Peeche se...

Often, wonder how much of coordination exists between our thoughts, speech and actions. Apparently, there is always that dichotomy of thought processes in us — while we would be thinking of something inwardly, we would also concurrently be thinking of things to be uttered outwardly!

Once I had strung along with a buddy to her aunt’s place. As we were bidding au revoir to her aunt, her neighbour, suddenly put in her appearance. Beaming with joy, she spilled news of her son getting married to a winsome girl, from a well-heeled family.

Hearing this, my friend’s aunt gushed in a dulcet tone, ‘Tumba santhosha.’ But soon after her neighbour left, she spewed out, “What’s so great in ‘getting spliced’. Everyone gets married on someday!”

Slowly she added, “Look at my lad, a lame-brained loser, who with his love-lariat can’t lasso even a lunatic lass.” Obviously my friend’s aunt was disillusioned with her son, who, though nearing 40 years, hadn’t found a suitable bride, owing to his middling career.

Another time, while sauntering on a side-walk with a friend of mine, we brushed against a female, attired in her knee-length apparel, who happened to be my friend’s acquaintance. “Hey! How is my new dress?” asked that lady in a sing-song manner, to which my friend chirped, “Ravishing looking!” The moment that lady’s back was turned, spat out my friend waspishly, “She thinks she’s one heck of femme fatale! Just look at her. ‘Peeche se personality; aage se municipality!”

Yet another time, while cramming down food at a street-side bistro with another pal of mine, we ran into her ex-colleague, who on seeing my friend, came sprinting towards her. After a rib-crunching hug, she informed, she was flying abroad as part of her promotion in the new company she had joined. To which my friend caroled, “That’s cool. We’d like to raise a toast to your success.”

But, after she left, bristling with rage my friend burst out, “She’s veritable work-shy person, with tonnes of indolent attitude. Always skived off work, shuffled responsibilities and saddled others with her task. Just riding on massive wave of luck, since her cerebral calibre is zilch! Scan her brain, and you’ll find out ‘there is nothing right about her left brain, and nothing left in her right brain!”

As I’m penning this piece, I hear the telephone trill. A relative, more garrulous than me, coos, “Am I bothering you?” “Not at all” I tell her, though I’m smouldering inside for catching me at wrong time. After 15 minutes of jacking me around, she warbles again, “Hope you weren’t disturbed by me,” to which I say, “Chillax! It was a pleasure.” As I place the phone in its cradle, I mutter, “What a pain in the neck.”