooops, I was eager to see their faces and turned back. Hmm they never looked like mallus. Yeah the Bangalore effect, they've become polished. As I was sitting alone and I don't have anything else to do in the bus, I started overhearing their conversation.

Let me call them as Lakshmi and Meenakshi. And their subject was a guy and let me call him Gopalan.

Meenakshi: "You know, this guy Gopalan is giving me tough time at work. He always overloads me with work."

Laskshmi: "He is you team leader, how can you expect him to be lenient?"

Meenakshi: "Am a gal, he could at least consider that."

Lakshmi: "Well, let's give him a big treat. You do a sweet talk with him."

Meenakshi: "What? To him? He is hard hearted..I don't think he would fall in that. He thinks he is the only person who works in XYZ Company"

Lakshmi: "Lets give a try meenu"

Meenakshi: "OK, let me call him"

Meenakshi: "Hi, Gopal..this is Meenakshi here. How are you doing?"

Break…

"Well, I got some queries regarding the assignment you gave me last day"

Break

"Ha ha ha, we also used to spend some time on our official works in weekends"

Break

"Ok..wassup? wats going on this weekend"

Break

"So u r cooking now..I know what you bachelors cook…it must be 'Kanji and payar' (rice soup / rice pudding and cerals)"

Break

"Well, ask us…we are experts in that…a mutual deal…u help us in our work and we would give you expert on cooking"

Break

"ha ha ha…can we meet sometime in evening for a coffee…if you are not busy…well I know am not in your good books…excuse me if I over said something"…

Break…

"wow…that's cool…can we meet at 100 ft road Coffee Day.. "

Break

"Yeah in Indira Nagar..at 5'O clock.."

Break..

"Thank you thank you gopal..so sweet of you..then we will meet in coffee day.."

Break..

"bye..take care"

Lakshmi: "I said, he would fall…well I know guys.."

Meenakshi: "Hey, u've to come with me…am scared of this guy.."

Lakshmi: "Don't worry, we will manage it"…

And the conversation is goin on on and on

Well the devil in me got disturbed. I should do something. I pull out my phone and send a message to my roommate saying 'Pick my call and you just hear to what am saying. Don't cut unless I hang up the call'. After a moment I called him. My voice is raised enough to get these gals attention....and the whole conversation is in malayalam..he is not Gopalan anyways

"Hello, Gopalan…why no news from you these days"

Break

"Well..Is your kanji and Payar cooking completed?"

Break…he he he I realized, the gals have stopped talking and were hearing me.

"Well I know it buddy.."

Break

"By the way, you got a date today isn't it?"

Break

"Ha ha ha…I know it man…"

Break

"I donno her.."

Break…

"I've got extra sense buddy…meet me before you go for the date.."

Break…

"Well…We have to discuss before you go for date"

Break…

"ok maaan…I'll meet you in ur room".

Now am listening to the gals. Well no sound from them. Nothing…but big silence..I just kept my posture up..Never tried to turn around or look at them..

Bus has reached Domlur, and the gals have to get down here. They could've gone towards the back door, it was near for them. Instead they were heading to the front door. Reaching the door, they turned at me. I was wearing a devilish smile. They were also smiling, but it's not a smile though. They got down from the bus with puzzled look.

He he he, I could also play pranks.

I donno what happened after that. But one thing for sure, Meenakshi would had a tough time and obviously our poor Gopalan would have been in his heaven.

Well…another important tip for the guys.

If you find any of the gals collapsing in a meeting, go rush to them and do the required help. But bear in mind, this should not develop any kind of sympathy towards them. I heard, gals could easily fake illness just to get attention and sympathy. Thanks to my friend for educating me with these tips.

Two minutes blackout

I really don't know what happened to those two minutes in my life.

It was a Sunday evening and I was supposed to catch a bus to Bangalore at 8.30 PM. Though was busy with the whole days happenings I somehow managed to reach the bus station at 8.20 PM. Thanks to my bro-in-law. He drove the car very skillfully to take me to the bus station on time. All went in vain.

Well the bus is KSRTC Airavath Volvo. And usually the conductor would be scrutinizing the tickets before we board in the bus. On this particular day, I didn't find the conductor at the door steps. Its already 8.25, so I thought of finding my seat first and then show my tickets to the conductor. Mine was seat no 14. I put my baggage in the rack above the seat. I made myself comfortable in my seat.

There comes another guy. He also claims the seat is his. Whaat???. We started arguing. The conductor came and asked us to show the tickets. He examined the other guy's ticket and just returned it back. He then looked at my ticket. A wicked smile appeared on his face. He said, 'Buddy, the seat no is correct and the bus no is the same. But your journey date is tomorrow'.

I just clinched the ticket from him and looked at the date. 'Oh Maaan'…He is right. I really donno what happened next? The baggage was with me and I found myself standing out of the bus station with the tickets in hand. What all can I remember is the laughter of the people inside the bus.

I tried to recall what happened in those two minutes. I really can't get what happened. Two minutes are blank in my life. How I grabbed my bag? How I sallied out of the bus? I really don't know.

Now I called my manager. The worst part was to convince him. He happened to read my blog on morning blues. When I called him, the first question came was 'Did u miss the buss?' Well well am in deep trouble. I was cursing that moment which made me write the post on morning blues. You can't be honest enough on a public blog!!!. Well I somehow convinced him what really happened.

When I reach my home, all were looking at me. I can see the 'wonder' expression on their faces. I explained them the whole happenings. They started laughing. My mamma was concerned whether it would affect my job. My sisters were pacifying me and convincing me that it happens sometimes. My kid nephew was not happy, coz he got to hear me saying 'Write 5 properly on your work book'. (He can't write 5, instead he draws a star).

Cooking is an art

They say “Men who say they don’t know cooking; consider their wives as slaves. And women who pretend negligent to cooking are dominant wives.”

Hmm I don’t want to get into the first category; neither my roommates. We all got a passion in cooking. Rather speaking we always showed interest in doing culinary experiments. Most of the time it proved to be good and some other time we found ‘Cooking is injurious to health’.

When we started we all thought; cooking is nothing but cutting vegetables/meat and boiling. Later with our experience we realized timing and discipline is really required to bring forth a yummy dish. Hey!! Am not claiming us as seasoned cooks. We are not. But I would like to put some funny experience we had with our ‘Passion of Cooking’.

Pulav.

The idea was that of Praveen. Though a mallu, he is born and bought up in Delhi. He being a North Indian, we all decided to make pulav under his stewardship. So he is the ‘Chief Chef’ of the day. He started giving us the instructions. Asked us to cut the vegetables, wash the rice, and wash the cooker and so on. We all did those with utmost respect to our chef.

He started making it. We all were wandering around the kitchen to get the glimpse of the receipe and the procedure. He seems to be very confident and doing the things with heavy concentration. We thought of not bothering him. We were all waiting for the pulav to malinger on.

Finally he came out of the kitchen. He said ‘Five minutes guys and the pulav is all yours’. We were sure that it would taste good (He has proved his culinary skills already with Sambar and other varieties)

Time came for us to eat the pulav. We don’t have a dining table in our room, rather speaking we don’t have space for a dining table. So we used to sit on floor to have our food; the typical ‘mallu’ style. We did all the initial arrangements (spreading news papers and washing the plates n glasses). The cooker is still not open. Praveen opened it. He did put his nose inside the cooker. Hey ‘where is his head?’. He is still trying to catch the smell of the great pulav he has made. No smell of pulav. But still it should taste pulav. We all got our share on to our plates.

I had a mouthful, “maaan”. I was looking at other guys. They also were wearing same kind of expression. What does it taste like? I really can’t put those in words. If at all I try, it would be like ‘Eating raw rice with raw vegetable parts’. We all started bullying him. Poor Praveen, he was still looking at the pulav he has made. No expressions and he has gone dump for some time.

He is still confident, “I would make ‘real’ pulav some other day”.

We made biriyani also. It is worth detailing. Expect that here some other day. Bye for now..

They control my thoughts and emotions

Today is my birthday. 10592 days in this beautiful world. God is great and all thanks to him.

Birthdays for me are to retrospect the years I lived. Memories come gushing. Many things I've accomplished and lot more to do. When I walk down my memory lane, the first of effigies which appears in my mind is my friends who have made my life so happening. So that I've started writing now, it would be unjust if I am not writing about my friends. Friends, who have influenced me a lot.

What do they do to me? Quite simple, they imbibe my thoughts and emotions just like a vacuum cleaner. They clean it with most superior methods and machines, apply some finer perfumes and they put it back in my mind. Now my thoughts are made superior. Yes they control my thoughts and emotions.

Some of them live exclusively for their friends and family. Their priority is their friend's well being. Their coterie is quite big, but still they ensure that they are concerned about me. They taught me the way to make new acquaintance, to be open and talk to others. Reading between lines and analyzing peoples are the tricks I learned from them. They are crazy and naughtier too..Am indebted to them, for making my life even better.

Many a times when I was in deep trouble, when my relatives were mere sympathizers, I get a call from Dubai. 'Hey man, Is everything ok with you?'. They chip in whenever required. They taught me, how one should be determined and fight for the feeble hope. They say 'Am the precious one they've got'.

Keeping in touch would be very hard while the years pass by and is said to be an art. They are really good in maintain contacts, where ever they are. We, from time to time meet, in somebody's marriage.

When I go a bit off track, my friends call me to put me back in path. Their occasional visit to my room and my home really makes me a good man.

While at work, I got managers who are not just managers but friends, really thick friends. Always guiding me and correcting me. My boys are my buddies. The little to big fights we have entertains us very much technically.

A whole day of tiring work would be annulled when I reach my room in Bangalore. Those kids cracks instant jokes and are best prank players. We enjoy every moment while we are together and the occasional trips as part of our whole Karnataka tour programs makes our bonds deeper.

A small post is really not enough to describe about them. The list would go on and on. I could write a series about them.

Many are living abroad, they live their lives but they live my life also. 'Thanks' is not the word to be used to express my gratitude to them (hmmm….i won't ever say thanks…I got enough for saying thanks to them..They whack me if I say thanks)

Friends you make my life, you've got the power to control my thoughts and emotions