Maaa & Few Good Men of My Life

I'm burning, I am sweating and I'm shivering too. It's been 104 F for hours, thermometer seems to have stuck at one reading, and I still feel cold cowering under layers of heavy blankets and sheets. In these miserable moments, when I am all by myself, when nervous system circuitry is under realistic danger of burnout, few smiling faces keep coming and going in front of those closed eyes, faces I know, faces I can feel but I can't touch, I can't call upon. This feeling of abandonment, helplessness pangs more than the otherwise unbearable temperature and constant trembling.

Being the youngest of my siblings and owing to wonderful rural Haryana tradition, I got the maximum time, love, care and closeness of most beautiful, most caring human being on earth, living epitome of love - Maaa. Like all rural boys of my age, I was careless too. Running under mid-day burning May sun of western Haryana, drenching under overflowing brooks of relentless Jun-July monsoon, playing hide and seek in shivering pre-Holi February nights was just the way of our unhindered childhood. Amidst all these regularly heroic excursions combined with attempts of avoiding the watchful eyes of a strict and principled father [he still knows when you sneak out in scorching sun and when you sneak in biting cold mid-night, he lets you, you not even a teenager, feel you tricked him :) ], one is bound to have a taste of bitter side of medical science. So did I. At those times, women and folks of neighborhood would come and visit your home repeatedly [once again a wonderful rural Indian tradition that's vanishing fast, alas!], would offer hundreds of 'nuskhas' and 'upaays'; my idol, my enlarged-healthy-tall-stout image, my creator, would sit by my bedside, would share the latest in India and world and put those long, heavy palms over my forehead, to say - "Everything is alright, everything is gonna be alright". His love is subtle, it doesn't pour out in forms of hugs or love songs, but flows through those deep and caring eyes, that heavy-throaty voice. Today I do understand all that, love you Pitaajee, but then, then a feverish kid, I would never catch those subtle signs, I won't give a damn to all those 'nuskhas & upaays'. Amongst all this crazy calm inside and hullabaloo outside, there is one living picture of concern, tenders to all those caring men and women, she even has to take care of entire household, she can't even read names of those english medicines, she doesn't understand even half of what those half-baked doctors have to say about me. When everyone else just gives me miserable looks, sympathetic words and bitter tablets from a distance, she lays by my side, holds me in those most comforting two arms, clenches me close to her heart and I know - yes, everything is alright, everything is gonna be alright. What those pinching syringes and bitter tablets can't do in days, her touch, her hug, her watery eyes, her trembling words do in moments. Did I ever say, I am a man of science? Well, F**K science, put thousand years of science together and it still won't count for an ounce of her love, her care. Loooooooove you Maaa, miss you Maaa!

There goes this most happening era of my life and here comes another one. I'm a college boy, not a kid anymore, but I would feel like men, just like all other fellow college-men. I don't get sick anymore, even if I do, I don't care. This is wonderful time, time of secret crushes, candid flirts, hidden rivalries, open fights, and then hugs and handshakes, bunked classes and exams, nights nonsense talk under bright moonlit skies, lazy Gulam Ali-Jagjit Singh Gazals filled afternoons. Where you meet so many people, you tend to get drown in this sea of knowing-too-many. At this time, Few Good Men, stand apart, you know these are different without them saying a word. We share masala-teas outside college campus, wandering excursions in deserted Sohna, Gurgaon, Faridabad night-streets. We spend night on Palwal platform among thudding railway tracks and buzzing commando mosquitoes after a late-evening PVR Saket show and been locked out of our rented place. We together watch sultry Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, when my coach and fellow sports men are looking out for me to run for 2nd medal of the day at YMCA Faridabad. Now when I get sick or meet an accident, I won't even inform my parents, these Few Good Men, won't say a word either. They bunk their classes and later offices, they would make me laugh when I can hardly speak. One guy would take a bite of my share of fruits, sit by my side, touch my forehead and say - "This guy is Hot!". Another one taunts - "stop pretending and get out of this damn bed, we are sick of your dramas". I know, everything is alright, everything is gonna be alright. Unlike that heavenly motherly love, you can't even think of matching, this stream of care flows in both directions. They won't think of time and place to call me, nor would I, for I know they are always there for me and they know I'm always there for them. Love you fellas, love you idiots!

And now, here I am. A coveted job, coveted degree amounts next to nothing. Pitaajee is not here to pat my forehead, Maaa is not here to hug me, and nor are those weird men around to taunt me. Its yours faces, I draw my strength from and hold the blanket tighter, those jumbo sized paracetamol tablets start taking over my conscious and I get dragged towards a lonely, un-cared sleep. How much I miss you all, how much I love you all!


[Please don't worry too much. I'm alright now, this was my experience on last Sunday night and I've almost fully recovered by now. Take care!]

All For 'Her' Love

Out of north India, first time in two years, and first time in 28 yr life to stay away for long. Away from everyone so near and dear, who do I miss the most? Exercise your brain horses till we come to this again, first lets talk about a new journey - journey from IIT D to Intel Bangalore.

Time for a brief time-travel, set to five years before now. I happened to join a new software firm, my third in less than three years since graduation. New people, new place (always in NCR though) and a new domain with new programming languages to work on. One thing that wasn't new was my habit of fooling my boss in believing how good I was. With in a month or so, I'm travelling to Bangalore to explain (read defend) an old, omnipresent but least understood and/or appreciated internal project to highly qualified, geographically separated senior colleagues. Well that was a fleeting visit marred by high pitch technical discussion leaving little time for get-to-know-you-Bangalore. Another visit the very next year, this time for a smaller project, but to deal with technically-challenged and highly obnoxious marketing species. Once again the Indian silicon valley and I remain complete strangers despite warm handshakes. Then comes the third year. An enjoyable, enviable may be, reputation at work earns me a new project. I get to pull all the strings, finalize every single data structure and best of it - code every single word. Once again I happen to come to Bangalore office, to benefit from vast knowledge and experience of a very senior colleague and friend, one of the best, talented programmer, designer and thinker I've come across. A longer stay could well be an opportunity to explore the city, but my daily addiction to coding takes such a new dimension that we (me and my respected 'technological' friend) end up having late-night heated discussions, enlightening ( for me) debates almost every night. Despite being sick for a week, I end up coding from the 'comfort' of my hotel bed.

Talking of my hotel, at a walking distance from the BLR office at old airport road, I used to pass by a big, blue building obscuring others in the neighborhood - not just in size but in stature as well. It had a five letter name, imprinted in big, blue letters - Intel. I would look up to those letters and ask myself, what does it take to have them imprinted on your T-shirt or on your laptop bag or your notebook. What does it mean to get inside this building, getting associated with one of the biggest names in modern world. Well, it was then. Then, when I had not even thought about going to IIT, and its now, now that I'm writing a blog from a Bangalore guest house wearing a T-shirt which has another beautiful phrase imprinted on front and back, in eight black letters- IIT Delhi. And I'm soon to find out how it feels to get into that big-blue building, just a day away from now.

Oh yes, in all this Intel-IIT diversion, I drifted away from our first point, may be the second - Bangalore. So, lets fly from new look gorgeous I-D terminal of Palam airport New Delhi on a "low cost" airline with a not-so low cost fare, leaving behind a breezy, beautiful pre-monsoon evening and a beautiful, loving companion. Not supposed to feel good, right? Add to this my chronic issues with constant whirring and purring closed air-conditioned closets flying thousand feet in the air in cloudy weather. Soothing country music comes handy anyways and I manage to touch the ground in one piece, unharmed. Shift to another whirring and purring, even smaller air-conditioned closet this time on the ground, but with smell of burning fuel on a humid and polluted over-an-hour journey. This is embarrassing I know, but the select few who have had the 'privilege' of travelling with me, can already guess what happens next. I end up forcing the driver to stop the car and ..well, I don't have a more civilized word for a 28 and half yr old adult, so here it is.. and I end up throwing up by the roadside. After a five minutes break and a manageable stomach condition, I get into the same closet trading off the fuel-smelled air-conditioning to polluted yet breezy humid Banglorian air. I've had enough for the day (and the night), so when the helper boy at guest house starts pressing the AC remote buttons I childishly shout at him to shut it off.

Cometh a new morning, cometh a pleasant day and cometh another surprise. My permanent workplace in Bangalore is different than the one my offer letter suggests me to report on day one. What a pleasant surprise it is, I'll get to get into the same hallowed big-blue building I so yearned for, every day for a long time to come. In no mood to roam around and face the polluted air of old-airport road, I hurriedly finalize a place to stay. A 8K+ room (if at all it can be called a room) on 4th floor with no lift at disposal, and is half the size of my IITD cubicle, but on a walking distance from the sacred building - walking distance by my standards.

Now that I'm finished with the stale narration of my transition from NCR to Bangaluru, time to revisit the first question. Last few days I've spent worrying about many things - where to settle down, which operator and which plan to opt for to have economic long distance calls, whether to go for a bike or a car, so on and so forth. Another big question was what to do with lots and lots of books that I've collected and managed to stay together with over my numerous shifts within NCR in last 10 years or so. Extra baggage charges, weighty books, a single carry bag along with my guitar and laptop, and indispensable goods-of-daily-use, practically disallow me to have the books along. I call up my most trusted buddy to hostel and load his car with may be a quintal of books and bid good bye to unload it to his 1st floor apartment all by himself - thats what friends are for, right?! Small justness mean a lot to me though and as a token of my love I decide to carry at least one book all along and all the way. So much to choose from, Physics, mathematics, religion, poetry, communism, fiction of Rushdie-Forsyth-Archer-Arundhati-Grisham-Sheldon and of-course computer science and VLSI. I pick half finished novel for the journey (a one time read only) and only a single 'real' book, a token, an old-time olf friend. A true winner! Sorry Forsyths and Grishams, but I choose - Kernighan and Ritchie : The C Programming Language!

Trivia for a true C programmer:

Q- Which is your most favorite tounge twister?

A - C sells, the C-shells, by the C-shore. :)

By the way, did you get your answer or not? Don't worry if you've not. All in good time dear, all in good time.