The day before yesterday
Bug 23 bit me so badly last night that I suddenly felt like going back to all my School days- College days- AIESEC days-SIBM days once again. To add to my misery, a few sadistic friends (Pai, Pathak & MJ) called me in the middle of their reunion in Pune.
Damn!
I brainlessly went through some 5 GB of old pics and videos and felt sad. I listened to ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘High’ and felt sadder :(
Two things that made me believe that I am just 7 years from the officially dreaded ‘not-to-be-mentioned’ number:
· I went home for a nap after lunch, before going out in the evening
· I have the ‘tanha tanha..’ song from Rangeela as my phone ringtone
I spent 90% of my day talking to people over the phone and the rest 10% to cutting birthday cakes(s)। Thanks to Nik and D, Pritam, Dinesh and of course mum-dad!!
Yesterday
I realized it was Monday again and along with my usual distributor-market visits, I had to go the bank to re-apply for my ATM cards.
I entered the North Ernakulam branch of HDFC Bank through their ATM door at 9.45 am. The gifted heavily lip-sticked help-desk woman stared at me like I’d entered her bedroom at the wrong time.
She: “Entu?” (What?)
Me: “Chechi, enikku malayalam arrayill” (Sister, I don’t know Malayalam)
She: “Tamil?” (Do you know tamil?)
Me: “Illa(No). I lost my ATM cards two days back. I need to re-apply”
She: “Irrukku” (Sit)
She gave me a form. I guess it was part of her job to offer everyone a Gold card. With her 10% english and 90% malayalam muddle and vociferous gesticulations she tried to explain the benefits and yearly charges to me. I was getting late for work but somewhere identified with her incompetent sales pitch to a customer who doesn’t understand her language, so sat and tried to decipher the details.
Those ten minutes were full of unhappy ugly realizations. It was like staring at the mirror.
She did a miserable job. It reminded me of those dozens of hopeless efforts I’d put in my last few days to convince those uncompromising contradictory retailers. I’d spoken softly (and sometimes not so softly), smiled at their smirks, cleaned their ant-ridden display counters, put posters on their cluttered dirty walls and even shook hands (I hate doing that with random men!!) but just didn’t work sometimes:(
Pitying her, I silently filled the Gold card form.
Today
It was my third consecutive visit to the police station to get the ‘certificate of complaint’ so that I could apply for a duplicate copy of my PAN card and Driving License. No matter what the general perception is, I think it’s a rather friendly place. Atleast people were trying to understand your problem or atleast they acknowledged that there was a problem(expecting that they’d do something about it is asking for too much).
I made pretty good friends with a lady constable who’d just sit and feel bad for you and go back to her newspaper (she used ‘aii-aiiyyo’ some 100 times as if it were the biggest robbery she’d ever witnessed) and the sub-inspector’s typist who tried hard to speak english.
“Molu..Bombay?”
“For work Molu?”
“Entinannu..come?”
I didn’t much understand of what all he said but in today's one hour, I had tea with him and asked about his children and family. He told me what would be the best time to see Mr. Sub Inspector which means I’ll see him tomorrow again:)
On the way back I noticed two things which made me feel a bit closer to my homeland.
First at ‘Franch Express’ courier services. Reminded me of the ‘Sandwhich’ – ‘Berger’ snack counter we had near my bus stop in school:
Second, on a movie billboard. Made me miss those half-hindi half english name plates in Jaipur eg. Retd. Lt. Colonel R . S. राजावत, Dr. D. S. मीना :
peal when it comes to its champagne like stylish display.
category nobody is ready to be a anybody!
