What the leaves whispered

The rain was falling hard. Between the water drops shattering on the earth, the occasional thunder and the frogs crying on the field all other noises were drowned. Dusk had come and gone taking away the last bit of light leaving behind a cold, wet night. Baring the occasional stray rickshaw that bore home someone unfortunate to be out in this weather, the streets were empty. The incessant rain, the cold wind and the dark night drove everyone home.

Her head resting against the cool window pane, Rupa was lost in her thoughts. With no school tomorrow and therefore no homework she was free to do as she pleased today. She had played with her friends all evening until the rain had driven them back to their homes. With nothing else to occupy her thoughts, Rupa was watching the rain fall. From her window she could see the banyan tree which was thirty paces from her house. There was an empty plot under the banyan tree where no one had yet build a house. Grass had grown on that empty land and the frogs and the crickets had claimed it as their own. The lone light in the street right next to the banyan tree lit up the tree more than the road below with a eerie yellow light. Strong lights shone from inside every house in the colony as if to make up for the darkness outside.

Sitting inside the dark night didn't bother Rupa. She generally loved the rain. She loved to jump into small puddles that formed on the roads and splash water. She would float small objects in the streams that suddenly sprung up every where after a heavy rain.

With the curiosity in-born to all ten year olds she looked up into the sky wondering if she could see the drops as they fell from above. With nothing else other then the black sky staring back at her, she shifted her attention to the banyan tree. Its leaves drooping under the assault from the water drops, it stood glistening in the night light. Suddenly she noticed something seemed to be moving under the tree. An odd shapeless form which moved a bit and then lay still. She looked long and hard but she was not able to make out what it was. Right then the television played her current favorite song and rain, cold all forgotten she ran inside.

The fat, heavy rain drops gradually thinned down to a small drizzle. No one noticed that the rain had thinned down and the frogs had reduced crying until a moaning sound was heard. Rupa ran back to the window puzzled at the new sound. It seemed as though the moans were coming from the direction of the banyan tree. There was still something moving under the tree and whatever it was, it seemed to be moaning. As she looked closer, the shape and form of a man began to emerge. He was lying on the ground under the banyan tree covered by a cloth, evidently sheltering from the rain. And he was mumbling something and moaning in between. Rupa ran to get her parents.

Pretty soon her parents, the neighbors and the rain were all watching the man. Rupa overheard her mom talking to her neighbor on the phone "Why doesn't he get up and leave? He must already be soaking wet. Seems like he is drunk. If he dies in the night from the cold what can we do?" Her friend Subbu's father  braved the cold and the rain and went up to the man. Rupa watched as he tried to get the drunk man's attention but the drunk was far too gone to pay any attention to the man's words or the rain drenching him. He just kept on mumbling and moaning and crying out. Frustrated, uncle returned to the comfort of his home. After a while one by one everyone stopped keeping watch over him and left him alone.

The drunk man was the topic of discussion at the dinner table that night. Subbu's father who had been the one to go and talk to the man had reported that the drunk was a frail old man who looked as though he was homeless. He had on a thin shirt and a dhoti which he was using as a blanket against the rain. He was soaked to the skin and shivering in the cold. He seemed to be distraught and was crying at intervals about his life. But it was so incoherent that Subbu's dad had not been able to make out anything. It had been decided to leave him alone and hope that when he got out of his inebriated state he would stagger off somewhere else.

Later under her blanket Rupa's last thought as her eyes closed was on the old man in the rain. The drizzle had long stopped and it had begun to rain heavily again drowning his moans.

When her eyes opened, Saturday morning had dawned without a trace of rain and the sun was shining. As her sleep heavy eyes slowly opened, she overheard her parents discussing on the old man. It seemed he belonged to the next colony where he lived with his son. He constantly fought with his family and drank away his sorrows. Last night the fight had been more fierce than usual and he had not gone home after drinking but had come to sleep under the tree. During the night one of the colony wallah's had recognized him and called up his son who had come and taken him away sometime during the night.

Rupa got up from her bed and walked out into the morning sun. There was no evidence of any sort of the drama that had been staged under the banyan tree last night. The banyan tree stood proudly in the morning light its leaves whispering amongst themselves the tearful story of the old drunk man who had poured out his sorrows last night. But the playful wind and the singing birds soon had the leaves swaying to their joyful song all of yesterday forgotten.


Laks

The bad and the ugly.

The feelings expressed in this post is purely mine, if u feel the same or different it is in no way going to change my opinion.

I lived for five years in Trivandrum where I worked. The place has its fair share of IT population, businesses as a result of IT and a whole lot of manipulative people. Most of the locals with whom I shared my working environment were the normal helpful people one finds everywhere else. I made some very wonderful friends at work from the place but step out of technopark and the vultures pounce on you.
Leading the pack would be the auto drivers. You never paid them less than Rs 15 for the smallest distance. And the rates could go as high as Rs 200 for longer distances. Auto wallahs all over the state are the same, but only in trivandrum would people refuse to take you if it were a Sunday evening. [Sunday evenings they return to their homes I suppose]

A lot of folks from the other states complain that tvm doesnt have pubs or discos etc. Since I don't frequent such places I never found that an issue, however decent hotels with good food seem to be a rarity in the city. And if there are any such hotels they definitely are not easily accessible in the evenings. Most of them are tucked into small lanes as if they would rather not have any customers.

Speaking of rather not having any customers, the experience of shopping in some places in Trivandrum is truly eye opening. I have been to several shops where as soon as one enters the sales people stare sullenly at you. If one manages to avoid the obvious hatred and picks out an item, it gets almost hurled at you by the sales person. Customer satisfaction doesn't seem to exist in this district.

So ruling out food and shopping what do we do to pass time on weekends? Movies are an option with tickets only Rs 35. But this is also affordable to the Sunday afternoon drunk who wants to pass out in a theater as well. If you can overcome the snoring drunk, the hard seats and the stench the movie is worth your money.
Else the beach seems to be a place where you can go to. Though you would have to bear with a lot of stares and snide remarks from the peverts at the beaches. But are other places any different? I guess they too would be the same, but I refuse to acknowledge that they could be any worse place than Trivandrum.

The high class society is a snob. Their establishments are not worth dealing with. I had an unfortunate experience dealing with several society ladies running a tailoring shop. They misplaced one of my cloth and when i tried to reason with them they retaliated with a vengence. You would think people with education would have the sense to talk reasonably. But whoever said education guarantees sensibility. Middle aged ladies have no sense of queue while waiting for autos. They just try to outsmart you and get to the auto first.

Once they know that you are from Technopark, you are gullible to be robbed. If you haggle with any person they would say, you are getting paid so much why are you being so stingy? If I had such a bad time, I dont even try to imagine what the out of state folks would begin to feel. But bargain we did as we did our own cooking as the food in this neck of the woods is not for everyones palate.

With the advent of IT in the city, the land prices have gone up. Everyone blames IT for it. Who do we blame? We have to pay these high rates too for renting houses which are barely big enough for two people to comfortable live in. The area around techno park, houses spring up like mushrooms. Everything from a studio flat to houses without kitchens for bachelors are available. But the quality of the construction is another matter.
I spend several years in Palakkad which is even smaller a town than the capital city. Add a couple more shops to Palakkad and enlarge the roads a bit and submerge them in water in the rainy season and it would become Trivandrum. But in Palakkad I never saw any angry salesperson nor did i ever see strangers who refused to help. I ran away from Palakkad thinking never again would I live in a town as small as this and landed in Trivandrum.

Do I miss anything about Trivandrum? Was there anything worthwhile in the place that I would recommend to others? Honestly I dont. It should never have the distinction of being called the capital of the state. Nothing in the city reflects that. Before I left work was going on laying pipes. So every road was dug up and then left with piles of mud everywhere. So the place didnt look pretty as usual.

Some advantages of calling Trivandrum home is pollution is less compared to the other major cities. Traffic is not as bad as others. The weather is pretty good most of the year around. The cost of living not as high as other cities. Does this offset any of the bad experiences that I have had these past years? This tip of god's own country is not my cup of tea.

In love and further...

I thought I loved you

I believed my heart could no more hold.

But with your every word,

Every touch and look of love

I discover love is limitless.

At times love overwhelms

The words recede and tears flow unbidden .

Last night the sparkle in your tear rimmed eyes,

Your hand seeking mine, the ecstasy

While silence spoke eloquently.

It spoke of trust, of companionship,

It sang unheard verses of love.

My eyes clouded, my heart filled

Part in love and part your tears.

Lost we were in the silent symphony.

Once more you tested my boundaries

Proving love is without an end

Time may never repeat

The moment silent, when

Two souls fell in love all over again.

Mathematics!

What is your favorite subject? Most of us as kids would have been asked this at some point of their life. You can't discuss weather nor any of those mundane conversations starters with a kid. So you stick to stock questions like this. So what was my favorite subject? The answer was always a no-brainer for me, English and Maths. English came naturally to me, I could write essays without blinking an eye so it was definitely on top. As for mathematics its a rather long story.

The responsibility of her daughters education was on amma's shoulders. We played with achan and we studied with amma. Everyday after school she would sit with us and make us do our homework. Before I proceed, you should know something about amma. She was and still is extremely good at maths. And she was also extremely quick to loose her temper. And the above two mentioned qualities have been missed in my genetic makeup.

You can add up two and two and get endless possibilities if you don't know that it should lead to four. I am generalizing here. Of course with my eleven fingers I was comfortable with all additions that stayed below eleven, but what about eight plus four? That was out of my league. Eight plus four would eventually trigger twelve in my mind after having worked on them for a bit. Then I would look at amma to analyze whether twelve would be what she would be expecting. 

Meanwhile, amma would be looking at me and wondering why the dunderhead(that's me) is looking at her and not giving her an answer, and naturally her temper would start to boil. I would notice amma's face slowly turn pink with compressed anger. It would begin from the tip of her nostrils and spread. The twelve which would have reached the tip of my tongue would dissolve into a thirteen.

So with thirteen becoming the new star on the horizon, I would again look down at the figures, round the eight a bit  more, make sure my addition sign is perfect, bite my lips and give out the impression that rain or shine I am going to solve this puzzle. But all I would be thinking of is how heat waves of anger seem to be radiating from her. Seconds would turn into minutes. My twelve and thirteen would still be wrestling it out with each other and I would be undecided. It would have been easier to keep on counting past eleven in my mind, but my mind would be strangely numb. Finally amma would ask me angrily whether I had the answer or not. I cant be expected to take this long during an exam she would say.The moment I hear her tone, flood gates would open and tears would come unbidden to my eyes as I realize that this is the edge of the precipice. My heart would stop pumping and I would look at her through blurred tear rimmed eyes and blurt out FOURTEEN!

I usually missed whenever we sat to learn maths and i would always get suitably punished either on the arm or leg whichever was closest to her hands. Whatever patience amma had would dissolve when she saw tears in my eyes. She could never fathom why I cried before every answer. And I never figured out how to stop those tears from coming. [I still haven't] So my addition days at home were a blur of pink, tears and a whole lot of beatings. But the worse was about to come.

Addition didn't give me as many problems as the rest of the math family. Subtraction seemed to have been formed to torture the souls who couldn't count backwards fast enough. And leave alone normal numbers subtraction with decimals was my Waterloo! It was bad enough that I had to borrow from the next number but the dots in between were an added distraction. I tried counting with my fingers, my toes even but the numbers always missed their mark and the punishments continued. Somehow for examinations, since amma was not breathing near my neck while I added and subtracted I made less mistakes than at home. So while I never got a hundred in maths I always managed to scrape low nineties or high eighties.

Multiplication and division also lay claim to tripping me up frequently. Geometry, algebra, logarithms also joined in the gang war. They were all on one side and I was alone in the other.Finally in my eighth standard amma announced that she was not going to tutor me anymore. Time had come for me to stand on my own to feet and face Mr x and Mr y. Was she confident that I would deal with them on my own or was she simply tired after teaching me? I don't know the answer to that yet. But whatever success I have had with numbers is because of her. After seventh standard I have been on my own with Mathematics stumbling along sometimes falling sometimes succeeding. I even went up to the extent of taking up engineering which had a lot of maths in it.

So with this rich history in numbers where am I now? I am still fighting the war with numbers. In our day to day life it is difficult to ignore the numbers. When I first calculated our bank balance and converted it to Indian Rupees we became millionaires in the league of Ambani's and I was left stunned and breathless until my husband pointed out I had added a wee bit too many zeros at the end. On some days the zeros get missed out and we are plunged into near future poverty. Thankfully, I chose wisely and married a man who can multiply and divide like the best of them. 

So after all this, why is it then that maths is one of my favorite subjects? The suspense of writing x=8 and y=4 and looking at amma, who would nod if it is right  and the thrill that followed after getting the correct solution was worth everything. Amma would calmly move on to the next question but I lived for those rare moments. When your equations balance themselves out it beats any story hands down. 

The woods are lovely dark and deep...

Two roads diverged into the woods, both leading to a dense growth of trees. I didn't have the advantage that Robert Frost had as both the roads were tarred and both looked the same. Dusk was spreading, the time when birds and animals alike call it a day and go home. But we were feeling adventurous.

We decided by some random logic that the road leading to the right was the one we would take. And so we started walking. Initially the pace was leisurely as we admired the beauty around us. Tall trees lined both sides of the path, with green ferns covering up the ground. Dry, fallen leaves crunched under our feet and moss covered up fallen barks by the road side. It was a pretty place to hike through. But little did I realize that things were about to change very soon.

The road twisted and turned like a serpent so we could never make out more than 20 steps in front of us. Beyond every turn there was always another turn. The silence of the forest began to get oppressive. There were no birds, no crickets even.It was as if we were the only souls awake in that part of the woods. Every step that I took, I fearfully scanned both to my left and right to check if something was hiding behind those trees. I felt as though eyes were hiding behind the trees watching every step. 

Midway on our trek we stopped. We had been going for close to five minutes and we hadn't seen any sign that someone had gone ahead of us. All of us were wrecked with doubts. Was it because of the late hour that no one was there? Or was it because this was not a place meant for trekking? While we stood there discussing quietly amongst ourselves, a bird flew overhead. The swishing noise of the air as the bird's wings flapped was oddly loud. It was eerily silent again as the bird flew away. And it was getting darker by the minute.

One of the guys checked his mobile and found that he had range. So with the help of the mobile, the decision was made that we continue. If we had not reached anywhere after 10 minutes we would turn back we decided. With everyone agreeing to move forward, I muted the warning bells in my head and we started again. We walked in silence as if respecting the silence of the forest. I was too busy scanning the area to talk to anybody. Perhaps the others were also thinking along the same lines. Barely had we gone forward another 5 minutes  when we saw a clearing in the woods. The path we were walking on ended on top of a hill. Our smiles returned and our steps grew quicker. As the trees started clearing I realized that there was still some daylight left.

All of a sudden we heard the car approaching at high speed. We looked towards the direction the car was coming from. It zipped past us at top speed as we stood gaping. Our forest ended on a main road! The path we had walked through was just a service path for the rangers of the park. 

There was no other option but to turn back. Looking back , the woods didn't even seem remotely scary. It was just a small cluster of trees. Our spirits returned and with it our voices as well. We were a happy bunch walking back laughing at our misadventure.

There ends part one of this story. The trail that led to no where. But this trail is the one I would most remember. On to part 2.

We went back to the fork in the road and took the left path. It was darker and quieter. The trees on either side had spread their branches over the road and cut off all the light. Again we took the decision before starting off that we would trek online 10 minutes before turning back. Barely had we gone three minutes when light began to appear. The trees were thinning with each step we took. One last turn and suddenly we were out in a clearing. It was not where we wanted to be, but it was gorgeous. The sun was setting and the sky was a painted every color possible. The colors of the sky were reflected in the still waters of the lake in front of us. A couple of deers, a few geese completed the picture. I stood there for a long time mesmerized by the beauty of the sunset. 

Lost we were still, but what a reward for losing our way. I tried to capture the beauty of that lake through my camera but realized that there are somethings that nature doesn't share with us. She keeps them for herself.

We finally found our way back and headed back to our vehicle. I cant vouch for the others, but trailing at the back of the group I kept looking back over my shoulder not wanting to leave. I was happy being lost.