Lost voice

Note: This is really a non-incident.

I was traveling by bus and absentmindedly listening to jingles on radio. There was this jingle mimicking Sachin Tendulkar and Siddhu. I suddenly noticed how Sachin hasn't lost his kid-voice (or 'broken his voice-box'). By breaking voice-box, I mean all those hormonal changes changing your appearance, senses including deepening your voice.

I distinctly remember when it happened to me. I had gone to a school-trip, may be in 9th std (14 years); to Pune. While going I was this geeky kid; carrying a full-fledged bedding (was I alone carrying it?), lots of eatables, sitting on a front-bench, staring out of window admiring the nature. Returning back, I was kind of transformed; mixing with naughty kids of the class, eagerly lapping up the (made-up) stories of experience with opposite-sex, taking pride in occupying the back-bench, demonstrating macho attitude (despite of my thin frame). All the vociferous boisterousness led to me losing my voice. So far, everything as expected.

Days went by and sub-consciously I was waiting to regain my real voice. I was sounding totally strange to myself. As if somebody else was speaking out my thoughts. As the time went by and from the comments from elders, reality sunk in. I have to live with this awful sound of my voice for the whole life. That was heart-breaking. I had a sense of loss. Something close to me got left behind, never to be reacquired. Those few days were bit tumultuous.

I did enjoy some admiration of my deep voice among my school-mates. In fact, during my second year at PICT, my entry in classroom (whenever I got in late) got quite legendary with my deep exclaiming question 'may I come in Sir'.

First day at hostel..

आला...आला..
फ़ायनली मी लहानपणापासुन वाट बघत असलेला दिवस आला..
मी सर्व लवाजम्यासकट होस्टेलवर येऊन दाखल झाले..
आता कोणाची कटकट नाही...
कोणी झोपेतुन ऊठवणार नाही...
अभ्यास कर म्हणुन मागे लागणार नाही...
वा..काय सुखी आयुष्य असेल माझं...

पण छे...कसला काय...
आल्या आल्याच पहिला बॉम्ब पडला.
रेक्टरबाई : "तुझी ईथे ऍडमिशन झालीच नाहीये,तुला ईथे रहाता येणार नाही.."
बाप रे...आता??
मी तर फ़ार शूरपणे एकटीच आले होते..
चांगलं आत्या म्हणत होती..की मी येते..तर तिला नको म्हणाले..
आता कुठे जाऊ? काय करू?
मला तर रडायलाच यायला लागलं..
तेवढ्यात आठवला की आपल्याकडे रिसीट आहे..
ती दाखवल्यावर म्हणते कशी..
"काहीतरि गोंधळ झालेला दिसतोयं..ही जागा तर मी आज सकाळीच आलेल्या मुलीला दिली..
थांब ..आपण तुझी दुसरी काहीतरी सोय करू या.. "
:( आणि त्यांनी मला एका छोट्याश्या ३ मुलीच्या खोलीत..जिथे आधीपासुनच ३ मुली होत्या,
तिथे जबरदस्ती घुसडला..
मी बिचारी...त्या तिघींच्या 'खाऊ का गिळू' च्या नजरा चुकवत सामान लावुन टाकले..

नंतर माझी 'गेलेली' जागा मला कळली..
काय सही होती..
रूम ला सेपेरेट entrance ..खिदकीजवळचा बेड..
आणि होस्टेल मधली सगळ्यात मोठ्ठी रूम..
तेव्हापासुन आजपर्यंत त्या रेक्टरबाईला शिव्या घालत्ये.. @##$%#@#%#

Birthday gift

We went to Niagra in the 2000 summer, along with SVS' (Sameer) gang. It was my second trip (I made couple of more and been butt of joke since) and Manali's first. Nice enjoyable trip. We returned via Harrisburg, PA where SVS stayed.

Incidently, it was my birthday and SVS threw a nice surprise party. After the cake cutting, we started our journey back to our home (in NJ).

We both, I and Manali, were pretty tired and wanted to reach home as early as possible. As we hit the familiar terrin, I increased my speed. I even indulged in a chase with another car for short time. Suddenly, I spotted a familiar car body color in my rear-view mirror. It was a cop following me. I slowed down, but he put on the lights immediately. He was probably measuring how fast I would go. I must have been doing 80mph. I pulled over. After the usual chit-chat he tore a speeding ticket for me.

I never over-sped again.... on any of my birthday!

Morale of the story

I was waiting for Vikya to write down this piece. However, he seems to have his hands full!:-)

I was in second year term of my BE in PICT. We four classmates had rented a bunglow in Dhankawadi; I, Vikya, Naval and Pravin. All four of us had met each other during that year itself. The only common thing among us was we all came to do BE after doing Diploma instead of 10+2 route.

It was exam time. One night we got a knock on door. As exam preparation goes, the pace really picks up after dinner time and it was not uncommon to knock on student's door even in wee hours. It was one of our classmates. He had a delightful news. Apprantly the next day exam paper had leaked and he had the copy!

I was a usual college going boy as opportunistic and selfish as any typical college-goer. I hadn't defined or developed any conscience of my own yet. I was happy to hear the news and was ready to shell out the money for a copy. My room-mate, Pravin, wasn't much averse either. It was Vikya who put the spanner in our hopes! He took a stand, he is not going to be party to this scandal.

For the first time in my life I was facing someone who actually followed some moral ethics and stood for his/her biliefs.

Naval, Vikya's room-mate decided to go with Vikya. We had to make decision. Eventually, we also decided to follow Vikya. The fellow who came to us left in bewilderment. He probably expected some haggling over the price.

I do believe, I'm greatly influenced by Vikya's moralistic approach to the life.

How not to prepare for exams

Hot noon turning to evening. I was preparing for my BE exams during preparation leave. Bit breezy outside but due to lack of ventilation, it was pretty stuffy inside the room. I decided to sit outside in the balcony. Positioned the chair to get into the wind path. Good spot to to keep an eye on the 'traffic' in colony.

She was there.

I had nearly spent 2 years in the colony and been pretty nose-straight-in-front guy. Though I knew this girl since begining, it was only recent that I started 'noticing' her.

She was there, sitting in her balcony. Nice coincident, I thought. I got back to my reading. After reading couple of pages, I checked on her again. She was still there and I cought her stealing a glimpse at me. Hmm! I decided to up the ante. Instead of a quick glimpse, I stared at her openely, daring her. She accepted the challenge. She returned back my stare.

I was out of my wits. What's going on! I was alway bit clumsy around girls. Did not know how to behave naturally around them. And here was a girl, openly looking at me. Was she playing a game?! I was enjoying it anyway.

I spent that evening (about 3-4 hours) in a 'read-a-page, check-her-out' cycle.

PS

I spent next month with this routine during the evenings. I never got to talk with her. Once, I crossed path with her and her father. She made sure, we passed by pretty close. After the exams, I tried contacting but did not succeed. I had to return to Mumbai anyway. From her responses, I would very much like to believe it was not one-sided totally.

I'm not sure what I should have and could have done. In hind-sight, I believe, it was my experimenation with cigarate smoking in the previous week that made me bit vulnerable in that duration. I quit smoking the next week.

I don't feel any pain when I remember this incident. What I remember is the freashness at the stroke of waking, warmth in my heart, looking ahead to the evenings, couple of unspoken protests, the assurance.

God!

"Good Morning!"
"Good Morning!?"
"If you don't mind, can I talk a little bit about Christianity?"
"... Well, go ahead."

I was living in Edison, New Jersey. One fine morning a lady appeared at the door-step, proposing me to adopt her God.

I got alert!

My belief in religion was on-again-off-again affair. Before discoverying my interest in Physics, my latest position was 'there is no way God's existance can be proven or disproven, so why bother, let's just believe in it'. This position was least offending to anyone who dared question me. You see, I was pretty lame!

Then I started reading Science material. I started thinking, actually. Before this particular incident, I had sort of firmed up my opinion after numerous debates with my inner soul.

The lady quickly fished out couple of booklets.
"Do you believe in God?!"
"Nope! I believe in Science!"
Her eyes lit up. Finally, someone in need of faith!
"Why do you think you or I exist on Earth! Why all the trees and cars exist on Earth! Do you ever wonder who created this?"
"Nobody created this. I'm here on Earth, because I can not be (created) on moon or Jupitor or Sun. I'm sure there are thousand of Earths in Universe." (Somewhat flawed argument, considering there could be some organism surviving on Jupitar or even on Moon.)
First signs of doubt in her eyes!
"Ah! But why is the life so perfect! Who created YOU?"
"Again, nobody has to create me. I got put together by chemical reactions among molecules!"
"However, you can not deny the fact that you are different than say a rock!"
"Not much different (in terms chemical reactions). A rock is a particular chemical composition. I happen to be another composition. My composition happens to be complex enough (and with the kind of material) that leads to what we believe as conscious"
It was getting weird. I was actually managing to divert her from her mandate of spreading Christianity!

She quickly got back to her task and talked of how all createres were "created" to live in peace together. No living animal meant to eat other. A world where a deer is supposed to dance in joy in front of a lion who in turn will feed on grass and so on. In spirit of my defiance, I pointed out that grass is a living thing as well. Well, that is not counted. You see, they are "created" for eating!

She wound up her chat promising to return back with her husband who knew 'exactly what I was talking about'.

What I remember most about this conversation was clarity of my thoughts. That I managed to stick to the line of conversation and yet manage to make my case
- without getting offended on the assumption on her part that I being non-Christian need to identify faith in her religion, that I may already have a religion but it could not be sufficient enough to have good faith.
- without offending her with my arguments on my non-belief. I remember of talking of belief in God as necessary from psychological need.
- without feeling frustated afterwards on how I could not put forth my position effectively.
- without loosing any ground to her.
- and that my line of reasoning can withstand the rigours of spirited argument. (I did get another chance with my PICT gang with much sharper arguments from both sides.)

The lady did turn up another Sunday with her partner in tow. He looked disinterested.

31st December

We were visiting Saagar and Mona (Manali's chum) at Pheonix during 2001 December end. We had a nice trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Disney, Universal and Griffith Observatory. On 31st we visited a nearby place and in winding down mood.

I am not a romantic type to understand the 31st December hype. I like to treat is as just another day in life.

On that night, we were relaxing around. Saagar informed us he has a telescope. Wow! Since discovering interest in Physics (pretty late), I wanted to use a telescope.

We set the telescope in the open space in front of their home. It was a clear beautiful night. I used my priliminary knowledge about light to locate possible planets. Star-gazing isn't much exciting with the personal telescope for its lack of magnification that is needed.

The first planet we selected turned out to be Jupitar. It had a pink hue, may be the giant red spot was directly in front. We also spotted at least 3 moons.

Next we chanced upon Saturn. Can you believe it! It was magnificent. I just couldn't control my excitement. This was my first use of telescope and I was already looking at Saturn's rings. The image was hardly bigger than a wheat grain. Yet we could identify the ring.

We also trained the telescope on, what we believe, Mars and Saptarshee (Seven Sisters?).

It was a great experience. The best New Year morning I have ever spent.

Winter Storm

My experience with American winter (North-East) was mostly pleasant, give or take couple of bad slips and odd driving experiences. In 2001, I joined BEA. There were two routes. One via 287->78 and the other through hills. The latter was a shorter distance and pretty nice leasurely drive. I used to prefer the latter.

During one winter evening, the storm started getting worst. Actaully, it was a blizzard, with sticky snow. I started in time, expecting some delay. The word-of-mouth was 287 was jam packed. As always, I chose the hill road! Bad decision. The signs were omnious. Just getting to the base took about an hour. Going uphill was nightmare. One particular spot was converted to muddy ice. It was like baton passing. A car would struggle to get through that spot. Either it would succeed after some struggle or vancuish. There were already about 3/4 vancuished. I got up next. The road was so muddy, the steering wheel was turning as if friction between the road and a tyre did not exist. I somehow got past the spot without either getting stuck or ramming the already stuck.

The road has two hills. The intersection between the hills was pretty empty. I should have got the message. Irrespective I pushed ahead to the next hill. The uphill wasn't as bad. In hindsight, it was only because the drivers had wisely stayed off it. The police had actually blocked the road with just enough opening for the residents living on the hills. I sneaked through that opening. The downhill started. The downhill has about 15 degree gradiant. I was just about managing to stay on the course. Suddenly the car started drifting towards the right. I applied the brakes. However the car, with its momentum, refused to stop. It also changed direction and now headed leftwards, towards the valley. My heart jumped to the mouth. It was a small curb that halted the car's travel. I was numb. Thankfully, the car still had life. It just about managed to get us safe at the base of the hill.

It must have taken me 4/5 hours to reach home that day. I rarely drove on that road then onwards. It was my stupid decisions that I remember this incident mostly about.