AN INNOCENT VICTIM.

He was hardly seventeen but he had had more than his share of experiences for a seventeen year old. Sunny was his name and Sunny indeed was his nature for he was a boy with a pleasant disposition. Always fun to be with and very much attached to his friends. Sunny was a student of the pre-university course in a reputed college in Chennai. The pre-university course of yesteryear's has now been replaced by the new plus two system of education.

Sunny was very intelligent but did not attend classes regularly. Even if he did attend classes he would only indulge in clowning around; forcing his lecturers to send him out of class. In fact, his lecturers and professors were relieved when he did not attend classes. They would willingly grant him attendance even if he was not present in class so that they could have some peace to concentrate on teaching the other boys. One of Sunny’s teachers who was a senior professor in history once remarked that Sunny was like a sharp knife which could be used for both good as well as bad purposes.

The academic year 1976-77 sped by and soon it was time for the final examinations. While most of his classmates who had loafed around with him were not allowed to sit for the exams and were not issued hall tickets, Sunny was allowed to do so since his professors had faithfully marked him present for all their classes even though he had not attended their classes. Sunny had never touched his books during the academic year and had planned to start his preparation for the exam only the day before the actual exam.

When the day for serious studying finally dawned he found that there were small boils all over his genitals and that he was running a temperature. Sunny was very upset for his plan of starting his preparations for the exams had backfired. He could not inform his family about what was wrong for he suspected that the boils had something to do with his recent promiscuous behaviour. Sunny had fallen into bad company in college and egged on by his so called friends he had entered into physical relationships with a few girls; some who were innocent and some who were not so innocent. It was his relationships with the not so innocent that worried him. He worried that these not so innocent females whom he had slept with could have given him the clap for these were the type of females who kept changing their sleeping partners as they would their clothes.

Sunny was scared to go to a Doc for he was dependent upon his parents and did not have the kind of money necessary to get himself treated in a private nursing home. He thought of going to a Government hospital that was located nearby and getting himself checked but the stories he had heard from his friends about the humiliating treatment meted out to the victims of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) by the nurses and doctors of these hospitals made him afraid. In those days AIDS was an unknown phenomenon and the most common STDs were syphilis and gonorrhea. These were indeed curable at an early stage but the stigma attached to victims of such diseases by the society of those days made Sunny hesitant.

His parents who had noticed his strange behaviour that morning wondered what was wrong and asked him why he wasn't studying when he had just a day to prepare for the exams. Sunny explained that he was feeling unwell and his mother who felt his forehead was surprised that he was running such a high temperature and asked him to immediately proceed to a nearby clinic. However, Sunny was hesitant to obey his mother for the fear of humiliation if it were confirmed that he had the clap was a major deterrent in de-motivating him from going to the Doc.

After much prodding and pushing from his Mom Sunny finally visited a homeopathic doctor known to the family. The doctor after a cursory examination of the boils informed Sunny that it appeared to be chicken pox. Sunny was greatly relieved that it was not the clap. He was  however worried that he would miss his examinations since chicken pox is infectious and the resulting boils all over the body would make his ailment obvious to the invigilators at the examination hall.

When Sunny informed the doctor that he had to appear for his examinations the next day, the homeopath gave him small packets of powder which he asked Sunny to consume thrice a day. He told Sunny that the medicine in the form of powder would arrest the spread of chicken pox and quickly dry up the boils that may appear

He went home relieved that he was not suffering from what he had feared most. By the time Sunny reached home boils had started appearing all over his body including the exposed parts of his face. Once he reached home he informed his Mom about the doctor’s diagnosis and she immediately made him get into bed. Sunny started taking the powdered medicine as prescribed by the doctor but his fever continued and his face was a terrifying sight.

Sunny felt that it was no point writing the exams with the pox and failing due to lack of preparation. He told his Dad that he would rather write the exams  at the next attempt during September  the same year but his father refused to accept this. Sunny’s parents were worried that he would loose out on a year if he did not attend the exams. They therefore told Sunny to just go everyday to the examination hall and write whatever he could and come back and rest at home. In fact  his dad sat with him that evening and read out chapters of the syllabus for the exams since Sunny was told by the doctor not to strain himself by reading.

Sunny’s exams were scheduled during the afternoons between 2 and 5 pm on alternate days with a day’s break between each exam to help the students study better. This was actually a blessing for Sunny since it gave him sufficient time to rest between the exams. The next day Sunny’s Mom went to the main road nearby and caught hold of an auto-rickshaw and brought it home so that Sunny could board the auto at his doorstep and get dropped inside the college where he was to write his exams. Sunny managed to attend all the exams in this manner and used to hold his handkerchief around his mouth and nose so that the invigilators at the examination hall as well as the fellow students who wrote the exam along with him could not see the profusion of boils on his face. Sunny some how managed to complete his exams. Meanwhile, the attack of chicken pox had subsided considerably and by the end of his exams the pustules started drying up and falling down as scabs.

Within two weeks of completing the exams Sunny was fully recovered and free from the pox. He was able to enjoy the summer holidays with his friends. Two months later the results were announced. Sunny went to the college notice board to check his results. To his surprise he found that his roll number and the number subsequent to his were not on the list. On closer scrutiny he found that both the numbers were mentioned at the bottom under the head of "Results withheld". Sunny rushed back home to inform his parents about this and his Dad consoled him that the university authorities may have goofed up with totaling or some such error and that the results for these two numbers would be announced shortly.

The next day morning Sunny was greeted by the post man who delivered a brown coloured registered envelope on which the seal of the university was found. When Sunny opened it he found a memo stating that his results had been withheld since the examiner who had corrected his English - II paper answer sheets had found both his answers and the answers of the neighbouring number to be identical.

The memo served to Sunny asked him to respond to the charge within seven days or else face debarment for three sittings. Sunny was horrified for he had never expected something like this. Sunny drafted his response with help from his father and sent it to the university by registered post the very next day. While all his classmates who had passed the examinations were busy seeking admissions for professional courses or their humanities bachelors’ degree Sunny spent his time moping around wondering what to do.

Within ten days of responding to their first memo Sunny received another envelope from the university with a letter mentioning that since the controller of examinations was not satisfied with his response; his debarment for three sittings was being confirmed. Actually the boy who was also debarred along with Sunny and whose number was next to Sunny’s roll number was not even known to Sunny and was a student from a different batch or group who had been sitting next to him for the common language papers.

Sunny was totally shattered. His father called him aside and asked him to speak out if he had really copied. Sunny was all the more devastated for his own father did not believe in him. Though Sunny was not a studious kind of boy, his skill with the English language was one of the very few skills that he had displayed from childhood. His father then agreed to stand by Sunny and immediately filed a writ petition in the high court with the assistance of a lawyer known to him.

When the petition came up for hearing Sunny went to the high court and met the lawyer to explain the facts of the case to him. When the petition was taken up by the honourable judge Sunny waited at the back of the court room hoping that his innocence would be proved. The university’s council explained to the honourable judge that it was an open and shut case and the guilt of both the parties who had been debarred was proved by the identical answers. After hearing both the councils the judge declared a recess for lunch and requested the two councils along with Sunny to meet him at his chambers after lunch.

When Sunny went along with his lawyer to the judge’s chambers, the learned judge requested the counsel for the University to produce the two answer sheets for him to peruse. When the university counsel did so the judge gazed at both the papers in silence for about ten minutes. He then looked up and said it looks like an open and shut case. On hearing this Sunny requested his lawyer to seek permission from the judge to have a look at the answer sheets himself.

The judge obliged his request and Sunny spent five minutes carefully comparing the two answers. On doing so he found that there were small differences in both the papers. Sunny was given to undecipherable handwriting and had a rather strange way of writing the letter “r” in a running hand. This made the “r” appear like an “s” and his neighbour had used the word “s” in all the places where Sunny had written “r”. Let me give you an example of how Sunny’s answer sheet looked in contrast to his neighbour’s answer sheet. While Sunny had written “India is progressing rapidly” as part of his composition exercise his neighbour had written “India is psogsessing sapidly”.

Sunny immediately pointed this out to the judge. He also informed the judge that he had been suffering from chicken pox during the exams and since he was left handed he had been using his right hand to hold a handkerchief to his face, thereby making it convenient for his neighbour who had been sitting to his right to peep into his paper. The judge did not accept Sunny’s logic. He replied, “if you knew English better you could have corrected the other boy’s mistakes while copying from him”.

Sunny looked into the judge’s eyes and burst out, ”Sir, this is my English second paper and if I knew English better as you have mentioned, then there would be no need for me to copy from my neighbour.” Having said this he walked out in disgust leaving his lawyer to receive the verdict later that afternoon.

Later that evening the lawyer phoned up to say that the judge had reduced the debarment from three sittings to two sittings. This really did not make much difference for ultimately Sunny had to loose two years of his life and thereby his chances at a good higher education and a good profession. As a result of this judgment passed by a learned judge who did not apply his mind to the case on hand, Sunny turned out to become another disgruntled element in society. Sunny lost all interest in life and developed all kinds of vices.

This story may not have a dramatic ending but it is a true story that happened to someone I know. This incident has left me wondering about the lack of fair play and the innocent victims whose lives are destroyed by this lack of fair play. What did Sunny do to deserve this? Why does this society make things difficult for those who are really innocent but whom the judiciary considers otherwise? While thousands of criminals and scamsters go scot free every year why is it that people like Sunny are victimised?

This piece is a tribute to such innocent victims.

LAUGHING MATTERS

It is said that laughter is the best medicine. Doctors have even scientifically proved that laughter reduces pain, increases job performance, connects people emotionally, and improves the flow of oxygen to the heart and brain. In fact, some researchers also believe that the main purpose of laughter is to bring people together and all the health benefits of laughter may simply result from the social support that laughter stimulates.

As a result a new kind of club has begun sprouting in various parts of the country and they are termed “Humor Clubs” or alternatively “Laughter Clubs”. I am now sharing my own interaction with a member of one such Club.

It all began on a Saturday morning; for indeed the incidents which I am going to narrate to you began on one of those rare Saturday mornings when I got out of bed early since I was unable to sleep and rather restless. Knowing fully well that the other members of my family would not wake up until late in the morning since it was a holiday and not wanting to disturb them I quietly slipped out of the door into the darkness for it was only four thirty in the morning and the sky was still dark with no sign of dawn or sunrise.

I then decided to go for a spin on my two-wheeler and breathe in some fresh air since Madras is at its best only during this time. It is only when the roads are empty and the air is unpolluted that the beauty of Madras can really be appreciated. Having taken out my two-wheeler on an impulse, I decided to drive down to the Marina, Madras’ very own beach which is said to be the second longest in the world and that which at that time of the day would be populated by walkers and joggers of all sizes and shapes who visit the beach for their daily workout.

Don’t get me wrong for I am not the health conscious kind and believe that walking would only causes wear and tear to the muscles and ligaments of my feet and legs. However, it is good fun to watch these so called health freaks who are fighting their individual battles of the bulge and trying to rid themselves of what they consider the unwanted pounds or kilograms. It is rather ironic that these people who do not like to walk or exercise during the day deem it appropriate to drive down to the beach in their expensive luxury vehicles and limousines which they park along the beach front and then proceed for a walk or a jog with their spouse or dog in tow.

The Marina attracts all kinds of people from the old guys who come just to sit near the Gandhi statue and gossip about the good old days to the little ones who come to play tennis ball cricket on the sand to the yoga practitioners who either contort their body or sit with eyes closed on the beach to meditate and inhale the fresh air there.

On this particular day I happened to witness a rather strange group which has now begun haunting the Marina. As I neared the beach road which is the road built on the beach parallel to the main road and located at the edge of the sand, I heard strange noises emanating from a group of people. There were about five of them standing together in sports outfits, a couple of them were wearing tracksuits while the remaining were wearing shorts and t-shirts along with the standard sports footwear which everybody seems to favour these days.

This group of men were attracting a lot of attention on the beach front including the attention of the crows circling around and the dogs loitering in search of some sustenance early in the morning. This group seemed to be exercising by lifting their hands up and down while at the same time making strange noises which sounded like “Hoo...ahh..Hoo...ahh”. More like Santa at Yuletide with his “Ho..Ho..Ho”.  The busy passerby who were jogging or walking briskly looked at this group with as much amusement as did the crows and dogs around the beach.

As I parked my two-wheeler, walked towards the shore and came closer to the group I found that one of these five gentlemen who was most excitedly performing these strange exercises had a rather familiar face. It was familiar for the face resembled that of a classmate of mine named Santhanam whom I had been rather pally with during my school days and with whom I had been upto a lot of mischief much to the chagrin of my parents.

As I came closer the group appeared to be winding up and everyone seemed to be wiping the sweat from their faces with towels as they prepared to leave. I approached the guy who resembled Santhanam and called out, “Excuse me, but are you in anyway related to a guy named Santhanam who studied in the Madras High school and passed out in 1975?”. The Santhanam look alike looked at me and replied, “Yes he is my elder brother and my name is Rathnam”. He thrust out his hand as he replied and I then accepting his outstretched hand introduced myself as Sunny who had studied with Santhanam for seven wonderful years.

Rathnam then informed me that he was a senior Physician in one of the leading hospitals in the city where he specialised as a cardiologist. I asked him what he was upto on the beach and he replied that he was part of a Humour Club which practiced laughter as a form of therapy for good health and rejuvenation every day at five in the morning for about half an hour.

I then also asked him how Santhanam was and Rathnam replied that Santhanam had not changed since his school days and was still upto pranks and mischief as he had been when he was young. He mentioned that Santhanam had not yet settled down in life inspite of being married and did not have a steady job though he was the father of two children.

Rathnam wanted to know what I was doing and I told him that I too was upto no good and doing odd jobs as a Communication and Development professional across India. We then bid farewell and went about our separate ways.

I then forgot about this chance meeting until a year later when a friend of mine was hospitalised for some cardiac problems and I used to visit him regularly during the ten days he was bed ridden there. It was then that I happened to bump into Rathnam once again and get to know him better during those ten days when I frequented the hospital to comfort my friend.

The Rathnam whom I had met at the beach seemed very different from the Rathnam whom I had met at the hospital. Before I proceed to describe Rathnam I must say that Rathnam was five years younger to Santhanam who being my classmate was the same age that I was. I guess this is the best way to put Rathnam’s age in perspective without disclosing my own age to you guys.

The Rathnam whom I had met at Zeus hospital, which was the biggest hospital in the whole of India was a very serious and determined professional who was completely focused on his work. He was a perfectionist who did not appreciate his colleagues and co-workers being sloppy. It was said that Rathnam would perform anywhere between ten to twelve heart surgeries in one day and still find time to go on hospital rounds to check on his patients as well as monitor the performance of the staff.

One day I saw him scream at a nurse who had not properly set the IV drip for a patient and the nurse literally burst into tears as Rathnam hurled abuses at her having been so careless. It appeared rather ironic to me that a man who gave so much importance to laughter at the beginning of his day could make a complete turnaround for the rest of the day by being grim and devoid of humour for the rest of the day. However such ironies are common in this world, for where else would you find people driving down in luxury vehicles and limousines to take a walk rather than walking down to take a walk.

Once again life moved on and I did not meet Rathnam after my friend was discharged from hospital. Modern day life is such that one is pre-occupied always with the self and the interests of the self that there is no time or room to think of others how so ever close they may have been to us at some point of time. Therefore, Santhanam and Rathnam were once again relegated to the archives of my memory for the next couple of years until one fine day I chanced to meet Santhanam at a school re-union.

Santhanam appeared to be his usual self which is loud, noisy, boisterous with full of sarcasm and mime. It was during this re-union that I managed to enquire with Santhanam about his brother Rathnam and inform him of how I happened to meet Rathnam in the first place. On hearing this Santhanam’s face flickered with emotions for a moment before dryly replying that Rathnam had passed away six months ago as the result of a massive cardiac arrest.

I was shocked to hear this, Rathnam who neither smoked nor drank and was so health conscious had passed away prior to Santhanam who smoked and drank heavily and laughed the whole day. One of the many ironies of life, isn’t it?   

While the purpose of this post was not to mock the existence of Laughter or Humour Clubs but just to point out that laughter and humor in our lives must be spontaneous and not limited to merely an hour’s artificial or forced laughter. While spontaneous laughter will definitely benefit the body artificial or forced laughter will serve no purpose...

FOR A MANGO

Royapettah High Road in Madras the capital of Tamil Nadu a State in South India is a fairly long road connecting the locality known as Royapettah to one end of General Patters Road while the other end stretches up to the neighbouring locality of Mylapore. The road has a mixed variety of buildings ranging from small shops to apartment complexes and shopping centres. It is on Royapettah High Road that Mahalakshmi Apartments is also located.

Mahalakshmi Apartments is a group of five buildings built about thirty years ago which resemble a colony in the guise of a gated community. Each of these five buildings has four floors including the ground floor and sixteen apartments with four flats on each floor. Mahalakshmi Apartments is ensconced with shops on one side and a lane on the other which leads away from Royapettah High Road and ends in a cluster of shacks or a contemporary slum.

The residents of Mahalakshmi Apartments were mostly middle class professionals who had saved their hard earned money to invest in their lifelong dream of having their own residence. Mahalakshmi Apartments has good schools, hospitals, restaurants, grocery stores and pharmacies all at a stone’s throw from it.

Mahalakshmi Apartments is rather different from the modern day apartment complexes for it is rather spacious and has broad pathways and a decent sized play area within its walls. As a result the children of the colony as well as other children of the locality gather together during evenings, weekends and throughout the day during summer holidays to frolic and play whatever little children would play; from hopscotch to cricket and more.

The children of Mahalakshmi Apartments can be classified into different groups based on their age. While children below twelve would group together and play hide and seek, hopscotch, kho kho, blindfold and an Indian urban game commonly known as seven stones, the children between twelve to eighteen normally indulged in cricket, football or generally cycling around the complex. Needless to say that the children above eighteen if you can call them children for they behaved like adults lived in a world of their own.

One fine Sunday morning, the younger kids gathered together for a game of Hide and Seek which is popularly called “I Spy”. I am sure all of you must know what this game is all about? However, for the benefit of those who have not had a normal childhood, I must elaborate that the game is usually played with everyone hiding; while only one unfortunate person is given the tough task of seeking out those who are hidden. The Seeker is at times also called the Catcher and is usually selected by what is popularly called “Shaa – Booo – Three” or “Inky; Pinky, Ponkey; Father had a Donkey”.

The Seeker’s role is to find out all the others who are hidden and the person who is found out first by the Seeker then in turn becomes the Seeker, while all the others find different places to hide once again. It was such a game that the Pre- Teen children on Mahalakshmi Apartments were playing that morning and the seeker for the morning was a dumb guy called Suresh who was always the victim as well as the butt of the other boys’ jokes and pranks.

After the boys were given sufficient time to hide themselves, Suresh set out to search for his hidden playmates. His search initially proved futile and he was gradually becoming frustrated at the thought of having to go on searching for his playmates the whole morning, without being able to find them.

After almost half an hour, Suresh finally stumbled upon Ramesh another resident of Mahalakshmi Apartments hidden inside an empty garbage bin which had been recently cleared by the garbage truck which visited the Apartment Complex every morning. Ramesh lived with his parents and elder siblings in flat no. 5 in block A of Mahalakshmi Apartments. He had chosen to hide in the huge empty garbage bin only because it was close to home and he then wouldn’t be late for lunch.

Suresh was overjoyed to have spotted Ramesh hiding in the garbage bin while Ramesh was terribly disappointed since he did not want to become the catcher in the next round. He therefore, “Ssshed” at Suresh to keep quiet and not reveal his hiding place to the others who were hiding while his mind worked overtime to find a way out of his predicament. It suddenly dawned upon Ramesh that he had a huge luscious mango stashed away in his trouser pocket and he therefore took it out and offered it to Suresh, “Here take it but don’t tell the others that you have discovered my hiding place”.

Suresh was a sucker for mangoes and could not resist the temptation offered by Ramesh. “My lips are sealed” he said and quietly accepted the mango while Ramesh went back into the garbage bin to continue hiding as if nothing had happened. Suresh then continued with the game as if he had not yet spotted Ramesh.

Meanwhile, Ramesh’s father Dharmaseelan who had been observing it from the landing of his first floor apartment realised what was happening and called out to Suresh, Hey, young Man; you better come over here”. Dharmaseelan was a greater sucker for mangoes and on seeing Suresh receive a luscious mango from his son decided to threaten Suresh that he would announce his having received a mango from Ramesh and use blackmail tactics to take away the mango from Suresh.

When Suresh appeared on the landing of the first floor as ordered by him, Dharmaseelan quietly took away the mango from Suresh saying, “How can you do this to your friends? I think I’m going to tell all your friends that you accepted a Mango from my son in return for not catching him. Now give me that Mango” he demanded. Suresh was petrified and had no other alternative but to hand over the luscious mango to Dharmaseelan rather than facing the wrath of his friends. He then went downstairs to continue searching for the others who were hidden from his eyes.

Dharmaseelan bit into the mango and enjoyed its fruity taste as he went into his apartment to find his wife accusing their maid servant of having stolen a mango which had been kept in their refrigerator.

Dharmaseelan immediately realised that it was his son Ramesh who had stolen the Mango from the Refrigerator and hid the half eaten Mango in a decorative bowl on the mantel of their living room.

Dharmaseelan was quite antagonistic to the maid named Rani since she had earlier refused to accept his demands of allowing him to grope her and play with her body. He therefore seized the opportunity to tarnish the image of the maid and joined his wife in berating her, saying “Well Rani, who would have thought you would do such a thing? My takes good care of you and treats you like a sister and not her maid. Yet, you betray her and steal from our own home!”

Dharmaseelan found this as a good opportunity to send Rani out of their apartment before she could accuse him of his own misdemeanour while standing on the moral high ground of her having stolen from their family what was not rightfully hers.

The poor maid left the colony weeping, while Dharmaseelan retrieved the Mango from its hiding place and continued to suck on the sweet mango which he had obtained from Suresh and which had originally been stolen by Ramesh from his Mom’s fridge.

Please note that the story is purely fictitious and any resemblance it may bear to instances or individuals is purely coincidental and not deliberate.

Copyright held by Ben Noah Suri. Reproduction without permission is a punishable offence.

CHELLA: A CHILD OF NATURE.

Chella was nature’s product; meaning to say that Chella was a child of nature. He knew not his parents and his parents knew him not. Chella lived his life as per nature. Like a child he also seemed impulsive and given to doing things suddenly without any reason. The world and its inhabitants could not understand Chella’s behavior for they were bound by rationality and found no rationality in Chella’s activities.

Chella would be found talking to the wind, the trees the birds, the flowers, the leaves, the bees. He was a totally original person. The world and its inhabitants could not comprehend his activities. He had his own way of living life. His main talent was being arty and creative, like writing, painting or playing music. Chella was a very gifted and talented child. Any art that he took up, he soon mastered. The world and its inhabitants who were already unable to categorize Chella were all the more confused by his exceptional talents. They jealously wondered where such talent sprang from. However, Chella showed no inclination or interest in amassing wealth out of his many talents. All he needed was some bread or rice for nourishment and he could express his talents for hours on end.

Amidst his many talents Chella was also a talented pianist. No one taught him nor did he train himself to become one. He was just a born virtuoso. Just give him a Piano and Chella would take you on such a fantastic musical journey. It was at this juncture that Chella was invited to perform at a major concert in the town. The three hour concert was to only feature Chella with accompanying musicians and no other band would play besides Chella’s band. Chella was glad to play for a charity that was raising funds for terrorist victims since he did not believe in playing music to earn money.

Though Chella did not make much ado about the event and continued to wander around with his usual dazed look, the charity for which it was being held was a national charity and the event was therefore picked up by the national media and flashed across the country. Critics did not have anything negative to say since they were all aware of Chella’s prowess and therefore only hoped for a great performance.

Chella began practice for the concert only three days before the show, though he had been composing various tunes in his mind and then documenting them on paper. There were about twenty people in all gathered on the day of the rehearsal including musicians and technicians and Chella went about hammer and tongs ensuring that they were all ready and fighting fit for the show. The next three days were a nightmare for the technicians and musicians and on the morning of the event they were all prepared for battle as it were.

They set up their equipment on stage and then went home to relax refresh and then come back on stage exactly an hour before the commencement of the show. By afternoon, ticket sales at the venue was brisk and the organizers knew that they were on to a jack pot. It was rumored in the media that eminent music producers were to be amongst the audience that night and that it was the launch of Chella’s career as a musician.

 

That evening the concert proved a disaster in terms of technological quality. All the equipment seemed to be failing every now and then and the musicians realized that their instruments had all been meddled with. The musicians were so busy readjusting their equipment that the show could not start on time. Realizing that the audience was getting restless, Chella started stroking the piano into a solo improvisation to provide time for the other members to set right their equipment and join him.

To his disgust and dismay Chella found that his piano too had been tampered with and was not playing true. Being the virtuoso that he was Chella adjusted his playing to produce a funky off beat melody inspite of his out of tune piano. He found that the mikes that were expected to pick up the sound from his piano were not working. He had to adjust to this lack of amplification and play with a louder thump on the piano. At the end of the number, there was a smattering of applause but Chella and the critics knew that it was not a good start at all. Something smelled fishy and the critics were agog with stories of jealousy and rivalry being behind the mischief caused by tampering with the instruments and the equipment.

Meanwhile, the other members of the band had set right their equipment and Chella too had done some minor tuning on the piano and turned on the mikes around him to get back to business at hand. The next number was a livelier rendition of one of Chella’s own compositions and the audience began to hem and haw in anticipation as the number livened them up. However, disaster struck once again and the entire public address system went silent midway through the number as amplifiers burst and equipment sizzled. It was quite evident that Chella’s concert had been deliberately tampered with by someone who did not want him to grow.

Chella knew that he was finished. Changing all these equipment let alone repairing them would take a minimum of a half hour and he could not keep the crowd waiting, after having made a false start as it were. He therefore waved his accompanying musicians away and began to play solo on his grand piano with no amplification but pure natural sound. Fortunately the acoustics at the hall was good. The audience which had begun to boo had quickly quietened down as Chella treated them to a performance par excellence and held them spell bound for the next three hours.

That evening Chella outdid all his past performances. Without the support of any back – up musicians and with just a grand piano, Chella played music from a different world. He played his own composition titled “A freak out in C Minor” which really freaked out the audience. The hall which was meant to accommodate about three thousand people was jam packed with more than five thousand people standing and sitting, shoulder to shoulder in pin drop silence listening to the divine melodies that poured out from Chella’s fingers while the audience remained spell – bound.

Chella played on; non stop for three hours without a break. Each song leading to a song better than the previous one. At the end of it all, Chella stood up bowed from the waist down and quietly left the hall through the green room exit as the hall erupted in joyous ovation. Even before the others could react Chella had vanished from the hall; swallowed up as it were by the concrete jungle of the city.

Chella did not appear to be his dazed self and for once seemed to be filled with purpose. The only voice that rang inside his head kept on repeatedly screaming “can my music create jealousy?” The same thought rang on and on inside his head as he wondered what was the purpose of playing music so pure if the people only viewed it with jealousy. It was a pity for if they were to shed their jealousy they would have been able to see the divinity within, he thought to himself.

Chella did not know what to do. He felt betrayed that his art had caused so much jealousy leading to deceit and cunning on the part of those who did not wish to have their skills and talent sidelined by a youngster. He did not wish to live in the city amongst his former circle of friends and well-wishers. Ideally, I should seek out a jungle somewhere, he mused to himself. Chella had heard a lot about a wild place called the “Silent Forest” and he now decided to go live there alone and forget contact with his fellow humans who could not understand him.

“Silent Forest” was a disaster too for Chella who went around in search of peace and loneliness; found that the silent valley was also infested with people. He could hardly close his eyes for five minutes as he soaked in the bliss of solitude before his joy would be interrupted by some fellow human or the other. Since the silent forest was supposed to be a protected forest it was full of forest officials, rangers and wardens and the like who thanked their lucky stars for being posted there as they looted the riches of the forest. The forest was also home to poachers, dacoits, wanted men who needed a place to hide and highway men who would hold up wayfarers.

Chella found it immensely funny that even the few forests that were found in the world were forests no more as they were also inhabited by quite a fair population of humans. True forests were really extinct and no more found on the face of the earth. Is there any place on earth that Man has left free; allowing it to flourish in its pristine form? Chella mused to himself.

In earlier times, it was said that those who sought answers to life’s most vital questions would seek out the forests and stay there observing silence, contemplating on themselves, inwardly chanting the names of the divine whom they invoked to seek answers they sought. However in todays over populated world we find that it is the city which is the best place for one to dissolve or merge into. All that one had to do was to seek out the filthiest areas of the city and go hide themselves there for even the most inquisitive of associates and friends would find the location rather revolting and therefore avoid them. Indeed the city with its skyscrapers and huge malls, fecal matter bearing rivers, ghettos and slums, sewage and gutters, traffic snarls and all - was still the best place where a man who wanted to spend time with himself could do so.

There was no news of Chella for quite some time. It seemed to appear as if he had vanished into the ether. After a couple of years some fans of Chella espied him seated on a dirty pavement outside a dirty slum. He was as dirty as his surroundings; if not dirtier and his hair and beard had grown wild, dirty and matted. They had approached him but he had just remained passively seated without any recognition of them or his surroundings. He merely kept talking to himself. Muttering at things around him. The fans had tried offering him a glass of milk and a bun but Chella had refused to accept by merely remaining passively silent. Other instances of Chella being spotted around the dirty sewage bearing river that ran through the city were reported from time to time.

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I’m sure most of you must be wondering why I have penned this story. I’m sure most of us have had incidents like Chella’s in our day to day lives. When people out of sheer jealousy try to sabotage our work. While most of us tend to brush it off, get up and get on with it; it is a few like Chella who quit.

What makes those like Chella quit? As I had mentioned in the beginning of the first installment of this piece, Chella was not a usual human being. He was a pure and natural soul. It was only because he was a pure and natural soul that Chella decided to quit while we who remain impure happen to keep on trying until we rid ourselves of all our impurities. To be brutally frank and forthright, I am bound to say that we who carry on with our lives are the ones who are impure; the ones who are bound by their selfishness to the ways of the world. The ego and its selfishness is the only difference between people like Chella and us. Actually what we consider to be a good quality is in reality due to our impurities and our lack of comprehension of truth.

Therefore my friends, the next time when you find yourself walking; busily on the road and come across a person on the pavement who looks like Chella, don’t call him mad for it is we who are mad. He is neither a bum nor a mad man but a modern day contemporary saint. However that does not mean we rush to them and disturb them. Let them be, for they have sought peace and communion with nature in the midst of the concrete jungle. Let us not be judgmental about them for they are more than worthy to be judgmental about us.

GROWTH VIS A VIS DEVELOPMENT

Some time ago, I was involved in a general discussion about what is growth and what is Development?

Growth is a more physical and material term and therefore has it's own limits. However, Development is not only physical & material, but something more abstract than just these and is infinite with no limits.

To illustrate this point, I told my friends about a friend whom I had known during my childhood. His name was 'Kulandaipichai' which when literally translated means "child given as alms".

He was a classmate of mine during my primary school days in an unknown / unheard off school in Chennai which was then 'Madras'. All that I used to remember of K.P. as we fondly called him was his loving mother who used to bring him to school , bring lunch during the afternoon break and then take him back home at the end of school. 

I remember feeling rather jealous of K.P. and used to look at him with envy, when his mother brought him to school or fed him lunch & eagerly stood at the school gate waiting for her son to come back at the stroke of the final bell for the day. His mother had lost her husband when he was very young and therefore showered all her love on K.P.

As the son of working parents, I never used to have the luxury of parents bringing me to and from school or bringing me lunch and have been forced to take care of myself from my early days. The kind of luxuries which K.P.enjoyed really rankled and I would literally look at him with green eyes.

Time flew and we parted ways. I moved on to a job in a non-governmental organization while K.P. went on to be a top notch financial whiz kid and was riding high on a crest in the corporate world. 

Over the years, I totally lost track of K.P. until I chanced upon him at a drive-in restaurant about two years ago. He was all agog at meeting me and was bubbling with life and enthusiasm. He gushed that he was happy to have met me and that it was providence that had brought us together since he was about to get married in a week. He handed me the wedding invitation and I wished him all the best while promising to attend the wedding without fail.

As promised, I participated in his marriage ceremony where I also happened to meet some of my old school chums - Guys who had kept track of K.P. and were still in touch with him. More than any thing, it seemed to me that these guys had kept in touch with K.P. only because he was a top notch corporate honcho. K.P. was really a lucky guy. His wife looked really lovely and serene. She looked like the kind of woman who could help her man build his career. What with a doting mother, K.P. now had a doting wife too!

Time flew by as it always does and I again lost track of K.P. since I was absorbed in my own work and obsessed with my own personal life. A couple of months ago I was driving my two-wheeler past a busy stretch on Mount Road, when I chanced to see his wife waiting at a bus stop. I was surprised, since K.P. was so rich and could easily afford three or four cars. I eased my bike to the side and parked it. I then proceeded to the bus stop and greeted K.P.'s wife with a "Hello Sis! How are you? How is K.P.?" The woman's face tightened on hearing K.P.'s name and she looked at me with sad eyes.

"Oh! My Husband? He is so happy with his mother that he doesn't need me at all. His mother takes care of all his needs and hence he doesn't need me at all. We have therefore separated and currently my father has taken steps to apply for our divorce", she replied rather sarcastically. 

I was surprised and rather taken aback to hear this. I then asked her what had gone wrong within one year of her marrying my friend. "What didn't go wrong?" she replied, "Right from the first day, from his morning coffee to his bath to his bed to his meals, everything had to be done by Mummy, that is his mother, who has made her son completely dependent on her. I am ashamed to say it but your friend needed his mother to even comb his hair or have his shave or tie his shoe laces".

"Initially, I tried to do things for him but he found fault with whatever I did. Mummy does it this way, Mummy does it better, He was always complaining and would only be happy if his mother did it for him. After a while I realized the futility of loving him and went back to my father's house where I have been living ever since. Since then I have found myself a small job and survive on the time I spend there as my work is a great diversion and I get paid to forget my personal life for a major part of the day", she said.

I was too stunned to even speak. Here was a hot-shot corporate whiz kid who needed his mother to even tie his shoe laces for him. What could I say? I mumbled my solemn responses and wished her farewell. Months later, I came to know from one of my school chums who had been there at K.P.'s wedding that divorce was granted on the same day that K.P. was made President of his company at the age of thirty four.

Now my friends, I hope you will be in a better position to enlighten me on the difference between growth and development?

OFFICIAL TEAM MAGICIAN: A NEW DIMENSION TO CRICKET.

I guess I have made it quite clear to all that I’m just an ordinary guy. I have the normal desires and passions of an ordinary guy and was quite a Bacchanalian in my, hey days. I imbibed of the cup that runneth over with great fervor and passion, so much so that my friends and well wishers never expected me to live to see the commencement of my fiftieth year on this planet.

Being blessed with below average intellect, I did not realize that Bacchus was out to destroy me and was providing me with the illusion of pleasant sensations just to drag me deeper into the mire of debauchery. It therefore came as a surprise to me one fine day to realize that my health was failing and that I was rapidly loosing the vigor and energy that was so characteristic of me during my youth.

I therefore decided to go see one of those guys who are too good at making the money in your wallet disappear at speeds faster than can be measured in mach or whatever it is they use to measure the speed at which money disappears. Haven’t yet got what I’m saying? Well I’m just referring to my friendly neighborhood medicine man who would never condescend to be called anything else but a Doc.

Well to cut a long story short, that friendly Doc just dropped a bomb on me by asking me to refrain from entertaining my evening companion, that bottle of joy. He made it very clear that I would kick the bucket if I did not kick the bottle; in no uncertain terms and informed me that all that was inside me; from my throat downwards to my very intestines, was too far gone to even continue for a year if I continued to stick with my old companion. Easier said than done, I should say; for any one who has had such a long standing companionship would certainly vouch for that. It would have been easier if that Doc had told me to forget my wife for I would have happily done so but this was something different and all the more difficult.

Ask anyone who has quit the bottle and they would tell you that the first few years are the most difficult period. In fact, the first few days are pure hell and being idiotically stubborn as I am, I refused all medical aid and support to see me through those first few months. Needless to say I was irritated all the while and unable to sleep. The little moments of reprieve when I managed to doze off were filled with nightmares and terrible dreams so much so that my entire life during that period appeared to be one big hallucination.

It was during that period that I first happened to have strange visions in which I was visited by a Swamiji from the Himalayas who used to share a lot of his thoughts with me on almost everything under the sun. In fact, on his first visit he told me that he had come from the Himalayas to get him self a special kind of Water that was only available in South India and had happened to find me in need of some comforting and had therefore stopped over to have a word with me. I started addressing him as Water Swamiji and used to wonder if the Water he was referring to was some kind of hooch made from the choicest fruits and herbs that grew in South India. Anyways, not wanting to offend him, I kept my thoughts to myself and we soon became thick friends.

When I told my Doc about these visits he just laughed them off and told me that they were mere hallucinations of an alcohol deprived mind. He offered to give me some medication to put me to sleep but I stubbornly refused this as well. Needless to say that Water Swamiji’s visits became all the more frequent and our friendship grew in leaps and bounds. What made me certain that Water Swamiji’s visits were not hallucinations but reality was the fact that whatever predictions or forecasts that the Swamiji told me during his nocturnal visits were proved right later on. He even predicted on the eve of the ballot being counted that the Prime Minister with a turban and a beard would come back to power after the parliamentary election results were announced.

A week later, I was sitting rather despondently in my bed with no sight of sleep in the offing when Water Swamiji just appeared out of the blue and sat down next to me on my bed. I remained silent and did not even make an attempt to welcome him for I had just witnessed the second semi-finals of the second edition of the NRI – IPL and was rather depressed that my favourite team, “The Chennai Super Kings” had been badly outplayed by “The Bangalore Royal Challengers” which was owned by the guy who made barrels of my former companion and thereby made barrels of money for himself while causing guys like me sleepless nights. Sensing my depression, the Swamiji asked me what was the problem and I told him how I felt humiliated to be let down by my home team.

The Swamiji listened patiently and then said, “T20 is just not cricket, my friend and when I mean not cricket, I mean that it is not fair anymore”, he comforted me. “It has become more of a gamble than a game and the high stakes have made it so my friend”, he continued. “Did you know that some teams now have official magicians and tantriks as part of their retinue just as much as they have official coaches and trainers and physios and managers?” he questioned me. I could not decipher what he was getting at stared blankly at him. I wondered if he was pulling my leg just as much as I am pulling yours right now.

“I really am serious my friend”, he continued. “Do you remember that pace bowler who was dubbed the 'enfant terrible' by the media sometime ago?” he carried on, “The guy who has so many amulets and talismans hanging around his neck that every time he bowls, these amulets and talismans pop out of his shirt during his follow through” he mentioned.

I knew the bowler whom the Swamiji was referring too; for he hailed from a state in India that did not have much of a reputation for producing first class cricketers as much as it produced Magicians and Tantriks. Now coming to think of it, I realized that what the Swamiji was saying was true. “The guy wears so much protection around his neck that he would put to shame any opening batsman who dons multiple layers of protective gear all over his body,” the Swamiji mused. “In fact” continued the Swamiji, “The guy made a mark for himself at the national level only due to the powers of his personal tantrik and not because of any true skill or talent”.

I was really awed by the Swamiji’s insights and kept mulling them over in my head when he shattered my thoughts and set me on a further line of thinking. “Do you remember a former Captain of the Indian cricket team who was unceremoniously dumped from the national team a few years ago?” he questioned. I nodded my head in affirmation, for I knew whom the Swamiji was referring to. “It was only because of a special yagna conducted by the family of the deposed captain with help from a tantrik who charged a hefty fee that the deposed captain was reinstated to the Indian team; though not as captain”. “Unfortunately”, the Swamiji carried on with his monologue, “The tantrik was not really too powerful and did not perform the yagna correctly as a result of which the former captain could not hold on to the place in the team that the tantrik had managed to obtain for him”.

All this was too much load for my mind to accept in one go but the Swamiji was not to be deterred. He carried on the monologue with great conviction. “Do you know that whenever our country plays with a not too friendly neighbouring country there are batteries of magicians fervently casting their spells on both sides of the border?” he asked me. I was surprised for this indeed was news to me that a cricket match could also become a show of strength between two opposing groups of magicians was too hard to believe. Sounded like it was right out of a Harry Potter movie. The Swamiji on observing the look of skepticism on my face felt insulted. “You don’t seem to believe me, but you will one day realize that all that I have said is true”.

I wondered how a cricket team would go about the business of recruiting a magician or a tantrik for the team? Would they place an ad. in the newspapers for this or would they recruit more discreetly for they would not want the ignominy that such a move could bring them. “It is indeed a lucrative profession for the fees paid to such magicians and tantriks are far more than the fees paid to a player” said Swamiji.

Being unemployed and knowing fully well the astronomical sums paid to some of the cricket players I wondered if it would be possible for me to enter into this profession. Swamiji seemed to have read my mind and said, “Don’t worry, I will partner you and assist you in this endeavor, if you could find a team that would want our special skills”.

I immediately started listing out all the teams that I knew of that could benefit from such a service, especially those teams that had not done too well and had been placed in the bottom half of the points table in this the second edition of the IPL and who would want to do better next year in the third edition. I instantly began to draw up an application that I hoped to send out to such team owners and managers.

Any takers; anyone?