Indian Ameri

After teaching the real way it is supposed to be, I looked at the bystanders surprised stare. The questionable nod about the reason for the stare brought back her reply, "Seeing a ten year old in you all the time, I sometimes forget how good a father figure you really are." The immediate nautanki brought a dejected facial transformation and the comment, "And the ten year old is back again. sigh...."

The short sprint back to the occupation was long enough for an anonymous feeling to set in. And I knew instantly from the single past experience, the perils of an open book.............. Things will be the same - "to keep things different" :)

Today wasn't like any other day. In spite of going through all the technical sites and forums that satiate my daily need for current information, there was this "indomitable" hunger for more. Mr. Grey Matter started to generate questions on anything and everything that needed an answer. Finally, my mind set straight on one important question - "Why the fudge do they use a silver wrapper for chewing gum?" (Hey, life's big questions need a break too :D). All the various attempts that even involved calling the 1-800 number of Wrigleys provided me with no answer.

A break from this bheja fry was evident and so a skim through my work schedule was made just to fit a walk to the univ bank. With every chew of the early-taken chewing gum, every blocked issue in the mind started to seep out. Eventually, the acidity of the thought-burden increased along with the juicy gum flavored salivation. As I crossed the most fluid-dynamically challenged model of a gusty path between two buildings, I retracted back into the product of intellectual aggravation for emotional dampening.

As I fiddled through the pocketed contents of my sweat shirt, I felt the silver wrapper. Cloaking the lost-in-translation-extremely-dried-and-rigid-gum with the wrapper, I searched for a trash bin. There, standing in bold black was the bin. Was it the univ's awesome basketball season or was it mere deviation from normalcy, I don't know, the involuntary head amalgamated a series of serious issues with the ever so undependable physical ability into a final wager equation that had an If Not command.

If I can throw this silvery trash exactly through the bins rectangular side opening, then so-and-so would happen. If not, then I'm very well screwed. Forgetting the wind velocity as a vital parameter, I gulped the instant the shot was attempted. As my eyes focused on the twinkling wrapped ball of gum shearing its way through the wind, I felt "Uh Oh!" A milli second later, my heart leaped with joy like a munchkin celebrating the birthday in Chucky Cheese. The ball passed rimless through the opening. "Instinctively both my arms were going up in celebration". But then.... my 1 million watt victory face-bulb fused into a frown as I saw the piled up trash inside the bin repelling the ball to the other side. Like a neutron squeezing its way out of the nucleus and the electron cloud for instigating a chain reaction, the silver gum found its way through the opening on the other side of the bin. And the instigated chain reaction was, "Was it If or If-not? Crap! Both occurred"

Instead of the unsatisfied mind playing tricks on guessing a solution, a void formed inside me. The only way it got filled was by a sudden surge of extreme happiness. And the reason for this glee was that the whole random event was silly. The rest of the bank job was; as the Italian from Malta would phrase - "Piss in ze 'ead" :D


Here's another silly hit - Today marks the fourth anniversary of me making a living in the hall [9 different apts and never had a room for myself or a bedroom shared with someone else. Never complained, and so feeling extremely content. Interesting warm memory - Exactly 4 yrs and 1 day ago I spent the cold winter night sleeping on a park bench. How silly!! =)) ]

(A sillier comment 24 hrs later - I might try this song on my next karaoke night. And I'll bow to all those ppl who can sing this song without any tongue-twisting-blabber....)

A few activities in life are pursued for the mere sake of being occupied. And once, such an event becomes a routine, one is bound to skip a day or two in the advent of a silly activity. Blessed I was today, that the silliness at hand was worth enough to not worry about skipping the routine.

Thanks to a friendship I was initiated at several months ago, a responsible dad called me on an emergency. Clad in sweat pants and an AC Milan Tee, I had to tackle a 6 yr munchkin with her 4 yr old brother for the next four hours. Although, most of the fun activities of baby sitting involved a certain amount of gyration with me being the pivotal center and they being the centrifugal weights, the tired souls (including me) had their moments by listening to stories from an inexperienced wizard (When was the last time I told a story to Jay? And did I ever tell him a magical story?). A boy initiated food fight (For Pete's sake, who the heck invented spaghetti?) followed by a girl initiated pillow fight (Bless the soul that found cotton and who stuffed it into teddy bears) made my job easy to put the tired ones to bed.

As my focus shifted from the card pyramid to the hypnotic tik tok tik tok sound of the wall clock, I heard him cry. Running upstairs, I figured out that Mr. Munchkin had wet his sheets. Thanks to the help from his sis, we changed him into his other pajamas. 'Look who's talking' comments with them informed me that he is scared of darkness and does not like his door to be shut at nights. Was it the nightmarish cookie monster he imagined from his closet, he was in no mood to sleep or make me go away. After consenting from both his parents, I dressed them up for a walk. Yes you heard it right, I took them on a walk around the neighborhood past their usual bedtime.

A lil princess carrying a pinkish umbrella about her size on one side, a bubbly candidate of a warrior having his head underneath a transparent raincoat hood, a short road lit by sodium vapors on one side, a greenish pined garden on the other, a slight drizzle of 11 degree C rain, the road filled with a mosaic of puddles, and of course, the warrior and the princess clasping on to my pinkies with their hands, and finally, laughing at me for getting drenched in spite of a tugged family sized umbrella was a heaven in guise. After all the splashes created by the jumping beans got messy, we reached the corner.

As the road beyond the intersection seemed darker, I went crouched at the warrior. After one of those special on time Man to Munchkin talks, I saw him unclasp my hand and started running into the dark. As I and the princess covered the space we gifted him in the first place, we saw him smiling wide with the childish grunt of happiness he sounded. Then I asked him, "Where you scared XYZ?" He replied, "(Nodded his head in agreement)But, but.... Then I jumped up and down, up and down the water. Then Buzz shot the monster with my laser (and he pointed his left forearm)" The lil princess radiated with a girlish giggle as she understood for her age that our plan worked. I smiled back at her. I walked through heavens door one more time and we reached back home.

I snugged the warrior along with Buzz on his side and also gave him Ironside Transformers to keep near him. As I walked out to put the princess to sleep, Mr. Kemp Jr asked me to shut the door. I couldn't be happier than that moment. But, yet again, I was proven wrong as Ms. Carla Jr radiated yet another girlish giggle and made me tuck her into her bed. After a dinner of the baby sitting highlights over left over spaghetti and meatballs, I thanked Carla and Kemp on dropping me back home.

I entered my apartment to see several drunk guys dancing to this. The rest of the late Friday was spent on controlling a few insolent babies by using their controlling factors (Restroom mirror, Puja room, and the most common factor of all - a call to the girl friend) =))

Several lessons we teach to kids are the self lessons we need to remember. I guess, I need to listen more to the elder me being a childish myself. :D