Date with a Turkey…

Slowly I opened my eyes and watching the ceiling I laid there for a couple of minutes wondering what was happening, only thing that I could make out at that time was the pain on the back of my head and a worse one on my left leg. Did I pass out??? It took me some time to realize what happened few minutes earlier… ***

The Day Before

A pretty good restaurant to have dinner, newly opened it seems and the ambience impressed me. I thought of dining over there for the day. I was welcomed by a fat Philippine feasting on a Turkey, and the menu for the day was decided for me. Turkey came with side few dishes, which I have never seen or tasted in my life, but who cares when it comes to food all those, which don’t bite back, are WELCOME. I started munching on my piece with all those stuff places on my table.

By the time I reached my flat I started feeling uneasy and could hear my stomach grumble in strangest of all voices. What else could be better than a good night sleep and I was on to it by no time. Turkey worked well on me, I was forced to break my sleep. I took on to my heels to the washbasin to let the turkey out which was troubling me big time. I threw up till I could taste my intestine in my mouth and gasped hard, may it was hard on me to exert the turkey out, blood pressure became low and I slipped out of control on my back with a head bang.

*** I looked around, realizing no one is there to help I tried to be on my feet with a hold on the wash basin. It looked fine for initially, but the joy was not long lasting I took a step and the pain rose from my left leg like thousand thunders and twisted my leg, I tumbled again. I could feel a broken leg, might have taken a bad blow when I fainted. I dragged myself to the front door managed to open it and moved to my bedroom to make the call. I called John who is my flat mate and uttered LEG BROKE, URGENT and kept the call. Pain started building alarmingly and leg started to swell slightly, I bite on my pain and laid still on bed. John came along with a couple of other neighbors, I was happy to see someone coming for help and explained what happened and shared my view of a broken leg.


Why is that when some is in pain and when we say what we feel people fail to accept those, broken leg theory didn’t convince them and started giving their views and experiences of a twisted ankle or so and started working on my leg and twisted slightly and that made them and the entire colony feel that something bad has happened to me. Ambulance came in no time and a doc with a stethoscope hanging around his neck bumped in to my room with two other guys carrying a stretcher. Doc examined me and stated that if it was a broken leg swelling would have been worse and pain unbearable. He made a note of all those happened and passed it on to John and directed him to keep a ice on my leg so that swelling would come down and left.

Couple of hours passed and instead of subsiding, pain became worse which made John make another call to a clinic, this time a lean guy who was supposed to be the driver of the ambulance appeared in front of me with the stretcher. John along with his friend helped the driver to lift me on my new transport medium and with much difficulty started down.. forgot to mention, I occupy the 4th floor of the apartment and elevator was not available. As I didn’t weigh much they were forced to take more than a break in between before we hit the ground.

Parking space was across the other side of the road and they were rushing me to the other side, guess what ??? they made their next stop in the middle of the highway, placing me almost in the middle of the road they gasped for air… the entire scene was so dramatic that I started laughing over looking the pain.

Clinic was pretty good I should say in infrastructure, but hospitality its dark brother. I was kept to one corner and later diagnosis came up with a twisted broken bone, doctor was quite surprised to see how I manager to make it that worse. I am not quite sure whether the complication was just because of the fall or was it a result of the work out done on me by my flat mates. But I was all set to come back to India as climbing up four floors and staying there for a couple of months in this situation was ruled out.

Back in India

Living with a broken leg is as good as hell I should say, even for fluid control I needed my dad’s help… pretty embarrassing it was.. It didn’t take me much time to decide that I am gonna do things myself… first of the act was to carry my hot water bucket to bath room… support from crutches seemed to be pretty easy but the plaster which stretched to my thighs gave me a tough time in picking up the bucket… How to sort this out? I worked out a plan… slowly kick the bucket with the other leg and move the bucked by a small distance… not bad an idea even though it would take more time… I started with small kicks pushing bucket mere centimeters… initial success gave me confidence I tried to add more distance… and finally it happened a strong kick took out my balance and crutches slipped, my butt kissed the floor in no time… I still can’t believe how the hell I came up with such an idea… already limping on one leg and for kicking I need to raise the other leg too… was it faith over my crutches or was that such a dumb idea… Anyways too good a fall it was, initial days of plaster and hope the intensity of pain is understandable… Neighbors were summoned for help…

Days passed without a bath and a time came when I could no longer bear my stink… The impact of the first fall influenced me much I presume… ‘Plaster shouldn’t be wet’ Doctors words echoed… what’s the big deal, put a plastic cover over the plaster and take bath.. So simple it was… guess what it was me and I took me not much time to make it complicated… I tried to put the plastic cover with the support on my crutches… I should remind you that the plaster extended to my thighs and I have to bend myself fully to put the plastic cover… swinging the plastic cover detached me from my left support and trying to catch that lost me my right support too…. And the result was a butt kiss… I slammed on the floor and the fall reverberated throughout my house… I still wonder why I tried this exercise standing; it was way comfortable to do this while sitting… anyways no meaning in talking about that now. Damage was done.

Days followed with more incidents… starting from a broken scale in the plaster which I used to control the itching to the autographs that my buddies presented me… now it is more than a month and plaster is half cut… I am just waiting for the rest to get removed so that I can be on my feet like good old times… one thing is decided.. No more Philippine food and no top floor apartments.

Caves of Ratanghat

Friday - Train trip

The day before the trek drives in more adrenalin in to me, me more excited for the upcoming trek and this was no different. I reached office quite early with the intention of winding up the days work early to catch the Ajanta Express to Manmad starting by 6:30PM.

As usual to beat the city traffic I took MMTS to Secunderabad. Our reservations were distributed though out the compartments and I was left alone in S6, which wasn’t a good start for me, adding to it my reservation was side upper, which made things worse as it was difficult for me to fit in and had to bend my legs through out the journey. Looked like this wasn’t enough and I was blessed with a jerk to the seat next to mine. With his entry things became clear to me, I am not gonna get a good night sleep.

Things started pretty well, he passed me a smile so I returned one and he started with a casual chitchat like where am I heading? I casually replied Aurangabad. As soon as I completed saying Aurangabad he asked Why? I was wondering what the hell, but I came to my senses and realized I am still in India and answered him politely. Going for site seeing. Aurangabad? Site seeing? What is there in Aurangabad? That was how he followed. Now slowly he started taking me to my nerves, I replied him eyeing outside the window slightly avoiding him “There are hell a lot of places in and around Auragabad which are worth visiting”. He bounced back… it cant be true, you are going to meet your girl friend rite? I know you are going to meet your girl friend… I myself is going to meet my wife… This was the limit I couldn’t bare anymore, I gave a surprised look as if he got he red handed and agreed to his assumption or I should say verdict and left my seat to the next compartment where other trek mates were seated.

By around 9:00 pm I got back to seat and was very happy not to find my seat mate near by…order placed for veg biriyani was provided by Indian railways catering service, I couldn’t eat it at all… cursing the catering service I munched a bit and dumped the rest… As if my prayers were heard my seatmate appeared in front on me with a carry bag between his armpit and I could smell whisky all over the compartment with his arrival… I knew things were out of hand but expected some fun that night… I under estimated him I suppose, he couldn’t wait to trigger the chaos… fell on a lady who was in our compartment, followed by her shouting and her husband’s intervention… A railway inspector who himself was half drunk took custody of this fully drunken guy… and placed in another seat after taking some cash out of him… Later in the night I came to know that he went to some other lady in that compartment which resulted in a fight and which in turn resulted in breaking his specs… Anyways he was brought back by the TTR to his seat and the whole night he made sure that I didn’t sleep. Every five minutes he would call me up asking for his specs and seat no:

Saturday – The Trek Begins

We reached Manmad by 7:00 in the morning, took a connection train to Ighat puri and thanks to Raghu for booking the tickets for a past date. I thought we were all screwed but he managed to get general tickets for the day before the train leaves and we were back on track… Break fast was served on the train all were set for the trek.

From the station we advanced to Ratanghat first by a three wheeler followed by a truck journey, after an hour or so we reached Bhandar dhara lake where we had our lunch. Journey to the foot of the hill was by a ferry and I enjoyed every single moment of that half an hour trip taking photography all around.

We were welcomed by Ratanwadi temple where the prime deity is lord shiva. We rested for a while in the temple and as the route wasn’t that sure the organizers decided to take help of a villager who could guide us to the hill top, after lot bargaining and negotiations our marathi friend Amit convinced the villager for 800Rs and we set for the climb. Trekking did start with a bang, and as usual people were enthusiastic in the beginning and with the heat of the climb smiling faces began to fade. Ahaan how can I miss the best part, a puppy from the village joined us for the trek. You might be wondering how come this puppy became the best part of our trek, it goes like this. We had two our teammates who call themselves and each other puppy and one of these puppies was very much fond of the puppy which joined us from the village, and when one puppy calls the other puppy all including the human puppy get confused which puppy is being called. Puppy from the village came along with us about three fourth of the trek and finally took the way back joining another group who were climbing down the hill.

By around 8:00 pm we almost reached the top of our climb, we never knew something more exciting was waiting for us over there. To reach the caves of ratanghat where we were supposed to spend our night, we need to climb two iron rails, which didn’t have support on both ends to hold on to, and the darkness adding to the horror. It was pitch black that we were not able to judge what was ahead of us. Rising star Kosstubh took the lead followed by Amit and myself. Amit climbed to the top and seated himself to help the next climber and I was placed few feet down to Amit and so was Kosstubh from me and started helping the next climber to the top. Few climbed holding torch in their mouth and our rising star directed few. With lot many confusions and nagging we completed this exercise in an hour or so and we directed ourselves to the cave with the help of our guide. Every one was happy to reach the caves but was disappointed to see the cave already occupied by the front-runners, we had enough space outside the cave to spend the night and we proceeded for our Snaffy roti, which was the dinner for the day.

People were tired and so stressed with the trek in the night that they started with their plans of going back from Ratanghat and not to continue to Harshchandra ghat. When the agenda was presented in front of our half lame organizer LSP he made a wise decision to decide on this the next day as we were tired enough to make a decision at that point of time.

Sunday – Stay continues

Early morning view that Ratanghat presented us was worth the climb, view from the cave was stupendous and I was so happy to be a part of the trek team. Harsh and myself started with the show and later everyone started taking snaps of the sunrise and the clouds getting shades from orange to red and the lake spreading through out our view. Missed a wide-angle lens big time. I got up from the sleeping mat to start with my day to day routine, grabbed an empty bottle and proceeded towards the water source.

I proceeded to a far corner with my bottle filled where I could empty my stomach. If anyone asks me what was the best time you had at the trek? With out a hesitation I could reply, yes this is. To walk with a clean stomach in the morning, too good a feeling it is. I hurried back to the cave after brushing and washing my face for getting ready to Harishchandra ghat.

I was conveyed the message that decision was made by the big shots to stay in Ragtanghat and not to proceed to Harishchandra Ghat, as parting the team was not a good idea and it seemed to be a tough trek compared to what we have completed the other day. I was pretty pleased with the decision, as I could explore more of Ratanghat and take photographs as much as I want. We all had our breakfast, as we were running out of water resource one group went in pursuit for water logs leaving rest of us in the cave.

Search party successfully found out a water log and we procured water as much as we needed and all joined together to decided on our exploration with a cup of coffee, thanks to Raghu and puppy for their effort. First choice was to hit the pinnacle, and all were getting ready applying facemask and all the stuff, even I joined them as I couldn’t let down my fans club. When all this was happening one guy came rushing out of the cave with lot of white lotion on his face and eyes tightly closed. I could understand what was going with him, but instead of helping him out I enjoyed taking his photographs and laughing. Once photo shoot was done I passed him the water bottle to wash away the excess lotion that went in to his eyes, forgot to mention, that was none another than our Ponraj, the most excited guy in our team. Why most excited you will come to know later. We all left the cave leaving the half lamer in our team to guard our bags.

I was late to join the team as I was helping Ponraj with his mess but when we wer about to join the rest we were welcomed by a screaming Nandeed girl – Snehal rushing down the hill shouting snake snake… snake did its job and she didn’t dare to climb the hill again and she waited along with the puppies down the pinnacle. When I started my climb I could see Guhan – Award winning monkey trekker and Raghu closing to the top leaving others way behind. I continued with my climb and finally when I reached the top I could find only a handful that completed the climb. As usual the monkey trekker started with all his acts and giving all kinds of poses humanly impossible, and unfortunately this time I had to take all those awful poses he gave.

By noon we descended back to the cave, where we could find a set of 20 people setting up with lights and wiring in the cave for their night stay, so this night is not gonna be peaceful I said to myself. They were already singing loud and was having few musical instruments for the night party.

After lunch people started with exploring the other side of the ghat, but I had plans to take bath as our monkey trekker found some water logs suitable for bathing. I was playing around with my cam when one of our co-cave mates came to me holding a Fanta bottle with him, I was about to tell him that it doesn’t belong to us as we didn’t bring fanta, he handed me the bottle. I was lightning struck seeing what he has handed over to me, it was a two-month-old viper, which I learned later from the snake catcher. Happily he handed over the snake and walked away saying take photographs, what the hell I was half dead holding a viper in my hand, even though in a bottle… and he is asking me to take photographs. In the mean time the snake catcher came to me and took the bottle from me, I was relieved and back to normal for snaps. I was busy taking photographs when the cave echoed with a scream, reason was one among the puppy stepped in to the cave and started running around shouting, throw that away… throw that away… Seeing this drama with a laugh on his face the snake catcher took the snake out of the cave to release it in the forest.

Myself, Bhuwan and Guhan proceeded to the water log to take a dip and I should say the water was ice-cold and the bath was so relaxing that body pain induced by this trek was dissolved in it. I relaxed myself in the evening sun fully naked stretching my back on one of the rocks and was so happy to be in that state. At times I feel like I am a nudist, am I? but anyways I enjoyed that moment big time. I got ready when Guhan and Bhuwan was done with their bathing and we moved down to our cave.

Dinner was maggi ready to eat noodles and it sucked big time, I had an apple and couple of juice packets in place of that and distributed my noodles to the needy and greedy. Mean time someone came up with the idea of playing dumb Shiraz and we had good time playing the game. Once that was done Guhan came up with some card game and we started with the game in candlelight, I felt sleepy and went to my sleeping bag when Anil – Kamenoon ka badshah, Bhuwan, Ponraj, Vignesh, Faizal and Guhan continued with their game.

Early morning we started our trek downhill, which did go well and we hit the base hill in an hour or two. Worst was waiting for us on the other side of the lake, we wont be able to reach on time to catch the train back home, that was the news some other travelers passed on to us – scarcity in mode of transportation. Finally we paid a hefty sum to a truck driver and reached Pune on time, thanks again to our marathi friend. Dinner was served on train and we got ourselves distributed in different compartments. I shared compartment with Anil and Bhuwan from our team others in the compartment included two girls from Pune. Well I was happy to have them along with us, at least I could flirt as much as I want. I was wondering how to initiate the chat with them and Anil bhai gave us a break, and rest is another story… where we learned more about the over excited Ponraj.

Thanks mates, it was indeed an adventure with all you guys and I enjoyed every single moment of it. Hoping to meet you all again. Happy trekking.

Glitch of Time...

Tears dripped though my eyes as if an outlet has been split opened and my hands gave assistance for the body fluid to spread all over my cheeks… yuck boys cry or what???... I questioned myself… but that didn’t stop me from closing the shutter for fluid control, looked as if I was enjoying it… I let loose all the hard stuffs that I was holding deep inside for such a long time… Why the hell did you do that at the first place??? Maybe I really wanted to act strong and so ballooned all inside me…

Things never used to come to me just like that, right from my childhood I was to fight for it and need to catch my breath to get even the simplest of the thing from this world… and when I am at the least of its need, I used to get showered with blessings… but who cares, I have already lost the interest for that… Yes that is how things go around in this world… But the good old boy who used to boast about himself for his innocence lost his way… my adaptability put me in to such a situation in life where I don’t care about anything anymore… Is that a mistake or was I supposed to sustain my innocence by taking the beating from the world around me???… Damage was done, but my friends used to console me that I am going through a different phase of life… Even I think it is phase of life, get over it…

I am not counting myself as an absolute looser in life. I have gained many a things, may be more that what I had expected out of time… but still things which I have lost accounted more than what I have gained… How do you calculate that??? I achieved more of a materialistic world and lost myself from the hearts of my dearest ones and here comes the hitch, the change which has come over me in years doesn’t bring me the pain of losing them all… I move forward giving them more than a sting, as if I m not bothered about things happening around me…

Bad things happen to every individual in this world, but is it required to act as if you are the
worst hit among them… To be frank, I lost faith… losing faith??? Is that what you should be doing when you are forced to step back in a couple of instances??? I have not lost faith in life… I have lost faith in building a relationship… so what do u expect??? Some would come to lend you a hand and take you back to the world from where you come from??? I don’t know but I really expect something like that to happen… I don’t want to take a chance any more…

I am not a spoilt brat, deep inside I can hear the feeble voice of my Innocence trying to get my attention, but looks like I am pushing him back… who cares if I am good or bad… no one has time to judge on others… Hope the day comes when someone joins hands with me to fight on my side against all odds for eternity… I wish you the very best, but don’t lose the one inside you… even though you ll be having a tough time, a peaceful sleep is assured…

Villagers surrounded the Naxals and then...

The alarm struck by 5:30 and as usual, annoyingly I ran my hands around to silence my time piece… the pest was snoozed and I turned around rubbing my eyes and covering myself to enjoy my sleep, when something caught my eyes… hey, Isn’t that my third leg… (circles with same center different radius… flash back)

Check list for the trek was checked and re checked to confirm that I have not missed anything… Backpack was stuffed to hold enough fluid supplies for the two days and it mounted up to 15 kilos once packing was through… Cursing the driver of the three-wheeler transportation we reached Secunderabad railway station half an hour prior to the expected meeting time…

A list of twenty-two high spirited youngsters and one middle aged, hey I will come back to him later… spread across two compartments; we occupied the seats randomly as inclusion of a new berth had changed our seating arrangements… List pasted on the compartment was ruled out for confirmation as train was already on its run; so it was decided that we wait for the TT to show up…

Not waiting for anyone, shamelessly I climbed to the top berth of my compartment and started preparing myself for sleep, many vowed that they won’t let me sleep peacefully… I was laughing inside… once my shutter are closed, only next morning could wake me up… but circumstances didn’t give me the liberty to sleep at ease as train was supposed to reach Tadikalapudi by morning 4:30…

Day 1

Train was on time… just to mention how it would be at 4:30AM, it was slightly drizzling and clouds added to the darkness… Time to talk about the middle aged high spirited person which I mentioned initially… our Big boss, grey shades here and there… lean… a man in his early forties… but with the energy of his twenties … let me stick with the name Big boss which suited him well…

Big boss appeared with his head light placed rite over his forehead with a white baggage on his right hand… being in charge of the food committee I could blindly guess that it would be IDLIS for our breakfast… Idli boy (again my naming convention) transferred his load to Big Boss to distribute the breakfast before the trek starts… all other food materials were shared and we waited for light to come up to show us the way… In mean time Asst of our Big boss started displaying stunts on the railway track… the stunt was to walk on the rail without losing balance… As in circus many followed the Asst and displayed their skills, so did I… why to keep away from the show…

Light brought with it the time to move on and we loaded ourselves with our slightly loaded baggage’s … Two more characters in frame, let me call him the Pathfinder … and the Coordi (as the name conveys he was the coordinator of the trek)…

Pathfinder was back with his thoughts and the route we needed to trace as per the plan… Coordi and Pathfinder took the lead; we followed as obedient disciples and our big boss tailing us with his Asst…

We were supposed to cross a number of fields before reaching the foot of the hill where the actual trek was to kick off which could be rounded off to 2-3 kilometers… It was raining continuously for the previous days which made the fields like a soft bed and one foot on the mud would either dig us deep in or to at least make us slip and taste the mud… As a front-runner our Financer demonstrated with a fall in his style, followed by Jungle boy and Aadi… With my first fall I decided to get a stick for support, for in the slippery fields this was mandatory and could even help in the ascent…

We reached a plain land before the ascent, where we divided ourselves in to two teams with the understanding that we would meet in the plains for breakfast. One headed by our Big boss and the other by Asst and Path finder… I followed the latter as we were to explore something out of our plan… Along came Financer, Jungle boy, Idli boy, Coordi and another character with a French beard… let me call him the Manager… and the thinnest guy in our team with a heavy load on his back and a sweet smile, Smiley… Fatty, he had nice cam with him and was pretty interested in photography… followed by the Gud guy, the most helpful person in team and the Mr. Cool… why Mr. Cool??? Never bothered about anything, with a small backpack and a piece of cloth below his cap… enjoying nature and in his own world of thoughts…

We started with a small hill covered mostly by bushes. I looked around to find a stick for support, the one that I was talking about in the beginning of the trek. Search came to a halt soon, as I could find a pretty nice piece of stick which was one forth short of my height… one side slightly thinner than the other… Less than an hour or so we completed our warm up climb and ended up in a plain where the peak 1680 was in our vicinity… We passed voices in air to get in touch with the team headed by the Big boss… we were happy for getting lost before the real trek started and rested for a while… in the mean time Asst and Path finder were breaking their heads to track the actual route…

Within half an hour time the Big boss appeared in front as if from thin air with a plastic cover on his head to beat the drizzle… We decided to break our fast and placed ourselves on the ground with our idli packets… The real fun of the trek was about to start in the mean time… Asst, Coordi and Pathfinder on one side and Big boss and Fatty on the other started with their gut feeling about the route… each side pointing to an entirely different direction… Big boss displayed his diplomatic skills by challenging others to convince him with their plans… and in the end we all ended up following the Big boss… where he lead us to the remaining members of the team…

We were on the move in no time. With small halts in between either to catch our breath or to take a couple of snaps… we continued our ascent crossing small streams and enjoying the art of nature. As we progressed, the degree of ascent started building up from 30 to 40 and finally to 80degrees where I almost tasted my intestine, hopefully many of them would have got the opportunity… Three to four hours of ascent finally led us to a plain in the hilltop where we settled for lunch… Chapattis with pickles was an exquisite lunch for the day and with that we divided ourselves into groups for finding a place for the night camp… Big boss and myself took a route which led us further high up the hill where the visibility of the nearby hills was pretty clear… there I had my encounter with the Skull headed eight legger, that would be another story…

Travelling an hour or so we reached the night camp location as proposed by the planning team. Ropes were tied and tents pitched with long grass spread below the sheets giving us a cushion effect, if you ask me I would say it was quite an experience of a lifetime… Big boss along with a couple of others started lighting fire for our dinner… we all had our share and all went to their respective tents leaving Asst, Financer, Jungle boy, Coordi, Manager, Gud guy, Idli boy, Pathfinder and Myself… We decided to have our cut in front of bonfire…which we enjoyed and continued with singing and shouting at the top of our voices… Optimizing the bonfire was done by drying up our shoes and keeping us warm… which was followed by a cup of coffee…

My sleep was broke as the Jungle boy woke up shouting, when I enquired, his explanation was a frog tried to kiss him or so… adding his wildest of fantasies that he visualized a snake following the frog and leading itself to the tent… half an hour or so he woke me up again hearing some sound… I decided to myself… ‘Jungle boy next time you wake me up… you are out of the tent’.Fortunately for him nothing happened after that, Manager continued from where the Jungle boy stopped with his snoring, which reminded me of a rusted motor reaching all resonance and finding it hard to run throughout the night… God given gift stopped me from nothing and I had a peaceful sleep in my sleeping bag…

Day2

Early morning my sleep was broken when the Style King came out with his story of spotting a Wild Dog, which detained him from coming out the tent for controlling his body fluids… For our daily routine we took to the nature and as per schedule we were supposed to start soon after breakfast… Planning team came up with the news that they found a valley and a clear view of the horizon…

Should I call it heaven or not…well…I am not sure, but the view was so beautiful. I should say it was a feast for our eyes… I wished we could camp there for a while… I couldn’t find a better place to be with the nature … Soon we started our descent and this time we were as per the planned route and before lunch we touched the Narsapuram village. I knew that the fun was gonna end, but someone had a different plan for us…


We moved through the path where mud touched our knees, third leg was indeed a blessing for me at that point of time… the muddy path led us to a small pond which in turn led us to the villagers who mistook us for Naxalites… Few had discussions and clarifications with them, as I stood dumb struck not knowing the language and context of their debate... Manager joined me by pointing at Cooridi and Team for all the questionings being done to us. A wise guy took us or should I say saved us from the villagers and with a three-wheeler as our mode of transportation we reached the High way in another 30min…

We took a room close to the railway station and took time to freshen up… followed by dinner and way back home…

Alarm struck again, as a precautionary measure I used to set up multiple alarms… I open my eyes with a smile on my face, as if I was back from trek the same morning. As the Pathfinder used to say I could smell green, the spirit of the trek was still clinging on to me…

A Windy Evening...

Scene1
I enjoyed every single raindrop kissing my cheeks and making their way to my neck as I continued my walk. Turned to my side, as usual she was very beautiful and may be evening rain added to her beauty… holding her laptop with one and the spare to control her hair she was looking up with a childish smile as if welcoming the drizzle…

Wind was pretty strong in the evening; she was trying hard to manage her hair. The way she was running her fingers amused me and have always amused me, that brought smiles to my face… girls have the way of looking through the sides of their eyes, she smiled and then looked at me… raised her head as if asking me the reason why I am giggling… I closed both my eyes tightly conveying nothing continuing with what I was doing… we strolled toward my bike…


Scene2
Monsoon rain was cooling off Hyderabad, water droplets hitting dry sand raising fragrance of a kind… I enjoy that smell, used to wonder what kinda strange taste I am having… My love for rain took me to my heels. Packed and ready in no time to leave my work place to rush out in rain… I was laughing inside, if it was work related I would have never acted so fast… I consoled myself telling… “Hey this happen only once in a while man.. no big deal…”

I walked with my arms stretched as if to hold the drizzle, people were looking at me wondering what I was doing… cold wind was blowing and was pretty strong, I had to work hard to make my way… I closed my eyes and walked with my arms stretched… As I closed my eyes I saw her beside me, I knew this wasn’t happening so I didn’t dare to open my eyes… I didn’t want her to leave…

The DuO started scoring on me which led me to lose my grounds…

Testing was happening at its high and to screw up the situation my feature gave me few more bugs, cursing the database servers I added up a couple more to my bugs list… my extension echoed.. I picked up the call with a smile on my face happily taking a break from my routine…

A sweet voice reciprocated from the other end, asking for my name… I replied with a stretched Yeeees… it was chandu from the insurance department and she was giggling… before I could initiate my conversation she started again by saying that the beep sound for your voice mail was good… I chuckled and replied that It was even worse earlier…. Fear that my manager would call me up some time and hearing my one-minute auto reply would screw him up, forced me to shorten it…. She continued her laugh and conveyed that my cheque for the insurance claim is ready… I thanked her for making my day and fixed an appointment to collect the sum making my plans to meet my wing mates along with that…

I hurried winding up my job and went to the neighboring cube to collect the key for my transportation.. key came along with an inquiry and a sarcastic smile “Today going to meet which GIRL da???” I gave the regular he he, turned my face not giving much importance to that and directed myself to the elevator… With in no time I reached the campus office and collected my reward for bearing the pain and limping for a couple of weeks(but that was an entertainment for few good mates of mine)…

Elevator took me to the 4th floor with ease and I moved to meet my chweety and chottu with a 70mm smile… chottu was busy with her manager generating more work to the testing team… I felt bad for the testers working in her team… getting over loaded with the work introduced by chotu and team… I thought of not disturbing her and proceeded to chweeties desk… she was stretching her back preparing herself for the next round of visit to other cubes leaving her work as usual… 200W flashed citing me on the frame… she pulled a chair for me and we started with our conversation…

It seemed like my voice traveled distance, chotu left her seat and came to us asking “Just now you pinged me rite, within no time reached her or what???” and started about her hectic work… I suggested to take a break and we all moved to grab a cup of coffee… in mean time I was trying to reach ponnuse through my mobile and chweeties extn both ending up in vain(forgetting the fact that she was using a dabba[useless] cell phone)…

Chottu went back to work as her manager came in and we proceeded to ponnuse’s desk… with much difficulty and circling around we found her place and as usual she was occupying someone else place shamelessly… We took the place and started our chit chat pulling others leg and my hunger call put an end to our conversation, directing us to the cafeteria…

I feasted myself with a veg sandwich ignoring my eyes flooding and my body sweating all over, thanks to the chef for adding more spice to it… Ponnuse and chweety had their mosambi juice not leaving even a drop for me(poor aadi)… verbal assault on me followed and as usual chweety fought from both the ends bravely pulling ponnuse and me down at the same time… Call from food corp of india kept ponnuse busy for a couple of minutes… she joined back and coupled with chweety, the duo started scoring on me which led me to lose my grounds… I surrendered and feeling sorry for me they left me to breath…

Dabba cell rang again giving us the news that chotu is coming to cafeteria… she came with a tired face and sad news for me… chweeties manager was looking for her… my chweety had to leave… Chottu grabbed a juice for her starting with her story of how she successfully fixed the bugs that she herself introduced in to the system… after a couple of minutes my cell rang and I was supposed to get back…we all split to our respective work place and catch up with the work left behind….

prodigal Son...

“When you were born, you were the only one crying, and everyone around you were smiling… live your life in such a way that when you die, you’re the only one smiling, and everyone around you is crying…”

I made few changes to the above quote… sounded good to me this way… You may be wondering why I am starting with this… here it goes…

Look on the mirror reminds me of the face who always wished to be some one special but remained to be one among the crowd. I know I am supposed to do many things in this world, that is worth for… but still pertaining with my dreams and no aspirations… I hope when I am ready to act, let it not be too late…

From the time when I had the autonomy to consider independently… The uncertainty, “Am I constrained from doing things I wish to do???” OR “Am I not considering myself to do things, which I really want to do???” has haunted me… Quite strange!!!… pretty contradictory rite?…Hope many of us face this uncertainty… may be fighting it, ignoring or leaving it unnoticed… I shall not speak of “WE” at this point of time, let me spot light myself for the prospect… Blame game has to be stopped; and may this be the first step… having the courage enough to admit ones own mistake…

Even the smallest of things like a misplaced stone on midway to cutting down the trees for widening the roads bothers me… it is not that I keep my eyes wide shut… I know the fact that for road widening there is no need to axe down a life and spill the green blood, we always have the option to built the road on either sides keeping the tree as the divider… Even to put up the best of construction won’t take more than a couple of years, but for a tree to reach its age…., may be a century or more… and the lame excuse “Infrastructure development” and axing them down should be stopped now…

Here goes the real problem, Am I taking the chance to do things that can make me stand apart from the crowd and fight against the odds??? Doing something worth for the world in which I live in or for the future generations coming up??? Have I become that selfish to forget the fact that human race is rushing towards a crisis or to a verge of extinction and act as if nothing is happening around me… It is a fact that there won’t be a chance to turn back if something is not done against Global warming at this point…

It is high time I should consider myself before things go beyond my reach… Let this be the beginning…. when I am in a position to set an example I ll be back for “WE”… Let me guide with an example and not by phony.

“No one can do everything but everyone can do something”. Let me make myself clear of one thing… it is high time to act… if not now, then there will never be a chance again…