Anil's Armageddon

Rain patted on his backpacks as he trod on the gravel path leading to the university. It was something weird entering into a new world of impudent seniors and carefree teachers.Entrance slip in one hand, and the other hand fumbling the strings of his guitar, he was searching for his class. He wasn't confident enough to look at the peoples' eyes and talk with them, so his eyes captured the monotonous brown gravel terrain as a pair of black boots appeared amidst the gravel path.

Anil had messed it up big time. Too nervous to notice what was going on around him , he had splashed mud on the university bully's painting, (made for his girl) without uttering an apology. Anil slowly shifted his gaze from the boots to the hanging pockets of the cargos, matching the colour of the road. A formal shirt, let loose on a side and tucked in tight on the other, glared at him with a nasty shade of bright yellow, in contrast with his brown pants. It was the face of the bully that convinced Anil of the impending doom closing in upon him.

The rest of the scene was totally unchanged from a typical cinema phenomenon. Other similar bulky fellows with an equally unpleasant dress sense came surrounding Anil, as he was turning to catch a glimpse of any blessed teacher.Their eyes scanned Anil, as though they were stripping him. He timidly asked them, "W..What did i do....Sir?". "Sir?.....??....You called us 'SIR'? hahahahaa", came the usual syncronised laugh of the bullies, who were quickly planning to exploit Anil's weakness to the fullest.

"What's your name,Guitar-Romeo eh?", asked a guy in green and black.

"Anil."

"How old are you?"

"Am 21"

"You mommy has sent a feeding bottle with you to start sucking milk when chemistry classes are going on?"

"No thanks, I'm better off with the carton."

"And how long have you been playing this perforated piece of wood, kiddo?", asked they, signalling to Anil's guitar.

"Thats my life,my passion. I don't really think it will hurt you if I dont wish to say this to you"

There came the mistake. The guy took Anil's guitar out, and asked his sidekicks,

"I think its time to pay a visit to the musicals to get a new guitar, What say?". He pulled out a string of Anil's guitar and it cracked with a resounding sound.

That was the limit! Anil plunged on his senior, holding his throat with such vengeance that the latter found it hard to resist Anil alone. Anil knew very well that he couldnt have resisted five big bullies alone on his first day of university life, whose stomachs did overtime in the College canteens. But he could do anything, but stand unaffected, when a bunch of tasteless guys, damaged his life and soul, his guitar. Anil, therefore, uttering a silent prayer to the stars, to send a saviour, started resisting the bullies.

The rain started to slacken as the encounter intensified. A cloud of people gathered around the centre of attraction, trying to get a glance of the sympathetic first-year boy. Anil was being squeezed, mashed, and his black jeans with the white shirt tucked in was totally in tatters. His hair was the only minus point in Anil, other than which he was a moderately fair and a handsome fellow with a good build. At times it ws his hair, which made him look a lttle weird and bad.Now his hair became a double minus.It stuck to his head like fevicol and became as rough as a rope.The atrocious assault was stopped by an elderly man, past his prime, in his fourties, with a slightly balding head, resting on thin necks. He had an impressive face-set and an authoritative tone that made people look up to him when he passed by.

"Would you please unhand him Rahul?", asked the man polietly.

Rahul seemed not to have heard him.And that made matters all the more worse for him , apart from the fact that he was brutally torturing an innocent junior.

"WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TORMENTING YOU JUNIOR, OR SHALL I HAVE YOU ALL STRIPPED AND RUNNING THE CAMPUS HUNDRED TIMES?",shouted the man.

Rahul scowled and left the place. Anil started to get up from the mud, his wet shirt, sticking to his body, his hair all in ruins. He cursed himself for having spent an hour and a half in front of the mirror that day to set his hair, only to find himself thrashed and squeezed within the first few minutes in college.He then made a futile attempt to straighten his hair, as he pulled on his 'now-useless' guitar, and picked up the soiled admission form,bent his head downwards with a right-angled tilt and followed the man to the class, who turned out to be his physics professor.Anil thanked his lucky stars for getting such a sympathetic man to teach him his favourite subject, and cursed them for presenting him with such a 'nightamre'ish first day.

Talk about a fish out of water! A student out of school, into a university as a newbie is much more vulnerable than the fish out of water is. He keeps suffering for the entire year, groaning under the immense pressure of books and the ragging seniors, who vent out their anger on the juniors in order to relieve themselves of the humiliation they suffered when they were like Anil.

Oh my Riley...RIP

The crisp call of my best friend woke me up from the usually 10-hour sleep that i took on Sunday mornings...He knew I needed a walk a day, to keep the doc away. So, pulling my trainers on, I stepped out of my house into an air-conditioner... The chilly mist slammed at my face, driving sleep out of me, for the day. I was one of the lucky few, to have my houses away from the heart of the city, to enjoy the diminishing landscapes around me in my daily morning walks. I enumerated the trees, with uncut heads, as i jogged by, with my friend at my side. The trees were silhouetted against the Bluish-Orange sky, waiting to receive the Sun as a part of them.

We finally reached the beach an hour later. My mate started panting with the vigorous exercise and started protesting for a cool lay in the golden beach sand, I couldn't but agree with him. For half an hour, we lay there, taking in the separation of the Sun from the horizon. Finally it was time to go home and pick my newspaper and enjoy that one day of incessant freedom. I waited for my friend Riley, to return from the shore. It was quite a while before I went looking for him. And when I did, I had my heart ripped away from me.

He was dead. Dead and lying orphaned on the shore. Incomplete sentences filled my throat and tried to force their way through my mouth. I looked around desperately for help, trying to behold a sympathetic soul who had a cellphone in their hands, but in vain. Only the gravity of the situation could have left me immobile, and my thoughts, frozen. I touched his skin. The velvety touch of his skin and the wetness of his tongue, the feel of his paws and the rolling of his belly, all came to my mind, along with the crashing reality that he had departed from me. I was not able to wash my hand of his blood though the water had cleaned it again and again. I pleaded the sea, to bring him back to life, for it had taken my Riley away from me.

I collapsed on my knees and broke down completely, and put my head to his heart. The cold waves dappled my feet and soiled my hair. I was oblivious to the salinity of the sea water and the gathering cloud above me. It rained heavily. I was glad that the rain disguised my tears, tears of separation. I carried Riley on my arms. People were wondering why I was carrying a Pug in my arms. I reached home from my walk, alone, for the first time, and started digging the wet earth. With every dig, the spade went deeper into the earth and He went farther away from me. Finally I placed him in his newly dug grave, and caught a glimpse of his brown nose and the thin eyes, on the corners of which were wonderfully shaped ears.

I finished closing the grave of Riley and put a signboard on his grave, which contained deeply etched words on it, and my heart. It said,

'Here lies a dog, who was a part of me for a decade of my life. It is a part of me that I have buried in this grave today.'

I then, closed the door of my courtyard and went to the balcony to don a fresh pair of clothes and cleaning Riley's food tray.

Peer Pressure

This is one area where its too hot for me to stand. You try to get out of a frying pan full of ordinary folks, and jump into the fire of MORE ordinary folks.... Don't keep wondering how all this is related to the heading, but expecting a person to be at his best at all times at all places is quite something to ask for. There are few people who pat your back to push you into the race again to reach the top. I tried searching for those people by shuttling in and out of the frying pan, only to find them in extremely short supplies.Some may do it no doubt with the adept help of Lady Luck, who decides to shine on them without being partial.Its just a chance of probability, which people call, Luck.

I'm not criticising their talent or the ability to stay cool under pressure, but putting pressure must be reduced atleast fractionally. people can do a big favor by choosing not to exert pressure on their kids, or friends or anyone, for that matter. It just prompts the person to fall into a ditch intentionally with the pressure of standing upto the narrowminded people's whims and fancies. The end result- You get demotivated by failing in your zone of comfort and critisicing yourself for failing to be at par with your peers.

Sanity and Insanity

A good example of what will happen if u mess with people, who have their brains in the 'wrong' spot....

An unkempt man was dancing, standing on a sewer, shouting, "Voila! that's number 99!!! one more to go...". He kept on saying this. A guy passing by, couldn't keep a question in his head and blurted out, "Hey...What is so funny and interesting about that number 99???" That spelt doom for him. The madman called the passer-by to stand in that sewage and asked him,"Why, my friend, do you want to know why I'm shouting?". The curious bloke wasn't able to smell a bad fish and persisted on knowing the matter. The madman guided him to stand in the sewer, and once again asked him if he REALLY wanted to know why he was shouting. The latter was unwilling to budge. So the madman made the other to stand on the sewage slab and pulled it. The curious guy fell down with a scream and then a splash. "Now that's what i call number 100!",saying this he closed the slab, and began shouting, "Voila! Thats number 100!!!"....So be careful and think twice before involving yourself in a gossip or a fight that is relatively unrelated to you. This is food for thought isn't it?

Slumdog what???

Is India really an astronomical slum after all? And is it only now that people have realised it? People are out of the ignorance that anything made by a person foreign to us, will have the X Factor in it and will click instantly. They are very wrong as most of the films which are similar to this film didnt get enough exposure and promotion because it was made by an Indian director.The fact that Danny Boyle made the film made people poke their heads and peer into the film whether anyting new is potrayed about India. This was enough to give the film a boost. Apparently Danny Boyle has done what his countrymen did 60 years ago, revealing the true face of our country...

And as for A.R.Rahman, he is one composer, whose creativity could not be touched by any other man possible asccording to me as he has produced hundreds of immemorable songs from his pocket. But honestly this movie had a song composed by him which went on to win the Golden Globe Award, is it really better than a Vande Mataram, or is it more motivating than a Pray For Me Brother for instance? Thanks to Danny Boyle, Dev Patel a young star in the making has received a chance and an entry into the world of stardom. True that the film is really good and artistic....It potrays some of India's hidden but true faces,but I really do doubt if there would be as less as one-tenth of the stardom for this movie had it been made locally with the same script.....

22 yeared storehouse of athletisicm

Age is no bar for talent and Rafa proved it in the Aussie Open finals when he thrashed Federer in the final set...To think that a young man could be so agile in the court and not losing even a part of it for more than 4 hours, is surely impressive...Kudos to you Nadal, bring Spain many more laurels and prevent them from entering the Switz....!!!

To burst or not to burst

All of us will be busy spending our time either by bursting crackers or getting hooked on to the idiot box(television)... Whats Diwali without lights??? and whats lights without crackers and fancy items that zoom and glide above our heads and fill the navy blue sky.... The scenery created by these crackers are worth paying thousands of rupees... I agree we can buy such beautiful crackers with our so called POWERFUL CURRENCY... But do you people really think we can bridge the Ozone Layer hole with all our notes?

Bursting crackers for diwali is usual in a country like India as Diwali is a big occasion out here... But i seriously suggest the bursting of crackers only upto a certain age... When we start realising that we are putting our Mother Earth at such a dangerous position by creating a huge portion of Smoke Pollution, Its time to Quit bursting crackers... Even if we are not able to quit, atleast reducing the amount of crackers can also contribute in reducing the threat to Mother Earth... As I am writing this blog, am hearing blasts 0f crackers outside my house... I pity Mother Earth!!!