Numbers All Over

Just like this kid sneaking through, all i have is just a sneak preview. Nothing full, all half baked.


We had this ManCom class, which i find so hard to concentrate. He mentioned about C~ly F~rina and i got into this numerology mode. I was not surprised to find the total coming to a saturnine 35. What justice in taking one to the peak and throwing down disgracefully? I was doing the number totals for all my batch mates and found most of them had a venusian total. Many of the stars in the class had totals that matched their dobs.

I first got this book by pundit G in Subramaniapuram from my acquarian friend. But it just disappeared. I had given it to someone and i never got it back. The next time, i had personally got a copy from G and that too, i managed to lose. Most of my palmistry books and astro books are gifts by pisceans and acquarians. Now everything is gone since i had been living out of suitcases for the past 2 years. I learnt C coz of this wonderful book. I wrote my first program in 1999, in C++ for giving predictions based on dob and name. I could not translate for all the numbers, i translated around 75% of the book. Its been years since the HDD crashed and the code is also gone. Almost everyone who read this found it matched their profile. It was so fitting. The way people paired made sense based on the number vibes. The way people loved also synched mostly.

Suddenly am missing this book so much. But whats the point. I had asked my mom, bro and sis to get my books for me from Chennai (could be in foreshore estate or chithi's place), but guess, when it comes to such things, only apna kaam swayam karo would work. I don't understand, why my folks want to keep me away from these books. Hope i get to go to chennai sometime.

Suddenly its dad on my mind

"Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."

Sir Francis Bacon

This is one of my favourite quotes in a Literature book that dad had bought. Dad used to buy lots of books for us. Very costly at times and when we had holidays, we were forced to translate them to hindi or write a page a day and show him when he came back from office. At times, we had to do a precis writing. We three used to hate it then. He didn't read in english medium and he made sure, we didn't have to face the problems he faced. He was a superb salesman. He made me feel that his ideas were mine. He didn't even know how to fill in an application form and ended up doing Economics instead of Engineering. And made me do engineering when i might have chosen fine arts left to myself. He used to make me tell the hindi lesson stories to him, while he hurried to office. He showed so much enthusiasm in everything we did. Be it my bharatnatyam steps or my paintings. He was always there to encourage us.


He taught me typing with typewriter. He got me keyboard for learning music. He got the old CBSE question papers typed out in 10th and 12th and forced me to write exams every sunday. I used to hate it then. But now i really cherish everything he did for us.

He taught me cooking. He taught me the steps to make the perfect sambar. I would get bored of sambar but he made me do it for weeks, till i got it right. He used to like it spic n span. I am given into my moods. When i would hear the bike sound. I would hurriedly sweep the house and make it clean for him. Still dad would again pick up the broom and show me the dirt under the cupboard. Even if it was washing a plate, he would make sure it was shining.

He would make a timetable of what to prepare when and made sure we had healthy food. Even if it was simple ironing clothes, he would make me do it patiently and perfectly. At times, i feel, the 1 surya pithru karka n the 2 mathru karka characteristics are very much true and he was two in one, a cancerian with a sun number 1. Dad was the most caring person.

Home kind of sweet home

well... this time, it the was the only 5 days i was going to get after so many months. And i was not sure, when i would get another break like this. My initial plan for these 5 days was to go to Kanakapura ashram. But mom had called up once to tell how lonely she was and i had booked the tickets right then cancelling all other plans.

The train was at 7:05 and R and I boarded the auto around 5:30 p.m. We shared stories and he got me into this Mookambigai trip now. Am jes craving for this trip now. Thats what my astro mentor S also recommended. Mom said, we have been there twice and once my sis was apparently swept 1 km downstream in the river around this temple. But i don't remember anything about this temple.

I was reading "Surely you are joking Mr Feynman" in the train and R's tap on my right knee woke me up around 3:50 am where we parted ways. I got down to the LB and slept there till I reached junction. I called up mom and asked her, when the next bus would come. I would have waited for some 30 mins, when a guy came and asked me if i was my sister. Since he said my name i said yes and slowly recognized that it was KP's father. He had retired and settled in kerala and KP had got another son Razin, the first one was Mauzin. He said he had a granddaughter through his son, but had never seen her. KP was always a fabulous gal. Aug 28 and she was the one who had me always laughing, whenever she came home. She was gr8 fun to be around with. Now her hus works in Gulf and i don't know how she manages.

He dropped me at home and i was shocked to find the door locked. I tried mom's number and found that it was ringing inside. I had no other option but to go to the busstand and bring mom back home. House was a mess. I was too tired to clean it up. She left to office and i continued to sleep the whole day. In the night, she got summons from Chennai. Chithi had stopped eating for a week and chithups was summoning mom to chennai. Mom asked, if i could join her. I wanted rest and sent her away. Mom left on tuesday night. 4 nights i was all alone. I slept with the lights on. I kept awake the whole night and slept when i was exhausted in the morning. I was rooted to the bed. I lay there reading books and listening to songs and watching stupid movies that mom had got from down floor neighbours. Airtel signal was weak in oft. I was too lazy to get up and answer phones in the hall. I just lay wedded to bed for 4 days till mom came along with chithi on saturday. I had to leave for blore on sat night. All those days, around 4 pm i would feel hungry and i would hv my first meal then. Luckily on friday, i got sick of this and cleaned the whole house, removed the cobwebs and later i found it was pradosham. But i had had my food and i had forgot to fast. I took a long bath and i tied a green sari and suddenly i realized that my left earring was no longer there. However, with in few seconds, i found both the earring and the thiruhani. Even now this piece is always lose. It was peaceful to be there. The temple had changed so much. All tiles around. As I did a pradakshina around shakthi, tears started pouring again, for no reason at all. Wish... wish... well... everything is destined.

Sat morning, mom left again to office and i was left craving for care. Chithi and i went for shopping grocery. I had survived on wheat dosa and kadamba rice all these days. I offered chithi milk and bread. She took 30 mins to gobble 2 slices of bread. Man i lost my patience. Then i made her mosambi juice out of 3 mosambis which i had squeeze with my hands. I was steadily losing my patience. Only then, i remembered, i need to serve her with love so that she gets cured soon. God these @#@$# doctors. Misdiagnosed malaria to TB and ended up injecting her for what not, that she could not lie on her back. Luckily after a while, i got into the cooking mood. I made manathakalli keerai kootu and kothavaranga usili, murungakka sambar, rasam, sauted mango pickles, moong dal payasam (which is my mom's favorite) and the curd had set like solid cakes. I washed all the serving dishes till it shone and i had arranged an appetising lunch and waited by the window for mom to come home. She came after 40 mins or so and we all sat down to eat on the fresh and tender vazha ezhai. Nothing like eating on those green leaves. Chithi was still in her sambar course, when i was at my curd.

We three collapsed in the hall watching TV. We ended up watching Julie, Ejamaan and one more movie swapping over breaks. Julie dominated though. Suddenly swami came out of no where. I was so surprised. I was supposed to have met dad, met aunty and swami but had ended up spending all time on bed and here he was. I was glad that payasam was there. I made him horlicks, offered payasam, potato chips and good day biscuits. I knew it was a bad combination to offer salty items with milk, but decided, he is supreme, he should be able to digest it. I was glad he was here. He kept on talking saying how i was instrumental in getting him to thiruvanamalai that too for chithra pournami. He asked me to ask him something. I wished, mom and chithi and his wife were not there. I just wanted to pour out to him. But i could not, and ended up with just tears. At last he said, i know and i will take care. I was glad he had come. I was craving for my guru to come and he had come and i realized he is my Sri Sri or Baba Ramdev or Ramana Maharishi. He left around 5:30 pm and my bus was at 6:30 pm. A lonely trip. i felt bad, that i had not spoken to dad even once. I reached majestic and got a one day pass. I reached campus around 7 am. Around 4 pm i decided that i will go to Nimishamba satsang. But ended up boarding a shivaji nagar bus. i ended up window shopping and buying 2 butterfly clips that i had wanted for months. I would have waited for eternity, till i decided to swap buses. I took some bus to jayanagar and from there another bus to campus. I was sad, that i could not have darshan. This was the 2nd time, such a thing had happened. The previous sunday after end terms, i started out and i found the iyappa temple was would open only around 5:30 pm and i could not find a place to sit and wait outside. I ended up walking all outside the campus and reached room exhausted again without darshan.

However, this time, on the last day of navarathri. It was all instantaneous. I had no plans of boarding the bus. However a bus stopped just next to me and i asked the driver and he driver dropped me at Meenakshi temple. It was peaceful inside and i got a decent darshan. Somehow, i feel now, especially after the DD incident, if its time, it will happen. Else it is no use, how much ever u fight against and swim upstream. For that JMET thing, i remember forgetting the DD at home, spending 400+ on auto, coming late to office, filling up app in a hurry. Everything was delayed. Call it hindsight bias. Every thing is interlinked, even if it means someone's murder. It was bound to happen. It will happen, when the time comes. God will make sure, you are the right place at the right time.

The legends of Khazak

I think, I read about TLOK by OVV in India Today or some other obscure magazine some time in college first year around 1999-2000. My hunt for this book started then. No library had this book. I went to bharathidasan univ library, the library next to the bata showroom, REC library, asked mom to try in OFT library and BHEL training centre library. I even tried Higginbotham’s next to teppakulam and devaki second hand book stall (which gobbled up my Rs 100 deposit when I didn’t take a book after I returned one) in the china kadai veedhi which is around the vicinity of those precious stone jewelers. They had not even heard about this book. At last, yes’ day I was forced to go to our library to pick up “TG” by Cox and Goldratt. As usual, I ended up going to the fiction side and was pleasantly surprised to see this book right up in the front (after almost a decade).

I put aside “The Goal” and settled on the bed with TLOK. I have always loved Kerala, WB and Kashmir. Those were my dream places and I used to fantasize that the gals out there were nubile fairies. Somehow both Kerala and WB are now infested with you know what and Kashmir with the obvious. It was “TCO Joy” that brought the stark reality of WB as against the rosy and divine picture I had painted in my mind of it being Swami Vivekanda-Sivananda’s religious abode. I always believed that these were the places where practitioners of kundalini yoga lived and could do anything and everything with their mind power.

Gakrith dragged me to the parlour after classes and I started reading this around 5 pm. I kind of slept of with this book in between, thanks to going outside and was just reading this book sprawled on the bed whenever I woke up. It was different from all that I had read all these days. I am fascinated with ghosts and haunted places as with other spiritual beings. I was wondering, how lucky, I was to have the job I had had. In city there are so many ways of earning one’s livelihood. But in the villages, what hardships people have to put up with to earn their daily bread. It was a Piscean who made me wonder about this. She asked me, if you didn’t have any salaried job, if you had no education, how will you earn your living? For every answer I gave, she added another constraint and asked, how I will still pay for the food I eat. At times, I was wondering, which world is he in? Where will women do the things that he has described? At times, I was struck with this magical surrealism in the way he had weaved the story. About lice having rebirth. God! Lice of all creatures? IIMK teaches students to walk on fire. My first preference was K, but I ended up in B.

I was glad with the way; he had described how Muslims and Hindus lived together peacefully at least to an extent. My zodiac says, I will have thulukiyar friends. In fact my childhood pal is Nazreen with whom, I had climbed up the water tank in 5th standard and was punished so much for that by school teachers and condemned by the principals of 3 schools. My down floor neighbor was again a kind bhai uncle and ever since I remember, we used to buy tomatoes from thakkali bhai, though he sold other veggies as well. I was amused with the rules that K laid and but fine, I though, different people have different perceptions. I was surprised to see my previous roomie who was a dentist spew such venom about Muslims in general, coz she had seen one affluent Muslim class mate of hers sleeping with poor medical students from north east who didn’t have money for their educational expenses.

Back to the book, I was surprised to see such intimacy between teachers and students. The last time, I remember feeling at home with teacher was Sukumaran sir in my 5th standard. He used to correct papers while we sat around him and played. He used to call me OFT or BHEL as we played Kho Kho. He used to be considerate with Nazreen since she had lost her father. Teachers after that were distant in some way or the other. Probably coz after that you were no longer an innocent kid. You got trapped in the scheming ways of the world. The teacher gazing in amazement on the miracle, the first blood flowers of womanhood! Hmmm… well… the novel was like a slow and languorous movie.

I should have finished the novel before 12 am at least. I don’t know when I started sleeping. I woke up around 1:30 am and then started preparing for the next day’s classes till around 3:30 till the current went off. In the morning, I woke up just at 8:30 am. Classes start at 8:30 with faint memories of this strange dream. I was a Muslim woman or probably I was not. I saw those grey minarets in twilight in my dream. I was going through those tunnels in my own house to reach one room to another. I don’t know why, but I think, I saw someone pregnant in my dream. Someone was chasing me, probably police and I was hopping from minaret to minaret till I jumped far below to a 2 storied building that had a small swimming pool inside. I could remember everything faintly, but nothing comes out now. I need to get started with this stupidity, sleep and attend ppts and work out problems and work on resume. God and after all this?

End Terms

September 18 is the d-day, in fact, sep 9, 11, 15 and then 18-21 exams and in between this FSA thing also and here I am watching movies till kingdom come. This kingdom come is aped from my favorite prof SV sir. Now this also brings something else to my mind which i took almost 2 years to complete, but am afraid, some fanatic might do extreme crap things if mentioned the real thing.

Okie, what i wanted to mention was the similarity of John-Bips-Ayesha..."No Smoking" and "Butterfly effect". I happened to see them around the same time. And now "Shaurya" and "A few good men". And of course all those tunes and that is forever aped from everywhere. Is not the whole thing aped from nature. Is there something unique that man ever tried to create on his own, without getting inspiration from nature? It was the leo RK(or was it the cancarian AK?) who first mentioned about this movie to me. Both guys were much younger and years older in their infinite wisdome. And when i saw it years later, i had to ponder at times and wonder, whatz going on. Both NS and BE force you to see it with a director's eyes if one does not like gory stuff like me. Any day i would prefer rosy, romantic, beautiful comedies without bloodshed and violence. Of course, world is not like that, but at least let us perceive it that way and hope it all becomes a reality in the long run - peaceful and refreshing without violence and bloodshed and divine humanity.

Just day b4 yes'day i saw Shaurya n now "AFGM" the first 37 minutes and 42 seconds and am already correlating. Now this takes me to covariance and correlation... god, i need to some how at least get a B in QM. Okie got to go. Guess enough of wasting time, now back to business.

Wonderful Wednesday

Tuesday Night

The B block party was supposed to start at 8 and i was in page 287 of Cold Steel. I hurriedly closed the book and rushed to the block to find, no one was there for the mandatory party. I went to my room and checked the mails and wasted time on net. Around 8:45, I saw the dress code and changed the costume. Put the dupatta around like the kalaskethra gals do - to dress up as maids. PB as usual was stunning. 4 pgp1s danced for hip hopper around M. It was a fun thing. I was mildly shocked by the way one pgp2 felt all over PB, which PB related to us later while we were waiting to ramp walk with adequate KnowWhat posted on her face. After dinner and after having posed a wheat mustache in Gentleman style, i came back to my room and got into dancing mood. Picked up "hips don't lie" in youtube and aped the non robotic moves till my hips hurt with all those twisting and turning. It was close to 12 and i switched off the mobile after keeping the alarm at 6:30.

Frightening fits
At 6:30, jes b4 the alarm went off, i woke up and jes as i was about fold the bed sheet, dad started calling. I vividly remembered my dream, i had to walk under a high tension transformer, which was going to burst any second. Then i had to climb down the stairs in front of a temple. what a dream. And there was this security check in front of TN secretariat, by a person called Mazumdar. crazy dream. Please i thought, let me brush and do first things first. When i came back, dad had called 9 times. I called him back, he told that thaatha had passed away. I felt no shock, no tears. Just that it was summon to run home. I took bath, composed a mail to pgp office and told my team mates that i am bunking classes. At 7:30, i missed my pranayam and asanas and rushed to the gate. I saw AA on the way with a glass of milk, so i grabbed a tumbler of milk as well and asked the short cut from mess uncles. At the gate, i asked the security as well. Got conflicting answers. So i took the auto outside the gate and alighted in Diary circle, near Christ college. Within few seconds, there was a bus to Hosur. I was sitting in the first row in the left. In the right, one row behind me, while i was watching some tam movie, there was commotion. When I turned, i saw a lady twitching with fits with froth in her mouth that slowly mixed with blood. The conductor was making her hold the steel bar and the first thing i said was jes Shiva Shiva continuously. The woman who was accompanying the lady ran else where and the conductor was asking someone to hold the lady. I then got up and went near the lady and held her. It was stinking. I was reluctant to use my stole to wipe her mouth. I was so afraid and shocked. The conductor said, use her pallu itself. So i took her pallu and kept wiping her mouth, while praying and willing electric violet light to pass on to her body and heal her. I was praying to all the masters and found that i could not concentrate. Slowly her convulsions subsided and i sat next to her holding her head and making her sleep on my lap. She was supposed to alight at Dillikottai and I had to alight in Hosur. I didn't want to miss thaatha as i had missed my ammayi. So i decided to pray and leave her at Hosur. She got ok, half way through, and used the water i offered, inspite of the conductor asking me not to give her water. I continued to pray, but it was not sincere. I got distracted now n then.

Rest of the journey
I alighted at Hosur. Hopped on to Salem bus. I was trying to pray for that lady out there, reading about "Skeletal and Muscular Disorders" and impatiently, i jes went to elilepsy part. I read and tried to practice word by word, but i got distracted by Yaradi Nee Mohini movie and palakaatu parkathile song. I thought, anyway, i have told guru sir, he would take care. Then to a Namakkal bus, then to a thuraiyur bus which deposited me at Mahadevi entrance around 4:30 p.m, a total of 9 hours without proper food and sitting on gearbox and anything available. My chithappa was there and shortly my cousin came to pick me up in his rattling 2 wheeler. The first sight that caught me was dad n sugi, thoroughly soaked, holding a kudam with garland around their necks. Anna dropped me near the house and I touched my thaatha's feet. He was placed on the main door for wooden plank. Even then, i didn't feel like crying. My appayi, held on to me and cried asking for my brother in Indore. I told her that i didn't tell him. Then after those rites n rituals, i managed to see my thaatha's palms. He had the main lines, but there were no fine lines, it was all plain and yellowish. So in a way, it is true - what he had written in Cheiro's book. Now after bathing him, they kept him again, in specific directions and i touched his feet one last time. It was now, that my cousins and aunts started crying and i could not help crying as well. I don't know why tears came down my cheeks.

Back to B
I caught up with all my cousins and aunts and relations, who had been waiting all this long, just to see me. Around 6:30, I had sambhar, rasam n buttermilk on banana leaf in some neighbour's house, coz my aunts wud not leave me otherwise. I waited till dad came back tonsured; told him that i have classes at 10:15 am. It was 8 when i started from there. I was glad Swami was there as well. When i told him, i am going to go alone as i had come, he asked, r u really going alone? He related an anecdote and i was no longer worrying about travelling in the late hours. Again back to Namakkal. Around 10:30, i boarded a direct bus to blore from Salem. From Hosur, i slept on the front seat behind the driver, till they woke me up at Diary circle. It was some college. The security the other side was throwing bits of cut paper on the road and 2 dogs barked out aloud. As i went near the auto stand, 3 autos started all at once as if they were going to run over me. I told him b and he asked for 150. I told him, i would give double and ended up paying 100 for a 48 fare trip. Around 3:30, i was near SBM, where bats or some creature screeched and i reached my room. The most difficult decision was to take bath in cold water at that time. I thought, if i slept like that, then i would have wash the bedsheet, which was washed only yes'day. I took the bucket and found to my pleasant surprise that hot water came. Then i brushed my teeth and switched off my mobile and kept the alarm at 9:30 am. Back to the mundane life out here.

Stray Astray

I saw it for the first time on a Saturday evening. I had missed my pranayam in the morning and I thought, I could do it up on the terrace in the evening when the sun rays were milder on my skin. The clear sky was still my favourite blue and a gentle breeze was flowing through the mahilam tree that had golden yellow flowers blooming. 3rd std M - the boy who liked to dress up like gal and calls himself Lousiana, followed up stairs to the terrace as I sat to start my pranayam. With him was a brown dog. He had johnson’s baby shampoo and was pouring mugs of water on it and giving instructions to his jimmy with his wonderful hi-fi accent. I was amused to have company after a long Saturday of washing clothes and reading fiction and cooking a sole kadamba meal and eating all by myself after my roomie had vacated.

My eyes were still closed, when I felt something wet on my fingers. Jimmy was licking up my fingers. I got up and stood and it got between my legs and behind me to escape M. He was putting an orange blanket on it and trying to GodKnowsWhat do something to it. He asked, shall I throw it down? He is a cute little kid. I saw he was feeding the dog cashews and some biscuits. But he was like ordering it a bit too much. He had named it jimmy. He was like hitting it a bit too much. Kids never know what they are doing. Finally exasperated after all this jabberings, I asked him, how would he feel if, he were to be thrown from the terrace which was at the 3rd floor. He then dragged jimmy with the blanket down and that was it. I finished my pranayam and answered all calls under the beautiful sky.

2 days later, I heard a howling sound. I could not sleep that morning. It was 4 am kind and jimmy was howling its throat out. It reminded me of the nights post May 15 2007, when dogs howled past midnight till early mornings and gave me nightmares. I called up mom and disturbed her sleep as well, whining, how much this howling sound ate me alive. That night, I investigated and found jimmy was on the first floor junkyard. I had no gas over oven then. So I went out and got it a bun. The next day, I conveniently forgot about it. His ears and rear end were kinda infected. So our doctor uncle had asked his weekender grandson not to go anywhere near it. But for me, my sleep was sacrosanct. I would have done anything to stop it howling and crying at nights. So it started that way. Somehow, later, I could not eat my breakfast or dinner, if I had not given it something. My weekends out of station were full of remorse for having left jimmy to starve. So everyday, it was plain old bread and mixed fruit jam and water.

Later, I got the oven and filled gas, made extra rice and chappathi. It ate anything and everything. I checked with my cubicle mate, what dogs ate. I made it milk rice with sugar or chappathi with sugar and milk. Since, my down floor neighbour back home had told that sweety’s hair fell, if she was given salty food. Later when folks came home to stay for couple of days, mom and my chithi, used to admonish me stating, I should not bring jimmy’s bowl inside the house. It used to be always up there in that junkyard. It would wag its tail furiously and scratch its wonderful parts out and shake itself, when I was near it. It never came down the junkyard. But my 1st floor neighbour didn’t like it there. At times, it was prudent, it would throw the empty bowl down stairs, so that I don’t have to climb up and down and fill it with food.

All my neighbours wanted to shoo it away. But it never moved out anywhere. At times, it would bark at night and I would switch on the lights and see some shadow moving out hurriedly. Some times, when I opened the door, it would be waiting there patiently. Whenever, I went out, it would make so many pranks, running about for a short distance in a semicircle and then coming back, running and then again coming back. I decided not to talk to it, because, my neigbhours would hear it and say something. The other day, the opposite block neighbours were pouring buckets of water through the window to make it go away. To my knowledge, it howled only once that early morning. After that it was just stray barking, if someone came near the gate. But my neighbours kept complaining that the dog was howling the whole night. I checked with my dad and mom to see, if I had missed the howling sound, while I was asleep. They said, no it didn’t howl. There were at least 5-6 street dogs in our area. But jimmy was the leanest, diseased. Thought it got comparatively better now. I could not bear corporation folks killing it. But then, I have just this week. Who would take care of it, after I vacate? Blue cross? Then what about the other stray dogs? This morning, it enthusiastically accompanied me till BDA while I went for morning walk with dad on the railway parallel road. It gave me a gentle hit with its nose on my left calf against my jeans. Again, it gave me company till I boarded the office bus at 8:15. I really wonder, how it managed to cross 3 roads full of fast traffic and still follow me.

I can not take care of it till it is alive. No pets are allowed in the hostel. But is it bad to feed it while you can? Am I stealing its street smartness? But why does it not move away, even after I have long since stopped talking to it? What after this week?