Beghar in my dreams.

April 05, 2007

These days, I dream of Chumree. And I must sympathize with non-Mumbaikars who might confuse Chumree to be a distant cousin of Chameli. Lord forbid, mein abhi tak seedha sadha bachcha hi hoon.

I dream of a roof to live under and protect my izzat, or whatever remains of it. Fir usmein ghar grihasti bhi basani hai.

And before other things are said and ignored, or lost in air, Pappu pass ho gaya. Finally no more attending classes till someone declares that I am not conversant with alphabets and numerals. HSBC has decided to let me in, and pay me a hefty sum for ridding their office of houseflies and mosquitoes. Poor souls. And I even have a plan B in case there are no insects left to spat.

Extreme worklessness, I have discovered, is the surest way to madness. And I have been trying hard to fend off the latter. As of the former, till such time as the GoodKnights and Caspers are doing their job well in Mumbai, I am workless. As workless as a dead ant. And I don’t even have formic acid to pinch and pain the humans around me.

I laid my hands on Mark Tully’s collection of short stories. While I admire his love for India, his account is uninformative for all of us who have been brought up here. It is also bland and lacks the juice to keep the readers’ attention transfixed. Contrast that with Cat O Nine Tails by Jeffrey Archer. While there is nothing so magnificent about the stories, his storytelling elevates them from mediocre to much more readable.

Off late I have also been wondering if the carrots and fish I have eaten so far would suffice to stave off the danger of eyeglasses from a hefty dose of TV. I guess God decided to compensate for the previous few years that I spent almost without watching TV except for brief spells. Maa kasam, and many people including the likes of Strato would vouch for this. Meri nazar Rampuri churi se bhi tez hai. Door door ki cheezein dhoondh leti hain.

Before I met Strato, I used to be able to spot interesting targets from as far away as a mile. If only I had applied in time to Guinness-wala bhai who keeps all those records. Subuk Subuk, ab to bahut der ho gayee hai.