Overheard a conversation on the bus. Two guys sitting behind me were animatedly discussing their last evening. They were friends who worked in different organisations and were going to work at the same time. So this is how it went - I only became aware of the conversation midway, and that is what I report below:
Guy 1: ... and X kept calling and calling! First on my regular number, then on my second number. I was in a client call and couldn't get out! Guy 2: I know! Same here! X kept calling me too and I was stuck in work, couldn't even pick up the call. I was just sitting there, sweating! Guy 1: I had to finally aexcuse myself and got out of the meeting room to answer him. I thought it was an emergency, and it was! Guy 2: I think that's the time we connected, right? (I am immensely invested at this point, visualizing some sort of calamity happening in Person X's life, who desperately needs these two to pitch in. Now wait.) Guy 1: That's right! And it was a bad, bad situation! (Guy 2 makes agreeing noises.)They had almoooost taken over everything, and X just wouldn't have been able to hold them off. Even with the three of us... (pregnant pause where they relive the trauma and the close shave) Guy 1: ...even with the three of us, it was hard. We finally had to get the dragons in! That was how we saved the day. (second pregnant pause where they relive the close shave and the success) I tried to turn my head and eyeball the two dingdongs, but they were exactly behind me, so it would have been rather rude.burning bright
Friday 2 September 2022
Wednesday 31 August 2022
A little splatter
She stood on the platform and looked at the incoming train with curious dispassion. It was a train. It had mass. It had speed.
Didn't Newton's apple have those as well, she wondered vaguely.
Oh yeah. Apples didn't leave a splattering of flesh and blood and bones behind when they fell. Or maybe they did, if they were overripe. She had never seen apples splatter.
It sounded ... interesting. Apples, people. What did it matter? It should be an interesting experience. How did apples feel when they splattered? Did they feel any pain? Or were they too numb already? Already splattered inside?
How would it feel to splatter, she thought idly, and was almost afraid that she didn't feel ... anything. Not fear. Not pain. Not inhibition. It was such a simple thing. All she had to do was stand on the edge as the train entered, maybe extend a leg over the side. Just a little. It was so easy to lose balance. So easy to splatter. Maybe she will feel something then. Something other than this vague experimental curiosity about apples. Other than the blank numbness.
This train didn't stop at the station. Or did it? What station was it even? She had no clue.
But as the train blew a fierce whistle and entered the platform, scattering away the crows from tops of overhead wires and making the people reading the day's newspaper look back, she gently extended one foot beyond the edge.
It didn't feel much, after all.
Tuesday 22 March 2022
Gender bender
So I was walking down to unlock the gate this morning, with my cat's offspring in tow. Two boys from the neighbourhood were taking turns to ride a bike and saw me at the gate. I called out to them, and they noticed the kitten behind me. Of course they had to stop and check out the new member in the locality.
"Is that Jack's baby?"
"Who's Jack?" I'm slightly perplexed; we have stray cats here, who are mostly attached to individual houses but visit other households as well, and get fed almost everywhere. So each cat can have different names in different households.
"Why, the white cat who had kittens in thaaat house?" They point vaguely at some house yonder and look at me reproachfully. How could I not know Jack?
"Oh, that Jack," I hurriedly back down. I still have no clue who Jack is, but since Puchu had her kittens in the house next to ours, she can't be Jack. "Nope, not him."
"I know," pipes up the other kid, "This is Meenu's baby!"
"Nope," I have to disillusion him, "This is Puchu's baby."
They are confused. Puchu is my name for the white cat who frequents our house and whose kitten is following me, but they probably call her something else. They, however, struggle valiantly to get to the bottom of the matter.
"The white cat?"
I nod.
"With a black tail?"
I nod vigorously, to show that they are on the right track. Secretly, this description fits about five cats in the neighbourhood. Of both genders.
"Jack." They reassure me gravely after considering all five options. "This is Jack's baby."
As luck would have it, Puchu chose that moment to drop gracefully from the boundary wall and stroll towards her mewing kitten. My audience stares at her as understanding dawns.
"Ah!" They exclaim in unison. "That's Jack's brother!"
The delights of being around innocence!
Wednesday 13 January 2021
Ghost alert!
Our garden of beetles and snakes also hosts the paranormal. Here's proof of the haunting, and the background story.
So I had spotted two frogs doing the double-back in the garden, and it was too good an opportunity to let go. It was night time, and it was drizzling, which was both good and bad. Bad because of visibility and the danger of moisture getting into the camera, good because the drizzle took care of the mosquitoes so I could take my time observing the...event. I decided not to risk the Nikon. The phone camera was handy, and accordingly, I spent some time being the voyeur. As an aside, I must admit I was pretty impressed by them frogs. You wouldn't have known that such squat lazy figures could jump so nimbly while...umm...not breaking the position. The Kamasutra folks could have taken tips. Photo somewhere in my Facebook.
But this story is not about the frogs. This story is about paranormal activity in the garden.
Once I was back inside the house and admiring all the frog pics, I saw some dark shots. "Ah, blank shots", I thought. I must have pressed the Click button without realizing. All that slickness due to the drizzle.
Then I noticed a faint outline of what seemed like a part of face peering at me in closeup the last pic. Wha..??!! I pinched it out for a better look but after a point, it just became grainier. I called up the other apparently blank shots and zoomed into them. A couple of shots were too dark to make anything out, but at least two more showed a part of a face. Again, pretty close to the camera. Since I was there alone, out in the garden, focusing on two frogs, there was NO way anybody should be peering out from my camera!
I wasn't sure whether to be shit scared, or whether to be thrilled that somehow, I had managed to gather solid evidence of the paranormal. But I sure was glad that I escaped unharmed! Whatever it was that showed up on film didn't do anything else at least. To be honest, I was rattled enough to stay away from the garden for the next couple of nights.
A few days later, I was still trying to figure out how to react. Should I just put a lid on it and forget I ever saw anything odd, or should I keep probing? Which was the more rational way to go? I had unconsciously pulled out the pics and were going through them again when that outline looked kinda... familiar? I looked closer. Sure enough! Wasn't that the zit I was trying to get rid of? And since when did ghosts wear glasses?
Yeah. I had accidentally pressed the front camera of my mobile. Those pics were the result.
Sunday 30 June 2013
Of Confused Dogs and Butterfly Effects
Friday 3 May 2013
Sorry
The deal
Mind games
Mediocrity
Unguarded moments
My firefly
Beauti-Fool
No-Kia
I lost my phone.
Big deal, right? You can't throw a stone without hitting somebody who hasn't. You know the drill: block number, lodge complaint, get duplicate SIM, hunt for a decent handset. And hope to f****** god you hadn't added any new numbers after that last synchronization.
Right. The catch is, this is my fourth phone to be replaced. Or maybe my sixth. Or seventh. My friends -- though I'm not too sure if they do fall in that category -- will be able to tell ya better. Personally, I couldn't care less.
But my friends, they thrive on such lapses in my judgement! They consider my phones a permanent source of entertainment, and not the let's-see-what-new-songs-you-added variety either. Even before I got my first cell, I had faced umpteen friends lamenting on the fact that I don't have one yet. 'But of course, what's the point in your getting one?' They'd immediately tagged on. 'You're going to lose it anyway.'
You get the point? Smacks of the Greek tragedies. Doomed even before being born.
So I had a point to prove. My first baby lasted an entire year and a half. Or maybe even two. I'm sure my friends have forgotten THAT! And then of course Euripedes caught up with me. My phone got dunked in Sprite. And I haven't been able to live it down yet.
Ok, I agree it's maybe not exactly what the Nokia stress tests have in mind, though if you really think about it, why ever not? You have a phone in one hand, along with some books or stuff. You have a PET bottle of the fizzies in the other. You shove the stuff in the left hand into a plastic bag you're carrying. You take a swig from the PET in the right, close your eyes to feel the cool caress your throat, and thrust it into the bag before it gets warmed up, forgetting that the cap hasn't been screwed on tight.
Not really that weird, right?
The next one had quite a boring finale. It stayed with me for all of two months, I think. When the time came, it slipped quietly out of my pocket in some cab seat. I still have the dress. I still feel the pocket for the bugger. I still remember how people laughed -- quite nonchalantly, like a prophesy fulfilled.
I am a little hazy on the family tree after that. Maybe a coupla phones later, I changed jobs, retired my old phone because it was hiccuping a bit, and got a spanking new one with a spacey keypad that wouldn't cramp my fingers while texting. That got pickpocketed in a bus. But who can keep track of a mom, two huge shopping bags, a fancy-ish dress being ogled at in a crowded bus, AND a phone?
Result: Another round of raucous laughter.
I wonder if they started betting on it then. There seemed to be such an air of anticipation! Chance acquaintances who really had no reason to be in on the sad habits of Nokia-snatchers in the city would come up and merrily ask if I still have that last phone.
'Which phone?' I ask cautiously.
'Why, that XpressMusic you had?' And then they'd split into wide grins. 'You mean you got a new one?'
And then there are these regulars who would greet me with a hi-long-time-no-see-is-that-the-last-phone-still. End with a lift of voice. Cheerful anticipation written all over their sorry mugs.
So people started behaving like addicts deprived of their shot when I actually managed to stay in Mumbai for two whole months with two whole handsets. No slips. No cab leftovers. No buspicking. No quiet melting away. No Sprite.
And then, last Friday, I discovered Eurip had revisited. The phone case was empty. So was the bag. The jeans pockets. The backpockets. No phone. Nada. Nil. Zippola. Zilch.
My friends ODed.
They haven't quite stopped celebrating.
So I'm looking for a new set of friends. I'm ready to disown all the current ones.
All frequenters to Nokia shops, please contact. ASAP.
Amchi Mumbai!
I remember the first time I realized this. Our bunch of three girls used to travel around the city in all odd hours, and since this was our first time away from home, it had a heady rush of freedom, which we enjoyed to the fullest! So this time we were returning home, late-ish, say eleven at night. Considering that it's a new city where we didnt know anybody or any routes, that wasn't too smart. Then one of us went looking for an auto, took too long, and the other went searching for her. I was waiting for them to return. Suddenly I realized that it was late at night, I was a lone woman standing on a seedy-looking pavement full of unsavoury characters milling all around me, and I had no conveyance! I caught a breath and tried to discreetly gauge how bad it was. Should I run? Should I start walking towards the direction my friends had gone? Our cell phones weren't working that day for some reason. After a brief pause came my second realization...I wasn't feeling threatened in the least! The people around me were just ordinary people wrapping up their roadside shops, or walking to get some fresh air, or just hanging about with buddies. And NOBODY was in the least interested in me! They were the same nice friendly folks we had seen everywhere else, whether it was the sun shining in the sky or the moon.
And that was when I converted to a Mumbaikar!
~3 April 2011