Simman

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Heartbeat

Dud dud dud Dud.
I'm alive !

Coast to Coast: Across the Plain

'Trains from Chennai usually leave on time" cautioned Adarsh, though he had turned up late as usual the Suburban station. We were on the last train that could safely take us to the Mangalore express on platform 3. Parktown suburban where the local left us, is across the road to Bangalore. The late-comers Anupam and Adarsh after having enough of the adventure, decided to take the safe subway. Negotiating the twisting barriers and narrow steps they found themselves ahead of the rest of the gang, so much for the five o clock rush in front of Central.

Finding the A2 coach was not some much trouble as getting us to find a place to sit together. We were allotted side berths throughout the coach, was it that computers had finally decided to avenge developers. Not to be outdone, with the TTE on their side the gang won the coup.

It was a game of cards that got them started with the festivities, but soon graduated to 'Thief'. A wonderful mind game, salute the creator. Rounds upon rounds went on brilliantly conducted by Dennis.

Of the four villagers, three theives and an all knowing god, the crafty thieves always won much to the frustration of many time god Gaja. Raja's indecisiveness complicated the already muddy waters drowning the poor villagers. The thieves who knew each other through Dennis' open-eye close-eye ceremony at the beginning of each round managed to weave strategies that no hapless villager could see through. Loud but veiled revelations by the all knowing god were of no avail. This brilliant game mirroring human behaviour kept them engrossed late through the night until exhaustion got to them.

The train left them at Coimbatore from where they went to Udumalpet at the foothills of the great Sahya. Gaja's and Suren's houses played host to the group which had now swelled to twelve, counting Celestian who had arrived by the Thiruvandooram express. Morning under the cool shadow of the Annamalai hills was made tasty by the endless plates of paniyaram that came of Suren's kitchen. Adarsh made a point not to miss any set, not out of obligation, but the novelty of home-made paniyaram !

With idlis and chappatis the 12 primates set out to monkey falls across the windswept plains of Udumalpet under the watch of tall windmills.

Getting a new PC

Rewind to 21 Oct 08:

My old PC, now three years old had begun to show signs of age. It worked fine for most things that people do. It did have some trouble with Windows. Some drivers not available for the antique motherboard I had purchased second hand!. Thats another part of the story. It produced a very shaky screen. Poor old processor made software rendering on Linux a lil bit slow but workable.

Then in happened, a power surge burnt out our tubelights, mobile and laptop chargers and anything that happened to be connected to the power supply. This included my old PC. I decided that patching it up will bring more trouble than needed, so better get a new one.

Thats when indecision got hold of me. A bad one that even one month later I could not decide what I wanted. A month was to pass and no comp.

One night my roommates decided end this, which by my opinion was the worst time to go, night was falling, which meant the shops were closing and thunder was rumbling in the background. I tried to pull back, my mind would not let me go, for I had not decided. It was just that we had set out and Sooraj wanted us not to step back that we decided on this crazy project.

We rode Mount Road in the drizzle to Richie Street. Most shops were closing, we did not know where to head, with just the name of one of the shops. The rain had become harder and puddles had started forming. Three shops later we could not find 'Supreme' in the messy street and crosses, until by chance we spotted it.

It was crowded and we managed to get the order, I was relieved to find that there were few options which I had to choose (Remember I did not what I wanted). Agreed on a spec and rushed to the assembling area to supervise what was to be the last and most tiresome putting together of the day. The workers were tired and the customer touchy.

It did finally boot up, and was about to face its first test as we brought it down, rain. It had become a full downpour by the time we reached the doors of the shop. All they could find for us was a black cover two inches smaller in width than the comp case. It could be fit by any hook or crook. The rain was growing angrier now, more noise and heavier drops battered our shaky minds. I cursed the times we made the impulsive decision.

It was decided that we go ahead come what may for no autos were to be found. A small sheet of back plastic covered the top of the comp case, everything else was bare. I sat pillion the bike, tore the cover accidentally as I tried to fit it better. There I had a irregular piece of plastic and big rectangular box to cover in the driving rain.

The box was placed between Mirshad, the rider and me. A part of the plastic sheet covered the top held in place by my jaw, the front facing the direction of travel part by Mirshad's back and rest by the flapping piece I held by my outstreched and frequently numb hand. The two sides of the box was bare cardboard. The bottom and back face was afforded whatever protection that my body could give.

Thanks to the gods, the box arrived in Perungudi 15km away dry except for a patch where my jaw had slipped when I tried to talk.


For all the ordinariness in the story, it was deep satisfaction of doing things that I would not have done under those circumstances.

How I spolied my day

Sunday rose well ahead me as always. It was a nice beautiful day, just that a lazy and procrastinating me did more of those.

I wanted to go out today, but was too lazy to tell everyone at home, an attitude that has caused a lot of troubles. It all came to a head when I could not muster enough courage to play cricket again. This time there were a lot more players at the park nearby.

I grew morose and listless. Added another failure in the list of things that I wanted to do, could do, but didn't.

A journey down troubleslane.

I felt hungry late into the night of Independence day. Too late for good food, all I could get was a veg burger in a shop that was closing for the day. Maybe it was time I started believing the Butterfly effect.

I had forgotten that fifteenth is a Friday and a holiday, forfeiting independence from misery! Deciding to go home, just a week before 'independence' is bad idea as everyone would say. No tickets. Fortunately the four o clock super-fast had space to spare, so did an unusual midnight train for the journey back.

Unexpected showers in Chennai had brought its share of disease, which I had fallen victim, and I didn't know about it, until things turned ugly.

In spite of repeated attempts by the colony folks to call us for the flag hoisting, I slept through to midday. Then had a quick bath and went on to have fried rice for lunch halfway through to the MRTS station. Darkening skies made me go back home to fetch an umbrella against the wishes of Mirshad who was driving me to the station.

He was right, a train had appeared on the tracks about a kilometre away. I could still make it. I ran to the counter, only to find a large Hindi speaking group trying to get tickets from an attendant who spoke only Tamil. My instincts told me to run to the platform, but I wanted a 'ticket', more for righteousness than the unseen ticket checker! In the midst of the confusion outside and the conflict inside the train slipped away. It was 3.00pm.

Reassuringly, according to the timetable there is another train at 3.15 for my 20 min trip to Central. Until at 3.10 I realised, much to my misery that the new electronic board says 3.25. I decided that a train is still my best option. The train arrived promptly at 3.30. The sky as well my belly rumbled as I chalked out strategies to use 10 minutes I would get after getting off to walk 250m to Central, find the train and get on to it.

Swaying and shaking of the train had started rumblings deep inside me, which quickened as we pulled into Park Town. My plan started ticking. Run. I ran through the crowd, up the stairs down the road. My heart missed a beat as felt wetness in my pants. In the confusion I missed the turn to the subway, scrambled for it and got to the other side. I ran again.

Only to be stopped by an array of policemen. They checked my bag and found my laptop. 3.57. "Sir, laptops are not allowed on trains today, its an emergency." The clock, the spreading blot on my backside and more rumbling from within, I was cursing myself, and the moment I decided to take it. 3.58. I was sent off the supervisor, who wanted a company ID. Unfortunately my company does not identify itself on employee id cards, the PAN card did not help, the supervisor was suspicious and walked away for further consultation. I lot hope. 3.59. 'You can go'. I ran.

I ran to the display, it said platform One. The one farthest from where I was. Praises to thee and numerous references to 'the blot' escaped my lips. I had gotten so far, to miss now would be a terrible misfortune. The green flag was waving and the train starting as I rushed onto platform one. More praises to thee as I got to the last steps of the last compartment at last.

The journey was uncomfortable and hungry as train food scared me further, that I decided to have nothing but a pack of biscuits. People stared at a sweaty and panting holding onto his pants. Getting to change in a railway restroom, with each sway of the train sending water splashing all around was a nightmare well forgotten. Sleep was hard to come, I tried to sleep as I had to wake up at 3am. Loud belching of an awakened volcano continued through the night snatching away precious sleep for a tired body and a humiliated soul.

The alarm ran at 2, I was just a hundred kilometres away. More rumbling both from within and without as the train ground to a halt and my belly started running. Alarmed i stared out of the windows for any movement. I don't know if the train was sympathetic, it moved. I was ecstatic. The joy was short lived. It stopped again. This cycle of hope and despair continued three more times. At last the sleep Town station chugged into view. I ran again, mentally asked father to step up on the gas. I didn't feel bad enough to tell him then.

Reached home, had a tired afternoon until I decided to travel down to the city. It was in the car that it dawned on me that I had booked returns tickets for the very day I arrived. Five minutes after midnight on 17 Aug is on the night of 16 Aug, I got stares questioning my sanity from everyone in the car. I was in no position to travel.

A long weekend along with the Malayalam new year had ensured that trains were full until well into the week. Tatkal waiting lists smiled back with two digits while the normal ones frowned with three. I decided to fly back two days later.

A polite call a day later told me that the flight would leave 2.5 hours behind schedule. I was happy as I didn't have to wake up too early for this. Arriving at the airport broke my heart with three consecutive 10 minute delays. Midday on Tuesday I land back in a cool and cloudy Chennai.

In the spirit of revolt I decide to give autorikshaws a slip. I want to see if I can get to office without 'touching' and autorikshaw. I rush past the 'greedy' eyes triumphantly down the subway to Tirusulam station. I'm not sure how my dishevelled appearance and unsteady gait contributed to this triumph.

The triumph started turning sour as the 11.56 train failed to arrive at 12.15, and when it did at 12.25 it was bursting at the seams. Blame my luck I stood right before the first class compartment with a second class ticket. Thankfully I ran to the door, to be pushed barely inside the door by the 'door hangers'. With luggage in hand it was a memorable trip to Guindy. The bus to Madhya Kailash was uneventful but an MRTS train left Kasturibai nagar as I got down the bus.

Share autos were an option, but against my no auto stategy. I didn't want to break it for the last leg. I waited half an hour to catch a train that took me 4km down the IT highway ! Interesting what people do for their convictions, rather how foolish can men be. Meanwhile the Chennai sun had turned hot and mean, I walked from Thiruvanmiyur to Ascendas, weary and tired to start a whole new week at office.

Infinity of infinities.

I can't help but wonder about the powers of human reasoning, limits that seem to be present on it and most of all by our inability to understand the very process.

When I was in school, the teacher taught us numbers from 1 to 10. We went from 20 to 50 and then to 100. I thought all the numbers have ended. All i needed to know about numbers was known! I could count, recite the whole list, write them. How happy I was and how wrong.

Addition caused a lot of problems, there were two carry overs in 87 + 34, too much trouble. The possibility of numbers with large number of digits seemed absurd. After all who would bother keeping track of them when the teacher asked you to add two of them.

Subtraction in class two, thankfully could be performed only from a larger number. Unfortunately numbers could be added and added, a whole new symbol of infinity appeared. I was perplexed. Why do we talk of numbers we cannot express. People have gone crazy. Then there was negative infinity and the square root of negative one - things that valiantly fought and held fort against my 'heroic' efforts to map them to real world objects.

Fractions were another set of troubles, adding them required you to have a common denominator. I wondered who came up with such complex rules. Mutiplying fractions was much easier, the product table could be put to good use here. In a next few years I learnt calculus, you can only approach a limit, but never reach it. An infinite number of points lay between you and the dreadful limit that the question paper asked. Only a leap of the mind to a theorem that summed the infinite set could make the professor happy.

All these years I have wondered, why we built infinity on infinity sought out to explain very abstract things as numbers. After all numbers don't have any connection to the physical world unless your mind makes one. Yet we struggle to understand the infinity of natural numbers, the infinity of reals that lay in between them and the same amount of numbers stretching away with the elusive i as a companion.

We have discovered rules to generate a number from the previous, one in between two others at all times. Yet every number is special, there is inly one pi and that occurs between the symbols 2 and 3 in our regular notation. Only a few sets simple restrictions like the pythogaras theorem. Some there are an infinite, some there are a few.

I still wonder, whether I an still the class 1 student who thought all mathematics was over when he could count upto hundred.