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Next to Aniket, I am the World Champion in Escapism.
Very early on in my life I discovered that when someone tells me that he was looking for me on an important business, it always turned out, a la Maugham, that the business was important to him rather than me...there are a few exceptions nowadays like Coca Cola and Mercedes Benz...
So after laughing my lungi loose reading one of the 40 Wodehouses in my Collection in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP, I used to sing in the bathroom, finish my jolly ablutions, take a final look in the mirror, and wear my famous scowl before going out to 'work'. Indra called it a grumpy look which sort of scared everyone except a couple of friends, and students in the class room.
My closest friend, NP, is my exact opposite...he is blessed, unlike me, with a handsome face and figure and a matching smile. And he rose step by inevitable step very high in the Administration where he was in continual contact with the public. So, he never had anytime to call his own and once in a while when he wanted to escape his clients he used to walk into my Office and take me out for chai in the Canteen. And the scores of folks who wished to talk to him and cry their hearts out used to stop in their tracks seeing my grump that acted as an impenetrable potential barrier. I used to tell him that I acted like the Sikhandi that Arjun placed before him while fighting Bhishma.
But there was one lone exception who conquered my scowl. His name was Prof VYR in the Phy Dept. He did eminent work on cosmic rays with Janossy before he joined IIT KGP, a place singularly unsuited for experimental work on as stratospheric a thing as cosmic rays. And so he got stuck and grounded and was frustrated and used to wear a scowl bigger than mine...it was like a bigger fish catching and eating a big fish.
Somehow he found in me a listener who was decent enough not to run away at the sight of him approaching. And he was a fake smoker, all the time filching fags from dedicated smokers like me and wasting them puffing from the mouth...he never stood the risk of lung cancer...
He then found that I bought Vazir cigarettes wholesale (25 packs in one stack) from Gole Bazaar and hoarded them in the wardrobe in my room E-13 in the Faculty Hostel.
So, he would be looking for me walking down to the Hostel at the end of a full day's of work via Gate # 5. And then he would stop his Vespa scooter beside me and walk down dragging it, giving me company all the way to my Hostel, park his scooter, come up to my room, pick up one of my fags, pocket a couple of them, smoke to his mouth's content all the while narrating the sad story of one or the other grouse of his day.
This became a routine for a month or so when I got sick of it one evening and decided to try and dislodge him from my neck (like that Albatross of the Ancient Mariner).
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Next to Aniket, I am the World Champion in Escapism.
Very early on in my life I discovered that when someone tells me that he was looking for me on an important business, it always turned out, a la Maugham, that the business was important to him rather than me...there are a few exceptions nowadays like Coca Cola and Mercedes Benz...
So after laughing my lungi loose reading one of the 40 Wodehouses in my Collection in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP, I used to sing in the bathroom, finish my jolly ablutions, take a final look in the mirror, and wear my famous scowl before going out to 'work'. Indra called it a grumpy look which sort of scared everyone except a couple of friends, and students in the class room.
My closest friend, NP, is my exact opposite...he is blessed, unlike me, with a handsome face and figure and a matching smile. And he rose step by inevitable step very high in the Administration where he was in continual contact with the public. So, he never had anytime to call his own and once in a while when he wanted to escape his clients he used to walk into my Office and take me out for chai in the Canteen. And the scores of folks who wished to talk to him and cry their hearts out used to stop in their tracks seeing my grump that acted as an impenetrable potential barrier. I used to tell him that I acted like the Sikhandi that Arjun placed before him while fighting Bhishma.
But there was one lone exception who conquered my scowl. His name was Prof VYR in the Phy Dept. He did eminent work on cosmic rays with Janossy before he joined IIT KGP, a place singularly unsuited for experimental work on as stratospheric a thing as cosmic rays. And so he got stuck and grounded and was frustrated and used to wear a scowl bigger than mine...it was like a bigger fish catching and eating a big fish.
Somehow he found in me a listener who was decent enough not to run away at the sight of him approaching. And he was a fake smoker, all the time filching fags from dedicated smokers like me and wasting them puffing from the mouth...he never stood the risk of lung cancer...
He then found that I bought Vazir cigarettes wholesale (25 packs in one stack) from Gole Bazaar and hoarded them in the wardrobe in my room E-13 in the Faculty Hostel.
So, he would be looking for me walking down to the Hostel at the end of a full day's of work via Gate # 5. And then he would stop his Vespa scooter beside me and walk down dragging it, giving me company all the way to my Hostel, park his scooter, come up to my room, pick up one of my fags, pocket a couple of them, smoke to his mouth's content all the while narrating the sad story of one or the other grouse of his day.
This became a routine for a month or so when I got sick of it one evening and decided to try and dislodge him from my neck (like that Albatross of the Ancient Mariner).
That evening when we came to the Harry's X-Roads and he was as usual turning his Vespa left to our Hostel, I stopped him and said:
"I am going to the Tech Market straight ahead...have to buy my Colgate toothpaste"
"Oh, yes, I too have to buy Ponds Dreamflower Talc for my wife...chalo!"
And after walking a good 50 feet, I stopped in my tracks, turned back and said:
"Oh, my toothpaste can wait...please go ahead to the Tech Market...I will revert to my hostel"
"So does my wife's talc...it too can wait...chalo, we will go to your room..."
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1 comment:
Dear Sir,
I really liked this newly invented phrase by you --- "laughing my lungi loose"!! When I first read it, I spontaneously visualized it! :)
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