Some or Sum?

I was watching a rather spicy movie in a cinema theater with all my senses fully tuned to the movie and the attractive actors who were doing their bit in front of my eyes.

No doubt the movie was enthralling and enjoyable. However, I felt for some moments that I was parallely preparing a cool concept to share with all audience. In fact, this concept has been cocooning my mind for so many years that it needed a catalyst like this energetic movie to come out and present itself to the wide world.


We all know that there are some small parts and elements that together form an integral sum. Sometimes, we think that the sum is larger than some of its parts. Sometimes, we are content with the small parts because we believe that the individual elements could be easier to live with than the complete story. Here is what I mean by all this philosophical talk…


These days, rather these years, I have been on a ‘dating spree’, with the end goal being to get married to a beautiful bride. Now, we can quickly and safely assume that the ‘sum’ in this saga is for me to get married. Guess what the ‘some’ individual elements could be? Yes, to fall in love with a beautiful girl, then harboring thoughts of proposing her for marriage with me, then throwing all caution to the wind and asking her hand to be lent to me, and if she denies at that stage – which in all probability is the most likely outcome in my case – then, to convulge to that outcome as if it were the only end goal. Also, with all due respect to love, I would term this mania of falling in love as an ‘out of the world’ event, and everything else as a ‘practical' event.


Now, while watching this wonderful movie at night, I was also tearing my mind for how to talk to the girl for my date next morning whom I had never seen earlier. Of course, it was her parents who had earlier set up this ‘date’ of mine with her. Yeah yeah, this is the arranged Indian wedding concept. And believe me, it is quite cool.


In between the movie, there were at least six instances of my fierce desire to propose to my long-time lovely girl friend. I love her so much that it would be cruel to not spend my life with her. However, what would happen if she does not accept my proposal? Will she break our 'larger than life' friendship? And what if she does agree to my proposal and then after marriage, she suddenly finds that she is seeing me too often and ditchingly decides to drop the ‘lover’ tag that I had associated myself with so fondly up until now?


To add twist to the taler, I had somehow decided to get married in the next two months, so as to break the boring life that I had been living like a moron.


Torn in between ‘some’ event of my being in love with a girl, and ‘sum’ event of my going ahead to marry a stranger girl in next two months who would give long-lasting support to me for the rest of my life, I feared and felt like God standing on both the edges of a large banana-shaped canopy and tossing my fate like a shuttle cork. To make matters worse, there were some scenes and dialogues in the movie that sometimes made me lean towards the ‘sum’ event – for example, I was able to remember some forgotten conversations with my friends and important task items for my daily agenda – and then tilted me suddenly towards the ‘some’ event’ – for example, the ‘out of the world’ feeling from remembering about my lover!


I was so much struggling with myself now that even the popcorn in my hand was starting to slip and spill (watch out for my use of words! I already sound as if my brain is spiraling towards resignation!). I do remember that there was a climax to the movie, but I cannot quite reckon what exactly it was. I was just so much tied up with my tumultuous thoughts!


Luckily, soon the movie ended, and as soon as the closing scene came, something ticked my brain to remind me that the ‘sum’ is always greater than the ‘some’ parts.Two months later, no wonder I, rather my fate, ditched my old-time love for my ‘arranged’ wife.

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At 8 in the morning on a fine dusk Sunday, sitting on my wooden chair, with my rest reclining nicely upon it, I am brooding whether to read the day’s newspaper or not. These days, newspaper and such lifeless things are my only pals! So, merely because of lack of any other options, I decide to visit my balcony and pick the nicely bundled newspaper. These days, they have hundreds of additional pages to lift the marketing of various advertisers, which makes the size of the 24-page newspaper look like 124-page dossier! No wonder there are a couple of rubberbands to bind together all those remaining 100 pages of baseless information. So, I had the added requirement to remove the rubberbands from the newspaper. After I did that, my eyes got transfixed on how there are so many self-psychotherapy schools and libraries opening in Europe and USA and other such highly developed nations. Ok, I understand that people can fall prey to depression and such useless things in their tumultuous lives at any instant. It could happen to Indians too. But, to open muted schools and libraries abroad to offer self-help to those requiring psycho-therapic treatment is a bit too much. Their method of madly opening some pages from a book and narrating to the patient and giving him bundles of advise is both non-humane and ineffective. What they need is something totally different.

Sorry if I sound like a journalist thus far. But I promise the remaining piece is anything but plain narration. So, watch out.

Once, my brother was suffering from upset stomach and high fever. Swine Flu and Malaria were rampant in those days. At this, I decided to give him my own dose of psycho-therapic treatment. First, I asked him what had caused his ill health. He immediately it was because of him coming in touch with an infected Swine Flu patient and his eating stale food at the previous night’s marriage function. Listening to him, I immediately suggested him to eat his favorite spicy delicacy “Aloo Tikki”. He got distracted by my suggestion, and found it really tempting! No wonder his health and depressed mind became normal the next day itself.

Did he actually eat the Aloo Tikki? Well, how do I know? But he surely eats Aloo Tikki every month. This gives him a belief that eating it will keep him away from diseases! What a transformation a free yet funny advice can make to a human being.

Turning on my mischief

Here are my interesting events in my life thus far...

1. My Host at Virginia Tech campus of Blacksburg gifted me his own desktop computer. This was a result of great mutual understanding and trust that I had established with him and his lovely family, which had his wife and 2 beautiful young girls.

2. When I was driving in Maryland USA in my Accord at top speed, then suddenly I and my sister noticed a racing bike whizzing past our ears. It immediately pulsated me and in the heat of the moment, I felt like competing with that bike rider. But, to my surprise, I found 1, then 2, and then 4 other bikers criss-crossing me, and all were in bikes of different colors. What an experience!

3. Coorg exploits -- meet me to understand!

4. Dance video of myself on Youtube: search for Prince of Arabia, or Sanket Jain.

5. When I was young, I used to draw inspiration from Steve Waugh. All my colleagues know me for that. Till date, his image comes to my mind on a daily basis. The most defining image is his yellow shirt with collar up. It taught me to be in command of the situation at all times, and how to boss the situation coolly and confidently. Really an amazing living legend to draw inspiration from.

6. My favorite sportsperson when I was young -- Stefan Edberg. So much so that I adapted my playing and serving style according to his style. Used to stay awake till 3 in night to watch his games when needed. Amazing talent, and amazing performer, with utter grace and elan. A true champion both personal and as a national contributor. Even Federer idolizes him. I idolize his playing style, very classy. I also play Table Tennis with the same style that he brought to Lawn Tennis!

7. At Virginia Tech (VT), my colleague Altaf was conducting ego tests of all others. The test was on scale of 0-10, with 10 being the highest. The average ego of people was coming out to be 6.5. Then, my chance came. No wonder I brought the average down, because I scored a big 0 in that test! Yes, I have got no ego.

8. At Lalitha Palace of Bangalore, I was invited for giving a presentation on behalf of IBM. We had to present to a large audience based on our posters. I saw my mentor’s (Alok) poster also. At this, I told my friend how much I have learnt from that mentor, even though I have never seen him. The talk went on an on for 5 minutes. After that, Alok suddenly patted on my shoulder and thanked me for talking positively about him to my friend. I was surprised to see Alok in front of my eyes.

9. This incident both saved my life and gave me a new fillip to life. I was returning from Exxon Mobil at Washington D.C., to my VT campus in evening. But the bus arrived late at 12:30 in night to Roanoke, the city near my campus. I had to search for a taxi to travel from Roanoke to my campus. The distance is some 80 kilometers. Almost everyone from the bus had got their friends or family to pick them, so I was almost alone there now. Also, the office of the bus station had closed by now, thereby leaving me with the only option to stay outside the station. To my horror, I found a man armed with a knife. I quietly ignored him, but the fear started shaking me from inside. I thought I will lose my life. Then I prayed to God to give me another chance to live. Soon, a car with 3 Ghanese opened its gate from me. Rank strangers, and my life depended on them. They had come to pick their Ghanese friend from the bus station. I came along with them and became instant friends in those 60 minutes of unforgettable journey. They safely dropped me at my apartment gate. I thanked them. Ghanese are easily the best people in the world!

10. I like to know about all brands, and watch quiz shows with special interest.

11. I had a fantastic time in Washington DC museums.

12. I find Spanish language the most attractive language in the world. No clue why!

13. My days at Capital One were simply superb. We played pool, watched movies, dined together, helped each other, played volleyball, rode on each other’s cars, invested in shares, future & options, made great friends – all in 2 months only. Result – I made 3 long life friends!

14. The share of Mcleod Russell gave me so much profits that people around me, including me, were surprised! They had never even heard of this magnificent stock. Sometimes you hit jackpot out of nowhere!

15. Can Sanket calculate faster than a calculator or a computer? Yes.

16. Blacksburg during Football Game day is simply a breathtaking scene to watch and absorb. People in maroon and orange jerseys, the march past of the military, free food, barbecue, sunny weather, and the Turkey bird’s symbol hanging everywhere – wow, what passion! I am a truly passionate for my VT campus—I have never seen a place more beautiful and more purposeful than that.

17. I had joined Deloitte, which I feel is the best company. Many great memories of that company and its employees. Once, I was assigned a mentee. I was so excited! When she came aboard, she announced to the Deloitte world that she had cleared one certification with 100% marks, which is a record! I felt excited at the prospect of learning from her and greatly benefited from her! Who says that a mentor cannot learn from his mentee?

18. I found some stores in USA like Ikea, Panera Bread, Starbucks, Arabica Coffee, Barnes & Nobles bookstore, etc. -- to be very interesting. Just visiting those stores used to fill me with creative juices.

Television talk

How often it is when your television set talks in utter frustration to the home theater system attached to it and annoyingly to its own remote system? Ever wonder what these non-living objects talk to each other about?

When the pulsating advertisement on Ten Sports is flashed on the screen, and the viewer in sheet excitement decides to tune up the volume by several notches, then you can well imagine it is time for the television to give a long hard stare at its neighbor home theater system, because it is the latter that further attempts to magnify the already loud volume, thereby adding special effects to the whole scene, and almost deafening the television set.

Now that the television's ties with the home theater system have been severed because of one stare too many given by the former to the latter, the television has no-one else but the remote device to befriend. It would not be hard to believe why these two entities become the best pals and also relax the most whenever there is a power cut at home or when there is a rare moment when there is nobody at home.
However, the mood of the remote system soon turns somber when the young family member starts pressing it a bit too much merely for changing channels.

The intensity of pressing the remote grows when the battery cell inside the remote becomes weak due to its aging. The plight of the poor remote system is written on its face and it is now left with no option but to discuss its grievance with the television. Harried and tired of now associating itself with nothing but a nuisance value, the remote system just does not know when to stop weeping in front of the television set, which now is suffering from something of an equivalent of a human being’s blood pressure 180 systole and 200 diastole.

Fearing no end to its misery, the television attempts to blow itself by short circuiting it with the electric wires. But suddenly the young kid decides to turn on the channel that is now showing an inspirational movie. That movie shows some of the struggles faced by Indian women’s national hockey team of four decades ago that defied all odds and all adversity from being written off by everyone to win the most coveted world cup trophy in Australia. In a matter of two hours, the television observes the kid weep in ignominy of the then poor state of affairs of the team members. Next, it observes the kid watching how those players and support staffs were quickly losing hope of even qualifying for the championships and how they threatened to implode themselves. However, soon the kid sees how those players allowed their coach to mastermind their destiny, followed by how they sensed the emotions and adrenalin pumping like gush of energy in their nerves. The same team would then march to the semifinals of this mega event. Then, the players would work in tandem to help romp their rejuvenated team into the finals, and finally trounce its most feared opposition Australia in the most momentous final match.

It all ended with a vociferous victory lap and uninhibited unfurling of the Indian flag in front of the happy and emotional spectators amidst bright sunshine.

The television suddenly felt an urge to speak to the young kid that, although it was not a living being, yet it also felt the desire of being part of the contingent that was unfurling the Indian flag. At this the kid jokingly replied to the television set “Please do not get too emotional, or else you might blow up because of too much electric current flowing in your box!”

But the television was occupied in soaking the pleasure of having broadcast this movie to the young immature kid.

That kid later would grow to become a world famous lawn tennis doubles team player.

The uninhibited niche

The rain was pouring so heavily now that the legendary lawn tennis player Chris had decided to stop looking at the national broadcast of his dear friend and equally exemplary partner Adam’s farewell speech on the Cable News Network. Chris had decided to take a ten-minute break from this emotional exit of Adam and instead go up to the terrace to enjoy himself in the company of rain.

It is common knowledge that occasional rain brings buoyancy in the hearts of those who love the nature and who pride in living in the moment. So, he donned his slippers and the red robe, kept the television switched on, and swung his steps through the slippery stairs to climb seven stories.

Now that he was up there in a flash, he was wondering whether his pace of reaching up to the top was faster than the sound of the lightening he had just heard. But his mood threatened to get dampened because he found himself surrounded by closed canvas clothes that had effectively cornered any chances of him seeing the swanky splices of rain drops.

Yet, his hands moved forward to open ever so small an angle between the juxtaposed curtains to create an orifice that was large enough for him to gain an appreciation of this beautiful moment that the nature had unfurled upon him. Still enjoying this phase, he suddenly sniffed someone preparing non-vegetarian food. He being a devout vegetarian did not want to savor the sumptuous turkey being cooked at the door next to him. Instead, he quickly forced his focus back on enjoying the odorless and overcast rain drops. He could now uninhibitedly experience the enjoyment of contacting these crystal-clear dank droplets of rain.

Even though the rain persisted, he had now decided to depart from the terrace and join the commentary of Adam’s farewell speech. As soon as he entered his room, he was greeted with an advertising commercial where he saw his eyes getting transfixed like a small arc on the glimpses of beautiful objects like yellow orchid trees. Then, all the sports superstars of his generation were being shown in the next commercial. It was followed by a commercial showing a gymnast gyrating through her twisting and twirling torso with twelve turns in a matter of three tiny seconds.

As if he had seen it all with his limited vision, he felt even more so when he saw the entire career of Adam in front of his eyes that started from being a bystander ball-boy, then evolving to a splendid Wimbledon triumph and finally finishing with winning moments of French Open men’s double title that he had played along with him.

Now, his nearsighted niche had witnessed a giant gamut of uninhibited nature in the form of careers of Adam and those sporting icons, dense trees, a dense downpour, and an elegant exhibition of surefooted skills of the graceful gymnast.

Short Story: The natural log

Shane, a happy man was flying in his private jet all the way from the Carribean islands to Sri Lanka. It was his well-earned two week break from his tough office days at Capital One in Boston. He had encountered only open and clear cloudless shiny smiling skies all this way. Swiping the natural smirk on his face, he was celebrating after literally being on top of the world! He was even having a fun time with the pilot of the swift paper-like paltry pounded plane.

But suddenly, out of the blue, a lot of clouds stacked in front of his sight and also staggered across his entire line of sight. Initially he thought they would not act as a deterrent to his swift and silken ride thus far. But those manic clouds dared to continue to look at the face of the mini aircraft that was now meekly and mercifully pleading them to show another route.

The clouds looked at the honest and the once-joyous face of the two people pitifully stacked inside the cockpit, and suggested a detour to turn west. But little did those honest clouds know that they had misguided the travelers to a completely wild and unyielding set of unforgiving clouds. Now those clouds at the west wanted to feast the poor plane and its travelers; so much so that they even threatened to rain. Rain they didn’t is another story that would next day come back to miraculously save the life of the man who was happy just a dozen minutes ago!

With no option left, both the helpless souls decided to dive. Both were lucky enough to take their parachute with them, which did open as soon as they exposed themselves to the intimidating sky that was yelling in their fragile small ears “you guys cannot see below me!” And indeed they were blind sighted and not knowing where they were about to land after an estimated twenty minutes of free fall.

It had only been two of those twenty minutes when Shane lost sight of his pilot, who until then, had been shouldering like a soldier just beside him. Again, out of the blue, Shane realized that the fleet-footed plane had decided to lay its full fury on the increasingly poor pilot who was now also listless at his luck-less situation. He could not avert the plane from gyrating and then eventually crashing on top of his gut-wrenched gross body. And Shane watched in distress his pilot getting lost from his vision.

Before he could react to this shocking and terrifying incident, he quickly saw his past that lasted for only those last one hundred and twenty seconds, and saw his even worse and sickening future in just twenty seconds as he landed in Indian ocean above 3 sharks! He was now several miles away from any coast. At this, he immediately started crying at his poor fate. However, he quickly regained his senses and tore his clothes so that he could stay afloat of the shark-infested side of the stunning ocean. Next came the 17 of his most unforgettable and death-defying hours in ocean. Those long-as-eternity seventeen hours must have accumulated at least twenty one thousand cries for saving his life. But, even after so many repeated attempts, his yells yielded in no help from anyone across the planet.

Then a log came near him, and he clung on to it for the entire night and slept with it. Next morning, he found that he was still alive. His life had been saved so far in that vast ocean by the log. Immediately, he saw an island in front of his eyes, and it was a mere forty meters away. However, a sudden troubling tsunami came and slowly and painstakingly carried him away from that island even though he had the support of that “life-saving” log. That island could have redeemed his life and could have kept him away from those sharks and other countless creatures that could have consumed his life without even breaking a sweat.

So, he had to make a decision whether to cling on to the log which had made him cling on to his life by the barest of margins till now, or to let go of it. He decided to leave that log and to find some other solution to cross that vast omnipresent ocean. But, as soon as he wanted to take sigh of relief at his bold decision, he now found himself even more hopeless, for his own hands had removed the only life-saving thing that was with him. At this, he started crying internally, and later as a result of an abject misery, he was forced to reckon only the positive things of his past life.

Several good things struck his mind, from sitting in the cradle with his parents in the perambulator to saving the life of a woman who helplessly wanted help to avoid her from falling into the deep Niagara Falls. He also thought that he was one of the only few fistful remaining people in whole world who still used a pen to write and a diary everyday to log their daily thoughts. All other 6.99999971 billion people were either using a computer or iPhones to write.

Thinking about the pen and softly smelling the ink of it in his now incorrupt yet irrepressible imaginations in mind, he realized that his mood had become so good as if cozy chocolates had entered his mouth. Only then did he realize that the pen and diary both are made of trees. And he himself had left the support of a log, which also is a product of a tree.

Now, he was totally immersed in a battle of ensuing positive and negative thoughts. Next day, still in his self-state, he saw the same clouds bursting from above him to form a thunderous noise and then it rained. Now, his imagination had grown so wild that he thought that these rain drops falling on his naked body were denser and heavier than the entire stretch of eleven miles of ocean below him. But, to his utter surprise, when he next looked down to compare the heaviness of rain drops with the ocean's intimidating iconic waters, he could only see sand beneath him. He had reached the closest island! Bravo! The rain had become his "natural log"!

LIVE Legacy - My Autobiography

On January 24, 1995, some sixteen years ago, at the always-awake age of fifteen, bundled with surplus energy, I sprinted out to the sides of the apartment complex early in the morning. In those days, I was living a charmed life borrowed from friend John in his apartment. In the midst of the second long lap with my brand-new brilliant blue marathon shoes glittering like gems, with smash hit music of Arcade Hits pouring pure magic of mellifluous music in my tender yet all-absorbing ears, I realized something odd. Something that would change my life forever, even though stating this during the first passage of my writing might evoke a rather odd response from the audience. Odd simply because I was the only one who was gyrating the gates of the apartment complex in a direction that was outlandishly opposite to that of the other dozen daily strollers.

Oddly, no one realized that I was the sole soul marching hopelessly to cover one lap after another, until I had done my day with six rounds, three lesser than the others gone by. I was in utter hurry to go back to my friend’s room and hide myself and assess what was wrong with me. Well, luckily, I had dreamed the previous night, and I had envisioned a situation where I would rip the heart of those twelve commoners and critics and make my mark in this world, albeit not feeling shy of any stutter that could always accompany me in my unending quest to attain success.

Even more oddly, I had inherited a legacy of high achievers from my parents, their parents and others in my freak family tree. So, it was difficult to break the mold of the usually successful lineage and form a BRAND of my own. Come, watch the journey how I achieved my dream in these dramatic yet eventful sixteen years.

That day, I came back to the room of John, almost crying at my poor presence of mind to have not realized that I should have been following the same direction of walking as the twelve others had been following. After all, they were all much more experienced with living in that apartment complex. So, sanity should have prevailed upon me after having realized that I was walking wrong. Something sub-special should have occurred to me in a split second saying that I needed to alter my direction and follow the herd. Still, there was something odd that avoided me from taking that step and also avoided me from the extreme event of cursing myself. Instead, I stopped short, mollycoddled myself and took it as an opportune moment to drive home the point within my majestic mind that I was built to last a longer lap of life.

At a handful age of twenty two, I was embarking into USA for pursuing my Master’s degree program from Virginia Tech, a school which was classified as the big league institute for learning. Taking my confident but cold legs – yes, I was awestruck by the magnanimity of the situation – my eyes suddenly fell on a plethora of orange and maroon flags flying forming a V-shape to signify victory. Already, I could scent success and suddenly my favorite tune of Yamaha Sports Update started pulsating my mind like the speed of thought. It was a very charged up and exciting moment for me to find myself among students who brought with them traits like different diversity, crisp communication, classic creativity and awesome athleticism. It would be this trait called classic creativity that would define my future, although it would change slightly to associate me with class and creativity.

Enter the age of twenty four, and I was soon dating a lovely blond girl in the campus. Although she could not team up with me for the rest of my life, yet I thoroughly enjoyed meeting her at one of the coffee shops. I was particularly attracted towards the smell of coffee beans and it raised images of brew forming a curvilinear shape above the coffee cup. It is this moment that aroused a high level of creativity in me. The girl was so classy that I decided to be influenced by her class and blend it with my creativity.

It was just after a few weeks that I happened to watch some of the legends, most of them alive, on the giant screen at Times Square in New York City. They were the enigmatic Rafael Nadal, the classy Roger Federer, the sporty Andre Agassi, the gritty Michael Jordan, the revolutionary Verghese Kurien, the eye-catching idols Sachin Tendulkar – who was proudly donning an Indian flag on his helmet - and Stefan Edberg, the never-to-forget Mother Teresa and a certain Steve Waugh flaunting a fluttering full bright yellow shirt and steely steering his team to win the World Cup after all had grotesquely given up on his team. There were more, like the God gifted Lionel Messi of Argentine soccer, the trend-setting mythical musician Michael Jackson, the always at your face Al Pacino from Hollywood, and the creative yet competitive Michael Schumacher of the red, feisty and fearless Ferrari. Given my thoroughly indecisive mind, I always grappled with whom to filter and which all to select so as to learn the most from!

It took six long years for my abject attitude to realize that it had to be the class of Federer coupled with the creativity and competitiveness of Schumacher, not to forget the never-to-forget passionate selflessness of Mother Teresa. It was a non-trivial exercise to cut down from the laundry list of good traits to the two or three attributes that would define the shape of my character and the way I would live – yes, LIVE – each and every moment of my life. In the hindsight, I am glad that I took six years to learn from the success of all these personalities, to learn from their long living legacy, and to choose such traits like creativity and class from them. Now, whenever I come across a dull phase of life, which suddenly threatens to snatch the energy and action that are so symptomatic of me, I merely look forward to these three icons and draw an image in my head about how they would have coped with such a similar stressful scenario. And guess what, more often than not, I am aptly able to focus on the task at hand and also add a bit of Midas touch to it.

As I conclude writing about myself, it brims me with purpose, passion and pulse that I need to learn more from these three folks and constantly improve myself so that next decade might see someone hailing me as the next LIVE legend.

Over to you, LIFE. Now, I am yearning to ask you to give me more cruel challenges so that I can improve upon myself. Oh, so sinister of me, I still haven’t learnt how to close my autobiography on a classy (elegant) note!

Hope you liked my creative yet compelling choice of colors and its contrasts to code my sentiments while writing this piece. Takeaway for you: think big, and back yourself to brace the new surprises and challenges that hit hard at you, and think of drawing long-lasting inspiration from some great idols. But, please never blindly follow me, lest you risk yourself from being creative.


A special word to my parents who created me.