My first day at school - After more than a decade

Shivam is all of three years - a well rounded personality, meant that more as a comment on his physical attributes than anything else :-) He's a hugely popular kid, especially among the female populace. They love tugging at his chubby cheeks, he hates it and makes his displeasure very evident, turning away haughtily, though I am sure that's an opinion he'll revisit 10 years down the line. His best friend is Rambo (Note: Anybody who agrees to play ball with him is a friend, the rest unworthy of his attention; exclusions are his Amma, Appa and Paati, also anyone who can tell a good Superman story) and his fav passtime is running aimlessly in the nearby park, chasing butterflies, or riding his tricycle like he owned the world.

And boy, can he talk - when he's not asking questions, he's regaling us with stories, his expressive face with quicksilver expressions of emotions renders words pointless. He has this endearing quality of asking a question, then looking at you with his clear deep eyes taking in your reply, turning it over in his head and then coming back with his next argument. If (and he rarely is) satisfied with your reply, his face will light up and he'll bestow u with a broad smile saying 'nee best'. But this same questioning kid has never questioned why Superman flies and the rest of us don't. Superman hero, Superman flies, Superman beats bad people, end of story. His dad is known to all as Shivam's dad and I suspect he's only too happy to lose his identity to his junior version.

Today was Shivam's first foray into the hallowed portals of learning. It was a momentous occasion for him - the learning aspect did not exactly interest him, the accompaniments did. He'd spent the whole of last week shopping - new uniform, Mickey Mouse bag, Pokemon water bottle, flourescent pink compass box with a Superman sticker, new raincoat, shoes, books, the list goes on - and he insists on prefixing a possessive 'my' to each one of 'em. He'll drag the items out of his wardrobe, display them proudly and declare - They had a Ninja bag but I like Mickey Mouse better, Appa refused the coloured shoes (thank heavens some sense prevailed), and so on it goes. His enthusiasm is infectious, u'd think he was off on some very important mission; well actually this is no less.

I was starting for office when Shivam stepped out, clad in his starched and ironed uniform, looking every inch the superhero he aimed to be when he grew up (In case u haven't figured out yet, he's a Superman fan). He waved importantly at the watchman and neighbours explaining - I am going to school. I tagged along, the school was a welcome diversion. Everything was fine till he reached the gates. That's when he realized something was not quite right - most of the kids were in various stages of breakdown. It is the same story every year - everything's fine, then one kid starts crying and the others follow in unison. You could picture his mind working at a furious pace - Amma and Appa had said school would be fun, but here u had kids crying and refusing to enter. Alarm bells went off in that lil head of his, his eyes taking in the imposing edifice standing before him, the ominous wrought iron gates, the teachers standing on the inside and his mom on the outside - the enemy lay within.

He finally decided to go with the majority opinion and shook his head resolutely, clutching at his mother's hand. She tried to reason with him - you'll make many new friends at school, the teachers are very helpful, no luck. Once he'd made up his mind, no one could make him change it. And when she threatened him, he first tried pleading with her (making a very strong case I must admit). When that failed, he played his ultimate trump card - his face fell, lips quivered and his bright eyes, which minutes before had shone with happiness, filled with tears and then the dam burst. He clung to his mom and cried - his tears feeding an imagined sense of isolation in a cruel adult world. Even the most stoic of guys have succumbed to his tears, lesser mortals like us didn't stand a chance.

By now, the teachers had decided it was time to step in. They talked to each of the kids, tempting them with colouring books and pencils. The tiny tots reluctantly allowed themselves to be led into the classroom. One of the teachers smiled at Shivam and said they would play games the first day and the winner would get a Tom and Jerry colouring book. The flow of tears slowed to a trickle, he wiped his tears away with the back of his hand and ruminated over the offer. He was still not convinced this was not a ploy to lure him into the evil den. His mom prodded him a little, and thrust his hand into the teacher's. He stood for a full minute measuring the teacher mentally and decided to take up the offer. And so Shivam and his mom parted, but not before she had promised him that she'd wait outside the school for him to return.

His mother looked at me - the understanding was implicit, going back home was out of the question - the vision of her teary-eyed kid being led away would not afford her any peace till she saw him again. We had company, most of the parents had decided to stay back, some dads were on their cellphones, explaining that a family emergency had come up and they'd be late reaching office.

Two hours later the bell pealed, the din submerged by the joyous screams of kids pouring out of the classroom. Shivam ran into his mom's arms, shrugged away his bag, took a big gulp of water and began a dramatic explanation of the proceedings over the past 2 hours - I sit next to Karthik, we are good friends (in 2 hours?), the teacher is romba nice (+1), the big teacher (principal) asked our names, i drew an apple (this a blue coloured blob which resembled an alien in a Bollywood movie - Dali had competition), we played games, teacher told me good (ummm... but why?), i won a colour pencil - in short, he approved. A new phase of his life was beginning.

Back at office, a colleague called up to say he wouldn't be coming, personal problems he said. On a hunch I asked, Aryan's first day at school? He laughed sheepishly - yes, he's crying and refuses to go, he was fine till now. I smiled inwardly and tried to reassure him - He'll be fine, they adjust fast.

Right now, I am siting in the park listening to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the wall, while Shivam, school forgotten, is back to doing what he does best - running down the length of the park and doing cartwheels squealing loudly, and there's Rambo trying to chase his own tail. Nice pair they make :-) Education and his parents' grand plans can wait, he's too busy enjoying life.

Die Another Day

His expression was that of a guilty schoolboy who'd been caught copying and he looked no older than one - this kid in the driver's seat of a Honda City.

I was later than usual leaving office and decided to take a rick home, too exhausted to wait for the bus. Despite the late hour, the road was still pulsing with traffic, no jams but flowing traffic, the orange-tinged glow of headlights accentuating the light drizzle.

We hit LBS and clearly luck was on our side, all the lights kept turning green as we approached. Rare occasion that. The rick had crossed Nirmal Nagar and was navigating the last stretch towards Johnson when the black car zoomed in out of the blue from a side lane cutting right into the rick's path, the kid driving the car was talking into the phone cradled in his right hand and was oblivious to the traffic flowing toward him. He turned to look to his right too late and braked right in the middle of the road. The rick driver muttered an oath and slammed his brakes, coming to a screeching halt, the rick nearly grazed the car. He was shaken badly and angry as hell. The cars behind us had also stopped and other drivers were coalescing on the spot, hurling abuses at the boy.

The rick driver was out in a flash, murder on his mind I am sure. The kid reacted quickly. He waved at us and took a quick U-turn disappearing into the inky blackness of the night before any of us could gather our wits, let alone think of jotting down the number. A bike rider muttered in disgust - It is the indulgence of rich parents which is responsible for spoilt brats like him.

As I sat at home nursing my decaf, for some strange reason, I kept wondering about the kid's parents. Did they know their son was misusing their trust. How much longer before his luck turned, how much longer before he either ran over somebody or got run over. And all this for the thrill of driving rashly and breaking a few rules, a bet with some friends maybe. Surely life is a lil more precious than that. And my mind went back to another mother - my aunt - who still waits for her kid to come back, knowing he never will. Another joyride which ended in disaster.

A ban on soaps and reality shows please

Turning out to be a nightmarish weekend. The tube has a never-ending run of reality shows and / or soaps celebrating Mother's Day. Can't believe people watch this trash. Got a nasty sprain so can't leg it to the park, but if this continues another day, it's either the TV or me in this house - and as of now, the TV is winning :-(

Old Spice theme song

Heard the same piece of music 3 days in a row on the Discovery and have been trying to place it - finally tracked it back to the Old Spice theme song, which in turn is from 'O Fortuna', part of the collection known as the Carmina Burana. The composition by Carl Orff has been used in quite a few movies and TV spots to highlight a dramatic conflict.

Quote unquote

Fond of collecting quotes - these are related to software, which inherently lends itself to being lampooned. Thanks to stack overflow and google.

• There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who can read binary and those who cannot. – Anon
• Perl - The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption. - Keith Bostic
• In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion. – Anon
• If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. – Edsger Dijkstra
• A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. – Mitch Ratcliffe
• If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. – Gerald Weinberg
• Nine people can’t make a baby in a month. – Fred Brooks
• There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don’t believe this to be a coincidence. – Jeremy S. Anderson
• The gap between theory and practice is not as wide in theory as it is in practice. – Anon
• In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Another version of the above
• We have a deal with God – he doesn’t produce software and we do not produce miracles – A s/w engineer
• Why do we never have time to do it right, but always have time to do it over? — Anonymous developer
• Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray — Samuel T. Redwine, Jr.
• The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. – Larry Wall, in the Programming Perl book
• Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. - Rick Osborne
• Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I’ll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. - Jamie Zawinski
• If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. - Robert Sewell
• On a clear disk you can seek forever. - Anon
• The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry. - Henry Petroski
• C++ : Where friends have access to your private members. - Gavin Russell Baker

Demotivators

Friends say I am too much of a cynic for my own good. So living upto my rep
Making a living out of demotivating others :-)

Moving on

Had been over to an old friend's place over the weekend, helping her parents pack - my last trip to her house in fact. Well actually, this friend has long since moved bag and baggage to the US, but I continued to be an irregular visitor to her place. The initial visits had me playing the role of a postman, this was the pre-Internet era when the landline was your only means of communication with the outside world. I had a VSNL connection and would shoot off mails regularly to my friend, who would in turn use me as her customised 'Ask Jeeves' search engine
- Can you check with Amma why my Rasam doesn't out as spicy (dolt, how can u go wrong with Amma's rasam podi, I'd be tempted to scream)
- My throat keeps getting worse, what do I do?
- Ask Amma to send some Sambar and Molaga podi, Sriram is flying out next week (Sriram who? would be met with a cryptic - Roll no.27, first ranker, glasses poduva, duhh..., and how was any of that supposed to help)
- Rema, X has asked me out, damn, I don't have anything to wear
- Think my grades are gonna be bad, just not prepared

Those mails ensured I'd land up at her home every once in a while. Her Mom would stir up the best coffee while I plied her with colourful stories - dorm incidents, pics of her daughter's first trip to California, her first road trip, campus capers. After the first year, slowly but surely, the interval between her mails started increasing exponentially - I got busy with my non-existent career and she got busy juggling between the afore mentioned X (now her hubby) and her studies (Update - she insists the order should be reversed :) And my visits to her house also decreased - I'd meet her Mom at the park sometimes, where she'd come for her morning stroll, and we'd discuss common friends. My visits were restricted to functions or when I felt low and needed her tongue-tingling rasam to wash away my blues.

She had recently been to the US to meet her daughter and son-in-law but the climate did nothing for her arthritis affected knees. She came back and declared - That place is inhospitable, it snows there, wonder how anybody can stay there :) The neighbours don't even talk to each other, the list of complaints was interminable - I happily dug into my second helping of sweet rice as she rattled on. Uncle's only contribution to the conv. was 'X is a good boy'. I nearly fell off my chair, jeez, X had achieved in 1 month what I hadn't achieved in years - gotten into Uncle's good books.

Uncle retired a month ago and they decided to go back to Chennai, back to their roots - Bombay had always been a career choice, it was never home. And so we sit huddled, deciding which artifacts need to be retained and which discarded from the mind boggling collection of knick-knacks people collect over the years - a box full of albums - school snaps, slam books, old birthday gifts, her letters home. Uncle is busy calling up the MTNL guys, the Mahanagar gas chappies - methodical as always, nothing could harry him.

As we stood at the airport, saying goodbyes, Uncle hugged me and said - You have been more of a daughter than a friend to the two of us over the last few years. I'd never ever seen Uncle getting emotional - there's some truth in the phrase 'There's always a first time'. Felt a pang of guilt as I tried to count the number of times I had visited them over the last few months, never realizing how much each visit meant to them.

I called up my friend from the airport and told her I'd never felt half as bad when she left Bombay. And as always it was her hubby who had the last word - Rema, they'll miss us for a few days but life will go on. Each one of us has to move on, some in search of careers, some in search of a better life, but move on you must. Like hell. Damn, hate bankers and hate airports - the first species spout logic when u are in no mood to listen and the second has flights running on time when u'd like to spend some more time with loved ones.