A barely ten-plus boy, taken on a tour to the next village. Left to wait. Night came but never his companion. He decided to trek back home. Alone. Passing through a jungle road haunted even in the quiet of day. As a budding youngster, he was accused of thieving a kitchen knife. Unenviable circumstances forced him to poke his fingers in many pies. But he never allowed lack of miens and means to stand in his way. He learnt the typewriter by endlessly sketching out keyboard patterns on a plain paper and acquired the basics of MS Office by devouring the help-files. Seeing computers taking over the mechanical typewriter in the not distant future, he made every effort to own one despite abject want of the wherewithal. He learnt riding the bicycle in childhood, the motorbike in his youth, and drove a motorcar as a man-all without a single session of formal training. To him dedication and commitment are all that matter. As any ordinary man, besides rib-tickling instances, there were days he was hard-done by.Bitter pills, he calls them. Life's bitter lessons. He captured his youthful passions in crude doggerels, too. B