Visit to Kolkata

The last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Kolkata to attend a friend's wedding. It was after a year and half that I was visiting the city again and I was nostalgic about almost everything.. right from the roads to various locations and on seeing my friends. It was absolutely great meeting friends after such a long time. However the morning was spent visiting my in-laws relatives in Kol. They are pretty nice people and it was good to spend some time with them. Just that they fed me too much for breakfast starting for chips, dry fruits to paratha's, sabji etc. It was just too much for me to handle at 10:30am in the morning after eating mysore masala dosa and wadas in the flight. I left their home at 11:30 or so and then headed to meet my friend Zoohie at her house. I was staying at her house.

It was so good to see her after such a long time. It was even more awesome to see her son Parth who has grown so much since I last saw him. I played with Parth in the meanwhile Chaitali, Arindam, Indranil and Sudha also arrived. I was feeling so good that I was meeting with my team members with whom I had worked 18 months ago. It felt good and bad to know how they were doing in their personal and professional lives. In a way, I do feel somewhat responsible for the situation they are in currently in their professional lives. I wish I had done some things differently. Zoohie had prepared delicious biryani which we all enjoyed while discussing our lives, interspersed with movie songs and who is the hottest actress currently etc. After speaking with everyone for sometime Arindam, Indranil & Sudha decided to leave, while rest of us decided to head to City Center to get a gift for my friend who was getting married. We got her a couple of things from City Center and had dinner there and returned home. I was dead exhausted when I reached home and just went to sleep while Chaitali and Zoohie chit chatted.

Day 2

The next morning me and Zoohie had to go Priyanka's house to attend her wedding function, while Chaitali was at home and we asked her to stay back saying we would be back in an hour. It was a typical Punjabi wedding function where the bride was gifted with bangles and "kalires". I was the camera man and thank god for that else I would have got really bored with so many unknown people. I think people become more friendly when they see someone clicking snaps. The function was good. At one point Priyanka and Zoohie were crying together.. the whole scene was very moving. The ceremony took longer than we anticipated and at one point we wanted to skip lunch so that we could return back and be with Chaitali who was waiting for us. However, we did have lunch and left for home. We reached home and left again for Mani Square mall in another 30 mins. The mall is huge. It had started in a few days after I had left Kolkata for good. We spent some time there and decided to leave since we had to attend Priyanka's wedding. I bid good bye to Chaitali as she left for home.

We reached home and changed into the wedding "costumes" and headed to Calcutta Boating Club. The venue was awesome, open ground next to water, though I felt the stage could have been bigger and grander. But then it was good and thats what it matters. We greeted the bride and the groom and then went about speaking to the bride's relatives. The dinner was sumptuous and there were a lot of different food varieties, chinese, italian, chaat, amritsari etc. The desserts included jalebi, carrot halwa, malpua, baked rossogollas and ice cream. We thoroughly enjoyed the dinner and then spent quite some talking to the bride's relatives. It felt very strange and good sharing so many things with them. We finally left for home at around 10.45pm. After reaching home, I packed for my morning flight and called it a night.

I woke up with a cough at around 230am and since then couldn't sleep at all due to very terrible cough. Zoohie gave me some cough medicine, then advised me to take steam. I was not sure that I wanted to take steam at 2:30am in the morning, however I decided to go ahead with it. It was very strange to take steam at 2:30am in the morning, however coupled with D'cold and Vicks it proved very effective. I fell asleep in sometime only to be woken up by my alarm. Sadly it was time to go. The cab arrived at its designated time and there was waving good bye to Zoohie, not knowing when next I would be meeting her. Overall the trip was very good and I enjoyed a lot. Hoping to go there soon.

Been a long time

Its been a very long time since I have written anything. I dont know if it was my writer's block or plain laziness or being really busy because of which I was not able to post anything. I think it is a combination of all 3. Anyways, here I am posting after a very long time. A lot of things have happened since the last post. I got the opportunity to spend some quality time with my family by traveling to Rajasthan. Also the trip gave me an opportunity to see what I was doing with my life and how I was moving away from all the things that I really liked doing like blogging, photography etc. I think sometimes too much emphasis on something is not good and can lead to losing the importance of the rest. In my case, I have just been tied up with work, sometimes too much work, which has led to me not being able to write anything on the blog, or write short stories. However, after today, I will be more regular on this space.

The other news is that I am finally engaged to the person whom I want to spend the rest of my life with. The feeling is just great. The day of engagement and previous evening, I still couldn't believe that I was taking the first steps towards settling down. Also it didn't help that after engagement got over, we kind off ran into my ex. We haven't seen each other since last 3years, but we saw each other on that day. I guess this is karma. Either ways, I am feeling good and relaxed after a very long time. Hoping to remain the same in the coming days.

Swine flu

Swine flu has finally claimed the life of one person in Mumbai. It seems like we have hit the first pandemics of the century. It is very difficult for Swine Flu to stop spreading in India with so many people. Lets hope it passes by without taking too many lives.

Poetic Justice

This is one of the stories that I had written a few months back..

It was an unusually chilly night in Mumbai. The temperature had dropped below 10 degrees. Mahapalika Marg was fast getting empty of people and animals. The few people present were standing by the fire trying to keep warm. They were discussing their normal day when they heard shots being fired around St. Xavier’s College. Frightened, they started running in all directions. Sanity prevailed after a few minutes and a few people decided to check what had happened. When they reached the gates of St. Xavier’s College, they found two dead bodies, both of them shot between their eyes. They immediately called the cops.

Inspector Amol Mhatre was one of the best cops had been serving the Mumbai police. In his 10 years of work experience, he had never seen someone so brutally murdered. He approached the people who had called the cops.

‘What happened here?’
‘We don’t know sir. We were standing by the fire near the Metro Cinema, when we heard two gunshots. We thought we have been attacked by the terrorists and took cover. But after a few minutes, when we didn’t hear any more shots, we decided to check out what had happened’. ‘That’s when we came across these bodies.’
‘Did any one of you touch anything around here?’
‘No sir.’
‘Did you see anyone walk by or drive by when the shooting happened?’
‘No sir. We were discussing our normal day when we heard the gun shots.’
‘How long ago did you hear the gunshots? Were there only 2 gunshots?’
‘Around 15 minutes back sir. We only heard 2 gunshots’

Inspector Amol looked towards the bodies. The victims were two boys. Next to their bodies, he could see their books getting mixed with their blood. The bullet had gone right through, making a hole in the back of the head. In the meanwhile, other students from the college also gathered. They were shocked at seeing the bodies. Some of them fainted, many cried. Inspector Amol asked a few students if they knew the victims.

‘They are Shivam and Dweep, studying in first year MBA’ answered one of them.

Amol looked at the bullet wound and he knew that a sniper rifle was used. In the mean time, the photographer started to take pictures of the crime scene while other police officers drew a chalk line around the dead bodies. While checking out the surrounding area, they found two bullets some distance away. Soon the siren of the ambulance broke the quietness of the night and took the bodies to JJ hospital for post mortem.

It was well past midnight when Inspector Amol returned back to his station. He entered an FIR of the incident, after which he ran some background checks on the victims. They didn’t have any police cases or records. He went over to JJ hospital to get post mortem reports of the victims. The post mortem report confirmed that they had been shot by a sniper gun with a range of 1500 meters or 1.5 kms. Amol knew that such rifles were only used by the Indian Army or terrorists.

It was 6:30am when he received a report of a woman being shot dead at Marine Drive near Marine Lines station. He reached the crime scene and found a lot of people standing around the dead body and a few people taking pictures. Amol looked at the victim. She was a middle aged woman wearing track pants and a t-shirt. She was probably out on an early morning jog. She had been shot in the same manner, right between the eyes, with the bullet hole making another bindi on her forehead. She had fallen on her back making it distinctly possible that she was running or walking towards Churchgate. Also from the initial observations, it appeared that she was shot by someone standing on the nearby flyover or on the terraces of the nearby buildings. He asked a few locals who were standing around, if they had heard or seen anything. But they had no information.

Amol, along with his colleague Inspector Patil decided to investigate the flyover coming from the Marine Lines. He reached at the center of flyover overlooking the Marine Drive. The woman’s dead body was at a 60 degree angle from where he was standing.
‘This is where he must have been standing’ said Amol to Inspector Patil.
Amol looked on the ground to see if he could find any clues.
‘Take a look at this Patil. I think we have something’ said Amol picking a piece of crumbled paper. He opened the paper and it had words ‘I AM GOD’.
‘What does this mean?’ asked Patil.
‘I think he feels he has the power to take lives’ replied Amol.

They looked around to see if they could find some more clues. But there were none. Amol realized the killer had deliberately dropped the paper so that investigating parties could find it. He knew he was dealing with someone who was very smart, and highly professional. He collected the piece of paper as evidence and headed back towards the crime scene. The dead body had been taken away. On the sidewalk one could see a chalk drawing of where the body was previously. Like in the murder of the two students, the police were able to find the bullet.

Amol had just entered his jeep when he got a message on his police radio, that a man and his dog where shot dead near Kemps Corner. By the time he reached there, a large crowd had gathered and even the media was present. Amol guessed the man would have been shot in the same manner as the previous victims. He was correct, but what horrified him was the sight of dog. The impact of the bullet was so powerful that his head was blown away to pieces. Amol had never seen anything so gruesome before. He felt like vomiting while looking at the dead bodies. He turned away from the crime scene and looked towards the neighboring buildings and then saw the Kemps Corner flyover.

Amol and Patil reached the top of the flyover and looked behind them. They could see the dead man along with his dog right in front of them at a distance of approx 400m. They started looking around for any possible clues and like in the previous murder found a crumbled paper on the side of the road.
‘Sir take a look at this’ said Patil
Amol opened the paper and it had the same words ‘I AM GOD’.
‘Those are the same words. What is this bastard trying to prove?’ asked Patil.
‘I don’t know’ replied Amol

They returned to the crime scene and were surrounded by the media.
‘Sir, this is the 3rd murder in the last 12 hours. Are they related?’ asked one journalist.
‘No comments’
‘Sir, is this a gang or one person?’ asked another journalist.
‘We are still investigating and cannot answer any of your questions. No more questions’ ordered Amol.

He, along with Patil drove away to the JJ hospital where all bodies had been sent for post mortem. The post mortem report for all the bodies had arrived after a couple of hours. Just as Amol thought, all of them had been shot with the same gun. The killer was at a distance of 20-30 feet above when he shot them. Bullets have a serial number from which the manufacturer could be identified. In this case, all identification marks on the bullets were removed.

It was 4:00pm, 6 hours since the last murder. Amol wasn’t sure if the killer had stopped. He was feeling very helpless for the fact that there was nothing he could do. The killer had been a thorough professional. Leaving behind no clues, not a single soul observing him or able to provide any description about him. In the mean time, the television media was running story of serial killings repeatedly. The murders had sent a chill down everyone’s spine. Everyone was talking about it. The residents there were scared as to who could be next.

It was around 8:00pm in the evening, when Patil called Amol to turn on the station television. The killer had sent an audio tape to the television media. They switched on the news and heard the killer speak.

‘Before I begin, I want to say that I am not sorry for killing those people. My name, religion, caste are not important. They have got nothing to do with the killings. I killed them because they had committed a crime. The killings were not random. I had observed the victims for the last 6 months before deciding to kill them. You might be thinking what possible crime could they have committed. So let me start case by case.’

The voice on TV was cold. There was no emotion in it.
‘The two boys who I shot dead last night didn’t commit murder or stole anything. However, they would spit anywhere on the street, on the buildings making the walls look brick red. They would throw litter on the roads, paint drawings on heritage buildings and ruin my city. I approached them once and asked them not to litter, but they started pushing and jostling me and threatened to beat me up. They said “They could do anything they wanted, after all everybody else was doing it.” I tried to explain them that it is not necessary for them to do what others have been doing. But they called me an idealistic and a fool who had lost his mind. I gave them a chance to mend their ways but they didn’t after which I decided to kill them.’

‘I decided to kill the housewife because she was dumping garbage on the road. Every morning after her jog, she would walk up to the balcony with a garbage bag in the hand and then just throw it on the road. Many times the garbage would land on some poor innocent person. One day it landed right next to me. I decided to confront her while she was out on her daily walks. I asked why she was polluting my city. She asked me to buzz off and mind my own business. I persisted. I asked why she could not empty the garbage in the garbage bin. She said it was easier for her to dispose things this way. It didn’t matter since other people did the same. “Why should I walk 15 minutes to dispose garbage? It gets collected every 3 days even if I dump it outside my building.” I told her her actions were not right. She just shrugged me off and went her away. It was then I decided to kill her.’

‘I decided to kill the man and his dog because the man was owner of a chemical industry in Sion. His factory would dump chemical waste in surrounding lands which was causing the land to go arid. Many environmentalists had also spoken to him about the same but he didn’t seem to care. I approached him one day while he was walking his dog in the morning. I asked him if he was aware of the environmental damage his factory was causing. He said there was nothing wrong in destroying something as long as he was gaining something. I told him that the damage he was causing had significant long term implications. He didn’t listen to what I was saying. Just then his dog started to poop on the street. I decided this guy should not be allowed to live anymore and thus killed him and his dog.’

And then the transmission ended.

The entire city had come to a standstill hearing the confession. Everyone was glued to their televisions hearing every word this unknown person was saying. The killer had striked fear in everyone’s heart and minds. Amol was stunned on hearing the revelations. He had never seen anything like this before and knew he would not see anything like this ever again.

Update

A lot of things have been happening on the professional front. The project on which I have been working on for quite sometime is finally taking shape. I feels projects are like babies.. you feel really good when they start, grow and finally stabilize. It feels very good to see something grow right in front of your eyes especially when you have been involved in it since its very inception.

Lastly, I have rediscovered my passion for playing the Age of Empires. I spent the entire weekend playing this game. This is one of the best strategy games that I have known. I remember spending the weekends during the summer playing this game during college in the US. I am hoping to play this game everyday and use this as my stress buster. Anyways have some relatives at home now, so ending the post here only.