The Invisible Spectrum!

“I cannot but admire the spunk shown by Hannibal when he decided to cross the Alps to face the mighty Roman Empire back then in the face of almost certain annihilation.”

Ramakrishnan was lost in his thoughts as he sat in the canteen smoking his favorite cigarette. He was also reminded of the very famous story where Hannibal ordered his men to empty their stock of alcohol over the snow to help in paving a path through the blizzard.

“Same with the case of Rajendra Cholan, who forced his way up to the Ganges just to bring back home some holy water as he had given a pledge to his people or the endurance of the great Sabotai in the countless battles that he led from the front.”

These thoughts which might have been commonplace in the History department of a college were anything but common against the backdrop of a mechanical company.

It was 6 in the evening, and Ram could only watch as his colleagues made their way out to the bus. He unfortunately had a client delivery to make that night and he was nowhere near completion.

As he was dwelling in his pathos, his friend Karthik came up to him.

“Your manager wants a status update before he leaves. What are you doing here dude?” asked Karthik.

“Yeah, give me 10 minutes” replied Ram and lit his next cigarette.

As the smoke twirled and danced around him, he could not help but think that it was mocking him.

“Jesus, what am I doing here in this remote village” he asked himself.

For all long as he could remember, he was always interested in History. As a child, he was intrigued by the ancient classics, ancient stories of human endurance and strength and mythical tales about the past.

That interest only increased multifold as he grew up. He began to greedily lap up any information about the history of religion, the history of man, the history of the world as we know now and every quirky fact that he could lay his eyes on.

His quirky love for the “subject” was well known in his school and once a teacher had made a mistake of ticking him off when he did not remember the year of birth of a king. She then had to listen to a lecture that History was not about remembering “dates” but more importantly, the study of the past to realize why we are, what we are today.

Over time, this keen interest then spread to linguistic/genetic study and archeology and he then started following the trail of the Human Genome Project along with the many “digs” that were happening around the globe.

“You will make a great professor” his mother had always maintained but like every other ordinary soul, Ram also went with the flow and took up a job which paid enough.

Ram got up. He had to get back to his “prison” and continue working. As he was about to walk away, he spotted something gleaming on the road near him.

More out of boredom than curiosity, he picked it up. It was a small prism of exquisite design and he walked back to this cubicle admiring the quaint thing.

In about 5 minutes, he had completely forgotten about the prism thanks to “work”. He waded in and out of it carefully evading every possible “protocol” that his company had established, cutting corners everywhere and late at night, finished the delivery of designs that he had to send across.

He was the only one left on the entire floor and he was so tired that he switched off the lights and was snoring in a few seconds after sending out the important mail to everyone.

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He was over no man’s land, in his Sopwith Camel, engaged in deadly dogfight. There were planes all over the place and the sky was grey all around, thanks to archie fire. Many of the planes were marked in bright red, the mark of the dreaded Richthofen circus and he knew that he needed more than good luck to come out this alive. His guns had jammed, and his left wing was badly shot up and so, he dived towards the carpet in the hope that he could run away from the dogfight. Unfortunately for him, an Albatross had spotted him and was right on his tail and his famous Sopwith Camel could not outrun the Albatross. He had no other option but to loop around the German, hoping that he could use the Camel’s superior maneuverability to his advantage.

 They looped and looped both connected in a circle of life and death; his tail always out of the German’s sights and the German’s tail always out of his. He knew that his badly hit aircraft could not take much more and that the end was inevitable. His mind went blank and he had only one option left. He executed the famous Immelmann turn and dived directly towards the German. He could see the astonishment on the German’s face as he came closer and within a few moments, they slammed into one another………………….

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Ram woke up with a start! He took a few seconds to orient himself with his surroundings.

“Phew, that was some dream,” he shook his head and then, he looked around the floor.

Thankfully for him, it was too early for even the cleaners to come in. It was almost dawn. He then spotted a thin shaft of sunlight which managed to escape the window drapes and fall right on his desk.

On his desk, he saw the most beautiful thing that he had seen in a very long time. The beam of light which directly fell on that small prism produced the most beautiful “VIBGYOR” spectrum that he had ever seen!!!!

He was overpowered by the strange combination of pin drop silence coupled with the beautiful spectrum that he could only sit there and stare at it.

That was when it hit him. The dream was meant to be an omen; a message that he had the choice to gun for glory even if he was going down. Even if fate had deemed that he should fail, he should atleast go down guns blazing.

The beautiful spectrum of color was actually the many facets of his personality that he masked just like the beam of sunlight. Just like the struggling beam needed a prism to bring out its true personality, he also needed a “prism” to bring out his interest, his true mettle and in a moment of clarity, he exactly knew what that was.

He typed out his Resignation letter…………………………….

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