A More Relaxed Round-Up

Sunday, July 8^th, 2007, 11 am

My previous round-up of the summer vacations was brief (those of you who enjoy the mother of all stale jokes can chuckle at ‘brief’) owing to my flight to Bangalore. Well, I’m now on board the aircraft and have an hour to kill. For people like me who don’t fly very often, airports are temples of stifling etiquette. To my relief, this time I saw a suited-booted gentleman executing a gigantic yawn and stretching like someone’s pulling him from all directions. Probably a nose-digger or ear-shaker would’ve made me feel more at home, but this was unacceptable enough. Anyway, apart from pacing up and down a hundred times and entering the ladies toilet once, my wait in the airport was without incident. As I now sit with the pen on my lips and my eyes on the airhostess, I try to cope with the turbulence at take off. You remember the post where I mentioned my stomach churning like someone had switched on a fan inside? Well, due to the accuracy of that description and my stunted imagination, I say it again. I have a very fragile stomach, but the plush interiors of the aircraft don’t give me the heart to puke.

July 10^th, 12:30 am

I am now lying on my belly in my comfortable room in Bangalore. I moved in here yesterday, and though I’ve lived in hostel before, this stay away from home is a little different. This isn’t a college hostel where I can throw my stuff around and breed cobwebs. This is a place where the house-keeping guys call me sir and where we get parsley potato instead of aloo fry. It’s a wonderful room and a wonderful place to stay in. I’m loving it!

After unpacking, I decided to make myself a drink (a beverage, rather). I could choose between an Akshay-made tea and an Akshay-made coffee. Now that’s like choosing between a Sunny Deol pole dance and a Tusshar Kapoor strip tease- still, I stuck with coffee simply because it’s more difficult to screw up. How wrong I was! One cup of water, 2 minutes of heating, one packet of sugar, one of coffee, and one of the creamer gave me an excellent alternative to Harpic. By the time I hit the right proportions, the water had gone cold. Still, I gulped it down and dared my memory to forget the proportions.

As the day wore on, I decided to get my dress ready for the next day. I unfolded 2 shirts to check if they were crumpled, dirty, etc. I finally selected a shirt, one pant, a belt, kept all my documents in place, and finally changed into my bermudas. Done for the day huh? Not quite. What about the other shirt I unfolded? Mom had taught me the art of folding shirts the way we see them packed in showrooms. I rubbished her detailed, step-by-step instructions- after all, we engineers are born with the right to trivialize everything from gay pubs to the Big Bang. I paid the price this time though, and spent no less than 45 minutes in trying to fold the damn thing.*

July 14^th, 2007, 9 pm

On the road today, I saw a leading telecom service company’s latest ad- “Newspaper, Rs.150 per month, Mobile Rs. 99 per month." Well, Mr. Ad-man, consider this: Your Hutch recharge lets me only talk and send smses. A newspaper lets me read it, solve the crossword and su doku, scribble phone numbers on it, wipe dusty seats with it, lay it on shelves, make aeroplanes out of it, and use it as a wrapper. The only thing you have worth offering is customer care voices (female), which we can hear even with a zero-balance.

July 15^th, 2007, 3:03 pm

I’m sitting in a cyber café now, hammering out my next post, which incidentally you have been reading all this while. This is the only way I’ll update this page now- sitting in the cyber café on Sunday afternoons with random thoughts scribbled in a notebook. I’ve just read the comments on my previous post. I’m really grateful to all you guys for taking the trouble and reading my stuff. I want you to know that your comments are a real driving force for me to keep this page alive. And just to ensure that you guys remember me with fondness or bitterness till the next update, I’ll finish with the riddle of the day.

Q. Why did the Punjabi cop arrest Sachin Tendulkar for match-fixing?

Scroll down for the answer.

A. Because he said he loves batting for India.

*For the record, I finally succeeded.