தேடல்

பாராமல் காட்சி இல்லை

தேடாமல் தெளிவு இல்லை

தேடு தெளியும் வரை

தேடலில் தொலைந்து போகாமல்.

 

பூமி பெரிதல்ல நீ தொலைந்து போக

சுற்றிவா உன் இஷ்டம் போல

பறந்துசெல் சிட்டுக்குருவி போல

உலகரிவாய் நிட்சயமாக.

 

கண்முன் இருப்பது கானல்நீர் அல்ல

கண்ட கனா அது பொய் அல்ல

தெரிவன யாவும் மாயை அல்ல

அணைத்துக்கொள் சிறுபிள்ளை போல.

 

எவருக்கும் வாழ்க்கை பரிட்சயமல்ல

வாழ்வைக்கண்டு நமக்கு அட்சமல்ல

நிமிர்ந்து பார் அது சூரியனல்ல

பருந்தை எதிர்க்கும் சிறு புழு போல!

 

– ம. நவீன்

Scribble a Lyric

There’s a man the world defies

Deprived of the love he needs

Lives a life he regrets

The pain he never feels.

Months and years pass him by

And he’s still the same

Lives to find the meaning of

This game he plays.

A demon sleeps within

Dormant like a volcano

Conceals his identity

And for eternity.

You don’t feel the pain

And this wicked world goes on

Forever and ever…

Impressions may fade away

The suffering may drift away

The world may betray

But he’s gonna live this way, his way.

The sun shines when he smiles

The sky pours when he cries

The moon hides when he’s furious

The world is his for he is me.

The demon will wake to unleash

To be the man they never knew

To create history,

To fulfill My destiny.

But you can’t feel my pain

And this wicked world goes on

Forever and ever and ever…

– Naveen Maheswaran

She Kills

It was 1 o’clock on a Thursday night. I was there alone on the terrace of my apartment building, walking off a typical working day’s stress. In a world of Personifications, I was not alone. I was with my best friend. Actually, she was there for me, hiding in one of my trouser pockets. Like a little child playing hide and seek, she hid herself there giggling, even though she knew I knew where she was because I was the one who put her in there. Yet, she hid there; she knew I would kill her. But she would not give up so easily. She had a plan to kill me in return.

Now as my nicotine-quest was rising alarmingly, partly accompanied by the knowledge of her presence, I reached for her. She jumped out of her little golden colored box happily; she was not scared anymore; she would take her revenge; later. I did not care. After all she was my best friend. She would die for me. I knew she would. So, I set fire to her head. It made me happy. I sucked her blood. I loved it. This act brought great relief into my soul; the relief a vampire feels when he tastes blood for the first time after a thousand years of hibernation. I enjoyed it. I sucked hard. No more pain. Pleasure. Relief.

Burn. Burn. Ash. Ash. Smoke. Smoke. Relax. Think. Think. Tap. Think. Smoke. Smoke. Burn. Burn. Ash. Burn. Relax. Think. Think. Abuse. Smile. Free. Tap. Tap. Burn. Smoke. Ash. Smoke…

Without a word spoken, I had shared everything with her; my pain and pleasure, my despair and joy, my anguish and comfort. She was my best friend. At that moment I loved her more than myself.

For some reason, I had a feeling that she was becoming happier every time I sucked her blood in, despite the pain I was causing her. Her head brightly glowing, she was laughing. It was not the laughter of a weakling; it was enormous; terrifying; she was stronger than me; yet I was killing her. She was still laughing. I sucked her blood faster in anguish. Even as most of her body was now dark-grayish ash she was still laughing.

When she was almost into ashes, this little friend of mine grinned and said “You may have me killed now. You don’t have much time left to join me in hell because the blood of mine you were sucking will take care of your throat and lungs. My siblings in those boxes will find my blood inside you. Today I die. Tomorrow they will take revenge for me. You will die soon. But, do not hate me for I made you happy. All that I ask from you is very little in return.”

I put her debris under my foot, did her last rituals, smiled and said “Die, die, die my darling”.

I looked at the golden colored box which read ‘Gold Flake. Kings. Honeydew blend. Smoking kills. Tobacco causes Cancer’

“I will never smoke again”, I whispered, though not for the first time.

Disclaimer 1: All the characters are purely imaginary. Any resemblance to myself, anybody or anything living or dead is totally coincidental.

Disclaimer 2: Do not come to any conclusion. I cannot be held responsible for misinterpretations.

P.S.: Read the disclaimers carefully.

The truth behind being an Anti-United

I came across a United lover the other day who argued that in India there were only United and Anti-United people. I could not figure out why he had a say like that. I was an Arsenal lover but still not an Anti-United. But then….

It was one of those Super Sundays of English Premier League. It was Chelsea vs Manchester United. We had gathered at my flat to watch the live coverage on TV. Before kick-off we were all football lovers. Yes we ‘were’ ‘football’ lovers. We were all discussing the starting line-ups of both teams, strengths and weaknesses, formations, game plan, strategies, predictions and all that is footy. We as fans of different clubs like United, Chelsea, Arsenal and others were all united on one front – FOOTBALL. Now the match kicked off. Our blood pressure levels  were rising. I could see the tension mounting on each of my friend’s faces. They started getting restless. Chelsea attacked; United fans trembled with fear. United attacked; now it was Chelsea fans’ turn. I got a feeling that this could possibly be the best evening of my life; I mean enjoying football(eventhough not playing at that moment).

20 minutes into the game. Both the teams had had their worst and best moments of the day so far. Fans were getting restless. I could see some of the United fans lose their temper on a few occasions. They were getting over enthusiastic. Undoubtebly United are a great footballing team. They have played tremendous games, created unbelievable moves, played beautiful football, produced extraordinary players, given us those flying wingers, mindblowing finishers and unbeatable defenders. But that day, they had not done any of their trademark high quality stuff so far. But I loved the excitement my United friends showed.

40 minutes into the game. United, according to me(according to what I had witnessed in the past), were certainly not at their best that day. Neither was Chelsea. Half time was approaching; still no goals;  a handful of yellow cards; both the teams putting enormous pressure on the other all the time. My United friends, now were on an exaggerated support mode;  I was certainly not loving their enthusiasm anymore.

60 minutes into the game. I was becoming an ‘Anti-United’. In other words, they were starting to piss me off.

80 minutes into the game. I was an ‘Anti-United’. Yes I said to myself ‘I hate these bastards’ (though could really not say who I referred to here as bastards; may be all of them)

End of the game: They (so called United lovers) were no more football lovers. The love for the game was gone. There was hatred; hatred in everyone’s heart; hatred everywhere.

They were no more football lovers. Yes, they were now biased. They were United lovers. Not that United lovers are not Football lovers. They are. But when they are pushed to the egde of their seats because of  their supposed love for United, they seem more vulnerable to the ‘succumb to tension’ thing. Its not their fault. Because they are just ‘WANNABE*** UNITED FANS’. Yes there is a difference between genuine United fans and the Wannabes. There were two United fans who enjoyed the game more than wanting a ‘penalty corner out of a CR7 dive’. They knew. They were genuine United lovers. It was the Wannabes who made much noise in there. And I hated them. Not United.

It was then I realised why there is this general conception among United lovers in India that there are only United and Anti-United people in India. It is more of a misconception.

There are no anti-United people. They are just ‘ANTI-WANNABE –United’ people. It is the wannabes we hate. We do not hate United. Why do the wannabes act the way they act? May be because they are just wannabes. They never knew about United or Football and they will never know because they are just wannabes. They won’t exist tomorrow. They will be long gone. It is the true United lovers who know about the game and about United. And we are not against them. We are against the wannabes. We hate all of them; Bastards!

I am an Arsenal lover. I am not an Anti-United.

***Wannabe United fans are those who think it’s cool to be a Manchester United fan; people who try to fit in the league

P.S.: If you feel offended by this post, I am not sorry. You deserve it.

P.S.2: Soon to write a post about my love for United. 🙂

Gimme 5!

If you have faith in Lord Almighty, you believe He is here, He is there, He is everywhere. Don’t you? I can hear a big YES from you. But wait a second! You just said God is everywhere! Can you prove?  I can!  I can prove His presence. I can prove His presence in some unimaginable places. Yeah !  He’s present right on the tip of some people’s tongues too!!! Here is the proof:

For some reason people keep saying “By God’s grace I went to US” “By God’s grace I completed the project” etc etc. We hear people saying these all the time. You try and  please God in every possible way. Of course, you believe He is going to be pleased when He hears you dedicate your success to Him. You dedicate it once. He’s pleased. You dedicate again. He’s double-pleased. You do it a million times. He’s pleased a million times. Now, hold on a minute! Are you sure He’s not going to forget the number of times you pleased Him; the number of times you made your Father in Heaven happy; the number of times you made The Saviour of Mankind proud for having created you? Why I doubt this is because no matter how many times I please my Supervisor in office, I get the same old sucky rating. He just seems to be suffering from STML(Short Term Memory Loss) during the last few days of the appraisal process. So next time you please God, make sure He replies back with some kind of a sign which signals the number of times He got pleased by you; say something like a token or a ticket with your ‘Your Please Registration ID’ falling all of a sudden from the sky. So, on the Judgement day, He can’t send you to Hell because you have the token with you! Why not? Well, that is how it works in office. You make note of the effort you had put in in the last half year or the last quarter. On the day of the Appraisal meeting, when your supervisor forgets that you worked on the third Saturday of the first month and on the second Sunday of the third month or that the number of kicks you got from the Client is less than the number of appreciations, you still have done a good job, in a relative way, Bang! You show him the stats. “Look! I have slogged my ass out! I have it all in paper! You give me a 5!”

 

A South Indian mutters

I have come across a lot of people, a few from my college and a few from my office, who think or believe that ‘South India’ is a State just like Bihar or Jharkhand or UP or Gujarat. Sadly, most of these people are well educated.

Somebody : “Where are you from?”
Me : “Pondicherry”
Smbdy : “Wooaaw! That is a nice place, really cooool”
Me : “hmm…yeah”
Smbdy : “By the way, where is this Pondicherry? It is an island, right?”
Me : (with a smile that says ‘here you go…not again…’ ) “No no no…it is not.”
Smbdy : “It isn’t?!”
Me : “It isn’t. It is neither an island nor a hill station. It is 150 kilometers south of Chennai on the coast”
Smbdy : “How do you go to Pondicherry?”
Me : “I go to Chennai and by bus from there”
Smbdy : “They speak Telugu there, right?”

…….and a bunch of questions like that. And I patiently answer all the questions, gradually clarifying all doubts about Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, South India, South Indian languages, etc… No kidding, this has happened to me over a hundred times.

For all those who think South India is a single state and all South Indians speak one single language, for your information, I present you some facts about South India.

1. South India is not a single state.
2. South India is not Andhra; no, definitely not.
3. When somebody is from South, he’s not necessarily from Andhra.
4. There is no language called ‘South Indian’ and Telugu is not the only South Indian language.
5. When somebody says he’s a South Indian, he does not necessarily speak Telugu.
6. There are four States and an Union Territory collectively considered as South India.
7. Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka are the four states.
8. Similarly there are four major languages spoken by the people in South India.
9. Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada respectively.
10. And FYI, the four languages are distinct.
11. All South Indian movies are not Telugu movies.
12. Rajnikant is not the only South Indian actor.

For more interesting facts about South India, go through primary school geography and history books.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

So, here I am sitting in my cubicle, pointlessly staring at the monitor screen for more than an hour now, thwarted by the ridicules of Lucknow traffic, unable to get my mind out of it (not just a reason to not work).The way to office was annoying as usual. Cars, autos, bikes, buses, cycles, rickshaws and peddlers all dying to win the race; either it be driving on a straight road or it be crossing roundabouts, everybody wants to be the first one. Nobody wants the other one to go first. The worst part is, there are no signals in most of the roundabouts and vehicles coming from all directions, going towards all directions, race their way through; not a single vehicle would let go the other vehicle even while crossing the road. They all create a lot of confusion in the middle of the road. Above all, I did not understand one thing, why does everybody sound horn all the time? Does it make any sense at all? Why not let the other one go before you? All you have to do is wait patiently for 2 seconds. Ya, I know that every second is precious. But why lose peace of mind fighting your way to office? The vehicle crossing the road sounds horn, the vehicle on the straight road sounds horn, the one behind it, then the one behind the second, then eventually the tenth behind, in fact the ones on the other side of the road, creating a death bell kind of noise. Thanks to you. You have contributed your might towards Noise Pollution. Why don’t you get some sense? Why don’t you stop sounding horn? For heaven’s sake, horn is not the bell you ring in your pooja room to remind the lord in heaven of your presence; it is rather the bell you ring to call the devil in hell. You don’t have to horn all the time while on road. Get some traffic sense my dear higher middle class and higher class public. Driving your car does not classify you as an economical elite; driving with ‘some’ traffic sense classifies you.

Why lose peace of mind? Why not drive peacefully? Why irritate others? Why not have a pleasant ride? You contribute towards annoying yourselves, your boss, your colleagues, your brothers and sisters (as the national pledge says), your city, your nation. You go to your office annoyed; you start annoying already annoyed people there; now the annoyance increasing exponentially around the place; you come home annoyed; you annoy your family; you lose peaceful sleep, you wake up the next day annoyed, now carrying your legacy of annoyance to the road and you take care that the whole process repeats itself, now the annoyance growing in magnitude, covering more space and annoying more people; the entire city is annoyed, and ultimately the entire nation. All that was required was 2 seconds of patience. Why don’t you understand this? Why not wait for 2 seconds? Please spend 2 seconds of your time; give way to the vehicle crossing the road. Live a peaceful life. “All we all say is give peace a chance”.

Everyday the Sameday

The Prelude:
It was 8.30 in the morning when the alarm bell rang. I woke up swiftly only to disable the alarm and roll inside the rajai to continue my sleep. This event repeated twice; once at 8.45 am and at 8.53 am before I woke up at 9.00 am. I forced myself out of sleep for the next 15 minutes trying recklessly by walking around the room, playing songs really loud (my mobile has a sucky sound system) and every other possible way. Then I took a shower, got ready in the next 45 minutes, ate some parattas and got out of the TQ.
Then started the real trouble; I had to walk some distance to take an auto, the shining sun ruthlessly absorbed all that I had in my body. I had to wait for 10 never ending minutes, the sun now showing its might and so was my frustration. An auto, another auto and a rickshaw made my trip to office. Finally I reached the office at 10.30 am drenched in my own sweat, stinking like one of those clumsy guys from a college hostel. The very moment I entered the office reception, the centralized A/C gave me a soothing welcome. I walked the way to my desk pondering on the contradicting places, areas, feelings, frustration levels, and everything that Shakespeare wrote about, though I never knew what he wrote.

First hour at Work:
Okay, now coming to what I do everyday at work (present tense intended). The first thing I do is going to grab a cup of tea/coffee. This helps me waste upto 15 mins before starting my work. So, I spend some time near the coffee machine enjoying tea/coffee all alone. I get bored standing alone. So, I start smiling at people who pass by, hoping to get somebody to talk, in vain most of the time. Sadly, tea gets over within a couple of minutes. I walk my way back to my cubicle thinking about how fast the tea time was over. I sit on my seat very reluctant to switch on the monitor screen. I then force myself to switch it on. Now that the monitor is on, and the system unlocked and the messenger showing my status as online, I feel that my PL needs to know that I have come. So I take a quick walk around the place silently informing people of my arrival. I make some eye contacts and get some smiles in return. I start checking my mails. I spend the next 5 minutes doing it. I get a few mails everyday, most of the mails from RMG alerting me to update Passport details in Ultimatix. I now have no unread mails, yet a lot of time to waste. So, I read old mails once; then re-read; then re-re-read; finally spending 15 mins with my mail box, pretty successful in killing time.

Sametime the Saviour :
Now coming to the actual purpose of coming to office – “Work”. All of us have some work assigned to us; some work assigned a week ago or a day ago or moments ago, all or most of which incomplete or untouched; grinning at us, wanting to humiliate us, create awkward moments in front of the manager or PL, make us feel like committing a homicide, and every embarrassing thing you can think of. But we all have one thing to say to it – “Who cares as long as I’m getting paid?” . As a normal human being, I also feel the same way. So, I keep killing time, like the others do, at times kill time finding ways to kill time. Nevertheless, all of us are blessed with the mother of all the ways to kill time, the epicenter of all the time-killings happening around in the organization, the dictator of every IT professional’s time-killing side of the heart – “Lotus SAMETIME Connect” – a communication software that we use in TCS – they call it “the best way to communicate with workmates” – I call it “the best way to kill your time, others’ time, everybody’s time”. It is the elixir of every pro’s thirst to kill time; ‘chat chat chat, drink its blood, quench your thirst’.
And yeah…coming back to my typical day at work, the next thing I do is open Sametime and say “hi, gm” to everybody who’s online. Some people reply immediately and some aptly neglect. I do not blame those who do not reply. It is just that they have their PL s standing or sitting right behind them. I pity them. Those who reply have a better seating position. That’s it. Now those who reply have only one set of questions – “h r u? hows Lucknow? Hows work?” and I reply “m good, Lucknow is decent and work’s fine” to every set of questions I’m asked. I do not blame them too. They just try to be kind. They generally forget the fact that they are only reminding me of how sucky I am, how stinky Lucknow is and how pathetic my work is. Thanks to all of you who remind me of these every time you talk to me. And so Sametime eats away a good share of the office time. God knows what all crap I talk to people.

A South Indian vs North Indian food :
And its lunch time now and my Team Lead calls me to have lunch with him and a few other teammates. I go with him hoping that he doesn’t ask anything about work he has assigned me to do.
We do not have much to talk about. So to break the ice, he casually asks about the very thing I did not want to hear – “What is the progress of the work? Are you understanding it? How easy are you finding it?” and all crap like that. And I come up with standard answers like “Ya…ya…I’m…uhh….doing it…i’m working on it…might take some more time..uhh……. as I have very little experience in this technology…hmm….yeah…I’ll complete in some more time” and so on. Why do these people disturb us with questions like these? Do we ever ask them these questions? I never understood. Anyway that’s how it is, isn’t it?
I go to the cafeteria. There they provide this North Indian meals. I don’t wish to eat that. Basically being a Tamil and having the typical Tamil tongue for taste, I do not like to have any of the rotti and sabji items too. Also I have decided to avoid Chicken. So the only option left is to have Egg Fried rice or Egg Biryani which I find reasonably good in quantity and taste. So I order Egg Biryani and while they prepare, I join my teammates for a quick chat. My PL asks me “Naveen, kya order diya hai? Egg fried rice ya Egg Biryani?” with the stress on ‘biryani’ and a sarcastic smile all over his lightened up face which normally is gloomy. And while I return back, the cafeteria guy comes up with a comment – “You love ‘eggs’, don’t you?” and I come out of that place with a sheepish smile and a killer instinct.

Time to work?! :
Fag, a walk and I’m back to where I do not want to be, my cubicle. Post lunch hour, I bet, is the worst time to be working. I sit there staring at my monitor screen. I do not do anything but stare at the screen. I mean, I just stare pretending to be seriously involved in a piece of code or a document, awaiting somebody to ping me. And there’s always somebody of the same wavelength sitting somewhere in India and this person takes the initiative and pings me. The message normally goes on like this. “hi Naveen…it is very boring here…have no work… Am feeling sleepy…donno wat to do?”. This is when I feel that I’m not alone. There are people who care for me at least when they are bored and have nothing to do but ping me. These are the people who know that I am jobless all the time and that I welcome every opportunity to kill time. So, chatting watting continues for an hour or so and so does killing time.
Then I start the day’s work, do work, generally crappy work, for the rest of the day, periodically interrupted by tea/smoke break and small chat breaks.
I’m tired of writing. Let me stop here now. Thanks for reading or at least taking pain to scroll down till this part of the page. Looking forward to kill more time. Will come up with more crap like this. Thank you again and bye.