Story of a LASR Warrior (2010)

It was a fateful warranty support day. The code was out in the production. All seemed to be under control. There was a lone developer from LASR infantry on patrol. He observed that there was some movement in small group of rebel militia. Soon he found that the activity was targeted towards him. He was not afraid; he was a warrior. He took his post and waited for the enemy's attack calmly. The first battalion of System Testing testers surrounded him and attacked him. He was used to the kind of warfare these insurgents used and quickly defeated them. However, it was just a battle won, the actual war has just begun. One of the wounded System Testing testers quickly sent a SOS radio to its commanders. They promptly responded to the distress call by their subordinate and sent an entire regiment of ruthless User Acceptance Testers. The mighty developer who was just finished with one battle had found himself under attack from an entire regiment of tester. He was surrounded from all corners. However, hired guns are no match to a true warrior. He would not fall, nor will he pull back, he will fight till the end. The enemy commanders sensed this and understood that this post won't be won by mere force. Though they sent more and more troops but they understood that there is a need for a new tactic to end this war in their favor. They sat down and planned. They sent this plan to the Requirements team, a separate autonomous governing body made up of profit seeking business houses, and told them to persuade the development team to pull off its resistance. To the delight of conspirators, development team agreed to soften its stand. They agreed for the sake of diplomacy. However, the development team did not know that the enemy commanders did not want peace they wanted revenge. A defect was opened by the enemy. It was the only weapon that could possibly kill a developer. They armed the defect with as much ammunition as they could muster and fired it on him.

Oh, that was a scene. His fall was as glorious as his fight. He knew that he will not live after this defect hits the ground; still he was as calm as if there was no crisis. The expression on his face was indifferent to what was about to come. This simply made a mockery of the enemy efforts. The enemy wanted to see pain while they get their revenge. But some things just don't exist and to pursue them only causes pain to one. As is the desire to see pain on a true warrior developer's face. He took the hit. The blast killed all the low life insurgents he had been fighting with and badly injured the developer. However, he did not die. It seems that fate did not write his death by the hands of testers. In course of time the age of warranty support was over and so was the war. The enemy was defected, shattered, disoriented and dormant. Victory was no more their target; they had lost too bad to even think of a victory. They just needed revenge. They again relied on diplomacy to do the Job. They also had to blame someone for the loss in war. They made a small team and hand-picked some of the nice testers, who though born as tester had heart and mind. They crucified them and created an example amongst their followers. The developer lost some of his close allies, friends and spies he placed in this mad shootout. This was a diplomatic way to show the client that the same exercise needs to be followed by the development team. The after war development team was a new team as one of the most glorious leader of the team had retired. There was a fresh leadership. This young prince was not as mature as the one preceding him. He wanted to do good things for the team but did not understand as well as his previous leader did. He followed the queue. The bait placed by enemy was taken. He made a small committee of either new commanders or incompetent commanders to judge the war. These were not the right people for the job. They just wanted to complete the job rather than doing the actual root cause analysis. This committee blamed the hero warrior whom they should have hailed, adorned with medals and written songs about. It broke his heart. The warrior who single handedly took an entire User Acceptance Test regiment and survived the blast from the direct hit of a severity one defect in the most difficult phases of the war, died of a heart attack caused by a false accusation and incompetent bureaucracy.

It rained heavily that day. They say that even God cried on his demise. The legend is that God asked him if he wants to go back again and do things right. He said no. He had no one to return for. His own people were no more his own.

And, the prophecy is that,

"The one who is sleeps shall come back and free these lands from the shackles of undeserving souls".

I knew him the most and now he is going away

Caste is the biggest issue in Indian Culture.

People differentiate between each other on the basis of caste. There are so many sects and caste, and each one of them have a sense of superiority and have their own sectarian thinking. I was reading on web and found that the number of groups in which we are divided is more than I had imagined.

The exact lines were

"The majority (about 80%) of Indian society is broken up into about 2000 castes which can be further broken down into endogamous units which are called subcastes, the total number of these units in India is estimated to have been 75000 at its peak, and still about 43000."

Even if there is 50% of error in the above data, then also this number is very high.

We consider caste when we have to give favor, marry, chose our neighbors, or do anything. However when we are in need we forget everything about caste. A patient never asks doctor if he is of the same caste. A blood or organ donor is not asked about his her caste. If a security officer risks his or her life for our safety we do not ask his or her caste. we do not think of the players' caste when we praise or curse them for their victories and defeats. We dance on tunes of music never knowing the caste of the composer or ever bothering for the caste of the performer.

The funniest part is that we hate when Indians are victims of racism outside Indian while here we divide us into so many sects. Isn't this hypocrisy when we have made so many ways of differentiate between people. Whole country out-cried when a bollywood actress accused an English actress of racial apathy in a popular television show. At the same time we vote in elections based on our caste.

Two different castes do not marry between each other. If the boy and the girl are from different caste and they want to marry each other then their families leave no stone upturned to break the relationship. A child has a very beautiful relationship with  his or her parents. Similarly, love between two individuals is also a very sacred relationship. These two relationships should never be compared nor they should compete between themselves. They are different and one require both of them to survive. However, in Indian society Parents often try to force their will on child. In this attempt it is not only the child but the Parents, also pay a huge price. They destroy the relationship they had with their child. The child starts looking life as a compromise and the relationship with the Parents as a sacrifice or duty. The charm of life is sucked out of it and what remains is sadness and questions like "what if". The torture is more intensified when the child cannot ask these questions to anyone. The only person he or she could have shared the agony is gone to live their own agonizing life. The child learns how to wear a fake smile, hide the pain and act OK. Whatsoever is the child tries, there is no relief from question "what if", which never stops haunting their minds. The parents just think that things will change with time. Then there comes a time when actually the things don't change. However, by that time the people who took this decision are either gone or its too late to change anything.

The children who are cursed to lives this painful life fall in two broad categories - lucky ones or unlucky ones. The lucky ones simply die or cease to be the way they used to be. The real torture is for the unlucky ones. They are just wandering souls, long dead but still clinging to the body they lived in. Every day that ends without the partner is like the experience of death. They are cursed and never find joy. There is no motivation or inspiration. The are just act to be the person they were; actually they are now mere performers playing that role, the person they are acting to be is not them; they pretend to be the character and just wait for curtains of life to fall so that they may be free.

What if, I would have been brave enough to break free from shackles and get what my heart wanted. The answer to this question becomes the fantasy of the person's life. When sleeping, most of the times a young man either dreams of great conquest or of women while a young women dreams of men or of people loving or giving her importance. However, these wandering souls just wonder in there dreams as how they could have got what they should have got. Daily, they form a new answer to the what if question and dream of it as it were true.

At times, the person feels like walking away from this chaos and taking asylum in someplace no one can find them. It may be a new city, a new country or a forest. This actually is yet another dream to soothe the nerves. Deep down they know that they will not be able to do any such thing. Had they been able to do such thing, they would have been the lucky ones. They simply have to wait. They have to wait till its time for the show to be over.

The only solution is to all this problem is right answer of the "what if" question and at the right time.

कभी कभी मेरे दिल मैं ख्याल आता हैं

कभी कभी मेरे दिल मैं ख्याल आता हैं
कि ज़िंदगी तेरी जुल्फों कि नर्म छांव मैं गुजरने पाती
तो शादाब हो भी सकती थी।

यह रंज-ओ-ग़म कि सियाही जो दिल पे छाई हैं
तेरी नज़र कि शुओं मैं खो भी सकती थी।

मगर यह हो न सका और अब ये आलम हैं
कि तू नहीं, तेरा ग़म तेरी जुस्तजू भी नहीं।

गुज़र रही हैं कुछ इस तरह ज़िंदगी जैसे,
इससे किसी के सहारे कि आरझु भी नहीं.

न कोई राह, न मंजिल, न रौशनी का सुराग
भटक रहीं है अंधेरों मैं ज़िंदगी मेरी.

इन्ही अंधेरों मैं रह जाऊँगा कभी खो कर
मैं जानता हूँ मेरी हम-नफस, मगर यूंही

कभी कभी मेरे दिल मैं ख्याल आता है.