Yeah, I'm confused.

I have seen such sacks carrying rice and wheat with a warning "Do not use hooks".But this time its full of red roses.A sack full of red roses and I was asked to pluck the petals and place in trays.I filled trays after trays with rose petals.It reminded me of beauty soap ads and film songs.The white floor of the hall have been covered with the rose trays with me sitting in the middle.Some guests who arrived early joined me in the task. I was invited to attend a pooja .Down in my memory lane there was a Ganapathy Homam on the morning of our house warming and I was drooping down by the time it ended.The only pooja I attended as far.

Spending a sunday all alone watching TV or sleeping through out the day didn't appeal me much , so I happily accepted the invitation to pooja. I got a reminder at the previous night itself "Be on time , early in the morning".Next morning, a knock on the door woke me up at 10' o clock (Don't take it your way ,it was a second sleep , after the break fast ) to see the 7 year old live reminder with her one month old Cocker Spanial ."Akka , ennum kulikkaliya? late aydchu" and she asked me to wear some thing grand.

Within fifteen minutes from then I was welcomed by the host family "vanka ,vanka".All wrapped in fine Silk cloths ,wearing gold in many forms of ornaments all over their body.I had ignored the kid's words about dress code and there was no signs of Pooja .I got enough time to go back to my place and at the end of my search I found out my friend's ear ring abandoned in a dark corner of a shelf.I some how wore it and hurried back. Since I was the first guest and every one else in the home had enough in their 'to do' list , I was assigned to attend roses.Hostess explained me how she ran out of time and couldn't invite all friends but a handful only.She stopped at me whenever she passed by to explain how they arranged pooja's every year.Her 15 year old girl , was trying to lock the puppy inside her bedroom.Even at the slightest of her movements her bangles giggled and silk cloths murmured secrets.

Once all the decorations were done with Marigold garlands , it was time to prepare the 'thank you kits'.A carry bag , on which it was printed 'Thank you for your presence ' and the host family's name ,filled with sandal ,turmeric ,kumkum ,camphor and some thing I couldn't identify and small golden coloured metal cases to hold each of them.

The priest arrived on time and the family welcomed him .He turned out to be a Keralite who couldn't understand Tamil . He had some books from which he recited something and his actions where all strange and alien to me.There seemed to be a competition among the people to join the bhajan in the top most of their voice.I didn't understand the meaning of anything.Still I too followed everything and even a namaskaram to the priest.I was really praying at that moment ("god,let me keep my balance while doing the namaskaram.Otherwise give me strength to bear a fall in front of this much people") I can't really make out why they all did a 'sashtanga namaskaram'( prostrate ) at the Brahmin's feet. All my fancies about the decorations and flowers had ran away.I felt I was totally unfit to that place. The family presented the priest a tray full of fruits ,flowers , folded five hundred rupees currency bundle and dhothi's with golden brocaded being the attraction .The pooja was followed by a feast .Delicious food served with warm hospitality. Thank you kits were handed over.

Back at my place I wonderd if the God has pleased over all those show offs. Does God really exists? If you had such a doubt , then why did you go to the Pooja.To please the host.Then why do you go to temple some times? To pray , of course. Then why do you take part in atheist debates.I doubt the existence of god.You pray to god and you doubt the existence ...!!! See, we can't ignore science ,right? .Then what is your stand? .I'm ...I'm confused.I'm an agnostist.Oooh...so you can go to temple and pray when you really need favours and you can pretend to be an atheist at other times.Such a coward you are!!!Yeah...thats right.

A sunday, well spent.

I asked the conductor twice and he assured the bus goes through Triplicane.I took the back seat with a girl who looked at me as if I was in the news for stealing some question papers.

I was on the way to attend an exam and the center of exam was at the other end of the city.Neethu, the culprit ,who forced me to attend the exam had got a nearby center and another friend to accompany her.Once again I felt my bag to make sure the pencil,pen,sharpener and eraser I bought few minutes ago are in place.I held the Rs.5 ticket in my hand and kept glancing at the conductors face every now and then.When most of the boards showed off 'triplicane' on them I started looking for the school name.Then the girl who was sitting next to me asked, "where do you want to go?".I told her the street name and school name.She nodded in helplessness.Bus drove past the Marina beach and entered a busy lane.At last the conductor turned his head and said Triplicane.I wondered that I travelled this long with Rs.5.It was easy to spot the old building of the school and find out my seat in the last row.

My previous experiences made me go through the instructions once again.Yes, I have a ball point pen and HB pencil , I relaxed.(Once during the CUSAT entrance exam I had darkened the bubbles in OMR sheets with a pen and when I realised it was to be done by a pencil, I tried my best to keep my lips curved in a smile.The invigilator exclaimed ," This careless, how are you going to be an engineer!!!").I kept the pencil and pen on the desk .A glance and I ,with a whirl in my stomach ,realised its not an HB pencil.I checked the pen, it was clearly written as Gel on it.I felt .....( I don't know a word to describe what I felt) .I turned my head .A girl whose face revealed her tensions was doing the final minute sharpening of her HB pencil.She said she don't have an additional pen.I asked the guy who sat in front of me.He threw a weired look and felt from his legs to feet and found a ball pen from one of the countless pockets of his cargoes.I decided to carry on with the non -HB ,extra dark pencil.I used the pencil in a very light manner so that it makes the effect of an HB pencil.I sat alone in my bench.Invigilator cross checked the hall tickets.I was not wearing spectacles in the photo.He stared for one more second and mapped the signature and confirmed my identity.

As the bells rang to open the question booklet seals , some one shouted an 'excuse me' from the door.A guy who definitely was a fan of Rajnikanth (his attire and shaving pattern...thats the only clue) came and sat beside me. Behind him entered a girl who was dressed as she was attending a party.All the candidates eyes including mine followed her even after she settled in her place.Invigilator asked the guy with a geometry box to leave his calculator away.He stood from his place and walked out , careful to avoid any wrinkles to his Peter England trousers.He came back and had a sip of water from the fruity bottle he was carrying.

After going through some pages of the booklet I was wondering , what are they going to do with all these circuit diagrams and mathematical equations. I was aware of the time distribution , so I started slowly . Once during the IIT JEE ( No,I din't over estimate me...another friend needed company ...thats why ...I got a result card after some months stating " Regret to inform you that you are not eligible...Your rank is One Lakh Twentyfive...") , I finished all the questions in half an hour and some how passed the three hours.The general knowledge section was the only relief.

None of the questions in the other sections made any sense to me.I could identify the zigzag figures as symbol for resistors, two parallel vertical lines as capacitors, a coil as inductor.But nothing more than that.

I glanced at Mr.Peter England.He adjusted his soda glasses and was busy doing some thing in the space for rough work.He had kept his geometry box open and the fruity bottle close to him.There were two fans in the room.A dusty Usha and another old Crompton Greeves.They worked hard to keep the Chennai heat away.

I began to brain storm on the terms ....where did I hear all these? Transducer, Self induction,Gap,dielectrics,impedance,characteristic plots,planes,omegas,waves, angles,diodes...........When diodes appeared in the paper , I thought there was some diode starting with Z.Ohh..yeah next question is about Zenor diode.Mnn...not that a week memory( there are some occasions, I get impressed by myself).Then came the coefficients with all the scientists names as prefix. I replaced all those names with Bhavya in my mind.Bhavya coefficient of dielectric, Bhavya constant, Bhavya wave length, Bhavya's Theorem,Bhavya temperature of boiling......not a rhyming set of words.Good , that there is no constants or coeff named after me.

Miss.Party had already closed her questionnaire.She tried to adjust her loose hair locks and started admiring her own nail polish.I looked at my nails and wondered , what colour will look good on them! Mr.Rajnikanth rested his head on the desk.The orange colour of the old building reflected on his face( Once one of my cousin had told me , if you take photos facing a bright orange wall ,the pics will be warm).

When it was past half the time , a press photographer entered the room .The invigilator adjusted his shirt collar and wiped his face with a kerchief.Photographer suggested some posses and the invigilator was so keen in following his instructions.He clicked some ten snaps. In all the photos invigilator stood exactly in front of me and my hope of appearing in a Tamil news paper faded then itself.

I started a game of rolling pen and pencil on the desk.The one which reaches the farthest on the desk wins.Always pencil won, pen was not a perfect figure to roll.Once the pencil fell off the desk and invigilator noticed and Miss.Tension smiled at me with a yawn.I gave up the game.

When it was half an hour left I had 5 questions to finish.I formulated another game.Do one question and take a break of 3 minutes.But I finished marking it in next two minutes.I dint even looked at the answers.Just darkened the circles in OMR sheet.When Invigilator started collecting the answer sheets , Mr.Peter England hasn't finished.His rough work space might had got over. I have to return the pen to Mr.Cargos.The pen had 'Infosys' embossed on it.I returned the pen with an unintonated 'thank you'.

Just after the exam I got Neethu's SMS saying she enjoyed the 3 hours.Travelling back was easy . Back at home while having my lunch ,I got a call from my friends ,"Hurry up,we are planning to go to Besant Nagar Beach".Some how I answered "Now? I can't join you." and within five minutes I was sleeping like a pig( I don't know what I look like when I sleep, may not be a pig , I hope).

Mahabalipuram

Every one had got bored of the long weekends , with literally nothing in hand to do. "Why can't we go to Mahabalipuram on this Saturday?" , whoever asked the question has got enough praise for the 'brilliant idea' .Waking up early morning was not that difficult even though it was out of habit. Some one advised us to wait for bus under a tree outside the Thiruvanmiyur bus terminal.Then came a Volvo with "Mamallapuram " flashing on its board. We boarded in it and exclaimed at each others face "will this go to Mahabalipuram?" "where's Mamallapuram?".Mahabalipuram is in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu.

We , a bunch of 'New to Chennai' people , started looking outside the bus ( Now when ever i look from a moving vehicle an ophthalmologist's words keep ringing in my ears " changing focus , eye muscles , eye exercises , spectacles....."God created eye specialists to spoil my travels!!! But i took revenge on them by keeping my eyes open for the next one hour) .When bus took a turn from the high way(?) we noticed a sign board with "KOVALAM " written on it.We guessed this may be the high way that connect Chennai to Kanyakumari and Kovalam.But within minutes we realised its the name of that beach side itself. A long array of beach side resorts,green gardens and amusement parks lined both sides of road for a long distance. We were totally surprised to see a beautiful face of Chennai. In one turn we saw a sign board with 28km to Pondichery written on it.The sea shores were beautiful and amazingly long.We planned to get down in a boating centre named Muthukadu in our trip back but we couldn't.

We reached there by 10.30.A few minutes walk from the bus stand and you are there in Mamallapuram ( It was named after a king 'Mamalla') fancies of 7th and 8th century.After taking a look at rock cuts and taking photographs in front of the most appealing ones some one asked "what do all these depicts?".No one had any answers."Can we Google it now?" .Then only we realised the blankness. Then came a bunch of foreigners and a guide who was explaining in a very loud voice.We eavesdropped to that narration and could make out some thing about the whole place.But i swear the guide was misguiding them through Indian myths and epics. The only thing we can depend there was the rusty boards of Archaeological survey of India which gave one line descriptions.

Cave Carvings

Built largely during the time of Narasimhavarman of Pallava dynasty, Mamallapuram have breath takingly beautiful mandapas and shrines.Many of them are monolithic too.Most of the villagers seems to be sculpturers.I was wondering who will buy that much huge Budha and deities in large number. We visited the cave temples , light house and a rock named Krishna's butter ball.That stone was looking exactly like a ball of butter from one side.It was balanced on a huge rock and another side of it was flat.We had a considerably good lunch in a nearby 'sit out turned to be a restaurant' house.

Krishna's butter ball

After lunch it was Pancha Rathas (five chariots) and Sea shore temple that entertained our eyes.Rathas were monolithic and carved in pink granite.The five rathas are named after the five Pandavas (nakula and sahadeva together) and Draupadi.There were huge elephant and lion sculpture among the rathas.

The Rathas

Sea shore temple over looks Bay of Bengal.It has three shrines ,of which two are dedicated to Shiva and one to Vishnu.Inside the temple it was very cool and we sat there for a very long time to escape from the scorching heat .The sea shore temple premise is converted to a garden and entrance is restricted by tickets.We noticed a group of people entering one by one with a single ticket.The one who enters gives the ticket to his friend who is standing outside through the gate.But they were unaware of the inner counter where they tear the ticket and give you a half of it.

Sea Shore temple

We left the place at 4.30 . Back at home we Googled about Mahabalipuram and realised it was one of the UNESCO Heritage Sites.