Hoardes

That’s the church next door. Snapped from my terrace.

Clouds all moving towards my right like a lot of people of some secretive cult gathering some place. Something is afoot. And they aren’t telling us.

The Body on the Road

There had been a jolt and the bus was standing still with the engine running. I had woken up in an instant (wishing I could wake up this easily on office days).

Commotion outside. The driver was revving the engine trying to get the thing moving. The cleaner (a Tamilian) was shouting at him to stop. “Nirthunga. Stop. Stop. Pinnaadi body nikkudu. Road ille body nikkudu.” (There is a body at the back… There is a body on the road… or so I thought.)

That got the attention of my co-passengers who promptly made a slow procession outside. I waited for the aisle to clear (I am well-known for keeping a cool head in the time of crisis) and followed.

The ground outside was a wet mess, scarred with marks of various bus and truck tyres. I cleverly avoided stepping into the wet patches (crisis, cool head) and took the longer route to the back of the bus to identify the body.

I knew that body. A familiar sight. Seen it many times before and also the previous evening. The rear wheels had sunk into the wet mud and the “body” of the bus was resting on the road. Poor thing. I silently expressed my most sincere condolences to the rear of the bus and went looking for a cigarette shop.

I covered the rest of my journey in an SETC bus.

Funny Beeble

If you find yourself walking from M.G. Road, Ernakulam to South Railway Station one evening, be prepared to observe one of the most Mallu spectacles in the universe. Shortly before 6pm, random members of the public suddenly take to their heels for no apparent reason, all moving in the same direction. This is the kind of crowd behaviour one usually associates with the 9/11 news footage taken at Ground Zero, what’s missing is the cloud of dust looming behind the panicking crowd. But this is not a mere terrorist attack. It’s the 6pm local train that’s about to leave!

Funny people these Mallus. They had me worried a couple of times. Chettas, chechis, kunjus… regardless of age, religion or cup size… they all fall into a brisk trot (if brisk is what trots are when done with vigour). The next time this happens, I’m gonna join in just for the fun of it as I make my way to Castle Rock Bar. It’s like a marathon without the formality.

INFECTION (iWrote)

One of the scout ships reported signs of life in the experimental universe. This particular system was based on energy, matter and forward-only time. A pretty ancient model.

I switched to material form to get some readings and file a report on the one planet that was teeming with life. I had to move fast since each day on that planet lasted less than a minute in our time scale.

As I crawled in the shadows, I could hardly find anything remarkable happening that evening. I filled out my report describing a herd of rather ugly warm-blooded creatures on two legs. One of them was quite excited on having fashioned a wheel of sorts from the trunk of a fallen tree, but the rest of the herd didn’t take much interest in this. At the time, this group seemed the most evolved of all the species I had come across there. No cause for alarm.

The first signs of a problem manifested itself during a recon excursion late the next evening (our time scale). The blue-green planet had changed for the worst. Our probes had detected two nuclear explosions in quick succession on the surface of the planet. The observation crew reported that a large-scale war that had taken place – the second war in that evening. The atmosphere, though visibly unchanged, contained vast amounts of gases and unstable matter which were toxic to most forms of life in this system.

The biggest change of all was observed among the very same creatures I had observed earlier. Their every action was indicative of greed, selfishness, jealousy and most of all – hatred. Though their thoughts were still underdeveloped in most ways, they had surpassed every other species in their capacity for hating each other.

The reports were tabled before the Elders at the Council. They were quick to decide that the species was to be treated as malignant. Terminate, Destroy and all that… Like we didn’t know!

Easy for them to say, but we at the lab could not abandon the entire experiment because of just one lousy life form. We had to carefully preserve all life on the rest of the planet while eliminating only the infection – permanently.

We located viruses already present on the planet and modified them to target the problem species. As I write, the latest virus (named ‘Swine Flu’ by the malignant species) looks like it should do the needful. The system should be sterilized of the infection in about two years (experimental time scale).

Good riddance!

I’m not bad!

This happened shortly after tutions one day. I spoke to the KND about my bad habits, about how I was very disobedient as a kid and how I have grown into a bad bad boy as a result of it. There was supposed to be a lesson in moral science somewhere there.

“You are not bad,” the KND said. “Your habits are bad.”

More tutions!

My free^* tution classes are bound to become more fun in the years to come. The kid next door just got a baby sister. I have met the mother several times during the past month, and yet had no clue that there was good news in the offing.

The lady runs a beauty parlour and I am about to believe that along with pimples, wrinkles, dark skin, scars, stretch marks and baldness, beauticians have now mastered the art of hiding pregnancies as well. Maybe there is some kind of new cream in the market which you apply to the affected region and …it vanishes!! Voila!! A baby/tummy vanishing cream. Maybe I should try some on this paunch that keeps making an appearance when I am kept away from the barbell for too long.

—–

*Almost free. Aunty has bribed me with pork, chicken, phoren soap and phoren cigarettes on ocassions. And the kid often gives me free advice that can put many a sorry-excuse-for-an-agony-aunt world renowned agony aunt out of business.

Lack of opportunity?

The all knowing Wiki has once again hit the nail on the head. An involuntary celibate is what I am. Right from the tender young age of 10, I’ve been suffering physically, mentally and in every other way from the ‘V’ thing. I still remember going into a trance every time those Anglo-Indian girls (our school teachers) showed up at school in those itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, short, sleeveless one-piece frocklets. And guess what I did to impress them. I studied hard and scored good marks. Tchah!!

Now I understand why the grades took on a downward trend as soon as I reached high school. None of our teachers in high school and after were of the fine quality that my raging hormones had come to expect. In fact we had teachers with Tamil nicknames which went like “Chori”, “Nondi”, “Paalkaara”, “Murukku” and so on. And they surely lived up to those names.

Leave me alone while I nurse these festering wounds and draft a new plan of action.

Perks 1

• Guaranteed to save a considerable amount of money each day.
• Will leave me stiff, slow and mildly irritable. People will take me more seriously.
• Health. Stamina. Appetite.
• Reduced chances of ED. (Though ED should not be a concern for someone who has consistently remained a virgin the last 31-years.)
• Bound to make a big difference the next time I pump iron.
• Goodbye to bad breath and smelly fingers.
• Fewer annoying things cluttering the pockets.
• A good clear memory. A sharper mind.
• Quicker on the bike.
• Improved balance. A better gait.
• An increased life-expectancy so there could still be some hope of losing my virginity before I’m dead.

Such are the perks of kicking the old smoking habit.

Fill in the Blanks

I am sometimes asked to help the Kid Next Door with her homework and lessons. This time it was Hindi. “Fill in the blanks” at the end of a chapter on the “Wright Bandhoo”.

KND: …Leanardo Da Vinci ko, pakshion ko uddthey dekh kar yeh khayal aayaa.
Me: Now say that in English.
KND: Meanings are not required. Only fill in the blanks.
Me: But don’t you want to know what it means.
KND: No. Meanings are not there for the exam.

Cute but sad …very sad.

Toilet Humour

I love my Pepsodent. So when I saw it slip from my hand, bounce against the sink, the wall, the faucet (faucet means tap but I use fancy words when I blog) before making a splash in the crapper, I did what any other Pepsodent lover would do – I froze.

Big tube, small commode. So, I couldn’t just flush the damn thing down. I will say no more on the topic.

Thanks to some quick thinking, I managed to get some toothpaste from what little was left in the “junior” tube from my travel kit.

Having thus flipped the bird at my ill fortune, I put brush to incisors and brushed with vigour and that is when my toothbrush broke.