I have done it!! Pulled an all nighter this weekend, to get up to date with my research…

Wow, this is what it is to sock out the “geek” in me and wave her a friendly welcome into the enchanted(?) world of academia. Enchanted, all right.

Part of the reason I stayed back was because I did not want to walk back to my apt. that night. Nope, not security issues. Rather, it was the weather. I managed an hour of sleep, guess where! in the couch in the restroom (thats a dignified way of saying that I spent an hour of the night inhabiting a worn down sofa in a bathroom in my department, after making sure that the heater temperature was well above 32 C.)

Its so f***ing freezing out there. I dont want to walk to univ, and when I get here, I shudder thinking about the walk back. Crazy crazy weather. Madison can’t quite make up its mind. It snows, sunnies out, clouds over, and then, there are the blizzards. Enough to screw up an already muddled, sleep-famished brain.

There was this night when I walked (ran, slipping on sleets, would be better) back home, when it was a crazy -26 C outside. And a point for guessing, yes I was wondering why I dint stick to Chennai. I miss the heat, the sweat, the warmth.

Brr… what all should a soul do to gain enchantment! I guess, that, means getting educated.

The Universe that we live in, is alive. It lives, feeding on our emotions.

Nope, it ain’t a monster. it’s just that emotion = energy in motion.

What we think/act happens. Its obvious when we act/react and it manifests. But, more subtle is the fact that thoughts are powerful, and are actually “actions” that will evolve when they should. We “subconsciously” decide when they should.

A thought out there:- trust your inner powerful, playful, spiritual, learning self. Your spirit and the higher awareness of you.

You know better than any other person about what is going to happen next. Yes, even on the Crab Nebulae.

They only person you have to reason out to, try to make peace with, and follow is yourSelf.

(Which translates to mean that you can decide that all I wrote is crap and laugh.)

Out of all the million songs so far, I am hooked onto this – Iktara

CoFFee !

Addicted! My parents are going to be shocked if I say this, am as addicted to coffee as the local Indian ‘kalla chaarayam’ addict is to alcohol!

Morning, noon and night, and every excuse in-between. Am sure I have ingested every type of coffee that the local Madison delis can offer, a million times, according to my bills, but every time is a fresh awakening of the senses.

Grad school bums live on Top-Ramen, according to Piled Higher and Deeper. Modification. We live on tons of coffee, and as for me Maggi (Only maggi that is imported from India has the vegetarian version   and I miss Ramen).

Cold, hot, flavored, strong. Any coffee, any time. Even at 2 in the night, followed by Maggi. Or the other way around.

Ah, Coffee, my love, where would I be and what would I do without you?

This is just a clarification to people out there who have been confused about what I have wanted to do with regards to Astro —

Wikipedia states that -

Astronomy is “the study of objects and matter outside the Earth’s atmosphere and of their physical and chemical properties” .

Astrophysics is “the branch of astronomy dealing with “the behavior, physical properties, and dynamic processes of celestial objects and phenomena”.

Astronautics is “the branch of engineering that deals with machines designed to exit or work entirely beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. In other words, it is the science and technology of space flight”.

Aeronautics is “the science involved with the study, design, and manufacture of flight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft”.

I am interested in the first three. Aeronautics, well, not very imaginative.

Also deeply interested in a fourth Astro… Astrology…. I guess it has something to do with the term “Astro”. It triggers my passion (almost quoting from a jean ad).

By the way, while wikipeding (as there is a googling, there will be a wikipeding from hence), I came across Astro Yogurt – a dairy product from Canada. How nice to have curd that is christened such.

Any ideas on how I can import it in?

…Trudging on… uncharted paths…

Oh Well. I know. I am doing something different again. I am actually breaking into the FOF series and not caring much.

It is, not because I got tired of the starting threads that Karz and Pari posted. It is, not because I am creatively exhausted (bah!).

It is because, I am sitting here, have been staring at this pathetic imprint of mine in blogosphere, and been wondering why it has been in a state of coma for the past few months.

Actually, I don’t know. I lost interest, and here it is, reviving again. And I guess it is going to continue on …. cheers to me!

It is fascinating, to be surrounded by stacks of great smelling new scratchpads and those huge reference tables (thermodynamics, again). I guess I stopped growing, mentally of course, after the age of 5. As far as I can remember, I am yet to come across a kid older than 5 who is excited by new notes. Back then, at 5, all I did was scribble.

My friends tell me that all I do now is the same too. It is insane, but I am obsessed with writing. I can never find a clean neat sheet of paper when I need it because everything would have been written on. Go ahead, blame me for ecological destruction, but oh! I so love books.

Am back to university. It is exciting. And research is great. I mean, I realize that at the end of my eventful life, I may have contributed laughable snips to knowledge, but I am trying my best.

Weird, my post seems to have followed my thought process. I guess that was mundane, a small look into what was running in my mind.

Been waiting for a mail. Should get back to coding my program. When i get stuck again, I promise to blog.

Remember, blogs are beautiful when updated occasionally, and not like a fanatic. Not like I was before.

Right now, I’ve got a writers block. Feels like a brick simultaneously hits my head from outside, just as my inside grey matter learns by itself to get queasy and shrivel, wither to nothingness.

Till then people, I thought it reasonable to put up a post announcing that Vindhya (yae, yours truly) will soon be bang on track. If you have any suggestions/comments/criticism, put them up, as you all always do.

I don’t actually care if you all splog my blog (thats spam + blog, for anyone other than AV who doesen’t know).

The block will soon get unblocked. Hopefully. Or I am willing to try any other method than those drain unblockers, for want of a suitable technical word.

Thanks.

“Uh !
I hear a mechanical voice state the time – “1.00 a.m”
My senses are numb. My hands are bound by a straitjacket.
I see myself in a padded cell.
I walk over to the Louvre,through which a faint glow trickles in,
to see a reflection on the opposing metallic surface.
I see a face,a face that i can not recognize. Below that face is
a door plate which reads :
-Aaron Zelder
Amnesia
213 -
That must be me !
But who am i ?
Where are all my memories ? ”

[15 minutes pass by]

I see myself in a padded cell.Straitjacketed.
My senses are numb. I see a faint glow ….
[continue];
[infinite loop]; ”

Somewhere in that time, that has lost all its meaning, a wild surge grows within me. I do not know how else to express it, feels like I am watching myself perish into meaninglessness and the voidness that prevails death. The surge is furious, like the temper of a hundred suns stunned and withheld within me, and each one of them inside is threatening to come out multi-fold. I hesitate and miraculously, I command myself. Memories, I asked for them, did I not?

I know that this is not the first time that I am talking to myself. I am supposed to know that, am I not? I talk myself into walking up to the Louvre window, and I stare out. At least, I stare and realize what I am staring at. A glow, that is nothing but a reflection of the meek overhead bulb in my room. In my cell.

Mockery. Life had had a fantastic laugh over me and was still laughing. Who was I and how was me, were facts that returned to haunt me, now and then. I realize that my heart was still left where I had last seen it. In her smile.

And why, was I doomed to this life? Because of her?

Faintly, I realize that my body has lapsed into stillness. After all, it just stupidly followed my damn bunked brain. Why was I, the over surpassing mind and subconsciousness, left to provide myself a solitary companionship?

Someday, I will escape this wastrel of a body, this wasted flesh of a brain.

Again, mockery. Had I not been someone who had always prided myself to be of superior intelligence? Of brilliance and smartness that I vowed was unparalleled by my side of the Earth? Had not those accolades proved the facts? Those prizes that I never bothered tucking away with and instead always displayed proudly, elated, but never humble.

Arrogance.

And all it had taken was her. To shatter it, to shatter me. And to shatter herself.

Without any emotion, I trace back time to that day. And the nightfall. I do not go beyond it. I cannot. Strangely, I know that when I do, it will be time for me to say goodbye to existence. I cannot relive it. I cannot.

I hear a mechanical voice state the time – “1.30 a.m”
My senses are numb. My hands are bound by a straitjacket.
I see myself in a padded cell.
I walk over to the Louvre,through which a faint glow trickles in,
to see a reflection on the opposing metallic surface.
I see a face,a face that i can not recognize.

I sit down again, and I try not to doze off. Will I? I should not. It may spell danger.

I always liked that bed. Pretty frills, neat tucks and the low four posters. Baby pink and magenta. Lovely throw pillows. So what if I have outgrown the bed? It will always be mine.

So will my high chair, that I used when I was still a naughty kid. I was naughty, thoroughly. Naana always used to remember and narrate, and how I enjoyed laughing. She loved me. Truly. Miss you, Naana. Always.

Always spells infinity. and non-existence too. Ironical, time is an eon away. Time is non-existent. Am I repeating stuff?

Miss you Naana. You loved me. You said I was the best grandchild you could ever have had. But I outgrew your love Naana. I drew away from you, I know you missed me. I could see that pain in your eyes Naana. And I did not care. Sometimes, your eyes haunt me too.

Eyes haunt me.

No! Not like hers. Not like mamaa’s. What did I do? All that I did was put Zenas away, Mamaa. Put her away, out of the path, so that your love could be all mine. I was your first daughter, I still am. And now, I am your only daughter. It is glorious. But you…. your eyes.

I did not want to kill her, just take her out of the path of our love. I loved you, mamaa. You and daddy. But, you never realized my pain after she came. You named her like me, Zenas! A unisex name, that you thought your daughters could double up as virtual sons too. No. Not her. I could, but she should not.

Wasn’t I too grown when she came along? I was your only ray of light and then, she was there. Like a lightening. And that night, after that party, I hated it all. So much attention to that miserable bundle of 4 years. And she slept in my favorite bed. You think I was happy when I set fire to it? I hated seeing that bed get burnt. Trust me. I hated seeing that bed going black.

But she smiled, mamaa. She smiled before she felt it. Smiled at me. And when you came in, your eyes….

I have relived it. Somehow, I am numb. That is the only feeling that always registers. Without change.

There is a light somewhere, mamaa. Something like that day I was lost in the fog and then I saw light when daddy came out with the lantern. I remember rushing to him from the corner of the road. But I was too young then. Now the light is brighter. Wonder who is holding it. It gives me peace. Like the light at the end of a dark dark tunnel.

At the end…

Now. I want to be with you, mamaa. Not here. Not isolated. You never come to see me. Do you hate me?

Did I do something wrong, mamaa?

[ Something on what manny started. Whew, Manny! Dealing with such abstract stuff is tough I did not bother on the tense, because it is the mind that emotes, and can it not slip back and forth into time ?

Do any of you out there understand it? ]

Morning hour, birds chirping, the rustling of grass – the perfect atmosphere to sit and write a short story and so I began…

I had hardly written the first sentence, when a stronger burst of wind, caused the branches to creak and me to look up. It was a lovely morning, pleasant enough to meditate on the story that was forming in my mind.

My first story. It gave me a certain thrill that you will know if you are a writer yourself. Like the creation of a baby. No, even more than that. A baby is created and born and then lives it’s life. A story, or any artistic adventure is different. Once created, it lives you. It still breathes the words that you offered it. Still enamors the idea that you poured into it. And it is a thought-print of you. Something that you leave behind in the sands of time, in the waves of space.

I was feeling like Shakespeare. No, Like R.K. Narayan. I was feeling all Indian. My story was to journey through the heart of India. Through my heart, my thoughts and through my eyes. My perspectives idealized the foundation of my though-print. Does that now sound distant? My baby then. My brainchild.

I would publish it myself. Start a publication house, maybe. But that is a bit far fetched, even to myself. I will sell it to my friend, free of cost. That is not called selling, then. I will offer it. And since I am sure that it will be a best seller, I will take profits later.

I was now suffering from both day-dreaming bouts and from the writer’s block. I was stuck with the first line. Why was nothing surfacing?

Frustration surfaced. and I slowly got up. Why was every thought fleeting past my mind? Why could I not catch onto one and fix it in my consciousness? After all, I had clearly thought out the basic frame of the story already, and why could I not resurrect it now?

My first story. My first line. Was not this what I had wanted to do all along? Create my own world of words? And now…

At 70, delirium and memory are tough battlefields to fight in.

[ As started off by Vivek. You wanted it short, did you not? ]

“You better be good!”….

Shriya grabbed the crystal curved vase and threw it at his head. Straight hit. He tried to dodge, missed and reeled backward under the impact on his forehead. Shriya shrieked at her own violence. With a maniacal look, and blood oozing down the wound, Krish lunged forward, right at her.

She was sweating. Sitting ramrod straight, hands shaking, she clutched the form next to her. Krish groaned in his sleep, and turned, switching on the bedside lamp. He opened sleep rimmed eyes and stared up at the fear and craze in hers. His eyes widened and he reached out to her.

“Shri ? Anything wrong?” Comprehension arose, as he queried, ” Nightmare?”

She was gazing at him, trying to forget the image of his mock, blood and that look. It was not real, she convinced herself. This was him, Krish. Not the one in the dream, how could she have done that?

Krish was panicking, at the wild look in Shriya. He tightened his grip on her arms and asked gently, “Shri, it was a dream, relax. Whatever it was that you dreamt…. ” He had tried to embrace her, but she fought back. Pushing him away, she tried to get out of the bed. She almost staggered on her feet, but stood and looked at him. In the yellow dullness, her confusion and anger silenced him. Anger?

“I want a glass of water. Am going down.”

“Shall I get it for you Shri? You stay here…” He spoke too late. She had already gone downstairs to the kitchen.

The water made a swishing sound against the glass tumbler. She brought it to her lips, stopped and stared. A crystal glass. She shuddered.

“What is wrong Shri? ” He was leaning against the doorway, hands folded across his chest, confusion and anxiety portrayed in those light brown eyes of his. She had to look away, but she could not manage. She appraised him, to keep herself from getting reminded about the dream.

Tall, tall Krish. Six foot two. Broad shoulders. Dimpled in the left cheek, very prominently when he smiled. Three cornered grins. Those expressions in those eyes could flicker and change as and when they wanted to, making it tough to ever decide what he was feeling while looking into his eyes. Her husband of a year and a half.

“Well, Shri, feeling fine already? What are you staring at me that way for? Am sure you are not feeling naughty. Your eyes don’t shine, like they always do,” he was smiling at her, trying to make her feel relaxed, blend her into reality.

She drank down the water in silence and took a second glassful. She refilled it a third time, decided against drinking and threw it down the kitchen sink. Switching off the light, she strode past him up the stairs, and into their room. He followed, anger rising in him. Before she could reach the bed, he pulled her by the arm and made her face him. “What is wrong, Shriya? No, I don’t mean this dream or nightmare or whatever. There is something else happening here and I don’t quite understand. What have I done that you can ignore me so?”

She shrugged him off and sat on the bed. Before she slept, she spoke, “Nothing is wrong, Krish. Nothing. You don’t need to worry. ” It was a long time before either of them slept.

Morning was like any other morning had been. Both of them rushed through, getting dressed for work, stuffing in a light breakfast bite, and there was not much to be spoken in the hurry. They worked for the same investment bankers, both in the Financial Engineering Department. Shriya was an analyst, with Krish being her executive manager.

It was always a reason for much voluble bantering among their friends. They had been college mates, Krish a couple of years her senior. Still, they had hardly come across each other until that fated mountaineering trip that they had enrolled in at college. They were members of the Hobbies Club, and around 20 of its members, including our Hero and Heroine, had taken up a fancy to explore the delights of the Satpura Ranges in Central India. To cut a long, romantic story short, as if to demonstrate that their love was eternal and historical, they had fallen madly in love near the Pandava Caves at the Pachmarhi National Park, among tigers and foxes, hornbills and peafowls, sal and bamboo and a broken tree house stair, from which Shriya had slipped and Krish had helped.

Madly in love, yes. Shriya thought warily. It had been a celebrated coincidence that they both got recruited at the same concern. A whirlwind courtship later, it had been marriage. She winced. It was all confirmed madness.

At work, things were different. One could hardly see the factor that the two were a couple, if one did never know before. They followed the strict code of superior-assistant relationship, at least Krish stuck to it, while Shriya resented.

It was not fair, was it? How could Krish act so indifferent at work and then expect them to be total lovey-doves at home, just a few hours after insulting her for her sub standard work. She checked her anger, her work had not been exactly appreciable the last few months, but that was because of him too. Him and his newly recruited vamp of an analyst. What a name that girl had! Viral. Shriya had wondered aloud what the name meant, and Viral had quite firmly cleared the doubt. “Viral means precious, in Sanskrit origin. It is generally a boy’s name, Shriya. My parents expected a boy and chose this name, but I landed unexpected. They were in love with the name that they named me by it.”

Yes, she had landed unexpectedly in the middle of the souring relationship between Krish and Shriya.

Weird parentage, by the way, which set of self-respecting, child-respecting woman and man could call their child Viral? Kind of described the character, Shriya fumed.

It was not true that Krish had been all attention to her before Viral, but there was even more distancing now and she was sure that she was not imagining it. Viral was not strikingly smart, nor pretty in Shriya’s critical eyes, but she had a certain oomph factor that irritated. She was like ‘all girl’, that had men around the floor getting floored.

Her cubicle was so near Krish’s cabin. It was not coincidence, it had been alloted to her by Krish himself. Shriya was almost at the other end of the floor, with not so much as a peek view into his glazed glass workplace. Again, Krish’s deputation.

Something in her flared. What had gone this wrong between them? Why did he hate her? He must, else, at that meeting….

Last month had been a reality-nightmare. Or day-mare, whichever. They had all been present at the quarterly performance analysis meet, with conglomeration of the various managers and sub level executives. Krish had been one among them, and for some proud moments, Shriya had positively glowed with satisfaction seeing him there. Catching his eye, she had winked with a wide smile, and been rewarded with him reverting his attention back to the papers in front of him. He did look downright handsome in that light gray suit, and she could not look elsewhere. She did not bother too, about anybody watching her. After all they were married and could not a wife stare at her husband ?

It was somewhere in the middle of this preoccupation that she had heard her name being called. She smiled, and sorted out the papers in front of her. She was to give her report of the industry research and pitching that she had carried out. She had started out confidently, and spoke her way through the brief two side summary in her hand. She smiled as she finished, more at Krish than at anyone else. But something was wrong, they were waiting, not saying anything. She had looked around the group, gesturing with her hands that she had finished.

“Where is the merger modeling for Sun Systems, Shriya? ” This was Krish.

She had been confused, and with rising panic, “Merger modeling? I did not… uh, I did not know I was expected to present it…”

“Did not know? I had sent you a mail regarding that, and I am sure I did give out a list of things that had to be taken care of before this meeting.”

“No, I… It was not on the agenda,” she had accused.

“When did analyst’s reports feature in detail in the agenda? This is sheer ignorance and indifference.”

She had been startled at the hardness in his voice. Tears threatened their way out, and she sat in mortification, in front of a crowd of 25, humiliated and ashamed.

The Finance Manager, as affable as ever, had broken into the silence that had prevailed and addressed Krish. “It is maybe ignorance, but I am sure that the young woman was not indifferent, Krish. She will make up, am sure. ” He turned to Shriya, and had continued at her bowed-down head, “It is okay, Shriya, as long as you make good the lost time and submit individual copies to the executives and common information sheets to the departments. Okay?”

Shriya had nodded, grateful at the suggestion. Things might have been salvaging, and she could have almost smiled, when Krish spoke with controlled anger, ” That modeling is important and will have to be the final draft. You better be good.”

It had rang out all around her, stressing his warning and rage, amplifying it, in front of people who mattered in the organization, weakening her as if she was but an incompetent novice who could not tell an A from a B and failed miserably in routine work.

She cleared her mind now, recalling herself to the present. It had to be so, just as she was sure it was. Krish was interested in Viral, and trying to keep Shriya away, if possible, permanently. What else could explain the long hours that Viral spent with Krish, discussing work, glowing with the pride of important assignments, while Shriya practically withered with all the book keeping and excel-sheet stuff ?

That evening found them at home with hardly a word and some coffee to share.

“Want to go out for dinner?”

“No.”

“Why Shri, there is this new Italian eatery down the next street that has picked up quite a good reputation…”

“I know. I don’t want to go. I am not hungry,” she added, as if in explanation.

His eyes shadowed over and as if in exasperation, he confided, “I am quitting the job, Shri.”

“Quitting? Why suddenly? Lost interest? “

He smiled, a sad smile. With some difficulty and after a pause, he continued, ” Lost interest? Not at all Shri. Just that… it is tough carrying on there with you around. I have to make an extra effort to not keep glancing at you from time to time, not keep staring. I have to keep reminding myself that at work, we are committed to the company and have to give our best, and not, er…, flirt around. It is tough you know, even at meetings, not to keep staring at you across the table, it is silly in fact. I over reacted last month, and have been feeling guilty. I could not talk it over with you Shri, it hurt to remember the tears that day in your eyes. I had to show I was not affected, after all it is a corporate world. Viral bears most of the workload, again my overdoing, because I did not want people to assume favoritism, if I assigned you to it.”

“Is that why you put me at the other end of your cabin?”

“So that I could work without giving in to the urge to sneek glances at your through the glass? Yes.”

“Krish…”

“Sorry Shri.”

“K, you could have told me things. I imagined worse than you could have thought possible.”

“Like, maybe that I was interested in or involved with Viral?” he asked with the tease returning in his eyes.

“Yes, but,… Monster, you knew it all along!” she gave him a hard punch in his arm.

“Hey, hold it. Of course, I knew it. Added to the jealous effect in you that we men so love to see in our girls.”

“Maybe it is a good idea you are changing jobs, K. I could have kept punching you at work now that you have ‘enlightened’ me.

“Nah… You would have changed places with Viral, and kept making eyes at me, looking irresistible though the cabin glass, with poor me all heated up…..”

“Stupid, stop supposing things…. want to eat out?” she blushed, hurrying to stop him making her feel, well, feel all womanly.

“No we can order out.”

“And have a candle lit dinner at home?”

“Great idea, want me to invite Viral ? Maybe you can act the perfect waitress and serve ….,” he laughed and dodged the plastic vase that she threw at him….

[Aparna, Just could not think of making the story any other way, since it was your start line Maybe next time Appu, I will make it more Mills and Boons - ish ]

 “I woke up to the excruciating pain in my shoulder.
My eyes still closed, i groped for the gun.
Nothing !
With some effort, i opened my eyes to see a dull yellow bulb, dangling from the ceiling,
when a huge shadow fell over me …”

“What are you doing, sitting there staring at the paper ? Come over and do your homework! “.

I tore my eyes away and looked over my cousin’s shoulder into the hall. My mom was cutting vegetables, standing at the kitchen counter overlooking my bedroom, glaring at me with disgust.  My cousin giggled. Silly girl, who wanted to pore over the homework of a five year old, giggling, picking-her-nose kid anyway? I had to, no choice. And I had to also complete my homework. Aaaargh! Life disgusted me, well, more than I disgusted my mom.

“Writing my diary, ma. Updating my day’s….” She did not want to hear the rest of it. “Get up, Rishi. Write your chemistry record. I know, you did not yet complete it. Draw up those diagrams that you had to in your physics one. Do your math then, I know you have your exams round the corner and you don’t seem to mind. I don’t want your average scoring in this term, at least. Try to rank within the top five. If Hari can do it, so can my son….”

I fled the room and ran up the stairs to the attic. I would never hear the end of it, and did not want to hear anything. I had my books bag with me, my pens, some pencils and well, my diary that I had sneaked out. My parents were the typical my-child-should-be-the-best typos. As conforming to the standards as they went. They compared me with any child they could come across, including my five year old cousin, compared me with children who had grown up and achieved, including Dr. Kalam, they compared me with the unborns too, including the still unborn cousin, who was supposedly giving no carrying pains to my aunt, unlike the torture I had been to my mother. They got disgusted with my marks, my looks, my slow physical growth, my handwriting, my non-existent sports life, my penchant for getting into tiffs with classmates and the skill with which I brought on that more-than-disgusted looks on my teachers.

I was proud of all these.

Which other kid who had lived or will live will ever live in such a beautiful world of imagination and pro-creation that I live in? Who will experience the magic of a million magics? The worlds I live in are far far exciting than the world that my parents thrust on me. No, my worlds were out-of-usual-imagination scales.

I took out my pen. It was a beautiful golden green fountain pen, that I had received as a gift from my father before my tenth standard board exams. It had been instant love with the idea of creating words with that beauty. Who wanted to waste the majestic gleen of the pen and nib by writing all those harrowing exams?

I sat down to regurge the happenings since this day morning. I had woken upto the pain in my shoulders. Effect of the huge thump that my uncle had ‘very affectionately’ given me. I groped for the water-gun next to me that I always slept with, fully refilled. It was meant to be ‘pichkooed’ out on the person who woke me up every morning. Heard of reverse effect? It was a revenge mechanism with respect to what had been tried on me – waking me up with water sprinkled on my face. And well, my uncle had removed it from my side this dawn. Oh! they learn from experience.

And the dull yellow light? It was for some added effect in my record of events. Unless you could count the sunlight streaming in from the windows as any light effect. But a huge shadow did loom over. My uncle’s. He was the kind of man who woke up early in the mornings, and set about gardening. He gardened and gardened and gardened. My aunt was the kind who even now, I suspected, was at some horticultural display or sale. They prided on being people with green fingers. Green fingers? More like stubby short ones with soil and dirt under the nails. Yuck! I know, I know. They disgust me.

Their son was an achiever. Engineering at IIT and MBA at IIT. I was secretly happy over the fact that he had tried IIM and missed it. “Only by a few decimal points, ” he pointed out to all those who stopped by to awe. He was even proud that he had missed by just a few points than a out of shot value. I would have been struck with frustration if it was that way. Not that I have any regard for the degrees, but just that to have so desire something and miss it so closely?

The rest of today had passed by without any worse events. I had stood humiliated before the family as I lost in the chess game that my 5 year old pest of a cousin had challenged me to. But, that is hardly a matter to be written in to a diary, isn’t it? When all you want to remember are the things that were glorious, or the things that might have been glorious. Who cares whether it happened or not.

My people wanted me to become an engineer. And then a MBA. They plan the same course for everyone of my generation, just like the previous consisted of CA’s. My father was a CA. And so was my uncle. They were willing to pay my way through any successful university for the degree. Money had never been a problem at home. The family would somehow manage to find ways to earn and share. I had so many various uncles and aunts and cousins that I did not bother trying to remember names and details. They prided on being a family with strings so attached that they were a mini Indian Mafia, in terms of family affection and protection. Mafia indeed! Silly …..

All I wanted to was to dream on. Do journalism and English studies. Write, write and dream. But who bothered about personal preferences when clan attitudes were bred from infancy? I was the white sheep in a black goat family. Naturally, they wanted to goad me into believing that I was, after all a goat. No, not after all, I was a superior goat that could keep goating and gloating, whatever that felt like.

So here was I, in my eleventh standard, in the computer stream. Been subjected to hawk eyed supervision to check if I was on the right track, which am normally not on, and then subjecting me to mass critiscism that had me wishing I could get swallowed into a different world in front of their sly eyes and drawn away into magic. Whoever gave second-cousin-removed-third-cousins and a distant-uncle’s-grand-aunt’s-niece’s-son’s-wife’s-brother rights to chide me? In my family nothing is given, including freedom. Everything is grabbed hold of, including a meek 15 year old’s right to dream and try to live the dream.

“Rishi?”

‘Yes, dad.” My dad was this short stout man, who fitted most pictures of the ideal family man. My mom was the short, thin woman who fitted the perfect mould of a self-sacrificing housewife. But the similarities stopped there. In all manner, the person who managed the household and the out-of-household was my mom. Dad was just a perfect foil to the world.

“Finished homework? ” Why could they not get out of calling assignments as homework? I felt like I was a 5 year old chalk-eating, nose-picking, drooling-while-sleeping kid !

“Yes dad…er…almost”

“Finish it, but do it downstairs. “

“Okay”

“And Rishi, today your grandfather and your granduncle are going to drop in. Try to appear smart. That uncle is the registrar in the Goverment University and he has promised to clinch a seat for you in Computer Engineering. Don’t lose the chance.”

I paled. “Dad, Engineering….”

“Yes, of course we want our only son to be the man of our dreams right? Do engineering. It will place you above everything else. Everyone else”

Like maybe place me on top of, say, the university, and make me take the plumment down to commit suicide?

“Okay, dad”

He climbed down. So did I. My diary lay forcibly forgotten in the attic. Record books in hand, I sat down to write. My dreams lay scheduled to nights. I was already doing it. Turning into a mundane machine. The stuff of which engineers are made.

[ On the lines on Manoj. Manny, you gave me the lines in quotes, so I used it that way, to symbolize words, either written or spoken . Thanks, Manny ]