Shruti meets Monkeys

Hi All,

Disclaimer :

All characters in this story are entirely my imagination , and bears resemblance only to me (In certain cases to few people whom I know ) . Any incident that resembles something else is purely co-incidental)

Before I start , few clarifications about SHRUTI.

Shruti is not a super hero,

Shruti is not a guardian angel,

Shruti is not a Joan of Arc,

Shruti is just a normal girl unique in her own way.

Now that the disclaimers and clarifications are out, OVER TO SHRUTI.

It was a warm summer day. Summer in Madras can be unbearable, especially if there are six more souls sharing the same space. In this case, the six being, Shruti's grandparents and her two elder brothers, Shashank( alias Sashi ) and Santosh, and her thatha's Sister and Brother ( Tamil for grandpa).

Santhosh, the eldest had nicknamed thatha's sis as Inni. The name had no meaning, it was one of those mazhalai mozhigal which everyone adores. The name stuck and even the relatives started calling her as Inni. As it so happens, after few years everyone forgot her real name, and by the time Shruti was born ( after 4 and 1/2 years) she knew her to be Inni.

Similarly Santosh coined the term Othatha for grandpa's brother. Othatha was very fond of Santosh , and loved him as his own grandson.

The scorching heat burns everything that comes out in the open. Even the birds which swoop and soar , seemed quiet. But nothing not even the blazing sun could hold Shruti from playing outside. Her quest was simple. If her brothers can play in the sun, so can she.
She always made it a point to do what all they are capable , and thus ended up being a tomboy in her early years.

It was weekend, therefore no school. And it was her parent's visiting day .

Every weekend her parents visited , though they lived only a kilometer away. All three wandered near the gate every few seconds for the sound of footsteps. After an hour's impatient wait, they heard it.

Ammmmmma Shruti started screaming at the top of her voice, those standing nearby souls have thought her vocal chord might snap, but they were also used to this routine. She went to the gate to open the main doors. When she opened, instead of her parents, there were three monkeys on top of the mango tree, plucking and throwing mangoes at Sashi.

Mesmerized , Shruti could hardly take her eyes of the monkeys. She hadn't seen one, all her life and was fascinated too see it. When the monkey turned to face her she realized that, a baby monkey was holding its mamma's tummy. Shruti was oddly reminded of herself , she pushed these thoughts aside and continued to stare at her.

By this time Sashi's screams had awoken granny , who had retired for the afternoon nap. She came out and saw what was the source of all commotions, and shied the monkeys away.

Patti ada thorathada, paavum, adu veyila enga pogum. ( Granny don't shoo them away, where will it go in this heat ? ) questioned Santosh.

Aaama, inda madiri paavum partha un sapada adu eduthukum replied Granny.

( If you pity it, then your share of food will go the monkeys)

This thought seemed to terrify Santosh , who was a sappattu piriyan, and thus fell silent. But none, not even the crying Sashi would stop staring at the monkeys. To their delight and fear, the monkeys were staring at these three. The usual noise that was routine during Sundays , was missing. Not even when Amma turned up, did the three leave their posts. Fed up of calling them inside , granny started serve the meal outside.

And suddenly it happened, halfway through a mouthful , Sashi exclaimed,

Patti adunga jump panradungo, inga poguthu ? Poga venanumnu sollu.

Thatha was secretly glad to get rid of this nuisances. He preferred a disciplined life, but was open at the same time had hoped mapillai sir( Shruti's appa) would have called the officials, but mapillai sir was busy trying to draw attention of the kids.

Thatha's hope was in vain, because the monkeys promptly re-appeared in the backyard, where there were more trees and thus less hot. The three kids were delighted to see the monkeys again.

Inni , on noting all the commotion quipped, moonu kurangu, innum moonu kuranga parkaradungo. ( Three monkeys are seeing three other monkeys ) Othatha guffawed on hearing this.

Patti who was always wary of Inni said, kuzhaindagala appadi solladel Paavum nallikki thiruppi schoolukku poganum Avalavu books thookitu vera.

Meanwhile , the three monkeys seemed bored of staring at three kids, especially since, they seemed to be doing nothing other than staring back at them. Soon they fell asleep.

Atlast Patti persuaded them to come inside, and the three realizing that the monkeys wouldn't be awake so soon, decided to take a nap themselves.

After few hours of blissful silence, Shruti's ear- shattering scream woke everyone.

Kannum, adungala kaanum. Appovae sonnen thoonga mattennu, ippo parthiya, adunga poiduchu. Seeing this Santosh and Sashi joined the hue and cry.

Po, inime naanga yaarum un kooda pesa mattom, they chorused .

Patti tried to pacify them, neenga samatha irundeengana naan ungalukku ravaladdu senju tharuven. All three became quiet, because all three loved to eat Patti's special RavaLaddu.

Thatha was glad. He had wanted mapillai sir to make the call, but since mapillai sir, made no signs of calling, thaytha himself had alerted the Zoo officials. They promptly came and whisked the monkeys away.

By night time, all three kids bid their goodbyes to mom and dad,troubled granny to tell them a story ,and went to sleep.

That's the first part. Hope you all like it.

Be sure to give your feedback in the comments section.

Time for me to sleep.

CIAO.

Thanks

Hi All,

As the title suggests this is Thank You post to Vadivel.
For those who don't know about him, (Non-Verizonites) he is a senior analyst, in my company.
Go through his blog, you'll know why he's one the most respected in my organization.

I remember the day, when he sent a mail to all of us, asking us to go through his blog in the ITWB site. :) He had mentioned in the mail, he feels honoured that Shadman Zafar , SVP ,( I hope I have got the person right) took time to go through his blog and comment.
I couldn't help but draw similarities here :)
It feels the same way to have guys like Vadivel, Deepak, Ramesh go through my blog. (Especially since, I have been doing non-techie posts, most of them being silly) .

Though we( Srini, Vicky, and me) are just fresher's, he was magnanimous to make a post about us My Buddies are blogging.

Thanks a LOT. It means a lot to all of us. Felt good to read about ourselves from a senior person point of view.

P.S. Some more Iobi-Web fresher's are blogging ( Sethu, Vasanth, Seshadri, Ashutosh) Think I have mentioned all people whom I know.

If I have missed to mention someone, pardon me..

Till my next post..

CIAO

Coming Next- Shruti

Hi all,

Keep watching this space, for Shruti, The Kid around the corner.
She's six, smart , cute and adorable.
Planning to write a series of incidents , about Shruti.
( Shruti, is a figment of my imagination, close to me and reflects me )
I am going to relive my childhood, through the adventures of SHRUTI.

She is that part of me which was always waiting to happen.
She is that part of me , that never was, but always there.
She is my break out area.


Coming Soon.

Till my next post...

CIAO.

Life and Death

Hi All,

One simple question..

How can we die ? What are the different ways to die ?

The replies come out spontaneously.

Hanging by the rope (ah- gruesome and bad),
Consuming poison (slow and painful, unless its cyanide),
Getting Heart attacks ( multiple ones, you are a goner),
Jumping into deep sea. ( If sea is not accessible, then probably the old, rotten well in the backyard would suffice)
Accidents ( sure way of a rendezvous with Yema-Darma Raja)

Simple isn't it.

Another simple question.

How do we live ? What are the different ways to live ?

Not so simple , isn't it ?

The normal person says,

"What an absurd question. We live. We exist, therefore we live.
How can there be different ways of living. Do you mean work and lifestyle ? Don't confuse yourself and concentrate on the bigger things in life"

And I ask .. "What more bigger or important than LIFE ?"

Says the cynic,

"Life's is, but a journey towards death. All things perish.

Life's wretched ,
A wretched life is meaningless ,
A meaningless life amounts to nothing,
And therefore life itself is nothing.
Therefore going by the premise, life's an illusion, which dreamers chase wantonly. "

And I ask,
Isn't your own wretched life making you to jump to conclusions ? Isn't the fact that others are happy because they are simple, the foremost of your worries ? Don't you at least get some insane pleasure watching others suffer (This is a question only to the cynics and misanthropists. )
In that case, how can you claim that you aren't happy, at least once ?

Says the scientist ,

"biologically, as long as heart beats ,and human body is capable at least one of the six senses, we live".

And I ask,
In that case, even batteries live. They exist , and they expire. (We have rechargeble batteries now, so someday can we bring back the dead ?)

Says the philosopher,

"Thought provoking question. Various theories can be put forward, with each theory subject to different interpretations. It is not simple , otherwise why would it elude meaning for so long? Life's a continuum. If its to die, then why do we have to live ?
If it is to exist physically , why do we feel .
Why do we have emotions ?
Life's better if unanswered, because years will be spent in knowing one's own self. Then by the time we understand life, we would be nearing death."

And what do I say to the philosopher ?
I say nothing.

And what do I say about Life ?

Life's everything. A bit of all of the above. Life's a continuum. Our life doesn't end with us. We spread the wisdom,knowledge,experience and happiness to the next generation.

Life's one BIG bundle. A BIG bundle of emotions.
Care, jealousy, love, lust, agony, ecstasy, sight-seeings, fear, anger, affection, depression, hatred,happiness, loneliness EVERYTHING.

Everyone, will undergo all these emotions, some in abundance, some in trivia. We may pretend that it doesn't exist, we may shun it, we may overlook it, we may feel scared to reveal the nature of ourselves, but yes, they exist. This is life to me.
Experiencing pain and happiness, knowing that no day is alike, awaiting a brand new day, and a brand new beginning , everyday.
Firmly believe in the theory of relativity. Nothing is absolute.
Hatred exists only because love does.
Satan exists only because God does.
Lies exist only because of truth does.
But life ? If I go by the same premise, Life exists only because death does.
So if death kills our body, perishes our soul, then to live implies to CHERISH our soul, to love our existence, knowing that we will never get back this moment.
What we did or didn't do this moment, cannot be reverted .
But still we live, and as long as we exist, we owe ourselves the happiness of existence.
Never letting our spirits die( He he, one mokkai, when we die, we become spirits).
To get a LIFE in short.

To end, I quote one of my favourite quotation,

Life,

A little pain, a little pleasure,
A little heaping up of treasure,
Then no more gazing upon the sun,
All things must end that have begun.

CIAO.

P.S. This post has no connection with the earlier one.

Life :)

Hi All,

Read a post by Swami about the meaning of life. Fascinated ( pun intended) by it.
Made me to ponder, the meaning of life, love , existence.

But now is not the time . Everything will happen when it has to happen. I am not in the mood to write a deep philosophical (???) post on what life's all about.
For the simple reason, I am not in one of those moods.

The IRONY..
The time when I am deep in thought, I don't get to make a post.
And the time when I post, I am not deep in thought.
Simply because, blogging makes me light hearted( sometimes light headed too :))

But will definitely write on this one. Been thinking about life for a long time .
Have no clue as to what it is all about.
Nobody can give an explanation as to what life is , simply because life in "their" viewpoint, is "their" life.. Not mine. So it can never explain my life, satisfactorily. The basics are common though.

Tried to understand me as a person, but not able to do so completely. Believe that the moment anyone realizes the purpose of their life, they cease to live. In the sense that life carries meaning, only when its a mystery. So prefer learning about myself everyday, in the small gestures,in stupid quarrels,in the times of reflection during the quite unhurried walks to the bus stop, in the hours of thought,while lying on the bed wide awake pondering the deeper purpose of my existence .

But wondering what am I doing by making this post.
About life........ hmmm will write later.
Sleep takes priority (12.30 AM) right now.

NEW ADDITION : Going to write about some fascinating (pun not intended) people I meet everyday. It could be you..Watch out. A small paragraph perhaps..
(No need to fear. I won't mention names, as always).You are free to guess the identity of the person, but it will never be revealed in this blog space .

The first one..
This person, is intelligent, sharp, silly, weird .
No wind can stop this person , and no wind can start too:)
Lazy to the core, when she wants to be lazy, but burns midnight oil when she wants to work.
Likes to live only by her rules, but gets confused somewhere in between .
Loyal to those, who can win her affection ,(even things that can win her affection)
But sometimes prejudiced because of the above reason.
Has certain disregard for things that can be disregarded, and confuses in categorizing those things. Cannot stand hypocrites and rumor mongers.

Unique thing about her---Her SELF , and her independance. Has too much of it, to let it be known :)

Till my next post ..
CAIO.