what is that i want to do...

it was a bright sunny day. all its friends were working hard for accretion food for the coming winter. out little baby ant was sick of it all. it envied its grass hopper friend cause it had no enduring work to do. for baby grass hopper summer was the season of revelry. it just enjoyed its time singing and dancing with its fellow grass hoppers.

baby ant wanted to go out there looking for fun, adventure. so it went to queen ant and said "queen mother, i am tired of this monotonous life. for how long are we supposed to be collecting food? we have enough food for now. why cannot i enjoy the pleasant day like my friend - baby grass hopper enjoys? why am i to work the whole day stocking piles of food, carrying load heavier than my body. there is lot of food out there. why cannot we just hunt for fresh food daily. why do we have to stock food?"

queen ant listened to baby ant s complaints. and then calmly it said "son if you want to enjoy now surely go out with your friend - baby grass hopper and enjoy. but first listen to this story....
(the queen ant narrates the famous ant and the grass hopper story).... and then when the grass hopper was starving from hunger all the ants lived happily for ever....."

(moral of this part: work when you have to, else you will regret later)
baby ant (BA): " is it a real story queen mother?"
queen ant (QA): " of course it is son. do you not read news paper? news paper is abysmal source of information son..."
BA: "i do read news paper queen mother, but only the comic and the sports section"
(moral of this part: keep yourself updated. do not hasten up to a decision without pondering into the matter. and of course have some fun, do read the comic and sports section of the news paper)

(now to the important lessons)
BA: "but queen mother, dont you think that we ants have become an example of avarice? we keep accumulating food..."
QA: "no son. now you are strong. who can presage about tomorrow? there might be a famine next year for all you know (touch wood)... so be sure that you have enough to sustain yourself incase of an emergency"
(moral of this part. be provident)
BA: " alright queen mother, i will work hard from today. but i always feel that i am adjunct to all my fellow ants... they have done so such. uncle architect ant has constructed our fortess so well, aunt nurse ant takes care of sick-ants. aunt nutritionist ant gives us a balanced diet. uncle doctor ant takes care of our health(the list goes on).... i too want to do something, something different but i have nothing new left to do. i feel so inferior... why am i so talentless queen mother?"

QA: "son... if you really want to do something then you ll definitely find something to do. you just have to be attentive to opportunities that knock your door. 'chance pe dance kar beta'. and do not say that you are inferior. to me each of you baby ant is a prodigy "
BA: "alright queen mother. i will work hard from today. and will find out that thing which will satiate my thirst"

(the same question- "what is that which i would like to do to satiate my thirst?" keeps haunting me.... and may be may other i guess. hope everyone finds an answer to it in the near future)

one dark night

it was around midnight. khushi had just finished her work. she was waiting for khush to drop her home. khush had a status call(had to call his girl friend) and it looked like he would not stop talking...

earlier that evening...
khushi and her team were supposed to go out for a party when suddenly they got a call from their OSC. there was some technical issue and had to be solved ASAP. they were all sad that the party plan was a total debacle. but khush suggested that instead of going out for party they could order something and eat it in the cafeteria(of course it would be nothing compared to what they had planned, but they could do with some fun, with the work pressure they had that evening). and so amid all the work they had some fun. khush was the photographer of the day.

fun was all over and so was the work. everyone left gradually. only khulshi was left with some work which according to here would be over in another 5 mins. to make use of this 5 mins khush decided to have the status call...

now to the present...
khushi had completed her work and decided to have a look at the photographs taken earlier that evening(khush had forwarded it to everyone in the group). the pics were all very good. suddenly she found something odd about one particular group photo. there was someone who was not in their team. infact he did not look to be a SE at all. he had a helmet on... was wearing gum boots... had some cement marks on his shirt... but what a perfect smile he had. he looked at peace... there was no trace of worry in his face. he looked like the happiest person on earth.
khushi was 100% sure that she had not seen him in the cafeteria that evening. she could not see even a single sole in the whole floor at that time. there was total silence. she could hear a mild humn created by her comp. such silence is scary. all her khushi was lost...
suddenly out of no where a hand rested on her shoulder. this was sufficient to break the silence. khushi gave such a shrill cry that here monitor would have developed cracks if it were a CRT monitor. next moment she was releaved to find out that it was khush who had finished his call and come to pick her up. she was explaining him about the photo when a guard came running(khushi s cry might have caused him a heart attack, poor guy).

quickly he came to know about the pic. when he had a look at the pic he was alarmed. with a soft voice he said
guard: "saar, you all educated people. you not believe in ghost. but believe. this man in photo is muttanna. he a constructor worker saar. 10 years back this building in construction, and he working here. one day bricks fall on his head and he die. we think he go to God, but he no go saar. he stay here. he help people. he save people from accidents saar. maadam i see him save many people"

khush: "how can you see him save people? if he is ghost how can you see him?"
G : "no saar i dont see him. he save people, and i see them, i see accidents in construction, but people safe. it is him saar. believe me"
Khushi: "i am gettin scared"
G : " no sacred maadam no scared. he being a good ghost. a friend ghost. he save you. you no afraid madam"

next day morning as khush and khushhi were approaching office....
khush: "you look very tired. whats wrong?"
khushi: "whats wrong??? did you forget what happened last night? i will never enter that cafeteria again"
khush: "hey dont be scared... ghost and all is crap... probably that person was just passing when i clicked my camera thats all. there s no ghost and all"
khushi: "what about the guard s story"
khushL: "well if it were to be true... you have a ghost as your boy friend ;-). people will be scared of you now. he he he... ok sorry, a bad pj "

suddenly khushi see a figure coming towards them. it is the same helmet.. same shirt... same ghost muttanna... khushi is scared. but khush says he cant see it. this scares her more
khushi : "he s is coming right towards us... how can you not see him!!!"
khush : "well, probably he wants only his girlfriend to be able to see him :-)"

now muttanna is real close, so close that she could clearly see the scar on his face.
then suddenly he waves his hand and says " namaskara buddhi aarama? (namasthe sir, hope you are fine)"
khush: " aaramappa, neevu?"(yes i am fine how are you)...
muttanna goes away.

khush :"khushi today is april 1. and i am sure i am the first one to fool you. it took hardly 5 mins for me to edit that photo, and a few minutes talk with the guard. how would you grade my talent ?"

one sleepless night for just a prank... you can imagine what khushi might have dont to khush.
poor guy khush... even to this day bears the marks of her fury

ನಿಜವಾದ "BLUFF MASTER"

ನಮ್ಮ ದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಲಕ್ಷಗಟ್ಟಲೆ ಜನರನ್ನು ಮೂಸ ಮಾಡೊದು ಡೊಡ್ಡ ಮಾತಲ್ಲ. ಒಬ್ಬ ಬಡ ರೈತನ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ, ಅವನು ತಿನ್ನೋ ಊಟನ ಅವನ ಜೊತೆ ತಿನ್ದು, ಅವನ ಪರಿವಾರದ ಜೊತೆಲಿ ಒಂದು ದಿನ ಕಳೆದು, ಅವನ ಹಾಗೆ ನೆಲದೆ ಮೆಲೆ ಇಡೀ ರಾತ್ರಿ ಮಲಗಿ ಮರು ದಿನ ಅವನಿಗೆ "ನಿನ್ನ ನೂವು ನನ್ಗೆ ಅರ್ಥ ಆಗತ್ತೆ, ನಾನು ನಿನಗೆ ಸಹಾಯ ಮಾಡ್ತೀನಿ" ಅಂತ ಹೇಳ್ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ ಸಾಕು, ಆ ಇಡೀ ಹಳ್ಳಿಯವರು ಆ ಮನುಶ್ಯನನ್ನು ನಂಬಿ ಬಿಡುತ್ತಾರೆ(ಮೋಸ ನೂ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಾರೆ).

ಅದಿಕ್ಕೆ ಈ ರೀತಿ ಲಕ್ಷಗಟ್ಟಲೆ ಜನರನ್ನು ಮೂಸ ಮಾಡುವವರು ಸಾಕಷ್ಟು ಜನರಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಆದರೆ ಇಂತಹ ಅನೇಕರನ್ನು ಮೋಸ ಮಾಡುವವನಿದ್ದಾನಲ್ಲ ಅವನೇ ನಿಜವಾದ "BLUFF MASTER". ಅವನು ಅದ ಯಾವ ಮಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ಮಗನೊ ಅದ ಯಾವ ಮಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ಮೋಸ ಮಾಡಲ್ವೋ ಆ ದೇವರಿಗೂ ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ.

After the 'summer of 99'

everything was normal (or rather assumed to be normal) during 'the summer of 99' , until our intelligence got solid proof that intruders were enjoying the warmth of Mother India, and war was declared...

yes i am talking about the Kargil war. everyone knows about the war... lots of deaths on both sides and the war was won by us(but it is definitely a black mark as the enemy had entered our home, hid themselves in position of advantage and attacked our soldiers)...

ok lets not talk about what happened in the war... lets talk about what people were doing when the war was going on...

people left aside all their differences(because inspite of all the differences we are all Indians), cast, language etc etc and did whatever they could...
school kids wrote letters to soldiers telling that we do care for the soldiers and really appreciate what they were doing. many events were conducted to collect fund. i also remember some restaurants had stopped serving sweets. their question was : "how can we eat sweets when our men were fighting at the border, giving their lives so that we would be safe, so that we could sleep peacefully at nights..."(hats off to you brave soldiers)

students at our school too wanted to do something...
a soldier from a neighboring village had laid his life fighting for us. naturally his family was mournful(may be the financial aid declared by the government took time to come, worse may be it is still on its way, filtering from Delhi to a village in Karnataka, passing through innumerable hands on its journey towards south. if so may be one fine day it might actually reach them)

there was a student's organization in our school called YSM young student s movement. we conducted a fun fair on a saturday, collected some money and went that village and handed over the money to the soldier s family. i do not remember how huge that amount was but it certainly feels good when you really do something...

why are we like this????

Sept 24 2007 a great day for us, Indians. there was celebration everywhere that night...
of course there would be celebration cause 'the men in blue' had won the 20 20 cricket word cup, and here in India 'cricket is the religion' of most of the people...

there were n number of pages on this victory(by the same media which literally strips the same players when they do not perform well) TOI had almost 50% of its pages filled with article on cricket...

but the events following was something which i felt was disappointing...

first incident: our 'men in blue' and our National Flag. they rolled all over the flag on the ground in the excitement... it is true that at that moment they would have not know what they were doing due to the excitement and the pressure till the last moment... but still they are national icon, and people expect more from them. this "disrespect to national flag" was not noticed by the media but if you remember NRN s statement National Anthem was "made" such a controversial statement by the same media.

unseasonal rains have ruined many villages. so many farmers are ending their lives due to the loss they incurred the debts they would not be able to repay... with such a situation in hand was it a wise decision by our government(both state and central) to declare cash amount to various players???
the government could have facilitated the players in some function...

of course team India deserved a grand welcome at home. but the welcome they got was not called for. think of the number of people who were hit due to traffic jam. also the next day there were many "incidents" reported in the newspaper the next day.

there is so much publicity by media when some celebrity celebrates his/her birthday...
exactly 100 years ago on sept 28 a great person was born in punjab... later he became 'Saheed ' Bhagat Singh. it is really sad that there were not many articles about him in news paper. i saw only The Hindu "mention" about this. just "mention" no article again....


why are we Indians like this??? why do we tend to make such a big issue out of nothing, where as when there is a very important issue to be addressed we tend to neglect it??
why is our media so pathetic???