The idea of a leader

First off, picture this:

Now, here you see there are 9 birds of varying sizes. But we are a pack of 8!

So, I try to label all the birds except the one on the extreme right, it'd go like this: The tallest one in the middle is Ranta popping his inquisitive head to have a beyond-the-horizon look; the one almost hiding and visible only obscurely but quite a link in the chain is Phani; the healthiest one at the back (looking in a eerie direction) is Parivesh; the one about to be the next one to climb with his thoughts carefully composed (notwithstanding cyclones in the inside) is Rocky; behind Rocky is Pushpam, though in the line, will need a shake to move forward for he's in a slumber for there's nothing happening that'd interest him; on the left of Ranta is Madhukar, equidistant from all, permissive, a true cest-la-vie character realizing the difference between things that matter and those that don't; on the right of Ranta is Khare, head drooping in his body like a turtle, perhaps he feels cold, eyes closed but alert as ever; and the one left over can be called me.

So, the eight in the queue are labelled. Who the hell now is the one that leads, almost climbed? Who's this leader of our group? It'd be overly pessimistic and impractical to boast that we don't require a leader: we jolly well do.

Yesterday, we had a heated discussion over a similar issue -- the idea of leadership, the quality of leading and allowing one to lead. We ended up in deadlock, though the lock wasn't strong enough to resist breakage.

But don't we realize that there's no additional person who is the leader? The leader is a combination of us all, in the language of Chemistry, you call it resonance of benzene except that unlike benzene here there are 8 atoms involved. Whenever leadership is required, a collective effort projects and the bird that has almost climed and appears to be the leader is but only a face given to this congregated effort. A leader is one who leads and a follower is one who follows. However, a leader without a followers is same as fish without water -- dead and non-existant. One holds the torch and others gather sight from the light shown by the torch to move ahead; that there is an able leader is important but who is this leader is rather irrelevant. Leadership mushrooms when the need exceeds the efforts so as to give a face and plan and channel to the efforts; the essence and purpose still remains unchanged -- to move ahead, to climb up, as the leader in the pic above, the one-and-all, is.

A Walk to remember

Date : 19/03/2005 (Evening)

I was engrossed in doing some last minute modifications in our final year project. All of a sudden my cell phone rang and I saw it was nirnimesh. He told me to come to IIIT main gate immediately. It wouldn’t be a lie if I say that without a single hesitation and thought, I changed my dress and set out for the IIIT’s main gate. When I reached, I found parivesh, phani and nirnimesh already there. Soon rakesh and pushpam also joined. Now by that time I had already guessed that the gang grew vespertinal in their mood and this evening was also going to be one of those bc embeded evenings which we spent together . I saw utkarsh was missing. So I called him but his cell phone always iterated the same answer,”Kaho na kaho yeh aankhein bolti hain…..The Airtel number you have dialled is not responding”. I tried him again but the same answer. I tried his number few more times and after many unsuccesful attempts, my luck glittered at last . Utkarsh picked up the phone. I gave the cell to parivesh to talk to him. He called him near IIIT’s power plant. We had to wait for him to come. Parivesh, nimmi, rocky and phani sat down near the road there but myself and poppy were not in mood to sit. So we (poppy and myself) wandered here and there, on the rocks , near the bushes. In course of roving around , we discussed hell lots of topics like our future life, our responsiblities towards our families, our dreams etc.
After 15-20 min, utkarsh came and though it was too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the day-light, we seven saunterers in an undying spirit of bc marched on the road by the side of which flourishes companies like microsoft and Infosys. At that moment I remember the very song of kaante..

Collar ko thoda sa upar chadhaake
Cigarette ke dhuein ka chhala banaake

Sochna hai kya, jo hona hai hoga
Chal pade hai fikr yaar dhuein mein udaake

I don’t remember how the very discussion on communism and democracy started but for a while it did capture the air surrounding us. Nirnimesh as usual passed a special comment “Communism is the second worst thing in this world because the first one is reserved by democracy. ” It irked parivesh and parivesh asked him the explanation as why democracy was the worst and soon every one was firing his own verbs and adjectives into the discussions.

Then we reached near Microsoft’s office and as soon as we reached there, nirnimesh couldnot stop his anti-ms feelings and vent the venom out of his mugs. This resulted into a fussillade of heated gothic arguments on whether microsoft sux or not and if it does then why is it so. While on one hand Parivesh , Puspendra and Utkarsh were carrying the flag for the support of microsoft, nirnimesh on the other hand was holding his anti-ms front firmly. Then Rakesh and phani also joined nir’s forces and tried to protect him from further shellacking. During the entire course, confused me ( as usual ) took a diplomatic point of view stating both are true ;). Actually there are many points on which I personally don’t like Microsoft but on the other hand there are quite a few points for which I really praise Microsoft. And honestly speaking I love linux but I would never say that Microsoft sux. You can call it the damn principle of co-existence.

In course of discussions we reached near wipro’s office, and to make the atmosphere light, pointing towards the wipro’s building I told parivesh, “yaar !! jaa maine tujhe yeh building gift kar di. ” Listening to it before, parivesh could speak anething utkarsh told ,”Oye building gift dene se pahle iske maalik (pointing towards himself) se to puchh lete ? ”. Parivesh came to my rescue and told ,”oye iski baat mat sun .. hum out of focus logon ki baatein nahin sunte hain..aur haan thanx maddy..jaa maine bhi tujhe microsoft ki building gift ki ”. And we laughed and laughed without much reason..just for the sake of laughing.

We reached till the lake and sat for a while. Phani suggested to go further on the road to embrace the silence and darkness of the night but tired and hungry utkarsh got irritated and told us to return. I saw utkarsh was looking dull and phani too became silent. Rest of us were chilling out in that sweltering environment .

After a while, probably rakesh told that we should reach hostel before the mess close down as all of us were cash striped and mess was the only for us .. the hungry souls. So we returned.

There utkarsh told us that he was sad because yesterday he lost the game in CS to Arpit and co. and now onwards he wont be able to play with his clanMATES as one clan. This was his last game as a clan in IIIT. “Really sad !!!! but this is life”, I thought. I don’t want to touch the topic as I knew it would make feel none better. At that moment I remembered rajesh khanna’s dialogue from the movie anand,
” zindagi badi honi chahiye lambi nahin.. Aane wale kuchh mahinon mein jo hazaaron laakhon pal hum saath jine waale hain uski khusi mehsoos karni chahiye ...aur apne aane waali zindagi ko lekar apne aaj mein zahar nahin gholna chahiye. ”
Waise ..I know that these big-big words from the movies are easier to recall but to follow them in real life is very very difficult. I am saying these because I too am feeling the fever of nostalgia. I knew that after 1-2 months I would not find at least parivesh and utkarsh (both are going out of hyd )to mope around with us till ISB..we as a gang wouldn’t be able to enjoy kaju curry of RB..we wouldn't be able to spend the entire night doing all sorts of bc...but this is life.

Nostalgia: Part 3

The most pristine memory of this guy about which i am goin to write dates back to 2001 ( no need to plunge deeep into the past ..it was just 4 years before ) when I met him for the first time. He was moping around with Guptaji.

He came to me and said ,"Hi, first year ??."

I reciprocated,"yup and you ?."

He shook his head in affirmation as if saying ,"me too."

Then as the process of introduction gathered momentum, I asked his name.

He pronounced,"pankaj." I strut out my heartly smile towards him and told ,"I know my name is pankaj. Tell me your name ."

He iterated ,"ya !! I am telling the same. pankaj is my name too."

" Wow !! what a coincidence !!", i told to myself. "Pankaj is talking to Pankaj" .

But a lot more coincidences were yet to be unveiled like he also belonged to the same place which i belonged. I dont want to go into all these similarities stuff but the sad ( for me ) part of these was I lost the very symbol of my existence..my name. Whenever someone refered to "Pankaj", he meant to refer this guy and not me. He robbed my identification ;( . Well ... I will take revenge. Since i am the writer, i will refer pankaj throughout the blog as "Phani", his pet name.

After that introduction on the first day, I used to spend a lot more time with phani to know him more and more. We used to wake up early in the morning ( early bole to 4:00 am ...wow !! now a days i go to sleep at 4:00 am ;) ) and after being fresh , we used to go to the lab-1 to do programming practice. We used to return to the mess for breakfast at around 8:00 am and then after having breakfast we used to go to the classes. After attending ALL the classes we used to do all sorts of BC with utkarsh, puspendra and parivesh.

Those were the days of HEALTHY INTRODUCTION with our seniors. I remember once when at around 3:00 am in the morning someone knocked on my door. Soporific me, opened the door and i was surprised to find phani on the door. I stretched my eyelids to get his expression clearly and what i saw was a smothered soul whose moist and pallid eyes were saying everything which he underwent entire last night. By now I guessed that he had too much of healthy interactions with our seniors whole night.

I asked him ,"what happend ?"

He replied, "Mat puchho yaar !! main barbaad ho gaya."

"Ahmm..what did u say ? have they harassed u physically ?", I asked with my mouth wide open.

He told,"nahin yaar !! lekin itni gandi gandi baatein bulwaayee hain ki main kahin ka nahin reha."

After listening to his words, I could not stop my cachinnation.I laughed and laughed hard. I thought how antithetical he was from the rest of the world and at that moment ,from the core of my heart i saluted his innocence.

There are lots of memoirs of him in my mind and i m presenting only a glimpse of it in this blog.

Once we ( phani and myself ) went to watch a movie RAAZ. Before watching this movie with him i never knew that phani was afraid of horror movies. Throughout the movie phani had his hands on his eyes and seeing his actions, one gentleman asked him,"kya bhai !! pahli baar movie dekhane aaye ho ?." After his comments, phani gave him a bloody stare as if saying stfu and at that moment , i pledged not to go to any movie with phani alone, in which even a tiger roars.

He was the first among our gang ( as far as i remember among our batch also he was the first ) to buy the PC. Also his PC troubled him a lot as everyday new problems used to evolve out of that idiot-box.I remember, watchin videos on his system was a very good time pass for us. But we pledged not to watch any movie on to his system. And i remember it was almost 3-4 months after he bought, we saw the first movie "COMPANY" on his system.

There was also a time when he was a die hard fan of Anil Kapoor. He couldnot hear anything against him.

Well, with the time everything has changed, phani also changed but the layer of innocence which was there on him four years back is still pristine today. He is a very sensible friend but at the same time he is also capable of hiting you with one of the worst senti possible. The only thing that irritates me about him is his underestimation of his self. I know what he is capable of doing but he himself doesnt know it or doesnot want to know it. Phani if u r reading it , i wanna say that just have faith in urself and you will see that the whole world will be at your feet.