Thought Crimes

I realized in the beginning of March that the purest, most magical of words could have negative connotations. Word in question being Chicken. The word so far synonymous with succulent kebabs, oriental genius and continental creativity was suddenly associated with big fat spots that quarantine you for the best part of ten miserable days. Worst of all, for those ten miserable days, you are denied the culinary pleasures of life. To be precise, it’s not nice. The previous sentence rhymes, by the way.

The prolonged hiatus from the outside world that was enforced upon me had, like everything else, some up sides. It meant that I could rekindle my long lost love affair with that amazing invention of John Logie Baird. The flame, I saw, still burned strong. I watched every episode of MTV Roadies 5.0 around 5 times. For those interested in following the show, Praabhjot was voted out in the last episode. It was a bit sad to see everyone ganging up against her. But it did mean that Shambhavee, who I might add is very very cute, remains for at least one extra week. I also managed to see every goal that was scored in EPL about a dozen times. United, sadly, lost to Portsmouth in the FA Cup. But at least they’re top of the league now. And the Gooners drew their last game which means we could have a 3 point lead. Woo-hoo. The Champions League draw is out, leaving me in the hope of a repeat of last year’s heavenly thrashing of the Italian behemoths.

I’ve also been watching many of the news channels with great interest. Zee news, in all seriousness, had a half-an-hour show discussing whether The Great Khali, of the WWE fame, needed a girlfriend to win more matches. They lamented on how he was losing to the lesser opposition of the Undertaker and Batista and went on to harp on the benefits of a ‘female partner’. The same fight sequences were shown again and again along with profiles of the eligible ‘female partners’. A complete waste of half-an-hour of news time, some might say, but very entertaining to watch. I also try to tune in to CNBC once in a while. Udayan Mukherjee is at his knowledgeable best, analyzing the tremors in the market. It’s all very intellectually stimulating and there’s a lot to learn from it. Sadly, I don’t understand a thing, but continue to watch it due the feeling of superiority that it entails. There’s a nice late night show on it where they analyze NYSE and the Dow Jones Index and some wise people give financial advice to some not-so-wise people.

I’ve finally got around to appreciating the NBA. I actually woke up at 5 one morning to catch some matches. I’m finally beginning to realize what terms like ‘point guard’ and ‘fast break’ mean. Still looking for a team to support though. Phoenix Suns had a good match with some guy called Abutmeyer or something playing very well. Shaq too did a good job as point guard. Boston Celtics have Kevin Garnett and the Lakers have Kobe, which is all very nice. I was specially impressed by the Hornets though. They played together very well as a team. Chris Paul was impeccable and some 7-footer called Chandler was very good too. They beat the Lakers in a close game helped by some atrocious shooting from the more-fancied team, despite a great game by Kobe.

Despite the absence of a grove to recline in, I’ve managed to do a lot of soul-searching. Enlightenment is only a tree away now. Placed in room-arrest, I often was in that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts brought sad thoughts to the mind. And the opposite. I concluded that the timing of Chicken Pox was Life’s subtle way of telling you that there will be times when things just won’t go your way. It was bad enough missing the Trip due to jinxed calendars, but to have missed the PD after a month of blood, sweat and toil was pretty much the last straw. I felt that I let the Decayed Canine and L.O.V.E. (previously known as Politically Correct Person) down for we’d really thought we had a good shot at the title. Sadly, things just didn’t go our way.

In the end, Chicken Pox also turned out to be Life’s subtle way of making me thankful for the amazing set of friends that I’m lucky to have. Amazing is so much of an understatement here. A Kurta from Udaipur as I wasn’t there. And here, I must break the cardinal rule of this blog which hitherto had been so easy to follow- thou shalt not betray any emotion. It’s ironical that there are around 20 synonyms for touched and overwhelmed in the best of the Thesaurus’s but I still can’t put how I felt in words. What was even stranger was that in some way, when I saw all the photos and heard the juicier tales, I felt as though I’d not really missed everything. I felt as though I’d been there with them for most of the trip. I could actually picture myself there, picture my reactions to the (mis?)adventures as they took me through the happening 5 days. Every pic I saw had a Lefty in some corner with some characteristic expression on his visage. And in some small way, they knew it all too. My physical presence might have been missed along with my brilliant jokes (one always hopes) but that, I think, was it. In every other sense of the word, I was there. And I guess that’s what friendship is. Thanks guys.

# posted by Saagar @ 1:24 am