Ghost Protocol

This happened when I was roughly 25 -26 yrs, it was on one of those nights in the rainy season, streets were wet, rains had stopped, it was  almost 11 'o'clock by the time I left the office, where I was working at, along with me was my brother in law, who also was my co-worker at the same company, I was staying with my sister and brother in law for a couple of days before I got married. 

We both had our own bi-cycles and we started to hit back home, by about 11:00 pm, through the deserted wet roads of chamarajapete ( area in Bangalore) and apparently we had to go via a graveyard which was on one side of the main road, the graveyard was really not a matter of worry or anything, but for my sister it was!… she would always warn us to reach home well by 6:00 in the evening or to follow another route to surpass the graveyard!

But sometimes we would ignore her, though it was late we would follow the same route via the graveyard as it was the only short cut we had...

So this night we thought, we'd better take the short cut and reach home as soon as possible. We started on our bicycles whistling loudly some old tunes n merrily cycling on the deserted roads, my brother in law started first and he was ahead of me, he was hardly 50 - 100 meters ahead of me, but suddenly he was pulled down as he skid down and was dragged horribly along his cycle for about few meters until the speed of the cycle came down, I was shocked as there were no humps no sand gravel nor anything, there was no water standing either, because of the rains in the evening it was just that the streets were wet, before I realised this, I too had this dreaded experience, I too lost my balance off the cycle, fell down, was dragged nastily, for a moment I felt I am going to be unconscious, but later after a few seconds the cycle speed reduced and I could manage myself and got up to see couple of bruises over my palms and elbows. I was really shocked to see my brother in law trembling with fear, he too had some bruises over his hands and knees… 

Never  something like this had happened to either of us, we were following this route like almost every day for about 2-3 years… I asked him, if he was alright, he was panting for breath and said, "Look we better go home soon, don't you see that we fell just in front of that graveyard, there is definitely something wrong… we should hurry". I was a little petrified and could not believe my ears that we met with this accident just in front of that scary graveyard, I really did not want to judge anything there, before anything more would happen, both of us wanted to reach home as soon as possible, without looking back we just drove as fast as we could, without a whistle…with just front lights glowing…

No sooner we reached home, my sister noticed our anxiety and fear and she could sense something wrong had happened to us and she did guess that it was coz, we followed the graveyard route and she started crying that something bad is awaiting for us, and she even started blabbering that the ghosts do roam around at nights and they play pranks on people in dark… on hearing all this both of us were more scared and we both were told to take bath and before she served us the dinner, we were made to offer prayers to the God and apply sacred ash on the forehead and I did see my sister still sobbing…

Without a word, we did what she said, had our dinner and went to bed, within no time it was dawn and I probably woke up on hearing my sister whining as if there was a catastrophe, I went near her to see wat it was, to my dismay I saw my brother in law on the bed shivering, and learnt that he had a sky high temperature, we called in for a doctor and the doctor after diagnosing him, prescribed some medicines and assured us he would be alright in a day or two.

I was speechless, was still thinking and my mind always tried to link this up to the incident/accident which happened the previous night…

I was a little apprehensive to go to office, was warned by my sister to take a different route and I was supposed to completely avoid the shortcut… I was not wanting to settle to what she said, still wasn't sure what I wanted to do, I finally dressed up and started to cycle down, to office, and followed my sister's instructions avoiding the graveyard route… while I was on this other route, so many questions kept rattling all  over my mind, I would be accepting that there was something which I never believed would exist.. Or live with a fear for my entire life, a mysterious fear...


I just could not handle this confusion any more…. Slowed down my cycle, took a U - turn, headed back to office via the graveyard route, for once I wanted to beat it, I wanted to know what was wrong, I was not sure If I would fall again, or probably nothing could happen at all…it was sunny and the streets were dry and I finally  reached the graveyard, almost a couple of meters away from the spot where we both fell, I could see that there was a big dark patch on the street, at the same spot where we had an accident...


I went closer, luckily I did not fall nor lost my balance, as I went closer I could see the patch was due to spilt oil, and a tin was lying by the side of the footpath, then I realised that, the last nights drama was all because of this spilt oil exactly in front of the graveyard, which we could not make out as the streets were wet coz of the rains, the reason for my brother in law's fever and my sisters anxiety and of course my confusion too!

Smiled to myself :) I was so much relieved, felt light at heart, that the mystery was solved and the fear no longer existed, happily made my way to office, that evening I reached home well before dark and narrated the whole thing what I saw in the morning to my sister and brother in law, both did not seem to get it, after a while my sister bursted out into laughter and my brother in law had a smile on his face and a sign of relief from the burden(fear) he was carrying in his heart all the while and he got better within few hours… 

I suddenly remembered my grandfather and also started recollecting a few stories and some real life experiences he had narrated and shared with us, while I was a kid, we are 8 cousins and all of us love our tata/ajja ( Grandfather in kannada), we have always loved the way he narrated a story,  he would create all the required curiosity , anxiousness, suspicion etc, basically all the required emotions while we listened to him and we would imagine in our own ways of the sequence based on the story, based on his tone, he had and still have an impeccable kannada vocabulary and pronunciation… i.e vyakarna and uccharane ( in kannada).  There were times that we were fine and keen to listen to a story by him, though we knew it by heart… we were desperate to listen to him, from his tone the way he filled the lines with emotions and expressions... and is priceless !

Once so happened that on one of the afternoons, we all cousins started pestering him to narrate a story, that is when he shared one of his experiences - the above story , out of many such experiences he had back when he was a lad!

Sweet are the echoes that start When Memory plays an old tune on the heart!

I always wonder what triggers our brain cells to link up to a memory in the past the reason am saying this is because I have had this experience, well almost every now and then, that whenever I listen to some particular song or my nose catches up some specific or a particular odour, I go back in time to that past where I would have listened to this very particular song crazily like n number of times or really liked the odour(Aroma) of a particular dish or fragrance of a specific deodorant or perfume, or the smell of the woods like the one at my mom's native….

Though I am in present I feel the very warmth and the aura of that place where I had listened to it in the past! or smelled something in that place. This totally transforms me (though temporarily) to what I was then, for example, when I was in PU, Dil Chahta Hai songs were my fav of many and they were played on my tape recorder like almost continuously all day and now when I listen to this song after almost a decade, the moment my ear picks up the track I feel that I am in PU and feel the same old excitement and enjoyment as I had then - the happiness at heart ….

Similarly whenever I listen to Bob Sinclair's "World hold On" and The Corona's Rhythm Of The Night… this was played whole night long, the whole of mid night, in the pin drop silence nights, during summers, while I was studying for Masters back in Bangalore, like 3 years before, When I listen to this song in London now, even on deadly cold days I feel the same warmth I had felt back then, the same hot air, the sweaty hot summer nights, the exam tension at the corner of my heart… I feel so nostalgic about those moments… :)

A similar feeling when I trip down the memory lane, when I get to smell something specific but RARE. This does not happen when the odour is usual or very common.

No sooner I gulp in the fresh air in woods or a country side, I am already elated, I feel that I'm already at my granny's place in Tamil Nadu, back in India i.e at my mom's native and start feeling that I am still a kid playing with my cousins out there! joy o joy! Love them all, I treasure them all :)

I am so much fascinated by the way the brain works, it records something which is considered as a favourite and stores it in a few of its cells and tries to link when ever similar kind of events occur in the future, events in here is listening to the same recorded tracks and smelling the recorded odour!

I should probably go back and do some research and find out more precisely why and how this happens :) Out of sight is definitely not out of mind sometimes :)

How is it going?? ;)

At my office as the internet went down, everyone started chit chatting while waiting for the network to be up and running… This was the only time I saw tech team really speaking and laughing, cracking jokes, speaking about topics off work, if otherwise there were just random jokes or noise once in a while… usually associated with work! I could see the genuine smile on few of my colleagues's faces :) similar to a child's smile when given a let off at school! 

Few them were waiting for the chance to go home calling it end of day's play…while I was witnessing all this, without knowing what to do, I just picked up the notepad and started writing this down, what else could I have done better than this, I had no pdfs nor any documents to read, had already called my parents thrice so I had nothing more left to speak… already had unintentional and un interesting sketches of  few houses and landscapes on the work book that was lying on my desk…

This was and is my first job outside India, first job in London! though its the same IT sector there is a huge difference in the work culture people follow here as compared to Indian work culture, one thing I'd say is that they are truly professionals when it comes to work… some are really strict about their work timings they come at 9 leave at 6 ish  in the evening and they stick to their contract, once asked a lady colleague of mine about this, she said, " Why do you wanna spend your personal time at office, office time is 8 hrs / day, if its over then you should be walking out" I was a little taken a back on hearing this, its 180 degrees to what we do in India or rather what we are asked to do…

And none speaks over the phone for non work purpose more than 2-3 mins and if they see people doing that, they give a stare :) this has happened to me many a times mostly when I call my parents, which I always feel that they are intending to say, "Will you please get back to work" :) :)

They eat their lunch at their desk, no one moves or goes out unless they have a friend or someone to meet or go out for the lunch, they have what not from fish to pork, beef to lamb, salads to bread, my God every damn thing! and there were times where I had almost fainted coz of somebody's stinky fish… I literally walked out of the room, returned after a while (exception:  my lunch(Vegan only)  is generally odourless)

Well one thing I really miss is the regular breaks which I am used to take when I am at work, play TT, relax and replenish my energy and get back to work, but in here its at a stretch of 8hrs, this sometimes is so boring and monotonous and I quickly get saturated but otherwise in terms of work and professionalism I really really appreciate these guys here!

I have learnt a lot from this organization so really looking forward for some more good and interesting stuff!! 

Royal Afternoon

My name is Milly, I was born in a factory, so as my siblings, but my parents were from the rich and a royal family back from England, so I got the privilege of having the family name as Royal… when we were kids me and my sister Molly were very naughty and curious to go out and see how it would look like and play there, but we were kind of restricted to get ourselves accustomed to external world.

Our dynasty or probably I could say it as the species to which I belong had an utmost fear of any water(basically any liquid) and air… we love getting suffocated and chocked up, stacked up etc, unlike you humans, For us Liquid (Any kind) and exposing ourselves to wind/air is fatal, I remember my sister was in the ICU when she had accidentally fallen a prey for water but she slowly recovered, everyone said that the recovery was all a sheer luck and the god's grace.

Whatever we learnt, we understood, everything was within those walls, for us our home was our world, btw we never had walls, coz we were living in a cylindrical pipe, which is considered to be the royal architecture amongst our kind.

well the time came when we really were migrated to some place, I did not know where we as a whole family were going to… but heard all my relatives and cousins telling that we were being shifted to some other place and they over heard of being done so… even they were clueless, all my cousins, my sis and myself were very happy to know about this and devilishly waiting for a chance to get out and have a peek a boo of the outside world, by then we all had realized that there existed something beyond us, which we were really not sure or familiar of...

Finally we did arrive to a place which none of us were aware of, could hear some noise, kind of a rattling sound, elders in our house started praying...My mum screamed at us not to get out of there, as she sat for her prayers, she was really worried, I could see her helplessness, but never understood the reason though!

Meanwhile my sister and I were almost near the main door trying to hear someone speaking about us, something Royal... blah blah blah. We were amazed to hear the voice of someone from this external world but then this was illegible and dampened. Elders also could hear this and they began screaming saying “Tea is Our Liberator, Salvation nearing!!!”, and by the time we realized this, we were pulled out from the house the main door was ruthlessly torn apart, in a split second we both just slided out and had never felt so hard ever before...

“Oh dear now that am here, why am I narrating you guys my story, when I should make the most of this moment outside the boring house, but wait...molly look It is a wonderful world out here... so many things which I had never seen before... I can sense some freshness molly... it is all new”!

Molly : “milly am afraid, will you just shut up, before those monstrous creatures gobble us up”!

“I am in love with this outside world... so many colours, I was just bored with the same set of pale colours... but here I see so many colours I had ever seen in my life, I really don’t know what they are named as...look there is another house similar to ours...I don’t know why mummy hates this place...”

I never realised how different I was until I really got out of those walls and saw the new world all together, my whole perception of the external world changed.

I never realised, how beautiful I was, and how much I was loved, until I really got out there out of my home and heard these huge monstrous creatures praising us, adoring us, so they do have a heart...!

“Look molly they are taking our family name and praising us”...

We realized that, they enjoyed us day or night… I guess everyone liked us! Every one enjoyed us, from kids to aged… well I am a little proud of myself being more beautiful and of course crispier than molly …. who could have really resisted my oomph factor and my dusky skin, and my boldness….

“Aww... wats happening... ooow......molly don’t let me go...Pull me back this monster is so cruel, surely it's gonna eat me away....”

“Mommy...., never let me go...please help me!”

:( Alas! it’s too late I guess, I can sense something bad here, as I see mom hiding inside and weeping... “Milly, Tea is the God's Plan of Salvation!...”

I don’t know wats she saying.... “Ouch!!! Its terribly hot ... don’t dip me in this furnace you stupid monstor”......... Ah! Btw is this the Tea??? OMG!!!

“Am drowning am drowning! Help Help.....my legs are soaked and they are getting dissolved.. stop it... my hands are burning..., Oh my crispiness is lost!!! 
ouch...blobb blobb”....

Wow wasn’t that a nice afternoon tea, with Rich Royal Tea Biscuit!

Sleepy Monday Mornings…Zzzzzz…..

Blame it on Sunday's sleepless nights - the very thought of the monstrous Monday makes me loose my sleep… I would have hardly slept for six hours.. :(

Man its so hard and really very hard to concentrate on monday mornings, it is much more inertia for my big yawns, with out a cup of caffeine on that day at work…and this day gets guttered when you have a PHB kind of a boss. 
With huge boulder of tasks and To-Do lists thrown at you to suffocate and drown you almost! phew ;) 

watt an epic day it turns out to be! 

well this feeling lingers until 11ish  and then I really get in to the groove, all awake and active, singing and dancing to the tunes of my work ;)

The week continues with no major hiccups on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, if and only if, I have not been taken to task by any of my PHBs :D 

and as soon as its Thursday, there is a smile and a sign of relief and happiness somewhere in the corner of my heart of the forthcoming weekend :) and mind it, the happiness increases exponentially on thursday's night.

And then, there comes the Friday with a bang! I somehow have that extra energy to work that day, I would be all ready to pounce on my tasks or probably even wage a war and win against my Boss ( Don't know if its the happiness of the weekend - which triggers the energy, well it must be that ;)

And when the clock strikes 5:00 in the evening, happiness is at its peak and with no less time the avalanche of happiness occurs when the office bell rings ( for me ;) to get out of there and get going for a toast or a party or just go home and relax!

Well Fridays are no wonder the happiest day of the week and the Sunday nights the most painful!

So that now am out of my Monday Blues, let me get back to my work ;)

Have a happy working week ahead folks!