I have had a very happening day. It’s odd how we spend days together seemingly closeted in a little space of inaction, and then there are days like today where it seems that all of life’s clowns have gathered together to pull your ears and twist your elbows and dive their fingers through your nose.
The morning was fairly uneventful. I had had a dream in which I was back in class, except it wasn’t class, but the office, and I was irritating my manager in varied ways – including rattling my desk, against which he was sitting in his chair, and opening the newspaper in such a way as to cover his head. Naturally, he was irritated, and naturally I think to myself what’s eating him! There is a strange character in the real office, who I have taken a fond dislike to. My good friend at work is fascinated by her weirdness. But me thinks that considering that this new gal is occupying an old throne of a colleague who was the weirdest of them all, you can’t expect much different. At breakfast, I snatch the comb from the pockets of an unsuspecting guy.
After lunch, on our usual walk, my friend and I are accosted by India’s own special characters – eunuchs. One eunuch followed us for a while – but he/she was relatively mild. Her friend who came along clearly was hungry. He/she tugged my friend’s shirt. My friend moved away, or rather tried to. “I have nothing,” I protested showing my empty hands. “Give me your trousers then,” aggressive eunuch asked. It seems so funny now, but back then we were just irritated. Just how a society can allow open extortion in broad daylight is beyond me. We shook them off, but it was a sour end to a good lunch. But then the wheel swung again! I was so happy to know that something I was waiting for so long had arrived! In my mailbox! Then the wheel moved crazily – I didn’t know what to do with what I was waiting for, because I still have to wait for another to arrive in my mailbox. Horribly confused is a state of mind I hate.
As if that isn’t enough, I was to go on a trip over the weekend. Then again, I wasn’t. Oh, now I can. But no, the resort is full. So shut the case on that for now. On the drive back, Bangalore has well and truly entered the World Digging Competition. The rules of the game are simple. Dig as much as you can. Wherever you can. As wide as you can. As deep as you can. As messily as you can. Dig. Dig. Dig as if your life depends on it. And the last I checked, we are right in the Top 10 of the Competition. The prize of course is the well-deserved and coveted label of being called the Worst Jokers on the Planet, as well as the Only People Who Can Systematically Destroy Whatever They Have Built, and the title of City of Diggers. So I meander through narrow lanes that have sprouted huge mounds of earth on either sides, navigate through treacherous swamps, and come home thinking that I don’t need a trip to wild Wayanad. This is as wild as it gets.
Come home, still confused about Dilemma One Regarding The Possibility of Waiting for More Waiting. Hurry through my workout, then buy vegetables from the shop downstairs. Quarrel with the guy at the counter who tells me that the vegetable I want is over, even though I have seen it myself, simply because he is too lazy to fetch it himself. I give the guy at the other counter an earful, but nothing seems to work really because this is also the Land Of The Great White Scam Called Customer Service. Did you not hear about it? Those damn Pakistanis have taken all the Customer Service we had! Drat! Interfering Pakis!
