The Pedant

Last weekend, my son announced, Appa I’m inviting a friend of mine home for dinner on Sunday. Could I please be a little less sarcastic and little more courteous, definitely not in that order? Also, Amma, can you make some adai avial and Vaangi Baath, he is a big fan of both of those. Left with no choice, I grumbled a yes. I looked up at the year calendar with a small photo of Lord Ganesha and big bold typeface inscribed name of Lakshmana Groceries, their way of rewarding frequent shoppers and prayed that this new avataram not be one of those new generation mobile savvy, startup dreamy, torn tank top and low waist jeans flaunting hombre who would attempt to make me put down the remains of my provident fund into his application which would deliver me coriander leaves at the click of a button in twenty two and half minutes, ninety seven point eight percent of the time. So help me God.

“How do you know him? Is he working? Is he an engineer? Where did he go to college? Sarkaar college il a private college il a? Which caste does he belong to?” unleashing the barrage of questions, I found myself panting at the end of the monologue, I had forgotten to breathe in the middle.

Jr. Me stared at me, with his jaws wide open. With a shake of his head, he thrust his earphones back in his ears and started waving his hands in the air. Whatever he was listening to, it wasn’t Subbulakshmi’s Suprabhatam, the pace did not quite match with the violent gyrations of his body. Shiva Shiva!

On explicit orders of Ms. Me, my soulmate of this lifetime, I picked up a cloth bag and set out in the direction of Lakshmana Groceries. Unfortunately, the raw materials for adai avial, Vaangi Baath and a bunch of culinary delights Ms. Me and Jr. Me were planning didn’t grow on the trees lining my street. Lakshmana Groceries was going to turn a profit this year too, courtesy my family.

The day of reckoning came sooner than I’d have wanted it to and I found myself extending my hand out to shake hands with Jr. Me’s friend. Jr and he sat down and talked about topics in the world ranging from latest X Box releases to upcoming Formula One Grand Prix and Spanish La Liga all the while munching the savories Ms. Me was constantly doling out from the kitchen. I was left to wonder whether these poster kids of posterity were indeed talking about happenings on Planet Earth or some equivalent in a parallel universe.

I was relieved when Ms. Me announced dinner services and in the short span of a few seconds, found myself sitting at the head of the dining table, with the self-illusion that I was back in control.  I decided to strategically preempt the discussion in areas I considered myself to be pedantic and asked, “So do you follow state and national news?”

“Of course, I do!”

Eager to find a weak spot, I asked, “Are you aware of the recent skirmishes on the India Pakistan border?”

That, in hindsight, was the sentence I should not have uttered. I should have let the evening play out by itself, Jr would have handled it adeptly but I was keen to show who was the master in the house. Mistake. Big mistake.

It was as if someone turbo charged Jr’s friend. He launched into a tirade against the atrocities committed by Pakistan. He then proposed to blame Pakistan for all the ongoing problems in the world. Looking back I have no recollection of how he changed gears but his diatribe expanded and covered everything from Islamic State and Israel Palestine conflict to Chinese influences on North Korea and American imperialist aspirations in South East Asia. It was as if he had the solution to all the problems in the world, unfortunate part was that no one had thought to put him in charge! Thankfully, before the topics could expand any further, adai avial ran out. I used that as my opportunity to run to the wash basin. Golly, I needed a break! It was like I was listening to a speech in Klingon.

Finally, after a few more minutes, it was goodbye time. It couldn’t have come any sooner. As we all gathered at the door to see him off, he suddenly remembered something.

“Oh I forgot. My ammi had asked me to get a 10-kilo packet of idli rice from a grocery store on my way back. I only have Rs. 200 with me. Uncle, aunty, would you know how much a kilo might cost, so that I could decide if I need to stop at an ATM before purchasing?”

Jawan

As a kid, ambulances always fascinated me. I surmise that was because of the lights and siren sounds they had, the way they were treated when on the road where other vehicles would make way for its passage. I caught on the fascination at an age where I was too little to think of why ambulances had those lights and sirens, why they got priority on the road. I probably came to know that at a later age. But the fascination stuck, even though I assimilated the purpose of the urgency. My mother used to tell me that whenever they took me to a toy shop, ambulance fire engine toy replicas were inevitably my first choice. Strange things to like when I look back. But you have to understand, back then not everything was wrapped around societal etiquette. When you are that age, you can love anything and hate anything, neither of which would seem logical. That is the way it is.

I had wanted to sit in the back of the ambulance as it began its somber sojourn from the airport. But it wasn’t possible, I was to show them the way.

Me and Jai were of the same age. We had studies in the same school till plus two. I wouldn’t categorize us as best buddies. Yes, I was friends with Jai but we didn’t belong in the same circle. While both of us did not bring home any academic laurels in our periodic report cards, I was a notorious member of the village naughty children gangs while Jai was someone who was more of a silent type. I was considered by the elder folk as somewhat of a headache, my presence in most cases was a precursor of some mischievous activity in the near future. On the other hand, Jai was a different breed. He was silent and pleasant and was generally friends with most children in the area. There were circumstances when he had come to our rescue. Like in the case when five of us stole toddy from Chandran’s toddy shop and were caught in the act of consuming it, Jai pleaded with Chandran to let us off the hook, vouching for us that we would never steal from anyone. Or when I gave a love letter to carpenter Raman’s daughter when we were in tenth grade and it unsurprisingly came in the know of Raman, Jai talked to Raman to cool things down. And so on went the stories.

As I mentioned, Jai and I were friends, not the thickest of buddies but friends nonetheless. Things took a turn for the better when we were in plus two. Both of us did not know what to do for future. Our academic records did not hold much promise that we could get an admission for any professional degree course and we had started thinking about what to do next. It was Jai who broached the idea of joining the army. The more he talked about it, the more I was convinced that army was a good prospect. There were no army men from our village, so it would help get an image makeover, to get us respected in the village. An additional incentive at least for me was the booze on offer. Army, I had heard, was quite generous in serving up booze to its rank and file and that certainly was a swing factor in my decision. Not to mention all the pluses and perks of a government job.

And so, a handful of us prepared for the Army recruitment. Three of us managed to clear the physicals and get offers from the army when they came for recruitment in the state. As luck would have it, me and Jai got posted to the same battalion. It was certainly good to have a known face to bank upon - the training period was tough and sapping and we depended a lot on each other to get through that. And that it when the bond of friendship between me and Jai was strengthened. Being of the same battalion, we got our postings together. We were posted in different parts of the country and the two eggheads from a remote corner of India got to see the soul and essence of the length and breadth of India. We also developed a pattern when taking our annual vacations - we tried to space them up so that one of us would be home every half year or so. That way, even though we went home only once every 12 to 18 months, from our village perspective, any one of us would be home every 6 to 8 months.

Time passed, as it always does. Both of us married, had kids. When I would go home for my vacations, along with all the luggage for me and my family, it was an unwritten rule to carry one box full of stuff for Jai’s wife and daughter. And vice versa when he went home for his vacations. And when everything was going well, came the war. Historians of futurity may judge it with a different set of views but for us as soldiers, we were taught to obey orders coming from higher up, not question them. Our regiment, as was the case with a lot of regiments, was sent to the international border. Our battalion was posted at the front-line - we were the first line of defence for India. When you are in a war, your psyche is very different from what you experience during peacetime. The adrenaline levels are pumped up and you need that to cope up with the death and destruction you see happening in front of you. You know that you and your colleagues are responsible for creating that havoc directly or indirectly and you need to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing.

And that is when it happened. The eighteenth day of our deployment on the international border. That is when a shell fired from the enemy forces hit one of our front-line command posts manned by Jai and another colleague. Death was instant, I later came to know. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news. Yes, we are soldiers and we are “used to” seeing a colleague waving hello at us one day and coming back inside a body bag the next. No matter how trained you are, no matter how much of the army psyche you have assimilated, you cannot quite get “used to” some things. 

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The body of Jai lie wrapped in a white cloth in the back compartment of the ambulance. As I directed the driver to make the final turn into the road which led to Jai’s house, I could see the crowd afar that had gathered around the compound of Jai’s house.

An American Conundrum

I’m a citizen of India, residing and working in the United States of America. With the recent American presidential elections and the spate of rhetoric around visas and immigration, a lot of immigrants who are in this country, are quite anxious and concerned. Rightfully so. And I find a high volume of literature on the Indian media about the immigration news coming out of America on a regular basis, and often see the jargon spiral quite out of tone of reality and end up in places closer to sensationalism.

The intent of this piece is not to go into detail about how right or wrong the new President’s immigration policies are, but to more pen down a very biased approach in India and how India views the system here. While I personally have my reservations on some of the recent changes in immigration policies starting to be enforced in United States, I still hate to point out that even despite that, even if America implements all the policies that the President talks about, it will still admit more immigrants into the country than India does. Officially, at least.

Let’s face it folks, we are a highly immigrant unfriendly nation. While a lot can be said about the richness our culture and civilization, we cannot claim to be a nation that has been friendly to immigrants. In fact, we have often had strong anti-immigration stances. We’ve had cases of vandalism and protests when a state accused people from other states, which are a part of the same union and salute the same flag, of coming into the former and “taking away” jobs. Sure, we have had our high points, like the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 during and after which India absorbed a lot of people fleeing from war and persecution. Another example would be India’s resettlement of Sri Lankan Tamils during some of the bloodiest fighting between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan armed forces. But I’d argue that was more borne out of an anti-Pakistan or pro-Tamil sentiment, a sentiment of “them and us being from a common background or race”, rather than a genuine desire to help refugees.

The recent spate of refugees from war torn regions in Iraq and Syria is probably the biggest case in point. The world was truly facing a refugee crises. Western European nations and some other countries like United States, Canada, Australia and Brazil to name a few did choose to accept people fleeing war from these countries. While you and I can agree or disagree on whether everyone was “fair” and took in a “fair share”, what is indisputable is that these nations actually took in people. Tried, even if halfheartedly, to help them get settled into their countries. And where was India in all these global efforts? Zilch. Our silence and inaction was loud and clear.

There has probably never been a period more tumultuous and non-peaceful in history than the present times. The world has faced crises, the world will continue to do so and weather them. India has had her chance, but we have not helped (In all fairness, India has a point to argue that she didn’t do anything to precipitate a lot of these crises in any way. And I’ll grant her that!). The world has never looked up to India in such situations, and India has never responded like befitting a large, democratic and free nation.  We have rarely shown the resolve to accept and integrate refugees or immigrants into our society, and we probably never will. And in such a circumstance, it is unfair to stand on top of Gateway of India and shout across to the Lady Liberty complaining about her immigration policies. 

The Bitter Coffee

This corner side cafe occupied a special place in my life. I discovered it when I moved to the city to start my professional career. This was on the way to my workplace. One quick skip and hop to get a coffee once in a while. As time passed, this gradually developed into a routine. Somewhere over the course of the first year in this locality, I developed a personal bond with this café.

She joined my office a year after me. And as someone who was of almost same age as her but had a year or so experience in the group, I was assigned to mentor and on-board her. The frequent interactions initially were professional. And as it invariably happens in a lot of such situations, somewhere the professional barriers got breached and we encroached into each other’s personal spaces. It was during one of our initial interactions in office that I suggested to head out for a coffee at this café and she came along. Slowly, as our relationship blossomed, the café and its corner table became a very usual setting.  We shared out thoughts, aspirations and dreams over countless cups of coffee. We dreamt about a dream wedding, an unforgettable honeymoon and a happy married life sitting under the roof of this coffee shop delightfully savoring lattes and cappuccinos.

Somewhere along, the world of idealism gave way to the pragmatism of real life scenarios. There were wedges between us, the clashes became one too often. And at last, yesterday, the Sunday before Christmas, at the entrance of this very café, this very location that had become a part of us and our relationship, she said goodbye and good luck to me one final time. Around us, as the melodious Christmas carnival drumbeats echoed, she walked away from me and from us, the final time.

Yesterday is over, and I know I won’t get over it anytime soon. I came up to the cashier as usual today morning and ordered a cup, tall and black. This cuppa, this Joe in my hand, is my last from this café. The coffee today tastes particularly bitter, and the reason is not the sugar I failed to add. Too many memories clog my veins, too much nostalgia lingers enclosed within these walls. Goodbye, dear café. Maybe our paths might cross someday in future. I, for one, wouldn’t bet on it though.

The Linguist

I was assigned to man the classifieds section of the newspaper that day. It was a peaceful setting, and one, where I thought I could work on some ideas for an Op-Ed piece that I had promised my editor I’d deliver within the week. As I was writing and striking off ideas that were popping in my mind, I was interrupted by a group of youngsters who appeared in front of my desk.

The guy in the center introduced himself and his friends to me and said to me that he wanted to post an obituary in the next day’s newspaper about his grandfather’s brother who passed away a few hours ago and he inquired if I could direct him to the right section.

“You are at the right place” I said. Pushing a pen and piece of paper towards him, I said, “Do write down the matter to be published and hand it over to me. You can pay the fees at the counter on the ground floor.”

No soon as I had pushed the pen and paper towards the group, their faces lost the ring of purpose with which they had come in. His face switched to reflect a confused state and his peers were looking at the ceiling and floor of the building with a new found esoteric interest.

“I do not know how to compose in Malayalam sir. I studied in an English medium establishment.”

Aah so this explained the tectonic behavioral shift of the group.

“Not a problem. You can compose it in English, I will translate it into Malayalam for you and give it inside.”

Now, the expression on their faces switched to chaos. One of his friends muttered from behind, “Hey man, do what they want and then come back down. We’ll wait outside, near the car park.”

Before the young man could open his mouth, his friends around him vanished. And he was back to staring at me, with a flushed look at my face. It was starting to dawn on me the reason for this unique group behavior. Neither himself nor any of his mates was confident enough to draft the same in English as well, the language over which they supposedly command over!

As he stood before me coyly, with his feet drawing imaginary circles on the floor below, my face betrayed no emotion. “What’s the matter?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“Please excuse me sir, I just remember I have an urgent chore to attend to. I’ll compose the matter from home and be back shortly.”

Saying this, he turned back and almost ran away from my presence.

I caught the back side of his T shirt when he retreated out of sight. It read “I was born intelligent but education ruined me.”

Somebody

  

Yesterday it was,

that I sat by this window.

To write something special,

for that somebody who I hoped

would turn to be my somebody special.

I was stumbling,

at a loss were words.

My hands were trembling,

at a loss was a heart.

Yet for all it was

deep inside I knew

That the stumbles and trembles

were all of a bubbling heart.

Of a mind that wanted to scream

my feelings for you.

An ode,

a verse

or a chapter

I didn’t know what to write,

the word unwritten speaketh louder.

Today I find myself,

sitting by the same window sill,

the green fields that they were outside,

stands all parched.

The fury of God it seems

not just landed the curse on me.

It spread everywhere I went.

I still want to write,

though I’m still unsure what to write.

All I know

is that person

did want me no more

as her someone special.

I was stumbling,

at a loss were words.

My hands were trembling,

at a loss was a heart.

Yet for all it was

deep inside I knew

That the stumbles and trembles

were all of a broken heart.

Of a mind that wanted to scream

my hatred for you.

The feeling for you,

masqueraded  as much to the world,

as much to myself.

Not an ode,

not a verse,

nor a chapter,

all that flashed in front of me

Was one word of hate.

The one expression of hatred.

Inside I knew,

I was lying to myself.

But always was I a deceiver.

The letter lies unfinished,

Burned to a pile of ash

In my mind and soul.

Sinner

The smell of gunpowder was nauseating. As her pace got her closer to the gates of the ammunition manufacturing unit, the stench seemed to magnify manifold. Her husband never seemed to have an issue with the smell. The very thought of her husband caused her already not-so-promising outlook towards the day meander southward.

Peace and tranquility were two feelings she had given up on the day they were married. She and her five-year-old son was most often on the receiving end of his fury on many nights. The problems were so intense that she used to put her five-year-old to sleep by seven in the evening so that he is spared from the volcanic fury of his father. He was an alcoholic but he never came around to admitting that. Her pleas and cries would often be drowned in his incoherent and outrageous remarks of his alter-ego in his semi-permanent inebriated state. He used to come home seldom before ten. After his shift at the company, he and his friends would head to one of their usual joints and drink themselves to senselessness, following which he’d head home. Logic didn’t often go well with an intoxicated state of mind and he invariably used to pick a fight with her for even the most trivial of reasons. And then, he’d fall to bed, and sleep off immediately. She’d often stay back in the living room for a while, cursing her bad luck, her husband’s alcohol addiction and contemplating her and her son’s bleak future. Her tear glands were almost paralyzed, it did seem she had used up an entire lifetime of tears’ supply in the eight years after their marriage.

Things would attain a completely different hue in the morning. He would wake up sober and they would talk sensibly, like a husband and wife are supposed to. He’d occasionally help her in making breakfast and he’d be all eager to please her. “Leave the job here. Your job involves gun manufacturing, it is a sinful task. Let us find a job elsewhere, let us not work at a place where they profit when men kill each other.” Her suggestion would be brushed aside, she knew. “Yes yes, it is something we should think of. The company is doing well now, they will handout our bonuses in the next month. Manager saab was telling that this time they’ve made record profits and we employees should expect hefty bonuses. I’ll work till they pay out the bonuses for this quarter and then once that is done, I’ll start searching for another job,” he’d say, a lot of warmth and affection exuding from his eyes. And then the conversation would taper off.

She sighed. All these conversations, all these seemed to have happened eons ago. He had died six weeks ago, of lung cancer. By the time he was diagnosed, the cancer was at an advanced stage. The doctor opined that it is most likely caused by all the chemicals that were involved in pellet manufacturing since his job involved continuous and careless contacts with all those carcinogenic substances. In those few weeks since the tragedy, she had thought of multiple ways to start earning and knocked on various doors. But none of her efforts panned out. So here she was, making her way towards the gate of the factory as his replacement at his job. During the walk, she contemplated the sins that she was about to heap upon herself. The sons and fathers of men who would die from a gun that she would help manufacture. The wives and daughters of men who might stay alive if she were not going to work at this place. True, all this was real but equally real was her son’s school fees she had to pay. The grocer and vegetable vendor who had given her provisions for the past month but would stop free lines of credit sometime soon. She had no other option. A tear escaped her eyes as she crossed the gate.

“A month or two,” she thought to herself. “I’ll probably work here enough to pay off existing bills and then I shall look for another job.” She mentally cleansed her feelings of guilt that were washing ashore in her mind and made her way to the interiors of the factory complex.

Forget me, my angel

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.

George Herbert

Forget me, my angel.

Forgive me for my deeds

and forget me for my sins.

Walk the path of life,

as like tomorrow a mile

as like the next hundred years one long mile.

I won’t cross thy path,

wouldn’t dream of hindering thy growth.

Look never to your sides,

they becometh your peers.

As peers as competitors,

they are, but a threat.

Never look your sides,

never pause a moment for a fallen peer,

for, the world won’t ask if you’re late,

it’s not the latecomer who leadeth the world.

it’s not the bourgeois who leadeth the world.              

Never look over your shoulders my angel,

never a pause, never a glance.

I stand there alone,

watching you go far and high.

I stand there, a meek reminder,

of the heritage of yesterday

you so deem to shed.

History is a cunning rascal,

he followeth you who is the leader.

The heritage is past, even for history.

Traditions relented, history said to forget it.

Even he doesn’t pause to offer me a shade.

The very me who he chased,

till you, my angel,

till you who took over.

Create your destiny,

rewrite history my love.

You are the power to rewrite.

Just  don’t pause,

just don’t waver.

And remember, not to look back

Over thy shoulder.

After all, all I did was to give birth to you my angel.

Forget me, my angel.

Forgive me for my deeds

And forget me for my sins.

Another Day in Paradise

Christmas time is one of happiness and joy, one of smiles and celebrations. And one of cold snowy winter as well. Three days to go before Christmas, the city was in a festive and joyous mood. That snowy night, I found myself walking on the pavement draped in all sorts of winter wear I could lay my hands on. I was missing my wife quite a bit, she had to go out of town for a conference and would be back only on New Year’s Eve. The late-night walks and a midnight coffee with her would’ve been just what the doctor ordered, if you ask me.

Yet there I was alone among a sea of humanity, with an all-professional visage in a surrounding filled with holiday cheer and festivities. Somewhere afar, I heard the hum of a cathedral bell chime ten. Even at this hour, there were a lot of people outside, quite a sizeable chunk of them with children, throwing snowballs at each other. I was immune to the celebrations around me, as I watched the setting dispassionately.

I slowly made my way across the street to a café. Like all other shops in the vicinity, the café too was decorated with Christmas trees and decorations hanging from the walls. There was a decent sized crowd in the café, most of them clutching their cups of piping lattes and hot chocolates taking in the vacation spirit and engaged in lively conversations. Just as I was about to push open the door, my eyes darted to the side. And there, I found him, yet another homeless man in this city of dreams. He had a blanket which he had draped across his body, and a tattered pair of shoes which, I wondered, did much to protect his feet from the wintry chill. He was not much different from the thousands of others whom I’ve seen on the streets over the course of years, but I shouldn’t generalize or trivialize this human being. This was not a number I could add up if I were counting the number of such individuals I had come across on the streets, this was a human being with life and blood.

Even he seemed to embrace the mood of the occasion. He was smiling, or more accurately, that’s what I read from the spread-out lips with hardly anything resembling teeth inside his mouth. Despite the cold, it seemed, he was bent on giving his life the few hours of joy and liveliness he rarely could afford. As I pushed open the door and stepped into the café, his face and his smile, somehow, had affected me. Something all of the life and energy around me in the past few hours could not do, a look at his face for a few seconds did for me. For the first time that evening, I found myself smiling.

I was still sporting my smile when I went up to the very cheerful barista at the counter.

“I’ll take a tall latte” I said.

As she was about to bill my latte, I corrected myself.

“Actually, make that two lattes. And I’ll add a couple of scones to that order as well.”

A few minutes later, I exited the café sipping my latte and holding the other latte and scones in my free hand. And I bent down in front of the man in front of the café and put down the latte in front of him and handed him the scones.

“Merry Christmas to you my dear man,” I said.

“You too, sir. Oh, thank you so very much for these. May God bless you!”

I smiled and stood up. As I slowly started to walk away in the direction of my apartment, I heard him say, “You’ve fed a hungry soul sir. That’s another day for you in paradise.”

The title is inspired by a song of the same name by Phil Collins. You can watch the song here and the lyrics can be found here.

The Krishna Conspiracy

Scene 1

Battlefield of Kurukshetra

The great battle of Kurukshetra is all set to begin. Arjuna makes his way to the middle of the battle field on his chariot with Krishna as his charioteer. Seeing all of his relatives on the other side of the battlefield, Arjuna becomes depressed and is confused if fighting them is indeed the right thing to do.

Arjuna tells Krishna, “Over the other side, I see Drona. He is my guru, the great warrior, he has taught me all I know about warfare. Next to him is Bhishma. His love and wisdom lies within myself, within my heart and my soul. How can I fight people who have helped me become what I am today?”

Krishna tells him about his dharma. Arjuna is still not convinced.

Then Krishna tells Arjuna. “Alright mate. You don’t want to fight, fine? You don’t care about adharma triumphing over dharma, fine. How about this, I’ll keep a condition for you. Go to an engineering college in India, complete four years of baccalaureate degree course. If you think you can do that, then forget Mahabharata, forget the kingdom you are rightfully supposed to inherit which you have been unethically denied. If you can complete that four year course successfully in due time, I’ll agree to your points of view and I’ll steer your retreat from this great Kurukshetra.”

Arjuna thought about the moral dilemma confronting him and decided that it would be much easier to go to an engineering college and earn a degree than to face his own relatives in a battlefield.

Scene 2

Entrance examination center

A puzzled expression dons the visage of Arjuna as he stands in queue before the mandatory frisking before the beginning of the engineering entrance examination. His face certainly belies his state of mind. He had come in his royale attire, donning the gold jerried dhoti and his customary bow-and-arrow.  He is puzzled that he is quite an object of attention of the entire chunk of young men and women around him. Arjuna was quite used to looks of admiration and obedience he used to get from his subjects but the looks he was getting now was none of that. None of them are wearing dresses that Arjuna could comprehend. And he was surprised he had to stand in queue, waiting for his turn. Back in Kuru kingdom, he was always privileged to skipping ahead of queues but people did not seem to recognize him. So he stood, in that sweltering heat wondering if he had indeed made the right decision.

The queue inched forward slowly till Arjuna finds himself standing in front of a gruff security officer. As soon as he set his eyes on him, the security officer unleashed a torrent of gaalis Arjuna had never even heard prior! His confusion is momentarily cleared when the officer shows him a memo from the examination board. It read, “Don’t bring any device or anything along with you which can create trouble for you better to avoid things like hair band, cap and scarp, nose pins, bracelet, earrings, bow and arrows, watches and mobile phones.” Silently, Arjuna hands over his bow and the quiver of arrows to the officer who then pushes him to another officer. He thrusts the same piece of memo in front of Arjuna, a different statement is highlighted. “As per the new rules the candidates are advised to wear light clothes shirts and T-shirts having half sleeves which do not have big buttons, generally avoid wearing fancy type clothes.” Arjuna, clad in his dhoti and not wearing anything equivalent to the modern day shirt or T shirt, is again left in the lurch. He silently curses Kali Yuga as he makes his way to the nearest garment store to find something that fits the requirements for appearing in the entrance examination. He made a mental note to ask Krishna next time, whatever the challenge, do not send him to undertake a task in Kali Yuga….

Scene 3

Engineering

Arjuna stands with pride in front of the gates of the engineering institute into which he got admitted into. Though the feat of appearing for the entrance examination seemed much tougher to Arjuna than clearing the examination itself, he is nonetheless proud of himself and is looking forward to show Krishna and the other Pandavas his entrance examination results card when he returns. Focusing on the task at hand, he pushes open the gates only to find a huge mob of youngsters charging towards him. “Good God,” he thinks, “This seems it is much more of a battlefield here than Kurukshetra itself.” As the mob appears closer to him, the faces of the individuals on the frontline belie their state of mind. If he had his bow and arrow, Arjuna could have taken down however large a mob with his arrows but he felt naked now without his bow. That darn flight journey to college, they didn’t allow weapons to be carried on the flight, he had to check those in with his check in baggage and in the true spirit of Kali Yuga, the airlines had misplaced his checked in bags. Arjuna was helpless and didn’t have Krishna to turn for advice. However, his survival instincts told him that the best way out in this predicament was to turn around and run as fast as he could. He attempted to do just that but he was a moment too late. The leader of the mob caught him quite effortlessly.

“Who are you?” he barked.

“I came to join this college for first year engineering,” a tame Arjuna replied.

Huge guffaws accompanied Arjuna’s answer. “Do you know who we are?” quizzed the leader of the mob.

“No, I don’t.”

Slap! Before Arjuna could react, a hand had reached up and slapped his cheek. “We are your seniors. From now on, you are our junior. And all juniors are our slaves.”

And thus began Arjuna’s life at an engineering college. He would be in the middle of completing his engineering drawing assignment due to be submitted tomorrow when he would get that dreaded call from a senior to withdraw money from the ATM. As per Murphy’s law (he realized that Mr. Murphy had simply renamed Kali Yuga after him, he planned to write a thesis about Mr. Murphy copying from India’s religious heritage sometime during the course of his degree), the nearest ATM would be out of cash and he often ended up travelling to the other end of the city to find an ATM that had enough cash. A day before the mid-term examination is when his seniors would feel the need to have their rooms cleaned before they started preparing for his exams and Arjuna was called upon for doing the cleansing. Arjuna’s number seemed to be on speed dial for all concerned. When any of the seniors ran out of money to pay the dhobi to wash the clothes, it was upon Arjuna to wash their clothes till their accounts were refilled by their parents the next month. Buying alcohol (absolutely against his beliefs, mind you!) or a smoke in the middle of the night, standing in queue bunking classes to reserve railway tickets for seniors, you name a menial task, Arjuna had done that in his first three months. The icings on the cake were when he went to a driving school, learnt driving a four wheeler and appeared and passed a driving test as a proxy for one of his seniors who was too lazy to do all that.

Among all this, he had to manage studies as well. Although in terms of time and effort committed, studies lagged far behind multitude of other commitments (most happening of which are afore-mentioned), he managed to push along his coursework as well. He used to get so many redraws and repeats on his engineering drawing assignment that he strongly came to believe that his instructor of that subject was a descendant of the Kaurava clan. Engineering workshop was another highlight of the first semester. The T-joint which he had made as a part of his carpentry assignment, an elephant could pass through the wedge hole. Mathematics and Physics were all about derivatives and integrals. It started with first level derivatives and integrals but by second semester they had gone to double differentiation and surface integration. It seemed that every semester added one additional level of integration and differentiation, he shuddered at the very thought of what awaited him at the seventh and eighth semesters. After he added water to a huge beaker of sulphuric acid, there was a mini explosion of sorts in the Chemistry lab and he was given a damages bill that to him, didn’t seem much different from the semester fee bill. And to top it all, after a tiring day of classes and labs when he came back to the mess, they served him two rotis and a dal which had cooked of a healthy proportion of a dozen grams of dal in a liter of water or so. Staring into his katori of dal, which, if it was a lucky day, would contain couple of dozens of pieces dal, he reminisced about the royal food he used to get when he was with his siblings.

Scene 4

Battlefield of Kurukshetra

As in the first scene, Arjuna is sitting on the chariot behind Krishna. He has a sullen look on his face. Krishna smiles and asks Arjuna, “So, were you able to get the degree? Should I turn the chariot around?” Arjuna looks up to Krishna and says, “My Lord, please don’t taunt me. I confess I underestimated the challenge you threw upon me. I thought that it would have been much easier to get the engineering degree and that would have avoided the predicament wherein I would have had to face my uncles and relatives in this epic battle. But now, I realize, getting an engineering degree in Kali Yuga is much more impossible than fighting and winning this battle. Now I do not have an iota of doubt in my role in this world. Steer the chariot straight ahead my Lord. Let’s go get ‘em.”

And Krishna turned forward and the horses galloped to the center of the battlefield. And the rest, as they say, is history….