It seldom happens that when you watch a sci-fi flick, you kind of get sucked into the whole idea of aliens, parallel universes and time travel. And, so it happened with me. I was just thinking about the "Time Machine" and for a fleeting second, one question crossed my mind; "What if I knew the Future?". What kind of effect will it have on me and whether knowing the future will be actually good or will it be just a bad omen? Juxtaposed with these questions, I wrote this poem. What I personally feel is that life should be lived in the present, neither in past nor in future.
IF I KNEW THE FUTURE
Life is a like running clock.
But with surprises and shocks,
You can’t predict the next minute,
Nor to the future, can you commute.
But, if the future was known to me,
And I could alter anything, let it be.
Would that be the ultimate boon?
Or a horrid curse like a menacing goon?
If I saw a future engulfed with darkness,
Would in a delirium, I go, with madness?
Or call for actions to set the present right?
Thence making everything crystals in plain sight.
If I saw a halcyon future sloshed with success,
Would I become complacent, seeing all the excess?
Or would I strive hardest to achieve the symphony?
Like a consummate Beethoven after the harmony.
At times, I wonder if Notradamus foresaw the future
Or were his prognoses like weatherman in a caricature?
Did he try to change the present course of history?
Or did he just lay back and start penning a great story?
If knowing the future gave bitter insomnia?
Or perhaps slowly inducted in paramnesia?
Innumerable questions cross my nous,
Countless doubts mired in an obscure cross.
But, above all, life would become insipid,
For all surprises and shocks would be pushed off the lid,
Gone would be life’s every quest, every adventure,
If somehow, just somehow, I got to know the future!
I wrote this poem around 3 weeks ago, but I did not post this on the blog, only because I thought that the mood wasn't right. Tonight, after completing a tedious 13 page assignment on "Spray Forming", a metallurgical process, it felt right to post this poem on the blog. I am hell tired and right now, I am looking forward to the next day to loosen up my entangled nerves. So, the setting is almost perfect. The poem is titled "In HIGH Spirits" and it captures the emotions when you enjoy a drink after a day of hard work.
It has been quite some time since my last post. More than 3 months have passed since I last wrote. The 5th semester has started and there have been a lot of new things happening. There have been many incidents worth writing, but because of some constraint or other, those posts did not materialize.
This time, I have come up with something different. It is my first attempt at poetry. The poem is titled 'Phoenix', and is about one's determination to rise from a failure.
I wrote this poem in the class, after getting screwed in a quiz. Though, its not a new feeling of getting royally screwed in quizzes, but maybe the build up of average performance in all the previous quizzes just got to me and I had to let it off.
So, here is the poem.
PHOENIX
A story unsaid,
A page unread,
At the hind of my sight,
Memories come to light.
Life became a bloody witch,
Took all desires away from my reach
Cornered in a vicious loop,
Hopes were left to a merciless stoop
Deserted by Lady Luck in a deep abyss,
Dreams in the boulevard became amiss
A cloud of darkness dwelt upon
The nectar of life was long gone.
I closed my eyes in disdain
But, saw a ray at end of a lane
There, I found a new 'ME'
Full of hope, warmth and glee
Past for me was a plight
But, darkness within has tasted a new light
On the pyre which had heard my cries,
The beast would now rise.
Out from the inferno strain,
A charred Phoenix born again
Feel its pulse, Feel its heat
It would live life in every beat.
I would be writing soon and would try to give all of you something refreshing and new to chew on for days.
But, as far this post is concerned, it is about Phoenix, my first poem....
If you want to share your views / comments, then send your bouquets and brickbats by leaving a comment on the post...
Sometimes, one feels that things and people have changed around him. But, most of the times, we ourselves change a lot. One of the most drastic changes come after College. It totally transforms every one of us. We experiment with many things, fail some, fall prey to some, loathe some and fall in love with a few. Change is a law of nature and Change is constant!!!
But, some guys start thinking themselves rock stars by posing in pics with a guitar, though they don't even know how to hold it, forget about playing it!!! They post pics of anything and everything, feeling that it gives a debonair touch to their facebook and orkut profiles. Most of this "DudeGiri" is exhibited online in chats, scraps and profiles.
But for a typical IITian, the change is too large because Kinematics and Magnetics used to be playing ground before, but after passing through JEE, people let their hair down. It is one thing to develop your personality and it is a completely diametric and idiotic thing to act like smooth talking dudes with virtual cool facebook profiles.
Life changes like quicksilver. In 2 years, most of us have changed by leaps and bounds. Some of my friends have changed so much after going to college that it now doesn’t even feel that we were friends before and that I knew them at all. I know it’s a great feeling to show off but sometimes showing it off like you are the only dude in this whole world makes you look a total dud.
Most of these “I am the only DUDE” attitude comes after college. It feels funny when you see one of the earlier greatest nerds in the school showing off in every possible manner and making a complete idiot of him.
I remember what it was like for most of us when we were preparing for JEE.
In schools, we had declared our teachers as useless as they could not solve Irodov or the innumerable problem sheets given by our coaching institutes. So, we spent most of the time bugging the teachers. Most of the evenings were spent in coaching institutes, where we slogged through continuously. In school, girls were very evidently present, from their sudden shrieks of untimely laughter and chuckles, but one had to control the high testosterone levels if he wanted to keep the IIT dreamboat afloat. No prejudice against the fairer sex as we just love them but pretty faces are not the best inspiration when solving Calculus or brooding over Electrostatics. They may be the best for fuelling imagination when writing novels, composing songs, poems and while painting. But, it is certain enough that Mascara and Mechanics don’t mix well like immiscible liquids. So, even if any guy liked a gal, he would not commit to it, otherwise there’s 99% chance of him screwing up the ARMAGEDDON, the all important IIT JEE .
It then comes to the D- day (2 months after the V-Day, most of us were mugging even on that day!!!) and it gets narrowed down to 6 hours of unmatched concentration. Some pass the litmus test; some miss it by the hair. In the end, mostly the ones who could control their androgen for a record 2 years go through.
And then everything changes at a lightning speed after entering these esteemed institutions of national importance.
The nerds try to become smooth talking wannabes overnight and fail miserably in doing so. Their facebook page cries it aloud “Single” and it reads “Interested in: Dating, Friendship”. All of these have profile pictures in all weird angles to make them look suave. They end up exaggerating it making a joke of themselves. The male to female ratio in IITs is disastrous and the chances of finding a single good-looking girl in IIT is worse than that of finding a tiger in the Sariska forest or even worse than that of finding Ganges in Thar desert !!! So, these poor guys are left with no choice but to start dating on the social networking sites. Every guy starts posing with a guitar in his hand with expressions as if taken straight from a live music rock concert. They even start using useless applications on facebook like “Who’s your Lover of day?” and “Who’s your friend of the day. These applications give them a chance to talk to the girl whom the application chooses randomly. So, basically in the virtual world, these applications act like cheesy one liner which desperate losers use as their opening line. The friend list of most of the IITians depicts a mirror image of their situation in IIT with the skewed sex ratio. Even in this virtual world, only 10% of the some 400+ friends are girls.
The love deprived, grade impoverished start smoking cigarettes to cover their lousy love life or because they are fed up off the IIT pressure. Some smoke out of frustration, some smoke to socialise, some smoke to cool off their nerves and take them to an instant high. But, some dumbasses smoke because they think smoking is KEWL (Yeah, Most of these wannabe dudes even spell COOL as KEWL!!!). They smoke cigarettes like they are themselves a blast furnace inside. I don’t have any problem with anyone smoking a cig. It is your life and why in the world should I give a damn. I am not Anubamani Ramadoss to take up such moral responsibility. I just have problem with people who think that the guys who don’t smoke cigs are UNKOOL. I seriously doubt their quotient of KOOLNESS, but still for the record: If you can kick 30 cig butts in a day doesn’t mean the other person can’t. It merely means that the other person doesn’t want to die of Bronchitis or Lung Cancer. It is more of a man to say “NO” to smoking, rather than roasting yourself to ‘Classic Mild’, ‘Regular’ and ‘Gold Flake’.
After the frequent online proposals and their instant rejections, the great young minds turn to one single resort: BOOZE. It is better than a girlfriend because it gives you a greater high, never ditches you, never bothers you with endless questions, and you can then sleep like a log. There’s always a negative shade. If you can’t hold your drink, you would mostly end up waking up in your own vomit. But, if you can hold your alcohol, then Vodka becomes your lady love and Pink Floyd gives the perfect ambience for a romantic candle-light dinner with this lady love! Booze becomes a mandatory routine after each quiz/midsem/endsem gets over. I have encountered incessant occurrences of guys serenading “Magic Moments” and “Royal Challenge” when the minds are as blank as that of a blonde. Sometimes, one needs to resort to these to close the conscious mind and feel the subconscious mind. As profound it may seem, most people start throwing up all over the corridor and end having a awful hangover.
We all have transformed in a couple of years, but we should remember the most important thing that our essence should never change, whatever be the situation...
I was watching the ongoing FIFA world cup when Germany drubbed Australia 4-0. I was surfing through the channels when I realised that the Idiot Quadrangle (How can you tell a 32” LCD screen a box?) has really spiralled up in quantity and has exponentially declined in quality. I was thinking who really can watch channels like India TV,India News, Real TV and the still continuing saas bahu sagas on the prime channels Zee, Sony, Star Plus, and lately Colors and Imagine. It is nauseating to surf all the 225 channels and get nothing to watch. The best I could get was repeat shows of F.R.I.E.N.D.S on Zee Café. I realized that here are only 3 categories of entertainment in Hindi segment. But, still I would like to share this experience of mine with you and the broad classification I did.
The first segment is “You think only you can abuse, B!&@h!!!”. It’s the saga of the Innumerable reality shows in which people sing, dance, abuse, cry and faint and sometimes these all happen at the same time!!! The category which started with Indian Idol and Roadies as flagship shows has now only contestants bitching each other and backbiting. These reality shows have 75% of their content dedicated to “Censor Board”. It can rightly be renamed as the “P.P.P” category as half of the time, the dialogue statements are intercepted with censors. It’s like this: You pee (read B*&%h), You pee pee (read F^&*%&), Pee pee pee (More F words with auxiliaries attached!!!). Also, the age group doesn’t matter now. Toddlers who have just time started growing real teeth have started grabbing limelight. There used to be a time not so long ago, only some 5-6 years ago when being a kid of 8 years was just about family, school and friends. But, now it’s about giving 10 on 10 performances, judges drawing long faces when it’s a 9 on 10 performance… One word for the judges:- (Could you good-for-nothing fellas ever give such performances in your childhood??? I bet you were still wetting your bed at night…). It is now about facing eliminations every week, crying your heart out, parents then accusing and rebuking the show producers and judges of foul play. Every failed personality from Chunky Pandeys to Shilpa Shettys to Baichung Bhutias has become a judge on reality show and has an opinion about things which they don’t even have a freaking idea. Everyone wants his 2 minute stardom as if someone is making 2 minute Maggi noodles(Btw, someone should sue Maggi because even the noodles don’t get cooked in 2 minutes). There is now a reality show in which ultra modern hot chick battle it out(abuse, bitch and catfight) to survive in the villages among buffaloes and their shit. The roadies in its earlier editions used to be good, but it suddenly became cool for girls to hurl “Bitch!!! You suck..” at each other and it became cool for guys to gay themselves up. Only one word for this category-“Get real, dumbasses”.
The next category is the “Kachhda” category. It’s the category which has given employement to every arts graduate who didn’t have a job. If you are a guy and can speak in a tone which sounds like shrieking of monkeys, then you are in… If you are a girl and you do your make up right, you are in. It’s the category which has grown by leaps by bounds. I am talking about Media, specifically electronic media and specifically Television News channels. Every news is a breaking news, whether it is a dog found dead on the footpath or a movie star talking about his favourite cologne(or co****), no one cares what’s there in news. You present it with a good looking 22 year old who is smooth speaking but doesn’t have a clue about what she is speaking and BANG,,, who have NEWS!!! No news of country’s importance is reported. Now, news channels distort each statement made by celebrities and they do 30 minutes special episodes on that. Just the earlier day, some statement of Abhishek Bachchan was completely distorted and presented in a manner which showed that he was upset with Vivek Oberoi. And, this was screened repeatedly in a show named “Meri Biwi Se door raho”!!! Everything gets a larger than life image, whether it’s a struggling model who can’t speak Hindi,a comedian who is not comic by any standards and tries to crack each joke in a gay manner, a politician who can’t stand Muslims or even a monkey which can give birth to 9 babies at one time (The last sounds the most interesting, trust me). The channels just want bytes, they don’t give a damn about what. One word for them-“BYTE ME”.
And, now comes the last but the strongest, the oldest and still the most thriving category. It’s the “Glycerine category”. I Cry, You Cry, We all Cry!!! The plot remains almost the same in all of these. There are many similarities among all these saas bahu sagas. Anyway, now its not only saas bahu. Now, its saas-bahu-devrani-jethani-mausi-mami-bhabhi and the list goes on.
1.All the Glycerine category serials have woman centric plots. Everything goes around women, whether its seducing, backbiting, bitching, hatching, plotting, murdering , kidnapping, cheating. The men in the serial are like puppet dolls. They are just there to fill screen space, they just have dialogues like, “Kya?”, “haan”, “na”, “Tum!!!”. That’s all they have to do.
2.Next is all these stories are shot and based in villages or smaller towns. It is suddenly cooler to be from Agra, Mathura, Ajmer and Jodhpur. The big metros can take a backseat, since either the dialect is Marwari, Bhojpuri or Awadhi.
3.The third similarity is there’s always a “Ghar ka bhedi Lanka dhahe”. There is always a person in the family who has plans to kill or injure the main protagonist.
4.There is no doubt some kind of will or treasure or property or company involved in the family feud: “Money hai to Honey hai!”.
5.Pregnancy in the plot always brings doom to the family. It is never happy to see a baby arriving. There has to be some kidnapping, some melodrama of next heir, illegal child issues, some miscarriage. No one cares about the baby, not even the screen mother. Each character is involved in the hotch-potch around the baby.
6.All of the serials have exotic sets,it is like every family has some palace to live in. All women even sleep in designer saris, have heavy jewellery in each scene, have to look like plastic dolls in each scene.
7.There has to be some sort of extra marital affairs to create new twists. Whenever the story becomes far stretched like elastic which generally happens after the first month, they throw an extra marital affair to spice things up. It always generates a new villian with a devilish background score to him/her.
8.There’s always a “Aha! I got You” moment, when the female protagonist catches the villain red handed and reveals in front of everyone who were duped by the villian.
9.Some sort of electronic proof is always there to stand testimony to this “Aha! I got You” moment. Some MMS, SMS, video, phone recording.
10.Lastly, every crucial scene has extensive camerawork. The close ups are shown in every direction possible. The faces come like, from right, then from left, from top and from bottom. The faces freeze and turn black and white. And it is always accompanied by a typical background score “Ta!Duh!” . It is similar to what happens when a newbie starts making powerpoint presentations and adds custom animation to each slide with custom sounds like “applause” , “camera shutter” and “breaking glass” coming in background.
One word for this segment:- “Ye bacchha mera nahi hai!!!”
I guess I have made my point crystal clear. There is another small category too under the tiltle ‘Miscellaneous’ and that’s what I prefer nowadays on TV. But, I will stick to writing about the big 3 and not elaborate on the ‘Misc’ since it has already become a long post.
10th of June started as a regular day. It was a Thursday and most importantly a weekday, so I had to pull myself out of deep slumber, or rather had to be pulled out, at 7 am. I had to rush to the station to catch the 8 am passenger train which would take me to a small town, called Muri located on the banks of Subarnarekha river lying on the border of Jharkhand and West Bengal. The place has a beauty of its own because it is bounded by small hillocks on all sides. Also, the place has a bridge which stands testimony to the plight of government in Jharkhand. The bridge is over the river Subarnarekha, which has dried to a small millimetre width stream of water. The bridge connects Jharkhand with Bengal. One half of the bridge which lies in Bengal is made of concrete and is newly constructed. The other half lies in Jharkhand and is still made of tin and iron scraps from the yesteryears. It has not been renovated since the 50s and the Jharkhand administration doesn’t even give a damn about it though it is one of the main routes connecting Bengal. Why will it give a damn? It has better work to do. Its politicians are mostly interested in the tug-of-war for the position of official leech who can suck the most blood from the state. Who can pull off a greater scam is the only thing on their mind. Anyway, I guess I got swept by the emotion of neglect and corruption in the state. This is not a post about the rascals. This is about 3 characters- My mom, my dad and me. I would rather call 3 idiots(Sorry Mom & Dad, but even you won’t argue with me that we didn’t come out as fools on this day). So, where was I??? Hmmm. After learning how Alumina hydrate gets calcined at my summer intern in Hindalco, I came back to home by 7 pm. Dad was already home which was unusual, since he never comes back from office before 8 pm. I was at once ordered by Mom to get ready. I replied, “For what?”. Mom answered, “Didn’t I tell you that we have to attend a wedding reception of son of your dad’s colleague?”. I replied in negative. She told me, “I have told you atleast 10 times before, but you hardly remember a thing. Do you even care to listen?”. Most guys or girls of my age would know that by this age its of no use arguing to the Sonia Gandhi of household. If argued upon, you would end up just like Shashi Tharoor who couldn’t control his twittering mouth. I just tried to hold up the last flag of protest saying that I didn’t know anyone at the wedding and that I would get bored as hell, but all in vain. I went to take a bath after the hot and humid journey and was ready by around 7.30 pm. But, as is always the case with ladies, they would take atleast 2 hours to dress up. And trust me, the dressing time doesn’t decline with age. It’s the same with every sister, friend, aunt, cousin of mine. All the ladies would take atleast 30 mins to decide the dress. I don’t think guys even take that long to decide what they are going to wear in their own wedding!!! But, that’s not all. The fairer sex would ask someone in vicinity that which dress would suit them better, as if the person would care. The truth is however that by that time the ladies have zeroed upon the dress, but they just need to get someone’s approval to go ahead with it. If you choose the dress which they haven’t picked, you would find a small frown forming on their make-up laden face.Atlast,by hook or crook, they would force you to pick the dress chosen by them and will get falsely satisfied on their own choice. Then half an hour goes for matching jewellery, half an hour for some damn accessories and make up, and the last half hour for dressing up. After that, all of them have a final glance of satisfacton in the mirror as if God himself was at work. I firmly believe God would have committed suicides so many times after seeing his gifted natural beauty distorted with artificial chemicals and cosmetics and being transformed into such a ghastly figure, that by now if some woman goes out without any make up God gets a jolt of surprise and thinks, “Is it some new make-up Lakme has come up with?” I guess today I am deviating from the topic too much, only because these are topics on which one can go on and on. So, by 9 pm, we leave for the wedding with the gift on which was written “ Best Wishes To Noopur and Saibal From K.P.Roy & Family”. The venue was written “MECON hall” on the invitation card. We knew only one MECON hall in Ranchi, so Dad thought it won’t be necessary to contact his dear colleague enquiring about the venue. We reached the place in some 15 minutes and went inside the reception hall.There was no nameboard outside showing the names of the bride and the groom. My parents proceeded to the reception stage where the bride and the groom were standing while I preferred to stay back in the seating area. They all smiled and shook hands and then Mom handed over the wedding gift and the bride accepted with a huge grin. I am sure her face muscles would get cramps after the all time smiling exercise undertaken at the reception. The photographers requested for a photograph and all four of them stood smiling side by side as if they had known each other for decades. When my parents were returning to the place I sat, my dad looked around in search of his colleague but couldn’t find him or any of his colleagues. I suggested that its already 9.30, so either most of them would have left or they would be in the main dining area. We advanced to the snacks/starters area, and helped ourselves with some snacks and starters. But, there was no one to be seen from dad’s office. My dad’s colleague is a Bengali, so we expected some Bengalis around. But, we could only hear Hindi and some Marwari being spoken. Dad felt suspicious because there was not a single soul whom we knew. Then, Mom transformed into Sherlock Holmes and made a startling revelation that the groom’s mother had told my mom that the groom was rather tall, atleast 6 feet. But, the groom with whom my parents had shared photospace with their Close-Up smile was rather short. We advanced to the main dining area, and to our disappointment saw that the whole wedding was a Marwari wedding and there was no one whom my parents knew. We had obviously made a huge mistake, we had come to some other reception, had even gifted the couple and my dear parents had themselves photographed with complete strangers. Then I realised that what the Indian weddings have become. No one knows anyone , but still smile as if they are long lost relatives. I suggested that we just have dinner here itself as not a soul would care and mainly because I was dying of hunger. But, my parents still had their ideals intact. For them, it would have been shameful. For me, the only difference between both weddings was the change in cuisine, since I didn’t know anyone in both weddings. We followed a hasty retreat from the place and my dad asked a passerby about where was MECON community hall situated. He answered that it was on the next right turn and that this was MECON reception hall. A mistaken identity of place can screw your whole evening. At that instant, my eyes went to a small rectangular LED screen, similar to the ones found in railway stations. The LED was displaying a moving message, “Thank You for coming. AtoZ caterers.” And then came the final stamp on your idiocracy. The LED displayed “Welcome to reception of Rajeev with Alka”, which solved the mystery and raised the curtains from this mistaken identity crisis of ours. The story doesn’t end here. After this, Dad suggested that we just give the concerned Bengali couple,cash as Aashirwaad since their gift was already given to the mistaken Marwari couple and obviously we were not going to ask them to return it. Hence, I have to go in search of a stationery shop at 9.45 at night to buy an envelope.Now, I don’t think anything like this has happened to any of you before. But, I swear you just want to get out of this as soon as possible when you get to know what fauxpas you have committed. Also, you would never find the shop you want at the most crucial time.We found everything from tailoring shop to grocrery shop to mobile recharge to medicals to even cycle repairing shop. But, it was not before some 15 minutes search of the colony that we found a small stationery shop that was going to get closed. At least, God favoured us here because we were just in nick of time. So, Dad slid some cash into the envelope and then we proceeded to the right destination. There we rechecked 3 times before entering and asked 2 passers-by that whether we were at the right wedding or not. So, in nutshell guys,
Recheck the venue before going to any reception/wedding/house-warming or any social gathering of this genre.
Firstly, meet the person who has invited you rather than rushing to part away with the gift.
Carry extra cash and extra envelopes with you in case of emergency.
Check for the nameboard or signpost outside the venue.
Lastly, Don’t write the name of the recipent of the gift. I still wonder what will the mistaken couple (Rajeev & Alka) think when they see the giftcard shouting Noopur & Saibal in bright, red calligraphic letters.
And if you fail miserably in all of the above, just have your dinner silently in the wrong ceremony and then steathily get out of sight before someone spots you!!!
Each one of us has special memories as a kid. It is basically accompanied with lots of loud cries, incessant tantrums and scolding. But, still its one time of life when you did not have to worry about the world and life was simple.
Few will disagree with me that they did not have a fascination for trains when they were kid. And like most of these Anytime “Poo and Pee Producing” Machines(APM’s), even I was hell bent on getting one of these trains to our home.
I guess it was one of my first journeys on this enthralling invention of James Watt that I had undertaken to see my relatives in Patna. I was accompanied by my mom, dad and my elder sister who is around 7 years older to me and hence was in mid school. On the other hand, I was in pre-nursery and on that night was debating with my dad that an Elephant is stronger than a Tiger and hence can’t be defeated as my father had tried to cook up some African Safari story to make me go to sleep. But, as is evident from my case above that I could not swallow this underestimation of elephant’s strength and as a result of which my dad had to replace the elephant with a jackal after his futile attempts at making me sleep. After enjoying my 8 hours of sleep, I was considering the train as a nice alternate home as it had no finger wagging teachers and no semi-Medusa like principal whom most of the infant crying specimens never dared to look into eye. However, when we had almost reached our destination, my mom broke my daydreaming and brought forward this stark reality that I had to go back to school and we are in this train only for half an hour more.
And as you can guess, I immediately resorted to the golden last option “The incessant sobbing and loud crying”. This is only what 3-4 year olds can do and it generally works well for attaining short time goals. My mom thought I was hungry, as most parent think when kids cry. So, my boohooing rewarded me in form of a Cadbury Dairy Milk and I was more than happy to go to school afterwards. But, some drama of mine was still left and that came out in form of me wanting to take this train to our home and then wanting to use it as a ride to go to school. When my dad reminded me of the Fiat Padmini we had at home, I came out with the agreement that the Padmini had no toilets and the train had. Also, we can sleep in the train and not in the car. You can see that I was generally good at coming up with reasons which had no counter argument and I can tell you that I am still good at that. Anyway, my dad told me that the train did not belong to us and we cannot take it home. But, I think I did not receive his statement well because I responded with the golden resort again. This time, I was just distracted with another story of some tiger’s heroics. I guess it was one of the topics with which you can distract kids who are dumb enough to think that a train could be used as ride for going to school.
After successfully parting from the train which was miraculously just 1 hour late and not one day late, we four proceeded to our relatives’ home in Patna. I was too happy to meet my cousins, both elder sisters, one 7 years older and the other 5 years older and this happiness was mostly derived out of the Uncle Chipps packet they gave me (Lays and Kurkure had not arrived, guys). I may sound like a kid whose liking and love for others were based on the presents they gave, but what do you expect more from a 3 year old who can’t even spell “LOVE” .My life revolved on toys, cars, chocolates , stories and playing with the other good-for -nothing devils. To top it all, my mornings generally kick-started with using my tear glands more than any other organ of the body since I had to go to the structure of brick and concrete, my parents referred to as “School”. I just hated going to school since it looked more like a prison than a second home. Also, I think I did that just to attract more attention towards myself than my sister. Yeah, I agree I was a self centred, selfish piece of Anytime “Poo and Pee Producing” Machine (APM), but which kid isn’t. Hmmm, so I was happy to meet with a big packet of Uncle Chipps rather my sweet doting cousins but they were too busy in pulling my cheeks and then meeting my parents and my sister. So, I thought with my peanut sized mind that lets not break the news to them that my bladder was inflating with the cold drink they had just offered me. I guessed that my interference in their Utopian world would break this perfect image of happy faces around. So, I let my bladder take over my brain and I felt the bed beneath me becoming wet and cold like the glass I had in hand. The next thing I remember is Mom’s big eyes looking at me and scolding me that why did not I speak. So much for thinking about their Utopian world, Huh!!!
Anyway, this unexpected pee episode didn’t do much damage to much of my reputation as a very obedient and sweet kid. Seriously, adults don’t have any idea what the child is thinking. They just see the big innocent eyes but don’t see the devil which just wants to extract more and more advantage of adults. They didn’t come to know of my secret pee breaks which nourished the flowers in my aunt’s garden. One day, I was caught gardening these plants with my special care which came more from the bladder than the heart. I was scolded and slapped but again I scored with my relentless power of lachrymal glands.
The next few days were generally spent on eating, playing, watching TV , sleeping and innumerable repetitions of this routine. There was no more abrupt leakages from me neither on the bed nor in the garden, hence my mom was at peace. There was more action, but I guess I would leave these for the later posts.
