Of rotations and revolutions.

A recently concluded week, where I was eternally looking at a certain unnatural direction due to a neck sprain led me to a few conclusions - 

• It is not advisable to wash your hair with a stiff neck. A vigorous scalp rubbing using the towel is out of the question. No amount of gentle patting the hair with the towel will get it to dry. I found it out the hard way.

• Never attempt a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle with a sprained neck. Apart from the agony of the neck, you will also be left with an frustrating, incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

• Day 1, hour 1 will get you the most sympathy. Lap it up as by day 3 you are most likely to find someone standing behind you imitating your neck alignment and laughing away merrily. 

• Smile and the battle is lost! Cry and win an ally. I smiled through my pain and therefore received very little empathy.

• The clock never aligns itself to the direction of your restricted vision. And inadvertently your sister asks your for the time.

• Sleep is an impossible act mornings or nights. And in the event that your eyes do close and your breathing relaxes, the smallest twitch will have you awake again in pain.

• In future when in pain, stay away from the person labelled husband. In case of accidental meeting, a fight within five minutes is guaranteed. 

• Things fall down. But things always fall down. The difficulty lies in actually retrieving the fallen object or letting it lie till the able necked person comes to the rescue.

Day 1 was his birthday, but I was pampered like a princess - a double edged sword situation. All you can do is stare into the outer space ( or the general direction of outer space) while he cooks under your instructions.

And how did all this come about? I am still as clueless now as I was then.

telephones part 2

I never return calls. I never message. I dont send forwards on email let alone phones. My mobile was useful to me to the extent of picking up calls and setting my daily alarm. I had deliberately bought the cheapest model from Nokia at that time.

The whole world knows that if you dont call or message someone sooner or later you are not going to get any calls or messages yourself. That is telephone ettiquette. But whether the phone rings or not, I never let the mobile out of my sight. I carried it with me to all meetings where it provided me something to fiddle with when things turned boring. I took it with me those late nights when there was no electricity at home and therefore no light except the small glow on the mobile. I panicked everytime it got lost in the jungle of junk my bag contained. Yet I never called nor messaged.

But yes when you love someone who is on the opposite side of the continent, the mobile is a very useful device to have. However I generally mailed at the end of the day while he called. I guess my aversion to phones in general started early in life when I was asked to pick up the phone and answer to whoever was calling that dad was not at home inspite of the fact that dad was sleeping in the next room.

At this point of time, my trusted mobile sits in one dark corner of the cupboard without charge. On those rare occasions when I need a number it reminds me of the life I used to lead.  No longer do I bother with missed calls or unread messages.

But even without the mobile I am still within the clutches of the telephonic wire monster. My land line with its free calls to India. Unemployed and alone at home, everyone assumes that the landline is my new best friend. I am scolded for not calling relatives back home. "Its free!" they say so whats stopping you? The anti social being in me balks at calling up friends and relatives. I often end up not knowing what to say to the person on the other side. Its so much easier for me if I were to talk directly to another person. For most part I answer the questions that are asked of me and then maybe ask a couple of my own if I remember. If only letter writing were still in vogue.

Telephones and me

I do not like telephones. Having one means you are more accessible to everyone when you would rather be left alone. Right from all the salesmen who try to sell you everything from a bank to a shoe lace to the weirdest of strangers who call you just to pull a prank on you. Several of my girl friends had a list of numbers of these pranksters stored in their mobile phones under names like stranger 1, stranger 2 etc . I too had my pick-me-not numbers.

  One such memorable number was an auto walah. "Auto chetans" generally gave us their number so that we could call them when we needed a ride to office. Being IT they assumed that our wallets were probably stuffed with more than normal non IT folks. [ A popular misconception since most of us had more cards than cash.] So all of us had numbers of a couple of auto chettans who would pick us up in the mornings and drop us off at the office at the same astronomical rates reserved for us. On one occasion when I had several stuff with me to take to office, my friend gave me a number of one such auto chettan. But he turned up really late and we had to take other means to reach office. I called him again and told him in the nicest possible way that since he had been too late we had taken another auto to office. He apologized and reminded me to call him again next time we need a ride.

 That night or rather the next morning around two 'o clock I got a call on my mobile. Its the auto walah's number flashing on my screen. Woken up rudely in the middle of my sleep I couldn't even begin to imagine why he would be calling me at this time. In order to not wake my roomie I picked up the call quickly. The conversation went like this,

Me : elo? [ The first word after being woken up in the middle of a deep sleep is always horribly disfigured]

Autowalah : hello this is me... <some name>

Me : _____ [ thinking of an appropriate response at this insane hour.]

Aw: If you need a ride next time, please dont hesitate to call me.

Me: ok. [I try to deduce from his voice whether he is drunk. But late night my detective skills are not functional]

AW: I am always reachable on this number, just give me 10 min advance notice just in case I have some other  passenger.

Me: mm.. [By now I am awake and angry.]

AW: If you need to reach office please call me. I ....

Since this now sounded like a re telecast of the earlier message I cut the phone. For good measure I kept the phone on silent mode so that I could go back to sleep. Sleep came easy since I had not really contributed anything to the conversation and within minutes I was back in dreamland. No further calls came that night nor did any autos chase me in my dreams.

Next day morning at office the man calls again! Now I was thoroughly exasperated. When I get angry I fume silently. Since this situation demanded quiet a different response I didnt pick up the call. Thankfully, I had a blood boiling in anger kind of a cubicle mate at that time, who also happened to belong to the male gender. So I handed him the phone, explained the situation, sat back and enjoyed the fireworks that followed. 

 I have never been called by that person again. After this incident, whenever an auto chettan gave me his number I diligently fed it into my mobile in order not to disappoint him and make him increase his fare. By the time I left India my mobile was full of 'madhavans' and 'karthikeyans'. Yet whenever I needed to reach office however late or in a hurry I was, I always waited by the road side holding the phone in my other hand and waving frantically at every empty auto that passed.

end of part 1