Rad is the word!

My dad is a man of few words. Actually, very few words. But as a kid I picked up every ‘cool’ word from my dad. Somewhere along the way, I grew up, life sped past, telephone call charges soared and gradually conversation seemed to cease. We still have our moments. Just a couple of weeks back, he blew me over at the dinner table. He quoted some lines by Samuel Johnson. And then, some more by Somerset Maugham. Was this my dad?!

In the last few months we’ve started a new practice. Every time he comes back after a trip he pulls out a magazine from his bag, The Week and hands it over to me. I take it and keep it on my desk. Sometimes I flip through it. Mostly it just lies there, till the next fortnight when he brings home a new one. He came back yesterday and handed me a new one. “Do you even read it?” I always thought handing me the magazine was an act of getting rid of the raddi from his room. And in the process if one more person benefited, well, Halleluiah! I mumbled something about how I don’t really like The Week. “Oh you must read “Wicked Word,” its usually good.”

“Wicked Word” ha? I was intrigued. I ran down to my room and turned to ‘Wicked Word,’ a feature that takes a look at the English language in a humorous vein. This one was titled ‘Comings and Groins’. An excerpt from Jayaschandran’s article:
Noam Chomsky teaches universal grammar when he isn’t hitting the White House with a sledgehammer. Very few people understand him. He says babies are born with grammar in their brains. I think they are born with the grammar of the groins. We struggle with grammar because grammarians are frigid and testy. They need spectacles to find their testicles.[…]
Verbs never cease to arouse interest: these are action words, like ‘fornicate’. To fornicate is to have sex that is not adulterous. In the bible, adultery is a sin you commit; there is no commandment against fornication. You don’t commit it- it is no crime, you just do it with delight. Do no mix it with formication, which is a neurological feeling of insects crawling all over the body: just ensure the partner is not a creep. Architects can fornicate at work; the adjective ‘fornicate’ means ‘shaped like an arch’.
The verb ‘ejaculate involves an exclamation. Most men ejaculate in private. It wasn’t so in the past. In novels like “Wuthering Heights” and “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”, characters often ejaculated in public, with their astonished mouths.”

The rest of the article continued in a similar vein. Much like Catherine from Wuthering Heights I ejaculated in joyous surprise. My dad was so cool! He had no qualms handing over a write up liberally strewn with innuendoes/words/ideas/acts that most parents would be squeamish about and squirm away from.

Of course this was my dad!
In between growing up and collecting degrees I’d forgotten how cool my dad was.
He still is.
:)

A Rant..

I'm in a madddd mooood.
Mad meaning, fun madddd moood. I want to giggle and laugh riotously! I want to shout "Rubber Chicken" and cascade down with a mass of bodies, hitting ground zero. Every body crashing with peals of laughter.

I want to be mean to De. Crack jokes about how "V is so old" and how bald Mr. Drama is. I want to yell out across the corridor and ask Maddy and Ms.melodrama if they have some food left over. I want to jump over to the other bed and tell Shorty, "Lets watch HIMYM!" I want to look out of the window and see a little fire crackling in the middle of the night, near the stone bench. I want to hurtle invectives at Hipposaurus, only so he returns me the favor and calls me a "fake mallu" who is going to be punished by the Christian God.

I want to sit in a circle with one gold flake light passing around five hands. I want to talk about how daft the VC is and how hot alok is!I want to plop onto a bed with five other ppl around and a couple of budweisers floating!I want to be 5 minutes away from a hot plate of omelette and a steaming cup of tea served on a cold rock at two in the night.

That madness hasn't died. That madness spelt magic.
It still is.

I'm sure there is a fire crackling by the stone bench right now, and a group of mad people recounting such a night that was, just about a year ago.

The Philosopher

People colorfully chequer our life. Its temptingly exciting to box people into categories and sort them in our head as types. I'm not wonderfully perceptive. Yet, I love to mentally label people in my head.My life is teeming with people; common,typical, plain, usual,conventional,strange,wierdly wonderful,attached,irreverent, melodramatic, detached, head strong,dont give a damn, cautious, evil, moral, stoic, eccentric, jovial, abusive, secretive, talkative. Its an exhaustive, ecclectic mix! And then there are some people. They zoom into your life and then right out. They just defy every conceivable idea of a type. They're defiant. They're special. They're special because they make a difference. They show you there's another way of living, another way of thinking. Another universe of being. Its rarely that I let people make themselves special to me. Infinitely, secretively special. Immensely special. One just revisited me today, briefly, over text messages.
A few short sentences punctuated a lazy sunday afternoon.An exclamation interjected the long hiatus. A question dispersed the vacuum of time. An answer reassured, things haven't changed. As always it didn't end with a full stop. It never did. He said, "call sometime..."
The cantankerous philosopher crept stealthily into the secret realm and got tagged 'special.' He's been there for a while now and not many have come close to displacing him. He does nothing to make him a worthy 'special'. He's not overtly expressive or caring. He'll never call, but will always say, 'call sometime.' He'll never send a message, but will promptly(almost affectionately) reply to every message. He'll rarely put an arm around you and say 'its going to be alright'. His green eyes, never judging, plainly do the trick. They reassure you.
He loves to talk. He can theorize about the poppy seed, the paratha or the porsche. He can see magic in a pencil top, a well toasted sandwich, a querty keypad or even a stupid cat. He'd like to own a audi or a merc, a rich woman and may be some camels. He likes the idea of a red harem, with a warm homely library, tucked away in some corner. The book shelf, he specifies, has to be of light wood, not encased in glass tombs, but open. He's thrilled at the thought of sitting on a huge heap of silver coins and flinging them in the air, just to hear them jingle.

He quit his corporate job because he wanted to quit selling his soul.

He can thrill you with ideas. He can slowly needle you on to something you never knew existed. He can puncture your zeal with his pessimistic vision. He can soar your dipping spirits with that reassuring smile, black tea and a drag. Special requests from excessively low spirits never go unredeemed, the guitar is strummed and a song is sung. The lazy bugger loves adventure, but it all HAS to be planned! Which bus? From where?Are you sure?What time?Really? Naah...I'll pass. I have to clean up the house.
Sprawled on the stony bench he throws a white beam of light on the tree overhead. He's looking for bats. He has a story. Always. But its rarely about him. You can pour your heart out to him.He'll unravel himself to you only in bits. And as you get to know him, you know there is a lot you have to compromise. Your expectations. Your ego. Your pride. What you share with him is too special to be compromised...for anything.Which is why I will call sometime...

And again we'll talk about the perfect reading room, with the wooden floors, white french windows, a low coffee table, open book shelves and old conversations.