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Som dropped the knife with a cry of anguish. His eyes were red and there were tears rolling down his cheeks . He started to realize the gravity of his actions. "Oh Lord! Will I be able to ever wash this off?" He then turned to his wife who was terrified of his actions and apologized, "Sorry dearie! I should have listened to you at the first place. I should not have volunteered to chop the onions. It is seriously irritating my eyes".

"Som! Where are we with the preparations? How is the final cut looking?". He was not ready for this sudden query. His wife appeared concerned . She signaled him asking what was going to be his response. He took a deep breath, wiped off the mess caused by his overflowing tear glands, hit the unmute icon , crouched close to the laptop mic and lied in a steady tone "I have almost completed the changes. The final version of the slides will be available for review in another couple of hours. Hope that is fine". "Yes. Can you share the initial draft now for a quick early review?", asked the 'voice' on the other end of Som's call. Som had no other go but to admit that he had logged in late that day, completely forgot about the presentation, while helping his wife prepare sumptuous Biryani. Then it happened. Like a blessing from the heavens, the hand of the Almighty seemed to have saved him from the repercussions . The bandwidth of his internet suddenly dropped to dangerous levels. The people in the call weren't able to hear his apology . In fact they just heard some gibberish , thanks to the network. He , unaware of his kid playing with the wifi router which in turn prevented his message from reaching his peers in the call, got pleasantly surprised when he heard "OK Som. Looks like you have some network issues. We couldn't hear anything. We can connect after a couple of hours as you told. Bye". He thanked his luck and forced a smile, but his smile withered soon when he realized that the network issue would have meant that the download of his favorite OTT series would also have failed. "Damn it!"

"Turn off the gas after you hear 5 whistles. Ok? You anyways have time for your office work. I have the PTM meet from Tittu's school now ", his wife , as if , waiting for him to close the call , dictated. " Adhe! What should I tell if his teacher asks about the zoo trip?", asked Som's wife. "Trip? Now in lockdown?", he rebuked. "Not a physical trip. A virtual tour only. But the school is charging Rs 1000 from each student", she responded. Som rebuffed the absurdity and tried to concentrate on the task in hand. He was not sure how things would pan out, whether others would like or not . After all, it was a new recipe he found, while browsing for a quick code defect resolution, the previous day.

Som, after finishing his presentation and obviously the Biryani, took a short walk. Though Som was not a great fan of working from home initially, the additional time that he could spend with the family, the flexibility, he could get with the work patterns and the chance to 'work for home' apart from 'working from home'  changed his opinion. Moreover, he could be at his native, far away from the busy city life. The greenery and the fresh unpolluted air would be welcome to almost anyone from the cities.

"Endha Soma!(Hey Som!) Seeing you here for few months now. Have you lost your job at Bangalore? What to do? Lools like lockdown has taken away your living too. Don't worry. We can start a recharge shop at the junction", said one of his acquaintances, while walking. There was one more person who requested him to take his cousin as an apprentice in his work so that he could also learn the 'art' of a software engineer and make him ready to earn 6 digit paychecks. "Art?". Som was confused as to what was there to learn in browsing stackoverflow and copying the working solution from there. "Uncle! Our project work is a high security one and I am not supposed to disclose it or share it with anyone. Sorry!", he lied and paced quickly back to his home. Som hated getting pulled into such random conversations and being quizzed about when he was getting married(though he already was married) , when he was planning to go to U.S.A just because someone's aunt's son , being a software engineer managed to travel on-site and post selfies playing in the snow there and when he was planning for his next kid.

Irrespective of the pros and cons that Work from Home mode offered, it is going to be the norm for some more time. Som once heard a granny in his neighborhood telling, "Men should go out and earn, whereas this Soman is sitting at home and working or that is what he claims. Aarkariyam(Who knows?)!". He grinned,  knowing that another one of the so-called outdated conventions had been broken. 

One Giant leap

She smiled but it was plastic. It looked like her boss was happy with the way things had been materialising till then. He seemed confident, but she was nervous and checking the diagnostics repeatedly. All good, thus far but there were still some critical milestones ahead , the thoughts of which got her adrenaline pumping at the rate of knots. The ghosts of the past failures of such missions seemed to have had an effect on her, making her worried. 

The announcement blared “150 seconds to land. Stage 7 initiated”. Those 150 seconds seemed like aeons for everyone in that building, the huge crowd outside and the billions glued to their screens , waiting for the most important landing in the history of the Homosapiens race. She , the head of such a critical mission was staring at the visuals with the timer counting down to 10,9,8… The world seemed to stop for her. “No! Not now ! I want to bask in this moment”, she told herself. 

She saw the capsule decelerating and touching the surface smoothly like a feather settling down on the sand during gentle afternoon winds. The only difference was that the surface was an alien one, few light years away from earth, ready to be mankind's first colony in space. There was a resounding applause. Her entire team was elated and exchanged hugs and handshakes. She , from her cabin just smiled but this time it was not plastic , it was completely out of this world. After all, it was another giant leap for mankind made possible by a group of brilliant brains headed by the powerful of them all, 'Matsya', an Android(humanoid robot), sharing her name with the incarnation of Lord that helped to start the human civilization afresh after the deluge at the end of the earliest of epochs.

Day-D(A day at a 'Distance')

"Yes! Still 5 more minutes for the alarm!". Waking up before the alarm in your mobile phone and turning it off with a victorious smirk is nothing short of bliss. It just gives that feel of power, as many a days, we feel powerless and are always at the mercy of alarms. Laksh has been feeling this power off late during the lockdown period almost everyday by waking up before the alarm set at 8:30 am. With unlimited time at home for the past one month, he felt 8:30 itself was a Herculean challenge.

With one challenge completed already, it was time for Laksh to move to the next one to get the veggies for the next two-three days. Outside the shop, people were waiting in queue without any quarrels or arguments as to who came in the queue first or who placed their gunny bag first to get the first turn to get in the shop and buy stuffs. With people standing at one-arm distance, disciplined and not trying to turn around and ignite a random conversation with the person behind him/her about the recent episode of Chiththi-2 , how the Veggies shopwala was a miser by not giving free curry leaves, the previous day, everyone were surprisingly minding their own business (It is surprising. If you don't find it surprising, you are mostly an online ordering fellow :)) Laksh joined at the tail of the four member queue . Just to pass time, he was fiddling with a coin in his hand and it fell down and rolled towards the person in front. He instinctively stepped forward to grab the coin. It was then he heard the ashareeri(voice from the sky) telling not to cross the white line ("Vella kotta thaandadheengo!!".Read in Anniyan Ambi style)  Oops! He realized that he had stepped outside the box drawn to denote the position for the people in queue. "All have become box to box players, for a good reason", he thought.

After reaching home and obviously sanitizing the hands, it was almost time to login for work. Laksh decided to quickly glance through the sports page in the newspaper only to realize later that there was no sports news to report and in turn no sports page itself. Just then he realized that the status call at 10 was going to be a video call. "Why do we have these video calls when the hair saloons are locked down and beautification products are out of stock? ", he wailed and got ready for the call. After logging in, it was always hard work ; roaming around all the rooms with the laptop; charging it in all the switch boards; muting and unmuting in the calls; lunch and snacks in front of the laptop. "4:30 pm already? How time flies? No long coffee/lunch breaks and chit chats like in office, but still the time for work seems insufficient at home. Something's wrong. Did I doze off after the lunch? May be!", Laksh gnarled with a few yawns escaping in between.

With a heavy heart(actually heavy head, because of the disturbed afternoon nap, thanks to the ping notifications in the work messenger platforms), he logged off for the day and decided to pass some time first by browsing the list of series/movies to watch in the various OTT platforms, grouping them and adding them to the 'watch list'. One look at the ever growing watch list seemed to lighten up his spirits . After watching the watch list for almost an hour, the next task at hand was to decide which of the umpteen titles to watch , a job easier said than done.

After thinking long and hard, he decided to play some random movie outside the watch list, with dinner in between. The eyes started protesting for rest almost at the end of the movie, having been strained more by reading the subtitles at the bottom than by enjoying the movie. Drawing curtains for the day and lying down on the bed, he planned for the next day(s) " I should wake up at 6 am from tomorrow, start learning Hindi to avoid such strains while watching Hindi movies and finish the office work quickly and on time". Another day completely at home and another resolution before sleep. Nothing seemed to change but just the resolutions ranging from learning some new language to aiming for a Dwayne Johnson type muscles in the leisure.  For Laksh and many others, it looks like even the brains want to maintain a social and safe distance from all such resolutions the next morning, in these times.

The Stage Debut

It was the first time in my life. It was the first time that I would have to shut off the surroundings completely from my head and concentrate only on the dialogue that I was going to tell. Though the set up was scripted, I wanted to impress with my own Tamil verses. I was not afraid of the consequences, if I was not accepted. I had no other go. I didn't want to be someone's mouthpiece on such an occasion by just talking their sentences. "Cometh, whatever may be", I thought. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, leaned forward and started . "Madhipirkum mariyadhaikkum uriya..(Honorary dignitaries....) Yes ! There is a way to kick-off everything and this one being a Tamil debate organized for the annual day in my school also had to be started off with the formal introductions.

Some 10 days before this, I was sitting in my Class 11 Organic chemistry class. The benzene and phenol rings were too heavy for the last period of the day. The class was absolutely silent with many falling prey to the unconquerable Sleep God, while some others were honing their drawing skills in their notebooks. I took a glance at the watch to check how long it would be for the long bell to ring. "Phew! 15 more mins of Phenols and Ketones", I thought. "Prasoon! The principal wants to meet you. Can you quickly come with me?" asked the History teacher interrupting the class. "Principal a?!?! ", my mouth gaped in fear. " Did she see me dozing off in the physics class? Cha cha! No way! Then why is she calling me?", I thought. I gave a puzzled look at my friends who were trying to check with me on what happened .  I overheard my history teacher informing my Chemistry sir that my meeting with the principal would be related to the school annual day celebrations . "What am I supposed to do for Annual day? Amavasaikkum Abdul khaderkum enna sammamdham ?Oru Vela, are they planning to request a solo dance performance of mine? Or a song in my mellifluous voice? But I know only classical songs la? Sindhu Bairavi or Hari Murali ravam? No! 'Thanni thotti ..' only". All these thoughts were going through my mind when I was walking towards the principal's room.

"Hello Prasoon! We are planning to have this year's annual day on Feb 28. " started my Principal. "Oh! Good, Madam!", I responded. "I have never seen you participating in any of the cultural activities all these years. You will get busy next year as you will be in 12th. So, why don't you get into something this year?" said my Principal. "Sure Madam. I will try", I gave a plastic reply. "Good! Anyway we are planning to have you as the judge for our Tamil debate program on Annual Day", she said. My eyeballs almost popped out of their respective sockets hearing this. "Debate a? That too in Tamil?", I thought. On top of this, "Judge Vera! Everyone knows how good my Tamil is(Read in a sarcastic tone)". "If you want me to participate in the debate and talk, I can manage , but to act as the judge would be difficult Madam. My Tamil is not that good", I told my Principal. "That is fine. I am not asking you to give en extempore . YS Sir(History Teacher) will prepare the script . You just have to memorize and deliver it. We will have rehearsals to ensure you talk according to the script. After all, who else in our school now can remember and recite a 6 page dialogue apart from you?", She completed. Was that a sarcastic comment? Cha! Can't be!

I nodded my head in all directions in sync to the long bell signalling the end of the day. I left the Principal room in a hurry. It was time to go home.Just then my History teacher asked me to meet him at the seventh standard 'C' section in some 10 mins. Be it school or office, when someone asks you to stay after hours, you tend to become Anniyan. I had no other choice. I went to the class as he told. He was taking tuition classes to some 20 class VII students. He asked me to sit in a bench and started talking about the topic of the debate. It was "Is Technology ruining the current generation?" He then introduced me that I would be the judge of the debate and all to some four students who had been staring at me as if I had stolen their tiffin box, from the time I entered the class.  Being a humble person, I was floored by the way my teacher was introducing me.  I smiled at them thinking, "Yeah! It's me". My teacher then said to them, "Make sure you teach this Anna(bro) on how to prepare for this debate and what points you have come up with. Prasoon! By the way, these 4 would be the debaters, you would be moderating on stage".

The next few days leading up to the Annual day went completely on rehearsing and improving the scripts. I was advised by every Tom, Dick and Harry who watched our practices to talk boldly like the other 4 students, to improve my intonation and bla bla. I was asked to improve my speaking skills as well. All of a sudden, I became a lab rat with people examining every huff and puff I did while talking and pointing out improvement areas and so on. I was seen as the weakest link in the setup. Being someone shy of talking in public(really!), talking pages of Tamil dialogues with appropriate intonations and also to interrupt and give counters(that should look spontaneous) when the participants talk is not my cup of tea. On top of this, I was told that I should talk as if I were trying to impress someone(Idhu Vera!).I badly wanted to get this done soon.

                            Photo courtesy

At last there I was seated in the middle of the stage with the four participants sitting by my side on the Annual Day and delivering the judgement speech on the debate. Though it was not a flawless presentation, I was happy that I didn't fall on my face in the course. I was thoroughly enjoying the applause at the end. I didn't want to look in the direction of my History teacher as I had deviated from the script and talked to my will. I don't know whether I was able to 'impress' anyone with that performance.  The people present there got a different impression that 'Ivanukku vai konjam jasthiyo? Pesikitte irukkaan.'(Looks like this guy is very talkative). Though it was a success overall, I was not satisfied, as I still believe the applause would have been more, had I sung the song from Sindhu Bairavi. "Hmmm! Can't help! The world probably wasn't ready for that marvel!!" :P

The Return

"So, Prasoon! Not writing blogs nowadays? Didn't see any Facebook posts asking people to share.  Anyways , good thing only. You won't torture us to read it, though you know we will never ever bother to read even the title :P", Rahul told with a tongue in cheek expression. Yes, it has been some time since I have put pen to my thoughts .Though I badly wanted to write the manifesto behind my return or prepare atleast a YouTube interview video describing my efforts to write one more blog so that the interviewer gets some publicity and in turn, gets interviewed by hundreds, if not thousands, being a humble person, I have decided against it magnanimously :)

Himesh was also returning not to blogging but to India, after being away in the land of the United States for several years on an onsite assignment. There were stories that only a very few in his current project had seen Himesh at offshore as it had been some time since he traveled. Like everyone, his promise to his offshore team when he traveled was "Don't worry. I will be back in a year as I won't be able to stay away from my motherland for long." The team was sad not that they would miss Himesh but knowing that he might not return soon and in turn block their travel chance.

After almost a decade, Himesh decided to return because of various intricacies (read visa problems). It was his first day back after a short vacation.The office building had changed. The canteen vendor had changed but the taste of the Upma remained the same. After entering his floor, he looked around hoping to find some familiar faces. He then happened to meet one of his seniors from his offshore days. "Hey Ravi! How are you? Are you still at offshore? Better get moving , dude. When is your visa expiring? Make sure you travel once and not waste the chance. Also, Nowadays, our onsite assignments are not that stressful and all , like when I initially went there. All is easy now. Just go, party and chill".

Ravi didn't respond anything but managed a sheepish grin as he was used to such advices mixed with boastfulness for past few years from every Tom, Dick and Harry who were getting down from their planes.  He had been slogging day and night for his project at offshore but couldn't get to travel on-site anytime. He was seen as the not-so-lucky guy in the project, thanks to the myth that you need to travel on-site, spend years there(the way you work there is irrelevant :P), get 'the card' to be praised and worshipped by the poor junior blokes in your team who would welcome you cheerfully on returning not for your heroics but for the chocolates.

"Nice to meet you Himesh after such a long time", Ravi politely finished the conversation and reached his cube. He then opened his notes and jotted down "Met that idiot who blocked my onsite travel all these years. Thank you Almighty! I learnt that the idiot will now report to me from today. :P Thanks to you Mr. DT for making this happen. Ini singa paadha thaan(It's gonna be the aggressive route hereon). After all, 'All is fair in love and on-site' :P"

Just in!!

"Ravi! Lets go to our desks. We have been here in the canteen for almost an hour for the morning coffee. If we sit for another 15 mins, lunch will be served. So, lets go to our desks now, work hard for 15 mins and come back again for lunch :) " " Two mins boss. Look there is a breaking news scroll in the TV. Let's see what it is and then leave". Ravi pointed to one of the LED TVs in the canteen where the scroll read "The AYZK party launched yesterday has got around 10 new members. Is this a sign of change in the political landmass?" in the middle of various scrolls like 'The day dawned first on our TV office' , ' The country is fortunate to have 'The Breaking' channel'.

There is nothing breaking(obviously. New  political party is anyways a daily affair nowadays) about this news. The only thing that comes somewhere close to the usage of 'breaking' is those self-proclaiming scrolls appearing 73 times(more than your heart rate)a minute, seeing which you might get tempted to break the remote and sometimes the TV . 

Eye-catching graphics, use of animations to recreate and show what could have happened during a disaster and the pace at which the news is reported are certainly things that I hope everyone would appreciate in the modern news reporting. But without all this, I still remember how eagerly we used to wait for the clock to tick 8:30 pm to watch the DD news in the regional language. Though we would have hoped for  better than the plain background with the monotonous rendering of the news with file pictures and clips, I believe some of us are having a thought that atleast the news was reported those days and not that a news is created, interpreted, judged and branded like now in few channels.

People are busy 'breaking' news in their channels all through the day now, whereas they use the evening/dinner time to debate(That is how it is called) on the one news that would garner more interest. The dos and don'ts in these debates may look something like "Do not allow anyone to talk more than 30 seconds without interruption; Do tell that you are asking this as someone wants to know; And the last thing 'Shout!' (Read it in the same time as Cap America told Hulk in Avengers I -Smash :) )"

Gone are the days when elections were fought in campaigns, now the actual fight during elections happen in channels in reporting the most inaccurate lead status while counting. Gosh! The power that news reporting wields now is so great that they can make or break any individual's career through one interview/debate.

Though there is some blame attached to the people who serve us these, we who consume this also are to be blamed. After all, we the people look for entertainment in news channels and not news/facts . We get what we wish!

The Hunt

"Hey Samir! Are you tensed?".
"No"
"Then, cheer up, da! After all, it is your first attempt, right?"
"Hmmm. Yes "
Samir then took one last glance at the mirror to see if everything looked fine before leaving his home. Everything was fine. Or was it? He was indeed tensed just like his sister had said.

Though this was his first attempt, Samir had experienced a similar state of nervousness and excitement mixed in equal proportions previously, some years back. Dressed in a classic black and white that day, he was able to slay the fear and become victorious. He never thought that he would have to put so much of care in his dressing and grooming again as people at that time told, " Samir! Since you are now an IT employee in AtoZ software org, finding a girl for marriage would not at all be a task for you. That too, if you manage to go onsite to the US for a couple of years in between, you may have to hire 'Z' class security to keep the queue of prospective brides in check in front of your house". Years passed by and Samir after returning in the middle of a 3 year stint at US, couldn't find even a single person, let alone a queue to choose from and marry. After some 2 weeks, there he was getting ready  to visit a girl's (read bride :P)home nearby along with his dear and near. His first crack at the CEM(Compatibility and Eligibility for Marriage)Test which like every other test nowadays, has its fair share of unknowns.

After exchanging pleasantries for some time at the girl's home, the moment came. The moment which Samir was preparing for. The moment, which he thought might never come. The moment when 'He' had to answer his prospective 'She' for a barrage of queries about his job and his stay in the US.  Expecting 'her' to listen in awe of his life as a software engineer in the US, Samir found only empty laughs and faceless expressions in return. He was not able to make out anything from their reaction.

After getting in the car, his dad said, " Phew! Atleast this family didn't seem much concerned about the IT industry and abroad stay stuffs. Hope they don't change their mind!". Samir got confused. He was not able to understand what his Dad told. He asked his dad on what he was talking about. "See, Samir! Nowadays some parents are thinking hard to have their daughters married off to software folks especially if the guy is said to be working abroad." Samir realized that What was once seen as the 'the duck that would lay golden eggs forever'  is now looked down on , thanks to various reasons. "To hell with the person who told about the queue when I took up the job,  it is now a null pointer exception!". On the way back home, Samir suddenly asked the driver to stop the car in front of a shop. He went in and came out with a couple of books, one of which read "Bank officer's exam guide!!".