Information Technology

Aaahh…it was my dream. I submitted myself to those two words. The talk of the town, the buzz of the world.

They called it Information Technology. “IT” was a real cute nickname. The dream of my generation. It was as if some unknown demi-God had just developed the seed of a tree that had the abilities to grow money. It fascinated me.

Those boring classes in Plus One and Plus Two never extinguished the spark in me. Those giant sized dusty reference books that I was supposed to “assimilate” never seemed a burden to me. Nights were never far where I used to picturize myself as a handsome young man in his well-pressed formal attire and tie, sitting in a revolving chair in an air conditioned room in Bangalore, New Delhi, Detroit, New York……or beyond. The traction provided by the smell of afresh bundles of currency in those dreams of mine was more than enough to leap across the hurdle called entrance examinations.

I eagerly waited. In an obscure corner of my engineering college. For the angel called campus selection. And after three years that seemed like ages, the day came. My angel came. I too was selected….into the wings of a company…a by product of “information technology explosion.”

It took my mother a good part of six months to come anywhere near pronouncing the name of my company, recognizably...

Phew...what else in life. Another damn year in this college and then am a free bird I reflected. Working in those heavenly conditions, living in those grandiose villas and stashing away those bundles of money that I’ll continue “earning” into some bank accounts and investment stocks…for me to enjoy later.

The day dawned. My joining day. Afresh in a new set of branded casuals, the keen desire to encounter the world of computers, I set out to my office in the Electronic City in Bangalore. And lo !!!! It was heaven… For a youth of twenty three, who could dream of better prospects in life at this stage itself?

Life at the first week at job strengthened my beliefs. Those instructions from the firangi boss of mine, seemed like music to my ears. The paraphernalia around me never bothered me, the way it used to until a couple of months ago. In spite of sitting motionless in front of my computer from nine in the morning to ten in the night, it never seemed enough for me. The feelings of hunger and thirst seemed ethereal.

Days passed by. With every passing day, it seemed as if my mind had stopped working. Enthusiasm, joy, happiness, eagerness...all these suddenly seemed mere words in a lexicon. Those commands of my Iboss started feeling less like music and more like having a tinge of contempt and haughtiness. The same monotone, sitting in front of the same idiotic computer. Starting to feel dull, was I?

Naah! All these melted away into thin air the day I got my first salary. Not thousands….tens of them !!! More money than I had ruefully counted and given at the counter of my entrance examination coaching institute. At that moment, I felt on top of the world, literally.

But...but what to do with the money?? Never really had the time to spare to eat what were once my favourite food items in the midst of a spare-timeless work routine. Could not even afford to think of a vacation to places I so badly wanted to visit as a kid, thanks to my boss who opined that taking leave was a greater sin than homicide. Aah..no problems...I consoled myself. Sure once in life, I’ll have the opportunity to spend lavishly this hard earned money, the way I desire.

Hard earned money...the way I desire !!!!
Life ceased to flow like music. It was as if time had lost its tempo. A day dawns, a day ends…and life in between these two events never altered. Six days a week, three hundred plus days an year. Couldn’t recognize days and dates, unsuccessful quests for the feeling called joy behind those fat money bags….every passing day seemed like an eternity frozen in time.

Hardly “found time” to go home. Countably few occasions. And one fine morning, I get a call from home. My marriage had been fixed. With those handful of days of casual leave that was mercifully granted at the behest of my Canadian boss, I journeyed home. Bespectacled with a pair of thick lenses coupled with a slightly wrinkled and expressionless visage, no one even dared talk to me. And I was elated for that. Recently, I had noticed…that I had started enjoying solitude more than anything. So far, so good.

The bride too was from my office, they said. Maybe…I reflected. I…not only me, was the same case with everyone...seldom talked. After all, what role has informal chats to do with the Goliath they call information technology, huh?

Marriage hardly did anything to rework the me in me. Just that in what was earlier a “single room” made way to become a “double room.” I shared space with her, never gave a thought to share my life. Before the time sun thought of rising to way after the time when even the moon and stars got tired of darkness, I “realized my dreams”...realized my life, in front of that white monitored devil with, very symbolically, white body and a dark screen. It seemed…no it was as if I had lost the ability...to laugh, to cry, to dream. Times were few and far in between when I and my wife met.

We were close...yet we lived poles apart. No complaints, no remorse….for either of us.

Now, I have stopped dreaming...about future. Those things come to fore only if you have certain goals to achieve, isn’t it? But whenever I do, I feel stranded. Like a little boy, trapped in a tunnel…with the false hope that at the end, there is going to be light. I remember the moment….when I was signing my offer letter, with a proud smile on my face and dreams of a prosperous future in my mind. I remember the enthusiasm, the spark in me….the resolve to earn money, however, whatever the means. After all, this is what I dreamt of from the time I was in high school.

My mind was raring to go. I was ready. To perform. For a profligate life.

I WAS ready...

Today...everything seems frozen. Me, my self, my mind, my character...I even have doubts as to the very existence of some of these. I am not able to laugh aloud at the dreams of a fifteen year old….at least if I could have done that, I would have justified my presence in this world as a human being.

Lying on my bed, this night...naah, my definition of nights once never used to stretch this far; five used to be very early morning for me as was for my mother a few decades ago, I am unable to sleep. Sleepless nights have become way too common nowadays. I looked to my bedside. I could gauge that even my wife was only half-asleep, the way she twisted and turned in her bed so frequently proved it. I thought of the time ahead….those faces that I came across daily but never really generated any emotion in me, flashed across through my mind…my wife, Canadian boss, canteen bhaiyya…. And the recent dreams, in which information technology as a gigantic satan, chased me with loud guffaws and outstretched hands.

I used to see demons in my dreams in childhood. But the presence of my mother at my bedside used to reassure me...that I was safe.

The alarm rang. Three days is what is left in the deadline given to me, to finish my allotted project, which is only just about half done. Three hours is what I slept...oops, no what I spent in bed, trying to sleep. Without a hint of fatigue, I removed my blanket and got out of bed.

Back to office. Back to the lifeless ethos I call life.

Mela

A small farmer that he was,
a large grace that he had.


Outside the confines of his dusty village,
he seldom envisioned a world.
A world that was his village,
a village that was his soul.


A small family Ramchand had,
the smaller the sweeter they did say.
A charming spouse and a sweet kid,
is after all, what all yearn.
Half a decade since Munnu came into his world,
he knew life since prospered.
Lucky charm, believed he thus.


Sarayu meandered through his village,
its waters the life giving blood
for an otherwise parched village.
It was on her banks the Mela occurred,
the full moon week of Phagun.


Holi, the tyohaar of colours,
the Holi Mela was a celebration for the village.
Crowds thronged, from villages afar.
‘twas only this once a year his village
liberated herself from shackles of slumber.
Only once, she bathed herself sublime.


As a dozen months ago, it was Phagun,
And then, it was Phagun again.


All these four years Munnu was never taken,
mela was just a glorious fable for him.
Afraid of the crowd Ramchand was,
lest Munnu get lost.
He bought him candies and balloons,
but Munnu to Mela was a stubborn no.


Topped his class Munnu did.
What he wanted was no new bag,
no new slate,
but....a visit to the mela.


Reluctant was Ramchand,
stubborn was Munnu.
Tried to coax Munnu he did,
Munnu this time, didn’t seem yielding.
The “Haan” from Ramchand was muted,
but least cared Munnu,
as a “haan” was ever a “haan”


Friends, neighbours-Munnu beamed,
in front of everyone.
Was as if he dreamt a notch above heavens,
and the heavens bent downwards.


The day it dawned.
The night previous sleep kept afar,
still Munnu was as afresh a rosy petal.
They say a child smiles, a home beams.
A new attire, afresh expectations,
he charmed, he real did.


The afternoon sun resigned,
the evening sun took over,
and off were father and son.
Words of advices to be careful and strong grip on Ramchand’s hands,
but Munnu was in a world of his own.


Sarayu draped in a thousand colours,
her banks crowded with humanity.
The smile on Munnu’s face broadened seconds in,
Ramchand too was enjoying....at least it seemed so.
A lot of known faces, a lot of pleasantries,
he stole the show, Munnu did.


Pink blotched balloons were irresistible,
so Ramchand bought one before even being demanded.
“Five takas, so small a price for Munnu’s smile”
is all what the blessed father thought.


They roamed around,
candies, china balls, toys, odds and clutters,
the father didn’t seem in a mood to resist,
to an over-the-moon child.


Time flew, dusk setting in,
either were still in not in a mood to depart.
The sun into its shelter for the day,
the stars started mimicking Munnu.
Just then Munnu lost his grip on his balloon,
away it rose, and wind taking it westwards.
Tears welled up in Munnu’s eyes,
something Ramchand didn’t want to see.
First time thus, Ramchand slackened his fatherly grip,
told Munnu to stay put,
headed west he did, chasing the balloon,
chasing Munnu’s dream.


Run he did,
near half a mile did the balloon tease him,
until it surrendered, to the will of a father,
to the heart of a kid.


All smiles he returned,
to the spot he left little Munnu.
A pink balloon in hand,
and a picture of his kid running toward him.
But.....


Nowhere was Munnu to be seen !!!
The smile disappeared,
stars overhead went blight,
as Ramchand tore apart the world.
He searched, ghat to ghat,
quizzed multitude, if anyone saw little Munnu,
alas, he wished it all were a practical joke.


But the Gods weren’t joking,
all energy drained out,
in a frenzy was Ramchand,
his world had just gone dark.


Through the night he searched,
fatigue in him never did try overcome the father in him.
A pair of tireless legs,
the thrust of a stabbed heart,
all but proved hardly enough.


The stars set to bid farewell,
the sun making his daily debut,
the reality had dawned....way before dawn.
A heart broken soul sat on the banks of Sarayu,
it rather, was a soulless body.
His mind was rewinding,
as in a flashback, all the years went past,
but something indelible was Munnu.
Ramchand couldn’t go home,
thought he, “How can I break this news to her?”
Front of his eyes Sarayu meandered,
her banks were empty.
The village back to her annual aestivation,
only to awake, thought Ramchand,
the next Mela.


Sun’s rays started trickling in,
ensuing the morn spectacle,
the dazzle of sulight against Sarayu waters,
seemed way less charming to Ramchand than it ever did.


His visage betrayed his grief,
facial contours nowhere indicated a fuming mind.
Seemed the rising sun brought in fresh ideas,
A determined Ramchand, it looked.


Had made up his mind,
the sun a backdrop,
A west flowing Sarayu,
Ramchand knew he shouldn’t....but he couldn’t otherwise.


What he didn’t was that Munnu was picked,
by Ali Kaka their neighbour.
Spotted Munnu he did, standing alone in throng,
and escorted him home, a couple of candies on the way back.
An ever beaming Munnu was back home,
waiting to tell his father as he came back,
the story of those pebbles he pocketed from river bank.


Someone found a lifeless body a few miles downstream,
no one in neighbouring village knew Ramchand,
And hence none recognised Ramchand, lifeless.
Munnu still waited, a look of expectations,
a bundle of exciting stories,
his eyes ever fixed onto the dusty pavement in front,
through which he expected his father to spring up,
anytime......

Anytime.......

Geek

There's nothing special about this poem. It was written in one of those innumerable boring lecture classes, yesterday. It started off from the person who was sitting next to me and as the poem progressed, it ceased to draw inspiration from one person and I was getting ideas from a horde of people.
I believe the poem does not match upto the standards of a lot of poems and prose written by me, but the fact that it was spontaneous, fast and in the middle of a class makes me post this onto my blog.
Happy Reading !!!


Think did I long time before,
that engineers rule the world.
Realise did I, not long before,
that just a few geeks do,
the rest just stare.


A shabby picture I had,
about this genre of Homo Sapiens.
A prejudiced stereotype,
deeply rooted, worldly habituated.


They say geeks are not made geeks,
they are born so rather.
I didn't know if it is to be believed or otherwise,
until I meet up this person.


Defying trademarks, his natural self.
"Stereotypes...? Not my cup of tea" his bhaashan
I thought before that people were born to live,
I realise after,
he was born...to "geek".


A guy amazing he was,
oops....amazing's way too an understatement.
Seemed all normal did he,
except for being....hmm
being...a little other-worldly??


A good student he was,
illuminated a lot of unclear scholastic avenues,
with his ....grace.
A good friend was he,
stood by me in my crises,
and laughed with me, when I wished.
As humble too,
often made me wonder...ideal?


He was a friend in a lot of needs,
I hope, I too was.
Geek? Naah...a good friend,
is how I like to remember.
Some things, they say, are priceless,
for me, he really is one.
And a humble prayer,
from heart of hearts,
that he remains one,
long time to come,
a long time to go.