:)

She stood there near the compound wall talking to the cute neighbour kid of hers. Siddharth was talking very excitedly about how he had come first in the running race in his entire eighth class! He was positively delighted and his chubby round face was all flushed, recounting the excitement.

Krithi stood listening to his tale with a smile on her dark face. She was not what you would call beautiful but had a striking personality that sometimes lit her face with such a fervour that people recalled her as a extremely beautiful person! This however, very few people had the privilege of seeing!

Yet, Krithi was a loner. Very few people could get beneath the hard to break-in exterior and get to know her. She had two other school friends; other than dear little Siddharth who was a kindred spirit and best friend! She was in her final year college, doing Electronics and her chief worry that day was that her friends had mocked her for not having a boy friend!

Krithi did not want one and her friends found this strange and stupid! They thought she was putting on airs and trying to hide her embarrassment for not having any one to go out with on Valentine’s Day which was the next day. They thought that she was plain unattractive and that she was trying to hide this by acting disinterested.
However, she did not know why people made such a big deal of having/not having a boy friend! Personally, she was just not interested and that was the plain truth!

But the fact that her friends had made fun of her, hurt her and a little sigh escaped her lips! Siddharth noticed it and asked, “Krithi akka…What happened? You look very upset?” His face shrunk in mock sadness.

“Hmmm…Nothing da! Just college tension!” she pushed away and for a few seconds thought, “Maybe I really am ugly and that’s what they are trying to tell me through this! I don’t care about this whole stupid Valentine and getting a boy friend! But I DO NOT want to be ugly! An ugly creation of God when I so admire beauty in life…?” She sighed again!

Little Siddharth was looking at her intently and thought how pretty and beautiful his ‘Krithi akka’ was and he thought he must do something to cheer her up! So he asked “Tomorrow is Valentine’s day right? What are you doing?”

Krithi laughed and teasingly pulled his ears saying, “You little one… Started all this now only? Look at you…talking like one big boy!”

Siddharth laughed and said, “What’s the big deal? So tell me… What are you doing?”
“Why, Nothing! What about you mister?” she asked teasingly.
“Well, nothing! I just wanted to ask you to be my valentine tomorrow akka! You’re such a sweet akka and my best friend. I want to treat you! I have saved up. Let’s go to the ice-cream parlour, okay?”
Krithi was sweetly surprised and totally thrilled at the dear words of her little friend! She was moved and said a yes with a smile.
Siddharth was eated! “Yay! I’m going to run straightaway to Rohit and tell him that you said yes! Wow… I’m going to have the most beautiful and sweet valentine in the whole world! Bye Krithi akka…” he exclaimed and ran away smiling!

Krithi stood there smiling… “Well, if a little innocent boy thought me beautiful and sweet, there is no better praise I need!”
She walked back home with a smile…


*** Just wanted to wish you guys a HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! You’ve been bricks! Thanks for being there ma friends! :) And I din know wat to name this post!!! He he…***

KUTTY

This piece of writing was conceived soon after watching the beautiful movie ‘Kutty’ by Janaki Vishwanathan. A poignant portrayal of child labour and child trafficking, the movie truly touched my heart.

Kannamma a.k.a. Kutty(a brilliant portrayal by Swetha), is a little girl brought into the household of Ranganathan(Ramesh Aravind) after a pampered childhood under the kind care of her now deceased father Paavaadai(Nasser), a potter. After her father’s death, her mother Eshwari Rao sends the kid to Chennai to take care of Ranganathan’s second kid to aid his college professor wife, Kousalya. Life seems new and beautiful to Kannamma, brought to the city by her Valli akka and Mama.

Things change when Ranganathan’s class-conscious other, M.N.Rajam walks in. She illtreats Kutty and influences her grandson, Vikki, to do the same. No amount of yelling and pleading by Ranganathan and his wife changes her attitude.

Kutty suffers acutely and pours out her woe to a fellow servant-maid, who is herself being molested by her house-owners. She also finds a benevolent and kind heart in Nadar(Vivek), the nearby shop-owner, to share her troubles.

Kutty’s carefree days in the village are replaced by days filled with over-work and her fear for the evil paatti,M.N.Rajam, mounts; so much so that, she attempts to flee back home.

The ill-literate and gullible Kutty falls into the hands of a deceiving paanwaala, involved in the flesh trade, who sells her off to a pimp in Bombay. Kutty, unaware of her plight, and dreaming of a beautiful homecoming, embarks on her journey with innocent excitement and childish joy, hugging the food parcel that paanwaala ‘anna’ gives her! The movie closes frame here…

It is so heart-wrenching…I can’t come to terms with the fact that man stoops so low to kill a child’s innocence… to cruelly and knowingly thrust a life of horror and shame!

How CAN someone, in the first place, ill-treat a kid? She’s a small girl of ten, made to work non-stop, without enough food to even give her the energy to work!

It is so sad to think that while all of us have the privilege of enjoying a wonderful life, filled with comforts and with such modern amenities to communicate our thoughts to anyone else in the world, little innocent kids like Kannamma get ill-treated and cannot raise their voices against such atrocities!!!

Unquestioningly, she trusts the scheming paanwaala. Such happy thoughts seem to run through the crystal-clear eyes that look out of the train to Mumbai… God, I couldn’t BEAR to look at those eyes!!!

How COULD someone do this to a KID for God’s sake?! How could someone sell a little kid…deflower her…kill her innocence…make her suffer…crush those young dreams? How? I can’t seem to comprehend!

I really wish I could do something against such happenings! The paanwaala calls her a ‘mottu’(bud) and yet sells her off to some lust-hungry son of a b****!(pardon my language!)

I hate the fact that I share this earth with such lowly corrupted individuals who destroy others lives when they have no right to! It is better to even kill a person than to leave them worse off, living!

God… it pains like hell! Why do we have it easy in life while others around us suffer? I’ve decided, I should do something for these kids when I begin to stand on my own feet. For now, I shall pray for them. I want everyone of you, to pray too…

This life’s beautiful…we’ve seen it only that way! We’ve not been the victims of child molestations or child trafficking or any such crimes that man commits against man! We’ve had innocent carefree childhoods, not marred or tainted by any such obscenities! I wish and pray for every child born on this beautiful earth to have such similar joys, such simple pleasures and to have a right to there lives and the way they want to mould it.

Please… if you know of any such crime being committed, stop it! Raise a voice. We are social beings and should be conscious of what’s happening around.

Let every child have a lovely childhood!

Let us not stoop low and eat the filth and dust and muck! God save the children!
And big congratulations to the people who came together to make this beautiful and soul-stirring movie!

ON THE WAY HOME…

Many a time, my class mates and I just decide that we can’t take any more in college and mass bunk. As my college is located at the other corner of the city from where I live, I have an hour and a half of bus travel to do!

I LOVE the travel!!!

It’s first of all with the great feeling that I’m going back home, that the way back seems twice more beautiful! People say ECR is one awesome way to buzz past, but I believe even OMR(Old Mahabalipuram Road) is a quaint dear way too! :)

The dear old spots whiz past me and fills me with a very nice feeling…The words written in the ‘House of Prayer’ near Madhya Kailash never go un noticed… the Okkiyam lake in Karapaakkam is my faeryland- a source of perennial joy… the Koovum under Kotturpuram bridge or its distributary under Saidapet Bridge(whichever way I come) fills a strange sense of sadness and silence in me… The sweet smell that emanates from near Dollar Biscuit Company brings in the hunger pang… Oh I could go on!!!

And then if I get down at Thiruvanmiyur junction, the walk till the terminus passing by the thiruttu VCD kadai, the pasha kadai, the pirated book kadai, etc…waiting for my favourite bus M7-that takes a circuitous route via Vijayanagar are things that are dear to my heart. I love the way time starts to go slower when you pass by Vijayanagar, Baby Nagar, etc… sweet memories of mapping entire Velacherry in my first semester floods me. Especially how Ahaladini and I went about baby Nagar, first mapping it and later, knocking at doors and taking a survey of thermal comforts, how few people shut the door on our faces, how some invited us inside and gave water… how the two of us were followed by a mad limping dog that made us run in circles…how her lens dried up and she had to wash her eyes vigorously…how we sat down at the centre of the road and ate jam sandwiches… he he… we’ve done a million foolish things in three days there and best part was our class boys saw the two of us sitting in the middle of the road and spread it to EVERYONE! Not that we cared!

And if I get down at Saidapet, how I walk all the way to the boarding point and catch another bus, get down at the T.Nagar terminus and walk walk walk… :D Sometimes, I take an auto.

Walking is a better option though! I love crowds, people and activity. And t.Nagar has it all in the most vibrant and best of forms!!!

If ever you get to see a salwar-clad girl with a cap over her head, carrying a weird long t-shaped scale and a chart holder, easily balancing a cup of hot Aavin milk or Vivekanada’s coffee(ah…. Yumm!!!), that’s Me!!!:D

Well, I drink my cuppa slowly, watching the crowd, pausing at a shop or two, buying an ear-ring or a book or something, walking, pausing, observing…then dropping the Styrofoam cup into the dustbin opposite Kumaran and then walk on. Then just before my home comes into view, I there’s this junk dealer. I stand there for a while, chat with the owner there or his wife, ask for any second-hand novels or sportsstars or cricket talks. Home comes into view and the pleasant deep happiness-bubble expands!

I love my life… :)

...A PAUSE...

" Life's too short to despise people who simply can't help what they've done."

*pg 312*
*The Rain Maker*
*John Grisham*

A beautiful line that somehow skips our minds most of the times...