...and life is good again

So I'm beginning to feel that there might not be any great truth, any great wisdom out there. That life is just this: living. Rushta told me back in Codai that maybe we are too young, too inexperienced to understand it, but there's a good reason why our parents keep telling us to appreciate the finer things, the little things in life.

...and one of those wonderful, little things happened to me in the break-room at work the other day. The telly there is usually playing colourful dances with ugly, mustachioed, shaggy men and pretty, plump (or pretty plump) women, with the soundtrack in a language I don't understand, or violent scenes of Bhagalpur riots, or other current social or political disasters - again in an alien language.

So who could blame me if I tried to change the channel once (just once!) to get away from Gultland just for a moment, especially since there was nobody around... or nobody watching telly anyway. I surfed for a while, and finally settled on Tom and Jerry.

And then some people arrived. Discreetly I put the remote on a table in full public view to avoid being asked for it by an uncleji or auntji, or bhenji who's never visited a salon, or a gaadiwala ("Gaadi" doesn't mean car. In this city, it's used with its original meaning, as generic for "vehicle", but usually refers to a two-wheeler) who got through college on his fists alone. And sure enough, everybody was now curiously looking at the telly flashing violent drawings of feline and rodent tribulations.

And after a few minutes of this, the oddest thing happened. They laughed. Not just one or two of them. ALL of them - fine, so there were about 10 people in the room. At Tom and Jerry. Some who probably didn't grow up with a television, and had never seen a cartoon in their lives. Some who'd been taught and told that cartoons were childish and silly, and adulthood is about being serious and responsible and un-fun. It was heartwarming, really, to stand in a room full of strangers and out of the blue share and enjoy an experience which up until now I felt was me clinging on the remnants of a simpler time in my life. A time when there were no great questions, or attempts to answer them. A time when the little things in life were the most important ones of all.

Pan-galactic gargle blaster

In one of life's mysterious, unexpected twists:

There's a friend of mine (a catholic lady, the sort who drinks alcohol for religious reasons, among others) who has a shot-glass collection. She's traveled to many strange places, and picked up one in every city she's been to.

There's, of course, as such things go, another friend of mine (a muslim man, the sort who won't buy me a drink if he was taking me out to dinner) who also has a shot-glass collection. In his own words: "My parents would travel, and get me up the smallest thing they could buy."