dream or real??

it was few minutes for midnight when someone tapped akhila on her back...

there was nothing great about that day, better call it 'working day' as akhila had been working all day and well beyond 'normal working hours'.
she had planned to leave early when she got a call from her OSC to finish some work ASAP, EOD (add any other terms which you know)... cursing him she stayed back to finish whatever crap or work he had assigned... it was around 10 when all her project mates left for a small break, which she knew would get extended for more than an hour. but she wanted to finish it ASAP and find some peace in her comfortable bed.

the entire floor had a deserted look. there was not single soul other than her s in the entire work area. it was hard to believe that this was the same place which used to be jam packed with people till day break. akhila had never experienced such silence. even water droplets from the tap in pantry was amplified n number of times. only voices to be heard were that of the guard s wireless, when he had to report status every 30 min. and sometimes voices of few house-keeping ladies who were cleaning the adjacent work area. it was very welcoming to hear a human voice now. any weak hearted would have fled from there at first possible chance... but our girl was brave(or rather pretended to be brave). probably the fact that the entire work area was illuminated was a bit comforting. she started working like a dog.

in about one and a half hour akhila finished her work and was ready to leave. she called up her flatmate whose shift ended at 12. akhila asked her to let her know when her shift was over so that both of them could leave together. she was very tired and fell asleep with her keyboard as her pillow...

it was few minutes for midnight when someone tapped akhila on her back...
it was hard to say if it was in her dream or someone had really come by. may be it was here flatmate who had come by to take her home. or may be her project mates had finally decided to come back and finish their part of work. but when she opened her eyes she could find neither any one around her nor anyone hiding to scare her... same silence greeted her... same sound of water droplets, same messages of wireless.

but something was different. what was it???
hmmmmm
oh yes. there was no light in the entire floor save her cubicle s. she perfectly remembered her monitor being on, but now it had been turned off someone had visited her cubicle for sure. also there was a note on her board saying "do not waste power"
'it must be abhishek, he and his stupid "save power" ideas!!! but where is he now?'thought akhila.

just then she heard some voices coming from pantry.
it became clear in sometime. someone was playing a song...
"gumnaam hain koi... badanaam hain koi... kis ko khabar, kaun hain woh anjaan hain koi..."
this is enough to scare anyone in a deserted dark building, that too past midnight!!!

gathering up all her courage akhila went near the pantry and the sight shocked her... there were white smoke like figures floating in air. her legs knew exactly what to do... RUN!!!.
but she was afraid to make any noise so quietly she went to her cubicle and was about to leave when she saw someone approaching. phew!! what a relief to see a living soul...
he came near her cubicle...
in a voice as low as possible she whispered "do not go near pantry. i saw strange white figures floating in mid air. they are ghosts!!!. do not laugh at me now"

he : " i wont laugh at you... i know there are few in pantry... infact i thought you were one too"
she: " no i am not. i am still alive"

he looked a bit disappointed...

she: " you came here thinking i was a ghost??? are you nuts? i would have run if i were you"
he : " why would i run from a beautiful ghost?? ;-)"
she: " very funny!! now dont make noise. you might attract them. lets get out of here before they notice"
he : " do not be afraid of them. they are friendly ghosts. they haunt only people who had caused them trouble when they worked here. of course if you waste power or do not respect nature you must be careful about prithvi. he was environment freak... the rest of the lot haunt their clients, onsite-coordinators appraisers etc etc... you dont have to be afraid of them."
she: " you seem to know a lot about ghosts. who are you"
he(moving his hand forward) : " oh! sorry i forgot to introduce myself."
she was about to touch his hand...
he : " i used to be Nischal"
she(looking up): "used to be?? have you changed your name? "
he was silent for a while. they had eye contact for a while. it is true that eyes say a lot of things... then his sight gradually rolled down... her s followed his. now both' s focusing at her tiny, gentle hands...
she did not take much time to realize what he meant by "i used to be...." her had hand passed through his...
realizing that she would panic he tried to comfort her.
he : " do not be scared of me. as i said earlier we wont harm you. i used to work here. when i started i wanted to be the best, so worked very hard. i used to be here even during weekends. later on my onsite guy started burdening me with more work. i was going crazy with work. my brain could not get the rest it required. it cracked up. you can say i was mental..."

there was a silence

he : " then one day i was riding my vehicle. i liked high speed. it used to be a tranquilizer. but that day something was wrong. a bus came in front of me suddenly. you might find this funny. but by this time work had affected my brain to such an extent that instead of searching for breaks my brain was searching for Alt Ctrl Del. and with in no time my body was under the bus and i was floating in air the other ghosts you saw in pantry...."

silence again. she knew not what to do. run away from there or comfort him, to be scared or to laugh out loudly.

he: " i have been observing you for more than 3 months and the way you are working, i can say that it wont be long before you join us."
she:" you have been observing me from the past 3 months?? where ?? and how come i didnt see you ?"
he :" we do not have to show ourselves to everyone. i only came in front of you because you looked tensed. you know i have a huge crush on you. that toy chair on you CPU is my favourite place. i sit there the whole day. your face looks very beautiful from there. you look really pretty with your lip gloss... i ll be waiting for you. not that i want you to die soon... live long and live happily... but just know that i ll be waiting for you."

listening to this she sank to her chair and lost consciousness...
then

it was few minutes "past" midnight when someone tapped akhila on her back...
she got up with a shrill cry to find that all the lights in the floor except her cubicle were switched off. her monitor was was also turned off. there was a note on her board saying "do not waste power".
her flat mate was stand behind her, asking her to calm down...

to this day she is not sure if it was really abhishek who had switched off all lights and her monitor, or if it was that ghost...
to this day she is not sure if it was all her dream or she had really met the ghost who had a huge crush on her...
however today she does works "normally"...
even today she has that "toy chair" on her CPU . she didnt want to hurt the ghost s sentiments i suppose ;-)

Spot the difference

few days ago i was in infy bus. the adventure had almost come to an end(end of hosur road)...
the bus in which i was traveling was scantly filled, there might have been just 10 to 15 people at max.
just then a BMTC bus passed by(well even the bus in which i was traveling was owned by BMTC). there was not much difference between the 2 buses.
only difference being that bus scantly had any space left on the foot-board...

my mind had no work to do and this small incident kindled a stream of thoughts...
my mercurial mind starts pondering over some topic, sometime later only to find out that it has ended over a topic which was in no way related to the initial one...
anyways here s what my mercurial mind thinks
the 2 buses symobolised 2 different worlds...

one which could accommodate plenty of people yet the door was shut for outsiders... representing countries like canada, australia and may be usa too where there s lots to be exploited by future generation(in canada and australia governments promotes 'having more children');
where there is lot of natural resource, where they are unaware of 'conservation';
where people are too stubborn to believe that they are imperiling our furure generation(can as well include us)by their ignorance of damage their act is causing to the environment;
where people are..... ok let me stop here. my fingers are not as fast as my mind...
this bus symbolizes ideal world...

the other bus, the crowded BMTC bus represents 'real India'.
where population density is at a level of saturation;
where there hundreds contending for one place;
where 1 out of 7 go to bed 'empty stomach' everyday;
where inspite of having a good yield a farmer is under loss;
where having shortage of food,cloting and shelter does not prevent people from having children;
where (as said in RDB) from our childhood we are taught - 'swalpa adjust maaDi'
bla bla bla...

PS: i was narrating this incident to shruti - a friend of mine and before i told her what according to me the 2 buses symbolized she said - 'oh, i know what you are about to say. they symbolize infy mysore and infy bangalore'

PPS: i have been comparing the 2 DC s a lot. infy mysore is spacious where as infy bangalore is jam packed...

the tree way of life

winter is at the door...
soon trees would be shedding off their leaves.
i like this season, although trees do not look good without leaves...
trees let go off a part of them in hope that something new, something fresh fills them, in due course of time.
time to adapt 'the tree way of life'

the question is....
what should i let go off??

one day....

it was good to be back in school again. back among the cheerful crowd. back to a 'no tension' place. back to a place which is 'far far away' from the cruel world. back to a place were friends are everything. back to the world where you do not need an expensive bat and ball to play cricket, where you can play cricket with a ball made from plastic and use examination cardbord as bat...
it was class 10. i felt different... something special. special may be because class 10 is very crucial or may be because next year i would be out of this magic world.
about me...
nothing special about me. just an average boy. a last bencher initially because i was tall. later on because i was so used to last benches that i could not imagine sitting in the first row and miss all the fun in the last row.
sitting next to me were ramu- another average guy like me, shamu- who sometimes gets irritated unnecessarily and rahul- fun loving, always cracking jokes and making everyone laugh...
in the bench next to ours were the so called 'beauties of the class'.... always in their own world. boys trying to impress them always. they were all pretty. but i dont know... there was nothing appealing in them.
it was an english class first thing in the morning. i never paid attention during english class. my mind pondering over the most weird things would travel around the globe during this class. and being in the last bench helped a lot. the teacher would never get up from the chair to disturb my wanderlust mind...
the class started...
rahul as usual was trying to play some prank on the boy sitting in front of him. i thought of giving my mind some work so that it would still be in class. hmmm ...what should do... maths!!! Of course!!! within 5 min i finished what i wanted to do... and now again my mind was free to wander about. it took hardly few seconds for me to reach the western ghats. it stayed there for some time. but was brought back by rahul who had succeeded in his prank...
then suddenly something attracted my mind. strong enough to hold it inside the class only to be disturbed by the teacher...
what a cherubic face that was. had never seen her in my class before. where did she come from??? i was not sure if it was my mind which was playing tricks on me or if she was really present. aah that pretty smile... she was really there sitting among the 'beauties of the class'. how was it that she materialised from thin air. for the next few minutes my concentration was at it s peak. never had it reached such peaks. probably she could have felt my concentration. i could have bent an iron rod with my concentration...
but you know... life is made of 'if s and but s'...
my concentration was very powerful but... there is nothing a teacher can not do.
the teacher asked "which lesson was i teaching yesterday".
that question was not for me, even if were for me, gawking at the teacher when asked any question was no new thing for me.
again. "BUT"...
i was so mesmerised by her beauty that i blurted out "Snow White"...
probably for the first time i was the centre of attraction in the class.
i am not the kind of person who would volunteer to answer questions asked by teacher.
Again. "BUT"…
That day I was doing nothing normal. My Central Processing Unit was not working. Some other Processing Unit had taken control. And it was not doing its woks, or many be that s how it was supposed to work.
so when the teacher looked at me and said "pardon me" instead of a signal from my 'Central Processing Unit' my vocal system got a 'control signal' and 'data' from 'the other Processing Unit' and my vocal system amplified the data promptly...
i said 'Beauty and the Beast'
then for a moment i felt as if i were in a laughter club, where everyone was having a competition on who would be the loudest, and who would laugh for a long time.
now she had disappeared. i am not sure if she was a ghost, a really beautiful ghost, or a character from Harry Potter 's who could appear and disappear anytime...
now the other processing unit too stopped sending signal. hell lot of 'exceptions' were being 'thrown' but no piece of code to 'catch' them. what could the poor processor do but terminate!!!
it took some time for my CPU to take control.
during the break next day i came across her fortunately or unfortunately. this time my CPU was in full control. it was sending precise signals and data...
again."BUT"...
this time there was some problem with the amplifier of my vocal system. the same system which had blurted out 'Snow white' in the class was not able to whisper the data sent by my CPU...
finally my amplifier was getting some power when everything happened...
my PL who was supposed to be in a meeting came right to me. caught me writing a story...
PL: "what are you doing???? you were supposed to finish the documentation by EOD today and you are documenting a story!!!! come back to your cubicle, from your imaginary world.".
me: "ok i am back. will get back to booooooring documentation now"
PL: "you better do that. keep your CPU busy on this documentation now. dont let anything else interrupt it"
i must say, my PL s amplifier is pretty strong(i should add an appropriate filter to my ears).

value of money?

standard of living has increased for many of us and for the rest it is the cost of 'basic-expenditure' that has increased.
people are ready to spend money to get the comforts they need.
probably if he who wore only a hand woven dhoti and fasted some days thinking 'if i fast my fellow citizen could eat my part of rice' would die of heart attack looking at the rate at which his descendants spend money.
i was at my aunt s place. her neighbors were having a grand deepawali. i saw one of them opening a box. just a small spark was enough to wake up the sleeping dragon inside that box. the sky was filled with colors. rockets of all kinds were shot from that box. the show might have lasted for about 1 or 2 min. what a show it was.

later i came to know that the box had coasted 5k. 5k for 1 or 2 min!!! probably that s annual expenditure(and in many cases income) of an average working man in India.

agreed that happiness is nothing compared to money spent. i would really spend anything if it is to make my parent happy. but really!!! 5k for just 2 min show!!! that s when i began to think...
do we really value money?
as rightly pointed by a friend of mine we can not learn to value something until we have a lot of...

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