Monday, October 31, 2011

Confessions of a (just) BE


                                       Confessions of  a (just) BE


I looked back at the dog.It wouldn't stop staring at me.Probably I was the first one to sit there-on that footpath.The next moment the dog's face became the interviewer's face and I had this impulse to kick it with all my might.Somehow restraining myself,I got up and looked for one last time at the 17th company that had rejected me.
"Which is your passion?"he had asked.
"Cricket."I had replied,without hesitation.He asked me to leave.I probably had just two passions in life-the other...anyways both were apparently not worth it at this time in my life.

"Study hard"was the first principle that was drilled into me in life.I adhered to it.That was the problem.I got good percentages in school,in my pre-university and landed up in an engineering factory.I was to be a proud product of such and such factory,with an aggregate of so much,having such and such skills.It was a bandwagon-and I had jumped into it before knowing that there were thousands of such factories churning out lakhs of engineers each year.

I got into the bus for a long ride back home.I looked out of the window.It was my favorite pastime when on a bus.I saw littered roads,poor people,unhygenic slums.I wanted to change all this..In a rush of emotion I clasped my file.Oops there was also a degree-a BE at that! I first had to do justice to that."Get a job-get a salary.Make a livelihood"-an other of those umpteen principles in life!

The bus passed in front of a mall.I longed for weekends that could be spent in malls.A saturday evening starting off with a lot of window shopping(give the impression that I am a potential customer),dinner at the food court and a late night movie seemed a perfect picture.And with a close friend next to you,you could easily ogle at the hundreds of girls who seem to throng malls as though they own them..and even pass a comment or two.I cursed my BE that didn't give a license in the form of  a job for all this!

Girls! Even they somehow evaded a decent BE graduate.All my friends who had a girlfriend languished at the bottom(or was it the other way round?).It was probably cool.I am sure they will end up with a job soon(I mean they always said a girl brings them luck).But I am not so sure I will end up with a girl-even if I get a job.The geniuses obviously attract the opposite sex without effort.So it was only surprising that my genius friends didn't book a ticket for their girls as they waved them goodbye in one hand and held Kgs of American Dreams in the other.

Their flight took off and I was left gaping at it...standing on the tallest vantage point-probably secretly hoping that if I could touch the bottom of an American flight..I would get a chance to do my master's there.I could imagine thousands of average BEs like me trying to do the same in different parts of our country.....

The bus stopped suddenly.I was jerked up from my reverie.Apparently there was a fault.All of us got down.
A mechanic rushed to the spot and corrected it.All the while I was looking at what he was doing,being a mechanical engineer myself.I couldn't make head or tail of what he was doing.In the end,he noticed me.I was clutching the degree to my chest(it had become a habit).He probably noticed it.He smiled a smile of sarcasm and left the place.

Then the thought hit me.He along with the world seemed to think that I was a (just) BE.

P.S.: The work is fictitious.But I am sure a genuine BE would connect with atleast one instance here!

Friday, October 28, 2011

One Life...Many Worlds

                                        One Life...Many Worlds.
A thousand doors all around me
I stood there at the centre.
Each of them led to a different world
And each of them I wanted to enter.

The World of Ambition was a risky one
It ventured nowhere beyond the door.
All I did was just stand there
Wishing I could know some more.

The World of Brilliance beckoned at me
I was to just knock the door at the right place.
I knocked here,I knocked there
But it stood still,with all its grace.

The much used door to Hardwork opened
And I thought I could hold sway.
But I found I had to build my own path
And my desire melted away.

The door to Treachery leered at me
Promising pleasures unknown inside.
And as I fought an unknown enemy
My conscience was my guide.

Blindfolded,I entered the World of Hope
A friend called Luck by my side.
It is foolish now that with each step I take
My heart swells with pride.
                                                                       -28th October 2011
                                               

Friday, October 14, 2011

Life in 2110.......


Life in 2110.......


Finally,after 2 months of eager waiting,I have got my chance to register and preserve a record of my thoughts on digital media.There is this feverish wait for this chance throughout the world,what with digital space supposed to get "extinct" in an other month.From then on,thoughts can stay only in our heads-and we can afford only so much!!!.I really hope this page is read the mandatory 1000 times before next week-so that it is preserved forever.

Life has changed so much in the last 100 years...more so in the last 50.I stopped aging 60 years ago,so that I could remain forever 40.To stop aging is a fairly simple procedure.They take your cells out at the age you want to stop aging and preserve it.Each year you are injected with the same cells,which multiply inside your body,replacing the older cells.It is a painful procedure,but worth the trouble.Death is distant now..unless an accident or a natural calamity.The only condition is that I must not have a progeny-births without deaths are dangerous for the planet!!!

My day begins with a lot of gymming..oh not physical activity in the least!!The trend of the day is "Brain Gyms".These are specialised centres for keeping your brain in shape.So you have the odd physical activity which supplies more oxygen to the brain,but majorly each workout is aimed at improving the activities of the various lobes and coordinating their functionality.It is very rigorous but intellect is the order of the day...so we have to go through it!!

After a couple of hours,it is office time!!Traffic jams are a thing of the past.The cars now are really efficient and high-speed for that.They levitate a couple of inches above the ground,powered by electromagnets in the car and the road made of iron.Pooling of vehicles was made mandatory even before I stopped aging.That way things have improved a great deal.

My office is a glass structure,fully equipped to tap and amplify solar power(Coal exhausted long ago.So did water.Nuclear was disacarded after World war 3).We enter after a process of DNA matching(Retinal scans are history).Each of us is given a work-station and a cubicle.Our employers expect a lot from us.Each of us is monitored using a Caesium clock accurate to one-millionth of a second.It is programmed to stop if we stop working.We are to put in 6hours of effective work and this takes 10 hours in normal time!!. We are discouraged to step out of our cubicle and talk to neighbours.To give us company,each of us has been given a robot we call DIGIBOY.We are supposed to talk to him when we get bored.The lady employees are given a similar DIGIGIRL.We are planning to ask the managers to swap the robots given to the male and female employees.But the worst part is that these robots are charged using our energy.You have to wire them up to your body,so that they start talking!!All these measures to make sure we are efficient.3 days in a month where your efficiency drops below 95% and you are fired.Measuring the efficiency is again a very complex algorithm...so let me not bother you.

Two concepts which seem to have changed forever are food and money.Food is now basically capsules.It is a capsule per day with all the nutrients in their RDA.This capsule is designed to bloat once it enters the stomach..so that the fullness and the satisfaction is somewhat there.The nutrients are absorbed by the body,but the capsule comes out as excrement.We take this back to our company which gives the nutrients for the next day-in the same capsule.(Yes,every company takes complete care of employees now).So in a way.we are eating our own excrement each day.But this is the hard way Nature has taught us the value of recycling!!

And money.The wads of paper are long extinct.The new currency is memory.In units of bits,bytes running upto Peta bytes now.Each day,the company gives us blocks of memory and we fill it up efficiently to get our capsule.If we manage to save some blocks of memory,it goes into our account so that we can sell it once  we retire for capsules of food.It is really as simple.

Social life is virtually non-existent.Holidays have taken a beating.The company does not want us to go out of town.So all we have are virtual tours,monitored by robots,which are programmed to provide us with the experience of travelling to a place and back,while we sleep at night.So each of these tours is basically a dream lasting for a night,but we have learned to enjoy it all the same.(I have already been to the North Pole,mustering resources for a trip to the South Pole).

The only concept  lasting from erst-while life to today's has been social-networking.Many sites like Facebook have cropped up and are cashing in on our busy lives.I have never yet met my neighbour in person-but we chat up each day on our local network.
As I wind each uneventful day up,I wish I could dream while I sleep-to lend some colour to my life.But then,the robot on my bedside always ensures my sleep is dreamless as well!!