The AnonymousSoftwareEngineer said :

In the uneventful life of an AnonymousSoftwareEngineer in an AnonymousCity, missing one's station can be an incident of reckoning, a moment when there is a flash of thunder between two gray clouds, and a booming voice answers questions hitherto unanswered. I would advise the reader to close his/her eyes for a bit and imagine the spectacle, to understand the effect it could have had on the poor unsuspecting AnonymousSoftwareEngineer. It is what you can call, on careful consideration, a turning point, the moment when AnonymousSoftwareEngineers decide to travel the 'road less taken' and all that sort of thing.

After much thought, I have decided to reveal that I am the AnonymousSoftwareEnginner and the AnonymousCity is Bombay or Mumbai or what you will. Though it may have helped the story to preserve the anonymity, what with the theory that suspense and a twist at the end of the tale, are what great stories are made of, I find the words "AnonymousSoftwareEngineer" and "AnonymousCity" too long to type. Moreover, in all humility if I may, this story does does not need conventional theories to make it great.

So where do I start? And most importantly how do I start? "How To Tell A Great Story: Modern Theories" proposes that every great story has to have a purposeful beginning, a sort of line that piques the curiosity of the 'gentle' reader. Before I forget, I have always wondered why on earth the reader is always described as "gentle?" I suppose it is another one of those gimmicks to appease the reader, a sales pitch of sorts that appeals to his finer instincts. Or maybe, the assumption that the reader is gentle, preempts any adverse reaction to the story. A fine move, I must say.

But hark, I am meandering. Let me begin at the beginning, even before the great story began. The other day, after a long day of sweat and toil, in the air conditioned cubicles of a great AnonymousSoftwareCompany, I was returning home by train, minding my own business, like any normal AnonymousSoftwareEngineer, looking out of the window and all that sort of thing, when I missed my station. While there can be myriad reasons for missing one's station, I have three very valid earth-shattering ones.

1) It was 10 pm and my battery was low after a whole day of role-playing an AnonymousSoftwareEngineer.
2) I usually cannot distinguish between stations (only in the night, in my defense!), am too lazy to read the signs that hang one for every meter of the platform, and so rely on the average number of people (a fairly large number) who alight in my station (a fairly busy one). It was one of those nights when my station was not in favour, for I did not see a single soul getting down, leading to my convenient assumption that my station had not arrived after all.
3) The third, and probably the one that has the most important bearing upon my missing my station, was the fact that I was speaking on the phone. Again, in my defense, it was an engrossing conversation.

The chap, on the other end of the phone, is a close pal of mine. A fine chap, really, tall, dark and... well, with an intellectual air about him, a fine pair of spectacles (that add to the intellectual yet lost look) on a fine sharp nose, a fine voice and a fine job. Any South Indian parent would be proud to have him as a son-in-law. As to the plight of the obedient, well mannered, beautiful girl that has him, (only in order to make her parents proud, if I may add)... Now that is a different story (a great one though) altogether that I will go into another day. What adds to all this, is his well developed juvenile sense of humour, so finely developed that our conversations, peppered with his witticisms, keeps me in splits of mock laughter inevitably ending in glares from me and those around who happen to overhear. But being the indulgent friend and fine person that I am, I always humour him. After all, one has to be supportive of one's friend and all that jazz. You get my drift don't you, gentle (and not-so-gentle) reader?

[May I request the serious reader, to now sit up, lean forward, knot his eyebrows in concentration and hold his breath in anticipation, for we have reached the great moment, the one that spawned the great story? "How To Tell A Great Story: Modern Theories" propounds that any great story should elicit such a reaction from the reader. While I am not so presumptous as to dictate the body language of the all-knowing reader, I am merely guiding you in the right direction.]

So during the conversation, that made me miss my station, my not-so-funny-in-a-funny-way pal was in one of his rare moods, a new high of sorts, cracking those Poor Joke things, now fashionably abbreviated as PJ. He answered 'No' to a question, that froze the flowing blood in my nerves. Almost immediately, the frozen blood rose to the boiling point, an instantaneous chemical reaction. Is such a thing possible? Or is it a medical miracle? How can this phenomenon be explained? These are all questions that I leave to the intelligent reader with an inclination towards biology, chemistry and bio chemistry.

I suppose the curious reader, by now is, well, curious to know what the question in question was. The question in question was whether I am perfectly capable of writing a great story. Not a sweet romantic one with candy hearts, beautiful women, and lovers that fall in love at first sight, of holding hands, soft sighs, stolen kisses and moonlight walks or a tragedy of wars and lost loves and abducted wives. The regular reader is of course aware that I am the master of such writing. On the other hand, the great story in question of the question in question, is a one of pointless humour, one that confuses the indulgent reader, makes him scratch his head and wonder what is wrong with the author. Now, being the generous soul that I am, let me admit that I have never written anything like that. But do you not suppose that it is preposterous to think that I am not capable of such writing? Is my reaction, almost defying the laws of chemistry, unwarranted?

Now I suppose that the sympathetic reader understands why I missed my station on that fated night. I can almost see your nods and feel your reassuring pats on my shoulders. But I am made of sterner stuff to succumb to the careless challenge thrown at me. In a flash, I rose to the occasion. I swore to myself and to my pal that I will be avenged. This then was the great moment, duly applauded by the thunder, a historical one which gave birth to the will to write a great pointless story. In defense of the story, it will most assuredly make you laugh or pull out your hair or both.

You may be wondering where the great story is. Let me assure you, that it is being written, and will be duly published in this very blog for your kind perusal. It is not easy to write a story of such magnitude, of leading the reader down untrodden paths, of opening a new world full of possibilities to him. I fully realise the great responsibility that has been placed on my able shoulders. As the perceptive reader, would have by now seen, I have been reading "How To Tell A Great Story: Modern Theories", to master the delicate art of writing an absorbing piece, so absorbing as to make the reader forget all laws of logic and wonder where on earth he is or whether it is earth at all.

Let me assure you, I will try and try until I succeed.