Bharath

Extinct. Yes, Most of us would have heard this word with tigers quite often.

Recently, extinction was something I thought that subconsciously existed in our everyday lives in terms of simpler things. 

I just thought of penning down all extinct things that I came across in a day. I woke up in the morning and started slurping my coffee with laziness all over. I saw my mom screaming at my dad “Can you shut that transistor off ? Am getting on my nerves”. I walked up to my dad and told him if I can get him an mp3 player or world space satellite radio which has so many stations. He gave me an inconspicuous look.

“I dunno all that. Pls get me a new transistor” was his response. I wanted to obey the order and took off to the malls. I asked for a transistor. He came back with an iPod n started explaining the new features. My dad was not all that receptive to leave his good old precious instrument of music. I hunted a few other places, but I will have to tell that its one of those which had become “extinct !”.

I came back with a dull head. I was clearing my shelf. A few things fell down. My dad fumed at me yet again. “Those are your sisters marriage cassettes” “but dad, VCR is broke”                   “Get it repaired. I want to see that again”. Now where do I hunt for some VCR-Support ?

Monday morning. I was just going through the headlines. By then my dad has completed the newspaper left, right and centre along with the obituary column for the oldies who had passed away. “Aaha, Thiruvengadam Iyer has expired. Bharath, remember he taught your sister math during her 12th std. How much you scored in Math ?” I absconded, vanished, disappeared, fled. [Coz people above the age of 60 have alarming levels of memory. A simple math score might tap unrelated critical historical events which might lead to mini 3^rd world war due to butterfly effect. Yes ! I saw Dasavatharam. Twice. Being a Kamal fan, I gotta mention it somewhere]

Mom started serving breakfast and asked me if I had followed up with my ex-employer for missing funds. I said “no”. Dad ordered , “Your mom drafts excellent official letters. Ask her to write one and get it done”.

Mom ! Yes. She was a central government employee for 17 years with a great flair for English language. 21 years down the lane, made me wonder what happened to those post cards, inland letters ? The last time I had posted a greeting card was when Anil Kapoor Dated SriDevi.

And I must agree a typical handwritten greeting card gives you so much of an emotional connect than a flash-player popping out an e-greeting !

I heard a wild scream outside my house. It was a rickshaw wallah calling out a few kids from our neighborhood as it was time to school. A typical rugged look sporting a local thin cigar and a match box in his pocket. “ena sir savari venuma”. He was so thin and was ready to pull 6 kids. I found it tough to lift my one yr old nephew. Thought I could push the rick from the rear. Still he has to kick his pedal to get his meal. Rickshaws became motor-rickshaws and finally it’s the jump-as-you-like-frogs called autos that we see everywhere.

But the kids were in their own world talking if their math teacher would become blind with her last week’s attack of conjunctivitis. Good old days !

As I started off to office, came our next senior citizen who has adapted himself quite well to this current Gen. He was talking to his NRI ward in his mobile phone about the last English play by Rebelz. Ok that was a lie. He was arguing about the Indian food crisis due to the recent crude oil fiasco, and was coming back from his morning jog. Waved me a “Hi”.

I got into my bike and the next door Mythili aunty came down running. Even I have not thought of jogging a few steps, thanks to my industry. At times I have gone to the backyard to check if the motor tanker is working fine. In my bike. Mythili aunty was one of those stay-aloof characters after her husband’s death 15 years ago. We used to see her occasionally during durga poojas or when her son visits her once in a year.

“Can you pls make a trunk call to my son in Mumbai. This is his office number.”

I was a lil struck by her innocence. And was a lil annoyed with her son for not even giving his mobile number.  “I will do it aunty. Take care”. She added “Make it a lightning call”.

“Sure Aunty”. My sis rushed in and reminded me “Anna, pls make sure to bring that engineer to sell the old comp. Make a deal for 5000 bucks”.

That was my Pentium II Comp which my dad got me for 60K during my college final year as I had blackmailed him that I won’t get my degree if the comp was not there, though the real intension was to play “Need-for-speed” series.

Extinct so fast ?!

I was riding my bike getting a lil nostalgic as I just observed a few things for a few hours and was not really fine with noting down more for the rest of the day.

My friend Sarathy was waving his hands to pick him up. He got into my bike.

“Bharath, let’s go for team lunch. Think of some continental cuisine ok ?” Yeah he was the same Partha sarathy whom we used to call “PArathA Sarathy” as he invented the brand new way of eating parathas/rotis with “Molaha Podi” during our college days. He was well known for his excellent home-made recipes especially the all andhra-mirchi loaded ”Murungaka vetha kozhambu”. Well that had become extinct too. He was our character study for all our transformed-Desi-dudes in our last 2 productions.

Well life changes. So do we. But when people who are sailing in their second childhoods find the going a lil tough or all-too-complicated, I thought of bringing a lil bit of kindness with all effort. If Madras Univ. was so kind in making me pass my Post grad, I can be kind too.

Adios !

 -          Scribbled by Bharath…