All pugazh is for the author of this terrific one... i just stole it and posted here... as its tooooo good.
1. Place: An open and unhindered nansei paddy field
Time: The break of dawn…described much more beautifully in Tamil as vaikaRai or athikAlaiThe canal murmurs gently as if it were engrossed in a deep chant. A distant cock crows suggesting perhaps that the day has already dawned somewhere…a harbinger of hope perhaps. The stalks of the paddy ruffle with the warm breeze shivering in strange anticipation. The eastern sky blushes like the sImantham of Her forehead. The gentle sounds of dawn seem to awaken the lights of the day. In the midst of this growing hustle bustle, he seats himself on the bare wet earth.His eyes are half opened, arms thrown out, chest bare. His forehead bears a single sharp streak of thAzampU kungumam. He focuses on the sky, which seems to glow like a glorious chariot made of virgin gold. The water now runs along the canal with a monotonous drone. The occasional crow paints its sudden flight against the stillness of the sky. An expression gradually spreads over his face…smile, calmness…perhaps and yet inexplicable. An expression that seems to exceed his physical form and spread gradually over the fields, the faraway trees, the river that feeds the canal and all the way to the sky. And in his half open eyes…In his half open eyes is a form…an object of perception…a sight that is not seen outside and then reflected on the pupils but a sight that comes deep from inside and pervades the outside. A red form…a pleasingly red form. A blood red speck in the center of the dark pupil…a dot that could be very easily dismissed in the massiveness of the world around…and yet a dot that allures, indulges and traps he who looks into it. For when looked at closer…When looked at closer, the dot is a microcosm…and in it is She seated on Her Emerald throne; Her crown of gold studded with diamonds blazing like a thousand suns in itself; the crescent moon on Her forehead sitting like a silver boat on the golden ocean of Her crown; the dark voluptuous curls of Her hair peeping through the effulgence of Her crown…a clear demarcation between the dazzle of Her crown and the dazzle of Her face…She sits. And Her face…Her face puts the morning sun to shame. The brilliance of a solitary lamp in an endless darkness. The glow seems like that of molten gold, of a multitude of embers without a speck of ash in them. A strange amalgam of coolness and warmness radiates from it…Her forehead is like a blazing lotus with the kungumam forming the red ovary. Her dark eyes are like black pearls sitting in the pure white seat of an oyster. Her nose appears like a pArijAtha tree and Her mullAkku like the golden roots of the tree. Her ears curve in a sneering question as though mocking the purpose of the universe. Her lips smile a smile…a motherly smile that would make even the most pitiable life on earth blessed. The jewels on Her neck cling tightly to Her breasts like long famished children. Her shoulders droop under the weight of a fragrant garland and yet have room for the parrot. She clasps tenderly in Her hands the pAsam, angusam, thAmarai and karumbu vil. The vastness of Her bosom trickles down to a tender waist that curves like a golden river. Her thighs stay firm like pillars of an ancient temple. Her legs are folded, one resting on the other like dew on a lotus leaf. And draping all this splendour is Her red saree…red like the arunOdayam and emanating from it is a gentle glow like fragrance from a jasmine flower.She sits there in all majesty and grandeur…and yet a tiny speck in his eye. The sun stands out in its white glory…the pristine morning glow flowing out like pure unadulterated knowledge. Now with a slow deep breath he closes his eyes and opens them again. As his eyes open, the redness inside flows out, beyond his physical form, onto the fields, kissing the paddy, grazing on the canal, caressing the birds on their flight and then finally merging with the daylight. The white sun now has a mild intangible hue of red, a tinge of the magnificent KamAkshi mixed with the pure undisturbed Sivam. A drop of rAjas that drives his action in the ocean of knowledge.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Tour of 'City of Joy'
It was one another feather in our cap. Yes. We made it. When one of our friends told us that he is about to move to Bhubaneshwar for one of his projects, we vaguely thought that our next plan should be to Puri, which is close to Bhubaneshwar. It was left as such until, in some wild thought me and KP decided to take a break from our monotonous work and go for a longer trip. Our normal weekend trips were just within calling limits usually in our two wheelers. We started talking big… Of taking the Air route this time.
We also contemplated on other ‘to visit’ places and immediately Calcutta came into picture as TRR has got himself settled there as a family man. Also was a fact that Calcutta was nearby Bhubaneswar. On a casual chat with TRR one fine day at office hours, I got a surprise that he liked the plan very much and told that he along with his wife would also join us in our Mission to Puri. He had to ask for necessary permissions and approvals from his better half as expected. The next day he had given us an OK from his side. All this happened in the second week of July whilst our plan was for the second week of Aug.
Yet another time, I took the lead in iterinary preparations and as expected the plan came out very well. KP had insisted that one way should be flight at all costs and the other way can be a rail trip provided it was A/C. I too agreed. Based on expectations from KP and TRR, and considering the fact that TRR was already married, and his comments or pleedings that everything has to be decent and not the regular type of unplanned outings we bachelors used to do, I came up with the below iterinary.
We took advantage of the Independence Day holiday which fell on Wednesday. Hence, a Monday – Tuesday ‘Off Duty’ would give us 5 days at a stretch. Even before any iterinary was put on paper or rather email server space, I had applied leave for the 2 days to get the advantage of ‘first apply, first sanctioned’ basis.
Leave Chennai by Air on the evening of Saturday, 11th Aug
Reach Calcutta on Saturday late evening
Roam around Calcutta on Sunday, 12th Aug
Travel by train to Bhubaneshwar on the night of 12th Aug
Reach Bhubaneshwar on 13th Aug morning
Visit Puri, Konark on 13th Aug
Roam around Bhubaneshwar on 14th Aug
Leave to Chennai by train on the night of 14th Aug
Reach Chennai by evening of 15th Aug
Rest on 15th Aug night
Back to work with full JOSH on 16th Aug
I had actually a practice of proposing 2 plans and deciding on one of them. As usual I planned for a Plan B which was anyways going to be rejected. The budget for the above plan was Rs. 7500/- per ticket. However, the actuals overshot by about a 1000 ruppees whereas I had been optimistic about making the actuals to be lower by the same amount it overshot. Huh. Better financial planning needs to be performed, it seems.
TRR, a guy who expects everything well planned beforehand, kept asking at every log on into gtalk about the status of ticket reservations. On one hand, I casually rejected him saying I never knew what I was going to do next day, and he was asking to reserve train tickets for the next month’s plan??? On the other hand, I silently went into IRCTC.com and found out that there were no births available in 3rd AC for our return trip from Bhubaneshwar to Chennai. Out of curiosity, I checked 2nd AC, and to my surprise, there were exactly 2 births available. We needed just 2 tickets as it was only for me and KP to come back to Chennai and that TRR and his wife would board a train back to Calcutta the same night. I jokingly told TRR that we would have to cancel our plan as there were no train tickets available but he insisted that I book the 2 tickets in 2nd AC for the return. I immediately thought that I should not allow this plan to get spoilt and hence immediately booked the 2 tickets for our return back from Bhubaneshwar. Then, I also booked the 4 tickets from Calcutta to Bhubaneshwar in Sleeper class, as it was just a night’s journey and AC was not necessary. Immediately, the same day, TRR had booked return tickets for himself and his wife for 14th Aug from Bhubaneshwar to Calcutta. Thanks to internet booking services, between 10.30 am and 11.15 am we had booked most of the tickets.
The booking informations were passed on to KP and I had asked him to book the Air tickets to Calcutta to then start planning the stay and other stuffs. 2 days later, KP had also booked the Air tickets in Indigo and sent me the electronic tickets. Inspite of all these bookings, I am sure no one was confident of making this trip. Every one was skeptical that this plan would get cancelled at any moment. Infact, TRR even believed it when we called him up from Chennai airport and said ‘Sorry, KP has an important assignment and hence the plan has been indefinitely put off.’ This skepticism was not with TRR alone. KP used to call me some days afterwards and ask, ‘Are we still keeping the plan?’ or ‘Are we going really?’ I was also in the same lines. I never told anybody in my family that we had planned for such a tour, just fearing it would get cancelled at any moment. I had told my mom just a couple of days before we actually left for Calcutta. Infact, my dad knew it only on the day of my journey.
In the meanwhile during the first week of August, TRR had booked for a cab to roam around inside Calcutta and Nanda in Bhubaneshwar agreed to book us a decent accommodation in the town and a cab for us for the 2 days that we planned there.
The D Day arrived. I started on my bike after my regular weekend lunch with my parents. I pulled out some money from the ‘cash tree’, the ATM enroute to KPs house where I was scheduled to park my bike and take an auto for the airport. As planned, I parked my bike and KP was ready by then. He had bought a couple of books, “Ratham” by Sujatha and “The Financial Expert” by R K Narayan from the Odyssey to keep us busy during the journeys. I had told him to buy a pack of sweets for TRR’s family and he did it. He does it what is told to him to be done. We set off on our dream tour at 3 PM, 11th August 2007 from his house searching for an auto to go to airport.
We were pretty earlier at the airport, at 3.30 pm for the flight schedule at 4.55 pm. The flight was good and on time which I did not expect. As promised, TRR came down to Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose airport at Calcutta where we landed some minutes past 7 pm. We took a taxi and undertook a long journey to Garia, where TRR lived. At first sight, Calcutta looked nice and appealing to us but for the road condition due to the recent rains. It was rather funny when I was told that you need to pay 200% of what the meter in the Taxi was showing!!! I still don't understand what it will cost for the taxi drivers to recaliborate the digital meters for the actual fares. Anyways, before we could rag our dear friend after a long time, the Taxi turned into ‘Shanthikunja apartments’ near Garia station.
A warm welcome from TRRs in laws and within a few minutes we were comfortably watching the third and final test match at The Oval. After sometime, we had dinner and went out for a walk to get a feel of Calcutta. We had some light tea in the dark and returned back home only to find the power cut. They had rather a good concept of running the generator for the whole colony wherein you get to run a fan and one single lamp per house for a meager Rs. 100/- per month. Bad news was that this was only upto 11 pm in the night and if the power does not come by then, you would have to sweat out the night praying for the God of electricity and only cursing the communist governments. The power cut was a blessing in disguise for us as we decided to go to the roof top and enjoy some good breeze. With my N70m giving beautiful hits of Ilayaraja and the slight breeze coupled with the slightest drizzle gave us a taste of heaven in the city of Joy. Talking about our college days added ecstacy to the taste of heaven. Even after the power had come, we still did not move down back to room and enjoyed those moments to the core.
A good night sleep was inspired by the most cherished moments at the roof top. We had a good plan for the next day visiting most important places of Calcutta. We woke up at dawn and got ready for a good day. TRR’s wife prepared us a good breakfast before we got ourself into the Tata indica to live Calcutta. Our start to the trip was a temple as expected, the Dakshineshwar temple where the goddess Kali is in ‘Ugra roopa’. Fortunately, we only had a side darshan of her’s and I think it was good because, if only we should have had a straight darshan, we would have got scrared. The side darshan of the Ugra Kali is still in my face with a Blood red tongue. I was just carried away as I saw the Ganges flowing with all its force. It was called the Hoogly in Calcutta. Neverthless, whatever name you call it, she demanded respect. I was so eager to go and sprinkle some water on myself as it was the first time in my life that I met the sacred river. It was divine but for the colour of the water. I still believe that any amount of pollution or what ever you call cannot bring down the divinity of Mother Ganga. Sprinkling that water made me purer by a few carats.
We had immediately taken the ferry service between Dakshineshwar temple and the Belur math, the Universal Headquarters of Ramakrishna Mission founded by Swami Vivekananda. The main building is a universal temple where Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa sat with his astounding patience and tejas. On the left of the main temple, closer to the banks of the Ganga where the buildings which were constructed in memory of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, his better half, Shrimathi Sharada Devi, the Universal mother as proclaimed by Shri Ramakrishna himself and the youth of the century Shri Vivekananda. The buildings were constructed where their holy bodies were set off to fire when they were liberated.
It was drizzling throughout when we were in Belur Math and this added flavour to the location. I felt so good when I was standing just on the wall off the bank of Ganga Matha, hearing the rain and the gush of the river with full splendor. A heavy drizzle along with winds pushing off our umbrellas, drove us to cover. Or else, I would not have come back from such a holy place!!! NO exaggerations here. We had taken the ferry back to Dakshineshwar and I feel that the charge for the ferry service is just damn cheap. I don't know how the ferry wallas manage to make ends meet with such poor costings. They charge Rs. 7/- per head for a 20~25 mins motorized ferry. If it were in the south, we would have atleast paid Rs. 30/- per head. Some one ought to teach the communists on costing techniques.
We had some raw fruits while we got back to our cabs and headed to Vidya Sagar Sethu and then on to the other end of the city for a lunch in Komala’s. Inbetween, we stopped at one of the KC Das shops to get Rassogollas back to Chennai. We got half a dozen boxes and by then our stomach started calling our attention. We waited for some 10~15 mins in Komala’s before we started our lunch. A decent so called tamilian styled lunch and we were again on our foot to get to see more of Calcutta, more of sight seeing. Somehow, I was so very keen to get into Eden Gardens and have a look at the Mecca of present day Cricket. I still remember when Tony Greg spoke before the Toss of one of the World Cup matches. More than a lakh of people can watch the match which is possible nowhere in the world. No where, no sport. Inspite of all of our well wishers saying that we will not be permitted, we wanted to do it somehow… And there stood a watchman at one of the gates waiting to get some money. He demanded Rs.100/- and we gladly agreed. All four of us ran down the car and stealthly entered the Mecca!!! We were asked to be silent and we took some stills of this beauty. Just 5 mins and we were escorted back by the watchman. We were happy and thanked the watchman and left to Victoria memorial.
Victoria Memorial was very nice. Infact, this was the house of all antiques. Lots of Bengali girls alongside kept us interested in roaming around. We took some photographs in front of the memorial and spent some leisurely time. KP wanted to eat Pani Poori and hence we set out on a search for a Calcutta chat centre. We had found out one, but unfortunately the Poori was more than the size that can enter your mouth in one go. We had some good tea and started our closing lap of Calcutta. We went to a Ramar kovil and Murugan kovil in one part of Calcutta where tamils lived. It was so nice to bid adieu to Calcutta with a visit to Murugan kovil. ‘Vendiyathu unarulae, arulvathun kadanaeyam, un arulalae un thazh vanangitten…’ says Skandha Guru Kavacham. I felt as if HE was waiting for me to come and meet him in Calcutta.
We went back home straight to have a short break to freshen ourselves up and to leave for our train at the night. Thanks to TRRs inlaws for serving us dinner for the night. By then, it started raining hard and we hired a taxi to drop us to the railway station. It was raining inside the station too, courtesy maintenance of the roof of the station. Our train was from 22nd platform, the last platform in Howrah station. All of us were tired and hence went straight to our birth. KP and I had exchanged our side upper births to some others for a more comfortable Upper Birth. I woke up to the calls of TRR yelling Bhubaneshwar station was already there.
At 6 am in the morning, we were not able to spot a tea stall in the vicinity!!! We had to wait for 10~15 mins before our pickup service from the hotel turned up. Before even we could sit comfortably, we reached the hotel. Huh. If only we would have known the location of the hotel, we would have reached the hotel by walk within the time we had waited there. And the plan was to kick the day off at 8 am sharp. Nanda, who was constantly on touch in mobile till now, promised to show up along with the taxi at 8 am. We had our breakfast at a local restaurant and set out to the holy trip of Puri by around 8.45 am. Unfortunately, Nanda was not able to join us in this trip due to official commitments. He was kind enough to arrange us all the facilities before going to attend to his commitments.
Puri! We were at this holy place of Uttar Jagannathar at close to 10 am. Just to recollect, Madhya Jagannathar is in Thirumazhisai, in the outskirts of Chennai; Dakshina Jagannathar is in Thiruppulaani, near Rameshwaram. I had visited either of the Jagannathars earlier and this trip to Puri would ensure that I had sought the blessings of all the three Jagannathars!!! Our taxi driver had warned us not to take cameras and mobile phones as they were very strict in the temple there. As soon as we got out of the cab, we were surrounded by lots of purohits who promised us a comfortable darshan. But, we went very close to the temple and got hold of an old prohit who asked just Rs.11/- for guiding us a darshan.
There were 3 deities in the sanctum sanctorum. The one in the extreme right was the Jagannathar, the Krishna Avatar. The one in the centre was Shubadra and the one at the extreme left was the Balarama Avatar. They called him Boleram. There is also another belief that the extreme right one is Bramha, the Jagannathar; the centre one was Vishnu, the Shubadra and the extreme left one was Maheshwar or the Shankar Baghwan or Lord Shiva. The Holy trinity was present in the 3 idols. We went close to the idols when someone caught me and said some slokas on shiva and started demanding huge money. As we had been warned earlier, we were mentally prepared for such a circumstance and hence we escaped with just a small amount. From there on we walked for atleast 20~30 mins to ‘Govardhana Giri Mutt’ established by Shri Adi Shankaracharya, my guru. Puri Mutt was established by Shri Adi Shankaracharya as the Mutt in the east. It was a small mutt when compared to Kanchi or Sringeri. There was one sanctum for Adi Shankaracharya and one sanctum for Shri Arthanareeshwarar, We also spent some relaxing moments in the Golden Beach of Puri taking photographs and getting some fresh breeze.
Then we decided to leave to Konark, which was around 40 km from Puri. We planned to have our lunch in Konark itself. Even though the food was good in the restaurant, the very fact that the restaurants main item in sales was non veg., reduced my interests in lunch. After the completion of luch, we went to the Sun temple at Konark where the deity is missing due to reasons unknown. The temple has since been taken over by the Archeological department of India. We took a lot of photographs in this place and after some time decided to go back to the room and did so. We were back in the hotel by around 6 pm in the evening and were very much glued to the TV sets as the fnal test match started going better and better. We had invited Nanda for a dinner with us and he had come for that.
We had a good dinner at the Dakshin’s and a good sweet pan in one of the road side shops. Then Nanda left for his place and we all went to bed. The next day was not as exiting as the previous two days as we had to roam around Bhubaneshwar. We had been to Lingaraj temple, Dauligiri, Kandagiri, Udayagiri in the forenoon session and had lunch at ISKCON. We came back to our hotel for resting a couple of hours and in the evening we had come back to the darshan of Shri Krishna in ISKCON. We also had gone to Ram Mandir after that. Some more time was available for us before we could call off and hence we went to the Mega Mart Mall wanting to do some window shopping. I ended up getting some toys for my nephew and we were in our rooms by 7 PM in the evening.
We checked out at around 7.15 pm from the hotel. We left our baggages in the reception and went to a nearby restaurant called ‘Tangerine’. Even though this restaurant was not as the ‘Tangerine’ in Chennai, the food was good. Once our dinner was done, we understood that we had very few moments for TRR and Co. to catch the train and hence took an auto to the railway station. Even a walk would have brought us to the station in a couple of minutes. Neverthless, we reached the station well ahead of time in an auto. TRR bid farewell first as their train was 1 hour earlier than ours. I was damn tired and hence went straight to my sleeper in 2nd AC and entered a deep slumber.
Our trip had been successfully completed when I reached home in whole at around 6:30 pm on 15th Aug. It’s always so good to get a stong tea from mom after a tired, successful, ever memorable, well planned and well executed trip. Thanks to KP for the company. Thanks to TRR and his inlaws for making our stay and trip pleasant and comfortable in Calcutta. Special Thanks to Nanda for making all the arrangements from hotel booking to cab booking and making our trip memorable. Thanks God!!! For making everything happen as it had to.
We also contemplated on other ‘to visit’ places and immediately Calcutta came into picture as TRR has got himself settled there as a family man. Also was a fact that Calcutta was nearby Bhubaneswar. On a casual chat with TRR one fine day at office hours, I got a surprise that he liked the plan very much and told that he along with his wife would also join us in our Mission to Puri. He had to ask for necessary permissions and approvals from his better half as expected. The next day he had given us an OK from his side. All this happened in the second week of July whilst our plan was for the second week of Aug.
Yet another time, I took the lead in iterinary preparations and as expected the plan came out very well. KP had insisted that one way should be flight at all costs and the other way can be a rail trip provided it was A/C. I too agreed. Based on expectations from KP and TRR, and considering the fact that TRR was already married, and his comments or pleedings that everything has to be decent and not the regular type of unplanned outings we bachelors used to do, I came up with the below iterinary.
We took advantage of the Independence Day holiday which fell on Wednesday. Hence, a Monday – Tuesday ‘Off Duty’ would give us 5 days at a stretch. Even before any iterinary was put on paper or rather email server space, I had applied leave for the 2 days to get the advantage of ‘first apply, first sanctioned’ basis.
Leave Chennai by Air on the evening of Saturday, 11th Aug
Reach Calcutta on Saturday late evening
Roam around Calcutta on Sunday, 12th Aug
Travel by train to Bhubaneshwar on the night of 12th Aug
Reach Bhubaneshwar on 13th Aug morning
Visit Puri, Konark on 13th Aug
Roam around Bhubaneshwar on 14th Aug
Leave to Chennai by train on the night of 14th Aug
Reach Chennai by evening of 15th Aug
Rest on 15th Aug night
Back to work with full JOSH on 16th Aug
I had actually a practice of proposing 2 plans and deciding on one of them. As usual I planned for a Plan B which was anyways going to be rejected. The budget for the above plan was Rs. 7500/- per ticket. However, the actuals overshot by about a 1000 ruppees whereas I had been optimistic about making the actuals to be lower by the same amount it overshot. Huh. Better financial planning needs to be performed, it seems.
TRR, a guy who expects everything well planned beforehand, kept asking at every log on into gtalk about the status of ticket reservations. On one hand, I casually rejected him saying I never knew what I was going to do next day, and he was asking to reserve train tickets for the next month’s plan??? On the other hand, I silently went into IRCTC.com and found out that there were no births available in 3rd AC for our return trip from Bhubaneshwar to Chennai. Out of curiosity, I checked 2nd AC, and to my surprise, there were exactly 2 births available. We needed just 2 tickets as it was only for me and KP to come back to Chennai and that TRR and his wife would board a train back to Calcutta the same night. I jokingly told TRR that we would have to cancel our plan as there were no train tickets available but he insisted that I book the 2 tickets in 2nd AC for the return. I immediately thought that I should not allow this plan to get spoilt and hence immediately booked the 2 tickets for our return back from Bhubaneshwar. Then, I also booked the 4 tickets from Calcutta to Bhubaneshwar in Sleeper class, as it was just a night’s journey and AC was not necessary. Immediately, the same day, TRR had booked return tickets for himself and his wife for 14th Aug from Bhubaneshwar to Calcutta. Thanks to internet booking services, between 10.30 am and 11.15 am we had booked most of the tickets.
The booking informations were passed on to KP and I had asked him to book the Air tickets to Calcutta to then start planning the stay and other stuffs. 2 days later, KP had also booked the Air tickets in Indigo and sent me the electronic tickets. Inspite of all these bookings, I am sure no one was confident of making this trip. Every one was skeptical that this plan would get cancelled at any moment. Infact, TRR even believed it when we called him up from Chennai airport and said ‘Sorry, KP has an important assignment and hence the plan has been indefinitely put off.’ This skepticism was not with TRR alone. KP used to call me some days afterwards and ask, ‘Are we still keeping the plan?’ or ‘Are we going really?’ I was also in the same lines. I never told anybody in my family that we had planned for such a tour, just fearing it would get cancelled at any moment. I had told my mom just a couple of days before we actually left for Calcutta. Infact, my dad knew it only on the day of my journey.
In the meanwhile during the first week of August, TRR had booked for a cab to roam around inside Calcutta and Nanda in Bhubaneshwar agreed to book us a decent accommodation in the town and a cab for us for the 2 days that we planned there.
The D Day arrived. I started on my bike after my regular weekend lunch with my parents. I pulled out some money from the ‘cash tree’, the ATM enroute to KPs house where I was scheduled to park my bike and take an auto for the airport. As planned, I parked my bike and KP was ready by then. He had bought a couple of books, “Ratham” by Sujatha and “The Financial Expert” by R K Narayan from the Odyssey to keep us busy during the journeys. I had told him to buy a pack of sweets for TRR’s family and he did it. He does it what is told to him to be done. We set off on our dream tour at 3 PM, 11th August 2007 from his house searching for an auto to go to airport.
We were pretty earlier at the airport, at 3.30 pm for the flight schedule at 4.55 pm. The flight was good and on time which I did not expect. As promised, TRR came down to Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose airport at Calcutta where we landed some minutes past 7 pm. We took a taxi and undertook a long journey to Garia, where TRR lived. At first sight, Calcutta looked nice and appealing to us but for the road condition due to the recent rains. It was rather funny when I was told that you need to pay 200% of what the meter in the Taxi was showing!!! I still don't understand what it will cost for the taxi drivers to recaliborate the digital meters for the actual fares. Anyways, before we could rag our dear friend after a long time, the Taxi turned into ‘Shanthikunja apartments’ near Garia station.
A warm welcome from TRRs in laws and within a few minutes we were comfortably watching the third and final test match at The Oval. After sometime, we had dinner and went out for a walk to get a feel of Calcutta. We had some light tea in the dark and returned back home only to find the power cut. They had rather a good concept of running the generator for the whole colony wherein you get to run a fan and one single lamp per house for a meager Rs. 100/- per month. Bad news was that this was only upto 11 pm in the night and if the power does not come by then, you would have to sweat out the night praying for the God of electricity and only cursing the communist governments. The power cut was a blessing in disguise for us as we decided to go to the roof top and enjoy some good breeze. With my N70m giving beautiful hits of Ilayaraja and the slight breeze coupled with the slightest drizzle gave us a taste of heaven in the city of Joy. Talking about our college days added ecstacy to the taste of heaven. Even after the power had come, we still did not move down back to room and enjoyed those moments to the core.
A good night sleep was inspired by the most cherished moments at the roof top. We had a good plan for the next day visiting most important places of Calcutta. We woke up at dawn and got ready for a good day. TRR’s wife prepared us a good breakfast before we got ourself into the Tata indica to live Calcutta. Our start to the trip was a temple as expected, the Dakshineshwar temple where the goddess Kali is in ‘Ugra roopa’. Fortunately, we only had a side darshan of her’s and I think it was good because, if only we should have had a straight darshan, we would have got scrared. The side darshan of the Ugra Kali is still in my face with a Blood red tongue. I was just carried away as I saw the Ganges flowing with all its force. It was called the Hoogly in Calcutta. Neverthless, whatever name you call it, she demanded respect. I was so eager to go and sprinkle some water on myself as it was the first time in my life that I met the sacred river. It was divine but for the colour of the water. I still believe that any amount of pollution or what ever you call cannot bring down the divinity of Mother Ganga. Sprinkling that water made me purer by a few carats.
We had immediately taken the ferry service between Dakshineshwar temple and the Belur math, the Universal Headquarters of Ramakrishna Mission founded by Swami Vivekananda. The main building is a universal temple where Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa sat with his astounding patience and tejas. On the left of the main temple, closer to the banks of the Ganga where the buildings which were constructed in memory of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, his better half, Shrimathi Sharada Devi, the Universal mother as proclaimed by Shri Ramakrishna himself and the youth of the century Shri Vivekananda. The buildings were constructed where their holy bodies were set off to fire when they were liberated.
It was drizzling throughout when we were in Belur Math and this added flavour to the location. I felt so good when I was standing just on the wall off the bank of Ganga Matha, hearing the rain and the gush of the river with full splendor. A heavy drizzle along with winds pushing off our umbrellas, drove us to cover. Or else, I would not have come back from such a holy place!!! NO exaggerations here. We had taken the ferry back to Dakshineshwar and I feel that the charge for the ferry service is just damn cheap. I don't know how the ferry wallas manage to make ends meet with such poor costings. They charge Rs. 7/- per head for a 20~25 mins motorized ferry. If it were in the south, we would have atleast paid Rs. 30/- per head. Some one ought to teach the communists on costing techniques.
We had some raw fruits while we got back to our cabs and headed to Vidya Sagar Sethu and then on to the other end of the city for a lunch in Komala’s. Inbetween, we stopped at one of the KC Das shops to get Rassogollas back to Chennai. We got half a dozen boxes and by then our stomach started calling our attention. We waited for some 10~15 mins in Komala’s before we started our lunch. A decent so called tamilian styled lunch and we were again on our foot to get to see more of Calcutta, more of sight seeing. Somehow, I was so very keen to get into Eden Gardens and have a look at the Mecca of present day Cricket. I still remember when Tony Greg spoke before the Toss of one of the World Cup matches. More than a lakh of people can watch the match which is possible nowhere in the world. No where, no sport. Inspite of all of our well wishers saying that we will not be permitted, we wanted to do it somehow… And there stood a watchman at one of the gates waiting to get some money. He demanded Rs.100/- and we gladly agreed. All four of us ran down the car and stealthly entered the Mecca!!! We were asked to be silent and we took some stills of this beauty. Just 5 mins and we were escorted back by the watchman. We were happy and thanked the watchman and left to Victoria memorial.
Victoria Memorial was very nice. Infact, this was the house of all antiques. Lots of Bengali girls alongside kept us interested in roaming around. We took some photographs in front of the memorial and spent some leisurely time. KP wanted to eat Pani Poori and hence we set out on a search for a Calcutta chat centre. We had found out one, but unfortunately the Poori was more than the size that can enter your mouth in one go. We had some good tea and started our closing lap of Calcutta. We went to a Ramar kovil and Murugan kovil in one part of Calcutta where tamils lived. It was so nice to bid adieu to Calcutta with a visit to Murugan kovil. ‘Vendiyathu unarulae, arulvathun kadanaeyam, un arulalae un thazh vanangitten…’ says Skandha Guru Kavacham. I felt as if HE was waiting for me to come and meet him in Calcutta.
We went back home straight to have a short break to freshen ourselves up and to leave for our train at the night. Thanks to TRRs inlaws for serving us dinner for the night. By then, it started raining hard and we hired a taxi to drop us to the railway station. It was raining inside the station too, courtesy maintenance of the roof of the station. Our train was from 22nd platform, the last platform in Howrah station. All of us were tired and hence went straight to our birth. KP and I had exchanged our side upper births to some others for a more comfortable Upper Birth. I woke up to the calls of TRR yelling Bhubaneshwar station was already there.
At 6 am in the morning, we were not able to spot a tea stall in the vicinity!!! We had to wait for 10~15 mins before our pickup service from the hotel turned up. Before even we could sit comfortably, we reached the hotel. Huh. If only we would have known the location of the hotel, we would have reached the hotel by walk within the time we had waited there. And the plan was to kick the day off at 8 am sharp. Nanda, who was constantly on touch in mobile till now, promised to show up along with the taxi at 8 am. We had our breakfast at a local restaurant and set out to the holy trip of Puri by around 8.45 am. Unfortunately, Nanda was not able to join us in this trip due to official commitments. He was kind enough to arrange us all the facilities before going to attend to his commitments.
Puri! We were at this holy place of Uttar Jagannathar at close to 10 am. Just to recollect, Madhya Jagannathar is in Thirumazhisai, in the outskirts of Chennai; Dakshina Jagannathar is in Thiruppulaani, near Rameshwaram. I had visited either of the Jagannathars earlier and this trip to Puri would ensure that I had sought the blessings of all the three Jagannathars!!! Our taxi driver had warned us not to take cameras and mobile phones as they were very strict in the temple there. As soon as we got out of the cab, we were surrounded by lots of purohits who promised us a comfortable darshan. But, we went very close to the temple and got hold of an old prohit who asked just Rs.11/- for guiding us a darshan.
There were 3 deities in the sanctum sanctorum. The one in the extreme right was the Jagannathar, the Krishna Avatar. The one in the centre was Shubadra and the one at the extreme left was the Balarama Avatar. They called him Boleram. There is also another belief that the extreme right one is Bramha, the Jagannathar; the centre one was Vishnu, the Shubadra and the extreme left one was Maheshwar or the Shankar Baghwan or Lord Shiva. The Holy trinity was present in the 3 idols. We went close to the idols when someone caught me and said some slokas on shiva and started demanding huge money. As we had been warned earlier, we were mentally prepared for such a circumstance and hence we escaped with just a small amount. From there on we walked for atleast 20~30 mins to ‘Govardhana Giri Mutt’ established by Shri Adi Shankaracharya, my guru. Puri Mutt was established by Shri Adi Shankaracharya as the Mutt in the east. It was a small mutt when compared to Kanchi or Sringeri. There was one sanctum for Adi Shankaracharya and one sanctum for Shri Arthanareeshwarar, We also spent some relaxing moments in the Golden Beach of Puri taking photographs and getting some fresh breeze.
Then we decided to leave to Konark, which was around 40 km from Puri. We planned to have our lunch in Konark itself. Even though the food was good in the restaurant, the very fact that the restaurants main item in sales was non veg., reduced my interests in lunch. After the completion of luch, we went to the Sun temple at Konark where the deity is missing due to reasons unknown. The temple has since been taken over by the Archeological department of India. We took a lot of photographs in this place and after some time decided to go back to the room and did so. We were back in the hotel by around 6 pm in the evening and were very much glued to the TV sets as the fnal test match started going better and better. We had invited Nanda for a dinner with us and he had come for that.
We had a good dinner at the Dakshin’s and a good sweet pan in one of the road side shops. Then Nanda left for his place and we all went to bed. The next day was not as exiting as the previous two days as we had to roam around Bhubaneshwar. We had been to Lingaraj temple, Dauligiri, Kandagiri, Udayagiri in the forenoon session and had lunch at ISKCON. We came back to our hotel for resting a couple of hours and in the evening we had come back to the darshan of Shri Krishna in ISKCON. We also had gone to Ram Mandir after that. Some more time was available for us before we could call off and hence we went to the Mega Mart Mall wanting to do some window shopping. I ended up getting some toys for my nephew and we were in our rooms by 7 PM in the evening.
We checked out at around 7.15 pm from the hotel. We left our baggages in the reception and went to a nearby restaurant called ‘Tangerine’. Even though this restaurant was not as the ‘Tangerine’ in Chennai, the food was good. Once our dinner was done, we understood that we had very few moments for TRR and Co. to catch the train and hence took an auto to the railway station. Even a walk would have brought us to the station in a couple of minutes. Neverthless, we reached the station well ahead of time in an auto. TRR bid farewell first as their train was 1 hour earlier than ours. I was damn tired and hence went straight to my sleeper in 2nd AC and entered a deep slumber.
Our trip had been successfully completed when I reached home in whole at around 6:30 pm on 15th Aug. It’s always so good to get a stong tea from mom after a tired, successful, ever memorable, well planned and well executed trip. Thanks to KP for the company. Thanks to TRR and his inlaws for making our stay and trip pleasant and comfortable in Calcutta. Special Thanks to Nanda for making all the arrangements from hotel booking to cab booking and making our trip memorable. Thanks God!!! For making everything happen as it had to.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Failure
Failure
I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have almost lost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeed.
- Michael Jordon
For long, I was wondering about putting my random thoughts in some order. And this is an attempt to put thoughts into words. For me, Failures are something which sculpts a rock stone into an object, a beautiful sculpture. The sculpture does not however show, to the onlooker, the amount of pain that the rock stone has undergone to get this beautiful look.
I, as like Michael Jordon, have failed over and over and over again in my life. And am not yet Michael Jordon. If I have to arrange my failures in some order, the first set of failures that would flash up in my mind, are the failures that I faced during the academic year 2001-2002. Yes. Those were my days in the final year of Engineering. I had no interest in mugging up thousands of English words for the sake of a MBA seat in a foreign country. Nor was my interest in doing a technical post graduation through crack opening the GATE. Since, I had closed both the doors of opportunities myself, I had only one more door which I had to kick open to keep running in Life. Yes. That was the door of getting employed in some organisation leave alone to be choosy. Those were times of recession in Software field and even industry majors were doing recruitments in lower scale fearing a 2000 like recession. And, there came my failures over and over and over again. I had the main criteria to my advantage to any campus selection. Yes. I did not have any arrear at any point of time. Thank God. But, that's just the first step. A shortlisting process would start off with filtering candidates who had arrears at any point of time. If I have to draw lines to a marathon race… this was the first few seconds of the whole race which went into more than a couple of hours…
I would have attended atleast a dozen interviews between May 2001 and April 2002 and the worst part of the story is that for all the interviews that I attended, I fell out at the last hurdle. Yes. I did not fall out in any off the mid stages like the written tests, group discussions & initial level interviews. I cleared all of those in every interview that allows any Mechanical Engineer, of course without an arrear, to be eligle for the process. And the end result was indeed predictable. Yes. I did not make it. In actual terms, it means that, the shortlisting process would start at around 8 am and run into the evenings and the end result was given by around 9 pm or even later… Sad part is that, I would have to wait until the last moment and then turn back home just to wait for my next interview.
How many days spent waiting for the results and how many nights pondering over ‘What went wrong?’ There were even instances when my pillow, my only companion those terrible nights, would get wet. Instances when some nights were washed away in tears. Instances when most days were spent worrying, imagining the pathetic state I would be, in just a couple of months time if I did not jump every hurdle of a given interview schedule. Unanswerable Questions kept haunting every other moment. Would I be able to face my parents? Would my parents be able to face close relatives and friends? Won’t there be questions asked and comments spoken in front off and behind the face? Unreactable situations when people offer their condolences, “Heard that your son has not got a job, YET?” These thoughts would give nightmares and I mean it when I say that suicide would be a far better option than to smile at such condolence statements.
Thank God for not having passed such instances in real life. The mere thought of such things might happen, brings down your abilities by half. Fear of Failure. Yes. When you keep failing and when failing unfortunately becomes your habbit, any amount of inspirational quotes or motivational speeches cant make the slightest impacts on your performance. You start seeing Interviewers as police officers asking you questions which does not have an answer. You start believing that you have been destined for a failure. You start experiencing the tragedy even before the tragedy has ever started. You start liking tragic movies. You don't laugh at comedy anymore. The only subject on earth that you laugh at would be your own self. A laughter which will end up in tears, when you end up being alone. You start complaining that life is too full of miseries. You don't enjoy beauty in women anymore. You reply to warm greetings with a sigh. You begin to grow heavier in heart when actually who start losing weight.
I still remember the night in which I saw my first major defeat in the race towards finding a job. Even before I stepped into the Final year, our Campus Interview with CTS had been scheduled. And you know what, based on my mark sheets, I was shortlisted to attend the written Aptitude test. A couple of day’s gap between the shortlistment and the actual interview gave lots of hopes and dreams. I started dreaming as if I am one of the employees of CTS already. Huh… I had built castles already but in thin air. Little did I know that this castle would vanish in air, a couple of days from then on? Back to reality now… On successfully passing the tests and the GDs, I entered the interview round for the first time in my life. I was happy the way I performed and was waiting eagerly for the results. A total of 50 people were interviewed and 25 people were to be offered. In percentage terms, I thought it was a cake walk for me, as I was confident with myself. Is that what was called Over Confidence? It was almost 7 pm in the night and the stage was beautifully set for the students who were about to be offered. All the 50 of us who attended the interview were standing in the ground floor and the results were announced by our Training & Placement HOD standing from the first floor portico. Every name read out, would invite huge cheers and wide smiles and one young guy or girl would run up the stairs and join the staff in the first floor. Names came out of our HODs mouth every few seconds and after that, there was one proud student transforming himself / herself into an employee with an attractive salary package. Those were moments of pride. Unfortunately, destiny thought otherwise for me. It was a long wait. No, An understatement. The longest wait to hear your name being spelt out. I kept counting the names, kept seeing bright and happy faces, kept believing that my turn would also come. With every name spelt out, the probability of my name being called was reducing. At the same time, the rate at which my heart was beating was increasing exponentially. I did not lose hope even after my finger counted 24. As expected, there was a long pause for the 25th name. And then I realized that it was all over. Atleast I knew that it was allover and I need not wait anymore. Initially, I felt very happy for the 25 who stood one floor above us physically as well as in status. Before we broke up, our HOD motivated us that there was something better waiting for the guys standing below. But those were spoken out of lips and not of heart. 25 of us had to leave the building while 25 still screamed in happiness. Infact, the 25 who lost the battle did not believe that they had lost it already and the 25, who had won, did not still believe that they had actually won. Somehow, I kept a cool head and walked towards the bus stand. Nothing was going in my mind about the failure as I waited for my friends who did succeed in this race. I did not have an opportunity to shake hands congratulating them as I was busy awaiting the next name being spelt out. Now that I was not preoccupied, I decided to wait until they came out, so that I can shake hands and share their happiness. After a cup of tea, I saw my classmate coming out in a jubiliant mood. Even now, I did not feel jealous and I shook his hands with full heart. He appreciated me saying ‘If I would have lost and you would have won, I would not have had the courage to congratulate you. I like this quality in you’. I felt proud but that did not matter. Truth was that he was happier guy than I was. He had a memorable day in his life and I was about to have the most pathetic night of my life. I went home well aware that I would have to spend the night alone as none of my room mates was in town. This added fuel to fire and I first started introspection. How difficult is it to answer your own questions? How difficult is it to find out the reason for failure? How difficult is it to start digesting the fact that you have lost? With hours passing, the failure started haunting me more.
I never knew that I need to spend much more nights like this. Nights with more questions than answers, nights with more fears than dreams, more sleepless nights than snoring ones. It was afterall the beginning. Destiny had more in stock for me but I was unaware. In due course of time, this became a habbit as I became a habitual loser. Perhaps, winning was not my way of living. Failing was. Interview after interview, this trend continued. Somehow, I started losing courage in calling up parents at home in the night just to inform that I flunked another one. So, I decided that I would never disclose another interview schedule. Only when you disclose a schedule, will there be an expectation or eagerness from their side to know the result. I started attending interviews without my parents’ knowledge. If I failed, as it was my habbit nowadays, I atleast need not call them up and update my inability to find myselves a job. I solved the wrong problem. Huh.
I was so desparate to win but I did not. By now, I had seen enough failures to forget the results the moment those were out. I started laughing at my own failures amidst my friends when I knew that my poor heart was seeping blood instead of tears. My slam book has got statements of friends who prayed for a job to me even when they did not have one. Such was my reputation in losing at the interview stage. Huh. Our T&P madam used to say, “You should get this job atleast” when she saw me waiting to be interviewed for the nth time. Now was that a statement of sarcasm? Who knows and yet it mattered. I wish I had not heard that statement.
Now, if can say with pride to everyone that I came out of the college with 2 jobs on hand – it was easier said than done. This single success conceals lots of failures within. The single smile conceals litres and litres of tears. The single moment of pride conceals days of shame. And when I called up my parents to pass on the success information, unknowingly my mouth said, ‘At last, I got a job’and I knew I cried more that day than I cried any other day when I failed.
I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have almost lost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeed.
- Michael Jordon
For long, I was wondering about putting my random thoughts in some order. And this is an attempt to put thoughts into words. For me, Failures are something which sculpts a rock stone into an object, a beautiful sculpture. The sculpture does not however show, to the onlooker, the amount of pain that the rock stone has undergone to get this beautiful look.
I, as like Michael Jordon, have failed over and over and over again in my life. And am not yet Michael Jordon. If I have to arrange my failures in some order, the first set of failures that would flash up in my mind, are the failures that I faced during the academic year 2001-2002. Yes. Those were my days in the final year of Engineering. I had no interest in mugging up thousands of English words for the sake of a MBA seat in a foreign country. Nor was my interest in doing a technical post graduation through crack opening the GATE. Since, I had closed both the doors of opportunities myself, I had only one more door which I had to kick open to keep running in Life. Yes. That was the door of getting employed in some organisation leave alone to be choosy. Those were times of recession in Software field and even industry majors were doing recruitments in lower scale fearing a 2000 like recession. And, there came my failures over and over and over again. I had the main criteria to my advantage to any campus selection. Yes. I did not have any arrear at any point of time. Thank God. But, that's just the first step. A shortlisting process would start off with filtering candidates who had arrears at any point of time. If I have to draw lines to a marathon race… this was the first few seconds of the whole race which went into more than a couple of hours…
I would have attended atleast a dozen interviews between May 2001 and April 2002 and the worst part of the story is that for all the interviews that I attended, I fell out at the last hurdle. Yes. I did not fall out in any off the mid stages like the written tests, group discussions & initial level interviews. I cleared all of those in every interview that allows any Mechanical Engineer, of course without an arrear, to be eligle for the process. And the end result was indeed predictable. Yes. I did not make it. In actual terms, it means that, the shortlisting process would start at around 8 am and run into the evenings and the end result was given by around 9 pm or even later… Sad part is that, I would have to wait until the last moment and then turn back home just to wait for my next interview.
How many days spent waiting for the results and how many nights pondering over ‘What went wrong?’ There were even instances when my pillow, my only companion those terrible nights, would get wet. Instances when some nights were washed away in tears. Instances when most days were spent worrying, imagining the pathetic state I would be, in just a couple of months time if I did not jump every hurdle of a given interview schedule. Unanswerable Questions kept haunting every other moment. Would I be able to face my parents? Would my parents be able to face close relatives and friends? Won’t there be questions asked and comments spoken in front off and behind the face? Unreactable situations when people offer their condolences, “Heard that your son has not got a job, YET?” These thoughts would give nightmares and I mean it when I say that suicide would be a far better option than to smile at such condolence statements.
Thank God for not having passed such instances in real life. The mere thought of such things might happen, brings down your abilities by half. Fear of Failure. Yes. When you keep failing and when failing unfortunately becomes your habbit, any amount of inspirational quotes or motivational speeches cant make the slightest impacts on your performance. You start seeing Interviewers as police officers asking you questions which does not have an answer. You start believing that you have been destined for a failure. You start experiencing the tragedy even before the tragedy has ever started. You start liking tragic movies. You don't laugh at comedy anymore. The only subject on earth that you laugh at would be your own self. A laughter which will end up in tears, when you end up being alone. You start complaining that life is too full of miseries. You don't enjoy beauty in women anymore. You reply to warm greetings with a sigh. You begin to grow heavier in heart when actually who start losing weight.
I still remember the night in which I saw my first major defeat in the race towards finding a job. Even before I stepped into the Final year, our Campus Interview with CTS had been scheduled. And you know what, based on my mark sheets, I was shortlisted to attend the written Aptitude test. A couple of day’s gap between the shortlistment and the actual interview gave lots of hopes and dreams. I started dreaming as if I am one of the employees of CTS already. Huh… I had built castles already but in thin air. Little did I know that this castle would vanish in air, a couple of days from then on? Back to reality now… On successfully passing the tests and the GDs, I entered the interview round for the first time in my life. I was happy the way I performed and was waiting eagerly for the results. A total of 50 people were interviewed and 25 people were to be offered. In percentage terms, I thought it was a cake walk for me, as I was confident with myself. Is that what was called Over Confidence? It was almost 7 pm in the night and the stage was beautifully set for the students who were about to be offered. All the 50 of us who attended the interview were standing in the ground floor and the results were announced by our Training & Placement HOD standing from the first floor portico. Every name read out, would invite huge cheers and wide smiles and one young guy or girl would run up the stairs and join the staff in the first floor. Names came out of our HODs mouth every few seconds and after that, there was one proud student transforming himself / herself into an employee with an attractive salary package. Those were moments of pride. Unfortunately, destiny thought otherwise for me. It was a long wait. No, An understatement. The longest wait to hear your name being spelt out. I kept counting the names, kept seeing bright and happy faces, kept believing that my turn would also come. With every name spelt out, the probability of my name being called was reducing. At the same time, the rate at which my heart was beating was increasing exponentially. I did not lose hope even after my finger counted 24. As expected, there was a long pause for the 25th name. And then I realized that it was all over. Atleast I knew that it was allover and I need not wait anymore. Initially, I felt very happy for the 25 who stood one floor above us physically as well as in status. Before we broke up, our HOD motivated us that there was something better waiting for the guys standing below. But those were spoken out of lips and not of heart. 25 of us had to leave the building while 25 still screamed in happiness. Infact, the 25 who lost the battle did not believe that they had lost it already and the 25, who had won, did not still believe that they had actually won. Somehow, I kept a cool head and walked towards the bus stand. Nothing was going in my mind about the failure as I waited for my friends who did succeed in this race. I did not have an opportunity to shake hands congratulating them as I was busy awaiting the next name being spelt out. Now that I was not preoccupied, I decided to wait until they came out, so that I can shake hands and share their happiness. After a cup of tea, I saw my classmate coming out in a jubiliant mood. Even now, I did not feel jealous and I shook his hands with full heart. He appreciated me saying ‘If I would have lost and you would have won, I would not have had the courage to congratulate you. I like this quality in you’. I felt proud but that did not matter. Truth was that he was happier guy than I was. He had a memorable day in his life and I was about to have the most pathetic night of my life. I went home well aware that I would have to spend the night alone as none of my room mates was in town. This added fuel to fire and I first started introspection. How difficult is it to answer your own questions? How difficult is it to find out the reason for failure? How difficult is it to start digesting the fact that you have lost? With hours passing, the failure started haunting me more.
I never knew that I need to spend much more nights like this. Nights with more questions than answers, nights with more fears than dreams, more sleepless nights than snoring ones. It was afterall the beginning. Destiny had more in stock for me but I was unaware. In due course of time, this became a habbit as I became a habitual loser. Perhaps, winning was not my way of living. Failing was. Interview after interview, this trend continued. Somehow, I started losing courage in calling up parents at home in the night just to inform that I flunked another one. So, I decided that I would never disclose another interview schedule. Only when you disclose a schedule, will there be an expectation or eagerness from their side to know the result. I started attending interviews without my parents’ knowledge. If I failed, as it was my habbit nowadays, I atleast need not call them up and update my inability to find myselves a job. I solved the wrong problem. Huh.
I was so desparate to win but I did not. By now, I had seen enough failures to forget the results the moment those were out. I started laughing at my own failures amidst my friends when I knew that my poor heart was seeping blood instead of tears. My slam book has got statements of friends who prayed for a job to me even when they did not have one. Such was my reputation in losing at the interview stage. Huh. Our T&P madam used to say, “You should get this job atleast” when she saw me waiting to be interviewed for the nth time. Now was that a statement of sarcasm? Who knows and yet it mattered. I wish I had not heard that statement.
Now, if can say with pride to everyone that I came out of the college with 2 jobs on hand – it was easier said than done. This single success conceals lots of failures within. The single smile conceals litres and litres of tears. The single moment of pride conceals days of shame. And when I called up my parents to pass on the success information, unknowingly my mouth said, ‘At last, I got a job’and I knew I cried more that day than I cried any other day when I failed.
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