Friday, June 29, 2007

story

all characthers appearing in the story except the 4 friends appearing in scene 1 are fictious. any resemblence to anyone real or dead is purely coincendental. similiarly for all scenes, except scene 1, which actually occured



Scene 1


Well, you may not believe it but this thing actually happened when we were in junior college. At the end of a long and tiring day at college(2 hours of college can neither be called long nor tiring to be very frank but as bad as it could get) we were supposed to have queenie’s chemistry lecture. Queenie would make her lectures so interesting that one could actually watch a game of golf on tv and find it more interesting in comparison. So I decided that there was no gain in sitting for the lecture and left. This left my friends, auto, fatso, guitarlover(he wasn’t sleeping with guitar those days just getting wooed by the instrument) and hairy kumar in a conundrum. Brat was bunking and they were going to attend queenie’s lecture. Even thought their attendance record was poor, the foolishness of their decision to stay back hit them about a couple of minutes after I left.

The geography of my class was something like this. Its situated at the end of a corridor along which there were 2 other classrooms. At the other end was the staircase, which the only access to this corridor on the top floor from the rest of the college.

Now, back to the story. A couple of minutes after I leave the group also decided to leave. They had almost reached the staircase when someone came shouting from the staircase, “ queen’s coming, queen’s coming. Run back to class.” The prospect for sitting for sitting for one hour for queenie’s class at the end of day seemed even more preposterous now. So they just ran into a rom on that corridor. Auto and fatso ran as fast as they could towards the other side of the room and took shelter behind a pillar. Guitarlover and hairy kumar positioned themselves close to the door, so that they could see when queenie passed the room and then make a run for it as soon as she did.

And then they hear a voice. A voice, which sounded like it belonged to a professor. and yes it did belong to a professor And it said, “ arrey, yeh kya ho raha hai.” And all the students listening to the lecture burst out laughing.

The guys ran, ran like they were running the 100m Olympic final after watching an episoxde of the great Indian laughter challenge. They laughed and ran all the way to the bus stop where I was waiting and told me the story in between spells of laughter. I started laughing the hardest, and the bus stop must have seemed like a haven for crackpots indeed.

Scene 2

I was driving in my car, totally dejected, just being ditched by my partners in the software company I had started and which I took care of as though it was my baby. They had left me penniless and almost without hope when I saw these bunch of kids laughing their guts out at the bus stop, without a care about the world. Whoever they were, they were my angels of hope. It struck me, what if the bastards had ruined me and fucked my case. They were just people who brought in the money, while I was the guy who did all work with respect to runnig it, right.

The smiles on those kids faces, made me realize, I could come up again. It’ll take time, but I could do it. So I went back home, contacted all those old friends, who would be interested and who were my friends with just because3 I existed, not because I had money or a software company or whatever. I proposed to them my plan. Some were interested and some weren’t. But we made a new start.

The exact coding details are too esoteric for a common person to understand, so ill just give a brief idea of what we did. 1st to save money we setup the place at home. Motu and myself did most of the initial work.the rest as everyone knows is history. The first saoftware, a utility for shops and sales places was a huge hit. We would go to small shops and started selling there first. The people were impressed and slowly we moved on to the bigger chains and shops. And finally, now this contract with walmart worth 20 million. And I am here giving you an interview.


Scene 3

Kallu singh, IPS picked up his daily newspaper in assam and saw the smiling potrait of some rich businessman who made it from riches to rsgs to riches again. On a normal day he would have liked reading such stories. But not today. The day before, terrorists bombed his house. His wife and son were killed. This, because he was relentless trying to fry the ulfa boss’s arse. And all this didn’t even anger people in power. They were just sympathetic to him and paid by the terrorists. He lost faith in the system. He decided he had seen enough and now was time for action. He wrote his resignation letter, left it on his senior’s desk and practically disappeared from the eyes of everybody.

But like all revenge stories go, even if the hero is taken off the scene in the middle of the story he will be re-born as someone else. And so was kallu. He knew where to get the arms illegally. Picked a rifle and all the rounds he would need and entered the dense forests of assam. He picked his targets carefully. 1st would be the guy who bombed the house. Ai , fire, death. No one understood who killed the guy. The people were happy, and thje cops bewildered. But to them it waw a good thing. One goon less to catch. Next the guy who masterminded it. Same startergy,m same result. And finally the big boss himself. Aim, fire, death again. The people were even more happy, the cops even more bewildered.

Kallu had taken his revenge. He knew that the story didn’t end theree. Some other rat would replace the rat he killed and the menace would continue. But now he didn’t care. His job was dojne. He had lost his family, and his purpose to be. So he just gave everything all up set up a tea stall outside a college campus and hjoped to spenmd the rest of his lives in happy anonymity.

And the police wuld never suspect a man with a long beard making tea for students off a college, would they!


Scene 4

Raja was pouring all jhis woes into the patient bearded tea vendor outside the iit campus in guwahati where he studied. He was very sad. He never wanted to be here. All he wanted to ever do was paint. But peer pressure, and parental ambition had decided otherwise. His life was a mess. He hated what he was doing and pretty much sucked atit.

The only saving grace of the place was the odd sighting of sita. He liked the way she looked, the way she talked, the way she did everything., b asically he liked her. And decided to propose to her. With full effects like a rose and everything. But sadly, for sita raja epitomized everything she didt like. And she didn’t mince words when she told him no. you’re a weird arsehole whom I avoided anyway, she said.and also added don’t even attemp to show me your face again.

Well that was the last straw for our hero. Ganja was verry easily available on campus, and it wasn’t tought to proicure the more potent stuff either. Alcohol, obviously no questions asked. And it aint too good for the head if u mix all of that with a lil bit of floyd and the doors. Well you can imagine his state. His life was fucked, his studies were too and people around didnt know what to do with him. Finally someone called his home and told his parents to take him back. They arrived, and after just onme look at him put his stuff and booked berths on the next train back home.

He left their side and went and stood by the door. All the drugs had screwed his sense of balance. And as the train was passing over a bridge, his balance gave way completely and he plunged into the depths of the river.


Scene 5:

Rani returned to her village after quite a few years. And as she waws crossing the river to finally reach home, she saw the young boy committing suicide by jumping from the trai(she wouldn’t know it was an accident , would she), and that brought back memories of her own past life.

She was from a small village but always aimed to do something big. She studied hard, and was moving up. She decided she would move to Bombay, the city of dreams, study further and join the civil services. She did move to Bombay, studied a bit more, but got lost in the crowd. She couldn’t clear her civil services, and to survive became a teacher.

Her life at home was an even bigger mess. Her husband would be drunk every night and practicall rape her every time he was drunk. Which meant she had to endure torture every night. And she removed all of this on her students. They obviously didn’t like her.

She was feeling extremely low at the end of a long and tiring day of college with one lecture at the worst class to look forward to. She decided enough was enough. No more endurance.

She slowly walked towards the top floor. As she moved she saw these students laughing crazily, and it made her realize what was she running from there were things in the world which one could enjoy, and she had missed. She still walked to the top floor, but instead of turning left and jumping from the corridor, she turned right, tok class, and from then on enjoyed life.

4 comments:

Srivats said...

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

-Elton John "The Lion King"

Very apt, i think

Surrealist said...

dude it looks like you have been reading arthur hailey or something.same concept of different lives crossing at weird places.but nice overlaps though the rich business man to the assam cop could have been more pronounced.and i think in the beginning you had thought something along the lines of queenie=rani and try making events come back to the beginning.but then realised many years would pass between where you start the story and where you end it.but honestly pretty interesting to read!

brat said...

queenie = rani(its just a ttranslation, u see;) ).... years pass, but then rani's memories are stirred....she goes back in flashback....

and arthur hailey havent yet started reading.....

Adi said...

Heyyyy really liked this one... the firts scene was closest to heart for obvious reasons!! and even though there was nothing specifically original about the stories, it just seemed new having been put that way! Good read overall...