The Damp Camp

Part I

It has been a while since I wrote about any interesting anecdote. No, please do not jump into any conclusion. My life has never been more interesting in a while. But wives, cellphones and writing do not always go together. Remember, all my past posts have always been written when events have turned such that the former two were away from earshot. But I do not blame you for never inquiring about that. Why would you?

So, after pondering over it for a little over four years, I thought of finally putting my cellphone away on silent mode and giving writing another chance.

I have never had a fertile imagination. If you are an ardent follower, you will notice that all the stories I have told so far are actually real life incidents with not a figment of imagination involved. Take for instance the bug whose wife was on a business trip in the south of France that I wrote about a while ago. It was the culmination of years of keen observation of bugs' lives that I had undertaken painstakingly. I can tell you with certainty that it is not an easy job to generally pick a topic such as that and immediately conjure up an interesting story out of nowhere. 

The idea behind apprising you of all these important facts is to prepare you for the story at hand and to assure you that the events that I am going to narrate to you took place in their entirety. Not a figment of imagination involved!

This took place around autumn last year. I had been working very hard for months without taking a break. My tiring nerves were giving away and I was beginning to get too restless even at home. Our three year old retriever would jump around the moment I would reach home from work expecting me to throw a ball or two in the lawn to fetch, but I would rarely be in my elements to comply. The keenly observant better half took no time to notice my diminished vigor and as usual, this effected her own usually calm demeanor. She started cooking the best of meals and mixing the old cocktails that used to do the trick. But no luck this time.

One evening, after I got back home, the wife appeared to be unusually radiant. She had prepared a delicious looking meal and I could notice a spring in her steps when she went to fetch the decanter. The animal, with its vigorously wagging tail and unusual panting looked quite worked up as well. There was excitement in the environs. After dinner I could no longer contain my curiosity and inquired about her designs behind the proceedings of the evening that had equally enlivened man and beast. That is when she unveiled her carefully crafted plans. It was no ordinary plan.

While I was away visiting unsuspecting customers door to door selling insurance plans during the day, the wife had been devising plans to distract me from the mundane and get me back to my normal self. She had left no stone unturned is what she divulged to me later. In her relentless pursuit for answers, she had bumped into this innocent looking brochure about the adventure possibilities in the wilderness and since then there was no looking back.

It was no mere jungle trip that she had in mind. It involved a procedure called camping. Now, you may not be familiar with such undertakings if you do not have an enterprising spouse or friends, so I am going to disclose a few details for you to paint a good mental picture before we proceed with the story at hand. The idea behind camping is to go back in time and explore how the neanderthal lived in the forest except that you carry processed food, mineral water and a tent to sleep in. When you have a meticulous spouse, you also end up maintaining fifteen different well meaning shopping lists and making twenty five completely harmless trips to the supermarket, pharmacy, gas station, orthodontist, pet care center and a few other important places before you can confirm that you are all set for the neanderthal experience. By that time, you would have already had so many out of body experiences that you may question the camping experience in the first place. But I did manage to hold on to my nerves and give camping a shot.

Finally, after all the running around and stocking the automobile with four and a half quintals of bare essentials, we set off for the adventure, beast in tow.

Neanderthal Man

Going Solo

Friday morning my career at the Punjab Electricity Board was cut short by a short fuse. I was stress testing an assumption of the endurance of a particularly high voltage electricity line and unfortunately the fuse gave way landing me in the current situation.

Post my masters in bizarre assumptions (sometimes also popularly called MBA), I was trying to find the right job that would enable me apply my education to a good degree. I thought the assumption testing job at the PEB would provide me the right platform. I was not entirely wrong. The job involved testing endurance of human tolerance to high voltage electricity. Basically what I had to do was to frenetically search for human lab testing targets and generally subject them through increasing levels of higher voltage step by step. If they gave away earlier on, we would let them go, else we would subject them to further torture until they agreed to pay us to stop the torture. Quite an interesting job for a person of my qualification, I thought. But while I was at it, I was subjected to other assumption stress tests back in the home front leading to oversights at work.

In a nutshell, Friday morning I found myself in a situation where I had a week of unplanned spare time. Trying to avoid facing reality and undertake a reality check on myself, I considered escaping to the Himalayas for a few days. After a frenetic two hours of rushing through shops and travel agents at Connaught Place or thereabout in New Delhi, I had my hands full with flight tickets and two polythene packets of winter clothing. I was all set for an impromptu trip to Leh - all alone. No hotel reservations, no real plans of visiting any place in particular, the thrill of the trip made me happy for a while. An unhappy wife notwithstanding, I was set for a Monday morning flight from terminal three.

I landed in Leh at 10 in the morning and hailed a cab asking the driver to take me to any random hotel that had a decent room available for a few nights. He probably mistook me for a student and brought me to a dingy place with two narrow beds placed side by side. I was up for adventure, but I was not prepared for this. I let him know as much and he upgraded me to another hotel which had breakfast and hot water on demand. The place suited me and a quick bargain later, I dumped by bag in a room with a strong odor of cigarette smoke. After a quick bath, I found myself walking on the empty afternoon streets of the small town in search of food and a phone booth. I had set out soul searching and what I landed was tom yum soup and a yak cheese pizza. After 15 hours without food, I chose not to complain much.

Pangong lake is a special place in the Himalayas. It is the highest salt water lake in the world and has a special calming effect on anyone visiting it. I wanted to go there the next day, but since it was a long 4 hours drive and back from the lake I did not want to do that alone. Hitchhiking was an option, but since I was in Leh for only a few days, I did not want to risk being stranded on the road early in the morning with nobody willing to accommodate me. After speaking to a few travel agents, I found a group of people of mixed nationalities looking for another traveler. So, I fit in well. The trip was to start early at 6 on the morning.

I went to bed early and decided not to set an alarm. As often is the case with me, I naturally woke up at 15 minutes to 6. I hurriedly brushed my teeth and came out of the bathroom to get ready quickly. There was not much to get ready anyway. I had packed by bags before going to sleep. When I opened the door to ask for the supply of hot water, I soon realized it was quite dark for 6 AM. I rechecked the watch and realized to my amazement that it was 12:15 AM. I was only holding the watch upside down the first time. The false start left me with freshly brushed teeth and 5 more hours to sleep.  

We started for Pangong at 6:30 and after a long bumpy non-stop drive of 4 hours with breathtaking views, the serene lake welcomed us. I left my fellow passengers behind for a long walk along the lake. There were not too many tourists and I soon found for myself an isolated spot next to a few seagulls. The sound of the lapping water soothed my frail nerves and I had almost dozed off when a growling sound woke me up. I realized it was my own stomach. I took the long walk back and helped myself with noodles from one of the makeshift restaurants by the side of the lake. Two hours later, we started the drive back.

After three days in Leh all by myself, I realized the importance of catering to my need of silence and loneliness. In the last 3 days, I would have barely uttered more than 15 sentences and spent 10 minutes with another human being – if you do not include the 8 hours of drive to Pangong. The process of detoxification is almost done, I guess and I am ready to be toxicated again. When you are at 4500m above sea level and heading south, you have only downhill to go, I guess.

What Happened in Vegas

I had found myself stuck in a hotel room with nothing interesting to do. It was drizzling outside and the only solace was internet access and a hot mug of coffee. I had friends in the United States of America, but in this business trip to Seattle, everyone seemed to be inaccessible even for a short chat. Being the lazy bum that I am, I preferred to stay indoors instead of loitering around in coffee shops or bars.

I had just hit upon an interesting website and started to unleash the mouse when the phone rang. It was late evening and the inactivity of the entire day had made me a little lethargic. The ringing phone pumped me up with the required stimuli. I acted as anyone presented with similar circumstances would do. I picked up the phone receiver and enquired “hello?”.

The course of events that followed was life changing under the given circumstances. Here I was lying inactive in a single hotel room completely hopeless of anything interesting to happen in life, and the very next moment I get a phone call from a friend who is equally hopeless in the other coast of the country. The phone call was from a friend in New York who was dying for some action. But unlike me, he had a plan for the action. He proposed Vegas.

Now, I am sure anyone reading this piece will be clueless about the term “Vegas” and so for the benefit of those, I shall embark upon a brief introduction of the same. “Vegas” can mean different things to different people depending (a) on what category of individual you belong to and (b) what kind of situation you are in when you are subjected to “Vegas”. People of a jovial kind with an open mind usually react to Vegas in a very normal manner. The reaction they exhibit when subjected to Vegas can best be described as “homing”. They react to Vegas as if it was always meant to be and they, sort of, naturalize to the environment. However, I know of another kind of individual whose reaction can be categorized as “shocked”. The reaction that one exhibits also depends on the circumstances under which one is exposed to Vegas. For someone who is feeling the blues, Vegas can bring about the required soothing of the sensory nerves whereas for someone who is already in an ecstatic state of mind, Vegas can push him beyond the edges. Whichever be the case, it is widely advised to let that what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas. So, I shall refrain from elaborating further and only focus on the story at hand.

My friend proposed that we treat ourselves to Vegas therapy and also presented with a detailed plan of action. Being in Seattle, I was to board a two and a half hours’ flight to Vegas on Friday. He would already be present on ground zero with shelter, food and equipment ready. We would formally inaugurate our binge exactly at 9-30 Friday evening once we had made ourselves comfortable with the environs. For the rest, we would let nature take its own course. The plan looked perfect on paper and there was no reason why it would not work in practice. We both were equally excited and were eagerly waiting for the D-day.

The D-day finally arrived and I reached the airport on time. As planned, I gave a phone call to enquire about by friend’s exact co-ordinates inside the airport. Soon, we were zooming on our way to the hotel room that my friend had carefully chosen. After necessary ablutions and intake of food, we set ourselves for the nocturnal safari.

We left no club unattended, no hotel unexplored, no casino ungambled. We set the streets afire, painted the town red, so to say. We had started in our best ironed suits and by now the creases were starting to wear out. Such was our dedication to let the demon loose. It was around 2 in the night and the novelty of the place was starting to diminish. Little did we realize that the best was yet to come.

In our feverish excitement, we had overlooked the sign that read “Rhino Ride” on a huge billboard with an arrow pointing north. There was a bright light glowing on another sign further down the road north which probably was the place of action. Now, in my extensive career as a wildlife enthusiast, I had had the opportunity to ride a wide variety of beasts starting from the usual suspects like horses and mules to the more exotic ones like the pigmy hog and the South American iguana. Somehow I had missed the rhino, one horned or not, I do not care. This one really looked appealing, something not to be missed. I was in full form and if remember it right, I felt a slight shiver down my spine - out of excitement. My friend was almost trembling with fervor. I had to steady his steering wheel to keep the car on the road. Soon we reached the spot of action.

On enquiring the person standing guard, we were informed that it cost 20 dollars a ride. I was pleasantly surprised at the affordability of the thing and was already preparing myself for at least half a dozen such rides. My friend flashed two crisp hundred dollar bills and requested advance booking for 10 rides. We both were sweating from excitement as we entered the den. The heart was beating at an accelerated rate.

In ten minutes life had changed for us. Everything that happened seemed like a distant dream that could always happen to others and never to us. We came out almost in a trance. Our backs were broken. Riding a one-horned rhino is one thing, having a fully grown rhino ride on your own back is quite another!

The Bug from Xanadu

He was trying to climb the tree twig, the bug from Xanadu. Now, any layman when confronted with the question of imagining a bug would jump to the conclusion that the said bug is creepy, crawly - probably with an odious smell which should be thrashed at sight with the nearest newspaper retrievable. They generally lack personality and are not easily distinguishable when appearing in groups. Not our Mr. Bug though. Presently, he resumed the climbing.

Mr. Bug was a very clever exception to the usual bug that you encounter in daily life. He had an imposing appearance as well to go with his mental acumen. He was the proud possessor of a well-defined potbelly and a smooth rounded back which was very appropriately green in color with clear black spots to add glamour. The finely chiseled antennas went well with the velvety smooth tail all of which used to twitch involuntarily whenever Mr. Bug was in deep thought. Most of you would never have encountered a bug with a tail in your ordinary lifetime, but then most of you would not have encountered a bug in deep thought either.

Mr. Bug was happily settled in a small grapevine somewhere in the south of France in a town called Xanadu whose exact location could not be determined at the time of writing the story. He lived with his small family. He had an equally gorgeous wife and five pretty children. In the bug’s world it is relatively conservative to have only five children but our Mr. Bug did not want to devote all his time in raising children. He had interesting hobbies to pursue.

Among other hobbies like tasting grapes, listening to the occasional music and playing with his children, he had a very weird hobby too. The bug’s life, as it is known to almost everybody, is not quite interesting if you follow the routine. Mr. Bug made it quite interesting for himself by cultivating a hobby of playing the mind game with the spider. He would tantalize the spider pretending to be an innocent victim and just as he would draw close enough to the cobweb to make the spider’s mouth water, we would give the sudden hop and escape. The spider would be left high and dry as they usually say. It was a dangerous hobby though – you are almost playing with your own life. Spiders are dangerous creatures and you never know!

One of those days, when Mrs. Bug was away on a business trip and when the children were busy playing, Mr. Bug spotted a monster of a spider lurking in a well-lit cobweb presumably sunbathing. The fact that it was only a decoy did not take our man on mission to realize in a fraction of a second. The afternoon boredom that had taken its toll on the spirits of Mr. Bug, prompted him to indulge in his favorite game. With a nonchalant look on the face, he approached the cobweb with a gait that you could best describe as casual. The spider was the one who was alarmed. He was also very confused and he almost had the urge to pinch himself to ascertain his good luck. But given the circumstances, he decided not to make any movement and disturb the perfect setting.

Mrs. Bug disturbed the perfect setting. Due to good weather and less competition that particular season, Mrs. Bug’s business trip had got over rather faster than expected. And with a motive to surprise her husband, she made a sudden appearance with a loud animal cry. But as fate would have it and as is almost always the case with women, she apparently had a bad timing. Mr. Bug’s concentration was lapsed if only for a moment and the entire scene was destabilized. The spider grabbed the opportunity and made a lunge at the distracted bait. In the tussle that ensued, our Mr. Bug lost a part of one of his hind limbs and fell deep down from the scene of action. He suffered several bruises in the process and was still trying to regain his wits when his antennas and tail started to quiver. As he was trying to find his way in the unfamiliar landscape he came across a dark cave where he decided to seek shelter till his nerves soothe. As he was lazily making his way into the cave, I could take the titillation no more and with a vigorous sneeze woke up from my deep slumber. Bugs with antennas in the vicinity of a nostril, is the recipe for disaster when it comes to the occasional afternoon nap.

Face-off with the undertaker

PART I

The uninitiated in the field of bestial psychology would typically be emotionally inclined towards a fauna that possesses a timid nature, say, for example the guinea pig or the rabbit. Even a specimen from the bovine genus (in the event that the first two are unavailable) would quite well satisfy the zoic societal need of such a person. However, after careful observation and keen study of animal behavior, in particular their sanitation habits, I have decided that I rather prefer the more aggressive members of the animal kingdom. So much so that I decided to adopt as pet a representative of the particular class. The precise carnivore that I chose was a cat of a rather black hue.

The other members of my family were aghast at the very first meeting. The wife, in particular simply could not come in terms with the idea of sharing the household with a lowly being from the less developed strata of nature. But I was determined and employed all my diplomatic skills to coerce her into welcoming the new member to the family. This was about a year or so ago. So far, so good. What I shall be narrating now and which holds the key to the future unfolding of events is what happened say about a week ago from now, well give or take a day depending on when you are reading the story. It is a true story, mind you.

The cat in question had grown rather fond of the family and I returned the affection in ample quantity. I used to have food with the cat (the cat seated on the floor, of course), used to drive around with her in tow and so on. I am sure you have a bit of an imagination. Well, knowing womankind, probably what would be clear to you too is that the look in the eyes of the wife was of a mildly disapproving nature when witnessing all these activities. The cat was well aware of this feeling of mistrust but I suppose it chose to remain silent keeping in view my relationship with the cynic. Until the fateful Monday evening, that is.

I had fed the little one and carefully tucked her under the warm flannels for a good night’s sleep. With a very approving purr, the pet got into a comfortable position and was almost starting to snort when I left for a glass of milk. Hardly had I taken a gulp when a maddening wild scream of what remotely matched a yell of a cat in distress made me spill the milk all over the place. It was not a yell of a mere cat. It was a yell from the wife, I soon discovered as the events unfolded. Another louder yell followed within a very short interval. This time it was from a cat.

I had just witnessed the tender sight of the little cat warmly settle for a sleep and my heart was filled with affection for the fellow being. In the heat of the moment, what had escaped my mind was that my wife was still busy in the kitchen and very carelessly I had switched off the light in the corridor that leads you from the kitchen to the bedroom. The wife in the mean time had decided that she was done with the daily chore and was beating a retreat towards the bedroom. In doing so, she had to trespass the domain which was currently in the control of the domesticated beast. Probably she trod on an exposed limb of the cat or probably the cat simply took it as an opportunity of revenge I could not say for sure, but the end result was that it did bite on the foot of the person in charge of the household. No wonder she was flustered and she flung the animal towards one of the walls with a mere swing of her left leg. This is when I heard the second yell and to make a long story short, the cat succumbed to the injury sustained in the process.

PART II

Usually in such circumstances, you are unnerved. My composure was shaken a little bit, I admit. But soon common sense took over and the brain resumed its normal functioning. I was left with a very odd combination of commodities to tackle with – a dead cat and a distressed wife. I decided that I could console the wife in due time, but what about the body lying loose. It is not very soothing to the nerve to be caught unaware in the company of a dead body in the middle of the night. The body would soon putrefy and there would be abominable smell in the environs before you realize. The wise thing to do in such situations was to give the body the burial it so well deserved. I set off on mission straightaway.

The graveyard was a quiet place about ten minutes drive from my humble abode. There was an eerie chilliness in the air. I started looking for the undertaker as soon as I disembarked from the car. I was looking in the long direction of the graves in the hope of human company meeting the eye. Precisely at that moment there was light tap on my shoulders from the behind. I was startled a little bit. On turning quickly, the eye was presented with a rather peculiar looking personality. He had long uncombed hair and he had a distinctly smaller left eye. He had numerous scars on the face too - the exact number of which I cannot recollect at the moment. He gave me a rather suspicious look.

“Trouble?”, asked the eccentric undertaker.

“None whatsoever. Just wanted your help in a little burial”, I replied.

“Right now?”.

“Yes, right away.”

“So there is trouble”, he said with a satisfied smirk.

In the middle of the night if you come up with burial requests to unknown undertakers with no accompanying crowd of wailing females and grave males, I suppose trouble is the usual suspect. His price was a thousand for the burial and another thousand for keeping quiet about the ceremony thereafter. I have him a surprised look.

On being enquired about the body in question, I led him towards the car. Now it was his turn to give the surprised look. So, after getting even in the department of surprised looks, he let me know that he refused to bury anything other than human remains in his esteemed graveyard.

After what seemed to me an hour’s persuasion coupled with a significant increment of his remuneration for the seemingly simple ritual, he finally gave in. With utmost respect for the deceased, he proceeded to retrieve the mortal remains of the feline lying numb in the back seat of the car. Now, most of you who are in the habit of retrieving mortal remains of domesticated fauna from back seats of cars would vouch for the fact that it is indeed a very innocuous business. You hardly sustain a scratch on the back of your hand in the process. This was precisely the anticipation on the mind of the unsuspecting undertaker. But he was in for the shock of his life. There was a hideous cry of shock and torment to be heard in the surroundings in the following moment. No only did he sustain a mere scratch on the back of his hand but an entire cube of flesh was severed from his index finger with a simple flick of the dead cat’s lower jaw. Now, you are probably wondering what modern machinery would have propelled the lower jaw of a dead cat to cause such a heinous injury on the simple-minded undertaker. You could not be more naïve.

The cat in question was not dead in the first place. It was just rendered unconscious owing to the impact on the hind quarters of its head that it sustained when slammed against the wall by the wife. It must also have lost a considerable portion of its memory in the process, I could not say for sure. But what could be said for sure was that the said graveyard was no more a safe place for a simple citizen who is entangled with a deceptively dead cat and a red-faced undertaker with an injured index finger. As the cat made a roar of a meow and was starting to make a quick exit from the spot of crime and as the simmering undertaker impulsively started to follow the cat, me being the wisest one quickly twisted the car key in its rightful socket and made good my own escape. Undertakers and cats are what I have been trying to avoid from that fateful night.

I am Not a Nerd But I Acted Like One

One of my friends advised me to write a bit about myself the other day. The fans are desperate to know more about me, he said. So, here I am, writing about my private life. I have to tell you, I am typing this real fast, at a hundred words per minute or so, lest I forget the important parts of my life. I have a very short memory mind you and so I have decided to touch upon only a few aspects this time. A life changing event, I choose to divulge to the public.

I was this simple guy back in school. My mother used to put sufficient quantity of hair oil onto my head and make me dress in shorts and a half sleeved shirt for school right up until when I was in the ninth standard or so. Nobody took any interest in me. Books were my only friends. I used to go to school and sit in the last bench and just mind my studies. Not that I was great at studies. I was rather average. There were these brilliant smart guys who used to make fun of me. I was not one to participate in the extra curricular activity either. I just used to mind my studies although I was just about average and that was about it. My life was really dull, so to speak.

I joined college. Now at that age, you know how it is, hormones surging and all that stuff. I was no exception to this cruel trick of nature. I wanted to be with the girls, you know. Have cool friends and all. I tried, tried real hard. But no luck. With the real smart ones around, I stood no chance at all. I was desperate. Now this is an aspect of my life, which the ardent fan would not appreciate very much, I suspect. But that was how it was. I have to speak the truth once in a while. Fiction is only good in storybooks. When you are writing an autobiography, you need to be truthful, I am told. Well, you can hide those embarrassing details, like, you know, when you shat in your pants in primary school, you were a victim of enuresis, and all those kinds of gory details. But most of it you need to cover.

I was out of college and I found myself a job. Well it was not a very high profile job, I have to admit. But it was enough to earn me the daily bread and stuff. I was the assistant head clerk at the local post office. Those days the pay was not so bad though. But you had to be a bit frugal to maintain even standard of living throughout the month. This was one area that I was extremely good at. I was relatively well settled in life and relatively happy. To be really happy you need to share it with someone, I was made to believe. And soon the big question raised its ugly head. I was on the lookout again. But again, no luck.

One of those days I was buying groceries for the week at a local grocery store. I met a girl. Incidentally, she was buying grocery too. She was amazingly beautiful - the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. I realized instantly that she was the one I was waiting for. She did not look at me though. She appeared very smart but simple at the same time. A woman who knew how to do her own grocery shopping. I waited for her to finish, outside. Not that anybody was noticing. I stealthily followed her. Found out she was just living two houses apart. And from then on, I would always try to find an opportunity to be near her. She never noticed though.

A close friend took notice of the series of events and cornered me with queries. I spilled all the beans. I had to. I stood no chance to his probing questions. But he turned out to be a sympathizer. And life was never the same again. When I look back, it only seems like a distant hazy dream, that earlier self of mine.

I was asked by my friend to become a nerd. I looked up the dictionary and found that nerd was someone who is rather boring and took no interest in anything in life but books or some such dull subject. That I already was, I told him. But he explained me the deeper significance of being a nerd. The real nerd, he meant. Everyone is crazy about nerds these days, he said. They just talk all the time about nerds behind their backs without the nerds ever suspecting and they would simply fight tooth and nail to be in the company of one. He took complete command over the project of my transformation.

And from then on, things changed. They changed for the better. I went to the optician and got myself fitted with a pair of spectacles. Not the one for myopic vision, a fake one with zero power, as they call. I grew my hair long and did a ponytail thing. I even started listening to some really hard music, the metal, death metal, heavy metal and all that stuff. Not that I followed anything that they sang. Even today I never understand a word. But I took pains to go to the British library and find all the lyrics of heavy metal and death metal. I had them at the tip of my tongue in no time. I was real good at memorizing stuff especially when I did not need to know their meanings. I even got myself an ipod. It took a toll on my bank balance. Not that I had one. I had to take a loan. And all the time I pretended to listen to the ipod thing. It was real cool. I suddenly started having this feeling that I was the best of the lot. I did not have any more of that inferiority complex that I always used to have. I was on top of the world as they say.

I went to the same grocery store with my ipod on and with the ponytail and with the glasses. I had put on a pair of loose jeans with the underwear showing from the top of the rim and all – specifically for the occasion. I said hi. And heads turned. I was the centre of attention with immediate effect. I could hardly believe myself. I gave the vague hollow look. You know, the look which seems to pass through the person apparently gazing at some unknown distant object. Conversation followed soon after.

Without dragging on this any further, let me tell you that I found love. I found love in the grocery store girl. We even got married. And we are happily living ever after. Only thing is, I have to listen to the ipod and damn those heavy metal stuff! So I took to writing, just as a temporary respite.

Afternoon Delight

A trying assignment in the last couple of months had taken its toll on my nerves. I needed a break to recharge my batteries and regain my mental agility. A few weeks in the Himalayas could do the trick, I was tempted to believe. But when I so proposed to my loving wife, I could manage to get an afternoon off sanctioned. So the deal was struck and the only formality left was to decide on the date. Wednesday being the middle of the working week sounded good to both of us. Everything was settled.

Early Wednesday morning I drove my wife to work, trying hard to conceal the more than usual joviality in my general demeanour. After so many years of marriage, I was well aware of the fact that one should not generally go overboard in demonstrating the penchant for solitary afternoons lest one wants to put all possible future occurrences in jeopardy. I chose to play it safe.

The drive back home sans my better half was a noticeably quicker one. Sweet anticipation of what the afternoon all for myself had in store had me breezing through the city traffic with utmost ease. Enroute, an odd motor-cycle made a slight brush along the side of the car carving a minor dent. But I hardly took notice. “Time was precious and time should not be lost in mundane conversation”, was my motto of the day.

I reached home with hardly enough time to take a quick bath and chalk out an agenda for the afternoon. It had to be a memorable afternoon. All possible propositions had to be crammed into the schedule. A movie, a few hours in the bookstore, a bit of idling around appreciating the general greenery, a few mugs of beer if time permits - everything had to feature in the agenda. Life is short and afternoons such as these are usually faster paced - so diligent planning was of utmost essence. With a quick sketch of a tentative plan in mind, I set forth.

Life in the suburbs is usually peaceful and less eventful, but to catch the actions of city life first hand, you need to be at the city centre and to be there, you need to catch a bus (of course, on occassions such as these, you do not want to stress yourself with the driving). This is precisely the first thing that I attempted to do. So far all went as per plan. I could even manage to find myself a seat in the bus which was a bit of a luxury.

At this juncture, with the absence of any monitoring element, I let vent to my inner exuberance. I no longer needed to conceal my blissful state with any hideous regulation imposed by society. Freedom of expression was quickly taking over as the order of the day. Getting slightly carried away, I gave myself the liberty of smiling at about nothing. In the heat of the moment I failed to detect that my blank smile was being unwittingly directed towards a particularly appealing member of the fairer sex that had, in the mean time, firmly positioned itself in the opposite seat. She smiled back. Soon general cognizance regained control. The appealing prospects of the day dissuaded me from getting distracted and I resumed focus on the prime objective of the afternoon at hand. However, the present exchange of nonverbal pleasantries attracted the attention of the ticket collector who had been ignoring me so far. With a disapproving frown on his brow he approached me demanding to inspect my ticket. Although I had so far attached little importance to procuring a ticket and legitimizing the journey, when confronted, I did not allow myself to be counted among those who shy away from responsibility. I promptly eased my right hand in an attempt to procure the wallet.

This is when all hell broke loose. I do not remember whether it is Murphy's law that roughly amounts to state that you do not get something when you need it the most and I do not care if the law is backed by statistically collected samples, what I do remember is that I have never needed a wallet filled with ample currency notes more dearly than at that precise moment. Between the time when I returned home to take the bath and the moment when I took off for the bus, the life changing event which I failed to register was my changing into a fresh pair of trousers with the wallet comfortably nestling in the back pocket of the older pair.

The look on the ticket collector's face said it all. In the evening when I found myself recovering from the cruel game life played on me and the long walk home after facing the humiliation meted out by the ticket collector, the only solace was the possibility of another delightful afternoon if only sometime in the remote future.