Tale of an ordinary performer...

       Though he was excited of attending his first ever quarterly review meeting, he could sense butterflies flying all over his empty stomach on the D-Day. He was excited because he got invited for quarterly review meeting which is going to be conducted in a lake side resort in one of the beautiful landscapes of the world itself. Butterflies flew freely in his stomach because he had been asked to give a presentation in front of a decent-educated-geeky crowd. When he contacted the other guys who had also been asked to give away presentations they gave him the impression that their presentations are as equally boring as his. Poor man believed them and decided to go with his sick looking power point slides before afore said audience. Point here should be noted that; presentations had been assigned only to newly recruited employees. Ragging? Well let’s see.

       Presentations were scheduled after the quarterly reviews, in the early hours of the evening. Whole team reached at the lake side resort at about 10 in the morning and gathered over an oval shaped table of the conference hall. He told that there were some 30 people including the bosses, managers, assistant managers and would-be ragged (?!) new recruitees.

       Being the youngest in the group he tried hard to understand what they were discussing. But in no time he got disappointed after seeing the figures, jargons and matters discussed flying over his head. He told that he had felt misplaced in that crowd. When everyone clapped he also clapped, when everyone laughed he also laughed. He wondered how many of them would be clapping and laughing like him without understanding a single sentence/figure/jargon discussed. But he believed that everyone but him might have understood everything. That belief only increased the number of butterflies.

         At around 1.30 in the afternoon conferences dispersed for lunch after the reviews. Buffet lunch was delicious. He tried almost every item. Hardly very few of them were known to him. He told that none of them tasted great because of the butterflies except the Kerala special fish curry (He told at least he felt it special, God knows). But he had to keep the table manners and hence pulled back himself from going the catering area for the 2^nd time. He noted during lunch one of the would-be presenters leaving the dining table without having food. He thought she was sick or something and felt very bad for her. Little did he know she had gone inside the conference hall for rehearsing her power-point slides!

            After lunch, people who talked more till noon looked relaxed and the three including our man felt exact opposite of the rest of the crowd. Lady presenter went first on the podium and started her presentation after being invited by MD of the company itself. It was when the lady presenter was about to march to the podium he noticed some papers in her hands. Though they were trembling in her hands he felt like cheated. He peeped to his left to see the other guy who is about to give the second presentation. He saw some papers in his hands too. But unlike the lady presenter those papers were not trembling. He felt horrible inside. He knew that he would not be making any better presentation had he known that the fellow presenters were pulling hard to make superb presentations. Though she was bit shady in the beginning, lady who had given the presentation first had slowly picked the speed and summed up well. Huge round of applause followed. More butterflies this time in his stomach. He was shocked because, he felt the fellow presenters hid from him the fact that they have prepared well and confused because he had no clue about what to do with his sick looking slides.

           When the second presenter started with his slides, our man has almost had a cardiac arrest. Second presenter has made sure that he had used almost all features of Microsoft Power Point and Google to give maximum attraction to his more than 30 slides presentation. (He even thought of flying to US of America and kill Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin) Our man glanced at each audience presented. By reading their face expressions he was certain that they liked the second presenter and would benchmark the rest of the presentations with the second one. And he knew that his substandard presentation would get rated ‘horrible’. Huge round of applause pulled him back to the reality and he also started clapping as the second guy finished his presentation. He told that the applause lasted for good 2 minutes. More and more butterflies this time.

          MD invited him for giving the last presentation scheduled for the day. Unlike other presenters he had no papers in his hands and good looking slides in his USB drive. He connected his USB on the laptop. Nobody noticed his hands trembling. Then he went to the podium and looked at the audience. Almost another cardiac arrest! Finally after clearing his throat for the 3d time he could open his mouth. Neither he could puke what he had practiced before going to take the presentation nor did anything appear in his mind from where to begin with. Everything went blank. He did not know what to do and started doing the best thing he knew, that he had taught himself during his Masters that is reading from the slides!

        In no time he had finished his dictation and looked at the audience as if he had done something wonderful. He knew that it was the worst presentation he had ever given in his whole life. But audience clapped for him too. But this time just for few seconds. He acknowledged their claps and cursed his Adam’s apple for not letting him utter a sentence with full confidence and his mind for being blank when it was required to be full functioned. He hurriedly disconnected his USB from the laptop and went to his seat. His head hung in shame!

        He told that the fun wasn’t over yet. He could not discuss with the author what happened during the post review party at night on the very same day, as he had to leave to for a counseling session. Author chose not to ask about the counseling to his already dull looking dude. Hence our man had to leave his author friend in a hurry with an uncompleted script. But he had promised the author that one day he would narrate the whole incident when he could actually able to remember the blur images in his memory and link them in a better way. My author friend’s mind clinched on the ‘blur images’ usage of his friend and thought, Alcohol?! He looked at his friend leaving the restaurant. His head still hung in shame?

        I should acknowledge here my author friend who doesn’t want to reveal his name, for letting me share this tale.

Thanks everyone for your time.

Sharath Muthirakkal

ULTIMATE SMELL- THE DEATH!

His sleepless nights continued as they were for last couple of months.  Only few could note the changes happening in him. He was living somebody else’s life. Everything he thought existed disappeared as if he was awakened from a beautiful dream to the state of being nothing. Soon he became depressed. Slowly it caught up his professional life too. He went office regularly, pretented to be enthusiastic. Once he really was, he thought and let pass a sigh. But he decided to stop playing around! He tried to have some introspection. Nothing happened. Nothing seemed visible. He became more depressed. He thought about alcohol. But he decided against it because he was worried of getting carried away. He thought of spending more time with his friends whom he met since he came to that City. But none of his thoughts were getting executed for last two or three months. He doubted whether he had some thoughts in the first place and occasionally sighed like a lost man. UNCONSCIOUS SIGHS YOU KNOW..

 He thought about his early days in the office. He was never worried of anything. He asked stupid doubts and moved around. Positive energy was oozing out of him. Nothing seemed impossible. But everything turned upside down in no time. He even started thinking about bunking office; he started finding stupid reasons to stay away from the office and more surprisingly from people. He just wanted to be alone. Once he himself told his boss that he is feeling sick and he almost wept. Then he came to understand that he is a miserable manager of his emotions. He found his tongue tied when he was asked about something. He could not even look straight into the eyes of the security guard, let alone his colleagues and bosses. Even the jokes cracked during the breaks became horrible to his ears. None of them had made sense to him. He was in another world. Soon he had withdrawn completely inside the shell of his own thoughts. 

When the depression and unnecessary thoughts started eating his brain he rang up his professor who earlier introduced him to a counselor when he encountered the same problem during his academic days. Amidst of the entire busy college schedule his teacher tried his level best to motivate his mentally stuck ex-student and guaranteed him that he would arrange a meeting with the Counselor very soon. Though the telephone conversation with his professor was comforting, his ex-student, the depression stuck (un)professional was not finding his sleeps and ran away from the city to his home town early in the next morning without even telling his boss that he would be absent. 

All he wanted was to reach home as quickly as he could. He didn’t think about his boss, job and his colleagues. All he knew was that he had to be home as fast he could. Nothing else seemed mattered. He got irritated and worried when each time his phone beeped in his pocket. Sometimes it was his colleagues, sometimes it was his parents. He didn’t bother attending them.  After all he had no answers for their questions. Finally his boss also called him. He felt guilty and took the call and told him that he was in a bad mood early in the morning and could not tell him that he was not well and would be on leave. Had it be any other boss his association with the company would have finished then at there.  He expected a firing at the other end. But it was as if his boss understood the changes happening in him. He consoled him and asked him to call him when he reaches home back. He thought his boss would be one of the most respectable men in his list, had he made one. It only increased the level of respect in his mind for his boss. He felt really energetic and enthusiastic. Well, regret was in plenty, that question itself seemed out of place. But soon the train reached the station, everything flown away like a kite which has lost its’ rhythm in the foul wind. 

When he reached home, every incident flashed against his memory walls one by one. He wanted to cry. But he understood sadly that he was that cursed, even tears stopped coming. Then he wrote what he wanted to write. He thought of publishing it straightaway without editing. But someone inside stopped him from doing the same. Though he battled hard against it, finally he listened to the insider and he removed most of it. But before removing those paragraphs he might have read the original script for fifty times. Every time he read out, he could realize a peculiar smell attached to those words and sentences. It took him a whole night to identify that smell. It was nothing but the smell of death. The ultimate fate! He checked himself for an assurance. He was not dead. UNLUCKILY :(