Happy onam everyone.
I found
this excellent article which I think is worth reproducing here.
Onam - The Festival of Exuberance
Kerala is celebrating another New Year- Year 1179, according to the Malayalam calendar, also known as “Kollavarsham”.
Chingam or Bhadrapada, the first month of the calendar ushers in ONAM, the national fiesta of Kerala. After the rain drenched Karkidakam with its privations, Chingam is a welcome month of plenty. The sky becomes blue, the deep forest becomes greener and it is time to reap the harvest, time to celebrate and to rejoice along with the Nature. And Onam epitomizes the newfound vigour and enthusiasm about everything around. It is celebrated with traditional Malayalee fervour with visit to temples, family get-togethers, gifting each other clothes called Ona-kkodi and lots of merry making.
This picturesque ten-day harvest festival has been part of Malayalee psyche for centuries now. There are records of Onam being celebrated during the Sangam Age. Onam festivities have been recorded during the time of Kulasekhara Perumals around A.D 800. It is believed that during those days the whole of Chingam was celebrated as Onam season.
Its been a while, I know.
As I sit down to write, I find precious little to say.
My life is at a standstill. If I were to blog about it, I would only write about the early morning trips to office, the countless hours spend in front of a machine, sipping caffeine, following the orders of someone sitting thousands of miles away ( will we ever be free ? ), the numbing mental lethargy at the end of the day, the countless hours spend wondering what the hell was happenning with my life and the uneasy sleep at the end of the day with unanswered questions waging a losing battle in the mind.
Life was not supposed to be like this. Not very long back, I still had the remnants of my childhood dreams with me. The child has long since disappeared into mists of the past, the dreams brutally suppressed by a society which moulds individuals into predefined roles.
CUT CUT CUT.
This is precisely the reason I was not blogging. Too much of pentup frustration inside. I could almost sense that I would fill up these pages with meaningless negativity, the sort seen above. I was keeping myself on a hold. It was not to be.
Anyway, for all those who wondered where I am,
this is where I am.
Trying my hand at making money online.
At the least, it is an interesting deviation which will keep my mind occupied for a while. At the most, I will end up being rich which is not bad at all.
Most likely, I will earn precious little and lose interest before the winter sets in :-)
Yesterday, 6:45 PM.
The old school bus, doubling up as the AT&T shuttle bus in these difficult days, pulled into the parking lot of the usually deserted train station. The sole occupant of the bus, on his way out, exchanges a few pleasantries with the bored driver. He slowly makes his way to the Track no 2 to catch the New York bound train. It will be atleast 45 minutes before the train arrives.
In his hand, the young guy ( the sole occupant will be now onwards referred to as the young guy ) carried a plastic bag with a few sheets of paper in it. Extended waiting times at the train station had taught him to come prepared. It is his habit to print out a short story or two from the
gutenburg site to read while waiting. However having exhausted most of the titles from the short story section, he had printed out a translation of the
Bhagavad Gita on that particular day.
Having spend most of the day conducting training sessions for new developers taking over his project, the young guy was not in a mood to read. The wooden bench on the platform beckoned him to lay down his tired body in its lap and enjoy a few minutes of rest. Without a moment's hesitation, he streched his long lean body on the bench, using his bag as the pillow and closed his eyes for a small nap.
Unknown to him, on the opposite platform, a middle aged american picked a cellphone and made a call.
A couple of minutes later, a police car pulled into the train station. The young guy was woken up ( he was not really asleep in any case ) by the flashing lights of the car. He watched as a young clean shaved policeman came out of the car and looked around. The moment the policeman's eyes met that of the young guy, he started walking towards his direction. Not thinking much of it, the young guy continued in his horizontal position. When the policeman came and stopped in front of his bench, it dawned upon the young guy that the police man had indeed come to meet him.
This is what followed.
Policeman : “whats going on ?”.
Youngguy ( with a shrug ) : “Well, I am waiting for the train”.
Policeman : “I figured that”, with a cold stare.
Youngguy : “Well, why the question then ?”, with an attempt at a smile :).
The Policeman showed with an expression on his face that he was not in the least bit amused.
Policeman then asks, “whats your name ?”.
Youngguy : “anand”.
The Policeman's eyes drift towards the young guy's AT&T badge, pinned on his shirt, and find a different ( and in no way related ) name there.
Policeman : “Well, your badge here says something else”.
I ( now onwards the young guy will be referred to as I since as you would have guessed by now, he is me ) : “Well, Thats my real name. But since it is so long and difficult to pronounce, I use my nickname which is anand”.
The Policeman is not satisfied but still buys my argument.
Policeman ( now pulling out his notebook ) : “What is your home address ?”.
( I had recently moved from one apartment to a basement sharing arrangement with a friend. I only knew how to walk to my new place from my station and had no idea of the *actual* home address. )
I try to explain my above predicament.
Policeman ( getting annoyed now ) : “What is your home phone number ?”.
I did not have a phone for my personal use and had no idea about the owner's number.
Policeman : “Show me another id, Please”.
I did not have any other.
Policeman ( getting a bit frustrated here ) : “What is your Social Security Number ?”.
Me : “I dont remember :(”.
Policeman ( now getting really irritated ) takes a look at my plastic cover : “What is in there ?”.
I say,“Just a few printouts” and hand it over to him.
Policeman opens it casually to find the title on the first page saying Bhagavad Gita. Now getting increasingly interested in me, he says “Do you always carry the Gita with you?”
I say defensively, “I just printed it out to read while waiting for the train.”
Policeman asks me many more questions during the course of which I blurt out ( quite honestly, I must add ) that I am flying from JFK next week.
The three letters, JFK, had an electric effect on the Policeman.
He walked a few steps away, pulled out his walkie talkie and called ( presumably ) his superiors.
I ( watching this scene from a distance ) was getting a wee bit worried. My position definetely looked bad.
A couple of minutes later, a bigger police car made its way into the now slightly crowded parking lot. A big fat guy and an old wise ( the reason for him being called a wise guy will become clear in a few lines from now ) guy got out.
A few more questions later, We still dont reach anywhere. There is nothing on me to prove who I am and nobody nearby to tell them I really am what I claim I am.
The three men start an internal discussion at a small distance from me.
The young policeman says “We must detain him until we can verify his id.”.
The old
wise guy takes a look at me and says, “He doesnt look suspicious”.
All three look at my direction. I put on my best smile and try to bring an expression onto my face which says that I am the nicest guy on planet earth :-) The three men realising that I have overheard their conversation walk away a bit further with a sheepish grin on their faces.
An even longer discussion ensues with a lot of shaking heads and gestaculating hands. I watch in rapt attention while three men discuss about who I really am.
Finally, the three men walk towards me with the old guy leading the way.
He asks me a strange question. “Where you sleeping on the bench ?”.
I reply in the positive.
He replies with a weak attempt at humour. “People dont do that in these places.”
I raise an eyebrow and say nothing.
It seems a gentleman ( the middle aged american on the other platform ? ) had called in to report a suspicious character. With a friendly warning to carry an id with me whenever I go out, he wished me good night and walked away with the other two.
and I turn back and walk, in the land of free, unable to sleep on a bench.
Date : 17th April, 1978.
Time : 10:10 PM.
Place : a small hospital in a small city called Trivandrum.
Two little girls are sitting on a bench outside an operation theatre. The older girl is 7 years old : Last year, she was asked by her teacher at school what she would want to be when she grow up and she had replied without a doubt, “I want to be a doctor and cure people”. She would become a doctor 19 years later and then marry a doctor a year later. Her sister was 5 years old : She had started talking from the age of nine months onward and has not stopped to this day. Somewhere in Arizona USA, a patient husband is listening.
The two little girls were praying. They wanted a little brother to play with.
God heard their prayer and a boy it was.
Nobody was more happier than the father. He was an ordinary middle class government employee : the sort of unspectacular guy that you wouldnt notice if he were to walk past you. He had no great talent to speak of nor had acheived anything great in life. Yet he was something which very few are in this world. He was a nice guy. A genuine nice guy. And to the family of five, he was everything.
The little boy developed a habit very early in his life. He would just sit and watch his father and then try to imitate every action of his. From a very early age, he knew he wanted to be like his father. People used to call his father by the name “Swami” to show love and respect and whenever anyone called the boy “kutti swami”, he used to glow with pride.
In his seventh standard, the boy participitated in an essay writing competetion. The title of the competetion was “Who would you want to be and why?”. The boy wrote an essay saying “I want to be someone like my father”. He got the first prize. And that evening, the boy ran as hard as he could to his home and waited on the steps of his home till his father came. He showed him the essay and the prize. You should have seen the happiness on the father's face. That would remain in that boy's mind as the most beautiful sight he would ever see in his life.
The day before the boy went to college for the first time, his father would say a few words to him. “Son, the only difference between a man and an animal is the mind. People who are afraid of their own mind use liquor to numb it. You decide whether you want to be a man or an animal”. On countless trips and parties, all his friends tried to make him drink but all in vain. The boy would not touch a drop of liquor or a cigar ever in his life. The promise he gave to his father matterred to him more than a few moments of pleasure.
Years passed.
The family was happy and contended.It was as if God had given them everything. The father and mother were both very religous people and used to go to the nearby temple almost everyday. Little did they know that God had other plans. One day in January,1995 God took away from that family everything that they had. He took away the Father with him. The boy was shatterred. God lost a believer that day. That boy has never entered a temple after that ( unless compelled by his mother who still believes in a God who took away everything from her).
I am that boy and today, I turn 24.
Tonight, If you see a star shining more brightly than the others, that would be my father smiling down on me. And tonight as every other night, I sleep with the conviction that my father is awake somewhere up there and watching over me.
I love you,father and I miss you terribly. I know, I have a thousand miles to go before I become what you were. Still, I hope you are proud of what I am.
Love,
/.\ n a n d.
