Short Story

On a sultry Bangalore afternoon, A boarded a shared cab to reach office.

Minutes later, B joined in. A helped B close the door.B said "thanks".

A smiled.

B sat facing A at the back of the Tata Sumo Cab.

B dug into his pocket and started taking the blue wrapper of a 5 Rupees Dairy Milk.

The shiny substance caught A's eye. A thought to himself : "I was nice to him, hopefully he'll share the chocolate".

He didn't.

A saw him throw the blue wrapper through the window.A's eyes followed the wrapper on the road , as the cab raced ahead of the lone-blue-wrapper lying on the road.

The gold wrapper was still left on the chocolate. B passed the final obstacle before he could enjoy the small bar of happiness.

B was about to throw it out same way. Right then , something struck in A's mind and he lurched forward and said, "Can you give the wrapper to me? I ll throw it in a dustbin when i find one."

Both A and B stood frozen for a moment, finding it hard to believe what just happened.

A though a smile would help, so he smiled.

B kept the wrapper in his pocket, and went ahead with his chocolate.

A spent the rest of the ride thinking about writing this blog and how this small incident has made him more motivated towards keeping his city clean.

How about you ?

Pearl Valley

I normally don’t write any blogs, but something inside me just ticked on the way back from Pearl Valley and I gotta write this one.

Well its 15^th Aug, 2008 today , India’s 61^st Independence Day and it coming up on a Friday happened to conjure up a THREE DAY weekend for the software folk, leading to put that immense pressure on me and my friends to do something “useful” in these three God gifted days. So we planned a one day trip to a place called “Pearl Valley” which happens to be just 40 odd kms. from Bangalore ( 37kms from BTM to be precise).

So here we have , eight guys with four bikes looking for that one day non-alcoholic high.Lazy as we are, we started 2 hours late than planned – around noon and reached crisply by 1.30 . The map is utterly simple , just follow the Bannerghatta road till you reach Bannerghatta National Park , and after that follow the instructions from the lovely people staying in the outskirts . They will lead you and they will lead you right. Best way to go is riding your bike or car, believe me – half the fun is cruising through the green country-like outskirts of Bangalore, with the wind in your hair and your leg on the throttle. The road leading you is generously smooth , with lots of strategically placed potholes and speed breakers reminding you : “Buddy, you are in India !!“.

The bike ride was made a pleasure by the awesome “Bangalore Weather” and picturesque outskirts. Though one cannot miss luxury townships, nature retreats and farmhouses mushrooming along the way. Also there is one very-Main Hoon Na-like exatravagent school coming up : Sarladevi Birla Vidyalaya (I hope I got the name right) - Worth a gasp. All these developments gently reminding you that the silicon valley is spreading its arms. Its green all through the way though. Towards the end we came across two barricades demanding rather forceful donations for some Ganesh Festival. We ended up giving in some generous bucks saying “Ganapathi Bappa , Morya”. Pure example of the immaculate Indian Spirit – Looting money in the name of God.

You will know you have reached Pearl Valley when you drive up to a restaurant called “Mayura”. Yes that’s all that meets your eye at first, but let me tell you this small restaurant has its own charm. It has an open portion on the edge of the cliff , onlooking the valley and the view is great. The place could cater to most of your needs , as long as they are feasible considering the place ; a good collection of spirits is also available. We ended up having a heavy snack before our trek. Surprisingly the heavy snack turned to cost us more than a full lunch afterwards. But then , we do have the ability to have inhuman portions of food sometimes.

Coming to the Pearly Valley itself, well there is a lot of disappointment for the non-adventurous folk here. Some 50 Stairs lead you down to a Water fall which is supposed to be the main attraction here. Now , we went in middle of monsoon and anyone would expect a good waterfall with some “Water”. All we got was an abysmal stream , which most of us did bet could be powered by the restroom from the Mayura restaurant above. For many people , Pearl Valley ends here as they sit around the rocks stuffing themselves with rice and beer.

The young and adventurous few , like us , go ahead into the green, finding roads to nowhere. All we did was select a hill and then find a way to get up there through the greens. One goal leads to another one and you could go on for as long you have the muscle. Lots of thorny plants could be only the possible spoilsport , also it does get a little damp at some places so mind

your steps. We really did enjoy basking in the euphoria of our conquest when we got up there. Also the fresh cool breeze was sure a great treat for our traffic jam affected lungs. The only wildlife we came across was a two meter long snake skin and some very interesting insects.

We returned to base camp – Mayura Restaurant after a Three hour exhilarating trek. Lunch was again a treat , food being nothing exceptional, just that the place and hungry tummys made it what it was. Also , there were some hungry

monkeys ( I am not referring to me and my friends) waiting to be fed by us. A very basic experiment led us to derive that monkeys are in-fact vegetarians. Yes, as lame as it sounds, its real fun t

o rediscover basic laws of nature – try remembering the first time you lit a matchstick.

Post lunch we started our ride back home , fearing the rains. The ride back was a bit quicker. The speed was same , the time taken was almost same , just that the excitement had died down. All through our trip , the weather was like it was going to rain any minute. Thankfully all day it didn’t. But then just when were about to reach home, It rained.

Another special thing I saw was, that all through our way all the cabs, rickshaws, trucks and busses kept us reminding that it was 15^th August that day. The Independence day had almost all vehicles on our way here sporting The Tricolour with pride and that

led us to do some innovative Flag Hoisting ourself. For the record,

I would like to admit that though I loathe the people of south India to be so fanatic about several things, be it their language or the film stars, I was really inspired by the amazing display of zest for celebrating this day. This was our small attempt to level the people here.

Overall , Pearl Valley was a really memorable experience. Its close , its simple ,

its natural and the best thing about it is, its your little outing, make it what you wanna make it.

India poised story contest

Yeahh, so there was a story contest by the Times of India through their India Poised movement (much admired by me) and it tempted me to write a bit. The thing was that an opening paragraph was given by them and we had to continue our story forward. The original idea was to win the contest and let you guys read it through the paper itself but like many well laid plans this didnt work either. So, neways go on invest some 10 mins of ur precious time and read it.

The Great Indian Dream

The alarm crowed. A lusty king of the farmyard cock-a-doodle-do. He shut the mobile up. One hour and five minutes was all he had before his day began. He would steal five minutes from that. Look the other way, he told that frowning creature in his soul. I do it all the time. A little corruption. A little bribery. I negotiate with the world 24 /7. So why not an extra 5 minutes of sleep? he told himself and buried his head under the pillow. And so began another day in the life of an Indian. (this was the paragraph given by them)

“kitne aadmi the” Gabbar had shouted that memorable line ten times on a W810i by 9.30 that morning and Amit had managed to faintly hear just the last two of them, thanks to three consecutive night outs. Then rang the unmistakable “jiya dhadak dhadak” and up he sprang, saying “hi baby, mownin”. Already late for the third lecture of his final year in engineering College he smiled as soon as he reached the class: MASS BUNK, leading to a quick reschedule leading to a matinee show at the mall with his pals. But alas the “hanging out” that was supposed to follow the movie was spoiled by a potential outbreak of a rumor of surprise test in 15 mins. Unlike most rumors this was true. So there he sat writing a test about a topic he just had a faint idea, while his mind was still boggled by the special effects of the Hollywood movie he had just watched. He scored 7/10. The guy was one of the million guys in India who studied like hell till high school and studied by the fundamentals, to the core. Also one of the lucky ones who had bagged a campus placement in IBM already. Rest of the day went in pursuing his next dream - IIMA whilst enjoying songs downloaded from the internet, love bites from his girlfriend, laughter shared with roommates calling his mom and finally a small prayer before sleeping with a smile on his face ready for the next day and his much dreamed about bright future.

Sunita , a middle aged mom of two and a teacher, had just used the snooze facility in her alarm the second time when it struck her that Kiran, her 12 year old maid, was sick and her jam packed Monday just got busier. It was just six in the morning though, sweet three hours before she left for her 9 to 5 teacher job, but her two kids, her two parents-in-law and her love for all four of them made her day start at around six everyday. After healthy breakfast for her family, a delicious lunch , typical household chores and a quick word with her- just returned from work husband, she just needed to solve one more problem before she set of for work and solved many more. As usual the gas cylinder she ordered wasn’t home yet leaving her only one option – call another dealer , pay a 100 bucks more and hope next time she gets what she deserves from the original agency. At work that day as usual she taught students, drafted strategy for the coaching centre’s new advertisement policy and most importantly kept making students like Amit motivated to work towards their dreams. As she died down for the night ALONE, she dreamt of all the hard work, she is doing for her children, getting paid through a better future for her family.

Like a lot of Indians nowadays Vilas, manager at a Call centre and Sunita’s husband, was woken up at lunch time by his kids. And like each other day he woke up determined that he is going to leave this monstrous job which pays him well but allows him to be with his wife only on Sundays. Sadly at the moment all his country could provide him was a job which is against him seeing his kids grow. He is angry but he gulps it down. Though the attitude of “I don’t care” is seen in his everyday life. He leisurely breaks traffic rules, doesn’t mind paying bribe if he gets caught, lies when he pays his taxes, does all those small unnoticeable crimes that are holding India back. There is nothing less productive than a person who hates his job. Still the minimum efficiency of highly competent Indians like Vilas made the company happy. As he slept after a 12 hour rough day trying to sell more insurance to Americans all he hoped he didn’t have to “Compromise”.

“A man’s karma is to drive the wheel of life towards better future for all” and this what most of India, if not all, is doing, though with an evolved selfish tinge. Millions of Indians today are having great dreams in their eyes and when they wake up each day they strive for them. Yes it includes phases of not taking the totally righteous path for it but most of it is just a mortgage to keep the wheel moving.

For all such striving and fighting Indians five minutes of stolen sleep just means five more minutes of their favorite dream. And as these small dreams of each person come true we can expect a bigger dream, The Great Indian Dream, coming true.