With everything in the world going digital,

this was inevitable :-)

DIGITAL RAMAYAN

LAN, LAN ago, in the land of I/O-dhya, there ruled

a king named DOS-rat. Three queens had he -

CONSOLE-ya, CHECKSUM-itra and CIE/CAE (Kaikeyi).

However, he had no line drivers - i.e. no one to

perpetuate his line. In sheer desperation, he

performed a great sacrifice after which his queens

gave birth to four sons - RAM, LSIman, BUG-rat and

SED-rughana.

RAM was a microchip off the old block - he had an

excellent memory, he logged in quickly and semi-

conducted himself in a manner fit for a king. His

brothers, however, were only perpheralI ICs;

everytime RAM addressed them, they said, "I-C".

Once when RAM was only sixteen years old, the

great sage Vish-WAN-mitra sought his help to fight

some DAEMONs who persistently RAIDed his

hermitage. After a brief collision, RAM routed

them so easily that he came to be called DAEMON

ROUTER.

RAM then proceeded to Media, where he married

Pricess C+ta. C+ta's sisters, who were not her

blood sisters and hence called TRAN-sisters,

married RAM's ICs. This ceremony came to be known

as TTL. On the way back to I/O-dhya, the

entourage met Parasu-ROM (or P-ROM as he was

better known), the scourge of the kshatriyas.

Taking up the P-ROM challenge, RAM aimed an arrow

at him; he threatened to take away P-ROM's powers

of locomotion, thereby converting him to Static

RAM. P-ROM humbly withdrew and the procession

reached I/O-dhya.

Twelve years passed and DOS-rat decided to crown

RAM as his successor. However, CIE/CAE, at the

instigation of her BIOSed maid (a real plotter),

insisted that her son Bug-rat be crowned king and

that RAM be banished to the forest for fourteen

years. At this cruel and unexpected demand, a

surge passed thru DOS-rat and he collapsed,

power-less.

RAM agreed to go to forest and C+ta insisted to go

with him. She said that at the time of her

marriage, her father had advised her to follow the

footsteps of her husband like a shadow, hence, she

came to be called SHADOW-RAM.

LSI-man was also resolved on accompanying his

brother. Unable to bear separation, DOS-rat died,

setting the precedent that no system could

function in the absence of RAM.

The forest was the dwelling of SPARC-nakha, the

sister of RAW-van, King of LAN-ka. Attracted by

RAM's stature, she proposed that he marry her. RAM

routed her to LSI-man, who also politely declined.

Perceiving C+ta to be the source code of her

distress, she hastened to kill her.

At this stage LSI-man executed the Memory resident

code and converted SPARC-naak to SPARC-no-naak.

Weeping, SPARC-no-naak fled to LAN-ka, where RAW-

van, moved by sisters plight, approached his uncle

MAR-icha.

Ignoring MAR-icha's compilation warnings not to

RISC SPARC-ing a war with RAM, he insisted on

going ahead. Accordingly, MAR-icha transformed

himself into the form of golden stag and drew RAM

deep into the forest.

Finally, tired of chase, RAM shot the deer, who,

with his last breath, cried out desperately for

LSI-man in RAM's voice. Fooled by this Virtual

RAM cry, C+ta urged LSI-man to his brothers aid.

Catching the opportunity, RAW-van delinked C+ta

from her library and changed her root directory to

LAN-ka.

PART-II

RAM and LSI-man started looking for the missing

i-node, c+ta all over the forest. They made

friendship with the forest admin SU-greev and his

powerful co-processor ha-NEUMAN.

ha-NEUMAN was a legendary figure. He was a child

prodigy and came up with newer methedologies and

techniques which inspired many others.In particular

his RAM mantra technique became extremely popular

for generations.

SU-greev agreed to help RAM but first wanted help

from RAM to delete his own root node VAALI.

SU-greev's intention was obvious. He wanted to be

the only admin around & wanted to grab all the

consulting jobs in the forest.

RAM fought with VALLI and surprised him using some

un-documented features.VALLI cried foul and started

complaining to the justice department saying that

it was not a fair fight. RAM then convinced everyone

using his trademark MICRO SOFT WORDs coupled with a

few FREE vedic goodies.Though some of the onlookers

such as ORACLE (seer)and pancha bhutas such as SUN,

disagreed with RAM's micro soft touch, they all shut

their mouths fearing RAM's reach among the user

community.

SU-greev was happy with the outcome and ordered his

programmers to use powerful 'search' techniques to

find the missing c+ta. His programmers searched all

around the INTER-NETworked forests. Some of them

shouted 'YAA-HOO' but ended up with 'not found'

messages. Several other search techniques proved

useless.

ha-NEUMAN using a radically different paradigm

devised a RISKy technology and used it to cross the

seas at astonishing clock speeds. On the way he

bumped with a few satellite signals but was able to

avoid deflections due to his own high strength.

As soon as ha-NEUMAN reached LAN-ka, he had to

collide with its firewall called LAN-ki. The

firewall made disperate attempts to stop ha-NEUMAN

entering into its internal web, but the great

ha-NEUMAN detected a loop hole in LAN-ki's

firewall. Using micro code, he broke the security

and entered LAN-ka.

After doing some local search, ha-NEUMAN found C+ta

weeping under the weight of a TREE structure.

ha-NEUMAN used a unique key-id (ring) to identify

himself to C+ta. After decrypting the key, C+ta

believed in him and asked him to send a STATUS_OK

message to RAM.

Meanwhile all the raakshasa BUGS around C+ta tied

ha-NEUMAN and tried to terminate him using

pyro-techniques. But ha-NEUMAN managed to spread

chaos among the raakshasas by spreading the fire

using some side effects.

Several raakshasa programmers were later called to

restore the operational stability in LAN-ka.

ha-NEUMAN happily escaped LAN-ka again and conveyed

all the STATUS messages to RAM and SU-greev.

RAM felt happy with ha-NEUMAN's methedology of

execution and embarked on a project code named

EXPLORER to delete the netESCAPING RAW-wan.

In the mean time, signs were apparent in LAN-ka

about the imminent danger from RAM's project

EXPLORER, but RAW-wan refused to budge.

Sensing disaster, his own sub-program called

vibhee-SHUN, executed a 'go to' statement and

branched out to RAM's camp. RAW-wan still insisted

on taking the all powerful RAM head-on. He decided

to use the boons given to him by SUN, SHIVA etc.and

prepared for the battle on a remote island on

LAN-ka called JAVA.

He thought that his presence in JAVA will give him

victory over RAM.

RAM and his entourage made small and buggy progress

in the begining but the world community on the

whole started watching them with awe.

In the battle on JAVA island, it appeared initially

that RAM had no chance.

In fact one of the RAW-wan's SUN (son) almost

killed RAM & LSI-man with a powerful brahma-astra

called JAVA-BEAN. It appeared for a while that the

world has seen the end of RAM's MICRO SOFT touch.

But ha-NEUMAN resorted to some ACTIVE-Xgradients

and concocted a potion using some herbs. His

powerful HERBAL-COMPUTER aided him in making this

potion which restarted RAM and LSI-man.

Appearing, reluctant RAM used the source code

secrets of RAW-wan given by vibhee-SHUN and once

and for all wiped out RAW-wan's presense on the

earth. He proved again that even the so called

invincible RAW-wan cannot be netESCAPED from his

power.

After the battle, RAM spreaded his MICRO SOFT WORKS

and other user friendly programs to all users

across the world and every one lived happily

thereafter.

END OF DIGITAL RAMAYANA

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expect nothing and be surprised

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