Sunday, December 10, 2006

Shikandi - Shailendran Iyer

He was called Shelu Iyer. He hardly remembered anyone calling him Shailendran. He was born in Gujurat in the year 1975. His parents hailed from Kochi in Kerala but his father, who worked in a nationalized Bank had to move to Gujurat after being promoted to the responsibility of a Branch Manager. Shelu was born fifteen months after his relocation.

The Iyer family adapted to Gujurat as if it were there own. Shelu’s father loved to socialize and Shelu grew up to gujurati customs, festivals and traditions. He found every facet of Gujurat fascinating. He began to speak the language better than he could speak Malayalam. He was considered among the best dancers at garba and was the lead actor at the Gujurati play group at school.

Shelu, was exceptional at studies. An IQ test categorized him having an intelligence quotient of 146. It did not require a test to suggest the obvious, as Shelu topped his school every year. He had an avid interest in sports and was careful to never let as much as academics interrupt his cricket practice. Nobody knew what made the boy wonder, as he was fondly referred to by his doting teachers tick, but he did know that his popularity was growing by the day.

At seventeen he stood a centimeter under six feet, had an athletic physique and had the tendency to devise algebraic equations around sports as a pastime. Shelu was the boy ever peer wished to emulate and a son every parent set as a benchmark.

He was selected to join IIT Kanpur but was brought home in a month with a raging fever. He knew he could not leave the state, even though his parents beseeched him to reconsider. Shelu was the master of his destiny, since he was a little boy. His parents could only plead but to no avail. He was given a scholarship at a premier institute at Gujurat. He was always fascinated by Mechanical Engineering and took it up, much against the wishes of his parents, again.

Shelu took to the dynamics of Engineering like a fish to water. He had begun to build prototypes before he even began his second year. He used to browse through Kinesics and Quantum theory during his lunch breaks and followed up with a game of cricket at the university nets after college hours. The prototype he designed at the annual engineering convention was called the ‘Crimson Egg’. An oval egg shaped apparatus encased in lead and silver foil had two distinct halves. At the centre of the Egg lay a red crescent with a red dot placed right at its centre. On closer inspection, one could conclude that the top half had the red dot while the red crescent was a part of the bottom panel. The top could be twisted anti clockwise which would activate the crimson egg’s mechanics as a spring would bring it back to its original position. As soon as the crescent enveloped the red dot once again, the frontal portion exploded letting fly a mass of petals.

His first date was at eighteen and was with a senior girl from his debate team. It did not get far and he found himself distracted even before they began discussing hobbies and interests. He realized that he was not much of a romantic although he could not explain his apathy to the female form.

It was around this time, that met Hosseni.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home