It
was around 8.30 in the morning and the weather was rough. The local weather
broadcasts told precisely that it’s not going to rain for the next 48 hours
which gave me a little hope that I could start on my tri-marathon anytime in
next 10min.The heavy downpour was ceasing to be a drizzle. I didn’t want to
take chances though I was tempted to finish it with a sprint if I were to go by
bike. As soon as I started walking towards the bus stop; I reached for my
apple headsets and plugged it in my ears. Though my fate has made me an
engineer I feel as if I were a doctor as soon as I insert the elegant
white stethoscope, for I could clearly feel my heart beat in sync with the
music extricating all the ties with the mundane affairs.
With
ARR screaming into my ears in his melancholic wail someone interrupted.”Mom
Calling” I attended the call as I kept walking.
“Hello
ma”
“Enna
da!!Getting ready to office? Had breakfast?”
“No
ma!!It’s already late. I’ll have it at office. Btw…did you call me to ask
this?”
“Why
shouldn’t I...am your mom…Remember? Anyways dad wanted to know if you are
coming home this weekend. We are planning to visit our native and perform some
rituals at the temple.”
After
a pause
“Hmm...No
ma...I have weekend MBA classes..…I can’t skip.”I lied
I
had already voted to attend another important ritual, our project party at
Barbeque Nation.
“You
and your work!! God knows when you’ll have leave. OK. Let me tell dad to make
the arrangements for next week. Hope this is fine with you?”
“Ya
ok” I said though I wasn’t sure what might come up then.
After
the cursory inquiries, and weekly status updates I cut the call.ARR held his
breath and resumed from where he left “oh yuva yuva oh yuva.”
One
of the rare anomalies where ARR sings about Yuvan I thought as I patted myself
for the PJ.
By
then I had reached the Chrompet bus stand and I was hoping to get a through bus
to Mcity.
I
was loitering around the pavement where amidst the crowd there was a huge
vacant space. I looked down and saw an old man collapsed on the road wearing
only a torn shirt and his dhoti was strewn by his side belying its sole purpose
and there he laid helpless, half-naked, shivering with fruit flies flocking his
pussy legs.
ARR
now suggested or rather insisted”Ezhaikkum vazhvukkum irukkindra idaiveli
kuraithu” (Eradicate poverty)
So
I did, self-righteously fished out the loose change in my pocket and carefully
dropped it on the small stack of coins littered near the man’s outstretched
hands.
He
didn’t look up. May be he thought it wasn’t enough? May be people mistook him
for a beggar. Almost everyone who passed by stopped a second to look at him
–some pitied, some shocked, some did the same I did.
But
one street vendor came right to him, took the dhoti and covered his crotch,
picked all the coins and dropped it in the man’s pocket, wrapped his body with
the shabby towel behind him and asked if he could cross the road for him.
The
man nodded in the affirmative and so he held him by the armpits and lifted him
and the man somehow managed to hold his dhoti round his waist and started
walking.
There
was an insurance agent, dressed in formals, with a file containing rate slabs
and policy details. He went to one person at a time, held the transparent file
in front of them and earnestly tried to explain the coverage. No one ever
budged. I marveled the conviction with which he was shouting in to deaf ears. But ideally the most likely candidate to be without
insurance was walking away. I believed he is not insane to go and hold the file
in front of him.
I
could see the crowd hustle along as they saw a bus coming. Thank God!!It was a
500B .The bus came in the shed and stopped a few paces away from me. The mob
thronged the footboard and I was lucky enough to squeeze my way past them to
land a foot near the conductor seat. My other foot was caught in the stampede;
someone was squirming behind me to move inside and in the process kept pushing
my bag along.
Before
I could even react the other person’s waist belt towed my headset with a snatch
pulled it out of my left ear. I held it just in time and released it from the
belt. The man didn’t even bother to notice. I cursed him as I slid my bag and
politely gestured the boy sitting right in front of the conductor’s seat if he
could keep it safe. He glared at my tag, nodded and took it. A couple of times
he checked if I were the same person as in the ID card and then looked
straight. He dodged a couple of times as if he was going to get down. But he
eventually ended up doing the obvious, leaned on my bag and slept.
I
stuck out a 50rs note to the conductor, carefully over the shoulder of a middle
aged lady who eclipsed me from the conductor.”1 Mahindra City” I told. He gave
me two tickets as they are yet to roll out the new tickets since 1811 BC (Bus
fare change effective from 18 Nov 2011) and the change.
As
a result of being inundated from all sides I didn't notice that “Endrendrum
Punnagai” song, one of all time favorites was halfway through. The voice was
feeble only when I realized that I was listening with only one earpiece as the
left earpiece was hanging loose swaying as if crying out for rescue. When I
resurrected it back in my left ear the audio was still feeble. On close
examination I found that the ear piece was broken, barely alive with the last
rung of copper wires intact.”Congrats!! One more headset gone! Last time it
happened when I was cycling in the gym” I recollected.
Good
things come with a price, agreed. But no matter how careful I am to make sure
that they don’t coil apple headsets are less immune when it comes to rugged
usage. I wanted to catch hold of that guy and blast him. But again it was my
choice to start late and end up travelling in a crowded bus. I had no one else
to blame except me.
Considering
the crescendo in MTC bus fares I thought people preferred the electric train aisle
better than that of an MTC bus since I thought it was economic as well as
ergonomic .You will never be short of such Monday blues either if you are one
of those office goers or a stock trader. My mid-semester dissertation on
‘Metropolitan modes of transport’ went nose diving. Now I knew what they really
meant by distance education –it is the distance between your chosen
universities private curriculum and the general public opinion.
I
was indeed overwhelmed by the valiant effort of the amputated ear-phone still
trying to placate me with an evergreen number “Endrendrum Punnagai”.
The
first thing I’ll do after reaching office, I will post this in BB to know how
the other apple users confront this predicament.
As
the bus meandered into the Tambaram railway stop, the boy got up to get down. I
gave him a petitionery look as if to ask him to drop my bag there and
quasi-elect me to his throne. He didn't mind and I was happy for that I could
read till I reach mcity.
I
pulled the hot cake of this quarter out-Revolution 2020.I was rereading it,
skimming through just for pleasure of reading some punch lines. Every page had
one or two like cashew and raisin in a laddu. When I started reading from where
I left I came across another.
“Love,
officially is, a b**ch”
I
kept fiddling with my left earphone as I was intrigued to see it working
whenever I held it in some random angle.
“Why
this kolaveri, kolaveli, kolaveri di”, the momentary coming into life of my
earphone gave an additional DJ effect to the already rage of the world.
Something
bizarre struck me. Is it the genius of Steve Jobs that he created some logic to
map my mind and shuffle songs based on my mood?
Or
it is one of those ironic idiosyncrasies that I could connect the dots between
chetan bhagat’s words and kola veri, I didn’t know. But there was one thing
common among all the three involved Steve jobs, chetan bhagat’s and Dhanush in
due respect to each other’s field and their accomplishments-it is their street
smartness.
They
grabbed the ladle from the hands of purists in their respective fields for the
good of millions of Oliver Twists worldwide, pleading for some more gruel. It
is that indigenous flavor that has made their products go viral with the
audience. The spirit of their innovation is contagious. Such talents are not
necessarily congenital but it would only be apt to say that the environment was
congenial. The same bug that bit them bit so many people immaterial of
demography, geography. But with a strong dose of vaccination, in the form of so
called professional education we have successfully curbed such instincts from
affecting the central nervous system and our ancestors made sure that the
progeny is completely impaired of such traits. Exceptions like these people
always became example, a rare specimen.
I
feel I could write something like CB or a crazy lyric like kola veri. The
formula and the ingredients, it’s an open source. Just like anyone who has the knack
for it could develop apps for apple. May be I should give it a try. Will I have
my Eureka moment in this bus. What is that one kick-ass idea that would
catapult me directly from an nth level tertiary node (employee) to a root node
(employer or entrepreneur) without having to percolate through the congested
tree traversal paths? The very thought of being successful, doing something I
really love felt like heaven.
The
bus had now reached perungulathur.I didn’t have to look out to say that because
the bus ricocheted to swerve through the service lanes. There was a pandemonium
caused by a lorry that had toppled over the median .People had parked their
vehicles by the roadside out of curiosity rather than courtesy making it
challenging for the ambulance to reach the spot.
“What
the hell man!!!Am gonna be late at least by half an hour to reach. I was really
worried”
Some
SRM kids bumped into the bus seizing the opportunity to board the bus. One
thought he was really cool. It showed in the way he carried himself within an
anti-fit jean, pepe Jeanne tee, unkempt, long hair, a probably diamond
ear-stud. His perfume told he was stinking rich. But it was something else that
caught my attention- a new pair of apple headset.
He
noticed me noticing him and the same accessory caught his attention. He raised
his brows as if to say
“Dude!!We
are cool to afford high-end gadgets and be as tech savvy as you are, still at
college”
I
was up to it in a flash. For one moment I stopped fiddling with my headset and
raised the volume with the remote in my right earpiece in kolaveri, just to
earmark what his headset was missing-remote and mic. He turned away and I felt
emphatic.
The bus was ambling towards Urapakkam, when I noticed
that the man sitting beside me was tapping his feet as I was looking down to
read. My initial impression was that he was eavesdropping. Slowly I could feel
his thigh pressed against mine tightly. I felt really embarrassed. Is it my
predominantly pink shirt that made him send such vibes thinking that I am his
kind? This time he became even more deliberate when he struck his hand in front
of the book. I didn’t have a choice. I
mustered enough courage and looked up gingerly. He was asking something
pointing at my left hand.
I
told its 9.15.He shook his head and got up. It is only then I realized that all
this time he was trying to ask if the next stop was Urapakkam and he was trying
to get down. I laughed out heartily within myself and moved to my favorite,
window seat.
The Habiterra apartment stood out like house made of huge
chunks of Mango, vennila, chocolate and orange ice-cream bars. The mynas
sitting on the 4 lined telephone wires mounted on high lampposts looked
like freehand choir notes. The branches of the trees looked unkempt, like that
SRM kid. A crow was flying past the skeleton of an advertisement hoarding which
looked like grids on an SLR viewfinder. I winked my eyes to capture it at the
exact spot as per the law of thirds. Perfect panning shot, I told myself. The
signal lights going from red, orange and green looked like 3 flavors of
strepsils in a single strip. It seems the same bug has bit me. The symptoms are
positive, diagnosed the doctor inside me.
The
rhythmic motion of the bus, the continuous chattering in my mind and the
soothing lullaby of Illayaraja put me in to a choreographed trance as I leant
on the window pane.
What seemed like 2 minutes
was actually 20.It was actually the reverse of what I saw in the movie,
Inception-a few seconds of reality is a few hours in a dream. But I was careful
about the choice of my totem, 500B bus. The last stop is always Mcity and the
conductor was probably tired or better things to do than to frown at me. He
shook me once and got down for his break without even looking at me.
When I got down from the bus,
the escorts revved up their autos. The custom was a little different here, only
diff being the real escorts hold placards and here I wore an infy tag. I chose
the one that was first in the queue, about to start with a potential
co-passenger already on-board. But before I could even propose to share the
fare, that autowala whirred past me. I was getting used to this kind of
controlled communism exhibited by these autowala who grunted when some
employees chose to share autos, the caterers and small street vendors outside
who chose that its below our dignity to ask for balance in loose change, a
rupee or two here and there. Fair enough I thought. After all this the last
phase of my tri-marathon that started at chrompet. I flipped a few more pages
like the last few puffs of my fag before I reached the Infy gate. I picked my
bag, cut the auto and entered the bag check arena. The metal detector beep
sharply intersected the song that was playing.
“Pirai thedum ulagile uyire,edhai thedi alaigirai”
Is this some kind of a
legend, does this imply anything? The bug’s sting was taking effect. If I were
the protagonist of a kollywood flick (like Mayakkam Enna) the story would have
ended in the bus when I took a notepad and pen and wrote down what I was thinking,
the title cards rolling besides. If I were the titular character in some
best-seller book I would have called the day’s journey as my Eureka moment. Thank
God!!I was vaccinated which helped me override the worked-up diagnostician in
me. I should take my stethoscope to iStore and see if I could get it mended. If
not I will buy a sennheiser next time echo the engineer in me. I checked my
watch-today’s lap timed a little over the average, I analyzed as I walked in to
B5 lobby. Oblivious of the noises of the outside world that looked like hell,
nonchalant of the voices inside that was my sign-board to heaven yet content
with the purgatory which like many others walking besides me thought what we
were destined to. Out of a random glance I could spot many roaming around with
the same white steth. We all would form a brotherhood, I thought. There are so
many other such brotherhoods, a circle drawn with a fetish at its loci- a
Samsung galaxy, a macbook, a BMW, a trip to an exotic location. They are the
apple of our eye.
I was amazed to see how old
adages, still holds good, time tested and mirrors things as they are as this
one.
“An apple a day, keeps the
doctor away”
PS: This post was written commemorating my last day with s/w industry Dec 31,2011.
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