Into an abyss of hopelessness...

Lose hold,
Slip away,
Into obscurity,
Cheerlessness.

Clouds surround,
Gloom engulfs,
Suffocating swathe,
Strangling life.

Slowly descend,
Gradually dive,
Plummeting
Into chasm.

Retreating ledge,
Shrinking visage,
Unrepentant,
Bids farewell.

Fear, alarm, panic;
Resignation,
Acceptance,
Enervated submission.

Receding azure,
Ochre approaches,
Dizzying depth,
Spinning, spiralling.

Abrupt clarity, calm,
Peace, beatitude;
Drift in comforting cocoon,
Into the abyss of hopelessness.

The altruist

Descending into depressive shadows,
Reeking of ignored, forsaken gloom;
He moves among the forgotten, incognito,
As one of their own in that festering room.

A stranger, so familiar, to them, outcasts,
He offers solace of warmth, love,
That stem from personal hurt and betrayal;
Transcending pain to something nobler above.

In shadows, he works, nameless,
Recognition is not for him;
The silent moon, his only witness,
The stars shine down upon him.

Writer's block

As I wait with pen in hand,
For diction of word;
Inches from paper hovers nib,
Taut drawn bow.

Restless stylus yearning,
To indite verse,
Unyielding manual leash
Restraining flow.

Fluttering parchment straining,
All ready to fly;
But deprived of orientation,
Nowhere to go.

With all props ready,
And audience in seat,
The play dies premature,
For the actors fail to show.

Cracking my knuckles,
Wringing hands in vain;
Racking brains, and
Thinking of all I know.

Waiting for inspiration’s
Brilliant strike;
Desperate for rescue
From this silent legato.

And then I give up,
My quest for rhyme;
Lay down weapons,
Before poetic foe.

Then my failure, I realize,
Is in itself poem;
Poem for my despair,
Quid pro quo!

For the love of love...

Walking on wandering feet,
Along unknown road and aimless street;
Searching, seeking, on the quest,
For the love of love itself.

Love as passion, love as zest,
Carnal, needy, and all the rest;
None of these in itself do i seek,
But only the love of love itself.

Love that nourishes, that which consumes,
Creating, sustaining or that doth expunge
None of these do i desire,
Save the love of love itself.

As drifting leaf on intent winds,
My meandering soul finds many sojourns;
I see a glimmer, an illusion of hope,
But it eludes me, --the love of love itself.

Tired, vanquished, in despair,
Failed endeavour, homeward i repair;
Still i turn to that elusive notion,
I yearn for the love of love itself.

Disturbed thoughts in chaotic strife,
Unasked questions and unanswered voices;
Interrupted emotions restlessly restrained,
All for the love of love itself.

At long last, the stormy clouds part,
Streaks of golden sunlight bathe
My mind into tranquility, peace then beatitude,
With the love of love itself.

I lost myself in a divergent journey,
In obsessive pursuit of a concept;
And in the end found it in me,
The precious love of love itself.

Technical interview at TCS

I always knew that I’d crack the apti, and graciously bow out at the technical interview stage. So I went in with the confidence of a dead man who knew he couldn’t be killed. I, almost nonchalantly, wished the two interviewers well and asked if I may take a seat. I handed them the file which contained all my mark sheets and also, due to an oversight, my AWP (I think) test paper, displaying a three on twenty-five! ‘Ignorance is bliss’ –if ever a truer statement had been made! And they merely turned the first two-three pages and hardly even glanced at them.

For sake of convenience I shall, from now on, allude to the first interviewer, a male, as ‘M I’, the second one, a female, as ‘F I’ and to yours truly, as simply ‘ME’.

The interview began:

M I: So, tell us something about yourself.

I have this fierce urge to do the classical, ‘My name is Iyer…Venkitaraman Iyer…Krishnamoorthy Venkitaraman Iyer…Nurani Krishnamoorthy Venkitaraman Iyer…’

With an incredible display of self restraint, I manage a reply to the question with a straight face.

After giving me the usual routine of ‘which is your favourite subject?’ and such other questions, we get down to business…

F I: What is a comparator?

I grope wildly in the farthest recesses of my mind, and even as I struggle so desperately, something about two inputs strikes me…

ME: It’s got two inputs; one input is reference input and other input is (the) input (as a noun), input (as a verb) to it…and I realise that there are probably a few inputs too many here. But I soldier on…The input to it is compared to the reference input and the difference in their levels accordingly yields a resultant output.

‘At last –output –a new technical term!!...I must be on a roll!!’

M I: So tell me…

I’m still basking in my glory…

M I: Ok, then…

‘Huh? Did I just miss a question completely??!!’

I give him a nod that is a somewhere between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’.

We then turn to programming.

F I: So, you’ve done C programming in college? Write me a program to list numbers in order.

A smile starts to play on my lips -Piece of cake!

ME: Yes ma’am.

What she expects is logic to ‘sort’ a list of numbers in ascending order. But I proceed to write a piece of code merely displaying all the numbers, ‘in order’ as I understand, and that too, in a non terminating manner! It is a disastrous piece of code technique, not to mention, a completely wrong answer!

The F I gives me an incredulous look and quietly places in aside –probably to have a good laugh about it later with the other interviewers.

M I: So, you know anything about mobiles?

Bat-Mobile?!

ME: Yes sir, we will be learning it this semester.

M I: So how does it work?

Blurting out…

ME: Battery?

The M I started to raise an eyebrow...

ME: I mean it catches the network from station… and relays it back to the station and… converts radio waves to electric waves and…then to voice waves (?!)

I am transported to another time when I was at Kalra-Shukla and our Bio sir, Prof. Ram, strode into class one early Friday morning.

We were still half asleep, when his sudden appearance rudely awakened us. It wasn’t just his sudden entry, but his looks that really alarmed us. Tight body-hugging collarless Tee with the face of a big tiger printed on it; tight blue jeans; and a three-day stubble. If this wasn’t shock enough, he started asking random people questions. One poor hapless chap was still unable to keep his eyes open and very surely, he was also picked out to be questioned. Ram sir thundered ‘What is the chemical equation for photosynthesis?’ And now the boy was widely awake ‘Sir…’ he ventured… ‘It is… C₆H₁₂O₆… plus… H₂O… plus…’ There was pin drop silence in the class. And then Ram sir addressed him, poker faced, betraying no emotion, ‘That, my dear sir, is the recipe for GLUCON-D!’

If I could be there now, I’d put an understanding arm around his shoulder.

Jeesez! Of all occasions to be day-dreaming! I shove the memory out of my head and get back to the matter at hand. I continue…

And then GSM or CDMA techniques are used. And SIM cards do all this, not battery.

What? ‘Not Battery!’ My head is already attributing phrases to the current situation –‘verbal diarrhoea’, ‘foot-in-mouth disease’, ‘pink-slip of…no…by tongue’... No…got to focus…

They probably have had enough of this blabbering, but decide to find out what the HR guys might have missed…

M I: Name three personalities you admire.

ME: Well…Saurav Ganguly…The Ganguly-Chappel saga is the current hot topic…‘love you Saurav, love you Chappel’, even if I risk sounding gay…’Coz, present circumstances not considering, he has really brought Indian cricket out of the doldrums…I don’t have the slightest inkling of what the word means…He has moulded this Indian outfit to gel into a cohesive fighting unit. He has marshalled his resources exceedingly well. He is an excellent leader, and yet an ardent disciple of the game...‘thank you Ravi, Harsha, Tony, etc’…He has brought the spark and spunk, back into the team…now I’m rambling…The Indian players are like water and oil, and he has converted them to liquid-sol…‘thank you, some-chemistry-sir-from-Kalra-Shukla’…

The two of them, wide-eyed, are staring at me…

M I: Interrupting me…Ok, ok. Who’s the next one?

I realize that I need to keep it a li’l concise.

ME: Roger Federer. He’s the number one in his game, and yet has his feet firmly on the ground. He is modesty personified. So extremely talented, so exceedingly humble…the poet in me is starting to take over…And last, um, Abdul Kalam…I go blank!...‘Now where did that come from!!...think man, think…who’s he? Father of the nation?’ ...He was a…‘no, he was the,… no, is the president’…he is a great visionary who sees great dreams for his beloved motherland…Oh, these ‘poetic-prose’ type statements always come handy, when you have no actual matter at hand…He is a technologically-oriented man who sees technology as a means for the technological advancement for India...

My technological disposition clearly doesn’t seem to appeal to their sense of technology.

Now the two of them have plainly lost their patience. They’ve had enough for one day…

F I: Ok. Go sit outside, and we’ll let you know the results.

I walk out with my dignity largely unscathed. It also helps, that there is no one left in the waiting area awaiting their interview results. As I pack my stuff into my bag, a lady comes out and says, ‘Fill up this form and go to the basement, where you’ll have your H.R. interviews.’

And then I land the job.

The economic recession is also an opportunity for career advancement

             The economies of the world are reeling under the effects of a full fledged recession. The industry is waking up to a harsh reality. And when the corporate structure feels shaky, the brunt of strain is felt at the very base of the arrangement, at the individual level. Inadequate monetary compensations are only a part of a larger picture. The impact of the current market situation on the individual’s emotional physiology has been as extensive as it has been understated.

One side of the story is that the economic fall-off has resulted in lower business for industry, which in turn translates to lesser work and immediate opportunities for the employees. Managers are unable to direct or motivate them to perform at work, simply because there is no work! This breeds a feeling of frustration and the employees feel trapped in doldrums.

When an employee is forced to hang on to the job out of some difficulty, he or she starts to hate the job. Consequently he or she starts hating himself or herself for going through the grind unwillingly.

Another side is the carrot-stick method that many organizations employ as stop-gap arrangement to “weed out non-performers”; where the “incentive” for high performance is job security! This in fact kills enthusiasm of employees. All these factors cause them to lose drive. This employee dissatisfaction and apathy decreases productivity and, on a macro-scale, completes the vicious circle of the recession.

But there are two sides to every coin. This recession will force individuals to face up to difficult questions and induce them to answer. Self-motivated employees who still enjoy the work in their domains will know that they belong there. They would have found their best-fit fields. It will also help organizations identify their aptitude and develop their abilities. Such individuals will be prized and when the economy starts to turn up, their value and career advancement opportunities will increase many fold. Others who are unable to muster up the same enthusiasm will know that their calling lies elsewhere. This will, in a sense, be an on-the-job career counseling.

Individuals who quit their jobs either through choice or compulsion will also be poised on an exciting threshold. One option would always be pursuing higher education. The training will improve the individual’s skills and marketability. A two or three year course will also ensure better positioning of the individual in the job market, at an opportune time, even as the industry emerges out of this economic gloom. Alternately, the individuals may go in for a complete change of career path by opting to study for an altogether different vocation.

Another option would be to learn new marketable skills or enroll for short-term courses. One may as well indulge in artistic leanings. The story of Steve Jobs and his calligraphy lessons in college are legendary and it might well be worth taking the dip. In an age where a Jack-of-all-trades is as valued as, if not more than, a Master, it pays to have many and varied cards up ones sleeves.

Many people are now opting to take private tuitions or even going back to college, as lecturers. This not only takes one back to the basics and in touch with theory, but also enhances one’s confidence.

Finally there are always those who embark on entrepreneurial journeys. When organizations are looking to cut costs, they are exploring alternatives outside of established but costly vendors for many services. A low-cost provider with acceptable quality of delivery is a very enticing option for them. Extreme market conditions not only open up new avenues to provide service, they also create conditions to find and establish niche markets. Even as the heavy oak struggles to brave the storm, the versatile grass will find room to flourish.
  We have certainly hit rough weather. But as the saying goes, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. These are testing times but the thing about being in an abyss is that there’s only one way to go- up!

The Search

I looked for my underwear, high and low,
A piece of clothing, to wear below;
Even as I stood there –detesting! –standing in the nude,
I failed to find the undergarment to which I allude!

I looked here, I searched yonder,
I inspected the clothes kept to a-launder;
I groped hither, I explored thither
-‘Where art my briefs?! Or have they gone a-wither?!’

With closet doors pulled open wide,
‘Succeed I must! ’, did I decide;
Rummaging through belongings, pulling out clothes,
Finding, among other things, moth balls and sticky notes.

‘Where might they have gone?’ I cerebrated,
With my honour on the verge of being desecrated;
While my veins throbbed, distended with panicky blood,
A million thoughts did my encephalon a-flood.

With modesty compromised and nothing to wear,
I cried out in frustration –sheer despair:
‘Whom did I wrong, where have I sinned,
What misdemeanour has I, to my name a-pinned?’

Sat I brooding under the shadow of shame,
Overwhelmed by the numbness of emotion that came;
Overhead did dark clouds of embarrassment loom,
As I lay vanquished, in my endeavour to find that costume.

Even as I lay struggling, writhing amidst turmoil,
Denigrating the circumstances, to which fate had played foil,
Out of the corner of my iris I happened to spy –
‘Oh, my! ...Is it true? …Can I believe my eye?’

There, in the corner of my dog’s kennel,
Wide-eyed, I ogled au view novel;
A white piece of fabric, with only corner jutting out,
‘So this is where my underpants have established their hideout.’

Further examination revealed the entire stash,
Among the pilfered stuff was, ‘…a tray of cigarette ash?!’
And horded in a corner, lay my underwear in a small heap,
With Tootsie, sprawled upon it, fast asleep.

What’s up with this mongrel of complexion so wheatish?
Of all things to have …an ‘underwear’ fetish?
Reason eludes me to explain this conniving rogue
Maybe in ‘Doggy land’, such is the practice in vogue.

I shook awake the beast canine,
And appropriated what was rightfully mine;
A mystery it remains, how he managed to get it all there,
But ecstatic with joy I exclaimed, ‘Oh, what do I care!