ISHQ Mohabbat, Pyar ki baatien .

Love...that ephemeral thing that i hoped never to touch or traverse through, did affect me at some time in my life.

At 6 feet, tall , dark and built like an ox and with a Rugged Handsome(?) look , i barely qualify as your average loverboy. I am seen more like "Duryodhan" of Mahabharat , macho, caring little if ever, for subtle things like love, affection and emotions. In fact, all my friends do know me as one of those characters straight from a hollywood war movie, reminiscent of the likes of Tom berenger or clint eastwood.

So it was ,as i said before, a dream did come through in my life and i was awestruck by her. I wouldnt dwelve her name, except to say that she was really my angel, a dream come true. I would only refer to her henceforth as MG. So involved was i with her, that i would do anything for her, i would go upto her when i was down with 104 Fever, help her with any of her problems ; i would take all kinds of insults and insuniatations for her, i would finish all my work in double time only to be with her. There are numerous other things that i cant capture here that i did for her, some of them really ridiculous even by lovestruck idiot's standards, but it all seemed so worthy at the time.

Ahh her eyes....My lord!..Maybe Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned, But Heavan, surely, hath no pleasure either than a girl's beautiful eyes and a lovely smile.

So maddeningly captivating were her eyes, i could barely sleep at nights, and it seemed everything i did in life was in a way to get closer to her. To sit with her for a couple of minutes and to look into her innocent eyes was the greatest pleasure i could hope for in a day, and it almost comprised of my days "work".

It wasnt "Sexual" or "Lusty" at any given time, and it was as they say, Love, as pure as Fire, and in its most nubile and Innocent form.

Yeah i almost fell into a monotonous rythem of pleasure, seeing her everyday, feeling happy, and needless to say i couldnt imagine any other dream more uplifting than that.

On the career front, of course,it was a horrible mess.

I was nowhere near the "high performers", littering away my time with unwanted "pasttimes" and my career dream of clearing the Civil services exam was , again, in shambles.

It was my Third year now that i had again rather reluctantly convinced myself into believing that i could clear the exam, one of the toughest in the world, by doing little more than frittering my time away uptil last month or so before i'd sit down and study.

It was a horribly botched up plan and i knew it. I was not getting any younger and i had to clear the exam now if i had any chance of being Anyone in life. Time was not on my side and it was a plan which was 4 years late and it was pretty much now or NeVER for me now.

But i was not , as before, willing to think about these "problems" and was, more or less, procastrintating with increasing complacency.

And the reason for that complacency this time around was my lovely girl, my doll , my angel. I was really mad about her and i couldnt think of any life away from her. Studying hard for a couple of months would mean me being away from her, something i couldnt fathom at this point.

So, i just waded away through time, and hoped that this time, with a little bit of divine intervention, i would clear the Exam.

It was in this background, that my Dad, usually very subdued in these matters, decided to take matters into his own hands.

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"Baba Fakruddin's Shrine" of Penukonda , the resting place of a holy saint of sufi order, was pretty famous and popular with both moslem and hindu folks around Hindupur, my home town.

People regardless of religion would travel to penukonda, a small dusty town aside a large hillock just 45 kms or so of hindupur.

The town is located on plains with elevation less than 400meters, and it lies in the country's interior,somewhere within the rainshadow basin of western ghats. With average rainfall of 75cm or less, its prone to chronic droughts and worse , scorching sun and heatwaves.

Its hardly a pleasurable place, known only to other parts of world for its notorious Warlords called "Faction Leaders" who kill and hack, mercifully amongst themselves, with utter disdain for law and order.

But all these doesnt deter piligrims from far and wide, who visit the Lovable "Baba's" shrine in hundreds everyday.

My dad, already familiar with baba since his childhood, had recently decided to make an offering and to present him a new "cloth", in a small ceremony of sorts.

In the process, he even begged that my wayward ways fell in line, that i concentrate on the task that i was probably born for, to crack the toughest exam in the world

Back in Bangalore, as i woke up, i had this uneasy feeling of every muscle in the body paining.

My body was hot and the fever was around 104 F. I was begining to wonder what went wrong.

Nevertheless, i managed to imagine that i had insulted the baba by not accompanying my dad to his abode. I begged for his mercy and promised that i would do my best to be at his feet at the earliest.

Having recovered only marginally, with temperature still soaring and body hurting to bits, i still managed to reach office on monday. Not because i loved work, heck i was known for malingering more than anything else. It was because of my love, MG. I had to see her smile, i had to be with her, i had to help her do her work.

It turned out she had around 18 bugs to fix that particular day, and it was no coincidence that i volunteered to fix them after taking permission from my boss.

In a record of sorts, i fixed all the bugs by noon , then did my work by 4 PM, and spent rest of day chatting with her.

This was to be the most fateful chat of my life. MG having extracted all the work that i could do for her, couldnt stand any more of me. She strictly assured me that she wasnt interested in me, and would nt like me staring at her even once. I was totally caught off guard. Having 104 F was bad en0ugh , but the only reason you were at office publicly denounced and chided me.

Details aside, the next couple of days were spent me breaking off with her.I couldnt possibly elaborate what transpired, but it should suffice to say i was on verge of going mad with despair.

Dejected and depressed, i sought to a honorable exit, and my options ranged from quitting the company to marrying someone. finally i decided to quit my lovable company, Accenture.

It had provided me food , shelter and a life for around 4 years, but the time had now come for me to take revolutionary decisions.

i decided to quit office and travel to delhi immediately. The delhi was not entirely necessary , but it was key that i got away from the trap of home and office at bangalore, which constantly reminded me of MG.

So it was, on the chilly morning of january the 4 th, i quickly boarded a flight from bangalore, bid adieu to couple of friends and headed north. I had only a couple of contacts in delhi. One of my friends had arranged for an accommodation and another , my close friend prashant, was to be my conseliere for all matters related to exam. The next 10 days were spent wandering like a monk on the lanes of delhi attending classes, taking notes and meeting friends. It was a surreal and unforgettable experience. Having worked in plush MNC's for years, having gone abroad and enjoyed all the amenities of life , and to suddenly now live a life of a no good student was hard.

I tried calling MG from delhi in initial days, hoping she would forgive me and i would forgive her and then probably i would get away from this dingy life that i had chosen for myself. Luckily she didnt appreciate me calling her, and warned me of dire consequences of ever i did it again. This was a last straw. Anger and a new desire to excel aroused in me, and for the next 4 months, i concentrated on my goal in a way i had never ever done for anything in life before. That probably the turning point . I locked myself up in the room alone, having politely refused friends for a outing of sorts, and studied uptil wee hours of night. It was highly dedicated and disciplined life and i was convinced god was with me.

So having written the exam on May 17th, i was quietly confident that i would be among a few thousand to clear prelims out of couple of lakhs around this great country of 32 sq kms area.

so when results came out on august 1st week, all i did was quietly walk up to my mom , kiss her on her cheeks, and say "mum i have cleared prelims". She jumped up and down with joy and within days the news was over the entire town or so it seemed.

That night, i called MG , this time after a gap of around 8 months. I thanked her for what she did to me and she said " CONGRATS". THOSE few words would forever ring in my heart.

A popular comedian once says in a movie Telugu movie venki that a failure in love is more memorable than a success, for a success merely means love , marriage and then end of story, WHEREAS a LOVE failure will always remain in heart, forever inspiring new dimensions in life.

I dedicate this entire blog to my everlasting but ephemeral love... MG......

India her Numerous people.

I just returned from a tour of my native village in Nearby andhra pradesh.

It was a fascinating journey to Hindupur, a rather rusty town on the borders of AP and karnataka, and was traversed, rather mundanely , through the trusted Indian railways.

The newly established "Machlipatnam" express sat rather smuggly on platform no 4 at yeswanthpur railway station , and closer inspection of it revealed much more cleaner coaches than one could demand of trains of these sorts.

As we settled in , i noticed something remarkable, something so profound that it really makes you wonder whether UTopia has indeed ushered into india.

An old lady, whose dress and demeanour, sadly resembled no better than that of a Ragpicker, talked rather meloncholously into her Mobile phone. So confident was she, talking into that small piece of microchip with microphones that one wondered if she hadnt used it all her life.

That, probably is new india, an india in which benifits of liberalization and competetion has more or less trickled down to the most downtrodden and worthless.

Later when train did move, it started picking up speed as it exited crowded suburbs of bangalore and within minutes we waded through lush fields and amazing deccan vegetation.

Since geo is my optional for UPSC, i scoured the landscape trying to "analyze" the landscape and make sense of topography through my newly acquired "Expertise" in Geography.

I could make out the granatic bedrocks and schists through which the line was so meticulously blasted through, something which makes you admire british for thier orderliness and discipline.

A local salesman, who apprently was now my co passenger , started picking conversation with my ever willing dad on how cheap the railway fares were.

And indeed They were!.

A local trip to hindupur about 100 kms away costs 16 rupees, much lesser than an auto fare from my home to station.

So low are the fares that it has pretty much taken out all Private Bus operators out of contention in this route. Infact, a few that operate, invite ridicule by citing fares at 75/- for the same route. About 5 times higher!.

In a country where 70% of its people live on less than 40 per day, its a crucial factor, one which endears them to thier railways.

So i wonder, at the end of it, how much can a goverment do for its people?

Goverment is perhaps the most potent weapon for poverty eradication and human upliftment out there.

It only remains to be seen, however, how far the governance improves during the reign of UPA which has now a definate mandate to it.

Already we see many reforms on anvil , like the recently bought about "integration" of Police databases across the countries.

But until it really percolates down to the ground level, wihch to be fair it has marginally, people can just hope that it keeps getting better every day.