My 26th Birthday!!!

As one ages, one gets closer to Death. As one gets closer to death, one tends to enjoy every birthday to forget about death. Or may be, One wants to make birthday a festive one. Or may be, celebrating birthday is a way to catch with the BFFs. Or may be, it's a way to ask everyone for blessings.

I don't know why one celebrates birthday. And I did not find a reason to celebrate my birthday. And I did not.

Out of the previous 25 birthdays, I vividly remember some birthdays. One in 1st Class and another in 3rd class when my father was alive. He bought me coffee bites once and another time Maha Lacto. Yeah, these chocolates are now extinct. Celebrated my birthday in 6th class and 10th class. And then in the first year of my engineering and my first year at Deloitte and for subsequent years. I have had some of good birthdays. I still remember 2013's birthday party, it was a crazy one.

I don't know why but I decided to not to celebrate my 26th birthday and I did not. And I do not think I will celebrate the future birthdays.

Call me crazy, the below is what happened on my birthday...
1) I did not bath or brush my teeth on this day.
2) Well, I am an atheist. Expecting a temple visit is out of reach but accidentally I visited Delaware Temple on Mount Abu. Don't worry, I did not seek blessings. Will not God get a heartache if I do? LOL.
3) I told my friends not to treat me special :). You are special only if you achieve success.
4) I turned off my facebook birthday notification to check who will wish!!! Well, as expected I got only 3 birthday wishes on my facebook account!!! :)
5) But the surprising fact was many wished me on whatsapp and over calls. Well, this makes me think, I am in a way a important person in their lives.
6) Awesome part of the day is, it made me think about myself. You rarely get time to think about yourself!! :)
7) Worst part of the day was the food sucked big time :P

Enjoy your everyday!!

My Village Story in Farmer's words

How do u sell your produce at a price you want?

As soon as we get the harvest, the brokers swarm around us. Each of them wants a major share of the produce. But they want to pay us less. They try to fix a price. We generally don't like that price. We do our calculations and we can not come down to a price which is less than the (invested+investment needed). We bargain and get closer to what we want. We sell it off. Some of us keep a portion of produce which will be sold after another season. The older rice fetches more price. Rich farmers do use facilities of Warehouses because they can afford it.

Why do not you go to the market yard?

We can sell only at government fixed rates in the market yards. The quality of rice produced does not matter in the pricing. Over that, we need to take the produce to the market yard and wait till it is sold. We also need to pay bills on each bag sold. Why go to the market yard when we can make a deal with the broker. After hard work on the farm, we do not have the energy to transport and sell our produce.

Don't brokers trouble you?

Why will not they trouble us? They take our produce first. Then they pay us after making us wait. And you know that we prepare for our next crop. We need money for seeds and pesticides. So we take a loan from money lender. The interest rate is around 18% to 40%. After fighting for a better price, we lose the money in the form of interest. It is a double loss for us. This is the big problem with brokers.

I buy from you. Why don't you sell it to the other customers?

You buy because it is from your farm and you know us. Why will some other guy take the pain of coming to our village and buy? There is no platform for us to sell. Most of the customers buy retail rather than wholesale.

If you have a better platform, a better price, will you sell it?

Why not! You are educated. You should help us. These days many things are sold online. Can we do that?

Ended there!

The success of 10000 views in my blog!

                   My blog 'Tomorrow is just another day'  has crossed 10k views. Though it may not have 10k unique readers but I am sure that a pretty good number of people from across the globe are following my blog. 

                    Initially, I never shared my articles on any other social media platform. The reason was I had the fear of rejection. Later, I changed my mind. We see so much trash material going viral - all misconstrued data. Why not, I can share my thoughts too right!

                Once I started sharing, people shared some good thoughts and encouraged me to write more. Some people personal reached out to me and provided their suggestions. I thank every one of them. 

            I thank my friends from Poland, Russia,  Ukraine and Turkey for being among the large portion of readers. I will keep writing and will put each step towards realizing the dream of writing a book on Rayalaseema. 

Seeing Faces

"You see the same face every day but you may never know the name of the face"  said one anonymous guy!

I was riding my motorbike at 9 AM on the road to my school today. I saw a couple of faces and remember them distinctly from my bicycle rides 10 years ago. 10 years was a long time. And 10 years ago, I was studying my tenth standard.

One of those faces was that of Rickshaw puller. Neither I asked his name nor did I talk to him! Because I never did. He was pulling the same rickshaw though it was down and dusted but engaged him. He did all kind of menial jobs - pulling the stones to furniture - everything! He did the job with the same kind of passion. There was no dearth of it. Suddenly, he looked at me. I hoped he recognized me. Alas! No. I questioned myself - why did he not smile at least? I was over beaming my smile to let him know that I recognized him but he did not.

The other face was that of a Shopkeeper. I, along with my friends, used to come to taste mouth watering Mirchi Bajjis and Mysore Bajjis! Even the thought of it is savoring! I stopped by and asked her to serve me a plate of each! As soon as I got the food in my hands I became indulgent!! Suddenly someone yelled my name as if he was going to hit me. That's part of our culture! It was my friend and we talked at length. We talked about how we used to come over here and fight over the payment. But the sad part was that the shopkeeper did not recognize us.

This threw me back. How can someone forget their favorite customers? How can they forget our faces who constantly traveled on the same route as theirs? Then it stuck me that I was not part of their lives and they were. One classic example was that I remember the rest room supervisor in the Qatar airways lounge at the airport. When I say hello to him, he never responded back with the same emotion. I remember because of my frequent Flys through the same route. But for him,  there are many other frequent flyers. He is part of my life and my observation but I am not his because for him it does not matter. Then why should it matter for me?

I can still avoid recognizing people but I can not. Some people remember everything and some people forget names of the people they frequently work with. It happens but again the warm hello to an unknown stranger is always a good habit. 

"What set us apart from other animals is we got a brain which sees, hears, thinks, feels, remembers, dances.... What not!"

Success - Part 6 of the short Story Series 'Missing'

                  "The secrets to success are hard work and luck". My luck is all time low. I will have to work hard to escape this time. How do I?

                    I did not want to run again. I did not want to leave the uncle and get into trouble. I felt that asking for help is the best solution. I talked to uncle and showed him those three guys. I told him my entire story without leaving any of the incidents. The people in the bogie listened to us. People are hurt deeply hearing the atrocities committed by them. Many narrated the stories they here but they never came across the victim. They suggested helping us catch him and hand over him to police. Every one of us hatched a plan. We wanted to teach them a lesson and help the other kids who are captured by them.

                  We knew that the mafia guys would attempt to kidnap only when everyone is asleep. Around 10 PM, we slept off but we did not actually sleep. Around 01:30 AM, after we crossed Dhone Railway Station, all the three guys came to our seat. One of the big guys slowly came towards me. I was sitting beside the uncle but not with the uncle, so the mafia thought it would be an easy job with everyone sleeping and snoring. But what they did not know was some of the guys were capturing those movements in their mobile cameras and some were ready to catch them. We stationed some more on both sides of our seats. The plan was to capture them all and not to let any of those buggers run away.

               As soon as the big guy held me, all the passengers rushed towards us and caught hold of all the three guys. They tried to hit the passengers but passengers were able to capture them all. The guy in whites tried to pull off the trigger off his gun, but the railway police came to our timely help. It was very dramatic and I never saw such an incident in my life. When my teacher taught us "unity is strength", I laughed off but this incident was the perfect example of 'Unity is Strength'.

            We reached Kurnool at 02:15. By then, all the news channels were already in Kurnool railway station. Uncle and I continued our journey to Kachiguda. The police case was filed by the passengers who got down at Kurnool station. I reached Kachiguda station where my parents were waiting for me with garlands. As soon as I got down at the railway station, I ran to my mother and hugged her tightly.

            My Parents appreciated the uncle and expressed their gratitude by promising him to call them if he was ever in need of money to educate his child. My Gundu Boss was all smiles. My happiness just got multiplied. After all those days of torture and depression, I was finally in the warm hands.

           Right now, I am laying on my couch watching the news.  The news was about the Balaji, the mafia leader and the release of abducted children. Some Tirupati policemen involved in child trafficking and child abuse are arrested. My story is on rewind. Passengers in train talked about how courageous I am and how we captured the mafia. NGOs have come forward to support the abused orphans. Some kids are reunited with their families. All good things said about good people by good people. The news channels dubbed my escape from the treacherous mafia gang as 'The great escape of the century' and 'The most courageous step by a small kid'.

I smirked!!! I put forward my first step to change the world! My father hugged me and said 'Get ready for the next'!!!

Journey - Part 5 of the Short Story Series "Missing"

           It was the 18th day. There was a rally near the Sandhya theater. Some people were carrying big cameras. I figured out them to be media. Some people held the broomsticks with their hands. Then I looked at the posters and figured out that they were profiling local politician as part of Swach Bharat campaign. I was beaten up for picking up less plastic last week. They did not have an iota portion of my brain to understand what would have been the case behind the less plastic pickups.

            There was a girl looking at me with a suspicion. Her looks kind of straight and were daunting. I was looking pretty abused and torn. My clothes were very bad. There was mud all over me. I was the poor soul who either got sympathy or got ill-treated. But her looks were very different. As if she was hunting for someone. I ignored her out of avoidance. The sister with me dragged into the middle of the Swach Bharat mess and pinched me and started her extortion from the campaigners. She got her pockets filled. Good day for her I guess. I did not have any hard feelings for her. She was just doing what she was trained to do. She took up begging just to be alive. 

       She got more than she wanted.  So she spent that little extra money on a cool drink and a cigarette. Yes a cigarette!!  Most of them smoke irrespective of gender. This made me think. I came to the terms that we Indians just blow things out of proportion and we must let people live the way they want. While she was savoring on her drink and cigarette, that little girl who was staring at me, dragged me by my hand and kept running.

          For a moment, I was dumbstruck. I did not know what was happening and what would happen. She kept running through the gully which again diverged into more small streets. It was not a slum -  not the slum I knew. I saw small concrete houses.I saw autowalas cleaning their autos. She suddenly took me into a house. The hall was dark. There was a light from the kitchen. She pulled me there. A lady was cooking food. She was the girl's mother. 

         The girl told her mother to give some sweets to me and kept repeating did not he look like my brother. At the moment, I understood all those stares were to confirm that I was her brother. But I was not. Her mother with teary eyes told her that her brother was no more. We heard someone entering the house. My heart pounded fast. I was frightened at the chance of getting caught by that bleeds mafia. I started to scream and ran to hide behind the mother. It was the girl's father. All the three tried talking me to understand why I was so afraid of people. Her father understood that something is wrong with me He asked his wife to bathe me. I got a nice bath which was scarce till then. She put her son's clothes on me. I looked into the mirror. Though I was not close to what I used to look, the bath and clothes put a smile on me. 

          The little girl's father made me eat some food. I was vert happy though I had my fears. He took out the poster which I had in my previous dirty pants. He asked me whether I was the one on the poster?  Not speaking for these many days did hamper my voice. I did not know a way to tell them. But the girl was clever. She got me a book to write. I wrote 'Yes'. He took his mobile and called the number on the poster. My father picked up the phone. My father and the uncle talked at length and they finally decided that the uncle will take me to Hyderabad. The time was 5:30 PM. The uncle and I quickly rushed to the catch the train at 6:30 PM. It was sad that I did not get time to say a proper goodbye to the little girl who helped me. We sat in the general compartment as we did not have time to buy tickets.

       This brings me back to the first part of my story. I am sitting by the window and the uncle beside me clinging to my arm. I am anxious and observant. I do not want to be missed again.We reached Koduru Station. It is a small station. Something unique caught my eyes. I saw the tattoo. The same tattoo of the guy in the whites. He was wandering with the other 2 big guys. I saw his face this time. It is now the most hated face of my life!!! How will I ever reach Hyderabad?

Finding kleptomaniac - The Background!!!

       You read it right... It was a sort of big adventure. I never went in search of a person. What made this adventure more challenging was we were in search of a kleptomaniac who is a dumb and deaf thief! This may look surreal and fictional but it is a true story to detail.

      His name is Subbu. He is 19 years. He is dumb and deaf. He lost his parents when he was young. His mother because of birth related issues and his father due to liver damage caused by alcohol. He stays with his mother's brother.

     14 months back, he started working at my aunt's house in Kadapa. My Aunt is a very nice woman. She does not even harm an insect. She took care of him well as he is dumb and deaf as well as an orphan. He used to sleep in the same house. My brother has even bought him an hearing machine.

    He traveled with my aunt's family everywhere they go. I gave him money whenever he asked me and same was the case with my aunt My mother liked him too. Though he was from other community, we never illtreated him.

   It all started in August 2015. When I visited my Aunt's House, I lost around 4k but I never doubted him. Peddamma and Peddananna traveled with us to Hyderabad and Subbu also traveled with them. The very night we reached home,  he bought a new smartphone. You would be thinking what will DnD do with a smartphone. This guy is a clever DnD. I had doubts but my opinion about him was so good that it made me think that he bought it with his money. This is the first instance, I made a mistake.

    In December 2015, my brother was installing Saraswathi Vigraham(statue)  in the govt high school which was built by our grandfather. My elder brother has asked Subbu to get the books so that he can donate them to the school students. When he got the books, he searched for 2000 INR which he kept in the books but could not find the money. He asked Subbu about it but Subbu denied taking the money. My elder brother's opinion about Subbu was so good that he thought the money would have fallen off. This is the second mistake, this time it was my brother's.

   In January 2016, Subbu stole a gold chain in his relative's House. He was also able to draw bank loan on collateral. No one can imagine a DnD can do that but he did. He took the money and traveled to Secunderabad and then to Kolkata. He spent all money and got nowhere to go. He came back. His relatives manhandled him and his uncle has to write a financial bond with the bank and return the gold chain. Then only we recognized,  he is a thief. But again on request of my brother,  my Peddamma took him for work. This is the third mistake.

   On Feb 21, My uncle got to know that 34000 INR was missing from his purse which he kept aside to pay a bill. And Subbu was nowhere to be found!!!!