I am a free man

I want to walk into the CAT exam hall as a free man. I want to walk in with no strengths, no weaknesses and more importantly with no preferences. I want to walk in as one among the obscure 2.35 lakhs of people as against the 5000 best bets. I do not want to walk in as a SimCat topper, I do not want to walk in with feathers in my cap.

But I want to walk in with hope. Hope can set a man free while fear can hold him a prisoner. (Yes, I have done my idle time with a few good movies.)

And then again I do not want to walk in with just my hope riding on my shoulders. Who am I to hope for good times, alone. I want to walk in with your dream spurring me on , as well; for all other things aside, I have as much faith in your ambition as I have in mine. I respect you perhaps to the same degree as I respect myself. I want to live free as a free man.

When I walk in with my head held high every other test taker is my friend, symbolising for me my same dreams. I do not want to waste away and I do not want you to waste away.

Those three hours, I am a refugee of my own war unto myself.

I do not walk in for failure. I do not walk in for success either. I walk in for an intensely personal experience which at the same time is intensely universal. I am ready for that challenge.

I feel miserable at times, groping in the darkness of my misfortunes, staring at the voids created by my personal losses and tragedies, pining for love and help, listening out for a friendly whisper to enliven my numb days. I feel sunk at times. Sunk in the growing waters of my meaninglessness. Sunk by death and accident and tragedy. Sunk by the false sobriety of other people's music. Sunk by the irrationalities of other people's thoughts. Sunk perhaps by my inability to pay heed to the false calls of people and society. Sunk by discipline and order and paper and ink. Sunk by the horns and honks of vehicles behind me on the road. Sunk by organized thought. Sunk by my nation's ineptitute to keep her lands unto herself. Repulssed by the nonchalance of myself and others. I feel low at times.

I have every reason to shout, aloud and piercingly. But there would be too few to listen.

I feel drenched at times in the precursory rays of fortune and prosperity. I feel drenched in the love of new people and old. I see opportunity on the horizon and I have a fast car to reach there. I feel enlivened by unsettling music and radical movies. I gravitate without a second thought to feel the masculine energy of the primordial beats of man's being. I jump like a cereal-bean on the rise and answer the inner call of tandava. The savoury days are inter-mingled with the wretched ones and those days make living meaningful. I am often exalted at the partial realization of this meaning. I am happy at times. Happy that I can still sleep late, that on any day I can go lift weights or drink serious stuff, that I can run around with a few words in my mind to put in print. I feel drenched at times in bliss, in love, in expectation, in anticipation, in potential, in things to do and roads to build. I feel like a free man on some days.

I want to walk into the CAT exam hall as a free man. I want to walk in with no strengths, no weaknesses and more importantly with no preferences.

Metro Plus

Look at this photo on the right wherein you can see me and my friend Vignesh contemplating the end of the world over a cup of tea. The place is Mysore and it was someday into our final year tour. The night before, we had tea at a similar place in Ooty where we caught the final overs of the last but one India- England ODI among the cheers and rants of the local crowd. How happy do we feel in a ramshackle tea-shop? It is great to be with people. It is great to know what they do and enjoy.

I have always wanted to give people their due. It is very important to deal with people, talk with them and know what they are doing and why. It is good to write about them as well. No wonder I found myself in professional attire discussing cyber photo-editing with the guys at DeviceDriven the other day. Also I could be found enjoying mocktails and spring roll at the Muthoot with Deepak and Jayaram this week. So much for the Metro Plus.

The lean four page Metro is the last bastion of hope for the youth in my sleepy town. I love it when my name breaks into print. No matter how stereo-typed I have become, the Metro has come to pass as my portal to voice the hope of people I meet. The same type-set, the same colours , the same editing, the same kind of itsy-bitsy photographs, and the same by-line.

The first thing in a man's life is contentment and the second is ambition. Yes, ambition comes second. I am back on the Metro.

The scent of love

I am waiting for her twinkling smile. I am waiting for her hair-locks to brush my expectant lips. I am waiting to take her in my arms. I am ready to look out for love. Let me search my soul.