The broken twigs

I still remember the day I was given to choose either a computer or biology group, I was dead against biology, 'huh! who will prepare all those records and drawings', moreover studying the digestive system of frog didn't fascinate me either, nor calling the leaf as a modified shoot system, my botany sir, I guess felt botany boring than me, he always used to drool in the class throw chalk on the faces of the boys who slept other than himself, Zoology sir no different either, he used to sit himself under the fan and keep on saying so many technical terms and finally used to ask "have I made it simple?"..he used to murmur in class which he believes is 'teaching' and suddenly points a guy in the last bench and asks "Yaenda naan inga ivalo naeraammma kathikkittu irukaen nee anga enna pannikkittu irukka!"..ada paavi ithu thaan kathurathaa..hmm so I was out of league of biology, moreover blood is allergy for me and hence I was out of docr's league...After some days, I suddenly realised ada chi! more than this 'printf' or 'scanf' definitely the colorful drawings are better, moreover they get a chance to visit botanical garden in ooty free of cost in the name of collecting some plant species for record, cha they are a good enjoying bunch..one guy even pointed "We are the ones who save life, we are the ones who first touch a baby, that feeling oh! god ! you won't get even with a salary of a crore"...suddenly the java book felt too boring for me and the occasionally I used to borrow a zoology book and read, to be frank I found it more intersting than printing asterisks in a diamond shape or arranging group of numbers in an array in ascending manner, 'yeah! yeah! they did have some stuff related to 'life' ', they always used to chuckle, Man! you should have been in the class when he took this lesson, he was sooooo _______!! ponga da you took comp right, anubhavinga utkaarnthu. My comp M'am his critics right. she used to strike out the whole program if we didn't end the statement in C program with semi-colon, "M'am just one semi-colon and for that you have reduced three marks in a five mark question M'am please"...."Raghul, you will get a error message'ma, ok anyways" and with a disgusted face she used to a half mark more. "M'am!", "Avalo thaan ma innum inga ninna'na athaiyum cancel panniruvaen" I will move out, instead of begging some more marks I can hang myself in a fan, and moreover the guy behind me would start nudging me ' move! move!' That fellow would be begging for half a mark to become a class –topper he would go behind her round and round till she finally yields to him and he would be happy, "hey! I have got the mark!" 'Ada panni-thalaiyaa ippadi nee mark vaangirathukku namma palani kovil vaasala’la picha edukalaam', that’s how it went till the end of my school studies, and finally from my school three became doctors the rest vaango comp ungalai anbudan vara vaerukirathu!!!!

I didn’t fare well in my 12th exam, my father called me aside “Raghul, what do you want to do?” , I said “I want to study English and become a lecturer”. Well the reply was “that’s not possible boy, I know a lot of persons who are sitting simply after studying English”. That day was the end of my dream, yeah I dreamt myself of standing before a huge hall and singing the poems of Shakespeare,

To be or not to be– that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them........

or bringing out the beauty of Robert Frost’s lines, many and many but''''' I was forced to take Engg partly of father’s compulsion and opportunities. A call from my brother “Well, what course are you going to take?”. I myself was pondering the same question, I neglected those that didn’t suit me, ECE ,EEE huh! So stupid they would draw a big circuit, they would give resistance and current flowing in all the branches except one and we have to find that one, so stupid I felt and I myself was incompetent in solving those, At junction J the net is 15I – 4R+14-13, No ! No! the current is flowing out of this junction so it must be -15I+4R-14+13 No! No! likewise I would follow the current direction, it was like helping a rat reach its food, finally I would give an answer which would be wrong, SCREW! The circuits and moreover I hated solving problems, CSE,IT, huh not the printf and scanf again moreover there were lots of rumour that Indians are being sent back from US, no! N o!, the only thing now left was our Mech and Auto, MECH evergreen! So I replied my brother “Mech”, he said “dei! There will be no girls in mech, so zero enjoyment”. I thought again 'ada daa who will take a course for girls', after two months of college, well guys I was watching the girls of my batch with watery mouth “dei IT A____!, poda avala vida CSE Bh____! Podannga ivunga rendu paetha vida ECE Sh___’ya sooooper! Elaathaiyum vida EEE S__, boss chumma irunga bio-tech'laiyum M.Sc Softy'laiyum avalo figures, so it went on girls from every dept except 'namma MECH!' . Ithu elaam kooda paraava-illa intha paala ponna SW eduthathu naala, every month yaetho padathula rowdyinga vanthu market’la vassoool panra maathiri “dei! DX!” “Dei!Rotaract” “dei!Intrams” ponga daa thara mudiyaathu da appadinu sonna pothum, yaetho vanthu thala kitta paesunu sollra maathiri “Appa poi seniors’ta paesikko” dei naasamma poraveengala naan yaenda seniors’ta paesanum ithu yaen kaasuda, “dei ! appadi thaan” intha maathiri paesiya anju varusham kaasa uruvitaanunga…'dei ! athu en kovanam daa' 'chumma iru athu vareity'ku thaeva paduthu', ada paavigala ithaiyummaa!!. In the first year of the college we had basics of EEE as one of the papers, I always used to ponder 'naanga ethukku da Zener diode'a paththi padikanum, appuram ithu enna micro-processor architecture, yaetho periya chola kaalathu architecture'kira maathiri build-up kodukiraanunga, intha karumam-melaam vaendaam thaanada naan Mech eduthaen, antha Sotta thala Bogi himsa thaanga mudiyala, paera paaru Bogi! ' I sometimes used to reflect 'paavam yaaru paetha pillaiyo ippadi anaathaiyaa class'la kathikkittu irukku'. In third year, I felt exact opposite, by that time, I was almost done with Mech, I felt it too boring and to me the Electric drives were interesting 'paarunga daa, servo motor, stepper motor, robotics, evalo jolly'a irukku, namma subject'a paaru vibration, mechanism, links, beam'nu, yaenda ippadi saavadikiraanunga...'.

Finally the placements, 'core'a ? Softy'a ?' , nammaku core'um theriyaathu soft'yum theriyaathu yaethukku thaeva ilaatha vambu renduthalaiyum place aavom, so finally I got 'dual-placed', I was pondering in the six months after college 'dei! Raghul evanda ippo poi m/c'la thala koduthikkitu irupaaan, poda poi softy join pannu chumma jolly'a computer'la vaela paaru' this was my father, 'dei ! Raghul, go to core, ilaana nee anju varusham 'padichathukku' arathamae ilaama poi-yirum' these were my friends. I was confused, frankly, I didn't study anything for five years so I need not worry about that, then I don't want to study for the rest my life either, so I decided to go for core, its seven months now, I feel ada paavamae innaerum softy'la irunthirunthaa nalla figs'ta kadala potrukaalam, here nothing but toil, sweat, and stupid meetings.

Four months back, my boss called me 'Raghul, you are going to have training in that design package, be ready!'. I came back to my chair, I was in cross-roads again, I thought 'Raghul doing drawings' Well I couldn't imagine me doing drawings all through the day without anything to learn. I asked my seniors 'Raghul ! don't take design, only the name is fanciful, you would have nothing to learn, you don't also have the power to decide' 'Raghul ! don't take manufactuirng! its always work! work ! moreover I don't understand, like why do you want to leave a comfortable air-conditioned room and end up in a shop-floor amidst workers'. I thought hard instead of sitting and doing something un-interesting in an air-conditioned room, its better I would rot in hot sun and do something that interests me, so off I went to my boss "Sir, I don't want to end up in design, give me something where I have a chance to learn, moreover I 'am a sandwich Mech student, I have expertise in manufacturing, probably if possible I would love to take that". "Raghul, it amazes me, all guys want design, but this is the first time in my carrier I'am hearing from a young fellow like you coming and asking for manufacturing, moreover Raghul, you can say proudly 'I'am in design, or I 'am in Programme management' but have you at any point of time seen any guy saying happily 'I'am in manufacturing'. Well this left me speech-less but still I don't want 'name', I lost my dream 'English teaching profession', I' am currently in a place of crocodiles where all are trying to eat and blame each other, No ! not again "Sir , all these designing in a room or sitting in a cubicle all through the day doesn't fascinate me sir, the guy in design makes a cylinder and names it as bush, he draws another cylinder and names it as washer, well Sir, he is driven by procedures, I don't want to be like that I want to learn, feel and work." Well I myself was surprised at this reply. He thought for a while and replied "Raghul ! I will give you testing, so that you get touch and feel, so thats it". I returned back to my seat with 'half- happy and half-sad' mind. Just then my HR came to me along with a beautiful girl and introduced " Raghul, this is our new joinee for design". Oh! god!.

Last week I went out to meet one of our suppliers to get a trial component for testing, he escorted me to his shop-floor, he asked me to sit and personally inspect the manufacturing and testing of those components. After he left, I took a short walk into the shop-floor. WOW ! WOW ! believe it or not our PSG 500 lathe was standing majestically and turning our components. For a moment, I felt like jumping and shouting with joy, I felt like running towards the lathe hugging it and kissing it, all those years being in the shop-floor of PSG II, I never noticed it, but now! what a moment !, I went closer to the lathe touched its well ground 'lathe-bed', all the memoirs of me standing near such lathes and chatting all through the years came back, those HED, RMD, Anatha, Gopi...those days. I 'am not ashamed to tell, I was close to tears, Man! Man !, here I' am standing in a shop-floor on the out-skirts of Pune, 34 hrs away from my home-towm amidst people whose language I don't understand, whose food I hate but that moment I felt home near a lathe, a product from our great PSG. For a moment I wanted to tear my shirt and shout all those that lay hidden in my mind. I spent a whole day on that shop-floor. I travelled back in the company car to my office in Pune an half-hour journey all through I was slowly thinking all those ways I ways I came, all those roads I took, doctor or Engg , Engg - OK which dept CSE , IT ,ECE , EEE , Mech , Placed - OK softy or core ?, Core - manufacturing ? design ? Mkting ? ,hmm... I saw a tree with lots of twigs lying around, I wondered why the tree has given strength to some parts of its shoot and converted it to a branch whereas it had for-shaken the rest and shed it as twigs, I felt myself the same I tried some, expecting light but still in search of it, I remembered slowly the tamil poem

பாளையாம் தன்மை செத்தும்
பாலனாம் தன்மை செத்தும்
காளையாம் தன்மை செத்தும்
காமுறும் இளமை செத்தும்
மீள்மிவ் வியல்பும் இன்னே
மேல்வரும் மூப்பும் ஆகி
நாளும்நாள் சாகின் றாமால்
நமக்குநாம் அழாதது என்னோ!

I wanted to become an English_____, as the hamlet ends 'the rest is silence ! '