Fantasy land

Relatives had come down to stay with us for the vacation and along with them came those dear little imps: my cousins. Our home was bustling with activity once again- never a silent moment. One night- yesterday that is- we were watching a movie when the lights went out- it was a power cut. The elders in family huddled together discussing family issues, titling and tattling. I somehow could not get myself to belong to the group.

Then a little voice yelled from behind, “Akka!! Tell us a story”. “Yes, akka tell us a story” they all shrieked in chorus- my cousins and two little neighbours . ‘Boy,I'm in real trouble!’ I said to myself. I wasn’t really very good at story telling and stuff. My mind went blank! Cinderella, Thumbelina, Snow white was all ruled out as the ‘often-recounted’ ones.

A flash of idea came to my rescue: story building! In this game one person starts the narrative and gets it moving; then someone else takes over. I suggested it and everyone agreed, excited.

Off I started with the privilege of being the eldest one in the ‘gang’ (pause to raise a collar). “One Saturday afternoon, there weren’t many people in the museum, when this family went around looking at it. Something wasn’t right about the place.It felt uneasy. And suddenly there was a loud “woof woof”, they all turned around and to their horror found a huge Pomeranian dog, the size of an elephant, staring down at them. There was another bone-chilling noise….” (I know, it’s total crap but you bet they liked it!! ) “Do you know what happened next?” I asked my little brother who willingly contributed his cartload of crap and so the game went on.

So with everyone in a snug circle around the pale glow of a candle, we began weaving stories: fascinating labyrinthine stories. A story that started with a haunted museum but drifted elsewhere. We let our imagination rip, striding through forests, riding wild horses, sailing across continents, to the moon, beyond the sun, past galaxies…we just let it soar, sometimes even to arrant nonsense. It was a wayward story but yeah definitely mesmerizing.

It had a special magic of its own that had remained unknown to me for so long a time. A magic that could take you back to an innocent age. In our world, we too weave stories- of gossips, of ridicules, so carelessly woven, often oblivious to what it could cause to the victims’ feelings. We jeer at others’ quirks, weigh people even without knowing them, unable to accept people around us for what they really are. But this was a different world, this circle I was sitting in, a world of open, trusting little minds.

I went on, fascinated at how imaginative these little children could get, eagerly waiting for my turn to add my touch of dramatic element into it that would often twist it enough to change the entire storyline. I learnt that few things are more enchanting for a child than to be told a story and for adults there are few things more satisfying than telling one.

Try it .Let your imagination take over,you’ll probably surprise yourself. You may stumble or reach a dead end, but it doesn’t matter. There is no one testing you, no editor waiting with a red pen, no one to sue you for misrepresentation.

When the power returned after its long blissful absence, to my surprise I found that the people around had been listening too. There I told you, it definitely had a magic of its own!!

Tonight again I will sit down with those little questing minds and weave fantasies. Forget the news on the t.v.; it will always be there with its load of unhappy information, forget the everyday things you can’t change. Tonight again I would relax into that dreamy world I once had inhabited myself.

Who is lady luck smiling at?

A solo flight across the Atlantic in a single- engine plane was hailed as a feat of incredible daring, a practically impossible one at that. A thoroughly experienced pilot and mechanic, Lindberg started with a hunch that airplanes had advanced to a point where such a flightwas practicable. And he proved it right. He landed in Paris ahead of schedule and with enough fuel to fly another 1,600 kilometers. Peopled called him lucky.

Bob Peterson, a former petrol pump assistant, acted on the hunch that there were lots of American men like him who loved to soup up their cars and talk about it. He and a partner risked $400- everything they had- to convert that enthusiasm into a slim magazine called Hot Road. Peterson lugged copies of the magazine to California car races and sold them for quarter of a dollar. The Peterson Publishing empire now produces 23 automobile hobby magazines, and Peterson’s personal fortune is estimated at over $350 million. All the same he was lucky!

President Ronald Reagan firmly believed in the hunch that a defense against nuclear missiles possible, he initiated the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).Many influential people sought to discredit the programme. But Reagan went over the heads of these “opinion leaders” to build public support for SDI. The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to make Reagan abandon the programme. He continued to fence with the Soviets, banking on their growing economic problems to force concessions. In the end Gorbachev gave in, with history’s first treaty bringing about actual reductions in nuclear arsenals. Nonetheless lucky was all that he was.

And so was Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, when he started manufacturing PCs when IBM was thrown out of India. Ambani, the business giant of Reliance Industries, joined the list when he invested in polyester. Equally lucky was M.S.Oberoi ,the man behind Oberoi chain of hotels , when his crazy idea of buying a Hotel Cecil when it was running on an all time low went on to fetch glory.

Why do some people seem to ‘get all the breaks’? Is it just dumb luck?

The answer could be the fact that they slogged hard to meet up with their dreams but so did hundreds of other wanna-be business magnets or pioneers who lost out on a risk. Not that these people din’t venture into risks. They do, but they have a knack of emerging out of it mighty victorious. Perseverance could be an other option, but just a baseless repetition does not do the trick. In my opinion what sets him apart or rather on top is a mysterious word called “hunch”.

A hunch is a conclusion based on facts stored on some unconscious level. Successful individuals are constantly tucking away such information to enhance their intuition. May be that’s what American poet Robert Frost meant when he noted’ “All the best things a poet ever uses are things he didn’t he was getting when he was getting them”.


Lucky people perform acts that seem daring, but in fact they are playing out informed hunches with a clear sense of probability of success. Lindbergh’s flight itself was a culmination of months of concentrated effort, during which he oversaw every detail of his plane’s construction and calculated every aspect of the trip.

Lucky people move through life with a different attitude than most. They prepare for their “strokes of good luck,” and they develop habits that capitalize on good fortune. They know the difference between risky and rash, between an informed hunch and a vain hope. They take second looks at things others barely see the first time.

Opportunity never has to knock a second time at their doors, for they are already there leaning against the door listening intently with that hunch driven antennas of theirs. And when the door is opened, there beside opportunity stands lady luck,smiling.

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The Hero.

A typical Indian movie:
A pair of legs sprinting. There is a continuous build of music. Someone shouts out his name “Raja or Shiva or Karthick” (stereotypically speaking) and he turns in a painfully slow motion towards the screen and smiles his ear to ear smile: Our protagonist gives his first appearance in the movie. Everyone around( in the movie) is happy at his arrival, going into raptures over his many heroic abilities.

‘Zip – Zap’ goes the sound as the protagonist or rather the ‘hero’ of the movie yanks his hand in the air revealing a gesture of style. An introductory song follows where the hero continuously blows his own horn, singing his own praises to a dumb crowd around. Then he (or rather the stunt man) bounds and leaps in the air in an always victorious attempt to rescue the oh-so-beautiful dame from the evil hands of a group of ruffians. There goes the boy meets girl sequence. Some romantic duets follow (no never a dupe in this!) and then some drama, some action, a series of unsolicited lectures … blah and blah…and we all go crazy over this “hero”.


Try asking your fellow mate who his or her favorite hero is. The most probable answers might be Vijay, or Rajni or Shahrukh, not a surprising one though! We get obsessed with these demigods- so infatuated with their personalities that sometimes we lose our very individuality trying to imitate these larger than life characters- giving them more importance in our life than what they really deserve.

Who are these people? What do they mean to us? What have they been to us? Aren’t we supposed to just be entertained for the three hours of the movie?

Someone who has to be continuously commended and admired to keep up the image , someone who needs sound and visual effects to depict his superhuman image- We call him a “hero” -not a cast, not merely an actor but a “hero”. Fan clubs, talk shows, film-fares to add to that!

We have been so busy all our life gaping in wonder at something that is apparently fictitious, worshiping pseudo heroes that some of the real- life heroes have taken a back seat. Following is the story of a real life hero.

This person hails from a remote village of Madurai: a village the size of my college. With barely any facilities for routine, uneducated parents, a flock of siblings, education was a far cry. It happens that many a day he might even go hungry, but in the unfathomable depths of his vacant stomach there always was a fire burning- that wanted to get ahead no matter what it takes and further his ambitions, to acquire the education that was denied to his forefathers and to stand up against anything that might get in his way of realizing his dreams. And that was no cake walk, trust me.

Everyday he would cycle ten miles to the nearest school on his cycle (but for the bell every part of the cycle would have a distinctive noise of its own) and back. And then luckily got into a college (with only a couple of clothes to wear), graduated and started his life as a cashier in an insurance firm.

And then there was this problem with the exacting english language as he studied in an elementary school that was far removed from any scope of english. He would sit through odd hours in the night reading and comprehending. He would push himself analyzing his insurance subjects (and they are really vast) every available minute. Thus he climbed crag to crag, leaving his mark as he climbed, determined to reach where he is today- a divisional manager cum a top cadre marketing manager of a reputed insurance firm. He really has come a long way.

Sincere. Simple. Humble. Brilliant. Responsible. Organized. Benign. It’s nothing but an honor calling him my father. He’s the person who had taught me to walk, to talk, to read, to write, who would hold my kutty hands and walk me to school, who had given me freedom enough to enjoy but with ethical boundaries, who imparted to me the importance of moral convictions, who would ask my suggestion in every important decision that he is to make even when I was a kid, who -even now when I’m out of my teens -would feed me and lovingly watch me go to sleep.

He has never let his struggle and heavy work that was demanded by his profession, compensate his duties as a husband to my mom and as a father to two children. During the earlier days when his income was modest he would sacrifice his essential requirements to get me an extra frock and a toy. I’ve never known anything as genuine, unconditional and perfect as his silent sacrificial love. He really is a hero to me.

It’s true he cannot recite rhyming dialogues of love like our silver-screen heroes do but why should he when that abstract love though silent and unexpressed in words is so tangible? He does not sing songs of his praise but again need he do it when everyone looks up at him with respect and awe? He does not leap and bound in the air in a frenzy of action but he has fought against countless barriers on his way from a simple livelihood to what he is today. He does not have the face of a media prince, for time had ruthlessly stamped fine lines on it and age has already started combing grey streaks through his hair, but his shoulder is sturdy enough to hold and support his family and his heart pumps fresh young blood every minute. To this hero I owe my life for he was the one who had given it to me in the first place.

If we blink away the haze that the big screen has created and look around there is a silent legend- a hero living in every of our homes . Just that we are too complacent to realize it.
My dad is a hero- in the real sense of the word .And so is your dad.

A tribute to the “KAIPULLA”

An uproarious laughter follows as soon as this ace comedian occupies the screen. A remarkably fake looking moustache, repeated attempts at innuendo, loser attitude, out – of- the- situation dumbness or comical innocence is all that we guffaw at the irrepressible roles of Vadivelu.

Why does the thought of a cowardly Vadivelu- or rather Naai sekar or Kaipulla or Pulikesi or Marc- so amuse us? Why does his self- ridiculing comedies so tickle our funny bones?

Partly because the mental images evoked are so absurd. Partly because we know he’s not making fun of us; there’s no threat in self- directed humour. And partly because there’s a touch of cowardice in us all and it is reassuring to hear someone else laugh at his own.

Film after film he goes on merrily skewering himself to the delight of millions. He makes the world laugh by laughing at himself. And that is a great thing really.What a priceless gift it is, this capacity to poke fun at yourself!

The man who recounts his triumphs is a bore; the man who invites you to laugh with him at his mistakes is a delight. When you are riding high a joke told on yourself wards off envy and jealosy.When things are going badly, it helps you keep your perspective and sense of humour.Laughing at yourself not only makes life pleasanter for everybody; it can often take the sting out of affliction. If you work at it full time,it can even make you a millionaire: ask Vadivelu.

Self- directed humour is a healing kind of laughter. In this respect it differs from wit, which is often caustic- you know the Goundarmani, Vivek types. Comparing the two one is vivid, and could hurt; the other is light and comforting. It’s the difference between a lightning and an electric light.

When it comes to easing household tensions or strengthening family ties , the gift of self mockery is a marvelous catalyst. Parents who laugh at themselves are likely to have a warm relationship with their children than parents who cannot. And since such humour is highly contagious the children learn not only to be amusing themselves, they also acquire an emotional resilience that will be invaluable to them later on.

All that’s needed to master this beguiling art, really, is a sense of humour and enough self-assurance not to mind being made to look momentarily foolish.

So why not take the droll little things that happen to you, the quirks of character, the failings that flesh is heir to, and see if you can’t enter them on the credit side of the ledger by looking for the spark of humour that makes us all kin?

The truth is, if you do, people will love for it. And we all like Vadivelu, Don’t we?