I’ve HAD it! It’s a goddamn antediluvian conspiracy. And I’m not talking about the conspiracy to get me to use ‘antediluvian’ in the wrong context. I’m talking about something bigger. Bigger, meaner and revolving around a common target… meeee.
Granted, I spend most of my time in Bangalore feverishly avoiding work by pretending to look busy. But I’m only human. I need my rest too. So I make it a plan to make monthly excursions into the land of constant puddles, broken roadways, dirty politics and workers on strike… Cochin, my hometown. The plan is consistent. Go rushing into the tired but waiting arms of the team known as dad and mom, and get pampered and smothered; get away from the drudgery of pretending to work. Fun days.
But something has misaligned the equation a bit, and I am not a happy camper. At least, I haven’t been, in my last few visits home. I fell sick. And I’m not talking ‘he’s-got-a-mild-fever-he’ll-have-to-take-a-few-days-off’ kind of sickness. I’m talking kick-ass-sicko kinda weird stuff that makes you stay awake at night coughing out gallons of the icky ooze. I was sicker than I’ve been in quite a long time… It was as if fate was converging on me; cornering me like a cowardly bully with a baseball bat.
When it rains, it pours. They handed me a not-so-neat dirty cocktail of headache, nausea, mild fever, productive cough, cold, muscle cramp, fatigue, throat infection, and - introducing the star ingredient - wheezing… Now, I do not handle sickness very well, often twisting, squirming, and being a general annoyance to people in the vicinity when the only ailment I face is a headache from watching too much TV. And this fiendish cocktail was just not my cup of tea. It totally screwed up my mini-vacation at home, and my naturally subsequent wails of woe drove my parents up the wall… and not in the cool spidermanish way.
Anyway, this was the first time I had wheezing. Add to that the characteristic breathing difficulty and throat infection, I sounded like Darth Vader trying to imitate Yoda after about 5 glasses of beer. And for you Star Wars fans out there… stop wondering.. it is NOT cool. SOOO not cool.
And I keep telling ya. It’s a conspiracy. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I had plans. This wasn’t one of those blissful trips where the plans were mostly revolved around watching movies on dad’s home theater system while munching on mom’s snacks.
I planned to visit cousins, attend a wedding, do some techno shopping, and visit the homes of one of my longtime chat friend, Anya. I did all of it, mind you, but I was about as active as a sedated cat. Couldn’t speak much because of the breathing thingy, couldn’t walk much because of… well, the same thingy…
And to top that all, I couldn’t even access the net. I was only able to login for about a minute or so, and that too, when I got to Anya’s place. And all this while The Offended Blogger’s new ultra uberkickass directory Humor Bloggers dot com got revamped to glory. And still no net connect. My dad’s comp was broken. It was packed and sent off to the repair guys at this precise juncture… coincidence? conspiracy? You deci… No, thank you. I’ll decide. Not that I don’t trust you. Come on, why would I not trust you?? I’m not some crazed paranoid lunatic. Honest. Hey, it isn’t paranoia if there really ARE people in black suits and glasses waiting for me to fall asleep so that they can siphon my blood for weird tests.
Then I got back to Bangalore, ready to keep up the work pretense… it was harder to do sounding like Darth V imitating Y, but I managed one day somehow… and what do you know… the darned sickness is back at my throat again… Had to take another day off from work yesterday… And on the exact same day, the net connection at my Bangalore crib broke apart!! I had no internet connection till evening!! I smell conspiracy again. I think something big went down yesterday… and the forces that may were trying to keep me out. They figured if they keep me sick, sicker and sickest, I’ll just lie low and let things roll… and those guys wanted to keep me out of the loop. What guys? Just guys… Not you, of course… just.. you know.. guys… or gals. I can’t be sure. One thing’s for certain, though… I’m keeping my eyes open. You do that too. If you see something suspicious… Something BIG and suspicious, give me a whistle.
