banalspeak

The Monsoon Strikes Back.

It seemed a fairly innocuous venture. Can you blame me for feeling hungry at 2 am , however unearthly a time it may seem. So there we set off from college- me and my accomplice in crime -The Frumious Bandersnatch (name withheld for no particular reason) to grab something to eat at a place about 7kms from college, the Mukkam ‘Highway’ Restaurant. All pepped up for satiating our hungry gullets. Frumious brought down our loyal steed-a scrap value Kinetic Honda, which was not christened Bucephalus, owing to the second half of the name when pronounced, having vulgar carnal connotations.

It seemed fairly simple. We would drive to Mukkam, have food, come back, and go to sleep.

Or so we thought.

We reached The Mukkam ‘Highway’, but the guys over there weren’t serving that day due to a poor turnout of customers (usually goods truck and lorry drivers who travel in the night, and dubious scum-of-the-earths like Frumious and myself, who have a penchant for suddenly being hungry late in the night owing to their digestive juices working overtime and because they figured among the ‘Good Gluttony’ magazine’s “Top 10 Gluttons of the Year ^TM”.).

Cursing our luck, we started back. We had reached a place about 3kms from college when it started to rain. Rain? It poured. The pourest pour that’s ever poured! (Forgive my grammar, it Eats Shoots and Leaves.) Droplets pelting like a downpour of small rocks. Frumious, even with his awesome driving experience , couldn’t make out the road any further, not to mention the water drops really hurting our faces while it came down.

We were searching frantically for the nearest shelter. And there it was. The Marthoma Cathedral, a modest roadside church with fairly protecting roof eaves and grilled shutters. We parked our loyal steed outside and scampered to near the shutters and the protecting eave. I could make out the lanky figure of Jesus on the crucifix through the grills. “Poor guy that”, remarked Frumious. “Yeah, they don’t make ‘em no more like him”, I replied. We started small talk about college, GPAs and Dialectical Materialism and were having a jolly good time, when a voice boomed from somewhere.

”So you dorks got stuck after all, eh? Losers !”

Of course we don’t believe in ghosts except the kind that teach us in College, but this was unsettling, to say the least. We were looking through the grills into the Cathedral searching for the source, when the crucifixed Jesus spoke, “ No, you morons, look above at the sky! It’s the Rain God talking.”

Now, a talking clay Jesus, we could take, but a voice from the sky? “What’s next, Monica Belluchi doing a belly dance to the tune of ‘Kaliyon ka Chaman’, in front of us?”, I half-expectantly mused aloud.

.......*Reconstruction of the conversation that subsequently transpired*.......

Mr. RG (Rain God): “That’s right, dorks. Especially you, you tiny piece of thing-that-you-find-in-a-baby’s-diaper, who likes to cuss me in his blog ! You’ve got some nerve writing that piece of inconsequential banality. It’s me alright! Now how do you feel about the rain rendering you stuck at this wee hour of the morning, sucker?

Me: Eh, heh..heh..Hi, Mr. Rain God. I..I….’just figured that the weather always made a nice topic when you are out of conversation..heh..heh..*ulp!*

Mr. RG: Well, guess what.. It’s not! How do u feel about this big downpour falling down like it’s never did , doofy!? No one ever rubs me the wrong way, dork, and gets away with it!

Me: Heyy. So I did write something in my blog about you. But you should understand, man. I did have a shitty day back then with those incessant rains and all. And stop calling me a dork, will you!

Mr. RG: Dorky iggy boogy Dork. What do you fancy, as an addressal, your Highness King Dorky the 5^th of Dorkesia?

Me: umm..how about Efficient Baxter. I’ve always fancied a name with an adjective in it. It would sound awesome.

FB (the aforementioned Frumious Bandersnatch), after nudging me, and in a low voice: Dude? stop kiddin’ around, man. Don’t incense him any further with your PJs. He could as well set upon us this deluge and have our pathetic bodies washed away in the flood.

Me: Wha..but I wasn’t kiddin’..

Mr. RG: You think you are smart, eh? Well, let me tell you, dork. Even discounting the fact that you bad mouthed me in your blog; your writing just absolutely sucks! What’s with the wannabe esoteric vocabulary that the aam junta wouldn’t understand, bloody dork?

Me: Well. Nothing could be more specious, Mr. RG. I would never resort to any subterfuge or rhetoric inter alia in a language that’s dubiously precocious, ostentatious and......

Mr. RG: Oh, shut it, dork. We use the “Chambers-Oxford-Cambridge Multi Lingual Talking Dictionary of the Languages of All Nations Of The Universe” up here, when thy pathetic prick is just toying around with an Oxford Dictionary. A concise edition at that. Bleeping Idiot!

Me: *gulp* Shit! He’s seen through me.

Mr. RG: Now listen up, arseshole. I’ve had a shitty day myself. There was this plebiscite up here in heaven, and I’ve been upstaged by this other Rain God no:23 who used to take care of the arid deserts of Sub-Saharan Africa. He’s going to take over the responsibility of delivering showers to this sub-continent of yours from now on, while I have to take his place in Africa. What a shitty transfer, I ask you! And with your levels of audacity, on top of it....I’ve a good mind to make you guys suffer from humiliating levels of misery.

Me: *sotto voce* There we go again. *non-sotto voce* Frankly, O Transferred Rain God, I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings one wee bit. But honestly , yeah, I do accept full responsibility and may I apologise for the sacrilege I’ve committed (yeah, well, now I have to apologise to this voice-over artist from up above!). I’m sorry.

Mr. RG (obviously cooling down when I coupled my previous monologue with an expression the 'Puss-in-boots' makes in the Shrek Movies): hm..well, ok. Apology accepted. You do seem to be a nice guy after all.

Me: Salt of the earth.

Mr. RG: Yeah..yeah, yea.. I must admit I was a bit grumpy and had to take it out of my system.

Me: Never would’ve guessed.

Mr. RG: hmm..well. I already feel sorry on myself for taking it on you guys.

Me: No problem at all. The reason we were born was to be at the receiving end when ye Gods have mood swings. ($@#%^&*!)

Mr. RG: Anyways, I gotta go now to deliver liberal doses of Rain at Company-Mukku*. The drains haven’t overflowed even once and blocked the roads over there this monsoon, I’m told. Have to make amends.

Me: Of course. Duty beckons, eh? Tellya what, to make it up to you, every monsoon I’ll do the Red Indian Rain Dance so you can laugh your ass off before making it rain down here. What’s more, I’ll even get baptized as Crazy Constipated Bull , as Red Indian names go, if it makes you happy.

Mr. RG: Spare me that misery, will you? Just write about our conversation in that blog thingy of yours, so that future generations of senile bloggers know who they are messing with when fancy strikes. Ok?

Me: Okey Dokey. But before you go, may I ask you something? Is it true that it rains ‘coz the Gods above are taking a leak.

Mr. RG: Well, we do have bladders working overtime, alright. Heh..heh..

Me: That settles it then. See you around Mr.Rain God. May you drench everyone to glory and endow them with ridiculous laundry bills.

Mr. RG: ‘Righty then, and your fly’s open, for Chrissakes!

Me: eh..heh….sorry. ‘Bye Mr. RG and so long .

FB: Buh-bye Mr. RG. GO Rains, wohooo.!!! *phew*

We got back to the hostel safe, but totally wet. The rains didn’t stop. It- just - didn’t - stop….

*Company Mukku is a place close to Kattangal, which again is the next bus-stop after the Calicut Regional Engineering College stop.

posted by thebanalsprite @ 3:35 PM 12 Comments

Mausam ki Jaankaari

"Rain rain go away,
Come again another day,
Little Johnny wants to play,
Rain rain go to Spain."

The first rains are always a joy. The whole scenery is peppered with generous helpings of green and then there's the smell of the wet mud. Good signs for the writer suffering from a writer's block to have yet another dig at the tried and tested metre of alluding to his drenched surroundings, perhaps. It turns out to be such a enthusing experience to see, when after the harsh n humid clime(as a run up till when the monsoons bless), the rain just instigates the drains and the numerous potholes and the caches to overflow humongously (readers can prepare themselves for reading this banality, if they still are, and the irritatingly ubiquitous parantheses by recalling the Coleridge-speak: “water, water, everywhere..”) . The non-descript umbrellas suddenly have a life of their own. Belligerently squirming and squabbling, the black cloth is in loggerheads with the metal rods and the hands that hold them. People who don't possess them on self or were too stupid as not to have listened to their wives when they were told to leave their homes with an umbrella, would be ducking for cover for the nearest shelter which, however dilapitated, would suffice and protect - the scene is animated.

What happens when the rains just won’t stop for days at end? I mean I'm blessed with this boon of not having to wake up till the afternoon, 'coz my classes haven't yet started and Morpheus is allowed to just lull me on to glory. An affair adding to your already 'topping-the-scales' levels of lethargy. But after I do wake up and get done with matters of personal hygiene, I need to go out and get a 'brunch' (not 'coz its fashionable, as you would have made out, but 'coz that’s how it is. Well okay, so portmanteaus ARE en vogue!) and my pack of cigarettes. Here's the killjoy. The incessant rain duly supported by this git called 'the strong gust of wind' makes it literally impossible to get out without being showered by, what the people of yore liked to fancy as, the piss from the Cornucopia that is the bladder of the Gods. I curl-up back in my bed. And then this slight ray of hope (sunshine?) concurs as soon as the rain stops. Or so I think. I venture outside and bang, right there, is the next spell of showers. Now that you are out, you would rather not prefer to start back, and would keep walking on to the nearest place for food n fags, would'nt you? An effort akin to dips in a pool, albeit with your clothes on. Then there's the dirt all over the place assuring at least a handful of baths (you see, I may be a Piscean and fishes may love the water, but I detest having a bath). Sludge, slimy sediments and what have you, no siree, it sucks! Gene Kelly sure should have been paid a lot to go about Singin' in the Rain.

Singing!? Imagine.

I would have to go back and change into warm clothes, when I already have run a huge bill on my laundry and was counting on this sartorial status-quo for maybe a couple of days more. The weather renders me with this worst kind of redundancy that puts me up in the league of the Rumpleteltskins . To top it all, just when I thought that I'll play along, supine, in my cosy room, the electric supply does a volt(e) face. I feel wasted.

Damn you Mr.Weather-god!

"...."

I've already downed my food and have the cigs to smoke and my books to fall back on (albeit after the electric supply resumes in my hostel room). And maybe, just maybe, I am ranting for no reason. And that objectively, the monsoon being that endower to the numerous farmlands of a primarily agricultural economy and the death knell to the nagging heat waves, is quintessential. A symbol of Plentitude, perhaps. Moreover, its worse in Mumbai every year, with just the first showers needed to bring the pulsating city to a standstill. This realisation should cancel out the discomfort I’m feeling this depressing Friday evening. I hope so. For the time being though, outside, its raining cats, dogs and Trichur Pooram elephants*.

*Trichur Pooram is the annual festival held in the district of Trichur, in Kerala, showcasing the legendary face-off between two rival Temples (the Gods would be pleased) with garish opulences of music, fireworks, elephants, pomp and vigour.

p.s: It might, forgive my audacity, interest the reader to know that the current supply got cut for about 4 times while I was trying to upload this post. It’s been a soiree of ctrl-c’s and ctrl-v’s ad nauseum since then. I luurvve monsoons.

posted by thebanalsprite @ 9:46 AM 4 Comments