His story..

Disclaimer: All characters mentioned here are purely fictitious and any resemblance with any body living or dead.... Well, I do not care, go to hell!!

He watched as the clock ticked past 9 o'clock. He looked around to see if anybody was still there. There was just this guy in another cubicle studying something deeply from his laptop. The rest of the floor was empty, the lights were dim over the unoccupied tables. The security personnel were doing their routine rounds, the coffee machine was still delivering coffee to some late night employees. It was different. Just a few hours ago, the whole place was buzzing with people aspiring to become successful engineers, managers and consultants. One could hear incessant rings of cellphones, of the copier tirelessly copying stuff, of computers occasionally making sounds to deliver some error messages. Now, it is totally different. The low lights, the silence and the serenity seems to create a different ambiance, perhaps reiterating, its time to go home!

No, he was not a stranger to any of these. From the day he joined, he would stay back late. Not that his work pressure was high, its just that, there was no point going back so early. In a foreign land, far from his family, he hardly had enough to do in his apartment. He would instead sit back in his office and kill his time. More often than not, he would playfully browse through the girls profile, over and over again. He would read her scraps, go through her favorite books and ensure he had read all of them. He would then move on to the profiles of the people who had scribbled in her scrap book to see her reply. He would go through the scraps the girl wrote in his scrap book last time she was online.

This girl is actually a very old friend. They had been good friends from the school days, sharing stuff, giving each other advise, helping out each other with assignments. A few years later he left for his college and job. Then he realized something he never did before. He realized how hard it was not to see the girl everyday. He would call her now and then. They would chat for hours, talk about stuff like what happened in office the other day, how the girl missed her tuition for waking up late and so on. But then, the guy would still miss her. Specially after he talked to her. Strangely, he would not feel the same way for any other friend of his. May be he was not very close with his other friends. Whatever!

The same day, he was walking back from his office at the middle of the night. His cell rang, it was the girl.

He received the call, "Hey!! hows life?"

"bas chal raha hai, tutions, internship, tuitions again... same as any other day.. just lucky all these are getting over soon.."

"ya, just five more months to go, then you get your degree.. cool!"

"ya... five more months..... "

"so thought of what you're going to do after this as yet? or are you still undecided?"

"no, nothing.. actually about that, there is a news.."

"what?"

"my mom told me, there is a really nice guy, he is of the same caste and everything, my grandma liked him too... "

"okay.. so there is a nice guy, so what?"

"so my mom told me, I am old enough to get married now.. why don't I settle with this guy? so I was thinking, once I complete my degree..... "

He hung up the phone. Some kind of an impulse drove him to do that. He stood in the middle of the road, confused, dumbstruck and shocked. For a moment, everything went blank! She is getting married? How can she get married? How can this all be happening? It did not make any sense!

Three days later, the girl called again..

He picked up the phone, "hello.."

"hey! how was your day?"

"nothing special.. so when are you getting married?"

"don't know, my dad will talk to the pandit, may be, sometimes early next year..."

"so... why this decision all of a sudden? I though you wanted to go for a job... "

"Actually, my grandma is very old, and she wants to see my wedding. Also, this guy is of the same caste and everything... "

"Caste is this important? its the 21st century!"

"Well, for my family it is.. and for me, my family is important, so.... "

"fine.. bbye then.. "

He suddenly realized what he perhaps did not before. He realized, how jealous he was to see her getting married to another guy. How pained he was that she was going with a person she did not even know. How worried he was that she had decided to abandon her career for her family. Then he realized, this jealousy, this pain - its not just friendship. He loved her. He longed to and wanted to be with her. He thought, the next time he calls, he would tell her this. So, one night, he finally did..

"hey, whats up.. "

"nothing, just busy with the final reports and stuff.. what about you? hows your office?"

"cool, hey listen, I have been meaning to tell you something for quite sometime.. "

"ya, sure, what?"

"look, we have been friends for quite long, but lately I realized that the feelings I have for you, its more than friendship. I can't see you getting married with somebody else. I know I am not of the same caste and everything, but do you think we have a chance? I mean ..... "

silence from the other end... then she spoke

"actually, I have always seen you as a friend, never thought of you that way, I mean we are very good friends, but I don't think I love you or something... "

"so do you love this other guy? do you even know him?"

"see, I told you the other day, this is important for my family.... I just wish we can be friends"

"k, cya then.. good night"

Around two months later, the girl called again,

the guy said, "hello.. "

"hey, whats up with you? long time, no call .. nothing!"

"ya, actually, after that night, I did not know whether I should call you?"

"cum'on, I told you, we can be friends .... "

"ya, its not regarding what you said, its regarding what I want.. "

"what do you mean?"

"I don't think we can be friends any more, because that will only make it difficult for me to get over you.. and I would really appreciate if we never spoke again! bbye"

That night, he wrote in his diary:

"Dear Diary,

Today I broke all ties with her. I thought about it a lot. But then, why is it only the guy who has always to bear all the pain? Why is it that the girl always decides a guy's fate? Why is it that the guy is left alone to cry out his pain? Why is the world so mean towards guys only? Just because they are tough does not mean they can't have feelings.

So, I decided, I would let her feel all the pain that I felt. She took my love away from me. I took her friend away from her. And if ever she thought of me as a friend, she would spend at least one night thinking about this. Sure, this does not stand a match for all those sleepless nights I spent, but then, I did all I could."

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Good Morning!

It is 6:30 in the morning and I am awake. Awake in spite of the fact that, I slept at around 3:30 last night, awake in spite of the fact that, my alarm did not get a chance to scream today. I have a 7:30 class and had found myself looking up at my watch at six in the morning. Then, instead of falling back asleep, I had decided to get up!

Its nice, its nice to see the morning after such a long long time. Its nice to enjoy the serenity in the atmosphere, with people around you, all fast asleep. Its nice to see the red sun play hide and seek in the clouds, its nice to see the little sparrows getting disturbed by the sudden morning breeze, its nice to see the leaves of trees consoling the birds that their fluttered feathers actually look good on them, kind of bringing out their subtleness. Its perhaps the best start one can have to his day. I feel glad, I didn't fall back asleep.

Often, I wonder, why can't I have the world on my terms? I want to live in a place where its night when I decide to go to sleep, and its early morning when I decide to get up. I don't want stupid small clocks deciding what I should do and what I shouldn't! I want to get up early everyday and see nature flicking its magical wand to decorate itself. I want to get up early and watch the squirrels scurrying around. I want to see who wins among the sun and the cloud, in their childish play. I want to be a part of nature, to be free from the guilt that I, as all other human beings, have alienated myself from my very root. I want to go back to nature, I want to live freely, far far away from an artificial world!

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My Tryst with "Matka"s.

Matka - (mat' kaaaaaa.... ) 1. N. Master of Technology Students of IITs. Coined by the B.Tech (undergraduate) students of IIT Kharagpur.
2. Adj. Very Stupid creature, not necessarily human.

Warning: Calling any one "matka", specially if he/she is not one, might lead to loss of life or property. Also, as per the directive of the Supreme Court of India, the attacker (who was called matka, by mistake) cannot be prosecuted!

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the definition of "Matka". This term would have been included in Oxford dictionary long back, even before "lathicharge", but apparently, one of the person in charge of inclusion was a "Matka" once in IIT Kharagpur! Well, thus you can see that having IITians in top ranks world over is not always a pleasant thing!

My experience with "Matka" in IIT was so far restricted only to labs, where these creatures would take extreme pleasure to see us in trouble. And not many would disagree to the fact that lab hours could have been really enjoyable, but for these matkas. Its like, you are having your viva, and your professor has run out of questions and in a while, perhaps would have started asking nursery rhymes, when a matka barges in and starts asking stuff that, I bet, even he doesn't know! And you end up getting C in lab. Consider another case, when you have submitted a lab report, and in KGP, lab reports are prepared in the last moment, its not that we are lazy, but we take pride in the fact that we can complete magnanimous amounts of task in enviably short time, with the strained voice of Atif Aslam in the background reminding us of our distance from civilization, "dooooriiieeeee"! So, consider a situation where you have prepared a 10 page report in 30 minutes (well thats the time you get between lunch and lab!), with tables and graphs and crap. In the lab, with a sense of pride and self satisfaction, you submit the report. An hour later, a matka calls you (it took the matka one hour to figure out what you have written!) and says that, you did not put the scale in your graph, and you get a C, again!

But that was not it! In my final year, I had to take PG electives, that is, I would do my classes with the first year matkas (its a shame you cant ask for their "intro" or take their OP, now see, whats the fun without that?). And let me tell you, sincerely, from personal experience, Matkas are dull! They are, in some respect, even duller that George W. Bush! Firstly, they keep on standing up while answering or asking a question in a 30 strong class! They also keep standing up while giving attendance, and man! they attend classes every single day! Not Satisfied with these, the Matkas keep asking stupid questions in class, something that even a kid would figure out. Also, if a Professor does a mistake while writing a formula or an equation, it takes the Matkas full 10 minutes to figure that out, and once they do, they start shouting like crazy, as if in a race, who could point that out the fastest! I mean, grow up kids!

And lets not talk about their understanding of the subjects, some of them could even make Einstein look stupid, all they need is an aureole, and you could paint them and put those paintings up in a temple and worship! Once, a professor asked, how would you plot the probability density function of a sampled speech signal. Its very simple, really. You normalize the speech signal, break up the amplitude range into class intervals and go on ticking the proper class interval whenever you encounter a sample. At the end, you plot the curve! Leave aside answering to the professors question, half of the class raised their hands when the professor asked "who can't plot the pdf now?", after having explained the whole thing two times over! And to say, they are graduates in electronics engineering, or rather, they are electronics engineers!

Now I know, why graduates from IITs do not prefer to complete their Masters here. Its perhaps the aversion to the classrooms, where these matkas would once sit that drives them out after graduation, not only from the institute, but from the country altogether!

Disclaimer: Author does not intend to hurt the sentiments of any communities, other than Matkas, but since they are dull, they would take more than a year to realize that its them the author has written about! Also, for the readers who are dual degree students, the author wishes to clarify that they are not referred to as matkas here. Only the two year M.Techs are eligible for this grand title!

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Happy Friendship Day

I know this post should have come a long time back, and I apologize sincerely for the delay. In fact, I was having doubts as to whether I should support the "marketing stint" of companies like Archies and join the bandwagon of people wishing each other stuff like Friendship day and Rose day. Normally, and till last year, I did not support the concept and found myself wishing people back just as a part of courtesy. But this year, things are different. This year has taught me new values of friendship and has shown new faces altogether. This year has seen me breaking off with some of my old friends, this year had seen some severed relations in spite of enough effort on my part. Perhaps, those "friends" of mine had thought, they were doing me a favor by talking to me! Let them clear their misconceptions before we speak again.

On the other hand, I had seen another side of friendship. I had never expected people to be this helpful, this considerate. I had never expected people I hardly knew 2-3 years back to become such important parts in my life. At a point in your life when you are very very vulnerable, it really means a lot if someone around you comes up to you and speaks to you nicely. I have had friends making international calls during their summer internship, and even till recently to wish me luck in some of my endeavors. I had people pouring in their advice, help and support, and sometimes I would not even have to ask for the same. Its my friends who had helped me out of some very tough situations, tough times in life. If for them, at this day, I would be nothing but a mess, totally broken and destroyed.

In a gesture to thank my friends who had been with me through thick and thin, here is wishing all of them a very very Happy Friendship Day. May they be all successful in their lives, fulfill all their dreams, and may our friendship stand through all the odds and last for an entire lifetime.
And for the others who had preferred to desert me, ignore my calls, may the omnipotent give you some sense soon. And please don't expect to find me waiting for you when you decide to come back (if you ever do), because I prefer to forget those pages of my past that pains me. I prefer to amputate those parts of my life that make me unhappy.

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The Accused, The Trial and The Sentence...

"... don't walk into my footsteps. It is a horrible and painful journey. "

Well, the journey so far hasn't truly being pleasant. Believe me, its very very painful. You feel lonely, even in a crowd of your friends and acquaintances. It seems as if anything and everything that is happy in your surroundings is mocking you. Every little incident, however unimportant it may be, reminds you of those pages of your past that you would prefer to tear off.

I don't mind the pain, really, because this is my punishment for being horribly mistaken. And as a student of communication engineering, I realize how much a wrong estimation is penalized. So, I have learnt to live with the pain. However, something that bothers me the most is, after completing my "sentence", how much will I change? And I don't see any good changes on the cards. I fear, this awful experience of mine will turn me into a cynic. Nowadays, when I see movies or read novels, and whenever I come across a happy event in any of them, my reaction is like, "huh! like that could ever happen!!" I now have problems in coming to terms with any good thing happening to any one, be it even me! I blankly stare at problems that I successfully solve, in disbelief - "Now how could that happen!"

I have no idea of what I will become after passing through this sentence, this stage in life. But all I know is, I will have only myself to blame for all this. How could I not foresee this, how could I not consider failure to this magnitude. May be because, I never imagined I would fail, for I even today fail to realize, where I was mistaken, where exactly I went wrong. In the trial, the prosecutor did not even care to turn up, leave aside speaking. It was only me and me alone, shouting, pleading, frantically running here and there. And then, I was sentenced!

I object ... Your Honor !!

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The Nor'wester - A sonnet

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

I would once wonder, I would contemplate

if it was just to see thee in the beauty of may,

for "thou art more lovely and more temparate"!

Alas! I would once summer's beauty defy -

drunk in thee, for thy to me was untiring;

eternal, even death to me would fail to deny.

li'l would I know, fate against me conspiring!

Now when I watch summers passing by,

I search thee in the bright sun, the skies fair.

Its then that I realize how foolish was I,

To think of thee as my golden summer.

No, in a summer's eve, only a nor'wester is thee,

that destroys everything - as thee hath destroyed me!

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