To you, you and you too!

Suruchi Dinshaw - Part 2

Choti Diwali finally dawned bright and clear and although there was a hint of chill in the air, Suruchi jumped around excitedly in just her thin cotton salwar kameez prompting Mrs. Dinshaw to exclaim “That girl will be the life of me! Go put on something warmer girl, before you catch pneumonia’. Mindless of her mom’s comments, Suruchi checked her watch impatiently by the minute. ‘Why aren’t they here yet!!’, she complained aloud. “Arre beta, Rohit’s bus doesn’t arrive until 9 and Kartik must already be on that auto from the Cantt station”, Mr. Dinshaw offered as he set down his cuppa and glasses.

When the two boys arrived, no one knew exactly, but the racket at the Dinshaw household reached such alarming proportions within minutes that the neighbors were nearly prompted to dial 100. “Oh My God Kartik, you’re as tall as a giraffe!!!!!!” “Hey sis, come give a hug to your guru!” “Suruchi! you look…so different kiddo!” yadda yadda.

When they finally settled down to Mrs. Dinshaw’s mouth watering puris and aaloo bhaji, everyone was still chattering like a pack of mynas. Rohit and Kartik both had only 3 days off and there were groans of disappointment all around as this info leaked out. “But I had made soooo many plans! You guys are horrid” pouted Suruchi like a sulking schoolgirl.

The first day passed by in a blur as everyone wanted to know everything about everyone else. By the time they retired for the night, there was still so much left unspoken. Mrs. Dinshaw woke her three kids early on Diwali day and prodded them to take the customary oil bath. Squeals of laughter rang around as the three teased each other and the Dinshaw parents smiled proudly at their brood. ‘We are really lucky to get such good kids’, each thought secretly, afraid yet to say it aloud cause you see ‘Khud ka nazar lag sakta hain!’

After the last of the anars had been burnt and the sweets had till no one could possibly stuff any more, the 3 siblings sat in Suruchi’s room for a long nights chat. Kartik told them about ‘Muthu’, the office joker, his bawdy boss ‘Mr. Batliwala’ and finally, rather shyly about ‘Gauri’, the girl in the ‘DSF team’. They had been seeing each other for 3 months now – Suruchi and Rohit roared with shock on hearing this – and hushhhhh, they were totally forbidden from mentioning any of this to mom and dad. Rohit’s and Suruchis news paled in front of this for obviously Kartik was serious about this girl! They grilled him nonstop for 2 whole hours, until they knew almost everything there was to know about Gauri and couldn’t wait to meet her! She seemed perfect for their quiet older brother.

Exhausted by the day’s events and the energy expended, the three fell asleep on Suruchi’s double bed and before you could say ‘rustambaghroad’, faint snores punctuated the air. Suruchi dreamt of Gauri and Kartik playing on ‘Chowpatty Beach’ and oddly enough felt it all so real when Kartik hugged Gauri close to him. She dreamt some intimate scenes after that which when she awoke seemed weird and disturbingly odd. Suruchi was a bit quiet and pre-occupied the next day and didn’t seem to enjoy Rohit’s loud stories quite as much.

As happened the previous night, they ended up playing scrabble nostalgically and after chatting awhile promptly fell asleep in Suruchi’s room again. Suruchi was a bit nervous and tense as the lights went off. She wasn’t sure why, but a cold fear tugged at her heart. The guys were soon fast asleep while Suruchi drifted in and out of nameless dreams. At one time, she was falling off a cliff, when a pair of hands reached out and pulled her back and hugged her close. She felt secure and calm. Then weirdly a snake slid inside her pyjama top, its cold feel on her skin jolting her awake. For a few seconds after she awoke, Suruchi struggled to get a foothold in the real life. She opened her eyes and breathed deep. The snake was still inching its way up her belly and all her senses were taut with fear. From the time that Suruchi could remember she had been terrified of anything remotely reptile. The thought of something slithery and scaly inside her dress made her want to scream her lungs out. But what if that startled the animal – are reptiles even animals? – and it decided to strike? Paralyzed with fright, Suruchi held her breath for as long as she could. After what seemed like a million years, she took a lungful of air. The snake was still on her, but not moving any longer. Alert now, she suddenly sensed the snakes ‘fingers’ moving. Waitaminute!!!!!!!!!! Were those really fingers? For a hellhole of a second Suruchi felt like someone had just punched her right in the middle of her solar plexus. The snake was a hand, and it belonged to Kartik, sleeping beside her. Her older brother Kartik who she adored so much; Kartik who was in love with the pretty Gauri; Kartik the moral policeman; Kartik, who they all loved and trusted so much. Suruchi couldn’t comprehend what was going on. She thought she might be losing her mind. She dared not do anything for fear that he would know she knew. Might he just be dreaming of Gauri next to him? She listened keenly in the silence of the night to the breath next to hers and knew he was awake. Her pulse quickened and breathing became labored. Now he would know that she was awake too. At that point Suruchi lost consciousness.

... to be continued

Suruchi Dinshaw - Part 1

Trrrrrrrrrring.. “Suruchiiii.. Please get the door dear!”.. Suruchi breaks out of her reverie amidst the medley of doorbell and her mom’s shrill shriek. Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrring… ‘Have some damn patience.$%*..’, she mutters incoherently as she makes her way downstairs It’s the friendly neighborhood postman, Patel kaka delivering a registered letter. She signs while glancing at it nonchalantly. Another share certificate! ‘Why doesn’t dad demat all his shares once and for all’, she wonders aloud while going upstairs in search of him.

She finds him in the balcony sitting cross-legged on the chatai, his brows furrowed in deep concentration as he pours over last week’s crossword puzzle. Suruchi smiles as she hands him the letter that he tosses aside without so much as a slightest glance. ‘Even a tsunami around the corner couldn’t make him budge from in front of that paper!’, she thinks fondly and ruffles his hair, or what was left of it. Mr. Dinshaw is only 53 but started balding rather early, at the tender age of 27! It’s a miracle he still has a few strands left which he combs meticulously every morning. And wonder of wonders, its still jet black! “No dye!”, he proudly explains to people at work, who inquire after it. Mr. Dinshaw is Branch Manager at the SBI, Udipi Gardens. An industrious worker, he climbed his way up the social and work ladder so he could ensure a good future (and present) for all his three children.

Suruchi is the middle one, or almost! Kartik, the oldest at 28, is a software engineer posted at TCS, Bombay. He is followed by the twins. Suruchi, a bully from the word go, proved her qualities quite early, when she pushed aside her brother Rohit to come bawling into the bright blue world! So much so that, even the nurse who held the 3kg baby – a remarkable weight for a twin – exclaimed, “This one sure is a tough cookie!”. Much to Suruchi’s chagrin, her mother doesn’t miss an opportunity to relate that at every family gathering! ‘So its true, but for heavens sake, does she really have to say it EACH and EVERY time!!’, she fumes silently as Mrs Dinshaw turns to smile at her indulgently.

Suruchi found her calling in life very early. She is a creative designer with Lintas, one of the top advertising agencies in the country. Creative juices flow through her as easily as the Ganges down the Himalayas. While a student at the St. Francis school, Suruchi drew and won in every art competition there was. You could pick out the most obscure theme and she would have a masterpiece ready in less than an hour. Her teachers admired her talent and her friends ooh-ed and aah-ed at every thing she created. Suruchi was brilliant…and she knew it. It didn’t come as a surprise to anyone when she topped the qualifying exam at the prestigious ‘NID Ahmedabad’ soon after her 12th. She breezed through her coursework all the while adding to the feathers in her already-brimming hat! Barring the ‘little incident’ in her 2nd year, when her torrid affair with the hunky-dory stud Karan made headlines in the college newsletter, Suruchi breezed through her class magna-cum-laude. Suruchi’s parents had been scandalized when the ‘incident’ reached their ears, thanks to Mrs D’Souza the colony rumormonger, whose elephantine ears snaked all the way to Ahmedabad!. “You wouldn’t believe Mrs Mirza, what I just heard about that arty kid Suruchi. Apparently the hostel warden found her in bed with a ‘dirty’ boy, when she came to her room in search of her. And Mrs Mirza, how do I say this, its all so chee-chee…”, and lowering her voice 2 notches “they say the two were wrapped around each other tighter than Milind Soman and Madhu Sapre in that python wala ad!!”. “You mean the shoe ad..?” interjected the ever helpful Mrs Mirza. “Haan Haan, the same one! I tell you, that kid is a disgrace to her poor parents. Shame-shame”. By the next morning the whole colony spoke about it in hushed whispers and Mr. and Mrs. Dinshaw ordered home-delivery every day for the next 2 weeks. Besides the frantic calls her mom and dad made every day for a whole month to check on their errant daughter, Suruchi received a scathing letter from Kartik, the contents of which best remain under wraps. Rohit on the other hand - at IIT Bombay then – thought it a hoot but was in fact secretly miffed that his so-far decorous sister had managed to outdo him, for Rohit’s tales were enough to put a playboy to shame, but then that is another story in itself!

Suruchi joined Lintas as soon as she graduated. They had actually been thrilled when she choose them over their arch rivals Satchi & Satchi, for Suruchi, the only one in her batch to have six offers in hand even before her final semester results were announced, had made an enormous impact on the panel members during her campus interview. One reason Suruchi chose Lintas was because it gave her the opportunity to return home to Bangalore. ‘The heart is where the home is’ was pretty true in her case, for inspite of her ‘little affair’, Suruchi was pretty much a ‘decent’ kid and loved staying with her parents and the luxury of garam-garam chappatis and lip smacking ‘baingan ka bharata’ that her mom made. Suruchi slipped back into the old familiarity of family life with considerable ease, unlike most of her friends who hated being ‘told what to do’ after 4 years of total freedom, and compared living with their folks to ‘Alcatraz’.

When Kissan launched its hot and spicy tomato sauce, Suruchi was the brain behind the ‘Tomchi’ ad “tomchi aaja, tomchi aaja’. Her fame found its way to her colony when the neighborhood kids started yelling “Suruchi didi aaja..a-a-aaja.” every evening as she walked home from work. In the beginning, she preened her feathers each time she heard it, but after a while she admitted to her mom that it did get a tad annoying. “Well beta, fame comes at a cost you know” was Mrs Dinshaws sage reply.

At 25, Suruchi had been working for 3 years now and was a popular and loved figure at Lintas.

Suruchi goes back to the book she had been reading before she was interrupted. ‘The diary of a young girl – Anne Frank’. It was the third time she was reading it and as always she was amazed at the brutal honestly, sincerity and maturity with which the young Jewish girl wrote. “I cannot imagine what it must be like to live with a machine gun to your head, that threatens to go off at any moment”, she wonders with unconcealed awe and respect. ‘How can one so young be filled with wisdom so profound? How can one be so rational in a world ruled by irrationality? How does bravery survive in a cold-blooded environment’…. Her thoughts trail off as her dad calls out to her.

“Suruchiiii, what's ‘On a pillar, half a circle, nearby full a circle, what is it and where is it?’” “Oh come on dad!!! You’ve been doing the crossword for a gazillion years now and you can’t crack one simple line of code! It’s the word ‘PO’ and its a river in Italy”. “That was a tough one”, grumbled Mr. Dinshaw as he went back to his scratching pad.

Feeling like ‘Girl Interrupted’, Suruchi kept her book aside and trained her thoughts towards the Diwali holidays. The five of them were going to be together after what seemed to be aeons. She hadn’t seen Kartik in 4 years. While she had been home for three, Kartik had managed to come down just once and that too only when she was out of town on an office tour for 3 days! Suruchi had been awfully disappointed. While they remained close through emails and phone calls, Suruchi wondered how much he must have changed in all these years. After all they say the ‘Big Bad City’ of Bombay really does things to a person! Although only 3 years older than Suruchi and Rohit, Kartik was a typical older brother. As kids, Suruchi and Rohit pretty much kept to their ‘hip and happening’ crowd while Kartik’s friends were always an enigma. For the last 3 or odd years though, Suruchi found herself closer to her older brother. She told him all her stories, and sobbed on his shoulders, virtually of course! He humored her, heard her out, offered his 2 paise worth advice whenever needed and was enormously proud of her achievements. She secretly admired him too, though she would die rather than admit it on his face!

Rohit hadn’t changed a teeny bumblebee bit! He was as crazy as ever and Suruchi thoroughly enjoyed listening to his wild racy stories. ‘My gosh! The things these IITians did in the hostels!! Mrs. D’Souza would have a heart attack if she knew!’ Rohit was now at Satyam, Hyderabad and absolutely detested the slow paced city.


...to be continued

A totally mallu joke :)

Aana and urmbu were @ d railway station ven janshatabdi express came along..

Urumbu: eda aane, dat was donated 2 d railways by me..

Aana: edae puluveera.. i ll giv u 100 rs. if sumbudy else testifies it.

D intelligent urumbu gave rs. 10 to a girraffe n askd him 2 tel d aana dat it was urumbu hu donated it.. aana lost rs. 100..

Witout tinkin of his empty purse (wich initally had juz rs. 100), aana made a declaration wile d rajadani express was abt to come..

Aana: dat train was donated by me..

Urumbu knew very wel dat aana's purse weighed nil..Thus he said..

Urumbu: if sumbudy else testifies ur claim i shal giv u rs. 1000/-

n finally aana got rs. 1000/-..

How?

tink...
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harder
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no u rnt inteligent enuf
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Railway announcement.
Yathrakkarude shredhakku...Rajdhani express aane ki sambhavana hai..

:D:D:D:D

PS: Please pardon the 'dirty' english! But I thought it terribly cute here!