I’m about to apply for a Guinness Record. If I tell you why, you will apply for me too.

Last week some day, I slept for a couple of minutes while riding the bike on highway at a great speed.

Yeah, it’s still the ‘living’ me, who is writing this, but shocked to read today’s news that all the members in a family killed in a mishap on the same highway, as their driver had fallen asleep while driving.

The Guinness record will read - The First person to sleep and ride the bike, ever.

See you here again :)

The procession carrying the man’s dead body was reaching the public crematorium. Like the sun that was setting at the horizon, the procession looked dull and grieved. The Crematorium was nearing and as its sight appeared, the laments aggrandized.

The crematorium was situated close to an areca nut (adaykka- in Malayalam and Tamil) farm. Hundreds of lean and straight (the F-TV types) Areca nut trees stood in the farm, waving in the winds and French-kissing the sky (on its lovely lips, the clouds).

The procession stopped in front of the crematory and it was time for the final rites. The lead cleric had uttered the final prayers and then a relative of the dead man had lifted fire on the crematory. As seconds passed by, as the fire grew by, as the laments amplified to the maximum, the 'unthinkable happened'.

Like lightning, sparkles of fire came down from the nearby areca nut tree and the dead man stood up alive! The lamenting mouths and the gloomy faces at once thrown open aghast and then cried aloud for life. In a jiffy, all of them vanished from the scene!

Heard that someone from the fleeing squad had turned back while running and then stopped for being fooled. Because it was the Areca nut farmer Shanku, who came down from the ‘heaven’ and not the dead man. Shanku was on top of the Areca nut tree close to the crematory. As the fire blown up, the dried leaves of a black pepper plant which was growing on the tree too caught fire. The fire went up spirally to the unexpected tribulation of Shanku, who at once lost his grip and plummeted, strewing fire all over and finally landing on the edge of the crematory.

Shanku must have received a funeral attention from all.

My parents say I never used to cry when I was a baby. I used to amaze them with smile, by holding up to my name, even when falling down and hurting myself so badly. Yes, I even remember an instance when a Doctor, who was stitching a cut on my hand, without using anesthesia or any other pain-freezing options, asking me 'aren’t you a child, don't you feel like crying?'

Today I've changed. I cry like a child. Would you call it growing down?

I have noticed this change last year, when I met my younger brother after long time, and when both of us had a toast. I just looked into his eyes and he was doing the same. I cried and hugged him like a mad man and he cried too. We cried together for a long time. Ahoe!, We weren't alone there. A Whole group of friends who was watching this started to cry. :)

Last time I cried was when Nishitha told me that she never liked me. I cried like a new-born. I cried a complete night without letting anyone know much. I did not know why I felt so bad. May be because I loved her so much! May be because I could not believe someone disliking me! May be coz I felt like cheated. All my thoughts for her came into me at once and I felt like dying in my tears. The fun was that I met her only once in my life and the rest of our relationship was only through chatting! :)

Sometime back I literally cried when a man had returned my lost mobile phone that I never expected to get back. I thanked him in tears that he jocularly said 'I shouldn't have returned this phone'! He meant he did not want me to cry. :)

Today I can cry for anything. Every time I pray, I cry in secret. I cry for all my happiness. I cry for all my sadness. I cry for all who love me and hate me.

Someday someone was saying, you are an eccentric, too nimble with emotions but too bad at managing it! Is that right?

Sreeji, (Our old Blunderman) has learned the tricks to survive in due time. I have got the latest proof for the same. Though a bit stinky, I thought it would be great fun to tell you about that and moreover a great relief to his sunken image in his world. After all, it’s a brainy act, so what if a bit stinky, right?

It was an urgent call from the stomach that led Sreeji to the lavatory in his office. He swears by all Gods that he never reaches to such a state usually, as he always comes clean stomached from home. But this day was really bad in that sense.

In an eye blink’s time, the stunt was over and he felt light and relieved. But life wasn’t that easy. ‘No water’ to complete the formalities!! Though he squeezed the tap to their utmost limit, not even a single drop did appear. He felt like the most ‘shitty’ and ‘shabby’ ever in his life.

For his luck, there were some napkins left in his pocket.

Once he solved the puzzle and came out of the ‘labor room’, what he did made all the twist in the story. He called up the house-keeping guy and scolded him for keeping the toilet so ‘unclean’!! ‘I couldn’t even step in’, he argued. He went on and demanded a check on who goes without properly cleaning the lavatory after the ‘anal impaction’

Sreeji’s ratings have now flown up.

While writing this, what was coming into my mind was another second degree joke, which was highly prevalent during our school days and stirred endless laughter in the young world. It said that one annachi had once used a ‘Poison Ivy’ leaf (‘Chorithanam’ in Malayalam. It is a skin-irritant) in stead of napkins as there was no water nearby. Later he had to jump off the river bridge.

Don’t know whether true or fictitious, but the story of the ‘Madhaviyamma’ could keep on revisiting my memories. I first heard this story when I was studying in my Upper Primary school, of which I would tell you more in another chapter.

This story was told to me and my classmates by our favorite English teacher Biju, addressed as Bijusir. By practice, he used to tell us stories in order to keep all of us attentive and bothered about the class. This one was striking.

Golden ornaments were such a weakness to Madhaviyamma that she wished to get buried along with her ornaments. Belonged to a respectable family of affluent means, her husband and children could not resist to this wish of hers and that was how she got buried with all those golden bangles, chains and other heavy ornaments. She died at the age of 55 due to some heart-related ailment. As per the tradition, she was buried in the nearby cemetery and a mourning family came back home.

The day died like a lamp snuffed out. And the night came, spreading darkness in the cemetery which did not have any lights. In fact, why, who would want to spend time in a cemetery in the night, other than those lifeless bodies which are dumped there! But that wasn’t right at all, as the darkness along with it, brought two thieves to the cemetery. They came sniffing the big loot awaiting them in the graveyard of Madhaviyamma. They had noticed the golden gloss on her corpse.

Silence benumbed the whole setting. They went near the tomb of Madhaviyamma, making sure that no one was spying. Slowly, they removed tomb-lid and peeped in avariciously. The coffin was not seen as covered by earth. With hands, they removed the warm earth and there came the pricey coffin box, gilded by golden drapes. One of them opened the coffin and what they saw was unbelievable. The corpse of Madhaviyamma was lying, with golden ornaments all over the body. Greedily, one of them caught hold of her hand but in the next moment, something unthinkable had happened; Madhaviyamma opened her eyes. She stared at the thieves as if confused. She wasn’t dead. The thieves, who couldn’t understand anything, tried to gesticulate something but failed to convince each other. One after the other, they lost their consciousness and fell alongside Madhaviyamma.

Early next day, someone who came to look over the cemetery, found the ‘dead’ Madhaviyamma embraced by two young men who were lying asleep on her sides. Heard that, later Madhaviyamma opened her eyes and the story was unfolded. The thieves were released as regards to the vice-turned-virtue.

From the way things happened, this is what I can presume now; Madhaviyamma would have become some Human God beatifying devotees, and the thieves would have become some Panchayat Presidents or MLAs somewhere in Kerala.

What’s the definition of stupidity? If you have one, wait, listen to me and then you may need to revise your definitions.

It was just incautiousness, which egged me to buy one of those big, blubbery balloons from the window-side seller near Andheri airport. I did not think where, when and how I was sitting and in a moment the deal was done for 25 rupees.

The BEST bus which was carrying me to Kandivli did not have windows as big as the Balloon I was holding outside the bus-window by a thread. The vendor had left from the scene and the bus moved on. Like a tumor on the bus, the balloon beetled outside.

Later at the next bus station, I got outside and took the balloon in with me. People kept on staring at the balloon as if telling it, ‘hold him tightly, he’s got a lot of brains’!

Long long ago, in a small village called Edamon, when there were no cosmetic revolutions and beauty pageants to come to live in people’s minds, one naughty boy recommended a ground-breaking idea to grow his sisters’ hair long till their buttocks.

It was this - ‘Tie and hang stones on hair and stand in the sunlight’

Not only did he recommend, he even went on and staunchly helped to tie those stones on their hair. Together they stood and looked as if snake-gourds in the village farmyards. (In the farms of Kerala, like exclamation marks, the longish Snake-gourds would lie topsy-turvy and stare at people as if sentenced to be hanged till death. Stones used to be tied on them to grow them lengthy.)

They were later called as 'Snake-gourds. And that naughty boy was my father.

Like tit for tat, today as I see my hair falling one after the other, the same sisters of him have remedies for me. ‘Apply Snake-gourd paste on your hair or try to drink Snake-gourd juice if possible.’

Revenge sustains through generations, what else?

Life can be cruelly funny at some times. It can ridicule. It can tempt us with a warm curvy smile but by the time we smile back, what we see there would be a mere scoff.

It seems that I’m good. Good! Though this realization came to me a bit late, though you would have enough reasons to flout this argument on my face itself, though I don’t promise I’ll be this good forever till doomsday, all of a sudden I have realized last week that I’m too good! In fact Donnymol (name changed) told me. She told me that ‘You were such a good man’.

Why did Donnymol say that I’m that good? Looks like I don’t have answer. I did not transfer any of my bank credits to her name; I did not buy her vegetables from the market or I even did not write an article on her good deeds to the society! The only thing that I did to her was that I liked her. And how did that happen?

It happened uninvited. Like a mistake. Or rather, like every other mistake I do. Like how I catch wrong trains and jump off at wrong stations at wrong times. Like how I came to write the Marketing Management examination on a day when it was supposed to be the Advertising Management examination. Like how I once misplaced a bottle of oil with water and poured it into the boiling milk to make a nice tea. (This is how oil tea is made; justifications need no raison d'être).

However, this mistake was a bit more cavernous, characterized by a deep sense of frustration and uneasiness. Because, Donnymol did not want to get married to me and thus she said ‘You were such a good man’. A nice way to end something like an alliance. A nicely said ‘bye bye’. After all, it sounded like ‘You are such a nice guy so that I don’t want to get married to you!’ Funny isn’t it?

Her uncle wasn’t agreeing it seemed. But he had given her a choice before expressing his disagreement. ‘Would you feel bad if you don’t get him?’ Kin mattered the most to her and she said ‘No, I should not’. A friend of mine said that I should have first proposed to her uncle!

But what’s the big deal in turning down a marriage proposal? After all, it’s just that. A marriage ‘proposal’. She had the right to say ‘No, I don’t like you’ But wait, things were different and that’s what the big deal about it. One day I even told her that I should not speak to her anymore the way I used to do, as we were still not sure of getting married and becoming one. Yet the talk continued. Yet the emotions got created and feelings, babied. The sad love song ‘arikil nee undayirunnengil’ got looped in the background endlessly. Sorrows were trimmed down by sharing and joys multiplied. Love sprouted with a ‘we are almost sure of getting married… so we should speak’ kind of an affair.

Like the way she started talking to me, she stopped talking to me too. Both times, unexpectedly. One idle day, when I was not thinking about anything in particular and not really keen on doing so too, her first call came. She told me that she wanted to know me better as she would like to have herself married to me.

Whatever, if you really want to marry someone, you would stand up and say that you want to. Donnymol did not stand up. May be that she forgot to do so. That’s the big deal I was coming into.

If I would use a simile, I would prefer rains. An untimely rain that got me wet but unclean at the same time.

Heh heh!!

What to say, YCYCY Bank seems to be behind me. If you have seen what happened to my previous telecon with one of their telecallers, you wouldn't expect me to write one more post about the same topic this quick.

Everything looked the same like earlier but this time the credit card was launched on the 1st of Jan this year and they could call me in just 3 days of its launch.

Any guess what would be my answer??

"Ohh no... don't want to take it up so early.. let me observe it for a couple of 'years'.. I'll see how it performs and then decide"

Awaiting the next call in 2011. :)

I don’t know why. I don’t feel the same urge to write like I used to have earlier. The words look like frozen drops and the sentences dizzy. I feel like a fish starving of water and breaths; or a juggler who forgot his charms!

Can I try a comeback?? Will I get my words, sentences, water, breaths and charms back??