9 in a row

( Again, I would like to mention here that Mandy and others are all fictitious characters. Only they seem real as their experiences are borrowed from our own lives ! )

It all began with 9.

Mandy was in 9th standard. He was one of the bright students in his class. These guys had a separate group altogether. They never mixed with any girls; would only seldom talk teasingly about them. They however, used to tease each others jokingly, pairing them with girls in the school. All in all, they had no scope for girls in their lives.
Mandy was paired with one of the pretty girls in his class. And then it struck.

The constant utterance of her name and the constant remembrance made Mandy start to think about her and look her with new eyes. He found her really pretty and friendly. Then one fine day Mandy happened to sit next to her in the class (The school followed a constant rotation policy!). He was now talking and finding it interesting.
All this was followed by a lot of interactions and ended up in a misendeavour. Mandy bought a Valentines Day card; he was about to give it to her.

Some wise and timely advice from friends saved him. 9th standard and Valentines cards would have made an infamous combination.
Also, the general alienation from his anti-girls group that he could sense would aggravate if Mandy pursued it further.

Still effusions continued to burden Mandy's soul and he was just not able to divert his mind from this unattempted / failed endeavour.

Every year, the Valentines Day was very depressing for him. He used to think and think about ways to approach but end up thinking about the repercussions.

When he was in 10th he had got a lot of pimples and hence would reject himself.
In 11th and 12th, the emotional stress of thinking about a girl when actually one should give his full attention to studies made him feel guilty.

He wanted to do something but would not.

All throughout his 10th, 11th and 12th standard he just played the silent observer.

When Mandy came away from home for his Graduation, he got over that guilt. Geographical separation had made him forget all that. He enjoyed the new found company of his hostel friends.

He was in his first year when he deplored the Valentines Day; nothing to do with culture issues but for its being responsible for stressing out teenagers. It was an unnecessary thing that created an unnecessary need, a Frankenstein – whom people found troublesome after falling for it.

Mandy was happy with his group and all the sports and fun they had in the hostel.
Then came the second year and the Thunderbolt* (ref. "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo).

She outmatched all. Exquisite.

Mandy had been made wise by all his past experience and kept himself aloof from the Frankenstein. He knew better not to borrow any undue trouble.
But a thunderbolt it was and who could escape it.

However, Mandy's second year Valentines Day ended up peacefully: lost amidst calculating the odds and planning a strike which got over-planned and he had to postpone it to the next season.

This time he was thinking clearly. He did not want this to trouble him and so he just made attempts to know whether the investment was worth the risk.
The more he communicated, the more he got entangled. And then the bait was too hard to resist. All was back to the same old story.

But this time it was not troublesome. He did it. No rejection but no result either.

Days went by.

The fourth year passed in pondering over the past memories and in the hangover of the much cherished "Disclosure of Emotions" done in the previous year.
Some meetings here and there did pull some strings but neither was the amplitude high nor the frequency matching.

In the due course of all these years, Mandy has discovered so many like-minded and like-suffered friends, in his office, in his shared bachelor accommodation and in this world, who are all in search of someone, whom even if they locate, end up in neverland.

All in all, Mandy is all dry now. He has become immune to all the fuss and the undue excitement. The innumerable doctrines that have been carved out in his mind - ranging from "Love At First Sight" to "Attraction" to "Infatuation" to "Flirting" to "One Sided Love" to "Love" to "True Love" to "Unconditional Love" to "Love Cannot Be Arranged" to "No One To Love" to "Why Do You Search Love? Cant You Love Your Parents?" to "Love During College Days Is Useless" to "Desperation For Love" to "No One Loves Me" to "Do You Love Yourself ?" – has left his mind exhausted and uninventive in these matters. There is an added tension of getting older day by day and the need to concentrate more on one's career.

This 14th February was the 9th Valentines Day in a row that Mandy has seen and fortunately or unfortunately there are no bells ringing and no butterflies in the stomach.

Mandy has realized that love is a sweet coincidence when two people like each other on coming together. It cannot be planned. It cannot be made to happen. It is spontaneous and you do not need to get tense. If it has to happen it will or it wont.

Someone has said, " If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is always yours, otherwise it never was. "

Drained Brains

Everyday coming out and in through the gates of my company, I see some chaps distributing pamphlets. These are mainly the same promotional schemes of Airtel, Vodafone. Although, almost every employee here already has a mobile phone, he/she takes special care that the distributing guy does not run out of his job and hence thankfully takes this paper and just after walking a few steps, either throws it away or carries it. Some say they use it for rough work even though our offices are already flooded with waste papers. They say it helps feed the families of the rag pickers and paper recyclers.

When people have breakfast, they use paper cups to drink water and since their royal manners do not allow them to use that same cup to drink tea, they throw it away and take tea in another. Because of their mind being engrossed in work left at the desk, they carelessly take a stack of paper plates to carry foodstuffs.

In the office, most of us were born and brought up in European countries: the air conditioners run at temperatures below 19°. Since we cannot hire a person to take care of the lights, I have been having the privilege of customarily putting off the outdoor lights. Unfortunately, if I do not come out of my office before lunch, the foyer is left bathing in the numerous lights. Either people can’t distinguish between on/off lights after a smoke (for which so many shuttle in and out of the office) or, I guess, there is some optical-illusion-spell cast over the foyer of my office - so many people find it hard to discover the dazzling lights and put them off. Since this spell has never worked on me, I sometimes feel like Harry Potter. I pray there is no such spell cast over other places.

Then comes lunch time when we leave our monitors on to entertain the angels with fancy screen savers. I guess it is mighty hard to switch off the monitors.

There are some very nice people who become special nice in the canteen; they use almost 5 to 6 tissue papers to clean their dish; one more to clean the spoon. I even saw an innovative guy using one tissue paper to clean one compartment of the dish at a time and imparting justice to all (there are 7 such compartments in the dish). Thankfully he was prompt like the others to throw the barely used tissues and flood the waste bin. Then there are some who find it very disturbing to see fresh, unused tissue papers kept at the counter. They do not hesitate to stuff a handful in their pockets.

Then comes the food. There was a group I saw a few days ago: three skinny girls. They could any day give a complex to the ants (an ant is known to be able to carry 3 times its own weight). I actually owe my sincere gratitude to them; they saved my efforts in visualizing the maximum carrying capacity of the dishes. Surprisingly, they were also very diet conscious and ate a meager 5% of the stuff.

India is a country of lights. In a constant attempt to maintain this legacy, we keep the lights on even after office hours.

Seeing all this for last one year, a thought came to my mind. We all work in one of the world’s most famous Engineering Company. What we do, sets up an example, a model for the rest to follow. I remember some nut somewhere on TV commenting about the responsibility of people towards the environment. He even dared to expect consciousness towards the environment from literate people. To top it all, the stupid guy also had the guts to appeal all the engineers in the world to take special care of the environment.

I think of inviting that guy to our company. After all he should see the IDEAL practices we follow and be educated by the so called ENGINEERS of one of the world’s most famous Engineering Company.

They All Sail In The Same Boat

(This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance with a living/dead person is not intended. So please do not make public guesses about who the characters are.)

“Hi. Well…actually I had something to…actually I need a favour. Can you please come down to the college foyer? It’s urgent.”
“Yup. Just a minute. I’ll be there.”

Mandy put the receiver down. He was feeling nothing. It happens always when you have a multitude of thoughts and emotions to handle.
He had some time before he could see her coming from the hostel. He ambled restlessly towards the college gate.
Usually, he would carry his I-card and promptly show it to the security guard. Today, he had forgotten it. He went past the guard just looking into his eyes. The guard couldn’t ask him anything.

He breathed a long sigh as he approached the foyer. He involuntarily went to the concrete bench he’d thought suitable.
He was sitting with his back to the road that came from the hostel. It was quite pleasant at this time in the campus. Some known faces passed by and waved. Mandy just winked sufficient enough not to invite anyone to talk – people have this habit of eating up other’s time when they are idle. It was the month of February and there were no exams due for two months.

His eyes kept on turning back. The road appeared the only thing that mattered to him tonight. The moonlight in the backdrop and the yellow glare created by the sodium street lights made him feel mixed in his mind. It was too difficult to handle the two ideas together – one, of the relaxed, positive and infinite mood of the moonlight; the other, of the constrained focus of the lamps.

His shoes felt heavier to him, hanging down to his legs.

And there she was, carrying a wallet in her hand. She was wearing her night pyjamas and a round neck T-shirt.
He forced a smile as she apprehensively smiled back and sat next to him.

“Well…nothing to….huh….I don’t know how to start this but see…..there’s something I need your help in.”
“Hey. Anytime yaar. Tell me.”
“Actually, I need your help for….and you are….like…..you can do something about it. The thing is……there’s a girl I like very much.”

Her look changed immediately. She kept her wallet aside, folded her knees towards her chest and locked her arms around them. The apprehension in her eyes changed to curious attention: ’Mandy talking about a girl and that too calling me down unusually….I need to make him feel comfortable….’
She smiled. Her eyes gave him a go ahead to narrate her, his problem.

“See…why I called you down is because…..There’s a girl I like very much. I don’t say ‘I love very much’ cuz love is when its from both sides. I…I just like her very much. Initially, I never had any plan sort of, that this is the girl and I want her or something. Simply, she was the most beautiful girl for me at the first sight. In one of the college cultural events, I happened to interact with her.”
“Then there were some small encounters that made me really admire her as a person….as in…she is so sweet and caring….much like you are….I don’t know about other girls.”
“I just cant stop thinking about her. Actually, I had thought of telling this to her directly….but I don’t know how she will react. I sort of tend to eat up my words and forget my lines in her presence.”
“So the thing is…you have to…please….tell her that I like her – I just can’t think of anyone else so nice. Its actually getting on my mind and I need to shed off that load….there’s no point in consuming yourself like this….I mean, I become hollow at times.”
“Will you tell this to her?”

“Who’s she?” Her eyes were blushing – seeing such a fervent call.

“It’s you”.

There was a deep sigh and then a long silence. None of them seemed to break it. There was an abrupt brake applied, a deafening silence followed.
Her grip on her folded legs loosened and her hair fell down in smooth pleats. Her attentive eyes were now lost into something.

“Did you see it coming….when I was telling all that?” Mandy broke the silence with a foolish look on his face. He was clueless as to what would happen. His thinking process had stalled the instant he uttered ‘It’s you’.

She let a deep breath pass and said,”Yes.” And then she smiled. The smile had more of a hint of admiration than any other feeling.
“Actually….whatever I said is……sorry...I used such a gimmick…but…..I feel so much light now. Whatever I said was so much my thought process since so many days. And I wanted to tell you each time I saw you. I don’t know how you react now…but this is it.”
“I didn’t tell this to you to propose you or something. Just I wanted you to know this. How you react is so much secondary now. The fact, that I admire someone so much and now I don’t have to hide it or suffer under the pressure of hiding it, is sufficient to keep me happy.

Mandy was lost and floating. His eyes had become calm. They looked as if they had survived a torrent – suffered in the process – but still survived by the grace of the lease he had given himself, by facing and embracing the torrent.

She soothed the weary soul by her kind reply. She told him that even she liked a boy in her school and had been through all this. She acknowledged that she admired and celebrated the feeling of someone’s love for someone.

Mandy was relaxed now. They had a long chat like fellows of the same clan. He told her his stories, of how he had composed poems on love and how he would get repelled from good food thinking about her eating hostel food everyday.
He told her how he had sleepless nights and how pure his feelings were – burnished, and out of the furnace where every vice, every random thought is destroyed and what remains is a pure substance.

An hour had passed when they realized it was time to depart. Mandy looked into her eyes, gave a smile and captured the gay and innocent twinkle in her eyes.
He started walking out towards the gate. The guard observed him walk past and felt as if he had seen a moment of truth.

Out of the gate Mandy started walking, his pace increasing gradually, his heavy shoes acting like propellers. He was running now at a decent pace.
His thoughts had been streamlined.
He didn’t feel exhausted and continued to run. People coming in his way, dividers and vehicles on the road didn’t appear to him as obstacles. He ran home.

Reaching his home he walked past his invisible room-mates and collapsed on the bed.
He was not crying. He was too ecstatic to control his tears. In sudden sprouts of smiles in between his sobs, he communicated the thing to his roomies.

Some moments passed and it was all silence. All were floating in their own world. Like after a torrential rain – everything becomes quiet, Mandy lay still on his bed.
He thought of all those he knew who liked/loved someone. He saw all of them sailing in the same boat as he did, as she did, as everyone in the world did.