Idhar Udhar Ki Baat

  You know, I’m the kind of chap who can’t walk past a broken-down car without peering inside the bonnet to see what’s wrong — not to help, mind you, just to know . So imagine my frustration — lying on the OT table , wide awake, and not allowed to see what the doctors were doing in my pelvic area. The anesthesia was in the spine, below kidney level, so my brain was alert but my legs were numb. All I had in front of me was this green curtain standing on my chest like a stubborn wall. I tried to see if there was a mirror on the walls so that I could see what is going on. Then the oxygen mask slipped… and gifted me an itch on the nose. And believe me, a nose itch when your hands can’t reach is pure cruelty. It’s the same helplessness you feel when you’re standing in sawdhan or salami shastr on the drill parade and a fly decides your nose is prime real estate. To keep my sanity, I started counting the beep-beep of the monitor. Nice and steady. “All is well,” I thought. Th...

“ You are stealing my clothes,” Mohini declared (name changed). Mohini lived just a house away—only one wall between me and divine beauty. We were the same age, same class. She was older by a few months, but miles ahead in confidence and charm. A walking heart-throb, the unofficial queen of our school. I was thirteen and hopelessly in love with her eyes, her walk, her voice, her smile... sigh. But it was a one-side love. At least that is the way I thought. I stood there dumbfounded and squeaked out a single word: “No.” I couldn’t explain. Couldn’t breathe, really. You see, that summer afternoon I had gone to the roof to get hold of a stray kite which appeared to have landed on my roof. The kite had moved on but I could see Mohini’s green tunic flown off to our roof. War-gaming started in my mind. Do I return it directly? Drop it off at her house? Or present it like a hero in school the next day? Eventually, the adrenaline won. I decided to jump over the parapet walls and ...