Itching and Scratching

Pangs of Guilt

2013-04-22T15:26:00.002+05:30

8:00 AM

Four Wheels:

Arun woke up to a well-constructed symphony of cutlery noises that made Megadeth sound like an S.A. Rajkumar refrain. He glanced at the clock and let loose an expletive. He quickly got ready, with one eye on the calendar, randomly hoping it would turn out to be a Sunday. The calendar remained unmoved and he came to a brilliant conclusion – hope is not random. Which is random, anyway.

He made a ceremonious entry into his wife’s kingdom where she was sweating it out at the sink. To her, he might have as well been Torres scoring a goal; she did not acknowledge his presence. He looked around and gave a despairing look at his plump son who was hurriedly wolfing down a sandwich, lest it evaporated.

“Parvati, I will eat at the canteen. Where is my lunch?”

“It’s on the table. I have made your favorite brinjal fry. Try to come early; we have to go pick up my parents from the airport”.

Arun picked up one of the two yellow lunch boxes from the table and thought for a second.

“I will be late today; you better call them a cab”, he rudely spat and rushed to the car. His wife walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel.

Six Wheels:

Hari unfolded the morning newspaper as he drank his coffee. The sun rose with a marked disrespect for the moon, even if it was only temporary. Accident, rape, IPL - the more journalists bored into a news-piece, the more boring it became. He folded it back and scratched his stubble, trying his level best to ruminate deeply. He went about four feet, before he gave up and ambled away to get ready for office, after giving a cursory glance at his wife who was sweeping the front yard.

As he knotted his tie, for the 365^th time, he wondered what mortal sin he had committed in his previous life. Did he run away with a Raaja’s daughter? No, not Bhavatharani. Did he shoot an arrow into a sage’s rear while the sage was meditating on the economic affairs of Greece? Everything had gone downhill since his parents pointedly rejected the love of his life, called him a nincompoop among other derogatory animal names and got him married to this simpleton. She was lifeless and for some reason, too shy for comfort. His love had a rebellious spirit that sent a stallion riding up his spine. His wife on the other hand, was a female Manmohan Singh at best and probably sent only a drunk mosquito up his spine.

He packed up the steel tiffin box and marched out of the house. From the periphery of his eye, he saw his wife motion to say something, but stopped herself. He disregarded her and walked towards the bus stop, trying to cross the four feet mark.

Two wheels:

Venkat stood in his lungi, as he recounted office gossip to the maami, who stayed opposite his house. She quadrupled up as his Landlord, Clothesline Advisor, Neighbor Relationship Consultant and High Court judge of Domestic Affairs in general. He had fallen back on two rent payments and was sweet-talking his way to buy some more time. As he kept bowling short balls, both of them heard a wail inside. Quickly delivering a premeditated wide, he made a strong but gentle promise to pay the rent next week and retired into the house for the next two months. Take a cue, Sachin.

As he got ready for office, he nudged his wife awake. She had been up all night, watching the baby. He had a strong feeling the baby possessed alien genes, most probably inherited from his mother-in-law. His wife got up, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and walked straight to the cradle.

Gathering up the Tupperware box on the table, he strolled to his bike and started it. He heard his wife say something about vegetables, but he drowned it in the revving sound and sped away.

I was sweating rivulets of sweat, as I ordered a hot tea. The heat was unbearable and the tea-shop owner gave me a look that made me feel I would fit better in a retarded ward. I picked up the tea and sauntered to the shade of a nearby tree. I sipped. Bliss reigned supreme.

Having skipped breakfast, Arun was famished. His eyes meandered around and spotting an empty seat, made way to a table at the corner. So did two other people in the cafeteria. All of them converged on the table and looked at each other with nervous glances not different from three men, who had just winked at the same girl and were too ashamed to admit it. They sat down with sheepish smiles and opened their boxes. They swore in unison. There was beans fry in each one of them. Arun knew it was his mistake, but he blamed it on Parvati. Hari slapped his forehead in disgust. Venkat quietly fumed. They dumped their lunches in the dustbin and went to order at the counter. None of them liked beans.

A crow flew down to the dustbin and started pecking at the beans.

8:30 PM

Arun was driving when he called his wife and told her, "Dress up. We are leaving for the airport as soon I reach home. We will eat out today…. Yeah… Work got over, early… No, I don’t have rabies or fever… Ok... Love you". As she replaced the phone in its cradle, Parvati smiled.

Hari stepped off the bus and started walking back to his house. He spied a jasmine seller and bought a foot of sweet-smelling jasmine flowers. It was the one thing, he knew, his wife liked. He smiled.

Venkat hauled up the groceries and strung them on either side of the bike. He was tired, weary lines creasing his forehead. He just needed to hug his wife and son. He looked forward, earnestly.

Having had its fill, the crow took off. Mid-air, realization dawned that it probably should not have eaten so much without Dr. Batra's pills. It flew around in torpor, with Chennai's sun beating down. After almost 4.32 hours it landed on a branch, cursing. It was time to let go. And let go, it did.

It so happened, I was standing under that selfsame tree, when I heard a plop in my tea and something floated to the top of my tea.

Fire in the Hole!

2012-06-24T20:20:00.000+05:30

I was shaking and moving it with an Anushka (Sharma or Shetty, dont remember), when somebody who was the President of the International Imbecile and Moron Association (IIMA) flung a newspaper wrapped around a shoe. At my head. A head that was throbbing from an over-hung headache and supported a pair of bleary, fermentation-ridden eyes.

I woke up. It was ghastly.

Ghastly is the mildest description available. Imagine a troll standing in front of you wearing knickers/shorts and a vest with a grimace painted across his face, like he just swallowed a piece of bubblegum that turned out to be bittergourd pickle.Yeah, that. Add a couple of props, like a tennis racquet and a pair of shoes. And an unwashed shirt.

Flinging my veil of stupor, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My roommate was still standing there, brandishing his racquet. I said the only four letters I could manage.

"Dude".

He opened his vocal chords and proceeded to rape my ears, brain and a passing dove in that order.

"THE MAID DID NOT COME TODAY TOO! WHAT DOES SHE THINK OF HERSELF! IT IS YOUR MIS..."

I went to my happy place and waited until the storm passed. It was not quite long before I knew what he wanted me to say.

"You want me to fire the maid."

"Yes"

I gulped a glass of imaginary horlicks and stood up, arming myself with a pair of argumentative bazookas,

"Where is she? I will fire her this minute."

Now this followed a period of silence during which the raped dove, yelled a few choice words in dove language and Guru Ramdev executed a perfect headstand to a standing ovation. Gas bellowed from my roommates ears and I stood nonplussed.

"I JUST TOLD YOU SHE DID NOT COME TODAY!"

"Oh."

Sheepish. Dumb. I snuggled back under the covers, murmuring 'Mmmms' and 'Okokokokok' etc.

The next day, she came. I opened the door and she went about her work as lacklustre as possible. In fact, she was content restricting herself to the kitchen. I blew my 300 hair-filled top. I called her and told her,

"We are extremely displeased with your work. Stop coming from tomorrow. Here is your pay. Please don't ask why."

"Why? What did I do now", she wailed. It is like women never listen to what I say. After 3 breakups and 2 false pretences, I still have not learnt anything that has impressed me enough to modify my modicum of speech. The Vesuvius inside me erupted with a small bang.

"You are supposed to wash dishes! But the algae on the dishes have been reproducing like rabbits. You are supposed to clean all the rooms! You run a random sequence of which rooms and clean, and then forget to clean them as well. You are supposed to wash clothes clean! Not dislodge the buttons and buckles off in the process, helping my teammates watch me saunter in Jockey jatti all day long! In essential, you are completely deplorable and are as much use as a wedding ring to a drowning woman!"

I took a deep breath after this rant. She too took a deep breath and I reflexed into a pink-belt-patented-chop-left-break-right stance. But she said,

"Ok."

I went Wow. Thats it? I was expecting something along the lines of hell's fury multiplied by 6.023 times. My stance melted into something else that resembled a mangled mongoose. My roommates went gawking at me. I milked the adulation, fluidly moved out of my stance upsetting a bean bag in the process and stepped into my room, locking the door behind me. It was exhilarating and my adrenalin went a-pumping.

And then I remembered.

The person outside was the cook and not the maid.

Permutation and Commutation

2010-12-08T02:19:00.000+05:30

The macabre consequences of not meeting a man standing with two tickets to a movie titled Piranha 3D is somewhere along the lines of spilling hot coffee down your trousers. I can think of even worse scenarios that may involve a can of beer, an opener and an umbrella, but let us for decent purposes, keep the content "U" rated.

It was a lovely twilight evening that found me waiting on OMR as a dark shape loomed in the distance on an otherwise empty road. As I continued squinting into the headlights of an oncoming lorry, a share auto whizzed to a stop in front of me. The bearded driver looked like he had been driving all the way from Tunisia and implored me with huge Puss-In-Boots eyes that bore the remains of a TASMAC-orgy aftermath. I felt sorry and jumped into the cess-pot. Small mistake; medium error; big consequences.

Your ability to commute in a share auto full of women of all ages is a feat that deserves an aluminum Olympic Medal at the least. Months of my bike refusing to exit the confines of an inefficient service centre had led me to analyze and effectively come up with an awesome strategy on how to travel in a share auto.

There are three geo-spatial locations within an auto, where you can sit and enjoy the scenery of other people's body parts while inhaling the fresh smell of a day's labor in the Chennai sun (Chennai's software companies' air -freshener, if your lady luck sleeps with you).

Position 1:

I call this the Titanic position. Before lewd inferences be made, I call it so simply because it is reserved for the women and children of the soil. Literally. They come armed with sickles, handbags, rakes, compacts and other items of physical torture. And they get preference over any male occupant. Sexist, I say.

Position 2:

This is the Marie Biscuit Position. Allow me to force you to participate in this experiment. You get into the auto and sit in this position for more than three minutes. Once done, get out and find a vehicle that has a good rear view mirror. And then, you are requested to kindly inspect your rear. It will, 7.89 times out of 9.81, resemble a biscuit. Flat and awful to taste. Warning: Never mix the hot coffee experiment with this one.

Position 3:
The Tarzan position. You have a swinging view of the driver's vista which is pretty much like watching National Geographic from a RC helicopter. Except of course, if there is a hot female sitting behind you; in which case you tend to bend and flex your invisible muscles by straining against the usually, frail skeleton of the auto.

Which is where I found myself straining away to kingdom come, en route to Satyam one fine evening. The night was young and I could see with my peripheral vision that the young female behind me was taking more than just a peripheral interest as she sniffed loudly and disgustingly into a tissue. Encouraged, I strained even more at the already shredded tarpaulin that hung at the side of the auto and tore it. Suddenly, Vayu found the time and date, auspicious to take a leak. He promptly did.

Within seconds I was drenched to the bone. Fate had copulated me once more as the tarpaulin barely managed to keep a thimble of the rain away. My shirt exposed my misshapen torso and the image of a wrestler that I had so painstakingly built crumbled all around me like a masala papad in coke. In the words of the pointy-face - Ricky Ponting, "It was utter humiliation".

There is more. Right when my stop came, the rain stopped. I got off, walked to the middle of the road and yelled a few choice words to the heavens. The auto-driver empathized and came to stand next to me. He yelled a few more, better-formed choice words. At the end of the duet tirade, I understood and paid him the fare.

After a rather uneventful bus ride later with the only memorable event being me sitting and irrigating the bus, I found myself at the footsteps of the theater. My friend could not control his glee which made me sulk for some time. The moron that he was, he bought me a hot cup of coffee to cool me off, which I promptly and accidentally threw down his trousers. It was hilarious.

Two hours of visual torture later, we came out with our brains eaten alive by a director who had nothing to reveal than most actresses in the movie.

The next day I went to office in the selfsame auto; sniffing with a cold. I did not meet that girl until yesterday. She was still sniffing and was married.

A Moo(t) Point

2010-10-03T02:57:00.000+05:30

TWO LEGGED VIEW

A great man once spoke, "The toughest thing to do every morning is getting up". Trust me, after having taken the wrong side in an argument that threatened to diss the libido of many a man the previous night, it really is. And on an unrelated note, there was one consensus that Namitha is no competition to Ajith Kumar when it comes to waistlines. Ah, that was real funny.

I woke up groggily and my vision was instantly impaired with a hairy thigh that lay across my torso. Disgusted, I pinched it. It slowly moved away as the owner turned swearing silently in his sleep. I intuitively knew I was late. I quickly got ready for office and waved goodbye to seven gentlemen who were busy in dreamland wooing the Tamilian Circes. Weirdly, one of them was still arguing about Nietzsche with great passion to nobody in particular.The situation was tempting and I yielded.

I stole my friend's only bike keys with the dexterity of an MRTS bus making a three-point turn. Dirty deed done, I scrambled downstairs to the bike and stood next to it, befuddled. At this juncture it is extremely important to note that my grandfather always used to tell me I never knew my own strength. I still did not. I wasted a couple of more minutes on ruminating that and absentmindedly straddled the pulsar. I did the easiest thing first - inserted the key. Once done, I huffed/puffed and whaled the bike off its stand, easing it right into the foliage next to the gate. After fighting off a dozen bees and an enraged mummy Cuckoo, I emerged none the wiser. This time flinging a prayer to Newton, I adjudicated maneuvering over balancing. I finally exited backwards out of the house onto the road. As I slid down the slope feeling like a bit like Felipe Massa driving a tractor, I felt a small bump.

The bump in itself was minor, the reason was not. As I turned to check, all my gallantry scooted. The huge creature stared at me like I had just jumped out of the Voyager in a golden bikini.

It was a cow - a massive specimen at that. She slowly ambled up with reddened eyes and mouth slurping nauseatingly. I screamed, weirdly in Spanish, "El Mojito al cabana intermilano, cow!" and tried to take to my heels and found my progress hindered by a Bajaj Pulsar between my legs. I started to wheel it away. I might as well have been pushing a bulldozer with a Singapore Shoppe hairpin. It moved inches, the cow moving metres.

I yelled for help and awoke the whole neighborhood including the landlord and his daughter/yet-to-be-my-wife. Help did not come, but panic did. I seemed to be missing something big as I threatened by brain with a nervous machete. Finally, the grey cells hit a home run. Mentally thanking the kinky engineers at Bajaj, I button-started the bike. The bike roared to life with the sound of the Tungabhadra dam developing a leak and figuratively threw me off my seat. I opened the throttle and escaped the area in a blur of smoke that could have easily and permanently blotted many a fair skin.

On the upside, it was exhilarating to know what a bullfighter feels like. Quote cow-fighter unquote. I congratulated thine-self and dreamed of the landlord's daughter shooing cows all over Mount Road on a pulsar.

FOUR LEGGED VIEW

A great bovine once spoke, "The toughest thing to do every morning is eating". Trust me, after having been adopted into a motley herd of a couple of malnourished goats, three bitching hens and two bulls it always is. Add to that a master who likes his drink hotter than his wife; life is not all just a river of milk - there is occasional dung thrown in for good measure. After a rather hectic morning of my drunken master milking me dry, I was famished. My not-so-better halves were better off dozing and I had to make good time quickly. I gave my master plan the green signal.

The genesis of The Plan is a great story. You could write an epic on it. But since, in all probability you are dull-headed if you are reading this, you wont. Following that rather brilliant logic, I will just highlight the well, highlights. A passing fly had mentioned on the fly, the presence of new juicy grass blades in the vicinity. After swatting the fly dead with my tail, I started thinking and came up with The Plan. The plan was complex, tough and required all my female cunning to pull off. That would be the genesis. The Exodus and Job come after it.

After following the directions that the fly had so bravely given in its dying moments, I came across an alley lined with derelict houses. I could smell the shrubbery. I kept walking, trying to convert the fire in my belly to hope. I walked and walked and walked and with every step, the gnawing thought that the fly might have consummated me, hypertrophied. After an hour of pursuit I gave up and flopped in front of a gate.

My pondering on the philosophical thoughts of Martin Udder was rudely interrupted by a sharp pain in my tail. As I stood up to unleash my wrath on whoever the jackass was, I saw a clump of the lovely grass stuck to the jackass' machine. There was a human sitting on it, who looked like he was shitting bricks. My eyes went green and I stumbled forward thanking Nandi for the fly's honesty. The human panicked and suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke. I swore and turned to the now ajar gate. My eyes fell on the foliage.

It was a feast I tell you. I congratulated thine-self and dreamed of Amsterdam with their wonderful grass.

Oh, it is a moo(t) point there.

Talking in Her Shoes

2010-04-30T15:35:00.000+05:30

I scampered into the auto behind my friend, both of us covered in foul-smelling sweat like Sunanda Pushkar's stake. The auto sped away from Bandra station after it played a brief round of energetic Kho-Kho with a rabid policeman and away we were to do some shopping.

My friend (lets call him Mr. India for namesake) was on a mission. The mission was as lame as can be; actually not so much since it involved buying slippers for his fiancee.

I had, perchance, seem to have boasted of my ample shopping expertise with various women in and around my childhood neighbourhood. Mr. India usually hardly pays attention to my tattles and is more involved with the mosquito that has gone up his nose, the blue sky and other matters of cardinal significance. But as luck would have it, this fact fell on his ears, traveled up the cochineal fluid and built a 10-story apartment in his brain. What did not get any portion of the dukedom was the fact that by expertise, I meant standing around, drinking diluted Fanta and eyeballing other females purchasing sarees, slippers, handbags, jewelery and miscellaneous foibles.

Mr. India was in full gear for the mission. He had the exact pencil outline of his fiancee's foot, the sizes according to American, Rhodesian, Swedish and English conversion tables, an extra bulge to his rear suggesting a stuffed wallet and implicit confidence in me. He had a glint of will in his eyes akin to the egregious Mel Gibson beating the crap out of a dozen tribal species. And vice-versa.

Or not.

Mr India had no outline, no size, no money and there were butterflies happily laying eggs in his stomach lining. I was supposed to be his saviour. I felt overrated for the first time in my life. The auto flung its occupants out on Linking Road, Bandra. The road was strewed with shops that sold all sorts of female paraphernalia. We stood and gaped at the future outflows of our hard-earned salaries. After a couple of flies died their natural death inside our mouths, we moved to one end of the pavement and started a mini GD where we evaluated the various criteria to identify the right shop to target.

As all GDs go, we shouted till we were hoarse. But there was a consensus. We randomized and selected a shop that seemed to look exactly like one that a girl would be interested in - colorful, bouffant and did I mention colorful? As we bustled through the milling gang of squeaking college girls, the bearded shopkeeper quit sizing the girls and began sizing us up. It was uncanny.

"Kya chaahiye?", he asked in a voice that subtly underlined the fact that we were guys. We did feel like a couple of polar bears let loose on Mount Road in summer.

We opened our mouths and that is when the faeces hit the rotating electrical appliance.

A small flashback. Both our ancestors loved dosai. All the subsequent generations too loved it. With a dash of chutney and drop of spicy sambhar, it was Amrit. Not the girl; the food. Both my friend and I were no exceptions. The relevancy of this information rests on the inference that both of us were hard core Tams. There was no escaping it. Inevitably, Hindi was French to us. So French, that we refused to acknowledge it even existed. Thousands of Amits, Poojas, Nehas, Ranbirs and Shwetanks advised us the importance of learning it, being in Mumbai. They said the probability of survival is very low if we were bereft of the ability of speaking the language.

We discovered that it was not low - it was zero. As we gestured frantically in broken Hindi and Kaveri-an gymnastics, a small crowd gathered outside the shop to watch the camaraderie. It was not at all funny.

My friend proposed his interest to buy slippers for his fiancee. We never understood what the shopkeeper understood but he went in and returned with a pair of horseshoes. It was racist to say the least. I stepped in to play my part.

I pointed to my friend and said, "Same height, what size?". The man again disappeared into the bowels of his establishment and returned with a pair of slippers that would have fit a hippopotamus. I gulped as my friend exclaimed, "Nahin! Nahin! Kuch kuch hota. Chotta Shakeela!". The shopkeeper acted bewildered. To the tee.

By now the crowd was in complete splits. I swore in rapid Tamizh to my friend and told him that we might as well go to Nariman Point and throw pieces of Medu Vadai at the Taj Mahal Hotel. And then a wondrous thing happened.

The shopkeeper said in clear, spaced words - "You from Chennai?". It was in perfect Tamil.

We looked at him and we looked at each other. We then hugged and laughed for the first time that evening. Though the hug evoked a nettled babble among the crowd, it was obvious that the show was over.

Twenty minutes later we were 300 rupees poorer and we had a fantastic pair of slippers. At least to us. We were joyous. We were least bothered about the size, the color and the design as we went by male intuition.

Anti Climax:

The slippers fit alright. It was the right color too. Just that Mr. India's fiancee already had a pair like that which she had bought for 100 bucks at Spencer Plaza. He got an earful. At that exact time, I was busy assisting my cousin shop for handbags. Male intuition? Bollocks.

Hairline Fracture

2010-04-18T19:03:00.006+05:30

The other day I was standing at the Shampoo rack in Big Bazaar scratching my beard when I stumbled headlong into this rather poor joke. It was so poor that I felt inanely ashamed I possessed the indecency of such an intellect. It was, but, a mere reflection of my frustration and agony.

"What is the difference between a hunter and a day trader? Simple. One shoots at hares and the other hoots at shares."

This story of the aforementioned frustration is almost 23 years ago and actually runs for 23 years in chronology. It started with my Patti. My Patti is a hardcore homeopath - no pills attached. According to her Rapidex English-Tamil-English dictionary, Clinic translated to chemical which in turn translated to evil MNC fluid. She believes that the Earth is a single life-form where we exist symbiotically to preserve each other. This does seem similar to Cameron's blue film - Avatar; but I trust my patti more than than the guy who taught the world that pencil sketching was the way to get into anybody's pants. Her recipe for a hairwash was simple - a sticky, greenish brown and completely vegan sludge.

It can also spook the dickens out of a sloth bear. Twice weekly, I was subjected to a head bath where stinking, green goo irrigated my forehead. Somehow, my hair follicles loved it. They gorged on the green goo and reproduced like the Whores of Babylon. Soon enough, my head was covered with a dense, outgrowth of dark hair. I was happy, my Patti was happy and my friends were green.

And as all good things go, so did my hair. It began the day that my patti found out that she can control me no more. My hormones overran everything on its way including sincere advice and sly referrals to my Dad's pate. All fell on dead hairs. Going on a shampoo spree, I experimented wildly before zeroing in on Pantene since it was the most fragrant smelling and was proven to dispel, nay, eliminate dandruff.

~~Jeyamalini~~ Shilpa Jetty might have played a minor role in the decision but that is irrelevant to the discussion. My Patti wept in angst as I went full monty and danced wildly in the living room, flinging froth all over the furniture like a gorilla flinging crap. Washing hair was no more a ritual; it was riotous pleasure.

By the time my Patti pointed out the obvious, quite condescendingly, most of my hair had dislodged themselves. I did not believe my Patti, simply because I could not see what she was saying. Only when my friends started pointing and jeering, did I know something was wrong. The very next day I went to an eye doctor.

That I chose to believe I went myopic before I went bald, did me no good. I was still losing hair by the millions. Additionally, I also discovered that my follicles had hit a rough patch and stopped reproducing altogether. It was like China had suddenly discovered birth control. I had to do some damage control immediately. I turned to the only other person whom I knew would empathize. My dad.

He did not. He first proceeded to laugh at my insecurity, delivered a long sermon and finally put forth a juvenile recommendation which was further endorsed by many women of my time. ("juvenile" is not a pun; Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo was, is and always will be juvenile). Them women ooh-ed and aah-ed over the fact that I had started using baby shampoo. Probably, if I had tried I could have scored a few.

But I was more bothered about my hirsute than her suite. Sadly, the approach was effectively ineffective. Its impotence could be matched only by the presence of Badrinath in the CSK team. The amount of shampoo that I used was neither directly or indirectly proportional to anything that even remotely resembled a strand of hair.

I finally came full circle. I mean, my head resembled a full circle. There was nothing there that would encourage a barber to charge me more. There was only one other option that remained. I swallowed my pride and went and bought Meera Herbal Shampoo. It still smelled horrible and was more or less green goo. But at least, I did not go the way of Cho Ramaswamy.

My patti was ecstatic.

The Charge of the Light & Sound Brigade

2010-03-02T16:05:00.017+05:30

My TV is a humongous idiot. Having stated the obvious, I will now sip my burnt coffee as I recount the epic (possibly #fail) story of a hero: a hero who in the face of adversity and trouble still managed to advocate ribald dumbness.

In the beginning there was light. Accompanied with sound. Quite a lot of both in fact. When my TV pirouetted with my remote, the whole apartment shook with the screams of football fans, skimpy heroines singing in foreign beaches about Jalsa and of course curve-less models parading to techno. I could make the TV jump through channelized hoops by the mere movement of a finger; it was an epistemological zenith. That sensation of playing God remains, until now, unparalleled, the closest one being the toilet flush knob. Everything was perfect, as my stingy neighbors suffered from occasional cardiac arrests, until the day the love story between my TV and remote ended in a Samsung-ian tragedy. It was, in the risk of repeating myself for no reason, really tragic.

My remote stopped working. The situation hit me harder than I thought. It eventually led me to start watching Desperate Housewives on my laptop. My pseudo-shy friend found me three days later, wallowing in pink pillows and rotting apples. He failed to understand why I had that sitcom stored in my laptop in the first place. I explained to him that it was a mistake that arose out of a misnomer which currently I do not wish to elaborate (this is a family-known blog and they communicate in the Queen's English). He understood and promptly tweeted the news to almost all my friends who were alive. In 1 hour there were 24 new messages, most of which were concerned about my well-being with a small number of them, making fun of me. I tend to lie. All of them made fun of me.

Driven to absolute humiliation, I consulted a number of experts in the field of Remote Sensing before finding that they were as related to the situation, as Angelina Jolie and her adopted kids. Finally, I turned to my pseudo-dramatic friend who gave me a brilliant idea, an idea so brilliant that it made Google Buzz look like, well, Google Buzz.

He told me to buy either a couch or a bean bag. Now, giving me options is neither a brilliant nor a dramatic idea. You can't ask your son whether he wants to marry Padmanabhan or Balakrishnan and expect him to say 'Krithika' do you? Ok, bad metaphor. That was brilliant and dramatic. Must make a mental note to kick pseudo-dramatic friend for polluting my nuclei with Balaji Telefilms' taradiddles. Meanwhile, the conscious part of me uprooted all my hair out and almost touched the barriers of a drugged Britney-dom. Bald and TV-strung, I went back to my intelligent, pseudo-philosophic friend for advice. He started on a discourse on the anodes and cathodes of owning neither, that lasted three hours, during which 34,781 babies were born in India, some romantic trash called "Will you jump over the Sky?" got released and the Union Budget increased excise duty on unsold TV sets. At the end of it, I thought I was better off watching ~~Trisha~~ insipid women jumping in the sky. Or over it. Or around it. Whatever.

Having exhausted myself of any more grey-cell usage, I went in for the same decision that current Reliance cell-phone users took five years ago - go for the cheaper option. I bought a bean bag and immersed myself in Positional Dynamics of Particle Re-alignment For Effective Relative Positioning of Bean Bag to Idiot Box. I really spent time on it. It is not like deciding on a design where you save the world by wearing your underwear inside or outside or inside out. This was much more important for the simple reason that my TV was stuck at Udaya news and I don't speak jalebi. Especially with the Fourth Estate.

The selected version looked complicated enough to make me proud of my rotting Engineering Degree and no charges for guessing which one. I wasted a whole day in implementing it. Once it was all set, I armed myself with a King-size dosage of fluid donated by fishermen and sat down to watch "Metti Oli". My remote remained impotent.

I was beside myself with anger, and (as all people do when they are breaking up or when they are told that they have Herpes) I threw the remote. It bounced off the wall and lay on its backside, like an electrocuted frog. I stared at the pieces lying on the floor in a jigsaw puzzle and then it clicked.

Fifteen minutes later and 24 rupees poorer, I happily watched the season finale of Desperate Housewives on Star World.

There was an empty Duracell wrapper next to my bean bag.

A Dingbat in Love

2010-02-14T21:22:00.007+05:30

Dhrit's auricles and ventricles were playing beach volleyball when they were suddenly hauled rudely by the whirring of the phone signaling a new message. Swearing, they let themselves be tossed hither and thither, as Dhrit visually recorded the contents. It was a simple two-word message. He was not a man who was normally bound to make mountains out of simple messages. He believed in cold logic and rationale.

He also believed in hope which is a completely irrelevant fact. But the current case was different; all the letters were in uppercase. They either signified importance or ignorance. After subjecting his brain to some extreme Nokia torture, he settled on importance. Logically, he wanted to reciprocate. Violating the punch dialogue copyright of most Tamil heroes he decided to give more than actually take. There were only three words that could effectively communicate what he felt at that instant and he decided to do it in person. All this happened in exactly fifteen seconds after he saw the message.

It said, "GOOD NIGHT".

Ignoring desperate pleas from his instinct, he blundered across the room pocketing the phone. He slipped into a pair of jeans along with a clean T-shirt, emptied half the contents of a half-empty deodorant can on himself, grabbed the bike keys and flew outside the door, love-light glowing in his eyes. Let me tell you, Hell is no fierier than a man in love.

Minutes later, he was on the road, polluting the Chennai night air with free deodorant samples. He played the words again and again in his mind with her saying it in her high-pitched shriek that seemed to make nails scratching on the blackboard, music. Queerly though, each time she did, she held a bowl of 'mayo' that she offered to him on a glass plate.

After fighting with a policeman who initially refused to believe that the 18-year old headshot of the wanted convict on the driver's license was himself, Dhrit finally reached the Watershed Apartments. Addled on by gallons of adrenalin that pumped through his rather shapely muscles, he parked the bike amongst the bushes (actually flung the poor vehicle). He reached the base of the apartment and pressed the button for the elevator. While waiting, he adjusted his bangs so as to cover his ample forehead of a football field, hitched up his trousers and checked for sprinkles of dandruff; he found nothing. But he had to look good to feel confident; and vice versa. All was set but something nagged at the base of his hair follicles and did not see it. He blamed it on the testosterone-induced butterflies in his belly and punched the button for the topmost floor.

Bored inside the lift, he started reading the lift specifications. He wondered tangentially, 'If specifications are referred as specs, can't gratification be called grass?' The lift pinged at the 10th floor and he walked out of the elevator and up to the door that said 106, leaving the cognitively-high debate unanswered.

Dhrit Ramakrishnan knocked on the door of Geetha Kannan, belligerently.

He knew that she lived alone with her roommate. After what seemed like the time taken for a grounded Air India flight to take off, she opened the door. Dhrit blinked taking in the splendid visage that threatened to choke him with emotion and spit. It held him spellbound; pink nightie, sleepy eyes, fluffy slippers and hair tied a tight bun to boot. A voice that mixed equal amounts of a trombone and heavy earth moving machinery said, "Who is it? What do you want?"

Our hero mustered all the wants of puberty, all the pangs of a first-time-lover, all the retarded butterflies that now flew drunkenly - bottled them in three simple words and uttered them in some ancient Mayan dialect.

"You, aaa.. Eh..."

She got exasperated. Her concept of an ideal man did not contain anybody who comes knocking at 1 'o' clock in the morning and speaks ancient Mayan dialects. "What is it that you want?", she asked again.

He finally managed to get them right. But seconds after he said those words, five phalanges materialized out of nowhere and landed smoothly on his right cheek, leaving a burning red mark in its wake as our hero let loose an expletive that can come out only after a brilliant slap. The slap made his eyes see Mohabbatein in reverse and trust me; it is not exactly a pleasant sight either way. The door exactly behind him opened; the right one that said 109. He turned 180⁰ to see his actual love fuming at the actual door, looking as angry as a Facebook user who just discovered that Facebook has changed its layout once again. Our hero believed in cold logic and rationale. As 109 shut itself before he could cough up an apology, he knew that Geetha was over.

Important Fact: You can convince the woman you think you love of anything; even that you can kick the crap out of ~~Flying~~ Action King Arjun, but never of uttering the three stupid words. To somebody else.

Equally Important Fact: No man, starting from the Stonehenge construction workers, till date, has understood that statement. It simply does not make sense. Like Action King Arjun ~~flying~~ kicking all the time, instead of acting.

Anyway, coming back: our hero found everything falling in place: the sign-board, the license photo, the bass voice, the mayo on a glass plate and the blurred traffic signal.

He had forgotten his spectacles.

He turned back to peer into the imposing figure of a middle-aged woman whom he had never seen before in his life. As disgrace and humiliation engulfed our hero, who continued now in some vocal version of hieroglyphics, he heard the tinkling of bells. The bells were in beautiful Tamil and were seductively drowsy.

"Who is it, Amma? What is all the noise? Is it the police? Did we get caught for watching My Name Is Khan, today?"

The body attached to the voice came cantering up to the front door; pink nightie - check, drowsy eyes - check, fluffy slippers - check, paranoid - check, and hair let loose - uncheck. That could be adjusted as bad hair debt.

Our hero smiled. He still believed in hope. He also started believing in potential.

PS: This story borrows heavily from this pathetic Hero Honda ad.
PPS: This story was written for http://www.thebanyantrees.com by me and is edited largely.

The Ultimate Washing Method (Regd.)

2010-01-19T06:34:00.011+05:30

It was the last leg of the Mumbai marathon and there was just half a kilometer left. I was putting in whatever I had, which might be illegally termed as reserve energy since it was mostly fueled by a weekend dosage of cheap whiskey. Every step that I took left a puddle of sweat in its wake, quickly attracting hordes of flies who probably thought it was an aphrodisiac and went about increasing the entomological population of Mumbai calmly. As if they needed a reason to. Anyway, 15 minutes later twenty people saw me raise both my hands in victory and cheered. The others had obviously left. Two of them came running to me holding pepsi cans which turned out to be deodorant sprays. Anyway, overwhelmed by my elation, I removed my dark brown T-shirt in preparation for the ritualistic victory dance. Dark brown? I had started off with a white shirt. My senses stopped playing musical chairs at my behest and the T-shirt still remained brown. Realization dawned upon me like the due diligence reports of Sriram Chit Funds' balance sheet along with a rather clamorous bell chiming loudly.

I roused myself from the nightmare with the pillow sticking to my face and the doorbell conducting a gong thani aavarthanam. The peephole revealed a stooping dark figure who bore faint resemblance to Luke Skywalker seconds after he was told about his exact relationship with Princess Leia. Gingerly I opened the door to my dhobi. He dumped a bunch of dirty washed clothes on me, snorted, thrust a shrinkled finger into my solar plexus and made me swear never to call him again in his, his missus' or my life and bolted. All before you can say, "Deferred Tax".

That's how started, my search for the Ultimate Washing Method.

The ultimate washing method is an overrated sequence of events whose single main objective is three-fold

a) Clean, fresh, lavender smelling clothes
b) Minimal usage of user-generated calories and
c) I forgot the third one; something to do with Bengalis

EXPERIMENT #1:
My search took me to unexplored terrains of supermarkets, hypermarkets, capital markets, hot neighbor's kitchen, hot neighbour's hot daughter's study, drab maids, marathi training courses and public washrooms. But everything has a starting point: like equity capital. Not quite a fan of do-it-yourself, except when it comes to pulling wire over the cable TV operator's eyes, I decided to take the moral high ground. Armed with 1/2 a kilo of 1 kilo Tide detergent (courtesy:hot neighbour), a bucket (courtesy: hot neighbour's daughter) and a smarting rear (courtesy: hot neighbour's husband), I proceeded to follow the instructions given behind the packet.

EXPERIMENT #2
#1 was destined to be a bust. To start with, I ended up washing myself up more than my clothes. Secondly, there was the Inverse Law of Soaking: The more you soak, the more it stinks and the less you soak, the dirt stays. After a lengthy discussion that I had with my mother, involving several, rather all possible allegories to the lackadaisical routine with which I was conducting myself, there resulted a few significant changes. Experiment #2 was supposed to be fail-proof, IMHOTBS certified and maa-approved.

EXPERIMENT #3
However, #2 had a major fault; entirely unrelated to the Adyar flyover and the Bandra-Worli sealink. Too much muscle movement. At that rate I would burgeon a hunchback and haunt the streets of Anna Nagar singing, "Sudsway to Heaven", "November Dirt" and "Hey, Nee Romba Azhukka Irukka". Exercising my final option, I bought a highly advanced (periodically not technologically) washing machine. Most of the buttons were Greek with occasional Latin and Tulu thrown in. I rose to the challenge and studied the wrong manual for three days. In fact, I knew every line in the wrong manual so well that I could have sold the machine to a naked aborigine without blinking. Many days later, after the discovery of my error and earfuls to customer care reps at Videocon I obtained the right manual and continued experiment #3.
To sum up the results of experiment #3: The Google-Wave effect. Too many choices spoiled the froth.

I was nearly at the end of my clothes-line. I lay on my couch, silently ruing the fate of the UWM, thwarted by my own dirt as SunTV replayed the trailer of Sherlock Holmes (Tamil). I could see my future dimming from zany, Louis Phillipe shirts to a brownish, blackish mass of sober, dark shirts that made me look like a walking coffin.

Holmes..???!!! How could I have been so blind? The discovery was so brilliant it made Archimedes look like a streaking freak.

It was elementary dear reader. No, seriously elementary. You see it was all in that Tide detergent packet. The only problem was, it did not contain detergent.

It contained our dear, old sodium chloride. (courtesy: stupid, hot neighbour)

Mixing Peanuts and Cricket

2009-12-28T22:51:00.016+05:30

Gulping down the insipid coffee to inoculate me against a Saturday hangover, I ran pell-mell down the apartment stairs out into dawn and jogged to the road. I tried flagging down the first auto; he refused point blank. I waited in my adidas sneakers for ten more minutes before Autorickshaw #2 acquiesced and off I was to play cricket after a really long gap of seven months.

As the rickshaw sped across the non-existent hustle and bustle of a sleepy Sunday morning on the Lokhandwala roads, early morning joggers, sleepy tea stalls and paid toilet booths flashed by. The significance did not strike me. I leaned out of the auto to get a glimpse of the glorious sun, rising across a clear blue expanse and some retarded bird shat on my clean-washed T shirt. Denigrating the process of digestion and in turn the lineage of retarded birds, I moved to a more central position inside the auto. The auto-man took double the time, triple the distance and four times the fare. Cursing, I jogged my way through tall apartment buildings that concealed a well-laid ground. And by well-laid, I mean it in all the senses possible.

But currently, it was as deserted as the premiere show for Vettaikaran. There was just one plumber/watchman who started toe-carving kolams on the earth on seeing me. Disgusted, I fished out my phone and called the organizer.

"Dude..!!". I said.
"Thood", he mumbled.
"WTF are you??" I screamed like a scorned PMS-struck teenager.
"Eh?", he said.

I realized it was futile and called the next in command. His wife answered the phone promptly. I told her that the situation was one of national importance. She understood quickly; a bit too quickly. The reasons were unclear; was it because I usually charm the pants off any middle aged woman I talk to or because she wants her spouse to get some dosage of good exercise? With no intention of stealing Tiger Woods' thunder I settled on the latter. Ten minutes more and the ground was littered with paunchy, grumpy men cursing wives, kids, marriages and for some reason, Aamir Khan.

But cricket is that sort of the game where you end up liking the game irrespective of all that aforementioned balderdash. I saw a marked increase in the players' confidence levels as they pranced and danced across the ground, literally violating what was left of her. The transition seemed so wonderful that I started believing in the true spirit of cricket. Cricket runs in our blood, cricket is everything; it can cure breakups, beat the hell out of a Chuck Norris flick on the television and create bonds so strong that chemists in Kazakhstan are still conspiring to develop a bio-weapon out of it to unleash it on Antarctica. I squinted at the sun and suddenly realized all my beliefs was just bovine excreta.

The main reason was that the apartments around had come to life with mushroomed spectators. Most of them were bored housewives whose husbands were still snoring the ceiling plaster down. Anyway, half an hour into the game the first innings was nearing its end. My stomach rumbled as I took my menacing approach of a bull on steroids to bowl the last over. I graciously gifted 17 runs in one single over. My ancestors turned in their graves as the humiliation lost me my so-sought after mojo. I could feel the audience sniggering at my plight. It had to be redeemed. I beat my belly and swore to get even. As I was walking back to the pavilion, frustrated, a vision holding a plate of peanuts and a goblet of lime juice rose. It was a benevolent-looking Maami, resplendent in a brown madisar who had come down from the apartments. I thanklessly gorged on the peanuts without thinking twice or even thrice.

Our innings began disastrously, chasing 83 runs in eight overs with 6 batsmen. Our openers got out so quickly that it looked like a trekking expedition to the pitch. After that, a decent flow of runs poured due to some exquisite stroke-play from our penultimate batsmen. There was a brief scuffle sometime during the game, when the hormonal drool content in the ground attained an all-time high; the only difference being, I have never seen punches being hindered by paunches (excluding Sam Anderson). Anyway, just when we looked like we were going to make it easily, there was a rather an unfortunate mix-up effecting a run out. Methinks, the batsmen were just running to get closer to the Maami who sat benignly, pacifying the returned batsmen who were only too pleased to be worried over. The score stood at 70 runs in seven overs. 12 was required off the last over as I went in to take strike.

My team of MBPs hoisted me and delivered swift kicks to my butt in celebration. Little did they know what they were soiling their hands with. I wrenched free from all of it, the team, the now-Chimp-scored audience and the lovely Maami (who winked while she was consoling the captain of the MHPs) and flew to the apartment gates. And then the pieces fell into place. That scheming Maami! But in her defense, it was all for the greater good(s). And yeah, she was also very pretty.

However, invariably, as luck would have it, autos after autos turned me down. I started running in the general direction of my house hoping to get a lift. And lo and behold! My apartment tower was right behind the ground! The grinning chipmunk of an auto-man, coiled in a hammock in Goa, recounting his exploits in the Mumbai underworld outsmarting rich, stupid kids with his ultra-sub machine autometer and impeccable driving skills as the bunch of loosely-clad auto-women oohed and aahed in pseudo-orgasmic pleasure; loomed in my face. My stomach burned, literally and figuratively.

I was steps away from the door when the Bhakra Nangal dam broke.

Pazhani Malai Steps

2009-12-01T23:00:00.011+05:30

My Dad looked at me disgustedly. Random commuters looked at me disgustedly. I looked at myself, acting disgustedly. There was a noted level of apprehension that hung in the air like a squeezed fart. I was sure it was not going to happen. But my Dad is a hardcore fan of self-help books like, "You Can Win"; "I Can You Can", "Pepsi Recyclable Can" and the like.

It all started when my parents landed in Mumbai to pay me a surprise visit. I was not not totally prepared for it. There were enough empty beer and vodka bottles lying around in my house to buy a year's supply of whisky. I had just two hours notice to fumigate my house and keep it spic and span; whose meaning I have never heard of or never intended to use in the same sentence as my house/abode/den/tree. However my parents were least bothered about the state of the house. It was something else that bothered them that found us in this present situation.

The picture: Imagine a 25 tonne MCGM garbage lorry travelling at 70 kmph on the Western Express Highway. There is a small bicyclist coming in the opposite direction. There is also a small tea-shop somewhere in between the two. Now, continue imagining what happens next while I quickly explain my embarrassing situation before you have time to understand what the bloody dickens I am talking about.

My belly had grown so big that I cannot bend down and tie my shoelaces without breathing like a beaten walrus. True story. My parents, when they first saw me after almost six months, came close to throwing a public fit. For two whole days I listened to the incessant drivel on Improper Eating Habits, Not Eating Nutritious Food, Sleeping at Weird Hours etc. Beyond a point, I was so frustrated that I started watching reruns of Splitsvilla, which I would probably do only if there was a fully-grown moustache suspended somewhere around my head attached to a man wielding a hacksaw. But my parents paid little or no attention to the psychological post-teenage depression that leads to inadvertent increase in muscular fat, concentrated mostly near the intestinal region that might be partially due to enormous intake of fermented barley water ominously named after a Royal Carnivorous Avian species (quite stupidly) and partially to lack of consistent muscle displacement.

Thus started Operation Slim Down. My Dad is not necessarily a fitness freak. But he strictly believes in screwing me up. Somehow, he managed to hoodwink me into going to a mall where he suddenly started fussing about wanting a tote bag and completely changed once we entered an Adidas store. My Mom came out with the big guns and walloped a load of worry that made me feel so bad, that I allowed them pamper to me into buying a good looking pair of Adidas sneakers. They looked quite cool when I wore them. My parents were happy, I was happy, the dealer was happy and all's well that still has a lot more to go before it does not end very well.

Two days later, I came home really tired. My parents wanted to go someplace where I could relax. I could of think of only one place that I could relax but that would mean me getting signed out of my Dad's will. And they wanted me to wear my new sneakers. I was a fool of the highest order as I gave in.

Half an hour later, after winding in and out of Lokhandwala market's by-streets we finally landed near a board that said, "Fame Fitnass Center". I almost took to my heels if not for the fact that my Dad weighed a couple of hundred pounds more than me and he was taller than me by at least a foot. Mutely swearing at genetic randomness, I was iron-gripped to the reception and was made to sign up. That was that, for the time being.

And so started the regime. But there is a twist to the tale. What began as a "Amma, I have a flea in my eye. I dont think I will be able to see the question paper. Can I bunk the Half-Yearly exams altogether?" affair slowly evolved into a, "Amma, where's my multi-purpose pen pencil? If I have to score the first rank in the Half Yearly exams, I will have to underline the botanical names of animal genetalia." The second I come back from office, I used to set off for the gym slinging a bag and wearing my brand new sneakers. Credibly enough, I also used to come back drenched in sweat and perspiration. But, contrary to the old bloke, Darwin's theory, the process was quick and not long drawn out. It eventually led to the sowing of the seeds of doubt. In due course, the seeds sprouted and flowered to become a full-blown mega-whopper of a Tree of Incertitude.

Exactly two days before my parents scooted out of Bal Thackeray's province, my Dad decided to investigate. Donning a Rs:50 worth deerstalkers cap that was haggled off from Saravana stores, he shadowed me, right up to the gym. What he saw there rendered him so speechless for days, that he could have acted in Raja Harischandra without batting an eyelid.

I had to take the help of my Mom to paraphrase his feelings exactly:

Once my son reached the gym, he went into the changing room and changed into his sneakers. He then came out and waited for some time. After ten or so minutes, a pretty number walked up to him and they went together to the treadmill. My son just stood there yapping a dime a dozen, as the pretty number started jogging. This went on for almost an hour. After which, my dear son went back to the changing room, removed his sneakers and walked out of the gym. Once out of the gym, he took out his bottle and proceeded to empty its contents over himself, shaking his meager scalp like Julie Andress. And then he saw me......

I lasted four more days. My sneakers are collecting dust now, as a full-time profession.

Ut tensio, sic vis*

2009-11-12T20:56:00.004+05:30

I was in a very bad mood. It was not because a crow had somehow got into my house and proceeded to seduce me my bringing garbage from all over the country and redecorating my kitchen. It was also not because I threw a newspaper at it, that totally missed it and fell out the window over an old couple who were making out in the verandah below and made the old man let loose a few expletives. The factual reasons were totally simple and somehow totally irrelevant to whatever happened that day.

The 3-point roster of my FMLs for that day;

1. I slipped in the bathroom and almost lost my virginity. Forever.
2. I discovered only that day that my door had a self-locking mechanism. With my keys inside.
3. It was Monday morning.

Making a mental note to de-select two of them to twitter about, I set off for office. The Mumbai-local ride was anything but abnormal. Re-discovering my ancestor's genes by swinging from one pole to another, each time inhaling a new, fresh dose of masculine sweat hardly improves one's emotional disposition. I got off the train, with my trousers dangling somewhere around the second half of my rear football field and quickly built up a stride in the direction of my office building.

The huge glass doors came into view and I ejaculated a teenage-girl-watching-Grudge 2.0-shriek. It was my reflection. Sweating ravines, tousled black-green-yellow hair with a groundnut sticking out of nowhere, askew glasses and a drunken look: I painted a rather pretty picture of Ranbir Kapoor. I quickly hurried to the elevator and started thumping the close button before anything tragic happened. There was just one other, middle-aged female in the elevator who gave a dont-even-think-about-it look that teleported my spine to the Tundra. I retorted with a please-buy-a-mirror look. When she found that she was losing the war of misshapen looks, she took it to the next level and slowly, silently started mouthing words at me. But I was not going to fall for the same trap again. I could faintly see the flint of her jazzy mobile phone, dangling from one of her ears, hidden behind troll-like locks of hair.

The doors closed and a god-awful bhajan started playing as we rose. 1, 2, 3, 4. Finally, the eskimo got off. And who should come peeping in the next second? A six-pack. Literally, a six-pack. Six giggling, half-gorgeous girls. My guess was the HR department but Finance came a close second. Anyway, given my organisation, seeing any female lesser than 35 years of age is nothing short of a water-turning-wine episode. Drunk with my good fortune, I decided to make good hay out of the chance. Hip-hopping in the best 50 cent caricature possible to the corner where that middle-aged hag had been hobbling, I struck my Clint-Eastwoodish pose; winking a 240W smile at them girls. Surprisingly, all of them smiled back. "NAILED IT!!!", I yelled silently to myself, blasting my tympanum. My deranged libido finally managed to kickstart the sputtering scooter and grinned at me. I was on a metaphoric high.

And then my floor came. I had to let go of my copyrighted pose. Noetically saluting, "Respect, Mr. Harry Callaghan", I walked out of the lift. What happened within two seconds after that just screwed me. It took my dignity, squashed it with a sledgehammer, ran it through a Bengali's paan-chewing mouth and threw it out of the sixth floor window.

elastic: /ilastik/
adjective: able to resume normal shape spontaneously after being stretched or squeezed.
noun: cord, tape, or fabric which returns to its original length or shape after being stretched.

Derivatives: elastically adverb elasticity /illastissiti/ noun elasticize (also elasticise) verb.

Origin: Greek elastikos ‘propulsive’.

As I walked out; to be more specific, as I moved out of that corner, there was a long pink thread-like thing that clung on to my shirt. It followed me until I walked out of the elevator, giving a short crash course in elasticity. The elevator(now more read than a Anna University ECE graduate) played along and slowly went up, dragging it until it got cut off and I was left with a long trail of sick-looking, masticated bubble gum. I stood there, horrified, staring at the off-pink line that ran from the lift. I could almost hear the guffaws get louder along with clouds of gossip, as the lift ascended. My dreams of giving birth to twins, buying a Honda Civic, taking them to an Anglo Indian school in Ooty and pinching the cheeks of smart looking grandson-chimps; all looked distended and mangled like that wad of bubble gum.

Wad of bubblegum. Thats when it struck me and I yelled like a sleep-deprived, wounded pig. That middle-aged fiend..!!

*Click here for more info

Benetton Inc.

2008-03-22T22:24:00.003+05:30

       It was a white T-Shirt. Pure and virginistic. I simply looked marvelous in it. Without it, even better. But let us not get into the genesis or the implications of the underwritten eleventh wonder of the world. I walked around with an air of handsome-ness and hot-ity. I felt the T-shirt bring out something that only my girlfriend and a few Miss World rejects manage to twitch. In plain Greek, I was in love with my T-shirt.

       Imagine a paling sunset, with the beach shining; golden soft. A couple. Lost in love and in each other's eyes, as they try to look for an answer to the questions that God had somehow forgotten in his huge plan of perpetuating species. Hands held, thoughts locked and lips inviting. The two are oblivious to everything. To even a fully grown grizzly bear, stinking of dead rats and Musharraf's breath, that enters the scene somehow, with a blood- curdling howl that would send microscules of crap running to your bowels. The hairy bear, sprints into the scene, lifts the female and plants a loud, wet, loving kiss on her cheek. Imagine her confusion; her feelings and that of the helpless male as he watches his beloved, handled like an old transistor.

       That was how I felt. As I was pacing my steps towards the mess, in a complex Venusian dance move, hands grew out of nowhere and tugged at my shirt. Dirty, rainbow-colored hands. It was all over in a few seconds. My T-shirt went down in tatters. My soul was damaged beyond any repair and it started blowing a requiem. And that was not all. The same hands bore me up and I started floating in air as the foliage above me, shifted rapidly. Suddenly, sunlight broke out and punctured my eyes. I shielded them and gravity hit me with a sledgehammer. I plummeted six feet. Down. Down.

       Into a tub of colored water. The water was grimy and tasted of chola puri. I rose from the depths, waters cascading down rippling muscles and an angry expression, looking like Clint Eastwood with bad skin problems, as my ears shuddered in pain caused by a shout that even bats will not have a problem hearing..

"HOLI HAI, CHIMPY BOY!"

       From there onwards, it was a Shakespearean tragedy. I was mauled and beaten alive, as I battled my way through the levels. Yes, there were levels. The Tub was Level 1. Level 2 was me being thrown in the air and ejaculating oohs and aahs from the feminine crowd as my pink underwear, made even pinker by the colors, was made public. I was being literally, visibly stripped. And then came Level 3.

       Somehow, everybody got to know that I was not that heavy, in spite of my rather menacing and calm demeanour. Both boys and girls bore me up. By this time, I had swallowed enough water to irrigate the Sahara and all my breath had taken a vacation. I was too tired to struggle. Level 3 hit me full on the face and body parts. It was brown and smelt of damp earth.

       It WAS damp earth. It was a bloody mud pit. I was rolled and rolled on it like a chappati. Suddenly, it was all over and the thudding stopped. There was a new victim. I stood up. Damp, dirty, stinking and my pants in threads. I looked around and saw the new victim being ambushed. I waited to find out the people responsible. They were three of them who were doing this. Instantly, I wanted vengeance. It boiled my blood. The three guys were carrying the poor guy to The Tub. I swiftly scanned the surroundings with my ultra sensory perceptive sight and it came to rest on my poor T- shirt. Seeing the T-Shirt, gave me more strength and an idea. I picked it up and wetted it thoroughly. Then walked purposefully, to the three perpetrators of crime, who were now harassing the poor fellow, drowning him in that insipid water.

       I stood a meter behind and pulled back my T-shirt taut. It was aimed splendidly at the first fellow's backside. I let go. The T-Shirt flew and perfectly flicked his behind. A howl split the air and filled my ears with music. Suddenly, I wished I hadn't done it. The fellow turned, surrounded by the other three. And more behind the three. I gave up.

The process was repeated. Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

Again. And again. And again.

Five times. They made sure that Hamam will owe 13% of its business to me.

But, as the proverb goes: When you are getting raped, you might as well enjoy it. And I did. To the fullest extent.

The Day I Tried To....

2008-02-27T18:45:00.002+05:30

       It was around eleven thirty when I got off my computer and walked up to the balcony to get a whiff of cool, fresh air; it was hot and stank of used socks. I swore. My spine was hurting like a millipede had gone trekking on it with spiked boots. I stretched, chasing the knots out of my muscles and leaned over the rails to get a look. It felt nice - the non-existent breeze floating across my face.
       Suddenly, the moon came out and I could make out a couple walking across the lawns, holding hands. Something gave me the opinion that I knew them from somewhere. I racked my brains, fiddling around the intellectual crap with a pitchfork. My sub-conscious told me I had known them all my life. They were too familiar.
       I ran inside the room, took hold of my broken specs that was entangled in a towel and put them on hurriedly. I rushed back outside, with the towel hanging to the frame of my spectacles, looking like a Turkish bride, and focused my vision on the part of the lawn that these two people were traversing swiftly.
       Yeah, yeah. Of course, they were my parents. I had to give some buildup. I owe it to them. Fact is, they had come over to Ahmedabad; my Dad had a conference. From the minute they landed, they were not too impressed by mine effects. I had tried my level best though. They remained stubborn and refused to treat me as a grownup individual, who can take care of a paunch. That was one thing I had never been able to explain away. My Dad pointedly asked,

"Oye, Sirpy. That's a paunch man...!"
"Yeah, I think it is..."
"You boozing...?"... Doubt creeping in.
"Appa...! This is a dry state, remember...??". This is me being defensive throwing in some simple strategy.
"Hmmmm....".
       My Dad was not completely convinced, as he gave me a cynical glare and pushed off to complain to my Mom, who was busy inspecting my wardrobe and was throwing out all my stuff, trying to find some evidence to incriminate me. But she always neatly folded them back in just to placate me, saying that she was just trying to clean up the room. I never complain. My room always looked like goblins had a fancy dress party and had belched clothes all over.
       Anyway, I stood staring, as the lovers-past-prime made their way across the sub-pass towards the cricket ground. My brain worked involuntarily and I mentally followed the most probable course that they would take in their walk. And then a plan diabolique struck me.
       I ran inside, called up DFock and ordered, rationalized, begged, pleaded and finally bartered my pink underwear to brainwash him to come to the basketball court. Fifteen minutes later, I huffed and puffed my way to the court. DFock was thumping the ball away, here and there, throwing expert hoops. Fear grasped my intestine and made a pretzel. But I knew I had to do it to save my image. I entered the arena and waited.
       As per my calculations, my parents had to come around the corner in exactly twenty five minutes. They showed up an hour later. By then, DFock was royally pissed, as he did not see any of his incentives materializing.
       Never mind him.
       The second my parents came into the picture, I ran yelling war whoops, into the court. I could actually hear my parents talk,

Dad: "Is that our son...?"
Mom: "Eh...? He's too tall and too fair to be lazy."
Dad: "No. No. That is the sweeper. I meant one of the guys in the basketball court..."
Mom: "Hmmm... Wait. Something's wrong. He does look like our offspring, but basketball...????!!"
Dad: "Exactly. Let's go check him out."
Mom: "Oui."

       And then it was disaster. Three simple things. Three simple things that I had forgotten.
1) My spectacles were still hanging to my towel back in the room.
2) I can never ring the doorbell of every house.
3) I still had the paunch.

       Both my parents had the laugh of their lives, as I pirouetted, waltzed and gracefully curved my way around the ball in a zillion ways, never touching it. I was in deep disgrace.

       Later, my Mom patted my back for the effort and said she was proud of me. A pat. For all that toil in planning and executing. A pat.
       Sheesh.

Wired and weird

2007-12-02T07:17:00.000+05:30

      And finally I have been tagged. It is an honor and I consider it my esteemed blah.. blah.. blah... My emotions surmount vehicles of blah.. blah.. and more blahs... I thank Ziah from the bottom of my blah.. blah.. blah.. Having done all that let me get the facts right. The tag, essentially forced me to list out five, nothing more nothing less, weird stuff about myself, however grouse they are, whatever species of living organism it may concern etc.. etc..
      So I took a paper and pen and sat down to list out five weird facts about myself. I sat and thought and thought. I thought so much that I made Plato and Socrates look like mentally retarded dolts. But nothing fell out of that voluminous, mass of cerebral condominium. I knew I was perfect, but this was taking it too far. I pressed, prodded, poked; did everything within my power. Other than the fact that I managed to dislodge quite a number of hair follicles and increased the surface area of my face, nothing happened. My nerve broke.
      And then I remembered my Mom.
     I was a genius. If there was any person, other than my girlfriend who would know more about the enigma that I am than me, it would be my Mother. I decided to call her up. But before calling, I suddenly went into flashback mode. Accompanied by dull, throbbing music my face faded to reveal a 18 year old Chimp, sitting cross-legged in front of the idiot box in rapt attention while the better half of the manufacturer of this unique product sat by his side, feeding him sambhar rice and lentil curry. He mechanically opened his mouth and shut it at regular intervals, unaware of what went into that gaping, bottomless pit. The reason was obvious.

1. I love Ayesha Takia

      Before getting into the mechanics of why I love Ayesha Takia, let me state a few ground rules that are essential to prove the authenticity of my statements.
a) Ayesha Takia is hot.
b) Ayesha Takia is hot
c) Ayesha Takia is hot.
      Now the mechanics. Well, in effect there aren't any. Most of them are obviously obvious. I involuntarily used to wallow in my own drool the second I saw her on TV. My heart would break long jump records, my nerves- speed records and my hands - my grandfather's old records. The way she moves her hip, the way she smiles, her perfect set of white teeth, her smooth hip, her slender, pudgy fingers, the way she sucks at a Popsicle. I fell hook, line and sinker. I used to fantasize me and her, eating masala dosai and thengai chutney at Saravana Bhavan. My mom stuffed my mouth, as I drooled.

2. I love JETIX

      I was forced to change the channel. I did not want my Mom getting suspicious about my clandestine love life. I liked playing spy. Anyway, I switched to my next favourite one.

JETIX!!!! JETIX!!!! JETIX!!!!

      The second and the third ones are echoes, added for effect. The reason why I loved this usually, ridiculed channel was because, all the series that they telecast were dubbed in Tamil. The dubbing was too hilarious and the storyline even more ridiculous than the translation. I used to laugh both my rear cheeks off. My mom thought otherwise and took me to a psychiatrist. She was in for a shock. The psychiatrist loved Jetix. There you go. Now that you have professional reassurance; I bideth thee, the multitudes, to go watcheth Jetix and spreadeth the word to all the four corners of the Earth aplenty. And let be there be power rangers, forever..!

3. Old women tickle my libido

      Yup. I will stop here. I am not elaborating any further. I don't want my Mom blundering her way here and finding out the reason why her son went out with his 69-year old neighbor for frequent walks of 0.3 kilometers, everyday.

4. I am a hard core, heartless, ruthless, spineless, lochness torturer

      I continued eating, still changing channels when this missile landed on my thigh. It had immediately penetrated deep, on landing and was meticulously sucking. I waited as my master had taught me. He was the perfect assassin, when he was in his prime. He told me how the villain bends his proboscis and slowly inserts it into the skin. Ignorant people blindly swat. Actually, you have to wait. Once the villain has his proboscis stuck inside, he cannot escape. And then you slap your thigh and yell in pain. But success is guaranteed. I was. I caught the struggling mosquito and held it to the light examining it.
      It struggled. My eyes glinted with glee. Yup. I did it. I first tore out its legs, one by one. Then its belly and squeezed it to release my blood. I finally crushed the head.
      I am ruthless. When it comes to mosquitoes, that is.

5. The bane of humankind

      And then I puked. My mom looked at me guiltily. I stared at her for some time and then at the plate, where the hot rice was swimming in sambhar. Finally, I saw them. In numbers, beyond the scope of counting, even by an i-Calculator. My Mom sweetly apologized, saying that her hand slipped. Otherwise there would not have been so many. I felt sorry and kissed her. I gave it another look and puked all over again.
      Mustard screws me up.

    Flashback over, I called up my Mom. I talked for an hour, reminiscing about her feeding me. I wanted her to feed me again.
    She called me a weirdo. The irony of it all.

Scootylicious!

2007-11-18T10:11:00.000+05:30

      She started it. I was not hungry at all. She called me up and threatened to do un-printable severing actions with my un-printable assets. I was not intimidated and hinted quite obviously, that she could jump off the Kanchenjunga sans parachute, than try seduce me to come with her for lunch. But she, Chai, the direct descendant of Attila the Dun(ce), came right up to my room, armed with a Swiss army knife and knocked on my door.
      I had just come back from a refreshing bath and was flirting with myself, flexing my muscles standing in front of the mirror when there was this knock on the door. I hurriedly wrapped up myself in a towel and unsuspectingly opened the door. There she was standing, brandishing her puny, sharp knife at me with a murderous glare and poor me, guarding my lineage with a flimsy, cotton towel. I immediately agreed to whatever was that that she wanted without even thinking. There was no need to. It was a foregone conclusion. Like a Farah Khan movie.
      Ten minutes made history, I was roaming the streets of Ahmedabad on my Scooty in search of a restaurant that she told me she knew exactly where it was and had conveniently forgotten. Smoke literally billowed out of my ears as I fumed beneath my pink shirt. The sun bore down on upon us and my temper was slowly losing its bearings. Then disaster struck.

1. Smoking is injurious to health.
2. It leads to partial amnesia.
3. I am eternally broke.

      All these led to my vehicle sputtering and dying in a rather dramatic manner, right at a traffic signal. It stubbornly refused to start. We stood there like fools, kicking away, like a couple of morons trying to demonstrate the art of cycling to mules. After the traffic policeman came to us and ostentatiously requested the 'saar' and his 'missers' to get off the road, we pulled off the road and parked the vehicle right next to a building. Only after a crow pooped on my shirt and I looked up to swear at the crow did I notice.... Holy Hypermetropic Hannibals of Hungary! We had come to the very place, the very restaurant which she had told she knew exactly where it was and had conveniently forgotten! We had found it!
      We did a jig on the pavement, that made the Aborigine death dance look distinctly civilized, and entered the restaurant which she had said she knew exactly where it was but had conveniently forgotten. We sat, we ordered a pukka Tamil Nadu meals replete with more kozhambu, vadai, bisi bela bath, payasam with extra ghee and sunk into the felt. The food came and we ate, chattering about my ingenuity.
      After an hour of constant munching and swallowing sounds that reverberated around the restaurant, two people burped loudly, apparently contented. We were so full that if Kubrick made a movie on us he would have named it, "Full Glutton Jacket". Bad Joke. Anyway, I smiled at Chai. She too smiled back, very satisfied. And then the bill came.

      Nothing happened for ten minutes. We sat staring at the bill, waiting. It did not dawn on us for quite a long time. We kept on waiting. So did the waiter, looking at us despondently, as if there was only one last beedi on earth and his attaining the antique, depended on the tip we were going to give him. Then it hit us. The inevitable had happened. The oft-told tale of misunderstanding and confusion. The one which we dreaded that we would never dread about. There was nothing wrong with the bill.
       I, because of my past financial connections (condition number 3 included), had come to the evident conclusion that she was going to pay and vice versa.
     The situation was desperate. We had to think of something quick. I took out my mobile phone and answered nobody, slyly excusing myself. I walked out of the restaurant nonchalantly, shouting and gesturing loudly in Tamil, into the phone. My phone was literally covered with two liters of spit. I had to do it; for the dramatic effects. The second I was out of the doors, I broke into a run.
      Seconds later, Chai joined me. We ran and ran. And ran. And ran. And ran. And ran. We kept on running.

And then we remembered my Scooty.

Bleaaarggghhh...!!

2007-11-05T20:01:00.000+05:30

A single word. Don't.

The Zound Of Muzic

2007-10-24T22:04:00.000+05:30

       The zimpleness of it all zuggezted an ill-concealed notion of complacence. I admired her. She was very careful and decidedly clever. Amidst the background sounds of a semi-nude female, tearing out her lungs exprezzing her undying love, she had almost disguised it. But I knew and gave her a patronizing smile. She smiled back confusingly. I patted her hand and murmured, "I know, my dear. Don't worry, I wont tell anyone". I whipped out my handkerchief and inconzpicuouzly blocked my nazal apertures, just to show her that I meant what I zaid.

       She turned, apparently befuddled and continued to watch the movie. But I knew. Let me take you through my inferential procezz.

Step 1:
It was Pungin who suggested that we go for a movie. Me, Dorky, and Saastha unzuccezzfully objected, vehemently. She stood on her nut and refused to budge. She even gave us a lewd wink and that apparently did the damage. Dorky keeled over, like a pile of uneaten dog biscuits and it was three against one. Saastha was smitten by Dorky, you see.

Step 2:
It was Pungin again, who pranced out of the auto, her co-ordinates set on a decrepit pani-puri stall that seemed to be constructed out of broomsticks and smelt like the Coovum; only worse. The shop owner looked greasy as did his nails. My masticated lunch roze to my throat, which I zupprezzed with a cough, a hiccough and a hiccup.

Step 3:
Me, Saastha, a group of gawking locals and a rabid dog watched Pungin and Dorky polish off puri after puri after puri. I could hear Dorky's pant buckles trying to zwear and groan at the same time. Pungin was wearing zynthetic zweat pantz and they must have been quite flexible to accomodate her cud.

Step 4:
The zecond we entered the multiplex, Sastha and Pungin suddenly disappeared and reappeared ten minutes later, looking a bit too flushed and relieved for comfort. My grey zells kicked my brain's butt and both of them started their ruminations.

Step 5:
My Biology Sir's credentials, when he taught me the mechanizms of the lower abdomen were pretty good. In spite of the fact that his daughter eloped with his cook instead of his driver. Consequentially, I had to shell out fifty rupeez having lost the bet.

Step 6:
The primary goal of every hand-driven cartwallah in Ahmedabad, is to add potatoes to everything that they coddle and are mostly the banes of the human inteztine.

Step 7:
The movie began. I was sitting in between Saastha and Pungin. Dorky was on the other side of Saastha and znored through most of the movie. Pungin occasionally squirmed in her seat, at regular intervals. My doubt train chugged away.

       Zeconds before the interval, I heard it. It was very muffled. But my ears, as my ENT zpecializt would say, were too good and instantly picked up the sonic waves. Burnt cotton fumes, pervaded the circumference of my body's circle of authority.

       It was a fart.

       A shrewdly released fart at that. It did not take me long to add 1 and 1 and come up with 84.72. It had to be Pungin. I turned and smiled at her, assuring her. She waz a bit miffed, that I knew her secret. But nevertheless, once again Chimp had proved his mettle and he gave himself a well-deserved pat.
     An hour later, we were travelling in the auto back to the institute. Being the youngest and the smallezt, I was forced to perch myself on Pungin while Dorky travelled, snoring on Saastha's shoulder. The wind froze my vitals and I pulled myself closer, with Saastha's cotton dupatta. Cotton dupatta?? Lightning burnt my neuronz and instantly everything fell in place. Saastha was wearing a cotton salwar. She did not eat the pani-puri because she had eaten at the mess. The menu had aloo mutter today.
      I slapped my forehead and curzed. I had been blind and foolish. It was not too late now. I squeezed Saastha's hand, told her I knew, muttered a zorry to Pungin who by now had decided that I was a potential threat to the sane community while I gave myself the selfsame well-deserved pat. Elation filled my innards. Chimp's deductionz are never questioned. Never.

       And then, Dorky farted in his sleep.

Lava-licious!

2007-10-22T15:25:00.000+05:30

I had to do it. It was too sensational to resist. I am still recovering from aching ribs. The worst part was, I saw it the minute after I read the following headlines off an old copy of The Times of India, "VIRGIN STRIP FOR T-20 CLASH". My lecherous thoughts were betrayed their share.
Anyway, here is what I actually saw. :D

The Hole In The Wall

2007-10-13T03:14:00.001+05:30

        I was sitting in the auditorium, dozing away. I had never wanted to come. I felt myself slowly slipping away, again.

        It was an hour ago, when DFock came poking around at my door, armed with a file and smacked my round butt awake. I was well into re-discovering the plains of Ayesha Takia, before this imbecile messed it up. He was going for a presentation that was to be given by a MNC and he wanted company. In effect, he wanted me.
        I lethargically rose, stretched, swore at him with the choicest words and promptly went back to sleep, pulling the pillow over my head. I was in no mood to listen to a guy in a black suit, flinging words like markets, hedge funds, investment banking, sectors and the like. I was better off with my girl, Takia. And being one of the only two members of the famous, Young Achiever Ayesha Takia Fan Club (the biggest Ayesha Takia fan gathering in Asia), I did think I had my priorities right. But Dfock was not one to accept defeat at the hands of Young Achiever Ayesha Takia and played his trump card.

"They are giving free pizzas."

        Ten minutes later, I was walking, dressed smartly in a bright red shirt, brown trousers, brown shoes, brown belt, hair combed, face well-powdered; looking good enough to screw Amitabh Bachhan's Reid & Taylor contract.
        In line with my prognostications, there was a man in a black suit, who did use a lot of words that seriously sounded troll to me. I drifted away, within seconds. As time progressed, the presentation got duller and duller. Towards the end, the man in the black suit himself, was so bored that he yawned widely, displaying his wide array of yellowing teeth and quickly wound up the presentation, commencing the rush for the pizzas. I ran first, grabbed a Coke bottle, a pizza and professionally, slipped under the cover of the dark, tripping over a dozen people in the process, to a tree and started the assimilation. I was soon joined by DFock, a couple of mutts, a crow, a few flies and 32 mosquitoes.
        I was deeply involved in the demolishing, when nature gave me her call as she always does, in the most inappropriate places and at, singularly, the most inappropriate times. I told DFock to protect my pizza with his life and rushed to the nearest restroom.
        There were many a time, in the intrepid life of Chimp that he has encountered indescribable dangers, endured pains beyond the thinkable, slept with female lions, grappled with bearded bears and scared the crap out of a bunch of dingos. But he had never encountered something this obscene or horrific.
        As I was relieving myself, I was startled out of my wits by a sound that suddenly came out of one of the cubicles. The voice was singing; rather trying to sing, an old Ilayaraja song. As the song rose in pitch, the voice grew shriller. I fell, clutching my heart, my hands flew to my ears and hair; the sound was simply horrendous. Ilayaraja would have cut off his right hand and drowned himself in the Cauvery. It made my testicles shrink; my nerves snapped, my eyes gouged themselves out, the toilet mirrors cracked, a lizard dropped dead and Al-Jazeera broadcast Lindsay Lohan's video. The voice was the scourge of the universe. I did not want to die. Not at least, this way. It felt undignified. I ran out in sheer fright; extremely relieved that I had survived. Unaware that I had forgotten something. Something important. Very important

        I reached DFock, who had unashamedly, finished his pizza along with mine and burped loudly in my face. Disgusted, I turned and snowballed into a senior Placecomm member, who started yelling his big head off. He asked us to mingle with the delegates who had come to give the presentation and behave like good managers. Obediently, I strode up to the man in the black suit, who by now had a hot female in a short skirt accompanying him, answering questions to a huge motley crowd that had gathered around him. I joined the crowd and animatedly asked dumb questions and irrelevant doubts.

I did not notice when the others pointed and gestured.
I did not notice when the man in the black suit replied to my questions with a smile, every time.
I did not notice when the female blushed furiously.
I did not notice when a couple of girls in the crowd fainted.

I finally noticed, when I reached my room and looked at myself in the mirror.

        My shirt was poking out of my zipper which unfortunately was open. I ran out of the balcony and jumped. Almost. And then I laughed.
        I do have the balls, I thought. My auricles swelled with pride.

Faux Pas

2007-10-04T02:25:00.000+05:30

        I strode as calmly as I could to the door and slowly opened it. The second I opened it, my feet pedaled swiftly, into a run. I ran like my life depended on it. And it sort of did. Seconds later, the doors opened again and people spilled out in a rush, yelling with wrath and pure, unbridled anger, brandishing ink pens, pencil sharpeners, rulers, case materials, banana peels, tumblers, hair clips, used condoms, chappals with and without heels, laptop adapters and even a bucket of cold water. In pursuit, of the one person responsible for everything.

        Me.

     In my defense, I swear on every god of the Norse mythology, that I never intended to, in the first place. It was a chocolate wrapper. Trust me. In the most unlikely case, that you don't, here it is how it was a chocolate wrapper.

23 hours 10 minutes ago:

      My room fan was spewing out guttural noises and wind in equal proportions. I was having a rather weird nightmare where, me and my girlfriend were in a boxing match, with two bulky, grotesque ogres, who bore uncanny resemblances to my future in-laws. I peered closely trying to figure out who they were and completely missed the roundhouse punch that came out of nowhere and dislodged half my dental assets on it's way. I howled like a wounded buffalo and swore long and loud. My wife jumped into the ring and promptly handed me a mirror. I, like the proverbial born idiot, looked into it and a shock worth 24,000V instantly passed through me, as I tried to give a toothless yellow grin.
     I woke up sweating. "Whew!" I said, after the same old, boring things that people usually say when they have a ruddy nightmare and crawled out of the bed, groggily. I was hungry and wanted to munch something, urgently. I blindly felt my way to the pantry, blindly felt and took out a Cadburys bar, blindly tore open the wrapper and blindly slept off. The Cadbury's bar slipped onto the floor along with the wrapper, uneaten and it lay there.
     The next day, I woke up and dressed hurriedly in a shirt and a pair of brown trousers that were lying there on the floor. I ran out of my room with my bag, having forgotten to put on my underwear, noticed it halfway through, went back again to do it, almost did, deliberated for quite a long time weighing the options of getting publicly exposed, finally decided against it, blamed the damned heat and bolted for class.
      Class went on normally; read absolutely boring and as usual I imitated a perfect dork to the bone. Until then. It all happened in the last five minutes of the last period. Everybody was quite exhausted and desperately wanted the hour to get over. And suddenly, like Venus, my hand rose.
      I rue the action now, as I nurse my broken bones and black bruises. It was all because of that chocolate bar and its wrapper. If I had eaten it, the local ant army would not have come to devour it. If they had not come, a stray, vagabond ant would not have tried the Indiana Jones act and started exploring my clothes. If it had not climbed up into my shirt, it would not have bit my upper arm and I, for all the rotten, damned, luck in the world, would not have been forced to put my hand up, involuntarily. In pain, of course.
      The class went silent. I could hear a mosquito, farting. The professor looked at me in disbelief and I looked back in horror. I had to ask a doubt. It was the cardinal rule and having raised my hand, there was no turning back. I rummaged through the dull, grey mass of matter rotting away within my skull, pulled out a question that in every sense, made absolute nonsense and lobbied it at him, hoping for a miracle.
      Nope. God was royally pissed with me. Of all the luck, it so happened that it was the professor's favorite area and he launched into one of the longest lectures that went on, for what looked like many days. Seasons changed. Britney's daughter eloped with my son. Agarkar had bowled a maiden over. And Bush mysteriously disappeared into the African jungle. Anyway, by the time the professor finished, my section mates' hunger had abated. But something else had taken it's place. Something that made them flex their muscles. Something that would make me invoke my health insurance. Something bad.

78 seconds later:

Which is why, I am running now.

The Abhorrence

2007-09-26T18:38:00.000+05:30

        Peedpop was standing at a precipice. He looked determined and was totally deaf to the crowd yelling below. And then he saw her face. Radiant. Vaseline teary. Reddish and swollen.
        She ran forward and shouted, "#$ #@#..! #@#..! #@#...!!". Zero response.
        Peedpop gingerly took a step forward. He looked as if he was waiting for the auspicious second. Five minutes later, after a splitting headache, she came running from behind and said the golden three words, breathlessly. Those three unspeakable words; never to be uttered, except under dire circumstances; three words that apparently made Peedpop's life or death. Peedpop stared.
        "@###, $%#$ &^& $##@#$..?", Peedpop asked.
        "$$$$ @@@$!#$ @$ 431$$5$ 5$@% ...!!" , she replied.
        Peedpop looked dumbstruck.
        "Do you really, !@@# #@#@...?", he asked with a spot of surprise still left in him.
        She answered with a bright, Canadian flag-red blush.
        Peedpop was beyond himself and instantly went mad. He clutched his hair in disbelief and ran around in circles. He suddenly stopped and went close to her. He gingerly touched her face. She looked down, coyly averting her eyes, still blushing away furiously.
        The scene changed to vast, ice-covered hills and it started.

Male: ##@!@@#, @#$$%..%%#!2...
Female:@#$%%$ 5! %$! %$#$% 66&& &^#!@!....

Male: $# %^ ^& 8( )(( 76 77 78$$#$....
Female: Lightning, $$3 543 @! 2%^ %% Reebok $# % $%@$1...

Male: @#!@$% laser #$3 #$@!#$%%^.....
Female: #$! #$# %%$# !# %%^&^ ^^ ()@!....!!

Male: Aaaaaaaaaaaooooo...
Female: Mmmmmm He.. he.. he.. ooooohhhh..

Male: #$ # @$#@ !@$ % pedal cycles % &^%#...
Female: ! @# @$^&* *&* &* &&& George Michael *&*** &% #@#$...

        And so it went on and on. Unsurprisingly, Peedpop was wearing a bright red toga and his fiancee was showing off her midriff in a bright green blouse and an yellow skirt, that looked as if it was tailored for a baby. As she shook her hips from left to right that lifted her skirt even higher, Peedpop desperately tried to invade her navel. A bunch of foreigners were staring at the pantomime, faintly amused. Peedpop moved all his limbs in multiple directions, more or less like the Vitruvian Man in spasms. She was enraptured by his movements and joyfully jumped monkey-style into his arms. He groaned, but held on. It went on. And on. The skirt rose higher with every passing minute. With all the ice around, how the hell did she not get hypothermia, is a question that has its answer shrouded in mystery. Or shall I say, unshrouded?

        That was the last time I saw a Kannada movie.

The Woman Who Swore

2007-09-20T22:52:00.001+05:30

        I was on my way back from Chennai after a rather hectic, two day trip. Most part of the two days, saw me running around the countryside with a blue file, whilst my Mom watched movies at Satyam, munching fries and popcorn. I used to give her a glare every time I saw her and she smiled patronizingly. It made it all the more worse. I was more than glad when the mini vacation for my Mom got over and we were on a train, bundled for Coimbatore.
        Everything was fine, until we reached Arakkonam. I was trying to look past the cranky, old woman seated next to me, at the hawkers for a cup of coffee when a whiff of jasmine caught my nostrils. I turned 180 degrees in reflex and saw an apparition in white. A red arrow poked into my chest and a plane crashed in East Australia. She got into the train and looked around the compartment, searching for something. I was desperately praying. She glided forward, swinging her duffel bag and came to a stop in front of me. And then she sat. I started blushing profusely. My Mom was going over her with a critical eye, ever-protective of her vulnerable son and clutched my arm. The old woman was muttering something about the kind of women that women give birth to nowadays and proceeded to damage the apparition's entire lineage.
        I was stone-deaf and bat-blind to all these so-called negative, ultrasonic waves of personal emotion that flowed around me. My target was fixed and I was preparing myself for the fight. I felt like Rocky in Rocky - IV. It was survival. It was endurance. And I had both of them by the barrels. I flexed my eyebrows and crunched my jaws. A bit rusty but in perfect, working condition, I thought. It was my weapon. The same weapon which I used to woo multiple females looking like both sides of Naomi Campbell. The same weapon with which I defeated my current girlfriend. It was my Look.
        The Look is one of its kind. It has never been unsuccessful (except on two occasions, when the recipients turned out to be members of the some, unidentifiable sex/species). And it can never be replicated. It is unique. And I was ready with it; armed to the teeth.
        Seconds before I gave the Look, something happened that made me realize that if ever I was going to cheat on my girlfriend again, I would rather hang myself from the Golden Gate bridge, before doing it. As I looked at the apparition, she slowly lifted her golden face from the Kumudham which she was reading and brushed away a strand of hair. My heart skipped a beat. She then stretched, her waist straining at her churidhar and proceeded to pull down the shutters on the windows.

Interlude:
        Now some background information is needed, before we reach the ending of my shortest flirt. Old women are supposed to be inherently sweet. But this woman, the one sitting on my left, apparently was not. She looked and behaved like the wife of the caretaker of hell. She nonchalantly put her rheumatic legs on top of mine; shouted loudly at hawkers and beggars in some foreign language, that mysteriously sounded like a mix of Tamil and Sudanese; made angry gestures at a blind beggar and spilt my precious cutlet and vadai all over my clean, white trousers; burped loudly and disgustingly; and smelt seemingly of paan and old, dried fish.

        Coming back, at the exact second Miss White was trying to pull down the shutters, the old woman suddenly seemed to have felt the irresistible urge to empty her constantly, masticating mouth and did so promptly. Right onto Miss White's butt, which was blocking the window. Whether the act was intentional or otherwise, no one came to know. The red splotch was visible for a second, after which it started soaking and got bigger and bigger. Time stood still, during when my Eco sir popped into my brain for no apparent reason, made a rude movement with a finger and scuttled off, as fast as he had come. Miss White turned back, gave one look and screamed. She did not scream like they do in B-grade horror movies, say for example Darling or Aag; she screamed along with the ugliest swear word I have ever heard in my life. I closed my Mom's ears and she closed mine. I was horrified and instantly totally repelled. My ideas changed.
        And at that same exact second, my actual girlfriend materialized and she smiled knowingly. I mouthed, "I'm sorry". The vision smilingly vanished. And I turned my attention to another apparition in blue, who had just entered the compartment. My eyebrows are not going to be betrayed.

Obliviate!

2007-09-13T11:05:00.000+05:30

And so it is done. The dratted End Terms. The bane of every student and currently, those here. It was over in a flash. But the preparation seemed an eternity. At the end of it all, I don't remember a single thing I've learnt. All that I can recall are the innumerable teas and coffees, the pilfering of Dairy Milk bars, the air conditioning while taking the tests freezing your pee, the lack of it while mugging, the pointless discussions, the creative and unending stream of curses that flow between guys after the tests, the shirk of shoulders, the load of porn (Mom, I am sorry. I did not mean to. Or did I?) the teeny-weeny bits of shut-eye that we got, the smell of chicken Maggi and of course my girlfriend's occasional pep talk that does as much damage as a tanker on a flower bed.

Anyway, it is done and over. I know it will come again. Viva, l'testis*!

PS: I am guaranteeing a better post next time. I was high when I wrote this. In fact, I have no recollection at all of writing. Sheesh. Which idiot will want to write exams? It is a prisoner's dilemma.

*ain't that the way how the French pronounce tests?

Battle of the Blues

2007-09-06T17:43:00.000+05:30

         It was not funny at all. I was there, sitting in that wretched coffee shop, trying to drown myself in the nitty-gritties of microeconomics, with a lukewarm capuccino that tasted like it was made with the same mud, that Vasco Da Gama shook out of his boots when he landed in Kerala. I was trying to concentrate and was completely, successfully unsuccessful. I was in utter despair and turned to look out through the glass, seconds before I toppled out the chair and poured the muddy beverage all over my precious gold-wrought knickers.
         There was a huge crowd staring right at me, through the glass. I looked and felt a fool. It was not a new feeling anyway, as my girlfriend would comment with immense sarcasm. But still, it was a bit too sudden. I was trying to look dignified and delicately picked myself up, trying not to lose my sex appeal in the process. They were still staring at me. I was puzzled.
         I have never been stared at for so long by anybody; let alone a bunch of awestruck, pretty specimens of the fairer sex. The last time anybody stared at me was when I was hopping around in apparent pain, in the middle of the road, having caught myself in the zipper. The phenomenon was and is not regular. I rationalized. After pretty, heavy-duty calculations that would have required the processing capacity of at least six supercomputers, I made the obvious conclusion. It was not me that they were staring at.
         And after making a thorough and extensive study of the surroundings that included two old men who were trying to dump their wives and elope, I decided that neither was it because of,
     1) the hot female in a bathing suit, with shapely thighs sitting behind me; nor
     2) the hot female in a bathing suit sitting behind me; nor
     3) the hot female in a suit sitting behind me; nor
     4) the hot female sitting behind me; nor
     5) the female sitting behind me, even.
         I was still looking around, making assumptions and discarding them like Bluebeard's wives, when I heard the crowd roar a single word in unison and a brick loosened from the ceiling.
     "Four..!!!"
     The fog cleared. Clarity rose. Cognition proceeded. Enlightenment dawned. Birds flew. Crows pooped. Mosquitoes bit. The brick fell. Trains ran. Goats bleated. DFock yawned. Etc.
         I slowly swivelled in my chair to see a 40 inch monitor, mounted high on the wall and watched a white ball being tossed around a green field. I could not help myself cheering though I would have rather preferred women wrestling. And surprisingly, we won.