A Short Story- Mickey Out of the Bag

Life is full of Happiness. It just takes a person to look around and find smiles all around him. A hectic year allows me to turn back and recollect a wonderful time filled with a million smiles and a thousand tears. The tears too; most of them borne due to happiness.

The man who has given a whole movie of experiences is Vikram. His story has drama, comedy, emotion, action, suspense and romance. Well how do I begin, Vikram comes to Mysore with a clear mind. He has to find a girl for himself or else he would be packed off with a girl chosen by his village elders.  So mission- FIND a girl. And there is divine intervention. Lighting strikes, The skies open, Vikram spots the one. She is dressed in a fairy white salwar and talks like she chirps. Its love before first sight. He claims to have seen her before, in his dreams, But we guys lay claim to have seen her before too, we nickname her Yana because of the striking resemblance she bears to Yana Gupta, the bolly siren.

Vikram is a man possessed. He knows this is it. He has to pull it off here and how? Vaibhav lands up a plan-“ Body bana aur impress kar daal” in true bollywood style.  Here we go. The entire team that includes me, Narendra, Divgikar, Siddharth , Tushar are all now bent on helping Vikram on whatever it takes. The feeling is two prone. A romance always lights up the hectic schedule and it adds a lot of excitement to the goings around. Meanwhile Vikram hits the gym in return for the perfect body. For all you know, Vikram is a lukha, and guess what Vikrams favourite hero Shahrukh had hit the gym in good earnest and had come up with what Vikram wanted - a six pack. But we guys sadly miss a ball boy for our cricket as training sets in and classes begin in earnest.

While Yana becomes a sideshow compared to the real agony of tests of modules. Vikram breezes through tests with great grades because as he says, mind happy, toh results happy. Vikram over time becomes great buddies with all in the group. He also gets a nickname- Mand, because quite evidently he is the tubelight of the group that too, a very low light one at that.

Cut to the emotion and part. I never knew that Vikram had it in him to be a roaring tiger.  But he so showed to one and all, when he took the phone in a fit of bravado and mouthed expletives at our project manager. Well we have a model project to do during training when all of us are expected to perform various roles. What do you do when the supposedly most important person in a project acts irresponsible? Like a true Hero, Vikram sways the swagger, He Gives it back in words to Samidha who doesn’t know how to react. Well thats for the time being, When Samidha returns to class, she is a mess. She walks slowly, puts her arm on her head, lies down in the table and and starts weeping, if crying buckets of tears/water had a better term, I would like to know, but Sammy is now cured, miraculously, She takes over the reins over the project, slogs the hours and as a team we finish the project very ahead of time. Hail the hero, bravo- Vikram.

Time for the love story to move forward, Vikram is now well connected among Yana’s friends. He knows most of her friends. Knows that her favourite hero is Ajay Devgan and she loves the song ‘Arre re arre yeh kya hua’. Vikram spends hours and hours at the park bench outside her building trying to find out more. Thats where the drama starts. Havent I told you yet? Vikram hasn’t spoken yet to Yana. Ably supported by Vaibhav, He decides to finally take the plunge now that all the body that can be made is done. He stutters, he stammers, finally breaks the silence, and introduces himself as Vikram. You are Richa right? I am in FT batch. You are in TL2 right, blah blah all upto Your mobile number is this, all in one bated breath. And finally, Can we be friends with an extended arm for a hand shake. What follows is a million dollar smile and a question mark thats longer than a face can take.

(More in next- to be continued)

How are We

I write this blog just after witnessing the proud occassion of India launching Chandrayaan to the moon. It feels great to see that India is among the top scientific powers of the world. ISRO is one organisation that has given us such proud moments year in and year out. It just shows that Once we resolve to do something, if we have the will to achieve it,  and if we do it to the best of our abilities, We are the best in the world. I have been part of conversations questioning the need for a moon mission which the US and Soviet Union competed for long back in the 1970s and have long withdrawn and moved now to Mars and other echelons. The fact still remains, India is doing what it is just very GOOD at, India has a proven track record in Remote sensing sattelites and the chandrayaan is just that. It would do a complete remote sensing analysis of the moon, its characterisitics and only at a later stage would attempt a landing and search for water in the polar caps etc. Proud of ISRO again.

The same newspaper that would carry this news would also carry the Rotten saga of a man who holds Indias financial capital to his mercy. Raj Thackarey and his team of rabid men do whatever it takes to be in the public eye. I havent seen a more brash and more nuisence filled politician than him.  I also have a lot of respect for his uncle who actually i thought actually fought for the rights of the Marathis while his nephew is just faking it for reasons known to every person in the world apart from the brainless crowd who listen to him. I have a curiosity to know how these politicians think. Do they think that the people at large are big fools who simply get swayed by emotions of hatred against fellow indians let alone fellow humanity. I think they do and they are partially right that there are a few of his followers. But what they do is beyond doubt unjust in the minds of the 98 percent of the remaining population.

Now that starts a debate in my mind. Is it that only people like Raj Thackarey alone to blame for the ruckus that is happening? The answer is not a debate its a resounding NO, only the factors are debatable.  I am putting forward a few conclusions of the same here. India is divided into two blocks of politicians- THE EXTREME POWER HUNGRY and THE EXTREMELY CORRUPT. Though there is a interlinking of the two, i am yet to find a third category of politician in the country though there maybe exceptions. Tamil Nadu for example is a prime example of the above two categories, one contender is probably the most corrupt family(Karunanidhis) with some power hungry thespians in the midst while the second contender is the most headstrong power hungry type(Jayalalitha) with a proven corrpution record. So as Voters what choice do we have? Whenever a third alternative tries to emerge, he immediately jumps into the bandwagon of one of the two kinds and the option itself becomes impotent. The problem is TINA ( There is No Alternative).

Why is this such a huge problem for the county of the Mahatma, the problem is two fold. The GREAT INDIAN MINDSET. We as a society are scared of change. Scared of the unknown and  always scared of the future. I dont know of a country where everything is talked about has a religion undertone attached to it,  yet we call ourselves a secular country. Show me an Indian ( that includes me) who would like to stand in the line for a passport form for an entire day when a passport form is available for 50 bucks for a 10 minute wait. (As u see, the two options are so badly matched that the choice is obvious). I can narrate this recent experience of mine, A pair of shoes was stolen off one of my neighbour's house,they didnt inform my parents(building secretary), in turn parents didnt care about enquiring , even the people whose shoe was stolen didnt care about it, the only person concerned was the watchman whose job was under the gun. The saddest part is we all know who might have carried it away as hardly anyone new comes to the building. Just a bit of investigation and we could have nabbed the culprit.  I have heard that we have a resilient mindset, who are used to deep sorrow and deep sadness that we TOLERATE everything. I beg to differ, WE have an INDIFFERENT mindset and a careless attitude which we by all chance have to change. 

The second gaping hole is lack of MONITORING by the two watchdogs of the democracy- the Police and the Media. The police is known in India to be a arm of the politico rather than the watchdog- an extremely inept, spoilt(by corruption ofcourse) and sloppy force. But what about the Media. It is the media of the day that has cropped up the Raj Thackareys. Trust me if the media avoids the Raj Thackarey story for one of his episodes and just blacks it out, the next time at his command there would be exactly 20 people ready to carry out his orders for the next episode. Media coverage today symbolises power, one in which the Amar Singhs and the Rajs revel at. But Media is more swayed by sensationalism rather than a social responsibility that it never knew in the first place. 

As an individual with a responsibility, it writhes me on my part. Does one vote every five years suffice any complete cause? No absolutely not. It is essential to be part of the local society, be part of NGOs that aid social welfare. It is easy to say that Politics is passe and social activism is different from politics, but thats the only thing thats believable in the present times. We ( that certainly includes me) need to look at what we can do to take more part of this great indian System