Reservation: A LOOK

I saw the following thing written, ANd it got me into thinking that is indeed that my future

The future may be like this....

message:

Just wanted to share this with you... Sun is rising as usual in the east. I’m standing here outside the school, waiting for my 10 yr old kid. He studies in class 2. Only this year he could get admission into the school. For the last 5yrs, admissions were closed for the general category students. School bell rings. I can see a lot of happy children coming out of the gate, I waited for half an hour and my kid came at last after other children. General students are not allowed to cross the gate unless other OBC/SC/ST students have crossed the gates. OBC/SC/ST fathers drive away their children in classy cars. But I have to walk back home with my kid a 5km stretch. I lost my car some years back when Govt. came with a rule that general people have to deposit a tax equal to cost of their cars, failing which I had to sell the car. As far as buses are concerned, the seats in buses are reserved for OBC/SC/ST. So no place there also. After walking some 5km in scorching heat I finally reached home. It was Wednesday.... sh*t, no electricity. Every Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat is power cut in the houses of General category population .So that SC/ST/OBC can be uplifted by providing them with every opportunity and in that consideration electricity is an important factor. Its 10:00 pm in night no electricity at home. It’s very hot inside the four walls of home .So I dare to step out in park with my wife and kid. I seated myself with my family on a secluded bench in garden. It was hardly 5 min ... a guard came to us strolling in the park. He asked me what caste you belong to. I said with some hesitation, G..General. He asked me to pay a fine of Rs.200 and get out of the park. My Fault... The bench I was sitting on was meant for again the SC/ST/OBC. For their upliftment, peace of mind is an essential thing. So govt came with this decision to reserve benches for them. Kudos to them... It’s early in the morning ...the newspaper wala just knocked the door. I took the newspaper and started reading .., its independence day. I never used to forget these days some 20 yrs back. My kid hardly knows what 15th august is, because I never told him any stories of greatness of our country or anything related to country. I don't feel like telling him the failures after freedom. On front page of newspaper, in a corner their is a news about a OBC member getting 6 months imprisonment in "BAL SUDHAR GRAHA" from a juvenile court for murdering and raping a six year old girl. Yes the rules have been amended, since the last 5 years. The Culprit was a 25 year old OBC so age relaxation was provided for trial of crime. So he was taken to juvenile court, since there is an age relaxation for OBC/SC/ST. About 11 am some one gave me the BAD news about demise of one of my neighbor and friend Mr. Mehta. I went to his house for condolence next day; his body was lying there still rotting in the heat. I asked his son about the Cremation .His son told me “Many reserved category have died yesterday so we are not getting entry to cremation ground ". This rule is the latest from Govt. Where the seats in cremation ground will be reserved for SC/ST/OBC for their upliftment. Finally next day Mehta ji was cremated I could see the sun setting through the Flames burning a liberated Body, liberated from caste n creed. I was surprised sun still sets in the west? It was about 9 pm, I was about to sleep in my bed my son came to me with innocence in his eyes, inquisitively he asked me the question: "what is reservation?" I asked him where u listened that. He suddenly burst in tears... I asked him to keep quiet but I could listen through his sobs "mujhe bhi reservation chahiye". How can I convince him it’s no other toy in the market I can get for him? He kept crying that night, claiming many of "his classmates have got reservation". To make him quiet I said ok, i’ll buy you reservation at your next B'day.

Other's Bakar: At last

Other's Bakar: At last

At last

Seems that after all the changes and doing all those stuffs which i don't even know has done wonders. Now i will check it whether it works on remote login or not. Till then TATA

Test Post

What the heck is going on that the posts in this blog isn't being accepted.... Huh.......

So another product from google:

Google Spawns Googlettes

As is often the case with Google, the first hint of a major new development was a quiet announcement on its site -- in this case, the jobs section. The ad for Director of Product Management, Googlette, leads immediately to the question -- what the hell is a Googlette?

According to the ad, a Googlette is "a start-up within a start-up" and that there will be "a wide array of them". The Director of Product Management will "define Google's innovation engine and grow the leaders of our next generation of businesses."

In an absence of any press release or comment (as yet) from Google, here's what I surmise:

• This venture – rather, these ventures – have grown directly out of "Google labs", which has spawned many new, exciting ideas. Google wants to manage some of these innovations as separate projects, recognising they may require as much nurturing as Google itself did when starting out four or five years ago.
• This is Google sticking to New Economy-style thinking, which so many companies rushed to emulate in the late 1990s, then quickly abandoned after the dot-com meltdown. Not Google, which understands that its toughest competition in the future may come from within its own offices.

  Thus, instead of trying to quash or control emerging ideas and/or personalities, Google encourages them. It offers to create a support network for potential leaders, in exchange for loyalty and an ongoing network relationship. Thus, Google's vision's of the future is one where it is the "queen bee", with many satellite companies hovering around it, at once feeding it and gaining support from it.

• Google is reacting to external competition, which is fast toughening. Witness the recent frenzy of mergers and acquisitions in internet search and advertising. Even Bill Gates is developing a search engine designed to rival Google's. Realising that the best form of defence is attack, Google's strategy is to start working on the next generation of technologies to change the web landscape.

Crush crushes da-iict

Sometimes every one (oops) most of one go through the goosebumps on the first crush ..... i liked the blog very much.It hursts when you long for someone very deeply and u see that u can do nothing about it.Sometimes it is better not to think of the consequences and follow urs heart.But then sometimes it's not.This is the main theme of the following blog: http://blogs.sify.com/blog_display.php?blogid=1179&pid=3515 Tenth Standard CrushThursday, December, 16th, 2004 Crushes do require courage! Hmmm...Studying in a boy’s school had its own share of merits and demerits. I never tried to reason out them. But if there was a time, when I certainly missed out on girls then it was at my tenth standard. I was tenth standard, when I first joined a tuition class. The tuition center was really far and I had to travel an hour by bus to reach there. I had never previously spoken to girls other than people whom I knew from childhood. The first day of my tuition class was when I met Rajalakshmi. Her friends always used to call her Rajee and I always pleaded with myself to stop looking at her. I was not a bright guy at class and I was really worried as to how she looked upon me. I chit chattered with all the other guys whenever she was not around. But when she was there, I used to portray myself as a sweet silent guy. She used to speak to all the other guys in the class, except me. I decided to open up to my friend about my crush. He was surprised too. Finally after a lot of thought, I decided to approach her. That day, I went to the class well ahead of time and waited for her. When she came, there were around 5 guys in the room. So I decided against approaching her then. She then left to the room next by, to find her test book. I followed her. My legs were shaking and my hands were cold. As I was walking, I tried to recollect what I had planned to tell her. I put my hand in my pocket and tried to search for the piece of paper over which I had written my dialogue. As I neared her, my heart started to pound faster. I could hear it too. Suddenly she turned and saw me. I almost fumbled with the book in my hand. I cleverly covered my nervousness. I went to the book shelf at the other end of the room. Now I was sweating. Phew...!! After a few minutes, I mustered some more courage and turned around. Booo.. She had left the place. 'What a bulb' I told myself. I left the room and entered the study hall only to find three things. First, our tutor had come and so no more chance of talking to her. Second, my place had gone and so I had to go back and sit. Third, I could only sit in the last row, from which, all my chances of even watching her were lost. BOOO... 'My fate', I thought to myself. Next day, my friend started to tease me. "You don’t have the courage to even face a girl? How are you going to propose to her?" "That’s enough", I said. I knew he made sense, but my ego was at stake. So that day I told myself, "today I am really gonna speak to her". I remained cool for the other half in my school. When it was one hour before the class, as expected, I started to get nervous. I went there a bit earlier than the day before. This time to my surprise, she was there in the class, sitting and reading something. I landed myself in the bench adjacent to her. For the first few minutes, I didn’t dare to turn and see her. Then again, I mustered myself up. I turned and then walked to her straight. This is it, I thought. I was just a few feet away from her. My head was rotating and all the other external crush-phobia symptoms were also there. I thought I was gonna break down for a second. And then I was caught off-guard. She turned to me and held out a book. I saw the book and realized it was my test book. "Damn, how did she get my test book???” I saw on the table the pile of all the other test books and immediately realized that our tutor had asked her to hand it over. "GEEE... " I quietly took the book, went back and sat. "How much did you get?" I turned and saw that she was not only speaking to me but also standing a few feet away from me. I was speechless. "Me?", I gulped and asked. "Ya", she said. It was then that I realized that I never even opened my book to see how much I had scored. I opened and saw. Oops! It was thirty five out of hundred. I decided to maintain some image and told her "Seventy five". Hey eyes widened. "Wow", she said. "I got only sixty. I think you must've got the third sum correct. Can I just see your book?" I was trapped. I swallowed hard. I opened my book, pretended to see it and then told her that I had got it wrong as well. I feared she might still persist to see my book. But she didn’t. I heaved a sigh. "I am not sure how my father will react to this mark. I am scared", she said. "I don’t even tell my father such marks", I thought of telling her. I just remained quiet. "Speak to her", I could even imagine my friend telling this to me. But somehow words would not come out. "Tell me something na. It’s going to be another 40 minutes for the class to begin", she said. "Something? How much do I tell honey?” I thought to myself. I was sweating. I remained mute. "You appear to be a very quite guy? I see that you don’t talk much in the class. Why?" I thought I should smile at her and did so. "Ok" "enough" "Stop it" "Your blushing too much", something inner kept telling me all these things. That was it. She stood up and walked away outside. I kicked myself for not having spoken to her. "You didn’t speak to her? Your nuts", my friend told me the next day after I had told him everything. "I know", I told him. "Hey, don’t feel bad man. It happens the first time. Just think her as anybody else. Just go and speak to her casually today. I am sure she'll respond", he told me. I thought about it and realized the truth behind it. Alas, it then reigned into me that an opportunity lost is like spilt milk. For the next seven days, I was not able to speak to her. I repented my missed chance. Weeks later, as I was sitting quietly inside my tuition hall, she came in. By that time, I had almost lost all hope of speaking to her again and proposing to her. She came over to me and asked, "How much did you get in the last test?” I chuckled. I did not know. I never had the habit of even knowing how much I scored in tests. I opened my mouth to tell a mark of around 'eighty'. "I got 78 and you know what I am the highest", she said. Phew, I just couldn’t imagine myself getting into another tight corner. I told her that I did not attend the last test. "My dad was very happy", she said gleaming. I congratulated her. I understood that bubbliest in her character and I felt that, that was what which had attracted me to her. She kept on speaking for some more time. And I too, to my own surprise, started to speak as well. In between, I used to wonder, "What happened to you man? That’s great. Keep it going". The next day, my friend could not believe what I had told him. I guess he got a little bit jealous and dared me to propose to her. I told him I'll do that the very same day. It was only after sometime, I realized the depth of the challenge. I was really scared. I wrote down whatever I had to say. I memorized it more times than my history book's dates. That day, I went over to her. She turned and smiled. Before I could speak, she again opened up by asking me my marks in the last exam. "Man, doesn’t she know anything else?” I wondered. I spoke about studies and I returned back without saying a word about anything else. The next day my friend was back teasing me. This time, he crossed his limits. I was angry and told him that I will definitely propose to her that day. The day after that, my friend eagerly came over to me and asked me what had happened. I told him the same thing had repeated itself. He started to laugh. However, he did not say anything. I remained silent the whole day. I felt bad that my friend’s words were true. I had done so many things in life up to that day, but nothing could ever give me the courage to propose to a girl, I thought. My friend understood that I was disappointed. He came over to me and told me that he would accompany me to the tuition class that day, but he refrained from accompanying me when I was to go and talk to rajee. I agreed upon. I thought that my friend would give me some tips on approaching her. He did so and it did really work. I went to tuition that day in a more relaxed manner. In fact, I did not even write down my dialogues. I thought I am just gonna go there and speak out my mind. We reached an hour early. She had not come then. 10 Minutes had passed. I started to think. 20 minutes had passed, I started to get nervous. My friend started to cool me down. 30 minutes had passed. I almost felt like breaking down. "I'm never gonna do it", I thought to myself. My friend calmed me down. Fifty minutes had passed by that time and everyone had come to class. My friend decided to leave. I felt lot uncomfortable after he left. The class started. "She's on leave", I told myself disappointed. "I'm gonna find why she's on leave today", I told myself. After the class got over, I went over to my tutor. I asked him about rajee, casually telling him that she had my test book with her. My tutor gave a dead look at me. "Did he know of anything?” I wondered. "Why did you give your book to her?” he asked. "She wanted to see it" "I don’t know what to say", he said. "Why, what's wrong?” I asked him. "Her father called up today to tell that she will not be coming to tuition anymore. I don’t know how you’re going to get back your book. ??? " !@#$%^&* It had been two days after that. I had told my friend all about it. Both of us were sitting on top of the wall by the side of our school. The thought still hadn’t sunk into me. My friend had a hearty laugh when I had told him. But he did not say anything now. I felt lost. When I had all the time in the world, my instincts ruined my chances. And finally when I had decided to nail the coffin, the nail went missing. My friend read my disappointment. "Cool it man. If she had to be your Mrs., she would have never missed you", he said. Nice words indeed to heal a bruised or rather CRUSHED sentiment. So Crush crushes shwetank.shekhar.tripod.com

Engineering Colleges Students........CATEGORY

Its the categories in which we can divide the students.............. It was written about the mumbai engineering DUDS.....but be pretty much assured that any enginerites fits the BILL. http://o3.indiatimes.com/blah_blah_blah

hi guys

just got over with my “submissions” for this semester. god what a relief!! its like givin ur last exam paper. u think im kiddin, ask any mumbai engg student bout it.

engg student life truly roxxx. of course lotsa ppl tend to think that u find only nerds or geeks in engg. but thats like sayin all the movies made in bollywood are superhits. (that btw is a lousy statement). life as an engg student can be as u want it to be. tough as well as smooth.

some ppl tend to take the high road and study frm day one of a fresh semester like theres no tomorrow. they'll occupy first benches. and they have many “doubts“ while the lectures goin on. they will leave no stone unturned to be real goody good in the eyes of our “estemeed“ (haha) profs. these few ppl r truly in the geek category. ironic as it may sound, but most of these so-called "geeks“ dont boast of a very good result. some even get KTs.

then u have “the politically correct“ crowd, who attend lectures regularly. take down notes. do all their practicals sincerely. they arent exactly geeks but they r one level below them. these ppl never create havocs in classrooms but are part of fun (if there is any joke cracked or leg pulled)and can be said to be the model students of the college. and they have good results also.

then u have the “the LLBs“. chill these arent law school graduates but Lords of Last Benches. sittin on the last benches is their birthright and no one dare occupy their seats. LLBs r the “jaan“ of the otherwise boring classrooms where profs are goin on and on bout god knows what! thay call it teaching. duh!

last benches r platforms where ppl discuss everything under the sun except wots bein taught in the classroom. here everything frm bar girls controversy to britney spears pregnancy reports r discussed. if the profs too strict and theres no scope for havin talks, then we pretend to play it sufi, prof thinks last benchers have calmed down but thats their mistake. cos it takes only one joke to convert our class into a joggers parks' laughter club. sometimes we even have meetings with LLBs of other classrooms to come up with innovative ways of sittin throughout those one hour “torture“ lecs.

everything said and done, when the going gets tough, the tough gets goin. resultwise last benchers rock, sometimes they get better marks than the previous two counterparts. of course some also get kts, some even get year drops! but then thats a part and parcel of engg life. wot say?

so thats bout the categories of engg students in a nutshell. will try to throw light on some more engg students trivia some other time. theres lots ppl. theres first year (FE) dilemmas, then second year(SE) vivas and practical exams, then third year(TE) seminars and presentations and job interviews and finally final year(BE) projects and lookin back!!! theres lots to discuss.

an addition frm a fellow blogger GAURAV RAJE.

Sumdi mein komdi category. These ppl pretend to be full fledged llbs. But then after college is over, they hit the books straight away. These end up getting amazing marks. Some are extraordinarily brilliant ppl who dont even need to study much.

Dumb ppl category. These are neither studious nor funnmy. They are plain dumb. They normally sit in the middle of the class. They are the least noticed ppl and usually get away without even getting noticed. Some ppl mistake them for the front benchers.

Despo bhooka category. These are desperate ppl. They try to woo any girl in sight. They dont care how she looks or how she is. Just the fact that she is a girl is enuf for them. Though there is absolutely no beauty in engineering, these guys try to act like a shadow for the hideously ugly girls.

Dedh shahana public category. These are smartasses who try to disturb the entire class by acting like smartasses. They act like know-it-alls. Though they donot know a thing. They usually raisse stupid doubts when the profs are teaching and give vague answers when the profs ask questions. They feel dat they are the most intelligent ppl. they give excuses for failing.

keep rockin

ciao!

FAQS: 1..........ATKT. it means "allowed to keep terms". see wot happens is that we have 2 semesters per year and around 5-6 subjects per sem. so in the exam if a student fails in a subject or two, then he's allowed to sit for the next semester. he dosent get a year drop. does that clear ur doubt recca? 2..........LLBs. Lords of Last Benches 3..........FE first year 4..........SE second year 5..........TE Third year 6..........BE Final Year(B-Tech) I wanted to give persona example in each of the categories ..but i don't know why i stopped doing it..maybe it's only temporarily. Next time i wish to bring the categories of the professors...... i assure you that this time it will be full of the examples

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! ~Owens Lee Pomeroy

school farewell day revisited!

the blog below just made me go back to my sweet/bitter childhood memory.

theblog can be found out at:http://o3.indiatimes.com/blah_blah_blah/ Indeed, the present is so tense and the past seems oh so perfect. Sometimes you just dont want to move on, sometimes you just dont want to let go of time. How we wish we could turn back time. If only. But Life they say is a one way journey. So be it. Living it and Loving it. Do we have a choice?

When I was a small child I always used to wonder, “When the hell am I going to grow up? Being a grown up is so cool. No more tension of completing the homework, no more learning those awful math tables, no more worrying about the verbs and nouns and tenses, no more being afraid of mam and the house master.”

Then came the final year of school. Now the thinking had changed a bit. “Yess! Just one more year. One more year of this jail called school. One more year of homeworks, nagging teachers, stupid project work. Then college. Freedom. Girls. New clothes everyday. Yippee!!”

Finally the school days were coming to an end. Then came the School Farewell Dinner Party. Officially the Last Day of school. The day me and all my friends were waiting for.

Why then were my eyes moist?

Why then was I feeling as if this year had passed through pretty fast?

Why then was I feeling so sad?

Why o Why??

Was it just me feeling that way?

I took a look around, and hey presto, all my classmates had misty eyes.

Wasnt this the moment we all were looking forward too?

Why then was I not ready for this now?

Why then did it seem like I was loosing a very near and dear one?

Why o Why???

Who was going to applaud my English Essays now?

Who was going to feel proud of my History marks now?

Who was going to laugh at my Geography locations now?

Who was going to correct my kanas and matras in Hindi now?

Who was going to shout the living daylights out of me for not completing my homework now?

Who was going to ask me to write “i wont talk and create nuisance in class when the teacher is teaching” a thousand times now?

Who was going to tell me to run three full rounds of the school ground now?

Who was going to call me “Bony” now?

Who was going to play “pen-fight, book-cricket, seed-chess” withe me now?

Who was I going to share the fruitjam biscuits in the breaks now?

Who was going to CARE for me now?

With these questions, a few tears, a choked throat and lots of photos locked in my camera, i bid adieu to my alma mater, my school, my life! All through school life we want to get out of school but on the last day at school, our feet are glued to the place. If this isnt irony, then what is? That chapter in my life is over. Life goes on, each day a new page. But whenever I pass my school those days come flooding back and just looking at my school I am filled with a feeling of pride that is second to none.

School Days are the land of lost content, I see them shining plain, the happy highway where i once went and cannot come again!

Ciao

i to had this thing in my mind at that time. till date i haven't met those few of my friends.. at that time we didn't had the NET facilities.

The 80-20 Rule.

Today i came through a beautiful blog titled 80-20 rule. yeah it Instantly striked my sesnses that it's how true....... But we have rarely stopped enough to reflect it ourself. things which are as simple often escape ours attention.But it's the most fundamental of the rule...and we should reflect upon it to do the optimization. Optimization is everywhere, In computer science we study optimization, data-mining and all sort of algorithm to arrive at some simple and pure statistics which can atleast satisfy the 80% of the conditions. the beautiful blog camn be found out at: http://o3.indiatimes.com/thoughtsforlife/archive/2005/01/28/60902.aspx The same is produced here..............................................................................................

The 80-20 Rule.

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian economist who, in 1906,observed that twenty percent of the Italian people owned eighty percent of their country's accumulated wealth. Over time and through application in a variety of environments, this analytic has come to be called Pareto's Principle, the 80-20 Rule, and the "Vital Few and Trivial Many Rule."

Pareto's rule states that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a ratio of about 20:80. Expressed in a management context, 20% of a person's effort generates 80% of the person's results. The corollary to this is that 20% of one's results absorb 80% of one's resources or efforts. For the effective use of resources, the manager's challenge is to distinguish the right 20% from the trivial many.

Examples of the 80-20 Rule:

80% of a problem can be solved by identifying the correct 20% of the issues 80% of advertising results come from 20% of your campaign. 80% of an equipment budget comes from 20% of the items 80% of an instructor's time is taken up by 20% of the students 80% of benefit comes from the first 20% of effort 80% of customer complains are about the same 20% of your projects, products, services. 80% of our personal telephone calls are to 20% of the people in our address book 80% of the decisions made in meetings come from 20% of the meeting time 80% of the outfits we wear come from 20% of the clothes in our closets and drawers 80% of the traffic in town travels over 20% of the roads 80% of what we produce is generated during 20% of our working hours 80% of your annual sales come from 20% of your sales force 80% of your future business comes from 20% of your customers 80% of your growth comes from 20% of your products 80% of your innovation comes from 20% of your employees or customers 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers 80% of your staff headaches come from 20% of our employees 80% of your success comes from 20% of your efforts 80% of your website traffic comes from 20% of your pages

Hmm.....well I think theres' a good new for us all... 80% of success is achieved from 20% of our efforts......... I guess we all need to sit and think wots that 20% :)

On an afterthought one can think that we should look for that 20% of the things. but as it can be rightly said that for identifying that 20% of the product,effort....whatever.... we will have to spend 80% of the same thing. so total thing becomes constant at 100% ......... this fact can be stated from another famous saying my one of the greastes physicists of the time that energy can neither be created nor be destroyed but can be changed from one form to another.that is total energy is constant.In the same way total work is constant for the total results, it's just that one acheives first 80% of the output earlier than the other ones Applying the same rule as above we can say that the efforts for a particular thing can never be 20,30....90%. It has to be 100% for that particular thing.It is just that one has to 100%.... in others word it is that for that 80%of the work to be shown u have to give 100% of the effort. the 80% of the work can't be shown independently. for that thing to be called complete you have to complete that 20% of the work with 80% of the effort.It's just complimentary in nature.You cannot isolate the TWO. Shwetank.shekhar.tripod.com/Photo

The Bed

I liked the way Anant brought home the idea of ...... of how he couldn't leave his bed which, initially he thought was going to challenge his Autjority of the household The following posts can be viewed at http://o3.indiatimes.com/anant_rulz The Bed It was just a bed. A four-post wooden bed. Two days before my marriage, as I came back from office, I saw these two carpenters busy in assembling this bed. It was a teak wood bed, ornate, with small mirrors and quite big in size. It had displaced everything in my room, including my single bed and it seemed that the bed was waiting to swallow the whole room. The carpenters, while assembling it explained to me that they had taken 3 months to make this bed, with all that carving and making the bed suitable for ‘Bitiya Rani’ and her things in the those built-in boxes underneath. Bitiya Rani! And what about me, I couldn’t dare ask? I wanted to peep inside the boxes to see if anything was hidden there but they were empty. As I came out of the room, my mother gave me that meaningful and amused kind of smile. I knew that my dear father-in-law had not sent a bed but a Trojan horse into my room, our house, my life, and my existence. I knew it. Through this piece of dead wood, he plans to send his dear daughter into my bedroom, our house and slowly take kabja over the whole place. Our lives. I know these girls; they all do this kind of tricks. Just like the camel and the tent- first the head, then the neck and then the whole body. Oongli pakad ke pahuncha pakad leti hain yeh ladkiyan. No way! I won’t let her usurp my authority and my exclusive domain. I wondered if this decision to get married was correct or not; looking from the way things were shaping, I didn’t think so. The bed had occupied the prime real estate in the house and certainly in my bedroom. I didn’t sleep in it that night. As I slept in the other room, I dreamt of the bed changing into an alien spreading its four tentacles slowly but surely all over my house. The mattress was delivered the next day and with mom’s red bedcover over it, it surely looked a lot less menacing, but still like a Chinese dragon; a red fire-spewing dragon with expansionist designs. A day later, the bed changed itself into a shaadi-ka-storehouse with all those guest occupying every inch of our house, including my room. Cellophane-wrapped wedding presents with some carrying the Christmas design or a Happy Birthday written on them, hold-alls waiting to burst, attaché cases with cloth cover on them, milk bottles with infants attached to them, sarees in various stages of packing/unpacking, shagun-ka-samaan with Satiya inscribed in red geroo, laddoo boxes with miniature Ganesh statuette on them, empty jewellary boxes with their silken undergarments, Raymond suit pieces with names written with a sketch pen, fruits waiting to rot, gifts exclusively meant for passing them on- I was jealous that the bed had so brazenly assumed such an important and an all-encompassing status overnight. In our house. And made a place so quickly for itself in our lives like a jinn out from his bottle in the form of a new boy-servant. ‘Hukum, mere aaka’, it seemed to say. And without my explicit permission. How dare it! I hated the bed. After two night, the bed changed into a bookshelf. On top of it, I found a silk, gold and diamond studded book, surrounded by motiya, red roses and hand-plucked petals. I was pushed in my room by my sisters and bhabhi. Not even mandatory and filmy ‘Devarji, jaldi nahi karna’. Just go! The room smelled of mithai, fruits and flowers. I looked at the book. What is this book all about? These two are in conspiracy- the bookshelf of a bed and the book. I was too tired, mentally empty and had no desire or patience to read this book. Any book. I just wanted to sleep. Still, I was mesmerized by its smell, the newness of the book, which reminded of those we used to buy in summer for our next class and keep near our bedside till the schools opened; or, like the smell of that new car, straight from the showroom. I hesitatingly removed the silk cover, open the book hurriedly with a boyish curiosity, unstuck some chipke-huey pages. I just wanted to read the book and reach to the end as quickly as possible, to know what is written on that last page and to unload my excitement. It was a small book with two pages only- the first and the last. The first page was entitled welcome and the on last page was written, come again. I kept the book in my arms and slept. The bed watched us silently. Some days passed, or was it months, I don’t know. The bed became an explorator’s dream, an archaeologist’s temptation. It beckoned me to find out the mysteries of those hillocks, rivulets, ravines and the springs that smell of life. The bed had changed into a valley of flowers, a thin mountain spring that emanates and confronts us suddenly on the hair-pin bend of the road and when you stop to taste its life-sustaining water, it continues to flow with a gurgle, totally unmindful of your presence, into the deep crevices in those perennial bushes below. Sometimes, the mirrors in the bed would reflect those dancing figurines from Khajuraho, trying to please kaamdev. The bed became a chameleon- changing its appearance with the change of seasons, woolen blankets, mosquito nets and chenille coverings. I could see a small sapling trying to break the wooden ground of the bed. Was it love? Before I could even explore fully to my boyish delight, our two incomplete halves became one to create another one. Suddenly, she was occupying the space between two of us and yet, by some mysterious alchemy, some sorcerer’s magic, some out-of-syllabus law of chemistry that I had skipped in my school, she was joining us like the co-valent bond; she was the O between the our two H. H-O-H. The bed had changed itself into a nursery where, most of the time, she would find that space right between our two hearts, now ‘idling’ in unison like some All India permit holder truck driver’s automobiles by the roadside dhaba. Every night, and on days too, the bed would remind us of that new life and we would be attracted to it like an helpless iron file to the magnet. Like some hungry insects to the life-light. Involuntarily. Hypnotically. Naturally. Almost like zombies in a trance. And then, we left the bed, but we somehow knew we would return to it. The bed remained in our hearts and when we came back to it, the bed had somehow expanded, anticipating the growing need to accommodate all four of us. The bed had now become a playground, a dining table, a kiddies wrestling arena, a toy box and our Fort Knox, where all our worldly wealth was right there itself in the form of those two. More than all the money and power on the earth. Making the decision to have children was to decide forever to have our hearts placed outside our bodies. And we didn’t even take that important decision consciously. It just happened and like beggars on Diwali night, we watched from a distance in awe, stared at God’s fireworks- with admiration, with jealousy and yet, with eternal gratefulness to Him. And suddenly, we were conjoined to them; they wake, we wake, they eat, we eat, they sleep, we sleep. The bed had become our prison and we, its willing and chained life-timers. At times, when kids were not well, the bed would become a bed-of-nails fit for an Indian yogi only and every moment would stretch itself into eternity. Our hearts in our mouths, prayers on our lips and tears in our eyes, we waited for that difficult moment to pass, the upheavals to subside. Or, when mom was in those last months. A drop of pin would wake us up and I would rush to find out if she needed anything, while the nurse slept. And, the bed will become Bhagwadgita and ask me to stop crying and be at peace with the laws of nature- that Atman was trying to changes its outer covering only. What comes must go and this too shall pass, it spoke like a sage. And, I would keep my weary head on the bed to wake up the next minute, fearing the worst. Is she breathing? Is she still there? What to do? The sand clock was emptying fast The bed watched us writhe in anguish, pain and helplessness like a mute spectator, offering no solutions, just solace. Maybe, the bed knew all the answers to all of my silly questions. But, I wasn’t even asking any. The bed had become the barometer of my emotions; I have fought many a battles and realized to my surprise that all those I won, I lost and those I lost- turned out to astonishing victories. As I shed my clothes, my vanity, my ego, my false pride, my worldly everything, and with my weary soul and body- defeated, punished, bruised and hurt, the bed became Tiger balm, that druid’s magic potion which not only cures but also provides sustenance to fight- for another day. I learnt never to bring anger or bitterness to this bed and to bury in it my small secrets and victories, written in passion. The bed has always been my box seat on which I have seen many a movies and laughed and shed tears while she sleeps peacefully, oblivious of naughty Sid’s inner turmoil, Gump’s innocent queries or even ET’s magical finger reaching to cure the human child’s hurt; It becomes a snack bar to satiate my sudden desire for munchies and coffee; a round-table for family meetings where we have discussed many an important issues of life; a card table where we cheated and played ‘kot-pees’ and ‘3-2-5’. I have traveled far and wide. Slept on expensive beds in 5-star hotels, air-conditioned coaches with complimentary sheets and blankets, standing or sitting in a general compartment’s bare wooden seats and much-scarce railway platform benches. But everywhere, I have yearned for peaceful sleep like that in my own bed. My slave bed, my pillow and my part of territory- my feudal instincts find peace in this very limited space of my bedroom. Here I can be me. I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. These days, I sometimes find her looking into its innards of the bed for her past, knitted into small clothes and sweaters. There is a glint of future in her eyes, which she somehow wants to fit into this past. On seeing me, she packs her tears and her hopes with the naphthalene balls into those kiddy clothes. As I leave the sanctuary of this bed to explore and measure distances, I wonder if this is my ‘Do Gaz Zameen’ that Emperor Zafar so eloquently yearned for? Is it my casket where my bandaged mummy rests? Is it just a bed? Is it just a four-post wooden bed? http://shwetank.shekhar.tripod.com Presented to you by Shwetank shekhar http://shwetank.shekhar.tripod.com