Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Kolijug (Kalyug)

“You are getting very prejudiced about typecasting people, that’s not the way you should meet them, you should have a very open mind…” went on Shibani.

I glanced down at my watch, it was 10:50 AM, needed to finish the next set of Assessments by noon. She must’ve noticed the little lapse in attention, and quickly pounced back, “See, you are not even listening…”. I immediately tried to duck behind a face saver – “Ok, from now on, no prejudices, no opinions..”. No chance whatsoever, today she was in form, the replies had the accuracy and pinch of a seasoned pigmy warrior, raining poison tipped arrows, while u r haplessly perched on a tree-top, “Why would you do that? That wouldn’t stop u from forming them in your mind…”

It was getting increasingly difficult to counter the super-woman mode, so I resorted to chemical weapons. I do not know the composition of the various chemicals, that incite the feelings of pity in the human brain, but I am sure they are there. “Arre yaar, actually a lot of my friends were into theatre and music, and in the evenings, during adda-time, they would come back with loads of “antel” (intellectual) info. Trying to block our usual flow of – which girl dates which boy, for how long etc. – mode of conversation…”.

My voice trailed off under a fresh onslaught of verbal cruise missiles…“Disgusting !” was the first one, that hit it’s target, others followed, I ducked and ran under various protective shields such as … “The vending machine serves disgusting coffee”…looking at the pantry door suddenly, as if Archana has walked in; gaze out with a sad face, across the ever stretching Mumbai city-line, as if I am drowned in green-thoughts of global warming and carbon footprints of concrete buildings….

Alas, nothing worked, with another volley of ego piercing verbal shells, she ensured that no sheds of my vocal defences are anywhere in sight, gulped down her last sip of by now cold masala chai, sullenly glanced at her watch and walked out of the pantry with a one liner… “Sometimes, you should work also…”

All this, for suggesting that she should take Sampurna to Prithvi theatre. Sleepy eyed Sampurna, would anyways sleep off, letting her watch the play without any disturbances….

It is really difficult to survive in kolijug (kalyug)…

1 comment:

Neo_C said...

You are getting real good with the humour.....the bit about the vending machine serving disgusting coffee was both profoundly insightful (I wonder why no one else complains) and humourous at the same time....