Little people from Ratanpur...(a Kanpur Flight Lab story)

I slowly opened my eyes and relaxed my tummy muscles. The pilot had put his hand on my right shoulder. "Relax, my boy", he said "Look at your left, look down! What do you see?" I came back to my senses and turned left. Although I could not stop thinking. My whole body had just experienced a free fall from a height of 500ft........

The Piper Chronicles
Day 2 started the same. Basically it started a lot before our group could even wake up. We were scheduled to have an experimental flight at 6:15 in the morning and at 6:05 i was sitting in the toilet waiting for day 1 to disappear. Another group who were scheduled after us were already ready and had reached the hangar. As we rushed in a jeep to the hangar at 6:45, we luckily discovered the the pilot himself was late and was sitting in the same jeep as ours (Weird! we didnt even recognize him:)) So the first journey started! All 5 of us, Varun, Aadil, Satyam, Achyoot and myself, we took our positions inside the Piper Saratoga aircraft and waited for one of the most memorable moments for the rest of our lives.....or so we thought!!

So a lot happened. Satyam read out to the pilot from the pilot's handbook; my camera floated a feet above my hand (during the free fall) and when Achyoot requested the pilot to hand him over the controls the pilot looked at him as if saying, "Dude, I wont give that to my wife!". Although it was not that funny, Aadil coudnt stop laughing. He went on and on like Indro on a bad joke day.
Achyoot concluded this pilot might not be the "sutta" kind of guy (although he found out later he was wrong) and forgot about it as soon as he came back on the ground and saw the ravishing Vandy waving and smiling at him like a female prime minister of a third world country ( Our country needs to experiment with one of those too). Achyoot smiled as he preened his hair. Little did the poor chap know the RIMC was standing right behind him and smiling and waving as well.

The little people from Ratanpur
The second excercise for the day was three rounds of taking off, turning and landing a glider, a plane with no engines.

I am notorious for being a "fattu" (or a guy who is scared of taking any sort of risk, physical mental or experimental). So people had basically assumed what would happen once I go inside the glider and it takes off. I can picture them picturing me screaming, cursing, throwing my limbs around and ultimately opening the latch and jumping out of the glider from 300 ft. Now, that is so contradictory-its weird, and thats why it didnt happen.

This is what happened. I checked my seatbelts waved at my friends and the glider took off. It was kind of nice, rising heights and thinning air when suddenly everything in my stomach just started wobbling, trying to comeout and enjoy the view from that height. It was a free fall just after the cable which pulls the glider detaches. I clinched my fists and shut my eyes. When I opened them......"Look down, what do you see" The pilot was talking to me as if I was a five year old trapped in a tree panda`s body. "Look at that small village . How small it looks. Look at the little people of Ratanpur doing their daily chores. Look how that little woman is unloading water infront of that toy car. Oh wait! Thats not a toy car, thats a giant tractor.... " "I get it", I screamed. "I can see how little these people are looking and I can also see why....It would be really better for both of us if we concentrated on the landing rather than that woman`s tractor."

I kept looking down at the village for the rest of the landing. Everyone was busy with what they were doing except, there was a little 5 year old looking up agape as the glider was turning to land. It was probably nothing new for him, but he looked up with a curiosity that I can never match about a flying object. I looked closely....He looked a little bit like me.

I always had this phobia of heights. Much like everyone else I also fear falling down but in my case I always think its more likely to happen. I am usually reminded of the little people of Ratanpur whenever I feel lonely (not in a weird way:P), and that has been a lot lately. Sometimes I wonder, am I slowly rising above while all the people around me are shrinking in dimension doing their daily chores, bored and thus uninterested in what is going on above them or am I a little fellow from the village looking up at everyone who is floating past. The latter agrees more to my logic.

She smiled at me on the subway.....

remember that James blunt song ?
"My life is brilliant.My love is pure.I saw an angel.Of that I'm sure.
She smiled at me on the subway....."

I happened to me, only this time Subway was a fast food restaurant in Bandra.What I am about to disclose here is entirely true and lines of fiction are defined well enough for sane minds to cross over. It was a sunny afternoon and after an hour and half of wandering among the belittling wilderness of unsuspicious faces floating past me, (sometimes into me, like I never existed) my hunger had started to grow on my nerves and my body was already threatening to hollow me under the skin if i did not feed it for another two minutes.

Then I saw it. Every organ in my body yelled - Subway!
Within minutes I was holding in my hand a parmesan oregano treat wrapped over tomatoes, cucumbers, salad and paneer overflowing with mustard and mayo. I looked at it and remembered how i asked the guy three times to put more of it. There was no time to lose. I opened my mouth like a python about to swallow a new-born horse. Every thing was set- I was waiting for this moment all day long, nothing could stop me now. My teeth almost dug into the bread when my body froze still. I felt like my soul jerked out of this world and back into it in that one little moment.

I lifted my head and turned right. There she was. Across the tables on the other side of the room she was staring at me, like she knew me, today, yesterday, forever. Her round black eyes were fixed at something beyond this world failing to realize when I had started to look into them as well. Time had slowed and my senses enhanced. I could see her so close upon me, I could hear her heartbeats, feel the warmth of her breath on my face as her shoulders moved up and down. The smell from her skin continued to engulf me more and more into its vivacious depths. Into the deepest of this stunned musing I suddenly saw a muscle on her face move, triggering electric signals to a forest of nerves around and rendering most complicated human emotion - a smile. Her lips parted. I turned down to look at the mayo and then back to her. I was sure, I couldnt decide.

A few minutes later she stood up and left the place leaving her last bit of fragrance the task to wake me up from my reverie.

She was an angel, a ghost or just an illusion of a hungry mind. I dont know who she is, but I am sure even she doesn`t.

Application for $UMMER Internship

 Subject: Application for $UMMER Internship

Sir

I have gone through your profile on the net and have heard about other people who have heard and read about you as well. That, I think, gives me the right to spam you in your ass, telling you how much I revere your work and want to be a part of it, although I may not be able to take it up from here at home and you will have to sign the bill of my transport and stay if you want me to work on the "work" that I am "extremely interested" to work upon.

Sir, its my dream and desire to do something that makes me proud this summer and I am ready to forgo all obstacles in the path. As an instance, Yesterday i bypassed the IIT network firewall to download a software from bittorrent that can send up to 500 emails at a time from any email account to any email account(s). Such is my dedication and determination that I have left no stone unturned in "landing upon" this oppurtunity. As you must have noticed I have even changed the subject from "Summer Internship" to "$ummer Internship" so that this mail doesnt get caught up into your spam filters.

Therefore, I think I am the perfect candidate you were looking for that "sponsored" project of yours. Please dont feel intimidated by the fact that your college is a gazillion times inferior to IIT Bombay. The thing is, I dont care and so should you.

Regards

Looking forward for a positive reply immediately at the earliest

Yours sincerely

JeDi

P.S.: If this mail makes no sense to you then it means you are probably not a professor, Kindly forward this to at least 50 people from your contact list within two days or Jesus will eat your children.

Zoom - A short story!

I zoomed into her eyes !

An amazing blue wave encapsulating the glowing bright fire flashed into my face, making it all wet. Never before in my life had I shivered in such warmth, never before had I run in my own empty wilderness kicking up every grain of sand under my bare feet. I ran fast, as fast as I could through those cold, parched woods chasing the bright glowing fire before the wave could extinguish its heat. Inside my ribs my heart was contracting, asking me to wait, to admire the beauty of the wave as it rose high against the fire and sparkling crystal droplets separated from its circumference. My tired feet voiced for my heart but I insisted otherwise. Gathering my last wits I spread out my hands to save the light. The ice on my fingernails started melting and as I moved closer there was a click and a lightning flash.

"Fine this time?", she interrogated "Or did I close my eyes yet again."

"As a matter of fact", said I "You did!"

"Holy Crap! Ok, one more‐just one more, please", She was almost on her knees.

"Hey look! If I keep on taking your photographs all day I..I may"

"I may what?"

"I may fall in love with you Damnit!" I knew I had said something wrong.
She paused for a moment to look at my face and then said "But we are already married, honey."

I shivered. The ice was still warm.

Viva la vida

Its only three days into the semester and three guys already got fined for something that was considered ragging and which in other circumstances could have easily been nothing more than a....mmm....lets say a talk! Embarrassing as it may have been for those fined, what would the "ragged" guy in question be going through? Already confused, only three days into IIT and he thinks he has made the whole senior fraternity an adversary losing his own freedom to feel being a part of the system. Freedom has an ambiguous persona. Its always out there busy playing Peek-a-Boo with all those who seek it.

The act of freedom comes with so many clauses. Thats why its so easy to to play with and find a loophole in one`s freedom scheme. Just plant 15 bombs in a city and you can alter the freedom of a million people for a day or two. Take away their freedom to think that they are safe or...sane! Ya! this has been tried and tested! The only thing is that whosoever tried to generate any profit out of these loopholes of freedom forgot one important ability of man. MAN FORGETS ! Like numerous last times people in Ahmedabad and Bangalore will forget this in a few days while the "ragged" guy at IIT would be busy sharing a smoke or a bottle of beer with the same seniors. The dynamicism of freedom will defeat itself again.

The only instruction that God gave man before sending him to earth was "Viva La Vida" ie Live the Life. So as long as man lives his life he will continue to forget and will remain free.

Eight Seconds....Endsem espl

He must have been the most hated of them all. He must have lived a secluded life in a dark dungeon covered in the filth of human waste. On his tombstone they must have written-"Here lies the despotic descendant of a delirious devil who bred despondence and just before a deserving death came up with the idea of ENDSEM(s)@#$%^&@!!"

An idea can definitely change a life, so we know now. Every 6 months the above mentioned idea changes a lot of lives - okay only for a week, but the fact is that-it does!! Lives transform from basking sleepers to sleepless bastards, from muffled buggers to baffling muggers, from human hard discs to human RAMs.

Still I (as usual) see a flaw in the idea. There are four kinds of people appearing in the endsems. First set of people who study for 8-10 hrs before the exam and pass out peacefully, second, a little more intelligent set who study for the same 8-10 hrs an get a decent grade too, the third, a subset of the second kind who put in a lot of effort, obviously in those 8-10 hrs, but still show no improvement over the last time; the fourth, the last set and the most interesting ones are those who study all sem long an don't even need the 8-10 hrs before the exam to crack it. So the gazillion paisa question is - After all, Endsems for Whom?? and what is it testing....and what purpose is it serving? None of these four people need it....:-?

Jokes apart, I heard that an average young male thinks about sex every Eight seconds. Now during Endsems when one has a hill station of notes and chapters and xeroxes and slides to concentratively mug, hmm... I feel Eight is a really huge number.

Anyway, all the best for end-thems.......

Back from the future.....

So is it a time to come back...Have all the things fixed up in the past.....Elections, opinions, friendships, seminars, quizzes, vivas, PT???.......

Oh no! We still have an Endsem....Okk, will get through it as well......So basically untill today it was hard to decide whether or not to come back! to the present!........Well now its not!! All the things and people that I was running after or cared the least about dont have it same for me.......So let it go.....I will be back anyway......The mess that I created..I will have to clean up myself.....There is no help coming in a spaceship(as I expected untill today)........I dont want to remain trapped in this little time lapse for eternity......The freeze has to break now.....lets melt back to the "real" world......I know its not as ideal as I imagined, wished, built it up or needed it to be.........but thik hai......Fine with me now.....People around me here are forgetting things,I cant keep on reminding them.............So its only me now!!....Back to the present.......

P.S. I am not drunk...or senti.....