First Abhishek , now me

A wall painting of MohanLaal in Kottayam which growled "Meri foto mat kheench"

So finally , I decide to switch off the telly and spend some time tapping down on the blog . Star movies is anyways playing ‘The Waterboy' , and I have watched the movie thrice already , so I watch it again , and I can tell you the names of all the extras which worked in it . Also , now that I have a laptop with internet access with me all the time , I think it’s the cry of the hour to pull this blog out of the elite “guy-got-internet-still-no-post-for-23-days” blog club . Coming back to the sleepy little life of mine , over the last two months work took me on a traveling spree which has reportedly doubled the revenues of Kingfisher Airlines . Air hostesses recognize me and some of them give me the disgruntled “Aap ? Fir se ?” look when I amble into a plane these days . It is also heard that to honour me for this contribution , these guys are planning to name one of the aeroplane toilets after me ( Shri Abhinav memorial Hawai Shauchalaya .Pisses me off. ) . Anyway ,after zippings bags , unzipping bags , stealing hotel towels and shaving kits through Bangalore , Ooty , Bombay and Calcutta , I find myself back in the land of semi naked white tourists and moustached film heroes – Kerala.

It was almost seven months ago that I first landed in Kerala to start my first job . As you might have known if you watch TV (I am told I feature pretty regularly on Animal Planet ) , I grew up in Delhi and Haryana , so it was like a Rocket Launcher had been shoved in the bony hands of Mahatma Gandhi . However, since then a lot of water and sewage has flown under the bridge.( For hamare Hindustani Bhai who are wondering “yeh bridge kahan hai bhai?” , English mein figure of speech hain ). I have learnt to iron shirts , cook maggi and my malayalam vocabulary has grown to a healthy four words now ( One of them is an abusive word . Self defence ke liye collection mein rakha hain ) . So things are not so bad now , I can actually hold a conversation with a mallu for a minimum of seven seconds using my highly developed sign language skills and leg movements .

But it is only two more months in Kerala for me now , so I better soak in all the beauty this place has to offer before I get posted to some city which is as pretty as L K Advani’s legs . As a part of the same “Kerala-dekh-lo-bhai” philosophy , I also went to some backwaters a couple of weeks back .

I hired a wooden canoe type boat which looked like it was ten minutes away from doing a titanic and set out in the waters with a skinny mallu oarsman who seemed to ooze the ‘no fear’ school of thought . To make things more interesting , it was soon noticed that his knowledge of Hindi or English was as developed as a gorilla’s knowledge of the vedas . Effectively , what it meant for me was that even if I was down in the water till my ears , throwing my hands like a penguin on fire and shouting “Bachao” , he would not understand what I was screaming and just stand there wondering what this gibberish speaking north Indian guy is fussing about .

Mar jaawa Khatta kha ke , I just remembered I need to submit a report at work tomorrow . Considering that the guy I need to submit this report is as not exactly a believer in the power of forgiveness , I better end this and start that now . I know this post is ending as soon as it started , and I have done the proverbial "Bachpan mein hee gala ghot diya" to this post , but then , work is worship .

Oh , and before I go . I want to say this , I think this blog which has seen me on my journey from a lazy and casual student at an engineering college to a lazier and casual-er ( angrezi mein problem hain yar ) manager at a big marketing company deserves to be a party to one of the biggest and prettiest things that has happened to me . But my lips are sealed , my fingers are tied , and all I can say is what the title to this post says – Sorry ladies , first Abhishek , now me . And for me , she is way better than Aishwarya .