22

When Shibu was Renamed...


Shibu is my friend (read 'shi' as in shit + 'bu' as in bull). His full name is Shibu Wallance. I have always felt that his first and last names make such a horrible combination - like malabar fish curry and apple pie. Imagine consuming the two together; ones digestive system would hold its operations for an indefinite period declaring hartal. What would have sounded better as a pair is Bullet Shibu or Komban Shibu or may be Alavalathi Shibu :p

Talking about Shibu, he is a fantastic story teller; but sadly he could find no listeners. He is also a fabulous writer; but he had no readers. Shibu was deeply disappointed.

However my point is…how could somebody with the name Shibu even attempt to write or tell a story? All the Shibus, Shajis and Byjus on this planet are supposed to shadow the ugly anti-heroes in Malayalam cinema whose only job is to chase Mohanlal/Mammooty and get beaten up black & blue.

Coming back to our man; Shibu continued to be sad and lived with a heart ache until God showed him the way. He decided to come to me for advice.

I had the solution to his problem. “It is time to wipe off your parents' first gift to you. Find a new name for yourself. Do you have the courage to embrace the change?” I asked him. "Yes", he roared!

Shibu definitely liked the idea; he was excited and all set. I had a few self-invented, ground-breaking, truly-enterprising names in my mind like Raj Malhotra, Mangalasseri Neelakantan and Mogambo Khush Khush. However, the selfish devil in me hinted that I could use them later when I release my first book as I too do not originally have a great name. Anyways thanks to Google; after testing all possible permutations and combinations, he finally zeroed on Jude Virgil Wallance. Shibu was thus reborn! Jude published his first novel and was overwhelmed to see the response. He finally lived his dream of becoming a novelist.

I felt very happy for Shibu Jude; was so thrilled to see hundreds of online articles about him and his new book. The best was when I asked Google with the help of a Voice Search App, “Find Jude Virgil Wallance.” As you know, Google need not think a lot; so the answer came to me in the next second, ‘Nude Virgin Videos’, followed by an array of YouTube videos. As I rolled on the floor laughing, I shared the screen shot of my latest discovery with Jude Shibu and he replied, “!@#^&**%#*&*^%# WTF!!!


PS – If you find me missing, some random Shibu or Shaji who has read this blog post would have kidnapped me. Please do the needful to find him and rescue me. God bless you, thanks in advance.
18

Scary …when I almost got mugged!


I was window shopping at Hyper City this evening for close to three hours. Oh; in fact I can spend days looking at home decor stuff, stationary items, books and CDs. The only thing I hate about these shops is the white sticker with numbers and bar code they place on the things I can’t take my eyes and hands off, which they fondly call the price tag. It reminds me of the tale of sour grapes :p

When my legs became tired of carrying my weight, I decided to exit the place, promising to return soon to the store, to redo the exercise.

As I walked towards home, I tore opened the wrapper of the chocolate I bought to pamper me - the little delights I gift myself! I licked the edges of the chocolate bar to satisfy my dreamy heart which believes that I am the girl who jumps in joy in the Cadbury TV commercial.

Reality check! I hurt my feet bumping against a fruit vendor’s trolley and there goes his oranges - rolling on the road one after the other. Both of us could do nothing but just helplessly look at cars and buses squeezing them with their wheels to splash the orange juice all over the place!

I was sure that he was going to yell at me in Kannada for the mess I made. This language in high pitch would definitely give me a head ache. So before he could open his mouth, I admitted my mistake and promised to pay for his loss. As usual, I had no money in my wallet; so had to visit the ATM counter across the road. As a deposit, I gave him the half bitten chocolate and immediately ran towards the money machine as I didn't want to give him any time to react. Through the corner of my eye, I saw him standing by the road like the Statue of Liberty - one hand up in the air which had my chocolate.  

I inserted the card in the machine; that is when I remembered to check my phone to find out the ATM pin. As I was doing all this patiently, I realized something was stinking. Yuck; it was terrible. As I turned around to find out the source, I noticed this guy standing right behind me, who wore a pair of yellow shoes. And, the Sherlock Homes in me spotted dung below his shoes.

Will you please step out till I finish? Sorry to say this…but the dung stuck on your shoes is giving such awful smell.” I said this and looked at his face. He had his helmet on.

Hey lady…enter your password. Now…right now! Don’t dare to utter a word” He even had a knife pointed at me that resembled the knife Sreedevi used in some Hindi movie whose name I don’t remember.

I realized he is the famous ATM villain the newspapers and TV channels celebrated a few months ago. I felt it is wise to let him loot, so that he will not harm me. After all, nothing is as precious as my God-given life.

I entered the pin and pressed ‘ENTER’. I could see his eyes fixed on the screen, one of his hands still had the knife and the other followed the instructions of the machine to find out my balance. And when the magical figure popped up on the screen, to my surprise, he just collapsed on the ground.

The doctors who did his post-mortem declared that the reason for death is sudden unanticipated grief.

Now, this is a warning to all the muggers out there – you may not die (which is an extreme case) like this fellow. But I am afraid; you might end up giving your hard earned money to me as my bank balance is indeed a sad figure! True!!

* * *

Added later – Two of my concerned friends wrote to me to check if there is any truth in the above story. Darlings…if so, do you think I will have the time to sit at home and reply to your messages? I would have been with Arnab Goswami, sitting under his saliva shower, talking to the nation. 
Have a great evening friends!!

PS – However, I was serious when I wrote about my bank balance. I swear :)  
   
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