A Nomad Named “Who?”
Peace at last!
Siddhartha mused over the things that had happened over the last two months…Two months of madness…Insanity that went beyond levels of comprehension. He chuckled to himself when he thought of how Mr.Kohli next door wriggled his lungi off when he was screaming at him for playing his 100 W tape recorder at medium volume…He remembered himself ‘har…har’ing till he wept, as Mr. Kohli’s blubbery hands swirled the grossly undersized lungi around his size 46 waist and ran away, all red. He recalled the mad plumber who’d come to set his toilet right. At the end of the awesome tribute to doltishness, he ended up connecting the kitchen sink and the damned ‘hole’, something that had bought him more than Mr. Kohli’s ‘nosiness’! Ah! The glorious torture of an outrageously overworked nose! Blech!!!
And of course, all kids next door! CRRRAASSSH!!!! How he dreaded that noise of hard cork against bedroom window glass…
And then there were the tax guys. The water-tax man who insisted that he pay for pipelines that whooshed air instead of water; the teeth-all-rotten house-tax guy who smelt of munched gutkha, who wouldn’t move from his favourite couch until he gave him a fiver; the Secretary Uncle, who had probably done nothing but collect maintenance money from the residents of Mantara Apartments; he never seemed bored of relating the same old stories of families that had lived and died in the place, over the thirty five years of his Secretaryship. It was only when he left though, that Sidhartha realised that his hands smelt of dirty notes and the centre-table reeked of spit….eeeew!!!!
The EB guy had a different story! He’d never bothered to come…A couple of fivers worked magic though! There was power at last!!(Sniff! Wipe!)
Possibly the only person that he loved was the post-man. He’d met him at the gate one day and introduced himself. He was always on time and never kept him for more than a minute when he brought the mail. The jolly old man…
Trrrring!!
It was the post man! He was on time again…and this time, he had brought him two letters!(His first time in two months at Mantara Apartments!)
He thanked the jolly old man and cut open the first one with greedy eyes!
“Dear Mr. Mathur,
As Secretary of Mantara Apartments, I would like to welcome you to our household!
You are now one of us!
Find enclosed the receipts for the maintenance bills for your first two months.
Yours truly,
Dinkar Maiti
Secretary
Mantara Apartments”
How simply wonderful! Things were going just fine now! It was all over…the torments of adapting oneself to a new place!
Mr.Kohli still screamed…though he chose to hold on to his lungi with his cholesterolic palms!
The plumber was gone…the pipelines were put in proper place now, though the sink still smelt, despite his 3 bottles of Teepol…but he was getting used to it…
He didn’t let the kids bother him any more; there weren’t any more windows to be CRRAAASSSHed any more! (“Hehehehe!”)
The tax guys wouldn’t come back for another year.
He wouldn’t let Secretary Uncle come back next month; Sidhartha decided to be smarter and just give the money to his wife when he took his afternoon nap…
The fan was working now(he heaved a sigh of relief as he looked up at the creaking old Usha…it worked!!!)
He put away the letter and opened up the second one with equally greedy eyes!
“Dear Mr. Mathur,
We take immense pleasure in informing you that you have been transferred to our Pune branch with immediate effect from the 2nd of July, 2005…”
Sniff!
Sob!
Sigh!
Siddhartha mused over the things that had happened over the last two months…Two months of madness…Insanity that went beyond levels of comprehension. He chuckled to himself when he thought of how Mr.Kohli next door wriggled his lungi off when he was screaming at him for playing his 100 W tape recorder at medium volume…He remembered himself ‘har…har’ing till he wept, as Mr. Kohli’s blubbery hands swirled the grossly undersized lungi around his size 46 waist and ran away, all red. He recalled the mad plumber who’d come to set his toilet right. At the end of the awesome tribute to doltishness, he ended up connecting the kitchen sink and the damned ‘hole’, something that had bought him more than Mr. Kohli’s ‘nosiness’! Ah! The glorious torture of an outrageously overworked nose! Blech!!!
And of course, all kids next door! CRRRAASSSH!!!! How he dreaded that noise of hard cork against bedroom window glass…
And then there were the tax guys. The water-tax man who insisted that he pay for pipelines that whooshed air instead of water; the teeth-all-rotten house-tax guy who smelt of munched gutkha, who wouldn’t move from his favourite couch until he gave him a fiver; the Secretary Uncle, who had probably done nothing but collect maintenance money from the residents of Mantara Apartments; he never seemed bored of relating the same old stories of families that had lived and died in the place, over the thirty five years of his Secretaryship. It was only when he left though, that Sidhartha realised that his hands smelt of dirty notes and the centre-table reeked of spit….eeeew!!!!
The EB guy had a different story! He’d never bothered to come…A couple of fivers worked magic though! There was power at last!!(Sniff! Wipe!)
Possibly the only person that he loved was the post-man. He’d met him at the gate one day and introduced himself. He was always on time and never kept him for more than a minute when he brought the mail. The jolly old man…
Trrrring!!
It was the post man! He was on time again…and this time, he had brought him two letters!(His first time in two months at Mantara Apartments!)
He thanked the jolly old man and cut open the first one with greedy eyes!
“Dear Mr. Mathur,
As Secretary of Mantara Apartments, I would like to welcome you to our household!
You are now one of us!
Find enclosed the receipts for the maintenance bills for your first two months.
Yours truly,
Dinkar Maiti
Secretary
Mantara Apartments”
How simply wonderful! Things were going just fine now! It was all over…the torments of adapting oneself to a new place!
Mr.Kohli still screamed…though he chose to hold on to his lungi with his cholesterolic palms!
The plumber was gone…the pipelines were put in proper place now, though the sink still smelt, despite his 3 bottles of Teepol…but he was getting used to it…
He didn’t let the kids bother him any more; there weren’t any more windows to be CRRAAASSSHed any more! (“Hehehehe!”)
The tax guys wouldn’t come back for another year.
He wouldn’t let Secretary Uncle come back next month; Sidhartha decided to be smarter and just give the money to his wife when he took his afternoon nap…
The fan was working now(he heaved a sigh of relief as he looked up at the creaking old Usha…it worked!!!)
He put away the letter and opened up the second one with equally greedy eyes!
“Dear Mr. Mathur,
We take immense pleasure in informing you that you have been transferred to our Pune branch with immediate effect from the 2nd of July, 2005…”
Sniff!
Sob!
Sigh!
Comments