Monday, December 18, 2006

Beezier Caper

An interesting day at the wife's office party in a farm-house in Bangalore. The day started innocuously enough with a trip to the Butterfly park where the kids frolicked and flitted with a lepidopterist’s zeal.

Then, the office party. One moment, we were enjoying the great outdoors; the next moment, a mad scramble to the safety of the indoors. We had obviously pissed off a hive of stingers and probably pretty badly too. To my family’s credit, neither the wife nor I let go of the all important drinks but still managed to rescue the twins to safety, each with one half of the twins safely ensconced in the arms during the mad dash.

These were undoubtedly racist bees as the one who got stung the most was the only white woman of the group, also the wife’s boss aka 'El Director'. A very traumatic experience for this lady as she disappeared into the house howling, and in tears. One would think that this would have been a daunting event for any soul. But one does not become a director from being weak in the heart. The crying stopped; a few minutes silence and this remarkable lady reappeared with a black ‘Knight of Ivanhoe’ netted bee mask. The ensemble did not end here. A thin but massive white mosquito net draped the director from head to toe, and some! She wanted to go out again; I couldn’t fathom why. She kept insisting that she needed to take control of the situation. Weirdly enough, I seemed to be the only one who thought it strange that someone who had been soundly bitten by bees and had bawled like a baby with a bad diaper rash should now be dressed like Frankenstein’s bride and wanted to duel the bees in their own backyard. Very Quixote, I thought to myself.

After a few frantic, but failed dashes at the different exit points from the house, she did finally give up and everyone settled down for beer and snacks.


Though a Twilight Zone like occasion for me, for others, who I’m sure were privileged to encounter more entertaining experiences at work, the sequence of events hardly raised an eyebrow. Now, that’s what I call an office party!!

Friday, December 08, 2006

A land that time forgot


Wide roads, deserted streets
Is this really rush hour, peak traffic time?
Sleepy eyes, friendly waves
Park in the middle of the road
Have a cup of tea, coconut milk or sugar cane juice
Rustic buildings, ancient temples, and the trees, oh the trees!
Cobbler from ages past with a warming familiarity smiles
My grand father's tailor acknowledges me with a nod
There's nostalgia in the air, a song in the heart
The Home stands in silent elegance
Watching life go by at its own frenetic slowness
This is my hometown, my retreat, Mysore!

A wedding in Chennai

It's been a while since we had a massive wedding on the wife's side of the family. This one was especially important as it was the...