Its not the end...

Darkness was at its extreme, his eyes got open with a strange sound. The sound of leather shoes, which his master used to wear and roam in this big house. The sound was turning louder and louder, that means his master is coming in his direction. His throat felt a drought and he found a drop of sweat running down behind his right ear.

It has been nine years working in this house, for this fourteen year boy. He knew that his master has bought him from his father for two hundred and eighty rupees, when he was five, so that his father could pay to the land lord and save his mother from being a keep of him. He doesn’t know what has happened after that to his family, his master never told him anything else, now all he knows is washing clothes, utensils, floor and polishing shoes, making drinks, cleaning tables and to add he knows the beatings, be it from a belt, a stick or legs covered with same leather shoes.

Next moment his master was in front of him. Carrying the same leather belt in his hand which he used to beat him. He started crying, but that made no difference, his master started beating him with the belt, when his hand were tired, he kicked him, when his legs got tired, again the belt made his way. Whole house was filled with loud cries of pain, but he knew no one is listening, not even his master. He could feel his skin getting torn, his abdomen bleed, his eyes swollen, and his legs numb. Once his master was done, he shouted, ‘you son of a bitch, how dare you tried to kill me, take it as a lesson you mother f***r, next time I will kill you bastard’

He left, leaving him in intense pain, but his mind was not worried about the wounds, it was worried about the words his master said ‘how dare you tried to kill me’ he was struggling to recall. It was not that he has not thought about killing his master for beating him like animals but never let this thought convert in an act. He tried hard and was again back to last night.

His master just came in and asked him to prepare drinks. He did. It was the fifth time he was pouring the whisky in the glass, his master put his legs on the table and with the jerk he trembled and bottle smashed on the ground with an intense sound, sharp smell of whisky all over. Next moment he found himself on the ground, two big hands pressing hard on his throat, he was not able to breath, lungs dying in lack of air, heart slowing down, eye bulging out, mouth opened to its extreme to find some air, legs started pounding the ground, hands moving all over the glass pieces and grabbing a big one tightly…Next moment there was no sound, not even sound of breathing, everything went silent.    

He felt present was more painful than the last night; he just closed his eyes and kept waiting for the morning, when he heard few people walking and someone saying, ‘they both killed each other it seems, send the bodies for postmortem’

He came out dragging his left leg, wiping blood from his eyes and saw few policemen taking out his and his master’s body out, his master sitting on the chair, with the belt still in his hand, drinking, smiling.


He understood the meaning of his smile, 'Its not the end...'

Once upon a time !!

I have heard lot of stories from my grandmother. She had so many varieties of them and the way she narrated those stints that somehow I started feeling those were not stories but incidents. Thought of sharing one of them, ignoring the fact that some of you might already know it. And yes like all Grandma Stories it also starts with…

‘Once upon a time… Husband and wife started their journey for their native which was across few villages. They took the only donkey which they had and loaded the luggage on its back. There was enough space for both of them to sit on it. The donkey was old but kind of royal treatment it got from its owner, he was still fit enough to carry both of them.

Journey started, but it was not long that they found people around; staring at them as if the luggage loaded on the donkey was theirs. ‘But I was sure that I loaded my own stuff’ he thought. He saw a bunch of people standing in a group ahead and murmuring something. He wanted to hear but old age has shown enough harm on his ears, but his wife’s ears were sharp like hare, she always hears the cuss words which are not even out of my mouth. So he said to his wife, ‘why don’t you try and listen what those staring people are talking about?’ and with no much wait she replied, ‘the poor old donkey is dying beneath two cruel ugly looking people that is us’ she replied. ‘What did you say you hippo?’ the man got angry more by the word ugly rather than the tone of his wife.

‘That’s what those people are saying not me’ she added immediately. Now there was a silence for a while and the next moment he was on the ground walking beside the donkey, his wife enjoying the ride alone.

It was not long that his wife started asking him to stop; but his weak ears and the people on the way who were still staring and smiling on him, made him walk few steps more before stopping. As soon as he stopped his wife got down and asked him to sit on the donkey. The man got impressed by her wife’s courtesy which was a rare occurrence and only happens when all the planets in the solar system are aligned in a straight line. He looked up to the sky, smiled and almost jumped on the back of the donkey.

‘Thank You’ he said but she was not even looking at him but staring at couple of people going the other direction. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘These buggers were saying that I am a horrible wife making my husband walk on the ground while I was comfortable on the donkey’ she said and the man unsuccessfully tried to control his laugh.

But all his contentment was lost when an old lady threw a pebble on him cursing, ‘don’t you have any shame? Letting your wife walk while you ride…disgusting ‘. Next moment both of them were walking beside the donkey, two of them smiling, I meant his wife and the donkey.   

They found many people laughing at them in further journey. Eventually they heard someone saying, ‘look at those fools, they are having a donkey with them still walking, as if the donkey is their ancestor’

They both looked at each other and smiled. And when they reached to their destination, both were sitting on the donkey…’

Moral of the story??? There are many, one of it is the first line of the song from movie Amar Prem, sung By Mr. Kishore Kumar and featuring Mr. Rajesh Khanna…. Hope you guessed it right...

eh?

She ordered two cups of coffee and turned to me, ‘It’s after long time that we both are meeting and none of your friends are here to disturb’ she said. I just smiled and shook my head in agreement.

‘I was really thrilled when I saw your message that you wanted to meet me’ she added and I just kept smiling. ‘I like your smile’ she said and the smile which I had maintained, vanished. ‘No more smile’ my brain shouted.

I heard my mind and prepared myself for the task which I had promised my friend. Before I could start a conversation from my end, she said again, ‘Is everything alright? I mean you are you so silent?’

‘Oh yes, I am fine…it’s just that I wanted to tell you something but I don’t know how to start it…I am afraid how you might take it’ I said.

She smiled and kept her hand on my hand, ‘weird’ I thought. ‘You can tell me anything’ she said. ‘Okay, then here it goes’ I thought and started,

‘You are a good friend of mine. So thought that it would be better if I talk to you about it first and then we can come on any further conclusion’ I stopped to look at her reactions. She was smiling or blushing or both, it was hard to guess. ‘Weird’ I thought. Ignoring her, I thought I should directly come to the point, I started,

‘See, there is this guy and he likes you very much but is afraid of telling directly to you, for obvious reasons…so….’ Before I could end the sentence, she said,

‘I know; I know this guy and I think he is real cute, even I like him very much and I also know that the guy is present in this cafe’

‘eh?’ was my reply. Then I saw my friend sitting at the far corner.

Flashback

‘I know you are the only one who would be able to do this for me’ he said passing the glass of tea to me. He is my friend and I know him from the time when we use to wear half pants in school.

‘I love her so much yaar and thanks to lord hanuman that she is a good friend of yours’. He was praying lord Hanuman, for a girl, forgetting that Lord himself was a brahmchari, funny I thought. ‘You just have to talk to her and convey the message, I will handle there after’ he said.

‘Please yaar, after all you are my best friend’ he showed all his yellowish teeth to me, which left no choice but to agree.

‘Okay okay, I will do it, but yes or no is totally her choice, I will just inform about you, that’s it’ I said. He was so happy that he threw himself on me to hug me. I took my cell phone and messaged to her, ‘Hey hi, how r u? Are you free this evening, need to talk about something’ there was an instant reply with the time and venue, which made him jump almost a feet in air. ‘I will also come, but not with you’ he said.

‘Eh?’ was my reply.

Back to current

 I was surprised and also happy that whatever complications, we thought would occur, none of those happened. I was going to stretch my hand to congratulate her but stopped myself as she said,

‘You don’t need to make it round and round to tell me something, you can directly say, but I loved the way you have put all this things in place, I really liked it.’ I smiled in agreement.

‘I may also do the same, telling that a friend of mine likes you very much but that will be a bit repetitive now, so here it goes, even I like you very much and always wanted to tell you but your friends made it difficult and whenever I tried to talk to you they will interfere, specially the one with long hair’. She was talking about him, the one for whom I was playing messenger.

‘But today all my wishes have come true, you yourself said what I wanted to tell you, I love you too’ she said, and I was like,

‘Eh?’

......... 

If everyone answers 'c'

I don’t know how many of us thought about it, but this might be a sure shot way of getting a highest grade, if grading system is based on highest scoring number.

 

I recently finished my MS degree and this thought has occurred many a times in my mind. What if you are able to convince all your classmates for it? Think of the result. Everyone having highest grade, no failures, all at the same level, no five pointers and 6 pointers.

If you have still not understood what I am trying to convey, let’s understand it by an example. Let instead of 80 people in your class, there are four, going through the plan each one has selected option ‘c’ as their answer. Now what will happen while checking? If all questions are having answer as ‘c’, all are correct else all are wrong, but all are same, highest. If one or two questions are having answer as ‘c’ still the result does not change. If you are thinking what if the questions are not in order or jumbled, then think again, cause if you think closely it doesn’t matter at all as far as all have answered ‘c’.

I know what I am talking here is illegal as our whole society is based on law of competition and it’s perfectly righteous. I was just talking about the power of unity, once you unite, anything can be changed, be it the system itself.  

Now if anyone wants to question ‘why only C? Why not A or B?’ you can laugh on yourself.

I remember one of the personality development trainings in which the trainer gave us all a balloon and a pin and announced, ‘let’s see who manages to keep his balloon safe by others and he will get a prize’ and that’s it, the next moment whole room turned into a war zone, trainees were hell bent on bursting others balloon, there were some smart moles, who managed to remove the air from it and kept in their pockets and blew back again once the exercise was over, but later that was declared illegal. No one was left with a safe balloon.

All eyes were filled with shame when the trainer said, ‘I never asked you to burst others balloon, I just asked you to keep yours safe’.

A knife is not always to kill, why we as a human take a path of destruction when we get even slightest of power? Power is to protect, to maintain peace, not for demonstration, not to destroy.

Now if anyone wants to question ‘Then why he gave a pin to all?’ well nice question, answer will be because a donkey does not have horns.    

H1B Visa Stamping !!

Those three days…

Yes, three days. Recently US embassy has changed some rules so one has to take two appointments on two different days, one for biometric and other one for interview with the consulate. For me, I had to travel from Bangalore to Chennai, so extra day got add up.

Traveling to Chennai is always adventurous, especially if you do not understand or speak Tamil. I am saying adventurous, adventures can be dangerous too. 

Day 1

It was 24^th of October, Wednesday and people around the country were celebrating festival of Dussera, I was celebrating my sleep. 11:30 my cell phone started ringing, it was from my colleague who was also going for his visa stamping, fortunately we both got same interview dates to we thought of traveling together.

‘Bus is at 12:30 if you are done with your sleep’ his voice gave a hint of panic situation. And I replied with a sentence which acts as a panic controller ‘I am in my way’ it hardly took anytime to get ready, as I was already done with my packing, I just had to wrap myself.

‘What time the bus will reach?’ I asked the driver and in reply I got a weird silence. This was the first hint, that I was going to a foreign country called Chennai, where no one will answer unless until your question is in Tamil.

We have booked seat number R9, R10 a seabird traveler’s multi axle Volvo bus. All was well. It stopped at a nice restaurant for lunch and as the conductor has already told that it would stop only for twenty minutes, we had to literally throw the food in our mouth and had to run so it doesn’t leave us there. After a nice lunch and AC running to a temperature of 22 degree Celsius, one needs a nice cozy nap. But thanks to the conductor he put on a Tamil movie named ‘journey’ which was about a bus accident on the highway. Great stuff isn’t it? Especially if you are also in a bus running with a speed of 90 on a highway. I could see some people getting a shivering whenever our bus took a sharp turn or a sudden break, thanks to the movie.  

Finally we were on the great soil of Chennai, surrounded by at least seven auto drivers. Rather than talking to us they were talking or can say arguing with each other. Finally one of them won and turned to us and said something like ‘Enga ponga’ or enga pongana’ which he himself translated to ‘where going’ once he found a blank sheet expression stuck on our face. Before I could respond to it, my friend took out a sheet of pare and read the address and the next moment a number started echoing 300…300…300. Although Company was paying our expenses but it looked high enough. But every auto driver repeating same number left no choice but to stuff ourselves in one of those autos.

After struggling for half an hour we finally found the guest house. But this half an hour hunt caused fifty more rupees as the auto driver claimed he has burned more than 300 rupee gas, I believed him after he repeated the word ‘gas’ for 17 times.

   Rooms were already booked. So I just dumped my bag on the bed and ordered dinner. Next hour I was busy inspecting my documents and the cloths, which I had planned for the biometric, strictly formal. 

Day 2

I felt like I was in love, was having trouble with sleep, heart was not in control and body slow like an earthworm. It was already seven in the morning. My appointment was at 9 and I was ready to go at 8. This time the manager of the guest house helped me getting an auto with bargain of 160. And in few minutes I was in front of US embassy.

It was a normal building, same as an LIC office if you have seen one. A small gate with single security guard, was surrounded by a stream of people few in formals like me, few with families and kids, all having bunch of files and documents with them. I went and stood in the line, which was not moving till 8:30. At exactly 8:30 the security guy called and the line started moving rapidly and next moment I was at the gate in front of him. ‘Yours is at 9 you can wait few minutes’ he said politely and I was pleased. After entire 8:30 batch people were inside, we had to wait for at least twenty minutes and the guy called again. Here I was the first person from 9’ O clock batch to enter the campus. I have already seen the direction where people were headed. I took the same path, it lead me to stairs and after climbing twelve steps I was again part of a queue, some of the people from previous batch were still waiting for their turn. A fat lady in blue trousers and ping shirt appeared and started calling names form the sheet. As and when person’s name appeared he went and joined the line. Just when I started to doubt whether my name is there or not, she called me and next moment I was also a part of the line which was going into a chamber having a huge metal door.  

I entered the room to find people in same blue trousers and pink shirts all around. One of them took the documents, verified and handed me over with an extra pink colored piece of small paper with a number printed on it, they called it a token. Once I got the token I was directed to a hall room, with lots of chairs, it was like a waiting room of some railway station. Walls were connected through windows to many small small rooms and some people, in same uniform were sitting behind those windows. There was no digital screen to display the token numbers, instead one of those were calling out loud for the numbers. My number came and I was in front of a window.

‘Name and Date of Birth?’ the lady from the other side asked. Once she was satisfied that I was the correct guy she asked me to stand straight to take a picture from the camera which was hanging from the corner of the window. Then after taking finger print of all my fingers she wished me luck for the interview.

It was all done, I thought for such a small task they were wasting a complete day and also the trouble of asking two appointments, anyway, now it was time to complete the tasks which I was not able to do before, sleep. I woke up only to realize that the day was already over.

Opened the laptop just to find few mails and remaining day went working on those mails, thanks to my support project.   

          

Day 3

Morning 6’O clock, all alarms were yet to be shot. Interview was at 10:30 but you have to believe that I was ready for it before 8. Next one hour I spent just reading the news paper and sipping tea. Sharp 9 I was at the reception asking the manger to call for an auto. 60 rupees and I was in front of a building not very different form the one which I visited yesterday, just a bigger version and more than extra security, every few steps they very checking document, checking for electronic items or anything suspicious. i was already prepared, carrying just the files and myself. No mobile, no rings, no wallet, not even handkerchief, just few rupees which were sufficient to take me back to my hotel.

In the queue you can find almost complete India, families, brides, children, old parents, officials, managers, employees, tourists, almost all genres.  Once you are in, first thing will be to understand where to go, I asked one of the guy who was in same uniform and he directed me to a counter where the guy on the counter took out some bunch of papers from my bundle of documents and tied together in a separate bunch and handed me a printed paper written ‘N-07’, one more token. This time there were digital screen which were displaying the numbers and the window on which you have to report. I found an empty chair and dumped myself waiting for my number to be displayed.

I was again in a queue, this time the lady behind the window was not an Indian national, and again my fingerprints were taken and verified with the one which was taken yesterday. Now I was in final line, which was as big as a line in front of a government tap, just before the regular time of the water to flow from it.

All seems tensed; I was helplessly trying to control my own heartbeat. The queue took us to an adjacent building and at the gate a security guard started to send people in by count, sometimes ten in a row and sometimes just two. My turn came and I was in front of a huge metal door, it was heavy that in first attempt I was not able to open it. Across the door there was a similar hall room which gives a look of a waiting room of some railway station, full of people.

I got a chair to sit and started observing the procedure while keeping an eye on the display screen which was showing the token numbers and the window number on which your fate is going to be decided. Window 24 was just in front of me and looking at the guy on it I started praying that I should not get the same window. He was showing no emotions, and I noticed many of them were returning from that window with their passport, which is a sign that your visa has been rejected. But irony that my token number and the window number 24 aligned in the same row of the table which was being displayed on the screen.  I stood up and went in front of the window. A lady was already there and to my relief her visa got approved and she left the window smiling. My turn,

‘Hi’ he said without a smile.

‘Hello’

‘Can I have your documents?’

‘Sure’ I handed over the one which was separated and tied by the officer when I entered the embassy.

He checked the documents and turned to me with few generic questions, like.

‘What is your client name?’  ‘How much salary you will get?’ and ‘for how long you have been working for your current employer?’

Once he was satisfied with my communication skill, he said, ‘okay sir, I am approving your visa, you will get your passport within 3-4 working days.’ He finally smiled. I said thank you and left the window. That’s all.

Rest of the day went fine, in traveling and sharing experience with my family and also the friend whose visa too got approved. Cheers.