Yesterday I had an interesting experience; “Interesting” because I don’t know of any other way to describe the incident accurately.

I reached Chennai Central at 9:20am yesterday in a Secunderabad – Chennai express. I knew that there was an MRTS Local to Thiruvanmiyur at 9:39am. I hurried along… Went to Park Town station and bought a ticket to Thiruvanmiyur.

At that point, I didn’t know that they had constructed a subway to reach Platform #2 from Platform #1. A few months back when I had used the same service there wasn’t any such thing.

So I didn’t pay any attention to the boards which were guiding the visitors and tried to cross the tracks as per my outdated picture of Park Town railway station. Pretty much my mistake I agree. Hence the adjective in the first line of this write-up is “Interesting” instead of “Harrowing”.

As soon as I reached Platform #2, a man in Khakis stopped me and enquired, “Who are you?”

I was taken aback. Then I told him that I wanted to catch the Thiruvanmiyur local at 9:39am.

“Do you know that you shouldn’t cross the tracks? There is a subway and you are guilty of trespassing.”

I frankly didn’t know that there was a subway. I told him that. He looked at me with a boring expression on his face and told me about the sign boards.

I wore an apologetic look and told him that I was sorry. I didn’t know. Wouldn’t even dream of doing that again.

“Say that to the SI. If he maafs you, you can go home.” He took my ticket and sent me to the SI with an escort.

The SI was waiting near the ticket counter. He saw me coming with the escort and ordered me to enter a room in Park Town station. As soon as I entered the room, the door was closed and locked.

Fortunately, I don’t have Claustrophobia and I was not able to absorb all the events occurring at a frantic pace. The fact that I had been locked in a room with a very small view (Merchant Ivory would have loved the setting.), dawned upon me quite late.

The room had ten more people from all strata of the Society. First I was terrified because I thought they were all criminals. However later I came to know that they were ordinary people like Venu Vedam himself. One of them alighted just before the stopped in the station. Hence he was detained for “Getting out of a moving train.” Another was attending a nature’s call near the track. The rest were all crossing the tracks.

I spent about an hour and a half in that dungeon hoping the SI would let us go scot free with a warning message. I thought the worst was over when he opened the door.

He told us to form a group. Three escorts – Two in the front and one in the back – led us to the platform number two (of course through the path of the righteous – The Sub Way)

Then we all waited for a train to Mylapore. The RPF squad was watching many people cross the tracks illegally but did not react. Maybe their quote for the day was over.

The train puffed in and we were all herded into a Vendor’s compartment. No one else was allowed inside.

In Mylapore, again the tamasha continued. One or two of the victims tried to reason with the SI. He didn’t relent. We were all taken to the RPF Police Station.

Followed by a forty five minute wait, I found myself staring at the SI.

“Ippo enna pandrenga?” (What do you want to do now?)

“Fine pay pandren Sir” (I will pay the fine, sir)

“Good. Where are you from?”

Bla blab la

Then he called another unfortunate soul from the lowest strata of the society and asked him.

“Enna 200 rupees pay pandreya illaati oru maasam jailukku poraya?” (What about you, will you pay 200 rupees fine? Or do you want me to send you to the prison?)

He started crying. “Vendaan sir. Record vendaan sir. Apparum engaiyum velai kkidakkadu sir.” (Don’t record it against my name sir. I can’t get any job if I have a police record.) His felony was that he crossed the tracks.

“Appidi yellaam onnum illadaa… Idu ellaam record aagaadu” (Nothing like that’s gonna happen man, this won’t be recorded.) said the SI, simultaneously filling a form in triplicate recording his own version of the felony.

I was panicking. Was he going to write a similar report on me too? Fortunately he didn’t. He just ordered me to pay 200 rupees to the other guy and asked him to pay the fine with it.

Then he took a couple of signatures of that person on the report which clearly said – A Fine of 150 Rupees.

Then the SI looked at me and asked me to go home. “Future la subway daan use paNNanum.” (Use the subway from now onwards)

“Sari saari. Khandippa” (Sure sir, Sure) With that I literally ran out of the police station.

By the time I reached home it was 14:00. I was thanking God for two things. Never was my ID checked. So there was no scope for a record. Two, I had no claustrophobia.

Now, I am utterly clueless about the law. Can someone clarify these for me?

1. Will the other guy get a “record” which will spoil his chances at something?
2. Can one detain a person like this in a room, though with a spectacular view of the tracks, for an offence like this?

I don’t want to blame anyone. I committed a sin and I paid for it. Maybe I wouldn’t dare crossing the railway tracks again but I am a little surprised at the treatment given to these acts of felony.

Is it lawfully justified?

The Art and Science of Bowling: (From the archives)

Well… At the end of the day it is nothing but ten pegs, two gutters, a ball and a positive attitude. The positive attitude helps one keep the ball away from the gutters which is the sole aim of the game.

If someone tells you that hitting the pegs should be your goal, please don't pay much attention to him/her. If you aim for the pegs, the ball will invariably end up in one of the gutters. However if you pay attention to the gutters, you have a high chance of scoring the 'X'.

Consider this. I usually take a four-meter run-up, swing my hand to the wildest angle possible and release the ball with a full force towards the center peg. My action has been hailed as the perfect bowling action. The way I cross my legs just after releasing the ball makes girls stop their business and look at me with an awed expression on their faces. I attain speeds of about twenty miles per hour. Despite all these measures, the ball always ends up in the gutter and the girls, with other guys. L

Now look at my girl. She simply walks to the edge of the lane, stands there and rolls the ball gently into the lane amidst suppressed laughter from everyone watching her. Her speed is around 4 miles per hour. Her action is not a great thing to watch. But she scores that X. And believe me! It is the X that counts… not the action. She gets all the dinner invitations.

Moral Number One: Don’t aim for the pegs.. Just keep it off the gutter.

A lot depends on the size of the grip-holes and the weight of the ball too. If your thumb gets stuck in the hole, you've got a problem… rather the guys standing right behind you have a problem. One of my friends took the wrong ball and ended up throwing it backwards… almost smashing my left big toe.

Moral Number Two: Stay out of the line of action.

If the ball is too heavy, you end up releasing it too soon… or releasing it in an improper direction. And the gutters happily swallow it. I think the attraction power of those gutters surpass every other power in the universe. I am actually thinking of registering my own hypothesis: The Vedam Theory of G-Forces…

Funda Number One: Two gutters running parallel to each other attract the ball so that it doesn’t run parallel to either gutter.

So, you need the right ball. If you are a bowling freak like me, you'll probably wanna buy your own ball. That is how I manage my earth staggering scores of around 65 in bowling competitions.

Let me recap:

1. Choose your ball. (Factors to be considered: Size of your fingers and Weight of the ball)

2. Pay attention to Moral Number One.

3. Pay attention to Moral Number Two.

4. Keep in mind the theory of G-Forces.

And now let me tell you the most important rule of the game.

5. You just can't spin the ball. Don't even think about it.

You may see a number of teenage kids there, spinning the ball away from the gutters. It may all seem very easy to do but trust me on this. It is most difficult thing in the world… well, after Einstein's Theory of Relativity of course. The G-Forces are way too strong.

All right. If you pay attention to these five all-important bowling fundae (Fundae = plural of Funda), you are sure to make your first bowling experience a memorable one. It is not the speed but the direction that matters. So go ahead, apply your brain and displace the pegs. Remember to say hi to your girlfriend every now and then… The game can get so addictive that you might actually forget that you'd gone there with your girlfriend.

Ah! I forgot another important rule. If your shoe size is ten… don't try to squeeze your foot into a nine. It just doesn't work. J

An Affair To Remember...

I don’t exactly remember when Nitya came into existence. However when she came, she conquered me. I loved her. She was divine. Angel. Lovely. Cute.

And not real.

She was a bit of Elizabeth Bennett, some Karishma Kapoor, a tint of Kalpana Chawla and a great friend of mine. She had a doctorate in Physics. She knew the theory of Relativity better than anyone else. Probably Einstein included.

Nitya’s transformation from being a cute little chubby girl of fifteen to a post doctoral student of unlimited intelligence had been closely monitored by me. At every defining stage of my life, I refined Nitya as I wanted her to be. She had always been my ideal girl.

Any girl I met – would undergo the Nitya Test right away. If she passed this test, I would take a second look at her. If not – Whoz Next?

It was on my twenty seventh birthday that my parents told me that they’d like me to get married. I frowned. I tried to explain that I’d marry a Nitya.

“A Nitya?” My father was curious.

“Yes sort of a benchmark called Nitya. The girl has to pass this certification to become a Nitya.”

“And who conducts these benchmarking tests, my son?” My father was now furious.

It was a Trans-Atlantic call. I couldn’t actually sell my Nitya proposition to them effectively. I decided to talk to them about it during my next trip to India.

Couple of months later, I stood in front of them with a big smile on my face. “Ma, Pa – I am India!”

“I am India?” Randheer, my only remaining friend from B-Tech couldn’t resist it. “As in I am home?”

I didn’t say anything. My parents didn’t mind the horrendously disastrous opening line. “I am India?” Randheer still makes fun of me.

Barely a day later my mother told me as-a-matter-of-factly that Mr Venkateswara Rao and his daughter Navya were visiting us for dinner.

I raised an eyebrow. She nodded. Indeed they were exploring the option.

“Is she a Nitya?” I asked my mother.

“Navya has an M Sc degree in Mathematics.”

“Aha! So she is not into Physics. So she is not a Nitya. I am not interested” I told them stubbornly.

Being stubborn – assumes a very different meaning especially when the other party is your mother or father. It only means that a couple of minutes later, you give up your ideology and pursue what your parents tell you to do.

Clad in blue jeans and a Hare Krishna kurta, I answered the door bell that evening. Navya smiled shyly. Mr. Venkateswara Rao helloed me and hurried off to my father’s library.

My mother retired to the kitchen under the pretext of preparing tiffin.

They couldn’t have been more direct. They wanted us to start talking and hoped that by the time the Masala Dosa was ready, we would be ready to exchange I-Love-You’s.

It so happened that by the time this famous Dosa was ready – We had not even started talking – let alone exchanging ILUs.

Navya inspected the modern art hanging on our walls and I stared at the European Premier League coming live on ESPN – Not that I could differentiate between a Real Madrid team and a Manchester United team – I just didn’t know what to do.

Mr. Venkateswara Rao – slightly disappointed that his daughter hadn’t been proposed to yet, suddenly came up with yet another blatantly stupid proposition.

“Why don’t you guys go out and roam around a little? You will get bored with us oldies.”

Both of us knew there was no point arguing there. We silently rose from the sofa and went out.

Twenty minutes later, we entered a restaurant and ordered coffee.

Navya started talking first. “Where are you from? Refresh me!”

“San Francisco. Actually South San Francisco. And you?” I sipped my coffee.

Navya nodded. “I expected this. How long have you been in SFO?”

I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “A couple of years”.

She shook her head. “And that makes you a Frisco dude? What about the twenty five years you had spent in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Forgotten?”

I didn’t reply. In fact she was bang on target there. I was showing off.

“OK. Leave it. Tell me about yourself.” She asked me.

This time I was careful. After a couple minutes talking about myself – I asked her about her future plans.

“I want to be in India – married to an Indian ­– work on my M Phil and probably shoot for a doctorate.”

I nodded. It was clear that we were going nowhere.

“Guess we need more time to decide!” I told her.

She stared at me seriously. I thought she would start a lecture there but she chose to remain silent.

I paid the bill. She did not resist. When we were about to leave, she asked me if I could join her for a movie on Sunday.

I went home totally confused. Maybe she liked me. Maybe she was just being nice. Maybe she didn’t want to marry me…

My father was angry with me. They wanted me to get married this week itself so that I could take my wife with me to San Francisco.

Obviously I needed more time.

Was she my Nitya? There was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that she indeed was what I had been looking for. However I wasn’t so sure.

Sunday came in a hurry. We went to “Dil To Pagal Hai”. She munched her popcorn. I drank my ice tea. The theatre was almost empty. I decided to ask her the question that had been nagging me for the last couple of days.

“Ah Navya, I wanted to ask you something.”

She smiled, “Let me guess. What did Navya tell her parents the other day?”

I was stumped. “How did you guess?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what is the answer then?”

She stopped minding her popcorn, “I wanted to ask you the same question. What did you tell your parents?”

I knew she wanted me to answer it first.

I coughed mildly, “I asked you the question first.”

She nodded.

"Any plans of answering it now?" I was getting impatient.

She nodded again.

"So what is it?" I asked.

"Does it make a difference?" she asked me.

Negative… I thought, negative. A sudden wave of disappointment overcame me. She spotted it deftly.

"It does. I can help you save your skin," I said weakly.

She looked at me a bit seriously. "What do you think?"

I didn't know what to say. 'Is she the Nitya?' I was not sure. Was I really?

I didn't feel particularly attracted to her. Maybe because I didn't really know her. She entered my life just two days ago. Even a lifetime is insufficient to read a person fully.

Observing my dilemma, Nitya spoke in a very pleasant but mocking tone. "I can also help you save your skin"

I smiled wearily. I felt a great divide separating us two. Neither of us was able cross it.

The film had come to an end and I did not remember watching it.

I dropped her at her residence and came home.

My parents looked at me tensely. I knew they were expecting an answer.

“I need more time” I told them.

My father nodded. “I expected this. Hell ya! I did expect this. Are you nuts? How long do you need? You are flying in two weeks for Chrissakes. Suit yourself. Be a bachelor for the rest of your life.”

The phone came to my rescue then. My father picked it up, talked to someone in a low tone and turned to me. “You know, I think you’ve found your soul mate. Navya also sings the same song. You guys are made for each other.”

The sarcasm in his voice was pretty direct. I didn’t reply. I just went to Randheer’s apartment.

“Guess she is not interested in you”

Randheer was brutally frank sometimes.

That hit me hard. I didn’t like it.

“And you like her a lot. Admit it.” Randheer could read my mind very well.

I admitted it. There was no point holding it back. I was slowly leaning towards her.

Next day, I met her again.

“What do you think?” I asked her.

She gave me a strange look. “About what?”

“Enough of beating around the bush. Let us be practical. Will you marry me?” I had to put in an Herculean effort to utter these words.

She was silent. She didn’t respond for two full minutes.

At the end of the second minute, I rose from my seat and left.

She observed me go.

And she let me go.

“We don’t jell together well.” I declared to my parents boldly. They were taken aback.

“Don’t you like her?”

I took my own time before coming out with a reply, “I like her very much.”

“So what is the issue?” My parents were puzzled.

"It is not that. I like her very much. She is probably as close to Nitya as anyone can ever get. I just haven’t considered an important point so far. A girl having so many qualities may not think in my frequency at all. She doesn't come down - neither do I. And uh.. Well, it is not gonna work. We just cannot be together. I have to take a relook at my dreamgirl. This is a good lesson for me."

Two weeks later, I boarded an Air India flight… Still single. I didn’t feel like pursuing the other “matches” in my parents’ list.

I didn’t tell anybody but I was in love with Navya. And the fact that she didn’t stop me that day from leaving – hit me really hard. It took me months to recover from the depression.

A year later – in San Francisco International Airport, I ran into Navya. She introduced me to her husband Nirmal – A Sun Microsystems Engineer. They were on their way to India. We chatted for about half an hour. I wanted to ask her a lot of things. However I couldn’t do it in front of Nirmal.

Then, God created an opportunity for me. Nirmal excused himself and went to the restroom.

I immediately seized the opportunity, “So you finally found a guy who understands you well?”

She smiled, “I expected you’d ask me this.”

“So?” I was impatient.

“Nope. Not really!”

Surprise… Negative… Astonishment… Surprise again…

"Why then.." I almost shouted. I couldn’t hold myself back.

She replied very casually, "He did not ask me whether I liked him or not. So whatever might be my opinion it just didn't matter."

The End.

Yet another one from the archives. Dates back to 1999. I know what you guys are thinking. This excavation of old articles is bound to stop one day which I reckon isn't quite far. However at the moment, my mind is too preoccupied with the teething problems in settling down in Chennai, the hot and humid but delightful city in South India. Read on.

The Raven, Poe and My Wife

There is one thing remarkable about Maumee River. It doesn’t get tired of flowing serenely into Lake Erie. It hasn't stopped its flow even for a single moment since the day I landed in Toledo, Ohio in 1999. I appreciate its commitment to keep Niagara Falls intact. The Falls get the input from Erie, which in turn is fed by Maumee River. The river is quite deep people say. Sometimes I see big steamers cutting through the waters of this river gently. Observing the river is my favorite pass time activity.

With just a customary glance at it you won't feel anything. You have to look closer and deeper into the river to appreciate its personality. The river has a charm of its own. It is like a Queen ruling the country in a very dignified way. Nothing can shake her off. Those small ripples and waves seem to have a perfect pattern and this is quite interesting to watch. Every single ripple follows its predecessor and the whole process has a clear rhythm associated with it.

The ripples travel to the end of the river and there is a certain enthusiasm associated with them that tells us that these ripples are carrying lots of news from the far and distant lands. Each ripple has a message, if only you could read it. Every ripple has a story if only you could interpret it. To relish these finer aspects you must learn to look beyond the obvious into the depths of those serene waters.

That fine Fall afternoon I was fully engrossed in observing the river closely, in fact much closer than needed. I feel now that it was probably a bit too close and perhaps the boat in which I was traveling had an agreement with the river that it would supply good software engineers to the river.

Whatever might be the reason I found myself closest to the surface of the water flowing in that river.. I believe no one else would have seen those waters that close on that fine Fall afternoon.. Actually my desperate attempts to stay afloat only let my nose stay a quarter of an inch above the water level. I noticed my boat sailing away happily at a distance without any attention to the unfortunate soul who had just seconds ago been reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” quite poetically on its deck.

“And this,” Nitya maintains her view even now, “is the precise reason why the boat wanted to get rid of you in the first place.” I don’t want to believe that of course, because I am of the opinion that nothing can hate the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe whether it’s animate or inanimate the sole exception being my wife. I told this to her and she immediately retorted. “I know why you are saying this to me... That is a thinly disguised way of saying that I belong to neither category.” I didn’t say no to her because that was precisely what I thought of ‘things’ that hated Edgar Allan Poe.

The river did not seem very interesting then. Though I was able to “look closer” I was not able to “relish” the finer aspects of the river. Might be because my mind was preoccupied with the burning problem of the moment, "how to stay afloat" And this, I should say clearly to my reader, was indeed a big problem as I had absolutely no idea what the hell was swimming all about at that time.

Perhaps this incident was the driving force and the elusive compelling reason for my learning swimming later in my life. It really surprised me how I was able to kick water so fiercely. If I were on firm ground, I would have knocked down ten people comfortably. I had never before seen my legs moving with such agility. At last I decided to retire, to get into the river and look at the river from within itself. I stopped my futile attempts to stay afloat. Just then, I saw a boat coming towards me as fast as possible.

My rescuers were two in number. Two teenagers in their last teens I think. They were clearly American. I wanted to say hello to them. But apparently my vocal chords did not want to work. The girl then took out a flask and poured me some coffee. Three sips of that rang the alarm bells for my vocal chords and quite surprisingly the first word that came from my mouth was “God!”

And this is really surprising because till then I had maintained sternly that the main content of my blood, apart from the usual hemoglobin, was atheism.

“How are you feeling now?” asked the boy. I nodded, and suddenly remembered Edgar Allan Poe, his Raven and my boat. “The Raven” I shouted all of a sudden. Such shouts, as per Nitya, are lethal especially if you are on a rescue boat sailing near Lake Eerie. This boat confirmed its abhorrence by almost tipping me off the deck. If it were not for the girl who pulled me back, I would have had another chance to understand the deep personality of the Queen.

“What happened?” she asked me with a weird expression on her face. I blame her not. It is perfectly natural for anyone to look strangely at a guy who is in his mid twenties if he shouts without any apparent reason “The Raven” after being rescued from a freezing river.

“I mean the poem, The Raven” I told her. She asked me curiously, “The Raven that tapped your front door and always said ‘Ne’ermore’?”

I was astonished. “You are a Poe reader?” I asked her. Now I realize how foolish that question is… If she hadn’t read that she wouldn’t have said that. Anyway she didn’t scold me for being such a fool. She simply said, “Poe’s my favorite author.”

“It’s great!” I said, “To find a teenager who is interested in Edgar Allan POEtry.” The boy who’d been managing the boat till then without any slightest deviation asked me “Who’s this Poe?”

“A great writer; father of detective stories… a total failure in personal life” the girl said without any delay. I just nodded. Suddenly it dawned upon me that I had forgotten about something crucial. I could not remember it. I scratched my head and almost jumped on the deck. This time I had controlled my emotions as the boat didn’t seem very friendly to people who jumped on its deck.

The girl who’d been watching me curiously asked me, “Is it about the Raven?” I then remembered about the Raven; then about the collection of Poe’s works; then about the location of that book at that moment and then about the boat in which I was supposed to be traveling reading aloud the poem, “The Raven.”

“It would have already entered Lake Erie,” the girl calmly said. “I need to find it” I said, “at any cost.” The boy smiled, “It is much easier to buy another copy of the book!” I looked at him coldly and said, “It is not about the book. It is about my wife who is sleeping peacefully on that boat!”

Of course, she could not have got lost just like that. Her screaming alerted the coast guards and they towed the boat to the shore. But then she was a little angry with me for “leaving her in the middle of nowhere.” I tried to explain her that it was an accident but she went on to extreme ends like calling the teenagers my accomplices and things like that.

I understand now, that it was purely because of the shock she had received when she woke up that great Fall afternoon to find the boat deserted except for the collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, that she behaved like that. Otherwise, she is a good lady. She never says ‘No! Stop it! Bonehead!’ when I read aloud “The Raven” almost once everyday.

I met the rescuers the very next day in the market. Nitya wasn’t wearing a jacket and a cold wind blew from the cloud shivering her. The girl remarked “Your Annabel Lee?”

I just smiled. “Yep! But she’s with me! Unlike Annabel Lee”

Venu Vedam