Chillaxing amidst Global Warming

Invariably slept the whole morning...and missed the Ostumi Anjoli...even more missed the laal-paar saari wearing Bongo-naaris. Gotta deep deep thing for that laal-paar...ultimate manifestation of Bong beauty. By the time I woke up it was around 2 pm...already 4 voice mail waiting for me from Jethu.He is a college senior, who by the virtue of being one year senior to me and getting married and being the father of a child, considers somewhat a local guardian for me. But since Mumum his wife is a sweet girl and rakhi-sister and his daughter Rimjhim is even sweeter pal I've pardoned Jethu so long as he keeps his stock of Bourbon ready every time I land in his house for a meal. Jethu, no wonder he was nicknamed so in his college days, had gone from politest to rudest in the 4 VMs with a final threat "Bugger if you are not coming by next one hour...Mummum says no Hilsa for you on Sunday lunch !!"

Now this threat calls for some serious action. So I not even thinking of a shave, hastily take a bath, put on my sole kurta unironed and wrinkled, and drive to the Puja hall. As usual being the land of opportunity and cheap cars and even cheaper fuel, the parking lot is filled up across all the corners. Time to look for an alternate around 1-1.5 miles down south and come back walking. Just about to enter I see this angelic beauty in red chiffon saari and matching red bindi. Oh man, had I been a bull I would've rushed straightway at that red without a second thought. But since my primal instincts are in hibernating mode by the hang-over from last night, the prospect of a galloping feat is knocked off.

"Excuse me are you Amitabh ? ", she asks me.

My first thought: Look back, is she speaking to someone behind me. A glance backward tell me no one behind us, so I am the person addressed.
My second thought : Last time I checked Bengali version was Amitavo, maybe things've moved on.
My third thought : Oh baby, in my dreams I'm always the Amitabh from the 70s trying to define the angry young man. But in reality I'm a close resemblance for a Johnny Lever in one of his bad hair days.

And somewhere deep inside that Yudhistirian conscience kicks in and I say with a polite smile "You must'be mistaken...I'm Chilla". She smiles back...oh man I could've died a thousand times and come back on this planet again to see those cherry red lips moving and flashing the set of pearly teeth. “Sorry" says she and turns back. That's it as I poetically wrote once "Like a bubble a possibility shaped in the fabric of time". And here is the next line to complete the poem - And with a pin of truthfulness my conscience pricked it.

Later in the night, returning home I held my conscience by its throat and demanded an explanation.
Conscience said "Dumb-head, did you look at the girl's hand that held a mobile"
I said "Yes, the arm was so beautiful ...felt like kissing it"
C said : "I am talking of the mobile moron...what did the mobile tell you"
I said :"It was one of those latest mobile with what-not-feature from Nokia stables. Only thing I can conclude the girl who can afford that mobile must either have a good job or a rich father. I am okay with either of those...and even happier if both are true".
C slapped me hard on my face said : "It only says that a girl with a mobile must also have the number of the guy she's supposed to meet. So unlike the crappy RHTDM movie you couldn't have passed yourself as Amitabh. Better luck next time" and it went back to what it does most of the time, SLEEP.

So it looks like my conscience is more practical than me in earthly matters. Coming back to this Pujo hall, I saw laal-paars were on right, on left, on south, on north, on east, on west. But my breath was heavily laden and I was silently cursing my dad for not naming me "Amitabh" when Sholay was released much much before I was born. Jethu being a guy attributed this sorrow face of mine to my late night drinkings. Mumun being the girl and more sensible in heart related matters said "Looks like I need to talk to Mashima about Chilla's marriage".Rimjhim being the baby like a true pal said "Chilla-Uncle when I am big like my father, I will buy you a chocolate". And I like a great philosopher told her "Grow up fast sweetie...I can't wait too long for my chocolate to come".

In case someone wants to know what happened to Miss Laal-saari, I finally saw her with Amitabh. As usual the guy with any good looking girl always looks ugly to the eyes of someone without her. So I am a way-way biased to describe how they looked or was getting along together. I coaxed Mumun for about half-an-hour promising to do all the work in her house that Jethu wouldn't even bother to do even when at his best on Feb 14-th.Mumun came back smiling like what James Bond does at the end of the movie after he kicked the shit out of Dr. No and ready to embrace Ursulla Andress.

The information she had gathered was that the dame in Laal-saari has a name, and that name is : Mahua. Oh man, whatta name...Mahua. It’s my favorite drink brewed in the deep forests by the fun-loving Santhals. Even a full size bear can get knocked out with a bite from Mahua fruit. So intoxicating....!!! She's doing her Masters in the local univ here. Amitabh is some corp honcho in another bigger meaner city and has come down here as a pre-arranged pre-nuptial meeting.

So here is the prospective bride and prospective groom whose fathers(Amrish Puri and Satish Shah) might've agreed the day they were born these two when they become young will be married to each-other. And here I'm watching the DDLJ maybe for the 1001-th time, trying to figure out what were Sharukh's SMEs (Subject Matter Expertise) that lured Simran to break the paappa-da-vachan and run straight into Raj's arm-candy. Next time if she asks me whether I'm Amitabh, I'll put up the perfect SRK laughter imitation and say "No I'm Sharukh Khan". Then stand there for ages to see that smile flash across her cherry red lips and blinding me like a lightening.

Oye yaar main toh maar jaawa !!

Soptomi happening to be on a Friday, Chilla packs his best Cassnova dress, a bottle of Axe (oh I yeah, I still believe in those ads...someday power of faith will manifest) in his bag and drives to the office. Office work on this particular Friday is thankfully less, so looking at the clock on the system and surfing across blogs are the methods of killing time. Manage to dig up lot interesting posts from fantasies on horseback to what actually is sexual harassment about. Clock shows 3:30 pm...another one hour I off . Bengali association here I make my entry humming “Aare diwano mujhe pahechano…kahan se aya main ho DON“.

My guardian angel who you might be knowing has a habit of screwing up things with the same talent as his bestowed one slipped somewhere. Just 3:45 pm a beep in my cellphone tells me I gotta SMS. Must be someone caught in festive fever expressing her/his sarodiya greetings. And truly it was a greeting from the IT command center informing that our production server has been taking the last few breaths and it won't be long before it dies out. Ok, I look around for J, the nerd who loves doing all this stuff. SHIIT, the bugger left early...got some dentist appointment to clean the scales on his teeth, so that next time he approaches a babe in a pub he might put on the perfect Colgate smile. So it is me, the only superhero left, who unlike the other mutants of the clan prefers to wear the underwear inside, that can save the day from the perils of the dead server. Only he can bring back the dead from the clutches of hell...actually the Sys Admin can but I need to co-ordinate with him.

So Chilla picks up the weapon at hand, telephone receiver and Trrnng Trrnng calls up the Sys-Admin, another individual who'll shortly come to know that his Friday evening is doomed too. But I guess being the Sys-Admin he's geared up to give all sorts of ETA (Expected Time of Arrival,in case you are an alien in corp-world) which implies that's the time interval after which he'll give me the next ETA. The vivacious cycle will continue until one of his darts hits the bull eye. So round and round we go again and again, I add another 15 minutes in the ETA and pass on to my manager...who adds another 30 mins to it and passes it to his boss. What happens higher up the ladder can only be left to speculation. Chilla's super-guess is that server going down on a Friday evening is too trivial matters when compared to the latest putting techniques in golf is the bigger knowledge quest of the day.

By the end of three and half hours, Chilla manages to save the earthlings from another peril of zombies who managed to pull down the server. And zombies as you know can if not contained can be very dangerous. I hope Aparna being apt with zombies in her own Unix world can vouch for me. For the rest of my readers just take Chilla's word of caution on that. Anyways like Hercules I manage to bring back the dead server from the inferno just in time before it would've been roasted in devil's own tandoor. Draft a detailed mail with all words that carry no meaning yet constitutes a Root-Cause-Analysis report. Another look at the clock tells me it's 7:00.

Hooray I might be late, but still have hope to make it to the Pooja hall. May be the girls whom I'd fancied last year have already hooked up with the early-goers, but when I reach there by 8:15 pm I would still have Ms. Roy Chowdhury's Alur Dum. That lady if you can ignore her faked accented suggestion of "Duuh youv vaanth one more Aaaluhh" happens to be a fantastic cook. And then the desk phone rings again....this time it's my boss.

"Chilla, just read your RCA report, but you didn't attach the 32-step sanity check produce check-list with it along with the exact timelines". Aah the side effects of giving blackberry to your management...they can screw their subordinates even more effectively. With his appetite full he wouldn’t bother to look at his wife when they sleep in their mahogany bed. At the end of the day investment is a blackberry and its connection charges obtained at corporate discount.
Net results : Increased productivity…good looking balance sheet and a sexually starved wife and eventually a lucky and happy neighbor.

"Boss, I already did the important sanity checks, and our processes are up and running fine. I will send you the report first thing on Monday", I take my own chances before calling the shots.

"Chilla, you cannot ignore the processes. You know processes are what that makes our organization tick".

Oh really, then why is it all your review documents are prepared only before the quality audit takes place. But constrained by my rank all that I can say "Yes, I already have them on my notepad...I will fill up the sheet and send it to you by EOD". Actually it would be EON (End-of-Night) but neither of us was bothered to correct this mistake.

So the Soptomi gone down the drains, Chilla drives back home. Ironically the car stereo plays Kishore singing "Koi lauta de mere bite hue din" and I long for grasses from Maddox Square and pillars from Durgabaari. Ended up home with a quarter of Bacardi Rum from the 7/11 store round the corner. The roomie is excited about the porn CD he has got from another bird of the same feather and ends the news with "But Dada you are too intellectual for these raw flesh stuff". I think he purposefully does have a poke at my ego ,and I being the biggest sucker reply "Who says...let's watch it".

Gone are the Bong beauties, Gone are Ms. Roychowdhury's Alur Dum...I stuck with this pschyo and Jemma Jefferson with all her silicon talents and faked moans. And then my guardian angel smiled, the CD got stuck. Oh boy you should've seen the guy trying to fix the problem...he tried cleaning the CD head and he cleaned the CD, he licked it literally. But no use. Chilla's guardian angel wants Chilla to get drunk and play Kishore Kumar singing to the tunes of RD and that's what is bound to happen.

The funny part of getting drunk is the moment you think you need a couple of pegs more is the clear green signal to stop...but ask any drunkard he’ll tell you that's where he slips. So after finishing the rum, I open the fridge pull out a beer can. Gulp it down...and go for another. By the time the Kishore CD with all the MP3s finished and mind you there were around 20-30 of them I was barely able to put off the lights and go to bed.
(continued)

Firefox add-ons are wonderful but nothing like Stumble. Just found out this gem while stumbling for literature - One sentence story. The challenge for people talented at cooking up stories is that these one sentence stories should not be fictional but facts.

Here are some of the best I liked (Please click on the links to check out the tags, especially the first one) :

* I was only fourteen. [1]

* I have begun walking down the street along side good looking strangers in the hope that other strangers will think I have good looking friends. [2]

* Life was so much simpler when i could go peeling through the neighborhood on my bmx bike, topless, with all the boys and not feel an ounce of embarrassment, then puberty came and messed everything up. [3]

* When I told my husband of 17 years that I didn't think he knew me and I wanted a divorce, he asked me "Are you a lesbian?" [4]


And here is all I could come up with :

"My happy thoughts imagining him to be out of our lives died unhappy when I finally came to know that he'd never come back to us again. "

I hate the idea of passing tags may be mostly because I've never been tagged. For that I can only blame my late entry into blogging and even more my lack of netiquette. But I would love if people visiting this blog leave me a link back to their stories. Once in a while the Peeping Tom in me loves have a peep at secret diaries of others.

"Come to the light...don't remain in darkness anymore", the thick bearded mad man in semi-tattered clothes was shouting on the pavement .He held a placard that said in red letters "Jesus loves you all". But he was no beggar as there was no hat or any other alms-bowl lying to accept charity. He looked like someone passionate about his belief and was in much hurry to convert the whole world right here, right now.

Passerby people busy with their demanding jobs and troubled marriages choose to ignore his scream while they headed for the subway. No body had the time to spare to miss the next train to their destination for such trivial things. Even mental conditioning had much to do with this mass behavior. Being used to see homeless doomsday preachers on every other corner their entertainment value must've gone down the drains. The script was crying for something dramatic other than the insane preacher and his passionate sermons.


There were three punks, glorious in their full gothic attire taking leisurely strides on the pavement. Even if they wouldn't have been in their gears, the way they walked demarked the trio from the surrounding flock of mere mortals. The common dream in their eyes could be attributed to the crack they just had. The dream had taken them inside the maze of a video game, where they needed to find the evil one disguised among the hordes of people going in and coming out of the tunnels of the subway.

If there was anything common between the evangelist and the trio of addicts that none of them quite fitted into the background of the common folks rushing towards their routines. The confrontation between them was inevitable. Maybe the trio thought they finally found the villain, may be the preacher thought these people were badly in need of some illuminating discourse. The conversation started with some mumbling from the preacher followed by some grunt from the stout looking leader among the trio and a cynical giggling from the only woman among the three.

The third member of the trio might've been the most avid gamer.Not willing to loose any more of the precious gaming time he kicked the preacher in his crotch. Taking the cue from him, the others immediately jumped to the action. The next moment the bearded evangelist was rolling on the ground trying to protect himself from the heavy boots showering kicks from all three sides.

The whole things lasted for about a minute or two and the trio left laughing this time their pace slightly faster and prouder at their recent feat. The evangelist had managed to drag himself up from the pavement and was picking up his placard. Almost at the same time I had finished smoking my cigarette. Being forced by my routine I decided to take a leave from the place and dive into the tunnels. As I was passing by the preacher I heard him saying towards the skies "Oh Holy Father in the heaven forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing".

I barely had a look at his eyes as I rushed towards the stairs down, down into the depths of the tunnels to be deported to my destination.

Nothing to write home about,I am putting these time-pass links.

How they goofed up...but ended up BIG at the box office

When your PC is even more bored than you

A lil bit of Dili-Dali...

Go clicking the links to enjoy !!!

ps: 2 new stories are cooking up.Unfortunately in the middle of things I ran out of salt. So rushing to the stores.Promise to come back with good bedtime stories.Till then entertain yourself with daily samachar

Fine Print: M , the blogger who softly treads on your computer screen and whose lucid writing style makes me nostalgic with the Puja fever, makes me think about my possible activites on my final day told me to write a story with mushy romantic ending than the usual macabre ones I end up with. So here is my lame attempt at spinning a sweet one. Read below to judge for yourself.

He was sitting idly at the bar counter, toying the ice in the glass with the stirrer. It's been one of those bad days when everything went wrong. Waking up on a Monday morning his first shock came as he found out its way past his usual wake time. The quick shave that followed left remnant beards sticking in between the bruises on his face. To add to the blues, the heater refused to function. Bathing in the ice-cold water was accompanied by teeth-clattering music and a shivering dance to go with it. Without any time for ironing he slid a pull-over to hide the crumpled shirt. He rushed towards the garage only to frustrate himself with the batteries that would not jump start despite all his efforts.

Cabs are like spare change which you see plenty when you don't need them and when you do need them they simply vanish. After praying to all the gods he could think of, he was finally able to board a cab. Cabbies could be interesting personalities and this one was a philosopher in disguise. The drive to the office was full of topics like purpose for existence to recent happenings in politics and soccer matches. They all came with in-depth analysis from the motor mouthed driver whose vocal chords were racing with the meter fare. Looking outside the windows yielded little relief for as they waded between the squirming traffic to downtown.

But when it came to earthly matters like cab-fare, the philosopher switched onto his pragmatic avatar. The usual or more than usual argument followed as he refused to give back the changes. The driver’s point of logic was that as a customer he should the one who is supposed to pay the exact fare. It was not the cabbies' duty to have the changes to the exact cent available at his dispense. With all the signs clearly indicating a bad day ahead, he closed the cab doors with a thud while muttering the F word .He was regretting his earlier analogy of the cabs with spare changes.

The lift to his fourth floor office was under maintenance, so the compulsory walk up the stairs was utilized at cursing his own life, admiring life of other folks and prioritizing the agendas for the day. When he made his entry inside the board room, the review meeting was already in full swing. Limited by their communication power or decency or both, people were aiming for the next person’s collar or throat. May be because he had this pitiful expression on his face apologizing for being late all the next stones were pelted at him only. For the remaining part of the meeting he was feeling proud at his defense skills mainly at the way the gunshots got rebounded by his armor of corporate survival techniques. Unfortunately his joy was short-lived.

As soon as he prepared for his exit from the board room, his boss asked him to stay back for some more time. Knowing that the old schooled rule-book abider that his boss was he was well prepared for a mouthful of advice. He was silently hoping they would be much better than the philosopher cabbie. But after what followed next he could've kissed the cabbie on his cheeks and nominated him for the next Nobel Prize. As he walked towards his cabin his ears were still burning from the volcanic lava that erupted from his mild natured boss’s mouth. All that he was left with were fossilized wreckage of his pride and goodwill buried under ashes.

His fling with Lady Luck continued for the rest of the day and at the evening he decided it was high time to drown all his problems in alcohol. He headed for the nearest bar. He knew it was expensive, but like a long lost traveler in desert who had sighted the oasis, he too didn’t have much option. The only solace was Monday evenings a bar is one of the quietest places where you can have all the silence to meditate.

And so after a couple of whiskeys he was sitting in a deserted bar with his empty glass twisting and turning the leftover ice with his stirrer and pondering about life in general. By this time Lady of Fate was also tired of spinning so much yearns to nail this guy in the spidery web. It was time for her to watch what happens to the protagonists of her favourite TV soap opera who were left stranded among deep marital troubles last Friday. She thought she had have enough and decided to take a well-deserved break

Nature abhors vaccum, so during this period of inactivity from Lady Luck, our main character’s Guardian Angel speedily got into action. The angel looked around for prospective candidates to change the luck for his bestowed one. And there she was, a lonely woman standing at the entrance of the disco-thec waiting for her boyfriend to pop in. A quick scan at the data available to Mr. Angel revealed that the boyfriend in question was an investment banker, a young gun speeding all the way to his destiny of wealth and fame. This one will be easy he thought as he snapped his fingers to change the course of events.

The next minute the banker while he was driving to meet his beloved, got a call from a big shot client.Mr Fat Wallet was bored with life on that particular evening and wanted to cheer up by finding the right stocks to invest. So he sought for the company of his banker for the evening.The sports-car screeched to a halt and then made a U-turn towards Mr. Fat Wallet's residence. Looking down Mr. Angel adjusted his halo with pride knowing that the ball has been set rolling.

She liked dancing and she liked it a lot. But when your date invariably fails to turn up that too on a day when he was supposed to be making up for an earlier mistake, the remixed screeches from the DJ might seem a bit louder for you. So you look for alternatives, only to find out the bar downstairs is playing a soothing lonely saxophone in contrast. And you end up heading towards the bar-man, even if you are a teetotaler.

Once you have taken a sip or two from your expensive cocktail, the exotic ingredients soaked in alcohol leaves a sensation tongue. You look around you to engage in conversation with the next decent soul available. If you are lucky that person happens to someone other than the barman. If you are luckier that someone happens to be the person who had glanced occasionally at you from the side of his eyes yet hasn’t said a word. With the time ticking away nothing seems better than to start the conversation.

The ways of conversation are strange. When stuck in rain in a bus-stand with someone you say "It's raining". Even if you are stating the obvious fact the other person replies "Yes it's raining like this for the past 15 minutes". Another obvious fact which you are well aware of, for you had looked at your watch for every five minutes since the rain started. But that is how the conversation always leads you to unknown by-lanes in between most walked avenues of life.

So she started off, "Hi....Sitting alone....waiting for someone"
He sighed, "Not really...just feeling lonely....you ?"
And she replied, "Me too....feeling lonely....so thought spending sometime here.."

From the much treaded avenues of life, their conversation enlightened them about each-other's daily routine life, not-so-routine aspirations and the silly list of small-small likening that made them smile. It seemed their conversation road-map was filled with sign boards pointing towards the topsy-turvy trail of strange love that was waiting to throw its door open to the two lonely drunk souls. When they left the bar together they were heading towards the dance floor. The combined dance steps amidst loud music was just another excuse for them to touch each-other intimately. In their intimate embrace one thing they realised was for certain that things would never be the same anymore.

Tomorrow morning he will tell his boss "Go to hell....I've found something better" and make a call to his friend who was insisting him to join his startup venture. Tonight she would not return the investment banker's call, tomorrow morning she'll say him "Go to hell...I've found someone better" and then wait for the evening to be here again. Or maybe they won't rush for it tomorrow itself, but it will definitely happen in due course of time. The writings on the wall already was shaping themselves.

Above in the sky stretching himself across his chair Mr. Guardian Angel smiled and thought, "Hmm…that was a day of hard work...but all's well that end's well....now I can go back to watch the soccer match".He looked up for a second at the skies even higher up to ponder what his guardian angel has been up to lately.