On a day off .( i )

The weather was cooler than usual. Summer was probably enjoying a mid term break with the clouds being called for covering the sun from public view. Generally, at this time of the year the mercury of the thermometer would give a gallon of sweat mixed with deodorant vapors from each one; but that day was different. It was only deodorant vapors that were escaping out from every armpit. Well, almost every.
With great effort, equaling that of a bulldozer trying to raze an indolent, cataleptic dinosaur, I pushed open my eyelids paving the way for the daylight to shove in through my iris and into the retinal receptor cells. The night that just ended saw me getting a very deep sleep with dreams that I never remembered. I never felt like getting up, it was a good weather for adding an extra edition of sleep to the normal course. But a hot cup of black coffee did the trick and all the infinitesimal traces of slumber that remained vaporized like the deodorant of the armpits.
It was a holiday. As nothing was preplanned for spending the holiday, a hundred different options were flying past my mind. A few ideas were dropped the moment they struck. Getting my racks cleaned was one of them. Creating a profile in www.simplymarry.com was another. Joining jugglery classes was the third. Quite a few followed into the dustbin.
After many considerations, weighing out options and their permutations, settled down on three. One, go hunt for some chicken tandoori .Two, take a long bike ride and three; do a bit of CD-shopping.
…to be continued.

End-Mail

Before I click on the "publish" icon, somewhere towards the north-west corner of the screen, would like to share a dialogue of a certain man called Ram ‘Rustic’ Jhunjhunwala and yours truly, Suryya ‘Resigned’ Sarkar

Act 1, Scene 1

/ Backdrop: One of the quaint bylanes in Old Panvel which leads straight to the Rupali Magic Multiplex (?). A few drunken lorry drivers are trying to settle a recently started argument about Sachin MRF Tendulkar’s non-performance in 20-20 cricket. A few censored words and phrases infrequently peeping out amidst a generally low toned brawl.

Enter Ram, making a face, that of a pigeon whose eggs have just dropped from a twenty meter tall unidentified tree, through a hole in the nest. Suryya, already present in the scene as another observer .He is primarily intending to get to Rupali Magic to catch the movie D2 in Hindi /

Ram: Hello Dost, How are you? Long time no see.

Me: Hi, I’m fine. How about you? And man, are you not looking quite sad!

Ram: I’m doing pretty well. Making good money in the packaging business. Demand had risen exponentially. But today, I just have been diagnosed with common cold. You are still working with that multinational?What was it, by the way?

Me: Yeah, Am technically still working at the same place. But I’ve resigned a day ago.It's what some taxi drivers ( aka. Schumi-on-25-Tequila shots) of Eastern Calcutta who would proudly call it Bok .

Ram: Oh! Resigned? Why did you do that?

Me: I was seeing images .Day and Night.

Ram: Like what?

Me: Sometimes I would find myself in an unknown deserted land with a few uniformed Zulu tribals of Africa. And suddenly there would be a deafening hiss with me running to figure out what has happened. A huge white monster, about the size of a twenty storied building approaching to make Human-Biryani out of me. I would come to reality with a jerk.

Ram: What else did you see?

Me: Another time, I found myself in a well, with about twenty thousand poisonous female wingless dragons at the bottom of it. I was holding on to a rusted ladder .Going down would mean getting into their intestines .They were fast closing the distance between us. I clambered as fast as I could. But the darkness above did not seem to end. After mounting a few more steps, I touched a hard surface. It was a closed well. Nowhere to run...!!! I woke up breathing hard.
Ram: Come on. You ought to tell me some more of these.

Me: Why? You seem to enjoy the entire thing?
Ram: No ya. I mean those stories are really incredible. Seems like a Fairy tale .I’m liking it. Go on…

Me: There are quite a lot in fact .And it’s hard to remember and narrate all of those Ram. But there’s one. You got to listen to this. It’s in the middle of the night and it’s me standing alone in the desolate streets of a city. I cannot recall which city it was, but it had lots of skyscrapers and neon signs all around. I’m not too sure what I was doing at that time, or why was I standing out when the rest of the entire world was having a sweet nap. A swanky sedan zoomed past me and screeched to a halt a few yards ahead. Getting into reverse gear it stopped just next to me. The door opened and a man, quite of my age stepped out. His face looked familiar. "Suryya?!" he said. "Yes. Are you Pum?" I replied .He happened to be a close buddy of mine, nicknamed Pum with whom I spent the four years in NIT, Trichy. He explained how he’s been doing over the years and all sounded great. Soon afterward the ground below started to shudder violently. It was an earthquake. Two skyscrapers disintegrated within a span of five seconds. The pavement below my feet cracked and all of a sudden I found myself freefalling towards the centre of the earth. The End.
Ram: That’s unbelievable. How often did you see them?

Me: Very often.

Ram: Is that the only reason why you are quitting?

Me: One of the reasons. The other reasons can easily be inferred.

Ram: Hmm. Have you stopped seeing images after resigning?

Me: I guess so...eh. Ram, I’m getting late. Will catch up with you later. Bye.
Ram: Bye. Good Luck.

***** End of Scene. The lorry drivers seem to have come to some kind of a settlement as the ambience falls silent. Curtain drops.*****