the road un-traveled

excuse me if the "write" takes a little flavor from the previous post ;)
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The first step he took made his leg shiver, but he smiled and tried ..... and soon , he was as nimble as a deer. He waved to the real deers around who were motionless and looking at him, with the curious surprises. He saw the long road ahead, which made him look at his feet with eyes of sympathy, but he smiled. The road looked straight but with a lot of hurdles of different heights, he smiled.He knew it was going to be a long journey, so he kept looking back at times to the distance he covered to keep him going. Soon , he became a runner..... he ran, faster, toppled a couple of times, got up again and ran, swaying his head to the wonderful tunes inside him. He ran dancing, jumping ......... singing. Sometimes he felt the hurdles too short and he smiled broader. For a long time, he did not look around, but when he did, ....he was surprised, the deers were now so indifferent to him, they were grazing in the fields and were looking around without even acknowledging his existence. They were happy, at least they looked happy. This did not affect his smile, but soon he found himself slowing down. Funnily, he was frowning with his smiles now. Not being able to justify the happenings with him, he became restless. He was not at all smiling and once suddenly he just stopped himself. He looked at all the deers around him, he was surrounded by a lot many of them and ........ all of them with a condescending air of superiority. He looked up,closed his eyes, screamed with frustration and urged his heart to tell him what he needed!! one last desire... He opened up and saw just one star in the sky, very bright. He felt the desire inside, it was very clear... he wanted to run again, but this time he wanted run away. He saw the end of the road, far ahead.... it looked beautiful from such a distance. He ran......... ran, with an anxiety, with a rage, with an unlimited energy. It was not that easy for him, something was wrong....the more he ran , the more he found difficult to run. To his utter surprise, the road was getting steeper..... he kept on running, but he was crying now, crying his heart out.... he felt he was running up a mountain which was getting higher and higher. He did not stop, did not even stop to think about what to do.... but he cried ....more ... until he threw himself on the ground, surrendering to that strange trap.... he came down rolling, like a marble left from the brim of a bowl. After such a cruel reply of all his queries, he was left alone. He was inanimate for quite a while and when he opened his eyes, with his body lying facing the ground, he did not feel any pain. He turned back, got up and saw all deers smiling at him . The road looked straight again. He looked up, there were infinite stars, but THE bright one was gone. He took a fawn in his hands, hugged it, smiled and started walking towards the end again :).

Gone with the Mind

Every time he blinked, he got a glimpse of a very messy graffiti, a web full of motions,sounds, scribbles, faces - smiling,laughing, screaming, crying. Then he closed his eyes...and the scene grew so clear and bigger. He felt like either being pushed to that graffiti wall or the wall just pacing towards him. He felt a jolt and threw his eyes wide open and saw his mother sitting near to him, calmly knitting a sweater for him. He noticed his mother had to wear glasses nowadays. Things were very silent around... he could listen to the watch click and the drop trickle from the bathroom tap. He was sitting on the sofa with his one arm folded, palm supporting his head and the elbow on the armrest.He breathed steadily.....but those stills (when he blinked) sprouted some irritation in him. He took a deep breathe and stood up, asked if his mother wanted something.
She smiled and said, " Tea? ... He just smiled. He washed his face and for some mysterious reason stared at his eyes in the mirror, cursed them, but smiled again.

He found some trouble with the logistics in the kitchen, but could get quick replies to his doubts by his mother.

"oh good :) ", his mother sipped and said.

"hmm",he replied and went to his room with his cup of tea.

He sat on the window, trying not to think anything, not to let his mind follow any thought and not to let his eyes follow any thing he looks at. He knew he did not want to close his eyes...he sipped slowly and kept on staring at some imaginary point up in the air. Funnily, he wanted his ears also not to follow any sound, though he found it difficult to control them. The sun was setting, and after rolling his eyes to several locations, he looked at the floating dust particles, in the beam of sunlight from the ventilator. With an unwilling frown over his eyes, his mind had already started running....catching up new thoughts.He knew what was going to happen.His thoughts were getting furious very fast...new pictures of the past experiences and "never to happen" fantasies were getting built up. He found himself sitting on a roadside rock with a packet of peanuts, wearing a cowboy hat and the next moment he was running in a marathon. He felt all the emotions together....fear, anger, love, remorse, compassion, passion, pain, but no peace... he searched for it....but all efforts for concentration went in vain, and finally he shook his head in distress. He was blinking faster now and started walking in the room with two fists behind his back. He frowned harder because of a discomforting realization about what he saw....there was something peculiar about the things he saw on the road - all the people passing by , showed just one emotion - suffering, pain.Even in the marathon...he was just about to finish first when he looked back once and stopped altogether. It was not a race....all others were far behind with absolutely no strength to run.


Then he scanned through all the emotions he thought he was going through - they were an illusion, a physical and mental illusion.There was only one - he felt it very hard now, a deep sorrow. He felt the enormity of an unknown suffering, with a slow sensation down his hollow throat. His blinking stopped and his heart grew steadier.He sat on the corner of his bed, and for the first time, he felt a great desire to dive into that little ocean of pain, to make the feeling grow.He closed his eyes and accepted whatever he saw..... made himself cry beside the graffiti wall. Tears came rolling down his cheeks .... he took a deep breathe and fell on his back keeping his arms open, and the tear drops moved to the side corners of his eyes.

His mother came blabbering something about the size of the sweater and stopped at the door. She looked at him, first with surprise then with concern. He did not move....he felt her coming and sitting close to him. She sat there for long.... looking at his tears till his eyes started drying off. He opened his eyes and looked at her...she pressed her hand in his, and left with an affectionate smile. His eyes followed her and then he turned to other side and looked at the wall painting.... it had a drop dripping out of the sun setting into a beautiful valley.He smiled and closed his eyes again, hoping for a better sleep this time.

The screwtable days ;)

I was feeling delighted. We both were smiling at each other.This was our 4th meet but first date together. She looked beautiful.As usual "i" was preparing to begin the talk but this time luckily she started..

so wassup ?

my smile grew wider, and i starting stirring the coffee faster... i looked down, clicked the spoon twice on the brim and settled myself to begin...
it was then that i heard the annoying 4 beaps !! an SMS..
i took my cell out but a sudden noise THUD THUD THUD distracted me....

i asked her ," whts tht noise !!.... she frowned, and said.. what? ..
i looked around, puzzled, thinking in what universe such a door knocking noise can come in the middle of a huge restaurant.

One more THUD THUD opened my eyes... i saw a small spider resting on the wall just 6 inches away from my eyes. I blinked once, then turned and with improper body movements..went to open the door and saw a distorted face hardly trying to move his toothbrush.He pointed to the wake me up ...tag on my door, i pulled it off and threw it on his face. Slammed the door and ran to see the SMS, it said --- come to class now!
It was already 8.. DAMN

I put on whatever i saw hanging and ran with the toothbrush.Pushing the same guy aside, I literally whacked my teethe, fastest ever and just ran asking him to be there for breakfast after the class.
An hour later, we were sitting quietly, stirring tea..and he asked," u look busted?

yaaa... a busted dream.

which one?

the same u had yesterday ..

Oh :D ... u know what ? we need a girl..

"a" girl?

i mean, ok... two !!

fair enough..

what did u see yesterday ?

I was just about to sing on the stage with Shankar Mahadevan when your #*&^ing THUD THUD woke me up..

:D .. a trail of tragic dreams..

we got back to our usual chit chat on other things - events, life, god, movies etc.....sat for half an hour and moved out.

In room, i went through the news paper cursorily and looked around... some what restless. It was high time for a change in life...even in things. Mission room-clean started, took all the things out... mopped the floor attentively, devoting each wipe to different but small tragedies in life :) . It took too hours, including the clothes wash but it was a real big and recognizable change. I dozed off for a while, thank fully without a dream and got up with a sudden and inexplicable urge to go shopping. Took my bag and left. I just took off from the main gate, kept on walking...exploring. Entered a show room i always wanted to, tried all poses in the trial room with n clothes, pained the helper, and finally converged for a pair of pants after 45 mins. Then the journey continued..... walked for few kilometers more, toppled once, dodged a crash with a bike by one inch, dropped my cell twice and finally got back to campus, a little contented. A nice evening, compensating for a not so nice morning.

The night saw a blast, we all sat for three hours and recollected all memories from the school days. It was just the heaviest ever laughter for most of us..... sharing funny moments, funny teachers, mistakes, innocence, the obedience and mischiefs ......even inacting them to experience the best entertainment :) .

Before crashing.... i could not stop myself from a desparate mischief. I set three alarms in my neighbor's cell with gaps of 30 mins, with a foolish but clear intention of shattering all his short and wacky dreams.

It was yet another day, a similar and monotonous one, what we experienced for past hundreds of days..... but it was not dull enough to be forgotten. Knowing that these times will be cherished.... hope this write here will add at least a glimmer to the memories.

On a Senti Note.. the end :|

The Inscrutable Days

I strained my eyes, widened my smile, to concentrate more on his facial expressions and his hand movements without letting him know the pains i was going through.Poor him, he was trying hard to utter few words of English, thinking in Chinese , then in German and then pushing the words flow out of his mouth in English highly mixed with German words.First time we interacted this long as housemates. but could not go beyond identifying each other's areas of studies etc.The "fighter" left as a German guy entered the kitchen, sparing himself some self prestige.

Last one month was bumpy! My First Flight ... even after recalling hundreds times the fundaes my friend gave for flights, i missed out asking for a window seat and finally got a center one. Later in the flight,the lady sitting before the nearest window would just have slapped me as she thought i was staring at her.Then forgetting something regretfully, "pata hai , u can call the air hostess anytime u want to..just push the button". So overwhelmed,i did not even think about the button, and when i accidently pressed one of the five similar looking buttons, she was there right in front of me with a smiling face, and me, like a dumbo! said...Oh Sorry!! During the descent,i stared with a wincing face at almost everybody around.....man!! these deads...arent their ears paining ??? mine were just about to explode......and finally,I, pretending to have left my kuntryness behind...arrived in a new Country!

Few days just rushed through among so much of white skin i never saw....Then found myself trying my hands on making something to eat.Found it funny, cooking Indian things at a place where u need a lot of struggle and deep pockets to get Indian stuff.Taking whole lots of pain in even boiling something, the time,the quantity of water, the lid flying off the container over and over as i could not get a "pressure cooker". So, all motherly fundaes of Ek seeti or Do seeti could not help.Ya, gradually you get to know anyway, when to rotate the knob so that the violent steam under the lid is pacified and helps in killing the stuff inside, what color should it finally retain, how much salt (as i have only that as a spice :| ),how much heat, how to use what to clean.

.....new logistics involved in anything u do....new traffic rules... me being caught up amidst the ocean of food products with German names in the market,browsing based on their prices, not the names ......and trying hard to recognize the picture drawn on the pack..shaving more frequently to look relatively white :P.... pretending a happy and heavy smile among the people speaking to themselves in German(ya, owing it to Chen nahi, i have experience in that)...... realizing that i was actually checking out the female garment store quite a few times.... happily gulping cheese burger thinking of it as a vegie thing till i got to know the truth....having one German guy telling me new Tamil words and another teaching me indian cooking.....replying to questions like...is every bollywood actor a singer too, because they all sing in the movies?..... finding one shabby indian white bag with a Pan Masala advertisement printed on that being used as a fashion product here..... getting irritated on the size and design of the Baths!! as i had to clean one in the absence of any drainage from the floor......trying to stop myself from converting every price tag into rupees, and holding my eyeballs not to pop out on them........ etc etc .

two more months ahead...
for the adventure to go dead....

and then again Tag will be a day and Nacht will be a night, and the warm smiles will be regained but with short chuckles of good memories!! :)

Melted

Hell it was, got fully steamed with my own sweat!!! roasted and grilled , and even i can add few more verbs (one is in the title though :P) Cursed the full Shirt i was wearing and god! i just missed my half and sleeveless cotton T s. I was walking and looked up to abuse the sun, couldnt see it, rather saw the dull and drowsy branches which waved only when a bus or truck passed under them. All leaves, in fact, seemed more still and dead than the branches.

I dont know what made me drink a BOOST , which generated an extra heat in the body.I longed for two most natural assets, Air and Water. Wished for something which could increase my speed so that i could rub my face against the non-moving air and have some evaporation from my body. a hitch, a cycle, a BUS.. oh! ya... a Bus.Checked the time and predicted when the bus shall come, first time in last several weeks could not predict correctly. Had to wait for the dirty, yellow Jumbo......kept thinking, what the hell this place is made of ..... COAL??? - few of you can understand why this word came into my mind.....

Jumbo was damn slow, may be after the whole "rash bus driving episode". Tried to put my head out of the window, and got severely irritated when saw three guys in full suits, black, with ties, and worse... laughing!!!!!!!! what made them happy in a boiler???

I closed my eyes, thought a Sprite would be awesome. Got down at guru, and checked my wallet. The next moment i winced when i looked at the fridge...
and shouted....

"Saar....no 300 ml??"

"No saar..."

i had only 15 bucks.....
still, fresh lime did a nice job...

the sheer picture of a fan in my cool room made me trot....and the steam bath got over when i entered my room. Threw the shirt off and fell on the bed big time....

it will get worse tomorrow... the light will be heavier and the mirages will be broader!!! and me, i will be lighter :D

Phull Stap

The Battle Royale

It was three down A, B, C, on 26th november. We were about to start preparation for the fourth day of the seventh battle of modern times,the end semester, right here in IIT M. My self and a friend of mine took his notebook to begin with,which had -Hariram, Totaram written on the cover, the name funny enough to make you imagine a soft and flowery literature inside. But when we flipped it over, it was all dark and demoniacal. . Both of us saw each other and could not find appropriate words to speak and stared back at the book. And it began......Combustion, Flames,Equations, Detonations........scripted in more than a Hundred pages. Slowly we flipped through, more than an hour passed, and i was still trying to visualize a Flame drawn with a blue pen in colors, when a third guy came. He sat on the bed while we were on the chairs, and pained from his own life, uttered a few irrelevant words. Then he asked what we were doing. In reply, we gave one or two technical terms for the name of the course followed by a full line of pain and disgust.He said," oh! you poor duals!!

When i recall what happened next, it shows up in slow motion and blurred...
abusing him and giving all sort of justifications for me being a dual,spitting out advantages for being a dual....his laughter....me running short of words over and over again....my friend pulling me back to read....flames looked more distorted then.....

that day later i kept on retrospecting what actually made me into that situation,confused, full of rage for nothing and thought about the phone call on which my counselor convinced me to take mech dual in iitm....the four years, the slides,the pseuds, pseudos, the cuppers,....friends, the fun, the fight i had a day before with one of them....i was just scrolling down the memory lane when Gtalk pinged

what is the velocity profile in a turbulent premixed flame!!

i just flew to the bed to catch the Hariram, and struggled to get the page, it was a long way to go to reach it after what i had completed. I saw the time, it was 12....then there was a knock on the door,i opened

hey! wake me up at 6 da

i could not say anything but to laugh at, three more windows pings as soon as i laughed....

the next day, in the exam i got combusted fully, found myself sitting on the flames as they just want to burn me down to ashes.....

oh ya!!! ashes,smoke---pollution, B slot,air pollution control :(((((((((

Does it need to be ironic enough!!!!!the words we speak , things we recall, nowadays,someway or the other relate to really shitty things,things we hate....

It all ended today, the last one,and knife edge on the neck finally pierced through. But i stood up smiling, with faster than ever steps, ran back to the hostel, just for joining all in here....for a big shout-- HURREY!!!!!

An Inconvenient Truth:Part 2

I looked up from what I was reading, he was staring at me with his slowed down speaking speed. He stumbled at few words and looked back at the slide to recall…..but his stare did not bother me, in fact I stared back, because it was at least the hundredth time it had happened. Unfortunately this time I was at the first bench, so had to keep my novel really low under the bench (lol) as his one hand, with a gold ring, which was just somehow breathing under his thick finger’s radial pressure, was on my bench. At times I turned back to look what others were doing. There were four, two of them absorbed deeply into their FICTIONS, one in deep sleep and one just waking up. Towards my side, one bench across, there were two: one not even thinking of mitigating his wide smile, and the other one lost in his day dreams, with eyes wide open stuck at one point. All of a sudden he shouted,” Sir, what is the meaning of the last sentence? , which gave a jerk to our sleeping man and passed on a current in “Sir’s” mind as he explained the full slide just a minute back. When he saw all his pain going in vain, anger and grudge made him ran out of more words and the scolding we waited for weeks just grew up to a broken sentence, which was absolutely of no credit for our Day Dreamer and he was back to his dream.

Back to square one, new slide, he came towards my bench, leaned on it looking past my head and I was also starting a new chapter. Again I turned back to see if there was something new. Yes, there was, all four were sleeping. Then our “Sir” tried to recall the name of any one of them to, u know what? To wake them up!!! He succeeded and called up a name, one head raised and the worst of all happened. He threw up a question on his expressionless and surrendered face and finding no respect for his question as well as for him, he himself surrendered and told the answer. After a minute, all the four were in deep sleep.

It ended on the THANKYOU slide, but I got a feeling of dread as I tried to imagine the full season of the same class yet to happen!!!

May be one day things will change,
He will know things better,
He will speak interestingly,
We all will try to listen, with hand cupped around our faces(:P),
We will enjoy the class,

Then that Wide Smile will be justified and we will be expert in Solaar technology!!!

Or may be one day we will accept the Truth that all the above hopes will NOT come true :( !!