Tuesday 10 July 2012

One wrong turn


What happens when two friends take a turn in the opposite direction of the road to their destination?
This article is dedicated to my best, ever smart buddy who will remain unnamed throughout this article. He told me that being open to change and ideas would help anyone in the long run. Perhaps that may be why this post will be my casual, slightly lame and even horrible. But I’ve decided to bare it all when our trip became filled with bizarre and funny-for-us-both events that illuminated the otherwise cloudy skies of Chennai on Monday, July 8th. I solemnly swear that the following are the truth, the sole truth and nothing but the truth!


My best friend (let’s name him S) and I lunched at a restaurant famous for lavish veggie buffets. We spent the time “lame out-talking” each other. There was one problem though. 

Whenever he or I reached the punch line of our jokes, the waiter would come and fill the glass of water we barely finished. 

I was halfway through another joke and was already LMAO when the damned waiter came again for the fifth time. S broke into a painful smile. When he left, he broke out laughing uncontrollably.
I was perturbed. “Ok wow, now that was hilarious. Now where did I stop?”
“No da. Please, we’ll finish laughing for this and then laugh for the joke!”


Me: “Tell me, what do you know about a smartphone?”
S: “Nothing much. I don’t cram my mind with technology related stuff.”
I still cannot and will not believe that this was the guy to whom I spoke about for a joint record 1.2 hours on the phone about different types of phones 4 years ago.
Times change and so do people.


As I was returning back, I stared at the traffic that was at its peak at 8 pm. On closer scrutiny, I realized that there were so many cars which were driven only by a single person.
What good is all talk about saving fuel and promoting pollution when common sense is yet to prevail over the general folk of the world? Why don’t the majority use the common transport? No. No way. I’m a man of high standard of living.
I say it is pure BS. Fueled by their stinking ego. Please fellow humans, put it aside and live a life controlled by your conscience that is still connected with nature unlike our bodies and souls.


“Ouch!” I yelped. 
I finally had a s’toe’ry to tell. Two days back my left toe had torn badly when I attempted an absentminded kick onto my sack of old books, mind mixed with Euro 2012 and my blog. It bled for about 2 hours. It was a great struggle to walk and sleep comfortably, realizing that “the walk of life ahead” was tough. The more we try to be careful, the painful it grows. But what elicited the soft scream was the fact that the toe scratched my sock.
S was concerned. However, after I recounted my tale, he became indifferent and in fact told me to remove my sock and show that toe to him!
So much for nanben da. (Tamil for “am your friend”.)


The beach was empty. It should, for the first day of the week. We sat and chattered away into nonsense. But I was distracted. The owner of the horse (the horse people ride on for fun in beaches) started whacking it and the horse went out of control. I got up hurriedly and scarpered towards safety. S made fun of me. Well, I am not ashamed to admit I was scared.
But, what affected me was the manner in which the poor beast was treated. What if the merciful almighty played a switch and the owner’s soul took the horse’s body? He deserved the pain. 
However well off we are, intentionally or subconsciously, we still don’t let others thrive, do we?


Sometimes I feel S is a better person than me. He always came up with some witty and equally philosophical one liners. I had the honour to hear this one from him on the bus.
“Many teenagers think they feel love. It’s actually the hormones.”


S (clutching stomach and laughing):
 “Ho ho! I couldn’t understand it da. I was standing at this very bus stop when a lady came in her scooty and crashed into the road blocks at daylight. She had to either turn left or right, but she managed to crash straight into it. How could she be confused da? I didn’t see whether others laughed or not but I laughed nicely.”
We both chortled a lot about it. But I enjoyed an even more amazing sight. The onlookers on the bus stand were looking curiously at S and there he was regaling the funnier portions of his college life. It was pure innocence that twinkled in his eyes when he bent down and laughed all the while till the bus arrived.


The bus finally arrived.
We had to pay twelve rupees. But we had no change. 
Me: “You have two on you?”
S: “I have only a rupee.”
Me: “Oh shit.”
How often did I travel without change? It was at this fraction of the second that I realized I had a rupee. Jubilant and over excited, I said these loudly to S in front of the conductor,
“You have one. I have one. One plus one equals two.”
S put his hand on his forehead. I knew he couldn’t equal me when it came to being lame on such urgent moments.


And on a final note, as we said goodbyes, I remembered that humour is differently perceived and felt by people. Not all my readers may connect with this and remember their bizarre events. 
However, as S and I discussed mundane and worldly matters, we took two wrong turns to reach a right one. No one is entirely correct in this world. No one is perfect. But we can all try. To be true and open to our own selves to start with.

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