Tremor Tamasha

The day began as usual… Same hurry, onsite call, work, deadline till clock showed 2.15 pm. My friend and me went for an early lunch, that’s by 12.30 pm. Thanks to my rumbling stomach, she had to come along  After a quick lunch (that lasted for 45 min  ) we returned to our cubicle and were taking a digestion break(this includes responding mails and checking the forwards ). Suddenly I felt my chair rock like a cradle to and fro… I turned back to scold my friend as she always rocks my chair to make me turn. She too turned back assuming the same about me  Seeing each other’s blank face, we confirmed it was a tremor.  We again saw monitors shaking and stood up…

The entire bay stood up and a slight confusion persisted about the move. People started moving towards the emergency door making the alarm ring. As soon as I realized the shake, I got up to make a move. But to my surprise, I saw people taking their bags and stuffs, giving me a feel as if they are leaving for the day  Perplexed, I too took my bag (reminded me of the herd of sheep, when one sheep does something, all the others follow blindly and do the same  ), locked my runner (my keyfob was in it…When I had to decide between my life or keyfob…Priority of keyfob was higher  You see if something happens to me, fine but if something happens to my keyfob… That’s it I’ll be screwed for being so careless and dealing with that situation is more difficult than earthquake’s after shock  ) and started towards the emergency exit…

Everybody was in a hurry! During the exit to emergency evacuation, I found one person, who actually seemed tensed, taking few steps backwards to show his access card in the reader. I couldn’t stop giggling seeing that. I was reminded of a tamil dialogue by comedian Vivek… “Un kadama unarchikku oru alave illaya!”   While walking down the stairs, there were many who actually didn’t realise what was happening and just followed the crowd… I heard one person telling “Fire in the building!”, another remarked “Its a mock drill”, so on and so forth.

So after reaching the assembly point, people started making continuous calls. Wherever I turned, I saw people explaining about the turn-about of events…excitement bubbling in their tone than anxiety  (Remember the sheep-herd example?… I was no exception  ) I dialed my mom’s number and excitedly told the incident only to hear her say “Enough… don’t exaggerate!”.  So these kind of continuous calls made all networks crash for few minutes.

Realizing the network crash, my friend exclaimed” OMG! I didn’t save my work… What will happen if citrix disconnects? ” Though I threw a sarcastic look at her, the same fear creeped inside me too  Since it was afternoon, standing under hot sun reminded me of punishments in school days for not completing homework  Slowly people started filtering in… and a crowd was formed in the parking area where there is a shed and also the reception area of the building. I was completely confused and clarified with my friend whether is it a tremour we have come out for… as many left the open space and went under the building 

So, when the emergency was called off, people again took the emergency exit.(may be for retracing the same path… still don’t understand the reason). When returned to the workplace, tremour discussions began(and yeah, our work was safe and we realized Citrix was tremour proof as it didn’t get disconnected  )

Forward mails, Tsunami warnings, continuous calls from my relatives and friends asking my safety made me feel all the more excited about the events. At around 4.30 there was another light tremour which many failed to realize, as excitement of the unusual events had still not sunk in.

So when news about the 2nd tremour was confirmed, people started leaving… So grabbing the chance I too left early (around 5 pm  ) only to be struck in traffic for 2 hours… Making my bus journey to last for 4 hours  (entire city had vacated the office and was returning home) FM stations were giving continuous updates, people called to the stations to share their experience, many felt it as a symptom for “the world ending by 2012″ theory… Lol 

Well, on a serious note, inspite of the repeated mail alerts and other stuffs, our awareness to handle a disaster seemed a little low. There was more confusion on what to do! Let us take it as a lesson and be prepared for any forthcoming situation (please don’t think I am part of that world-going-to-end association  ) Its just that prevention is always better than cure!

Stay Alert and Stay safe 

The Ghost hunters

After a lot of experiments with poem, fiction.. uffff!!!! Am back to what I am comfortable at… Yes! To just write posts that doesn’t fall under any category 

College life is fun…. But college life combined with hostel life!!! People who have experienced it would say… Simply out of the world ! Yes, am one of the blessed few to have experienced it. The entire 4 years of my college life, I stayed in hostel. The first 2 years was a pakka hostel life…where rules and regulations dominated (supposedly dominated ) the fun… No mobiles were allowed, (don’t ask me whether none of us used it  )  everybody should be in before 6.30 pm (we followed this ) so on and so forth…

Hostel life is always “eventful”… We have some or the other exciting news making rounds everyday. That too, during the travel, each person adds more spices to the piece of news making it a super, bollywood style movie with twists and turns. Finally, the next day, when we get the same news in class, it would be a complete movie, ready for any Yash raj Productions  “Ghosts” have always been a happening topic… right from my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s father’s generation (read the relation again if you don’t get it the first time  ) till now… We also weren’t left behind. Am not sure whether ghosts were going round in our hostel, but definitely the stories about them were.

One such story was a very interesting one, have you ever heard of a ghost wearing a suit and hat? Don’t giggle  even William Friedkin, director of the famous “The Exorcist” wouldn’t have thought about it. One of the girls in hostel claimed to have seen a ghost that disappeared in the floodlight at 4 am… According to the description, I imagined it to be a look-alike of James Bond 

Even guys were not left behind. They always bump against ghosts during their late night rides. Our college was situated almost near the NH.. so it was pretty deserted… To add on there was a burial ground situated opposite, making ghosts stories an inevitable visitor to the hostel.

Am very adventurous, esp. when ghosts are involved, so are my close friends. We always had wanted to encounter something abnormal. But nothing like that ever happened. Watching horror movies in hostel is something I enjoyed, the most. We used to switch off all lights and settle comfortably to catch the flick. So we(few of us who are considered fearless… The rest have to agree as they didn’t like to be teased as cowards  ) prefer watching it only late nights. If we are planning to watch the movie that night, we’ll start the preparation in the morning itself like borrowing woofers from neighbouring rooms, etc. We’ll start the movie at around 11pm. Within few minutes, I would feel my friend sitting next to me moving closer. When quizzed, she’ll blame the fan, stating no air is reaching her  So whenever we expect the ghost to appear in the movie, she’ll turn her face and will keep asking whether the scene is over. Straining so hard, she’ll still watch the ghost movie but sans the ghost 

The highlight is if somebody knocks the door during some prime horror scene… Spontaneously everybody will shout, making the one standing on the other side of the door also to shout. Atleast this is acceptable… The best part is people from the neighbouring rooms, don’t know why,but will also shout, making the security jump up from his sleep … From that, I realized, shouting is also a chain- reaction similar to nuclear chain-reaction 

One day, my friend claimed that she could “feel” ghost outside our room. She told us, though she sleeps off early, she somehow wakes up exactly at 2 am. She could see something eerie and also heard the anklet sound (as portrayed in movies to show the presence of ghosts  ). So, in order to clear her doubt my friends and me stayed up till 2 am expecting an adventurous night. But as usual, nothing happened. My friend claimed, the ghost must have sensed us waiting, so didn’t appear. I didn’t know ghosts had spy  So the next day, we slept, exactly at 2am, my friend banged my door and was hell-bent to prove us about the ghost as we didn’t believe her. One of my friends and me went out of the room (there is a huge circular ground in the middle), to catch the ghost red- handed and dragged my friend who claimed to have seen it, along with us (despite her resistance). As we went towards the origin of sound, my friend became more and more nervous, that we literally had to carry her forcefully to locate. So finally the mystery was unraveled! A girl from my hostel was following Jr AB’s idea of walk and talk(Yeah! at 2 am  ) We wanted my friend to come out of the fear, so we insisted her to open her eyes and see by herself(we didn’t tell her what we saw  )My friend refused to open her eyes as she didn’t want to see the “ghost”. We were only 5 feet away from the “ghostly” girl, when we managed to make my friend to look up. I really didn’t expect the shout chain-reaction to start. “Aaaaaaaa” my friend shouted, the girl dropped her phone and shouted back “Aaaaaaaa”, the person in the phone also joined the chorus. As soon as the chain shout started , me and my friend (one who came with me to discover the ghost ) fled to our room knowing that our warden would definitely appear (that’s more dangerous than the ghost consequences ) 

We laughed till the next day. That poor “ghostly” girl, stopped wearing anklet from that day. Till today, we tease my friend with this incident.

Incidents like these can never be forgotten and becomes a part of our book called “sweet memories”.

55- Fiction

As stated in Wikipedia, "55 Fiction is a form of microfiction that refers to the works of fiction that are either limited to a maximum of fifty-five words or have a requirement of exactly 55 words (no more and no less)." So thought of giving it a try for a contes organized in my company. Here are my entries:

Empty House....Beware!!!

Door was locked…Sure! Nobody around…
Panting hard, he picked a huge stone…
Broke open the door…and went in slowly!
Yes… Lucky! Cupboard was left unlocked….!
Suddenly a phone vibrated, grabbing his attention
With lot of hesitation, he pressed the green button…
“Sorry I forgot to give the keys to the neighbour” His wife’s voice echoed!!!

Clean Bowled !!!

Servant:“Where does our little madam go for tuitions?”
Lady: “To a very brilliant IIT-ian… Now I cant explain the term IIT for you… Forget it! ”
Servant: “But whats her name?”
Lady: “Its Priya! Planning to enroll your daughter? Don’t even imagine that… Lots of demand for her!”
Servant: “Madam, Priya is only my daughter!”

Train-Friend

We laughed, We talked, shared books… what not!
Train friendship is truly wonderful!
I returned back to my seat after washing my face, only to find the opposite seat empty…
I found that my train-friend had left a book and decided to safeguard it in my handbag….

“Oh no!!!! My handbag? Where did it disappear?”

The God-sent

In this crowded world, there existed a lonely little girl, Riya. After reading “Cindrella”, she prayed for a miracle. Next morning, she found a dog lying near the door.That dog became her world. In the park, she saw a boy happily playing with her dog. She walked away leaving her dog to the “differently-abled” boy.

My Very First Poem

Warning: Weak hearted people, pregnant women and professional poets are requested to stay away from this post 

I have always had this secret wish of writing a poem, someday or the other! So, thought, will give it a try now… The poets here, please forgive me 

If you are still brave enough to read this post… Here we go…

Sunset from the sea shore

Sitting on the sands,
And feeling the winds,
I see the sea,
Going red with glee!

Waves, they are,
Waving to me from afar!
They sing, dance and roar,
Making us want them even more!

They touch my toes,
Surrendering like foes!
I watch them shimmer,
Under the beautiful light of summer!

The red giant dissolves in the tide,
Leaving behind its colour with pride!
They rush to me from far and wide,
Blushing like a to-be bride!

They continuously flow and ebb,
Like a spider spinning its web!
And yes, Waves they are,
Waving to me from afar!

My Woman Celebrity

Women’s day has started gaining popularity in the last few years(thanks to the IT culture   ). Major credits go to the media for popularizing the day… Right from a week before, we have award functions for women entertainers, successful women… Articles and columns about women who have made it to the top… Of course, special movies(to increase the TRP  ) of beautiful heroines as a part of women’s day celebration.

Let me not talk about the same set of women again and again…I’ll spare them for the media to cash in  So I decided to write about a woman who is no less than a celebrity to me… My grandma… Saradha… fondly called as “Paati” by one and all.

 My Paati- An intro

My paati , in her traditional Madisaar (9-yards saree), modern thinking and fast walking is no less than a style icon. I’ll have to literally run to catch up with her pace during walking. When she holds me for support, it will look to the world as if I am holding her for my support as she’ll literally drag me and walk fast  She is a woman who works, works and works but without bothering about the results…Trust me, its very difficult to be like that… We always look for credits or appreciation even if the work we have done is small ! When we don’t get the expected outcome, we become dejected…At many such times, I wonder how on earth my paati could be so very selfless and so very saintly!

 Paati-The Universal Giver

She works from early morning to late night with the same energy and zeal and most importantly without grumbling about the work. As you know, in olden days, every family used to be a huge family with umpteen relatives walking in and out. She ensures that whoever walks in, never walks out empty stomach. Let it be a cylinder delivery boy or the maid who works in the neighbour’s house… Everybody leaves the house with yummy food in the stomach and vibuti (Holy ash  ) on the forehead as a token of her blessing During the days when my mom and others were studying, they lived in a house near a temple…(Recently my cousins and me paid a visit to that house, now occupied by somebody else and she was very excited to show us the place) My paati, after a tedious morning course of work, she’ll sit down to eat…At that time, few mentally ill people who reside near the temple, will come to the window and complain to my paati that they haven’t eaten anything from the morning… My paati, without any second thought, will give away the food which she was about to eat, to them…That too, with the same love and care with which she feeds her kids! Even today, when me or any of my cousins go to my paati’shouse, we’ll be given something or the other to eat every half- an hour… If we cousins are busy chatting or playing , she’ll promptly come, feed us (irrespective of our age) and go for the next work while we continue playing or chatting… 

 Sarvae Bhavantu Sukinaha (All should be well)

I have never seen my paati gossiping or back-biting about anybody… She always talks and thinks only good  She feels everybody around her is good… She’ll enquire everybody’s well-being with utmost care and attention  Even if its the maid who works in my house, she’ll make her sit and will enquire with care about her family… This makes her a huge hit wherever she goes 

 Paati goes to U.S.

Can’t believe it? Yes, my paati, at the age of 70, travelled to U.S to meet my uncle(her son) all by herself in the flight… Even today, talking to U.S. clients or U.S. helpdesk, makes us, who boast of being proficient in english, go jittery… Just imagine, an old woman who has not travelled anywhere much and not at all fluent in english, flew to U.S. and so much so, she spread her charm there also! Everybody became so close to her there, that they felt bad when she left US to return back to India. If Obama complains about the sudden increase of Indians coming to U.S. … Thanks to my Paati  After her trip to U.S, whenever a boy/girl falls on her feet, she immediately blesses them saying “You will study well and go to U.S. ”  

 Dr. Paati MBBS

My Paati is no less than an MBBS doctor when it comes to curing any disease. She has a cure for all the disease with her kashayam (medicinal herb juice)… When a kid is born, during its initial days, she bathes and massages them with so much expertise that can make any pediatrician look with awe. When her servant maid returned to work with a 3 month old baby, my paati used to take care of the baby till she finishes her work… She can make any sick child, a very healthy one within few weeks. She is also a perfect dietitian not only for us but also for the neighbours. Have you ever heard of somebody asking menu to be cooked to the neighbour? Don’t laugh… My paati has! When a lady next door was pregnant, she used to everyday ask her what she feels like eating and the first tiffin she makes , will be given to that pregnant lady only.

 Paati.. The woman of substance!

For a person who feels family is the world, the loss of her husband must have been unbearable. But I was stunned by the composure with which she handled it. I was a very small kid, but I still remember this incident. After few hours of my Thatha’s demise, she regained back her strength and went back to work… She made sure everybody had coffee and in fact was consoling my mom and my aunt saying “Its just a part of life…don’t cry much, you’ll get headache” and made them drink coffee…That made me think What a woman!

 Lessons learnt

There are lots of things that I have learnt from her…But to be a woman like her is very very difficult! But, I’ll atleast try to incorporate whatever I have learnt…Guess that itself can do wonders! 

There are so many women around you whose value is not yet realised. They may be doing, what we term as “routine”, but still without them life becomes impossible. Respect them and Value them!

Happy Women’s Day