Signature Night

I am a singer in Indian Railways & survive on passenger’s largesse. I was born in a poor family which didn’t have a single penny as its savings. I was brought up in trains and Railway Stations. In my childhood my mother told me that this was the consequence of the misdeeds done by me in my previous birth. I don’t know where she is & where the rest of my family members are. As far as I remember I had three siblings & a father who was always drunk. I don’t know when I was born & what my age is. My companions tell me that I am at least 16.

As the means of satisfying my hunger I had the options to sweep the train compartments or to sing in it. I couldn’t polish shoes or sell tea & other stuff because all these required some money to start with & I didn’t had any. I chose to sing because I had heard a lot of songs. Since the day I started I have no self respect. Most of the people scold me & tell me to move forward, some give me a rupee or two.

On that night as usual I was tired up singing whole day & received only 14 rupees till then. It was 7:30 in the evening & I was on Habibganj Railway Station. The Habibganj-Kurla Express was about to leave. I was uncertain whether to catch it or not. At last I decided to go with it & try my songs in front of its passengers. In the train I kept moving one coach to other sang songs & asked for money. I was about to enter an A.C coach when it was 10:30. Everybody in the coach was preparing his bed except a group of friends who were chatting loudly & were in no mood to sleep.

When I reached nearer to them I found that they were enjoying whisky. Most of them were already empowered by their pegs. I started singing & they all stared at me. I again expected a move forward gesture but to my surprise one of them asked me to sing some good song. I sat on the floor & started. They made a peg for me & I drank it. They all admired my song & demanded more. I sang & they made more pegs.

The scene continued till 12:00 when the T.C came & asked about what was happening. They told him that they were 25 year old college friends who met for an alumni get together at Bhopal & after their journey to Mumbai they may not meet each other forever. Meanwhile one of them made a drink for T.C and handed him. In this way T.C also joined the party. I sang & sang from the depth of my heart.

Yaari hai eemaan mera yaar meri zindagi……

Ae maalik tere bande hum…….

Mere angane mein tumhara kya kaam hai........

Tum to thehere pardesi saath kya nibhaoge..........

Musaafir hu yaaro. Na ghar hai naa thikaana……

And lot many songs….

They also had the food packed with them. They gave it to me & asked not to shy. First time in my life I had my hunger satisfied. And the food was delicious. They didn’t sleep the whole night & all sang with me. We played lots of games. In the end they all collected 10-10 rupees each & gave me a total of Rs.110 which was equivalent to my five day begs.

At Kalyan station I was about to leave to catch my next target train. It was 7 in the morning. They all bid farewell to me & I asked what was the name of the whisky. They told me that it was “Signature”. I asked them to give me the empty bottles so that I can sell them somewhere. That night will be remembered by each one of them & I was grateful to be a part of it. I do not remember that night because of the money, whisky or food that they offered me. I remember it because of the dignity that they gave me. But the fact remains that I am a singer not at Bollywood but at Indian Railways.

Bhai-Jaan (1952-2007)

Collar ko thoda sa oopar chadha ke

Cigarette ke dhooe ka chhalla bana ke

Sochna hai kya?

Jo hona hai hoga

Chal pade hain fikar yaaro dhooe mein uda ke

Jaane kya hoga Rama re?

Jaane kya hoga Rama re?

Cigarette & cut tea used to be in everybody’s hands. Students of my college used to eat samosas and kachories fried in cheap mustard oil. That’s what Bhai-jaan stall was all about. Bhai-jaan was the owner of small tea shop right in front of my college. The stall was just made of thin tin sheets. A turbulent flow of air was sufficient to uproot the stall. But the foundation of stall didn’t lie in tin sheets - but in cigarette lovers of my college. Bhai-jaan stall was a bench mark. It was a place to reunite.

History says that the tin sheets of the Bhai-jaan stall were laid before the walls of my college. Three generations of Bhai-jaan served the smokers of my college. Bhai-jaan never distinguished between toppers & droppers. He gave cigarettes & tea to everybody with equal dignity. I used to smoke at Bhai-jaan stall. Whenever I didn’t have enough money, I smoked without paying for it. I used to pay him whenever I had enough bucks.

Whether you haven’t submitted the assignment or you were unable to complete the project. Whether you have a bad reputation among professors or a girl refused your proposal. Whether you were beaten by a scoundrel or you are yourself a scoundrel. Whether you failed in one subject or you are detained for whole semester. Share your happiness, share your sorrow, and forget your tension - just smoke. Bhai-jaan stall was a pill for all diseases.

But now, Bhai-jaan is gone. My friends in Indore told me that there was a Garba festival to be organized that needed parking space. Bhai-jaan tea stall was uprooted to make way for it. And with it, fifty-five year old tradition was broken. If Garba is Indian tradition then Bhai-jaan is ours. I feel very bad about it & hope that the stall reappears after the festival is over.

WARNING: Smoking is the prime cause of lung and other cancers.

The Climax

I was omnipresent. I could see many things at the same time. That day I saw four of them & listened to their conversation. Their names were Akash, Vinay, Prachi and Rizwan. They had their project submission the next day. This was the last milestone after which their degree would be completed. Mr. P Mittal, CTO Impetus technologies was external examiner for their project submission.

It was 5’o clock in the evening when the four left the canteen. Akash & Vinay went to the lab. They were going to check whether the project was working properly or not. Akash turned the systems on.
The system with UDDI was booting……
The HTTP Server was booting……..
The Soap Server was booting………
Ok! They were all set to test the project.
Vinay typed in the address bar:
http://198.162.0.3:8083/project/Welcome.html
The Welcome page was displayed.

While testing suddenly Vinay saw a big “Http Server Not Found Error - 404” on the screen. Akash headed towards Soap Server to see what happened. Oh no to his surprise the Soap Server was formatted. He shouted-“What’s this?” The whole hard work done on the project burnt into ashes.

Meanwhile Prachi & Rizwan were collecting the bounded project reports. Soon they arrived in the lab. They were also shocked on listening that the Soap Server was formatted. They had the backup of the whole code. But they didn’t remembered how they configured the Soap Server. It was practically impossible to reconfigure the whole server again. When they were developing the project it took one month to prepare the Soap Server & the Web Service.

The internal examiner for the project submission was HOD Computer Engineering Mr. D. A. Mehta. The project group decided to talk to him. When they talked to him about the matter he asked them to implement as much part as they could. But they all knew that things won’t work.

I watched them silently. They were turning mad. I could see Prachi shivering with fear. She was very sensitive. Rizwan remained indifferent. He always believed that nobody can change the fate. Whatever is written has to happen. So the present situation was written in their fate. Vinay though concerned believed in reality. And the reality was that the project couldn’t be demonstrated. I could see fear on Akash’s face but he was there to try out everything till the end.

Three of them gave up but Akash still tried to reconfigure it. He did whatever he could, tried everything to get the project working in the shortest possible way but to no avail. He created database in MS-ACCESS instead of ORACLE, pasted .jar files here & there, tried to run the web service on different Soap Servers of other project groups. Everything failed.

It was 7:30 in the evening when Mike came into the lab. He was Akash’s very good friend. He was aware what had happened. The lab was dark with Akash alone. When Mike met Akash he was hitting the keys hard on the keyboard. The noise was breaking the silence of lab. He tried to ask Akash about how everything happened. He was too busy to reply Mike. Mike even offered to take revenge from whoever formatted the system. But Akash was not listening.

Soon Mike understood the situation & tried to think rationally. But in an emergency like this even he was unable to offer some logical solution. He didn’t know anything about Web Services. The lab was open till 8 pm. Akash was still trying hopelessly. Mike asked Akash that he must go home, have his food & configure the server at his PC & bring it the next day. Akash had already tried everything he could so he agreed.

Akash shut down the system, went home & started the work. He had to start everything from the scratch. He turned on his PC and began to install Oracle on it. He then had his dinner. He rebuilt the whole database again. It was 12 o’clock in the night. Akash was feeling sleepy. He set the alarm to 4:30 am & went to sleep.

I could see the other three of them. Vinay who had already given up tried once again at home to make impossible possible but eventually scolded his fate & went to sleep. I saw Prachi. She was already crying or she was about to cry. I think even she couldn’t tell whether she was weeping or not. Rizwan was smoking silently & thinking in depth. He was calm. Still I couldn’t see any tension on his face.

In the morning alarm was ringing. Akash woke up. His head was aching. Still he resumed his work. He didn’t have Java installed on his PC neither he had the Java setup. At 5:30 he went to his junior to pick up the Java setup. The junior barely managed to wake up & open his gate. Akash felt how easy it was for thieves to rob his home. Finally getting the Java setup Akash went home. He installed Java followed by Tomcat container. He then configured the Soap Server. At 7:00 am Soap Server configuration was complete. But still it had to be tested on the LAN.

Soon Mike arrived. He & Akash adjusted cabinet on the bike & headed towards the college. As soon as they reached college Akash started his work. Connected his PC in the LAN & again tried to run the project. The Welcome page was displayed. The project was running fine. But as soon as the UDDI returned the IP address of Soap Server. Again a big “This Page Cannot Be Displayed” appeared. Akash thought that all the efforts went in vain. If the server doesn’t workout then the project cannot be demonstrated leading to failure in the examination. Who would like to extend his/her degree by six more months?

He thought what could be the probable reason for non-functioning Soap Server? He had done everything correct. He checked step by step & caught where the problem was. He forgot to set the IP address of the Soap Server that he configured at home. He just did that & tested the project again. Bingo! The project started working. It was 10:55 am & the project submission was scheduled at 11:00 am. Akash completed his work 5 minutes before time. Mr. P Mittal came & took the submission. He was satisfied by the project demonstration & further suggested a few ways in which project group could have improved the performance of the system. In the evening the project group had a big party.

I saw tiny drops coming out of Prachi’s eyes. It was like a happy ending of a typical Hindi movie. I observed their fears; I observed Akash’s dedication; I observed that how efforts can change fate. Now it’s up to you to decide whether it is a fiction or reality.

Bad Luck?

I am not a son of a millionaire. My birthday comes on 17th February and according to Nume-soft horoscope, 17th is my unlucky date. Is there a single person in this world whose birthday falls on one of his unlucky dates? I didn’t make it through IIT-JEE. It was a 10 year dream to be in IIT once. It broke in one second on 20-Jun-2003. It was the worst day of my life. Even after trying hard I cannot forget that. I never had a girlfriend. I liked one girl, who rejected me even before my proposing. All my friends played Holi in college & only I was punished. Even after working hardest in my class for my project I got least marks. I was expecting a re-appearance in my 7th semester. I barely managed to clear it. But while going for celebrating with my friends I met an accident & broke my knee. A fractured leg kept one and half month in plaster. How much painful it can be?
I never cheated on anyone. I am very ethical. So God! why only me? Why not any Ramesh, Mukesh, Sita, Monika. Why only I have all the bad luck written in my fate. I thought but couldn’t find an answer to this. People told me that bad times will end soon. But for me, bad times didn’t seem to end. For how much time can I maintain the spirit? I am not God. I am just an ordinary person.
I thought, thought again & then again. I thought in depth. Thought even more. Remember I was not wasting time - my leg was fractured. I couldn’t do anything other than thinking. I was not a good reader, and for how much time can one watch TV?
And then suddenly, a thought struck me. Was my luck really bad? Was I was the unluckiest person in this whole world. No. Not really. I have seen a hell lot of people much less privileged than myself. Thousands of my brothers & sisters born on the same 17th February who have never seen even a school - Is my luck worse than theirs? Do they even have enough money to get a Nume-soft horoscope? Even if they get one, do they have the ability to read & understand that? My father is not wealthy but he is a good person & for me, the best father in this world. A hundred and fifty thousand people failed with me in IIT-JEE 2003. Do they ever think that they were unlucky? Many of them didn’t even manage to get an institute of the reputation of my college. A major percentage of youngsters do not have a girlfriend. So I am in majority. (Remember India is democratic). Many people get a slap on the face by the girls they chase. At least I was not that unlucky. After that case of holi (refer first Para) I became famous in my college & was called a holiter.
After working day & night on my project my programming ability increased manifold. Earlier a 100 line code scared me. Now I was a web-services champ. Being bed-ridden for one month, I learnt how to spend the whole day in one room. How to walk only on one foot with the help of a walker. The girl that I liked called me once in a week. How much happy was I in pain. My other friends considered me lucky because they didn’t like to attend lectures at college. Later I even learnt to kick the bike with left foot. No one in my college could do that!
Hence, I concluded that I was not unlucky. The situations that I faced were a part of life. To maintain the spirit, I remembered the example of Lance Armstrong. I feel I don’t have to write about him here. I am a good person. People like my company. Irrespective of my success (or unsuccess), there are people who will remember moments spent with me for long. I will keep working hard wherever I am. These are my random thoughts that I wanted to write here.