One feels that one has been talking about the brewing storm a lot in the past few posts. Hints have been dropped, insinuations have been leveled ..Lets then talk about something else. Something else that was brewing just around this time and in this very place.
This one is special. This one is for our little cartel and N for he didn't know it then, but soon he would join this syndicate of, well, willful devils, if you will.
It all started when N. and K. connected on that cellphone with the strange device: Blackberry. N. at this time was in a kingdom far far away, but they talked and they talked and then they talked some more. Skype entered the picture and soon they were transported to the land inhabited by those in love...What happens in those acres is between the dwellers and in case of the women, their friends, because women tell each other everything...
But these maidenly transgressions came later, sometime in mid-January while N. entered our lives one fine, wintry morning in early January that year. He had of course entered K.'s life some time ago, but we found out after a particularly perplexing lecture in the Philosophy department.
We had just endured an hour of an eccentric-looking bloke rambling on about knowledge of knowledge of knowledge...you get my drift; and I suppose he had suffered 5 nitwits sitting in front of him with boiled-fish eyes and very happy expressions on their faces as they gazed into vacant space...I think most of us were thinking what we would be do if chicken drumsticks were to suddenly appear on the professor's desk, except the vegetarians who must have been thinking about, hmm, whatever vegetarians think about...
K. tried a little reticence in the beginning, but my willfulness together with the fact that we are women means that by the time January ended, I was all caught up. I had to throw some details about S. and me under the dainty, lady-like bus that is feminine curiosity; but I caught up alright. Sorry, S. and N...
By the time we got to Mirzapur, K. was nicely settled in aforementioned meadows of Aphrodite. Which meant that the two weeks of separation from high speed wi-fi or for that matter any speed wi-fi or cable was decidedly biting.
Over the next few days K and N would incur phone bills which when put together would exceed what we paid for, you know, rent, food, that sort of thing...I remember the arrival of that momentous bill with the words 'Envelope 1 of 2' on it one rainy afternoon.
At the time few outside our group knew N by name. So, naturally, given that K used to spend all her waking hours including those in the loo (keeping in mind the great and very real potential for personal injury to herself or her phone or both), N came to be known as Blackberry; a burden he would carry for a long long time; in fact, I think our supervisor still calls him that.
Every night, K. would sit inside a cupboard inhabited solely by spiders and whisper that which all worshipers of Isis know in between mouthfuls of what she sincerely hoped was only cobwebs and dust.
In the beginning K would just sit in the courtyard or the feared stairs up to Medusa and her Beast, but these austerity measures were imposed after one night when Z. messaged us (messaged us, mind you, when lying only about 6 feet away from us) that and I quote her "you guys are really being too loud". Therefore, the cupboard with the flourishing family of spiders.
One day it struck me that my wi-fi data card might work somewhere within the house and even though it didn't have a lot of credit, it might ease the agony of these sundered souls in that they would at least be able to gaze at each others visages (I love the thesaurus!!!).
Our plans were quickly rendered apart by the shrill call of 'Tappal' hooting and demanding that I give my data card to her too so she could talk to, well to her paramour, if you will. This paramour had confessed to her almost immediately after they had started meeting in clandestine alleys and shadowy trees (because that is just the kind of people they were) that he had polycystic kidney disease and only a few months to live. This was about 6 years ago. I feel for the guy, I think he approximated the kind of mess he had gotten into pretty early on and wanted out before getting sucked down any farther. But T just offered him her own kidney. That and the fact that he never filed a restraining order and stuck around for 6 whole years makes one wonder if his 'business' was only a front. One only hopes that wherever T is today, her lung capacity has diminished and both her kidneys are still secure within her own body.
As I was saying before I went off this tangent, T's shrieks effectively ruined K and N's skype date. N still refers to her as the girl who screeched "mujhe bi baat kalni he"(another diabetic rendition of "I wanna talk too") right when he was finally seeing K after more than a week. And K. would have given her the laptop if only from mercy for our eardrums except that neither T nor her genius of a boyfriend (in their infinite acumen if I may add) had accounts on any kind of service that facilitates web chat.As it is, if looks and thoughts could kill, T would have been buried right there, three times over.
K used to stay up most of night talking to N and I used to keep her company because I'm like an owl that way (I can't say if owls are good company cute as they are, I'm talking about their nocturnal habits). Then one day, this was a few days before Shivratri which is very big in UP; its big because in the preceding weeks everyone drinks that popular drink bhaang with the diligence of true devotees. This means that during this time every year, everyone is drunk; drunk is actually an understatement, bhaang produces very interesting effects in the most seasoned tippler. It is a fantastic concoction of cannabis leaves, milk, sugar, almonds, fennel, poppy seeds and other delectable spices and as anyone who has ever been raised in UP will tell you, absolutely potent.
And this was the drink served to us on that day by our hosts all of who were ardent bhaang enthusiasts. Now, I have been a UP-ite for only one generation, mine. But S. has genes steeped in the color and culture of UP and more importantly more common sense than most of us; and yet we all had at least a glass each of bhaang against his better counsels. What followed was bedlam.
Not to go into ghastly details, we do not know to this day if a friend of ours who had sailed through 17 glasses, did or did not pee on our bed.
One effect of bhaang is that it is perhaps one of the most powerful soporifics available to man. So by the time evening descended, it was all we could do to not fall asleep in our dinner pails. Even now, I do not remember how we made the walk back home from the dhaba. Oh, and bhaang makes you crave sugar with a deranged frenzy. So I remember chocolates, lots and lots of chocolates.
Anyway, back home K was doing her best to string words together and say something that has some sort of semantic value to N. Having failed, she came to our room where S, R, B and I were sitting with stupid, stoned smiles on all our faces (except S who had none of the bhaang). I am told I had instant coffee powder smeared around my lips because in my bombed state it had seemed like a good idea to eat raw coffee powder to alleviate my symptoms.
K stumbled into the room and demanded, "Where's the coke?" (baked as we were 'coke' here refers to 'coca-cola'). I told her in what I thought was a soothing voice that we didn't have any. Her eyes seemed to widen and she said "But I need it". It was very Monica asking Rachel for a 100 bucks after loosing all her money in unwise speculations (for those of you who do not remember, Friends Season 2 Episode 21 'The One with the Bullies').
A couple of people were dispatched on the quest for coke at 11 PM (these people were going out anyway to counter their highs with more highs). A bottle of Thumbs-Up was brought and had by K. But she fell asleep anyway.
K and N had many good times together, also some not so good.
But N banded with the band... I was waiting for the right time to introduce him here and so HERE HE IS... Lightening...thunder... the fog clears and voila...
He is one of us...
Through these posts, I hope N has come to know how we came to be who we were when we met him (we are not insane, our mothers had us tested) :D
This one is special. This one is for our little cartel and N for he didn't know it then, but soon he would join this syndicate of, well, willful devils, if you will.
It all started when N. and K. connected on that cellphone with the strange device: Blackberry. N. at this time was in a kingdom far far away, but they talked and they talked and then they talked some more. Skype entered the picture and soon they were transported to the land inhabited by those in love...What happens in those acres is between the dwellers and in case of the women, their friends, because women tell each other everything...
But these maidenly transgressions came later, sometime in mid-January while N. entered our lives one fine, wintry morning in early January that year. He had of course entered K.'s life some time ago, but we found out after a particularly perplexing lecture in the Philosophy department.
We had just endured an hour of an eccentric-looking bloke rambling on about knowledge of knowledge of knowledge...you get my drift; and I suppose he had suffered 5 nitwits sitting in front of him with boiled-fish eyes and very happy expressions on their faces as they gazed into vacant space...I think most of us were thinking what we would be do if chicken drumsticks were to suddenly appear on the professor's desk, except the vegetarians who must have been thinking about, hmm, whatever vegetarians think about...
K. tried a little reticence in the beginning, but my willfulness together with the fact that we are women means that by the time January ended, I was all caught up. I had to throw some details about S. and me under the dainty, lady-like bus that is feminine curiosity; but I caught up alright. Sorry, S. and N...
By the time we got to Mirzapur, K. was nicely settled in aforementioned meadows of Aphrodite. Which meant that the two weeks of separation from high speed wi-fi or for that matter any speed wi-fi or cable was decidedly biting.
Over the next few days K and N would incur phone bills which when put together would exceed what we paid for, you know, rent, food, that sort of thing...I remember the arrival of that momentous bill with the words 'Envelope 1 of 2' on it one rainy afternoon.
At the time few outside our group knew N by name. So, naturally, given that K used to spend all her waking hours including those in the loo (keeping in mind the great and very real potential for personal injury to herself or her phone or both), N came to be known as Blackberry; a burden he would carry for a long long time; in fact, I think our supervisor still calls him that.
Every night, K. would sit inside a cupboard inhabited solely by spiders and whisper that which all worshipers of Isis know in between mouthfuls of what she sincerely hoped was only cobwebs and dust.
In the beginning K would just sit in the courtyard or the feared stairs up to Medusa and her Beast, but these austerity measures were imposed after one night when Z. messaged us (messaged us, mind you, when lying only about 6 feet away from us) that and I quote her "you guys are really being too loud". Therefore, the cupboard with the flourishing family of spiders.
One day it struck me that my wi-fi data card might work somewhere within the house and even though it didn't have a lot of credit, it might ease the agony of these sundered souls in that they would at least be able to gaze at each others visages (I love the thesaurus!!!).
Our plans were quickly rendered apart by the shrill call of 'Tappal' hooting and demanding that I give my data card to her too so she could talk to, well to her paramour, if you will. This paramour had confessed to her almost immediately after they had started meeting in clandestine alleys and shadowy trees (because that is just the kind of people they were) that he had polycystic kidney disease and only a few months to live. This was about 6 years ago. I feel for the guy, I think he approximated the kind of mess he had gotten into pretty early on and wanted out before getting sucked down any farther. But T just offered him her own kidney. That and the fact that he never filed a restraining order and stuck around for 6 whole years makes one wonder if his 'business' was only a front. One only hopes that wherever T is today, her lung capacity has diminished and both her kidneys are still secure within her own body.
As I was saying before I went off this tangent, T's shrieks effectively ruined K and N's skype date. N still refers to her as the girl who screeched "mujhe bi baat kalni he"(another diabetic rendition of "I wanna talk too") right when he was finally seeing K after more than a week. And K. would have given her the laptop if only from mercy for our eardrums except that neither T nor her genius of a boyfriend (in their infinite acumen if I may add) had accounts on any kind of service that facilitates web chat.As it is, if looks and thoughts could kill, T would have been buried right there, three times over.
K used to stay up most of night talking to N and I used to keep her company because I'm like an owl that way (I can't say if owls are good company cute as they are, I'm talking about their nocturnal habits). Then one day, this was a few days before Shivratri which is very big in UP; its big because in the preceding weeks everyone drinks that popular drink bhaang with the diligence of true devotees. This means that during this time every year, everyone is drunk; drunk is actually an understatement, bhaang produces very interesting effects in the most seasoned tippler. It is a fantastic concoction of cannabis leaves, milk, sugar, almonds, fennel, poppy seeds and other delectable spices and as anyone who has ever been raised in UP will tell you, absolutely potent.
And this was the drink served to us on that day by our hosts all of who were ardent bhaang enthusiasts. Now, I have been a UP-ite for only one generation, mine. But S. has genes steeped in the color and culture of UP and more importantly more common sense than most of us; and yet we all had at least a glass each of bhaang against his better counsels. What followed was bedlam.
Not to go into ghastly details, we do not know to this day if a friend of ours who had sailed through 17 glasses, did or did not pee on our bed.
One effect of bhaang is that it is perhaps one of the most powerful soporifics available to man. So by the time evening descended, it was all we could do to not fall asleep in our dinner pails. Even now, I do not remember how we made the walk back home from the dhaba. Oh, and bhaang makes you crave sugar with a deranged frenzy. So I remember chocolates, lots and lots of chocolates.
Anyway, back home K was doing her best to string words together and say something that has some sort of semantic value to N. Having failed, she came to our room where S, R, B and I were sitting with stupid, stoned smiles on all our faces (except S who had none of the bhaang). I am told I had instant coffee powder smeared around my lips because in my bombed state it had seemed like a good idea to eat raw coffee powder to alleviate my symptoms.
K stumbled into the room and demanded, "Where's the coke?" (baked as we were 'coke' here refers to 'coca-cola'). I told her in what I thought was a soothing voice that we didn't have any. Her eyes seemed to widen and she said "But I need it". It was very Monica asking Rachel for a 100 bucks after loosing all her money in unwise speculations (for those of you who do not remember, Friends Season 2 Episode 21 'The One with the Bullies').
A couple of people were dispatched on the quest for coke at 11 PM (these people were going out anyway to counter their highs with more highs). A bottle of Thumbs-Up was brought and had by K. But she fell asleep anyway.
K and N had many good times together, also some not so good.
But N banded with the band... I was waiting for the right time to introduce him here and so HERE HE IS... Lightening...thunder... the fog clears and voila...
He is one of us...
Through these posts, I hope N has come to know how we came to be who we were when we met him (we are not insane, our mothers had us tested) :D
