Madeleine Dupont

If there was one thing that I learned in the subjects of geography and human relationships in 4^th standard, it was the fact that long distance relationships never work out; especially when you never had a relationship in the first place.

~~~*~~~

It all started when I was in fourth standard, way back in 1994, before the times of the ubiquitous Internet and free web email.

Clara Miss (Mrs Clara Arockiaraj), our class and science teacher, weaved through the desks and placed a letter in front of everyone. I noticed there was a photograph stapled to each letter. She approached our desk, gave one letter to me, one to Azeem, my over-sized, cunning and bullying neighbour, smiled at him and moved on to the other desks.

I looked at my letter and the photograph that was stapled to it. There was a girl in it with a big fluffy dog, standing in the front-yard of a house. There was snow all over the place and the dog and the girl were standing on a thick sheet of snow. The girl was very pretty.

“Whoa!” said Azeem, looking at the photograph in my hands. That was more or less my expression too. It took some time for him to close his mouth, “Give me that, you pig!” he snatched at my letter.

I grabbed to it with my dear life. “No! You have yours!”

“Give me that! You keep mine,” he said, tugging at my shirt. I hadn't seen his photograph. He had folded and thrown it on my desk by now.

“No way!” I said, sensing the sinisterness in the deal, “I'll tell Clara Miss.”

“Give me that, or I'll..” He punched me mid-way through the sentence.

“Stop it or I'll tell Clara Miss.”

He punched me again saying, “GIVE. ME. THAT. You pig.”

“Okay, show me yours first,” I said, buying time. Clara Miss was still busy distributing letters and photographs in the last rows.

“Here,” he said and finally showed it to me.

My mother had always told me not to make fun of how people looked and in those days, I used to listen to her. But on that occasion it was irresistible. The boy on his photograph looked like a pink boulder, just like Azeem.

“Hehehe. Good for you,” I said, “I don't want that! I want a girl. So, I won't give you mine.”

“GIVE. THAT. TO. ME,” he said again with clenched teeth and twisted my free arm. He kept pulling at the other and finally managed to muscle the letter out of me. Only then did Clara Miss have the time to take control of the class.

“Quiet now, boys!” she said standing at the center of the class, “Have all of you got your letters?”

“Yes miss!” [chorus]

I wanted to say “No!” and complain about my letter, but it was useless. Azeem would only bully me later and get the letter anyway. In the meantime, Azeem had opened my letter and was already beaming with pride. I looked at the picture of the boy I had in my hands and grew sad at the loss of the girl.

“Alright, all of you,” continued Clara Miss, “Read your letters now. No exchanging. You can take it home and write a reply to that letter and submit it tomorrow. You can also bring a photo of you. Write your name, class and section clearly on the letter. Do not write your address. The replies will come to the school. If you write your address, I will not send your letter. Understood?”

“Yes miss!” [chorus]

My school was (and still is) a part of a Catholic congregation called the Congregation of Holy Cross (Congregation de Sainte-Croix). There are a few schools in India and possibly in other places of the world as well, as part of the congregation. Once in a while, we get visitors from other such schools. I guess, at that time, we had visitors from a constituent school of the congregation in Montreal and they had thought of the brilliant idea to start a pen-friends club. They had instructed the students of a class to write letters to pen-friends and had brought them along.

And mine was at the hands of a bully. I knew I could never fight Azeem. I sighed and thought about plans to get my rightful letter back.

~~~*~~~

One of the good things about the mafia is that they never forget the good deeds you did for their boss. Having the class mafia's boss – Rajkumar, as my bus-stop mate and the constant seat-holding in the school bus and the occasional homework-writing for him – did help in getting my photo and letter back. After the recess, Azeem came back with soiled uniforms and bruised elbows to return them. He snatched his own letter and photo back and left.

~~~*~~~

I went home that day and told my mother I had to write a letter about my hometown Salem (I'm not sure if Clara Miss asked us to do this or I came up with the ingenious idea) to a pen-friend in Canada. My mother was skeptic about the whole affair seeing the cost of international postage involved (money was a little hard to come by then and it was really hard to get funds sanctioned from the Finance ministry), but she soon became supportive after she learnt that it was borne by the school. Noticing my more-than-average excitement, she even supervised my letter writing. We were initially lost on how and where to start. Then I decided to follow the style of the letter I received (I guess the habit stuck!) -

Dear Pen-friend,

My name is Madeleine Dupont. I am 8 years old. I live in Montreal with my parents, my little sister Helene and my dog Chester. I like ice-skating and painting animals. I also like playing with Chester. My father is a policeman and my mother works for our church. I can speak French and English.

Where do you live? Does your city have a zoo? Montreal has a very big zoo. I like visiting it often. It has a parrot called Helene which my sister likes very much. There is also a big statue of a dinosaur I like. But there are no real dinosaurs in the zoo. Does your zoo have a dinosaur?

Madeleine

I noticed that she had a really bad hand-writing (worse than Rajkumar's and even my brother's), but I bore with it. I thought that she was quite dumb in studies. Nevertheless, I wrote a long similar-styled letter back -

Dear Madeleine,

My name is Sivasubramanian*. I am studying in 4th standard in Holy Cross Higher Matriculation Secondary School**. My father's name is Sivakumar. He is a businessman. My mother's name is Sumithra. She is a house-wife. My brother's name is Sivapermual. He is studying in 1st standard. I am a good student. I got 3rd rank in my class in last year's half-yearly exam.

I like to play cricket and leg cricket. I like Jackie Chan films. I also like the Home Alone film very much. I like to eat mini dosa and noodles. I like Golden Dragon noodles. I also know Karate***. My brother is going to Karate class. But I can fight him easily. I also like WWF. I also have two albums full of foreign stamps. My aunty also gave me foreign coins. Do you collect stamps and coins?

My city is called Salem. It is in Tamilnadu state. It is full of mountains. It is famous for mangoes. It is also famous for Salem steel plant and Mettur dam. My father took me to the see that plant during the summer holidays. I wanted to see how the steel grows on the plant. But steel plant means a factory with a big furnace. There is a big lake in Mettur dam. It is also famous for Yercaud. It is a hill station. It has a big lake where we can go boating. There are many monkeys on the way. I am scared of monkeys. I am very scared of dogs also. There is also a big garden with old trees. There is a very old stone tree there. There is a famous temple called kotai mariamman temple in Salem.

There is no zoo in Salem. I have seen a dinosaur only in TV. I have seen the Jurassic Park film with my grandfather in Madras. But there is exhibition every year. In exhibition, there are many rides like giant wheel, tora tora, frog train and helicopter. I am afraid of giant wheel, but I like tora tora. My brother is very afraid of tora tora, but he likes giant wheel.

Do you have snowfall in Montreal? I have seen snow only on TV.

I will send five Romania stamps to you. They are extra stamps in my collection. I have another set. I will also send Indian stamps to you. I have 6 Canada stamps. If you have extra Canada stamps, can you send me?

Your loving friend****,

S. Sivasubramanian

IV Std – C

* - Note the trendy 'n' at the end of my name. An old-school governmental clerk in the Department of Matriculation Exams was responsible for the ugly 'm' that I have now.

** - I never really got the hang of the order of my school’s proper name then.

*** - There had to be a lie somewhere.

**** - That was the only salutation taught in letter writing.

There! It took me three attempts to make a flawless fair draft of that letter. I had written it without a single correction. It was time now for a perfect photograph to go along with it. I couldn't pick any from the recent Madras summer vacation collection because, in summer, I was always given a really bad haircut. So, I found one from a recent wedding collection and put it in an envelope with the letter and the stamps.

The next day, Azeem snatched my flawless letter (knowing well that any damage to it would spell doom) and read it. He said that I should have used a stylish sign instead of just writing my name. He also said girls liked stylish signatures, like how they sign in the films. I was upset and thought of rewriting it. Then I realised that I left my favorite glitter pen at home. It was no use writing the letter with any other pen and consoled myself.

Finally the time came for the submission and I slowly strolled to Clara Miss’s desk and gave it to her for inspection. She opened the envelope to see if I had written my address and noticed the stamps. She smiled as a sign of acceptance and kept it along with the other letters.

Phew! I sighed with relief and walked back to my desk with great hope; feeling like a man who had toiled hard to invest his savings in a 30’x40’ plot in the outskirts of Salem. I was very happy I had a friend in Canada. “Madeleine!” I said to myself. There was a certain joy in having such a pen-friend - the dream of getting to know more about people in a faraway place, the joy of sending and receiving gifts, the chance to invite them to my house for the summer vacation when they come to India or my staying at their house during the summer vacation when(?) I went to Canada. And since Madeleine was a pretty girl, there were also the additional dreams of falling in love and getting married and so on and so forth…

~~~*~~~

A week of such dreaming had gone past after I had sent the letter and there was no news from Clara Miss about the replies. I asked my mother how long it took for a letter to reach Canada and she said it took about two weeks. So I calculated that it would take a month more to get the reply. Mid-term exams arrived on time and I was diverted from the thoughts about Madeleine and her reply. Post mid-term exams, I heard no news about the letters from Clara Miss. Everybody in the class seemed to have forgotten and I was the only one initiating conversations about the pen-friends club and the replies. It looked as if I was the only one expecting the letter.

Finally, after a month and a half, Clara Miss brought a small bunch of letters and distributed them to the class. Only a few of us got the letters and I wasn’t one. She then informed us that those of us who hadn’t received it now will get it in in the next bundle. I sat there frustrated about the ensuing wait, during which time, Azeem taunted me by waving his reply letter in front of my face.

Another month and a half passed and a larger bundle arrived this time. Apart from those who got replies the first time, a few others got their replies as well and I wasn’t part of this tiny group as well. After that tiny heart-break, I entirely dropped the plan of stealing my cousin’s jimmikis that I wanted to send to Madeleine the next time.

Nevertheless, the pen-friends club thrived. They elected a president and vice-president for it from the senior classes. These guys were in charge of collecting the replies and submitting them to the Teacher-in-charge for review and finally to the school’s dispatch section. They even did some useful things like arranging new pen-friends to all those who hadn’t got replies.

With dreams of a union with Madeleine still lingering on in my mind, I refused and decided to wait. Half-yearly exams came and the winter vacation arrived along with the next bundle of replies from Canada. Madeleine hadn’t replied. Finally, after the Christmas and New Year vacation, I gave up. I was officially heartbroken. I was gloomy during the entire vacation and lost my entire collection of Big Babool wrestling cards to Rajkumar in several games of cricket and wrestling cards.

When school reopened, it was time for the publishing of our school literary magazine – “Paper Bridge”. I wrote a poem called “My Lost Friend” for it. Surprisingly, they published it (under Section “Miscellany” Sub-Section “Non-sense poetry”)

Moon may become red

And apples may become white

Dogs may start to meow

And cats may start to bowbow

Lions may fly and eagles may swim, But -

Expecting your letter,

Even in the months of winter -

(November, December and January)

Every day and night, I will wait…

I really thought that it was ingenious and that it deserved a prize. I had even managed to slip her name (or at least its homophone) into the poem that no one found out. But as always, I received nothing.

A little later that year, something cheerful happened - I won the first prize in the fancy dress contest! I still wonder how I managed that feat. There I was, clad in a soiled silk kurta and wearing an over-sized skewed, smelly wig on my tiny head and an even smellier beard on my face, I walked towards the center of the stage, with a nasty-smelling glass bottle (which my father took out - to my mother's surprise and horror - from a secret chamber of his cupboard) filled with Coca-cola. I meandered enough along the way - swaying to the left and right, as my father taught me to, and finally reached the center and faced the audience to deliver my well-rehearsed dialogue.

My mother and I had managed to copy some quotes on love and heart-break from a quotation book I won as a prize earlier. I had the lines by heart and I was supposed to deliver them interspersed with coughs. But by the time I reached the microphone, I had forgotten the lines -

“The course of *cough* *cough* true love… *cough* *cough*… errr… ummm…” and I waited for ten seconds and I couldn’t recollect the rest of it. By this time, the crowd had grown impatient. I then tried recollecting the next line.

“My love for you *cough* *cough* is… ummm… *cough* *cough* past the mind… *cough* *cough* … errr… ummm…” This line deserted me as well. And there I was standing on the center of the stage, being a laughing stock. From there, I could see the crowd laughing at me, including Azeem who was standing on the side of the auditorium in his green rubber dinosaur costume along with his parents. He had received great applause for his highly expensive costume earlier. All he managed to do was stand in front of the mike and say “Gurrr… gurrr… I am a dinosaur…. Gurrr…. Gurrr…” I always wondered why he needed a costume to look like a dinosaur.

Nevertheless, there I was – being a laughing stock in front of my arch-enemy. My mother was standing near the entrance of the stage and was mouthing the lines so that I could pick up. I was bad at reading those days, leave alone lip-reading. I was helpless and so, I contemplated running out of the stage, out of the auditorium and sprinting straight home. And then it struck me - My poem! I began with renewed sorrow -

“Moon may become red *cough* *cough*… And apples may become white *cough* *cough*…

Dogs may start to *cough* *cough* …. 

[…] 

Every day and night, *cough* *cough* I will wait…"

And finally, as rehearsed earlier, I fell on the stage with a BIG THUD and died.

Clara Miss later said that I was the best Devdas in the history of fancy dress in my school. She even said I deserved it. Azeem punched me the next day for cheating. My mother said they gave it to me for the sheer realism with which I delivered my dialogue.

How I wish she knew it came from the bottom of my heart!

~~~*~~~

And thus began a saga of disappointments. As I grew up, I tried all modes of making pen-friends. I tried the pen-friends pages of Gokulam (Kalyan Ragunandan), Wisdom (Vikram M) and Tinkle (Priyanka Garg) and spent my precious pocket-money on postage. And as the squiggly tentacles of the Internet reached the browsing-centers of my small-town, I even tried my hands making penpals on the Internet (Chandrika Vaas and many others). I guess I have the record for sending out the largest number of pen-friend letters without receiving a single reply. And then I gave up (thankfully!) before the rise of social-networking.

(Now is the time I have to admit I have no idea how to finish this story.)

Sometimes, I wonder why I was so excited about pen-friends. Was it the need for companionship? Was it simply adolescence? I guess I always wanted to learn the culture of places that I saw on TV, first-hand from someone who was part of it. (And of course, the falling in love and getting married and so on and so forth parts hold true as well…) I guess I always dreamed a lot.

~~~*~~~

P.S : Load and loads of fiction. :-)

P.S.2 : Inspired by a blog post by Anoop V Namboodiri at my workplace blog about a similar pen-pal mishap.

A Day in the Life of Jeevan

A Day in the Life of Jeevan

It was an insignificant day, much like the 16ths and 17ths of a month we would let pass unnoticed. The sun did rise in the east that day and found the monsoon sky of Bangalore blanketting the millions of late-risers still snuggled up in their beds. A few beams that did manage to trickle through lit up Jeevan's bedroom. Buying curtains was an item lost somewhere deep on his long TO-DO list. On some day, when he did have the time (which he always did) and interest (which he never had) to go through the long list and check them off, he would find this item surprising and unnecessary. He would wonder what he had been thinking when he had written that. He quite liked the sun lighting up his room. It helped him wake up early, as he did on that day.

He lay wide awake on his bed and stared at the ceiling. There was no reason for him to get out of it. He pondered about something and smiled. The smile grew to a wide grin and then he left his bed to set about doing his tasks for the day.

~~~***~~~

Toilet duties for the day briskly put aside, he first made himself a mug of coffee and then entered the second bedroom of his apartment. It had no signs of being a bedroom - it was his library cum music room cum workshop. He stood in front of his large bookshelf first and wondered what he was in the mood for. He was very happy that day, happier than the past several ones. He picked Destination Moon from his Tin Tin collection. He then stood in front of his music shelf and wondered again what he was in the mood for. He could not make up his mind. He tried running his fingers over a rack of discs to focus. Every disc looked appealing and trite at the same time. Realising he had no appetite for music that day, he decided to go random.

He turned on a random channel on his radio in the living room. He then went out to his balcony and nestled himself on his chair with his coffee and book, as Bangalore's beautiful monsoon sky greeted him. He could already hear the hustle and bustle of the distant Sarjapur road traffic. Down in his apartment block's large parking space and walk-way as well, the commotion had begun. He looked down from the balcony and found the cemented floor washed clean by the overnight rain. Yet again, Mr Ramji, from 4C of the North Tower (also the unofficial custodian of the cleanliness of Jeevan's sprawling four building apartment block), was taking the security guards to task for letting in stray dogs. Yet again, the security guards turned a deaf ear to him and left wondering from where and how the stray dogs came. Mr Ramji then started warming up for his jog while the couple from - Jeevan always forgot their apartment - returned from theirs. In some time, the office-goers and school children would begin to trickle out one by one.

He got back to his coffee and lost himself in his morning read. Tin Tin's adventures reminded him of his once dear ambition in life to become a detective and go on several adventures. He even had a name then - "The Third Eye" detective agency. Several years and several dear ambitions later, at 25, he smiled at the fact that he had pursued none of them. He was lost in thought for a long time and when it was time for breakfast, he found that he had finished reading seven pages. He then had his regular dose of cereals for breakfast and began work at his workshop.

Apart from the large shelves full of his books and music discs, his 'polymorphous' library slash music room slash workshop had an enormous table in the middle, on whose side, he had fixed a vice. Other miscellany in the room included a Guy Fawkes mask, a quiver full of arrows, a witch's hat and a violin - all of them mounted on the wall. Upon the large table, lay a long bow that looked beautiful even without its planned engraving, darkening and polishing. It was the first time Jeevan had ventured to make a bow and after two broken ones, he had managed to carve out a masterpiece. He held it with his left hand and ran his right over the sand-grained surface.

"Perfect," he said to himself, admiring his work, "Legolas would be proud."

It was heavy because of his choice of wood. Knowing that he would never use it, he chose longevity over efficiency. He wondered if someone would actually use such a heavy bow efficiently in battle. The urge to string it and test it was overwhelming. He had spent a month planning, designing, ordering the tools and materials, and then actually making it. He finally gave in to the tempation and strung the bow, took an arrow from his quiver and went to his balcony. He looked around and finally fixed his aim at a trash bin near the South Tower's car park. A shot from the sixth floor balcony to a trash bin about 200 feet away was not the ideal first shot he would have liked for, but he went with it considering the lack of other targets and the safety of materials and men in other places. The beauty of the projectile, which he wanted to admire for long, would continue to elude him until he went outdoors. He gripped the arrow with his fingers, took a deep breath, drew the string, took a clear aim at the plastic bin, released it and listened to the reverberations of the string, as the arrow sped towards and over the bin, missed it by a shockingly long distance and fell flat on the top of a car - thereby denting it and then landed at its side.

"Oops," he said and doubled up for the mini-disaster management.

He quickly sneaked out of the house with his wallet, a pen and paper in case he needed to write a note to the owner of the damaged car, walked briskly to it, retrieved his arrow from its side, estimated the damage it did to the car (which, he was relieved to find, was undetectable and hence harmless) and sneaked back in to his house.

The desire to shoot an arrow satiated, he then removed the string from the bow and began engraving a few lines on it in Elven. After three hours of intricate detailing and engraving (which included his signature as well), he finally began the final task of polishing it. When it was over, it was way past his lunch time and he realised that he had over-worked. Admiring what he had managed to create, he thought it was time well-spent and a meal well-skipped. He even decided against ordering food home and had apples for lunch.

Tired from the engaging work, he rested on his living room couch and considered taking an afternoon nap. He felt the day deserved better than an afternoon nap. In fact, he felt it deserved the best! He picked his favourite movie - 'V for Vendetta'. He had lost count of the number of times he had watched it. He considered himself to be V's greatest fan and he had all of V's dialogues by heart.

Ten minutes into the movie, he muted the audio and sprang from his couch and enacted V's dramatic introduction -

"Voilà!" he said in tandem with V on the TV, "In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition!"

And he swooshed his imaginary sword to etch an imaginary V upon thin air and continued with a note of seriousness -

"The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous," and after a haughty laugh, "Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me 'V'".

Proudly, he sat back in his couch, turned the volume up again and continued with his movie. At the point where V set Evey free from her captivity, his phone rang.

It was Mary.

"Hey Mary!" he said in a suprised tone, without the customary 'Hello', "Are you back?"

"Oh yes, I am, Bertie Wooster!" said she, pulling his legs.

"Bertie Wooster? Hmmm," he hmmed, buying time to get back at her, "So, how are all the poor children in the North East, Miss Teresa?"

"Oh," she said, "The usual. I mean - like everywhere - malnourished and exploited."

"Even after you've been there for four months?"

"Yes, even after I've been there for four months."

"Good to hear that. So, now you see there's no solution to this problem?"

"Don't start on that argument!" she said, warding off their never-ending discussion on social problems, "So, How's life for you? Still very busy doing nothing? Or you found yourself a job?"

"Job? Haven't I told you - Jobs are a 20th century invention and I don't want one."

"Ah yes! That quote! McCandless, right?"

"No. It's Supertramp's."

"Hmmm," she said trying to remember something she had forgotten.

"So, Are we meeting?" asked Jeevan breaking the pause.

"Oh yes!" and she remembered, "I was coming to that. I need some money."

Jeevan smiled. Mary hadn't changed a bit - she would pull all strings available, however socially inappropriate, to wriggle out of situations and yet keep a cool head while doing so. He wondered what situation she was trying to wriggle out of.

"You just came back from a company sponsored trip to the North East and you straightaway try to borrow money from me?"

"It's not a company. It's an NGO. And isn't that when people borrow money - when they are in need?"

"No, I didn't mean that! Don't they pay you at all?"

"Oh! That they do. But you know - it's a long story. I lost forty thousand setting up a library - a mini-library actually. Had to dip into my personal savings. I thought I could tally it with the help of some rich patron someday. Now, I am in need of it and you tell me - how many other rich patrons do I know?"

He smiled at her logic and tested it further, "No way. You're taking me for granted."

"Oh C'mon, Jeev! What are rich friends for? It's just forty thousand. I'll pay you back when I get a pay hike."

"First of all, I am not rich. My father is. Second of all, do they even have pay hikes in NGOs? Anyway, I'll send you. And this is the last time."

"Last time it is."

It was always the last time, each time. But Jeevan never regretted lending money to Mary. He knew it was money well invested.

"So, Are we meeting?" he asked again, breaking the pause.

"I'll call you about that."

"Alright."

"Alright then. Have fun."

"That, I have. Thank you."

He then went over to his laptop, transferred the money and after looking at his balance, made a note on his TODO list - "Get money from home."

He resumed his movie and as it ended, it left a void in him that every good movie or book did. He made himself some tea and finally, as the day came to a close and as dusk approached, he felt the void grow bigger. He felt he needed a break from the monotony - he felt the need to see people. He decided to go to Forum.

Forty-five minutes later, he managed to drive his car into a vacant parking space at Forum. He roamed aimlessly for sometime and then went to his usual first floor spot and observed his fellow humans. An hour later, he had dinner there and drove back home.

~~~***~~~

Today, If I remember correctly, marks one year since "The Great Quarrel" (Or should I use "The Great Enlightenment"?). So this makes it "My Year of Living Dangerously". ;-) That holds literally too. Anwar anna has even now not given up calling me up and asking me if I am safe. Life has been more than safe. It has been bliss. I do miss them, but I am now happy that I'm living far from them than living a hollow and meaningless life. I am happy that I don't live a life entirely determined by the need to put up faces in front of others. I'm glad those days are over and this is life at its best.

I guess I have not yet conquered the will to have people around. I do feel lonely at times, so lonely I wish I hadn't left home. This makes me doubt if Thoreau ever felt lonely at Walden Pond. I doubt if Supertramp ever felt lonely. Would V have felt lonely had he been real? Or at least boredom? That brings up the question - What's the difference then - between loneliness and boredom?

Why can I not spend all my time watching/reading/listening? Why do I crave for human contact? What's the difference between spending an hour with a book and spending an hour with a person? Customised perspective? Possibility of love? Touch? The answer still eludes me.

May be, it is easy to throw away a book that you don't like. But not a person. On the contrary, it's hard to get a human you like. Ah! Humans are intrusive and make life complicated. Books are simple and leave you free.

---
I was at Forum today. I see a lot of permanent-tatooed people. It's interesting. Another mode of expression of solidarity to something? (I should get one too.) :-)

---
I finished making the bow today. So, the bow and arrows are ready. The quiver needs some final touches. The ears are ready too. The tailor called. He said he will deliver the cloak tomorrow. The goldsmith said the fiery etchings are done as well. I guess I am all set for Operation Middle Earth.

---
Mary is back and in need of money again. I guess she has got into a habit of borrowing money from me, which is quite worrisome. But yes, Mary is back. :-)

---
I'm glad I'm writing this even after a year - Tomorrow will be yet another day when I wake in my bed and nothing will be expected of me.

Jeevan then put his diary back in its place, picked his copy of The Golden Treasury

and went to bed. ~~~THE END~~~

Irreversibility

Once in a while in the passage of time, a man gets so obsessed with numbers that his life is irreversibly changed. On the day Ram walked into my office with his theory, I knew he was obsessed.

~~~*~~~

I met Ram in my Advanced Number Theory class. It is one of our graduate level courses. I have been teaching ANT for the past 12 years, but I don’t remember any student in all these years who had as much passion for numbers as Ram did. It was evident that he was a class apart from his peers after a few classes. He solved the standard textbooks problems with no difficulties, abstracted what he learnt, posed problems for himself and began working on them. He quickly gave up solving my assignments as well. The only reason he was still attending classes was because he said he needed – in his own words – “fresh perspectives”.

Though he was my best student, we had never met out of the classroom. He worked on his own, never collaborating with anyone. I was sure he made some discoveries worthy of publication, but he never cared to publish. I realized he was aiming for something else. With the questions he was raising in class, he seemed to be on an abstract and directionless pursuit. Though I was curious and worried about where he was headed, I never took the initiative to talk to him out of the classroom. I thought he was a mad genius and it was best to let him be.

Two months into the course, Prof NRV mentioned that a guy in his class had been skipping all other classes except ANT and that he was at the verge of losing his stipend. It was worried it could be Ram. It was. I decided that it was time I had spoken to him.

In the next class, I went to his desk and asked him to meet me in my office after class for a chat. I waited for him, but he did not turn up. He sent me an email in the evening –

“Dear Prof. Hari,

I am sorry for not turning up. I know why you wanted to meet me. I’m alright. I am working on something far more rewarding than my stipend or my classes. I have delved so deep into solving this problem that I find my classes a waste of time. I now realize that I should have enrolled for a research oriented program. Classes don’t make sense to me anymore. But back then, I didn’t know what to pick… my interests are clearer now!

The next few days are the most crucial for me. I hope to make good progress. What I might discover as the solution could be path-breaking. This makes it all the more exciting. I might be missing ANT classes as well.

I’ll meet you soon with some good news!

Ram.

P.S: One-way functions. ;-)”

~~~*~~~

Five days later, he walked into my office. He did not look like someone bringing good news. He was bearded all the time, but his shabby dressing made him look worse. He looked tired as well.

“Good afternoon, Professor.”

“Oh! Good afternoon, Ram,” I motioned him to take a seat, “It’s quite a surprise to see you these days. So, how’s your research going? When are you getting back to classes?”

“Classes? I have not even thought about them Professor, but my research is on track.”

“What are you working on?” I asked, curious about what was holding him back from attending classes.

He hesitated and then spoke, “I am working on finding a universal reversal function. Umm… For example, like a universal de-hashing function.”

I wasn’t quite clear with his terminology. I wanted to make sure if he really meant what I understood it as. “You mean a function that accepts a hash value and returns the original plain text?”

“Exactly,” he said with excitement, “But hash functions are just a sub-set of one-way functions. I intend to find a generic function that can output the original input value when we input the one-way function used and the output it generated. If we use it in the context of hash functions, it can de-hash a hash value generated by any hashing algorithm.”

“Ram,” I paused trying to figure out the best way to put it, sighed and then told him, “I cannot put this in any other way, but what you’re saying is ridiculous.”

“I knew everyone would say this,” he said clearly losing his excitement, “It’s hard to accept the fact that a hashed value can be de-hashed and a one-way function can be reversed.”

“It’s not hard, Ram. It is impossible to accept it. You are trying to deny the very nature and purpose of hash functions. That’s what they are - Once you hash a piece of text, there is no way you can get the original text back.”

“I know the definitions, Professor. I think that’s what blinds you from seeing beyond. You fail to question the definition. I believe there is no such thing as a hashing function. In fact, there is no such thing as a one-way function as well. An input put through a mathematical function resulting in an output can always be reversed. Everything is two-way. I strongly believe in that.”

“You believe?” I asked in disbelief, “one-way functions have been proved to exist!”

“Then I intend to disprove it,” he said suppressing his anger, “Let me explain, Professor. Suppose I take each computation in a one-way function, I can see it has an input and an output. The output of each computation becomes the input of the next. This becomes a chain of causality. I believe – if you have the final output and all the steps of the function – then you can trace it back to the initial input.”

It was then that I realized I was arguing with someone who always questioned the premises of argument. “And this tracing back is what one-way functions do not allow! There is loss of data!”

He remained silent and said “You are going back to the definitions again. You don’t see what I see.”

I couldn’t understand what he could see. He was incorrigible and he was losing the argument. “Okay, Let’s take an example. You say your de-hashing function can give you the original text if you input the hashed value and the hashing function?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s take any hashing algorithm – MD5 for example. Whatever be the input, be it a 100 page Shakespearean play or just a single character – say an ‘A’ – MD5 always spits out a 16 byte output! There is no way you could de-hash the output into a 100 page text! Data is lost during hashing. You cannot conjure up the data from nowhere! And it applies to one-way functions as well.”

“Yes,” he sounded offended, “you cannot conjure up data, but you can certainly do it within the boundaries of present-day mathematics.”

“I’m sorry that I sound discouraging, but I don’t see this going anywhere, Ram. Even if you were to find such a universal de-hashing or a reversal function, there are so many problems. What about hash collisions? There could be infinitely many plain texts leading to the same hash value. If you were to de-hash it, how would you choose the correct input text from the infinite number of possible input texts?”

“It’s hard to explain to you, Professor,” he said and stood up, “I’ll show it you. It’s just a matter of days. I came here to ask you a favour. Now, I don’t need it. Thank you very much.”

He then stormed out of my office with stern determination.

~~~*~~~

I hadn’t heard of him for a week after that. Then, I received an email –

Dear Prof. Hari,

I’ve done it! I’ve managed to come up with the way to reverse a one-way function! (and to “conjure up” data! :-))

Here’s a sneak preview of my algorithm –

6dc48f564c3f21cbde15075932df63494968589b

Oh! I’m sorry I forgot it’s hashed and I’m the only one (except for Prof. Basu) who knows how to unhash it. :-)

Prof. Basu is hosting an inter-departmental seminar at the RCAMR this Friday. Researchers from the center are also invited. Prof. Basu is planning to make my discovery public that day. Please do come.

Ram.

Prof. Basu was the head of our department and the director of the Ramanujan Center for Advanced Mathematical Research. The “center” as we called it, was a privately funded research organization in our campus. I couldn’t believe Prof. Basu would invite researchers of the center for Ram’s seminar. Either it was going to be path-breaking or he would be making a fool out of himself. I thought I’d know in two days’ time.

~~~*~~~

It happened the day before the seminar. I remember that instance very vividly. I was in a class that morning. Prof. NRV walked swiftly into the class and whispered into my ears to step out. I was first confused. He said it was very important. He was sweating profusely and was acting hysterical. Just as I stepped out of the class along with him, he sputtered –

“Prof. Basu passed away in an accident today. He was on his way to the campus. And that boy – Ram – he was found burned to death in his room. It was a fire accident. No one knows how it happened.”

~~~*~~~

For the next few days, our campus was the talk of the country. There were several media reports, investigations, controversy theories and other such cacophony. After it all died away, I was left with what caused it all –

6dc48f564c3f21cbde15075932df63494968589b

It took away two lives.

It had the key to ultimate reversibility.

And it was irreversible.

~~~THE END~~~

Irreconcilable Differences

When Renuka stepped out of the office bus on that November morning, she was completely overcome by nostalgia. It was her last day at work - the end of her first job. For 13 years, the company had been her home and on that day, after being witness to hundreds of farewells of her colleagues, it was her turn. For the first time in weeks, the sadness that had engulfed her was replaced by a new feeling of nostalgia. She would miss the place very badly. She had spent more time in her workplace than any other place out of home. It was her second home. She had seen it grow from what had been place of thousands to this labyrinthine monster of a hundred thousand people.

How much had she fought to stay in this place? She refused to marry if she had to quit. She had to bear her in-laws' rants. She still stuck to her job after Arjun was born. How many other sacrifices? It was all worth it. She had enjoyed her work so much that she wondered if she'd ever find such a place again. She had never found a place where she belonged to as much. And it was time to throw it all away and leave. As fast as she could.

She walked along with the crowd. She wanted to be lost in the crowd and never come out. It made her feel anonymous. She did not want to get out. She did not want to be spotted again. She did not want to answer questions. She did not want to meet anyone. She hoped they wouldn't delay her with all the formalities. She wanted to get out as soon as she could. Arjun would be waiting...

~~~*~~~

Certificates of Appreciation, coffee mugs, Arjun's drawings, photo-frames, unit newsletters, magazines, certification materials... She was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff her desk and drawer had gathered over the years. Now, she had to take everything back. She started packing her things.

"Morning, Renu!" said Ashok as she was packing them. He seemed to be the only one from the team already in.

"Good Morning, Ashok!" He always reminded her of herself. Early to arrive, early to leave and focused at work.

"What happened?" he asked, ""We were all shocked that you suddenly went on a month's leave and now you're quitting all of a sudden." The question she didn't want to answer, but would keep coming.

"Erm..." she smiled, "You know... family needs."

He sensed she didn't want to answer.

"So," asked Renu herself sensing the awkward silence, "How's Sunil taking over?"

"Not very good actually. He's already very busy with ATLAS. He's finding it hard to manage both the projects. So they're looking for a replacement for you as soon as possible."

"I know." And then there was another silence.

"I'll go have my breakfast then." He said.

"Oh! Sure."

Solitude again! She finally managed to log in to her computer after a lot of recollection. The long break from work made her forget her password.

"Hello Madam! What happened?" pinged Srini immediately. She ignored him. Srini, Manoj and she were the last remaining souls in the company from the July 1997 batch. They hadn't been in touch recently, but still, She owed them an explanation. Not yet... Not now... She told herself.

She took a look at her separation checklist. 21 items. Her head ached already.

~~~*~~~

7. Please surrender your digital security tokens (if any) with the Hardware & Equipment Team at building 13. Contact Rahul Agarwal at 99167...

She stared at the list wondering where in Building 13 the Hardware & Equipment Team was. Meanwhile, there was some commotion in the neighbouring cubes. She turned back to see a few of her team-members assembled outside her cubicle. Others were trickling in. Rahul seemed to be their flag-bearer. Rahul was the usual least productive guy in the team who manages to wriggle out of situations with his social skills. Even then, he was their team's glue that held things together.

"Hi Renu," he broke the ice.

She smiled. They were up to something. "Hi all!"

"Erm..." ermed Rahul, "Sandeep told us that you are quitting because of personal reasons. The way he said it, it sounded more like personal problems. So, erm... we didn't want to trouble you much with a party. But we decided to get you something." And he took a wrapped gift. Sandeep was her manager. She understood he must have tried hard to explain her situation to the team without specific details.

She received the gift amongst cheers, applauses and a muffled whistle. She had the knack of finding out what's inside a gift-wrap. It was definitely a watch.

"Thanks a lot, guys. You really needn't have!"

"Yes, we wouldn't have," said Rahul, "But Guru has already bought a new gold ring. We didn't want the party funds to turn into gold ornaments. So..."

"I got engaged, you moron!" retorted Guru, their party admin.

She did manage to smile. She'd miss her team. "Thank you guys," she said, sadness hindering her speech, "I'm sorry that I cannot take you out for lunch..." It wouldn't take much time, would it? She asked herself. Even if it did, she owed it to her team. "But I'd love to treat you at the coffee shop at... around 3?"

~~~*~~~

The treat turned out to be a break from the irksome exit formalities. It was a relaxing experience and Renu was her normal work-self again. She had managed to forget the thoughts that were plaguing her and even caught up on some gossip. Finally, she was asked to give the customary testimonials about everyone. And then testimonials were showered upon her. After a final toast to her successful future (which she was skeptical about), they all began to disperse back to their places.

"Hello Madam!" called a familiar voice. It was Srini's. Srini and Manoj were gleefully walking towards her. Manoj had a gift bag with him. She excused herself from the others and met the two.

"Hi Guys!" she said. It was time she told them herself, "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you - Today's my last working day. I'm sorry if you already know."

"What happened?" they asked at the same time.

She fell silent. The same dreaded question.

"Nothing. 13 years is much too long, don't you think? Arjun needs taking care of, as well."

"But why so suddenly?" asked Srini.

"He's doing poorly in school. And..." Should I go on now? she thought, No! "Shall I get coffee for you guys?"

"Alright, I'll do that" said Srini and went to order at the counter. Manoj and Renu found a table and sat down. Manoj was lost deep in thought. They seemed to have bought her reason. "But," said Manoj, managing to distill the same question again out of all the thought, "Why all of a sudden?"

"It had to happen at sometime. And I decided to do it now. It's actually Arjun. He needs help."

"Five minutes for the coffee. They're a little held up," said Srini as he sat down along with them. "How's Arjun? You were saying something about him?"

"He's... fine. It's just..." She sighed, "It's a long story, Srini."

They noticed her hesitation. "It's okay," said Srini, "We don't have to talk about it."

"It's not that I don't want to tell you guys. I don't want to keep thinking about it all the time."

They sensed she was seriously concerned. "What happened?" asked Srini, "We might be able to help."

"It's Ravi," she replied, "He's completely out-of-his-mind. I don't seem to be able to make him understand at all. No matter how well I explain to him, he sticks to his own views and we end up shouting at each other. He and his mother keep insisting on using Ayurvedic medicines. I find the idea and the treatment entirely stupid. And in the middle of all this, Arjun's sight is deteriorating and his class teacher tells me that he finds it very hard to follow things in school."

"Deteriorating? What happened to his eye?" asked Srini with concern.

"You know he's been wearing spectacles for a long time, right?. He's had problems in his eyes from his childhood. We did not know it would become so serious. Four months ago, we noticed that he was having regular injuries at school. I also saw that there was something strange about the way he was navigating himself around. We feared something serious and immediately took him for an eye check-up. The doctor told us that it is a case of RP and his vision is deteriorating. He later explained to us that RP is incurable and in most cases progressive. We were both devastated."

"So there's no cure for this problem?" asked Srini. They were devastated too. Arjun was just 9 years old.

"No! The doctors say there's no cure for it as yet. Moreover, they think that Arjun's deterioration is rapid. They're not clear as to how fast, but they say that blindness can be prolonged with proper treatment. They even said that he might not lose complete vision. Ravi was initially hopeful that Arjun will be fine, but when the doctors mentioned that there's every possibility of him eventually going blind in 2 or 3 years and that there's no treatment for it, he began taking annoying decisions."

"You mean the ayurvedic treatment?" asked Srini.

"Yes, that and others. It started with one of his uncles. He came to visit us to check on Arjun and told Ravi that there's a place in Kerala which cures any kind of eye related problems and planted hopes in him. I got so frustrated with this. It was the time when the fact that he was going blind and nothing can be done was sinking in to me. All that we could do was to give Arjun proper treatment to prolong it or to take him to a another hospital for another opinion from the doctors. But Ravi went on to enquire about this place in Kerala and their treatment and to my surprise, decided to carry on with the treatment."

"Why are you against it?" asked Manoj, "If these doctors can't help, what's wrong in getting their help?"

"C'mon Manoj. Do you believe in all this? Do you think Ayurvedic medicines can treat something modern medicine cannot? And different people have different problems. They might not even know what the problem is, but they might give the same medicines. I cannot even remotely think of anything good coming out of this. And he and his mother insist on it instead of normal treatment to prolong blindness."

"Actually," said Manoj, "a friend of mine's cousin is taking ayurvedic medicines and he regularly goes for treatment in person as well. And my friend used to say it's effective."

"This is the problem! It is these bloody friends, colleagues and friend of a friend of a friend who bother me! I feel like... strangling them to death. 'My friend's cousin has got his eyes back', 'My friend's brother-in-law's kid doesn't wear glasses anymore', 'My colleague's sister-in-law got married after going there', 'Even the Americans come and take treatment here' Ravi keeps saying these! God! How can he be so dumb! May be, Ayurvedic medicines do help solve small problems, but people generalise it and raise hopes. I never thought Ravi would listen to all this."

"But-"

"There's another problem as well. Ravi fails to accept that his son would one day go blind. I do have some hope that he'll be okay. Who hasn't hope, anyway? But come to think of it, RP has no cure at present. And I accepted it. It was hard for me. But still, I did and he doesn't. And he still thinks Arjun can be and needs to be normal. Arjun finds it hard to read now. He uses a lens to read along with his spectacles. I don't know how long this would last. He's finding it hard to navigate in the evenings. The doctors say night blindness has already set in. Seeing him struggle, I suggested that we can move him to a blind school or atleast stop his education for this year and he got irate. He insists we should not let him think he's blind, but make him think he's normal. And he says going to school will depend on how the ayurvedic treatment plans are made."

"Hmmm." It was hard for Srini and Manoj to come up with anything to say. "When did all this happen?" asked Srini trying to gauge the present situation.

Renuka's eyes had grown watery by then. She was struggling to keep her emotions in control.

"A month ago. And after that, even when I completely refused, he forcefully tried to take Arjun to that place in Kerala. And that was when I went on leave. I was trying to hold Arjun back for treatment here. Then my mom joined them all and asked me to try just once. They somehow managed to convince me and then I said 'Fine. Let's go there, but I will not agree to any treatment.' The place turned out to be as bad as I expected. I felt that it was run entirely on people's faith. Most of the cases were those rejected by scientific medicine and came there as a last resort. We took him for a check-up and they asked us to stay for a week. That was when we had a huge argument. Ravi wanted to stay and I wanted to leave. He refused to take us back from there insisting that we stayed. But I screamed at him and took a cab to bring Arjun back here. From then on, things have been really bad at home."

"And you've been at home the entire month trying to protect him?" asked Srini, "Why don't you try and give Ravi a chance? Or why couldn't you give him both the treatments? "

"No! A 'no' is a 'no'. I am not experimenting anything on my son. 'Both' is not an option and it will not work out." She said stubbornly even as she struggled to hold back tears.

"He's equally worried as you are. He could be thinking that you don't see his views."

"I do see he loves his son. But, what's the point of this treatment? I clearly know it's of no use or might even be harmful. Then how can I support that? And even if I do, what about the treatment here which can at least help prolong complete blindness." She rested her foreheads on her palms and sighed, "It's the same thing over and over again for the last few weeks. And that's when I took the decision."

"To quit working?"

"Yes. And to take Arjun to my mother's place. I had enough. I can at least get him good treatment without people bothering me all the time. I don't see any point in sending him to school as well. He's going to miss the school and his friends. I need to see him get through that as well and probably next year, get him admitted into a blind school. There's one run by The Preetham Trust in association with the NAB. His life would definitely be better at my mother's place."

"But," replied Srini, "Isn't this a drastic measure? Wouldn't he miss his father? You need to first relax and think!"

"Relax? How can I relax? I am married to a man who thinks his promotions are because of his yearly visits to Thirupathi. And my mother-in-law has started re-making her jewelery into gold eyes and crowns to donate to a temple in the hope of a cure. And my mother has joined hands with her for this! They'll never let go of this rant about giving that treatment a try. And I cannot see my son undergoing such nonsense. They'll never change." Tears ran down her cheeks uncontrollably. The guy at the counter told them their coffee was ready.

Srini decided to console her. "Give it sometime, Renu. Don't take drastic measures. Just be patient. May be, your husband would see your point and accept your son's disability."

By this time, her voice had grown feeble because of the sobbing. She stared at the table as she spoke. She spoke incoherently, as if words came out from deep within her.

"Whom should I blame now? I should blame myself for getting into all this. No, I should blame my father. He brought me up to be like this, to think rationally, to think for myself, to read, to be independent and then he passed away happily at the most important time of my life. And my mom panicked and forced me into all this. I don't fit into any of this. I cannot take it anymore. I think there is something fundamentally different between me and the people around me. I've really had enough."

She then looked at both of them with bloodshot eyes and said, "I wish I believed in some God. I could have at least had someone to pray to..."

And then she sobbed silently into her handkerchief.

~~~ THE END ~~~

P.S : A little inspiration from Sweet Nothing in My Ear.

Thought Boundaries

I must have crossed the place a thousand times before, but it had never gathered my attention. All that I knew of the place was that it was called Gordandas Hall and it hosted weddings - not the rich ones, but mostly the middle class ones. Nevertheless, there I was - standing in front of Gordandas Convention Center, looking at the banners and hoardings put up for the 10-day fair - "Acer presents Scientilla '10 - Computer, Robotics and Science Exhibition."

It was about 11:30 AM and I was hungry. A2B wasn't far, but it was a bad time to go there. It was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. But wait, don't they serve hot food all day? But wait, don't they prepare it before and keep warming it al... It was too much thinking. I decided to step in to the fair.

~~~*~~~

It was just another Saturday - my roomies and I got drunk the previous night and slept late. If not for the phone call from home, I would not have woken up until lunch. I couldn't sleep after the call. I was hungry. I tried waking up people around for breakfast. Then I realised that they were having the best sleep of the week. Having no clue what else to do, I did the only sensible thing I do when I am clueless - opened Facebook.

Sharadh Raja was attending the event "Scientilla '10 - The Largest Computer and Science Fair in Bangalore". I'd usually skim past these event notifications and look at who's liking who's what, but the only thing that made me take note of the event was that it was happening at Gordandas Convention Center. It was on the way to A2B. And A2B was just 15 minutes from home by walk.

The event description said that it was a "computer products cum robotics cum science fair with stalls for 3D games and other fun events". The 'robotics' part got me curious. Our final semester project in college was called "A three-finger some-word-I-forgot operated fragile-object gripping mechanism for a robotic arm" or something like that - I forgot the exact title. It was probably longer. Nudged by the possibilies of college-nostalgia and backed by some technical curiosity (yes, it hadn't died yet!), I made a mental note to visit the fair when I had nothing to do. And then, I realised I had nothing to do.

One cold-shower and 10 minutes later, I left home with parcel orders for lunch (3 curd-rice(s?) and 3 nimbooz(es?)).

~~~*~~~

The hall was large and not very crowded when I entered. I could see two rows of 10 ft by 10 ft stalls on both sides of the pathway and as it turned left at the end, I guessed there were more rows of stalls beyond. I immediately realised that the sights and sounds of the place was a welcome-break from the usual Saturday afternoons. I could faintly hear some gun-fire and car-crashes mixed with the voice of Shankar Mahadevan singing "Deeesi Gurrrl" with some Justin Bieber as well (Baybee, baybee, baybee oh!). It was a perfect cacophony of non-sense and I loved it. Most of the stalls were branded with trade-marked colors of various computer-parts and video-game manufacturers. I could also see a few undecorated stalls - possibly start-ups, who had pooled in all their savings just to put up a stall in order to get that one lucky break.

There were a few professional- or corporate-looking people eagerly listening to the representatives at the stalls (possibly college-students on weekend employment reciting what they were taught the previous day). There were other curious singletons like me staring open-mouthed at the artifacts on display. The families were clearly missing. Probably, they were saving it for the evening. I ventured in, trying not to get myself involved in any sales or marketing pitches.

I crossed a few bigger-than-the-usual-10ftX10ft computer-manufacturer stalls - an HP store, an Acer store and a smaller, eye-brow raising Notion Ink store. A robotic firm's (RazorBots Pvt Ltd) stall followed - they were showcasing assembly-line transportation robots, sewage and septic tank cleaning robots. Then there were a few software firms marketing "economic and maintenance-free" hospital and hotel management solutions. Amidst a representative's shouts of "No! No! Not so flat!" and "Slower! slower!", I saw two people trying their hands at testing a "ball-catching" robotic arm showcased by another robotic firm.

A few computer-dealers' stalls later, I had reached the end of the pathway. By this time, I had collected enough pamphlets to fuel a camp-fire for a night. The pathway u-turned and the next row seemed to be full of stalls for amusement. One stall claimed to "Take your 3D photograph! Walk-in and walk-out with a 3D mesh file of your image. You can use it to animate yourself using popular 3D animation tools or to upload it to MMORP games". Then followed a few gaming stalls filled with teenagers wearing football T-shirts and further there were stalls claiming to make you an expert animation artist in a year.

Though I carefully avoided people in the stalls, I did look at every demo video at every stall and eventually lost track of time. Finally, I had come to the end of the pathway of the second row. I saw that it was almost 1 PM and hastened myself to leave.

If not for the long-haired, middle-aged man dressed in an extremely brightly colored shirt (pink and yellow things that resembled mandelbrot sets on violet background) who reminded me of Peter Norvig's affinity towards colorful shirts, I would have crossed his corner stall thinking it was another boring software firm's.

I took notice of his stall and the man himself who looked like a tourist in Miami. He was engrossed in solving a sudoku puzzle in The Hindu with no care about who was passing by. Nobody paid any attention to his stall partly because it was in the corner and partly because it was very dull. The only interesting part about the stall was its name, or part of its name -

"K.M.D Brain Processing Pvt Ltd".

I approached the stall, curious to know what "brain processing" was.

~~~*~~~

The stall looked very small and, as I mentioned before, lifeless. There seemed to be a partition in the middle of the 10 by 10 stall with a curtained entrance leading to a rear chamber. The portion exposed to the public had no artifacts for display except for a few charts and posters explaining the portions of the brain and some tree-graphs connecting what looked like random words. There was one poster in the middle with large and bold letters that read "Know your thought boundaries! Rs. 100 only!"

I went closer and cleared my throat hoping to gain the man's attention. I noticed that the figures on his shirt were in fact Mandelbrot sets. He seemed to be about my dad's age and his shirt did not make him look any younger or cooler.

"Aha!" said the man and looked up at me with a smile, "Got him at last!". He then elegantly filled a square with an air of a man writing the last line of the proof of the Collatz conjecture. He then started talking to the puzzle, simultaneously filling an avalanche of other numbers. "You were hard, I tell you! Real hard! For a moment, I thought I would have to get help!"

A man who talks to sudoku puzzles! Interesting! He had still not taken notice of me. I cleared my throat louder this time and said "Excuse me".

"Oh yes!" he said noticing me at last, "What can I do for you?"

"Ummm. I'm just looking around. Ummm... What's this stall about?" Introductions are always hard for me.

"Oh yes!" he said and looked around his own stall, "The stall! Umm..." He seemed to be a little restless and neurotic. He gathered his thoughts and answered animatedly, "We are here to demonstrate our brain scanning and processing capabilities. We, at K.M.D, are creating a suite of products that deal with brain analysis. And, as a marketing and brand-building exercise, we are showcasing our first full-fledged product - The Perimeter 1000 as a demonstration of our capabilities. It is a device that can extract a person's thought boundaries."

"Oh!" I said, shaking my head back and forth and absorbed what he said. It clearly needed some dejargonising. "What do you mean by brain analysis? And I don't really understand what thought boundaries are."

"Oh yes! Thought boundaries!" he said trying to recollect some definition which he seemed to have previously framed, "Well, you see, every person's thoughts are limited. By "limitations" I mean that there are topics or subjects to which a person's thoughts are limited to. And every new thought a person has will always fall within these boundaries. And people do not realise this. They lead happy lives within these boundaries. They don't know that they are caught within certain boundaries and they do not make a consious effort to extend these boundaries. And that's what we do - we help people identify their boundaries."

"Hmmm" I said, shaking my head back and forth again. It sounded interesting, but I couldn't believe there were limits to one's thoughts.

"I never thought a person's imagination was bounded! That is quite hard for me to believe. What about creative-thinkers? playwrights? philosophers? People at Pixar? I always thought they were out-of-this-world!"

He smiled and said "You see, their boundaries are just wider than yours. But there is no exception to the fact that everyone's imagination is bounded. Some keep pushing their limits while many are just content with it and make the best out of it."

He seemed to have a point.

"But why would people need to know all this when they are happy with what they know?"

"That" he said with an emphasis, "is a question I cannot answer definitively. It could just be curiousity. Don't you want to know what your thoughts are limited to? Don't you want to know where you are lacking or where you can improve? Don't you want to know what you constantly think about? At the worst case, you might just learn something more about yourself! At the best case, it might actually help you break your thought boundaries and explore more." He then took the voice of a spiritual guru and mimicked a sermon, "Think about it! A leap of faith! A paradigm shift! A path to betterment!"

"But..." There was something that I could not express. I hesitated and then blurted out what struck my mind first, "This sounds like some pseudo-spiritual stuff. You know, like something out of a self-development book. Like Paul Coelho. Stretching boundaries and all."

"Paul Coelho is not self-help!" he retorted immediately with a smile, "But this isn't any of it. Well..." He got into a trance of contemplation and spoke to himself "How can I explain it to him better?" and said "Aha!". He pulled out a sheet of paper from a bag near his chair and gave it to me.

"This is our demo output. Take a look at it."

The paper contained a list of words that looked unfamiliar and random to me.


Poorni
Dhamu's wedding
Directorate of Public Health
Dr Rajkumar
Ranganayaki
Death
Narayana
K. M. Nivas


"These are the thoughts," he said quite seriously, "that define the thought boundaries of an old man who passed away two months after he took this test. If you notice, he knew he was going to die and he was constantly bothered about his property, his wife and daughter, his death-bed wish of his 53-year old son getting married and thoughts about the place where he worked all his life. I showed this to him and pointed out to him that he could read more instead of wasting precious time worrying about things beyond his control, but he said he was too old for anything new. Supposing you took the test, wouldn't you realise that you could have thought about a lot of other things beyond what you get in such a list?"

"Hmmm." It made me think.

"So, you want to give it a try?"

"No! I'm okay". I wasn't sure.

"Why not?"

"I am not sure. Perhaps, I don't believe in these stuff. I don't think technology has advanced to such levels to... ummm... enable all this."

"So you think this is all hogwash?" A fifty-odd year old man wearing a funny shirt saying he could read minds. Was it hogwash?

"Yeah, you could just be printing some random words that are common to all people based on some algorithm. Canned outputs! Like those horoscopes."

"I do agree agree about the horoscopes, but this is not such a thing. This is neuroscience. My team and I have... Before I even get into proving it is neuroscience, let me ask you something - what do you know about advancements in medical sciences? Have you studied neurology or neuroscience?"

"No. But..."

"Then how can you judge?"

I wasn't eligible to judge. But even then, it was hard to believe. The man was talking about some technology that would probably exist in the 22nd century. Surely not now!

"C'mon, young man! What are you waiting for?"

"No. I'm just..."

Aaargh! It was too much thinking. I took out my wallet and gave him the 100 bucks.

~~~*~~~

I was seated in the partitioned rear chamber on what looked like a dentist's chair with a salon hair-setting machine fitted above the head rest. It looked as if it would slide down and cover my head. As the man put on a pair of rubber gloves, I looked around the cramped room. There was a mess of multi-colored wires that rose out of the machine above my head and spiralled away and connected to a washing-machine sized main control panel which in turn connected to two LCD screens placed on a table nearby. There were two chairs placed near the table for people to monitor the screens.

"My assistant has gone out for a break," the man said, taking a pen and a pad with a form on it, "We had a hard day yesterday. We could be doing this quicker, if he was here."

"Oh!" I said, feeling a little nervous now.

He then gave me the pad and said "Write your name here and fill up the other details. Mention your medical history if any and sign at the marked places. It's just a formality".

As I was filling the form, he applied a weird-smelling gel on my temples and placed two electrodes. He then went towards the control panel and started talking to it. "Let me see, the fMRI scanner's up and running. The neural activation detector's on. Memory mapper's okay. Language adapter's fine. What else? Oh yeah! The OPC is alive. Great. I think we are good..."

"Wait! What's this?" I asked in shock, looking at the 'Declaration' section of the form.

"I understand the complexity of the medical procedure I am undertaking and should any injury occur to me due to unforeseen conditions during the process, I accept that it was beyond the control of K. M. D. Brain Processing Pvt Ltd and I declare that I will not hold them responsible for the same."

"Relax, Mr... Raghavan!" he said with a smile, "I told you it's just a formality. I assure you it's safe. You'd be more than happy that you've done this. Now lie down, while I set you up." He then attached a pulse-meter pod to my finger-tips, "You will not lose consciousness during the process, so keep your ears open and listen to my instructions. And just breathe easy." I really didn't like the increasing authority in his voice.

I leaned on the head-rest and he slid the bucket-like thing over my face. There was a bright white light inside the device and I closed my eyes immediately. I was suddenly reminded of Jim Carrey in "An eternal sunshine of a spotless mind" and it made me even more nervous.

"Check. Check. Check. Check." I could hear him tick items off some list. His voice sounded faint and distant. A new whirring hum began when he said "Alright, it's on. Now, all I need is a seed to send you on your journey."

"What?" I thought to myself. Did he say "seed"?

"Tell me something you like doing the most? And hurry up! It's on!"

"Ummm... I don't know! Watching movies, may be!" The bright white light dimmed and I opened my eyes. I was able to see some sort of a 3D video. Or may be a hologram. I couldn't say which. It was as if I was travelling through space.

"What's your favourite movie?"

What the hell! Was it an interview?

"I don't have any favourites. I like all..."

"C'mon, hurry up! Name any movie you like! Or something you watched recently. You're entering the stargate."

Flashes of randomly colored bright light began to appear on the screen as I remembered my recently-watched movie.

"Shakespeare in Love."

~~~*~~~


Movie Torrents
T-Shirts
Python
Sujatha
Bharathi Vidyalaya
Pornography
Goa
Wikipedia
SNMEC
Chowdaiah Hall
Divya Mahalakshmi
Facebook
The Hindu
Home Loan
RomComs
The Invincibles
Amazon
TED
Arsenal
Akshaya Lending Library
Trichy
.
.
.


I was stunned by the two-page output I had in my hands. It had slid out of the main panel a few mintues after the machine has finished scanning my brain. It had brought out a few personal things I was trying hard to forget. Nevertheless, I tried testing the result. I could not think of a thought that was not related to the items on the list. By this time, I had got a faint head-ache looking at colorful disco-lights for what seemed to be five full minutes. I was starving too.

"I'm impressed", the man said removing the electrodes off my forehead.

"With?" Exercise brevity when you are hungry.

"With your boundaries, of course!" he said applying some soothing liquid on my forehead. He then got into his mode of explaining animatedly - "There is this concept of divergent thinking I believe in. And divergent thinkers are people who are able to come up with wild and uncanny solutions or ideas. They pull ideas from unrelated fields and mix and match them to produce amazing things. For that to happen, one needs to know and experience a wide variety of things. And what we have here is a result of someone who is doing that."

I smiled. That was quite a compliment! "So you mean I am a divergent thinker?"

"You might be. All I'm saying is that your boundaries are broad, proably on par with those of some of the best quizzers I have tested on and I suspect you to be one too. Don't think I'm foretelling, but I'm just speaking out of experience. If you are not doing it already, you might even get away writing some pulp-fiction."

He was partly correct.

"I used to be interested in screen-writing. But I lost interest."

"Hmmm. That's the flip-side of the coin, I guess. Such people tend to lose interest easily. Knowing too much too broad without exercising any sort of discipline rarely produces anything of value. And when you attain a state of such knowledge, paranoia is not far. But don't you worry, young man!" He said patting my back and letting me get up, "you'll be just okay." He offered a hand-shake.

"Thanks," I said and shook hands with him.

"Thank you! You were a really good customer!"

I had the test results in my hands. The only thing left to do was to bid good-bye.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" I was curious about the man.

"Go ahead."

"Would you show me your test results? I want to know what you think about."

"Ah! You know - The usual stuff! You don't have to test me for that. I can tell it to you myself - my company, my team and then the neuro-imag..."

"No!", I cut him short, "I insist. I want to know your thought-boundaries. I just want to know how smart you are."

"The result is never a case to judge smartness. But if you insist," he said with a sheepish grin on his face, "I will take the test. But be warned, the machine behaves in mysterious ways at times."

I was in no mood to extend the conversation. "Enough talking! Please start your test!"

~~~*~~~

I cursed myself for asking him to test himself. I was extremely hungry by then and the man took a long time to set it on auto-pilot. The machine took about ten minutes to scan (Pretty wide boundaries! I thought) and once the scan was over, it was processing for about five minutes now. The man removed the electrodes from his forehead and drank some water as we waited for it to spit the results.

"Water?" he offered the bottle.

I grabbed it and was gulping the water down, when a paper slid out of the main panel. I reached out for it before he could and looked at it.

I coughed, looking at it and the water sprayed all over the room. There was just one word - no, just one number written on it.

42.

~~~ The End ~~~