ashvath aruggan
The MustangExpositionImagine celebrating Diwali every week! Well, a movie outing on a Sunday evening in Chennai is almost such an experience. The happiness on the faces of people, relishing the perfect way to wind up their weekend is vibrantly visible & certainly infectious. There is always a rush at the movie counters for last-minute tickets.Once, I saw this guy having a ticket and telling the employee at the counter to let him know if anyone wanted a ticket. Few months later, I saw the same guy doing the same thing all over again. I doubted whether he was someone selling tickets in black and waited to see what was happening. I was rather amused when after some time I saw him giving the ticket to someone and leave.Last week I went to the theatre and Boom! the same guy again. And this time, as I watched, he gave the ticket to someone at a discounted price. I was plain curious and as he was leaving, I confronted him in the most polite manner about what he was up to. He told me that he would book a single ticket for a newly released movie, just to give it to someone who comes to the movie solo, without reserving a ticket, hoping to get it at the counters. He said he would give it for the same price, at half the price, at a discounted price or sometimes free. And when I asked him why he did so, he simply smiled and said,'Imagine celebrating Diwali every week'.Chapter 8 - GoldI was in my fifth standard in Lucknow and flying kites used to be the favorite pastime among the guys. They would fly their kites high and fight it out with each other to see which gets cut and which one stays to be the winner. As a ten year old my time pass along with the other kids was to go catch the kite that gets cut and whoever catches it gets to keep it.One day we were running after a kite that got cut and it went into the house of a supposedly not so nice man. As we were standing outside his gate shouting, the man came out looking stern. One guy hesitantly tells him that a kite flew into his backyard and they were there to take it. Without speaking a word, he quietly goes in, fetches the kite, comes back and questions us as to who the owner of the kite was? All but one started claiming it for themselves, but this one kid tells him that it was not his and he had just come running after it from the neighborhood. He smiles at the boy silently, calls him near, gives him the kite and says,"This one is for your honesty my child".Now that kid was me and I got the kite but it was not just about the kite anymore. The incident gave me a lasting impression that when one is true, they # get their due.P.S - Chanakya Neethi claims that a person should not be too honest. Just as straight trees are cut first, honest people are screwed first.# eventuallyChapter 16 - SilverThis happened during my college days. I was waiting to check my email in a small internet cafe and as there were few people ahead of me, I made myself comfortable in a chair alongside the ones using the computer. Whilst waiting I got hold of a newspaper kept beside the computer next to me. Within a few minutes of me getting busy with the paper I felt that one of the customers alongside me got up to leave, but I did not heed to it as I thought, if it's my turn the in-charge person will let me know.Saying that, I felt someone had been standing behind my left shoulder for a good 3-4 mins, but I did not look back as I was busy browsing through the paper. Once I got done, I kept the paper from where I took it and just as I did so, someone who was standing behind me leaned in and asked, "If you are done reading, shall I take my paper back?" I was like 'oops sorry' and he was like 'that's no problem', took his paper, smiled at me and left.As I watched him leave, I realized that instead of just barging in and asking me for his paper, the man had been standing there for close to five minutes, waiting for me to finish what I was doing. Of course, even if he had done that too I would have been perfectly okay with it, but he chose to respect what I was doing and had politely waited. I thanked him, for he showed me the way.
I still do.Chapter 24 - Bronze"If you're bored of London, you're bored of life", said one of my professor's in my very first week in the UK and I instantly quirked, happily confirming that I didn't do too bad by landing myself up there. All I wanted to do in life at that point was to see the bigger picture - to explore & experience the west, even if it means that after my engineering, instead of treading along a job, I had to push my luck cajoling my almost upper-middle class family to invest in my vision, or for them say a distorted vision, to see if it takes me to where I aspired to be the most, just for the fun of it really. But saying that, there was no guilt whatsoever in doing so, 'coz I sincerely believed that I would make it count. From down south of Tamil Nadu, my quest for the west (blame it on star movies) brought me to SE1 to pursue my MBA from a private college, which was supposedly my best option upon return on investment, or so my consultant said. And thus I had bought myself a window of just over a year and a half, to peek into what life had to offer as its best.London bridge, red bus, national rail, high street, jobcentre, sainsbury's, customer service, lords, natwest, vue the odeon in cineworld, night outs, leicester square, tiger tiger, elephant & castle, ministry of sound, girls, jack daniel's, stella artois, mayfair, metropolitan police, chicken cottage, mcdonalds, burger king, fish & chips, cheese ploughman's, off license, calling cards, local gp, vodafone, sky tv, royal mail, oyster card, tram rides, wimbledon, student night@the works, weekend away, init, okie dokie, lovely jubbly e.t.c added the desired colour & character to my student life.My next objective of getting a degree was fulfilled by my primal attribute of not being such a bad student after all and pertinent to that fact, even after being high on life for most part, I legitimately walked in to my convocation at St Paul's cathedral in a robe, hood & a square."What's next?" was the question and deep down inside I'm sure I had this concealed in my mind all along, something bizarre, something extravagant unknown to me and it took me few weeks or perhaps months to conceive, reason and accept as in what I wanted to do with my life from then on. I couldn't see myself in a mundane nine-to-five job, or for that matter in any job that wouldn't necessarily converge the admiration, the adulation and better the adoration of my fellow beings on me, the more the better. The sky was the limit to my thoughts then, thanks to the absoluteness brought upon by the inspiringly uninhibited approach of the westerners towards one's own life, and so I confidently perceived that to get what I wanted, I had to be a cricketer or an actor or a politician. I couldn't possibly be playing cricket all of a sudden and wouldn't positively fit the bill of a politician yet, so as it had to be, I decided to become an Acteur.To be cont'd..Chapter 32 - DiamondI'm not sure if I'm messaging the right person, pardon me but thought it is only fair enough to try. I saw your interview today and all I want to say, out of experience, is to let go & subsequently AVOID.Avoid till you can forgive & forget, without any explanation and once it's done, you will be surprised to see the exponential growth in your emotional strength, thus equipped for life. This will help you in rolling back time to start afresh, with all the pleasantness that one deserves."Starting from minus is better than starting from zero, as the earlier confidence transforms into audacity when you look failure straight in the eye and walk past - Audacity, Audacity & more Audacity".ResolutionThe Quarter Horse blows away a Thoroughbred in a short race.Quadruple the length, the Thoroughbred overtakes the Quarter Horse.Quadruple the length again and the Arabian Horse outruns them both.Quadruple the length one more time and amongst all,woods, water, worldThe Mustang wins.