Monday, March 7, 2005

THE ULTIMATE QUESTION: Life, the universe and me

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror. Laugh. And think, Heavens, God did make some really weird creatures, didn't he!
Really, life, for me, has always been quite eventful. Don't want to sound like I'm complaining but ... well, sometimes I think it could have been a little more drab. Then I wouldn't have had to walk around with scars all over my body :)
Non non, I haven't started looking like Chuck Norris just as yet but ... the way I m going, I would look much worse than a soldier who has spent fifteen years in a Vietnam forest on a lizard and grasshopper diet.
But its been fun. A lot of it. I should be happy. Coz I m really going to be entertaining my grandkids, if I live to be ninety-seven (a gorgonzalatic question mark here).
I was born on a dark night of 1979. And dark it was ... especially because the lines were down and the hospital was a little to cheap to install a decent generator.
A nurse had smiled (pretty one, I guess ... but at that time, I was too busy being born to notice) and said, This guy's gonna become a bat....
And today, when I think about it while I m typing away at my computer at 2:00 am in the night, I smile. And wonder if that nurse had a part-time job with a crystal ball and a black cat.
Really, the last time I had this crazed doubt that maybe I was sprouting bat wings and becoming uglier... I asked a friend of mine about this and he laughed, Hey ... you got nothing to worry about: You can't possibly get any uglier and well, if you do sprout bat wings ... you will stop crapping about how much fuel your stupid bike swigs...
Yeah, I said, and I will be ramming myself into the empire state building then ...
But well, there have been times when I have felt like Superman (like the time I was riding the bike) and then ... something has to happen to convince me that I m not invulnerable by a long shot.
But again, I m not complaining. God couldn't have put together a better package for me (But... well ... he could have included R in it)
I been to a lot of places in my life; twice to the clink. And now, I got a lot of cop frens.
Well, once was when I got into a train compartment that had something funny scribbled on the outside. The graffiti was in Tamil, a language that is as old and stupid as the dinosaurs (and I don't know why the @#$* it did not die along with them).
Anyways, I got into it and the train started on its way. And I looked around ... to find that I was surrounded by hordes of pretty women - all looking at me with eyes the size of coffee mugs.
Uh..Oh! Is this a ladies-only compartment?
They nodded - pity writ large on their faces. I grinned my clumsy grin and looked around for ways to escape. But I had no choice : The train was running at 80 miles an hour already.
Jump? Non, non. Better to die of embarrassment than a shattered hip-bone.
The girls were starting to giggle. The red of my face did not match the blue of my shirt. So I chose to hide it.
The next station was drawing closer. I held my breath ... Ahaa ... at last this nightmare's gonna end!!
Mouthing a silent prayer, I jumped out as soon as the train stopped ... right into the long arm of the law.
Three cops stood silently, their expressions queerly resembling that of the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal.
One of them pointed at the strange words scribbled on the compartment - which obviously said: Ladies only.
Man .... I can't read Tamil. How could I possibly know what's written..., I stammered - realising only then that none of the dorks knew English.
I spent about two hours in the clink - enjoying the company of hooligans with broad shoulders, ugly tatoos and bloodshot eyes - until one of my frens came and bailed me out.
And that was how chapter one of my life ended. And how Jimmy the cute li'l baby became a criminal.