Wi-Fi

On the way to her friend's home for her birthday my wife asked me why she is always so much interested in you? Some times I find it hard to understand whether she is my friend or yours.
'Oh common, don't be jealous of your own friend, I have met her only once and you know that people get impressed by me in a blink'


'haha...sometimes you are so funny' she said and I took a breath of relief. You never know when this female gender can turn the environment into global warming disasters.

'Are you sure, you have met her only once?' holy crap. I know girls can be insecure about their husbands, specially if he is smart and handsome (take it guys... take it) but this was already increasing heat.

A tiny drop of sweat passed behind my ear towards the neck. Thanks to my long Rambo type hair, it went unnoticed.
'Yes quite sure, at your office trip'
'I thought so. So this would be your second meeting with her. lets see how see reacts to see her crush'
'haha...I take it as a compliment'
'We will see'

She picked up my phone and started browsing it. Another drop ran by my ear. Though it was very normal for her to do so but today it was different. I prayed to almighty hoping for a clean phone, I told myself not to worry and keep calm.

We were already in basement of her friend's apartment. While in the lift I wanted to tell her to be normal, more than her I wanted myself to be normal.
She rang the doorbell. Beautiful as always, her friend opened the door.

'Hey darling' she shouted. I made sure I was not in the way of the word 'darling' and it was directed to my wife.

She turned to me and said, 'it was for you' and before I could react, she showed my phone to me 'Wi-Fi connected'.  
  

Black Tea

Yes, try it, believe me just try it, you will start liking it, eventually of course. once you start liking it, stop adding sugar, yes, you read it right, stop adding sugar. So now what you have in your cup is just water and tea, period. As Saif says in Love aaj kal, dont boil it much, observe the color, dont let it turn black, you have to turn off the stove before it does. now what you have is a golden bloody semitransparent liquid, smoking water vapors.

You must be thinking what an idiotic suggestion, why should someone just ignore all the taste you get from a thick brownish smooth drink with ginger and clove and milk and cardamom, true, but for that you have to ask the basic question, which is, why in the first place, do we have tea? hunger? energy? healthy? answer for all the question is, No. we have tea because we need to refresh our brain and that is done by tea, because it has caffeine in it.

So answer is Caffeine. Now when you start taking black tea, you will know what kind of refreshment I am talking about. First sip of it opens or i should say widens the veins into your brain, you feel the kind of refreshing effect when you jump into a swimming pool. alertness, so strong as if you are sitting in fighter plane, in fact you are the one who is flying it.

So you got it right. if you already had your regular tea today, make it a last day and start drinking black tea from tomorrow for this never known before, heavenly experience.

Note: just don't listen to me. Unfortunately milk and sugar was over in my kitchen and I had no other choice but to have a cup of sugarless black tea. I just wrote this post for my own solace and to make my Black tea bit tasty.   

she said I love you isn’t she?

I jumped from the ship into the knee high shore water, black pearl it was, ordered my crew to lower the sail and shouted, ‘this is your captain jack sparrow and you know what to do next, take whatever you can and give back nothing’.  

‘Captain, captain’ somebody shouted pulling me back by my shoulder. ‘No body, I said no body touches my shoulder’ I opened my eyes, ‘dude, your phone is ringing’.

Damn this ringtone, every time it rings while I sleep, makes me think of myself as Jack Sparrow. Sleep and phone call is really a depressing combination and I love being depressive, sometimes of course, So instead of putting it on silent, I picked up the call.

‘Holy shit, you picked up the call’ the lady shouted from the other side. Without even saying a word I disconnected the call. International calls can really rip off your pockets. I realized I should have cut the call and would have dialed back to her. After all I am using a cheap India calling card, but then who thinks this much while sleeping. I sat there for few more minutes and then dialed to calling card number, ‘Please enter the phone number you wish to dial, followed by the pound key’ a recorded message of a lady with an extremely lovable voice, played’ I typed her number. Yes, I remember the number, thanks to this stupid calling card.

‘I am sorry’ was the opening words of the day. ‘Hello’ is outdated. ‘I was in sleep’ I added to justify my mistake.

‘Its 11:17 in morning here, that makes 11:47 night over there, I can’t believe you were sleeping’  

What the…

‘Anyway, my mood is really off and I am not feeling like talking to anyone’

Okays that means I do not belong to the group of ‘anyone’ and talking to me will make her off mood go jolly, wow, this is not jack sparrow story, this is story of Will turner and Elizabeth Swann, though I am not a sword maker and she does not look that pretty and also does not wear such tight cloths and also she doesn’t know to swim and also…never mind.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked playing almost all the scenes from the movie were William and Elizabeth were involved.

‘I need to book a tatkal ticket and no one over here was able to book it today, which leaves me only with one day and that is tomorrow.’ She said.

Truly speaking, my brain stopped receiving those noise wave signals as soon as it decoded the words ‘Tatkal Ticket’. A blue white screen started revolving around my eyes with hour glass rotating in a vacuum where no external force was working on it. She would have asked for my neighbor’s eye or a vada pav here in Chicago or an American girl named Saraswati or a blue colored tomato or a red color American cow or whatever but ‘Tatkal Ticket’? I mean oh lord Jesus what kind of test is this? I know you test our love but seriously dude ‘Tatkal Ticket’?

‘Hello, your there?’

Yes where the hell would I go? I am here, listening to your funny way of telling me, I am no good for you. 

Yes, I am here.

‘Can you try from there?’

Of course, why not after all ‘Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshou kada chana’.  I will try, although I know booking a tatkal ticket is like running behind a chicken to catch an ostrich but then ‘Girte hain shesawar hi maidane jang me, wo tifl kya girenge jo ghutno ke bal chale’

‘Yes’ after motivating myself from ‘Shrimad Bhagvat Geeta’ and a few lines from Azeem Dehalvi, Here I was loud and clear.

‘Thank you thank you thank you’ she was like Kareena Kapoor of Jab we met. ‘I will send you the details. You know na when you have to login? Nevermind I will send you all the details in mail’

‘ok’

‘So how are you? And how is weather over there? I heard something like polar vertex. Is everything ok? Of course it will be, after all you love winter’

How sweet. Do I need to say something or you will add more? Ha, typical, sometimes I think I am a victim of dual personality disorder. A part of me says, ‘how sweet’ and the other part just says ‘ha’, I need to find myself, well…ha!

Next day I received the mail. Two tickets? Holy mother of cow. Who is the guy? I checked the time 5 minutes to 10:30 PM my time. So there was no time to shake the tree of loyalty. ‘Bajarang bali it’s a test for my love, please help me’ and I clicked on login. Click click and click. Online banking User id and password. Click click and few more clicks. ‘Do you want a printout’ a window popped up. I read it twice. I could not believe my eyes, my brain was trying to decode it several times to make sure what it was receiving was authentic. ‘yes it was’ ‘Bajaran bali did it’ ‘holy Indian cow dung, I did it’ 'I did it'. I saved the ticket as PDF file and replied back to the mail attaching the file. This is called a real attachment. Ishq wala love type asli wala real attachment.

A single word reply came back ‘call’. And I went through the same process of the India calling card.

‘I love you, I knew you would do it. I knew. I told him that you are my bestest best friend. We both desperately wanted to go on this trip. Now it’s happening just because of you, thank you thank you thank you’

‘No problem at all. Have a wonderful trip BOTH OF YOU.’ I said last three words in capitals. Sigh! I told you that sometimes I just love to depress myself.

Well, what if she doesn't love you, at least she said ‘I love you isn’t she? I asked myself. ‘Ha…!’ I replied.

Hindi movie scene !!

9 o clock and they all were here. Four mallus, same age same language and in same house, can be noisy like old Yamaha rx-100 with its silencer damaged. Sunday morning is already considered spoiled, if you wake up at 9. I looked at my other roommate who fortunately is a Tamilian, was already scratching his head and faking smiles. ‘four mallus’ I said to him, his fake smile turned into a genuine one.

Story is something like this. I live with two other fellas, one tamil and other being a maliyali. One of the friend of this mallu guy is getting engaged today so they all decided to come over, so the scene, basically it was get together of the groom and his three other friends for the event which was scheduled in the evening. Well being roommates of one of them we were also cordially invited. And this was the only reason we both were faking smiles to their annoying, loud, non understandable comments, conversations and over the top laughs. Or maybe I was just pissed off being not able to complete my sleep on a Sunday morning.

Almost whole day there was no change in the situation; headphone helped for some time but then how long eardrums can be beaten with extra decibels. Finally time came and they all got busy in finding matching socks and matching tie for their well stitched suit. My Tamil friend came over, ‘dude, suit?’ I smiled, ‘now days people wear suits in India also and you in US my friend’

‘but I don’t have any’

‘then why the hell I am here for, take mine, but then you have to compromise with some short sleeves and tight waist’ I winked.

And there we were, five good looking and one extra good looking gentlemen, not me, the groom. Venue was in Wheeling, it was grand, I mean if you see in other way, everything is grand in here. I would have called it grand if it was back there in India. But yes, it was nice, well decorated and well organized. I felt like I was visiting a auditorium where a big drama is going to be performed and the best part was that I was not even asked to buy a ticket.

I could see so many people around, mostly mallus, both the families were there, happy of course, people eating chatting and drinking. We were still there with the groom and only thing pending was the ring ceremony but the girl or I should say bride was not in yet.

Twenty minute passed. Thirty minutes passed. Forty minute passed. We were now sitting instead of standing, people were done eating and chatting, there were less faces with smiles, now they all wanted this to be finished. ‘its getting late’ was written on every face including ours.

Finally a lady came in, I was sure she was not the bride, must be one of her friend. She directly walked to us and said, ‘she wants to talk to you’ whoever heard, faces turned pale. This malyali engagement scene was really turning into a hindi movie scene. Before anyone could understand what was going on, the girl and groom were out of the sight.  Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed and just after it crossed seventeen minutes, we saw him coming out bride was walking with him. This time again the couple directly walked to us. She turned to me, ‘will you still be quite?’ I froze, what the…she was talking to me, the bride, in this grave and this threat like situation was asking me if I would still be quite? Quite? To hell with quite, I don’t even know her, I freaking don’t even know her name. I felt all eyes on me, including my roommate, inside my heart I pleaded, ‘oh greatest mallu god, please be merciful on this poor little hindi speaking soul’ I freaking hope that Maliyali Gods understand hindi or English for that matter.

‘I love you and I know you love me too’ she said and I skipped few beats, brain stopped, lungs struggled for air, eyes stoned, mouth felt drought, arms and legs felt quake, a complete weather extreme disaster. whole body said, ‘dude this is the best time to collapse and talk to the floor’

‘Manu, what is this all?’ this time it was groom. ‘Manu?’ I repeated. ‘Manu?...i am not Manu…I am…I am…I struggled to recollect my name but before that someone walked passed me, pushing me aside. 'Holy shi…Chicago….mind you Chicago is pronounced as ‘shicago’ so this replacement is valid. Soon I came back to senses and thanked my parents for not keeping my name ‘Manu’. I turned to my Tamil friend, 'what was name again?' he ignored, better scene was ahead.

Half of the crowed left the place. There were few close once left. Later I came to know that Manu wanted to sacrifice his love for his friend. I guess I have heard a similar story or rather I might have watched it, typical hindi movie or maybe malyali movie, but then they all are some or the other way inspired by some real life events.

Think before you ask for reservation..

He was sitting on a dirty piece of cloth surrounded be many other similar people, mostly wearing whites. I slowly walked to him and sat beside him. He smiled seeing me there. I smiled back, after all he was my friend and he insisted me to come and join them in their assembly to protest against the government to get reservation for their clan. Truly speaking i myself is against these reservations but after thousands of logical explanations of the harms it is causing to the society i was unable to convince him and here i was sitting beside him.

There were many leaders of their clan sitting on a big stage and many were sitting on comfortable sofas near the stage, which was unlike us who were just given a sheet which was full of dust and footprints of those who were already on the sofas. One by one they were coming to the dice and speaking something to provoke the crowd, in words of my friend they were trying to motivate the crowd. I tried to listen the motivation.

‘Are we dogs? Every time we ask for reservation we are shooed by those who are already enjoying the reservation. They think we only bark, but now it is time to bite. But that does not mean we are dogs, we are...we are...’ i guess he forgot what he is, i laughed but controlled myself, there were too many of them getting inspiration from the dog talk.

‘we are wolves and it is time that we get what we deserve and we can go to any extent in order to get it. Are you ready?’ he shouted from the stage and when i heard the response, it was clear that this peaceful protest can anytime turn violent and these wolves are either going to kill or going to get killed. I turned to my friend who was still shouting, ‘let’s get out of here, it’s not safe’ i told him but he was busy playing dogs and wolves. ‘i am out of here’ i said and walked towards the exit. Before i could reach the safe zone, police was already in action and scene turned into a war zone. People shouting, running, falling and again running.

I came to the main road and was out of the action scene. Later when i called my friend the voice from the other side gave me address of a hospital. I reached there and was waiting outside the room where he was getting treated. In few minutes a nurse came out and started laughing as soon as she was out of the door. Weird! I thought. ‘Can i meet him?’ i asked. ‘yes of course, but don’t laugh in front of him, just come out like me’ she said laughing louder. I left her laughing and moved in. I saw a doctor wearing a mask signalled me beyond the curtain, but his eyes were clearly laughing. ‘What is the matter with these guys’ i thought.  

I moved the curtain. He was there lying on a bed face down. He was naked below waist and there was a big horizontal black and blue mark on his bum, which was clearly result of police stick and was making a big ‘plus’ with the other natural line of course. I smiled (actually i controlled my laugh). Before i could say anything he looked at me, ‘I am fine’ ‘of course you are’ ‘only thing doctor said not to fart for few days, how in the name of god it’s possible, idiotic isn’t it’ he said with an angry face. ‘Reservation you know, you will find more of them in future’ i slowly said. He went quite. ‘How does it look?’ he asked after a pause. I thought for a while and then said, ‘POSITIVE’ i heard the doctor laugh on this, i joined. ‘At least a doctor should be serious in his profession’ he said. I heard more laughter.

Just a small way..

‘Great, that would be really good. In fact i was about ask your father to tell you to come home for a week. It has been long that we have kept them waiting.’ My mother said trying to control her excitement. This was the reaction when i said i was planning to come home for few days, as i had some leaves and work was moderate, so was best time to come home. But now with her this statement i started giving a second thought on my travel.

I have been avoiding all this for long now. Its the age, which is to be blamed. My mother thinks its being late for me to get married now. She has already started the process of searching a suitable girl for me and has selected and rejected few of them on her level. And finally there were two of them who were, according to her, good enough for me to meet. As if i was the prime minister of India and i had to decide either i want to sign a defence agreement with US or Russia. I know i know defence agreement is department of defence ministry and president and not prime minister, it was just to explain the situation.

Anyway now real problem was ahead. I wanted to go home but not with this condition of meeting some girl. ‘what should i do now?’ i asked particularly no one, and that no one replied nothing, strange, isn’t it? There was no one to help or to provide some solution for this grave issue. I tried explaining the situation to many of my friends and almost all of them laughed on it and said what’s harm in meeting them and yes all of them asked to let them know what happened over there. One of them even said, when you meet the girl take a picture from your cell phone like shahid kapoor takes in movie vivah, ha...i don’t know whether to laugh on this or cry on the movie. Movies have become too unrealistic now days.

I took the printout in my hand, staring it, one thing was sure that i was going home and that too in next four days. I was yet to find a way to avoid meeting any girl. I thought, thought and thought about it. Next three days just kept thinking. And yes there it was, a solution and a perfect one.

I was standing in front of my home, smiling on the brilliant idea that came out of my own processor. Controlling my smile i pressed the doorbell. She opened the door and her jaw dropped, here i was head shaved. ‘too hot isn’t it?’ i asked and winked. She was still standing on the door, mouth opened.

eh?

She ordered two cups of coffee and turned to me, ‘It’s after long time that we both are meeting and none of your friends are here to disturb’ she said. I just smiled and shook my head in agreement.

‘I was really thrilled when I saw your message that you wanted to meet me’ she added and I just kept smiling. ‘I like your smile’ she said and the smile which I had maintained, vanished. ‘No more smile’ my brain shouted.

I heard my mind and prepared myself for the task which I had promised my friend. Before I could start a conversation from my end, she said again, ‘Is everything alright? I mean you are you so silent?’

‘Oh yes, I am fine…it’s just that I wanted to tell you something but I don’t know how to start it…I am afraid how you might take it’ I said.

She smiled and kept her hand on my hand, ‘weird’ I thought. ‘You can tell me anything’ she said. ‘Okay, then here it goes’ I thought and started,

‘You are a good friend of mine. So thought that it would be better if I talk to you about it first and then we can come on any further conclusion’ I stopped to look at her reactions. She was smiling or blushing or both, it was hard to guess. ‘Weird’ I thought. Ignoring her, I thought I should directly come to the point, I started,

‘See, there is this guy and he likes you very much but is afraid of telling directly to you, for obvious reasons…so….’ Before I could end the sentence, she said,

‘I know; I know this guy and I think he is real cute, even I like him very much and I also know that the guy is present in this cafe’

‘eh?’ was my reply. Then I saw my friend sitting at the far corner.

Flashback

‘I know you are the only one who would be able to do this for me’ he said passing the glass of tea to me. He is my friend and I know him from the time when we use to wear half pants in school.

‘I love her so much yaar and thanks to lord hanuman that she is a good friend of yours’. He was praying lord Hanuman, for a girl, forgetting that Lord himself was a brahmchari, funny I thought. ‘You just have to talk to her and convey the message, I will handle there after’ he said.

‘Please yaar, after all you are my best friend’ he showed all his yellowish teeth to me, which left no choice but to agree.

‘Okay okay, I will do it, but yes or no is totally her choice, I will just inform about you, that’s it’ I said. He was so happy that he threw himself on me to hug me. I took my cell phone and messaged to her, ‘Hey hi, how r u? Are you free this evening, need to talk about something’ there was an instant reply with the time and venue, which made him jump almost a feet in air. ‘I will also come, but not with you’ he said.

‘Eh?’ was my reply.

Back to current

 I was surprised and also happy that whatever complications, we thought would occur, none of those happened. I was going to stretch my hand to congratulate her but stopped myself as she said,

‘You don’t need to make it round and round to tell me something, you can directly say, but I loved the way you have put all this things in place, I really liked it.’ I smiled in agreement.

‘I may also do the same, telling that a friend of mine likes you very much but that will be a bit repetitive now, so here it goes, even I like you very much and always wanted to tell you but your friends made it difficult and whenever I tried to talk to you they will interfere, specially the one with long hair’. She was talking about him, the one for whom I was playing messenger.

‘But today all my wishes have come true, you yourself said what I wanted to tell you, I love you too’ she said, and I was like,

‘Eh?’

......... 

injection, which i remembered

I entered home with a bang, literally, the bang came from the bag hitting the floor, and before that, it was in air at least for 4 seconds.

‘One day I will make it touch to the fan’ I said to my younger brother who was small enough not to understand what I said, but the kind of expressions he was giving were weird, eyes stretched, teeth clenched, nose pulled up and four to five skin-made lines on the forehead. ‘What are you up to brother?’ I asked as if the two year lad will answer in Latin, well he answered but it came from some other route…n surely it was Latin. I just held my breath and almost, with a voice of puuufffffff…I was in front of my mom saying, ‘holy cow, I smelled the shit’. She stared at me, may be because I used the word ‘shit’ but then that’s what I did, I mean not did, I smelled, yuk.

‘I have to take you to the doctor’ she said while she was cleaning the shit off (literally) and I was still using both the hands to cover my nose. After that whatever she said I don’t remember except ‘injection’, I have heard about it from some of my friends, it makes a hole in your butt and you are not able to walk properly after that. Blood in the vein dried, air in the lungs disappeared, head started spinning, eyes started rolling, legs trembling and next moment, I was on the ground. ‘enough, you do the same act every time, try something creative next time and if you don’t get up in next second I will make you wash your brothers butts’ my mother said laughing, and I was on my feet. ‘But mom…’

‘It is for your good and will protect you from hepatitis B’

‘Bloody B grade hippopotamus’

‘Its hepatitis…not hippo…’

‘Yeah yeah, I know…’

Hospital was hardly a walk away from my home and in no time we were in front of a hell like beautiful lady, in minis, having long white legs like, like…hmm…like…

‘Mom, which animal has very long legs?’ ‘Giraffe’

‘Yes…like giraffe…but white giraffe’ I said.

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked in confusion.

‘Oops…nothing’ I bit my lips.

‘Okay…say hello to sister’ she said pointing towards the girl in mini.

Hello…what? Sister? Oh forget it mom, she can be your daughter-in-law, but never your daughter. I omitted the word ‘sister’ from my ‘hello’ and instead of replying to my hello she pointed me towards the corner, which was having a bed with green curtains around. A bed, a curtain, she seems to be in hurry, I thought. I almost forgot why I was here, but it didn’t take long to realize and next moment I was lying, my shorts down, and the girl mini, rubbing my butt. I turned towards my mother with a look of ‘can’t you see your son is getting harassed by this Giraffe legged lady’ she smiled, as if understood, and said ‘its some antibiotic, which will make your skin germ free’ uufff…somebody help…and then the moment came, nurse drilled my left butt and I was helpless just thinking about the size of hole it might have made. While walking to home my mother said, ‘Did you do something in your pants?’

‘No…yuk….hell no’ I shouted.

‘Then walk straight, no need to act’. I started walking properly, and then I realized there was nothing wrong to my butts. I smiled, looked up and saw she was also smiling.      

profile of THE GIRL !!

Mom was more eager than me to see her future daughter-in-law. And why not after all, the girl was suggested by one of her dearest friend, one of the aunties which I have known since I started speaking the word ‘aunty’.

‘Can you do it fast?’ she asked, showing all her eagerness to have a glimpse of the girl. I was sure that aunty might have built an image of some princess, well I cannot blame her for this too, after all she is playing a part of advertiser.

‘patience patience’ I told her with a smile, as I was using just a dual core processor machine, that too with a plug in Tata photon, trying to open world’s busiest website called Facebook. If you are not aware of this site, I guess, I finally met my Stone Age ancestors.

Finally I was in front of the light blue screen, my mother, peeking into it from behind. I entered The name, in the rectangle area of the search box, which my mother gave me and was a descent one, but as some great poet and philosopher had said ‘what is there in a name’ so I am avoiding the name of both, the philosopher and the girl.

Pressed enter and a list of profiles popped out. I turned to my mother with an expression of interrogation. She was already busy with the phone dialing to the same aunty for more details so that we can shortlist the correct girl from the given list.

‘She is wearing a black top in her profile picture, some hard rock café in the background and had studied in St. Xavier College’ she said still on phone asking for some other specifications.  Hard Rock Café, St Xavier College, sounds real interesting. I have spent almost two years roaming around St. Xavier, best part is their uniform, minis and all, and I know all this because I had many friends studying there, in case your eyebrows are going up.

‘I got it’ as soon as I saw a profile matching with the specifications and next moment my mother was in charge of the laptop.

Observations

Profile picture was cool; she was posing as if for an ad shoot. I liked it.

‘Photos’ section was blocked for ones who were not in her friend list, except few clicks here and there which were sober enough for a hippy, again, I liked it.

‘About me’ section was not completely hidden, I could find a quote which said something like ‘attitude is in my blood, you mess with my attitude, you mess with me, period’ well I liked it.

‘Interests’ well this was the best part, it was completely open. I don’t remember all but I will list the top two, don’t mind if you still live in black and white world, they were, smoking hukka and enjoying vodka shots. Well what to say, may be I will also get a chance to take a puff, so I liked it.

My mother, after each section gave different expressions, which, in sequence, were something like ‘God see her dress’ ‘is this snap taken in some bar?’ ‘Oh my God’ and after the last one, well she didn’t speak anything so I can say ‘speechless of shock’ she turned and without even looking at me started towards the kitchen. I was left there laughing.

After controlling my laugh, I turned towards kitchen and shouted, ‘I liked the girl’ and I heard a sound, I guess something fell off from my mother’s hands.

What matters is....the result !!

I had done a blunder in the first paper of upsc civil service exam, yeah yeah you can laugh on a poor software engineer who is trying his luck for a high profile government job, and that poor fellow is none other than me.  Its not that I went unprepared, I had scanned at least two books wrote on general studies, without even thinking why I wanted to know the name of an animal which was printed on a coin which was found in an ancient city called mohan jodero (not sure at all if I wrote the city name correctly). But the point here is I was preparing for this from last two months and still was not very sure that why vultures are rarely seen nowadays, yes this was one of the easiest question but with one of the toughest options given to choose from, chuck it…

Here I was, in a real congested environment, searching for a small piece of land mass to dump my bum. I had read something called population burst in India, now was able to see it live. People really need government job, at least the count of person appearing, forced me to think of it. Everyone, with hell lot of seriousness on their faces was busy staring in some or the other book. ‘I just want a place for my not so big pair of books (what did you think?)

With no other option, I placed my bag on fuel tank of a bike which was standing just in front of the gate and sat it on it like Ghostrider and opened the book which had a title of ‘how to clear aptitude test in one week’ Bad joke…I know. I had hardly read three lines, heard someone shouting so loud that I think even bats would have heard (see the impact of such intensive study) ‘hey you, the one on the bike’. I realized that he was addressing me. ‘Get the hell down from my bike’ he added in his extra decibels. I glanced at the bike, it was not a brand new, neither was it Harley Davidson, so I was unmovable, and so was he, both feared of losing their place. He kept staring; I kept reading line after line.

Finally he stood up, and then I realized he was almost six feet tall and almost two feet wide, why not joining some army and all with such a physical build? Unnecessarily blocking one seat of some poor and weak guy. But it was not time for career consultancy, it was time to get down and if possible run away from the bike. I did the first part. He saw and went back on his place, I did the same, I mean I was again on the bike…hehehe… he stood again and I was down again. Finally he lost his cool and ran towards me like a bull runs in a bullfight, by the time he reached his bike, I was far enough of his reach. Then I realize that some of the other candidates were enjoying the stint, and it was real childish on my side too, well, to be precise I felt like the same when we used to ring the doorbell of some random house and run away. Here only the difference was, I was doing that dare in front of the owner, but there was no other place for me to sit and study and I was not even stealing his fuel (so much for a rise in petrol price)

Finally somehow I managed to study standing and appeared in the examination room. Still ten minutes left for the big time and I saw the same six feet guy coming in the same room, I made weird faces so that he cannot recognize me. To hell with the new seating arrangement he just came and sat next to me. I covered my face with hands as if in real exam fever, which turned out to be real effective and he was still unaware of me.

Everyone started to fill the small circles which were going to decide the fate of many including me. ‘What is the exact time?’ he turned to me asking. I felt the drought in my mouth, gathered some of the water drops left in my throat and said, ‘I guess its bad time for me’ I could make out that if at all he was not writing this important piece of paper, he would have broke my jaws right there. I could hear the sound of teeth crushing in his mouth. But there was nothing much he could do.

I came out smiling. Heard people saying it was too lengthy and they missed many questions because of the lack of time. I wonder how he, the six feet guy, had performed. Well if you ask me? Who knew I will finish the complete paper while there was still few minutes left. And the reason for it? Oh just leave that aside, what matters is the result. Cheers!!      

watch out !!

6^th April, Friday, and here I was leaving office at 7:37, for a Friday it is considered to be late, let me know if you disagree, I will listen to you and will give a damn to it.

I saw another chap, like me, was running, rather I should say hopping towards me, in a possibly full speed, drenched fully in water like me, it was a frog, I am not saying that I look like a frog, frog looks better (I will say this if the question was asked by a female frog or a girl who loves a animal loving guy). If you are still thinking why the frog and myself were drenched, then don’t think we were shooting for a romantic song; it was because we were facing some serious weather changes due to some serious global warming effects. Oh yes! It was raining over here and I was not able to resist myself. No No, you got me wrong, I don’t like to get wet in rain but in comparison to staying in office I just had no other choice left.

Meanwhile I heard a loud voice of footsteps behind me, without even looking back I could guess that she was a girl, which boy will dare to wear high heels and above that which boy will dare to run wearing those high heels. I turned my neck almost 90 degrees to left, just to check If I had guessed it right and here it goes, a girl, high heels, tight blue jeans, professional black shirt, headphones in ears, purse on one shoulder, iPod in one hand and an umbrella in other, running, either because in some time umbrella is going to melt and all make-up will wash out or she is cousin of Cinderella and her time limit is over and she might turn into a beggar or something like that. Keep guessing.

For me there were more issues ahead, I realized the poor fellow (considering its size) and poor lady (considering her melting umbrella) are just going to run in to each other and that too just beside me. (I was always good in physics, especially the problems related to time, distance and speed) and the time left in this collision was only 2.3 seconds.

Tik tik one, tik tik two and boom…no wait, what happened? Was there a mistake in calculating the time? No, at the moment of 2.1 second they just saw each other.

Next moment, a 120 decibel loud sound came out of the mouth of lady, the frog must have scared her, I saw the frog, no it didn’t shout, must have gone into a shock. To avoid the collision and each other’s face they both jumped to their right. The frog ended in the waist length bushes situated across the path and the lady on me. Whoa, what a horrible day.

‘Are you ok?’ I asked while she was trying to remove her heels from my foot and hands from my shoulder. ‘See you scared the poor frog to hell, and it ended in the bushes’. She smiled and said, ‘you saved me’ If you think anything like this really happened then think again, because you are thinking it right, it happened for sure but with a slight difference, instead of jumping to their right, they both jumped to their left and I ended up saying,

‘Are you ok?’ I asked while I was able to see her legs out of the bushes. ‘See you scared the poor lady to hell and she ended in the bushes’ I said looking at the frog which was still sitting on my left shoe.  I thought of giving a hand to help her in coming out of bushes but was not able to control my laugh (which for obvious reasons would have offended her) after walking few steps I turned and saw her out of bushes and searching for the frog. Meanwhile I saw another lady running towards the point of accident, I just said to her, ‘watch out for the frog.... 

A vegetarian girlfriend !!

‘Plain omelet’ I said to the man standing on the other side of the counter.

‘I heard that, you going to eat egg, you killer, you told me you will never eat non-vegetarian food and here look at you, you are such a liar, such a heartless and coldblooded murderer’ the voice shouted from the other side of the phone, which was stuck between my ear and my shoulder as my both hands were busy searching my wallet for change of three rupees. See the inflation, a single omelet is costing me thirteen rupees, oh my god, how will a poor man like me will survive in this not so poor environment, ha ha, my soul laughed at my situation. Here I was worried about inflation, but the real, more bigger, heart throbbing issue was on the other side of the phone.

‘Will you speak now? What happened to the promise you made of not eating non-veg? Tell, tell now, no boy is worth of trust’ she was still shouting, first of all I don’t understand if these girls are always alone? I mean she is shouting like hell (I know I know hell doesn’t shout, people inside hell shout), is there nobody listening her, think of me shouting, whole cafeteria will turn towards me and some girls will gaze as if I am harassing their clan. Anyway, there was no way to escape,

‘Oh common yaar, I never promised such stupid things, I just said I will not eat when you are present, isn’t it? And It’s just an egg, that too a boiler egg, if you won’t eat it, still it will never gonna produce a hen so just don’t over react’ I tried my best to avoid any more conflict between us.

‘but you did it now, you are eating it in my presence, and don’t try to wash my brain with your stupid logics, there is no way I can trust you’ Well, I just came to know a new term called virtual presence of someone, so what if she is not present with me literally but she is there on phone, inst it enough? And truly speaking, it was not the first time that I was eating while talking to her, only difference today was I forgot to keep hand on the microphone of my cell while ordering the omelet, such an irresponsible act.

Thought of what to say next to her was making life tough, but thanks to her, she came with some new way of making my life tougher, ‘see you have crossed the limit of my tolerance, you have to decide it now, either you chose me or you choose to eat some innocent life’

Next moment I walked to the counter ‘please cancel my order of omelet’ the person looked at me with a hint of surprise because I was also giving him a fifty rupee note. ‘And make it chicken burger’