I've finally posted! About absolutely nothing!If you haven't fainted..continue reading .if you have..um where do you keep the smelling salts!?!?

I haven’t blogged in a very very very long time. Now, why is this? I would like to go on a tangent talking about how busy I’ve been, how terribly sick etc etc…but that’s not it. Honestly, I have no fucking clue.

Well I have been busy with work…but that’s only been for the past couple of weeks. I hate it…some of the people are really nice otherwise they’re quite a rude/aloof lot. Slaving away for at least 8 hours a day is no joke…wonder how our parents do it, or how I’ll do it when I absolutely have to. Which reminds me…I turned 20 a couple of days ago. I’m old!! 20!! Time I started being responsible and thinking seriously about the state of this endless charade that I call life….

Ok moving along swiftly. I’ve been thinking about a few aspects of me as a person which I’m not quite happy about….(no this isn’t going to be one of those ‘oh why am I so misunderstood’ pieces of writing). I’m a pushover. Let’s face it. I have been since I was a little kid and I will be when I’m 80 (god forbid) when I’ll let annoying grandchildren get away with murder.

A lot of people confuse being a pushover with being terribly kind…I’m not like that. I can be quite a hard ass if I want to…but it’s just that when people ask me for something I have trouble saying ‘No I can’t do that…’ when I know that I can but I don’t really want to. It’s quite sad because people who know will obviously take advantage of it. And people have… I don’t want to mention names but it has happened way too many times. It got pretty bad that at one point a friend of mine (who was really pissed off by this poor behaviour) made me repeat ‘I will not be a pushover…I will not be a pushover’…well it didn’t work…I think he’s given up. And this pushover side of me rears its meek little head in the strangest of situations. A lot of people come up to me and say things like ‘oh my god…if she did that to me I wouldn’t even be talking to her. I can’t believe that you’re still friends with her!?!’… One more thing people make the mistake of doing is confusing us pushovers with dumb asses. We’re not dumb. We won’t be taken for a ride time and again and then just forget it ever happened. We might forgive but we don’t forget. I tried becoming more pushy about what I wanted. But then people would be so shocked that they wouldn’t take my outburst seriously or would just say something terribly woe worthy….which will make me say ‘oh sorry…I’ll do it for you’…Sheesh when am I going to get over myself and question people about their actions and not forgive them and make them suffer…oh no this sounds more and more like what I said this wasn’t going to be…I better stop.

Talking about other things, one thing that baffles me till today is my shrink-like persona…people find it very easy to come and talk to me about their problems…and most of the time it’ll be relationship problems. It’s funny enough that they even think about asking me for advice on that (considering well my lack of experience in that department and an utterly non-existent love life)… lol…Actually I like being a shrink…

Ok and to end this utterly this dismal excuse of a blog, I’m reading ‘A million little pieces’ by James Frey. Everybody adores it, Oprah actually did a show on the book…I frankly think it’s just OK…engaging in bits but not spectacularly brilliant. The book is about a drug addict at a re-hab centre. The main characters suck (it’s a memoir so I guess I don’t like him then). I do not like his style of writing (he repeats words and sentences at least 5 times on each page)

For example:

I went for dinner. I ate like I hadn’t eaten before.

Eat

Eat

Need fuel

Eat

Need fuel

(or)

I went back to my room. I was really tired.

Sleep was following me.

Sleep

Sleep

Crack

Sleep.

Everybody says its fuckin brilliant and have been raving about it. I think it’s alright and am inching through it…if I can’t finish it by tonight I’m gonna ditch it for Hitchhiker’d guide to the galaxy…I’ll give James Frey’s little fucked up life one more chance. Oh and yes I heard most of the stuff in his book was made up…dunno which bits…I’ll find out and let you all know…

People watching is an art. An art that needs to be cultivated at a very early age. And at the right places….the right places are the usual places cool/hip people hang out in…coffee joints (these places are full of sappy couples who haven’t told their parents about their relationship and hence spend time holding hands…or the broody, serious intellectuals who read or work on random novels on their laptops….and sometimes idiots like me who have nothing else to do and are sometimes forced to get out and drink over-priced coffee all the while having the joy of being asphyxiated with the smoke (both cigarette and hookah), incense and traffic fumes and dying of laughter while I see the number of ‘characters’ enter and exit…seriously it’s like a beautifully orchestrated play…with different chracters (read: the bimbo, the jock, the third wheel, the diva, the hen-pecked boyfriend, the nerd, the burn-out, the druggie, the slob…)

But what I didn’t know was that people watchers were missing out on a very important place…the airport! Yes…the airport! And this place hosts a myriad of emotions unlike the coffee places (although there might be the occasional break-up/fight)…I realized how great the airport was for people watching when I went to pick up my mum. With my father, who turned out to be a rather avid people-watcher himself.

We were at the arrival section standing with a host of drivers with various signs from hotels…looking at the people walking out we’d give him a story and then match him to the hotel. For example:

1. Close haircut, clean-shaven, suit, trolley-bag, bag for laptop with middle-aged wife in pant suit = Fisherman’s Cove
2. Dreadlocks, moustache, shorts and tank top, humungous back-pack with chick with 5 piercings on her face alone slinging along a guitar = Quality Inn Sabari

I can’t say we were right all the time. Sometimes the hippie would end up at the Park Sheraton while the suave techie would be headed for Golden Sun.

Cousins from America and family from the UK brought me to the airport again a few days ago and I embarked on another people watching (observing) session. Except this time I was watching the way people greeted each other. People fall under various categories…

The first one is the enthusiastic greeter. Here the person is thumped vigorously on the back and is given a hug just short of a Heimlich maneuver. Then the greeter asks 20 questions in one breath and makes sure he/she holds the person’s hand and luggage while making their way to the parking lot.

Next is the awkward greeter. Here the greeter greets the person in a cordial/ acceptable manner… and then says nothing at all. He might grin awkwardly from time to time but then quickly offer to help with their bags and walk away allowing other people to make conversation.

The third is the unknown greeter. Here the greeter doesn’t even know the person arriving. It could be an official from a corporate picking up a visitor from the branch abroad but it could also be a fiancé meeting her groom for the first time. I happened to be around when one of those was happening. The girl all dressed up for the occasion (with flowers sometimes) glanced shyly at the boy, shook his hand, said ‘hello’ and smiled. Then she would walk with the rest of the folks stealing glances every now and then.

The fourth is the highly distracted greeter. These greeters are usually harried mums with 3 kids (who absolutely insisted on coming to the airport) or more. So instead of looking out for the person whom they’re waiting for, they’re busy buying the kids snacks, drinks, taking them to the loo and making sure they aren’t killing each other at the same time. This gets worse if the people arriving happens to bring their kids along which means with all the greeting, hugging and punching all the kids are mixed up and the greeter is torn between giving her sister a hug and ripping apart her screaming 4 and 6 year old.

But then there are also the people who’re dropping people off. Some of them are smiling, most of them are crying and a few of them look sad but are secretly happy. The people leaving are usually sad but I’ve seen quite a few looking relieved. Then I saw a new one. A person who’s expecting someone to pick her up but hasn’t been picked up as yet. She’s upset, angry, a little hurt and a little scared…. I’m not sure what happened after that because our folks had arrived and we were busy…greeting.

As much as I love people watching, I often wonder if I’m a victim to it myself…if someone is watching my every move, laughing at what I do, making snide remarks at what I say…watching ME…’people watch’.

My house is being painted…..again. Which means I’m dealing with a perpetually blocked nose..scratchy eyes...and a prickly feeling in my throat, and I feel like I’ve got a weird skin infection (is that even possible?). A lot of people like the smell of paint. I don’t. Hence I’m feeling suffocated…in my own home.

This blog’s been dead for over a month now. I wish it wasn’t. But it was. Anna actually posted a comment saying: DEAD DEAD…THIS BLOG IS DEAD…..and it was anna….it’s not like I didn’t wanna blog..it’s not like there was NOTHING happening in my life. I just didn’t feel like blogging. But now I’m back…and I don’t know what to write about…

The next two month’s going to be family time….cousins coming over from America and my uncles and aunts with their kids are coming over from England. It’s going to be a full house but who cares…I’m gonna have fun…My dad’s definitely looking forward to following the matches with his Brit brothers-in-law…They all support England…my dad’s been supporting the team since forever and I guess I support them too….but somehow I don’t think they have a chance at the actual cup…why? Cos they’re simply not good enough, that’s why... Hopefully appa won’t read this…cos if he does I’ll definitely be disowned. (he takes his footy seriously….he actually stood for the English national anthem when they were playing it in the match versus Paraguay!….I guess I couldn’t say anything cos he lived there for 30 years of his life…but I almost died laughing!)

Moving on…as fun as it’ll be when they come down, I’ll hate one bit….the part where they leave. And I’ll hate it not only because I’ll hate the fact that they’re leaving but more because at the moment I’ll be the only one with dry eyes in the room. And then I’ll feel worse cos they’ll all cry and hug me and I just won’t be able to cry. Is it because I’m as cold and unfeeling as many people think I am? I honestly do not know. I admit I am a bit stoic and I do cry when someone very close to me passes on. So why can’t I cry when someone close to me leaves….is it because I know that someday I’ll see them again? Some people think it’s just a tough girl façade….and I’m not sensitive enough to other people’s feelings…. And that I’m a rude, sarcastic, cold cynic. On the other hand, my older brother cries a lot. He’s one of those broody, smart, sensitive types, you know? And he cries at the drop of a hat. For god’s sake he cried for Armageddon! (while I was laughing at him of course)…sometimes I think there was a mix-up in the genes and while I got no ‘sensitive’ traits he got an overdose of it! I’ve cried (sobbed actually) for only one movie in my life. I cry every time I watch The Green Mile…one of my favourite movies. But just the one.

Soon I’m going to be the only kid at home. I’ve always dreamed of that happening. I’m the middle-kid and no I’m not suffering from some middle-kid syndrome and I’ve never felt neglected or anything. But I was a very quiet kid and wouldn’t really demand the attention. With two brothers I’ve always been their peace-maker (when they wanna pull each other’s hair out), their guinea-pig(when they wanted to try out new wrestling moves, farts (like the flying fart invented by my genius bro) on me) and their pushover sister (I distinctly remember them detaching the head of one of my Barbie dolls and playing catch). But now when I think about it…I don’t wanna be the only kid anymore! This means I’ll be under constant scrutiny…I won’t be the ‘good kid’ anymore, I’ll be the only kid which means I’ll be picked on…My older brother went away a year ago…not very far away but the house felt empty without him. Now the other one’s off to college…again not very far away…but far enough… :(

Speaking of far away places….I think America’s becoming weirder and weirder as time goes by. Ok, I don’t know about the place itself, but the people there….jeez…..did you know…Tom Cruise ate his wife’s (teeny bopper Katie Holmes) placenta after she gave birth? ATE A PART OF HER BODY! And he wanted her to have a silent delivery? Ok maybe it’s only tom cruise who’s weird…

Ok that’s it for now…..Comment y’all!

Hi da…hw r u?

I’m sure many of you at some point in your life have got this weird greeting on your cell phone. From an unknown number. With an unknown name. Normally what would a person think? I’m not sure but this is what my stupid pea-sized brain though. ‘maybe I know this person…. I’ll just ask who it is….’

And the answer I got: wich college da?

Now this just pissed me off…because first of all this person (who is so obviously some loser guy) didn’t answer my question. Instead he posed another question and referred to me as ‘da’. like I was his friend or something…and I suppose it’s a term of endearment but there’s something about that word…especially when a girl is called ‘da’…not that ‘dee’ is any better but at least it sticks to the gender. I wonder how guys will feel if we started calling them dee….the word itself sounds weird…da…dee…dum….

So I didn’t reply. And what do I get? ‘Y not replyng da? msgs nt reching u?’

I stared at the message feeling sick and revolted! The idiot didn’t use his dictionary on his phone! Or he didn’t know how to. And when I see a person like that I immediately lose respect for that person and mock him/her cruelly without his/her knowledge (I’m mean…I know. But thankfully I don’t know many people like that) Using ‘u’ for you and ‘ur’ for your is ok…but what’s the use in writing ‘replyng’ to imply ‘replying’ when you’re not really shortening the word in the first place! It’s only one letter for god’s sake! He probably thinks this way of writing is cool…I found it atrocious and had quite a laugh with it…

I didn’t reply and decided to ignore the bugger. But in the next few minutes I got a ‘tel me if u at hme or coll nd I tel who I am’ so I thought ‘finally…an answer!’ so I said I was at home…which was stupid and wrong of me. Because the fool took this as a sign and said he got my number from his friend’s phone and was doing his final year of engineering (this he spelt eng….it could’ve been English…but if it was then he’d be failing his course miserably wouldn’t he?) and he wanted to be ‘frends’. Yikes! As much as I wanted to know who this ‘FREND’ of mine who had this loser’s number was…I didn’t say anything. I was bored and irritated.

So after 4 more ‘Y no reply da? u busy. Tel ys I wnt msg’ he called. The asshole actually called! And then hung up when I picked up the phone (of course I picked up…I had a few choice words to say!) After that Bharath (who incidentally sent messages posing as some cheri person wanting to make friendship to all his friends as soon as he got his phone) called him. They had an inspiring conversation where Bharath said ‘hello’ and he said ‘hello’ and then hung up. So anyway he hasn’t messaged after that…

I don’t know why I wrote about this…but I needed to write something because I was getting death threats from my friend who said I had to post…and this was all that happened because the rest of my life right now is fucking boring.

Ok forget about that loser. I read two very different books over the past couple of days. One was ‘By the River Piedra I sat and wept’ and the other was ‘Inconceivable’ Now the first book I chose to read because it was by Paulo Coelho and I liked ‘the Alchemist’…but this Piedra book…not so good. In fact one of the worst books I have ever read (This was worse than one night at the call centre)…the book started out ok…but the character I thought I could identify with went totally nuts somewhere in the middle of the book and she started talking nonsense. Maybe it’s a book for those ‘broody sensitive types’ but it did absolutely nothing for me.

The second book was Ben Elton. I have one word to say about it. Brilliant. It was not only laugh out loud funny but it also had that slightly understated humour in it. And the writer was not trying to prove anything or sound incredibly smart or intelligent which worked out just right because he was talking about real people…who aren’t THAT sensitive and not that smart. So anyway, that’s it…hopefully I’ll have something better to write about the next time.

I’m finally here……back at home sweet home…out of the WEIRD CITY….and back to normal madras...People think I’m insane when I say I’m glad I’m out of Bangalore and back in Madras…They think it’s hot and sticky and un-cool here while it’s all hip over there…It’s not, ok? At least I don’t think so and I’ll tell you why…

1. The Traffic:

There are absolutely no road ethics whatsoever. I thought Madras was bad till my first car journey over there. The locals say the reason for the insane traffic is because majority of the people are car owners. Driving is almost a sub-conscious activity over here. Over there, driving is a skill…a skill that only the trained and attuned can acquire and develop. And what about people who don’t have the required skills? They drive anyway, butting people out of the place, hence transforming the city into a motorised stampede/ monster truck madness marathon. The objective : Do whatever it takes to get to your destination on time…and if that means smashing a few cars on the way, nearly hitting a couple of elderly pedestrians and driving at insane break-neck speeds (they can’t drive at that speed most of the time)…so be it. Basically driving there is like being on one of those bumper car games at amusement parks gone horribly wrong. Because in this case the car doesn’t miraculously remain in the same condition when you bump into someone and giggling and saying ‘oops’ will not make it all better for both drivers. Many people say traffic wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the terrible roads. Which brings me to the second reason as to why I hated the place so much…

2. The Roads:

I can count the number of good roads in the city on one hand. The rest are all crap with potholes in all sorts of places…but I realized that it used to be much worse than this when I was in the car with my uncle…

UNCLE: They’ve finally fixed the road! After 5 years they’ve actually fixed it!

ME: (At this point looking slightly green because of moving up and down so much) Ummm….they have???

UNCLE: Can’t you feel the difference? You can practically eat off this road, it’s so good!!

ME: (At this point the car is almost vertical) Right…ok…whatever you say…

Evading the potholes (practically the size of mining shafts) while making sure that nobody gets hurt (here we’re not only talking about pedestrians (all jay walkers because of the absence of pavements)…but also cattle and things like that) is what causes all the traffic trouble…and I stayed in a locality where all the IT companies were located and they had the worst roads. One day, I saw this dirt track, full of stones and muck. ‘Where does that road lead to?” I asked my aunt. ‘Probably some village,’ I thought. I was wrong. The road actually led to one of the best International Schools in Bangalore!

3. Commuting:

Now take the first reason and second one, mix it up and you get the third reason as to why I didn’t like it there. Commuting is a bitch. Taking almost half an hour to get to a location 10 minutes away, while choking on the fumes was horrible and frustrating…but I guess this is in some way my fault. I take living in the heart of the city in Madras for granted. Now I know what it feels like to live in Tambaram and travel to Nungambakkam everyday.

4. The Weather:

Ok…now you’re probably thinking I’ve lost it (if you already haven’t) because Bangalore is known for its amazing weather. Well not when I was there. It was hot but I wasn’t sweating! Most of you probably think that’s a good thing but not sweating means your body is still filled with those toxins hence making my usually clear face resemble a leper’s… (Ok maybe I’m exaggerating just a little bit on that one…but having to walk three kms plus jog half a km to get just a glisten of sweat is not satisfying in any way,not sweating makes you feel like you haven’t worked out at all).

5. Some of the people:

Some of them were just too hep for me. Once Divya and I spotted this dude sporting spiked hair (each spike was coloured making it look like he had measles on his head), looooooose jeans, a huge fake football/ basketball jersey, a head band, sun-glasses (we were inside at this point and I must say wearing shades indoors is just plain weird…you can do it if you’re stevie wonder or ray charles or heck even lenny kravitz for that matter!) I couldn’t stop laughing! People here are really conscious about the way they dress…nothing wrong with that but I think wearing a flared skirt, cowboy boots with a ‘teased?(or is it tousled?)’ hairdo all the while giving mere mortals like me superior looks is just annoying. However, I did meet some really nice people, for example the people I worked with and my uncle and aunt’s friends were fun…and interesting.

6. The humungous number of MAN UNITED fans:

There are Manchester united fans all over the world. But the sheer number of fans in Bangalore had me thinking that there was some sort of United convention going on there. I personally hate that team and my family supports Manchester City, so I have this problem where my face would automatically turn into a sneer when I saw a United jersey. And they weren’t even proper jerseys! I saw them in red, white, black…even orange! (Fergie would’ve been appalled) And I’m sure most of them wore those jerseys on the pretext of looking cool and probably have Arsenal jerseys stashed away for future use…On the upside, I met a few Arsenal fans and a Liverpool fans and we engaged ourselves in some nice, proper United bashing…

So basically my internship went great…but Bangalore made me appreciate Madras a lot and look at the place in a whole new light. When I came back, I was looking at everything for the first time…again. The sights, the smells, the sounds and as I felt tiny droplets of sweat form on my face, I smiled…I was back.

PS: This post was all about what I thought of Bangalore and in no way means to hurt the sentiments of Bangaloreans…There were some things I liked about the place…like the buses (they had automatic doors to prevent foot boarders from riding and were more spacious and cleaner than Madras buses)…However my brother thinks they lack the josh nd spirit Madras buses have…you know, the inherent ‘get out of my way or you die’ trait…anyway I’ve digressed as usual…so no hard feelings ok?

A friend of mine recently made a statement that she wanted to start smoking. You know, just for the heck of it…. to see what the fuss was all about. And normally this friend is not the type to blindly follow what everybody’s doing because it’s cool.

I told her what I thought and she said I should blog about it because she thinks my blog’s on its way to becoming extinct. Maybe she said it to just make me post, but here’s what I think. Smoking is not cool. At all. In fact I think it’s the most disgusting habit anybody could ever pick up. Now don’t go thinking I’m one of those overly conservative girls who thinks smoking and drinking is ‘bad’ and ‘unacceptable.’ Cause I’m not. Half my family smokes for God’s sake (my house is one place where you’d always find an ashtray/lighter)…and I’m subject to passive smoking almost all the time. A lot of people ask me if I smoke and if not why…

Apart from reasons like it makes you smell of smoke all the time, you get bad breath and yellow teeth; the main reason is that it eventually kills you. Slowly. You start as a 17 year old wanting to be in the loop…just with a couple, then 20, then 40…as you continue, health problems plague you on the way. You seem to have a perpetual cough you can’t get rid of and stuff like that.

About 5 years ago I didn’t really have an opinion on smoking. My maternal grandfather used to smoke a lot. At age 61, he was diagnosed with emphysema…only at the very end did we know that his condition was misdiagnosed and the problem was the C word. Cancer. Throat cancer to be exact. And all because he didn’t stop when he had to. Losing him so early was terrible but I was too young and hadn’t really thought about it…

People might say the reason he died was because he smoked too much and too much of anything is bad for you… that it is. Drinking causes health problems too and you could die of liver function failure. But drinking in moderation is actually ok and not too bad. Actually I thought anything in moderation was ok.

But I was sadly mistaken when my paternal grandfather, who was the most meticulous person I had ever met (every thing was done according to his digital watch…everything from eating to switching of the geyser)…died at age 79 of an enlarged heart. I couldn’t understand this because he used to smoke not more than 7 cigarettes a day. But then I realized it had nothing to do with the number of cigarettes…him cutting down later had no effect…the damage was already done. In spite of his minimal smoking, his lung capacity had gone down to 30% putting pressure on the heart. I was really close to him and even today I don’t think I’ve gotten over his death.

My friend told me that she knew she’d get addicted to it if she started. She knows it’s addictive…everybody knows that. Then why get into it? Some people do it to be ‘in’…some people do it because they’re stressed…heck some people smoke to lose weight! Don’t they know that they’re sucking on a direct carcinogen? Do you have to lose people you care about it to learn that it’s not worth all the pleasure in the world?

But can you get everybody you care about to stop smoking? No. One cause they don’t listen and two because you can tell them only so much and later they’ll have to decide for themselves. So all you can do is tell them how you feel about it…and try to deter people from starting…which I was doing to my friend. I have no problems with people smoking around me…few of my friends smoke and I’m ok with that.

But I always think that maybe I could’ve had a few more years with my grandfathers if they just quit a long time ago…maybe I should be thankful that my paternal grandfather cut down cause that probably extended his life by a few more years…

Some people say they find it difficult to quit. But recently my aunt and uncle both quit at the same time because my aunt was having throat problems. It was an extremely daunting and difficult task: but they did it. It is possible.

Now when I meet a person who says he/she doesn’t smoke (which is pretty rare), I not only make an effort to talk to the person…I have immediate respect for them.

DOG CATCHERS! - Plus a run-in with Chakkas and amphibians….

Last night started out great. My family and I were at my aunt’s (my mother’s cousin) house and we were having fun….drinking, snacking, watching TV…you know, the usual. So when we left her place at 11.45…we never thought it would end up so…WEIRD.

We were going to drop my other aunt (mother’s sister) back at Paati’s when we saw that a car was already parked in front of the gate. It turned out to be family from Australia. We said hi, took their bags and then did the stupidest thing by opening the gate….wide. Out came the dogs and while one of the Australian relatives kept screaming “aiyo..get away!” they kept running around the car making sure that they peed on at least one of my mum’s car tyres.

But first let me tell you about the dogs….both mongrels. The first dog, Shiva (he was named such because he had similar marks on his head like the god Shiva…yeah weird I know.) came when I was 6 or 7….he came with a family friend who was visiting and refused to leave the house. Shiva’s a different dog…he never bothers you and is the most loving canine you’d ever meet….he’s like another cousin of mine (my aunt calls him ‘her baby’). Then there’s Raja. He walked in to the house on Bharath’s (my brother) birthday and hasn’t left since. He was originally given an uppity name like ‘King’ by my little cousin, but my family being the cheri people we are…renamed him Raja (besides he wasn’t responding to King). Raja is tiny and from ‘the street’….he has his homies he visits once in a while and he’s the anti-Shiva and walks/ trots like donkey (from Shrek)

So there they were running around when suddenly Raja took off down the road, Shiva following closely behind. Bharath started running after them while Priyamma (my aunt) and my mum waited by the car. After 5 minutes it was clear he wasn’t coming back anytime soon, so my aunt set out after them.

Ten minutes later Priyamma and Bharath came running back with the dogs at their heels…she smiling but looking slightly bewildered but he looking freaked. Apparently this is what happened at the end of the road.

In Bharath’s words:

I kept running after them screaming ‘raja! Shiva!’ but they just kept running. I was almost at the end of the road when I saw two people, one was tall, with a body so lean that it looked almost masculine and was wearing a sari. The other was a short man in a lungi. I looked at them and they looked as I stood on the road….frozen. Then I heard ‘the clap…the clap only certain people made’, and I suddenly knew. I started running in the opposite direction and at the same time the man/woman started screaming at the dogs and running after me. On the way I met Priyamma and I yelped “Chakka!” “A what?” she asked and I told her there was no time to explain and kept running till we reached the car.

Bharath had a run-in with a transvestite at the end of the road! And Bharath has always been slightly freaked about them (it’s his pet-peeve). And what was funnier was Priyamma didn’t know what he meant by Chakka because it was a Hindi word and she had no idea what they were facing.

After that we expected the dogs to go back in. but Raja being who he is, ran towards the other end of the road. And Bharath went after him! Again! Fifteen minutes later he still wasn’t back, so my mum and I took the car and went prowling down the street searching for Raja and Bharath. First we couldn’t find him everywhere so my panic-stricken mum called Piyamma who told us the route he usually took (he did this almost every night). And sure enough there was a sweaty, panting Bharath at the end of a side street but no sign of the little terror. Apparently, he was inside a private house and when he finally came out, he ran like the wind.

By this time my mother was getting really angry. My aunt asked us to leave the dog and go home cause he’d eventually come back in the morning. But my mother was not going to let go. “I’m going to slap that little rascal!” she screamed and lunged for Raja. But he was too quick and ran away. Finally Bharath caught him and we put him in the car. He sat on Bharath’s lap (at this point looking disgusted cos the dog had peed again during the chase), throughout the journey, looking extremely smug with himself with amma still trying to slap him instead of driving.

We brought him home and as we saw my mum chasing Raja around the house with the watchman’s lathi, we saw Priyamma standing at the door. “There’s a frog in my room and I can’t sleep”, she said. So we were in her room next and there it was. “Chakkas, dog pee…now this,” Bharath muttered .The little bugger was on the TV wire and too damn fast for us…finally amma came in satisfied for having ‘whacked’ Raja (she later admitted that she didn’t use the stick and only tapped him on the side with her hand) and when she saw us struggling with the amphibian said “You still haven’t caught it? Give me the cloth; I’ll do it…Honestly!” She was certainly on a roll now cos in seconds the frog was in a cloth and out of the house.

The ride back home was weirder than usual, my mum and I laughing about Bharath’s little encounter and Bharath still wondering if the smell of dog pee/drool/stink would ever leave him…