One (Not So) Fine Day (Part 1)

I was having one of those ‘So no one told you life was gonna be this ways’ kinda day. My job sucked. The fridge was empty (and so was the bank account). The relentless rains wouldn’t let up. LIGHTHOUSE was in the hospital and The-Man-In-My-Head was giving me the silent treatment. On top of that, I discovered a lizard in my small room and on top of that that, my insomnia was acting up (if insomnia can do that—act up, I mean)!

“Really,” I spoke aloud to The-One-Who-Can-Hear-Me-But-Who-Has-Been-Quiet-For-So-Fudging-Long, “could I please get another life?” Silence from his side too. Great! Now all I needed was a plane crashing in my garden apartment and then I would definitely be on the Hindi news channels.

But every dark something has a silver something and in my case my dear friends The Zing Singh (ha ha!) and his wife, The Tarapur Princess (hee hee ha ha!!) acted as the cloud lining. “Snap out of your crabby mood,” ordered The Zing Singh. (Ha, as if I ever listen to him!) “Come on to the BBQ Nation and we’ll feast on the kebabs,” said The Tarapur Princess.

I really wanted to wallow in my look-at-me-I-am-a-disaster wave. But she did say kebabs, right? So poor little me waded in the liver deep water and reached the appointed place at the appointed time. And what do I see? Mr and Mrs Zing Singh are nowhere in sight, it’s still raining and the fudging place has a waiting line that extends from the slips to the boundary line i.e. if it were a cricket pitch! “How come? Its not even Saturday night,” thundered a hyper mother of three right in my right ear. My reflexes kicked in and I lost my footing. And I fell down----- clothes, bag, specks, hair and all in the leptospirosis friendly rainwater. “Oh ho,” said the smallest one of the hyper pack. (Yeah Oh! and Ho!)

After warding off the helpful waiter who in his well-intentioned eagerness almost pushed me back in the eeky water, I managed to get up. By this time two more families had positioned themselves in the queue. And of course the entire queue and some of the diners were staring at me… and the queue. Now if only they (the diners) wouldn’t do that and instead focused on eating, there would not be a queue but what the heck!

“Look someone’s phone is in the water… and look it’s ringing,” a fellow queue mate’s shriek broke my mental funk. She was right! There was a funny little Nokia thingie in the water blaring Just Chill Chill. Wait a minute! I have the same ring tone… and the same looking phone too. Oh my gosh, that is my phone! And it is ringing! I dipped my hand in the puddle just to hear The Zing and his missus telling me that they are some 20 minutes away and that I must get a table. (Really now!!)

I didn’t expect anything better since in the past Mr and Mrs Zing have famously invited me for lunch and then woken up at five in the evening themselves. The best time to meet them is Saturday night. That’s when The Tarapur Princess is really in form and can (almost) finish a bottle of wine. I just love her when she does that. As does The Zing Singh.

Nyways back to scene, I waited for some 15 minutes or so until the same overeager waiter came up to me and took me (FINALLY) to my seat. Once inside the restaurant I managed to elicit the same response. Everybody (yeah everybody) stared at me. To be fair, I must be looking a sight with wet hair, shoes, bag and clothes. But it would have been polite if I didn’t cause such a stir. But since I wasn’t writing THIS script it wasn’t my place to complain (or swear). So off I went and took my place at the table right in the center of the restaurant and waited for The Zing Singh and The Tarapur Princess. And waited. And waited.

Finally they arrived. The Tarapur Princess looked sheepish while the Zing Singh just wanted to know if the AC was working! I had had it by then and was just about to shout when I saw HIM enter the restaurant. And I stopped. And I watched.

(To be continued)