TRIVANDRUM.......

It was my third visit to Kovalam and my first interaction with the sea with the taste of alcohol in my mouth. Craving for beer at one of the best beaches of India did cost me 15 bucks more but then,with that ‘Palone’ kick I saw the Arabian sea in a different avatar. It was like an unlimited or rather limitless expanse of 5:30 in the evening which seemed to me like a combo of darkness nestled intimately with a blurred sunshine coming out of nowhere, it seemed that the sea carrying almost everything and then ,as soon as it kissed and made love to the rocks it was exactly penniless, as if the sea was like Mira who left everything just to be with his very own Krishna which was there on the sides of Kovalam ,from time immemorial, in the form of rocks.

And in the middle of the tsunami of thoughts attacking me that evening ..I uttered “ek bar biwi lo le k aoongaa zaroor”.

Life at Kerala , I thought at that point of time, was becoming interesting. A thought that didn’t come to my mind when I arrived at Trivandrum Central on 14th of Nov ,2010 followed by a failed bargain negotiation with the driver and coolie, only to be dumped , in a greenish ,’kabootarkhaana’ ish room no. 204. And then time started improvising things, it didn’t heal because somewhere I was feeling that there was something missing, but yes, it definitely improvised.

The training done at the tip of this great nation seemed to me in agreement with the premonition that I had on the day when I was interviewed for TCS. “Achcha ye bataao ,tumhe le kyun” was asked by the interviewer umpteen number of times ,and an equally umpteen no. Of times I retorted back..”Sir I have got the hunger ,I will fight it out”. I finally was selected ,but, in those hours between the announcement and the interview I thought-”Am I made for it??,is this the right place for me??”. Incidentally, the same thoughts that I had on the eve of my J2EE lab test.

Java , a word that I hated in college , now became a necessity ,and due to that a phobia of this tremendous language was instilled in me. Sometimes I fell in love with this Gosling’s creation, other times…it was like a web knitted with the poisonous strokes of classes and objects , made only to capture my free spirits. My relation with this ‘programmers’s delight’ started as a challenge to be conquered , went on becoming a phobia , and ended up , still remaining a challenge unconquered.

Technically ,I feel proud to say I came out as failiure. I was proud of this fact because I didn’t run away from the programming intricacies , I faced them all ,although in the end my grey matter losing out to the theory of ‘Platform Independence”.

Friends , were something that I hadn’t expected in the training. I thought it would be all a very ruthless ,dogged professional exercise, where there will be a flurry of associates and a famine of mates, but things turned out to be otherwise . Aruvi Tourist Home , seemed to me as the extension of the hostel life that I had lived and cherished for the last 4 years of my life and needless to say ,was cherishing this period too. Those starry nights, midnight smokes, exuberant bakar(courtesy Ishan and Frusty) were real gem of moments. Kerela , a place which seemed to be a bit strange at first ended up being one where we romed in the nights just to get a cup of tea with fried eggs.

Apart from all the case studies , deadlines and LAAP fears , on 12th feb when when I was boarding a flight to Mumbai for a furthur battle, Kerala didn’t seem all that bad. I had developed a longing for the chettas, was missing the juices of Pattom, and the elegant architecture of Peepul Park. More that God’s own , I think kerala was India’s own, with an awesome literacy rate, co-operatinf people and mesmerizing beauty. It is a state that has clung to its root and is a lesson for the rest of India to look up to and the answer to all those who say “Is desh ka kuch nahi ho sakta”.

All I was able to utter to myself when finally leaving Kochi Airport lounge was …”ek baar saala (biwi ko le k ) aoonga zaroor.