Meeting an Under-grad!
( This is the second part of the story, Seven Deadly Sins.)

And everything disappears with the blink of an eye. GVR is not dreaming. He has lost his very flesh, and has become a figure of white smoke. He has met one immortal and discovered absence of both hell and heaven. He, yet, has been given a bag of bricks, a bottle of wine and a dictionary. He enters a big white gate to travel on an endless road. He finds himself alone, hanging somewhere in the infinite universe. He can see only white, hear only silence and feel only himself. He is with himself - a rare occurrence in one's life – he, at least, has met his true soul. He can reflect on his deeds now and repent his sins. He is alone, all by himself.

“I wonder if I can check my orkut account here.”, finally a dead grad student talks to himself. He looks around and sees nothing. It is some kind of smoky set-up. Only a white smoky platform is visible. It is nothing like a road - the endless road, as the immortal mentioned. He notices his long white tail. It looks cool. He wonders if newton's laws of physics hold there or even the very physics is true anymore. He guesses that poor souls of Newton and Einstein would have wandered confusingly verifying the earthly physics laws.

“Hellooooo!!!!!!!Is anyone out there?”

“Hey Bro! What's up?”,he, surprisingly, gets a response. Another figure, made of smoke, comes towards him. There is no difference in appearance, since everything is made of white smoke. All figures are of same length, having almost same kind of structure and no sign of blood, skin or flesh. They all look similar from distance. Race as well as ethincity surrenders to true equality, at least in some part of the universe. Before he can appreciate the equality, he notices that the other figure is slightly darker. The immortal told him that the blacker the smoke, the sinner was the creature in his earthly life. He wonders if there can be anyone sinner than a grad on the earth.

“Hey I was Tom before death!”, the newly arrived figure introduces himself.

“Call me GVR!”

Tom, then, tells him that he died in a road accident. Tom was drunk and driving a car. Tom was hit by a truck and died on the spot. He was an undergraduate student and was about to complete his degree in his earthly life.

“Ohh an under-grad! I knew who could be sinner than a grad”, GVR pities the poor soul.

“Ohh a grad student! What a loser?” Tom pities the whole grad community, upon knowing that GVR was a grad student.

GVR faced many under-grads in his life but he feels uncomfortable facing Tom.

“You know! I can be very frank now, since you are not gonna grade my exams, are you?”, Tom starts talking.

“You must know what we always think of grad students.... You are big time losers”, Tom is really being very frank.

“And do you know the reason?... or I must say reasons?.... how could you??? you yourself are a grad. Ha ha ha.” Tom laughs at grads.

“You guys have no social life, you always look for the cheapest place to eat, though you earn and save enough. And you b*st*rds screw our grades whenever you get chance, that's the only way to show off your studness... but you should also know that you guys are no geeks... you guys are j*rks, big time losers... you couldn't study enough during your under-graduation and now reading the same old stuff again... Dude! you guys should get some life!” Tom can't be more frank. He represents his views for grads.

GVR smiles.

This smile, for Tom, is a surrender.

For GVR, this smile is a go-f*ck-yourself-I-dont-care attitude. GVR is mature enough to discard Tom's comment without taking any offense.

“But we are dead now!”, GVR finally speaks.

“Yes true! and these guys gave me wine.”

“What's wrong with the wine?”

“They know I was killed by over-drinking. I have already been f*cked-up by alchol and am so tempted to finish this in one shot. There could have been a better way... may be something to eat, say some fruit, instead of wine... may be an apple... yes I wish there were one apple, one big-red apple. I hate apples, and I would have never eaten that apple without throwing these bricks away.” Tom looks very pissed of.

“Apple! Thank God! You didn't get an apple. The whole mankind has already suffered ill-fate of apples twice.” GVR argues, but Tom looks non-pulsed.

“Recently it was a weak apple, that couldn't hold itself on a tree and jumped upon Newton, and result, we suffered from gravity, Newton's laws, complete physics, and almost all engineering and sciences.”

“And lately it was a strong apple, that stayed forever on a tree, and tempted poor Eve so much that she grabbed it, and we all suffered mortality. Those two apples have really scr*wed us big-time, don't you think so?”, GVR concludes.

“What a poor joke? Dude! you surely didn't have any social life, did you?” Tom's pride is too tough to be invaded.

“That's enough! This son of a b*tch is insulting me again and again”, GVR can take no more...

“Whatever! lets have some fun. Come on, who is up for a bottoms-up”, GVR raises his bottle and challenges Tom.

“You got to be kidding. You can't beat me, can you?..... Do you really think you can?... Oh! f*ck it, I will prove it in a minute... on the count of three”, Tom is ever-ready.

“One... two... three...”, before GVR can even finish counting Tom starts gulping wine from his bottle. GVR knows that they can't afford this bottoms-up. The very bottle of wine is their only hope to explore the endless road and reflect on their sins. But poor Tom has been trapped, he is paying for his blasphemy.

As soon as Tom finishs his wine, he disappears. GVR laughs, a hearty laugh. “Now tell! Who is your daddy?” GVR just gave life to one guy. Is it a crime?

After departure of Tom, GVR is alone again. He is tired. He wants to take few sips of wine. It is time to celebrate his victory over a poor undergraduate. He has seen many under grads in his life. Undergraduates are frisky, empty-headed, over confident and exuberant. They can only party, but can't do well in exams and projects. They always need help in homeworks, but in bars, they need no help. They are rude, over smart and good for nothing creatures. They come to college, but can never leave their high-school attitude behind. They are plainly unthinkable. GVR hates them, and he recently saw real face of an under-graduate. His perception about them was completely right.

But he, still, can't afford a sip, can he?

“Lets get rid of some bricks first.”
He looks at the first brick in the bag. It reads ENVY

Although he never understood the whole procedure of reflection and repenting, yet he assumes that thinking of a sin will serve the purpose, so he starts thinking his deeds reflected by the sin.

“Jealousy! Well this is not tough. I have always been jealous in my life and I won't wonder if my bag is full of ENVY bricks...”

“I remember that I was always jealous of my batch-mates who publish papers frequently and my prof. I wish I could be a master the field like him.”

He, then, tries to think of every single event induced by jealousy, but nothing happens. No brick disappears.

“What's wrong? at least some bricks should go away.... Go! Go! Go!! let me celebrate my victory. I wanna drink some wine...” but all in vain.

“I might be doing something wrong? lets start all over again... The brick says, ENVY... means jealousy, and I have thought of every event when I felt it... what could be wrong? Lets see Dictionary. The immortal was so convinced that it would help me....”

He refers to his dictionary which is kind of a thesaurus. The entry at ENVY says:

'ENVY: It is not jealousy. It is a silent, secretive process and not always verifiable.'

There are couple of other statements.

'One is jealous of what one has, envious of what other people have.'

'People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.'

GVR can't decode the hidden meaning. He desparately wants to enjoy his victory. He always hated undergraduates in his life, for they could afford fun on every weekend even on every weekday.

“Wait! it must not be hatred, it must be my envy.”, GVR realizes and starts seeing the big picture. He remembers that he used to have similar opinions for grads when he himself was an undergrad. He always mocked them, but finally he himself opted to be one. His opinions changed. He started complaining of all things that he could do as an under-graduate but couldn't afford in grad life. He longed for maturity and after becoming a grad student, he started coveting immature undergrads. How biased he was in his life. His envy made him feel so jealous of undergrads. He forgot that he himself was an under-grad. He used to cherish the happy-go-lucky attitude. He never cared of world when he was young. He misses these traits now and feels that his juniors are no good. They get what they don't deserve. How could he overlook their life and undermine his?

Humans exist on at least three levels, there is the person as he appears in public, the person who is known to friends and family members, and deepest of all, who is only known to himself, where all the aspirations, resentments, fantasies, desires & much else that is not ready for public knowledge reside. That's where envy resides, it's hard to discover.

“Look what I have done to a poor kid?” GVR finally feels sorry and some of his bricks disappear.

PS:
1.This piece is fictional. And opinions presented here should be read with good sense of humor.
2.Reference: 'Envy', Joseph Epstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.