The Zombie Ritual

At the Workplace:

• Enter. Find scooters / bikes parked in the only 4-wheel parking slot left. Leave it under the gummy tree and don't look behind.
• Remove your brains and boots at the door.
• Swipe card and hear the automated "welcome" message (that you probably don't hear because you just left your brains in your boots).
• Don't bother looking up, nobody can see you (you are the invisible Zombie, remember?).
• Head straight to your desk, don't acknowledge, smile or greet anybody on your way (They don't even know you exist!).
• Switch on your machine, then perhaps look on your sides, somebody might be waiting to catch your glance, smile or simply grin (Now they can see you!).
• Check your mails. There would be at least one mail to shoot your blood to the brain and get you started on the job (Of calling, mailing, yelling, puffing and doing everything else instead of actually getting to the problem). A great way to start work!
• Settle down and get down to work (if you can get out of the non-stop calls, emails, concalls, meetings, stenography, minutes of the meetings, dressing downs, passing the buck sessions, scheduling, status updates, planning, evaluating, testing...anything but what you really ought to do!)
• Break for grapevine. A cup of brown-sugary-milky stuff they call tea, some biscuits, peanuts or kurkure and barrels of grapevine (Burp!).
• Get back to work (if you can avoid the million other interruptions with a pair of horse-blinds maybe!).
• Break for lunch. Nonsensical conversation - Proclaim judgement on Tom, Dick and Harry, Talk about Current Affairs, Home Affairs and just about any topic under the sun, with some rice to go with it!
• Back to work (got to hire a couple of clones to take over the ancillary jobs that is quickly becoming your main job!)
• Break for the milky-sugary stuff with a faint whiff of tea. Gossip-mongers these Zombies(So the focus is the hot conversations, and the tea soon gets cold!).
• Swears to get work done this time over, when trrring, trrring...Big B on the other end, requesting for a 5 minute Discussion.
• 5 minute stretches to 5 hours.
• Late again! Zombie will now have to deal with the dressing-down session at home...
• But Zombie is back to work again. Happy to see the other zombies at work.
• And life goes on!

Rain, rain come again

A welcome respite from the incessant heat and humidity, it's almost always rain, rain, come again (and not "go away" for little Johnny to play!). And the rains are here with a bang.

The harsh winds (what seems like a 100 miles/hr or more), the loud and roaring thunder (that frightens puppies and babies alike), the flash of lightning (that strikes across the skies and burns anything it comes in contact with to cinders), the dark and gloomy clouds (that carry such a foreboding and mournful appearance), the first few large drops of water (that is cool yet heavy), the smell of wet mud (that most of us love), the pitter-patter of the rains (that is fun when you're indoors, tucked in under the blanket or holding a cup of hot chocolate), the umbrellas of various shapes, sizes and colours (wet and dripping, opening and closing), the bigger vehicles splashing muddy water over smaller vehicles (and the smaller vehicles splashing it over pedestrians), the noise of toads and crickets after the rains (singing lovey-dovey songs perhaps), the puddles and pools (what's left of the rains, a gentle reminder of the water that we could have harvested and used during dry spell)...and I could go on pitter-patter about the rains, but it's got to stop somewhere, so I can get on with what I really started out to.

Much as I have waited for the rains, that is actually sweet relief, after the scorching heat and the sultry weather that has stretched from after the last monsoon, I prefer to enjoy it indoors. Watching the pitter-patter (and most often thunder & lightning means no power, which means no watching TV!), Singing with the kids (hubby lends the bass), Snacking (hot chocolate and hot bajji is my favourite!), and generally Lazying about.

The wet outdoors are quite a sight. I pull out my camera and take some random shots. The rains seem to bring everything around to life. Two boys playing cricket in the rain. Click. The green looks greener. Click. I go in, grab a snack. I step out. Two boys multiplied many times over. Enjoying cricket with the rain pouring down, the ball lost in the puddle. Click. I think the boys are crazy to play in the rain. They perhaps think, I am crazy to stay indoors.


Rain. Perspectives.


Here ends the incessant rains, the incessant chatter. But the toads and cricket continue with their croak-croak and crick-crick into the night.

Money Laundry

Some crisp currency clenched in my fist, I looked up, guilt writ across my face. I shouldn't have done it, blame it on being an "erring" mortal being!

Money laundry. Imagine that! No, I din't get it wrong. I did not pinch anybody else's money. So the subject I embark upon is obviously not "money laundering", as you would have imagined. What with all the brouhaha of money-laundering in the IPL (read "Indian Political League" and "Indian Premier League"). This is simply about forgetfully leaving some money in your pocket, only to "find" or rather "discover" it perhaps months later, crushed yet crisp, after the soaking, washing, twisting, rinsing and drying in the washing machine.

Well, the other things that are oft forgotten in pockets before laundry, include tickets (bus, movie, park...), bills and receipts (supermarket, ATM receipts...) yada, yada, yada. Just a couple of days back, I discovered some crisp notes and an ancient shopping bill in my jeans pocket (jeans going through laundry is unimaginable in the first place, coz I usually "dryclean" - read, "hang it out to dry", but that subject is matter for another post, lest I digress).

Are currencies really designed to go through the laundry process? It isn't. It sort of fades off (doesn't it!), becomes crispier and if you put it out to dry in the sun it would perhaps just crumble.

But it should be made laundry-able, don't you think? The number of hands it changes, the sweat, the blood stains, the saliva, the grease, the tobacco and God knows what, justifies the need for a "hand (or) machine wash cum tumble dry cum steam iron"-able currency note. That way, the currency would be "crisp as new" for a long time to come. And just like how we iron, fold and stack clothes neatly in a wardrobe, we can stack these washed, dried and ironed notes in bundles of 100 and stash it away in the safe or in the bank as we please.

Ladies and ladas, I rest my case. Let's write to the RBI for laundry-able currency notes.