A bird in the hand

It took a litre of water after Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani to regain senses. However, I'm going to refrain from sharing my ordeal of sitting through the entirety of the disastrous attempt at slapstick comedy. If not for the one thing that kept me engaged through the god-forsaken tribulation, I might have as well walked out of the theatre the moment we walked in.

And at last, thankfully for me, or not, it ended. It was time to head back home in the lavish Coimbatore bucket down.

The heavens have been generous to south India over the past few days. Add the proximity to the Nilgiris to the equation, and we arrive at the sum of a day-long splendid weather, chilly nights, foggy mountains in the distant horizon, and not the slightest trace of sunlight till as far as the eye can see. Of course, riding back home in this weather can be a bit of a malady.

In the middle of a down pour, a water-logged Avinashi Road, and a traffic signal; I drift back to about 20 months from now. Dejected from having screwed up the CAT, having lost all hopes of doing anything at all, with no idea what-so-ever of what lay in store for me, and a few tens of ideas ranging from running away from home to killing myself – just for the heck of it – I was still working with Scope International. Without the slightest clue of what it meant for me, I had somehow gotten the MAT application form filled up and had got a chance to attempt the MAT in February. Even then, burning the midnight oil watching movies and browsing the internet for random shit, loafing about the streets of Chennai and living life with seemingly no sense of direction was commonplace. To make it worse, there was always the confidence whoever I met, "You'll make it, man.. you'll make it big someday." How I used to wish I could teleport myself to someday, if it ever existed!

It was a week from the MAT when Mayur bhai and Ankit had decided on taking a sabbatical. Knowing pretty well that I hadn't moved a muscle in the right direction since having submitted the MAT application form and that nothing I did would help take me any closer to cracking the MAT, I faithfully looked on as they got their leave approved. The MAT came and went, and the results were out in nearly no time at all. We'd all done fairly well, Mayur bhai especially well. But he was the one who took the brave step of not pursuing full time higher education, and took up business instead. Silently, I appreciated his educated and informed decision. Now Ankit and I were left behind. And of us both, he was the more sincere one – far more committed than I ever was about making it to a decent-enough b-school.

Of the plethora of b-schools in the MAT booklet, we had to shortlist 5 b-schools to which our MAT scores would be sent by the AIMA itself. Ankit had gotten the assistance of Salim at IMS to shortlist his 5, I simply copied Ankit's 5. So here we were with our choice of 5 b-schools and we commenced the process of visiting each of these to decide on 'the one'. The list – not necessarily in order of priority – being Christ University, MS Ramaiah and IBMR at Bangalore, and PSGIM at Coimbatore. I don't remember what the 5^th option was. Finally, we landed up here at Coimbatore. And after a year and half, I can say with certainty that it was for the good. Not because PSG was the better of the institutes, nor because it paid any more being at PSG; but simply because these 18 months gave me so much that if I ever believed in a God, I'd be at his feet today thanking Him (or Her) for having given me all He (or She) did.

Standing there at the traffic signal in the pouring rain, I couldn't help wonder how different life could have been. What if I hadn't chosen PSG, what if I went to Bangalore? What if any of those who made these past few months so special had not chosen PSG, and chosen some other b-school, some other course? Would these days have been equally special? Perhaps not.

What if my name was not Surya Prakash, and if it was Dhruv? Would I have been sitting next to Deepti in class? Would I have not known Vaishnavi Krishnan, would she have not invited me for her wedding? BTW, I have to be at her wedding reception in about 18 hours from now. Poor thing's getting wedded off. If not for me being at PSG, would I have known Fazin with his camera and chubby feet? Would I have known Shruthe with her 'Aye, go ya!' Would I have known Bubby 'Teddy Bear' Bisani? Would I have known Guru 'Girlfriend' Moorthy, or Rishabh aka Vito Corleone aka Trigonometry aka Kaalia aka Supandi? Would I have known Rajeshworry 'Blueberry' 'Limca girl'? Would life have been equally munificent and would I have gotten the gift of a pigsy little piglet with the tiniest set of chubby little fingers ever? Would Naveen have still assisted me with doing my joke of a summer project at India Cements? Would I have ever called Nishath 'Bunny' and would I have known that 'Chalo!' can be such a catchphrase? I'm missing a lot of names, I'm sure. But that's not the point, anyway. Point is, would life have been the same?

College is nearing its fag end, and perhaps that's why the nostalgic poignancy. As much as I've hated the things I have hated about having being here, I'm going to miss all of this very bad. Some things more than the others; other things still, the most. And in this one tiny corner of me, every time I hear anything remotely similar to any of the names above or have a moment's grace to myself, I'm going to think of this block on Avinashi Road where I spent 2 years of my life and I'm going to ask myself this question; 'Why DO we have to move on?'

Maybe somewhere else, I would have had a totally different bunch of people around me and chances are I might have been equally thankful. I might never know. But this one time at a Sunday school that I once attended, a lovely lady beautifully illustrated to me that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Today I realise, I couldn't agree more.

Rebound

What happened?

Nothing.

Nothing? Really?

Yes, why? *makes a face as if to have no clue*

Oh, come on! You don't know what I'm talking about?

Fuck off, man. I'm not in the mood. *makes a frustrated face*

I know, and you know very well too that it's the same thing that I'm asking about.

I have no idea, and even if I did I don't see why it should be of any interest to you.

Go on.

Just get the fuck off, man. I'm telling you this is a very bad time. *starts walking away*

*shouts out* ...and it will continue to be, unless you come to terms with what's right in front of you.

*turns back, looks, and continues walking*

*runs and catches up* *gasps a little* Okay, fine. Let's not talk about it if you don't want to.

*Keeps walking at a pace, as if not interested in what's being said* Yeah, like anybody was even talking.

*Tries keeping up with the pace* You know what your problem is, you're the biggest ego-maniac I've ever seen. You don't see it, but believe me that's what's killing you. You're insanely depressive, AND depressing.

*Continues walking at a high pace* *shows the middle finger*

*Almost running now* That's what you got too, didn't you?

*Comes to a jerking halt* *Almost fuming* Listen, man.. I don't know what you're thinking, and quite frankly I give a fuck. Please.. do yourself and me and a favour, and disappear.

*Grins a sly grin* You'll just never give in, will you?

*Frets* *Swings head to one side while inhaling deeply, and then quickly jerks head as if to look up and then back to the other side* *Catches hold of the collar in almost an instant reaction* Asshole, ONE more sentence.. ONE more sentence and I'll have you wasted. Run away. Don't you fucking get it I don't want you around?

*Almost gets shaken off his ground with the jerk* *But recovers immediately, and shakes hands off collar* *While adjusting collar and shirt* What're you getting out of this? Huh? Does this make you feel any more a man? Or are you just covering up for being the sulking bitch you really are?

*Loses all self-control* *Pushes him to the ground* Stay there! Ass-licking, crack whore! *Darts off*

*Is on the ground, takes his hands off the ground and dusts them* *Keeps looking on as he disappears out of sight*

WHAT is it?

Jerkin-effect – the outside cold-inside warm effect that results out of wearing only a jerkin in the rain. The legs usually get drenched, and give a feeling of "exciting" chillness and the trunk remains comfortably warm.

If I remember right, Senthil told me about it about a week ago. But he wasn't sure where it was being screened. "It might be playing at KG Big Cinemas," he supposed.

Now, I am not particularly an MJ fan. In fact, I'm not sure I've even heard a lot of his songs other than perhaps Beat It, The Earth Song and They Don't Care About Us. It hadn't been long since his sad demise, and I was surprised beyond measure on learning of the kind of a fan following he had. With all due respect to the 'King of Pop', I hadn't the slightest clue MJ was him. And now that he was no more, I felt this urge to get to know him better. Or at least to get to know why he was what he was considered to be.

When I first heard of 'This Is It', with its Michael Jackson poster et all, I couldn't imagine what it was. I mean, it certainly couldn't be a "movie" starring him – he was no more. And yet the posters proudly claimed 'Michael Jackson's This Is It'. It took me a little google-ing to find out it was a something of an MJ documentary. However that didn't take me any closer to guessing what it really was and more so why it was such a craze. But I didn't seem to have done much about it, and I let it be.

With all those unanswered questions in mind and not knowing what to expect, I readily agreed to Senthil's proposition of watching it this Tuesday that passed. But thanks to a little confusion about the show timings, we didn't get to watch it. We decided on watching it the next day. So, faithfully as we had decided to, Senthil and I got in touch and confirmed our plans of watching it on Wednesday. 'I'll drop in to your place by 9," he suggested. Vinodh was to join us too.

It was drizzling a "beautiful" drizzle then when Senthil and Vinodh arrived at my place by 9ish, and we left for the theatre within a few minutes. An old-theatre styled building, no air conditioning, tickets in the Balcony priced at Rs 30, a mistimed audio system and located in an otherwise prime but then deserted Bashyakarulu Street in RS Puram; Maruthi isn't the best of theatres in Coimbatore. There weren't more than 25 people in a theatre that could accommodate well over 500 – all classes put together.

This Is It started on a brilliant note. Not more than 2 minutes into the documentary, it's intent – 'For the fans..' – and a text introduction later, I was choked and my eyes were almost in tears. But then on, the rest of it was MJ practising/performing his songs for the concert(s). Blame it on either me not having been a big fan or the theatre itself, 30 minutes into This Is It and I was looking at my watch. But then Senthil kept giving me snippets about MJs life and things the 2 hours or so passed. It was time to hit the road and head home.

Walking out the theatre, we realised that while we were inside, the drizzle had turned into a mighty downpour. We could see the water logged roads from the theatre's windows. But it wasn't pouring as heavily then. We had brought our jerkins along, so I suggested we hit the road in the rain. RS Puram is about 7-8 kilometres from Peelamedu. I was expecting a scintillating ride back home in the rain. On my way back, I tried hard to like the movie, but I failed in the attempt. I tried enjoying the rain and what most would call a "sexy ride" back home, I failed again. Despite stretching my hands out wide on a moving bike, looking up at the sky and letting the rain drops poke me in the face till it hurt, breathing the rain in through my nose and other similar desperate attempts at trying to enjoy the rain, I simply couldn't.

Instead of getting back home excited from the "sexy ride", I got back home half drenched.

I couldn't help wonder whether something was fundamentally wrong with me, or whether all ideas of getting drenched in the rain are indeed sadly boring; or whether it took an especially smitten heart of a new-fangled lover boy/girl to "enjoy" the rain. Whatever the reason, I couldn't wait to change into snug, dry clothes and log onto facebook to do some stalking. ;-)

The jerkin effect can get almost anybody to feel like wanting to pee. Me no exception. It's amazing, the thoughts one can think in those few seconds. ;-)

Cheers.

P.S. Alpha, this is perhaps my first post that I am writing when I'm not angry. Although, if you can cut through the prose, you might just get a glimpse of the pang of a miserable actuality. And don't bother asking me what this means. J