YELLOW YELLOW, SUPER FELLOW

 

 

Ok, I admit I am writing this post only because I thought of this title. (Not like it is some piece of literary genius, but I like it all the same – you know, Super Kings and yellow and everything.) This year’s IPL has not generated the same kind of enthusiasm in me, as last year’s did. And that is for obvious reasons. The tournament is not happening here, in India. (Reason is valid enough. Still… ) Bah, who cares about where it is happening in the rest of India – its not happening in Chennai.

 

Sigh. These days, I only dream of standing in Pavilion Terrace, wearing yellow, and screaming my throat hoarse, my one body pumping as much adrenaline as the entire crowd at that effing stadium in South Africa. But alas, it is not to be. What is to be is the (relatively) dispassionate crowd in South Africa, most of their loyalties akin to the loyalties that people at home show to all those English football clubs. (Clarification to all such football fans:  I am not undermining your fandom in any way. It is just that, well, you have to admit that your fandom is not exactly patriotism, or city loyalty. It is sort of detached, no? )

 

Anyway, my going to South Africa is an option – of course, at the cost of being thrown out of the house at the mere suggestion of the idea. But no, I wouldn’t go even if I could, because I want it right here, at Chepauk, with the rest of Chennai joining me in the fervour. (To which, I can almost imagine Amma saying “Pah! You are SUCH a thair sadam. You just want to rot in K K Nagar itself.”) And that half-wit Gaurav Kapur actually declares with such incredulity: “The stands are full. There are 17,000 people in this stadium, waiting to watch the action!” Yeah, right. Does that hold a candle to Chepauk’s 50,000+ ?  Which reminds me: Extra Innings is so unimaginably terrible this year. Bile in my throat every time. But Set Max IPL promos have been wonderful. And what a makeover the teams themselves have gone through! New jerseys and everything! But darling CSK remains the same – just firang cheerleaders and all. That may not have been the case, had the tournament happened in India.

 

My peypa (Appa’s older brother) is in South Africa, catching all the action live, because he has the distinction of being N Srinivasan’s close friend, and the President of the Salem District Association. That helps me considerably, even if not enough to take me to South Africa – Peypa is the man responsible for my getting Pavilion Terrace tickets for every match at Chepauk. (I reject the Test match tickets, because tests really test my patience, and I care two hoots about cricketing technique. I take the one-day tickets, and grab the T20 ones, because it is easily my favourite format- all action and wham wham wham! Not one moment of slack!) I really truly miss screaming and swearing loudly and dancing badly, offending the sensibilities of all the well preserved elites seated in Pavilion Terrace.

 

Sigh again. How I wish. How different things would have been. Not just vacation plans would have changed; life plans would have been altered. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep midway through the opening match between Mumbai Indians and CSK. Sheets and I wouldn’t have had to stick the schedule chart in the living room bang next to the TV and stare at it longingly. We wouldn’t have to tolerate Amma’s darrty looks every time we jump up and scream, or pray fervently. She actually thinks we overreact. Can you believe that?!   

THE PSYCHE OF A HYPOCHONDRIAC

The worst thing a doc can do to you is to show you pictures of your own insides. After a painful 20 minute examination of my retina, that involved the flashing of a light with the power of a 100 candels (or whatever), the vitro-retinal-jvhoehrbielk specialist subject me to images of my own eye to tell me that there was some degeneration that needs a laser surgery to be set right. (It was then that I realized that my only vanity, in reality looked so yeww, not unlike that little bloodshot glob stored in some preservative fluid in some gory movie I saw ages ago, that I wouldn’t believe was an eye  – the pictures in the Class 8 science textbook notwithstanding; those weren’t pictures of MY eye. What was I thinking? Concentric rings in luminous browns and blacks, an artistic masterpiece?) I half suspect that the degeneration was in fact caused by that damned light he flashed in my eyes, causing me to see these psychedelic images of my own nerve ends floating about in the foreground wherever I looked.

 

Anyway, point is I need one surgery, to correct my retina, to make sure it doesn’t develop a hole and allow the vitreous gel to flow into the hole to cause retina detachment and eventually, blindness, and then another, to correct my grossly large back-of-the-eye, caused by chronic myopia, all in the space of a month, that also has on its agenda, numerous visits to the tailor, (induced by) 2 weddings to attend, a million outings, possibly the start of my post graduate course preceded by orientation, Dasavathaaram (for the first time, and consequent times), (all of which result in) loads of excitement and emotional upheavals (Yes, I cry at weddings and at movies, jump with joy when I meet my extended family, get all fiercely passionate when I start doing something new, gush when my clothes are right, louwe with all my heart and exaggerate a great deal.) No way do I want these “procedures” to try and spoil ANY of this for me, no.

 

Added to this, Manni chooses today to tell me about an episode of “Dr. Sun News” she caught, that had the visiting worldly wise doc telling someone on the phone that eating ice caused a great deal of acidity to begin with, that would eventually end in inability to digest anything, and hence chronic loose motions. Worse, she had to tell Amma all of this, before the phone was passed on to me with a See?-I-told-you-so look. The second I put down the phone, Amma resumes her diatribe about my carelessness, about how ugly I look, my spotty skin, my sparse mane, and about how youth is on my side and salvaging what little I do have.  Now, so much medical advice in a day does not make me exasperated, it instead conjures up these images in my mind’s eye – a maaneram Dalmatian-human cross, with cat whiskers stuck to its scalp with an adhesive about as potent as post office gondhu and a bright fluorescent orange eye patch over its right eye, walking into class on her first day of college, dreading loose bowels. And these stupid, damned green-blue-red-orange nerve endings in the foreground! Go away! Shoo!

CRUSADE AGAINST EVIL

Tap tap tap tap… my footsteps resonate against the clean tile floor as I stride in purposefully. I couldn’t care less for the revelry around me in the well lit hall. I rub my palms in anticipation, as I catch sight of the gleaming black metal. The minute I touch the gun, everything around me fades into obscurity. A chill hits me, the chill so characteristic of evil, as the people around me dissolve into the background. I know the task that lies ahead and I prepare myself for the battle. I am transported into another universe, where only one thing matters: exterminating the bloodsuckers who have overstayed their time on earth.

 

Card swiped, I bang the button to gain entrance into the enclosure, where the greedy dead awaited human company, in the hope of sucking their souls to feed their own spineless cadavers. I bang the button yet again to avoid Karen’s ranting and general “evaluation” of the situation; I had neither time nor patience for such frivolities. I walk down the long cold corridors, shaking my gun, in preparation and restlessness… and I spot the first of them…

 

Cold, the gift of blood long gone, pallid, boneless and hence amorphous, with empty eye sockets, a mere predecessor to skeletons in the process of decay… bile rises to my throat as I see their rotten green forms. Disgust gives way to hatred in a micro second though, as I start pumping bullets into them. I jump up as I reload my gun, trying to ignore the gnawing pain already beginning to take over in my wrists and shoulders. Relentlessly, mercilessly, my hands shaking with excitement, I kill my first batch. My stomach does a flip flop in satisfaction.

 

But my knees can’t stop shaking, while my adrenal gland is working non stop still. I give myself enough breathing time only to wipe the sweat off my forehead and to give my wrists a nice twist to stop them from protesting, at least for the time being.  Button bang, and I finish another set. Fish! By now, I am positively charged up… I can imagine how criminals feel, and the satisfaction felt when they channelise all their hatred into fruitful aggression. I can’t believe I laughed with feminist pride in psychology class, when I learnt that “lower animals and men have higher levels of testosterone and hence resort to nefarious physical assault. ” What would I classify as, I wonder… Which is the “lowest” animal anyway?

 

“So many of them”… I see them, their faces plastered to the glass ceiling. I shake my gun violently as I wait for them to jump down. They do, and I pump. My body jerks backward in reaction, but I pump nevertheless. I remember the proverbial “Aim for the head”, but fury blinds you sometimes. I just wildly shoot, my eyes fixed on the ugly bastards, but with no aim whatsoever. I can barely even see my target ring. I am shaken back to reality, only when I receive that nasty scratch. The bastard bloodied my face! I shake my gun all the more violently, and aim right at his head, hatred threatening to shatter my control. I try to blow off his head, hoping he feels some pain, that bloodless maniac, before he slumps to the ground. And when he does, I get perverse pleasure and increased motivation, to finish the rest of them off. I do; I persevere and I do.

 

Until I get to the point of encountering the ugliest of them all. That big ugly inhuman octopus cross breed. By then, I am quite spent. Forget energy, even hatred has its limits. But I am not one to give up. As I have just enough time to collect myself considerably, I shake my gun again and tell myself “His nose… this sickly bloodsucker’s nose”. That moment, he lunges forward, from his hole in the ground. Unlike the others, this one is special. He is big, more aggressive and more bloodthirsty, and hence, that much more hatred. I start pumping grenade after grenade into him. “Where is this bloodsucker’s nose?”, I think… All I can see are slimy tentacles sprouting from every inch, squirting pink gooey fluid all over him. I bet he excretes all over himself, the creep. Just then, a nasty scratch across my face reminds me that there is no time for thought. With renewed energy, I pump more, muttering “F*** you” repeatedly under my breath. F*** you.

 

And suddenly, I can’t see him anymore. I turn around in alarm, looking for him. I gulp. For the first time, I am aware of my own fear. For a few heart stopping seconds, nothing happens. Until, he delivers his death blow. I am grabbed and flung across the room. Then I see myself, lying on the ground, lifeless.

 

GAME OVER.

 

(All hail House of the Dead 4! )