Are you a four-point someone??

We are again in that period of one to one and half months, where we have people going mad around us , talking about their successes, throwing unimaginable promises about their vision and mission, issuing apologies (though they don't sound apologetic actually). Different may be the ways, but the aim is common .

No, this post has nothing to do with the forthcoming General elections. It is only about the Annual Employee appraisal 'Mela' in our firms.Each individual has his/her own strategies/tactics to become at least a four-pointer on a scale of 5 in their appraisals.

The beginning of this festival can be determined by a sudden change in the peak hours. The T51s and 19Bs (Local Buses)by 7-7:30 am in the mornings,which had been nearly empty the previous days, suddenly won't have even space to have their automatic doors closed. Yes, people, all of a sudden start adhering to the office timelines(start time only) by waking up before the alarm clock rings and reaching office even before the cleaning staff and security start to the office. Though they start early to office, they make sure that they leave only after the last light in their cabin goes off.

Though we all believe in humility and have been asked to be so by our parents, when it comes to the appraisal season,people start believing in the opposite i.e.show-offs as the only way to catch 'the eye' . People start preparing self-assessment statistical reports of what milestones they had achieved, their contributions and bla bla . If someone asks his colleague as to why he leaves late everyday from office(yes, it indeed should not be asked), then a beeper goes ringing in their mind like 'Kanna Laddu thinna aasaiya?'. Having got the opportunity they had been looking for, they then start boasting about how difficult the work is assigned to them and how they are extending their work hours and all to save the supervisor and the project and the company and in turn our Indian economy. Phew! Some even go to the extent of taking credit of what someone else did and at the worst case raising accusations .

There are other sets of people who adopt a different harmless strategy. They can be seen mostly at the rear end of the long serpentine queues to get their skill certified for the big occasion. It is the time when tatkal counters are free, online tatkal bookings are hassle-free, mobile operators get a beating , because, all people aim for, is a PC in the test centre and once they get that, they know, 'Ella pughazum Dumps ke'!! Some others differ slightly by organizing trainings on how to reboot a windows PC, attending conferences on Win 95 and showing how indispensable they are.

When we were in school, we were told not to compare ourselves with our friends, be in the luxuries, they have or the marks they get. I still remember an occurrence in my 7th standard where I got 63 in my English II paper, but was the class 2nd due to some technical reasons :). When I reached home that evening,my parents scolded me for the low marks and when I told them I was the class 2nd, I was told not to feel proud for that and never ever judge my results based on comparison. In complete contrary to what we were taught,when everything is done and dusted after the appraisal results are out, everyone judges where they stand, by comparing others and feels either gutted or happy.

Thus, people could be seen doing many similar things intentionally in this season of competition just to achieve their intentions. Thinking about all this, makes me remember a verse quoted by the 'Appraiser of Appraisers' , Lord Krishna,

"Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,

Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurma Tey Sangostva Akarmani"

Meaning: Do your duty and be detached from its outcome, do not be driven by the end product, enjoy the process of getting there.

So, I have done the duty of writing this blog and I am not bothered about its outcome. Am I? Er, no! I am planning to send this article to the concerned and show how good I am at observing people and my study on appraisals. After all, I too want to be a four point someone.:P Don't you?

Thoda adjust karo na..

The only exciting thing for me about the journey apart from going home was that my ticket status was in RAC. My aimless walks in the busy Chennai Central platform was full of the thoughts about sitting opposite to a young lady of 20(Courtesy the reservation chart) in the side lower RAC berth. I had indeed rehearsed the answers for her queries like I don't have any specific hobby but I like creating 3D animations, writing blogs, short stories and bla bla :P The train had left Central but still no signs of her. Convincing myself that 'she' would get in at Perambur, I dozed off for a while in my sitting posture, after a long day in the office. Then I felt someone tapping on the back and as I woke up , the train had already left Perambur, but no signs of her. Irritated,I turned to the direction of the wake-up call. It was the Ticket Examiner telling me that my RAC has got confirmed and I can take the side lower berth.

With serious disappointment(it indeed was serious;seriously), I started to flip through my twitter and FB profiles to find something interesting to immerse myself into after this bulb. When I tried to update some profile details in FB, I saw my profile status as single. Dragging as deep a breath I could, I turned when a man out of nowhere came and asked me "Are you Single?".

"Shoot! How the hell did he know?". "Take my upper berth and I will take your side lower", he continued. "Phew! Idhu vera single!". Without waiting for even a millisecond for me to think on this proposal, he started again. "My Grandma has got a upper berth in S6. Since you are single, adjust na". He told. It was not a request for sure, but was it an order?. Seeing his grandma already with her luggage in my berth, I nodded.I indeed had to. I then went to S6 with my baggage and I could say I was never ready for the surprise in store over there.

As I went to the designated transfer location(S6-14), I saw two 'Pairs'(Searched the dictionary, could not find any other better/decent term) in the bay and one more in the Side berths. I was already half-sleep and apart from this berth transfer, this sight increased my agony :(.  As I was climbing up to my berth, I noticed, for the six berths, only five are there, including me. We Indians are always happy when someone shares the same misery as you. You then feel happy rather than sad. I too got happy similarly thinking that someone else in the bay also would be single like me and he too would be sad at seeing others in the bay.

After a minute or so, while I was searching for my bed sheet, I saw a beauty coming and placing her backpack in my opposite berth. Seeing the backpack, I confirmed she is also one of my breed, an IT professional :). Shockingly, she turned towards me in the upper berth, gave a smile and came towards me. She started talking to me. Being someone, who is always proud of knowing 5 languages, I, to my surprise found that I was not understanding what she was telling. Probably, it was 'Angel English' I thought. After she finished, I switched off my I-pod and told "Sorry! What was that?". She told "My Boyfriend-Berth-38-Please adjust.You-Single". Everything else was Greek and Latin. With the surrounding I was in, I understood that I had to move to 38. I thought of yelling "EVERYBODY!!" like Mudhalvan Arjun.

With no energy for any more ADJUSTMENTS, I dragged myself to 38, where as I entered and kept my bag on the upper berth, one guy came and told that he would like to have the upper berth and I could take the lower berth. At last, 'I have found a gentleman',I thought.Proud of him as I sat , I saw a family sitting and chatting in the lower berth talking about everything under sky from RAGA to Ragamalika. When I told them that I wanted to sleep in my lower berth, they told that they were yet to have their dinner and asked me to wait and adjust for some time."Thirumbavuma(Again)???" I thought. I thought that the guy who gave me this berth was not a GentleMan, but a Brutus :'(.. "Cha!! RAC was better than this".

When I reached my home after this horrible journey, I decided two things. First, never travel single. Second, never heed to these ad-hoc adjustment requests unless it is absolutely necessary. Because after all it is "EN BERTH!! EN URIMAI!!".

If you find this post not that good, then I have four words for you, "Thoda ADJUST karo na!!".

In the wild

 I have posted below an extempore essay which I had written around 6 years back in my college.I have titled it "In the Wild".

Yes! I was in the wild both physically and mentally.It had been the worst day in my life .Being in the limelight for all the years with my very own charisma , I was down and out due to some unfortunate turn of events. I did't want to be among people anymore. I did't want to be a subject of debates for all the wrong reasons and I didn't want to be the symbol of shame for my family. Hence, after thinking hard, I had decided to take up 'Vanaprastha' , given up all my material desires and started travelling in search of inner peace through the woods.

I was not sure as to how how long I had been walking through the wild bushes, but I knew one thing for sure, that I had traveled far from my home and its own relational entanglements. I had walked through the entire length of the forest accompanied by the continuous buzz of insects revamped by the incessant rains.  I was starting to feel light, probably thanks to the heavy downpour which I believed to have washed off some of my sins apart from hiding my tears. The rain had receded then into a slight drizzle.The moon was playing hide and seek with the dark clouds.

Feeling cold, I removed my red shirt, which was completely wet . With a numb mind and an equally numb body, I struggled to drag myself to a small cliff which was near a railway track. While moving, I heard the sound of water flowing furiously . On adjusting my eye to the distance, there was a huge railway bridge with old-fashioned girders standing atop a ferocious river nearly full due to the rains. Then I saw right in front of  my eyes, one of the pillars of the bridge collapsing and few girders tumbling into the river like a pack of cards. Is the nature too trying to show her fury ? With this shocking scene flashing before my eyes, I sat on the cliff.

"Oh, Almighty! Your ardent devotee has nowhere to go but you. Show me the path to you. Make me listen to the devotional music, one last time. Show me the light so I could run towards it and reach you", I cried loud at the Heavens with my eyes closed. Just then, I listened to his sound, my Lord's sound, but, it was intermittent. I strained my ears towards the direction of the sound. It was increasing with time and then I saw 'The Light' zooming towards me . I jumped on to the railway track with my shirt and waited to catch of a glimpse of the God in his chariot. In the place of horses' neighing, it was the noise of metal on metal. It was the 'Garib rath '  the chariot on wheels from Indian Railways, a train, flashing its head light towards me and beyond .

Then I realized the inevitable. I ran in the middle of the track towards the speeding train . The sleepers and gravel soaked in the monsoon caused me to trip and slip. Still, holding my breath, I continued running and waved my red shirt hoping that the charioteer aka driver would be able to stop the train. Gathering all the might from my lungs, I shouted to catch his attention. The driver saw my signal and brought the train to a screeching halt, just in time before it could have plunged into the river from the bridge and also before crushing me over. Buoyed by happiness to have averted danger for many and lack of food for almost a day, I slipped into a state of unconsciousness.

I woke up the next morning in a hospital bed with a bottle of glucose injected into my vein in the left hand. I tried to sit straight, just then one of my relative gave the newspaper with a wry smile. Puzzled by his expression, I took the newspaper stretching my left hand.

 The newspaper headline read "Former minister ousted by corruption charges saves thousands of people from a near accident. Is this a political drama?" with an inset of photo of me. I thought, "Oh God! What I did for dharma is interpreted as drama. Are you practicing dharma or drama?" and tried to close my mind as I was back to where I used to be, web of entanglements.

SlamFest

"Prasoon!Switch off that laptop and check whether you need these books or not. If not, I will give it to someone. I have never seen you reading any of these.Someone else will at-least use them." Telling this, my mom placed a cardboard of old records, books and rough sheets near me. Having no other go, I started checking the contents .I found my first article on 'Winners are not born but made' in between some old grammar books.I read through it and realized that my English was better than how it is now. I was sure that I would not find anything that I would like to keep with me or something I would like to cherish. But still, I was checking each book just to pass time. Just then, I saw a notebook carrying cute designs and the letters 'SLAMBOOK' on its cover.

Slambook , a book meant to get your dear ones write down their memories about you, which both love to cherish for the rest of their lives.It was my slambook which I had passed over to my classmates during the last days of my college. I had always believed that my college life had almost all the ingredients to make a tamil commercial masala entertainer. The only things missing were the emotional quotient and a fitting finale(Note: Don't ask about heroine, since heroines are only meant for songs in such masala entertainers, I completely ignored that part.:) Really :P). But the last few days in my college gave me these too. I still couldn't forget those days for many a reasons, one of them being 'slambook'.

During the last 30-40 days of our college, every stationery shop around college were having bundles of notes/books for sale and they were christened slambooks. They were found in every design and size,some of them looked like telephone directories, others like bounded maths notes.Whatever may be the size, however the paper quality may be, I feel no one would have agreed with even half the price at which those books were sold. But during those days, people were running from one shop to another to get the slambook of their dream(some had dreamed about the designs too). Some of my friends had brought sketches,glitter pens, stickers blah,blah to make it look special. Since I had no other important work, I had also run with them for these :)

Slamooks though meant to relive memories were creating fresh incidents/impacts which people wanted to cherish. People whom I had never seen awake after 10 pm even for exams, were awake till 3 am to get the perfect colour combination to pen down the introductory words in their slambook before giving it. I saw people spending their leisure times in writing one slam after another and reading what one had written about someone else.It was like a festival and we could have called it 'The SLAMFEST'. And like in every festival, this one too had generated its own chaos,jealousy,excitement with me being a witness to people not writing in certain slambooks, some were there who had torn off what they themselves wrote from their heart and there was one who was pretty different from all others, he had stapled the 4 and odd pages which I had written about him before he gave to others.

With my increased curiosity,I decided to be a part of the fest by getting a slambook, wrote some two lines and handed it over it to my classmates of the opposite gender.When I got it back, it indeed was a 'slam' book. Though each one had written their individual views and memories, the one thing which I found in common in all the entries in my slam book was "Do invite me for your marriage" :P. Apart from these, there were many advice, many thank yous,many definitions for Prasoon .I still could not stop laughing, when I read through the memories that my classmates wanted me to cherish.

"Amma! You can give away all the books and notes except this one 'My Slambook'. I will take it with me.". I will need it to get rid of my worries time and again as there could be no other article/magazine that could make me happy like this. Like everyone, I think myself high, but this small book reminds me how Prasoon was, at-least in others' eyes.

Brahmanin Thava Uyiri Ni...

Though I am not ready to call myself a writer or something yet, I feel times like these make me at least a scribbler. Whatever I have noted down in this are make no mistake, straight from my heart. I hope you like this and me!

It was the umpteenth time I was repeating... in fact, rehearsing the dialogue that I would be telling 'my girl' on her birthday. As a guy who never believed in love at first sight, I still can't believe how I fell for this Gorgeous Girl (GG - this is the correct abbreviation).

According to the Greeks, love is of three types - Eros, Philos and Agape. One's love is termed Agape if it is of the type 'I see you and I love you'. That is how I fell for her. I saw her and I just wanted to be a part of her. Here I am, waiting to see her on the 'Avathar Day' alias her birthday. After brainstorming for about two weeks, I decided to gift her my memories and thoughts for her birthday. Yes, I was planning to gift my diary with scribbles about her from the day we met. I had been waiting for sometime with the anxiety of how she would be reacting to this present of mine. I always hated waiting long time for people, but I was enjoying this wait for her.

I started to flip through the pages of my diary. I could see the initial 150 and odd days' pages were blank, those days before GG's entry. I knew which day I would be reading first - 8th July.

8 Tuesday

I thought it was just another day and a day to get myself acquainted with the new environment. But Some one had already decided to make this a special day for me. After the boring classes in the morning, the afternoon's session began. The staff, after the initial introductions called out someone who could sing a song for all. That's when I saw her, a girl being forced by her friend to go to the front and sing a song. She reluctantly came forward and sang a song, her mellifluous voice got etched in my mind and that became my most favorite song. After completing the song, she was returning to her place and in the process, she threw a glance at me. Her milli-second glance at me was so powerful that it made my millions of cells go topsy-turvy.

24 Thursday

She had come to college today in a white churidhar and she looked like an angel to me. Everyone was busy copying the steps to solve a maths problem...

"Wish you and I were the Adam and Eve in the Eden with no one else to intrude except God! It would have been wonderful with nothing else to look at except your captivating eyes... Nothing else to talk about except your cute reactions... Nothing else to listen to except the tantalizing music from your mouth... Nothing to get addicted to but your charming smile... I would not have asked for anything to live for, except you, the incarnation of beauty!"

I closed my diary and started visualizing whatever I just read. Just then, I saw her coming out in the corridor, the corridor which always had been my pal for all these days while I tried to catch a glimpse of her, seemed to be a corridor of uncertainty today with the uncertainties and anxieties on how she would react to my gift. She was with her friend, her long walk towards me seemed to take a decade. She was dressed in a pink salwar and her hands were playing with her hair while she was talking to her friend. She came near me and my immediate reflex was to hide the diary. I extended my hand and wished her "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!". Her eyes widened in surprise as she shook hands and exclaimed "Thank you! So sweet of you!". Her touch made me go out of this world - it made me feel heavenly. I was literally staring at the ambient reflection from her rendered face which had been giving me sleepless nights. It took me a while to get back to my senses. There I was, holding my precious memoir, only to discover that she had gone, leaving behind her sweet fragrance to waft in the air surrounding me. I realized that whatever just happened would fill the leaves of my diary again!

But yet, I am not disappointed because I perceive this as her desire to make me pen down more about her and treasure them. Blessed I am, for she touched yet another day in my life with her divine presence. Before I conclude, here goes another scribble about her, for her, who I know will be reading this.

En Uyirai Iyakkum Karuvi Ni..
Brahmanin Thava Uyiri Ni !!