SAFFRON ROSES FOR VALENTINE

‘Together’ was no longer a word for them. It was an emotion. An emotion as simple and yet complicated like sadness or elation. Standing in the rain outside her house he whispered the three words that meant a lot to him. She received them with a smile, not a grateful smirk or a faithful grin but a simple smile as if she knew what was coming. She knew he would say it. She knew it would mean a lot to him .She knew it would rain.

The perfect thing about rain in Kerala is that it rains so much that for once people are busy.. They stop poking their noses into other people’s daily attempts at life. For once they are concerned about their ‘mundu’ getting dirty in the rain or their ‘sarees’ loosing color to the drainage water. They have their ‘Popy’ umbrellas and their “lunar’ slippers which are older than the ruling parties promises though equally charred and compromised. For once when the couple stood holding hands in public ‘they’ didn’t bother.

They had been friends for too long now. He founds a happiness that he couldn’t find with anyone else. To go with her on long walks across the city dodging people, to stare at a distant cloud and wonder if its going to rain, to watch her play with her hair as she told a story about some fisher man who lost his arm and to listen to her breathe away to sleep in his cell phone.

He couldn’t pass in exams while she couldn’t fail. She couldn’t bear movies while he could. They were different though not entirely. He wouldn’t lie and she couldn’t. He would drool around waiting for her to get into his bus and then pretend not to see her. She would pray that he was there. They both would act surprised and busy reading old text messages in their cell phones.

A rain bearing cloud ignored the moment when she said that she had enough of him. That was a long time back. It was for something unimportant. He wouldn’t let his ego go for he believed that ego is all that we have. She wouldn’t let herself go. She wouldn’t enjoy the moment. She planned. Planned about studies, about life and about retirement.He was like a log in the stream and she was like the stream itself..

And before they knew they were two different people in two states. He went to clear all his failed exams and she went to the busy MNC life.He befriended the cigarettes while she found happiness in the malls. He had new friends and she had co-workers.He wanted to call her when he passed all his back-papers but something inside him told ‘she wouldn’t care’. She wanted to cry to him when her boss made a move on her but he had changed his phone number. He wanted her to find if there is a vacancy in her company but his ego wouldn’t let him. He took an old copy of her resume and edited it to make his new one. He got a call from the company. He didn’t perform well. The company hired him anyhow. He didn’t want to join. He didn’t want to run into her in the same city.

He saw her at the multiplex twice with a chap half his size. He walked away. She saw him in the railway station once but she had to catch a train.

The valentines days never used to be special when they were together. It was like any other day. But this time it was different. She wanted to meet him. He got her number but wouldn’t call. She left a mail in his old email Id. “lets meet up”

He was excited. “Will there be a future ?”. She was scared. ‘Will there be a future ?”.

He saw her across the street in her yellow salwar. He knew the feeling never died. She wanted to smile. For once he let his ego take a step back..He said, “How are you ?”

She replied “ I am fine”

He smiled. He wanted to hold her hands and he did. She smiled again. Was it love or an old flames charm?

A few men came running out of nowhere. One of them bore a sword and the other a videocam. He held her close to him. A man wearing a saffron scarf knocked him out into the pavement. He got back on his feet and found himself on the ground again. They stubbed turmeric on him and on her. “jai Sree Ram” they shouted.

“Didn’t you see the warning ?” one of them shouted. She cried. He spat blood. One of them recorded all these.

The guy with sword stood like an old maharaja’s statue.

“No dating, on valentines day” the man shouted again. They took a ‘rakshabandhan’ out and handed it to her.

“Tie it on him “

She resisted. HE slapped her. She fell on the payment. “tie it on him”.

She stood up and said “ I love him”.

The man with sword moved…. .

(http://www.bibliofaction.com/read/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?news=df1c6f47-4361-43cf-bb84-3005741ac0ca)

http://www.pakistan.tv/videos-incidents-of-hatred-on-valentines-day--[8bZizjLfeuc].cfm

THE RECRUITMENT CEREMONY

The paper was of better quality than usual. ‘Please return the question booklet after the test’ a fair lady shouted.

The question were simple though twisted

‘If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?’

Hari turned around to see a guy wearing a light brown shirt peep into a green salwar wearing pimpled girls answer sheet. She let him. He smiled at her.

Someone shouted on a microphone on the podium. ‘ 5 minutes remaining’.

Hari turned the question booklet around. More than half the questions were left unanswered. A 50% complete answer sheet will never fetch him a job. ‘Every answer sheet has a pattern’ he thought. ‘I will mark ‘C’ on all the options. When a person puts an Objective question he has more tendency of putting the answer at C’ .he had this notion about objective question papers.

The test was done and someone started collecting the anser sheet. The girl in the green salwar discussed the answer with the guy in the brown shirt. Hari stood up and walked out of the large auditorium in which the ‘placement drive’ was being conducted. He knew he wouldn’t get this job.

Hari had presumptions about everything. His head spokes to him in numerous ways. On odd days he blurted out what’s up in his head and screw things.

‘The refreshments will be served near the Automobile Engineering department’ the fair lady shouted on the microphone.

Hari ate his share of ‘goodDay-biscuits’ and drank Tea. The place was littered with disposable cups and biscuits packets in no time.

The list of candidates who qualified in the written exam was put up on a notice board. The crowd shifted from the refreshment counter to the notice board. There were a lot of indexes pointing at the paper. Someone spilled a cup of tea. A crumbled biscuit made it out of the hustle into the tea puddle. The outsole of black leather shoe trampled on the biscuit. The outsole was suddenly trampled on by a set of enthusiast who found there names on the ‘notice board’.

Hari found his name at the bottom end of the list. 35 people qualified. He was one of them. He didn’t feel happy. He rather felt disturbed. He hated interviews. He hated the air and deception. He hated the drama and the mask. He loathed the inevitable description of himself to a total stranger. He disliked being evaluated by his mockery. ‘The judgment whether to select a candidate is made in the first 30 seconds’. He remembers this gumption an expert threw at Career development meeting.

The interviewer was dark with a dark framed spectacle and a deformed nose. His eyebrows were bushy and brown and his receding hairline was grey from the sides.

He didn’t look up as he was staring at the resume that Hari had submitted Earlier.

Interviewer –“So Mr.Harikrishnan Ramakrishnan Puthenveetil.. How are u feeling now?’”

Hari-“I am feeling great… fine and you can call me Hari.’

Interviewer-“Yeah..Tell me about yourself. Mechanical Huh?’

(‘How do you think I am feeling…u dark fat old man. After expanding my name to more than 100 characters’)

Hari-“I am Hari. Born 9^th may 1988. My father is a security officer with new India Assurance. My mom is a housewife. I have a brother and he is in the army. I did my schooling…………college …. Hobbies include..”

(‘I know you don’t give a rat fart about who I am or what I am? so Why all this Drama?)

Interviewer-“Oh so you read books?”

Hari-“Yes..”

(‘I don’t. I had to say I had a Hobby. That’s what my career guidance cell expert told me.Everybody should have a hobby’)

Interviewer-“So what do you think about ‘The world is Flat ‘ ?”

Hari-“It’s not. Magellan sailed……Oh the book. I haven’t read the book. I am more into fiction.”

(‘I almost blew it. Should be more cautious. the world is flat ..Whoever wrote that book? It didn’t sound fiction to me’)

Interviewer-“Oh… So what about the Kite Runner?”

Hari-“A good book . I like the beginning and The Kites and the plot. A very convincing book.”

(I haven’t read that book either. Must be about Kites and runners..cricket ???’)

Interviewer-“And you listen to Music as well. which is your favorite band ? “

Hari-“I like all bands. Esp. the Loud ones”

(‘I hate the Loud ones ‘)

Interviewer-“Oh so ….you must like Rascal Flatts ? They are my favorites ?”

Hari-“ mmmm.. I like their first album but the latest one is not up to the mark..?”

(If they are really good they must have made more than one album…. Hope they did..)

Interviewer –“Why did u make a choice to have a career with our company?”

Hari-“You are one of the most reputed software companies in the world. and to choose a career with u is probably every engineers dream.”

(Nobody is recruiting mechanical engineers. Everyone is looking for experienced people. I need a job…. I will quit if I get a mech-Job’)

Interviewer-“tell me ..What do you think about the present economic scenario?”

Hari-“Recession … is a serious issue both in the west and in the east. But the market is recovering from the shock.”

(The recession is a thing of the past companies use as a reason to fire, underpay, exploit employees…)

Interviewer-“Do you have any question?”

Hari-“What Trainig should I Equip myself with before joining the company ?”

Interviewer- “We have the best training facility. Don’t worry about that. You can wait outside in the common room. Someone will come and inform the result”

Hari-“Ok. See you in the company”

Interviewer-“mmm..Take care.”

As Hari walked out of the room he felt feverish. He felt it throughout the interview.

‘If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?’

‘ They have already built the wall..why would they want to built it again.’ He smiled to himself as the result was announced.

ENDANGERED

About 30% of the fresh water that reaches home is used to flush toilets. That’s why he didn’t flush it. He left it unattended. He saved his share of water.

Reading about the environmental impacts that his breed has imposed on nature he evolved into a concerned mammal.

All of a sudden he started attending seminars and symposium on how to save earth. A lot of information was shared. Heavy topics like Global warming, Polar ice caps, Oil eating bacteria, annual rainfall, CFC’s, Poverty,H1N1and Energy conservation were discussed in a 7000 square feet room centrally air conditioned and attended by 17-20 people. The breaks were unbelievably gregarious with oily dishes and boxes of tissue papers with people squatting about their ruthless bosses and the latest movies released.

“A news paper costs a tree.” The chief guest of the meeting had made the audience think. Does tissue paper cost trees as well?

He stared at a chart erected on a metal frame at the centre of the hall. It had a immense data for his underdeveloped, orthodox, typical engineer brain to process.

Every minute 55,757 barrel of petrol is used. (A few days later he brought a cycle.)

Every minute there are 107deaths and 15die from starvation.(He gave up Dominoe’s)

The meeting ended with the chief guest leaving abruptly between heated arguments. A few photographers took snaps of the dignitaries on the stage whispering to each other.

He couldn’t sleep that night. The pictures of scantly clad African kids scavenging amidst war debris for food packets and Rajasthani women traveling 20 km to get fresh water kept reeling in his head. He got up to tighten the leaky tap at the end of the hallway in his ‘1 BHK’ apartment. He switched of his refrigerator. Rain was beating against his window. ‘Huge drops of fresh water’ he thought. Rain water harnessing was a topic of discussion when he was in college. He remembered how is college had a rain water storage tank. (a concrete wall was built around a naturally occurring pond). Rain water should be harnessed. He went to his bathroom and took a green bucket and ran to his terrace. The terrace was slippery and a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. The next morning he would have harnessed a bucket of water. Fresh. Cool. Yellow, with dust and a particular taste.

He did not press his shirts today. The tie was left numb and lazy, hanging across his neck. ‘Iron boxes, washing machines and vacuum cleaners burn electricity’. Nobody in his office gave a damn about what he wore. He knew that even if he walked in his manager would fire him only for not meeting dead lines and the diplomats in his nearby cubicles would give their daily nodes. He wouldnt be noticed amidst the thousands of average IT persons in India, who makes 0.025 $ a minute 300% less than their US counterpart.

The afternoon lunch was totally herbal. He didn’t eat chicken or meat. He drank barely enough water. He didn’t waste food. He looked outside the window at the pale greenery blurred in the midday sun. ‘It must be raining somewhere else in the world’.

A guy in a funny tie handed him a pamphlet as he walked out of his office. “God is watching you”. A pamphlet cost a tree. ‘But god made trees’ he thought. The pamphlet ended with the remark “make ten copies of this pamphlet or the wrath of heaven shall come upon thee”.

He walked into his room and drank a glass of rainwater he had saved earlier. The rest of the bucket was used to flush his toilet. There was an envelope from the bank. ‘Pay the interest on the housing loan at the earliest’. ‘Does Envelops cost trees??’. He switched on the TV. Half a dozen bombings in Pakistan. He didn’t seem perturbed.

The northwest sky turned into an eerie glow. The twilight subsided and he was left in the yellow light of room. The scent of boredom filled the single bedroom. He took out a piece of paper from his notepad. He started writing on it.

‘ I don’t know why I am doing this. I don’t think there is any point in pursuing a meaningless life. No one else is responsible for my death’.

Rain was beating against his window. ‘Huge drops of fresh water’ he thought. He left the note near the table lamp.

Suicide note on a piece of paper …. that’s one tree lesser…

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2007/03-13/environmental-hypocrites.htm