The Link

He wakes up suddenly by a sudden jolt in the back.. But he doesn't feel any pain. He tries to touch his back but unable to do it. He stands up but his feet are not touching the ground. He is completely puzzled. He doesn't know who is he and where is he now. The place is hazy and full of smoke and he sees a lot of people entering and leaving that place . He tries talking to them but nobody replies …… Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Breaking his head is our character "A". Finally he sees a royally dressed guy, having a turban in the head and holding a big ledger in his hand shouting out names. As he keeps shouting ,more and more people enter that place. A goes to this guy and asks "Who am I? Who are you? What is this place? Whats happening??????????"

He replies " I am Chithragupta(CG)". You are here because you are dead. All your memories have been deleted completely. You wont remember anything that happened in your world. Your entirely new life begins now!!

A: What the heck??? I don’t like this place…Send me back to my world, you stupid $%^&

CG: Hmmm…We cant let go of you that easily. If you want to get back, you have to pass a test. There are 4 other people (B,C,D and E) like you creating a racket wanting to go back. If you could identify yourselves and the link that connects all of you then I'll send you guys back

A: Holy crap!!! I don’t know my name. I don’t even know if I am a boy or a girl. Then how can I find the link???

CG (calls the other 4 too): All of you can go back only if you pass my test of finding the link. I can just give you just one clue. As I keep calling out names if you had met that person in your life, then all the events that happened after you met him/her for the first time will come back to your memory…But remember, only the events.. not the names of people. Now you guys can go and have fun!!

As the five totally random and unrelated people try to identify the link, CG keeps shouting Albert Smith, Ali Naqvi, Xaoujun Wang, Kandaswamy, Pamela Anderson, Sachin Tendulkar,...….Dilip Seshadri…

The name "Dilip Seshadri" immediately strikes a bell for A

A: Hey, this guy worked with me in Intel. He was my roommate. He went to India at the end of 2008.I have had some very good memories with him like the Redwood trip etc. We used to always have coffee breaks together with two more friends...

B: I too know him very well too.. We were a group of four very close friends, three guys and a girl, who never ever miss coffee breaks .You are one of those four and u r not Dilip .So we both must be from the remaining three. Dilip was a very nice guy to hang around and life in Folsom was one of the best phases of my life. Anyways life changed a lot for me after that.. I left Intel ,did my second Masters, started my own company and after few years went back to India. I remember Dilip's roommate was a Tamilian and he hailed from Madurai.

A: Well I just continued to stay in Intel and Folsom for the rest of my life. From what you tell I can remember a fat guy (which he used to call as healthy) who kept telling that his aim in life was to start his own company. So you must be that guy

Just as these two were discussing CG shouts SatishKumar Sathiyawaageswaran!!! The unique name lights up C and he suddenly turns towards the other two and says "He was my roommate in Boston".

A (Stunned) : "Did you live in 313 ,Huntington Avenue" with him?? I too lived there

C (He was extremely happy they were nearing the target) :So we were roomies in Boston. We were a group of 5 guys, one of the most happiest and happening houses in the entire Northeastern University community.

A: Yeah those were wonderful days. We used to have awesome night outs at our seniors' place in St.Alphonsus during our first year.

C: Yeah, two of those seniors went back to India after graduation .In the second year we had four more friends who stayed very close to us in 311.

A: Oh yeah one of those guys became a world famous movie director later. There was also a couple who "rather" lived in Woburn and worked in Airvana…I can never forget those wonderful poker sessions, the Niagara trip, camping in Maine, Vegas LA trip.

C:I dint come for the Vegas trip. I was in India at that time for OPT reasons. After finishing Masters I went to Otis, worked for sometime there and went back and settled in Vijayawada.

A: Hmm I remember one of my roommates went to Otis after graduation and he too hails from Andhra Pradesh. I am sure you are that guy .

As they keep discussing, the name "Abilash Ramappa" shouted by CG falls like a thunder on B's ears.He is very happy to recognize one more person after Dilip Seshadri so that he can trace his life even further back

B: Oh my God!! I know this guy. He studied with me in St.Paul's from Class VII Class X. After that I went to junior college, did my undergrad in Kharagpur, Masters in Louisiana State University, worked in Intel and started my own company. Yes Yes !!I have traced till my age 10..

He curiously looks at other people. Going by the general trend, he expects someone else also to know this guy. But no other person has heard about this guy in their lifetimes.

CG continues his job and sometimes he keeps repeating the same names. Next name being recognised is Vijayaragavan Chakravarthy

D gets really nostalgic on hearing this name. He gets reminded of all the fun times he has had with him, the exciting Ooty trip etc.

D:I know him….He was my benchmate in St.Joseph's College of Engineering. He was one of my best buddies

A: Are you kidding??? I was his benchmate too all the four years. So you must be the guy who got a job in CTS and later did MBA in US.

D: No…You are wrong. I started working in Flextronics and did my Masters in Singapore

Just as the two were arguing over their identities CG shouts Ram Kannan.

All the five of them turn back on hearing this name. They all are associated with this guy. Everyone now gets reminded of their entire life history as they all knew Ram from the age of 3.They now narrate their life history

A -> Schooling in Balalok, college in St.Joseph's, Masters in Northeastern Univ Working in Intel, spent the rest of the life in Intel and Folsom
B -> Schooling in Balalok till Class VI and St.Pauls after that ,College in IIT Kharagpur, Masters in Louisiana ,worked in Intel ,started a own company and lived happily ever after
C -> Schooling in Balalok, College in Venkateswara, Masters in Northeastern, Worked in Otis, Connecticut and went back to NVIDIA, Hyderabad
D -> Schooling in Balalok, College in St.Joseph's, worked in CTS, studied MBA and became Vice President of Goldman Sachs
E -> Schooling in Balalok till 2nd Grade, his uncle adopted him and took him to San Francisco. He lived his life in US ever after. He started the world famous company "Itonic"

Now the five of them do post analysis of their narration and try to find the link between them.

A to C: Nooooo!!!! Something is screwed up. None of my roommates in Boston did their schooling in Balalok, Chennai. But the events of our life point to us being roomies. This is weird!!!

D to A:I was in touch with my benchmates till the end of my life. They never went out of India which means you couldn’t have been my benchmate.. Something went wrong somewhere

The five of them go to CG and shout in chorus "Stop it!!!". CG asks his assistant to take over and starts talking to these people.

The five of them look all the more confused now. Events are contradicting themselves and everything looks mysterious. They narrate their experiences to CG and say its all messed up

CG starts laughing…You all have been very brilliant to trace your life history to find the link amongst yourselves. But did you notice a single trait that is common amongst you all??? The way u all nod your heads?

All the five of them look at each other nodding and are stunned to see the absurd reality. They all nod exactly the same way

There is only one guy in the world who nods the same way for both Yes and No and has his unique style of doing that. That guy is none other than "Vikram Sivasubramanian". Yes, you all are "Vikram Sivasubramanian"

D: You son of a bitch! !Are you nuts??? How can we all be the same person? This is complete BS. I am sure there was only one Vikram Sivasubramanian in my class in Balalok

CG: Yes you are right!! But who said you all came here from the same world????

C: What are you saying??????

CG: At every point of time man always questions himself as to how life would have been if he has taken this decision or that decision. Whenever such question arises your world splits into two and it proceeds in two ways in two different worlds. Since man takes innumerable decisions on a daily basis, there are billions of parallel worlds for a man. You have come from 5 different worlds among those billions. We never leave any stone unturned. We foreplay all the possible combinations of your life. It just that you wont know it until you come here. The roads leading to your destination might have been different. But your start and end points are the same!!!

B: But we don’t look alike at all which completely doesn’t make any sense

CG: The face you know is the physical one which has been burnt. This is how your soul looks . The more you do good in your life the more beautiful is your soul and vice versa .

CG gets back to his job and keeps calling out names "Meyyappan, Ben Cordes,…….Vikram Sivasubramanian"

C : Oh Noooo!! He is the Vikram from the sixth world. We should leave this place before he joins us. Esssscaaaapppeeee!!!!!!

Moral of the story: Even Vikram tries to escape from Vikram :P

This post has been inspired partly from my friend's post "The Random Jail" (http://sdilips.blogspot.com/2007/11/random-jail.html) and partly from the movie "Sliding Doors" or its Tamil version "12 B:)"