Thursday, August 03, 2006

of waterloos and waterlessloos

Waterloo was where it ended. Perioded. Game over. Napoleon, he of the general fame(you can't deny it but the cheap humor is back). The man who told us that fighting units walk on gastric bags. He had a bad day. But in war when you have a bad day, they mean it. Dispatched to Elba. English being a language of accommodation went on to allow the liberal use of the name of this career-ending town. As a cricket-breathing, book-avoiding young man my waterloo of course was that great invention of mankind, Exams. Cloaked in misleading terms such as tests, assessments etc. Exams were(are) my waterloos. But then I had a knack. Uncanny. Vernacs were my bugbear family. Thus the term was coined apropos my allergies to language tests- waterless loos! This was India. There was water in the loos. H2O was ubiquitous with toilets. We washed our bottoms after nature-induced businesses. Paper ain't our thing. No water, no happy.

I get visa. Two tries. Board plane. Also twice. Suffer flying experience. Again twice. Go to loo. With magazine. After. Reach blind hand for faucet. For my cleansing tool. For my savior. Not there. Jeepers! Where is it? People say reality strikes this way and that and all that. But if she chooses to whack you on thy cranium in a bathroom, then you can as well train to be a professional wrestler. Alarm bells rang through my capillaries. My lungs grew tighter. Sheet of sweat across stunned body. Then I saw it. Right there. Harmlessly dangling like an innocent. White. Rolled. I used. Feared the worst. One doesn't take matters of the distal end of one's alimentary tract too lightly.

It wasn't too bad actually. Hope. I could get used to this, once I got over the mild inflammation[;-)]. This was no Kannada essay. Tempted to say easy as pie.

But then. When you need to clean something, do you paper it? Do you paper your car? Do you put your clothes into the papering machine? Why then?
People say I got it all wrong. Strong advocates for the paper and its power.

Its the change I tell you. New skill. For now, paper it is.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL.. You brought back my memories. FYI, once I got used to paper I never turned back. Hehe..

Anonymous said...

u always strike the right cord

Sameera said...

yuck!!!!

Sheraton said...

ur friend here at pittsburgh ( no, not me, my visitor ) is gonna more than relate to this !