Saturday, December 22, 2007

Roach Rundown

I patted down the final 1-rupee stamp of the day on the invitation envelope. I marveled at the work me n my dad had done. Mom asked me to count them up. 76 invites. 1 hour. Not bad at all. My granny handed me the mug of my nightly milk which is a kind of a habit here in India. I stacked all the envelopes to my right and then proceeded to sip my milk. My dad was sitting right opposite me and suddenly I caught the movement and the fear that ensued in his eye. In an instant, I'd jumped up, spilt half the milk - half on the ground and half on the stack of envelopes and fled away to the bedroom and banged the door shut. That movement could only be caused by the flutter of what we called a muchad - the baleful, disgusting flying cockroach. People who know me enough know that I am absolutely terrified of cockroaches of most varieties when they are big and the fear multiplies when they can fly. I stayed in with my ears trained on what was going on outside. My dad who is as petrified as I am had fled some place with a view where he could guide my patti - the only heroine in the story - capable of catching the monster. I heard the shouts of "anga paarungo.. on the curtain.. on the kitchen door, ulla", etc. before I heard the clang of vessels from the kitchen. It was inside there now. A few minutes later I heard Patti's triumphant knock on the bedroom door to announce to me that yet again she had won.

I walked out and surveyed the damage that I had wreaked during my escape from the roach. 5-6 addressed invites completely ruined, 3-4 that required drying and 5 unaddressed new ones completely ruined. Of course they say, don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha.... really funny...
hmmmm... i must bookmark u for further reading [:D]

Anonymous said...

Thank you. Keep visiting.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if you are taking to the changes in Chennai and I know I am not.. but I am surely taking to the change in these posts from the other side of the pond! I love them!

Anonymous said...

Hehe.. Thanks Bala.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha...I can actually visualize u doing all that. And I too had a couple of these incidences, and as u know, I hate them too. But then with M with me, I had to be brave and, like ur patti, was truimphant every time. Now I have immense self-confidence and am looking forward to win over the flying variety. Wish me luck.

Anonymous said...

Wow Sachin... Thats really good. I hope S is braver than I am.. or we're screwed.

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