42 Quirks

“Why do men smoke”, was popular question with all my girlfriends when I used to be on a date. Most of us would have laughed it off, or at the most cleverly changed the topic to something else something more interesting as her dad’s daily routine (yeah, only, it remains interesting until the day of your engagement!!!). But me, being the old warhorse, chose to answer a question with another question… “Why do women cry?”

Not to be put off by such a deterrent, my date asked me back, “Why, men don’t cry?”

So she wanted a war of wits… I was game, but I admit, I had to go on a back foot…

“They do, but not as much as women… Women have the tendency to cry for anything and everything, as if their tear glands were constructed for that very purpose!! Why, you would cry even if you saw a puppy injured in the middle of the road!!”

” Yes we would! Because we care. We care more than any living being on this earth! And that is why we feel compassion for those poor little creatures. After all we are not heartless like you men… All you guys can think of is sex and nothing but sex…”

I saw that this conversation was treading into dangerous areas. Had it been any other person I would have launched into a barrage of points and defenses and offenses and so on and so forth… But this being a date I had to show resilence and patience ( a quality I rarely show except when called for, which is most of the times usually!) And so I said…

“Fine…fine!! Shall I order for you or would you want to do it yourself?” Amazingly, as an excellent example of the invisible male bonding that does exist, the waiter seemed to sense the tense nature of the moment and came over to ask, “What will it be sir? The usual?”

Funnily, I had never been in that hotel more than twice and every time I had been there I had ordered something different. I wondered what the hell he meant by the usual… And then when I saw the admiring glance on my beau’s face, I decided to play the game and said, “Yes please, the usual for me and for madame…” I left the words hanging in mid-air so as to indicate that she would be ordering for herself. Taking the cue he turned to her and took the lead, ” May I recommend the very excellent, ____________, our chef’s speciality, I am told he makes it excellently. Would you like to try it out?”

Women have this something (which is so stupid according to me), which forbids them from thinking rationally in times of grave danger. As if, not wanting to be outdone, not wanting to show she had no idea of what the damned waiter was tallking about, she said, “Oh that? I thought you didn’t serve it here!! Well go ahead, and tell him to make it a little spicy.”

The waiter looked at her as if to say ‘That preparation has no spice at all’ when I said, “Could you make it a little fast please? I am running a little short of time, I have a meeting to catch up with.” He gave me a look, the one which conveys I-am-sorry-you-got-stuck-with-such-a-dumb-bitch’ kind of and proceeded to do his job.

As soon as he had left I pulled out my cigarette case in style and flicked it open, pulled a ciggy out and lit it. One look at my date and I was about to go in splits… She had a horrified look on her face which seemed to say, “What the F@^K are you doing!!” I turned to her and said, “Hey doll, Relax!! This is a smoking section. Take a look around!”

She leant over. I thought she was gonna kiss me, so I did the same. She yanked the cigarette out of my fingers and stubbed it out.

“The next time you do that I am never gonna eat out with you again..”

“Hey doll, I didn’t know you hated smoking!!”

” Oh!! So I was arguing with you a couple of moments ago just for the sake of it? Huh??”

“That? I thought that was just to tease my brain cells?”

“Tease? You’re probably gonna fry them with this thing”

“Aw c’mon!! What’s it with you women! Can’t a guy guy even smoke in peace? Do I have to carry one of those ‘Do not disturb’ things round my neck?”

“Yeah!! And if you keep up with it, you’re probably gonna end up with one of those ‘Rest in Peace’ signs around you..”

Then I saw something glisten in her eyes that explained why guys smoke and why women cry..

A tear slipped out of her left eye and slid down her cheek…

He had the face of an injured puppy, the kind that melts human hearts and I had a meeting to attend. Not able to withstand the squished-emotions-face any more, I (quite reluctantly) went up to him and sat beside him, afraid he would start (what he thought was) the only topic left in the world.

“She left me, you heard?”

“Yeah! I heard that from ________ [names not written to protect me from them]. What happened?”

“Beats me! Everything was so hunky-dory until a couple of days ago. We even went for a movie, “The Matrix: Reloaded”. Shen was absolutely normal then. Apart from the fact that she didn’t care two hoots for the movie and was constantly chattering about how we don’t give time to each other and other blah-blahs, she didn’t seem to be in a breaking-off mood. Wonder why she did it? I still don’t understand…Why is your face contorted like that?”

How was I supposed to tell him that he was a complete idiot and he should have listened to her blah-blahs? Anyways, mustering courage, I decided to say it out but instead I found myself saying,

“Didn’t you hear what she was saying? At least didn’t you want to hear?”

“Are you crazy asking me something like that?”

That’s better, I thought, at least this guy had the sense to hear his girl out. I began singing praises for his good listening capabilities in my mind, but not a moment too soon…

“Morpheus was delivering his famous Xyon speech… there was so much of philosophy he was speaking, much of it quite like Swami Vivekananda’s. How could I not listen to that and listen to this…this…this bitch?”

The last few words seemed to drop out of his mouth like glue from a bottle. I stood aghast (Was it because I was waiting to hear more or was it because I went blank and was in a dilemma whether to shoot and kill him or just strangulate him? Frankly, I don’t know. You tell me.)

“She called me up yesterday night and said she had something important to talk to me about. I thought she must be ready to apologise for all her talking during the movie. So I told her to meet me in the college during lunch. She agreed. When she finally came half an hour late, she didn’t even apologise, neither for the movie nor for being late.Imagine her nerve, the… the… bitch!! She just said, ‘That’s it. I have had it with you. This is the end of our relationship. I am not going to see your face even if you are the last man alive on this earth. I’d prefer to consume poison and die before I have to see that shit-face of yours again… Good-bye and God help your girlfriend and/or wife, if you are lucky enough to find one!!’ And she just walked off leaving me in this mess…”

“She said that to you?”

“Yeah!! Each and every word of it…”

“Aw C’mon now!! She must have just said something in anger and you must have heard something else. She probably can’t…”

“No, she did!! I taped her voice.I can show you the tape if you wish…”

“You… what?” I almost yelled. Or may be I did yell because I saw the other students on the steps turn sharply and look at me. I gritted my teeth and said it again, this time softer, “You… what?”

“I said, I can show you the tape anytime you wish. Wanna hear it now?”

“Not that, you sick jerk!! You taped her voice and she said nothing?”

“Are you crazy man? How can that happen? She doesn’t even know I did that. Actually, I have taped all of our conversations. I love to hear her sweet voice when she isn’t around. My uncle got me one of these digital voice-activated recorders from America. It can store upto 90 mins of voice conversations and it doesn’t get activated by background noises…”

“Stop the f****kin promo, you ass****. Do you know what will happen if she gets to know about this? Who else knows about this?”

“Oh!! Everyone knows that we have broken up, though I am not sure if everyone knew we were going around… Or may be they knew that and they don’t know this… whatever. As of now, I can tell you that only I, you and _________ & _________ &….(he took a ‘few’ more names) know about our break-up for sure.What’s the matter? You look like you are gonna throw up… Need any thing?

I was about to tell him that I was gonna puke all over his Nikes, and I sure as hell would have liked to do that, but self-respect and a sense of social responsibility, stopped me from doing it. Instead, I resigned to fate and his incompetency and asked him calmly,

“Does anyone know about the tapes?”, I was about to add ‘you filthy-sick jerk’ but better sense prevailed (Damn!!). I futher asked, “Do you have any idea why she left you?”

“No is the answer to both your questions. Only a selected few know about the tapes. I was actually planning to gift them to her on her 18th birthday. But then, this came up…”

“Trriiiinnnngg” went the lecture bell. And he stood up abruptly.

“Where are you going?” I asked, knowing the answer very well.

“I need an answer. She has behaved absolutely irrationally. She can’t leave me just like that. The ought to be a valid reason. She has to give me a valid reason. I am not going to let her off so easily. I am not any roadside Romeo who troubles her. I was her….er…I mean… I am her boyfriend for god’s sake! She is answerable to me…Hey you!! _______, wait up!! We need to talk!!”

Calling out her name, he ran off through the corridor, darting like an arrow headed for its ultimate goal – the bulls-eye. I stood up in a daze, wondering whether to believe it or to convince myself that it was a bad dream, nay, a nightmare. I shook my head to clear off the evil thoughts and decided that it would be better if I had another cutting chai before I started off any where.

As I started down the steps and made my way towards the Tea-stall, I thought time stopped still and I thought I heard a distinct crack, like that of someone being slapped…..

Oh well!! I wasn’t dreaming after all….

He was waiting eagerly at the door, though not for me, it would seem from the expressions on his face. Constantly checking his wrist-watch and his wall clock he seemed to be in a hurry, wanting to head off, somewhere or maybe… nowhere. Anyways, more than courtesy, it was curiosity that prompted me to ask,

“Expecting someone?”

“Yeah, about time they arrived…”

“Oh! So expecting some people, I should say, not just one, eh!!”

“C’mon man! For once improve your PJ’s, if not, for a day atleast!!”

“Why? Is the girl’s family coming to see you or something?”

To that he turned a flushed beet red!! I was surprised, for I hadn’t seen him go that red before! I couldn’t believe it. I wondered whether it was out of anger or it was the shying of a typical to-be-wedded-indian-groom… Anyways, he quickly regained his composure and before I could pass further comments, he disappeared into his house, making some lame excuse.

I was tired too, exhausted in fact, after a long day’s work… So I entered my house making a minimum fuss… As I freshened up, ate dinner and sat down on my PC to write my day’s Blog, I thought I heard noises outside (Well, they were actually sounds, politically speaking. But had you heard them, you would have agreed with me that they were fit to be called noises!!). Withot a moment’s hesitation, armed to the hilt with, well, a cricket bat, and a slipper, I opened the door as noiselessly as I could. But, it being, ‘Ye olde faithful’, creaked at the last moment, and I had to open it with a full swerving action. Voila! There I stood with a cricket bat in my one hand and a slipper in the other, with the strings of my PJ’s dangling loose and nothing but my birthday suit on the upper half of my body!! Quite a funny sight to behold, you may be tempted to think, but it certainly wasn’t funny for me, when I saw the crowd that had gathered in front of his house. Half scared out-of-my-wits and the other half scared-to-death, I tried to use whatever thinking capacity I could muster. Fortune favours the brave, they say. Maybe, I wasn’t brave enough or I was so brave that I scared even fortune away!
Anyways, there I was in that comical state with nearly 20-odd people staring at me, as if I were either a mad man or an entertainer (can’t call them clowns anymore, gotta be ‘politically’ correct, you know!) and nobody knew what I exactly was. Sensing that I was in some grave misconception, my friend (Ah! My Hero!) came up to me calmly and spoke the sweetest words I’d ever heard from him till then:

“What the f*** do u think you are doing?”

“Oh!! I…. I was …er…. I was …..doing…..the cricket…. Hawaii…. no….. I mean the Hawaiian cricket …..dance. Yea that’s it!! I was doing the Hawaiian Cricket dance. Just saw it on Discovery. You wanna see it?”

Shoving me aside to a corner where the members of the ‘audience’ couldn’t see me (I thought I heard them heave a sigh (of relief maybe) and at the same time I heard murmurs, or so I think), he said, “Look here. These people have just arrived. They have done a long trip from the States to here and they are exhausted by the jet-lag. and blah…blah…blah…blah…blah…blah…blah…blah…(The blah…blahs are because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. It seemed so sweet to the ears, no swear words, just plain ole’ English)…blah…blah…blah…blah… blah…blah…clear the F*** off?” Those 3 words jolted me back to reality.

I mocked up a pretty decent military pose and yell so loud I think I shattered his ear-drums (so much for consolation!!):

“Sir!! Yes Sir!!”

And off i went stamping my feet into virtually non-existent marching field, into my house, locking the door behind me. Once in, when I finally comprehended the situation, I started laughing. I laughed so hard, I went into splits and tears came into my eyes. It wasn’t the girl’s family after all, that he was expecting! It was his own Mom and Dad who had been to the States on a vacation for the first time in their lives! And he had arranged the rest of the family to meet them for a “Grand Welcome”.

Well, they got a “Grand Welcome” all right, the grandest they could ever get!!