The mysterious sponge

Pranit  rubbed his eyes, as he got up from the bed, yawning and trying to process why he was sleeping so late. A smile slashed across his face when he realized, it was Sunday. 'No school today', He thought happily. 

He walked to the drawing room of his one room kitchen apartment, where he lived with his parents. A lower middle class family, with a place to stay in a 'chawl' at a remote suburb of  Mumbai. Starching his belly, from his favorite Donald duck T-shirt that he wore every night, since his parents had brought him for his tenth birthday a couple of years ago. His father was watching Rangoli on DD. He sat beside him, as his father affectionately pulled him towards him, before patting him on his back and asking him to go brush his teeth.

As he was going to brush, the commercial showed something about a sponge absorbing a blue colored liquid. This was not the first time he saw that, ad.

'Whatz this about', He asked his dad.

'Go brush your teeth, or you won't get any tea.' , his father brushed him away. He waited for the commercial to end, memorizing the product name, 'stay free secure'.

'It must be come kind of kitchen cleaning product, may be mom knows about it ' He thought to himself.

Picking the brush of the stand next to mirror, he asked his mom, 'what is stay free secure'.

His mother slapped him before angrily taking brush away from him and putting paste on it for  him. 'Just brush your teeth properly, I'm making poha for you.'

' maybe its something rich people use', He thought to himself. 'That must be the reason, ma is angry'. He brushed his teeth making a mental note about asking this to Pranav, his bench mate who was a bit rich.

Pranit's mom was surprised, when she found him enthusiastic about attending the school on Monday morning. What she did not know was he remembered, that he needs to know the details about, mysterious sponge that earned him the slap. 

After the prayers were over, inside the 6th C class, on his bench, he whispered to Pranav, not wanting others to know about his ignorance, 'do you know what stay free secure is ?'

Pranav raised an eyebrow, not getting what it was, thrilled to know something worth a whisper from his partner in crime.

'The white color sponge, which sucks blue liquid ?', He paused to see if there was look of recognition on his Buddy's face, finding none he continued to whisper, 'the one whose Ad was there in yesterdays Rangoli.'

A look of horror encompassed Pranav's face, ' listen friend, don't ask about it, my father belted me for it.' Pranav replied in deep whisper.

Sadden by his last hope failing him, Pranit looked towards the board for thought of the day, it read, 'Curiosity killed the cat'. 

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Waited JRF

'Garbage !'

usually the kinder-garden kids swear so unoffensive words, but the notion of an adult doing it makes you wonder about the high standard deviation in people across Maharashtra. Curses which don't end, futile attempts of threatening and incomplete justification are what you usually get when you irritate him. Usually the plot is bigger then the performer, but here the performer always tried taking limelight. (yep, that 'tried' was intentional).

The very first time during our PG admission when I met this guy, I thought to myself , had i met him somewhere else I would have taken him to be a commerce guy, a bank accountant or something. A very typical 'khandeshi' look of a skeleton with skin sticking to it.  A very dull color shirt to match with a undefined dark bluish color trouser with snadels on his feet. This was the look I had to bare with for another year till the time he came round the corner in what could be named as 'tinted saint meets popular Satan'.

The initial encounters with the 'gang of uganda' earned him the title of 'wakdeshwar', the slanted one. As the days passed the slant angle angle reduced and then the phase shift operator, introduced by a research scholar took the angle in the second quadrant.  The phase shift operators kept acting bit by bit , doing their part. 'The juice became hard and ... '. A gentle wave of hand, along with a soft smile and little gyration of  hips  he would dismiss the whole idea and change the topic to the origin (of trouble), "tu shadi kab kar raha hai be?" (when are you getting married)

It is hard to define human nature in few basis function, neither in time domain nor in frequency. It would be futile attempt on my part to try and fit basis function for him in spatial domain, but the thought of trying to enjoy the attempt was always a motivation for me. The first basis function,  is behavior in group and when you are 'alone' (i could not think of a word, suggestions are welcome) with him and oddly his behavior is odd parity like a sine function with a unruly, erratic, immature and illogical behavior in public as compared to a calm, composed, well mannered and mature etiquette he observes when you find him devoid of group attraction.     .

Just a few weeks after our admission in college, we had fallen in a healthy ritual of a morning walk to ground and round of yogic exercises with usual goofy and slapstick humor when a member of our group actually went into a meditative mode. One such morning while returning to our rooms, our dreamer was walking a few  steps ahead of the group. It was his habit to walk briskly, his attention fixed on his own thoughts, his steps more heavy towards right steering him off the course and well I could go on and on. On this particular day my observation, as it turned out to be everyone view was put to lips by another of our hostelmate who was a fellow researcher in  computer aided design and was accompanying us for the first time to our morning drill to flatten his ballooning tummy. The flow of comments that followed were a collection of explicit that were regionally famous but were now collectively discussed. From the tapori language of Mumbai, a sharp taunt of Pune, a Hydrabadi mixed Marathvada slang to a Nandurbari shivi and Kolhapuri laugh. The rest of Maharashtra contributed by smiling and taking a dig with either wink or common Bollywood movie dialogue. The division of conscious psyche, better known as ego was hurt, and from as we went to out customary tea stall, he escaped to his room. Better for him that his roommate was not from our pack and all morning cocoon of his was not breached.  Latter during college, when someone, It could have been me (the probability of it being someone is quiet less as I was never a believer in trying to maintain a reputation and never was worried about the reputation of others), opened the issue where it was left in the morning faced a backlash, "How will you feel if your matters of room were discussed in public?" The only response I could manage was that of a weird facial expression which neither I understood nor can I describe. At this point I would also like to comment that these were my few of first ever days in a hostel. I was oblivious of the privacy pact that roommates usually followed, I learned latter that there were none and our dreamer was never in company of guys before. Time healed the wounds, or maybe he just matured enough to understand that group always consist of people who try to pull each others legs. 

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Bowling Nicky Bowling : Yor(Haw)ker

As a part of my crude logic ritual of calling all the contacts listed on the mobile phone book, I called Nico.  Nico was my BE classmate and his opinions on aspect of life usually differed substantially from the others. After the exchange of usual unnecessary greetings and stupid gossip, Nico started to tell me about a memorable weekend in Mahabaleshwar. The day being the fools day, I was not all together convinced about the authenticity of the incident. But nevertheless,  it was a good story to hear and I thought  it would not be a bad blog either.

The story started with Nico's trip to client company at Satara. He finished his work on Friday and true to his capricious nature went to Mahabaleshwar without any company. He claims that he developed a very good friendship with a strawberry farm owner. (I'm not sure how he did, it though. I was meaning to ask him over phone but, I had already talked over phone for more than three hours then and, wanted the call to end soon. You can also say that I dint wanted to alter the flow of his story). The new friend made him his guest. Nico took shelter at the farm for the weekend. During day time he visited various places. Another solitary incident that he mentioned during latter half our thirty minute call  suggested that he kept himself busy at the day time. When he was leaving back for Mumbai the strawberry farm owner gave him twenty boxes of strawberry. Each box contained approximately half kilo of the fruit.  The boxes were so perfectly packed that he could not refuse by complaining about not being able to carry them back home. Nico offered money, but the owner kept declining. Finally the owner did accept the money, but that did not even amount to the hospitality he has offered Nico during the weekend.

Nico himself found sitting in train bored to death with a  ten kilo of strawberry with him. His train of thought took him to imaginary reaction of his dad that would follow on discovering that his son had brought 10 Kg of fruit. He argued giving away most of the strawberry to his relatives en-rout to his house. Then he dismissed the thought considering the luggage he was carrying. His thought process was interrupted by a fellow passenger who asked him what he was carrying. On  the subsequent discovery of the fresh strawberry from Mahabaleshwar in his luggage, the other were wondering if they were for sale. One of the fellow passenger brought the thoughts to lip and much to Nico's and his astonishment,  Nico obliged by quoting the price of the strawberry. After much haggling over the prices, as a time killer for Nico and money saver for passenger, Nico sold his first kilo of strawberry for the day. A few other boxes were brought by other passenger of the compartment.

With another hour for the train to complete its journey Nico thought about moving to another compartment and selling remaining fruit. Giving sample to taste he moved from compartment to compartment. A sexagenarian started to inquire about his background. On discovering that Nico was studding in a reputed college (sexagenarian was alumni of the same ) his interest in Nico's act received an exacerbation. Nico gave an situation relevant reply, he said and I quote (try reading it with a nasal voice very peculiar to him and imagine him with excessive shoulder movement while making gestures ) "Whenever I travel to Mahabaleshwar, I ensure that my expenses are covered by the selling these fruits. I even insist my fellow classmate about following it. And to think about it , what is the harm in it. In foreign countries student actually do this stuff." Impressed with his idea, the old man pointed out another advantage of this exerciser. He felt that ego in youth is toned down by this kind of endeavor. The rejection by the passenger who are least interested in buying and sometimes even having to digest insults, from few people who find hawkers irritating contribute to a very different attitude to handle situation. Well just to aid Nico, he brought remaining five kilo of strawberry.

It would be harsh if I concluded the chapter,  his conclusion of the incident was very free-spirited, "As I sat down after the trip and removed my mobile to listen to song from my android phone for rest of the journey, rest of the passenger were staring at me with a attitude 'Aare Ye kya Scene Hai !' "

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