(Short story - 1) Journey

[First attempt at writing a short story ... tell me how it is! Used first person to ease narration.]

The blue bus rattled into KBS and jerked to halt. I heavily pulled my bag and jumped down. Half-hearted to get back to hectic coaching class routine. Some dreams are hard to pursue. I apparently have not thought about these classes when I saw a the most prestigious civilian title after my name in the dream that mattered. I have not realised that dream yet. Let's just say that I agree with my dad now. Nothing in this world comes for free.

It's a 2 min walk to the KSRTC bus station. While thinking if it's safe to try the restaurant in the corner, went through the small passage through which numerous travellers negotiate to get to the majestic bus station. An Audi A8L honked from my back. An elderly gentleman got out with a neatly ironed cotton shirt and a white dhoti. He had a heavy book in one hand. I only saw a brown thick and hard cover. What really caught my attention is not his side of the car but the other. She quickly moved out of the car as if somebody was pushing her out, ran to the other side, gave him a hug towards his book-free hand, while he's still giving instructions in Kannada on sleeping well, eating well, etc., grabbed her bag and darted away. She was slender, had curls of light (and selective) coloured hair in the front falling on the face. Every move she made seemed to be as if she's trying to push them away from her glances but the ends just didn't seem to go away. The curls flew and landed back soft on the cheeks. She had a cute pony tail which moved faster than her walk. Her eyes moved even faster. She had the jeans folded a couple of times at the bottom. The white earphone set with one dangling out and one in place also set me off guessing if she was listening to some foot tapping number. She must have been 3 inches shorter, the stilettos didn't give out a hint.

Inter-city bus station was swarming with passengers eagerly waiting to get into the A/C buses on a warmer sunday evening . I had my dinner. It's unusual that one gets to find the bus on the platform in time. The middle row aisle on the left side was just perfect for the journeys in the night as I had to do my staring at the dark contours of villages dotted with street lights wooshing by in the night. The man in white ticked off my seat on his sheet. He also gave suspicious glances at my PAN card and my face a couple of times and went down. She came a little slower now with her back pack and cast a quick glance at my seat almost as if I'm not there and went back fast. It's not uncommon in these buses that the ladies start shouting at the man in white for letting a moron (read 'man') sit next to them. I sensed the argument coming and prepared to relocate to a more secure seat in the vicinity.

She now comes back with a leather purse and pulled a book out of it and sat right next to me. We exchanged uncomfortable smiles.
"I almost had my stuff ready thinking you would ask me to find some other place."
(Smiles) "You could still do it if you plan to. The aisle two rows ahead is mine. There's a lady who wanted to exchange hers with mine as she's travelling with her kid and husband."
"I'm absolutely fine here! Please take this seat."

The bus started moving and so did she. Her wriggling in the seat started making me wonder if I'm taking more space. The non-stop buses with 2 left - 3 in the right seat configuration always made me feel XXL. I immediately pulled the hand rest down to make sure fences are in place. She gave a quick frown and said it feels a little stuffed in there. My vast experience in the buses plying en route involuntarily pointed me to the A/C vent which is twisted to the extreme left. The smile got warmer. I thought hard if I should bring another topic up and continue the conversation. I can never be anybody but myself. Simply put my headphones bought from eBay.in and started humming an old hindi song.
"That's one of my all time favorites! Do you enjoy old songs?"
"There's nothing I enjoy more!"
"Do you mind if I check your playlist?"
( Cursing myself for not having a good earphone, one end of which I could have offered while I still can listen and let her also listen along with me. I thus noticed the only limitation of my most favorite Sennheiser headset. )
"Sure."
She thanked and showed some of those songs on her white phone (you-know-what!).

In the meantime, we had started talking about our purposes of visit to Bangalore. She went on about the current job scenario in IT industry and macroeconomics till I yawned. I made sure I returned my favour, harping about political situation and my close-to-heart practical issues in the public administration. She beat me here and was already sleeping by the time I concluded with conserving the environment. I simply laughed at myself for overestimating my ability to engage people in interesting conversations. Switched the channel on thoughts and hummed an old telugu song this time like I always do when I'm alone. Took the liberty of setting her blanket right till the neck. Sensing the move, she smugly pulled it closer and whispered that she loved that song too. Wondering what the book in her hand was and if she actually knew the song I was humming, I took my specs off and slid my seat down.

Morning came very fast, I didn't want to step out of the seat. In no time, we could hear auto annas calling out their bids on the fares. Just when she stepped out of the seat and pulled her purse from the luggage rack on top. She wished good luck with preparations and I wished her back. She seemed half-minded about saying something but stopped. By this time, I was quickly rehearsing different ways of getting her contact. I managed to say something about facebook. I saw her expression mildy let out am impatient grunt and successfully managed to hide it under a tired expression. While she slowly moved away from her seat without wishing bye, I wanted to kick myself.        

Surpassing

Days roll on and thoughts keep flashing. The ceaseless urge to break the routine and getting ahead of oneself gets bigger and better. We have to agree that the world is transforming with you and me, re-organizing and evolving. We are getting more practical with customs, practices and ideas. Rationalizing and isolating facts and applying them is part of everybody's life. Pushing the boundaries is in the agenda of most of us. As an Engineer, am required to design and build new modules, understand the cause-effects, scrutinize the system behaviour and improvise. The analogical and lateral thinking adds a powerful dimension to any project. It's like an introspecting and self-correcting system always working its way forward.

Think about it. Why else would I stay up late saying all this? Meri barah baj gayi. Signing off.

Primer on personal communication

Surprisingly this is one the most ignored aspects of our day-to-day interactions. There are various terms to name this ad hoc phenomenon. Banter, chatter, ice breaking, etc. Not everybody would find this interesting but by far (in my opinion) this is a great way of setting a backdrop for interests, expectations, trust and good will. There are no rules in general. It can start with a casual remark and may go all the way till friendships. No do's and dont's. It helps a lot being yourself and just let the conversation flow along. No time or scope or limits, it can keep going on and on. What works the best is being candid and being true to yourself. Like this blog, I think it will be mostly without an agenda to start with. It goes on and on about sharing various thoughts on life-style, family, friends, interests, beliefs, work, wit, humour... blah-blah. What is interesting is the way each conversation builds up. I'm sure each of us are capable in our own ways for driving this talk. My numerous conversations with co-passengers, colleagues, neighbours, business partners, friends or cousins each are unique and special in their own way. More than the verbal, the non-verbal cues have loads to say. A half minded grin of a new person in the lift, a frowned cashier in a busy counter, a pink smile that springs from a blushing girl, are some memories that come to me. So, dear readers, never mind! Keep communicating. All you need to do is to simply (!?) speak your heart out! That's a mini explanation for my animated grin. :-) 

So close yet so far...

June seems to have a blog-trigger in me! Blogging-2011 also started with June. Here we go...
The world's getting smaller with mobile and internet. Social networks are already powerful and are influential. 
Virtually everyone is in touch with the world. However, is this connectedness merely an illusion? Are hearts expressed in dead digital content and spamming shares and app requests in the age of limited attention spans, switching minds and ever-changing expectations? Unfortunately, everything now is counted in minutes and bucks. 

I'd love to think that we have not yet gotten over the power of a friendly smile and a warm hand-shake. There's nothing like looking in the eye and speaking the heart out. Most successful organisations are working hard on keeping their operations human and personal by customising their branding and services. Human beings have a hard-wired bias for anything human. So, the organisations are targeting that pre-judice and fine-tuning this aspect to make it more commercial and at times artificial. Those who succeed in resonating with the emotions make a striking brand statement and leave a lasting impression in the minds of the customers.
   
For effectively communicating a message especially when there is a high chance of misinterpretation, what would you prefer doing? A phone call or an email or meet in person?
3D conferencing (virtual meeting place), video conferencing and telephonic calls are excellent alternatives and less legally binding if unrecorded ;) than a blog post or an email. But they are only the alternatives and remain always so. Ever wondered why some of the mails are conveniently ignored?
And finally, if you want to connect, nothing like being there in the hour of necessity! In the human form or digital form is upto you! The assurance of a nod which says "I'm here! It's going to be allright." makes a hell lot of difference. 

(Courtesy: Enlightenment in the bedroom on Saturday morning. It's probably a result of a mixed feeling of excitement, nervousness, confusion, anticipation, slight disappointment and to an extent regret. )

To be continued...

PS: Irony, this had to be a blog post! It means "I'm here for you, digitally". ;)

What purpose!

Starting and ending  this is in one way tricky. All that starts well doesn't go well and all that goes well needn't necessarily end well. ( Just a recap: In my futile attempts to connect various dots of life, I jot down a few thoughts every now and then here so that I can read back and laugh at myself later. As usual it was decently long enough since I got back to myself publicly.) I fancy looking at our life as a small part of this universe where we are some insignificant parts like a photon or a proton where our presence unless if hit to a heavy metal or pushed to a high energy state doesn't matter much. So, you may wait for that moment of truth when the revelation strikes and from then on you become an enlightened one reminding the rest of the world how mean they are. My philosophy of becoming a changing force of the world and giving back to the society, I should say, isn't so anymore! The world is getting much more focused and specific on their requirements. I saw the pet pedicure clinics and post-breakup stress consultancies and started thinking of some alternatives.
 
I gave a lengthy speech to a school junior of mine on methodical approach to exams and importance of practice for understanding the concepts. It came down to "Well, fine! Thank you. What now? How am I taking the exams on?". We now need actionables and a bigger picture of what is expected out of them.
I, hence, succumbed to the force of growing pressure from the world around and adopted an amended version of my universal outlook. "I'm part of the world, so anything which is good to me is in turn good to the world!". That way I guess I can make my expectations specific, measurable and achievable. Think about having a goal saying "I want to do good to the society". For me, it means too big a thing to implement now. Instead, I can say "I'm going to add so many bucks to the org X" or "I am going to cut down my carbon consumption by 50%" or "Conserve water by using half a bucket for taking bath" and stuff like that. That, my friends, helps bragging later in life, skillfully weaving them into various perspectives as the situations demand.