Smile with the Braces

It was one of those rush morning hours. Me and my friend D were trying to squeeze into one office shuttle bus. Using our back packs and elbows we cleared our way in. The bus was already full. We stood or hung ourselves to the rod, throwing scornful look on those who were sitting comfortably. How dare those men could sit while we, the ladies, stood. I know, it was one of those convenient double standards we, the females, take. We shout for equality and at the same time fight for reservation.

Among the drooping faces and dozing heads, we saw one gleeful smile. I noticed the smile first and then the smiler, for there was a reason. The smile was different. No, actually the teeth were different. There were braces and the owner was our friend P. She was one of those rare girls who smiled from the heart. So she had newly put braces on her teeth and that was the reason for that radiant smile.
After alighting from the bus, I enquired her about the new embellishment. Her dentist told her that her gums were in great trauma and to put an end to that she would need set her teeth right.

D raised her eyebrows and asked, “Gums in trauma?”. Seemed like she could not imagine gums in agony or she did not like the word trauma.

Anyway, "how much did it cost you", I asked.

"25K".

"Oh", gasped both me and D.

"Actually it would have cost only 15K, but I liked this white enamel one, So it costs more", explained P.

Later during our lunch session, we were all immersed in some gossip, P leapt out of her seat and rushed towards the wash room. “What happened”, we asked.

“I think, I lost my 25,000”, she cried back while running. Faces turned around at us. She had accidently chewed one chicken bone and heard a sound like steel crushing. She came back with a smile of relief and we realized that the 25K is still intact.

This reminded me of one of my neighbors.

Our neighbor Mani and his wife Ambi were from labour class family, a small happy family. Mani would work in many of the neighborhood lands and fields to earn his living.

Around 15 years back, one glorious day, they won a lottery of Rs 5 lakhs. Our town people had enough to talk about for another year or more. We all mused on the various ways they would be spending the money. My Papa told us a story about one of his villagers who won a lottery. He would go to cinema theatre at midnight, ask them to run a show all for himself and pay for the entire seats.
Well, our lucky couple Mani and Ambi were prudent enough. They started one timber business, bought some coconut farms and then one special gift to Ambi... Braces for her teeth.

The neighborhood ladies including my mother did not like it at all. A lady nearing 40 wearing braces!!! Undoubtedly it was the most snobbish act in their eyes, to display her newly acquired wealth.
To be frank, I could never believe that Ambi was so beautiful when she set her teeth right.

The Dark Truth

My neighbour, one who was close to us passed away last night.
Quite a surprise and blow to us.. She was quite healthy
There were no indications. Yesterday she was laughing just like any of us.

Death is faceless, amorphous...
It enters our milieu like a thief, like a whiff, a shudder..
Snatching every thing we have, or those things we suppose are ours
leaving us vacant and blank..

Wise men say that Death is the only permenant state; the aeonian truth.
The immortal spirit untangle itself from this mortal world of woes and agonies.
Goes to its homeland, the other world which is full of joy.
But the other world is still a myth to us; those who are still living.
Till he visit us we keep ourself afloat in this ocean of loses and sufferings,
and pseudo gains.

Life was turning, eventful with material gains and losses
Then suddenly; the wheel appeared to pause, gazing at the permenant loss
He knocked one door; and left us all a message
Reminding us that death is always here; around that silent corner
Arousing the darkest fear in us; not for us
but for our loved ones, whom we embrace with our soul

I looked around; looked at the faces
They are happy or may be sad..
They are busy chasing their dreams; cherishing their achievements
Lamenting their failures; their bad luck
A chill passed down my nerves as I imagined a world sans them
A world sans my friends, sans my foes.

I closed my eyes to escape the thought
I shut my ears to escape my own wail
I saw death chasing them; as a shadow
I invited him to chase me instead
I looked back; found him behind me too.

The wheel of life is turning as ever
Not waiting for the mourners to recover
My own dreams waiting for me to conquer
I looked around for death, begging his favour
He whispered "Go on, will catch you later"

Matrix Reloaded

It was another evening jut like any other evening when I return from my work.
Me and my friend walking , chatting….chatting about endless unrelated things. . About the pollution, how it affect our skin. The traffic, how the riders dont show any respect for pedestrians. The managers, how irrational they are.

Suddenly the sight struck me.. S, did u notice that?, I asked.
What?, she looked around the passers-by and then me, quizzically..
Well...I was not sure. Should I tell her? She was my new friend. A friendship which was just 6 months old. I wasn’t quite sure if she would understand my imaginative ( read "weird") thoughts.

What I saw was a strange sight. It was those initial days when Bangalore traffic police had mandated the use of helmet.
A Hero Honda Splendor passed by. The pillion was trying to put helmet on the riders head. They were riding slowly and I saw them coming from a distance. The pillion first
tried squeeze the rider's head into the helmet though the visor opening, then corrected it.

It reminded me of one those forwarded email attachment, which had a picture of a cute lady wearing the helmet through the visor opening. Of course it was a manipulated image. One of the many horrid yet unsuccessful attempts of our partner community to disgrace us, the elite ones. As the thoughts filled my mind, here it comes. I see it again. Another bike, again Splendor, and the pillion trying to force in the riders head into it.. Isn't it a strange recurrence? You may not classify it as strange..Well..it was not something that you would see again and again.

Baang!!! the idea hit me. Have you seen Matrix - Trilogy. To the Matrix lovers, when do you see the same sight twice in the matrix, Deja vu? When the matrix undergoes some change, isn’t it?

Is it true? Are we really in a Matrix? What I see, I feel and I do are just the imaginations my programmed mind? My mind at work to cater the fuel for those darn machines..
I have heard many people talking obsessively about the Matrix concept, it's spirituality, philosophy..history..geography..and..God knows the rest..

But are we?
As my mind snailed through the matrix, back in the virtual world, S was still staring at me. She repeated, "What?". Probably the second time.
I don’t think I should drag her from this virtual world, I thought.
"No, nothing. I thought I saw something, leave it", I said ..We continued walking, chatting in the virtual world, wondering in the matrix world.

I reached home, but I could not set aside the matrix thoughts even when I was doing my household chores. Shall I tell, S ?
This S is my partner in the virtual world. There are very good chances that he might be plugged next to me in the matrix world also.

No, I dont know in what mood he would be. Dismissed that idea

Later all through out the night, the different scenes of my role in the Matrix flashed though my mind. Me as Trinity..I tried to imagine myself in Trinity's black skin fit costumes, doing all those acrobatics. I doubt my poor body could bear so many sprains.
Oracle might be a better option. Baking cookies of revelation. That sounds interesting. I sure must have some secret recipie. Chilling out in my verandhah in the after noon, with a group of disciples, them eating my "cookies of knowledge". Seeing the way I am undergoing the lateral growth recently, I am sure to become like Oracle , by looks. So that part is settled. I am the Oracle.

Now, who is S? Neo? The One. His teenage snaps speaks that he was a '1' during his college days. But now he is on his best effort to look like a '0'.
The increasing tone of Neo's snoring beside me, posed another interesting question. Do we generate bio-electricity while sleeping?
That may be an off-state of us - the bio-machines. But what I am talking is not about normal sleep. But my Neo's sleep, which on a normal working day was 9 hours.
12 hours on an average holiday, but has proved his capability to extend it to 16-20 hours if not interrupted.

Who will save the world, the human race, if Neo sleeps away his best part of life like this? He sure needs an awakening, heed to the 'call'. Trinity must come and wake him up from his deep slumber of ignorance. Trinity? If I am the Oracle, then who is Trinity. Hey, No...It cant be. He is not Neo.
I am not Oracle either. And there is no Matrix.
Just sleep...
S.

Wall Street Chaos and Me

All of a sudden I found myself amidst a bunch of financial experts. All around, people were discussing about investment banking, financial depression and market crisis. All of them seemed to be experts to comment about the current market depression, the follies made by the banking giants and ways to recover. What was most astonishing was I found myself reading Business Line and Economic Times. Never in my life had I thought that I would encounter such a situation. It was all Greek and Latin to me. But I was taking pain to read the articles 2-3 times to get a grasp of the debacle.

At cafeteria I overheard one guy discoursing on the mistakes made by Lehman Bros. I suppose, if he was its CEO, Wall Street would not have plunged into such crisis. “US Govt is making a huge folly by spending their federal reserve on the sinking AIG”, announced another expert. I recognized that was a guy who had been put on improvement plan by his manager. I realized that he was in the wrong line of career. He would have done better in a role of financial adviser to US Govt.

Lay offs in IT firms was another point of concern. Panic sailed ashore in the form of a mail from CEO about planned salary cut. News hit as a bolt. People who had set rules to divert mails from CEO to Junk folder, tried to dig it out and poured all over it. All were worried about their huge EMIs and other financial commitments. All of us were trying hard to figure out which pay category would we fall in and optimistically put ourselves in the least impacted one.

But in any group you will find some pessimists and sadists. The first group will not disturb you unless you go and poke them. Leaving them alone is good for all. No one can convince them, but they will keep their woes and concerns to themselves. The later is extremely venomous. They will leap into any cheerful group and become eloquent on how the management is going to trick us. They will blab out on the situation of the company much better than any CFO as if they have all the inside information. In short, we were again pondering on our EMIs after one such specimen jumped into our group.

I am wondering, since when did these global oil price and dollar rates start having a direct impact on my daily life, my peace of mind. I knew that buses and cars ran on petrol. I had happily travelled in them. I knew that there was one rich country called America on the other side of the sphere and their currency was dollar. But I had never tried to know its rate, never worried about its value going up or down. I had never seriously thought about the lives outside my neighborhood. Only times I thought about America was when I saw some foreign tourists with their heavy back packs roaming around the town.

I had vivid imaginations on how their life would be. I would listen curiously to the stories my friends would tell about them. They would showcase their courage by asking any foreigner, "Sir, what is your name?". They would coax me to ask the same, but I could never muster the courage even to go near them. At that time, to me and my little friends, all foreigners were from America. They were completely aliens.

I was happy with my little knowledge. I would pray for securing better marks so that I would get a good job.
My prayer was answered, I got a job. My knowledge expanded. Knowledge took me to this walk of life, work with those people whom I once thought as strangers. I talk to them daily. I just poke the corner of my desktop and chat with them. I work for an American company. I watch its share prices going up or down. I watch its competitor’s shares. I try to link any speculative news in America with my job. Now I am apprehensive about my future, my family's future. I pray for oil prices to go down. Dollar rates to soar. I pray for America to prosper. Life is full of twists and turns....