The Sea in the Sky

He stood at the edge of water,

Staring out at sea, the sea at night.

Like a rippling, massive black canvas far away,

The sea came to life near the shore,

A Crashing and frothing wave, a wave so white.

The black canvas mirroring the sky,

But for the undulations that roared out sporadically,

Getting louder and larger nearer the shore,

Angrily reflecting the moonlight

They crashed on shore, delighting men and women,

Then they receded silently, a still canvas again,

But they weren’t allowed to rest,

As another came crashing forward,

Then two, then three, churning and shining so bright

All of a sudden they all ceased,

The whole sea a still black canvas,  

Just like the sky,

All the way to the horizon,

The sky was the sea, the sea the sky,

Now they all stopped, not a wave in sight,

Still as a statue,

He watched and gazed,

Out into the pitch black ocean,

That betrayed not a secret,

He felt a calm like no other,

A calm that lasted a few moments,

All calm until the next ripple began its flight

So he stared out at sea, the sea at night

A crashing and frothing wave, a wave so white,

Angrily reflecting the moonlight,

Then two, then three, churning and shining so bright,

Now they all stopped, not a wave in sight,

All calm until the next ripple began its flight

For those few moments it was all one

Like the black sea in the sky.

For His Mother

He turned his neck and spat tiredly on the grass beneath his feet. The grass was soft and comfortable but this wasn't friendly territory by any stretch of the imagination. Sweat poured down from his forehead.

The ball had gone out of play for a few moments' respite from the break-neck action. His team had trailed twice but they had kept at it with a relentlessness emblematic of all teams coached by his manager. Now the slender one goal lead garnered had to be protected. The referee signalled for the commencement of play to be delayed until the substitutions could be made.

The official held the board up. His number was on it. He was to come off in favour of a more defensively minded player. He was satisfied with the shift he had put in and was sure the manager would be too. It was he who had provided the incisive, defence-splitting pass crucial to opening up the play in the build-up to the second goal and equaliser that really turned the game in his team's favour - a pass that would count as a 'key pass' in the stats in the annals of time but he knew it was the definitive kick of the whole game. Then there was all that defensive work that he had put in too, imperative as it was for the modern attacking player to track back and mark runners.

The game flashed before his eyes as he trudged slowly and deliberately to the bench with a mind to run down the clock. The few hundred away fans rapturously sang his name and enjoyed the leisurely pace of his walk. The referee urged him to tread faster. The opposition fans jeered and booed. The opposition players protested. A couple of players squared up and the whole stadium turned into a cauldron. All standard fare that he was detached from. He walked on.

It was halfway to the bench that the subtle change in atmosphere happened. He was soaking it all in when the nature of the jeers changed. The home fans were in full voice now, singing of his past transgressions, the exact nature of the profession of the female members of his family back in his 'savage' and 'primitive' country. The elephant washer's son, they called him.

He'd heard it all before, seen it all before. Yet he found himself quickening his pace. He hardly noticed the manager's warm hug, a clear recognition of his excellent performance.

The next day, the papers and 'pundits' condemned the chants. The away club banned a handful of ticket holders for life and issued a strong statement. What did it matter though, to the little boy who'd slept that night with only his tears for company, yearning for his mother? His mother, his sweet, gentle, loving, innocent mother whom he had to fend for.

He who had played football as it was his only escape. He who had travelled across seas playing this game, working hard wherever he went. He who, after years of toil and pain, was finally spotted by a big club and given a contract. He who then worked his way into the starting line up. He who did it all chasing a dream, a dream not of fame or glory or wealth or football; but a dream to extricate his mother from their native home surrounded by the violence that killed his father when he was just a young boy in his unheard of impoverished little country, torn by war and strife. What did it matter to him?

Now he was in England, travelling the country and Europe with the squad while his mother lived in London, in the luxury he provided. He wasn't the cleanest, the kindest, the smartest or the nicest, but he did it all for her.

The new contract offer with improved wages was on his table, a testament to his rising importance to the squad at the age of just 20. All he could think of now, in this hotel room in this city was of home in London, his mother, and the next home game with 60000 men singing his name, applauding his every move, appreciating him for who he was, a footballer and a hard-worker.

The future looked bright and his mother was happy.

Loosely inspired by the story of Gabriel Paulista. Also, try this article and the video attached to it. 

Projected

It suddenly came as a realisation to be while walking up a flight of stairs that the word project has different meanings depending on the pronunciation. There's praw-ject, which is something that is undertaken over a period of time with some kind of definite end result, like a school collage on the Western Ghats or a never-ending project like the Bangalore Metro. Then there's pro-ject, which is to show something on a screen, like a projector screen. This project is also a synonym for forecasting, projected growth and the like.

Speaking of forecasting, the met department has projected good monsoon rains this time around after an unbearably hot summer that saw India record its highest temperature ever and likewise, my beloved Bengaluru city, renowned for cool, "salubrious" (I learnt that word from the wikipedia page on Bangalore) climate also recorded its highest ever temperature, touching a mind-boggling 39.2 degrees Celsius.

I know many of you (Punekars) are looking at that number and thinking - 39.2? That's hot? Well, that's simply how mellow the Bangalore summer is. There's many who say, "Oh, mumbo jumbo. It's so hot nowadays." Well, a city and its climate must pay for its awesomeness. The population explosion and all that has lead to an overall rise in temperatures recently, but where hasn't it? Which city, after all the concrete has supposedly ruined the weather, I ask, has better weather than Bangalore in the summer. Yes, Shimla, Darjeeling, Ooty, Kodaikanal, but here's two points. Those are meant to be so, they're hill stations, summer retreats. They're not burgeoning metropolises with immense potential for wealth and living. Those are weather specialists, Bangalore is so many many other things and on the side, as a bonus, excels in the weather department as well. And secondly, have you been to these places in the winter? Bangalore's winter is mellow as well. On average, I proudly maintain, and I will take a personal interest in refuting anyone who disagrees, Bangalore has India's best weather for a city proper.

So now that I'm through with going off on that tangent, let me come back to my main point - project. The reason weather is at the top of my head is because I'm currently "on a project" in Chennai, let us say a city that's not quite as famous as Bangalore for it's weather.

Look, I have nothing against the city now that Chennai Super Kings no longer exists so one doesn't have to speak to the fans of that particular franchise. It seems to be a nice place, buses and trains are cheap and timely, food is brilliant and the place I'm doing my project, my summer internship, the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is unbelievable. It is actually a jungle, a veritable forest, the campus having been carved out of the Guindy National Park area, or so the IIT M website claims. And who, I ask you, lies on the internet?

The vegetation is thick and green and provides an omnipresent shade that almost nearly threatens to give you the impression of good weather for a few seconds at well chosen hours just before sunrise. Then there are the deer, roaming the streets with gay abandon.

My first impression when I heard "there are deer on the IIT Madras campus" was to presume that deep in the lush greenery, among the shrubs and the grass far away from the roads and the traffic, unseen but to the sharpest eyes, one could, if one was lucky, chance upon a deer or two grazing. When I first saw a deer, casually standing next to a gate while a man was busy at work a few yards away, I thought I was one among a blessed few to spot a deer at such close range within the campus. Now, I'd put the deer to dog ratio on campus as high as 7 or 8 while I'd put the human to deer ratio at as low as 15 or 20. And I tip my hat to the revolutionary person who, at the meeting that was probably convened to decide campus matters during the founding of the institute, said to the person from the National Park who was asking what is to be done with the animals, "You take out the leopards and the tigers and these other animals. Let the deer hang around." Just like that. And here they just hang around. It's going to be disappointing to go anywhere else in the country now and not see a deer or two every few yards.

The deer were not the only creatures left behind; monkeys can be found in good numbers on the campus. And I'm not talking of those monkeys who got into the hostel by scoring well in the JEE - I'm talking about the monkeys that got into the hostel because they can climb trees. On my first day, I was just climbing up the stairs of the hostel to find my new room when one a little monkey flashed past me. More strikingly, a nondescript trip to the toilet nearest to my study-desk found me in the same room as at least 8 monkeys who clambered out of the window upon seeing me enter. I cursed as I closed all the taps they'd opened.

Ok, where was I to begin with? Weather! Spoilt as I have been by Bangalore weather throughout my life, I immediately realised that this is to be the longest, hottest summer of my life. Mid-March to the end of April in Pune in a state that was firmly in the grips of a heat-wave, (a much much cooler) May in Bangalore and now June and July in Chennai for this project. Projected to be very hot during my project.

Now about my project. I'm studying something in cosmology, the study of the universe at the very largest scales. It's interesting that my interest in this subject was piqued by an introductory course in the same subject which to date remains the worst course I've taken. It was ill-organised, the syllabus was incoherent and the exams were scarcely believable and in the midst of all the hand-wringing and scrambling a mark here or two, the content of the course left some kind of imprint on me. Now if things progress as I hope they will, I see myself working on this subject for the majority of my life - on the foundation of a terribly conducted course.

I wasn't wholly sure of the subject to begin with. On my second day, I asked my advisor, a professor in the Department of Physics at IIT Madras (obviously) a string of perhaps three to four questions in his office. He spluttered for a mili-second, looked around, smiled resignedly as he decided to take it from the beginning and said, "Sit down, let me tell you a few things about the universe." The line was kind of epochal - anything that follows from that line, however lacking in substance and meaning by itself, will be seen as deep and insightful when it follows that line. Sit down. Let me tell you something about the universe. Here's the thing about the universe - it's a potato.

And as he told me the things about the universe, things a little more subtle than it being a potato, I knew that I wasn't in the wrong place, if not the right place. And so my project goes on.