Delhi Trip

“what kind of person you are?”

“am not sure.. may be am not even a person”

“you are not a person… then who you are?”

“I don’t know.”

“you don’t know.. then how you know that you don’t know that”

I remained silent. Beause I don’t know the answer and I don’t want to lie or to be a fool further.

“if you are not a person, you don’t even exist.. if you don’t exist, how you are there in other’s thoughts and become a part of it?? I need an answer as long as you exist, you owe to give me an answer”

Am in trouble… am in agony…

Escape.

Beep.. beep.. its 6:30am.. I got an escape from reality, can be said, to some teeny tweeny world where am a visitor. Myself exiled for 9 days to visit capital of India from its IT capital. Our principal and our HOD call it as ‘Industrial trip’ and we are interested only in the later part of it, ‘TRIP’.


My cell rings, the cell that is on sale for Rs.150, the cell that got ‘airy’ as its ring tone, the cell that got a scratch on its 4th corner on its way to make the 5th corner. It doesn’t matter, but it still rings. That matters. It wrote something like ‘K Anthu.’(its KJC Anthu)
It started to speak to me, “hello da”, instead of ‘hello hero’, that strikes me odd. That means a lot. That means something important that need to be conveyed. If only I had an IQ of 140 or above, I could have interpreted that he changed his plan and coming with us. Both facts remained the same, 1. I don’t have that premium levels of IQ and 2. He is ON for the trip. He fixed his personal problems and ready to accompany us. He is good at fixing problems, either humane or electronic, both ways he is good at fixing them.


By default I have to keep it as a secret. Secret for 5 hours. What? It is not that he plan a terrorist attack or something, he is coming with us for the industrial trip. Simplest guy with complex-est problems; I should say, the must meet guy, the coolest of the lot; and I mean it.


I packed up everything putting tick mark against each item in myself prepared ‘things to pack’ list. Items include my 5-inch 5-kg shoes, inners with and without colors, informal formals etc. I took bath and emptied my intestine in such a way that I don’t have to use the latrine over those rails under any circumstances. I call it as ‘non-cooperation movement’ against those dirty cabins in those metal cages.


Again it started ‘airy’ing to me.


I fought back, “enthamma? ” (tell me mom)


“athe.. mone……. ” the typical kerala mom’s long advice mixed up with little bit emotions here and there like coconut crunch in puttu, in essence, ‘don’t take risk’ as if I am going for a war or something. In other words, it sounds to me as “never try to make your own world or your world big.” I could feel what she feels at that moment, but can’t buy those for myself as I don’t have that unsecure feeling. Please don’t blame me for that, blame my age, blame my gender, blame those hormones in my veins, technically it is in arteries. I wish the second gender with more confidence and secure feeling, so that the next generation will be more confident and assured. For each and every mom, their kids are the most innocent and fragile ones in this world, and everyone in their twenties think that they are the toughest in the lot. It is known as ‘sasi’s conflict’.


After that my door starts knocking, of course not electronically because there is no door bell, but some calories are converted into sound energy, calorie source is pathros ettan, our cook. Of course he is not there with food as there is no room service in our ‘PG: Daridravilasam’, but he came with a coupon book, its for some ‘saint’ named church. I don’t want to give money for the church for two very reasonable reasons, firstly, most of the churches are bigger than my house; secondly, I am very stingy. Even if you have points against my first reason, you have to agree with my second reason. While he was telling me about the proposed location for the church and its activities, I was peeping into the coupon book to find out the figure in a black star, because depending on that figure there will be a proportional loss of weight to my wallet even before starting our trip. Though logically and stingycally I am damn against this system of giving money to church, I like pathros ettan for his innocence and calmness, made my purse open at 180 degrees at the loss of a polished head.


I could hear chindu shouting at Stibin for something, here something means nothing. Sometimes he used to shout for that thing. Locking my empire I marched towards their kingdom. To my surprise their shelves were kept neat and tidy, as they were empty without cloths, also they decorated the floor as Jerusalem people done to welcome Jesus. Stibin is still in ‘mode: Confusion’ that to take a ‘small bag and a big bag’ or ‘two big bags’ or some ‘God only knows’ combinations of big and small bags. I kept silent as I don’t have a solution to offer him except a glass of milk for myself. Then there was all kind of processes like ironing, folding, sorting, spraying, breakfasting… finally we are done with everything that we can do in the morning except suryanamaskar.


We started for the college.


Peee…peeee.. Surprise.


That’s Edpaul sir’s bike horn. We are surprised not because that 10 year old horn is still working but we never expected him at our PG gate. I thought the call is for Chindu as he is the trip coordinator, but he pointed at me to help him with his luggage. Am still not sure why he recruited me for that job, may be because my that part is small compared to chindu’s big boot space, need less space on his bike seat, that might be my USP. Its not jack or fat but a small one.


I have huge respect for this guy called Edpaul sir (Eddy). He is the ‘multi tasker’ of our college, the name given by our super seniors, he co-ordinates each and every events in our college. Rajanna, Nathan, champak and me call him Eddy. Biologically speaking, he got one head and two hands, but in effect it is 10 heads and 20 hands. He is cent percent committed to our institution. I really want to be like him, but not as a finance professor. Even though I sat/slept in many of his classes and written more impositions, one doubt remains unsolved, ‘why Eddy got married?’ I don’t have the courage to ask him about this for the time being. Want to know something; there is something common between Eddy and me, so called assets. Both of us have something polished and black, my shoes and his hair. Both of us lavishly spend hours polishing our assets.


Hey, this married Eddy is still waiting at our PG gate.


“am coming saaar,”


I am always with a sweet smile and helping hand whenever my teachers ask me for help, but it is not the same with all organisms I interact with, I will input those requests into my grey matter and process it, analyzing the pros and cons of the act and make a decision. What kind of person am I? am not sure about my species.
Anyway, nobody is perfect, am not that nobody.


After keeping my stuffs safe inside my PG, I sprinted towards his bike and we set for his house. On our way back to college, three of us shared his bike seat equally, 20 centimeters each, me, eddy and his suit case.


By 10:30am we reached the college, me, Stibin and Chindu. We called up people and they responded to our disturbances like this,


“ok..ok.. ok.. we are on our way.”


On their way to bathroom or what… God knows.


We stood there with our heavy luggage in our hands and kg-kid kinda pride in our hearts to reach the college first. My eyes just caught somebody called Fathima, she is not coming with us. She smiled at me the same way I done to her, assuming we both have same number of teeth. She is kind of reserved person made me feel more privileged talking to her, as if am talking to Arundathi Roy or something. This time she took that box with her, and started reading the first letter from it.


“deenu, Nobody came today, am the only person here to follow the rules.”


Am not sure that is a complaint or something else. Is she expecting some awards for her act? Or do she have our kg-kinda pride in her heart too?? Am not sure and so I replied something that not even make sense to myself. Why am I doing all these, am talking a lot of nonsense these days, being something that I am not is the worst part, the only reason for my nonsense behavior is my blue cap, will explain it later. But when it comes as a survival means, its acceptable. Because bread comes before principles in those priority lists as well as in my dictionary.


It starts drizzling, as a matter of fact for boys it is shameful to carry an umbrella to the college than get wet. ‘Wet guys always gives that macho looks and all’, this statement is supported by my second gender friends. My friends showed themselves with and without that shameful thing. But I don’t have a name list to tick who are without macho and with macho, or with umbrella and without umbrella; because I am suspended from my somekinda job for 9 days, by myself.


Damini was there chatting with two girls, who are strangers to me, but not to her. Damini introduced them to me as her room-mate and hostel-mate, to my relief both were keralites. I spoke to them in my pure manglish and in Malayalam. I said, she is the most sensible girl in our class or something and want to talk more, but I didn’t. I am nervous, because you know, still I am that typical kerala guy, fragile son, who took very little risk and keep his world smaller as possible.


We went to invite our principal, Pious-Reji-Siva sirs and Selvi maam for the prayers. They wished us happy journey and safe return and we promised them regular updates of our trip in return.


Our Principal said, “wherever you go, Be Jayathians.”
That means a lot, we can’t do that thing, we can’t do the other thing also, not even….. we have an another question in our mind, then why should we go??... there are a lot of answers and some questions… questions and answers are not matching… and so we are going… we are out….


We started towards our college bus, there were trolleys, there were suit cases, there were laptop bags, all kinda stuffs to pack our stuffs. We arranged them in the trunk of our bus the way trunk piled for a camp fire. In our college, MBAs are known for perfection but not for these kind of blue collar jobs. Here I really felt robots are better than humans for perfection in any work. ‘Yanthiran effect’ in my thoughts.. hmm.


Somebody turned something in clockwise direction that turns us into vibration mode. Our college bus started to move. Our high pitched “settle down please” and taking the head count ceremony are there by default. A long journey starts with a single step, here it starts with a simple revolution of bargained and proudly delivered MRF tyres. There is a long story on these MRF tyres told by our KJC Kotler, tell you later.


“Something great is going to happen in these nine days.” Everybody believed in this unwritten statement and kept it as a secret as though we believe in Satan or in some black magic. Hope drags our thoughts and directed our words and actions, because there are people committed, non-committed, semi-committed, on their way to break the commitment… all kinds of people, but with common objective to be happy. Everybody tries to be good to others as a part of creating a positive environment to milk the cow of happiness. Those milky smiles on everybody’s face provides my heart with less vicious&viscous liquids, that put my heart-beat rhythmic.


Taking pit stops to collect our friends on our way, we reached the railway station at 12.30pm. I don’t know whats wrong with the sky, might be jealous of us, it started crying or _eeing, am not sure about it, but we got drenched for sure. A very few of us, guys, have that shameful thing with us. we offered our Umbrella service to guys praying they would reject it and helped the other gender whole heartedly. It taught me the fact that, “it is a blessing to share an umbrella with the opposite gender and a curse to share it with the same kind”. It is called ‘Mann-mark theory’.


Neenu, the coolest girl in our class, stood there with two people, the same way strangers to me, but mother and brother to her. She introduced me to them as her class-mate and I was about to talk about neenu as the most popular girl in the class and her numerous jokes, she said, “ok dinu, nee nadanno..” (you can leave)


“illa, njan paranju kazhinjilla.” (no, am not done.) said it in my mind and pumped blood to my feet.


Do this stupid girl got sixth sense?.. may be she predicted my behavior from her past experiences. May be experiences taught her lessons that many Ph.d valas could not do. She played a typical kerala girl for ten more minutes and then started with the “what the hell…..” dialogues as they have left.


We took the head count of people, not discriminating them on ‘with or without hairs’ OR ‘with or without brains’, and marched towards our respective platform and coach number. By the time the awaited guy came whistling and dragging those metal cages as a kid who got a new whistle. After doing all kind of show-offs with his pipe he paced down to match our pace, zero km per hour. Then, we ran with our luggage to get into the train as if it is the last chariot to heaven or something. Soap, cheep, cheap t-shirts, everything and anything accompanied us to our heavens, heaven with tri-colored flag.


Our bags placed next to each other under the seat the same way we were sitting on the seat. The only, difference is, we can move and they cannot. There are many other things that we can do that bags cannot, we can chat with each other, we can act like samosa valas, we can fight for window seats, we can take lunch and so many.


Its lunch time. There was something that altered our cheese spread lips a bit straight, our tour operator will be catering food only from the dinner. We took that in a sports manz spirit and sprinted for the lunch outside. We shared, stole, tested and done everything possible with the railway food. Even then, our Mathayi’s cup noodles is not yet cooked. 90 percent of the noodles find its way out while checking it. cooked or not, by the 51 testers. Uncooked Mathayi is wearing something, ‘something worth doing is worth undoing’ t-shirt kept my mind occupied with things that I could do if am not going for the trip, and recalled the recently updated ‘cold feet’ phrase. I don’t know why am so crazy about things that will never do, but plans and thinks a lot about it. These thoughts sounds like an enemy to my new mission of reducing the gap between thoughts and action, taking away the laziness and carelessness sandwiched between them. I call it as ‘mission: BUS’. (BUS means Beat-Up the Sandwich)


While I was roaming around, Prasoon ran to me and asked,


“where can I do a single purpose?”


“you can use our train’s toilet.” totally ignorant me


“it is against the law to do it in static train. I can’t do it.”


Taking that extra risk I confessed,


“I done it just 2 mins before.”


And I expected him sue me for that. Surprise!! He replied inhaling some pride in and exhaling something in a searching tone,


“where can I find a moving train?… ”


No surprise, he is a true ‘Jayathian’.

That big boy with loud whistle again started with his show-off activities. This time he is about to leave it seems. We all once again rushed into his metal cages. We sat there like trapped parrots making every sound that we can, but not trying to fly.
The wheels cuts the radians and the train started sliding on the rails, and our dreams floats in the breeze without the body that trapped in these cages… exactly I don know how to conclude or stop this, am lazy to write more.


We spent the eight more days in milking our cows of happiness. I will be reporting on it if time permits.


Thanks for your time


- Anthappan

Conflicts... sometimes they put me in trouble.

here i want to talk about my dreams and about my true passion... and the obvious conflict between them.


Dreams

There are dreams; it is such a common thing that everybody possess. But the dreams differ. For each and everyone it is different. It depends on individual priorities. Everybody in this world got different priorities in his life, and these priorities are formed from different cognition that formed in their life time together with the support of their genetic matter evolved from ages.

I accept the fact that dreams differ from individual to individual. How do people form dreams, is it that the reflection of what they are passionate about? People usually have strong feelings towards their dreams. They are emotionally attached to their dreams. Emotions, it is really powerful. It supplies the cohesive force for them to stick to their dreams.

Passion

I have a dream that I am not passionate about. My dream is the result of the processing of thoughts and prioritizing them fairly with the law of justice that I have learned with this short period of my life time. And so it is not complete. The only rule that I know was that our planet belong to the whole population, and everyone has the right to get his minimum share from it. It is my dream to find it that way; everything equally distributed for the common benefit.

Conflicts

Here my dreams had conflicts with my instincts. I am passionate about traveling. I am also passionate about girls. I do want to go into the woods and explore the beauty. I have the adrenaline count that instinct me to do anything crazy with this 60 kg of flesh and bone. I am also passionate about building a home and a family. But nothing buy me self-respect and peace of mind apart from my dream.


I always observed that these internal conflicts are real conflicts as they are free from mis-communication. usually external conflict are the result of some communication gap, and so we can solve it with proper communication, but it will not do with internal affairs. they know each other very well and their motives.

I tried… I tried a lot to find a way out from this ‘Status: CONFLICT’.

...

...

...

...

I am after my dream, I am after myself...

i believe, i have chosen the best part.

most important thing I have learned..

i had my lunch and its resting time. tomorrow its QT exam...

learned to do some problems.

but it is not the most important thing i learned in my life...

what is the most important thing you learned in your life??

athu enthanu??


my thinking cap on.

i learned that, never waste time in learning things thats not applicable to me.
but it is not the most important thought.. it is important, but there are more important things.

then... i learned being religious make myself calm and quiet and gives me pleasure... but it is not the most important thing, because my pleasure is not that important when we consider the whole world.

then wat??

wat??

pinne enthanu??

something that is useful for everyone in this world... wat is applicable for everyone?? wats the common thing??
soul...

is it soul??

on religious or spiritual background i can support it.. but not as a raw human being.. i want to be simple and born from nature.. and so i can't support that concept in the public...
so wat?? wat is common for all... it can be time, thoughts, this planet... wat else... i can't consider planet as a whole, its too huge and can't give shape to my thoughts.
second option is thoughts. it is common. every body in this world think even plants and animals. but its nature differs a lot. its like too different. i can't draw a conclusion or suggestion about the thoughts that we posses. simply i don't have that capacity.
now time, can I say something about it.. though everybody got the same time, but it is too personal. how can I make a comment on time?? does it make sense?? no way.. you don't need to say the sea is salty or suggest it to be sweet. there is no point in it.

then wat?? to be creative i read that, find the combination that could make a favorable change in your thought process. now, time and thought.

is it that... the same thing... is it the most important thing that i learned in my life... use the maximum time to think more and utilize each second more effectively.. the sum of all small small thoughts constitutes our life... utilize the little bits of life to max..

is it that important??.. everyone know this thing...

may be the most important thing known to me is known to everyone. yes it is..

- long time ago... a very long time ago...

long time ago... a very long time ago... tick-tick... tick-tick.. (our skit starts like that, we were doing the ice breaking session)

its a long time since i post something here.. "no time yaar"... the same old dialogues of lazy people.. not just lazy, should say, careless. i am not caring many things that i were taking care before. am i becoming less Dinu. don know.

now i am bored... all our rounds are over... waiting for the results.. my friends are busy with their events... a lot more time with me... so let me write about my life.

life... it never comes as i want. i think i happens with many more other than me.

i want more time and peace of mind to think... now a days i got real topics to think over. but my thoughts are not clear. one big problem is that, none surrounds me are interested in topics that i am interested in. and so, i can't find a approval bench, somebody who can say, my thoughts are distorted or not. the lost relationships starts consuming me.

the point that i reached (in my life, in my expedition ) is, can i believe this material world or my thoughts, the intangible. either one is true, and the other is false. then also its ok.. its possible. but the real problem arises when both are true. that treats my understanding the inferior. i have to search for more reasons and facts that could support one of the three possibilities
1. material world is true
2. intangible world is true
3. both true

one of the problem that i find with me is that, i don;t believe in myself. i feel its inferior or it is vulnerable to distorted thoughts. now the action plan is to make a stable mind. but my instincts doesn't allow me. i have to control my mind. its like taking interest in things that i never taken interest in. another thing is the instincts. i have to be more thoughtful careful and less reactive.

one common problem that i find with people (with me too) 'want answer for a problem in seconds.' as far as our brain capacity is this much low, we have to create basis for each concepts and then only we can proceed further. Thats why we took almost one forth of lifetime in education, else we could just skimmed over all the books in two or three months and finish our education. to form solid images of the concepts, it take time. all that i find as a solution is work over it. if we could think more about concepts, we can just catalyze its effects in our mind that helps in further discoveries.

thats all da... totally confused.. can't even believe my thoughts... the facts are more suspicious these days... am I alrite?? not sure..

let me think... hope he will give me the key.. the universal key..

one day... one day I will be back with the key.. the key for me and for everone...

walking the way back to those thoughtful days...

Exactly I can’t think with the real clarity that I had before, I was not thinking for a long time; may be that the reason. Anyway I have to think and solve many ‘internal affairs’.
I feel proud to make a new discovery that “I am not the judge.” And I feel like I am bad at judging people. To judge people is not my cup; and so better not to have it. When I quit doing this job, judging, I could find more resource (like time, peace of mind etc) left with me to do many things; life, it becomes lighter and lighter. And so I took a new stand (may be an old one) of observing but not judging.


**//**//**


Today… but not just today… we were proving we are not just boys, we are Raju or mohan or Sethi. There are identities, there are personalities and there are reasons to be some individuals. Now it is not just fun, some are serious in searching for their taken away ribs. There comes the problems, the same old problems and its complications; and must say partners of problems, the Solvents. Some problems are good and some are bad, some solvents are effective and some are just like oil to the fire. As far as I am a spectator, everything was just cool. I just felt like, its all kids stuff; am at high school and they were at primary school. It may not be the fact; may be I am at KG and they are at high school. I don’t know. Anyway I was just enjoying those events.
One thing that I noticed is that, everybody know how to impress somebody and whom to impress, every thing was planned and executed like professionals do. Most of us were practicing it during our degree classes and at work place; and now we are experts in it. Is everything fruitful?? Wait and see...

My class... my cheese....

Here, in KJC, they provide us a mentor. Exactly I feel SHR too provided me with a mentor, but not in records, thats peter.
Peter taught me, “People, they are not just black and white”
Okey…. They are not black and white, they are not just good and bad, they are more than good and bad, they are personalities with different perspectives. Njan sammathichu. (just now he ringed me up, Peter, he just know that I am thinking about him, jada thendi, still I call him pottan peter)
appo first day… there was an inaugural function. Nothing different… the same boring session, then a tea break and I had a biscuit break as my system doesn’t allow to take tea inside. Then seminars after seminars…. All that orientation programme stuffs. I really want to tell them that, “ithokke anthappan kore kandittullatha”. From next day itself we got works to do, presentations and reports, book reviews etc. Had one week orientation programme.
Scene: class room.
There was a girl, we were also there, but she thinks she is the only survival there. She wants to do everything, sometimes even lecturing and to complete all assignments the first day itself and plans to collect her mba certificate the next day. Kooduthal onnum parayunnilla, the same as me as I were 5 years back, during my first year at SHR. Enthokke aayirunnu…. Ak 47, Malapuram kathi, ambum villum....... avasanam....
Back to present. Boys were all more or less the same, I should say cool boys. Equally competent and took competition for the chicks the right way it should be. None were serious about finding their soul mate, and so everything was just fun. We always discuss about our strength and weaknesses among ourselves and advice each other in their key strength areas; nothing on our management abilities but on our flowering abilities.
Girls, they were the same, never after boys, but want to be the best among themselves, want boys to come after them… athanu… oomm kure kandathu thane… “oom.. ente patti pokum” like our Dileep in kalyana raman. Ithanu njangalude nilapadu. How can I describe them, girls, more positively?? He.. he..
***------------***-------------****------------***
National conference for two days, at our college, exactly that was something I felt like breaking the ice session. Exactly we broke it… the ice between our classmates, seniors and our teachers. We could show them what we really are apart from the full sleeve shirts and tie, and could also understand who they really are. We have arranged the quadrangle and stage. We all enjoyed it, especially hostellers. We have to take big bricks and to work till 11 o clock at night and morning by 6 O clock again at work. Anyway that was a good physical exercise. There are real men among us, who are not logical about the material benefit from all those toiling, they just do what they feel to do. Also about one senior girl, almost powerful as men are, weighs around 80Kg and soo funny that we just love to work with her.. about our senior boys… they crack jokes among themselves but not with juniors… but they are friendly.. dedicated towards their work. Then conference sessions and all… are boring to write and to read… skip.. skip… and an another skip.


***//***//***//***
Today there was something between us, Boys. There is a rule that we have to talk in english and if we found to talk in other languages have to pay Rs.100 towards celebration fund. Two of our boys are caught and have to pay hundred rupees each. There was a suggestion from one of our class mate to divide this due amount between us and lighten the burden of paying the sum by a single individual. It will come around 5 or 10 rupee each and none of the boys were there to support this idea, here comes the difference in opinion. 1. People won’t care about the fine if it is paid by their classmates. 2. We don’t have to pay for others faults. 3. Though the intention is good, it won’t work. 4. Can’t say an opinion because not used to tell opinion in the public. We can summarize the whole opinions like this. Again a story without a climax… he.. he…