A Short Story - Destiny

This is my 2nd attempt to write a short story. First one was way back in 2007. Comments and Critics are welcome.

Destiny

He was hungry. He can't feel his legs at all. The prey was just before him. Teasing him. The smell felt good. But, he was a vegetarian. I can't eat anything other than vegetarian, he thought. But, the hunger was killing him. He saw his lover had no trouble eating non-vegetarian. How could she do that? Boy, he hated her for doing so. But, the bell inside his stomach kept on ringing. With one last hope, he searched for anything that's vegetarian. A fruit or a flower – goddamn it show me at least a leaf! Looked like God had no mercy on him. With trembling hands and awful feeling, he decided to eat the prey at last. He did not know how to even eat that non-vegetarian. He asked his lover. Simple, go there, eat and then come back – said she. Felt easy. He was a little bit relieved. He raised his chest up, cursed whoever made all the trees disappear and went near the prey. He started with a bit of hesitance as he did not know if the prey was dead or even alive. As he started eating, the blood, rushed through his mouth, something crushed him along with the prey leaving his body stick with the prey. Rest In Peace Mosquito.

PS 1: Do you know that only Female mosquitoes bite us? Male Mosquitoes are vegetarian.
PS 2: Was frustrated with the mosquitoes in my room and whoa, wait a minute…

Welcome 2013

2012

The year, I came back to Chennai after 5 long years. The year, I joined Cognizant. The year, my best friend got married to another friend of mine after their 6 years of love. The year I started attending all my friend’s marriage (before 2012, I attended only 1 marriage from 2007-2011). The year, I got my second Android (Xperia Go). The year, my brother got engaged.


Honestly, a rough year for me. End of 2011, I quit Infosys and was unemployed for almost 6 months. A great support from my family eased my struggle. The year, I lost my first Android. My beloved Xperia X8 which I customized so good that I felt like a part of me was lost! The year, Sachin Tendulkar completed his much awaited 100^th International Hundred. It is the year which confirmed his magic will no longer be in One Day Internationals. Rest In Peace ODI!



The year, The Dark Knight raised. The year, the continental drift happened. The year, I watched all 10 seasons of “Friends”. The year, I watched Jack and Rose fell apart once again in 3D. The most expected movie “The Hunger Games” disappointed (well, atleast me!). Although I was unemployed for almost half this year, surprisingly, I did not watch a lot of movies!



The year, finally, Kasab was hanged. The year, where people got arrested for even liking a Facebook status! The year, Sachin Tendulkar became an MP. The year, the ‘I-got-tired-of-all-world-tours’ president Prathiba Patil was sent home. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, wins 3^rd consecutive assembly election. The year, a new ‘Coalgate’ scam beats all the records. Power outage, became very common in Tamil Nadu.


The year, that didn’t end as predicted! *Sigh*

Thank you 2012! Although you started bitter, ended sweet!

2013

A promising start for me. I had a great time celebrating the New Year with my old pals. It was a sweet surprise for me when I opened my mailbox after the New Year Vacation! What more is needed for a writer (I can’t believe I called myself a writer!) other than a recognition? I was shortlisted as the winner for the “Write your Will” contest in Cognizant Blogs! Thank you C2Blogs, Thank you FFC team, Thank you my readers! You’ve made this year a beautiful start for me!



Belated Happy New Year to everyone!

Image Courtesy: Google.

What will you do?

What will I do, before the world comes to an end?

You might ask why I’m writing this – there’s a contest at Cognizant Blogs and this was my entry for that.

I don’t know when someone told me that the world’s going to come to an end and exactly who it was! But then, as innocent as I was back then, I believed it immediately. I searched at the only place where I thought there are people who are smarter than me (internet) and found a lot of websites supporting my belief. Even the series ‘The X-Files’ where a lot of unexplained phenomenon were explained (fictionally, atleast) told me that the aliens had decided to take the planet back into control as we (humans) are polluting and destroying it (somewhat planning for a later destruction anyway). When I saw the 2 sun videos and a lot of other un-explained stuffs which claimed for a doomsday, I thought I should do something.

Well, I’m not a superhero, so I’m not going to try and stop the doomsday. Instead, I will continue my belief and prepare a list of stuffs that I can do with the little time left. First thing would be to spend a couple of hours to create a photo-shop-version-of-me photo and post it in a social network. Even though the world comes to an end and if miraculously some data (including my ‘photo-shopped-version-of-me’) survives, I’d be atleast respectable (or even dared for God knows what I’d do to me) for the new world (if created). History is important?

Visit Sachin Tendulkar once (atleast) and get a real photo with him (and probably tell him to keep playing until he dies coz, the world will end in a couple of weeks). Meet Manmohan Singh sir and talk (?) to him. Meet the Iraq-Palestine presidents and ask them to stop killing people earlier. The same would apply to the Srilankan Army. Congratulate Obama for being the last president of America. Ask Rajinikanth if he’d come to politics or not. Request Cognizant to declare a holiday on 20th December 2012, we can do some preparations for the doomsday. Curse whoever-predicted-the-doomsday as they predicted it to be on a Friday.

Thank Christopher Nolan for taking movies which I have to watch atleast twice to understand. Thank Vinodh Alagan (you probably have no idea who he is – he’s the one who introduced me into the world of series) for making me watch series and then become addictive to them. Find the phone number for the director of the series “The Big Bang Theory” and ask him a couple of questions. “Will Penny marry Leonard? & will Sheldon marry (?) Amy? (And probably what he’ll do after that.)” Finally, thank the director of Shawshank Redemption for making Andrew escape from the prison! Thank (late) Louis Armstrong for that ‘Wonderful World’ song!

Eat almost anything that is eatable and that I’ve never ate before. Fill my bike tank and drive all the way until dry. Pray for a rain (and if answered, drench). Take a trip to a foreign country and put some photos [especially a photo standing next to a beautiful girl by requesting/begging the girl] on the FB (to make my friends jealous and to use the passport atleast once). Some tattoos on visible areas of my body (which I thought would be cool). Laugh at all the bachelors (unfortunately, I’ve to laugh at mirror too) and congratulate (and be happy for) all the married men (although I’m not sure if all of them would feel the same). Thank my first IT company for offering me a change of track (and probably the same company encouraged me to write) to IT. Curse my first IT Company for offering a career track in ITIS. Read a lot of books (well, on the other thought, just buy books and tell everyone that you’ve read those books).Thank God for giving such a wonderful friends and family!

Thank the Blogs for publishing whatever the crap that I wrote! Finally, thanks to you, for reading! So long, then – What will you do?

Image Courtesy: Google.
Dedicating this post to Vinodh Alagan. Happy B'day Vinodh!

Back on Track

When I started to write back in 2011 when one of my best buddies was getting married, I swore that I'd be writing atleast one entry in a month. I'd been out of my game for about two months and now all of a sudden, I was totally free. I thought of writing again. Well, things been a little messy with Polaris after I joined this May and I'd been struggling to find a way out. Unlike the other time when I faced the same crisis, where I ended up taking drastic decisions, I was patient this time (and I could not believe it!) and it paid off well (at least, so far!).


I'm back to my career track and it's been just a little over a week. What we, in IT industry call this time as "Honeymoon period" (Time you joined a project until you start working). I've had a lot of time to kill and lots of doodling in my diary. When I joined Cognizant two days after I left Polaris and on the way to the induction, I thought of meeting new friends again. I made some good pals in Polaris (Induction and in the project) and I thought of doing the same here. Unlike Polaris where the induction program was for 3 days, Cognizant had only one day. I was completely soaked in the rain before entering into the MEPZ and was literally shivering during the one-half of the induction! The time was to short to make any friends and most of my batch mates were either sent to Thoraipakkam or Pallikaranai.


Well, the good thing is that all my room mates (except Rajesh) are from Cognizant and two of'em are from Siruseri where I'm posted. Good to have their company. My team in Cognizant got introduced and it looks like lots of fun going on there! Hanging on to make some good friends now. In the mean time, I've seen some good movies like The Green Mile, Rango and some good series like Game of Thrones and completed The X-Files. Once again, the lizard inside my brain tells me that something is going to happen during December and it won't be like what we expect (Like Earthquake, Tsunami or Volcano). Something man-made is going to come and haunt us back! Fasten your seat-belts, just less than two months to go!

Starting a new chapter in my life - hope to come here often!

Mixed Feelings

He is the first friend that I made in Infosys. An enthusiastic, a caring but sometimes a little stupid - that's all he is. A part of me always thought he's  lying when he said that he's going to Canada very soon, about a couple of months ago. Well, he did not lie and infact, he is in Canada now. He's Shyam - one of my best buddies that I made in Infosys. He was my room mate in Pune as well as in Chennai. The room's never the same without him! When we went to the airport to send him off, I thought I saw some tears (Well, Rajesh also told me so), but not sure if he cried because of leaving us or because of leaving his love/family behind.

When we were in the airport, apart from sending off Shyam, we noticed a couple of other things. A scene in the Tamil movie "Unnale Unnale" where the heroine gets a 'spiritual' and emotional sendoff from her family, we saw one similar there on the airport - except that was a guy. Ofcourse, it was funny and Rajesh kept saying that until we came back to the room. The other one was an elderly couple who were there to send off their granddaughter. The tears that were shed by those elderly couple made my heart heavy. They were waving goodbye to the granddaughter even after she was out of their sight. How alone are we going to be in the world!

Well, Saturday early morning was Shyam's flight, so we had to send him off on the Friday night. Saturday was off for all of us in the room and Karthic suggested that we go see The Dark Knight Rises. I've already seen the movie - but all Christopher Nolan's movies are worth watching more than once (Well, some of them had to be watched more than once to get the real story). So, I decided to join them. It was booked for the evening show and we were too much preoccupied watching The Dark Knight (in my laptop), we forgot the time. It was already 5:30 and the show was at 6:15. We'll need atleast of 30 minutes to travel and none of us were ready!

So, a quick face-wash/bath were done in a hurry and we started our bikes. As if it was waiting for that to happen, the sky started pouring down herself! I've always felt good when it's raining when I'm riding. So was the case with Karthic, so we started and the others stayed. We went there on time and it was about 10 minutes after the movie started the other joined us! It was one hell of an experience - riding while it's raining (that too in Chennai after very very long time! The last time I did in Chennai was by 2006 when Vettaiyadu Vilayadu movie was released and it was a rainy bike trip to Mayajal!)! Ofcourse, I had a lot of those in Pune! Good old days!

Dedicating this Post to Shyam Nainamalai. Wish you best of luck buddy! Hope you're doing good (whatever, that you're doing there)! Miss ya!

Kettal Kedaikkum!

Despite all the advice from my friends – I decided to join NIIT to take a career jump once again. As expected, it was a tragedy and I ended up paying 25K (as a first installment) and they never scheduled a class for me. I still remember the date on which I paid the amount - 3rd of April 2012. The course was supposed to be 3 months (or even less) and until 15th of May, I did not receive a single call from NIIT about the class schedule. When I enquired about the course (MCITP), during my admission, the sales head told me that the classes are starting the next day (4th of April). And up until 15th May, the class was never scheduled. I believe I was the only person who chose the MCITP course and no one else!

                So, after paying the money, it's my responsibility to ask for a class and almost every day from the day I paid the money, I called NIIT and every time I received the same response – the classes will be starting from this weekend sir. The weekend never came for them! Soon, I got a job on the same profile that I was working earlier and decided to give up the course. Now started the real pain. I walked into the NIIT office and told them that you guys are never going to schedule a class for me – I'd like to quit. They tried to trick me once, but since I was strong, they decided it'd be better if we leave this guy or something like that!

                On the first day, when I said that I'm requesting a refund from them, they said “Refunds are processed at the end of every month sir – your refund will be given by the first week of June”. From that time on, I'd been struggling to get the money back from them. Every time when I call for the refund, they said that the refund is being processed and requested to give a week's time. June 5th, a Tuesday, when I walked in to enquire about my refund, they requested me to write a letter to the NIIT Center head so that the refund may be initiated (I was puzzled as why this was not told to me when I said I want my money back!). So after that they said that it'd take a week's time to process and give my money back.

                Weeks came and went and I never received a call from NIIT. Until 4th of July, I was very patient and was frustrated when they said that your refund was not processed by this month and will be processed only by July month end. That's when I decided to reach out to a society that's been nothing but helpful in Facebook – “Kettal Kedaikkum”. When I posted my situation in Facebook Kettal Kedaikkum, I received a response from the founder, Mr. Sureka Sundar that he'll help solve the problem for me. Following that week, I walked into the NIIT Adyar  and called Sureka Sundar and asked him to talk to the Sales head and the Center head.

                I could observe the change in the faces of the center and sales head's as they were talking to Sureka. Until that moment, the promise from NIIT was that they'd not be able to give the full amount that I paid (an amount of Rs. 6000 to 8000 will be deducted for the Book charges) and that only the reduced money will be given. After they talked to Sureka, they told me that full amount will be settled to me. The whole refund processing took them less than two weeks and I received the full amount that I paid in cheque. When Sureka talked to them on what will happen when they failed to refund me in Legal Terms, I could see that they were terrified.

                What Sureka told them was the rights I have over the NIIT failing to provide a refund. That, if I buy a product and never use it, I have the rights to get a refund (full amount) upon return. Even I didn't know these until then. I'm sure the NIIT guys over there may be well aware of that! For a 3 month duration course, no class was scheduled for over a month and they still said that the full money will not be refunded. After Sureka's interference – I 'asked' and I 'got it'.

                I'm writing this article to create a basic awareness. When you keep quiet, people step on you and go forward. When you ask, you'll get it. This is the motto of the Facebook group “Kettal Kedaikkum” (You'll get it when you ask). It is your rights that you are demanding and not someone else. I'd have certainly got the money from NIIT had I not been to Kettal Kedaikkum – the difference here is the time and quality. I may have received the money only by the end of August or even September – also, not the one which I paid in full – only  the deducted money. Don't give away your rights – fight for it. “Kettal Kedaikkum” is a group that helps you fight.

Religious Rally

As soon as I joined Polaris, I knew there's going to be a trip to Srikalahasthi. Because, a batch mate of me was from that very town. What I didn't expect was it happened in a month's period. When my batch mate Bhargav (the Srikalahasthi native) and another, Mathen who has a SWIFT DZIRE decided to visit the temples in and around Kalahasthi, I decided to join them on a religious rally. Friday, 22nd of June, we started our journey towards Kalahasthi after office hours. We had a little snacks in Chennai, gave our car a little drink and soon we were on the highway, hit 100 KM/h in no time. A little music inside excited us and we reached Kalahasthi at around 9 in the evening. Bhargav's family welcomed us and treated us as if we were also their son. Warm hospitality and an A/C room to sleep - well, I couldn't get up earlier in the next morning!

Mode of Transport

Saturday Morning - we took bath and skipped breakfast as it's a kind of custom to go to temple with an empty belly. We had some pooja arranged for one of our friends - Mathen (For Rahu and Kethu - specially done here in SriKalahasthi) and it took about an hour to finish the pooja. We finished seeing Mr. Kalahastheeswarar (Vayu Lingam) and his wife Gnanaparasunambika Devi a little while later. Kalahasthi is known for one of the Panchaboootha Sthalam (Vayu) and for the famous devotee Mr. Kannappan (Hope you all know the Kannappan story). I didn't take any snaps there as I consider it an offensive to take snaps of the Gods (Well, they don't allow you as well). So, you're not going to witness snaps of Gods, but just a religious rally.




As soon as we were out of Kalahasthi temple, our next plan was the Sahasralingam temple - less than 10 kilometers from SriKalahasthi. I also happened to know the name definition of SriKalahasthi - the serious devotees of Lord Shiva Sri (Spider), Kala (Snake) and Hasthi (Elephant) at the neighborhood. My sincere thanks to Bhargav and his family for the arrangements made inside the temple which reduced a lot of time waiting in the queue. It'd have taken atleast 6 to 8 hours if we'd not had their help! So, Sahasralingam - well, as the name suggests, the lingam at this temple has 1000 lingams carved on it. When Bhargav said that it's on a hill, I imagined it to be a little like Chathuragiri and Sabarimalai. It was not as such!

The Sahasralingam temple

Before heading towards the Sahasralingam temple, we took a room at a lodge near the temple as it's a kind of custom that after finishing a pooja, one should directly go home. If that's not a case - you should not stay at a friend's home. Otherwise, the effects of the pooja that you did would go to the home on which you're staying. So, as per Bhargav family's advice, we took a room. Had a little nap after the Dharshan (ofcourse, after meals) and by this time, we made a new buddy - Bhargav's brother-in-law Lokesh came along. Funny in nature, we liked in immediately. After our formal introduction, we took our cameras and headed towards the Sahasralingam temple. As opposing to the great crowd at Srikalahasthi, I didn't even find a single guy who came there for worship.




The place was great, the temple situated at the top of a small hill. It was nothing like I imagined, a small hill and at the top, you can see the God. All that goes up were the stairs (My old enemy - Stairs - as said by the "Po" in Kungfu Panda). It was kind of an exercise for us after a heavy meals and we even had vendors selling 'butter milk' at one top. The temple was blocked by another small hill - we had to climb up, down and then up to see the Sahasralingam. The path was clear and good, we took some snaps there!

 Bhargav and his Brother-in-law - Lokesh

Polaris Batch mates - (From left) Mathen, me and Bhargav.

We reached the temple just before the closing time and finished our worship. Took some snaps while we came back and a lots of chats. On the way, we visited another temple - Sri Dhakshina Kalikadevi temple. Bhargav told us that it's a very powerful goddess. We took some more snaps and headed towards the lodge. On the way, we found a Mutt (or Madam) and the doom of the building was a giant Shivalingam. It was late and so, the snap wasn't a great one. We also visited another temple which is just near a park (it was closed). When we reached back at the lodge, it was late and we slept almost immediately.

 At the top of the world!

 Sun's Rays or God's Grace?

The next day's plan was supposed to be the Thada falls - just at the border of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh, but considering the advice from our friend Bhargav we decided against at it. They said that the place has become dangerous for the visitors - robbing and mugging happens quite often there. So it was decided that we go for the Thalakkona falls which was 60 kilometers from Srikalahasthi as told by Lokesh, his brother-in-law. As we were tired, we were pretty late to wake up in the morning and it was a little past 11 when we started towards the Thalakkona falls. We have to go via Thirupathi to go there and when we passed Thiruppathi after about 45 minutes - Mathen asked Lokesh how many more kilometers from here? That's when Lokesh said that the falls is 60 kilometers from Thirupathi and not from Kalahasthi.




It was already late and so, we decided to skip Thalakkona and head back to Thirupathi (lower Thirupathi or Alamelu Mangapuram). Fate, already decided that this was a religious rally and no falls to interrupt! On the way, we went to the Chandragiri fort - the one used by Srikrishna Devarayar for 'relaxation'. It was an old one and just had two buildings Raja mahal and Rani mahal. Rani mahal was pretty much empty while Raja Mahal was converted to a little museum. Photography was prohibited inside the museum, so we could just take snaps outside. The headless rows of Gods (or probably Buddhas - couldn't remember) stay opposite of the Raja Mahal where all the old statues of Gods and old weapons used by the Old Indian people were kept.

It was a little past 2 when we decided to head back towards the lower Thirupathi and on the way, we had a heavy 'Andra' meals. We reached Alamelu Mangapuram at around 3:30 and when we came back after the Darshan, we were delighted both physically and spiritually. The 'rich ghee' laddu was the reason for the physical delightfulness! We thanked another relation of Bhargav for the help provided here and headed back towards Kalahasthi. It was about 5:30 when we started to leave Lower Thirupathi and it started to rain! The cool climate and a spiritual enlightenment - oh we had a good time!

We reached Kalahasthi late in the evening and it was hard to say good bye to Bhargav's family. We headed back towards Chennai after having a little snacks and we know it was a memorable trip. All the other thing that we had in mind was the Thada and Thalakkona falls. We made a good friend during this trip and decided to come back soon for the missed adventure. Wait for it!