A jog on the beach

An early morning jog is healthy, the beach accentuates it and company removes the monotony. The sun had not yet risen and I and Tejaswi were treading upon the surf with our bare feet. It was one of those rare occasions when you could find crabs, urchins, gulls and all of nature’s bounty except the curse, human beings.

Apparantly, Tejaswi did not have a wink of sleep; not the least bit due to euphoria but due to his distorted love life. In his words, “What wrong did I do you ! My life was so peaceful, serene and beautiful. Like a holy temple, like this morning sea, like a bouquet of roses. Why did you have to spoil it? Like an atheist defiling a temple, like the tourists dumping trash in the sea.., like a mad elephant trampling upon roses.”  I laughed shamelessly and appreciated the beautiful similes. His tale of misery showed no signs of conclusion when we heard a spine chilling cry alongwith  the regular barks of stray dogs. We stood rooted at our place.

“Places of natural beauty are said to be inhabited by yakSas, perhaps it was a yakSha or could it be the wail of some intermediary spirit at the nearby cemetery.”  My mind raced through all possibilities when another of those unnerving sounds echoed through the morning mist. We looked around but could find nothing except a few screw pine trees nearby and a mound at a distance. After a momentary pause the wail which now seemed to be impregnated with agony came once again. It seemed to be coming from the mound. We stood still with our T shirts drenched in sweat. The morning rays had started to stream down the horizon. Another of the heart wrenching cry and we moved forward to find out the source. A few reluctant paces forward and we could see the mound turning into a large turtle, being pestered by a pack of dogs. We strode along the way when the large turtle gave another shrill cry.

Seeing a turtle early in the morning on the Vizag beach was not new for us. We had seen numerous small turtles at numerous occasions. Anyone can see the tens of six feet high carcasses in various stages of disintegration, scattered around on the beach at any time of the day all round the year. But this was the first time when we had seen a live six feet high turtle wailing on the beach. We went near, the turtle was perhaps one of those endangered olive Riddley turtles which come to the coast of North Andhra and Orissa every year to lay eggs. Whatever it was, we could see its body crisscrossed with nylon ropes, carmine coloured liquid oozing out of the thick skin at numerous places. It was obvious, the turtle was caught in one of the fishing nets and managed to escape and land at the beach, but the poor creature’s agonies were long from gone.

We did not know what to do, the barking dogs added to our confusion. Fed up of the commotion we drove the dogs out of the site. We had jogged a long way and were at the wild stretch between Sagar Nagar and Gitam college , where except a thick casurina groove nothing else exists, to reach the road one had to climb a 20 feet high rocky cliff. Either side we had to go about 3 to 3 kilo metres to find another human being. Tejaswi’ s bike was parked at Tenneti park, which was about 2 km from our current location and our cell phones were at home. Tejaswi volunteered to go back to his bike and get help while I stood guard to the Turtle. He sprinted, I had never seen him sprint on track leave alone on sand, but that day he did.

The turtle wailed once again. I could see its source of agony. It’s body was brutally cut, blood was oozing out anywhere and everywhere, the nylon thread bore through its gaping wounds. The poor creature was experiencing perhaps a combination of the most tortuous punishments described in the hells of Garuda Purana while it was alive. I could not stand witness anymore to the ghastly scene. I ran around the place at the foot of the rocky cliff I found a dark, broken bottle one of the sides was covered with a label with a large “5000” written upon Red background. I broke it, armed with a sharp shard I returned back to the turtle. I held upon one of the nylon thread which had dug almost an inch into the flipper of the whining turtle. A few minutes of gentle coercion and the thread gave way. I peeled the thread off the turtle’s wound as gently as I could, the turtle gave a horrendous ringing cry.  Unperturbed I held another thread and repeated my act, the turtle continued wailing each time more pitiful than the previous.

After five minutes one of the flippers was free. Perhaps the turtle felt it. Perhaps it was happy, Perhaps it was relieved, perhaps it was thankful, or perhaps it was sarcastic that a man was trying to help it out of agony induced by “Man”, perhaps it was afraid that in the guise of helping I was trying to inflict some greater harm upon it, or perhaps it was just too sore from its ordeal that it twitched the now freed flipper.

I continued my exercise. After about half an hour, when the tail, head and two flippers were freed, Tejasvi returned with a man in his forties. The man was in a white lungi and had a satchel. There was a third person in a guard’s uniform, he was surely 60 years old if not more. The man in lungi prodded under the shell of the turtle where perhaps the neck was. He looked at his watch. It reminded me of our family doctor checking my pulse with the sole difference being he checks at my wrist. The uniformed man, who looked confused, pulled out a large kukri from his waist and joined me in cutting the net.

The turtle had stopped wailing, perhaps it was exhausted, or perhaps it was aware of the imperative. The lungi clad man after his mysterious activities, which made him look more and more like my family doctor performing tests, took out a few lotions and applied to the wounds of the turtle. He sighed and told to us, “It’s about to return to the elements”.

I was shocked. I never knew the compassion that I, humans in general, have for fellow creatures. Humans have always challenged death, and I was no exception. I franticly started cutting the ropes with the shard, it pierced me. I was not going to die but the turtle was. The small cut inflicted by the shard was unbearable for me. The turtle had born the agony of nylon ropes digging into its hide perhaps the entire night or even longer. The injury caused to me was due to a shard created by me, for my use, out of a human made bottle which in some form I have always used. But the turtle was injured by nylon ropes which it had never created, which it could never use and which was out of a fishing net which none of the turtle species could have made or used in any form. It was injured purely due to humans and by humans.

It was perhaps the shame or perhaps the guilt of being a human that I continued breaking the ropes. I was working upon the fourth flipper, my grey T-shirt and white capry were carmine,my heart was pounding and ears ringing with the words of the man in Lungi. I was frantically working upon a blue nylon rope while the large, heavy, bluish green, triangular flipper lay on my lap; The turtle let out a loud shrill wail and fell silent.

The flipper lost its weight, somehow I was no longer feeling the weight of the flipper on my thigh. I looked at the Lungi clad man, his face was as composed as it had always been. I then looked at the turtle. It no longer resembled a turtle but seemed to be a mound in the shape of a turtle. Blood was still oozing out of the gaping wounds, Nylon was still digging into the hide, The shell was still majestic but The flippers no longer twitched, Its wrinkled neck no longer had the rhythmic movements, Its eyes no longer had the sorrow, infact they were devoid of any feeling. 

I was confused, I had never seen a living being die so closely. I tried to brainwash myself and continued to remove the nets but was of no use. Death no longer remained the joke that it used to be, it now became the fine thread of hope that could take life out of agony and throw life into the dungeons of apathy. The uniformed man and the lungi clad man came next to me.

The uniformed man said, “Don’t feel bad. Think of it as a fish that you could not eat.”

I felt the storm of anger and guilt turning into a hurricane in my heart.

Tejaswi whispered, ”He is a Brahmin.”

The lungi clad man said, “don’t be upset boy! death is a part of life. Be happy that now the creature is liberated off all its agonies…………………………………”

I never heard beyond this for my mind was now questioning the very source of this agony of the innocent creature.

The corporates, the governments and even lay men may show near zero impact on environment. But Zero is not a natural number it is an arithematic unit which can be achieved through numerous ways of arithematic appropriation at the cost of life.

Humans are those dervishes who could never snap out of the ecstasy of “Development” which in reality is destroying the well developed, infinitely precious life.

A thousand thoughts swirled in my mind, Tejasvi whispered a silent “Come” . I could not see the Lungi clad man nor the uniformed man perhaps both of them had left long ago.

The walk till Tenneti Park was unusually silent. He took the bike out of the parking lot and we reached home. My aunt was aghast seeing us covered in blood. I headed to the bathroom while he spoke to my aunt.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

Edible Name

“Orey! Enti ra nuvvu(hey what did you do)…………!!”, Tejasvi began.

“I just commented back when she commented upon my name. All of us were teasing one another all the while. What was there to feel bad all of a sudden”

“You should not have used ‘edible’ .”

“Well ‘Puri’ is a dish you know that very well and even she does.”

“but that is not her actual name, we call her that.”

“Indeed! and she likes being called that way. Anyways even her actual name ‘Annapurna’ is no less edible. ‘annam’ means  cooked rice.”

Tejasvi searched for words, he could not find, grumped and stood still. The watchman came and asked us to depart as it was 11 in the night and the college stood right in the middle of nowhere.

With a glum kick the engine of the black, Pulser-150cc roared. A strong autumn night wind blew against our faces. The dark silhouettes on the both sides of the road no longer resembled the bright Cashew and Casurina orchards. Instead of the Koel song we now heard the owl’s hoot. It reminded me of Robert frost :

“The woods were lovely dark and deep,

But I had promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

Robert frost had certainly not described the Indian Jungles, for after sunset no one would ever want to be in the vicinity of it.

The Great Buddha once said “Sorrow is not permanent”..... and if you happen to be on mobike the emotion itself gets blown off with the racing wind. Tejaswi had forgotten all about the rough evening he had and was once again his chirruping self.

Barely had we driven a kilometer when the silhouette of a bus materialized. The loud banter  told that it had girls on board. As we grew nearer we could see the college logo upon it. Whoever said girls are always gentle had never seen a bus full of girls. The shrill, loud noise could instill fear in the meanest of the ghouls and terrorise the most ruthless terrorist. Perhaps the government should deploy buses jam-packed with girls instead of Jawans to tackle Maoists. As we passed the we heard a loud wolf whistle. Tejaswi slowed down a bit, it was the same bus that Puri had boarded, Vydehi had occupied the window seat and was catcalling boisterously. Puri was engaged with another girl on the opposite side. We catcalled in unison in response to Vydehi; our loud baritone got drowned in the shrill treble noise while the entire bus rocked in chorus. Unable to bear the ear splitting noise Tejaswi raced the accelerator and soon we were far ahead of the chattering troop.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

The unexpected

At 6 the programme started. A lamp lighting ceremony then a hymn to Goddess Saraswati by the pretty girl in a Half saree, followed by lengthy speeches by all sorts of people with all sorts of titles attached to their names. The performance by the Orphan Children was the most entertaining. They danced to  “ Raindrops on roses” quite gracefully, and ended the show bumping into one another when a child dressed as a  tree lost his balance and stumbled on the bee.

A humorous applause was followed by the prize distribution ceremony. Everyone quite eagerly watched the proceedings on stage but we were amusing ourselves with the proceedings around us.

I betted 5 dairy milk bars that a particular girl’s name was bound to start with ‘Sri’, for whenever the anchor used sri(an honorific prefix used before masculine names), she would almost leave her chair in excitement. There was another girl in a dark Harper Green Salwar who looked as if she had witnessed an accident. Still another girl in a Red churidaar with long plaited hair rose with much indifference, when the name Pallavi was called. She did not as much as smile when they announced a second prize while her friend, Ashok was bouncing about. A tall, dark boy was the only other boy who showed as much indifference to the proceedings on the stage as we were showing, but he was busily chatting with a cute girl beside him. We were did restrain our laughter at the “Black and White” pair when we heard a faint “TEJASVI” from the mocrophone.

My eyes wide of astonishment looked into Tejasvi’s no-less wide eyes in disbelief, perharps there were more than one Tejasvis in the auditorium to be sure of which we waited with baited breaths, staring at the stage. The microphone boomed again clearly mentioning our names and our college name, we were dumb struck. A third time our names were pronounced and no one else stood up, we took to our heels. We sprinted past the girl whose name was probably “Sri” then past a couple of boys, over the stairs and took, rather snatched, our certificates. We quite disbelievingly were checking whether the certificates contained our names or not when the a rough voice said “photograph”. Sporting our distorted faces with a confused smile we got it done. Quite leisurely we descended down the stairs, the pretty girl in the Half Saree was smiling and waved a congratulation.

We took our seats still in a state of delirium a dozen rechecks later we were sure we somehow did win it. Not sure how.

A speech followed by a vote of thanks and everyone started vacating the room. We were no exceptions.

At the door Puri ordered us to wait near the main entrance.

At the main entrance we stood trying to figure out what made us win with half an hour preparation. A group passed congratulating us, our chests puffed out we were elated. Then the girl whose name was probably “Sri” grudgingly congratulated us never lifting her face off the ground. She had taken another step that we heard a silent sob;

“pApam rA!(an expression used to express sympathy)”, I  said.

“Guess she prepared for more that half an hour.” Tejasvi added.

  A boy who was seated on the stone bench under the bamboo groove, with no sign of his female friend, congratulated us cheerfully. Then came a sweet, cute, “ Congratulations” in a sing song voice, whose owner was the girl in Yellow georgette Salwar Kameez, Puri , along with her friend Vydehi, the beautiful girl in violet T shirt. Puri asked Vydehi to reserve a seat for her in the college bus, who obediently departed.

Puri, whose oblong face now seemed round and fuller, showered us with a string of congratulations and then started a conversation which Tejasvi till now wishes he should have terminated.

A series of nostalgic jokes and laughs and smiles, the conversation was wonderful, till the moment she made a mischievous comment.

“Why don’t you change your name it is so long and difficult to pronounce”, Puri commented with a giggle. Tejasvi let out a laugh.

“At least it is not edible as yours “, I joked. Tejasvi grinned.

Girls perhaps lack a sense of humour or are not sportive enough orperhaps a combination of both.

Whatever may have been the case Puri’s face changed it was no longer full and round, it had returned to its oblong shape perhaps it was a little more long than it should have been. Her nose nolonger retained the tanned look but had instead adopted the shade of a tomato. Her eyebrows ascended over her forehead, almost touching her high hairline. Her eyelids stuck back. And her eyes no longer twinkled bu instead  glared at me. She mumbled a haute, stern, monotonous good bye and left instantly. I was confused and Tejasvi aghast.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

“It is the same story everywhere”

Tejasvi was furious, quite expectedly he removed the slide of human eye, which we had planned to explain in detail and instead gave a leisured pause on the slide of surgery which we had initially planned to give brief attention. He grinned and winked to my baffled looks.

I do not precisely remember all the stories that we cooked up to the questions of the judges but we managed to make a mark, though we were not sure whether it was a good one or a bad one; but new it must have been terrible either way.

4:30, and we were out of the hall and roaming around the college garden this time. The garden was landscaped and well maintained. There was a large lotus pool in the centre, we could see a school of gold fish swimming in the clear water, and there were a couple of catfish lazily grazing at the bottom of the pool. Lush green Hyacinths with their violet flowers occupied a far corner beyond a group of water lettuces. A lone frog sat on a large lotus leaf beside a beautiful blue water lily.  The pool was lined with granite and in the middle, an arch bridge rose. From where we stood we could not see the origins of the bridge which had a thick bamboo groove at one end while the other end vanished behind a bower of Jasmine. We followed the cobbled path to the bridge which had wreaths of periwinkle and laburnum growing on either sides. The brigde as we could see was most tastefully built with a voluptuous, sandstone Yakshi on either side under large fully blossomed temple trees. A lantana creeper clung to the railing which ascended with the ascent of the bridge and curved over granite benches placed under the shade of the bamboo groove to arch over the lake.  I felt the expected singe of a furious glare from Tejasvi, when we discovered some of the stone benches occupied by people of either sex chirruping away excitedly. To avoid a confrontation I squealed at the nth Kingfisher perched upon a reed. Though I could not achieve my goal but the squeal managed to frighten the Kingfisher, which flew off and turn a few startled heads on the stone bench.

As we neared the other end of the lake, suddenly Tejasvi grew cheerful. Evidently the stroll over the beautiful lake had a therapeutic effect upon him or perhaps it was the cheerful banter of the children which was growing louder by each step. Beyond the Jasmine bower was a large hall, there were children all over. Some screamed, some ran about, some were arranging balloons while other struggled with streamers and glue. They were not alone; there was a flock of girls, evidently from the college, helping them. We stood on the thresh hold, I was amused at the patience of the girls and was annoyed at the noise, Tejasvi was quite cheerful evident from his thunderous laughter. All of a sudden a small boy darted from amidst a pile of chairs to behind a heavy curtain screaming; “I won’t ! I won’t !”

From the same pile of chairs came a disgruntled figure, almost sprinting, with knickers in her hands, “kannA! Please! Please wear this……” she was pleading.

Upon seeing us she stopped. Tejasvi was grinning, I was disgusted, and she hid her timidity behind a startled laughter.

“Are you omnipresent!!!”, I remarked, having found Tejasvi’s source of happiness.

“Ohh! The presentations are almost over and these orphans would be performing next and as you can see they are not yet ready.”, Puri replied, while hiding the knickers behind her.

I opened my mouth to say something when my cursed phone rang. I excused myself and headed towards a vacant stone bench next to a thick bush of reeds, behind the Jasmine bower.

15 minutes later I, having tucked my hot cellphone in my trouser pocket went to the hall. They were not there. I searched the stone benches with no luck. Annoyed I went back to the hall. By now the children who resembled overgrown bugs were moving in a file with a couple of girls leading them. I went to a pretty girl in a half saree and asked for the whereabouts of Puri. She was perplexed for she never knew any girl with the name “Puri”.

“Obviously”, I thought to myself “she must have kept her pet name a secret”.

I then took her ‘Official Name’ and posed the same question.

“She went to the auditorium along with the boy.” The girl replied.

“I did not see them pass the bridge.” I protested.

“There is a shorter way through the cloister” she smiled.

“Could you please direct me.” I asked

“Why don’t you come along, we are going there” she said.

More than being pleased I readily accepted the offer.

“So you guys call her ‘Puri’ !” she smiled.

“just do not get me into trouble” I added.

We walked all around the hall. We passed what looked like the green room and then a few other rooms. Just when I thought we had reached a dead end, the girl took a right into a small, almost hidden alley. It led to a cloister which was well concealed behind a Casurina groove. The cloister led us to the doorstep of the main building where we had got ourselves registered in the morning; though now there was no trace any of the morning’s apparatus.

“Puri! He was looking for you guys”, The girl next to me shouted upon reaching the auditorium.

I was aghast.

“Did you tell her that?”

“It was an accident.”

“I will come to that later, first clarify this. Which of the following is correct?” Puri rattled out.

“XYZ is on the phone attending a call.”

“or”

“XYZ is at the phone attending a call.”

“It is the same story everywhere.” I thought to myself.

Obviously they were talking of me when this particular sentence might have sprung up. But the source of the sentence was least of my worries. I just did not want to end up with a grammar lesson and that too with a friend’s girlfriend. Thus I shrugged my shoulders, knowing well that when one answers such questions one always ends up being wrong.

Luckily for us, Puri was called before she could comment upon my naivety and an evidently annoyed Tejasvi helped me find seats in an already full auditorium.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

A series of shocks

Having parked the bike he took out a file of printed papers and a pen drive. I looked at him questioningly; he giggled and said, ”you are supposed to give a presentation here”. This was a shock for me, this was no where mentioned till now, I thought It was a randezvous for him and a long drive for me. Apparantly, it was a randezvous for him alright, but work for me. I punched him on his abdomen which he very well reciprocated and added, “Just tell ‘my girl’ that you came for a presentation and I came to drop you.”

“What kind of presentation is it?” I protested.

“Ohh! do not worry. It is a topic from biotechnology, you would be able to present it. It is on Artificial Silicon Retina’.” He smiled.

Life is extremely difficult when you have good friends who know you in and out, but grows much more difficult when they give such rude shocks.

“I have not prepared a presentation.” I persisted, reluctant to spoil my day in an unknown college.

He waved his pen drive and said “I prepared one. The print out of the Presentation is in the file along with another printout of the entire original document.”

My mouth was agape, he continued, “I am sure you will find it easy and would be able to memorise and understand most of it. Don’t worry! ”, he patted my back and whispered “Just do it for me.”

We found our way to the registration counter, and patiently stood in the long queue. All of a sudden his face beamed. A girl with a glowing, wheatish complexion and flowing, dark hair in a pale yellow georgette Salwar-Kameez  came our way. She came straight to Tejasvi and said “Hi” in a sweet, cute, sing-song voice; her excitement was evident from her restless features.

Tejasvi introduced us to one another.  She sang out another “Hi” in the same sweet, cute way but this time to me.

He began, “He would be giving a presentation and I came along …..”

“Tejasvi would be managing the slides.” I interrupted.

He was aghast; with great difficulty I controlled my laughter.

“ooooohh!” , She sang again.

“Ey! Come I will get your registration done“ she pulled us out.

We followed her along the long serpentine queue, Tejasvi glanced  furiously at me. We reached a small table on the other side of which a stout curly haired boy, a beautiful girl in a violet T Shirt, and a rather skinny boy were filling forms.

“Rohit !” our girl called out.

The stout boy looked up,” He is Sarath, she is Vydehi and he is Rohit. “ She introduced them to us.

”Rohit! They are my friends and they are here for a presentation, could you please complete their registration.”

The stout, curly haired boy did not speak much, he pulled out a book from under the drawer and tersely asked:

“Names and college?”

I shot out our names and college name

“Topic of presentation?”

Tejasvi gave the topic.

“do you have any slot preference?” he asked again.

“mor… “ Tejasvi began.

“Evening 4 ‘o’ clock slot would be perfect.” I ended.

Rohit looked up at us questioningly.

“Evening Rohit! we are sure.” I said.

“Okay then, your Presentation would be at 4:30, and 200 Rupees for registration.”He tore a pass and handed it over to us, I made the payment.

Puri then lead us to an isolated corner in a groove of Cashew trees, behind the generator room.

“This is a perfect spot for you guys to rehearse. “ She said. “I would not like to disturb you while you rehearse“; she had this girlish attitude of be-sure-to-get-a-prize when she said that.

“I will come back at 4:00, and escort you to the auditorium.” She said and then turned to Tejasvi, “Akka is also there, just do not annoy her.” Tejasvi’s already gloomy face turned gloomier at this. 

She left.

I innocently asked for the file, he instead handed over a fist, followed by a string of expletives. I laughed and defended myself. He was annoyed at me for having ruined his otherwise perfectly planned randezvous. It did not convince him when I gave the fib that her akka was the bigger spoilsort.

“Counld’nt you have atleast allowed me to opt the morning slot. “ He shouted.

I laughed, and hit upon his abdomen. “Do it for her” I whispered, Trying to imitate the way he had said in the morning.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

The morning at Vizag

The air smelt of camphor and incense, there was a beautiful music of a double reed flute and the divine chants of Sri Sooktam in the background. The darkness which had engulfed my eyes was reducing, I pandiculated and rubbed my eyes. The flute music was my cellphone’s ringtone and my aunt was praying. The cellphone’s panels displayed, ‘Tejasvi’.

” this oaf never gets up before 8:00 in the morning” I thought to myself and looked out. The sun rays were quite dull and the morning mist had not completely evaporated, It was surely not even 6:00 in the morning.

“What are you upto?” I asked drowsily.

 He laughed and asked “are you in Vizag?”

“Yes, who told you?”

“No one!  I guessed so.” He laughed, “You are the only rival I have in terms of attendance shortage.”

“you did not answer my question. What are you upto?” I insisted.

“What makes you think that way. I just wanted to wish you good morning.” He said with deliberate earnestness in his tone.

“You are the biggest oaf I know. Out with the truth! Why did you call so early?” I smirked.

He cursed and replied, “There is a college fest in Puri’s college, I would pick you up at 7:30. Now get up you pig and get ready.”

He hanged the phone.

I checked out the time, it was still 5:30 in the morning and I was still quite tired. I slept again.

The sun was streaming in through the window; the maid’s loud banter was accentuating the inconvenience and then the sound of alarm. My eyes were wide open all signs of drowsiness had vanished. I got out of the bed and lazily brushed my teeth, and went out to the terrace. The early morning air in Vizag is quite unique. Unlike Jamshedpur where the early morning air is fresh and sweet here it is fresh and salty, perhaps it is the proximity to the sea that brought the effect or perhaps it is just my imagination. The coconut palm trees and the jasmine climbers perched on the walls filled my heart with joy, scampering squirrels and still kingfishers topped with a distant call of a cuckoo, the morning was perfect. I watched the big orange sphere in the east turn yellow as it gained altitude. I closed my eyes feeling the heat on my eyes and the cool gentle breeze on my face.

“orEy! Donkey …”

I turned around to find the source of the not-at-all-pleasing glib call. Tejasvi was grinning from the staircase.

“You said you would be coming at 7:30”, I accused.

“I changed my plans, I thought I would be finding you at the beach, you are improving I see.” He giggled.

I was furious at the sarcasm. Cursing him, I got down into the house along with him. I took a speedy 20 minute shower and gobbled up the Upma, we laughed when he said that even he had Upma that day.

At 7:30 we started, we had reached Isukatota junction when I had a brainwave to go along the beach road. He protested that he did not know the way to get back onto the highway but then finally yielded to my insistences.  Taking a 360 degree turn we headed towards beach road.  Mornings on the beach is stunning; free from the crowds and hawkers, there were the joggers, the sand, foam, gulls, kingfishers, dogs , screwpines and an occasional carcass of an Olive riddley turtle. We could see the fishing yachts right below the sun in the horizon and a big, lonely ship at some distance away from them.

I was admiring the Sea till the moment the beautiful sea was obscured with large Casuarinas. I looked around we had reached Rushikonda beach.

“Hey! We have come off too far!” I exclaimed , “you should have taken the diversion just before GITAM college.”

He cursed out aloud, a few passers-by looked at us, I smiled politely.

The diversion was a narrow, rarely used street to one side of which was the Zoo. More curses followed appended to my name all along the 4 kilometre long stretch connecting beach road to National Highway 4. He had always hated such narrow, lonely, wild paths but I was enchanted by the sheer wilderness which we were experiencing that morning. NH4 took out all the excitement of the journey and instead filled it with exhaust fumes.

It was 9:00 when we reached our destination.

When I could not read

A 3 km walk with a heavy bag is extremely exhausting but is good to ward off concussions. I was panting by the time I reached my Aunt’s house. The door was open and I could see my aunt busily reading in the drawing room. I barged into the house; she was shocked. Thanks to the horror of the day, I had forgotten to inform her that I would be arriving.

After exchanging hospitalities she headed to the kitchen to cook additional rice and curry for me. I dumped my bag into my room and headed to the bathroom to take a much required shower.

My uncle returned from office, took a shower and had changed into his pyjamas by the time I stepped out of the bathroom. I got into a Bermuda and joined on the dining table. 

“How is College?” He asked

“Its fine”

“Hmm ! how are your girlfriends ?”

Usually I would laugh and say something silly, but that day I felt like crying. Still I smiled and replied.

“They are dead. “

Uncle chuckled and Aunt joined him after a disapproving grunt ( In Indian Orthodoxy one is not supposed to speak of death after sunset).

We had our dinner and I retired to my room. I pulled out Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire for the nth time and began reading. While Potter’s broom zoomed all around Hogwarts my mind zoomed all around the world. I was unable to concentrate; it was one of those rare times when I find it difficult to concentrate upon a story.

I took out my cellphone and checked out the contact list. Upon reaching the section under “V” I slowed down the rate of scrolling. And slowly all the names propped up which I never knew I had saved. Sandwiched between “vijayakumar drpnpll” and “Vidyavan” was her name. I shook my head It was the worst place for a girl’s name to be in, each of the neighbours being far worse than the other. Five minutes later I had conjured a new set of mnemonics and one hour later I had rearranged the entire contact list, with the loose ends in a safe corner, where even if such accidents were to happen would have least repercussions.

I felt relieved, now that I had reordered my contacts and that the impact or such an accident would be much less if it happened a second time. I was thinking about all kinds of situations that may be waiting after my return, each exponentially horrific than the previous one. The little relief that came was from the fact that I had used Sanskrit to send the message and not Hindi or English or Telugu, very few people on the face of earth know Sanskrit; Vijay and Bharani were sure shot failures in Sanskrit even The Almighty himself was to teach them the beautiful language. Sleep engulfed me as scenes of horror reeled one after the other.

Never search your pockets while texting

The bus that day was unusually vacant. There were two girls giggling away in the seat right behind the driver, a beautiful woman was sitting beside a tall bespectacled man on the other of the aisle, the bright myrtle and the exceptionally large number of bangles covering both her arms, from wrists to almost elbows told that they were recently married.  I took the window seat just before the last row, far away from the happy couple and the giggly girls. Shoved my bag under the seat, took out a mango, from my pocket I took out the parts of my cell phone and assembled them. With crossed fingers I switched the device on, it worked, I made a brief call to my mother, who was disgusted at the turn of events, after a lengthy complaint on the rising cost of vegetables and an equally lengthy lecture to take care of my health she reluctantly disconnected the call, considering the rising cell phone bill.  A message from the vodaphone told that I had another 10 rupees worth talktime left. Reluctant to spend it I decided to send an SMS to ‘her’.

“eh rati … vskp gacchAmi ….. adya nA vadatu zaknOmi … st .”

I opened the contact book and searched her name in the long list of carefully ordered contacts.

“ekkaDiki!” came a hoarse grunt.

Startled, I looked up it was the ticket conductor, his bad mood was evident from his irritated face, and I decided that it was better to buy the ticket first than to send the SMS. With the phone still in my hand I dug out my wallet out of my Jeans pocket.

“Vizag” I muttered out handing a rare, crisp, new, unscribbled 100 rupees note to him. He put it into his leather pouch and dug out a dirty 20 rupee note, two wrinkled 10 rupee notes and a disintegrating 5 rupees note and tucked it into my palm.

He then unceremoniously plucked out two small slips of paper from a big bunch of papers which looked more like lottery tickets that bus tickets, punched holes on 4 different numbers and handed them to me. I took them and smiled to myself, one of them had the number 5000 and the other had 500 upon it. Paise coins are long gone from the Indian market; these bus tickets are perhaps the only reminders to the Indian common man that the smallest unit of Indian currency is not 5 Rupees but 1 Paise.

Tucking away the precious slips of paper (If you lose them you have to part with 1000 Rupees) in another pocket, I looked at my cell phone. The screen flashed

“Messsage sent. Call cost 0.00 INR INR. STD/local SMS balance still left 2909. Your current balance is 10.98INR”

Perhaps I had accidentally pressed the send button at some instant while buying my ticket. Now I was waiting for her response which usually is instantaneous. With the cell phone in my left hand, I took another big bite off the sweet raw mango. The reply had not yet come; I did not text her anymore. The bus had reached Tagarapuvalasa, another one hour and I would be in my Aunt’s house.

I felt a vibration in my palm and then a beautiful tune on a double reed flute. My cell phone was ringing the screen flashed, “VijayKumar Drpnnpll”. He was a fellow classmate and I wondered what made him call at that time, for rarely does he call.

“Hello! Durapannapalli Vijayakumar”, I called out(I love calling people by their full names).

“You know I found out why you go to Vizag so often!” he smirked.

“What’s there to find out? I go to my aunt’s house away from the stupid hostel.”

“Don’t lie dear. You go to meet ‘Rati’.”

I was dumfounded, not a word came out of my mouth, how the hell did he find out the name. I was still wondering when the speaker came alive with his words full of sarcasm.

“’Eh rati, vskp gacchAmi…………………………………’, now tell me sir who this ‘Rati’ is. Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

“I need to change the order of the wretched contact list.” I thought to myself, interestingly when you are nervous your thoughts come out through your mouth, and that’s what happened to me.

He laughed at my unintended comment.

“I do not have girlfriends.”  I said.

“Not girlfriends, just a girlfriend, Rati. You know, I googled the name and have saved the screenshot of the results, which I am tempted to show you.” he laughed.

“Anyways enjoy your trip…………… lets talk after you return.” The phone got disconnected.

“Enjoy my trip! now that you have spoiled it.” I said aloud.

The conductor and the other passengers stared hard at me. Embarrassed I was trying to find out a way to cover up things when the silly thing rang again.

This time the screen flashed, “Bharanikumar Papiraju”, my thrashing heart lost a couple of beats.

Bharani and Vijay, were two bodies one soul, they exemplified bromance, if it had not been for their own individual personal affairs, a stranger could have easily confused them of being gay, now that it is legal in India.

“Why has Bharani called?”

“surely not for Rati or is it for that.”

“But how would he know? Could Vijay have told Bharani?”

“It’s impossible. See the time it is not even 1 whole minute since Vijay disconnected, during such a short duration no one can tell stories.”

“Perhaps they are nearby?”

“Hey you know their parents. Bharani would get the thrashing of his life if he dared not return on time from college.”

My mind and heart argued while the cellphone kept ringing.

Confused and cautious I answered the call.

“Hello” I could not say anything more.

“Hey ! Would you be able to come for second show tonight.” Bharani boomed

I was relieved; surely he had not yet spoken to Vijay.

Gathering my voice, I replied.

“Oh no Bharani, I am sorry I can’t.”

“Why?  what happened? What will you do over the weekend? You will get bored. Why don’t you join us?” Bharani was adamant.

“you see Bharani ……. I am going to Vizag, and I would return only after Vinayaka chaturthi.”

“To meet Rati” Bharani added casually

My heart sank. The idiots had spoken to each other. No! They were nearby for I could hear Vijay guffawing and catcalling on the other side.

“Stupid fellow! “ bharani continued. “You never let me get the slightest hint of it. Just return! We would talk about it.”

The phone got disconnected.

I was in a shock; I cursed my phone aloud, ignoring the disgusted looks. Indira Gandhi Zoological garden did not mesmerize me that day, nor did Kambala Konda eco park. Visalakshi Nagar and Hanumanthawaka flew by. At Venkojipalem I gathered my luggage and told the conductor that I wanted to get down at Isukatota. The conductor stared but obliged. He signaled the driver to stop at Isukatota, where I got down.

I did not feel like taking an autorickshaw to my aunt’s house. Rather I took the much required walk to snap out of the concussion, which had engulfed me since the horrific calls.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

The Escape

The Friday was no ordinary Friday It marked my freedom from college for the next five days. VinAyaka chaturthi was round the corner and the college had given a day’s holiday on the following Tuesday, and I had no plans to re enter college before Wednesday, ignoring the absenteeism on Saturday and Monday.

Einstein had so beautifully explained the theory of relativity :

E=MC²

“When you are with your lady love you hardly feel the time pass by but when you are in waiting for her each second passes as an eon”

This applies not just to one’s lady love but also to one’s escape from hostel. The periods seemed to have doubled their duration and when I felt it was time for the final bell to ring, it was just the lunch break that got commenced. Neither the lecturer’s lengthy speeches nor the prankster’s silly comments made any difference to my anxiety. After what seemed to be eons the final bell rang. By the time the lecturer had reached the bottom of the staircase I had raced to my hostel room. Packed the duffel bag in a jiffy and reached the warden’s cabin right in time when he was about to go out for his evening tea.

“Out-pass!” I panted.

“The management has asked not to issue any out-pass till Monday evening.”, the warden smirked.

“There are guards guarding the way along the lake”, poor Rahul added in a frustrated tone, apparently his attempts to slip out had been quashed.

I made my Jaw drop with the mouth unusually wide open, put up the most pitiful expression I could conjure. My thoughts raced along all the alternate escape routes which I alone was familiar with.

Usually under such tense situations two routes proved trustworthy, one was through the cashew orchard of Easwar Rao(whom I fondly called Izwar rAo tAtA, tAtA is a Telugu word which means grandfather) and the other was through the mango orchard, whose owner was a woman whom I called tOta-mAma(tOTa in Telugu means orchard and mAma means grandmother thus tOTa-mAma means granny of the orchards).It was the mango season and tOTa-mAma always gave me mangoes whenever she saw me. Tempted by the fruit I made my mind in favour of the second route.

The warden was long gone and most of the hostlers were in the mess or the playground having left their hopes of going home. I took my bag and went out carefully looking out for the watchful guards. After about 20 yards of brisk walk I went behind a row of teak trees. Things were easy from there as people hardly ventured out here since the day when a cobra was spotted, those who did dare to come around occasionally, left all the courage after a python was spotted. Having crossed the teak trees the thick groove of Palmyra palms, tamarind and canon ball trees with a dense undergrowth of elephant grass ensured proper cover. 30 Yards of brushing about and I had reached the high fence that marked the college boundary. I slung my duffel upon my back. Rolled up my jeans upto my knees and climbed up a Margosa tree, whose canopy extended well beyond the other side of the fence. Carefully crawling on the branch for a few feet I then jumped off to land on the other side, into tOTa-mAma’s orchard.  The small temporary hut made of Palmyra palm leaves was in its usual place, with a big heap of mangoes on one side a string cot on the other. tOTa-mAma was nowhere to be seen. With a low spirit I walked along the way to reach the bus stop, which would be a 20 minute walk through the orchard followed by a field, a cemetery and a hamlet. I crossed the orchard and had barely entered the field when a high pitched “bApan bAbU(It is country slang of Telugu which meant ‘Brahmin boy’)” I looked up, granny was sitting on a thatched platform alongwith another woman in the middle of the field.

Carrying an additional, small polyethene bag of kottavillikobbari mangoes (given by tOTa-mAma)(Kotthavillikobbari is a type of mango that is eaten raw, it is large and almost weighs a kilogram per fruit) and sapodillas(given by the other women), I stood at the bus-stand waiting for the bus. It was 7:00 in the evening and the stars had started to appear. The village street was alive with hawkers, farmers were returning on bullock carts, birds flew from everywhere to everywhere, when at last the bus appeared.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

‘Cool’ or ‘Misogyny’

It had been two days since I had rinsed my cellphone. The boredom that had plagued me initially waned with the discoveries of nature’s bounty and the joy of spending time with friends. Even though I was enjoying myself, anxiety was killing me; it had been two days since I had spoken to my mother. I checked out the window sill the parts of cell phone were neatly laid out to get maximum exposure to sunlight not unlike the pieces of mangoes kept out to dry in the sun for pickling. I assembled the components and switched on, lo and behold my cell phone was working once again, and I tried making a call it got connected but then got switched off. Encouraged by the progress I disassembled the device once again and left the components to dry in the sun.

It had been a boring day; each lecturer came on time leaving our chances of momentary freedom to wither in the Indian summers. The Microprocessor lecturer took no pity on the Jam packed classroom of 120 students sweating in tropical summer afternoon. The occasional soft sighs from the different corners helped only to magnify the drone of assembly level commands.

As we scribbled the diagrams with disgust a further disgusting face of the Principal’s secretary appeared with a disgustingly thick pile of papers. The micro processor lecturer skimmed along the papers and then followed the secretary.

The silence gave way to whispers which gave way to a loud noise. The decibels from the corridor told that similar was the situation in other classrooms. People all of a sudden started remembering the books which they had lent out to fellow students of other classes, some were reminded of their bursting bladders, still others of their parched throats. In a short while the jam packed classroom was anything but populated.  A couple of pony tailed, bespectacled girls sat correcting their already perfect diagrams. I along with a few others was listening to the wonderful mimicry by Kartik of a comedian from the previous night’s movie, a boisterous voice boomed.

“abe teri mAl A ri hai!!!”

We turned back to find a greasy haired Manoj grinning by the door, while poor Ramesh turned purple when a fair, haute girl entered the room. Before Ramesh could return to his normal shade a commotion followed with a loud announcement:

“The devil is back.”

Sure enough we could see the checked paunch of our Microprocessor lecturer amidst the scampering students.

The period ended soon, to be followed by two more no less boring periods. At last the much awaited 5:00pm bell rang to mark the end of the day. Frantic looks at the watch made the teacher leave the topic unfinished. She had barely reached the door by the time the sleeping class was jiving around.

We were guffawing at Ramesh when a shrill piercing voice said “Don’t you guys have any shame!”

It was the terrorist. We wondered what we should be ashamed of. Perhaps our blank looks said more than our mouths, for she continued.

“What do you think girls are? A piece of entertainment!

You call yourself educated, but have least signs of even literacy.”

I was tempted to show my certificates at this juncture but restrained, having learnt a couple of lessons from my previous experiences.

She continued – “You could have said ‘teri girlfriend A ri hai’ or perhaps ‘teri prmikA A ri hai’.”  This was too much for anyone to remain silent.

“Who says ‘premika’ nowadays? Come on! do you want Manoj to sound right out of some black-and-white movie.” I interrupted.

Her tone rose, “okay if not premikA then pyAri, dulAri or perhaps just her name. But what do you mean by ‘mAl’.”

Now she had come to her point, just one word and we have to bear this torture.

“Come on! Just ignore it.” I said

“Ignore!” she distorted her face to resemble a wringed towel and continued.

“Ignore the misogyny! The disrespect shown towards the poor girl.”

“Hey! Now you are going too far. How was that disrespectful leave alone misogynist?” Manoj defended.

“How would you feel if someone told shouted ‘XYZ tera mAl a rA hai’ upon seeing you Manoj?” she questioned.

We had no answers, but the idea was enough to release a bout of laughter. Very patiently she waited till the last smile faded and she continued with the rarest sign of humor on her face.

“Do not laugh, I am serious. The word is overwhelmed with misogyny. ‘mAl’ is used for non living things usually by businessmen to mean goods. Do you guys think we girls are goods to be dumped in a godown?”

“Oye! I never meant that. I was just joking while maintaining the cool lingo.”  Manoj was exasperated.

“COOL! How could you ever think it cool? Are you out of your mind? That is the kind of language used by rowdies. If that’s cool for you why are you sitting in this classroom go ahead and join some gang you might seem ‘HOT’ not just ‘COOL’. And what you said was not a joke, it was a jibe, mean in every aspect! And all of you are no less bad, laughing at such indecencies and atrocities towards girls.”

“‘Atrocities towards girls’, it sounds like Shabana Azmi/ Sushma Swaraj speaking in Parliament for women’s rights.” I thought to myself and knew better than expressing it aloud.

The terrorist had not stopped, “You guys are not worthy of receiving education. You should first receive some morals and etiquettes. Etiquettes are to life what grammar is to language.”

“arey meri mA ! English kA grammar kam pad gayA hai kya, ab life kA grammar pakdi hai!” I was getting restless.

“Do you people have any idea of the pain she might have undergone? I would have a word with her about her relationship with you Ramesh, you senseless fool.”

Ramesh’s mouth was agape but another hoarse voice said, “ammA tALAlu veyyAli ammA!(I need to lock the doors dear!)” it was the peon with a big bunch of keys in his hand.

With no second word we left the classroom to get some air before we fell into the depths of our own guilt.

* The words from Indian languages are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

A day without cellphone

Strange is the place called classroom.

It has its own aura around it, no one wants to get into it, and once you get into it you hardly want to leave it. But if you step out, stepping in is out of question for the rest of the day.

Having been driven out of the classroom by the HOD herself, I made it straight to my cozy bed in the not so cozy hostel room.

‘If there is a paradise upon the face of this Earth, it is here in Kashmir.’ aptly said by emperor Jehangir.

The snow capped mountains, the deep ravines, the pine and Chinar forests, fresh cold breeze, rowdy rivers and a shivering sheila; life looked right out of a Bollywood movie. I, who was enjoying nature’s bounty, am certainly not to be blamed for forgetting the Earthly reality that Kashmir had been infested with terrorists for the past half century and continues till the present. I realized the Earthly reality on the planet’s Paradise after hearing a loud bang.

My heart skipped a beat. My mind coaxed my heart that it must be a Deepawali fire cracker and not a terrorist’s AK47 and not at all a suicide bomber, while I slowly turned around. I had hardly lifted my trembling foot that more bangs followed. The bangs were loud, but frantic and hollow, like a wild child banging upon plywood.  Pandiculating, I opened my eyes to hear a song or curses and expletives appended to my name, while the banging door kept the rhythm. I cursed out loud before getting out of the bed and opening the door with sleepy eyes.

Half an hour later I and a couple of other boys were in the nearby orchards stealing mangoes. By the time the constellation Scorpio hung on the tree tops we had filled our parched stomachs with about a dozen partially ripe mangoes. Since the day we had spotted the fox in the orchards we had promised to ourselves never to venture there alone or to stay after night fall. Hurriedly and hungrily we headed towards our hostel mess. After gobbling the bland dinner we sat down to play least-count, while the Telugu heroes dashed around the computer screen upturning cars on one hand and waltzing with half-their-age heroines on the other. It took 12 games, 2 Telugu and an English movie, for us to realize at past 2 that it was time to sleep.

hAy meri cell!

The recess bell rang and I dashed straight to her desk, she had already pulled out the Milton Tweety headed 'akshaya pAtra', her Tiffin box. The intoxicating smell of roasted gram flour and clarified butter filled the air when the lid of the Tiffin box was removed. My favorite! I exclaimed in excitement, how could I have survived the hostel food without the ‘akshaya pAtra’ I wondered. I took the largest chunk of the sweet and had barely made to my lip when I heard a loud screech “Rey..........idiot that was the fifth alarm to go off..............."

I opened my eyes to see the furious face of my roomy, "could you not have waited till I ate the yummy sweet", I mumbled. "Its 9:45 and principal's class begins at 10:00 do you remember, today is Wednesday", he continued slinging his bag over his shoulders. Without any more protests I went to the bathroom. Curses flowed out at the sight of the soaked clothes. A choking wring, a rough brush and heavy punch made the T-shirt bright as new, next it was the turn of the Bermuda( a type of caprie for men) the choking wring produced a cubical bulge in the middle while the rest of the fabric coiled to form a cylinder.

The gloom of the night became afresh, I had lost my cell phone and a few seconds through future I may find it. Gently un-wringing the Bermuda I pulled out the cell phone from the pocket. If I were a poet, "water was here, water was there. water was everywhere upon the cell phone”. Water could be seen flowing through the screen when you shook the phone, a change in angle let out a jet of water from every possible angle. Unable to decide whether I was happy or sad at finding my cell phone; I went to my bed and dismantled the phone. My mattress grew soggy; water scarcity has certainly not affected my cell phone. With very few options left I dried up the parts with a towel and left it on the windowsill, hoping the sun with all its nuclear activity could lead my phone to desiccation.

Both the consecutive classes by The Principal were apparently over and the tiny bespectacled, Sari clad architecture teacher smiled and let me into the classroom. Two sleepy hours and then the sonorous recess bell rang.

"you see I accidentally rinsed it along with my clothes." she stared at me with her left brow raised (hope someday her eye brows have a bout of alopecia), with I-could not-expect-anything-better-from-you look on her face." I have left it to sun-dry" I said.

"You have left it for what?" she rolled her eyes all along the circumference of her cornea. The disgusted expression told me I had said something wrong. I scampered off to the college mess, taking the refuge of long wait, instead of answering her question. I made sure to linger around the male toilet for an abnormally long time when she came out of the classroom, and enter the classroom five minutes after the bell marking end of recess had sounded.

The HOD got annoyed upon my rhetoric late coming but facing an annoyed HOD is much better than facing the annoyed girl. An annoyed nod by the HOD and I was back to my comfortable, airy, snug, last bench. I took a gasp and then grinned to myself, having been successful in avoiding the beautiful beast.

"You can sundry nothing", came a whisper; I turned around to find her right opposite to me in the adjacent column of benches. I was aghast, she had changed her bench during the recess, even pests would find this pestilent; I can bet a million if I ever had.

My grin changed to a grimace, she smiled. she tactfully looked around without turning her head, after ensuring teacher's minimal attention she continued," you cannot sundry, though you can leave your sundries in the sun to dry." I loathe riddles, but I hate them when they come from the oral orifice of this particular creature." sundry is an adjective which means various, example: - The conference had people with sundry ideas. When used as a plural it can be used to mean miscellaneous items...."

"Both of you, at the last! Out of my class!" the teacher needed no repetition, I made straight to the door heaving a sigh of relief while the classroom was drowned in a solway of apologies and excuses in a quaint feminine voice.

'virahA'

After a sumptuous dinner at 8:30, I reached out for the old oxford Dictionary and my copy of "High school English Grammar" by Wren and Martin. These are essential to have a proper conversation with this particular friend of mine. With every essential thing in place, I reached out to my pocket for my cell phone, to find a soft prod of muslin against my thigh. I dug deeper with no significant results. A frantic search into the other-pocket, back-pocket, side-pocket, lower-pocket, inner-pocket, shirt-pocket and all I could fish out was an old crumpled, frayed, distorted, crumbling piece of paper with a greenish tinge and a vague digit ‘5’ etched in the centre and a still vague Gandhiji etched on a side. A round of search which involved upturning the whole room yielded no results. My roomy who turns wise occasionally asked me to list out all possible places where I keep my cell phone and then search in those places. I made a short list of all the places where I ever kept my cell phone.

Shirt pocket,

T-Shirt pockets,

Jumper pockets,

Trouser pockets,

Main zip of my travel bag,

Side pockets of my travel bag,

Front pocket of my travel bag,

Side pockets of my college bag,

Inner pockets of my college bag,

Front pockets of my college bag,

The pocket on the flap of my college bag,

The pocket under the flap of my college bag,

The pocket inside the flap pocket of my college bag

A half hour search into all the pockets yielded everything from squelched chocolates to shredded notebook leaves, even loose change worth 200 rupees which I never knew I had, but not my cell phone. After completing my list of possible places I made a few random checks on the shelves, under the pillow, over the mattress, in Bathroom étagère but in vain.

I had to face the reality “I had lost my phone”. I was not depressed because I had lost my cell phone. I had lost it several times only to retrieve it back in the most unlikely fashion, once I found it out in the college library’s restricted section after a week’s separation. In another case it mysteriously reappeared on the HOD’s desk the very next morning.

 I was depressed because I was missing my grammar classes. I was dejected……… forlorn….perhaps best described by the Sanskrit word ‘virahA’. This word with no corresponding term in English(at least to my knowledge), has crept into almost all the Indian languages more or less in the same form and with the same meaning; virhA or the colloquialism birhA in Hindi, virahamu in Telugu, viraham in Tamil. It describes the restlessness experienced due to the momentary or prolonged desertion of a loved one and in anticipation of a future meeting with him/her. The Great poet Kalidasa's mEghadUtam(The Cloud Messenger) epitomises this feeling.

As I could not write meghadUtam, I decided to watch 'Mission Impossible' for the nth time all the while envying Kalidasa for his skill.

* The words from Indian languages are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.

Dare to 'dare'

I often find it interesting the way creatures with just one type of sex chromosomes tend to intimidate us, boys, with two types of sex chromosomes.

One not so fine evening, when the rain God was lavishly bestowing outdoors and the electricity department was showing its wrath indoors. I was sitting in the glum classroom with about ten of my classmates cursing the gods and abusing the electricity department. It was then that the supposedly brightest of the fairer sex had a bright idea of playing ‘truth and dare’.

For those who are not familiar with the game. It is the stupidest of the stupid games one might have ever heard of. It involves spinning a pen or a bottle, which decides the ‘Bakra’. The ‘Bakra’ gets an option to choose between answering a question from his life and performing a daring act. Either of the choices turns out to be equally daring and is usually decided by the meanest of the group. Another strange feature of the game is that you are expected to have high moral values and a deep respect for privacy when dealing with a ‘Bakri’, while the poor ‘Bakra’ is stripped and sheared in front of guffawing vixens.

With that basic information about the game, one can imagine the cynicism with which the idea met. The fairer sex is everything but fair. With the unfair argument of male domination and presumptions, we were forced into indulging in the game that makes Russian Roulette a safer option.

At last the pen was swung into motion. After what seemed to be ages of suspense, the pen slowed down and then ultimately stopped. The cap had been removed to enable free motion and the refill tip pointed towards its chosen ‘Bakra’.

“Truth or dare?” throats that fell dry due to anticipation seemed to have been recharged

.

The ‘Bakra’ quite understandably dared to dare rather than facing inconvenient questions. We were still racking out brains for an appropriate act when a pesky pigtailed girl came up with, “Why don’t you propose the girl sitting next to you!” a few ponytailed nods and the fate of the ‘Bakra’ was fixed.

The shy, timid, bespectacled, curly haired, introvert ‘Bakra’ on his knees while the arrogant,  overconfident, suave girl towered over him.

“myself Har….” he began

“Ahem” she interrupted “you see your phrase is improperly articulated. It should be ‘I am Harsh’.  In case you want to sound different you could say ‘I respond to the name Harsh.’ But what do you mean by saying ‘myself Harsh’.

I smirked, the terrorist had found a new ‘Bakra’ that day and she was bound to make a mince meat out of him.

“myself is a compound personal pronoun. It can be used as an emphatic pronoun as in ‘I typed the letter myself.’ or as reflexive pronoun as in ‘I hurt myself.’“

For the next half an hour we had a free lecture on compound personal pronouns and all of its avatars. Perhaps it would have continued longer, if it was not for the rain God who took pity on us and stopped the rain; or perhaps even he was terrified and decided to stay high up in the safety of heavens, rather than being terrorised by a terrorist with her grammar lectures.

Homophone Horror

The other day as usual she was blabbering through the speaker of my old cell phone, which lay on the couch, while I was responding to certain Facebook messages. I made sure to pay the least possible bit of my attention to her drivel. At some instant I heard her say, peruse. My heart lost a beat, “do you mean pursue!” I exclaimed. Instead of typing in a reply for poor Rahul’s detailed description of his newly acquired IPhone, I grabbed my phone. At last I had found an error, I had barely realized my grin before I heard a blast from the other end.

“No! I meant peruse, spelt P-E-R-U-S-E, it means to examine in detail. Don't you know this?”

I slapped my temple, ‘why the hell did I have to speak’, I cursed myself.

“How could you confuse ‘peruse’ with ‘pursue’” she continued, apparently indifferent to my current state of mind.” Peruse and pursue are not even homophones. Are you listening!” another blast, and I knew it was one of those junctures when God was thoroughly enjoying my lack of options.

“Ahem yes, you were talking about phones.” I said rather meekly.

A loud grumph ….. from the other end announced the impending tsunami.

“HOMOPHONE not phone or telephone or gramophone”, I could sense the supercilious tone going higher and higher while my guilt dug deeper and deeper into my heart.   

“Why could you not have said a simple ‘Yes’.”, my heart and brain seemed to question my tongue in a rare unison.

“Homophone” , my phone rattled, “is a term used to describe each of two or more word that have the same pronunciation but different meanings, spellings or origins. For example hour and our, new and knew.”

“This is not new, I knew it.” Inimical to my interruption, she continued.

“When I say I play with my ches(C-H-E-S) I do not mean I play chess(C-H-E-S-S); nor do I shoot(S-H-O-O-T) when I slide down a chute(C-H-U-T-E). Cherry(C-H-E-R-R-Y) is not being used as a metaphor when someone says she is chary of people who drink Chablis(C-H-A-B-L-I-S) shabbily(S-H-A-B-B-I-L-Y). you should understand that mean(M-E-A-N, adjective) people mean(M-E-A-N, verb) no good and that tear(T-E-A-R, noun) cannot tear(T-E-A-R, verb).”

“Talking of tear, you know, a woman’s handbag ripped off against a nail in the bus.” Thanking all the gods whom I could remember for the sudden change in topic, I chose to remain silent.

“Her bag” she continued”was a wonderful one, and the way she was flaunting it. It is good that the bag ripped. The way she was cuddling against the soft chambray…”

“you know” I interrupted” It is a ‘sham’ to ‘bray’ when you are not a donkey.”

 Goodness me, I dared to tease a girl; the next one hour I spent listening to the traditional respect commanded by women right from Vedic India to Victorian Dinner tables.

Universal Truth

Most of the boys would agree when I say, talking with a girlfriend is the most cumbersome task on the face of Earth. They (girls in general and girlfriends in particular) tend to notice the smallest of the errors and give gigantic lectures. Whether it is a result of some mutation during the course of evolution or it is a divine contrivance to punish boys, it remains a big mystery and the feature itself is a bigger pin in the ….. , I let you complete the phrase just in case there is some pig-tailed or pony-tailed creature policing out there.

I should admit that a few chats with a particular female acquaintance of mine have imparted more grammatical knowledge then “High School English Grammar and Composition" by Wren and Martin. She has this typical girlish attitude of identifying hard to pick grammatical errors and then hijack my call to give a lecture that takes eons to complete.