The Tale Of An Apology Letter

Disclaimer: The letter described in this post is purely original and the character who wrote it is even more original and can be seen loitering in the streets of Attukal. Any attempt to disgruntle this character is purely intentional.

This post is not quite a sequel but almost a sequel to the previous post. The protagonist this time is Nambi, a member of the same clan as KP, but with conspicuously different characteristics. Nambi (the 21st century version of Namboothiri) is very aesthetic, appreciates beauty, designs posters and is a huge movie buff. Seems pretty normal. But he has this habit of insanely exaggerating things which prompts him to use words in the superlative form, and hence ‘most’, ‘extrememly’, ‘very’, ‘really really’ are some of his favorite adjectives/adverbs. So it should be understood that the information pouring out of his mouth is amplified by a factor ‘100’ and hence should be decoded accordingly. In short, he’s skinny, artistic, vegetarian, twenty one and exaggerative. Also, Nambi has pretty odd sleeping habits. He sleeps at 4, wakes up at 10, missing the 1st period of every single working day in college and enters the class 15 minutes past the 2nd period with celestial punctuality. As Travis McGee puts it, “The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late and owns the worm farm.” So it’s better to act like the owner, says Nambi. And once he enters the class, incessant chattering begins about the latest movie gossips and invariably gets handpicked by the teacher every single time. For these reasons, he has a not-so-good rapport with the teacher.

Scene 1:

Another not-so-usual day in college. The calm and quiet milieu suddenly gets perturbed. Crackers burn, sparklers fulminate. Yes it’s Diwali celebration. But this time tons of fireworks explode all over the college. Mini rockets swoosh past the teachers and one of them lands in the principal’s office. Mayhem, anarchy, destruction!!!

Scene 2 (the next day):

Nambi is ruminating hypnotically in class after some post sleeping trauma and at the same time racking his brain for some new stratagem to revive his rapport with the teacher. Meanwhile authorities denounced the atrocity of the previous day in stentorian wrath and clamored for punishment. Finally it was decided that each and every student had to write an apology letter to the concerned teacher. Upon hearing the decision Nambi’s crabby listlessness changed to uninhibited gusto and he immediately took a piece of paper, scribbled some words and submitted the apology letter for the crime he didn’t commit, but he was left though with the ethic of error he always had: “It’s wrong to make mistakes and right to correct them, plus you get a bonus for apology.” The letter goes like this:

Dearest Madam,

I’m very sorry, really sorry, extremely sorry and once more sorry, sorry, for the horrendous crime that took place yesterday.

Yours most sincerely,
Nambi

Trivandrum
Dated forever

Result: Teacher was stumped. (Repercussions to be followed soon)

Conclusion: Nambi is his name, exaggeration is his game, and by now we’re numb to Nambi’s games.

Yet Another Offbeat Lad

Disclaimer: The character in this post is absolutely real and very much alive. Any resemblance to other living characters/fictional morons is not at all coincidental, because he seems to have influenced quite a bunch of lesser mortals.

The protagonist of this post is KP. KP is good natured, generous and likable. But he has some of those idiosyncratic habits. His mom wakes him up even before dawn and to subdue his angst over that, calls his friends waking them up, sending shudders of annoyance scampering up ticklish spines, one of the reasons that forced me to turn my cell phone to silent mode while going to sleep. And the dude's eating habits are quite quirky. The guy doesn't have lunch. I havn't seen anyone before, who finds food unappealing. He eats just for the sake of staying alive; but that doesn't have any correlation with the amount of fat in his body. Quite strange. The dude who usually dresses up as if people are blind, came tucked in, combed and shaved in a "pink" shirt for his job interview. I don't think he's gay, but rumours exist about this dialogue:
X: kp, do u have a girl friend?
kp: What's a girl?? !!!

Excerpt from his job interview (his version retold by me):

PI: Your engg percentage is less than that in your 12th grade.
kp: I have knowledge.
PI: Oh, then tell me something about surface technology.
kp: !!! I have good cpp knowledge.
PI: Then do this program.
(After a partially successful attempt)
PI: Where do you see yourself 5 years down the line?
kp: ummm, DIRECTOR!!
PI(mouth agape): dyeRECTeraaaa!!! (if anyone can recall mallu film actor innocent's accent)
kp: No, i mean i want to lead a group of people, blah blah blah.

One could see his lumpy, indestructible smile cracked forever across the front of his face, when he was selected for the job. And that is the day when I saw him gorge himself in zam zam until he thought he would explode and then sagged back a contented stupor, his mouth filmy with a succulent residue. They say "Insanity is contagious." And i'm scared stiff. More of kp's stories will be published as soon as i get hold of it.

P.S. And I did read Catch-22.