Just a Start

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night but quite the opposite actually.

The flickering television was blabbering the death of Gustov – the famous French chef who had librated the taste of cuisine the world over. Mmm.. food was the last thing Smith has in mind as he lay blindfolded with hands tied behind his back. The freezing chill that was getting transformed from the base of his temple to the nimble parts of his body was pointing to the slowly ticking clock whose each motion was getting directed from some unknown hilly terrain deep down in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. With the cocking of the gun pressed against his temple seeming familiar a Kasminov or a M9 maybe, the dialect of the masked terrain surrounding him were pointing to a bigger conspiracy than what it seemed from this hotel room at Taj that was slowly getting filled with smell of explosives, marinated charcoaled flesh and strong sea breeze that pointed towards famous saying of Gustov “Sight & smell of the things surrounding you hold a greater meaning from what is cooked behind you.”

Monsoons: ‘look who is calling’?

I remember the day when the doorbell of my home rang a couple of times in rapid succession. Getting out of my early morning sleep groggy eyed, I took a step jumped two and again took a step. It was a habit which stood good to me on these monsoons days and the rest of three hundred odd days of the year where crossing the PMH road – it’s not the road leading to Prime minister’s house but pot metro holed road. A road, which has nice pots of different shapes and sizes with a depth that would make a river, put to shame caused by swanky metro and the digger boys of PWD. It acted as a perfect cover for 007 JBFM’s – James Bond female mosquitoes to go into family way.

To avoid the high tide caused by passing vehicular traffic sometimes if I decided to take the route of under bridge – well god save the king. The streaky line of yellow liquid now mixed with fresh water supply sent directly from the god’s own coffers would cover the stairs and basement in round rectangular shapes – round to start with and then growing rectangular. I must compliment the udders of those brilliant Indian persona that pulled the pressure trigger a foot and half before or after the existing streaky yellow line. So that’s what is the space left with us to waddle through- a step jump two and again take a step. In fact it is so precise at some places that you can use this walk jump walk recipe blindfolded.

This was the habit, which with passing time developed into a rigorous regime, which I was following on that faithful day. On opening the door, I found a gentleman from anti mosquito department – as was promptly displayed on his shirt badge point towards my running cooler and said ‘ don’t you know in the monsoon season the running of the cooler is banned as it becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes’. With that I heard a scribbling sound of pen on paper and before my eyes could get focused to the bright sunny light of the day I was handed a hundred rupees penalty. My subsequent protests that till now the government had not declared the onset of monsoon on this part of the city landed on deaf ears. Left with no other option but to pay the fine I watched the official with a smile on his face for getting a job well done turn around to reach his vehicle parked on the min road by taking a step jump two take a step…