A day that starts bad

It was a fine morning, it was in my dream, but the real world is no ones gift, it’s a curse, and life I have learnt is how you learn to enjoy a curse. I was in a endless pool, not of water, but of something like champagne, or something more exotic, and the light of the sun shining upon the divine liquid, and more importantly on the bikinied beauties all around, there must have been millions, and i could even see some Hollywood faces, the air was filled with a fragrance that only angels could exude. Maybe I had gone a bit too far in my dream; I think I was nearing heaven, so the envious Satans of the world got into action, and I was awakened rudely, my dream crashing like the Columbia shuttle through the atmosphere, or more like the tragedy that struck the mighty Titanic.

It was a bang, something fell square on my forehead, something quite heavy, that it made me think it was the ceiling fan. I was up rubbing my forehead and then my eyes only to realize that it was a big book of something called as thermal engineering, that was precariously positioned, by my room mate over my bed so that, if it should fall, it was an accident. He was sleeping like a dead corpse that had been lying in the open for a day or two. I was up and wavered around the room, finally making it to the bathroom to complete the due formalities of the morning. There was something wrong; it was then that I noticed the time. It was nowhere near morning, the clock read a nasty 2:24, the time when only the creatures of Van Helsing are up and running. I drank some water and then repositioned myself for some sleep, and I could only close my eyes and wait, no dream, no sleep, the bikinied beauties had long vanished and all I saw was a black hole. After another half an hour of trying hard in vain to sleep and bring back the life in a dream, I decided it was no good. If only I had a shotgun, my room mate would have been shot like a rabbit in hunting season. I switched on the TV, went up and down the two hundred and odd channels aimlessly. And I was out cold again.

The next awakening was not so rude, as there was no dream, and I had cleared the storage board over my bed. But the Satans had not enough of poking me, they never have. I woke up to some loud blaring from the TV, in some language, that it was like waking up in middle of a election rally in Maharashtra. The smells too weren’t good, it was the priced socks that my room mate held before his head, examining it carefully whether to adorn it for a day or two more. It bore the smell that would awaken the demons in hell and shake the mighty gods into submission, and obviously would nauseate any innocent human being just waking up. This time I looked at the alarm clock by the side of my bed, and it read a 8:15 which meant I had to be up and running in just fifteen minutes. Well to get ready in 15 minutes is no trouble for an average Indian, all one had to do was brush teeth, excrete, take a shower, dress up and leave, but it is not so easy in this case. I bounced from the bed and snatch the tooth brush and paste from the stand in one action, and find that it has been almost a week that I have been forgetting to get a new tube of toothpaste. The tube wouldn’t give in to any amount of pressing with my hands and feet, I doubted that it would even hardly yield an mg of paste even if I were to run over it using a truck. Being a engineer, I had to find a way out of everything, I caught hold of a knife and ripped open the tube and salvaged whatever small amount of paste that was clinging to the tube like a frightened baby kangaroo in its mothers pouch. I don’t care much for my room mate, who looks like a octopus with a moustache, more like a famined sloth bear, but he was leaving for work with evil smile upon like it was my last day on earth and he somehow knew it. The next act should have been quite easy, as my bowels were doing their work good. But just when one is about sit for such a thing and let go of all the bad things that were gorged upon the previous day, a sound like the bell in a boxing game, it was the doorbell, and it was a impatient retard outside belling continuously. I had to hold it in for some more agonizing moments. I opened the door and saw a plump head and a rotund body, he looked at me like I were ET. He then spoke in a language, in his own dialect, of which I could not understand a word. He wanted laundry money, and was asking it like the ruffian who shows up when you don’t payback a Citibank loan. Then came the trouble, neither of us had change, and he wouldn’t leave until I paid. I squandered, still my bowels bursting barely holding back the stuff inside them, to find some change and found some. Shoved it at him, saw him off and leaped back into the bathroom, and finished what I had started peacefully, and feeling relieved like a brain fever patient back to life. There was no time for me to have hot water for a bath, and hence I showered in cold water that came upon me from a overhead tank, it was more like coming from a refrigerator. The haste made me fumble with the soap that slipped from my hand and flew across the bathroom a couple of times. I had forgotten the towel, and so slipped out for a second and pounced upon the towel like a cheetah on an antelope and then quickly slipped into the bathroom. There was nobody in the room, but roaming naked in the room is not my type. After the bath I was shaking as in a earthquake because of the cold. I raced through the closet for my uniform and found that I hadn't got them back from the laundry. Clock showed that I was already 2 minutes late. I called up the laundry and the man was prompt in coming with the clothes, the first thing, I thought, that was going good that morning. This was not the case as the shirt he brought was not mine. I am a bit on the huge side and nothing less than a 42 shirt fits me. He brought a 38. This laundry person was a different person than that "shit beller" who had come earlier in the morning, but was no different with his language. I showed him the shirt size and said "not mine", the only thing I knew to say. He explained something in length about how they wash clothes, iron them etc. I could decipher he was telling 38 and 42 in his own language, but I didn’t know which was 38 and which was 42. And my room was no.42, so when I said 42, he agreed and showed me the ID marking on the collar on which he had written 42. It was his decision that I had to wear a 38 shirt that day and I had to give in, as I was already 5 minutes late. I had no argument, not in his language. There I was wearing a tight shirt, and trying hard to tuck it in, as there was nothing to tuck in. In that shirt, it looked more like I was going for work in a strip club rather than in a Industry.

My hair was not the best thing in my asset. I and my hair have never had a good relationship. A lot of it was going away form me and whatever I had left I always had it short, but lethargy of going to the barber had me looking like an electrocuted sparrow in the mirror that morning. I pulled down upon my hair with the comb, and tried a hair style. It was no style but it was not bad, looking like a de-feathered chicken. Quickly putting on my shoes, I was up and running. I was pacing along the path after locking my room, as I turned, my tight shirt allowed only a 70 degrees, a few more and the first button would
have shot itself out. I smiled a funny smile on the troubles of the morning and faced up to see two people smiling at my direction, a hint of laughter i could guess, more like a giggle. Friendly people I thought, and it was more than 2-3 hrs later that i found the reason for the giggle was my wide open zip.

It was a day to face, and I faced it with head high and encountered many a two legged amphibians, eggheads, clothed brinjals, carrots and beetroots and about those episodes, a narrate, I shall do later.