Fathom

“Why don’t you commit suicide” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to do.
I met him just an hour ago coming down the stairs of my building. As mine was the top floor on the multi-storied building he must have surpassed to the terrace in search of someone, was my guess.
“Searching for someone” I asked hesitantly as always when talking to strangers.
“Not any one in particular” was an unexpected reply with a more surprising smile, which I was not used to because often people find me irritating. I don’t know if it’s because of my face or the stupid grin I usually give.
I couldn’t think of a response to the diplomatic answer. Sensing my confusion, to lighten up the things he said “I live in the same building, just out of loneliness came out to see if I can find someone to talk to”
I understood the reason for his smile.
He was a short middle age man wearing white T-shirt and brown 90’s style pant. Taking into account South India’s passion for lungi, I was sure he was from somewhere upside of the country.
“Well terrace is locked, you might have noticed”
“It has been long since, it seems you live all alone on this floor?” he said cutting me short.
“Not exactly, there are two other guys, one went for the morning shift and other has gone home. It can be pretty boring in here on shift offs. There are no places to go and certainly no one to talk to” I said sensing we share the same emotions.
“I have never seen you before” I added
“Neither do you recognize mates of other 36 out of 40 flats living here. Correct me if I am wrong” he said with confidence.
“As a matter of fact you are correct. People don’t mingle with each other much in this part of the country and they are particularly afraid of the unmarried singles like me. Would you like to have some tea?”
I don’t usually do it. But for no particular reason at all, with a formal introduction which was just exchange of names I invited him for tea. After he came in, for sake of precaution I deliberately kept the door open and took the excuse of nice wind coming through.
“So you got your kitchen all set up” he said after I handed him over the tea.
“That was the first thing I did, it can be very tiresome to find good food out here especially for the North Indians.”
“I see you are Computer Engineer, they don’t require much of you in the cooperation” he said seeing my Operating Systems book.
“They don’t require a single one of us in the plant. It’s just their some bullshit policy which makes us the prey. Well at least they pay me” I said realizing that was the sole reason I was out here in the jungle while my batch mates are making merry in metros.
“That’s a contradictory Facebook status here ‘Socially Dead….’on a social networking site” he said pointing to my laptop screen displaying my Facebook home page.
“That may not be literally correct, but taking into account my physical social interaction which is nil and online which is limited to checking the status of others, the statement can be considered true.”
“So no girlfriend I guess”
“Looking at me do you even consider any girl will look at me?”
“So you have a job you are not interested in, no girlfriend, no creative skills, an awry face and no social skills. What the hell are you doing on this Earth?” and then he asked the most obvious question.
“What do you mean” I said trying to assimilate the things he said.
“Do you know about the guy who lived right across your floor?”
“One who did fell off the terrace?”
“Let’s say he did ‘fell off’. So why don’t you commit suicide” he repeated the question.
“I am a Muslim, may be not the virtuous but a practicing one, moreover doesn’t the law of land declare suicide a crime”
“If not the persuasion may be fear will do!”
Since then I am unable to understand the cause of inconsistent rattling sound coming from the roof or from somewhere within me.

Life moves on....

First thing one visualizes when the sound ”Nuclear” hits his ear drums is about a nuclear war, and the foremost thing you notice about a Nuclear establishment is the security it is reinforced with (it seems almost half of the country’s CISF is deployed here). It does take time but eventually you do overcome the preceding thoughts and realize that it’s not only during war one needs to be careful about radiations but in places near nuclear plants also you must take all the precautions for radiation protection. It may be that not half the CISF is deployed here but every person working here seems to be military trained by the way they religiously follow the rules.

As a student of science I was always fascinated by the law of conservation of Energy- Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed it is just converted from one form to other, I thought a little a deeply about and realized that it’s kind of a universal law which can be applied to almost anything. Anything can neither be created nor be destroyed, it’s neither good nor bad, it just transforms from one form to other and it’s one’s own perspective which makes a thing adorable or hideous. The day I landed Mumbai and said to myself “I will rule this city one day” as Shahrukh Khan had said and thousand others say daily when they put their best foot forward in this city and then only time decides who remains true to his words. I guess fate was not on my side that day and only the next day I received the shattering news of being sent to Kalpakkam, and just before that moment, I suppose for the last time I had 100% confidence that I had done the right thing joining this organization. Percentage had been oscillating since and is still away from the perfect value and this was what I meant when I had written about one’s perspective makes a thing good or bad.

7 days of non-stop boredom followed the formalities of admission with all the languid presentations. The only moment I could see smile on helpless guys was the time when tea break or lunch break was enunciated or when the clock struck 5:00 PM. Despite of all this, bunch of almost 100 guys has its own ways of entertainment. I bet all the girls there had not received so much male attention in their whole life as they did in this one week. Boys will be boys after all no matter how the girl reacts or what she looks like or even how she feels about all this stuff, they just won’t stop hitting.

I always believed there were two kinds of people in this world- one who have seen the TajMahal and the other who have not seen it but then I met the third kind and they saw the world with their own different eyes and also classified them on a different genre. They also believed there were two kinds of people in this world- one who know something about a nuclear reactor and the other who are completely unaware of the principles of working of a nuclear reactor and to be very honest they are proud of this classification and if you fall in the later category you don’t deserve a respect. Everyone here seems to have an attitude of his own, whose is greater than whose is really hard to identify. I am still in process of identifying the cause of it, is it because of southern climate or nuclear radiation, but no success yet. Anybody from care taker to Training Superintendent can kick your ass and you have no right to complain about it. Although Bus drivers seem a little ahead of all of them, they just won’t stop when you want them to , they won’t start until they feel like, no matter what you tell them they will have only one answer “Ille!”(I don’t know if it means f*** you). They won’t let you in if they don’t feel like, they won’t let you out if you are a second late on the gate sometimes I feel had they been allowed they would have put a board on their buses “Dogs and Trainees not allowed” that too in Tamil so that dogs couldn’t read it and feel offended.
Sometimes you regret for your mistakes done by you knowingly or unknowingly and seek penance for it, believe me if you are a North Indian being served South Indian food daily you are repenting for your past sins. You are made to eat all that non-edible food and first time in your life you realize why people (North Indians) tremble when they talk of South Indian food.

Punjabi’s are FUN LOVING,
Rajasthani’s are orthodox and FUN LOVING,
Gujaratis are ritualistic and FUN LOVING,
Marathi’s are chauvinist and FUN LOVING,
Delhites are enviably smart and FUN LOVING,
Bengali’s are intellectual and FUN LOVING,
U. P., Bihari’s are emotional, short tempered and FUN LOVING

but Tamilians are one of their kind, they don’t love the word fun at all (or maybe they have their own version of the word meaning “fun”). But actually they are fond of some things like:

1. Keeping unpronounceable name of their places and themselves (try pronouncing Arulmigu, Karpagambal ) and with an extra “th” whenever “t” is required namitha, jayalalitha etc.
2. Wearing gajras.
3. Walking down in lungi’s and even better if barefoot(hope congress’s austerity drive was inspired here)
4. Waking up at 5 in morning and sleeping at 9:00 PM
5. And RAJNIKANTH, mind the extra “h”

People here just love rules and even love more following them, so next time you are thinking of getting into argument with a Tamilian better carry a rule book, it doesn’t matter if you have written it yourself (although you would have a tough time explaining him which rule allowed you to write a rule book). But along with all these things they are really decent and intellectual people with a heart which beats for love and emotions.

Among all this mayhem I had the sweetest thing in form of friends with me who did make everything so calm and easy. You really don’t expect such nice people in the corporate world after what you have seen it from outside. I know that every person is different in this world but guys around me seem to be specialist of their respective fields. We have the guy who just love helping people and one who know how to extract help from others, and we have one who can make joke of anything and one who can make anything a joke. We have one who can’t stop chattering about girls and one who can’t utter a word in presence of a girl. I can go on writing about the qualities guys here are possessed with but it seems sufficient for giving an idea of the genre we have and as far I am concerned ……. may be others will write about it.

DISCLAIMER:
All the facts and comments written above are for the sole purpose of creating humor and I deeply regret if any one finds them offensive.