Atonement - Short Story

Atonement => It is the process of showing that one is sorry for having done something wrong, by doing a good deed as a kind of repayment or self punishment. In Tamil, it is called as ‘Parigaram’ or ‘Prayachithham’. In many religious beliefs, it is widely accepted practice that one needs to atone, if he/she had done some thing bad against God.


“This is one of the best Atonement that I have presided over. Here after, the children will receive God’s blessings without any hindrance” - said the short, fat priest with mouth full of artificial smile; he was still counting the hundred rupee notes handed over by my father in law. The children he referred to were I and my wife. We were just married a week ago; and with tons of relatives and temples to visit, we are yet to spend some private time. Today’s quota is this ancient temple built by Cholas, about hundred mile away from our home, to do an atonement, for some unexplained mistake done by Father in Law years ago.

I, to be honest, detested the whole thing, and would not have come if not for my wife’s pleading. First of all, due to new policies that my office had come up with following recent recession, we were allowed to take only two weeks of leave for the marriage. And then to make matters worse, even in those two weeks I couldn’t spend time alone with her in Mauritius or Munnar or even in local Ooty as I had envisioned; I wished I could have been more stubborn and said a strong “No” to this temple Visit

It’s not that I hate temples. Though I’m an agnostic, I love temples, for its aesthetic beauty and its sculptural wonder. I love standing still in front of God in our native village, as our village priest goes through the chanting of Mantras, sincerely believing that God listened to them. Here it was different through. In between his mechanical reciting of mantras, the priest talked about his lunch plans in his mobile, discussed Dhoni’s tactical error in the previous days match against Pakistan, and also shouted in obscene Tamil at some of the devotees.

I don’t understand how my father in law, who was such an educated man, who had read all the scriptures by heart, would believe that God will forgive his mistakes done long ago, due to the Atonement, that he believes, he did today. If at all, his crime rate should have increased in the God’s book, for he encouraged Corruption in Temple, bypassed hundred’s of waiting devotees, and gave hundreds or rupees to a priest for whom a cricketer from Ranchi seemed more important than God.

I held my wife’s hands, as we walked out of the temple. That was the only little thing that can be said at least remotely positive about this trip. She knew I didn’t enjoy this trip. She must have praying all the while that I don’t make my unhappiness too evident in front of her relatives. After we went around the temple once, we sat in the couple of staircases that lead to the “Prasad Counter”. I wished her parents and relatives would at least sit few meters away respecting our privacy. However, as I know would happen, in spite of my wishes, they swarmed us like bee.

They all talked about a “Good Darshan” they got. “Its good to know priests in big temples like this” – My father in law replied with pride, soaking in glory of arranging a “Good Darshan”. I tried to avoid listening to the conversation. My wife also wanted me not to listen to it, as she feared I might retort. I tried to divert my attention by looking at the fellow devotees. A small five year old kid was playing with his parents, and I was wondering, if I would be playing the same games as his parents, few years down the lane.

Suddenly I could see an influx of college students walking past us, all with Chapels in their hand. I have never seen such thing before; people walking with chapels in their hand inside a temple. I looked at them in amazement. “Are they carrying their chapels, inside the temple, because they don’t want to pay two rupees outside to, take care of the chapels? Or is it some form of worship?” I wondered so, but I know it didn’t make sense. There must be a more rational explanation. I looked at my wife in bewilderment, for besides me, she seemed the only rational person in the gang.

She seemed to understand my doubt. Within a week of our marriage, she seemed to understand the meanings of each of my looks. “They have not come inside the temple to worship. They are going to the college on the other side of the temple, and using the roads will take lot of time. So they take the chapels in their hand and go across the temple to reach their destination. This detour saves them time.” This seemed rational enough.


Few minutes of silence followed. Her relatives were consuming Temple Prasadams like anything, even though just an hour earlier, we had lunch. I was admiring the beauty of my wife silently. My mind was dreaming that we were alone in Kulu Manali. My dreams were disrupted my Father in law’s shouting. “They should have been chased out of our country during independence itself. See now they are polluting our temples.” Besides being a business man, he was also the district secretary of the political party that believed India is a sole property of one religion. I wondered, what suddenly provoked his anger.

A Muslim lady (the costumes portrayed her religion), in her middle ages, was walking across the temple. I am sure she was using the temple, as the same way as the college students, to reach her destination quickly. However, she was wearing her chapels, instead of carrying it in her hands, like the college students did. That was what initiated my father in law to suddenly remember what happened more than half a century ago.

This time, I couldn’t control my anger. I wanted to shout at him and say, “Wearing a chapel inside the temple was no sin, compared to encouraging corruption inside the temple”. However I was distracted by my wife as she had got up and walked behind that Muslim lady. She completely detests her father’s party, so I was sure she was not going to pick up a fight with her, for wearing chapel inside the temple.

“Akka (Sister)”, my wife called her.

“Yes ma.” Muslim lady replied and turned around immediately. She was wondering, why a stranger was calling her. The fact that she was inside the Holy place of other religion must have added to her anxiety.

“Akka, you are not supposed to wear chapels inside”. My wife said in her usual, gentle sweet voice.

“Oh! I’m really sorry. I didn’t know that.” She immediately removed the chapels, took it in her hand and began to walk. Her apologetic face clearly conveyed that she had no idea that one is not supposed to wear chapels there. Meanwhile, my father in law decided that it’s time for us also to start, so that we would be able to visit (encourage corruption) in couple more temples, before we could reach the safety of our home.

So we started walking slowly towards the entrance of the temple. I was still worrying about the fact that I was also a partly responsible for encouraging corruption. If God Exists really, then I’m sure He would punish me more for encouraging corruption in his place, than for questioning his existence. And I also wondered about the foolish Atonement that my Father In law did. The whole trip seemed to be a foolish one.

As we are about to exit the temple, the Muslim Lady called my wife. She was standing near a small flower shop, run by an old lady. I walked along with my wife.

“Can you do me a favor”, the Muslim lady asked with bit of embarrassment.

“What you want us to do, Akka” asked my wife.

“Can you give this flower to God” – saying she tried to hand over flower that she had brought for ten rupees to my wife.

My wife was trying how to say No, as we have already visited the temple, and it would take lot of time, to stand in line and visit the God again. Her father had already got into the van, in which we had come. I understood her confusion, but took the flowers from the Muslim lady’s hand.

“Sure. We will give it to God.” I started walking again inside the temple with flower in the hand, without bothering about my wife. My wife followed me, as I expected. I stood at the end of the line where hundred’s of devotees were standing. I was sure this time I will get the “Best Darshan”, and If God was even half as good as what the scriptures say, he would consider this ten rupee atonement of Muslim lady thousand times more than the one My father – In law did.

Suddenly the Trip turned from a foolish one to the most meaningful one I have ever made.

Note: This story was based on the true incident narrated by my friend Padmavathi.

Landline Phones and Friendship

“Hi Subramani, how are you. Bala said you are working in Infosys. How is your work going on? How are your parents and how is your little sister?” – Bala’s dad went on asking questions. It has been long since I had spoken to him. By the way, Bala was my best friend in school.

I started thinking when the last time was, I spoke to Bala’s dad and mum. I couldn’t recall correctly. However I used to speak to either of his parents, whenever I called him to discuss about some thing during our school days. Mostly his mother would pick the phone, and the phone would be handed over to Bala, only after she has spoken to me for some time. By this way, I came to know of his parents, and he also came to know of mine.

Our contact ceased over time, as we both went to college. It’s not that I stopped calling Bala; I still used to call him regularly to chat over variety of topics. Only thing, it’s not only the topics we discussed changed but also the phone we used. We no longer used landlines to talk to each other, we were using our mobiles, and of course our parents never attended call in our mobiles.

Meanwhile, few days ago, I tried calling Bala on his mobile to convey my birthday wishes to him. I was not able to reach him, in spite of making repeated attempts. It felt really bad that I couldn’t wish my friend on his birthday. I was left wondering what to do. It was then I remembered I had his land line number too. And it led to the conversation that I explained in the first paragraph.

After I put down the phone that day, suddenly I felt the urge to search how many of my friend’s land line number’s are stored in my mobile. First I began with my friends in office; those who became my friends either by the virtue of being my project mates or training batch mates. I would have met them first at a point of time, when mobiles were very well and truly integrated into our daily lives.

Unsurprisingly I didn’t have land line numbers of even one of them. And the same way I didn’t know much about any of their parents personally, other than the information’s they themselves have shared with me. Next I started checking for my school friends. I had the landline numbers of each and every one of them. And I have also spoken to the parents of all of them. I know each of them well, and they know about me too.

Now I moved to college friends. It posed a peculiar situation. It had people in both the categories. I had the landline numbers of guys like Siva who became my friends before they had brought their mobiles. And hence I have spoken many times to his mother whenever I called him. On the other hand, there were guys like Sudhagar, who had his mobile when I first came to know about him. As a result in spite of being his close buddy for close to five years now, I’m yet to speak to any of his parents directly, and also every thing I know about his parents were only through what he has shared with me.

Thinking further along the line, I was reminded of this. Even my Dad has few very close friends from his college days/ early office days. Still few years ago, they used to call him on our land line. If I pick up the phone, they used to talk to me for a considerable period of time, enquiring about my studies, future plans and all those stuff. Now thinking back for the past three years, I had rarely spoken to any of my Dad’s friends. I’m sure that it’s no coincidence that we forced our Dad to buy a mobile for himself, three years ago.


I began to wonder how much mobiles have changed our way of communication. No I’m not against mobiles. They help us to communicate to our friends wherever they are, be it in office, crowded bus, or in restaurant with their girl friend. But then don’t they also make sure we communicate only with them? In days of landline whether we liked it or not, we were forced to communicate with our friend’ parents also, and we began to get to know them. Now has the mobile, filtered those additional communications?

“In Western Countries, marriage is between two individuals. Whereas in Eastern countries, it is between two families.”- goes the famous saying. I may sound Old- Fashioned, and traditionalist, but I actually believe even friendship is complete in countries like India, only when they are between families and not individuals; but is not the mobiles changing our friendship to more individualistic levels?

I’m not saying this trend is right or wrong; but these are just honest reflections that went through my mind on the day I could convey my birthday wishes to my friend only because I had his land line number…..

Purpose of GOD (Short Story)

Introducing Him:

He is the lead character of our story; though he is in every way different from the lead characters of our conventional Tamil Cinema. He can’t fight against ten people at a time; he is poor, but he does not love the daughter of a cruel cum rich man; he doesn’t have ten friends, who roam around him making fun of others; and he is working. By the next Independence day, he would have completed twenty six years of his existence on this planet, of which last two years has been spent guarding an ATM centre at night. He landed at this job, after being a driver for two years, the job which he quit after he ran over a baby (though the fault was with the careless mother and not him). Living as one among seven people who share a small room in Guindy, he saves his salary as much as possible and sends them to his old ailing parents living at a small village, located in the middle of Tanjore and Kumbakonam.

Introducing Her:

She is also the lead character of our story, but unlike Him, she shares many of the characteristics of the female lead characters of conventional Tamil Cinema. She is beautiful; and her looks forces opposite sex of all ages to turn around and have a look at her and she is the only daughter of rich adoring parents. However her similarity with Movie Heroines stops there. She is extremely bright, intelligent, independent girl who never agrees with common perceptions. In spite of getting engineering seat in Anna University after twelfth, she declined it and joined BA English Literature. She later did her Post graduation in Mass Media and Journalism, and is working as a freelance Journalist for the past two years. She balances her time between her work, writing a new novel, completing her thesis for the PHD, teaching at a orphanage and taking care of her mother (after her father’s death due to the cardiac arrest the year before).

June 18th 2009, Thursday:

10.30 am: Every day by this time, he goes out to eat his breakfast, and after breakfast he sleeps from 11am to 5pm soundly, so that he can be awake the entire night while guarding the ATM. Unlike some of his colleagues, he doesn’t believe that sleeping after 2am when no one uses the ATM, is ethically right. On this eventual day, as he was returning after eating five idlies, he saw an old lady being almost run over by a Maruti Amni. The driver of the car didn’t even bother to stop. The images of him killing a baby two years ago came to his mind. He decided to make amends for it. He rushed to the rescue of the old lady.

5.30 pm: He was still sitting in the hospital. He had taken the old lady to the near by Government Hospital, and there she was operated upon. The nurses there asked him to trace the where about of the old lady. He tired calling the only mobile number present in the purse of the old lady from the morning. He was unable to reach the concerned person. So he decided to sacrifice the sleep for one day, and be with that old lady until she regains her conscious. The operation was still going on.

6.00 pm: The operation had been completed and she was no longer critical. He was satisfied, and decided to go to work, after the Head Nurse there promised that she will take care of the old lady. He went to his room, slept for two hours and went to his work still feeling sleepy.

11.30 pm: He was sitting in front of the ATM, and his sleepless morning is taking its toll now. The three cup of coffees he had consumed in the past one hour weren’t of much use. He had started to doze off sitting in his chair in front of the ATM.

11.45 pm: She was returning after a long journey. She had gone to cover the opening of the bridge, by the chief minister. She unlike the other Journalists doesn’t go to such meetings just to cover the speeches of important leaders. She normally tries to hit upon some stories that no one else would have any idea about. Today she wished to capture in her cameras some cracks that normally are visible during the opening ceremony itself in many of the bridges. However the contractor seemed to have been honest person, and there were no cracks visible.

On the way back to home, as she came across the ATM, she decided to take money to buy gift for her mother’s birthday tomorrow. However on seeing the security guard of the ATM sleeping, her journalistic mind came to the forefront. She took the photo of the sleeping security guard in front of the ATM and slowly left the place. Earlier that day, she has already taken the photograph of the sleeping Cabinet Minister, as the CM was delivering his long boring speech. There was also another photo of the college students sleeping nicely in the classroom with her. She could already think of apt headline – “When will India awake?” – With these three photos, she could write an interesting article that the editors of the famous newspapers would love to publish.

June 19th 2009, Friday:

2.00 am: On the train to home, she completed her article in her blackberry, and mailed it to the editor of “The Times of India”. She also saw that she had ten missed calls from an unknown number. Some one might have called when she was busy during the meeting. She decided to call him/her in the morning. Just then her mobile ran again. It was the Government Doctor living opposite to her house. Wondering why he is calling her in the midnight, she attended the call. Her replies were as follows: “Hello” ….. “Oh is it so”, “I will be there in half an hour”…. “Please be there till I come”. She immediately rushed to the Government Hospital. In the chaos she forgot about that ten missed calls.


10.00 am: Normally he would have been delighted to see his photo in the newspapers, but having seen his sleeping photo, he knew he had to search for a new job. In his sadness because of job loss, he forgot to enquire about the well being of the old lady he saved the previous day.

If this had been a Tamil Movie:

Some how, She would have found it out that the person who lost his job because of her photograph was the same person who saved her mother. She would have went to apologize to him, and in due course of time, they might have been singing an duet either in Newzland, Australia or any other country, the director wanted to see free of cost.

But In Reality:

After a week or so, she went to the church and praised the Lord for sending an unknown Angel to save her mother. Earlier he had went to the same church to angrily question the God, why He keeps sending him trouble so often, though he has consciously never done harm to any one.

Ending with a message:

In Movies, Hero would be responsible for all the good things and Villain for all the bad things. However in real life, when we can never find out the concrete reasons for the sudden goodness or badness that envelopes us, when it is difficult to find heroes/villains responsible for our happiness/trouble, whom else to blame/praise other than the God?

Indian Software League

This is the story of drastic change my office has underwent for the past two years. Two years ago, my office was in shambles. The Global recession had hit my company too, and there was a talk of job cuts, no promotions, etc. I, myself was not a great worker, who just managed to scrap through in good times. I expected the worst. Then came that surprise decision; our company was taken over by the charismatic leader who had earlier turned the game played by nobles when they had nothing else to do into an million dollar business.

The management change brought about mixture of reactions among the employees. What does he know about software processes was the common talk among the employees; but then we forgot to remember that he knew so little about the game involved in his previous venture too. We thought he can only bring destruction to our company. However there was so little that we could do, and we waited for him to formally take over the company.

“How many Non – Marsians (Marsian is our company name) were involved in each of the projects?” was his first question on the eventual day when he took over the company. “What” our Delivery head was stunned. “Sorry, I didn’t get your question” he mumbled. Our new chairman slowly repeated the same question that our chairman very well heard the last time too. “How could people from other companies work in our projects?” - Our Delivery head never has the habit of giving answers. He always asks another question in response to a question.”

“I want the answer. How many” demanded the new chairman? “None” – said the delivery head. Our Delivery head being forced to answer the question was the first change the new chairman brought to the office, and by the next week, four people from other company were working in each of the project. (And some of them from other company were sitting in bench too).

“How do you allocate software engineers to projects?” – was the question raised by our chairman in next meeting. Our delivery head started explaining the complex method used by our company to randomly allocate people to projects. He listened patiently to it, and then said scrap it. “Here after Software engineers would be allocated to project after bidding by the managers”- said our new chairman. Frenzy bidding took place for some of my colleagues, who were considered, be very smart workers. I was brought (sounds very disgusting to say brought, but then what else to do) for the base price itself, by one of the maintenance project.

Meanwhile many more innovative strategies were used by the new management to boost the financials of the company. Most of the IBU heads were removed and they were replaced by film stars. When asked what they knew about management, our new chairman replied they knew how to motivate people; He was right, and our new IBU head, the famous Tamil actress, gave her affectionate hug if the project was completed in schedule and we never missed our deadlines after that.

Besides the hugs, there were other enterprising rewards too. Person with least number of bugs in his/her code would get to work in a purple computer. Person completing his/her work in quick time would get to work in an orange computer the next day. I never got to work in either of those computers, but then new chairman also appointed cheer girls in each building who would dance once every hour. That made me work doubly harder.

“We found yet another bug in your code” – read the mail that came from my onsite coordinator. Suddenly I turned around and saw our new chairman staring at my computer. I began to sweet and thought of excuses to give to him. However suddenly he shouted “Eureka” and left the place. Few days later, our company struck a deal with mobile company called “OXYGENTEL” and the next day I got following mail from the Onsite Coordinator: “We found another OXYGENTEL bug in your code.” The mail was in sync with the HR orders we received the day before regarding Email etiquettes.

Meanwhile, though there were misunderstandings earlier, the other company workers now started to really desire the part time work our company offered(remember four per project). For just working hour per week in our company (some times not even that) they got more than what they earned in their regular companies. As a result, some people even applied for leaves in their company citing sickness, and they worked in our company on the same day.

The next year saw the major crisis. The owner of the premises in which our company operates asked us to stop our projects for that year due to some reasons. Every one thought that our company would take a great downward swing like Sensex during Great Depression because of this. However it was not case. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Our CEO decided to shift our office premises to one of our competing companies called South Venus. So now we no longer had people of other companies working in our projects, we also started working for our company project in other company premises. Of course our project was one of the luckiest one, as already four of the South Venians were working in our project and we felt at home.

The second year, I was also privately recruited by the CEO to do another task besides my regular project work. I was asked to write anonymously about various fights that go on between our Project leads and our onsite coordinators in our company Bulletin Board. Though no one know it was me, I became famously known across my company as “Fake Software Engineer”.

During this year, our CEO also become concerned about the amount of work we do, and said that after every hundred lines of code, 7.5 minute break was compulsory. CEO felt that the break will help us to analyze our code and take decisions on how to code effectively after the break. Some senior software engineers complained that such compulsory breaks affected their momentum.

Stupid people. I loved those breaks, and those breaks also meant extra money to company. Our CEO had an arrangement with a Soft drinks company to exclusively sell their products during this breaks, and the contract amount went to some million dollar rupees. Those stupid people said he introduced these breaks just to get that money, though I don’t agree with them. He introduced the break to help us mate.

In spite of silent prayers of many who thought we will face the problems in the second year due to economic depression, we continued to do well. For example, one of our projects recruited a tester called Peterman from other firm paying 5,000,000 dollars and he ended up testing only five programs. J. Who said we are in midst of economic recession?

So only two years have been completed and we surely are going to see many such earth shattering changes in the future, which will make our company as the best. Once the changes are done, I will write them for you in the next story. Till then Good bye.

PS: Some traditions points out, that there are some weakness in the way in which in our company operates. Two years ago, our company won a million dolor projects from one the client called “International Software Council (ISC)”. However this year, most of our competitors had inside knowledge about our company as they worked in our projects and they used it to their advantage, and we lost the bid in second round itself for the same project. L

Why Obese People love Cricket?

2007 Men’s cricket World cup in Caribbean was known for first round exits of two Asian Cricketing giants, India and Pakistan, Death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, lackluster scheduling by ICC, and the huge ticket prices that kept the locals away. However one positive image of that World cup was the picture of heavily built Dwayne Leverock of Bermuda, diving and taking a stunning one handed catch at slips to dismiss Indian opener Robin Uthappa.

This is these moments that distinguishes cricket from other sports. The moments that give obese viewers sense of connectivity with cricket that other Modern day sports lack. In no other sport, we could find such heavily built players who have little respect for what exercise means, and who devour ice creams can find a place even in the club games. Whereas in cricket such players turn out and represent their nations and World XI.

In soccer, a person like Inzamam or Ranatunga couldn’t even have represented his village side, whereas they were the captains of the respective national teams in cricket. What Inzamam and Ranatunga showed to the World was that even in days of Jhonty Rhodes athletic fielding efforts; cricket still has a place for those, who don’t worry that their heavy built body.

Change is the only thing that doesn’t change. Change also gripped the cricketing fraternity. To attract wider audience and to make a cricket a major sports outside the commonwealth countries, Twenty twenty games were introduced. It invariably lead to increased importance being given towards fitness of players. Selectors no longer selected the players solely based on the batting/ bowling skills alone. Youngsters, who couldn’t spring and dive and run like mad hare, were not even considered for selections. Touring team not only included fifteen players plus coach; they now have dieticians/ yoga trainers/ strength coaches etc.

Coaches become more furious towards those who didn’t do their daily work offs. Cricketers were forbidden from eating whatever they want. Calorie intake of players was closely watched. Pastries and desserts were punished by more rigorous work outs. Players who just turned up for the match and batted/ bowled were only memories of the future. Players were forced to do all sorts of things from playing rugby to touch football before the match to make them fit.

People, who liked cricket the way it was, began to worry that the Gentlemen game will lose the charm of players like Inzamam and Ranatunga. The way they ran, and drove the ball, in spite of having those extra pounds was a treat to watch for any one. People didn’t want to watch twenty two extremely fit individuals diving and running fast. They love that, but they also love the difference that these obese players bring.

This is the reason when they saw some one like Jesse Ryder turn up and represent Newzland, they become highly excited. Jesse looks plump, drinks (or drank) heavily but also plays cricket well. “If you can drink and still cover drive, you are Jesse Ryder” screamed one poster during the India – Newzland test series. Cricketing World was some what relieved to find out that even during these fitness conscious days, a player like Jesse Ryder could find a place in the National team and also play successfully.

Jesse proves that in spite of what coaches try, cricket will still spring up players who disobey the “Stay Fit” rule and turn out to be success stories. Cricket loves this unorthodoxy and that will be the exact reason why Cricket lovers would welcome Jesse into the Elite Team of Ranatunga, Inzamam and David Boon – players who showed that being not fit is not a recipe for failure.

Work on a Valentine day

The cab had not yet started. He once again tried to reach her; this was his fifteenth attempt from the morning. She has not answered even one of the calls. Fifty plus sorry messages he had sent also did not invoke any response from her.

He was Sridhar – a twenty three year old, software engineer, who has two years of experience in IT Field – all two years in Infosys Technologies Limited. Infosys has been good too him. He has managed two CRR1s in a row, couple of appreciation mails from the client in his project; and most important of all he got a girl friend here. It was during his training in Mysore that he first met her – her name Swetha – now working in Mysore DC.

It was she who was not picking up the call now; and she has every reason to do so. In spite of her virtually pleading with him, that she had to be at Bangalore on Sunday, he forced her to come to Chennai on Saturday. This Saturday was not just another Saturday – it was Valentine day and he had wanted to spend time with her. She agreed after a combination of persuasion and threat from Sridhar, and came to Chennai – but only after he booked her a return ticket in Cauvery Express on Saturday night itself – by this at least he could spend the entire Saturday with her

Alas! His plan however went awry and he was not able to spend even a moment with her so far. His Onsite Co – coordinator called him in the morning, and said there was a bug that needs to be fixed immediately. He couldn’t say no. His Onsite coordinator is not some one who ever asks him to come on weekends; unless of course there is an emergency. This was an emergency; that bug needs to be fixed. It was only a small bug – at most it would take only two hours maximum; but only he knows the system well and he had to come. He still consoled himself saying that he could at least spend the afternoon with her.

The small error in the code played hide and seek with him, and the two hours turned out to be ten hours, and now he is sitting in the six o clock cab hoping he could at least meet her for few minutes before she leaves. He nervously looked at the watch every few seconds. His watch showed six o clock, the cab has not yet started.

“Why don’t they start the cab on time” - it was just two minutes past six in his watch – but he was increasingly getting irritated. He had to be there in central at least by eight – that would give him half an hour to apologize and also gift the ring to her.

Its’ not the fault of the cab driver. He has to wait for the instruction of the transport coordinator. But the cab driver didn’t say that to Rajesh. “We will start soon sir” – the cab driver replied with a gentle smile.

The cab slowly left the office campus, and gathered momentum. He would be the last person to get down from the cab. The others would get down long way before Chennai Central.

He wanted to be as soon as possible with his girl friend. Normally when ever he travels in a cab, he would be praying to God that the driver should slowly and carefully; but not today, he wanted the driver to press down the accelerator to the full throttle.

Unfortunately, the young driver today, was not like some of his contempraries, who think they are driving in Formula 1.The cab driver was the person who loves to drive at the correct speed – and that made Sridhar angry. He let most of the cabs that started behind them from Office to overtake them. “Were you driving road roller before?” – Sridhar asked in a irritated tone to the driver.

The girl sitting next to him the cab was actually pleased to be at last traveling in a cab, whose driver follows road rules and her face showed that she didn’t appreciate Sridhar’s sense of humor. However the driver was not angered. “No sir, I was driving Mahindra Van before” – he answered matter of fact with a smile.

Sridhar’s anger increased at that reply. He started to murmur among himself – however every one in the cab was able to hear the murmur. “How these guys know my urgency. Working on a Valentine day, and missing a nice chance to be with my girl friend. Shit, now he drives as though he is Mahatma Gandhi’s grand child, following all rules. I’m not sure that she will ever forgive me for what I did today.”

The girl sitting next to him was reading the Zodiac Signs page in the morning paper. For his sign “Taurus” – it was given “You will make wrong decision’s today”. “Ya I made two wrong decisions today. First agreeing to come to work on Valentine day, and then to select this cab.” Other Infosians in the cab were hoping the driver would give him a fitting reply; but he remained silent with a gentle smile as usual.

He was lucky at last. The signal where he expected that the cab will waste at least ten minutes had a green signal. He hoped they could easily cross the signal, in spite of the slow speed. But the cab came to halt suddenly. “Why the hell you stopped? Go, its still just orange” – Sridhar was not able to control his anger any more and shouted at the cab driver. “Sorry sir, we are not supposed to cross the signal when it is orange.” “But every one does” – Sridhar almost yelled to the driver. There was no response from the driver other than his usual trademark smile.

More signals followed, and all others in the cab had got down. He was only person remaining, and he was racing against time, to meet his girl friend. For the first time in his life, he started to hate his job. How could he do a work, that doesn’t even allow him to see his girl friend on a Valentine day? He was angry at every thing; from his onsite coordinator, to his girl friend that is not picking the phone. But all his anger was now directed towards the cab driver.

“Sir, will we reach Central before tomorrow” – he asked the cab driver mockingly. “I will try to reach as soon as possible” – the cab driver said with a smile. Sridhar began the long monologue of how he is the most unlucky person on the earth – how he could not stay with his love even on a Valentine day. The driver heard it all- but he kept on driving as usual.

At 8.20 the ten minutes before the departure of Cauvery Express, the cab reached Central. Sridhar got down from the cab, closed the cab door, at a high velocity in anger, and ran in to meet her.

After he left the cab driver, took his cell phone. There were ten missed calls. He dialed the number and began speaking, “Sorry dear, I was not able to talk to you properly even on a Valentine day. But what to do. Work is more important right. I had to take those people who work hard in office back to their homes. I will try to meet you tomorrow”

Sridhar was not there to listen to that and he continued to believe he was the unluckiest person – though he got to spend at least few minutes with his Love.

Yes or No - A very Short Story

It was the fag end of the nineteenth century. India was under the British Raj. He was in a great dilemma on what to do? He was not sure whether to say Yes or No.

He had just lost his wife. She had a disease that was neither cured by European medicines nor by the Traditional Indian Medicines. She had died without producing any offspring.

His parents were forcing him to remarry. They had even selected a girl from their native village. “He was too young not to remarry; people are even marrying in their sixties. What is wrong in marrying again?” was the logic used by his parents to convince him. Their concern was that if he doesn’t marry, their dynasty will come to an end, as he was their only son.

He had seen the girl, whom his parents wanted him to marry, few days earlier. She was pretty, young and beautiful; nevertheless he was confused. He was not able to remove his dead wife’s image from his heart. He was not sure whether to say Yes or No to his parents.

What did he say? Yes or No.

You would not have been reading this article if he had said No. He was my Great – Grand father.

Intentinal mistakes

Excerpts from the editorial on a leading news paper:

Today marks a new beginning in the political history of Tamilnadu, as Bharath, thirty four year old IIM graduate, will be sworn in as the chief minister of Tamilnadu. He will be the India’s youngest chief minister and also the first chief minister in state since Bhaktavachalam not to have any links with the Kollywood (excluding the brief period during which Mr. Panneer Selvam, was the chief minister). He thereby brings to an end the era of Rajkumar, who ruled Tamilnadu for the past seventeen years in a sort of dictatorship manner.

Though readers will be aware that our editorial board never agreed with the various policies of Rajkumar, we ought to give him credit where it is due. In the past thirteen years under his helm, Tamilnadu attained 100% literacy, became a huge industrial hub attracting MNC companies from across the globe, and its infrastructure became the role model for not only developing countries but also for some of the developed countries.

At this hour, we wish and hope that Bharath would follow the developmental path of his predecessor and at the same time perform them in a more democratic way, thereby creating a developed Tamilnadu free of severe restrictions placed on media and opposition parties during the previous regime.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

I reread the editorial written by my father, who was chief editor of the same newspaper, in which I am working as a political correspondent. I have been entrusted with the special task by my father, to write an article on Sunday, analyzing the reasons why Rajkumar, considered as a demi God by most of his followers, who won two consecutive elections with huge majority, who was described by Indian media as ‘21^st century Chankaya’ for his political acumen, lost to a party founded just three years ago by a youngster from a remote part of Tamilnadu.

Rajkumar – was born as the only child of the third wife of the liquor contractor, who was also a close aide of the former film director and the then leader of a famous party. Few years later, when Rajkumar was attending residential school in Ooty, the former film director became the chief minister of Tamilnadu, and he repaid Rajkumar’s fathers loyalty by making him the education minister; which took every one by surprise as Rajkumar’s father had never attended school.

Rajkumar however, unlike his father, did attend school, and even got the most outstanding student award when he finished his twelfth; though every one knew the only reason for that award, was the school principal’s extra effort in pleasing the education minister, as the school management had plans of opening a new engineering college soon. Rajkumar then went to US to do his undergraduate course, and since the college management in US had no plans of opening any new schools or colleges in Tamilnadu, he had to return back to India having spent five years without obtaining a degree.

Back in India, he decided to try his hand in almost all business, and tried doing business in almost all districts of the state. The only positive to the state because of his irresponsibility, was that some of the ill earned money of his father was lost due to his stupid ventures. Though in business, Rajkumar was a failure, he was highly successful in another of his venture – that of seducing girls. So when ever he left any district, he left behind not only a bankrupt business but also a grieving girl with unborn child of him. He selected the right girls – girls who neither had power nor strength to fight against the son of the education minister.

By the age of thirty five, he began to realize that he needs to be more sensible – after all as his father had already had two heart attacks, he could become the next education minister. With many more engineering colleges all set to open his father assured him that lots of money could be made. But just the education minister post didn’t satisfy him. He dreamt of more power; and it brought about a huge transformation in him.

For the first time in his life, he sat down and started to make plans for his future. He did an analysis of himself and found out that one field where he could do well was acting; he has easily deceived so many girls acting as a perfect lover. So he felt he could easily do the same in front of cameras too. When the then, chief minister’s son who was very interested in poetry, was busy writing lyrics for Tamil film songs, and also at the same time preparing himself to be the next chief minister under the able guidance of his father, Rajkumar decided to embark on this great journey, which if turned out successful, could help him achieve his dream.

With the help of his father’s money and power, he selected the promising young director, beautiful young model from Mumbai, famous comedy actor, make up team from Hollywood, who made him look more younger and smarter, strong marketing team and as a result his first film was a super hit and collected loads of money especially in B and C centre, in spite of the critics dismissing the movie as ‘Yet another normal masala movie’.

With the television run by his father’s party, continued to give him all the support he needed, he soon became a famous hero, giving super hits after super hits. He even managed to act in one critically acclaimed movie, and won a national award. It was then his father died, and few months later the chief minister also died, and his son became the new chief minister. When the new chief minister offered the education minister post to him Rajkumar politely refused saying that he wanted to concentrate on his film career. “It’s your job that I want” – he said within his mind. He continued to be an active member of the party though.

His party under the leadership of the former chief minister’s son lost the next general election. Though it is widely speculated now that Rajkumar played a huge role in the party’s loss discreetly, at that point of time every one genuinely believed that Rajkumar was sad like any other party member about the party’s dismal performance. Some of the prominent leaders in the party, started to the question the ability of the leader, and some even started talking openly about Rajkumar taking over the party’s leadership.

Surprisingly, Rajkumar declared his support for the former chief minister’s son and even campaigned through out the state for him. The corrupt rule by the other party over the past five years coupled with the active campaigning by a famous hero meant that the party came back to power winning almost all the seats in the assembly election. During the swearing in, the new chief minister told the media “No one in the world could dream, of having a better friend than Rajkumar”. The new education minister Rajkumar smiled.

Tamilnadu understood the full significance of that smile only two years later, when Rajkumar delivered the now famous speech in front of the entire national media. “Betraying a friend is a great sin. Today I am going to commit that sin, as I feel betraying one’s own mother land is much greater sin than that.” He handed over the documents in his hands to the media, with tears in his eyes. The documents were so meticulous enough, that based on them as evidence the High court would convict the Chief minister for five years of prison over corruption charges.

A week after the dramatic press meet, Rajkumar took oath of office, and said he was reluctant to accept the post, but only did so to save his mother land Tamilnadu and its people in this hour of crisis. Every one believed he would be yet another normal Chief Minister; but he proved them all wrong. His agenda for the first two years was no village in Tamilnadu without proper road and twenty four hours power supply. His hidden agenda for the same first two years was no opposition for him in the state.

He achieved both the agendas in such a way that, visiting US senator, remarked that village roads in Tamilnadu are comparable to highways in US, and on the same day almost all the second and third rung leaders in the major opposition party joined his party; they joined because they liked my principles – Rajkumar remarked, but people neither believed him nor dared to disagree with him openly.

It was then during Rajkumar’s first term in office, Bharath came into public picture for the first time. Bharath, who was born in a poor family in one of the most backward district of Tamilnadu, and had studied in a local Government school that had no Physics teacher for twelfth standard, nevertheless managed to score centum in maths in public examination. He couldn’t get a seat in any of the Government engineering college, because of his low mark in physics, and he couldn’t afford the fees in any of the private engineering college, hence he decided to do B.Sc Maths in Loyola College, Chennai.

When he was studying in college, staying in his uncle’s house in Ponneri, he was distressed by the continuous late running of electric trains in the route. He felt every one was unhappy about it, but none was interested to bring it to Government’s notice; that led to him spearheading the train boycott that lasted for four days. It was held so peacefully, that not even one rupee worth of public property was damaged or a singly person attacked during the first three days. On the fourth day, an angry young supporter of Bharath threw a stone at one of the passenger, who felt watching a movie with his friend was more important than helping the protest. The stoned missed the person’s head but broke the glass pane of the electric train.

Bharath immediately called off the boycott and surrendered to the police saying, since he led the protest he was responsible to any damage caused to the public property during the protest. And when he wrote a short story in prison about five different people were affected because of the late running train, and it was published in famous Tamil magazine, ‘Bharath’ became a house hold name.

Most of my friends in media think that Rajkumar didn’t consider Bharath to be his competitor then. But on careful research I found out that, a couple of friends organized a similar protest in a village against the poor drinking water condition, and media gave good coverage to it. Within six months one of the friend died in a road crash, and the other friend joined Rajkumar’s party, and since then has never spoken about his dead friend. If some one else does some thing positive, they should be either under him, or should not be there at all was Rajkumar’s same policy. Why was the same policy not applied in Bharath’s case?

Bharath later went on to pursue MBA in IIM Bangalore, but on completion of the degree, unlike his friends he did not accept a lucrative offer from MNC. He started an NGO in the Tamilnadu, that worked on identifying and converting the hidden talents among the villagers, and helping them convert their talent into profit making enterprise, thereby proving them an opportunity to come out of poverty and also give them lot of self respect.

Rajkumar was in is second term as a chief minister then, and I don’t understand why he didn’t weed him even then. A young girl who decided to start a NGO in Tamilnadu to improve the educational standards here two years before, suddenly decided that Somalia needs her help more, and went there to become a teacher. On careful research I found out that it was Rajkumar’s close followers who got her a job in Somalia and also her flight ticket; may be she didn’t accept to join the party and at the same time was also not foolish to die in a road crash.

His NGO created such an impact world wide, that a renowned writer down under wrote a book entitled “Silent revolution”- the book was in New York Times best seller list in Non Fiction category for ten weeks, and the book was translated into almost all Indian languages. The Tamil version sold more than one lakh copies. After Rajkumar became CM, no books about any other living person in Tamilnadu other than Rajkumar was published – A publisher who dared to publish a book about the former chief Minster, whom Rajkumar replaced, suddenly became bankrupt for no reason and the book was never published. But once again Rajkumar decided to be a silent spectator as Bharath became more famous.

The last straw came when Bharath announced the formation of the new party, “Citizen’s democratic party”, and Rajkumar responded by saying, “No one can defeat me, since people will vote for me, even if I myself ask them not to vote for me”. Even media believed the same then, as in those years Rajkumar had single handedly made Tamilnadu the model state for India to follow; but the same media now believes that it is his over confidence that led to his defeat.

I am not a great fan of Rajkumar; but one thing I’m sure is he wouldn’t have been over confident unless he himself wanted to be. He is too shrewd a politician to not to know when to be over confident and when not to be. If I need to write an article that brings out the true reason for the downfall, I need to find out why did he made such intentinal mistakes thereby letting Bharath replace him?; because I am certain that he couldn’t have let this mistakes occur without his knowledge.

Fortune favored me as I got an information from a reliable source that a man who was simply roaming around in Bharath’s native village suddenly got an job in Canada, and his only sister who was still then struggling to pay a monthly rent of thousand rupees, now brought herself a posh apartment in Kovai. On further investigation I found out that he was currently employed in an automobile manufacturing company, run by Rajkumar’s friend in Canada; and that he was the son of headmaster of the school in which Bharath studied.

If Rajkumar had sent him out of India, then I was sure that he will have some information that would help me in my pursuit of truth. I some how got the contact of that guy in Canada and made him believe that I am the agent of the Government of a developed nation, who were keen on stopping India’s progress. Thus I assured him that if he gives information regarding Rajkumar he would be safely protected by the security wing of the nation I am representing; the fact that Rajkumar was no longer the CM also helped and he agreed to part with the information. However he demanded huge sum of money, sort of money I could never hope to pay him.

This meant I needed to figure out a way by which I could extract the info from him, without actually paying him any money. I went to the Besant Nagar beach, as I usually do when I try to figure out a solution. When I was enjoying the fresh air there, a decent man in Raymond suite came up to me and said “Leader wants to meet you”. There were only two important leaders in Tamilnadu, and if Bharath had wanted to meet me, his personal secretary would have called me. So now I know that since I had come so close to find out some hidden truth about Rajkumar, I would be either offered a job in CNN or BBC in lieu of keeping my mouth shut, or my newspaper would print news in a small tabular column in third page tomorrow, “Political correspondent died in a car crash”.

I was taken to Rajkumar’s ECR apartment where he usually goes to take rest. “Good morning, how are you” – he came in front of me wearing a causal shirt and shorts, costume in which 99.99% of public in Tamilnadu could never hope to see him; they have to be satisfied watching him in his usual white shirt, white dhoti attire. I bought all my courage to the forefront and replied “I won’t accept your job offers abroad; neither have I want to die in a road crash. Please use some new method to kill me.”

He laughed loudly. “Who said we are going to kill you? I only weed out people when I find the truth they have will affect Tamilnadu at that moment, or things they do may affect the state in the long run. There are so many people who know so many truths about me, but they keep silent not because they are afraid of me, rather because they also understand that it is in best interest of Tamilnadu that the secret remains secret. That headmaster was one such person, though his son betrayed me.”

He continued after taking a sip of hot coffee, “Any way I actually invited you to tell the truth myself, so that that guy doesn’t end up making more money. It doesn’t matter if the truth comes out know, because my objective has been already achieved.”

He handed over to me a big book, perhaps it is his diary, I thought. I opened it and was surprised to find, ‘Mahabharata’. “Do you know the story about Shakuntala that comes in Mahabharata?” – He asked me.

I know that story. Shakuntala was the daughter of sage Vishwamitra, and she lived in the forest under the guardianship of another sage. It was then king Disyundhan came to the forest, and married her on being attracted by her beauty. They spent some happy days together, and Disyundhan left back to his palace to sort some problem, and promised to Shakuntala that he would come back and take her to the palace, once the problem was sorted out; he never came back.

Meanwhile Shakuntala gave birth to a baby boy, and after few years out of desperation went in search of the King. In the palace, Disyundhan said he never knew them, when the holy voice from Heaven informed the king that the baby was indeed his. Shakuntala thus become the queen, and their son went on to become the first empire of India. His name was Bharath.

“Bharath – I don’t know why that cute girl whom I seduced when I was young, named him so, but when I came to know that Bharath, was my son through the headmaster when he held that train boycott, I thought the name was indeed true; that he will be a great ruler like the ancient Bharath.”, Rajkumar said.

“I could have made him the chief minister then, but Tamilnadu at that stage was not ready for a good, just ruler like Bharath. It needed a sort of cruel ruler like me, and hence I had to make him wait so long. Now he could rule Tamilnadu in a just manner and also help the state make huge progress, me having laid the foundation.”- He added.

“But when you felt, Bharath was ready to be the CM, he could have easily declared him as your son and made him the CM. Why you intentionally made so many mistakes to allow him become CM, when you could have followed the easy way, as people would have voted for anyone you pointed out?” – I asked.

“Read the book carefully and find out the explanation given by king Disyundhan for not accept Shakuntala as her wife, when she came to the palace with Bharath. My explanation is also the same.” – said Rajkumar.

I read out loud from the book. “Shakuntala, I know that you were my wife and Bharath was indeed my child. However if I had accepted you just like that as soon as you came to the place, People may doubt your credentials and the credentials of Bharath to become their ruler. So I wanted to accept you only after the God himself said from heaven that Bharath is indeed my child – said King Disyundhan”.

“Who is the God in Democracy?” – asked Rajkumar.

“People” – I said.

“That’s why I waited for people to say that he is their ruler, rather than me saying it” – Rajkumar concluded.

Wife's best friend (Short Story)

The coffee that had been given to me by the young maid in our house was obeying some Law of Physics, studied by me in my school days, and was steadily losing its heat to the surrounding atmosphere. Sitting next to that coffee is me – Yes, I have that peculiar habit of asking for a coffee, when I am busy thinking about something, and then forgetting to drink it. That too when I am trying hard to find a solution to a problem, I let the coffee reach an undrinkable temperature, before asking for an another cup of coffee, which nine out of ten times would end up reaching the same fate as its predecessor.

The problem that I was facing was to search for a girl friend. No. I was not searching for a girl friend for myself. I am happily (sadly, if you insist on the truth) married for the past two years; one year, ten months and six days to be more precise. Rather, I was searching for a girl friend for my friend. I am not even sure whether I could call him as my friend. Truth is that he was my wife’s best friend and hence become my friend by default. I first met him two and a half years ago ……….....................................................................................................................................................

I was waiting at a restaurant, ready for my first date. First Date- This is how I described my second meeting with my future wife to all my friends. Our first meeting was an official bride seeing ceremony, where I could only see her for few minutes among my fun making cousins, uncles, aunts and all those who are in some way or other related to either of my parents or her parents. She was wearing a saree, and here uncomfortable ness in that clearly suggested that it was for the first time she was wearing it.

Though I didn’t talk to her then, I did talk to her non stop for hours in mobile after our first meeting. It was then that we decided that we will meet in some restaurant to get to know each other better. The first restaurant I suggested to her was rejected by her – “food will be very bad there” was the reason, second due to cost factor – “Oh damn, costly!” was her reaction, and when I suggested the third, her tone suggested that she was convinced that I had never been to any good restaurant in my life. She suggested this restaurant – if my friend’s feedbacks were true, this one was definitely more costly than the second one I suggested. I didn’t say anything though, as I didn’t want our first fight to be over a choice of a restaurant.

As I ate the first course, I was sure the food quality was also bad then the first one I suggested, nevertheless I kept quiet, admiring the beauty of my wife for the first time without the interruptions of the others. It was then he came.

“Hi Praveen. How are you dude?” her face became extra bright on seeing him.

“He is your bridegroom, isn’t he?” – He said handing out his hand towards me.

I shook his hand. Meanwhile her sweet voice was saying to me in the background that he was her best friend.

Actually I was happy then that my wife had a good male friend. The last thing I wanted was to marry a conservative girl, who never spoke to any other person of the opposite sex and also expected the same from me. I couldn’t even think of ceasing to interact with my friend’s and female colleagues, just for my wife’s sake. At the same time, at that point of time, I wanted to spend time with her alone – I wanted to talk about so many things to her – things that I couldn’t say with another known person near by. I felt it would be better, if he leaves. After all this was our first date.

He must be a good mind reader. “Sorry guys for disturbing you in the middle of your date. I will leave now. Will meet you later” – he said.

I wanted to say “Yes. Thank you. Please leave”. But all that I ended up saying was “No, no you can have dinner with us. It’s a pleasure.” After all I’m a liberal person who doesn’t mind his wife/future wife having a male friend and I wanted to portray my liberal nature to her at the first instance.

“No any ways, I got to leave. I have a personal work. Bye” – saying he left. I was happy that he declined my invitation; but my happiness was short lived.

Her face still had the same brightness that she acquired when he first came, and she decided to fill her friend’s absence by talking about him. By the end of the dinner, I couldn’t say any of those things that I wanted to say to her, but if whatever she said after Praveen left were to be true, then he must be a better cricketer than Sachin, better writer than Jeffery Archer, better music director than Illayaraja, better actor than Kamalahasan and better singer than SPB.

However, what made me angry was the last statement made by her, “You know” – she said, “It is very good to have friends of opposite sex. But sorry, how will you know? Your mum said that you have never even spoken to any other girl” – she said laughing.

“How does my mother know” –my tone was raised for the first time that evening. Then I exaggerated and narrated about the female friends I had - I didn’t lie actually. I described the college friend who always called me to get the study materials before the examinations as a “Best friend who always relies on me during crisis and calls me.” – It isn’t a lie, right?

I don’t think she believed whatever I said. She wanted me to believe all that she said about her friend, but she will not believe things that I said about myself. I didn’t leave the restaurant; in the happy mode I entered it. I wanted to prove her some how that even I had lot of friends in the opposite sex.

When I was distributing the marriage invitation I made it a point include as many girls I know as possible in the guest list. I found it very hard to trace the address of that best friend of mine, who called me for study materials, as the last time she called me was before the final semester and that was solid five years ago. I finally traced her address to Bubaneshwar and made it a point to personally go there to invite her. Her husband and she both were equally surprised that I took so much trouble to travel such a long distance, when I could have easily emailed them. They promised that they will come to my marriage, although she said, her son’s primary school has some function that day. As I left her house, I thought I heard her say to her husband, “I was not even a close friend to him. I don’t understand why he traveled so long just to invite me.”

She didn’t come to the marriage – her son may have persuaded her that his school function is more important than the marriage of the guy – who used to give her study materials in her college days. In spite of me dishing out invitations – the only ladies who turned up for the marriage other than my aunts, grandmas and mother’s friends were two of my colleagues, and even them left in half an hour.

On the other hand, Praveen was there for the entire marriage, and also helping out in lot of arrangements. In middle of that, he also found time to come and giggle something to my wife, now and then. Her face always turned rosier, after he said something. I don’t know what made me angrier – he giggling with my wife, or the fact that I didn’t have any female friends to giggle with me. Any ways I didn’t show my anger – I did not want to be seen as a yet another normal conservative husband, who couldn’t digest the fact that his wife is talking to her male friend during the marriage.

After the marriage – I had to find a new house, as I was still then staying with my friends. Though my search for a new house began well before marriage – all the houses selected by me were rejected by her – she invented new reasons to reject each of them – one was too big, other too small, one too far away from the city, other too close to highway, - she even rejected one saying that it was too close to a police station. At the end I had to accept the house chosen by Praveen, near his house – the house described by her as a Heaven on Earth. I felt it was the worst possible house in the worst possible location on earth – but as you would have guessed it by now, I didn’t offer this opinion to any one and kept it within my mind.

Actually his trouble became more pronounced after the marriage. With both of us working – weekends were the only time we got to spend together – and he made it a point to visit us on exactly on the same day – and his logic was flawless. “I could meet my friend only on weekends” – easily forgetting that his visit means, I couldn’t spend lonely moments with my wife even during weekends. As usual, I didn’t say anything and acted as a very happy host on those weekends.

The major problem with these visits, were that whenever we were together on the weekends, they made it a point to discuss things, about which I didn’t understand a word. “’By the age of sixteen, the only thing he didn’t know about smuggling was how to spell it’- this is how he describes about a spoiled teenager” – said my wife. Today, they were discussing about a guy called Jeffery Archer. Praveen suddenly turned to me and asked “Have u read Archer’s novels?” He has that unusual knack of asking questions to me, for which the only answer I could give was ‘No’.

“I read only Tamil novels” – I blurted out.

“Oh! Exciting. Even I like Tamil novels more than English ones. Have you read ‘Ponnyin Selvan’? – He asked.

I had once seen that novel in our college library, when I went to get some ‘No due’ certificate there. (The only time I visited my college library in four years was then) It was such a big novel with six volumes. Considering my reading speed, if I had started reading it I’m sure I could never complete reading it before I die. The largest fiction I have read so far were the one page short stories in Tamil magazine ‘Kumudam’.

However I said “Yes” as I did not want to give yet another No as an answer to him. But he seemed keen on irritating me. “Which character in Ponnyin Selvan you like the most?” – He asked.

“Ah! Mmmm. I forgot the name. That heroine character. I like her very much.” – I said hoping such a big novel will have at least one heroine.

“Heroine. Whom you will call as heroine? Few may say it’s Kundhavi; but I differ with them. For me ……..”

He went on speaking, and I didn’t understand anything he said; but my hatred towards him become more prominent, as my wife seemed very happy that my ignorance has been exposed.

In few weeks time, both of them were convinced that I was worse at every thing than either of them. I didn’t help my cause any further, when I broke a bulb when I tried to change one, uprooted a rose plant when I was gardening, thinking it was a weed, and by breaking a beautiful wall clock presented to her by her college lecturer for our marriage, when I was trying to help her clean the house. In their eyes I was a person who was good for nothing.

Then came that weekend, when there was an India – Australia test match. I was happy because if there was anything on world I was bit knowledgeable about, it was cricket. At least today I could prove to them, that I know more than them in at least something I thought. We were watching the match – Sachin scored a beautiful pull shot that bisected the fielders to the boundary. “Good shot” – I said clapping my hands.

“Pointing is missing a trick here” – my wife commented.

“What?” – I exclaimed. I am that sort of cricket fan who only claps hands when Sachin scores run and not bother about the mistakes the opposition captain is making.

“Sachin’s legs are injured, and hence he won’t be able to move them properly. So Pointing should ask his bowlers to bowl full length, which will induce the edge. They shouldn’t be bowling this short pitched stuff.” – Praveen justified my wife’s comment. I was the only soul there without any support.

I decided to watch the match more seriously from then on, hoping to analyze something before they could do. It was then I found out that Sachin was easily milking singles behind the square on the leg side. “Eureka” I shouted with in my mind.

“Pointing should have one more fielder there, behind the square. Sachin is scoring singles easily in that region.” – I said loudly proud of my discovery.

“But there are already two fielders there” – my wife’s only purpose in life must be to disagree with what ever I say.

“Why not one more fielder? They can move that fielder from point to there. He is being wasted at point” – I wanted to win the argument at any cost.

They both laughed. “According to the laws of cricket, they are not supposed to have more than two fielders behind the square.” – Praveen said, now controlling the laughter; but she was still laughing at my ignorance.

“Oh! When did they change the law?” – I looked perplexed.

“Long before we were born. After the controversial body line series between ……” – Praveen went on narrating the salient points of that series between England and Australia and why that law was introduced.

It was then I decided that I could never hope to better than either of them in any field. That actually frightened me. I was afraid that one day my wife would come to me and say “Sorry. I could no longer live with good for nothing fellow like you. I will better marry my best friend”. I can’t afford to lose my wife to this guy.

People like you might have decided of thousands of solution to the problem – removing him from my path could be one solution – but my brittle heart would never allow me to cause harm tp any one leave alone murdering. Or I could say to him directly to not to come to my house any more – but I didn’t want to lose my image and get that ‘conservative husband with lot of suspicion about wife’ tag attached to me. So then I decided that I needed to find him a girl friend. So that at least I could get to spend time alone with my wife. I didn’t mind getting humiliated by my wife. It’s just that I didn’t want him to be there when I was getting humiliated. I also wanted to convey the fact that I am going to search for a girl friend for him in such a way that, it will also get me a good name from my wife, that I am trying to help her friend.

I got that opportunity one day when he along with my wife came back late in auto. The retired Government officer living opposite to our house looked at three of us suspiciously. He must be wondering with in his mind about me, “What kind of Husband is he? Allowing his wife to hang out with strangers in night. ” Even I felt the same about me. However I kept quiet as usual.

“He had a severe headache. I took him to hospital” – my wife said.

“See Praveen. This is why you should find yourself a girl friend and marry her. They will help you very much when you have headaches like this” – I said to him and looked at my wife proudly.

She smiled at me and said, “Ya, even I helped him (pointing to me) so much, when he had head ache last week. Though the only help she offered was getting me a tumbler of hot water to swallow my tablets, I didn’t differ with her, as she was helping my cause.

“Will you help me get a girl friend?” – Praveen asked me.

“Ya sure. I replied.” My wife looked at me more proudly now.

From the next day, I began my search for a girl friend for him. It was very difficult; though Praveen didn’t set any restrictions – no religion, caste, language or nationality bar- it was difficult to satisfy the only condition he set – that is he must like the girl. He said he was even ready to marry a girl from Mars, if he liked her. I wished there were girls in Mars.

If he should like a girl, I was sure that the girl should be as knowledgeable as him – not in one field – bit in wide range of fields from sports, politics, history, environment, language, religion etc. I did manage to find few girls, and arranged Praveen to meet them, but he was yet to say whether he liked them.

It was then I was sitting, letting my coffee go cold, as I was narrated to you earlier in the beginning of the story. After few minutes, Praveen came into our house with a big smile as usual and said “Sorry mate. You did select very good girls; but unfortunately I didn’t like any one of them.”

“So the only girl you like is my wife, right?” – I wanted to shout in anger. Before I could do it, he came up with very happy news.

“But I found myself a girl friend. I am going to marry her in few months.”

“Wow” – I said “When will you introduce her to me?” – I was very happy. My problems were going to be solved.

“I’m not going to say who it is; but already know her very well. Try finding her out” – he said, as my face started to darken again. The only girl I know very well is my wife, and I felt like crying.

“Religious Heads oppose Divorce” – he read the headlines in ‘The Hindu’ loudly. “Still these ultra conservatives exist? How on earth do they expect a person to continue to live with a person even if she doesn’t like him, just because they are married? They should have the right to divorce. Am I right? What do you say?

“Yes” I said mildly. I wanted to say, “Ya I approve divorce; but not when my wife is going to divorce me to marry you”. I kept quiet.

I couldn’t sleep properly that night, though my wife was sleeping peacefully next to me. I was wondering from when the other side of the bed would be empty. I couldn’t control it any more. I woke my wife at half past eleven.

“What?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “Do you know who Praveen’s girl friend is?” – I asked her sure that the answer would be “Who else other than me?”.

“You woke me up in the middle of the night to ask this question?” –she asked.

“Please tell me.” – I literally begged her.

“It’s Shanti.”

“Shanti – our maid?”

“Ya”

“I thought that he was looking for some one as intelligent as him” – I was happy that now my wife is not his girl friend.

“Do you think all people would like to marry people who are as intelligent as them?” – She asked.

“That’s what I thought” – I replied.

“If so, how on earth, do you think I agreed to marry you?”.

I know she was taking a dig at me, but I had never felt happier before. I pulled her close and hugged her, with out thinking about Praveen, for the first time in our marriage life.