Its in the air!

Not love silly... Ever wondered about all the sound bites that go floating around you? Somehow, when people are sitting with strangers, they tend to feel as if they don't need to be discreet. Now I seriously don't understand the logic. If you don't want somethings to be heard by people close to you, why would you want those things to be heard by complete strangers? I am not complaining though! :) Ok! I am not into eavesdropping, but what do you do when somebody is so loud that you are sure, they want you to hear it! And if its meaty, spicy, sausy and hot... my mouth would water!

It was a Wednesday, so hubby wouldn't have been back from office till late evening. I was tired of my books and there were a couple of things to be done in the town area, so I decided to go scouting around the city by myself that day.

Had a quick bite and locked up the doors and was all set. I came out and was waiting for the lift. There walked in this lady with 2 tiny kids. I never saw their dad, but my hubby told me that it may not be a very nice idea to make a mention of the missing parent, in this part of the world. So I just smiled at the 2 angels and the lady, who at the moment was coming down heavy on someone on the other side. "What the f#%@! I have told you, I am going to pay that bill. How on earth can you disconnect the line. Give the phone to Pedro!"

Pedro I guess was the favoured one, so the tone was more sing song and purring, "Pedro! Baby what is this guy saying? Didn't I tell you I am waiting for a cheque! Honey, do you think I am gonna scoot off with your money? Sweety, I am not gonna cheat you out of all the people! When are you coming over, its been ages since we sat over a drink? And I am gonna give the cheque to you at my place, OK! Come and get it..." And I walked away smiling, Pedro was gonna 'get it' :P

I just walked past my building and there were these kids playing, some 7-8 years old I guess. And my ears heard, "Jeromy said, you wanna be my boyfriend. But my mom says, I can't make boyfriends till I am 16!"

"Ok I promise I'll kiss you only on the cheeks. You can tell my mom if I didn't keep my promise! C'mon! it'll be so cool..."

"Boys will be boys" is a stupid cliche, but quite true!

I am grinning ear to ear and walking ahead! "Nice smile Miss!" says a guy working on the lawn at this hopital! Small joys of living in a small town! :)

I went inside, I had to collect some medical reports. The receptionist asked me to wait in the lounge. I went in and picked up a magazine! There were 3 people already waiting there. They were waiting to see a doctor is what I presumed. Just then a handsome bloke walked in, he was a doctor! He was looking for someone and left the room after peeping. "Holy christ! This fella is a doctor now!" cried the guy sitting in our roon to the girl he was with.

"Why, what about him?"

"He was such a jerk, in high school! I have always seen him with something broken, either his arm or leg or knee...! Always surrounded by the most delicious chics in the school! He was a goner in school, I am sure his dad must have pulled some strings to get him where he is. Some people just have all the luck. I wonder how many have died under his knife so far."

The old lady was a little perturbed and she looked at him, "By the way, he happens to be a cardiac surgeon and is treating me. He happens to have made quite a name for himself!" That stopped the guy.

Anyways, my name was called out and I got up; so did this guy and his girl. On his way out he didn't miss to retort, "So he is a heart surgeon! What an irony, he must have played around with so many and he is in the business of repairing them now!" Sometimes, jealousy and complexes can turn you into a jackass!

I took my bus to downtown and walked around a little! I thought I'd pick up a doughnut before I went ahead with my shopping. It was a nice weather. I didn't want to sit inside the eatery so I came out and sat on a bench on the side walks. I couldn't help but look around and admire almighty. Every face on the road is different and so are their stories! "Hi! How are you doing?" Strangers greeting you is not uncommon here and something I appreciate in this culture. I smiled at and wished him back. "Are you from around here?" he asked.

"Well no, not really. But I live in this city now." I replied to this old gentleman accompanied by someone somewhat younger than him.

"Do you see, Jimmy boy? So many travellers in this town now. When I was a kid, my old man used to bring me here right here on this very square to meet Santa during christmas. I knew every single kid who came to the square that day by his or her first name and my parents knew theirs and so on! Kids these days know everything, in those days, I was such a dork! Mary told me when I was 10, that there are no Santas and my dad packs'em up, those presents! Oh Boy, what days! Hey... do you wanna ask this lady here for a cup of coffee? She seems to be all by herself!

Like I said, people tend to drop their guard. I can hear him talking about me with that sheepish grin, and did he not just speak to me in English, in case he had any doubts about me not understanding English. I quite like the old man though! :)

I walked into this shop across the street. There was a guy already at the counter. A woman walked in after me. Quite the piece! From the looks of her, she seemed to be Russian or something. She had this beautiful long golden hair done up in a plait. She smiled and made a small talk with the shop-keeper, bought her things and went away.

The other guy's eyes ushered her out of the shop, and something makes me think, that his mind even walked with her all the way to her home. Still looking at the door he asked, "who is she?"

The shop-keeper told him, "Oh She! She is Ms. Dashia! She is a widow.'

>>"Ohh! what tradegy"

"I said she is a widow, I never said she is alone"

>>"A woman like that would never be;Lucky bastard, whoever it is!"

"Well! Lucky are the bastard's'!! Came a reply with a wink.

>> "Well you speak as if you are one of the favoured ones! ahaa!"

"Ohh no no no! I am man with wife and kids, no such crap for me. I am not into all this man!"

Ahh Mr.! you are into a lot of crap, from what I can see!

Anyways, I thought I'd call it a day and head homewards. I caught my bus to Silverlane and sat down, with the day replaying in my head. My feet were hurting a little with all the walking and shopping, so I just eased up a little on my seat and closed my eyes.

>>"Hiiiii! What a surprise to hear from you! I called you yesterday and got your voice mail, so I left my number and was wondering if you would even recognize me and call!"

>>"Yeahh! I am working here itself, my office is in Downtown. Where do you work?"

Some Indian gal had found some Indian bloke she knew in this part of the world. I couldn't help but notice that there was a more than mere joy in her voice and the response from the other end was encouraging if not anything else!

>>"Ohh thats amazing! Its close by, we should catch up for lunch or coffee sometime"

>>"By the way I saw your wedding photos. You guys make a good pair. And you haven't lost any of your charms post marriage, I must say!

My ears are craning out of my head now...

>>"Yeahh! My folks are looking out for me now. I was dating someone, but that didn't work out and I am over it now."
>>"Ya! Its so wierd man, I guess we never spoke in school, but so much has changed since school."
>>"Hahaha! Do you know, we gals used to follow you home from tutions, you were quite a hit among the gals. You have no clue how many hearts you broke when you got married."

Hmm... so flirting is the name of the game!

>>"Ohh C'mon Sushil, you are flattering me now!!"

Heyyyyy!>>>>>>>>>>> Wait a minute!, Did I hear Sushil? What are the chances of there being some other 'newly-wed Sushil working in Downtown' ....in this part of the world. I quickly dialled his number from my phone.... "the number that you've dialled is busy at the moment, please try again later"

Whaaaaaatttt Thhheeeeeeeee Helllllllllllllll !!!

The Take Away shop...

There is something which I believe in and as the days have passed I believe in it even more... "Every person who comes and goes in your life, is sent to teach you something. And the length of their association is inversely related to the importance of the lesson they teach you."

This one is for some of those small associations and what they taught me.

1. Doden Uncle's daughter. My classmate in Nursery, who was also my neighbour. She was my neighbour for about 6 months odd. We used to go to school together and come back together. On our way back, Ms. Deepa, the primadona, would sleep off in the school bus. This gal would wake me up, take my bag and water-bottle along with hers, and walk along. Ms. Deepa on the other hand, would carefully hold her skirt and jump over the water puddles and mud, to avoid soiling her clothes or shoes. Both the mothers used to be waiting together and my mother used to be absolutely embarrased everyday watching the scene. She scolded me hundred times not to make her carry my things, but of no use! One day, she forgot to wake me up and she realized it when the bus was gone. She waited till the bus came back with me. She apologized to me for having left me in the bus that day.

Some years later, I used to laugh about the incident and think of that gal half-jeeringly. When one day, my mom corrected me. She said, "What makes you think that you bullied that gal all the time? I think, she was a very smart gal. She was so much in control of herself when she was just in Nursery. She was watchful that she wouldn't miss her stop. She woke you up, lest the bus took you away in your sleep. When you were still coming in terms with the daze, she would be ready with her stuff and yours, to get down. She walked you back home watching your pricey ways. Any other gal would have never seen your face from the very next day you made her do all this. And this gal did it everyday, and the day she missed she felt sorry for letting her friend down. You trusted her blindly, but could she ever place the same trust in you as a friend? In friendship, she did her bit, without even thinking what was she getting in return!

Now I do try to be a friend like her to all my friends but trust me, its not easy! There are so many times I have erred.

2. Kause Sadiki Ulaya. A pen friend from Tanzania in my 5th grade. Being an Armyman's daughter, I couldn't keep up with the mails as we changed too many addresses. I recieved her letters written in broken English, but very warm words describing her country. I could visualize Mt. Kilimanjaro when she wrote about it in her letter. (And yes, there was no Internet when I was in 5th grade.)

The lesson!! You really don't need perfect words or language to describe something, you really don't need to see the person face to face. All you need is a heart of gold, an open mind, and a hunger to know, to understand. Distances are man made.

3. The three kids of a construction labourer I taught in my 8th grade, as an experiment by my school to introduce Social awareness programmes among students. The eldest was a girl, who was in charge of looking after her 2 siblings. The second was a girl, six years old, the sharpest. The youngest was a crawling baby. I just couldn't get them interested in the class. They didn't know who Amitabh Bachhan or SRK were, they hadn't heard of bollywood songs. So I drew fruits and animals in their notebooks and their spellings next to them in Hindi. Next day the delighted little girl took me to her shanty and wanted me to paint those things on her steel box!

When words on a book or a page start making sense to someone who has never known them, the joy in those eyes is probably comparable to Alladin's excitement having found the genie inside his rotten lamp!

5. This guy when I was in 10th grade! Incidently, me and a very dear friend of mine had a crush on the same guy! And we still gossip about it.

Even after you grow up and you realize that the fella who's very sight made you feel weak in the knees once, is so dumb and such a block head, First Flame is always the First!! :D:D:D:D Isn't it, Ms. 'S'?

6. Ms. Mini Chaubey. Yes I put it on records. I and some friends made her life miserable in school. She was a crazy girl, but that didn't give us the right to pour an entire bottle of glue on her chair, paste notes on her back, or tease her with some random guy in the class and etc and etc.

Sense of humour is small expression but means a zillion things. Your humour, at the expense of somebody's happiness isn't humour, its tom-foolery! Those 2 yrs, 11th and 12th grade, are the most cherished times in my life and I have ruined those memories forever for someone! Yes, I did apologize to her personally once when I met her after school, but can I ever get back those years for her?!

7. Mr. Rohan Tatnis. God knows where he is now. I have met him just once at a family friends place. At the time when I was so frustrated with my routine and studies when I was studying for a CA degree. It was the first time I flunked by 2 marks in the Income Tax paper and I was cribbing about it. And after hearing me out, he said, "there must be students who flunked by 1 mark, and there must be students who have passed all subjects but flunked in aggregate. The fact is all of you are not good enough! Would you like to get treated by a doctor who passed on the border line? He knows 40% of the things, but there is an entire 60% percent of stuff that he doesnt know!!"

Lesson!! Stop cribbing about the system, the rules are there 'coz of some logic! Doctors & Engineers aren't accountants, so they missed such a big flaw in their passing policy! My Institute isn't :P ! Long Live the Indian CA Institute! :D:D

Or probably Rohan meant, stop fooling yourself, overcome your shortcomings and move ahead!

8. The Pakistani Uncle & Aunty we met on our trip to Niagara. We were buying the tickets for our ride and the guy at the counter was having a difficult time explaining the deal to Uncle. So Sushil pitched in and Uncle decided to tag along with us for the ride. What a delightful couple and aunty had the typical Pakistani sense of humour. We had a great time. When we came back, all of us decided to sit down for some coffee and snacks! The conversation began, and over the next two hours, Uncle gave us the most inspiring advice on so many issues that were boggling us. It was as if God had sent these two that day, just to answer our doubts and give us a push!

God sends the least expected people as messengers. Those two took some big risks in their lives and made it big! It was aunty who stood by him and kept encouraging him when the times were rough and people around them didn't know what was going on. He said, if you have decided in your head what to do, just do it! Start walking and you will know the path! The important thing is the first step!

I had read about all these things above some or the other time in my life, but I realized if one was to get wiser by someone else's experiences and learn from what people tried to teach you from books, world wouldn't have been full of clumsy people like me!

Still learning and experiencing!

yours truly!