office [story]

I entered my office after eleven days of vacation. Everything seamed to be different in the office. Everyone were sitting in the benches along with table in rows like a class room in school. I searched for known face with whom I can sit so that i will be comfortable.

There, I found Mala sitting at the last row and luckily the place next to her was empty. So I went and sat near her. She saw me and smiled. Everyone were reading something and I remembered that there was an exam scheduled for that week,

I thought that I was right on the starting day of the exam. So, I asked Mala if it was English-I paper examination that day. She raised her eye brow and said that its English-II paper. She then asked me if I had prepared for English-I paper. I told "No". And continued, "Even if I had known the exam schedule, I would not have prepared anything." She smiled.

I asked Mala if she can give me a book to read. She gave me a weekly magazine. I was OK with any book since I didn't have any other. I opened the book and started to write in it as I like to write. When everyone around me in the train are reading something, I am writing this story.

The train announcement voice said that the next station is Thiruvanmiyur. So I closed the laptop and got up to reach the entrance amid the huge crowd. As the train stopped, I got down and walked towards Ascendas International Tech Park Chennai. I had a light breakfast in the Ascendas food court and took the lift to 7th floor.

 [continuation of the story is at the start of this blog]

[stort] only robots

TamilNadu Government along with the Chennai Metro Railways Department has decided to allocate all the upper berths of the metro trains running in the city to everyone for their living. Long back, around 2009-2010, the land price was very less in Chennai and people use to construct houses. Now all available movable & immovable properties are being used by everyone for their living. I too applied for a berth.

The city is looking like a concrete jungle with many tall concrete buildings. Everyone is talking about global warming. Not sure when this jungle is going to be cut down for trees.

The new railway berth distribution announcement from the government has got good response as the space available per berth is more than enough for everyone. There is a restriction that one can apply for only one berth and also the allocation is purely based on lottery system.

I do not wear a helmet though I remember to take it while driving because I do not have a helmet and nobody wears a helmet in this city and helmet is not required for driving a car:) Considering the fuel price and the global warming, I purchased one latest model car last week. This car doesn't need any fuel to run. Long back Prasad Sir developed a car that runs with water instead of fuel - water car, but that never came to market! My new model car works on the principle of the olden day's bicycle.

Once upon a time, there were few robots in the city. That time Mala use to say that only robot's will be able to survive in the future.

Luckily, I got one upper berth for me and I was very happy to live there. That was the space required for each one of us, even the richest in this world. Because all we need is two units of electricity per day.
Only robots were able to survive the series of natural disasters during the later half of 38th century AD

[story] 3D maze

Mala stepped out of her home and started walking down the street. Mala is new to this city and she does not know the address of her home or the phone number. But she wanted to explore the city by herself. She did not know that this city is not like her village. Story, Screenplay, dialogue, direction : Vijay

Mala continued to walk fast with the ipod playing her favorite music in the background. After a while the road diverged into two roads. She stood there and looked at both the roads as far as she could see. The first one went downwards as if it is taking you to the underworld, while the other went upwards as if it is taking you to the sky. Surprised Mala took the one downwards.

While Mala continued to walk through the road, it went more downwards and more steeper. The surroundings looked more modernized as she proceeded. Then, she took three left turns thinking that she can reach her home then. But she was 100 feet straight below her home. Also she was able to see the sky when she looked up!

All the buildings around her looked alike and she was not able to trace her way back home. It was like solving a maze puzzle, but her brain was not sufficient to solve that.

No human's were seen by the roadside. High speed cars rushed through the streets. Nobody stopped for the red signal or for the green signal. It looked like an alien world for her. She badly wanted to go back to her home.

Mala roamed here and there to get any help from somebody. She was not able to find anyone. As she was running through the walkway, a cat (Felis catus) came in front of her. She got frightened seeing it suddenly. The sharp claws, dark blue eyes and the rusty spotted skin combined with its two legged posture made her more frightened. As Mala moved sideways, the cat also moved as it is if blocking her. Mala started screaming in fear. The cat also moved its hand with sharp claws outside and wide opened its mouth. Mala stepped back and became silent.

The power went off and came back in ten minutes. By then, Mala came back home and the movie ended subam. I will tell you the detailed climax of this story when I see the movie again without any power cuts :)

[story] Bangalore <-> Chennai

I wanted to meet Mala. I think you would also want to know about her. With the contacts that I have developed over the past few years, I could easily find that she is working in a small software company in Chennai. I sent my profile to that company as though I wanted to change my work location to Chennai. As I expected I got an interview call from that company.

Early in the morning, I took along with me the tvnet that I was using while I was the robot and started to Chennai. While I was traveling in the bullet train, I saw a Tamil movie in the tvnet. The name of the heroine of that movie was also Mala. So the movie was very interesting. I reached Chennai at 7am.

It was 7pm when I reached back Bangalore. A lot of things happened in Chennai(?) :)

At 10am, I went to that software company. It was pretty small. I could easily spot Mala's smile amidst the people working there. I went straight to her place and showed my interview card to her without speaking anything. She turned at me, smiled and greeted me. Then she said something about bangalore, I couldn't hear that. Then she stood and walked with my interview card in her hands. So, I followed her.

At 8pm, I was discussing with my friends whether to join the company or not.

As I followed Mala, we reached the office pantry. 2009 Cricket match was being screened on a big tvnet over there. There she called her boss and handed the interview card to him. Then, I had two rounds of technical interview and one round of HR interview. To my surprise, they gave me the offer in hand and asked me to join the company at the earliest.

At 9pm, I have almost decided to join the company.

Then, I had a cup of coffee with Mala in the office pantry. While we were chating, She said something about Bangalore, I couldnot understand it again. After saying good bye to Mala and her boss, I started back to bangalore at 5pm in the bullet train. I saw the same movie which I liked during my onward journey. Reached bangalore at 7pm.

A month full of dreams passed by ...

One fine Monday morning, I joined that software company in Chennai. After finishing all the joining formalities, I went to my cubicle by afternoon. That time, all the employees were gathered at Mala's place. I too joined them only to know that that day is Mala's last working day in this office and she is changing her job to my old office at Bangalore :)

[story] 2 in 1

"There was a paddy field outside the village and very near to a dense forest. While working there, the villagers appointed John for looking out any wild animals and warning the people whenever some man eater comes so that they could join together and fight against it. It was a boring job for John.

One day John decided to play some trick. He suddenly started shouting 'Tiger.. Tiger.. Help..' All the villagers rushed with all the instruments to save John. As it was a fake call, all were disappointed but John was laughing in his mind.
The next day, getting bored he did that trick again. And the villagers were disappointed badly this time.

The third day, really the tiger came!! Oops.. John shouted for help. The villagers thought it as a fake call and continued with their work. John tried his best to fight with the tiger. Luckily with bad injuries he escaped his life. The villagers felt very sorry for him.

Next day also John went with the villagers for the same job. What do you think the villagers will do if John plays the same trick again?
Boring John shouted for help without any wild animals around. The villagers rushed for help. Seeing no animals around they asked John not to shout simply as it could lead to similar problems faced by John when the tiger really came.

Now, if John shouts next day also the villagers would again run for help, because they dont want to loose John for his kiddish behavior. This would repeat indefinitely even if the villagers get bored of running for help :)

As I was seeing all this happening in the village, I realized and told John that 'There are some things in the world which you cannot ignore even though it did not help you in anyways for so many times'." To explain further, I told him a story. Let me tell you that story...


"I was driving the new 'Chevrolet malibu' at 110 mph (this 'mph' gives a clue that I am driving in US). Looked like I was in rush for something, but not.

My friend was also there with me in the car and we were hearing nice Indian songs as we were enjoying the ride. I know you will know her name. This relaxing ride is the usual thing that we do everyday evening.

Each time I need to turn the car to the next lane of the road, I had to move myself little front and check for any vehicles through the rear view mirror. I need to move to avoid any blind spots. I have observed some times that a vehicle next to me does not appear in the rear view mirror unless I move a little. So, every time I was moving to confirm that no vehicle comes in the next lane before turning the car to that lane. I told my friend that this is a very boring job for me and I am going to miss it sometime.

But I know that I cannot afford to hit another vehicle by not watching the rear view mirror properly. She told me that 'There are some things in the world which you cannot ignore even though it did not help you in anyways for so many times'." To explain further, she told me the story of villagers and John which is above.

[story] Foolish Fools

p.s: I wrote this story (including this note) while traveling from office to home in bus today. Now I am just copy pasting from my mind to the blog.


By God's grace, now I am in a so called good position in the society. I have a flat and I own a car too. Mala and RamMohan are my close friends in the office and we stay closeby. We decided to do car pooling for traveling to and from the office. We did this just by considering the traffic in Bengaluru. Although being close friends its difficult to share anything without getting into any small issues.

That day it was Mala's turn. She picked up me and Ram in her car early in the morning. I should say that she is pretty good at driving. As Mala was riding smooth in the outer ring road, suddenly she had to reduce the speed from 40kmph to zero, as the auto infront stopped. She quickly turned to the right (This is how drastic accident happens). Luckily noone was there and she could manage to stop the vehicle. Ram got hurt on his knees. He shouted at Mala for riding so bad. When Mala told the reason for not noticing the auto, it was an acceptable one. I always consider that nobody could escape from this reason.

After reaching office, me and Mala were discussing something. Ram interrupted and asked for the car from Mala. He told that he need to goto the complex nearby to finish some work. It is just 200m away from our office. Mala asked him to walk. Ram said that there would be lot of pollution outside and he wanted to go in car. Mala scolded him badly and told that he should be fool to ride car for 200m distance. Ram went away, but we were still friends. I too felt that Ram should walk instead of taking the car and thought that Ram is a fool to ask for a car to goto that small distance, but I didnot tell anything.

A week later when we went in my car, Mala approached me and asked for the car. She told that she wanted to goto the same complex and its very polluted outside to walk. I just told her that "you should not call someone fool just because you donot understand them", and gave my car key to her. She understood that I was referring to the previous week incident. I then felt that Mala should be a fool to take the car for this small distance.

One more week later when we went in Ram's car, I had to goto the same complex. Hesitant to ask for the car, I decided to walk. It was very horrible to walk and I felt very bad for not asking for the car from Ram. Also after thinking about the three week incidents, now I feel that Ram was wiser to have asked for car in the first time itself. I said to myself that "you should not consider others as fool just because you donot understand them".

[story] Robot in the city

It is almost 6 years since Robot's have been banned in India. After the liquid state semiconductor and the nanobiological revolution period, every other scientists were able to make their own robot's at their home. This led to huge economic wave across the countries. People were restless and jobless too. After a big chaos for two years, the World Peace Organization along with the World Scientific Community created a set of rules and regulations on using the technology. One major point in that is that no individual can have a robot with more than or equal to 6 Susi power.This would restrict anyone having robot with human power. And India supports and imposes these rules.

Beyond these rules, some Indians like the criminals/ terrorists of the past have robots with human power at their home. The major duty of the Indian Police Force is to detect these people and produce them at the court of the King. They have a vital eight hour interrogation technique to identify the robots and their owner. As you know the criminals are almost wiser than Police, initially at least. I am one such person :) There is a Robot in my house created using the tips given in Reader's Digest and the tvnet.

Her name is Mala. She use to help me out in all my household activities. She helps me in my business. All of the above I like her smile. Somehow we both have a permanent account number and we are in the IHL(Indian Human List). When everything was going fine, I heard that there is going to be a random check in the city. I was afraid as the Indian Police Force have a good record for identifying almost all powerful Robots. I told on various things that Mala needs to do and importantly not to do in next few days. Still I did not have much of hope.

When we were browsing through the tvnet, the police came and rang at our house. I asked Mala to keep watching the tvnet and I opened the door. As the police came inside, Mala was seriously reading something. Though I asked her to be careless and free, she was serious. Police asked some normal survey questions to me, which I answered. Then they called Mala. She turned 90 degrees within a fraction of second, which I have asked her not to do. While we were talking casually (which was supposed to be the interrogation), the police asked some wage mathematical question - what is 8 to the power 16? Mala as she remembers all our previous discussions, answered 281474976710656 immediately. Oops! Again I told her not to answer anything tough. Then they took Mala inside a room.

After complete interrogation for about 8 hrs during which my heart beat increased, they came out. I was silently asking if there is any problem. The Police replied, "Sorry for the trouble Vijay. We are done with our work and found no issues. Thanks for the cooperation." I told thats not a problem. As they went out,
I locked the door, went straight to the reading room. I Eat 6 pieces of horse shoe magnet, and put the right hand fingers into the electricity plug point.
hehehe. I am the Robot created by Mala.

[story] call from GOD

I was in Houston USA that time, working for HP. One day my teammate from India mailed me that a new girl Mala has joined our office and she is beautiful. This reminded me about Prasad's daughter. I had a good time in USA. When I returned India, I went straight from airport to office. When I met Mala in office, I was surprised, she is the same Mala whom I met first in hotel Germanus.

Few months went by.. People planned for a trekking in our team. I had some other important task for that weekend and hence did not join the trek initially. Then, I heard that Mala is joining the trek as she knew almost all of our team members. Inspired by Mala, I too joined the trek canceling all my work for the weekend :). Our plan was to hit kodachadri peak in kolur. Eight of us traveled in ksrtc the whole friday night and started with the trekking on saturday 9am. During our initial trek, I was telling the story of kodachadri peak to the team (will tell you in a separate story). We had early lunch and started the real trek.

As we moved on we could feel the goodness of nature. We were deep inside the forest with lot of other forms of life. One such thing is the leech. There were lot of leeches getting over our legs and sucking our blood. If we stop by to clear some leech, many more would climb and do their job. One good thing is that it will not pain when leeches suck our blood. Silently they climb over our leg, swell by drinking our blood and then fell down. Hence we had to walk continuously without rest. As it was pouring too we dint have any choice of taking rest also.

Me and Mala were really slow that we could not see others atall. It started getting dark early and the rain didnot stop. We ran for sometime, yet we could not catch others. Probably we have lost our way :( We checked our mobiles if it can help us.. Ooh God, no signal. As we were already tired, I was very much worried about the night. There is no place to camp expect the hill top and we had roughly half hour to reach that spot. If otherwise we are gone. While thinking of the leeches and other wild life I was totally scared. Running out of idea's I could not walk further.

Suddenly her mobile rang. She gave it to me saying the GOD is calling!! I asked her who is God? She told its real GOD. we were surprised. I turned ON the speaker. A divine voice started - "Good afternoon my kids. I am the Goddess Moohambigai. What do you want?". I was nervous as I asked "What is this GOD? We are left alone. We are afraid. We just want to escape from this forest". GOD began... "My dear kids, if you think you are alone, you will be alone for ever. If you think you are afraid, you will be afraid for ever. If you want to escape from this forest, first leave out your fear. Just try with your full energy - full mental energy in addition to your physical energy. If you have full faith in yourself, nobody can stop you...."

Tough it was not an inspirational talk by GOD, it triggered my mind. I multiplied my thoughts and in seconds, I cut the phone, grabbed mala's hand, started running. In next five minutes I was at the hill top where my friends were waiting :) Cooool.

[story ends]
For those who don't believe that GOD spoke to us, assume that those were spoken by Mala. Anyways she is an inspirational girl for me.

[story] water car

Thursday morning "The times of India" had some news about Dr. Prasad, my physics professor. I read it with interest to see that he is being awarded by chief minister that sunday. The paper had his address which excited me to meet him. I dint forget to take the paper when I went home friday night. Asusual I slept in the upper berth while travelling to madurai in train number 6732.


Saturday morning, I took our newly bought old omni and drove towards Prasad's home. I was happy to see some new bridges being constructed on the way. That has created some traffice in madurai too. I was not worried about it as I am used with bangalore traffic!! somehow I was feeling very sleepy:) As I reached Prasad's home, I pressed the calling bell and waited. The door opened shortly. I was surprised that Mala opened the door. The same Mala whom I saw in hotel Germanus the other day!


Mala was so beautiful in saree. She just asked me to come in as if she knew me. As I sat in the shofa, Dr. Prasad came - he has become pretty old. After greeting him, I looked at Mala. Prasad introduce me to her, and told me that it is Mala her daughter. Prasad asked me if I want coffee or juice. He turned to Mala and asked coffee for himself. Mala looked at me and raised her eye brow as if to ask what I want. I told, "ditto". She smiled a mile and went into the kitchen. Her face didnot vanish from my eyes.


Prasad told me that he is getting old and not happy with travelling from home to office - hence had setup a lab in home itself. I acknowledged him by saying that the roads are becoming busy and its difficult to travel. He did not expect any answer from me and he complined that he is getting so much of anger these days. I told that I am still in a sleepy mood and hearing some train sound at the background :) He wanted to show me his lab. I wanted to goto lab after having coffee, as I was still thinking of Mala. He pulled me saying that he will show me a car which runs in water. I asked him if it will be like a ship. He replied that it will use water as its fuel. Amazing! I went with him to his garrage (lab).

In his lab, I saw a car hanging at a height of 6 feet from ground. When I went inside, Prasad warned me not to touch anything as the parts of the car are fitted tight. ok. I went below the car and rotated one of its wheel. It came with my hand. ha.. I left it down and ran outside. As I just came out, the car fell and got crashed:( Prasad got angry - frustrated - took the long heavy screw driver and came towards me as if he is going to kill me. I got frightened and shouted "Mala...". nobody came :( Prasad came near me and inserted the screw driver into my stomach.. aaaaaa... The train sound increased and the person in the lower berth woke me up saying that madurai is nearing.

[story] small RamMohan

"ditto", I told.. and the coffee arrived.
Taking the first sip I told, "Dr. Prasad committed a big mistake!". The girl in front of me asked me what has happened. I have never met her till yesterday, but decided to tell my story to her as she was looking good :) I started...
"Dr. Prasad is my physics professor in college. He is a research oriented person who never cares about the external world. Once he has given me 108 marks out of 100 in the lab exams. That day my AC motor was smoking and it never ran after that. He is such an encouraging person for experiments. He has so much of confidence in my brain.. J"

That girl in front of me interrupted and asked me to come to the point. I continued...

"I never met him after completing my degree until last month. Last month he met me near my school and told me this thing - He was doing some experiment in his lab to find a medicine which will keep people young for ever."

"You mean young for ever?" she came to the edge of her seat.

"Yes. The bad thing is he used his experimental medicine with my friend RamMohan. RamMohan became a baby after taking the medicine. And the worst thing is that he is not able to bring him back. We were discussing about that medicine for almost an hour. Then, Prasad had set up a meeting with me to discuss more about his experiment. As I told you, he always believes my brain :) We fixed the meeting at hotel Germanus at 8pm."

As always I reached the hotel well in advance 7.30pm. I took my seat in a table which faces the gate so that I can catch hod of Prasad easily. When I was waiting for him, a young girl came alone through the gate. I could not move my eyes out of her - she was so beautiful. She came straight to my table - I was surprised. After getting my permission, she sat with me - wow. As we introduced ourself - she is mala, the waiter came and asked for the order. Mala told "a coffee please". The waiter raised his eye brow and looked at me asking for my order.

[continuation of the story is at the start of this blog]