“Napkin, Please”

My friend, Rehan, has always been a keen observer rather I would say a gawker. Feminine the stuff gawkier he becomes. A beauty shall be judged, as he tips, on five key features.

Eyes,

Hair,

Complexion,

Looks, and

The other things. You know “boys will be boys”.

Scene: An evening at a restaurant. Rehan was standing, to buy coupons, in the line to the cashier.

Waiting for his turn, he was humming merrily. Spring was evident in his mood.

The cashier, as usual, was busy keying in; never did he lift head to glance at his customer. Apparently, he was un-like Rehan, totally un-gawky type.

“Napkin, Please” a girl said to the cashier, having finished her snacks she was in search of a tissue.

Humming stopped.

Wet, shining eyes,

Cascading hairs falling just short of waistline,

Cheeks drawing complexion from her magenta-coloured salwar,

Innocent face,

And, the other things reminded one of the Khajuraho sculptures.

Long ago was she gone, with a napkin drawn from the new set kept on the table by the cashier, but Rehan was still gawking in the direction she went. Gawking and moving, moving and gawking, he didn’t realize his turn has come. Cashier, busy looking at computer screen, tapped on the table, and said,

“Saar, yenna venama?” (“Sir, what do you want?”)

Lost in the reverie, extending a bill of Rupees hundred, he said as if suffering from Somniloquy,

“Napkin, please”.

The cashier raised his head, probably, for the first time. Surfaced on his usually blank face were puzzled expressions, with eye-brows pulled down, which refashioned into a broad smile.

“Okay, Napkin venamaaa!” he said teasingly. (“Okay, Napkin is desired!”)

Everybody in the line burst into laughter, drawing Rehan out of the dream. He said, “One tea only, please”, with a blushed grin.

English, the language…..Ufff

Episode- 1

Do you know which the longest word in English is?

“Floccinaucinihilipilification”, pronounced as flok-suh-naw-suh-nahy-hil-uh-pil-uh-fi-key-shuhn, with 29 letters is the longest non-technical word in the language.

This tongue twister reminds me of Prof. Parimal Tripathi, of movie "Chupke-Chupke ", reciting “English is a funny language”.

Dictionary.com says that it means “estimation of something as valueless”. Invented by an Etonian, it’s concatenation of four Latin words, flocci + nauci + nihili + pili, each of which lies in the vicinity of “valueless”. Any mathematician would agree with “0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0”.

Instead of finalizing among “flocci-fication”, “nauci-fication”, “nihili-fication” and “pili-fication”, all four were married to the suffix. Weird marriage, weirder result.

On a closer look one finds that the arrangement is in alphabetical order (here, mathematicians will be at loss), seemingly in an attempt not to displease any of the brides; I would have made it dramatic by tossing a coin.

I shall go one step further and suggest to replace it with "Estimationofsomethinguseless", which is a letter smaller and explicit in meaning.

At last I will say “English…..Ufff”.

Keep Experimenting, Keep Experiencing

I always knew blogging is not my cup of tea, but owing to my eccentric disposition of trying everything, which I am quiet sure is some sort of disorder, and luck ( “bad luck” , to be understood as ) of failing without fail at each of them here I am set for sailing once again.

Speaking of the disorder, I will attend to the newly taken fancy to blog which of course is the latest manifestation of the disorder later, days of retrospection and introspection took me to pin point my “impulsive disposition” to be the possible cause.

To the best of my recollection, it started few years back with the sudden onset of “Guitar-o-philia”. Renderings by an amateur friend, probably…..ummm…no...surely, to be blamed. Ignited with the passion, an oath was taken immediately, an oath to master the instrument, an oath to go on stage, and of course an oath to surpass the legends. The friend was not only an amateur but a good samaritan too; he also took an oath to help me in the noble cause under the impulse of the moment. No, it’s not that he, also, was suffering from the disorder but might have been affected momentarily. He was quick to act; this time not to be misunderstood as “impulse” but it was the next logical step, at least it was so to him. His guitar was lent to me and tab notations of popular songs were downloaded from the web, not to forget his precious tips on “sitting position”, “holding the guitar”, “holding the pick” etc. Finally his very words “Practice makes a man perfect”- though not original and which I had heard a million times before, to which he might have contributed just half - had profound effect on me. There I was, sitting the way I was told, holding the guitar and the pick the way I was told, and practicing to be perfect as I was told.

The first few hours of rehearsal were intense and frustrating to me and to my fellow roommates as well. Inner voices, which I suspected were not exclusively mine, told me to quit but the proverb was backing me up. In a day or two’s time I was able to play “Piya bole piyu bole…..” from the bollywood flick “Parineeta” well enough to be gratified, pushing me further into what I coined as “Guitar-o-philia”. Next morning I found myself in an instruments shop trying and testing guitars for purchase. The seller himself was a good player of guitar. He looked pretty impressed by my rendering of “Piya bole piyu bole…..”; any such expressions on the part of a seller would have been commented as “sucking up” had I not been sieged by the “-philia”, which not being the case was received very well by me and culminated in an unit sale.

The same evening I graduated from the amateur guru to a professional coaching. The coaching was professional and un-samaritan, for no oath was taken to my rescue. Nevertheless, I was given different set of tips, that on “sitting position”, “holding the guitar”, “holding the pick” etc. You know how much expert advices vary with the experts, don’t you? Be it stock market, cricket, weather reports or exit polls, “dos and don’ts” change with every analyst. In fact it is constrained by the number of experts only, more you add to the pool, more advices you will have to choose from. But on what they all agree is “Practice makes a man perfect”. And, that was what reminded to me in the coaching class.

So, what started was the rigorous practice, harder than before. Evenings and holidays passed in the practice. But the results were nowhere to be seen; melody was hard to come. Weariness loomed around. I am not sure whether it was because of dullness of notes or subsidence of the “impulse”. I will vote for the later if I have to. It withered more abruptly than it spiked up. Even the constant reminders of the proverb were not able to kick me up. The “-philia” was gone, though not replaced by “-phobia”, it was over.

The relic of the guitar-era still lies with me, the guitar, occasionally reminding me of the time and the experience wonderful in its own way. Like what hangover reminds one of the previous night.

Since then there have been many such “-philia”s, which I will disclose in future blogs provided this “Blog-o-philia” persists till then.........