That puffa smoke!

I have stopped smoking. I don’t use the word quit. The first time that I actually stopped, I went around telling people proudly that I quit and that I finally got myself rid of this ghastly habit, only to fall flat on my face when someone casually passed me that not-so-harmless-looking drag in between rounds of drinks. The first drag always gets you strapped to the seat and before you know it you are on a roller coaster ride. Its that time of the year when I manage to stop smoking and its been three days since I have even bothered to look at it. Its really easy to keep away from smoking as long as you stay away from the first drag. Occasionally, ofcourse, there is this urge that makes you want to buy the tobacco stick from the oh-so many shops where it can be procured. Today is just one of those days. I see a guy approaching me with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He comes up to me and asks “You got a match?” “Yeah” I say to him before I walk away. “My butt, your face.”

Splash!

It was late Sunday afternoon. Glenn and Paul (names changed to conceal their identity, lest they get offended) accompanied me to meet Ash at his club and after a coupla hours of playing table tennis, we decided to hit the swimming pool while Ash decided to join the clowns on the treadmill who simply run like crazy without reaching anywhere. While I waded into deeper waters, Glenn and Paul contented themselves by remaining close to the edge at 4 ft depth with the railing at an arm’s length. I do not lay any tall claims to be a professional swimmer myself, but I guess I am comfortable in water. These guys reminded me of my earlier days in the pool, when I did the same. Once, after shedding my inhibitions, I had ventured into deeper waters when I developed cramps in my feet. I started beating at the water in a frenzy and I almost drowned myself and another person who happened to be close at hand. However, he saved himself and in the process managed to save me. According to my friends who were around, it was quite a sight.

When I looked towards Paul and Glenn, I saw that they were arousing more than a passerby’s curiosity. They were definitely upto something and it wasn’t swimming. It was as if they were competing to see who among them could make the most splashing noise. They were in sync with each other. One would be forgiven for assuming that these guys had taken it on themselves to drain the swimming pool of water. If these guys were seeking attention, they had it, and if a waiter is to be believed, even from people dining in a restaurant on the fourth floor of the clubhouse. If only it was internationally acknowledged an impossible feat to send the water at eighteen ft from a shallow depth of 4 ft, these guys have done our country proud. If a tsunami could be created in a swimming pool, the credit goes to these guys. If these guys are left to do their number in the Arabian Sea, they would attract the attention of a shark in the Pacific. If you think I've used an if too many in the last few sentences, you've no idea about the spectacle I've been an eyewitness to.

I made a shy exit from the swimming pool.

grrrr!

It is a li’l past eight in the evening and I’m headed home after a hectic day at work. I am at Andheri station on the east and I find myself among the sea of bobbing heads easing through, nudging and occasionally trampling on people’s feet on the way home. Andheri East at this time, if one was afforded an arial view, would resemble a carnival so much so that one should look with pity on the guy, rather than with scorn, who actually mistook it for one and is caught in the melee with no escape route in sight. Not that Andheri West is any better.
The day that had started off well took a nasty turn when there was an electricity failure at my office and not one nor two but three clients called in succession, inquiring about the jobs that were to be emailed to them and each of them apparently oblivious to the fact that without electricity, the computers do not function. Clients are impossible at times and when I told a lady (without doubt, a client) that she was being one, she giggled.
Even when the electricity was restored, there was no reprieve as jobs that had piled up since morn, were lined up and the calls from the clients never ceased. Finally, when I called it a day, I decided to walk it down to Andheri station and now here I am, a part of the throng. I manage to break away, hail an autorickshaw and I reach home, but not before getting caught up in numerous traffic snarls. I join six people in an elevator meant for five and I wonder if claustrophobia assumes any significance in Mumbai.
I hope I get to watch some TV. I hope I get to watch some TV. I open the door. Golly, my brother is already at it. He’s watching some movie where a race is about to begin.
On your marks… get set… go away!

travel travail

I hailed an autorickshaw and after telling the driver about my destination, I had only stepped in when he switched the radio on. As a rule, I usually ask the rickshaw drivers to turn the music off since most of them only play contemporary hindi music that plays on your soul like some chainsaw on timber. Today, however, was an exception where the track belted out was one from an old hindi movie and I let the speakers do their number while I mused that "VIDEO never really killed the RADIO star". My ravings were cut short and I was jarred into my senses when a cacophony of instruments, perceived by some as music, hit my eardrum till I thought my ear was going to bleed. A human voice accompanied it and it went "oooooh" and I immediately recognized it as belonging to the chap who sang, with a nasal twang. Listening to the voice, one cannot help wondering if The Creator, after downing a couple of stiff ones and probably in his haste to complete the job at hand, shoved the throat up this chap's nose. Another word that goes around has it that its not the Providence to be blamed at all; the chap, as a young devil at three, had tried swallowing a nut through the nose and it got stuck somewhere in the deep recesses enroute. It is indeed commendable of this man with a voice like it, that he has not just managed to survive it but also made a living out of it. I personally know of atleast 27, if not more, people who would give anything to take the hose of a vacuum cleaner, stick it up his nose, and suction off anything in sight at full power. Though his music and his voice play an integral part for people wanting to do it, we must not deprive the lyrics its due credit. I politely asked the autorickshaw driver to turn off the radio and it was only moments later that we came to a halt and as I paid the driver, I could perceive from without another track from the same chap with his all too familiar nasal voice and the trademark "oooooh". It didn't take me long to realize that some other autorickshaw driver, in the vicinity, was enjoying the song to an extent that he was playing it full volume, probably for the benefit of the deaf. I alighted and I was so irritated that when I set my sights on a fat ugly kid playing in the mud by the side, his trouser seat looked as inviting as a football asking for it: I could sense my leg twitch. However, decency and better sense prevailed. I merely gave it a tap, which sent the ugly kid rolling in the mud twice before he did the finest imitation of a cockroach on its back. It was only after I had covered much ground that I was entirely cut off from that voice bleating those senseless lyrics. Talk about lyrics; reminds me of what some wise guy once said and it goes: "Anything too stupid to be recited is sung."

Oooooh.... how trooooo!