My Law

There’ll be at least one good chick to board the train/plane/bus along with you, but chances are they won’t be seated next to you. 
-- My Law a.k.a Tom's Law (copyright protected) 

Man, she was hot! I had glanced at her a couple of times while loitering in the airport. To cut short the descriptions, she redefined the concept of 'dream girl' for me. But then, I remembered that dreams will always be dreams and that 'My Law' had always applied to myself in my entire life. But hey, at least I got the window seat. So with no more pipe dreams I boarded the plane and made myself comfortable when all of a sudden she came walking down the aisle. 

“No chance, she’s not going to be seated beside me”, I told myself.  

But no, I was wrong, 'My Law' was proved wrong. She came right in, brushed her hair and sat next to me. 

“Impossible! This must be a dream!”, I thought. 

But no it wasn’t. I was living my dream in fact. 

Come on, come on, think of something to start a conversation. 
Hi, how’re you? – Too clichéd 
Hello Madam – Too boring 
Hey baby! – Naa
Howdy girly – Naa
You look supercalifragilistic expialidocious – Okay stop.

Finally I made up the perfect plan. I would take the newspaper, would uninterestedly glance through the news, and then would say something like,

“Damn it! Global financial markets collapsed. How will I ever become an I-banker now?? How will I ever make it big in Wall Street? How? How? How?” 

I took the newspaper when all of a sudden,

She: Hi excuse me
Me (with a 1000 watt smile): Yes 
She: Would you mind doing me a favor.

Oh boy! Oh boy! Anything for you darling! Does your body ache that you would like me to give you a massage? Are you scared that you want to hug me when the plane takes off??

Me: No problem. 

She: Actually, my boyfriend is seated over there in the front. Would you mind exchanging your seat with him?

*Boom**Thud**Crack*

And she points to her boy friend. He waved at me.

Me (the 1000 watt bulb just blew up): No problem.
She: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Bloody ass. Get lost.

Me: My pleasure

If My Law doesn’t act on you initially, it’s going to come back in a much virulent form. 
-- Modified My Law

And I got up and moved over to that duffer’s seat. It wasn’t a window seat, darn! Now wait a second. That duffer is her boyfriend??!!! What the bloody F?? 

Now this is another of those universal mysteries. You rarely come across a beautiful couple. Either the girl looks good and the boy doesn’t (this constitutes majority of the cases) or the boy looks good and the girl doesn’t (minority). In the latter case, either the boy is a complete fraud who uses the girl to get some favor done or he’s very much mature who has transcended the concept of physical beauty and has overlooked something beyond it; they'll make a good couple. Anyway screw all that, it’s not applicable to the most eligible bachelors like me. 

I hoped that at least there’ll be some gorgeous air hostesses. Wrong again! Man, how unlucky can a person be?? Forget gorgeousness, there wasn’t even an air hostess. There were only air hosts!! Darn! Darn! Darn! God, why me?? Why of all people, me?? 

I sat there dismally beside a grumpy old man who was busy reading the newspaper when all of a sudden, 

“Damn it! Global financial markets collapsed"

Off to Delhi

On hearing I'm going to Delhi,

Sis: "Enikke patiala vaangichu kondu varanam"
Mom (irritated): "Thalkaalam oru patti valayum vaangikkenda! Athonnum ival idaan pookunnnilla!!"

A Killer of a Different Kind

Beware! Beware! He’s coming, he’s coming! His flashing eyes, his gaping mouth! Weave a circle around him thrice and close your eyes with holy dread, coz you know not when he’s in for the kill!

Men are said to have different kind of obsessions and weaknesses. Some are obsessed with money, some with women; and these constitute the majority. And there is a minority group (correct me if I’m wrong) that are heavily obsessed with something else. They might be your closest pals; will help you in whatever situation you are; shares books, notes, clothes, money, food, Whoa!! Whoa!! Wait a second. No, not food. Impossible! Yes, the third category of men are those obsessed with, you know what, food!! Such is one of my friends. Let’s call him Cereal Killer (CK). 

Economists say that the food crisis of the world is due to factors such as rising oil prices, falling world food stockpiles, unseasonable draughts, commodity market speculation, climate changes et al. Bush says it's due to the increasing food consumption in India. Bingo! And I know who makes India's food consumption graph rise into the stratosphere. Yeah, I know! I might be overstating the obvious but I can’t help it. Cereal Killer’s obsession for food is known far and wide in our city. The people who feared him the most were the hotel owners near our college. As soon as they see him striding towards the hotel, the owners start yelling out,

“Quick, pull down the shutters fellas, that road rodent is coming”

“But boss, he can be our biggest source of income”

“Listen up man, that glutton orders meals; extra servings of rice and curry don’t cost more and that scumbag utilizes that to the maximum”

“But boss, that should be no problem, we’ve enough stock to feed him 2 to 3 servings”

“Shut up you idiot, I’m not talking about his appetizers”

“!!!!”

I wouldn’t have written this post but I was so incensed by what happened today that I decided it’s high time to do something about it. I’m pretty sure CK will be reading this post and might probably arrange some goondas to annihilate me and some hackers to destroy my blog, but you know, I’m willing to take the risk. 

Today evening, CK took me to a nice hotel to give me that long pending treat. Ok, let me cut short everything and come to the point. There was a total of 4 chicken pieces. While I just finished my 1st piece of chicken, CK consumed his quota of 2. Naturally, the one left belongs to me (Oh come on, though he’s paying the bill, he’s the host; it’s his treat for Pete’s sake!!). Fatso has been eyeing that one piece for quite sometime. His intermittent glances towards me and that piece said it all. All of a sudden,

“So Thomas, you don’t want that chicken piece eh?”

“Ya, I want” 

And I lifted my hand to pick it up. I blinked my eyes for a split second. Gone!! The chicken is gone!! Is this what they call ‘sleight of hand’? I looked at CK. He burped. I fumed. 

I now understand why his mom and dad are so lean and he’s so stout. Man, I can almost visualize the scenario in his home.

Dad: Quick honey, that voracious animal of our son is coming, hide all the food! 
Mom: No use, he smells food like a Bloodhound. 
Pet cat: (Must hide cat food, or else I’ll starve today)

CK: Chicken!! I smell chicken!!
Dad: Errr, no son, there’s nothing of that sort in here. Maybe the neighbors are cooking chicken.
CK: Nonsense! My nose never lies to me. What’s it that you’re hiding, gimme that!!

*Chomp* *Chomp**Chomp*

Dad: At least, he didn’t take my roasted beef. I’ll whip his ass if he lay his hands on my beef.
Mom (as if a cue from behind): Correction. There’s no ‘if’.

To Sir, with Love

“You 2 over there, what are your names"

“Sir, Alex”

“Thomas”

“You’re always seated in the last bench. From now on, your permanent place will be here in the first bench, not because of any particular reason, but because I say so.”

“Yes sir” 

And he moved the nerds from the first bench and placed us there. It was 5 years back; it was Mr. Mathew Samuel’s tuition class. What’s so special about him, you may ask. Well, he was one of the best teachers who've ever taught me. ‘Best’ not just because he taught well, but also coz of the stories he told and the values he imparted. As they say, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” Mr. Samuel was a great teacher. 

Once after a particular test, he called me and narrated a personal anecdote of his. He said,

“I’ve taught only 3 geniuses in my life, 2 Indians and an African. And all these 3 were quirky in some ways. When I was in Nigeria, there was this kid, extremely brilliant fellow. During one of the lab exams, I was the examiner of his class. His experiment was related to some resistance measurements and as soon as I gave him the resistance wire, he put it in his mouth and started to chew it. He designed the circuit, I approved it and he proceeded to connect the components, while still chewing on the wire. After a while he came to me and asked, 

“Mr. Samuel, where’s my resistance wire.” 

“Open your mouth”, I said.

“What?”

The fellow still didn’t get me.

“You’re chewing on it” 

It took a while for him to realize the mistake. Eventually, I gave him a new resistance wire. So, my point is that these super brilliant chaps are quirky – some are absent minded and some are not that sensible." 

Then he added on, 

“Thomas, you’re not super brilliant. So I assume you’re pretty sensible. You can’t just come off-handedly and write exams. You need to study hard. And Thomas, I like my hard working students more than the brilliant ones. You may think I’m preaching more than teaching, but the thing is that, I want good things happen to you. Study well son.”

I scored pretty good marks in Physics for board exams, thanks to his meticulous teaching and inspiring thoughts. But more than the marks, I was happy to see him happy. Yesterday, I called him to wish him a happy teachers’ day; he said,

“But Thomas, I don’t teach anymore. I’ve retired.”

“Sir, you needn’t teach to become a teacher. You inspire to become a teacher.”

He laughed and we went on to talk about all the things that have been happening around us. The zeal and vigor and charm is still there, and will always be there inside him. 

HAPPY TEACHERS’ DAY!!!

P.S. The guy who chewed the resistance wire later went on to study in the prestigious MIT (seriously!). 

The Story behind the Prize

You know what’s the most happening thing in Kerala these days. Well, it’s an interesting ‘event’ known as load shedding. For the uninitiated, load shedding is a benevolent initiative of the State Government (or more precisely, KSEB) for the promotion of family welfare activities. How do they do that? Pretty simple. They cut the electricity supply during those peak hours when housewives will be busy watching mega serials, teenagers will be listening to music systems, kids will be playing computer games, geeks will be studying their asses off, jobless people will be blogging about how the state government promotes family welfare activities, etc etc etc. When there’s no electricity, these ‘busy’ people lights a candle and gathers around it. Since no one has anything else to do, they start chatting and sharing stories, and it will be like a family get-together. Voila, objective accomplished. Seriously man, think about it, though the government intends to lower power consumption, it really brings about some family bonding. It was during one of those load sheddings that dad told us one of his personal anecdotes. Here it goes:

Nine years back, dad was a guest scientist in Clemson University for about a year. Now, Clemson is a small town in South Carolina and there was a local church where dad lived which organized a multitude of social activities like picnics, outdoor games, sports competitions, and stuff like that. The people were really friendly and always insisted that dad join these activities. He did, but there was this sport meet organized by them, and though dad initially hesitated to participate in it, was persistently insisted to join them. So off went dad to a 3 kms race, in which they had to run 1.5 km to a particular point and then come back to the starting line, to finish the race. The race started and the competitors sped ahead of dad leaving him behind. Dad was 47 at that time, so imagine the plight of running 3 kms with all these people. After about half a kilometer, dad stopped and rested for a while; then started running back. As soon as he approached the finishing line, the crowd started clapping and cheering. Dad kept saying that he didn’t run full length and there has been mistake, but amidst the chaos there, no one really listened. The other runners came after a while only to see dad being crowned as the winner, but they took it quite sportingly; and all these time, dad was trying to make them understand what happened. Well the result was announced and dad won the 1st prize, the first ever prize he had won in his life for any sport, and all these years he kept bragging about it to us. Well, finally he revealed what actually happened, thanks to those family bonding sessions initiated by the State Government. 

P.S. No, my family doesn’t know I’ve a blog. So I needn’t worry much about getting kicked out of the house. 

Rise 'n' Shine. Oops!

I opened my eyes languidly. The clock hands show it’s 6.15; the sun is rising. How come I opened my eyes at this odd time? (Now, the term ‘odd’ is completely subjective, for your information.) Anyway, it was a nice dream! Got up, went to the bathroom; took my toothbrush. And tried to recollect the interspersed pictures of that now-fading dream. Boy, that girl was hot! (Since college is over and I haven’t been out of house lately, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any ‘real’ hot girls. But as they say, hakuna matata; no worries, my dreams compensate for that.) But it’s this unusual jetlag I’m having. Did I sleep too much? Maybe, I woke too early. 

I trudged myself into the living room; folks are glued to the television. Hmm, these people started watching the idiot box in the early mornings too! 

Me: What’s for breakfast?
Dad: ??
Mom: ??

Ha! Folks thought I was a lazy bum who could never wake before the sun started blazing. Puzzled they are; they should be. Dear folks, I’m flexible, you know. Off I walked towards the kitchen. Nothing made! No food!! What the heck?? I walked back to mom. 

Me: WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST??
Mom: What’s the problem with you? All you do is Eat, Sleep, Eat, Sleep. Let me get this straight. Food prices have soared, consumption is to be lowered. There’s no enough food for you in this house. You ate a truckload of food at noon and now you need breakfast at dusk? Shoo, go away, get lost. 

Dusk?? Oh! Alright, alright, I get it. I slept at noon I guess; for 5 hours straight; and when I woke up I mistook dusk for dawn. Darn! No wonder I had a jetlag. But looking at the bright side of things, I needn’t brush my teeth in the morning again, Yee Haa! But still, Drats!! The sun wasn’t rising; it was setting!