Archive of An Unknown

Hostel Day & College Day The highlight of all celebrations is the hostel day celebration that we usually have while nearing the end of the year. It's not a one-day celebration. It goes on for a week. A lot of sports events and other competitions would be there. The most important of them all is the cricket tournament. It would be like the world cup where you would have everything like league, semis and finals. There would be other sports such as Kabaddi, Volley Ball, This Ball, That Ball, etc. At the end of it all comes the grand finale - the Hostel Day, in which the prize distribution for the winners would take place. The hostel day function would have a lot of cultural events as well. The highlight of hostel day function is the farewell speech given by some of the outgoing students. Every year at least one person would rock in that. I was planning to rock when my turn would come but unfortunately the hostel day itself didn't happen when I was in the final year. Want t...

Rufus Anna Rufus Anna was an English Literature student. We were natural allies (Like the Congress-DMK one? No... Please!). Anywhere we go, we search for a friend who is suitable for us from the first day itself, right? He was a find from such a search. I changed a lot as a person after meeting him. He had a lot of influence on me. I used to easily make enemies earlier. Only after meeting him did I realize that it's only friendliness that can help you go places. It came naturally for him. Looking at him, I worked hard against my nature to change myself. Both of us were interested in politics. But, my politics was only to the extent of speaking till late nights whereas he was doing a lot of fieldwork at that time itself. Generally, in college days, it is only those boys who smoke, drink and do all the naughty things become popular among other boys. I used to wonder what made him so popular in his entire batch despite not having these habits. Almost everyone in his batch used to...

The circle first drawn by marriage Shrinks further when there is a new arrival Marriage is the beginning of imposed selfishness Childbirth is the beginning of unconscious selfishness It's a magic that would make your house your world Even if you are someone who thinks the world is very small It's the only purpose of many lives Even for the ones that decided to end themselves long back It's a fleshy magnet that would attract you to even fire Even if you are someone scared of seeing fire in picture You would even kill yourself To save its life and to bring it out safe Which you would do for no one else and nothing else "I will give my life" A statement youngsters make out of madness Not knowing what it means in real sense That's madness of love! Action speaks louder than words If you have to do it for your child... You wouldn't say that but do it! Even this is a state of madness... madness of parenthood! * Again, a translated ...

Extra-Curricular Activities Let's also discuss about how the college life added fuel to my love for writing and public speaking. Guys who are interested in such things, wherever they go, wait for an opportunity to show their talent to everyone. The moment they get that opportunity they would waste no time in proving who they are. Even if they don't get an opportunity, they would keep boasting about their talent with everyone they meet from day one. I also did that. A four-lines short poem of mine was published in my school's annual magazine when I was in my twelfth standard. I was wondering if someone who wrote just four lines was jumping so much, what would those guys who had written forty lines have done. They would have gone straight to Chennai to look for opportunities to write lyrics in movies. I was always keeping that magazine in hand and was showing to everybody I met in the two months summer vacation I had after the public exams. I took that with me wh...

College life is always special. That too for those who stayed in hostel during that time, it is super special. It's super special for me. Both my native place (Nagalapuram) and the college are in the same district - Tuticorin district. But, the distance between my place and college is 100 kilo meters. We are in the northern border of the district whereas the college is in the southern border of it. We have to change many buses to reach there. Minimum two; maximum four buses. Nagalapuram-Tuticorin-Tiruchendur or Nagalapuram-Vilathikulam-Tuticorin-Tiruchendur or Nagalapuram-Vilathikulam-Ettayapuram-Tuticorin-Tiruchendur are the routes. Whichever route I take... it would take four hours. No much variance. It's wise to get into whichever bus you see instead of having any specific route in mind. We were wise so we always did that. 'We' means? It's three people - Marisamy, Kannapiran and myself. Marisamy and Kannapiran are my juniors who joined when I was in second yea...

I have suddenly started feeling attracted towards poetry these days. I don't know why. Maybe because of the growing laziness. We need more time to write prose or essays. That may be the root cause of the growing laziness. Can't say that writing poems is easier than writing prose. Though they look smaller in size, they are heavier in weight many times. Just felt like thinking about it in more detail today. This is what came out when I squeezed my head throughout the day. And, let me tell you upfront before you ask me any tough questions and save some embarrassment. What I call poetry is not poetry in true sense. It's called 'prose poetry' or 'the new poetry' in English. This is the most popular form of literature in many of our Indian languages. It means it won't sound like verses but won't be as plain as prose as well. They play with words but it need not be as rhyming as a poem.  The biggest change it brought to our literature is, the lit...

A friend of mine used to often say "burn the bridges". What is "burning the bridges"? It just means, forgetting the past - the past relationships and memories. It's mostly referred to as a thing with individual relationships but I think it's a loaded statement with a bigger meaning. It's not as easy as it sounds. Though I don't believe in the concept of burning the bridges much, the idiom did seem to be attractive to me. It's not that all of us have to be ready to burn our bridges always but it "is" an important thing that some of us have to learn to do. It would be good in the long run if we could do it easily in certain aspects of our life. I have not been very good in doing that nor do I find it very difficult always. I don't know how good or bad you are in doing that. :) All our literature and movies keep reminding us not to forget the past. They have made even those of us who hate our native places and people out there to ...

Same language Same words Same letters... How's it that They take different form Depending on who is it from? Like water taking the shape of its container! How's it that Some people deliver so powerfully? With the very same things... How's it that Some people create so much new? With the same old stuff... Some instigate revolution against governments! Some incite riots against communities! Some screw up peaceful marriages in families! Some can make us snore to death! Some leave them like air and ocean Not trying to take anything from Not trying to give anything to Thinking they have no power! Not really knowing their power... All they do is some unconscious consumption Like that of air and ocean!

Right from childhood, when I watch Cricket matches, I pray for India to win. Especially major tournaments and world cups, I always wanted India to win at “any” cost. Why? Yes, you are right. It’s because I am in Indian. That’s not all. There was another reason why I always wanted India to win all matches and tournaments. What is that? Unlike any other nation, a win by India makes an incomparably huge population happy. I always used to say that India had the highest population among Cricket playing nations so India had to win. You don’t have to be intelligent to know this fact because we all know China doesn’t play Cricket. But, I always wanted to look at the exact numbers. Finally, I had some time today to look at it and come out with some great (!) conclusions. Here you go… Australia 22,567,780 New Zealand 4,393,500 Sri Lanka 21,513,990 Pakistan 174,578,558 England 49,138,831 South Africa 4...