Total Blankness

How many times have i TRIED to write a new post staring at the monitor. Countless times !!!

Its really a long long time since i posted something. I dont know what took me this long. Honestly, I am not finding anything to write.

I have never felt that i was good at blogging. Infact i feel weird about the way i write. Sometimes i feel silly and sometimes stupid too. Still i wrote.

These days nothing worth penning comes into mind. For a while i thought i reached a cul-de-sac . But i dont want to give up writing/blogging. Because writing somehow emancipates me !!

when I am alone in room .. when i am in low...I always get the urge to write. Really. Writing is such a relief. Perfect way to vent .

But..what to write now? I am damn frightened by this question these days.

Yeah..how many times have i tried to write a new post staring at the monitor. Countless times. Fingers hovering  above the keyboard waiting for a "GO".   Infinite times.

And I failed to write a single word.

But i will try.

But nothing comes into mind.

But i dont wanna give up ........

adios
Kranthi

Kranthi's Redemption ;-) ( haha :-) )

Which class was I studying in then ? hmm....3rd or 4th ???Am not sure..i think, i was in 4th class then. I am going to narrate an incident which could be termed as first-of-its-kind-experience for me at that time. Those days ....in general, if i did any mistake i used to worry a hell lot . Because such acts used to disturb the regular pattern of my life :-). Here goes the story.....

One evening ..after coming back from school.... as usually...I went to the college grounds which is just behind our house. Our regular hang out & play ground. As i told you before , some of my most beautiful memories of life were there in that ground.Love it. Call me sometime.. will discuss our childhood memories ;-) . Okay coming back to the point.... that day i was alone.. we were not playing any cricket ... I was just roaming around in the ground. Sometime later... a guy met me... older atleast by 4 years than I was, ,... very dark ...had a round head..pudgy structure. He had a small blue rubber ball with him.Yeah i remember the color of the ball too..how could i forget ?? . He himself came to me and asked whether I was interested to play a game.

The way of playing that game is : we have to fix three small sticks on the ground. Two teams. One team,say catchers, stand on one side of the sticks and the other team,say pitchers, on the other side. One from the pitchers side tries to hit the sticks with the ball . Whether the ball makes the sticks fall or not, if the ball is caught by the catchers he is out. Or if the ball hits the sticks ..making them fall..and if the catchers side cannot catch the ball..the pitchers have to try to fix the sticks coming close to them. In the mean time..before they fix the sticks if the catchers team hit any of the pitchers team with the ball..the catchers get a point. And if the pitchers can fix the sticks avoiding the attack they get a point eventually. Dont get confused. BTW... Anybody heard about this game ? Weird, huh? :-)

Okay.He invited some others and it was begun. Actually, i hate such kind of games..because one has every possibility to get seriosuly hit by the ball,especially the prone areas being the back and legs which hurts a lot.They would never show mercy while hitting others .Actually for most of them that was the most enjoying part where as for me "catching" and "hitting sticks" was fun part. I hated to get hurt physically :-) . That day.. Dont know why.. i was playing with unknown people though i was famous for my reticent nature(lot more than now) . May be beacuse..I was not playing cricket that day .

Okay..after some tiime.... it was time .I had to hit the sticks. I took the ball...tried to hit the sticks with full energy, full vigour, full force. Did it hit the sticks?? NO..it didnt.it didnt hit the sticks. As i pitched it with much force , those catchers cudnot catch it or stop it . It just bounced over them and gone far.. and they went after it. I wud get another chance to pitch. I was waiting for the ball. The catchers team hadnot come back yet .They were searchng for the ball .That area was full of bushes,rocks and trees with thorns. . Even I went there and began assisting them. The process of searching didnt end for a long time. All the players who were playing searched for a while and slipped away .I was searching alone. Only two were there. Me and the BOG (ball-owning-guy). That BOG stopped searching long back and was looking at me . His eyes were threatening me. I couldnt bear those looks as I was a mimosa those days. Sometime later,the light was fading away too,I went to him

and said " Sorry..I could not find. ball was lost ".

He said seriously " I want my ball. I want my ball. Thats it "

I said "sorry ..i couldnt find it"

He came back with " What ?? No.. i want it... or give me money..I want money..."

I was petrified with this new dialogue. I was damn new to these kind of menacing situations.

I mumbled " How much do u want"

The BOG quoted some price . I was flabbergasted.

I was destined to pay 1 rupee. One rupee.Hey Hello... that was not at all small thing to me at that time. At home i was never given pocket money.No such habbit. And besides that I never took money from relatives when they would try to give as a token of love :-) . So..i was thinking " waht to do now??? How would I get that money? one ruppee...my god..where can i find? " My heart was pounding & my mind was panicking, both synchronously :-( . That evening i came home when the day was metamorphosing to night. I sat silently for a long time at the back of our house in despair unable to come up with a solution.

Some days later. That was the time I was getting amnesic to that gruesome memory.Good for me :-)

And One evening .. out of nowhere ... sudenly he popped up before me in the ground and asked me " what about my money?" . I escaped somehow saying " yeah.i will give..." and ran home with heart in my mouth.

On one sunday... i encountered him again. but that time he didnt ask anything. I was the happiest kid on the planet that day. I felt like everything was fine and the world seemed rosy :-) . But that didnt last for more time :-( . In the next meeting,he warned me seriously .I was so worried. What would my mother think if i let her know.I couldnot explain all this to her.I wanted to share this with someone and who else would that be if not Radhakrishna alias Radha,my friend.He was a tough guy.Not like me. I told him about this. He said something which made me feel like I was in some kind of heaven. "Arrey Kranthi..dont u worry ...i will give money to u..u give it to him...dont worry". I never expected that he wud bail me out. But yes... he said that. You can easily imagine how happy i would have felt . RADHA-----My hero :-) .

After many days.... I saw him. The dark guy. The round head. I saw the B-O-G coming on a cycle. He stood there at the college back entrance. This time I was kinda happy seeing him.Because,that was the day i was going to get rid of him for ever. I ran to Radha and told him that he was coming. Radha was ready with THE PRICELESS ONE RUPEE in his hand. We both went to him . I initiated the talk with full confidence saying " hey..take your rupee.." he didnt say a word..but i couldnt help noticing a sly smile on his face. we turned back and ran home.I was so happy that day. The horrendous story ended finally and i began thinking like " kranthi happilly lived ever after" . :-)

ERROR ERROR ERROR...

It didnt end there. Grave error. I realised the mistake only after few more days. To be specific i realised that when i met him the next time. That day.. i was in the ground playing cricket . i saw him coming to me. He was dark.He had the same round head. but..but he was not of the size i saw him on the day of settlement i.e, when i gave his money. But this size matches with the size of his in our previous encounters. Something went terribly wrong.

He came to me and said seriously in an authoritative tone " Oye..what happened to my money?"

Heart ached.Eyes wept .

I replied anguishing and languishing " But...but i gave you. right?"

He was furious " U gave me? u gave me?? what the hell..? i want my money. one last chance. I want my money"

Yes.U guessed it right. I gave it to a wrong guy. But believe me .. both were like carbon copies. Except the size-difference. I exacerbated the situation to that extent where i didnt have any hope left.

It was one helluva awful crestfallen moment for me. Damn !!! That was the moment which witnessed the culmination of my authentic stupidity :'-( . "waht to do now...where shall i go... i cant ask radha again". Pounding &Panicking already began their work.I was so worried. I hated my situation then. How could i be so dumb. I HATED ME . The only resort to me was to go to the only goddess available around :-) : my mom.

That evening i went home. My mom was sitting there at steps . I went to her ..sat silently for a while and told the whole story right from the begining. And when i told about the money too, she said " oh..no big deal..will give u...tell me when u happen to meet him next time " WOW..So relieved.. . Though my mother is always so cool and considerate to me, I dont know waht prevented me from telling her that story long back . I just didnt. ,may be, beacuse i was worried for the fact that I threw away some other guy's owned possession.

Later... i never saw the BOG for a long time. Kinda forgot him and everything. And.... One evening I was going somewhere walking with my uncle and I saw.I saw the dark guy.He had the same round head.It was him. We saw each other and exchanged a smile. And that smile was genuine. In that ephemeral smile, I felt like we recalled everything happened between us right from the day I threw away his ball :-).I found redemption in that smile :-) .Finally... I was like..hmm...say... LIBERATED :-).

adios

Kranthi :-)

An Evening with Bryan Adams :)

The first step which gave me the entire view of the concert ground just enthralled me. Because in that step, I saw the stage built for the coming up performance.My first reaction was like WWWOW and a big smile on my face.It was one humongous one with its top supported by huge gigantic iron bars.While still in awe, i began finding the best view point to see the show. I went here and there and finally zeroed in on one point. People were pouring in like ants. As there was some more time for the show to begin, many were sitting on ground leisurely ,having stood in the queue for a long time. Some epicures began atttacking the food stalls and some cigarete stalls. Even i had one tiny which he called it a veg burger which costed me 60 rupees. And it tasted hell.

I went back to my vantage point waiting for the show to begin. At 7 shamiak davar and his group performed. Soooooooo boring . I wasnt looking for him.Right? :) After his brief performace, there was a pause. And a few minutes later, On stage, some guys(westerners) with black T shirts and shorts started installing the connections to their instruments and other equipment. And at around 7.40, all of a sudden, like a lightning, Bryan Adams in Black shirt neatly tucked in jeans came running on to the stage from the back with guitar and started playing.And the whole band began in sync.And Bryan was singing . Oh!!! It happened so fast and u can never imagine how I and the crowd felt.There was a loud uproar of excitement. His sudden appearing and singing just bowled everyone and that excitement didnt end for a long time. The lights were flashing in blue, red, pink, orange colours. Everybody was just in awe . So was I.

I tried to take some pictures in my mobile. But waht i could capture was only those dazzling motley lights :). I stopped continuing. One guy infront of me began videoshooting through his Sony Xperia mobile .Everybody around me was seriosuly trying to capture the moments :) . A girl who was short was standing next to me.I felt sorry for her as she could not catch a glimpse of bryan Adams nor even stage.The next minute,she lit a cigarete and was smoking... and sharing with her friends.Nobody cud imagine looking at her that she would smoke :) .She was so short.

There was no room to move my feet along X-axis. The only direction i could move was Y-axis: up-down. I could jump and nothing more.So..whenever the view was blocked by 6 plus feet height guys i used to jump up . I took utmost care in balancing so that i could fall in my original pace once i descend.Otherwise i could crush some other's feet. I expected this kind of big crowd and i came wearing shoes :) .

He sang his best hits. And when he started singing "Here I am.." i couldnot help raising my hands and clapping . I enjoyed that song more as it is my favourite. When he began singing "please forgive me..I cant stop loving u."the crowd remained beautifully silent and everybody riased hands swaying them magnificently feeling the passionate singing. He sang so many beautiful songs.

Once in a while,while the show was going on, I told to myself " kranthi...be in aware..be in consciousness..u are here...in the show...Bryan Adams is performing....enjoy the moment... " and i looked around attentively registering everything. And for once, i felt " how would the show be if the performer on that stage was Michael Jackson" :) . Cannot be defined,i guess.

After finishing his song, whenever he looked at the crowd smiling..the whole crowd roared and clapped :) .After one hour Bryan called his band to the front and introduced to the crowd.Then,everyone thought the show was over and all were disappointed. But it didnt end. He introduced his guitarist who is also his friend as "the man with fastest fingers in the world " and who has been with him(BryanAdams) since he was fifteen. And his guitar play was just awesome.

In the middle of the concert, two telugu guys came from somewhere and stood next to me.It seemed they didnt know much about music and his songs.They were talking all the time.The following were a few snippets from the conversations they had at different points of time :

1. If we know any of these songs we could have enjoyed too

2. Shall we go home?

3. Is BryanAdmas drinking water in between the songs

4. How could he remember all the songs completely ?

5.If only these songs were Hindi or telugu ones, we would have rocked :)

and so on... :)

I was smiling hearing those inquisitve doubts .

Some people made their girlfriends sit on their shoulders.I didnt like it because they obstructed my view :)

A little later Bryan asked the crowd " can anyone of you girls come up and sing with me? ". Those words just turned the whole crowd into frenzy. Everybody started raising their hands shouting "Me..Me..Me..". Bryan invited one girl from the front rows.No wonder...she was ecstatic.Not only just ecstatic she acted weird :) When he asked her wether she could sing any of his songs ,she said NO. Then Bryan said sorry and called up another girl .This new girl name was Sheethal. And they both sang and the house/ground was on fire :) She sang really so well and she had that golden moment singing with none other than Mr. Bryan Adams :)

After Sheethal got down the stage,that inquisitive neighbour of mine was saying to his friend " rey...i guess, that girl cannot sleep a wink tonight..she was so lucky to have sung with Bryan Adams!! What say?? "

After some more time..Bryan said he loved the crowd and he called the band to the front and all of them goodbyed us. The band left while Bryan stayed standing alone with arms akimbo. He was looking at the crowd smiling. And u know what happens when he does that act!!!! Yeah... The crowd cried" Bry---yan Bry---yan Bry---yan ..." He was smiling still and suddenly turned ,ran a few steps and picked up his guitar.The crowd cried again "OOOOOOO ... OOOO" :) and he began singing.He asked the crowd to raise their hands with their mobiles and evrybody did. While he was singing soulfully I looked back once.WOW..those infinite countless raised mobiles with their screen light were brightly shining like stars.Totally in rapture.Totally enchanted. WOW. Nice idea.Isnt it ? He performed two songs solo . I was closely observing his playing of guitar.Just awesomely superb.

After those songs, he bade Goodbye and the lights on stage were turned off !!! :( .

Everyone of us started moving. As i couldnt move my feet while the concert went on, i got cramps in my legs and couldnt move .I thought i would fall down. I slowly paced towards the exit with severe pain. Luckily I got into a cab going towards Hebbal.And from Hebbal, i caught a bus to my place. I had my dinner at PG..went back to room and slept happily.Yeah ,ofcourse..my feet were paining :) A day to cherish !!! :)

Actually, in the evening, I went to the Palace grounds-Bangalore, where he was gonnna perform , around 5 30 pm as the show was at 7pm. Oh God!! the queue was immeasurably long. I bought a water bottle...stood in the queue and began texting to some friends and also tweeting :) .My friends were equally thrilled and everybody was sure that i was gonna enjoy the show as they know well about me :) .

Hey, All you guys !!!! Yeah, As u said/thought/wished, I enjoyed the show so so much :) .

Adios

Kranthi :)

Road to Perdition :(

Hello Hello !!!! ... Looking at the title ... Do not expect an engrossing story like that of Michael Sullivan, Sr . Okay??? Thanks... okay.. lets start!!! :)

What an excruciating day !!!!

The only reason i booked a ticket for Dhobi Ghat was : "What to do in the room on weekend ... lets go and kill some time." For no reason, I was not at all that much intereseted to see that film.Having said that, somewhere deep inside i wanted to see it :). Finally I booked ticket for Saturday 11 45 am show at PVR Banglore.

Saturday Jan 22 2011 : The D-Day

After TV-ing for quite a long time on friday night I slept in the early hours of saturday .. hmm .. around 2 am. Didnt have a sound sleep and woke up at 6 30 am. Switched on TV and was changing the channels in random.At one channel,TV9-kannada...a deserted bus-stand was shown. I was like "oh God...is that Banglore". But i found peace a few seconds later when i found that was Mysore bus-stand. Then i forgot about that and got ready.I should have glued to that channel or some other news channel for some more time. Really should have.

The weather was awesome.Cool winter breezes were circling me. Feeling the morning freshness in the air. I went to Bus-stop at 9 50 am .Generally, It takes almost 90 minutes to reach PVR from my place.Please do not mock at me for travelling that long for watching a movie.I know you wont. Thankyou :P . Ok... I reached Bus-stop and there was already a big crowd there wating for buses. 5 minutes later a bus came and took some with it .People inside were like biscuits in a packet.Tightly packed.Couldnt dare to get in. No other bus was seen coming.I thought that the 'bandh' in Mysore(about which i saw on TV) was trying to cast its shadow over here. Never came the idea into my mind that it was actually 'bandh' here at Banglore too. Infact,it was state wide bandh.

As i didnt have a proper sleep, my eye lids were intermittently falling down freely closing my eyes.I supported my back against the railing of the busstop and was feeling tired and wanted to go room and hit the sack when the inner kranthi came out and said "..but kranthi,waht if the movie was good..what if you missed some great performances.." Actually, i was also looking forward to experiencing the background score by Gustavo Santaolalla, oscar winning composer. i had been waiting there at bus stop for 30 minutes till then . when I was about to drop the idea of movie, a truck arrived with almost 80 to 90 people standing in the back of it. A person sitting beside the driver was crying "silk board". Thats the place i had to go .As there was room for one more guy i got up into the cabin and I was so elated :) Now,the cabin had: the driver,the other person and me. The truck was so high above the ground unlike the bus. Good engine.Good speed too. Trying to see Bangalore in a different perspective from that height :) .

The drama begins:

The truck picked me at 10 20.To reach on time it must go faster. But kya kare!!!!Kranthi proposes - God disposes. the truck stopped at every person's horizontal hand i.e.signal to stop . And it stopped at every bang on it by whoever wanted to get down from truck.You know the trucks!!! To get down and get on to it was not that easy.Time consuming task. At one stop, one guy stopped the vehicle and when i showed him to go back, he was totally reluctant. He wanted to get into our cabin. I said no room and he was adamant.He opened the door by himself, was hanging in the air holding the handle with one hand like a skilfull Orangutan hanging from a tree-branch . What he was doing there hanging was he was discussing and also demanding me to let him in. But there was no room at all. Uff! finally got rid of him.I knew he hated me :(

The only stop i know about, which comes between my place and the Silkboard, is Marathalli. I know nothing about the other stops. When people stopped the vehicle they would ask me whether it was going to "domalur" or some " xxxxxx" ," yyyyy" or "zzzzz" . The first thing is i donot know whether those places come en route. And the second thing is i dont know even the basics of kannada to tell them that "i dont know" . I just would give them my 'blank face' as reply. And in turn i would get some serious, disappointed and sometimes threatening looks too from them.All their grimaces posed one straight question for me " what kind of cleaner are you ,you dumb fellow??!!! Who gave u this job?? " :(

The driver was lank and had a light beard. Somewhere in the middle he was saying in kannada to my co-passenger "more than 100 people sir... will get 1000 today". He was so ecstatic . I felt good seeing his happiness.

I thought it would be better for me if i had some clarity on why buses were not plying much.But the driver and the guy next to me who was also a passenger,were chatting in kannada.What to do?? Finally, after my observation , i found out that the guy next to me, was speaking only 2 words in kannada " eshtu" " barthi" .He was cleverly managing with just those 2 words. i figured out that he was not a local and he must be either a telugu or a hindi speaking guy. Taking my chances, i asked him in hindi whether there was any bandh that day. He said yes and explained in detail in hindi the reason for bandh.Trust me he gave me a not less than 15 minute lecture. This guy was crazy too, in a way. He was asking the driver to pull over the vehicle and go back and collect the money,though a cleaner was there in back. Enkamma!!! I was already running out of time and this guy was hatching some more plans to aggrandize my plight !! :) . But he had the point !!

I opened a book from my bag which has been in pending for quite a long time. But the book found its way back into the bag within a minute. The reason: As the truck was giving me up&down oscilations with a little wavelength,the book was coming close to me and then it was going far down.Up-down-up-down. I couldnt even had the vigour to put on my ipod which was a very unlikely and a rare case. I was so restless and had a strong desire to sleep . But the truck stopped for every 5 minutes and i was bombarded by those incessant enquiries of the road-blockers i.e, people at bus stops . A cleaner's job is the most demanding job.Lesson learnt :)

The driver stopped the vehicle at marathalli .The driver was absolutely unhappy and totally disappointed when the cleaner who was at back came to driver and gave him just above 100 rupees. A zero less in what driver expected i.e.1000. He was completely dejected.But he didnt say a word to cleaner .i felt sorry for him. After some more time when my stop came , i gave him little more than waht he asked .He tried to give me back but i insisted him to keep it.

It was already 11 45. The movie time. I hurried..caught an auto to reach PVR. He charged me more than than the usual rate citing the bandh . I was already late by 10 minutes . I got down and was made to pay another 5 rupees besides the doubled fare when the autowallah said he had no change to give back :( .Having no time to argue,I crossed the road and rushed towards the entrance. There i found one A4 size white sheet clipped to a card board on a stand with these bold arial fonted words imprinted on it "MALL IS CLOSED".

What have i done? :'(  I embarked on a journey which didnt augur an iota of excitement right form the start.But i continued with all those restlessness,sleepiness,tiredness only to end up like this. Emi faceuraa ,kranthi? .Lost all my strength by the time i reached PVR.

I could have got down from the truck the moment when i was made aware about the bandh.But i didnt because my mind(if there is) vouched saying " By the time the movie gets finished..buses will ply normally." But now what??? I didnt have enough options. Immediately , I called an auto and he charged me double (obviously) to take me back to silk board stop. I got down and caught a van to drop me half way . This van driver was smarter than that truck driver. He clearly stated the fare which was double than the usual and he started the vehicle only after he collected all the money.I was woken up by someone when the van reached its destination, Marathhalli. My sleepy eyes were burning and burning. A few minutes later, luckily, got into a bus to my place. Finding no shop to buy food ,i got back to room...and .. and ... i just slept for the next six to seven hours like a dead man :)

hmm... THE END

adios

Kranthi

ABCDEF ( A Boy's Cool Dreams & Eerie Fantasies :P )

I know u will feel weird once u start reading this post. So .... to lessen the boring effect , i have a plan :) .Before u start reading this u need to alter some basic Reading Settings of your mind .Okay? Now... what u need to do is : Enable the checkbox which reads 'I must think like a little kid in school while i read' .

So,having done that..now check out a kid's dreams and fantasies as related to profession he wanted to choose :) . By the way... good luck :) haha !!! .Dont forget to check the time periods of those fantasies  as i didnt follow the chronology :) . Here we go ...

Time period : 1st standard - 8th standard

When kranthi was in school....when relatives or acquaintances came to house and if they asked him “kranthi..what do u wanna become in life?”

He would say with full confident air “Doctor”

And when they wowed he would feel great.

Why did he want to become a doctor in the first palce ? As this was his prime and serious dream & wish, i would write a bit more about this dream of his:

He considered that there were only two career options for him : Engineer or Doctor . He heard a lot on "maths for Engineering & science for Medicine " .So he had to go for Maths or for Science. But he disliked maths as he was not confident (upto 8th class) and maths always sent shivers down his spine. He obviously chose to become a doctor as he always got very good marks in Science. Well…. Coming to marks…he got good marks in maths too but he knew it was not his forte. ”So..take science and become doctor “ he thought so.

His grandfather was a doctor(RMP) and sometimes little kranthi would be given a polythene bag with different kinds of medicines in it by his grandfather to give them off to known patients. . The kid would go to their house and give them saying “this tablet – in the morning, this one-after lunch..so on ”. And they all would appreciate him for his suave doctorgiri ( need to apply for patent for this new word 'doctorgiri' :P ) and would say “you sure will become a doctor” :) .You should have been there to see his face and an auot-change in his gait. Oh boy!!!! full nakhras!! :) On his way back to home.. he flew up in the air like a bird having accomplished the task perfectly ;).

He always and always thought of becoming a doctor until his interest shifted to maths in 9th class. Loved maths since then and opted for MPC :) . Lucky people/patients :) .Ain't they? :)

Time period : In 4th standard

One day in this time period … his friend sreeman told him that he wanted to become a 'bank clerk'.

Kranthi asked him curiously with eyes wide open “rey sreeman...whats that job raa ?”

You know kids. They always boast innocently what they know. And our Sreeman was not an exception .He explained enthusiastically ” it’s a job in bank ... very good job , I will become a clerk. i will get lots of money as salary ”

As the word 'bank' seemed synonymous for 'money', kranthi pondered over choosing that profession . But this hardly lasted for a few minutes.

Time period : 1st standard - 5th standard

Radha(Krishna) and kranthi were so close friends from their kindergarten days. Their day always started meeting at the back of their house under the neem tree with tooth brushes moving in and out of their mouths.They used to talk / discuss everything under the sun at this hour. Many a time, Radha said that his grandfather worked in Mintry. Don’t try to find the meaning of the word ‘mintry’ . He meant ‘millitary’ :). As kids,we both ( and everyone of u too) loved action stuff. Machine guns ... millitary dresses … etc. So .. sometimes in this period , he dreamt of becoming a mintry officer (;-) ) fighting against Pakistan fiercly eliminating all the enemies and bringing victory to his motherland :P. But this too faded so fast.

Time period : 3rd standard - 5th standard

Radha and kranthi ,on one sunday, saw a hindi movie on DD(only channel then) called Raksha starred by Jithendra. It was a james bond kind of movie . Gadgets, sleek guns and most importantly what caught us like wildfire was the –automatic knifes in the boots of the hero which he uses against a giant sized rowdy :) . Also,we saw many other CID movies too. So, we both thought how cool spies were. So, kranthi dreamt what he would do if he were a spy and what disguises he should wear to deceive villains and extract SECRET files from them. He thought about disguises like : Rickshaw puller, Fruit Vendor pushing a cart parking infront of villains house etc etc :) . All heroic thoughts.

Time period : 4th standard - 8th standard

This was one more important dream of his which continued for a long long time. One day in 4th class..in classroom… kranthi drew 3 cartoons looking at a cover page of srikanth's notebook. He liked it. He felt he did draw good and he enjoyed doing that. From then on… he started drawing everything he wanted to draw. Cartoons, scenes of nature, Gods, ships, cars, flights, writng names in different styles. sometimes he tried drawing movie artistes, national leaders too . During Kuwait war he drew saddam Hussein offering flower boquets instead of missiles. It came up so well. He enjoyed drawing. As he used to go to school on rickshaw (i mean sitting in it with others / not riding it :P ) ... everyday on his way to school he would look at the name boards of the shops observing the style ,clours etc. Sometimes he thought how good it would be if he became a great painter.

while in 6th class,kranthi and his benchmate Amarnath used to discuss a lot about drawing. all the time, he used to fill every white paper with some drawing or etching his name stylishly. His shelf at home was filled with crayons,sketches,colourpencils,water colours,brushes.So Cool!!! .At school, His friends used to give their new notebooks to kranthi to have their names wriiten on the first page .

He always wanted to get trained which he never did. But he still continues drawing like a dilletante.

I wish he should have gone in that direction seriously.

Time period : In  6th or 7th standard

One day at Radhakrishna’s house….Radha was having a serious argument with Srikanth.War of Words . Full heat. Full aloud. Kranthi went there.. saw the scene and asked them to stop for a while. Then he asked them to explain what happened actually. Both started at once. He stopped them and asked them to speak one at a time.In the mean time while one was speaking he stopped wherever needed & questioned to get clarity. After listening to both of them –individually and jointly, Kranthi pondered, analysed… and finally solved their problem with his brains. All were happy :) . Radha’s father who was a lawyer himself appreciated Kranthi's reasoning very much. Then he thought “ how would it be if I become a lawyer ? this seem so cool. “ :)

That night he slept dreaming about the prospects of becoming a lawer :) . Next day he forgot everything. :)

Time period  < 4th standard

Black dress, black coat, black shoes, black goggles, black super bike etc etc. Got anything? ;) This is the superhero stuff yaar. Sometimes when he was alone and was in his dreamland ,he imagined himself in these costumes and accessories . If ur question to him is “But Why? “. He would say “c’mon yaar… with my super powers, i will appear wherever the evil exists and whenever the people are suffering and will save them , help them and then they  cheer him 'HERO HERO' “ :P . i think,may be, he drew inspiration from his all time favourite super hero Spider-man :)

Time Period  <  5th standard

As Science was his favourite subject, he thought he could become a great scientist. He discussed the topic with Radha who also shared the same opinion. Under the neem tree( the same tree which was mentioned before :) ) they kick started thinking about becoming a scientist. As they believed that a scientist invents creative and new things they pondered for a while about what to invent. Brain storming was begun. TV,Radio,Bikes,Aeroplanes,Trains,pen, pencillin..etc etc...everything was already invented.They found nothing to invent ;) :P  and they took it lite  :) .But they thought about that often.


Time period : from the day the little  kranthi started walking - 10th standard

Kranthi was brought up at his grandmothers house and the house is just behind the govt junior college which has a big play ground.Just a wall separates backyard from college. His grandmother says “you both (me and radhakrishna)were not even 4 years old , picked a bat and ball and went to college grounds and then u walked one kilometer outside college on road. Actually what happened was , one evening, suddenly we found u both were missing . we went inside college and there someone told us 2 kids played there and went out sometime ago. Then we went in different directions and finally found u people far away coming back again talking to each other with bat and ball ” .

So… that was just the beginning. Cricket was his life in his school days. His heart ached whenever he missed a match . If u subtract the time@school and sleeptime@house from his total school life, the time u will get is the cricket-time@collegegrounds. In some class,7th or 8th, he was bedridden for more than a week with fever .Medicines ,saline bottles,Injections were on high. One morning he felt a bit better and slowly sneaked into the college ground. He was watching a match and it was like he was back to paradise. Within few minutes his grandmother came searching for him and gave a big lecture while taking me back .

Every night before Sunday he used to sleep dreaming about the wickets he would take ,runs he would score and catches he would take in the matches coming up the next day. Not only dreams during night he also day-dreamed about nothing but cricket. Lovvvvvely dreams. Never thought of making it a career but he thought he would play the game all his life.

So ...whats the status of  ABCDEF now? ;)

I didnt turn out as a doctor but ended up as a Software engineer. Still i am a kinda doctor to myself..because i (like everyone of us )take my own medicines for little problems :) 

I never did a job in bank clerk but usually I go to banks :) .

And didnt join mintry too ( millitary ;) ) though i considered it once in engineering :)

I was never a spy but these managers spy on our work all the time yaar :(

By the way, i forgot to mention that i had one black shirt,black jeans and black honda shine bike ;) Despite that, i'm not a super hero but i love watching hollywood superhero movies :). Just love them :)

Hmm... if a  'scientist' job is to create something ... then i created some code  :P

Still i try to resolve some conflicts of friends and in family playing a peace maker and thus I am a sort of lawyer to them :) .

Well..now my engineering & office friends will understand the root cause for my multitude drawing galore in every page of my notebooks :) . This is the only thing i am continuing till this day. Last year when i went to a training the trainer looked funny (only to me though) and i could draw him on first day :)

Yeah ..I miss cricket.Played so much till engineering. And in some rare occasions later. I dont remember when was the last time i played. Years passed. Sometimes, on weekends , i get a great rush to play a match again. But Its not a single person game.right? . I miss the game so so much. The sound that emanates 'when the ball i bowled hits the stump' ' when my bat strikes the ball for a perfect square cut' 'the uproar of jubilation in team when i take a great catch' is truly madly deeply missed :'( .

P.S : 1.Theres one more dear dream which i feel i should have nurtured .I wish I were in that area . Any guesses?
2.Hey.. dont forget to restore to your original settings. You did change one in the begining.Remember? :P

adios folks
kranthi :)

A Collection of Best Embarrassing Moments - IV

Faux pas :(

At school..whenever exams...even monthly Unit tests...got finished..all my friends would go to movie ... evening show .. on the last day of the exam. They would celebrate as if they had just finished graduation :) :). I never went with them. Dont know why. Just never went :)

But one time..they (Radhkrishna,Srikanth,Hari,shyam ) inisisted and even I thought of joining them. The movie was a tamil dubbed movie 'I Love India". As the title evoked some patriotic flavour with full of action, i said okay. . In the last minute one friend dhani alias dhaniah alias Daniel ( thanaki moodu perlu :) ) misinformed us ( we didnt know he didnt see the movie).. that he saw and the female lead's part was too indecent .And Shyam who was also bringing two other kids with him who were in their fourth standard, didnt want to take them to such movie and declared that we should not watch that.

He came up with an idea of goin to another movie called "asale pellayinavaani" which had Naresh as hero. We didnt like the idea.He convinced us saying it would have comedy as it had Naresh. what to do?? We went and .. oh... no. .. this movie had some top notch damn vulgarity. edchinattundi cinemaa. After the movie..i was going home thinking how would mom react if she found this .I was embarrassed . I went home ... she didnt ask me .... silently had dinner...she didnt ask me ... i lied down on bed and was trying to sleep..and then she asked :(

She asked "how was the movie?".

chachhanu.. I was 'dead' silent.

She asked again."i am asking you ... how was the movie".

I said with full embarrassment " we didnt go for I LOVE INDIA. we saw another one"

she stressed "Then..which movie?"

"we went to 'asale pellaina vaadni' " .

ఇక చూసుకోండి....she began " అసలా cinema పేరేంటి .... pillalu chusey cinemaanaa adi...? What did u say in the morning? Why did u go to that movie? c'mon say something ...". Full Class. . తల తీసేసినట్టయింది .


SLAP STORY

That day in school .... second period in the afternoon.... Telugu teacher Anuradha ma'am was asking questions on sandhulu-samasalu which was a daily routine for some time. That day.. She asked one question .... and nobody could answer that .... everybody was rising from their seats in sequence .A bit geography about classroom. the class room seating would be like I_I and the last benches were joined. The left column was of girls and the right column, boys.And the long jointed last row was occupied by boys :).

Back to story... everybody in the class was standing...the line would meet me in the last bench in a few seconds. manadeppuduu last benche :) . .Finally it was my turn and i answered. OOPS.... it was wrong. I was shell-shocked and i stood still. The standing line started from the first bench in the right and it came back to last bench where i sat and it was going again to the front in left side. The  wave kept its tempo and rising all the way. I wished it would go on like that keeping everyone standing. But it didnt. Rajini would always sit in the fitst bench-first seat. She was the one who would get to face that question last. So...the standing wave reached her.She rose and ..and answered. Correct answer. My heart cried " NOOOOOOO !!!!... "

There was a reason for my muuga-outcry . Whoever would answer to the question by ma'am should slap the other not-answered-boys/girls. The humiliating slapping process was like: Hold the nose of the person with one hand and slap with the other. And .. And Rajini began her work. Slapping everyone in the class. She was reaching me .To slap . She came.She saw.She slapped. Embarrassing. Embarrassed for many reasons. Emabarrassed because i couldnt answer and she was the only one in the class who could answer.Embarrassed because she got a chance to beat everyone.Embarrassed thinking how proud she would feel with this mass-slapping :) More embarrassed thinking what if i never get a chance to repay her in this style :) :) . [ Months later..i got that chance :). i'll tell u phir kabhi .i dont think she remembers any of these :) ]

Okay guys ...  thats the end of the series. Thanks for bearing with me all this time :) 

adios
Kranthi :)

A Collection of Best Embarrassing Moments - III

Half  नाम brings बदनाम :)   :

 This was a difffferenttt situation. You know that my name is kranthi kumar.just keep in mind :) . I have one habbit since my schooldays. i always draw something in my notebook. If u open my notebook u will find something ... some kind of drawing.My friends knew this. sometimes u will find some unfinsihed drawings too. The reason is ..somewhere in the middle..if i lose interest or if some other work is to be addressed i would leave that in that middle. This habit is still ON :) . Okay besides drawing i always write my name in different different styles embellishing it. I always,mostly, write just "kranthi" leaving "kumar" to gaali(winds :) ).

 Okay..getting back to story : One day, in school, I started writing my name in the centre of a notebook...in one whole paper ... in big double lines like we find the movie titles on posters. For a time i developed a fascination towards the "kumar" in my name.That day i was writng just "kumar".I allocated one complete paper for that . ఒక అమరశిల్పి జక్కన లా K చెక్కాను. U చెక్కాను M చెక్కాను A చెక్కాను. చివరగా R కూడా చేక్కబోయాను . కాని అప్పటికే bore కొట్టి చచ్చాను . So lite తీసుకున్నాను . I was in class ..i got so so bored and I didnt sculpt the last letter "R" :)

AFTER FEW MONTHS. One day Jani who was famous for his mafiaic activities like having powerful connection outside the school :) was flipping the pages of my notebook and accidentally stopped at one page and cried loudly with excitement " OOOOOOOO... whats this?...hammaaaa!!!!." I looked at it and was shell shocked. I found there K U M A . bore కొట్టి మధ్యలో వదిలేసిన నా సుందర నామ చివరి సగభాగం . OH god...!!! చచ్చాను ...There was one girl K.Umamahalaxmi in our class. just naa mundhu bench. My "KUMAR" sans R outputed a new eaquation "K UMA " . Shortform for Umamahalaxmi :'( . Though there was sister-brother jargon in the school... no one in class would miss this opprtunity to comment. I was fully embarrassed. Ee జానిగాడు balckmail చేసి చంపేస్తాడు అని అనుకున్నాను ..కాని luckily he forgot everything and saved me from further embarrassament :) .Thanks Jani :)

 AUTO-matic-GRAPHS :) :

 Final semester... the twilight of enginering days :( everybody was thinking "what they're gonna miss"!!! .E verybody was buying autograph books /slam books and running after their dear friends. There was one girl Aparna,my classmate . She was also in my lab practicals batch who once, (2-1 / 3-1? not sure) helped me in the lab external exam. I was stuck with some problem in the lab and she herself came to me and helped me.That day I felt like she was some angel descended to help me in the lab :) .

So ..coming back to final days of engg... i thought i would take autograph of hers. I decided. That day..everybody was busy scribbling in others' books. I took Ramesh with me for company and went to her and gave my book. She was scribbling and i stood there.Some other girl(our classmate) came and sat beside her.After Aparna finished she asked "shall i pass on this to her?" .That other girl was looking and if i said "NO" it wouldnt look good though i hardly spoke to her before. I said "okay .... u pass it on..". By then there were already 5 to 7 girs accumulated in that area. nenu booked.Then I said,pointing to another girl "after that...give it to her.. " Then Aparna said "Dont worry...i will pass this to everyone". I didnt say anything but okay.They were all scribbling in my book like automatic machines as they didnt know anything abt me. I left that place and went later to collect.

I collected and was goin to hostel with Ramesh . I was feeling embarrassed. Actually dying with that feeling. I didnt feel okay having those details (though they didnt write much ) of the girls who i never spoke to.I wanted to have Aparna's and i ended up with all. Even they too might have disliked and totally hated writing in a person's book whom they hardly knew. Finally ...i vented my anguish to ramesh " Hey ramesh..am not feeling good..this is embarrassing". And u know waht ramesh said " hammayya!!! thank god!!! kranthi.... now i am happy ... 2 days back ..even i gave them mine ... and from that time i am feelin awkward too .. now u added to the list ...cool " .He was ROFL. I kept aside my suffering and i joined him. Laughing. But till today... whenever i think about that i feel embarrassed :( .


Two Birds At One Blow :)    :


This is can be called Collective Embarrassment :) మా father కి telugu భాషన్నా ..telugu literature అన్నా మాంచి ప్రాణం అన్నమాట . He likes the movies which reflect telugu culture and indian culture. So..obviously he loves the director Bapu.

okay now coming to the point..while i was in school..on some holiday...soembody brought VCP .We were watching the movie Rajendraprasad's "Mister Pellam" directed by Bapu. My dad was sitting beside me on the bed supporting his back against the wall. The video was being played on TV infront of me but the audio was being played beside me.Didnt get this??? నేను చెబుతాను kadaaaaa.... Ever since the movie started my father started eulogizing about Bapu ,his films, his film-making-style . నేను "ఊ " కొడుతూ చూస్తున్నాను .
  
So ..then came a song sequence in the movie.Hero sings about heroine . it goes like " aa sogasu chuuda tharammaaa..." My dad re-bounced with full enthusiasm and was saying "See...the other directors show herones in a bad light..see Bapu..see there..how decently bapu is showing his heroine with that బారు జడ ..నిండు చీర ...." .Then it happened.I wish i were not there . All of you who saw that song would understand. what happened was :

while my father was singing paeans about Bapu ...alas.... during that song.. at one moment ... how to say..hmm ... ok.. the heroine's saree slipped/slid from her shoulder... The second we saw that scene ..my father instantly stopped talking and was absolutely silent. I think it was a crest-fallen moment for him .. .. and i didnt find a place to hide my head :) . I dont know what the director might have thought about including such scene but i cursed my presence there at that moment .Usually ..in normal cases..when we we happen to watch such scenes with parents we would feel awfully embarrassed. But in this case ..even worse...while my father was raving abt the director and suddenly happening this kind of thing out of blue .... its million zillion times more than that.

But ...everytime i think about that there comes a smile on my face :) . Dual embarrassment :)

-Kranthi :)