Mixing Peanuts and Cricket

Gulping down the insipid coffee to inoculate me against a Saturday hangover, I ran pell-mell down the apartment stairs out into dawn and jogged to the road. I tried flagging down the first auto; he refused point blank. I waited in my adidas sneakers for ten more minutes before Autorickshaw #2 acquiesced and off I was to play cricket after a really long gap of seven months.

As the rickshaw sped across the non-existent hustle and bustle of a sleepy Sunday morning on the Lokhandwala roads, early morning joggers, sleepy tea stalls and paid toilet booths flashed by. The significance did not strike me. I leaned out of the auto to get a glimpse of the glorious sun, rising across a clear blue expanse and some retarded bird shat on my clean-washed T shirt. Denigrating the process of digestion and in turn the lineage of retarded birds, I moved to a more central position inside the auto. The auto-man took double the time, triple the distance and four times the fare. Cursing, I jogged my way through tall apartment buildings that concealed a well-laid ground. And by well-laid, I mean it in all the senses possible.

But currently, it was as deserted as the premiere show for Vettaikaran. There was just one plumber/watchman who started toe-carving kolams on the earth on seeing me. Disgusted, I fished out my phone and called the organizer.

"Dude..!!". I said.
"Thood", he mumbled.
"WTF are you??" I screamed like a scorned PMS-struck teenager.
"Eh?", he said.

I realized it was futile and called the next in command. His wife answered the phone promptly. I told her that the situation was one of national importance. She understood quickly; a bit too quickly. The reasons were unclear; was it because I usually charm the pants off any middle aged woman I talk to or because she wants her spouse to get some dosage of good exercise? With no intention of stealing Tiger Woods' thunder I settled on the latter. Ten minutes more and the ground was littered with paunchy, grumpy men cursing wives, kids, marriages and for some reason, Aamir Khan.

But cricket is that sort of the game where you end up liking the game irrespective of all that aforementioned balderdash. I saw a marked increase in the players' confidence levels as they pranced and danced across the ground, literally violating what was left of her. The transition seemed so wonderful that I started believing in the true spirit of cricket. Cricket runs in our blood, cricket is everything; it can cure breakups, beat the hell out of a Chuck Norris flick on the television and create bonds so strong that chemists in Kazakhstan are still conspiring to develop a bio-weapon out of it to unleash it on Antarctica. I squinted at the sun and suddenly realized all my beliefs was just bovine excreta.

The main reason was that the apartments around had come to life with mushroomed spectators. Most of them were bored housewives whose husbands were still snoring the ceiling plaster down. Anyway, half an hour into the game the first innings was nearing its end. My stomach rumbled as I took my menacing approach of a bull on steroids to bowl the last over. I graciously gifted 17 runs in one single over. My ancestors turned in their graves as the humiliation lost me my so-sought after mojo. I could feel the audience sniggering at my plight. It had to be redeemed. I beat my belly and swore to get even. As I was walking back to the pavilion, frustrated, a vision holding a plate of peanuts and a goblet of lime juice rose. It was a benevolent-looking Maami, resplendent in a brown madisar who had come down from the apartments. I thanklessly gorged on the peanuts without thinking twice or even thrice.

Our innings began disastrously, chasing 83 runs in eight overs with 6 batsmen. Our openers got out so quickly that it looked like a trekking expedition to the pitch. After that, a decent flow of runs poured due to some exquisite stroke-play from our penultimate batsmen. There was a brief scuffle sometime during the game, when the hormonal drool content in the ground attained an all-time high; the only difference being, I have never seen punches being hindered by paunches (excluding Sam Anderson). Anyway, just when we looked like we were going to make it easily, there was a rather an unfortunate mix-up effecting a run out. Methinks, the batsmen were just running to get closer to the Maami who sat benignly, pacifying the returned batsmen who were only too pleased to be worried over. The score stood at 70 runs in seven overs. 12 was required off the last over as I went in to take strike.

My team of MBPs hoisted me and delivered swift kicks to my butt in celebration. Little did they know what they were soiling their hands with. I wrenched free from all of it, the team, the now-Chimp-scored audience and the lovely Maami (who winked while she was consoling the captain of the MHPs) and flew to the apartment gates. And then the pieces fell into place. That scheming Maami! But in her defense, it was all for the greater good(s). And yeah, she was also very pretty.

However, invariably, as luck would have it, autos after autos turned me down. I started running in the general direction of my house hoping to get a lift. And lo and behold! My apartment tower was right behind the ground! The grinning chipmunk of an auto-man, coiled in a hammock in Goa, recounting his exploits in the Mumbai underworld outsmarting rich, stupid kids with his ultra-sub machine autometer and impeccable driving skills as the bunch of loosely-clad auto-women oohed and aahed in pseudo-orgasmic pleasure; loomed in my face. My stomach burned, literally and figuratively.

I was steps away from the door when the Bhakra Nangal dam broke.

Pazhani Malai Steps

My Dad looked at me disgustedly. Random commuters looked at me disgustedly. I looked at myself, acting disgustedly. There was a noted level of apprehension that hung in the air like a squeezed fart. I was sure it was not going to happen. But my Dad is a hardcore fan of self-help books like, "You Can Win"; "I Can You Can", "Pepsi Recyclable Can" and the like.

It all started when my parents landed in Mumbai to pay me a surprise visit. I was not not totally prepared for it. There were enough empty beer and vodka bottles lying around in my house to buy a year's supply of whisky. I had just two hours notice to fumigate my house and keep it spic and span; whose meaning I have never heard of or never intended to use in the same sentence as my house/abode/den/tree. However my parents were least bothered about the state of the house. It was something else that bothered them that found us in this present situation.

The picture: Imagine a 25 tonne MCGM garbage lorry travelling at 70 kmph on the Western Express Highway. There is a small bicyclist coming in the opposite direction. There is also a small tea-shop somewhere in between the two. Now, continue imagining what happens next while I quickly explain my embarrassing situation before you have time to understand what the bloody dickens I am talking about.

My belly had grown so big that I cannot bend down and tie my shoelaces without breathing like a beaten walrus. True story. My parents, when they first saw me after almost six months, came close to throwing a public fit. For two whole days I listened to the incessant drivel on Improper Eating Habits, Not Eating Nutritious Food, Sleeping at Weird Hours etc. Beyond a point, I was so frustrated that I started watching reruns of Splitsvilla, which I would probably do only if there was a fully-grown moustache suspended somewhere around my head attached to a man wielding a hacksaw. But my parents paid little or no attention to the psychological post-teenage depression that leads to inadvertent increase in muscular fat, concentrated mostly near the intestinal region that might be partially due to enormous intake of fermented barley water ominously named after a Royal Carnivorous Avian species (quite stupidly) and partially to lack of consistent muscle displacement.

Thus started Operation Slim Down. My Dad is not necessarily a fitness freak. But he strictly believes in screwing me up. Somehow, he managed to hoodwink me into going to a mall where he suddenly started fussing about wanting a tote bag and completely changed once we entered an Adidas store. My Mom came out with the big guns and walloped a load of worry that made me feel so bad, that I allowed them pamper to me into buying a good looking pair of Adidas sneakers. They looked quite cool when I wore them. My parents were happy, I was happy, the dealer was happy and all's well that still has a lot more to go before it does not end very well.

Two days later, I came home really tired. My parents wanted to go someplace where I could relax. I could of think of only one place that I could relax but that would mean me getting signed out of my Dad's will. And they wanted me to wear my new sneakers. I was a fool of the highest order as I gave in.

Half an hour later, after winding in and out of Lokhandwala market's by-streets we finally landed near a board that said, "Fame Fitnass Center". I almost took to my heels if not for the fact that my Dad weighed a couple of hundred pounds more than me and he was taller than me by at least a foot. Mutely swearing at genetic randomness, I was iron-gripped to the reception and was made to sign up. That was that, for the time being.

And so started the regime. But there is a twist to the tale. What began as a "Amma, I have a flea in my eye. I dont think I will be able to see the question paper. Can I bunk the Half-Yearly exams altogether?" affair slowly evolved into a, "Amma, where's my multi-purpose pen pencil? If I have to score the first rank in the Half Yearly exams, I will have to underline the botanical names of animal genetalia." The second I come back from office, I used to set off for the gym slinging a bag and wearing my brand new sneakers. Credibly enough, I also used to come back drenched in sweat and perspiration. But, contrary to the old bloke, Darwin's theory, the process was quick and not long drawn out. It eventually led to the sowing of the seeds of doubt. In due course, the seeds sprouted and flowered to become a full-blown mega-whopper of a Tree of Incertitude.

Exactly two days before my parents scooted out of Bal Thackeray's province, my Dad decided to investigate. Donning a Rs:50 worth deerstalkers cap that was haggled off from Saravana stores, he shadowed me, right up to the gym. What he saw there rendered him so speechless for days, that he could have acted in Raja Harischandra without batting an eyelid.

I had to take the help of my Mom to paraphrase his feelings exactly:

Once my son reached the gym, he went into the changing room and changed into his sneakers. He then came out and waited for some time. After ten or so minutes, a pretty number walked up to him and they went together to the treadmill. My son just stood there yapping a dime a dozen, as the pretty number started jogging. This went on for almost an hour. After which, my dear son went back to the changing room, removed his sneakers and walked out of the gym. Once out of the gym, he took out his bottle and proceeded to empty its contents over himself, shaking his meager scalp like Julie Andress. And then he saw me......

I lasted four more days. My sneakers are collecting dust now, as a full-time profession.

Ut tensio, sic vis*

I was in a very bad mood. It was not because a crow had somehow got into my house and proceeded to seduce me my bringing garbage from all over the country and redecorating my kitchen. It was also not because I threw a newspaper at it, that totally missed it and fell out the window over an old couple who were making out in the verandah below and made the old man let loose a few expletives. The factual reasons were totally simple and somehow totally irrelevant to whatever happened that day.

The 3-point roster of my FMLs for that day;

1. I slipped in the bathroom and almost lost my virginity. Forever.
2. I discovered only that day that my door had a self-locking mechanism. With my keys inside.
3. It was Monday morning.

Making a mental note to de-select two of them to twitter about, I set off for office. The Mumbai-local ride was anything but abnormal. Re-discovering my ancestor's genes by swinging from one pole to another, each time inhaling a new, fresh dose of masculine sweat hardly improves one's emotional disposition. I got off the train, with my trousers dangling somewhere around the second half of my rear football field and quickly built up a stride in the direction of my office building.

The huge glass doors came into view and I ejaculated a teenage-girl-watching-Grudge 2.0-shriek. It was my reflection. Sweating ravines, tousled black-green-yellow hair with a groundnut sticking out of nowhere, askew glasses and a drunken look: I painted a rather pretty picture of Ranbir Kapoor. I quickly hurried to the elevator and started thumping the close button before anything tragic happened. There was just one other, middle-aged female in the elevator who gave a dont-even-think-about-it look that teleported my spine to the Tundra. I retorted with a please-buy-a-mirror look. When she found that she was losing the war of misshapen looks, she took it to the next level and slowly, silently started mouthing words at me. But I was not going to fall for the same trap again. I could faintly see the flint of her jazzy mobile phone, dangling from one of her ears, hidden behind troll-like locks of hair.

The doors closed and a god-awful bhajan started playing as we rose. 1, 2, 3, 4. Finally, the eskimo got off. And who should come peeping in the next second? A six-pack. Literally, a six-pack. Six giggling, half-gorgeous girls. My guess was the HR department but Finance came a close second. Anyway, given my organisation, seeing any female lesser than 35 years of age is nothing short of a water-turning-wine episode. Drunk with my good fortune, I decided to make good hay out of the chance. Hip-hopping in the best 50 cent caricature possible to the corner where that middle-aged hag had been hobbling, I struck my Clint-Eastwoodish pose; winking a 240W smile at them girls. Surprisingly, all of them smiled back. "NAILED IT!!!", I yelled silently to myself, blasting my tympanum. My deranged libido finally managed to kickstart the sputtering scooter and grinned at me. I was on a metaphoric high.

And then my floor came. I had to let go of my copyrighted pose. Noetically saluting, "Respect, Mr. Harry Callaghan", I walked out of the lift. What happened within two seconds after that just screwed me. It took my dignity, squashed it with a sledgehammer, ran it through a Bengali's paan-chewing mouth and threw it out of the sixth floor window.

elastic:  /ilastik/
adjective: able to resume normal shape spontaneously after being stretched or squeezed.
noun: cord, tape, or fabric which returns to its original length or shape after being stretched.

Derivatives: elastically adverb elasticity /illastissiti/ noun elasticize (also elasticise) verb.

Origin: Greek elastikos ‘propulsive’.

As I walked out; to be more specific, as I moved out of that corner, there was a long pink thread-like thing that clung on to my shirt. It followed me until I walked out of the elevator, giving a short crash course in elasticity. The elevator(now more read than a Anna University ECE graduate) played along and slowly went up, dragging it until it got cut off and I was left with a long trail of sick-looking, masticated bubble gum. I stood there, horrified, staring at the off-pink line that ran from the lift. I could almost hear the guffaws get louder along with clouds of gossip, as the lift ascended. My dreams of giving birth to twins, buying a Honda Civic, taking them to an Anglo Indian school in Ooty and pinching the cheeks of smart looking grandson-chimps; all looked distended and mangled like that wad of bubble gum.

Wad of bubblegum. Thats when it struck me and I yelled like a sleep-deprived, wounded pig. That middle-aged fiend..!!

*Click here for more info

Benetton Inc.

       It was a white T-Shirt. Pure and virginistic. I simply looked marvelous in it. Without it, even better. But let us not get into the genesis or the implications of the underwritten eleventh wonder of the world. I walked around with an air of handsome-ness and hot-ity. I felt the T-shirt bring out something that only my girlfriend and a few Miss World rejects manage to twitch. In plain Greek, I was in love with my T-shirt.

       Imagine a paling sunset, with the beach shining; golden soft. A couple. Lost in love and in each other's eyes, as they try to look for an answer to the questions that God had somehow forgotten in his huge plan of perpetuating species. Hands held, thoughts locked and lips inviting. The two are oblivious to everything. To even a fully grown grizzly bear, stinking of dead rats and Musharraf's breath, that enters the scene somehow, with a blood- curdling howl that would send microscules of crap running to your bowels. The hairy bear, sprints into the scene, lifts the female and plants a loud, wet, loving kiss on her cheek. Imagine her confusion; her feelings and that of the helpless male as he watches his beloved, handled like an old transistor.


       That was how I felt. As I was pacing my steps towards the mess, in a complex Venusian dance move, hands grew out of nowhere and tugged at my shirt. Dirty, rainbow-colored hands. It was all over in a few seconds. My T-shirt went down in tatters. My soul was damaged beyond any repair and it started blowing a requiem. And that was not all. The same hands bore me up and I started floating in air as the foliage above me, shifted rapidly. Suddenly, sunlight broke out and punctured my eyes. I shielded them and gravity hit me with a sledgehammer. I plummeted six feet. Down. Down.

       Into a tub of colored water. The water was grimy and tasted of chola puri. I rose from the depths, waters cascading down rippling muscles and an angry expression, looking like Clint Eastwood with bad skin problems, as my ears shuddered in pain caused by a shout that even bats will not have a problem hearing..

"HOLI HAI, CHIMPY BOY!"

       From there onwards, it was a Shakespearean tragedy. I was mauled and beaten alive, as I battled my way through the levels. Yes, there were levels. The Tub was Level 1. Level 2 was me being thrown in the air and ejaculating oohs and aahs from the feminine crowd as my pink underwear, made even pinker by the colors, was made public. I was being literally, visibly stripped. And then came Level 3.

       Somehow, everybody got to know that I was not that heavy, in spite of my rather menacing and calm demeanour. Both boys and girls bore me up. By this time, I had swallowed enough water to irrigate the Sahara and all my breath had taken a vacation. I was too tired to struggle. Level 3 hit me full on the face and body parts. It was brown and smelt of damp earth.

       It WAS damp earth. It was a bloody mud pit. I was rolled and rolled on it like a chappati. Suddenly, it was all over and the thudding stopped. There was a new victim. I stood up. Damp, dirty, stinking and my pants in threads. I looked around and saw the new victim being ambushed. I waited to find out the people responsible. They were three of them who were doing this. Instantly, I wanted vengeance. It boiled my blood. The three guys were carrying the poor guy to The Tub. I swiftly scanned the surroundings with my ultra sensory perceptive sight and it came to rest on my poor T- shirt. Seeing the T-Shirt, gave me more strength and an idea. I picked it up and wetted it thoroughly. Then walked purposefully, to the three perpetrators of crime, who were now harassing the poor fellow, drowning him in that insipid water.

       I stood a meter behind and pulled back my T-shirt taut. It was aimed splendidly at the first fellow's backside. I let go. The T-Shirt flew and perfectly flicked his behind. A howl split the air and filled my ears with music. Suddenly, I wished I hadn't done it. The fellow turned, surrounded by the other three. And more behind the three. I gave up.

The process was repeated. Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

Again. And again. And again.

Five times. They made sure that Hamam will owe 13% of its business to me.

But, as the proverb goes: When you are getting raped, you might as well enjoy it. And I did. To the fullest extent.

The Day I Tried To....

       It was around eleven thirty when I got off my computer and walked up to the balcony to get a whiff of cool, fresh air; it was hot and stank of used socks. I swore. My spine was hurting like a millipede had gone trekking on it with spiked boots. I stretched, chasing the knots out of my muscles and leaned over the rails to get a look. It felt nice - the non-existent breeze floating across my face.
       Suddenly, the moon came out and I could make out a couple walking across the lawns, holding hands. Something gave me the opinion that I knew them from somewhere. I racked my brains, fiddling around the intellectual crap with a pitchfork. My sub-conscious told me I had known them all my life. They were too familiar.
       I ran inside the room, took hold of my broken specs that was entangled in a towel and put them on hurriedly. I rushed back outside, with the towel hanging to the frame of my spectacles, looking like a Turkish bride, and focused my vision on the part of the lawn that these two people were traversing swiftly.
       Yeah, yeah. Of course, they were my parents. I had to give some buildup. I owe it to them. Fact is, they had come over to Ahmedabad; my Dad had a conference. From the minute they landed, they were not too impressed by mine effects. I had tried my level best though. They remained stubborn and refused to treat me as a grownup individual, who can take care of a paunch. That was one thing I had never been able to explain away. My Dad pointedly asked,

"Oye, Sirpy. That's a paunch man...!"
"Yeah, I think it is..."
"You boozing...?"... Doubt creeping in.
"Appa...! This is a dry state, remember...??". This is me being defensive throwing in some simple strategy.
"Hmmmm....".
       My Dad was not completely convinced, as he gave me a cynical glare and pushed off to complain to my Mom, who was busy inspecting my wardrobe and was throwing out all my stuff, trying to find some evidence to incriminate me. But she always neatly folded them back in just to placate me, saying that she was just trying to clean up the room. I never complain. My room always looked like goblins had a fancy dress party and had belched clothes all over.
       Anyway, I stood staring, as the lovers-past-prime made their way across the sub-pass towards the cricket ground. My brain worked involuntarily and I mentally followed the most probable course that they would take in their walk. And then a plan diabolique struck me.
       I ran inside, called up DFock and ordered, rationalized, begged, pleaded and finally bartered my pink underwear to brainwash him to come to the basketball court. Fifteen minutes later, I huffed and puffed my way to the court. DFock was thumping the ball away, here and there, throwing expert hoops. Fear grasped my intestine and made a pretzel. But I knew I had to do it to save my image. I entered the arena and waited.
       As per my calculations, my parents had to come around the corner in exactly twenty five minutes. They showed up an hour later. By then, DFock was royally pissed, as he did not see any of his incentives materializing.
       Never mind him.
       The second my parents came into the picture, I ran yelling war whoops, into the court. I could actually hear my parents talk,

Dad: "Is that our son...?"
Mom: "Eh...? He's too tall and too fair to be lazy."
Dad: "No. No. That is the sweeper. I meant one of the guys in the basketball court..."
Mom: "Hmmm... Wait. Something's wrong. He does look like our offspring, but basketball...????!!"
Dad: "Exactly. Let's go check him out."
Mom: "Oui."

       And then it was disaster. Three simple things. Three simple things that I had forgotten.
1) My spectacles were still hanging to my towel back in the room.
2) I can never ring the doorbell of every house.
3) I still had the paunch.

       Both my parents had the laugh of their lives, as I pirouetted, waltzed and gracefully curved my way around the ball in a zillion ways, never touching it. I was in deep disgrace.

       Later, my Mom patted my back for the effort and said she was proud of me. A pat. For all that toil in planning and executing. A pat.
       Sheesh.