Pursuit of Happiness

CHAPTER I

Prince John the I^st was feeling blue. Not that there are many emotions that can be assigned to him, and most of the time he felt blue, but this was a special occasion. Unlike other occasions, He did have a reason for it this time.  It all started two hours earlier when the future princess-to-be mentioned to him, rather stiffly, that he is always feeling blue and should do something about this. He began to analyze the whole reason as to why he is feeling blue. He certainly cannot neglect Princess-to-be’s concerns. Anyway, Conventional wisdom told him that people who are smart are most successful and happy, but the present situation suggested otherwise. Certainly he was smart by all means but not successful and definitely not happy. And a modest examination of the phenomenon called Bollywood reveals that stupidity is more revered trait among men. He considered his friends he had met online where they all played with words. They all were very intellectually rich but in all of their intellectual banters the Prince could discern a sense of disappointment which was very familiar to him. Logically hence, it followed that conventional wisdom is wrong.

Interim

As long as you don’t choose, everything remains possible.

Present

Hari looked at his phone and thought hard on what he was going to do. He was deciding on whether or not to ask her out… on a date. They have been talking for a long time now, he doesn’t remember. She was fun and all, and its time he should make a move. But then, he didn’t want to be disappointed again. He was unsure of himself. He didn’t want to get rejected again. He remembered how excited he had felt, when he found himself in a similar situation and had made that call to Her a long time back. That was exactly a year ago.

Adrift

‘tat tvam asi:’

- you are what you seek

He wasn’t outwardly plain. Though, it appears so from outside, his mental processes were far from simple. He had an insincere character. He was the awkward child. As a kid he was nasty and had a wicked demeanor. He wasn’t the hated one, but they all could do away with him.

Worked Up

Traffic Jam on the main road leading to airport at eleven in the night, this city is choking on its own traffic. Streets are extended gutters and gutters are filled with torn chips packets and empty plastic cola bottles on which ‘please recycle’ is written, so small that you have to strain your eyes to read it. Even at this time of the night, the heat is unbearable with humidity adding to the discomfort.

Threesome

TA was in his typical philosophical mood. “See guys” he explained to the two unassuming girls who were trying to make head and toe of whatever he was trying to say. “For example, The President of a country cannot hangout like a common man. The more important you are, the less free you become. I don’t think you ought to complain about lack of freedom in your hostels. That means, you students of Kunjibeevathu are more important to this college than the dumbasses back in MH. You understand what am trying to say?”

“Oh! Quite right. You are the man, TA” said the girls, pretending to be impressed by the gibberish.

In the days running upto the ‘College Day’, the girls were allowed to stay back in campus for a little while longer than usual for decorations and stuffs. Hannah and Meena, along with TA, their group mate, were sitting near the parking lot in front of canteen discussing how cool the ‘MJ’ of the Titans looked when the discussion inevitably veered into how girls in college were treated like Prisoners.

Code Name Shatru

CHAPTERT I : The Presentation

It was a usual sleepy day. Same old, nothing much to look forward to. As we entered the college we saw auditorium was pepped up. An event or something, maybe. Ah! Perfect excuse to cut the first hour. We changed out course, walked into audi.

It looked like an inauguration of a youth club. All were second years’, fresh faces, seemingly enthusiastic about this venture. It was nice to see them come out and take charge. Good.

“no! no! I dint ask you to do it this way.” A guy was shouting. He was tall, fairly good looking, lanky, bespectacled guy with week old stubble. Must be the brain behind all this, we realized. “Its really frustrating when I have got to be the lone one who have to manage everything” he was telling his mates.

Quite an interesting character, we thought. We had already typecast him.

CLOCKWORK ORANG

“We don’t deserve to live” said Aniyettan sitting on his haunches and taking a deep puff from the ‘Gold’ he had in his pockets since yesterday. It was Ayinoonu night, Marriage was next day. The whole family was downstairs gossiping after the dinner when the guys decided to take a break on the terrace. That’s when Aniyettan said this. He was unusually senti and no one knew why. Nothing was wrong with him till evening, they had observed.

Fuzz: More Random Thoughts

Marking the instrument on P&ID and making Inspection Test plans on the excel sheets. He sat there wondering if this is it.

“Concentrate” his boss had told him the other day “do not expect anything technical, this is what you have to do now”.

He got Goosebumps.  He looked around… A room filled with A4 sheets, Xerox copies, big files, markers, computers with open excel sheets and PDFs, a cup of tea every two hours and occasional trips to the water cooler.

No, this can’t be it. This should not be it. At least that was not the plan.

Irresponsibly Yours...

“You are such an irresponsible ass” shouted my roommate Yosee. Wait! Who? me? Of all the words I have expected myself to be called, that word was not one of them. “Oh! Yes… Irresponsible” sang the rest of my mates in unison.

Well… maybe then. So during the one and half hour bus journey from college to Thrichur, I switched myself into Self Analysis Mode. And know what? I have given everyone all the reason for them to call me that.

To be brief, I have in my four years of college life lost… two wallets with around seven hundred bucks, two drafters which is an important engineering instrument, seven pen drives of which three of them were not mine, i.e around 20GB of important data. (I even got death threats from one of the guys from whom I borrowed one of the lost pen drives), two calculators, another very important instrument, and again both of them which weren’t mine. Four headsets (all of them mine), wasted a phone by jumping into water completely forgetting about its presence in my pockets, Never ever had proper studying materials during the exam seasons, became an editor of a magazine which never saw light. Huh! What a loser. And now, Yosee’s lab record which is one whole semester’s hard work.