The Microsoft package!

Futurekids as I remember was like candy land. It was in the third floor of a very old building at a very busy traffic junction, dubbed the 'Roundtana' at Anna Nagar. The building itself was unaesthetic and shabby. It however had an elevator, which was a luxury back then, only the richest and most sophisticated places had elevators. On reaching the third floor which was the final stop for the elevator, one could automatically dread the excessive heat of the Madras sun. All that changed once I entered the Futurekids learning center, the cool blast of air from the air conditioners (which again was a luxury back then) was very welcome. Everything in the office from the carpets to window blinds, from the furniture to the stationary was either painted grey or pink, now you know why I called it candy land, because of all the pink. I had reached about half an hour early and since I belonged to the first batch of students for the day, most of the computers were unused. I also noticed that a couple of kids had reached early like me and were dabbling with MS paint. On closer inspection, their artistic skills were superior to mine, which was a default conclusion on my end, because I assumed that all the kids who came here excelled at art. After comforting myself that I am no lesser than them in art, I realized that the software was not actually MS Paint. It was actually Broderbund software for kids. I quickly occupied the adjacent computer and booted the game and found that it not only had a variant of MS paint, but also various puzzle games. Since this was not DOS based the colours and the resolution was pretty high in comparison and hence more enjoyable. After playing for a while, all the attendees had gathered and Ms. Bindu addressed us on our learning curriculum. We were issued a bronze coloured book called passports which had a lot of empty pages. This was their version of a report card, to monitor the progress the students achieve during their sessions here.

Ms. Bindu was a very short lady, but also a tad beautiful (I always had a fascination for fair women who wore bright red lipstick), she reminded me of air-hostesses. She introduced us to Ms. Mathini who was taller and darker, who was supposed to be our teacher. In comparison I liked Miss Bindu better since she was prettier, the only striking feature of Ms. Mathini was her big bright eyes (my judgement might have been biased since she did not wear prominent makeup). The curriculum encompassed the entire Microsoft package, at various levels of proficiency. At bronze level, students would learn how to open the applications (an entire day was dedicated to this, navigating the taskbar and the start menu...trust me it was harder than it sounds), basic commands on the menu bar, essential icons which were commands like Cut, Copy and Paste, and key features and application of each program in the Microsoft package.

Each session had a milestone, a task or a series of tasks which had to be carried out to ensure that the student had understood what they were supposed to learn. Upon successful completion, Ms. Mathini would affix stickers (usually silver stars, up to 5 per day) in our passport and stamp the date and time over it. In addition the student who completed the milestone first got a gold star which turned the entire learning process into a competition. Ms. Mathini was unlike any teacher in my school. Most teachers in my school handled the students dispassionately, maybe to avoid favoritism. Even though I was many a teacher's pet, the relationship was strictly formal. Ms. Mathini was however informal, which in turn made her a very warm person. From verbal jabs to tickles and from hugs to kisses, every form of positive reinforcement was in her arsenal. I grew very fond of her over the year under her tutelage as opposed to my initial reservations against her.

When the next year began, we were issued new passports which were upgraded to silver. Earlier Our classes were short in the bronze level and we usually goofed around or played computer games after we got our daily stars. This was not to be in silver level, our tasks grew harder, complicated and time consuming. 

Future Kids, as of today.

This was the only authentic logo and link I was able to get of the Future Kids which existed back then.

Entry into Future Kids!

Future kids, the organisation which had organised the art competition, happened to hold a city level competition which I was eligible to participate in, owing to my being at least the third best from my school.

It so happened that the venue was not in my school, rather it was to be held in Future kids' own office in the Roundtana in Anna nagar. I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to tell this my parents. My mother, always tender, loving and encouraging told me that I should win this competition as well. My father on the other hand showed no enthusiasm whatever in my achievement. The usual reason that I get is that he works in the office too long and literally has no time for us. It was a queer fact for me because I believed that my father was physically very powerful owing to his intimidating form and that there should be no reason whatsoever which makes him tired after a day’s work in the office. It was also announced that I would have to arrive at the venue of the competition all by myself, which was out of the question those days as I was the only child and my parents and grandparents wouldn’t allow me outside the house all by myself.

Fortunately or unfortunately it so happened that the day on which the competition was to be held was a Saturday which meant that my father could drive me to that place, which my father agreed that he would. On the day of the competition however he was in a very sour mood and I had brought up the topic that I could only manage to get third prize with the colours and paints I had and that they were pretty old to be used in a city level competition. After much persuasion from my mother, my father agreed that I should be given a new set of colours and that I should keep my mouth shut after that. My mother secretly whispered to me," You better win this competition or he will skin us both if he keeps up this sour mood." As gullible as I was back then, started trembling as I took the comment seriously. However when I entered the venue the fear was instantly gone. It was as if I was a male bird who had just puffed up his chest to boast to impress his mate, full of confidence. I did however give a thought to the math by which my chances stood. If I was just the third best in my school, chances were that I would still not beat the first and second best from my own school let alone the most talented kids from across the city. My mother and father were asked to wait outside and not interfere once the competition started.

The topics which were given to my level were pretty easy, in fact I chose "World Peace" because there could be a lot done in art pertaining to that topic, and even if I don’t make any sense of my drawing I could still pass it to be "abstract art". I analysed the arsenal which I had with me and found that I had transcended the level where I use crayons to colour my art, and that the water colours which I had were a tad too light to make any impact of those who would take a look at my art. I resorted to drawing a pigeon which would essentially be the only untouched part of the white chart paper, perched on top of our earth, surrounded by hundreds of machine guns, spilled bullets in coppery bronze colours, bazookas and rockets all pointed at earth. As it seemed they all pointed at earth from outer space most of my painting was black poster paint with specks of white correction marks which resembled the twinkling stars.
I was satisfied after I completed my entry and was aghast to see that none of the other participants had taken up that topic and that without comparison there would be no way to judge a piece of art that stood alone. I was dejected and went to my dad and said "Let us go home, I am hungry".

To my surprise, although he understood that I knew there was no way I could have won the competition, he was willing to wait a little longer hoping that his son would win a prize. I got my hopes up again and waited. Finally after much wait, they announced that I had gotten the second place. I was content. I did not get a fancy trophy however. My father and mother were called to a meeting with the finance officer of the company and were presented with two options. One, they could walk home with a cash prize which I think was not a significant amount. The second option however was that I could join Future Kids and learn computers with a scholarship of 75% whose remainder would be paid by me. I do not know why my father chose the second option, but I have to say that it changed my life forever.

Competitions in DAV

I did my initial schooling in DAV SSS (Dayanand Anglo Vedic Senior Secondary School) Mogappair, Chennai. I used to participate in almost all the competitions which were conducted in the school. I still remember practicing with my mother, with her warm encouragement, for competitions like elocution, recitation in various languages (including Hindi, Sanskrit, English and occasionally in Tamil) and Fancy Dress competitions. In art, I was inspired by my mother, looking at her oil paintings, though I never really wanted to learn from her as everything looked complex, and on top of that she really appreciated how I drew, back then. So in other competitions like drawing & painting and extempore, I had to rely on my skills of creativity and courage to get the first prize. Dancing was the only competition I gave up on, as I was a bit on the heavy side and quiet chubby too (surprisingly they were healthy symptoms for a premature baby).

My debut was in a Fancy dress competition, dressed up as Charlie Chaplin when I was in LKG (Lower KinderGarten). I don’t quiet remember how I performed on stage, but the judges and the audience were obviously impressed, as they found me cute and funny. Eventually I received the first prize. With that as a start, I aced in all the competitions that followed, through the years.

I considered myself a jack of all trades and a master of ‘some’. I liked Leonardo Da Vinci as he was a man of multiple talents. And one of the reasons I saw myself in him was because he was a very good artist, philosopher and added to that, he had an inquisitive mind of an inventor, which was true for me as well.

This particular competition I want to recount was a drawing & painting competition, conducted in my school by an organization called Future Kids. Frankly at that time I never cared what big institutions were, as long as they kept their end of the bargain, to sponsor the prize, and allow me to gloat with appreciation all around me.

It was the first time I was thrown head first into tough competition as I was the youngest in my age group, among celebrity artists who were my seniors up to almost three years in age difference.

I was late for the competition and I have to agree that punctuality is still never my forte and may never be, as I am content with what I am. I spent a bit more of my precious time trying to find a cozy place among the milling crowd of participants, to spread out my arsenal of paints and colours and begin my work.

I was never nervous when it came to competitions or crises, nor did I have stage jitters when it came to addressing crowds. Some people find it difficult to reproduce an image from their head, on paper. I never had that problem either, in fact, I was very good at maintaining proportions in my pictures. I also considered that the smaller and more intricate details are the ones which give a sense of realism in any form of art. Given all these advantages, I still was not able to complete my entry on time. With ten minutes left, I started giving the incomplete painting, finishing touches. To my disbelief, I ended up making the painting look like patch work, as beads of my perspiration, fuelled by the heat and humidity of Madras, made their way to the surface of the precious piece of art on the chart paper below me. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and managed to do last minute outlines and intricate designs, and I had to admit that after all that hard work, the painting surprisingly looked good (owing to the topic being “A Typical Village Scene”).

The next day, when the results were announced, I was both astonished and sad. Astonished because I had, against all odds, won a prize, sad because it was a third position, when I settled for nothing less than the first.

PS: I had just fallen down the dark and deep rabbit hole and dirtied my fluffy white tail and a whole new adventure lay in front of me in the wonderland of computers.

Prince 2D - My first impressive Game

The Prince 2D or the Prince of Persia in DOS was the first ‘game’ that impressed me, (I emphasise on the word ‘game’ because I felt that a game had to have a set of features to be called a game, it had to involve you deeply and give you excitement or an adrenaline rush) and the first game which I spent hours or rather ages playing. The whole Prince of Persia concept, since its introduction in 1989, a year after my birth, had one striking story. A Prince who landed himself in prison, a Prince who breaks through his bondage, eventually conquering his own city, a Prince who bases his entire struggle on his impending union with the love of his life, obviously a beautiful Princess. In the beginning, it is unclear what he did when he enjoyed his position as a prince or why he was imprisoned in the first place (a dispute within the royal family probably). Obviously the game was to enable the Prince to break out of prison and fight his evil uncle Jaffer and for a classic finale, unite with the Princess.

The first stage of the game was a pain, as there was no weapon, pretty obvious as a prisoner would be unarmed before his imprisonment. After a couple of ghastly deaths in pitiable and one sided encounters, it dawned on me that the first goal was to get a weapon, most probably a sword. This sword has a long history in the odyssey of the Prince of Persia games and I am pretty sure that if Microsoft & Ubisoft make another Prince of Persia game staged in the modern world with guns and advanced weaponry, the sword would still be the main weapon of the notable protagonist. Running, jumping, climbing and switch – door puzzles became the core of the game. After covering a considerable amount of ground in the game I came across the sword. The sword came as a relief as I had to perform my first kill to proceed to the next level. The next levels proved more of a challenge as they introduced the trademark feature of these awesome games, ‘Traps’. There were never ending pits plunging into the depths of the abyss, the classic spikes which would make a pincushion of the Prince, Sawblades sticking out of the walls and the scary Guillotine which always had its share of gore. Whenever I got stuck in the initial stages, I used to turn to Satish anna or Leena and Sujanya akkas to enlighten me. After passing some obstacles I realized that there was no thrill in working my way into the game with help from others. Evading the traps was tough enough, but the final levels involved a combination of overwhelming fights, traps and automatic doors which would almost always slam shut before the Prince could get to it. When you fail to cross a door which is shut, you had two choices, one was to tediously retrace your steps to where the switch was or two, kill yourself and start the level all over again.

The initial levels of the game, mostly the first 8 levels I managed to play in the College whenever I managed to reach there (I think the game was made up of 14 levels). I had no problem going to the college as I had started playing tennis and I could always reach early play a bit of the game and move on to the tennis court, and an added bonus was that everybody treated me like a celebrity, as I was the sweetest professor’s sweetest son. I started to develop a paranoia that I was hindering the peace of the office dwellers and I had a new computer in my house which made me think “Why can’t I play this game to my heart’s content, whenever I can, in my own computer”. Eventually I managed to transport the game to my computer with the help of the floppy. I remember that my mother used to observe me occasionally and whenever she did, she would exclaim “Yenda avana kola pannare? (Why are you killing/torturing him, the Prince)”. Following that I used to take pleasure in showing her different ways to kill the Prince, I never gave a thought whether she approved of the gore, but she did let me play alright. I did beat the game but it had taken two years as I played it on and off, mostly because I would get stuck for weeks in the same level and give up and after a passive period, try again.

I made my return to the Prince of Persia world in all its sequels Prince of Persia 3D by Red Orb, The Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time, The Prince of Persia – The Warrior Within and The Prince of Persia – Two Thrones, and I enjoyed all of them.

PS: I must agree that you must be thinking that I may not know much about computers and I that know too much about games, but hey, I am trying my level best to recall my interactions with this wonderful invention of a computer and I have to agree that the initial encounters were neither enlightening nor productive.

The Second encounter

The next encounter was in the unlikely place where my mother worked, the office of her college where she taught English, the D. G. Vaishnav College. I knew that she was a professor in the college because I had this picture that teachers taught in schools and professors taught in colleges. I didn’t find her English different (it obviously should be different because she had devoted her entire life to English and she should be able to use it better than other ordinary and under-educated English speaking people) because I always understood what she said in English and because she didn’t have an accent which was different from the teachers in my school. The subtle difference I missed was in the vocabulary as the teachers in my school used very few words and my mother had a much larger choice of words to phrase her sentences. I didn’t spot the difference as I understood both the normal English spoken in my school and the vocabulary rich English of my mother with ease.

Coming back to my second encounter, it was a situation when my mother couldn’t leave me home or maybe she thought that I could get familiar with other computers which were used in her college. In those days the office of the college was essentially a large hall with portraits of the former principals of the college, hung above the windows in an impressive array. The interior chambers which were devoted to non-administrative tasks like printing and typing, were not as impressive as the large office hall. Frankly it was spooky as many of these chambers were dark and there was a distinct heavy smell of ink in the air addled with the smell of dust and paper. I always assumed that these inner chambers of the office perfectly described the dungeons in medieval times. There were about three computers in one of the rooms adjacent to a handful of typewriters and walls which seemed to be made of neatly stacked paper which must have been ancient as they had accumulated a lot of dust.

I remember being introduced to a young lad called Satish who must have handled computers proficiently to be employed in the college. I was also introduced to two typists called Ms. Leena and MS. Sujanya who went crazy looking at me, exclaiming that I was a cute kid. All of them obviously had a lot of respect for my mother as she treated them much like her friends rather than colleagues. I always thought that men were always the ones who worked hard and my father was the best example as he was pretty absent the whole day when I was home, obviously working hard in his office and he was always tired when he came home and some times a sour mood would also be an obvious, additional outcome of a taxing day in the office. Apparently I was wrong as my mother was working as hard as my father was and she was also respected by everyone in her college.

Being proud of my mother, with a puffed up chest, I made my way to one of the stools which was empty and peered into the computer. And there it was, the Command Prompt. Satish anna came beside me and taught me some basic commands in DOS, like changing directories, changing the system time, opening documents and opening different applications. I absorbed these weird commands like parched earth would water. Although the approach was initially more technical which was what I intended to learn, I got bored. I asked him whether there were any games on the computer and to my disappointment he said that there weren’t any. He also said that the computers that had games were used by other typists and staff members to update and maintain college records. I kicked myself for assuming that the computers would be unused in a bustling place like this college and that people would just be sitting ducks and indulging in serious gossip.

I returned my attention to the computer in front of me and I managed to open WordStar which was the common word processor in DOS at that time. As it was a word processor, the only thing I could think of was to type some sentences in it, a logical approach which I had developed like a sixth sense. I got bored as I realized that the only thing I could achieve out of it was to hone my skills in typing relative to speed and fluency. By the time I finished a sizable paragraph, both Ms. Leena and Ms. Sujanya had crept behind me as praised that I had a good typing skill, “for a kid” I assumed completing their compliment in my head. They also said that the lunch hour had commenced which meant that the computers which were previously worked on would be idle. They offered to share their lunch with me, which was sweet of them, but I refused.

With their permission, I went to their computers and stared at what they called as the screen saver. This concept was new to me and I was partly afraid to disturb it and partly awed by the random lines which changed their shape and colours. With a little encouragement, I nudged the mouse which was again new to me as DOS systems seldom needed a mouse, and most of the input was done from the keyboard. The Screensaver disappeared and in contrast to the Black & White screens of DOS which was mostly black because of the background, there was a beautiful coloured picture which was called the wallpaper with tiny objects (I later learnt that these objects were Icons) which were arranged to the left side of the screen. Although I was getting better with using keyboard shortcuts and commands at that point of time, I had no idea whether the same commands would work in this new system. I was able to guess that the mouse would be the tool which could help me navigate in this new interface. The mouse was placed to the right of the keyboard and I had to sit at the edge of my chair to be able to use it. The whole setup became obvious to me that the mouse was for a right handed person and the index finger being more dexterous than the middle finger, the left click would be more common than the right click. Easy as it was, I never gave a thought to the concept of double-clicking. I was just experimenting with different combinations of left and right clicks. The structure of the directory tree from My computer became very obvious because I used to imagine the concept of folders and files as envelopes within envelopes often resorting to imagining a connected network of folders in my mind. Now given the graphical representation of the files and folders and a directory map provided when we use the explore feature, it became a pleasure to use. Another pleasing feature was that I did not need to enter lengthy commands to open and work on files and traversal was very easy with the help of the mouse. While I made my way through the C drive, I found many programs including Microsoft Paint, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft word, etc. MS Paint was interesting because I was an amateur artist at that time, but I was not very good at drawing with a mouse, while looking at the screen, this needed a different hand – eye coordination. After a bunch of drawings which were basically crude and ugly (they could pass for abstract art, I guess), I continued on my mission to find Games on the computer. By the time both Leena akka and Sujanya akka told me that there were games on the D drive. So I stopped my search and proceeded as they directed. If I had continued with my search which I did later, I would have ended with the games which came with the Windows package like Freecell, Solitaire, Pinball, etc. In the D drive, inside the games folder, I found the games I was looking for.

There was obviously the Classic Pacman only it was called GOBman in this computer. I also found three other games Mario, Dave and Prince. I had already played Pacman enough and I wanted to give the new games a try. So I started with Dave and found the Game kiddish (I know I should'nt be complaining as I was a kid back then, but hey, kiddish is kiddish) although it had more graphics than Pacman. I didn’t know the controls as I knew only the direction keys. So I asked the ladies how to play the game and they hinted that the spacebar, alt, shift and the ctrl keys might help. Sure enough I put this new knowledge to test, obviously testing the keys individually first and then blending them in different combinations to control little Dave around the 2D maze. Soon I assumed that I had reached the saturation point where I could proceed no further in the game. I switched to Mario. The graphics seemed much better than Dave, mostly because the resolution and number of colours used to represent the environment was much more. Again after playing Mario for a while, I came to the same saturation point, when I could play no more. With one more game to try out, I took a break and went inquiring what my mother was up to and whether I had enough time to play for some more time. I wanted to do this because I didn’t want to get attached to the game, that I would feel bad when I left it half way, leaving it ‘unconquered’. After being assured that my mother would find me with the computer, I turned my attention to the Game Prince. But that’s another story altogether. All this, took place in a short period of time, but the intensity with which I absorbed the situation made this seem longer than what it actually was.

My introduction to the world of computers

It all started when I was very little, when I tagged along with my mother to the office of Mani Tatha. I don’t quiet remember whether we visited on our way back from a movie or a trip to Pondy bazaar, mostly because my first encounter with this awesome device overshadowed other events of the day. I was a kid, too tiny, demanding attention, always, every time, everywhere, I guess kids are built like that. I thought it was kind enough of my mom and Mani tatha to introduce me to a device called the computer, so that I could entertain myself while they indulged in serious, boring and incessant conversation. Before I saw it, to me, the computer was obviously adult stuff, as only adults went to offices with computers and only highly senior students in my school were allowed to use them. This computer which sat in front of me was however different, it had games. I immediately came to the conclusion that it was a recreational object. It all fit in perfectly, it had the same features of a television which was another recreational object.

While we kids played with seesaws, monkey cages, giant slides, merry-go-rounds in the sand, these seniors who obviously must have grown out of childish games would sit in front of computers and play games. While I was computing the odds of whether my assessment was correct or not, Mani tatha had inserted a rectangular object which looked similar to a bread but much thinner, much harder, much darker, with a couple of tiny holes and irregular metallic surfaces, called the floppy disk. The black screen on the monitor came to life displaying weird alphabets and symbols in white. I much later learnt that it was a command prompt which could be used for traversing and accessing files and directories stored in a computer. But at that point of time, although it looked boring, I assumed that this highly regarded device should have a very good purpose, or many people wouldn’t use it. A program loaded and in bold yellow letters and it read PACMAN. It was about a yellow, moon shaped hero, escaping the clutches of ghost shaped villains. Although all this was comprehended through simple RGB 8 bit colored DOS screen, it seemed interesting enough to play eating up tiny white dots on the screen whist being chased by villains and eating fruits which made this pacman powerful enough to change the tide and chase the villains, I paid little attention to the vast keyboard in front of me through which I commanded this pacman to my whims. The keyboard as they called it, had all the alphabets and numbers along with strange symbols out of which I could easily spot the arithmetic operators and a bunch of other keys with words and unfinished words like alt, ctrl, esc and enter. My usage however was limited to the direction keys which made the pacman move in the 2 dimensional screen, wherever I wanted him to go. I never really remembered how long I played with this pacman, nor was I scared that my mother wasn’t beside me, giving me her undivided attention. At the end of the session I heard her voice “Its getting late, let us come some other day and you can play it to your heart’s content”. I was sad that I had to leave this computer thing and head home. Mani tatha assured me that whatever I played would still be recorded in the computer and that I could continue to play, right from where I left it. I handed over the controls to him and while he saved my game, he congratulated me that I was brilliant and that I had a sound sense of logic or I could never have played the game successfully. Left to myself, if the computer was any smaller than what it was, I would have asked my mother to formerly place a request that I take it home and be allowed to use it at leisure. But it was not to be, the computer was colossal, and it would be a Herculean feat to carry it all the way home, so I just took in the appreciation and was very happy. I don’t remember when the promised return to the office was, whether it was a week, month or year later, but eventually I was there in front of the computer playing the same game again, but just like in the return of the Jedi, I had grown and was able to handle the computer with ease.