A letter to my new Computer

Dear Comp,

You are somebody I have always wanted to own. From the day I saw you huddled up in the corner of an air-conditioned room, into which 30 of us – class nine students – were herded after being forced to remove our footwear.

The day my magnanimous teachers gave me three seconds to play that `Bounce Ball` game, that your great-grandfathers came with in the early 1990s, I had decided that I should own one from your family. Did I hear you say, Imperialist? Blame it on my grand father, who once went around with a 50-year old divorced British Nurse.

In fact, there is nothing to fear, for I will not mess up with you. I hardly know anything about hardware, and as for my software skills, they are as soft as can be. You can rest assured it will be a qualified professional who would attend. As of now, you are well vaccinated.

I will not be using all those floppies and CDs that will make you ill. And if at all you get ill, we could always check with Dr. Watson. Heard he is a good Doc.

I am told you guys have a very bad immune system, what with every other family member afflicted with some virus. In my house, the most common virus is that for common cold, and I hear they don`t inhabit non-humans like you.

While at it, I must tell you about my nose – It would have been a Olympics champion if only I had registered in time for the Atlanta Games in 1998. What a runner of a nose, I have had to live with.

Your KRA will be to help me finish the book that I am yet to start. The one that, I have already named – Making Sense of Humor.

A vital part of your daily activity will be being my home entertainment system – from songs in the morning and evening, to Matter CDs in the darkness of the night. You will have to be trustworthy like Diana`s chauffer…not revealing any of my secrets. Well, at least not till I die a horrific death in some car accident, on a highway, with FoodWorld`s owners` daughter by my side.

Now that we agree on so many things, how about you, not displaying the `Bad Command` message? For, one I am your commander and two, my commands are not bad.

Yours lovingly,
Jamshed V Rajan

St. Valentine, I am looking for ya!

Hailing from a not-so-metropolitan city called Madurai, I had never heard of Valentines Day.

Now that I have spent four years in Chennai…I know what it takes to go thro` the torture. Sometimes I feel jealous of the Madurai boys, who do not have to undergo the pain.

When February begins girl-friends start hinting. Hints vary from the subtle, “It has been a long time since you gifted me something,” to the hard-hitting, “how about a Gold necklace this time.”

Poor guys. They need their share of affection from their girl friends, and hence just bite their lips and hold their tongue. While we are at it, I might as well tell you about this bunch of friends, who still believe affection and sex are different!

As the Day nears, one gets lot of affection. I did.

On the 12th of Feb, previous year, she was nibbling at my ears…when all of a sudden I was brought down to Earth from the 7th heaven. Between blowing her breath into my ears like a vacuum cleaner that had forgotten its purpose, she whispered in my ears: “Lovie-dovie, have you bought my gift yet?”

I was in two minds. What do I say? If I said the truth, my evening would have ended then and there. And if I said yes…the questions would go on. Immediately, the Liar in me took over, and I was describing this cool earring I bought. Her breathing became heavy, and she pulled me closer. If I had thought, I had gotten rid of her I was mistaken. For now she wanted to know the price.

She enquired, “Costly huh?” She was using her vantage position to good effect. Even as she closed her eyes and inched towards my nape, I blurted out: “Yeah, paid two thousand.” I am not sure if I heard her counting, but I saw a smile escape her lips. She was happy. Needless to say, the evening went on well.

On the 13th, I rushed to a shop that I thought sold stolen Gold articles and bought a stupid looking earring for a fifteen hundred ruppees. Looked like my grandma`s, but did not care. Luckily, the fashion had come a full circle…and my girl thought it was awesome. She gave me a hug. Big deal.

On the 14th she decided to go to Hotel Basera, on East Coast Road, here in Chennai. A nice romantic place, she said. If I were on my own, I would never go there. Saravana Bhavan is fine with me.

The menu did the appeal to me, for it proudly mentioned that a one liter Bisleri water bottle would cost me Rs 30. At home, I get the 20 liter Bisleri for Rs 30. The Chicken Tikka came at Rs 150. No wonder, the food did not seem tasty.

Like any boy friend with some self-worth, I waited. Did not ask her to part with my gift. Soon we were at her door-steps. I was dropping her, and was yet to get my gift. Come on, I had wasted Rs 1500…and I was not going to be conned like this.

The darkness helped hide my anxiety, as I casually remarked, “hey, where is my Valentine`s Day gift?”

She just smiled. When I asked again, she said, “remember, when we first met in 2002, you asked me to marry you?” I nodded reluctantly. “Well, I am ready to marry you. And that`s my gift.”

We broke up on the 16th of February…. because I had wanted my gift back!

My innocence, Terrorism & Osama

As if forced habit – courtesy a military captain for a father – I had got up early every day.

The verbal duels at the park reserved for exercising, where an army of housewives and children would gather as early as 4 in the morning, was always welcome. It helped me vile away time while I held my science text book in front of my sleepy eyes.

That fateful day, the discussion sounded different. There was fear in it. The words were first dipped in deep anguish and then gift-wrapped with emotion. Something big had happened. I pressed my ears between the rusted iron bars of my window, and heard it. It was 21st of May 1991. Rajiv Gandhi had been assasinated by LTTE.

That was my first encounter with terrorism. I had seen Rajiv Gandhi on TV. The charisma. The magnetism. As a school going kid, politics and policies did not matter but personalities did. Since then terrorists have enamoured me. The curiosity in me increased over the years and today has taken the form of this piece.

LTTE, which was founded one year after I was born (founded in 1976), unlike me, has come a long way. This most powerful Tamil group in Sri Lanka uses overt and illegal methods to raise funds, acquire weapons, and publicize its cause of establishing an independent Tamil state.

In the course of its still unfinished struggle a LTTE suicide bomber had assassinated Rajiv Gandhi – my idol of the day.

At the cost of sounding dark, the kudos for most number of suicide attacks goes to HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic resistance Movement. With the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel, this terrorist outfit has numerous attacks to its credit. Most of them against Israeli civilian and military targets, not to mention some US buildings.

Talking of buildings one can easily drift to Osama Bin Laden for the only reason that he was a builder before he took to bombing them. Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM), formerly known as Harakat al-Ansar is one of the many outfits that has his blessings. Based in Pakistan, this group operates in Kashmir and over the years has become a perpetual headache for the Indian Governments. It was HUM that hijacked an Indian Airliner to Kandahar on Dec 24 last year and sought the release of Azhar, a dreaded terrorist in this part of the world.

Besides playing Marlyn Brando to a few small outfits, Osama Bin Ladin has something that he can call his own. Established in the late 1980s Al-Qaida is an outfit that hopes to establish a pan-Islamic order throughout the world by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems ‘non-Islamic.`

Bin Ladin, who was a builder before he went on to head Al-Qaida, has supposedly unearthed affection for buildings after a lull of 15 years. Only this time his is the hand that destroys, or so we think.