A Second Slice of Life

Scars:

      Completely oblivious of all the pairs of eyes on him, the 2 year old ran around in circles, and laughed aloud during the solemn sermon.  Predictably, he hit his head on a bench and hurt his head. Not too much, just a little, but enough to make him run to mommy for soothing kisses. Or so we all thought, including his mother who put out her arms.

      But the boy ran into his nanny's arms instead, who kissed him and made much of him. Satisfied he happily went back to his play, completely oblivious of the pain he had caused in his mother's heart.

Chef's Special:

      My mother was making biryani and the tempting aroma was drifting in the air. "Amma… pasikuthu(Mother, I am hungry)" cried a beggar at the gate. "In a minute, son" responded my mom, thinking it was my brother. In her defense, let us assume the cooker had decided to whistle at that moment.

      My dad's tough exterior hides a gentle soul. Seeing it was a old man, appa asked, "If you can wait for a few minutes, biriyani will be ready."

      "What time is it?" asked the old man. "If it is after 12 O' Clock, I eat rice. Otherwise, I eat only tiffin!

Stare me not!

      Timeliness not being my forte, I had to choose between shopping and applying make up. Neither one could be compromised, as both shopping and make up was for a social event in the next hour. In an Eureka moment, I dumped all my make up stuff in my bag and did a hurried shopping at a mall in Nagercoil.

      With 5 mins in hand, I entered the ladies room, to put on a few essentials. Two women who worked at the mall entered as I was applying my mascara. I tried to ignore their unwavering stare even as they, without any prelude, untied their saris, and coolly started draping it. They exchanged knowing glances, and silently communicated their disapproval of a lady applying make up through head and mouth movements.

      That two women who were dressing/undressing in public had to judge another of their own gender for applying her own make up on her own face. But then, they were draping their 'own' sari.

The Substitute teacher:

      He was closer to 50 than 40. He was a good man, who believed we were using the calculator on our phones, when we had in fact been checking our messages. He spoke on every subject, but the actual subject. One day, with minutes to go before the bell, there was an SMS on all our phones - 'Watch his reaction and also xxx's'. One mischievous young adult had messaged the substitute teacher, from xxx's phone - 'Sir, you look handsome in this shirt'. Xxx was the subject coordinator, and the teacher had her number saved on his phone.

      The Sub checked his phone midway of a story, and paused. His eyes widened and remained wide as the clock ticked. We were bursting at the seams with suppressed giggles watching both the teacher and xxx(who had no idea that it was her mobile phone that had caused the mischief).

      Then the teacher coughed twice, and beamed a big smile and said, "I have crossed your age, and we have also tricked our teachers like this. When we were in college, a boy..."And he moved on to another story.

Secret Keeper:

      We were in Bangalore for a ten day leadership training program, and a talent show was scheduled that evening. Casually over lunch, I asked a friend who was representing from another college, if he was participating. He looked seriously at me for a few seconds. I could almost hear the thoughts running through his head. Then he nodded sagely, as one who had finally made up his mind and asked,

      "Well, can you keep a secret?"

I have always been very proud of my secret keeping skills. So I nodded religiously.

      "The boys will kill me if they know I have told you. It's going to be a stunning performance, a surprise which no one can guess. It's a masala of songs and actions. Make sure you don't miss it. And keep this to yourself."

      Later in the evening, they came on stage with guitars and dressed in Gold and Silver colored attires. Girls buzzed around and I caught the words, "big surprise...secret..." all around. "Hello, how did they know?" They plugged in their electric guitars and sang, "Twinkle, twinkle little star".

The pranksters had been showcasing their talent from the morning.