Searching soul- part2

Continuation: 31st Oct.2009

Last week you had enough of me I think, still have enough stamina to digest me? Then go on……read.

Where I left last week?.... yeah I walked out briskly from the mall with my acquired possession safely in my carrybag.Now I remembered ,from morning I had not eaten anything except the three cups of coffee I consumed earlier.Now it was almost 1.30 pm, I thought of having some snacks in a good restaurant. Mental search of that area suggested me of a south Indian vegetarian restaurant located near a, once famous movie hall.But it will take 15 to 20 mts walk in burning hot sun over Chennai skies.

Walking along those platforms itself is enjoyable, except perspiring hot climate.You can find all sorts of goodies there.The platform vendors display their wares right in front of them on elevated wooden ramps.Books,collectables, old coins ,stamps,metal staues, paintings of lesser known artists,glass wares, cook wares, clothes,leather goods,bed linens,toys,rare items,antiques and what not? 5 mts walk to my destination took 45mts to reach eventhough I did not purchase anything.

Yeah the cool comfort of the restaurant is a welcome change.For this time of afternoon,crowd in the restaurant was more than normal.But it was not difficult to locate a comfortable seat. White uniformed waiter appeared in front within no time.I can see the tired face and could imagine that he is on duty right from the early morning.Producing a leather bound menu card he waited patiently for my order.


I went through the menu,confused what to order.After spending hell a lot of time I went for my usual item made of rice.With a sheepish grin I pointed the items to the waiter.He gave a apologetic smile and declared that those I pointed are the items served for breakfast,now it is lunch time.Then another 10 mts vigorous search got me no where.I could not select a single item which should be mild on my stomach ,less spicy and definitely not a full lunch course.

I left the choice to the waiter .He was exactly suggesting as expected, all cheff special items of the restaurant.I insisted that I should have something light.He now lost interest in me and declared that except tea and coffee every thing is heavy at this hour. That’s how I ended up with my fourth cup of coffee of the day.He was quick with that order along with the bill.Atleast 30mts break in a/c comfort deserve a generous tip.On seeing the tip the waiter’s face glowed and his head almost touched the granite table before leaving me alone.But his remark before leaving made me realize that he is really smart, in spite of long working hours.He with tongue in cheek announced that I can stay on this table without having to spend any money till another waiter takes charge,which is half an hour away from now. By that he meant to say that all the while I was staging a drama of searching the menu and stretching the time ,but really what I intend was to have just a coffee and lots of time in cool comfort.Let him think whatever he wants, actually it is not a bad idea at all to take rest in a hot afternoon with minimum expenditure.Spending Rs 25 for 40mts cool comfort of restaurant(including a generous tip) is not bad at all.

You must be wondering why this fellow repeatedly mentioning the tip as generous.Then you must be settled in U.S.,U.K.,or in Europe.Here in India ,particularly Tamilnadu small restaurant waiters never enjoy a good tip.Tip is always some small coins that too if coins are stained and dirty.If the coins are in mint condition then that will never go to the waiter’s pocket.So nowadays waiters are smart enough that they never put new coins while returning the bill with the change.Here also waiters working in some big restaurant located in posh area frequented by celebraties earn a good tip.But not like UK,US OR Europen country counterparts,where the tips is really huge.If your bill is for 50 euros 5 euro tip is minimum expected(that is almost Rs.350 in Indian currency)That is how a waiter in European city can afford a deluxe car to communicate to the work.Maintaining a car is cheaper than public transport over there is a different story altogether.

Oh! Once again I am drifting away from the subject which I wanted to share with you. In my younger days(I am born and brought up in a famous temple city of south India)my mother use to take me to the near by temples.Temples in our city are huge and very spacious lecture halls were inside the temple compound.Learned persons in Tamil literature frequent there to give discourses from famous Hindu epics like Ramayana, and Mahabharat.Sometimes me and my mother use to sit there to listen the discourses. The subject of the day will be written on a blackboard placed outside the hall.

Still I remember that day when myself and my mother went to the temple particularly to attend the discourse of a famous scholar. He was in a mission of completing the great Hindu epic Maha Bharata in 30 days ,2 to 3 hrs, of discourse daily in the evening.It was first day of the discourse,since the person giving the discourse is famous for his witty narrations and his in-depth knowledge of the subject whatever he touches,the crowd on that day was huge. Each and every corner of the great hall was filled,even streets outside was thronged with people of all the walk.Amplified speaker sets were mounted high above in various locations, so even if you can’t see the person giving discourse,you will be able to hear his clear voice from every nook and corner of the surrounding.

That particular day the first day of the lecture the programme was to explain about the great king Shantanu of Hastinapur,his marriage with Ganga(goddess of the river Ganges),the story to follow with their married life, children and all.At the designated time the programme started with loud applause from the gathered people of all age group.Respected and highly positioned people of the city welcomed the scholor with garlands and small introductory speeches.Immedietely the expert started with a prayer in a loud and clear voice.The strong crowd of thousands fell in to silent mode to grasp whatever he utters.The anticipation mounted as the prayer came to an end.He started with the explanation of the glorious city Hastinapur.As a celebrated person with great knowledge of our great epics, he visited almost all major cities of India as well as most major cities of abroad.When he was explaining about Hastinapur he talked about great Indian cities like Mumbai,Delhi,Culcutta,Chennai as well as London,Newyork,Washington,Paris,and Tokyo.

He compared Indian cities with European cities.He was mocking at our filthy smelling public toilets located in various locations comparing with spotless toilets located everywhere in Europe,US, and UK.He was pulling legs of the government, politicians without mentioning any names, but made sure that whom he was referring.Time moved on fast it is two hours from the start of the discourse.The learned lecturer not moved an inch from Hastinapur.People started doubting really he is giving discourse on Mahabharata.Almost time allotted for the was closing in, but our man refused to move from his vast knowledge of great cities,to next step.We are yet to hear of the great king Shantanu.If narrating Hastinapur is taking 2.5 hrs, people were wondering how much time it will take for him to narrate King Shantanu.Getting ready to listen about our own great politicians and foreign emperors compared with King Shantanu.Eventhough for me, at that tender age of eight or may be nine, either politics or his satiric versions were Greek and Latin. But one thing was sure, starting to narrate Mahabharat he deviated to politics and public conveniences.If the lecture prolong like this, even a year will not be sufficient to come up to great Mahabharat war.

That one evening was enough I think, which changed my attitude.Even without my knowledge that scholar got into my head for wrong reasons.Till this moment I am suffering(in fact others are suffering) from that.If I want to tell you about Himalayas I’ll start from Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari).If you are not conversant with Indian territories, I will tell you…Himalaya is hill range situated in north end of India while Cape Comorin is south tip of India.

to be continued

Continuation: 20th Nov.2009


I am fedup with this T.V serials, particularly which I was watching for some time, in a famous regional channel.Some four years back the channel announced the mega serial.It started on an auspicious day.
Prime time mega serials are slotted for 30 minutes. They will start with the title song along with the star cast in the back ground, that will take at least 3 mts, another one minute the drama will unfold. Then comes advertisements of the sponsors,for 5 mts, like that, the ritual goes on.In between advertisements, they will telecast the so called serial also for 12 to 15mts.If you watch next day it is worst than the first day,after initial song they will show the recap of the previous happenings before coming to the day’s story.So the actual drama time goes on shrinking day by day,as ads goes on increasing.After a month from the beginning of the serial you will watch only 5 to 6mts of the story progressing in a day.

This particular serial I was talking about started some 4 years back and is still running in prime time.Even some main artists were replaced with new faces,the artists who were acting from the beginning is started getting more wrinkles in their faces and growing old along with the story.Today I am really doubting whether the director himself remembers where from he started the story four years back.If you watch the same serial today(if you are really brave enough to follow for four years) you’ll wonder the changes taken place during this long tenure.Not only the changes in the serial I am talking about, the changes taken place in our own life.I have changed my house from one bedroom flat to two bed room flat in posh locality.In my home our B/W T.V changed to 21” colour, then to 29” colour ,and now to wall hanging 32” LCD.My motor cycle changed from one brand to another new brand.My wife insisted for a car and persuaded me to get it since all her friends in our new complex having minimum one car in their house.And my newly acquired second hand car is gathering dust in our parking lot.

Our children mostly depended on us for every thing,now started living on their own.My grand children who were mischievous and making our house a mess are now school going sweet children.Many more changes in life during this four years,explaining every thing will take pages and pages.The changes in the said mega serial is that, it started as a comedy,changed into serious melodrama,now becoming suspence packed detective story.Really the director is in a fix.He forgot I think, what his original storyline is.Observing others and pointing out their shortcomings are very easy and second nature to normal human being.I admit that I am also a normal human and where I started, what I wanted to share with you is yet to come.

I started writing this to tell you about my love for books,how I ended with getting one latest book on release and how I enjoyed the reading of that book.Actually I wanted you people to develop the taste of reading and enjoy the good books.In earlier days when I was young I use to finish a normal paperback consisting of about 200 pages in two days.If it is really unputdownable reading, I finish it within a day.

Nowadays any good book of 200pages takes a week, may be I am getting less time, or priorities changes in between.This book of Dan Brown I bought now is a 500 pages book.So if it is good it should not take more than 7 days in my style of reading,younger ones can finish within 2 days.

I have a habit of getting up early, and after finishing my routine morning rituals I sit in my favorite place to start reading.Some times even before sun rise.This is applicable only for reading fiction books.If I would have studied my technical subjects in my college days like this I might have been the topper in the college.Unfortunately I was not that keen in my technical studies in those days,I ended up as a average student(I will not admit that I was below average)

This Lost Symbol of Dan Brown is full of encoded symbols,icons and codes,which were systematically decoded by our hero Robert Langdon to learn about buried Masonic secrets in U.S. capital.Duly helped by our bright and beautiful heroine Katherine Solomon, a Noetic Science scholor and she was a scientist working on some secret mission. No doubt that the story started beautifully and was sailing very smoothly with unexpected turns and suspense.But it is almost like other works of Dan Brown.I felt the story line is already known to me.Towards the end of the book it is almost a Bible.I started reading it with much enthusiasm finished half the book with in two days, but it took another 7 days to finish it.Normaly I never skip a word while reading, but here sincerely I wanted to skip some pages which were really preaching.

I was really disappointed, it is not that it is a bad novel ,may be people like me expected more from the famed author.Like we expect Sachin Tendulkar to make a century in every match he plays.The thing most haunted was my wife repeatedly teasing me before and after the purchase of this book. She was very well aware that I was eagerly awaiting for the release of this book. May be she was also interested to know what is so absorbing in this novel.When I finished my reading I successfully concealed my disappointment from my wife.I wanted to make her read it too.So once I finished I gave the book to her with so many instructions like not to fold the pages,not to keep the book opened in any place where it can gather dirt.In short, I made her think that I was in very much love with that particular book and trying to arouse her interest to read it at once.Unlike me, she is a fast reader( or may be she must be skipping pages so fast)Within two days she kept the book back in my book shelf without uttering any comment.She must have thought that any bad comment about that novel make me think that, she is lacking in the capacity to understand the book.Whatever it is I could imagine that she did not enjoy the book at all, in fact she must be thinking that I have tricked her to read that novel.But not talking about or complaining is not her character. I was unable to guess what was in her mind, so for to avoid unnecessary arguments I left it at that.

Aroma of special sweet recipes cooked in the kitchen for Deepavali festival is surrounding the whole house.Sweets made in our home is famous in our friend circle.My close friends and some of our relatives were very fond of the sweets prepared by my wife.Eagerly awaited Deepavali came and gone. This festival is my favorite one because our close relatives and friends make it a point to visit us during these days. This year also we enjoyed some of our friends’ visit to our home.We were relaxing after a hectic day with so much crowd in home, in our favorite swing placed in our terrace. Looking down from the terrace of our high rise building is always fun. We can still see the children firing crackers and running around. Just then my wife remembered that a outing is arranged by the society lady’s club next day.My wife got up urgently to prepare herself for the short tour of two days. They’ve planned to leave in the early morning in an arranged mini bus.I will be alone in the home for 2 days which I hate very much.On hearing my repeated complaints about her going on this trip,don’t worry she said some of your friends’ Deepavali visit is due and you will enjoy their company and you won’t get time to think about my absence.She also reminded that lots of sweets,home made biscuits,dry fruits are there to finish with your friends, so not to worry and go to sleep.I obliged and went to bed that night mumbling to myself.

As planned my wife left early morning 5 am next day,and I was in bed half asleep.While going she was telling something is left on dining table.I never bothered to see what it is and continued with my sleep.As expected my two good friends Mukesh a software engineer,and Devraj an advocate from near by town came to our place just before afternoon. Usually if they come to visit our place they will spend minimum two days with us detaching totally from their own world.They enjoy my DVD collection in our home theatre.They particularly enjoy my cooking,eventhough it is only vegetarian.

We were in very good mood going back in our memory lane.Suddenly Mukesh remembered our butter biscuits and roasted cashews which goes very well with Chivas Regal scotch.My wife always keeps it handy whenever my friends visits us. Lazily I got up and went to the kitchen
in search of it.My casual search yielded no result, I started searching vigorously.On hearing the noise in the kitchen both my friends approached me to offer their helping hand.But our search for the preferred snacks failed miserably.Mukesh even suggested that, may be this time it is not prepared at all.But I assured that good quantity of biscuits made and special Goan cashews were roasted in ghee with pepper and salt in front of me.

Suddenly I remembered that my wife told about some thing on the dining table before leaving on her trip.Hurriedly I reached the table only to find a hand made envelope properly sealed and kept on the table.By the time my friends who were nothing better to do at the moment also approached me.On looking the envelope on my hand they gazed questioningly at me.I patiently opened the envelope neatly to see the content.It had one neatly cut white sheet folded cleanly.On unfolding th sheet I can see so many symbol like things scattered in it.I looked back at my friends and they looked back at the sheet in my hand and back to my face.The content of the sheet is reproduced here:

Suddenly it struck me like a thunder bolt,my intelligent wife

Wanted to take a revenge on me .Yes it is Dan Brown effect.All the time she knew that I tricked her in to reading The Lost Symbol.So the sheet of paper in my hand is a coded message.I am not Robert Langdon to decode the symbols immediately,but I am not that dumb also.

I studied the sketch in my hand neatly plotted by my wife,Devraj behind me murmured it looks like symbols scattered in a mandap.On hearing that there was a click in my head, every thing fell into place.It is actually a zigzag puzzle.I assembled the puzzle in no time in my mind.Yes I found out it is our Ganesh idol in our pooja mandap.I took my friends to the pooja room.The Lord Ganesh smiled mischievously at me.But what for we came to see the Lord,no idea.Again I took the sketch and studied the symbols, nothing stuck to my mind.Mukesh pointed the u turn like arrow symbol in the bottom of the sketch which was not relevant I felt.Where it fits with Ganeshji in the mandap? Oooh now I got it.I put my hands behind the idol only to find a similar handmade envelope which i found on the dining table.

Now we three were ready to accept my wife’s challenge, and opened the envelope again with a deep sigh.Another sheet of same size as found in the first envelope was again in this envelope.On unfolding this sheet I was half expecting more symbols to decode.But to my surprise there were no symbols, only one sentence which confused all of us.What the hell really it meant?This was the sentence:

“A TWIN SANDWICHED BETWEEN TWO SINGLES FOLLOWED BY TWO TWINS ALONG WITH ANOTHER SINGLE SANDWICHED BETWEEN TWO TWINS.”

With that sheet and envelope we went back to the hall and fell on the sofa disgustedly. Now I knew my wife outwitted me.There is no clue, where are those twins, I can’t recollect any twin children in our complex,may be adjacent building .But what about that singles? Even no bachelor or a single woman staying in the flats we knew.Then what it means?

Mukesh who lost interest was trying to make a paper boat out of the empty envelope we found with this sheet.I was looking absent mindedly at his work with confusing wordings of my wife troubling my head.What is that, I snatched the half made paper boat from Mukesh and straightened the boat back to its original shape.Some numbers scribbled in one corner of the envelope.May be some telephone number to contact my wife to solve the mystery.I closely studied the numbers, it cannot be a Telephone number there are too many digits.

7111191910118


What for these numbers written on the envelope?Any link between the wordings in the sheet and these numbers?Yes now I understood 7 is a single digit no,11 is a double digit number,and again 1 is a single digit number. Yes the wordings carefully selected for single and twins have meaning now.So I segregated the no as per the wordings.If properly written as per the wordings in the sheet, the number should be like this 7 11 1 19 19 10 1 18.Devraj suddenly shouted with enthusiasm ….Yaar it is all alphabets.We started substituting the numbers with appropriate alphabet.7th alphabet is G, 11th is L again 1 is A.Like that all singles and twins now formed into “GLASS JAR”.How the hell, my wife knew that I will search for biscuits and cashews .Knowing in and out of me she played with these symbols and digits and played Dan Brown style to teach me a lesson for playing tricks with her.

Now I know where the glass jar is.We usually keep it in the fridge.I never thought of searching the fridge for cashews and biscuits,which is again a mind game my wife decided to play with me.With deep sigh of relief we took the jar out and settled in front our home theatre system to enjoy the newly bought DVD. Dan Brown’s “ANGELS AND DEMONS”
Concluded 1st Dec 2009.