Krishan Upadesh

So, I had to travel to Bangalore during this drama time for yet another job interview, and my friend Krishna was there, serendipitously on the very two days I was there.

We met up, and seeing my rather sorry self, he read me.

“It is a girl right “? , he asked.

I just stared at him, silent.

‘Tell me all about it. All…” , was the command............... not a request but........... a command.

I poured my heart out to him. He was one of the people I could trust. I told him the summary of how I met her, how we started talking and how it blossomed up.

He listened careful and holds your breath, drew a fucking process diagram all with connectors and block arrows. I stared at him, and said “you fine pal??  We are talking about something tangible, not some credit card transaction, or trading algorithm".

" I know you and I know that there is no convincing you without logic trust me and just look at this "

“You are prone to extremes, either you run or you laze there is no middle path. Knowing what you intended, I am guessing this was the right time of you. You lived life by the clock, and lost yourselves in work and structure. Discipline scares people.But trust me pal, not many people can handle you, you have insulted me many times, but you have stretched yourself thin to help me too”.

“I think you stretched yourself for her too; you went over the extreme when it wasn’t warranted. She just used your presence in her life to supplement her standing, that’s the reality pal, she is just one other airhead, with the crookedness of a slut.Look at it this way, when ..”

" Don’t you dare insult her!!" , I screamed, it was hurtful to hear anything demeaning about her.

He shouted over me, “ass hole look at this diagram and understand.” Waving a piece of paper at me.

Not many people can shout over me.

I calmed down and said ‘Pal, I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. I am going to her place, where she is interning now and then from there I am going home. I am going to meet her and then finish it either ways, you got to respect a relationship”

“Suit yourselves, but I am telling you she doesn’t have the balls, I have been in the field for nearly 4 years now and in my industry you see a lot of females, and I see airheads all the time. She is a classic case of one and you are in for more despair, and hurt. But I guess you need it. I do have one advice for you; take it out somewhere…so somewhere. Why don’t you write out your experience till now.”? ,  he said.

“Write”…I asked…but what? “And isn’t that supposed to be personal”?

" It is a catharsis of pain or thought.Whatever you just told me, rewind back and write it down, but keep in mind one thing, focus. There are always two side to a coin, we see what we wish to see, it is akin to a cricket match, every ball or every shot is flawed, its is either too short long, early late or not timed correct. 

Similar is the case with people................. actions......... and.......... relationships. 

If you wish to get over this, then assiduously pick out your experiences with her, and focus on the bad part of it, be critical, be cynical and wrest out a single emotion, and build upon them to get a picture of words. Leave it once you are done and then read it back after some time, it would give you a lot of relief."

“What are you telling? Just because there is no reciprocation I can’t blame her… be critical of her. Everybody is entitled to have their feelings and thoughts I can’t force anything, or rather I don’t want to force anything, because as is the case with shit if hurts when you force it out and the outcome is not too great either” , I countered.

Asshole, Ass…hole…he mouthed with specific emphasis on the hole part with a hearty laugh. In between guffaws he said ” I appreciate your candor, here you are broke, jobless and nursing a broken heart and not to mention your badly bruised Antarctica sized ego and you can still think of wisecracks” !

His guffaws were helpful, a wee bit …

“ It is entirely correct for a relationship to not work in the absence of reciprocation. However, it is wrong, hideous, and positively a crime to disrespect an individual for the presence of certain emotions.You should not play with anyone. One word, gesture, of “ DND” is not reason enough for a relationship to end, I have had my share, and I know it hurts “ ,  said Krishna

Suddenly he was sounding very prophetic a very nostalgic too. It struck me that there was something which he again had not told me, he had shelved his hurt. The scene between him and me was sounding like the Lord Krishna of Bhagvad Gita lecturing the lost Arjuna in the battlefield of life.

" Let’s get drunk, god knows you need it "  , said Krishna.( got to love this kind of Krishna!!)

" I am on a budget" , I replied morosely.All my rules were going for a toss, one more broken would not do much harm, I thought.

" I have plenty, don’t you worry " !! , came the retort.

To which I replied " I don’t want any inferior stuff, let’s go to a huge place.....and ....I trailed off, looking into the horizon.....

" You want Noorie right?"  , he asked mischievously.

Noorie ...... The beginning .......... and ....now ......... it seems ........the end as well !! 

Click here

1. Prelude 
2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
   
5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within
6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove ?!
7. Chapter 6 - Krishna Upadesh
8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!
9. Epilogue

When Push Turns to Shove ?!

That was the last, I would see of her, the very last. I still did not have a job having been pretty choosy, earlier. Now at the end of the season I was scared I would be left high and dry. She left that very day, to her new place for a couple of months, for her internship.

I did not make it to the station, or to her room for the ritual goodbyes. I did not know how I would react, and I did not want to do anything that would have embarrassed her. However, before leaving she did ask me to come and meet her once, and I promised her I would do that.

We messaged pretty frequently. She showed no great interest in my work or my life, just a passing remark “Oh that’s good, just hang on don’t worry something nice would happen”.

Slowly, the distance seemed to have caught up with us. I sensed a marked difference in the way she conversed with me now, the deference, and the respect was slowly waning away. It’s funny how people change, really very. Messages, chats calls all the initiatives were now largely unidirectional, which is not good for a healthy relationship. There has to be reciprocation in type not merely the existence of a sympathetic, patient audience.

I once asked her about vacancies in the place she interned. Her tone changed from conversational to one of unhidden contempt, so much so that I was shaken by the intensity of it. Either she is not really happy with her place or she seems to think it is heights of ineptitude on my part to ask for a push in the right place.

The former did not seem to be true, as she seemed rather happy with her work. That left the latter, which  ostensibly indicated her juvenile and immature self. Two years in school I have understood , education is just one part of it, relationships are more important or rather the only takeaway. I had once got an assignment from a friend who I met for 2 hours on a train journey and I still ask for her help on some creative aspects if my work demands it.

The same stuff which used to interest her, my impromptu acronyms on situations, teaser names, and humor now seemed to be irritating her. Once I referred to her as a princess indicating her standing among her gang of friends, and she snapped back almost ready to bite” I am not a princess, and please stop calling me that”.

I thought it was workplace pressures, for the first time I joined an office I too had slight trouble transgressing from an academic to a corporate profile. I could make out that her family was conservative to the C, and the ostensible development of a non societal relationship between us was scaring her and maybe she needed more time.

I did everything possible to justice her behavior, but as we have a saying in Hindi, loosely translated, the more leeway you give the more audacious become the bets. No matter how well you dress a stable boy, in royal clothes, there will always be a tiny speck of shit in his spit polished shoes.

Same is the case with deference.

Some people are patently not qualified to handle deference. If you treat a donkey like a horse just because it has four legs, it does not get the same elegance of a horse automatically.

“I won’t change, so please don’t have any hope about the relationship between us, I would like to be good friends with you nothing more”, that was the curt, haughty response I got from her on one call, no correction that’s on chat, she did not have the basic courtesy of even calling me and being respectful about ending it.

But you know the thing with promise; it is very hard to break one.

It is like the tiny morsel of food, caught between your teeth somewhere, you just have to remove it. You loll your tongue use your fingers and finally use a tooth brush. 

The same happened, I called, then texted and then mailed. Finally I decided to meet her once to close it.

It is funny as to how much hurt one person is capable of causing in other. There is always a reason,  a method to madness and nobody could wish that away or run away from it. There was a reason for hope to exist, between us, and that was pleasure and happiness, by the same logic there has to be a reason for it to not exist. There was a time when she and me were both having a good time, just because we were not physical close, was no reason to terminate.

Anyway this is guessing, for I still do not know the reason as to why she pushed me away from her or in modern colloquialism dumped me without even telling me the reason.

Hurt, humiliated, confused, and at cross roads, without a decent job to my credit, (but a loan  on my head, !)n my I got a call from a place in Bangalore after a lot of pushes from my end.

Click here

1. Prelude 
2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within
6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove ?!
7. Chapter 6 - Krishna Upadesh
8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!

One Day There Might be Magic Within !

It was nearing my end at B-school. There were a lot of things unsaid, between us but not in the realm of not knowing. I blurted out, my heart to her in one chat session.

And, the typical female response of “Oh, I never looked at you that way”. popped out.” A little later she says” I knew this was coming a long time back, but I am still surprised it came “(What the heck does someone mean by that?)

For the first time in my life I asked a girl out to spend time with me. She agreed readily, I planned on an early morning trip to the beach to witness sunrise and she was also fine with it.

We made it pretty early to the beach. Neither of us had any sleep the last night. It was a time I could never forget, it was magical.

I had seen her out of her gang, of some people. just about now .She looked very sexy, sitting cross legged on the shore line; with the wind blowing her long hair which quiet did not augur well to a braid dangling at her back.

“Priya”, I mouthed softly.

She was lost!

“Priya”, this time I nudged her gently.

“Yes”, came the barely audible reply

“Dear, I really like your company and I guess we get along pretty well”, I said.

I waited for a response, none was forthcoming, and I pushed on.” Can I call you once you are away from this place?

“Yes of course you can call me, we are friends”, she replied hurriedly.

My heart got cold; the soaring bird of hope was run over by the trampling hammer legs of a million mad elephants, high on toddy.

“Can you give me some time to figure that part out”? , I asked softly.

“Time…. where is time”? She asked, “I am going now, and you don’t know where you would head off with your work, how can we spend time”?

“Do you wish that I be in Chennai?”

“Of course…. nobody has made me smile the way you do!!” she countered with one of her smiles

Something………..warm course inside me. The mad elephants started sobering down and there was a flutter as one broken wing flapped weakly.

The broken bird of hope that was trampled upon brutally, countless number of times dared flutter its wings. I too, hoped that someday there might be magic within.

The early morning rays and the gentle lap of waves together were soothing and enchanting. I seemed to lose control at the sight of her.

 I leaned closer to her, and was shaken powerfully by her …smell. She did not use any perfume or deodorant and the smell of her sweat was intoxicating; a hot blooded female smell that made my heart race wild.

Hormones surging all over I leaned closer and placed my hands over her shoulders, she was warm.

The chilly morning breeze, made her warmth all too endearing.

She made no effort to reduce the dangerous proximity, nor did anything to increase it, but just faced the lapping waves.

A gust of breeze, and her t shirt fluttered. I could see her breasts, perfectly round and with fuzzy hair near the nipples. I was seized with a sudden desire to hold her, kiss her and just smell her nice female smell.

But something told me it was wrong. I removed my hand and shifted slightly.

“I would call you daily; I need to hear the sound of your voice”

She did not reply, just stared into the space, uncharacteristically quiet. She was hiding something, and that was ominous.

The queasy feeling that I had about her in the first meeting, came back this time stronger. “Is she really what I think she is”? I thought “A woman with a head, a woman with a heart and the best and mostly missing piece of a backbone connecting the two”

We drove back, and making our way to the campus, I told” It is ok to be scared, “

To which she replied, “I don’t know what to say that except I don’t know…I don’t know anything”.

For the very first time, I saw her reluctance to stand for her own self, her own happiness the first indication of the absence of a backbone.

Click here

1. Prelude 
2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within 
6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove 
7. Chapter 6 - Krishna leela
8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!

Can you Chase a Dream ?

Females have a sixth sense, radar which beeps up when someone comes on the heart part. She was no exception, but what she did not realize was that she was playing with fire, or maybe that’s what I did not realize that she was one step ahead of fire, she was accursed fire.

I became a bit like the wimps that are normally seen around and our companionship relationship moved to the “setting” part.

The “setting” is what most of the opposite sex relationships are. The companionship relationships which manifest more often are of a “setting” in the literal as well as colloquial sense, more of a barter system. The guy gets the pleasure of having exclusive (not always, but hey ignorance is bliss!) privileged access to female company. This in turn is viewed differently by different sets of people, for instance the peers (of one kind) view it as a sign of superior masculine capabilities (physical or otherwise) cynics like me look at such ego boost seeking, males as desperados, low on self esteem. And in return for bestowing the grace of companionship females mostly extract services such as help with different kinds of work, menial or otherwise. For instance in organizational settings it manifests as leniency and in educational institutions as extended classroom preparation sessions.

But in her case I allowed her to play with my mind. Without knowing anything about her work I agreed to help her. I made notes for her, and once even taught her something, from scratch.

Hey I do not mean to disparage helping others; in fact am a helpful guy. However I believe in helping those who help themselves, there is no harm showing someone the way if they have made efforts to find it, but clearing a path for them from scratch is a definite no –no.

Click here

1. Prelude 
2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream ?
5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within